The Newcomes

by William Makepeace Thackeray

my wife gave with a very pretty imitation of the girl's manner), we both

  burst out laughing so loud that little Madame de Moncontour put her head

  into the drawing-room and asked what we was a-laughing at? We did not

  tell our hostess that poor Ethel and her grandmother had been accused of

  doing the very same thing for which she found fault with the Misses Burr.

  Miss Newcome thought herself quite innocent, or how should she have cried

  out at the naughty behaviour of other people?

  "'Wherever we went, however,' resumed my wife's young penitent, 'it was

  easy to see, I think I may say so without vanity, who was the object of

  Lord Farintosh's attention. He followed us everywhere; and we could not

  go upon any visit in England or Scotland but he was in the same house.

  Grandmamma's whole heart was bent upon that marriage, and when he

  proposed for me I do not disown that I was very pleased and vain.

  "'It is in these last months that I have heard about him more, and

  learned to know him better--him and myself too, Laura. Some one--some one

  you know, and whom I shall always love as a brother--reproached me in

  former days for a worldliness about which you talk too sometimes. But it

  is not worldly to give yourself up for your family, is it? One cannot

  help the rank in which one is born, and surely it is but natural and

  proper to marry in it. Not that Lord Farintosh thinks me or any one of

  his rank.' (Here Miss Ethel laughed.) 'He is the Sultan, and we, every

  unmarried girl in society, is his humblest slave. His Majesty's opinions

  upon this subject did not suit me, I can assure you: I have no notion of

  such pride!

  "'But I do not disguise from you, dear Laura, that after accepting him,

  as I came to know him better, and heard him, and heard of him, and talked

  with him daily, and understood Lord Farintosh's character, I looked

  forward with more and more doubt to the day when I was to become his

  wife. I have not learned to respect him in these months that I have known

  him, and during which there has been mourning in our families. I will not

  talk to you about him; I have no right, have I?--to hear him speak out

  his heart, and tell it to any friend. He said he liked me because I

  did not flatter him. Poor Malcolm! they all do. What was my acceptance of

  him, Laura, but flattery? Yes, flattery, and servility to rank, and a

  desire to possess it. Would I have accepted plain Malcolm Roy? I sent

  away a better than him, Laura.

  "'These things have been brooding in my mind for some months past. I must

  have been but an ill companion for him, and indeed he bore with my

  waywardness much more kindly than I ever thought possible; and when four

  days since we came to this sad house, where he was to have joined us, and

  I found only dismay and wretchedness, and these poor children deprived of

  a mother, whom I pity, God help her, for she has been made so miserable--

  and is now and must be to the end of her days; as I lay awake, thinking

  of my own future life, and that I was going to marry, as poor Clara had

  married, but for an establishment and a position in life; I, my own

  mistress, and not obedient by nature, or a slave to others as that poor

  creature was--I thought to myself, why shall I do this? Now Clara has

  left us, and is, as it were, dead to us who made her so unhappy, let me

  be the mother to her orphans. I love the little girl, and she has always

  loved me, and came crying to me that day when we arrived, and put her

  dear little arms round my neck, and said, 'You won't go away, will you,

  Aunt Ethel?' in her sweet voice. And I will stay with her; and will try

  and learn myself that I may teach her; and learn to be good too--better

  than I have been. Will praying help me, Laura? I did. I am sure I was

  right, and that it is my duty to stay here.'"

  Laura was greatly moved as she told her friend's confession; and when the

  next day at church the clergyman read the opening words of the service I

  thought a peculiar radiance and happiness beamed from her bright face.

