The Newcomes

by William Makepeace Thackeray

talents, and spoke of him--was it not disrespectful?--as a manager would

  of a successful tragedian. Let us pardon Sherrick: he had been in the

  theatrical way. "That Irishman was no go at all," he whispered to Mr.

  Newcome, "got rid of him,--let's see, at Michaelmas."

  On account of Clive's tender years, and natural levity, a little

  inattention may be allowed to the youth, who certainly looked about him

  very eagerly during the service. The house was filled by the ornamental

  classes, the bonnets of the newest Parisian fashion. Away in a darkling

  corner, under the organ, sate a squad of footmen. Surely that powdered

  one in livery wore Lady Kew's colours? So Clive looked under all the

  bonnets, and presently spied old Lady Kew's face, as grim and yellow as

  her brass knocker, and by it Ethel's beauteous countenance. He dashed out

  of church when the congregation rose to depart. "Stop and see Honeyman,

  won't you?" asked Sherrick, surprised.

  "Yes, yes; come back again," said Clive, and was gone.

  He kept his word, and returned presently. The young Marquis and an

  elderly lady were in Lady Kew's company. Clive had passed close under

  Lady Kew's venerable Roman nose without causing that organ to bow in ever

  so slight a degree towards the ground. Ethel had recognised him with a

  smile and a nod. My lord was whispering one of his noble pleasantries in

  her ear. She laughed at the speech or the speaker. The steps of a fine

  belozenged carriage were let down with a bang. The Yellow One had jumped

  up behind it, by the side of his brother Giant Canary. Lady Kew's

  equipage had disappeared, and Mrs. Canterton's was stopping the way.

  Clive returned to the chapel by the little door near to the Vestiarium.

  All the congregation had poured out by this time. Only two ladies were

  standing near the pulpit; and Sherrick, with his hands rattling his money

  in his pockets, was pacing up and down the aisle.

  "Capital house, Mr. Newcome, wasn't it? I counted no less than fourteen

  nobs. The Princess of Moncontour and her husband, I suppose, that chap

  with the beard, who yawns so during the sermon. I'm blessed, if I didn't

  think he'd have yawned his head off. Countess of Kew, and her daughter;

  Countess of Canterton, and the Honourable Miss Fetlock--no, Lady Fetlock.

  A Countess's daughter is a lady, I'm dashed if she ain't. Lady Glenlivat

  and her sons; the most noble the Marquis of Farintosh, and Lord Enry Roy;

  that makes seven--no, nine--with the Prince and Princess.--Julia, my

  dear, you came out like a good un to-day. Never heard you in finer voice.

  Remember Mr. Clive Newcome?"

  Mr. Clive made bows to the ladies, who acknowledged him by graceful

  curtsies. Miss Sherrick was always looking to the vestry-door.

  "How's the old Colonel? The best feller--excuse my calling him a feller--

  but he is, and a good one too. I went to see Mr. Binnie, my other tenant.

  He looks a little yellow about the gills, Mr. Binnie. Very proud woman

  that is who lives with him--uncommon haughty. When will you come down and

  take your mutton in the Regent's Park, Mr. Clive? There's some tolerable

  good wine down there. Our reverend gent drops in and takes a glass, don't

  he, missis?"

  "We shall be most 'appy to see Mr. Newcome, I'm sure," says the handsome

  and good-natured Mrs. Sherrick. "Won't we, Julia?"

  "Oh, certainly," says Julia, who seems rather absent. And behold, at this

  moment the reverend gent enters from the vestry. Both the ladies run

  towards him, holding forth their hands.

  "Oh, Mr. Honeyman! What a sermon! Me and Julia cried so up in the

  organ-loft; we thought you would have heard us. Didn't we, Julia?"

  "Oh, yes," says Julia, whose hand the pastor is now pressing.

  "When you described the young man, I thought of my poor boy, didn't I,

  Julia?" cries the mother, with tears streaming down her face.

  "We had a loss more than ten years ago," whispers Sherrick to Clive

  gravely. "And she's always thinking of it. Women are so."

  Clive was touched and pleased by this exhibition of kind feeling.

  "You know his mother was an Absalom," the good wife continues, pointing

  to her husband. "Most respectable diamond merchants in----"

  "Hold your tongue, Betsy, and leave my poor old mother alone; do now,"

  says Mr. Sherrick darkly. Clive is in his uncle's fond embrace by this

  time, who rebukes him for not having called in Walpole Street.

