In which the Colonel says “Adsum” when his Name is called
The vow which Clive had uttered, never to share bread with his mother-inlaw, or sleep under the same roof with her, was broken on the very next day. A stronger will than the young man’s intervened, and he had to confess the impotence of his wrath before that superior power. In the forenoon of the day following that unlucky dinner, I went with my friend to the banking-house whither Mr. Luce’s letter directed us, and carried away with me the principal sum, in which the Campaigner said Colonel Newcome was indebted to her, with the interest accurately computed and reimbursed. Clive went off with a pocketful of money to the dear old Poor Brother of Grey Friars; and he promised to return with his father, and dine with my wife in Queen Square. I had received a letter from Laura by the morning’s post, announcing her return by the express train from Newcome, and desiring that a spare bedroom should be got ready for a friend who accompanied her.
On reaching Howland Street, Clive’s door was opened, rather to my surprise, by the rebellious maid-servant who had received her dismissal on the previous night; and the doctor’s carriage drove up as she was still speaking to me. The polite practitioner sped upstairs to Mrs. Newcome’s apartment. Mrs. Mackenzie, in a robe-de-chambre and cap very different from yesterday’s, came out eagerly to meet the physician on the landing. Ere they had been a quarter of an hour together, arrived a cab, which discharged an elderly person with her bandbox and bundles; I had no difficulty in recognising a professional nurse in the new-comer. She too disappeared into the sick-room, and left me sitting in the neighbouring chamber, the scene of the last night’s quarrel.
Hither presently came to me Maria, the maid. She said she had not the heart to go away now she was wanted; that they had passed a sad night, and that no one had been to bed. Master Tommy was below, and the landlady taking care of him: the landlord had gone out for the nurse. Mrs. Clive had been taken bad after Mr. Clive went away the night before. Mrs. Mackenzie had gone to the poor young thing, and there she went on, crying, and screaming, and stamping, as she used to do in her tantrums, which was most cruel of her, and made Mrs. Clive so ill. And presently the young lady began: my informant told me. She came screaming into the sitting-room, her hair over her shoulders, calling out she was deserted, deserted, and would like to die. She was like a mad woman for some time. She had fit after fit of hysterics: and there was her mother, kneeling, and crying, and calling out to her darling child to calm herself; — which it was all her own doing, and she had much better have held her own tongue, remarked the resolute Maria. I understood only too well from the girl’s account what had happened, and that Clive, if resolved to part with his mother-inlaw, should not have left her, even for twelve hours, in possession of his house. The wretched woman, whose Self was always predominant, and who, though she loved her daughter after her own fashion, never forgot her own vanity or passion, had improved the occasion of Clive’s absence: worked upon her child’s weakness, jealousy, ill-health, and driven her, no doubt, into the fever which yonder physician was called to quell.
The doctor presently enters to write a prescription, followed by Clive’s mother-inlaw, who had cast Rosa’s fine Cashmere shawl over her shoulders, to hide her disarray. “You here still, Mr. Pendennis!” she exclaims. She knew I was there. Had not she changed her dress in order to receive me?
“I have to speak to you for two minutes on important business, and then I shall go,” I replied gravely.
“Oh, sir! to what a scene you have come! To what a state has Clive’s conduct last night driven my darling child!”
As the odious woman spoke so, the doctor’s keen eyes, looking up from the prescription, caught mine. “I declare before Heaven, madam,” I said hotly, “I believe you yourself are the cause of your daughter’s present illness, as you have been of the misery of my friends.”
“Is this, sir,” she was breaking out, “is this language to be used to ——?”
“Madam, will you be silent?” I said. “I am come to bid you farewell on the part of those whom your temper has driven into infernal torture. I am come to pay you every halfpenny of the sum which my friends do not owe you, but which they restore. Here is the account, and here is the money to settle it. And I take this gentleman to witness, to whom, no doubt, you have imparted what you call your wrongs” (the doctor smiled, and shrugged his shoulders) “that now you are paid.”
“A widow — a poor, lonely, insulted widow!” cries the Campaigner, with trembling hands taking possession of the notes.
“And I wish to know,” I continued, “when my friend’s house will be free to him, and he can return in peace.”
Here Rosa’s voice was heard from the inner apartment, screaming, “Mamma, mamma!”
“I go to my child, sir,” she said. “If Captain Mackenzie had been alive, you would not have dared to insult me so.” And carrying off her money, she left us.
“Cannot she be got out of the house?” I said to the doctor. “My friend will never return until she leaves it. It is my belief she is the cause of her daughter’s present illness.”
“Not altogether, my dear sir. Mrs. Newcome was in a very, very delicate state of health. Her mother is a lady of impetuous temper, who expresses herself very strongly — too strongly, I own. In consequence of unpleasant family discussions, which no physician can prevent, Mrs. Newcome has been wrought up to a state of — of agitation. Her fever is, in fact, at present very high. You know her condition. I am apprehensive of ulterior consequences. I have recommended an excellent and experienced nurse to her. Mr. Smith, the medical man at the corner, is a most able practitioner. I shall myself call again in a few hours, and I trust that, after the event which I apprehend, everything will go well.
“Cannot Mrs. Mackenzie leave the house, sir?” I asked.
