were Protestant, and fought by the side of Henry IV. at Ivry. In Louis
XIV.'s time, they adopted the religion of that persecuting monarch. We
sincerely trust that the present heir of the house of Ivry will see fit
to return to the creed which his forefathers so unfortunately abjured."
The ladies received this news with perfect gravity; and Charles uttered a
meek wish that it might prove true. As they went away, they offered more
hospitalities to Clive and Mr. Binnie and his niece. They liked the
music: would they not come and hear it again?
When they had departed with Mr. Honeyman, Clive could not help saying to
Uncle James, "Why are those people always coming here; praising me; and
asking me to dinner? Do you know, I can't help thinking that they rather
want me as a pretender for Miss Sherrick?"
Binnie burst into a loud guffaw, and cried out, "O vanitas vanitawtum!"
Rosa laughed too.
"I don't think it any joke at all," said Clive.
"Why, you stupid lad, don't you see it is Charles Honeyman the girl's in
love with?" cried Uncle James. "Rosey saw it in the very first instant we
entered their drawing-room three weeks ago."
"Indeed, and how?" asked Clive.
"By--by the way she looked at him," said little Rosey.
CHAPTER XLV
A Stag of Ten
The London season was very nearly come to an end, and Lord Farintosh had
danced I don't know how many times with Miss Newcome, had drunk several
bottles of the old Kew port, had been seen at numerous breakfasts,
operas, races, and public places by the young lady's side, and had not as
yet made any such proposal as Lady Kew expected for her granddaughter.
Clive going to see his military friends in the Regent's Park once, and
finish Captain Butts's portrait in barracks, heard two or three young men
talking, and one say to another, "I bet you three to two Farintosh don't
marry her, and I bet you even that he don't ask her." Then as he entered
Mr. Butts's room, where these gentlemen were conversing, there was a
silence and an awkwardness. The young fellows were making an "event" out
of Ethel's marriage, and sporting their money freely on it.
To have an old countess hunting a young marquis so resolutely that all
the world should be able to look on and speculate whether her game would
be run down by that staunch toothless old pursuer--that is an amusing
sport, isn't it? and affords plenty of fun and satisfaction to those who
follow the hunt. But for a heroine of a story, be she ever so clever,
handsome, and sarcastic, I don't think for my part, at this present stage
of the tale, Miss Ethel Newcome occupies a very dignified position. To
break her heart in silence for Tomkins who is in love with another; to
suffer no end of poverty, starvation, capture by ruffians, ill-treatment
by a bullying husband, loss of beauty by the small-pox, death even at the
end of the volume; all these mishaps a young heroine must endure (and has
endured in romances over and over again), without losing the least
dignity, or suffering any diminution of the sentimental reader's esteem.
But a girl of great beauty, high temper, and strong natural intellect,
who submits to be dragged hither and thither in an old grandmother's
leash, and in pursuit of a husband who will run away from the couple,
such a person, I say, is in a very awkward position as a heroine; and I
declare if I had another ready to my hand (and unless there were
extenuating circumstances) Ethel should be deposed at this very sentence.
But a novelist must go on with his heroine, as a man with his wife, for
better or worse, and to the end. For how many years have the Spaniards
borne with their gracious queen, not because she was faultless, but
because she was there? So Chambers and grandees cried, God save her.
Alabarderos turned out: drums beat, cannons fired, and people saluted
Isabella Segunda, who was no better than the humblest washerwoman of her
subjects. Are we much better than our neighbours? Do we never yield to
our peculiar temptation, our pride, or our avarice or our vanity, or what
not? Ethel is very wrong certainly. But recollect, she is very young. She
is in other people's hands. She has been bred up and governed by a very
worldly family, and taught their traditions. We would hardly, for
instance, the staunchest Protestant in England would hardly be angry with
poor Isabella Segunda for being a Catholic. So if Ethel worships at a
certain image which a great number of good folks in England bow to, let
us not be too angry with her idolatry, and bear with our queen a little
before we make our pronunciamiento.
No, Miss Newcome, yours is not a dignified position in life, however you
may argue that hundreds of people in the world are doing like you. O me!
what a confession it is, in the very outset of life and blushing
brightness of youth's morning, to own that the aim with which a young
girl sets out, and the object of her existence, is to marry a rich man;
that she was endowed with beauty so that she might buy wealth, and a
title with it; that as sure as she has a soul to be saved, her business
here on earth is to try and get a rich husband. That is the career for
which many a woman is bred and trained. A young man begins the world with
some aspirations at least; he will try to be good and follow the truth;
he will strive to win honours for himself, and never do a base action; he
will pass nights over his books, and forgo ease and pleasure so that he
may achieve a name. Many a poor wretch who is worn-out now and old, and
bankrupt of fame and money too, has commenced life at any rate with noble
views and generous schemes, from which weakness, idleness, passion, or
overpowering hostile fortune have turned him away. But a girl of the
world, bon Dieu! the doctrine with which she begins is that she is to
have a wealthy husband: the article of faith in her catechism is, "I
believe in elder sons, and a house in town, and a house in the country!"
