Boys and girls from Thackeray - Kate Dickinson Sweetser
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Old Thomas Newcome would have liked to leave all his private fortune to
his son Thomas, for the twins were only too well provided for, but he
dared not, for fear of his wife, and he died, and poor Tom was only
secretly forgiven.
So much for the history of Clive Newcome's father and grandfather. Having
related it in full detail, we can now proceed to the narrative of Clive's
life, he being the hero of this tale.
From the day of his birth until he was some seven years old, Clive's
English relatives knew nothing about him. Then, Colonel Newcome's wife
having died, and having kept the boy with him as long as the climate
would allow, Thomas Newcome, now Lieutenant-Colonel, decided that it was
wise to send Clive to England, to entrust him to the boy's maternal aunt,
Miss Honeyman, who was living at Brighton, that Clive might have the
superior advantages of school days in England.
Let us glance at a few extracts from letters received by Colonel Newcome
after his boy had reached England. The aunt to whose care he was
entrusted wrote as follows:
* * * * *
With the most heartfelt joy, my dear Major, I take up my pen to
announce to you the happy arrival of the Ramchunder and the dearest
and handsomest little boy who, I am sure, ever came from India. Little
Clive is in perfect health. He speaks English wonderfully well. He cried
when he parted from Mr. Sneid, the supercargo, who most kindly brought
him from Southhampton in a postchaise, but these tears in childhood are
of very brief duration!...
You may be sure that the most liberal sum which you have placed to
my credit with the Messrs. Hobson & Co. shall be faithfully expended
on my dear little charge. Of course, unless Mrs. Newcome,--who can
scarcely be called his grandmamma, I suppose,--writes to invite dear
Clive to Clapham, I shall not think of sending him there. My brother,
who thanks you for your continuous bounty, will write next month, and
report progress as to his dear pupil. Clive will add a postscript of his
own, and I am, my dear Major,
Your grateful and affectionate,
MARTHA HONEYMAN.
* * * * *
In a round hand and on lines ruled with pencil:
* * * * *
_Dearest Papa_ I am very well I hope you are Very Well. Mr. Sneed
brought me in a postchaise I like Mr. Sneed very much. I like Aunt
Martha I like Hannah. There are no ships here I am your affectionate
son CLIVE NEWCOME.
* * * * *
There was also a note from Colonel Newcome's stepbrother, Bryan,
as follows:
* * * * *
_My Dear Thomas_: Mr. Sneid, supercargo of the Ramchunder, East
Indiaman, handed over to us yesterday your letter, and, to-day, I have
purchased three thousand three hundred and twenty-three pounds 6
and 8, three per cent Consols, in our joint names (H. and B. Newcome),
held for your little boy. Mr. S. gives a favourable account of
the little man, and left him in perfect health two days since, at the
house of his aunt, Miss Honeyman. We have placed L200 to that lady's
credit, at your desire. I dare say my mother will ask your little boy to
the Hermitage; and when we have a house of our own I am sure Ann
and I shall be very happy to see him.
Yours affectionately,
B. NEWCOME.
* * * * *
And another from Miss Honeyman's brother, containing the following:
* * * * *
MAJOR NEWCOME:
_My Dear Colonel_: ... Clive is everything that a father's and
uncle's, a pastor's, a teacher's, affections could desire. He is not a
premature genius; he is not, I frankly own, more advanced in his
classical and mathematical studies than some children even younger than
himself; but he has acquired the rudiments of health; he has laid in a
store of honesty and good-humour which are not less likely to advance him
in life than mere science and language ... etc., etc.,
Your affectionate brother-in-law,
CHARLES HONEYMAN.
* * * * *
Another letter from Miss Honeyman herself said:
* * * * *
_My Dear Colonel_: ... As my dearest little Clive was too small
for a great school, I thought he could not do better than stay with his
old aunt and have his uncle Charles for a tutor, who is one of the finest
scholars in the world. Of late he has been too weak to take a curacy,
so I thought he could not do better than become Clive's tutor, and agreed
to pay him out of your handsome donation of L250 for Clive, a sum of
one hundred pounds per year. But I find that Charles is too kind to
be a schoolmaster, and Master Clive laughs at him. It was only the
other day after his return from his grandmamma's that I found a picture
of Mrs. Newcome and Charles, too, and of both their spectacles, quite
like. He has done me and Hannah, too. Mr. Speck, the artist, says he
is a wonder at drawing.
Our little Clive has been to London on a visit to his uncles and to
Clapham, to pay his duty to his step-grandmother, the wealthy Mrs.