  * * * * * *

  Some subsequent occurrences in the history of this branch of the Newcome

  family I am enabled to report from the testimony of the same informant

  who has just given us an account of her own feelings and life. Miss Ethel

  and my wife were now in daily communication, and "my-dearesting" each

  other with that female fervour, which, cold men of the world as we are--

  not only chary of warm expressions of friendship, but averse to

  entertaining warm feelings at all--we surely must admire in persons of

  the inferior sex, whose loves grow up and reach the skies in a night; who

  kiss, embrace, console, call each other by Christian names, in that

  sweet, kindly sisterhood of Misfortune and Compassion who are always

  entering into partnership here in life. I say the world is full of Miss

  Nightingales; and we, sick and wounded in our private Scutaris, have

  countless nurse-tenders. I did not see my wife ministering to the

  afflicted family at Newcome Park; but I can fancy her there amongst the

  women and children, her prudent counsel, her thousand gentle offices, her

  apt pity and cheerfulness, the love and truth glowing in her face, and

  inspiring her words, movements, demeanour.

  Mrs. Pendennis's husband for his part did not attempt to console Sir

  Barnes Newcome Newcome, Baronet. I never professed to have a

  halfpennyworth of pity at that gentleman's command. Florac, who owed

  Barnes his principality and his present comforts in life, did make some

  futile efforts at condolence, but was received by the Baronet with such

  fierceness, and evident ill-humour, that he did not care to repeat his

  visits, and allowed him to vent his curses and peevishness on his own

  immediate dependents. We used to ask Laura on her return to Rosebury from

  her charity visits to Newcome about the poor suffering master of the

  house. She faltered and stammered in describing him and what she heard of

  him; she smiled, I grieve to say, for this unfortunate lady cannot help

  having a sense of humour; and we could not help laughing outright

  sometimes at the idea of that discomfited wretch, that overbearing

  creature overborne in his turn--which laughter Mrs. Laura used to chide

  as very naughty and unfeeling. When we went into Newcome the landlord of

  the King's Arms looked knowing and quizzical: Tom Potts grinned at me and

  rubbed his hands. "This business serves the paper better than Mr.

  Warrington's articles," says Mr. Potts. "We have sold no end of

  Independents; and if you polled the whole borough, I bet that five to one

  would say Sir Screwcome Screwcome was served right. By the way, what's up

  about the Marquis of Farintosh, Mr. Pendennis? He arrived at the Arms

  last night; went over to the Park this morning, and is gone back to town

  by the afternoon train."

  What had happened between the Marquis of Farintosh and Miss Newcome I am

  enabled to know from the report of Miss Newcome's confidante. On the

  receipt of that letter of conge which has been mentioned in a former

  chapter, his lordship must have been very much excited, for he left t
own

  straightway by that evening's mail, and on the next morning, after a few

  hours of rest at his inn, was at Newcome lodge-gate demanding to see the

  Baronet.

  On that morning it chanced that Sir Barnes had left home with Mr Speer,

  his legal adviser; and hereupon the Marquis asked to see Miss Newcome;

  nor could the lodge-keeper venture to exclude so distinguished a person

  from the Park. His lordship drove up to the house, and his name was taken

  to Miss Ethel. She turned very pale when she heard it; and my wife

  divined at once who was her visitor. Lady Anne had not left her room as

  yet. Laura Pendennis remained in command of the little conclave of

  children, with whom the two ladies were sitting when Lord Farintosh

  arrived. Little Clara wanted to go with her aunt as she rose to leave the

  room--the child could scarcely be got to part from her now.

  At the end of an hour the carriage was seen driving away, and Ethel

  returned looking as pale as before, and red about the eyes. Miss Clara's

  mutton-chop for dinner coming in at the same time, the child was not so

  presently eager for her aunt's company. Aunt Ethel cut up the mutton-chop

  very neatly, and then, having seen the child comfortably seated at her

  meal, went with her friend into a neighbouring apartment (of course, with

  some pretext of showing Laura a picture, or a piece of china, or a new

  child's frock, or with some other hypocritical pretence by which the

  ingenuous female attendants pretended to be utterly blinded), and there,

  I have no doubt, before beginning her story, dearest Laura embraced

  dearest Ethel, and vice versa.

  "He is gone!" at length gasps dearest Ethel.

  "Pour toujours? poor young man!" sighs dearest Laura. "Was he very

  unhappy, Ethel?"

