The Newcomes

by William Makepeace Thackeray

last part of this sentence was uttered for Mr. Taplow's benefit, who had

  re-entered the George bearing a tray of wine and biscuit.

  The Master of Rosebury and Mr. Harris went out presently to look at a

  horse which was waiting the former's inspection in the stableyard of the

  hotel. The landlord took advantage of his business, to hear a bell which

  never was rung, and to ask me questions about the guest who had been

  staying at his house for a week past. Did I know that party? Mr.

  Pendennis said, "Yes, he knew that party."

  "Most respectable party, I have no doubt," continues Boniface. "Do you

  suppose the Prince of Moncontour knows any but respectable parties?" asks

  Mr. Pendennis--a query of which the force was so great as to discomfit

  and silence our landlord, who retreated to ask questions concerning Mr.

  Harris of Florac's grooms.

  What was Highgate's business here? Was it mine to know? I might have

  suspicions, but should I entertain them or communicate them, and had I

  not best keep them to myself? I exchanged not a word on the subject of

  Highgate with Florac, as we drove home: though from the way in which we

  looked at one another each saw that the other was acquainted with that

  unhappy gentleman's secret. We fell to talking about Madame la Duchesse

  d'Ivry as we trotted on; and then of English manners by way of contrast,

  of intrigues, elopements, Gretna Grin, etc., etc. "You are a droll

  nation!" says Florac. "To make love well, you must absolutely have a

  chaise-de-poste, and a scandal afterwards. If our affairs of this kind

  made themselves on the grand route, what armies of postillions we should

  need!"

  I held my peace. In that vision of Jack Belsize I saw misery, guilt,

  children dishonoured, homes deserted,--ruin for all the actors and

  victims of the wretched conspiracy. Laura marked my disturbance when we

  reached home. She even divined the cause of it, and charged me with it at

  night, when we sate alone by our dressing-room fire, and had taken leave

  of our kind entertainers. Then, under her cross-examination, I own that I

  told what I had seen--Lord Highgate, under a feigned name staying at

  Newcome. It might be nothing. "Nothing! Gracious heavens! Could not this

  crime and misery be stopped?" "It might be too late," Laura's husband

  said sadly, bending down his head into the fire.

  She was silent too for a while. I could see she was engaged where pious

  women ever will betake themselves in moments of doubt, of grief, of pain,

  of separation, of joy even, or whatsoever other trial. They have but to

  will, and as it were an invisible temple rises round them; their hearts

  can kneel down there; and they have an audience of the great, the

  merciful untiring Counsellor and Consoler. She would not have been

  frightened at Death near at hand. I have known her to tend the poor round

  about us, or to bear pain--not her own merely, but even her children's

  and mine, with a surprising outward constancy and calm. But the idea of

  this crime being enacted close at hand, and no help for it--quite

  overcame her. I believe she lay awake all that night; and rose quite

  haggard and pale after the bitter thoughts which had deprived her of

  rest.

  She embraced her own child with extraordinary tenderness that morning,

  and even wept over it, calling it by a thousand fond names of maternal

  endearment "Would I leave you, my darling--could I ever, ever, ever quit

  you, my blessing, and treasure!" The unconscious little thing, hugged to

  his mother's bosom, and scared at her tones and tragic face, clung

  frightened and weeping round Laura's neck. Would you ask what the

  husband's feelings were as he looked at that sweet love, that sublime

  tenderness, that pure Saint blessing the life of him unworthy? Of all the

  gifts of Heaven to us below, that felicity is the sum and the chief. I

  tremble as I hold it lest I should lose it, and be left alone in the

  blank world without it: again, I feel humiliated to think that I possess

  it; as hastening home to a warm fireside and a plentiful table, I feel

  ashamed sometimes before the poor outcast beggar shivering in the street.

