The Newcomes

by William Makepeace Thackeray

  "Gibbon! Gibbon was an infidel, and I would not give the end of this

  cigar for such a man's opinion. If Mr. Fielding was a gentleman by birth,

  he ought to have known better; and so much the worse for him that he did

  not. But what am I talking of, wasting your valuable time? No more smoke,

  thank you. I must away into the City, but would not pass the Temple

  without calling on you, and thanking my boy's old protector. You will

  have the kindness to come and dine with us--to-morrow, the next day, your

  own day? Your friend is going out of town? I hope, on his return, to have

  the pleasure of making his further acquaintance. Come, Clive."

  Clive, who had been deep in a volume of Hogarth's engravings during the

  above discussion, or rather oration of his father's, started up and took

  leave, beseeching me, at the same time, to come soon and see his pony;

  and so, with renewed greetings, we parted.

  I was scarcely returned to my newspaper again, when the knocker of our

  door was again agitated, and the Colonel ran back, looking very much

  agitated and confused.

  "I beg pardon," says he; "I think I left my--my----" Larkins had quitted

  the room by this time, and then he began more unreservedly. "My dear

  young friend," says he, "a thousand pardons for what I am going to say,

  but, as Clive's friend, I know I may take that liberty. I have left the

  boy in the court. I know the fate of men of letters and genius: when we

  were here just now, there came a single knock--a demand--that, that you

  did not seem to be momentarily able to meet. Now do, do pardon the

  liberty, and let me be your banker. You said you were engaged in a new

  work: it will be a masterpiece, I am sure, if it's like the last. Put me

  down for twenty copies, and allow me to settle with you in advance. I may

  be off, you know. I'm a bird of passage--a restless old soldier."

  "My dear Colonel," said I, quite touched and pleased by this extreme

  kindness, "my dun was but the washerwoman's boy, and Mrs. Brett is in my

  debt, if I am not mistaken. Besides, I already have a banker in your

  family."

  "In my family, my dear Sir?"

  "Messrs. Newcome, in Threadneedle Street, are good enough to keep my

  money for me when I have any, and I am happy to say they have some of

  mine in hand now. I am almost sorry that I am not in want, in order that

  I might have the pleasure of receiving a kindness from you." And we shook

  hands for the fourth time that morning, and the kind gentleman left me to

  rejoin his son.

  CHAPTER V

  Clive's Uncles

  The dinner so hospitably offered by the Colonel was gladly accepted, and

  followed by many more entertainments at the cost of that good-natured

  friend. He and an Indian chum of his lived at this time at Nerot's Hotel,

  in Clifford Street, where Mr. Clive, too, found the good cheer a great

  deal more to his taste than the homely, though plentiful, fare at Grey

  Friars, at which, of course, when boys, we all turned up our noses,

  though many a poor fellow, in the struggles of after-life, has looked

  back with regret very likely to that well-spread youthful table. Thus my

  intimacy with the father and the son grew to be considerable, and a great

  deal more to my liking than my relations with Clive's City uncles, which

  have been mentioned in the last chapter, and which were, in truth,

  exceedingly distant and awful.

  If all the private accounts kept by those worthy bankers were like mine,

  where would have been Newcome Hall and Park Lane, Marblehead and

  Bryanstone Square? I used, by strong efforts of self-denial, to maintain

  a balance of two or three guineas untouched at the bank, so that my

  account might still remain open; and fancied the clerks and cashiers

  grinned when I went to draw for money. Rather than face that awful

  counter, I would send Larkins, the clerk, or Mrs. Flanagan, the

  laundress. As for entering the private parlour at the back, wherein

  behind the glazed partition I could see the bald heads of Newcome

  Brothers engaged with other capitalists or peering over the newspaper, I

  would as soon have thought of walking into the Doctor's own library at

  Grey Friars, or of volunteering to take an armchair in a dentist's

  studio, and have a tooth out, as of entering into that awful precinct. My

  good uncle, on the other hand, the late Major Pendennis, who kept

  naturally but a very small account with Hobsons', would walk into the

  parlour and salute the two magnates who governed there with the ease and

  gravity of a Rothschild. "My good fellow," the kind old gentleman would

  say to his nephew and pupil, "il faut se faire valoir. I tell you, sir,

  your bankers like to keep every gentleman's account. And it's a mistake

  to suppose they are only civil to their great moneyed clients. Look at

  me. I go in to them and talk to them whenever I am in the City. I hear

  the news of 'Change, and carry it to our end of the town. It looks well,

  sir, to be well with your banker; and at our end of London, perhaps, I

  can do a good turn for the Newcomes."

