The Newcomes

by William Makepeace Thackeray

maid was as tender-hearted at his departure as her mistress. He was

  ailing for a short time, when our cook performed prodigies of puddings

  and jellies to suit his palate. The youth who held the offices of butler

  and valet in our establishment--a lazy and greedy youth whom Martha

  scolded in vain--would jump up and leave his supper to carry a message to

  our Colonel. My heart is full as I remember the kind words which he said

  to me at parting, and as I think that we were the means of giving a

  little comfort to that stricken and gentle soul.

  Whilst the Colonel and his son stayed with us, letters of course passed

  between Clive and his family at Boulogne, but my wife remarked that the

  receipt of those letters appeared to give our friend but little pleasure.

  They were read in a minute, and he would toss them over to his father, or

  thrust them into his pocket with a gloomy face. "Don't you see," groans

  out Clive to me one evening, "that Rosa scarcely writes the letters, or

  if she does, that her mother is standing over her? That woman is the

  Nemesis of our life, Pen. How can I pay her off? Great God! how can I pay

  her off?" And so having spoken, his head fell between his hands, and as I

  watched him I saw a ghastly domestic picture before me of helpless pain,

  humiliating discord, stupid tyranny.

  What, I say again, are the so-called great ills of life compared to these

  small ones?

  The Colonel accompanied Clive to the lodgings which we had found for the

  young artist, in a quarter not far removed from the old house in Fitzroy

  Square, where some happy years of his youth had been spent. When sitters

  came to Clive--as at first they did in some numbers, many of his early

  friends being anxious to do him a service--the old gentleman was

  extraordinarily cheered and comforted. We could see by his face that

  affairs were going on well at the studio. He showed us the rooms which

  Rosey and the boy were to occupy. He prattled to our children and their

  mother, who was never tired of hearing him, about his grandson. He filled

  up the future nursery with a hundred little knick-knacks of his own

  contriving; and with wonderful cheap bargains, which he bought in his

  walks about Tottenham Court Road. He pasted a most elaborate book of

  prints and sketches for Boy. It was astonishing what notice Boy already

  took of pictures. He would have all the genius of his father. Would he

  had had a better grandfather than the foolish old man who had ruined all

  belonging to him!

  However much they like each other, men in the London world see their

  friends but seldom. The place is so vast that even next door is distant;

  the calls of business, society, pleasure, so multifarious that mere

  friendship can get or give but an occasional shake of the hand in the

  hurried moments of passage. Men must live their lives; and are perforce

  selfish, but not unfriendly. At a great need you know where to look for

  your friend, and he that he is secure of you. So I went very little to

  Howland Street, where Clive now lived; very seldom to Lamb Court, where

  my dear old friend Warrington still sate in his old chambers, though our

  meetings were none the less cordial when they occurred, and our trust in

  one another always the same. Some folks say the world is heartless: he

  who says so either prates commonplaces (the most likely and charitable

  suggestion), or is heartless himself, or is most singular and unfortunate

  in having made no friends. Many such a reasonable mortal cannot have: our

  nature, I think, not sufficing for that sort of polygamy. How many

  persons would you have to deplore your death; or whose death would you

  wish to deplore? Could our hearts let in such a harem of dear

  friendships, the mere changes and recurrences of grief and mourning would

  be intolerable, and tax our lives beyond their value. In a word, we carry

  our own burthen in the world; push and struggle along on our own affairs;

  are pinched by our own shoes--though Heaven forbid we should not stop and

  forget ourselves sometimes, when a friend cries out in his distress, or

  we can help a poor stricken wanderer in his way. As for good women--

  these, my worthy reader, are different from us--the nature of these is to

  love, and to do kind offices, and devise untiring charities:--so I would

  have you to know, that, though Mr. Pendennis was parcus suorum cultor et

  infrequens, Mrs. Laura found plenty of time to go from Westminster to

  Bloomsbury; and to pay visits to her Colonel and her Clive, both of whom

  she had got to love with all her heart again, now misfortune was on them;

  and both of whom returned her kindness with an affection blessing the

  bestower and the receiver; and making the husband proud and thankful

  whose wife had earned such a noble regard. What is the dearest praise of

  all to a man? his own--or that you should love those whom he loves? I see

  Laura Pendennis ever constant and tender and pure, ever ministering in

  her sacred office of kindness--bestowing love and followed by blessings.

