The Newcomes

by William Makepeace Thackeray

chastisement of this young criminal. But he dashed so furiously against

  the butler's shins as to draw blood from his comely limbs, and to cause

  that serious and overfed menial to limp and suffer for many days after;

  and, seizing the decanter, he swore he would demolish blacky's ugly face

  with it: nay, he threatened to discharge it at Mrs. Newcome's own head

  before he would submit to the coercion which she desired her agents to

  administer.

  High words took place between Mr. and Mrs. Newcome that night on the

  gentleman's return home from the City, and on his learning the events of

  the morning. It is to be feared he made use of further oaths, which hasty

  ejaculations need not be set down in this place; at any rate, he behaved

  with spirit and manliness as master of the house, vowed that if any

  servant laid a hand on the child, he would thrash him first and then

  discharge him; and I dare say expressed himself with bitterness and

  regret that he had married a wife who would not be obedient to her

  husband, and had entered a house of which he was not suffered to be the

  master. Friends were called in--the interference, the supplications, of

  the Clapham clergy, some of whom dined constantly at the Hermitage,

  prevailed to allay this domestic quarrel; and no doubt the good sense of

  Mrs. Newcome--who, though imperious, was yet not unkind; and who,

  excellent as she was, yet could be brought to own that she was sometimes

  in fault--induced her to make at least a temporary submission to the man

  whom she had placed at the head of her house, and whom it must be

  confessed she had vowed to love and honour. When Tommy fell ill of the

  scarlet fever, which afflicting event occurred presently after the above

  dispute, his own nurse, Sarah, could not have been more tender, watchful,

  and affectionate than his stepmother showed herself to be. She nursed him

  through his illness; allowed his food and medicine to be administered by

  no other hand; sat up with the boy through a night of his fever, and

  uttered not one single reproach to her husband (who watched with her)

  when the twins took the disease (from which we need not say they happily

  recovered); and though young Tommy, in his temporary delirium, mistaking

  her for Nurse Sarah, addressed her as his dear Fat Sally--whereas no

  whipping-post to which she ever would have tied him could have been

  leaner than Mrs. Newcome--and, under this feverish delusion, actually

  abused her to her face; calling her an old cat, an old Methodist, and,

  jumping up in his little bed, forgetful of his previous fancy, vowing

  that he would put on his clothes and run away to Sally. Sally was at her

  northern home by this time, with a liberal pension which Mr. Newcome gave

  her, and which his son and his son's son after him, through all their

  difficulties and distresses, always found means to pay.

  What the boy threatened in his delirium he had thought of, no doubt, more

  than once in his solitary and unhappy holidays. A year after he actually

  ran away, not from school, but from home; and appeared one morning, gaunt

  and hungry, at Sarah's cottage two hundred miles away from Clapham, who

  housed the poor prodigal, and killed her calf for him--washed him, with

  many tears and kisses, and put him to bed and to sleep; from which

  slumber he was aroused by the appearance of his father, whose sure

  instinct, backed by Mrs. Newcome's own quick intelligence, had made him

  at once aware whither the young runaway had fled. The poor father came

  horsewhip in hand--he knew of no other law or means to maintain his

  authority; many and many a time had his own father, the old weaver, whose

  memory he loved and honoured, strapped and beaten him. Seeing this

  instrument in the parent's hand, as Mr. Newcome thrust out the weeping

  trembling Sarah and closed the door upon her, Tommy, scared out of a

  sweet sleep and a delightful dream of cricket, knew his fate; and,

  getting up out of bed, received his punishment without a word. Very

  likely the father suffered more than the child; for when the punishment

  was over, the little man, yet trembling and quivering with the pain, held

  out his little bleeding hand and said, "I can--I can take it from you,

  sir;" saying which his face flushed, and his eyes filled, for the first

  time; whereupon the father burst into a passion of tears, and embraced

  the boy and kissed him, besought and prayed him to be rebellious no more

  --flung the whip away from him and swore, come what would, he would never

  strike him again. The quarrel was the means of a great and happy

  reconciliation. The three dined together in Sarah's cottage. Perhaps the

  father would have liked to walk that evening in the lanes and fields

  where he had wandered as a young fellow: where he had first courted and

  first kissed the young girl he loved--poor child--who had waited for him

  so faithfully and fondly, who had passed so many a day of patient want

  and meek expectance, to be repaid by such a scant holiday and brief

  fruition.

