Part 14 (1/2)
”I was doing some Arabian Nights,” says J. J., ”up in my room; and hearing a knock which I thought was yours, I came down.”
”Show us the pictures. Let's go up into your room,” cries Clive.
”What--will you?” says the other. ”It is but a very small place.”
”Never mind, come along,” says Clive; and the two lads disappear together, leaving the three grown gentlemen to discourse together, or rather two of us to listen to Honeyman, who expatiates upon the beauty of the weather, the difficulties of the clerical calling, the honour Colonel Newcome does him by a visit, etc., with his usual eloquence.
After a while Clive comes down without J. J., from the upper regions. He is greatly excited. ”Oh, sir,” he says to his father, ”you talk about my drawings--you should see J. J.'s! By Jove, that fellow is a genius. They are beautiful, sir. You seem actually to read the Arabian Nights, you know, only in pictures. There is Scheherazade telling the stories, and--what do you call her?--Dinarzade and the Sultan sitting in bed and listening. Such a grim old cove! You see he has cut off ever so many of his wives' heads. I can't think where that chap gets his ideas from. I can beat him in drawing horses, I know, and dogs; but I can only draw what I see. Somehow he seems to see things we don't, don't you know? Oh, father, I'm determined I'd rather be a painter than anything.” And he falls to drawing horses and dogs at his uncle's table, round which the elders are seated.
”I've settled it upstairs with J. J.,” says Clive, working away with his pen. ”We shall take a studio together; perhaps we will go abroad together. Won't that be fun, father?”
”My dear Clive,” remarks Mr. Honeyman, with bland dignity, ”there are degrees in society which we must respect. You surely cannot think of being a professional artist. Such a profession is very well for your young protege; but for you----”
”What for me?” cries Clive. ”We are no such great folks that I know of; and if we were, I say a painter is as good as a lawyer, or a doctor, or even a soldier. In Dr. Johnston's Life--which my father is always reading--I like to read about Sir Joshua Reynolds best: I think he is the best gentleman of all in the book. My! wouldn't I like to paint a picture like Lord Heathfield in the National Gallery! Wouldn't I just! I think I would sooner have done that, than have fought at Gibraltar. And those Three Graces--oh, aren't they graceful! And that Cardinal Beaufort at Dulwich!--it frightens me so, I daren't look at it. Wasn't Reynolds a clipper, that's all! and wasn't Rubens a brick! He was an amba.s.sador, and Knight of the Bath; so was Vandyck. And t.i.tian, and Raphael, and Velasquez?--I'll just trouble you to show me better gentlemen than them, Uncle Charles.”
”Far be it from me to say that the pictorial calling is not honourable,”
says Uncle Charles; ”but as the world goes there are other professions in greater repute; and I should have thought Colonel Newcome's son----”
”He shall follow his own bent,” said the Colonel; ”as long as his calling is honest it becomes a gentleman; and if he were to take a fancy to play on the fiddle--actually on the fiddle--I shouldn't object.”
”Such a rum chap there was upstairs!” Clive resumes, looking up from his scribbling. ”He was walking up and down on the landing in a dressing-gown, with scarcely any other clothes on, holding a plate in one hand, and a pork-chop he was munching with the other. Like this”
(and Clive draws a figure). ”What do you think, sir? He was in the Cave of Harmony, he says, that night you flared up about Captain Costigan. He knew me at once; and he says, 'Sir, your father acted like a gentleman, a Christian, and a man of honour. Maxima debetur puero reverentia.
Give him my compliments. I don't know his highly respectable name.' His highly respectable name,” says Clive, cracking with laughter--”those were his very words. 'And inform him that I am an orphan myself--in needy circ.u.mstances'--he said he was in needy circ.u.mstances; 'and I heartily wish he'd adopt me.'”
The lad puffed out his face, made his voice as loud and as deep as he could; and from his imitation and the picture he had drawn, I knew at once that Fred Bayham was the man he mimicked.
”And does the Red Rover live here,” cried Mr. Pendennis, ”and have we earthed him at last?”
