Boys and girls from Thackeray - Kate Dickinson Sweetser
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"Why do you bring young boys here, old boy?" cries a voice of the
malcontents.
"Why? Because I thought I was coming to a society of gentlemen," cried
out the indignant Colonel. "Because I never could have believed that
Englishmen could meet together and allow a man, and an old man, so to
disgrace himself. For shame, you old wretch! Go home to your bed, you
hoary old sinner! And for my part, I'm not sorry that my son should see,
for once in his life, to what shame and degradation and dishonour,
drunkenness and whiskey may bring a man. Never mind the change,
sir!--Curse the change!" says the Colonel, facing the amazed waiter.
"Keep it till you see me in this place again; which will be never--by
George, never!" And shouldering his stick, and scowling round at the
company of scared bacchanalians, the indignant gentleman stalked away,
his boy after him.
Clive seemed rather shamedfaced, but I fear the rest of the company
looked still more foolish. For if the truth be told that uplifted cane
of the Colonel's had somehow fallen on the back of every man in the room.
While Clive and his father are becoming better acquainted let us pass on
to Brighton, and glance at the household of that good, brisk old lady,
Clive's Aunt Honeyman. Now Aunt Honeyman was a woman of spirit and
resolution, and when she found her income sadly diminished by financial
reverses she brought her furniture to Brighton, also a faithful maid
servant who had learned her letters and worked her first sampler under
Miss Honeyman's own eye, and whom she adored all through her life. With
this outfit the brisk little lady took a house, and let the upper floors
to lodgers, and because of her personal attractions and her good
housekeeping her rooms were seldom empty.
On the morning when we first visit Miss Honeyman's a gentleman had just
applied there for rooms. "Please to speak to mistress," says Hannah, the
maid, opening the parlour door with a curtsey. "A gentleman about the
apartments, mum."
"Fife bet-rooms," says the man entering. "Six bets, two or dree
sitting-rooms? We gome from Dr. Good-enough."
"Are the apartments for you, sir?" says Miss Honeyman, looking up at the
large gentleman.
"For my lady," answers the man.
"Had you not better take off your hat?" asks Miss Honeyman.
The man grins and takes off his hat. Whereupon Miss Honeyman, having
heard also that a German's physician has especially recommended Miss
Honeyman's as a place in which one of his patients can have a change of
air and scene, informs the man that she can let his mistress have the
desired number of apartments. The man reports to his mistress, who
descends to inspect the apartments, and pronounces them exceedingly neat
and pleasant and exactly what are wanted. The baggage is forthwith
ordered to be brought from the carriages. The little invalid, wrapped in
his shawl, is carried upstairs as gently as possible, while the young
ladies, the governess, the maids, are shown to their apartments. The
eldest young lady, a slim black-haired young lass of thirteen, frisks
about the rooms, looks at all the pictures, runs in and out of the
veranda, tries the piano, and bursts out laughing at its wheezy jingle.
She also kisses her languid little brother laid on the sofa, and performs
a hundred gay and agile motions suited to her age.
"Oh, what a piano! Why, it is as cracked as Miss Quigley's voice!"
"My dear!" says mamma. The little languid boy bursts out into a
jolly laugh.
"What funny pictures, mamma! Action with Count de Grasse; the death of
General Wolfe; a portrait of an officer, an old officer in blue, like
grandpapa; Brasenose College, Oxford; what a funny name."
At the idea of Brasenose College, another laugh comes from the invalid.
"I suppose they've all got _brass noses_ there," he says; and he explodes
at this joke. The poor little laugh ends in a cough, and mamma's
travelling basket, which contains everything, produces a bottle of syrup,
labelled "Master A. Newcome. A teaspoonful to be taken when the cough is
troublesome."
"Oh, the delightful sea! the blue, the fresh, the ever free," sings the
young lady, with a shake. "How much better is this than going home and
seeing those horrid factories and chimneys! I love Dr. Goodenough for
sending us here. What a sweet house it is. What nice rooms!"
Presently little Miss Honeyman makes her appearance in a large cap
bristling with ribbons, with her best chestnut front and her best black
silk gown, on which her gold watch shines very splendidly. She curtseys
with dignity to her lodger, who vouchsafes a very slight inclination of
the head, saying that the apartments will do very well.
"And they have such a beautiful view of the sea!" cries Ethel.
"As if all the houses hadn't a view of the sea, Ethel! The price has been
arranged, I think? My servants will require a comfortable room to dine
in--by themselves mam, if you please. My governess and the younger
children will dine together. My daughter dines with me--and my little
boy's dinner will be ready at two o'clock precisely if you please. It is
now near one."
