The Newcomes
Page 6
"Lieutenant-Colonel Newcome, etc."
CHAPTER IV
In which the Author and the Hero resume their Acquaintance
If we are to narrate the youthful history not only of the hero of this
tale, but of the hero's father, we shall never have done with nursery
biography. A gentleman's grandmother may delight in fond recapitulation
of her darling's boyish frolics and early genius; but shall we weary our
kind readers by this infantile prattle, and set down the revered British
public for an old woman? Only to two or three persons in all the world
are the reminiscences of a man's early youth interesting: to the parent
who nursed him; to the fond wife or child mayhap afterwards who loves
him; to himself always and supremely--whatever may be his actual
prosperity or ill-fortune, his present age, illness, difficulties,
renown, or disappointments, the dawn of his life still shines brightly
for him, the early griefs and delights and attachments remain with him
ever faithful and dear. I shall ask leave to say, regarding the juvenile
biography of Mr. Clive Newcome, of whose history I am the chronicler,
only so much as is sufficient to account for some peculiarities of his
character, and for his subsequent career in the world.
Although we were schoolfellows, my acquaintance with young Newcome at the
seat of learning where we first met was very brief and casual. He had the
advantage of being six years the junior of his present biographer, and
such a difference of age between lads at a public school puts intimacy
out of the question--a junior ensign being no more familiar with the
Commander-in-Chief at the Horse Guards, or a barrister on his first
circuit with my Lord Chief Justice on the bench, than the newly breeched
infant in the Petties with a senior boy in a tailed coat. As we "knew
each other at home," as our school phrase was, and our families being
somewhat acquainted, Newcome's maternal uncle, the Rev. Charles Honeyman
(the highly gifted preacher, and incumbent of Lady Whittlesea's Chapel,
Denmark Street, Mayfair), when he brought the child, after the Christmas
vacation of 182-, to the Grey Friars' school, recommended him in a neat
complimentary speech to my superintendence and protection. My uncle,
Major Pendennis, had for a while a seat in the chapel of this sweet and
popular preacher, and professed, as a great number of persons of fashion
did, a great admiration for him--an admiration which I shared in my early
youth, but which has been modified by maturer judgment.
Mr. Honeyman told me, with an air of deep respect, that his young
nephew's father, Colonel Thomas Newcome, C.B., was a most gallant and
distinguished officer in the Bengal establishment of the Honourable East
India Company;--and that his uncles, the Colonel's half-brothers, were
the eminent bankers, heads of the firm of Hobson Brothers and Newcome,
Hobson Newcome, Esquire, Bryanstone Square, and Marblehead, Sussex, and
Sir Brian Newcome, of Newcome and Park Lane, "whom to name," says Mr.
Honeyman, with the fluent eloquence with which he decorated the commonest
circumstances of life, "is to designate two of the merchant princes of
the wealthiest city the world has ever known; and one, if not two, of the
leaders of that aristocracy which rallies round the throne of the most
elegant and refined of European sovereigns." I promised Mr. Honeyman to
do what I could for the boy; and he proceeded to take leave of his little
nephew in my presence in terms equally eloquent, pulling out a long and
very slender green purse, from which he extracted the sum of
two-and-sixpence, which he presented to the child, who received the money
with rather a queer twinkle in his blue eyes.
After that day's school, I met my little protege in the neighbourhood of
the pastrycook's, regaling himself with raspberry-tarts. "You must not
spend all that money, sir, which your uncle gave you," said I (having
perhaps even at that early age a slightly satirical turn), "in tarts and
ginger-beer."
The urchin rubbed the raspberry-jam off his mouth, and said, "It don't
matter, sir, for I've got lots more."
"How much?" says the Grand Inquisitor: for the formula of interrogation
used to be, when a new boy came to the school, "What's your name? Who's
your father? and how much money have you got?"
