can but pain her, who persists in following her when he has given his
word of honour to avoid her, that such a man is----"
"What, my Lord Kew?" cries Belsize, whose chest began to heave.
"You know what," answers the other. "You know what a man is who insults a
poor woman, and breaks his word of honour. Consider the word said, and
act upon it as you think fit."
"I owe you four thousand pounds, Kew," says Belsize, "and I have got four
thousand on the bills, besides four hundred when I came out of that
place."
"You insult me the more," cries Kew, flashing out, "by alluding to the
money. If you will leave this place to-morrow, well and good; if not, you
will please to give me a meeting. Mr. Newcome will you be so kind as to
act as my friend? We are connexions, you know, and this gentleman chooses
to insult a lady who is about to become one of our family."
"C'est bien, milord. Ma foi! c'est d'agir en vrai gentilhomme," says
Florac, delighted. "Touchez-la, mon petit Kiou. Tu as du coeur. Godam!
you are a brave! A brave fellow!" and the Viscount reached out his hand
cordially to Lord Kew.
His purpose was evidently pacific. From Kew he turned to the great
guardsman, and taking him by the coat began to apostrophise him. "And
you, mon gros," says he, "is there no way of calming this hot blood
without a saignee? Have you a penny to the world? Can you hope to carry
off your Chimene, O Rodrigue, and live by robbing afterwards on the great
way? Suppose you kill ze Fazer, you kill Kiou, you kill Roostere, your
Chimene will have a pretty moon of honey."
"What the devil do you mean about your Chimene and your Rodrigue? Do you
mean, Viscount----?" says Belsize, "Jack Belsize once more, and he dashed
his hand across his eyes. Kew has riled me, and he drove me half wild. I
ain't much of a Frenchman, but I know enough of what you said, to say
it's true, by Jove, and that Frank Kew's a trump. That's what you mean.
Give us your hand, Frank. God bless you, old boy; don't be too hard upon
me, you know I'm d----d miserable, that I am. Hullo! What's this?" Jack's
pathetic speech was interrupted at this instant, for the Vicomte de
Florac in his enthusiasm rushed into his arms, and jumped up towards his
face and proceeded to kiss Jack. A roar of immense laughter, as he shook
the little Viscount off, cleared the air and ended this quarrel.
Everybody joined in this chorus, the Frenchman with the rest, who said,
"he loved to laugh meme when he did not know why." And now came the
moment of the evening, when Clive, according to Lord Kew's saying,
behaved so well and prevented Barnes from incurring a great danger. In
truth, what Mr. Clive did or said amounted exactly to nothing. What
moments can we not all remember in our lives when it would have been so
much wittier and wiser to say and do nothing?
Florac, a very sober drinker like most of his nation, was blessed with a
very fine appetite, which, as he said, renewed itself thrice a day at
least. He now proposed supper, and poor Jack was for supper too, and
especially more drink, champagne and seltzer-water; "bring champagne and
seltzer-water, there is nothing like it." Clive could not object to this
entertainment, which was ordered forthwith, and the four young men sat
down to share it.
Whilst Florac was partaking of his favourite ecrevisses, giving not only
his palate but his hands, his beard, his mustachios and cheeks a full
enjoyment of the sauce which he found so delicious, he chose to revert
now and again to the occurrences which had just passed, and which had
better perhaps have been forgotten, and gaily rallied Belsize upon his
warlike humour. "If ze petit pretendu was here, what would you have done
wiz him, Jac? You would croquer im, like zis ecrevisse, hein? You would
mache his bones, hein?"
Jack, who had forgotten to put the seltzer-water into his champagne,
writhed at the idea of having Barnes Newcome before him, and swore, could
he but see Barnes, he would take the little villain's life.