  "He was more angry," Ethel answers. "He had a right to be hurt, but not

  to speak as he did. He lost his temper quite at last, and broke out in

  the most frantic reproaches. He forgot all respect and even gentlemanlike

  behaviour. Do you know he used words--words such as Barnes uses sometimes

  when he is angry! and dared this language to me! I was sorry till then,

  very sorry, and very much moved; but I know more than ever, now, that I

  was right in refusing Lord Farintosh."

  Dearest Laura now pressed for an account of all that had happened, which

  may be briefly told as follows. Feeling very deeply upon the subject

  which brought him to Miss Newcome, it was no wonder that Lord Farintosh

  spoke at first in a way which moved her. He said he thought her letter to

  his mother was very rightly written under the circumstances, and thanked

  her for her generosity in offering to release him from his engagement.

  But the affair--the painful circumstance of Highgate, and that--which had

  happened in the Newcome family, was no fault of Miss Newcome's, and Lord

  Farintosh could not think of holding her accountable. His friends had

  long urged him to marry, and it was by his mother's own wish that the

  engagement was formed, which he was determined to maintain. In his course

  through the world (of which he was getting very tired), he had never seen

  a woman, a lady who was so--you understand, Ethel--whom he admired so

  much, who was likely to make so good a wife for him as you are. "You

  allude," he continued, "to differences we have had--and we have had them

  --but many of them, I own, have been from my fault. I have been bred up

  in a way different to most young men. I cannot help it if I have had

  temptations to which other men are not exposed; and have been placed by--

  by Providence--in a high rank of life; I am sure if you share it with me

  you will adorn it, and be in every way worthy of it, and make me much

  better than I have been. If you knew what a night of agony I passed after

  my mother read that letter to me--I know you'd pity me, Ethel,--I know

  you would. The idea of losing you makes me wild. My mother was dreadfully

  alarmed when she saw the state I was in; so was the doctor--I assure you

  he was. And I had no rest at all, and no peace of mind, until I

  determined to come down to you; and say that I adored you, and you only;

  and that I would hold to my engagement in spite of everything--and prove

  to you that--that no man in the world could love you more sincerely than

  I do." Here the young gentleman was so overcome that he paused in his

  speech, and gave way to an emotion, for which, surely no man who has been

  in the same condition with Lord Farintosh will blame him.

  Miss Newcome was also much touched by this exhibition of natural feeling;

  and, I dare say, it was at this time that her eyes showed the first

  symptoms of that malady of which the traces were visible an hour after.

  "You are very generous and kind to me, Lord Farintosh," she said. "Your

  constancy honours me very much, and proves how good and loyal you are;

  but--but do not think hardly of me for saying that the more I have

  thought of what has happened here,--of the wretched consequences of

  interested marriages; the long union growing each day so miserable, that

  at last it becomes intolerable and is burst asunder, as in poor Clara's

  case;--the more I am resolved not to commit that first fatal step of

  entering into a marriage without--without the degree of affection which

  people who take that vow ought to feel for one another."

  "Affection! Can you doubt it? Gracious heavens, I adore you! Isn't my

  being here a proof that I do?" cries the young lady's lover.

  "But I?" answered the girl. "I have asked my own heart that question

  before now. I have thought to myself,--If he comes after all,--if his

  affection for me survives this disgrace of our family, as it has, and

  every one of us should be thankful to you--ought I not to show at least

  gratitude for so much kindness and honour, and devote myself to one who

  makes such sacrifices for me? But, before all things I owe you the truth,

  Lord Farintosh. I never could make you happy; I know I could not: nor

  obey you as you are accustomed to be obeyed; nor give you such a devotion

  as you have a right to expect from your wife. I thought I might once. I

  can't now! I know that I took you because you were rich, and had a great

  name; not because you were honest, and attached to me as you show

  yourself to be. I ask your pardon for the deceit I practised on you.--

  Look at Clara, poor child, and her misery! My pride, I know, would never

  have let me fall as far as she has done; but oh! I am humiliated to think

  that I could have been made to say I would take the first step in that

  awful career."