The little fellow pulled such a handful of sovereigns out of his pocket
as might have made the tallest scholar feel a pang of envy. "Uncle
Hobson," says he, "gave me two; Aunt Hobson gave me one--no, Aunt Hobson
gave me thirty shillings; Uncle Newcome gave me three pound; and Aunt
Anne gave me one pound five; and Aunt Honeyman sent me ten shillings in a
letter. And Ethel wanted to give me a pound, only I wouldn't have it, you
know; because Ethel's younger than me, and I have plenty."
"And who is Ethel?" asks the senior boy, smiling at the artless youth's
confessions.
"Ethel is my cousin," replies little Newcome; "Aunt Anne's daughter.
There's Ethel and Alice, and Aunt Anne wanted the baby to be called
Boadicea, only uncle wouldn't; and there's Barnes and Egbert and little
Alfred; only he don't count, he's quite a baby you know. Egbert and me
was at school at Timpany's; he's going to Eton next half. He's older than
me, but I can lick him."
"And how old is Egbert?" asks the smiling senior.
"Egbert's ten, and I'm nine, and Ethel's seven," replies the little
chubby-faced hero, digging his hands deep into his trousers' pockets, and
jingling all the sovereigns there. I advised him to let me be his banker;
and, keeping one out of his many gold pieces, he handed over the others,
on which he drew with great liberality till his whole stock was expended.
The school hours of the upper and under boys were different at that time;
the little fellows coming out of their hall half an hour before the Fifth
and Sixth Forms; and many a time I used to find my little blue jacket in
waiting, with his honest square face, and white hair, and bright blue
eyes, and I knew that he was come to draw on his bank. Ere long one of
the pretty blue eyes was shut up, and a fine black one substituted in its
place. He had been engaged, it appeared, in a pugilistic encounter with a
giant of his own Form, whom he had worsted in the combat. "Didn't I pitch
into him, that's all?" says he in the elation of victory; and when I
asked whence the quarrel arose, he stoutly informed me that "Wolf minor,
his opponent, had been bullying a little boy, and that he (the gigantic
Newcome) wouldn't stand it."
So, being called away from the school, I said farewell and God bless you
to the brave little man, who remained a while at the Grey Friars, where
his career and troubles had only just begun.
Nor did we meet again until I was myself a young man occupying chambers
in the Temple, when our rencontre took place in the manner already
described.
Poor Costigan's outrageous behaviour had caused my meeting with my
schoolfellow of early days to terminate so abruptly and unpleasantly,
that I scarce expected to see Clive ag
ain, or at any rate to renew my
acquaintance with the indignant East Indian warrior who had quitted our
company in such a huff. Breakfast, however, was scarcely over in my
chambers the next morning, when there came a knock at the outer door, and
my clerk introduced "Colonel Newcome and Mr. Newcome."
Perhaps the (joint) occupant of the chambers in Lamb Court, Temple, felt
a little pang of shame at hearing the name of the visitors; for, if the
truth must be told, I was engaged pretty much as I had been occupied on
the night previous, and was smoking a cigar over the Times newspaper. How
many young men in the Temple smoke a cigar after breakfast as they read
the Times? My friend and companion of those days, and all days, Mr.
George Warrington, was employed with his short pipe, and was not in the
least disconcerted at the appearance of the visitors, as he would not
have been had the Archbishop of Canterbury stepped in.
Little Clive looked curiously about our queer premises, while the Colonel
shook me cordially by the hand. No traces of yesterday's wrath were
visible on his face, but a friendly smile lighted his bronzed
countenance, as he too looked round the old room with its dingy curtains
and prints and bookcases, its litter of proof-sheets, blotted
manuscripts, and books for review, empty soda-water bottles, cigar-boxes,
and what not.
"I went off in a flame of fire last night," says the Colonel, "and being
cooled this morning, thought it but my duty to call on Mr. Pendennis and
apologise for my abrupt behaviour. The conduct of that tipsy old Captain
--what is his name?--was so abominable, that I could not bear that Clive
should be any longer in the same room with him, and I went off without
saying a word of thanks or good-night to my son's old friend. I owe you a
shake of the hand for last night, Mr. Pendennis." And, so saying, he was
kind enough to give me his hand a second time.
