The Newcomes

by William Makepeace Thackeray

his daughter Lady Clara was hanging.

  Jack Belsize, in a velvet coat, with a sombrero slouched over his face,

  with a beard reaching to his waist, was, no doubt, not recognised at

  first by the noble lord of Dorking, for he was greeting the other two

  gentlemen with his usual politeness and affability; when, of a sudden,

  Lady Clara looking up, gave a little shriek and fell down lifeless on the

  gravel walk. Then the old earl recognised Mr. Belsize, and Clive heard

  him say, "You villain, how dare you come here?"

  Belsize had flung himself down to lift up Clara, calling her frantically

  by her name, when old Dorking sprang to seize him.

  "Hands off, my lord," said the other, shaking the old man from his back.

  "Confound you, Jack, hold your tongue," roars out Kew. Clive runs for a

  chair, and a dozen were forthcoming. Florac skips back with a glass of

  water. Belsize runs towards the awakening girl: and the father, for an

  instant losing all patience and self-command, trembling in every limb,

  lifts his stick, and says again, "Leave her, you ruffian." "Lady Clara

  has fainted again, sir," says Captain Belsize. "I am staying at the Hotel

  de France. If you touch me, old man" (this in a very low voice), "by

  Heaven I shall kill you. I wish you good morning;" and taking a last long

  look at the lifeless girl, he lifts his hat and walks away. Lord Dorking

  mechanically takes his hat off, and stands stupidly gazing after him. He

  beckoned Clive to follow him, and a crowd of the frequenters of the place

  are by this time closed round the fainting young lady.

  Here was a pretty incident in the Congress of Baden!

  CHAPTER XXIX

  In which Barnes comes a-wooing

  Ethel had all along known that her holiday was to be a short one, and

  that, her papa and Barnes arrived, there was to be no more laughing and

  fun and sketching and walking with Clive; so she took the sunshine while

  it lasted, determined to bear with a stout heart the bad weather.

  Sir Brian Newcome and his eldest born arrived at Baden on the very night

  of Jack Belsize's performance upon the promenade; of course it was

  necessary to inform the young bridegroom of the facts. His acquaintances

  of the public, who by this time know his temper, and are acquainted with

  his language, can imagine the explosions of the one and the vehemence of

  the other; it was a perfect feu d'artifice of oaths which he sent up. Mr.

  Newcome only fired off these volleys of curses when he was in a passion,

  but then he was in a passion very frequently.

  As for Lady Clara's little accident, he was disposed to treat that very

  lightly. "Poor dear Clara, of course, of course," he said, "she's been

  accustomed to fainting fits; no wonder she was agitated on the sight of

  that villain, after his infernal treatment of her. If I had been there"

  (a volley of oaths comes here along the whole line) "I should have

  strangled the scoundrel; I should have murdered him."

  "Mercy, Barnes!" cries Lady Anne.

  "It was a mercy Barnes was not there," says Ethel, gravely; "a fight

  between him and Captain Belsize would have been awful indeed."

  "I am afraid of no man, Ethel," says Barnes fiercely, with another oath.

  "Hit one of your own size, Barnes," says Miss Ethel (who had a number of

  school-phrases from her little brothers, and used them on occasions

  skilfully). "Hit Captain Belsize, he has no friends."

  As Jack Belsize from his height and strength was fitted to be not only an

  officer but actually a private in his former gallant regiment, and

  brother Barnes was but a puny young gentleman, the idea of a personal

  conflict between them was rather ridiculous. Some notion of this sort may

  have passed through Sir Brian's mind, for the Baronet said with his usual

  solemnity, "It is the cause, Ethel, it is the cause, my dear, which gives

  strength; in such a cause as Barnes's, with a beautiful young creature to

  protect from a villain, any man would be strong, any man would be

  strong." "Since his last attack," Barnes used to say, "my poor old

  governor is exceedingly shaky, very groggy about the head;" which was the

  fact. Barnes was already master at Newcome and the bank, and awaiting

  with perfect composure the event which was to place the blood-red hand of

  the Newcome baronetcy on his own brougham.

