Clive in New Quarters

My wife was much better pleased with Clive than with some of his relatives to whom I had presented her. His face carried a recommendation with it that few honest people could resist. He was always a welcome friend in our lodgings¹, and even our uncle the Major signified his approval of the lad as a young fellow of very good manners and feelings, who, if he chose to throw himself away and be a painter, ma foi, was rich enough no doubt to follow his own caprices. Clive executed a capital head of Major Pendennis, which now hangs in our drawing-room at Fairoaks, and reminds me of that friend of my youth. Clive occupied ancient lofty chambers³ in Hanover Square now. He had furnished them in an antique manner, with hangings, cabinets, carved work, Venice glasses, fine prints, and water-colour sketches⁴ of good pictures by his own and other hands. He had horses to ride, and a liberal purse full of paternal⁵ money. Many fine equipages drew up opposite to his chambers: few artists had such luck as young Mr. Clive. And above his own chambers were other three which the young gentleman had hired, and where, says he, “I hope ere very long my dear old father will be lodging² with me. In another year he says he thinks he will be able to come home; when the affairs of the Bank are quite settled. You shake your head! why? The shares are worth four times what we gave for them. We are men of fortune, Pen, I give you my word. You should see how much they make of me at Baynes and Jolly’s, and how civil they are to me at Hobson Brothers’! I go into the City now and then, and see our manager, Mr. Blackmore. He tells me such stories about indigo⁶, and wool, and copper⁷, and sicca rupees, and Company’s rupees. I don’t know anything about the business, but my father likes me to go and see Mr. Blackmore. Dear cousin Barnes is for ever asking me to dinner; I might call Lady Clara Clara if I liked, as Sam Newcome does in Bryanstone Square. You can’t think how kind they are to me there. My aunt reproaches me tenderly for not going there oftener — it’s not very good fun dining in Bryanstone Square, is it? And she praises my cousin Maria to me — you should hear my aunt praise her! I have to take Maria down to dinner; to sit by the piano and listen to her songs in all languages. Do you know Maria can sing Hungarian and Polish, besides your common German, Spanish, and Italian? Those I have at our other agents’, Baynes and Jolly’s — Baynes’s that is in the Regent’s Park, where the girls are prettier and just as civil to me as at Aunt Hobson’s.” And here Clive would amuse us by the accounts which he gave us of the

分享到：