Chapter 17

This kind Colonel had also to take leave of a score, at least, of adopted children to whom he chose to stand in the light of a father. He was forever whirling away in post-chaises to this school and that, to see Jack Brown's boys, of the Cavalry; or Mrs. Smith's girls, of the Civil Service; or poor Tom Hick's orphan, who had nobody to look after him now that the cholera had carried off Tom and his wife, too. On board the ship in which he returned from Calcutta were a dozen of little children, some of whom he actually escorted to their friends before he visited his own, though his heart was longing for his boy at Grey Friars. The children at the schools seen, and largely rewarded out of his bounty (his loose white trousers had great pockets, always heavy with gold and silver, which he jingled when he was not pulling his moustaches, and to see the way in which he tipped children made one almost long to be a boy again) and when he had visited Miss Pinkerton's establishment, or Doctor Ramshorn's adjoining academy at Chiswick, and seen little Tom Davis or little Fanny Holmes, the honest fellow would come home and write off straightway a long letter to Tom's or Fanny's parents, far away in the country, whose hearts he made happy by his accounts of their children, as he had delighted the children themselves by his affection and bounty. All the apple and orange-women (especially such as had babies as well as lollipops at their stalls), all the street-sweepers on the road between Nerot's and the Oriental, knew him, and were his pensioners. His brothers in Threadneedle Street cast up their eyes at the cheques which he drew.

The Colonel had written to his brothers from Portsmouth, announcing his arrival, and three words to Clive, conveying the same intelligence. The letter was served to the boy along with one bowl of tea and one buttered roll, of eighty such which were distributed to fourscore other boys, boarders of the same house with our young friend. How the lad's face must have flushed and his eyes brightened when he read the news! When the master of the house, the Reverend Mister Popkinson, came into the lodging-room, with a good-natured face, and said, "Newcome, you're wanted," he knew who had come. He did not heed that notorious bruiser, old Hodge, who roared out, "Confound you, Newcome: I'll give it you for upsetting your tea over my new trousers." He ran to the room where the stranger was waiting for him. We will shut the door, if you please, upon that scene.

If Clive had not been as fine and handsome a young lad as any in that school or country, no doubt his fond father would have been just as well pleased and endowed him with a hundred fanciful graces; but, in truth, in looks and manners he was everything which his parent could desire. He was the picture of health, strength, activity, and good-humour. He had a good forehead shaded with a quantity of waving light hair; a complexion which ladies might envy; a mouth which seemed accustomed to laughing; and a pair of blue eyes that sparkled with intelligence and frank kindness. No wonder the pleased father could not refrain from looking at him.

The bell rang for second school, and Mr. Popkinson, arrayed in cap and gown, came in to shake Colonel Newcome by the hand, and to say he supposes it was to be a holiday for Newcome that day. He said not a word about Clive's scrape of the day before, and that awful row in the bedrooms, where the lad and three others were discovered making a supper off a pork pie and two bottles of prime old port from the Red Cow public-house in Grey Friars Lane.

When the bell was done ringing, and all these busy little bees swarmed into their hive, there was a solitude in the place. The Colonel and his son walked the play-ground together, that gravelly flat, as destitute of herbage as the Arabian desert, but, nevertheless, in the language of the place, called the green. They walked the green, and they paced the cloisters, and Clive showed his father his own name of Thomas Newcome carved upon one of the arches forty years ago. As they talked, the boy gave sidelong glances at his new friend, and wondered at the Colonel's loose trousers, long moustaches, and yellow face. He looked very odd, Clive thought, very odd and very kind, and like a gentleman, every inch of him:--not like Martin's father, who came to see his son lately in highlows, and a shocking bad hat, and actually flung coppers amongst the boys for a scramble. He burst out a-laughing at the exquisitely ludicrous idea of a gentleman of his fashion scrambling for coppers.

And now enjoining the boy to be ready against his return, the Colonel whirled away in his cab to the city to shake hands with his brothers, whom he had not seen since they were demure little men in blue jackets under charge of a serious tutor.

