The Newcomes

by William Makepeace Thackeray

mustachios: "but my brother had nothing to do with the quarrel, and very

  rightly did not wish to engage in it. He has an eye to business, has

  Master Hobson too," my friend continued: "for he brought me a cheque for

  my private account, which of course, he said, could not remain after my

  quarrel with Barnes. But the Indian bank account, which is pretty large,

  he supposed need not be taken away? and indeed why should it? So that,

  which is little business of mine, remains where it was; and brother

  Hobson and I remain perfectly good friends.

  "I think Clive is much better since he has been quite put out of his

  suspense. He speaks with a great deal more kindness and good-nature about

  the marriage than I am disposed to feel regarding it: and depend on it

  has too high a spirit to show that he is beaten. But I know he is a good

  deal cut up, though he says nothing; and he agreed willingly enough to

  take a little journey, Arthur, and be out of the way when this business

  takes place. We shall go to Paris: I don't know where else besides. These

  misfortunes do good in one way, hard as they are to bear: they unite

  people who love each other. It seems to me my boy has been nearer to me,

  and likes his old father better than he has done of late." And very soon

  after this talk our friends departed.

  The Crimean minister having been recalled, and Lady Anne Newcome's house

  in park Lane being vacant, her ladyship and her family came to occupy the

  mansion for this eventful season, and sate once more in the dismal

  dining-room under the picture of the defunct Sir Brian. A little of the

  splendour and hospitality of old days was revived in the house:

  entertainments were given by Lady Anne: and amongst other festivities a

  fine ball took place, when pretty Miss Alice, Miss Ethel's younger

  sister, made her first appearance in the world, to which she was

  afterwards to be presented by the Marchioness of Farintosh. All the

  little sisters were charmed, no doubt, that the beautiful Ethel was to

  become a beautiful Marchioness, who, as they came up to womanhood one

  after another, would introduce them severally to amiable young earls,

  dukes, and marquises, when they would be married off and wear coronets

  and diamonds of their own right. At Lady Anne's ball I saw my

  acquaintance, young Mumford, who was going to Oxford next October, and

  about to leave Rugby, where he was at the head of the school, looking

  very dismal as Miss Alice whirled round the room dancing in Viscount

  Bustington's arms;--Miss Alice, with whose mamma he used to take tea at

  Rugby, and for whose pretty sake Mumford did Alfred Newcome's verses for

  him and let him off his thrashings. Poor Mumford! he dismally went about

  under the protection of young Alfred, a fourth-form boy--not one soul did

  he know in that rattling London ballroom; his young face--as white as the

  large white tie, donned two hours since at the Tavistock with such

  nervousness and beating of heart!

  With these lads, and decorated with a tie equally splendid, moved about

  young Sam Newcome, who was shirking from his sister and his mamma. Mrs.

  Hobson had actually assumed clean gloves for this festive occasion. Sam

  stared at all the "Nobs:" and insisted upon being introduced to

  "Farintosh," and congratulated his lordship with much graceful ease:

  and then pushed about the rooms perseveringly hanging on to Alfred's

  jacket. "I say, I wish you wouldn't call me Al'," I heard Mr. Alfred say

  to his cousin. Seeing my face, Mr. Samuel ran up to claim acquaintance.

  He was good enough to say he thought Farintosh seemed devilish haughty.

  Even my wife could not help saying, that Mr. Sam was an odious little

  creature.

  So it was for young Alfred, and his brothers and sisters, who would want

  help and protection in the world, that Ethel was about to give up her

  independence, her inclination perhaps, and to bestow her life on yonder

  young nobleman. Looking at her as a girl devoting herself to her family,

  her sacrifice gave her a melancholy interest in our eyes. My wife and I

  watched her, grave and beautiful, moving through the rooms, receiving and

  returning a hundred greetings, bending to compliments, talking with this

  friend and that, with my lord's lordly relations, with himself, to whom

  she listened deferentially; faintly smiling as he spoke now and again;

  doing the honours of her mother's house. Lady after lady of his

  lordship's clan and kinsfolk complimented the girl and her pleased

  mother. Old Lady Kew was radiant (if one can call radiance the glances of

  those darkling old eyes). She sate in a little room apart, and thither

  people went to pay their court to her. Unwillingly I came in on this

  levee with my wife on my arm: Lady Kew scowled at me over her crutch, but

  without a sign of recognition. "What an awful countenance that old woman

  has!" Laura whispered as we retreated out of that gloomy presence.