  Which would I have, think you; that priceless crown hymeneal, or the

  glory of a Tenth Edition?

  Clive and his father had found not only a model friend in the lady above

  mentioned, but a perfect prize landlady in their happy lodgings. In her

  house, besides those apartments which Mr. Newcome had originally engaged,

  were rooms just sufficient to accommodate his wife, child, and servant,

  when they should come to him, with a very snug little upper chamber for

  the Colonel, close by Boy's nursery, where he liked best to be. "And if

  there is not room for the Campaigner, as you call her," says Mrs. Laura,

  with a shrug of her shoulders, "why, I am very sorry, but Clive must try

  and bear her absence as well as possible. After all, my dear Pen, you

  know he is married to Rosa and not to her mamma; and so, and so I think

  it will be quite best that they shall have their menage as before."

  The cheapness of the lodgings which the prize landlady let, the quantity

  of neat new furniture which she put in, the consultations which she had

  with my wife regarding these supplies, were quite singular to me. "Have

  you pawned your diamonds, you reckless little person, in order to supply

  all this upholstery?" "No, sir, I have not pawned my diamonds," Mrs.

  Laura answers; and I was left to think (if I thought on the matter at

  all) that the landlady's own benevolence had provided these good things

  for Clive. For the wife of Laura's husband was perforce poor; and she

  asked me for no more money at this time than at any other.

  At first, in spite of his grumbling, Clive's affairs looked so

  prosperous, and so many sitters came to him from amongst his old friends,

  that I was half inclined to believe with the Colonel and my wife, that he

  was a prodigious genius, and that his good fortune would go on

  increasing. Laura was for having Rosey return to her husband. Every wife

  ought to be with her husband. J. J. shook his head about the prosperity.

  "Let us see whether the Academy will have his pictures this year, and

  what a place they will give him," said Ridley. To do him justice, Clive

  th
ought far more humbly of his compositions than Ridley did. Not a little

  touching was it to us, who had known the young men in former days, to see

  them in their changed positions. It was Ridley, whose genius and industry

  had put him in the rank of a patron--Ridley, the good industrious

  apprentice, who had won the prize of his art--and not one of his many

  admirers saluted his talent and success with such a hearty recognition as

  Clive, whose generous soul knew no envy, and who always fired and kindled

  at the success of his friends.

  When Mr. Clive used to go over to Boulogne from time to time to pay his

  dutiful visits to his wife, the Colonel did not accompany his son, but,

  during the latter's absence, would dine with Mrs. Pendennis.

  Though the preparations were complete in Howland Street, and Clive

  dutifully went over to Boulogne, Mrs. Pendennis remarked that he seemed

  still to hesitate about bringing his wife to London.

  Upon this Mr. Pendennis observed that some gentlemen were not

  particularly anxious about the society of their wives, and that this pair

  were perhaps better apart. Upon which Mrs. Pendennis, drubbing on the

  ground with a little foot, said, "Nonsense, for shame, Arthur! How can

  you speak so flippantly? Did he not swear before Heaven to love and

  cherish her, never to leave her, sir? Is not his duty his duty, sir?" (a

  most emphatic stamp of the foot). "Is she not his for better, or for

  worse?"

  "Including the Campaigner, my dear?" says Mr. P.

  "Don't laugh, sir! She must come to him. There is no room in Howland

  Street for Mrs. Mackenzie."

  "You artful scheming creature! We have some spare rooms. Suppose we ask

  Mrs. Mackenzie to come and live with us, my dear? and we could then have

  the benefit of the garrison anecdotes, and mess jocularities of your

  favourite, Captain Goby."

