"And I am very glad," the elder went on, "that you and my boy are good friends."

"Friends! of course. It would be unnatural if such near relatives were otherwise than good friends."

"You have been hospitable to him, and Lady Clara very kind, and he wrote to me telling me of your kindness. Ahem! this is tolerable claret. I wonder where Clive gets it?"

"You were speaking about that indigo, Colonel!" here Barnes interposes. "Our house has done very little in that way, to be sure but I suppose that our credit is about as good as Battie's and Jolly's, and if——" but the Colonel is in a brown study.

"Clive will have a good bit of money when I die," resumes Clive's father.

"Why, you are a hale man—upon my word, quite a young man, and may marry again, Colonel," replies the nephew fascinatingly.

"I shall never do that," replies the other. "Ere many years are gone, I shall be seventy years old, Barnes."

"Nothing in this country, my dear sir! positively nothing. Why, there was Titus, my neighbour in the country—when will you come down to Newcome?—who married a devilish pretty girl, of very good family, too, Miss Burgeon, one of the Devonshire Burgeons. He looks, I am sure, twenty years older than you do. Why should not you do likewise?"

"Because I like to remain single, and want to leave Clive a rich man. Look here, Barnes, you know the value of our bank shares, now?"

"Indeed I do; rather speculative; but of course I know what some sold for last week," says Barnes.

"Suppose I realise now. I think I am worth six lakhs. I had nearly two from my poor father. I saved some before and since I invested in this affair; and could sell out to-morrow with sixty thousand pounds."

"A very pretty sum of money, Colonel," says Barnes.

"I have a pension of a thousand a year."

"My dear Colonel, you are a capitalist! we know it very well," remarks Sir Barnes.

"And two hundred a year is as much as I want for myself," continues the capitalist, looking into the fire, and jingling his money in his pockets. "A hundred a year for a horse; a hundred a year for pocket-money, for I calculate, you know, that Clive will give me a bedroom and my dinner."

"He! he! If your son won't, your nephew will, my dear Colonel!" says the affable Barnes, smiling sweetly.

"I can give the boy a handsome allowance, you see," resumes Thomas Newcome.

"You can make him a handsome allowance now, and leave him a good fortune when you die!" says the nephew, in a noble and courageous manner,—and as if he said Twelve times twelve are a hundred and forty-four and you have Sir Barnes Newcome's authority—Sir Barnes Newcome's, mind you—to say so.

"Not when I die, Barnes," the uncle goes on. "I will give him every shilling I am worth to-morrow morning, if he marries as I wish him."

"Tant mieux pour lui!" cries the nephew; and thought to himself, "Lady Clara must ask Clive to dinner instantly. Confound the fellow. I hate him—always have; but what luck he has!"

"A man with that property may pretend to a good wife, as the French say; hey Barnes?" asks the Colonel, rather eagerly looking up in his nephew's face.

That countenance was lighted up with a generous enthusiasm. "To any woman, in any rank—to a nobleman's daughter, my dear sir!" exclaims Sir Barnes.

"I want your sister; I want dear Ethel for him, Barnes," cries Thomas Newcome, with a trembling voice, and a twinkle in his eyes. "That was the hope I always had till my talk with your poor father stopped it. Your sister was engaged to my Lord Kew then; and my wishes of course were impossible. The poor boy is very much cut up, and his whole heart is bent upon possessing her. She is not, she can't be, indifferent to him. I am sure she would not be, if her family in the least encouraged him. Can either of these young folks have a better chance of happiness again offered to them in life? There's youth, there's mutual liking, there's wealth for them almost—only saddled with the encumbrance of an old dragoon, who won't be much in their way. Give us your good word, Barnes, and let them come together; and upon my word the rest of my days will be made happy if I can eat my meal at their table."

Whilst the poor Colonel was making his appeal, Barnes had time to collect his answer; which, since in our character of historians we take leave to explain gentlemen's motives as well as record their speeches and actions, we may thus interpret. "Confound the young beggar!" thinks Barnes, then. "He will have three or four thousand a year, will he? Hang him, but it's a good sum of money. What a fool his father is to give it away! Is he joking? No, he was always half crazy—the Colonel. Highgate seemed uncommonly sweet on her, and was always hanging about our house. Farintosh has not been brought to book yet; and perhaps neither of them will propose for her. My grandmother, I should think, won't hear of her making a low marriage, as this certainly is: but it's a pity to throw away four thousand a year, ain't it?" All these natural calculations passed briskly through Barnes Newcome's mind, as his uncle, from the opposite side of the fireplace, implored him in the above little speech.

"My dear Colonel," said Barnes, "my dear, kind Colonel! I needn't tell you that your proposal flatters us, as much as your extraordinary generosity surprises me. I never heard anything like it—never. Could I consult my own wishes I would at once—I would, permit me to say, from sheer admiration of your noble character, say yes, with all my heart, to your proposal. But, alas, I haven't that power."

"Is—is she engaged?" asks the Colonel, looking as blank and sad as Clive himself when Ethel had conversed with him.

"No—I cannot say engaged—though a person of the very highest rank has paid her the most marked attention. But my sister has, in a way, gone from our family, and from my influence as the head of it—an influence which I, I am sure, had most gladly exercised in your favour. My grandmother, Lady Kew, has adopted her; purposes, I believe, to leave Ethel the greater part of her fortune, upon certain conditions; and, of course, expects the—the obedience, and so forth, which is customary in such cases. By the way, Colonel, is our young soupirant aware that papa is pleading his cause for him?"

The Colonel said no; and Barnes lauded the caution which his uncle had displayed. It was quite as well for the young man's interests (which Sir Barnes had most tenderly at heart) that Clive Newcome should not himself move in the affair, or present himself to Lady Kew. Barnes would take the matter in hand at the proper season; the Colonel might be sure it would be most eagerly, most ardently pressed. Clive came home at this juncture, whom Barnes saluted affectionately. He and the Colonel had talked over their money business; their conversation had been most satisfactory, thank you. "Has it not, Colonel?" The three parted the very best of friends.

As Barnes Newcome professed that extreme interest for his cousin and uncle, it is odd he did not tell them that Lady Kew and Miss Ethel Newcome were at that moment within a mile of them, at her ladyship's house in Queen Street, Mayfair. In the hearing of Clive's servant, Barnes did not order his brougham to drive to Queen Street, but waited until he was in Bond Street before he gave the order.

And, of course, when he entered Lady Kew's house, he straightway asked for his sister, and communicated to her the generous offer which the good Colonel had made.

You see, Lady Kew was in town, and not in town. Her ladyship was but passing through, on her way from a tour of visits in the North, to another tour of visits somewhere else. The newspapers were not even off the blinds. The proprietor of the house cowered over a bed-candle and a furtive teapot in the back drawing-room. Lady Kew's gens were not here. The tall canary ones with white polls, only showed their plumage and sang in spring. The solitary wretch who takes charge of London houses, and the two servants specially affected to Lady Kew's person, were the only people in attendance. In fact, her ladyship was not in town. And that is why, no doubt, Barnes Newcome said nothing about her being there.



CHAPTER LII. Family Secrets

The figure cowering over the furtive teapot glowered grimly at Barnes as he entered; and an old voice said—"Ho, it's you!"

"I have brought you the notes, ma'am," says Barnes, taking a packet of those documents from his pocket-book. "I could not come sooner, I have been engaged upon bank business until now."

"I dare say! You smell of smoke like a courier."

"A foreign capitalist: he would smoke. They will, ma'am. I didn't smoke, upon my word."

"I don't see why you shouldn't, if you like it. You will never get anything out of me whether you do or don't. How is Clara? Is she gone to the country with the children? Newcome is the best place for her."

"Doctor Bambury thinks she can move in a fortnight. The boy has had a little——"

"A little fiddlestick! I tell you it is she who likes to stay, and makes that fool, Bambury, advise her not going away. I tell you to send her to Newcome. The air is good for her."

"By that confounded smoky town, my dear Lady Kew?"

"And invite your mother and little brothers and sisters to stay Christmas there. The way in which you neglect them is shameful, it is, Barnes."

"Upon my word, ma'am, I propose to manage my own affairs without your ladyship's assistance," cries Barnes, starting up, "and did not come at this time of night to hear this kind of——"

"Of good advice. I sent for you to give it you. When I wrote to you to bring me the money I wanted it was but a pretext; Barkins might have fetched it from the City in the morning. I want you to send Clara and the children to Newcome. They ought to go, sir. That is why I sent for you; to tell you that. Have you been quarrelling as much as usual?"

"Pretty much as usual," says Barnes, drumming on his hat.

"Don't beat that devil's tattoo; you agacez my poor old nerves. When Clara was given to you she was as well broke a girl as any in London."

Sir Barnes responded by a groan.

"She was as gentle and amenable to reason, as good-natured a girl as could be; a little vacant and silly, but you men like dolls for your wives; and now in three years you have utterly spoiled her. She is restive, she is artful, she flies into rages, she fights you and beats you. He! he! and that comes of your beating her!"

"I didn't come to hear this, ma'am," says Barnes, livid with rage

"You struck her, you know you did, Sir Barnes Newcome. She rushed over to me last year on the night you did it, you know she did."

"Great God, ma'am! You know the provocation," screams Barnes.

"Provocation or not, I don't say. But from that moment she has beat you. You fool, to write her a letter and ask her pardon. If I had been a man I would rather have strangled my wife, than have humiliated myself so before her. She will never forgive that blow."

"I was mad when I did it; and she drove me mad," says Barnes. "She has the temper of a fiend, and the ingenuity of the devil. In two years an entire change has come over her. If I had used a knife to her I should not have been surprised. But it is not with you to reproach me about Clara. Your ladyship found her for me."

"And you spoilt her after she was found, sir. She told me part of her story that night she came to me. I know it is true, Barnes. You have treated her dreadfully, sir."

