The Newcomes

by William Makepeace Thackeray

Pendennis augured rather ill of the future happiness of this betrothed

  pair. Once, at Miss Newcome's special request, I took my wife to see her

  in Park Lane, where the Marquis of Farintosh found us. His lordship and I

  had already a half-acquaintance, which was not, however, improved after

  my regular presentation to him by Miss Newcome: he scowled at me with a

  countenance indicative of anything but welcome, and did not seem in the

  least more pleased when Ethel entreated her friend Laura not to take her

  bonnet, not to think of going away so soon. She came to see us the very

  next day, stayed much longer with us than usual, and returned to town

  quite late in the evening, in spite of the entreaties of the inhospitable

  Laura, who would have had her leave us long before. "I am sure," says

  clear-sighted Mrs. Laura, "she is come out of bravado, and after we went

  away yesterday that there were words between her and Lord Farintosh on

  our account."

  "Confound the young man," breaks out Mr. Pendennis in a fume; "what does

  he mean by his insolent airs?"

  "He may think we are partisans de l'autre," says Mrs. Pendennis, with a

  smile first, and a sigh afterwards, as she said "poor Clive!"

  "Do you ever talk about Clive?" asks the husband.

  "Never. Once, twice, perhaps, in the most natural manner in the world we

  mentioned where he is; but nothing further passes. The subject is a

  sealed one between us. She often looks at his drawings in my album (Clive

  had drawn our baby there and its mother in a great variety of attitudes),

  and gazes at his sketch of his dear old father: but of him she never says

  a word."

  "So it is best," says Mr. Pendennis.

  "Yes--best," echoes Laura, with a sigh.

  "You think, Laura," continues the husband, "you think she----"

  "She what?" What did Mr. Pendennis mean? Laura his wife certainly

  understood him, though upon my conscience the sentence went no further--

  for she answered at once:

  "Yes--I think she certainly did, poor boy! But that, of course, is over

  now: and Ethel, though she cannot help being a worldly woman, has such

  firmness and resolution of character, that if she has once determined to

  conquer any inclination of that sort I am sure she will master it, and

  make Lord Farintosh a very good wife."

  "Since the Colonel's quarrel with Sir Barnes," cries Mr. Pendennis,

  adverting by a natural transition from Ethel to her amiable brother, "our

  banking friend does not invite us any more: Lady Clara sends you no

  cards. I have a great mind to withdraw my account."

  Laura, who understands nothing about accounts, did not perceive the fine

  irony of this remark: but her face straightway put on the severe

  expression which it chose to assume whenever Sir Barnes's family was

  mentioned, and she said, "My dear, I am very glad indeed that Lady Clara

  sends us no more of her invitations. You know very well why I disliked

  them."

  "Why?"

  "I hear baby crying," says Laura. Oh, Laura, Laura! how could you tell

  your husband such a fib?--and she quits the room without deigning to give

  any answer to that "Why?"

  Let us pay a brief visit to Newcome in the north of England, and there we

  may get some answer to the question of which Mr. Pendennis had just in

  vain asked a reply from his wife. My design does not include a

  description of that great and flourishing town of Newcome, and of the

  manufactures which caused its prosperity; but only admits of the

  introduction of those Newcomites who are concerned in the affairs of the

  family which has given its respectable name to these volumes.

  Thus in previous pages we have said nothing about the Mayor and

  Corporation of Newcome the magnificent bankers and manufacturers who had

  their places of business in the town, and their splendid villas outside

  its smoky precincts; people who would give their thousand guineas for a

  picture or a statue, and write you off a cheque for ten times the amount

  any day; people who, if there was a talk of a statue to the Queen or the

  Duke, would come down to the Town All and subscribe their one, two, three

  undred apiece (especially if in the neighbouring city of SLOWCOME they

  were putting up a statue to the Duke or the Queen)--not of such men have

  I spoken, the magnates of the place; but of the humble Sarah Mason in

  Jubilee Row--of the Reverend Dr. Bulders the Vicar, Mr. Vidler the

  apothecary, Mr. Puff the baker--of Tom Potts, the jolly reporter of the

  Newcome Independent, and ------ Batters, Esq., the proprietor of that

  journal--persons with whom our friends have had already, or will be found

  presently to have, some connexion. And it is from these that we shall

  arrive at some particulars regarding the Newcome family, which will show

  us that they have a skeleton or two in their closets, as well as their

  neighbours.

