In which Clive begins to see the World

In the company assembled at Baden, Clive found one or two old acquaintances; among them his friend of Paris, M. de Florac, not in quite so brilliant a condition as when Newcome had last met him on the Boulevard. Florac owned that Fortune had been very unkind to him at Baden; and, indeed, she had not only emptied his purse, but his portmanteaus, jewel-box, and linen-closet — the contents of all of which had ranged themselves on the red and black against Monsieur Benazet’s crown-pieces: whatever side they took was, however, the unlucky one. “This campaign has been my Moscow, mon cher,” Florac owned to Clive. “I am conquered by Benazet; I have lost in almost every combat. I have lost my treasure, my baggage, my ammunition of war, everything but my honour, which, au reste, Mons. Benazet will not accept as a stake; if he would, there are plenty here, believe me, who would set it on the trente-et-quarante. Sometimes I have had a mind to go home; my mother, who is an angel all forgiveness, would receive her prodigal, and kill the fatted veal for me. But what will you? He annoys me — the domestic veal. Besides, my brother the Abbe, though the best of Christians, is a Jew upon certain matters; a Benazet who will not troquer absolution except against repentance; and I have not for a sou of repentance in my pocket! I have been sorry, yes — but it was because odd came up in place of even, or the reverse. The accursed apres has chased me like a remorse, and when black has come up I have wished myself converted to red. Otherwise I have no repentance — I am joueur — nature has made me so, as she made my brother devot. The Archbishop of Strasbourg is of our parents; I saw his grandeur when I went lately to Strasbourg, on my last pilgrimage to the Mont de Piete. I owned to him that I would pawn his cross and ring to go play: the good prelate laughed, and said his chaplain should keep an eye on them. Will you dine with me? The landlord of my hotel was the intendant of our cousin, the Duc d’Ivry, and will give me credit to the day of judgment. I do not abuse his noble confidence. My dear! there are covers of silver put upon my table every day with which I could retrieve my fortune, did I listen to the suggestions of Satanas; but I say to him, Vade retro. Come and dine with me — Duluc’s kitchen is very good.”

These easy confessions were uttered by a gentleman who was nearly forty years of age, and who had indeed played the part of a young man in Paris and the great European world so long, that he knew or chose to perform no other. He did not want for abilities; had the best temper in the world; was well bred and gentlemanlike always; and was gay even after Moscow. His courage was known, and his character for bravery and another kind of gallantry probably exaggerated by his bad reputation. Had his mother not been alive, perhaps he would have believed in the virtue of no woman. But this one he worshipped, and spoke with tenderness and enthusiasm of her constant love and patience and goodness. “See her miniature!” he said, “I never separate myself from it — oh, never! It saved my life in an affair about — about a woman who was not worth the powder which poor Jules and I burned for her. His ball struck me here, upon the waistcoat, bruising my rib and sending me to my bed, which I never should have left alive but for this picture. Oh, she is an angel, my mother! I am sure that Heaven has nothing to deny that saint, and that her tears wash out my sins.”

Olive smiled. “I think Madame de Florac must weep a good deal,” he said.

“Enormement, my friend! My faith! I do not deny it! I give her cause, night and evening. I am possessed by demons! This little Affenthaler wine of this country has a little smack which is most agreeable. The passions tear me, my young friend! Play is fatal, but play is not so fatal as woman. Pass me the ecrevisses, they are most succulent. Take warning by me, and avoid both. I saw you roder round the green tables, and marked your eyes as they glistened over the heaps of gold, and looked at some of our beauties of Baden. Beware of such sirens, young man! and take me for your Mentor; avoiding what I have done — that understands itself. You have not played as yet? Do not do so; above all avoid a martingale, if you do. Play ought not to be an affair of calculation, but of inspiration. I have calculated infallibly, and what has been the effect? Gousset empty, tiroirs empty, necessaire parted for Strasbourg! Where is my fur pelisse, Frederic?”

“Parbleu, vous le savez bien, Monsieur le Vicomte,” says Frederic, the domestic, who was waiting on Clive and his friend.

“A pelisse lined with true sable, and, worth three thousand francs, that I won of a little Russian at billiards. That pelisse at Strasbourg (where the infamous worms of the Mount of Piety are actually gnawing her). Two hundred francs and this reconnaissance, which Frederic receive, are all that now represent the pelisse. How many chemises have I, Frederic?”