"I know that she makes my life miserable, and there is no help for it," says Barnes, grinding a curse between his teeth. "Well, well, no more about this. How is Ethel? Gone to sleep after her journey? What do you think, ma'am, I have brought for her? A proposal."

"Bon Dieu! You don't mean to say Charles Belsize was in earnest!" cries the dowager. "I always thought it was a——"

"It is not from Lord Highgate, ma'am," Sir Barnes said, gloomily. "It is some time since I have known that he was not in earnest; and he knows that I am now."

"Gracious goodness! come to blows with him, too? You have not? That would be the very thing to make the world talk," says the dowager, with some anxiety.

"No," answers Barnes. "He knows well enough that there can be no open rupture. We had some words the other day at a dinner he gave at his own house; Colonel Newcome and that young beggar, Clive, and that fool, Mr. Hobson, were there. Lord Highgate was confoundedly insolent. He told me that I did not dare to quarrel with him because of the account he kept at our house. I should like to have massacred him! She has told him that I struck her,—the insolent brute—he says he will tell it at my clubs; and threatens personal violence to me, there, if I do it again. Lady Kew, I'm not safe from that man and that woman," cries poor Barnes, in an agony of terror.

"Fighting is Jack Belsize's business, Barnes Newcome; banking is yours, luckily," said the dowager. "As old Lord Highgate was to die and his eldest son, too, it is a pity certainly they had not died a year or two earlier, and left poor Clara and Charles to come together. You should have married some woman in the serious way; my daughter Walham could have found you one. Frank, I am told, and his wife go on very sweetly together; her mother-in-law governs the whole family. They have turned the theatre back into a chapel again: they have six little ploughboys dressed in surplices to sing the service; and Frank and the Vicar of Kewbury play at cricket with them on holidays. Stay, why should not Clara go to Kewbury?"

"She and her sister have quarrelled about this very affair with Lord Highgate. Some time ago it appears they had words about it and when I told Kew that bygones had best be bygones, that Highgate was very sweet upon Ethel now, and that I did not choose to lose such a good account as his, Kew was very insolent to me; his conduct was blackguardly, ma'am, quite blackguardly, and you may be sure but for our relationship I would have called him to——"

Here the talk between Barnes and his ancestress was interrupted by the appearance of Miss Ethel Newcome, taper in hand, who descended from the upper regions enveloped in a shawl.

"How do you do, Barnes? How is Clara? I long to see my little nephew. Is he like his pretty papa?" cries the young lady, giving her fair cheek to her brother.

"Scotland has agreed with our Newcome rose," says Barnes, gallantly. "My dear Ethel, I never saw you in greater beauty."

"By the light of one bedroom candle! what should I be if the whole room were lighted? You would see my face then was covered all over with wrinkles, and quite pale and woebegone, with the dreariness of the Scotch journey. Oh, what a time we have spent! haven't we, grandmamma? I never wish to go to a great castle again; above all, I never wish to go to a little shooting-box. Scotland may be very well for men; but for women—allow me to go to Paris when next there is talk of a Scotch expedition. I had rather be in a boarding-school in the Champs Elysees than in the finest castle in the Highlands. If it had not been for a blessed quarrel with Fanny Follington, I think I should have died at Glen Shorthorn. Have you seen my dear, dear uncle, the Colonel? When did he arrive?"

"Is he come? Why is he come?" asks Lady Kew.

"Is he come? Look here, grandmamma! did you ever see such a darling shawl! I found it in a packet in my room."

"Well, it is beautiful," cries the Dowager, bending her ancient nose over the web. "Your Colonel is a galant homme. That must be said of him; and in this does not quite take after the rest of the family. Hum! hum! is he going away again soon?"

"He has made a fortune, a very considerable fortune for a man in that rank in life," says Sir Barnes. "He cannot have less than sixty thousand pounds."

"Is that much?" asks Ethel.

"Not in England, at our rate of interest; but his money is in India, where he gets a great percentage. His income must be five or six thousand pounds, ma'am," says Barnes, turning to Lady Kew.

"A few of the Indians were in society in my time, my dear," says Lady Kew, musingly. "My father has often talked to me about Barbell of Stanstead, and his house in St. James's Square; the man who ordered more curricles when there were not carriages enough for his guests. I was taken to Mr. Hastings's trial. It was very stupid and long. The young man, the painter, I suppose will leave his paint-pots now, and set up as a gentleman. I suppose they were very poor, or his father would not have put him to such a profession. Barnes, why did you not make him a clerk in the bank, and save him from the humiliation?"

"Humiliation! why, he is proud of it. My uncle is as proud as a Plantagenet; though he is as humble as—as what! Give me a simile Barnes. Do you know what my quarrel with Fanny Follington was about? She said we were not descended from the barber-surgeon, and laughed at the Battle of Bosworth. She says our great-grandfather was a weaver. Was he a weaver?"

"How should I know? and what on earth does it matter, my child? Except the Gaunts, the Howards, and one or two more, there is scarcely any good blood in England. You are lucky in sharing some of mine. My poor Lord Kew's grandfather was an apothecary at Hampton Court, and founded the family by giving a dose of rhubarb to Queen Caroline. As a rule, nobody is of a good family. Didn't that young man, that son of the Colonel's, go about last year? How did he get in society? Where did we meet him? Oh! at Baden, yes; when Barnes was courting, and my grandson—yes, my grandson, acted so wickedly." Here she began to cough, and to tremble so, that her old stick shook under her hand. "Ring the bell for Ross. Ross, I will go to bed. Go you too, Ethel. You have been travelling enough to-day."

"Her memory seems to fail her a little," Ethel whispered to her brother; "or she will only remember what she wishes. Don't you see that she has grown very much older?"

"I will be with her in the morning. I have business with her," said Barnes.

"Good night. Give my love to Clara, and kiss the little ones for me. Have you done what you promised me, Barnes?"

"What?"

"To be—to be kind to Clara. Don't say cruel things to her. She has a high spirit, and she feels them, though she says nothing."

"Doesn't she?" said Barnes, grimly.

"Ah, Barnes, be gentle with her. Seldom as I saw you together, when I lived with you in the spring, I could see that you were harsh, though she affected to laugh when she spoke of your conduct to her. Be kind. I am sure it is the best, Barnes; better than all the wit in the world. Look at grandmamma, how witty she was and is; what a reputation she had, how people were afraid of her; and see her now—quite alone."

"I'll see her in the morning quite alone, my dear," says Barnes, waving a little gloved hand. "Bye-bye!" and his brougham drove away. While Ethel Newcome had been under her brother's roof, where I and friend Clive, and scores of others, had been smartly entertained, there had been quarrels and recriminations, misery and heart-burning, cruel words and shameful struggles, the wretched combatants in which appeared before the world with smiling faces, resuming their battle when the feast was concluded and the company gone.

On the next morning, when Barnes came to visit his grandmother, Miss Newcome was gone away to see her sister-in-law, Lady Kew said, with whom she was going to pass the morning; so Barnes and Lady Kew had an uninterrupted tete-a-tete, in which the former acquainted the old lady with the proposal which Colonel Newcome had made to him on the previous night.

Lady Kew wondered what the impudence of the world's would come to. An artist propose for Ethel! One of her footmen might propose next, and she supposed Barnes would bring the message. "The father came and proposed for this young painter, and you didn't order him out of the room!"

Barnes laughed. "The Colonel is one of my constituents. I can't afford to order the Bundelcund Banking Company out of its own room."

"You did not tell Ethel this pretty news, I suppose?"

"Of course I didn't tell Ethel. Nor did I tell the Colonel that Ethel was in London. He fancies her in Scotland with your ladyship at this moment."

"I wish the Colonel were at Calcutta, and his son with him. I wish he was in the Ganges, I wish he was under Juggernaut's car," cried the old lady. "How much money has the wretch really got? If he is of importance to the bank, of course you must keep well with him. Five thousand a year, and he says he will settle it all on his son? He must be crazy. There is nothing some of these people will not do, no sacrifice they will not make, to ally themselves with good families. Certainly you must remain on good terms with him and his bank. And we must say nothing of the business to Ethel, and trot out of town as quickly as we can. Let me see? We go to Drummington on Saturday. This is Tuesday. Barkins, you will keep the front drawing-room shutters shut, and remember we are not in town, unless Lady Glenlivat or Lord Farintosh should call."

"Do you think Farintosh will—will call, ma'am?" asked Sir Barnes demurely.

"He will be going through to Newmarket. He has been where we have been at two or three places in Scotland," replies the lady, with equal gravity. "His poor mother wishes him to give up his bachelor's life—as well she may—for you young men are terribly dissipated. Rossmont is quite a regal place. His Norfolk house is not inferior. A young man of that station ought to marry, and live at his places, and be an example to his people, instead of frittering away his time at Paris and Vienna amongst the most odious company."

"Is he going to Drummington?" asks the grandson.

"I believe he has been invited. We shall go to Paris for November: he probably will be there," answered the Dowager casually; "and tired of the dissipated life he has been leading, let us hope he will mend his ways, and find a virtuous, well-bred young woman to keep him right." With this her ladyship's apothecary is announced, and her banker and grandson takes his leave.

Sir Barnes walked into the City with his umbrella, read his letters, conferred with his partners and confidential clerks; was for a while not the exasperated husband, or the affectionate brother, or the amiable grandson, but the shrewd, brisk banker, engaged entirely with his business. Presently he had occasion to go on 'Change, or elsewhere, to confer with brother-capitalists, and in Cornhill behold he meets his uncle, Colonel Newcome, riding towards the India House, a groom behind him.

The Colonel springs off his horse, and Barnes greets him in the blandest manner. "Have you any news for me, Barnes?" cries the officer.

"The accounts from Calcutta are remarkably good. That cotton is of admirable quality really. Mr. Briggs, of our house, who knows cotton as well as any man in England, says——"

"It's not the cotton, my dear Sir Barnes," cries the other.