  "I could never bear the horrid man!" cried Mrs. Pendennis. And how can I

  tell why she disliked him?

  Everything being now ready for the reception of Clive's little family, we

  counselled our friend to go over to Boulogne, and bring back his wife and

  child, and then to make some final stipulation with the Campaigner. He

  saw, as well as we, that the presence and tyranny of that fatal woman

  destroyed his father's health and spirits--that the old man knew no peace

  or comfort in her neighbourhood, and was actually hastening to his grave

  under that dreadful and unremitting persecution. Mrs. Mackenzie made

  Clive scarcely less wretched than his father--she governed his household

  --took away his weak wife's allegiance and affection from him--and caused

  the wretchedness of every single person round about her. They ought to

  live apart. If she was too poor to subsist upon her widow's pension,

  which, in truth, was but a very small pittance, let Clive give up to her,

  say, the half of his wife's income of one hundred pounds a year. His

  prospects and present means of earning money were such that he might

  afford to do without that portion of his income; at any rate, he and his

  father would be cheaply ransomed at that price from their imprisonment to

  this intolerable person. "Go, Clive," said his counsellors, "and bring

  back your wife and child, and let us all be happy together." For, you

  see, those advisers opined that if we had written over to Mrs. Newcome

  --"Come"--she would have come with the Campaigner in her suite.

  Vowing that he would behave like a man of courage--and we knew that Clive

  had shown himself to be such in two or three previous battles--Clive

  crossed the water to bring back his little Rosey. Our good Colonel agreed

  to dine at our house during the days of his son's absence. I have said

  how beloved he was by young and old there--and he was kind enough to say

  afterwards, that no woman had made him so happy as Laura. We did not tell

  him--I know not from what reticence--that we had advised Clive to offer a

  bribe of fifty pounds a year to Mrs. Mackenzie; until about a fortnight

  after Clive's absence, and a week after his return, when news came that

  poor old Mrs. Mason was dead at Newcome, whereupon we informed the

  Colonel that he had another pensioner now in the Campaigner.

  Colonel Newcome was thankful that his dear old friend had gone out of the

  world in comfort and without pain. She had made a will long since,

  leaving all her goods and chattels to Thomas Newcome--but having no money

  to give, the Colonel handed over these to the old lady's faithful

  attendant, Keziah.

  Although many of the Colonel's old friends had parted from him or

  quarrelled with him in consequence of the ill success of the B. B. C.,

  there were two old ladies who yet remained faithful to him--Miss Cann,

  namely, and honest little Miss Honeyman of Brighton, who, when she heard

  of the return to London of her nephew and brother-in-law, made a railway

  journey to the metropolis (being the first time she ever engaged in that

  kind of travelling), rustled into Clive's apartments in Howland Street in

  her neatest silks, and looking not a day older than on that when we last

  beheld her; and after briskly scolding the young man for permitting his

  father to enter into money affairs--of which the poor dear Colonel was as

  ignorant as a baby--she gave them both to understand that she had a

  little sum at her banker's at their disposal--and besought the Colonel to

  remember that her house was his, and that she should be proud and happy

  to receive him as soon and as often and for as long a time as he would

  honour her with his company. "Is not my house full of your presents"--

  cried the stout little old lady--"have I not reason to be grateful to all

  the Newcomes--yes, to all the Newcomes;--for Miss Ethel and her family

  have come to me every year for months, and I don't quarrel with them, and

  I won't, although you do, sir? Is not this shawl--are not these jewels

  that I wear," she continued, pointing to those well-known ornaments, "my

  dear Colonel's gift? Did you not relieve my brother Charles in this

  country and procure for him his place in India? Yes, my dear friend--and

  though you have been imprudent in money matters, my obligations towards

  you, and my gratitude, and my affection are always the same." Thus Miss

  Honeyman spoke, with somewhat of a quivering voice at the end of her

  little oration, but with exceeding state and dignity--for she believed

  that her investment of two hundred pounds in that unlucky B. B. C., which

  failed for half a million, was a sum of considerable importance, and gave

  her a right to express her opinion to the Managers.

