The Newcomes

by William Makepeace Thackeray

clear that dearest Laura must take her farewell. In these last days,

  besides the visits which daily took place between one and other, the

  young messenger was put in ceaseless requisition, and his donkey must

  have been worn off his little legs with trotting to and fro between the

  two houses, Laura was quite anxious and hurt at not hearing from the

  Colonel; it was a shame that he did not have over his letters from

  Belgium and answer that one which she had honoured him by writing. By

  some information, received who knows how? our host was aware of the

  intrigue which Mrs. Pendennis was carrying on; and his little wife almost

  as much interested in it as my own. She whispered to me in her kind way

  that she would give a guinea, that she would, to see a certain couple

  made happy together; that they were born for one another, that they were;

  she was for having me go off to fetch Clive: but who was I to act as

  Hymen's messenger, or to interpose in such delicate family affairs?

  All this while Sir Barnes Newcome, Bart., remained absent in London,

  attending to his banking duties there, and pursuing the dismal inquiries

  which ended, in the ensuing Michaelmas term, in the famous suit of

  Newcome v. Lord Highgate. Ethel, pursuing the plan which she had laid

  down for herself from the first, took entire charge of his children and

  house: Lady Anne returned to her own family: never indeed having been of

  much use in her son's dismal household. My wife talked to me of course

  about her pursuits and amusements at Newcome, in the ancestral hall which

  we have mentioned. The children played and ate their dinner (mine often

  partook of his infantine mutton, in company with little Clara and the

  poor young heir of Newcome) in the room which had been called my lady's

  own, and in which her husband had locked her, forgetting that the

  conservatories were open, through which the hapless woman had fled. Next

  to this was the baronial library, a side of which was fitted with the

  gloomy books from Clapham, which old Mrs. Newcome had amassed; rows of

  tracts, and missionary magazines, and dingy quarto volumes of worldly

  travel and history which that lady had admitted into her collection.

  Almost on the last day of our stay at Rosebury, the two young ladies

  bethought them of paying a visit to the neighbouring town of Newcome, to

  that old Mrs. Mason who has been mentioned in a foregoing page in some

  yet earlier chapter of our history. She was very old now, very faithful

  to the recollections of her own early time, and oblivious of yesterday.

  Thanks to Colonel Newcome's bounty, she had lived in comfort for many a

  long year past; and he was as much her boy now as in those early days of

  which we have given but an outline. There were Clive's pictures of

  himself and his father over her little mantelpiece, near which she sat in

  comfort and warmth by the winter fire which his bounty supplied.

  Mrs. Mason remembered Miss Newcome, prompted thereto by the hints of her

  little maid, who was much younger, and had a more faithful memory than

  her mistress. Why, Sarah Mason would have forgotten the pheasants whose

  very tails decorated the chimney-glass, had not Keziah, the maid,

  reminded her that the young lady was the donor. Then she recollected her

  benefactor, and asked after her father, the Baronet; and wondered, for

  her part, why her boy, the Colonel, was not made baronet, and why his

  brother had the property? Her father was a very good man; though Mrs.

  Mason had heard he was not much liked in those parts. "Dead and gone, was

  he, poor man?" (This came in reply to a hint from Keziah, the attendant,

  bawled in the old lady's ears, who was very deaf.) "Well, well, we must

  all go; and if we were all good, like the Colonel, what was the use of

  staying? I hope his wife will be good. I am sure such a good man deserves

  one," added Mrs. Mason.

  The ladies thought the old woman doting, led thereto by the remark of

  Keziah, the maid, that Mrs. Mason have a lost her memory. And she asked

  who the other bonny lady was, and Ethel told her that Mrs. Pendennis was

  a friend of the Colonel's and Clive's.

  "Oh, Clive's friend! Well, she was a pretty lady, and he was a dear

  pretty boy. He drew those pictures; and he took off me in my cap, with my

  old cat and all--my poor old cat that's buried this ever so long ago."

