look of the face and figure as the door closes on him, or the coach
drives away! So the roast mutton was ready, and all the children dined
very heartily.
The infantile meal had not been long concluded, when servants announced
"the Marquis of Farintosh;" and that nobleman made his appearance to pay
his respects to Miss Newcome and Lady Anne. He brought the very last news
of the very last party in London, where "Really, upon my honour, now, it
was quite a stupid party, because Miss Newcome wasn't there. It was now,
really."
Miss Newcome remarked, "If he said so upon his honour, of course she was
satisfied."
"As you weren't there," the young nobleman continued, "the Miss
Rackstraws came out quite strong; really they did now, upon my honour. It
was quite a quiet thing. Lady Merriborough hadn't even got a new gown on.
Lady Anne, you shirk London society this year, and we miss you: we
expected you to give us two or three things this season; we did now,
really. I said to Tufthunt, only yesterday, Why has not Lady Anne Newcome
given anything? You know Tufthunt? They say he's a clever fellow, and
that--but he's a low little beast, and I hate him."
Lady Anne said, "Sir Brian's bad state of health prevented her from going
out this season, or receiving at home."
"It don't prevent your mother from going out, though," continued my lord.
"Upon my honour, I think unless she got two or three things every night,
I think she'd die. Lady Kew's like one of those horses, you know, that
unless they go they drop."
"Thank you for my mother," said Lady Anne.
"She is, upon my honour. Last night I know she was at ever so many
places. She dined at the Bloxams', for I was there. Then she said she was
going to sit with old Mrs. Crackthorpe, who has broke her collar-bone
(that Crackthorpe in the Life Guards, her grandson, is a brute, and I
hope she won't leave him a shillin'); and then she came on to Lady
Hawkstone's, where I heard her say she had been at the--at the
Flowerdales', too. People begin to go to those Flowerdales'. Hanged--if I
know where they won't go next. Cotton-spinner, wasn't he?"
"So were we, my lord," says Miss Newcome.
"Oh, yes, I forgot! But you're of an old family--very old family."
"We can't help it," said Miss Ethel, archly. Indeed, she thought she was.
"Do you believe in the barber-surgeon?" asked Clive. And my lord looked
at him with a noble curiosity, as much as to say, "Who the deuce was the
barber-surgeon? and who the devil are you?"
"Why should we disown our family?" Miss Ethel said, simply. "In those
early days I suppose people did--did all sorts of things, and it was not
considered at all out of the way to be surgeon to William the Conqueror."
"Edward the Confessor," interposed Clive. "And it must be true, because I
have seen a picture of the barber-surgeon, a friend of mine, M'Collop,
did the picture, and I dare say it is for sale still"
Lady Anne said "she should be delighted to see it." Lord Farintosh
remembered that the M'Collop had the moor next to his in Argyleshire, but
did not choose to commit himself with the stranger, and preferred looking
at his own handsome face and admiring it in the glass until the last
speaker had concluded his remarks.
As Clive did not offer any further conversation, but went back to a
table, where he began to draw the barber-surgeon, Lord Farintosh resumed
the delightful talk. "What infernal bad glasses these are in these
Brighton lodging-houses! They make a man look quite green, really they
do--and there's nothing green in me, is there, Lady Anne?"
"But you look very unwell, Lord Farintosh; indeed you do," Miss Newcome
said, gravely. "I think late hours, and smoking, and going to that horrid
Platt's, where I dare say you go----"
"Go? Don't I? But don't call it horrid; really, now, don't call it
horrid!" cried the noble Marquis.
"Well--something has made you look far from well. You know how very well
Lord Farintosh used to look, mamma--and to see him now, in only his
second season--oh, it is melancholy!"
"God bless my soul, Miss Newcome! what do you mean? I think I look pretty
well," and the noble youth passed his hand through his hair. "It is a
hard life, I know; that tearin' about night after night, and sittin' up
till ever so much o'clock; and then all these races, you know, comin' one
after another--it's enough to knock up any fellow. I'll tell you what
I'll do, Miss Newcome. I'll go down to Codlington, to my mother; I will,
upon my honour, and lie quiet all July, and then I'll go to Scotland--and
you shall see whether I don't look better next season."
