Part 73 (1/2)
The boy looked so ineffably wretched that the father's heart melted still more. ”I did my best, Clive,” the Colonel gasped out. ”I went to that villain Barnes and offered him to settle every s.h.i.+lling I was worth on you--I did--you didn't know that--I'd kill myself for your sake, Clivy. What's an old fellow worth living for? I can live upon a crust and a cigar. I don't care about a carriage, and only go in it to please Rosey. I wanted to give up all for you, but he played me false, that scoundrel cheated us both; he did, and so did Ethel.”
”No, sir; I may have thought so in my rage once, but I know better now.
She was the victim and not the agent. Did Madame de Florac play you false when she married her husband? It was her fate, and she underwent it. We all bow to it, we are in the track and the car pa.s.ses over us.
You know it does, father.” The Colonel was a fatalist: he had often advanced this Oriental creed in his simple discourses with his son and Clive's friends.
”Besides,” Clive went on, ”Ethel does not care for me. She received me to-day quite coldly, and held her hand out as if we had only parted last year. I suppose she likes that marquis who jilted her--G.o.d bless her!
How shall we know what wins the hearts of women? She has mine. There was my Fate. Praise be to Allah! It is over.”
”But there's that villain who injured you. His isn't over yet,” cried the Colonel, clenching his trembling hand.
”Ah, father! Let us leave him to Allah too! Suppose Madame de Florac had a brother who insulted you. You know you wouldn't have revenged yourself. You would have wounded her in striking him.”
”You called out Barnes yourself, boy,” cried the father.
”That was for another cause, and not for my quarrel. And how do you know I intended to fire? By Jove, I was so miserable then that an ounce of lead would have done me little harm!”
The father saw the son's mind more clearly than he had ever done hitherto. They had scarcely ever talked upon that subject which the Colonel found was so deeply fixed in Clive's heart. He thought of his own early days, and how he had suffered, and beheld his son before him racked with the same cruel pangs of enduring grief. And he began to own that he had pressed him too hastily in his marriage; and to make an allowance for an unhappiness of which he had in part been the cause.
”Mashallah! Clive, my boy,” said the old man, ”what is done is done.”
”Let us break up our camp before this place, and not go to war with Barnes, father,” said Clive. ”Let us have peace--and forgive him if we can.”
”And retreat before this scoundrel, Clive?”
”What is a victory over such a fellow? One gives a chimney-sweep the wall, father.”
”I say again--What is done is done. I have promised to meet him at the hustings, and I will. I think it is best: and you are right: and you act like a high-minded gentleman--and my dear old boy--not to meddle in the quarrel--though I didn't think so--and the difference gave me a great deal of pain--and so did what Pendennis said--and I'm wrong--and thank G.o.d I am wrong--and G.o.d bless you, my own boy!” the Colonel cried out in a burst of emotion; and the two went to their bedrooms together, and were happier as they shook hands at the doors of their adjoining chambers than they had been for many a long day and year.
CHAPTER LXIX. The Election
Having thus given his challenge, reconnoitred the enemy, and pledged himself to do battle at the ensuing election, our Colonel took leave of the town of Newcome, and returned to his banking affairs in London. His departure was as that of a great public personage; the gentlemen of the Committee followed him obsequiously down to the train. ”Quick,” bawls out Mr. Potts to Mr. Brown, the station-master, ”Quick, Mr. Brown, a carriage for Colonel Newcome!” Half a dozen hats are taken off as he enters into the carriage, F. Bayham and his servant after him, with portfolios, umbrellas, shawls, despatch-boxes. Clive was not there to act as his father's aide-de-camp. After their conversation together the young man had returned to Mrs. Clive and his other duties in life.