  It is certain that in his own kingdom of Mayfair and St. James's my

  revered uncle was at least the bankers' equal. On my coming to London, he

  was kind enough to procure me invitations to some of Lady Anne Newcome's

  evening parties in Park Lane, as likewise to Mrs. Newcome's

  entertainments in Bryanstone Square; though, I confess, of these latter,

  after a while, I was a lax and negligent attendant. "Between ourselves,

  my good fellow," the shrewd old Mentor of those days would say, "Mrs.

  Newcome's parties are not altogether select; nor is she a lady of the

  very highest breeding; but it gives a man a good air to be seen at his

  banker's house. I recommend you to go for a few minutes whenever you are

  asked." And go I accordingly did sometimes, though I always fancied,

  rightly or wrongly, from Mrs. Newcome's manner to me, that she knew I had

  but thirty shillings left at the bank. Once and again, in two or three

  years, Mr. Hobson Newcome would meet me, and ask me to fill a vacant

  place that day or the next evening at his table; which invitation I might

  accept or otherwise. But one does not eat a man's salt, as it were, at

  these dinners. There is nothing sacred in this kind of London

  hospitality. Your white waistcoat fills a gap in a man's table, and

  retires filled for its service of the evening. "Gad," the dear old Major

  used to say, "if we were not to talk freely of those we dine with, how

  mum London would be! Some of the pleasantest evenings I have ever spent

  have been when we have sate after a great dinner, en petit comite, and

  abused the people who are gone. You have your turn, mon cher; but why

  not? Do you suppose I fancy my friends haven't found out my little faults

  and peculiarities? And as I can't help it, I let myself be executed, and

  offer up my oddities de bonne grace. Entre nous, Brother Hobson Newcome

  is a good fellow, but a vulgar fellow; and his wife--his wife exactly

  suits him."

  Once a year Lady Anne Newcome (about whom my Mentor was much more

  circumspect; for I somehow used to remark tha
t as the rank of persons

  grew higher, Major Pendennis spoke of them with more caution and

  respect)--once or twice in a year Lady Anne Newcome opened her saloons

  for a concert and a ball, at both of which the whole street was crowded

  with carriages, and all the great world, and some of the small, were

  present. Mrs. Newcome had her ball too, and her concert of English music,

  in opposition to the Italian singers of her sister-in-law. The music of

  her country, Mrs. N. said, was good enough for her.

  The truth must be told, that there was no love lost between the two

  ladies. Bryanstone Square could not forget the superiority of Park Lane's

  rank; and the catalogue of grandees at dear Anne's parties filled dear

  Maria's heart with envy. There are people upon whom rank and worldly

  goods make such an impression, that they naturally fall down on their

  knees and worship the owners; there are others to whom the sight of

  Prosperity is offensive, and who never see Dives' chariot but to growl

  and hoot at it. Mrs. Newcome, as far as my humble experience would lead

  me to suppose, is not only envious, but proud of her envy. She mistakes

  it for honesty and public spirit. She will not bow down to kiss the hand

  of a haughty aristocracy. She is a merchant's wife and an attorney's

  daughter. There is no pride about her. Her brother-in-law, poor dear

  Brian--considering everybody knows everything in London, was there ever

  such a delusion as his?--was welcome, after banking-hours, to forsake his

  own friends for his wife's fine relations, and to dangle after lords and

  ladies in Mayfair. She had no such absurd vanity--not she. She imparted

  these opinions pretty liberally to all her acquaintances in almost all

  her conversations. It was clear that the two ladies were best apart.

  There are some folks who will see insolence in persons of rank, as there

  are others who will insist; that all clergymen are hypocrites, all

  reformers villains, all placemen plunderers, and so forth; and Mrs.