  "Now, when will you two gents come up to my shop to 'ave a family

  dinner?" asks Sherrick.

  "Ah, Mr. Newcome, do come," says Julia in her deep rich voice, looking up

  to him with her great black eyes. And if Clive had been a vain fellow

  like some folks, who knows but he might have thought he had made an

  impression on the handsome Julia?

  "Thursday, now make it Thursday, if Mr. H. is disengaged. Come along,

  girls, for the flies bites the ponies when they're a-standing still and

  makes 'em mad this weather. Anything you like for dinner? Cut of salmon

  and cucumber? No, pickled salmon's best this weather."

  "Whatever you give me, you know I'm thankful!" says Honeyman, in a sweet

  sad voice, to the two ladies, who were standing looking at him, the

  mother's hand clasped in the daughter's.

  "Should you like that Mendelssohn for the Sunday after next? Julia sings

  it splendid!"

  "No, I don't, ma."

  "You do, dear! She's a good, good dear, Mr. H., that's what she is."

  "You must not call--a--him, in that way. Don't say Mr. H., ma," says

  Julia.

  "Call me what you please!" says Charles, with the most heart-rending

  simplicity; and Mrs. Sherrick straightway kisses her daughter. Sherrick

  meanwhile has been pointing out the improvement of the chapel to Clive

  (which now has indeed a look of the Gothic Hall at Rosherville), and has

  confided to him the sum for which he screwed the painted window out of

  old Moss. "When he come to see it up in this place, sir, the old man was

  mad, I give you my word! His son ain't no good: says he knows you. He's

  such a screw, that chap, that he'll overreach himself, mark my words. At

  least, he'll never die rich. Did you ever hear of me screwing? No, I

  spend my money like a man. How those girls are a-goin' on about their

  music with Honeyman! I don't let 'em sing in the evening, or him do duty

  more than once a day; and you can calc'late how the music draws, because

  in the evenin' there ain't half the number of people here. Rev. Mr.

  Journyman does the duty now--quiet Hogford man--ill, I suppose, this

  morning. H. sits in his pew, where we was; and coughs; that's to say, I

  told him to cough. The women like a consumptive parson, sir. Come, gals!"

  Clive went to his uncle's lodgings, and was received by Mr. and Mrs.

  Ridley with great glee and kindness. Both of those good people had made

  it a point to pay their duty to Mr. Clive immediately on his return to

  England, and thank him over and over again for his kindness to John

  James. Never, never would they forget his goodness, and the Colonel's,

  they were sure. A cake, a heap of biscuits, a pyramid of jams, six

  frizzling mutton-chops, and four kinds of hot wine, came b
ustling up to

  Mr. Honeyman's room twenty minutes after Clive had entered it,--as a

  token of the Ridleys' affection for him.

  Clive remarked, with a smile, the Pall Mall Gazette upon a side-table,

  and in the chimney-glass almost as many cards as in the time of

  Honeyman's early prosperity. That he and his uncle should be very

  intimate together, was impossible, from the nature of the two men; Clive

  being frank, clear-sighted, and imperious; Charles, timid, vain, and

  double-faced, conscious that he was a humbug, and that most people found

  him out, so that he would quiver and turn away, and be more afraid of

  young Clive and his direct straightforward way, than of many older men.

  Then there was the sense of the money transactions between him and the

  Colonel, which made Charles Honeyman doubly uneasy. In fine, they did not

  like each other; but, as he is a connection of the most respectable

  Newcome family, surely he is entitled to a page or two in these their

  memoirs.

  Thursday came, and with it Mr. Sherrick's entertainment, to which also

  Mr. Binnie and his party had been invited to meet Colonel Newcome's son.

  Uncle James and Rosey brought Clive in their carriage; Mrs. Mackenzie

  sent a headache as an apology. She chose to treat Uncle James's landlord

  with a great deal of hauteur, and to be angry with her brother for

  visiting such a person. "In fact, you see how fond I must be of dear

  little Rosey, Clive, that I put up with all mamma's tantrums for her

  sake," remarks Mr. Binnie.

  "Oh, uncle!" says little Rosey, and the old gentleman stopped her

  remonstrances with a kiss.