"And this is the abode of the Muses, is it, sir?" our guest went on. "I
know your writings very well. Clive here used to send me the Pall Mall
Gazette every month."
"We took it at Smiffle, regular," says Clive. "Always patronise Grey
Friars men." "Smiffle," it must be explained, is a fond abbreviation for
Smithfield, near to which great mart of mutton and oxen our school is
situated, and old Cistercians often playfully designate their place of
education by the name of the neighbouring market.
"Clive sent me the Gazette every month; and I read your romance of Walter
Lorraine in my boat as I was coming down the river to Calcutta."
"Have Pen's immortal productions made their appearance on board Bengalee
budgerows; and are their leaves floating on the yellow banks of Jumna?"
asks Warrington, that sceptic, who respects no work of modern genius.
"I gave your book to Mrs. Timmins, at Calcutta," says the Colonel simply.
"I daresay you have heard of her. She is one of the most dashing women in
all India. She was delighted with your work; and I can tell you it is not
with every man's writing that Mrs. Timmins is pleased," he added, with a
knowing air.
"It's capital," broke in Clive. "I say, that part, you know, where Walter
runs away with Neaera, and the General can't pursue them, though he has
got the postchaise at the door, because Tim O'Toole has hidden his wooden
leg! By Jove, it's capital!--All the funny part--I don't like the
sentimental stuff, and suicide, and that; and as for poetry, I hate
poetry."
"Pen's is not first chop," says Warrington. "I am obliged to take the
young man down from time to time, Colonel Newcome. Otherwise he would
grow so conceited there would be no bearing him."
"I say," says Clive.
"What were you about to remark?" asks Mr. Warrington, with an air of
great interest.
"I say, Pendennis," continued the artless youth, "I thought you were a
great swell. When we used to read about the grand parties in the Pall
Mall Gazette, the fellows used to say you were at every one of them, and
you see, I thought you must have chambers in the Albany, and lots of
horses to ride, and a valet and a groom, and a cab at the very least."
"Sir," says the Colonel, "I hope it is not your practice to measure and
estimate gentlemen by such paltry standards as those. A man of letters
follows the noblest calling which any man can pursue. I would rather be
the author of a work of genius, than be Governor-General of India. I
admire genius. I salute it wherever I meet it. I like my own profession
better than any in the world, but then it is because I am suited to it. I
couldn't write four lines in verse, no, not to save me from being shot. A
man cannot have all the advantages of life. Who would not be poor if he
could be sure of possessing genius, and winning fame and immortality,
sir? Think of Dr. Johnson, what a genius he had, and where did he live?
In apartments that, I daresay, were no better than these, which, I am
sure, gentlemen, are most cheerful and pleasant," says the Colonel,
thinking he had offended us. "One of the great pleasures and delights
which I had proposed to myself on coming home was to be allowed to have
the honour of meeting with men of learning and genius, with wits, poets,
and historians, if I may be so fortunate; and of benefiting by their
conversation. I left England too young to have that privilege. In my
father's house money was thought of, I fear, rather than intellect;
neither he nor I had the opportunities which I wish you to have; and I am
surprised you should think of reflecting upon Mr. Pendennis's poverty, or
of feeling any sentiment but respect and admiration when you enter the
apartments of the poet and the literary man. I have never been in the
rooms of a literary man before," the Colonel said, turning away from his
son to us: "excuse me, is that--that paper really a proof-sheet?" We
handed over to him that curiosity, smiling at the enthusiasm of the
honest gentleman who could admire what to us was as unpalatable as a tart
to a pastrycook.
Being with men of letters, he thought proper to make his conversation
entirely literary; and in the course of my subsequent more intimate
acquaintance with him, though I knew he had distinguished himself in
twenty actions, he never could be brought to talk of his military feats
or experience, but passed them by, as if they were subjects utterly
unworthy of notice.
