Part 25 (1/2)
But those who had no cause to fear her keenness or her coldness admired her beauty; nor could the famous Parisian model whom Clive said she resembled be more perfect in form than this young lady. Her hair and eyebrows were jet black, but her complexion was dazzlingly fair and her cheeks as red as those belonging by right to a blonde. In her black hair there was a slight natural ripple. Her eyes were grey; her mouth rather large; her teeth were regular and white, her voice was low and sweet; and her smile, when it lighted up her face and eyes, as beautiful as spring suns.h.i.+ne; also her eyes could lighten and flash often, and sometimes, though rarely, rain. As for her figure, the tall, slender form clad in a simple white muslin robe in which her fair arms were enveloped, and which was caught at her slim waist by a blue ribbon, let us make a respectful bow to that fair image of youth, health, and modesty, and fancy it as pretty as we will.
Not yet overshadowed by the cloud of Colonel Newcome's departure, light-hearted in the joy of reconciliation and meeting, once again full of high spirits and mindful of no moment beyond the present, the two cousins never looked brighter or happier, and as Colonel Newcome gazed upon them in the freshness of their youth and vigour his heart was filled with delight.
Not many days after the dinner the good Colonel found it necessary to break the news of his intended departure to Clive. His resolution to go being taken, and having been obliged to dip somewhat deeply into the little purse he had set aside for European expenses to help a kinsman in distress, the Colonel's departure came somewhat sooner than he had expected. But, as he said, ”A year sooner or later, what does it matter?
Clive will go away and work at his art, and see the great schools of painting while I am absent. I thought at one time how pleasant it would be to accompany him. I fancy now a lad is not the better for being always tied to his parents' ap.r.o.n-strings. You young fellows are too clever for me. I haven't learned your ideas or read your books. I feel myself very often an old damper in your company. I will go back, sir, where I have some friends, and where I am somebody still. I know an honest face or two, white and brown, that will lighten up in the old regiment when they see Tom Newcome again.”
With this resolution taken, the Colonel began saying farewell to his friends. He and Clive made a pilgrimage to Grey Friars; and the Colonel ran down to Newcome to give Mrs. Mason a parting benediction; went to all the boys' and girls' schools where his little proteges were, so as to be able to take the very latest account of the young folks to their parents in India; and thence proceeded to Brighton to pa.s.s a little time with good Miss Honeyman. With Sir Brian's family he parted on very good terms.
I believe Sir Brian even accompanied him downstairs from the drawing-room in Park Lane, and actually saw his brother into his cab, but as for Ethel, _she_ was not going to be put off with this sort of parting; and the next morning a cab dashed up to Fitzroy Square and she was closeted with Colonel Newcome for five minutes, and when he led her back to the carriage there were tears in his eyes. Then came the day when Clive and his father travelled together to Southampton, where a group of the Colonel's faithful friends were a.s.sembled to say a ”G.o.d bless you” to their dear old friend, and see the vessel sail. To the end Clive remained with his father and went below with him, and when the last bell was ringing, came from below looking very pale. The plank was drawn after him almost as soon as he stepped on land, and the vessel had sailed.
Although Thomas Newcome had gone back to India in search of more money, he was nevertheless rather a wealthy man and was able to leave a hundred a year in England to be transferred to his boy as soon as he came of age. He also left a considerable annual sum to be paid to the boy, and so as soon as the parting was over and his affairs were settled, Clive was free to start on his travels, to study art in new lands, accompanied by his faithful friend J.J. They went first to Antwerp; thence to Brussels, and next Clive's correspondents received a letter from Bonn: in which Master Clive said, ”And whom should I find here but Aunt Ann, Ethel, Miss Quigley and the little ones. Uncle Brian is staying at Aix, and, upon my conscience, I think my pretty cousin looks prettier every day. J.J. and I were climbing a little hill which leads to a ruin, when I heard a little voice cry, 'h.e.l.lo! it's Clive! Hooray, Clive,' and an a.s.s came down the incline with a little pair of white trousers at an immensely wide angle over the donkey's back, and there was little Alfred grinning with all his might.
”He turned his beast and was for galloping up the hill again, I suppose to inform his relations; but the donkey refused with many kicks, one of which sent Alfred plunging amongst the stones, and we were rubbing him down just as the rest of the party came upon us. Miss Quigley looked very grim on an old white pony; my aunt was on a black horse that might have turned grey, he is so old. Then came two donkeys-full of children, with Kuhn as supercargo; then Ethel on donkey back, too, with a bunch of wild flowers in her hand, a great straw hat with a crimson ribbon, a white muslin jacket, you know, bound at the waist with a ribbon of the first, and a dark skirt, with a shawl round her feet, which Kuhn had arranged.
