Title: The History of Pendennis, Volume 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy
Author: Thackeray, William Makepeace, 1811-1863
Language: English
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THE HISTORY OF PENDENNIS.



HIS FORTUNES AND MISFORTUNES, HIS FRIENDS AND HIS GREATEST ENEMY.



BY WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY.



WITH ILLUSTRATIONS ON WOOD BY THE AUTHOR,

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOLUME II.

1858



CHAPTER

1.--RELATES TO MR. HARRY FOKER's AFFAIRS

2.--CARRIES THE READER BOTH TO RICHMOND AND GREENWICH

3.--CONTAINS A NOVEL INCIDENT

4.--ALSATIA

5.--IN WHICH THE COLONEL NARRATES SOME OF HIS ADVENTURES

6.--A CHAPTER OF CONVERSATIONS

7.--MISS AMORY'S PARTNERS

8.--MONSEIGNEUR S'AMUSE

9.--A VISIT OF POLITENESS

10.--IN SHEPHERD'S INN

11.--IN OR NEAR THE TEMPLE GARDEN

12.--THE HAPPY VILLAGE AGAIN

13.--WHICH HAD VERY NEARLY BEEN THE LAST OF THE STORY

14.--A CRITICAL CHAPTER

15.--CONVALESCENCE

16.--FANNY'S OCCUPATION'S GONE

17.--IN WHICH FANNY ENGAGES A NEW MEDICAL MAN

18.--FOREIGN GROUND

19.--"FAIROAKS TO LET"

20.--OLD FRIENDS

21.--EXPLANATIONS

22.--CONVERSATIONS

23.--THE WAY OF THE WORLD

24.--WHICH ACCOUNTS PERHAPS FOR CHAPTER XXIII

25.--PHILLIS AND CORYDON

26.--TEMPTATIONS

27.--IN WHICH PEN BEGINS HIS CANVASS

28.--IN WHICH PEN BEGINS TO DOUBT ABOUT HIS ELECTION

29.--IN WHICH THE MAJOR IS BIDDEN TO STAND AND DELIVER

30.--IN WHICH THE MAJOR NEITHER YIELDS HIS MONEY NOR HIS LIFE

31.--IN WHICH PENDENNIS COUNTS HIS EGGS

32.--FIAT JUSTITIA

33.--IN WHICH THE DECKS BEGIN TO CLEAR

34.--MR. AND MRS. SAM HUXTER

35.--SHOWS HOW ARTHUR HAD BETTER HAVE TAKEN A RETURN-TICKET

36.--A CHAPTER OF MATCH-MAKING

37.--EXEUNT OMNES PENDENNIS.



CHAPTER I.

RELATES TO MR. HARRY FOKER'S AFFAIRS.


Since that fatal but delightful night in Grosvenor place, Mr. Harry
Foker's heart had been in such a state of agitation as you would
hardly have thought so great a philosopher could endure. When we
remember what good advice he had given to Pen in former days, how an
early wisdom and knowledge of the world had manifested itself in the
gifted youth; how a constant course of self-indulgence, such as
becomes a gentleman of his means and expectations, ought by right to
have increased his cynicism, and made him, with every succeeding day
of his life, care less and less for every individual in the world,
with the single exception of Mr. Harry Foker, one may wonder that he
should fall into the mishap to which most of us are subject once or
twice in our lives, and disquiet his great mind about a woman. But
Foker, though early wise, was still a man. He could no more escape the
common lot than Achilles, or Ajax, or Lord Nelson, or Adam our first
father, and now, his time being come, young Harry became a victim to
Love, the All-conqueror.

When he went to the Back Kitchen that night after quitting Arthur
Pendennis at his staircase-door in Lamb-court, the gin-twist and
deviled turkey had no charms for him, the jokes of his companions
fell flatly on his ear; and when Mr. Hodgen, the singer of "The Body
Snatcher," had a new chant even more dreadful and humorous than that
famous composition, Foker, although he appeared his friend, and said
"Bravo Hodgen," as common politeness, and his position as one of the
chiefs of the Back Kitchen bound him to do, yet never distinctly heard
one word of the song, which under its title of "The Cat in the
Cupboard," Hodgen has since rendered so famous. Late and very tired,
he slipped into his private apartments at home and sought the downy
pillow, but his slumbers were disturbed by the fever of his soul, and
the very instant that he woke from his agitated sleep, the image of
Miss Amory presented itself to him, and said, "Here I am, I am your
princess and beauty, you have discovered me, and shall care for
nothing else hereafter."

Heavens, how stale and distasteful his former pursuits and friendships
appeared to him! He had not been, up to the present time, much
accustomed to the society of females of his own rank in life. When he
spoke of such, he called them "modest women." That virtue which, let
us hope they possessed, had not hitherto compensated to Mr. Foker for
the absence of more lively qualities which most of his own relatives
did not enjoy, and which he found in Mesdemoiselles, the ladies of the
theater. His mother, though good and tender, did not amuse her boy;
his cousins, the daughters of his maternal uncle, the respectable Earl
of Rosherville, wearied him beyond measure. One was blue, and a
geologist; one was a horsewoman, and smoked cigars; one was
exceedingly Low Church, and had the most heterodox views on religious
matters; at least, so the other said, who was herself of the very
Highest Church faction, and made the cupboard in her room into an
oratory, and fasted on every Friday in the year. Their paternal house
of Drummington, Foker could very seldom be got to visit. He swore he
had rather go to the tread-mill than stay there. He was not much
beloved by the inhabitants. Lord Erith, Lord Rosherville's heir,
considered his cousin a low person, of deplorably vulgar habits and
manners; while Foker, and with equal reason, voted Erith a prig and a
dullard, the nightcap of the House of Commons, the Speaker's
opprobrium, the dreariest of philanthropic spouters. Nor could George
Robert, Earl of Gravesend and Rosherville, ever forget that on one
evening when he condescended to play at billiards with his nephew,
that young gentleman poked his lordship in the side with his cue, and
said, "Well, old cock, I've seen many a bad stroke in my life, but I
never saw such a bad one as that there." He played the game out with
angelic sweetness of temper, for Harry was his guest as well as his
nephew; but he was nearly having a fit in the night; and he kept to
his own rooms until young Harry quitted Drummington on his return to
Oxbridge, where the interesting youth was finishing his education at
the time when the occurrence took place. It was an awful blow to the
venerable earl; the circumstance was never alluded to in the family:
he shunned Foker whenever he came to see them in London or in the
country, and could hardly be brought to gasp out a "How d'ye do?" to
the young blasphemer. But he would not break his sister Agnes's
heart, by banishing Harry from the family altogether; nor, indeed,
could he afford to break with Mr. Foker, senior, between whom and his
lordship there had been many private transactions, producing an
exchange of bank checks from Mr. Foker, and autographs from the earl
himself, with the letters I O U written over his illustrious
signature.

[Illustration]

Besides the four daughters of Lord Gravesend whose various qualities
have been enumerated in the former paragraph, his lordship was blessed
with a fifth girl, the Lady Ann Milton, who, from her earliest years
and nursery, had been destined to a peculiar position in life. It was
ordained between her parents and her aunt, that when Mr. Harry Foker
attained a proper age, Lady Ann should become his wife. The idea had
been familiar to her mind when she yet wore pinafores, and when
Harry, the dirtiest of little boys, used to come back with black eyes
from school to Drummington, or to his father's house of Logwood, where
Lady Ann lived much with her aunt. Both of the young people coincided
with the arrangement proposed by the elders, without any protests or
difficulty. It no more entered Lady Ann's mind to question the order
of her father, than it would have entered Esther's to dispute the
commands of Ahasuerus. The heir-apparent of the house of Foker was
also obedient, for when the old gentleman said, "Harry, your uncle and
I have agreed that when you're of a proper age, you'll marry Lady Ann.
She won't have any money, but she's good blood, and a good one to look
at, and I shall make you comfortable. If you refuse, you'll have your
mother's jointure, and two hundred a year during my life:" Harry, who
knew that his sire, though a man of few words, was yet implicitly to
be trusted, acquiesced at once in the parental decree, and said,
"Well, sir, if Ann's agreeable, I say ditto. She's not a
bad-looking girl."

"And she has the best blood in England, sir. Your mother's blood, your
own blood, sir," said the brewer. "There's nothing like it, sir."

"Well, sir, as you like it," Harry replied. "When you want me, please
ring the bell. Only there's no hurry, and I hope you'll give us a long
day. I should like to have my fling out before I marry."

"Fling away, Harry," answered the benevolent father. "Nobody prevents
you, do they?" And so very little more was said upon this subject, and
Mr. Harry pursued those amusements in life which suited him best; and
hung up a little picture of his cousin in his sitting-room, amidst the
French prints, the favorite actresses and dancers, the racing and
coaching works of art, which suited his taste and formed his gallery.
It was an insignificant little picture, representing a simple round
face with ringlets; and it made, as it must be confessed, a very poor
figure by the side of Mademoiselle Petitot, dancing over a rainbow, or
Mademoiselle Redowa, grinning in red boots and a lancer's cap.

Being engaged and disposed of, Lady Ann Milton did not go out so much
in the world as her sisters; and often stayed at home in London at the
parental house in Gaunt-square, when her mamma with the other ladies
went abroad. They talked and they danced with one man after another,
and the men came and went, and the stories about them were various.
But there was only this one story about Ann: she was engaged to Harry
Foker: she never was to think about any body else. It was not a very
amusing story.

Well, the instant Foker awoke on the day after Lady Clavering's
dinner, there was Blanche's image glaring upon him with its clear gray
eyes, and winning smile. There was her tune ringing in his ears, "Yet
round about the spot, ofttimes I hover, ofttimes I hover," which poor
Foker began piteously to hum, as he sat up in his bed under the
crimson silken coverlet. Opposite him was a French print, of a Turkish
lady and her Greek lover, surprised by a venerable Ottoman, the
lady's husband; on the other wall, was a French print of a gentleman
and lady, riding and kissing each other at the full gallop; all round
the chaste bed-room were more French prints, either portraits of gauzy
nymphs of the Opera or lovely illustrations of the novels; or mayhap,
an English chef-d'oeuvre or two, in which Miss Calverley of T. R. E. O.
would be represented in tight pantaloons in her favorite page part; or
Miss Rougemont as Venus; their value enhanced by the signatures of
these ladies, Maria Calverley, or Frederica Rougemont, inscribed
underneath the prints in an exquisite fac-simile. Such were the
pictures in which honest Harry delighted. He was no worse than many of
his neighbors; he was an idle, jovial, kindly fast man about town; and
if his rooms were rather profusely decorated with works of French art,
so that simple Lady Agnes, his mamma, on entering the apartments where
her darling sate enveloped in fragrant clouds of Latakia, was often
bewildered by the novelties which she beheld there, why, it must be
remembered, that he was richer than most young men, and could better
afford to gratify his taste.

A letter from Miss Calverley written in a very dégagé style of
spelling and hand-writing, scrawling freely over the filigree paper,
and commencing by calling Mr. Harry, her dear Hokey-pokey-fokey, lay
on his bed table by his side, amid keys, sovereigns, cigar-cases, and
a bit of verbena, which Miss Amory had given him, and reminding him of
the arrival of the day when he was "to stand that dinner at the
Elefant and Castle, at Richmond, which he had promised;" a card for a
private box at Miss Rougemont's approaching benefit, a bundle of
tickets for "Ben Budgeon's night, the North Lancashire Pippin, at
Martin Faunce's, the Three-corned Hat in St. Martin's Lane; where
Conkey Sam, Dick the Nailor, and Deadman (the Worcestershire Nobber),
would put on the gloves, and the lovers of the good old British sport
were invited to attend"--these and sundry other memoirs of Mr. Foker's
pursuits and pleasures lay on the table by his side when he woke.

Ah! how faint all these pleasures seemed now. What did he care for
Conkey Sam or the Worcestershire Nobber? What for the French prints
ogling him from all sides of the room; those regular stunning slap-up
out-and-outers? And Calverley spelling bad, and calling him
Hokey-fokey, confound her impudence! The idea of being engaged to a
dinner at the Elephant and Castle at Richmond, with that old woman
(who was seven and thirty years old, if she was a day), filled his
mind with dreary disgust now, instead of that pleasure which he had
only yesterday expected to find from the entertainment.

When his fond mamma beheld her boy that morning, she remarked on the
pallor of his cheek, and the general gloom of his aspect. "Why do you
go on playing billiards at that wicked Spratt's?" Lady Agnes asked.
"My dearest child, those billiards will kill you, I'm sure they will."

"It isn't the billiards," Harry said, gloomily. "Then it's the
dreadful Back Kitchen," said the Lady Agnes. "I've often thought,
d'you know, Harry, of writing to the landlady, and begging that she
would have the kindness to put only very little wine in the negus
which you take, and see that you have your shawl on before you get
into your brougham."

"Do, ma'am. Mrs. Cutts is a most kind, motherly woman," Harry said.
"But it isn't the Back Kitchen, neither," he added with a
ghastly sigh.

As Lady Agnes never denied her son any thing, and fell into all his
ways with the fondest acquiescence, she was rewarded by a perfect
confidence on young Harry's part, who never thought to disguise from
her a knowledge of the haunts which he frequented; and, on the
contrary, brought her home choice anecdotes from the clubs and
billiard-rooms, which the simple lady relished, if she did not
understand. "My son goes to Spratt's," she would say to her
confidential friends. "All the young men go to Spratt's after their
balls. It is _de rigeur_, my dear; and they play billiards as they
used to play macao and hazard in Mr. Fox's time. Yes, my dear father
often told me that they sate up _always_ until nine o'clock the next
morning with Mr. Fox at Brooks's, whom I remember at Drummington, when
I was a little girl, in a buff waistcoat and black satin small
clothes. My brother Erith never played as a young man, nor sate up
late--he had no health for it; but my boy must do as every body does,
you know. Yes, and then he often goes to a place called the Back
Kitchen, frequented by all the wits and authors, you know, whom one
does not see in society, but whom it is a great privilege and pleasure
for Harry to meet, and there he hears the questions of the day
discussed; and my dear father often said that it was our duty to
encourage literature, and he had hoped to see the late Dr. Johnson at
Drummington, only Dr. Johnson died. Yes, and Mr. Sheridan came over
and drank a great deal of wine--every body drank a great deal of wine
in those days--and papa's wine-merchant's bill was ten times as much
as Erith's is, who gets it as he wants it from Fortnum and Mason's,
and doesn't keep any stock at all."

"That was an uncommon good dinner we had yesterday, ma'am," the artful
Harry broke out. "Their clear soup's better than ours. Moufflet will
put too much taragon into every thing. The suprème de volaille was
very good--uncommon, and the sweets were better than Moufflet's
sweets. Did you taste the plombière, ma'am and the maraschino jelly?
Stunningly good that maraschino jelly!"

Lady Agnes expressed her agreement in these, as in almost all other
sentiments of her son, who continued the artful conversation, saying,

"Very handsome house that of the Claverings. Furniture, I should say,
got up regardless of expense. Magnificent display of plate, ma'am."
The lady assented to all these propositions.

"Very nice people the Claverings."

"Hem!" said Lady Agnes.

"I know what you mean. Lady C. ain't distangy exactly, but she is very
good-natured." "O very," mamma said, who was herself one of the
most good-natured of women.

"And Sir Francis, he don't talk much before ladies: but after dinner
he comes out uncommon strong, ma'am--a highly agreeable well-informed
man. When will you ask them to dinner? Look out for an early day,
ma'am;" and looking into Lady Agnes's pocket-book, he chose a day only
a fortnight hence (an age that fortnight seemed to the young
gentleman), when the Claverings were to be invited to Grosvenor-street.

The obedient Lady Agnes wrote the required invitation. She was
accustomed to do so without consulting her husband, who had his own
society and habits, and who left his wife to see her own friends
alone. Harry looked at the card; but there was an omission in the
invitation which did not please him.

"You have not asked Miss Whatdyecallem--Miss Emery, Lady Clavering's
daughter."

"O, that little creature!" Lady Agnes cried. "No, I think not, Harry."

"We must ask Miss Amory," Foker said. "I--I want to ask Pendennis; and
he's very sweet upon her. Don't you think she sings very well, ma'am?"

"I thought her rather forward, and didn't listen to her singing. She
only sang at you and Mr. Pendennis, it seemed to me. But I will ask
her if you wish, Harry," and so Miss Amory's name was written on the
card with her mother's.

This piece of diplomacy being triumphantly executed, Harry embraced
his fond parent with the utmost affection, and retired to his own
apartments, where he stretched himself on his ottoman, and lay
brooding silently, sighing for the day which was to bring the fair
Miss Amory under his paternal roof, and devising a hundred wild
schemes for meeting her.

On his return from making the grand tour, Mr. Foker, junior, had
brought with him a polyglot valet, who took the place of Stoopid, and
condescended to wait at dinner, attired in shirt fronts of worked
muslin, with many gold studs and chains, upon his master and the
elders of the family. This man, who was of no particular country, and
spoke all languages indifferently ill, made himself useful to Mr.
Harry in a variety of ways--read all the artless youth's
correspondence, knew his favorite haunts and the addresses of his
acquaintance, and officiated at the private dinners which the young
gentleman gave. As Harry lay upon his sofa after his interview with
his mamma, robed in a wonderful dressing-gown, and puffing his pipe in
gloomy silence, Anatole, too, must have remarked that something
affected his master's spirits; though he did not betray any ill-bred
sympathy with Harry's agitation of mind. When Harry began to dress
himself in his out-of-door morning costume: he was very hard indeed to
please, and particularly severe and snappish about his toilet: he
tried, and cursed, pantaloons of many different stripes, checks, and
colors: all the boots were villainously varnished, the shirts too
"loud" in pattern. He scented his linen and person with peculiar
richness this day; and what must have been the valet's astonishment,
when, after some blushing and hesitation on Harry's part, the young
gentleman asked, "I say, Anatole, when I engaged you, didn't
you--hem--didn't you say that you could dress--hem--dress hair?"

The valet said, "Yes, he could."

"_Cherchy alors une paire de tongs--et--curly moi un pew_" Mr. Foker
said, in an easy manner; and the valet wondering whether his master
was in love or was going masquerading, went in search of the
articles--first from the old butler who waited upon Mr. Foker, senior,
on whose bald pate the tongs would have scarcely found a hundred hairs
to seize, and finally of the lady who had the charge of the meek
auburn fronts of the Lady Agnes. And the tongs being got, Monsieur
Anatole twisted his young master's locks until he had made Harry's
head as curly as a negro's; after which the youth dressed himself with
the utmost care and splendor and proceeded to sally out.

"At what time sall I order de drag, sir, to be to Miss Calverley's
door, sir?" the attendant whispered as his master was going forth.

"Confound her! Put the dinner off--I can't go!" said Foker. "No, hang
it--I must go. Poyntz and Rougemont, and ever so many more are coming.
The drag at Pelham Corner at six o'clock, Anatole."

The drag was not one of Mr. Foker's own equipages, but was hired from
a livery stable for festive purposes; Foker, however, put his own
carriage into requisition that morning, and for what purpose does the
kind reader suppose? Why to drive down to Lamb-court, Temple, taking
Grosvenor-place by the way (which lies in the exact direction of the
Temple from Grosvenor-street, as every body knows), where he just had
the pleasure of peeping upward at Miss Amory's pink window curtains,
having achieved which satisfactory feat, he drove off to Pen's
chambers. Why did he want to see his dear friend Pen so much? Why did
he yearn and long after him; and did it seem necessary to Foker's very
existence that he should see Pen that morning, having parted with him
in perfect health on the night previous? Pen had lived two years in
London, and Foker had not paid half a dozen visits to his chambers.
What sent him thither now in such a hurry?

What?--if any young ladies read this page, I have only to inform them
that when the same mishap befalls them, which now had for more than
twelve hours befallen Harry Foker, people will grow interesting to
them for whom they did not care sixpence on the day before; as on the
other hand persons of whom they fancied themselves fond will be found
to have become insipid and disagreeable. Then your dearest Eliza or
Maria of the other day, to whom you wrote letters and sent locks of
hair yards long, will on a sudden be as indifferent to you as your
stupidest relation: while, on the contrary, about _his_ relations you
will begin to feel such a warm interest! such a loving desire to
ingratiate yourself with _his_ mamma; such a liking for that dear kind
old man _his_ father! If He is in the habit of visiting at any house,
what advances you will make in order to visit there too. If He has a
married sister you will like to spend long mornings with her. You will
fatigue your servant by sending notes to her, for which there will be
the most pressing occasion, twice or thrice in a day. You will cry if
your mamma objects to your going too often to see His family. The only
one of them you will dislike, is perhaps his younger brother, who is
at home for the holidays, and who will persist in staying in the room
when you come to see your dear new-found friend, his darling second
sister. Something like this will happen to you, young ladies, or, at
any rate, let us hope it may. Yes, you must go through the hot fits
and the cold fits of that pretty fever. Your mothers, if they would
acknowledge it, have passed through it before you were born, your dear
papa being the object of the passion of course--who could it be but
he? And as you suffer it so will your brothers in their way--and after
their kind. More selfish than you: more eager and headstrong than you:
they will rush on their destiny when the doomed charmer makes her
appearance. Or if they don't, and you don't, Heaven help you! As the
gambler said of his dice, to love and win is the best thing, to love
and lose is the next best. You don't die of the complaint: or very few
do. The generous wounded heart suffers and survives it. And he is not
a man, or she a woman, who is not conquered by it, or who does not
conquer it in his time...... Now, then, if you ask why Henry Foker,
Esquire, was in such a hurry to see Arthur Pendennis, and felt such a
sudden value and esteem for him, there is no difficulty in saying it
was because Pen had become really valuable in Mr. Foker's eyes;
because if Pen was not the rose, he yet had been near that fragrant
flower of love. Was not he in the habit of going to her house in
London? Did he not live near her in the country?--know all about the
enchantress? What, I wonder, would Lady Ann Milton, Mr. Foker's cousin
and _prétendue_, have said, if her ladyship had known all that was
going on in the bosom of that funny little gentleman?

Alas! when Foker reached Lamb-court, leaving his carriage for the
admiration of the little clerks who were lounging in the arch-way that
leads thence into Flag-court which leads into Upper Temple-lane,
Warrington was in the chambers, but Pen was absent. Pen was gone to
the printing-office to see his proofs. "Would Foker have a pipe, and
should the laundress go to the Cock and get him some beer?"
--Warrington asked, remarking with a pleased surprise the
splendid toilet of this scented and shiny-booted young aristocrat; but
Foker had not the slightest wish for beer or tobacco: he had very
important business: he rushed away to the "Pall-Mall Gazette" office,
still bent upon finding Pen. Pen had quitted that place. Foker wanted
him that they might go together to call upon Lady Clavering. Foker
went away disconsolate, and whiled away an hour or two vaguely at
clubs: and when it was time to pay a visit, he thought it would be but
decent and polite to drive to Grosvenor-place and leave a card upon
Lady Clavering. He had not the courage to ask to see her when the door
was opened, he only delivered two cards, with Mr. Henry Foker engraved
upon them, to Jeames, in a speechless agony. Jeames received the
tickets bowing his powdered head. The varnished doors closed upon him.
The beloved object was as far as ever from him, though so near. He
thought he heard the tones of a piano and of a siren singing, coming
from the drawing-room and sweeping over the balcony-shrubbery of
geraniums. He would have liked to stop and listen, but it might not
be. "Drive to Tattersall's," he said to the groom, in a voice
smothered with emotion--"And bring my pony round," he added, as the
man drove rapidly away.

As good luck would have it, that splendid barouche of Lady
Clavering's, which has been inadequately described in a former
chapter, drove up to her ladyship's door just as Foker mounted the
pony which was in waiting for him. He bestrode the fiery animal, and
dodged about the arch of the Green Park, keeping the carriage well in
view, until he saw Lady Clavering enter, and with her--whose could be
that angel form, but the enchantress's, clad in a sort of gossamer,
with a pink bonnet and a light-blue parasol--but Miss Amory?

The carriage took its fair owners to Madame Rigodon's cap and lace
shop, to Mrs. Wolsey's Berlin worsted shop--who knows to what other
resorts of female commerce? Then it went and took ices at Hunter's,
for Lady Clavering was somewhat florid in her tastes and amusements,
and not only liked to go abroad in the most showy carriage in London,
but that the public should see her in it too. And so, in a white
bonnet with a yellow feather, she ate a large pink ice in the sunshine
before Hunter's door, till Foker on his pony, and the red jacket who
accompanied him, were almost tired of dodging.

Then at last she made her way into the Park, and the rapid Foker made
his dash forward. What to do? Just to get a nod of recognition from
Miss Amory and her mother; to cross them a half-dozen times in the
drive; to watch and ogle them from the other side of the ditch, where
the horsemen assemble when the band plays in Kensington Gardens. What
is the use of looking at a woman in a pink bonnet across a ditch? What
is the earthly good to be got out of a nod of the head? Strange that
men will be contented with such pleasures, or if not contented, at
least that they will be so eager in seeking them. Not one word did
Harry, he so fluent of conversation ordinarily, change with his
charmer on that day. Mutely he beheld her return to her carriage, and
drive away among rather ironical salutes from the young men in the
Park. One said that the Indian widow was making the paternal rupees
spin rapidly; another said that she ought to have burned herself
alive, and left the money to her daughter. This one asked who
Clavering was?--and old Tom Eales, who knew every body, and never
missed a day in the Park on his gray cob, kindly said that Clavering
had come into an estate over head and heels in mortgage: that there
were dev'lish ugly stories about him when he was a young man, and that
it was reported of him that he had a share in a gambling house, and
had certainly shown the white feather in his regiment. "He plays
still; he is in a hell every night almost," Mr. Eales added. "I
should think so, since his marriage," said a wag.

"He gives devilish good dinners," said Foker, striking up for the
honor of his host of yesterday.

"I daresay, and I daresay he doesn't ask Eales," the wag said. "I say,
Eales, do you dine at Clavering's--at the Begum's?"

"_I_ dine there?" said Mr. Eales, who would have dined with Beelzebub,
if sure of a good cook, and when he came away, would have painted his
host blacker than fate had made him.

"You might, you know, although you _do_ abuse him so," continued the
wag. "They say it's very pleasant. Clavering goes to sleep after
dinner; the Begum gets tipsy with cherry-brandy, and the young lady
sings songs to the young gentlemen. She sings well, don't she, Fo?"

"Slap up," said Fo. "I tell you what, Poyntz, she sings like a--
whatdyecallum--you know what I mean--like a mermaid, you know, but
that's not their name."

"I never heard a mermaid sing," Mr. Poyntz, the wag replied. "Who ever
heard a mermaid? Eales, you are an old fellow, did you?"

"Don't make a lark of me, hang it, Poyntz," said Foker, turning red,
and with tears almost in his eyes, "you know what I mean: it's those
what's-his-names--in Homer, you know. I never said I was a
good scholar."

"And nobody ever said it of you, my boy," Mr. Poyntz remarked, and
Foker striking spurs into his pony, cantered away down Rotten Row, his
mind agitated with various emotions, ambitions, mortifications. He
_was_ sorry that he had not been good at his books in early life--that
he might have cut out all those chaps who were about her, and who
talked the languages, and wrote poetry, and painted pictures in her
album, and--and that. "What am I," thought little Foker, "compared to
her? She's all soul, she is, and can write poetry or compose music, as
easy as I could drink a glass of beer. Beer?--damme, that's all I'm
fit for, is beer. I am a poor, ignorant little beggar, good for
nothing but Foker's Entire. I misspent my youth, and used to get the
chaps to do my exercises. And what's the consequences now? O, Harry
Foker, what a confounded little fool you have been!"

As he made this dreary soliloquy, he had cantered out of Rotten Row
into the Park, and there was on the point of riding down a large, old,
roomy family carriage, of which he took no heed, when a cheery voice
cried out, "Harry, Harry!" and looking up, he beheld his aunt, the
Lady Rosherville, and two of her daughters, of whom the one who spoke
was Harry's betrothed, the Lady Ann.

He started back with a pale, scared look, as a truth about which he
had not thought during the whole day, came across him. _There_ was his
fate, there, in the back seat of that carriage.

"What is the matter Harry? why are you so pale? You have been raking
and smoking too much, you wicked boy," said Lady Ann.

Foker said, "How do, aunt?" "How do, Ann?" in a perturbed
manner--muttered something about a pressing engagement--indeed he saw
by the Park clock that he must have been keeping his party in the
drag waiting for nearly an hour--and waved a good-by. The little man
and the little pony were out of sight in an instant--the great
carriage rolled away. Nobody inside was very much interested about his
coming or going; the countess being occupied with her spaniel, the
Lady Lucy's thoughts and eyes being turned upon a volume of sermons,
and those of Lady Ann upon a new novel, which the sisters had just
procured from the library.



CHAPTER II.

CARRIES THE READER BOTH TO RICHMOND AND GREENWICH.


[Illustration]

Poor Foker found the dinner at Richmond to be the most dreary
entertainment upon which ever mortal man wasted his guineas. "I wonder
how the deuce I could ever have liked these people," he thought in his
own mind. "Why, I can see the crow's-feet under Rougemont's eyes, and
the paint on her cheeks is laid on as thick as clown's in a pantomime!
The way in which that Calverley talks slang, is quite disgusting. I
hate chaff in a woman. And old Colchicum! that old Col, coming down
here in his brougham, with his coronet on it, and sitting bodkin
between Mademoiselle Coralie and her mother! It's too bad. An English
peer, and a horse-rider of Franconi's! It won't do; by Jove, it won't
do. I ain't proud; but it will _not_ do!"

"Twopence-halfpenny for your thoughts, Fokey!" cried out Miss
Rougemont, taking her cigar from her truly vermilion lips, as she
beheld the young fellow lost in thought, seated at the head of his
table, amidst melting ices, and cut pine-apples, and bottles full and
empty, and cigar-ashes scattered on fruit, and the ruins of a dessert
which had no pleasure for him.

"_Does_ Foker ever think?" drawled out Mr. Poyntz. "Foker, here is a
considerable sum of money offered by a fair capitalist at this end of
the table for the present emanations of your valuable and acute
intellect, old boy!"

"What the deuce is that Poyntz a talking about?" Mrs. Calverley asked
of her neighbor. "I hate him. He's a drawlin', sneerin' beast."

"What a droll of a little man is that little Fokare, my lor,"
Mademoiselle Coralie said, in her own language, and with the rich
twang of that sunny Gascony in which her swarthy cheeks and bright
black eyes had got their fire. "What a droll of a man! He does not
look to have twenty years."

"I wish I were of his age," said the venerable Colchicum, with a sigh,
as he inclined his purple face toward a large goblet of claret.

"_C'te Jeunesse. Peuh! je m'en fiche_," said Madame Brack, Coralie's
mamma, taking a great pinch out of Lord Colchicum's delicate gold
snuff-box. "_Je n'aime que les hommes faits, moi. Comme milor Coralie!
n'est ce pas que tu n'aimes que les hommes faits, ma bichette?"

My lord said, with a grin, "You flatter me, Madame Brack."

"_Taisez vous, Maman, vous n'ètes qu'une bête_," Coralie cried, with a
shrug of her robust shoulders; upon which, my lord said that _she_ did
not flatter at any rate; and pocketed his snuff-box, not desirous that
Madame Brack's dubious fingers should plunge too frequently into
his Mackabaw.

There is no need to give a prolonged detail of the animated
conversation which ensued during the rest of the banquet; a
conversation which would not much edify the reader. And it is scarcely
necessary to say, that all ladies of the _corps de danse_ are not like
Miss Calverley, any more than that all peers resemble that illustrious
member of their order, the late lamented Viscount Colchicum. But there
have been such in our memories who have loved the society of riotous
youth better than the company of men of their own age and rank, and
have given the young ones the precious benefit of their experience and
example; and there have been very respectable men too who have not
objected so much to the kind of entertainment as to the publicity of
it. I am sure, for instance, that our friend Major Pendennis would
have made no sort of objection to join a party of pleasure, provided
that it were _en petit comité_, and that such men as my Lord Steyne
and my Lord Colchicum were of the society. "Give the young men their
pleasures," this worthy guardian said to Pen more than once. "I'm not
one of your straight-laced moralists, but an old man of the world,
begad; and I know that as long as it lasts, young men will be young
men." And there were some young men to whom this estimable philosopher
accorded about seventy years as the proper period for sowing their
wild oats: but they were men of fashion.

Mr. Foker drove his lovely guests home to Brompton in the drag that
night; but he was quite thoughtful and gloomy during the whole of the
little journey from Richmond; neither listening to the jokes of the
friends behind him and on the box by his side, nor enlivening them, as
was his wont, by his own facetious sallies. And when the ladies whom
he had conveyed alighted at the door of their house, and asked then
accomplished coachman whether he would not step in and take some thing
to drink, he declined with so melancholy an air, that they supposed
that the governor and he had had a difference, or that some calamity
had befallen him: and he did not tell these people what the cause of
his grief was, but left Mesdames Rougemont and Calverley, unheeding
the cries of the latter, who hung over her balcony like Jezebel, and
called out to him to ask him to give another party soon.

He sent the drag home under the guidance of one of the grooms, and
went on foot himself; his hands in his pockets, plunged in thought.
The stars and moon shining tranquilly over head, looked down upon Mr.
Foker that night, as he, in his turn, sentimentally regarded them. And
he went and gazed upward at the house in Grosvenor-place, and at the
windows which he supposed to be those of the beloved object; and he
moaned and he sighed in a way piteous and surprising to witness, which
Policeman X. did, who informed Sir Francis Clavering's people, as they
took the refreshment of beer on the coach-box at the neighboring
public-house, after bringing home their lady from the French play,
that there had been another chap hanging about the premises that
evening--a little chap, dressed like a swell.

And now with that perspicuity and ingenuity and enterprise which only
belongs to a certain passion, Mr. Foker began to dodge Miss Amory
through London, and to appear wherever he could meet her. If Lady
Clavering went to the French play, where her ladyship had a box, Mr.
Foker, whose knowledge of the language, as we have heard, was not
conspicuous, appeared in a stall. He found out where her engagements
were (it is possible that Anatole, his man, was acquainted with Sir
Francis Clavering's gentleman, and so got a sight of her ladyship's
engagement-book), and at many of these evening parties Mr. Foker made
his appearance, to the surprise of the world, and of his mother
especially, whom he ordered to apply for cards to these parties, for
which until now he had shown a supreme contempt. He told the pleased
and unsuspicious lady that he went to parties because it was right for
him to see the world: he told her that he went to the French play
because he wanted to perfect himself in the language, and there was no
such good lesson as a comedy or vaudeville--and when one night the
astonished Lady Agnes saw him stand up and dance, and complimented him
upon his elegance and activity, the mendacious little rogue asserted
that he had learned to dance in Paris, whereas Anatole knew that his
young master used to go off privily to an academy in Brewer-street,
and study there for some hours in the morning. The casino of our
modern days was not invented, or was in its infancy as yet; and
gentlemen of Mr. Foker's time had not the facilities of acquiring the
science of dancing which are enjoyed by our present youth.

Old Pendennis seldom missed going to church. He considered it to be
his duty as a gentleman to patronize the institution of public
worship, and that it was quite a correct thing to be seen in church of
a Sunday. One day it chanced that he and Arthur went thither together:
the latter, who was now in high favor, had been to breakfast with his
uncle, from whose lodging they walked across the Park to a church not
far from Belgrave-square. There was a charity sermon at Saint James's,
as the major knew by the bills posted on the pillars of his parish
church, which probably caused him, for he was a thrifty man, to
forsake it for that day: besides he had other views for himself and
Pen. "We will go to church, sir, across the Park; and then, begad,
we will go to the Claverings' house, and ask them for lunch in a
friendly way. Lady Clavering likes to be asked for lunch, and is
uncommonly kind, and monstrous hospitable."

"I met them at dinner last week, at Lady Agnes Foker's, sir," Pen
said, "and the Begum was very kind indeed. So she was in the country:
so she is every where. But I share your opinion about Miss Amory; one
of your opinions, that is, uncle, for you were changing, the last time
we spoke about her."

"And what do you think of her now?" the elder said.

"I think her the most confounded little flirt in London," Pen
answered, laughing. "She made a tremendous assault upon Harry Foker,
who sat next to her; and to whom she gave all the talk, though I took
her down."

"Bah! Henry Foker is engaged to his cousin, all the world knows it:
not a bad coup of Lady Rosherville's, that. I should say, that the
young man at his father's death, and old Mr. Foker's life's devilish
bad: you know he had a fit, at Arthur's, last year: I should say, that
young Foker won't have less than fourteen thousand a year from the
brewery, besides Logwood and the Norfolk property. I've no pride about
_me_, Pen. I like a man of birth certainly, but dammy, I like a
brewery which brings in a man fourteen thousand a year; hey, Pen? Ha,
ha, that's the sort of man for me. And I recommend you now that you
are _lancéd_ in the world, to stick to fellows of that sort; to
fellows who have a stake in the country, begad."

"Foker sticks to me, sir," Arthur answered. "He has been at our
chambers several times lately. He has asked me to dinner. We are
almost as great friends, as we used to be in our youth: and his talk
is about Blanche Amory from morning till night. I'm sure he's sweet
upon her."

"I'm sure he is engaged to his cousin, and that they will keep the
young man to his bargain," said the major. "The marriages in these
families are affairs of state. Lady Agnes was made to marry old Foker
by the late Lord, although she was notoriously partial to her cousin
who was killed at Albuera afterward, and who saved her life out of the
lake at Drummington. I remember Lady Agnes, sir, an exceedingly fine
woman. But what did she do? of course she married her father's man.
Why, Mr. Foker sate for Drummington till the Reform Bill, and paid
dev'lish well for his seat, too. And you may depend upon this, sir,
that Foker senior, who is a parvenu, and loves a great man, as all
parvenus do, has ambitious views for his son as well as himself, and
that your friend Harry must do as his father bids him Lord bless you!
I've known a hundred cases of love in young men and women: hey, Master
Arthur, do you take me? They kick, sir, they resist, they make a deuce
of a riot and that sort of thing, but they end by listening to
reason, begad."

"Blanche is a dangerous girl, sir," Pen said. "I was smitten with
her myself once, and very far gone, too," he added; "but that is
years ago."

"Were you? How far did it go? Did she return it?" asked the major,
looking hard at Pen.

Pen, with a laugh, said "that at one time he did think he was pretty
well in Miss Amory's good graces. But my mother did not like her, and
the affair went off." Pen did not think it fit to tell his uncle all
the particulars of that courtship which had passed between himself and
the young lady.

"A man might go farther and fare worse, Arthur," the major said, still
looking queerly at his nephew.

"Her birth, sir; her father was the mate of a ship, they say; and she
has not money enough," objected Pen, in a dandyfied manner. "What's
ten thousand pound and a girl bred up like her?"

"You use my own words, and it is all very well. But, I tell you in
confidence, Pen--in strict honor, mind--that it's my belief she has a
devilish deal more than ten thousand pound: and from what I saw of her
the other day, and--and have heard of her--I should say she was a
devilish accomplished, clever girl: and would make a good wife with a
sensible husband."

"How do you know about her money?" Pen asked, smiling. "You seem to
have information about every body, and to know about all the town."

"I do know a few things, sir, and I don't tell all I know. Mark that,"
the uncle replied. "And as for that charming Miss Amory--for
charming, begad! she is--if I saw her Mrs. Arthur Pendennis, I should
neither be sorry nor surprised, begad! and if you object to ten
thousand pound, what would you say, sir, to thirty, or forty, or
fifty?" and the major looked still more knowingly, and still harder
at Pen.

"Well, sir," he said, to his godfather and namesake, "make her Mrs.
Arthur Pendennis. You can do it as well as I."

"Psha! you are laughing at me, sir," the other replied, rather
peevishly, and you ought not to laugh so near a church gate. "Here we
are at St. Benedict's. They say Mr. Oriel is a beautiful preacher."

Indeed, the bells were tolling, the people were trooping into the
handsome church, the carriages of the inhabitants of the lordly
quarter poured forth their pretty loads of devotees, in whose company
Pen and his uncle, ending their edifying conversation, entered the
fane. I do not know whether other people carry their worldly affairs
to the church door. Arthur, who, from habitual reverence and feeling,
was always more than respectful in a place of worship, thought of the
incongruity of their talk, perhaps; while the old gentleman at his
side was utterly unconscious of any such contrast. His hat was
brushed: his wig was trim: his neckcloth was perfectly tied. He looked
at every soul in the congregation, it is true: the bald heads and the
bonnets, the flowers and the feathers: but so demurely that he hardly
lifted up his eyes from his book--from his book which he could not
read without glasses. As for Pen's gravity, it was sorely put to the
test when, upon looking by chance toward the seats where the servants
were collected, he spied out, by the side of a demure gentleman in
plush, Henry Foker, Esquire, who had discovered this place of
devotion. Following the direction of Harry's eye, which strayed a good
deal from his book, Pen found that it alighted upon a yellow bonnet
and a pink one: and that these bonnets were on the heads of Lady
Clavering and Blanche Amory. If Pen's uncle is not the only man who
has talked about his worldly affairs up to the church door, is poor
Harry Foker the only one who has brought his worldly love into
the aisle?

[Illustration]

When the congregation issued forth at the conclusion of the service,
Foker was out among the first, but Pen came up with him presently, as
he was hankering about the entrance which he was unwilling to leave,
until my lady's barouche, with the bewigged coachman, had borne away
its mistress and her daughter from their devotions.

When the two ladies came out, they found together the Pendennises,
uncle and nephew, and Harry Foker, Esquire, sucking the crook of his
stick, standing there in the sunshine. To see and to ask to eat were
simultaneous with the good-natured Begum, and she invited the three
gentlemen to luncheon straightway.

Blanche was, too, particularly gracious. "O! do come," she said to
Arthur, "if you are not too great a man. I want so to talk to you
about--but we mustn't say what, _here_, you know. What would Mr.
Oriel say?" And the young devotee jumped into the carriage after her
mamma. "I've read every word of it. It's _adorable_," she added, still
addressing herself to Pen.

"I know _who_ is," said Mr. Arthur, making rather a pert bow.

"What's the row about?" asked Mr. Foker, rather puzzled.

"I suppose Miss Amory means 'Walter Lorraine,'" said the major,
looking knowing, and nodding at Pen.

"I suppose so, sir. There was a famous review in the Pall Mall this
morning. It was Warrington's doing, though, and I must not be
too proud."

"A review in Pall Mall?--Walter Lorraine? What the doose do you mean?"
Foker asked. "Walter Lorraine died of the measles, poor little
beggar, when we were at Gray Friars. I remember his mother coming up."

"You are not a literary man, Foker," Pen said, laughing, and hooking
his arm into his friend's. "You must know I have been writing a novel,
and some of the papers have spoken very well of it. Perhaps you don't
read the Sunday papers?"

"I read Bell's Life regular, old boy," Mr. Foker answered: at which
Pen laughed again, and the three gentlemen proceeded in great good-humor
to Lady Clavering's house.

The subject of the novel was resumed after luncheon by Miss Amory, who
indeed loved poets and men of letters if she loved any thing, and was
sincerely an artist in feeling. "Some of the passages in the book made
me cry, positively they did," she said.

Pen said, with some fatuity, "I am happy to think I have a part of
_vos larmes_, Miss Blanche"--And the major (who had not read more than
six pages of Pen's book) put on his sanctified look, saying, "Yes,
there are some passages quite affecting, mons'ous affecting:
and,"--"O, if it makes you cry,"--Lady Amory declared she would not
read it, "that she wouldn't."

"Don't, mamma," Blanche said, with a French shrug of her shoulders;
and then she fell into a rhapsody about the book, about the snatches
of poetry interspersed in it, about the two heroines, Leonora and
Neaera; about the two heroes, Walter Lorraine and his rival the young
duke--"and what good company you introduce us to," said the young
lady, archly, "_quel ton!_ How much of your life have you passed at
court, and are you a prime minister's son, Mr. Arthur?"

Pen began to laugh--"It is as cheap for a novelist to create a duke as
to make a baronet," he said. "Shall I tell you a secret, Miss Amory? I
promoted all my characters at the request of the publisher. The young
duke was only a young baron when the novel was first written; his
false friend the viscount, was a simple commoner, and so on with all
the characters of the story."

"What a wicked, satirical, pert young man you have become! _Comme vous
voilà formé!_" said the young lady, "How different from Arthur
Pendennis of the country! Ah! I think I like Arthur Pendennis of the
country best, though!" and she gave him the full benefit of her
eyes--both of the fond, appealing glance into his own, and of the
modest look downward toward the carpet, which showed off her dark
eyelids and long fringed lashes.

Pen of course protested that he had not changed in the least, to which
the young lady replied by a tender sigh; and thinking that she had
done quite enough to make Arthur happy or miserable (as the case might
be), she proceeded to cajole his companion, Mr. Harry Foker, who
during the literary conversation had sate silently imbibing the head
of his cane, and wishing that he was a clever chap, like that Pen.

If the major thought that by telling Miss Amory of Mr. Foker's
engagement to his cousin, Lady Ann Milton (which information the old
gentleman neatly conveyed to the girl as he sate by her side at
luncheon below stairs)--if, we say, the major thought that the
knowledge of this fact would prevent Blanche from paying any further
attention to the young heir of Foker's Entire, he was entirely
mistaken. She became only the more gracious to Foker: she praised him,
and every thing belonging to him; she praised his mamma; she praised
the pony which he rode in the Park; she praised the lovely breloques
or gimcracks which the young gentleman wore at his watch-chain, and
that dear little darling of a cane, and those dear little delicious
monkeys' heads with ruby eyes, which ornamented Harry's shirt, and
formed the buttons of his waistcoat. And then, having praised and
coaxed the weak youth until he blushed and tingled with pleasure, and
until Pen thought she really had gone quite far enough, she took
another theme.

"I am afraid Mr. Foker is a very sad young man," she said, turning
round to Pen.

"He does not look so," Pen answered with a sneer.

"I mean we have heard sad stories about him. Haven't we, mamma? What
was Mr. Poyntz saying here, the other day, about that party at
Richmond? O you naughty creature!" But here, seeing that Harry's
countenance assumed a great expression of alarm, while Pen's wore a
look of amusement, she turned to the latter and said, "I believe you
are just as bad: I believe you would have liked to have been
there--wouldn't you? I know you would: yes--and so should I."

"Lor, Blanche!" mamma cried.

"Well, I would. I never saw an actress in my life. I would give any
thing to know one; for I adore talent. And I adore Richmond, that I
do; and I adore Greenwich, and I say I _should_ like to go there."

"Why should not we three bachelors," the major here broke out,
gallantly, and to his nephew's special surprise, "beg these ladies to
honor us with their company at Greenwich? Is Lady Clavering to go on
forever being hospitable to us, and may we make no return? Speak for
yourselves young men--eh, begad! Here is my nephew, with his pockets
full of money--his pockets full, begad! and Mr. Henry Foker, who as I
have heard say is pretty well to do in the world, how is your lovely
cousin, Lady Ann, Mr. Foker?--here are these two young ones--and they
allow an old fellow like me to speak. Lady Clavering will you do me
the favor to be my guest? and Miss Blanche shall be Arthur's, if she
will be so good."

"O delightful," cried Blanche.

"I like a bit of fun, too," said Lady Clavering; "and we will take
some day when Sir Francis--"

"When Sir Francis dines out--yes mamma," the daughter said, "it will
be charming."

And a charming day it was. The dinner was ordered at Greenwich, and
Foker, though he did not invite Miss Amory, had some delicious
opportunities of conversation with her during the repast, and
afterward on the balcony of their room at the hotel, and again during
the drive home in her ladyship's barouche. Pen came down with his
uncle, in Sir Hugh Trumpington's brougham, which the major borrowed
for the occasion.

"I am an old soldier, begad," he said, "and I learned in early life to
make myself comfortable."

And, being an old soldier, he allowed the two young men to pay for the
dinner between them, and all the way home in the brougham he rallied
Pen about Miss Amory's evident partiality for him: praised her good
looks, spirits, and wit: and again told Pen in the strictest
confidence, that she would be a devilish deal richer than people
thought.



CHAPTER III.

CONTAINS A NOVEL INCIDENT.


[Illustration]

Some account has been given in a former part of this story, how Mr.
Pen, during his residence at home, after his defeat at Oxbridge, had
occupied himself with various literary compositions, and among other
works, had written the greater part of a novel. This book, written
under the influence of his youthful embarrassments, amatory and
pecuniary, was of a very fierce, gloomy and passionate sort--the
Byronic despair, the Wertherian despondency, the mocking bitterness of
Mephistopheles of Faust, were all reproduced and developed in the
character of the hero; for our youth had just been learning the German
language, and imitated, as almost all clever lads do, his favorite
poets and writers. Passages in the volumes once so loved, and now read
so seldom, still bear the mark of the pencil with which he noted them
in those days. Tears fell upon the leaf of the book, perhaps, or
blistered the pages of his manuscript as the passionate young man
dashed his thoughts down. If he took up the books afterward, he had no
ability or wish to sprinkle the leaves with that early dew of former
times: his pencil was no longer eager to score its marks of approval:
but as he looked over the pages of his manuscript, he remembered what
had been the overflowing feelings which had caused him to blot it, and
the pain which had inspired the line. If the secret history of books
could be written, and the author's private thoughts and meanings noted
down alongside of his story, how many insipid volumes would become
interesting, and dull tales excite the reader! Many a bitter smile
passed over Pen's face as he read his novel, and recalled the time and
feelings which gave it birth. How pompous some of the grand passages
appeared; and how weak others were in which he thought he had
expressed his full heart! This page was imitated from a then favorite
author, as he could now clearly see and confess, though he had
believed himself to be writing originally then. As he mused over
certain lines he recollected the place and hour where he wrote them:
the ghost of the dead feeling came back as he mused, and he blushed to
review the faint image. And what meant those blots on the page? As you
come in the desert to a ground where camels' hoofs are marked in the
clay, and traces of withered herbage are yet visible, you know that
water was there once; so the place in Pen's mind was no longer green,
and the fons lacrymarum was dried up.

He used this simile one morning to Warrington, as the latter sate over
his pipe and book, and Pen, with much gesticulation, according to his
wont when excited, and with a bitter laugh, thumped his manuscript
down on the table, making the tea-things rattle, and the blue milk
dance in the jug. On the previous night he had taken the manuscript
out of a long neglected chest, containing old shooting jackets, old
Oxbridge scribbling books, his old surplice, and battered cap and
gown, and other memorials of youth, school, and home. He read in the
volume in bed until he fell asleep, for the commencement of the tale
was somewhat dull, and he had come home tired from a London
evening party.

"By Jove!" said Pen, thumping down his papers, "when I think that
these were written but very few years ago, I am ashamed of my memory.
I wrote this when I believed myself to be eternally in love with that
little coquette, Miss Amory. I used to carry down verses to her, and
put them into the hollow of a tree, and dedicate them 'Amori.'"

"That was a sweet little play upon words," Warrington remarked, with a
puff "Amory--Amori. It showed profound scholarship. Let us hear a bit
of the rubbish." And he stretched over from his easy chair, and caught
hold of Pen's manuscript with the fire-tongs, which he was just using
in order to put a coal into his pipe. Thus, in possession of the
volume, he began to read out from the "Leaves from the Life-book of
Walter Lorraine."

"'False as thou art beautiful! heartless as thou art fair! mockery of
Passion!' Walter cried, addressing Leonora; 'what evil spirit hath
sent thee to torture me so? O Leonora * * * '"

"Cut that part," cried out Pen, making a dash at the book, which,
however, his comrade would not release. "Well! don't read it out, at
any rate. That's about my other flame, my first--Lady Mirabel that is
now. I saw her last night at Lady Whiston's. She asked me to a party
at her house, and said, that, as old friends, we ought to meet
oftener. She has been seeing me any time these two years in town, and
never thought of inviting me before; but seeing Wenham talking to me,
and Monsieur Dubois, the French literary man, who had a dozen orders
on, and might have passed for a Marshal of France, she condescended to
invite me. The Claverings are to be there on the same evening. Won't
it be exciting to meet one's two flames at the same table?" "Two
flames!--two heaps of burnt-out cinders," Warrington said. "Are both
the beauties in this book?"

"Both or something like them," Pen said. "Leonora, who marries the
duke, is the Fotheringay. I drew the duke from Magnus Charters, with
whom I was at Oxbridge; it's a little like him; and Miss Amory is
Neaera. By gad, Warrington, I did love that first woman! I thought of
her as I walked home from Lady Whiston's in the moonlight; and the
whole early scenes came back to me as if they had been yesterday. And
when I got home I pulled out the story which I wrote about her and the
other three years ago: do you know, outrageous as it is, it has some
good stuff in it, and if Bungay won't publish it, I think Bacon will."

"That's the way of poets," said Warrington. "They fall in love, jilt,
or are jilted; they suffer, and they cry out that they suffer more
than any other mortals: and when they have experienced feelings
enough, they note them down in a book, and take the book to market.
All poets are humbugs, all literary men are humbugs; directly a man
begins to sell his feelings for money he's a humbug. If a poet gets a
pain in his side from too good a dinner, he bellows Ai, Ai, louder
than Prometheus."

"I suppose a poet has greater sensibility than another man," said Pen,
with some spirit. "That is what makes him a poet. I suppose that he
sees and feels more keenly: it is that which makes him speak of what
he feels and sees. You speak eagerly enough in your leading articles
when you espy a false argument in an opponent, or detect a quack in
the House. Paley, who does not care for any thing else in the world,
will talk for an hour about a question of law. Give another the
privilege which you take yourself, and the free use of his faculty,
and let him be what nature has made him. Why should not a man sell his
sentimental thoughts as well as you your political ideas, or Paley his
legal knowledge? Each alike is a matter of experience and practice. It
is not money which causes you to perceive a fallacy, or Paley to argue
a point; but a natural or acquired aptitude for that kind of truth:
and a poet sets down his thoughts and experiences upon paper as a
painter does a landscape or a face upon canvas, to the best of his
ability, and according to his particular gift. If ever I think I have
the stuff in me to write an epic, by Jove, I will try. If I only feel
that I am good enough to crack a joke or tell a story, I will
do that."

"Not a bad speech, young one," Warrington said, "but that does not
prevent all poets from being humbugs."

"What--Homer, Aeschylus, Shakspeare, and all?"

"Their names are not to be breathed in the same sentence with you
pigmies," Mr. Warrington said; "there are men and men, sir."

"Well, Shakspeare was a man who wrote for money, just as you and I
do," Pen answered, at which Warrington confounded his impudence, and
resumed his pipe and his manuscript.

There was not the slightest doubt then that this document contained a
great deal of Pen's personal experiences, and that "Leaves from the
Life-book of Walter Lorraine" would never have been written but for
Arthur Pendennis's own private griefs, passions, and follies. As we
have become acquainted with these in the first volume of his
biography, it will not be necessary to make large extracts from the
novel of "Walter Lorraine," in which the young gentleman had depicted
such of them as he thought were likely to interest the reader, or were
suitable for the purposes of his story.

Now, though he had kept it in his box for nearly half of the period
during which, according to the Horatian maxim, a work of art ought to
lie ripening (a maxim, the truth of which may, by the way, be
questioned altogether), Mr. Pen had not buried his novel for this
time, in order that the work might improve, but because he did not
know where else to bestow it, or had no particular desire to see it. A
man who thinks of putting away a composition for ten years before he
shall give it to the world, or exercise his own maturer judgment upon
it, had best be very sure of the original strength and durability of
the work; otherwise, on withdrawing it from its crypt, he may find
that, like small wine, it has lost what flavor it once had, and is
only tasteless when opened. There are works of all tastes and smacks,
the small and the strong, those that improve by age, and those that
won't bear keeping at all, but are pleasant at the first draught, when
they refresh and sparkle.

Now Pen had never any notion, even in the time of his youthful
inexperience and fervor of imagination, that the story he was writing
was a masterpiece of composition, or that he was the equal of the
great authors whom he admired; and when he now reviewed his little
performance, he was keenly enough alive to its faults, and pretty
modest regarding its merits. It was not very good, he thought; but it
was as good as most books of the kind that had the run of circulating
libraries and the career of the season. He had critically examined
more than one fashionable novel by the authors of the day then
popular, and he thought that his intellect was as good as theirs, and
that he could write the English language as well as those ladies or
gentlemen; and as he now ran over his early performance, he was
pleased to find here and there passages exhibiting both fancy and
vigor, and traits, if not of genius, of genuine passion and feeling.
This, too, was Warrington's verdict, when that severe critic, after
half-an-hour's perusal of the manuscript, and the consumption of a
couple of pipes of tobacco, laid Pen's book down, yawning
portentously. "I can't read any more of that balderdash now," he said;
"but it seems to me there is some good stuff in it, Pen, my boy.
There's a certain greenness and freshness in it which I like, somehow.
The bloom disappears off the face of poetry after you begin to shave.
You can't get up that naturalness and artless rosy tint in after days.
Your cheeks are pale, and have got faded by exposure to evening
parties, and you are obliged to take curling-irons, and macassar, and
the deuce knows what to your whiskers; they curl ambrosially, and you
are very grand and genteel, and so forth; but, ah! Pen, the spring
time was the best."

"What the deuce have my whiskers to do with the subject in hand?" Pen
said (who, perhaps, may have been nettled by Warrington's allusion
to those ornaments, which, to say the truth, the young man coaxed, and
curled, and oiled, and purfumed, and petted, in rather an
absurd manner).

"Do you think we can do any thing with 'Walter Lorraine?' Shall we
take him to the publishers, or make an _auto-da-fe_ of him?"

"I don't see what is the good of incremation," Warrington said,
"though I have a great mind to put him into the fire, to punish your
atrocious humbug and hypocrisy. Shall I burn him indeed? You have much
too great a value for him to hurt a hair of his head."

[Illustration]

"Have I? Here goes," said Pen, and "Walter Lorraine" went off the
table, and was flung on to the coals. But the fire having done its
duty of boiling the young man's breakfast-kettle, had given up work
for the day, and had gone out, as Pen knew very well; and Warrington,
with a scornful smile, once more took up the manuscript with the tongs
from out of the harmless cinders.

"O, Pen, what a humbug you are!" Warrington said; "and, what is worst
of all, sir, a clumsy humbug. I saw you look to see that the fire was
out before you sent 'Walter Lorraine' behind the bars. No, we won't
burn him: we will carry him to the Egyptians, and sell him. We will
exchange him away for money, yea, for silver and gold, and for beef
and for liquors, and for tobacco and for raiment. This youth will
fetch some price in the market; for he is a comely lad, though not
over strong; but we will fatten him up, and give him the bath, and
curl his hair, and we will sell him for a hundred piastres to Bacon or
to Bungay. The rubbish is salable enough, sir; and my advice to you is
this: the next time you go home for a holiday, take 'Walter Lorraine'
in your carpet-bag--give him a more modern air, prune away, though
sparingly, some of the green passages, and add a little comedy, and
cheerfulness, and satire, and that sort of thing, and then we'll take
him to market, and sell him. The book is not a wonder of wonders, but
it will do very well."

"Do you think so, Warrington?" said Pen, delighted; for this was great
praise from his cynical friend.

"You silly young fool! I think it's uncommonly clever," Warrington
said in a kind voice. "So do you, sir." And with the manuscript which
he held in his hand he playfully struck Pen on the cheek. That part of
Pen's countenance turned as red as it had ever done in the earliest
days of his blushes: he grasped the other's hand and said, "Thank you,
Warrington," with all his might; and then he retired to his own room
with his book, and passed the greater part of the day upon his bed
re-reading it: and he did as Warrington had advised, and altered not a
little, and added a great deal, until at length he had fashioned
"Walter Lorraine" pretty much into the shape in which, as the
respected novel-reader knows, it subsequently appeared.

While he was at work upon this performance, the good-natured
Warrington artfully inspired the two gentlemen who "read" for Messrs.
Bacon and Bungay with the greatest curiosity regarding, "Walter
Lorraine," and pointed out the peculiar merits of its distinguished
author. It was at the period when the novel, called "The Fashionable,"
was in vogue among us; and Warrington did not fail to point out, as
before, how Pen was a man of the very first fashion himself, and
received at the houses of some of the greatest personages in the land.
The simple and kind-hearted Percy Popjoy was brought to bear upon
Mrs. Bungay, whom he informed that his friend Pendennis was occupied
upon a work of the most exciting nature; a work that the whole town
would run after, full of wit, genius, satire, pathos, and every
conceivable good quality. We have said before, that Bungay knew no
more about novels than he did about Hebrew or Algebra, and neither
read nor understood any of the books which he published and paid for;
but he took his opinions from his professional advisers and from Mrs.
B., and, evidently with a view to a commercial transaction, asked
Pendennis and Warrington to dinner again. Bacon, when he found that
Bungay was about to treat, of course, began to be anxious and curious,
and desired to out-bid his rival. Was any thing settled between Mr.
Pendennis and the odious house "over the way" about the new book? Mr.
Hack, the confidential reader, was told to make inquiries, and see if
any thing was to be done, and the result of the inquiries of that
diplomatist, was, that one morning, Bacon himself toiled up the
staircase of Lamb-court, and to the door on which the names of Mr.
Warrington, and Mr. Pendennis were painted.

For a gentleman of fashion as poor Pen was represented to be, it must
be confessed, that the apartments he and his friend occupied, were not
very suitable. The ragged carpet had grown only more ragged during the
two years of joint occupancy: a constant odor of tobacco perfumed the
sitting-room: Bacon tumbled over the laundress's buckets in the
passage through which he had to pass; Warrington's shooting jacket was
as shattered at the elbows as usual; and the chair which Bacon was
requested to take on entering, broke down with the publisher.
Warrington burst out laughing, said that Bacon had got the game chair,
and bawled out to Pen to fetch a sound one from his bedroom. And
seeing the publisher looking round the dingy room with an air of
profound pity and wonder, asked him whether he didn't think the
apartments were elegant, and if he would like, for Mrs. Bacon's
drawing-room, any of the articles of furniture? Mr. Warrington's
character as a humorist, was known to Mr. Bacon: "I never can make
that chap out," the publisher was heard to say, "or tell whether he is
in earnest or only chaffing."

It is very possible that Mr. Bacon would have set the two gentlemen
down as impostors altogether, but that there chanced to be on the
breakfast-table certain cards of invitation which the post of the
morning had brought in for Pen, and which happened to come from some
very exalted personages of the _beau-monde_, into which our young man
had his introduction. Looking down upon these, Bacon saw that the
Marchioness of Steyne would be at home to Mr. Arthur Pendennis upon a
given day, and that another lady of distinction proposed to have
dancing at her house upon a certain future evening. Warrington saw the
admiring publisher eying these documents. "Ah," said he, with an air
of simplicity, "Pendennis is one of the most affable young men I ever
knew, Mr. Bacon. Here is a young fellow that dines with all the great
men in London, and yet he'll take his mutton-chop with you and me
quite contentedly. There's nothing like the affability of the old
English gentleman."

"O, no, nothing," said Mr. Bacon.

"And you wonder why he should go on living up three pair of stairs
with me, don't you, now? Well, it _is_ a queer taste. But we are fond
of each other; and as I can't afford to live in a grand house, he
comes and stays in these rickety old chambers with me. He's a man that
can afford to live any where."

"I fancy it don't cost him much _here_," thought Mr. Bacon; and the
object of these praises presently entered the room from his adjacent
sleeping apartment.

Then Mr. Bacon began to speak upon the subject of his visit; said he
heard that Mr. Pendennis had a manuscript novel; professed himself
anxious to have a sight of that work, and had no doubt that they could
come to terms respecting it. What would be his price for it? would he
give Bacon the refusal of it? he would find our house a liberal house,
and so forth. The delighted Pen assumed an air of indifference, and
said that he was already in treaty with Bungay, and could give no
definite answer. This piqued the other into such liberal, though vague
offers, that Pen began to fancy Eldorado was opening to him, and that
his fortune was made from that day.

I shall not mention what was the sum of money which Mr. Arthur
Pendennis finally received for the first edition of his novel of
"Walter Lorraine," lest other young literary aspirants should expect
to be as lucky as he was, and unprofessional persons forsake their own
callings, whatever they may be, for the sake of supplying the world
with novels, whereof there is already a sufficiency. Let no young
people be misled and rush fatally into romance-writing: for one book
which succeeds let them remember the many that fail, I do not say
deservedly or otherwise, and wholesomely abstain: or if they venture,
at least let then do so at their own peril. As for those who have
already written novels, this warning is not addressed, of course, to
them. Let them take their wares to market; let them apply to Bacon and
Bungay, and all the publishers in the Row, or the metropolis, and may
they be happy in their ventures. This world is so wide, and the tastes
of mankind happily so various, that there is always a chance for every
man, and he may win the prize by his genius or by his good fortune.
But what is the chance of success or failure; of obtaining popularity,
or of holding it, when achieved? One man goes over the ice, which
bears him, and a score who follow flounder in. In fine, Mr.
Pendennis's was an exceptional case, and applies to himself only: and
I assert solemnly, and will to the last maintain, that it is one thing
to write a novel, and another to get money for it.

By merit, then, or good fortune, or the skillful playing off of Bungay
against Bacon which Warrington performed (and which an amateur
novelist is quite welcome to try upon any two publishers in the
trade), Pen's novel was actually sold for a certain sum of money to
one of the two eminent patrons of letters whom we have introduced to
our readers. The sum was so considerable that Pen thought of opening
an account at a banker's, or of keeping a cab and horse, or of
descending into the first floor of Lamb-court into newly furnished
apartments, or of migrating to the fashionable end of the town.

Major Pendennis advised the latter move strongly; he opened his eyes
with wonder when he heard of the good luck that had befallen Pen; and
which the latter, as soon as it occurred, hastened eagerly to
communicate to his uncle. The major was almost angry that Pen should
have earned so much money. "Who the doose reads this kind of thing?"
he thought to himself, when he heard of the bargain which Pen had
made. "_I_ never read your novels and rubbish. Except Paul de Kock,
who certainly makes me laugh, I don't think I've looked into a book of
the sort these thirty years. 'Gad! Pen's a lucky fellow. I should
think he might write one of these in a month now--say a month--that's
twelve in a year. Dammy, he may go on spinning this nonsense for the
next four or five years, and make a fortune. In the mean time, I
should wish him to live properly, take respectable apartments, and
keep a brougham." And on this simple calculation it was that the major
counseled Pen.

Arthur, laughing, told Warrington what his uncle's advice had been;
but he luckily had a much more reasonable counselor than the old
gentleman, in the person of his friend, and in his own conscience,
which said to him, "Be grateful for this piece of good fortune; don't
plunge into any extravagancies. Pay back Laura!" And he wrote a letter
to her, in which he told her his thanks and his regard; and inclosed
to her such an installment of his debt as nearly wiped it off. The
widow and Laura herself might well be affected by the letter. It was
written with genuine tenderness and modesty; and old Dr. Portman, when
he read a passage in the letter, in which Pen, with an honest heart
full of gratitude, humbly thanked Heaven for his present prosperity,
and for sending him such dear and kind friends to support him in his
ill-fortune,--when Doctor Portman read this portion of the letter,
his voice faltered, and his eyes twinkled behind his spectacles. And
when he had quite finished reading the same, and had taken his glasses
off his nose, and had folded up the paper and given it back to the
widow, I am constrained to say, that after holding Mrs. Pendennis's
hand for a minute, the doctor drew that lady toward him and fairly
kissed her: at which salute, of course, Helen burst out crying on the
doctor's shoulder, for her heart was too full to give any other reply:
and the doctor, blushing a great deal after his feat, led the lady,
with a bow, to the sofa, on which he seated himself by her; and he
mumbled out, in a low voice, some words of a Great Poet whom he loved
very much, and who describes how in the days of his prosperity he had
made "the widow's heart to sing for joy."

"The letter does the boy very great honor, very great honor, my dear,"
he said, patting it as it lay on Helen's knee--"and I think we have
all reason to be thankful for it--very thankful. I need not tell you
in what quarter, my dear, for you are a sainted woman: yes, Laura, my
love, your mother is a sainted woman. And Mrs. Pendennis, ma'am, I
shall order a copy of the book for myself, and another at the
Book club."

We may be sure that the widow and Laura walked out to meet the mail
which brought them their copy of Pen's precious novel, as soon as that
work was printed and ready for delivery to the public; and that they
read it to each other: and that they also read it privately and
separately, for when the widow came out of her room in her
dressing-gown at one o'clock in the morning with volume two, which she
had finished, she found Laura devouring volume three in bed. Laura did
 not say much about the book, but Helen pronounced that it was a
happy mixture of Shakspeare, and Byron, and Walter Scott, and was
quite certain that her son was the greatest genius, as he was the best
son, in the world.

Did Laura not think about the book and the author, although she said
so little? At least she thought about Arthur Pendennis. Kind as his
tone was, it vexed her. She did not like his eagerness to repay that
money. She would rather that her brother had taken her gift as she
intended it; and was pained that there should be money calculations
between them. His letters from London, written with the good-natured
wish to amuse his mother, were full of descriptions of the famous
people and the entertainments, and magnificence of the great city.
Every body was flattering him and spoiling him, she was sure. Was he
not looking to some great marriage, with that cunning uncle for a
Mentor (between whom and Laura there was always an antipathy), that
inveterate worldling, whose whole thoughts were bent upon pleasure,
and rank, and fortune? He never alluded to--to old times, when he
spoke of her. He had forgotten them and her, perhaps: had he not
forgotten other things and people?

