The Newcomes

by William Makepeace Thackeray

were Protestant, and fought by the side of Henry IV. at Ivry. In Louis

  XIV.'s time, they adopted the religion of that persecuting monarch. We

  sincerely trust that the present heir of the house of Ivry will see fit

  to return to the creed which his forefathers so unfortunately abjured."

  The ladies received this news with perfect gravity; and Charles uttered a

  meek wish that it might prove true. As they went away, they offered more

  hospitalities to Clive and Mr. Binnie and his niece. They liked the

  music: would they not come and hear it again?

  When they had departed with Mr. Honeyman, Clive could not help saying to

  Uncle James, "Why are those people always coming here; praising me; and

  asking me to dinner? Do you know, I can't help thinking that they rather

  want me as a pretender for Miss Sherrick?"

  Binnie burst into a loud guffaw, and cried out, "O vanitas vanitawtum!"

  Rosa laughed too.

  "I don't think it any joke at all," said Clive.

  "Why, you stupid lad, don't you see it is Charles Honeyman the girl's in

  love with?" cried Uncle James. "Rosey saw it in the very first instant we

  entered their drawing-room three weeks ago."

  "Indeed, and how?" asked Clive.

  "By--by the way she looked at him," said little Rosey.

  CHAPTER XLV

  A Stag of Ten

  The London season was very nearly come to an end, and Lord Farintosh had

  danced I don't know how many times with Miss Newcome, had drunk several

  bottles of the old Kew port, had been seen at numerous breakfasts,

  operas, races, and public places by the young lady's side, and had not as

  yet made any such proposal as Lady Kew expected for her granddaughter.

  Clive going to see his military friends in the Regent's Park once, and

  finish Captain Butts's portrait in barracks, heard two or three young men

  talking, and one say to another, "I bet you three to two Farintosh don't

  marry her, and I bet you even that he don't ask her." Then as he entered

  Mr. Butts's room, where these gentlemen were conversing, there was a

  silence and an awkwardness. The young fellows were making an "event" out

  of Ethel's marriage, and sporting their money freely on it.

  To have an old countess hunting a young marquis so resolutely that all

  the world should be able to look on and speculate whether her game would

  be run down by that staunch toothless old pursuer--that is an amusing

  sport, isn't it? and affords plenty of fun and satisfaction to those who

  follow the hunt. But for a heroine of a story, be she ever so clever,

  handsome, and sarcastic, I don't think for my part, at this present stage

  of the tale, Miss Ethel Newcome occupies a very dignified position. To

  break her heart in silence for Tomkins who is in love with another; to

  suffer no end of poverty, starvation, capture by ruffians, ill-treatment

  by a bullying husband, loss of beauty by the small-pox, death even at the

  end of the volume; all these mishaps a young heroine must endure (and has

  endured in romances over and over again), without losing the least

  dignity, or suffering any diminution of the sentimental reader's esteem.

  But a girl of great beauty, high temper, and strong natural intellect,

  who submits to be dragged hither and thither in an old grandmother's

  leash, and in pursuit of a husband who will run away from the couple,

  such a person, I say, is in a very awkward position as a heroine; and I

  declare if I had another ready to my hand (and unless there were

  extenuating circumstances) Ethel should be deposed at this very sentence.

  But a novelist must go on with his heroine, as a man with his wife, for

  better or worse, and to the end. For how many years have the Spaniards

  borne with their gracious queen, not because she was faultless, but

  because she was there? So Chambers and grandees cried, God save her.

  Alabarderos turned out: drums beat, cannons fired, and people saluted

  Isabella Segunda, who was no better than the humblest washerwoman of her

  subjects. Are we much better than our neighbours? Do we never yield to

  our peculiar temptation, our pride, or our avarice or our vanity, or what

  not? Ethel is very wrong certainly. But recollect, she is very young. She

  is in other people's hands. She has been bred up and governed by a very

  worldly family, and taught their traditions. We would hardly, for

  instance, the staunchest Protestant in England would hardly be angry with

  poor Isabella Segunda for being a Catholic. So if Ethel worships at a

  certain image which a great number of good folks in England bow to, let

  us not be too angry with her idolatry, and bear with our queen a little

  before we make our pronunciamiento.

