The Newcomes: Memoirs of a Most Respectable Family

by William Makepeace Thackeray

From persons so poorly endowed with money as ourselves, any help, but of the merest temporary nature, was out of the question. We knew our friends too well not to know that they would disdain to receive it. It was agreed between me and Laura that at any rate I should go and see Clive. Our friends indeed were at a very short distance from us, and, having exiled themselves from England, could yet see its coasts from their windows upon any clear day. Boulogne was their present abiding-place—refuge of how many thousands of other unfortunate Britons—and to this friendly port I betook myself speedily, having the address of Colonel Newcome. His quarters were in a quiet grass-grown old street of the Old Town. None of the family were at home when I called. There was indeed no servant to answer the bell, but the good-natured French domestic of a neighbouring lodger told me that the young monsieur went out every day to make his designs, and that I should probably find the elder gentleman upon the rampart, where he was in the custom of going every day. I strolled along by those pretty old walks and bastions, under the pleasant trees which shadow them, and the grey old gabled houses from which you look down upon the gay new city, and the busy port, and the piers stretching into the shining sea, dotted with a hundred white sails or black smoking steamers, and bounded by the friendly lines of the bright English shore. There are few prospects more charming than the familiar view from those old French walls—few places where young children may play, and ruminating old age repose more pleasantly than on those peaceful rampart gardens.

I found our dear old friend seated on one of the benches, a newspaper on his knees, and by his side a red-cheeked little French lass, upon whose lap Thomas Newcome the younger lay sleeping. The Colonel’s face flushed up when he saw me. As he advanced a step or two towards me I could see that he trembled in his walk. His hair had grown almost quite white. He looked now to be more than his age—he whose carriage last year had been so erect, whose figure had been so straight and manly. I was very much moved at meeting him, and at seeing the sad traces which pain and grief had left in the countenance of the dear old man.

“So you are come to see me, my good young friend,” cried the Colonel, with a trembling voice. “It is very, very kind of you. Is not this a pretty drawing-room to receive our friends in? We have not many of them now; Boy and I come and sit here for hours every day. Hasn’t he grown a fine boy? He can say several words now, sir, and can walk surprisingly well. Soon he will be able to walk with his grandfather, and then Marie will not have the trouble to wait upon either of us.” He repeated this sentiment in his pretty old French, and turning with a bow to Marie. The girl said monsieur knew very well that she did not desire better than to come out with baby; that it was better than staying at home, pardieu; and, the clock striking at this moment, she rose up with her child, crying out that it was time to return or madame would scold.

“Mrs. Mackenzie has rather a short temper,” the Colonel said with a gentle smile. “Poor thing, she has had a great deal to bear in consequence, Pen, of my imprudence. I am glad you never took shares in our bank. I should not be so glad to see you as I am now, if I had brought losses upon you as I have upon so many of my friends.” I, for my part, trembled to hear the good old man was under the domination of the Campaigner.

“Bayham sends me the paper regularly; he is a very kind faithful creature. How glad I am that he has got a snug berth in the City! His company really prospers, I am happy to think, unlike some companies you know of, Pen. I have read your two speeches, sir, and Clive and I liked them very much. The poor boy works all day at his pictures. You know he has sold one at the exhibition, which has given us a great deal of heart—and he has completed two or three more—and I am sitting to him now for—what do you think, sir? for Belisarius. Will you give Belisarius and the Obolus kind word?”

“My dear, dear old friend,” I said in great emotion, “if you will do me the kindness to take my Obolus or to use my services in any way, you will give me more pleasure than ever I had from your generous bounties in old days. Look, sir, I wear the watch which you gave me when you went to India. Did you not tell me then to look over Clive and serve him if I could? Can’t I serve him now?” and I went on further in this strain, asseverating with great warmth and truth that my wife’s affection and my own were most sincere for both of them, and that our pride would be to be able to help such dear friends.

The Colonel said I had a good heart, and my wife had, though—though—he did not finish this sentence, but I could interpret it without need of its completion. My wife and the two ladies of Colonel Newcome’s family never could be friends, however much my poor Laura tried to be intimate with these women. Her very efforts at intimacy caused a frigidity and hauteur which Laura could not overcome. Little Rosey and her mother set us down as two aristocratic personages; nor for our parts were we very much disturbed at this opinion of the Campaigner and little Rosa.

I talked with the Colonel for half an hour or more about his affairs, which indeed were very gloomy, and Clive’s prospects, of which he strove to present as cheering a view as possible. He was obliged to confirm the news which Sherrick had given me, and to own, in fact, that all his pension was swallowed up by a payment of interest and life insurance for sums which he had been compelled to borrow. How could he do otherwise than meet his engagements? Thank God, he had Clive’s full approval for what he had done—had communicated the circumstance to his son almost immediately after it took place, and that was a comfort to him—an immense comfort. “For the women are very angry,” said the poor Colonel; “you see they do not understand the laws of honour, at least as we understand them: and perhaps I was wrong in hiding the truth as I certainly did from Mrs. Mackenzie, but I acted for the best—I hoped against hope that some chance might turn in our favour. God knows, I had a hard task enough in wearing a cheerful face for months, and in following my little Rosa about to her parties and balls; but poor Mrs. Mackenzie has a right to be angry, only I wish my little girl did not side with her mother so entirely, for the loss of her affection gives me great pain.”

So it was as I suspected. The Campaigner ruled over this family, and added to all their distresses by her intolerable presence and tyranny. “Why, sir,” I ventured to ask, “if, as I gather from you—and I remember,” I added with a laugh, “certain battles-royal which Clive described to me in old days—if you and the Campai—Mrs. Mackenzie do not agree, why should she continue to live with you, when you would all be so much happier apart?”

“She has a right to live in the house,” says the Colonel; “It is I who have no right in it. I am a poor old pensioner, don’t you see, subsisting on Rosey’s bounty? We live on the hundred a year, secured to her at her marriage, and Mrs. Mackenzie has her forty pounds of pension which she adds to the common stock. It is I who have made away with every shilling of Rosey’s 17,000 pounds, God help me, and with 1500 pounds of her mother’s. They put their little means together, and they keep us—me and Clive. What can we do for a living? Great God! What can we do? Why, I am so useless that even when my poor boy earned 25 pounds for his picture, I felt we were bound to send it to Sarah Mason, and you may fancy when this came to Mrs. Mackenzie’s ears, what a life my boy and I led. I have never spoken of these things to any mortal soul—I even don’t speak of them with Clive—but seeing your kind and honest face has made me talk—you must pardon my garrulity—I am growing old, Arthur. This poverty and these quarrels have beaten my spirit down—there, I shall talk on this subject no more. I wish, sir, I could ask you to dine with us, but”—and here he smiled—“we must get the leave of the higher powers.”