These thoughts may have passed in Miss Laura's mind, though she did
not, she could not, confide them to Helen. She had one more secret,
too, from that lady, which she could not divulge, perhaps, because she
knew how the widow would have rejoiced to know it. This regarded an
event which had occurred during that visit to Lady Rockminster, which
Laura had paid in the last Christmas holidays: when Pen was at home
with his mother, and when Mr. Pynsent, supposed to be so cold and so
ambitious, had formally offered his hand to Miss Bell. No one except
herself and her admirer knew of this proposal: or that Pynsent had
been rejected by her, and probably the reasons she gave to the
mortified young man himself, were not those which actuated her
refusal, or those which she chose to acknowledge to herself. "I
never," she told Pynsent, "can accept such an offer as that which you
make me, which you own is unknown to your family, as I am sure it
would be unwelcome to them. The difference of rank between us is too
great. You are very kind to me here--too good and kind, dear Mr.
Pynsent--but I am little better than a dependent."

"A dependent! who ever so thought of you? You are the equal of all the
world," Pynsent broke out.

"I am a dependent at home, too," Laura said, sweetly, "and indeed I
would not be otherwise. Left early a poor orphan, I have found the
kindest and tenderest of mothers, and I have vowed never to leave her
--never. Pray do not speak of this again--here, under your relative's
roof, or elsewhere. It is impossible."

"If Lady Rockminster asks you herself, will you listen to her?"
Pynsent cried, eagerly.

"No," Laura said. "I beg you never to speak of this any more. I must
go away if you do;" and with this she left him.

Pynsent never asked for Lady Rockminster's intercession; he knew how
vain it was to look for that: and he never spoke again on that subject
to Laura or to any person.

When at length the famous novel appeared, it not only met with
applause from more impartial critics than Mrs. Pendennis, but, luckily
for Pen, it suited the taste of the public, and obtained a quick and
considerable popularity. Before two months were over, Pen had the
satisfaction and surprise of seeing the second edition of "Walter
Lorraine," advertised in the newspapers; and enjoyed the pleasure of
reading and sending home the critiques of various literary journals
and reviewers upon his book. Their censure did not much affect him;
for the good-natured young man was disposed to accept with
considerable humility the dispraise of others. Nor did their praise
elate him overmuch; for, like most honest persons, he had his own
opinion about his own performance, and when a critic praised him in
the wrong place, he was hurt rather than pleased by the compliment.
But if a review of his work was very laudatory, it was a great
pleasure to him to send it home to his mother at Fairoaks, and to
think of the joy which it would give there. There are some natures,
and perhaps, as we have said, Pendennis's was one, which are improved
and softened by prosperity and kindness, as there are men of other
dispositions, who become arrogant and graceless under good fortune.
Happy he who can endure one or the other with modesty and good-humor!
Lucky he who has been educated to bear his fate, whatsoever it may be,
by an early example of uprightness, and a childish training in honor!



CHAPTER IV.

ALSATIA.


Bred up, like a bailiff or a shabby attorney, about the purlieus of
the Inns of Court, Shepherd's Inn is always to be found in the close
neighborhood of Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, and the Temple. Somewhere
behind the black gables and smutty chimney-stacks of Wych-street,
Holywell-street, Chancery-lane, the quadrangle lies, hidden from the
outer world; and it is approached by curious passages, and ambiguous
smoky alleys, on which the sun has forgotten to shine. Slop-sellers,
brandy-ball and hard-bake venders, purveyors of theatrical prints for
youth, dealers in dingy furniture, and bedding suggestive of any thing
but sleep, line the narrow walls and dark casements with their wares.
The doors are many-belled, and crowds of dirty children form endless
groups about the steps, or around the shell-fish dealers' trays in
these courts, whereof the damp pavements resound with pattens, and are
drabbled with a never-failing mud. Ballad-singers come and chant here,
in deadly, guttural tones, satirical songs against the Whig
administration, against the bishops and dignified clergy, against the
German relatives of an august royal family; Punch sets up his theater,
sure of an audience, and occasionally of a halfpenny from the swarming
occupants of the houses; women scream after their children for
loitering in the gutter, or, worse still, against the husband who
comes reeling from the gin-shop. There is a ceaseless din and life in
these courts, out of which you pass into the tranquil, old-fashioned
quadrangle of Shepherd's Inn. In a mangy little grass-plat in the
center rises up the statue of Shepherd, defended by iron railings from
the assaults of boys. The hall of the Inn, on which the founder's
arms are painted, occupies one side of the square, the tall and
ancient chambers are carried round other two sides, and over the
central archway, which leads into Oldcastle-street, and so into the
great London thoroughfare.

The Inn may have been occupied by lawyers once: but the laity have
long since been admitted into its precincts, and I do not know that
any of the principal legal firms have their chambers here. The offices
of the Polwheedle and Tredyddlum Copper Mines occupy one set of the
ground-floor chambers; the Registry of Patent Inventions and Union of
Genius and Capital Company, another--the only gentleman whose name
figures here and in the "Law List," is Mr. Campion, who wears
mustaches, and who comes in his cab twice or thrice in a week; and
whose West End offices are in Curzon-street, Mayfair, where Mrs.
Campion entertains the nobility and gentry to whom her husband lends
money. There, and on his glazed cards, he is Mr. Somerset Campion;
here he is Campion and Co.; and the same tuft which ornaments his
chin, sprouts from the under lip of the rest of the firm. It is
splendid to see his cab-horse harness blazing with heraldic bearings,
as the vehicle stops at the door leading to his chambers. The horse
flings froth off his nostrils as he chafes and tosses under the
shining bit. The reins and the breeches of the groom are glittering
white--the luster of that equipage makes a sunshine in that
shady place.

Our old friend, Captain Costigan, has examined Campion's cab and horse
many an afternoon, as he trailed about the court in his carpet
slippers and dressing-gown, with his old hat cocked over his eye. He
suns himself there after his breakfast when the day is suitable; and
goes and pays a visit to the porter's lodge, where he pats the heads
of the children, and talks to Mrs. Bolton about the thayatres and me
daughter Leedy Mirabel. Mrs. Bolton was herself in the profession
once, and danced at the Wells in early days as the thirteenth of Mr.
Serle's forty pupils.

Costigan lives in the third floor at No. 4, in the rooms which were
Mr. Podmore's, and whose name is still on the door (somebody else's
name, by the way, is on almost all the doors in Shepherd's Inn). When
Charley Podmore (the pleasing tenor singer, T.R.D.L., and at the
Back-Kitchen Concert Rooms), married, and went to live at Lambeth, he
ceded his chambers to Mr. Bows and Captain Costigan, who occupy them
in common now, and you may often hear the tones of Mr. Bows's piano of
fine days when the windows are open, and when he is practicing for
amusement, or for the instruction of a theatrical pupil, of whom he
has one or two. Fanny Bolton is one, the porteress's daughter, who has
heard tell of her mother's theatrical glories, which she longs to
emulate. She has a good voice and a pretty face and figure for the
stage; and she prepares the rooms and makes the beds and breakfasts
for Messrs. Costigan and Bows, in return for which the latter
instructs her in music and singing. But for his unfortunate propensity
to liquor (and in that excess she supposes that all men of fashion
indulge), she thinks the captain the finest gentleman in the world,
and believes in all the versions of all his stories; and she is very
fond of Mr. Bows, too, and very grateful to him; and this shy, queer
old gentleman has a fatherly fondness for her, too, for in truth his
heart is full of kindness, and he is never easy unless he
loves somebody.

[Illustration]

Costigan has had the carriages of visitors of distinction before his
humble door in Shepherd's Inn: and to hear him talk of a morning (for
his evening song is of a much more melancholy nature) you would fancy
that Sir Charles and Lady Mirabel were in the constant habit of
calling at his chambers, and bringing with them the select nobility to
visit the "old man, the honest old half-pay captain, poor old Jack
Costigan," as Cos calls himself.

The truth is, that Lady Mirabel has left her husband's card (which has
been stuck in the little looking-glass over the mantle-piece of the
sitting-room at No. 4, for these many months past), and has come in
person to see her father, but not of late days. A kind person,
disposed to discharge her duties gravely, upon her marriage with Sir
Charles, she settled a little pension upon her father, who
occasionally was admitted to the table of his daughter and son-in-law.
At first poor Cos's behavior "in the hoight of poloit societee," as he
denominated Lady Mirabel's drawing-room table, was harmless, if it was
absurd. As he clothed his person in his best attire, so he selected
the longest and richest words in his vocabulary to deck his
conversation, and adopted a solemnity of demeanor which struck with
astonishment all those persons in whose company he happened to be.
"Was your Leedyship in the Pork to-dee?" he would demand of his
daughter. "I looked for your equipage in veen:--the poor old man was
not gratified by the soight of his daughter's choriot. Sir Chorlus, I
saw your neem at the Levée; many's the Levee at the Castle at Dublin
that poor old Jack Costigan has attended in his time. Did the Juke
look pretty well? Bedad, I'll call at Apsley House and lave me cyard
upon 'um. I thank ye, James, a little dthrop more champeane." Indeed,
he was magnificent in his courtesy to all, and addressed his
observations not only to the master and the guests, but to the
domestics who waited at the table, and who had some difficulty in
maintaining their professional gravity while they waited on
Captain Costigan.

On the first two or three visits to his son-in-law, Costigan
maintained a strict sobriety, content to make up for his lost time
when he got to the Back-Kitchen, where he bragged about his
son-in-law's clart and burgundee, until his own utterance began to
fail him, over his sixth tumbler of whiskey-punch. But with
familiarity his caution vanished, and poor Cos lamentably disgraced
himself at Sir Charles Mirabel's table, by premature inebriation. A
carriage was called for him: the hospitable door was shut upon him.
Often and sadly did he speak to his friends at the Kitchen of his
resemblance to King Lear in the plee--of his having a thankless
choild, bedad--of his being a pore worn-out, lonely old man, dthriven
to dthrinking by ingratitude, and seeking to dthrown his sorrows
in punch.

It is painful to be obliged to record the weaknesses of fathers, but
it must be furthermore told of Costigan, that when his credit was
exhausted and his money gone, he would not unfrequently beg money from
his daughter, and make statements to her not altogether consistent
with strict truth. On one day a bailiff was about to lead him to
prison, he wrote, "unless the--to you insignificant--sum of three
pound five can be forthcoming to liberate a poor man's gray hairs from
jail." And the good-natured Lady Mirabel dispatched the money
necessary for her father's liberation, with a caution to him to be
more economical for the future. On a second occasion the captain met
with a frightful accident, and broke a plate-glass window in the
Strand, for which the proprietor of the shop held him liable. The
money was forthcoming on this time too, to repair her papa's disaster,
and was carried down by Lady Mirabel's servant to the slip-shod
messenger and aid-de-camp of the captain, who brought the letter
announcing his mishap. If the servant had followed the captain's
aid-de-camp who carried the remittance, he would have seen that
gentleman, a person of Costigan's country too (for have we not said,
that however poor an Irish gentleman is, he always has a poorer Irish
gentleman to run on his errands and transact his pecuniary affairs?)
call a cab from the nearest stand, and rattle down to the Roscius's
Head, Harlequin-yard, Drury-lane, where the captain was indeed in
pawn, and for several glasses containing rum and water, or other
spirituous refreshment, of which he and his staff had partaken. On a
third melancholy occasion he wrote that he was attacked by illness,
and wanted money to pay the physician whom he was compelled to call
in; and this time Lady Mirabel, alarmed about her father's safety, and
perhaps reproaching herself that she had of late lost sight of her
father, called for her carriage and drove to Shepherd's Inn, at the
gate of which she alighted, whence she found the way to her father's
chambers, "No. 4, third floor, name of Podmore over the door," the
porteress said, with many courtesies, pointing toward the door of the
house into which the affectionate daughter entered, and mounted the
dingy stair. Alas! the door, surmounted by the name of Podmore, was
opened to her by poor Cos in his shirt-sleeves, and prepared with the
gridiron to receive the mutton-chops, which Mrs. Bolton had gone
to purchase.

Also, it was not pleasant for Sir Charles Mirabel to have letters
constantly addressed to him at Brookes's, with the information that
Captain Costigan was in the hall waiting for an answer; or when he
went to play his rubber at the Travelers', to be obliged to shoot out
of his brougham and run up the steps rapidly, lest his father-in-law
should seize upon him; and to think that while he read his paper or
played his whist, the captain was walking on the opposite side of Pall
Mall, with that dreadful cocked hat, and the eye beneath it fixed
steadily upon the windows of the club. Sir Charles was a weak man; he
was old, and had many infirmities: he cried about his father-in-law to
his wife, whom he adored with senile infatuation: he said he must go
abroad--he must go and live in the country--he should die, or have
another fit if he saw that man again--he knew he should. And it was
only by paying a second visit to Captain Costigan, and representing to
him, that if he plagued Sir Charles by letters, or addressed him in
the street, or made any further applications for loans, his allowance
would be withdrawn altogether; that Lady Mirabel was enabled to keep
her papa in order, and to restore tranquillity to her husband. And on
occasion of this visit, she sternly rebuked Bows for not keeping a
better watch over the captain; desired that he should not be allowed
to drink in that shameful way; and that the people at the horrid
taverns which he frequented should be told, upon no account to give
him credit. "Papa's conduct is bringing me to the grave," she said
(though she looked perfectly healthy), "and you, as an old man, Mr.
Bows, and one that pretended to have a regard for us, ought to be
ashamed of abetting him in it." These were the thanks which honest
Bows got for his friendship and his life's devotion. And I do not
suppose that the old philosopher was much worse off than many other
men, or had greater reason to grumble. On the second floor of the
next house to Bows's, in Shepherd's Inn, at No. 3, live two other
acquaintances of ours. Colonel Altamont, agent to the Nawaab of
Lucknow, and Captain the Chevalier Edward Strong. No name at all is
over their door. The captain does not choose to let all the world know
where he lives, and his cards bear the address of a Jermyn-street
hotel; and as for the Embassador Plenipotentiary of the Indian
potentate, he is not an envoy accredited to the Courts of St. James's
or Leadenhall-street, but is here on a confidential mission, quite
independent of the East India Company or the Board of Control.

"In fact," as Strong says, "Colonel Altamont's object being financial,
and to effectuate a sale of some of the principal diamonds and rubies
of the Lucknow crown, his wish is _not_ to report himself at the India
House or in Cannon-row, but rather to negotiate with private
capitalists--with whom he has had important transactions both in this
country and on the Continent."

We have said that these anonymous chambers of Strong's had been very
comfortably furnished since the arrival of Sir Francis Clavering in
London, and the chevalier might boast with reason to the friends who
visited him, that few retired captains were more snugly quartered than
he, in his crib in Shepherd's Inn. There were three rooms below: the
office where Strong transacted his business--whatever that might
be--and where still remained the desk and railings of the departed
officials who had preceded him, and the chevalier's own bedroom and
sitting room; and a private stair led out of the office to two upper
apartments, the one occupied by Colonel Altamont, and the other
serving as the kitchen of the establishment, and the bedroom of Mr.
Grady, the attendant. These rooms were on a level with the apartments
of our friends Bows and Costigan next door at No. 4; and by reaching
over the communicating leads, Grady could command the mignonnette-box
which bloomed in Bows's window.

From Grady's kitchen casement often came odors still more fragrant.
The three old soldiers who formed the garrison of No. 4, were all
skilled in the culinary art. Grady was great at an Irish stew; the
colonel was famous for pillaus and curries; and as for Strong, he
could cook any thing. He made French dishes and Spanish dishes, stews,
fricassees, and omelettes, to perfection; nor was there any man in
England more hospitable than he when his purse was full, or his credit
was good. At those happy periods, he could give a friend, as he said,
a good dinner, a good glass of wine, and a good song afterward; and
poor Cos often heard with envy the roar of Strong's choruses, and the
musical clinking of the glasses as he sate in his own room, so far
removed and yet so near to those festivities. It was not expedient to
invite Mr. Costigan always; his practice of inebriation was
lamentable; and he bored Strong's guests with his stories when sober,
and with his maudlin tears when drunk.

A strange and motley set they were, these friends of the chevalier;
and though Major Pendennis would not much have relished their company,
Arthur and Warrington liked it not a little, and Pen thought it
as amusing as the society of the finest gentlemen in the finest houses
which he had the honor to frequent. There was a history about every
man of the set: they seemed all to have had their tides of luck and
bad fortune. Most of them had wonderful schemes and speculations in
their pockets, and plenty for making rapid and extraordinary fortunes.
Jack Holt had been in Don Carlos's army, when Ned Strong had fought on
the other side; and was now organizing a little scheme for smuggling
tobacco into London, which must bring thirty thousand a year to any
man who would advance fifteen hundred, just to bribe the last officer
of the Excise who held out, and had wind of the scheme. Tom Diver, who
had been in the Mexican navy, knew of a specie-ship which had been
sunk in the first year of the war, with three hundred and eighty
thousand dollars on board, and a hundred and eighty thousand pounds in
bars and doubloons. "Give me eighteen hundred pounds," Tom said, "and
I'm off tomorrow. I take out four men, and a diving-bell with me; and
I return in ten months to take my seat in parliament, by Jove! and to
buy back my family estate." Keightley, the manager of the Tredyddlum
and Polwheedle Copper Mines (which were as yet under water), besides
singing as good a second as any professional man, and besides the
Tredyddlum Office, had a Smyrna Sponge Company, and a little
quicksilver operation in view, which would set him straight with the
world yet. Filby had been every thing: a corporal of dragoons, a
field-preacher, and missionary-agent for converting the Irish; an
actor at a Greenwich fair-booth, in front of which his father's
attorney found him when the old gentleman died and left him that
famous property, from which he got no rents now, and of which nobody
exactly knew the situation. Added to these was Sir Francis Clavering,
Bart., who liked their society, though he did not much add to its
amusements by his convivial powers. But he was made much of by the
company now, on account of his wealth and position in the world. He
told his little story and sang his little song or two with great
affability; and he had had his own history, too, before his accession
to good fortune; and had seen the inside of more prisons than one, and
written his name on many a stamped paper.

When Altamont first returned from Paris, and after he had communicated
with Sir Francis Clavering from the hotel at which he had taken up his
quarters (and which he had reached in a very denuded state,
considering the wealth of diamonds and rubies with which this honest
man was intrusted), Strong was sent to him by his patron the baronet;
paid his little bill at the inn, and invited him to come and sleep for
a night or two at the chambers, where he subsequently took up his
residence. To negotiate with this man was very well, but to have such
a person settled in his rooms, and to be constantly burdened with such
society, did not suit the chevalier's taste much: and he grumbled not
a little to his principal.

"I wish you would put this bear into somebody else's cage," he said to
Clavering. "The fellow's no gentleman. I don't like walking with
him. He dresses himself like a nigger on a holiday. I took him to the
play the other night: and, by Jove, sir, he abused the actor who was
doing the part of villain in the play, and swore at him so, that the
people in the boxes wanted to turn him out. The after-piece was the
'Brigand,' where Wallack comes in wounded, you know, and dies. When he
died, Altamont began to cry like a child, and said it was a d--d
shame, and cried and swore so, that there was another row, and every
body laughing. Then I had to take him away, because he wanted to take
his coat off to one fellow who laughed at him; and bellowed to him to
stand up like a man. Who is he? Where the deuce does he come from? You
had best tell me the whole story. Frank, you must one day. You and he
have robbed a church together, that's my belief. You had better get it
off your mind at once, Clavering, and tell me what this Altamont is,
and what hold he has over you."

"Hang him! I wish he was dead!" was the baronet's only reply; and his
countenance became so gloomy, that Strong did not think fit to
question his patron any further at that time; but resolved, if need
were, to try and discover for himself what was the secret tie between
Altamont and Clavering.



CHAPTER V.

IN WHICH THE COLONEL NARRATES SOME OF HIS ADVENTURES.


Early in the forenoon of the day after the dinner in Grosvenor-place,
at which Colonel Altamont had chosen to appear, the colonel emerged
from his chamber in the upper story at Shepherd's Inn, and entered
into Strong's sitting-room, where the chevalier sat in his easy-chair
with the newspaper and his cigar. He was a man who made his tent
comfortable wherever he pitched it, and long before Altamont's
arrival, had done justice to a copious breakfast of fried eggs and
broiled rashers, which Mr. Grady had prepared _secundum artem_.
Good-humored and talkative, he preferred any company rather than none;
and though he had not the least liking for his fellow-lodger, and
would not have grieved to hear that the accident had befallen him
which Sir Francis Clavering desired so fervently, yet kept on fair
terms with him. He had seen Altamont to bed with great friendliness on
the night previous, and taken away his candle for fear of accidents;
and finding a spirit-bottle empty, upon which he had counted for his
nocturnal refreshment, had drunk a glass of water with perfect
contentment over his pipe, before he turned into his own crib and to
sleep. That enjoyment never failed him: he had always an easy temper,
a faultless digestion, and a rosy cheek; and whether he was going into
action the next morning or to prison (and both had been his lot), in
the camp or the Fleet, the worthy captain snored healthfully through
the night, and woke with a good heart and appetite, for the struggles
or difficulties or pleasures of the day.

The first act of Colonel Altamont was to bellow to Grady for a pint of
pale ale, the which he first poured into a pewter flagon, whence he
transferred it to his own lips. He put down the tankard empty, drew
a great breath, wiped his mouth in his dressing-gown (the difference
of the color of his heard from his dyed whiskers had long struck
Captain Strong, who had seen too that his hair was fair under his
black wig, but made no remarks upon these circumstances)--the colonel
drew a great breath, and professed himself immensely refreshed by his
draught. "Nothing like that beer," he remarked, "when the coppers are
hot. Many a day I've drunk a dozen of Bass at Calcutta, and--and--"

"And at Lucknow, I suppose," Strong said with a laugh. "I got the beer
for you on purpose: knew you'd want it after last night." And the
colonel began to talk about his adventures of the preceding evening.

"I can not help myself," the colonel said, beating his head with his
big hand. "I'm a madman when I get the liquor on board me; and ain't
fit to be trusted with a spirit-bottle. When I once begin I can't stop
till I've emptied it; and when I've swallowed it, Lord knows what I
say or what I don't say. I dined at home here quite quiet. Grady gave
me just my two tumblers, and I intended to pass the evening at the
Black and Red as sober as a parson. Why did you leave that confounded
sample-bottle of Hollands out of the cupboard, Strong? Grady must go
out, too, and leave me the kettle a-boiling for tea. It was of no use,
I couldn't keep away from it. Washed it all down, sir, by Jingo. And
it's my belief I had some more, too, afterward at that infernal little
thieves' den."

"What, were you there, too?" Strong asked, "and before you came to
Grosvenor-place? That was beginning betimes."

"Early hours to be drunk and cleared out before nine o'clock, eh? But
so it was. Yes, like a great big fool, I must go there; and found the
fellows dining, Blackland and young Moss, and two or three more of the
thieves. If we'd gone to Rouge et Noir, I must have won. But we didn't
try the black and red. No, hang 'em, they know'd I'd have beat 'em at
that--I must have beat 'em--I can't help beating 'em, I tell you. But
they was too cunning for me. That rascal Blackland got the bones out,
and we played hazard on the dining-table. And I dropped all the money
I had from you in the morning, be hanged to my luck. It was that that
set me wild, and I suppose I must have been very hot about the head,
for I went off thinking to get some more money from Clavering, I
recollect; and then--and then I don't much remember what happened till
I woke this morning, and heard old Bows, at No. 3, playing on
his pianner."

Strong mused for a while as he lighted his cigar with a coal. "I
should like to know how you always draw money from Clavering,
colonel," he said.

The colonel burst out with a laugh, "Ha, ha! he owes it me," he said.

"I don't know that that's a reason with Frank for paying," Strong
answered. "He owes plenty besides you."

"Well, he gives it me because he is so fond of me," the other said,
with the same grinning sneer. "He loves me like a brother; you know
he does, captain. No?--He don't?--Well, perhaps he don't; and if you
ask me no questions, perhaps I'll tell you no lies, Captain
Strong--put that in your pipe and smoke it, my boy."

"But I'll give up that confounded brandy-bottle," the colonel
continued, after a pause. "I must give it up, or it'll be the ruin of
me." "It makes you say queer things," said the captain, looking
Altamont hard in the face. "Remember what you said last night at
Clavering's table."

"Say? What _did_ I say?" asked the other hastily. "Did I split any
thing? Dammy, Strong, did I split any thing?"

"Ask me no questions, and I will tell you no lies," the chevalier
replied on his part. Strong thought of the words Mr. Altamont had
used, and his abrupt departure from the baronet's dining-table and
house as soon as he recognized Major Pendennis, or Captain Beak, as he
called the major. But Strong resolved to seek an explanation of these
words otherwise than from Colonel Altamont, and did not choose to
recall them to the other's memory. "No," he said then, "you didn't
split as you call it, colonel; it was only a trap of mine to see if I
could make you speak; but you didn't say a word that any body could
comprehend--you were too far gone for that."

So much the better, Altamont thought; and heaved a great sigh, as if
relieved. Strong remarked the emotion, but took no notice, and the
other being in a communicative mood, went on speaking.

"Yes, I own to my faults," continued the colonel. "There is some
things I can't, do what I will, resist: a bottle of brandy, a box of
dice, and a beautiful woman. No man of pluck and spirit, no man as was
worth his salt ever could, as I know of. There's hardly p'raps a
country in the world in which them three ain't got me into trouble."

"Indeed?" said Strong.

"Yes, from the age of fifteen, when I ran away from home, and went
cabin-boy on board an Indiaman, till now, when I'm fifty year old,
pretty nigh, them women have always been my ruin. Why, it was one of
'em, and with such black eyes and jewels on her neck, and sattens and
ermine like a duchess, I tell you--it was one of 'em at Paris that
swept off the best part of the thousand pound as I went off. Didn't I
ever tell you of it? Well, I don't mind. At first I was very cautious,
and having such a lot of money kep it close and lived like a
gentleman--Colonel Altamont, Meurice's hotel, and that sort of thing--
never played, except at the public tables, and won more than I lost.
Well, sir, there was a chap that I saw at the hotel and the Palace
Royal too, a regular swell fellow, with white kid gloves and a tuft to
his chin, Bloundell-Bloundell his name was, as I made acquaintance
with somehow, and he asked me to dinner, and took me to Madame the
Countess de Foljambe's soirées--such a woman, Strong!--such an eye!
such a hand at the pianner. Lor bless you, she'd sit down and sing to
you, and gaze at you, until she warbled your soul out of your body
a'most. She asked me to go to her evening parties every Toosday; and
didn't I take opera-boxes and give her dinners at the restaurateurs,
that's all? But I had a run of luck at the tables, and it was not in
the dinners and opera-boxes that poor Clavering's money went. No, be
hanged to it, it was swep off in another way. One night, at the
countess's, there was several of us at supper--Mr. Bloundell-Bloundell,
the Honorable Deuceace, the Marky de la Tour de Force--all tip-top nobs,
sir, and the height of fashion, when we had supper, and champagne,
you may be sure, in plenty, and then some of that confounded brandy.
I would have it--I would go on at it--the countess mixed the tumblers
of punch for me, and we had cards as well as grog after supper, and I
played and drank until I don't know what I did. I was like I was last
night. I was taken away and put to bed somehow, and never woke until the
next day, to a roaring headache, and to see my servant, who said the
Honorable Deuceace wanted to see me, and was waiting in the sitting-room.
'How are you, colonel?' says he, a-coming into my bedroom. 'How long did
you stay last night after I went away? The play was getting too high for
me, and I'd lost enough to you for one night.'

"'To me', says I, 'how's that, my dear feller? (for though he was an
earl's son, we was as familiar as you and me). How's that, my dear
feller,' says I, and he tells me, that he had borrowed thirty louis of
me at vingt-et-un, that he gave me an I.O.U. for it the night before,
which I put into my pocket-book before he left the room. I takes out
my card-case--it was the countess as worked it for me--and there was
the I.O.U. sure enough, and he paid me thirty louis in gold down upon
the table at my bed-side. So I said he was a gentleman, and asked him
if he would like to take any thing, when my servant should get it for
him; but the Honorable Deuceace don't drink of a morning, and he went
away to some business which he said he had.

"Presently there's another ring at my outer door: and this time it's
Bloundell-Bloundell and the marky that comes in. 'Bong jour, marky,'
says I. 'Good morning--no headache,' says he. So I said I had one, and
how I must have been uncommon queer the night afore; but they both
declared I didn't show no signs of having had too much, but took my
liquor as grave as a judge.

"'So,' says the marky, 'Deuceace has been with you; we met him in the
Palais Royal as we were coming from breakfast. Has he settled with
you? Get it while you can: he's a slippery card; and as he won three
ponies of Bloundell, I recommend you to get your money while he
has some.'

"'He has paid me,' says I; but I knew no more than the dead that he
owed me any thing, and don't remember a bit about lending him
thirty louis."

The marky and Bloundell looks and smiles at each other at this; and
Bloundell says, 'Colonel, you are a queer feller. No man could have
supposed, from your manners, that you had tasted any thing stronger
than tea all night, and yet you forget things in the morning. Come,
come--tell that to the marines, my friend--we won't have it any
price.' '_En effet_' says the marky, twiddling his little black
mustaches in the chimney-glass, and making a lunge or two as he used
to do at the fencing-school. (He was a wonder at the fencing-school,
and I've seen him knock down the image fourteen times running, at
Lepage's). 'Let us speak of affairs. Colonel, you understand that
affairs of honor are best settled at once: perhaps it won't be
inconvenient to you to arrange our little matters of last night.'

"'What little matters?' says I. 'Do you owe me any money, marky?'

"'Bah!' says he; 'do not let us have any more jesting. I have your
note of hand for three hundred and forty louis. _La voici._' says he,
taking out a paper from his pocket-book.

"'And mine for two hundred and ten,' says Bloundell-Bloundell, and he
pulls out _his_ bit of paper.

"I was in such a rage of wonder at this, that I sprang out of bed, and
wrapped my dressing-gown round me. 'Are you come here to make a fool
of me?' says I. 'I don't owe you two hundred, or two thousand, or two
louis; and I won't pay you a farthing. Do you suppose you can catch me
with your notes of hand? I laugh at 'em and at you; and I believe you
to be a couple--'

"'A couple of what?' says Mr. Bloundell. 'You, of course, are aware
that we are a couple of men of honor, Colonel Altamont, and not come
here to trifle or to listen to abuse from you. You will either pay us
or we will expose you as a cheat, and chastise you as a cheat, too,'
says Bloundell.

"'_Oui, parbleu_,' says the marky, but I didn't mind him, for I could
have thrown the little fellow out of the window; but it was different
with Bloundell, he was a large man, that weighs three stone more than
me, and stands six inches higher, and I think he could have done
for me.

"'Monsieur will pay, or monsieur will give me the reason why. I
believe you're little better than a _polisson_, Colonel
Altamont,'--that was the phrase he used"--Altamont said with a
grin--and I got plenty more of this language from the two fellows,
and was in the thick of the row with them, when another of our party
came in. This was a friend of mine--a gent I had met at Boulogne, and
had taken to the countess's myself. And as he hadn't played at all on
the previous night, and had actually warned me against Bloundell and
the others, I told the story to him, and so did the other two.

"'I am very sorry,' says he. 'You would go on playing: the countess
entreated you to discontinue. These gentlemen offered repeatedly to
stop. It was you that insisted on the large stakes, not they.' In fact
he charged dead against me: and when the two others went away, he told
me how the marky would shoot me as sure as my name was--was what it
is. 'I left the countess crying, too,' said he. 'She hates these two
men; she has warned you repeatedly against them,' (which she actually
had done, and often told me never to play with them) 'and now,
colonel, I have left her in hysterics almost, lest there should be
any quarrel between you, and that confounded marky should put a bullet
through your head. It's my belief,' says my friend, 'that that woman
is distractedly in love with you.'

"'Do you think so?' says I; upon which my friend told me how she had
actually gone down on her knees to him and said, 'Save Colonel
Altamont!'

"As soon as I was dressed, I went and called upon that lovely woman.
She gave a shriek and pretty near fainted when she saw me. She called
me Ferdinand--I'm blest if she didn't."

"I thought your name was Jack," said Strong, with a laugh; at which
the colonel blushed very much behind his dyed whiskers.

"A man may have more names than one, mayn't he, Strong?" Altamont
asked. "When I'm with a lady, I like to take a good one. She called me
by my Christian name. She cried fit to break your heart. I can't stand
seeing a woman cry--never could--not while I'm fond of her. She said
she could not bear to think of my losing so much money in her house.
Wouldn't I take her diamonds and necklaces, and pay part?

"I swore I wouldn't touch a farthing's worth of her jewelry, which
perhaps I did not think was worth a great deal, but what can a woman
do more than give you her all? That's the sort I like, and I know
there's plenty of 'em. And I told her to be easy about the money, for
I would not pay one single farthing.

"'Then they'll shoot you,' says she; 'they'll kill my Ferdinand.'"

"They'll kill my Jack wouldn't have sounded well in French," Strong
said, laughing.

"Never mind about names," said the other, sulkily: "a man of honor may
take any name he chooses, I suppose."

"Well, go on with your story," said Strong. "She said they would kill
you."

"'No,' says I, 'they won't: for I will not let that scamp of a marquis
send me out of the world; and if he lays a hand on me, I'll brain him,
marquis as he is.'

"At this the countess shrank back from me as if I had said something
very shocking. 'Do I understand Colonel Altamont aright?' says she:
'and that a British officer refuses to meet any person who provokes
him to the field of honor?'

"'Field of honor be hanged, countess,' says I, 'You would not have me
be a target for that little scoundrel's pistol practice.'

"'Colonel Altamont,' says the countess, 'I thought you were a man of
honor--I thought, I--but no matter. Good-by, sir.' And she was
sweeping out of the room her voice regular choking in her
pocket-handkerchief.

"'Countess,' says I, rushing after her, and seizing her hand.

"'Leave me, Monsieur le Colonel,' says she, shaking me off, 'my father
was a general of the Grand Army. A soldier should know how to pay
_all_ his debts of honor.'

"What could I do? Every body was against me. Caroline said I had
lost the money: though I didn't remember a syllable about the
business. I had taken Deuceace's money, too; but then it was because
he offered it to me you know, and that's a different thing. Every one
of these chaps was a man of fashion and honor; and the marky and the
countess of the first families in France. And by Jove, sir, rather
than offend her, I paid the money up: five hundred and sixty gold
Napoleons, by Jove: besides three hundred which I lost when I had
my revenge.

"And I can't tell you at this minute whether I was done or not
concluded the colonel, musing. Sometimes I think I was: but then
Caroline was so fond of me. That woman would never have seen me done:
never, I'm sure she wouldn't: at least, if she would, I'm deceived
in woman."

Any further revelations of his past life which Altamont might have
been disposed to confide to his honest comrade the chevalier, were
interrupted by a knocking at the outer door of their chambers; which,
when opened by Grady the servant, admitted no less a person than Sir
Francis Clavering into the presence of the two worthies.

"The governor, by Jove," cried Strong, regarding the arrival of his
patron with surprise. "What's brought you here?" growled Altamont,
looking sternly from under his heavy eyebrows at the baronet. "It's no
good, I warrant." And indeed, good very seldom brought Sir Francis
Clavering into that or any other place.

Whenever he came into Shepherd's Inn, it was money that brought the
unlucky baronet into those precincts: and there was commonly a
gentleman of the money-dealing world in waiting for him at Strong's
chambers, or at Campion's below; and a question of bills to negotiate
or to renew. Clavering was a man who had never looked his debts fairly
in the face, familiar as he had been with them all his life; as long
as he could renew a bill, his mind was easy regarding it; and he would
sign almost any thing for to-morrow, provided to-day could be left
unmolested. He was a man whom scarcely any amount of fortune could
have benefited permanently, and who was made to be ruined, to cheat
small tradesmen, to be the victim of astuter sharpers: to be niggardly
and reckless, and as destitute of honesty as the people who cheated
him, and a dupe, chiefly because he was too mean to be a successful
knave. He had told more lies in his time, and undergone more baseness
of stratagem in order to stave off a small debt, or to swindle a poor
creditor, than would have suffered to make a fortune for a braver
rogue. He was abject and a shuffler in the very height of his
prosperity. Had he been a crown prince, he could not have been more
weak, useless, dissolute or ungrateful. He could not move through life
except leaning on the arm of somebody: and yet he never had an agent
but he mistrusted him; and marred any plans which might be arranged
for his benefit, by secretly acting against the people whom he
employed. Strong knew Clavering, and judged him quite correctly. It
was not as friends that this pair met: but the chevalier worked for
his principal, as he would when in the army have pursued a harassing
march, or undergone his part in the danger and privations of a siege;
 because it was his duty, and because he had agreed to it. "What is
it he wants," thought the two officers of the Shepherd's Inn garrison,
when the baronet came among them.

His pale face expressed extreme anger and irritation. "So, sir," he
said, addressing Altamont, "you've been at your old tricks."

"Which of 'um?" asked Altamont, with a sneer.

"You have been at the Rouge et Noir: you were there last night," cried
the baronet.

"How do you know--were you there?" the other said. "I was at the Club:
but it wasn't on the colors I played--ask the captain--I've been
telling him of it. It was with the bones. It was at hazard, Sir
Francis, upon my word and honor it was;" and he looked at the baronet
with a knowing, humorous mock humility, which only seemed to make the
other more angry.

"What the deuce do I care, sir, how a man like you loses his money,
and whether it is at hazard or roulette?" screamed the baronet, with a
multiplicity of oaths, and at the top of his voice. "What I will not
have, sir, is that you should use my name, or couple it with yours.
Damn him, Strong, why don't you keep him in better order? I tell you
he has gone and used my name again, sir; drawn a bill upon me, and
lost the money on the table--I can't stand it--I won't stand it. Flesh
and blood won't bear it. Do you know how much I have paid for
you, sir?"

"This was only a very little 'un, Sir Francis--only fifteen pound,
Captain Strong, they wouldn't stand another: and it oughtn't to anger
you, governor. Why it's so trifling, I did not even mention it to
Strong,--did I now, captain? I protest it had quite slipped my
memory, and all on account of that confounded liquor I took."

"Liquor or no liquor, sir, it is no business of mine. I don't care
what you drink, or where you drink it--only it shan't be in my house.
And I will not have you breaking into my house of a night, and a
fellow like you intruding himself on my company: how dared you show
yourself in Grosvenor-place last night, sir--and--and what do you
suppose my friends must think of me when they see a man of your sort
walking into my dining-room uninvited, and drunk, and calling for
liquor as if you were the master of the house.

"They'll think you know some very queer sort of people, I dare say,"
Altamont said with impenetrable good-humor. "Look here, baronet, I
apologize; on my honor, I do, and ain't an apology enough between two
gentlemen? It was a strong measure I own, walking into your cuddy, and
calling for drink, as if I was the captain: but I had had too much
before, you see, that's why I wanted some more; nothing can be more
simple--and it was because they wouldn't give me no more money upon
your name at the Black and Red, that I thought I would come down and
speak to you about it. To refuse me was nothing: but to refuse a bill
drawn on you that have been such a friend to the shop, and are a
baronet, and a member of parliament, and a gentleman, and no
mistake--Damme, it's ungrateful." "By heavens, if ever you do it
again. If ever you dare to show yourself in my house; or give my name
at a gambling-house or at any other house, by Jove--at any other
house--or give any reference at all to me, or speak to me in the
street, by Gad, or any where else until I speak to you--I disclaim you
altogether--I won't give you another shilling."

"Governor, don't be provoking," Altamont said, surlily. "Don't talk to
me about daring to do this thing or t'other, or when my dander is up
it's the very thing to urge me on. I oughtn't to have come last night,
I know I oughtn't: but I told you I was drunk, and that ought to be
sufficient between gentleman and gentleman."

"You a gentleman! dammy, sir," said the baronet, "how dares a fellow
like you to call himself a gentleman?"

"I ain't a baronet, I know;" growled the other; "and I've forgotten
how to be a gentleman almost now, but--but I was one once, and my
father was one, and I'll not have this sort of talk from you, Sir F.
Clavering, that's flat. I want to go abroad again. Why don't you come
down with the money, and let me go? Why the devil are you to be
rolling in riches, and me to have none? Why should you have a house
and a table covered with plate, and me be in a garret here in this
beggarly Shepherd's Inn? We're partners, ain't we? I've as good a
right to be rich as you have, haven't I? Tell the story to Strong
here, if you like; and ask him to be umpire between us. I don't mind
letting my secret out to a man that won't split. Look here,
Strong--perhaps you guess the story already--the fact is, me and the
Governor--"

"D--, hold your tongue," shrieked out the baronet in a fury. "You
shall have the money as soon as I can get it. I ain't made of money.
I'm so pressed and badgered, I don't know where to turn. I shall go
mad; by Jove, I shall. I wish I was dead, for I'm the most miserable
brute alive. I say, Mr. Altamont, don't mind me. When I'm out of
health--and I'm devilish bilious this morning--hang me, I abuse every
body, and don't know what I say. Excuse me if I've offended you.
I--I'll try and get that little business done. Strong shall try. Upon
my word he shall. And I say, Strong, my boy, I want to speak to you.
Come into the office for a minute."

Almost all Clavering's assaults ended in this ignominious way, and in
a shameful retreat. Altamont sneered after the baronet as he left the
room, and entered into the office, to talk privately with
his factotum.

"What is the matter now?" the latter asked of him. "It's the old
story, I suppose."

"D----it, yes," the baronet said. "I dropped two hundred in ready money
at the Little Coventry last night, and gave a check for three hundred
more. On her ladyship's bankers, too, for to-morrow; and I must meet
it, for there'll be the deuce to pay else. The last time she paid my
play-debts, I swore I would not touch a dice-box again, and she'll
keep her word, Strong, and dissolve partnership, if I go on. I wish I
had three hundred a year, and was away. At a German watering-place
you can do devilish well with three hundred a year. But my
habits are so d----reckless: I wish I was in the Serpentine. I wish I
was dead, by Gad, I wish I was. I wish I had never touched those
confounded bones. I had such a run of luck last night, with five for
the main, and seven to five all night, until those ruffians wanted to
pay me with Altamont's bill upon me. The luck turned from that minute.
Never held the box again for three mains, and came away cleaned out,
leaving that infernal check behind me. How shall I pay it? Blackland
won't hold it over. Hulker and Bullock will write about it directly to
her ladyship. By Jove, Ned, I'm the most miserable brute in
all England."

It was necessary for Ned to devise some plan to console the baronet
under this pressure of grief; and no doubt he found the means of
procuring a loan for his patron, for he was closeted at Mr. Campion's
offices that day for some time. Altamont had once more a guinea or two
in his pocket, with a promise of a farther settlement; and the baronet
had no need to wish himself dead for the next two or three months at
least. And Strong, putting together what he had learned from the
colonel and Sir Francis, began to form in his own mind a pretty
accurate opinion as to the nature of the tie which bound the two men
together.



CHAPTER VI.

A CHAPTER OF CONVERSATIONS.


[Illustration]

Every day, after the entertainments at Grosvenor-place and Greenwich,
of which we have seen Major Pendennis partake, the worthy gentleman's
friendship and cordiality for the Clavering family seemed to increase.
His calls were frequent; his attentions to the lady of the house
unremitting. An old man about town, he had the good fortune to be
received in many houses, at which a lady of Lady Clavering's
distinction ought also to be seen. Would her ladyship not like to be
present at the grand entertainment at Gaunt House? There was to be a
very pretty breakfast ball at Viscount Marrowfat's, at Fulham. Every
body was to be there (including august personages of the highest
rank), and there was to be a Watteau quadrille, in which Miss Amory
would surely look charming. To these and other amusements the
obsequious old gentleman kindly offered to conduct Lady Clavering, and
was also ready to make himself useful to the baronet in any way
agreeable to the latter.

In spite of his present station and fortune, the world persisted in
looking rather coldly upon Clavering, and strange suspicious rumors
followed him about. He was blackballed at two clubs in succession. In
the house of commons, he only conversed with a few of the most
disreputable members of that famous body, having a happy knack of
choosing bad society, and adapting himself naturally to it, as other
people do to the company of their betters. To name all the senators
with whom Clavering consorted, would be invidious. We may mention
only a few. There was Captain Raff, the honorable member for Epsom,
who retired after the last Goodwood races, having accepted, as Mr.
Hotspur, the whip of the party, said, a mission to the Levant; there
was Hustingson, the patriotic member for Islington, whose voice is
never heard now denunciating corruption, since his appointment to the
Governorship of Coventry Island; there was Bob Freeny, of the
Booterstown Freenys, who is a dead shot, and of whom we therefore wish
to speak with every respect; and of all these gentlemen, with whom in
the course of his professional duty Mr. Hotspur had to confer, there
was none for whom he had a more thorough contempt and dislike than for
Sir Francis Clavering, the representative of an ancient race, who had
sat for their own borough of Clavering time out of mind in the house.
"If that man is wanted for a division," Hotspur said, "ten to one he
is to be found in a hell. He was educated in the Fleet, and he has not
heard the end of Newgate yet, take my word for it. He'll muddle away
the Begum's fortune at thimble-rig, be caught picking pockets, and
finish on board the hulks." And if the high-born Hotspur, with such an
opinion of Clavering, could yet from professional reasons be civil to
him, why should not Major Pendennis also have reasons of his own for
being attentive to this unlucky gentleman?

"He has a very good cellar and a very good cook," the major said; "as
long as he is silent he is not offensive, and he very seldom speaks.
If he chooses to frequent gambling-tables, and lose his money to
blacklegs, what matters to me? Don't look too curiously into any man's
affairs, Pen, my boy; every fellow has some cupboard in his house,
begad, which he would not like you and me to peep into. Why should we
try, when the rest of the house is open to us? And a devilish good
house, too, as you and I know. And if the man of the family is not all
one could wish, the women are excellent. The Begum is not
over-refined, but as kind a woman as ever lived, and devilish clever
too; and as for the little Blanche, you know my opinion about her, you
rogue; you know my belief is that she is sweet on you, and would have
you for the asking. But you are growing such a great man, that I
suppose you won't be content under a duke's daughter--Hey, sir? I
recommend you to ask one of them, and try."

Perhaps Pen was somewhat intoxicated by his success in the world; and
it may also have entered into the young man's mind (his uncle's
perpetual hints serving not a little to encourage the notion) that
Miss Amory was tolerably well disposed to renew the little flirtation
which had been carried on in the early days of both of them, by the
banks of the rural Brawl. But he was little disposed to marriage, he
said, at that moment, and, adopting some of his uncle's worldly tone,
spoke rather contemptuously of the institution, and in favor of a
bachelor life.

"You are very happy, sir," said he, "and you get on very well alone,
and so do I. With a wife at my side, I should lose my place in
society; and I don't, for my part, much fancy retiring into the
country with a Mrs. Pendennis; or taking my wife into lodgings to be
waited upon by the servant-of-all-work. The period of my little
illusions is over. You cured me of my first love, who certainly was
a fool, and would have had a fool for her husband, and a very sulky,
discontented husband, too, if she had taken me. We young fellows live
fast, sir; and I feel as old at five-and-twenty as many of the old
fo--, the old bachelors--whom I see in the bay-window at Bays's. Don't
look offended, I only mean that I am _blasé_ about love matters, and
that I could no more fan myself into a flame for Miss Amory now, than
I could adore Lady Mirabel over again. I wish I could; I rather like
old Mirabel for his infatuation about her, and think his passion is
the most respectable part of his life."

"Sir Charles Mirabel was always a theatrical man, sir," the major
said, annoyed that his nephew should speak flippantly of any person of
Sir Charles's rank and station. "He has been occupied with theatricals
since his early days. He acted at Carlton House when he was page to
the prince; he has been mixed up with that sort of thing; he could
afford to marry whom he chooses; and Lady Mirabel is a most
respectable woman, received every where--every where, mind. The
Duchess of Connaught receives her, Lady Rockminster receives her--it
doesn't become young fellows to speak lightly of people in that
station. There's not a more respectable woman in England than Lady
Mirabel: and the old fogies, as you call them at Bays's, are some of
the first gentlemen in England, of whom you youngsters had best learn
a little manners, and a little breeding, and a little modesty." And
the major began to think that Pen was growing exceedingly pert and
conceited, and that the world made a great deal too much of him.

The major's anger amused Pen. He studied his uncle's peculiarities
with a constant relish, and was always in a good humor with his
worldly old Mentor. "I am a youngster of fifteen years standing, sir,"
he said, adroitly, "and if you think that _we_ are disrespectful, you
should see those of the present generation. A protégé of yours came to
breakfast with me the other day. You told me to ask him, and I did it
to please you. We had a day's sights together, and dined at the club,
and went to the play. He said the wine at the Polyanthus was not so
good as Ellis's wine at Richmond, smoked Warrington's cavendish after
breakfast, and when I gave him a sovereign as a farewell token, said
he had plenty of them, but would take it to show he wasn't proud."

"Did he?--did you ask young Clavering?" cried the major, appeased at
once, "fine boy, rather wild, but a fine boy--parents like that sort
of attention, and you can't do better than pay it to our worthy
friends of Grosvenor-place. And so you took him to the play and tipped
him? That was right, sir, that was right;" with which Mentor quitted
Telemachus, thinking that the young men were not so very bad, and that
he should make something of that fellow yet.

As Master Clavering grew into years and stature, he became too strong
for the authority of his fond parents and governess; and rather
governed them than permitted himself to be led by their orders. With
his papa he was silent and sulky, seldom making his appearance,
however, in the neighborhood of that gentleman; with his mamma he
roared and fought when any contest between them arose as to the
gratification of his appetite, or other wish of his heart; and in his
disputes with his governess over his book, he kicked that quiet
creature's shins so fiercely, that she was entirely overmastered and
subdued by him. And he would have so treated his sister Blanche, too,
and did on one or two occasions attempt to prevail over her; but she
showed an immense resolution and spirit on her part, and boxed his
ears so soundly, that he forebore from molesting Miss Amory, as he did
the governess and his mamma, and his mamma's maid.

At length, when the family came to London, Sir Francis gave forth his
opinion that "the little beggar had best be sent to school."
Accordingly, the young son and heir of the house of Clavering was
dispatched to the Rev. Otto Rose's establishment at Twickenham, where
young noblemen and gentlemen were received preparatory to their
introduction to the great English public schools.

It is not our intention to follow Master Clavering in his scholastic
career; the paths to the Temple of learning were made more easy to him
than they were to some of us of earlier generations. He advanced
toward that fane in a carriage-and-four, so to speak, and might halt
and take refreshments almost whenever he pleased. He wore varnished
boots from the earliest period of youth, and had cambric handkerchiefs
and lemon-colored kid gloves of the smallest size ever manufactured by
Privat. They dressed regularly at Mr. Rose's to come down to dinner;
the young gentlemen had shawl dressing-gowns, fires in their bedrooms;
horse and carriage exercise occasionally, and oil for their hair.
Corporal punishment was altogether dispensed with by the principal,
who thought that moral discipline was entirely sufficient to lead
youth; and the boys were so rapidly advanced in many branches of
learning, that they acquired the art of drinking spirits and smoking
cigars, even before they were old enough to enter a public school.
Young Frank Clavering stole his father's Havannas, and conveyed them
to school, or smoked them in the stables, at a surprisingly early
period of life, and at ten years old drank his Champagne almost as
stoutly as any whiskered cornet of dragoons could do.

When this interesting youth came home for his vacations, Major
Pendennis was as laboriously civil and gracious to him as he was to
the rest of the family; although the boy had rather a contempt for old
Wigsby, as the major was denominated, mimicked him behind his back, as
the polite major bowed and smirked with Lady Clavering or Miss Amory;
and drew rude caricatures, such as are designed by ingenious youths,
in which the major's wig, his nose, his tie, &c., were represented
with artless exaggeration. Untiring in his efforts to be agreeable,
the major wished that Pen, too, should take particular notice of this
child; incited Arthur to invite him to his chambers, to give him a
dinner at the club, to take him to Madame Tussaud's, the Tower, the
play, and so forth, and to tip him, as the phrase is, at the end of
the day's pleasures. Arthur, who was good-natured and fond of
children, went through all these ceremonies one day; had the boy to
breakfast at the Temple, where he made the most contemptuous remarks
regarding the furniture, the crockery, and the tattered state of
Warrington's dressing-gown; and smoked a short pipe, and recounted the
history of a fight between Tuffy and Long Biggings, at Rose's, greatly
to the edification of the two gentlemen his hosts.

As the major rightly predicted, Lady Clavering was very grateful for
Arthur's attention to the boy; more grateful than the lad himself, who
took attentions as a matter of course, and very likely had more
sovereigns in his pocket than poor Pen, who generously gave him one of
his own slender stock of those coins.

The major, with the sharp eyes with which nature endowed him, and with
the glasses of age and experience, watched this boy, and surveyed his
position in the family without seeming to be rudely curious about
their affairs. But, as a country neighbor, one who had many family
obligations to the Claverings, an old man of the world, he took
occasion to find out what Lady Clavering's means were, how her capital
was disposed, and what the boy was to inherit. And setting himself to
work, for what purposes will appear, no doubt, ulteriorly, he soon had
got a pretty accurate knowledge of Lady Clavering's affairs and
fortune, and of the prospects of her daughter and son. The daughter
was to have but a slender provision; the bulk of the property was, as
before has been said, to go to the son, his father did not care for
him or any body else, his mother was dotingly fond of him as the child
of her latter days, his sister disliked him. Such may be stated, in
round numbers, to be the result of the information which Major
Pendennis got. "Ah! my dear madam," he would say, patting the head of
the boy, "this boy may wear a baron's coronet on his head on some
future coronation, if matters are but managed rightly, and if Sir
Francis Clavering would but play his cards well."

At this the widow Amory heaved a deep sigh. "He plays only too much of
his cards, major, I'm afraid," she said. The major owned that he knew
as much; did not disguise that he had heard of Sir Francis Clavering's
unfortunate propensity to play; pitied Lady Clavering sincerely; but
spoke with such genuine sentiment and sense, that her ladyship, glad
to find a person of experience to whom she could confide her grief and
her condition, talked about them pretty unreservedly to Major
Pendennis, and was eager to have his advice and consolation. Major
Pendennis became the Begum's confidante and house-friend, and as a
mother, a wife, and a capitalist, she consulted him.

He gave her to understand (showing at the same time a great deal of
respectful sympathy) that he was acquainted with some of the
circumstances of her first unfortunate marriage, and with even the
person of her late husband, whom he remembered in Calcutta--when she
was living in seclusion with her father. The poor lady, with tears of
shame more than of grief in her eyes, told her version of her story.
Going back a child to India after two years at a European school, she
had met Amory, and foolishly married him. "O, you don't know how
miserable that man made me," she said, "or what a life I passed
between him and my father. Before I saw him I had never seen a man
except my father's clerks and native servants. You know we didn't go
into society in India on account of--" ("I know," said Major Pendennis,
with a bow). "I was a wild romantic child, my head was full of novels
which I'd read at school--I listened to his wild stories and adventures,
for he was a daring fellow, and I thought he talked beautifully of those
calm nights on the passage out, when he used to... Well, I married him,
and was wretched from that day--wretched with my father, whose character
you know, Major Pendennis, and I won't speak of: but he wasn't a good
man, sir--neither to my poor mother, nor to me, except that he left me
his money--nor to no one else that I ever heard of: and he didn't do
many kind actions in his lifetime, I'm afraid. And as for Amory he was
almost worse; he was a spendthrift, when my father was close: he drank
dreadfully, and was furious when in that way. He wasn't in any way a
good or a faithful husband to me, Major Pendennis; and if he'd died in
the jail before his trial, instead of afterward, he would have saved
me a deal of shame and unhappiness since, sir." Lady Clavering added:
"For perhaps I should not have married at all if I had not been so
anxious to change his horrid name, and I have not been happy in my
second husband, as I suppose you know, sir. Ah, Major Pendennis, I've
got money to be sure, and I'm a lady, and people fancy I'm very happy,
but I ain't. We all have our cares, and griefs, and troubles: and
many's the day that I sit down to one of my grand dinners with an
aching heart, and many a night do I lay awake on my fine bed, a great
deal more unhappy than the maid that makes it. For I'm not a happy
woman, major, for all the world says; and envies the Begum her
diamonds, and carriages, and the great company that comes to my house.
I'm not happy in my husband; I'm not happy in my daughter. She ain't a
good girl like that dear Laura Bell at Fairoaks. She's cost me many a
tear though you don't see 'em; and she sneers at her mother because I
haven't had learning and that. How should I? I was brought up among
natives till I was twelve, and went back to India when I was fourteen.
Ah, major I should have been a good woman if I had had a good husband.
And now I must go up-stairs and wipe my eyes, for they're red with
cryin'. And Lady Rockminster's a-comin, and we're goin to 'ave a drive
in the Park. And when Lady Rockminster made her appearance, there was
not a trace of tears or vexation on Lady Clavering's face, but she was
full of spirits, and bounced out with her blunders and talk, and
murdered the king's English, with the utmost liveliness and
good humor.

[Illustration]

"Begad, she is not such a bad woman!" the major thought within
himself. "She is not refined, certainly, and calls 'Apollo' 'Apoller;'
but she has some heart, and I like that sort of thing, and a devilish
deal of money, too. Three stars in India Stock to her name, begad!
which that young cub is to have--is he?" And he thought how he should
like to see a little of the money transferred to Miss Blanche, and,
better still, one of those stars shining in the name of Mr. Arthur
Pendennis.

Still bent upon pursuing his schemes, whatsoever they might be, the
old negotiator took the privilege of his intimacy and age, to talk in
a kindly and fatherly manner to Miss Blanche, when he found occasion
to see her alone. He came in so frequently at luncheon-time, and
became so familiar with the ladies, that they did not even hesitate to
quarrel before him: and Lady Clavering, whose tongue was loud, and
temper brusk, had many a battle with the Sylphide in the family
friend's presence. Blanche's wit seldom failed to have the mastery in
these encounters, and the keen barbs of her arrows drove her adversary
discomfited away. "I am an old fellow," the major said; "I have
nothing to do in life. I have my eyes open. I keep good counsel. I am
the friend of both of you; and if you choose to quarrel before me,
why I shan't tell any one. But you are two good people, and I intend
to make it up between you. I have between lots of people--husbands and
wives, fathers and sons, daughters and mammas, before this. I like it;
I've nothing else to do."

One day, then, the old diplomatist entered Lady Clavering's drawing-room,
just as the latter quitted it, evidently in a high state of
indignation, and ran past him up the stairs to her own apartments.
"She couldn't speak to him now," she said; "she was a great deal too
angry with that--that--that little, wicked"--anger choked the rest of
the words, or prevented their utterance until Lady Clavering had
passed out of hearing.

"My dear, good Miss Amory," the major said, entering the drawing-room,
"I see what is happening. You and mamma have been disagreeing.
Mothers and daughters disagree in the best families. It was but last
week that I healed up a quarrel between Lady Clapperton and her
daughter Lady Claudia. Lady Lear and her eldest daughter have not
spoken for fourteen years. Kinder and more worthy people than these I
never knew in the whole course of my life; for every body but each
other admirable. But they can't live together: they oughtn't to live
together: and I wish, my dear creature, with all my soul, that I could
see you with an establishment of your own--for there is no woman in
London who could conduct one better--with your own establishment,
making your own home happy."

"I am not very happy in this one," said the Sylphide; "and the
stupidity of mamma is enough to provoke a saint."

"Precisely so; you are not suited to one another. Your mother
committed one fault in early life--or was it Nature, my dear, in your
case?--she ought not to have educated you. You ought not to have been
bred up to become the refined and intellectual being you are,
surrounded, as I own you are, by those who have not your genius or
your refinement. Your place would be to lead in the most brilliant
circles, not to follow, and take a second place in any society. I have
watched you, Miss Amory: you are ambitious; and your proper sphere is
command. You ought to shine; and you never can in this house, I know
it. I hope I shall see you in another and a happier one, some day, and
the mistress of it."

The Sylphide shrugged her lily shoulders with a look of scorn "Where
is the prince, and where is the palace, Major Pendennis?" she said. "I
am ready. But there is no romance in the world now, no real
affection."

"No, indeed," said the major, with the most sentimental and simple air
which he could muster.

"Not that I know any thing about it," said Blanche, casting her eyes
down, "except what I have read in novels."

"Of course not," Major Pendennis cried; "how should you, my dear young
lady? and novels ain't true, as you remark admirably, and there is no
romance left in the world. Begad, I wish I was a young fellow, like my
nephew." "And what," continued Miss Amory, musing, "what are the men
whom we see about at the balls every night--dancing guardsmen,
penniless treasury clerks--boobies! If I had my brother's fortune, I
might have such an establishment as you promise me--but with my name,
and with my little means, what am I to look to? A country parson, or a
barrister in a street near Russell-square, or a captain in a
dragoon-regiment, who will take lodgings for me, and come home from
the mess tipsy and smelling of smoke like Sir Francis Clavering. That
is how we girls are destined to end life. O Major Pendennis, I am sick
of London, and of balls, and of young dandies with their chin-tips,
and of the insolent great ladies who know us one day and cut us the
next--and of the world altogether. I should like to leave it and to go
into a convent, that I should. I shall never find any body to
understand me. And I live here as much alone in my family and in the
world, as if I were in a cell locked up for ever. I wish there were
Sisters of Charity here, and that I could be one, and catch the
plague, and die of it--I wish to quit the world. I am not very old:
but I am tired, I have suffered so much--I've been so
disillusionated--I'm weary, I'm weary--O that the Angel of Death would
come and beckon me away!"

This speech may be interpreted as follows. A few nights since a great
lady, Lady Flamingo, had cut Miss Amory and Lady Clavering. She was
quite mad because she could not get an invitation to Lady Drum's ball:
it was the end of the season and nobody had proposed to her: she had
made no sensation at all, she who was so much cleverer than any girl
of the year, and of the young ladies forming her special circle. Dora
who had but five thousand pounds, Flora who had nothing, and Leonora
who had red hair, were going to be married, and nobody had come for
Blanche Amory.

"You judge wisely about the world, and about your position, my dear
Miss Blanche," the major said. "The prince don't marry nowadays, as
you say: unless the princess has a doosid deal of money in the funds,
or is a lady of his own rank. The young folks of the great families
marry into the great families: if they haven't fortune they have each
other's shoulders, to push on in the world, which is pretty nearly as
good. A girl with your fortune can scarcely hope for a great match:
but a girl with your genius and your admirable tact and fine manners,
with a clever husband by her side, may make _any_ place for herself in
the world. We are grown doosid republican. Talent ranks with birth and
wealth now, begad: and a clever man with a clever wife, may take any
place they please."

Miss Amory did not of course in the least understand what Major
Pendennis meant. Perhaps she thought over circumstances in her mind,
and asked herself, could he be a negotiator for a former suitor of
hers, and could he mean Pen? No, it was impossible; he had been civil,
but nothing more. So she said, laughing, "Who is the clever man, and
when will you bring him to me, Major Pendennis? I am dying to see
him." At this moment a servant threw open the door, and announced
Mr. Henry Foker: at which name, and at the appearance of our friend
both the lady and the gentleman burst out laughing.

"That is not the man," Major Pendennis said. "He is engaged to his
cousin, Lord Gravesend's daughter. Good-by, my dear Miss Amory."

Was Pen growing worldly, and should a man not get the experience of
the world and lay it to his account? "He felt, for his part," as he
said, "that he was growing very old very soon. How this town forms and
changes us," he said once to Warrington. Each had come in from his
night's amusement; and Pen was smoking his pipe, and recounting, as
his habit was, to his friend the observations and adventures of the
evening just past. "How I am changed," he said, "from the simpleton
boy at Fairoaks, who was fit to break his heart about his first love?
Lady Mirabel had a reception to-night, and was as grave and collected
as if she had been born a duchess, and had never seen a trap-door in
her life. She gave me the honor of a conversation, and patronized me
about Walter Lorraine, quite kindly."

"What condescension," broke in Warrington.

"Wasn't it?" Pen said, simply; at which the other burst out laughing
according to his wont. "Is it possible," he said, "that any body
should think of patronizing the eminent author of Walter Lorraine?"

"You laugh at both of us," Pen said, blushing a little: "I was coming
to that myself. She told me that she had not read the book (as indeed
I believe she never read a book in her life), but that Lady
Rockminster had, and that the Duchess of Connaught pronounced it to be
very clever. In that case, I said I should die happy, for that to
please those two ladies was in fact the great aim of my existence, and
having their approbation, of course I need look for no other. Lady
Mirabel looked at me solemnly out of her fine eyes, and said, 'O
indeed,' as if she understood me, and then she asked me whether I went
to the duchess's Thursdays; and when I said no, hoped she should see
me there, and that I must try and get there, every body went there
--every body who was in society: and then we talked of the new
embassador from Timbuctoo, and how he was better than the old one; and
how Lady Mary Billington was going to marry a clergyman quite below
her in rank; and how Lord and Lady Ringdove had fallen out three
months after their marriage about Tom Pouter of the Blues, Lady
Ringdove's cousin, and so forth. From the gravity of that woman you
would have fancied she had been born in a palace, and lived all the
seasons of her life in Belgrave-square."

"And you, I suppose you took your part in the conversation pretty
well, as the descendant of the earl your father, and the heir of
Fairoaks Castle?" Warrington said. "Yes, I remember reading of the
festivities which occurred when you came of age. The countess gave a
brilliant tea soirée to the neighboring nobility; and the tenantry
were regaled in the kitchen with a leg of mutton and a quart of ale.
The remains of the banquet were distributed among the poor of the
village, and the entrance to the park was illuminated until old John
put the candle out on retiring to rest at his usual hour."

[Illustration]

"My mother is not a countess," said Pen, "though she has very good
blood in her veins, too; but commoner as she is, I have never met a
peeress who was more than her peer, Mr. George; and if you will come
to Fairoaks Castle you shall judge for yourself of her and of my
cousin too. They are not so witty as the London women, but they
certainly are as well bred. The thoughts of women in the country are
turned to other objects than those which occupy your London ladies. In
the country a woman has her household and her poor, her long calm days
and long calm evenings."

"Devilish long," Warrington said, "and a great deal too calm; I've
tried 'em." "The monotony of that existence must be to a certain
degree melancholy--like the tune of a long ballad; and its harmony
grave and gentle, sad and tender: it would be unendurable else. The
loneliness of women in the country makes them of necessity soft and
sentimental. Leading a life of calm duty, constant routine, mystic
reverie--a sort of nuns at large--too much gayety or laughter would
jar upon their almost sacred quiet, and would be as out of place there
as in a church."

"Where you go to sleep over the sermon," Warrington said.

"You are a professed misogynist, and hate the sex because, I suspect,
you know very little about them," Mr. Pen continued, with an air of
considerable self-complacency. "If you dislike the women in the
country for being too slow, surely the London women ought to be fast
enough for you. The pace of London life is enormous: how do people
last at it, I wonder--male and female? Take a woman of the world:
follow her course through the season; one asks how she can survive it?
or if she tumbles into a sleep at the end of August, and lies torpid
until the spring? She goes into the world every night, and sits
watching her marriageable daughters dancing till long after dawn. She
has a nursery of little ones, very likely, at home, to whom she
administers example and affection; having an eye likewise to
bread-and-milk, catechism, music and French, and roast leg of mutton
at one o'clock; she has to call upon ladies of her own station, either
domestically or in her public character, in which she sits upon
Charity Committees, or Ball Committees, or Emigration Committees, or
Queen's College Committees, and discharges I don't know what more
duties of British stateswomanship. She very likely keeps a poor
visiting list; has combinations with the clergyman about soup or
flannel, or proper religious teaching for the parish; and (if she
lives in certain districts) probably attends early church. She has the
newspapers to read, and, at least, must know what her husband's party
is about, so as to be able to talk to her neighbor at dinner; and it
is a fact that she reads every new book that comes out; for she can
talk, and very smartly and well, about them all, and you see them all
upon her drawing-room table. She has the cares of her household
besides: to make both ends meet; to make the girl's milliner's bills
appear not too dreadful to the father and paymaster of the family; to
snip off, in secret, a little extra article of expenditure here and
there, and convey it, in the shape of a bank-note, to the boys at
college or at sea; to check the encroachments of tradesmen, and
housekeepers' financial fallacies; to keep upper and lower servants
from jangling with one another, and the household in order. Add to
this, that she has a secret taste for some art or science, models in
clay, makes experiments in chemistry, or plays in private on the
violoncello,--and I say, without exaggeration, many London ladies are
doing this--and you have a character before you such as our ancestors
never heard of, and such as belongs entirely to our era and period of
civilization. Ye gods! how rapidly we live and grow! In nine months,
Mr. Paxton grows you a pine apple as large as a portmanteau, whereas a
little one, no bigger than a Dutch cheese, took three years to attain
 his majority in old times; and as the race of pine-apples so is the
race of man. Hoiaper--what's the Greek for a pine-apple, Warrington?"

"Stop, for mercy's sake, stop with the English and before you come to
the Greek," Warrington cried out, laughing. "I never heard you make
such a long speech, or was aware that you had penetrated so deeply
into the female mysteries. Who taught you all this, and into whose
boudoirs and nurseries have you been peeping, while I was smoking my
pipe, and reading my book, lying on my straw bed?"

"You are on the bank, old boy, content to watch the waves tossing in
the winds, and the struggles of others at sea," Pen said. "I am in the
stream now, and, by Jove, I like it. How rapidly we go down it, hey?
--strong and feeble, old and young--the metal pitchers and the earthen
pitchers--the pretty little china boat swims gayly till the big
bruised brazen one bumps him and sends him down--eh, vogue la
galère!--you see a man sink in the race, and say good-by to him--look,
he has only dived under the other fellow's legs, and comes up shaking
his pole, and striking out ever so far ahead. Eh, vogue la galère, I
say. It's good sport, Warrington--not winning merely, but playing."

"Well, go in and win, young 'un. I'll sit and mark the game,"
Warrington said, surveying the ardent young fellow with an almost
fatherly pleasure. "A generous fellow plays for the play, a sordid one
for the stake; an old fogy sits by and smokes the pipe of
tranquillity, while Jack and Tom are pommeling each other in
the ring."

