Part 22 (1/2)
”Well, well; I suppose at these swell parties you 'ave as bush champade as ever you like,” continues Moss. ”Lady Kicklebury at obe--small early party. Why, I declare you know the whole peerage! I say, if any of these swells want a little tip-top lace, a real bargain, or diamonds, you know, you might put in a word for us, and do us a good turn.”
”Give me some of your cards,” says Clive; ”I can distribute them about at the b.a.l.l.s I go to. But you must treat my friends better than you serve me. Those cigars which you sent me were abominable, Moss; the groom in the stable won't smoke them.”
”What a regular swell that Newcome has become!” says Mr. Moss to an old companion, another of Clive's fellow-students: ”I saw him riding in the Park with the Earl of Kew, and Captain Belsize, and a whole lot of 'em--I know 'em all--and he'd hardly nod to me. I'll have a horse next Sunday, and then I'll see whether he'll cut me or not. Confound his airs! For all he's such a count, I know he's got an aunt who lets lodgings at Brighton, and an uncle who'll be preaching in the Bench if he don't keep a precious good look-out.”
”Newcome is not a bit of a count,” answers Moss's companion, indignantly. ”He don't care a straw whether a fellow's poor or rich; and he comes up to my room just as willingly as he would go to a duke's.
He is always trying to do a friend a good turn. He draws the figure capitally: he looks proud, but he isn't, and is the best-natured fellow I ever saw.”
”He ain't been in our place this eighteen months,” says Mr. Moss: ”I know that.”
”Because when he came you were always s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g him with some bargain or other,” cried the intrepid Hicks, Mr. Moss's companion for the moment.
”He said he couldn't afford to know you: you never let him out of your house without a pin, or a box of eau-de-cologne, or a bundle of cigars.
And when you cut the arts for the shop, how were you and Newcome to go on together, I should like to know?”
”I know a relative of his who comes to our 'ouse every three months, to renew a little bill,” says Mr. Moss, with a grin: ”and I know this, if I go to the Earl of Kew in the Albany, or the Honourable Captain Belsize, Knightsbridge Barracks, they let me in soon enough. I'm told his father ain't got much money.”
”How the deuce should I know? or what do I care?” cries the young artist, stamping the heel of his blucher on the pavement. ”When I was sick in that confounded Clipstone Street, I know the Colonel came to see me, and Newcome too, day after day, and night after night. And when I was getting well, they sent me wine and jelly, and all sorts of jolly things. I should like to know how often you came to see me, Moss, and what you did for a fellow?”
”Well, I kep away because I thought you wouldn't like to be reminded of that two pound three you owe me, Hicks: that's why I kep away,” says Mr. Moss, who, I dare say, was good-natured too. And when young Moss appeared at the billiard-room that night, it was evident that Hicks had told the story; for the Wardour Street youth was saluted with a roar of queries, ”How about that two pound three that Hicks owes you?”
The artless conversation of the two youths will enable us to understand how our hero's life was speeding. Connected in one way or another with persons in all ranks, it never entered his head to be ashamed of the profession which he had chosen. People in the great world did not in the least trouble themselves regarding him, or care to know whether Mr.
Clive Newcome followed painting or any other pursuit: and though Clive saw many of his schoolfellows in the world, these entering into the army, others talking with delight of college, and its pleasures or studies; yet, having made up his mind that art was his calling, he refused to quit her for any other mistress, and plied his easel very stoutly. He pa.s.sed through the course of study prescribed by Mr.
Gandish, and drew every cast and statue in that gentleman's studio.
Grindley, his tutor, getting a curacy, Clive did not replace him; but he took a course of modern languages, which he learned with considerable apt.i.tude and rapidity. And now, being strong enough to paint without a master, it was found that there was no good light in the house in Fitzroy Square; and Mr. Clive must needs have an atelier hard by, where he could pursue his own devices independently.
