how he had paid the postboys, and travelled with a servant like a
top-sawyer; that he was come to shake hands with an old nurse and
relative of his family. Every one of those jolly Britons thought well of
the Colonel for his affectionateness and liberality, and contrasted it
with the behaviour of the Tory Baronet--their representative.
His arrival made a sensation in the place. The Blue Club at the Roebuck
discussed it, as well as the uncompromising Liberals at the King's Arms.
Mr. Speers, Sir Brian's agent, did not know how to act, and advised Sir
Brian by the next night's mail, The Reverend Dr. Bulders, the rector,
left his card.
Meanwhile it was not gain or business, but only love and gratitude, which
brought Thomas Newcome to his father's native town. Their dinner over,
away went the Colonel and Clive, guided by the ostler, their previous
messenger, to the humble little tenement which Thomas Newcome's earliest
friend inhabited. The good old woman put her spectacles into her Bible,
and flung herself into her boy's arms--her boy who was more than fifty
years old. She embraced Clive still more eagerly and frequently than she
kissed his father. She did not know her Colonel with them whiskers. Clive
was the very picture of the dear boy as he had left her almost twoscore
years ago. And as fondly as she hung on the boy, her memory had ever
clung round that early time when they were together. The good soul told
endless tales of her darling's childhood, his frolics and beauty. To-day
was uncertain to her, but the past was still bright and clear. As they
sat prattling together over the bright tea-table, attended by the trim
little maid, whose services the Colonel's bounty secured for his old
nurse, the kind old creature insisted on having Clive by her side. Again
and again she would think he was actually her own boy, forgetting, in
that sweet and pious hallucination, that the bronzed face, and thinned
hair, and melancholy eyes of the veteran before her, were those of her
nursling of old days. So for near half the space of man's allotted life
he had been absent from her, and day and night wherever he was, in
sickness or health, in sorrow or danger, her innocent love and prayers
had attended the absent darling. Not in vain, not in vain, does he live
whose course is so befriended. Let us be thankful for our race, as we
think of the love that blesses some of us. Surely it has something of
Heaven in it, and angels celestial may rejoice in it, and admire it.
Having nothing whatever to do, our Colonel's movements are of course
exceedingly rapid, and he has the very shortest time to spend in any
single place. That evening, Saturday, and the next day, Sunday, when he
will faithfully accompany his dear old nurse to church. And what a
festival is that day for her, when she has her Colonel and that beautiful
brilliant boy of his by her side, and Mr. Hicks, the curate, looking at
him, and the venerable Dr. Bulders himself eyeing him from the pulpit,
and all the neighbours fluttering and whispering, to be sure, who can be
that fine military gentleman, and that splendid young man sitting by old
Mrs. Mason, and leading her so affectionately out of church? That
Saturday and Sunday the Colonel will pass with good old Mason, but on
Monday he must be off; on Tuesday he must be in London, he has important
business in London,--in fact, Tom Hamilton, of his regiment, comes up for
election at the Oriental on that day, and on such an occasion could
Thomas Newcome be absent? He drives away from the King's Arms through a
row of smirking chambermaids, smiling waiters, and thankful ostlers,
accompanied to the post-chaise, of which the obsequious Taplow shuts the
door; and the Boscawen Room pronounces him that night to be a trump; and
the whole of the busy town, ere the next day is over, has heard of his
coming and departure, praised his kindliness and generosity, and no doubt
contrasted it with the different behaviour of the Baronet, his brother,
who has gone for some time by the ignominious sobriquet of Screwcome, in
the neighbourhood of his ancestral hall.