  And Doubt (as its wont is) whispered too a question in my ear, "Is it for

  her brothers and sisters only that Miss Ethel is sacrificing herself? Is

  it not for the coronet, and the triumph, and the fine houses?" "When two

  motives may actuate a friend, we surely may try and believe in the good

  one," says Laura. "But, but I am glad Clive does not marry her--poor

  fellow--he would not have been happy with her. She belongs to this great

  world: she has spent all her life in it: Clive would have entered into it

  very likely in her train; and you know, sir, it is not good that we

  should be our husbands' superiors," adds Mrs. Laura, with a curtsey.

  She presently pronounced that the air was very hot in the rooms, and in

  fact wanted to go home to see her child. As we passed out, we saw Sir

  Barnes Newcome, eagerly smiling, smirking, bowing, and in the fondest

  conversation with his sister and Lord Farintosh. By Sir Barnes presently

  brushed Lieutenant-General Sir George Tufto, K.C.B., who, when he saw on

  whose foot he had trodden, grunted out, "H'm, beg your pardon!" and

  turning his back on Barnes, forthwith began complimenting Ethel and the

  Marquis. "Served with your lordship's father in Spain; glad to make your

  lordship's acquaintance," says Sir George. Ethel bows to us as we pass

  out of the rooms, and we hear no more of Sir George's conversation.

  In the cloak-room sits Lady Clara Newcome, with a gentleman bending over

  her, just in such an attitude as the bride is in Hogarth's "Marriage a la

  Mode" as the counsellor talks to her. Lady Clara starts up as a crowd of

  blushes come into her wan face, and tries to smile, and rises to greet my

  wife, and says something about its being so dreadfully hot in the upper

  rooms, and so very tedious waiting for the carriages. The gentleman

  advances towards me with a military stride, and says, "How do you do, Mr.

  Pendennis? How's our young friend, the painter?" I answer Lord Highgate

  civilly enough, whereas my wife will scarce speak a word in reply to Lady

  Clara Newcome.

  Lady Clara asked us to her ball, which my wife declined altogether to

  attend. Sir Barnes published a series of quite splendid entertainments on

  the happy occasion of his s
ister's betrothal. We read the names of all

  the clan Farintosh in the Morning Post, as attending these banquets. Mr.

  and Mrs. Hobson Newcome, in Bryanstone Square, gave also signs of

  rejoicing at their niece's marriage. They had a grand banquet followed by

  a tea, to which latter amusement the present biographer was invited. Lady

  Anne, and Lady Kew and her granddaughter, and the Baronet and his wife,

  and my Lord Highgate and Sir George Tufto attended the dinner; but it was

  rather a damp entertainment. "Farintosh," whispers Sam Newcome, "sent

  word just before dinner that he had a sore throat, and Barnes was as

  sulky as possible. Sir George wouldn't speak to him, and the Dowager

  wouldn't speak to Lord Highgate. Scarcely anything was drank," concluded

  Mr. Sam, with a slight hiccup. "I say, Pendennis, how sold Clive will

  be!" And the amiable youth went off to commune with others of his

  parents' guests.

  Thus the Newcomes entertained the Farintoshes, and the Farintoshes

  entertained the Newcomes. And the Dowager Countess of Kew went from

  assembly to assembly every evening, and to jewellers and upholsterers and

  dressmakers every morning; and Lord Farintosh's town-house was splendidly

  re-decorated in the newest fashion; and he seemed to grow more and more

  attentive as the happy day approached, and he gave away all his cigars to

  his brother Rob; and his sisters were delighted with Ethel, and

  constantly in her company, and his mother was pleased with her, and

  thought a girl of her spirit and resolution would make a good wife for

  her son: and select crowds flocked to see the service of plate at

  Handyman's, and the diamonds which were being set for the lady; and Smee,

  R.A., painted her portrait, as a souvenir for mamma when Miss Newcome

  should be Miss Newcome no more; and Lady Kew made a will leaving all she

  could leave to her beloved granddaughter, Ethel, daughter of the late Sir

  Brian Newcome, Baronet; and Lord Kew wrote an affectionate letter to his

  cousin, congratulating her, and wishing her happiness with all his heart;

  and I was glancing over The Times newspaper at breakfast one morning;

  when I laid it down with an exclamation which caused my wife to start

  with surprise.

