FullReads

With the clapping of hands that greeted Clive’s arrival, the Countess was by no means more good-humoured. Not aware of her wrath, the young fellow, who had also previously been presented to her, came forward presently to make her his compliments. “Pray, who are you?” she said, looking at him very earnestly in the face. He told her his name.

“H’m,” said Lady Kew, “I have heard of you, and I have heard very little good of you.”

“Will your ladyship please to give me your informant?” cried out Colonel Newcome.

Barnes Newcome, who had condescended to attend his sister’s little party, and had been languidly watching the frolics of the young people, looked very much alarmed, and hastened to soften the incident by a change of conversation.

But the attitude of Lady Kew and young Barnes was only a reflection of the attitude of Ethel’s parents concerning Clive, and Ethel, who was really friendly towards him, found it difficult to deny the charges which were constantly brought against the boy. The truth was the young fellow enjoyed life, as one of his age and spirit might be expected to do; but he did very little harm and meant less; and was quite unconscious of the reputation which he was gaining.

There had been a long-standing promise that Clive and his father were to go to Newcome at Christmas; and I daresay Ethel proposed to reform the young prodigal, if prodigal he was, for she busied herself delightedly in preparing the apartments for their guests and putting off her visit to this pleasant neighbour, or that pretty scene in the vicinity, until her uncle should come and they might enjoy the excursion together. And before the arrival of her relatives, Ethel, with one of her young brothers, went to see Mrs. Mason and introduced herself as Colonel Newcome’s niece, and came back charmed with the old lady and eager once more in defence of Clive, for had she not seen the kindest letter which Clive had written to old Mrs. Mason, and the beautiful drawing of his father on horseback, and in regimentals, waving his sword in front of the gallant Bengal Cavalry, which the lad had sent down to the good old woman? He could not be very bad, Ethel thought, who was so kind and thoughtful for the poor. And the young lady went home quite fired with enthusiasm for her cousin, but encountered Barnes, who was more than usually bitter and sarcastic on the subject. Ethel lost her temper, and then her firmness, while bursting into tears she taxed Barnes with cruelty for uttering stories to his cousin’s disadvantage and for pursuing with constant slander one of the very best of men. But notwithstanding her defence of the Colonel and Clive, when they came to Newcome for the Christmas holidays, there was no Ethel there. She had gone on a visit to her sick aunt. Colonel Newcome passed the holidays sadly without her, and Clive consoled himself by knocking down pheasants with Sir Brian’s keepers; and increased his cousin’s attachment for him by breaking the knees of Barnes’s favourite mare out hunting. It was a dreary holiday; father and son were glad enough to get away from it, and to return to their own humbler quarters in London.

Thomas Newcome had now been for three years in the possession of that joy which his soul longed after, and yet in spite of his happiness, his honest face grew more melancholy, his loose clothes hung only the looser on his lean limbs; he ate his meals without appetite; his nights were restless and he would sit for hours silent, and was constantly finding business which took him to distant quarters of England. Notwithstanding this change in him the Colonel insisted that he was perfectly happy and contented, but the truth was, his heart was aching with the knowledge that Clive had occupations, ideas, associates, in which the elder could take no interest. Sitting in his blank, cheerless bedroom, Newcome could hear the lad and his friends making merry and breaking out in roars of laughter from time to time. The Colonel longed to share in the merriment, but he knew that the party would be hushed if he joined it, that the younger men were happier and freer without him, and without laying any blame upon them for this natural state of affairs, it saddened the days and nights of our genial Colonel.