“Eh, parbleu, Monsieur le Vicomte sait bien que nous avons toujours vingt-quatre chemises,” says Frederic, grumbling.

Monsieur le Vicomte springs up shrieking from the dinner-table. “Twenty-four shirts,” says he, “and I have been a week without a louis in my pocket! Belitre! Nigaud!” He flings open one drawer after another, but there are no signs of that — superfluity of linen of which the domestic spoke, whose countenance now changes from a grim frown to a grim smile.

“Ah, my faithful Frederic, I pardon thee! Mr. Newcome will understand my harmless supercherie. Frederic was in my company of the Guard, and remains with me since. He is Caleb Balderstone and I am Ravenswood. Yes, I am Edgard. Let us have coffee and a cigar, Balderstone.”

“Plait-il, Monsieur le Vicomte?” says the French Caleb.

“Thou comprehendest not English. Thou readest not Valtare Scott, thou!” cries the master. “I was recounting to Monsieur Newcome thy history and my misfortunes. Go seek coffee for us, nigaud.” And as the two gentlemen partake of that exhilarating liquor, the elder confides gaily to his guest the reason why he prefers taking coffee at the hotel to the coffee at the great Cafe of the Redoute, with a duris urgens in rebus egestass! pronounced in the true French manner.

Clive was greatly amused by the gaiety of the Viscount after his misfortunes and his Moscow; and thought that one of Mr. Baines’s circular notes might not be ill laid out in succouring this hero. It may have been to this end that Florac’s confessions tended; though, to do him justice, the incorrigible young fellow would confide his adventures to any one who would listen; and the exact state of his wardrobe, and the story of his pawned pelisse, dressing-case, rings and watches, were known to all Baden.

“You tell me to marry and range myself,” said Clive (to whom the Viscount was expatiating upon the charms of the superbe young Anglaise with whom he had seen Clive walking on the promenade). “Why do you not marry and range yourself too?”

“Eh, my dear! I am married already. You do not know it? I am married since the Revolution of July. Yes. We were poor in those days, as poor we remain. My cousins the Duc d’Ivry’s sons and his grandson were still alive. Seeing no other resource and pursued by the Arabs, I espoused the Vicomtesse de Florac. I gave her my name, you comprehend, in exchange for her own odious one. She was Miss Higg. Do you know the family Higg of Manchesterre in the comte of Lancastre? She was then a person of a ripe age. The Vicomtesse is now — ah! it is fifteen years since, and she dies not. Our union was not happy, my friend — Madame Paul de Florac is of the reformed religion — not of the Anglican Church, you understand — but a dissident I know not of what sort. We inhabited the Hotel de Florac for a while after our union, which was all of convenience, you understand. She filled her salon with ministers to make you die. She assaulted my poor father in his garden-chair, whence he could not escape her. She told my sainted mother that she was an idolatress — she who only idolatrises her children! She called us other poor Catholics who follow the rites of our fathers, des Romishes; and Rome, Babylon; and the Holy Father — a scarlet — eh! a scarlet abomination. She outraged my mother, that angel; essayed to convert the antechamber and the office; put little books in the Abbe’s bedroom. Eh, my friend! what a good king was Charles IX., and his mother what a wise sovereign! I lament that Madame de Florac should have escaped the St. Barthelemi, when no doubt she was spared on account of her tender age. We have been separated for many years; her income was greatly exaggerated. Beyond the payment of my debts I owe her nothing. I wish I could say as much of all the rest of the world. Shall we take a turn of promenade? Mauvais sujet! I see you are longing to be at the green table.”

