The Newcomes

by William Makepeace Thackeray

yonder poor invalid crawling along in her chair; yonder jolly fat lady

  examining the Brighton pebbles (I actually once saw a lady buy one), and

  her children wondering at the sticking-plaister portraits with gold hair,

  and gold stocks, and prodigious high-heeled boots, miracles of art, and

  cheap at seven-and-sixpence! It is the fashion to run down George IV.,

  but what myriads of Londoners ought to thank him for inventing Brighton!

  One of the best of physicians our city has ever known, is kind, cheerful,

  merry Doctor Brighton. Hail, thou purveyor of shrimps and honest

  prescriber of Southdown mutton! There is no mutton so good as Brighton

  mutton; no flys so pleasant as Brighton flys; nor any cliff so pleasant

  to ride on; no shops so beautiful to look at as the Brighton gimcrack

  shops, and the fruit shops, and the market. I fancy myself in Mrs.

  Honeyman's lodgings in Steyne Gardens, and in enjoyment of all these

  things.

  If the gracious reader has had losses in life, losses not so bad as to

  cause absolute want, or inflict upon him or her the bodily injury of

  starvation, let him confess that the evils of this poverty are by no

  means so great as his timorous fancy depicted. Say your money has been

  invested in West Diddlesex bonds, or other luckless speculations--the

  news of the smash comes; you pay your outlying bills with the balance at

  the banker's; you assemble your family and make them a fine speech; the

  wife of your bosom goes round and embraces the sons and daughters

  seriatim; nestling in your own waistcoat finally, in possession of which,

  she says (with tender tears and fond quotations from Holy Writ, God bless

  her!), and of the darlings round about, lies all her worldly treasure:

  the weeping servants are dismissed, their wages paid in full, and with a

  present of prayer- and hymn-books from their mistress; your elegant house

  in Harley Street is to let, and you subside into lodgings in Pentonville,

  or Kensington, or Brompton. How unlike the mansion where you paid taxes

  and distributed elegant hospitality for so many years!

  You subside into lodgings, I say, and you find yourself very tolerably

  comfortable. I am not sure that in her heart your wife is not happier

  than in what she calls her happy days. She will be somebody hereafter:

  she was nobody in Harley Street: that is, everybody else in her

  visiting-book, take the names all round, was as good as she. They had the

  very same entrees, plated ware, men to wait, etc., at all the houses

  where you visited in the street. Your candlesticks might be handsomer

  (and indeed they had a very fine effect upon the dinner-table), but then

  Mr. Jones's silver (or electro-plated) dishes were much finer. You had

  more carriages at your door on the evening of your delightful soirees

  than Mrs. Brown (there is no phrase more elegant, and to my taste, than

  that in which people are described as "seeing a great deal of carriage

  company"); but yet Mrs. Brown, from the circumstance of her being a

  baronet's niece, took precedence of your dear wife at most tables. Hence

  the latter charming woman's scorn at the British baronetcy, and her many

  jokes at the order. In a word, and in the height of your social

  prosperity, there was always a lurking dissatisfaction, and a something

  bitter, in the midst of the fountain of delights at which you were

  permitted to drink.

  There is no good (unless your taste is that way) in living in a society

  where you are merely the equal of everybody else. Many people give

  themselves extreme pains to frequent company where all around them are

  their superiors, and where, do what you will, you must be subject to

  continual mortification--(as, for instance, when Marchioness X. forgets

  you, and you can't help thinking that she cuts you on purpose; when

  Duchess Z. passes by in her diamonds, etc.). The true pleasure of life is

  to live with your inferiors. Be the cock of your village; the queen of

  your coterie; and, besides very great persons, the people whom Fate has

  specially endowed with this kindly consolation are those who have seen

  what are called better days--those who have had losses. I am like Caesar,

  and of a noble mind: if I cannot be first in Piccadilly, let me try

  Hatton Garden, and see whether I cannot lead the ton there. If I cannot

  take the lead at White's or the Travellers', let me be president of the

  Jolly Bandboys at the Bag of Nails, and blackball everybody who does not

  pay me honour. If my darling Bessy cannot go out of a drawing-room until

  a baronet's niece (ha! ha! a baronet's niece, forsooth!) has walked

  before her, let us frequent company where we shall be the first; and how

  can we be the first unless we select our inferiors for our associates?