Dear old nurse Mason will have a score of visits to make and to receive,
at all of which you may be sure that triumphal advent of the Colonel's
will be discussed and admired. Mrs. Mason will show her beautiful new
India shawl, and her splendid Bible with the large print, and the
affectionate inscription, from Thomas Newcome to his dearest old friend;
her little maid will exhibit her new gown; the curate will see the Bible,
and Mrs. Bulders will admire the shawl; and the old friends and humble
companions of the good old lady, as they take their Sunday walks by the
pompous lodge-gates of Newcome Park, which stand with the Baronet's
new-fangled arms over them, gilded, and filagreed, and barred, will tell
their stories, too, about the kind Colonel and his hard brother. When did
Sir Brian ever visit a poor old woman's cottage, or his bailiff exempt
from the rent? What good action, except a few thin blankets and beggarly
coal and soup tickets, did Newcome Park ever do for the poor? And as for
the Colonel's wealth, Lord bless you, he's been in India these
five-and-thirty years; the Baronet's money is a drop in the sea to his.
The Colonel is the kindest, the best, the richest of men. These facts and
opinions, doubtless, inspired the eloquent pen of "Peeping Tom," when he
indited the sarcastic epistle to the Newcome Independent, which we
perused over Sir Brian Newcome's shoulder in the last chapter.
And you may be sure Thomas Newcome had not been many weeks in England
before good little Miss Honeyman, at Brighton, was favoured with a visit
from her dear Colonel. The envious Gawler scowling out of his bow-window,
where the fly-blown card still proclaimed that his lodgings were
unoccupied, had the mortification to behold a yellow post-chaise drive up
to Miss Honeyman's door, and having discharged two gentlemen from within,
trot away with servant and baggage to some house of entertainment other
than Gawler's. Whilst this wretch was cursing his own ill fate, and
execrating yet more deeply Miss Honeyman's better fortune, the worthy
little lady was treating her Colonel to a sisterly embrace and a solemn
reception. Hannah, the faithful housekeeper, was presented, and had a
shake of the hand. The Colonel knew all about Hannah: ere he had been in
England a week, a basket containing pots of jam of her confection, and a
tongue of Hannah's curing, had arrived for the Colonel. That very night
when his servant had lodged Colonel Newcome's effects at the neighbouring
hotel, Hannah was in possession of one of the Colonel's shirts, she and
her mistress having previously conspired to make a dozen of those
garments for the family benefactor.
All the presents which Newcome had ever transmitted to his sister-in-law
from India had been taken out of the cotton and lavender in which the
faithful creature kept them. It was a fine hot day in June, but I promise
you Miss Honeyman wore her blazing scarlet Cashmere shawl; her great
brooch, representing the Taj of A
gra, was in her collar; and her
bracelets (she used to say, I am given to understand they are called
bangles, my dear, by the natives) decorated the sleeves round her lean
old hands, which trembled with pleasure as they received the kind grasp
of the Colonel of colonels. How busy those hands had been that morning!
What custards they had whipped!--what a triumph of pie-crusts they had
achieved! Before Colonel Newcome had been ten minutes in the house, the
celebrated veal-cutlets made their appearance. Was not the whole house
adorned in expectation of his coming? Had not Mr. Kuhn, the affable
foreign gentleman of the first-floor lodgers, prepared a French dish? Was
not Betty on the look-out, and instructed to put the cutlets on the fire
at the very moment when the Colonel's carriage drove up to her mistress's
door? The good woman's eyes twinkled, the kind old hand and voice shook,
as, holding up a bright glass of Madeira, Miss Honeyman drank the
Colonel's health. "I promise you, my dear Colonel," says she, nodding her
head, adorned with a bristling superstructure of lace and ribbons, "I
promise you, that I can drink your health in good wine!" The wine was of
his own sending, and so were the China fire-screens, and the sandalwood
workbox, and the ivory cardcase, and those magnificent pink and white
chessmen, carved like little sepoys and mandarins, with the castles on
elephants' backs, George the Third and his queen in pink ivory, against
the Emperor of China and lady in white--the delight of Clive's childhood,
the chief ornament of the old spinster's sitting-room.
Miss Honeyman's little feast was pronounced to be the perfection of
cookery; and when the meal was over, came a noise of little feet at the
parlour door, which being opened, there appeared, first, a tall nurse
with a dancing baby; second and third, two little girls with little
frocks, little trousers, long ringlets, blue eyes, and blue ribbons to
match; fourth, Master Alfred, now quite recovered from his illness, and
holding by the hand, fifth, Miss Ethel Newcome, blushing like a rose.