"The bills are perfectly good; there is no sort of difficulty about them. Our house will take half a million of 'em, if——"

"You are talking of bills, and I am thinking of poor Clive," the Colonel interposes. "I wish you could give me good news for him, Barnes."

"I wish I could. I heartily trust that I may some day. My good wishes you know are enlisted in your son's behalf," cries Barnes, gallantly. "Droll place to talk sentiment in—Cornhill, isn't it? But Ethel, as I told you, is in the hands of higher powers, and we must conciliate Lady Kew if we can. She has always spoken very highly of Clive; very."

"Had I not best go to her?" asks the Colonel.

"Into the North, my good sir? She is—ah—she is travelling about. I think you had best depend upon me, Good morning. In the City we have no hearts, you know, Colonel. Be sure you shall hear from me as soon as Lady Kew and Ethel come to town."

And the banker hurried away, shaking his finger-tips to his uncle, and leaving the good Colonel utterly surprised at his statements. For the fact is, the Colonel knew that Lady Kew was in London, having been apprised of the circumstance in the simplest manner in the world, namely, by a note from Miss Ethel, which billet he had in his pocket, whilst he was talking with the head of the house of Hobson Brothers:—

"My dear uncle" (the note said), "how glad I shall be to see you! How shall I thank you for the beautiful shawl, and the kind, kind remembrance of me? I found your present yesterday evening, on our arrival from the North. We are only here en passant, and see nobody in Queen Street but Barnes, who has just been about business, and he does not count, you know. I shall go and see Clara to-morrow, and make her take me to see your pretty friend, Mrs. Pendennis. How glad I should be if you happened to pay Mrs. P. a visit about two! Good-night. I thank you a thousand times, and am always your affectionate E."

"Queen Street. Tuesday night. Twelve o'clock."

This note came to Colonel Newcome's breakfast-table, and he smothered the exclamation of wonder which was rising to his lips, not choosing to provoke the questions of Clive, who sate opposite to him. Clive's father was in a woeful perplexity all that forenoon. "Tuesday night, twelve o'clock," thought he. "Why, Barnes must have gone to his grandmother from my dinner-table; and he told me she was out of town, and said so again just now when we met in the City." (The Colonel was riding towards Richmond at this time.) "What cause had the young man to tell me these lies? Lady Kew may not wish to be at home for me, but need Barnes Newcome say what is untrue to mislead me? The fellow actually went away simpering, and kissing his hand to me, with a falsehood on his lips! What a pretty villain! A fellow would deserve, and has got, a horse-whipping for less. And to think of a Newcome doing this to his own flesh and blood; a young Judas!" Very sad and bewildered, the Colonel rode towards Richmond, where he was to happen to call on Mrs. Pendennis.

It was not much of a fib that Barnes had told. Lady Kew announcing that she was out of town, her grandson, no doubt, thought himself justified in saying so, as any other of her servants would have done. But if he had recollected how Ethel came down with the Colonel's shawl on her shoulders, how it was possible she might have written to thank her uncle, surely Barnes Newcome would not have pulled that unlucky long-bow. The banker had other things to think of than Ethel and her shawl.

When Thomas Newcome dismounted at the door of Honeymoon Cottage, Richmond, the temporary residence of A. Pendennis, Esq., one of the handsomest young women in England ran into the passage with outstretched arms, called him her dear old uncle, and gave him two kisses, that I dare say brought blushes on his lean sunburnt cheeks. Ethel clung always to his affection. She wanted that man, rather than any other in the whole world, to think well of her. When she was with him, she was the amiable and simple, the loving impetuous creature of old times. She chose to think of no other. Worldliness, heartlessness, eager scheming, cold flirtations, marquis-hunting and the like, disappeared for a while—and were not, as she sate at that honest man's side. O me! that we should have to record such charges against Ethel Newcome!

"He was come home for good now? He would never leave that boy he spoiled so, who was a good boy, too: she wished she could see him oftener. At Paris, at Madame de Florac's—I found out all about Madame de Florac, sir," says Miss Ethel, with a laugh—"we used often to meet there; and here, sometimes, in London. But in London it was different. You know what peculiar notions some people have; and as I live with grandmamma, who is most kind to me and my brothers, of course I must obey her, see her," etc. etc. That the young lady went on talking, defending herself, whom nobody attacked, protesting her dislike to gaiety and dissipation—you would have fancied her an artless young country lass, only longing to trip back to her village, milk her cows at sunrise, and sit spinning of winter evenings by the fire.

"Why do you come and spoil my tete-a-tete with my uncle, Mr. Pendennis?" cries the young lady to the master of the house, who happens to enter "Of all the men in the world the one I like best to talk to! Does he not look younger than when he went to India? When Clive marries that pretty little Miss Mackenzie, you will marry again, uncle, and I will be jealous of your wife."

"Did Barnes tell you that we had met last night, my dear?" asks the Colonel.

"Not one word. Your shawl and your dear kind note told me you were come. Why did not Barnes tell us? Why do you look so grave?"

"He has not told her that I was here, and would have me believe her absent," thought Newcome, as his countenance fell. "Shall I give her my own message, and plead my poor boy's cause with her?" I know not whether he was about to lay his suit before her; he said himself subsequently that his mind was not made up; but at this juncture, a procession of nurses and babies made their appearance, followed by the two mothers, who had been comparing their mutual prodigies (each lady having her own private opinion)—Lady Clara and my wife—the latter for once gracious to Lady Clara Newcome, in consideration of the infantine company with which she came to visit Mrs. Pendennis.

Luncheon was served presently. The carriage of the Newcomes drove away, my wife smilingly pardoning Ethel for the assignation which the young person had made at our house. And when those ladies were gone, our good Colonel held a council of war with us his two friends, and told us what had happened between him and Barnes on that morning and the previous night. His offer to sacrifice every shilling of his fortune to young Clive seemed to him to be perfectly simple (though the recital of the circumstance brought tears into my wife's eyes)—he mentioned it by the way, and as a matter that was scarcely to call for comment, much less praise.

Barnes's extraordinary statements respecting Lady Kew's absence puzzled the elder Newcome; and he spoke of his nephew's conduct with much indignation. In vain I urged that her ladyship desiring to be considered absent from London, her grandson was bound to keep her secret. "Keep her secret, yes! Tell me lies, no!" cries out the Colonel. Sir Barnes's conduct was in fact indefensible, though not altogether unusual—the worst deduction to be drawn from it, in my opinion, was, that Clive's chance with the young lady was but a poor one, and that Sir Barnes Newcome, inclined to keep his uncle in good-humour, would therefore give him no disagreeable refusal.

Now this gentleman could no more pardon a lie than he could utter one. He would believe all and everything a man told him until deceived once, after which he never forgave. And wrath being once roused in his simple mind and distrust firmly fixed there, his anger and prejudices gathered daily. He could see no single good quality in his opponent; and hated him with a daily increasing bitterness.

As ill luck would have it, that very same evening, at his return to town, Thomas Newcome entered Bays's club, of which, at our request, he had become a member during his last visit to England, and there was Sir Barnes, as usual, on his way homewards from the City. Barnes was writing at a table, and sealing and closing a letter, as he saw the Colonel enter; he thought he had been a little inattentive and curt with his uncle in the morning; had remarked, perhaps, the expression of disapproval on the Colonel's countenance. He simpered up to his uncle as the latter entered the clubroom, and apologised for his haste when they met in the City in the morning—all City men were so busy! "And I have been writing about that little affair, just as you came in," he said; "quite a moving letter to Lady Kew, I assure you, and I do hope and trust we shall have a favourable answer in a day or two."

"You said her ladyship was in the North, I think?" said the Colonel, drily.

"Oh, yes—in the North, at—at Lord Wallsend's—great coal-proprietor, you know."

"And your sister is with her?"

"Ethel is always with her."

"I hope you will send her my very best remembrances," said the Colonel.

"I'll open the letter, and add 'em in a postscript," said Barnes.

"Confounded liar?" cried the Colonel, mentioning the circumstance to me afterwards, "why does not somebody pitch him out of the bow-window?"

If we were in the secret of Sir Barnes Newcome's correspondence, and could but peep into that particular letter to his grandmother, I dare say we should read that he had seen the Colonel, who was very anxious about his darling youth's suit, but, pursuant to Lady Kew's desire, Barnes had stoutly maintained that her ladyship was still in the North, enjoying the genial hospitality of Lord Wallsend. That of course he should say nothing to Ethel, except with Lady Kew's full permission: that he wished her a pleasant trip to ——, and was, etc. etc.

Then if we could follow him, we might see him reach his Belgravian mansion, and fling an angry word to his wife as she sits alone in the darkling drawing-room, poring over the embers. He will ask her, probably with an oath, why the —— she is not dressed? and if she always intends to keep her company waiting? An hour hence, each with a smirk, and the lady in smart raiment, with flowers in her hair, will be greeting their guests as they arrive. Then will come dinner and such conversation as it brings. Then at night Sir Barnes will issue forth, cigar in mouth; to return to his own chamber at his own hour; to breakfast by himself; to go Citywards, money-getting. He will see his children once a fortnight, and exchange a dozen sharp words with his wife twice in that time.

More and more sad does the Lady Clara become from day to day; liking more to sit lonely over the fire; careless about the sarcasms of her husband; the prattle of her children. She cries sometimes over the cradle of the young heir. She is aweary, aweary. You understand, the man to whom her parents sold her does not make her happy, though she has been bought with diamonds, two carriages, several large footmen, a fine country-house with delightful gardens, and conservatories, and with all this she is miserable—is it possible?



CHAPTER LIII. In which Kinsmen fall out

Not the least difficult part of Thomas Newcome's present business was to keep from his son all knowledge of the negotiation in which he was engaged on Clive's behalf. If my gentle reader has had sentimental disappointments, he or she is aware that the friends who have given him most sympathy under these calamities have been persons who have had dismal histories of their own at some time of their lives, and I conclude Colonel Newcome in his early days must have suffered very cruelly in that affair of which we have a slight cognisance, or he would not have felt so very much anxiety about Clive's condition.

