The Newcomes

by William Makepeace Thackeray

Fashion I do not worship. You may meet that amongst other branches of our

  family; but genius and talent I do reverence. And if I can be the means--

  the humble means--to bring men of genius together--mind to associate with

  mind--men of all nations to mingle in friendly unison--I shall not have

  lived altogether in vain. They call us women of the world frivolous,

  Colonel Newcome. So some may be; I do not say there are not in our own

  family persons who worship mere worldly rank, and think but of fashion

  and gaiety; but such, I trust, will never be the objects in life of me

  and my children. We are but merchants; we seek to be no more. If I can

  look around me and see as I do"-(she waves her fan round, and points to

  the illustrations scintillating round the room)--"and see as I do now--a

  Poski, whose name is ever connected with Polish history--an Ettore, who

  has exchanged a tonsure and a rack for our own free country--a

  Hammerstein, and a Quartz, a Miss Rudge, our Transatlantic sister (who I

  trust will not mention this modest salon in her forthcoming work on

  Europe), and Miss Pinnifer, whose genius I acknowledge, though I deplore

  her opinions; if I can gather together travellers, poets, and painters,

  princes and distinguished soldiers from the East, and clergymen

  remarkable for their eloquence, my humble aim is attained, and Maria

  Newcome is not altogether useless in her generation. Will you take a

  little refreshment? Allow your sister to go down to the dining-room

  supported by your gallant arm." She looked round to the admiring

  congregation, whereof Honeyman, as it were acted as clerk, and flirting

  her fan, and flinging up her little head. Consummate Virtue walked down

  on the arm of the Colonel.

  The refreshment was rather meagre. The foreign artists generally dashed

  downstairs, and absorbed all the ices, creams, etc. To those coming late

  there were chicken-bones, table-cloths puddled with melted ice, glasses

  hazy with sherry, and broken bits of bread. The Colonel said he never

  supped; and he and Honeyman walked away together, the former to bed, the

  latter, I am sorry to say, to his club; for he was a dainty feeder, and

  loved lobster, and talk late at night, and a comfortable little glass of

  something wherewith to conclude the day.

  He agreed to come to breakfast with the Colonel, who named eight or nine

  for the meal. Nine Mr. Honeyman agreed to with a sigh. The incumbent of

  Lady Whittlesea's chapel seldom rose before eleven. For, to tell the

  truth, no French abbot of Louis XV. was more lazy and luxurious, and

  effeminate, than our polite bachelor preacher.

  One of Colonel Newcome's fellow-passengers from India was Mr. James

  Binnie of the Civil Service, a jolly young bachelor of two- or

  three-and-forty, who, having spent half of his past life in Bengal, was

  bent upon enjoying the remainder in Britain or in Europe, if a residence

  at home should prove agreeable to him. The Nabob of books and tradition

  is a personage no longer to be found among us. He is neither as wealthy

  nor as wicked as the jaundiced monster of romances and comedies, who

  purchases the estates of broken-down English gentlemen, with rupees

  tortured out of bleeding rajahs, who smokes a hookah in public, and in

  private carries about a guilty conscience, diamonds of untold value, and

  a diseased liver; who has a vulgar wife, with a retinue of black servants

  whom she maltreats, and a gentle son and daughter with good impulses and

  an imperfect education, desirous to amend their own and their parents'

  lives, and thoroughly ashamed of the follies of the old people. If you go

  to the house of an Indian gentleman now, he does not say, "Bring more

  curricles," like the famous Nabob of Stanstead Park. He goes to

  Leadenhall Street in an omnibus, and walks back from the City for

  exercise. I have known some who have had maid-servants to wait on them at

  dinner. I have met scores who look as florid and rosy as any British

  squire who has never left his paternal beef and acres. They do not wear

  nankeen jackets in summer. Their livers are not out of order any more;

  and as for hookahs, I dare swear there are not two now kept alight within

  the bills of mortality; and that retired Indians would as soon think of

  smoking them, as their wives would of burning themselves on their

  husbands' bodies at the cemetery, Kensal Green, near to the Tyburnian

  quarter of the city which the Indian world at present inhabits. It used

  to be Baker Street and Harley Street; it used to be Portland Place, and

  in more early days Bedford Square, where the Indian magnates flourished;

  districts which have fallen from their pristine state of splendour now,

  even as Agra, and Benares, and Lucknow, and Tippoo Sultan's city are

  fallen.