  "She has had a letter from the Colonel, miss," cries out Keziah. "Haven't

  you had a letter from the Colonel, mum? It came only yesterday." And

  Keziah takes out the letter and shows it to the ladies. They read as

  follows:--

  "London, Feb. 12, 184-.

  "My Dear Old Mason--I have just heard from a friend of mine who has been

  staying in your neighbourhood, that you are well and happy, and that you

  have been making inquiries after your young scapegrace, Tom Newcome, who

  is well and happy too, and who proposes to be happier still before any

  very long time is over.

  "The letter which was written to me about you was sent to me in Belgium,

  at Brussels, where I have been living--a town near the place where the

  famous Battle of Waterloo was fought; and as I had run away from Waterloo

  it followed me to England.

  "I cannot come to Newcome just now to shake my dear old friend and nurse

  by the hand. I have business in London; and there are those of my name

  living in Newcome who would not be very happy to see me and mine.

  "But I promise you a visit before very long, and Clive will come with me;

  and when we come I shall introduce a new friend to you, a very pretty

  little daughter-in-law, whom you must promise to love very much. She is a

  Scotch lassie, niece of my oldest friend, James Binnie, Esquire, of the

  Bengal Civil Service, who will give her a pretty bit of siller, and her

  present name is Miss Rosa Mackenzie.

  "We shall send you a wedding cake soon, and a new gown for Keziah (to

  whom remember me), and when I am gone, my grandchildren after me will

  hear what a dear friend you were to your affectionate Thomas Newcome."

  Keziah must have thought that there was something between Clive and my

  wife, for when Laura had read the letter she laid it down on the table,

  and sitting down by it, and hiding her face in her hands, burst into

  tears.

  Ethel looked steadily at the two pictures of Clive and his father. Then

  she put her hand on her friend's shoulder. "Come, my dear," she said, "it

  is growing late, and I must go back to my children." And she saluted Mrs.

  Mason and her maid in a very stately manner, and left them, leading my

  wife away, who was still exceedingly overcome.

  We could not stay long at Rosebury after that. When Madame de Moncontour

  heard the news, the good lady cried too. Mrs. Pendennis's emotion was

  renewed as we passed the gates of Newcome Park on our way to the

  railroad.

  CHAPTER LXII

  Mr. and Mrs. Clive Newcome

  The friendship between Ethel and Laura, which the last narrated

  sentimental occurrences had so much increased, subsists very little

  impaired up to the present day. A lady with many domestic interests and

  increasing family, etc. etc
., cannot be supposed to cultivate female

  intimacies out of doors with that ardour and eagerness which young

  spinsters exhibit in their intercourse; but Laura, whose kind heart first

  led her to sympathise with her young friend in the latter's days of

  distress and misfortune, has professed ever since a growing esteem for

  Ethel Newcome, and says, that the trials and perhaps grief which the

  young lady now had to undergo have brought out the noblest qualities of

  her disposition. She is a very different person from the giddy and

  worldly girl who compelled our admiration of late in the days of her

  triumphant youthful beauty, of her wayward generous humour, of her

  frivolities and her flirtations.

  Did Ethel shed tears in secret over the marriage which had caused Laura's

  gentle eyes to overflow? We might divine the girl's grief, but we

  respected it. The subject was never mentioned by the ladies between

  themselves, and even in her most intimate communications with her husband

  that gentleman is bound to say his wife maintained a tender reserve upon

  the point, nor cared to speculate upon a subject which her friend held

  sacred. I could not for my part but acquiesce in this reticence; and, if

  Ethel felt regret and remorse, admire the dignity of her silence, and the

  sweet composure of her now changed and saddened demeanour.

