whether he found London was changed.
"I don't know whether it's changed," says the Colonel, biting his nails;
"I know it's not what I expected to find it."
"To-day it's really as hot as I should thing it must be in India," says
young Mr. Barnes Newcome.
"Hot!" says the Colonel, with a grin. "It seems to me you are all cool
enough here."
"Just what Sir Thomas de Boots said, sir," says Barnes, turning round to
his father. "Don't you remember when he came home from Bombay? I
recollect his saying, at Lady Featherstone's, one dooced hot night, as it
seemed to us; I recklect his saying that he felt quite cold. Did you know
him in India, Colonel Newcome? He's liked at the Horse Guards, but he's
hated in his regiment."
Colonel Newcome here growled a wish regarding the ultimate fate of Sir
Thomas de Boots, which we trust may never be realised by that
distinguished cavalry officer.
"My brother says he's going to Newcome, Barnes, next week," said the
Baronet, wishing to make the conversation more interesting to the newly
arrived Colonel. "He was saying so just when you came in, and I was
asking him what took him there?"
"Did you ever hear of Sarah Mason?" says the Colonel.
"Really, I never did," the Baronet answered.
"Sarah Mason? No, upon my word, I don't think I ever did, said the young
man.
"Well, that's a pity too," the Colonel said, with a sneer. "Mrs. Mason is
a relation of yours--at least by marriage. She is my aunt or cousin--I
used to call her aunt, and she and my father and mother all worked in the
same mill at Newcome together."
"I remember--God bless my soul--I remember now!" cried the Baronet. "We
pay her forty pound a year on your account--don't you know, brother? Look
to Colonel Newcome's account--I recollect the name quite well. But I
thought she had been your nurse, and--and an old servant of my father's."
"So she was my nurse, and an old servant of my father's," answered the
Colonel. "But she was my mother's cousin too and very lucky was my mother
to have such a servant, or to have a servant at all. There is not in the
whole world a more faithful creature or a better woman."
Mr. Hobson rather enjoyed his brother's perplexity, and to see when the
Baronet rode the high horse, how he came down sometimes, "I am sure it
does you very great credit," gasped the courtly head of the firm, "to
remember a--a humble friend and connexion of our father's so well."
"I think, brother, you might have recollected her too," the Colonel
growled out. His face was blushing; he was quite angry and hurt at what
seemed to him Sir Brian's hardness of heart.
"Pardon me if I don't see the necessity," said Sir Brian. "I have no
relationship with Mrs. Mason, and do not remember ever having seen her.
Can I do anything for you, brother? Can I be useful to you in any way?
Pray command me and Barnes here, who after City hours will be delighted
if he can be serviceable to you--I am nailed to this counter all the
morning, and to the House of Commons all night;--I will be with you in
one moment, Mr. Quilter. Good-bye, my dear Colonel. How well India has
agreed with you! how young you look! the hot winds are nothing to what we
endure in Parliament.--Hobson," in a low voice, "you saw about that h'm,
that power of attorney--and h'm and h'm will call here at twelve about
that h'm.--I am sorry I must say good-bye--it seems so hard after not
meeting for so many years."
"Very," says the Colonel.
"Mind and send for me whenever you want me, now."
"Oh, of course," said the elder brother, and thought when will that ever
be!
"Lady Anne will be too delighted at hearing of your arrival. Give my love
to Clive--a remarkable fine boy, Clive--good morning:" and the Baronet
was gone, and his bald head might presently be seen alongside of Mr.
Quilter's confidential grey poll, both of their faces turned into an
immense ledger.
Mr. Hobson accompanied the Colonel to the door, and shook him cordially
by the hand as he got into his cab. The man asked whither be should
drive? and poor Newcome hardly knew where he was or whither he should go.
"Drive! a--oh--ah--damme, drive me anywhere away from this place!" was
all he could say; and very likely the cabman thought he was a
disappointed debtor who had asked in vain to renew a bill. In fact,
Thomas Newcome had overdrawn his little account. There was no such
balance of affection in that bank of his brothers, as the simple creature
had expected to find there.