  After two-and-twenty years' absence from London, Mr. Binnie returned to

  it on the top of the Gosport coach with a hatbox and a little

  portmanteau, a pink fresh-shaven face, a perfect appetite, a suit of

  clothes like everybody else's, and not the shadow of a black servant. He

  called a cab at the White Horse Cellar, and drove to Nerot's Hotel,

  Clifford Street; and he gave the cabman eightpence, making the fellow,

  who grumbled, understand that Clifford Street was not two hundred yards

  from Bond Street, and that he was paid at the rate of five shillings and

  fourpence per mile--calculating the mile at only sixteen hundred yards.

  He asked the waiter at what time Colonel Newcome had ordered dinner, and

  finding there was an hour on his hands before the meal, walked out to

  examine the neighbourhood for a lodging where he could live more quietly

  than in a hotel. He called it a hotel. Mr. Binnie was a North Briton, his

  father having been a Writer to the Signet, in Edinburgh, who had procured

  his son a writership in return for electioneering services done to an

  East Indian Director. Binnie had his retiring pension, and, besides, had

  saved half his allowances ever since he had been in India. He was a man

  of great reading, no small ability, considerable accomplishment,

  excellent good sense and good humour. The ostentatious said he was a

  screw; but he gave away more money than far more extravagant people: he

  was a disciple of David Hume (whom he admired more than any other

  mortal), and the serious denounced him as a man of dangerous principles,

  though there were, among the serious, men much more dangerous than James

  Binnie.

  On returning to his hotel, Colonel Newcome found this worthy gentleman

  installed in his room in the best arm-chair sleeping cosily; the evening

  paper laid decently over his plump waistcoat, and his little legs placed

  on an opposite chair. Mr. Binnie woke up briskly when the Colonel

  entered. "It is you, you gad-about, is it?" cried the civilian. "How has

  the beau monde of London treated the Indian Adonis? Have you made a

  sensation, Newcome? Gad, Tom, I remember you a buck of bucks when that

  coat first came out to Calcutta--just a Barrackpore Brummell--in Lord

  Minto's reign, was it, or when Lord Hastings was satrap over us?"

  "A man must have one good coat," says the Colonel; "I don't profess to b
e

  a dandy; but get a coat from a good tailor, and then have done with it."

  He still thought his garment was as handsome as need be.

  "Done with it--ye're never done with it!" cries the civilian.

  "An old coat is an old friend, old Binnie. I don't want to be rid of one

  or the other. How long did you and my boy sit up together--isn't he a

  fine lad, Binnie? I expect you are going to put him down for something

  handsome in your will."

  "See what it is to have a real friend now, Colonel! I sate up for ye, or

  let us say more correctly, I waited for you--because I knew you would

  want to talk about that scapegrace of yours. And if I had gone to bed, I

  should have had you walking up to No. 28, and waking me out of my first

  rosy slumber. Well, now confess; avoid not. Haven't ye fallen in love

  with some young beauty on the very first night of your arrival in your

  sister's salong, and selected a mother-in-law for young Scapegrace?"

  "Isn't he a fine fellow, James?" says the Colonel, lighting a cheroot as

  he sits on the table. Was it joy, or the bedroom candle with which he

  lighted his cigar, which illuminated his honest features so, and made

  them so to shine?

  "I have been occupied, sir, in taking the lad's moral measurement: and

  have pumped him as successfully as ever I cross-examined a rogue in my

  court. I place his qualities thus:--Love of approbation sixteen.

  Benevolence fourteen. Combativeness fourteen. Adhesiveness two.

  Amativeness is not yet of course fully developed, but I expect will be

  prodeegiously strong. The imaginative and reflective organs are very

  large--those, of calculation weak. He may make a poet or a painter, or

  you may make a sojer of him, though worse men than him's good enough for

  that--but a bad merchant, a lazy lawyer, and a miserable mathematician.

  He has wit and conscientiousness, so ye mustn't think of making a

  clergyman of him."

