Barnes Newcome

“ Jack does not know yet that our amiable Barnes is here. I know how fond you are of him. I have heard the story—glass of claret and all. We all love Barnes. How that poor Lady Clara can have accepted him the Lord knows. We are fearfully and wonderfully made, especially women.”
“Good heavens,” Clive broke out, “can it be possible that a young creature can have been brought to like such a selfish, insolent coxcomb as that, such a cocktail as Barnes Newcome? You know very well, Lord Kew, what his life is. ”

“ What can a factory-girl expect from such a fine, high-bred, white-handed, aristocratic gentleman as Sir Barnes Newcome, Baronet, but to be cajoled, and seduced, and deserted, and left to starve! When she has served my lord’s pleasure, her natural fate is to be turned into the street ”

“ Clive may not like his cousin Barnes Newcome, and many other men share in that antipathy, but all ladies do not. It is a fact that Barnes, when he likes, can make himself a very pleasant fellow. He is dreadfully satirical, that is certain; but many persons are amused by those dreadful satirical young men: and to hear fun made of our neighbours, even of some of our friends, does not make us very angry. Barnes is one of the very best waltzers in all society, that is the truth ”

“ Sir Barnes said, gloomily. “It is some time since I have known that he was not in earnest; and he knows that I am now.”
“Gracious goodness! come to blows with him, too? You have not? That would be the very thing to make the world talk,” says the dowager, with some anxiety.
“No,” answers Barnes. “He knows well enough that there can be no open rupture. We had some words the other day at a dinner he gave at his own house; Colonel Newcome and that young beggar, Clive, and that fool, Mr. Hobson, were there. Lord Highgate was confoundedly insolent. ”

“ So Thomas Newcome, and Clive the son of Thomas, had wrath in their hearts against Barnes, their kinsman, and desired to be revenged upon him, and were eager after his undoing, and longed for an opportunity when they might meet him and overcome him, and put him to shame.
When men are in this frame of mind, a certain personage is said always to be at hand to help them and give them occasion for indulging in their pretty little passion. ”

“ The old man, his father, pensioned them, and he hasn’t the heart to stop their wages now. Men of Newcome, will you have this man to represent you in Parliament?” And the crowd roared “No;” and Barnes and his shamefaced committee slunk out of the place, and no wonder the dissenting clerical gentlemen were shy of voting for him. ”

“ Barnes found the situation more disconcerting than he had anticipated. His self-confidence deserted him. He had no heart to play upon this big man’s credulity. Rather would he take him [153] into his confidence; rather would he speak fairly to those blue eyes resting in their nest of wrinkles. Here was a man used to seeing the unshrouded souls of his fellows. He was doctor, priest, and lawyer, and when these three get together in one man there is a great dropping off of cloaking rags. Such a man must see terrible things; at times beautiful things. ”

“ But tell me more about Thomas Barnes."
"Thomas Barnes," said Mary, "lives in a cottage by the cross-roads all alone."
"What does he do?"
"He fetches things from the station for people; he carries the washing home from Mrs. Carter's; he runs errands—at least, he doesn't run them: people wish he would; he sometimes does a day's work in a garden. But he really must have a new barrow, and his illness took all his money away, because he wouldn't belong to a club. ”

“ He had known what it was to come under the Professor's knife, and even at that moment, as he turned, Barnes could see the recent stitches in a comparatively new wound between the ape's shoulders.
"I wouldn't drive Crim too far, if I were you," he said. "Some of these days he'll do you a mischief. And he's powerful enough to do so, despite his gentleness."
Gride laughed harshly.
"I've flayed him a score of times," he said. "He'll never do any mischief—he hasn't got pluck enough. And I am not going seriously to hurt the best subject I've got. ”