  Breakfast was scarcely over when Laura asked for a pony carriage, and

  said she was bent on a private visit. She took her baby and nurse with

  her. She refused our company, and would not even say whither she was

  bound until she had passed the lodge-gate. I may have suspected what the

  object was of her journey. Florac and I did not talk of it. We rode out

  to meet the hounds of a cheery winter morning: on another day I might

  have been amused with my host--the, splendour of his raiment, the

  neatness of his velvet cap, the gloss of his hunting-boots; the cheers,

  shouts, salutations, to dog and man; the oaths and outcries of this

  Nimrod, who shouted louder than the whole field and the whole pack too--

  but on this morning--I was thinking of the tragedy yonder enacting, and

  came away early from the hunting-field, and found my wife already

  returned to Rosebury.

  Laura had been, as I suspected, to Lady Clara. She did not know why,

  indeed. She scarce knew what she should say when she arrived--how she

  could say what she had in her mind. "I hoped, Arthur, that I should have

  something--something told me to say," whispered Laura, with her head on

  my shoulder; and as I lay awake last night thinking of her, prayed--that

  is, hoped, I might find a word of consolation for that poor lady. Do you

  know, I think she has hardly ever heard a kind word? She said so; she was

  very much affected after we had talked together a little.

  "At first she was very indifferent; cold and haughty in her manner; asked

  what had caused the pleasure of this visit, for I would go in, though at

  the lodge they told me her ladyship was unwell, and they thought received

  no company. I said I wanted to show our boy to her--that the children

  ought to be acquainted--I don't know what I said. She seemed more and

  more surprised--then all of a sudden--I don't know how--I said, 'Lady

  Clara, I have had a dream about you and your children, and I was so

  frightened that I came over to you to speak about it.' And I had the

  dream, Pen; it came to me absolutely as I was speaking to her.

  "She looked a little scared, and I went on telling her the dream. 'My

  dear' I said, 'I dreamed that I saw you happy with those children.'

  "'Happy!' says she--the three were playing in the conservatory into which

  her sitting-room opens.

  "'And that a bad spirit came and tore them from you, and drove you out

  into the darkness; and I saw you wandering about quite lonely and

  wretched, and looking back into the garden where the children were

  playing. And you asked and implored to see them; and the Keeper at the

  gate said 'No, never.' And then--then I thought they passed by you, and

  they did not know you.'

  "'Ah!' said Lady Clara.

  "'And then I thought, as we do in dreams, you know, that it was my child

  who was separated from me, and who would not know me: and oh, what a pang

  that was! Fancy that! Let us pray God it was only a dream. And worse than

  that, wh
en you, when I implored to come to the child, and the man said,

  'No, never,' I thought there came a spirit--an angel that fetched the

  child to heaven, and you said, 'Let me come too; oh, let me come too, I

  am so miserable.' And the angel said, 'No, never, never.'

  "By this time Lady Clara was looking very pale. 'What do you mean?' she

  asked of me," Laura continued.

  "'Oh, dear lady, for the sake of the little ones, and Him who calls them

  to Him, go you with them. Never, never part from them! Cling to His

  knees, and take shelter there.' I took her hands, and I said more to her

  in this way, Arthur, that I need not, that I ought not to speak again.

  But she was touched at length when I kissed her; and she said I was very

  kind to her, and no one had ever been so, and that she was quite alone in

  the world and had no friend to fly to; and would I go and stay with her?

  and I said 'yes;' and we must go, my dear. I think you should see that

  person at Newcome--see him, and warn him," cried Laura, warming as she

  spoke, "and pray God to enlighten and strengthen him, and to keep him

  from this temptation, and implore him to leave this poor, weak,

  frightened, trembling creature; if he has the heart of a gentleman and

  the courage of a man, he will, I know he will."

  "I think he would, my dearest," I said, "if he but heard the petitioner."

  Laura's cheeks were blushing, her eyes brightened, her voice rang with a

  sweet pathos of love that vibrates through my whole being sometimes. It

  seems to me as if evil must give way, and bad thoughts retire before that

  purest creature.

  "Why has she not some of her family with her, poor thing!" my wife

  continued. "She perishes in that solitude. Her husband prevents her, I

  think--and--oh--I know enough of him to know what his life is. I shudder,

  Arthur, to see you take the hand of that wicked, selfish man. You must

  break with him, do you hear, sir?"

  "Before or after going to stay at his house, my love?" asks Mr.