A few chapters back and we described the first attack, and Clive's manful cure: then we had to indicate the young gentleman's relapse, and the noisy exclamations of the youth under this second outbreak of fever. Calling him back after she had dismissed him, and finding pretext after pretext to see him,—why did the girl encourage him, as she certainly did? I allow, with Mrs. Grundy and most moralists, that Miss Newcome's conduct in this matter was highly reprehensible; that if she did not intend to marry Clive she should have broken with him—altogether; that a virtuous young woman of high principle, etc. etc., having once determined to reject a suitor, should separate from him utterly then and there—never give him again the least chance of a hope, or reillume the extinguished fire in the wretch's bosom.

But coquetry, but kindness, but family affection, and a strong, very strong partiality for the rejected lover—are these not to be taken in account, and to plead as excuses for her behaviour to her cousin? The least unworthy part of her conduct, some critics will say, was that desire to see Clive and be well with him: as she felt the greatest regard for him, the showing it was not blameable; and every flutter which she made to escape out of the meshes which the world had cast about her was but the natural effort at liberty. It was her prudence which was wrong; and her submission wherein she was most culpable. In the early church story, do we not read how young martyrs constantly had to disobey worldly papas and mammas, who would have had them silent, and not utter their dangerous opinions? how their parents locked them up, kept them on bread-and-water, whipped and tortured them in order to enforce obedience?—nevertheless they would declare the truth: they would defy the gods by law established, and deliver themselves up to the lions or the tormentors. Are not there Heathen Idols enshrined among us still? Does not the world worship them, and persecute those who refuse to kneel? Do not many timid souls sacrifice to them; and other bolder spirits rebel and, with rage at their hearts, bend down their stubborn knees at their altars? See! I began by siding with Mrs. Grundy and the world, and at the next turn of the see-saw have lighted down on Ethel's side, and am disposed to think that the very best part of her conduct has been those escapades which—which right-minded persons most justly condemn. At least, that a young beauty should torture a man with alternate liking and indifference; allure, dismiss, and call him back out of banishment; practise arts to please upon him, and ignore them when rebuked for her coquetry—these are surely occurrences so common in young women's history as to call for no special censure; and if on these charges Miss Newcome is guilty, is she, of all her sex, alone in her criminality?

So Ethel and her duenna went away upon their tour of visits to mansions so splendid, and among hosts and guests so polite, that the present modest historian does not dare to follow them. Suffice it to say that Duke This and Earl That were, according to their hospitable custom, entertaining a brilliant circle of friends at their respective castles, all whose names the Morning Post gave; and among them those of the Dowager Countess of Kew and Miss Newcome.

During her absence, Thomas Newcome grimly awaited the result of his application to Barnes. That Baronet showed his uncle a letter, or rather a postscript, from Lady Kew, which probably had been dictated by Barnes himself, in which the Dowager said she was greatly touched by Colonel Newcome's noble offer; that though she owned she had very different views for her granddaughter, Miss Newcome's choice of course lay with herself. Meanwhile, Lady K. and Ethel were engaged in a round of visits to the country, and there would be plenty of time to resume this subject when they came to London for the season. And, lest dear Ethel's feelings should be needlessly agitated by a discussion of the subject, and the Colonel should take a fancy to write to her privately, Lady Kew gave orders that all letters from London should be despatched under cover to her ladyship, and carefully examined the contents of the packet before Ethel received her share of the correspondence.

To write to her personally on the subject of the marriage, Thomas Newcome had determined was not a proper course for him to pursue. "They consider themselves," says he, "above us, forsooth, in their rank of life (oh, mercy! what pigmies we are! and don't angels weep at the brief authority in which we dress ourselves up!) and of course the approaches on our side must be made in regular form, and the parents of the young people must act for them. Clive is too honourable a man to wish to conduct the affair in any other way. He might try the influence of his beaux yeux, and run off to Gretna with a girl who had nothing; but the young lady being wealthy, and his relation, sir, we must be on the point of honour; and all the Kews in Christendom shan't have more pride than we in this matter."

All this time we are keeping Mr. Clive purposely in the background. His face is so woebegone that we do not care to bring it forward in the family picture. His case is so common that surely its lugubrious symptoms need not be described at length. He works away fiercely at his pictures, and in spite of himself improves in his art. He sent a "Combat of Cavalry," and a picture of "Sir Brian the Templar carrying off Rebecca," to the British Institution this year; both of which pieces were praised in other journals besides the Pall Mall Gazette. He did not care for the newspaper praises. He was rather surprised when a dealer purchased his "Sir Brian the Templar." He came and went from our house a melancholy swain. He was thankful for Laura's kindness and pity. J. J.'s studio was his principal resort; and I dare say, as he set up his own easel there, and worked by his friend's side, he bemoaned his lot to his sympathising friend.

Sir Barnes Newcome's family was absent from London during the winter. His mother, and his brothers and sisters, his wife and his two children, were gone to Newcome for Christmas. Some six weeks after seeing him, Ethel wrote her uncle a kind, merry letter. They had been performing private theatricals at the country-house where she and Lady Kew were staying. "Captain Crackthorpe made an admirable Jeremy Diddler in 'Raising the Wind.' Lord Farintosh broke down lamentably as Fusbos in 'Bombastes Furioso.'" Miss Ethel had distinguished herself in both of these facetious little comedies. "I should like Clive to paint me as Miss Plainways," she wrote. "I wore a powdered front, painted my face all over wrinkles, imitated old Lady Griffin as well as I could, and looked sixty at least."

Thomas Newcome wrote an answer to his fair niece's pleasant letter; "Clive," he said, "would be happy to bargain to paint her, and nobody else but her, all the days of his life; and," the Colonel was sure, "would admire her at sixty as much as he did now, when she was forty years younger." But, determined on maintaining his appointed line of conduct respecting Miss Newcome, he carried his letter to Sir Barnes, and desired him to forward it to his sister. Sir Barnes took the note, and promised to despatch it. The communications between him and his uncle had been very brief and cold, since the telling of these little fibs concerning old Lady Kew's visits to London, which the Baronet dismissed from his mind as soon as they were spoken, and which the good Colonel never could forgive. Barnes asked his uncle to dinner once or twice, but the Colonel was engaged. How was Barnes to know the reason of the elder's refusal? A London man, a banker, and a Member of Parliament, has a thousand things to think of; and no time to wonder that friends refuse his invitations to dinner. Barnes continued to grin and smile most affectionately when he met the Colonel; to press his hand, to congratulate him on the last accounts from India, unconscious of the scorn and distrust with which his senior mentally regarded him. "Old boy is doubtful about the young cub's love-affair," the Baronet may have thought. "We'll ease his old mind on that point some time hence." No doubt Barnes thought he was conducting the business very smartly and diplomatically.

I heard myself news at this period from the gallant Crackthorpe, which, being interested in my young friend's happiness, filled me with some dismay. "Our friend the painter and glazier has been hankering about our barracks at Knightsbridge" (the noble Life Guards Green had now pitched their tents in that suburb), "and pumping me about la belle cousin. I don't like to break it to him—I don't really, now. But it's all up with his chance, I think. Those private theatricals at Fallowfield have done Farintosh's business. He used to rave about the Newcomes to me, as we were riding home from hunting. He gave Bob Henchman the lie, who told a story which Bob got from his man, who had it from Miss Newcome's lady's-maid, about—about some journey to Brighton, which the cousins took." Here Mr. Crackthorpe grinned most facetiously. "Farintosh swore he'd knock Henchman down; and vows he will be the death of—will murder our friend Clive when he comes to town. As for Henchman, he was in a desperate way. He lives on the Marquis, you know, and Farintosh's anger or his marriage will be the loss of free quarters, and ever so many good dinners a year to him." I did not deem it necessary to impart Crackthorpe's story to Clive, or explain to him the reason why Lord Farintosh scowled most fiercely upon the young painter, and passed him without any other sign of recognition one day as Clive and I were walking together in Pall Mall. If my lord wanted a quarrel, young Clive was not a man to balk him; and would have been a very fierce customer to deal with, in his actual state of mind.

A pauper child in London at seven years old knows how to go to market, to fetch the beer, to pawn father's coat, to choose the largest fried fish or the nicest ham-bone, to nurse Mary Jane of three,—to conduct a hundred operations of trade or housekeeping, which a little Belgravian does not perhaps acquire in all the days of her life. Poverty and necessity force this precociousness on the poor little brat. There are children who are accomplished shoplifters and liars almost as soon as they can toddle and speak. I dare say little Princes know the laws of etiquette as regards themselves, and the respect due to their rank, at a very early period of their royal existence. Every one of us, according to his degree, can point to the Princekins of private life who are flattered and worshipped, and whose little shoes grown men kiss as soon almost as they walk upon ground.

It is a wonder what human nature will support: and that, considering the amount of flattery some people are crammed with from their cradles, they do not grow worse and more selfish than they are. Our poor little pauper just mentioned is dosed with Daffy's Elixir, and somehow survives the drug. Princekin or lordkin from his earliest days has nurses, dependants, governesses, little friends, schoolfellows, schoolmasters, fellow-collegians, college tutors, stewards and valets, led captains of his suite, and women innumerable flattering him and doing him honour. The tradesman's manner, which to you and me is decently respectful, becomes straightway frantically servile before Princekin. Honest folks at railway stations whisper to their families, "That's the Marquis of Farintosh," and look hard at him as he passes. Landlords cry, "This way, my lord; this room for your lordship." They say at public schools Princekin is taught the beauties of equality, and thrashed into some kind of subordination. Psha! Toad-eaters in pinafores surround Princekin. Do not respectable people send their children so as to be at the same school with him; don't they follow him to college, and eat his toads through life?