As she stopped, the donkey fell to cropping greens in the hedge; the trees there chequered her white dress and face with shadow. Her eyes, hair, and forehead were in shadow, too, but the light was all upon her right cheek. Upon her shoulder down to her arm, which was of a warmer white, and on the bunch of flowers which she held, blue, yellow, and red poppies, and so forth.
”J. J. says, 'I think the birds began to sing louder when she came.' We have both agreed that she is the handsomest woman in England. It's not her form merely, which is certainly as yet too thin and a little angular; it is her colour. I do not care for women or pictures without colour. Oh, ye carnations! Oh, such black hair and solemn eyebrows. It seems to me the roses and carnations have bloomed again since we saw them last in London, when they were drooping from the exposure to night air, candle light, and heated ballrooms.
”Here I was in the midst of a regiment of donkeys bearing a crowd of relations; J. J. standing modestly in the background, beggars completing the group. Throw in the Rhine in the distance flas.h.i.+ng by the Seven Mountains--but mind and make Ethel the princ.i.p.al figure: if you make her like she certainly _will_ be, and other lights will be only minor fires.
You may paint her form, but can't paint her colour.”
Thus wrote Clive from Bonn, and now that the old Countess and Barnes were away, the barrier between Clive and this family was withdrawn. The young folks who loved him were free to see him as often as he would come. They were going to Baden: would he come, too? He was glad enough to go with them, and to travel in the orbit of such a lovely girl as Ethel Newcome, whose beauty made all the pa.s.sengers on all the steamers look round and admire. The journey was all suns.h.i.+ne and pleasure and novelty; and I like to think of the pretty girl and the gallant young fellow enjoying this holiday. Few sights are more pleasant than to watch a happy, manly English youth, freehanded and generous-hearted, content and good-humour s.h.i.+ning in his honest face, pleased and pleasing, eager, active, and thankful for services, and exercising bravely his n.o.ble youthful privilege to be happy and to enjoy. As for J. J., he, too, had his share of enjoyment. Clive was still his hero as ever, his patron, his splendid young prince and chieftain. Who was so brave, who was so handsome, generous, witty as Clive? To hear Clive sing, as the lad would whilst they were seated at their work, or driving along on this happy journey, through fair landscapes in the suns.h.i.+ne, gave J. J. the keenest pleasure; his wit was a little slow, but he would laugh with his eyes at Clive's sallies, or ponder over them and explode with laughter presently, giving a new source of amus.e.m.e.nt to these merry travellers, and little Alfred would laugh at J.J.'s laughing; and so, with a hundred harmless jokes to enliven, and the ever-changing, ever-charming smiles of Nature to cheer and accompany it, the happy day's journey would come to an end.
So they travelled by the accustomed route to the prettiest town of all places where Pleasure has set up her tents, and there enjoyed themselves to the fullest extent.
Among Colonel Newcome's papers to which the family biographer has had access, there are a couple of letters from Clive, dated Baden this time, and full of happiness, gaiety, and affection. Letter No. 1 says: ”Ethel is the prettiest girl here. At the a.s.semblies all the princes, counts, dukes, etc., are dying to dance with her. She sends her dearest love to her uncle.” By the side of the words ”Prettiest girl” are written in a frank female hand the monosyllable ”_stuff_”; and as a note to the expression ”dearest love,” with a star to mark the text and the note, are squeezed in the same feminine characters at the bottom of Clive's page the words ”_that I do_. E. N.”
In letter No. 2, Clive, after giving amusing details of life at Baden and the company whom he met there, concludes with this: ”Ethel is looking over my shoulder. She thinks me such a delightful creature that she is never easy without me. She bids me to say that I am the best of sons and cousins, and am, in a word, a darling du--” The rest of this important word is not given, but ”_goose_” is added in the female hand.
Ethel takes up the pen. ”My dear uncle,” she says, ”while Clive is sketching out of the window, let me write to you a line or two on his paper, _though I know you like to hear no one speak_ but him. I wish I could draw him for you as he stands yonder looking the picture of good health, good spirits, and good-humour. Everybody likes him. He is quite unaffected; always gay, always pleased, and he draws more beautifully every day.”