Hannah, grinning, acted as mistress of the ceremonies, calling out the
names of "Miss Newcomes, Master Newcomes, to see the Colonel, if you
please, ma'am," bobbing a curtsey, and giving a knowing nod to Master
Clive, as she smoothed her new silk apron. Hannah, too, was in new
attire, all crisp and rustling, in the Colonel's honour. Miss Ethel did
not cease blushing as she advanced towards her uncle; and the honest
campaigner started up, blushing too. Mr. Clive rose also, as little
Alfred, of whom he was a great friend, ran towards him. Clive rose,
laughed, nodded at Ethel, and ate gingerbread nuts all at the same time.
As for Colonel Thomas Newcome and his niece, they fell in love with each
other instantaneously, like Prince Camaralzaman and the Princess of
China.
I have turned away one artist: the poor creature was utterly incompetent
to depict the sublime, graceful, and pathetic personages and events with
which this history will most assuredly abound, and I doubt whether even
the designer engaged in his place can make such a portrait of Miss Ethel
Newcome as shall satisfy her friends and her own sense of justice. That
blush which we have indicated, he cannot render. How are you to copy it
with a steel point and a ball of printer's ink? That kindness which
lights up the Colonel's eyes; gives an expression to the very wrinkles
round about them; shines as a halo round his face;--what artist can paint
it? The painters of old, when they portrayed sainted personages, were
fain to have recourse to compasses and gold leaf--as if celestial
splendour could be represented by Dutch metal! As our artist cannot come
up to this task, the reader will be pleased to let his fancy paint for
itself the look of courtesy for a woman, admiration for a young beauty,
protection for an innocent child, all of which are expressed upon the
Colonel's kind face, as his eyes are set upon Ethel Newcome.
"Mamma has sent us to bid you welcome to England, uncle," says Miss
Ethel, advancing, and never thinking for a moment of laying aside that
fine blush which she brought into the room, and which is her pretty
symbol of youth, and modesty, and beauty.
He took a little slim white hand and laid it down on his brown palm,
where it looked all the whiter: he cleared the grizzled mustachio from
his mouth, and stooping down he kissed the little white hand with a great
deal of grace and dignity. There was no point of resemblance, and yet a
something in the girl's look, voice, and movements, which caused his
heart to thrill, and an image out of the past to rise up and salute him.
The eyes which had brightened his youth (and which he saw in his dreams
and thoughts for faithful years afterwards, as though they looked at him
out of heaven) seemed to shine upon him after five-and-thirty years. He
remembered such a fair bending neck and clustering hair, such a light
foot and airy figure, such a slim hand lying in his own--and now parted
from it with a gap of ten thousand long days between. It is an old
saying, that we forget nothing; as people in fever begin suddenly to talk
the language of their infancy we are stricken by memory sometimes, and
old affections rush back on us as vivid as in the time when they were our
daily talk, when their presence gladdened our eyes, when their accents
thrilled in our ears, when with passionate tears and grief we flung
ourselves upon their hopeless corpses. Parting is death, at least as far
as life is concerned. A passion comes to an end; it is carried off in a
coffin, or weeping in a post-chaise; it drops out of life one way or
other, and the earthclods close over it, and we see it no more. But it
has been part of our souls, and it is eternal. Does a mother not love her
dead infant? a man his lost mistress? with the fond wife nestling at his
side,--yes, with twenty children smiling round her knee. No doubt, as the
old soldier held the girl's hand in his, the little talisman led him back
to Hades, and he saw Leonora.----
"How do you do, uncle?" say girls Nos. 2 and 3 in a pretty little
infantile chorus. He drops the talisman, he is back in common life again
--the dancing baby in the arms of the bobbing nurse babbles a welcome.