"Do, Lord Farintosh!" said Ethel, greatly amused, as much, perhaps, at
the young Marquis as at her cousin Clive, who sat whilst the other was
speaking, fuming with rage, at his table.
"What are you doing, Clive?" she asks.
"I was trying to draw; Lord knows who--Lord Newcome, who was killed at
the battle of Bosworth," said the artist, and the girl ran to look at the
picture.
"Why, you have made him like Punch!" cries the young lady.
"It's a shame caricaturing one's own flesh and blood, isn't it?" asked
Clive, gravely.
"What a droll, funny picture!" exclaims Lady Anne. "Isn't it capital,
Lord Farintosh?"
"I dare say--I confess I don't understand that sort of thing," says his
lordship. "Don't, upon my honour. There's Odo Carton, always making those
caricatures--I don't understand 'em. You'll come up to town to-morrow,
won't you? And you're goin' to Lady Hm's, and to Hm and Hm's, ain't you?"
(The names of these aristocratic places of resort were quite inaudible.)
"You mustn't let Miss Blackcap have it all her own way, you know, that
you mustn't."
"She won't have it all her own way," says Miss Ethel. "Lord Farintosh,
will you do me a favour? Lady Innishowan is your aunt?"
"Of course she is my aunt."
"Will you be so very good as to get a card for her party on Tuesday, for
my cousin, Mr. Clive Newcome? Clive, please be introduced to the Marquis
of Farintosh."
The young Marquis perfectly well recollected those mustachios and their
wearer on a former night, though he had not thought fit to make any sign
of recognition. "Anything you wish, Miss Newcome," he said; "delighted,
I'm sure;" and turning to Clive--In the army, I suppose?"
"I am an artist," says Clive, turning very red.
"Oh, really, I didn't know!" cries the nobleman; and my lord bursting out
laughing presently as he was engaged in conversation with Miss Ethel on
the balcony, Clive thought, very likely with justice, "He is making fun
of my mustachios. Confound him! I should like to pitch him over into the
street." But this was only a kind wish on Mr. Newcome's part; not
followed out by any immediate fulfilment.
As the Marquis of Farintosh seemed inclined to prolong his visit, and his
company was exceedingly disagreeable to Clive, the latter took his
departure for an afternoon walk, consoled to think that he should have
Ethel t
o himself at the evening's dinner, when Lady Anne would be
occupied about Sir Brian, and would be sure to be putting the children to
bed, and, in a word, would give him a quarter of an hour of delightful
tete-a-tete with the beautiful Ethel.
Clive's disgust was considerable when he came to dinner at length, and
found Lord Farintosh, likewise invited, and sprawling in the
drawing-room. His hopes of a tete-a-tete were over. Ethel and Lady Anne
and my lord talked, as all people will, about their mutual acquaintance:
what parties were coming off, who was going to marry whom, and so forth.
And as the persons about whom they conversed were in their own station of
life, and belonged to the fashionable world, of which Clive had but a
slight knowledge, he chose to fancy that his cousin was giving herself
airs, and to feel sulky and uneasy during their dialogue.
Miss Newcome had faults of her own, and was worldly enough as perhaps the
reader has begun to perceive; but in this instance no harm, sure, was to
be attributed to her. If two gossips in Aunt Honeyman's parlour had
talked over the affairs of Mr. Jones and Mr. Brown, Clive would not have
been angry; but a young man of spirit not unfrequently mistakes his
vanity for independence: and it is certain that nothing is more offensive
to us of the middle class than to hear the names of great folks
constantly introduced into conversation.
So Clive was silent and ate no dinner, to the alarm of Martha, who had
put him to bed many a time, and always had a maternal eye over him. When
he actually refused currant and raspberry tart, and custard, the chef
d'oeuvre of Miss Honeyman, for which she had seen him absolutely cry in
his childhood, the good Martha was alarmed.
"Law, Master Clive!" she said, "do 'ee eat some. Missis made it, you know
she did;" and she insisted on bringing back the tart to him.