"Am I to understand--?" interposed Miss Honeyman.
"Oh! I have no doubt we shall understand each other, mam," cried Lady Ann
Newcome, for it was no other than that noble person, with her children,
who had invaded the precincts of Miss Honeyman's home. "Dr. Goodenough
has given me a most satisfactory account of you--more satisfactory,
perhaps, than you are aware of. Breakfast and tea, if you please, will be
served in the same manner as dinner, and you will have the kindness to
order fresh milk every morning for my little boy--ass's milk. Dr.
Goodenough has ordered ass's milk. Anything further I want I will
communicate through the man who first spoke to you--and that will do."
A heavy shower of rain was descending at this moment, and little Miss
Honeyman, looking at her lodger, who had sat down and taken up her book,
said, "Have your ladyship's servants unpacked your trunks?"
"What on earth, madam, have you--has that to do with the question?"
"They will be put to the trouble of packing again, I fear. I cannot
provide--three times five are fifteen--fifteen separate meals for seven
persons--besides those of my own family. If your servants cannot eat
with mine, or in my kitchen, they and their mistress must go elsewhere.
And the sooner the better, madam, the sooner the better!" says Miss
Honeyman, trembling with indignation, and sitting down in a chair,
spreading her silks.
"Do you know who I am?" asks Lady Ann, rising.
"Perfectly well, madam," says the other, "And had I known, you should
never have come into my house, that's more."
"Madam!" cries the lady, on which the poor little invalid, scared and
nervous, and hungry for his dinner, began to cry from his sofa.
"It will be a pity that the dear little boy should be disturbed. Dear
little child, I have often heard of him, and of you, miss," says the
little householder, rising. "I will get you some dinner, my dear, for
Clive's sake. And meanwhile your ladyship will have the kindness to seek
for some other apartments--for not a bit shall my fire cook for any one
else of your company." And with this the indignant little landlady sailed
out of the room.
"Gracious goodness! Who is the woman?" cries Lady Ann. "I never was so
insulted in my life."
"Oh, mamma, it was you began!" says downright Ethel. "That is--Hush,
Alfred dear,--Hush my darling!"
"Oh, it was mamma began! I'm so hungry! I'm so hungry!" howled the little
man on the sofa, or off it rather, for he was now down on the ground
kicking away the shawls which enveloped him.
"What is it, my boy? What is it, my blessed darling? You _shall_ have
your dinner! Give her all, Ethel. There are the keys of my desk, there's
my watch, there are my rings. Let her take my all. The monster! The child
must live! It can't go away in such a storm as this. Give me a cloak, a
parasol, anything--I'll go forth and get a lodging. I'll beg my bread
from house to house, if this fiend refuses me. Eat the biscuits, dear! A
little of the syrup, Alfred darling; it's very nice, love, and come to
your old mother--your poor old mother."
Alfred roared out, "No, it's not n--ice; it's n-a-a-sty! I won't have
syrup. I _will_ have dinner." The mother, whose embraces the child
repelled with infantine kicks, plunged madly at the bells, rang them all
four vehemently, and ran downstairs towards the parlour, whence Miss
Honeyman was issuing.
The good lady had not at first known the names of her lodgers, until one
of the nurses intrusted with the care of Master Alfred's dinner informed
her that she was entertaining Lady Ann Newcome; and that the pretty girl
was the fair Miss Ethel; the little sick boy, the little Alfred of whom
his cousin spoke, and of whom Clive had made a hundred little drawings in
his rude way, as he drew everybody. Then bidding Sally run off to St.
James Street for a chicken, she saw it put on the spit, and prepared a
bread sauce, and composed a batter-pudding, as she only knew how to make
batter puddings. Then she went to array herself in her best clothes, as
we have seen; then she came to wait upon Lady Ann, not a little flurried
as to the result of that queer interview; then she whisked out of the
drawing-room, as before has been shown; and, finding the chicken roasted
to a turn, the napkin and tray ready spread by Hannah the neat-handed,
she was bringing them up to the little patient when the frantic parent
met her on the stair.
"Is it--is it for my child?" cried Lady Ann, reeling against the
bannister.
"Yes, it's for the child," says Miss Honeyman, tossing up her head. "But
nobody else has anything in the house."
"God bless you! God bless you! A mother's bl--l-ess-ings go with you,"
gurgled the lady, who was not, it must be confessed, a woman of strong
moral character.
It was good to see the little man eating the fowl. Ethel, who had never
cut anything in her young existence, except her fingers now and then with
her brother's and her governess's penknives, bethought her of asking Miss
Honeyman to carve the chicken. Lady Ann, with clasped hands and streaming
eyes, sat looking on at the ravishing scene.
