“Did ’ee do ut really now, Master Clive?” cries Mrs. Honeyman’s attendant, grinning with the utmost good-humour. “Well, she be as pretty a young lady as ever I saw; and as I told my missis, ‘Miss Martha,’ says I, ‘there’s a pair on ’em.’ Though missis was mortal angry to be sure. She never could bear it.”
“Bear what? you old goose!” cries Clive, who by these playful names had been wont to designate Hannah these twenty years past.
“A young gentleman and a young lady a kissing of each other in the railway coach,” says Hannah, jerking up with her finger to the ceiling, as much as to say, “There she is! Lar, she be a pretty young creature, that she be! and so I told Miss Martha.” Thus differently had the news which had come to them on the previous night affected the old lady and her maid.
The news was, that Miss Newcome’s maid (a giddy thing from the county, who had not even learned as yet to hold her tongue) had announced with giggling delight to Lady Anne’s maid, who was taking tea with Mrs. Hicks, that Mr. Clive had given Miss Ethel a kiss in the tunnel, and she supposed it was a match. This intelligence Hannah Hicks took to her mistress, of whose angry behaviour to Clive the next morning you may now understand the cause.
Clive did not know whether to laugh or to be in a rage. He swore that he was as innocent of all intention of kissing Miss Ethel as of embracing Queen Elizabeth. He was shocked to think of his cousin, walking above, fancy-free in maiden meditation, whilst this conversation regarding her was carried on below. How could he face her, or her mother, or even her maid, now he had cognisance of this naughty calumny? “Of course Hannah had contradicted it?” “Of course I have a done no such indeed,” replied Master Clive’s old friend; “of course I have set ’em down a bit; for when little Trimmer said it, and she supposed it was all settled between you, seeing how it had been a going on in foreign parts last year, Mrs. Pincott says, ‘Hold your silly tongue, Trimmer,’ she says; ‘Miss Ethel marry a painter, indeed, Trimmer!’ says she, ‘while she has refused to be a Countess,’ she says; ‘and can be a Marchioness any day, and will be a Marchioness. Marry a painter, indeed!’ Mrs. Pincott says; ‘Trimmer, I’m surprised at your impidence.’ So, my dear, I got angry at that,” Clive’s champion continued, “and says I, if my young master ain’t good enough for any young lady in this world, says I, I’d like you to show her to me: and if his dear father, the Colonel, says I, ain’t as good as your old gentleman upstairs, says I, who has gruel and dines upon doctor’s stuff, the Mrs. Pincott, says I, my name isn’t what it is, says I. Those were my very words, Master Clive, my dear; and then Mrs. Pincott says, Mrs. Hicks, she says, you don’t understand society, she says; you don’t understand society, he! he!” and the country lady, with considerable humour, gave an imitation of the town lady’s manner.
At this juncture Miss Honeyman re-entered the parlour, arrayed in her Sunday bonnet, her stiff and spotless collar, her Cashmere shawl, and Agra brooch, and carrying her Bible and Prayer-Book each stitched in its neat cover of brown silk. “Don’t stay chattering here, you idle woman,” she cried to her attendant with extreme asperity. “And you, sir, if you wish to smoke your cigar, you had best walk down to the cliff where the Cockneys are!” she added, glowering at Clive.
“Now I understand it all,” Clive said, trying to deprecate her anger. “My dear good aunt, it’s a most absurd mistake; upon my honour, Miss Ethel is as innocent as you are.”
“Innocent or not, this house is not intended for assignations, Clive! As long as Sir Brian Newcome lodges here, you will be pleased to keep away from it, sir; and though I don’t approve of Sunday travelling, I think the very best thing you can do is to put yourself in the train and go back to London.”
And now, young people, who read my moral pages, you will see how highly imprudent it is to sit with your cousins in railway carriages; and how, though you may not mean the slightest harm in the world, a great deal may be attributed to you; and how, when you think you are managing your little absurd love-affairs ever so quietly, Jeames and Betsy in the servants’-hall are very likely talking about them, and you are putting yourself in the power of those menials. If the perusal of these lines has rendered one single young couple uncomfortable, surely my amiable end is answered, and I have written not altogether in vain.
Clive was going away, innocent though he was, yet quivering under his aunt’s reproof, and so put out of countenance that he had not even thought of lighting the great cigar which he stuck into his foolish mouth; when a shout of “Clive! Clive!” from half a dozen little voices roused him, and presently as many little Newcomes came toddling down the stairs, and this one clung round his knees, and that at the skirts of his coat, and another took his hand and said, he must come and walk with them on the beach.