Clive was not longing to be at the green table: but his companion was never easy at it or away from it. Next to winning, losing, M. de Florac said, was the best sport — next to losing, looking on. So he and Clive went down to the Redoute, where Lord Kew was playing with a crowd of awestruck amateurs and breathless punters admiring his valour and fortune; and Clive, saying that he knew nothing about the game, took out five Napoleons from his purse, and besought Florac to invest them in the most profitable manner at roulette. The other made some faint attempts at a scruple: but the money was speedily laid on the table, where it increased and multiplied amazingly too; so that in a quarter of an hour Florac brought quite a handful of gold pieces to his principal. Then Clive, I dare say blushing as he made the proposal, offered half the handful of Napoleons to M. de Florac, to be repaid when he thought fit. And fortune must have been very favourable to the husband of Miss Higg that night; for in the course of an hour he insisted on paying back Clive’s loan; and two days afterwards appeared with his shirt-studs (of course with his shirts also), released from captivity, his watch, rings, and chains, on the parade; and was observed to wear his celebrated fur pelisse as he drove back in a britzska from Strasbourg. “As for myself,” wrote Clive, “I put back into my purse the five Napoleons with which I had begun; and laid down the whole mass of winnings on the table, where it was doubled and then quadrupled, and then swept up by the croupiers, greatly to my ease of mind. And then Lord Kew asked me to supper and we had a merry night.”

This was Mr. Clive’s first and last appearance as a gambler. J. J. looked very grave when he heard of these transactions. Clive’s French friend did not please his English companion at all, nor the friends of Clive’s French friend, the Russians, the Spaniards, the Italians, of sounding titles and glittering decorations, and the ladies who belonged to their society. He saw by chance Ethel, escorted by her cousin Lord Kew, passing through a crowd of this company one day. There was not one woman there who was not the heroine of some discreditable story. It was the Comtesse Calypso who had been jilted by the Duc Ulysse. It was the Marquise Ariane to whom the Prince Thesee had behaved so shamefully, and who had taken to Bacchus as a consolation. It was Madame Medee, who had absolutely killed her old father by her conduct regarding Jason: she had done everything for Jason: she had got him the toison d’or from the Queen Mother, and now had to meet him every day with his little blonde bride on his arm! J. J. compared Ethel, moving in the midst of these folks, to the Lady amidst the rout of Comus. There they were the Fauns and Satyrs: there they were, the merry Pagans: drinking and dancing, dicing and sporting; laughing out jests that never should be spoken; whispering rendezvous to be written in midnight calendars; jeering at honest people who passed under their palace windows — jolly rebels and repealers of the law. Ah, if Mrs. Brown, whose children are gone to bed at the hotel, knew but the history of that calm dignified-looking gentleman who sits under her, and over whose patient back she frantically advances and withdraws her two-franc piece, whilst his own columns of louis d’or are offering battle to fortune — how she would shrink away from the shoulder which she pushes! That man so calm and well bred, with a string of orders on his breast, so well dressed, with such white hands, has stabbed trusting hearts; severed family ties; written lying vows; signed false oaths; torn up pitilessly tender appeals for redress, and tossed away into the fire supplications blistered with tears; packed cards and cogged dice; or used pistol or sword as calmly and dexterously as he now ranges his battalions of gold pieces.

Ridley shrank away from such lawless people with the delicacy belonging to his timid and retiring nature, but it must be owned that Mr. Clive was by no means so squeamish. He did not know, in the first place, the mystery of their iniquities; and his sunny kindly spirit, undimmed by any of the cares which clouded it subsequently, was disposed to shine upon all people alike. The world was welcome to him: the day a pleasure: all nature a gay feast: scarce any dispositions discordant with his own (for pretension only made him laugh, and hypocrisy he will never be able to understand if he lives to be a hundred years old): the night brought him a long sleep, and the morning a glad waking. To those privileges of youth what enjoyments of age are comparable? what achievements of ambition? what rewards of money and fame? Clive’s happy friendly nature shone out of his face; and almost all who beheld it felt kindly towards him. As those guileless virgins of romance and ballad, who walk smiling through dark forests charming off dragons and confronting lions, the young man as yet went through the world harmless; no giant waylaid him as yet; no robbing ogre fed on him: and (greatest danger of all for one of his ardent nature) no winning enchantress or artful siren coaxed him to her cave, or lured him into her waters — haunts into which we know so many young simpletons are drawn, where their silly bones are picked and their tender flesh devoured.

