The Newcomes

by William Makepeace Thackeray

--Your grateful and affectionate Martha Honeyman."

  In a round hand and on lines ruled with pencil:--

  "Dearest Papa i am very well i hope you are Very Well. M Sneed brought me

  in a postchaise i like Mr. Sneed very much. i like Aunt Martha i like

  Hannah. There are no ships here i am your affectionate son Clive

  Newcome."

  II

  Rue St. Dominique, St. Germain, Paris,

  Nov. 15, 1820,

  "Long separated from the country which was the home of my youth, I

  carried from her tender recollections, and bear her always a lively

  gratitude. The Heaven has placed me in a position very different from

  that in which I knew you. I have been the mother of many children. My

  husband has recovered a portion of the property which the Revolution tore

  from us; and France, in returning to its legitimate sovereign, received

  once more the nobility which accompanied his august house into exile. We,

  however, preceded His Majesty, more happy than many of our companions.

  Believing further resistance to be useless; dazzled, perhaps, by the

  brilliancy of that genius which restored order, submitted Europe, and

  governed France; M. de Florac, in the first days, was reconciled to the

  Conqueror of Marengo and Austerlitz, and held a position in his Imperial

  Court. This submission, at first attributed to infidelity, has

  subsequently been pardoned to my husband. His sufferings during the

  Hundred Days made to pardon his adhesion to him who was Emperor. My

  husband is now an old man. He was of the disastrous campaign of Moscow,

  as one of the chamberlains of Napoleon. Withdrawn from the world, he

  gives his time to his feeble health--to his family--to Heaven.

  "I have not forgotten a time before those days, when, according to

  promises given by my father, I became the wife of M. de Florac. Sometimes

  I have heard of your career. One of my parents, M. de F., who took

  service in the English India, has entertained me of you; he informed me

  how yet a young man you won laurels at Argom and Bhartpour; how you

  escaped to death at Laswari. I have followed them, sir, on the map. I

  have taken part in your victories and your glory. Ah! I am not so cold,

  but my heart has trembled for your dangers; not so aged, but I remember

  the young man who learned from the pupil of Frederick the first rudiments

  of war. Your great heart, your love of truth, your courage were your own.

  None had to teach you those qualities, of which a good God had endowed

  you, My good father is dead since many years. He, too, was permitted to

  see France before to die.

  "I have read in the English journals not only that you are married, but

  that you have a son. Permit me to send to your wife, to your child, these

  accompanying tokens of an old friendship. I have seen that Mistress

  Newcome was widow, and am not sorry of it. My friend, I hope there was

  not that difference of age between your wife and you that I have known in

  other unions. I pray the good God to bless yours. I hold you always in my

  memory. As I write, the past comes back to me. I see a noble young man,

  who has a soft voice, and brown eyes. I see the Thames, and the smiling

  plains of Blackheath. I listen and pray at my chamber-door as my father

  talks to you in our little cabinet of studies. I look from my window, and

  see you depart.

  "My son's are men: one follows the profession of arms, one has embraced

  the ecclesiastical state; my daughter is herself a mother. I remember

  this was your birthday; I have made myself a little fete in celebrating

  it, after how many years of absence, of silence! Comtesse De Florac.

  (Nee L. de Blois.)"

  III

  "My Dear Thomas,--Mr. Sneid, supercargo of the Ramchunder, East Indiaman,

  handed over to us yesterday your letter, and, to-day, I have purchased

  three thousand three hundred and twenty-three pounds 6 and 8d. three per

  cent Consols, in our joint names (H. and B. Newcome), held for your

  little boy. Mr. S. gives a very favourable account of the little man, and

  left him in perfect health two days since, at the house of his aunt, Miss

  Honeyman. We have placed 200 pounds to that lady's credit, at your

  desire.