  "Yes," says he, "your mother does have tantrums, miss; and though you

  never complain, there's no reason why I shouldn't. You will not tell on

  me" (it was "Oh, uncle!" again); "and Clive won't, I am sure.--This

  little thing, sir," James went on, holding Rosey's pretty little hand and

  looking fondly in her pretty little face, "is her old uncle's only

  comfort in life. I wish I had had her out to India to me, and never come

  back to this great dreary town of yours. But I was tempted home by Tom

  Newcome; and I'm too old to go back, sir. Where the stick falls let it

  lie. Rosey would have been whisked out of my house, in India, in a month

  after I had her there. Some young fellow would have taken her away from

  me; and now she has promised never to leave her old Uncle James, hasn't

  she?"

  "No, never, uncle," said Rosey.

  "We don't want to fall in love, do we, child? We don't want to be

  breaking our hearts like some young folks, and dancing attendance at

  balls night after night, and capering about in the Park to see if we can

  get a glimpse of the beloved object, eh, Rosey?"

  Rosey blushed. It was evident that she and Uncle James both knew of

  Clive's love affair. In fact, the front seat and back seat of the

  carriage both blushed. And as for the secret, why Mrs. Mackenzie and Mrs.

  Hobson had talked it a hundred times over.

  "This little Rosey, sir, has promised to take care of me on this side of

  Styx," continued Uncle James; "and if she could but be left alone and to

  do it without mamma--there, I won't say a word more against her--we

  should get on none the worse."

  "Uncle James, I must make a picture of you, for Rosey," said Clive,

  good-humouredly. And Rosey said, "Oh, thank you, Clive," and held out

  that pretty little hand, and looked so sweet and kind and happy, that

  Clive could not but be charmed at the sight of so much innocence and

  candour.

  "Quasty peecoly Rosiny," says James, in a fine Scotch Italian, "e la piu

  bella, la piu cara, ragazza ma la mawdry e il diav----"

  "Don't, uncle!" cried Rosey, again; and Clive laughed at Uncle James's

  wonderful outbreak in a foreign tongue.

  "Eh! I thought ye didn't know a word of the sweet language, Rosey! It's

  just the Lenguy Toscawny in Bocky Romawny that I thought to try in

  compliment to this young monkey who has seen the world." And by this time

  Saint John's Wood was reached, and Mr. Sherrick's handsome villa, at the

  door of which the three beheld the Rev. Charles Honeyman stepping out of

  a neat brougham.

  The drawing-room contained several pictures of Mrs. Sherrick when she was

  in the theatrical line; Smee's portrait of her, which was never half

  handsome enugh--for my Betsy, Sherrick said indignantly; the print of her

  in Artaxerxes, with her signature as Elizabeth Folthorpe (not in truth a

  fine specimen of calligraphy) the testimonial presented to her on the

  conclusion of the triumphal season of 18--, at Drury Lane, by her ever

  grateful friend Adolphus Smacker, Lessee, who, of course, went to law

  with her next year; and other Thespian emblems. But Clive remarked, with

  not a little amusement, that the drawing-room tables were now covered

  with a number of those books which he had seen at Madame de Moncontour's,

  and many French and German ecclesiastical gimcracks, such as are familiar

  to numberless readers of mine. These were the Lives of St. Botibol of

  Islington and St. Willibald of Bareacres, with pictures of those

  confessors. Then there was the Legend of Margery Dawe, Virgin and Martyr,

  with a sweet double frontispiece, representing (1) the sainted woman

  selling her feather-bed for the benefit of the poor; and (2) reclining

  upon straw, the leanest of invalids. There was Old Daddy Longlegs, and

  how he was brought to say his Prayers; a Tale for Children, by a Lady,

  with a preface dated St. Chad's Eve, and signed "C. H." The Rev. Charles

  Honeyman's Sermons, delivered at Lady Whittlesea's Chapel. Poems of Early

  Days, by Charles Honeyman, A.M. The Life of good Dame Whittlesea, by do.

  do. Yes, Charles had come out in the literary line; and there in a basket

  was a strip of Berlin work, of the very same Gothic pattern which Madame

  de Moncontour was weaving; and which you afterwards saw round the pulpit

  of Charles's chapel. Rosey was welcomed most kindly by the kind ladies;

  and as the gentlemen sat over their wine after dinner in the summer

  evening, Clive beheld Rosey and Julia pacing up and down the lawn, Miss

  Julia's arm around her little friend's waist: he thought they would make

  a pretty little picture.