  The interchange of letters between the two friends was constant, and in

  these the younger lady described at length the duties, occupations, and

  pleasures of her new life. She had quite broken with the world, and

  devoted herself entirely to the nurture and education of her brother's

  orphan children. She educated herself in order to teach them. Her letters

  contain droll yet touching confessions of her own ignorance and her

  determination to overcome it. There was no lack of masters of all kinds

  in Newcome. She set herself to work like a schoolgirl. The little piano

  in the room near the conservatory was thumped by Aunt Ethel until it

  became quite obedient to her, and yielded the sweetest music under her

  fingers. When she came to pay us a visit at Fairoaks some two years

  afterwards she played for our dancing children (our third is named Ethel,

  our second Helen, after one still more dear), and we were in admiration

  of her skill. There must have been the labour of many lonely nights when

  her little charges were at rest, and she and her sad thoughts sat up

  together, before she overcame the difficulties of the instrument so as to

  be able to soothe herself and to charm and delight her children.

  When the divorce was pronounced, which came in due form, though we know

  that Lady Highgate was not much happier than the luckless Lady Clara

  Newcome had been, Ethel's dread was lest Sir Barnes should marry again,

  and by introducing a new mistress into his house should deprive her of

  the care of her children.

  Miss Newcome judged her brother rightly in that he would try to marry,

  but a noble young lady to whom he offered himself rejected him, to his

  surprise and indignation, for a beggarly clergyman with a small living,

  on which she elected to starve; and the wealthy daughter of a

  neighbouring manufacturer whom he next proposed to honour with his

  gracious hand, fled from him with horror to the arms of her father,

  wondering how such a man as that should ever dare to propose marriage to

  an honest girl. Sir Barnes Newcome was much surprised at this outbreak of

  anger; he thought himself a very ill-used and unfortunate man, a victim

  of most cruel persecutions, which we may be sure did not improve his

  temper or tend to the happiness of his circle at home. Peevishness, and

  selfish rage, quarrels with servants and governesses, and other domestic

  disquiet, Ethel had of course to bear from her brother, but not actual

  personal ill-usage. The fiery temper of former days was subdued in her,

  but the haughty resolution remained, which was more than a match for her

  brother's cowardly tyranny: besides, she was the mistress of sixty

  thousand pounds, and by many wily hints and piteous appeals to his sister

  Sir Barnes sought to secure this desirable sum of money for his poor dear

  unfortunate children.

  He professed to think that she was ruining herself for her younger

  brothers, whose expenses the young lady was defraying, this one at

  college, that in the army, and whose maintenance he thought might be

  amply defrayed out of their own little fortunes and his mother's

  jointure: and, by ingeniously proving that a vast number of his household

  expenses were personal to Miss Newcome and would never have been incurred

  but for her residence in his house, he subtracted for his own benefit no

  inconsiderable portion of her income. Thus the carriage-horses were hers,

  for what need had he, a miserable bachelor, of anything more than a

  riding-horse and a brougham? A certain number of the domestics were hers,

  and as he could get no scoundrel of his own to stay with him, he took

  Miss Newcome's servants. He would have had her pay the coals which burned

  in his grate, and the taxes due to our sovereign lady the Queen; but in

  truth, at the end of the year, with her domestic bounties and her

  charities round about Newcome, which daily increased as she became

  acquainted with her indigent neighbours, Miss Ethel, the heiress, was as

  poor as many poorer persons.

  Her charities increased daily with her means of knowing the people round

  about her. She gave much time to them and thought; visited from house to

  house, without ostentation; was awestricken by that spectacle of the

  poverty which we have with us always, of which the sight rebukes our

  selfish griefs into silence, the thought compels us to charity, humility,

  and devotion. The priests of our various creeds, who elsewhere are doing

  battle together continually, lay down their arms in its presence and

  kneel before it; subjugated by that overpowering master. Death, never

  dying out; hunger always crying; and children born to it day after day,--

  our young London lady, flying from the splendours and follies in which

  her life had been past, found herself in the presence of these; threading

  darkling alleys which swarmed with wretched life; sitting by naked beds,

  whither by God's blessing she was sometimes enabled to carry a little

  comfort and consolation; or whence she came heart-stricken by the

  overpowering misery, or touched by the patient resignation of the new

  friends to whom fate had directed her. And here she met the priest upon

  his shrift, the homely missionary bearing his words of consolation, the

  quiet curate pacing his round; and was known to all these, and enabled

  now and again to help their people in trouble. "Oh! what good there is in

  this woman!" my wife would say to me, as she laid one of Miss Ethel's

  letters aside; "who would have thought this was the girl of your glaring

  London ballroom? If she has had grief to bear, how it has chastened and

  improved her!"