  "What is it?" cries Laura, and I read as follows:--

  "'Death of the Countess Dowager of Kew.--We regret to have to announce

  the awfully sudden death of this venerable lady. Her ladyship, who had

  been at several parties of the nobility the night before last, seemingly

  in perfect health, was seized with a fit as she was waiting for her

  carriage, and about to quit Lady Pallgrave's assembly. Immediate medical

  assistance was procured, and her ladyship was carried to her own house,

  in Queen Street, Mayfair. But she never rallied, or, we believe, spoke,

  after the first fatal seizure, and sank at eleven o'clock last evening,

  The deceased, Louisa Joanna Gaunt, widow of Frederic, first Earl of Kew,

  was daughter of Charles, Earl of Gaunt, and sister of the late and aunt

  of the present Marquis of Steyne. The present Earl of Kew is her

  ladyship's grandson, his lordship's father, Lord Walham, having died

  before his own father, the first earl. Many noble families are placed in

  mourning by this sad event. Society has to deplore the death of a lady

  who has been its ornament for more than half a century, and who was

  known, we may say, throughout Europe for her remarkable sense,

  extraordinary memory, and brilliant wit.'"

  CHAPTER LV

  Barnes's Skeleton Closet

  The demise of Lady Kew of course put a stop for a while to the

  matrimonial projects so interesting to the house of Newcome. Hymen blew

  his torch out, put it into the cupboard for use on a future day, and

  exchanged his garish saffron-coloured robe for decent temporary mourning.

  Charles Honeyman improved the occasion at Lady Whittlesea's Chapel hard

  by; and "Death at the Festival" was one of his most thrilling sermons;

  reprinted at the request of some of the congregation. There were those of

  his flock, especially a pair whose quarter of the fold was the

  organ-loft, who were always charmed with the piping of that melodious

  pastor.

  Shall we too, while the coffin yet rests on the earth's outer surface,

  enter the chapel whither these void remains of our dear sister departed

  are borne by the smug undertaker's gentlemen, and pronounce an elegy over

  that bedizened box of corruption? When the young are stricken down, and

  their roses nipped in an hour by the destroying blight, even the stranger

  can sympathise, who counts the scant years on the gravestone, or reads

  the notice in the newspaper corner. The contrast forces itself on you. A

  fair young creature, bright and blooming yesterday, distributing smiles,

  levying homage, inspiring desire, conscious of her power to charm, and

  gay with the natural enjoyment of her conquests--who in his walk through

  the world has not looked on many such a one; and, at the notion of her

  sudden call away from beauty, triumph, pleasure; her helpless outcries

  during her short pain; her vain pleas for a little respite; her sentence,

  and its execution; has not felt a shock of pity? When the days of a long

  life come to its close, and a white head sinks to rise no more, we bow

  our own with respect as the mourning train passes, and salute the

  heraldry and devices of yonder pomp, as symbols of age, wisdom, deserved

  respect and merited honour; long experience of suffering and action. The

  wealth he may have achieved is the harvest which he sowed; the titles on

  his hearse, fruits of the field he bravely and laboriously wrought in.

  But to live to fourscore years, and be found dancing among the idle

  virgins! to have had near a century of allotted time, and then be called

  away from the giddy notes of a Mayfair fiddle! To have to yield your

  roses too, and then drop out of the bony clutch of your old fingers a

  wreath that came from a Parisian bandbox! One fancies around some graves

  unseen troops of mourners waiting; many and many a poor pensioner

  trooping to the place; many weeping charities; many kind actions; many

  dear friends beloved and deplored, rising up at the toll of that bell to

  follow the honoured hearse; dead parents waiting above, and calling,

  "Come, daughter!" lost children, heaven's fondlings, hovering round like

  cherubim, and whispering, "Welcome, mother!" Here is one who reposes

  after a long feast where no love has been; after girlhood without kindly

  maternal nurture; marriage without affection; matronhood without its

  precious griefs and joys; after fourscore years of lonely vanity. Let us

  take off our hats to that procession too as it passes, admiring the

  different lots awarded to the children of men, and the various usages to

  which Heaven puts its creatures.

