Part 63 (1/2)
”Dearest, kindest Mrs. Pendennis,” Lady Clara wrote, with many italics, and evidently in much distress of mind. ”Your visit is not to be.
I spoke about it to Sir B., who arrived this afternoon, and who has already begun to treat me in his usual way. Oh, I am so unhappy! Pray, pray do not be angry at this rudeness--though indeed it is only a kindness to keep you from this wretched place! I feel as if I cannot bear this much longer. But, whatever happens, I shall always remember your goodness, your beautiful goodness and kindness; and shall wors.h.i.+p you as an angel deserves to be wors.h.i.+pped. Oh, why had I not such a friend earlier! But alas! I have none--only this odious family thrust upon me for companions to the wretched, lonely, C. N.
”P.S.--He does not know of my writing. Do not be surprised if you get another note from me in the morning, written in a ceremonious style and regretting that we cannot have the pleasure of receiving Mr. and Mrs.
Pendennis for the present at Newcome.
”P.S.--The hypocrite!”
This letter was handed to my wife at dinner-time, and she gave it to me as she pa.s.sed out of the room with the other ladies.
I told Florac that the Newcomes could not receive us, and that we would remain, if he willed it, his guests for a little longer. The kind fellow was only too glad to keep us. ”My wife would die without Bebi,” he said.
”She becomes quite dangerous about Bebi.” It was gratifying that the good old lady was not to be parted as yet from the innocent object of her love.
My host knew as well as I the terms upon which Sir Barnes and his wife were living. Their quarrels were the talk of the whole county; one side brought forward his treatment of her, and his conduct elsewhere, and said that he was so bad that honest people should not know him. The other party laid the blame upon her, and declared that Lady Clara was a languid, silly, weak, frivolous creature; always crying out of season; who had notoriously taken Sir Barnes for his money and who as certainly had had an attachment elsewhere. Yes, the accusations were true on both sides. A bad, selfish husband had married a woman for her rank: a weak, thoughtless girl had been sold to a man for his money; and the union, which might have ended in a complete indifference, had taken an ill turn and resulted in misery, cruelty, fierce mutual recriminations, bitter tears shed in private, husband's curses and maledictions, and open scenes of wrath and violence for servants to witness and the world to sneer at. We arrange such matches every day; we sell or buy beauty, or rank, or wealth; we inaugurate the bargain in churches with sacramental services, in which the parties engaged call upon Heaven to witness their vows--we know them to be lies, and we seal them with G.o.d's name. ”I, Barnes, promise to take you, Clara, to love and honour till death do us part” ”I Clara, promise to take you, Barnes,” etc, etc. Who has not heard the ancient words; and how many of us have uttered them, knowing them to be untrue: and is there a bishop on the bench that has not amen'd the humbug in his lawn sleeves and called a blessing over the kneeling perjurers?
”Does Mr. Harris know of Newcome's return?” Florac asked, when I acquainted him with this intelligence. ”Ce scelerat de Highgate--Va!”
”Does Newcome know that Lord Highgate is here?” I thought within myself, admiring my wife's faithfulness and simplicity, and trying to believe with that pure and guileless creature that it was not yet too late to save the unhappy Lady Clara.
”Mr. Harris had best be warned,” I said to Florac; ”will you write him a word, and let us send a messenger to Newcome?”
At first Florac said, ”Parbleu! No;” the affair was none of his, he attended himself always to this result of Lady Clara's marriage. He had even complimented Jack upon it years before at Baden, when scenes enough tragic, enough comical, ma foi, had taken place apropos of this affair.
Why should he meddle with it now?
”Children dishonoured,” said I, ”honest families made miserable; for Heaven's sake, Florac, let us stay this catastrophe if we can.” I spoke with much warmth, eagerly desirous to avert this calamity if possible, and very strongly moved by the tale which I had heard only just before dinner from that n.o.ble and innocent creature, whose pure heart had already prompted her to plead the cause of right and truth, and to try and rescue an unhappy desperate sister trembling on the verge of ruin.
