chastisement of this young criminal. But he dashed so furiously against
the butler's shins as to draw blood from his comely limbs, and to cause
that serious and overfed menial to limp and suffer for many days after;
and, seizing the decanter, he swore he would demolish blacky's ugly face
with it: nay, he threatened to discharge it at Mrs. Newcome's own head
before he would submit to the coercion which she desired her agents to
administer.
High words took place between Mr. and Mrs. Newcome that night on the
gentleman's return home from the City, and on his learning the events of
the morning. It is to be feared he made use of further oaths, which hasty
ejaculations need not be set down in this place; at any rate, he behaved
with spirit and manliness as master of the house, vowed that if any
servant laid a hand on the child, he would thrash him first and then
discharge him; and I dare say expressed himself with bitterness and
regret that he had married a wife who would not be obedient to her
husband, and had entered a house of which he was not suffered to be the
master. Friends were called in--the interference, the supplications, of
the Clapham clergy, some of whom dined constantly at the Hermitage,
prevailed to allay this domestic quarrel; and no doubt the good sense of
Mrs. Newcome--who, though imperious, was yet not unkind; and who,
excellent as she was, yet could be brought to own that she was sometimes
in fault--induced her to make at least a temporary submission to the man
whom she had placed at the head of her house, and whom it must be
confessed she had vowed to love and honour. When Tommy fell ill of the
scarlet fever, which afflicting event occurred presently after the above
dispute, his own nurse, Sarah, could not have been more tender, watchful,
and affectionate than his stepmother showed herself to be. She nursed him
through his illness; allowed his food and medicine to be administered by
no other hand; sat up with the boy through a night of his fever, and
uttered not one single reproach to her husband (who watched with her)
when the twins took the disease (from which we need not say they happily
recovered); and though young Tommy, in his temporary delirium, mistaking
her for Nurse Sarah, addressed her as his dear Fat Sally--whereas no
whipping-post to which she ever would have tied him could have been
leaner than Mrs. Newcome--and, under this feverish delusion, actually
abused her to her face; calling her an old cat, an old Methodist, and,
jumping up in his little bed, forgetful of his previous fancy, vowing
that he would put on his clothes and run away to Sally. Sally was at her
northern home by this time, with a liberal pension which Mr. Newcome gave
her, and which his son and his son's son after him, through all their
difficulties and distresses, always found means to pay.
What the boy threatened in his delirium he had thought of, no doubt, more
than once in his solitary and unhappy holidays. A year after he actually
ran away, not from school, but from home; and appeared one morning, gaunt
and hungry, at Sarah's cottage two hundred miles away from Clapham, who
housed the poor prodigal, and killed her calf for him--washed him, with
many tears and kisses, and put him to bed and to sleep; from which
slumber he was aroused by the appearance of his father, whose sure
instinct, backed by Mrs. Newcome's own quick intelligence, had made him
at once aware whither the young runaway had fled. The poor father came
horsewhip in hand--he knew of no other law or means to maintain his
authority; many and many a time had his own father, the old weaver, whose
memory he loved and honoured, strapped and beaten him. Seeing this
instrument in the parent's hand, as Mr. Newcome thrust out the weeping
trembling Sarah and closed the door upon her, Tommy, scared out of a
sweet sleep and a delightful dream of cricket, knew his fate; and,
getting up out of bed, received his punishment without a word. Very
likely the father suffered more than the child; for when the punishment
was over, the little man, yet trembling and quivering with the pain, held
out his little bleeding hand and said, "I can--I can take it from you,
sir;" saying which his face flushed, and his eyes filled, for the first
time; whereupon the father burst into a passion of tears, and embraced
the boy and kissed him, besought and prayed him to be rebellious no more
--flung the whip away from him and swore, come what would, he would never
strike him again. The quarrel was the means of a great and happy
reconciliation. The three dined together in Sarah's cottage. Perhaps the
father would have liked to walk that evening in the lanes and fields
where he had wandered as a young fellow: where he had first courted and
first kissed the young girl he loved--poor child--who had waited for him
so faithfully and fondly, who had passed so many a day of patient want
and meek expectance, to be repaid by such a scant holiday and brief
fruition.
Mrs. Newcome never made the slightest allusion to Tom's absence after his
return, but was quite gentle and affectionate with him, and that night
read the parable of the Prodigal in a very low and quiet voice.
This, however, was only a temporary truce. War very soon broke out again
between the impetuous lad and his rigid domineering mother-in-law. It was
not that he was very bad, or she perhaps more stern than other ladies,
but the two could not agree. The boy sulked and was miserable at home. He
fell to drinking with the grooms in the stables. I think he went to Epsom
races, and was discovered after that act of rebellion. Driving from a
most interesting breakfast at Roehampton (where a delightful Hebrew
convert had spoken, oh! so graciously!), Mrs. Newcome--in her
state-carriage, with her bay horses--met Tom, her son-in-law, in a
tax-cart, excited by drink, and accompanied by all sorts of friends, male
and female. John the black man was bidden to descend from the carriage
and bring him to Mrs. Newcome. He came; his voice was thick with drink.