  No, Miss Newcome, yours is not a dignified position in life, however you

  may argue that hundreds of people in the world are doing like you. O me!

  what a confession it is, in the very outset of life and blushing

  brightness of youth's morning, to own that the aim with which a young

  girl sets out, and the object of her existence, is to marry a rich man;

  that she was endowed with beauty so that she might buy wealth, and a

  title with it; that as sure as she has a soul to be saved, her business

  here on earth is to try and get a rich husband. That is the career for

  which many a woman is bred and trained. A young man begins the world with

  some aspirations at least; he will try to be good and follow the truth;

  he will strive to win honours for himself, and never do a base action; he

  will pass nights over his books, and forgo ease and pleasure so that he

  may achieve a name. Many a poor wretch who is worn-out now and old, and

  bankrupt of fame and money too, has commenced life at any rate with noble

  views and generous schemes, from which weakness, idleness, passion, or

  overpowering hostile fortune have turned him away. But a girl of the

  world, bon Dieu! the doctrine with which she begins is that she is to

  have a wealthy husband: the article of faith in her catechism is, "I

  believe in elder sons, and a house in town, and a house in the country!"

  They are mercenary as they step fresh and blooming into the world out of

  the nursery. They have been schooled there to keep their bright eyes to

  look only on the prince and the duke, Croesus and Dives. By long cramping

  and careful process, their little natural hearts have been squeezed up,

  like the feet of their fashionable little sisters in China. As you see a

  pauper's child, with an awful premature knowledge of the pawnshop, able

  to haggle at market with her wretched halfpence, and battle bargains at

  hucksters' stalls, you shall find a young beauty, who was a child in the

  schoolroom a year since, as wise and knowing as the old practitioners on

  that exchange; as economical of her smiles, as dexterous in keeping back

  or producing her beautiful wares; as skilful in setting one bidder

  against another; as keen as the smartest merchant in Vanity Fair.

  If the young gentlemen of the Life Guards Green who were talking about

  Miss Newcome and her suitors, were silent when Clive appeared amongst

  them, it was because they were aware not only of his relationship to the

  young lady, but his unhappy condition regarding her. C
ertain men there

  are who never tell their love, but let concealment, like a worm in the

  bud, feed on their damask cheeks; others again must be not always

  thinking, but talking, about the darling object. So it was not very long

  before Captain Crackthorpe was taken into Clive's confidence, and through

  Crackthorpe very likely the whole mess became acquainted with his

  passion. These young fellows, who had been early introduced into the

  world, gave Clive small hopes of success, putting to him, in their

  downright phraseology, the point of which he was already aware, that Miss

  Newcome was intended for his superiors, and that he had best not make his

  mind uneasy by sighing for those beautiful grapes which were beyond his

  reach.

  But the good-natured Crackthorpe, who had a pity for the young painter's

  condition, helped him so far (and gained Clive's warmest thanks for his

  good offices), by asking admission for Clive to entertain evening parties

  of the beau-monde, where he had the gratification of meeting his charmer.

  Ethel was surprised and pleased, and Lady Kew surprised and angry, at

  meeting Clive Newcome at these fashionable houses; the girl herself was

  touched very likely at his pertinacity in following her. As there was no

  actual feud between them, she could not refuse now and again to dance

  with her cousin; and thus he picked up such small crumbs of consolation

  as a youth in his state can get; lived upon six words vouchsafed to him

  in a quadrille, or brought home a glance of the eyes which she had

  presented to him in a waltz, or the remembrance of a squeeze of the hand

  on parting or meeting. How eager he was to get a card to this party or

  that! how attentive to the givers of such entertainments! Some friends of

  his accused him of being a tuft-hunter and flatterer of the aristocracy,

  on account of his politeness to certain people; the truth was, he wanted

  to go wherever Miss Ethel was; and the ball was blank to him which she

  did not attend.

