Clive, his father, and Frederick Bayham, their faithful aide-de-camp, were at Newcome likewise when Sir Barnes’s oration was delivered. At first it was given out at Newcome that the Colonel visited the place for the purpose of seeing his dear old friend and pensioner, Mrs. Mason, who was now not long to enjoy his bounty, and so old, as scarcely to know her benefactor. Only after her sleep, or when the sun warmed her and the old wine with which he supplied her, was the good old woman able to recognise her Colonel. She mingled father and son together in her mind. A lady who now often came in to her, thought she was wandering in her talk, when the poor old woman spoke of a visit she had had from her boy; and then the attendant told Miss Newcome that such a visit had actually taken place, and that but yesterday Clive and his father had been in that room, and occupied the chair where she sat. “The young lady was taken quite ill, and seemed ready to faint almost,” Mrs. Mason’s servant and spokeswoman told Colonel Newcome when that gentleman arrived shortly after Ethel’s departure, to see his old nurse. “Indeed! he was very sorry.” The maid told many stories about Miss Newcome’s goodness and charity; how she was constantly visiting the poor now; how she was for ever engaged in good works for the young, the sick, and the aged. She had had a dreadful misfortune in love; she was going to be married to a young marquis; richer even than Prince de Moncontour down at Rosebury; but it was all broke off on account of that dreadful affair at the Hall.
Was she very good to the poor? did she come often to see her grandfather’s old friend? it was no more than she ought “to do,” Colonel Newcome said; without, however, thinking fit to tell his informant that he had himself met his niece Ethel, five minutes before he had entered Mrs. Mason’s door.
The poor thing was in discourse with Mr. Harris, the surgeon, and talking (as best she might, for no doubt the news which she had just heard had agitated her), talking about blankets, and arrowroot, wine, and medicaments for her poor, when she saw her uncle coming towards her. She tottered a step or two forwards to meet him; held both her hands out, and called his name; but he looked her sternly in the face, took off his hat and bowed, and passed on. He did not think fit to mention the meeting even to his son, Clive; but we may be sure Mr. Harris, the surgeon, spoke of the circumstance that night after the lecture, at the club, where a crowd of gentlemen were gathered together, smoking their cigars, and enjoying themselves according to their custom, and discussing Sir Barnes Newcome’s performance.
According to established usage in such cases, our esteemed representative was received by the committee of the Newcome Athenæum, assembled in their committee-room, and thence marshalled by the chairman and vice-chairman to his rostrum in the lecture-hall, round about which the magnates of the institution and the notabilities of the town were rallied on this public occasion. The Baronet came in some state from his own house, arriving at Newcome in his carriage with four horses, accompanied by my lady his mother, and Miss Ethel his beautiful sister, who now was mistress at the Hall. His little girl was brought—five years old now; she sate on her aunt’s knee, and slept during a greater part of the performance. A fine bustle, we may be sure, was made on the introduction of these personages to their reserved seats on the platform, where they sate encompassed by others of the great ladies of Newcome, to whom they and the lecturer were especially gracious at this season. Was not Parliament about to be dissolved, and were not the folks at Newcome Park particularly civil at that interesting period? So Barnes Newcome mounts his pulpit, bows round to the crowded assembly in acknowledgment of their buzz of applause or recognition, passes his lily-white pocket-handkerchief across his thin lips, and dashes off into his lecture about Mrs. Hemans and the poetry of the affections. A public man, a commercial man as we well know, yet his heart is in his home, and his joy in his affections; the presence of this immense assembly here this evening; of the industrious capitalists; of the intelligent middle class; of the pride and mainstay of England, the operatives of Newcome; these, surrounded by their wives and their children (a graceful bow to the bonnets to the right of the platform), show that they too have hearts to feel, and homes to cherish; that they, too, feel the love of women, the innocence of children, the love of song! Our lecturer then makes a distinction between man’s poetry and woman’s poetry, charging considerably in favour of the latter. We show that to appeal to the affections is after all the true office of the bard; to decorate the homely threshold, to wreathe flowers round the domestic hearth, the delightful duty of the Christian singer. We glance at Mrs. Hemans’s biography, and state where she was born, and under what circumstances she must have at first, etc. etc. Is this a correct account of Sir Barnes Newcome’s lecture? I was not present, and did not read the report. Very likely the above may be a reminiscence of that mock lecture which Warrington delivered in anticipation of the Baronet’s oration.
After he had read for about five minutes, it was remarked the Baronet suddenly stopped and became exceedingly confused over his manuscript: betaking himself to his auxiliary glass of water before he resumed his discourse, which for a long time was languid, low, and disturbed in tone. This period of disturbance, no doubt, must have occurred when Sir Barnes saw before him F. Bayham and Warrington seated in the amphitheatre; and, by the side of those fierce scornful countenances, Clive Newcome’s pale face.
Clive Newcome was not looking at Barnes. His eyes were fixed upon the lady seated not far from the lecturer—upon Ethel, with her arm round her little niece’s shoulder, and her thick black ringlets drooping down over a face paler than Clive’s own.