  Leave we yonder velvet-palled box, spangled with fantastic heraldry, and

  containing within the aged slough and envelope of a soul gone to render

  its account. Look rather at the living audience standing round the

  shell;--the deep grief on Barnes Newcome's fine countenance; the sadness

  depicted in the face of the most noble th
e Marquis of Farintosh; the

  sympathy of her ladyship's medical man (who came in the third mourning

  carriage); better than these, the awe, and reverence, and emotion,

  exhibited in the kind face of one of the witnesses of this scene, as he

  listens to those words which the priest rehearses over our dead. What

  magnificent words! what a burning faith, what a glorious triumph; what a

  heroic life, death, hope, they record! They are read over all of us

  alike; as the sun shines on just and unjust. We have all of us heard

  them; and I have fancied, for my part, that they fell and smote like the

  sods on the coffin.

  The ceremony over, the undertaker's gentlemen clamber on the roof of the

  vacant hearse, into which palls, tressels, trays of feathers, are

  inserted, and the horses break out into a trot, and the empty carriages,

  expressing the deep grief of the deceased lady's friends, depart

  homeward. It is remarked that Lord Kew hardly has any communication with

  his cousin, Sir Barnes Newcome. His lordship jumps into a cab, and goes

  to the railroad. Issuing from the cemetery, the Marquis of Farintosh

  hastily orders that thing to be taken off his hat, and returns to town in

  his brougham, smoking a cigar. Sir Barnes Newcome rides in the brougham

  beside Lord Farintosh as far as Oxford Street, where he gets a cab, and

  goes to the City. For business is business, and must be attended to,

  though grief be ever so severe.

  A very short time previous to her demise, Mr. Rood (that was Mr. Rood--

  that other little gentleman in black, who shared the third mourning coach

  along with her ladyship's medical man) had executed a will by which

  almost all the Countess's property was devised to her granddaughter,

  Ethel Newcome. Lady Kew's decease of course delayed the marriage projects

  for a while. The young heiress returned to her mother's house in Park

  Lane. I dare say the deep mourning habiliments in which the domestics of

  that establishment appeared, were purchased out of the funds left in his

  hands, which Ethel's banker and brother had at her disposal.

  Sir Barnes Newcome, who was one of the trustees of his sister's property,

  grumbled no doubt because his grandmother had bequeathed to him but a

  paltry recompense of five hundred pounds for his pains and trouble of

  trusteeship; but his manner to Ethel was extremely bland and respectful:

  an heiress now, and to be a marchioness in a few months, Sir Barnes

  treated her with a very different regard to that which he was accustomed

  to show to other members of his family. For while this worthy Baronet

  would contradict his mother at every word she uttered, and take no pains

  to disguise his opinion that Lady Anne's intellect was of the very

  poorest order, he would listen deferentially to Ethel's smallest

  observations, exert himself to amuse her under her grief, which he chose

  to take for granted was very severe, visit her constantly, and show the

  most charming solicitude for her general comfort and welfare.

  During this time my wife received constant notes from Ethel Newcome, and

  the intimacy between the two ladies much increased. Laura was so unlike

  the women of Ethel's circle, the young lady was pleased to say, that to

  be with her was Ethel's greatest comfort. Miss Newcome was now her own

  mistress, had her carriage, and would drive day after day to our cottage

  at Richmond. The frigid society of Lord Farintosh's sisters, the

  conversation of his mother, did not amuse Ethel, and she escaped from

  both with her usual impatience of control. She was at home every day

  dutifully to receive my lord's visits; but though she did not open her

  mind to Laura as freely regarding the young gentleman as she did when the

  character and disposition of her future mother and sisters-in-law was the

  subject of their talk, I could see, from the grave look of commiseration

  which my wife's face bore after her young friend's visits, that Mrs.