The Newcomes

by William Makepeace Thackeray

necessitate his return home? No, he must not go to the East, Lord Kew's

  mother avowed; Kew had promised to stay with her during the summer at

  Castellammare, and Mr. Newcome must come and paint their portraits there

  --all their portraits. She would like to have an entire picture-gallery

  of Kews, if her son would remain at home during the sittings.

  At an early hour Lady Walham retired to rest, exacting Clive's promise to

  come to Castellammare; and George Barnes disappeared to array himself in

  an evening costume, and to pay his round of visits as became a young

  diplomatist. This part of diplomatic duty does not commence until after

  the opera at Naples; and society begins when the rest of the world has

  gone to bed.

  Kew and Clive sate till one o'clock in the morning, when the latter

  returned to his hotel. Not one of those fine parties at Paestum, Sicily,

  etc. was carried out. Clive did not go to the East at all, and it was J.

  J, who painted Lord Kew's portrait that summer at Castellammare. The next

  day Clive went for his passport to the embassy; and a steamer departing

  direct for Marseilles on that very afternoon, behold Mr. Newcome was on

  board of her; Lord Kew and his brother and J. J. waving their hats to him

  as the vessel left the shore.

  Away went the ship cleaving swiftly through the azure waters; but not

  swiftly enough for Clive. J. J. went back with a sigh to his sketchbook

  and easels. I suppose the other young disciple of Art had heard something

  which caused him to forsake his sublime mistress for one who was much

  more capricious and earthly.

  CHAPTER XL

  Returns from Rome to Pall Mall

  One morning in the month of July, when there was actually sunshine in

  Lamb Court, and the two gentlemen who occupied the third-floor chambers

  there in partnership, were engaged, as their custom was, over their

  pipes, and their manuscripts, and their Times newspaper, behold a fresh

  sunshine burst into their room in the person of a young Clive, with a

  bronzed face, and a yellow beard and mustachios, and those bright

  cheerful eyes, the sight of which was always so welcome to both of us.

  "What, Clive! What, the young one! What, Benjamin!" shout Pendennis and

  Warrington. Clive had obtained a very high place indeed in the latter's

  affections, so much so, that if I could have found it in my heart to be

  jealous of such a generous brave fellow, I might have grudged him his

  share of Warrington's regard. He blushed up with pleasure to see us

  again. Pidgeon, our boy, introduced him with a jubilant countenance; and

  Flanagan, the laundress, came smirking out of the bedroom, eager to get a

  nod of recognition from him, and bestow a smile of welcome upon

  everybody's favourite, Clive.

  In two minutes an arm-chair full of magazines, slips of copy, and books

  for review, was emptied over the neighbouring coal-scuttle, and Clive was

  in the seat, a cigar in his mouth, as comfortable as if he had never been

  away. When did he come? Last night. He was back in Charlotte Street, at

  his old lodgings: he had been to breakfast in Fitzroy Square that

  morning; James Binnie chirped for joy at seeing him. His father had

  written to him desiring him to come back and see James Binnie; pretty

  Miss Rosey was very well, thank you: and Mrs. Mack? Wasn't Mrs. Mackenzie

  delighted to behold him? "Come, sir, on your honour and conscience,

  didn't the widow give you a kiss on your return?" Clive sends an uncut

  number of the Pall Mall Gazette flying across the room at the head of the

  inquirer; but blushes as sweetly, that I have very little doubt some such

  pretty meeting had taken place.

  What a pity it is he had not been here a short while since for a marriage

  in high life, to give away his dear Barnes, and sign the book, along with

  the other dignitaries! We described that ceremony to him, and announced

  the promotion of his friend, Florac, now our friend also, Director of the

  Great Anglo-Gallic Railway, the Prince de Moncontour. Then Clive told us

  of his deeds during the winter; of the good fun he had had at Rome, and

  the jolly fellows he had met there. Was he going to astonish the world by

  some grand pictures? He was not. The more he worked, the more

  discontented he was with his performances somehow: but J. J. was coming

  out very strong, J. J. was going to be a stunner. We turned with pride

  and satisfaction to that very number of the Pall Mall Gazette which the

  youth had flung at us, and showed him a fine article by F. Bayham, Esq.,

  in which the picture sent home by J. J. was enthusiastically lauded by

  the great critic.