The time was short which Clive spent at Baden, for it has been said the winter was approaching, and the destination of our young artists was Rome; but he may have passed some score of days here, to which he and another person in that pretty watering-place possibly looked back afterwards, as not the unhappiest period of their lives. Among Colonel Newcome’s papers to which the family biographer has had subsequent access, there are a couple of letters from Clive, dated Baden, at this time, and full of happiness, gaiety, and affection. Letter No. 1 says, “Ethel is the prettiest girl here. At the assemblies all the princes, counts, dukes, Parthians, Medes, and Elamites, are dying to dance with her. She sends her dearest love to her uncle.” By the side of the words “prettiest girl,” was written in a frank female hand the monosyllable “Stuff;” and as a note to the expression “dearest love,” with a star to mark the text and the note, are squeezed, in the same feminine characters, at the bottom of Clive’s page, the words, “That I do. E. N.”

In letter No. 2, the first two pages are closely written in Clive’s handwriting, describing his pursuits and studies, and giving amusing details of the life at Baden, and the company whom he met there — narrating his rencontre with their Paris friend, M. de Florac, and the arrival of the Duchesse d’Ivry, Florac’s cousin, whose titles the Vicomte will probably inherit. Not a word about Florac’s gambling propensities are mentioned in the letter; but Clive honestly confesses that he has staked five Napoleons, doubled them, quadrupled them, won ever so much, lost it all back again, and come away from the table with his original five pounds in his pocket — proposing never to play any more. “Ethel,” he concluded, “is looking over my shoulder. She thinks me such a delightful creature that she is never easy without me. She bids me to say that I am the best of sons and cousins, and am, in a word, a darling du —” The rest of this important word is not given, but goose is added in the female hand. In the faded ink, on the yellow paper that may have crossed and recrossed oceans, that has lain locked in chests for years, and buried under piles of family archives, while your friends have been dying and your head has grown white — who has not disinterred mementos like these — from which the past smiles at you so sadly, shimmering out of Hades an instant but to sink back again into the cold shades, perhaps with a faint, faint sound as of a remembered tone — a ghostly echo of a once familiar laughter? I was looking of late at a wall in the Naples Museum, whereon a boy of Herculaneum eighteen hundred years ago had scratched with a nail the figure of a soldier. I could fancy the child turning round and smiling on me after having done his etching. Which of us that is thirty years old has not had his Pompeii? Deep under ashes lies the Life of Youth — the careless Sport, the Pleasure and Passion, the darling Joy. You open an old letter-box and look at your own childish scrawls, or your mother’s letters to you when you were at school; and excavate your heart. Oh me, for the day when the whole city shall be bare and the chambers unroofed — and every cranny visible to the Light above, from the Forum to the Lupanar!

Ethel takes up the pen. “My dear uncle,” she says, “while Clive is sketching out of window, let me write you a line or two on his paper, though I know you like to hear no one speak but him. I wish I could draw him for you as he stands yonder, looking the picture of good health, good spirits, and good humour. Everybody likes him. He is quite unaffected; always gay; always pleased. He draws more and more beautifully every day; and his affection for young Mr. Ridley, who is really a most excellent and astonishing young man, and actually a better artist than Clive himself, is most romantic, and does your son the greatest credit. You will order Clive not to sell his pictures, won’t you? I know it is not wrong, but your son might look higher than to be an artist. It is a rise for Mr. Ridley, but a fall for him. An artist, an organist, a pianist, all these are very good people, but you know not de notre monde, and Clive ought to belong to it.

“We met him at Bonn on our way to a great family gathering here; where, I must tell you, we are assembled for what I call the Congress of Baden! The chief of the house of Kew is here, and what time he does not devote to skittles, to smoking cigars, to the jeu in the evenings, to Madame d’Ivry, to Madame de Cruchecassee, and the foreign people (of whom there are a host here of the worst kind, as usual), he graciously bestows on me. Lord and Lady Dorking are here, with their meek little daughter, Clara Pulleyn; and Barnes is coming. Uncle Hobson has returned to Lombard Street to relieve guard. I think you will hear before very long of Lady Clara Newcome. Grandmamma, who was to have presided at the Congress of Baden, and still, you know, reigns over the house of Kew, has been stopped at Kissingen with an attack of rheumatism; I pity poor Aunt Julia, who can never leave her. Here are all our news. I declare I have filled the whole page; men write closer than we do. I wear the dear brooch you gave me, often and often; I think of you always, dear, kind uncle, as your affectionate Ethel.”