And but for Clive, Jack might actually have beheld his enemy. Young Clive
after the meal went to the window with his eternal cigar, and of course
began to look at That Other window. Here, as he looked, a carriage had at
the moment driven up. He saw two servants descend, then two gentlemen,
and then he heard a well-known voice swearing at the couriers. To his
credit be it said, he checked the exclamation which was on his lips, and
when he came back to the table did not announce to Kew or his right-hand
neighbour Belsize, that his uncle and Barnes had arrived. Belsize, by
this time, had had quite too much wine: when the viscount went away, poor
Jack's head was nodding; he had been awake all the night before;
sleepless for how many nights previous. He scarce took any notice of the
Frenchman's departure.
Lord Kew remained. He was for taking Jack to walk, and for reasoning with
him further, and for entering more at large than perhaps he chose to do
before the two others upon this family dispute. Clive took a moment to
whisper to Lord Kew, "My uncle and Barnes are arrived, don't let Belsize
go out; for goodness' sake let us get him to bed."
And lest the poor fellow should take a fancy to visit his mistress by
moonlight, when he was safe in his room Lord Kew softly turned the key in
Mr. Jack's door.
CHAPTER XXX
A Retreat
As Clive lay awake revolving the strange incidents of the day, and
speculating upon the tragedy in which he had been suddenly called to take
a certain part, a sure presentiment told him that his own happy holiday
was come to an end, and that the clouds and storm which he had always
somehow foreboded, were about to break and obscure this brief pleasant
period of sunshine. He rose at a very early hour, flung his windows open,
looked out no doubt towards those other windows in the neighbouring
hotel, where he may have fancied he saw a curtain stirring, drawn by a
hand that every hour now he longed more to press. He turned back into his
chamber with a sort of groan, and surveyed some of the relics of the last
night's little feast, which still remained on the table. There were the
champagne-flasks which poor Jack Belsize had emptied, the tall
seltzer-water bottle, from which the gases had issued and mingled with
the hot air of the previous night's talk; glasses with dregs of liquor,
ashes of cigars, or their black stumps, strewing the cloth; the dead men,
the burst guns of yesterday's battle. Early as it was, his neighbour J. J
had been up before him. Clive could hear him singing as was his wont when
the pencil went well, and the colours arranged themselves to his
satisfaction over his peaceful and happy work.
He pulled his own drawing-table to the window, set out his board and
colour-box, filled a great glass from the seltzer-water bottle, drank
some of the vapid liquor, and plunged his brushes in the rest, with which
he began to paint. The work all went wrong. There was no song for him
over his labour; he dashed brush and board aside a
fter a while, opened
his drawers, pulled out his portmanteaus from under the bed, and fell to
packing mechanically. J. J. heard the noise from the next room, and came
in smiling, with a great painting-brush in his mouth.
"Have the bills in, J. J.," says Clive. "Leave your cards on your
friends, old boy; say good-bye to that pretty little strawberry-girl
whose picture you have been doing; polish it off to-day, and dry the
little thing's tears. I read P.P.C. in the stars last night, and my
familiar spirit came to me in a vision, and said, 'Clive, son of Thomas,
put thy travelling-boots on.'"
Lest any premature moralist should prepare to cry fie against the good,
pure-minded little J. J., I hereby state that his strawberry-girl was a
little village maiden of seven years old, whose sweet little picture a
bishop purchased at the next year's Exhibition.
"Are you going already?" cries J. J., removing the bit out of his mouth.
"I thought you had arranged parties for a week to come, and that the
princesses and the duchesses had positively forbidden the departure of
your lordship!"
"We have dallied at Capua long enough," says Clive; "and the legions have
the route for Rome. So wills Hannibal, the son of Hasdrubal."
"The son of Hasdrubal is quite right," his companion answered; "the
sooner we march the better. I have always said it; I will get all the
accounts in. Hannibal has been living like a voluptuous Carthaginian
prince. One, two, three champagne-bottles! There will be a deuce of a
bill to pay."