  Casting his eyes about the room, a heap of drawings, the work of a

  well-known hand which he hated, met his eye. There were a half-dozen

  sketches of Baden; Ethel on horseback again; the children and the dogs

  just in the old way. "D--- him, is he here?" screams out Barnes. "Is that

  young pothouse villain here? and hasn't Kew knocked his head off? Is

  Clive Newcome here, sir," he cries out to his father. "The Colonel's son.

  I have no doubt they met by----"

  "By what, Barnes?" says Ethel.

  "Clive is here, is he?" says the Baronet; "making caricatures, hey? You

  did not mention him in your letters, Lady Anne."

  Sir Brian was evidently very much touched by his last attack.

  Ethel blushed; it was a curious fact, but there had been no mention of

  Clive in the ladies' letters to Sir Brian.

  "My dear, we met him by the merest chance, at Bonn, travelling with a

  friend of his; and he speaks a little German, and was very useful to us,

  and took one of the boys in his britzska the whole way."

  "Boys always crowd in a carriage," says Sir Brian. "Kick your shins;

  always in the way. I remember, when we used to come in the carriage from

  Clapham, when we were boys, I used to kick my brother Tom's shins. Poor

  Tom, he was a devilish wild fellow in those days. You don't recollect

  Tom, my Lady Anne?"

  Further anecdotes from Sir Brian are interrupted by Lord Kew's arrival.

  "How dydo, Kew!" cries Barnes. "How's Clara?" and Lord Kew walking up

  with great respect to shake hands with Sir Brian, says, "I am glad to see

  you looking so well, sir," and scarcely takes any notice of Barnes. That

  Mr. Barnes Newcome was an individual not universally beloved, is a point

  of history of which there can be no doubt.

  "You have not told me how Clara is, my good fellow," continues Barnes. "I

  have heard all about her meeting with that villain, Jack Belsize."

  "Don't call names, my good fellow," says Lord Kew. "It strikes me you

  don't know Belsize well enough to call him by nicknames or by other

  names. Lady Clara Pulleyn, I believe, is very unwell indeed."

  "Confound the fellow! How dared he to come here?" cries Barnes, backing

  from this little rebuff.

  "Dare is another ugly word. I would advise you not to use it to the

  fellow himself."

  "What do you mean?" says Barnes, looking very serious in an instant.

  "Easy, my good friend. Not so very loud. It appears, Ethel, that poor

  Jack--I know him pretty well, you see, Barnes, and may call him by what

  names I like--had been dining to-day with cousin Clive; he and M. de

  Florac; and that they went with Jack to the promenade, not in the least

  aware of Mr. Jack Belsize's private affairs, or of the shindy that was

  going to happen."

  "By Jove, he shall answer for it," cries out Barnes in a loud voice.

>   "I dare say he will, if you ask him," says the other drily; "but not

  before ladies. He'd be afraid of frightening them. Poor Jack was always

  as gentle as a lamb before women. I had some talk with the Frenchman just

  now," continued Lord Kew gaily, as if wishing to pass over this side of

  the subject. "Mi Lord Kiou," says he, "we have made your friend Jac to

  hear reason. He is a little fou, your friend Jack. He drank champagne at

  dinner like an ogre. How is the charmante Miss Clara? Florac, you see,

  calls her Miss Clara, Barnes; the world calls her Lady Clara. You call

  her Clara. You happy dog, you."

  "I don't see why that infernal young cub of a Clive is always meddling in

  our affairs," cries out Barnes, whose rage was perpetually being whipped

  into new outcries. "Why has he been about this house? Why is he here?"

  "It is very well for you that he was, Barnes," Lord Kew said. "The young

  fellow showed great temper and spirit. There has been a famous row, but

  don't be alarmed, it is all over. It is all over, everybody may go to bed

  and sleep comfortably. Barnes need not get up in the morning to punch

  Jack Belsize's head. I'm sorry for your disappointment, you Fenchurch

  Street fire-eater. Come away. It will be but proper, you know, for a

  bridegroom elect to go and ask news of la charmante Miss Clara."

  "As we went out of the house," Lord Kew told Clive, "I said to Barnes

  that every word I had uttered upstairs with regard to the reconciliation

  was a lie. That Jack Belsize was determined to have his blood, and was

  walking under the lime-trees by which we had to pass with a thundering

  big stick. You should have seen the state the fellow was in, sir. The

  sweet youth started back, and turned as yellow as a cream cheese. Then

  he made a pretext to go into his room, and said it was for his

  pocket-handkerchief, but I know it was for a pistol; for he dropped his

  hand from my arm into his pocket, every time I said 'Here's Jack,' as we

  walked down the avenue to Lord Dorking's apartment."