  "Binnie!" says the Colonel gravely, "you are always sneering at the

  cloth."

  "When I think that, but for my appointment to India, I should have been a

  luminary of the faith and a pillar of the church! grappling with the

  ghostly enemy in the pulpit, and giving out the psawm. Eh, sir, what a

  loss Scottish Divinity has had in James Binnie!" cries the little

  civilian with his most comical face. "But that is not the question. My

  opinion, Colonel, is, that young Scapegrace will give you a deal of

  trouble; or would, only you are so absurdly proud of him that you think

  everything he does is perfaction. He'll spend your money for you: he'll

  do as little work as need be. He'll get into scrapes with the sax. He's

  almost as simple as his father, and that is to say that any rogue will

  cheat him; and he seems to me to have got your obstinate habit of telling

  the truth, Colonel, which may prevet his getting on in the world, but on

  the other hand will keep him from going very wrong. So that, though there

  is every fear for him, there's some hope and some consolation."

  "What do you think of his Latin and Greek?" asks the Colonel. Before

  going out to his party, Newcome had laid a deep scheme with Binnie, and

  it had been agreed that the latter should examine the young fellow in his

  humanities.

  "Wall," cries the Scot, "I find that the lad knows as much about Greek

  and Latin as I knew myself when I was eighteen years of age."

  "My dear Binnie, is it possible? You, the best scholar in all India!"

  "And which amounted to exactly nothing. He has acquired in five years,

  and by the admirable seestem purshood at your public schools, just about

  as much knowledge of the ancient languages as he could get by three

  months' application at home. Mind ye, I don't say he would apply; it is

  most probable he would do no such thing. But at the cost of--how much?

  two hundred pounds annually--for five years--he has acquired about

  five-and-twenty guineas' worth of classical leeterature--enough, I dare

  say, to enable him to quote Horace respectably through life, and what

  more do ye want from a young man of his expectations? I think I should

  send him into the army, that's the best place for him--there's the least

  to do, and the handsomest clothes to wear. Acce segnum!" says the little

  wag, daintily taking up the tail of his friend's coat.

  "There's never any knowing whether you are in jest or in earnest,

  Binnie," the puzzled Colonel said.

  "How should you know, when I don't know myself?" answered the Scotchman.

  "In earnest now, Tom Newcome, I think your boy is as fine a lad as I ever

  set eyes on. He seems to have intelligence and good temper. He carries

  his letter of recommendation in his countenance; and with the honesty--

  and the rupees, mind ye--which he inherits from his father, the deuce is

  in it if he can't make his way. What time's the breakfast? Eh, but it was

  a comfort this morning not to hear the holystoning on the deck. We ought

  to go into lodgings, and not fling our money out of the window of this

  hotel. We must make the young chap take us about and show us the town in

  the morning, Tom. I had but three days of it five-and-twenty years ago,

  and I propose to reshoome my observations to-morrow after breakfast.

  We'll just go on deck and see how's her head before we turn in, eh,

  Colonel?" and with this the jolly gentleman nodded over his candle to his

  friend, and trotted off to bed.

  The Colonel and his friend were light sleepers and early risers, like

  most men that come from the country where they had both been so long

  sojourning, and were awake and dressed long before the London waiters had

  thought of quitting their beds. The housemaid was the only being stirring

  in the morning when little Mr. Binnie blundered over her pail as she was

  washing the deck. Early as he was, his fellow-traveller had preceded him.

  Binnie found the Colonel in his sitting-room arrayed in what are called

  in Scotland his stocking-feet, already puffing the cigar, which in truth

  was seldom out of his mouth at any hour of the day.

  He had a couple of bedrooms adjacent to this sitting-room, and when

  Binnie, as brisk and rosy about the gills as chanticleer, broke out in a

  morning salutation, "Hush," says the Colonel, putting a long finger up to

  his mouth, and advancing towards him as noiselessly as a ghost.

  "What's in the wind now?" asks the little Scot; "and what for have ye not

  got your shoes on?"

  "Clive's asleep," says the Colonel, with a countenance full of extreme

  anxiety.

