Did Thackeray's Mum love him?

One of the fun things about old William Makepeace is that he’s quite realistic about how dysfunctional families are. Different branches of families hate each other. People are disinclined to help their poor relations but very very eager to claim friendship with them when their fortunes seem to change. The plot of The Virginians [Warning: spoiler ahead] hinges on dastardly spendthrift English relatives trying to destroy all copies of title deeds to their American cousins’ property so they can claim it for themselves.

This is so much more satisfying than the sugary sentimentality of Dickens.

I worry about poor little Master Thackeray’s childhood though. His fiction is full of mothers and stepmothers neglecting their children. Who can forget how horrid Becky Sharp is to her son, only kissing him in company and ignoring him the rest of the time? And in The Newcomes, the young Colonel is so thoroughly abused by his stepmother he has to leave home at a tender age. Part of Clive Newcome’s unhappiness in his poverty is how his little son is treated by his mother-in-law. He also seems very idealistic about how mothers should be. Early on in Pendennis he eulogises the Madonna:

The maternal passion is a sacred mystery to me. What one sees symbolised in the
Roman churches in the image of the Virgin Mother with a bosom bleeding with
love, I think one may witness (and admire the Almighty bounty for) every
day. I saw a Jewish lady, only yesterday, with a child at her knee, and
from whose face towards the child there shone a sweetness so angelical, that it
seemed to form a sort of glory round both. I protest I could have knelt
before her too, and adored in her the Divine benefice in endowing us with the
maternal storge which began with our race and sanctifies the history of
mankind.

Blergh! How soppy! How Victorian! (no I don’t know what a storge is either) But is this sentimentality because back then nice little boys were sent to boarding school at the age of six and only saw Mum at holidays? Or is this the enthusiasm of a new uxorious father?

Either way, I can hardly wait for the innocent young Pendennis to be led astray in typical Thackeray style by drinking, gambling, horse racing, expensive waistcoats and actresses.