Mrs. Clive at Home

Clive and his father did not think fit to conceal their opinions regarding their kinsman, Barnes Newcome, and uttered them in many public places when Sir Barnes’s conduct was brought into question, we may be sure that their talk came to the Baronet’s ears, and did not improve his already angry feeling towards those gentlemen. For a while they had the best of the attack. The Colonel routed Barnes out of his accustomed club at Bays’s; where also the gallant Sir George Tufto expressed himself pretty openly with respect to the poor Baronet’s want of courage: the Colonel had bullied and browbeaten Barnes in the parlour of his own bank, and the story was naturally well known in the City; where it certainly was not pleasant for Sir Barnes, as he walked to ‘Change, to meet sometimes the scowls of the angry man of war, his uncle, striding down to the offices of the Bundelcund Bank, and armed with that terrible bamboo cane.

But though his wife had undeniably run away after notorious ill-treatment from her husband; though he had shown two white feathers in those unpleasant little affairs with his uncle and cousin; though Sir Barnes Newcome was certainly neither amiable nor popular in the City of London, his reputation as a most intelligent man of business still stood; the credit of his house was deservedly high, and people banked with him, and traded with him, in spite of faithless wives and hostile colonels.

When the outbreak between Colonel Newcome and his nephew took place, it may be remembered that Mr. Hobson Newcome, the other partner of the firm of Hobson Brothers, waited upon Colonel Newcome, as one of the principal English directors of the B. B. C., and hoped that although private differences would, of course, oblige Thomas Newcome to cease all personal dealings with the bank of Hobson, the affairs of the Company in which he was interested ought not to suffer on this account; and that the Indian firm should continue dealing with Hobsons on the same footing as before. Mr. Hobson Newcome represented to the Colonel, in his jolly frank way, that whatever happened between the latter and his nephew Barnes, Thomas Newcome had still one friend in the house; that the transactions between it and the Indian Company were mutually advantageous; finally, that the manager of the Indian bank might continue to do business with Hobsons as before. So the B. B. C. sent its consignments to Hobson Brothers, and drew its bills, which were duly honoured by that firm.

More than one of Colonel Newcome’s City acquaintances, among them his agent, Mr. Jolly, and his ingenuous friend, Mr. Sherrick, especially, hinted to Thomas Newcome to be very cautious in his dealings with Hobson Brothers, and keep a special care lest that house should play him an evil turn. They both told him that Barnes Newcome had said more than once, in answer to reports of the Colonel’s own speeches against Barnes. “I know that hot-headed, blundering Indian uncle of mine is furious against me, on account of an absurd private affair and misunderstanding, which he is too obstinate to see in the proper light. What is my return for the abuse and rant which he lavishes against me? I cannot forget that he is my grandfather’s son, an old man, utterly ignorant both of society and business here; and as he is interested in this Indian Banking Company, which must be preciously conducted when it appointed him as the guardian and overseer of its affairs in England, I do my very best to serve the Company, and I can tell you, its blundering, muddleheaded managers, black and white, owe no little to the assistance which they have had from our house. If they don’t like us, why do they go on dealing with us? We don’t want them and their bills. We were a leading house fifty years before they were born, and shall continue to be so long after they come to an end.” Such was Barnes’s case, as stated by himself. It was not a very bad one, or very unfairly stated, considering the advocate. I believe he has always persisted in thinking that he never did his uncle any wrong.

Mr. Jolly and Mr. Sherrick, then, both entreated Thomas Newcome to use his best endeavours, and bring the connexion of the B. B. C. and Hobson Brothers to a speedy end. But Jolly was an interested party; he and his friends would have had the agency of the B. B. C., and the profits thereof, which Hobsons had taken from them. Mr. Sherrick was an outside practitioner, a guerilla amongst regular merchants. The opinions of one and the other, though submitted by Thomas Newcome duly to his co-partners, the managers and London board of directors of the Bundelcund Banking Company, were overruled by that assembly.

They had their establishment and apartments in the City; they had their clerks and messengers, their managers’ room and board-room, their meetings, where no doubt great quantities of letters were read, vast ledgers produced; where Tom Newcome was voted into the chair, and voted out with thanks; where speeches were made, and the affairs of the B. B. C. properly discussed. These subjects are mysterious, terrifying, unknown to me. I cannot pretend to describe them. Fred Bayham, I remember, used to be great in his knowledge of the affairs of the Bundelcund Banking Company. He talked of cotton, wool, copper, opium, indigo, Singapore, Manilla, China, Calcutta, Australia, with prodigious eloquence and fluency. His conversation was about millions. The most astounding paragraphs used to appear in the Pall Mall Gazette, regarding the annual dinner at Blackwall, which the directors gave, and to which he, and George, and I, as friends of the court, were invited. What orations were uttered, what flowing bumpers emptied in the praise of this great Company; what quantities of turtle and punch did Fred devour at its expense! Colonel Newcome was the kindly old chairman at these banquets; the prince, his son, taking but a modest part in the ceremonies, and sitting with us, his old cronies.