And as for women—oh, my dear friends and brethren in this vale of tears—did you ever see anything so curious, monstrous, and amazing as the way in which women court Princekin when he is marriageable, and pursue him with their daughters? Who was the British nobleman in old old days who brought his three daughters to the King of Mercia, that His Majesty might choose one after inspection? Mercia was but a petty province, and its king in fact a Princekin. Ever since those extremely ancient and venerable times the custom exists not only in Mercia, but in all the rest of the provinces inhabited by the Angles, and before Princekins the daughters of our nobles are trotted out.

There was no day of his life which our young acquaintance, the Marquis of Farintosh, could remember on which he had not been flattered; and no society which did not pay him court. At a private school he could recollect the master's wife stroking his pretty curls and treating him furtively to goodies; at college he had the tutor simpering and bowing as he swaggered over the grass-plat; old men at clubs would make way for him and fawn on him—not your mere pique-assiettes and penniless parasites, but most respectable toad-eaters, fathers of honest families, gentlemen themselves of good station, who respected this young gentleman as one of the institutions of their country, and the admired wisdom of the nation that set him to legislate over us. When Lord Farintosh walked the streets at night, he felt himself like Haroun Alraschid—(that is, he would have felt so had he ever heard of the Arabian potentate)—a monarch in disguise affably observing and promenading the city. And let us be sure there was a Mesrour in his train to knock at the doors for him and run the errands of this young caliph. Of course he met with scores of men in life who neither flattered him nor would suffer his airs; but he did not like the company of such, or for the sake of truth undergo the ordeal of being laughed at; he preferred toadies, generally speaking. "I like," says he, "you know, those fellows who are always saying pleasant things, you know, and who would run from here to Hammersmith if I asked 'em—much better than those fellows who are always making fun of me, you know." A man of his station who likes flatterers need not shut himself up; he can get plenty of society.

As for women, it was his lordship's opinion that every daughter of Eve was bent on marrying him. A Scotch marquis, an English earl, of the best blood in the empire, with a handsome person, and a fortune of fifteen thousand a year, how could the poor creatures do otherwise than long for him? He blandly received their caresses; took their coaxing and cajolery as matters of course; and surveyed the beauties of his time as the Caliph the moonfaces of his harem. My lord intended to marry certainly. He did not care for money, nor for rank; he expected consummate beauty and talent, and some day would fling his handkerchief to the possessor of these, and place her by his side upon the Farintosh throne.

At this time there were but two or three young ladies in society endowed with the necessary qualifications, or who found favour in his eyes. His lordship hesitated in his selection from these beauties. He was not in a hurry, he was not angry at the notion that Lady Kew (and Miss Newcome with her) hunted him. What else should they do but pursue an object so charming? Everybody hunted him. The other young ladies, whom we need not mention, languished after him still more longingly. He had little notes from these; presents of purses worked by them, and cigar-cases embroidered with his coronet. They sang to him in cosy boudoirs—mamma went out of the room, and sister Ann forgot something in the drawing-room. They ogled him as they sang. Trembling they gave him a little foot to mount them, that they might ride on horseback with him. They tripped along by his side from the Hall to the pretty country church on Sundays. They warbled hymns: sweetly looking at him the while mamma whispered confidentially to him, "What an angel Cecilia is!" And so forth, and so forth—with which chaff our noble bird was by no means to be caught. When he had made up his great mind, that the time was come and the woman, he was ready to give a Marchioness of Farintosh to the English nation.

Miss Newcome has been compared ere this to the statue of "Huntress Diana" at the Louvre, whose haughty figure and beauty the young lady indeed somewhat resembled. I was not present when Diana and Diana's grandmother hunted the noble Scottish stag of whom we have just been writing; nor care to know how many times Lord Farintosh escaped, and how at last he was brought to bay and taken by his resolute pursuers. Paris, it appears, was the scene of his fall and capture. The news was no doubt well known amongst Lord Farintosh's brother-dandies, among exasperated matrons and virgins in Mayfair, and in polite society generally, before it came to simple Tom Newcome and his son. Not a word on the subject had Sir Barnes mentioned to the Colonel: perhaps not choosing to speak till the intelligence was authenticated; perhaps not wishing to be the bearer of tidings so painful.

Though the Colonel may have read in his Pall Mall Gazette a paragraph which announced an approaching MARRIAGE IN HIGH LIFE, "between a noble young marquis and an accomplished and beautiful young lady, daughter and sister of a Northern baronet," he did not know who were the fashionable persons about to be made happy, nor, until he received a letter from an old friend who lived at Paris, was the fact conveyed to him. Here is the letter preserved by him along with all that he ever received from the same hand:—

"Rue St. Dominique, St. Germain,

"Paris, 10 Fev.

"So behold you of return, my friend! you quit for ever the sword and those arid plains where you have passed so many years of your life, separated from those to whom, at the commencement, you held very nearly. Did it not seem once as if two hands never could unlock, so closely were they enlaced together? Ah, mine are old and feeble now; forty years have passed since the time when you used to say they were young and fair. How well I remember me of every one of those days, though there is a death between me and them, and it is as across a grave I review them! Yet another parting, and tears and regrets are finished. Tenez, I do not believe them when they say there is no meeting for us afterwards, there above. To what good to have seen you, friend, if we are to part here, and in Heaven too? I have not altogether forgotten your language, is it not so? I remember it because it was yours, and that of my happy days. I radote like an old woman as I am. M. de Florac has known my history from the commencement. May I not say that after so many of years I have been faithful to him and to all my promises? When the end comes with its great absolution, I shall not be sorry. One supports the combats of life, but they are long, and one comes from them very wounded; ah, when shall they be over?

"You return and I salute you with wishes for parting. How much egotism! I have another project which I please myself to arrange. You know how I am arrived to love Clive as own my child. I very quick surprised his secret, the poor boy, when he was here it is twenty months. He looked so like you as I repeal me of you in the old time! He told me he had no hope of his beautiful cousin. I have heard of the fine marriage that one makes her. Paul, my son, has been at the English Ambassade last night and has made his congratulations to M. de Farintosh. Paul says him handsome, young, not too spiritual, rich, and haughty, like all, all noble Montagnards.

"But it is not of M. de Farintosh I write, whose marriage, without doubt, has been announced to you. I have a little project; very foolish, perhaps. You know Mr. the Duke of Ivry has left me guardian of his little daughter Antoinette, whose affreuse mother no one sees more. Antoinette is pretty and good, and soft, and with an affectionate heart. I love her already as my infant. I wish to bring her up, and that Clive should marry her. They say you are returned very rich. What follies are these I write! In the long evenings of winter, the children escaped it is a long time from the maternal nest, a silent old man my only company,—I live but of the past; and play with its souvenirs as the detained caress little birds, little flowers, in their prisons. I was born for the happiness; my God! I have learned it in knowing you. In losing you I have lost it. It is not against the will of Heaven I oppose myself. It is man, who makes himself so much of this evil and misery, this slavery, these tears, these crimes, perhaps.

"This marriage of the young Scotch Marquis and the fair Ethel (I love her in spite of all, and shall see her soon and congratulate her, for, do you see, I might have stopped this fine marriage, and did my best and more than my duty for our poor Clive) shall make itself in London next spring, I hear. You shall assist scarcely at the ceremony; he, poor boy, shall not care to be there. Bring him to Paris to make the court to my little Antoinette: bring him to Paris to his good friend, Comtesse de Florac."

"I read marvels of his works in an English journal, which one sends me."

Clive was not by when this letter reached his father. Clive was in his painting-room, and lest he should meet his son, and in order to devise the best means of breaking the news to the lad, Thomas Newcome retreated out of doors; and from the Oriental he crossed Oxford Street, and from Oxford Street he stalked over the roomy pavements of Gloucester Place, and there he bethought him how he had neglected Mrs. Hobson Newcome of late, and the interesting family of Bryanstone Square. So he went to leave his card at Maria's door: her daughters, as we have said, are quite grown girls. If they have been lectured, and learning, and back-boarded, and practising, and using the globes, and laying in a store of 'ologies, ever since, what a deal they must know! Colonel Newcome was admitted to see his nieces, and Consummate Virtue, their parent. Maria was charmed to see her brother-in-law; she greeted him with reproachful tenderness: "Why, why," her fine eyes seemed to say, "have you so long neglected us? Do you think because I am wise, and gifted, and good, and you are, it must be confessed, a poor creature with no education, I am not also affable? Come, let the prodigal be welcomed by his virtuous relatives: come and lunch with us, Colonel!" He sate down accordingly to the family tiffin.

When the meal was over, the mother, who had matter of importance to impart to him, besought him to go to the drawing-room, and there poured out such a eulogy upon her children's qualities as fond mothers know how to utter. They knew this and they knew that. They were instructed by the most eminent professors; "that wretched Frenchwoman, whom you may remember here, Mademoiselle Lenoir," Maria remarked parenthetically, "turned out, oh, frightfully! She taught the girls the worst accent, it appears. Her father was not a colonel; he was—oh! never mind! It is a mercy I got rid of that fiendish woman, and before my precious ones knew what she was!" And then followed details of the perfections of the two girls, with occasional side-shots at Lady Anne's family, just as in the old time. "Why don't you bring your boy, whom I have always loved as a son, and who avoids me? Why does not Clive know his cousins? They are very different from others of his kinswomen, who think best of the heartless world."

"I fear, Maria, there is too much truth in what you say," sighs the Colonel, drumming on a book on the drawing-room table, and looking down sees it is a great, large, square, gilt Peerage, open at FARINTOSH, MARQUIS OF.—Fergus Angus Malcolm Mungo Roy, Marquis of Farintosh, Earl of Glenlivat, in the peerage of Scotland; also Earl of Rossmont, in that of the United Kingdom. Son of Angus Fergus Malcolm, Earl of Glenlivat, and grandson and heir of Malcolm Mungo Angus, first Marquis of Farintosh, and twenty-fifth Earl, etc. etc.