  "My girl ain't a bad one to look at, is she?" said the pleased father. "A

  fellow might look far enough, and see not prettier than them two."

  Charles sighed out that there was a German print, the "Two Leonoras,"

  which put him in mind of their various styles of beauty.

  "I wish I could paint them," said Clive.

  "And why not, sir?" asks his host. "Let me give you your first commission

  now, Mr Clive; I wouldn't mind paying a good bit for a picture of my

  Julia. I forget how much old Smee got for Betsy's, the old humbug!"

  Clive said it was not the will, but the power that was deficient. He

  succeeded with men, but the ladies were too much for him as yet.

  "Those you've done up at Albany Street Barracks are famous: I've seen

  'em," said Mr. Sherrick; and remarking that his guest looked rather

  surprised at the idea of his being in such company, Sherrick said, "What,
<
br />   you think they are too great swells for me? Law bless you, I often go

  there. I've business with several of 'em; had with Captain Belsize, with

  the Earl of Kew, who's every inch the gentleman--one of nature's

  aristocracy, and paid up like a man. The Earl and me has had many

  dealings together:"

  Honeyman smiled faintly, and nobody complying with Mr. Sherrick's

  boisterous entreaties to drink more, the gentlemen quitted the

  dinner-table, which had been served in a style of prodigious splendour,

  and went to the drawing-room for a little music.

  This was all of the gravest and best kind; so grave indeed, that James

  Binnie might be heard in a corner giving an accompaniment of little

  snores to the singers and the piano. But Rosey was delighted with the

  performance, and Sherrick remarked to Clive, "That's a good gal, that is;

  I like that gal; she ain't jealous of Julia cutting her out in the music,

  but listens as pleased as any one. She's a sweet little pipe of her own,

  too. Miss Mackenzie, if ever you like to go to the opera, send a word

  either to my West End or my City office. I've boxes every week, and

  you're welcome to anything I can give you."

  So all agreed that the evening had been a very pleasant one; and they of

  Fitzroy Square returned home talking in a most comfortable friendly way--

  that is, two of them, for Uncle James fell asleep again, taking

  possession of the back seat; and Clive and Rosey prattled together. He

  had offered to try and take all the young ladies' likenesses. "You know

  what a failure the last was, Rosey?"--he had very nearly said "dear

  Rosey."

  "Yes, but Miss Sherrick is so handsome, that you will succeed better with

  her than with my round face, Mr. Newcome."

  "Mr. What?" cries Clive.

  "Well, Clive, then," says Rosey, in a little voice.

  He sought for a little hand which was not very far away. "You know we are

  like brother and sister, dear Rosey?" he said this time.

  "Yes," said she, and gave a little pressure of the hand. And then Uncle

  James woke up; and it seemed as if the whole drive didn't occupy a

  minute, and they shook hands very very kindly at the door of Fitzroy

  Square.

  Clive made a famous likeness of Miss Sherrick, with which Mr. Sherrick

  was delighted, and so was Mr. Honeyman, who happened to call upon his

  nephew once or twice when the ladies happened to be sitting. Then Clive

  proposed to the Rev. Charles Honeyman to take his head off; and made an

  excellent likeness in chalk of his uncle--that one, in fact, from which

  the print was taken which you may see any day at Hogarth's, in the

  Haymarket, along with a whole regiment of British divines. Charles became

  so friendly, that he was constantly coming to Charlotte Street, once or

  twice a week.

  Mr. and Mrs. Sherrick came to look at the drawing, were charmed with it;

  and when Rosey was sitting, they came to see her portrait, which again

  was not quite so successful. One Monday, the Sherricks and Honeyman too

  happened to call to see the picture of Rosey, who trotted over with her

  uncle to Clive's studio, and they all had a great laugh at a paragraph in

  the Pall Mall Gazette, evidently from F. B.'s hand, to the following

  effect:--

  "Conversion In High Life.--A foreign nobleman of princely rank, who has

  married an English lady, and has resided among us for some time, is

  likely, we hear and trust, to join the English Church. The Prince de

  M-nc-nt-r has been a constant attendant at Lady Whittlesea's Chapel, of

  which the Rev. C. Honeyman is the eloquent incumbent; and it is said this

  sound and talented divine has been the means of awakening the prince to a

  sense of the erroneous doctrines in which he has been bred. His ancestors