Besides roulette and trente-et-quarante, a number of amusing games are played at Baden, which are not performed, so to speak, sur table. These little diversions and jeux de societe can go on anywhere; in an alley in the park; in a picnic to this old schloss, or that pretty hunting-lodge; at a tea-table in a lodging-house or hotel; in a ball at the Redoute; in the play-rooms behind the backs of the gamblers, whose eyes are only cast upon rakes and rouleaux, and red and black; or on the broad walk in front of the conversation rooms, where thousands of people are drinking and chattering, lounging and smoking, whilst the Austrian brass band, in the little music pavilion, plays the most delightful mazurkas and waltzes. Here the widow plays her black suit and sets her bright eyes against the rich bachelor, elderly or young as may be. Here the artful practitioner, who has dealt in a thousand such games, engages the young simpleton with more money than wit; and knowing his weakness and her skill, we may safely take the odds, and back rouge et couleur to win. Here mamma, not having money, perhaps, but metal more attractive, stakes her virgin daughter against Count Fettacker’s forests and meadows; or Lord Lackland plays his coronet, of which the jewels have long since been in pawn, against Miss Bags’ three-per-cents. And so two or three funny little games were going on at Baden amongst our immediate acquaintance; besides that vulgar sport round the green table, at which the mob, with whom we have little to do, was elbowing each other. A hint of these domestic prolusions has been given to the reader in the foregoing extract from Miss Ethel Newcome’s letter: likewise some passions have been in play, of which a modest young English maiden could not be aware. Do not, however, let us be too prematurely proud of our virtue. That tariff of British virtue is wonderfully organised. Heaven help the society which made its laws! Gnats are shut out of its ports, or not admitted without scrutiny and repugnance, whilst herds of camels are let in. The law professes to exclude some goods (or bads shall we call them?)— well, some articles of baggage, which are yet smuggled openly under the eyes of winking officers, and worn every day without shame. Shame! What is shame? Virtue is very often shameful according to the English social constitution, and shame honourable. Truth, if yours happens to differ from your neighbour’s, provokes your friend’s coldness, your mother’s tears, the world’s persecution. Love is not to be dealt in, save under restrictions which kill its sweet, healthy, free commerce. Sin in man is so light, that scarce the fine of a penny is imposed; while for woman it is so heavy that no repentance can wash it out. Ah! yes; all stories are old. You proud matrons in your Mayfair markets, have you never seen a virgin sold, or sold one? Have you never heard of a poor wayfarer fallen among robbers, and not a Pharisee to help him? of a poor woman fallen more sadly yet, abject in repentance and tears, and a crowd to stone her? I pace this broad Baden walk as the sunset is gilding the hills round about, as the orchestra blows its merry tunes, as the happy children laugh and sport in the alleys, as the lamps of the gambling-palace are lighted up, as the throngs of pleasure-hunters stroll, and smoke, and flirt, and hum: and wonder sometimes, is it the sinners who are the most sinful? Is it poor Prodigal yonder amongst the bad company, calling black and red and tossing the champagne; or brother Straitlace that grudges his repentance? Is it downcast Hagar that slinks away with poor little Ishmael in her hand; or bitter old virtuous Sarah, who scowls at her from my demure Lord Abraham’s arm?

One day of the previous May, when of course everybody went to visit the Water-colour Exhibitions, Ethel Newcome was taken to see the pictures by her grandmother, that rigorous old Lady Kew, who still proposed to reign over all her family. The girl had high spirit, and very likely hot words had passed between the elder and the younger lady; such as I am given to understand will be uttered in the most polite families. They came to a piece by Mr. Hunt, representing one of those figures which he knows how to paint with such consummate truth and pathos — a friendless young girl cowering in a doorway, evidently without home or shelter. The exquisite fidelity of the details, and the plaintive beauty of the expression of the child, attracted old Lady Kew’s admiration, who was an excellent judge of works of art; and she stood for some time looking at the drawing, with Ethel by her side. Nothing, in truth, could be more simple or pathetic; Ethel laughed, and her grandmother looking up from her stick on which she hobbled about, saw a very sarcastic expression in the girl’s eyes.

“You have no taste for pictures, only for painters, I suppose,” said Lady Kew.

“I was not looking at the picture,” s............