All the gentlemen connected with the board, all those with whom the B. B. C. traded in London, paid Thomas Newcome extraordinary respect. His character for wealth was deservedly great, and of course multiplied by the tongue of Rumour. F. B. knew to a few millions of rupees, more or less, what the Colonel possessed, and what Clive would inherit. Thomas Newcome’s distinguished military services, his high bearing, lofty courtesy, simple but touching garrulity; — for the honest man talked much more now than he had been accustomed to do in former days, and was not insensible to the flattery which his wealth brought him — his reputation as a keen man of business, who had made his own fortune by operations equally prudent and spirited, and who might make the fortunes of hundreds of other people, brought the worthy Colonel a number of friends, and I promise you that the loudest huzzahs greeted his health when it was proposed at the Blackwall dinners. At the second annual dinner after Clive’s marriage some friends presented Mrs. Clive Newcome with a fine testimonial. There was a superb silver cocoa-nut tree, whereof the leaves were dexterously arranged for holding candle and pickles; under the cocoa-nut was an Indian prince on a camel, giving his hand to a cavalry officer on horseback — a howitzer, a plough, a loom, a bale of cotton, on which were the East India Company’s arms, a Brahmin, Britannia, and Commerce with a cornucopia were grouped round the principal figures: and if you would see a noble account of this chaste and elegant specimen of British art, you are referred to the pages of the Pall Mall Gazette of that year, as well as to Fred Bayham’s noble speech in the course of the evening, when it was exhibited. The East and its wars, and its heroes, Assaye and Seringapatam (“and Lord Lake and Laswaree too,” calls out the Colonel greatly elated), tiger-hunting, palanquins, Juggernaut, elephants, the burning of widows — all passed before us in F. B.‘s splendid oration. He spoke of the product of the Indian forest, the palm-tree, the cocoa-nut tree, the banyan-tree. Palms the Colonel had already brought back with him, the palms of valour, won in the field of war (cheers). Cocoa-nut trees he had never seen, though he had heard wonders related regarding the milky contents of their fruit. Here at any rate was one tree of the kind, under the branches of which he humbly trusted often to repose — and, if he might be so bold as to carry on the Eastern metaphor, he would say, knowing the excellence of the Colonel’s claret and the splendour of his hospitality, that he would prefer a cocoa-nut day at the Colonel’s to a banyan day anywhere else. Whilst F. B.‘s speech went on, I remember J. J. eyeing the trophy, and the queer expression of his shrewd face. The health of British Artists was drunk a propos of this splendid specimen of their skill, and poor J. J. Ridley, Esq., A.R.A., had scarce a word to say in return. He and Clive sat by one another, the latter very silent and gloomy. When J. J. and I met in the world, we talked about our friend, and it was easy for both of us to see that neither was satisfied with Clive’s condition.

The fine house in Tyburnia was completed by this time, as gorgeous as money could make it. How different it was from the old Fitzroy Square mansion with its ramshackle furniture, and spoils of brokers’ shops, and Tottenham Court Road odds and ends! An Oxford Street upholsterer had been let loose in the yet virgin chambers; and that inventive genius had decorated them with all the wonders his fancy could devise. Roses and cupids quivered on the ceilings, up to which golden arabesques crawled from the walls; your face (handsome or otherwise) was reflected by countless looking-glasses, so multiplied and arranged as, as it were, to carry you into the next street. You trod on velvet, pausing with respect in the centre of the carpet, where Rosey’s cypher was worked in the sweet flowers which bear her name. What delightful crooked legs the chairs had! What corner cupboards there were filled with Dresden gimcracks, which it was a part of this little woman’s business in life to purchase! What etageres, and bonbonnieres, and chiffonnieres! What awfully bad pastels there were on the walls! What frightful Boucher and Lancret shepherds and shepherdesses leered over the portieres! What velvet-bound volumes, mother-of-pearl albums, inkstands representing beasts of the field, prie-dieu chairs, and wonderful knick-knacks I can recollect! There was the most magnificent piano, though Rosey seldom sang any of her six songs now; and when she kept her couch at a certain most interesting period, the good Colonel, ever anxious to procure amusement for his darling, asked whether she would not like a barrel-organ grinding fifty or sixty favourite pieces, which a bearer could turn? And he mentioned how Windus, of their regiment, who loved music exceedingly, had a very fine instrument of this kind out to Barrackpore in the year 1810, and relays of barrels by each ship with all the new tunes from Europe. The Testimonial took its place in the centre of Mrs. Clive’s table, surrounded by satellites of plate. The delectable parties were constantly gathered toge............