  "What career, in God's name?" cries the astonished suitor. "Humiliated,

  Ethel? Who's going to humiliate you? I suppose there is no woman in

  England who need be humiliated by becoming my wife. I should like to see

  the one that I can't pretend to--or to royal blood if I like: it's not

  better than mine. Humiliated, indeed! That is news. Ha! ha! You don't

  suppose that your pedigree, which I know all about, and the Newcome

  family, with your barber-surgeon to Edward the Confessor, are equal

  to----"

  "To yours? No. It is not very long that I have learned to
disbelieve in

  that story altogether. I fancy it was an odd whim of my poor father's,

  and that our family were quite poor people.

  "I knew it," said Lord Farintosh. "Do you suppose there was not plenty of

  women to tell it me?"

  "It was not because we were poor that I am ashamed," Ethel went on. That

  cannot be our fault, though some of us seem think it is, as they hide the

  truth so. One of my uncles used to tell me that my grandfather's father

  was a labourer in Newcome: but I was a child then, and liked to believe

  the prettiest story best."

  "As if it matters!" cries Lord Farintosh.

  "As if it matters in your wife? n'est-ce pas? I never thought that it

  would. I should have told you, as it was my duty to tell you all. It was

  not my ancestors you cared for; and it is you yourself that your wife

  must swear before heaven to love."

  "Of course it's me," answers the young man, not quite understanding the

  train of ideas in his companion's mind. "And I've given up everything--

  everything--and have broken off with my old habits and--and things, you

  know--and intend to lead a regular life--and will never go to

  Tattersall's again; nor bet a shilling; nor touch another cigar if you

  like--that is, if you don't like; for I love you so, Ethel--I do, with

  all my heart I do!"

  "You are very generous and kind, Lord Farintosh," Ethel said. "It is

  myself, not you, I doubt. Oh, I am humiliated to make such a confession!"

  "How humiliated?" Ethel withdrew the hand which the young nobleman

  endeavoured to seize.

  "If," she continued, "if I found it was your birth, and your name, and

  your wealth that I coveted, and had nearly taken, ought I not to feel

  humiliated, and ask pardon of you and of God? Oh, what perjuries poor

  Clara was made to speak,--and see what has befallen her! We stood by and

  heard her without being shocked. We applauded even. And to what shame and

  misery we brought her! Why did her parents and mine consign her to such

  ruin! She might have lived pure and happy but for us. With her example

  before me--not her flight, poor child--I am not afraid of that happening

  to me--but her long solitude, the misery of her wasted years,--my

  brother's own wretchedness and faults aggravated a hundredfold by his

  unhappy union with her--I must pause while it is yet time, and recall a

  promise which I know I should make you unhappy if I fulfilled. I ask your

  pardon that I deceived you, Lord Farintosh, and feel ashamed for myself

  that I could have consented to do so."

  "Do you mean," cried the young Marquis, "that after my conduct to you--

  after my loving you, so that even this--this disgrace in your family

  don't prevent my going on--after my mother has been down on her knees to

  me to break off, and I wouldn't--no, I wouldn't--after all White's

  sneering at me and laughing at me, and all my friends, friends of my

  family, who would go to--go anywhere for me, advising me, and saying,

  'Farintosh, what a fool you are! break off this match,'--and I wouldn't

  back out, because I loved you so, by Heaven, and because, as a man and a

  gentleman, when I give my word I keep it--do you mean that you throw me

  over? It's a shame--it's a shame!" And again there were tears of rage and

  anguish in Farintosh's eyes.

  "What I did was a shame, my lord," Ethel said, humbly; "and again I ask

  your pardon for it. What I do now is only to tell you the truth, and to

  grieve with all my soul for the falsehood--yes the falsehood--which I

  told you, and which has given your kind heart such cruel pain."

  "Yes, it was a falsehood!" the poor lad cried out. "You follow a fellow,

  and you make a fool of him, and you make him frantic in love with you,

  and then you fling him over! I wonder you can look me in the face after

  such an infernal treason. You've done it to twenty fellows before, I know