The Newcomes

by William Makepeace Thackeray

and who should be her natural guardian save her husband? Surely, Arthur,

  you forget--have you forgotten them yourself, sir?--the solemn vows which

  Clive made at the altar. Is he not bound to his wife to keep only unto

  her so long as they both shall live, to love and comfort her, honour her,

  and keep her in sickness and health?"

  "To keep her, yes--but not to keep the Campaigner," cries Mr. Pendennis.

  "It is a moral bigamy, Laura, which you advocate, you wicked, immoral

  young woman!"

  But Laura, though she smiled at this notion, would not be put off from

  her first proposition. Turning to Clive, who was with us, talking over

  his doleful family circumstances, she took his hand, and pleaded the

  cause of right and religion with sweet artless fervour. She agreed with

  us that it was a hard lot for Clive to bear. So much the nobler the task,

  and the fulfilment of duty in enduring it. A few months too would put an

  end to his trials. When his child was born Mrs. Mackenzie would take her

  departure. It would even be Clive's duty to separate from her then, as it

  now was to humour his wife in her delicate condition, and to soothe the

  poor soul who had had a great deal of ill-health, of misfortune, of

  domestic calamity to wear and shatter her. Clive acquiesced with a groan,

  but--with a touching and generous resignation as we both thought. "She is

  right, Pen," he said, "I think your wife is always right. I will try,

  Laura, and bear my part, God help me! I will do my duty and strive my

  best to soothe and gratify my poor dear little woman. They will be making

  caps and things, and will not interrupt me in my studio. Of nights I can

  go to Clipstone Street and work at the Life. There's nothing like the

  Life, Pen. So you see I shan't be much at home except at meal-times, when

  by nature I shall have my mouth full, and no opportunity of quarrelling

  with poor Mrs. Mac." So he went home, followed and cheered by the love

  and pity of my dear wife, and determined stoutly to bear this heavy yoke

  which fate had put on him.

  To do Mrs. Mackenzie justice, that lady backed up with all her might the

  statement which my wife had put forward, with a view of soothing poor

  Clive, viz., that the residence of his mother-in-law in his house was

  only to be temporary. "Temporary!" cries Mrs. Mac (who was kind enough to

  make a call on Mrs. Pendennis, and treat that lady to a piece of her

  mind). "Do you suppose, madam, that it could be otherwise? Do you suppose

  that worlds would induce me to stay in a house where I have received such

  treatment; where, after I and my daughter had been robbed of every

  shilling of our fortune, where we are daily insulted by Colonel Newcome

  and his son? Do you suppose, ma'am, that I do not know that Clive's

  friends hate me, and give themselves airs and look down upon my darling

  child, and try and make differences between my sweet Rosa and me--Rosa

  who might have been dead, or might have been starving, but that her dear

  mother came to her rescue? No, I would never stay. I loathe every day

  that I remain in the house--I would rather beg my bread--I would rather

  sweep the streets and starve--though, thank God, I have my pension as the

  widow of an officer in Her Majesty's Service, and I can live upon that--

  and of that Colonel Newcome cannot rob me; and when my darling love needs

  a mother's care no longer, I will leave her. I will shake the dust off my

  feet and leave that house. I will--And Mr. Newcome's friends may then

  sneer at me and abuse me, and blacken my darling child's heart towards me

  if they choose. And I thank you, Mrs. Pendennis, for all your kindness

  towards my daughter's family, and for the furniture which you have sent

  into the house, and for the trouble you have taken about our family

  arrangements. It was for this I took the liberty of calling upon you, and

  I wish you a very good morning." So speaking, the Campaigner left my

  wife; and Mrs. Pendennis enacted the pleasing scene with great spirit to

  her husband afterwards, concluding the whole with a splendid curtsey and

  toss of the head, such as Mrs. Mackenzie performed as her parting salute.

  Our dear Colonel had fled before. He had acquiesced humbly with the

  decree of fate; and, lonely, old and beaten, marched honestly on the path

  of duty. It was a great blessing, he wrote to us, to him to think that in

  happier days and during many years he had been enabled to benefit his

  kind and excellent relative, Miss Honeyman. He could thankfully receive

  her hospitality now, and claim the kindness and shelter which this old

  friend gave him. No one could be more anxious to make him comfortable.