Newcome. She was very gracious to him, and presented him with a five
pound note, a copy of Kirk White's poems and a work called Little
Henry and his Bearer, relating to India, and the excellent catechism of
our Church. Clive is full of humour, and I enclose you a rude scrap
representing the Bishopess of Clapham, as Mrs. Newcome is called.
Instead then of allowing Clive to be with Charles in London next
month I shall send him to Doctor Timpany's school, Marine Parade, of
which I hear the best account; but I hope you will think of soon sending
him to a great school. My father always said it was the best place for
boys, and I have a brother to whom my poor mother spared the rod, and
who I fear has turned out but a spoiled child.
I am, dear Colonel, your most faithful servant,
MARTHA HONEYMAN.
* * * * *
Besides the news gleaned from these letters we gather the main facts
concerning little Clive's departure from the Colonel's side. He had kept
the child with him until he felt sure that the change would be of
advantage to the pretty boy, then had parted from him with bitter pangs
of heart, and thought constantly of him with longing and affection. With
the boy, it was different. Half an hour after his father had left him and
in grief and loneliness was rowing back to shore, Clive was at play with
a dozen other children on the sunny deck of the ship. When two bells rang
for their dinner, they were all hurrying to the table, busy over their
meal, and forgetful of all but present happiness.
But with that fidelity which was an instinct of his nature, Colonel
Newcome thought ever of his absent child and longed after him. He never
forsook the native servants who had had charge of Clive, but endowed them
with money sufficient to make all their future lives comfortable. No
friends went to Europe, nor ship departed, but Newcome sent presents to
the boy and costly tokens of his love and thanks to all who were kind to
his son. His aim was to save money for the youngster, but he was of a
nature so generous that he spent five rupees where another would save
them. However, he managed to lay by considerable out of his liberal
allowances, and to find himself and Clive growing richer every year.
"When Clive has had five or six years at school"--that was his
scheme--"he will be a fine scholar, and have at least as much classical
learning as a gentleman in the world need possess. Then I will go to
England, and we will pass three or four years together, in which he will
learn to be intimate with me, and, I hope, to like me. I shall be his
pupil for Latin and Greek, and try and make up for lost time. I know
there is nothing like a knowledge of the classics to give a man good
breeding. I shall be able to help him with my knowledge of the world,
and to keep him out of the way of sharpers and a pack of rogues who
commonly infest young men. And we will travel together, first through
England, Scotland, and Ireland, for every man should know his own
country, and then we will make the grand tour. Then by the time he is
eighteen he will be able to choose his profession. He can go into the
army, or, if he prefers, the church, or the law--they are open to him;
and when he goes to the university, by which time I shall be, in all
probability, a major-general, I can come back to India for a few years,
and return by the time he has a wife and a home for his old father; or,
if I die, I shall have done the best for him, and my boy will be left
with the best education, a tolerable small fortune, and the blessing of
his old father."
Such were the plans of the kind schemer. How fondly he dwelt on them, how
affectionately he wrote of them to his boy! How he read books of travels
and looked over the maps of Europe! and said, "Rome, sir, glorious Rome;
it won't be very long, major, before my boy and I see the Colosseum, and
kiss the Pope's toe. We shall go up the Rhine to Switzerland, and over
the Simplon, the work of the great Napoleon. By jove, sir, think of the
Turks before Vienna, and Sobieski clearing eighty thousand of 'em off the
face of the earth! How my boy will rejoice in the picture galleries
there, and in Prince Eugene's prints! The boy's talent for drawing is
wonderful, sir, wonderful. He sent me a picture of our old school. The
very actual thing, sir; the cloisters, the school, the head gown boy
going in with the rods, and the doctor himself. It would make you die of
laughing!"
He regaled the ladies of the regiment with dive's letters, and those of
Miss Honeyman, which contained an account of the boy. He even bored some
of his hearers with this prattle; and sporting young men would give or
take odds that the Colonel would mention Clive's name, once before five
minutes, three times in ten minutes, twenty-five times in the course of
dinner, and so on. But they who laughed at the Colonel laughed very
kindly; and everybody who knew him, loved him; everybody that is, who
loved modesty, generosity and honour.