  Now, how will you have the story? Worthy mammas of families--if you do

  not like to have your daughters told that bad husbands will make bad

  wives; that marriages begun in indifference make homes unhappy; that men

  whom girls are brought to swear to love and honour are sometimes false,

  selfish, and cruel; and that women forget the oaths which they have been

  made to swear--if you will not hear of this, ladies, close the book, and

  send for some other. Banish the newspaper out of your houses, and shut

  your eyes to the truth, the awful truth, of life and sin. Is the world

  made of Jennies and Jessamies; and passion the play of schoolboys and

  schoolgirls, scribbling valentines and interchanging lollipops? Is life

  all over when Jenny and Jessamy are married; and are there no subsequent

  trials, griefs, wars, bitter heart-pangs, dreadful temptations, defeats,

  remorses, sufferings to bear, and dangers to overcome? As you and I,

  friend, kneel with our children round about us, prostrate before the

  Father of us all, and asking mercy for miserable sinners, are the young

  ones to suppose the words are mere form, and don't apply to us?--to some

  outcasts in the free seats probably, or those naughty boys playing in the

  churchyard? Are they not to know that we err too, and pray with all our

  hearts to be rescued from temptation? If such a knowledge is wrong for

  them, send them to church apart. Go you and worship in private; or if not

  too proud, kneel humbly in the midst of them, owning your wrong, and

  praying Heaven to be merciful to you a sinner.

  When Barnes Newcome became the reigning Prince of the Newcome family, and

  after the first agonies of grief for his father's death had subsided, he

  made strong attempts to conciliate the principal persons in the

  neighbourhood, and to render himself popular in the borough. He gave

  handsome entertainments to the townsfolk and to the county gentry; he

  tried even to bring those two warring classes together. He endeavoured to

  be civil to the Newcome Independent, the Opposition paper, as well as to

  the Newcome Sentinel that true old Uncompromising Blue. He asked the

  Dissenting clergyman to dinner, and the Low Church clergyman, as well as

  the orthodox Doctor Bulders and his curates. He gave a
lecture at the

  Newcome Athenaeum, which everybody said was very amusing, and which

  Sentinel and Independent both agreed in praising. Of course he subscribed

  to that statue which the Newcomites were raising; to the philanthropic

  missions which Reverend Low Church gentlemen were engaged in; to the (for

  the young Newcomite manufacturers are as sporting as any gents in the

  North), to the hospital, the People's Library, the restoration of the

  rood-screen and the great painted window in Newcome Old Church (Rev. J.

  Bulders), and he had to pay in fine a most awful price for his privilege

  of sitting in Parliament as representative of his native place--as he

  called it in his speeches "the cradle of his forefathers, the home of his

  race," etc., though Barnes was in fact born at Clapham.

  Lady Clara could not in the least help this young statesman in his

  designs upon Newcome and the Newcomites. After she came into Barnes's

  hands, a dreadful weight fell upon her. She would smile and simper, and

  talk kindly and gaily enough at first, during Sir Brian's life; and among

  women, when Barnes was not present. But as soon as he joined the company,

  it was remarked that his wife became silent, and looked eagerly

  towards him whenever he ventured to speak. She blundered, her eyes filled

  with tears; the little wit she had left her in her husband's presence: he

  grew angry, and tried to hide his anger with a sneer, or broke out with

  gibe and an oath, when he lost patience, and Clara, whimpering, would

  leave the room. Everybody at Newcome knew that Barnes bullied his wife.