  Mrs. Newcome never made the slightest allusion to Tom's absence after his

  return, but was quite gentle and affectionate with him, and that night

  read the parable of the Prodigal in a very low and quiet voice.

  This, however, was only a temporary truce. War very soon broke out again

  between the impetuous lad and his rigid domineering mother-in-law. It was

  not that he was very bad, or she perhaps more stern than other ladies,

  but the two could not agree. The boy sulked and was miserable at home. He

  fell to drinking with the grooms in the stables. I think he went to Epsom

  races, and was discovered after that act of rebellion. Driving from a

  most interesting breakfast at Roehampton (where a delightful Hebrew

  convert had spoken, oh! so graciously!), Mrs. Newcome--in her

  state-carriage, with her bay horses--met Tom, her son-in-law, in a

  tax-cart, excited by drink, and accompanied by all sorts of friends, male

  and female. John the black man was bidden to descend from the carriage

  and bring him to Mrs. Newcome. He came; his voice was thick with drink.

  He laughed wildly: he described a fight at which he had been present. It

  was not possible that such a castaway as this should continue in a house

  where her two little cherubs were growing up in innocence and grace.

  The boy had a great fancy for India; and Orme's History, containing the

  exploits of Clive and Lawrence, was his favourite book of all in his

  father's library. Being offered a writership, he scouted the idea of a

  civil appointment, and would be contented with nothing but a uniform. A

  cavalry cadetship was procured for Thomas Newcome; and the young man's

  future career being thus determined, and his stepmother's unwilling

  consent procured, Mr. Newcome thought fit to send his son to a tutor for

  military instruction, and removed him from the London school, where in

  truth he had made but very little progress in the humaner letters. The

  lad was placed with a professor who prepared young men for the army, and

  received rather a better professional education than fell to the lot of

  most young soldiers of his day. He cultivated the ma
thematics and

  fortification with more assiduity than he had ever bestowed on Greek and

  Latin, and especially made such a progress in the French tongue as was

  very uncommon among the British youth his contemporaries.

  In the study of this agreeable language, over which young Newcome spent a

  great deal of his time, he unluckily had some instructors who were

  destined to bring the poor lad into yet further trouble at home. His

  tutor, an easy gentleman, lived at Blackheath, and, not far from thence,

  on the road to Woolwich, dwelt the little Chevalier de Blois, at whose

  house the young man much preferred to take his French lessons rather than

  to receive them under his tutor's own roof.

  For the fact was that the little Chevalier de Blois had two pretty young

  daughters, with whom he had fled from his country along with thousands of

  French gentlemen at the period of revolution and emigration. He was a

  cadet of a very ancient family, and his brother, the Marquis de Blois,

  was a fugitive like himself, but with the army of the princes on the

  Rhine, or with his exiled sovereign at Mittau. The Chevalier had seen the

  wars of the great Frederick: what man could be found better to teach

  young Newcome the French language and the art military? It was surprising

  with what assiduity he pursued his studies. Mademoiselle Leonore, the

  Chevalier's daughter, would carry on her little industry very

  undisturbedly in the same parlour with her father and his pupil. She

  painted card-racks: laboured at embroidery; was ready to employ her quick

  little brain or fingers in any way by which she could find means to add a

  few shillings to the scanty store on which this exiled family supported

  themselves in their day of misfortune. I suppose the Chevalier was not in

  the least unquiet about her, because she was promised in marriage to the

  Comte de Florac, also of the emigration--a distinguished officer like the

  Chevalier, than whom he was a year older--and, at the time of which we

  speak, engaged in London in giving private lessons on the fiddle.