  The air of Brighton did him the greatest good; he had found some old

  friends, some old Bengalees there, with whom he enjoyed himself greatly,

  etc. How much did we, who knew his noble spirit, believe of this story?

  To us Heaven had awarded health, happiness, competence, loving children,

  united hearts, and modest prosperity. To yonder good man, whose long life

  shone with benefactions, and whose career was but kindness and honour,

  fate decreed poverty, disappointment, separation, a lonely old age. We

  bowed our heads, humiliated at the contrast of his lot and ours; and

  prayed Heaven to enable us to bear our present good fortune meekly, and

  our evil days, if they should come, with such a resignation as this good

  Christian showed.

  I forgot to say that our attempts to better Thomas Newcome's money

  affairs were quite in vain, the Colonel insisting upon paying over every

  shilling of his military allowances and retiring pension to the parties

  from whom he had borrowed money previous to his bankruptcy. "Ah! what a

  good man that is," says Mr. Sherrick with tears in his eyes, "what a

  noble fellow, sir! He would die rather than not pay every farthing over.

  He'd starve, sir, that he would. The money ain't mine, sir, or if it was

  do you think I'd take it from the poor old boy? No, sir; by Jove! I

  honour and reverence him more now he ain't got a shilling in his pocket,

  than ever I did when we thought he was a-rolling in money."

  My wife made one or two efforts at Samaritan visits in Howland Street,

  but was received by Mrs. Clive with such a faint welcome, and by the

  Campaigner with so grim a countenance, so many sneers, innuendoes,

  insults almost, that Laura's charity was beaten back, and she ceased to

  press good offices thus thanklessly received. If Clive came to visit us,

  as he very rarely did, after an official question or two regarding the

  health of his wife and child, no further mention was made of his family

  affairs. His painting, he said, was getting on tolerably well; he had

  work, scantily paid it is true, but work sufficient. He was reserved,

  uncommunicative, unlike the frank Clive of former times, and oppressed by

  his circumstances, as it was easy to see. I did not press the confidence

  which he was unwilling to offer, and thought best to respect his silence.

  I had a thousand affairs of my own; who has not in London? If you die

  to-morrow, your dearest friend will feel for you a hearty pang of sorrow,

  and go to his business as usual. I cou
ld divine, but would not care to

  describe, the life which my poor Clive was now leading; the vulgar

  misery, the sordid home, the cheerless toil, and lack of friendly

  companionship which darkened his kind soul. I was glad Clive's father was

  away. The Colonel wrote to us twice or thrice; could it be three months

  ago?--bless me, how time flies! He was happy, he wrote, with Miss

  Honeyman, who took the best care of him.

  Mention has been made once or twice in the course of this history of the

  Grey Friars school,--where the Colonel and Clive and I had been brought

  up,--an ancient foundation of the time of James I., still subsisting in

  the heart of London city. The death-day of the founder of the place is

  still kept solemnly by Cistercians. In their chapel, where assemble the

  boys of the school, and the fourscore old men of the Hospital, the

  founder's tomb stands, a huge edifice: emblazoned with heraldic

  decorations and clumsy carved allegories. There is an old Hall, a

  beautiful specimen of the architecture of James's time; an old Hall? many

  old halls; old staircases, passages, old chambers decorated with old

  portraits, walking in the midst of which we walk as it were in the early

  seventeenth century. To others than Cistercians, Grey Friars is a dreary

  place possibly. Nevertheless, the pupils educated there love to revisit

  it; and the oldest of us grow young again for an hour or two as we come

  back into those scenes of childhood.

