A handsome fly carried off the ladies to Fitzroy Square, and the two worthy Indian gentlemen in their company; Clive and I walking, with the usual Havannah to light us home. And Clive remarked that he supposed there had been some difference between his father and the bankers: for they had not met for ever so many months before, and the Colonel always had looked very gloomy when his brothers were mentioned. “And I can’t help thinking,” says the astute youth, “that they fancied I was in love with Ethel (I know the Colonel would have liked me to make up to her), and that may have occasioned the row. Now, I suppose, they think I am engaged to Rosey. What the deuce are they in such a hurry to marry me for?”
Clive’s companion remarked, “that marriage was a laudable institution: and an honest attachment an excellent conservator of youthful morals.” On which Clive replied, “Why don’t you marry yourself?”
This it was justly suggested was no argument, but a merely personal allusion foreign to the question, which was, that marriage was laudable, etc.
Mr. Clive laughed. “Rosey is as good a little creature as can be,” he said. “She is never out of temper, though I fancy Mrs. Mackenzie tries her. I don’t think she is very wise: but she is uncommonly pretty, and her beauty grows on you. As for Ethel, anything so high and mighty I have never seen since I saw the French giantess. Going to Court, and about to parties every night where a parcel of young fools flatter her, has perfectly spoiled her. By Jove, how handsome she is! How she turns with her long neck, and looks at you from under those black eyebrows! If I painted her hair, I think I should paint it almost blue, and then glaze over with lake. It is blue. And how finely her head is joined on to her shoulders!”—And he waves in the air an imaginary line with his cigar. “She would do for Judith, wouldn’t she? Or how grand she would look as Herodias’s daughter sweeping down a stair—in a great dress of cloth-of-gold like Paul Veronese—holding a charger before her with white arms, you know—with the muscles accented like that glorious Diana at Paris—a savage smile on her face and a ghastly solemn gory head on the dish. I see the picture, sir, I see the picture!” and he fell to curling his mustachios just like his brave old father.
I could not help laughing at the resemblance, and mentioning it to my friend. He broke, as was his wont, into a fond eulogium of his sire, wished he could be like him—worked himself up into another state of excitement, in which he averred “that if his father wanted him to marry, he would marry that instant. And why not Rosey? She is a dear little thing. Or why not that splendid Miss Sherrick? What ahead!—a regular Titian! I was looking at the difference of their colour at Uncle Honeyman’s that day of the déjeuner. The shadows in Rosey’s face, sir, are all pearly-tinted. You ought to paint her in milk, sir!” cries the enthusiast. “Have you ever remarked the grey round her eyes, and the sort of purple bloom of her cheek? Rubens could have done the colour: but I don’t somehow like to think of a young lady and that sensuous old Peter Paul in company. I look at her like a little wild-flower in a field—like a little child at play, sir. Pretty little tender nursling! If I see her passing in the street, I feel as if I would like some fellow to be rude to her, that I might have the pleasure of knocking him down. She is like a little songbird, sir,—a tremulous, fluttering little linnet that you would take into your hand, pavidam quaerentem matrem, and smooth its little plumes, and let it perch on your finger and sing. The Sherrick creates quite a different sentiment—the Sherrick is splendid, stately, sleepy——”
“Stupid,” hints Clive’s companion.
“Stupid! Why not? Some women ought to be stupid. What you call dulness I call repose. Give me a calm woman, a slow woman,—a lazy, majestic woman. Show me a gracious virgin bearing a lily: not a leering giggler frisking a rattle. A lively woman would be the death of me. Look at Mrs. Mack, perpetually nodding, winking, grinning, throwing out signals which you are to be at the trouble to answer! I thought her delightful for three days; I declare I was in love with her—that is, as much as I can be after—but never mind that, I feel I shall never be really in love again. Why shouldn’t the Sherrick be stupid, I say? About great beauty there should always reign a silence. As you look at the great stars, the great ocean, any great scene of nature: you hush, sir. You laugh at a pantomime, but you are still in a temple. When I saw the great Venus of the Louvre, I thought—Wert thou alive, O goddess, thou shouldst never open those lovely lips but to speak lowly, slowly: thou shouldst never descend from that pedestal but to walk stately to some near couch, and assume another attitude of beautiful calm. To be beautiful is enough. If a woman can do that well: who shall demand more from her? You don’t want a rose to sing. And I think wit is out of place where there’s great beauty; as I wouldn’t have a Queen to cut jokes on her throne. I say, Pendennis,”—here broke off the enthusiastic youth,—“have you got another cigar? Shall we go into Finch’s, and have a game at billiards? Just one—it’s quite early yet. Or shall we go in the Haunt? It’s Wednesday night, you know, when all the boys go.” We tap at a door in an old, old street in Soho: an old maid with a kind, comical face opens the door, and nods friendly, and says, “How do, sir? ain’t seen you this ever so long. How do, Mr. Noocom?” “Who’s here?” “Most everybody’s here.” We pass by a little snug bar, in which a trim elderly lady is seated by a great fire, on which boils an enormous kettle; while two gentlemen are attacking a cold saddle of mutton and West India pickles: hard by Mrs. Nokes the landlady’s elbow—with mutual bows—we recognise Hickson, the sculptor, and Morgan, the intrepid Irish chieftain, chief of the reporters of the Morning Press newspaper. We pass through a passage into a back room, and are received with a roar of welcome from a crowd of men, almost invisible in the smoke.