"Why did you not let us know you were Clive's aunt?" Ethel asked, putting
out her hand. The old lady took hers very kindly, and said, "Because you
didn't give me time,--and do you love Clive, my dear?"
The reconciliation between Miss Honeyman and her lodger was perfect, and
for a brief season Lady Ann Newcome was in rapture with her new lodgings
and every person and thing which they contained. The drawing-rooms were
fitted with the greatest taste; the dinner was exquisite; were there ever
such delicious veal cutlets, such fresh French beans?
"Indeed they were very good," said Miss Ethel, "I am so glad you like the
house, and Clive, and Miss Honeyman."
Ethel's mother was constantly falling in love with new acquaintances; so
these raptures were no novelty to her daughter. Ethel had had so many
governesses, all darlings during the first week, and monsters afterwards,
that the poor child possessed none of the accomplishments of her age.
She could not play on the piano; she could not speak French well; she
could not tell you when gunpowder was invented; she had not the faintest
idea of the date of the Norman Conquest, or whether the earth went round
the sun, or vice versa. She did not know the number of counties in
England, Scotland and Wales, let alone Ireland; she did not know the
difference between latitude and longitude. She had had so many
governesses; their accounts differed; poor Ethel was bewildered by a
multiplicity of teachers, and thought herself a monster of ignorance.
They gave her a book at a Sunday school, and little girls of eight years
old answered questions of which she knew nothing. The place swam before
her. She could not see the sun shining on their fair flaxen heads and
pretty faces. The rosy little children, holding up their eager hands and
crying the answer to this question and that, seemed mocking her. She
seemed to read in the book, "Oh, Ethel, you dunce, dunce, dunce!" She
went home silent in the carriage, and burst into bitter tears on her bed.
Naturally a haughty girl of the highest spirit, resolute and imperious,
this little visit to the parish school taught Ethel lessons more valuable
than ever so much arithmetic and geography.
When Ethel was thirteen years old she had grown to be such a tall girl
that she overtopped her companions by a head or more, and morally
perhaps, also, felt herself too tall for their society. "Fancy myself,"
she thought, "dressing a doll like Lily Putland, or wearing a pinafore
like Lucy Tucker!" She did not care for their sports. She could not walk
with them; it seemed as if everyone stared; nor dance with them at the
academy; nor attend the _Cours de Litterature Universelle et de Science
Comprehensive_ of the professor then the mode. The smallest girls took
her up in the class. She was bewildered by the multitude of things they
bade her learn. At the youthful little assemblies of her sex, when, under
the guide of their respected governesses, the girls came to tea at six
o'clock, dancing, charades, and so forth, Ethel herded not with the
children of her own age, nor yet with the teachers who sat apart at these
assemblies, imparting to each other their little wrongs. But Ethel romped
with the little children, the rosy little trots, and took them on her
knees, and told them a thousand stories. By these she was adored, and
loved like a mother almost, for as such the hearty, kindly girl showed
herself to them; but at home she was alone, and intractable, and did
battle with the governesses, and overcame them one after another.
While Lady Ann Newcome and her children were at Brighton, Lady Kew,
mother of Lady Ann, was also staying there, but refused to visit the
house in which her daughter was stopping for fear that she herself might
contract the disease from which her grandchildren were recovering. She
received news of them, however, through her grandson, Lord Kew, and his
friend Jack Belsize, who enjoyed dining with the old lady whenever they
were given the opportunity. Having met their cousins one day before
dining with Lady Kew their news was most interesting and enthusiastic.
"That little chap who has just had the measles--he's a dear little
brick," said Jack Belsize. "And as for Miss Ethel--"
"Ethel is a trump, mam," says Lord Kew, slapping his hand on his knee.
"Ethel is a brick, and Alfred is a trump, I think you say," remarks Lady
Kew, "and Barnes is a snob. This is very satisfactory to know."
"We met the children out to-day," cries the enthusiastic Kew, "as I was
driving Jack in the drag, and I got out and talked to 'em. The little
fellow wanted a drive and I said I would drive him and Ethel, too, if she
would come. Upon my word she's as pretty a girl as you can see on a
summer's day. And the governess said, no, of course; governesses always
do. But I said I was her uncle, and Jack paid her such a fine compliment
that she finally let the children take their seats beside me, and Jack
went behind. We drove on to the Downs; my horses are young, and when they
get on the grass they are as if they were mad. They ran away, ever so
far, and I thought the carriage must upset. The poor little boy, who has
lost his pluck in the fever, began to cry; but that young girl, though
she was as white as a sheet, never gave up for a moment, and sat in her
place like a man. We met nothing, luckily; and I pulled the horses in
after a mile or two, and I drove 'em into Brighton as quiet as if I had
been driving a hearse. And that little trump of an Ethel, what do you
think she said? She said: 'I was not frightened, but you must not tell
mamma.' My aunt, it appears, was in a dreadful commotion. I ought to have
thought of that."