  "Lady Anne is charmed with the present which she received yesterday, and

  says the white shawl is a great deal too handsome. My mother is also

  greatly pleased with hers, and has forwarded, by the coach to Brighton,

  to-day, a packet of books, tracts, etc., suited for his tender age, for

  your little boy. She heard of you lately from the Rev. T. Sweatenham on

  his return from India. He spoke of your kindness,--and of the hospitable

  manner in which you had received him at your house, and alluded to you in

  a very handsome way in the course of the thanksgiving that evening. I

  dare say my mother will ask your little boy to the Hermitage; and when we

  have a house of our own, I am sure Anne and I will be very happy to see

  him. Yours affectionately, Major Newcome. B. Newcome."

  IV

  "My Dear Colonel,--Did I not know the generosity of your heart, and the

  bountiful means which Heaven has put at your disposal in order to gratify

  that noble disposition; were I not certain that the small sum I required

  will permanently place me beyond the reach of the difficulties of life,

  and will infallibly be repaid before six months are over, believe me I

  never would have ventured upon that bold step which our friendship

  (carried on epistolarily as it has been), our relationship, and your

  admirable disposition, have induced me to venture to take.

  "That elegant and commodious chapel, known as Lady Whittlesea's, Denmark

  Street, Mayfair, being for sale, I have determined on venturing my all in

  its acquisition, and in laying, as I hope, the foundation of a competence

  for myself and excellent sister. What is a lodging-house at Brighton but

  an uncertain maintenance? The mariner on the sea before those cliffs is

  no more sure of wind and wave, or of fish to his laborious net, than the

  Brighton house-owner (bred in affluence she may have been, and used to

  unremitting plenty) to the support of the casual travellers who visit the

  city. On one day they come in shoals, it is true, but where are they on

  the next? For many months my poor sister's first floor was a desert,

  until occupied by your noble little boy, my nephew and pupil. Clive is

  everything that a father's, an uncle's (who loves him as a father), a

  pastor's, a teacher's affections could desire. He is not one of those

  premature geniuses whose much-vaunted infantine talents disappear along

  with adolescence; he is not, I frankly own, more advanced in his

  classical and mathematical studies than some children even younger than

  himself; but he has acquired the rudiments of health; he has laid in a

  store of honesty and good-humour, which are not less likely to advance

  him in life than mere science and language, than the as in praesenti, or

  the pons asinorum.

  "But I forget, in thinking of my dear little friend and pupil, the

  subject of this letter--namely, the acquisition of the propri
etary chapel

  to which I have alluded, and the hopes, nay, certainty of a fortune, if

  aught below is certain, which that acquisition holds out. What is a

  curacy, but a synonym for starvation? If we accuse the Eremites of old of

  wasting their lives in unprofitable wildernesses, what shall we say to

  many a hermit of Protestant, and so-called civilised times, who hides his

  head in a solitude in Yorkshire, and buries his probably fine talents in

  a Lincolnshire fen? Have I genius? Am I blessed with gifts of eloquence

  to thrill and soothe, to arouse the sluggish, to terrify the sinful, to

  cheer and convince the timid, to lead the blind groping in darkness, and

  to trample the audacious sceptic in the dust? My own conscience, besides

  a hundred testimonials from places of popular, most popular worship, from

  reverend prelates, from distinguished clergy, tells me I have these

  gifts. A voice within me cries, 'Go forth, Charles Honeyman, fight the

  good fight; wipe the tears of the repentant sinner; sing of hope to the

  agonised criminal; whisper courage, brother, courage, at the ghastly

  deathbed, and strike down the infidel with the lance of evidence and the

  shield of reason!' In a pecuniary point of view I am confident, nay, the

  calculations may be established as irresistibly as an algebraic equation,

  that I can realise, as incumbent of Lady Whittlesea's chapel, the sum of

  not less than one thousand pounds per annum. Such a sum, with economy

  (and without it what sum were sufficient?), will enable me to provide

  amply for my wants, to discharge my obligations to you, to my sister, and

  some other creditors, very, very unlike you, and to place Miss Honeyman

  in a home more worthy of her than that which she now occupies, only to

  vacate it at the beck of every passing stranger!

