Part 13 (2/2)
If the breeches and boots are not understood, the owner himself appears in great wrath dancing on the upper story; dancing down to the lower floor; and loosely enveloped in a ragged and flowing robe de chambre.
In this costume and condition he will dance into Honeyman's apartment, where that meek divine may be sitting with a headache or over a novel or a newspaper; dance up to the fire flapping his robe-tails, poke it, and warm himself there; dance up to the cupboard where his reverence keeps his sherry, and help himself to a gla.s.s.
”Salve, spes fidei, lumen ecclesiae,” he will say; ”here's towards you, my buck. I knows the tap. Sherrick's Marsala bottled three months after date, at two hundred and forty-six s.h.i.+llings the dozen.”
”Indeed, indeed it's not” (and now we are coming to an idea of the skeleton in poor Honeyman's closet--not that this huge handsome jolly Fred Bayham is the skeleton, far from it. Mr. Frederick weighs fourteen stone). ”Indeed, indeed it isn't, Fred, I'm sure,” sighs the other. ”You exaggerate, indeed you do. The wine is not dear, not by any means so expensive as you say.”
”How much a gla.s.s, think you?” says Fred, filling another b.u.mper. ”A half-crown, think ye?--a half-crown, Honeyman? By c.o.c.k and pye, it is not worth a bender.” He says this in the manner of the most celebrated tragedian of the day. He can imitate any actor, tragic or comic; any known Parliamentary orator or clergyman; any saw, c.o.c.k, cloop of a cork wrenched from a bottle and guggling of wine into the decanter afterwards, bee buzzing, little boy up a chimney, etc. He imitates people being ill on board a steam-packet so well that he makes you die of laughing: his uncle the Bishop could not resist this comic exhibition, and gave Fred a cheque for a comfortable sum of money; and Fred, getting cash for the cheque at the Cave of Harmony, imitated his uncle the Bishop and his Chaplain, winding up with his Lords.h.i.+p and Chaplain being unwell at sea--the Chaplain and Bishop quite natural and distinct.
”How much does a gla.s.s of this sack cost thee, Charley?” resumes Fred, after this parenthesis. ”You say it is not dear. Charles Honeyman, you had, even from your youth up, a villainous habit. And I perfectly well remember, sir, in boyhood's breezy hour, when I was the delight of his school, that you used to tell lies to your venerable father. You did, Charles. Excuse the frankness of an early friend, it's my belief you'd rather lie than not. Hm”--he looks at the cards in the chimney-gla.s.s ”Invitations to dinner, proffers of m.u.f.fins. Do lend me your sermon. Oh, you old impostor! you h.o.a.ry old Ananias! I say, Charley, why haven't you picked out some nice girl for yours truly? One with lauds and beeves, with rents and consols, mark you? I have no money, 'tis true, but then I don't owe as much as you. I am a handsomer man than you are. Look at this chest” (he slaps it), ”these limbs; they are manly, sir, manly.”
”For Heaven's sake, Bayham,” cries Mr. Honeyman, white with terror; ”if anybody were to come----”
”What did I say anon, sir? that I was manly, ay, manly. Let any ruffian, save a bailiff, come and meet the doughty arm of Frederick Bayham.”
”Oh, Lord, Lord, here's somebody coming into the room!” cries Charles, sinking back on the sofa, as the door opens.
”Ha! dost thou come with murderous intent?” and he now advances in an approved offensive att.i.tude. ”Caitiff, come on, come on!” and he walks off with a tragic laugh, crying, ”Ha, ha, ha, 'tis but the slavey!”
The slavey has Mr. Frederick's hot water, and a bottle of sodawater on the same tray. He has been instructed to bring soda whenever he hears the word slavey p.r.o.nounced from above. The bottle explodes, and Frederick drinks, and hisses after his drink as though he had been all hot within.
”What's o'clock now, slavey--half-past three? Let me see, I breakfasted exactly ten hours ago, in the rosy morning, off a modest cup of coffee in Covent Garden Market. Coffee, a penny; bread, a simple halfpenny.
What has Mrs. Ridley for dinner?”
”Please, sir, roast pork.”
”Get me some. Bring it into my room, unless, Honeyman, you insist upon my having it here, kind fellow!”
