last part of this sentence was uttered for Mr. Taplow's benefit, who had
re-entered the George bearing a tray of wine and biscuit.
The Master of Rosebury and Mr. Harris went out presently to look at a
horse which was waiting the former's inspection in the stableyard of the
hotel. The landlord took advantage of his business, to hear a bell which
never was rung, and to ask me questions about the guest who had been
staying at his house for a week past. Did I know that party? Mr.
Pendennis said, "Yes, he knew that party."
"Most respectable party, I have no doubt," continues Boniface. "Do you
suppose the Prince of Moncontour knows any but respectable parties?" asks
Mr. Pendennis--a query of which the force was so great as to discomfit
and silence our landlord, who retreated to ask questions concerning Mr.
Harris of Florac's grooms.
What was Highgate's business here? Was it mine to know? I might have
suspicions, but should I entertain them or communicate them, and had I
not best keep them to myself? I exchanged not a word on the subject of
Highgate with Florac, as we drove home: though from the way in which we
looked at one another each saw that the other was acquainted with that
unhappy gentleman's secret. We fell to talking about Madame la Duchesse
d'Ivry as we trotted on; and then of English manners by way of contrast,
of intrigues, elopements, Gretna Grin, etc., etc. "You are a droll
nation!" says Florac. "To make love well, you must absolutely have a
chaise-de-poste, and a scandal afterwards. If our affairs of this kind
made themselves on the grand route, what armies of postillions we should
need!"
I held my peace. In that vision of Jack Belsize I saw misery, guilt,
children dishonoured, homes deserted,--ruin for all the actors and
victims of the wretched conspiracy. Laura marked my disturbance when we
reached home. She even divined the cause of it, and charged me with it at
night, when we sate alone by our dressing-room fire, and had taken leave
of our kind entertainers. Then, under her cross-examination, I own that I
told what I had seen--Lord Highgate, under a feigned name staying at
Newcome. It might be nothing. "Nothing! Gracious heavens! Could not this
crime and misery be stopped?" "It might be too late," Laura's husband
said sadly, bending down his head into the fire.
She was silent too for a while. I could see she was engaged where pious
women ever will betake themselves in moments of doubt, of grief, of pain,
of separation, of joy even, or whatsoever other trial. They have but to
will, and as it were an invisible temple rises round them; their hearts
can kneel down there; and they have an audience of the great, the
merciful untiring Counsellor and Consoler. She would not have been
frightened at Death near at hand. I have known her to tend the poor round
about us, or to bear pain--not her own merely, but even her children's
and mine, with a surprising outward constancy and calm. But the idea of
this crime being enacted close at hand, and no help for it--quite
overcame her. I believe she lay awake all that night; and rose quite
haggard and pale after the bitter thoughts which had deprived her of
rest.
She embraced her own child with extraordinary tenderness that morning,
and even wept over it, calling it by a thousand fond names of maternal
endearment "Would I leave you, my darling--could I ever, ever, ever quit
you, my blessing, and treasure!" The unconscious little thing, hugged to
his mother's bosom, and scared at her tones and tragic face, clung
frightened and weeping round Laura's neck. Would you ask what the
husband's feelings were as he looked at that sweet love, that sublime
tenderness, that pure Saint blessing the life of him unworthy? Of all the
gifts of Heaven to us below, that felicity is the sum and the chief. I
tremble as I hold it lest I should lose it, and be left alone in the
blank world without it: again, I feel humiliated to think that I possess
it; as hastening home to a warm fireside and a plentiful table, I feel
ashamed sometimes before the poor outcast beggar shivering in the street.