It has been said that Mr. Pendennis was in the country, engaged in a pursuit exactly similar to that which occupied Colonel Newcome. The menaced dissolution of Parliament did not take place so soon as we expected. The Ministry still hung together, and by consequence, Sir Barnes Newcome kept the seat in the House of Commons, from which his elder kinsman was eager to oust him. Away from London, and having but few correspondents, save on affairs of business, I heard little of Clive and the Colonel, save an occasional puff of one of Colonel Newcome's entertainments in the Pall Mall Gazette, to which journal F. Bayham still condescended to contribute; and a satisfactory announcement in a certain part of that paper, that on such a day, in Hyde Park Gardens, Mrs. Clive Newcome had presented her husband with a son. Clive wrote to me presently, to inform me of the circ.u.mstance, stating at the same time, with but moderate gratification on his own part, that the Campaigner, Mrs. Newcome's mamma, had upon this second occasion made a second lodgment in her daughter's house and bedchamber, and showed herself affably disposed to forget the little unpleasantries which had clouded over the suns.h.i.+ne of her former visit.
Laura, with a smile of some humour, said she thought now would be the time when, if Clive could be spared from his bank, he might pay us that visit at Fairoaks which had been due so long, and hinted that change of air and a temporary absence from Mrs. Mackenzie might be agreeable to my old friend.
It was, on the contrary, Mr. Pendennis's opinion that his wife artfully chose that period of time when little Rosey was, perforce, kept at home and occupied with her delightful maternal duties, to invite Clive to see us. Mrs. Laura frankly owned that she liked our Clive better without his wife than with her, and never ceased to regret that pretty Rosey had not bestowed her little hand upon Captain Hoby, as she had been very well disposed at one time to do. Against all marriages of interest this sentimental Laura never failed to utter indignant protests; and Clive's had been a marriage of interest, a marriage made up by the old people, a marriage which the young man had only yielded out of good-nature and obedience. She would apostrophise her unconscious young ones, and inform those innocent babies that they should never be made to marry except for love, never--an announcement which was received with perfect indifference by little Arthur on his rocking-horse, and little Helen smiling and crowing in her mother's lap.
So Clive came down to us, careworn in appearance, but very pleased and happy, he said, to stay for a while with the friends of his youth. We showed him our modest rural lions; we got him such sport and company as our quiet neighbourhood afforded, we gave him fis.h.i.+ng in the Brawl, and Laura in her pony-chaise drove him to Baymouth, and to Clavering Park and town, and visit the famous cathedral at Chatteris, where she was pleased to recount certain incidents of her husband's youth.
Clive laughed at my wife's stories; he pleased himself in our home; he played with our children, with whom he had became a great favourite; he was happier, he told me with a sigh, than he had been for many a day.
His gentle hostess echoed the sigh of the poor young fellow. She was sure that his pleasure was only transitory, and was convinced that many deep cares weighed upon his mind.
Ere long my old schoolfellow made me sundry confessions, which showed that Laura's surmises were correct. About his domestic affairs he did not treat much; the little boy was said to be a very fine little boy; the ladies had taken entire possession of him. ”I can't stand Mrs.
Mackenzie any longer, I own,” says Clive; ”but how resist a wife at such a moment? Rosa was sure she would die, unless her mother came to her, and of course we invited Mrs. Mack. This time she is all smiles and politeness with the Colonel: the last quarrel is laid upon me, and in so far I am easy, as the old folks get on pretty well together.” To me, considering these things, it was clear that Mr. Clive Newcome was but a very secondary personage indeed in his father's new fine house which he inhabited, and in which the poor Colonel had hoped they were to live such a happy family.
But it was about Clive Newcome's pecuniary affairs that I felt the most disquiet when he came to explain these to me. The Colonel's capital and that considerable sum which Mrs. Clive had inherited from her good old uncle, were all involved in a common stock, of which Colonel Newcome took the management. ”The governor understands business so well, you see,” says Clive; ”is a most remarkable head for accounts: he must have inherited that from my grandfather, you know, who made his own fortune: all the Newcomes are good at accounts, except me, a poor useless devil who knows nothing but to paint a picture, and who can't even do that.” He cuts off the head of a thistle as he speaks, bites his tawny mustachios, plunges his hands into his pockets and his soul into reverie.
”You don't mean to say,” asks Mr. Pendennis, ”that your wife's fortune has not been settled upon herself?”