As to Clive himself, by this time he was thoroughly enjoying his new life
in England. After remaining for a time at Doctor Timpany's school, where
he was first placed by his aunt, Miss Honeyman, he was speedily removed
to that classical institution in which Colonel Newcome had been a student
in earlier days. My acquaintance with young Clive was at this school,
Grey Friars, where our acquaintance was brief and casual. He had the
advantage of being six years my junior, and such a difference of age
between lads at a public school puts intimacy out of the question, even
though we knew each other at home, as our school phrase was, and our
families were somewhat acquainted. When Newcome's uncle, the Reverend
Charles Honeyman, brought Newcome to the Grey Friars School, he
recommended him to my superintendence and protection, and told me that
his young nephew's father, Colonel Thomas Newcome, C.B., was a most
gallant and distinguished officer in the Bengal establishment of the
honourable East India Company; and that his uncles, the Colonel's
half-brothers, were the eminent bankers, heads of the firm of Hobson
Brothers & Newcome, Hobson Newcome, Esquire, Brianstone Square, and
Marblehead, Sussex, and Sir Brian Newcome, of Newcome, and Park Lane,
"whom to name," says Mr. Honeyman, with the fluent eloquence with which
he decorated the commonest circumstances of life, "is to designate two of
the merchant princes of the wealthiest city the world has ever known; and
one, if not two, of the leaders of that aristocracy which rallies round
the throne of the most elegant and refined of European sovereigns."
I promised Mr. Honeyman to do what I could for the boy; and he proceeded
to take leave of his little nephew in my presence in terms equally
eloquent, pulling out a long and very slender green purse, from which he
extracted the sum of two and sixpence, which he presented to the child,
who received the money with rather a queer twinkle in his blue eyes.
After that day's school I met my little protege in the neighbourhood of
the pastry cook's, regaling himself with raspberry tarts. "You must not
spend all the money, sir, which your uncle gave you," said I, "in tarts
and ginger-beer."
The urchin rubbed the raspberry jam off his mouth, and said, "It don't
matter, sir, for I've got lots more."
"How much?" says the Grand Inquisitor: for the formula of interrogation
used to be, when a new boy came to the school, "What's your name? Who's
your father? and how much money have you got?"
The little fellow pulled such a handful of sovereigns out of his pocket
as might have made the tallest scholar feel a pang of envy. "Uncle
Hobson," says he, "gave me two; Aunt Hobson gave me one--no, Aunt Hobson
gave me thirty shillings; Uncle Newcome gave me three pound; and Aunt Ann
gave me one pound five; and Aunt Honeyman sent me ten shillings in a
letter. And Ethel wanted to give me a pound, only I wouldn't have it, you
know; because Ethel's younger than me, and I have plenty."
"And who is Ethel?" I ask, smiling at the artless youth's confessions.
"Ethel is my cousin," replied little Newcome; "Aunt Ann's daughter.
There's Ethel and Alice, and Aunt Ann wanted the baby to be called
Boadicea, only uncle wouldn't; and there's Barnes and Egbert and little
Alfred, only he don't count; he's quite a baby, you know. Egbert and me
was at school at Timpany's; he's going to Eton next half. He's older than
me, but I can lick him."
"And how old is Egbert?" asks the smiling senior.
"Egbert's ten, and I'm nine, and Ethel's seven," replied the little
chubby-faced hero, digging his hands deep into his trousers, and jingling
all the sovereigns there. I advised him to let me be his banker; and,
keeping one out of his many gold pieces, he handed over the others, on
which he drew with great liberality till his whole stock was expended.
The school hours of the upper and under boys were different at that time;
the little fellows coming out of their hall half an hour before the Fifth
and Sixth Forms; and many a time I used to find my little blue-jacket in
waiting, with his honest square face, and white hair, and bright blue
eyes, and I knew that he was come to draw on his bank. Ere long one of
the pretty blue eyes was shut up, and a fine black one substituted in its
place. He had been engaged, it appeared, in a pugilistic encounter with a
giant of his own form whom he had worsted in the combat. "Didn't I pitch
into him, that's all?" says he in the elation of victory; and, when I
asked whence the quarrel arose, he stoutly informed me that "Wolf Minor,
his opponent, had been bullying a little boy, and that he, the gigantic
Newcome, wouldn't stand it."
So, being called away from the school, I said "Farewell and God bless
you," to the brave little man, who remained a while at the Grey Friars,
where his career and troubles had only just begun, and lost sight of him
for several years. Nor did we meet again until I was myself a young man
occupying chambers in the Temple.
Meanwhile the years of Clive's absence had slowly worn away for Colonel
Newcome, and at last the happy time came which he had been longing more
passionately than any prisoner for liberty, or schoolboy for holiday. The
Colonel had taken leave of his regiment. He had travelled to Calcutta;
and the Commander-in-Chief announced that in giving to Lieutenant-Colonel
Thomas Newcome, of the Bengal Cavalry, leave for the first time, after no
less than thirty-four years' absence from home, he could not refrain from
expressing his sense of the great services of this most distinguished
officer, who had left his regiment in a state of the highest discipline
and efficiency.