They are mercenary as they step fresh and blooming into the world out of
the nursery. They have been schooled there to keep their bright eyes to
look only on the prince and the duke, Croesus and Dives. By long cramping
and careful process, their little natural hearts have been squeezed up,
like the feet of their fashionable little sisters in China. As you see a
pauper's child, with an awful premature knowledge of the pawnshop, able
to haggle at market with her wretched halfpence, and battle bargains at
hucksters' stalls, you shall find a young beauty, who was a child in the
schoolroom a year since, as wise and knowing as the old practitioners on
that exchange; as economical of her smiles, as dexterous in keeping back
or producing her beautiful wares; as skilful in setting one bidder
against another; as keen as the smartest merchant in Vanity Fair.
If the young gentlemen of the Life Guards Green who were talking about
Miss Newcome and her suitors, were silent when Clive appeared amongst
them, it was because they were aware not only of his relationship to the
young lady, but his unhappy condition regarding her. C
ertain men there
are who never tell their love, but let concealment, like a worm in the
bud, feed on their damask cheeks; others again must be not always
thinking, but talking, about the darling object. So it was not very long
before Captain Crackthorpe was taken into Clive's confidence, and through
Crackthorpe very likely the whole mess became acquainted with his
passion. These young fellows, who had been early introduced into the
world, gave Clive small hopes of success, putting to him, in their
downright phraseology, the point of which he was already aware, that Miss
Newcome was intended for his superiors, and that he had best not make his
mind uneasy by sighing for those beautiful grapes which were beyond his
reach.
But the good-natured Crackthorpe, who had a pity for the young painter's
condition, helped him so far (and gained Clive's warmest thanks for his
good offices), by asking admission for Clive to entertain evening parties
of the beau-monde, where he had the gratification of meeting his charmer.
Ethel was surprised and pleased, and Lady Kew surprised and angry, at
meeting Clive Newcome at these fashionable houses; the girl herself was
touched very likely at his pertinacity in following her. As there was no
actual feud between them, she could not refuse now and again to dance
with her cousin; and thus he picked up such small crumbs of consolation
as a youth in his state can get; lived upon six words vouchsafed to him
in a quadrille, or brought home a glance of the eyes which she had
presented to him in a waltz, or the remembrance of a squeeze of the hand
on parting or meeting. How eager he was to get a card to this party or
that! how attentive to the givers of such entertainments! Some friends of
his accused him of being a tuft-hunter and flatterer of the aristocracy,
on account of his politeness to certain people; the truth was, he wanted
to go wherever Miss Ethel was; and the ball was blank to him which she
did not attend.
This business occupied not only one season, but two. By the time of the
second season, Mr. Newcome had made so many acquaintances that he needed
few more introductions into society. He was very well known as a
good-natured handsome young man, and a very good waltzer, the only son of
an Indian officer of large wealth, who chose to devote himself to
painting, and who was supposed to entertain an unhappy fondness for his
cousin the beautiful Miss Newcome. Kind folks who heard of this little
tendre, and were sufficiently interested in Mr. Clive, asked him to their
houses in consequence. I dare say those people who were good to him may
have been themselves at one time unlucky in their own love-affairs.
When the first season ended without a declaration from my lord, Lady Kew
carried off her young lady to Scotland, where it also so happened that
Lord Farintosh was going to shoot, and people made what surmises they
chose upon this coincidence. Surmises, why not? You who know the world,
know very well that if you see Mrs. So-and-so's name in the list of
people at an entertainment, on looking down the list you will presently
be sure to come on Mr. What-d'-you-call-'em's. If Lord and Lady of
Suchandsuch Castle, received a distinguished circle (including Lady
Dash), for Christmas or Easter, without reading farther the names of the
guests, you may venture on any wager that Captain Asterisk is one of the
company. These coincidences happen every day; and some people are so
anxious to meet other people, and so irresistible is the magnetic
sympathy, I suppose, that they will travel hundreds of miles in the worst
of weather to see their friends, and break your door open almost,
provided the friend is inside it.
I am obliged to own the fact, that for many months Lady Kew hunted after
Lord Farintosh. This rheumatic old woman went to Scotland, where, as he
was pursuing the deer, she stalked his lordship: from Scotland she went
to Paris, where he was taking lessons in dancing at the Chaumiere; from
Paris to an English country-house, for Christmas, where he was expected,
but didn't come--not being, his professor said, quite complete in the
polka, and so on. If Ethel were privy to these manoeuvres, or anything
more than an unwittingly consenting party, I say we would depose her from
her place of heroine at once. But she was acting under her grandmother's
orders, a most imperious, irresistible, managing old woman, who exacted
everybody's obedience, and managed everybody's business in her family.