  The custom of the school is, that on the 12th of December, the Founder's

  Day, the head gown-boy shall recite a Latin oration, in praise of

  Fundatoris Nostri, and upon other subjects; and a goodly company of old

  Cistercians is generally brought together to attend this oration: after

  which we go to chapel and hear a sermon; after which we adjourn to a

  great dinner, where old condisciples meet, old toasts are given, and

  speeches are made. Before marching from the oration-hall to chapel, the

  stewards of the day's dinner, according to old-fashioned rite, have wands

  put into their hands, walk to church at the head of the procession, and

  sit there in places of honour. The boys are already in their seats, with

  smug fresh faces, and shining white collars; the old black-gowned

  pensioners are on their benches; the chapel is lighted, and Founder's

  Tomb, with its grotesque carvings, monsters, heraldries, darkles and

  shines with the most wonderful shadows and lights. There he lies,

  Fundator Noster, in his ruff and gown, awaiting the great Examination

  Day. We oldsters, be we ever so old, become boys again as we look at that

  familiar old tomb, and think how the seats are altered since we were

  here, and how the doctor--not the present doctor, the doctor of our time

  --used to sit yonder, and his awful eye used to frighten us shuddering

  boys, on whom it lighted; and how the boy next us would kick our shins

  during service time, and how the monitor would cane us afterwards because

  our shins were kicked. Yonder sit forty cherry-cheeked boys, thinking

  about home and holidays to-morrow. Yonder sit some threescore old

  gentlemen pensioners of the hospital, listening to the prayers and the

  psalms. You hear them coughing feebly in the twilight,--the old reverend

  blackgowns. Is Codd Ajax alive, you wonder?--the Cistercian lads called

  these old gentlemen Codds, I know not wherefore--I know not wherefore--

  but is old Codd Ajax alive, I wonder? or Codd Soldier? or kind old Codd

  Gentleman, or has the grave closed over them? A plenty of candles lights

  up this chapel, and this scene of age and youth, and early memories, and

  pompous death. How solemn the well-remembered prayers are, here uttered

  again in the place wherein childhood we used to hear them! How beautiful

  and decorous the rite; how noble the ancient words of the supplications

  which the priest utters, and to which generations of fresh children and

  troops of bygone seniors have cried Amen! under those arches! The service

  for Founder's Day is a special one; one of the psalms selected being the

  thirty-seventh, and we hear--

  23. The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord: and he delighteth in

  his way.

  24. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down: for the Lord

  upholdeth him with his hand.

  25. I have been young, and now am old: yet have I not seen the righteous

  forsaken, nor his seed begging their bread.

  As we came to this verse, I chanced to look up from my book towards the

  swarm of black-coated pensioners: and amongst them--amongst them--sate

  Thomas Newcome.

  His dear old head was bent down over his prayer-book--there was no

  mistaking him. He wore the black gown of the pensioners of the Hospital

  of Grey Friars. His order of the Bath was on his breast. He stood there

  amongst the poor brethren, uttering the responses to the psalm. The steps

  of this good man had been ordered him hither by Heaven's decree: to this

  almshouse! Here it was ordained that a life all love, and kindness, and

  honour, should end! I heard no more of prayers, and psalms, and sermon,

  after that. How dared I to be in a place of mark, and he, he yonder among

  the poor? Oh, pardon, you noble soul! I ask forgiveness of you for being

  of a world that has so treated you--you my better, you the honest, and

  gentle, and good! I thought the service would never end, or the

  organist's voluntaries, or the preacher's homily.

  The organ played us out of chapel at length, and I waited in the

  ante-chapel until the pensioners took their turn to quit it. My dear,

  dear old friend! I ran to him with a warmth and eagerness of recognition

  which no doubt showed themselves in my face and accents, as my heart was

  moved at the sight of him. His own face flushed up when he saw me, and

  his hand shook in mine. "I have found a home, Arthur," said he. "Don't

  you remember before I went to India, when we came to see the old Grey

  Friars, and visited Captain Scarsdale in his room?--a poor brother like

  me--an old Peninsular man. Scarsdale is gone now, sir, and is where the

  wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest; and I thought

  then, when we saw him,--here would be a place for an old fellow when his

  career was over, to hang his sword up; to humble his soul, and to wait

  thankfully for the end. Arthur. My good friend, Lord H., who is a

  Cistercian like ourselves, and has just been appointed a governor, gave

  me his first nomination. Don't be agitated, Arthur my boy, I am very

  happy. I have good quarters, good food, good light and fire, and good

  friends; blessed be God! my dear kind young friend--my boy's friend; you

  have always been so, sir; and I take it uncommonly kind of you, and I

  thank God for you, sir. Why, sir, I am as happy as the day is long." He

  uttered words to this effect as he walked through the courts of the

  building towards his room, which in truth I found neat and comfortable,

  with a brisk fire crackling on the hearth; a little tea-table laid out, a

  Bible and spectacles by the side of it, and over the mantelpiece a

  drawing of his grandson by Clive.