This kind Colonel had also to take leave of a score, at least, of adopted
children to whom he chose to stand in the light of a father. He was
forever whirling away in post-chaises to this school and that, to see
Jack Brown's boys, of the Cavalry; or Mrs. Smith's girls, of the Civil
Service; or poor Tom Hick's orphan, who had nobody to look after him now
that the cholera had carried off Tom and his wife, too. On board the ship
in which he returned from Calcutta were a dozen of little children, some
of whom he actually escorted to their friends before he visited his own,
though his heart was longing for his boy at Grey Friars. The children at
the schools seen, and largely rewarded out of his bounty (his loose white
trousers had great pockets, always heavy with gold and silver, which he
jingled when he was not pulling his moustaches, and to see the way in
which he tipped children made one almost long to be a boy again) and when
he had visited Miss Pinkerton's establishment, or Doctor Ramshorn's
adjoining academy at Chiswick, and seen little Tom Davis or little Fanny
Holmes, the honest fellow would come home and write off straightway a
long letter to Tom's or Fanny's parents, far away in the country, whose
hearts he made happy by his accounts of their children, as he had
delighted the children themselves by his affection and bounty. All the
apple and orange-women (especially such as had babies as well as
lollipops at their stalls), all the street-sweepers on the road between
Nerot's and the Oriental, knew him, and were his pensioners. His brothers
in Threadneedle Street cast up their eyes at the cheques which he drew.
The Colonel had written to his brothers from Portsmouth, announcing his
arrival, and three words to Clive, conveying the same intelligence. The
letter was served to the boy along with one bowl of tea and one buttered
roll, of eighty such which were distributed to fourscore other boys,
boarders of the same house with our young friend. How the lad's face must
have flushed and his eyes brightened when he read the news! When the
master of the house, the Reverend Mister Popkinson, came into the
lodging-room, with a good-natured face, and said, "Newcome, you're
wanted," he knew who had come. He did not heed that notorious bruiser,
old Hodge, who roared out, "Confound you, Newcome: I'll give it you for
upsetting your tea over my new trousers." He ran to the room where the
stranger was waiting for him. We will shut the door, if you please, upon
that scene.
If Clive had not been as fine and handsome a young lad as any in that
school or country, no doubt his fond father would have been just as well
pleased and endowed him with a hundred fanciful graces; but, in truth, in
looks and manners he was everything which his parent could desire. He was
the picture of health, strength, activity, and good-humour. He had a good
forehead shaded with a quantity of waving light hair; a complexion which
ladies might envy; a mouth which seemed accustomed to laughing; and a
pair of blue eyes that sparkled with intelligence and frank kindness. No
wonder the pleased father could not refrain from looking at him.
The bell rang for second school, and Mr. Popkinson, arrayed in cap and
gown, came in to shake Colonel Newcome by the hand, and to say he
supposes it was to be a holiday for Newcome that day. He said not a word
about Clive's scrape of the day before, and that awful row in the
bedrooms, where the lad and three others were discovered making a supper
off a pork pie and two bottles of prime old port from the Red Cow
public-house in Grey Friars Lane.
When the bell was done ringing, and all these busy little bees swarmed
into their hive, there was a solitude in the place. The Colonel and his
son walked the play-ground together, that gravelly flat, as destitute of
herbage as the Arabian desert, but, nevertheless, in the language of the
place, called the green. They walked the green, and they paced the
cloisters, and Clive showed his father his own name of Thomas Newcome
carved upon one of the arches forty years ago. As they talked, the boy
gave sidelong glances at his new friend, and wondered at the Colonel's
loose trousers, long moustaches, and yellow face. He looked very odd,
Clive thought, very odd and very kind, and like a gentleman, every inch
of him:--not like Martin's father, who came to see his son lately in
highlows, and a shocking bad hat, and actually flung coppers amongst the
boys for a scramble. He burst out a-laughing at the exquisitely ludicrous
idea of a gentleman of his fashion scrambling for coppers.
And now enjoining the boy to be ready against his return, the Colonel
whirled away in his cab to the city to shake hands with his brothers,
whom he had not seen since they were demure little men in blue jackets
under charge of a serious tutor.
He rushed into the banking house, broke into the parlour where the lords
of the establishment were seated, and astonished these trim, quiet
gentlemen by the warmth of his greeting, by the vigour of his handshake,
and the loud tones of his voice, which might actually be heard by the
busy clerks in the hall without. He knew Bryan from Hobson at once--that
unlucky little accident in the go-cart having left its mark forever on
the nose of Sir Bryan Newcome. He had a bald head and light hair, a short
whisker cut to his cheek, a buff waistcoat, very neat boots and hands,
and was altogether dignified, bland, smiling, and statesmanlike.