“ It needs someone who can put in twenty hours a day and not come to the office the next morning with a twitching face.”
“What it needs, then,” suggested Barnes, “is a man of cast-iron—with a scroll on his forehead.”
“It’s a big business,” went on the father with unexpected calmness. “It’s a business to be proud of. It’s a business that a young man would take over with forty years already put into it.”
“Good Lord!” exclaimed Barnes, “isn’t that enough of good red years to feed into cook-stoves?” ”

“ Barnes was strangely silent, sitting restlessly on his restive horse with all the skill that displayed the many years he had passed in the saddle.
“You can bet your life on one thing,” he said, suddenly turning toward Tom, “that if they've killed Josh Price, I'll get the man that did it if it takes all the time and money I've got! There is one of the whitest, squarest, truest men that ever lived. You don't know how white he is. I couldn't tell you in a week of all the decent things that man, rough and ugly as he is, has done for others. ”

“ Yet, like many other comedians, he had, when shorn of his make-up, a prematurely old, wizened face, like that of a jockey or a light-weight fighter, which made his expression almost formidable.
"Do you realize what you 're doing!" repeated Barnes. "What is it to you? A skylark! An adventure! What is the price of a show to you? Yes, you can afford it, but we can't. Do you realize that there are men and women out there who have n't even got the money to take them back to New York? ”

“ Barnes, the ladies desire your company immediately.”
The manager hurriedly left the room and the newcomer regarded his retiring figure with a twinkle in his eye. Then he took a turn around the room in stilted fashion––like one who “carried about with him his pits, boxes and galleries”––and observed:
“Faith, Mr. Barnes’ couch is not a bed of roses. It is better to have the fair ones dangling after you, than to be running at their every beck and call.” ”

“ He had felt somehow that these lads, so much younger than himself, were looking to him to help them through, for he had come to regard the freshman year as a very difficult term of service. He longed in truth for the comforts that upper-class men seemed to possess in being able to mind their own business, if nothing else. ”

“ Barnes studied the big-framed, big-faced man a second and continued more soberly.
“What you call imagination are the grim facts of life for him and for me, doctor. His fiddle isn’t a detail of his life—it’s life itself for him. Cripple his arm and you cripple his soul. You’ve got to fight as hard for those fingers as you would for his life.”
If Dr. Merriweather was at first only annoyed by what he took to be mere extravagance of speech, there was something now in the tense face of Barnes which made him pause and think. ”

“ From acting the prodigal he found himself feeling the prodigal. [233] He wanted to get back home—not as represented by the Waldemere, but as embodied in the flesh and blood of those whose name he bore. So it happened that the more this aged gentleman upon the bed expressed the need for a son, the more he stirred in Barnes the need of a father. Barnes turned away his head from the searching blind eyes.
“Only for a little while.”
“A little while? My son, I’m living now by only little whiles.”
“You’re getting stronger every day,” said Barnes. “I want to see you sitting up when I come back.” ”

“ Barnes met his eyes squarely. [Pg 46]
"Because I was afraid it would queer me for a job," he said. "You see, Gregory, when a man hires a fellow he figures he's all there. He kind of rents him all over and when he's shy on somethin', he kind of figures the fellow's holding back on him. ”

“ Barnes ascended to the plane of mental and moral science, instead of remaining down in the dark, orthodox, theological cellar, trying to squeeze truth out of old, dead, dried-up, dusty, theological dogmas, he would have readily found the solution to all his problems, and would have rejoiced in thus emerging into the glorious sunlight of truth. ”

“ The wonder was, thought Barnes as from his window he caught glimpses of it winding in and out among the trees up the hill and so on, either way, until it ran straight into an ocean—the wonder was how these young fellows hereabouts resisted its call. If a man but followed it in its intricacies he would pass, on the way, every palace and hovel in the land. Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief, a traveler would come upon them every one. ”

“ Barnes smiled grimly.
[184] “If I were an artist,” he said, “I’d paint you as you stand there saying that, Langdon. There’s a big triumphant picture in you—of some sort!”
Barnes made his feet and for a moment the men stood side by side looking down upon the green valley which was slowly coming to life there below them. What a song it was; what a picture it was! The blazing sun was big enough to make both of it. For a second Barnes caught a flash of some hidden meaning in this thought. Then his face hardened; even the sun could not do both through one man alone. ”