  "You may come and see me here, sir, wh
enever you like, and so may your

  dear wife and little ones, tell Laura, with my love;--but you must not

  stay now. You must go back to your dinner." In vain I pleaded that I had

  no stomach for it. He gave me a look, which seemed to say he desired to

  be alone, and I had to respect that order and leave him.

  Of course I came to him on the very next day; though not with my wife and

  children, who were in truth absent in the country at Rosebury, where they

  were to pass the Christmas holidays; and where, this school-dinner over,

  I was to join them. On my second visit to Grey Friars my good friend

  entered more at length into the reasons why he had assumed the Poor

  Brother's gown; and I cannot say but that I acquiesced in his reasons,

  and admired that noble humility and contentedness of which he gave me an

  example.

  "That which had caused him most grief and pain," he said, "in the issue

  of that unfortunate bank, was the thought that poor friends of his had

  been induced by his representations to invest their little capital in

  that speculation. Good Miss Honeyman, for instance, meaning no harm, and

  in all respects a most honest and kindly-disposed old lady, had

  nevertheless alluded more than once to the fact that her money had been

  thrown away; and these allusions, sir, made her hospitality somewhat hard

  to bear," said the Colonel. "At home--at poor Clivey's, I mean--it was

  even worse," he continued; "Mrs. Mackenzie for months past, by her

  complaints, and--and her conduct, has made my son and me so miserable--

  that flight before her, and into any refuge, was the best course. She too

  does not mean ill, Pen. Do not waste any of your oaths upon that poor

  woman," he added, holding up his finger, and smiling sadly. "She thinks I

  deceived her, though Heaven knows it was myself I deceived. She has great

  influence over Rosa. Very few persons can resist that violent and

  headstrong woman, sir. I could not bear her reproaches, or my poor sick

  daughter, whom her mother leads almost entirely now, and it was with all

  this grief on my mind, that, as I was walking one day upon Brighton

  cliff, I met my schoolfellow, my Lord H----, who has ever been a good

  friend of mine--and who told me how he had just been appointed a governor

  of Grey Friars. He asked me to dine with him on the next day, and would

  take no refusal. He knew of my pecuniary misfortunes, of course--and

  showed himself most noble and liberal in his offers of help. I was very

  much touched by his goodness, Pen,--and made a clean breast of it to his

  lordship; who at first would not hear of my coming to this place--and

  offered me out of the purse of an old brother-schoolfellow and an old

  brother soldier as much--as much as should last me my time. Wasn't it

  noble of him, Arthur? God bless him! There are good men in the world,

  sir, there are true friends, as I have found in these later days. Do you

  know, sir"--here the old man's eyes twinkled,--"that Fred Bayham fixed up

  that bookcase yonder--and brought me my little boy's picture to hang up?

  Boy and Clive will come and see me soon."

  "Do you mean they do not come?" I cried.

  "They don't know I am here, sir," said the Colonel, with a sweet, kind

  smile. "They think I am visiting his lordship in Scotland. Ah! they are

  good people! When we had had a talk downstairs over our bottle of claret

  --where my old commander-in-chief would not hear of my plan--we went

  upstairs to her ladyship, who saw that her husband was disturbed, and

  asked the reason. I dare say it was the good claret that made me speak,

  sir; for I told her that I and her husband had had a dispute and that I

  would take her ladyship for umpire. And then I told her the story over,

  that I had paid away every rupee to the creditors, and mortgaged my

  pensions and retiring allowances for the same end, that I was a burden

  upon Clivey, who had enough, poor boy, to keep his own family, and his