  And now I have to confess that all this time, whilst Ethel Newcome has

  been growing in grace with my wife, poor Clive has been lapsing sadly out

  of favour. Sh
e has no patience with Clive. She drubs her little foot when

  his name is mentioned and turns the subject. Whither are all the tears

  and pities fled now? Mrs. Laura has transferred all her regard to Ethel,

  and when that lady's ex-suitor writes to his old friend, or other news is

  had of him, Laura flies out in her usual tirades against the world, the

  horrid wicked selfish world, which spoils everybody who comes near it.

  What has Clive done, in vain his apologist asks, that an old friend

  should be so angry with him?

  She is not angry with him--not she. She only does not care about him. She

  wishes him no manner of harm--not the least, only she has lost all

  interest in him. And the Colonel too, the poor good old Colonel, was

  actually in Mrs. Pendennis' black books, and when he sent her the

  Brussels veil which we have heard of, she did not think it was a bargain

  at all--not particularly pretty, in fact, rather dear at the money. When

  we met Mr. and Mrs. Clive Newcome in London, whither they came a few

  months after their marriage, and where Rosey appeared as pretty, happy,

  good-humoured a little blushing bride as eyes need behold, Mrs.

  Pendennis's reception of her was quite a curiosity of decorum. "I, not

  receive her well?" cried Laura. "How on earth would you have me receive

  her? I talked to her about everything, and she only answered yes or no. I

  showed her the children, and she did not seem to care. Her only

  conversation was about millinery and Brussels balls, and about her dress

  at the drawing-room. The drawing-room! What business has she with such

  follies?"

  The fact is, that the drawing-room was Tom Newcome's affair, not his

  son's, who was heartily ashamed of the figure he cut in that astounding

  costume, which English private gentlemen are made to sport when they bend

  the knee before their gracious Sovereign.

  Warrington roasted poor Clive upon the occasion, and complimented him

  with his usual gravity, until the young fellow blushed and his father

  somewhat testily signified to our friend that his irony was not

  agreeable. "I suppose," says the Colonel, with great hauteur, "that there

  is nothing ridiculous in an English gentleman entertaining feelings of

  loyalty and testifying his respect to his Queen: and I presume that Her

  Majesty knows best, and has a right to order in what dress her subjects

  shall appear before her and I don't think it's kind of you, George, I

  say, I don't think it's kind of you to quiz my boy for doing his duty to

  his Queen and to his father too, sir,--for it was at my request that

  Clive went, and we went together, sir--to the levee and then to the

  drawing-room afterwards with Rosey, who was presented by the lady of my

  old friend, Sir George Tufto, a lady of rank herself, and the wife of as

  brave an officer as ever drew a sword."

  Warrington stammered an apology for his levity, but no explanations were

  satisfactory, and it was clear George had wounded the feelings of our

  dear simple old friend.

  After Clive's marriage, which was performed at Brussels, Uncle James and

  the lady, his sister, whom we have sometimes flippantly ventured to call

  the Campaigner, went off to perform that journey to Scotland which James

  had meditated for ten years past; and, now little Rosey was made happy

  for life, to renew acquaintance with little Josey. The Colonel and his

  son and daughter-in-law came to London, not to the bachelor quarters,

  where we have seen them, but to an hotel, which they occupied until their

  new house could be provided for them, a sumptuous mansion in the

  Tyburnian district, and one which became people of their station.

  We have been informed already what the Colonel's income was, and have the

  gratification of knowing that it was very considerable. The simple

  gentleman who would dine off a crust, and wear a coat for ten years,