distinguished company). Colonel Newcome and Mr. Binnie! I drink to the
health of the Reverend Charles Honeyman, A.M. May we listen to many more
of his sermons, as well as to that admirable discourse with which I am
sure he is about to electrify us now. May we profit by his eloquence; and
cherish in our memories the truths which come mended from his tongue!" He
ceased; poor Honeyman had to rise on his legs, and gasp out a few
incoherent remarks in reply. Without a book before him, the Incumbent of
Lady Whittlesea's Chapel was no prophet, and the truth is he made poor
work of his oration.
At the end of it, he, Sir Brian, Colonel Dobbin, and one of the Indian
gentlemen quitted the room, in spite of the loud outcries of our generous
host, who insisted that the party should not break up. "Close up,
gentlemen," called out honest Newcome, "we are not going to part just
yet. Let me fill your glass, General. You used to have no objection to a
glass of wine." And he poured out a bumper for his friend, which the old
campaigner sucked in with fitting gusto. "Who will give us a song?
Binnie, give us the 'Laird of Cockpen.' It's capital, my dear General.
Capital," the Colonel whispered to his neighbour.
Mr. Binnie struck up the "Laird of Cockpen," without, I am bound to say,
the least reluctance. He bobbed to one man, and he winked to another, and
he tossed his glass, and gave all the points of his song in a manner
which did credit to his simplicity and his humour. You haughty
Southerners little know how a jolly Scotch gentleman can desipere in
loco, and how he chirrups over his honest cups. I do not say whether it
was with the song or with Mr. Binnie that we were most amused. It was a
good commonty, as Christopher Sly says; nor were we sorry when it was
done.
Him the first mate succeeded; after which came a song from the redoubted
F. Bayham, which he sang with a bass voice which Lablache might envy, and
of which the chorus was frantically sung by the whole company. The cry
was then for the Colonel; on which Barnes Newcome, who had been drinking
much, started up with something like an oath, crying, "Oh, I can't stand
this."
"Then leave it, confound you!" said young Clive, with fury in his face.
"If our company is not good for you, why do you come into it?"
"What's that?" asks Barnes, who was evidently affected by wine. Bayham
roared "Silence!" and Barnes Newcome, looking round with a tipsy toss of
the head, finally sate down.
The Colonel sang, as we have said, with a very high voice, using freely
the falsetto, after the manner of the tenor singers of his day. He chose
one of his maritime songs, and got through the first verse very well,
Barnes wagging his head at the chorus, with a "Bravo!" so offensive that
Fred Bayham, his neighbour, gripped the young man's arm, and told him to
hold his confounded tongue.
The Colonel began his second verse: and here, as will often happen to
amateur singers, his falsetto broke down. He was not in the least
annoyed, for I saw him smile very good-naturedly; and he was going to try
the verse again, when that unlucky Barnes first gave a sort of crowing
imitation of the song, and then burst into a yell of laughter. Clive
dashed a glass of wine in his face at the next minute, glass and all; and
no one who had watched the young man's behaviour was sorry for the
insult.
I never saw a kind face express more terror than Colonel Newcome's. He
started back as if he had himself received the blow from his son.
"Gracious God!" he cried out. "My boy insult a gentleman at my table!"
"I'd like to do it again," says Clive, whose whole body was trembling
with anger.
"Are you drunk, sir?" shouted his father.
"The boy served the young fellow right, sir," growled Fred Bayham in his
deepest voice. "Come along, young man. Stand up straight, and keep a
civil tongue in your head next time, mind you, when you dine with
gentlemen. It's easy to see," says Fred, looking round with a knowing
air, "that this young man hasn't got the usages of society--he's not been
accustomed to it:" and he led the dandy out.
Others had meanwhile explained the state of the case to the Colonel--
including Sir Thomas de Boots, who was highly energetic and delighted
with Clive's spirit; and some were for having the song to continue; but
the Colonel, puffing his cigar, said, "No. My pipe is out. I will never
sing again." So this history will record no more of Thomas Newcome's
musical performances.
