The Newcomes: Memoirs of a Most Respectable FamilyThackeray, William Makepeace
General
The Newcomes: Memoirs of a Most Respectable Family
Thackeray, William Makepeace
Domestic fiction; Families -- England -- Fiction
Mr. Kuhn reports to his mistress, who descends to inspect the
apartments, accompanied through them by Hannah. The rooms are
pronounced to be exceedingly neat and pleasant, and exactly what are
wanted for the family. The baggage is forthwith ordered to be brought
from the carriages. The little invalid wrapped in his shawl is brought
upstairs by the affectionate Mr. Kuhn, who carries him as gently as if
he had been bred all his life to nurse babies. The smiling Sally (the
Sally for the time-being happens to be a very fresh pink-cheeked pretty
little Sally) emerges from the kitchen and introduces the young ladies,
the governess, the maids, to their apartments. The eldest, a slim
black-haired young lass of thirteen, frisks about the rooms, looks at
all the pictures, runs in and out of the verandah, tries the piano, and
bursts out laughing at its wheezy jingle (it had been poor Emma’s
piano, bought for her on her seventeenth birthday, three weeks before
she ran away with the ensign; her music is still in the stand by it:
the Rev. Charles Honeyman has warbled sacred melodies over it, and Miss
Honeyman considers it a delightful instrument), kisses her languid
little brother laid on the sofa, and performs a hundred gay and agile
motions suited to her age.
“Oh, what a piano! Why, it is as cracked as Miss Quigley’s voice!”
“My dear!” says mamma. The little languid boy bursts out into a jolly
laugh.
“What funny pictures, mamma! Action with Count de Grasse; the death of
General Wolfe; a portrait of an officer, an old officer in blue, like
grandpapa; Brazen Nose College, Oxford: what a funny name!”
At the idea of Brazen Nose College, another laugh comes from the
invalid. “I suppose they’ve all got _brass noses_ there,” he says; and
explodes at this joke. The poor little laugh ends in a cough, and
mamma’s travelling-basket, which contains everything, produces a bottle
of syrup, labelled “Master A. Newcome. A teaspoonful to be taken when
the cough is troublesome.”
“‘Oh, the delightful sea! the blue, the fresh, the ever free,’” sings
the young lady, with a shake. (I suppose the maritime song from which
she quoted was just written at this time.) “How much better this is
than going home and seeing those horrid factories and chimneys! I love
Doctor Goodenough for sending us here. What a sweet house it is!
Everybody is happy in it, even Miss Quigley is happy, mamma. What nice
rooms! What pretty chintz! What a—oh, what a—comfortable sofa!” and she
falls down on the sofa, which, truth to say, was the Rev. Charles
Honeyman’s luxurious sofa from Oxford, presented to him by young Cibber
Wright of Christchurch, when that gentleman-commoner was eliminated
from the University.
“The person of the house,” mamma says, “hardly comes up to Dr.
Goodenough’s description of her. He says he remembers her a pretty
little woman when her father was his private tutor.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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