"Why don't you come in, George, and have a turn with the gloves? You
are big enough and strong enough," Pen said. "Dear old boy, you are
worth ten of me."

"You are not quite as tall as Goliath, certainly," the other answered,
with a laugh that was rough and yet tender. "And as for me, I am
disabled. I had a fatal hit in early life. I will tell you about it
some day. You may, too, meet with your master. Don't be too eager, or
too confident, or too worldly, my boy."

Was Pendennis becoming worldly, or only seeing the world, or both? and
is a man very wrong for being after all only a man? Which is the most
reasonable, and does his duty best: he who stands aloof from the
struggle of life, calmly contemplating it, or he who descends to the
ground, and takes his part in the contest? "That philosopher," Pen
said, "had held a great place among the leaders of the world, and
enjoyed to the full what it had to give of rank and riches, renown and
pleasure, who came, weary-hearted, out of it, and said that all was
vanity and vexation of spirit. Many a teacher of those whom we
reverence, and who steps out of his carriage up to his carved
cathedral place, shakes his lawn ruffles over the velvet cushion, and
cries out, that the whole struggle is an accursed one, and the works
of the world are evil. Many a conscience-striken mystic flies from it
altogether, and shuts himself out from it within convent walls (real
or spiritual), whence he can only look up to the sky, and contemplate
the heaven out of which there is no rest, and no good. But the
earth, where our feet are, is the work of the same Power as the
immeasurable blue yonder, in which the future lies into which we would
peer. Who ordered toil as the condition of life, ordered weariness,
ordered sickness, ordered poverty, failure, success--to this man a
foremost place, to the other a nameless struggle with the crowd--to
that a shameful fall, or paralyzed limb, or sudden accident--to each
some work upon the ground he stands on, until he is laid beneath it."
While they were talking, the dawn came shining through the windows of
the room, and Pen threw them open to receive the fresh morning air.
"Look, George," said he; "look and see the sun rise: he sees the
laborer on his way a-field, the work-girl plying her poor needle; the
lawyer at his desk, perhaps; the beauty smiling asleep upon her pillow
of down; or the jaded reveler reeling to bed; or the fevered patient
tossing on it; or the doctor watching by it, over the throes of the
mother for the child that is to be born into the world; to be born and
to take his part in the suffering and struggling, the tears and
laughter, the crime, remorse, love, folly, sorrow, rest."



CHAPTER VII.

MISS AMORY'S PARTNERS.


The noble Henry Foker, of whom we have lost sight for a few pages, has
been in the mean while occupied, as we might suppose a man of his
constancy would be, in the pursuit and indulgence of his all-absorbing
passion of love.

I wish that a few of my youthful readers who are inclined to that
amusement would take the trouble to calculate the time which is spent
in the pursuit, when they would find it to be one of the most costly
occupations in which a man can possibly indulge. What don't you
sacrifice to it, indeed, young gentlemen and young ladies of
ill-regulated minds? Many hours of your precious sleep, in the first
place, in which you lie tossing and thinking about the adored object,
whence you come down late to breakfast, when noon is advancing, and
all the family is long since away to its daily occupations. Then when
you at length get to these occupations you pay no attention to them,
and engage in them with no ardor, all your thoughts and powers of mind
being fixed elsewhere. Then the day's work being slurred over, you
neglect your friends and relatives, your natural companions and usual
associates in life, that you may go and have a glance at the dear
personage, or a look up at her windows, or a peep at her carriage in
the Park. Then at night the artless blandishments of home bore you;
mamma's conversation palls upon you; the dishes which that good soul
prepares for the dinner of her favorite are sent away untasted, the
whole meal of life, indeed, except one particular _plat_, has no
relish. Life, business, family ties, home, all things useful and dear
once become intolerable, and you are never easy except when you are in
pursuit of your flame.

Such I believe to be not unfrequently the state of mind among
ill-regulated young gentlemen, and such, indeed, was Mr. H. Foker's
condition, who, having been bred up to indulge in every propensity
toward which he was inclined, abandoned himself to this one with his
usual selfish enthusiasm. Nor because he had given his friend Arthur
Pendennis a great deal of good advice on a former occasion, need men
of the world wonder that Mr. Foker became passion's slave in his turn.
Who among us has not given a plenty of the very best advice to his
friends? Who has not preached, and who has practiced? To be sure, you,
madam, are perhaps a perfect being, and never had a wrong thought in
the whole course of your frigid and irreproachable existence: or you,
sir, are a great deal too strong-minded to allow any foolish passion
to interfere with your equanimity in chambers or your attendance on
'Change; you are so strong that you don't want any sympathy. We don't
give you any, then; we keep ours for the humble and weak, that
struggle and stumble and get up again, and so march with the rest of
mortals. What need have _you_ of a hand who never fall? Your serene
virtue is never shaded by passion, or ruffled by temptation, or
darkened by remorse; compassion would be impertinence for such an
angel: but then, with such a one companionship becomes intolerable;
you are, from the very elevation of your virtue and high attributes,
of necessity lonely; we can't reach up and talk familiarly with such
potentates. Good-by, then; our way lies with humble folks, and not
with serene highnesses like you; and we give notice that there are no
perfect characters in this history, except, perhaps, one little one,
and that one is not perfect either, for she never knows to this day
that she is perfect, and with a deplorable misapprehension and
perverseness of humility, believes herself to be as great a sinner
as need be.

This young person does not happen to be in London at the present
period of our story, and it is by no means for the like of her that
Mr. Henry Foker's mind is agitated. But what matters a few failings?
Need we be angels, male or female, in order to be worshiped as such?
Let us admire the diversity of the tastes of mankind, and the oldest,
the ugliest, the stupidest and most pompous, the silliest and most
vapid, the greatest criminal, tyrant, booby, Bluebeard, Catherine
Hayes, George Barnwell, among us, we need never despair. I have read
of the passion of a transported pickpocket for a female convict (each
of them being advanced in age, repulsive in person, ignorant,
quarrelsome, and given to drink), that was as magnificent as the loves
of Cleopatra and Antony, or Lancelot and Guinever. The passion which
Count Borulawski, the Polish dwarf, inspired in the bosom of the most
beautiful baroness at the court of Dresden, is a matter with which we
are all of us acquainted: the flame which burned in the heart of young
Cornet Tozer but the other day, and caused him to run off and espouse
Mrs. Battersby, who was old enough to be his mamma; all these
instances are told in the page of history or the newspaper column. Are
we to be ashamed or pleased to think that our hearts are formed so
that the biggest and highest-placed Ajax among us may some day find
himself prostrate before the pattens of his kitchen-maid; as that
there is no poverty or shame or crime, which will not be supported,
hugged, even with delight, and cherished more closely than virtue
would be, by the perverse fidelity and admirable constant folly of
a woman?

So then Henry Foker, Esquire, longed after his love, and cursed the
fate which separated him from her. When Lord Gravesend's family
retired to the country (his lordship leaving his proxy with the
venerable Lord Bagwig), Harry still remained lingering on in London,
certainly not much to the sorrow of Lady Ann, to whom he was
affianced, and who did not in the least miss him. Wherever Miss
Clavering went, this infatuated young fellow continued to follow her;
and being aware that his engagement to his cousin was known in the
world, he was forced to make a mystery of his passion, and confine it
to his own breast, so that it was so pent in there and pressed down,
that it is a wonder he did not explode some day with the stormy
secret, and perish collapsed after the outburst.

There had been a grand entertainment at Gaunt House on one beautiful
evening in June, and the next day's journals contained almost two
columns of the names of the most closely-printed nobility and gentry
who had been honored with invitations to the ball. Among the guests
were Sir Francis and Lady Clavering and Miss Amory, for whom the
indefatigable Major Pendennis had procured an invitation, and our two
young friends Arthur and Harry. Each exerted himself, and danced a
great deal with Miss Blanche. As for the worthy major, he assumed the
charge of Lady Clavering, and took care to introduce her to that
department of the mansion where her ladyship specially distinguished
herself, namely, the refreshment-room, where, among pictures of Titian
and Giorgione, and regal portraits of Vandyke and Reynolds, and
enormous salvers of gold and silver, and pyramids of large flowers,
and constellations of wax candles--in a manner perfectly regardless of
expense, in a word--a supper was going on all night. Of how many
creams, jellies, salads, peaches, white soups, grapes, pâtes,
galantines, cups of tea, champagne, and so forth, Lady Clavering
partook, it does not become us to say. How much the major suffered as
he followed the honest woman about, calling to the solemn male
attendants, and lovely servant-maids, and administering to Lady
Clavering's various wants with admirable patience, nobody knows; he
never confessed. He never allowed his agony to appear on his
countenance in the least; but with a constant kindness brought plate
after plate to the Begum.

Mr. Wagg counted up all the dishes of which Lady Clavering partook as
long as he could count (but as he partook very freely himself of
Champagne during the evening, his powers of calculation were not to be
trusted at the close of the entertainment), and he recommended Mr.
Honeyman, Lady Steyne's medical man, to look carefully after the
Begum, and to call and get news of her ladyship the next day.

Sir Francis Clavering made his appearance, and skulked for a while
about the magnificent rooms; but the company and the splendor which he
met there were not to the baronet's taste, and after tossing off a
tumbler of wine or two at the buffet, he quitted Gaunt House for the
neighborhood of Jermyn-street, where his friends Loder, Punter, little
Moss Abrams, and Captain Skewball were assembled at the familiar green
table. In the rattle of the box, and of their agreeable conversation,
Sir Francis's spirits rose to their accustomed point of
feeble hilarity.

Mr. Pynsent, who had asked Miss Amory to dance, came up on one
occasion to claim her hand, but scowls of recognition having already
passed between him and Mr. Arthur Pendennis in the dancing-room,
Arthur suddenly rose up and claimed Miss Amory as his partner for the
present dance, on which Mr. Pynsent, biting his lips and scowling yet
more savagely, withdrew with a profound bow, saying that he gave up
his claim. There are some men who are always falling in one's way in
life. Pynsent and Pen had this view of each other, and regarded each
other accordingly.

"What a confounded, conceited provincial fool that is!" thought the
one. "Because he has written a twopenny novel, his absurd head is
turned, and a kicking would take his conceit out of him."

"What an impertinent idiot that man is!" remarked the other to his
partner. "His soul is in Downing-street; his neckcloth is foolscap;
his hair is sand; his legs are rulers; his vitals are tape and
sealing-wax; he was a prig in his cradle; and never laughed since he
was born, except three times at the same joke of his chief. I have the
same liking for that man, Miss Amory, that I have for cold boiled
veal." Upon which Blanche of course remarked, that Mr. Pendennis was
wicked, _méchant_, perfectly abominable, and wondered what he would
say when _her_ back was turned.

"Say!--Say that you have the most beautiful figure and the slimmest
waist in the world, Blanche--Miss Amory, I mean. I beg your pardon.
Another turn; this music would make an alderman dance."

"And you have left off tumbling, when you waltz now?" Blanche asked,
archly looking up at her partner's face.

"One falls and one gets up again in life, Blanche; you know I used to
call you so in old times, and it is the prettiest name in the world:
besides, I have practiced since then."

"And with a great number of partners, I'm afraid," Blanche said, with
a little sham sigh, and a shrug of the shoulders. And so in truth Mr.
Pen had practiced a good deal in this life; and had undoubtedly
arrived at being able to dance better.

If Pendennis was impertinent in his talk, Foker, on the other hand, so
bland and communicative on most occasions, was entirely mum and
melancholy when he danced with Miss Amory. To clasp her slender waist
was a rapture, to whirl round the room with her was a delirium; but to
speak to her, what could he say that was worthy of her? What pearl of
conversation could he bring that was fit for the acceptance of such a
queen of love and wit as Blanche? It was she who made the talk when
she was in the company of this love-stricken partner. It was she who
asked him how that dear little pony was, and looked at him and thanked
him with such a tender kindness and regret, and refused the dear
little pony with such a delicate sigh when he offered it. "I have
nobody to ride with in London," she said. "Mamma is timid, and her
figure is not pretty on horseback. Sir Francis never goes out with me,
He loves me like--like a step-daughter. Oh, how delightful it must be
to have a father--a father, Mr. Foker!"

"Oh, uncommon," said Mr. Harry, who enjoyed that blessing very calmly,
upon which, and forgetting the sentimental air which she had just
before assumed, Blanche's gray eyes gazed at Foker with such an arch
twinkle, that both of them burst out laughing, and Harry, enraptured
and at his ease, began to entertain her with a variety of innocent
prattle--good, kind, simple, Foker talk, flavored with many
expressions by no means to be discovered in dictionaries, and relating
to the personal history of himself or horses, or other things dear and
important to him, or to persons in the ball-room then passing before
them, and about whose appearance or character Mr. Harry spoke with
artless freedom, and a considerable dash of humor.

And it was Blanche who, when the conversation flagged, and the youth's
modesty came rushing back and overpowering him, knew how to reanimate
her companion: asked him questions about Logwood, and whether it was a
pretty place? Whether he was a hunting-man, and whether he liked women
to hunt? (in which case she was prepared to say that she adored
hunting)--but Mr. Foker expressing his opinion against sporting
females, and pointing out Lady Bullfinch, who happened to pass by, as
a horse god-mother, whom he had seen at cover with a cigar in her
face, Blanche too expressed her detestation of the sports of the
field, and said it would make her shudder to think of a dear, sweet
little fox being killed, on which Foker danced and waltzed with
renewed vigor and grace.

At the end of the waltz--the last waltz they had on that night--
Blanche asked him about Drummington, and whether it was a fine house.
His cousins, she had heard, were very accomplished; Lord Erith she had
met, and which of his cousins was his favorite? Was it not Lady Ann?
Yes, she was sure it was she: sure by his looks and his blushes. She
was tired of dancing; it was getting very late; she must go to mamma;
and, without another word, she sprang away from Harry Foker's arm, and
seized upon Pen's, who was swaggering about the dancing-room, and
again said, "Mamma, mamma!--take me to mamma, dear Mr. Pendennis!"
transfixing Harry with a Parthian shot, as she fled from him.

My Lord Steyne, with garter and ribbon, with a bald head and shining
eyes, and a collar of red whiskers round his face, always looked grand
upon an occasion of state; and made a great effect upon Lady
Clavering, when he introduced himself to her at the request of the
obsequious Major Pendennis. With his own white and royal hand, he
handed to her ladyship a glass of wine, said he had heard of her
charming daughter, and begged to be presented to her; and, at this
very juncture, Mr. Arthur Pendennis came up with the young lady on
his arm.

The peer made a profound bow, and Blanche the deepest courtesy that
ever was seen. His lordship gave Mr. Arthur Pendennis his hand to
shake; said he had read his book, which was very wicked and clever;
asked Miss Blanche if she had read it, at which Pen blushed and
winced. Why, Blanche was one of the heroines of the novel. Blanche, in
black ringlets and a little altered, was the Neaera of Walter Lorraine.

Blanche had read it; the language of the eyes expressed her admiration
and rapture at the performance. This little play being achieved, the
Marquis of Steyne made other two profound bows to Lady Clavering and
her daughter, and passed on to some other of his guests at the
splendid entertainment.

Mamma and daughter were loud in their expression of admiration of the
noble marquis so soon as his broad back was turned upon them. "He said
they make a very nice couple," whispered Major Pendennis to Lady
Clavering. Did he now, really? Mamma thought they would; Mamma was so
flustered with the honor which had just been shown to her, and with
other intoxicating events of the evening, that her good humor knew no
bounds. She laughed, she winked, and nodded knowingly at Pen; she
tapped him on the arm with her fan; she tapped Blanche; she tapped the
major; her contentment was boundless; and her method of showing her
joy equally expansive.

As the party went down the great staircase of Gaunt House, the morning
had risen stark and clear over the black trees of the square, the
skies were tinged with pink; and the cheeks of some of the people at
the ball--ah, how ghastly they looked! That admirable and devoted
major above all--who had been for hours by Lady Clavering's side,
ministering to her and feeding her body with every thing that was
nice, and her ear with every thing that was sweet and flattering--oh!
what an object he was! The rings round his eyes were of the color of
bistre; those orbs themselves were like the plovers' eggs whereof Lady
Clavering and Blanche had each tasted; the wrinkles in his old face
were furrowed in deep gashes; and a silver stubble, like an elderly
morning dew, was glittering on his chin, and alongside the dyed
whiskers, now limp and out of curl.

There he stood, with admirable patience, enduring uncomplainingly, a
silent agony; knowing that people could see the state of his face (for
could he not himself perceive the condition of others, males and
females, of his own age?)--longing to go to rest for hours past; aware
that suppers disagreed with him, and yet having eaten a little so as
to keep his friend, Lady Clavering, in good humor; with twinges of
rheumatism in the back and knees; with weary feet burning in his
varnished boots; so tired, oh, so tired, and longing for bed! If a
man, struggling with hardship and bravely overcoming it, is an object
of admiration for the gods, that Power in whose chapels the old major
was a faithful worshiper must have looked upward approvingly upon the
constancy of Pendennis's martyrdom. There are sufferers in that cause
as in the other; the negroes in the service of Mumbo Jumbo tattoo and
drill themselves with burning skewers with great fortitude; and we
read that the priests in the service of Baal gashed themselves and
bled freely. You who can smash the idols, do so with a good courage;
but do not be too fierce with the idolaters--they worship the best
thing they know.

[Illustration]

The Pendennises, the elder and the younger, waited with Lady Clavering
and her daughter until her ladyship's carriage was announced, when the
elder's martyrdom may be said to have come to an end, for the
good-natured Begum insisted upon leaving him at his door in
Bury-street; so he took the back seat of the carriage, after a feeble
bow or two, and speech of thanks, polite to the last, and resolute in
doing his duty. The Begum waved her dumpy little hand by way of
farewell to Arthur and Foker, and Blanche smiled languidly out upon
the young men, thinking whether she looked very wan and green under
her rose-colored hood, and whether it was the mirrors at Gaunt House,
or the fatigue and fever of her own eyes, which made her fancy
herself so pale.

Arthur, perhaps, saw quite well how yellow Blanche looked, but did not
attribute that peculiarity of her complexion to the effect of the
looking-glasses, or to any error in his sight or her own. Our young
man of the world could use his eyes very keenly, and could see
Blanche's face pretty much as nature had made it. But for poor Foker
it had a radiance which dazzled and blinded him: he could see no
more faults in it than in the sun, which was now flaring over the
house-tops.

Among other wicked London habits which Pen had acquired, the moralist
will remark that he had got to keep very bad hours; and often was
going to bed at the time when sober country people were thinking of
leaving it. Men get used to one hour as to another. Editors of
newspapers, Covent-Garden market people, night cabmen, and
coffee-sellers, chimney-sweeps, and gentlemen and ladies of fashion
who frequent balls, are often quite lively at three or four o'clock of
a morning, when ordinary mortals are snoring. We have shown in the
last chapter how Pen was in a brisk condition of mind at this period,
inclined to smoke his cigar at ease, and to speak freely.

Foker and Pen walked away from Gaunt House, then, indulging in both
the above amusements; or rather Pen talked, and Foker looked as if he
wanted to say something. Pen was sarcastic and dandyfied when he had
been in the company of great folks; he could not help imitating some
of their airs and tones, and having a most lively imagination, mistook
himself for a person of importance very easily. He rattled away, and
attacked this person and that; sneered at Lady John Turnbull's bad
French, which her ladyship will introduce into all conversations, in
spite of the sneers of every body: at Mrs. Slack Roper's extraordinary
costume and sham jewels; at the old dandies and the young ones; at
whom didn't he sneer and laugh?

"You fire at everybody, Pen--you're grown awful, that you are," Foker
said. "Now, you've pulled about Blondel's yellow wig, and Colchicum's
black one, why don't you have a shy at a brown one, hay? you know
whose I mean. It got into Lady Clavering's carriage."

"Under my uncle's hat? My uncle is a martyr, Foker, my boy. My uncle
has been doing excruciating duties all night. He likes to go to bed
rather early. He has a dreadful headache if he sits up and touches
supper. He always has the gout if he walks or stands much at a ball.
He has been sitting up, and standing up, and supping. He has gone home
to the gout and the headache, and for my sake. Shall I make fun of the
old boy? no, not for Venice!"

"How do you mean that he has been doing it for your sake?" Foker
asked, looking rather alarmed.

"Boy! canst thou keep a secret if I impart it to thee?" Pen cried out,
in high spirits. "Art thou of good counsel? Wilt thou swear? Wilt thou
be mum, or wilt thou peach? Wilt thou be silent and hear, or wilt thou
speak and die?" And as he spoke, flinging himself into an absurd
theatrical attitude, the men in the cab-stand in Piccadilly wondered
and grinned at the antics of the two young swells.

"What the doose are you driving at?" Foker asked, looking very much
agitated.

Pen, however, did not remark this agitation much, but continued in the
same bantering and excited vein. "Henry, friend of my youth," he
said, "and witness of my early follies, though dull at thy books, yet
thou art not altogether deprived of sense; nay, blush not, Henrico,
thou hast a good portion of that, and of courage and kindness too, at
the service of thy friends. Were I in a strait of poverty, I would
come to my Foker's purse. Were I in grief, I would discharge my grief
upon his sympathizing bosom--"

"Gammon, Pen; go on," Foker said.

"I would, Henrico, upon thy studs, and upon thy cambric, worked by the
hands of beauty, to adorn the breast of valor! Know then, friend of my
boyhood's days, that Arthur Pendennis, of the Upper Temple,
student-at-law, feels that he is growing lonely, and old Care is
furrowing his temples, and Baldness is busy with his crown. Shall we
stop and have a drop of coffee at this stall, it looks very hot and
nice? Look how that cabman is blowing at his saucer. No, you won't?
Aristocrat! I resume my tale. I am getting on in life. I have got
devilish little money. I want some. I am thinking of getting some, and
settling in life. I'm thinking of settling. I'm thinking of marrying,
old boy. I'm thinking of becoming a moral man; a steady port and
sherry character: with a good reputation in my _quartier_, and a
moderate establishment of two maids and a man; with an occasional
brougham to drive out Mrs. Pendennis, and a house near the Parks for
the accommodation of the children. Ha! what sayest thou? Answer thy
friend, thou worthy child of beer. Speak, I adjure thee, by all
thy vats."

"But you ain't got any money, Pen," said the other, still looking
alarmed.

"I ain't? No, but _she_ ave. I tell thee there is gold in store for me
--not what _you_ call money, nursed in the lap of luxury, and cradled
on grains, and drinking in wealth from a thousand mash-tubs. What do
you know about money? What is poverty to you, is splendor to the hardy
son of the humble apothecary. You can't live without an establishment,
and your houses in town and country. A snug little house somewhere off
Belgravia, a brougham for my wife, a decent cook, and a fair bottle of
wine for my friends at home sometimes; these simple necessaries
suffice for me, my Foker." And here Pendennis began to look more
serious. Without bantering further, Pen continued, "I've rather
serious thoughts of settling and marrying. No man can get on in the
world without some money at his back. You must have a certain stake to
begin with, before you can go in and play the great game. Who knows
that I'm not going to try, old fellow? Worse men than I have won at
it. And as I have not got enough capital from my fathers, I must get
some by my wife--that's all."

They were walking down Grosvenor-street, as they talked, or rather as
Pen talked, in the selfish fullness of his heart; and Mr. Pen must
have been too much occupied with his own affairs to remark the concern
and agitation of his neighbor, for he continued, "We are no longer
children, you know, you and I, Harry. Bah! the time of our romance has
passed away. We don't marry for passion, but for prudence and for
establishment. What do you take your cousin for? Because she is a nice
girl, and an earl's daughter, and the old folks wish it, and that sort
of thing."

"And you, Pendennis," asked Foker, "you ain't very fond of the
girl--you're going to marry?"

Pen shrugged his shoulders. "_Comme ça_," said he; "I like her well
enough. She's pretty enough; she's clever enough. I think she'll do
very well. And she has got money enough--that's the great point. Psha!
you know who she is, don't you? I thought you were sweet on her
yourself one night when we dined with her mamma. It's little Amory."

"I--I thought so," Foker said; "and has she accepted you?"

"Not quite," Arthur replied, with a confident smile, which seemed to
say, I have but to ask, and she comes to me that instant.

"Oh, not quite," said Foker; and he broke out with such a dreadful
laugh, that Pen, for the first time, turned his thoughts from himself
toward his companion, and was struck by the other's ghastly pale face.

"My dear fellow, Fo! what's the matter? You're ill," Pen said, in a
tone of real concern.

"You think it was the Champagne at Gaunt House, don't you? It ain't
that. Come in; let me talk to you for a minute. I'll tell you what it
is. D--it, let me tell somebody," Foker said.

They were at Mr. Foker's door by this time, and, opening it, Harry
walked with his friend into his apartments, which were situated in the
back part of the house, and behind the family dining-room, where the
elder Foker received his guests, surrounded by pictures of himself,
his wife, his infant son on a donkey, and the late Earl of Gravesend
in his robes as a peer. Foker and Pen passed by this chamber, now
closed with death-like shutters, and entered into the young man's own
quarters. Dusky streams of sunbeams were playing into that room, and
lighting up poor Harry's gallery of dancing girls and opera nymphs
with flickering illuminations.

"Look here! I can't help telling you, Pen," he said. "Ever since the
night we dined there, I'm so fond of that girl, that I think I shall
die if I don't get her. I feel as if I should go mad sometimes. I
can't stand it, Pen. I couldn't bear to hear you talking about her,
just now, about marrying her only because she's money. Ah, Pen! _that_
ain't the question in marrying. I'd bet any thing it ain't. Talking
about money and such a girl as that, it's--it's--what-d'ye-callem--_you_
know what I mean--I ain't good at talking--sacrilege, then. If she'd have
me, I'd take and sweep a crossing, that I would!"

"Poor Fo! I don't think that would tempt her," Pen said, eying his
friend with a great deal of real good-nature and pity. "She is not a
girl for love and a cottage."

"She ought to be a duchess, I know that very well, and I know she
wouldn't take me unless I could make her a great place in the
world--for I ain't good for any thing myself much--I ain't clever and
that sort of thing," Foker said, sadly. "If I had all the diamonds
that all the duchesses and marchionesses had on to-night, wouldn't I
put 'em in her lap? But what's the use of talking? I'm booked for
another race. It's that kills me, Pen. I can't get out of it; though I
die, I can't get out of it. And though my cousin's a nice girl, and I
like her very well, and that, yet I hadn't seen this one when our
governors settled that matter between us. And when you talked, just
now, about her doing very well, and about her having money enough for
both of you, I thought to myself, it isn't money or mere liking a
girl, that ought to be enough to make a fellow marry. He may marry,
and find he likes somebody else better. All the money in the world
won't make you happy then. Look at me; I've plenty of money, or shall
have, out of the mash-tubs, as you call 'em. My governor thought he'd
made it all right for me in settling my marriage with my cousin. I
tell you it won't do; and when Lady Ann has got her husband, it won't
be happy for either of us, and she'll have the most miserable
beggar in town."

"Poor old fellow!" Pen said, with rather a cheap magnanimity, "I wish
I could help you. I had no idea of this, and that you were so wild
about the girl. Do you think she would have you without your money?
No. Do you think your father would agree to break off your engagement
with your cousin? You know him very well, and that he would cast you
off rather than do so."

The unhappy Foker only groaned a reply, flinging himself prostrate on
the sofa, face forward, his head in his hands.

"As for my affair," Pen went on--"my dear fellow, if I had thought
matters were so critical with you, at least I would not have pained
you by choosing you as my confidant. And my business is not serious,
at least, not as yet. I have not spoken a word about it to Miss Amory.
Very likely she would not have me if I asked her. Only I have had a
great deal of talk about it with my uncle, who says that the match
might be an eligible one for me. I'm ambitious and I'm poor. And it
appears Lady Clavering will give her a good deal of money, and Sir
Francis might be got to--never mind the rest. Nothing is settled,
Harry. They are going out of town directly. I promise you I won't ask
her before she goes. There's no hurry: there's time for every body.
But, suppose you got her, Foker. Remember what you said about
marriages just now, and the misery of a man who doesn't care for his
wife: and what sort of a wife would you have who didn't care for
her husband?"

"But she would care for me," said Foker, from his sofa--"that is, I
think she would. Last night only, as we were dancing, she said--"

"What did she say?" Pen cried, starting up in great wrath. But he saw
his own meaning more clearly than Foker, and broke off with a
laugh--"Well, never mind what she said, Harry. Miss Amory is a clever
girl, and says numbers of civil things--to you--to me, perhaps--and
who the deuce knows to whom besides? Nothing's settled, old boy. At
least, _my_ heart won't break if I don't get her. Win her if you can,
 and I wish you joy of her. Good-by! Don't think about what I said to
you. I was excited, and confoundedly thirsty in those hot rooms, and
didn't, I suppose, put enough Seltzer water into the Champagne. Good
night! I'll keep your counsel too. 'Mum' is the word between us; and
'let there be a fair fight, and let the best man win,' as Peter
Crawley says."

So saying, Mr. Arthur Pendennis, giving a very queer and rather
dangerous look at his companion, shook him by the hand, with something
of that sort of cordiality which befitted his just repeated simile of
the boxing-match, and which Mr. Bendigo displays when he shakes hands
with Mr. Gaunt before they fight each other for the champion's belt
and two hundred pounds a side. Foker returned his friend's salute with
an imploring look, and a piteous squeeze of the hand, sank back on his
cushions again, and Pen, putting on his hat, strode forth into the
air, and almost over the body of the matutinal housemaid, who was
rubbing the steps at the door.

"And so he wants her too? does he?" thought Pen as he marched
along--and noted within himself with a fatal keenness of perception
and almost an infernal mischief, that the very pains and tortures
which that honest heart of Foker's was suffering gave a zest and an
impetus to his own pursuit of Blanche: if pursuit that might be called
which had been no pursuit as yet, but mere sport and idle dallying.
"She said something to him, did she? perhaps she gave him the fellow
flower to this;" and he took out of his coat and twiddled in his thumb
and finger a poor little shriveled, crumpled bud that had faded and
blackened with the heat and flare of the night. "I wonder to how many
more she has given her artless tokens of affection--the little
flirt"--and he flung his into the gutter, where the water may have
refreshed it, and where any amateur of rosebuds may have picked it up.
And then bethinking him that the day was quite bright, and that the
passers-by might be staring at his beard and white neckcloth, our
modest young gentleman took a cab and drove to the Temple. Ah! is this
the boy that prayed at his mother's knee but a few years since, and
for whom very likely at this hour of morning she is praying? Is this
jaded and selfish worldling the lad who, a short while back, was ready
to fling away his worldly all, his hope, his ambition, his chance of
life, for his love? This is the man you are proud of, old Pendennis.
You boast of having formed him: and of having reasoned him out of his
absurd romance and folly--and groaning in your bed over your pains and
rheumatisms, satisfy yourself still by thinking, that, at last, that
lad will do something to better himself in life, and that the
Pendennises will take a good place in the world. And is he the only
one, who in his progress through this dark life goes willfully or
fatally astray, while the natural truth and love which should illumine
him grew dim in the poisoned air, and suffice to light him no more?

When Pen was gone away, poor Harry Foker got up from the sofa, and
taking out from his waistcoat--the splendidly buttoned, the gorgeously
embroidered, the work of his mamma--a little white rosebud, he drew
from his dressing-case, also the maternal present, a pair of scissors,
with which he nipped carefully the stalk of the flower, and placing it
in a glass of water opposite his bed, he sought refuge there from care
and bitter remembrances.

It is to be presumed that Miss Blanche Amory had more than one rose in
her bouquet, and why should not the kind young creature give out of
her superfluity, and make as many partners as possible happy?



CHAPTER VIII.

MONSEIGNEUR S'AMUSE.


[Illustration]

The exertions of that last night at Gaunt House had proved almost too
much for Major Pendennis; and as soon as he could move his weary old
body with safety, he transported himself groaning to Buxton, and
sought relief in the healing waters of that place. Parliament broke
up. Sir Francis Clavering and family left town, and the affairs which
we have just mentioned to the reader were not advanced, in the brief
interval of a few days or weeks which have occurred between this and
the last chapter. The town was, however, emptied since then. The
season was now come to a conclusion: Pen's neighbors, the lawyers,
were gone upon circuit: and his more fashionable friends had taken
their passports for the Continent, or had fled for health or
excitement to the Scotch moors. Scarce a man was to be seen in the
bay-windows of the Clubs, or on the solitary Pall-Mall pavement. The
red jackets had disappeared from before the Palace-gate: the tradesmen
of St. James's were abroad taking their pleasure: the tailors had
grown mustaches, and were gone up the Rhine: the bootmakers were at
Ems or Baden, blushing when they met their customers at those places
of recreation, or punting beside their creditors at the gambling
tables: the clergymen of St. James's only preached to half a
congregation, in which there was not a single sinner of distinction:
the band in Kensington Gardens had shut up their instruments of brass
and trumpets of silver: only two or three old flies and chaises
crawled by the banks of the Serpentine, and Clarence Bulbul, who was
retained in town by his arduous duties as a Treasury clerk, when he
took his afternoon ride in Rotten Row, compared its loneliness to the
vastness of the Arabian desert, and himself to a Bedouin wending his
way through that dusty solitude. Warrington stowed away a quantity of
Cavendish tobacco in his carpet bag, and betook himself, as his custom
was, in the vacation to his brother's house in Norfolk. Pen was left
alone in chambers for a while, for this man of fashion could not quit
the metropolis when he chose always: and was at present detained by
the affairs of his newspaper, the Pall Mall Gazette, of which he acted
as the editor and chargé d'affaires during the temporary absence of
the chief, Captain Shandon, who was with his family at the salutary
watering-place of Boulogne sur Mer.

Although, as we have seen, Mr. Pen had pronounced himself for years
past to be a man perfectly _blasé_ and wearied of life, yet the truth
is that he was an exceedingly healthy young fellow; still with a fine
appetite, which he satisfied with the greatest relish and satisfaction
at least once a day; and a constant desire for society, which showed
him to be any thing but misanthropical. If he could not get a good
dinner he sat down to a bad one with perfect contentment; if he could
not procure the company of witty, or great, or beautiful persons, he
put up with any society that came to hand; and was perfectly satisfied
in a tavern-parlor or on board a Greenwich steam-boat, or in a jaunt
to Hampstead with Mr. Finucane, his colleague at the Pall Mall
Gazette; or in a visit to the summer theaters across the river; or to
the Royal Gardens of Vauxhall, where he was on terms of friendship
with the great Simpson, and where he shook the principal comic singer
or the lovely equestrian of the arena by the hand. And while he could
watch the grimaces or the graces of these with a satiric humor that
was not deprived of sympathy, he could look on with an eye of kindness
at the lookers on too; at the roystering youth bent upon enjoyment,
and here taking it: at the honest parents, with their delighted
children laughing and clapping their hands at the show: at the poor
outcasts, whose laughter was less innocent, though perhaps louder, and
who brought their shame and their youth here, to dance and be merry
till the dawn at least; and to get bread and drown care. Of this
sympathy with all conditions of men Arthur often boasted: he was
pleased to possess it: and said that he hoped thus to the last he
should retain it. As another man has an ardor for art or music, or
natural science, Mr. Pen said that anthropology was his favorite
pursuit; and had his eyes always eagerly open to its infinite
varieties and beauties: contemplating with an unfailing delight all
specimens of it in all places to which he resorted, whether it was the
coqueting of a wrinkled dowager in a ball-room, or a high-bred young
beauty blushing in her prime there; whether it was a hulking guardsman
coaxing a servant-girl in the Park, or innocent little Tommy that was
feeding the ducks while the nurse listened. And indeed a man whose
heart is pretty clean, can indulge in this pursuit with an enjoyment
that never ceases, and is only perhaps the more keen because it is
secret, and has a touch of sadness in it: because he is of his mood
and humor lonely, and apart although not alone.

Yes, Pen used to brag and talk in his impetuous way to Warrington. "I
was in love so fiercely in my youth, that I have burned out that flame
forever, I think, and if ever I marry, it will be a marriage of reason
that I will make, with a well-bred, good-tempered, good-looking person
who has a little money, and so forth, that will cushion our carriage
in its course through life. As for romance, it is all done; I have
spent that out, and am old before my time--I'm proud of it."

"Stuff!" growled the other, "you fancied you were getting bald the
other day, and bragged about it, as you do about every thing. But you
began to use the bear's-grease pot directly the hair-dresser told you;
and are scented like a barber ever since."

"You are Diogenes," the other answered, "and you want every man to
live in a tub like yourself. Violets smell better than stale tobacco,
you grizzly old cynic." But Mr. Pen was blushing while he made this
reply to his unromantical friend, and indeed cared a great deal more
about himself still than such a philosopher perhaps should have done.
Indeed, considering that he was careless about the world, Mr. Pen
ornamented his person with no small pains in order to make himself
agreeable to it, and for a weary pilgrim as he was, wore very tight
boots and bright varnish.

It was in this dull season of the year then, of a shining Friday night
in autumn, that Mr. Pendennis, having completed at his newspaper
office a brilliant leading article--such as Captain Shandon himself
might have written, had the captain been in good humor, and inclined
to work, which he never would do except under compulsion--that Mr.
Arthur Pendennis having written his article, and reviewed it
approvingly as it lay before him in its wet proof-sheet at the office
of the paper, bethought him that he would cross the water, and regale
himself with the fire-works and other amusements of Vauxhall. So he
affably put in his pocket the order which admitted "Editor of Pall
Mall Gazette and friend" to that place of recreation, and paid with
the coin of the realm a sufficient sum to enable him to cross Waterloo
Bridge. The walk thence to the Gardens was pleasant, the stars were
shining in the skies above, looking down upon the royal property,
whence the rockets and Roman candles had not yet ascended to outshine
the stars.

Before you enter the enchanted ground, where twenty thousand
additional lamps are burned every night as usual, most of us have
passed through the black and dreary passage and wickets which hide the
splendors of Vauxhall from uninitiated men. In the walls of this
passage are two holes strongly illuminated, in the midst of which you
see two gentlemen at desks, where they will take either your money as
a private individual, or your order of admission if you are provided
with that passport to the Gardens. Pen went to exhibit his ticket at
the last-named orifice, where, however, a gentleman and two ladies
were already in parley before him.

The gentleman, whose hat was very much on one side, and who wore a
short and shabby cloak in an excessively smart manner, was crying out
in a voice which Pen at once recognized, "Bedad, sir, if ye doubt me
honor, will ye obleege me by stipping out of that box, and--"

"Lor, Capting!" cried the elder lady.

"Don't bother me," said the man in the box.

"And ask Mr. Hodgen himself, who's in the gyardens, to let these
leedies pass. Don't be froightened, me dear madam, I'm not going to
quarl with this gintleman, at any reet before leedies. Will ye go,
sir, and desoire Mr. Hodgen (whose orther I keem in with, and he's me
most intemate friend, and I know he's goan to sing the 'Body Snatcher'
here to-noight), with Captain Costigan's compliments, to stip out and
let in the leedies; for meself, sir, oi've seen Vauxhall, and I
scawrun any interfayrance on moi account: but for these leedies, one
of them has never been there, and oi should think ye'd harly take
advantage of me misfartune in losing the tickut, to deproive her of
her pleasure."

"It ain't no use, captain. I can't go about your business," the
checktaker said; on which the captain swore an oath, and the elder
lady said, "Lor, ow provokin!"

As for the young one, she looked up at the captain, and said, "Never
mind, Captain Costigan, I'm sure I don't want to go at all. Come away,
mamma." And with this, although she did not want to go at all, her
feelings overcame her, and she began to cry.

"Me poor child!" the captain said. "Can ye see that, sir, and will ye
not let this innocent creature in?"

"It ain't my business," cried the door-keeper, peevishly, out of the
illuminated box. And at this minute Arthur came up, and recognizing
Costigan, said, "Don't you know me, captain? Pendennis!" And he took
off his hat and made a bow to the two ladies. "Me dear boy! Me dear
friend!" cried the captain, extending toward Pendennis the grasp of
friendship; and he rapidly explained to the other what he called "a
most unluckee conthratong." He had an order for Vauxhall, admitting
two, from Mr. Hodgen, then within the Gardens, and singing (as he did
at the Back Kitchen and the nobility's concerts the "Body Snatcher,"
the "Death of General Wolfe," the "Banner of Blood," and other
favorite melodies); and, having this order for the admission of two
persons, he thought that it would admit three, and had come
accordingly to the Gardens with his friends. But, on his way, Captain
Costigan had lost the paper of admission--it was not forthcoming at
all; and the leedies must go back again, to the great disappointment
of one of them, as Pendennis saw.

Arthur had a great deal of good nature for everybody, and sympathized
with the misfortunes of all sorts of people: how could he refuse his
sympathy in such a case as this? He had seen the innocent face as it
looked up to the captain, the appealing look of the girl, the piteous
quiver of the mouth, and the final outburst of tears. If it had been
his last guinea in the world, he must have paid it to have given the
poor little thing pleasure. She turned the sad imploring eyes away
directly they lighted upon a stranger, and began to wipe them with her
handkerchief. Arthur looked very handsome and kind as he stood before
the women, with his hat off, blushing, bowing, generous, a
gentleman. "Who are they?" he asked of himself. He thought he had seen
the elder lady before.

"If I can be of any service to you, Captain Costigan," the young man
said, "I hope you will command me; is there any difficulty about
taking these ladies into the garden? Will you kindly make use of my
purse? And--I have a ticket myself which will admit two--I hope,
ma'am, you will permit me?"

The first impulse of the Prince of Fairoaks was to pay for the whole
party, and to make away with his newspaper order as poor Costigan had
done with his own ticket. But his instinct, and the appearance of the
two women told him that they would be better pleased if he did not
give himself the airs of a _grand seigneur_, and he handed his purse
to Costigan, and laughingly pulled out his ticket with one hand, as he
offered the other to the elder of the ladies--ladies was not the
word--they had bonnets and shawls, and collars and ribbons, and the
youngest showed a pretty little foot and boot under her modest gray
gown, but his Highness of Fairoaks was courteous to every person who
wore a petticoat, whatever its texture was, and the humbler the
wearer, only the more stately and polite in his demeanor.

"Fanny, take the gentleman's arm," the elder said; "since you will be
so very kind; I've seen you often come in at our gate, sir, and go in
to Captain Strong's, at No. 4."

Fanny made a little courtesy, and put her hand under Arthur's arm. It
had on a shabby little glove, but it was pretty and small. She was
not a child, but she was scarcely a woman as yet; her tears had dried
up, and her cheek mantled with youthful blushes, and her eyes
glistened with pleasure and gratitude, as she looked up into Arthur's
kind face.

Arthur, in a protecting way, put his other hand upon the little one
resting on his arm. "Fanny's a very pretty little name," he said, "and
so you know me, do you?"

"We keep the lodge, sir, at Shepherd's Inn," Fanny said, with a
courtesy; "and I've never been at Vauxhall, sir, and Pa didn't like me
to go--and--and--O--O--law, how beautiful!" She shrank back as she
spoke, starting with wonder and delight as she saw the Royal Gardens
blaze before her with a hundred million of lamps, with a splendor such
as the finest fairy tale, the finest pantomime she had ever witnessed
at the theater, had never realized. Pen was pleased with her pleasure,
and pressed to his side the little hand which clung so kindly to him.
"What would I not give for a little of this pleasure?" said the
_blasé_ young man.

"Your purse, Pendennis, me dear boy," said the captain's voice behind
him. "Will ye count it? it's all roight--no--ye thrust in old Jack
Costigan (he thrusts me, ye see, madam). Ye've been me preserver, Pen
(I've known um since choildhood, Mrs. Bolton; he's the proproietor of
Fairoaks Castle, and many's the cooper of clart I've dthrunk there
with the first nobilitee of his native countee)--Mr. Pendennis,
ye've been me preserver, and oi thank ye; me daughtther will thank ye:
Mr. Simpson, your humble servant, sir."

If Pen was magnificent in his courtesy to the ladies, what was his
splendor in comparison to Captain Costigan's bowing here and there,
and crying bravo to the singers?

A man, descended like Costigan, from a long line of Hibernian kings,
chieftains, and other magnates and sheriffs of the county, had of
course too much dignity and self-respect to walk arrum-in-arrum (as
the captain phrased it) with a lady who occasionally swept his room
out, and cooked his mutton chops. In the course of their journey from
Shepherd's Inn to Vauxhall Gardens, Captain Costigan had walked by the
side of the two ladies, in a patronizing and affable manner pointing
out to them the edifices worthy of note, and discoursing, according to
his wont, about other cities and countries which he had visited, and
the people of rank and fashion with whom he had the honor of an
acquaintance. Nor could it be expected, nor, indeed, did Mrs. Bolton
expect, that, arrived in the royal property, and strongly illuminated
by the flare of the twenty thousand additional lamps, the captain
would relax from his dignity, and give an arm to a lady who was, in
fact, little better than a housekeeper or charwoman.

But Pen, on his part, had no such scruples. Miss Fanny Bolton did not
make his bed nor sweep his chambers; and he did not choose to let go
his pretty little partner. As for Fanny, her color heightened, and her
bright eyes shone the brighter with pleasure, as she leaned for
protection on the arm of such a fine gentleman as Mr. Pen. And she
looked at numbers of other ladies in the place, and at scores of other
gentlemen under whose protection they were walking here and there; and
she thought that her gentleman was handsomer and grander looking than
any other gent in the place. Of course there were votaries of pleasure
of all ranks there--rakish young surgeons, fast young clerks and
commercialists, occasional dandies of the guard regiments, and the
rest. Old Lord Colchicum was there in attendance upon Mademoiselle
Caracoline, who had been riding in the ring; and who talked her native
French very loud, and used idiomatic expressions of exceeding strength
as she walked about, leaning on the arm of his lordship.

Colchicum was in attendance upon Mademoiselle Caracoline, little Tom
Tufthunt was in attendance upon Lord Colchicum; and rather pleased,
too, with his position. When Don Juan scales the wall, there's never a
want of a Leporello to hold the ladder. Tom Tufthunt was quite happy
to act as friend to the elderly viscount, and to carve the fowl, and
to make the salad at supper. When Pen and his young lady met the
viscount's party, that noble peer only gave Arthur a passing leer of
recognition as his lordship's eyes passed from Pen's face under the
bonnet of Pen's companion. But Tom Tufthunt wagged his head very
good-naturedly at Mr. Arthur, and said, "How are you, old boy?" and
looked extremely knowing at the god-father of this history.

"That is the great rider at Astley's; I have seen her there," Miss
Bolton said, looking after Mademoiselle Caracoline; "and who is that
old man? is it not the gentleman in the ring?"

"That is Lord Viscount Colchicum, Miss Fanny," said Pen, with an air
of protection. He meant no harm; he was pleased to patronize the young
girl, and he was not displeased that she should be so pretty, and that
she should be hanging upon his arm, and that yonder elderly Don Juan
should have seen her there.

Fanny was very pretty; her eyes were dark and brilliant; her teeth
were like little pearls; her mouth was almost as red as Mademoiselle
Caracoline's when the latter had put on her vermilion. And what a
difference there was between the one's voice and the other's, between
the girl's laugh and the woman's! It was only very lately, indeed,
that Fanny, when looking in the little glass over the Bows-Costigan
mantle-piece as she was dusting it, had begun to suspect that she was
a beauty. But a year ago, she was a clumsy, gawky girl, at whom her
father sneered, and of whom the girls at the day-school (Miss
Minifer's, Newcastle-street, Strand; Miss M., the younger sister, took
the leading business at the Norwich circuit in 182-; and she herself
had played for two seasons with some credit T.R.E.O., T.R.S.W.,
until she fell down a trap-door and broke her leg); the girls at
Fanny's school, we say, took no account of her, and thought her a
dowdy little creature as long as she remained under Miss Minifer's
instruction. And it was unremarked and almost unseen in the dark
porter's lodge of Shepherd's Inn, that this little flower bloomed
into beauty.

So this young person hung upon Mr. Pen's arm, and they paced the
gardens together. Empty as London was, there were still some two
millions of people left lingering about it, and among them, one or two
of the acquaintances of Mr. Arthur Pendennis.

Among them, silent and alone, pale, with his hands in his pockets, and
a rueful nod of the head to Arthur as they met, passed Henry Foker,
Esq. Young Henry was trying to ease his mind by moving from place to
place, and from excitement to excitement. But he thought about Blanche
as he sauntered in the dark walks; he thought about Blanche as he
looked at the devices of the lamps. He consulted the fortune-teller
about her, and was disappointed when that gipsy told him that he was
in love with a dark lady who would make him happy; and at the concert,
though Mr. Momus sang his most stunning comic songs, and asked his
most astonishing riddles, never did a kind smile come to visit Foker's
lips. In fact he never heard Mr. Momus at all.

Pen and Miss Bolton were hard by listening to the same concert, and
the latter remarked, and Pen laughed at, Mr. Foker's woe-begone face.

Fanny asked what it was that made that odd-looking little man so
dismal? "I think he is crossed in love!" Pen said. "Isn't that enough
to make any man dismal, Fanny?" And he looked down at her, splendidly
protecting her, like Egmont at Clara in Goethe's play, or Leicester at
Amy in Scott's novel.

"Crossed in love is he? poor gentleman," said Fanny with a sigh, and
her eyes turned round toward him with no little kindness and pity--but
Harry did not see the beautiful dark eyes.

[Illustration]

"How-dy-do, Mr. Pendennis!"--a voice broke in here--it was that of a
young man in a large white coat with a red neckcloth, over which a
dingy short collar was turned, so as to exhibit a dubious neck--with a
large pin of bullion or other metal, and an imaginative waistcoat with
exceedingly fanciful glass buttons, and trowsers that cried with a
loud voice, "Come look at me and see how cheap and tawdry I am; my
master, what a dirty buck!" and a little stick in one pocket of his
coat, and a lady in pink satin on the other arm--"How-dy-do--Forget
me, I dare say? Huxter--Clavering."

"How do you do, Mr. Huxter," the Prince of Fairoaks said, in his most
princely manner, "I hope you are very well." "Pretty bobbish,
thanky." And Mr. Huxter wagged his head. "I say, Pendennis, you've
been coming it uncommon strong since we had the row at Wapshot's,
don't you remember. Great author, hay? Go about with the swells. Saw
your name in the Morning Post. I suppose you're too much of a swell to
come and have a bit of supper with an old friend?--Charterhouse-lane
to-morrow night--some devilish good fellows from Bartholomew's, and
some stunning gin punch. Here's my card." And with this Mr. Huxter
released his hand from the pocket where his cane was, and pulling off
the top of his card case with his teeth produced thence a visiting
ticket, which he handed to Pen.

"You are exceedingly kind, I am sure," said Pen: "but I regret that I
have an engagement which will take me out of town to-morrow night."
And the Marquis of Fairoaks wondering that such a creature as this
could have the audacity to give him a card, put Mr. Huxter's card into
his waistcoat pocket with a lofty courtesy. Possibly Mr. Samuel Huxter
was not aware that there was any great social difference between Mr.
Arthur Pendennis and himself. Mr. Huxter's father was a surgeon and
apothecary at Clavering, just as Mr. Pendennis's papa had been a
surgeon and apothecary at Bath. But the impudence of some men is
beyond all calculation.

"Well, old fellow, never mind," said Mr. Huxter, who, always frank and
familiar, was from vinous excitement even more affable than usual. "If
ever you are passing, look up at our place--I'm mostly at home
Saturdays; and there's generally a cheese in the cupboard. Ta, Ta.
There's the bell for the fire-works ringing. Come along, Mary." And he
set off running with the rest of the crowd in the direction of the
fireworks.

So did Pen presently, when this agreeable youth was out of sight,
begin to run with his little companion; Mrs. Bolton following after
them, with Captain Costigan at her side. But the captain was too
majestic and dignified in his movements to run for friend or enemy,
and he pursued his course with the usual jaunty swagger which
distinguished his steps, so that he and his companion were speedily
distanced by Pen and Miss Fanny.

Perhaps Arthur forgot, or perhaps he did not choose to remember, that
the elder couple had no money in their pockets, as had been proved by
their adventure at the entrance of the gardens; howbeit, Pen paid a
couple of shillings for himself and his partner, and with her hanging
close on his arm, scaled the staircase which leads to the fire-work
gallery. The captain and mamma might have followed them if they liked,
but Arthur and Fanny were too busy to look back. People were pushing
and squeezing there beside and behind them. One eager individual
rushed by Fanny, and elbowed her so, that she fell back with a little
cry, upon which, of course, Arthur caught her adroitly in his arms,
and, just for protection, kept her so defended until they mounted the
stair, and took their places.

Poor Foker sate alone on one of the highest benches, his face illuminated
by the fire-works, or in their absence by the moon. Arthur
saw him, and laughed, but did not occupy himself about his friend
much. He was engaged with Fanny. How she wondered! how happy she was!
how she cried O, O, O, as the rockets soared into the air, and
showered down in azure, and emerald, and vermilion. As these wonders
blazed and disappeared before her, the little girl thrilled and
trembled with delight at Arthur's side--her hand was under his arm
still, he felt it pressing him as she looked up delighted.

[Illustration]

"How beautiful they are, sir!" she cried.

"Don't call me sir, Fanny," Arthur said.

A quick blush rushed up into the girl's face. "What shall I call you?"
she said, in a low voice, sweet and tremulous. "What would you wish me
to say, sir?"

"Again, Fanny? Well, I forgot; it is best so, my dear," Pendennis
said, very kindly and gently. "I may call you Fanny?"

"O yes!" she said, and the little hand pressed his arm once more very
eagerly, and the girl clung to him so that he could feel her heart
beating on his shoulder.

"I may call you Fanny, because you are a young girl, and a good girl,
 Fanny, and I am an old gentleman. But you mustn't call me any thing
but sir, or Mr. Pendennis, if you like; for we live in very different
stations, Fanny; and don't think I speak unkindly; and--and why do you
take your hand away, Fanny? Are you afraid of me? Do you think I would
hurt you? Not for all the world, my dear little girl. And--and look
how beautiful the moon and stars are, and how calmly they shine when
the rockets have gone out, and the noisy wheels have done hissing and
blazing. When I came here to-night, I did not think I should have had
such a pretty little companion to sit by my side, and see these fine
fire-works. You must know I live by myself, and work very hard. I
write in books and newspapers, Fanny; and I was quite tired out, and
expected to sit alone all night; and--don't cry, my dear, dear, little
girl." Here Pen broke out, rapidly putting an end to the calm oration
which he had begun to deliver; for the sight of a woman's tears always
put his nerves in a quiver, and he began forthwith to coax her and
soothe her, and to utter a hundred-and-twenty little ejaculations of
pity and sympathy, which need not be repeated here, because they would
be absurd in print. So would a mother's talk to a child be absurd in
print; so would a lover's to his bride. That sweet, artless poetry
bears no translation; and is too subtle for grammarian's clumsy
definitions. You have but the same four letters to describe the salute
which you perform on your grandmother's forehead, and that which you
bestow on the sacred cheek of your mistress; but the same four
letters, and not one of them a labial. Do we mean to hint that Mr.
Arthur Pendennis made any use of the monosyllable in question? Not so.
In the first place it was dark: the fire-works were over, and nobody
could see him; secondly, he was not a man to have this kind of secret,
and tell it; thirdly and lastly, let the honest fellow who has kissed
a pretty girl, say what would have been his own conduct in such a
delicate juncture?

Well, the truth is, that however you may suspect him, and whatever you
would have done under the circumstances, or Mr. Pen would have liked
to do, he behaved honestly, and like a man. "I will not play with this
little girl's heart," he said within himself, "and forget my own or
her honor. She seems to have a great deal of dangerous and rather
contagious sensibility, and I am very glad the fire-works are over,
and that I can take her back to her mother. Come along, Fanny; mind
the steps, and lean on me. Don't stumble, you heedless little thing;
this is the way, and there is your mamma at the door."

And there, indeed, Mrs. Bolton was, unquiet in spirit, and grasping
her umbrella. She seized Fanny with maternal fierceness and eagerness,
and uttered some rapid abuse to the girl in an under tone. The
expression in Captain Costigan's eye--standing behind the matron and
winking at Pendennis from under his hat--was, I am bound to say,
indefinably humorous.

It was so much so, that Pen could not refrain from bursting into a
laugh. "You should have taken my arm, Mrs. Bolton," he said, offering
it. "I am very glad to bring Miss Fanny back quite safe to you. We
thought you would have followed us up into the gallery. We enjoyed the
fire-works, didn't we?"

"Oh, yes!" said Miss Fanny, with rather a demure look.

"And the bouquet was magnificent," said Pen. "And it is ten hours
since I had any thing to eat, ladies, and I wish you would permit me
to invite you to supper."

"Dad," said Costigan, "I'd loike a snack, tu; only I forgawt me purse,
or I should have invoited these leedies to a colleetion."

Mrs. Bolton, with considerable asperity, said, she ad an eadache, and
would much rather go home.

"A lobster salad is the best thing in the world for a headache," Pen
said, gallantly, "and a glass of wine I'm sure will do you good. Come,
Mrs. Bolton, be kind to me, and oblige me. I shan't have the heart to
sup without you, and upon my word, I have had no dinner. Give me your
arm: give me the umbrella. Costigan, I'm sure you'll take care of Miss
Fanny; and I shall think Mrs. Bolton angry with me, unless she will
favor me with her society. And we will all sup quietly, and go back in
a cab together."

The cab, the lobster salad, the frank and good-humored look of
Pendennis, as he smilingly invited the worthy matron, subdued her
suspicions and her anger. Since he _would_ be so obliging, she thought
she could take a little bit of lobster, and so they all marched away
to a box; and Costigan called for a waither with such a loud and
belligerent voice, as caused one of those officials instantly to
run to him.

The _carte_ was examined on the wall, and Fanny was asked to choose
her favorite dish; upon which the young creature said she was fond of
lobster, too, but also owned to a partiality for raspberry-tart. This
delicacy was provided by Pen, and a bottle of the most frisky
Champagne was moreover ordered for the delight of the ladies. Little
Fanny drank this: what other sweet intoxication had she not drunk in
the course of the night?

When the supper, which was very brisk and gay, was over, and Captain
Costigan and Mrs. Bolton had partaken of some of the rack punch that
is so fragrant at Vauxhall, the bill was called and discharged by Pen
with great generosity, "like a foin young English gentleman of th'
olden toime, be Jove," Costigan enthusiastically remarked. And as,
when they went out of the box, he stepped forward and gave Mrs. Bolton
his arm, Fanny fell to Pen's lot, and the young people walked away in
high good-humor together, in the wake of their seniors.

The Champagne and the rack punch, though taken in moderation by all
persons, except perhaps poor Cos, who lurched ever so little in his
gait, had set them in high spirits and good humor, so that Fanny began
to skip and move her brisk little feet in time to the band, which was
playing waltzes and galops for the dancers. As they came up to the
dancing, the music and Fanny's feet seemed to go quicker together; she
seemed to spring, as if naturally, from the ground, and as if she
required repression to keep her there.

"Shouldn't you like a turn?" said the Prince of Fairoaks. "What fun
it would be! Mrs. Bolton, ma'am, do let me take her once round." Upon
which Mr. Costigan said, "Off wid you!" and Mrs. Bolton not refusing
(indeed, she was an old war-horse, and would have liked, at the
trumpet's sound, to have entered the arena herself), Fanny's shawl was
off her back in a minute, and she and Arthur were whirling round in a
waltz in the midst of a great deal of queer, but exceedingly
joyful company.

Pen had no mishap this time with little Fanny, as he had with Miss
Blanche in old days; at least, there was no mishap of his making. The
pair danced away with great agility and contentment; first a waltz,
then a galop, then a waltz again, until, in the second waltz, they
were bumped by another couple who had joined the Terpsichorean choir.
This was Mr. Huxter and his pink satin young friend, of whom we have
already had a glimpse.

Mr. Huxter very probably had been also partaking of supper, for he was
even more excited now than at the time when he had previously claimed
Pen's acquaintance; and having run against Arthur and his partner, and
nearly knocked them down, this amiable gentleman of course began to
abuse the people whom he had injured, and broke out into a volley of
slang against the unoffending couple. "Now, then, stoopid! Don't keep
the ground if you can't dance, old Slow Coach!" the young surgeon
roared out (using, at the same time, other expressions far more
emphatic), and was joined in his abuse by the shrill language and
laughter of his partner, to the interruption of the ball, the terror
of poor little Fanny, and the immense indignation of Pen.

Arthur was furious; and not so angry at the quarrel as at the shame
attending it. A battle with a fellow like that! A row in a public
garden, and with a porter's daughter on his arm! What a position for
Arthur Pendennis! He drew poor little Fanny hastily away from the
dancers to her mother, and wished that lady, and Costigan, and poor
Fanny underground, rather than there, in his companionship, and under
his protection.

When Huxter commenced his attack, that free spoken young gentleman had
not seen who was his opponent, and directly he was aware that it was
Arthur whom he had insulted, he began to make apologies. "Hold your
stoopid tongue, Mary," he said to his partner. "It's an old friend and
crony at home. I beg pardon, Pendennis; wasn't aware it was you, old
boy" Mr. Huxter had been one of the boys of the Clavering School, who
had been present at a combat which has been mentioned in the early
part of this story, when young Pen knocked down the biggest champion
of the academy, and Huxter knew that it was dangerous to quarrel
with Arthur.

His apologies were as odious to the other as his abuse had been. Pen
stopped his tipsy remonstrances by telling him to hold his tongue, and
desiring him not to use his (Pendennis's) name in that place or any
other; and he walked out of the gardens with a titter behind him from
the crowd, every one of whom he would have liked to massacre for
having been witness to the degrading broil. He walked out of the
gardens, quite forgetting poor little Fanny, who came trembling behind
him with her mother and the stately Costigan.

He was brought back to himself by a word from the captain, who touched
him on the shoulder just as they were passing the inner gate.

"There's no ray-admittance except ye pay again," the captain said.
"Hadn't I better go back and take the fellow your message?"

Pen burst out laughing, "Take him a message! Do you think I would
fight with such a fellow as that?" he asked.

"No, no! Don't, don't!" cried out little Fanny. "How can you be so
wicked, Captain Costigan?" The captain muttered something about honor,
and winked knowingly at Pen, but Arthur said gallantly, "No, Fanny,
don't be frightened. It was my fault to have danced in such a place. I
beg your pardon, to have asked you to dance there." And he gave her
his arm once more, and called a cab, and put his three friends
into it.

He was about to pay the driver, and to take another carriage for
himself, when little Fanny, still alarmed, put her little hand out,
and caught him by the coat, and implored him and besought him to
come in.

"Will nothing satisfy you," said Pen, in great good-humor, "that I am
not going back to fight him? Well, I will come home with you. Drive to
Shepherd's Inn, Cab." The cab drove to its destination. Arthur was
immensely pleased by the girl's solicitude about him: her tender
terrors quite made him forget his previous annoyance.

Pen put the ladies into their lodge, having shaken hands kindly with
both of them; and the captain again whispered to him that he would see
um in the morning if he was inclined, and take his message to that
"scounthrel." But the captain was in his usual condition when he made
the proposal; and Pen was perfectly sure that neither he nor Mr.
Huxter, when they awoke, would remember any thing about the dispute.



CHAPTER IX.

A VISIT OF POLITENESS.


[Illustration]

Costigan never roused Pen from his slumbers; there was no hostile
message from Mr. Huxter to disturb him; and when Pen woke, it was with
a brisker and more lively feeling than ordinarily attends that moment
in the day of the tired and _blasé_ London man. A city man wakes up
to care and consols, and the thoughts of 'Change and the
counting-house take possession of him as soon as sleep flies from
under his nightcap; a lawyer rouses himself with the early morning to
think of the case that will take him all his day to work upon, and the
inevitable attorney to whom he has promised his papers ere night.
Which of us has not his anxiety instantly present when his eyes are
opened, to it and to the world, after his night's sleep? Kind
strengthener that enables us to face the day's task with renewed
heart! Beautiful ordinance of Providence that creates rest as it
awards labor.

Mr. Pendennis's labor, or rather his disposition, was of that sort
that his daily occupations did not much interest him, for the
excitement of literary composition pretty soon subsides with the hired
laborer, and the delight of seeing one's self in print only extends to
the first two or three appearances in the magazine or newspaper page.
Pegasus put into harness, and obliged to run a stage every day, is as
prosaic as any other hack, and won't work without his whip or his feed
of corn. So, indeed Mr. Arthur performed his work at the Pall Mall
Gazette (and since his success as a novelist with an increased
salary), but without the least enthusiasm, doing his best or pretty
nearly, and sometimes writing ill and sometimes well. He was a
literary hack, naturally fast in pace, and brilliant in action.
Neither did society, or that portion which he saw, excite or amuse him
overmuch. In spite of his brag and boast to the contrary, he was too
young as yet for women's society, which probably can only be had in
perfection when a man has ceased to think about his own person, and
has given up all designs of being a conqueror of ladies; he was too
young to be admitted as an equal among men who had made their mark in
the world, and of whose conversation he could scarcely as yet expect
to be more than a listener. And he was too old for the men of pleasure
of his own age; too much a man of pleasure for the men of business;
destined, in a word, to be a good deal alone. Fate awards this lot of
solitude to many a man; and many like it from taste, as many without
difficulty bear it. Pendennis, in reality, suffered it very
equanimously; but in words, and according to his wont, grumbled over
it not a little.

"What a nice little artless creature that was," Mr. Pen thought at the
very instant of waking after the Vauxhall affair; "what a pretty
natural manner she has; how much pleasanter than the minanderies of
the young ladies in the ball-rooms" (and here he recalled to himself
some instances of what he could not help seeing was the artful
simplicity of Miss Blanche, and some of the stupid graces of other
young ladies in the polite world); "who could have thought that such a
pretty rose could grow in a porter's lodge, or bloom in that dismal
old flower-pot of a Shepherd's Inn? So she learns to sing from old
Bows? If her singing voice is as sweet as her speaking voice, it must
be pretty. I like those low _voilées_ voices. 'What would you like me
to call you?' indeed. Poor little Fanny! It went to my heart to adopt
the grand air with her, and tell her to call me 'sir.' But we'll have
no nonsense of that sort--no Faust and Margaret business for me. That
old Bows! So he teaches her to sing, does he? He's a dear old fellow,
old Bows: a gentleman in those old clothes: a philosopher, and with a
kind heart, too. How good he was to me in the Fotheringay business.
He, too, has had his griefs and his sorrows. I must cultivate old
Bows. A man ought to see people of all sorts. I am getting tired of
genteel society. Besides, there's nobody in town. Yes, I'll go and see
Bows, and Costigan, too; what a rich character! begad, I'll study him,
and put him into a book." In this way our young anthropologist talked
with himself: and as Saturday was the holiday of the week, the "Pall
Mall Gazette" making its appearance upon that day, and the
contributors to that journal having no further calls upon their brains
or ink-bottles, Mr. Pendennis determined he would take advantage of
his leisure, and pay a visit to Shepherd's Inn--of course to see
old Bows.

The truth is, that if Arthur had been the most determined _roué_ and
artful Lovelace who ever set about deceiving a young girl, he could
hardly have adopted better means for fascinating and overcoming poor
little Fanny Bolton than those which he had employed on the previous
night. His dandyfied protecting air, his conceit, generosity, and good
humor, the very sense of good and honesty which had enabled him to
check the tremulous advances of the young creature, and not to take
advantage of that little fluttering sensibility--his faults and his
virtues at once contributed to make her admire him; and if we could
peep into Fanny's bed (which she shared in a cupboard, along with
those two little sisters to whom we have seen Mr. Costigan
administering ginger-bread and apples), we should find the poor little
maid tossing upon her mattress, to the great disturbance of its other
two occupants, and thinking over all the delights and events of that
delightful, eventful night, and all the words, looks, and actions of
Arthur, its splendid hero. Many novels had Fanny read, in secret and
at home, in three volumes and in numbers. Periodical literature had
not reached the height which it has attained subsequently, and the
girls of Fanny's generation were not enabled to purchase sixteen pages
of excitement for a penny, rich with histories of crime, murder,
oppressed virtue, and the heartless seductions of the aristocracy; but
she had had the benefit of the circulating library which, in
conjunction with her school and a small brandy-ball and millinery
business, Miss Minifer kept--and Arthur appeared to her at once as the
type and realization of all the heroes of all those darling, greasy
volumes which the young girl had devoured. Mr. Pen, we have seen, was
rather a dandy about shirts and haberdashery in general. Fanny had
looked with delight at the fineness of his linen, at the brilliancy of
his shirt studs, at his elegant cambric pocket-handkerchief and white
gloves, and at the jetty brightness of his charming boots. The prince
had appeared and subjugated the poor little handmaid. His image
traversed constantly her restless slumbers; the tone of his voice, the
blue light of his eyes, the generous look, half love half pity--the
manly protecting smile, the frank, winning laughter--all these were
repeated in the girl's fond memory. She felt still his arm encircling
her, and saw him smiling so grand as he filled up that delicious glass
of Champagne. And then she thought of the girls, her friends, who used
to sneer at her--of Emma Baker, who was so proud, forsooth, because
she was engaged to a cheesemonger, in a white apron, near Clare
Market; and of Betsy Rodgers, who made such a to-do about _her_
young man--an attorney's clerk, indeed, that went about with a bag!