If his kind father felt any pang even at this temporary parting, he was greatly soothed and pleased by a little mark of attention on the young man's part, of which his present biographer happened to be a witness; for having walked over with Colonel Newcome to see the new studio, with its tall centre window, and its curtains, and carved wardrobes, china jars, pieces of armour, and other artistical properties, the lad, with a very sweet smile of kindness and affection lighting up his honest face, took one of two Bramah's house-keys with which he was provided, and gave it to his father: ”That's your key, sir,” he said to the Colonel; ”and you must be my first sitter, please, father; for though I'm a historical painter, I shall condescend to do a few portraits, you know.” The Colonel took his son's hand, and grasped it; as Clive fondly put the other hand on his father's shoulder. Then Colonel Newcome walked away into the next room for a minute or two, and came back wiping his moustache with his handkerchief, and still holding the key in the other hand. He spoke about some trivial subject when he returned; but his voice quite trembled; and I thought his face seemed to glow with love and pleasure. Clive has never painted anything better than that head, which he executed in a couple of sittings; and wisely left without subjecting it to the chances of further labour.
It is certain the young man worked much better after he had been inducted into this apartment of his own. And the meals at home were gayer; and the rides with his father more frequent and agreeable. The Colonel used his key once or twice, and found Clive and his friend Ridley engaged in depicting a life-guardsman,--or a muscular negro,--or a Malay from a neighbouring crossing, who would appear as Oth.e.l.lo, conversing with a Clipstone Street nymph, who was ready to represent Desdemona, Diana, Queen Ellinor (sucking poison from the arm of the Plantagenet of the Blues), or any other model of virgin or maiden excellence.
Of course our young man commenced as a historical painter, deeming that the highest branch of art; and declining (except for preparatory studies) to operate on any but the largest canva.s.ses. He painted a prodigious battle-piece of a.s.saye, with General Wellesley at the head of the 19th Dragoons charging the Mahratta Artillery, and sabring them at their guns. A piece of ordnance was dragged into the back-yard, and the Colonel's stud put into requisition to supply studies for this enormous picture. Fred Bayham (a stunning likeness) appeared as the princ.i.p.al figure in the foreground, terrifically wounded, but still of undaunted courage, slas.h.i.+ng about amidst a group of writhing Malays, and bestriding the body of a dead cab-horse, which Clive painted, until the landlady and rest of the lodgers cried out, and for sanitary reasons the knackers removed the slaughtered charger. So large was this picture that it could only be got out of the great window by means of artifice and coaxing; and its transport caused a shout of triumph among the little boys in Charlotte Street. Will it be believed that the Royal Academicians rejected the ”Battle of a.s.saye”? The masterpiece was so big that Fitzroy Square could not hold it; and the Colonel had thoughts of presenting it to the Oriental Club; but Clive (who had taken a trip to Paris with his father, as a dela.s.s.e.m.e.nt after the fatigues incident on this great work), when he saw it, after a month's interval, declared the thing was rubbish, and ma.s.sacred Britons, Malays, Dragoons, Artillery and all.
”Hotel de la Terra.s.se, Rue de Rivoli,
”April 27--May 1, 183-.
”My Dear Pendennis--You said I might write you a line from Paris; and if you find in my correspondence any valuable hints for the Pall Mall Gazette, you are welcome to use them gratis. Now I am here, I wonder I have never been here before, and that I have seen the Dieppe packet a thousand times at Brighton pier without thinking of going on board her.
We had a rough little pa.s.sage to Boulogne. We went into action as we cleared Dover pier--when the first gun was fired, and a stout old lady was carried off by a steward to the cabin; half a dozen more dropped immediately, and the crew bustled about, bringing basins for the wounded. The Colonel smiled as he saw them fall. 'I'm an old sailor,'
says he to a gentleman on board. 'I was coming home, sir, and we had plenty of rough weather on the voyage, I never thought of being unwell.