"You have heard the news regarding Ethel?" remarks Hobson.

"I have just heard," says the poor Colonel.

"I have a letter from Anne this morning," Maria continues. "They are of course delighted with the match. Lord Farintosh is wealthy, handsome; has been a little wild, I hear; is not such a husband as I would choose for my darlings, but poor Brian's family have been educated to love the world; and Ethel no doubt is flattered by the prospects before her. I have heard that some one else was a little epris in that quarter. How does Clive bear the news, my dear Colonel?"

"He has long expected it," says the Colonel, rising: "and I left him very cheerful at breakfast this morning."

"Send him to see us, the naughty boy!" cries Maria. "We don't change; we remember old times, to us he will ever be welcome!" And with this confirmation of Madame de Florac's news, Thomas Newcome walked sadly homewards.

And now Thomas Newcome had to break the news to his son; who received the shot in such a way as caused his friends and confidants to admire his high spirit. He said he had long been expecting some such announcement: it was many months since Ethel had prepared him for it. Under her peculiar circumstances he did not see how she could act otherwise than she had done. And he narrated to the Colonel the substance of the conversation which the two young people had had together several months before, in Madame de Florac's garden.

Clive's father did not tell his son of his own bootless negotiation with Barnes Newcome. There was no need to recall that now; but the Colonel's wrath against his nephew exploded in conversation with me, who was the confidant of father and son in this business. Ever since that luckless day when Barnes thought proper to—to give a wrong address for Lady Kew, Thomas Newcome's anger had been growing. He smothered it yet for a while, sent a letter to Lady Anne Newcome, briefly congratulating her on the choice which he had heard Miss Newcome had made; and in acknowledgment of Madame de Florac's more sentimental epistle he wrote a reply which has not been preserved, but in which he bade her rebuke Miss Newcome for not having answered him when he wrote to her, and not having acquainted her old uncle with her projected union.

To this message, Ethel wrote back a brief, hurried reply; it said:—

"I saw Madame de Florac last night at her daughter's reception, and she gave me my dear uncle's messages. Yes, the news is true which you have heard from Madame de Florac, and in Bryanstone Square. I did not like to write it to you, because I know one whom I regard as a brother (and a great, great deal better), and to whom I know it will give pain. He knows that I have done my duty, and why I have acted as I have done. God bless him and his dear father!

"What is this about a letter which I never answered? Grandmamma knows nothing about a letter. Mamma has enclosed to me that which you wrote to her, but there has been no letter from T. N. to his sincere and affectionate E. N.

"Rue de Rivoli. Friday."

This was too much, and the cup of Thomas Newcome's wrath overflowed. Barnes had lied about Ethel's visit to London: Barnes had lied in saying that he delivered the message with which his uncle charged him: Barnes had lied about the letter which he had received, and never sent. With these accusations firmly proven in his mind against his nephew, the Colonel went down to confront that sinner.

Wherever he should find Barnes, Thomas Newcome was determined to tell him his mind. Should they meet on the steps of a church, on the flags of 'Change, or in the newspaper-room at Bays's, at evening-paper time, when men most do congregate, Thomas the Colonel was determined upon exposing and chastising his father's grandson. With Ethel's letter in his pocket, he took his way into the City, penetrated into the unsuspecting back-parlour of Hobson's bank, and was disappointed at first at only finding his half-brother Hobson there engaged over his newspaper. The Colonel signified his wish to see Sir Barnes Newcome. "Sir Barnes was not come in yet. You've heard about the marriage," says Hobson. "Great news for the Barnes's, ain't it? The head of the house is as proud as a peacock about it. Said he was going out to Samuels, the diamond merchants; going to make his sister some uncommon fine present. Jolly to be uncle to a marquis, ain't it, Colonel? I'll have nothing under a duke for my girls. I say, I know whose nose is out of joint. But young fellows get over these things, and Clive won't die this time, I dare say."

While Hobson Newcome made these satiric and facetious remarks, his half-brother paced up and down the glass parlour, scowling over the panes into the bank where the busy young clerks sate before their ledgers. At last he gave an "Ah!" as of satisfaction. Indeed, he had seen Sir Barnes Newcome enter into the bank.

The Baronet stopped and spoke with a clerk, and presently entered, followed by that young gentleman into his private parlour. Barnes tried to grin when he saw his uncle, and held out his hand to greet the Colonel; but the Colonel put both his behind his back—that which carried his faithful bamboo cane shook nervously. Barnes was aware that the Colonel had the news. "I was going to—to write to you this morning, with—with some intelligence that I am—very—very sorry to give."

"This young gentleman is one of your clerks?" asked Thomas Newcome, blandly.

"Yes; Mr. Boltby, who has your private account. This is Colonel Newcome, Mr. Boltby," says Sir Barnes, in some wonder.

"Mr. Boltby, brother Hobson, you heard what Sir Barnes Newcome said just now respecting certain intelligence which he grieved to give me?"

At this the three other gentlemen respectively wore looks of amazement.

"Allow me to say in your presence, that I don't believe one single word Sir Barnes Newcome says, when he tells me that he is very sorry for some intelligence he has to communicate. He lies, Mr. Boltby; he is very glad. I made up my mind that in whatsoever company I met him, and on the very first day I found him—hold your tongue, sir; you shall speak afterwards and tell more lies when I have done—I made up my mind, I say, that on the very first occasion I would tell Sir Barnes Newcome that he was a liar and a cheat. He takes charge of letters and keeps them back. Did you break the seal, sir? There was nothing to steal in my letter to Miss Newcome. He tells me people are out of town, when he goes to see in the next street, after leaving my table, and whom I see myself half an hour before he lies to me about their absence."

"D—n you, go out, and don't stand staring there, you booby!" screams out Sir Barnes to the clerk. "Stop, Boltby. Colonel Newcome, unless you leave this room I shall—I shall——"

"You shall call a policeman. Send for the gentleman, and I will tell the Lord Mayor what I think of Sir Barnes Newcome, Baronet. Mr. Boltby, shall we have the constable in?"

"Sir, you are an old man, and my father's brother, or you know very well I would——"

"You would what, Sir? Upon my word, Barnes Newcome" (here the Colonel's two hands and the bamboo cane came from the rear and formed in front), "but that you are my father's grandson, after a menace like that, I would take you out and cane you in the presence of your clerks. I repeat, sir, that I consider you guilty of treachery, falsehood, and knavery. And if I ever see you at Bays's Club, I will make the same statement to your acquaintance at the west end of the town. A man of your baseness ought to be known, sir; and it shall be my business to make men of honour aware of your character. Mr. Boltby, will you have the kindness to make out my account? Sir Barnes Newcome, for fear of consequences that I should deplore, I recommend you to keep a wide berth of me, sir." And the Colonel twirled his mustachios, and waved his cane in an ominous manner, and Barnes started back spontaneously out of its dangerous circle.

What Mr. Boltby's sentiments may have been regarding this extraordinary scene in which his principal cut so sorry a figure;—whether he narrated the conversation to other gentlemen connected with the establishment of Hobson Brothers, or prudently kept it to himself, I cannot say, having no means of pursuing Mr. B.'s subsequent career. He speedily quitted his desk at Hobson Brothers; and let us presume that Barnes thought Mr. B. had old all the other clerks of the avuncular quarrel. That conviction will make us imagine Barnes still more comfortable. Hobson Newcome no doubt was rejoiced at Barnes's discomfiture; he had been insolent and domineering beyond measure of late to his vulgar good-natured uncle, whereas after the above interview with the Colonel he became very humble and quiet in his demeanour, and for a long, long time never said a rude word. Nay, I fear Hobson must have carried an account of the transaction to Mrs. Hobson and the circle in Bryanstone Square; for Sam Newcome, now entered at Cambridge, called the Baronet "Barnes" quite familiarly; asked after Clara and Ethel; and requested a small loan of Barnes.

Of course the story did not get wind at Bays's; of course Tom Eaves did not know all about it, and say that Sir Barnes had been beaten black-and-blue. Having been treated very ill by the committee in a complaint which he made about the Club cookery, Sir Barnes Newcome never came to Bays's, and at the end of the year took off his name from the lists of the Club.

Sir Barnes, though a little taken aback in the morning, and not ready with an impromptu reply to the Colonel and his cane, could not allow the occurrence to pass without a protest; and indited a letter which Thomas Newcome kept along with some others previously quoted by the compiler of the present memoirs.

It is as follows:—

Belgrave St., Feb. 15, 18—.

"Colonel Newcome, C..B., private.

"SIR—The incredible insolence and violence of your behaviour to-day (inspired by whatever causes or mistakes of your own), cannot be passed without some comment, on my part. I laid before a friend of your own profession, a statement of the words which you applied to me in the presence of my partner and one of my clerks this morning; and my adviser is of opinion, that considering the relationship unhappily subsisting between us, I can take no notice of insults for which you knew when you uttered them, I could not call you to account."

"There is some truth in that," said the Colonel. "He couldn't fight, you know; but then he was such a liar I could not help speaking my mind."

"I gathered from the brutal language which you thought fit to employ towards a disarmed man, the ground of one of your monstrous accusations against me, that I deceived you in stating that my relative, Lady Kew, was in the country, when in fact she was at her house in London.

"To this absurd charge I at once plead guilty. The venerable lady in question was passing through London, where she desired to be free from intrusion. At her ladyship's wish I stated that she was out of town; and would, under the same circumstances, unhesitatingly make the same statement. Your slight acquaintance with the person in question did not warrant that you should force yourself on her privacy, as you would doubtless know were you more familiar with the customs of the society in which she moves.

"I declare upon my honour as a gentleman, that I gave her the message which I promised to deliver from you, and also that I transmitted a letter with which you entrusted me; and repel with scorn and indignation the charges which you were pleased to bring against me, as I treat with contempt the language and the threats which you thought fit to employ.

"Our books show the amount of xl. xs. xd. to your credit, which you will be good enough to withdraw at your earliest convenience; as of course all intercourse must cease henceforth between you and—Yours, etc.