CHAPTER XIV
Park Lane
Clive woke up the next morning to be aware of a racking headache, and, by
the dim light of his throbbing eyes, to behold his father with solemn
face at his bed-foot--a reproving conscience to greet his waking.
"You drank too much wine last night, and disgraced yourself, sir," the
old soldier said. "You must get up and eat humble pie this morning, my
boy."
"Humble what, father?" asked the lad, hardly aware of his words, or the
scene before him. "Oh, I've got such a headache!"
"Serve you right, sir. Many a young fellow has had to go on parade in the
morning, with a headache earned overnight. Drink this water. Now, jump
up. Now, dash the water well over your head. There you come! Make your
toilette quickly; and let us be off, and find cousin Barnes before he has
left home."
Clive obeyed the paternal orders; dressed himself quickly; and
descending, found his father smoking his morning cigar in the apartment
where they had dined the night before, and where the tables still were
covered with the relics of yesterday's feast--the emptied bottles, the
blank lamps, the scattered ashes and fruits, the wretched heel-taps that
have been lying exposed all night to the air. Who does not know the
aspect of an expired feast?
"The field of action strewed with the dead, my boy," says Clive's father.
"See, here's the glass on the floor yet, and a great stain of claret on
the carpet."
"Oh, father!" says Clive, hanging his head down, "I know I shouldn't have
done it. But Barnes Newcome would provoke the patience of Job; and I
couldn't bear to have my father insulted."
"I am big enough to fight my own battles, my boy," the Colonel said
good-naturedly, putting his hand on the lad's damp head. "How your head
throbs! If Barnes laughed at my singing, depend upon it, sir, there was
something ridiculous in it, and he laughed because he could not help it.
If he behaved ill, we should not; and to a man who is eating our salt
too, and is of our blood."
"He is ashamed of our blood, father," cries Clive, still indignant.
"We ought to be ashamed of doing wrong. We must go and ask his pardon.
Once when I was a young man in India," the father continued very gravely,
"some hot words passed at mess--not such an insult as that of last night;
I don't think I could have quite borne that--and people found fault with
me for forgiving the youngster who had uttered the offensive expressions
over his wine. Some of my acquaintance sneered at my
courage, and that is
a hard imputation for a young fellow of spirit to bear. But
providentially, you see, it was war-time, and very soon after I had the
good luck to show that I was not a poule mouillee, as the French call it;
and the man who insulted me, and whom I forgave, became my fastest
friend, and died by my side--it was poor Jack Cutler--at Argaum. We must
go and ask Barnes Newcome's pardon, sir, and forgive other people's
trespasses, my boy, if we hope forgiveness of our own." His voice sank
down as he spoke, and he bowed his honest head reverently. I have heard
his son tell the simple story years afterwards, with tears in his eyes.