  People had worse charges against Barnes than wife-bullying. Do you

  suppose that little interruption which occurred at Barnes's marriage was

  not known in Newcome? His victim had been a Newcome girl, the man to whom

  she was betrothed was in a Newcome factory. When Barnes was a young man,

  and in his occasional visits to Newcome, lived along with those dashing

  young blades Sam Jollyman (Jollyman Brothers and Bowcher), Bob Homer,

  Cross Country Bill, Al Rackner (for whom his father had to pay eighteen

  thousand pounds after the Leger, the year Toggery won it) and that wild

  lot, all sorts of stories were told of them, and of Barnes especially.

  Most of them were settled, and steady business men by this time. Al, it

  was known had become very serious, besides making his fortune in cotton.

  Bob Homer managed the Bank; and as for S. Jollyman, Mrs. S. J. took

  uncommon good care that he didn't break out of bounds any more; why, he

  was not even allowed to play a game at billiards; or to dine out without

  her----I could go on giving you interesting particulars of a hundred

  members of the Newcome aristocracy, were not our attention especially

  directed to one respectable family.

  All Barnes's endeavours at popularity were vain, partly from his own

  fault, and partly from the nature of mankind, and of the Newcome folks

  especially, whom no single person could possibly conciliate. Thus,

  suppose he gave the advertisements to the Independent; the old Blue paper

  the Sentinel was very angry: suppose he asked Mr. Hunch, the Dissenting

  minister, to bless the tablecloth after dinner, as he had begged Dr.

  Bulders to utter a benediction on the first course, Hunch and Bulders

  were both angry. He subscribed to the races--what heathenism! to the

  missionaries--what sanctimonious humbug! And the worst was that Barnes

  being young at that time, and not able to keep his tongue in order, could

  not help saying not to but of such and such a man, that he was an

  infernal ass, or a confounded old idiot, and so forth--peevish phrases,

  which undid in a moment the work of a dozen dinners, countless

  compliments, and months of grinning good-humour.

  Now he is wiser. He is very proud of being Newcome of Newcome, and quite

  believes that the place is his hereditary principality. But still, he

  says, his father was a fool for ever representing the borough. "Dammy,

  sir," cries Sir Barnes, "never sit for a place that lies at your

  park-gates, and above all never try to conciliate 'em. Curse 'em! Hate

  'em well, sir! Take a line, and flog the fellows on the other side. Since

  I have sate in Parliament for another place, I have saved myself I don't

  know how much a year. I never go to High Church or Low; don't give a

  shillin' to the confounded races, or the infernal souptickets, or to the

  miserable missionaries; and at last live in quiet."

  So, in spite of all his subscriptions, and his coaxing of the various

  orders of Newcomites, Sir Barnes Newcome was not popular among them; and

  while he had enemies on all sides, had sturdy friends not even on his

  own. Scarce a man but felt Barnes was laughing at him; Bulders in his

  pulpit, Holder who seconded him in his election, the Newcome society; and

  the ladies, even more than the men, were uneasy under his ominous

  familiarity, and recovered their good-humour when he left them. People

  felt as if it was a truce only, and not an alliance with him, and always

  speculated on the possibility of war: when he turned his back on them in

  the market, men felt relieved, and, as they passed his gate, looked with

  no friendly glances over his park-wall.

  What happened within was perfectly familiar to many persons. Our friend

  was insolent to all his servants; and of course very well served, but

  very much disliked, in consequence. The butler was familiar with Taplow--

  the housekeeper had a friend at Newcome; Mrs Taplow, in fact, of the

  King's Arms--one of the grooms at Newcome Park kept company with Mrs.

  Bulder's maid: the incomings and outgoings, the quarrels and tears, the

  company from London, and all the doings of the folks at Newcome Park were

  thus known to the neighbourhood round about. The apothecary brought an

  awful story back from Newcome. He had been called to Lady Clara in strong

  hysterical fits. He found her ladyship with a bruise on her face. When

  Sir Barnes approached her (he would not allow the medical man to see her

  except in his presence) she screamed and bade him not come near her.

  These things did Mr. Vidler weakly impart to Mrs. Vidler: these, under

  solemn vows of secrecy, Mrs. Vidler told to one or two friends. Sir

  Barnes and Lady Clara were seen shopping together very graciously in

  Newcome a short time afterwards; persons who dined at the Park said the

  Baronet and his wife seemed on very good terms; but--but that story of

  the bruised cheek remained in the minds of certain people, and lay by at

  compound interest as such stories will.