”He sometimes comes here,” Mr. Honeyman said with a careless manner. ”My landlord and landlady were butler and housekeeper to his father, Bayham of Bayham, one of the oldest families in Europe. And Mr. Frederick Bayham, the exceedingly eccentric person of whom you speak, was a private pupil of my own dear father in our happy days at Borehambury.”
He had scarcely spoken when a knock was heard at the door, and before the occupant of the lodgings could say ”Come in!” Mr. Frederick Bayham made his appearance, arrayed in that peculiar costume which he affected.
In those days we wore very tall stocks, only a very few poetic and eccentric persons venturing on the Byron collar; but Fred Bayham confined his neck by a simple ribbon, which allowed his great red whiskers to curl freely round his capacious jowl. He wore a black frock and a large broad-brimmed hat, and looked somewhat like a Dissenting preacher. At other periods you would see him in a green coat and a blue neckcloth, as if the turf or the driving of coaches was his occupation.
”I have heard from the young man of the house who you were, Colonel Newcome,” he said with the greatest gravity, ”and happened to be present, sir, the other night; for I was aweary, having been toiling all the day in literary labour, and needed some refreshment. I happened to be present, sir, at a scene which did you the greatest honour, and of which I spoke, not knowing you, with something like levity to your son.
He is an ingenui vultus puer ingenuique pudoris--Pendennis, how are you?
And I thought, sir, I would come down and tender an apology if I had said any words that might savour of offence to a gentleman who was in the right, as I told the room when you quitted it, as Mr. Pendennis, I am sure, will remember.”
Mr. Pendennis looked surprise and perhaps negation.
”You forget, Pendennis? Those who quit that room, sir, often forget on the morrow what occurred during the revelry of the night. You did right in refusing to return to that scene. We public men are obliged often to seek our refreshment at hours when luckier individuals are lapt in slumber.”
”And what may be your occupation, Mr. Bayham?” asks the Colonel, rather gloomily, for he had an idea that Bayham was adopting a strain of persiflage which the Indian gentleman by no means relished. Never saying aught but a kind word to any one, he was on fire at the notion that any should take a liberty with him.
”A barrister, sir, but without business--a literary man, who can but seldom find an opportunity to sell the works of his brains--a gentleman, sir, who has met with neglect, perhaps merited, perhaps undeserved, from his family. I get my bread as best I may. On that evening I had been lecturing on the genius of some of our comic writers, at the Parthenopoeon, Hackney. My audience was scanty, perhaps equal to my deserts. I came home on foot to an egg and a gla.s.s of beer after midnight, and witnessed the scene which did you so much honour. What is this? I fancy a ludicrous picture of myself”--he had taken up the sketch which Clive had been drawing--”I like fun, even at my own expense; and can afford to laugh at a joke which is meant in good-humour.” This speech quite reconciled the honest Colonel. ”I am sure the author of that, Mr. Bayham, means you or any man no harm. Why! the rascal, sir, has drawn me, his own father; and I have sent the drawing to Major Hobbs, who is in command of my regiment. Chinnery himself, sir, couldn't hit off a likeness better; he has drawn me on horseback, and he has drawn me on foot, and he has drawn my friend, Mr. Binnie, who lives with me. We have scores of his drawings at my lodgings; and if you will favour us by dining with us to-day, and these gentlemen, you shall see that you are not the only person caricatured by Clive here.”
”I just took some little dinner upstairs, sir. I am a moderate man, and can live, if need be, like a Spartan; but to join such good company I will gladly use the knife and fork again. You will excuse the traveller's dress? I keep a room here, which I use only occasionally, and am at present lodging--in the country.”
When Honeyman was ready, the Colonel, who had the greatest respect for the Church, would not hear of going out of the room before the clergyman, and took his arm to walk. Bayham then fell to Mr. Pendennis's lot, and they went together. Through Hill Street and Berkeley Square their course was straight enough; but at Hay Hill, Mr. Bayham made an abrupt tack larboard, engaging in a labyrinth of stables, and walking a long way round from Clifford Street, whither we were bound. He hinted at a cab, but Pendennis refused to ride, being, in truth, anxious to see which way his eccentric companion would steer. ”There are reasons,”