He rushed into the banking house, broke into the parlour where the lords of the establishment were seated, and astonished these trim, quiet gentlemen by the warmth of his greeting, by the vigour of his handshake, and the loud tones of his voice, which might actually be heard by the busy clerks in the hall without. He knew Bryan from Hobson at once--that unlucky little accident in the go-cart having left its mark forever on the nose of Sir Bryan Newcome. He had a bald head and light hair, a short whisker cut to his cheek, a buff waistcoat, very neat boots and hands, and was altogether dignified, bland, smiling, and statesmanlike.

Hobson Newcome, Esquire, was more portly than his elder brother, and allowed his red whiskers to grow on his cheeks and under his chin. He wore thick shoes with nails in them, and affected the country gentleman in his appearance. His hat had a broad brim, and his ample pockets always contained agricultural produce, samples of bean or corn, or a whiplash or balls for horses. In fine, he was a good old country gentleman, and a better man of business than his more solemn brother, at whom he laughed in his jocular way; and said rightly that a gentleman must get up very early to get ahead of him.

These gentlemen each received the Colonel in a manner consistent with his peculiar nature. Sir Bryan regretted that Lady Ann was away from London, being at Brighton with the children, who were all ill of the measles. Hobson said, "Maria can't treat you to such good company as Lady Ann could give you; but when will you take a day and come and dine with us? Let's see, to-day is Wednesday; to-morrow we are engaged. Friday, we dine at Judge Budge's; Saturday I am going down to Marblehead to look after the hay. Come on Monday, Tom, and I'll introduce you to the missus and the young uns."

"I will bring Clive," says Colonel Newcome, rather disturbed at this reception. "After his illness my sister-in-law was very kind to him."

"No, hang it, don't bring boys; there's no good in boys; they stop the talk downstairs, and the ladies don't want 'em in the drawing-room. Send him to dine with the children on Sunday, if you like, and come along down with me to Marblehead, and I'll show you such a crop of hay as will make your eyes open. Are you fond of farming?"

"I have not seen my boy for years," says the Colonel; "I had rather pass Saturday and Sunday with him, if you please, and some day we will go to Marblehead together."

"Well, an offer's an offer. I don't know any pleasanter thing than getting out of this confounded city and smelling the hedges, and looking at the crops coming up, and passing the Sunday in quiet." And his own tastes being thus agricultural, the worthy gentleman thought that everybody else must delight in the same recreation.

"In the winter, I hope, we shall see you at Newcome," says the elder brother, blandly smiling. "I can't give you any tiger-shooting, but I'll promise you that you shall find plenty of pheasants in our jungle," and he laughed very gently at this mild sally.

At this moment a fair-haired young gentleman, languid and pale, and dressed in the height of fashion, made his appearance and was introduced as the Baronet's oldest son, Barnes Newcome. He returned Colonel Newcome's greeting with a smile, saying, "Very happy to see you, I am sure. You find London very much changed since you were here? Very good time to come, the very full of the season."

Poor Thomas Newcome was quite abashed by his strange reception. Here was a man, hungry for affection, and one relation asked him to dinner next Monday, and another invited him to shoot pheasants at Christmas. Here was a beardless young sprig, who patronised him and asked him whether he found London was changed. As soon as possible he ended the interview with his step-brothers, and drove back to Ludgate Hill, where he dismissed his cab and walked across the muddy pavements 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 calm. 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 espied him, 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 moustaches, 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 the 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 Saturday night, I go into the dining-room to shake hands, and he gives it to 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," said 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 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's very kind to me; but Aunt Ann is different, and it seems as if what she says is more natural; and though she has funny ways of her own, too, yet somehow she looks grander,"--and here the lad laughed again. "And do you know, I often think that as good a lady as Aunt Ann herself, is old Aunt Honeyman at Brighton--that is, in all essentials, you know? And she is not a bit ashamed of letting lodgings, or being poor herself, as sometimes I think some of our family--"

"I thought we were going to speak no ill of them," says the Colonel, smiling.

"Well, it only slipped out unawares," says Clive, laughing, "but at Newcome when they go on about the Newcomes, and that great ass, Barnes Newcome, gives himself his airs, it makes me die of laughing. That time I went down to Newcome I went to see old Aunt Sarah, and she told me everything, and do you know, I was a little hurt at first, for I thought we were swells till then? And when I came back to school, where perhaps I had been giving myself airs, and bragging about Newcome, why, you know, I thought it was right to tell the fellows."