  Newcome never, I am sure, imagined that she had a prejudice, or that she

  was other than an honest, independent, high-spirited woman. Both of the

  ladies had command over their husbands, who were of soft natures easily

  led by woman, as, in truth, are all the males of this family.

  Accordingly, when Sir Brian Newcome voted for the Tory candidate in the

  City, Mr. Hobson Newcome plumped for the Reformer. While Brian, in the

  House of Commons, sat among the mild Conservatives, Hobson unmasked

  traitors and thundered at aristocratic corruption, so as to make the

  Marylebone Vestry thrill with enthusiasm. When Lady Anne, her husband,

  and her flock of children fasted in Lent, and declared for the High

  Church doctrines, Mrs. Hobson had paroxysms of alarm regarding the

  progress of Popery, and shuddered out of the chapel where she had a pew,

  because the clergyman there, for a very brief season, appeared to preach

  in a surplice.

  Poor bewildered Honeyman! it was a sad day for you, when you appeared in

  your neat pulpit with your fragrant pocket-handkerchief (and your sermon

  likewise all millefleurs), in a trim, prim, freshly mangled surplice,

  which you thought became you! How did you look aghast, and pass your

  jewelled hand through your curls, as you saw Mrs. Newcome, who had been

  as good as five-and-twenty pounds a year to you, look up from her pew,

  seize hold of Mr. Newcome, fling open the pew-door, drive out with her

  parasol her little flock of children, bewildered but not ill-pleased to

  get away from the sermon, and summon John from the back seats to bring

  away the bag of prayer-books! Many a good dinner did Charles Honeyman

  lose by assuming that unlucky ephod. Why did the high-priest of his

  diocese order him to put it on? It was delightful to view him afterwards,

  and the airs of martyrdom which he assumed. Had they been going to tear

  him to pieces with wild beasts next day, he could scarcely have looked

  more meek, or resigned himself more pathetically to the persecutors. But

  I am advancing matters. At this early time of which I write, a period not

  twenty years since, surplices were not even thought of in conjunction

  with sermons: clerical gentlemen have appeared in them, and under the

  heavy hand of persecution have sunk down in their pulpits again, as Jack

  pops back into his box. Charles Honeyman's elegant discourses were at

  this time preached in a rich silk Master of Arts' gown, presented to him,

  along with a teapot full of sovereigns, by his affectionate congregation

  at Leatherhead.

  But that I may not be accused of prejudice in describing Mrs. Newcome and

  her family, and lest the reader should suppose that some slight offered

  to the writer by this wealthy and virtuous banker's lady was the secret

  reason for this unfavourable sketch of her character, let me be allowed

  to report, as accurately as I can remember them, the words of a kinsman

  of her own, ---- Giles, Esquire, whom I had the honour of meeting at her

  table, and who, as we walked away from Bryanstone Square, was kind enough

  to discourse very freely about the relatives whom he had just left.

  "That was a good dinner, sir," said Mr. Giles, puffing the cigar which I

  offered to him, and disposed to be very social and communicative. "Hobson

  Newcome's table is about as good a one as any I ever put my legs under.

  You didn't have twice of turtle, sir, I remarked that--I always do, at

  that house especially, for I know where Newcome gets it. We belong to the

  same livery in the City, Hobson and I, the Oystermongers' Company, sir,

  and we like our turtle good, I can tell you--good, and a great deal of

  it, you say. Hay, hay, not so bad!

  "I suppose you're a young barrister, sucking lawyer, or that sort of

  thing. Because you was put at the end of the table and nobody took notice

  of you. That's my place too; I'm a relative and Newcome asks me if he has

  got a place to spare. He met me in the City to-day, and says, 'Tom,' says

  he, 'there's some dinner in the Square at half-past seven: I wish you

  would go and fetch Louisa, whom we haven't seen this ever so long.'

  Louisa is my wife, sir--Maria's sister--Newcome married that gal from my

  house. 'No, no,' says I, 'Hobson; Louisa's engaged nursing number eight'

  --that's our number, sir. The truth is, between you and me, sir, my

  missis won't come any more at no price. She can't stand it; Mrs.

