The Newcomes

by William Makepeace Thackeray

look of the face and figure as the door closes on him, or the coach

  drives away! So the roast mutton was ready, and all the children dined

  very heartily.

  The infantile meal had not been long concluded, when servants announced

  "the Marquis of Farintosh;" and that nobleman made his appearance to pay

  his respects to Miss Newcome and Lady Anne. He brought the very last news

  of the very last party in London, where "Really, upon my honour, now, it

  was quite a stupid party, because Miss Newcome wasn't there. It was now,

  really."

  Miss Newcome remarked, "If he said so upon his honour, of course she was

  satisfied."

  "As you weren't there," the young nobleman continued, "the Miss

  Rackstraws came out quite strong; really they did now, upon my honour. It

  was quite a quiet thing. Lady Merriborough hadn't even got a new gown on.

  Lady Anne, you shirk London society this year, and we miss you: we

  expected you to give us two or three things this season; we did now,

  really. I said to Tufthunt, only yesterday, Why has not Lady Anne Newcome

  given anything? You know Tufthunt? They say he's a clever fellow, and

  that--but he's a low little beast, and I hate him."

  Lady Anne said, "Sir Brian's bad state of health prevented her from going

  out this season, or receiving at home."

  "It don't prevent your mother from going out, though," continued my lord.

  "Upon my honour, I think unless she got two or three things every night,

  I think she'd die. Lady Kew's like one of those horses, you know, that

  unless they go they drop."

  "Thank you for my mother," said Lady Anne.

  "She is, upon my honour. Last night I know she was at ever so many

  places. She dined at the Bloxams', for I was there. Then she said she was

  going to sit with old Mrs. Crackthorpe, who has broke her collar-bone

  (that Crackthorpe in the Life Guards, her grandson, is a brute, and I

  hope she won't leave him a shillin'); and then she came on to Lady

  Hawkstone's, where I heard her say she had been at the--at the

  Flowerdales', too. People begin to go to those Flowerdales'. Hanged--if I

  know where they won't go next. Cotton-spinner, wasn't he?"

  "So were we, my lord," says Miss Newcome.

  "Oh, yes, I forgot! But you're of an old family--very old family."

  "We can't help it," said Miss Ethel, archly. Indeed, she thought she was.

  "Do you believe in the barber-surgeon?" asked Clive. And my lord looked

  at him with a noble curiosity, as much as to say, "Who the deuce was the

  barber-surgeon? and who the devil are you?"

  "Why should we disown our family?" Miss Ethel said, simply. "In those

  early days I suppose people did--did all sorts of things, and it was not

  considered at all out of the way to be surgeon to William the Conqueror."

  "Edward the Confessor," interposed Clive. "And it must be true, because I

  have seen a picture of the barber-surgeon, a friend of mine, M'Collop,

  did the picture, and I dare say it is for sale still"

  Lady Anne said "she should be delighted to see it." Lord Farintosh

  remembered that the M'Collop had the moor next to his in Argyleshire, but

  did not choose to commit himself with the stranger, and preferred looking

  at his own handsome face and admiring it in the glass until the last

  speaker had concluded his remarks.

  As Clive did not offer any further conversation, but went back to a

  table, where he began to draw the barber-surgeon, Lord Farintosh resumed

  the delightful talk. "What infernal bad glasses these are in these

  Brighton lodging-houses! They make a man look quite green, really they

  do--and there's nothing green in me, is there, Lady Anne?"

  "But you look very unwell, Lord Farintosh; indeed you do," Miss Newcome

  said, gravely. "I think late hours, and smoking, and going to that horrid

  Platt's, where I dare say you go----"

  "Go? Don't I? But don't call it horrid; really, now, don't call it

  horrid!" cried the noble Marquis.

  "Well--something has made you look far from well. You know how very well

  Lord Farintosh used to look, mamma--and to see him now, in only his

  second season--oh, it is melancholy!"

  "God bless my soul, Miss Newcome! what do you mean? I think I look pretty

  well," and the noble youth passed his hand through his hair. "It is a

  hard life, I know; that tearin' about night after night, and sittin' up

  till ever so much o'clock; and then all these races, you know, comin' one

  after another--it's enough to knock up any fellow. I'll tell you what

  I'll do, Miss Newcome. I'll go down to Codlington, to my mother; I will,

  upon my honour, and lie quiet all July, and then I'll go to Scotland--and

  you shall see whether I don't look better next season."