"That's a man," said the Colonel, with delight; though had he said, "That's a boy," he had spoken more correctly. "That's a man," cried the Colonel; "never be ashamed of your father, Clive."

"_Ashamed of my father_!" says Clive, looking up to him, and walking on as proud as a peacock. "I say," the lad resumed, after a pause--

"Say what you say," said the father.

"Is that all true what's in the Peerage--in the Baronetage, about Uncle Newcome and Newcome; about the Newcome who was burned at Smithfield; about the one that was at the battle of Bosworth; and the old, old Newcome who was bar--that is, who was surgeon to Edward the Confessor, and was killed at Hastings? I am afraid it isn't; and yet I should like it to be true."

"I think every man would like to come of an ancient and honourable race," said the Colonel in his honest way. "As you like your father to be an honourable man, why not your grandfather, and his ancestors before him? But if we can't inherit a good name, at least we can do our best to leave one, my boy; and that is an ambition which, please God., you and I will both hold by."

With this simple talk the old and young gentleman beguiled their way, until they came into the western quarter of the town, where Hobson Newcome lived in a handsome and roomy mansion. Colonel Newcome was bent on paying a visit to his sister-in-law, although as they waited to be let in they could not but remark through the opened windows of the dining-room that a great table was laid and every preparation was made for a feast.

"My brother said he was engaged to dinner to-day," said the Colonel.

"Does Mrs. Newcome give parties when he is away?"

"She invites all the company," answered Clive. "My uncle never asks any one without aunt's leave."

The Colonel's countenance fell. "He has a great dinner, and does not ask his own brother!" Newcome thought. "Why, if he had come to India with all his family, he might have stayed for a year, and I should have been offended had he gone elsewhere."

A hot menial in a red waistcoat came and opened the door, and without waiting for preparatory queries said, "Not at home."

"It's my father, John," said Clive. "My aunt will see Colonel Newcome."

"Missis is not at home," said the man. "Missis is gone in carriage--Not at this door!--Take them things down the area steps, young man!"

This latter speech was addressed to a pastry cook's boy with a large sugar temple and many conical papers containing delicacies for dessert. "Mind the hice is here in time; or there'll be a blow-up with your governor,"--and John struggled back, closing the door on the astonished Colonel.

"Upon my life, they actually shut the door in our faces," said the poor gentleman.

"The man is very busy, sir. There's a great dinner. I'm sure my aunt would not refuse you," Clive interposed. "She is very kind. I suppose it's different here from what it is in India. There are the children in the Square,--those are the girls in blue,--that's the French governess, the one with the yellow parasol. How d'ye do, Mary? How d'ye do, Fanny? This is my father,--this is your uncle."

The Colonel surveyed his little nieces with that kind expression which his face always wore when it was turned toward children.

"Have you heard of your uncle in India?" he asked them.

"No," says Maria.

"Yes," says Fannie. "You know mademoiselle said that if we were naughty we should be sent to our uncle in India. I think I should like to go with you."

"Oh, you silly child!" cries Maria.

"Yes, I should, if Clive went, too," says little Fanny.

"Behold madame, who arrives from her promenade!" mademoiselle exclaimed, and, turning round, Colonel Newcome beheld, for the first time, his sister-in-law, a stout lady with fair hair and a fine bonnet and a pelisse, who was reclining in her barouche with the scarlet plush garments of her domestics blazing before and behind her.

Clive ran towards his aunt. She bent over the carriage languidly towards him. She liked him. "What, you, Clive!" she said, "How come you away from school of a Thursday, sir?"

"It is a holiday," said he. "My father is come; and he is come to see you."