He laughed wildly: he described a fight at which he had been present. It
was not possible that such a castaway as this should continue in a house
where her two little cherubs were growing up in innocence and grace.
The boy had a great fancy for India; and Orme's History, containing the
exploits of Clive and Lawrence, was his favourite book of all in his
father's library. Being offered a writership, he scouted the idea of a
civil appointment, and would be contented with nothing but a uniform. A
cavalry cadetship was procured for Thomas Newcome; and the young man's
future career being thus determined, and his stepmother's unwilling
consent procured, Mr. Newcome thought fit to send his son to a tutor for
military instruction, and removed him from the London school, where in
truth he had made but very little progress in the humaner letters. The
lad was placed with a professor who prepared young men for the army, and
received rather a better professional education than fell to the lot of
most young soldiers of his day. He cultivated the ma
thematics and
fortification with more assiduity than he had ever bestowed on Greek and
Latin, and especially made such a progress in the French tongue as was
very uncommon among the British youth his contemporaries.
In the study of this agreeable language, over which young Newcome spent a
great deal of his time, he unluckily had some instructors who were
destined to bring the poor lad into yet further trouble at home. His
tutor, an easy gentleman, lived at Blackheath, and, not far from thence,
on the road to Woolwich, dwelt the little Chevalier de Blois, at whose
house the young man much preferred to take his French lessons rather than
to receive them under his tutor's own roof.
For the fact was that the little Chevalier de Blois had two pretty young
daughters, with whom he had fled from his country along with thousands of
French gentlemen at the period of revolution and emigration. He was a
cadet of a very ancient family, and his brother, the Marquis de Blois,
was a fugitive like himself, but with the army of the princes on the
Rhine, or with his exiled sovereign at Mittau. The Chevalier had seen the
wars of the great Frederick: what man could be found better to teach
young Newcome the French language and the art military? It was surprising
with what assiduity he pursued his studies. Mademoiselle Leonore, the
Chevalier's daughter, would carry on her little industry very
undisturbedly in the same parlour with her father and his pupil. She
painted card-racks: laboured at embroidery; was ready to employ her quick
little brain or fingers in any way by which she could find means to add a
few shillings to the scanty store on which this exiled family supported
themselves in their day of misfortune. I suppose the Chevalier was not in
the least unquiet about her, because she was promised in marriage to the
Comte de Florac, also of the emigration--a distinguished officer like the
Chevalier, than whom he was a year older--and, at the time of which we
speak, engaged in London in giving private lessons on the fiddle.
Sometimes on a Sunday he would walk to Blackheath with that instrument in
his hand, and pay his court to his young fiancee, and talk over happier
days with his old companion-in-arms. Tom Newcome took no French lessons
on a Sunday. He passed that day at Clapham generally, where, strange to
say, he never said a word about Mademoiselle de Blois.
What happens when two young folks of eighteen, handsome and ardent,
generous and impetuous, alone in the world, or without strong affections
to bind them elsewhere,--what happens when they meet daily over French
dictionaries, embroidery frames, or indeed upon any business whatever? No
doubt Mademoiselle Leonore was a young lady perfectly bien elevee, and
ready, as every well-elevated young Frenchwoman should be, to accept a
husband of her parents' choosing; but while the elderly M. de Florac was
fiddling in London, there was that handsome young Tom Newcome ever
present at Blackheath. To make a long matter short, Tom declared his
passion, and was for marrying Leonore off hand, if she would but come
with him to the little Catholic chapel at Woolwich. Why should they not
go out to India together and be happy ever after?
The innocent little amour may have been several months in transaction,
and was discovered by Mrs. Newcome, whose keen spectacles nothing could
escape. It chanced that she drove to Blackheath to Tom's tutor's. Tom was
absent taking his French and drawing lesson of M. de Blois. Thither Tom's
stepmother followed him, and found the young man sure enough with his
instructor over his books and plans of fortification. Mademoiselle and
her card-screens were in the room, but behind those screens she could not
hide her blushes and confusion from Mrs. Newcome's sharp glances. In one
moment the banker's wife saw the whole affair--the whole mystery which
had been passing for months under poor M. de Blois' nose, without his
having the least notion of the truth.
Mrs. Newcome said she wanted her son to return home with her upon private
affairs; and before they had reached the Hermitage a fine battle had
ensued between them. His mother had charged him with being a wretch and a
monster, and he had replied fiercely, denying the accusation with scorn,
and announcing his wish instantly to marry the most virtuous, the most
beautiful of her sex. To marry a Papist! This was all that was wanted to
make poor Tom's cup of bitterness run over. Mr. Newcome was called in,
and the two elders passed a great part of the night in an assault upon
the lad. He was grown too tall for the cane; but Mrs. Newcome thonged him
with the lash of her indignation for many an hour that evening.
