--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. M 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."
II
Rue St. Dominique, St. Germain, Paris,
Nov. 15, 1820,
"Long separated from the country which was the home of my youth, I
carried from her tender recollections, and bear her always a lively
gratitude. The Heaven has placed me in a position very different from
that in which I knew you. I have been the mother of many children. My
husband has recovered a portion of the property which the Revolution tore
from us; and France, in returning to its legitimate sovereign, received
once more the nobility which accompanied his august house into exile. We,
however, preceded His Majesty, more happy than many of our companions.
Believing further resistance to be useless; dazzled, perhaps, by the
brilliancy of that genius which restored order, submitted Europe, and
governed France; M. de Florac, in the first days, was reconciled to the
Conqueror of Marengo and Austerlitz, and held a position in his Imperial
Court. This submission, at first attributed to infidelity, has
subsequently been pardoned to my husband. His sufferings during the
Hundred Days made to pardon his adhesion to him who was Emperor. My
husband is now an old man. He was of the disastrous campaign of Moscow,
as one of the chamberlains of Napoleon. Withdrawn from the world, he
gives his time to his feeble health--to his family--to Heaven.
"I have not forgotten a time before those days, when, according to
promises given by my father, I became the wife of M. de Florac. Sometimes
I have heard of your career. One of my parents, M. de F., who took
service in the English India, has entertained me of you; he informed me
how yet a young man you won laurels at Argom and Bhartpour; how you
escaped to death at Laswari. I have followed them, sir, on the map. I
have taken part in your victories and your glory. Ah! I am not so cold,
but my heart has trembled for your dangers; not so aged, but I remember
the young man who learned from the pupil of Frederick the first rudiments
of war. Your great heart, your love of truth, your courage were your own.
None had to teach you those qualities, of which a good God had endowed
you, My good father is dead since many years. He, too, was permitted to
see France before to die.
"I have read in the English journals not only that you are married, but
that you have a son. Permit me to send to your wife, to your child, these
accompanying tokens of an old friendship. I have seen that Mistress
Newcome was widow, and am not sorry of it. My friend, I hope there was
not that difference of age between your wife and you that I have known in
other unions. I pray the good God to bless yours. I hold you always in my
memory. As I write, the past comes back to me. I see a noble young man,
who has a soft voice, and brown eyes. I see the Thames, and the smiling
plains of Blackheath. I listen and pray at my chamber-door as my father
talks to you in our little cabinet of studies. I look from my window, and
see you depart.
"My son's are men: one follows the profession of arms, one has embraced
the ecclesiastical state; my daughter is herself a mother. I remember
this was your birthday; I have made myself a little fete in celebrating
it, after how many years of absence, of silence! Comtesse De Florac.
(Nee L. de Blois.)"
III
"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 8d. three per
cent Consols, in our joint names (H. and B. Newcome), held for your
little boy. Mr. S. gives a very 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 200 pounds to that lady's credit, at your
desire.
"Lady Anne is charmed with the present which she received yesterday, and
says the white shawl is a great deal too handsome. My mother is also
greatly pleased with hers, and has forwarded, by the coach to Brighton,
to-day, a packet of books, tracts, etc., suited for his tender age, for
your little boy. She heard of you lately from the Rev. T. Sweatenham on
his return from India. He spoke of your kindness,--and of the hospitable
manner in which you had received him at your house, and alluded to you in
a very handsome way in the course of the thanksgiving that evening. 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 Anne and I will be very happy to see
him. Yours affectionately, Major Newcome. B. Newcome."
IV
"My Dear Colonel,--Did I not know the generosity of your heart, and the
bountiful means which Heaven has put at your disposal in order to gratify
that noble disposition; were I not certain that the small sum I required
will permanently place me beyond the reach of the difficulties of life,
and will infallibly be repaid before six months are over, believe me I
never would have ventured upon that bold step which our friendship
(carried on epistolarily as it has been), our relationship, and your
admirable disposition, have induced me to venture to take.
"That elegant and commodious chapel, known as Lady Whittlesea's, Denmark
Street, Mayfair, being for sale, I have determined on venturing my all in
its acquisition, and in laying, as I hope, the foundation of a competence
for myself and excellent sister. What is a lodging-house at Brighton but
an uncertain maintenance? The mariner on the sea before those cliffs is
no more sure of wind and wave, or of fish to his laborious net, than the
Brighton house-owner (bred in affluence she may have been, and used to
unremitting plenty) to the support of the casual travellers who visit the
city. On one day they come in shoals, it is true, but where are they on
the next? For many months my poor sister's first floor was a desert,
until occupied by your noble little boy, my nephew and pupil. Clive is
everything that a father's, an uncle's (who loves him as a father), a
pastor's, a teacher's affections could desire. He is not one of those
premature geniuses whose much-vaunted infantine talents disappear along
with adolescence; 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, than the as in praesenti, or
the pons asinorum.