  Pendennis.

  "Poor thing! she lighted up at the idea of any one coming. She ran and

  showed me the rooms we were to have. It will be very stupid; and you

  don't like that. But you can write your book, and still hunt and shoot

  with our friends here. And Lady Anne Newcome must be made to come back

  again. Sir Barnes quarrelled with his mother and drove her out of the

  house on her last visit--think of that! The servants here know it. Martha

  brought me the whole story from the housekeeper's room. This Sir Barnes

  Newcome is a dreadful creature, Arthur. I am so glad I loathed him from

  the very first moment I saw him."

  "And into this ogre's den you propose to put me and my family, madam!"

  says the husband. "Indeed, where won't I go if you order me? Oh, who will

  pack my portmanteau?"

  Florac and the Princess were both in desolation when, at dinner, we

  announced our resolution to go away--and to our neighbours at Newcome!

  that was more extraordinary. "Que diable goest thou to do in this

  galley?" asks our host as we sat alone over our wine.

  But Laura's intended visit to Lady Clara was never to have a fulfilment,

  for on this same evening, as we sate at our dessert, comes a messenger

  from Newcome, with a note for my wife from the lady there:--

  "Dearest, kindest Mrs. Pendennis," Lady Clara wrote, with many italics,

  and evidently in much distress of mind. "Your visit is not to be. I spoke

  about it to Sir B., who arrived this afternoon, and who has already begun

  to treat me in his usual way. Oh, I am so unhappy! Pray, pray do not be

  angry at this rudeness--though indeed it is only a kindness to keep you

  from this wretched place! I feel as if I cannot bear this much longer.

  But, whatever happens, I shall always remember your goodness, your

  beautiful goodness and kindness; and shall worship you as an angel

  deserves to be worshipped. Oh, why had I not such a friend earlier! But

  alas! I have none--only this odious family thrust upon me for companions

  to the wretched, lonely, C. N.

  "P.S.--He does not know of my writing. Do not be surprised if you get

  another note from me in the morning, written in a ceremonious style and

  regretting that we cannot have the pleasure of receiving Mr. and Mrs.

  Pendennis for the present at Newcome.

  "P.S.--The hypocrite!"

  This letter was handed to my wife at dinner-time, and she gave it to me

  as she passed out of the room with the other ladies.

  I told Florac that the Newcomes could not receive us, and that we would

  remain, if he willed it, his guests for a little longer. The kind fellow

  was only too glad to keep us. "My wife would die without Bebi," he said.

  "She becomes quite dangerous about Bebi." It was gratifying that the good

  old lady was not to be parted as yet from the innocent object of her

  love.

  My host knew as well as I the terms upon which Sir Barnes and his wife

  were living. Their quarrels were the talk of the whole county; one side

  brought forward his treatment of her, and his conduct elsewhere, and said

  that he was so bad that honest people should not know him. The other

  party laid the blame upon her, and declared that Lady Clara was a

  languid, silly, weak, frivolous creature; always crying out of season;

  who had notoriously taken Sir Barnes for his money and who as certainly

  had had an attachment elsewhere. Yes, the accusations were true on both

  sides. A bad, selfish husband had married a woman for her rank: a weak,

  thoughtless girl had been sold to a man for his money; and the union,

  which might have ended in a complete indifference, had taken an ill turn

  and resulted in misery, cruelty, fierce mutual recriminations, bitter

  tears shed in private, husband's curses and maledictions, and open scenes

  of wrath and violence for servants to witness and the world to sneer at.

  We arrange such matches every day; we sell or buy beauty, or rank, or

  wealth; we inaugurate the bargain in churches with sacramental services,

  in which the parties engaged call upon Heaven to witness their vows--we

  know them to be lies, and we seal them with God's name. "I, Barnes,

  promise to take you, Clara, to love and honour till death do us part" "I

  Clara, promise to take you, Barnes," etc, etc. Who has not heard the

  ancient words; and how many of us have uttered them, knowing them to be

  untrue: and is there a bishop on the bench that has not amen'd the humbug

  in his lawn sleeves and called a blessing over the kneeling perjurers?

