“And your sister is with her?”
“Ethel is always with her.”
“I hope you will send her my very best remembrances,” said the Colonel.
“I’ll open the letter, and add ’em in a postscript,” said Barnes.
“Confounded liar?” cried the Colonel, mentioning the circumstance to me afterwards, “why does not somebody pitch him out of the bow-window?”
If we were in the secret of Sir Barnes Newcome’s correspondence, and could but peep into that particular letter to his grandmother, I dare say we should read that he had seen the Colonel, who was very anxious about his darling youth’s suit, but, pursuant to Lady Kew’s desire, Barnes had stoutly maintained that her ladyship was still in the North, enjoying the genial hospitality of Lord Wallsend. That of course he should say nothing to Ethel, except with Lady Kew’s full permission: that he wished her a pleasant trip to ——, and was, etc. etc.
Then if we could follow him, we might see him reach his Belgravian mansion, and fling an angry word to his wife as she sits alone in the darkling drawing-room, poring over the embers. He will ask her, probably with an oath, why the —— she is not dressed? and if she always intends to keep her company waiting? An hour hence, each with a smirk, and the lady in smart raiment, with flowers in her hair, will be greeting their guests as they arrive. Then will come dinner and such conversation as it brings. Then at night Sir Barnes will issue forth, cigar in mouth; to return to his own chamber at his own hour; to breakfast by himself; to go Citywards, money-getting. He will see his children once a fortnight, and exchange a dozen sharp words with his wife twice in that time.
More and more sad does the Lady Clara become from day to day; liking more to sit lonely over the fire; careless about the sarcasms of her husband; the prattle of her children. She cries sometimes over the cradle of the young heir. She is aweary, aweary. You understand, the man to whom her parents sold her does not make her happy, though she has been bought with diamonds, two carriages, several large footmen, a fine country-house with delightful gardens, and conservatories, and with all this she is miserable—is it possible?
CHAPTER LIII.
In which Kinsmen fall out
Not the least difficult part of Thomas Newcome’s present business was to keep from his son all knowledge of the negotiation in which he was engaged on Clive’s behalf. If my gentle reader has had sentimental disappointments, he or she is aware that the friends who have given him most sympathy under these calamities have been persons who have had dismal histories of their own at some time of their lives, and I conclude Colonel Newcome in his early days must have suffered very cruelly in that affair of which we have a slight cognisance, or he would not have felt so very much anxiety about Clive’s condition.