Lady Anne and Ethel laughed at this eagerness on the worthy old woman's
part. "Do 'ee eat some, Clive," says Ethel, imitating honest Mrs. Hicks,
who had left the room.
"It's doosid good," remarked Lord Farintosh.
"Then do 'ee eat some more," said Miss Newcome: on which the young
nobleman, holding out his plate, observed with much affability, that the
cook of the lodgings was really a stunner for tarts.
"The cook! dear me, it's not the cook!" cries Miss Ethel. "Don't you
remember the princess in the Arabian Nights, who was such a stunner for
tarts, Lord Farintosh?"
Lord Farintosh couldn't say that he did.
"Well, I thought not; but there was a princess in Arabia or China, or
somewhere, who made such delicious tarts and custards that nobody's could
compare with them; and there is an old lady in Brighton who has the same
wonderful talent. She is the mistress of this house."
"And she is my aunt, at your lordship's service," said Mr. Clive, with
great dignity.
"Upon my honour! did you make 'em, Lady Anne?" asked my lord.
"The Queen of Hearts made tarts!" cried out Miss Newcome, rather eagerly,
and blushing somewhat.
"My good old aunt, Miss Honeyman, made this one," Clive would go on to
say.
"Mr. Honeyman's sister, the preacher, you know, where we go on Sunday,"
Miss Ethel interposed.
"The Honeyman pedigree is not a matter of very great importance," Lady
Anne remarked gently. "Kuhn, will you have the goodness to take away
these things? When did you hear of Colonel Newcome, Clive?"
An air of deep bewilderment and perplexity had spread over Lord
Farintosh's fine countenance whilst this talk about pastry had been going
on. The Arabian Princess, the Queen of Hearts making tarts, Miss
Honeyman? Who the deuce were all these? Such may have been his lordship's
doubts and queries. Whatever his cogitations were he did not give
utterance to them, but remained in silence for some time, as did the rest
of the little party. Clive tried to think he had asserted his
independence by showing that he was not ashamed of his old aunt; but the
doubt may be whether there was any necessity for presenting her in this
company, and whether Mr. Clive had not much better have left the tart
question alone.
Ethel evidently thought so: for she talked and rattled in the most lively
manner with Lord Farintosh for the rest of the evening, and scarcely
chose to say a word to her cousin. Lady Anne was absent with Sir Brian
and her children for the most part of the time: and thus Clive had the
pleasure of listening to Miss Newcome uttering all sorts of odd little
paradoxes, firing the while sly shots at Mr. Clive, and, indeed, making
fun of his friends, exhibiting herself in not the most agreeable light.
Her talk only served the more to bewilder Lord Farintosh, who did not
understand a tithe of her allusions: for Heaven, which had endowed the
young Marquis with personal charms, a large estate, an ancient title and
the pride belonging to it, had not supplied his lordship with a great
quantity of brains, or a very feeling heart.
Lady Anne came back from the upper regions presently, with rather a grave
face, and saying that Sir Brian was not so well this evening, upon which
the young men rose to depart. My lord said he had "a most delightful
dinner and a most delightful tart, 'pon his honour," and was the only one
of the little company who laughed at his own remark. Miss Ethel's eyes
flashed scorn at Mr. Clive when that unfortunate subject was introduced
again.
My lord was going back to London to-morrow. Was Miss Newcome going back?
Wouldn't he like to go back in the train with her!--another unlucky
observation. Lady Anne said, "it would depend on the state of Sir Brian's
health the next morning whether Ethel would return; and both of you
gentlemen are too young to be her escort," added the kind lady. Then she
shook hands with Clive, as thinking she had said something too for him.
Farintosh in the meantime was taking leave of Miss Newcome. "Pray, pray,"
said his lordship, "don't throw me over at Lady Innishowan's. You know I
hate balls and never go to 'em, except when you go. I hate dancing, I do,
'pon my honour."
"Thank you," said Miss Newcome, with a curtsey.
