“Children dishonoured,” said I, “honest families made miserable; for Heaven’s sake, Florac, let us stay this catastrophe if we can.” I spoke with much warmth, eagerly desirous to avert this calamity if possible, and very strongly moved by the tale which I had heard only just before dinner from that noble and innocent creature, whose pure heart had already prompted her to plead the cause of right and truth, and to try and rescue an unhappy desperate sister trembling on the verge of ruin.
“If you will not write to him,” said I, in some heat, “if your grooms don’t like to go out of a night” (this was one of the objections which Florac had raised), “I will walk.” We were talking over the affair rather late in the evening, the ladies having retreated to their sleeping apartments, and some guests having taken leave, whom our hospitable host and hostess had entertained that night, and before whom I naturally did not care to speak upon a subject so dangerous.
“Parbleu, what virtue, my friend! what a Joseph!” cries Florac, puffing his cigar. “One sees well that your wife had made you the sermon. My poor Pendennis! You are henpecked, my pauvre bon! You become the husband model. It is true my mother writes that thy wife is an angel!”
“I do not object to obey such a woman when she bids me do right,” I said; and would indeed at that woman’s request have gone out upon the errand, but that we here found another messenger. On days when dinner-parties were held at Rosebury, certain auxiliary waiters used to attend from Newcome whom the landlord of the King’s Arms was accustomed to supply; indeed, it was to secure these, and make other necessary arrangements respecting fish, game, etc., that the Prince de Moncontour had ridden over to Newcome on the day when we met Lord Highgate, alias Mr. Harris, before the bar of the hotel. Whilst we were engaged in the above conversation a servant enters, and says, “My lord, Jenkins and the other man is going back to Newcome in their cart, and is there anything wanted?”
“It is the Heaven which sends him,” says Florac, turning round to me with a laugh; “make Jenkins to wait five minutes, Robert; I have to write to a gentleman at the King’s Arms.” And so saying, Florac wrote a line which he showed me, and having sealed the note, directed it to Mr. Harris at the King’s Arms. The cart, the note, and the assistant waiters departed on their way to Newcome. Florac bade me go to rest with a clear conscience. In truth, the warning was better given in that way than any other, and a word from Florac was more likely to be effectual than an expostulation from me. I had never thought of making it, perhaps; except at the expressed desire of a lady whose counsel in all the difficult circumstances of life I own I am disposed to take.
Mr. Jenkins’s horse no doubt trotted at a very brisk pace, as gentlemen’s horses will of a frosty night, after their masters have been regaled with plentiful supplies of wine and ale. I remember in my bachelor days that my horses always trotted quicker after I had had a good dinner; the champagne used to communicate itself to them somehow, and the claret get into their heels. Before midnight the letter for Mr. Harris was in Mr. Harris’s hands in the King’s Arms.
It has been said that in the Boscawen Room at the Arms, some of the jolly fellows of Newcome had a club, of which Parrot the auctioneer, Tom Potts the talented reporter, now editor of the Independent, Vidler the apothecary, and other gentlemen, were members.
When we first had occasion to mention that society, it was at an early stage of this history, long before Clive Newcome’s fine moustache had grown. If Vidler the apothecary was old and infirm then, he is near ten years older now; he has had various assistants, of course, and one of them of late years had his become his partner, though the firm continues to be known by Vidler’s ancient and respectable name. A jovial fellow was this partner—a capital convivial member of the Jolly Britons, where he used to sit very late, so as to be in readiness for any night-work that might come in.
So the Britons were all sitting, smoking, drinking, and making merry, in the Boscawen Room, when Jenkins enters with a note, which he straightway delivers to Mr. Vidler’s partner. “From Rosebury? The Princess ill again, I suppose,” says the surgeon, not sorry to let the company know that he attends her. “I wish the old girl would be ill in the daytime. Confound it,” says he, “what’s this——” and he reads out, “‘Sir Newcome est de retour. Bon voyage, mon ami.—F.’ What does this mean?”
“I thought you knew French, Jack Harris,” says Tom Potts; “you’re always bothering us with your French songs.”