Breakfast was scarcely over when Laura asked for a pony carriage, and
said she was bent on a private visit. She took her baby and nurse with
her. She refused our company, and would not even say whither she was
bound until she had passed the lodge-gate. I may have suspected what the
object was of her journey. Florac and I did not talk of it. We rode out
to meet the hounds of a cheery winter morning: on another day I might
have been amused with my host--the, splendour of his raiment, the
neatness of his velvet cap, the gloss of his hunting-boots; the cheers,
shouts, salutations, to dog and man; the oaths and outcries of this
Nimrod, who shouted louder than the whole field and the whole pack too--
but on this morning--I was thinking of the tragedy yonder enacting, and
came away early from the hunting-field, and found my wife already
returned to Rosebury.
Laura had been, as I suspected, to Lady Clara. She did not know why,
indeed. She scarce knew what she should say when she arrived--how she
could say what she had in her mind. "I hoped, Arthur, that I should have
something--something told me to say," whispered Laura, with her head on
my shoulder; and as I lay awake last night thinking of her, prayed--that
is, hoped, I might find a word of consolation for that poor lady. Do you
know, I think she has hardly ever heard a kind word? She said so; she was
very much affected after we had talked together a little.
"At first she was very indifferent; cold and haughty in her manner; asked
what had caused the pleasure of this visit, for I would go in, though at
the lodge they told me her ladyship was unwell, and they thought received
no company. I said I wanted to show our boy to her--that the children
ought to be acquainted--I don't know what I said. She seemed more and
more surprised--then all of a sudden--I don't know how--I said, 'Lady
Clara, I have had a dream about you and your children, and I was so
frightened that I came over to you to speak about it.' And I had the
dream, Pen; it came to me absolutely as I was speaking to her.
"She looked a little scared, and I went on telling her the dream. 'My
dear' I said, 'I dreamed that I saw you happy with those children.'
"'Happy!' says she--the three were playing in the conservatory into which
her sitting-room opens.
"'And that a bad spirit came and tore them from you, and drove you out
into the darkness; and I saw you wandering about quite lonely and
wretched, and looking back into the garden where the children were
playing. And you asked and implored to see them; and the Keeper at the
gate said 'No, never.' And then--then I thought they passed by you, and
they did not know you.'
"'Ah!' said Lady Clara.
"'And then I thought, as we do in dreams, you know, that it was my child
who was separated from me, and who would not know me: and oh, what a pang
that was! Fancy that! Let us pray God it was only a dream. And worse than
that, wh
en you, when I implored to come to the child, and the man said,
'No, never,' I thought there came a spirit--an angel that fetched the
child to heaven, and you said, 'Let me come too; oh, let me come too, I
am so miserable.' And the angel said, 'No, never, never.'
"By this time Lady Clara was looking very pale. 'What do you mean?' she
asked of me," Laura continued.
"'Oh, dear lady, for the sake of the little ones, and Him who calls them
to Him, go you with them. Never, never part from them! Cling to His
knees, and take shelter there.' I took her hands, and I said more to her
in this way, Arthur, that I need not, that I ought not to speak again.
But she was touched at length when I kissed her; and she said I was very
kind to her, and no one had ever been so, and that she was quite alone in
the world and had no friend to fly to; and would I go and stay with her?
and I said 'yes;' and we must go, my dear. I think you should see that
person at Newcome--see him, and warn him," cried Laura, warming as she
spoke, "and pray God to enlighten and strengthen him, and to keep him
from this temptation, and implore him to leave this poor, weak,
frightened, trembling creature; if he has the heart of a gentleman and
the courage of a man, he will, I know he will."
"I think he would, my dearest," I said, "if he but heard the petitioner."
Laura's cheeks were blushing, her eyes brightened, her voice rang with a
sweet pathos of love that vibrates through my whole being sometimes. It
seems to me as if evil must give way, and bad thoughts retire before that
purest creature.
"Why has she not some of her family with her, poor thing!" my wife
continued. "She perishes in that solitude. Her husband prevents her, I
think--and--oh--I know enough of him to know what his life is. I shudder,
Arthur, to see you take the hand of that wicked, selfish man. You must
break with him, do you hear, sir?"
"Before or after going to stay at his house, my love?" asks Mr.
Pendennis.
