The Newcomes

by William Makepeace Thackeray

delightedly on the shoulder. "Capital! capital! We'll have the picture

  printed, by Jove, sir; show vice it's own image; and shame the viper in

  his own nest, sir. That's what we will."

  Mrs. Pendennis came away with rather a heavy heart from this party. She

  chose to interest herself about the right or wrong of her friends; and

  her mind was disturbed by the Colonel's vindictive spirit. On the

  subsequent day we had occasion to visit our friend J. J. (who was

  completing the sweetest little picture, No. 263 in the Exhibition,

  "Portrait of a Lady and Child"), and we found that Clive had been with the

  painter that morning likewise; and that J. J. was acquainted with his

  scheme. That he did not approve of it we could read in the artist's grave

  countenance. "Nor does Clive approve of it either!" cried Ridley, with

  greater eagerness than he usually displayed, and more openness than he

  was accustomed to exhibit in judging unfavourably of his friends.

  "Among them they have taken him away from his art," Ridley said. "They

  don't understand him when he talks about it; they despise him for

  pursuing it. Why should I wonder at that? my parents despised it too, and

  my father was not a grand gentleman like the Colonel, Mrs. Pendennis. Ah!

  why did the Colonel ever grow rich? Why had not Clive to work for his

  bread as have? He would have done something that was worthy of him then;

  now his time must be spent in dancing attendance at balls land operas,

  and yawning at City board-rooms. They call that business: they think he

  is idling when he comes here, poor fellow! As if life was long enough for

  our art; and the best labour we can give, good enough for it! He went

  away groaning this morning, and quite saddened in spirits. The Colonel

  wants to set up himself for Parliament, or to set Clive up; but he says

  he won't. I hope he won't; do not you, Mrs. Pendennis?"

  The painter turned as he spoke; and the bright northern light which fell

  upon the sitter's head was intercepted, and lighted up his own as he

  addressed us. Out of that bright light looked his pale thoughtful face,

  and long locks and eager brown eyes. The palette on his arm was a great

  shield painted of many colours: he carried his mall-stick and a sheaf of

  brushes along with the weapons of his glorious but harmless war. With

  these he achieves conquests, wherein none are wounded save the envious:

  with that he shelters him against how much idleness, ambition,

  temptations! Occupied over that consoling work, idle thoughts cannot gain

  mastery over him: selfish wishes or desires are kept at bay. Art is

  truth: and truth is religion: and its study and practice a daily work of

  pious duty. What are the world's struggles, brawls, successes, to that

  calm recluse pursuing his calling? See, twinkling in the darkness round

  his chamber, numberless beautiful trophies of the graceful victories

  which he has won:--sweet flowers of fancy reared by him:--kind shapes of

  beauty which he has devised and moulded. The world enters into the

  artist's studio, and scornfully bids him a price for his genius, or makes

  dull pretence to admire it. What know you of his art? You cannot read the

  alphabet of that sacred book, good old Thomas Newcome! What can you tell

  of its glories, joys, secrets, consolations? Between his two best-beloved

  mistresses, poor Clive's luckless father somehow interposes; and with

  sorrowful, even angry protests. In place of Art the Colonel brings him a

  ledger; and in lieu of first love, shows him Rosey.

  No wonder that Clive hangs his head; rebels sometimes, desponds always:

  he has positively determined to refuse to stand for Newcome, Ridley says.

  Laura is glad of his refusal, and begins to think of him once more as of

  the Clive of old days.

  CHAPTER LXVI

  In which the Colonel and the Newcome Athenaeum are both lectured

  At breakfast with his family, on the morning after the little

  entertainment to which we were bidden, in the last chapter, Colonel

  Newcome was full of the projected invasion of Barnes's territories, and

  delighted to think that there was an opportunity of at last humiliating

  that rascal.