He was forbidden to enter, M. de Blois' house, a prohibition at which the
spirited young fellow snapped his fingers, and laughed in scorn. Nothing,
he swore, but death should part him from the young lady. On the next day
his father came to him alone and plied him with entreaties, but he was as
obdurate as before. He would have her; nothing should prevent him. He
cocked his hat and walked out of the lodge-gate, as his father, quite
beaten by the young man's obstinacy, with haggard face and tearful eyes,
went his own way into town. He was not very angry himself: in the course
of their talk overnight the boy had spoken bravely and honestly, and
Newcome could remember how, in his own early life, he too had courted and
loved a young lass. It was Mrs. Newcome the father was afraid of. Who
shall depict her wrath at the idea that a child of her house was about to
marry a Popish girl?
So young Newcome went his way to Blackheath, bent upon falling
straightway down upon his knees before Leonore, and having the
Chevalier's blessing. That old fiddler in London scarcely seemed to him
to be an obstacle: it seemed monstrous that a young creature should be
given away to a man older than her own father. He did not know the law of
honour, as it obtained amongst French gentlemen of those days, or how
religiously their daughters were bound by it.
But Mrs. Newcome had been beforehand with him, and had visited the
Chevalier de Blois almost at cockcrow. She charged him insolently with
being privy to the attachment between the young people; pursued him with
vulgar rebukes about beggary, Popery, and French adventurers. Her husband
had to make a very contrite apology afterwards for the language which his
wife had thought fit to employ. "You forbid me," said the Chevalier, "you
forbid Mademoiselle de Blois to marry your son, Mr. Thomas! No, madam,
she comes of a race which is not accustomed to ally itself with persons
of your class; and is promised to a gentleman whose ancestors were dukes
and peers when Mr. Newcome's were blacking shoes!" Instead of finding his
pretty blushing girl on arriving at Woolwich, poor Tom only found his
French master, livid with rage and quivering under his ailes de pigeon.
We pass over the scenes that followed; the young man's passionate
entreaties, and fury and despair. In his own defence, and to prove his
honour to the world, M. d
e Blois determined that his daughter should
instantly marry the Count. The poor girl yielded without a word, as
became her; and it was with this marriage effected almost before his
eyes, and frantic with wrath and despair, that young Newcome embarked for
India, and quitted the parents whom he was never more to see.
Tom's name was no more mentioned at Clapham. His letters to his father
were written to the City; very pleasant they were, and comforting to the
father's heart. He sent Tom liberal private remittances to India, until
the boy wrote to say that he wanted no more. Mr. Newcome would have liked
to leave Tom all his private fortune, for the twins were only too well
cared for; but he dared not on account of his terror of Sophia Alethea,
his wife; and he died, and poor Tom was only secretly forgiven.
CHAPTER III
Colonel Newcome's Letter-box
I
"With the most heartfelt joy, my dear Major, I take up my pen to announce
to you the happy arrival of the Ramchunder, and the dearest and
handsomest little boy who, I am sure, ever came from India. Little Clive
is in perfect health. He speaks English wonderfully well. He cried when
he parted from Mr. Sneid, the supercargo, who most kindly brought him
from Southampton in a postchaise, but these tears in childhood are of
very brief duration! The voyage, Mr. Sneid states, was most favourable,
occupying only four months and eleven days. How different from that more
lengthened and dangerous passage of eight months, and almost perpetual
sea-sickness, in which my poor dear sister Emma went to Bengal, to become
the wife of the best of husbands and the mother of the dearest of little
boys, and to enjoy these inestimable blessings for so brief an interval!
She has quitted this wicked and wretched world for one where all is
peace. The misery and ill-treatment which she endured from Captain Case
her first odious husband, were, I am sure, amply repaid, my dear Colonel,
by your subsequent affection. If the most sumptuous dresses which London,
even Paris, could supply, jewellery the most costly, and elegant lace,
and everything lovely and fashionable, could content a woman, these, I am
sure, during the last four years of her life, the poor girl had. Of what
avail are they when this scene of vanity is closed?
"Mr. Sneid announces that the passage was most favourable. They stayed a
week at the Cape, and three days at St. Helena, where they visited
Bonaparte's tomb (another instance of the vanity of all things!), and
their voyage was enlivened off Ascension by the taking of some delicious
turtle!
"You may be sure that the most liberal sum which you have placed to my
credit with the Messrs. Hobson and Co. shall be faithfully expended on my
dear little charge. Mrs. Newcome can scarcely be called his grandmamma, I
suppose; and I daresay her Methodistical ladyship will not care to see
the daughter and grandson of a clergyman of the Church of England! My
brother Charles took leave to wait upon her when he presented your last
most generous bill at the bank. She received him most rudely, and said a
fool and his money are soon parted; and when Charles said, 'Madam, I am
the brother of the late Mrs. Major Newcome,' 'Sir,' says she, 'I judge
nobody; but from all accounts, you are the brother of a very vain, idle,
thoughtless, extravagant woman; and Thomas Newcome was as foolish about
his wife as about his money.' Of course, unless Mrs. N. writes to invite
dear Clive, I shall not think of sending him to Clapham.
"It is such hot weather that I cannot wear the beautiful shawl you have
sent me, and shall keep it in lavender till next winter! My brother, who
thanks you for your continuous bounty, will write next month, and report
progress as to his dear pupil. Clive will add a postscript of his own,
and I am, my dear Major, with a thousand thanks for your kindness to me,
The Newcomes Page 4