  "My sister does not disapprove of my plan, into which enter some

  modifications which I have not, as yet, submitted to her, being anxious

  at first that they should be sanctioned by you. From the income of the

  Whittlesea chapel I propose to allow Miss Honeyman the sum of two hundred

  pounds per annum, paid quarterly. This, with her private property, which

  she has kept more thriftily than her unfortunate and confiding brother

  guarded his (for whenever I had a guinea a tale of distress would melt it

  into half a sovereign), will enable Miss Honeyman to live in a way

  becoming my father's daughter.

  "Comforted with this provision as my sister will be, I would suggest that

  our dearest young Clive should be transferred from her petticoat

  government, and given up to the care of his affectionate uncle and tutor.

  His present allowance will most liberally suffice for his expenses,

  board, lodging, and education while under my roof, and I shall be able to

  exert a paternal, a pastoral influence over his studies, his conduct, and

  his highest welfare, which I cannot so conveniently exercise at Brighton,

  where I am but Miss Honeyman's stipendiary, and where I often have to

  submit in cases where I know, for dearest Clive's own welfare, it is I,

  and not my sister, should be paramount.

  "I have given then to a friend, the Rev. Marcus Flather a draft for two

  hundred and fifty pounds sterling, drawn upon you at your agent's in

  Calcutta, which sum will go in liquidation of dear Clive's first year's

  board with me, or, upon my word of honour as a gentleman and clergyman,

  shall be paid back at three months after sight, if you will draw upon me.

  As I never--no, were it my last penny in the world--would dishonour your

  draft, I implore you, my dear Colonel, not to refuse mine. My credit in

  this city, where credit is everything, and the awful future so little

  thought of, my engagements to Mr. Flather, my own prospects in life, and

  the comfort of my dear sister's declining years, all--all depend upon

  this bold, this eventful measure. My ruin or my earthly happiness lies

  entirely in your hands. Can I doubt which way your kind heart will lead

  you, and that you will come to the aid of your affectionate

  brother-in-law? Charles Honeyman."

  "Our little Clive has been to London on a visit to his uncles and to the

  Hermitage, Clapham, to pay his duty to his step-grandmother, the wealthy

  Mrs. Newcome. I pass over words disparaging of myself which the child in

  his artless prattles subsequently narrated. She was very gracious to him,

  and presented him with a five-pound note, a copy of Kirk White's Poems,

  and a work called Little Henry and his Bearer, relating to India, and the

  excellent Catechism of our Church. Clive is full of humour, and I enclose

  you a rude scrap representing the Bishopess of Clapham, as she is

  called,--the other figure is a rude though entertaining sketch of some

  other droll personage.

  "Lieutenant-Colonel Newcome, etc."

  V

  "My Dear Colonel;--The Rev. Marcus Flather has just written me a letter

  at which I am greatly shocked and perplexed, informing me that my brother

  Charles has given him a draft upon you for two hundred and fifty pounds,

  when goodness knows it is not you but we who are many, many hundred

  pounds debtors to you. Charles has explained that he drew the bill at

  your desire, that you wrote to say you would be glad to serve him in any

  way, and that the money is wanted to make his fortune. Yet I don't know--

  poor Charles is always going to make his fortune and has never done it.

  That school which he bought, and for which you and me between us paid the

  purchase-money, turned out no good, and the only pupils left at the end

  of the first half-year were two woolly-headed poor little mulattos, whose

  father was in gaol at St. Kitt's, and whom I kept actually in my own

  second-floor back room whilst the lawyers were settling things, and

  Charles was away in France, and until my dearest little Clive came to

  live with me.

  "Then, as he was too small for a great school, I thought Clive could not

  do better than stay with his old aunt and have his Uncle Charles for a

  tutor, who is one of the finest scholars in the world. I wish you could

  hear him in the pulpit. His delivery is grander and more impressive than

  any divine now in England. His sermons you have subscribed for, and

  likewise his book of elegant poems, which are pronounced to be very fine.