  "Clive does not think he is a rascal at all, papa," cries Rosey, from

  behind her tea-urn; "that is, you said you thought papa judged him too

  harshly; you know you did, this morning!" And from her husband's angry

  glances, she flies to his father's for protection. Those were even

  fiercer than Clive's. Revenge flashed from beneath Thomas Newcome's

  grizzled eyebrows, and glanced in the direction where Clive sat. Then the

  Colonel's face flushed up, and he cast his eyes down towards his tea-cup,

  which he lifted with a trembling hand. The father and son loved each

  other so, that each was afraid of the other. A war between two such men

  is dreadful; pretty little pink-faced Rosey, in a sweet little morning

  cap and ribbons, her pretty little fingers twinkling with a score of

  rings, sat simpering before her silver tea-urn, which reflected her

  pretty little pink baby face. Little artless creature! what did she know

  of the dreadful wounds which her little words inflicted in the one

  generous breast and the other?

  "My boy's heart is gone from me," thinks poor Thomas Newcome; "our family

  is insulted, our enterprises ruined, by that traitor, and my son is not

  even angry! he does not care for the success of our plans--for the honour

  of our name even; I make him a position of which any young man in England

  might be proud, and Clive scarcely deigns to accept it."

  "My wife appeals to my father," thinks poor Clive; "it is from him she

  asks counsel, and not from me. Be it about the ribbon in her cap, or any

  other transaction in our lives, she takes her colour from his opinion,

  and goes to him for advice, and I have to wait till it is given, and

  conform myself to it. If I differ from the dear old father, I wound him;

  if I yield up my opinion, as I do always, it is with a bad grace, and I

  wound him still. With the best intentions in the world, what a slave's

  life it is that he has made for me!"

  "How interested you are in your papers!" resumes the sprightly nosey.

  "What can you find in those horrid politics?" Both gentlemen are looking

  at their papers with all their might, and no doubt cannot see one single

  word which those brilliant and witty leading articles contain.

  "Clive is like you, Rosey," says the Colonel, laying his paper down, "and

  does not care for politics."

  "He only cares for pictures, papa," says Mrs. Clive. "He would not drive

  with me yesterday in the Park, but spent hours in his room, while you

  were toiling in the City, poor papa!--spent hours painting a horrid

  beggar-man dressed up as a monk. And this morning, he got up quite early,

  quite early, and has been out ever so long, and only came in for

  breakfast just now! just before the bell rung."

  "I like a ride before breakfast," says Clive.

  "A ride! I know where you have been, sir! He goes away morning after

  morning, to that little Mr. Ridley's--his chums, papa, and he comes back

  with his hands all over horrid paint. He did this morning;
you know you

  did, Clive."

  "I did not keep any one waiting, Rosa," says Clive. "I like to have two

  or three hours at my painting when I can spare time." Indeed, the poor

  fellow used so to run away of summer meetings for Ridley's instructions,

  and gallop home again, so as to be in time for the family meal.

  "Yes," cries Rosey, tossing up the cap and ribbons, "he gets up so early

  in the morning, that at night he falls asleep after dinner; very pleasant

  and polite, isn't he, papa?"

  "I am up betimes too, my dear," says the Colonel (many and many a time he

  must have heard Clive as he left the house); "I have a great many letters

  to write, affairs of the greatest importance to examine and conduct. Mr.

  Betts from the City is often with me for hours before I come down to your

  breakfast-table. A man who has the affairs of such a great bank as ours

  to look to, must be up with the lark. We are all early risers in India."

  "You dear kind papa!" says little Rosey, with unfeigned admiration; and

  she puts out one of the plump white little jewelled hands, and pats the

  lean brown paw of the Colonel which is nearest to her.

  "Is Ridley's picture getting on well, Clive?" asks the Colonel, trying to

  interest himself about Ridley and his picture.

  "Very well; it is beautiful; he has sold it for a great price; they must

  make him an Academician next year," replies Clive.

  "A most industrious and meritorious young man; he deserves every honour

  that may happen to him," says the old soldier. "Rosa, my dear, it is time

  that you should ask Mr. Ridley to dinner, and Mr. Smee, and some of those

  gentlemen. We will drive this afternoon and see your portrait."

  "Clive does not go to sleep after dinner when Mr. Ridley comes here,"

  cries Rosa.