There is a brother of Sir Brian Newcome's staying with them, Lord Kew
perceives; an East India Colonel, a very fine-looking old boy. He was on
the lookout for them, and when they came in sight he despatched a boy who
was with him, running like a lamplighter, back to their aunt to say all
was well. And he took little Alfred out of the carriage, and then helped
out Ethel, and said, "My dear, you are too pretty to scold; but you have
given us all a great fright." And then he made Kew and Jack a low bow,
and stalked into the lodgings. Then they went up and made their peace and
were presented in form to the Colonel and his youthful cub.
"As fine a fellow as I ever saw," cries Jack Belsize. "The young chap is
a great hand at drawing--upon my life the best drawings I ever saw. And
he was making a picture for little What-do-you-call-'im, and Miss Newcome
was looking over them. And Lady Ann pointed out the group to me, and said
how pretty it was."
In consequence of this conversation, which aroused her curiosity, Lady
Kew sent a letter that night to Lady Ann Newcome, desiring that Ethel
should be sent to see her grandmother; Ethel, who was no weakling in
character despite her youth, and who always rebelled against her
grandmother and always fought on her Aunt Julia's side when that amiable
invalid lady, who lived with her mother, was oppressed by the dominating
older woman.
From the foregoing facts we gather that Thomas Newcome had not been many
weeks in England before he favoured good little Miss Honeyman with a
visit, to her great delight. You may be sure that the visit was an event
in her life. And she was especially pleased that it should occur at the
time when the Colonel's kinsfolk were staying under her roof. On the day
of the Colonel's arrival all the presents which Newcome had ever sent his
sister-in-law from India had been taken out of the cotton and lavender in
which the faithful creature kept them. It was a fine hot day in June, but
I promise you Miss Honeyman wore her blazing scarlet Cashmere shawl; her
great brooch, representing the Taj of Agra, was in her collar; and her
bracelets decorated the sleeves round her lean old hands, which trembled
with pleasure as they received the kind grasp of the Colonel of colonels.
How busy those hands had been that morning! What custards they had
whipped! What a triumph of pie-crusts they had achieved! Before Colonel
Newcome had been ten minutes in the house the celebrated veal-cutlets
made their appearance. Was not the whole house adorned in expectation of
his coming? The good woman's eyes twinkled, the kind old hand and voice
shook, as, holding up a bright glass of Madeira, Miss Honeyman drank the
Colonel's health. "I promise you, my dear Colonel," says she, nodding her
head, adorned with a bristling superstructure of lace and ribbons, "I
promise you, that I can drink your health in good wine!" The wine was of
his own sending, and so were the China firescreens, and the sandal-wood
work-box, and the ivory card case, and those magnificent pink and white
chessmen, carved like little sepoys and mandarins, with the castles on
elephants' backs, George the Third and his queen in pink ivory against
the Emperor of China and lady in white--the delight of Clive's
childhood, the chief ornament of the old spinster's sitting-room.
Miss Honeyman's little feast was pronounced to be the perfection of
cookery; and when the meal was over, came a noise of little feet at the
parlour door, which being opened, there appeared: first, a tall nurse
with a dancing baby; second and third, two little girls with little
frocks, little trowsers, long ringlets, blue eyes, and blue ribbons to
match; fourth, Master Alfred, now quite recovered from his illness and
holding by the hand, fifth, Miss Ethel Newcome, blushing like a rose.
Hannah, grinning, acted as mistress of the ceremonies, calling out the
names of "Miss Newcome, Master Newcome, to see the Colonel, if you
please, ma'am," bobbing a curtsey, and giving a knowing nod to Master
Clive, as she smoothed her new silk apron. Miss Ethel did not cease
blushing as she advanced towards her uncle; and the honest campaigner
started up, blushing too. Mr. Clive rose also, as little Alfred, of whom
he was a great friend, ran towards him. Clive rose, laughed, nodded at
Ethel, and ate ginger-bread nuts all at the same time. As for Colonel
Thomas Newcome and his niece, they fell in love with each other
instantaneously, like Prince Camaralzaman and the Princess of China.
"Mamma has sent us to bid you welcome to England, uncle," says Miss
Ethel, advancing, and never thinking for a moment of laying aside that
fine blush which she brought into the room, and which was her pretty
symbol of youth and modesty and beauty.