So that, at about two o'clock in the afternoon--the Bolton family
having concluded, their dinner (and Mr. B., who besides his place of
porter of the Inn, was in the employ of Messrs. Tressler, the eminent
undertakers of the Strand, being absent in the country with the
Countess of Estrich's hearse), when a gentleman in a white hat and
white trowsers made his appearance under the Inn archway, and stopped
at the porter's wicket, Fanny was not in the least surprised, only
delighted, only happy, and blushing beyond all measure. She knew it
could be no other than He. She knew He'd come. There he was: there was
His Royal Highness beaming upon her from the gate. She called to her
mother, who was busy in the upper apartment, "Mamma, mamma," and ran
to the wicket at once, and opened it, pushing aside the other
children. How she blushed as she gave her hand to him! How affably he
took off his white hat as he came in; the children staring up at him!
He asked Mrs. Bolton if she had slept well, after the fatigues of the
night, and hoped she had no headache: and he said that as he was
going that way, he could not pass the door without asking news of his
little partner.

Mrs. Bolton was, perhaps, rather shy and suspicious about these
advances; but Mr. Pen's good humor was inexhaustible, he could not see
that he was unwelcome. He looked about the premises for a seat, and
none being disengaged, for a dish-cover was on one, a work-box on the
other, and so forth, he took one of the children's chairs, and perched
himself upon that uncomfortable eminence. At this, the children began
laughing, the child Fanny louder than all; at least, she was more
amused than any of them, and amazed at his Royal Highness's
condescension. _He_ to sit down in that chair--that little child's
chair! Many and many a time after she regarded it: haven't we almost
all, such furniture in our rooms, that our fancy peoples with dear
figures, that our memory fills with sweet, smiling faces, which may
never look on us more?

So Pen sate down, and talked away with great volubility to Mrs.
Bolton. He asked about the undertaking business, and how many mutes
went down with Lady Estrich's remains; and about the Inn, and who
lived there. He seemed very much interested about Mr. Campion's cab
and horse, and had met that gentleman in society. He thought he should
like shares in the Polwheedle and Pontydiddlum; did Mrs. Bolton do for
those chambers? Were there any chambers to let in the Inn? It was
better than the Temple: he should like to come to live in Shepherd's
Inn. As for Captain Strong and--Colonel Altamont was his name? he was
deeply interested in them, too. The captain was an old friend at home.
He had dined with him at chambers here, before the colonel came to
live with him. What sort of man was the colonel? Wasn't he a stout
man, with a large quantity of jewelry, and a wig, and large black
whiskers, _very_ black (here Pen was immensely waggish, and caused
hysteric giggles of delight from the ladies), very black, indeed; in
fact, blue-black; that is to say, a rich greenish purple? That was the
man; he had met him, too, at Sir F----in society.

"O, we know!" said the ladies; "Sir F----is Sir F. Clavering; he's
often here: two or three times a week with the captain. My little boy
has been out for bill stamps for him. Oh, Lor! I beg pardon, I
shouldn't have mentioned no secrets," Mrs. Bolton blurted out, being
talked perfectly into good-nature by this time. "But we know you to be
a gentleman, Mr. Pendennis, for I'm sure you have shown that you can
_beayve_ as such. Hasn't Mr. Pendennis, Fanny?"

Fanny loved her mother for that speech. She cast up her dark eyes to
the low ceiling, and said, "O, that he has, I'm sure, ma," with a
voice full of feeling.

Pen was rather curious about the bill stamps, and concerning the
transactions in Strong's chambers. And he asked, when Altamont came
and joined the chevalier, whether he, too, sent out for bill stamps,
who he was, whether he saw many people, and so forth. These questions,
put with considerable adroitness by Pen, who was interested about Sir
Francis Clavering's doings from private motives of his own, were
artlessly answered by Mrs. Bolton. and to the utmost of her knowledge
and ability, which, in truth, were not very great.

These questions answered, and Pen being at a loss for more, luckily
recollected his privilege as a member of the press, and asked the
ladies whether they would like any orders for the play? The play was
their delight, as it is almost always the delight of every theatrical
person. When Bolton was away professionally (it appeared that of late
the porter of Shepherd's Inn had taken a serious turn, drank a good
deal, and otherwise made himself unpleasant to the ladies of his
family), they would like of all things to slip out and go to the
theater, little Barney their son, keeping the lodge; and Mr.
Pendennis's most generous and most genteel compliment of orders was
received with boundless gratitude by both mother and daughter.

Fanny clapped her hands with pleasure: her face beamed with it. She
looked, and nodded, and laughed at her mamma, who nodded and laughed
in her turn. Mrs. Bolton was not superannuated for pleasure yet, or by
any means too old for admiration, she thought. And very likely Mr.
Pendennis, in his conversation with her, had insinuated some
compliments, or shaped his talk so as to please her. At first against
Pen, and suspicious of him, she was his partisan now, and almost as
enthusiastic about him as her daughter. When two women get together to
like a man, they help each other on; each pushes the other forward,
and the second, out of sheer sympathy, becomes as eager as the
principal: at least, so it is said by philosophers who have examined
this science.

So the offer of the play tickets, and other pleasantries, put all
parties into perfect good-humor, except for one brief moment, when one
of the younger children, hearing the name of "Astley's" pronounced,
came forward and stated that she should like very much to go, too; on
which Fanny said, "Don't bother!" rather sharply; and mamma said,
"Git-long, Betsy Jane, do now, and play in the court:" so that the two
little ones, namely, Betsy Jane and Ameliar Ann, went away in their
little innocent pinafores, and disported in the court-yard on the
smooth gravel, round about the statue of Shepherd the Great.

And here, as they were playing, they very possibly communicated with
an old friend of theirs and dweller in the Inn; for while Pen was
making himself agreeable to the ladies at the lodge, who were
laughing, delighted at his sallies, an old gentleman passed under the
archway from the Inn-square, and came and looked in at the door of
the lodge.

He made a very blank and rueful face when he saw Mr. Arthur seated
upon a table, like Macheath in the play, in easy discourse with Mrs.
Bolton and her daughter.

"What! Mr. Bows? How d'you do, Bows!" cried out Pen, in a cheery, loud
voice. "I was coming to see you, and was asking your address of
these ladies."

"You were coming to see _me_, were you, sir?" Bows said, and came in
with a sad face, and shook hands with Arthur. "Plague on that old
man!" somebody thought in the room: and so, perhaps, some one else
besides her.



CHAPTER X.

IN SHEPHERD'S INN.


[Illustration]

Our friend Pen said "How d'ye do, Mr. Bows," in a loud, cheery voice,
on perceiving that gentleman, and saluted him in a dashing, off-hand
manner; yet you could have seen a blush upon Arthur's face (answered
by Fanny, whose cheek straightway threw out a similar fluttering red
signal), and after Bows and Arthur had shaken hands, and the former
had ironically accepted the other's assertion that he was about to pay
Mr. Costigan's chambers a visit, there was a gloomy and rather guilty
silence in the company, which Pen presently tried to dispel by making
a great rattling and noise. The silence of course departed at Mr.
Arthur's noise, but the gloom remained and deepened, as the darkness
does in a vault if you light up a single taper in it. Pendennis tried
to describe, in a jocular manner, the transactions of the night
previous, and attempted to give an imitation of Costigan vainly
expostulating with the check-taker at Vauxhall. It was not a good
imitation. What stranger can imitate that perfection? Nobody laughed.
Mrs. Bolton did not in the least understand what part Mr. Pendennis
was performing, and whether it was the check-taker or the captain he
was taking off. Fanny wore an alarmed face, and tried a timid giggle;
old Mr. Bows looked as glum as when he fiddled in the orchestra, or
played a difficult piece upon the old piano at the Back-Kitchen.
Pen felt that his story was a failure; his voice sank and
dwindled away dismally at the end of it--flickered, and went out;
and it was all dark again. You could hear the ticket-porter, who lolls
about Shepherd's Inn, as he passed on the flags under the archway: the
clink of his boot-heels was noted by every body.

"You were coming to see me, sir," Mr. Bows said. "Won't you have the
kindness to walk up to my chambers with me? You do them a great honor,
I am sure. They are rather high up; but--"

"O! I live in a garret myself, and Shepherd's Inn is twice as cheerful
as Lamb Court," Mr. Pendennis broke in.

"I knew that you had third floor apartments," Mr. Bows said; "and was
going to say--you will please not take my remark as discourteous--that
the air up three pair of stairs is wholesomer for gentlemen, than the
air of a porter's lodge."

"Sir!" said Pen, whose candle flamed up again in his wrath, and who
was disposed to be as quarrelsome as men are when they are in the
wrong. "Will you permit me to choose my society without--"

"You were so polite as to say that you were about to honor my umble
domicile with a visit," Mr. Bows said, with a sad voice. "Shall I show
you the way? Mr. Pendennis and I are old friends, Mrs. Bolton--very
old acquaintances; and at the earliest dawn of his life we crossed
each other."

The old man pointed toward the door with a trembling finger, and a hat
in the other hand, and in an attitude slightly theatrical; so were his
words, when he spoke, somewhat artificial, and chosen from the
vocabulary which he had heard all his life from the painted lips of
the orators before the stage-lamps. But he was not acting or
masquerading, as Pen knew very well, though he was disposed to
pooh-pooh the old fellow's melodramatic airs. "Come along, sir," he
said, "as you are so very pressing. Mrs. Bolton, I wish you a good
day. Good-by, Miss Fanny; I shall always think of our night at
Vauxhall with pleasure; and be sure I will remember the
theatre-tickets." And he took her hand, pressed it, was pressed by it,
and was gone.

"What a nice young man, to be sure!" cried Mrs. Bolton.

"D'you think so, ma?" said Fanny.

"I was a-thinkin who he was like. When I was at the Wells with Mrs.
Serle," Mrs. Bolton continued, looking through the window curtain
after Pen, as he went up the court with Bows; "there was a young
gentleman from the city, that used to come in a tilbry, in a white at,
the very image of him, ony his whiskers was black, and Mr. P's.
is red.

"Law, ma! they are a most beautiful hawburn," Fanny said.

"He used to come for Emly Budd, who danced Columbine in 'Arleykin
Ornpipe, or the Battle of Navarino,' when Miss De la Bosky was took
ill--a pretty dancer, and a fine stage figure of a woman--and he was a
great sugar-baker in the city, with a country ouse at Omerton; and he
used to drive her in the tilbry down Goswell-street-road; and one
day they drove and was married at St. Bartholomew's Church Smithfield,
where they had their bands read quite private; and she now keeps her
carriage; and I sor her name in the paper as patroness of the
Manshing-House Ball for the Washywomen's Asylum. And look at Lady
Mirabel--Capting Costigan's daughter--she was profeshnl, as all very
well know." Thus, and more to this purpose, Mrs. Bolton spoke, now
peeping through the window-curtain, now cleaning the mugs and plates,
and consigning them to their place in the corner cupboard; and
finishing her speech as she and Fanny shook out and folded up the
dinner-cloth between them, and restored it to its drawer in the table.

Although Costigan had once before been made pretty accurately to
understand what Pen's pecuniary means and expectations were, I suppose
Cos had forgotten the information acquired at Chatteris years ago, or
had been induced by his natural enthusiasm to exaggerate his friend's
income. He had described Fairoaks Park in the most glowing terms to
Mrs. Bolton, on the preceding evening, as he was walking about with
her during Pen's little escapade with Fanny, had dilated upon the
enormous wealth of Pen's famous uncle, the major, and shown an
intimate acquaintance with Arthur's funded and landed property. Very
likely Mrs. Bolton, in her wisdom, had speculated upon these matters
during the night; and had had visions of Fanny driving in her
carriage, like Mrs. Bolton's old comrade, the dancer of
Sadler's Wells.

In the last operation of table-cloth folding, these two foolish women,
of necessity, came close together; and as Fanny took the cloth and
gave it the last fold, her mother put her finger under the young
girl's chin, and kissed her. Again the red signal flew out, and
fluttered on Fanny's cheek. What did it mean? It was not alarm this
time. It was pleasure which caused the poor little Fanny to blush so.
Poor little Fanny! What? is love sin; that it is so pleasant at the
beginning, and so bitter at the end?

After the embrace, Mrs. Bolton thought proper to say that she was
a-goin out upon business, and that Fanny must keep the lodge; which
Fanny, after a very faint objection indeed, consented to do. So Mrs.
Bolton took her bonnet and market-basket, and departed; and the
instant she was gone, Fanny went and sate by the window which
commanded Bows's door, and never once took her eyes away from that
quarter of Shepherd's Inn.

Betsy-Jane and Ameliar-Ann were buzzing in one corner of the place,
and making believe to read out of a picture-book, which one of them
held topsy-turvy. It was a grave and dreadful tract, of Mr. Bolton's
collection. Fanny did not hear her sisters prattling over it. She
noticed nothing but Bows's door.

At last she gave a little shake, and her eyes lighted up. He had come
out. He would pass the door again. But her poor little countenance
fell in an instant more. Pendennis, indeed, came out; but Bows
followed after him. They passed under the archway together. He only
took off his hat, and bowed as he looked in. He did not stop to speak.
 In three or four minutes--Fanny did not know how long, but she
looked furiously at him when he came into the lodge--Bows returned
alone, and entered into the porter's room.

"Where's your ma, dear?" he said to Fanny.

"I don't know," Fanny said, with an angry toss. "I don't follow ma's
steps wherever she goes, I suppose, Mr. Bows."

"Am I my mother's keeper?" Bows said, with his usual melancholy
bitterness. "Come here, Betsy-Jane and Amelia-Ann; I've brought a cake
for the one who can read her letters best, and a cake for the other
who can read them the next best."

When the young ladies had undergone the examination through which Bows
put them, they were rewarded with their gingerbread medals, and went
off to discuss them in the court. Meanwhile Fanny took out some work,
and pretended to busy herself with it, her mind being in great
excitement and anger, as she plied her needle, Bows sate so that he
could command the entrance from the lodge to the street. But the
person whom, perhaps, he expected to see, never made his appearance
again. And Mrs. Bolton came in from market, and found Mr. Bows in
place of the person whom _she_ had expected to see. The reader perhaps
can guess what was his name?

The interview between Bows and his guest, when those two mounted to
the apartment occupied by the former in common with the descendant of
the Milesian kings, was not particularly satisfactory to either party.
Pen was sulky. If Bows had any thing on his mind, he did not care to
deliver himself of his thoughts in the presence of Captain Costigan,
who remained in the apartment during the whole of Pen's visit; having
quitted his bed-chamber, indeed, but a very few minutes before the
arrival of that gentleman. We have witnessed the deshabillé of Major
Pendennis: will any man wish to be valet-de-chambre to our other hero,
Costigan? It would seem that the captain, before issuing from his
bedroom, scented himself with otto of whisky. A rich odor of that
delicious perfume breathed from out him, as he held out the grasp of
cordiality to his visitor. The hand which performed that grasp shook
woefully: it was a wonder how it could hold the razor with which the
poor gentleman daily operated on his chin.

Bows's room was as neat, on the other hand, as his comrade's was
disorderly. His humble wardrobe hung behind a curtain. His books and
manuscript music were trimly arranged upon shelves. A lithographed
portrait of Miss Fotheringay, as Mrs. Haller, with the actress's
sprawling signature at the corner, hung faithfully over the old
gentleman's bed. Lady Mirabel wrote much better than Miss Fotheringay
had been able to do. Her ladyship had labored assiduously to acquire
the art of penmanship since her marriage; and, in a common note of
invitation or acceptance, acquitted herself very genteelly. Bows loved
the old handwriting best, though; the fair artist's earlier manner. He
had but one specimen of the new style, a note in reply to a song
composed and dedicated to Lady Mirabel, by her most humble servant
Robert Bows; and which document was treasured in his desk among his
other state papers. He was teaching Fanny Bolton now to sing and to
write, as he had taught Emily in former days. It was the nature of the
man to attach himself to something. When Emily was torn from him he
took a substitute: as a man looks out for a crutch when he loses a
leg, or lashes himself to a raft when he has suffered shipwreck.
Latude had given his heart to a woman, no doubt, before he grew to be
so fond of a mouse in the Bastille. There are people who in their
youth have felt and inspired an heroic passion, and end by being happy
in the caresses, or agitated by the illness of a poodle. But it was
hard upon Bows, and grating to his feelings as a man and a
sentimentalist, that he should find Pen again upon his track, and in
pursuit of this little Fanny.

Meanwhile, Costigan had not the least idea but that his company was
perfectly welcome to Messrs. Pendennis and Bows, and that the visit of
the former was intended for himself. He expressed himself greatly
pleased with that mark of poloightness, and promised, in his own mind,
that he would repay that obligation at least--which was not the only
debt which the captain owed in life--by several visits to his young
friend. He entertained him affably with news of the day, or rather of
ten days previous; for Pen, in his quality of journalist, remembered
to have seen some of the captain's opinions in the Sporting and
Theatrical Newspaper, which was Costigan's oracle. He stated that Sir
Charles and Lady Mirabel were gone to Baden-Baden, and were most
pressing in their invitations that he should join them there. Pen
replied with great gravity, that he had heard that Baden was very
pleasant, and the Grand Duke exceedingly hospitable to English.
Costigan answered, that the laws of hospitalitee bekeam a Grand Juke;
that he sariously would think about visiting him; and made some
remarks upon the splendid festivities at Dublin Castle, when his
Excellency the Earl of Portansherry held the Viceraygal Coort there,
and of which he Costigan had been an humble but pleased spectator. And
Pen--as he heard these oft-told, well-remembered legends--recollected
the time when he had given a sort of credence to them, and had a
certain respect for the captain. Emily and first love, and the little
room at Chatteris; and the kind talk with Bows on the bridge came back
to him. He felt quite kindly disposed toward his two old friends; and
cordially shook the hands of both of them when he rose to go away.

He had quite forgotten about little Fanny Bolton while the captain was
talking, and Pen himself was absorbed in other selfish meditations, He
only remembered her again as Bows came hobbling down the stairs after
him, bent evidently upon following him out of Shepherd's Inn.

Mr. Bows's precaution was not a lucky one. The wrath of Mr. Arthur
Pendennis rose at the poor old fellow's feeble persecution. Confound
him, what does he mean by dogging me? thought Pen. And he burst out
laughing when he was in the Strand and by himself, as he thought of
the elder's stratagem. It was not an honest laugh, Arthur Pendennis.
Perhaps the thought struck Arthur himself, and he blushed at his own
sense of humor. He went off to endeavor to banish the thoughts which
occupied him, whatever those thoughts might be, and tried various
places of amusement with but indifferent success. He struggled up the
highest stairs of the Panorama; but when he had arrived, panting, at
the height of the eminence, Care had come up with him, and was bearing
him company. He went to the Club, and wrote a long letter home,
exceedingly witty and sarcastic, and in which, if he did not say a
single word about Vauxhall and Fanny Bolton, it was because he thought
that subject, however interesting to himself, would not be very
interesting to his mother and Laura. Nor could the novels on the
library table fix his attention, nor the grave and respectable Jawkins
(the only man in town), who wished to engage him in conversation; nor
any of the amusements which he tried, after flying from Jawkins. He
passed a Comic Theater on his way home, and saw "Stunning Farce,"
"Roars of Laughter," "Good Old English Fun and Frolic," placarded in
vermilion letters on the gate. He went into the pit, and saw the
lovely Mrs. Leary, as usual, in a man's attire; and that eminent buffo
actor, Tom Horseman, dressed as a woman. Horseman's travestie seemed
to him a horrid and hideous degradation; Mrs. Leary's glances and
ankles had not the least effect. He laughed again, and bitterly, to
himself, as he thought of the effect which she had produced upon him,
on the first night of his arrival in London, a short time--what a
long, long time ago.



CHAPTER XI

IN OR NEAR THE TEMPLE GARDEN.


Fashion has long deserted the green and pretty Temple Garden, in which
Shakspeare makes York and Lancaster to pluck the innocent white and
red roses which became the badges of their bloody wars; and the
learned and pleasant writer of the Handbook of London tells us that
"the commonest and hardiest kind of rose has long ceased to put forth
a bud" in that smoky air. Not many of the present occupiers of the
buildings round about the quarter know, or care, very likely, whether
or not roses grow there, or pass the old gate, except on their way to
chambers. The attorneys' clerks don't carry flowers in their bags, or
posies under their arms, as they run to the counsel's chambers; the
few lawyers who take constitutional walks think very little about York
and Lancaster, especially since the railroad business is over. Only
antiquarians and literary amateurs care to look at the gardens with
much interest, and fancy good Sir Roger de Coverley and Mr. Spectator
with his short face pacing up and down the road; or dear Oliver
Goldsmith in the summer-house, perhaps meditating about the next
"Citizen of the World," or the new suit that Mr. Filby, the tailor, is
fashioning for him, or the dunning letter that Mr. Newberry has sent.
Treading heavily on the gravel, and rolling majestically along in a
snuff-colored suit, and a wig that sadly wants the barber's powder and
irons, one sees the Great Doctor step up to him, (his Scotch lackey
following at the lexicographer's heels, a little the worse for Port
wine that they have been taking at the Miter), and Mr. Johnson asks
Mr. Goldsmith to come home and take a dish of tea with Miss Williams.
Kind faith of Fancy! Sir Hoger and Mr. Spectator are as real to us now
as the two doctors and the boozy and faithful Scotchman. The poetical
figures live in our memory just as much as the real personages--and as
Mr. Arthur Pendennis was of a romantic and literary turn, by no means
addicted to the legal pursuits common in the neighborhood of the
place, we may presume that he was cherishing some such poetical
reflections as these, when, upon the evening after the events recorded
in the last chapter the young gentleman chose the Temple Gardens as a
place for exercise and meditation.

On the Sunday evening the Temple is commonly calm. The chambers are
for the most part vacant; the great lawyers are giving grand dinner
parties at their houses in the Belgravian or Tyburnian districts: the
agreeable young barristers are absent, attending those parties, and
paying their respects to Mr. Kewsy's excellent claret, or Mr. Justice
Ermine's accomplished daughters; the uninvited are partaking of the
economic joint, and the modest half-pint of wine at the Club,
entertaining themselves and the rest of the company in the Club-room,
with Circuit jokes and points of wit and law. Nobody is in chambers at
all, except poor Mr. Cockle, who is ill, and whose laundress is making
him gruel; or Mr. Toodle, who is an amateur of the flute, and whom you
may hear piping solitary from his chambers in the second floor: or
young Tiger, the student, from whose open windows come a great gush of
cigar smoke, and at whose door are a quantity of dishes and covers,
bearing the insignia of Dicks' or the Cock. But stop! Whither does
Fancy lead us? It is vacation time; and with the exception of
Pendennis, nobody is in chambers at all.

Perhaps it was solitude, then, which drove Pen into the Garden; for
although he had never before passed the gate, and had looked rather
carelessly at the pretty flower-beds, and the groups of pleased
citizens sauntering over the trim lawn and the broad gravel-walks by
the river, on this evening it happened, as we have said, that the
young gentleman, who had dined alone at a tavern in the neighborhood
of the Temple, took a fancy, as he was returning home to his chambers,
to take a little walk in the gardens, and enjoy the fresh evening air,
and the sight of the shining Thames. After walking for a brief space,
and looking at the many peaceful and happy groups round about him, he
grew tired of the exercise, and betook himself to one of the
summer-houses which flank either end of the main walk, and there
modestly seated himself. What were his cogitations? The evening was
delightfully bright and calm; the sky was cloudless; the chimneys on
the opposite bank were not smoking; the wharves and warehouses looked
rosy in the sunshine, and as clear as if they too, had washed for the
holiday. The steamers rushed rapidly up and down the stream, laden
with holiday passengers. The bells of the multitudinous city churches
were ringing to evening prayers--such peaceful Sabbath evenings as
this Pen may have remembered in his early days, as he paced, with his
arm round his mother's waist, on the terrace before the lawn at
home. The sun was lighting up the little Brawl, too, as well as the
broad Thames, and sinking downward majestically behind the Clavering
elms, and the tower of the familiar village church. Was it thoughts of
these, or the sunset merely, that caused the blush in the young man's
face? He beat time on the bench, to the chorus of the bells without;
flicked the dust off his shining boots with his pocket-handkerchief,
and starting up, stamped with his foot and said, "No, by Jove, I'll go
home." And with this resolution, which indicated that some struggle as
to the propriety of remaining where he was, or of quitting the garden,
had been going on in his mind, he stepped out of the summer-house.

He nearly knocked down two little children, who did not indeed reach
much higher than his knee, and were trotting along the gravel-walk,
with their long blue shadows slanting toward the east.

One cried out, "Oh!" the other began to laugh; and with a knowing
little infantine chuckle, said, "Missa Pendennis!" And Arthur looking
down, saw his two little friends of the day before, Mesdemoiselles
Ameliar-Ann and Betsy-Jane. He blushed more than ever at seeing them,
and seizing the one whom he had nearly upset, jumped her up into the
air, and kissed her; at which sudden assault Ameliar-Ann began to cry
in great alarm.

This cry brought up instantly two ladies in clean collars and new
ribbons, and grand shawls, namely, Mrs. Bolton in a rich scarlet
Caledonian Cashmere, and a black silk dress, and Miss F. Bolton with a
yellow scarf and a sweet sprigged muslin, and a parasol--quite the
lady. Fanny did not say one single word: though her eyes flashed a
welcome, and shone as bright--as bright as the most blazing windows in
Paper Buildings. But Mrs. Bolton, after admonishing Betsy-Jane, said,
"Lor, sir, how _very_ odd that we should meet _you_ year? I ope you
ave your ealth well, sir. Ain't it odd, Fanny, that we should meet Mr.
Pendennis?" What do you mean by sniggering, mesdames? When young
Croesus has been staying at a country-house, have you never, by any
singular coincidence, been walking with your Fanny in the shrubberies?
Have you and your Fanny never happened to be listening to the band of
the Heavies at Brighton, when young De Boots and Captain Padmore came
clinking down the Pier? Have you and your darling Frances never
chanced to be visiting old widow Wheezy at the cottage on the common,
when the young curate has stepped in with a tract adapted to the
rheumatism? Do you suppose that, if singular coincidences occur at the
Hall, they don't also happen at the Lodge?

It _was_ a coincidence, no doubt: that was all. In the course of the
conversation on the day previous, Mr. Pendennis had merely said, in
the simplest way imaginable, and in reply to a question of Miss
Bolton, that although some of the courts were gloomy, parts of the
Temple were very cheerful and agreeable, especially the chambers
looking on the river and around the gardens, and that the gardens were
a very pleasant walk on Sunday evenings, and frequented by a great
number of people--and here, by the merest chance, all our
acquaintances met together, just like so many people in genteel
life. What could be more artless, good-natured, or natural?

[Illustration]

Pen looked very grave, pompous, and dandified. He was unusually smart
and brilliant in his costume. His white duck trowsers and white hat,
his neckcloth of many colors, his light waistcoat, gold chains, and
shirt studs, gave him the air of a prince of the blood at least. How
his splendor became his figure! Was any body ever like him? some one
thought. He blushed--how his blushes became him! the same individual,
said to herself. The children, on seeing him the day before, had
been so struck with him, that after he had gone away they had been
playing at him. And Ameliar-Ann, sticking her little chubby fingers
into the arm-holes of her pinafore, as Pen was won't to do with his
waistcoat, had said, "Now, Bessy-Jane, I'll be Missa Pendennis."
Fanny had laughed till she cried, and smothered her sister with kisses
for that feat. How happy, too, she was to see Arthur embracing
the child!

[Illustration]

If Arthur was red, Fanny, on the contrary, was very worn and pale.
Arthur remarked it, and asked kindly why she looked so fatigued.

"I was awake all night," said Fanny, and began to blush a little.

"I put out her candle, and _hordered_ her to go to sleep and leave off
readin," interposed the fond mother.

"You were reading! And what was it that interested you so?" asked Pen,
amused.

"Oh, it's so beautiful!" said Fanny.

"What?"

"Walter Lorraine," Fanny sighed out. "How I do _hate_ that Neara
--Neara--I don't know the pronunciation. And how I love Leonora, and
Walter, oh, how dear he is!"

How had Fanny discovered the novel of Walter Lorraine, and that Pen
was the author? This little person remembered every single word which
Mr. Pendennis had spoken on the night previous, and how he wrote in
books and newspapers. What books? She was so eager to know, that she
had almost a mind to be civil to old Bows, who was suffering under her
displeasure since yesterday, but she determined first to make
application to Costigan. She began by coaxing the captain and smiling
upon him in her most winning way, as she helped to arrange his dinner
and set his humble apartment in order. She was sure his linen wanted
mending (and indeed the captain's linen-closet contained some curious
specimens of manufactured flax and cotton). She would mend his
shirts--_all_ his shirts. What horrid holes--what funny holes! She put
her little face through one of them, and laughed at the old warrior in
the most winning manner. She would have made a funny little picture
looking through the holes. Then she daintily removed Costigan's dinner
things, tripping about the room as she had seen the dancers do at the
play; and she danced to the captain's cupboard, and produced his
whisky bottle, and mixed him a tumbler, and must taste a drop of it--a
little drop; and the captain must sing her one of his songs, his dear
songs, and teach it to her. And when he had sung an Irish melody in
his rich quavering voice, fancying it was he who was fascinating the
little siren, she put her little question about Arthur Pendennis and
his novel, and having got an answer, cared for nothing more, but left
the captain at the piano about to sing her another song, and the
dinner tray on the passage, and the shirts on the chair, and ran down
stairs quickening her pace as she sped.

Captain Costigan, as he said, was not a litherary cyarkter, nor had he
as yet found time to peruse his young friend's ellygant perfaurumance,
though he intended to teak an early opporchunitee of purchasing a
cawpee of his work. But he knew the name of Pen's novel from the fact
that Messrs. Finucane, Bludyer, and other frequenters of the
Back-Kitchen, spoke of Mr. Pendennis (and not all of them with great
friendship; for Bludyer called him a confounded coxcomb, and Hoolan
wondered that Doolan did not kick him, &c.) by the sobriquet of Walter
Lorraine--and was hence enabled to give Fanny the information which
she required.

"And she went and ast for it at the libery," Mrs. Bolton said--
"several liberies--and some ad it and it was hout, and some adn't it.
And one of the liberies as ad it wouldn't let er ave it without a
sovering: and she adn't one, and she came back a-cryin to me--didn't
you, Fanny?--and I gave her a sovering."

"And, oh, I was in such a fright lest any one should have come to the
libery and took it while I was away," Fanny said, her cheeks and eyes
glowing. "And, oh, I do like it so!"

Arthur was touched by this artless sympathy, immensely flattered and
moved by it. "Do you like it?" he said. "If you will come up to my
chambers I will--No, I will bring you one--no, I will send you one.
Good night. Thank you, Fanny. God bless you. I mustn't stay with you.
Good-by, good-by." And, pressing her hand once, and nodding to her
mother and the other children, he strode out of the gardens.

He quickened his pace as he went from them, and ran out of the gate
talking to himself. "Dear, dear little thing," he said, "darling
little Fanny! You are worth them all. I wish to heaven Shandon was
back, I'd go home to my mother. I mustn't see her. I won't. I won't so
help me--"

As he was talking thus, and running, the passers by turning to look at
him, he ran against a little old man, and perceived it was Mr. Bows.

"Your very umble servant, sir," said Mr. Bows, making a sarcastic bow,
and lifting his old hat from his forehead.

"I wish you a good day," Arthur answered sulkily. "Don't let me detain
you, or give you the trouble to follow me again. I am in a hurry, sir.
Good evening."

Bows thought Pen had some reason for hurrying to his rooms. "Where are
they?" exclaimed the old gentleman. "You know whom I mean. They're not
in your rooms, sir, are they? They told Bolton they were going to
church at the Temple: they weren't there. They are in your chambers:
they mustn't stay in your chambers, Mr. Pendennis."

"Damn it, sir!" cried out Pendennis, fiercely. "Come and see if they
are in my chambers: here's the court and the door--come in and see."
And Bows, taking off his hat and bowing first, followed the young man.

They were not in Pen's chambers, as we know. But when the gardens were
closed, the two women, who had had but a melancholy evening's
amusement, walked away sadly with the children, and they entered into
Lamb-court, and stood under the lamp-post which cheerfully ornaments
the center of that quadrangle, and looked up to the third floor of the
house where Pendennis's chambers were, and where they saw a light
presently kindled. Then this couple of fools went away, the children
dragging wearily after them, and returned to Mr. Bolton, who was
immersed in rum-and-water at his lodge in Shepherd's Inn.

Mr. Bows looked round the blank room which the young man occupied, and
which had received but very few ornaments or additions since the last
time we saw them. Warrington's old book-case and battered library,
Pen's writing-table with its litter of papers presented an aspect
cheerless enough. "Will you like to look in the bedrooms, Mr. Bows,
and see if my victims are there?" he said bitterly; "or whether I have
made away with the little girls, and hid them in the coal-hole?"

"Your word is sufficient, Mr. Pendennis," the other said, in his sad
tone. "You say they are not here, and I know they are not. And I hope
they never have been here, and never will come."

"Upon my word, sir, you are very good, to choose my acquaintances for
me," Arthur said, in a haughty tone; "and to suppose that any body
would be the worse for my society. I remember you, and owe you
kindness from old times, Mr. Bows; or I should speak more angrily than
I do, about a very intolerable sort of persecution to which you seem
inclined to subject me. You followed me out of your inn yesterday, as
if you wanted to watch that I shouldn't steal something." Here Pen
stammered and turned red, directly he had said the words; he felt he
had given the other an opening, which Bows instantly took.

"I do think you came to steal something, as you say the words, sir,"
Bows said. "Do you mean to say that you came to pay a visit to poor
old Bows, the fiddler; or to Mrs. Bolton at the porter's lodge? O fie!
Such a fine gentleman as Arthur Pendennis, Esquire, doesn't condescend
to walk up to my garret, or to sit in a laundress's kitchen, but for
reasons of his own. And my belief is that you came to steal a pretty
girl's heart away, and to ruin it, and to spurn it afterward, Mr.
Arthur Pendennis. That's what the world makes of you young dandies,
you gentlemen of fashion, you high and mighty aristocrats that trample
upon the people. It's sport to you, but what is it, to the poor, think
you the toys of your pleasures, whom you play with and whom you fling
into the streets when you are tired? I know your order, sir. I know
your selfishness, and your arrogance, and your pride. What does it
matter to my lord, that the poor man's daughter is made miserable, and
her family brought to shame? You must have your pleasures, and the
people of course must pay for them. What are we made for, but for
that? It's the way with you all--the way with you all, sir."

Bows was speaking beside the question, and Pen had his advantage here,
which he was not sorry to take--not sorry to put off the debate from
the point upon which his adversary had first engaged it. Arthur broke
out with a sort of laugh, for which he asked Bows's pardon. "Yes, I am
an aristocrat," he said, "in a palace up three pair of stairs, with a
carpet nearly as handsome as yours, Mr. Bows. My life is passed in
grinding the people, is it?--in ruining virgins and robbing the poor?
My good sir, this is very well in a comedy, where Job Thornberry
slaps his breast, and asks my lord how dare he trample on an honest
man and poke out an Englishman's fire-side; but in real life, Mr.
Bows, to a man who has to work for his bread as much as you do--how
can you talk about aristocrats tyrannizing over the people? Have I
ever done you a wrong? or assumed airs of superiority over you? Did
you not have an early regard for me--in days when we were both of us
romantic young fellows, Mr. Bows? Come, don't be angry with me now,
and let us be as good friends as we were before."

"Those days were very different," Mr. Bows answered; "and Mr. Arthur
Pendennis was an honest, impetuous young fellow then; rather selfish
and conceited, perhaps, but honest. And I liked you then, because you
were ready to ruin yourself for a woman."

"And now, sir?" Arthur asked.

"And now times are changed, and you want a woman to ruin herself for
you," Bows answered. "I know this child, sir. I've always said this
lot was hanging over her. She has heated her little brain with novels
until her whole thoughts are about love and lovers, and she scarcely
sees that she treads on a kitchen floor. I have taught the little
thing. She is full of many talents and winning ways, I grant you. I am
fond of the girl, sir. I'm a lonely old man; I lead a life that I
don't like, among boon companions, who make me melancholy. I have but
this child that I care for. Have pity upon me, and don't take her away
from me, Mr. Pendennis--don't take her away."

The old man's voice broke as he spoke, its accents touched Pen, much
more than the menacing or sarcastic tone which Bows had commenced
by adopting.

"Indeed," said he, kindly; "you do me a wrong if you fancy I intend
one to poor little Fanny. I never saw her till Friday night. It was
the merest chance that our friend Costigan threw her into my way. I
have no intentions regarding her--that is--"

"That is, you know very well that she is a foolish girl, and her
mother a foolish woman--that is, you meet her in the Temple Gardens,
and of course, without previous concert, that is, that when I found
her yesterday, reading the book you've wrote, she scorned me," Bows
said. "What am I good for but to be laughed at? a deformed old fellow
like me; an old fiddler, that wears a thread-bare coat, and gets his
bread by playing tunes at an alehouse? You are a fine gentleman, you
are. You wear scent in your handkerchief, and a ring on your finger.
You go to dine with great people. Who ever gives a crust to old Bows?
And yet I might have been as good a man as the best of you. I might
have been a man of genius, if I had had the chance; ay, and have lived
with the master-spirits of the land. But every thing has failed with
me. I'd ambition once, and wrote plays, poems, music--nobody would
give me a hearing. I never loved a woman, but she laughed at me; and
here I am in my old age alone--alone! Don't take this girl from me,
Mr. Pendennis, I say again. Leave her with me a little longer. She was
like a child to me till yesterday. Why did you step in and make her
mock my deformity and old age?"



CHAPTER XII.

THE HAPPY VILLAGE AGAIN.


Early in this history, we have had occasion to speak of the little
town of Clavering, near which Pen's paternal home of Fairoaks stood,
and of some of the people who inhabited the place, and as the society
there was by no means amusing or pleasant, our reports concerning it
were not carried to any very great length. Mr. Samuel Huxter, the
gentleman whose acquaintance we lately made at Vauxhall, was one of
the choice spirits of the little town, when he visited it during his
vacations, and enlivened the tables of his friends there, by the wit
of Bartholomew's and the gossip of the fashionable London circles
which he frequented.

Mr. Hobnell, the young gentleman whom Pen had thrashed, in consequence
of the quarrel in the Fotheringay affair, was, while a pupil at the
Grammar-school at Clavering, made very welcome at the tea-table of
Mrs. Huxter, Samuel's mother, and was free of the surgery, where he
knew the way to the tamarind-pots, and could scent his pocket-handkerchief
with rose-water. And it was at this period of his life that he formed an
attachment for Miss Sophy Huxter, whom, on his father's demise, he
married, and took home to his house of the Warren, at a few miles from
Clavering.

The family had possessed and cultivated an estate there for many years
as yeomen and farmers. Mr. Hobnell's father pulled down the old
farm-house; built a flaring new white-washed mansion, with capacious
stables; and a piano in the drawing-room; kept a pack of harriers; and
assumed the title of Squire Hobnell. When he died, and his son reigned
in his stead, the family might be fairly considered to be established
as county gentry. And Sam Huxter, at London, did no great wrong in
boasting about his brother-in-law's place, his hounds, horses, and
hospitality, to his admiring comrades at Bartholomew's. Every year, at
a time commonly when Mrs. Hobnell could not leave the increasing
duties of her nursery, Hobnell came up to London for a lark, had rooms
at the Tavistock, and indulged in the pleasures of the town together.
Ascott, the theaters, Vauxhall, and the convivial taverns in the
joyous neighborhood of Covent Garden, were visited by the vivacious
squire, in company with his learned brother. When he was in London, as
he said, he liked to do as London does, and to "go it a bit," and when
he returned to the west, he took a new bonnet and shawl to Mrs.
Hobnell, and relinquished for country sports and occupations, during
the next eleven months, the elegant amusements of London life.

Sam Huxter kept up a correspondence with his relative, and supplied
him with choice news of the metropolis, in return for the baskets of
hares, partridges, and clouted cream which the squire and his
good-natured wife forwarded to Sam. A youth more brilliant and
distinguished they did not know. He was the life and soul of their
house, when he made his appearance in his native place. His songs,
jokes, and fun kept the Warren in a roar. He had saved their eldest
darling's life, by taking a fish-bone out of her throat; in fine, he
was the delight of their circle.

As ill-luck would have it, Pen again fell in with Mr. Huxter, only
three days after the rencounter at Vauxhall. Faithful to his vow, he
had not been to see little Fanny. He was trying to drive her from his
mind by occupation, or other mental excitement. He labored, though not
to much profit, incessantly in his rooms; and, in his capacity of
critic for the "Pall Mall Gazette," made woeful and savage onslaught
on a poem and a romance which came before him for judgment. These
authors slain, he went to dine alone at the lonely club of the
Polyanthus, where the vast solitudes frightened him, and made him only
the more moody. He had been to more theaters for relaxation. The whole
house was roaring with laughter and applause, and he saw only an
ignoble farce that made him sad. It would have damped the spirits of
the buffoon on the stage to have seen Pen's dismal face. He hardly
knew what was happening; the scene, and the drama passed before him
like a dream or a fever. Then he thought he would go to the
Back-Kitchen, his old haunt with Warrington--he was not a bit sleepy
yet. The day before he had walked twenty miles in search after rest,
over Hampstead Common and Hendon lanes, and had got no sleep at night.
He would go to the Back-Kitchen. It was a sort of comfort to him to
think he should see Bows. Bows was there, very calm, presiding at the
old piano. Some tremendous comic songs were sung, which made the room
crack with laughter. How strange they seemed to Pen! He could only see
Bows. In an extinct volcano, such as he boasted that his breast was,
it was wonderful how he should feel such a flame! Two days' indulgence
had kindled it; two days' abstinence had set it burning in fury. So,
musing upon this, and drinking down one glass after another, as
ill-luck would have it, Arthur's eyes lighted upon Mr. Huxter, who had
been to the theater, like himself, and, with two or three comrades,
now entered the room, Huxter whispered to his companions, greatly to
Pen's annoyance. Arthur felt that the other was talking about him.
Huxter then worked through the room, followed by his friends, and came
and took a place opposite to Pen, nodding familiarly to him, and
holding him out a dirty hand to shake.

Pen shook hands with his fellow townsman. He thought he had been
needlessly savage to him on the last night when they had met. As for
Huxter, perfectly at good humor with himself and the world, it never
entered his mind that he could be disagreeable to any body; and the
little dispute, or "chaff," as he styled it, of Vauxhall, was a trifle
which he did not in the least regard.

The disciple of Galen having called for "four stouts," with which he
and his party refreshed themselves, began to think what would be the
most amusing topic of conversation with Pen, and hit upon that precise
one which was most painful to our young gentleman.

"Jolly night at Vauxhall--wasn't it?" he said, and winked in a very
knowing way.

"I'm glad you liked it," poor Pen said, groaning in spirit.

"I was dev'lish cut--uncommon--been dining with some chaps at
Greenwich. That was a pretty bit of muslin hanging on your arm--who
was she?" asked the fascinating student.

The question was too much for Arthur. "Have I asked you any questions
about yourself, Mr. Huxter?" he said.

"I didn't mean any offense--beg pardon--hang it, you cut up quite
savage," said Pen's astonished interlocutor.

"Do you remember what took place between us the other night?" Pen
asked, with gathering wrath. "You forget? Very probably. You were
tipsy, as you observed just now, and very rude."

"Hang it, sir, I asked your pardon," Huxter said, looking red.

"You did certainly, and it was granted with all my heart, I am sure.
But if you recollect I begged that you would have the goodness to omit
me from the list of your acquaintance for the future; and when we met
in public, that you would not take the trouble to recognize me. Will
you please to remember this hereafter; and as the song is beginning,
permit me to leave you to the unrestrained enjoyment of the music."

He took his hat, and making a bow to the amazed Mr. Huxter, left the
table, as Huxter's comrades, after a pause of wonder, set up such a
roar of laughter at Huxter, as called for the intervention of the
president of the room; who bawled out, "Silence, gentlemen; do have
silence for the Body Snatcher!" which popular song began as Pen left
the Back-Kitchen. He flattered himself that he had commanded his
temper perfectly. He rather wished that Huxter had been pugnacious. He
would have liked to fight him or somebody. He went home. The day's
work, the dinner, the play, the whisky-and-water, the quarrel--
nothing soothed him. He slept no better than on the previous night.

A few days afterward, Mr. Sam Huxter wrote home a letter to Mr.
Hobnell in the country, of which Mr. Arthur Pendennis formed the
principal subject. Sam described Arthur's pursuits in London, and his
confounded insolence of behavior to his old friends from home. He
said he was an abandoned criminal, a regular Don Juan, a fellow who,
when he _did_ come into the country, ought to be kept out of _honest
people's houses_. He had seen him at Vauxhall, dancing with an
innocent girl in the lower ranks of life, of whom he was making a
victim. He had found out from an Irish gentleman (formerly in the
army), who frequented a club of which he, Huxter, was member, who the
girl was, on whom this _conceited humbug_ was practicing his infernal
arts; and he thought he should warn her father, &c., &c.,--the letter
then touched on general news, conveyed the writer's thanks for the
last parcel and the rabbits, and hinted his extreme readiness for
further favors.

About once a year, as we have stated, there was occasion for a
christening at the Warren, and it happened that this ceremony took
place a day after Hobnell had received the letter of his
brother-in-law in town. The infant (a darling little girl) was
christened Myra-Lucretia, after its two godmothers, Miss Portman and
Mrs. Pybus of Clavering, and as of course Hobnell had communicated
Sam's letter to his wife, Mrs. Hobnell imparted its horrid contents to
her two gossips. A pretty story it was, and prettily it was told
throughout Clavering in the course of that day.

Myra did not--she was too much shocked to do so--speak on the matter
to her mamma, but Mrs. Pybus had no such feelings of reserve. She
talked over the matter not only with Mrs. Portman, but with Mr. and
the Honorable Mrs. Simcoe, with Mrs. Glanders, her daughters being to
that end ordered out of the room, with Madame Fribsby, and, in a word,
with the whole of the Clavering society. Madam Fribsby looking
furtively up at her picture of the dragoon, and inwards into her own
wounded memory, said that men would be men, and as long as they were
men would be deceivers; and she pensively quoted some lines from
Marmion, requesting to know where deceiving lovers should rest? Mrs.
Pybus had no words of hatred, horror, contempt, strong enough for a
villain who could be capable of conduct so base. This was what came of
early indulgence, and insolence, and extravagance, and aristocratic
airs (it is certain that Pen had refused to drink tea with Mrs.
Pybus), and attending the corrupt and horrid parties in the dreadful
modern Babylon! Mrs. Portman was afraid that she must acknowledge that
the mother's fatal partiality had spoiled this boy, that his literary
successes had turned his head, and his horrid passions had made him
forget the principles which Dr. Portman had instilled into him in
early life. Glanders, the atrocious Captain of Dragoons, when informed
of the occurrence by Mrs. Glanders, whistled and made jocular
allusions to it at dinner time; on which Mrs. Glanders called him a
brute, and ordered the girls again out of the room, as the horrid
captain burst out laughing. Mr. Simcoe was calm under the
intelligence; but rather pleased than otherwise; it only served to
confirm the opinion which he had always had of that wretched young
man: not that he knew any thing about him--not that he had read one
line of his dangerous and poisonous works; Heaven forbid that he
should: but what could be expected from such a youth, and such
frightful, such lamentable, such deplorable want of seriousness? Pen
formed the subject for a second sermon at the Clavering chapel of
ease: where the dangers of London, and the crime of reading and
writing novels, were pointed out on a Sunday evening to a large and
warm congregation. They did not wait to hear whether he was guilty or
not. They took his wickedness for granted: and with these admirable
moralists, it was who should fling the stone at poor Pen.

The next day Mrs. Pendennis, alone and almost fainting with emotion
and fatigue, walked or rather ran to Dr. Portman's house, to consult
the good doctor. She had had an anonymous letter; some Christian had
thought it his or her duty to stab the good soul who had never done
mortal a wrong--an anonymous letter with references to Scripture,
pointing out the doom of such sinners, and a detailed account of Pen's
crime. She was in a state of terror and excitement pitiable to
witness. Two or three hours of this pain had aged her already. In her
first moment of agitation she had dropped the letter, and Laura had
read it. Laura blushed when she read it; her whole frame trembled, but
it was with anger. "The cowards," she said. "It isn't true. No,
mother, it isn't true."

"It _is_ true, and you've done it, Laura," cried out Helen fiercely.
"Why did you refuse him when he asked you? Why did you break my heart
and refuse him? It is you who led him into crime. It is you who flung
him into the arms of this--this woman. Don't speak to me. Don't answer
me. I will never forgive you, never. Martha, bring me my bonnet and
shawl. I'll go out. I won't have you come with me. Go away. Leave me,
cruel girl; why have you brought this shame on me?" And bidding her
daughter and her servants keep away from her, she ran down the road to
Clavering.

Doctor Portman, glancing over the letter, thought he knew the hand
writing, and, of course, was already acquainted with the charge made
against poor Pen. Against his own conscience, perhaps (for the worthy
doctor, like most of us, had a considerable natural aptitude for
receiving any report unfavorable to his neighbors), he strove to
console Helen; he pointed out that the slander came from an anonymous
quarter, and therefore must be the work of a rascal; that the charge
might not be true--was not true, most likely--at least, that Pen must
be heard before he was condemned; that the son of such a mother was
not likely to commit such a crime, &c., &c.

Helen at once saw through his feint of objection and denial. "You
think he has done it," she said, "you know you think he has done it,
Oh, why did I ever leave him, Doctor Portman, or suffer him away from
me? But he can't be dishonest--pray God, not dishonest--you don't
think that, do you? Remember his conduct about that other--person
--how madly he was attached to her. He was an honest boy then--he is
now. And I thank God--yes, I fall down on my knees and thank God he
paid Laura. You said he was good--you did yourself. And now--if this
woman loves him--and you know they must--if he has taken her from her
home, or she tempted him, which is most likely-why still, she must be
his wife and my daughter. And he must leave the dreadful world and
come back to me--to his mother, Doctor Portman. Let us go away and
bring him back--yes--bring him back--and there shall be joy for
the--the sinner that repenteth. Let us go now, directly, dear
friend--this very--"

Helen could say no more. She fell back and fainted. She was carried to
a bed in the house of the pitying doctor, and the surgeon was called
to attend her. She lay all night in an alarming state. Laura came to
her, or to the rectory rather; for she would not see Laura. And Doctor
Portman, still beseeching her to be tranquil, and growing bolder and
more confident of Arthur's innocence as he witnessed the terrible
grief of the poor mother, wrote a letter to Pen warning him of the
rumors that were against him, and earnestly praying that he would
break off and repent of a connection so fatal to his best interests
and his soul's welfare.

And Laura?--was her heart not wrung by the thought of Arthur's crime
and Helen's estrangement? Was it not a bitter blow for the innocent
girl to think that at one stroke she should lose _all_ the love which
she cared for in the world?



CHAPTER XIII.

WHICH HAD VERY NEARLY BEEN THE LAST OF THE STORY.


Doctor Portman's letter was sent off to its destination in London, and
the worthy clergyman endeavored to sooth down Mrs. Pendennis into some
state of composure until an answer should arrive, which the doctor
tried to think, or, at any rate, persisted in saying, would be
satisfactory as regarded the morality of Mr. Pen. At least Helen's
wish of moving upon London and appearing in person to warn her son of
his wickedness, was impracticable for a day or two. The apothecary
forbade her moving even so far as Fairoaks for the first day, and it
was not until the subsequent morning that she found herself again back
on her sofa at home, with the faithful, though silent Laura, nursing
at her side.

Unluckily for himself and all parties, Pen never read that homily
which Doctor Portman addressed to him, until many weeks after the
epistle had been composed; and day after day, the widow waited for her
son's reply to the charges against him; her own illness increasing
with every day's delay. It was a hard task for Laura to bear the
anxiety; to witness her dearest friend's suffering: worst of all, to
support Helen's estrangement, and the pain caused to her by that
averted affection. But it was the custom of this young lady to the
utmost of her power, and by means of that gracious assistance which
Heaven awarded to her pure and constant prayers, to do her duty. And,
as that duty was performed quite noiselessly--while, the
supplications, which endowed her with the requisite strength for
fulfilling it, also took place in her own chamber, away from all
mortal sight,--we, too, must be perforce silent about these virtues of
hers, which no more bear public talking about, than a flower will bear
to bloom in a ball-room. This only we will say-that a good woman is
the loveliest flower that blooms under Heaven; and that we look with
love and wonder upon its silent grace, its pure fragrance, its
delicate bloom of beauty. Sweet and beautiful!--the fairest and the
most spotless!--is it not pity to see them bowed down or devoured by
Grief or Death inexorable--wasting in disease-pining with long pain-or
cut off by sudden fate in their prime? _We_ may deserve grief--but
why should these be unhappy?--except that we know that Heaven chastens
those whom it loves best; being pleased, by repeated trials, to make
these pure spirits more pure.

So Pen never got the letter, although it was duly posted and
faithfully discharged by the postman into his letter-box in Lamb
Court, and thence carried by the laundress to his writing-table with
the rest of his lordship's correspondence; into which room, have we
not seen a picture of him, entering from his little bedroom adjoining,
as Mrs. Flanagan, his laundress, was in the act of drinking his gin?

Those kind readers who have watched Mr. Arthur's career hitherto, and
have made, as they naturally would do, observations upon the moral
character and peculiarities of their acquaintance, have probably
discovered by this time what was the prevailing fault in Mr. Pen's
disposition, and who was that greatest enemy, artfully indicated in
the title-page, with whom he had to contend. Not a few of us, my
beloved public, have the very same rascal to contend with: a scoundrel
who takes every opportunity of bringing us into mischief, of plunging
us into quarrels, of leading us into idleness and unprofitable
company, and what not. In a word, Pen's greatest enemy was himself:
and as he had been pampering, and coaxing, and indulging that
individual all his life, the rogue grew insolent, as all spoiled
servants will be; and at the slightest attempt to coerce him, or make
him do that which was unpleasant to him, became frantically rude and
unruly. A person who is used to making sacrifices--Laura, for
instance, who had got such a habit of giving up her own pleasure for
others-can do the business quite easily; but Pen, unaccustomed as he
was to any sort of self-denial, suffered woundily when called on to
pay his share, and savagely grumbled at being obliged to forego any
thing he liked.

He had resolved in his mighty mind then that he would not see Fanny;
and he wouldn't. He tried to drive the thoughts of that fascinating
little person out of his head, by constant occupation, by exercise, by
dissipation, and society. He worked, then, too much; he walked and
rode too much; he ate, drank, and smoked too much; nor could all the
cigars and the punch of which he partook drive little Fanny's image
out of his inflamed brain, and at the end of a week of this discipline
and self-denial our young gentleman was in bed with a fever. Let the
reader who has never had a fever in chambers pity the wretch who is
bound to undergo that calamity.

A committee of marriageable ladies, or of any Christian persons
interested in the propagation of the domestic virtues, should employ a
Cruikshank, or a Leech, or some other kindly expositor of the follies
of the day, to make a series of designs representing the horrors of a
bachelor's life in chambers, and leading the beholder to think of
better things, and a more wholesome condition. What can be more
uncomfortable than the bachelor's lonely breakfast?--with the black
kettle in the dreary fire in Midsummer; or, worse still, with the fire
gone out at Christmas, half an hour after the laundress has quitted
the sitting-room? Into this solitude the owner enters shivering, and
has to commence his day by hunting for coals and wood: and before he
begins the work of a student, has to discharge the duties of a
housemaid, vice Mrs. Flanagan, who is absent without leave. Or, again,
what can form a finer subject for the classical designer than the
bachelor's shirt--that garment which he wants to assume just at
dinner-time, and which he finds without any buttons to fasten it? Then
there is the bachelor's return to chambers after a merry Christmas
holiday, spent in a cozy country-house, full of pretty faces, and kind
welcomes and regrets. He leaves his portmanteau at the barber's in the
court: he lights his dismal old candle at the sputtering little lamp
on the stair: he enters the blank familiar room, where the only tokens
to greet him, that show any interest in his personal welfare, are the
Christmas bills, which are lying in wait for him, amicably spread out
on his reading-table. Add to these scenes an appalling picture of
bachelor's illness, and the rents in the Temple will begin to fall
from the day of the publication of the dismal diorama. To be well in
chambers is melancholy, and lonely and selfish enough; but to be ill
in chambers--to pass nights of pain and watchfulness--to long for the
morning and the laundress--to serve yourself your own medicine by your
own watch--to have no other companion for long hours but your own
sickening fancies and fevered thoughts: no kind hand to give you drink
if you are thirsty, or to smooth the hot pillow that crumples under
you--this indeed, is a fate so dismal and tragic, that we shall not
enlarge upon its horrors; and shall only heartily pity those bachelors
in the Temple who brave it every day.

This lot befell Arthur Pendennis after the various excesses which we
have mentioned, and to which he had subjected his unfortunate brains.
One night he went to bed ill, and next the day awoke worse. His only
visitor that day, besides the laundress, was the Printer's Devil, from
the "Pall Mall Gazette Office," whom the writer endeavored, as best he
could, to satisfy. His exertions to complete his work rendered his
fever the greater: he could only furnish a part of the quantity of
"copy" usually supplied by him; and Shandon being absent, and
Warrington not in London to give a help, the political and editorial
columns of the "Gazette" looked very blank indeed; nor did the
sub-editor know how to fill them. Mr. Finucane rushed up to Pen's
Chambers, and found that gentleman so exceedingly unwell, that the
good-natured Irishman set to work to supply his place, if possible,
and produced a series of political and critical compositions, such as
no doubt greatly edified the readers of the periodical in which he and
Pen were concerned. Allusions to the greatness of Ireland, and the
genius and virtue of the inhabitants of that injured country, flowed
magnificently from Finucane's pen; and Shandon, the Chief of the
paper, who was enjoying himself placidly at Boulogne-sur-mer, looking
over the columns of the journal, which was forwarded to him, instantly
recognized the hand of the great sub-editor, and said, laughing, as he
flung over the paper to his wife, "Look here, Mary, my dear, here is
Jack at work again." Indeed, Jack was a warm friend, and a gallant
partisan, and when he had the pen in hand, seldom let slip an
opportunity of letting the world know that Rafferty was the greatest
painter in Europe, and wondering at the petty jealousy of the Academy,
which refused to make him an R. A.: of stating that it was generally
reported at the West End, that Mr. Rooney, M. P. was appointed
Governor of Barataria; or of introducing into the subject in hand,
whatever it might be, a compliment to the Round Towers, or the Giant's
Causeway. And besides doing Pen's work for him, to the best of his
ability, his kind-hearted comrade offered to forego his Saturday's and
Sunday's holiday, and pass those days of holiday and rest as
nurse-tender to Arthur, who, however, insisted, that the other should
not forego his pleasure, and thankfully assured him that he could bear
best his malady alone.

Taking his supper at the Back-Kitchen on the Friday night, after
having achieved the work of the paper, Finucane informed Captain
Costigan of the illness of their young friend in the Temple; and
remembering the fact two days afterward, the captain went to Lamb
Court and paid a visit to the invalid on Sunday afternoon. He found
Mrs. Flanagan, the laundress, in tears in the sitting-room, and got a
bad report of the poor dear young gentleman within. Pen's condition
had so much alarmed her, that she was obliged to have recourse to the
stimulus of brandy to enable her to support the grief which his
illness occasioned. As she hung about his bed, and endeavored to
minister to him, her attentions became intolerable to the invalid, and
he begged her peevishly not to come near him. Hence the laundress's
tears and redoubled grief, and renewed application to the bottle,
which she was accustomed to use as an anodyne. The captain rated the
woman soundly for her intemperance, and pointed out to her the fatal
consequences which must ensue if she persisted in her imprudent
courses. Pen, who was by this time in a very fevered state, was yet
greatly pleased to receive Costigan's visit. He heard the well-known
voice in his sitting-room, as he lay in the bedroom within, and called
the captain eagerly to him, and thanked him for coming, and begged him
to take a chair and talk to him. The captain felt the young man's
pulse with great gravity--(his own tremulous and clammy hand growing
steady for the instant while his finger pressed Arthur's throbbing
vein)--the pulse was beating very fiercely--Pen's face was haggard
and hot--his eyes were bloodshot and gloomy; his "bird," as the
captain pronounced the word, afterward giving a description of his
condition, had not been shaved for nearly a week. Pen made his visitor
sit down, and, tossing and turning in his comfortless bed, began to
try and talk to the captain in a lively manner, about the
Back-Kitchen, about Vauxhall and when they should go again, and about
Fanny--how was little Fanny?

[Illustration]

Indeed how was she? We know how she went home very sadly on the
previous Sunday evening, after she had seen Arthur light his lamp in
his chambers, while he was having his interview with Bows. Bows came
back to his own rooms presently, passing by the Lodge door, and
looking into Mrs. Bolton's, according to his wont, as he passed, but
with a very melancholy face. She had another weary night that night.
Her restlessness wakened her little bedfellows more than once. She
daren't read more of Walter Lorraine: Father was at home, and would
suffer no light. She kept the book under her pillow, and felt for it
in the night. She had only just got to sleep, when the children began
to stir with the morning, almost as early as the birds. Though she was
very angry with Bows, she went to his room at her accustomed hour in
the day, and there the good-hearted musician began to talk to her.

"I saw Mr. Pendennis last night, Fanny," he said.

"Did you? I thought you did," Fanny answered, looking fiercely at the
melancholy old gentleman.

"I've been fond of you ever since we came to live in this place," he
continued. "You were a child when I came; and you used to like me,
Fanny, until three or four days ago: until you saw this gentleman."

"And now, I suppose, you are going to say ill of him," said Fanny.
"Do, Mr. Bows--that will make me like you better."

"Indeed I shall do no such thing," Bows answered; "I think he is a
very good and honest young man."

"Indeed, you know that if you said a word against him, I would never
speak a word to you again--never!" cried Miss Fanny; and clenched her
little hand, and paced up and down the room. Bows noted, watched, and
followed the ardent little creature with admiration and gloomy
sympathy. Her cheeks flushed, her frame trembled; her eyes beamed
love, anger, defiance. "You would like to speak ill of him," she said;
"but you daren't--you know you daren't!"

"I knew him many years since," Bows continued, "when he was almost as
young as you are, and he had a romantic attachment for our friend the
captain's daughter--Lady Mirabel that is now."

Fanny laughed. "I suppose there was other people, too, that had a
romantic attachment for Miss Costigan," she said: "I don't want to
hear about 'em."

"He wanted to marry her; but their ages were quite disproportionate:
and their rank in life. She would not have him because he had no
money. She acted very wisely in refusing him; for the two would have
been very unhappy, and she wasn't a fit person to go and live with his
family, or to make his home comfortable. Mr. Pendennis has his way to
make in the world, and must marry a lady of his own rank. A woman who
loves a man will not ruin his prospects, cause him to quarrel with his
family, and lead him into poverty and misery for her gratification. An
honest girl won't do that, for her own sake, or for the man's."

Fanny's emotion, which but now had been that of defiance and anger,
here turned to dismay and supplication. "What do I know about
marrying, Bows?" she said; "When was there any talk of it? What has
there been between this young gentleman and me that's to make people
speak so cruel? It was not my doing; nor Arthur's--Mr. Pendennis's
--that I met him at Vauxhall. It was the captain took me and
ma there. We never thought of nothing wrong, I'm sure. He came and
rescued us, and was so very kind. Then he came to call and ask after
us: and very, very good it was of such a grand gentleman to be so
polite to humble folks like us! And yesterday ma and me just went to
walk in the Temple Gardens, and--and"--here she broke out with that
usual, unanswerable female argument of tears--and cried, "Oh! I wish I
was dead! I wish I was laid in my grave; and had never, never
seen him!"

"He said as much himself, Fanny," Bows said; and Fanny asked through
her sobs, Why, why should he wish he had never seen her? Had she ever
done him any harm? Oh, she would perish rather than do him any harm.
Whereupon the musician informed her of the conversation of the day
previous, showed her that Pen could not and must not think of her as a
wife fitting for him, and that she, as she valued her honest
reputation, must strive too to forget him. And Fanny, leaving the
musician, convinced but still of the same mind, and promising that she
would avoid the danger which menaced her, went back to the Porter's
Lodge, and told her mother all. She talked of her love for Arthur, and
bewailed, in her artless manner, the inequality of their condition,
that set barriers between them. "There's the Lady of Lyons," Fanny
said; "Oh, ma! how I did love Mr. Macready when I saw him do it; and
Pauline, for being faithful to poor Claude, and always thinking of
him; and he coming back to her, an officer, through all his dangers!
And if every body admires Pauline--and I'm sure every body does, for
being so true to a poor man--why should a gentleman be ashamed of
loving a poor girl? Not that Mr. Arthur loves me--Oh, no, no! I ain't
worthy of him; only a princess is worthy of such a gentleman as him.
Such a poet!--writing so beautifully, and looking so grand! I'm sure
he's a nobleman, and of ancient family, and kep out of his estate.
Perhaps his uncle has it. Ah, if I might, oh, how I'd serve him, and
work for him, and slave for him, that I would. I wouldn't ask for more
than that, ma--just to be allowed to see him of a morning; and
sometimes he'd say 'How d'you do, Fanny?' or, 'God bless you Fanny!'
as he said on Sunday. And I'd work, and work; and I'd, sit up all
night, and read, and learn, and make myself worthy of him. The captain
says his mother lives in the country, and is a grand lady there. Oh,
how I wish I might go and be her servant, ma! I can do plenty of
things, and work very neat; and--and sometimes he'd come home, and I
should see him!"

The girl's head fell on her mother's shoulder as she spoke, and she
gave way to a plentiful outpouring of girlish tears, to which the
matron, of course, joined her own. "You mustn't think no more of him,
Fanny," she said. "If he don't come to you, he's a horrid,
wicked man."

"Don't call him so, mother," Fanny replied. "He's the best of men, the
best and the kindest. Bows says he thinks he is unhappy at leaving
poor little Fanny. It wasn't his fault, was it, that we met?--and it
ain't his that I mustn't see him again. He says I mustn't--and I
mustn't, mother. He'll forget me, but I shall never forget him. No!
I'll pray for him, and love him always--until I die--and I shall die,
I know I shall--and then my spirit will always go and be with him."

"You forget your poor mother, Fanny, and you'll break my heart by
goin' on so," Mrs. Bolton said. "Perhaps you will see him. I'm sure
you'll see him. I'm sure he'll come to-day. If ever I saw a man
in love, that man is him. When Emily Budd's young man first came about
her, he was sent away by old Budd, a most respectable man, and
violoncello in the orchestra at the Wells; and his own family wouldn't
hear of it neither. But he came back. We all knew he would. Emily
always said so; and he married her; and this one will come back too;
and you mark a mother's words, and see if he don't, dear."

At this point of the conversation Mr. Bolton entered the Lodge for his
evening meal. At the father's appearance, the talk between mother and
daughter ceased instantly. Mrs. Bolton caressed and cajoled the surly
undertaker's aid-de-camp, and said, "Lor, Mr. B., who'd have thought to
see you away from the Club of a Saturday night. Fanny, dear, get your
pa some supper. What will you have, B.? The poor gurl's got a
gathering in her eye, or somethink in it--_I_ was looking at it
just now as you came in." And she squeezed her daughter's hand as a
signal of prudence and secrecy; and Fanny's tears were dried up
likewise; and by that wondrous hypocrisy and power of disguise which
women practice, and with which weapons of defense nature endows them,
the traces of her emotion disappeared; and she went and took her work,
and sat in the corner so demure and quiet, that the careless male
parent never suspected that any thing ailed her.

Thus, as if fate seemed determined to inflame and increase the poor
child's malady and passion, all circumstances and all parties round
about her urged it on. Her mother encouraged and applauded it; and the
very words which Bows used in endeavoring to repress her flame only
augmented this unlucky fever. Pen was not wicked and a seducer: Pen
was high-minded in wishing to avoid her. Pen loved her: the good and
the great, the magnificent youth, with the chains of gold and the
scented auburn hair! And so he did; or so he would have loved her five
years back, perhaps, before the world had hardened the ardent and
reckless boy--before he was ashamed of a foolish and imprudent
passion, and strangled it as poor women do their illicit children, not
on account of the crime, but of the shame, and from dread that the
finger of the world should point to them.

What respectable person in the world will not say he was quite right
to avoid a marriage with an ill-educated person of low degree, whose
relations a gentleman could not well acknowledge, and whose manners
would not become her new station?--and what philosopher would not tell
him that the best thing to do with these little passions if they
spring up, is to get rid of them, and let them pass over and cure
them: that no man dies about a woman, or vice versâ: and that one or
the other having found the impossibility of gratifying his or her
desire in the particular instance, must make the best of matters,
forget each other, look out elsewhere, and choose again? And yet,
perhaps, there may be something said on the other side. Perhaps Bows
was right in admiring that passion of Pen's, blind and unreasoning as
it was, that made him ready to stake his all for his love; perhaps, if
self-sacrifice is a laudable virtue, mere worldly self-sacrifice is
not very much to be praised;--in fine, let this be a reserved point
to be settled by the individual moralist who chooses to debate it.

So much is certain, that with the experience of the world which Mr.
Pen now had, he would have laughed at and scouted the idea of marrying
a penniless girl out of a kitchen. And this point being fixed in his
mind, he was but doing his duty as an honest man, in crushing any
unlucky fondness which he might feel toward poor little Fanny.

So she waited and waited in hopes that Arthur would come. She waited
for a whole week, and it was at the end of that time that the poor
little creature heard from Costigan of the illness under which Arthur
was suffering.

It chanced on that very evening after Costigan had visited Pen, that
Arthur's uncle, the excellent major, arrived in town from Buxton,
where his health had been mended, and sent his valet Morgan to make
inquiries for Arthur, and to request that gentleman to breakfast with
the major the next morning. The major was merely passing through
London on his way to the Marquis of Steyne's house of Stillbrook,
where he was engaged to shoot partridges.