  "Do, Lord Farintosh!" said Ethel, greatly amused, as much, perhaps, at

  the young Marquis as at her cousin Clive, who sat whilst the other was

  speaking, fuming with rage, at his table.

  "What are you doing, Clive?" she asks.

  "I was trying to draw; Lord knows who--Lord Newcome, who was killed at

  the battle of Bosworth," said the artist, and the girl ran to look at the

  picture.

  "Why, you have made him like Punch!" cries the young lady.

  "It's a shame caricaturing one's own flesh and blood, isn't it?" asked

  Clive, gravely.

  "What a droll, funny picture!" exclaims Lady Anne. "Isn't it capital,

  Lord Farintosh?"

  "I dare say--I confess I don't understand that sort of thing," says his

  lordship. "Don't, upon my honour. There's Odo Carton, always making those

  caricatures--I don't understand 'em. You'll come up to town to-morrow,

  won't you? And you're goin' to Lady Hm's, and to Hm and Hm's, ain't you?"

  (The names of these aristocratic places of resort were quite inaudible.)

  "You mustn't let Miss Blackcap have it all her own way, you know, that

  you mustn't."

  "She won't have it all her own way," says Miss Ethel. "Lord Farintosh,

  will you do me a favour? Lady Innishowan is your aunt?"

  "Of course she is my aunt."

  "Will you be so very good as to get a card for her party on Tuesday, for

  my cousin, Mr. Clive Newcome? Clive, please be introduced to the Marquis

  of Farintosh."

  The young Marquis perfectly well recollected those mustachios and their

  wearer on a former night, though he had not thought fit to make any sign

  of recognition. "Anything you wish, Miss Newcome," he said; "delighted,

  I'm sure;" and turning to Clive--In the army, I suppose?"

  "I am an artist," says Clive, turning very red.

  "Oh, really, I didn't know!" cries the nobleman; and my lord bursting out

  laughing presently as he was engaged in conversation with Miss Ethel on

  the balcony, Clive thought, very likely with justice, "He is making fun

  of my mustachios. Confound him! I should like to pitch him over into the

  street." But this was only a kind wish on Mr. Newcome's part; not

  followed out by any immediate fulfilment.

  As the Marquis of Farintosh seemed inclined to prolong his visit, and his

  company was exceedingly disagreeable to Clive, the latter took his

  departure for an afternoon walk, consoled to think that he should have

  Ethel t
o himself at the evening's dinner, when Lady Anne would be

  occupied about Sir Brian, and would be sure to be putting the children to

  bed, and, in a word, would give him a quarter of an hour of delightful

  tete-a-tete with the beautiful Ethel.

  Clive's disgust was considerable when he came to dinner at length, and

  found Lord Farintosh, likewise invited, and sprawling in the

  drawing-room. His hopes of a tete-a-tete were over. Ethel and Lady Anne

  and my lord talked, as all people will, about their mutual acquaintance:

  what parties were coming off, who was going to marry whom, and so forth.

  And as the persons about whom they conversed were in their own station of

  life, and belonged to the fashionable world, of which Clive had but a

  slight knowledge, he chose to fancy that his cousin was giving herself

  airs, and to feel sulky and uneasy during their dialogue.

  Miss Newcome had faults of her own, and was worldly enough as perhaps the

  reader has begun to perceive; but in this instance no harm, sure, was to

  be attributed to her. If two gossips in Aunt Honeyman's parlour had

  talked over the affairs of Mr. Jones and Mr. Brown, Clive would not have

  been angry; but a young man of spirit not unfrequently mistakes his

  vanity for independence: and it is certain that nothing is more offensive

  to us of the middle class than to hear the names of great folks

  constantly introduced into conversation.

  So Clive was silent and ate no dinner, to the alarm of Martha, who had

  put him to bed many a time, and always had a maternal eye over him. When

  he actually refused currant and raspberry tart, and custard, the chef

  d'oeuvre of Miss Honeyman, for which she had seen him absolutely cry in

  his childhood, the good Martha was alarmed.