  Newcome's dam patronising airs is enough to choke off anybody. 'Well,

  Hobson, my boy,' says I, 'a good dinner's a good dinner; and I'll come

  though Louisa won't, that is, can't.'"

  While Mr. Giles, who was considerably enlivened by claret, was

  discoursing thus candidly, his companion was thinking how he, Mr. Arthur

  Pendennis, had been met that very afternoon on the steps of the

  Megatherium Club by Mr. Newcome, and had accepted that dinner which Mrs.

  Giles, with more spirit, had declined. Giles continued talking--"I'm an

  old stager, I am. I don't mind the rows between the women. I believe Mrs.

  Newcome and Lady Newcome's just as bad too; I know Maria is always

  driving at her one way or the other, and calling her proud and


  aristocratic, and that; and yet my wife says Maria, who pretends to be

  such a Radical, never asks us to meet the Baronet and his lady. 'And why

  should she, Loo, my dear?' says I. 'I don't want to meet Lady Newcome,

  nor Lord Kew, nor any of 'em.' Lord Kew, ain't it an odd name? Tearing

  young swell, that Lord Kew: tremendous wild fellow."

  "I was a clerk in that house, sir, as a young man; I was there in the old

  woman's time, and Mr. Newcome's--the father of these young men--as good a

  man as ever stood on 'Change." And then Mr. Giles, warming with his

  subject, enters at large into the history of the house. "You see, sir,"

  says he, "the banking-house of Hobson Brothers, or Newcome Brothers, as

  the partners of the firm really are, is not one of the leading banking

  firms of the City of London, but a most respectable house of many years'

  standing, and doing a most respectable business, especially in the

  Dissenting connection." After the business came into the hands of the

  Newcome Brothers, Hobson Newcome, Esq., and Sir Brian Newcome, Bart.,

  M.P., Mr. Giles shows how a considerable West End connection was likewise

  established, chiefly through the aristocratic friends and connections of

  the above-named Bart.

  But the best man of business, according to Mr. Giles, whom the firm of

  Hobson Brothers ever knew, better than her father and uncle, better than

  her husband Sir T. Newcome, better than her sons and successors above

  mentioned, was the famous Sophia Alethea Hobson, afterwards Newcome--of

  whom might be said what Frederick the Great said of his sister, that she

  was sexu foemina, vir ingenio--in sex a woman, and in mind a man. Nor was

  she, my informant told me, without even manly personal characteristics:

  she had a very deep and gruff voice, and in her old age a beard which

  many a young man might envy; and as she came into the bank out of her

  carriage from Clapham, in her dark green pelisse with fur trimmings, in

  her grey beaver hat, beaver gloves, and great gold spectacles, not a

  clerk in that house did not tremble before her, and it was said she only

  wanted a pipe in her mouth considerably to resemble the late

  Field-Marshal Prince Blucher.

  Her funeral was one of the most imposing sights ever witnessed in

  Clapham. There was such a crowd you might have thought it was a

  Derby-day. The carriages of some of the greatest City firms, and the

  wealthiest Dissenting houses; several coaches full of ministers of all

  denominations, including the Established Church; the carriage of the

  Right Honourable the Earl of Kew, and that of his daughter, Lady Anne

  Newcome, attended that revered lady's remains to their final

  resting-place. No less than nine sermons were preached at various places

  of public worship regarding her end. She fell upstairs at a very advanced

  age, going from the library to the bedroom, after all the household was

  gone to rest, and was found by the maids in the morning, inarticulate,

  but still alive, her head being cut frightfully with the bedroom candle

  with which she was retiring to her apartment. "And," said Mr. Giles with

  great energy, "besides the empty carriages at that funeral, and the

  parson in black, and the mutes and feathers and that, there were hundreds

  and hundreds of people who wore no black, and who weren't present; and

  who wept for their benefactress, I can tell you. She had her faults, and

  many of 'em; but the amount of that woman's charities are unheard of,

  sir--unheard of,--and they are put to the credit side of her account up

  yonder.

  "The old lady had a will of her own," my companion continued. "She would

  try and know about everybody's business out of business hours: got to

  know from the young clerks what chapels they went to, and from the

  clergymen whether they attended regular; kept her sons, years after they

  were grown men, as if they were boys at school--and what was the