My boy here, who made the voyage twelve years ago last May, may have lost his sea-legs; but for me, sir--' Here a great wave dashed over the three of us; and would you believe it? in five minutes after, the dear old governor was as ill as all the rest of the pa.s.sengers. When we arrived, we went through a line of ropes to the custom-house, with a crowd of sn.o.bs jeering at us on each side; and then were carried off by a bawling commissioner to an hotel, where the Colonel, who speaks French beautifully, you know, told the waiter to get us a pet.i.t dejeuner soigne; on which the fellow, grinning, said, a 'nice fried sole, sir,--nice mutton-chop, sir,' in regular Temple Bar English; and brought us Harvey sauce with the chops, and the last Bell's Life to amuse us after our luncheon. I wondered if all the Frenchmen read Bell's Life, and if all the inns smell so of brandy-and-water!
”We walked out to see the town, which I dare say you know, and therefore shan't describe. We saw some good studies of fishwomen with bare legs, and remarked that the soldiers were very dumpy and small. We were glad when the time came to set off by the diligence; and having the coupe to ourselves, made a very comfortable journey to Paris. It was jolly to hear the postillions crying to their horses, and the bells of the team, and to feel ourselves really in France. We took in provender at Abbeville and Amiens, and were comfortably landed here after about six-and-twenty hours of coaching. Didn't I get up the next morning and have a good walk in the Tuileries! The chestnuts were out, and the statues all s.h.i.+ning, and all the windows of the palace in a blaze. It looks big enough for the king of the giants to live in. How grand it is!
I like the barbarous splendour of the architecture, and the ornaments profuse and enormous with which it is overladen. Think of Louis XVI.
with a thousand gentlemen at his back, and a mob of yelling ruffians in front of him, giving up his crown without a fight for it; leaving his friends to be butchered, and himself sneaking into prison! No end of little children were skipping and playing in the suns.h.i.+ny walks, with dresses as bright and cheeks as red as the flowers and roses in the parterres. I couldn't help thinking of Barbaroux and his b.l.o.o.d.y pikemen swarming in the gardens, and fancied the Swiss in the windows yonder; where they were to be slaughtered when the King had turned his back.
What a great man that Carlyle is! I have read the battle in his History so often, that I knew it before I had seen it. Our windows look out on the obelisk where the guillotine stood. The Colonel doesn't admire Carlyle. He says Mrs. Graham's Letters from Paris are excellent, and we bought Scott's Visit to Paris, and Paris Re-visited, and read them in the diligence. They are famous good reading; but the Palais Royal is very much altered since Scott's time: no end of handsome shops; I went there directly,--the same night we arrived, when the Colonel went to bed. But there is none of the fun going on which Scott describes. The laquais de place says Charles X. put an end to it all.
”Next morning the governor had letters to deliver after breakfast, and left me at the Louvre door. I shall come and live here, I think. I feel as if I never want to go away. I had not been ten minutes in the place before I fell in love with the most beautiful creature the world has ever seen. She was standing silent and majestic in the centre of one of the rooms of the statue-gallery; and the very first glimpse of her struck one breathless with the sense of her beauty. I could not see the colour of her eyes and hair exactly, but the latter is light, and the eyes I should think are grey. Her complexion is of a beautiful warm marble tinge. She is not a clever woman, evidently; I do not think she laughs or talks much--she seems too lazy to do more than smile. She is only beautiful. This divine creature has lost an arm, which has been cut off at the shoulder, but she looks none the less lovely for the accident. She maybe some two-and-thirty years old; and she was born about two thousand years ago. Her name is the Venus of Milo. O Victrix!
O lucky Paris! (I don't mean this present Lutetia, but Priam's son.) How could he give the apple to any else but this enslaver--this joy of G.o.ds and men? at whose benign presence the flowers spring up, and the smiling ocean sparkles, and the soft skies beam with serene light! I wish we might sacrifice. I would bring a spotless kid, snowy-coated, and a pair of doves and a jar of honey--yea, honey from Morel's in Piccadilly, thyme-flavoured, narbonian, and we would acknowledge the Sovereign Loveliness, and adjure the Divine Aphrodite. Did you ever see my pretty young cousin, Miss Newcome, Sir Brian's daughter? She has a great look of the huntress Diana. It is sometimes too proud and too cold for me.