The Newcomes

by William Makepeace Thackeray

dies, unless Lord Campion leaves the money to the convent where his

  daughter is--and, of the other families, who is there? I made every

  inquiry purposely--that is, of course, one is anxious to know about the

  Catholics as about one's own people: and little Mr. Rood, who was one of

  my poor brother Steyne's lawyers, told me there is not one young man of

  that party at this moment who can be called a desirable person. Be very

  civil to Madame de Florac; she sees some of the old legitimists, and you

  know I am brouillee with that party of late years."

  "There is the Marquis de Montluc, who has a large fortune for France,"

  said Ethel, gravely; "he has a humpback, but he is very spiritual.

  Monsieur de Cadillan paid me some compliments the other night, and even

  asked George Barnes what my dot was, He is a widower, and has a wig and

  two daughters. Which do you think would be the greatest encumbrance,

  grandmamma,--a humpback, or a wig and two daughters? I like Madame de

  Florac; for the sake of the borough, I must try and like poor Madame de

  Moncontour, and I will go and see them whenever you please."

  So Ethel went to see Madame de Florac. She was very kind to Madame de

  Preville's children, Madame de Florac's grandchildren; she was gay and

  gracious with Madame de Moncontour. She went again and again to the Hotel

  de Florac, not caring for Lady Kew's own circle of statesmen and

  diplomatists, Russian, and Spanish, and French, whose talk about the

  courts of Europe,--who was in favour at St. Petersburg, and who was in

  disgrace at Schoenbrunn,--naturally did not amuse the lively young

  person. The goodness of Madame de Florac's life, the tranquil grace and

  melancholy kindness with which the French lady received her, soothed and

  pleased Miss Ethel. She came and reposed in Madame de Florac's quiet

  chamber, or sate in the shade in the sober old garden of her hotel; away

  from all the trouble and chatter of the salons, the gossip of the

  embassies, the fluttering ceremonial of the Parisian ladies' visits in

  their fine toilettes, the fadaises of the dancing dandies, and the

  pompous mysteries of the old statesmen who frequented her grandmother's

  apartment. The world began for her at night; when she went in the train

  of the old Countess from hotel to hotel, and danced waltz after waltz

  with Prussian and Neapolitan secretaries, with princes' officers of

  ordonnance,--with personages even more lofty very likely,--for the court

  of the Citizen King was then in its splendour; and there must surely have

  been a number of nimble young royal highnesses who would like to dance

  with such a beauty as Miss Newcome. The Marquis of Farintosh had a share

  in these polite amusements. His English conversation was not brilliant as

  yet, although his French was eccentric; but at the court balls, whether

  he appeared in his uniform of the Scotch Archers, or in his native

  Glenlivat tartar there certainly was not in his own or the public

  estimation a handsomer young nobleman in Paris that season. It has been

  said that he was greatly improved in dancing; and, for a young man of his

  age, his whiskers were really extraordinarily large and curly.

  Miss Newcome, out of consideration for her grandmother's strange

  antipathy to him, did not inform Lady Kew that a young gentleman by the

  name of Clive occasionally came to visit the Hotel de Florac. At first,

  with her French education, Madame de Florac never would have thought of

  allowing the cousins to meet in her house; but with the English it was

  different. Paul assured her that in the English chateaux, les meess

  walked for entire hours with the young men, made parties of the fish,

  mounted to horse with them, the whole with the permission of the mothers.

  "When I was at Newcome, Miss Ethel rode with me several times," Paul

  said; "a preuve that we went to visit an old relation of the family, who

  adores Clive and his father." When Madame de Florac questioned her son

  about the young Marquis to whom it was said Ethel was engaged, Florac

  flouted the idea. "Engaged! This young Marquis is engaged to the Theatre

  des Varietes, my mother. He laughs at the notion of an engagement." When

  one charged him with it of late at the club; and asked how Mademoiselle

  Louqsor--she is so tall, that they call her the Louqsor--she is an

  Odalisque Obelisque, ma mere; when one asked how the Louqsor would pardon

  his pursuit of Miss Newcome, my Ecossois permitted himself to say in full

  club, that it was Miss Newcome pursued him,--that nymph, that Diane, that

  charming and peerless young creature! On which, as the others laughed,

  and his friend Monsieur Walleye applauded, I dared to say in my turn,

  "Monsieur le Marquis, as a young man, not familiar with our language, you

  have said what is not true, milor, and therefore luckily not mischievous.