Piccadilly was hardly yet awake the next morning, and the sparkling dews
and the poor homeless vagabonds still had possession of the grass of Hyde
Park, as the pair walked up to Sir Brian Newcome's house, where the
shutters were just opening to let in the day. The housemaid, who was
scrubbing the steps of the house, and washing its trim feet in a manner
which became such a polite mansion's morning toilet, knew Master Clive,
and smiled at him from under her blousy curl-papers, admitting the two
gentlemen into Sir Brian's dining-room, where they proposed to wait until
Mr. Barnes should appear. There they sate for an hour looking at
Lawrence's picture of Lady Anne, leaning over a harp, attired in white
muslin; at Harlowe's portrait of Mrs. Newcome, with her two sons
simpering at her knees, painted at a time when the Newcome Brothers were
not the bald-headed, red-whiskered British merchants with whom the reader
has made acquaintance, but chubby children with hair flowing down their
backs, and quaint little swallow-tailed jackets and nankeen trousers. A
splendid portrait of the late Earl of Kew in his peer's robes hangs
opposite his daughter and her harp. We are writing of George the Fourth's
reign; I dare say there hung in the room a fine framed print of that
great sovereign. The chandelier is in a canvas bag; the vast sideboard,
whereon are erected open frames for the support of Sir Brian Newcome's
grand silver trays, which on dinner days gleam on that festive board, now
groans under the weight of Sir Brian's bluebooks. An immense receptacle
for wine, shaped like a Roman sarcophagus, lurks under the sideboard. Two
people sitting at that large dining-table must talk very loud so as to
make themselves heard across those great slabs of mahogany covered with
damask. The butler and servants who attend at the table take a long time
walking round it. I picture to myself two persons of ordinary size
sitting in that great room at that great table, far apart, in neat
evening costume, sipping a little sherry, silent, genteel, and glum; and
think the great and wealthy are not always to be envied, and that there
may be more comfort and happiness in a snug parlour, where you are served
by a brisk little maid, than in a great dark, dreary dining-hall, where a
funereal major-domo and a couple of stealthy footmen minister to you
your mutton-chops. They come and lay the cloth presently, wide as the
main-sheet of some tall ammiral. A pile of newspapers and letters for the
master of the house; the Newcome Sentinel, old county paper, moderate
conservative, in which our worthy townsman and member is praised, his
benefactions are recorded, and his speeches given at full length; the
Newcome Independent, in which our precious member is weekly described as
a ninny, and informed almost every Thursday morning that he is a bloated
aristocrat, as he munches his dry toast. Heaps of letters, county papers,
Times and Morning Herald for Sir Brian Newcome; little heaps of letters
(dinner and soiree cards most of these) and Morning Post for Mr. Barnes.
Punctually as eight o'clock strikes, that young gentleman comes to
breakfast; his father will lie yet for another hour; the Baronet's
prodigious labours in the House of Commons keeping him frequently out of
bed till sunrise.
As his cousin entered the room, Clive turned very red, and perhaps a
faint blush might appear on Barnes's pallid countenance. He came in, a
handkerchief in one hand, a pamphlet in the other, and both hands being
thus engaged, he could offer neither to his kinsmen.
"You are come to breakfast, I hope," he said--calling it "weakfast," and
pronouncing the words with a most languid drawl--"or, perhaps, you want
to see my father? He is never out of his room till half-past nine.
Harper, did Sir Brian come in last night before or after me?" Harper, the
butler, thinks Sir Brian came in after Mr. Barnes.
When that functionary had quitted the room, Barnes turned round to his
uncle in a candid, smiling way, and said, "The fact is, sir, I don't know
when I came home myself very distinctly, and can't, of course, tell about
my father. Generally, you know, there are two candles left in the hall,
you know; and if there are two, you know, I know of course that my father
is still at the House. But last night, after that capital song you sang,
hang me if I know what happened to me. I beg your pardon, sir, I'm
shocked at having been so overtaken. Such a confounded thing doesn't
happen to me once in ten years. I do trust I didn't do anything rude to
anybody, for I thought some of your friends the pleasantest fellows I
ever met in my life; and as for the claret, 'gad, as if I hadn't had
enough after dinner, I brought a quantity of it away with me on my
shirt-front and waistcoat!"
"I beg your pardon, Barnes," Clive said, blushing deeply, "and I'm very
sorry indeed for what passed; I threw it."
The Colonel, who had been listening with a queer expression of wonder and
doubt on his face, here interrupted Mr. Barnes. "It was Clive that--that
spilled the wine over you last night," Thomas Newcome said; "the young
rascal had drunk a great deal too much wine, and had neither the use of
his head nor his hands, and this morning I have given him a lecture, and
he has come to ask your pardon for his clumsiness; and if you have
forgotten your share in the night's transaction, I hope you have
forgotten his, and will accept his hand and his apology."
