“Good heavens! you don’t suppose that I would speak to Ethel, to Miss Newcome, about such a foul subject as that?” cries Clive. “I never mentioned it to my own father. He would have turned Barnes out of his doors if he had known it.”
“It was the talk about town, I know,” Kew said dryly. “Everything is told in those confounded clubs. I told you I give up Barnes. I like him no more than you do. He may have treated the woman ill, I suspect he has not an angelical temper: but in this matter he has not been so bad, so very bad as it would seem. The first step is wrong, of course—those factory towns—that sort of thing, you know—well, well, the commencement of the business is a sad one. But he is not the only sinner in London. He has declared on his honour to me when the matter was talked about, and he was coming on for election at Bays’s, and was as nearly as any man I ever knew in my life,—he declared on his word that he only parted from poor Mrs. Delacy, (Mrs. Delacy, the devil used to call herself) because he found that she had served him—as such women will serve men. He offered to send his children to school in Yorkshire—rather a cheap school—but she would not part with them. She made a scandal in order to get good terms, and she succeeded. He was anxious to break the connexion: he owned it had hung like a millstone round his neck and caused him a great deal of remorse—annoyance you may call it. He was immensely cut up about it. I remember, when that fellow was hanged for murdering a woman, Barnes said he did not wonder at his having done it. Young men make those connexions in their early lives and rue them all their days after. He was heartily sorry, that we may take for granted. He wished to lead a proper life. My grandmother managed this business with the Dorkings. Lady Kew still pulls stroke oar in our boat, you know, and the old woman will not give up her place. They know everything, the elders do. He is a clever fellow. He is witty in his way. When he likes he can make himself quite agreeable to some people. There has been no sort of force. You don’t suppose young ladies are confined in dungeons and subject to tortures, do you? But there is a brood of Pulleyns at Chanticlere, and old Dorking has nothing to give them. His daughter accepted Barnes of her own free will, he knowing perfectly well of that previous affair with Jack. The poor devil bursts into the place yesterday and the girl drops down in a faint. She will see Belsize this very day if he likes. I took a note from Lady Dorking to him at five o’clock this morning. If he fancies that there is any constraint put upon Lady Clara’s actions she will tell him with her own lips that she has acted of her own free will. She will marry the husband she has chosen and do her duty by him. You are quite a young un who boil and froth up with indignation at the idea that a girl hardly off with an old love should take on with a new——”
“I am not indignant with her,” says Clive, “for breaking with Belsize, but for marrying Barnes.”
“You hate him, and you know he is your enemy; and, indeed, young fellow, he does not compliment you in talking about you. A pretty young scapegrace he has made you out to be, and very likely thinks you to be. It depends on the colours in which a fellow is painted. Our friends and our enemies draw us,—and I often think both pictures are like,” continued the easy world-philosopher. “You hate Barnes, and cannot see any good in him. He sees none in you. There have been tremendous shindies in Park Lane à propos of your worship, and of a subject which I don’t care to mention,” said Lord Kew, with some dignity; “and what is the upshot of all this malevolence? I like you; I like your father, I think he is a noble old boy; there are those who represented him as a sordid schemer. Give Mr. Barnes the benefit of common charity at any rate; and let others like him, if you do not.