  This business occupied not only one season, but two. By the time of the

  second season, Mr. Newcome had made so many acquaintances that he needed

  few more introductions into society. He was very well known as a

  good-natured handsome young man, and a very good waltzer, the only son of

  an Indian officer of large wealth, who chose to devote himself to

  painting, and who was supposed to entertain an unhappy fondness for his

  cousin the beautiful Miss Newcome. Kind folks who heard of this little

  tendre, and were sufficiently interested in Mr. Clive, asked him to their

  houses in consequence. I dare say those people who were good to him may

  have been themselves at one time unlucky in their own love-affairs.

  When the first season ended without a declaration from my lord, Lady Kew

  carried off her young lady to Scotland, where it also so happened that

  Lord Farintosh was going to shoot, and people made what surmises they

  chose upon this coincidence. Surmises, why not? You who know the world,

  know very well that if you see Mrs. So-and-so's name in the list of

  people at an entertainment, on looking down the list you will presently

  be sure to come on Mr. What-d'-you-call-'em's. If Lord and Lady of

  Suchandsuch Castle, received a distinguished circle (including Lady

  Dash), for Christmas or Easter, without reading farther the names of the

  guests, you may venture on any wager that Captain Asterisk is one of the

  company. These coincidences happen every day; and some people are so

  anxious to meet other people, and so irresistible is the magnetic

  sympathy, I suppose, that they will travel hundreds of miles in the worst

  of weather to see their friends, and break your door open almost,

  provided the friend is inside it.

  I am obliged to own the fact, that for many months Lady Kew hunted after

  Lord Farintosh. This rheumatic old woman went to Scotland, where, as he

  was pursuing the deer, she stalked his lordship: from Scotland she went

  to Paris, where he was taking lessons in dancing at the Chaumiere; from

  Paris to an English country-house, for Christmas, where he was expected,

  but didn't come--not being, his professor said, quite complete in the

  polka, and so on. If Ethel were privy to these manoeuvres, or anything

  more than an unwittingly consenting party, I say we would depose her from

  her place of heroine at once. But she was acting under her grandmother's

  orders, a most imperious, irresistible, managing old woman, who exacted

  everybody's obedience, and managed everybody's business in her family.

  Lady Anne Newcome being in attendance on her sick husband, Ethel was

  consigned to the Countess of Kew, her grandmother, who hinted that she

  should leave Ethel her property when dead, and whilst alive expected the

  girl should go about with her. She had and wrote as many letters as a

  Secretary of State almost. She was accustomed to set off without taking

  anybody's advice, or announcing her departure until within an hour or two

  of the event. In her train moved Ethel, against her own will, which would

  have led her to stay at home with her father, but at the special wish and

  order of her parents. Was such a sum as that of which Lady Kew had the

  disposal (Hobson Brothers knew the amount of it quite well) to be left

  out of the family? Forbid it, all ye powers! Barnes--who would have liked

  the money himself, and said truly that he would live with his grandmother

  anywhere she liked if he could get it,--Barnes joined most energetically

  with Sir Brian and Lady Anne in ordering Ethel's obedience to Lady Kew.

  You know how difficult it is for one young woman not to acquiesce when

  the family council strongly orders. In fine, I hope there was a good

  excuse for the queen of this history, and that it was her wicked

  domineering old prime minister who led her wrong. Otherwise I say, we

  would have another dynasty. Oh, to think of a generous nature, and the

  world, and nothing but the world, to occupy it!--of a brave intellect,

  and the milliner's bandboxes, and the scandal of the coteries, and the

  fiddle-faddle etiquette of the Court for its sole exercise! of the rush

  and hurry from entertainment to entertainment; of the constant smiles and

  cares of representation; of the prayerless rest at night, and the awaking

  to a godless morrow! This was the course of life to which Fate, and not

  her own fault altogether, had for awhile handed over Ethel Newcome. Let

  those pity her who can feel their own weakness and misgoing; let those

  punish her who are without fault themselves.