  "Law, Master Clive!" she said, "do 'ee eat some. Missis made it, you know

  she did;" and she insisted on bringing back the tart to him.

  Lady Anne and Ethel laughed at this eagerness on the worthy old woman's

  part. "Do 'ee eat some, Clive," says Ethel, imitating honest Mrs. Hicks,

  who had left the room.

  "It's doosid good," remarked Lord Farintosh.

  "Then do 'ee eat some more," said Miss Newcome: on which the young

  nobleman, holding out his plate, observed with much affability, that the

  cook of the lodgings was really a stunner for tarts.

  "The cook! dear me, it's not the cook!" cries Miss Ethel. "Don't you

  remember the princess in the Arabian Nights, who was such a stunner for

  tarts, Lord Farintosh?"

  Lord Farintosh couldn't say that he did.

  "Well, I thought not; but there was a princess in Arabia or China, or

  somewhere, who made such delicious tarts and custards that nobody's could

  compare with them; and there is an old lady in Brighton who has the same

  wonderful talent. She is the mistress of this house."

  "And she is my aunt, at your lordship's service," said Mr. Clive, with

  great dignity.

  "Upon my honour! did you make 'em, Lady Anne?" asked my lord.

  "The Queen of Hearts made tarts!" cried out Miss Newcome, rather eagerly,

  and blushing somewhat.

  "My good old aunt, Miss Honeyman, made this one," Clive would go on to

  say.

  "Mr. Honeyman's sister, the preacher, you know, where we go on Sunday,"

  Miss Ethel interposed.

  "The Honeyman pedigree is not a matter of very great importance," Lady

  Anne remarked gently. "Kuhn, will you have the goodness to take away

  these things? When did you hear of Colonel Newcome, Clive?"

  An air of deep bewilderment and perplexity had spread over Lord

  Farintosh's fine countenance whilst this talk about pastry had been going

  on. The Arabian Princess, the Queen of Hearts making tarts, Miss

  Honeyman? Who the deuce were all these? Such may have been his lordship's

  doubts and queries. Whatever his cogitations were he did not give

  utterance to them, but remained in silence for some time, as did the rest

  of the little party. Clive tried to think he had asserted his

  independence by showing that he was not ashamed of his old aunt; but the

  doubt may be whether there was any necessity for presenting her in this

  company, and whether Mr. Clive had not much better have left the tart

  question alone.

  Ethel evidently thought so: for she talked and rattled in the most lively

  manner with Lord Farintosh for the rest of the evening, and scarcely

  chose to say a word to her cousin. Lady Anne was absent with Sir Brian

  and her children for the most part of the time: and thus Clive had the

  pleasure of listening to Miss Newcome uttering all sorts of odd little

  paradoxes, firing the while sly shots at Mr. Clive, and, indeed, making

  fun of his friends, exhibiting herself in not the most agreeable light.

  Her talk only served the more to bewilder Lord Farintosh, who did not

  understand a tithe of her allusions: for Heaven, which had endowed the

  young Marquis with personal charms, a large estate, an ancient title and

  the pride belonging to it, had not supplied his lordship with a great

  quantity of brains, or a very feeling heart.

  Lady Anne came back from the upper regions presently, with rather a grave

  face, and saying that Sir Brian was not so well this evening, upon which

  the young men rose to depart. My lord said he had "a most delightful

  dinner and a most delightful tart, 'pon his honour," and was the only one

  of the little company who laughed at his own remark. Miss Ethel's eyes

  flashed scorn at Mr. Clive when that unfortunate subject was introduced

  again.

  My lord was going back to London to-morrow. Was Miss Newcome going back?

  Wouldn't he like to go back in the train with her!--another unlucky

  observation. Lady Anne said, "it would depend on the state of Sir Brian's

  health the next morning whether Ethel would return; and both of you

  gentlemen are too young to be her escort," added the kind lady. Then she

  shook hands with Clive, as thinking she had said something too for him.

  Farintosh in the meantime was taking leave of Miss Newcome. "Pray, pray,"

  said his lordship, "don't throw me over at Lady Innishowan's. You know I

  hate balls and never go to 'em, except when you go. I hate dancing, I do,

  'pon my honour."

  "Thank you," said Miss Newcome, with a curtsey.