  Now, say people quarrel and make it up; or don't make it up, but wear a

  smirking face to society, and call each other "my dear" and "my love," and

  smooth over their countenances before John, who enters with the coals as

  they are barking and biting, or who announces the dinner as they are

  tearing each other's eyes out? Suppose a woman is ever so miserable, and

  yet smiles, and doesn't show her grief? "Quite right," say her prudent

  friends, and her husband's relations above all. "My dear, you have too

  much propriety to exhibit your grief before the world, or above all,

  before the darling
children." So to lie is your duty, to lie to your

  friends, to yourself if you can, to your children.

  Does this discipline of hypocrisy improve any mortal woman? Say she

  learns to smile after a blow, do you suppose in this matter alone she

  will be a hypocrite? Poor Lady Clara! I fancy a better lot for you than

  that to which fate handed you over. I fancy there need have been no

  deceit in your fond simple little heart, could it but have been given

  into other keeping. But you were consigned to a master, whose scorn and

  cruelty terrified you; under whose sardonic glances your scared eyes were

  afraid to look up, and before whose gloomy coldness you dared not be

  happy. Suppose a little plant, very frail and delicate from the first,

  but that might have bloomed sweetly and borne fair flowers, had it

  received warm shelter and kindly nurture; suppose a young creature taken

  out of her home, and given over to a hard master whose caresses are as

  insulting as his neglect; consigned to cruel usage; to weary loneliness;

  to bitter, bitter recollections of the past; suppose her schooled into

  hypocrisy by tyranny--and then, quick, let us hire an advocate to roar

  out to a British jury the wrongs of her injured husband, to paint the

  agonies of his bleeding heart (if Mr. Advocate gets plaintiff's brief in

  time, and before defendant's attorney has retained him), and to show

  Society injured through him. Let us console that martyr, I say, with

  thumping damages; and as for the woman--the guilty wretch!--let us lead

  her out and stone her.

  CHAPTER LVI

  Rosa quo locorum sera moratur

  Clive Newcome bore his defeat with such a courage and resolution as those

  who knew the young fellow's character were sure he would display. It was

  whilst he bad a little lingering hope still that the poor lad was in the

  worst condition; as a gambler is restless and unhappy whilst his last few

  guineas remain with him, and he is venturing them against the

  overpowering chances of the bank. His last piece, however, gone, our

  friend rises up from that unlucky table beaten at the contest but not

  broken in spirit. He goes back into the world again and withdraws from

  that dangerous excitement; sometimes when he is alone or wakeful, tossing

  in his bed at nights, he may recall the fatal game, and think how he

  might have won it--think what a fool he was ever to have played it at

  all--but these cogitations Clive kept for himself. He was magnanimous

  enough not even to blame Ethel much, and to take her side against his

  father, who it must be confessed now exhibited a violent hostility

  against that young lady and her belongings. Slow to anger and utterly

  beyond deceit himself, when Thomas Newcome was once roused, or at length

  believed that he was cheated woe to the offender! From that day forth,

  Thomas believed no good of him. Every thought or action of his enemy's

  life seemed treason to the worthy Colonel. If Barnes gave a dinner-party,

  his uncle was ready to fancy that the banker wanted to poison somebody;

  if he made a little speech in the House of Commons (Barnes did make

  little speeches in the House of Commons), the Colonel was sure some

  infernal conspiracy lay under the villain's words. The whole of that

  branch of the Newcomes fared little better at their kinsman's hands--they

  were all deceitful, sordid, heartless, worldly;--Ethel herself no better

  now than the people who had bred her up. People hate, as they love,

  unreasonably. Whether is it the more mortifying to us, to feel that we

  are disliked or liked undeservedly?

  Clive was not easy until he had the sea between him and his misfortune:

  and now Thomas Newcome had the chance of making that tour with his son,

  which in early days had been such a favourite project with the good man.

  They travelled Rhineland and Switzerland together--they crossed into