The Newcomes

by William Makepeace Thackeray

cut out for screens, frame and glaze, and hang up on the walls. When the

  rooms were ready they gave a party, inviting the Colonel and Mr. Binnie

  by note of hand, two gentlemen from Lamb Court, Temple, Mr. Honeyman, and

  Fred Bayham. We must have Fred Bayham. Fred Bayham frankly asked, "Is Mr.

  Sherrick, with whom you have become rather intimate lately--and mind you

  I say nothing, but I recommend strangers in London to be cautious about

  their friends--is Mr. Sherrick coming to you, young 'un? because if he

  is, F. B. must respectfully decline."

  Mr. Sherrick was not invited, and accordingly F. B. came. But Sherrick

  was invited on other days, and a very queer society did our honest

  Colonel gather together in that queer house, so dreary, so dingy, so

  comfortless, so pleasant. He, who was one of the most hospitable men

  alive, loved to have his friends around him; and it must be confessed

  that the evening parties now occasionally given in Fitzroy Square were of

  the oddest assemblage of people. The correct East India gentlemen from

  Hanover Square: the artists, Clive's friends, gentlemen of all ages with

  all sorts of beards, in every variety of costume. Now and again a stray

  schoolfellow from Grey Friars, who stared, as well he might, at the

  company in which he found himself. Sometimes a few ladies were brought to

  these entertainments. The immense politeness of the good host compensated

  some of them for the strangeness of his company. They had never seen such

  odd-looking hairy men as those young artists, nor such wonderful women as

  Colonel Newcome assembled together. He was good to all old maids and poor

  widows. Retired captains with large families of daughters found in him

  their best friend. He sent carriages to fetch them and bring them back

  from the suburbs where they dwelt. Gandish, Mrs. Gandish, and the four

  Miss Gandishes in scarlet robes, were constant attendants at the

  Colonel's soirees.

  "I delight, sir, in the 'ospitality of my distinguished military friend,"

  Mr. Gandish would say. "The harmy has always been my passion.--I served

  in the Soho Volunteers three years myself, till the conclusion of the

  war, sir, till the conclusion of the war."

  It was a great sight to see Mr. Frederick Bayham engaged in the waltz or

  the quadrille with some of the elderly houris at the Colonel's parties.

  F. B., like a good-natured F. B. as he was, always chose the plainest

  women as partners, and entertained them with profound compliments and

  sumptuous conversation. The Colonel likewise danced quadrilles with the

  utmost gravity. Waltzing had been invented long since his time: but he

  practised quadrilles when they first came in, about 1817, in Calcutta. To

  see him leading up a little old maid, and bowing to her when the dance

  was ended, and performing cavalier seul with stately simplicity, was a

  sight indeed to remember. If Clive Newcome had not such a fine sense of

  humour, he would have blushed for his father's simplicity.--As it was,

  the elder's guileless goodness and childlike trustfulness endeared him

  immensely to his son. "Look at the old boy, Pendennis," he would say,

  "look at him leading up that old Miss Tidswell to the piano. Doesn't he

  do it like an old duke? I lay a wager she thinks she is going to be my

  mother-in-law; all the women are in love with him, young and old. 'Should

  he upbraid?' There she goes. 'I'll own that he'll prevail, and sing as

  sweetly as a nigh-tin-gale!' Oh, you old warbler! Look at father's old

  head bobbing up and down! Wouldn't he do for Sir Roger de Coverley? How

  do you do, Uncle Charles?--I say, M'Collop, how gets on the Duke of

  What-d'ye-call-'em starving in the castle?--Gandish says it's very good."

  The lad retires to a group of artists. Mr. Honeyman comes up with a faint

  smile playing on his features, like moonlight on the facade of Lady

  Whittlesea's Chapel.

  "These parties are the most singular I have ever seen," whispers

  Honeyman. "In entering one of these assemblies, one is struck with the

  immensity of London: and with the sense of one's own insignificance.

  Without, I trust, departing from my clerical character, nay, from my very

  avocation as incumbent of a London chapel,--I have seen a good deal of

  the world, and here is an assemblage no doubt of most respectable

  persons, on scarce one of whom I ever set eyes till this evening. Where

  does my good brother find such characters?"