“Her daughter cries out for her at every moment. Mrs. Mackenzie is certainly not a judicious nurse, but in Mrs. Newcome’s present state I cannot take upon myself to separate them. Mr. Newcome may return, and I do think and believe that his presence may tend to impose silence and restore tranquillity.”
I had to go back to Clive with these gloomy tidings. The poor fellow must put up a bed in his studio, and there await the issue of his wife’s illness. I saw Thomas Newcome could not sleep under his son’s roof that night. That dear meeting, which both so desired, was delayed, who could say for how long?
“The Colonel may come to us,” I thought; “our old house is big enough.” I guessed who was the friend coming in my wife’s company; and pleased myself by thinking that two friends so dear should meet in our home. Bent upon these plans, I repaired to Grey Friars, and to Thomas Newcome’s chamber there.
Bayham opened the door when I knocked, and came towards me with a finger on his lip, and a sad, sad countenance. He closed the door gently behind him, and led me into the court. “Clive is with him, and Miss Newcome. He is very ill. He does not know them,” said Bayham with a sob. “He calls out for both of them: they are sitting there and he does not know them.”
In a brief narrative, broken by more honest tears, Fred Bayham, as we paced up and down the court, told me what had happened. The old man must have passed a sleepless night, for on going to his chamber in the morning, his attendant found him dressed in his chair, and his bed undisturbed. He must have sat all through the bitter night without a fire: but his hands were burning hot, and he rambled in his talk. He spoke of some one coming to drink tea with him, pointed to the fire, and asked why it was not made; he would not go to bed, though the nurse pressed him. The bell began to ring for morning chapel; he got up and went towards his gown, groping towards it as though he could hardly see, and put it over his shoulders, and would go out, but he would have fallen in the court if the good nurse had not given him her arm; and the physician of the hospital, passing fortunately at this moment, who had always been a great friend of Colonel Newcome’s, insisted upon leading him back to his room again, and got him to bed. “When the bell stopped, he wanted to rise once more; he fancied he was a boy at school again,” said the nurse, “and that he was going in to Dr. Raine, who was schoolmaster here ever so many years ago.” So it was, that when happier days seemed to be dawning for the good man, that reprieve came too late. Grief, and years, and humiliation, and care, and cruelty had been too strong for him, and Thomas Newcome was stricken down.
Bayham’s story told, I entered the room, over which the twilight was falling, and saw the figures of Clive and Ethel seated at each end of the bed. The poor old man within it was calling incoherent sentences. I had to call Clive from the present grief before him, with intelligence of further sickness awaiting him at home. Our poor patient did not heed what I said to his son. “You must go home to Rosa,” Ethel said. “She will be sure to ask for her husband, and forgiveness is best, dear Clive. I will stay with uncle. I will never leave him. Please God, he will be better in the morning when you come back.” So Clive’s duty called him to his own sad home; and, the bearer of dismal tidings, I returned to mine. The fires were lit there and the table spread; and kind hearts were waiting to welcome the friend who never more was to enter my door.
It may be imagined that the intelligence which I brought alarmed and afflicted my wife and Madame de Florac, our guest. Laura immediately went away to Rosa’s house to offer her services if needed. The accounts which she brought thence were very bad: Clive came to her for a minute or two, but Mr. Mackenzie could not see her. Should she not bring the little boy home to her children? Laura asked; and Clive thankfully accepted that offer. The little man slept in our nursery that night, and was at play with our young ones on the morrow — happy and unconscious of the fate impending over his home.
* * * * * *
Yet two more days passed, and I had to take two advertisements to The Times newspaper on the part of poor Clive. Among the announcements of Births was printed, “On the 28th, in Howland Street, Mrs. Clive Newcome of a son, still-born.” And a little lower, in the third division of the same column, appeared the words, “On the 29th, in Howland Street, aged 26, Rosa, wife of Clive Newcome, Esq.” So, one day, shall the names of all of us be written there; to be deplored by how many? — to be remembered how long? — to occasion what tears, praises, sympathy, censure? — yet for a day or two, while the busy world has time to recollect us who have passed beyond it. So this poor little flower had bloomed for its little day, and pined, and withered, and perished. There was only one friend by Clive’s side following the humble procession which laid poor Rosa and her child out of sight of a world that had been but unkind to her. Not many tears were there to water her lonely little grave. A grief that was akin to shame and remorse humbled him as he knelt over her. Poor little harmless lady! no more childish triumphs and vanities, no more hidden griefs are you to enjoy or suffer; and earth closes over your simple pleasures and tears! The snow was falling and whitening the coffin as they lowered it into the ground. It was at the same cemetery in which Lady Kew was buried. I dare say the same clergyman read the same service over the two graves, as he will read it for you or any of us tomorrow, and until his own turn comes. Come away from the place, poor Clive! Come sit with your orphan little boy; and bear him on your knee, and hug him to your heart. He seems yours now, and all a father’s love may pour out upon him. Until this hour, Fate uncontrollable and homely tyranny had separated him from you.
It was touching to see the eagerness and tenderness with which the great strong man now assumed the guardianship of the child, and endowed him with his entire wealth of affection. The little boy now ran to Clive whenever he came in, and sat for hours prattling to him. He would take the boy out to walk, and from our windows we could see Clive’s black figure striding over the snow in St. James’s Park, the little man trotting beside him, or perched on his father’s shoulder. My wife and I looked at them one morning as they were making their way towards the City.
“He has inherited that............