She bowed her head with an expression of affable surprise and majestic satisfaction. "Indeed, Clive!" she exclaimed, and the Colonel stepped forward and took off his hat and bowed and stood bareheaded. She surveyed him blandly, and put forward a little hand, saying, "You have only arrived to-day, and you came to see me? That was very kind. Have you had a pleasant voyage? These are two of my girls. My boys are at school. I shall be so glad to introduce them to their uncle. _This_ naughty boy might never have seen you, but that we took him home after the scarlet fever, and made him well, didn't we Clive? And we are all very fond of him, and you must not be jealous of his love for his aunt. We feel that we quite know you through him, and we know that you know us, and we hope you will like us. Do you think your papa will like us, Clive? Or, perhaps you will like Lady Ann best? Yes; you have been to her first, of course? Not been? Oh! because she is not in town." Leaning fondly on Clive's arm, mademoiselle standing with the children hard by, while John with his hat off stood at the opened door, Mrs. Newcome slowly uttered the above remarkable remarks to the Colonel, on the threshold of her house, which she never asked him to pass.

"If you will come in to us about ten this evening," she then said, "you will find some men not undistinguished, who honour me of an evening. Perhaps they will be interesting to you, Colonel Newcome, as you are newly arriven in Europe. A stranger coming to London could scarcely have a better opportunity of seeing some of our great illustrations of science and literature. We have a few friends at dinner, and now I must go in and consult with my housekeeper. Good-bye for the present. Mind, not later than ten, as Mr. Newcome must be up betimes in the morning, and _our_ parties break up early. When Clive is a little older I dare say we shall see him, too. Goodbye!"

And again the Colonel was favoured with a shake of the hand, and the lady sailed up the stair, and passed in at the door, with not the faintest idea but that the hospitality which she was offering to her kinsman was of the most cordial and pleasant kind.

Having met Colonel Newcome on the steps of her house, she ordered him to come to her evening party; and though he had not been to an evening party for five and thirty years--though he had not been to bed the night before--he never once thought of disobeying Mrs. Newcome's order, but was actually at her door at five minutes past ten, having arrayed himself, to the wonderment of Clive, and left the boy to talk to Mr. Binnie, a friend and fellow-passenger, who had just arrived from Portsmouth, who had dined with him, and taken up his quarters at the same hotel.

Well, then, the Colonel is launched in English society of an intellectual order, and mighty dull he finds it. During two hours of desultory conversation and rather meagre refreshments, the only bright spot is his meeting with Charles Honeyman, his dead wife's brother, whom he was mighty glad to see. Except for this meeting there was little to entertain the Colonel, and as soon as possible he and Honeyman walked away together, the Colonel returning to his hotel, where he found his friend James Binnie installed in his room in the best arm-chair, sleeping-cosily, but he woke up briskly when the Colonel entered. "It is you, you gadabout, is it?" cried Binnie. "See what it is to have a real friend now, Colonel! I waited for you, because I knew you would want to talk about that scapegrace of yours."

"Isn't he a fine fellow, James?" says the Colonel, lighting a cheroot as he sits on the table. Was it joy, or the bedroom candle with which he lighted his cigar, which illuminated his honest features so, and made them so to shine?

"I have been occupied, sir, in taking the lad's moral measurement: and I have pumped him as successfully as ever I cross-examined a rogue in my court. I place his qualities thus:--Love of approbation, sixteen. Benevolence, fourteen. Combativeness, fourteen. Adhesiveness, two. Amativeness is not yet of course fully developed, but I expect will be prodigiously strong. The imaginative and reflective organs are very large; those of calculation weak. He may make a poet or a painter, or you may make a sojor of him, though worse men than him's good enough for that--but a bad merchant, a lazy lawyer, and a miserable mathematician. My opinion, Colonel, is that young scapegrace will give you a deal of trouble; or would, only you are so absurdly proud of him, and you think everything he does is perfection. He'll spend your money for you; he'll do as little work as need be. He'll get into scrapes with the sax. He's almost as simple as his father, and that is to say that any rogue will cheat him; and he seems to me to have your obstinate habit of telling the truth, Colonel, which may prevent his getting on in the world; but on the other hand will keep him from going very wrong. So that, though there is every fear for him, there's some hope and some consolation."

"What do you think of his Latin and Greek?" asked the Colonel. Before going out to his party Newcome had laid a deep scheme with Binnie, and it had been agreed that the latter should examine the young fellow in his humanities.

"Wall," cries the Scot, "I find that the lad knows as much about Greek and Latin as I knew myself when I was eighteen years of age."