  "That," says Mr. Honeyman's interlocutor, "is the celebrated, though

  neglected artist, Professor Gandish, whom nothing but jealousy has kept

  out of the Royal Academy. Surely you have heard of the great Gandish?"

  "Indeed I am ashamed to confess my ignorance, but a clergyman busy with

  his duties knows little, perhaps too little, of the fine arts."

  "Gandish, sir, is one of the greatest geniuses on whom our ungrateful

  country ever trampled; he exhibited his first celebrated picture of

  'Alfred in the Neatherd's Hut' (he says he is the first who ever touched

  that subject) in 180-; but Lord Nelson's death, and victory of Trafalgar,

  occupied the public attention at that time, and Gandish's work went

  unnoticed. In the year 1816, he painted his great work of 'Boadicea.' You

  see her before you. That lady in yellow, with a light front and a turban.

  Boadicea became Mrs. Gandish in that year. So late as '27, he brought

  before the world his 'Non Angli sed Angeli.' Two of the angels are yonder

  in sea-green dresses--the Misses Gandish. The youth in Berlin gloves was

  the little male angelus of that piece."

  "How came you to know all this, you strange man?" says Mr. Honeyman.

  "Simply because Gandish has told me twenty times. He tells the story to

  everybody, every time he sees them. He told it to-day at dinner. Boadicea

  and the angels came afterwards."

  "Satire! satire! Mr. Pendennis," says the divine, holding up a reproving

  finger of lavender kid, "beware of a wicked wit!--But when a man has that

  tendency, I know how difficult it is to restrain. My dear Colonel, good

  evening! You have a great reception to-night. That gentleman's bass voice

  is very fine; Mr. Pendennis and I were admiring it. 'The Wolf' is a song

  admirably adapted to show its capabilities."

  Mr. Gandish's autobiography had occupied the whole time of the retirement

  of the ladies from Colonel Newcome's dinner-table. Mr. Hobson Newcome had

  been asleep during the performance; Sir Curry Baughton and one or two of

  the Colonel's professional and military guests, silent and puzzled.

  Honest Mr. Binnie, with his shrewd good-humoured face, sipping his claret

  as usual, and delivering a sly joke now and again to the gentlemen at his

  end of the table. Mrs. Newcome had sat by him in sulky dignity; was it

  that Lady Baughton's diamonds offended her?--her ladyship and her

  daughters being attired in great splendour for a Court ball, which they

  were to attend that evening. Was she hurt because she was not invited to

  that Royal Entertainment? As the festivities were to take place at an

  early hour, the ladies bidden were obliged to quit the Colonel's house

  before the evening part commenced, from which Lady Anne declared
she was

  quite vexed to be obliged to run away.

  Lady Anne Newcome had been as gracious on this occasion as her

  sister-in-law had been out of humour. Everything pleased her in the

  house. She had no idea that there were such fine houses in that quarter

  of the town. She thought the dinner so very nice,--that Mr Binnie such a

  good-humoured-looking gentleman. That stout gentleman with his collars

  turned down like Lord Byron, so exceedingly clever and full of

  information. A celebrated artist was he? (courtly Mr. Smee had his own

  opinion upon that point, but did not utter it). All those artists are so

  eccentric and amusing and clever. Before dinner she insisted upon seeing

  Clive's den with its pictures and casts and pipes. "You horrid young

  wicked creature, have you begun to smoke already?" she asks, as she

  admires his room. She admired everything. Nothing could exceed her

  satisfaction.

  The sisters-in-law kissed on meeting, with that cordiality so delightful

  to witness in sisters who dwell together in unity. It was, "My dear

  Maria, what an age since I have seen you!" "My dear Anne, our occupations

  are so engrossing, our circles are so different," in a languid response

  from the other. "Sir Brian is not coming, I suppose? Now, Colonel," she

  turns in a frisky manner towards him, and taps her fan, "did I not tell

  you Sir Brian would not come?"

  "He is kept at the House of Commons, my dear. Those dreadful committees.

  He was quite vexed at not being able to come."

  "I know, I know, dear Anne, there are always excuses to gentlemen in

  Parliament; I have received many such. Mr. Shaloo and Mr. M'Sheny, the

  leaders of our party, often and often disappoint me. I knew Brian would

  not come. My husband came down from Marble Head on purpose this morning.

  Nothing would have induced us to give up our brother's party."