  Sometimes on a Sunday he would walk to Blackheath with that instrument in

  his hand, and pay his court to his young fiancee, and talk over happier

  days with his old companion-in-arms. Tom Newcome took no French lessons

  on a Sunday. He passed that day at Clapham generally, where, strange to

  say, he never said a word about Mademoiselle de Blois.

  What happens when two young folks of eighteen, handsome and ardent,

  generous and impetuous, alone in the world, or without strong affections

  to bind them elsewhere,--what happens when they meet daily over French

  dictionaries, embroidery frames, or indeed upon any business whatever? No

  doubt Mademoiselle Leonore was a young lady perfectly bien elevee, and

  ready, as every well-elevated young Frenchwoman should be, to accept a

  husband of her parents' choosing; but while the elderly M. de Florac was

  fiddling in London, there was that handsome young Tom Newcome ever

  present at Blackheath. To make a long matter short, Tom declared his

  passion, and was for marrying Leonore off hand, if she would but come

  with him to the little Catholic chapel at Woolwich. Why should they not

  go out to India together and be happy ever after?

  The innocent little amour may have been several months in transaction,

  and was discovered by Mrs. Newcome, whose keen spectacles nothing could

  escape. It chanced that she drove to Blackheath to Tom's tutor's. Tom was

  absent taking his French and drawing lesson of M. de Blois. Thither Tom's

  stepmother followed him, and found the young man sure enough with his

  instructor over his books and plans of fortification. Mademoiselle and

  her card-screens were in the room, but behind those screens she could not

  hide her blushes and confusion from Mrs. Newcome's sharp glances. In one

  moment the banker's wife saw the whole affair--the whole mystery which

  had been passing for months under poor M. de Blois' nose, without his

  having the least notion of the truth.

  Mrs. Newcome said she wanted her son to return home with her upon private

  affairs; and before they had reached the Hermitage a fine battle had

  ensued between them. His mother had charged him with being a wretch and a

  monster, and he had replied fiercely, denying the accusation with scorn,

  and announcing his wish instantly to marry the most virtuous, the most

  beautiful of her sex. To marry a Papist! This was all that was wanted to

  make poor Tom's cup of bitterness run over. Mr. Newcome was called in,

  and the two elders passed a great part of the night in an assault upon

  the lad. He was grown too tall for the cane; but Mrs. Newcome thonged him

  with the lash of her indignation for many an hour that evening.

  He was forbidden to enter, M. de Blois' house, a prohibition at which the

  spirited young fellow snapped his fingers, and laughed in scorn. Nothing,

  he swore, but death should part him from the young lady. On the next day

  his father came to him alone and plied him with entreaties, but he was as

  obdurate as before. He would have her; nothing should prevent him. He

  cocked his hat and walked out of the lodge-gate, as his father, quite

  beaten by the young man's obstinacy, with haggard face and tearful eyes,

  went his own way into town. He was not very angry himself: in the course

  of their talk overnight the boy had spoken bravely and honestly, and

  Newcome could remember how, in his own early life, he too had courted and

  loved a young lass. It was Mrs. Newcome the father was afraid of. Who

  shall depict her wrath at the idea that a child of her house was about to

  marry a Popish girl?

  So young Newcome went his way to Blackheath, bent upon falling

  straightway down upon his knees before Leonore, and having the

  Chevalier's blessing. That old fiddler in London scarcely seemed to him

  to be an obstacle: it seemed monstrous that a young creature should be

  given away to a man older than her own father. He did not know the law of

  honour, as it obtained amongst French gentlemen of those days, or how

  religiously their daughters were bound by it.

  But Mrs. Newcome had been beforehand with him, and had visited the

  Chevalier de Blois almost at cockcrow. She charged him insolently with

  being privy to the attachment between the young people; pursued him with

  vulgar rebukes about beggary, Popery, and French adventurers. Her husband

  had to make a very contrite apology afterwards for the language which his

  wife had thought fit to employ. "You forbid me," said the Chevalier, "you

  forbid Mademoiselle de Blois to marry your son, Mr. Thomas! No, madam,

  she comes of a race which is not accustomed to ally itself with persons

  of your class; and is promised to a gentleman whose ancestors were dukes

  and peers when Mr. Newcome's were blacking shoes!" Instead of finding his

  pretty blushing girl on arriving at Woolwich, poor Tom only found his

  French master, livid with rage and quivering under his ailes de pigeon.