  A great deal of animated business had been transacted during the two

  hours subsequent to poor Lady Clara's mishap. Clive and Belsize had

  returned to the former's quarters, while gentle J. J. was utilising the

  last rays of the sun to tint a sketch which he had made during the

  morning. He fled to his own apartment on the arrival of the

  fierce-looking stranger, whose glaring eyes, pallid looks, shaggy beard,

  clutched hands, and incessant gasps and mutterings as he strode up and

  down, might well scare a peaceable person. Very terrible must Jack have

  looked as he trampled those boards in the growing twilight, anon stopping

  to drink another tumbler of champagne, then groaning expressions of

  inarticulate wrath, and again sinking down on Clive's bed with a dropping

  head and breaking voice, crying, "Poor little thing, poor little devil."

  "If the old man sends me a message, you will stand by me, won't you,

  Newcome? He was a fierce old fellow in his time, and I have seen him

  shoot straight enough at Chanticlere. I suppose you know what the affair

  is about?"

  "I never heard of it before, but I think I understand," says Clive,

  gravely.

  "I can't ask Kew, he is one of the family; he is going to marry Miss

  Newcome. It is no use asking him."

  All Clive's blood tingled at the idea that any man was going to marry

  Miss Newcome. He knew it before--a fortnight since, and it was nothing to

  him to hear it. He was glad that the growing darkness prevented his face

  from being seen. "I am of the family, too," said Clive, "and Barnes

  Newcome and I had the same grandfather."

  "Oh, yes, old boy--old banker, the weaver, what was he? I forgot," says

  poor Jack, kicking on Clive's bed, "in that family the Newcomes don't

  count. I beg your pardon," groans poor Jack.

  They lapse into silence, during which Jack's cigar glimmers from the

  twilight corner where Clive's bed is; whilst Clive wafts his fragrance

  out of the window where he sits, and whence he has a view of Lady Anne

  Newcome's windows to the right, over the bridge across the little rushing

  river, at the Hotel de Hollande hard by. The lights twinkle in the booths

  under the pretty lime avenues. The hum of distant voices is heard; the

  gambling-palace is all in a blaze; it is an assembly night, and from the

  doors of the conversation rooms, as they open and close, escape gusts of

  harmony. Behind on the little hill the darkling woods lie calm, the edges

  of the fir-trees cut sharp against the sky, which is clear with a

  crescent moon and the lambent lights of the starry hosts of heaven. Clive

  does not see pine-robed hills and shining stars, nor think of pleasure in

  its palace yonder, nor of pain writhing on his own bed within a few feet

  of him, where poor Belsize was groaning. His eyes are fixed upon a window

  whence comes the red light of a lamp, across which shadows float now and

  again. So every light in every booth yonder has a scheme of its own:

  every star above shines by itself; and each individual heart of ours goes

  on brightening with its own hopes, burning with its own desires, and

  quivering with its own pain.

  The reverie is interrupted by the waiter, who announces M. le Vicomte de

  Florac, and a third cigar is added to the other two smoky lights. Belsize

  is glad to see Florac, whom he has known in a thousand haunts. "He will

  do my business for me. He has been out half a dozen times," thinks Jack.

  It would relieve the poor fellow's boiling blood that some one would let

  a little out. He lays his affair before Florac; he expects a message from

  Lord Dorking.

  "Comment donc?" cries Florac; "il y avait donc quelque chose! Cette

  pauvre petite Miss! Vous voulez tuer le pere, apres avoir delaisse la

  fille? Cherchez d'autres temoins, Monsieur. Le Vicomte de Florac ne se

  fait pas complice de telles lachetes."

  "By Heaven," says Jack, sitting up on the bed, with his eyes glaring, "I

  have a great mind, Florac, to wring your infernal little neck, and to

  fling you out of the window. Is all the world going to turn against me? I

  am half mad as it is. If any man dares to think anything wrong regarding

  that little angel, or to fancy that she is not as pure, and as good, and

  as gentle, and as innocent, by Heaven, as any angel there,--if any man

  thinks I'd be the villain to hurt her, I should just like to see him,"

  says Jack. "By the Lord, sir, just bring him to me. Just tell the waiter

  to send him upstairs. Hurt her! I hurt her! Oh! I'm a fool! a fool! a

  d----d fool! Who's that?"