  "I believe you. I did come down from Marble Head this morning, and I was

  four hours in the hay-field before I came away, and in the City till

  five, and I've been to look at a horse afterwards at Tattersall's, and

  I'm as hungry as a hunter, and as tired as a hodman," says Mr. Newcome,

  with his hands in his pockets. "How do you do, Mr. Pendennis? Maria, you

  remember Mr. Pendennis--don't you?"

  "Perfectly," replies the languid Maria. Mrs. Gandish, Colonel Topham,

  Major M'Cracken. are announced, and then, in diamonds, feathers, and

  splendour, Lady Baughton and Miss Baughton, who are going to the Queen's

  ball, and Sir Curry Baughton, not quite in his deputy-lieutenant's

  uniform as yet, looking very shy in a pair of blue trousers, with a

  glittering stripe of silver down the seams. Clive looks with wonder and

  delight at these ravishing ladies, rustling in fresh brocades, with

  feathers, diamonds, and every magnificence. Aunt Anne has not her Court

  dress on as yet; and Aunt Maria blushes as she beholds the new comers,

  having thought fit to attire herself in a high dress, with a Quaker-like

  simplicity, and a pair of gloves more than ordinarily dingy. The pretty

  little foot she has, it is true, and sticks it out from habit; but what

  is Mrs. Newcome's foot compared with that sweet little chaussure which

  Miss Baughton exhibits and withdraws? The shiny white satin slipper, the

  pink stocking which ever and anon peeps from the rustling folds of her

  robe, and timidly retires into its covert--that foot, light as it is,

  crushes Mrs. Newcome.

  No wonder she winces, and is angry; there are some mischievous persons

  who rather like to witness that discomfiture. All Mr. Smee's flatteries

  that day failed to soothe her. She was in the state in which his

  canvasses sometimes are, when he cannot paint on them.

  What happened to her alone in the drawing-room, when the ladies invited

  to the dinner had departed, and those convoked to the soiree began to

  arrive,--what happened to her or to them I do not like to think. The

  Gandishes arrived first. Boadicea and the angels. We judged from the fact

  that young Mr. Gandish came blushing in to the dessert. Name after name

  was announced of persons of whom Mrs. Newcome knew nothing. The young and

  the old, the pretty and homely, they were all in their best dresses, and

  no doubt stared at Mrs. Newcome, so obstinately plain in her attire. When

  we came upstairs from dinner, we found her seated entirely by herself,

  tapping her fan at the fireplace. Timid groups of persons were round

  about, waiting for the irruption of the gentlemen, until the pleasure

  should begin. Mr. Newcome, who came upstairs yawning, was heard to say to

  his wife, "Oh, dam, let's cut!" And they went downstairs, and waited

  until their carriage had arrived, when they quitted Fitzroy Square.

  Mr. Barnes Newcome presently arrived, looking particularly smart and

  lively, with a large flower in his button-hole, and leaning on the arm of

  a friend. "How do you do, Pendennis?" he says, with a peculiarly

  dandified air. "Did you dine here? You look as if you dined here" (and

  Barnes, certainly, as if he had dined elsewhere). "I was only asked to

  the cold soiree. Who did you have for dinner? You had my mamma and the

  Baughtons, and my uncle and aunt, I know, for they are down below in the

  library, waiting for the carriage: he is asleep, and she is as sulky as a

  bear."

  "Why did Mrs. Newcome say I should find nobody I knew up here?" asks

  Barnes's companion. "On the contrary, there are lots of fellows I know.

  There's Fred Bayham, dancing like a harlequin. There's old Gandish, who

  used to be my drawing-master; and my Brighton friends, your uncle and

  cousin, Barnes. What relations are they to me? must be some relations.

  Fine fellow your cousin."

  "Hm," growls Barnes. "Very fine boy,--not spirited at all,--not fond of

  flattery,--not surrounded by toadies,--not fond of drink,--delightful

  boy! See yonder, the young fellow is in conversation with his most

  intimate friend, a little crooked fellow, with long hair. Do you know who

  he is? he is the son of old Todmoreton's butler. Upon my life it's true."

  "And suppose it is; what the deuce do I care!" cries Lord Kew. "Who can

  be more respectable than a butler? A man must be somebody's son. When I

  am a middle-aged man, I hope humbly I shall look like a butler myself.