Alfred looks up for a while at his uncle in the white trousers, and then
instantly proposes that Clive should make him some drawings; and is on
his knees at the next moment. He is always climbing on somebody or
something, or winding over chairs, curling through banisters, standing on
somebody's head, or his own head,--as his convalescence advances, his
breakages are fearful. Miss Honeyman and Hannah will talk about his
dilapidations for years after the little chap has left them. When he is a
jolly young officer in the Guards, and comes to see them at Brighton,
they will show him the blue-dragon Chayny jar, on which he would sit, and
which he cried so fearfully upon breaking.
When this little party has gone out smiling to take its walk on the
sea-shore, the Colonel sits down and re
sumes the interrupted dessert.
Miss Honeyman talks of the children and their mother, and the merits of
Mr. Kuhn, and the beauty of Miss Ethel, glancing significantly towards
Clive, who has had enough of gingerbread nuts and dessert and wine, and
whose youthful nose is by this time at the window. What kind-hearted
woman, young or old, does not love match-making?
The Colonel, without lifting his eyes from the table, says "she reminds
him of--of somebody he knew once."
"Indeed?" cries Miss Honeyman, and thinks Emma must have altered very
much after going to India, for she had fair hair, and white eyelashes,
and not a pretty foot certainly--but, my dear good lady, the Colonel is
not thinking of the late Mrs. Casey.
He has taken a fitting quantity of the Madeira, the artless greeting of
the people here, young and old, has warmed his heart, and he goes
upstairs to pay a visit to his sister-in-law, to whom he makes his most
courteous bow as becomes a lady of her rank. Ethel takes her place quite
naturally beside him during his visit. Where did he learn those fine
manners which all of us who knew him admired in him? He had a natural
simplicity, an habitual practice of kind and generous thoughts; a pure
mind, and therefore above hypocrisy and affectation--perhaps those French
people with whom he had been intimate in early life had imparted to him
some of the traditional graces of their vieille tour--certainly his
half-brothers had inherited none such. "What is this that Barnes has
written about his uncle, that the Colonel is ridiculous?" Lady Anne said
to her daughter that night. "Your uncle is adorable. I have never seen a
more perfect grand Seigneur. He puts me in mind of my grandfather, though
grandpapa's grand manner was more artificial, and his voice spoiled by
snuff. See the Colonel. He smokes round the garden, but with what perfect
grace! This is the man Uncle Hobson, and your poor dear papa, have
represented to us as a species of bear! Mr. Newcome, who has himself the
ton of a waiter! The Colonel is perfect. What can Barnes mean by
ridiculing him? I wish Barnes had such a distinguished air; but he is
like his poor dear papa. Que voulez-vous, my love? The Newcomes are
honourable: the Newcomes are wealthy: but distinguished--no. I never
deluded myself with that notion when I married your poor dear papa. At
once I pronounce Colonel Newcome a person to be in every way
distinguished by us. On our return to London I shall present him to all
our family: poor good man! let him see that his family have some
presentable relations besides those whom he will meet at Mrs. Newcome's,
in Bryanstone Square. You must go to Bryanstone Square immediately we
return to London. You must ask your cousins and their governess, and we
will give them a little party. Mrs. Newcome is insupportable, but we must
never forsake our relatives, Ethel. When you come out you will have to
dine there, and to go to her ball. Every young lady in your position in
the world has sacrifices to make, and duties to her family to perform.
Look at me. Why did I marry your poor dear papa? From duty. Has your Aunt
Fanny, who ran away with Captain Canonbury, been happy? They have eleven
children, and are starving at Boulogne. Think of three of Fanny's boys in
yellow stockings at the Bluecoat School. Your papa got them appointed. I
am sure my papa would have gone mad if he had seen that day! She came
with one of the poor wretches to Park Lane: but I could not see them. My
feelings would not allow me. When my maid,--I had a French maid then,
Louise, you remember; her conduct was abominable: so was Preville's--when
she came and said that my Lady Fanny was below with a young gentleman,
qui portait des bas jaunes, I could not see the child. I begged her to
come up in my room: and, absolutely that I might not offend her, I went
to bed. That wretch Louise met her at Boulogne and told her afterwards.
The Newcomes Page 23