"But I forget, in thinking of my dear little friend and pupil, the
subject of this letter--namely, the acquisition of the propri
etary chapel
to which I have alluded, and the hopes, nay, certainty of a fortune, if
aught below is certain, which that acquisition holds out. What is a
curacy, but a synonym for starvation? If we accuse the Eremites of old of
wasting their lives in unprofitable wildernesses, what shall we say to
many a hermit of Protestant, and so-called civilised times, who hides his
head in a solitude in Yorkshire, and buries his probably fine talents in
a Lincolnshire fen? Have I genius? Am I blessed with gifts of eloquence
to thrill and soothe, to arouse the sluggish, to terrify the sinful, to
cheer and convince the timid, to lead the blind groping in darkness, and
to trample the audacious sceptic in the dust? My own conscience, besides
a hundred testimonials from places of popular, most popular worship, from
reverend prelates, from distinguished clergy, tells me I have these
gifts. A voice within me cries, 'Go forth, Charles Honeyman, fight the
good fight; wipe the tears of the repentant sinner; sing of hope to the
agonised criminal; whisper courage, brother, courage, at the ghastly
deathbed, and strike down the infidel with the lance of evidence and the
shield of reason!' In a pecuniary point of view I am confident, nay, the
calculations may be established as irresistibly as an algebraic equation,
that I can realise, as incumbent of Lady Whittlesea's chapel, the sum of
not less than one thousand pounds per annum. Such a sum, with economy
(and without it what sum were sufficient?), will enable me to provide
amply for my wants, to discharge my obligations to you, to my sister, and
some other creditors, very, very unlike you, and to place Miss Honeyman
in a home more worthy of her than that which she now occupies, only to
vacate it at the beck of every passing stranger!
"My sister does not disapprove of my plan, into which enter some
modifications which I have not, as yet, submitted to her, being anxious
at first that they should be sanctioned by you. From the income of the
Whittlesea chapel I propose to allow Miss Honeyman the sum of two hundred
pounds per annum, paid quarterly. This, with her private property, which
she has kept more thriftily than her unfortunate and confiding brother
guarded his (for whenever I had a guinea a tale of distress would melt it
into half a sovereign), will enable Miss Honeyman to live in a way
becoming my father's daughter.
"Comforted with this provision as my sister will be, I would suggest that
our dearest young Clive should be transferred from her petticoat
government, and given up to the care of his affectionate uncle and tutor.
His present allowance will most liberally suffice for his expenses,
board, lodging, and education while under my roof, and I shall be able to
exert a paternal, a pastoral influence over his studies, his conduct, and
his highest welfare, which I cannot so conveniently exercise at Brighton,
where I am but Miss Honeyman's stipendiary, and where I often have to
submit in cases where I know, for dearest Clive's own welfare, it is I,
and not my sister, should be paramount.
"I have given then to a friend, the Rev. Marcus Flather a draft for two
hundred and fifty pounds sterling, drawn upon you at your agent's in
Calcutta, which sum will go in liquidation of dear Clive's first year's
board with me, or, upon my word of honour as a gentleman and clergyman,
shall be paid back at three months after sight, if you will draw upon me.
As I never--no, were it my last penny in the world--would dishonour your
draft, I implore you, my dear Colonel, not to refuse mine. My credit in
this city, where credit is everything, and the awful future so little
thought of, my engagements to Mr. Flather, my own prospects in life, and
the comfort of my dear sister's declining years, all--all depend upon
this bold, this eventful measure. My ruin or my earthly happiness lies
entirely in your hands. Can I doubt which way your kind heart will lead
you, and that you will come to the aid of your affectionate
brother-in-law? Charles Honeyman."
"Our little Clive has been to London on a visit to his uncles and to the
Hermitage, Clapham, to pay his duty to his step-grandmother, the wealthy
Mrs. Newcome. I pass over words disparaging of myself which the child in
his artless prattles subsequently narrated. 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 she is
called,--the other figure is a rude though entertaining sketch of some
other droll personage.
"Lieutenant-Colonel Newcome, etc."