  "The darling boy slumbers, does he?" said the wag; "mayn't I just step in

  and look at his beautiful countenance whilst he's asleep, Colonel?"

  "You may if you take off those confounded creaking shoes," the other

  answered, quite gravely; and Binnie turned away to hide his jolly round

  face, which was screwed up with laughter.

  "Have ye been breathing a prayer over your rosy infant's slumbers, Tom?"

  asks Mr. Binnie.

  "And if I have, James Binnie," the Colonel said gravely, and his sallow

  face blushing somewhat, "if I have, I hope I've done no harm. The last

  time I saw him asleep was nine years ago, a sickl
y little pale-faced boy

  in his little cot, and now, sir, that I see him again, strong and

  handsome, and all that a fond father can wish to see a boy, I should be

  an ungrateful villain, James, if I didn't--if I didn't do what you said

  just now, and thank God Almighty for restoring him to me."

  Binnie did not laugh any more. "By George, Tom Newcome," said he, "you're

  just one of the saints of the earth. If all men were like you there'd be

  an end of both our trades; there would be no fighting and no soldiering,

  no rogues and no magistrates to catch them." The Colonel wondered at his

  friend's enthusiasm, who was not used to be complimentary; indeed what so

  usual with him as that simple act of gratitude and devotion about which

  his comrade spoke to him? To ask a blessing for his boy was as natural to

  him as to wake with the sunrise, or to go to rest when the day was over.

  His first and his last thought was always the child.

  The two gentlemen were home in time enough to find Clive dressed, and his

  uncle arrived for breakfast. The Colonel said a grace over that meal: the

  life was begun which he had longed and prayed for, and the son smiling

  before his eyes who had been in his thoughts for so many fond years.

  CHAPTER IX

  Miss Honeyman's

  In Steyne Gardens, Brighton, the lodging-houses are among the most

  frequented in that city of lodging-houses. These mansions have

  bow-windows in front, bulging out with gentle prominences, and ornamented

  with neat verandahs, from which you can behold the tide of humankind as

  it flows up and down the Steyne, and that blue ocean over which Britannia

  is said to rule, stretching brightly away eastward and westward. The

  chain-pier, as every body knows, runs intrepidly into the sea, which

  sometimes, in fine weather, bathes its feet with laughing wavelets, and

  anon, on stormy days, dashes over its sides with roaring foam. Here, for

  the sum of twopence, you can go out to sea and pace this vast deck

  without need of a steward with a basin. You can watch the sun setting in

  splendour over Worthing, or illuminating with its rising glories the ups

  and downs of Rottingdean. You see the citizen with his family inveigled

  into the shallops of the mercenary native mariner, and fancy that the

  motion cannot be pleasant; and how the hirer of the boat, otium et oppidi

  laudat rura sui, haply sighs for ease, and prefers Richmond or Hampstead.

  You behold a hundred bathing-machines put to sea; and your naughty fancy

  depicts the beauties splashing under their white awnings. Along the

  rippled sands (stay, are they rippled sands or shingly beach?) the

  prawn-boy seeks the delicious material of your breakfast. Breakfast-meal

  in London almost unknown, greedily devoured in Brighton! In yon vessels

  now nearing the shore the sleepless mariner has ventured forth to seize

  the delicate whiting, the greedy and foolish mackerel, and the homely

  sole. Hark to the twanging horn! it is the early coach going out to

  London. Your eye follows it, and rests on the pinnacles built by the

  beloved GEORGE. See the worn-out London roue pacing the pier, inhaling

  the sea air, and casting furtive glances under the bonnets of the pretty

  girls who trot here before lessons! Mark the bilious lawyer, escaped for

  a day from Pump Court, and sniffing the fresh breezes before he goes back

  to breakfast and a bag full of briefs at the Albion! See that pretty

  string of prattling schoolgirls, from the chubby-cheeked, flaxen-headed

  little maiden just toddling by the side of the second teacher, to the

  arch damsel of fifteen, giggling and conscious of her beauty, whom Miss

  Griffin, the stern head-governess, awfully reproves! See Tomkins with a

  telescope and marine jacket; young Nathan and young Abrams, already

  bedizened in jewellery, and rivalling the sun in oriental splendour;