At the moment a smart knock comes to the door, and Fred says, ”Well, Charles, it may be a friend or a lady come to confess, and I'm off; I knew you'd be sorry I was going. Tom, bring up my things; brush 'em gently, you scoundrel, and don't take the nap off. Bring up the roast pork, and plenty of apple-sauce, tell Mrs. Ridley, with my love; and one of Mr. Honeyman's s.h.i.+rts, and one of his razors. Adieu, Charles! Amend!
Remember me.” And he vanishes into the upper chambers.
CHAPTER XII. In which everybody is asked to Dinner
John James had opened the door hastening to welcome a friend and patron, the sight of whom always gladdened the youth's eyes; no other than Clive Newcome--in young Ridley's opinion, the most splendid, fortunate, beautiful, high-born, and gifted youth this island contained. What generous boy in his time has not wors.h.i.+pped somebody? Before the female enslaver makes her appearance, every lad has a friend of friends, a crony of cronies, to whom he writes immense letters in vacation, whom he cherishes in his heart of hearts; whose sister he proposes to marry in after life; whose purse he shares; for whom he will take a thras.h.i.+ng if need be: who is his hero. Clive was John James's youthful divinity: when he wanted to draw Thaddeus of Warsaw, a Prince, Ivanhoe, or some one splendid and egregious, it was Clive he took for a model. His heart leapt when he saw the young fellow. He would walk cheerfully to Grey Friars, with a letter or message for Clive, on the chance of seeing him, and getting a kind word from him, or a shake of the hand. An ex-butler of Lord Todmorden was a pensioner in the Grey Friars Hospital (it has been said that at that ancient establishment is a college for old men as well as for boys), and this old man would come sometimes to his successor's Sunday dinner, and grumble from the hour of that meal until nine o'clock, when he was forced to depart, so as to be within Grey Friars' gates before ten; grumble about his dinner--grumble about his beer--grumble about the number of chapels he had to attend, about the gown he wore, about the master's treatment of him, about the want of plums in the pudding, as old men and schoolboys grumble. It was wonderful what a liking John James took to this odious, querulous, graceless, stupid, and snuffy old man, and how he would find pretexts for visiting him at his lodging in the old hospital. He actually took that journey that he might have a chance of seeing Clive. He sent Clive notes and packets of drawings; thanked him for books lent, asked advice about future reading--anything, so that he might have a sight of his pride, his patron, his paragon.
I am afraid Clive Newcome employed him to smuggle rum-shrub and cigars into the premises; giving him appointments in the school precincts, where young Clive would come and stealthily receive the forbidden goods.
The poor lad was known by the boys, and called Newcome's Punch. He was all but hunchbacked; long and lean in the arm; sallow, with a great forehead, and waving black hair, and large melancholy eyes.
”What, is it you, J. J.?” cries Clive gaily, when his humble friend appears at the door. ”Father, this is my friend Ridley. This is the fellow what can draw.”
”I know who I will back against any young man of his size at that,” says the Colonel, looking at Clive fondly. He considered there was not such a genius in the world; and had already thought of having some of Clive's drawings published by M'Lean of the Haymarket.
”This is my father just come from India--and Mr. Pendennis, an old Grey Friars' man. Is my uncle at home?” Both these gentlemen bestow rather patronising nods of the head on the lad introduced to them as J. J.
His exterior is but mean-looking. Colonel Newcome, one of the humblest-minded men alive, has yet his old-fas.h.i.+oned military notions; and speaks to a butler's son as to a private soldier, kindly, but not familiarly.
”Mr Honeyman is at home, gentlemen,” the young lad says, humbly. ”Shall I show you up to his room?” And we walk up the stairs after our guide.
We find Mr. Honeyman deep in study on his sofa, with Pearson on the Creed before him. The novel has been whipped under the pillow. Clive found it there some short time afterwards, during his uncle's temporary absence in his dressing-room. He has agreed to suspend his theological studies, and go out with his brother-in-law to dine.
As Clive and his friends were at Honeyman's door, and just as we were entering to see the divine seated in state before his folio, Clive whispers, ”J. J., come along, old fellow, and show us some drawings.
What are you doing?”
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