Part 67 (1/2)
This was the sentence Thomas Newcome delivered: a righteous and tender-hearted man, as we know, but judging in this case wrongly, and bearing much too hardly, as we who know her betters must think, upon one who had her faults certainly, but whose errors were not all of her own making. Who set her on the path she walked in? It was her parents' hands which led her, and her parents' voices which commanded her to accept the temptation set before her. What did she know of the character of the man selected to be her husband? Those who should have known better brought him to her, and vouched for him. n.o.ble, unhappy young creature! are you the first of your sisterhood who has been bidden to traffic your beauty, to crush and slay your honest natural affections, to sell your truth and your life for rank and t.i.tle? But the Judge who sees not the outward acts merely, but their causes, and views not the wrong alone, but the temptations, struggles, ignorance of erring creatures, we know has a different code to ours--to ours, who fall upon the fallen, who fawn upon the prosperous so, who administer our praises and punishments so prematurely, who now strike so hard, and, anon, spare so shamelessly.
Our stay with our hospitable friends at Rosebury was perforce coming to a close, for indeed weeks after weeks had pa.s.sed since we had been under their pleasant roof; and in spite of dearest Ethel's remonstrances it was clear that dearest Laura must take her farewell. In these last days, besides the visits which daily took place between one and other, the young messenger was put in ceaseless requisition, and his donkey must have been worn off his little legs with trotting to and fro between the two houses, Laura was quite anxious and hurt at not hearing from the Colonel; it was a shame that he did not have over his letters from Belgium and answer that one which she had honoured him by writing. By some information, received who knows how? our host was aware of the intrigue which Mrs. Pendennis was carrying on; and his little wife almost as much interested in it as my own. She whispered to me in her kind way that she would give a guinea, that she would, to see a certain couple made happy together; that they were born for one another, that they were; she was for having me go off to fetch Clive: but who was I to act as Hymen's messenger, or to interpose in such delicate family affairs?
All this while Sir Barnes Newcome, Bart., remained absent in London, attending to his banking duties there, and pursuing the dismal inquiries which ended, in the ensuing Michaelmas term, in the famous suit of Newcome v. Lord Highgate. Ethel, pursuing the plan which she had laid down for herself from the first, took entire charge of his children and house: Lady Anne returned to her own family: never indeed having been of much use in her son's dismal household. My wife talked to me of course about her pursuits and amus.e.m.e.nts at Newcome, in the ancestral hall which we have mentioned. The children played and ate their dinner (mine often partook of his infantine mutton, in company with little Clara and the poor young heir of Newcome) in the room which had been called my lady's own, and in which her husband had locked her, forgetting that the conservatories were open, through which the hapless woman had fled. Next to this was the baronial library, a side of which was fitted with the gloomy books from Clapham, which old Mrs. Newcome had ama.s.sed; rows of tracts, and missionary magazines, and dingy quarto volumes of worldly travel and history which that lady had admitted into her collection.
Almost on the last day of our stay at Rosebury, the two young ladies bethought them of paying a visit to the neighbouring town of Newcome, to that old Mrs. Mason who has been mentioned in a foregoing page in some yet earlier chapter of our history. She was very old now, very faithful to the recollections of her own early time, and oblivious of yesterday.
Thanks to Colonel Newcome's bounty, she had lived in comfort for many a long year past; and he was as much her boy now as in those early days of which we have given but an outline. There were Clive's pictures of himself and his father over her little mantelpiece, near which she sat in comfort and warmth by the winter fire which his bounty supplied.
Mrs. Mason remembered Miss Newcome, prompted thereto by the hints of her little maid, who was much younger, and had a more faithful memory than her mistress. Why, Sarah Mason would have forgotten the pheasants whose very tails decorated the chimney-gla.s.s, had not Keziah, the maid, reminded her that the young lady was the donor. Then she recollected her benefactor, and asked after her father, the Baronet; and wondered, for her part, why her boy, the Colonel, was not made baronet, and why his brother had the property? Her father was a very good man; though Mrs.
Mason had heard he was not much liked in those parts. ”Dead and gone, was he, poor man?” (This came in reply to a hint from Keziah, the attendant, bawled in the old lady's ears, who was very deaf.) ”Well, well, we must all go; and if we were all good, like the Colonel, what was the use of staying? I hope his wife will be good. I am sure such a good man deserves one,” added Mrs. Mason.
The ladies thought the old woman doting, led thereto by the remark of Keziah, the maid, that Mrs. Mason have a lost her memory. And she asked who the other bonny lady was, and Ethel told her that Mrs. Pendennis was a friend of the Colonel's and Clive's.
”Oh, Clive's friend! Well, she was a pretty lady, and he was a dear pretty boy. He drew those pictures; and he took off me in my cap, with my old cat and all--my poor old cat that's buried this ever so long ago.”
”She has had a letter from the Colonel, miss,” cries out Keziah.
”Haven't you had a letter from the Colonel, mum? It came only yesterday.” And Keziah takes out the letter and shows it to the ladies.
They read as follows:--
”London, Feb. 12, 184-.
”My Dear Old Mason--I have just heard from a friend of mine who has been staying in your neighbourhood, that you are well and happy, and that you have been making inquiries after your young scapegrace, Tom Newcome, who is well and happy too, and who proposes to be happier still before any very long time is over.