  We pass over the scenes that followed; the young man's passionate

  entreaties, and fury and despair. In his own defence, and to prove his

  honour to the world, M. d
e Blois determined that his daughter should

  instantly marry the Count. The poor girl yielded without a word, as

  became her; and it was with this marriage effected almost before his

  eyes, and frantic with wrath and despair, that young Newcome embarked for

  India, and quitted the parents whom he was never more to see.

  Tom's name was no more mentioned at Clapham. His letters to his father

  were written to the City; very pleasant they were, and comforting to the

  father's heart. He sent Tom liberal private remittances to India, until

  the boy wrote to say that he wanted no more. Mr. Newcome would have liked

  to leave Tom all his private fortune, for the twins were only too well

  cared for; but he dared not on account of his terror of Sophia Alethea,

  his wife; and he died, and poor Tom was only secretly forgiven.

  CHAPTER III

  Colonel Newcome's Letter-box

  I

  "With the most heartfelt joy, my dear Major, I take up my pen to announce

  to you the happy arrival of the Ramchunder, and the dearest and

  handsomest little boy who, I am sure, ever came from India. Little Clive

  is in perfect health. He speaks English wonderfully well. He cried when

  he parted from Mr. Sneid, the supercargo, who most kindly brought him

  from Southampton in a postchaise, but these tears in childhood are of

  very brief duration! The voyage, Mr. Sneid states, was most favourable,

  occupying only four months and eleven days. How different from that more

  lengthened and dangerous passage of eight months, and almost perpetual

  sea-sickness, in which my poor dear sister Emma went to Bengal, to become

  the wife of the best of husbands and the mother of the dearest of little

  boys, and to enjoy these inestimable blessings for so brief an interval!

  She has quitted this wicked and wretched world for one where all is

  peace. The misery and ill-treatment which she endured from Captain Case

  her first odious husband, were, I am sure, amply repaid, my dear Colonel,

  by your subsequent affection. If the most sumptuous dresses which London,

  even Paris, could supply, jewellery the most costly, and elegant lace,

  and everything lovely and fashionable, could content a woman, these, I am

  sure, during the last four years of her life, the poor girl had. Of what

  avail are they when this scene of vanity is closed?

  "Mr. Sneid announces that the passage was most favourable. They stayed a

  week at the Cape, and three days at St. Helena, where they visited

  Bonaparte's tomb (another instance of the vanity of all things!), and

  their voyage was enlivened off Ascension by the taking of some delicious

  turtle!

  "You may be sure that the most liberal sum which you have placed to my

  credit with the Messrs. Hobson and Co. shall be faithfully expended on my

  dear little charge. Mrs. Newcome can scarcely be called his grandmamma, I

  suppose; and I daresay her Methodistical ladyship will not care to see

  the daughter and grandson of a clergyman of the Church of England! My

  brother Charles took leave to wait upon her when he presented your last

  most generous bill at the bank. She received him most rudely, and said a

  fool and his money are soon parted; and when Charles said, 'Madam, I am

  the brother of the late Mrs. Major Newcome,' 'Sir,' says she, 'I judge

  nobody; but from all accounts, you are the brother of a very vain, idle,

  thoughtless, extravagant woman; and Thomas Newcome was as foolish about

  his wife as about his money.' Of course, unless Mrs. N. writes to invite

  dear Clive, I shall not think of sending him to Clapham.

  "It is such hot weather that I cannot wear the beautiful shawl you have

  sent me, and shall keep it in lavender till next winter! My brother, who

  thanks you for your continuous bounty, will write next month, and report

  progress as to his dear pupil. Clive will add a postscript of his own,

  and I am, my dear Major, with a thousand thanks for your kindness to me,