"Ah! there will be a deuce of a bill to pay," says Clive, with a groan
whereof J. J. knew the portent; for the young men had the confidence of
youth one in another. Clive was accustomed to pour out his full heart to
any crony who was near him; and indeed had he spoken never a word, his
growing attachment to his cousin was not hard to see. A hundred times,
and with the glowing language and feelings of youth, with the fire of his
twenty years, with the ardour of a painter, he had spoken of her and
described her. Her magnanimous simplicity, her courage and lofty scorn,
her kindness towards her little family, her form, her glorious colour of
rich carnation and dazzling white, her queenly grace when quiescent and
in motion, had constantly formed the subjects of this young gentleman's
ardent eulogies. As he looked at a great picture or statue, as the Venus
of Milo, calm and deep, unfathomably beautiful as the sea from which she
sprung; as he looked at the rushing Aurora of the Rospigliosi, or the
Assumption of Titian, more bright and glorious than sunshine, or that
divine Madonna and divine Infant, of Dresden, whose sweet faces must have
shone upon Raphael out of heaven; his heart sang hymns, as it were,
before these gracious altars; and, somewhat as he worshipped these
masterpieces of his art, he admired the beauty of Ethel.
J. J. felt these things exquisitely after his manner, and enjoyed honest
Clive's mode of celebration and rapturous fioriture of song; but Ridley's
natural note was much gentler, and he sang his hymns in plaintive minors.
Ethel was all that was bright and beautiful but--but she was engaged to
Lord Kew. The shrewd kind confidant used gently to hint the sad fact to
the impetuous hero of this piece. The impetuous hero knew this quite
well. As he was sitting over his painting-board he would break forth
frequently, after his manner, in which laughter and sentiment were
mingled, and roar out with all the force of his healthy young lungs----
"But her heart it is another's, she never--can--be--mine;"
and then hero and confidant would laugh each at his drawing-table. Miss
Ethel went between the two gentlemen by the name of Alice Grey.
Very likely, Night, the Grey Mentor, had given Clive Newcome the benefit
of his sad counsel. Poor Belsize's agony, and the wretchedness of the
young lady who shared in the desperate passion, may have set our young
man a-thinking; and Lord Kew's frankness and courage, and honour, whereof
Clive had been a witness during the night, touched his heart with a
generous admiration, and manned him for a trial which he felt was indeed
severe. He thought of the dear old father ploughing the seas on the way
to his duty, and was determined, by Heaven's help, to do his own. Only
three weeks since, when strolling careless about Bonn he had lighted upon
Ethel and the laughing group of little cousins, he was a boy as they
were, thinking but of the enjoyment of the day and the sunshine, as
careless as those children. And now the thoughts and passions which had
sprung up in a week or two, had given him an experience such as years do
not always furnish; and our friend was to show, not only that he could
feel love in his heart, but that he could give proof of courage, and
self-denial, and honour.
"Do you remember, J. J.," says he, as boots and breeches went plunging
into the portmanteau, and with immense energy, he pummels down one upon
the other, "do you remember" (a dig into the snowy bosom of a dress
cambric shirt) "my dear old father's only campaign story of his running
away" (a frightful blow into the ribs of a waistcoat), "running away at
Asseer-Ghur?"
"Asseer-What?" says J. J. wondering.
"The siege of Asseer-Ghur!" says Clive, "fought in the eventful year
1803: Lieutenant Newcome, who has very neat legs, let me tell you, which
also he has imparted to his descendants, had put on a new pair of leather
breeches, for he likes to go handsomely dressed into action. His horse
was shot, the enemy were upon him, and the governor had to choose between
death and retreat. I have heard his brother-officers say that my dear old
father was the bravest man they ever knew, the coolest hand, sir. What do
you think it was Lieutenant Newcome's duty to do under these
circumstances? To remain alone as he was, his troop having turned about,
and to be cut down by the Mahratta horsemen--to perish or to run, sir?"
"I know which I should have done," says Ridley.
"Exactly. Lieutenant Newcome adopted that course. His bran-new leather
breeches were exceedingly tight, and greatly incommoded the rapidity of
his retreating movement, but he ran away, sir, and afterwards begot your
obedient servant. That is the history of the battle of Asseer-Ghur."