Morgan came back to his master with a very long face. He had seen Mr.
Arthur; Mr. Arthur was very bad indeed; Mr. Arthur was in bed with a
fever. A doctor ought to be sent to him; and Morgan thought his case
most alarming.

Gracious goodness! this was sad news indeed. He had hoped that Arthur
could come down to Stillbrook: he had arranged that he should go, and
procured an invitation for his nephew from Lord Steyne. He must go
himself; he couldn't throw Lord Steyne over; the fever might be
catching: it might be measles: he had never himself had the measles;
they were dangerous when contracted at his age. Was any body with
Mr. Arthur?

Morgan said there was somebody a nussing of Mr. Arthur.

The major then asked, had his nephew taken any advice? Morgan said he
had asked that question, and had been told that Mr. Pendennis had had
no doctor.

Morgan's master was sincerely vexed at hearing of Arthur's calamity.
He would have gone to him, but what good could it do Arthur that he,
the major, should catch a fever? His own ailments rendered it absolutely
impossible that he should attend to any body but himself. But
the young man must have advice--the best advice; and Morgan was
straightway dispatched with a note from Major Pendennis to his friend
Doctor Goodenough, who by good luck happened to be in London and at
home, and who quitted his dinner instantly, and whose carriage was in
half an hour in Upper Temple Lane, near Pen's chambers. The major had
asked the kind-hearted physician to bring him news of his nephew at
the Club where he himself was dining, and in the course of the night
the doctor made his appearance. The affair was very serious: the
patient was in a high fever: he had had Pen bled instantly: and would
see him the first thing in the morning. The major went disconsolate
to bed with this unfortunate news. When Goodenough came to see him
according to his promise the next day, the doctor had to listen for a
quarter of an hour to an account of the major's own maladies, before
the latter had leisure to hear about Arthur.

He had had a very bad night--his--his nurse said; at one hour he had
been delirious. It might end badly: his mother had better be sent for
immediately. The major wrote the letter to Mrs. Pendennis with the
greatest alacrity, and at the same time with the most polite
precautions. As for going himself to the lad, in his state it was
impossible. "Could I be of any use to him, my dear doctor?" he asked.

The doctor, with a peculiar laugh, said, No: he didn't think the major
could be of any use; that his own precious health required the most
delicate treatment, and that he had best go into the country and stay:
that he himself would take care to see the patient twice a day, and do
all in his power for him.

The major declared upon his honor, that if he could be of any use he
would rush to Pen's chambers. As it was, Morgan should go and see that
every thing was right. The doctor must write to him by every post to
Stillbrook; it was but forty miles distant from London, and if any
thing happened he would come up at any sacrifice.

Major Pendennis transacted his benevolence by deputy and by post.
"What else could he do," as he said? "Gad, you know, in these cases,
it's best not disturbing a fellow. If a poor fellow goes to the bad,
why, Gad, you know, he's disposed of. But in order to get well (and in
this, my dear doctor, I'm sure that you will agree with me), the best
way is to keep him quiet--perfectly quiet."

Thus it was the old gentleman tried to satisfy his conscience; and he
went his way that day to Stillbrook by railway (for railways have
sprung up in the course of this narrative, though they have not quite
penetrated into Pen's country yet), and made his appearance in his
usual trim order and curly wig, at the dinner-table of the Marquis of
Steyne. But we must do the major the justice to say, that he was very
unhappy and gloomy in demeanor. Wagg and Wenham rallied him about his
low spirits; asked whether he was crossed in love? and otherwise
diverted themselves at his expense. He lost his money at whist after
dinner, and actually trumped his partner's highest spade. And the
thoughts of the suffering boy, of whom he was proud, and whom he loved
after his manner, kept the old fellow awake half through the night,
and made him feverish and uneasy.

On the morrow he received a note in a handwriting which he did not
know: it was that of Mr. Bows, indeed, saying, that Mr. Arthur
Pendennis had had a tolerable night; and that as Dr. Goodenough had
stated that the major desired to be informed of his nephew's health,
he, R. B., had sent him the news per rail.

The next day he was going out shooting, about noon, with some of the
gentlemen staying at Lord Steyne's house; and the company, waiting
for the carriages, were assembled on the terrace in front of the
house, when a fly drove up from the neighboring station, and a
gray-headed, rather shabby old gentleman, jumped out, and asked for
Major Pendennis? It was Mr. Bows. He took the major aside and spoke to
him; most of the gentlemen round about saw that something serious had
happened, from the alarmed look of the major's face.

Wagg said, "It's a bailiff come down to nab the major;" but nobody
laughed at the pleasantry.

"Hullo! What's the matter, Pendennis?" cried Lord Steyne, with his
strident voice; "any thing wrong?"

"It's--it's my boy that's _dead_," said the major, and burst into a
sob--the old man was quite overcome.

"Not dead, my lord; but very ill when I left London," Mr. Bows said,
in a low voice.

A britzka came up at this moment as the three men were speaking. The
peer looked at his watch. "You've twenty minutes to catch the
mail-train. Jump in, Pendennis; and drive like h--, sir, do
you hear?"

The carriage drove off swiftly with Pendennis and his companions, and
let us trust that the oath will be pardoned to the Marquis of Steyne.

The major drove rapidly from the station to the Temple, and found a
traveling carriage already before him, and blocking up the narrow
Temple Lane. Two ladies got out of it, and were asking their way of
the porters; the major looked by chance at the panel of the carriage,
and saw the worn-out crest of the eagle looking at the sun, and the
motto, "nec tenui pennâ," painted beneath. It was his brother's old
carriage, built many, many years ago. It was Helen and Laura that were
asking their way to poor Pen's room.

He ran up to them; hastily clasped his sister's arm and kissed her
hand; and the three entered into Lamb-court, and mounted the long,
gloomy stair.

They knocked very gently at the door, on which Arthur's name was
written, and it was opened by Fanny Bolton.



CHAPTER XIV.

A CRITICAL CHAPTER.


As Fanny saw the two ladies and the anxious countenance of the elder,
who regarded her with a look of inscrutable alarm and terror, the poor
girl at once knew that Pen's mother was before her; there was a
resemblance between the widow's haggard eyes and Arthur's as he tossed
in his bed in fever. Fanny looked wistfully at Mrs. Pendennis and at
Laura afterward; there was no more expression in the latter's face
than if it had been a mass of stone. Hard-heartedness and gloom dwelt
on the figures of both the new comers; neither showed any the faintest
gleam of mercy or sympathy for Fanny. She looked desperately from them
to the major behind them. Old Pendennis dropped his eyelids, looking
up ever so stealthily from under them at Arthur's poor little nurse.

[Illustration]

"I--I wrote to you yesterday, if you please, ma'am," Fanny said,
trembling in every limb as she spoke; and as pale as Laura, whose sad
menacing face looked over Mrs. Pendennis's shoulder.

"Did you, madam?" Mrs. Pendennis said, "I suppose I may now relieve
you from nursing my son. I am his mother, you understand."

"Yes, ma'am. I--this is the way to his--O, wait a minute," cried out
Fanny. "I must prepare you for his--"

The widow, whose face had been hopelessly cruel and ruthless, here
started back with a gasp and a little cry, which she speedily
stifled. "He's been so since yesterday," Fanny said, trembling very
much, and with chattering teeth.

A horrid shriek of laughter came out of Pen's room, whereof the door
was open; and, after several shouts, the poor wretch began to sing a
college drinking song, and then to hurra and to shout as if he was in
the midst of a wine party, and to thump with his fist against the
wainscot. He was quite delirious.

"He does not know me, ma'am," Fanny said.

"Indeed. Perhaps he will know his mother; let me pass, if you please,
and go into him." And the widow hastily pushed by little Fanny, and
through the dark passage which led into Pen's sitting-room.

Laura sailed by Fanny, too, without a word; and Major Pendennis
followed them. Fanny sat down on a bench in the passage, and cried,
and prayed as well as she could. She would have died for him; and they
hated her. They had not a word of thanks or kindness for her, the fine
ladies. She sate there in the passage, she did not know how long. They
never came out to speak to her. She sate there until doctor Goodenough
came to pay his second visit that day; he found the poor little thing
at the door.

"What, nurse? How's your patient?" asked the good-natured doctor. "Has
he had any rest?"

"Go and ask them. They're inside," Fanny answered.

"Who? his mother?"

Fanny nodded her head and didn't speak.

"You must go to bed yourself, my poor little maid," said the doctor.
"You will be ill too, if you don't."

"O, mayn't I come and see him: mayn't I come and see him! I--I--love
him so," the little girl said; and as she spoke she fell down on her
knees and clasped hold of the doctor's hand in such an agony that to
see her melted the kind physician's heart, and caused a mist to come
over his spectacles.

"Pooh, pooh! Nonsense! Nurse, has he taken his draught? Has he had any
rest? Of course you must come and see him. So must I."

"They'll let me sit here, won't they, sir? I'll never make no noise. I
only ask to stop here," Fanny said. On which the doctor called her a
stupid little thing; put her down upon the bench where Pen's printer's
devil used to sit so many hours; tapped her pale cheek with his
finger, and bustled into the further room.

Mrs. Pendennis was ensconced, pale and solemn, in a great chair by
Pen's bed-side. Her watch was on the bed-table by Pen's medicines. Her
bonnet and cloaks were laid in the window. She had her Bible in her
lap, without which she never traveled. Her first movement, after
seeing her son, had been to take Fanny's shawl and bonnet which were
on his drawers, and bring them out and drop them down upon his
study-table. She had closed the door upon Major Pendennis, and Laura
too; and taken possession of her son.

She had had a great doubt and terror lest Arthur should not know her;
but that pang was spared to her, in part at least. Pen knew his mother
quite well, and familiarly smiled and nodded at her. When she came in,
he instantly fancied that they were at home at Fairoaks; and began to
talk and chatter and laugh in a rambling wild way. Laura could hear
him outside. His laughter shot shafts of poison into her heart. It was
true then. He had been guilty--and with _that_ creature!--an intrigue
with a servant maid; and she had loved him--and he was dying most
likely--raving and unrepentant. The major now and then hummed out a
word of remark or consolation, which Laura scarce heard. A dismal
sitting it was for all parties; and when Goodenough appeared, he came
like an angel into the room.

It is not only for the sick man, it is for the sick man's friends that
the doctor comes. His presence is often as good for them as for the
patient, and they long for him yet more eagerly. How we have all
watched after him! what an emotion the thrill of his carriage-wheels
in the street, and at length at the door, has made us feel! how we
hang upon his words, and what a comfort we get from a smile or two, if
he can vouchsafe that sunshine to lighten our darkness! Who hasn't
seen the mother praying into his face, to know if there is hope for
the sick infant that can not speak, and that lies yonder, its little
frame battling with fever? Ah, how she looks into his eyes! What
thanks if there is light there; what grief and pain if he casts them
down, and dares not say "hope!" Or it is the house-father who is
stricken. The terrified wife looks on, while the physician feels his
patient's wrist, smothering her agonies, as the children have been
called upon to stay their plays and their talk. Over the patient in
the fever, the wife expectant, the children unconscious, the doctor
stands as if he were Fate, the dispenser of life and death: he _must_
let the patient off this time; the woman prays so for his respite! One
can fancy how awful the responsibility must be to a conscientious man:
how cruel the feeling that he has given the wrong remedy, or that it
might have been possible to do better: how harassing the sympathy with
survivors, if the case is unfortunate--how immense the delight
of victory!

Having passed through a hasty ceremony of introduction to the new
comers, of whose arrival he had been made aware by the heart-broken
little nurse in waiting without, the doctor proceeded to examine the
patient, about whose condition of high fever there could be no
mistake, and on whom he thought it necessary to exercise the strongest
antiphlogistic remedies in his power. He consoled the unfortunate
mother as best he might; and giving her the most comfortable
assurances on which he could venture, that there was no reason to
despair yet, that every thing might still be hoped from his youth, the
strength of his constitution, and so forth, and having done his utmost
to allay the horrors of the alarmed matron, he took the elder
Pendennis aside into the vacant room (Warrington's bed-room), for the
purpose of holding a little consultation.

The case was very critical. The fever, if not stopped, might and would
carry off the young fellow: he must be bled forthwith: the mother
must be informed of this necessity. Why was that other young lady
brought with her? She was out of place in a sick room.

"And there was another woman still, be hanged to it!" the major said,
"the--the little person who opened the door." His sister-in-law had
brought the poor little devil's bonnet and shawl out, and flung them
upon the study-table. Did Goodenough know any thing about the--the
little person? "I just caught a glimpse of her as we passed in," the
major said, "and begad she was uncommonly nice-looking." The doctor
looked queer: the doctor smiled--in the very gravest moments, with
life and death pending, such strange contrasts and occasions of humor
will arise, and such smiles will pass, to satirize the gloom, as it
were, and to make it more gloomy!

[Illustration]

"I have it," at last he said, re-entering the study;
and he wrote a couple of notes hastily at the table there, and sealed
one of them. Then, taking up poor Fanny's shawl and bonnet, and the
notes, he went out in the passage to that poor little messenger, and
said, "Quick, nurse; you must carry this to the surgeon, and bid him
come instantly: and then go to my house, and ask for my servant,
Harbottle, and tell him to get this prescription prepared; and wait
until I--until it is ready. It may take a little time in preparation."

So poor Fanny trudged away with her two notes, and found the
apothecary, who lived in the Strand hard by, and who came straightway,
his lancet in his pocket, to operate on his patient; and then Fanny
made for the doctor's house, in Hanover-square.

The doctor was at home again before the prescription was made up,
which took Harbottle, his servant, such a long time in compounding:
and, during the remainder of Arthur's illness, poor Fanny never made
her appearance in the quality of nurse at his chambers any more. But
for that day and the next, a little figure might be seen lurking about
Pen's staircase--a sad, sad little face looked at and interrogated the
apothecary and the apothecary's boy, and the laundress, and the kind
physician himself, as they passed out of the chambers of the sick man.
And on the third day, the kind doctor's chariot stopped at Shepherd's
Inn, and the good, and honest, and benevolent man went into the
Porter's Lodge, and tended a little patient he had there, for whom the
best remedy he found was on the day when he was enabled to tell Fanny
Bolton that the crisis was over, and that there was at length every
hope for Arthur Pendennis.

J. Costigan, Esquire, late of her Majesty's service, saw the doctor's
carriage, and criticised its horses and appointments. "Green liveries,
bedad!" the general said, "and as foin a pair of high-stepping bee
horses as ever a gentleman need sit behoind, let alone a docthor.
There's no ind to the proide and ar'gance of them docthors
nowadays--not but that is a good one, and a scoientific cyarkter, and
a roight good fellow, bedad; and he's brought the poor little girl
well troo her faver, Bows, me boy;" and so pleased was Mr. Costigan
with the doctor's behavior and skill, that, whenever he met Dr.
Goodenough's carriage in future, he made a point of saluting it and
the physician inside, in as courteous and magnificent a manner, as if
Dr. Goodenough had been the Lord Liftenant himself, and Captain
Costigan had been in his glory in Phaynix Park.

The widow's gratitude to the physician knew no bounds--or scarcely any
bounds, at least. The kind gentleman laughed at the idea of taking a
fee from a literary man, or the widow of a brother practitioner; and she
determined when she got back to Fairoaks that she would send
Goodenough the silver-gilt vase, the jewel of the house, and the glory
of the late John Pendennis, preserved in green baize, and presented to
him at Bath, by the Lady Elizabeth Firebrace, on the recovery of her
son, the late Sir Anthony Firebrace, from the scarlet fever.
Hippocrates, Hygeia, King Bladud, and a wreath of serpents surmount
the cup to this day; which was executed in their finest manner, by
Messrs. Abednego, of Milsom-street; and the inscription was by Mr.
Birch tutor to the young baronet.

This priceless gem of art the widow determined to devote to Goodenough,
the preserver of her son; and there was scarcely any other
favor which her gratitude would not have conferred upon him, except
one, which he desired most, and which was that she should think a
little charitably and kindly of poor Fanny, of whose artless, sad
story, he had got something during his interviews with her, and of
whom he was induced to think very kindly--not being disposed, indeed,
to give much credit to Pen for his conduct in the affair, or not
knowing what that conduct had been. He knew, enough, however, to be
aware that the poor infatuated little girl was without stain as yet;
that while she had been in Pen's room it was to see the last of him,
as she thought, and that Arthur was scarcely aware of her presence; and
that she suffered under the deepest and most pitiful grief, at the
idea of losing him, dead or living.

But on the one or two occasions when Goodenough alluded to Fanny, the
widow's countenance, always soft and gentle, assumed an expression so
cruel and inexorable, that the doctor saw it was in vain to ask her
for justice or pity, and he broke off all entreaties, and ceased
making any further allusions regarding his little client. There is a
complaint which neither poppy, nor mandragora, nor all the drowsy
syrups of the East could allay, in the men in his time, as we are
informed by a popular poet of the days of Elizabeth; and which, when
exhibited in women, no medical discoveries or practice subsequent
--neither homoeopathy, nor hydropathy, nor mesmerism, nor Dr.
Simpson, nor Dr. Locock can cure, and that is--we won't call it
jealousy, but rather gently denominate rivalry and emulation,
in ladies.

Some of those mischievious and prosaic people who carp and calculate
at every detail of the romancer, and want to know, for instance, how
when the characters "in the Critic" are at a dead lock with their
daggers at each other's throats, they are to be got out of that
murderous complication of circumstances, may be induced to ask how it
was possible in a set of chambers in the Temple, consisting of three
rooms, two cupboards, a passage, and a coal-box, Arthur a sick
gentleman, Helen his mother, Laura her adopted daughter, Martha their
country attendant, Mrs. Wheezer a nurse from St. Bartholomew's
Hospital, Mrs. Flanagan an Irish laundress, Major Pendennis a retired
military officer, Morgan his valet, Pidgeon Mr. Arthur Pendennis's
boy, and others could be accommodated--the answer is given at once,
that almost every body in the Temple was out of town, and that there
was scarcely a single occupant of Pen's house in Lamb Court except
those who were occupied round the sick bed of the sick gentleman,
about whose fever we have not given a lengthy account, neither shall
we enlarge very much upon the more cheerful theme of his recovery.

Every body we have said was out of town, and of course such a
fashionable man as young Mr. Sibwright, who occupied chambers on the
second floor in Pen's staircase, could not be supposed to remain in
London. Mrs. Flanagan, Mr. Pendennis's laundress, was acquainted with
Mrs. Rouncy who did for Mr. Sibwright, and that gentleman's bedroom
was got ready for Miss Bell, or Mrs. Pendennis, when the latter should
be inclined to leave her son's sick room, to try and seek for a little
rest for herself.

If that young buck and flower of Baker-street, Percy Sibwright could
have known who was the occupant of his bedroom, how proud he would
have been of that apartment: what poems he would have written about
Laura! (several of his things have appeared in the annuals, and in
manuscript in the nobility's albums)--he was a Camford man and very
nearly got the English Prize Poem, it was said--Sibwright, however,
was absent and his bed given up to Miss Bell. It was the prettiest
little brass bed in the world, with chintz curtains lined with
pink--he had a mignonette box in his bedroom window, and the mere
sight of his little exhibition of shiny boots, arranged in trim rows
over his wardrobe, was a gratification to the beholder. He had a
museum of scent, pomatum, and bears' grease pots, quite curious to
examine, too; and a choice selection of portraits of females almost
always in sadness and generally in disguise or dishabille, glittered
round the neat walls of his elegant little bower of repose. Medora
with disheveled hair was consoling herself over her banjo for the
absence of her Conrad--the Princesse Fleur de Marie (of Rudolstein and
the Mystères de Paris) was sadly ogling out of the bars of her convent
cage, in which, poor prisoned bird, she was moulting away--Dorothea of
Don Quixote was washing her eternal feet:--in fine, it was such an
elegant gallery as became a gallant lover of the sex. And in
Sibwright's sitting-room, while there was quite an infantine law
library clad in skins of fresh new born calf, there was a tolerably
large collection of classical books which he could not read, and of
English and French works of poetry and fiction which he read a great
deal too much. His invitation cards of the past season still decorated
his looking glass: and scarce any thing told of the lawyer but the
wig-box beside the Venus upon the middle shelf of the bookcase, on
which the name of P. Sibwright, Esquire, was gilded.

With Sibwright in chambers was Mr. Bangham. Mr. Bangham was a sporting
man married to a rich widow. Mr. Bangham had no practice--did not come
to chambers thrice in a term: went a circuit for those mysterious
reasons which make men go circuit--and his room served as a great
convenience to Sibwright when that young gentleman gave his little
dinners. It must be confessed that these two gentlemen have nothing to
do with our history, will never appear in it again probably, but we
can not help glancing through their doors as they happen to be open to
us, and as we pass to Pen's rooms; as in the pursuit of our own
business in life through the Strand, at the Club, nay at Church
itself, we can not help peeping at the shops on the way, or at our
neighbor's dinner, or at the faces under the bonnets in the next pew.

Very many years after the circumstances about which we are at present
occupied, Laura with a blush and a laugh showing much humor owned to
having read a French novel once much in vogue, and when her husband
asked her, wondering where on earth she could have got such a volume,
she owned that it was in the Temple, when she lived in Mr. Percy
Sibwright's chambers.

"And, also, I never confessed," she said, "on that same occasion, what
I must now own to; that I opened the japanned box, and took out that
strange-looking wig inside it, and put it on and looked at myself in
the glass in it."

Suppose Percy Sibwright had come in at such a moment as that? What
would he have said--the enraptured rogue? What would have been all the
pictures of disguised beauties in his room compared to that living
one? Ah, we are speaking of old times, when Sibwright was a bachelor
and before he got a county court--when people were young--when _most_
people were young. Other people are young now; but we no more.

When Miss Laura played this prank with the wig, you can't suppose that
Pen could have been very ill up-stairs; otherwise, though she had
grown to care for him ever so little, common sense of feeling and
decorum would have prevented her from performing any tricks or trying
any disguises.

But all sorts of events had occurred in the course of the last few
days which had contributed to increase or account for her gayety, and
a little colony of the reader's old friends and acquaintances was by
this time established in Lamb Court, Temple, and round Pen's sick bed
there. First, Martha, Mrs. Pendennis's servant, had arrived from
Fairoaks, being summoned thence by the major, who justly thought her
presence would be comfortable and useful to her mistress and her young
master, for neither of whom the constant neighborhood of Mrs. Flanagan
(who during Pen's illness required more spirituous consolation than
ever to support her) could be pleasant. Martha then made her
appearance in due season to wait upon Mrs. Pendennis, nor did that
lady go once to bed until the faithful servant had reached her, when,
with a heart full of maternal thankfulness, she went and lay down upon
Warrington's straw mattress, and among his mathematical books as has
been already described.

It is true ere that day a great and delightful alteration in Pen's
condition had taken place. The fever, subjugated by Dr. Goodenough's
blisters, potions, and lancet, had left the young man, or only
returned at intervals of feeble intermittance; his wandering senses
had settled in his weakened brain: he had had time to kiss and bless
his mother for coming to him, and calling for Laura and his uncle (who
were both affected according to their different natures by his wan
appearance, his lean shrunken hands, his hollow eyes and voice, his
thin bearded face) to press their hands and thank them affectionately;
and after this greeting, and after they had been turned out of the
room by his affectionate nurse, he had sunk into a fine sleep which
had lasted for about sixteen hours, at the end of which period he
awoke calling out that he was very hungry. If it is hard to be ill and
to loathe food, oh, how pleasant to be getting well and to be
feeling hungry--_how_ hungry! Alas, the joys of convalescence become
feebler with increasing years, as other joys do--and then--and then
comes that illness when one does not convalesce at all.

On the day of this happy event, too, came another arrival in
Lambcourt. This was introduced into the Pen-Warrington sitting-room by
large puffs of tobacco smoke--the puffs of smoke were followed by an
individual with a cigar in his mouth, and a carpet bag under his arm--
this was Warrington, who had run back from Norfolk, when Mr. Bows
thoughtfully wrote to inform him of his friend's calamity. But he had
been from home when Bows's letter had reached his brother's house--
the Eastern Counties did not then boast of a railway (for we beg the
reader to understand that we only commit anachronisms when we choose,
and when by a daring violation of those natural laws some great
ethical truth is to be advanced)--in fine, Warrington only appeared
with the rest of the good luck upon the lucky day after Pen's
convalescence may have been said to have begun.

His surprise was, after all, not very great when he found the chambers
of his sick friend occupied, and his old acquaintance the major seated
demurely in an easy chair, (Warrington had let himself into the rooms
with his own pass-key), listening, or pretending to listen, to a young
lady who was reading to him a play of Shakspeare in a low sweet voice.
The lady stopped and started, and laid down her book, at the
apparition of the tall traveler with the cigar and the carpet-bag. He
blushed, he flung the cigar into the passage: he took off his hat, and
dropped that too, and going up to the major, seized that old
gentleman's hand, and asked questions about Arthur.

The major answered in a tremulous, though cheery voice--it was curious
how emotion seemed to olden him--and returning Warrington's pressure
with a shaking hand, told him the news--of Arthur's happy crisis, of
his mother's arrival--with her young charge--with Miss--

"You need not tell me her name," Mr. Warrington said with great
animation, for he was affected and elated with the thought of his
friend's recovery--"you need not tell me your name. I knew at once it
was Laura." And he held out his hand and took hers. Immense kindness
and tenderness gleamed from under his rough eyebrows, and shook his
voice as he gazed at her and spoke to her. "And this is Laura !" his
looks seemed to say. "And this is Warrington," the generous girl's
heart beat back. "Arthur's hero--the brave and the kind--he has come
hundreds of miles to succor him, when he heard of his friend's
misfortune!"

"Thank you, Mr. Warrington," was all that Laura said, however; and as
she returned the pressure of his kind hand, she blushed so, that she
was glad the lamp was behind her to conceal her flushing face.

As these two were standing in this attitude, the door of Pen's
bed-chamber was opened stealthily as his mother was wont to open it,
and Warrington saw another lady, who first looked at him, and then
turning round toward the bed, said, "Hsh!" and put up her hand. It
was to Pen Helen was turning, and giving caution. He called out with a
feeble, tremulous, but cheery voice, "Come in, Stunner--come in,
Warrington. I knew it was you--by the--by the smoke, old boy," he
said, as holding his worn hand out, and with tears at once of weakness
and pleasure in his eyes, he greeted his friend.

"I--I beg pardon, ma'am, for smoking," Warrington said, who now almost
for the first time blushed for his wicked propensity.

Helen only said, "God bless you, Mr. Warrington." She was so happy,
she would have liked to kiss George. Then, and after the friends had
had a brief, very brief interview, the delighted and inexorable
mother, giving her hand to Warrington, sent him out of the room too,
back to Laura and the major, who had not resumed their play of
Cymbeline where they had left it off at the arrival of the rightful
owner of Pen's chambers.



CHAPTER XV.

CONVALESCENCE.


[Illustration]

Our duty now is to record a fact concerning Pendennis, which, however
shameful and disgraceful, when told regarding the chief personage and
Godfather of a novel, must, nevertheless, be made known to the public
who reads his veritable memoirs. Having gone to bed ill with fever,
and suffering to a certain degree under the passion of love, after he
had gone through his physical malady, and had been bled and had been
blistered, and had had his head shaved, and had been treated and
medicamented as the doctor ordained: it is a fact, that, when he
rallied up from his bodily ailment, his mental malady had likewise
quitted him, and he was no more in love with Fanny Bolton than you or
I, who are much too wise, or too moral, to allow our hearts to go
gadding after porters' daughters.

He laughed at himself as he lay on his pillow, thinking of this second
cure which had been effected upon him. He did not care the least about
Fanny now; he wondered how he ever should have cared: and according to
his custom made an autopsy of that dead passion, and anatomized his
own defunct sensation for his poor little nurse. What could have made
him so hot and eager about her but a few weeks back: Not her wit, not
her breeding, not her beauty--there were hundreds of women better
looking than she. It was out of himself that the passion had gone: it
did not reside in her. She was the same; but the eyes which saw her
were changed; and, alas, that it should be so! were not particularly
eager to see her any more. He felt very well disposed toward the
little thing, and so forth, but as for violent personal regard, such
as he had but a few weeks ago, it had fled under the influence of the
pill and lancet, which had destroyed the fever in his frame. And an
immense source of comfort and gratitude it was to Pendennis (though
there was something selfish in that feeling, as in most others of our
young man), that he had been enabled to resist temptation at the time
when the danger was greatest, and had no particular cause of
self-reproach as he remembered his conduct toward the young girl. As
from a precipice down which he might have fallen, so from the fever
from which he had recovered, he reviewed the Fanny Bolton snare, now
that he had escaped out of it, but I'm not sure that he was not
ashamed of the very satisfaction which he experienced. It is pleasant,
perhaps, but it is humiliating to own that you love no more.

Meanwhile the kind smiles and tender watchfulness of the mother at his
bed-side, filled the young man with peace and security. To see that
health was returning, was all the unwearied nurse demanded: to execute
any caprice or order of her patient's, her chiefest joy and reward. He
felt himself environed by her love, and thought himself almost as
grateful for it as he had been when weak and helpless in childhood.

Some misty notions regarding the first part of his illness, and that
Fanny had nursed him, Pen may have had, but they were so dim that he
could not realize them with accuracy, or distinguish them from what he
knew to be delusions which had occurred and were remembered during the
delirium of his fever. So as he had not thought proper on former
occasions to make any allusions about Fanny Bolton to his mother, of
course he could not now confide to her his sentiments regarding Fanny,
or make this worthy lady a confidante. It was on both sides an unlucky
precaution and want of confidence; and a word or two in time might
have spared the good lady and those connected with her, a deal of pain
and anguish.

Seeing Miss Bolton installed as nurse and tender to Pen, I am sorry to
say Mrs. Pendennis had put the worst construction on the fact of the
intimacy of these two unlucky young persons, and had settled in her
own mind that the accusations against Arthur were true. Why not have
stopped to inquire?--There are stories to a man's disadvantage that
the women who are fondest of him are always the most eager to believe.
Isn't a man's wife often the first to be jealous of him? Poor Pen got
a good stock of this suspicious kind of love from the nurse who was
now watching over him; and the kind and pure creature thought that her
boy had gone through a malady much more awful and debasing than the
mere physical fever, and was stained by crime as well as weakened by
illness. The consciousness of this she had to bear perforce silently,
and to try to put a mask of cheerfulness and confidence over her
inward doubt and despair and horror.

When Captain Shandon, at Boulogne, read the next number of the
"Pall-Mall Gazette," it was to remark to Mrs. Shandon that Jack
Finucane's hand was no longer visible in the leading articles, and
that Mr. Warrington must be at work there again. "I know the crack of
his whip in a hundred, and the cut which the fellow's thong leaves.
There's Jack Bludyer, goes to work like a butcher, and mangles a
subject. Mr. Warrington finishes a man, and lays his cuts neat and
regular, straight down the back, and drawing blood every line;" at
which dreadful metaphor, Mrs. Shandon said, "Law, Charles, how can you
talk so! I always thought Mr. Warrington very high, but a kind
gentleman; and I'm sure he was most kind to the children." Upon which
Shandon said, "Yes; he's kind to the children; but he's savage to the
men; and to be sure, my dear, you don't understand a word about what
I'm saying; and it's best you shouldn't; for it's little good comes
out of writing for newspapers; and it's better here, living easy at
Boulogne, where the wine's plenty, and the brandy costs but two francs
a bottle. Mix us another tumbler, Mary, my dear; we'll go back into
harness soon. 'Cras ingens iterabimus aequor'--bad luck to it."

In a word, Warrington went to work with all his might, in place of his
prostrate friend, and did Pen's portion of the "Pall-Mall Gazette"
"with a vengeance," as the saying is. He wrote occasional articles and
literary criticisms; he attended theatres and musical performances,
and discoursed about them with his usual savage energy. His hand was
too strong for such small subjects, and it pleased him to tell
Arthur's mother, and uncle, and Laura, that there was no hand in all
the band of penmen more graceful and light, more pleasant and more
elegant, than Arthur's. "The people in this country, ma'am, don't
understand what style is, or they would see the merits of our young
one," he said to Mrs. Pendennis. "I call him ours, ma'am, for I bred
him; and I am as proud of him as you are; and, bating a little
willfulness, and a little selfishness, and a little dandyfication, I
don't know a more honest, or loyal, or gentle creature. His pen is
wicked sometimes, but he is as kind as a young lady--as Miss Laura
here--and I believe he would not do any living mortal harm."

At this, Helen, though she heaved a deep, deep sigh, and Laura, though
she, too, was sadly wounded, nevertheless were most thankful for
Warrington's good opinion of Arthur, and loved him for being so
attached to their Pen. And Major Pendennis was loud in his praises of
Mr. Warrington--more loud and enthusiastic than it was the major's
wont to be. "He is a gentleman, my dear creature," he said to Helen,
"every inch a gentleman, my good madam--the Suffolk Warringtons
--Charles the First's baronets: what could he be but a gentleman,
come out of that family?--father--Sir Miles Warrington; ran
away with--beg your pardon, Miss Bell. Sir Miles was a very well-known
man in London, and a friend of the Prince of Wales. This gentleman
is a man of the greatest talents, the very highest accomplishments
--sure to get on, if he had a motive to put his energies to work."

Laura blushed for herself while the major was talking and praising
Arthur's hero. As she looked at Warrington's manly face and dark,
melancholy eyes, this young person had been speculating about him, and
had settled in her mind that he must have been the victim of an
unhappy attachment; and as she caught herself so speculating, why,
Miss Bell blushed.

Warrington got chambers hard by--Grenier's chambers in Flagcourt; and
having executed Pen's task with great energy in the morning, his
delight and pleasure of an afternoon was to come and sit with the sick
man's company in the sunny autumn evenings; and he had the honor more
than once of giving Miss Bell his arm for a walk in the Temple
Gardens; to take which pastime, when the frank Laura asked of Helen
permission, the major eagerly said, "Yes, yes, begad--of course you go
out with him--it's like the country, you know; everybody goes out with
every body in the gardens, and there are beadles, you know, and that
sort of thing--every body walks in the Temple Gardens." If the great
arbiter of morals did not object, why should simple Helen? She was
glad that her girl should have such fresh air as the river could give,
and to see her return with heightened color and spirits from these
harmless excursions.

Laura and Helen had come, you must know, to a little explanation. When
the news arrived of Pen's alarming illness, Laura insisted upon
accompanying the terrified mother to London, would not hear of the
refusal which the still angry Helen gave her, and, when refused a
second time yet more sternly, and when it seemed that the poor lost
lad's life was despaired of, and when it was known that his conduct
was such as to render all thoughts of union hopeless, Laura had, with
many tears told her mother a secret with which every observant person
who reads this story is acquainted already. Now she never could marry
him, was she to be denied the consolation of owning how fondly, how
truly, how entirely she had loved him? The mingling tears of the women
appeased the agony of their grief somewhat, and the sorrows and
terrors of their journey were at least in so far mitigated that they
shared them together.

What could Fanny expect when suddenly brought up for sentence before a
couple of such judges? Nothing but swift condemnation, awful
punishment, merciless dismissal! Women are cruel critics in cases such
as that in which poor Fanny was implicated; and we like them to be so:
for, besides the guard which a man places round his own harem, and the
defenses which a woman has in her heart, her faith, and honor, hasn't
she all her own friends of her own sex to keep watch that she does not
go astray, and to tear her to pieces if she is found erring? When our
Mahmouds or Selims of Baker-street or Belgrave-square visit their
Fatimas with condign punishment, their mothers sew up Fatima's sack
for her, and her sisters and sisters-in-law see her well under
water. And this present writer does not say nay. He protests most
solemnly he is a Turk, too. He wears a turban and a beard like
another, and is all for the sack practice, Bismillah! But O you
spotless, who have the right of capital punishment vested in you, at
least be very cautious that you make away with the proper (if so she
may be called) person. Be very sure of the fact before you order the
barge out: and don't pop your subject into the Bosphorus, until you
are quite certain that she deserves it. This is all I would urge in
Poor Fatima's behalf--absolutely all--not a word more, by the beard of
the Prophet. If she's guilty, down with her--heave over the sack, away
with it into the Golden Horn bubble and squeak, and justice being
done, give away, men, and let us pull back to supper.

So the major did not in any way object to Warrington's continued
promenades with Miss Laura, but, like a benevolent old gentleman,
encouraged in every way the intimacy of that couple. Were there any
exhibitions in town? he was for Warrington conducting her to them. If
Warrington had proposed to take her to Vauxhall itself, this most
complaisant of men would have seen no harm--nor would Helen, if
Pendennis the elder had so ruled it--nor would there have been any
harm between two persons whose honor was entirely spotless--between
Warrington, who saw in intimacy a pure, and high-minded, and artless
woman for the first time in his life--and Laura, who too for the first
time was thrown into the constant society of a gentleman of great
natural parts and powers of pleasing; who possessed varied
acquirements, enthusiasm, simplicity, humor, and that freshness of
mind which his simple life and habits gave him, and which contrasted
so much with Pen's dandy indifference of manner and faded sneer. In
Warrington's very uncouthness there was a refinement, which the
other's finery lacked. In his energy, his respect, his desire to
please, his hearty laughter, or simple confiding pathos, what a
difference to Sultan Pen's yawning sovereignty and languid acceptance
of homage! What had made Pen at home such a dandy and such a despot?
The women had spoiled him, as we like them and as they like to do.
They had cloyed him with obedience, and surfeited him with sweet
respect and submission, until he grew weary of the slaves who waited
upon him, and their caresses and cajoleries excited him no more.
Abroad, he was brisk and lively, and eager and impassioned
enough--most men are so constituted and so nurtured. Does this, like
the former sentence, run a chance of being misinterpreted, and does
any one dare to suppose that the writer would incite the women to
revolt? Never, by the whiskers of the Prophet, again he says. He wears
a beard, and he likes his women to be slaves. What man doesn't? What
man would be henpecked, I say?--We will cut off all the heads in
Christendom or Turkeydom rather than that.

Well, then, Arthur being so languid, and indifferent, and careless
about the favors bestowed upon him, how came it that Laura should have
such a love and rapturous regard for him, that a mere inadequate
expression of it should have kept the girl talking all the way from
Fairoaks to London, as she and Helen traveled in the post-chaise? As
soon as Helen had finished one story about the dear fellow, and
narrated, with a hundred sobs and ejaculations, and looks up to
heaven, some thrilling incidents which occurred about the period when
the hero was breeched, Laura began another equally interesting, and
equally ornamented with tears, and told how heroically he had a tooth
out or wouldn't have it out, or how daringly he robbed a bird's nest,
or how magnanimously he spared it; or how he gave a shilling to the
old woman on the common, or went without his bread and butter for the
beggar-boy who came into the yard--and so on. One to another the
sobbing women sang laments upon their hero, who, my worthy reader has
long since perceived, is no more a hero than either one of us. Being
as he was, why should a sensible girl be so fond of him?

This point has been argued before in a previous unfortunate sentence
(which lately drew down all the wrath of Ireland upon the writer's
head), and which said that the greatest rascal-cutthroats have had
somebody to be fond of them, and if those monsters, why not ordinary
mortals? And with whom shall a young lady fall in love but with the
person she sees? She is not supposed to lose her heart in a dream,
like a Princess in the Arabian Nights; or to plight her young
affections to the portrait of a gentleman in the Exhibition, or a
sketch in the Illustrated London News. You have an instinct within you
which inclines you to attach yourself to some one: you meet Somebody:
you hear Somebody constantly praised: you walk, or ride, or waltz, or
talk, or sit in the same pew at church with Somebody: you meet again,
and again, and--"Marriages are made in Heaven," your dear mamma says,
pinning your orange flowers wreath on, with her blessed eyes dimmed
with tears--and there is a wedding breakfast, and you take off your
white satin and retire to your coach and four, and you and he are a
happy pair. Or, the affair is broken off and then, poor dear wounded
heart! why then you meet Somebody Else and twine your young affections
round number two. It is your nature so to do. Do you suppose it is all
for the man's sake that you love, and not a bit for your own? Do you
suppose you would drink if you were not thirsty, or eat if you were
not hungry?

So then Laura liked Pen because she saw scarcely any body else at
Fairoaks except Doctor Portman and Captain Glanders, and because his
mother constantly praised her Arthur, and because he was
gentleman-like, tolerably good-looking and witty, and because, above
all, it was of her nature to like somebody. And having once received
this image into her heart, she there tenderly nursed it and clasped
it--she there, in his long absences and her constant solitudes,
silently brooded over it and fondled it--and when after this she came
to London, and had an opportunity of becoming rather intimate with Mr.
George Warrington, what on earth was to prevent her from thinking him
a most odd, original, agreeable, and pleasing person?

A long time afterward, when these days were over, and Fate in its
own way had disposed of the various persons now assembled in the dingy
building in Lamb-court, perhaps some of them looked back and thought
how happy the time was, and how pleasant had been their evening talks
and little walks and simple recreations round the sofa of Pen the
convalescent. The major had a favorable opinion of September in London
from that time forward, and declared at his clubs and in society that
the dead season in town was often pleasant, doosid pleasant, begad. He
used to go home to his lodgings in Bury-street of a night, wondering
that it was already so late, and that the evening had passed away so
quietly. He made his appearance at the Temple pretty constantly in the
afternoon, and tugged up the long, black staircase with quite a
benevolent activity and perseverance. And he made interest with the
chef at Bays's (that renowned cook, the superintendence of whose work
upon Gastronomy compelled the gifted author to stay in the
metropolis), to prepare little jellies, delicate clear soups, aspics,
and other trifles good for invalids, which Morgan the valet constantly
brought down to the little Lamb-court colony. And the permission to
drink a glass or two of pure sherry being accorded to Pen by Doctor
Goodenough, the major told with almost tears in his eyes how his noble
friend the Marquis of Steyne, passing through London on his way to the
Continent, had ordered any quantity of his precious, his priceless
Amontillado, that had been a present from King Ferdinand to the noble
marquis, to be placed at the disposal of Mr. Arthur Pendennis. The
widow and Laura tasted it with respect (though they didn't in the
least like the bitter flavor), but the invalid was greatly invigorated
by it, and Warrington pronounced it superlatively good, and proposed
the major's health in a mock speech after dinner on the first day when
the wine was served, and that of Lord Steyne and the aristocracy
in general.

Major Pendennis returned thanks with the utmost gravity and in a
speech in which he used the words "the present occasion," at least the
proper number of times. Pen cheered with his feeble voice from his
arm-chair. Warrington taught Miss Laura to cry "Hear! hear!" and
tapped the table with his knuckles. Pidgeon the attendant grinned, and
honest Doctor Goodenough found the party so merrily engaged, when he
came in to pay his faithful, gratuitous visit.

Warrington knew Sibwright, who lived below, and that gallant
gentleman, in reply to a letter informing him of the use to which his
apartments had been put, wrote back the most polite and flowery letter
of acquiescence. He placed his chambers at the service of their fair
occupants, his bed at their disposal, his carpets at their feet.
Everybody was kindly disposed toward the sick man and his family. His
heart (and his mother's too, as we may fancy) melted within him at the
thought of so much good feeling and good nature. Let Pen's biographer
be pardoned for alluding to a time, not far distant, when a somewhat
similar mishap brought him a providential friend, a kind physician,
and a thousand proofs of a most touching and surprising kindness and
sympathy There was a piano in Mr. Sibwright's chamber (indeed this
gentleman, a lover of all the arts, performed himself--and exceedingly
ill too--upon the instrument); and had had a song dedicated to him
(the words by himself, the air by his devoted friend Leopoldo
Twankidillo), and at this music-box, as Mr. Warrington called it,
Laura, at first with a great deal of tremor and blushing (which became
her very much), played and sang, sometimes of an evening, simple airs,
and old songs of home. Her voice was a rich contralto, and Warrington,
who scarcely knew one tune from another, and who had but one time or
bray in his _repertoire_--a most discordant imitation of God save the
King--sat rapt in delight listening to these songs. He could follow
their rhythm if not their harmony; and he could watch, with a constant
and daily growing enthusiasm, the pure, and tender, and generous
creature who made the music.

I wonder how that poor pale little girl in the black bonnet, who used
to stand at the lamp-post in Lamb-court sometimes of an evening
looking up to the open windows from which the music came, liked to
hear it? When Pen's bed-time came the songs were hushed. Lights
appeared in the upper room: _his_ room, whither the widow used to
conduct him; and then the major and Mr. Warrington, and sometimes Miss
Laura, would have a game at _écarté_ or backgammon; or she would sit
by working a pair of slippers in worsted--a pair of gentleman's
slippers--they might have been for Arthur, or for George, or for Major
Pendennis: one of those three would have given any thing for
the slippers.

While such business as this was going on within, a rather shabby old
gentleman would come and lead away the pale girl in the black bonnet;
who had no right to be abroad in the night air, and the Temple
porters, the few laundresses, and other amateurs who had been
listening to the concert, would also disappear.

Just before ten o'clock there was another musical performance, namely,
that of the chimes of St. Clement's clock in the Strand, which played
the clear, cheerful notes of a psalm, before it proceeded to ring its
ten fatal strokes. As they were ringing, Laura began to fold up the
slippers; Martha from Fairoaks appeared with a bed-candle, and a
constant smile on her face; the major said, "God bless my soul, is it
so late?" Warrington and he left their unfinished game, and got up and
shook hands with Miss Bell. Martha from Fairoaks lighted them out of
the passage and down the stair, and, as they descended, they could
hear, her bolting and locking "the sporting door" after them, upon her
young mistress and herself. If there had been any danger, grinning
Martha said she would have got down "that thar hooky soord which hung
up in gantleman's room,"--meaning the Damascus scimitar with the names
of the Prophet engraved on the blade and the red-velvet scabbard,
which Percy Sibwright, Esquire, brought back from his tour in the
Levant, along with an Albanian dress, and which he wore with such
elegant effect at Lady Mullinger's fancy ball, Gloucester-square, Hyde
Park. It entangled itself in Miss Kewsey's train, who appeared in the
dress in which she, with her mamma, had been presented to their
sovereign (the latter by the L--d Ch-nc-ll-r's lady), and led to
events which have nothing to do with this history. Is not Miss Kewsey
now Mrs. Sibwright? Has Sibwright not got a county court?--Good night,
Laura and Fairoaks Martha. Sleep well and wake happy, pure and
gentle lady.

Sometimes after these evenings Warrington would walk a little way with
Major Pendennis--just a little way--just as far as the Temple gate--as
the Strand--as Charing Cross--as the Club--he was not going into the
Club? Well, as far as Bury-street where he would laughingly shake
hands on the major's own door-step. They had been talking about Laura
all the way. It was wonderful how enthusiastic the major, who, as we
know, used to dislike her, had grown to be regarding the young lady.
"Dev'lish fine girl, begad. Dev'lish well-mannered girl--my
sister-in-law has the manners of a duchess and would bring up any girl
well. Miss Bell's a _little_ countryfied. But the smell of the
hawthorn is pleasant, demmy. How she blushes! Your London girls would
give many a guinea for a bouquet like that--natural flowers, begad!
And she's a little money too--nothing to speak of--but a pooty little
bit of money." In all which opinions no doubt Mr. Warrington agreed;
and though he laughed as he shook hands with the major, his face fell
as he left his veteran companion; and he strode back to chambers, and
smoked pipe after pipe long into the night, and wrote article upon
article, more and more savage, in lieu of friend Pen disabled.

Well, it was a happy time for almost all parties concerned. Pen mended
daily. Sleeping and eating were his constant occupations. His appetite
was something frightful. He was ashamed of exhibiting it before Laura,
and almost before his mother, who laughed and applauded him. As the
roast chicken of his dinner went away he eyed the departing friend
with sad longing, and began to long for jelly, or tea, or what not. He
was like an ogre in devouring. The doctor cried stop, but Pen would
not. Nature called out to him more loudly than the doctor, and that
kind and friendly physician handed him over with a very good grace to
the other healer.

And here let us speak very tenderly and in the strictest confidence of
an event which befell him, and to which he never liked an allusion.
During his delirium the ruthless Goodenough ordered ice to be put to
his head, and all his lovely hair to be cut. It was done in the time
of--of the other nurse, who left every single hair of course in a
paper for the widow to count and treasure up. She never believed but
that the girl had taken away some of it, but then women are so
suspicious upon these matters.

When this direful loss was made visible to Major Pendennis, as of
course it was the first time the elder saw the poor young man's shorn
pate, and when Pen was quite out of danger, and gaining daily vigor,
the major, with something like blushes and a queer wink of his eyes,
said he knew of a--a person--a coiffeur, in fact--a good man, whom he
 would send down to the Temple, and who would--a--apply--a--a
temporary remedy to that misfortune.

Laura looked at Warrington with the archest sparkle in her eyes--
Warrington fairly burst out into a boohoo of laughter: even the widow
was obliged to laugh: and the major erubescent confounded the
impudence of the young folks, and said when he had his hair cut he
would keep a lock of it for Miss Laura.

Warrington voted that Pen should wear a barrister's wig. There was
Sibwright's down below, which would become him hugely. Pen said
"Stuff," and seemed as confused as his uncle; and the end was that a
gentleman from Burlington Arcade waited next day upon Mr. Pendennis,
and had a private interview with him in his bedroom; and a week
afterward the same individual appeared with a box under his arm, and
an ineffable grin of politeness on his face, and announced that he had
brought 'ome Mr. Pendennis's 'ead of 'air.

It must have been a grand but melancholy sight to see Pen in the
recesses of his apartment, sadly contemplating his ravaged beauty, and
the artificial means of hiding its ruin. He appeared at length in the
'ead of 'air; but Warrington laughed so that Pen grew sulky, and went
back for his velvet cap, a neat turban which the fondest of mammas had
worked for him. Then Mr. Warrington and Miss Bell got some flowers off
the ladies' bonnets and made a wreath, with which they decorated the
wig and brought it out in procession, and did homage before it. In
fact they indulged in a hundred sports, jocularities, waggeries, and
_petits jeux innocens_: so that the second and third floors of
number 6, Lambcourt, Temple, rang with more cheerfulness and laughter
than had been known in those precincts for many a long day.

[Illustration]

At last, after about ten days of this life, one evening when the
little spy of the court came out to take her usual post of observation
at the lamp, there was no music from the second floor window, there
were no lights in the third story chambers, the windows of each were
open, and the occupants were gone. Mrs. Flanagan the laundress, told
Fanny what had happened. The ladies and all the party had gone to
Richmond for change of air. The antique traveling chariot was brought
out again and cushioned with many pillows for Pen and his mother; and
Miss Laura went in the most affable manner in the omnibus under the
guardianship of Mr. George Warrington. He came back and took
possession of his old bed that night in the vacant and cheerless
chambers, and to his old books and his old pipes, but not perhaps to
his old sleep.

The widow had left a jar full of flowers upon his table, prettily
arranged, and when he entered they filled the solitary room with odor.
They were memorials of the kind, gentle souls who had gone away, and
who had decorated for a little while that lonely, cheerless place. He
had had the happiest days of his whole life, George felt--he knew it
now they were just gone: he went and took up the flowers and put his
face to them, smelt them--perhaps kissed them. As he put them down, he
rubbed his rough hand across his eyes with a bitter word and laugh. He
would have given his whole life and soul to win that prize which
Arthur rejected. Did she want fame? he would have won it for her:
devotion?--a great heart full of pent-up tenderness and manly love
and gentleness was there for her, if she might take it. But it might
not be. Fate had ruled otherwise. "Even if I could, she would not have
me," George thought. "What has an ugly, rough old fellow like me, to
make any woman like him? I'm getting old, and I've made no mark in
life. I've neither good looks, nor youth, nor money, nor reputation. A
man must be able to do something besides stare at her and offer on his
knees his uncouth devotion, to make a woman like him. What can I do?
Lots of young fellows have passed me in the race--what they call the
prizes of life didn't seem to me worth the trouble of the struggle.
But for _her_. If she had been mine and liked a diamond--ah!
shouldn't she have worn it! Psha, what a fool I am to brag of what I
would have done! We are the slaves of destiny. Our lots are shaped for
us, and mine is ordained long ago. Come, let us have a pipe, and put
the smell of these flowers out of court. Poor little silent flowers!
you'll be dead to-morrow. What business had you to show your red
cheeks in this dingy place?"

By his bed-side George found a new Bible which the widow had placed
there, with a note inside saying that she had not seen the book among
his collection in a room where she had spent a number of hours, and
where God had vouchsafed to her prayers the life of her son, and that
she gave to Arthur's friend the best thing she could, and besought
him to read in the volume sometimes, and to keep it as a token of a
grateful mother's regard and affection. Poor George mournfully kissed
the book as he had done the flowers; and the morning found him still
reading in its awful pages, in which so many stricken hearts, in which
so many tender and faithful souls, have found comfort under calamity
and refuge and hope in affliction.



CHAPTER XVI.

FANNY'S OCCUPATION'S GONE.


[Illustration]

Good Helen, ever since her son's illness, had taken, as we have seen,
entire possession of the young man, of his drawers and closets and all
which they contained: whether shirts that wanted buttons, or stockings
that required mending, or, must it be owned? letters that lay among
those articles of raiment, and which of course it was necessary that
somebody should answer during Arthur's weakened and incapable
condition. Perhaps Mrs. Pendennis was laudably desirous to have some
explanations about the dreadful Fanny Bolton mystery, regarding which
she had never breathed a word to her son, though it was present in her
mind always, and occasioned her inexpressible anxiety and disquiet.
She had caused the brass knocker to be screwed off the inner door of
the chambers, whereupon the postman's startling double rap would, as
she justly argued, disturb the rest of her patient, and she did not
allow him to see any letter which arrived, whether from boot-makers
who importuned him, or hatters who had a heavy account to make up
against next Saturday, and would be very much obliged if Mr. Arthur
Pendennis would have the kindness to settle, &c. Of these documents,
Pen, who was always free-handed and careless, of course had his share,
and though no great one, one quite enough to alarm his scrupulous and
conscientious mother. She had some savings; Pen's magnificent
self-denial, and her own economy amounting from her great simplicity
and avoidance of show to parsimony almost, had enabled her to put by
a little sum of money, a part of which she delightedly consecrated to
the paying off the young gentleman's obligations. At this price, many
a worthy youth and respected reader would hand over his correspondence
to his parents; and, perhaps, there is no greater test of a man's
regularity and easiness of conscience, than his readiness to face the
postman. Blessed is he who is made happy by the sound of the rat-tat!
The good are eager for it: but the naughty tremble at the sound
thereof. So it was very kind of Mrs. Pendennis doubly to spare Pen the
trouble of hearing or answering letters during his illness.

There could have been nothing in the young man's chests of drawers and
wardrobes which could be considered as inculpating him in any way, nor
any satisfactory documents regarding the Fanny Bolton affair found
there, for the widow had to ask her brother-in-law if he knew any
thing about the odious transaction; and the dreadful intrigue about
which her son was engaged. When they were at Richmond one day, and Pen
with Warrington had taken a seat on a bench on the terrace, the widow
kept Major Pendennis in consultation, and laid her terrors and
perplexities before him, such of them at least (for as is the wont of
men and women, she did not make _quite_ a clean confession, and I
suppose no spendthrift asked for a schedule of his debts, no lady of
fashion asked by her husband for her dress-maker's bills ever sent in
the whole of them yet)--such, we say, of her perplexities, at least,
as she chose to confide to her director for the time being.

When, then, she asked the major what course she ought to pursue, about
this dreadful--this horrid affair, and whether he knew any thing
regarding it? the old gentleman puckered up his face, so that you
could not tell whether he was smiling or not; gave the widow one queer
look with his little eyes; cast them down to the carpet again, and
said, "My dear, good creature, I don't know any thing about it; and I
don't wish to know any thing about it; and, as you ask me my opinion,
I think you had best know nothing about it too. Young men will be
young men; and, begad, my good ma'am, if you think our boy is a Jo--"

"Pray, spare me this," Helen broke in, looking very stately.

"My dear creature, I did not commence the conversation, permit me to
say," the major said, bowing very blandly.

"I can't bear to hear such a sin--such a dreadful sin--spoken of in
such a way," the widow said, with tears of annoyance starting from her
eyes. "I can't bear to think that my boy should commit such a crime. I
wish he had died, almost, before he had done it. I don't know how I
survive it myself; for it is breaking my heart, Major Pendennis, to
think that his father's son--my child--whom I remember so good--oh,
so good, and full of honor!--should be fallen so dreadfully low, as
to--as to--"

"As to flirt with a little grisette? my dear creature," said the
major. "Egad, if all the mothers in England were to break their hearts
because--Nay, nay; upon my word and honor, now, don't agitate
yourself--don't cry. I can't bear to see a woman's tears--I never
could--never. But how do we know that any thing serious has happened?
Has Arthur said any thing?"

"His silence confirms it," sobbed Mrs. Pendennis, behind her
pocket-handkerchief.

"Not at all. There are subjects, my dear, about which a young fellow
can not surely talk to his mamma," insinuated the brother-in-law.

"She has written to him" cried the lady, behind the cambric.

"What, before he was ill? Nothing more likely."

"No, since;" the mourner with the batiste mask gasped out; "not
before; that is, I don't think so--that is, I--"

"Only since; and you have--yes, I understand. I suppose when he was
too ill to read his own correspondence, you took charge of it,
did you?"

"I am the most unhappy mother in the world," cried out the unfortunate
Helen.

"The most unhappy mother in the world, because your son is a man and
not a hermit! Have a care, my dear sister. If you have suppressed any
letters to him, you may have done yourself a great injury; and, if I
know any thing of Arthur's spirit, may cause a difference between him
and you, which you'll rue all your life--a difference that's a
dev'lish deal more important, my good madam, than the little--little
--trumpery cause which originated it."

"There was only one letter," broke out Helen--"only a very little
one--only a few words. Here it is--O--how can you, how can you
speak so?"

When the good soul said only "a very little one," the major could not
speak at all, so inclined was he to laugh, in spite of the agonies of
the poor soul before him, and for whom he had a hearty pity and liking
too. But each was looking at the matter with his or her peculiar eyes
and view of morals, and the major's morals, as the reader knows, were
not those of an ascetic.

"I recommend you," he gravely continued, "if you can, to seal it up
--those letters ain't unfrequently sealed with wafers--and to put it
among Pen's other letters, and let him have them when he calls for
them. Or if we can't seal it, we mistook it for a bill."

"I can't tell my son a lie," said the widow. It had been put silently
into the letter-box two days previous to their departure from the
Temple, and had been brought to Mrs. Pendennis by Martha. She had
never seen Fanny's handwriting of course; but when the letter was put
into her hands, she knew the author at once. She had been on the watch
for that letter every day since Pen had been ill. She had opened some
of his other letters because she wanted to get at that one. She had
the horrid paper poisoning her bag at that moment. She took it out and
offered it to her brother-in-law.

"_Arthur Pendennis, Esq._," he read in a timid little sprawling
handwriting, and with a sneer on his face. "No, my dear, I won't
read any more. But you, who have read it, may tell me what the letter
contains--only prayers for his health in bad spelling, you
say--and a desire to see him? Well--there's no harm in that. And as
you ask me"--here the major began to look a little queer for his own
part, and put on his demure look--"as you ask me, my dear, for
information, why, I don't mind telling you that--ah--that--Morgan, my
man, has made some inquiries regarding this affair, and that--my
friend Doctor Goodenough also looked into it--and it appears that this
person was greatly smitten with Arthur; that he paid for her and took
her to Vauxhall Gardens, as Morgan heard from an old acquaintance of
Pen's and ours, an Irish gentleman, who was very nearly once having
the honor of being the--from an Irishman, in fact;--that the girl's
father, a violent man of intoxicated habits, has beaten her mother,
who persists in declaring her daughter's entire innocence to her
husband on the one hand, while on the other she told Goodenough that
Arthur had acted like a brute to her child. And so you see the story
remains in a mystery. Will you have it cleared up? I have but to ask
Pen, and he will tell me at once--he is as honorable a man as
ever lived."

"Honorable!" said the widow, with bitter scorn. "O, brother, what is
this you call honor? If my boy has been guilty, he must marry her. I
would go down on my knees and pray him to do so."

"Good God! are you mad?" screamed out the major; and remembering
former passages in Arthur's history and Helen's, the truth came across
his mind that, were Helen to make this prayer to her son, he _would_
marry the girl: he was wild enough and obstinate enough to commit any
folly when a woman he loved was in the case. "My dear sister, have you
lost your senses?" he continued (after an agitated pause, during which
the above dreary reflection crossed him), and in a softened tone.
"What right have we to suppose that any thing has passed between this
girl and him? Let's see the letter. Her heart is breaking; pray, pray,
write to me--home unhappy--unkind father--your nurse--poor little
Fanny--spelt, as you say, in a manner to outrage all sense of decorum.
But, good heavens! my dear, what is there in this? only that the
little devil is making love to him still. Why she didn't come into his
chambers until he was so delirious that he didn't know her.
Whatd'youcallem, Flanagan, the laundress, told Morgan, my man, so. She
came in company of an old fellow, an old Mr. Bows, who came most
kindly down to Stillbrook and brought me away--by the way, I left him
in the cab, and never paid the fare; and dev'lish kind it was of him.
No, there's nothing in the story."

"Do you think so? Thank Heaven--thank God!" Helen cried. "I'll take
the letter to Arthur and ask him now. Look at him there. He's on the
terrace with Mr. Warrington. They are talking to some children. My boy
was always fond of children. He's innocent, thank God--thank God! Let
me go to him."

Old Pendennis had his own opinion. When he briskly took the not guilty
side of the case, but a moment before, very likely the old gentleman
had a different view from that which he chose to advocate, and judged
of Arthur by what he himself would have done. If she goes to Arthur,
and he speaks the truth, as the rascal will, it spoils all, he
thought. And he tried one more effort.

"My dear, good soul," he said, taking Helen's hand and kissing it, "as
your son has not acquainted you with this affair, think if you have
any right to examine it. As you believe him to be a man of honor, what
right have you to doubt his honor in this instance? Who is his
accuser? An anonymous scoundrel who has brought no specific charge
against him. If there were any such, wouldn't the girl's parents have
come forward? He is not called upon to rebut, nor you to entertain an
anonymous accusation; and as for believing him guilty because a girl
of that rank happened to be in his rooms acting as nurse to him, begad
you might as well insist upon his marrying that dem'd old Irish
gin-drinking laundress, Mrs. Flanagan."

The widow burst out laughing through her tears--the victory was gained
by the old general.

"Marry Mrs. Flanagan, by Ged," he continued, tapping her slender hand.
"No. The boy has told you nothing about it, and you know nothing about
it. The boy is innocent--of course. And what, my good soul, is the
course for us to pursoo? Suppose he is attached to this girl--don't
look sad again, it's merely a supposition--and begad a young fellow
may have an attachment, mayn't he?--Directly he gets well he will be
at her again."

"He must come home! We must go directly to Fairoaks," the widow cried
out.

"My good creature, he'll bore himself to death at Fairoaks. He'll have
nothing to do but to think about his passion there. There's no place
in the world for making a little passion into a big one, and where a
fellow feeds on his own thoughts, like a dem'd lonely country-house
where there's nothing to do. We must occupy him: amuse him: we must
take him abroad: he's never been abroad except to Paris for a lark. We
must travel a little. He must have a nurse with him, to take great
care of him, for Goodenough says he had a dev'lish narrow squeak of it
(don't look frightened), and so you must come and watch: and I suppose
you'll take Miss Bell, and I should like to ask Warrington to come.
Arthur's dev'lish fond of Warrington. He can't do without Warrington.
Warrington's family is one of the oldest in England, and he is one of
the best young fellows I ever met in my life. I like him exceedingly."

"Does Mr. Warrington know any thing about this--this affair?" asked
Helen. "He had been away, I know, for two months before it happened:
Pen wrote me so."

"Not a word--I--I've asked him about it. I've pumped him. He never
heard of the transaction, never; I pledge you my word," cried out the
major, in some alarm. "And, my dear, I think you had much best not
talk to him about it--much best not--of course not: the subject is
most delicate and painful."

The simple widow took her brother's hand and pressed it. "Thank you,
brother," she said. "You have been very, very kind to me. You have
given me a great deal of comfort. I'll go to my room, and think of
what you have said. This illness and these--these--emotions--have
agitated me a great deal; and I'm not very strong, you know. But I'll
go and thank God that my boy is innocent. He _is_ innocent. Isn't
he, sir?"

"Yes, my dearest creature, yes," said the old fellow, kissing her
affectionately, and quite overcome by her tenderness. He looked after
her as she retreated, with a fondness which was rendered more piquant,
as it were, by the mixture of a certain scorn which accompanied it.
"Innocent!" he said; "I'd swear, till I was black in the face, he was
innocent, rather than give that good soul pain."

Having achieved this victory, the fatigued and happy warrior laid
himself down on the sofa, and put his yellow silk pocket-handkerchief
over his face, and indulged in a snug little nap, of which the dreams,
no doubt, were very pleasant, as he snored with refreshing regularity.
The young men sate, meanwhile, dawdling away the sunshiny hours on the
terrace, very happy, and Pen, at least, very talkative. He was
narrating to Warrington a plan for a new novel, and a new tragedy.
Warrington laughed at the idea of his writing a tragedy? By Jove, he
would show that he could; and he began to spout some of the lines
of his play.

The little solo on the wind instrument which the major was performing
was interrupted by the entrance of Miss Bell. She had been on a visit
to her old friend, Lady Rockminster, who had taken a summer villa in
the neighborhood; and who, hearing of Arthur's illness, and his
mother's arrival at Richmond, had visited the latter; and, for the
benefit of the former, whom she didn't like, had been prodigal of
grapes, partridges, and other attentions. For Laura the old lady had a
great fondness, and longed that she should come and stay with her; but
Laura could not leave her mother at this juncture. Worn out by
constant watching over Arthur's health, Helen's own had suffered very
considerably; and Doctor Goodenough had had reason to prescribe for
her as well as for his younger patient.

Old Pendennis started up on the entrance of the young lady. His
slumbers were easily broken. He made her a gallant speech--he had been
full of gallantry toward her of late. Where had she been gathering
those roses which she wore on her cheeks? How happy he was to be
disturbed out of his dreams by such a charming reality! Laura had
plenty of humor and honesty; and these two caused her to have on her
side something very like a contempt for the old gentleman. It
delighted her to draw out his worldlinesses, and to make the old
habitue of clubs and drawing-rooms tell his twaddling tales about
great folks, and expound his views of morals.

Not in this instance, however, was she disposed to be satirical. She
had been to drive with Lady Rockminster in the Park, she said; and she
had brought home game for Pen, and flowers for mamma. She looked very
grave about mamma. She had just been with Mrs. Pendennis. Helen was
very much worn, and she feared she was very, very ill. Her large
eyes filled with tender marks of the sympathy which she felt in her
beloved friend's condition. She was alarmed about her. "Could not that
good--that dear Dr. Goodenough cure her?"

"Arthur's illness, and _other_ mental anxiety," the major slowly said,
"had, no doubt, shaken Helen." A burning blush upon the girl's face
showed that she understood the old man's allusions. But she looked him
full in the face and made no reply. "He might have spared me that,"
she thought. "What is he aiming at in recalling that shame to me?"
That he had an aim in view is very possible. The old diplomatist
seldom spoke without some such end. Dr. Goodenough had talked to him,
he said, about their dear friend's health, and she wanted rest and
change of scene--yes, change of scene. Painful circumstances which had
occurred must be forgotten and never alluded to; he begged pardon for
even hinting at them to Miss Bell--he never should do so again--nor,
he was sure, would she. Every thing must be done to soothe and comfort
their friend, and his proposal was that they should go abroad for the
autumn to a watering-place in the Rhine neighborhood, where Helen
might rally her exhausted spirits, and Arthur try and become a new
man. Of course, Laura would not forsake her mother?

Of course not. It was about Helen, and Helen only--that is, about
Arthur too for her sake that Laura was anxious. She would go abroad or
any where with Helen.

And Helen having thought the matter over for an hour in her room, had
by that time grown to be as anxious for the tour as any school-boy,
who has been reading a book of voyages, is eager to go to sea. Whither
should they go? the farther the better--to some place so remote that
even recollection could not follow them thither: so delightful that
Pen should never want to leave it--any where so that he could be
happy. She opened her desk with trembling fingers and took out her
banker's book, and counted up her little savings. If more was wanted,
she had the diamond cross. She would borrow from Laura again. "Let us
go--let us go," she thought; "directly he can bear the journey let us
go away. Come, kind Doctor Goodenough--come quick, and give us leave
to quit England."

The good doctor drove over to dine with them that very day. "If you
agitate yourself so," he said to her, "and if your heart beats so, and
if you persist in being so anxious about a young gentleman who is
getting well as fast as he can, we shall have you laid up, and Miss
Laura to watch you: and then it will be her turn to be ill, and I
should like to know how the deuce a doctor is to live who is obliged
to come and attend you all for nothing? Mrs. Goodenough is already
jealous of you, and says, with perfect justice, that I fall in love
with my patients. And you must please to get out of the country as
soon as ever you can, that I may have a little peace in my family."

When the plan of going abroad was proposed to Arthur, it was received
by that gentleman with the greatest alacrity and enthusiasm. He longed
to be off at once. He let his mustaches grow from that very moment, in
order, I suppose, that he might get his mouth into training for a
perfect French and German pronunciation; and he was seriously
disquieted in his mind because the mustaches, when they came, were of
a decidedly red color. He had looked forward to an autumn at Fairoaks;
and perhaps the idea of passing two or three months there did not
amuse the young man. "There is not a soul to speak to in the place,"
he said to Warrington. "I can't stand old Portman's sermons, and
pompous after-dinner conversation. I know all old Glanders's stories
about the Peninsular war. The Claverings are the only Christian people
in the neighborhood, and they are not to be at home before Christmas,
my uncle says: besides, Warrington, I want to get out of the country.
While you were away, confound it, I had a temptation, from which I am
very thankful to have escaped, and which I count that even my illness
came very luckily to put an end to." And here he narrated to his
friend the circumstances of the Vauxhall affair, with which the reader
is already acquainted.