  "When he returned from Calais, and those horrid lawyers had left off

  worriting him, I thought as his frame was much shattered and he was too

  weak to take a curacy, that he could not do better than become Clive's

  tutor, and agreed to pay him out of your handsome donation of 250 pounds

  for Clive, a sum of one hundred pounds per year, so that, when the board

  of the two and Clive's clothing are taken into consideration, I think you

  will see that no great profit is left to Miss Martha Honeyman.

  "Charles talks to me of his new church in London, and of making me some

  grand allowance. The poor boy is very affectionate, and always building

  castles in the air, and of having Clive to live with him in London. Now

  this mustn't be, and I won't hear of it. Charles is too kind to be a

  schoolmaster, and Master Clive laughs at him. It
was only the other day,

  after his return from his grandmamma's, regarding which I wrote you, per

  Burrampooter, the 23rd ult., that I found a picture of Mrs. Newcome and

  Charles too, and of both their spectacles, quite like. I put it away, but

  some rogue, I suppose, has stolen it. He has done me and Hannah too. Mr.

  Speck, the artist, laughed and took it home, and says he is a wonder at

  drawing.

  "Instead, then, of allowing Clive to go with Charles to London next

  month, where my brother is bent on going, I shall send Clivey to Dr.

  Timpany's school, Marine Parade, of which I hear the best account, but I

  hope you will think of soon sending him to a great school. My father

  always said it was the best place for boys, and I have a brother to whom

  my poor mother spared the rod, and who, I fear, has turned out but a

  spoilt child.

  "I am, dear Colonel, your most faithful servant, Martha Honeyman."

  "Lieutenant-Colonel Newcome, C. B."

  VI

  "My Dear Brother,--I hasten to inform you of a calamity which, though it

  might be looked for in the course of nature, has occasioned deep grief

  not only in our family but in this city. This morning, at half-past four

  o'clock, our beloved and respected mother, Sophia Alethea Newcome,

  expired, at the advanced age of eighty-three years. On the night of

  Tuesday-Wednesday, the 12-13th, having been engaged reading and writing

  in her library until a late hour, and having dismissed the servants, whom

  she never would allow to sit up for her, as well as my brother and his

  wife, who always are in the habit of retiring early, Mrs. Newcome

  extinguished the lamps, took a bedchamber candle to return to her room,

  and must have fallen on the landing, where she was discovered by the

  maids, sitting with her head reclining against the balustrades, and

  endeavouring to staunch a wound in her forehead, which was bleeding

  profusely, having struck in a fall against the stone step of the stair.

  "When Mrs. Newcome was found she was speechless, but still sensible, and

  medical aid being sent for, she was carried to bed. Mr. Newcome and Lady

  Anne both hurried to her apartment, and she knew them, and took the hands

  of each, but paralysis had probably ensued in consequence of the shock of

  the fall; nor was her voice ever heard, except in inarticulate moanings,

  since the hour on the previous evening when she gave them her blessing

  and bade them good-night. Thus perished this good and excellent woman,

  the truest Christian, the most charitable friend to the poor and needful,

  the head of this great house of business, the best and most affectionate

  of mothers.

  "The contents of her will have long been known to us, and that document

  was dated one month after our lamented father's death. Mr. Thomas

  Newcome's property being divided equally amongst his three sons, the

  property of his second wife naturally devolves upon her own issue, my

  brother Brian and myself. There are very heavy legacies to servants and

  to charitable and religious institutions, of which, in life, she was the

  munificent patroness; and I regret, my dear brother, that no memorial to

  you should have been left by my mother, because she often spoke of you

  latterly in terms of affection, and on the very day on which she died,

  commenced a letter to your little boy, which was left unfinished on the

  library table. My brother said that on that same day, at breakfast, she

  pointed to a volume of Orme's Hindostan, the book, she said, which set

  poor dear Tom wild to go to India, I know you will be pleased to hear of

  these proofs of returning goodwill and affection in one who often spoke

  latterly of her early regard for you. I have no more time, under the

  weight of business which this present affliction entails, than to say

  that I am yours, dear brother, very sincerely, H. Newcome."