  This kind of pleasure is to be had by almost everybody, and at scarce any

  cost. With a shilling's-worth of tea and muffins you can get as much

  adulation and respect as many people cannot purchase with a thousand

  pounds' worth of plate and profusion, hired footmen, turning their houses

  topsy-turvy, and suppers from Gunter's. Adulation!--why, the people who

  come to you give as good parties as you do. Respect!--the very menials,

  who wait behind your supper-table, waited at a duke's yesterday, and

  actually patronise you! O you silly spendthrift! you can buy flattery for

  twopence, and you spend ever so much money in entertaining your equals

  and betters, and nobody admires you!

  Now Aunt Honeyman was a woman of a thousand virtues; cheerful, frugal,

  honest, laborious, charitable, good-humoured, truth-telling, devoted to

  her family, capable of any sacrifice for those she loved; and when she

  came to have losses of money, Fortune straightway compensated her by many

  kindnesses which no income can supply. The good old lady admired the word

  gentlewoman of all others in the English vocabulary, and made all around

  her feel that such was her rank. Her mother's father was a naval captain;

  her father had taken pupils, got a living, sent his son to college, dined

  with the squire, published his volume of sermons, was liked in his

  parish, where Miss Honeyman kept house for him, was respected for his

  kindness and famous for his port wine; and so died, leaving about two

  hundred pounds a year to his two children, nothing to Clive Newcome's

  mother who had displeased him by her first marriage (an elopement with

  Ensign Casey) and subsequent light courses. Charles Honeyman spent his

  money elegantly in wine-parties at Oxford, and afterwards in foreign

  travel;--spent his money and as much of Miss Honeyman's as that worthy

  soul would give him. She was a woman of spirit and resolution. She

  brought her furniture to Brighton (believing that the whole place still

  fondly remembered her grandfather, Captain Nokes, who had resided there

  and his gallantry in Lord Rodney's action with the Count de Grasse), took

  a house, and let the upper floors to lodgers.

  The little brisk old lady brought a maid-servant out of the country with

  her, who was daughter to her father's clerk, and had learned her letters

  and worked her first sampler under Miss Honeyman's own eye, whom she

  a
dored all through her life. No Indian begum rolling in wealth, no

  countess mistress of castles and townhouses, ever had such a faithful

  toady as Hannah Hicks was to her mistress. Under Hannah was a young lady

  from the workhouse, who called Hannah "Mrs. Hicks, mum," and who bowed in

  awe as much before that domestic as Hannah did before Miss Honeyman. At

  five o'clock in summer, at seven in winter (for Miss Honeyman, a good

  economist, was chary of candlelight), Hannah woke up little Sally, and

  these three women rose. I leave you to imagine what a row there was in

  the establishment if Sally appeared with flowers under her bonnet, gave

  signs of levity or insubordination, prolonged her absence when sent forth

  for the beer, or was discovered in flirtation with the baker's boy or the

  grocer's young man. Sally was frequently renewed. Miss Honeyman called

  all her young persons Sally; and a great number of Sallies were consumed

  in her house. The qualities of the Sally for the time-being formed a

  constant and delightful subject of conversation between Hannah and her

  mistress. The few friends who visited Miss Honeyman in her back-parlour

  had their Sallies, in discussing whose peculiarities of disposition these

  good ladies passed the hours agreeably over their tea.

  Many persons who let lodgings in Brighton have been servants themselves--

  are retired housekeepers, tradesfolk, and the like. With these

  surrounding individuals Hannah treated on a footing of equality, bringing

  to her mistress accounts of their various goings on; "how No. 6 was let;

  how No. 9 had not paid his rent again; how the first floor at 27 had game

  almost every day, and made-dishes from Mutton's; how the family who had

  taken Mrs. Bugsby's had left as usual after the very first night, the

  poor little infant blistered all over with bites on its little dear face;

  how the Miss Learys was going on shameful with the two young men,

  actially in their setting-room, mum, where one of them offered Miss Laura

  Leary a cigar; how Mrs. Cribb still went cuttin' pounds and pounds of

  meat off the lodgers' jints, emptying their tea-caddies, actially reading

  their letters. Sally had been told so by Polly the Cribb's maid, who was

  kep, how that poor child was kep, hearing language perfectly hawful!"