Warrington looked very grave when he heard this story. Putting the
moral delinquency out of the question, he was extremely glad for
Arthur's sake that the latter had escaped from a danger which might
have made his whole life wretched; "which certainly," said Warrington,
"would have occasioned the wretchedness and ruin of the other party.
And your mother--and your friends--what a pain it would have been to
them!" urged Pen's companion, little knowing what grief and annoyance
these good people had already suffered.

"Not a word to my mother!" Pen cried out, in a state of great alarm,
"She would never get over it. An _esclandre_ of that sort would kill
her, I do believe. And," he added, with a knowing air, and as if, like
a young rascal of a Lovelace, he had been engaged in what are called
_affairs de coeur_, all his life; "the best way, when a danger of that
sort menaces, is not to face it, but to turn one's back on it
and run."

"And were you very much smitten?" Warrington asked.

"Hm!" said Lovelace. "She dropped her h's, but she was a dear little
girl."

O Clarissas of this life, O you poor little ignorant vain foolish
maidens! if you did but know the way in which the Lovelaces speak of
you: if you could but hear Jack talking to Tom across the coffee-room
of a Club; or see Ned taking your poor little letters out of his
cigar-case and handing them over to Charley, and Billy, and Harry
across the mess-room table, you would not be so eager to write, or so
ready to listen! There's a sort of crime which is not complete unless
the lucky rogue boasts of it afterward; and the man who betrays your
honor in the first place, is pretty sure, remember that, to betray
your secret too.

"It's hard to fight, and it's easy to fall," Warrington said gloomily.
"And as you say, Pendennis, when a danger like this is imminent, the
best way is to turn your back on it and run."

After this little discourse upon a subject about which Pen would have
talked a great deal more eloquently a month back, the conversation
reverted to the plans for going abroad, and Arthur eagerly pressed his
 friend to be of the party. Warrington was a part of the family--a
part of the cure. Arthur said he should not have half the pleasure
without Warrington.

But George said no, he couldn't go. He must stop at home and take
Pen's place. The other remarked that that was needless, for Shandon
was now come back to London, and Arthur was entitled to a holiday.

"Don't press me," Warrington said, "I can't go. I've particular
engagements. I'm best at home. I've not got the money to travel,
that's the long and short of it, for traveling costs money, you know."

This little obstacle seemed fatal to Pen. He mentioned it to his
mother: Mrs. Pendennis was very sorry; Mr. Warrington had been
exceedingly kind; but she supposed he knew best about his affairs. And
then, no doubt, she reproached herself, for selfishness in wishing to
carry the boy off and have him to herself altogether.

       *       *       *       *       *

"What is this I hear from Pen, my dear Mr. Warrington?" the major
asked one day, when the pair were alone, and after Warrington's
objection had been stated to him. "Not go with us? We can't hear of
such a thing--Pen won't get well without you. I promise you, I'm not
going to be his nurse. He must have somebody with him that's stronger
and gayer and better able to amuse him than a rheumatic old fogy like
me. I shall go to Carlsbad very likely, when I've seen you people
settle down. Traveling costs nothing nowadays--or so little! And--and
pray, Warrington, remember that I was your father's very old friend,
and if you and your brother are not on such terms as to enable you
to--to anticipate you younger brother's allowance, I beg you to make
me your banker, for hasn't Pen been getting into your debt these three
weeks past, during which you have been doing what he informs me is his
work, with such exemplary talent and genius, begad?"

Still, in spite of this kind offer and unheard-of generosity on the
part of the major, George Warrington refused, and said he would stay
at home. But it was with a faltering voice and an irresolute accent
which showed how much he would like to go, though his tongue persisted
in saying nay.

But the major's persevering benevolence was not to be balked in this
way. At the tea-table that evening, Helen happening to be absent from
the room for the moment, looking for Pen who had gone to roost, old
Pendennis returned to the charge, and rated Warrington for refusing to
join in their excursion. "Isn't it ungallant, Miss Bell?" he said,
turning to that young lady. "Isn't it unfriendly? Here we have been
the happiest party in the world, and this odious, selfish creature
breaks it up!"

Miss Bell's long eye-lashes looked down toward her tea-cup: and
Warrington blushed hugely but did not speak. Neither did Miss Bell
speak: but when he blushed she blushed too.

"_You_ ask him to come, my dear," said the benevolent old gentleman,
"and then perhaps he will listen to you--" "Why should Mr.
Warrington listen to me?" asked the young lady, putting her query to
her tea-spoon, seemingly, and not to the major.

"Ask him; you have not asked him," said Pen's artless uncle.

"I should be very glad, indeed, if Mr. Warrington would come,"
remarked Laura to the tea-spoon.

"Would you?" said George.

She looked up and said, "Yes." Their eyes met. "I will go any where
you ask me, or do any thing," said George, lowly, and forcing out the
words as if they gave him pain.

Old Pendennis was delighted; the affectionate old creature clapped his
hands and cried "Bravo! bravo! It's a bargain--a bargain, begad! Shake
hands on it, young people!" And Laura, with a look full of tender
brightness, put out her hand to Warrington. He took hers: his face
indicated a strange agitation. He seemed to be about to speak, when,
from Pen's neighboring room Helen entered, looking at them as the
candle which she held lighted her pale, frightened face.

Laura blushed more red than ever and withdrew her hand.

"What is it?" Helen asked.

"It's a bargain we have been making, my dear creature," said the major
in his most caressing voice. "We have just bound over Mr. Warrington
in a promise to come abroad with us."

"Indeed!" Helen said.



CHAPTER XVII.

IN WHICH FANNY ENGAGES A NEW MEDICAL MAN.


[Illustration]

Could Helen have suspected that, with Pen's returning strength, his
unhappy partiality for little Fanny would also reawaken? Though she
never spoke a word regarding that young person, after her conversation
with the major, and though, to all appearance, she utterly ignored
Fanny's existence, yet Mrs. Pendennis kept a particularly close watch
upon all Master Arthur's actions; on the plea of ill-health, would
scarcely let him out of her sight; and was especially anxious that he
should be spared the trouble of all correspondence for the present at
least. Very likely Arthur looked at his own letters with some tremor;
very likely, as he received them at the family table, feeling his
mother's watch upon him (though the good soul's eye seemed fixed upon
her tea-cup or her book), he expected daily to see a little
handwriting, which he would have known, though he had never seen it
yet, and his heart beat as he received the letters to his address. Was
he more pleased or annoyed, that, day after day, his expectations were
not realized; and was his mind relieved, that there came no letter
from Fanny? Though, no doubt, in these matters, when Lovelace is tired
of Clarissa (or the contrary), it is best for both parties to break at
once, and each, after the failure of the attempt at union, to go his
own way, and pursue his course through life solitary; yet our
self-love, or our pity, or our sense of decency, does not like that
sudden bankruptcy. Before we announce to the world that our firm of
Lovelace and Co. can't meet its engagements, we try to make
compromises: we have mournful meetings of partners: we delay the
putting up of the shutters, and the dreary announcement of the
failure. It must come: but we pawn our jewels to keep things going a
little longer. On the whole, I dare say, Pen was rather annoyed that
he had no remonstrances from Fanny. What! could she part from him, and
never so much as once look round? could she sink, and never once hold
a little hand out, or cry, "Help, Arthur?" Well, well: they don't all
go down who venture on that voyage. Some few drown when the vessel
founders; but most are only ducked, and scramble to shore. And the
reader's experience of A. Pendennis, Esquire, of the Upper Temple,
will enable him to state whether that gentleman belonged to the class
of persons who were likely to sink or to swim.

Though Pen was as yet too weak to walk half a mile; and might not, on
account of his precious health, be trusted to take a drive in a
carriage by himself, and without a nurse in attendance; yet Helen
could not keep watch over Mr. Warrington too, and had no authority to
prevent that gentleman from going to London if business called him
thither. Indeed, if he had gone and staid, perhaps the widow, from
reasons of her own, would have been glad; but she checked these
selfish wishes as soon as she ascertained or owned them; and,
remembering Warrington's great regard and services, and constant
friendship for her boy, received him as a member of her family almost,
with her usual melancholy kindness and submissive acquiescence. Yet
somehow, one morning when his affairs called him to town, she divined
what Warrington's errand was, and that he was gone to London, to get
news about Fanny for Pen.

Indeed, Arthur had had some talk with his friend, and told him more at
large what his adventures had been with Fanny (adventures which the
reader knows already), and what were his feelings respecting her. He
was very thankful that he had escaped the great danger, to which
Warrington said Amen heartily: that he had no great fault wherewith to
reproach himself in regard of his behavior to her, but that if they
parted, as they must, he would be glad to say a God bless her, and to
hope that she would remember him kindly. In his discourse with
Warrington he spoke upon these matters with so much gravity, and so
much emotion, that George, who had pronounced himself most strongly
for the separation too, began to fear that his friend was not so well
cured as he boasted of being; and that, if the two were to come
together again, all the danger and the temptation might have to be
fought once more. And with what result? "It is hard to struggle,
Arthur, and it is easy to fall," Warrington said: "and the best
courage for us poor wretches is to fly from danger. I would not have
been what I am now, had I practiced what I preach."

"And what did you practice, George?" Pen asked, eagerly. "I knew there
was something. Tell us about it, Warrington."

"There was something that can't be mended, and that shattered my whole
fortunes early," Warrington answered, "I said I would tell you about
it some day, Pen: and will, but not now. Take the moral without the
fable now, Pen, my boy; and if you want to see a man whose whole life
has been wrecked, by an unlucky rock against which he struck as a
boy--here he is, Arthur: and so I warn you."

We have shown how Mr. Huxter, in writing home to his Clavering
friends, mentioned that there was a fashionable club in London of
which he was an attendant, and that he was there in the habit of
meeting an Irish officer of distinction, who, among other news, had
given that intelligence regarding Pendennis, which the young surgeon
had transmitted to Clavering. This club was no other than the Back
Kitchen, where the disciple of Saint Bartholomew was accustomed to
meet the general, the peculiarities of whose brogue, appearance,
disposition, and general conversation, greatly diverted many young
gentlemen who used the Back Kitchen as a place of nightly
entertainment and refreshment. Huxter, who had a fine natural genius
for mimicking every thing, whether it was a favorite tragic or comic
actor, a cock on a dunghill, a corkscrew going into a bottle and a
cork issuing thence, or an Irish officer of genteel connections who
offered himself as an object of imitation with only too much
readiness, talked his talk, and twanged his poor old long bow whenever
drink, a hearer, and an opportunity occurred, studied our friend the
general with peculiar gusto, and drew the honest fellow out many a
night. A bait, consisting of sixpenny-worth of brandy and water, the
worthy old man was sure to swallow: and under the influence of this
liquor, who was more happy than he to tell his stories of his
daughter's triumphs and his own, in love, war, drink, and polite
society? Thus Huxter was enabled to present to his friends many
pictures of Costigan: of Costigan fighting a jewel in the Phaynix--of
Costigan and his interview with the Juke of York--of Costigan at his
sonunlaw's teeble, surrounded by the nobilitee of his countree--of
Costigan, when crying drunk, at which time he was in the habit of
confidentially lamenting his daughter's ingratichewd, and stating that
his gray hairs were hastening to a praymachure greeve, And thus our
friend was the means of bringing a number of young fellows to the Back
Kitchen, who consumed the landlord's liquors while they relished the
general's peculiarities, so that mine host pardoned many of the
latter's foibles, in consideration of the good which they brought to
his house. Not the highest position in life was this certainly, or one
which, if we had a reverence for an old man, we would be anxious that
he should occupy: but of this aged buffoon it may be mentioned that he
had no particular idea that his condition of life was not a high one,
and that in his whiskied blood there was not a black drop, nor in his
muddled brains a bitter feeling, against any mortal being. Even his
child, his cruel Emily, he would have taken to his heart and forgiven
with tears; and what more can one say of the Christian charity of a
man than that he is actually ready to forgive those who have done him
every kindness, and with whom he is wrong in a dispute?

There was some idea among the young men who frequented, the Back
Kitchen, and made themselves merry with the society of Captain
Costigan, that the captain made a mystery regarding his lodgings for
fear of duns, or from a desire of privacy, and lived in some wonderful
place. Nor would the landlord of the premises, when questioned upon
this subject, answer any inquiries; his maxim being that he only knew
gentlemen who frequented that room, _in_ that room; that when they
quitted that room, having paid their scores as gentlemen, and behaved
as gentlemen, his communication with them ceased; and that, as a
gentleman himself, he thought it was only impertinent curiosity to ask
where any other gentleman lived. Costigan, in his most intoxicated and
confidential moments, also evaded any replies to questions or hints
addressed to him on this subject: there was no particular secret about
it, as we have seen, who have had more than once the honor of entering
his apartments, but in the vicissitudes of a long life he had been
pretty often in the habit of residing in houses where privacy was
necessary to his comfort, and where the appearance of some visitors
would have brought him any thing but pleasure. Hence all sorts of
legends were formed by wags or credulous persons respecting his place
of abode. It was stated that he slept habitually in a watch-box in the
city; in a cab at a mews, where a cab proprietor gave him a shelter;
in the Duke of York's Column, &c., the wildest of these theories being
put abroad by the facetious and imaginative Huxter. For Huxey, when
not silenced by the company of "swells," and when in the society of
his own friends, was a very different fellow to the youth whom we have
seen cowed by Pen's impertinent airs; and, adored by his family at
home, was the life and soul of the circle whom he met, either round
the festive board or the dissecting table.

On one brilliant September morning, as Huxter was regaling himself
with a cup of coffee at a stall in Covent Garden, having spent a
delicious night dancing at Vauxhall, he spied the general reeling down
Henrietta-street, with a crowd of hooting, blackguard boys at his
heels, who had left their beds under the arches of the river betimes,
and were prowling about already for breakfast, and the strange
livelihood of the day. The poor old general was not in that condition
when the sneers and jokes of these young beggars had much effect upon
him: the cabmen and watermen at the cab-stand knew him, and passed
their comments upon him: the policemen gazed after him, and warned the
boys off him, with looks of scorn and pity; what did the scorn and
pity of men, the jokes of ribald children, matter to the general? He
reeled along the street with glazed eyes, having just sense enough to
know whither he was bound, and to pursue his accustomed beat homeward.
He went to bed not knowing how he had reached it, as often as any man
in London. He woke and found himself there, and asked no questions,
and he was tacking about on this daily though perilous voyage, when,
from his station at the coffee-stall, Huxter spied him. To note his
friend, to pay his twopence (indeed, he had but eightpence left, or he
would have had a cab from Vauxhall to take him home), was with the
eager Huxter the work of an instant--Costigan dived down the alleys by
Drury-lane Theater, where gin-shops, oyster-shops, and theatrical
wardrobes abound, the proprietors of which were now asleep behind
the shutters, as the pink morning lighted up their chimneys; and
through these courts Huxter followed the general, until he reached
Oldcastle-street, in which is the gate of Shepherd's Inn.

Here, just as he was within sight of home, a luckless slice of
orange-peel came between the general's heel and the pavement, and
caused the poor fellow to fall backward.

[Illustration]

Huxter ran up to him instantly, and after a pause, during which the
veteran, giddy with his fall and his previous whisky, gathered as he
best might, his dizzy brains together, the young surgeon lifted up the
limping general, and very kindly and good-naturedly offered to conduct
him to his home. For some time, and in reply to the queries which the
student of medicine put to him, the muzzy general refused to say where
his lodgings were, and declared that they were hard by, and that he
could reach them without difficulty; and he disengaged himself from
Huxter's arm, and made a rush, as if to get to his own home
unattended: but he reeled and lurched so, that the young surgeon
insisted upon accompanying him, and, with many soothing expressions
and cheering and consolatory phrases, succeeded in getting the
general's dirty old hand under what he called his own fin, and led the
old fellow, moaning piteously, across the street. He stopped when he
came to the ancient gate, ornamented with the armorial bearings of
the venerable Shepherd. "Here 'tis," said he, drawing up at the
portal, and he made a successful pull at the gatebell, which presently
brought out old Mr. Bolton, the porter, scowling fiercely, and
grumbling as he was used to do every morning when it became his turn
to let in that early bird.

Costigan tried to hold Bolton for a moment in genteel conversation,
but the other surlily would not. "Don't bother me," he said; "go to
your hown bed, capting, and don't keep honest men out of theirs." So
the captain tacked across the square and reached his own staircase, up
which he stumbled with the worthy Huxter at his heels. Costigan had a
key of his own, which Huxter inserted into the keyhole for him, so
that there was no need to call up little Mr. Bows from the sleep into
which the old musician had not long since fallen, and Huxter having
aided to disrobe his tipsy patient, and ascertained that no bones were
broken, helped him to bed, and applied compresses and water to one of
his knees and shins, which, with the pair of trowsers which encased
them, Costigan had severely torn in his fall. At the general's age,
and with his habit of body, such wounds as he had inflicted on himself
are slow to heal: a good deal of inflammation ensued, and the old
fellow lay ill for some days suffering both pain and fever.

Mr. Huxter undertook the case of his interesting patient with great
confidence and alacrity, and conducted it with becoming skill. He
visited his friend day after day, and consoled him with lively rattle
and conversation, for the absence of the society which Costigan
needed, and of which he was an ornament; and he gave special
instructions to the invalid's nurse about the quantity of whisky which
the patient was to take--instructions which, as the poor old fellow
could not for many days get out of his bed or sofa himself, he could
not by any means infringe. Bows, Mrs. Bolton, and our little friend
Fanny, when able to do so, officiated at the general's bedside, and
the old warrior was made as comfortable as possible under
his calamity.

Thus Huxter, whose affable manners and social turn made him quickly
intimate with persons in whose society he fell, and whose
over-refinement did not lead them to repulse the familiarities of this
young gentleman, became pretty soon intimate in Shepherd's Inn, both
with our acquaintances in the garrets and those in the Porter's Lodge.
He thought he had seen Fanny somewhere: he felt certain that he had:
but it is no wonder that he should not accurately remember her, for
the poor little thing never chose to tell him where she had met him:
he himself had seen her at a period, when his own views both of
persons and of right and wrong were clouded by the excitement of
drinking and dancing, and also little Fanny was very much changed and
worn by the fever and agitation, and passion and despair, which the
past three weeks had poured upon the head of that little victim. Borne
down was the head now, and very pale and wan the face; and many and
many a time the sad eyes had looked into the postman's, as he came to
the Inn, and the sickened heart had sunk as he passed away. When Mr.
Costigan's accident occurred, Fanny was rather glad to have an
opportunity of being useful and doing something kind--something that
would make her forget her own little sorrows perhaps: she felt she
bore them better while she did her duty, though I dare say many a tear
dropped into the old Irishman's gruel. Ah, me! stir the gruel well,
and have courage, little Fanny! If every body who has suffered from
your complaint were to die of it straightway, what a fine year the
undertakers would have!

Whether from compassion for his only patient, or delight in his
society, Mr. Huxter found now occasion to visit Costigan two or three
times in the day at least, and if any of the members of the Porter's
Lodge family were not in attendance on the general, the young doctor
was sure to have some particular directions to address to those at
their own place of habitation. He was a kind fellow; he made or
purchased toys for the children; he brought them apples and brandy
balls; he brought a mask and frightened them with it, and caused a
smile upon the face of pale Fanny. He called Mrs. Bolton Mrs. B., and
was very intimate, familiar, and facetious with that lady, quite
different from that "aughty artless beast," as Mrs. Bolton now
denominated a certain young gentleman of our acquaintance, and whom
she now vowed she never could abear.

It was from this lady, who was very free in her conversation, that
Huxter presently learned what was the illness which was evidently
preying upon little Fan, and what had been Pen's behavior regarding
her. Mrs. Bolton's account of the transaction was not, it may be
imagined, entirely an impartial narrative. One would have thought from
her story that the young gentleman had employed a course of the most
persevering and flagitious artifices to win the girl's heart, had
broken the most solemn promises made to her, and was a wretch to be
hated and chastised by every champion of woman. Huxter, in his present
frame of mind respecting Arthur, and suffering under the latter's
contumely, was ready, of course, to take all for granted that was said
in the disfavor of this unfortunate convalescent. But why did he not
write home to Clavering, as he had done previously, giving an account
of Pen's misconduct, and of the particulars regarding it, which had
now come to his knowledge? He once, in a letter to his brother-in-law,
announced that that _nice young man_, Mr. Pendennis, had escaped
narrowly from a fever, and that no doubt all Clavering, _where he was
so popular_, would be pleased at his recovery; and he mentioned that
he had an interesting case of compound fracture, an officer of
distinction, which kept him in town; but as for Fanny Bolton, he made
no more mention of her in his letters--no more than Pen himself had
made mention of her. O you mothers at home, how much do you think you
know about your lads? How much do you think you know?

But with Bows, there was no reason why Huxter should not speak his
mind, and so, a very short time after his conversation with Mrs.
Bolton. Mr. Sam talked to the musician about his early acquaintance
with Pendennis; described him as a confounded conceited blackguard,
and expressed a determination to punch, his impudent head as soon as
ever he should be well enough to stand up like a man.

Then it was that Bows on his part spoke, and told _his_ version of the
story, whereof Arthur and little Fan were the hero and heroine; how
they had met by no contrivance of the former, but by a blunder of the
old Irishman, now in bed with a broken shin--how Pen had acted with
manliness and self-control in the business--how Mrs. Bolton was an
idiot; and he related the conversation which he, Bows, had had with
Pen, and the sentiments uttered by the young man. Perhaps Bows's story
caused some twinges of conscience in the breast of Pen's accuser, and
that gentleman frankly owned that he had been wrong with regard to
Arthur, and withdrew his project for punching Mr. Pendennis's head.

But the cessation of his hostility for Pen did not diminish Huxter's
attentions to Fanny, which unlucky Mr. Bows marked with his usual
jealousy and bitterness of spirit. "I have but to like any body," the
old fellow thought, "and somebody is sure to come and be preferred to
me. It has been the same ill-luck with me since I was a lad, until now
that I am sixty years old. What can such a man as I am expect better
than to be laughed at? It is for the young to succeed, and to be
happy, and not for old fools like me. I've played a second fiddle all
through life," he said, with a bitter laugh; "how can I suppose the
luck is to change after it has gone against me so long?" This was the
selfish way in which Bows looked at the state of affairs: though few
persons would have thought there was any cause for his jealousy, who
looked at the pale and grief-stricken countenance of the hapless
little girl, its object. Fanny received Huxter's good-natured efforts
at consolation and kind attentions kindly. She laughed now and again
at his jokes and games with her little sisters, but relapsed quickly
into a dejection which ought to have satisfied Mr. Bows that the
new-comer had no place in her heart as yet, had jealous Mr. Bows been
enabled to see with clear eyes.

But Bows did not. Fanny attributed Pen's silence somehow to Bows's
interference. Fanny hated him. Fanny treated Bows with constant
cruelty and injustice. She turned from him when he spoke--she loathed
his attempts at consolation. A hard life had Mr. Bows, and a cruel
return for his regard.

       *       *        *       *        *

When Warrington came to Shepherd's Inn as Pen's embassador, it was for
Mr. Bows's apartments he inquired (no doubt upon a previous agreement
with the principal for whom he acted in this delicate negotiation),
and he did not so much as catch a glimpse of Miss Fanny when he
stopped at the inn-gate and made his inquiry. Warrington was, of
course, directed to the musician's chambers, and found him tending the
patient there, from whose chamber he came out to wait upon his guest.
We have said that they had been previously known to one another, and
the pair shook hands with sufficient cordiality. After a little
preliminary talk, Warrington said that he had come from his friend
Arthur Pendennis, and from his family, to thank Bows for his attention
at the commencement of Pen's illness, and for his kindness in
hastening into the country to fetch the major.

Bows replied that it was but his duty: he had never thought to have
seen the young gentleman alive again when he went in search of Pen's
relatives, and he was very glad of Mr. Pendennis's recovery, and that
he had his friends with him. "Lucky are they who have friends, Mr.
Warrington," said the musician. "I might be up in this garret and
nobody would care for me, or mind whether I was alive or dead."

"What! not the general, Mr. Bows?" Warrington asked.

"The general likes his whisky-bottle more than any thing in life," the
other answered; "we live together from habit and convenience; and he
cares for me no more than you do. What is it you want to ask me, Mr.
Warrington? You ain't come to visit _me_, I know very well. Nobody
comes to visit me. It is about Fanny, the porter's daughter, you are
come--I see that very well. Is Mr. Pendennis, now he has got well,
anxious to see her again? Does his lordship the Sultan propose to
throw his 'andkerchief to her? She has been very ill, sir, ever since
the day when Mrs. Pendennis turned her out of doors--kind of a lady,
wasn't it? The poor girl and myself found the young gentleman raving
in a fever, knowing nobody, with nobody to tend him but his drunken
laundress--she watched day and night by him. I set off to fetch his
uncle. Mamma comes and turns Fanny to the right about. Uncle comes and
leaves me to pay the cab. Carry my compliments to the ladies and
gentleman, and say we are both very thankful, very. Why, a countess
couldn't have behaved better, and for an apothecary's lady, as I'm
given to understand Mrs. Pendennis was--I'm sure her behavior is most
uncommon aristocratic and genteel. She ought to have a double gilt
pestle and mortar to her coach."

It was from Mr. Huxter that Bows had learned Pen's parentage, no
doubt, and if he took Pen's part against the young surgeon, and
Fanny's against Mr. Pendennis, it was because the old gentleman was in
so savage a mood, that his humor was to contradict every body.

Warrington was curious, and not ill pleased at the musician's taunts
and irascibility. "I never heard of these transactions," he said, "or
got but a very imperfect account of them from Major Pendennis. What
was a lady to do? I think (I have never spoken with her on the
subject) she had some notion that the young woman and my friend Pen
were on--on terms of--of an intimacy which Mrs. Pendennis could not,
of course, recognize--"

"Oh, of course not, sir. Speak out, sir; say what you mean at once,
that the young gentleman of the Temple had made a victim of the girl
of Shepherd's Inn, eh? And so she was to be turned out of doors--or
brayed alive in the double gilt pestle and mortar, by Jove! No, Mr.
Warrington, there was no such thing: there was no victimizing, or if
there was, Mr. Arthur was the victim, not the girl. He is an honest
fellow, he is, though he is conceited, and a puppy sometimes. He can
feel like a man, and run away from temptation like a man. I own it,
though I suffer by it, I own it. He has a heart, he has: but the girl
hasn't sir. That girl will do any thing to win a man, and fling him
away without a pang, sir. If she flung away herself, sir, she'll feel
it and cry. She had a fever when Mrs. Pendennis turned her out of
doors; and she made love to the doctor, Doctor Goodenough, who came to
cure her. Now she has taken on with another chap--another sawbones ha,
ha! d----it, sir, she likes the pestle and mortar, and hangs round the
pill boxes, she's so fond of 'em, and she has got a fellow from Saint
Bartholomew's, who grins through a horse collar for her sisters, and
charms away her melancholy. Go and see, sir: very likely he's in the
lodge now. If you want news about Miss Fanny, you must ask at the
doctor's shop, sir, not of an old fiddler like me--Good-by, sir.
There's my patient calling."

And a voice was heard from the captain's bedroom, a well-known voice,
which said, "I'd loike a dthrop of dthrink, Bows, I'm thirstee." And
not sorry, perhaps, to hear that such was the state of things, and
that Pen's forsaken was consoling herself, Warrington took his leave
of the irascible musician.

As luck would have it, he passed the lodge door just as Mr. Huxter was
in the act of frightening the children with the mask whereof we have
spoken, and Fanny was smiling languidly at his farces. Warrington
laughed bitterly. "Are all women like that?" he thought. "I think
there's one that's not," he added, with a sigh.

At Piccadilly, waiting for the Richmond omnibus, George fell in with
Major Pendennis, bound in the same direction, and he told the old
gentleman of what he had seen and heard respecting Fanny.

Major Pendennis was highly delighted: and as might be expected of such
a philosopher, made precisely the same observation as that which had
escaped from Warrington. "All women are the same," he said. "_La
petite se console_. Dayme, when I used to read 'Télémaque' at school,
_Calypso ne pouvait se consoler_--you know the rest, Warrington--I
used to say it was absard. Absard, by Gad, and so it is. And so she's
got a new _soupirant_ has she, the little porteress? Dayvlish nice
little girl. How mad Pen will be--eh, Warrington? But we must break it
to him gently, or he'll be in such a rage that he will be going after
her again. We must _ménager_ the young fellow."

"I think Mrs. Pendennis ought to know that Pen acted very well in the
business. She evidently thinks him guilty, and according to Mr. Bows,
Arthur behaved like a good fellow," Warrington said.

"My dear Warrington," said the major, with a look of some alarm. "In
Mrs. Pendennis's agitated state of health and that sort of thing, the
best way, I think, is not to say a single word about the subject--or,
stay, leave it to me: and I'll talk to her--break it to her gently,
you know, and that sort of a thing. I give you my word I will. And so
Calypso's consoled, is she?" And he sniggered over this gratifying
truth, happy in the corner of the omnibus during the rest of
the journey.

Pen was very anxious to hear from his envoy what had been the result
of the latter's mission; and as soon as the two young men could be
alone, the embassador spoke in reply to Arthur's eager queries.

"You remember your poem, Pen, of Ariadne in Naxos," Warrington said;
"devilish bad poetry it was, to be sure."

"Apres?" asked Pen, in a great state of excitement.

"When Theseus left Ariadne, do you remember what happened to her,
young fellow?"

"It's a lie, it's a lie! You don't mean that!" cried out Pen, starting
up, his face turning red.

"Sit down, stoopid," Warrington said, and with two fingers pushed Pen
back into his seat again. "It's better for you as it is, young one;"
he said sadly, in reply to the savage flush in Arthur's face.



CHAPTER XVIII.

FOREIGN GROUND.


[Illustration]

Worth Major Pendennis fulfilled his promise to Warrington so far as to
satisfy his own conscience, and in so far to ease poor Helen with
regard to her son, as to make her understand that all connection
between Arthur and the odious little gate-keeper was at an end, and
that she need have no further anxiety with respect to an imprudent
attachment or a degrading marriage on Pen's part. And that young
fellow's mind was also relieved (after he had recovered the shock to
his vanity) by thinking that Miss Fanny was not going to die of love
for him, and that no unpleasant consequences were to be apprehended
from the luckless and brief connection.

So the whole party were free to carry into effect their projected
Continental trip, and Arthur Pendennis, rentier, voyageant avec Madame
Pendennis and Mademoiselle Bell, and George Warrington, particulier,
age de 32 ans, taille 6 pieds (Anglais), figure ordinaire, cheveux
noirs, barbe idem, &c., procured passports from the consul of H.M. the
King of the Belgians at Dover, and passed over from that port to
Ostend, whence the party took their way leisurely, visiting Bruges and
Ghent on their way to Brussels and the Rhine. It is not our purpose to
describe this oft-traveled tour, or Laura's delight at the tranquil
and ancient cities which she saw for the first time, or Helen's wonder
and interest at the Beguine convents which they visited, or the almost
terror with which she saw the black-veiled nuns with out-stretched
arms kneeling before the illuminated altars, and beheld the strange
pomps and ceremonials of the Catholic worship. Bare-footed friars in
the streets, crowned images of Saints and Virgins in the churches
before which people were bowing down and worshiping, in direct
defiance, as she held, of the written law; priests in gorgeous robes,
or lurking in dark confessionals, theatres opened, and people dancing
on Sundays; all these new sights and manners shocked and bewildered
the simple country lady; and when the young men after their evening
drive or walk returned to the widow and her adopted daughter, they
found their books of devotion on the table, and at their entrance
Laura would commonly cease reading some of the psalms or the sacred
pages which, of all others Helen loved. The late events connected with
her son had cruelly shaken her; Laura watched with intense, though
hidden anxiety, every movement of her dearest friend; and poor Pen was
most constant and affectionate in waiting upon his mother, whose
wounded bosom yearned with love toward him, though there was a secret
between them, and an anguish or rage almost on the mother's part, to
think that she was dispossessed somehow of her son's heart, or that
there were recesses in it which she must not or dared not enter. She
sickened as she thought of the sacred days of boyhood when it had not
been so--when her Arthur's heart had no secrets, and she was his all
in all: when he poured his hopes and pleasures, his childish griefs,
vanities, triumphs into her willing and tender embrace; when her home
was his nest still; and before fate, selfishness, nature, had driven
him forth on wayward wings--to range on his own flight--to sing his
own song--and to seek his own home and his own mate. Watching this
devouring care and racking disappointment in her friend, Laura once
said to Helen, "If Pen had loved me as you wished, I should have
gained him, but I should have lost you, mamma, I know I should; and I
like you to love me best. Men do not know what it is to love as we do,
I think,"--and Helen, sighing, agreed to this portion of the young
lady's speech, though she protested against the former part. For my
part, I suppose Miss Laura was right in both statements, and with
regard to the latter assertion especially, that it is an old and
received truism--love is an hour with us: it is all night and all day
with a woman. Damon has taxes, sermon, parade, tailors' bills,
parliamentary duties, and the deuce knows what to think of; Delia has
to think about Damon--Damon is the oak (or the post), and stands up,
and Delia is the ivy or the honey-suckle whose arms twine about him.
Is it not so, Delia? Is it not your nature to creep about his feet and
kiss them, to twine round his trunk and hang there; and Damon's to
stand like a British man with his hands in his breeches pocket, while
the pretty fond parasite clings round him?

Old Pendennis had only accompanied our friends to the water's edge,
and left them on board the boat, giving the chief charge of the little
expedition to Warrington. He himself was bound on a brief visit to the
house of a great man, a friend of his, after which sojourn he proposed
to join his sister-in-law at the German watering-place, whither the
party was bound. The major himself thought that his long attentions to
his sick family had earned for him a little relaxation--and though the
best of the partridges were thinned off, the pheasants were still to
be shot at Stillbrook, where the noble owner still was; old Pendennis
betook himself to that hospitable mansion and disported there with
great comfort to himself. A royal duke, some foreigners of note, some
illustrious statesmen, and some pleasant people visited it: it did the
old fellow's heart good to see his name in the "Morning Post," among
the list of the distinguished company which the Marquis of Steyne was
entertaining at his country house at Stillbrook. He was a very useful
and pleasant personage in a country house. He entertained the young
men with queer little anecdotes and _grivoises_ stories on their
shooting parties, or in their smoking-room, where they laughed at him
and with him. He was obsequious with the ladies of a morning, in the
rooms dedicated to them. He walked the new arrivals about the park and
gardens, and showed them the _carte du pays_, and where there was the
best view of the mansion, and where the most favorable point to look
at the lake: he showed where the timber was to be felled, and where
the old road went before the new bridge was built, and the hill cut
down; and where the place in the wood was where old Lord Lynx
discovered Sir Phelim O'Neal on his knees before her ladyship, &c.
&c.; he called the lodge keepers and gardeners by their names; he knew
the number of domestics that sat down in the housekeeper's room, and
how many dined in the servants' hall; he had a word for every body,
and about every body, and a little against every body. He was
invaluable in a country house, in a word: and richly merited and
enjoyed his vacation after his labors. And perhaps while he was thus
deservedly enjoying himself with his country friends, the major was
not ill-pleased at transferring to Warrington the command of the
family expedition to the Continent, and thus perforce keeping him in
the service of the ladies--a servitude which George was only too
willing to undergo for his friend's sake, and for that of a society
which he found daily more delightful. Warrington was a good German
scholar and was willing to give Miss Laura lessons in the language,
who was very glad to improve herself, though Pen, for his part, was
too weak or lazy now to resume his German studies. Warrington acted as
courier and interpreter; Warrington saw the baggage in and out of
ships, inns, and carriages, managed the money matters, and put the
little troop into marching order. Warrington found out where the
English church was, and, if Mrs. Pendennis and Miss Laura were
inclined to go thither, walked with great decorum along with them.
Warrington walked by Mrs. Pendennis's donkey, when that lady went out
on her evening excursions; or took carriages for her; or got
"Galignani" for her; or devised comfortable seats under the lime trees
for her, when the guests paraded after dinner, and the Kursaal band at
the bath, where our tired friends stopped, performed their pleasant
music under the trees. Many a fine whiskered Prussian or French dandy,
come to the bath for the "_Trente et quarante_" cast glances of
longing toward the pretty, fresh-colored English girl who accompanied
the pale widow, and would have longed to take a turn with her at the
galop or the waltz. But Laura did not appear in the ball-room,
except once or twice, when Pen vouchsafed to walk with her; and as for
Warrington that rough diamond had not had the polish of a dancing
master, and he did not know how to waltz--though he would have liked
to learn, if he could have had such a partner as Laura. Such a
partner! psha, what had a stiff bachelor to do with partners and
waltzing? what was he about, dancing attendance here? drinking in
sweet pleasure at a risk he knows not of what after sadness and
regret, and lonely longing? But yet he staid on. You would have said
he was the widow's son, to watch his constant care and watchfulness of
her; or that he was an adventurer, and wanted to marry her fortune, or
at any rate, that he wanted some very great treasure or benefit from her
--and very likely he did--for ours, as the reader has possibly already
discovered, is a Selfish Story, and almost every person, according to his
nature, more or less generous than George, and according to the way of
the world as it seems to us, is occupied about Number One. So Warrington
selfishly devoted himself to Helen, who selfishly devoted herself to Pen,
who selfishly devoted himself to himself at this present period, having
no other personage or object to occupy him, except, indeed, his mother's
health, which gave him a serious and real disquiet; but though they
sate together, they did not talk much, and the cloud was always
between them.

[Illustration]

Every day Laura looked for Warrington, and received him with more
frank and eager welcome. He found himself talking to her as he didn't
know himself that he could talk. He found himself performing acts of
gallantry which astounded him after the performance: he found himself
looking blankly in the glass at the crow's-feet round his eyes, and at
some streaks of white in his hair, and some intrusive silver bristles
in his grim, blue beard. He found himself looking at the young bucks
at the bath--at the blond, tight-waisted Germans--at the capering
Frenchmen, with their lackered mustaches and trim varnished boots--at
the English dandies, Pen among them, with their calm domineering air,
and insolent languor: and envied each one of these some excellence or
quality of youth, or good looks which he possessed, and of which
Warrington felt the need. And every night, as the night came, he
quitted the little circle with greater reluctance; and, retiring to
his own lodging in their neighborhood, felt himself the more lonely
and unhappy. The widow could not help seeing his attachment. She
understood, now, why Major Pendennis (always a tacit enemy of her
darling project) had been so eager that Warrington should be of their
party. Laura frankly owned her great, her enthusiastic, regard for
him: and Arthur would make no movement. Arthur did not choose to see
what was going on; or did not care to prevent, or actually encouraged,
it. She remembered his often having said that he could not understand
how a man proposed to a woman twice. She was in torture--at secret
feud with her son, of all objects in the world the dearest to her--in
doubt, which she dared not express to herself, about Laura--averse to
Warrington, the good and generous. No wonder that the healing waters
of Rosenbad did not do her good, or that Doctor von Glauber, the bath
physician, when he came to visit her, found that the poor lady made no
progress to recovery. Meanwhile Pen got well rapidly; slept with
immense perseverance twelve hours out of the twenty-four; ate huge
meals; and, at the end of a couple of months, had almost got back the
bodily strength and weight which he had possessed before his illness.

After they had passed some fifteen days at their place of rest and
refreshment, a letter came from Major Pendennis announcing his speedy
arrival at Rosenbad, and, soon after the letter, the major himself
made his appearance accompanied by Morgan his faithful valet, without
whom the old gentleman could not move. When the major traveled he wore
a jaunty and juvenile traveling costume; to see his back still you
would have taken him for one of the young fellows whose slim waist and
youthful appearance Warrington was beginning to envy. It was not until
the worthy man began to move, that the observer remarked that Time had
weakened his ancient knees, and had unkindly interfered to impede the
action of the natty little varnished boots in which the old traveler
still pinched his toes. There were magnates both of our own country
and of foreign nations present that autumn at Rosenbad. The elder
Pendennis read over the strangers' list with great gratification on
the night of his arrival, was pleased to find several of his
acquaintances among the great folks, and would have the honor of
presenting his nephew to a German Grand Duchess, a Russian Princess,
and an English Marquis, before many days were over: nor was Pen by any
means averse to making the acquaintance of these great personages,
having a liking for polite life, and all the splendors and amenities
belonging to it. That very evening the resolute old gentlemen, leaning
on his nephew's arm, made his appearance in the halls of the Kursaal,
and lost or won a napoleon or two at the table of _Trente et
quarante_. He did not play to lose, he said, or to win, but he did as
other folks did, and betted his napoleon and took his luck as it came.
He pointed out the Russians and Spaniards gambling for heaps of gold,
and denounced their eagerness as something sordid and barbarous; an
English gentleman should play where the fashion is play, but should
not elate or depress himself at the sport; and he told how he had seen
his friend the Marquis of Steyne, when Lord Gaunt, lose eighteen
thousand at a sitting, and break the bank three nights running at
Paris, without ever showing the least emotion at his defeat or
victory--"And that's what I call being an English gentleman, Pen, my
dear boy," the old gentleman said, warming as he prattled about his
recollections--"what I call the great manner only remains with us and
with a few families in France." And as Russian princesses passed him,
whose reputation had long ceased to be doubtful, and damaged English
ladies, who are constantly seen in company of their faithful attendant
for the time being in these gay haunts of dissipation, the old major,
with eager garrulity and mischievous relish told his nephew wonderful
particulars regarding the lives of these heroines; and diverted the
young man with a thousand scandals. Egad, he felt himself quite young
again, he remarked to Pen, as, rouged and grinning, her enormous
chasseur behind her bearing her shawl, the Princess Obstropski smiled
and recognized and accosted him. He remembered her in '14 when she was
an actress of the Paris Boulevard, and the Emperor Alexander's
aid-de-camp Obstropski (a man of great talents, who knew a good deal
about the Emperor Paul's death, and was a devil to play) married her.
He most courteously and respectfully asked leave to call upon the
princess, and to present to her his nephew, Mr. Arthur Pendennis; and
he pointed out to the latter a half-dozen of other personages whose
names were as famous, and whose histories were as edifying. What would
poor Helen have thought, could she have heard those tales, or known to
what kind of people her brother-in-law was presenting her son? Only
once, leaning on Arthur's arm, she had passed through the room where
the green tables were prepared for play, and the croaking croupiers
were calling out their fatal words of _Rouge gagne_ and _Couleur
perd_. She had shrunk terrified out of the pandemonium, imploring Pen,
extorting from him a promise, on his word of honor, that he would
never play at those tables; and the scene which so frightened the
simple widow, only amused the worldly old veteran, and made him young
again! He could breath the air cheerfully which stifled her. Her right
was not his right: his food was her poison. Human creatures are
constituted thus differently, and with this variety the marvelous
world is peopled. To the credit of Mr. Pen, let it be said, that he
kept honestly the promise made to his mother, and stoutly told his
uncle of his intention to abide by it.

[Illustration]

When the major arrived, his presence somehow cast a damp upon at least
three persons of our little party--upon Laura, who had any thing but
respect for him; upon Warrington, whose manner toward him showed an
involuntary haughtiness and contempt; and upon the timid and alarmed
widow, who dreaded lest he should interfere with her darling, though
almost desperate projects for her boy. And, indeed, the major, unknown
to himself, was the bearer of tidings which were to bring about a
catastrophe in the affairs of all our friends.

Pen with his two ladies had apartments in the town of Rosenbad; honest
Warrington had lodgings hard by; the major, on arrival at Rosenbad,
had, as befitted his dignity, taken up his quarters at one of the
great hotels, at the Roman Emperor or the Four Seasons, where two or
three hundred gamblers, pleasure-seekers, or invalids, sate down and
over-ate themselves daily at the enormous table d'hote. To this hotel
Pen went on the morning after the major's arrival dutifully to pay his
respects to his uncle, and found the latter's sitting-room duly
prepared and arranged by Mr. Morgan, with the major's hats brushed,
and his coats laid out: his dispatch-boxes and umbrella-cases, his
guide-books, passports, maps, and other elaborate necessaries of the
English traveler, all as trim and ready as they could be in their
master's own room in Jermyn-street. Every thing was ready, from the
medicine-bottle fresh filled from the pharmacien's, down to the old
fellow's prayer-book, without which he never traveled, for he made a
point of appearing at the English church at every place which he
honored with a stay. "Every body did it," he said; "every English
gentleman did it," and this pious man would as soon have thought of
not calling upon the English embassador in a continental town, as of
not showing himself at the national place of worship.

The old gentleman had been to take one of the baths for which Rosenbad
is famous, and which every body takes, and his after-bath toilet was
not yet completed when Pen arrived. The elder called out to Arthur in
a cheery voice from the inner apartment, in which he and Morgan were
engaged, and the valet presently came in, bearing a little packet to
Pen's address--Mr. Arthur's letters and papers, Morgan said, which he
had brought from Mr. Arthur's chambers in London, and which consisted
chiefly of numbers of the "Pall Mall Gazette," which our friend Mr.
Finucane thought his _collaborateur_ would like to see. The papers
were tied together: the letters in an envelope, addressed to Pen, in
the last-named gentleman's handwriting.

Among the letters there was a little note addressed, as a former
letter we have heard of had been, to "Arthur Pendennis, Esquire,"
which Arthur opened with a start and a blush, and read with a very
keen pang of interest, and sorrow, and regard. She had come to
Arthur's house, Fanny Bolton said--and found that he was gone--gone
away to Germany without ever leaving a word for her--or answer to her
last letter, in which she prayed but for one word of kindness--or the
books which he had promised her in happier times, before he was ill,
and which she would like to keep in remembrance of him. She said she
would not reproach those who had found her at his bedside when he was
in the fever, and knew nobody, and who had turned the poor girl away
without a word. She thought she should have died, she said, of that,
but Doctor Goodenough had kindly tended her, and kept her life, when,
perhaps, the keeping of it was of no good, and she forgave every body:
and as for Arthur, she would pray for him forever. And when he was so
ill, and they cut off his hair, she had made so free as to keep one
little lock for herself, and that she owned. And might she still keep
it, or would his mamma order that that should be gave up too? She was
willing to obey him in all things, and couldn't but remember that once
he was so kind, oh! so good and kind! to his poor Fanny. When Major
Pendennis, fresh and smirking from his toilet, came out of his bedroom
to his sitting-room, he found Arthur with this note before him, and an
expression of savage anger on his face, which surprised the elder
gentleman. "What news from London, my boy?" he rather faintly asked;
"are the duns at you that you look so glum?"

"Do you know any thing about this letter, sir?" Arthur asked.

"What letter, my good sir?" said the other drily, at once perceiving
what had happened.

"You know what I mean--about, about Miss--about Fanny Bolton--the
poor dear little girl," Arthur broke out. "When was she in my room?
Was she there when I was delirious--I fancied she was--was she? Who
sent her out of my chambers? Who intercepted her letters to me? Who
dared to do it? Did you do it, uncle?"

"It's not my practice to tamper with gentlemen's letters, or to answer
damned impertinent questions," Major Pendennis cried out, in a great
tremor of emotion and indignation. "There was a girl in your rooms
when I came up at great personal inconveinence, daymy--and to meet
with a return of this kind for my affection to you, is not pleasant,
by Gad, sir--not at all pleasant."

"That's not the question, sir," Arthur said hotly--"and--and, I beg
your pardon, uncle. You were, you always have been, most kind to me:
but I say again, did you say any thing harsh to this poor girl. Did
you send her away from me?"

"I never spoke a word to the girl," the uncle said, "and I never sent
her away from you, and know no more about her, and wish to know no
more about her, than about the man in the moon."

"Then it's my mother that did it," Arthur broke out. "Did my mother
send that poor child away?"

"I repeat I know nothing about it, sir," the elder said testily.
"Let's change the subject, if you please."

"I'll never forgive the person who did it," said Arthur, bouncing up
and seizing his hat.

The major cried out, "Stop, Arthur, for God's sake, stop;" but before
he had uttered his sentence Arthur had rushed out of the room, and at
the next minute the major saw him striding rapidly down the street
that led toward his home.

"Get breakfast!" said the old fellow to Morgan, and he wagged his head
and sighed as he looked out of the window. "Poor Helen--poor soul!
There'll be a row. I knew there would: and begad all the fat's in
the fire."

When Pen reached home he only found Warrington in the ladies'
drawing-room, waiting their arrival in order to conduct them to the
room where the little English colony at Rosenbad held their Sunday
church. Helen and Laura had not appeared as yet; the former was
ailing, and her daughter was with her. Pen's wrath was so great that
he could not defer expressing it. He flung Fanny's letter across the
table to his friend. "Look there, Warrington," he said; "she tended me
in my illness, she rescued me out of the jaws of death, and this is
the way they have treated the dear little creature. They have kept her
letters from me; they have treated me like a child, and her like a
dog, poor thing! My mother has done this."

"If she has, you must remember it is your mother," Warrington
interposed.

"It only makes the crime the greater, because it is she who has done
it," Pen answered. "She ought to have been the poor girl's defender,
not her enemy: she ought to go down on her knees and ask pardon of
her. I ought! I will! I am shocked at the cruelty which has been shown
her. What? She gave me her all, and this is her return! She sacrifices
every thing for me, and they spurn her."

"Hush!" said Warrington, "they can hear you from the next room."

"Hear; let them hear!" Pen cried out, only so much the louder. "Those
may overhear my talk who intercept my letters. I say this poor girl
has been shamefully used, and I will do my best to right her; I will."

The door of the neighboring room opened and Laura came forth with pale
and stern face. She looked at Pen with glances from which beamed
pride, defiance, aversion. "Arthur, your mother is very ill," she
said; "it is a pity that you should speak so loud as to disturb her."

"It is a pity that I should have been obliged to speak at all," Pen
answered. "And I have more to say before I have done."

"I should think what you have to say will hardly be fit for me to
hear," Laura said, haughtily.

"You are welcome to hear it or not, as you like," said Mr. Pen. "I
shall go in now and speak to my mother."

Laura came rapidly forward, so that she should not be overheard by her
friend within. "Not now, sir," she said to Pen. "You may kill her if
you do. Your conduct has gone far enough to make her wretched."

"What conduct?" cried out Pen, in a fury. "Who dares impugn it? Who
dares meddle with me? Is it you who are the instigator of this
persecution?"

"I said before it was a subject of which it did not become me to hear
or to speak," Laura said. "But as for mamma, if she had acted
otherwise than she did with regard to--to the person about whom you
seem to take such an interest, it would have been I that must have
quitted your house, and not that--that person."

"By heavens! this is too much," Pen cried out, with a violent
execration.

"Perhaps that is what you wished," Laura said, tossing her head up.
"No more of this, if you please; I am not accustomed to hear such
subjects spoken of in such language;" and with a stately courtesy the
young lady passed to her friend's room, looking her adversary full in
the face as she retreated and closed the door upon him.

Pen was bewildered with wonder, perplexity, fury, at this monstrous
and unreasonable persecution. He burst out into a loud and bitter
laugh as Laura quitted him, and with sneers and revilings, as a man
who jeers under an operation, ridiculed at once his own pain and his
persecutor's anger. The laugh, which was one of bitter humor, and no
unmanly or unkindly expression of suffering under most cruel and
unmerited torture, was heard in the next apartment, as some of his
unlucky previous expressions had been, and, like them, entirely
misinterpreted by the hearers. It struck like a dagger into the
wounded and tender heart of Helen; it pierced Laura, and inflamed the
high-spirited girl, with scorn and anger. "And it was to this hardened
libertine," she thought--"to this boaster of low intrigues, that I
had given my heart away." "He breaks the most sacred laws," thought
Helen. "He prefers the creature of his passion to his own mother; and
when he is upbraided, he laughs, and glories in his crime. 'She gave
me her all,' I heard him say it," argued the poor widow; "and he
boasts of it, and laughs, and breaks his mother's heart." The emotion,
the shame, the grief, the mortification almost killed her. She felt
she should die of his unkindness.

Warrington thought of Laura's speech--"Perhaps that is what you
wished." "She loves Pen still," he said. "It was jealousy made her
speak."--"Come away, Pen. Come away, and let us go to church and get
calm. You must explain this matter to your mother. She does not appear
to know the truth: nor do you quite, my good fellow. Come away, and
let us talk about it." And again he muttered to himself, "'Perhaps
that is what you wished.' Yes, she loves him. Why shouldn't she love
him? Whom else would I have her love? What can she be to me but the
dearest, and the fairest, and the best of women?"

So, leaving the women similarly engaged within, the two gentlemen
walked away, each occupied with his own thoughts, and silent for a
considerable space. "I must set this matter right," thought honest
George, "as she loves him still--I must set his mind right about the
other woman." And with this charitable thought, the good fellow began
to tell more at large what Bows had said to him regarding Miss
Bolton's behavior and fickleness, and he described how the girl was no
better than a little light-minded flirt; and, perhaps, he exaggerated
the good humor and contentedness which he had himself, as he thought,
witnessed in her behavior in the scene with Mr. Huxter.

Now, all Bows's statements had been colored by an insane jealousy and
rage on that old man's part; and instead of allaying Pen's renascent
desire to see his little conquest again, Warrington's accounts
inflamed and angered Pendennis, and made him more anxious than before
to set himself right, as he persisted in phrasing it, with Fanny. They
arrived at the church-door presently; but scarce one word of the
service, and not a syllable of Mr. Shamble's sermon, did either of
them comprehend, probably--so much was each engaged with his own
private speculations. The major came up to them after the service,
with his well-brushed hat and wig, and his jauntiest, most cheerful
air. He complimented them upon being seen at church; again he said
that every _comme-il-faut_ person made a point of attending the
English service abroad; and he walked back with the young men,
prattling to them in garrulous good-humor, and making bows to his
acquaintances as they passed; and thinking innocently that Pen and
George were both highly delighted by his anecdotes, which they
suffered to run on in a scornful and silent acquiescence.

At the time of Mr. Shamble's sermon (an erratic Anglican divine hired
for the season at places of English resort, and addicted to debts,
drinking, and even to roulette, it was said), Pen, chafing under the
persecution which his womankind inflicted upon him, had been
meditating a great act of revolt and of justice, as he had worked
himself up to believe; and Warrington on his part had been thinking
that a crisis in his affairs had likewise come, and that it was
necessary for him to break away from a connection which every day made
more and more wretched and dear to him. Yes, the time was come. He
took those fatal words, "Perhaps that is what you wished," as a text
for a gloomy homily, which he preached to himself, in the dark pew of
his own heart, while Mr. Shamble was feebly giving utterance to his
sermon.



CHAPTER XIX.

"FAIROAKS TO LET."


[Illustration]

Our poor widow (with the assistance of her faithful Martha of
Fairoaks, who laughed and wondered at the German ways, and
superintended the affairs of the simple household) had made a little
feast in honor of Major Pendennis's arrival, of which, however, only
the major and his two younger friends partook, for Helen sent to say
that she was too unwell to dine at their table, and Laura bore her
company. The major talked for the party, and did not perceive, or
choose to perceive, what a gloom and silence pervaded the other two
sharers of the modest dinner. It was evening before Helen and Laura
came into the sitting-room to join the company there. She came in
leaning on Laura, with her back to the waning light, so that Arthur
could not see how palid and woe-stricken her face was, and as she went
up to Pen, whom she had not seen during the day, and placed her fond
arms on his shoulder and kissed him tenderly, Laura left her, and
moved away to another part of the room. Pen remarked that his mother's
voice and her whole frame trembled, her hand was clammy cold as she
put it up to his forehead, piteously embracing him. The spectacle of
her misery only added, somehow, to the wrath and testiness of the
young man. He scarcely returned the kiss which the suffering lady gave
him: and the countenance with which he met the appeal of her look was
hard and cruel. "She persecutes me," he thought within himself, "and
she comes to me with the air of a martyr." "You look very ill, my
child," she said. "I don't like to see you look in that way." And she
tottered to a sofa, still holding one of his passive hands in her
thin, cold, clinging fingers.

"I have had much to annoy me, mother," Pen said with a throbbing
breast: and as he spoke Helen's heart began to beat so, that she sate
almost dead and speechless with terror.

Warrington, Laura, and Major Pendennis, all remained breathless,
aware that a storm was about to break.

"I have had letters from London," Arthur continued, "and one that has
given me more pain than I ever had in my life. It tells me that former
letters of mine have been intercepted and purloined away from me;
that--that a young creature who has shown the greatest love and care
for me, has been most cruelly used by--by you, mother."

"For God's sake stop," cried out Warrington. "She's ill--don't you see
she is ill?"

"Let him go on," said the widow faintly.

"Let him go on and kill her," said Laura, rushing up to her mother's
side. "Speak on, sir, and see her die."

"It is you who are cruel," cried Pen, more exasperated and more
savage, because his own heart, naturally soft and weak, revolted
indignantly at the injustice of the very suffering which was laid at
his door. "It is you that are cruel, who attribute all this pain to
me: it is you who are cruel with your wicked reproaches, your wicked
doubts of me, your wicked persecutions of those who love me--yes,
those who love me, and who brave every thing for me, and whom you
despise and trample upon because they are of lower degree than you.
Shall I tell you what I will do--what I am resolved to do, now that I
know what your conduct has been? I will, go back to this poor girl
whom you turned out of my doors, and ask her to come back and share my
home with me. I'll defy the pride which persecutes her, and the
pitiless suspicion which insults her and me."

"Do you mean, Pen, that you--" here the widow, with eager eyes and
out-stretched hands, was breaking out, but Laura stopped her;
"Silence, hush, dear mother," she cried and the widow hushed. Savagely
as Pen spoke, she was only too eager to hear what more he had to say,
"Go on, Arthur, go on, Arthur," was all she said, almost swooning away
as she spoke.

"By Gad, I say he shan't go on, or I won't hear him, by Gad," the
major said, trembling too in his wrath. "If you choose, sir, after all
we've done for you, after all I've done for you myself, to insult your
mother and disgrace your name, by allying yourself with a low-born
kitchen-girl, go and do it, by Gad, but let us, ma'am have no more to
do with him. I wash my hands of you, sir--I wash my hands of you. I'm
an old fellow--I ain't long for this world. I come of as ancient and
honorable a family as any in England, by Gad, and I did hope, before I
went off the hooks, by Gad, that the fellow that I'd liked, and
brought up, and nursed through life, by Jove, would do something to
show me that our name--yes, the name of Pendennis, by Gad, was left
undishonored behind us, but if he won't, dammy, I say, amen. By G--,
both my father and my brother Jack were the proudest men in England,
and I never would have thought that there would come this disgrace to
my name--never--and--and I'm ashamed that it's Arthur Pendennis." The
old fellow's voice here broke off into a sob: it was a second time
that Arthur had brought tears from those wrinkled lids.

The sound of his breaking voice stayed Pen's anger instantly, and he
stopped pacing the room, as he had been doing until that moment. Laura
was by Helen's sofa; and Warrington had remained hitherto an almost
silent, but not uninterested spectator of the family storm. As the
parties were talking, it had grown almost dark; and after the lull
which succeeded the passionate outbreak of the major, George's deep
voice, as it here broke trembling into the twilight room, was heard
with no small emotion by all.

"Will you let me tell you something about myself, my kind friends?" he
said, "you have been so good to me, ma'am--you have been so kind to
me, Laura--I hope I may call you so sometimes--my dear Pen and I have
been such friends that--that I have long wanted to tell you my story,
such as it is, and would have told it to you earlier but that it is a
sad one, and contains another's secret. However, it may do good for
Arthur to know it--it is right that every one here should. It will
divert you from thinking about a subject, which, out of a fatal
misconception, has caused a great deal of pain to all of you. May I
please tell you, Mrs. Pendennis?"

"Pray speak," was all Helen said; and indeed she was not much heeding;
her mind was full of another idea with which Pen's words had supplied
her, and she was in a terror of hope that what he had hinted might be
as she wished.

George filled himself a bumper of wine and emptied it, and began to
speak. "You all of you know how you see me," he said, "A man without a
desire to make an advance in the world; careless about reputation; and
living in a garret and from hand to mouth, though I have friends and a
name, and I dare say capabilities of my own, that would serve me if I
had a mind. But mind I have none. I shall die in that garret most
likely, and alone. I nailed myself to that doom in early life. Shall I
tell you what it was that interested me about Arthur years ago, and
made me inclined toward him when first I saw him? The men from our
college at Oxbridge brought up accounts of that early affair with the
Chatteris actress, about whom Pen has often talked to me since; and
who, but for the major's generalship, might have been your
daughter-in-law, ma'am. I can't see Pen in the dark, but he blushes,
I'm sure; and I dare say Miss Bell does; and my friend Major
Pendennis, I dare say, laughs as he ought to do--for he won. What
would have been Arthur's lot now had he been tied at nineteen to an
illiterate woman older than himself, with no qualities in common
between them to make one a companion for the other, no equality, no
confidence, and no love speedily? What could he have been but most
miserable? And when he spoke just now and threatened a similar union,
be sure it was but a threat occasioned by anger, which you must give
me leave to say, ma'am, was very natural on his part, for after a
generous and manly conduct--let me say who know the circumstances
well--most generous and manly and self-denying (which is rare with
him)--he has met from some friends of his with a most unkind
suspicion, and has had to complain of the unfair treatment of another
innocent person, toward whom he and you all are under much
obligation."

The widow was going to get up here, and Warrington, seeing her attempt
to rise, said, "Do I tire you, ma'am?"

"O no--go on--go on," said Helen, delighted, and he continued.

"I liked him, you see, because of that early history of his, which had
come to my ears in college gossip, and because I like a man, if you
will pardon me for saying so, Miss Laura, who shows that he can have a
great unreasonable attachment for a woman. That was why we became
friends--and are all friends here--for always, aren't we?" he added,
in a lower voice, leaning over to her, "and Pen has been a great
comfort and companion to a lonely and unfortunate man.

"I am not complaining of my lot, you see; for no man's is what he
would have it; and up in my garret, where you left the flowers, and
with my old books and my pipe for a wife, I am pretty contented, and
only occasionally envy other men, whose careers in life are more
brilliant, or who can solace their ill fortune by what Fate and my own
fault has deprived me of--the affection of a woman or a child." Here
there came a sigh from somewhere near Warrington in the dark, and a
hand was held out in his direction, which, however, was instantly
withdrawn, for the prudery of our females is such, that before all
expression of feeling, or natural kindness and regard, a woman is
taught to think of herself and the proprieties, and to be ready to
blush at the very slightest notice; and checking, as, of course, it
ought, this spontaneous motion, modesty drew up again, kindly
friendship shrank back ashamed of itself, and Warrington resumed his
history. "My fate is such as I made it, and not lucky for me or for
others involved in it.

"I, too, had an adventure before I went to college; and there was no
one to save me as Major Pendennis saved Pen. Pardon me, Miss Laura, if
I tell this story before you. It is as well that you all of you should
hear my confession. Before I went to college, as a boy of eighteen, I
was at a private tutor's and there, like Arthur, I became attached, or
fancied I was attached, to a woman of a much lower degree and a
greater age than my own. You shrink from me--"

"No I don't," Laura said, and here the hand went out resolutely, and
laid itself in Warrington's. She had divined his story from some
previous hints let fall by him, and his first words at its
commencement.

"She was a yeoman's daughter in the neighborhood," Warrington said,
with rather a faltering voice, "and I fancied--what all young men
fancy. Her parents knew who my father was, and encouraged me, with all
sorts of coarse artifices and scoundrel flatteries, which I see now,
about their house. To do her justice, I own she never cared for me but
was forced into what happened by the threats and compulsion of her
family. Would to God that I had not been deceived: but in these
matters we are deceived because we wish to be so, and I thought I
loved that poor woman.

"What could come of such a marriage? I found, before long, that I was
married to a boor. She could not comprehend one subject that
interested me. Her dullness palled upon me till I grew to loathe it.
And after some time of a wretched, furtive union--I must tell you all
--I found letters somewhere (and such letters they were!) which showed
me that her heart, such as it was, had never been mine, but had always
belonged to a person of her own degree.

"At my father's death, I paid what debts I had contracted at college,
and settled every shilling which remained to me in an annuity upon--
upon those who bore my name, on condition that they should hide
themselves away, and not assume it. They have kept that condition, as
they would break it, for more money. If I had earned fame or
reputation, that woman would have come to claim it: if I had made a
name for myself, those who had no right to it would have borne it; and
I entered life at twenty, God help me--hopeless and ruined beyond
remission. I was the boyish victim of vulgar cheats, and, perhaps, it
is only of late I have found out how hard--ah, how hard--it is to
forgive them. I told you the moral before, Pen; and now I have told
you the fable. Beware how you marry out of your degree. I was made for
a better lot than this, I think: but God has awarded me this one--and
so, you see, it is for me to look on, and see others successful and
others happy, with a heart that shall be as little bitter as
possible."

"By Gad, sir," cried the major, in high good humor, "I intended you to
marry Miss Laura here."

"And, by Gad, Master Shallow, I owe you a thousand pound," Warrington
said.

"How d'ye mean a thousand? it was only a pony, sir," replied the major
simply, at which the other laughed.

As for Helen, she was so delighted, that she started up, and said,
"God bless you--God forever bless you, Mr. Warrington;" and kissed
both his hands, and ran up to Pen, and fell into his arms.

"Yes, dearest mother," he said as he held her to him, and with a noble
tenderness and emotion, embraced and forgave her. "I am innocent, and
my dear, dear mother has done me a wrong."

"Oh, yes, my child, I have wronged you, thank God, I have wronged
you!" Helen whispered. "Come away, Arthur--not here--I want to ask my
child to forgive me--and--and my God, to forgive me; and to bless you,
and love you, my son."

He led her, tottering, into her room, and closed the door, as the
three touched spectators of the reconciliation looked on in pleased
silence. Ever after, ever after, the tender accents of that voice
faltering sweetly at his ear--the look of the sacred eyes beaming with
an affection unutterable--the quiver of the fond lips smiling
mournfully--were remembered by the young man. And at his best moments,
and at his hours of trial and grief, and at his times of success or
well doing, the mother's face looked down upon him, and blessed him
with its gaze of pity and purity, as he saw it in that night when she
yet lingered with him; and when she seemed, ere she quite left him, an
angel, transfigured and glorified with love--for which love, as for
the greatest of the bounties and wonders of God's provision for us,
let us kneel and thank Our Father.

The moon had risen by this time; Arthur recollected well afterward how
it lighted up his mother's sweet pale face. Their talk, or his rather,
for she scarcely could speak, was more tender and confidential than it
had been for years before. He was the frank and generous boy of her
early days and love. He told her the story, the mistake regarding
which had caused her so much pain--his struggles to fly from
temptation, and his thankfulness that he had been able to overcome it.
He never would do the girl wrong, never; or wound his own honor or his
mother's pure heart. The threat that he would return was uttered in a
moment of exasperation, of which he repented. He never would see her
again. But his mother said yes he should; and it was she who had been
proud and culpable--and she would like to give Fanny Bolton
something--and she begged her dear boy's pardon for opening the letter
--and she would write to the young girl, if--if she had time. Poor
thing! was it not natural that she should love her Arthur? And again
she kissed him, and she blessed him.

As they were talking the clock struck nine, and Helen reminded him
how, when he was a little boy, she used to go up to his bedroom at
that hour, and hear him say Our Father. And once more, oh, once more,
the young man fell down at his mother's sacred knees, and sobbed out
the prayer which the Divine Tenderness uttered for us, and which has
been echoed for twenty ages since by millions of sinful and humbled
men. And as he spoke the last words of the supplication, the mother's
head fell down on her boy's, and her arms closed round him, and
together they repeated the words "for ever and ever," and "Amen."

A little time after, it might have been a quarter of an hour, Laura
heard Arthur's voice calling from within, "Laura! Laura!" She rushed
into the room instantly, and found the young man still on his knees
and holding his mother's hand. Helen's head had sunk back and was
quite pale in the moon. Pen looked round, scared with a ghastly terror
"Help, Laura, help!" he said--"she's fainted--she's--"

Laura screamed, and fell by the side of Helen. The shriek brought
Warrington and Major Pendennis and the servants to the room. The
sainted woman was dead. The last emotion of her soul here was joy, to
be henceforth uncheckered and eternal. The tender heart beat no more--
it was to have no more pangs, no more doubts, no more griefs and
trials. Its last throb was love; and Helen's last breath was a
benediction.

The melancholy party bent their way speedily homewards, and Helen was
laid by her husband's side at Clavering, in the old church where she
had prayed so often. For a while Laura went to stay with Dr. Portman,
who read the service over his dear sister departed, amidst his own
sobs and those of the little congregation which assembled round
Helen's tomb. There were not many who cared for her, or who spoke of
her when gone. Scarcely more than of a nun in a cloister did people
know of that pious and gentle lady. A few words among the cottagers
whom her bounty was accustomed to relieve, a little talk from house to
house, at Clavering, where this lady, told how their neighbor died of
a complaint in the heart; while that speculated upon the amount of
property which the widow had left; and a third wondered whether Arthur
would let Fairoaks or live in it, and expected that he would not be
long getting through his property--this was all, and except with one
or two who cherished her, the kind soul was forgotten by the next
market-day. Would you desire that grief for you should last for a
few more weeks? and does after-life seem less solitary, provided that
our names, when we "go down into silence," are echoing on this side of
the grave yet for a little while, and human voices are still talking
about us? She was gone, the pure soul, whom only two or three loved
and knew. The great blank she left was in Laura's heart, to whom her
love had been every thing, and who had now but to worship her memory.
"I am glad that she gave me her blessing before she went away,"
Warrington said to Pen; and as for Arthur, with a humble
acknowledgment and wonder at so much affection, he hardly dared to ask
of Heaven to make him worthy of it, though he felt that a saint there
was interceding for him.