When these letters were received by the good Colonel in India we can well imagine the joy that warmed his fond heart. He, himself, was comfortably settled in the only place which would ever be home to him,--his son, the idol of his heart, was with Ethel, his darling. The objects of his tenderest affection were gay, happy, together, and, best of all, thinking of him. That he was not with them gave him no regrets; his love was too great for that. That their youth was soon to give place to the soberer experiences of life, gave him no pang of fear for them. Reading their letters, the Colonel was filled with quiet contentment; their future he could trust to the care of that Guiding Hand to whom he had entrusted his boy in childhood's earliest days.
ARTHUR PENDENNIS
[Ill.u.s.tration: ARTHUR PENDENNIS AT FAIR-OAKS.]
Early in the Regency of George the Magnificent there lived in a small town in the west of England, called Clavering, a gentleman whose name was Pendennis. At an earlier date Mr. Pendennis had exercised the profession of apothecary and surgeon, and had even condescended to sell a plaster across the counter of his humble shop, or to vend tooth-brushes, hair-powder, and London perfumery. And yet that little apothecary was a gentleman with good education, and of as old a family as any in the county of Somerset. He had a Cornish pedigree which carried the Pendennises back to the time of the Druids. He had had a piece of University education, and might have pursued that career with honour, but in his second year at Oxford his father died insolvent, and he was obliged to betake himself to the trade which he always detested. For some time he had a hard struggle with poverty, but his manners were so gentleman-like and soothing that he was called in to prescribe for some of the ladies in the best families of Bath. Then his humble little shop became a smart one; then he shut it up altogether; then he had a gig with a man to drive in; and before she died his poor old mother had the happiness of seeing her beloved son step into a close carriage of his own; with the arms of the family of Pendennis handsomely emblazoned on the panels. He married Miss Helen Thistlewood, a very distant relative of the n.o.ble family of Bareacres, having met that young lady under Lady Pentypool's roof.
The secret ambition of Mr. Pendennis had always been to be a gentleman.
By prudence and economy, his income was largely increased, and finally he sold his business for a handsome sum, and retired forever from handling of the mortar and pestle, having purchased as a home the house of Fair-Oaks, nearly a mile out of Clavering.
The estate was a beautiful one, and Arthur Pendennis, his son, being then but eight years of age, dated his earliest recollections from that place.
Fair-Oaks lawn comes down to the little river Brawl, and on the other side were the plantations and woods of Clavering Park. The park was let out in pasture when the Pendennises came first to live at Fair-Oaks.
Shutters were up in the house; a splendid free stone palace, with great stairs, statues and porticos. Sir Richard Clavering, Sir Francis's grandfather, had commenced the ruin of the family by the building of this palace: his successor had achieved the ruin by living in it. The present Sir Francis was abroad somewhere, and until now n.o.body could be found rich enough to rent that enormous mansion; through the deserted rooms, mouldy, clanking halls, and dismal galleries of which Arthur Pendennis many a time walked trembling when he was a boy. At sunset from the lawn of Fair-Oaks there was a pretty sight: it and the opposite park of Clavering were in the habit of putting on a rich golden tinge, which became them both wonderfully. The upper windows of the great house flamed so as to make your eyes wink; the little river ran off noisily westward and was lost in sombre wood, behind which the towers of the old abbey church of Clavering (whereby that town is called Clavering St. Mary's to the present day) rose up in purple splendour. Little Arthur's figure and his mother's cast long blue shadows over the gra.s.s: and he would repeat in a low voice (for a scene of great natural beauty always moved the boy, who inherited this sensibility from his mother) certain lines beginning, ”These are thy glorious works. Parent of Good; Almighty! thine this universal frame,” greatly to Mrs. Pendennis's delight. Such walks and conversation generally ended in a profusion of filial and maternal embraces; for to love and to pray were the main occupations of this dear woman's life; and I have often heard Pendennis say in his wild way, that he felt that he was sure of going to heaven, for his mother never could be happy there without him.
As for John Pendennis, as the father of the family, and that sort of thing, everybody had the greatest respect for him: and his orders were obeyed like those of the Medes and Persians. His hat was as well brushed perhaps as that of any man in this empire. His meals were served at the same minute every day, and woe to those who came late, as little Pen, a disorderly little rascal, sometimes did. Prayers were recited, his letters were read, his business despatched, his stables and garden inspected, his hen-houses and kennel, his barn and pig-sty visited, always at regular hours. After dinner he always had a nap with the Globe newspaper on his knee, and his yellow bandanna handkerchief on his face.
And so, as his dinner took place at six o'clock to a minute, and the sunset business alluded to may be supposed to have occurred at half-past seven, it is probable that he did not much care for the view in front of his lawn windows, or take any share in the poetry and caresses which were taking place there.