Part 47 (1/2)

”Should you like that Mendelssohn for the Sunday after next? Julia sings it splendid!”

”No, I don't, ma.”

”You do, dear! She's a good, good dear, Mr. H., that's what she is.”

”You must not call--a--him, in that way. Don't say Mr. H., ma,” says Julia.

”Call me what you please!” says Charles, with the most heart-rending simplicity; and Mrs. Sherrick straightway kisses her daughter. Sherrick meanwhile has been pointing out the improvement of the chapel to Clive (which now has indeed a look of the Gothic Hall at Rosherville), and has confided to him the sum for which he screwed the painted window out of old Moss. ”When he come to see it up in this place, sir, the old man was mad, I give you my word! His son ain't no good: says he knows you. He's such a screw, that chap, that he'll overreach himself, mark my words.

At least, he'll never die rich. Did you ever hear of me s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g? No, I spend my money like a man. How those girls are a-goin' on about their music with Honeyman! I don't let 'em sing in the evening, or him do duty more than once a day; and you can calc'late how the music draws, because in the evenin' there ain't half the number of people here. Rev. Mr.

Journyman does the duty now--quiet Hogford man--ill, I suppose, this morning. H. sits in his pew, where we was; and coughs; that's to say, I told him to cough. The women like a consumptive parson, sir. Come, gals!”

Clive went to his uncle's lodgings, and was received by Mr. and Mrs.

Ridley with great glee and kindness. Both of those good people had made it a point to pay their duty to Mr. Clive immediately on his return to England, and thank him over and over again for his kindness to John James. Never, never would they forget his goodness, and the Colonel's, they were sure. A cake, a heap of biscuits, a pyramid of jams, six frizzling mutton-chops, and four kinds of hot wine, came bustling up to Mr. Honeyman's room twenty minutes after Clive had entered it,--as a token of the Ridleys' affection for him.

Clive remarked, with a smile, the Pall Mall Gazette upon a side-table, and in the chimney-gla.s.s almost as many cards as in the time of Honeyman's early prosperity. That he and his uncle should be very intimate together, was impossible, from the nature of the two men; Clive being frank, clear-sighted, and imperious; Charles, timid, vain, and double-faced, conscious that he was a humbug, and that most people found him out, so that he would quiver and turn away, and be more afraid of young Clive and his direct straightforward way, than of many older men.

Then there was the sense of the money transactions between him and the Colonel, which made Charles Honeyman doubly uneasy. In fine, they did not like each other; but, as he is a connection of the most respectable Newcome family, surely he is ent.i.tled to a page or two in these their memoirs.

Thursday came, and with it Mr. Sherrick's entertainment, to which also Mr. Binnie and his party had been invited to meet Colonel Newcome's son.

Uncle James and Rosey brought Clive in their carriage; Mrs. Mackenzie sent a headache as an apology. She chose to treat Uncle James's landlord with a great deal of hauteur, and to be angry with her brother for visiting such a person. ”In fact, you see how fond I must be of dear little Rosey, Clive, that I put up with all mamma's tantrums for her sake,” remarks Mr. Binnie.

”Oh, uncle!” says little Rosey, and the old gentleman stopped her remonstrances with a kiss.

”Yes,” says he, ”your mother does have tantrums, miss; and though you never complain, there's no reason why I shouldn't. You will not tell on me” (it was ”Oh, uncle!” again); ”and Clive won't, I am sure.--This little thing, sir,” James went on, holding Rosey's pretty little hand and looking fondly in her pretty little face, ”is her old uncle's only comfort in life. I wish I had had her out to India to me, and never come back to this great dreary town of yours. But I was tempted home by Tom Newcome; and I'm too old to go back, sir. Where the stick falls let it lie. Rosey would have been whisked out of my house, in India, in a month after I had her there. Some young fellow would have taken her away from me; and now she has promised never to leave her old Uncle James, hasn't she?”

”No, never, uncle,” said Rosey.

”We don't want to fall in love, do we, child? We don't want to be breaking our hearts like some young folks, and dancing attendance at b.a.l.l.s night after night, and capering about in the Park to see if we can get a glimpse of the beloved object, eh, Rosey?”

Rosey blushed. It was evident that she and Uncle James both knew of Clive's love affair. In fact, the front seat and back seat of the carriage both blushed. And as for the secret, why Mrs. Mackenzie and Mrs. Hobson had talked it a hundred times over.

”This little Rosey, sir, has promised to take care of me on this side of Styx,” continued Uncle James; ”and if she could but be left alone and to do it without mamma--there, I won't say a word more against her--we should get on none the worse.”

”Uncle James, I must make a picture of you, for Rosey,” said Clive, good-humouredly. And Rosey said, ”Oh, thank you, Clive,” and held out that pretty little hand, and looked so sweet and kind and happy, that Clive could not but be charmed at the sight of so much innocence and candour.

”Quasty peecoly Rosiny,” says James, in a fine Scotch Italian, ”e la piu bella, la piu cara, ragazza ma la mawdry e il diav----”

”Don't, uncle!” cried Rosey, again; and Clive laughed at Uncle James's wonderful outbreak in a foreign tongue.

”Eh! I thought ye didn't know a word of the sweet language, Rosey!

It's just the Lenguy Toscawny in Bocky Romawny that I thought to try in compliment to this young monkey who has seen the world.” And by this time Saint John's Wood was reached, and Mr. Sherrick's handsome villa, at the door of which the three beheld the Rev. Charles Honeyman stepping out of a neat brougham.

The drawing-room contained several pictures of Mrs. Sherrick when she was in the theatrical line; Smee's portrait of her, which was never half handsome enough--for my Betsy, Sherrick said indignantly; the print of her in Artaxerxes, with her signature as Elizabeth Folthorpe (not in truth a fine specimen of calligraphy) the testimonial presented to her on the conclusion of the triumphal season of 18--, at Drury Lane, by her ever grateful friend Adolphus Smacker, Lessee, who, of course, went to law with her next year; and other Thespian emblems. But Clive remarked, with not a little amus.e.m.e.nt, that the drawing-room tables were now covered with a number of those books which he had seen at Madame de Moncontour's, and many French and German ecclesiastical gimcracks, such as are familiar to numberless readers of mine. These were the Lives of St. Botibol of Islington and St. Willibald of Bareacres, with pictures of those confessors. Then there was the Legend of Margery Dawe, Virgin and Martyr, with a sweet double frontispiece, representing (1) the sainted woman selling her feather-bed for the benefit of the poor; and (2) reclining upon straw, the leanest of invalids. There was Old Daddy Longlegs, and how he was brought to say his Prayers; a Tale for Children, by a Lady, with a preface dated St. Chad's Eve, and signed ”C.

H.” The Rev. Charles Honeyman's Sermons, delivered at Lady Whittlesea's Chapel. Poems of Early Days, by Charles Honeyman, A.M. The Life of good Dame Whittlesea, by do, do. Yes, Charles had come out in the literary line; and there in a basket was a strip of Berlin work, of the very same Gothic pattern which Madame de Moncontour was weaving; and which you afterwards saw round the pulpit of Charles's chapel. Rosey was welcomed most kindly by the kind ladies; and as the gentlemen sat over their wine after dinner in the summer evening, Clive beheld Rosey and Julia pacing up and down the lawn, Miss Julia's arm around her little friend's waist: he thought they would make a pretty little picture.

”My girl ain't a bad one to look at, is she?” said the pleased father.

”A fellow might look far enough, and see not prettier than them two.”