  "Except with one person--only one person, upon my honour. I'll remember

  and get the invitation for your friend. And if you would but try that

  mare, I give you my honour I bred her at Codlington. She's a beauty to

  look at, and as quiet as a lamb."

  "I don't want a horse like a lamb," replied the young lady.

  "Well--she'll go like blazes now: and over timber she's splendid now. She

  is, upon my honour."

  "When I come to London perhaps you may trot her out," said Miss Ethel,

  giving him her hand and a fine smile.

  Clive came up biting his lips. "I suppose you don't condescend to ride

  Bhurtpore any more now?" he said.

  "Poor old Bhurtpore! The children ride him now," said Miss Ethel--giving

  Clive at the same time a dangerous look of her eyes, as though to see if

  her shot had hit. Then she added, "No--he has not been brought up to town

  this year: he is
at Newcome, and I like him very much." Perhaps she

  thought the shot had struck too deep.

  But if Clive was hurt he did not show his wound. "You have had him these

  four years--yes, it's four years since my father broke him for you. And

  you still continue to like him? What a miracle of constancy! You use him

  sometimes in the country--when you have no better horse--what a

  compliment to Bhurtpore!"

  "Nonsense!" Miss Ethel here made Clive a sign in her most imperious

  manner to stay a moment when Lord Farintosh had departed.

  But he did not choose to obey this order. "Good night," he said. "Before

  I go I must shake hands with my aunt downstairs." And he was gone,

  following close upon Lord Farintosh, who I dare say thought, "Why the

  deuce can't he shake hands with his aunt up here?" and when Clive entered

  Miss Honeyman's back-parlour, making a bow to the young nobleman, my lord

  went away more perplexed than ever: and the next day told friends at

  White's what uncommonly queer people those Newcomes were. "I give you my

  honour there was a fellow at Lady Anne's whom they call Clive, who is a

  painter by trade--his uncle is a preacher--his father is a horse-dealer,

  and his aunt lets lodgings and cooks the dinner."

  CHAPTER XLIII

  Returns to some Old Friends

  The haggard youth burst into my chambers, in the Temple, on the very next

  morning, and confided to me the story which has been just here narrated.

  When he had concluded it, with many ejaculations regarding the heroine of

  the tale, "I saw her, sir," he added, "walking with the children and Miss

  Cann as I drove round in the fly to the station--and didn't even bow to

  her."

  "Why did you go round by the cliff?" asked Clive's friend.

  "That is not the way from the Steyne Arms to the railroad."

  "Hang it," says Clive, turning very red, "I wanted to pass just under her

  windows, and if I saw her, not to see her: and that's what I did."

  "Why did she walk on the cliff?" mused Clive's friend, "at that early

  hour? Not to meet Lord Farintosh, I should think, he never gets up before

  twelve. It must have been to see you. Didn't you tell her you were going

  away in the morning?"

  "I tell you what she does with me," continues Mr. Clive. "Sometimes she

  seems to like me, and then she leaves me. Sometimes she is quite kind--

  kind she always is--I mean, you know, Pen--you know what I mean; and then

  up comes the old Countess, or a young Marquis, or some fellow with a

  handle to his name, and she whistles me off till the next convenient

  opportunity."

  "Women are like that, my ingenuous youth," says Clive's counsellor.

  "I won't stand it. I won't be made a fool of!" he continues. "She seems

  to expect everybody to bow to her, and moves through the world with her

  imperious airs. Oh, how confoundedly handsome she is with them! I tell

  you what. I feel inclined to tumble down and feel one of her pretty

  little feet on my neck and say, There! Trample my life out. Make a slave

  of me. Let me get a silver collar and mark 'Ethel' on it, and go through

  the world with my badge."

  "And a blue ribbon for a footman to hold you by; and a muzzle to wear in

  the dog-days. Bow! wow!" says Mr. Pendennis.

  (At this noise Mr. Warrington puts his head in from the neighbouring

  bedchamber, and shows a beard just lathered for shaving. "We are talking

  sentiment! Go back till you are wanted!" says Mr. Pendennis. Exit he of

  the soap-suds.)

  "Don't make fun of a fellow," Clive continues, laughing ruefully. "You

  see I must talk about it to somebody. I shall die if I don't. Sometimes,

  sir, I rise up in my might and I defy her lightning. The sarcastic dodge