  Clive came back from Boulogne in a week, as we have said--but he came

  back without his wife, much to our alarm, and looked so exceedingly

  fierce and glum when we demanded the reason of his return without his

  family, that we saw wars and battles had taken place, and thought that in

  this last continental campaign the Campaigner had been too much for her

  friend.

  The Colonel, to whom Clive communicated, though with us the poor lad held

  his tongue, told my wife what had happened:--not all the battles; which

  no doubt raged at breakfast, di
nner, supper, during the week of Clive's

  visit to Boulogne,--but the upshot of these engagements. Rosey, not

  unwilling in her first private talk with her husband to come to England

  with him and the boy, showed herself irresolute on the second day at

  breakfast, when the fire was opened on both sides; cried at dinner when

  fierce assaults took place, in which Clive had the advantage; slept

  soundly, but besought him to be very firm, and met the enemy at breakfast

  with a quaking heart; cried all that day during which, pretty well

  without cease, the engagement lasted; and when Clive might have conquered

  and brought her off, but the weather was windy and the sea was rough, and

  he was pronounced a brute to venture on it with a wife in Rosey's

  situation.

  Behind that "situation" the widow shielded herself. She clung to her

  adored child, and from that bulwark discharged abuse and satire at Clive

  and his father. He could not rout her out of her position. Having had the

  advantage on the first two or three days, on the four last he was beaten,

  and lost ground in each action. Rosey found that in her situation she

  could not part from her darling mamma. The Campaigner for her part

  averred that she might be reduced to beggary; that she might be robbed of

  her last farthing and swindled and cheated; that she might see her

  daughter's fortune flung away by unprincipled adventurers, and her

  blessed child left without even the comforts of life; but desert her in

  such a situation, she never would--no, never! Was not dear Rosa's health

  already impaired by the various shocks which she had undergone? Did she

  not require every comfort, every attendance? Monster! ask the doctor! She

  would stay with her darling child in spite of insult and rudeness and

  vulgarity. (Rosey's father was a King's officer, not a Company's officer,

  thank God!) She would stay as long at least as Rosey's situation

  continued, at Boulogne, if not in London, but with her child. They might

  refuse to send her money, having robbed her of all her own, but she would

  pawn her gown off her back for her child. Whimpers from Rosey--cries of

  "Mamma, mamma, compose yourself,"--convulsive sobs--clenched knuckles--

  flashing eyes--embraces rapidly clutched--laughs--stamps--snorts--from

  the dishevelled Campaigner; grinding teeth--livid fury and repeated

  breakages of the third commandment by Clive--I can fancy the whole scene.

  He returned to London without his wife, and when she came she brought

  Mrs. Mackenzie with her.

  CHAPTER LXXV

  Founder's Day at the Grey Friars

  Rosey came, bringing discord and wretchedness with her to her husband,

  and the sentence of death or exile to his dear old father, all of which

  we foresaw--all of which Clive's friends would have longed to prevent--

  all of which were inevitable under the circumstances. Clive's domestic

  affairs were often talked over by our little set. Warrington and F. B.

  knew of his unhappiness. We three had strongly opined that the women

  being together at Boulogne, should stay there and live there, Clive

  sending them over pecuniary aid as his means permitted. "They must hate

  each other pretty well by this time," growls George Warrington. "Why on

  earth should they not part?" "What a woman that Mrs. Mackenzie is!" cries

  F. B. "What an infernal tartar and catamaran! She who was so uncommonly

  smiling and soft-spoken, and such a fine woman, by jingo! What puzzles

  all women are!" F. B. sighed, and drowned further reflection in beer.

  On the other side, and most strongly advocating Rosey's return to Clive,

  was Mrs. Laura Pendennis; with certain arguments for which she had

  chapter and verse, and against which we of the separatist party had no

  appeal. "Did he marry her only for the days of her prosperity?" asked

  Laura. "Is it right, is it manly, that he should leave her now she is

  unhappy--poor little creature--no woman had ever more need of protection;