"Poor thing! she lighted up at the idea of any one coming. She ran and
showed me the rooms we were to have. It will be very stupid; and you
don't like that. But you can write your book, and still hunt and shoot
with our friends here. And Lady Anne Newcome must be made to come back
again. Sir Barnes quarrelled with his mother and drove her out of the
house on her last visit--think of that! The servants here know it. Martha
brought me the whole story from the housekeeper's room. This Sir Barnes
Newcome is a dreadful creature, Arthur. I am so glad I loathed him from
the very first moment I saw him."
"And into this ogre's den you propose to put me and my family, madam!"
says the husband. "Indeed, where won't I go if you order me? Oh, who will
pack my portmanteau?"
Florac and the Princess were both in desolation when, at dinner, we
announced our resolution to go away--and to our neighbours at Newcome!
that was more extraordinary. "Que diable goest thou to do in this
galley?" asks our host as we sat alone over our wine.
But Laura's intended visit to Lady Clara was never to have a fulfilment,
for on this same evening, as we sate at our dessert, comes a messenger
from Newcome, with a note for my wife from the lady there:--
"Dearest, kindest Mrs. Pendennis," Lady Clara wrote, with many italics,
and evidently in much distress of mind. "Your visit is not to be. I spoke
about it to Sir B., who arrived this afternoon, and who has already begun
to treat me in his usual way. Oh, I am so unhappy! Pray, pray do not be
angry at this rudeness--though indeed it is only a kindness to keep you
from this wretched place! I feel as if I cannot bear this much longer.
But, whatever happens, I shall always remember your goodness, your
beautiful goodness and kindness; and shall worship you as an angel
deserves to be worshipped. Oh, why had I not such a friend earlier! But
alas! I have none--only this odious family thrust upon me for companions
to the wretched, lonely, C. N.
"P.S.--He does not know of my writing. Do not be surprised if you get
another note from me in the morning, written in a ceremonious style and
regretting that we cannot have the pleasure of receiving Mr. and Mrs.
Pendennis for the present at Newcome.
"P.S.--The hypocrite!"
This letter was handed to my wife at dinner-time, and she gave it to me
as she passed out of the room with the other ladies.
I told Florac that the Newcomes could not receive us, and that we would
remain, if he willed it, his guests for a little longer. The kind fellow
was only too glad to keep us. "My wife would die without Bebi," he said.
"She becomes quite dangerous about Bebi." It was gratifying that the good
old lady was not to be parted as yet from the innocent object of her
love.
My host knew as well as I the terms upon which Sir Barnes and his wife
were living. Their quarrels were the talk of the whole county; one side
brought forward his treatment of her, and his conduct elsewhere, and said
that he was so bad that honest people should not know him. The other
party laid the blame upon her, and declared that Lady Clara was a
languid, silly, weak, frivolous creature; always crying out of season;
who had notoriously taken Sir Barnes for his money and who as certainly
had had an attachment elsewhere. Yes, the accusations were true on both
sides. A bad, selfish husband had married a woman for her rank: a weak,
thoughtless girl had been sold to a man for his money; and the union,
which might have ended in a complete indifference, had taken an ill turn
and resulted in misery, cruelty, fierce mutual recriminations, bitter
tears shed in private, husband's curses and maledictions, and open scenes
of wrath and violence for servants to witness and the world to sneer at.
We arrange such matches every day; we sell or buy beauty, or rank, or
wealth; we inaugurate the bargain in churches with sacramental services,
in which the parties engaged call upon Heaven to witness their vows--we
know them to be lies, and we seal them with God's name. "I, Barnes,
promise to take you, Clara, to love and honour till death do us part" "I
Clara, promise to take you, Barnes," etc, etc. Who has not heard the
ancient words; and how many of us have uttered them, knowing them to be
untrue: and is there a bishop on the bench that has not amen'd the humbug
in his lawn sleeves and called a blessing over the kneeling perjurers?