“And as for this romance of love,” the young nobleman went on, kindling as he spoke, and forgetting the slang and colloquialisms with which we garnish all our conversation—“this fine picture of Jenny and Jessamy falling in love at first sight, billing and cooing in an arbour, and retiring to a cottage afterwards to go on cooing and billing—Psha! what folly is this! It is good for romances, and for misses to sigh about; but any man who walks through the world with his eyes open, knows how senseless is all this rubbish. I don’t say that a young man and woman are not to meet, and to fall in love that instant, and to marry that day year, and love each other till they are a hundred; that is the supreme lot—but that is the lot which the gods only grant to Baucis and Philemon, and a very, very few besides. As for the rest, they must compromise; make themselves as comfortable as they can, and take the good and the bad together. And as for Jenny and Jessamy, by Jove! look round among your friends, count up the love matches, and see what has been the end of most of them! Love in a cottage! Who is to pay the landlord for the cottage? Who is to pay for Jenny’s tea and cream, and Jessamy’s mutton-chops? If he has cold mutton, he will quarrel with her. If there is nothing in the cupboard, a pretty meal they make. No, you cry out against people in our world making money marriages. Why, kings and queens marry on the same understanding. My butcher has saved a stockingful of money, and marries his daughter to a young salesman; Mr. and Mrs. Salesman prosper in life, and get an alderman’s daughter for their son. My attorney looks out amongst his clients for an eligible husband for Miss Deeds; sends his son to the bar, into Parliament, where he cuts a figure and becomes attorney-general, makes a fortune, has a house in Belgrave Square, and marries Miss Deeds of the second generation to a peer. Do not accuse us of being more sordid than our neighbours. We do but as the world does; and a girl in our society accepts the best parti which offers itself, just as Miss Chummey, when entreated by two young gentlemen of the order of costermongers, inclines to the one who rides from market on a moke, rather than to the gentleman who sells his greens from a handbasket.”
This tirade, which his lordship delivered with considerable spirit, was intended no doubt to carry a moral for Clive’s private hearing; and which, to do him justice, the youth was not slow to comprehend. The point was, “Young man, if certain persons of rank choose to receive you very kindly, who have but a comely face, good manners, and three or four hundred pounds a year, do not presume upon their good-nature, or indulge in certain ambitious hopes which your vanity may induce you to form. Sail down the stream with the brass-pots, Master Earthen-pot, but beware of coming too near! You are a nice young man, but there are prizes which are some too good for you, and are meant for your betters. And you might as well ask the prime minister for the next vacant garter as expect to wear on your breast such a star as Ethel Newcome.”
Before Clive made his accustomed visit to his friends at the hotel opposite, the last great potentiary had arrived who was to take part in the family Congress of Baden. In place of Ethel’s flushing cheeks and bright eyes, Clive found, on entering Lady Anne Newcome’s sitting-room, the parchment-covered features and the well-known hooked beak of the old Countess of Kew. To support the glances from beneath the bushy black eyebrows on each side of that promontory was no pleasant matter. The whole family cowered under Lady Kew’s eyes and nose, and she ruled by force of them. It was only Ethel whom these awful features did not utterly subdue and dismay.
Besides Lady Kew, Clive had the pleasure of finding his lordship, her grandson, Lady Anne and children of various sizes, and Mr. Barnes; not one of whom was the person whom Clive desired to behold.
The queer glance in Kew’s eye directed towards Clive, who was himself not by any means deficient in perception, informed him that there had just been a conversation in which his own name had figured. Having been abusing Clive extravagantly as he did whenever he mentioned his cousin’s name, Barnes must needs hang his head when the young fellow came in. His hand was yet on the chamber-door, and Barnes was calling his miscreant and scoundrel within; so no wonder Barnes had a hangdog look. But as for Lady Kew, that veteran diplomatist allowed no signs of discomfiture, or any other emotion, to display themselves on her ancient countenance. Her bushy eyebrows were groves of mystery, her unfathomable eyes were wells of gloom.
She gratified Clive by a momentary loan of two knuckly old fingers, which he was at liberty to hold or to drop; and then he went on to enjoy the felicity of shaking hands with Mr. Barnes, who, observing and enjoying his confusion over Lady Kew’s reception, determined to try Clive in the same way, and he gave Clive at the same time a supercilious “How de dah,” which the other would have liked to drive down his throat. A constant desire to throttle Mr. Barnes—to beat him on the nose—to send him flying out of window, was a sentiment with which this singular young man inspired many persons whom he accosted. A biographer ought to be impartial, yet I own, in a modified degree, to have partaken of this sentiment. He looked very much younger than his actual time of life, and was not of commanding stature; but patronised his equals, nay, let us say, his betters, so insufferably, that a common wish for his suppression existed amongst many persons in society.