Of course she knew that Clive was present. She was aware of him as she entered the hall; saw him at the very first moment; saw nothing but him, I dare say, though her eyes were shut and her head was turned now towards her mother, and now bent down on the little niece’s golden curls. And the past and its dear histories, and youth and its hopes and passions, and tones and looks for ever echoing in the heart, and present in the memory—these, no doubt, poor Clive saw and heard as he looked across the great gulf of time, and parting, and grief, and beheld the woman he had loved for many years. There she sits; the same, but changed: as gone from him as if she were dead; departed indeed into another sphere, and entered into a kind of death. If there is no love more in yonder heart, it is but a corpse unburied. Strew round it the flowers of youth. Wash it with tears of passion. Wrap it and envelop it with fond devotion. Break heart, and fling yourself on the bier, and kiss her cold lips and press her hand! It falls back dead on the cold breast again. The beautiful lips have never a blush or a smile. Cover them and lay them in the ground, and so take thy hatband off, good friend, and go to thy business. Do you suppose you are the only man who has had to attend such a funeral? You will find some men smiling and at work the day after. Some come to the grave now and again out of the world, and say a brief prayer, and a “God bless her!” With some men, she gone, and her viduous mansion your heart to let, her successor, the new occupant, poking in all the drawers and corners, and cupboards of the tenement, finds her miniature and some of her dusty old letters hidden away somewhere, and says—Was this the face he admired so? Why, allowing even for the painter’s flattery, it is quite ordinary, and the eyes certainly do not look straight. Are these the letters you thought so charming? Well, upon my word, I never read anything more commonplace in my life! See, here’s a line half blotted out. Oh, I suppose she was crying then—some of her tears, idle tears—Hark, there is Barnes Newcome’s eloquence still plapping on like water from a cistern—and our thoughts, where have they wandered? far away from the lecture—as far away as Clive’s almost. And now the fountain ceases to trickle; the mouth from which issued that cool and limpid flux ceases to smile; the figure is seen to bow and retire; a buzz, a hum, a whisper, a scuffle, a meeting of bonnets and wagging of feathers and rustling of silks ensues. “Thank you! delightful, I am sure!” “I really was quite overcome;” “Excellent;” “So much obliged,” are rapid phrases heard amongst the polite on the platform. While down below, “Yaw! quite enough of that;” “Mary Jane, cover your throat up, and don’t kitch cold, and don’t push me, please, sir;” “’Arry! coom along and ’av’ a pint a ale,” etc., are the remarks heard, or perhaps not heard, by Clive Newcome, as he watches at the private entrance of the Athenæum, where Sir Barnes’s carriage is waiting with its flaming lamps, and domestics in state liveries. One of them comes out of the building bearing the little girl in his arms, and lays her in the carriage. Then Sir Barnes, and Lady Anne, and the Mayor; then Ethel issues forth, and as she passes under the lamps, beholds Clive’s face as pale and sad as her own.
Shall we go visit the lodge-gates of Newcome Park the moon shining on their carving? Is there any pleasure in walking by miles of grey paling, and endless palisades of firs? Oh, you fool, what do you hope to see behind that curtain? Absurd fugitive, whither would you run? Can you burst the tether of fate: and is not poor dear little Rosey Mackenzie sitting yonder waiting for you by the stake? Go home, sir; and don’t catch cold. So Mr. Clive returns to the King’s Arms, and goes up to his bedroom, and he hears Mr. F. Bayham’s deep voice as he passes by the Boscawen Room, where the Jolly Britons are as usual assembled.
CHAPTER LXVII.
Newcome and Liberty
We have said that the Baronet’s lecture was discussed in the midnight senate assembled at the King’s Arms, where Mr. Tom Potts showed the orator no mercy. The senate of the King’s Arms was hostile to Sir Barnes Newcome. Many other Newcomites besides were savage and inclined to revolt against the representative of their borough. As these patriots met over their cups, and over the bumper of friendship uttered the sentiments of freedom, they had often asked of one another, where should a man be found to rid Newcome of its dictator? Generous hearts writhed under the oppression: patriotic eyes scowled when Barnes Newcome went by: with fine satire, Tom Potts at Brown the hatter’s shop, who made the hats for Sir Barnes Newcome’s domestics, proposed to take one of the beavers—a gold-laced one with a cockade and a cord—and set it up in the market-place and bid all Newcome come bow to it, as to the hat of Gessler. “Don’t you think, Potts,” says F. Bayham, who of course was admitted into the King’s Arms club, and ornamented that assembly by his presence and discourse, “Don’t you think the Colonel would make a good William Tell to combat against that Gessler?” Ha! Proposal received with acclamation—eagerly adopted by Charles Tucker, Esq., Attorney-at-Law, who would not have the slightest objection to conduct Colonel Newcome’s, or any other gentleman’s electioneering business in Newcome or elsewhere.