  "No; I think it is my turn then," says the Colonel, with a glance of

  kindness. The anger has disappeared from under his brows; at that moment

  the menaced battle is postponed.

  "And yet I know that it must come," says poor Clive, telling me the story

  as he hangs on my arm, and we pace through the Park. "The Colonel and I

  are walking on a mine, and that poor little wife of mine is perpetually

  flinging little shells to fire it. I sometimes wish it were blown up, and

  I were done for, Pen. I don't think my widow would break her heart about

  me. No; I have no right to say that; it's a shame to say that; she tries

  her very best to please me, poor little dear. It's the fault of my

  temper, perhaps, that she can't. But they neither understand me, don't

  you see? the Colonel can't help thinking I am a degraded being, because I

  am fond of painting. Still, dear old boy, he patronises Ridley; a man of

  genius, whom those sentries ought to salute, by Jove, sir, when he

  passes. Ridley patronised by an old officer of Indian dragoons, a little

  bit of a Rosey, and a fellow who is not fit to lay his palette for him! I

  want sometimes to ask J. J.'s pardon, after the Colonel has been talking

  to him in his confounded condescending way, uttering some awful bosh

  about the fine arts. Rosey follows him, and trips round J. J.'s studio,

  and pretends to admire, and says, 'How soft; how sweet!' recalling some

  of mamma-in-law's dreadful expressions, which make me shudder when I hear

  them. If my poor old father had a confidant into whose arm he could hook

  his own, and whom he could pester with his family griefs as I do you, the

  dear old boy would have his dreary story to tell too. I hate banks,

  bankers, Bundelcund, indigo, cotton, and the whole business. I go to that

  confounded board, and never hear one syllable that the fellows are

  talking about. I sit there because he wishes me to sit there; don't you

  think he sees that my heart is out of the business; that I would rather

  be at home in my painting-room? We don't understand each other, but we

  feel each other, as it were by instinct. Each thinks in his own way, but

  knows what the other is thinking. We fight mute battles, don't you see,

  and, our thoughts, though we don't express them, are perceptible to one

  another, and come out from our eyes, or pass out from us somehow, and

  meet, and fight, and strike, and wound."

  Of course Clive's confidant saw how sore and unhappy the poor fellow was,

  and commiserated his fatal but natural condition. The little ills of life

  are the hardest to bear, as we all very well know. What would the

  possession of a hundred thousand a year, or fame, and the applause of

  one's countrymen, or the loveliest and best-beloved woman,--of any glory,

  and happiness, or good-fortune avail to a gentleman, for instance, who

  was allowed to enjoy them only with the condition of wearing a shoe with

  a couple of nails or sharp pebbles inside it? All fame and happiness

  would disappear, and plunge down that shoe. All life would rankle round

  those little nails. I strove, by such philosophic sedatives as confidants

  are wont to apply on these occasions, to soothe my poor friend's anger

  and pain; and I dare say the little nails hurt the patient just as much

  as before.

  Clive pursued his lugubrious talk through the Park, and continued it as

  far as the modest-furnished house which we then occupied in the Pimlico

  region. It so happened that the Colonel and Mrs. Clive also called upon

  us that day, and found this culprit in Laura's drawing-room, when they

  entered it, descending out of that splendid barouche in which we have

  already shown Mrs. Clive to the public.

  "He has not been here for months before; nor have you Rosa; nor have you,

  Colonel; though we have smothered our indignation, and been to dine with

  you, and to call, ever so many times!" cries Laura.

  The Colonel pleaded his business engagements; Rosa, that little woman of

  the world, had a thousand calls to make, and who knows how much to do?

  since she came out. She had been to fetch papa, at Bays's, and the porter

  had told the Colonel that Mr. Clive and Mr. Pendennis had just left the

  club together.

  "Clive scarcely ever drives with me," says Rosa; "papa almost always

  does."

  "Rosey's is such a swell carriage, that I feel ashamed," says Clive.

  "I don't understand you young men. I don't see why you need be ashamed to

  go on the Course with your wife in her carriage, Clive," remarks the

  Colonel.

  "The Course! the Course is at Calcutta, papa!" cries Rosey. We drive in

  the Park."