"And now for the moral," says J. J., not a little amused.
"J. J., old boy, this is my battle of Asseer-Ghur. I am off. Dip into the
money-bag: pay the people: be generous, J. J., but not too prodigal. The
chambermaid is ugly, yet let her not want for a crown to console her at
our departure. The waiters have been brisk and servile; reward the slaves
for their labours. Forget not the humble boots, so shall he bless us when
we depart. For artists are gentlemen, though Ethel does not think so. De
--No--God bless her, God bless her," groans out Clive, cramming his two
fists into his eyes. If Ridley admired him before, he thought none the
worse of him now. And if any generous young fellow in life reads the
Fable, which may possibly concern him, let him take a senior's couns
el
and remember that there are perils in our battle, God help us, from which
the bravest had best run away.
Early as the morning yet was, Clive had a visitor, and the door opened to
let in Lord Kew's honest face. Ridley retreated before it into his own
den; the appearance of earls scared the modest painter, though he was
proud and pleased that his Clive should have their company. Lord Kew
indeed lived in more splendid apartments on the first floor of the hotel,
Clive and his friend occupying a couple of spacious chambers on the
second story. "You are an early bird," says Kew. "I got up myself in a
panic before daylight almost; Jack was making a deuce of a row in his
room, and fit to blow the door out. I have been coaxing him for this
hour; I wish we had thought of giving him a dose of laudanum last night;
if it finished him, poor old boy, it would do him no harm." And then,
laughing, he gave Clive an account of his interview with Barnes on the
previous night. "You seem to be packing up to go, too," says Lord Kew,
with a momentary glance of humour darting from his keen eyes. The weather
is breaking up here, and if you are going to cross the St. Gothard, as
the Newcomes told me, the sooner the better. It's bitter cold over the
mountains in October."
"Very cold," says Clive, biting his nails.
"Post or Vett.?" asks my lord.
"I bought a carriage at Frankfort," says Clive, in an offhand manner.
"Hulloh!" cries the other, who was perfectly kind, and entirely frank and
pleasant, and showed no difference in his conversation with men of any
degree, except perhaps that to his inferiors in station he was a little
more polite than to his equals; but who would as soon have thought of a
young artist leaving Baden in a carriage of his own as of his riding away
on a dragon.
"I only gave twenty pounds for the carriage; it's a little light thing,
we are two, a couple of horses carry us and our traps, you know, and we
can stop where we like. I don't depend upon my profession," Clive added,
with a blush. "I made three guineas once, and that is the only money I
ever gained in my life."
"Of course, my dear fellow, have not I been to your father's house? At
that pretty ball, and seen no end of fine people there? We are young
swells. I know that very well. We only paint for pleasure."
"We are artists, and we intend to paint for money, my lord," says Clive.
"Will your lordship give me an order?"
"My lordship serves me right," the other said. "I think, Newcome, as you
are going, I think you might do some folks here a good turn, though the
service is rather a disagreeable one. Jack Belsize is not fit to be left
alone. I can't go away from here just now for reasons of state. Do be a
good fellow and take him with you. Put the Alps between him and this
confounded business, and if I can serve you in any way I shall be
delighted, if you will furnish me with the occasion. Jack does not know
yet that our amiable Barnes is here. I know how fond you are of him. I
have heard the story--glass of claret and all. We all love Barnes. How
that poor Lady Clara can have accepted him the Lord knows. We are
fearfully and wonderfully made, especially women."
"Good heavens," Clive broke out, "can it be possible that a young
creature can have been brought to like such a selfish, insolent coxcomb
as that, such a cocktail as Barnes Newcome? You know very well, Lord Kew,
what his life is. There was a poor girl whom he brought out of a Newcome
factory when he was a boy himself, and might have had a heart one would
have thought, whom he ill-treated, whom he deserted, and flung out of
doors without a penny, upon some pretence of her infidelity towards him;
who came and actually sat down on the steps of Park Lane with a child on
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