Hobson Newcome, Esquire, was more portly than his elder brother, and
allowed his red whiskers to grow on his cheeks and under his chin. He
wore thick shoes with nails in them, and affected the country gentleman
in his appearance. His hat had a broad brim, and his ample pockets always
contained agricultural produce, samples of bean or corn, or a whiplash or
balls for horses. In fine, he was a good old country gentleman, and a
better man of business than his more solemn brother, at whom he laughed
in his jocular way; and said rightly that a gentleman must get up very
early to get ahead of him.
These gentlemen each received the Colonel in a manner consistent with his
peculiar nature. Sir Bryan regretted that Lady Ann was away from London,
being at Brighton with the children, who were all ill of the measles.
Hobson said, "Maria can't treat you to such good company as Lady Ann
could give you; but when will you take a day and come and dine with us?
Let's see, to-day is Wednesday; to-morrow we are engaged. Friday, we dine
at Judge Budge's; Saturday I am going down to Marblehead to look after
the hay. Come on Monday, Tom, and I'll introduce you to the missus and
the young uns."
"I will bring Clive," says Colonel Newcome, rather disturbed at this
reception. "After his illness my sister-in-law was very kind to him."
"No, hang it, don't bring boys; there's no good in boys; they stop the
talk downstairs, and the ladies don't want 'em in the drawing-room. Send
him to dine with the children on Sunday, if you like, and come along down
with me to Marblehead, and I'll show you such a crop of hay as will make
your eyes open. Are you fond of farming?"
"I have not seen my boy for years," says the Colonel; "I had rather pass
Saturday and Sunday with him, if you please, and some day we will go to
Marblehead together."
"Well, an offer's an offer. I don't know any pleasanter thing than
getting out of this confounded city and smelling the hedges, and looking
at the crops coming up, and passing the Sunday in quiet." And his own
tastes being thus agricultural, the worthy gentleman thought that
everybody else must delight in the same recreation.
"In the winter, I hope, we shall see you at Newcome," says the elder
brother, blandly smiling. "I can't give you any tiger-shooting, but I'll
promise you that you shall find plenty of pheasants in our jungle," and
he laughed very gently at this mild sally.
At this moment a fair-haired young gentleman, languid and pale, and
dressed in the height of fashion, made his appearance and was introduced
as the Baronet's oldest son, Barnes Newcome. He returned Colonel
Newcome's greeting with a smile, saying, "Very happy to see you, I am
sure. You find London very much changed since you were here? Very good
time to come, the very full of the season."
Poor Thomas Newcome was quite abashed by his strange reception. Here was
a man, hungry for affection, and one relation asked him to dinner next
Monday, and another invited him to shoot pheasants at Christmas. Here was
a beardless young sprig, who patronised him and asked him whether he
found London was changed. As soon as possible he ended the interview with
his step-brothers, and drove back to Ludgate Hill, where he dismissed his
cab and walked across the muddy pavements of Smithfield, on his way back
to the old school where his son was, a way which he had trodden many a
time in his own early days. There was Cistercian Street, and the Red Cow
of his youth; there was the quaint old Grey Friars Square, with its
blackened trees and garden, surrounded by ancient houses of the build of
the last century, now slumbering like pensioners in the sunshine.
Under the great archway of the hospital he could look at the old Gothic
building; and a black-gowned pensioner or two crawling over the quiet
square, or passing from one dark arch to another. The boarding-houses of
the school were situated in the square, hard by the more ancient
buildings of the hospital. A great noise of shouting, crying, clapping
forms and cupboards, treble voices, bass voices, poured out of the
schoolboys' windows; their life, bustle, and gaiety contrasted strangely
with the quiet of those old men, creeping along in their black gowns
under the ancient arches yonder, whose struggle of life was over, whose
hope and noise and bustle had sunk into that grey calm. There was Thomas
Newcome arrived at the middle of life, standing between the shouting boys
and the tottering seniors and in a situation to moralise upon both, had
not his son Clive, who espied him, come jumping down the steps to greet
his sire. Clive was dressed in his very best; not one of those four
hundred young gentlemen had a better figure, a better tailor, or a neater
boot. Schoolfellows, grinning through the bars, envied him as he walked
away; senior boys made remarks on Colonel Newcome's loose clothes and
long moustaches, his brown hands and unbrushed hat. The Colonel was
smoking a cheroot as he walked; and the gigantic Smith, the cock of the
school, who happened to be looking majestically out of the window, was
pleased to say that he thought Newcome's governor was a fine
manly-looking fellow.