  "We have a park at Barrackpore too, my dear," says papa.

  "And he calls his grooms saices! He said he was going to send away a

  saice for being tipsy, and I did not know in the least what he could

  mean, Laura!"

  "Mr. Newcome! you must go and drive on the Course with Rosa now; and the

  Colonel must sit and talk with me, whom he has not been to see for such a

  long time." Clive presently went off in state by Rosey's side, and then

  Laura showed Colonel Newcome his beautiful white Cashmere shawl round a

  successor of that little person who had first been wrapped in that web,

  now a stout young gentleman whose noise could be clearly heard in the

  upper regions.

  "I wish you could come down with us
, Arthur, upon our electioneering

  visit."

  "That of which you were talking last night? Are you bent upon it?"

  "Yes, I am determined on it."

  Laura heard a child's cry at this moment, and left the room with a

  parting glance at her husband, who in fact had talked over the matter

  with Mrs. Pendennis, and agreed with her in opinion.

  As the Colonel had opened the question, I ventured to make a respectful

  remonstrance against the scheme. Vindictiveness on the part of a man so

  simple and generous, so fair and noble in all his dealings as Thomas

  Newcome, appeared in my mind unworthy of him. Surely his kinsman had

  sorrow and humiliation enough already at home. Barnes's further

  punishment, we thought, might be left to time, to remorse, to the Judge

  of right and wrong; Who better understands than we can do, our causes and

  temptations towards evil actions, Who reserves the sentence for His own

  tribunal. But when angered, the best of us mistake our own motives, as we

  do those of the enemy who inflames us. What may be private revenge, we

  take to be indignant virtue and just revolt against wrong. The Colonel

  would not hear of counsels of moderation, such as I bore him from a sweet

  Christian pleader. "Remorse!" he cried out with a laugh, "that villain

  will never feel it until he is tied up and whipped at the cart's tail!

  Time change that rogue! Unless he is wholesomely punished, he will grow a

  greater scoundrel every year. I am inclined to think, sir," says he, his

  honest brows darkling as he looked towards me, "that you too are spoiled

  by this wicked world, and these heartless, fashionable, fine people. You

  wish to live well with the enemy, and with us too, Pendennis. It can't

  be. He who is not with us is against us. I very much fear, sir, that the

  women, the women, you understand, have been talking you over. Do not let

  us speak any more about this subject, for I don't wish that my son, and

  my son's old friend, should have a quarrel." His face became red, his

  voice quivered with agitation, and he looked with glances which I was

  pained to behold in those kind old eyes: not because his wrath and

  suspicion visited myself, but because an impartial witness, nay, a friend

  to Thomas Newcome in that family quarrel, I grieved to think that a

  generous heart was led astray, and to see a good man do wrong. So with no

  more thanks for his interference than a man usually gets who meddles in

  domestic strifes, the present luckless advocate ceased pleading.

  To be sure, the Colonel and Clive had other advisers, who did not take

  the peaceful side. George Warrington was one of these; he was for war a

  l'outrance with Barnes Newcome; for keeping no terms with such a villain.

  He found a pleasure in hunting him, and whipping him. "Barnes ought to be

  punished," George said, "for his poor wife's misfortune; it was Barnes's

  infernal cruelty, wickedness, selfishness, which had driven her into

  misery and wrong." Mr. Warrington went down to Newcome, and was present

  at that lecture whereof mention has been made in a previous chapter. I am

  afraid his behaviour was very indecorous; he laughed at the pathetic

  allusions of the respected Member for Newcome; he sneered at the sublime

  passages; he wrote an awful critique in the Newcome Independent two days

  after, whereof the irony was so subtle, that half the readers of the

  paper mistook his grave scorn for respect, and his gibes for praise.

  Clive, his father, and Frederick Bayham, their faithful aide-de-camp,

  were at Newcome likewise when Sir Barnes's oration was delivered. At

  first it was given out at Newcome that the Colonel visited the place for

  the purpose of seeing his dear old friend and pensioner, Mrs. Mason, who

  was now not long to enjoy his bounty, and so old, as scarcely to know her