  I have the honour to count of my friends the parents of the young lady of

  whom you have spoken. You never could have intended to say that a young

  miss who lives under the guardianship of her parents, and is obedient to

  them, whom you meet in society all the nights, and at whose door your

  carriage is to be seen every day, is capable of that with which you

  charge her so gaily. These things say themselves, monsieur, in the

  coulisses of the theatre, of women from whom you learn our language; not

  of young persons pure and chaste, Monsieur de Farintosh! Learn to respect

  your compatriots; to honour youth and innocence everywhere, monsieur! and

  when you forget yourself, permit one who might be your father to point

  where you are wrong."

  "And what did he answer?" asked the Countess.

  "I attended myself to a soufflet," replied Florac; "but his reply was

  much more agreeable. The young insulary, with many blushes and a gros

  juron, as his polite way is, said he had not wished to say a word against

  that person. 'Of whom the name,' cried I, 'ought never to be spoken in

  these places.' Herewith our little dispute ended."

  So, occasionally, Mr. Clive had the good luck to meet with his cousin at

  the Hotel de Florac, where, I dare say, all the inhabitants wished he

  should have his desire regarding this young lady. The Colonel had talked

  early to Madame de Florac about this wish of his life, impossible then to

  gratify, because Ethel was engaged to Lord Kew. Clive, in the fulness of

  his heart, imparted his passion to Florac, and in answer to Paul's offer

  to himself, had shown the Frenchman that kind letter in which his father

  bade him carry aid to "Leonore de Florac's son," in case he should need

  it. The case was all clear to the lively Paul. "Between my mother and

  your good Colonel there must have been an affair of the heart in the

  early days during the emigration." Clive owned his father had told him as

  much, at least that he himself had been attached to Mademoiselle de

  Blois. "It is for that that her heart yearns towards thee, that I have

  felt myself entrained toward thee since I saw thee"--Clive momentarily

  expected to be kissed again. "Tell thy father that I feel--am touched by

  his goodness with an eternal gratitude, and love every one that loves my

  mother." As far as wishes
went, these two were eager promoters of Clive's

  little love-affair; and Madame la Princesse became equally not less

  willing. Clive's good looks and good-nature had had their effects upon

  that good-natured woman, and he was as great a favourite with her as with

  her husband. And thus it happened that when Miss Ethel came to pay her

  visit, and sate with Madame de Florac and her grandchildren in the

  garden, Mr. Newcome would sometimes walk up the avenue there, and salute

  the ladies.