"Does Mr. Harris know of Newcome's return?" Florac asked, when I
acquainted him with this intelligence. "Ce scelerat de Highgate--Va!"
"Does Newcome know that Lord Highgate is here?" I thought within myself,
admiring my wife's faithfulness and simplicity, and trying to believe
with that pure and guileless creature that it was not yet too late to
save the unhappy Lady Clara.
"Mr. Harris had best be warned," I said to Florac; "will you write him a
word, and let us send a messenger to Newcome?"
At first Florac said, "Parbleu! No;" the affair was none of his, he
attended himself always to this result of Lady Clara's marriage.
He had
even complimented Jack upon it years before at Baden, when scenes enough
tragic, enough comical, ma foi, had taken place apropos of this affair.
Why should he meddle with it now?
"Children dishonoured," said I, "honest families made miserable; for
Heaven's sake, Florac, let us stay this catastrophe if we can." I spoke
with much warmth, eagerly desirous to avert this calamity if possible,
and very strongly moved by the tale which I had heard only just before
dinner from that noble and innocent creature, whose pure heart had
already prompted her to plead the cause of right and truth, and to try
and rescue an unhappy desperate sister trembling on the verge of ruin.
"If you will not write to him," said I, in some heat, "if your grooms
don't like to go out of a night" (this was one of the objections which
Florac had raised), "I will walk." We were talking over the affair rather
late in the evening, the ladies having retreated to their sleeping
apartments, and some guests having taken leave, whom our hospitable host
and hostess had entertained that night, and before whom I naturally did
not care to speak upon a subject so dangerous.
"Parbleu, what virtue, my friend! what a Joseph!" cries Florac, puffing
his cigar. "One sees well that your wife had made you the sermon. My poor
Pendennis! You are henpecked, my pauvre bon! You become the husband
model. It is true my mother writes that thy wife is an angel!"
"I do not object to obey such a woman when she bids me do right," I said;
and would indeed at that woman's request have gone out upon the errand,
but that we here found another messenger. On days when dinner-parties
were held at Rosebury, certain auxiliary waiters used to attend from
Newcome whom the landlord of the King's Arms was accustomed to supply;
indeed, it was to secure these, and make other necessary arrangements
respecting fish, game, etc., that the Prince de Moncontour had ridden
over to Newcome on the day when we met Lord Highgate, alias Mr. Harris,
before the bar of the hotel. Whilst we were engaged in the above
conversation a servant enters, and says, "My lord, Jenkins and the other
man is going back to Newcome in their cart," and is there anything
wanted?"
"It is the Heaven which sends him," says Florac, turning round to me with
a laugh; "make Jenkins to wait five minutes, Robert; I have to write to a
gentleman at the King's Arms." And so saying, Florac wrote a line which
he showed me, and having sealed the note, directed it to Mr. Harris at
the King's Arms. The cart, the note, and the assistant waiters departed
on their way to Newcome. Florac bade me go to rest with a clear
conscience. In truth, the warning was better given in that way than any
other, and a word from Florac was more likely to be effectual than an
expostulation from me. I had never thought of making it, perhaps; except
at the expressed desire of a lady whose counsel in all the difficult
circumstances of life I own I am disposed to take.
Mr. Jenkins's horse no doubt trotted at a very brisk pace, as gentlemen's
horses will of a frosty night, after their masters have been regaled with
plentiful supplies of wine and ale. I remember in my bachelor days that
my horses always trotted quicker after I had had a good dinner; the
champagne used to communicate itself to them somehow, and the claret get
into their heels. Before midnight the letter for Mr. Harris was in Mr.
Harris's hands in the King's Arms.
It has been said that in the Boscawen Room at the Arms, some of the jolly
fellows of Newcome had a club, of which Parrot the auctioneer, Tom Potts
the talented reporter, now editor of the Independent, Vidler the
apothecary, and other gentlemen, were members.
When we first had occasion to mention that society, it was at an early