I found he believed Dr. Johnson to be the greatest of men: the Doctor's
words were constantly in his mouth; and he never travelled without
Boswell's Life. Besides these, he read Caesar and Tacitus, "with
translations, sir, with translations--I'm thankful that I kept some of my
Latin from Grey Friars;" and he quoted sentences from the Latin Grammar,
apropos of a hundred events of common life, and with perfect simplicity
and satisfaction to himself. Besides the above-named books, the
Spectator, Don Quixote, and Sir Charles Grandison formed a part of his
travelling library. "I read these, sir," he used to say, "because I like
to be in the company of gentlemen;
and Sir Roger de Coverley, and Sir
Charles Grandison, and Don Quixote are the finest gentlemen in the
world." And when we asked him his opinion of Fielding,--
"Tom Jones, sir; Joseph Andrews, sir!" he cried, twirling his mustachios.
"I read them when I was a boy, when I kept other bad company, and did
other low and disgraceful things, of which I'm ashamed now. Sir, in my
father's library I happened to fall in with those books; and I read them
in secret, just as I used to go in private and drink beer, and fight
cocks, and smoke pipes with Jack and Tom, the grooms in the stables. Mrs.
Newcome found me, I recollect, with one of those books; and thinking it
might be by Mrs. Hannah More, or some of that sort, for it was a
grave-looking volume: and though I wouldn't lie about that or anything
else--never did, sir; never, before heaven, have I told more than three
lies in my life--I kept my own counsel; I say, she took it herself to
read one evening; and read on gravely--for she had no more idea of a joke
than I have of Hebrew--until she came to the part about Lady B---- and
Joseph Andrews; and then she shut the book, sir; and you should have seen
the look she gave me! I own I burst out a-laughing, for I was a wild
young rebel, sir. But she was in the right, sir, and I was in the wrong.
A book, sir, that tells the story of a parcel of servants, of a pack of
footmen and ladies'-maids fuddling in alehouses! Do you suppose I want to
know what my kitmutgars and cousomahs are doing? I am as little proud as
any man in the world: but there must be distinction, sir; and as it is my
lot and Clive's lot to be a gentleman, I won't sit in the kitchen and
boose in the servants'-hall. As for that Tom Jones--that fellow that
sells himself, sir--by heavens, my blood boils when I think of him! I
wouldn't sit down in the same room with such a fellow, sir. If he came in
at that door, I would say, 'How dare you, you hireling ruffian, to sully
with your presence an apartment where my young friend and I are
conversing together? where two gentlemen, I say, are taking their wine
after dinner? How dare you, you degraded villain?' I don't mean you, sir.
I--I--I beg your pardon."
The Colonel was striding about the room in his loose garments, puffing
his cigar fiercely anon, and then waving his yellow bandana; and it was
by the arrival of Larkins, my clerk, that his apostrophe to Tom Jones was
interrupted; he, Larkins, taking care not to show his amazement, having
been schooled not to show or feel surprise at anything he might see or
hear in our chambers.
"What is it, Larkins?" said I. Larkins' other master had taken his leave
some time before, having business which called him away, and leaving me
with the honest Colonel, quite happy with his talk and cigar.
"It's Brett's man," says Larkins.
I confounded Brett's man, and told the boy to bid him call again. Young
Larkins came grinning back in a moment, and said:
"Please, sir, he says his orders is not to go away without the money."
"Confound him again," I cried. "Tell him I have no money in the house. He
must come to-morrow."
As I spoke, Clive was looking in wonder, and the Colonel's countenance
assumed an appearance of the most dolorous sympathy. Nevertheless, as
with a great effort, he fell to talking about Tom Jones again, and
continued:
"No, sir, I have no words to express my indignation against such a fellow
as Tom Jones. But I forgot that I need not speak. The great and good Dr.
Johnson has settled that question. You remember what he said to Mr.
Boswell about Fielding?"
"And yet Gibbon praises him, Colonel," said the Colonel's interlocutor,
"and that is no small praise. He says that Mr. Fielding was of the family
that drew its origin from the Counts of Hapsburg; but----"