  "It's Kew," says a voice out of the darkness from behind cigar No. 4, and

  Clive now, having a party assembled, scrapes a match and lights his

  candles.

  "I heard your last words, Jack," Lord Kew says bluntly, "and you never

  spoke more truth in your life. Why did you come here? What right had you

  to stab that poor little heart over again, and frighten Lady Clara with

  your confounded hairy face? You promised me you would never see her. You

  gave your word of honour you wouldn't, when I gave you the money to go

  abroad. Hang the money, I
don't mind that; it was on your promise that

  you would prowl about her no more. The Dorkings left London before you

  came there; they gave you your innings. They have behaved kindly and

  fairly enough to that poor girl. How was she to marry such a bankrupt

  beggar as you are? What you have done is a shame, Charley Belsize. I tell

  you it is unmanly and cowardly."

  "Pst," says Florac, "numero deux, voila le mot lache."

  "Don't bite your thumb at me," Kew went on. "I know you could thrash me,

  if that's what you mean by shaking your fists; so could most men. I tell

  you again--you have done a bad deed; you have broken your word of honour,

  and you knocked down Clara Pulleyn to-day as cruelly as if you had done

  it with your hand."

  With this rush upon him, and fiery assault of Kew, Belsize was quite

  bewildered. The huge man flung up his great arms, and let them drop at

  his side as a gladiator that surrenders, and asks for pity. He sank down

  once more on the iron bed.

  "I don't know," says he, rolling and rolling round, in one of his great

  hands, one of the brass knobs of the bed by which he was seated. "I don't

  know, Frank," says he, "what the world is coming to, or me either; here

  is twice in one night I have been called a coward by you, and by that

  little what-d'-you-call-'m. I beg your pardon, Florac. I don't know

  whether it is very brave in you to hit a chap when he is down: hit again,

  I have no friends. I have acted like a blackguard, I own that; I did

  break my promise; you had that safe enough, Frank, my boy; but I did not

  think it would hurt her to see me," says he, with a dreadful sob in his

  voice. "By--I would have given ten years of my life to look at her. I was

  going mad without her. I tried every place, everything; went to Ems, to

  Wiesbaden, to Hombourg, and played like hell. It used to excite me once,

  and now I don't care for it. I won no end of money,--no end for a poor

  beggar like me, that is; but I couldn't keep away. I couldn't, and if she

  had been at the North Pole, by Heavens I would have followed her."

  "And so just to look at her, just to give your confounded stupid eyes two

  minutes' pleasure, you must bring about all this pain, you great baby,"

  cries Kew, who was very soft-hearted, and in truth quite torn himself by

  the sight of poor Jack's agony.

  "Get me to see her for five minutes, Kew," cries the other, griping his

  comrade's hand in his; "but for five minutes."

  "For shame," cries Lord Kew, shaking away his hand, "be a man, Jack, and

  have no more of this puling. It's not a baby, that must have its toy, and

  cries because it can't get it. Spare the poor girl this pain, for her own

  sake, and balk yourself of the pleasure of bullying and making her

  unhappy."

  Belsize started up with looks that were by no means pleasant. "There's

  enough of this chaff I have been called names, and blackguarded quite

  sufficiently for one sitting. I shall act as I please. I choose to take

  my own way, and if any gentleman stops me he has full warning." And he

  fell to tugging his mustachios, which were of a dark tawny hue, and

  looked as warlike as he had ever done on any field-day.

  "I take the warning!" said Lord Kew. "And if I know the way you are

  going, as I think I do, I will do my best to stop you, madman as you are!

  You can hardly propose to follow her to her own doorway and pose yourself

  before your mistress as the murderer of her father, like Rodrigue in the

  French play. If Rooster were here it would be his business to defend his

  sister; In his absence I will take the duty on myself, and I say to you,

  Charles Belsize, in the presence of these gentlemen, that any man who

  iusults this young lady, who persecutes her with his presence, knowing it