"Apology: There's no apology," cries Barnes, holding out a couple of
fingers of his hand, but looking towards the Colonel. "I don't know what
happened any more than the dead. Did we have a row? Were there any
glasses broken? The best way in such cases is to sweep 'em up. We can't
mend them."
The Colonel said gravely--"that he was thankful to find that the
disturbance of the night before had no worse result." He pulled the tail
of Clive's coat, when that unlucky young blunderer was about to trouble
his cousin with indiscreet questions or explanations, and checked his
talk. "The other night you saw an old man in drink, my boy," he said,
"and to what shame and degradation the old wretch had brought himself.
Wine has given you a warning too, which I hope you will remember all your
life; no one has seen me the worse for drink these forty years, and I
hope both you young gentlemen will take counsel by an old soldier, who
fully preaches wha
t he practises, and beseeches you to beware of the
bottle."
After quitting their kinsman, the kind Colonel further improved the
occasion with his son; and told him out of his own experience many
stories of quarrels, and duels, and wine;--how the wine had occasioned
the brawls, and the foolish speech overnight the bloody meeting at
morning; how he had known widows and orphans made by hot words uttered in
idle orgies: how the truest honour was the manly confession of wrong; and
the best courage the courage to avoid temptation. The humble-minded
speaker, whose advice contained the best of all wisdom, that which comes
from a gentle and reverent spirit, and a pure and generous heart, never
for once thought of the effect which he might be producing, but uttered
his simple say according to the truth within him. Indeed, he spoke out
his mind pretty resolutely on all subjects which moved or interested him;
and Clive, his son, and his honest chum, Mr. Binnie, who had a great deal
more reading and much keener intelligence than the Colonel, were amused
often at his naive opinion about men, or books, or morals. Mr. Clive had
a very fine natural sense of humour, which played perpetually round his
father's simple philosophy with kind and smiling comments. Between this
pair of friends the superiority of wit lay, almost from the very first,
on the younger man's side; but, on the other hand, Clive felt a tender
admiration for his father's goodness, a loving delight in contemplating
his elder's character, which he has never lost, and which in the trials
of their future life inexpressibly cheered and consoled both of them!
Beati illi! O man of the world, whose wearied eyes may glance over this
page, may those who come after you so regard you! O generous boy, who
read in it, may you have such a friend to trust and cherish in youth, and
in future days fondly and proudly to remember!
Some four or five weeks after the quasi-reconciliation between Clive and
his kinsman, the chief part of Sir Brian Newcome's family were assembled
at the breakfast-table together, where the meal was taken in common, and
at the early hour of eight (unless the senator was kept too late in the
House of Commons overnight); and Lady Anne and her nursery were now
returned to London again, little Alfred being perfectly set up by a month
of Brighton air. It was a Thursday morning; on which day of the week, it
has been said, the Newcome Independent and the Newcome Sentinel both made
their appearance upon the Baronet's table. The household from above and
from below; the maids and footmen from the basement; the nurses,
children, and governesses from the attics; all poured into the room at
the sound of a certain bell.
I do not sneer at the purpose for which, at that chiming eight-o'clock
bell, the household is called together. The urns are hissing, the plate
is shining; the father of the house, standing up, reads from a gilt book
for three or four minutes in a measured cadence. The members of the
family are around the table in an attitude of decent reverence; the
younger children whisper responses at their mother's knees; the governess
worships a little apart; the maids and the large footmen are in a cluster
before their chairs, the upper servants performing their devotion on the
other side of the sideboard; the nurse whisks about the unconscious
last-born, and tosses it up and down during the ceremony. I do not sneer
at that--at the act at which all these people are assembled--it is at the
rest of the day I marvel; at the rest of the day, and what it brings. At
the very instant when the voice has ceased speaking and the gilded book
is shut, the world begins again, and for the next twenty-three hours and
fifty-seven minutes all that household is given up to it. The servile
squad rises up and marches away to its basement, whence, should it happen