  So he was back amongst us, and it seemed but yesterday he had quitted us.

  To Londoners everything seems to have happened but yesterday; nobody has

  time to miss his neighbour who goes away. People go to the Cape, or on a

  campaign, or on a tour round the world, or to India, and return with a

  wife and two or three children, and we fancy it was only the other day

  they left us, so engaged is every man in his individual speculations,

  studies, struggles; so selfish does our life make us:--selfish but not

  ill-natured. We are glad to see an old friend, though we do not weep when

  he leaves us. We humbly acknowledge, if fate calls us away likewise, that

  we are no more missed than any other atom.

  After talking for a while, Mr. Clive must needs go into the City, whither

  I accompanied him. His interview with Messrs. Jolly and Baines, at the

  house in Fog Court, must have been very satisfactory; Clive came out of

  the parlour with a radiant countenance. "Do you want any money, old boy?"

  says he; "the dear old governor has placed a jolly sum to my account, and

  Mr. Baines has told me how delighted Mrs. Baines and the girls will be to

  see me at dinner. He says my father has made a lucky escape out of one

  house in India, and a famous investment in another. Nothing could be more

  civil; how uncommonly kind and friendly everybody is in London!

  Everybody!" Then bestowing ourselves in a hansom cab, which had probably

  just deposited some other capitalist in the City, we made for the West

  End of the town, where Mr. Clive had some important business to transact

  with his tailors. He discharged his outstanding little account with easy

  liberality, blushing as he pulled out of his pocket a new chequebook,

  page 1 of which he bestowed on the delighted artist. From Mr. B.'s shop

  to Mr. Truefitt's. is but a step. Our young friend was induced to enter

  the hairdresser's, and leave behind him a great portion of the flowing

  locks and the yellow beard, which he had brought with him from Rome. With

  his mustachios he could not be induced to part; painters and cavalry

  officers having a right to those decorations. And why should not this

  young fellow wear smart clothes, and a smart moustache, and look

  handsome, and take his pleasure, and bask in his sun when it shone? Time

  enough for flannel and a fire when the winter comes; and for grey hair

  and cork-soled boots in the natural decline of years.

  Then we went to pay a visit at a hotel in Jermyn Street to our friend

  Florac who was now mag
nificently lodged there. A powdered giant lolling in

  the hall, his buttons emblazoned with prodigious coronets, took our cards

  up to the Prince. As the door of an apartment on the first floor opened,

  we heard a cry as of joy; and that nobleman in a magnificent Persian

  dressing-gown, rushing from the room, plunged down the stairs, and began

  kissing Clive, to the respectful astonishment of the Titan in livery.

  "Come that I present you, my friends," our good little Frenchman

  exclaimed "to Madame la--to my wife!" We entered the drawing-room; a

  demure little little lady, of near sixty years of age, was seated there,

  and we were presented in form to Madame Princesse de Moncontour, nee

  Higg, of Manchester. She made us a stiff little curtsey, but looked not

  ill-natured; indeed, few women could look at Clive Newcome's gallant

  figure and brave smiling countenance and keep a frown on their own very

  long.

  "I have 'eard of you from somebodys else besides the Prince," said the

  lady, with rather a blush "Your uncle has spoke to me hoften about you,

  Mr. Clive, and about your good father."

  "C'est son Directeur," whispers Florac to me. I wondered which of the

  firm of Newcome had taken that office upon him.

  "Now you are come to England," the lady continued (whose Lancashire

  pronunciation being once indicated, we shall henceforth, out of respect

  to the Princess's rank generally pretermit),--"now you are come to

  England we hope to see you often. Not here in this noisy hotel, which I

  can't bear, but in the country. Our house is only three miles from

  Newcome--not such a grand place as your uncle's; but I hope we shall see

  you there a great deal, and your friend Mr Pendennis, if he is passing

  that way." The invitation to Mr. Pendennis, I am bound to say, was given

  in terms by no means so warm as those in which the Princess's hospitality

  to Clive were professed.