  If Ethel had not wanted to see him, would she have come? Yes; she used to

  say she was going to Madame de Preville's, not Madame de Florac's, and

  would insist, I have no doubt, that it was Madame de Preville whom she

  went to see (whose husband was a member of the Chamber of Deputies, a

  Conseiller d'etat; or other French bigwig), and that she had no idea of

  going to meet Clive, or that he was more than a casual acquaintance at

  the Hotel de Florac. There was no part of her conduct in all her life,

  which this lady, when it was impugned, would defend more strongly than

  this intimacy at the Hotel de Florac. It is not with this I quarrel

  especially. My fair young readers, who have seen a half-dozen of seasons,

  can you call to mind the time when you had such a friendship for Emma

  Tomkins, that you were always at the Tomkins's, and notes were constantly

  passing between your house and hers? When her brother, Paget Tomkins,

  returned to India, did not your intimacy with Emma fall off? If your

  younger sister is not in the room, I know you will own as much to me. I

  think you are always deceiving yourselves and other people. I think the

  motive you put forward is very often not the real one; though you will

  confess, neither to yourself, nor to any human being, what the real

  motive is. I think that what you desire you pursue, and are as selfish in

  your way as your bearded fellow-creatures are. And as for the truth being

  in you, of all the women in a great acquaintance, I protest there are

  but--never mind. A perfectly honest woman, a woman who never flatters,

  who never manages, who never cajoles, who never conceals, who never uses

  her eyes, who never speculates on the effect which she produces, who

  never is conscious of unspoken admiration, what a monster, I say, would

  such a female be! Miss Hopkins, you have been a coquette since you were a

  year old; you worked on your papa's friends in the nurse's arms by the

  fascination of your lace frock and pretty new sash and shoes; when you

  could just toddle, you practised your arts upon other children in the

  square, poor little lambkins sporting among the daisies; and nunc in

  ovilia, mox in reluctantes dracones, proceeding from the lambs to

  reluctant dragoons, you tried your arts upon Captain Paget Tomkins, who

  behaved so ill, and went to India without--without making those proposals

  which of course you never expected. Your intimacy was with Emma. It has

  cooled. Your sets are different. The Tomkins's are not quite etc. etc.

  You believe Captain Tomkins married a Miss O'Grady, etc. etc. Ah, my

  pretty, my sprightly Miss Hopkins, be gentle in your judgment of your

  neighbours!

  CHAPTER XLVII

  Contains two or three Acts of a Little Comedy

  All this story is told by one, who, if he was not actually present at the

  circumstances here narrated, yet had information concerning them, and

  could supply such a narrative of facts and conversations as is, indeed,

  not less authentic than the details we have of other histories. How can I

  tell the feelings in a young lady's mind; the thoughts in a young

  gentleman's bosom?--As Professor Owen or Professor Agassiz takes a

  fragment of a bone, and builds an enormous forgotten monster out of it,

  wallowing in primeval quagmires, tearing down leaves and branches of

  plants that flourished thousands of years ago, and perhaps may be coal by

  this time--so the novelist puts this and that together: from the

  footprint finds the foot; from the foot, the brute who trod on it; from

  the brute, the plant he browsed on, the marsh in which he swam--and thus

  in his humble way a physiologist too, depicts the habits, size,

  appearance of the beings whereof he has to treat;--traces this slimy

  reptile through the mud, and describes his habits filthy and rapacious;

  prods down this butterfly with a pin, and depicts his beautiful coat and

  embroidered waistcoat; points out the singular structure of yonder more

  important animal, the megatherium of his history.

  Suppose then, in the quaint old garden of the Hotel de Florac, two young

  people are walking up and down in an avenue of lime-trees, which are

  still permitted to grow in that ancient place. In the centre of that

  avenue is a fountain, surmounted by a Triton so grey and moss-eaten, that

  though he holds his conch to his swelling lips, curling his tail in the

  arid basin, his instrument has had a sinecure for at least fifty years;

  and did not think fit even to play when the Bourbons, in whose time he

  was erected, came back from their exile. At the end of the lime-tree

  avenue is a broken-nosed damp Faun, with a marble panpipe, who pipes to

  the spirit ditties which I believe never had any tune. The perron of the

  hotel is at the other end of the avenue; a couple of Caesars on either

  side of the door-window, from which the inhabitants of the hotel issue

  into the garden--Caracalla frowning over his mouldy shoulder at Nerva, on

  to whose clipped hair the roofs of the grey chateau have been dribbling

  for ever so many long years. There are more statues gracing this noble

  place. There is Cupid, who has been at the point of kissing Psyche this

  half-century at least, though the delicious event has never come off,

  through all those blazing summers and dreary winters: there is Venus and

  her Boy under the damp little dome of a cracked old temple. Through the

  alley of this old garden, in which their ancestors have disported in

  hoops and powder, Monsieur de Florac's chair is wheeled by St. Jean, his

  attendant; Madame de Preville's children trot about, and skip, and play

  at cache-cache. The R. P. de Florac (when at home) paces up and down and

  meditates his sermons; Madame de Florac sadly walks sometimes to look at

  her roses; and Clive and Ethel Newcome are marching up and down; the

  children, and their bonne of course being there, jumping to and fro; and

  Madame de Florac, having just been called away to Monsieur le Comte,

  whose physician has come to see him.