When he was gone, Sir Brian went back to his parlour, where sate young
Barnes perusing the paper. "My revered uncle seems to have brought back a
quantity of cayenne pepper from India, sir," he said to his father.
"He seems a very kind-hearted simple man," the Baronet said "eccentric,
but he has been more than thirty years away from home. Of course you will
call upon him to-morrow morning. Do everything you can to make him
comfortable. Whom would he like to meet at dinner? I will ask some of the
Direction. Ask him, Barnes, for next Wednesday or Saturday--no; Saturday
I dine with the Speaker. But see that every attention is paid him."
"Does he intend to have our relation up to town, sir? I should like to
meet Mrs. Mason of all things. A venerable washerwoman, I daresay, or
perhaps keeps a public-house," simpered out young Barnes.
"Silence, Barnes; you jest at everything, you young men do--you do.
Colonel Newcome's affection for his old nurse does him the greatest
honour," said the Baronet, who really meant what he said.
"And I hope my mother will have her to stay a good deal at Newcome. I'm
sure she must have been a washerwoman, and mangled my uncle in early
life. His costume struck me with respectful astonishment. He disdains the
use of straps to his trousers, and is seemingly unacquainted with gloves.
If he had died in India, would my late aunt have had to perish on a
funeral pile?" Here Mr. Quilter, entering with a heap of bills, put an
end to these sarcastic remarks, and young Newcome, applying himself to
his business (of which he was a perfect master), forgot about his uncle
till after City hours, when he entertained some young gentlemen of Bays's
Club with an account of his newly arrived relative.
Towards the City, whither he wended his way whatever had been the ball or
the dissipation of the night before, young Barnes Newcome might be seen
walking every morning, resolutely and swiftly, with his neat umbrella. As
he passed Charing Cross on his way westwards, his little boots trailed
slowly over the pavement, his head hung languid (bending lower still, and
smiling with faded sweetness as he doffed his hat and saluted a passing
carriage), his umbrella trailed after him. Not a dandy on all the Pall
Mall pavement seemed to have less to do than he.
Heavyside, a large young officer of the household troops--old Sir Thomas
de Boots--and Horace Fogey, whom every one knows--are in the window of
Bays's, yawning as widely as that window itself. Horses under the charge
of men in red jackets are pacing up and down St. James's Street. Cabmen
on the stand are regaling with beer. Gentlemen with grooms behind them
pass towards the Park. Great dowager barouches roll along emblazoned with
coronets, and driven by coachmen in silvery wigs. Wistful provincials
gaze in at the clubs. Foreigners chatter and show their teeth, and look
at the ladies in the carriages, and smoke and spit refreshingly round
about. Policeman X slouches along the pavement. It is five o'clock, the
noon in Pall Mall.
"Here's little Newcome coming," says Mr. Horace Fogey. "He and the
muffin-man generally make their appearance in public together."
"Dashed little prig," says Sir Thomas de Boots, "why the dash did they
ever let him in here? If I hadn't been in India, by dash--he should have
been blackballed twenty times over, by dash." Only Sir Thomas used words
far more terrific than dash, for this distinguished cavalry officer swore
very freely.
"He amuses me; he's such a mischievous little devil," says good-natured
Charley Heavyside.
"It takes very little to amuse you," remarks Fogey.
"You don't, Fogey," answers Charley. "I know every one of your demd old
stories, that are as old as my grandmother. How-dy-do, Barney?" (Enter
Barnes Newcome.) "How are the Three per Cents, you little beggar? I wish
you'd do me a bit of stiff; and just tell your father, if I may overdraw
my account I'll vote with him--hanged if I don't."
Barnes orders absinthe-and-water, and drinks: Heavyside resuming his
elegant raillery. "I say, Barney, your name's Barney, and you're a
banker. You must be a little Jew, hey? Vell, how mosh vill you to my
little pill for?"