”If you will not write to him,” said I, in some heat, ”if your grooms don't like to go out of a night” (this was one of the objections which Florac had raised), ”I will walk.” We were talking over the affair rather late in the evening, the ladies having retreated to their sleeping apartments, and some guests having taken leave, whom our hospitable host and hostess had entertained that night, and before whom I naturally did not care to speak upon a subject so dangerous.
”Parbleu, what virtue, my friend! what a Joseph!” cries Florac, puffing his cigar. ”One sees well that your wife had made you the sermon. My poor Pendennis! You are henpecked, my pauvre bon! You become the husband model. It is true my mother writes that thy wife is an angel!”
”I do not object to obey such a woman when she bids me do right,” I said; and would indeed at that woman's request have gone out upon the errand, but that we here found another messenger. On days when dinner-parties were held at Rosebury, certain auxiliary waiters used to attend from Newcome whom the landlord of the King's Arms was accustomed to supply; indeed, it was to secure these, and make other necessary arrangements respecting fish, game, etc., that the Prince de Moncontour had ridden over to Newcome on the day when we met Lord Highgate, alias Mr. Harris, before the bar of the hotel. Whilst we were engaged in the above conversation a servant enters, and says, ”My lord, Jenkins and the other man is going back to Newcome in their cart, and is there anything wanted?”
”It is the Heaven which sends him,” says Florac, turning round to me with a laugh; ”make Jenkins to wait five minutes, Robert; I have to write to a gentleman at the King's Arms.” And so saying, Florac wrote a line which he showed me, and having sealed the note, directed it to Mr.
Harris at the King's Arms. The cart, the note, and the a.s.sistant waiters departed on their way to Newcome. Florac bade me go to rest with a clear conscience. In truth, the warning was better given in that way than any other, and a word from Florac was more likely to be effectual than an expostulation from me. I had never thought of making it, perhaps; except at the expressed desire of a lady whose counsel in all the difficult circ.u.mstances of life I own I am disposed to take.
Mr. Jenkins's horse no doubt trotted at a very brisk pace, as gentlemen's horses will of a frosty night, after their masters have been regaled with plentiful supplies of wine and ale. I remember in my bachelor days that my horses always trotted quicker after I had had a good dinner; the champagne used to communicate itself to them somehow, and the claret get into their heels. Before midnight the letter for Mr.
Harris was in Mr. Harris's hands in the King's Arms.
It has been said that in the Boscawen Room at the Arms, some of the jolly fellows of Newcome had a club, of which Parrot the auctioneer, Tom Potts the talented reporter, now editor of the Independent, Vidler the apothecary, and other gentlemen, were members.
When we first had occasion to mention that society, it was at an early stage of this history, long before Clive Newcome's fine moustache had grown. If Vidler the apothecary was old and infirm then, he is near ten years older now; he has had various a.s.sistants, of course, and one of them of late years had his become his partner, though the firm continues to be known by Viller's ancient and respectable name. A jovial fellow was this partner--a capital convivial member of the Jolly Britons, where he used to sit very late, so as to be in readiness for any night-work that might come in.
So the Britons were all sitting, smoking, drinking, and making merry, in the Boscawen Room, when Jenkins enters with a note, which he straightway delivers to Mr. Vidler's partner. ”From Rosebury? The Princess ill again, I suppose,” says the surgeon, not sorry to let the company know that he attends her. ”I wish the old girl would be ill in the daytime.
Confound it,” says he, ”what's this----” and he reads out, ”'Sir Newcome est de retour. Bon voyage, mon ami.--F.' What does this mean?”
”I thought you knew French, Jack Harris,” says Tom Potts; ”you're always bothering us with your French songs.”
”Of course I know French,” says the other; ”but what's the meaning of this?”