"B. Newcome Newcome."

"I think, sir, he doesn't make out a bad case," Mr. Pendennis remarked to the Colonel, who showed him this majestic letter.

"It would be a good case if I believed a single word of it, Arthur," replied my friend, placidly twirling the old grey moustache. "If you were to say so-and-so, and say that I had brought false charges against you, I should cry mea culpa and apologise with all my heart. But as I have a perfect conviction that every word this fellow says is a lie, what is the use of arguing any more about the matter? I would not believe him if he brought twenty as witnesses, and if he lied till he was black in the other liars' face. Give me the walnuts. I wonder who Sir Barnes's military friend was."

Barnes's military friend was our gallant acquaintance General Sir George Tufto, K.C.B., who a short while afterwards talked over the quarrel with the Colonel, and manfully told him that (in Sir George's opinion) he was wrong. "The little beggar behaved very well, I thought, in the first business. You bullied him so, and in the front of his regiment, too, that it was almost past bearing; and when he deplored, with tears in his eyes, almost, the little humbug! that his relationship prevented him calling you out, ecod, I believed him! It was in the second affair that poor little Barnes showed he was a cocktail."

"What second affair?" asked Thomas Newcome.

"Don't you know? He! he! this is famous!" cries Sir George. "Why, sir, two days after your business, he comes to me with another letter and a face as long as my mare's, by Jove. And that letter, Newcome, was from your young 'un. Stop, here it is!" and from his padded bosom General Sir George Tufto drew a pocket-book, and from the pocket-book a copy of a letter, inscribed, "Clive Newcome, Esq., to Sir B. N. Newcome." "There's no mistake about your fellow, Colonel. No,——him!" and the man of war fired a volley of oaths as a salute to Clive.

And the Colonel, on horseback, riding by the other cavalry officer's side read as follows:—

"George Street, Hanover Square, February 16.

"SIR—Colonel Newcome this morning showed me a letter bearing your signature, in which you state—1. That Colonel Newcome has uttered calumnious and insolent charges against you. 2. That Colonel Newcome so spoke, knowing that you could take no notice of his charges of falsehood and treachery, on account of the relationship subsisting between you.

"Your statements would evidently imply that Colonel Newcome has been guilty of ungentlemanlike conduct, and of cowardice towards you.

"As there can be no reason why we should not meet in any manner that you desire, I here beg leave to state, on my own part, that I fully coincide with Colonel Newcome in his opinion that you have been guilty of falsehood and treachery, and that the charge of cowardice which you dare to make against a gentleman of his tried honour and courage, is another wilful and cowardly falsehood on your part.

"And I hope you will refer the bearer of this note, my friend, Mr. George Warrington, of the Upper Temple, to the military gentleman whom you consulted in respect to the just charges of Colonel Newcome. Waiting a prompt reply, believe me, sir—Your obedient servant, Clive Newcome.

"Sir Barnes Newcome Newcome, Bart., M. P., etc."

"What a blunderhead I am!" cries the Colonel, with delight on his countenance, spite of his professed repentance. "It never once entered my head that the youngster would take any part in the affair. I showed him his cousin's letter casually, just to amuse him, I think, for he has been deuced low lately, about—about a young man's scrape that he has got into. And he must have gone off and despatched his challenge straightway. I recollect he appeared uncommonly brisk at breakfast the next morning. And so you say, General, the Baronet did not like the poulet?"

"By no means; never saw a fellow show such a confounded white feather. At first I congratulated him, thinking your boy's offer must please him, as it would have pleased any fellow in our time to have a shot. Dammy! but I was mistaken in my man. He entered into some confounded long-winded story about a marriage you wanted to make with that infernal pretty sister of his, who is going to marry young Farintosh, and how you were in a rage because the scheme fell to the ground, and how a family duel might occasion unpleasantries to Miss Newcome; though I showed him how this could be most easily avoided, and that the lady's name need never appear in the transaction. 'Confound it, Sir Barnes,' says I, 'I recollect this boy, when he was a youngster throwing a glass of wine in your face! We'll put it upon that, and say it's an old feud between you.' He turned quite pale, and he said your fellow had apologised for the glass of wine."

"Yes," said the Colonel, sadly, "my boy apologised for the glass of wine. It is curious how we have disliked that Barnes ever since we set eyes on him."

"Well, Newcome," Sir George resumed, as his mettled charger suddenly jumped and curvetted, displaying the padded warrior's cavalry-seat to perfection. "Quiet, old lady!—easy, my dear! Well, when I found the little beggar turning tail in this way I said to him, 'Dash me, sir, if you don't want me, why the dash do you send for me, dash me? Yesterday you talked as if you would bite the Colonel's head off, and to-day, when his son offers you every accommodation, by dash, sir, you're afraid to meet him. It's my belief you had better send for a policeman. A 22 is your man, Sir Barnes Newcome.' And with that I turned on my heel and left him. And the fellow went off to Newcome that very night."

"A poor devil can't command courage, General," said the Colonel, quite peaceably, "any more than he can make himself six feet high."

"Then why the dash did the beggar send for me?" called out General Sir George Tufto, in a loud and resolute voice; and presently the two officers parted company.

When the Colonel reached home, Mr. Warrington and Mr. Pendennis happened to be on a visit to Clive, and all three were in the young fellow's painting-room. We knew our lad was unhappy, and did our little best to amuse and console him. The Colonel came in. It was in the dark February days: we lighted the gas in the studio. Clive had made a sketch from some favourite verses of mine and George's: those charming lines of Scott's:—

"He turned his charger as he spake, Beside the river shore; He gave his bridle-rein a shake, With adieu for evermore, My dear! Adieu for evermore!"

Thomas Newcome held up a finger at Warrington, and he came up to the picture and looked at it; and George and I trolled out:

"Adieu for evermore, My dear! Adieu for evermore!"

From the picture the brave old Colonel turned to the painter, regarding his son with a look of beautiful inexpressible affection. And he laid his hand on his son's shoulder, and smiled, and stroked Clive's yellow moustache.

"And—and did Barnes send no answer to that letter you wrote him?" he said, slowly.

Clive broke out into a laugh that was almost a sob. He took both his father's hands. "My dear, dear old father!" says he, "what a—what an—old—trump you are!" My eyes were so dim I could hardly see the two men as they embraced.



CHAPTER LIV. Has a Tragical Ending

Clive presently answered the question which his father put to him in the last chapter, by producing from the ledge of his easel a crumpled paper, full of Cavendish now, but on which was written Sir Barnes Newcome's reply to his cousin's polite invitation. Sir Barnes Newcome wrote, "that he thought a reference to a friend was quite unnecessary, in the most disagreeable and painful dispute in which Mr. Clive desired to interfere as a principal; that the reasons which prevented Sir Barnes from taking notice of Colonel Newcome's shameful and ungentlemanlike conduct applied equally, as Mr. Clive Newcome very well knew, to himself; that if further insult was offered, or outrage attempted, Sir Barnes should resort to the police for protection; that he was about to quit London, and certainly should not delay his departure on account of Mr. Clive Newcome's monstrous proceedings; and that he desired to take leave of an odious subject, as of an individual whom he had striven to treat with kindness, but from whom, from youth upwards, Sir Barnes Newcome had received nothing but insolence, enmity, and ill-will."

"He is an ill man to offend," remarked Mr. Pendennis. "I don't think he has ever forgiven that claret, Clive."

"Pooh! the feud dates from long before that," said Clive; "Barnes wanted to lick me when I was a boy, and I declined: in fact, I think he had rather the worst of it; but then I operated freely on his shins, and that wasn't fair in war, you know."

"Heaven forgive me," cries the Colonel; "I have always felt the fellow was my enemy: and my mind is relieved now war is declared. It has been a kind of hypocrisy with me to shake his hand and eat his dinner. When I trusted him it was against my better instinct; and I have been struggling against it these ten years, thinking it was a wicked prejudice, and ought to be overcome."

"Why should we overcome such instincts?" asks Mr. Warrington. "Why shouldn't we hate what is hateful in people and scorn what is mean? From what friend Pen has described to me, and from some other accounts which have come to my ears, your respectable nephew is about as loathsome a little villain as crawls on the earth. Good seems to be out of his sphere, and away from his contemplation. He ill-treats every one he comes near; or, if, gentle to them, it is that they may serve some base purpose. Since my attention has been drawn to the creature, I have been contemplating his ways with wonder and curiosity. How much superior Nature's rogues are, Pen, to the villains you novelists put into your books! This man goes about his life business with a natural propensity to darkness and evil—as a bug crawls, and stings, and stinks. I don't suppose the fellow feels any more remorse than a cat that runs away with a mutton-chop. I recognise the Evil Spirit, sir, and do honour to Ahrimanes, in taking off my hat to this young man. He seduced a poor girl in his father's country town—is it not natural? Deserted her and her children—don't you recognise the beast? married for rank—could you expect otherwise from him? invites my Lord Highgate to his house in consideration of his balance at the bank;—sir, unless somebody's heel shall crunch him on the way, there is no height to which this aspiring vermin mayn't crawl. I look to see Sir Barnes Newcome prosper more and more. I make no doubt he will die an immense capitalist, and an exalted Peer of this realm. He will have a marble monument, and a pathetic funeral sermon. There is a divine in your family, Clive, that shall preach it. I will weep respectful tears over the grave of Baron Newcome, Viscount Newcome, Earl Newcome; and the children whom he has deserted, and who, in the course of time, will be sent by a grateful nation to New South Wales, will proudly say to their brother convicts,—'Yes, the Earl was our honoured father.'"

"I fear he is no better than he should be, Mr. Warrington," says the Colonel, shaking his head. "I never heard the story about the deserted children."

"How should you, O you guileless man!" cries Warrington.