All the lady's affairs were found in perfect order, and her little
property ready for transmission to her son, in trust for whom she held
it. Papers in her desk showed that she had long been aware of the
complaint, one of the heart, under which she labored, and knew it
would suddenly remove her: and a prayer was found in her hand-writing,
asking that her end might be, as it was, in the arms of her son.

Laura and Arthur talked over her sayings, all of which the former most
fondly remembered, to the young man's shame somewhat, who thought how
much greater her love had been for Helen than his own. He referred
himself entirely to Laura to know what Helen would have wished should
be done; what poor persons she would have liked to relieve; what
legacies or remembrances she would have wished to transmit. They
packed up the vase which Helen in her gratitude had destined to Dr.
Goodenough, and duly sent it to the kind doctor: a silver coffee-pot,
which she used, was sent off to Portman: a diamond ring with her hair,
was given with affectionate greeting to Warrington.

It must have been a hard day for poor Laura when she went over to
Fairoaks first, and to the little room which she had occupied, and
which was hers no more, and to the widow's own blank chamber in which
those two had passed so many beloved hours. There, of course, were the
clothes in the wardrobe, the cushion on which she prayed, the chair at
the toilet: the glass that was no more to reflect her dear sad face.
After she had been here awhile, Pen knocked and led her down stairs to
the parlor again, and made her drink a little wine, and said, "God
bless you," as she touched the glass. "Nothing shall ever be changed
in your room," he said, "it is always your room--it is always my
sister's room. Shall it not be so, Laura?" and Laura said, "Yes!"

Among the widow's papers was found a packet, marked by the widow
"Letters from Laura's father," and which Arthur gave to her. They were
the letters which had passed between the cousins in the early days
before the marriage of, either of them. The ink was faded in which
they were written: the tears dried out that both perhaps had shed over
them: the grief healed now whose bitterness they chronicled: the
friends doubtless united whose parting on earth had caused to both
pangs so cruel. And Laura learned fully now for the first time what
the tie was which had bound her so tenderly to Helen: how faithfully
her more than mother had cherished her father's memory, how truly she
had loved him, how meekly resigned him.

One legacy of his mother's Pen remembered, of which Laura could have
no cognizance. It was that wish of Helen's to make some present to
Fanny Bolton; and Pen wrote to her, putting his letter under an
envelope to Mr. Bows, and requesting that gentleman to read it before
he delivered it to Fanny. "Dear Fanny," Pen said, "I have to
acknowledge two letters from you, one of which was delayed in my
illness," (Pen found the first letter in his mother's desk after her
decease, and the reading it gave him a strange pang), "and to thank
you, my kind nurse and friend, who watched me so tenderly during my
fever. And I have to tell you that the last words of my dear mother,
who is no more, were words of good-will and gratitude to you for
nursing me: and she said she would have written to you had she had
time--that she would like to ask your pardon if she had harshly
treated you--and that she would beg you to show your forgiveness by
accepting some token of friendship and regard from her." Pen concluded
by saying that his friend, George Warrington, Esq., of Lamb-court
Temple, was trustee of a little sum of money, of which the interest
would be paid to her until she became of age, or changed her name,
which would always be affectionately remembered by her grateful
friend, A. Pendennis. The sum was in truth but small, although enough
to make a little heiress of Fanny Bolton, whose parents were appeased,
and whose father said Mr. P. had acted quite as the gentleman--though
Bows growled out that to plaster a wounded heart with a bank-note was
an easy kind of sympathy; and poor Fanny felt only too clearly that
Pen's letter was one of farewell.

"Sending hundred-pound notes to porters' daughters is all dev'lish
well," old Major Pendennis said to his nephew (whom, as the proprietor
of Fairoaks and the head of the family, he now treated with marked
deference and civility), "and as there was a little ready money at the
bank, and your poor mother wished it, there's perhaps no harm done.
But my good lad, I'd have you to remember that you've not above five
hundred a year, though, thanks to me, the world gives you credit for
being a doosid deal better off; and, on my knees, I beg you, my boy,
don't break into your capital. Stick to it, sir; don't speculate with
it, sir; keep your land, and don't borrow on it. Tatham tells me that
the Chatteris branch of the railway may--will almost certainly pass
through Chatteris, and if it can be brought on this side of the Brawl,
sir, and through your fields, they'll be worth a dev'lish deal of
money, and your five hundred a year will jump up to eight or nine.
Whatever it is, keep it, I implore you, keep it. And I say, Pen, I
think you should give up living in those dirty chambers in the Temple
and get a decent lodging. And I should have a man, sir, to wait upon
me; and a horse or two in town in the season. All this will pretty
well swallow up your income, and I know you must live close. But
remember you have a certain place in society, and you can't afford to
cut a poor figure in the world. What are you going to do in the
winter? You don't intend to stay down here, or, I suppose, to go on
writing for that--what-d'ye-call'em--that newspaper?"

"Warrington and I are going abroad again, sir, for a little, and then
we shall see what is to be done," Arthur replied.

"And you'll let Fairoaks, of course? Good school in the neighborhood;
cheap country: dev'lish nice place for East India Colonels or families
wanting to retire. I'll speak about it at the club; there are lots of
fellows at the club want a place of that sort."

"I hope Laura will live in it for the winter, at least, and will make
it her home," Arthur replied: at which the major pish'd, and psha'd,
and said that there ought to be convents, begad, for English ladies,
and wished that Miss Bell had not been there to interfere with the
arrangements of the family, and that she would mope herself to death
alone in that place.

Indeed, it would have been a very dismal abode for poor Laura, who was
not too happy either in Doctor Portman's household, and in the town
where too many things reminded her of the dear parent whom she had
lost. But old Lady Rockminster, who adored her young friend Laura, as
soon as she read in the paper of her loss, and of her presence in the
country, rushed over from Baymouth, where the old lady was staying,
and insisted that Laura should remain six months, twelve months, all
her life with her; and to her ladyship's house, Martha from Fairoaks,
as _femme de chambre_, accompanied her young mistress.

Pen and Warrington saw her depart. It was difficult to say which of
the young men seemed to regard her the most tenderly. "Your cousin is
pert and rather vulgar, my dear, but he seems to have a good heart,"
little Lady Rockminster said, who said her say about every body--"but
I like Bluebeard best. Tell, me is he _touche au coeur?_"

"Mr. Warrington has been long--engaged," Laura said dropping her eyes.

"Nonsense, child! And good heavens, my dear! that's a pretty diamond
cross. What do you mean by wearing it in the morning?"

"Arthur--my brother gave it to me just now. It was--it was--" She
could not finish the sentence. The carriage passed over the bridge,
and by the dear, dear gate of Fairoaks--home no more.



CHAPTER. XX.

OLD FRIENDS.


It chanced at that great English festival, at which all London takes a
holiday upon Epsom Downs, that a great number of the personages to
whom we have been introduced in the course of this history, were
assembled to see the Derby. In a comfortable open carriage, which had
been brought to the ground by a pair of horses, might be seen Mrs.
Bungay, of Paternoster-row, attired like Solomon in all his glory, and
having by her side modest Mrs. Shandon, for whom, since the
commencement of their acquaintance, the worthy publisher's lady had
maintained a steady friendship. Bungay, having recreated himself with
a copious luncheon, was madly shying at the sticks hard by, till the
perspiration ran off his bald pate. Shandon was shambling about among
the drinking tents and gipsies: Finucane constant in attendance on the
two ladies, to whom gentlemen of their acquaintance, and connected
with the publishing house, came up to pay a visit.

Among others, Mr. Archer came up to make her his bow, and told Mrs.
Bungay who was on the course. Yonder was the prime minister: his
lordship had just told him to back Borax for the race; but Archer
thought Muffineer the better horse. He pointed out countless dukes and
grandees to the delighted Mrs. Bungay. "Look yonder in the Grand
Stand," he said. "There sits the Chinese embassador with the mandarins
of his suite. Fou-choo-foo brought me over letters of introduction
from the Governor-general of India, my most intimate friend, and I was
for some time very kind to him, and he had his chop-sticks laid for
him at my table whenever he chose to come and dine. But he brought his
own cook with him, and--would you believe it, Mrs. Bungay?--one day,
when I was out, and the embassador was with Mrs. Archer in our garden
eating gooseberries, of which the Chinese are passionately fond, the
beast of a cook, seeing my wife's dear little Blenheim spaniel (that we
had from the Duke of Maryborough himself, whose ancestor's life Mrs.
Archer's great-great-grandfather saved at the battle of Malplaquet),
seized upon the poor little devil, cut his throat, and skinned him,
and served him up stuffed with forced meat in the second course."

"Law!" said Mrs. Bungay.

"You may fancy my wife's agony when she knew what had happened! The
cook came screaming up-stairs, and told us that she had found poor
Fido's skin in the area, just after we had all of us tasted of the
dish! She never would speak to the embassador again--never; and, upon
my word, he has never been to dine with us since. The Lord Mayor, who
did me the honor to dine, liked the dish very much; and, eaten with
green peas, it tastes rather like duck."

"You don't say so, now!" cried the astonished publisher's lady.

"Fact, upon my word. Look at that lady in blue, seated by the
embassador: that is Lady Flamingo, and they say she is going to be
married to him, and return to Pekin with his Excellency. She is
getting her feet squeezed down on purpose. But she'll only cripple
herself, and will never be able to do it--never. My wife has the
smallest foot in England, and wears shoes for a six-year's old child;
but what is that to a Chinese lady's foot, Mrs. Bungay?"

"Who is that carriage as Mr. Pendennis is with, Mr. Archer?" Mrs.
Bungay presently asked. "He and Mr. Warrington was here just now. He's
'aughty in his manners, that Mr. Pendennis, and well he may be, for
I'm told he keeps tip-top company. As he 'ad a large fortune left
him, Mr. Archer? He's in black still, I see."

"Eighteen hundred a year in land, and twenty-two thousand five hundred
in the three-and-a-half per cents.; that's about it," said Mr. Archer.

"Law! why you know every thing Mr. A.!" cried the lady of Paternoster
Row.

"I happen to know, because I was called in about poor Mrs. Pendennis's
will," Mr. Archer replied. "Pendennis's uncle, the major, seldom does
any thing without me; and as he is likely to be extravagant we've tied
up the property, so that he can't make ducks and drakes with it. How
do you do, my Lord?--Do you know that gentleman, ladies? You have read
his speeches in the House; it is Lord Rochester."

"Lord Fiddlestick," cried out Finucane, from the box. "Sure it's Tom
Staples, of the Morning Advertiser, Archer."

"Is it?" Archer said, simply. "Well I'm very short-sighted, and upon
my word I thought it was Rochester. That gentleman with the double
opera-glass (another nod) is Lord John; and the tall man with him,
don't you know him? is Sir James."

"You know 'em because you see 'em in the house," growled Finucane.

"I know them because they are kind enough to allow me to call them my
most intimate friends," Archer continued. "Look at the Duke of
Hampshire; what a pattern of a fine old English gentleman! He never
misses 'the Derby.' 'Archer,' he said to me only yesterday, 'I have
been at sixty-five Derbies! appeared on the field for the first time
on a piebald pony when I was seven years old, with my father, the
Prince of Wales, and Colonel Hanger; and only missing two races--one
when I had the measles at Eton, and one in the Waterloo year, when I
was with my friend Wellington in Flanders.'"

"And who is that yellow carriage, with the pink and yellow parasols,
that Mr. Pendennis is talking to, and ever so many gentlemen?" asked
Mrs. Bungay.

"That is Lady Clavering, of Clavering Park, next estate to my friend
Pendennis. That is the young son and heir upon the box; he's awfully
tipsy, the little scamp! and the young lady is Miss Amory, Lady
Clavering's daughter by a first marriage, and uncommonly sweet upon my
friend Pendennis; but I've reason to think he has his heart fixed
elsewhere. You have heard of young Mr. Foker--the great brewer, Foker,
you know--he was going to hang himself in consequence of a fatal
passion for Miss Amory, who refused him, but was cut down just in time
by his valet, and is now abroad, under a keeper."

"How happy that young fellow is!" sighed Mrs. Bungay. "Who'd have
thought when he came so quiet and demure to dine with us, three or
four years ago, he would turn out such a grand character! Why, I saw
his name at court the other day, and presented by the Marquis of
Steyne and all; and in every party of the nobility his name's down, as
sure as a gun."

"I introduced him a good deal when he first came up to town," Mr.
Archer said, "and his uncle, Major Pendennis, did the rest. Halloo!
There's Cobden here, of all men in the world! I must go and speak to
him. Good-by, Mrs. Bungay. Good morning, Mrs. Shandon."

An hour previous to this time, and at a different part of the course,
there might have been seen an old stage-coach, on the battered roof of
which a crowd of shabby raffs were stamping and hallooing, as the
great event of the day--the Derby race--rushed over the green sward,
and by the shouting millions of people assembled to view that
magnificent scene. This was Wheeler's (the "Harlequin's Head") drag,
which had brought down a company of choice spirits from Bow-street,
with a slap-up luncheon in the "boot." As the whirling race flashed
by, each of the choice spirits bellowed out the name of the horse or
the colors which he thought or he hoped might be foremost. "The
Cornet!" "It's Muffineer!" "It's blue sleeves!'" "Yallow cap! yallow
cap! yallow cap!" and so forth, yelled the gentlemen sportsmen during
that delicious and thrilling minute before the contest was decided;
and as the fluttering signal blew out, showing the number of the
famous horse Podasokus as winner of the race, one of the gentlemen on
the "Harlequin's Head" drag sprang up off the roof, as if he was a
pigeon and about to fly away to London or York with the news.

But his elation did not lift him many inches from his standing-place,
to which he came down again on the instant, causing the boards of the
crazy old coach-roof to crack with the weight of his joy. "Hurrah,
hurrah!" he bawled out, "Podasokus is the horse! Supper for ten
Wheeler, my boy. Ask you all round of course, and damn the expense."

[Illustration]

And the gentlemen on the carriage, the shabby swaggerers, the dubious
bucks, said, "Thank you--congratulate you, colonel; sup with you with
pleasure:" and whispered to one another, "The colonel stands to win
fifteen hundred, and he got the odds from a good man, too."

And each of the shabby bucks and dusky dandies began to eye his
neighbor with suspicion, lest that neighbor, taking his advantage,
should get the colonel into a lonely place and borrow money of him.
And the winner on Podasokus could not be alone during the whole of
that afternoon, so closely did his friends watch him and each other.

At another part of the course you might have seen a vehicle, certainly
more modest, if not more shabby than that battered coach which had
brought down the choice spirits from the Harlequin's Head; this was
cab No. 2002, which had conveyed a gentleman and two ladies from the
cab-stand in the Strand: whereof one of the ladies, as she sate on the
box of the cab enjoying with her mamma and their companion a repast of
lobster-salad and bitter ale, looked so fresh and pretty that many of
the splendid young dandies who were strolling about the course, and
enjoying themselves at the noble diversion of sticks, and talking to
the beautifully dressed ladies in the beautiful carriages on the hill,
forsook these fascinations to have a glance at the smiling and
rosy-cheeked lass on the cab. The blushes of youth and good-humor
mantled on the girl's cheeks, and played over that fair countenance
like the pretty shining cloudlets on the serene sky over head; the
elder lady's cheek was red too; but that was a permanent mottled rose,
deepening only as it received fresh draughts of pale ale and
brandy-and-water, until her face emulated the rich shell of the
lobster which she devoured.

The gentleman who escorted these two ladies was most active in
attendance upon them: here on the course, as he had been during the
previous journey. During the whole of that animated and delightful
drive from London, his jokes had never ceased. He spoke up undauntedly
to the most awful drags full of the biggest and most solemn guardsmen;
as to the humblest donkey-chaise in which Bob the dustman was driving
Molly to the race. He had fired astonishing volleys of what is called
"chaff" into endless windows as he passed; into lines of grinning
girls' schools; into little regiments of shouting urchins hurrahing
behind the railings of their classical and commercial academies; into
casements whence smiling maid-servants, and nurses tossing babies, or
demure old maiden ladies with dissenting countenances, were looking.
And the pretty girl in the straw bonnet with pink ribbon, and her
mamma the devourer of lobsters, had both agreed that when he was in
"spirits" there was nothing like that Mr. Sam. He had crammed the cab
with trophies won from the bankrupt proprietors of the sticks hard by,
and with countless pincushions, wooden-apples, backy-boxes,
Jack-in-the-boxes, and little soldiers. He had brought up a gipsy with
a tawny child in her arms to tell the fortunes of the ladies; and the
only cloud which momentarily obscured the sunshine of that happy
party, was when the teller of fate informed the young lady that she
had had reason to beware of a fair man, who was false to her: that she
had had a bad illness, and that she would find that a dark man would
prove true.

The girl looked very much abashed at this news: her mother and the
young man interchanged signs of wonder and intelligence. Perhaps the
conjuror had used the same words to a hundred different carriages
on that day.

Making his way solitary among the crowd and the carriages, and noting,
according to his wont, the various circumstances and characters which
the animated scene presented, a young friend of ours came suddenly
upon cab 2002, and the little group of persons assembled on the
outside of the vehicle. As he caught sight of the young lady on the
box, she started and turned pale: her mother became redder than ever:
the heretofore gay and triumphant Mr. Sam. immediately assumed a
fierce and suspicious look, and his eyes turned savagely from Fanny
Bolton (whom the reader no doubt, has recognized in the young lady of
the cab) to Arthur Pendennis, advancing to meet her.

Arthur too, looked dark and suspicious on perceiving Mr. Samuel
Huxter in company with his old acquaintances: but his suspicion was
that of alarmed morality, and, I dare say, highly creditable to Mr.
Arthur: like the suspicion of Mrs. Lynx, when she sees Mr. Brown and
Mrs. Jones talking together, or when she remarks Mrs. Lamb twice or
thrice in a handsome opera-box. There _may_ be no harm in the
conversation of Mr. B. and Mrs. J.: and Mrs. Lamb's opera box (though
she notoriously can't afford one) may be honestly come by: but yet a
moralist like Mrs. Lynx has a right to the little precautionary
fright: and Arthur was no doubt justified in adopting that severe
demeanor of his.

Fanny's heart began to patter violently: Huxter's fists, plunged into
the pockets of his paletot, clenched themselves involuntarily, and
armed themselves, as it were, in ambush: Mrs. Bolton began to talk
with all her might, and with a wonderful volubility: and Lor! she was
so 'appy to see Mr. Pendennis, and how well he was a lookin', and we'd
been talkin' about Mr. P. only jest before; hadn't we, Fanny? and if
this was the famous Hepsom races that they talked so much about, she
didn't care, for her part, if she never saw them again. And how was
Major Pendennis, and that kind Mr. Warrington, who brought Mr. P's
great kindness to Fanny; and she never would forget it, never: and Mr.
Warrington was so tall, he almost broke his 'ead up against their
lodge door. You recollect Mr. Warrington a knockin' of his head--don't
you, Fanny?

While Mrs. Bolton was so discoursing, I wonder how many thousands of
thoughts passed through Fanny's mind, and what dear times, sad
struggles, lonely griefs, and subsequent shame-faced consolations were
recalled to her? What pangs had the poor little thing, as she thought
how much she had loved him, and that she loved him no more? There he
stood, about whom she was going to die ten months since, dandified,
supercilious, with a black crape to his white hat, and jet buttons in
his shirt front: and a pink in his coat, that some one else had
probably given him: with the tightest lavender-colored gloves sewn
with black: and the smallest of canes. And Mr. Huxter wore no gloves,
and great blucher boots, and smelt very much of tobacco certainly; and
looked, oh, it must be owned, he looked as if a bucket of water would
do him a great deal of good! All these thoughts, and a myriad of
others rushed through Fanny's mind as her mamma was delivering herself
of her speech, and as the girl, from under her eyes, surveyed
Pendennis--surveyed him entirely from head to foot, the circle on his
white forehead that his hat left when he lifted it (his beautiful,
beautiful hair had grown again), the trinkets at his watch-chain, the
ring on his hand under his glove, the neat shining boot, so, so unlike
Sam's high-low!--and after her hand had given a little twittering
pressure to the lavender-colored kid grasp which was held out to it,
and after her mother had delivered herself of her speech, all Fanny
could find to say was, "This is Mr. Samuel Huxter whom you knew
formerly, I believe, sir; Mr. Samuel, you know you knew Mr. Pendennis
formerly--and--and--will you take a little refreshment?" These
little words tremulous and uncolored as they were, yet were understood
by Pendennis in such a manner as to take a great load of suspicion
from off his mind--of remorse, perhaps from his heart. The frown on
the countenance of the prince of Fairoaks disappeared, and a
good-natured smile and a knowing twinkle of the eyes illuminated his
highness's countenance. "I am very thirsty," he said, "and I will be
glad to drink your health, Fanny; and I hope Mr. Huxter will pardon me
for having been very rude to him the last time we met, and when I was
so ill and out of spirits, that indeed I scarcely knew what I said."
And herewith the lavender-colored dexter kid-glove was handed out, in
token of amity, to Huxter.

The dirty fist in the young surgeon's pocket was obliged to undouble
itself, and come out of its ambush disarmed. The poor fellow himself
felt, as he laid it in Pen's hand, how hot his own was, and how
black--it left black marks on Pen's gloves; he saw them--he would have
liked to have clenched it again and dashed it into the other's
good-humored face; and have seen, there upon that ground, with Fanny,
with all England looking on, which was the best man--he Sam Huxter of
Bartholomew's, or that grinning dandy.

Pen with ineffable good-humor took a glass--he didn't mind what it
was--he was content to drink after the ladies; and he filled it with
frothing lukewarm beer, which he pronounced to be delicious, and which
he drank cordially to the health of the party.

As he was drinking and talking on in an engaging manner, a young lady
in a shot dove-colored dress, with a white parasol lined with pink,
and the prettiest dove-colored boots that ever stepped, passed by Pen,
leaning on the arm of a stalwart gentleman with a military mustache.
The young lady clenched her little fist, and gave a mischievous
side-look as she passed Pen. He of the mustaches burst out into a
jolly laugh. He had taken off his hat to the ladies of cab No. 2002.
You should have seen Fanny Bolton's eyes watching after the
dove-colored young lady. Immediately Huxter perceived the direction
which they took, they ceased looking after the dove-colored nymph, and
they turned and looked into Sam Huxter's orbs with the most artless
good-humored expression.

"What a beautiful creature!" Fanny said. "What a lovely dress! Did you
remark, Mr. Sam, such little, little hands?"

"It was Capting Strong," said Mrs. Bolton: "and who was the young
woman, I wonder?"

"A neighbor of mine in the country--Miss Amory," Arthur said--"Lady
Clavering's daughter. You've seen Sir Francis often in Shepherd's Inn,
Mrs. Bolton."

As he spoke, Fanny built up a perfect romance in three volumes--
love--faithlessness--splendid marriage at St. George's, Hanover-square
--broken-hearted maid--and Sam Huxter was not the hero of that
story--poor Sam, who by this time had got out an exceedingly rank Cuba
cigar, and was smoking it under Fanny's little nose.

After that confounded prig Pendennis joined and left the party the
sun was less bright to Sam Huxter, the sky less blue--the sticks had
no attraction for him--the bitter beer hot and undrinkable--the world
was changed. He had a quantity of peas and a tin pea-shooter in the
pocket of the cab for amusement on the homeward route. He didn't take
them out, and forgot their existence until some other wag, on their
return from the races, fired a volley into Sam's sad face; upon which
salute, after a few oaths indicative of surprise, he burst into a
savage and sardonic laugh.

But Fanny was charming all the way home. She coaxed, and snuggled, and
smiled. She laughed pretty laughs; she admired everything; she took
out the darling little jack-in-the-boxes, and was _so_ obliged to Sam.
And when they got home, and Mr. Huxter, still with darkness on his
countenance, was taking a frigid leave of her--she burst into tears,
and said he was a naughty, unkind thing.

Upon which, with a burst of emotion, almost as emphatic as hers, the
young surgeon held the girl in his arms--swore that she was an angel,
and that he was a jealous brute; owned that he was unworthy of her,
and that he had no right to hate Pendennis; and asked her, implored
her, to say once more that she--

That she what?--The end of the question and Fanny's answer were
pronounced by lips that were so near each other, that no bystander
could hear the words. Mrs. Bolton only said, "Come, come, Mr. H.--no
nonsense, if you please; and I think you've acted like a wicked
wretch, and been most uncommon cruel to Fanny, that I do."

When Arthur left No. 2002, he went to pay his respects to the carriage
to which, and to the side of her mamma, the dove colored author of
_Mes Larmes_ had by this time returned. Indefatigable old Major
Pendennis was in waiting upon Lady Clavering, and had occupied the
back seat in her carriage; the box being in possession of young
Hopeful, under the care of Captain Strong.

A number of dandies, and men of a certain fashion--of military bucks,
of young rakes of the public offices, of those who may be styled men's
men rather than ladies'--had come about the carriage during its
station on the hill--and had exchanged a word or two with Lady
Clavering, and a little talk (a little "chaff" some of the most
elegant of the men styled their conversation) with Miss Amory. They
had offered her sportive bets, and exchanged with her all sorts of
free-talk and knowing innuendoes. They pointed out to her who was on
the course: and the "who" was not always the person a young lady
should know.

When Pen came up to Lady Clavering's carriage, he had to push his way
through a crowd of these young bucks who were paying their court to
Miss Amory, in order to arrive as near that young lady, who beckoned
him by many pretty signals to her side.

"Je l'ai vue," she said; "elle a de bien beaux yeux; vous êtes un
monstre!"

"Why monster?" said Pen, with a laugh; "Honi soit qui mal y pense.
My young friend, yonder, is as well protected as any young lady in
Christendom. She has her mamma on one side, her 'prétendu' on the
other. Could any harm happen to a girl between those two?"

"One does not know what may or may not arrive," said Miss Blanche. in
French, "when a girl has the mind, and when she is pursued by a wicked
monster like you. Figure to yourself, colonel, that I come to find
monsieur, your nephew, near to a cab, by two ladies, and a man, oh,
such a man! and who ate lobsters, and who laughed, who laughed!"

"It did not strike me that the man laughed," Pen said. "And as for
lobsters, I thought he would have liked to eat me after the lobsters.
He shook hands with me, and griped me so, that he bruised my glove
black and blue. He is a young surgeon. He comes from Clavering. Don't
you remember the gilt pestle and mortar in High-street?"

"If he attends you when you are sick," continued Miss Amory, "he will
kill you. He will serve you right; for you are a monster."

The perpetual recurrence to the word "monster" jarred upon Pen. "She
speaks about these matters a great deal too lightly," he thought. "If
I had been a monster, as she calls it, she would have received me just
the same. This is not the way in which an English lady should speak or
think. Laura would not speak in that way, thank God!" and as he
thought so, his own countenance fell.

"Of what are you thinking? Are you going to _bouder_ me at present?"
Blanche asked. "Major, scold your _méchant_ nephew. He does not amuse
me at all. He is as _béte_ as Captain Crackenbury."

"What are you saying about me, Miss Amory?" said the guardsman, with a
grin. "If it's any thing good, say it in English, for I don't
understand French when it's spoke so devilish quick."

"It _ain't_ any thing good, Crack," said Crackenbury's fellow, Captain
Clinker. "Let's come away, and don't spoil sport. They say Pendennis
is sweet upon her."

"I'm told he's a devilish clever fellow," sighed Crackenbury. "Lady
Violet Lebas says he's a devilish clever fellow. He wrote a work, or a
poem, or something; and he writes those devilish clever things in
the--in the papers you know. Dammy, I wish I was a clever
fellow, Clinker."

"That's past wishing for, Crack, my boy," the other said. "I can't
write a good book, but I think I can make a pretty good one on the
Derby. What a flat Clavering is! And the Begum! I like that old Begum.
She's worth ten of her daughter. How pleased the old girl was at
winning the lottery!"

"Clavering's safe to pay up, ain't he?" asked Captain Crackenbury. "I
hope so," said his friend; and they disappeared, to enjoy themselves
among the sticks.

Before the end of the day's amusements, many more gentlemen of Lady
Clavering's acquaintance came up to her carriage, and chatted with the
party which it contained. The worthy lady was in high spirits and
good-humor, laughing and talking according to her wont, and offering
refreshments to all her friends, until her ample baskets and bottles
were emptied, and her servants and postillions were in such a royal
state of excitement as servants and postillions commonly are upon the
Derby day.

The major remarked that some of the visitors to the carriage appeared
to look with rather queer and meaning glances toward its owner. "How
easily she takes it!" one man whispered to another. "The Begum's made
of money," the friend replied. "How easily she takes what?" thought
old Pendennis. "Has any body lost any money?" Lady Clavering said she
was happy in the morning because Sir Francis had promised her not
to bet.

Mr. Welbore, the country neighbor of the Claverings, was passing the
carriage, when he was called back by the Begum, who rallied him for
wishing to cut her. "Why didn't he come before? Why didn't he come to
lunch?" Her ladyship was in great delight, she told him--she told
every body--that she had won five pounds in a lottery. As she conveyed
this piece of intelligence to him, Mr. Welbore looked so particularly
knowing, and withal melancholy, that a dismal apprehension seized upon
Major Pendennis. "He would go and look after the horses and those
rascals of postillions, who were so long in coming round." When he
came back to the carriage, his usually benign and smirking countenance
was obscured by some sorrow. "What is the matter with you now?" the
good-natured Begum asked. The major pretended a headache from the
fatigue and sunshine of the day. The carriage wheeled off the course
and took its way Londonwards, not the least brilliant equipage in that
vast and picturesque procession. The tipsy drivers dashed gallantly
over the turf, amid the admiration of foot-passengers, the ironical
cheers of the little donkey-carriages and spring vans, and the loud
objurgations of horse-and-chaise men, with whom the reckless post-boys
came in contact. The jolly Begum looked the picture of good humor as
she reclined on her splendid cushions; the lovely Sylphide smiled with
languid elegance. Many an honest holiday-maker with his family wadded
into a tax-cart, many a cheap dandy working his way home on his weary
hack, admired that brilliant turn-out, and thought, no doubt, how
happy those "swells" must be. Strong sat on the box still, with a
lordly voice calling to the post-boys and the crowd. Master Frank had
been put inside of the carriage and was asleep there by the side of
the major, dozing away the effects of the constant luncheon and
champagne of which he had freely partaken.

The major was revolving in his mind meanwhile the news the receipt of
which had made him so grave. "If Sir Francis Clavering goes on in this
way," Pendennis the elder thought, "this little tipsy rascal will be
as bankrupt as his father and grandfather before him. The Begum's
fortune can't stand such drains upon it: no fortune can stand them:
she has paid his debts half-a-dozen times already. A few years more of
the turf, and a few coups like this will ruin her."

"Don't you think we could get up races at Clavering, mamma?" Miss
Amory asked. "Yes, we must have them there again. There were races
there in the old times, the good old times. It's a national amusement
you know: and we could have a Clavering ball: and we might have dances
for the tenantry, and rustic sports in the park--Oh, it would he
charming."

"Capital fun," said mamma. "Wouldn't it, major?"

"The turf is a very expensive amusement, my dear lady," Major
Pendennis answered, with such a rueful face, that the Begum rallied
him, and asked laughingly whether he had lost money on the race?

After a slumber of about an hour and a half, the heir of the house
began to exhibit symptoms of wakefulness, stretching his youthful arms
over the major's face, and kicking his sister's knees as she sate
opposite to him. When the amiable youth was quite restored to
consciousness, he began a sprightly conversation.

"I say, ma," he said, "I've gone and done it this time, I have." "What
have you gone and done, Franky, dear?" asked mamma. "How much is
seventeen half-crowns?" "Two pound and half-a-crown, ain't it? I drew
Borax in our lottery, but I bought Podasokus and Man-milliner of
Leggat minor for two open tarts and a bottle of ginger beer."

"You little wicked gambling creature, how dare you begin so soon?"
cried Miss Amory.

"Hold _your_ tongue, if you please. Who ever asked _your_ leave,
miss?" the brother said. "And I say, ma--"

"Well, Franky, dear?"

"You'll tip me all the same, you know, when I go back--" and here he
broke out into a laugh. "I say, ma, shall I tell you something?"

The Begum expressed her desire to hear this something, and her son and
heir continued:

"When me and Strong was down at the grand stand after the race, and I
was talking to Leggat minor, who was there with his governor; I saw pa
look as savage as a bear. And I say, ma, Leggat minor told me that he
heard his governor say that pa had lost seven thousand backing the
favorite. I'll never back the favorite when I'm of age. No, no--hang
me if I do: leave me alone, Strong, will you?"

"Captain Strong! Captain Strong! is this true?" cried out the
unfortunate Begum. "Has Sir Francis been betting again? He promised me
he wouldn't. He gave me his word of honor he wouldn't."

Strong, from his place on the box, had overheard the end of young
Clavering's communication, and was trying in vain to stop his
unlucky tongue.

"I'm afraid it's true, ma'am," he said, turning round. "I deplore the
loss as much as you can. He promised me as he promised you; but the
play is too strong for him! he can't refrain from it."

Lady Clavering at this sad news burst into a fit of tears. She
deplored her wretched fate as the most miserable of woman. She
declared she would separate, and pay no more debts for this ungrateful
man. She narrated with tearful volubility a score of stories only too
 authentic, which showed how her husband had deceived, and how
constantly she had befriended him: and in this melancholy condition,
while young Hopeful was thinking about the two guineas which he
himself had won; and the major revolving, in his darkened mind,
whether certain plans which he had been forming had better not be
abandoned; the splendid carriage drove up at length to the Begum's
house in Grosvenor-place; the idlers and boys lingering about the
place to witness, according to public wont, the close of the Derby
day, cheering the carriage as it drew up, and envying the happy folks
who descended from it.

"And it's for the son of this man that I am made a beggar!" Blanche
said, quivering with anger, as she walked up stairs leaning on the
major's arm--"for this cheat--for this black-leg--for this liar--for
this robber of women."

"Calm yourself, my dear Miss Blanche," the old gentleman said; "I pray
calm yourself. You have been hardly treated, most unjustly. But
remember that you have always a friend in me; and trust to an old
fellow who will try and serve you."

And the young lady, and the heir of the hopeful house of Clavering,
having retired to their beds, the remaining three of the Epsom party
remained for some time in deep consultation.



CHAPTER XXI.

EXPLANATIONS.


[Illustration]

Almost a year, as the reader will perceive, has passed since an event
described a few pages back. Arthur's black coat is about to be
exchanged for a blue one. His person has undergone other more pleasing
and remarkable changes. His wig has been laid aside, and his hair,
though somewhat thinner, has returned to public view. And he has had
the honor of appearing at court in the uniform of a cornet of the
Clavering troop of the----shire Yeomanry Cavalry, being presented to
the sovereign by the Marquis of Steyne.

This was a measure strongly and pathetically urged by Arthur's uncle.
The major would not hear of a year passing before this ceremony of
gentlemanhood was gone through. The old gentleman thought that his
nephew should belong to some rather more select club than the
Megatherium; and has announced every where in the world his
disappointment that the young man's property has turned out not by any
means as well as he could have hoped, and is under fifteen hundred
a year.

That is the amount at which Pendennis's property is set down in the
world, where his publishers begin to respect him much more than
formerly, and where even mammas are by no means uncivil to him. For if
the pretty daughters are, naturally, to marry people of very different
expectations, at any rate, he will be eligible for the plain ones; and
if the brilliant and fascinating Myra is to hook an earl, poor little
Beatrice, who has one shoulder higher than the other, must hang on to
some boor through life, and why should not Mr. Pendennis be her
support? In the very first winter after the accession to his mother's
fortune, Mrs. Hawxby in a country-house caused her Beatrice to learn
billiards from Mr. Pendennis, and would be driven by nobody but him in
the pony carriage, because he was literary and her Beatrice was
literary too, and declared that the young man, under the instigation
of his horrid old uncle, had behaved most infamously in trifling with
Beatrice's feelings. The truth is, the old gentleman, who knew Mrs.
Hawxby's character, and how desperately that lady would practice upon
unwary young men, had come to the country-house in question and
carried Arthur out of the danger of her immediate claws, though not
out of the reach of her tongue. The elder Pendennis would have had his
nephew pass a part of the Christmas at Clavering, whither the family
had returned; but Arthur had not the heart for that. Clavering was too
near poor old Fairoaks; and that was too full of sad recollections for
the young man.

We have lost sight of the Claverings, too, until their reappearance
upon the Epsom race-ground, and must give a brief account of them in
the interval. During the past year, the world has not treated any
member of the Clavering family very kindly. Lady Clavering, one of the
best-natured women that ever enjoyed a good dinner, or made a slip in
grammar, has had her appetite and good-nature sadly tried by constant
family grievances, and disputes such as make the efforts of the best
French cook unpalatable, and the most delicately-stuffed sofa-cushion
hard to lie on. "I'd rather have a turnip, Strong, for dessert, than
that pineapple, and all them Muscatel grapes, from Clavering," says
poor Lady Clavering, looking at her dinner-table, and confiding her
griefs to her faithful friend, "if I could but have a little quiet to
eat it with. Oh, how much happier I was when I was a widow, and before
all this money fell in to me!"

The Clavering family had indeed made a false start in life, and had
got neither comfort, nor position, nor thanks for the hospitalities
which they administered, nor a return of kindness from the people whom
they entertained. The success of their first London season was
doubtful; and their failure afterward notorious. "Human patience was
not great enough to put up with Sir Francis Clavering," people said.
"He was too hopelessly low, dull, and disreputable. You could not say
what, but there was a taint about the house and its _entourages_. Who
was the Begum, with her money, and without her h's, and where did she
come from? What an extraordinary little piece of conceit the daughter
was, with her Gallicised graces and daring affectations, not fit for
well-bred English girls to associate with! What strange people were
those they assembled round about them! Sir Francis Clavering was a
gambler, living notoriously in the society of blacklegs and
profligates. Hely Clinker, who was in his regiment, said that he not
only cheated at cards, but showed the white feather. What could Lady
Rockminster have meant by taking her up?" After the first season,
indeed, Lady Rockminster, who had taken up Lady Clavering, put her
down; the great ladies would not take their daughters to her parties;
the young men who attended them behaved with the most odious freedom
and scornful familiarity; and poor Lady Clavering herself avowed that
she was obliged to take what she called "the canal" into her parlor,
because the tiptops wouldn't come.

She had not the slightest ill-will toward "the canal," the poor, dear
lady, or any pride about herself, or idea that she was better than her
neighbor; but she had taken implicitly the orders which, on her entry
into the world, her social godmother had given her: she had been
willing to know whom they knew, and ask whom they asked. The "canal,"
in fact, was much pleasanter than what is called "society;" but, as we
said before, that to leave a mistress is easy, while, on the contrary,
to be left by her is cruel; so you may give up society without any
great pang, or any thing but a sensation of relief at the parting; but
severe are the mortifications and pains you have if society gives
up you.

One young man of fashion we have mentioned, who at least, it might
have been expected, would have been found faithful among the
faithless, and Harry Foker, Esq., was indeed that young man. But he
had not managed matters with prudence, and the unhappy passion at
first confided to Pen became notorious and ridiculous to the town, was
carried to the ears of his weak and fond mother, and finally brought
under the cognizance of the bald-headed and inflexible Foker senior.

When Mr. Foker learned this disagreeable news, there took place
between him and his son a violent and painful scene which ended in the
poor little gentleman's banishment from England for a year, with a
positive order to return at the expiration of that time and complete
his marriage with his cousin, or to retire into private life and three
hundred a year altogether, and never see parent or brewery more. Mr.
Henry Foker went away, then, carrying with him that grief and care
which passes free at the strictest custom-houses, and which
proverbially accompanies the exile, and with this crape over his eyes,
even the Parisian Boulevard looked melancholy to him, and the sky of
Italy black.

To Sir Francis Clavering, that year was a most unfortunate one. The
events described in the last chapter came to complete the ruin of the
year. It was that year of grace in which, as our sporting readers may
remember, Lord Harrowhill's horse (he was a classical young nobleman,
and named his stud out of the Iliad)--when Podasokus won the "Derby,"
to the dismay of the knowing ones, who pronounced the winning horse's
name in various extraordinary ways, and who backed Borax, who was
nowhere in the race. Sir Francis Clavering, who was intimate with some
of the most rascally characters of the turf, and, of course, had
valuable "information," had laid heavy odds against the winning horse,
and backed the favorite freely, and the result of his dealings was, as
his son correctly stated to poor Lady Clavering, a loss of seven
thousand pounds.

Indeed, it was a cruel blow upon the lady, who had discharged her
husband's debts many times over; who had received as many times his
oaths and promises of amendment; who had paid his money-lenders and
horse-dealers; who had furnished his town and country houses, and who
was called upon now instantly to meet this enormous sum, the penalty
of her cowardly husband's extravagance. It has been described in
former pages how the elder Pendennis had become the adviser of the
Clavering family, and, in his quality of intimate friend of the house,
had gone over every room of it, and even seen that ugly closet which
we all of us have, and in which, according to the proverb, the family
skeleton is locked up. About the baronet's pecuniary matters, if the
major did not know, it was because Clavering himself did not know
them, and hid them from himself and others in such a hopeless
entanglement of lies that it was impossible for adviser or attorney or
principal to get an accurate knowledge of his affairs. But, concerning
Lady Clavering, the major was much better informed; and when the
unlucky mishap of the "Derby" arose, he took upon himself to become
completely and thoroughly acquainted with all her means, whatsoever
they where; and was now accurately informed of the vast and repeated
sacrifices which the widow Amory had made in behalf of her
present husband.

He did not conceal--and he had won no small favor from Miss Blanche by
avowing it--his opinion, that Lady Clavering's daughter had been
hardly treated at the expense of her son by her second marriage: and
in his conversations with Lady Clavering had fairly hinted that he
thought Miss Blanche ought to have a better provision. We have said
that he had already given the widow to understand that he knew _all_
the particulars of her early and unfortunate history, having been in
India at the time when--when the painful circumstances occurred which
had ended in her parting from her first husband. He could tell her
where to find the Calcutta newspaper which contained the account of
Amory's trial, and he showed, and the Begum was not a little grateful
to him for his forbearance, how being aware all along of this mishap
which had befallen her, he had kept all knowledge of it to himself,
and been constantly the friend of her family.

"Interested motives, my dear Lady Clavering," he said, "of course I
may have had. We all have interested motives, and mine I don't conceal
from you, was to make a marriage between my nephew and your daughter."
To which Lady Clavering, perhaps with some surprise that the major
should choose her family for a union with his own, said she was quite
willing to consent.

But frankly he said, "My dear lady, my boy has but five hundred a
year, and a wife with ten thousand pounds to her fortune would
scarcely better him. We could do better for him than that, permit me
to say, and he is a shrewd, cautious young fellow who has sown his
wild oats now--who has very good parts and plenty of ambition--and
whose object in marrying is to better himself. If you and Sir Francis
chose--and Sir Francis, take my word for it, will refuse you
nothing--you could put Arthur in a way to advance very considerably in
the world, and show the stuff which he has in him. Of what use is that
seat in Parliament to Clavering, who scarcely ever shows his face in
the House, or speaks a word there? I'm told by gentlemen who heard my
boy at Oxbridge, that he was famous as an orator, begad!--and once put
his foot into the stirrup and mount him, I've no doubt he won't be the
 last of the field ma'am. I've tested the chap, and know him pretty
well, I think. He is much too lazy, and careless, and flighty a
fellow, to make a jog-trot journey, and arrive, as your lawyers do, at
the end of their lives! but give him a start and good friends, and an
opportunity, and take my word for it, he'll make himself a name that
his sons shall be proud of. I don't see any way for a fellow like him
to _parvenir_, but by making a prudent marriage--not with a beggerly
heiress--to sit down for life upon a miserable fifteen hundred a
year--but with somebody whom he can help, and who can help him forward
in the world, and whom he can give a good name and a station in the
country, begad, in return for the advantages which she brings him. It
would be better for you to have a distinguished son-in-law, than to
keep your husband on in Parliament, who's of no good to himself or to
any body else there, and that's, I say, why I've been interested about
you, and offer you what I think a good bargain for both."

"You know I look upon Arthur as one of the family almost now," said
the good-natured Begum; "he comes and goes when he likes; and the more
I think of his dear mother, the more I see there's few people so
good--none so good to me. And I'm sure I cried when I heard of her
death, and would have gone into mourning for her myself, only black
don't become me. And I know who his mother wanted him to marry
--Laura, I mean--whom old Lady Rockminster has taken such a fancy to,
and no wonder. She's a better girl than my girl. I know both, And my
Betsy--Blanche, I mean--ain't been a comfort to me, major. It's Laura
Penn ought to marry."

"Marry on five hundred a year! My dear good soul, you are mad!" Major
Pendennis said. "Think over what I have said to you. Do nothing in
your affairs with that unhappy husband of yours without consulting me;
and remember that old Pendennis is always your friend."

For some time previous, Pen's uncle had held similar language to Miss
Amory. He had pointed out to her the convenience of the match which he
had at heart, and was bound to say, that mutual convenience was of all
things the very best in the world to marry upon--the only thing. "Look
at your love-marriages, my dear young creature. The love-match people
are the most notorious of all for quarreling, afterward; and a girl
who runs away with Jack to Gretna Green, constantly runs away with Tom
to Switzerland afterward. The great point in marriage is for people to
agree to be useful to one another. The lady brings the means, and the
gentleman avails himself of them. My boy's wife brings the horse, and
begad, Pen goes in and wins the plate. That's what I call a sensible
union. A couple like that have something to talk to each other about
when they come together. If you had Cupid himself to talk to--if
Blanche and Pen were Cupid and Psyche, begad--they'd begin to yawn
after a few evenings, if they had nothing but sentiment to speak on."

As for Miss Amory, she was contented enough with Pen as long as there
was nobody better. And how many other young ladies are like
her?--and how many love marriages carry on well to the last?--and how
many sentimental firms do not finish in bankruptcy?--and how many
heroic passions don't dwindle down into despicable indifference, or
end in shameful defeat?

These views of life and philosophy the major was constantly, according
to his custom, inculcating to Pen, whose mind was such that he could
see the right on both sides of many questions, and comprehending the
sentimental life which was quite out of the reach of the honest
major's intelligence, could understand the practical life too, and
accommodate himself, or think he could accommodate himself to it. So
it came to pass that during the spring succeeding his mother's death
he became a good deal under the influence of his uncle's advice, and
domesticated in Lady Clavering's house; and in a measure was accepted
by Miss Amory without being a suitor, and was received without being
engaged. The young people were extremely familiar, without being
particularly sentimental, and met and parted with each other in
perfect good-humor. "And I," thought Pendennis, "am the fellow who
eight years ago had a grand passion, and last year was raging in a
fever about Briseis!"

Yes, it was the same Pendennis, and time had brought to him, as to the
rest of us, its ordinary consequences, consolations, developments. We
alter very little. When we talk of this man or that woman being no
longer the same person whom we remember in youth, and remark (of
course to deplore) changes in our friends, we don't, perhaps,
calculate that circumstance only brings out the latent defect or
quality, and does not create it. The selfish languor and indifference
of to-day's possession is the consequence of the selfish ardor of
yesterday's pursuit: the scorn and weariness which cries _vanitas
vanitatum_ is but the lassitude of the sick appetite palled with
pleasure: the insolence of the successful _parvenu_ is only the
necessary continuance of the career of the needy struggler: our mental
changes are like our gray hairs or our wrinkles--but the fulfillment
of the plan of mortal growth and decay: that which is snow-white now
was glossy black once; that which is sluggish obesity to-day was
boisterous rosy health a few years back; that calm weariness,
benevolent, resigned, and disappointed, was ambition, fierce and
violent, but a few years since, and has only settled into submissive
repose after many a battle and defeat. Lucky he who can bear his
failure so generously, and give up his broken sword to Fate the
Conqueror with a manly and humble heart! Are you not awe-stricken,
you, friendly reader, who, taking the page up for a moment's light
reading, lay it down, perchance, for a graver reflection--to think how
you, who have consummated your success or your disaster, may be
holding marked station, or a hopeless and nameless place, in the
crowds who have passed through how many struggles of defeat, success,
crime, remorse, to yourself only known!--who may have loved and grown
cold, wept and laughed again, how often!--to think how you are the
same, _You_, whom in childhood you remember, before the voyage of life
began? It has been prosperous, and you are riding into port, the
people huzzaing and the guns saluting,--and the lucky captain bows
from the ship's side, and there is a care under the star on his breast
which no body knows of: or you are wrecked, and lashed, hopeless, to a
solitary spar out at sea:--the sinking man and the successful one are
thinking each about home, very likely, and remembering the time when
they were children; alone on the hopeless spar, drowning out of sight;
alone in the midst of the crowd applauding you.



CHAPTER XXII.

CONVERSATIONS.


[Illustration]

Our good-natured Begum was at first so much enraged at this last
instance of her husband's duplicity and folly, that she refused to
give Sir Francis Clavering any aid in order to meet his debts of
honor, and declared that she would separate from him, and leave him to
the consequences of his incorrigible weakness and waste. After that
fatal day's transactions at the Derby, the unlucky gambler was in such
a condition of mind that he was disposed to avoid every body--alike
his turf-associates with whom he had made debts which he trembled lest
he should not have the means of paying, and his wife, his
long-suffering banker, on whom he reasonably doubted whether he should
be allowed any longer to draw. When Lady Clavering asked the next
morning whether Sir Francis was in the house, she received answer that
he had not returned that night, but had sent a messenger to his valet,
ordering him to forward clothes and letters by the bearer. Strong knew
that he should have a visit or a message from him in the course of
that or the subsequent day, and accordingly got a note beseeching him
to call upon his distracted friend F. C., at Short's Hotel,
Blackfriars, and ask for Mr. Francis there. For the baronet was a
gentleman of that peculiarity of mind that he would rather tell a lie
than not, and always began a contest with fortune by running away and
hiding himself. The boots of Mr. Short's establishment, who carried
Clavering's message to Grosvenor-place, and brought back his
carpet-bag, was instantly aware who was the owner of the bag, and he
imparted his information to the footman who was laying the
breakfast-table, who carried down the news to the servant's hall, who
took it to Mrs. Bonner, my lady's housekeeper and confidential maid,
who carried it to my lady. And thus every single person in the
Grosvenor-place establishment knew that Sir Francis was in hiding,
under the name of Francis, at an inn in the Blackfriar's-road. And Sir
Francis's coachman told the news to other gentlemen's coachmen, who
carried it to their masters, and to the neighboring Tattersall's,
where very gloomy anticipations were formed that Sir Francis Clavering
was about to make a tour in the Levant.

In the course of that day the number of letters addressed to Sir
Francis Clavering, Bart., which found their way to his hall table, was
quite remarkable. The French cook sent in his account to my lady; the
tradesmen who supplied her ladyship's table, and Messrs. Finer and
Gimcrack, the mercers and ornamental dealers, and Madame Crinoline,
the eminent milliner, also forwarded their little bills to her
ladyship in company with Miss Amory's private, and by no means
inconsiderable, account at each establishment.

In the afternoon of the day after the Derby, when Strong (after a
colloquy with his principal at Short's hotel, whom he found crying and
drinking Curaçoa) called to transact business according to his custom
at Grosvenor-place, he found all these suspicious documents ranged in
the baronet's study; and began to open them and examine them with a
rueful countenance.

Mrs. Bonner, my lady's maid and housekeeper, came down upon him while
engaged in this occupation. Mrs. Bonner, a part of the family, and as
necessary to her mistress as the chevalier was to Sir Francis, was of
course on Lady Clavering's side in the dispute between her and her
husband, and as by duty bound even more angry than her ladyship herself.

"She won't pay if she takes my advice," Mrs. Bonner said. "You'll
please to go back to Sir Francis, Captain--and he lurking about in a
low public-house and don't dare to face his wife like a man;--and say
that we won't pay his debts no longer. We made a man of him, we took
him out of jail (and other folks too perhaps), we've paid his debts
over and over again--we set him up in Parliament and gave him a house
in town and country, and where he don't dare to show his face, the
shabby sneak! We've given him the horse he rides, and the dinner he
eats, and the very clothes he has on his back; and we will give him no
more. Our fortune, such as is left of it, is left to ourselves, and we
wont waste any more of it on this ungrateful man. We'll give him
enough to live upon and leave him, that's what we'll do: and that's
what you may tell him from Susan Bonner."

Susan Bonner's mistress hearing of Strong's arrival sent for him at
this juncture, and the chevalier went up to her ladyship not without
hopes that he should find her more tractable than her factotum Mrs.
Bonner. Many a time before had he pleaded his client's cause with Lady
Clavering and caused her good-nature to relent. He tried again once
more. He painted in dismal colors the situation in which he had found
Sir Francis: and would not answer for any consequences which might
ensue if he could not find means of meeting his engagements. "Kill
hisself," laughed Mrs. Bonner, "kill hisself, will he? Dying's the
best thing he could do." Strong vowed that he had found him with the
razors on the table; but at this, in her turn, Lady Clavering laughed
bitterly. "He'll do himself no harm, as long as there's a shilling
left of which he can rob a poor woman. His life's quite safe, captain:
you may depend upon that. Ah! it was a bad day that ever I set eyes
on him."

"He's worse than the first man," cried out my lady's aid-de-camp. "He
was a man, he was--a wild devil, but he had the courage of a
man--whereas this fellow--what's the use of my lady paying his bills,
and selling her diamonds, and forgiving him? He'll be as bad again
next year. The very next chance he has he'll be a cheating of her, and
robbing of her; and her money will go to keep a pack of rogues and
swindlers--I don't mean you, captain--you've been a good friend to us
enough, bating we wish we'd never set eyes on you."

The chevalier saw from the words which Mrs. Bonner had let slip
regarding the diamonds, that the kind Begum was disposed to relent
once more at least, and that there were hopes still for his principal.

"Upon my word, ma'am," he said, with a real feeling of sympathy for
Lady Clavering's troubles, and admiration for her untiring
good-nature, and with a show of enthusiasm which advanced not a little
his graceless patron's cause--"any thing you say against Clavering, or
Mrs. Bonner here cries out against me, is no better than we deserve,
both of us, and it was an unlucky day for you when you saw either. He
has behaved cruelly to you; and if you were not the most generous and
forgiving woman in the world, I know there would be no chance for him.
But you can't let the father of your son be a disgraced man, and send
little Frank into the world with such a stain upon him. Tie him down;
bind him by any promises you like: I vouch for him that he will
subscribe them."

"And break 'em," said Mrs. Bonner.

"And keep 'em this time," cried out Strong. "He must keep them. If you
could have seen how he wept, ma'am! 'Oh, Strong,' he said to me, 'it's
not for myself I feel now: it's for my boy--it's for the best woman in
England, whom I have treated basely--I know I have.' He didn't intend
to bet upon this race, ma'am--indeed he didn't. He was cheated into
it: all the ring was taken in. He thought he might make the bet quite
safely, without the least risk. And it will be a lesson to him for all
his life long. To see a man cry--Oh, it's dreadful."

"He don't think much of making my dear missus cry," said Mrs.
Bonner--"poor dear soul!--look if he does, captain."

"If you've the soul of a man, Clavering," Strong said to his
principal, when he recounted this scene to him, "you'll keep your
promise this time: and, so help me Heaven! if you break word with her,
I'll turn against you, and tell all."

"What, all?" cried Mr. Francis, to whom his embassador brought the
news back at Short's hotel, where Strong found the baronet crying and
drinking Curaçoa.

"Psha! Do you suppose I am a fool?" burst out Strong. "Do you suppose
I could have lived so long in the world, Frank Clavering, with out
having my eyes about me? You know I have but to speak, and you are a
beggar to-morrow. And I am not the only man who knows your secret."

"Who else does?" gasped Clavering.

"Old Pendennis does, or I am very much mistaken. He recognized the man
the first night he saw him, when he came drunk into your house."

"He knows it, does he?" shrieked out Clavering. "Damn him--kill him."

"You'd like to kill us all, wouldn't you old boy?" said Strong, with a
sneer, puffing his cigar.

The baronet dashed his weak hand against his forehead; perhaps the
other had interpreted his wish rightly. "Oh, Strong!" he cried, "if I
dared, I'd put an end to myself, for I'm the d--est miserable dog in
all England. It's that that makes me so wild and reckless. It's that
which makes me take to drink (and he drank, with a trembling hand, a
bumper of his fortifier--the Curaçoa), and to live about with these
thieves. I know they're thieves, every one of em, d--d thieves.
And--and how can I help it?--and I didn't know it, you know--and, by
gad, I'm innocent--and until I saw the d--d scoundrel first, I knew no
more about it than the dead--and I'll fly, and I'll go abroad out of
the reach of the confounded hells, and I'll bury myself in a forest,
by gad! and hang myself up to a tree--and, oh--I'm the most miserable
beggar in all England!" And so with more tears, shrieks, and curses,
the impotent wretch vented his grief and deplored his unhappy fate;
and, in the midst of groans and despair and blasphemy, vowed his
miserable repentance.

The honored proverb which declares that to be an ill wind which blows
good to nobody, was verified in the case of Sir Francis Clavering, and
another of the occupants of Mr. Strong's chambers in Shepherd's Inn.
The man was "good," by a lucky hap, with whom Colonel Altamont made
his bet; and on the settling day of the Derby--as Captain Clinker, who
was appointed to settle Sir Francis Clavering's book for him (for Lady
Clavering, by the advice of Major Pendennis, would not allow the
baronet to liquidate his own money transactions), paid over the notes
to the baronet's many creditors--Colonel Altamont had the satisfaction
of receiving the odds of thirty to one in fifties, which he had taken
against the winning horse of the day.

Numbers of the colonel's friends were present on the occasion to
congratulate him on his luck--all Altamont's own set, and the gents
who met in the private parlor of the convivial Wheeler, my host of the
Harlequin's Head, came to witness their comrade's good fortune, and
would have liked, with a generous sympathy for success, to share in
it. "Now was the time," Tom Driver had suggested to the colonel, "to
have up the specie ship that was sunk in the Gulf of Mexico, with the
three hundred and eighty thousand dollars on board, besides bars and
doubloons." "The Tredyddlums were very low--to be bought for an old
song--never was such an opportunity for buying shares," Mr. Keightley
insinuated; and Jack Holt pressed forward his tobacco-smuggling
scheme, the audacity of which pleased the colonel more than any other
of the speculations proposed to him. Then of the Harlequin's Head
boys: there was Jack Hackstraw, who knew of a pair of horses which the
colonel must buy; Tom Fleet, whose satirical paper, "The Swell,"
wanted but two hundred pounds of capital to be worth a thousand a year
to any man--"with such a power and influence, colonel, you rogue, and
the _entrée_ of all the green-rooms in London," Tom urged; while
little Moss Abrams entreated the colonel not to listen to these absurd
fellows with their humbugging speculations, but to invest his money in
some good bills which Moss could get for him, and which would return
him fifty per cent, as safe as the Bank of England.

Each and all of these worthies came round the colonel with their
various blandishments; but he had courage enough to resist them, and
to button up his notes in the pocket of his coat, and go home to
Strong, and "sport" the outer door of the chambers. Honest Strong had
given his fellow-lodger good advice about all his acquaintances; and
though, when pressed, he did not mind frankly taking twenty pounds
himself out of the colonel's winnings, Strong was a great deal too
upright to let others cheat him.

He was not a bad fellow when in good fortune, this Altamont. He
ordered a smart livery for Grady, and made poor old Costigan shed
tears of quickly dried gratitude by giving him a five-pound note after
a snug dinner at the Back-Kitchen, and he bought a green shawl for
Mrs. Bolton, and a yellow one for Fanny: the most brilliant
"sacrifices" of a Regent-street haberdasher's window. And a short time
after this, upon her birth-day, which happened in the month of June,
Miss Amory received from "a friend" a parcel containing an enormous
brass-inlaid writing-desk, in which there was a set of amethysts, the
most hideous eyes ever looked upon--a musical snuff-box, and two
keepsakes of the year before last, and accompanied with a couple of
gown-pieces of the most astounding colors, the receipt of which goods
made the Sylphide laugh and wonder immoderately. Now it is a fact that
Colonel Altamont had made a purchase of cigars and French silks from
some duffers in Fleet-street about this period; and he was found by
Strong in the open Auction-room, in Cheapside, having invested some
money in two desks, several pairs of richly-plated candlesticks, a
dinner épergne and a bagatelle-board. The dinner épergne remained at
chambers and figured at the banquets there, which the colonel gave
pretty freely. It seemed beautiful in his eyes, until Jack Holt said
it looked as if it had been taken in "a bill." And Jack Holt
certainly knew.

The dinners were pretty frequent at chambers, and Sir Francis Clavering
condescended to partake of them constantly. His own house was
shut up; the successor of Mirobolant, who had sent in his bills so
prematurely, was dismissed by the indignant Lady Clavering; the
luxuriance of the establishment was greatly pruned and reduced. One of
the large footmen was cashiered, upon which the other gave warning,
not liking to serve without his mate, or in a family where on'y one
footman was kep'. General and severe economical reforms were practiced
by the Begum in her whole household, in consequence of the
extravagance of which her graceless husband had been guilty. The
major, as her ladyship's friend; Strong, on the part of poor
Clavering; her ladyship's lawyer, and the honest Begum herself,
executed these reforms with promptitude and severity. After paying the
baronet's debts, the settlement of which occasioned considerable
public scandal, and caused the baronet to sink even lower in the
world's estimation than he had been before, Lady Clavering quitted
London for Tunbridge Wells in high dudgeon, refusing to see her
reprobate husband, whom nobody pitied. Clavering remained in London
patiently, by no means anxious to meet his wife's just indignation,
and sneaked in and out of the House of Commons, whence he and Captain
Raff and Mr. Marker would go to have a game at billiards and a cigar:
or showed in the sporting public-houses; or might be seen lurking
about Lincoln's Inn and his lawyers', where the principals kept him
for hours waiting, and the clerks winked at each other, as he sat in
their office. No wonder that he relished the dinners at Shepherd's
Inn, and was perfectly resigned there: resigned? he was so happy
nowhere else; he was wretched among his equals, who scorned him; but
here he was the chief guest at the table, where they continually
addressed him with "Yes, Sir Francis," and "No, Sir Francis," where he
told his wretched jokes, and where he quavered his dreary little
French song, after Strong had sung his jovial chorus, and honest
Costigan had piped his Irish ditties. Such a jolly menage as Strong's,
with Grady's Irish stew, and the chevalier's brew of punch after
dinner, would have been welcome to many a better man than Clavering,
the solitude of whose great house at home frightened him, where he was
attended only by the old woman who kept the house, and his valet who
sneered at him.

"Yes, dammit," said he, to his friends in Shepherd's Inn. "That fellow
of mine, I must turn him away, only I owe him two years' wages, curse
him, and can't ask my lady. He brings me my tea cold of a morning,
with a dem'd leaden tea-spoon, and he says my lady's sent all the
plate to the banker's because it ain't safe. Now ain't it hard that
she won't trust me with a single tea-spoon--ain't it ungentlemanlike,
Altamont? You know my lady's of low birth--that is--I beg your
pardon--hem--that is, it's most cruel of her not to show more
confidence in me. And the very servants begin to laugh--the dam
scoundrels! I'll break every bone in their great hulking bodies, curse
'em, I will. They don't answer my bell: and--and, my man was at
Vauxhall last night with one of my dress shirts and my velvet
waistcoat on, I know it was mine--the confounded impudent
blackguard--and he went on dancing before my eyes, confound him; I'm
sure he'll live to be hanged--he deserves to be hanged--all those
infernal rascals of valets."

He was very kind to Altamont now: he listened to the colonel's loud
stories when Altamont described how--when he was working his way home
once from New Zealand, where he had been on a whaling expedition--he
and his comrades had been obliged to shirk on board at night, to
escape from their wives, by Jove--and how the poor devils put out in
their canoes when they saw the ship under sail, and paddled madly
after her: how he had been lost in the bush once for three months in
New South Wales, when he was there once on a trading speculation: how
he had seen Boney at Saint Helena, and been presented to him with the
rest of the officers of the Indiaman of which he was a mate--to all
these tales (and over his cups Altamont told many of them; and, it
must be owned, lied and bragged a great deal) Sir Francis now listened
with great attention; making a point of drinking wine with Altamont at
dinner and of treating him with every distinction.

"Leave him alone, I know what he's a-coming to," Altamont said,
laughing to Strong, who remonstrated with him, "and leave me alone; I
know what I'm a-telling, very well. I was officer on board an
Indiaman, so I was; I traded to New South Wales, so I did, in a ship
of my own, and lost her. I became officer to the Nawaub, so I did;
only me and my royal master have had a difference, Strong--that's it.
Who's the better or the worse for what I tell? or knows any thing
about me? The other chap is dead--shot in the bush, and his body
reckonized at Sydney. If I thought any body would split, do you think
I wouldn't wring his neck? I've done as good before now, Strong--I
told you how I did for the overseer before I took leave--but in fair
fight, I mean--in fair fight; or, rayther, he had the best of it. He
had his gun and bay'net, and I had only an ax. Fifty of 'em saw
it--ay, and cheered me when I did it--and I'd do it again,--him,
wouldn't I? I ain't afraid of any body; and I'd have the life of the
man who split upon me. That's my maxim, and pass me the liquor--_You_
wouldn't turn on a man. I know you. You're an honest feller, and will
stand by a feller, and have looked death in the face like a man. But
as for that lily-livered sneak--that poor lyin', swindlin', cringin'
cur of a Clavering--who stands in my shoes--stands in my shoes, hang
him! I'll make him pull my boots off and clean 'em, I will. Ha, ha!"
Here he burst out into a wild laugh, at which Strong got up and put
away the brandy-bottle. The other still laughed good-humoredly.
"You're right, old boy," he said; "you always keep your head cool, you
do--and when I begin to talk too much--I say, when I begin to _pitch_,
I authorize you, and order you, and command you, to put away the
rum-bottle."

"Take my counsel, Altamont," Strong said, gravely, "and mind how you
deal with that man. Don't make it too much his interest to get rid of
you; or who knows what he may do?"

The event for which, with cynical enjoyment, Altamont had been on the
look-out, came very speedily. One day, Strong being absent upon an
errand for his principal, Sir Francis made his appearance in the
chambers, and found the envoy of the Nawaub alone. He abused the world
in general for being heartless and unkind to him: he abused his wife
for being ungenerous to him: he abused Strong for being
ungrateful--hundreds of pounds had he given Ned Strong--been his
friend for life and kept him out of jail, by Jove--and now Ned was
taking her ladyship's side against him and abetting her in her
infernal, unkind treatment of him. "They've entered into a conspiracy
to keep me penniless, Altamont," the baronet said: "they don't give me
as much pocket-money as Frank has at school."

"Why don't you go down to Richmond and borrow of him, Clavering?"
Altamont broke out with a savage laugh. "He wouldn't see his poor old
beggar of a father without pocket-money, would he?"

"I tell you, I've been obliged to humiliate myself cruelly," Clavering
said. "Look here, sir--look here, at these pawn-tickets! Fancy a
member of Parliament and an old English baronet, by gad! obliged to
put a drawing-room clock and a Buhl inkstand up the spout; and a gold
duck's head paper-holder, that I dare say cost my wife five pound, for
which they'd only give me fifteen-and-six! Oh, it's a humiliating
thing, sir, poverty to a man of my habits; and it's made me shed
tears, sir--tears; and that d--d valet of mine--curse him, I wish he
was hanged!--has had the confounded impudence to threaten to tell my
lady: as if the things in my own house weren't my own, to sell or to
keep, or to fling out of window if I chose--by gad! the confounded
scoundrel."

"Cry a little; don't mind cryin' before me--it'll relieve you,
Clavering" the other said. "Why, I say, old feller, what a happy
feller I once thought you, and what a miserable son of a gun you
really are!"

"It's a shame that they treat me so, ain't it," Clavering went
on--for, though ordinarily silent and apathetic, about his own griefs
the baronet could whine for an hour at a time. "And--and, by gad, sir,
I haven't got the money to pay the very cab that's waiting for me at
the door; and the porteress, that Mrs. Bolton, lent me three
shillin's, and I don't like to ask her for any more: and I asked that
d--d old Costigan, the confounded old penniless Irish miscreant, and
he hadn't got a shillin', the beggar; and Campion's out of town, or
else he'd do a little bill for me, I know he would."

"I thought you swore on your honor to your wife that you wouldn't put
your name to paper," said Mr. Altamont, puffing at his cigar.

"Why does she leave me without pocket-money then? Damme, I must have
money," cried out the baronet. "Oh, Am--, Oh, Altamont, I'm the most
miserable beggar alive."

"You'd like a chap to lend you a twenty-pound-note, wouldn't you now?"
the other asked.

"If you would, I'd be grateful to you forever--forever, my dearest
friend," cried Clavering. "How much would you give? Will you give a
fifty-pound bill, at six months, for half down and half in plate,"
asked Altamont.

"Yes, I would, so help me--, and pay it on the day," screamed
Clavering. "I'll make it payable at my banker's: I'll do any thing
you like."

[Illustration]

"Well, I was only chaffing you. I'll _give_ you twenty pound."

"You said a pony," interposed Clavering; "my dear fellow, you said a
pony, and I'll be eternally obliged to you; and I'll not take it as a
gift--only as a loan, and pay you back in six months. I take my oath
I will."