”The letter which was written to me about you was sent to me in Belgium, at Brussels, where I have been living--a town near the place where the famous Battle of Waterloo was fought; and as I had run away from Waterloo it followed me to England.
”I cannot come to Newcome just now to shake my dear old friend and nurse by the hand. I have business in London; and there are those of my name living in Newcome who would not be very happy to see me and mine.
”But I promise you a visit before very long, and Clive will come with me; and when we come I shall introduce a new friend to you, a very pretty little daughter-in-law, whom you must promise to love very much. She is a Scotch la.s.sie, niece of my oldest friend, James Binnie, Esquire, of the Bengal Civil Service, who will give her a pretty bit of siller, and her present name is Miss Rosa Mackenzie.
”We shall send you a wedding cake soon, and a new gown for Keziah (to whom remember me), and when I am gone, my grandchildren after me will hear what a dear friend you were to your affectionate Thomas Newcome.”
Keziah must have thought that there was something between Clive and my wife, for when Laura had read the letter she laid it down on the table, and sitting down by it, and hiding her face in her hands, burst into tears.
Ethel looked steadily at the two pictures of Clive and his father. Then she put her hand on her friend's shoulder. ”Come, my dear,” she said, ”it is growing late, and I must go back to my children.” And she saluted Mrs. Mason and her maid in a very stately manner, and left them, leading my wife away, who was still exceedingly overcome.
We could not stay long at Rosebury after that. When Madame de Moncontour heard the news, the good lady cried too. Mrs. Pendennis's emotion was renewed as we pa.s.sed the gates of Newcome Park on our way to the railroad.
CHAPTER LXII. Mr. and Mrs. Clive Newcome
The friends.h.i.+p between Ethel and Laura, which the last narrated sentimental occurrences had so much increased, subsists very little impaired up to the present day. A lady with many domestic interests and increasing family, etc. etc., cannot be supposed to cultivate female intimacies out of doors with that ardour and eagerness which young spinsters exhibit in their intercourse; but Laura, whose kind heart first led her to sympathise with her young friend in the latter's days of distress and misfortune, has professed ever since a growing esteem for Ethel Newcome, and says, that the trials and perhaps grief which the young lady now had to undergo have brought out the n.o.blest qualities of her disposition. She is a very different person from the giddy and worldly girl who compelled our admiration of late in the days of her triumphant youthful beauty, of her wayward generous humour, of her frivolities and her flirtations.
Did Ethel shed tears in secret over the marriage which had caused Laura's gentle eyes to overflow? We might divine the girl's grief, but we respected it. The subject was never mentioned by the ladies between themselves, and even in her most intimate communications with her husband that gentleman is bound to say his wife maintained a tender reserve upon the point, nor cared to speculate upon a subject which her friend held sacred. I could not for my part but acquiesce in this reticence; and, if Ethel felt regret and remorse, admire the dignity of her silence, and the sweet composure of her now changed and saddened demeanour.
The interchange of letters between the two friends was constant, and in these the younger lady described at length the duties, occupations, and pleasures of her new life. She had quite broken with the world, and devoted herself entirely to the nurture and education of her brother's orphan children. She educated herself in order to teach them. Her letters contain droll yet touching confessions of her own ignorance and her determination to overcome it. There was no lack of masters of all kinds in Newcome. She set herself to work like a schoolgirl. The little piano in the room near the conservatory was thumped by Aunt Ethel until it became quite obedient to her, and yielded the sweetest music under her fingers. When she came to pay us a visit at Fairoaks some two years afterwards she played for our dancing children (our third is named Ethel, our second Helen, after one still more dear), and we were in admiration of her skill. There must have been the labour of many lonely nights when her little charges were at rest, and she and her sad thoughts sat up together, before she overcame the difficulties of the instrument so as to be able to soothe herself and to charm and delight her children.
When the divorce was p.r.o.nounced, which came in due form, though we know that Lady Highgate was not much happier than the luckless Lady Clara Newcome had been, Ethel's dread was lest Sir Barnes should marry again, and by introducing a new mistress into his house should deprive her of the care of her children.
Miss Newcome judged her brother rightly in that he would try to marry, but a n.o.ble young lady to whom he offered himself rejected him, to his surprise and indignation, for a beggarly clergyman with a small living, on which she elected to starve; and the wealthy daughter of a neighbouring manufacturer whom he next proposed to honour with his gracious hand, fled from him with horror to the arms of her father, wondering how such a man as that should ever dare to propose marriage to an honest girl. Sir Barnes Newcome was much surprised at this outbreak of anger; he thought himself a very ill-used and unfortunate man, a victim of most cruel persecutions, which we may be sure did not improve his temper or tend to the happiness of his circle at home. Peevishness, and selfish rage, quarrels with servants and governesses, and other domestic disquiet, Ethel had of course to bear from her brother, but not actual personal ill-usage. The fiery temper of former days was subdued in her, but the haughty resolution remained, which was more than a match for her brother's cowardly tyranny: besides, she was the mistress of sixty thousand pounds, and by many wily hints and piteous appeals to his sister Sir Barnes sought to secure this desirable sum of money for his poor dear unfortunate children.