  "Shall we meet you at your Huncle 'Obson's?" the lady continued to Clive;

  "his wife is a most charming, well-informed woman, has been most kind and

  civil and we dine there to-day. Barnes and his wife is gone to spend the

  honeymoon at Newcome. Lady Clara is a sweet dear thing, and her pa and ma

  most affable, I am sure. What a pity Sir Brian couldn't attend the

  marriage! There was everybody there in London, a'most. Sir Harvey Diggs

  says he is mending very slowly. In life we are in death, Mr. Newcome!

  Isn't it sad to think of him, in the midst of all his splendour and

  prosperity, and he so infirm and unable to enjoy them! But let us hope

  for the best, and that his health will soon come round!"

  With these and similar remarks, in which poor Florac took but a very

  small share (for he seemed dumb and melancholy in the company of the

  Princess, his elderly spouse), the visit sped on. Mr. Pendennis, to whom

  very little was said, having leisure to make his silent observations upon

  the person to whom he had been just presented.

  As there lay on the table two neat little packages, addressed "The

  Princess de Moncontour"--an envelope to the same address, with "The

  Prescription, No. 9396," further inscribed on the paper, and a sheet of

  notepaper, bearing cabalistic characters, and the signature of that most

  fashionable physician, Sir Harvey Diggs, I was led to believe that the

  lady of Moncontour was, or fancied herself, in a delicate state of

  health. By the side of the physic for the body was medicine for the soul

  --a number of pretty little books in middle-age bindings, in antique type

  many of theist, adorned with pictures of the German school, representing

  demure ecclesiastics, with their heads on one side, children in long

  starched nightgowns, virgins bearing lilies, and so forth, from which it

  was to be concluded that the owner of the volumes was not so hostile to

  Rome as she had been at an earlier period of her religious life; and that

  she had migrated (in spirit) from Clapham to Knightsbridge--so many

  wealthy mercantile families have likewise done in the body. A long strip

  of embroidery, of the Gothic pattern, furthermore betrayed her present

  inclinations; and the person observing these things, whilst nobody was

  taking any notice of him, was amused when the accuracy of his conjectures

  was confirmed by the reappearance of the gigantic footman, calling out

  "'Oneyman," in a loud voice, and preceding that divine into the room.

  "C'est le Directeur. Venez fumer dans ma chambre, Pen," growled Florac as

  Honeyman came sliding over the carpet, his elegant smile changing to a

  blush when he beheld Clive, his nephew, seated by the Princess's side.

  This, then, was the uncle who had spoken about Clive and his father to

  Madame de Florac. Charles seemed in the best condition. He held out two

  bran-new lavender-coloured kid gloves to shake hands with his dear Clive;

  Florac and Mr. Pendennis vanished out of the room as he appeared, so that

  no precise account can be given of this affecting interview.

  When I quitted the hotel, a brown brougham, with a pair of beautiful

  horses, the harness and panels emblazoned with the neatest little ducal

  coronets you ever saw, and a cypher under each crown as easy to read as

  the arrow-headed inscriptions on one of Mr. Layard's Assyrian chariots,

  was in waiting, and I presumed that Madame la Princesse was about to take

  an airing.

  Clive had passed the avuncular banking-house in the City, without caring

  to face his relatives there. Mr. Newcome was now in sole command, Mr.

  Barnes being absent at Newcome, the Baronet little likely ever to enter

  bank-parlour again. But his bounden duty was to wait on the ladies; and

  of course, only from duty's sake, he went the very first day and called

  in Park Lane.

  "The family was habsent ever since the marriage simminery last week," the

  footman, who had accompanied the party to Baden, informed Clive when he

  opened the door, and recognised that gentleman. "Sir Brian pretty well,

  thank you, sir. The family was at Brighting. That is Miss Newcome is in

  London staying with her grandmamma in Queen Street, Mayfear, sir." The

  varnished doors closed upon Jeames within; the brazen knockers grinned

  their familiar grin at Clive, and he went down the blank steps

  discomfited. Must it be owned that he went to a Club, and looked in the

  Directory for the number of Lady Kew's house in Queen Street? Her

  ladyship had a furnished house for the season. No such noble name to be

  found among the inhabitants of Queen Street.