  Clive did not offer to follow her to Scotland. he knew quite well that

  the encouragement he had had was only of the smallest; that as a relation

  she received him frankly and kindly enough; but checked him when he would

  have adopted another character. But it chanced that they met in Paris,

  whither he went in the Easter of the ensuing year, having worked to some

  good purpose through the winter, and despatched as on a former occasion

  his three or four pictures, to take their chance at the Exhibition.

  Of these it is our pleasing duty to be able to corroborate to some

  extent, Mr. F. Bayham's fa
vourable report. Fancy sketches and historical

  pieces our young man had eschewed; having convinced himself either that

  be had not an epic genius, or that to draw portraits of his friends, was

  a much easier task than that which he had set himself formerly. Whilst

  all the world was crowding round a pair of J. J,.'s little pictures, a

  couple of chalk heads were admitted into the Exhibition (his great

  picture of Captain Crackthorpe on horseback, in full uniform, I must

  admit was ignominiously rejected), and the friends of the parties had the

  pleasure of recognising in the miniature room, No. 1246, "Picture of an

  Officer,"--viz., Augustus Butts, Esq., of the Life Guards Green; and

  "Portrait of the Rev. Charles Honeyman," No. 1272. Miss Sherrick the

  hangers refused; Mr. Binnie, Clive had spoiled, as usual, in the

  painting; the heads, however, before-named, were voted to be faithful

  likenesses, and executed in a very agreeable and spirited manner. F.

  Bayham's criticism on these performances, it need not be said, was

  tremendous. "Since the days of Michael Angelo you would have thought

  there never had been such drawings." In fact, F. B., as some other critics

  do, clapped his friends so boisterously on the back, and trumpeted their

  merits with such prodigious energy, as to make his friends themselves

  sometimes uneasy.

  Mr. Clive, whose good father was writing home more and more wonderful

  accounts of the Bundelcund Bank, in which he had engaged, and who was

  always pressing his son to draw for more money, treated himself to

  comfortable rooms at Paris, in the very same hotel where the young

  Marquis of Farintosh occupied lodgings much more splendid, and where he

  lived, no doubt, so as to be near the professor, who was still teaching

  his lordship the polka. Indeed, it must be said that Lord Farintosh made

  great progress under this artist, and that he danced very much better in

  his third season than in the first and second years after he had come

  upon the town. From the same instructor the Marquis learned the latest

  novelties in French conversation, the choicest oaths and phrases (for

  which he was famous), so that although his French grammar was naturally

  defective, he was enabled to order a dinner at Philippe's, and to bully a

  waiter, or curse a hackney-coachman with extreme volubility. A young

  nobleman of his rank was received with the distinction which was his due,

  by the French sovereign of that period; and at the Tuileries, and the

  houses of the French nobility, which he visited, Monsieur le Marquis de

  Farintosh excited considerable remark, by the use of some of the phrases

  which his young professor had taught to him. People even went so far as

  to say that the Marquis was an awkward and dull young man, of the very

  worst manners.

  Whereas the young Clive Newcome--and it comforted the poor fellow's heart

  somewhat, and be sure pleased Ethel, who was looking on at his triumphs--

  was voted the most charming young Englishman who had been seen for a long

  time in our salons. Madame de Florac, who loved him as a son of her own,

  actually went once or twice into the world in order to see his debut.

  Madame de Moncontour inhabited a part of the Hotel de Florac, and

  received society there. The French people did not understand what bad

  English she talked, though they comprehended Lord Farintosh's French

  blunders. "Monsieur Newcome is an artist! What a noble career!" cries a

  great French lady, the wife of a Marshal to the astonished Miss Newcome.

  "This young man is the cousin, of the charming mees? You must be proud to

  possess such a nephew, madame!" says another French lady to the Countess

  of Kew (who, you may be sure, is delighted to have such a relative). And

  the French lady invites Clive to her receptions expressly in order to

  make herself agreeable to the old Comtesse. Before the cousins have been