He took a little slim white hand and laid it down on his brown palm,
where it looked all the whiter; he cleared the grizzled moustache from
his mouth, and stooping down he kissed the little white hand with a great
deal of grace and dignity, after which he was forever the humble and
devoted admirer of that bright young girl.
Raising himself from his salute, he heard a pretty little infantile
chorus. "How do you do, uncle?" said girls number two and three, while
the dancing baby in the arms of the bobbing nurse babbled a welcome.
Alfred looked up for a while at his uncle in the white trousers, and then
instantly proposed that Clive should make some drawings; and was on his
knees at the next moment. He was always climbing on somebody or
something, or winding over chairs, curling through bannisters, standing
on somebody's head, or his own head; as his convalescence advanced, his
breakages were fearful. Miss Honeyman and Hannah talked about his
dilapidations for years after. When he was a jolly young officer in the
Guards, and came to see them at Brighton, they showed him the blue dragon
Chayny jar on which he would sit, and over which he cried so fearfully
upon breaking it.
When this little party had gone out smiling to take its walk on the sea
shore, the Colonel from his balcony watched the slim figure of pretty
Ethel, looked fondly after her, and as the smoke of his cigar floated in
the air, formed a fine castle in it, whereof Clive was Lord, and Ethel
Lady. "What a frank, generous, bright young creature is yonder!" thought
he. "How cheering and gay she is; how good to Miss Honeyman, to whom she
behaved with just the respect that was the old lady's due. How
affectionate with her brothers and sisters! What a sweet voice she had!
What a pretty little white hand it is! When she gave it me, it looked
like a little white bird lying in mine."
Thus mused the Colonel, upon the charms of the young girl who was
henceforth to occupy the first place in his affection.
His admiration for her might have been still further heightened had he
been at Lady Ann's breakfast table some four or five weeks later, when
Lady Ann and her nursery had just returned to London, little Alfred being
perfectly set up by a month of Brighton air. Barnes Newcome had just
discovered an article in the Newcome Independent commenting warmly upon a
visit which Colonel Newcome and Clive had recently paid to Newcome, the
object of that visit having been the Colonel's desire to gladden the eyes
of his old nurse Sarah with a sight of him. Inhabitants of Newcome,
feeling that the same Sarah Mason, who was a much respected member of the
community, was much neglected by her rich and influential relatives in
London, took great delight in commenting upon the Colonel's attention to
the aged woman. The article in the Independent on that subject was
anything but pleasing to the family pride of Mr. Barnes, who remarked in
a sneering tone, "My uncle the Colonel, and his amiable son, have been
paying a visit to Newcome. That is the news which the paper announces
triumphantly," said Mr. Barnes.
"You are always sneering about our uncle," broke in Ethel, impetuously,
"and saying unkind things about Clive. Our uncle is a dear, good, kind
man, and I love him. He came to Brighton to see us, and went out every
day for hours and hours with Alfred; and Clive, too, drew pictures for
him. And he is good, and kind, and generous, and honest as his father.
Barnes is always speaking ill of him behind his back; and Miss Honeyman
is a dear little old woman too. Was not she kind to Alfred, mamma, and
did not she make him nice jelly?"
"Did you bring some of Miss Honeyman's lodging-house cards with you,
Ethel?" sneered her brother, "and had we not better hang up one or two in
Lombard Street; hers and our other relation's, Mrs. Mason?"
"My darling love, who _is_ Mrs. Mason?" asks Lady Ann.
"Another member of the family, ma'am. She was cousin--"
"She was no such thing, sir," roars Sir Brian.
"She was relative and housemaid of my grandfather during his first
marriage. She has retired into private life in her native town of
Newcome. The Colonel and young Clive have been spending a few days with
their elderly relative. It's all here in the paper, by Jove!" Mr. Barnes
clenched his fist and stamped upon the newspaper with much energy.
"And so they should go down and see her, and so the Colonel should love
his nurse and not forget his relations if they are old and poor!"
cries Ethel, with a flush on her face, and tears starting in her eyes.
"The Colonel went to her like a kind, dear, good brave uncle as he is.
The very day I go to Newcome I'll go to see her." She caught a look of
negation in her father's eye. "I will go--that is, if papa will give me
leave," says Miss Ethel, adding simply, "if we had gone sooner there
would not have been all this abuse of us in the papers." To which
statement her worldly father and brother perforce agreeing, we may
congratulate good old nurse Sarah upon adding to the list of her
friends such a frank, open-hearted, high-spirited young woman as Miss
Ethel Newcome.