“ Barney saw him sit back irritably; he saw Jaccard, suddenly remembering his client, glance about sharply. Then Barney gazed at the forward row at the darkened end of the room where he believed his mother to be. But either he was mistaken in supposing her there, or this demand was not the one to draw her from concealment. No one moved, and no one spoke but the Voice which announced:
"All the while a spirit has been beside you; a man; a fine-looking man, middle-aged, with dark hair and brows; strong, blue eyes; looking down, not at you, but beside you on the right. ”

“ Barnes anxiously. 'Do you not consider Merivale—' (here if I had been a man I would have said damn Merivale and felt better) —'very instructive? Surely to read a good history can never be wasting time? And he is not heavy. Surely you do not find him heavy? His information is always imparted picturesquely, remarkably so. And though one may be too old for games one is fortunately never too old for instruction.'
'I don't feel too old for games,' said Dolly.
'Feeling has nothing to do with reality,' said Mrs. Barnes sternly, turning on her. ”

“ It was in such a street that James Barnes and his family existed, rather than lived; for life is too vigorous a term to be applied to the time dragged on by those who were unfortunate enough to breathe so polluted an atmosphere. ”

“ There's no place else for a man who has once been there. Nobody will do anything to help 'im."
"Emmerett," said her sister, "go up stairs and put on some clothes. I will talk to him."
She took the candle.
"Why do you steal?" she asked.
"'Cause I'm hungry," said the man, sullenly.
"How did you get in?"
"Through the front door. It wasn't locked," replied the burglar. "What are you going to do with me?"
It was almost gray in the morning.
"We don't know," said Eudosia.
"Don't give me up," pleaded the man. "I have tried to get work everywheres. I will do anything if you won't give me up. ”

“ Barnes should be to engender riddles. It didn't do this to my pre-war guests. They grew young, but not younger than twenty. Mrs. Barnes to-day descended to the age of bibs. I never could have believed it of her. I never could have believed she would come so near what I can only call an awful friskiness. And it wasn't just this morning, in the first intoxication of the splendid new air; it has gone on like it all day. ”

“ Barnes said.
“You must be an ass, Barnes. How about your own record? It will be known that you were one of us. Think you'll go free, do you? Let me tell you that the whole story will come out. You don't know what you're mixed up in.” ”

“ He isn’t as alert mentally as he used to be; his new joy in life would force back every doubt; your acceptance here by Aunt Philomela and Eleanor—”
“But Good Heavens that would mean a terrible crash in prospect. I can’t stay on here forever.”
“It’s too much for me, my boy,” the doctor answered soberly.
“But if he can see now, why doesn’t he say so?”
“These old men get strange whims. Perhaps he’s waiting to make sure of his sight so as not to disappoint the others by raising their hope. Or it may be just an old man’s joke.”
Barnes smiled. ”

“ Barnes was proprietor of nothing but himself. That was much or little as you happened to feel about it. To himself it was enough to make him glad that he stood here to-day even with only a trifle over ten round dollars to his name. The position was of his own choosing. He might have been secretary to the Acme Manufacturing Co. had he wished, instead of a painter of very good water-colors which as yet, however, had not found so ready a market as the cook-stoves.
The father put it bluntly when he declared, “People must eat to live; they can worry along without pictures.” ”

“ Barnes assented; “but you're taking the whole business too seriously. I'm rather for the boy, all things considered. I despise his style of cranial decoration—his hair, I mean; but he dresses faultlessly—those quiet neutral shades that are affected by men of breeding, and he's the only man in the house who puts on a dinner coat with religious regularity. In fact, he's the most correct male in the whole bloomin' commonwealth He's certainly not making a nuisance of himself. The only member who ever speaks to him is old man Burrows who hitches on to him every evening for an hour ”