Lady Anne Newcome being in attendance on her sick husband, Ethel was
consigned to the Countess of Kew, her grandmother, who hinted that she
should leave Ethel her property when dead, and whilst alive expected the
girl should go about with her. She had and wrote as many letters as a
Secretary of State almost. She was accustomed to set off without taking
anybody's advice, or announcing her departure until within an hour or two
of the event. In her train moved Ethel, against her own will, which would
have led her to stay at home with her father, but at the special wish and
order of her parents. Was such a sum as that of which Lady Kew had the
disposal (Hobson Brothers knew the amount of it quite well) to be left
out of the family? Forbid it, all ye powers! Barnes--who would have liked
the money himself, and said truly that he would live with his grandmother
anywhere she liked if he could get it,--Barnes joined most energetically
with Sir Brian and Lady Anne in ordering Ethel's obedience to Lady Kew.
You know how difficult it is for one young woman not to acquiesce when
the family council strongly orders. In fine, I hope there was a good
excuse for the queen of this history, and that it was her wicked
domineering old prime minister who led her wrong. Otherwise I say, we
would have another dynasty. Oh, to think of a generous nature, and the
world, and nothing but the world, to occupy it!--of a brave intellect,
and the milliner's bandboxes, and the scandal of the coteries, and the
fiddle-faddle etiquette of the Court for its sole exercise! of the rush
and hurry from entertainment to entertainment; of the constant smiles and
cares of representation; of the prayerless rest at night, and the awaking
to a godless morrow! This was the course of life to which Fate, and not
her own fault altogether, had for awhile handed over Ethel Newcome. Let
those pity her who can feel their own weakness and misgoing; let those
punish her who are without fault themselves.
Clive did not offer to follow her to Scotland. he knew quite well that
the encouragement he had had was only of the smallest; that as a relation
she received him frankly and kindly enough; but checked him when he would
have adopted another character. But it chanced that they met in Paris,
whither he went in the Easter of the ensuing year, having worked to some
good purpose through the winter, and despatched as on a former occasion
his three or four pictures, to take their chance at the Exhibition.
Of these it is our pleasing duty to be able to corroborate to some
extent, Mr. F. Bayham's fa
vourable report. Fancy sketches and historical
pieces our young man had eschewed; having convinced himself either that
be had not an epic genius, or that to draw portraits of his friends, was
a much easier task than that which he had set himself formerly. Whilst
all the world was crowding round a pair of J. J,.'s little pictures, a
couple of chalk heads were admitted into the Exhibition (his great
picture of Captain Crackthorpe on horseback, in full uniform, I must
admit was ignominiously rejected), and the friends of the parties had the
pleasure of recognising in the miniature room, No. 1246, "Picture of an
Officer,"--viz., Augustus Butts, Esq., of the Life Guards Green; and
"Portrait of the Rev. Charles Honeyman," No. 1272. Miss Sherrick the
hangers refused; Mr. Binnie, Clive had spoiled, as usual, in the
painting; the heads, however, before-named, were voted to be faithful
likenesses, and executed in a very agreeable and spirited manner. F.
Bayham's criticism on these performances, it need not be said, was
tremendous. "Since the days of Michael Angelo you would have thought
there never had been such drawings." In fact, F. B., as some other critics
do, clapped his friends so boisterously on the back, and trumpeted their
merits with such prodigious energy, as to make his friends themselves
sometimes uneasy.
Mr. Clive, whose good father was writing home more and more wonderful
accounts of the Bundelcund Bank, in which he had engaged, and who was
always pressing his son to draw for more money, treated himself to
comfortable rooms at Paris, in the very same hotel where the young
Marquis of Farintosh occupied lodgings much more splendid, and where he
lived, no doubt, so as to be near the professor, who was still teaching
his lordship the polka. Indeed, it must be said that Lord Farintosh made
great progress under this artist, and that he danced very much better in
his third season than in the first and second years after he had come
upon the town. From the same instructor the Marquis learned the latest
novelties in French conversation, the choicest oaths and phrases (for
which he was famous), so that although his French grammar was naturally
defective, he was enabled to order a dinner at Philippe's, and to bully a
waiter, or curse a hackney-coachman with extreme volubility. A young
nobleman of his rank was received with the distinction which was his due,
by the French sovereign of that period; and at the Tuileries, and the
houses of the French nobility, which he visited, Monsieur le Marquis de
Farintosh excited considerable remark, by the use of some of the phrases
which his young professor had taught to him. People even went so far as
to say that the Marquis was an awkward and dull young man, of the very
worst manners.
Whereas the young Clive Newcome--and it comforted the poor fellow's heart
somewhat, and be sure pleased Ethel, who was looking on at his triumphs--
was voted the most charming young Englishman who had been seen for a long
time in our salons. Madame de Florac, who loved him as a son of her own,
actually went once or twice into the world in order to see his debut.
Madame de Moncontour inhabited a part of the Hotel de Florac, and
received society there. The French people did not understand what bad
English she talked, though they comprehended Lord Farintosh's French
blunders. "Monsieur Newcome is an artist! What a noble career!" cries a
great French lady, the wife of a Marshal to the astonished Miss Newcome.
"This young man is the cousin, of the charming mees? You must be proud to
possess such a nephew, madame!" says another French lady to the Countess
of Kew (who, you may be sure, is delighted to have such a relative). And
the French lady invites Clive to her receptions expressly in order to
make herself agreeable to the old Comtesse. Before the cousins have been
The Newcomes Page 68