"Except with one person--only one person, upon my honour. I'll remember
and get the invitation for your friend. And if you would but try that
mare, I give you my honour I bred her at Codlington. She's a beauty to
look at, and as quiet as a lamb."
"I don't want a horse like a lamb," replied the young lady.
"Well--she'll go like blazes now: and over timber she's splendid now. She
is, upon my honour."
"When I come to London perhaps you may trot her out," said Miss Ethel,
giving him her hand and a fine smile.
Clive came up biting his lips. "I suppose you don't condescend to ride
Bhurtpore any more now?" he said.
"Poor old Bhurtpore! The children ride him now," said Miss Ethel--giving
Clive at the same time a dangerous look of her eyes, as though to see if
her shot had hit. Then she added, "No--he has not been brought up to town
this year: he is
at Newcome, and I like him very much." Perhaps she
thought the shot had struck too deep.
But if Clive was hurt he did not show his wound. "You have had him these
four years--yes, it's four years since my father broke him for you. And
you still continue to like him? What a miracle of constancy! You use him
sometimes in the country--when you have no better horse--what a
compliment to Bhurtpore!"
"Nonsense!" Miss Ethel here made Clive a sign in her most imperious
manner to stay a moment when Lord Farintosh had departed.
But he did not choose to obey this order. "Good night," he said. "Before
I go I must shake hands with my aunt downstairs." And he was gone,
following close upon Lord Farintosh, who I dare say thought, "Why the
deuce can't he shake hands with his aunt up here?" and when Clive entered
Miss Honeyman's back-parlour, making a bow to the young nobleman, my lord
went away more perplexed than ever: and the next day told friends at
White's what uncommonly queer people those Newcomes were. "I give you my
honour there was a fellow at Lady Anne's whom they call Clive, who is a
painter by trade--his uncle is a preacher--his father is a horse-dealer,
and his aunt lets lodgings and cooks the dinner."
CHAPTER XLIII
Returns to some Old Friends
The haggard youth burst into my chambers, in the Temple, on the very next
morning, and confided to me the story which has been just here narrated.
When he had concluded it, with many ejaculations regarding the heroine of
the tale, "I saw her, sir," he added, "walking with the children and Miss
Cann as I drove round in the fly to the station--and didn't even bow to
her."
"Why did you go round by the cliff?" asked Clive's friend.
"That is not the way from the Steyne Arms to the railroad."
"Hang it," says Clive, turning very red, "I wanted to pass just under her
windows, and if I saw her, not to see her: and that's what I did."
"Why did she walk on the cliff?" mused Clive's friend, "at that early
hour? Not to meet Lord Farintosh, I should think, he never gets up before
twelve. It must have been to see you. Didn't you tell her you were going
away in the morning?"
"I tell you what she does with me," continues Mr. Clive. "Sometimes she
seems to like me, and then she leaves me. Sometimes she is quite kind--
kind she always is--I mean, you know, Pen--you know what I mean; and then
up comes the old Countess, or a young Marquis, or some fellow with a
handle to his name, and she whistles me off till the next convenient
opportunity."
"Women are like that, my ingenuous youth," says Clive's counsellor.
"I won't stand it. I won't be made a fool of!" he continues. "She seems
to expect everybody to bow to her, and moves through the world with her
imperious airs. Oh, how confoundedly handsome she is with them! I tell
you what. I feel inclined to tumble down and feel one of her pretty
little feet on my neck and say, There! Trample my life out. Make a slave
of me. Let me get a silver collar and mark 'Ethel' on it, and go through
the world with my badge."
"And a blue ribbon for a footman to hold you by; and a muzzle to wear in
the dog-days. Bow! wow!" says Mr. Pendennis.
(At this noise Mr. Warrington puts his head in from the neighbouring
bedchamber, and shows a beard just lathered for shaving. "We are talking
sentiment! Go back till you are wanted!" says Mr. Pendennis. Exit he of
the soap-suds.)
"Don't make fun of a fellow," Clive continues, laughing ruefully. "You
see I must talk about it to somebody. I shall die if I don't. Sometimes,
sir, I rise up in my might and I defy her lightning. The sarcastic dodge