  These tales and anecdotes, not altogether redounding to their neighbours'

  credit, Hannah copiously collected and brought to her mistress's

  tea-table, or served at her frugal little supper when Miss Honeyman, the

  labours of the day over, partook of that cheerful meal. I need not say

  that such horrors as occurred at Mrs. Bugsby's never befell in Mrs.

  Honeyman's establishment. Every room was fiercely swept and sprinkled,

  and watched by cunning eyes which nothing could escape; curtains were

  taken down, mattresses explored, every bone in bed dislocated and washed

  as soon as a lodger took his departure. And as for cribbing meat or

  sugar, Sally might occasionally abstract a lump or two, or pop a

  veal-cutlet into her mouth while bringing the dishes downstairs:--Sallies

  would--giddy creatures bred in workhouses; but Hannah might be entrusted

  with untold gold and uncorked brandy; and Miss Honeyman would as soon

  think of cutting a slice off Hannah's nose and devouring it, as of

  poaching on her lodgers' mutton. The best mutton-broth, the best

  veal-cutlets, the best necks of mutton and French beans, the best fried

  fish and plumpest partridges, in all Brighton, were to be had at Miss

  Honeyman's--and for her favourites the best Indian curry and rice, coming

  from a distinguished relative, at present an officer in Bengal. But very

  few were admitted to this mark of Miss Honeyman's confidence. If a family

  did not go to church they were not in favour: if they went to a

  Dissenting meeting she had no opinion of them at all. Once there came to

  her house a quiet Staffordshire family who ate no meat on Fridays, and

  whom Miss Honeyman pitied as belonging to the Romish superstition; but

  when they were visited by two corpulent gentlemen in black, one of whom

  wore a purple underwaistcoat, before whom the Staffordshire lady

  absolutely sank down on her knees as he went into the drawing-room,--Miss

  Honeyman sternly gave warning to these idolaters. She would have no

  Jesuits in her premises. She showed Hannah the picture in Howell's

  Medulla of the martyrs burning at Smithfield: who said, "Lord bless you,

  mum," and hoped it was a long time ago. She called on the curate: and

  many and many a time, for years after, pointed out to her friends, and

  sometimes to her lodgers, the spot on the carpet where the poor benighted

  creature had knelt down. So she went on, respected by all her friends, by

  all her tradesmen, by herself not a little, talking of her previous

  "misfortunes" with amusing equanimity; as if her father's parsonage-house

  had been a palace of splendour, and the one-horse chaise (with the lamps

  for evenings) from which she had descended, a noble equipage. "But I know

  it is for the best, Clive," she would say to her nephew in describing

  those grandeurs, "and, thank heaven, can be resigned in that station in

  life to which it has pleased God to call me."

  The good lady was called the Duchess by her fellow-tradesfolk in the

  square in which she lived. (I don't know what would have come to her

  had she been told she was a tradeswoman!) Her butchers, bakers, and

  market-people paid her as much respect as though she had been a grandee's

  housekeeper out of Kemp Town. Knowing her station, she yet was kind to

  those inferior beings. She held affable conversations with them, she

  patronised Mr. Rogers, who was said to be worth a hundred thousand--

  two-hundred-thousand pounds (or lbs. was it?), and who said, "Law bless

  the old Duchess, she do make as much of a pound of veal cutlet as some

  would of a score of bullocks, but you see she's a lady born and a lady

  bred: she'd die before she'd owe a farden, and she's seen better days,

  you know." She went to see the grocer's wife on an interesting occasion,

  and won the heart of the family by tasting their candle. Her fishmonger

  (it was fine to hear her talk of "my fishmonger") would sell her a

  whiting as respectfully as if she had called for a dozen turbots and

  lobsters. It was believed by those good folks that her father had been a

  Bishop at the very least; and the better days which she had known were

  supposed to signify some almost unearthly prosperity. "I have always

  found, Hannah," the simple soul would say, "that people know their place,

  or can be very very easily made to find it if they lose it; and if a

  gentlewoman does not forget herself, her inferiors will not forget that

  she is a gentlewoman." "No indeed, mum, and I'm sure they would do no

  such thing, mum," says Hannah, who carries away the teapot for her own

  breakfast (to be transmitted to Sally for her subsequent refection),

  whilst her mistress washes her cup and saucer, as her mother had washed

  her own china many scores of years ago.