"I am not in the ways of scandal-hearing myself much: but this tale I had from Sir Barnes Newcome's own country. Mr. Batters of the Newcome Independent is my esteemed client. I write leading articles for his newspaper, and when he was in town last spring he favoured me with the anecdote; and proposed to amuse the Member for Newcome by publishing it in his journal. This kind of writing is not much in my line: and, out of respect to you and your young one, I believe—I strove with Mr. Batters, and—entreated him and prevailed with him, not to publish the story. That is how I came to know it."

I sate with the Colonel in the evening, when he commented on Warrington's story and Sir Barnes's adventures in his simple way. He said his brother Hobson had been with him the morning after the dispute, reiterating Barnes's defence of his conduct: and professing on his own part nothing but goodwill towards his brother. "Between ourselves the young Baronet carries matters with rather a high hand sometimes, and I am not sorry that you gave him a little dressing. But you were too hard upon him, Colonel—really you were." "Had I known that child-deserting story I would have given it harder still, sir," says Thomas Newcome, twirling his mustachios: "but my brother had nothing to do with the quarrel, and very rightly did not wish to engage in it. He has an eye to business, has Master Hobson too," my friend continued: "for he brought me a cheque for my private account, which of course, he said, could not remain after my quarrel with Barnes. But the Indian bank account, which is pretty large, he supposed need not be taken away? and indeed why should it? So that, which is little business of mine, remains where it was; and brother Hobson and I remain perfectly good friends.

"I think Clive is much better since he has been quite put out of his suspense. He speaks with a great deal more kindness and good-nature about the marriage than I am disposed to feel regarding it: and depend on it has too high a spirit to show that he is beaten. But I know he is a good deal cut up, though he says nothing; and he agreed willingly enough to take a little journey, Arthur, and be out of the way when this business takes place. We shall go to Paris: I don't know where else besides. These misfortunes do good in one way, hard as they are to bear: they unite people who love each other. It seems to me my boy has been nearer to me, and likes his old father better than he has done of late." And very soon after this talk our friends departed.

The Crimean minister having been recalled, and Lady Anne Newcome's house in park Lane being vacant, her ladyship and her family came to occupy the mansion for this eventful season, and sate once more in the dismal dining-room under the picture of the defunct Sir Brian. A little of the splendour and hospitality of old days was revived in the house: entertainments were given by Lady Anne: and amongst other festivities a fine ball took place, when pretty Miss Alice, Miss Ethel's younger sister, made her first appearance in the world, to which she was afterwards to be presented by the Marchioness of Farintosh. All the little sisters were charmed, no doubt, that the beautiful Ethel was to become a beautiful Marchioness, who, as they came up to womanhood one after another, would introduce them severally to amiable young earls, dukes, and marquises, when they would be married off and wear coronets and diamonds of their own right. At Lady Anne's ball I saw my acquaintance, young Mumford, who was going to Oxford next October, and about to leave Rugby, where he was at the head of the school, looking very dismal as Miss Alice whirled round the room dancing in Viscount Bustington's arms;—Miss Alice, with whose mamma he used to take tea at Rugby, and for whose pretty sake Mumford did Alfred Newcome's verses for him and let him off his thrashings. Poor Mumford! he dismally went about under the protection of young Alfred, a fourth-form boy—not one soul did he know in that rattling London ballroom; his young face—as white as the large white tie, donned two hours since at the Tavistock with such nervousness and beating of heart!

With these lads, and decorated with a tie equally splendid, moved about young Sam Newcome, who was shirking from his sister and his mamma. Mrs. Hobson had actually assumed clean gloves for this festive occasion. Sam stared at all the "Nobs:" and insisted upon being introduced to "Farintosh," and congratulated his lordship with much graceful ease: and then pushed about the rooms perseveringly hanging on to Alfred's jacket. "I say, I wish you wouldn't call me Al'," I heard Mr. Alfred say to his cousin. Seeing my face, Mr. Samuel ran up to claim acquaintance. He was good enough to say he thought Farintosh seemed devilish haughty. Even my wife could not help saying, that Mr. Sam was an odious little creature.

So it was for young Alfred, and his brothers and sisters, who would want help and protection in the world, that Ethel was about to give up her independence, her inclination perhaps, and to bestow her life on yonder young nobleman. Looking at her as a girl devoting herself to her family, her sacrifice gave her a melancholy interest in our eyes. My wife and I watched her, grave and beautiful, moving through the rooms, receiving and returning a hundred greetings, bending to compliments, talking with this friend and that, with my lord's lordly relations, with himself, to whom she listened deferentially; faintly smiling as he spoke now and again; doing the honours of her mother's house. Lady after lady of his lordship's clan and kinsfolk complimented the girl and her pleased mother. Old Lady Kew was radiant (if one can call radiance the glances of those darkling old eyes). She sate in a little room apart, and thither people went to pay their court to her. Unwillingly I came in on this levee with my wife on my arm: Lady Kew scowled at me over her crutch, but without a sign of recognition. "What an awful countenance that old woman has!" Laura whispered as we retreated out of that gloomy presence.

And Doubt (as its wont is) whispered too a question in my ear, "Is it for her brothers and sisters only that Miss Ethel is sacrificing herself? Is it not for the coronet, and the triumph, and the fine houses?" "When two motives may actuate a friend, we surely may try and believe in the good one," says Laura. "But, but I am glad Clive does not marry her—poor fellow—he would not have been happy with her. She belongs to this great world: she has spent all her life in it: Clive would have entered into it very likely in her train; and you know, sir, it is not good that we should be our husbands' superiors," adds Mrs. Laura, with a curtsey.

She presently pronounced that the air was very hot in the rooms, and in fact wanted to go home to see her child. As we passed out, we saw Sir Barnes Newcome, eagerly smiling, smirking, bowing, and in the fondest conversation with his sister and Lord Farintosh. By Sir Barnes presently brushed Lieutenant-General Sir George Tufto, K.C.B., who, when he saw on whose foot he had trodden, grunted out, "H'm, beg your pardon!" and turning his back on Barnes, forthwith began complimenting Ethel and the Marquis. "Served with your lordship's father in Spain; glad to make your lordship's acquaintance," says Sir George. Ethel bows to us as we pass out of the rooms, and we hear no more of Sir George's conversation.

In the cloak-room sits Lady Clara Newcome, with a gentleman bending over her, just in such an attitude as the bride is in Hogarth's "Marriage a la Mode" as the counsellor talks to her. Lady Clara starts up as a crowd of blushes come into her wan face, and tries to smile, and rises to greet my wife, and says something about its being so dreadfully hot in the upper rooms, and so very tedious waiting for the carriages. The gentleman advances towards me with a military stride, and says, "How do you do, Mr. Pendennis? How's our young friend, the painter?" I answer Lord Highgate civilly enough, whereas my wife will scarce speak a word in reply to Lady Clara Newcome.

Lady Clara asked us to her ball, which my wife declined altogether to attend. Sir Barnes published a series of quite splendid entertainments on the happy occasion of his sister's betrothal. We read the names of all the clan Farintosh in the Morning Post, as attending these banquets. Mr. and Mrs. Hobson Newcome, in Bryanstone Square, gave also signs of rejoicing at their niece's marriage. They had a grand banquet followed by a tea, to which latter amusement the present biographer was invited. Lady Anne, and Lady Kew and her granddaughter, and the Baronet and his wife, and my Lord Highgate and Sir George Tufto attended the dinner; but it was rather a damp entertainment. "Farintosh," whispers Sam Newcome, "sent word just before dinner that he had a sore throat, and Barnes was as sulky as possible. Sir George wouldn't speak to him, and the Dowager wouldn't speak to Lord Highgate. Scarcely anything was drank," concluded Mr. Sam, with a slight hiccup. "I say, Pendennis, how sold Clive will be!" And the amiable youth went off to commune with others of his parents' guests.

Thus the Newcomes entertained the Farintoshes, and the Farintoshes entertained the Newcomes. And the Dowager Countess of Kew went from assembly to assembly every evening, and to jewellers and upholsterers and dressmakers every morning; and Lord Farintosh's town-house was splendidly re-decorated in the newest fashion; and he seemed to grow more and more attentive as the happy day approached, and he gave away all his cigars to his brother Rob; and his sisters were delighted with Ethel, and constantly in her company, and his mother was pleased with her, and thought a girl of her spirit and resolution would make a good wife for her son: and select crowds flocked to see the service of plate at Handyman's, and the diamonds which were being set for the lady; and Smee, R.A., painted her portrait, as a souvenir for mamma when Miss Newcome should be Miss Newcome no more; and Lady Kew made a will leaving all she could leave to her beloved granddaughter, Ethel, daughter of the late Sir Brian Newcome, Baronet; and Lord Kew wrote an affectionate letter to his cousin, congratulating her, and wishing her happiness with all his heart; and I was glancing over The Times newspaper at breakfast one morning; when I laid it down with an exclamation which caused my wife to start with surprise.

"What is it?" cries Laura, and I read as follows:—

"'Death of the Countess Dowager of Kew.—We regret to have to announce the awfully sudden death of this venerable lady. Her ladyship, who had been at several parties of the nobility the night before last, seemingly in perfect health, was seized with a fit as she was waiting for her carriage, and about to quit Lady Pallgrave's assembly. Immediate medical assistance was procured, and her ladyship was carried to her own house, in Queen Street, Mayfair. But she never rallied, or, we believe, spoke, after the first fatal seizure, and sank at eleven o'clock last evening, The deceased, Louisa Joanna Gaunt, widow of Frederic, first Earl of Kew, was daughter of Charles, Earl of Gaunt, and sister of the late and aunt of the present Marquis of Steyne. The present Earl of Kew is her ladyship's grandson, his lordship's father, Lord Walham, having died before his own father, the first earl. Many noble families are placed in mourning by this sad event. Society has to deplore the death of a lady who has been its ornament for more than half a century, and who was known, we may say, throughout Europe for her remarkable sense, extraordinary memory, and brilliant wit.'"