  "Does Mr. Harris know of Newcome's return?" Florac asked, when I

  acquainted him with this intelligence. "Ce scelerat de Highgate--Va!"

  "Does Newcome know that Lord Highgate is here?" I thought within myself,

  admiring my wife's faithfulness and simplicity, and trying to believe

  with that pure and guileless creature that it was not yet too late to

  save the unhappy Lady Clara.

  "Mr. Harris had best be warned," I said to Florac; "will you write him a

  word, and let us send a messenger to Newcome?"

  At first Florac said, "Parbleu! No;" the affair was none of his, he

  attended himself always to this result of Lady Clara's marriage.
He had

  even complimented Jack upon it years before at Baden, when scenes enough

  tragic, enough comical, ma foi, had taken place apropos of this affair.

  Why should he meddle with it now?

  "Children dishonoured," said I, "honest families made miserable; for

  Heaven's sake, Florac, let us stay this catastrophe if we can." I spoke

  with much warmth, eagerly desirous to avert this calamity if possible,

  and very strongly moved by the tale which I had heard only just before

  dinner from that noble and innocent creature, whose pure heart had

  already prompted her to plead the cause of right and truth, and to try

  and rescue an unhappy desperate sister trembling on the verge of ruin.

  "If you will not write to him," said I, in some heat, "if your grooms

  don't like to go out of a night" (this was one of the objections which

  Florac had raised), "I will walk." We were talking over the affair rather

  late in the evening, the ladies having retreated to their sleeping

  apartments, and some guests having taken leave, whom our hospitable host

  and hostess had entertained that night, and before whom I naturally did

  not care to speak upon a subject so dangerous.

  "Parbleu, what virtue, my friend! what a Joseph!" cries Florac, puffing

  his cigar. "One sees well that your wife had made you the sermon. My poor

  Pendennis! You are henpecked, my pauvre bon! You become the husband

  model. It is true my mother writes that thy wife is an angel!"

  "I do not object to obey such a woman when she bids me do right," I said;

  and would indeed at that woman's request have gone out upon the errand,

  but that we here found another messenger. On days when dinner-parties

  were held at Rosebury, certain auxiliary waiters used to attend from

  Newcome whom the landlord of the King's Arms was accustomed to supply;

  indeed, it was to secure these, and make other necessary arrangements

  respecting fish, game, etc., that the Prince de Moncontour had ridden

  over to Newcome on the day when we met Lord Highgate, alias Mr. Harris,

  before the bar of the hotel. Whilst we were engaged in the above

  conversation a servant enters, and says, "My lord, Jenkins and the other

  man is going back to Newcome in their cart," and is there anything

  wanted?"

  "It is the Heaven which sends him," says Florac, turning round to me with

  a laugh; "make Jenkins to wait five minutes, Robert; I have to write to a

  gentleman at the King's Arms." And so saying, Florac wrote a line which

  he showed me, and having sealed the note, directed it to Mr. Harris at

  the King's Arms. The cart, the note, and the assistant waiters departed

  on their way to Newcome. Florac bade me go to rest with a clear

  conscience. In truth, the warning was better given in that way than any

  other, and a word from Florac was more likely to be effectual than an

  expostulation from me. I had never thought of making it, perhaps; except

  at the expressed desire of a lady whose counsel in all the difficult

  circumstances of life I own I am disposed to take.

  Mr. Jenkins's horse no doubt trotted at a very brisk pace, as gentlemen's

  horses will of a frosty night, after their masters have been regaled with

  plentiful supplies of wine and ale. I remember in my bachelor days that

  my horses always trotted quicker after I had had a good dinner; the

  champagne used to communicate itself to them somehow, and the claret get

  into their heels. Before midnight the letter for Mr. Harris was in Mr.

  Harris's hands in the King's Arms.

  It has been said that in the Boscawen Room at the Arms, some of the jolly

  fellows of Newcome had a club, of which Parrot the auctioneer, Tom Potts

  the talented reporter, now editor of the Independent, Vidler the

  apothecary, and other gentlemen, were members.

  When we first had occasion to mention that society, it was at an early