"Do hee-haw in the House of Commons, Heavyside," says the young man with
a languid air. "That's your place: you're returned for it." (Captain the
Honourable Charles Heavyside is a member of the legislature, and eminent
in the House for asinine imitations which delight his own, and confuse
the other party.) "Don't bray here. I hate the shop out of shop hours."
"Dash the little puppy," growls Sir de Boots, swelling in his waistband.
"What do they say about the Russians in the City?" says Horace Fogey, who
has been in the diplomatic service. "Has the fleet left Cronstadt, or has
it not?"
"How should I know?" asks Barney. "Ain't it all in the evening paper?"
"That is very uncomfortable news from India, General," resumes Fogey--
"there's Lady Doddington's carriage, how well she looks--that movement of
Runjeet-Singh on Peshawur: that fleet on the Irrawaddy. It looks doocid
queer, let me tell you, and Penguin is not the man to be Governor-General
of India in a time of difficulty."
"And Hustler's not the man to be Commander-in-Chief: dashder old fool
never lived: a dashed old psalm-singing, blundering old woman," says Sir
Thomas, who wanted the command himself.
"You ain't in the psalm-singing line, Sir Thomas," says Mr. Barnes;
"quite the contrary." In fact, Sir de Boots in his youth used to sing
with the Duke of York, and even against Captain Costigan, but was beaten
by that superior bacchanalian artist.
Sir Thomas looks as if to ask what the dash is that to you? but wanting
still to go to India again, and knowing how strong the Newcomes are in
Leadenhall Street, he thinks it necessary to be civil to the young cub,
and swallows his wrath once more into his waistband.
"I've got an uncle come home from India--upon my word I have," says
Barnes Newcome. "That is why I am so exhausted. I am going to buy him a
pair of gloves, number fourteen--and I want a tailor for him--not a young
man's tailor. Fogey's tailor rather. I'd take my father's; but he has all
his things made in the country--all--in the borough, you know--he's a
public man."
"Is Colonel Newcome, of the Bengal Cavalry, your uncle?" asks Sir Thomas
de Boots.
"Yes; will you come and meet him at dinner next Wednesday week, Sir
Thomas? and, Fogey, you come; you know you like a good dinner. You don't
know anything against my uncle, do you, Sir Thomas? Have I any
Brahminical cousins? Need we be ashamed of him?"
"I tell you what, young man, if you were more like him it wouldn't hurt
you. He's an odd man; they call him Don Quixote in India; I suppose
you've read Don Quixote?"
"Never heard of it, upon my word; and why do you wish I should be more
like him? I don't wish to be like him at all, thank you."
"Why, because he is one of the bravest officers that ever lived," roared
out the old soldier. "Because he's one of the kindest fellows; because he
gives himself no dashed airs, although he has reason to be proud if he
chose. That's why, Mr. Newcome."
"A topper for you, Barney, my boy," remarks Charles Heavyside, as the
indignant General walks away gobbling and red. Barney calmly drinks the
remains of his absinthe.
"I don't know what that old muff means," he says innocently, when he has
finished his bitter draught. "He's always flying out at me, the old
turkey-cock. He quarrels with my play at whist, the old idiot, and can no
more play than an old baby. He pretends to teach me billiards, and I'll
give him fifteen in twenty and beat his old head off. Why do they let
such fellows into clubs? Let's have a game at piquet till dinner,
Heavyside. Hallo! That's my uncle, that tall man with the mustachios and
the short trousers, walking with that boy of his. I dare say they are
going to dine in Covent Garden, and going to the play. How-dy-do,
Nunky?"--and so the worthy pair went up to the card-room, where they sate
at piquet until the hour of sunset and dinner arrived.
CHAPTER VII
In which Mr. Clive's School-days are over
Our good Colonel had luckily to look forward to a more pleasant meeting
with his son, than that unfortunate interview with his other near
relatives. He dismissed his cab at Ludgate Hill, and walked thence by the
dismal precincts of Newgate, and across the muddy pavement of Smithfield,
on his way back to the old school where his son was, a way which he had
trodden many a time in his own early days. There was Cistercian Street,
and the Red Cow of his youth: there was the quaint old Grey Friars
Square, with its blackened trees and garden, surrounded by ancient houses
of the build of the last century, now slumbering like pensioners in the
sunshine.