  Suppose you were to put ten of Gunter's men into the House of Lords, do

  you mean to say that they would not look as well as any average ten peers

  in the house? Look at Lord Westcot; he is exactly like a butler that's

  why the country has such confidence in him. I never dine with him but I

  fancy he ought to be at the sideboard. Here comes that insufferable

  little old Smee. How do you do, Mr. Smee?"

  Mr. Smee smiles his sweetest smile. With his rings, diamond shirt-studs,

  and red velvet waistcoat, there are few more elaborate middle-aged bucks

  than Alfred Smee. "How do you do, my dear lord?" cries the bland one.

  "Who would ever have thought of seeing your lordship here?"

  "Why the deuce not, Mr. Smee?" asks Lord Kew, abruptly. "Is it wrong to

  come here? I have been in the house only five minutes, and three people

  have said the same thing
to me--Mrs. Newcome, who is sitting downstairs

  in a rage waiting for her carriage, the condescending Barnes, and

  yourself. Why do you come here, Since? How are you, Mr. Gandish? How do

  the fine arts go?"

  "Your lordship's kindness in asking for them will cheer them if anything

  will," says Mr. Gandish. "Your noble family has always patronised them. I

  am proud to be reckonised by your lordship in this house, where the

  distinguished father of one of my pupils entertains us this evening. A

  most promising young man is young Mr. Clive--talents for a hamateur

  really most remarkable."

  "Excellent, upon my word--excellent," cries Mr. Smee. "I'm not an animal

  painter myself, and perhaps don't think much of that branch of the

  profession; but it seems to me the young fellow draws horses with the

  most wonderful spirit. I hope Lady Walham is very well, and that she was

  satisfied with her son's portrait. Stockholm, I think, your brother is

  appointed to? I wish I might be allowed to paint the elder as well as the

  younger brother, my lord."

  "I am an historical painter; but whenever Lord Kew is painted I hope his

  lordship will think of the old servant of his lordship's family, Charles

  Gandish," cries the Professor.

  "I am like Susannah between the two Elders," says Lord Kew. "Let my

  innocence alone, Smee. Mr. Gandish, don't persecute my modesty with your

  addresses. I won't be painted. I am not a fit subject for a historical

  painter, Mr. Gandish."

  "Halcibiades sat to Praxiteles, and Pericles to Phridjas," remarks

  Gandish.

  "The cases are not quite similar," says Lord Kew, languidly. "You are no

  doubt fully equal to Praxiteles; but I don't see my resemblance to the

  other party. I should not look well as a hero, and Smee could not paint

  me handsome enough."

  "I would try, my dear lord," cries Mr. Smee.

  "I know you would, my dear fellow," Lord Kew answered, looking at the

  painter with a lazy scorn in his eyes. "Where is Colonel Newcome, Mr.

  Gandish?" Mr. Gandish replied that our gallant host was dancing a

  quadrille in the next room; and the young gentleman walked on towards

  that apartment to pay his respects to the giver of the evening's

  entertainment.

  Newcome's behaviour to the young peer was ceremonious, but not in the

  least servile. He saluted the other's superior rank, not his person, as

  he turned the guard out for a general officer. He never could be brought

  to be otherwise than cold and grave in his behaviour to John James; nor

  was it without difficulty, when young Ridley and his son became pupils at

  Gandish's, he could be induced to invite the former to his parties. "An

  artist is any man's equal," he said. "I have no prejudice of that sort;

  and think that Sir Joshua Reynolds and Doctor Johnson were fit company

  for any person, of whatever rank. But a young man whose father may have

  had to wait behind me at dinner, should not be brought into my company."

  Clive compromises the dispute with a laugh. "First," says he, "I will

  wait till I am asked; and then I promise I will not go to dine with Lord

  Todmoreton."

  CHAPTER XX

  Contains more Particulars of the Colonel and his Brethren

  Clive's amusements, studies, or occupations, such as they were, filled

  his day pretty completely, and caused the young gentleman's time to pass

  rapidly and pleasantly, his father, it must be owned, had no such

  resources, and the good Colonel's idleness hung heavily upon him. He

  submitted very kindly to this infliction, however, as he would have done

  to any other for Clive's sake; and though he may have wished himself back

  with his regiment again, and engaged in the pursuits in which his life

  had been spent, he chose to consider these desires as very selfish and

  blameable on his part, and sacrificed them resolutely for his son's