  If some of the surrounding lodging-house keepers, as I have no doubt they

  did, disliked the little Duchess for the airs which she gave herself, asr />
  they averred; they must have envied her too her superior prosperity, for

  there was scarcely ever a card in her window, whilst those ensigns in her

  neighbours' houses would remain exposed to the flies and the weather, and

  disregarded by passers-by for months together. She had many regular

  customers, or what should be rather called constant friends. Deaf old Mr.

  Cricklade came every winter for fourteen years, and stopped until the

  hunting was over; an invaluable man, giving little trouble, passing all

  day on horseback, and all night over his rubber at the club. The Misses

  Barkham, Barkhambury, Tunbridge Wells, whose father had been at college

  with Mr. Honeyman, came regularly in June for sea air, letting

  Barkhambury for the summer season. Then, for many years, she had her

  nephew, as we have seen; and kind recommendations from the clergymen of

  Brighton, and a constant friend in the celebrated Dr. Goodenough of

  London. who had been her father's private pupil, and of his college

  afterwards, who sent his patients from time to time down to her, and his

  fellow-physician, Dr. H----, who on his part would never take any fee

  from Miss Honeyman, except a packet of India curry-powder, a ham cured as

  she only knew how to cure them, and once a year, or so, a dish of her

  tea.

  "Was there ever such luck as that confounded old Duchess's?" says Mr.

  Gawler, coal-merchant and lodging-house keeper, next door but two, whose

  apartments were more odious in some respects than Mrs. Bugsby's own. "Was

  there ever such devil's own luck, Mrs. G.? It's only a fortnight ago as I

  read in the Sussex Advertiser the death of Miss Barkham, of Barkhambury,

  Tunbridge Wells, and thinks I, there's a spoke in your wheel, you

  stuck-up little old Duchess, with your cussed airs and impudence. And she

  ain't put her card up three days; and look yere, yere's two carriages,

  two maids, three children, one of them wrapped up in a Hinjar shawl--man

  hout a livery,--looks like a foring cove I think--lady in satin pelisse,

  and of course they go to the Duchess, be hanged to her! Of course it's

  our luck, nothing ever was like our luck. I'm blowed if I don't put a

  pistol to my 'ead, and end it, Mrs. G. There they go in--three, four,

  six, seven on 'em, and the man. That's the precious child's physic I

  suppose he's a-carryin' in the basket. Just look at the luggage. I say!

  There's a bloody hand on the first carriage. It's a baronet, is it? I

  'ope your ladyship's very well; and I 'ope Sir John will soon be down

  yere to join his family." Mr. Gawler makes sarcastic bows over the card

  in his bow-window whilst making this speech. The little Gawlers rush on

  to the drawing-room verandah themselves to examine the new arrivals.

  "This is Mrs. Honeyman's?" asks the gentleman designated by Mr. Gawler as

  "the foring cove," and hands in a card on which the words, "Miss

  Honeyman, 110, Steyne Gardens. J. Goodenough," are written in that

  celebrated physician's handwriting. "We want five bet-rooms, six bets,

  two or dree sitting-rooms. Have you got dese?"

  "Will you speak to my mistress?" says Hannah. And if it is a fact that

  Miss Honeyman does happen to be in the front parlour looking at the

  carriages, what harm is there in the circumstance, pray? Is not Gawler

  looking, and the people next door? Are not half a dozen little boys

  already gathered in the street (as if they started up out of the

  trap-doors for the coals), and the nursery maids in the stunted little

  garden, are not they looking through the bars of the square? "Please to

  speak to mistress," says Hannah, opening the parlour-door, and with a

  curtsey, "A gentleman about the apartments, mum."

  "Five bet-rooms," says the man, entering. "Six bets, two or dree

  sitting-rooms? We gome from Dr. Goodenough."

  "Are the apartments for you, sir?" says the little Duchess, looking up at

  the large gentleman.

  "For my lady," answers the man.