Under the great archway of the hospital he could look at the old Gothic
building: and a black-gowned pensioner or two crawling over the quiet
square, or passing from one dark arch to another. The boarding-houses of
the school were situated in the square, hard by the more ancient
buildings of the hospital. A great noise of shouting, crying, clapping
forms and cupboards, treble voices, bass voices, poured out of the
schoolboys' windows: their life, bustle, and gaiety contrasted strangely
with the quiet of those old men creeping along in their black gowns under
the ancient arches yonder, whose struggle of life was over, whose hope
and noise and bustle had sunk into that grey ca
lm. There was Thomas
Newcome arrived at the middle of life, standing between the shouting boys
and the tottering seniors, and in a situation to moralise upon both, had
not his son Clive, who has espied him from within Mr. Hopkinson's, or let
us say at once Hopkey's house, come jumping down the steps to greet his
sire. Clive was dressed in his very best; not one of those four hundred
young gentlemen had a better figure, a better tailor, or a neater boot.
Schoolfellows, grinning through the bars, envied him as he walked away;
senior boys made remarks on Colonel Newcome's loose clothes and long
mustachios, his brown hands and unbrushed hat. The Colonel was smoking a
cheroot as he walked; and the gigantic Smith, the cock of the school, who
happened to be looking majestically out of window, was pleased to say
that he thought Newcome's governor was a fine manly-looking fellow.
"Tell me about your uncles, Clive," said the Colonel, as they walked on
arm in arm.
"What about them, sir?" asks the boy. "I don't think I know much."
"You have been to stay with them. You wrote about them. Were they kind to
you?"
"Oh, yes, I suppose they are very kind. They always tipped me: only you
know when I go there I scarcely ever see them. Mr. Newcome asks me the
oftenest--two or three times a quarter when he's in town, and gives me a
sovereign regular."
"Well, he must see you to give you the sovereign," says Clive's father,
laughing.
The boy blushed rather.
"Yes. When it's time to go back to Smithfield on a Sunday night, I go
into the dining-room to shake hands, and he gives it me; but he don't
speak to me much, you know, and I don't care about going to Bryanstone
Square, except for the tip, of course that's important, because I am made
to dine with the children, and they are quite little ones; and a great
cross French governess, who is always crying and shrieking after them,
and finding fault with them. My uncle generally has his dinner-parties on
Saturday, or goes out; and aunt gives me ten shillings and sends me to
the play; that's better fun than a dinner-party." Here the lad blushed
again. "I used," says he, "when I was younger, to stand on the stairs and
prig things out of the dishes when they came out from dinner, but I'm
past that now. Maria (that's my cousin) used to take the sweet things and
give 'em to the governess. Fancy! she used to put lumps of sugar into her
pocket and eat them in the schoolroom! Uncle Hobson don't live in such
good society as Uncle Newcome. You see, Aunt Hobson, she's very kind, you
know, and all that, but I don't think she's what you call comme il faut."
"Why, how are you to judge?" asks the father, amused at the lad's candid
prattle, "and where does the difference lie?"
"I can't tell you what it is, or how it is," the boy answered, "only one
can't help seeing the difference. It isn't rank and that; only somehow
there are some men gentlemen and some not, and some women ladies and some
not. There's Jones now, the fifth form master, every man sees he's a
gentleman, though he wears ever so old clothes; and there's Mr. Brown,
who oils his hair, and wears rings, and white chokers--my eyes! such
white chokers!--and yet we call him the handsome snob! And so about Aunt
Maria, she's very handsome and she's very finely dressed, only somehow
she's not--she's not the ticket, you see."
"Oh, she's not the ticket," says the Colonel, much amused.
"Well, what I mean is--but never mind," says the boy. "I can't tell you
what I mean. I don't like to make fun of her, you know, for after all,
she is very kind to me; but Aunt Anne is different, and it seems as if
what she says is more natural; and though she has funny ways of her own
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