  Mr. Hobson was from home; that is, Thomas had orders not to admit

  strangers on certain days, or before certain hours; so that Aunt Hobson

  saw Clive without being seen by the young man. I cannot say how much he

  regretted that mischance. His visits of propriety were thus all paid; and

  he went off to dine dutifully with James Binnie, after which meal he came

  to a certain rendezvous given to him by some bachelors friends for the

  evening.

  James Binnie's eyes lightened up with pleasure on beholding his young

  Clive; the youth, obedient to his father's injunction, had hastened to

  Fitzroy Square immediately after taking possession of his
old lodgings--

  his, during the time of his absence. The old properties and carved

  cabinets, the picture of his father looking melancholy out of the canvas,

  greeted Clive strangely on the afternoon of his arrival. No wonder he was

  glad to get away from a solitude peopled with a number of dismal

  recollections, to the near hospitality of Fitzroy Square and his guardian

  and friend there.

  James had not improved in health during Clive's ten months' absence. He

  had never been able to walk well, or take his accustomed exercise, after

  his fall. He was no more used to riding than the late Mr. Gibbon, whose

  person James's somewhat resembled, and of whose philosophy our Scottish

  friend was an admiring scholar. The Colonel gone, James would have

  arguments with Mr. Honeyman over their claret, bring down the famous XVth

  and XVIth chapters of the Decline and Fall upon him, and quite get the

  better of the clergyman. James, like many other sceptics, was very

  obstinate, and for his part believed that almost all parsons had as much

  belief as the Roman augurs in their ceremonies. Certainly, poor Honeyman,

  in their controversies, gave up one article after another, flying from

  James's assault; but the battle over, Charles Honeyman would pick up

  these accoutrements which he had flung away in his retreat, wipe them

  dry, and put them on again.

  Lamed by his fall, and obliged to remain much within doors, where certain

  society did not always amuse him, James Binnie sought excitement in the

  pleasures of the table, partaking of them the more freely now that his

  health could afford them the less. Clive, the sly rogue, observed a great

  improvement in the commissariat since his good father's time, ate his

  dinner with thankfulness, and made no remarks. Nor did he confide to us

  for a while his opinion that Mrs. Mack bored the good gentleman most

  severely; that he pined away under her kindnesses; sneaked off to bis

  study-chair and his nap; was only too glad when some of the widow's

  friends came, or she went out; seeming to breathe more freely when she

  was gone, and drink his wine more cheerily when rid of the intolerable

  weight of her presence.

  I protest the great ills of life are nothing--the loss of your fortune is

  a mere flea-bite; the loss of your wife--how many men have supported it

  and married comfortably afterwards? It is not what you lose, but what you

  have daily to bear that is hard. I can fancy nothing more cruel, after a

  long easy life of bachelorhood, than to have to sit day after day with a

  dull, handsome woman opposite; to have to answer her speeches about the

  weather, housekeeping and what not; to smile appropriately when she is

  disposed to be lively (that laughing at the jokes is the hardest part),

  and to model your conversation so as to suit her intelligence, knowing

  that a word used out of its downright signification will not be

  understood by your fair breakfast-maker. Women go through this simpering

  and smiling life, and bear it quite easily. Theirs is a life of

  hypocrisy. What good woman does not laugh at her husband's or father's

  jokes and stories time after time, and would not laugh at breakfast,

  lunch, and dinner, if he told them? Flattery is their nature--to coax,

  flatter and sweetly befool some one is every woman's business. She is

  none if she declines this office. But men are not provided with such

  powers of humbug or endurance--they perish and pine away miserably when

  bored--or they shrink off to the club or public-house for comfort. I want

  to say as delicately as I can, and never liking to use rough terms

  regarding a handsome woman, that Mrs. Mackenzie, herself being in the

  highest spirits and the best humour, extinguished her half-brother, James

  Binnie, Esq.; that she was as a malaria to him, poisoning his atmosphere,

  numbing his limbs, destroying his sleep--that day after day as he sate