V
"My Dear Colonel;--The Rev. Marcus Flather has just written me a letter
at which I am greatly shocked and perplexed, informing me that my brother
Charles has given him a draft upon you for two hundred and fifty pounds,
when goodness knows it is not you but we who are many, many hundred
pounds debtors to you. Charles has explained that he drew the bill at
your desire, that you wrote to say you would be glad to serve him in any
way, and that the money is wanted to make his fortune. Yet I don't know--
poor Charles is always going to make his fortune and has never done it.
That school which he bought, and for which you and me between us paid the
purchase-money, turned out no good, and the only pupils left at the end
of the first half-year were two woolly-headed poor little mulattos, whose
father was in gaol at St. Kitt's, and whom I kept actually in my own
second-floor back room whilst the lawyers were settling things, and
Charles was away in France, and until my dearest little Clive came to
live with me.
"Then, as he was too small for a great school, I thought Clive 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. I wish you could
hear him in the pulpit. His delivery is grander and more impressive than
any divine now in England. His sermons you have subscribed for, and
likewise his book of elegant poems, which are pronounced to be very fine.
"When he returned from Calais, and those horrid lawyers had left off
worriting him, I thought as his frame was much shattered and he was too
weak to take a curacy, that he could not do better than become Clive's
tutor, and agreed to pay him out of your handsome donation of 250 pounds
for Clive, a sum of one hundred pounds per year, so that, when the board
of the two and Clive's clothing are taken into consideration, I think you
will see that no great profit is left to Miss Martha Honeyman.
"Charles talks to me of his new church in London, and of making me some
grand allowance. The poor boy is very affectionate, and always building
castles in the air, and of having Clive to live with him in London. Now
this mustn't be, and I won't hear of it. 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, regarding which I wrote you, per
Burrampooter, the 23rd ult., that I found a picture of Mrs. Newcome and
Charles too, and of both their spectacles, quite like. I put it away, but
some rogue, I suppose, has stolen it. He has done me and Hannah too. Mr.
Speck, the artist, laughed and took it home, and says he is a wonder at
drawing.
"Instead, then, of allowing Clive to go with Charles to London next
month, where my brother is bent on going, I shall send Clivey to Dr.
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
spoilt child.
"I am, dear Colonel, your most faithful servant, Martha Honeyman."
"Lieutenant-Colonel Newcome, C. B."
VI
"My Dear Brother,--I hasten to inform you of a calamity which, though it
might be looked for in the course of nature, has occasioned deep grief
not only in our family but in this city. This morning, at half-past four
o'clock, our beloved and respected mother, Sophia Alethea Newcome,
expired, at the advanced age of eighty-three years. On the night of
Tuesday-Wednesday, the 12-13th, having been engaged reading and writing
in her library until a late hour, and having dismissed the servants, whom
she never would allow to sit up for her, as well as my brother and his
wife, who always are in the habit of retiring early, Mrs. Newcome
extinguished the lamps, took a bedchamber candle to return to her room,
and must have fallen on the landing, where she was discovered by the
maids, sitting with her head reclining against the balustrades, and
endeavouring to staunch a wound in her forehead, which was bleeding
profusely, having struck in a fall against the stone step of the stair.
"When Mrs. Newcome was found she was speechless, but still sensible, and
medical aid being sent for, she was carried to bed. Mr. Newcome and Lady
Anne both hurried to her apartment, and she knew them, and took the hands
of each, but paralysis had probably ensued in consequence of the shock of
the fall; nor was her voice ever heard, except in inarticulate moanings,
since the hour on the previous evening when she gave them her blessing
and bade them good-night. Thus perished this good and excellent woman,
the truest Christian, the most charitable friend to the poor and needful,
the head of this great house of business, the best and most affectionate
of mothers.
"The contents of her will have long been known to us, and that document
was dated one month after our lamented father's death. Mr. Thomas
Newcome's property being divided equally amongst his three sons, the
property of his second wife naturally devolves upon her own issue, my
brother Brian and myself. There are very heavy legacies to servants and
to charitable and religious institutions, of which, in life, she was the
munificent patroness; and I regret, my dear brother, that no memorial to
you should have been left by my mother, because she often spoke of you
latterly in terms of affection, and on the very day on which she died,
commenced a letter to your little boy, which was left unfinished on the
library table. My brother said that on that same day, at breakfast, she
pointed to a volume of Orme's Hindostan, the book, she said, which set
poor dear Tom wild to go to India, I know you will be pleased to hear of
these proofs of returning goodwill and affection in one who often spoke
latterly of her early regard for you. I have no more time, under the
weight of business which this present affliction entails, than to say
that I am yours, dear brother, very sincerely, H. Newcome."