“Among them they have taken him away from his art,” Ridley said. “They don’t understand him when he talks about it; they despise him for pursuing it. Why should I wonder at that? my parents despised it too, and my father was not a grand gentleman like the Colonel, Mrs. Pendennis. Ah! why did the Colonel ever grow rich? Why had not Clive to work for his bread as have? He would have done something that was worthy of him then; now his time must be spent in dancing attendance at balls land operas, and yawning at City board-rooms. They call that business: they think he is idling when he comes here, poor fellow! As if life was long enough for our art; and the best labour we can give, good enough for it! He went away groaning this morning, and quite saddened in spirits. The Colonel wants to set up himself for Parliament, or to set Clive up; but he says he won’t. I hope he won’t; do not you, Mrs. Pendennis?”
The painter turned as he spoke; and the bright northern light which fell upon the sitter’s head was intercepted, and lighted up his own as he addressed us. Out of that bright light looked his pale thoughtful face, and long locks and eager brown eyes. The palette on his arm was a great shield painted of many colours: he carried his mall-stick and a sheaf of brushes along with the weapons of his glorious but harmless war. With these he achieves conquests, wherein none are wounded save the envious: with that he shelters him against how much idleness, ambition, temptations! Occupied over that consoling work, idle thoughts cannot gain mastery over him: selfish wishes or desires are kept at bay. Art is truth: and truth is religion: and its study and practice a daily work of pious duty. What are the world’s struggles, brawls, successes, to that calm recluse pursuing his calling? See, twinkling in the darkness round his chamber, numberless beautiful trophies of the graceful victories which he has won:—sweet flowers of fancy reared by him:—kind shapes of beauty which he has devised and moulded. The world enters into the artist’s studio, and scornfully bids him a price for his genius, or makes dull pretence to admire it. What know you of his art? You cannot read the alphabet of that sacred book, good old Thomas Newcome! What can you tell of its glories, joys, secrets, consolations? Between his two best-beloved mistresses, poor Clive’s luckless father somehow interposes; and with sorrowful, even angry protests. In place of Art the Colonel brings him a ledger; and in lieu of first love, shows him Rosey.
No wonder that Clive hangs his head; rebels sometimes, desponds always: he has positively determined to refuse to stand for Newcome, Ridley says. Laura is glad of his refusal, and begins to think of him once more as of the Clive of old days.
CHAPTER LXVI.
In which the Colonel and the Newcome Athenæum are both lectured
At breakfast with his family, on the morning after the little entertainment to which we were bidden, in the last chapter, Colonel Newcome was full of the projected invasion of Barnes’s territories, and delighted to think that there was an opportunity of at last humiliating that rascal.
“Clive does not think he is a rascal at all, papa,” cries Rosey, from behind her tea-urn; “that is, you said you thought papa judged him too harshly; you know you did, this morning!” And from her husband’s angry glances, she flies to his father’s for protection. Those were even fiercer than Clive’s. Revenge flashed from beneath Thomas Newcome’s grizzled eyebrows, and glanced in the direction where Clive sat. Then the Colonel’s face flushed up, and he cast his eyes down towards his tea-cup, which he lifted with a trembling hand. The father and son loved each other so, that each was afraid of the other. A war between two such men is dreadful; pretty little pink-faced Rosey, in a sweet little morning cap and ribbons, her pretty little fingers twinkling with a score of rings, sat simpering before her silver tea-urn, which reflected her pretty little pink baby face. Little artless creature! what did she know of the dreadful wounds which her little words inflicted in the one generous breast and the other?
“My boy’s heart is gone from me,” thinks poor Thomas Newcome; “our family is insulted, our enterprises ruined, by that traitor, and my son is not even angry! he does not care for the success of our plans—for the honour of our name even; I make him a position of which any young man in England might be proud, and Clive scarcely deigns to accept it.”
“My wife appeals to my father,” thinks poor Clive; “it is from him she asks counsel, and not from me. Be it about the ribbon in her cap, or any other transaction in our lives, she takes her colour from his opinion, and goes to him for advice, and I have to wait till it is given, and conform myself to it. If I differ from the dear old father, I wound him; if I yield up my opinion, as I do always, it is with a bad grace, and I wound him still. With the best intentions in the world, what a slave’s life it is that he has made for me!”
“How interested you are in your papers!” resumes the sprightly nosey. “What can you find in those horrid politics?” Both gentlemen are looking at their papers with all their might, and no doubt cannot see one single word which those brilliant and witty leading articles contain.
“Clive is like you, Rosey,” says the Colonel, laying his paper down, “and does not care for politics.”