The unconscious infants toddle upstairs to their sister; and Lady Kew blandly says, “Ethel’s engagement to my grandson, Lord Kew, has long been settled in our family, though these things are best not talked about until they are quite determined, you know, my dear Mr. Newcome. When we saw you and your father in London, we heard that you too-that you too were engaged to a young lady in your own rank of life, a Miss—what was her name?—Miss MacPherson, Miss Mackenzie. Your aunt, Mrs. Hobson Newcome, who I must say is a most blundering silly person, had set about this story. It appears there is no truth in it. Do not look surprised that I know about your affairs. I am an old witch, and know numbers of things.”
And, indeed, how Lady Kew came to know this fact, whether her maid corresponded with Lady Anne’s maid, what her ladyship’s means of information were, avowed or occult, this biographer has never been able to ascertain. Very likely Ethel, who in these last three weeks had been made aware of that interesting circumstance, had announced it to Lady Kew in the course of a cross-examination, and there may have been a battle between the granddaughter and the grandmother, of which the family chronicler of the Newcomes has had no precise knowledge. That there were many such I know—skirmishes, sieges, and general engagements. When we hear the guns, and see the wounded, we know there has been a fight. Who knows had there been a battle-royal, and was Miss Newcome having her wounds dressed upstairs?
“You will like to say good-bye to your cousin, I know,” Lady Kew continued, with imperturbable placidity. “Ethel, my dear, here is Mr. Clive Newcome, who has come to bid us all good-bye.” The little girls came trotting down at this moment, each holding a skirt of their elder sister. She looked rather pale, but her expression was haughty—almost fierce.
Clive rose up as she entered, from the sofa by the old Countess’s side, which place she had pointed him to take during the amputation. He rose up and put his hair back off his face, and said very calmly, “Yes, I’m come to say good-bye. My holidays are over, and Ridley and I are off for Rome; good-bye, and God bless you, Ethel.”
She gave him her hand and said, “Good-bye, Clive,” but her hand did not return his pressure, and dropped to her side, when he let it go.
Hearing the words good-bye, little Alice burst into a howl, and little Maude, who was an impetuous little thing, stamped her little red shoes and said, “It san’t be good-bye. Tlive san’t go.” Alice, roaring, clung hold of Clive’s trousers. He took them up gaily, each on an arm, as he had done a hundred times, and tossed the children on to his shoulders, where they used to like to pull his yellow mustachios. He kissed the little hands and faces, and a moment after was gone.
“Qu’as-tu?” says M. de Florac, meeting him going over the bridge to his own hotel. “Qu’as-tu, mon petit Claive? Est-ce qu’on vient de t’arracher une dent?”
“C’est ça,” says Clive, and walked into the Hôtel de France. “Hulloh! J. J.! Ridley!” he sang out. “Order the trap out and let’s be off.” “I thought we were not to march till to-morrow,” says J. J., divining perhaps that some catastrophe had occurred. Indeed, Mr. Clive was going a day sooner than he had intended. He woke at Fribourg the next morning. It was the grand old cathedral he looked at, not Baden of the pine-clad hills, of the pretty walks and the lime-tree avenues. Not Baden, the prettiest booth of all Vanity Fair. The crowds and the music, the gambling-tables and the cadaverous croupiers and chinking gold, were far out of sight and hearing. There was one window in the Hôtel de Hollande that he thought of, how a fair arm used to open it in the early morning, how the muslin curtain in the morning air swayed to and fro. He would have given how much to see it once more! Walking about at Fribourg in the night, away from his companions, he had thought of ordering horses, galloping back to Baden, and once again under that window, calling Ethel, Ethel. But he came back to his room and the quiet J. J., and to poor Jack Belsize, who had had his tooth taken out too.
We had almost forgotten Jack, who took a back seat in Clive’s carriage, as befits a secondary personage in this history, and Clive in truth had almost forgotten him too. But Jack having his own cares and business, and having rammed his own carpet-bag, brought it down without a word, and Clive found him environed in smoke when he came down to take his place in the little britzska. I wonder whether the window at the Hôtel de Hollande saw him go? There are some curtains behind which no historian, however prying, is allowed to peep.
“Tiens, le petit part,” says Florac of the cigar, who was always sauntering. “Yes, we go,” says Clive. “There is a fourth place, Viscount; will you come too?”