  Ethel says, "How charming and odd this solitude is: and how pleasant to

  hear the voices of the children playing in the neighbouring Convent

  garden," of which they can see the new chapel rising over the trees.

  Clive remarks that "the neighbouring hotel has curiously changed its

  destination. One of the members of the Directory had it; and, no doubt,

  in the groves of its garden, Madame Tallien, and Madame Recamier, and

  Madame Beauharnais have danced under the lamps. Then a Marshal of the

  Empire inhabited it. Then it was restored to its legitimate owner,

  Monsieur le Marquis de Bricquabracque, whose descendants, having a

  lawsuit about t
he Bricquabracque succession, sold the hotel to the

  Convent."

  After some talk about nuns, Ethel says, "There were convents in England.

  She often thinks she would like to retire to one;" and she sighs as if

  her heart were in that scheme.

  Clive, with a laugh, says, "Yes. If you could retire after the season,

  when you were very weary of the balls, a convent would be very nice. At

  Rome he had seen San Pietro in Montorio and Sant Onofrio, that delightful

  old place where Tasso died: people go and make a retreat there. In the

  ladies' convents, the ladies do the same thing--and he doubts whether

  they are much more or less wicked after their retreat, than gentlemen and

  ladies in England or France."

  Ethel. Why do you sneer at all faith? Why should not a retreat do people

  good? Do you suppose the world is so satisfactory, that those who are in

  it never wish for a while to leave it'd (She heaves a sigh and looks down

  towards a beautiful new dress of many flounces, which Madame de

  Flouncival, the great milliner, has sent her home that very day.)

  Clive. I do not know what the world is, except from afar off. I am like

  the Peri who looks into Paradise and sees angels within it. I live in

  Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square: which is not within the gates of

  Paradise. I take the gate to be somewhere in Davies Street, leading out

  of Oxford Street into Grosvenor Square. There's another gate in Hay Hill:

  and another in Bruton Street, Bond----

  Ethel. Don't be a goose.

  Clive. Why not? It is as good to be a goose, as to be a lady--no, a

  gentleman of fashion. Suppose I were a Viscount, an Earl, a Marquis, a

  Duke, would you say Goose? No, you would say Swan.

  Ethel. Unkind and unjust!--ungenerous to make taunts which common people

  make: and to repeat to me those silly sarcasms which your low Radical

  literary friends are always putting in their books! Have I ever made any

  difference to you? Would I not sooner see you than the fine people? Would

  I talk with you, or with the young dandies most willingly? Are we not of

  the same blood, Clive; and of all the grandees I see about, can there be

  a grander gentleman than your dear old father? You need not squeeze my

  hand so.--Those little imps are look--that has nothing to do with the

  question. Viens, Leonore! Tu connois bien, monsieur, n'est-ce pas? qui te

  fait de si jolis dessins?

  Leonore. Ah, oui! Vous m'en ferez toujours, n'est-ce pas Monsieur Clive?

  des chevaux, et puis des petites filles avec leurs gouvernantes, et puis

  des maisons--et puis--et puis des maisons encore--ou est bonne maman?

  [Exit little LEONORE down an alley.

  Ethel. Do you remember when we were children, and you used to make

  drawings for us? I have some now that you did--in my geography book,

  which I used to read and read with Miss Quigley.

  Clive. I remember all about our youth, Ethel.

  Ethel. Tell me what you remember?

  Clive. I remember one of the days, when I first saw you, I had been

  reading the Arabian Nights at school--and you came in in a bright dress

  of shot silk, amber, and blue--and I thought you were like that

  fairy-princess who came out of the crystal box--because----

  Ethel. Because why?

  Clive. Because I always thought that fairy somehow must be the most

  beautiful creature in all the world--that is "why and because." Do not

  make me Mayfair curtsies. You know whether you are good-looking or not:

  and how long I have thought you so. I remember when I thought I would

  like to be Ethel's knight, and that if there was anything she would have

  me do, I would try and achieve it in order to please her. I remember when

  I was so ignorant I did not know there was any difference in rank between

  us.

  Ethel. Ah, Clive!