“I am right glad to see thee, boy!” cries a cheery voice (that will never troll a chorus more). “We spake anon of thy misfortune, gentle youth! and that thy warriors of Assaye have charged the Academy in vain. Mayhap thou frightenedst the courtly school with barbarous visages of grisly war.—Pendennis, thou dost wear a thirsty look! Resplendent swell! untwine thy choker white, and I will either stand a glass of grog, or thou shalt pay the like for me, my lad, and tell us of the fashionable world.” Thus spake the brave old Tom Sarjent,—also one of the Press, one of the old boys: a good old scholar with a good old library of books, who had taken his seat any time these forty years by the chimney-fire in this old Haunt: where painters, sculptors, men of letters, actors, used to congregate, passing pleasant hours in rough kindly communion, and many a day seeing the sunrise lighting the rosy street ere they parted, and Betsy put the useless lamp out and closed the hospitable gates of the Haunt.
The time is not very long since, though to-day is so changed. As we think of it, the kind familiar faces rise up, and we hear the pleasant voices and singing. There are they met, the honest hearty companions. In the days when the Haunt was a haunt, stage-coaches were not yet quite over. Casinos were not invented: clubs were rather rare luxuries: there were sanded floors, triangular sawdust-boxes, pipes, and tavern parlours. Young Smith and Brown, from the Temple, did not go from chambers to dine at the Polyanthus, or the Megatherium, off potage à la Bisque, turbot au gratin, cotelettes a la What-do-you-call-’em, and a pint of St. Emilion; but ordered their beefsteak and pint of port from the “plump head-waiter at the Cock;” did not disdain the pit of the theatre; and for a supper a homely refection at the tavern. How delightful are the suppers in Charles Lamb to read of even now!—the cards—the punch—the candles to be snuffed—the social oysters—the modest cheer! Whoever snuffs a candle now? What man has a domestic supper whose dinner-hour is eight o’clock? Those little meetings, in the memory of many of us yet, are gone quite away into the past. Five-and-twenty years ago is a hundred years off—so much has our social life changed in those five lustres. James Boswell himself, were he to revisit London, would scarce venture to enter a tavern. He would find scarce a respectable companion to enter its doors with him. It is an institution as extinct as a hackney-coach. Many a grown man who peruses this historic page has never seen such a vehicle, and only heard of rum-punch as a drink which his ancestors used to tipple.
Cheery old Tom Sarjent is surrounded at the Haunt by a dozen of kind boon companions. They toil all day at their avocations of art, or letters, or law, and here meet for a harmless night’s recreation and converse. They talk of literature, or politics, or pictures, or plays; socially banter one another over their cheap cups: sing brave old songs sometimes when they are especially jolly kindly ballads in praise of love and wine; famous maritime ditties in honour of Old England. I fancy I hear Jack Brent’s noble voice rolling out the sad, generous refrain of “The Deserter,” “Then for that reason and for a season we will be merry before we go,” or Michael Percy’s clear tenor carolling the Irish chorus of “What’s that to any one, whether or no!” or Mark Wilder shouting his bottle-song of “Garryowen na gloria.” These songs were regarded with affection by the brave old frequenters of the Haunt. A gentleman’s property in a song was considered sacred. It was respectfully asked for: it was heard with the more pleasure for being old. Honest Tom Sarjent! how the times have changed since we saw thee! I believe the present chief of the reporters of the newspaper (which responsible office Tom filled) goes to Parliament in his brougham, and dines with the Ministers of the Crown.