"Well--well--there's the money, Sir Francis Clavering. I ain't a bad
fellow. When I've money in my pocket, dammy, I spend it like a man.
Here's five-and-twenty for you. Don't be losing it at the hells now.
Don't be making a fool of yourself. Go down to Clavering Park, and
it'll keep you ever so long. You needn't 'ave butchers' meat: there's
pigs I dare say on the premises: and you can shoot rabbits for dinner,
you know, every day till the game comes in. Besides, the neighbors
will ask you about to dinner, you know, sometimes: for you _are_ a
baronet, though you have outrun the constable. And you've got this
comfort, that _I'm_ off your shoulders for a good bit to come--p'raps
this two years--if I don't play; and I don't intend to touch the
confounded black and red: and by that time my lady, as you call her--
Jimmy, I used to say--will have come round again; and you'll be ready
for me, you know, and come down handsomely to yours truly."

At this juncture of their conversation Strong returned, nor did the
baronet care much about prolonging the talk, having got the money: and
he made his way from Shepherd's Inn, and went home and bullied his
servant in a manner so unusually brisk and insolent, that the man
concluded his master must have pawned some more of the house
furniture, or at any rate, have come into possession of some
ready money.

"And yet I've looked over the house, Morgan, and I don't think he has
took any more of the things," Sir Francis's valet said to Major
Pendennis's man, as they met at their club soon after. "My lady locked
up a'most all the befews afore she went away, and he couldn't take
away the picters and looking-glasses in a cab: and he wouldn't spout
the fenders and fire-irons--he ain't so bad as that. But he's got
money somehow. He's so dam'd imperent when he have. A few nights ago I
sor him at Vauxhall, where I was a polkin with Lady Hemly Babewood's
gals--a wery pleasant room that is, and an uncommon good lot in it,
hall except the 'ousekeeper, and she's methodisticle--I was a
polkin--you're too old a cove to polk, Mr. Morgan--and 'ere's your
'ealth--and I 'appened to 'ave on some of Clavering's _abberdashery_,
and he sor it too; and he didn't dare so much as speak a word."

"How about the house in St. John's Wood?" Mr. Morgan asked.

"Execution in it.--Sold up hevery thing: ponies and pianna, and
Brougham, and all. Mrs. Montague Rivers hoff to Boulogne--non est
inwentus, Mr. Morgan. It's my belief she put the execution in herself:
and was tired of him."

"Play much?" asked Morgan.

"Not since the smash. When your governor, and the lawyers, and my lady
and him had that tremenduous scene: he went down on his knees, my lady
told Mrs. Bonner, as told me--and swoar as he never more would touch a
card or a dice, or put his name to a bit of paper; and my lady was
a-goin' to give him the notes down to pay his liabilities after the
race: only your governor said (which he wrote it on a piece of paper,
and passed it across the table to the lawyer and my lady), that some
one else had better book up for him, for he'd have kep' some of the
money. He's a sly old cove, your gov'nor." The expression of "old
cove," thus flippantly applied by the younger gentleman to himself and
his master, displeased Mr. Morgan exceedingly. On the first occasion,
when Mr. Lightfoot used the obnoxious expression, his comrade's anger
was only indicated by a silent frown; but on the second offense,
Morgan, who was smoking his cigar elegantly, and holding it on the tip
of his penknife, withdrew the cigar from his lips, and took his young
friend to task.

"Don't call Major Pendennis an old cove, if you'll 'ave the goodness,
Lightfoot, and don't call _me_ an old cove, nether. Such words
ain't used in society; and we have lived in the fust society, both at
'ome and foring. We've been intimate with the fust statesmen of
Europe. When we go abroad we dine with Prince Metternitch and Louy
Philup reg'lar. We go here to the best houses, the tip-tops, I tell
you. We ride with Lord John and the noble Whycount at the edd of
Foring Affairs. We dine with the Earl of Burgrave, and are consulted
by the Marquis of Steyne in every think. We _ought_ to know a
thing or two, Mr. Lightfoot. You're a young man, I'm an old cove, as
you say. We've both seen the world, and we both know that it ain't
money, nor bein' a baronet, nor 'avin' a town and country 'ouse, nor a
paltry five or six thousand a year."

"It's ten, Mr. Morgan," cried Mr. Lightfoot, with great animation.

"It _may_ have been, sir," Morgan said, with calm severity; "it
may have been Mr. Lightfoot, but it ain't six now, nor five, sir. It's
been doosedly dipped and cut into, sir, by the confounded extravygance
of your master, with his helbow-shakin' and his bill discountin', and
his cottage in the Regency Park, and his many wickednesses. He's a bad
un, Mr. Lightfoot--a bad lot, sir, and that you know. And it ain't
money, sir--not such money as that, at any rate, come from a Calcuttar
attorney, and I dessay wrung out of the pore starving blacks--that
will give a pusson position in society, as you know very well. We've
no money, but we go every where; there's not a housekeeper's room,
sir, in this town of any consiquince, where James Morgan ain't
welcome. And it was me who got you into this club, Lightfoot, as you
very well know, though I am an old cove, and they would have
blackballed you without me, as sure as your name is Frederic."

"I know they would, Mr. Morgan," said the other, with much humility.

"Well, then, don't call me an old cove, sir. It ain't gentlemanlike,
Frederic Lightfoot, which I knew you when you was a cab-boy, and when
your father was in trouble, and got you the place you have now when
the Frenchman went away. And if you think, sir, that because you're
making up to Mrs. Bonner, who may have saved her two thousand
pound--and I dare say she has in five-and-twenty years as she have
lived confidential maid to Lady Clavering--yet, sir, you must remember
who put you into that service, and who knows what you were before,
sir, and it don't become you, Frederic Lightfoot, to call me an
old cove."

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Morgan--I can't do more than make an
apology--will you have a glass, sir, and let me drink your 'ealth?"
"You know I don't take sperrits, Lightfoot," replied Morgan, appeased.
"And so you and Mrs. Bonner is going to put up together, are you?"

"She's old, but two thousand pound's a good bit, you see, Mr. Morgan.
And we'll get the 'Clavering Arms' for a very little; and that'll be
no bad thing when the railroad runs through Clavering. And when we are
there, I hope you'll come and see us, Mr. Morgan."

"It's a stoopid place, and no society," said Mr. Morgan. "I know it
well. In Mrs. Pendennis's time we used to go down reg'lar, and the
hair refreshed me after the London racket."

"The railroad will improve Mr. Arthur's property," remarked Lightfoot.
"What's about the figure of it, should you say, sir?"

"Under fifteen hundred, sir," answered Morgan; at which the other, who
knew the extent of poor Arthur's acres, thrust his tongue in his
cheek, but remained wisely silent.

"Is his man any good, Mr. Morgan?" Lightfoot resumed.

"Pigeon ain't used to society as yet; but he's young and has good
talents, and has read a good deal, and I dessay he will do very well,"
replied Morgan. "He wouldn't quite do for _this_ kind of thing,
Lightfoot, for he ain't seen the world yet."

When the pint of sherry for which Mr. Lightfoot called, upon Mr.
Morgan's announcement that he declined to drink spirits, had been
discussed by the two gentlemen, who held the wine up to the light, and
smacked their lips, and winked their eyes at it, and rallied the
landlord as to the vintage, in the most approved manner of
connoisseurs, Morgan's ruffled equanimity was quite restored, and he
was prepared to treat his young friend with perfect good-humor.

"What d'you think about Miss Amory, Lightfoot?--tell us in confidence,
now--do you think we should do well--you understand--if we make Miss
A. into Mrs. A. P.? _Comprendy vous_?"

"She and her ma's always quarrelin'," said Mr. Lightfoot. "Bonner is
more than a match for the old lady, and treats Sir Francis like that--like
this year spill, which I fling into the grate. But she daren't
say a word to Miss Amory. No more dare none of us. When a visitor
comes in, she smiles and languishes, you'd think that butter wouldn't
melt in her mouth: and the minute he is gone, very likely, she flares
up like a little demon, and says things fit to send you wild. If Mr.
Arthur comes, it's 'Do let's sing that there delightful song!' or,
'Come and write me them pooty verses in this halbum!' and very likely
she's been a rilin' her mother, or sticking pins into her maid, a
minute before. She do stick pins into her and pinch her. Mary Hann
showed me one of her arms quite black and blue; and I recklect Mrs.
Bonner, who's as jealous of me as a old cat, boxed her ears for
showing me. And then you should see Miss at luncheon, when there's
nobody but the family! She makes b'leave she never eats, and my! you
should only jest see her. She has Mary Hann to bring her up plum-cakes
and creams into her bedroom; and the cook's the only man in the house
she's civil to. Bonner says, how, the second season in London,
Mr. Soppington was a-goin' to propose for her, and actially came one
day, and sor her fling a book into the fire, and scold her mother so,
that he went down softly by the back droring-room door, which he came
in by; and next thing we heard of him was, he was married to Miss
Rider. Oh, she's a devil, that little Blanche, and that's my candig
apinium, Mr. Morgan."

"Apinion, not apinium, Lightfoot, my good fellow," Mr. Morgan said,
with parental kindness, and then asked of his own bosom with a sigh,
why the deuce does my governor want Master Arthur to marry such a girl
as this? and the _tête-à-tête_ of the two gentlemen was broken up by
the entry of other gentlemen, members of the club--when fashionable
town-talk, politics, cribbage, and other amusements ensued, and the
conversation became general.

The Gentleman's Club was held in the parlor of the Wheel of Fortune
public-house, in a snug little by-lane, leading out of one of the
great streets of May Fair, and frequented by some of the most select
gentlemen about town. Their masters' affairs, debts, intrigues,
adventures; their ladies' good and bad qualities and quarrels with
their husbands; all the family secrets were here discussed with
perfect freedom and confidence, and here, when about to enter into a
new situation, a gentleman was enabled to get every requisite
information regarding the family of which he proposed to become a
member. Liveries it may be imagined were excluded from this select
precinct; and the powdered heads of the largest metropolitan footmen
might bow down in vain, entreating admission into the Gentleman's
Club. These outcast giants in plush took their beer in an outer
apartment of the Wheel of Fortune, and could no more get an entry into
the club room than a Pall Mall tradesman or a Lincoln's Inn attorney
could get admission into Bay's or Spratt's. And it is because the
conversation which we have been permitted to overhear here, in some
measure explains the characters and bearings of our story, that we
have ventured to introduce the reader into a society so exclusive.



CHAPTER XXIII.

THE WAY OF THE WORLD.


[Illustration]

A short time after the piece of good fortune which befel Colonel
Altamont at Epsom, that gentleman put into execution his projected
foreign tour, and the chronicler of the polite world who goes down to
London-bridge for the purpose of taking leave of the people of fashion
who quit this country, announced that among the company on board the
Soho to Antwerp last Saturday, were "Sir Robert, Lady, and the Misses
Hodge; Mr. Sergeant Kewsy, and Mrs. and Miss Kewsy; Colonel Altamont,
Major Coddy, &c." The colonel traveled in state, and as became a
gentleman: he appeared in a rich traveling costume: he drank
brandy-and-water freely during the passage, and was not sick, as some
of the other passengers were; and he was attended by his body servant,
the faithful Irish legionary who had been for some time in waiting
upon himself and Captain Strong in their chambers of Shepherd's Inn.

The chevalier partook of a copious dinner at Blackwall with his
departing friend the colonel, and one or two others, who drank many
healths to Altamont at that liberal gentleman's expense. "Strong, old
boy," the chevalier's worthy chum said, "if you want a little money,
now's your time. I'm your man. You're a good feller, and have been a
good feller to me, and a twenty pound note, more or less, will make no
odds to me." But Strong said, no, he didn't want any money; he was
flush, quite flush--"that is, not flush enough to pay you back your
last loan, Altamont, but quite able to carry on for some time to
come"--and so, with a not uncordial greeting between them, the two
parted. Had the possession of money really made Altamont more honest
and amiable than he had hitherto been, or only caused him to seem
more amiable in Strong's eyes? Perhaps he really was better; and money
improved him. Perhaps it was the beauty of wealth Strong saw and
respected. But he argued within himself "This poor devil, this unlucky
outcast of a returned convict, is ten times as good a fellow as my
friend Sir Francis Clavering, Bart. He has pluck and honesty, in his
way. He will stick to a friend, and face an enemy. The other never had
courage to do either. And what is it that has put the poor devil under
a cloud? He was only a little wild, and signed his father-in-law's
name. Many a man has done worse, and come to no wrong, and holds his
head up. Clavering does. No, he don't hold his head up: he never did
in his best days." And Strong, perhaps, repented him of the falsehood
which he had told to the free-handed colonel, that he was not in want
of money; but it was a falsehood on the side of honesty, and the
chevalier could not bring down his stomach to borrow a second time
from his outlawed friend. Besides, he could get on. Clavering had
promised him some: not that Clavering's promises were much to be
believed, but the chevalier was of a hopeful turn, and trusted in many
chances of catching his patron, and waylaying some of those stray
remittances and supplies, in the procuring of which for his principal
lay Mr. Strong's chief business.


He had grumbled about Altamont's companionship in the Shepherd's Inn
chambers; but he found those lodgings more glum now without his
partner than with him. The solitary life was not agreeable to his
social soul; and he had got into extravagant and luxurious habits,
too, having a servant at his command to run his errands, to arrange
his toilet, and to cook his meal. It was rather a grand and touching
sight now to see the portly and handsome gentleman painting his own
boots, and broiling his own mutton chop. It has been before stated
that the chevalier had a wife, a Spanish lady of Vittoria, who had
gone back to her friends, after a few months' union with the captain,
whose head she broke with a dish. He began to think whether he should
not go back and see his Juanita. The chevalier was growing melancholy
after the departure of his friend the colonel; or, to use his own
picturesque expression, was "down on his luck." These moments of
depression and intervals of ill-fortune occur constantly in the lives
of heroes; Marius at Minturnae, Charles Edward in the Highlands,
Napoleon before Elba. What great man has not been called upon to face
evil fortune? From Clavering no supplies were to be had for some time.
The five-and-twenty pounds, or "pony" which the exemplary baronet had
received from Mr. Altamont, had fled out of Clavering's keeping as
swiftly as many previous ponies. He had been down the river with a
choice party of sporting gents, who dodged the police and landed in
Essex, where they put up Billy Bluck to fight Dick the cabman, whom
the baronet backed, and who had it all his own way for thirteen
rounds, when, by an unluckly blow in the windpipe, Billy killed him.
"It's always my luck, Strong," Sir Francis said; "the betting was
three to one on the cabman, and I thought myself as sure of thirty
pounds, as if I had it in my pocket. And dammy, I owe my man
Lightfoot fourteen pound now which he's lent and paid for me: and he
duns me--the confounded impudent blackguard: and I wish to Heaven I
knew any way of getting a bill done, or of screwing a little out of my
lady! I'll give you half, Ned, upon my soul and honor, I'll give you
half if you can get any body to do us a little fifty."

[Illustration]

But Ned said sternly that he had given his word of honor, as a
gentleman, that he would be no party to any future bill-transactions
in which her husband might engage (who had given his word of honor
too), and the chevalier said that he, at least, would keep his word,
and Would black his own boots all his life rather than break his
promise. And what is more, he vowed he would advise Lady Clavering
that Sir Francis was about to break his faith toward her, upon the
very first hint which he could get that such was Clavering's
intention. Upon this information Sir Francis Clavering, according to
his custom, cried and cursed very volubly. He spoke of death as his
only resource. He besought and implored his dear Strong, his best
friend, his dear old Ned, not to throw him over; and when he quitted
his dearest Ned, as he went down the stairs of Shepherd's Inn, swore
and blasphemed at Ned as the most infernal villain, and traitor, and
blackguard, and coward under the sun, and wished Ned was in his grave,
and in a worse place, only he would like the confounded ruffian to
live, until Frank Clavering had had his revenge out of him.

In Strong's chambers the baronet met a gentleman whose visits were
now, as it has been shown, very frequent in Shepherd's Inn, Mr. Samuel
Huxter, of Clavering. That young fellow, who had poached the walnuts
in Clavering Park in his youth, and had seen the baronet drive through
the street at home with four horses, and prance up to church with
powdered footmen, had an immense respect for his member, and a
prodigious delight in making his acquaintance. He introduced himself,
with much blushing and trepidation, as a Clavering man--son of Mr.
Huxter, of the market-place--father attended Sir Francis's keeper,
Coxwood, when his gun burst and took off three fingers--proud to make
Sir Francis's acquaintance. All of which introduction Sir Francis
received affably. And honest Huxter talked about Sir Francis to the
chaps at Bartholomew's; and told Fanny, in the lodge, that, after all,
there was nothing like a thorough-bred un, a regular good old English
gentleman, one of the olden time! To which Fanny replied, that she
thought Sir Francis was an ojous creature--she didn't know why--but
she couldn't a-bear him--she was sure he was wicked, and low, and
mean--she knew he was; and when Sam to this replied that Sir Francis
was very affable, and had borrowed half a sov' of him quite kindly,
Fanny burst into a laugh, pulled Sam's long hair (which was not yet of
irreproachable cleanliness), patted his chin, and called him a
stoopid, stoopid, old foolish stoopid, and said that Sir Francis was
always borrering money of every body, and that Mar had actially
refused him twice, and had to wait three months to get seven shillings
which he had borrered of 'er.

"Don't say 'er but her, borrer but borrow, actially but actually,
Fanny," Mr. Huxter replied--not to a fault in her argument, but to
grammatical errors in her statement.

"Well then, her, and borrow, and hactually--there then, you stoopid,"
said the other; and the scholar made such a pretty face that the
grammar master was quickly appeased, and would have willingly given
her a hundred more lessons on the spot at the price which he took
for that one.

Of course Mrs. Bolton was by, and I suppose that Fanny and Mr. Sam
were on exceedingly familiar and confidential terms by this time, and
that time had brought to the former certain consolations, and soothed
certain regrets, which are deucedly bitter when they occur, but which
are, no more than tooth-pulling, or any other pang, eternal.

As you sit, surrounded by respect and affection; happy, honored, and
flattered in your old age; your foibles gently indulged; your least
words kindly cherished; your garrulous old stories received for the
hundredth time with dutiful forbearance, and never-failing
hypocritical smiles; the women of your house constant in their
flatteries; the young men hushed and attentive when you begin to
speak; the servants awe-stricken; the tenants cap in hand, and ready
to act in the place of your worship's horses when your honor takes a
drive--it has often struck you, O thoughtful Dives! that this respect,
and these glories, are for the main part transferred, with your
fee-simple, to your successor--that the servants will bow, and the
tenants shout, for your son as for you; that the butler will fetch him
the wine (improved by a little keeping) that's now in your cellar; and
that, when your night is come, and the light of your life is gone
down, as sure as the morning rises after you and without you, the sun
of prosperity and flattery shines on your heir. Men come and bask in
the halo of consols and acres that beams round about him: the
reverence is transferred with the estate; of which, with all its
advantages, pleasures, respect, and good-will, he in turn becomes the
life-tenant. How long do you wish or expect that your people will
regret you? How much time does a man devote to grief before he begins
to enjoy? A great man must keep his heir at his feast like a living
_memento mori_. If he holds very much by life, the presence of the
other must be a constant sting and warning. "Make ready to go," says
the successor to your honor; "I am waiting: and I could hold it as
well as you."

What has this reference to the possible reader, to do with any of the
characters of this history? Do we wish to apologize for Pen because he
has got a white hat, and because his mourning for his mother is
fainter? All the lapse of years, all the career of fortune, all the
events of life, however strongly they may move or eagerly excite him,
never can remove that sainted image from his heart, or banish that
blessed love from its sanctuary. If he yields to wrong, the dear eyes
will look sadly upon him when he dares to meet them; if he does well,
endures pain, or conquers temptation, the ever present love will greet
him, he knows, with approval and pity; if he falls, plead for him; if
he suffers, cheer him;--be with him and accompany him always until
death is past, and sorrow and sin are no more. Is this mere dreaming
or, on the part of an idle storyteller, useless moralizing? May not
the man of the world take his moment, too, to be grave and thoughtful?
Ask of your own hearts and memories, brother and sister, if we do not
live in the dead; and (to speak reverently) prove God by love?

Of these matters Pen and Warrington often spoke in many a solemn and
friendly converse in after days; and Pendennis's mother was worshiped
in his memory, and canonized there, as such a saint ought to be. Lucky
he in life who knows a few such women! A kind provision of Heaven it
was, that sent us such; and gave us to admire that touching and
wonderful spectacle of innocence, and love, and beauty.

But as it is certain that if, in the course of these sentimental
conversations, any outer stranger, Major Pendennis for instance, had
walked into Pen's chambers, Arthur and Warrington would have stopped
their talk, and chosen another subject, and discoursed about the
Opera, or the last debate in Parliament, or Miss Jones's marriage with
Captain Smith, or what not--so let us imagine that the public steps in
at this juncture, and stops the confidential talk between author and
reader, and begs us to resume our remarks about this world, with which
both are certainly better acquainted than with that other one into
which we have just been peeping.

On coming into his property, Arthur Pendennis at first comported
himself with a modesty and equanimity which obtained his friend
Warrington's praises, though Arthur's uncle was a little inclined to
quarrel with his nephew's meanness of spirit, for not assuming greater
state and pretensions now that he had entered on the enjoyment of his
kingdom. He would have had Arthur installed in handsome quarters, and
riding on showy park hacks, or in well-built cabriolets, every day. "I
am too absent," Arthur said, with a laugh, "to drive a cab in London;
the omnibuses would cut me in two, or I should send my horse's head
into the ladies' carriage windows; and you wouldn't have me driven
about by my servant like an apothecary, uncle?" No, Major Pendennis
would on no account have his nephew appear like an apothecary; the
august representative of the house of Pendennis must not so demean
himself. And when Arthur, pursuing his banter, said, "And yet, I
daresay, sir, my father was proud enough when he first set up his
gig," the old major hemmed and ha'd, and his wrinkled face reddened
with a blush as he answered, "You know what Bonaparte said, sir, '_Il
faut laver son linge sale en famille.'_ There is no need, sir, for you
to brag that your father was a--a medical man. He came of a most
ancient but fallen house, and was obliged to reconstruct the family
fortunes as many a man of good family has done before him. You are
like the fellow in Sterne, sir--the marquis who came to demand his
sword again. Your father got back yours for you. You are a man of
landed estate, by Gad, sir, and a gentleman--never forget you are a
gentleman."

Then Arthur slily turned on his uncle the argument which he had heard
the old gentleman often use regarding himself. "In the society which I
have the honor of frequenting through your introduction, who cares to
ask about my paltry means or my humble gentility, uncle?" he asked.
"It would be absurd of me to attempt to compete with the great folks;
and all that thay can ask from us is, that we should have a decent
address and good manners."

"But for all that, sir, I should belong to a better Club or two," the
uncle answered: "I should give an occasional dinner, and select my
society well; and I should come out of that horrible garret in the
Temple, sir." And so Arthur compromised by descending to the second
floor in Lamb-court: Warrington still occupying his old quarters, and
the two friends being determined not to part one from the other.
Cultivate kindly, reader, those friendships of your youth: it is only
in that generous time that they are formed. How different the
intimacies of after days are, and how much weaker the grasp of your
own hand after it has been shaken about in twenty years' commerce with
the world, and has squeezed and dropped a thousand equally careless
palms! As you can seldom fashion your tongue to speak a new language
after twenty, the heart refuses to receive friendship pretty soon: it
gets too hard to yield to the impression.

So Pen had many acquaintances, and being of a jovial and easy turn,
got more daily: but no friend like Warrington; and the two men
continued to live almost as much in common as the Knights of the
Temple, riding upon one horse (for Pen's was at Warrington's service),
and having their chambers and their servitor in common.

Mr. Warrington had made the acquaintance of Pen's friends of
Grosvenor-place during their last unlucky season in London, and had
expressed himself no better satisfied with Sir Francis and Lady
Clavering and her ladyship's daughter than was the public in general.
"The world is right," George said, "about those people. The young men
laugh and talk freely before those ladies, and about them. The girl
sees people whom she has no right to know, and talks to men with whom
no girl should have an intimacy. Did you see those two reprobates
leaning over Lady Clavering's carriage in the Park the other day, and
leering under Miss Blanche's bonnet? No good mother would let her
daughter know those men, or admit them within her doors."

"The Begum is the most innocent and good-natured soul alive,"
interposed Pen. "She never heard any harm of Captain Blackball, or
read that trial in which Charley Lovelace figures. Do you suppose that
honest ladies read and remember the Chronique Scandaleuse as well as
you, you old grumbler?"

"Would you like Laura Bell to know those fellows?" Warrington asked,
his face turning rather red. "Would you let any woman you loved be
contaminated by their company? I have no doubt that poor Begum is
ignorant of their histories. It seems to me she is ignorant of a great
number of better things. It seems to me that your honest Begum is not
a lady, Pen. It is not her fault, doubtless, that she has not had the
education, or learned the refinements of a lady."

"She is as moral as Lady Portsea, who has all the world at her balls,
and as refined as Mrs. Bull, who breaks the king's English, and has
half-a-dozen dukes at her table," Pen answered, rather sulkily. "Why
should you and I be more squeamish than the rest of the world? Why are
we to visit the sins of her fathers on this harmless, kind creature?
She never did any thing but kindness to you or any mortal soul. As far
as she knows she does her best. She does not set up to be more than
she is. She gives you the best dinners she can buy, and the best
company she can get. She pays the debts of that scamp of a husband of
hers. She spoils her boy like the most virtuous mother in England. Her
opinion about literary matters, to be sure, is not much; and I daresay
she never read a line of Wordsworth, or heard of Tennyson in
her life."

"No more has Mrs. Flanagan the laundress," growled out Pen's Mentor;
"no more has Betty the housemaid; and I have no word of blame against
them. But a high-souled man doesn't make friends of these. A
gentleman doesn't choose these for his companions, or bitterly rues it
afterward if he do. Are you, who are setting up to be a man of the
world and philosopher, to tell me that the aim of life is to guttle
three courses and dine off silver? Do you dare to own to yourself that
your ambition in life is good claret, and that you'll dine with any,
provided you get a stalled ox to feed on? You call me a Cynic--why,
what a monstrous Cynicism it is, which you and the rest of you men of
the world admit. I'd rather live upon raw turnips and sleep in a
hollow tree, or turn backwoodsman or savage, than degrade myself to
this civilization, and own that a French cook was the thing in life
best worth living for."

"Because you like a raw beef-steak and a pipe afterward," broke out
Pen, "you give yourself airs of superiority over people, whose tastes
are more dainty, and are not ashamed of the world they live in. Who
goes about professing particular admiration, or esteem, or friendship,
or gratitude, even for the people one meets every day? If A. asks me
to his house, and gives me his best, I take his good things for what
they are worth, and no more. I do not profess to pay him back in
friendship, but in the convention's money of society. When we part, we
part without any grief. When we meet, we are tolerably glad to see one
another. If I were only to live with my friends, your black muzzle,
old George, is the only face I should see."

"You are your uncle's pupil," said Warrington, rather sadly; "and you
speak like a worldling."

"And why not?" asked Pendennis; "why not acknowledge the world I stand
upon, and submit to the conditions of the society which we live in and
live by? I am older than you, George, in spite of your grizzled
whiskers, and have seen much more of the world than you have in your
garret here, shut up with your books and your reveries and your ideas
of one-and-twenty. I say, I take the world as it is, and being of it,
will not be ashamed of it. If the time is out of joint, have I any
calling or strength to set it right?"

"Indeed, I don't think you have much of either," growled Pen's
interlocutor.

"If I doubt whether I am better than my neighbor," Arthur
continued--"if I concede that I am no better--I also doubt whether he
is better than I. I see men who begin with ideas of universal reform,
and who, before their beards are grown, propound their loud plans for
the regeneration of mankind, give up their schemes after a few years
of bootless talking and vain-glorious attempts to lead their fellows;
and after they have found that men will no longer hear them, as indeed
they never were in the least worthy to be heard, sink quietly into the
rank and file--acknowledging their aims impracticable, or thankful
that they were never put into practice. The fiercest reformers grow
calm, and are fain to put up with things as they are: the loudest
Radical orators become dumb, quiescent placemen: the most fervent
Liberals, when out of power, become humdrum Conservatives, or
downright tyrants or despots in office. Look at Thiers, look at
Guizot, in opposition and in place! Look at the Whigs appealing
to the country, and the Whigs in power! Would you say that the conduct
of these men is an act of treason, as the Radicals bawl--who would
give way in their turn, were their turn ever to come? No, only that
they submit to circumstances which are stronger than they--march as
the world marches toward reform, but at the world's pace (and the
movements of the vast body of mankind must needs be slow)--forego this
scheme as impracticable, on account of opposition--that as immature,
because against the sense of the majority--are forced to calculate
drawbacks and difficulties, as well as to think of reforms and
advances--and compelled finally to submit, and to wait, and to
compromise."

"The Right Honorable Arthur Pendennis could not speak better, or be
more satisfied with himself, if he was First Lord of the Treasury and
Chancellor of the Exchequer," Warrington said.

"Self-satisfied? Why self-satisfied?" continued Pen. "It seems to me
that my skepticism is more respectful and more modest than the
revolutionary ardor of other folks. Many a patriot of eighteen, many a
spouting-club orator, would turn the bishops out of the House of Lords
to-morrow, and throw the lords out after the bishops, and throw the
throne into the Thames after the peers and the bench. Is that man more
modest than I, who take these institutions as I find them, and wait
for time and truth to develop, or fortify, or (if you like) destroy
them? A college tutor, or a nobleman's toady, who appears one fine day
as my right reverend lord, in a silk apron and a shovel-hat, and
assumes benedictory airs over me, is still the same man we remember at
Oxbridge, when he was truckling to the tufts, and bullying the poor
under-graduates in the lecture-room. An hereditary legislator, who
passes his time with jockeys and blacklegs and ballet-girls, and who
is called to rule over me and his other betters, because his
grandfather made a lucky speculation in the funds, or found a coal or
tin-mine on his property, or because his stupid ancestor happened to
be in command of ten thousand men as brave as himself, who overcame
twelve thousand Frenchmen, or fifty thousand Indians--such a man, I
say, inspires me with no more respect than the bitterest democrat can
feel toward him. But, such as he is, he is a part of the old society
to which we belong: and I submit to his lordship with acquiescence;
and he takes his place above the best of us at all dinner parties, and
there bides his time. I don't want to chop his head off with a
guillotine, or to fling mud at him in the streets. When they call such
a man a disgrace to his order; and such another, who is good and
gentle, refined and generous, who employs his great means in promoting
every kindness and charity, and art and grace of life, in the kindest
and most gracious manner, an ornament to his rank--the question as to
the use and propriety of the order is not in the least affected one
way or other. There it is, extant among us, a part of our habits, the
creed of many of us, the growth of centuries, the symbol of a most
complicated tradition--there stand my lord the bishop and my lord the
hereditary legislator--what the French call _transactions_ both of
them--representing in their present shape mail-clad barons and
double-sworded chiefs (from whom their lordships the hereditaries,
for the most part, _don't_ descend), and priests, professing to hold
an absolute truth and a divinely inherited power, the which truth
absolute our ancestors burned at the stake, and denied there; the
which divine transmissible power still exists in print--to be
believed, or not, pretty much at choice; and of these, I say, I
acquiesce that they exist, and no more. If you say that these schemes,
devised before printing was known, or steam was born; when thought was
an infant, scared and whipped; and truth under its guardians was
gagged, and swathed, and blindfolded, and not allowed to lift its
voice, or to look out or to walk under the sun; before men were
permitted to meet, or to trade, or to speak with each other--if any
one says (as some faithful souls do) that these schemes are for ever,
and having been changed, and modified constantly are to be subject to
no farther development or decay, I laugh, and let the man speak. But I
would have toleration for these, as I would ask it for my own
opinions; and if they are to die, I would rather they had a decent and
natural than an abrupt and violent death."

"You would have sacrificed to Jove," Warrington said, "had you lived
in the time of the Christian persecutions."

"Perhaps I would," said Pen, with some sadness. "Perhaps I am a
coward--perhaps my faith is unsteady; but this is my own reserve. What
I argue here is that I will not persecute. Make a faith or a dogma
absolute, and persecution becomes a logical consequence; and Dominic
burns a Jew, or Calvin an Arian, or Nero a Christian, or Elizabeth or
Mary a Papist or Protestant; or their father both or either, according
to his humor; and acting without any pangs of remorse--but, on the
contrary, with strict notions of duty fulfilled. Make dogma absolute,
and to inflict or to suffer death becomes easy and necessary; and
Mahomet's soldiers shouting 'Paradise! Paradise!' and dying on the
Christian spears, are not more or less praiseworthy than the same men
slaughtering a townful of Jews, or cutting off the heads of all
prisoners who would not acknowledge that there was but one prophet
of God."

"A little while since, young one," Warrington said, who had been
listening to his friend's confessions neither without sympathy nor
scorn, for his mood led him to indulge in both, "you asked me why I
remained out of the strife of the world, and looked on at the great
labor of my neighbor without taking any part in the struggle. Why,
what a mere dilettante you own yourself to be, in this confession of
general skepticism, and what a listless spectator yourself! You are
six-and-twenty years old, and as _blase_ as a rake of sixty. You
neither hope much, nor care much, nor believe much. You doubt about
other men as much as about yourself. Were it made of such
_pococuranti_ as you, the world would be intolerable; and I had rather
live in a wilderness of monkeys, and listen to their chatter, than in
a company of men who denied every thing."

"Were the world composed of Saint Bernards or Saint Dominics, it would
be equally odious," said Pen, "and at the end of a few scores of years
would cease to exist altogether. Would you have every man with his
head shaved, and every woman in a cloister--carrying out to the full
the ascetic principle? Would you have conventicle hymns twanging from
every lane in every city in the world? Would you have all the birds of
the forest sing one note and fly with one feather? You call me a
skeptic because I acknowledge what _is_; and in acknowledging that, be
it linnet or lark, a priest or parson, be it, I mean, any single one
of the infinite varieties of the creatures of God (whose very name I
would be understood to pronounce with reverence, and never to approach
but with distant awe), I say that the study and acknowledgment of that
variety among men especially increases our respect and wonder for the
Creator, Commander, and Ordainer of all these minds, so different and
yet so united--meeting in a common adoration, and offering up each
according to his degree and means of approaching the Divine centre,
his acknowledgment of praise and worship, each singing (to recur to
the bird simile) his natural song."

"And so, Arthur, the hymn of a saint, or the ode of a poet, or the
chant of a Newgate thief, are all pretty much the same in your
philosophy," said George.

"Even that sneer could be answered were it to the point," Pendennis
replied; "but it is not; and it could be replied to you, that even to
the wretched outcry of the thief on the tree, the wisest and the best
of all teachers we know of, the untiring Comforter and Consoler,
promised a pitiful hearing and a certain hope. Hymns of saints! Odes
of poets! who are we to measure the chances and opportunities, the
means of doing, or even judging, right and wrong, awarded to men; and
to establish the rule for meting out their punishments and rewards? We
are as insolent and unthinking in judging of men's morals as of their
intellects. We admire this man as being a great philosopher, and set
down the other as a dullard, not knowing either, or the amount of
truth in either, or being certain of the truth any where. We sing Te
Deum for this hero who has won a battle, and De Profundis for that
other one who has broken out of prison, and has been caught afterward
by the policemen. Our measure of rewards and punishments is most
partial and incomplete, absurdly inadequate, utterly worldly, and we
wish to continue it into the next world. Into that next and awful
world we strive to pursue men, and send after them our impotent party
verdicts of condemnation or acquittal. We set up our paltry little
rods to measure Heaven immeasurable, as if, in comparison to that,
Newton's mind or Pascal's or Shakspeare's was any loftier than mine;
as if the ray which travels from the sun would reach me sooner than
the man who blacks my boots. Measured by that altitude, the tallest
and the smallest among us are so alike diminutive and pitifully base,
that I say we should take no count of the calculation, and it is a
meanness to reckon the difference."

"Your figure fails there, Arthur," said the other, better pleased; "if
even by common arithmetic we can multiply as we can reduce almost
infinitely, the Great Reckoner must take count of all; and the small
is not small, or the great great, to his infinity."

"I don't call those calculations in question," Arthur said: "I only
say that yours are incomplete and premature; false in consequence,
and, by every operation, multiplying into wider error. I do not
condemn the man who murdered Socrates and damned Galileo. I say that
they damned Galileo and murdered Socrates."

"And yet but a moment since you admitted the propriety of acquiescence
in the present, and, I suppose, all other tyrannies?"

"No: but that if an opponent menaces me, of whom and without cost of
blood and violence I can get rid, I would rather wait him out, and
starve him out, than fight him out. Fabius fought Hannibal
skeptically. Who was his Roman coadjutor, whom we read of in Plutarch
when we were boys, who scoffed at the other's procrastination and
doubted his courage, and engaged the enemy and was beaten for
his pains?"

In these speculations and confessions of Arthur, the reader may
perhaps see allusions to questions which, no doubt, have occupied and
discomposed himself, and which he has answered by very different
solutions to those come to by our friend. We are not pledging
ourselves for the correctness of his opinions, which readers will
please to consider are delivered dramatically, the writer being no
more answerable for them, than for the sentiments uttered by any other
character of the story: our endeavor is merely to follow out, in its
progress, the development of the mind of a worldly and selfish, but
not ungenerous or unkind, or truth-avoiding man. And it will be seen
that the lamentable stage to which his logic at present has brought
him, is one of general skepticism and sneering acquiescence in the
world as it is; or if you like so to call it, a belief qualified with
scorn in all things extant. The tastes and habits of such a man
prevent him from being a boisterous demagogue, and his love of truth
and dislike of cant keep him from advancing crude propositions, such
as many loud reformers are constantly ready with; much more of
uttering downright falsehoods in arguing questions or abusing
opponents, which he would die or starve rather than use. It was not in
our friend's nature to be able to utter certain lies; nor was he
strong enough to protest against others, except with a polite sneer;
his maxim being, that he owed obedience to all Acts of Parliament, as
long as they were not repealed.

And to what does this easy and skeptical life lead a man? Friend
Arthur was a Sadducee, and the Baptist might be in the Wilderness
shouting to the poor, who were listening with all their might and
faith to the preacher's awful accents and denunciations of wrath or
woe or salvation; and our friend the Sadducee would turn his sleek
mule with a shrug and a smile from the crowd, and go home to the shade
of his terrace, and muse over preacher and audience, and turn to his
roll of Plato, or his pleasant Greek song-book babbling of honey and
Hybla, and nymphs and fountains and love. To what, we say, does this
skepticism lead? It leads a man to a shameful loneliness and
selfishness, so to speak--the more shameful, because it is so
good-humored and conscienceless and serene. Conscience! What is
conscience? Why accept remorse? What is public or private faith?
Mythuses alike enveloped in enormous tradition. If seeing and
acknowledging the lies of the world, Arthur, as see them you can with
only too fatal a clearness, you submit to them without any protest
farther than a laugh: if plunged yourself in easy sensuality, you
allow the whole wretched world to pass groaning by you unmoved: if the
fight for the truth is taking place, and all men of honor are on the
ground armed on the one side or the other, and you alone are to lie on
your balcony and smoke your pipe out of the noise and the danger, you
had better have died, or never have been at all, than such a
sensual coward.

"The truth, friend!" Arthur said, imperturbably; "where is the truth?
Show it me. That is the question between us. I see it on both sides. I
see it in the Conservative side of the house, and among the Radicals,
and even on the ministerial benches. I see it in this man who worships
by act of Parliament, and is rewarded with a silk apron and five
thousand a year; in that man, who, driven fatally by the remorseless
logic of his creed, gives up every thing, friends, fame, dearest ties,
closest vanities, the respect of an army of churchmen, the recognized
position of a leader, and passes over, truth-impelled, to the enemy,
in whose ranks he will serve henceforth as a nameless private
soldier:--I see the truth in that man, as I do in his brother, whose
logic drives him to quite a different conclusion, and who, after
having passed a life in vain endeavors to reconcile an irreconcileable
book, flings it at last down in despair, and declares, with tearful
eyes, and hands up to heaven, his revolt and recantation. If the truth
is with all these, why should I take side with any one of them? Some
are called upon to preach: let them preach. Of these preachers there
are somewhat too many, methinks, who fancy they have the gift. But we
can not all be parsons in church, that is clear. Some must sit silent
and listen, or go to sleep mayhap. Have we not all our duties? The
head charity-boy blows the bellows; the master canes the other boys in
the organ-loft; the clerk sings out Amen from the desk; and the beadle
with the staff opens the door for his Reverence, who rustles in silk
up to the cushion. I won't cane the boys, nay, or say Amen always, or
act as the church's champion and warrior, in the shape of the beadle
with the staff; but I will take off my hat in the place, and say my
prayers there too, and shake hands with the clergyman as he steps on
the grass outside. Don't I know that his being there is a compromise,
and that he stands before me an Act of Parliament? That the church he
occupies was built for other worship? That the Methodist chapel is
next door; and that Bunyan the tinker is bawling out the tidings of
damnation on the common hard by? Yes, I am a Sadducee; and I take
things as I find them, and the world, and the Acts of Parliament of
the world, as they are; and as I intend to take a wife, if I find
one--not to be madly in love and prostrate at her feet like a
fool--not to worship her as an angel, or to expect to find her as
such--but to be good-natured to her, and courteous, expecting
good-nature and pleasant society from her in turn. And so, George, if
ever you hear of my marrying, depend on it, it won't be a romantic
attachment on my side: and if you hear of any good place under
Government, I have no particular scruples that I know of, which would
prevent me from accepting your offer."

"O Pen, you scoundrel! I know what you mean," here Warrington broke
out. "This is the meaning of your skepticism, of your quietism, of
your atheism, my poor fellow. You're going to sell yourself, and
Heaven help you! You're going to make a bargain which will degrade you
and make you miserable for life, and there's no use talking of it. If
you are once bent on it, the devil won't prevent you."

"On the contrary, he's on my side, isn't he, George?" said Pen with a
laugh. "What good cigars these are! Come down and have a little dinner
at the Club; the _chef's_ in town, and he'll cook a good one for me.
No, you won't? Don't be sulky, old boy, I'm going down to--to the
country to-morrow."



CHAPTER XXIV.

WHICH ACCOUNTS PERHAPS FOR CHAPTER XXIII.


[Illustration]

The information regarding the affairs of the Clavering
family, which Major Pendennis had acquired through Strong, and by his
own personal interference as the friend of the house, was such as
almost made the old gentleman pause in any plans which he might have
once entertained for his nephew's benefit. To bestow upon Arthur a
wife with two such fathers-in-law as the two worthies whom the
guileless and unfortunate Lady Clavering had drawn in her marriage
ventures, was to benefit no man. And though the one, in a manner,
neutralized the other, and the appearance of Amory or Altamont in
public would be the signal for his instantaneous withdrawal and
condign punishment--for the fugitive convict had cut down the officer
in charge of him--and a rope would be inevitably his end, if he came
again under British authorities; yet, no guardian would like to secure
for his ward a wife, whose parent was to be got rid of in such a way;
and the old gentleman's notion always had been that Altamont, with the
gallows before his eyes, would assuredly avoid recognition; while, at
the same time, by holding the threat of his discovery over Clavering,
the latter, who would lose every thing by Amory's appearance, would be
a slave in the hands of the person who knew so fatal a secret.

But if the Begum paid Clavering's debts many times more, her wealth
would be expended altogether upon this irreclaimable reprobate: and
her heirs, whoever they might be, would succeed but to an emptied
treasury; and Miss Amory, instead of bringing her husband a good
income and a seat in Parliament, would bring to that individual her
person only, and her pedigree with that lamentable note of _sus per
coll_ at the name of the last male of her line.

There was, however, to the old schemer revolving these things in his
mind, another course yet open; the which will appear to the reader who
may take the trouble to peruse a conversation, which presently ensued,
between Major Pendennis and the honorable baronet, the member for
Clavering.

When a man, under pecuniary difficulties, disappears from among his
usual friends and equals--dives out of sight, as it were, from the
flock of birds in which he is accustomed to sail, it is wonderful at
what strange and distant nooks he comes up again for breath. I have
known a Pall Mall lounger and Rotten Row buck, of no inconsiderable
fashion, vanish from among his comrades of the Clubs and the Park, and
be discovered, very happy and affable, at an eighteenpenny ordinary in
Billingsgate: another gentleman, of great learning and wit, when out
running the constables (were I to say he was a literary man, some
critics would vow that I intended to insult the literary profession),
once sent me his address at a little public-house called the "Fox
under the Hill," down a most darksome and cavernous archway in the
Strand. Such a man, under such misfortunes, may have a house, but he
is never in his house; and has an address where letters may be left;
but only simpletons go with the hopes of seeing him. Only a few of the
faithful know where he is to be found, and have the clew to his
hiding-place. So, after the disputes with his wife, and the
misfortunes consequent thereon, to find Sir Francis Clavering at home
was impossible. "Ever since I hast him for my book, which is fourteen
pound, he don't come home till three o'clock, and purtends to be
asleep when I bring his water of a mornin', and dodges hout when I'm
down stairs," Mr. Lightfoot remarked to his friend Morgan; and
announced that he should go down to my Lady, and be butler there, and
marry his old woman. In like manner, after his altercations with
Strong, the baronet did not come near him, and fled to other haunts,
out of the reach of the chevalier's reproaches; out of the reach of
conscience, if possible, which many of us try to dodge and leave
behind us by changes of scenes and other fugitive stratagems.

So, though the elder Pendennis, having his own ulterior object, was
bent upon seeing Pen's country neighbor and representative in
Parliament, it took the major no inconsiderable trouble and time
before he could get him into such a confidential state and
conversation, as were necessary for the ends which the major had in
view. For since the major had been called in as family friend, and had
cognizance of Clavering's affairs, conjugal and pecuniary, the baronet
avoided him: as he always avoided all his lawyers and agents when
there was an account to be rendered, or an affair of business to be
discussed between them; and never kept any appointment but when its
object was the raising of money. Thus, previous to catching this most
shy and timorous bird, the major made more than one futile attempt to
hold him; on one day it was a most innocent-looking invitation to
dinner at Greenwich, to meet a few friends; the baronet accepted,
suspected something, and did not come; leaving the major (who indeed
proposed to represent in himself the body of friends) to eat his
whitebait done: on another occasion the major wrote and asked for
ten minutes' talk, and the baronet instantly acknowledged the note,
and made the appointment at four o'clock the next day at Bays's
_precisely_ (he carefully underlined the "precisely"); but though four
o'clock came, as in the course of time and destiny it could not do
otherwise, no Clavering made his appearance. Indeed, if he had
borrowed twenty pounds of Pendennis, he could not have been more
timid, or desirous of avoiding the major; and the latter found that it
was one thing to seek a man, and another to find him.

Before the close of that day in which Strong's patron had given the
chevalier the benefit of so many blessings before his face and curses
behind his back, Sir Francis Clavering who had pledged his word and
his oath to his wife's advisers to draw or accept no more bills of
exchange, and to be content with the allowance which his victimized
wife still awarded him, had managed to sign his respectable name to a
piece of stamped paper, which the baronet's friend, Mr. Moss Abrams,
had carried off, promising to have the bill "done" by a party with
whose intimacy Mr. Abrams was favored. And it chanced that Strong
heard of this transaction at the place where the writings had been
drawn--in the back parlor, namely, of Mr. Santiago's cigar-shop,
where the chevalier was constantly in the habit of spending an hour in
the evening.

"He is at his old work again," Mr. Santiago told his customer. "He and
Moss Abrams were in my parlor. Moss sent out my boy for a stamp. It
must have been a bill for fifty pound. I heard the baronet tell Moss
to date it two months back. He will pretend that it is an old bill,
and that he forgot it when he came to a settlement with his wife the
other day. I daresay they will give him some more money now he is
clear." A man who has the habit of putting his unlucky name to
"promises to pay" at six months, has the satisfaction of knowing, too,
that his affairs are known and canvassed, and his signature handed
round among the very worst knaves and rogues of London.

Mr. Santiago's shop was close by St. James's-street and Bury-street,
where we have had the honor of visiting our friend Major Pendennis in
his lodgings. The major was walking daintily toward his apartment, as
Strong, burning with wrath and redolent of Havanna, strode along the
same pavement opposite to him.

"Confound these young men: how they poison every thing with their
smoke," thought the major. "Here comes a fellow with mustaches and a
cigar. Every fellow who smokes and wears mustaches is a low fellow.
Oh! it's Mr. Strong--I hope you are well, Mr. Strong?" and the old
gentleman, making a dignified bow to the chevalier, was about to pass
into his house; directing toward the lock of the door, with trembling
hand, the polished door-key.

We have said, that, at the long and weary disputes and conferences
regarding the payment of Sir Francis Clavering's last debts, Strong
and Pendennis had both been present as friends and advisers of the
baronet's unlucky family. Strong stopped and held out his hand to his
brother negotiator, and old Pendennis put out toward him a couple of
ungracious fingers.

"What is your good news?" said Major Pendennis, patronizing the other
still farther, and condescending to address to him an observation, for
old Pendennis had kept such good company all his life, that he vaguely
imagined he honored common men by speaking to them. "Still in town,
Mr. Strong? I hope I see you well."

"My news is bad news, sir," Strong answered; "it concerns our friends
at Tunbridge Wells, and I should like to talk to you about it.
Clavering is at his old tricks again, Major Pendennis."

"Indeed! Pray do me the favor to come into my lodging," cried the
major with awakened interest; and the pair entered and took possession
of his drawing-room. Here seated, Strong unburdened himself of his
indignation to the major, and spoke at large of Clavering's
recklessness and treachery. "No promises will bind him sir," he said.
"You remember when we met, sir, with my lady's lawyer, how he wouldn't
be satisfied with giving his honor, but wanted to take his oath on his
knees to his wife, and rang the bell for a Bible, and swore perdition
on his soul if he ever would give another bill. He has been signing
one this very day, sir: and will sign as many more as you please for
ready money: and will deceive any body, his wife or his child, or his
old friend, who has backed him a hundred times. Why, there's a bill of
his and mine will be due next week--"

"I thought we had paid all--"

"Not that one," Strong said, blushing. "He asked me not to mention it,
and--and--I had half the money for that, major. And they will be down
on me. But I don't care for it; I'm used to it. It's Lady Clavering
that riles me. It's a shame that that good-natured woman, who has paid
him out of jail a score of times, should be ruined by his
heartlessness. A parcel of bill-stealers, boxers, any rascals, get his
money; and he don't scruple to throw an honest fellow over. Would you
believe it, sir, he took money of Altamont--you know whom I mean."

"Indeed? of that singular man, who I think came tipsy once to Sir
Francis's house?" Major Pendennis said, with impenetrable countenance.
"Who _is_ Altamont, Mr. Strong?"

"I am sure I don't know, if you don't know," the chevalier answered,
with a look of surprise and suspicion.

"To tell you frankly," said the major, "I have my suspicions. I
suppose--mind, I only suppose--that in our friend Clavering's life--
who, between you and me, Captain Strong, we must own is about as loose
a fish as any in my acquaintance--there are, no doubt, some queer
secrets and stories which he would not like to have known: none of us
would. And very likely this fellow, who calls himself Altamont, knows
some story against Clavering, and has some hold on him, and gets money
out of him on the strength of his information. I know some of the best
men of the best families in England who are paying through the nose in
that way. But their private affairs are no business of mine, Mr.
Strong; and it is not to be supposed that because I go and dine with
a man, I pry into his secrets, or am answerable for all his past
life. And so with our friend Clavering, I am most interested for his
wife's sake, and her daughter's, who is a most charming creature: and
when her ladyship asked me, I looked into her affairs, and tried to
set them straight; and shall do so again, you understand, to the hest
of my humble power and ability, if I can make myself useful. And if I
am called upon--you understand, if I am called upon--and--by-the-way,
this Mr. Altamont, Mr. Strong? How is this Mr. Altamont? I believe you
are acquainted with him. Is he in town?"

"I don't know that I am called upon to know where he is, Major
Pendennis," said Strong, rising and taking up his hat in dudgeon, for
the major's patronizing manner and impertinence of caution offended
the honest gentleman not a little.

Pendennis's manner altered at once from a tone of hauteur to one of
knowing good-humor. "Ah, Captain Strong, you are cautious too, I see;
and quite right, my good sir, quite right. We don't know what ears
walls may have, sir, or to whom we may be talking; and as a man of the
world, and an old soldier--an old and distinguished soldier, I have
been told, Captain Strong--you know very well that there is no use in
throwing away your fire; you may have your ideas, and I may put two
and two together and have mine. But there are things which don't
concern him that many a man had better not know, eh, captain? and
which I, for one, won't know until I have reason for knowing them: and
that I believe is your maxim too. With regard to our friend the
baronet, I think with you, it would be most advisable that he should
be checked in his imprudent courses; and most strongly reprehend any
man's departure from his word, or any conduct of his which can give
any pain to his family, or cause them annoyance in any way. That is my
full and frank opinion, and I am sure it is yours."

"Certainly," said Mr. Strong, drily.

"I am delighted to hear it; delighted, that an old brother soldier
should agree with me so fully. And I am exceedingly glad of the lucky
meeting which has procured me the good fortune of your visit. Good
evening. Thank you. Morgan, show the door to Captain Strong."

And Strong, preceded by Morgan, took his leave of Major Pendennis; the
chevalier not a little puzzled at the old fellow's prudence; and the
valet, to say the truth, to the full as much perplexed at his master's
reticence. For Mr. Morgan, in his capacity of accomplished valet,
moved here and there in a house as silent as a shadow; and, as it so
happened, during the latter part of his master's conversation with his
visitor, had been standing very close to the door, and had overheard
not a little of the talk between, the two gentlemen, and a great deal
more than he could understand.

"Who is that Altamont? know any thing about him and Strong?" Mr.
Morgan asked of Mr. Lightfoot, on the next convenient occasion when
they met at the Club.

"Strong's his man of business, draws the governor's bills, and
indosses 'em, and does his odd jobs and that; and I suppose
Altamont's in it too," Mr. Lightfoot replied. "That kite-flying, you
know, Mr. M. always takes two or three on 'em to set the paper going.
Altamont put the pot on at the Derby, and won a good bit of money. I
wish the governor could get some somewhere, and I could get my
book paid up."

"Do you think my lady would pay his debts again?" Morgan asked "Find
out that for me, Lightfoot, and I'll make it worth your while my boy."

Major Pendennis had often said with a laugh, that his valet Morgan was
a much richer man than himself: and, indeed, by a long course of
careful speculation, this wary and silent attendant had been amassing
a considerable sum of money, during the years which he had passed in
the major's service, where he had made the acquaintance of many other
valets of distinction, from whom he had learned the affairs of their
principals. When Mr. Arthur came into his property, but not until
then, Morgan had surprised the young gentleman, by saying that he had
a little sum of money, some fifty or a hundred pound, which he wanted
to lay out to advantage; perhaps the gentlemen in the Temple, knowing
about affairs and business and that, could help a poor fellow to a
good investment? Morgan would be very much obliged to Mr. Arthur, most
grateful and obliged indeed, if Arthur could tell him of one. When
Arthur laughingly replied, that he knew nothing about money matters,
and knew no earthly way of helping Morgan, the latter, with the utmost
simplicity, was very grateful, very grateful indeed, to Mr. Arthur,
and if Mr. Arthur _should_ want a little money before his rents was
paid perhaps he would kindly remember that his uncle's old and
faithful servant had some as he would like to put out: and be most
proud if he could be useful anyways to any of the family.

The Prince of Fairoaks, who was tolerably prudent and had no need of
ready money, would as soon have thought of borrowing from his uncle's
servant as of stealing the valet's pocket-handkerchief, and was on the
point of making some haughty reply to Morgan's offer, but was checked
by the humor of the transaction. Morgan a capitalist! Morgan offering
to lend to him! The joke was excellent. On the other hand, the man
might be quite innocent, and the proposal of money a simple offer of
good-will. So Arthur withheld the sarcasm that was rising to his lips,
and contented himself by declining Mr. Morgan's kind proposal. He
mentioned the matter to his uncle, however, and congratulated the
latter on having such a treasure in his service.

It was then that the major said that he believed Morgan had been
getting devilish rich for a devilish long time; in fact he had bought
the house in Bury-street, in which his master was a lodger; and had
actually made a considerable sum of money, from his acquaintance with
the Clavering family and his knowledge obtained through his master
that the Begum would pay all her husband's debts, by buying up as many
of the baronet's acceptances as he could raise money to purchase. Of
these transactions the major, however, knew no more than most gentlemen
do of their servants, who live with us all our days and are
strangers to us, so strong custom is, and so pitiless the distinction
between class and class.

"So he offered to lend you money, did he?" the elder Pendennis
remarked to his nephew. "He's a dev'lish sly fellow, and a dev'lish
rich fellow; and there's many a nobleman would like to have such a
valet in his service, and borrow from him too. And he ain't a bit
changed, Monsieur Morgan. He does his work just as well as ever--he's
always ready to my bell--steals about the room like a cat--he's so
dev'lishly attached to me, Morgan!"

On the day of Strong's visit, the major bethought him of Pen's story,
and that Morgan might help him, and rallied the valet regarding his
wealth with that free and insolent way which so high-placed a
gentleman might be disposed to adopt toward so unfortunate a creature.

"I hear that you have got some money to invest, Morgan," said the
major.

It's Mr. Arthur has been telling, hang him, thought the valet.

"I'm glad my place is such a good one."

"Thank you, sir--I've no reason to complain of my place, nor of my
master," replied Morgan, demurely.

"You're a good fellow: and I believe you are attached to me; and I'm
glad you get on well. And I hope you'll be prudent, and not be taking
a public-house or that kind of thing."

A public-house, thought Morgan--me in a public-house!--the old
fool!--Dammy, if I was ten years younger I'd set in Parlyment before I
died, that I would. "No, thank you kindly, sir. I don't think of the
public line, sir. And I've got my little savings pretty well put
out, sir."

"You do a little in the discounting way, eh, Morgan?"

"Yes, sir, a very little--I--I beg your pardon, sir--might I be so
free as to ask a question--"

"Speak on, my good fellow," the elder said, graciously.

"About Sir Francis Clavering's paper, sir? Do you think he's any
longer any good, sir? Will my lady pay on 'em, any more, sir?"

"What, you've done something in that business already?"

"Yes, sir, a little," replied Morgan, dropping down his eyes. "And I
don't mind owning, sir, and I hope I may take the liberty of saying,
sir, that a little more would make me very comfortable if it turned
out as well as the last."

"Why, how much have you netted by him, in Gad's name?" asked the
major.

"I've done a good bit, sir, at it: that I own, sir. Having some
information, and made acquaintance with the fam'ly through your
kindness, I put on the pot, sir."

"You did what?"

"I laid my money on, sir--I got all I could, and borrowed, and bought
Sir Francis's bills; many of 'em had his name, and the gentleman's as
is just gone out, Edward Strong, Esquire, sir: and of course I know of
the blow hup and shindy as is took place in Grosvenor-place, sir:
and as I may as well make my money as another, I'd be _very_ much
obleeged to you if you'd tell me whether my lady will come down
any more."

Although Major Pendennis was as much surprised at this intelligence
regarding his servant, as if he had heard that Morgan was a disguised
marquis, about to throw off his mask and assume his seat in the House
of Peers; and although he was of course indignant at the audacity of
the fellow who had dared to grow rich under his nose, and without his
cognizance; yet he had a natural admiration for every man who
represented money and success, and found himself respecting Morgan,
and being rather afraid of that worthy, as the truth began to
dawn upon him.

"Well, Morgan," said he, "I mustn't ask how rich you are; and the
richer the better for your sake, I'm sure. And if I could give you any
information that could serve you, I would speedily help you. But
frankly, if Lady Clavering asks me whether she shall pay any more of
Sir Francis's debts, I shall advise and I hope she won't, though I
fear she will--and that is all I know. And so you are aware that Sir
Francis is beginning again in his--eh--reckless and imprudent course?"

"At his old games, sir--can't prevent that gentleman. He will do it."

"Mr. Strong was saying that a Mr. Moss Abrams was the holder of one of
Sir Francis Covering's notes. Do you know any thing of this Mr.
Abrams, or the amount of the bill?"

"Don't know the bill--know Abrams quite well, sir."

"I wish you would find out about it for me. And I wish you would find
out where I can see Sir Francis Clavering, Morgan."

And Morgan said, "thank you, sir, yes, sir, I will, sir;" and retired
from the room, as he had entered it, with his usual stealthy respect
and quiet humility; leaving the major to muse and wonder over what he
had just heard.

The next morning the valet informed Major Pendennis that he had seen
Mr. Abrams; what was the amount of the bill that gentleman was
desirous to negotiate; and that the baronet would be sure to be in the
back parlor of the Wheel of Fortune Tavern that day at one o'clock.

To this appointment Sir Francis Clavering was punctual, and as at one
o'clock he sat in the parlor of the tavern in question, surrounded by
spittoons, Windsor chairs, cheerful prints of boxers, trotting horses,
and pedestrians, and the lingering of last night's tobacco fumes--as
the descendant of an ancient line sate in this delectable place,
accommodated with an old copy of Bell's Life in London, much blotted
with beer, the polite Major Pendennis walked into the apartment.

"So it's you, old boy?" asked the baronet, thinking that Mr. Moss
Abrams had arrived with the money.

"How do you do, Sir Francis Clavering? I wanted to see you, and
followed you here," said the major, at sight of whom the other's
countenance fell. Now that he had his opponent before him, the major
was determined to make a brisk and sudden attack upon him, and went
into action at once. "I know," he continued, "who is the exceedingly
disreputable person for whom you took me, Clavering; and the errand
which brought you here."

"It ain't your business, is it?" asked the baronet, with a sulky and
deprecatory look. "Why are you following me about and taking the
command, and meddling in my affairs, Major Pendennis? I've never done
_you_ any harm, have I? I've never had _your_ money. And I don't
choose to be dodged about in this way, and domineered over. I don't
choose it, and I won't have it. If Lady Clavering has any proposal to
make to me, let it be done in the regular way, and through the
lawyers. I'd rather not have you."

"I am not come from Lady Clavering," the major said, "but of my own
accord, to try and remonstrate with you, Clavering, and see if you can
be kept from ruin. It is but a month ago that you swore on your honor,
and wanted to get a Bible to strengthen the oath, that you would
accept no more bills, but content yourself with the allowance which
Lady Clavering gives you. All your debts were paid with that proviso,
and you have broken it; this Mr. Abrams has a bill of yours for
sixty pounds."

"It's an old bill. I take my solemn oath it's an old bill," shrieked
out the baronet.

"You drew it yesterday, and you dated three months back purposely. By
Gad, Clavering, you sicken me with lies, I can't help telling you so.
I've no patience with you, by Gad. You cheat every body, yourself
included. I've seen a deal of the world, but I never met your equal at
humbugging. It's my belief you had rather lie than not."

"Have you come here, you old, old beast, to tempt me to--to pitch into
you, and--and knock your old head off?" said the baronet, with a
poisonous look of hatred at the major.

"What, sir?" shouted out the old major, rising to his feet and
clasping his cane, and looking so fiercely, that the baronet's tone
instantly changed toward him.

"No, no," said Clavering piteously, "I beg your pardon. I didn't mean
to be angry, or say any thing unkind, only you're so damned harsh to
me, Major Pendennis. What is it you want of me? Why have you been
hunting me so? Do _you_ want money out of me too? By Jove, you know
I've not got a shilling,"--and so Clavering, according to his custom,
passed from a curse into a whimper.

Major Pendennis saw from the other's tone, that Clavering knew his
secret was in the major's hands.

"I've no errand from any body, or no design upon you," Pendennis said,
"but an endeavor, if it's not too late, to save you and your family
from utter ruin, through the infernal recklessness of your courses. I
knew your secret--"

"I didn't know it when I married her; upon my oath I didn't know it
till the d--d scoundrel came back and told me himself; and it's the
misery about that which makes me so reckless, Pendennis; indeed it
is;" the baronet cried, clasping his hands.

"I knew your secret from the very first day when I saw Amory come
drunk into your dining-room in Grosvenor-place. I never forget faces.
I remember that fellow in Sidney a convict, and he remembers me. I
know his trial, the date of his marriage, and of his reported death in
the bush. I could swear to him. And I know that you are no more
married to Lady Clavering than I am. I've kept your secret well
enough, for I've not told a single soul that I know it--not your wife,
not yourself till now."

"Poor Lady C., it would cut her up dreadfully," whimpered Sir Francis;
"and it wasn't my fault, major; you know it wasn't."

"Rather than allow you to go on ruining her as you do, I _will_ tell
her, Clavering, and tell all the world too; that is what I swear I
will do, unless I can come to some terms with you, and put some curb
on your infernal folly. By play, debt, and extravagance of all kind,
you've got through half your wife's fortune, and that of her
legitimate heirs, mind--her legitimate heirs. Here it must stop. You
can't live together. You're not fit to live in a great house like
Clavering; and before three years more were over would not leave a
shilling to carry on. I've settled what must be done. You shall have
six hundred a year; you shall go abroad and live on that. You must
give up Parliament, and get on as well as you can. If you refuse, I
give you my word I'll make the real state of things known to-morrow;
I'll swear to Amory, who, when identified, will go back to the country
from whence he came, and will rid the widow of you and himself
together. And so that boy of yours loses at once all title to old
Snell's property, and it goes to your wife's daughter. Ain't I making
myself pretty clearly understood?"

"You wouldn't be so cruel to that poor boy, would you, Pendennis?"
asked the father, pleading piteously; "hang it, think about him. He's
a nice boy: though he's dev'lish wild, I own--he's dev'lish wild."

"It's you who are cruel to him," said the old moralist. "Why, sir,
you'll ruin him yourself inevitably in three years."

"Yes, but perhaps I won't have such dev'lish bad luck, you know; the
luck must turn: and I'll reform, by Gad, I'll reform. And if you were
to split on me, it would cut up my wife so; you know it would, most
infernally."

"To be parted from _you_," said the old major, with a sneer; "you know
she won't live with you again."

"But why can't Lady C. live abroad, or at Bath, or at Tunbridge, or at
the doose, and I go on here?" Clavering continued. "I like being here
better than abroad, and I like being in Parliament. It's dev'lish
convenient being in Parliament. There's very few seats like mine left;
and if I gave it to 'em, I should not wonder the ministry would give
me an island to govern, or some dev'lish good thing; for you know I'm
a gentleman of dev'lish good family, and have a handle to my name,
and--and that sort of thing, Major Pendennis. Eh, don't you see? Don't
you think they'd give me something dev'lish good if I was to play
my cards well? And then, you know, I'd save money, and be kept out of
the way of the confounded hells and _rouge et noir_--and--and so I'd
rather not give up Parliament, please." For at one instant to hate and
defy a man, at the next to weep before him, and at the next to be
perfectly confidential and friendly with him, was not an unusual
process with our versatile-minded baronet.

"As for your seat in Parliament," the major said, with something of a
blush on his cheek, and a certain tremor, which the other did not see
"you must part with that, Sir Francis Clavering, to--to me."

"What! are you going into the House, Major Pendennis?"

"No--not I; but my nephew, Arthur, is a very clever fellow, and would
make a figure there: and when Clavering had two members, his father
might very likely have been one; and--and I should like Arthur to be
there," the major said.

"Dammy, does _he_ know it, too?" cried out Clavering.

"Nobody knows any thing out of this room," Pendennis answered; "and if
you do this favor for me, I hold my tongue. If not, I'm a man of my
word, and will do what I have said."

"I say, major," said Sir Francis, with a peculiarly humble smile,
"you--you couldn't get me my first quarter in advance, could you, like
the best of fellows? You can do any thing with Lady Clavering; and,
upon my oath, I'll take up that bill of Abrams. The little dam
scoundrel, I know he'll do me in the business--he always does; and if
you could do this for me, we'd see, major."

"And I think your best plan would be to go down in September to
Clavering to shoot, and take my nephew with you, and introduce him.
Yes, that will be the best time. And we will try and manage about the
advance." (Arthur may lend him that, thought old Pendennis. Confound
him, a seat in Parliament is worth a hundred and fifty pounds.) "And,
Clavering, you understand, of course, my nephew knows nothing about
this business. You have a mind to retire: he is a Clavering man, and a
good representative for the borough; you introduce him, and your
people vote for him--you see."

"When can you get me the hundred and fifty, major? When shall I come
and see you? Will you be at home this evening or to-morrow morning?
Will you have any thing here? They've got some dev'lish good bitters
in the bar. I often have a glass of bitters, it sets one up so."

The old major would take no refreshment; but rose and took his leave
of the baronet, who walked with him to the door of the Wheel of
Fortune, and then strolled into the bar, where he took a glass of gin
and bitters with the landlady there: and a gentleman connected with
the ring (who boarded at the Wheel of F.) coming in, he and Sir
Francis Clavering and the landlord talked about the fights and the
news of the sporting world in general; and at length Mr. Moss Abrams
arrived with the proceeds of the baronet's bill, from which his own
handsome commission was deducted, and out of the remainder Sir Francis
"stood" a dinner at Greenwich to his distinguished friend, and passed
the evening gayly at Vauxhall. Meanwhile Major Pendennis, calling a
cab in Piccadilly, drove to Lamb-court, Temple, where he speedily was
closeted with his nephew in deep conversation.

After their talk they parted on very good terms, and it was in
consequence of that unreported conversation, whereof the reader
nevertheless can pretty well guess the bearing, that Arthur expressed
himself as we have heard in the colloquy with Warrington, which is
reported in the last chapter.

When a man is tempted to do a tempting thing, he can find a hundred
ingenious reasons for gratifying his liking; and Arthur thought very
much that he would like to be in Parliament, and that he would like to
distinguish himself there, and that he need not care much what side he
took, as there was falsehood and truth on every side. And on this and
on other matters he thought he would compromise with his conscience,
and that Sadduceeism was a very convenient and good-humored profession
of faith.



CHAPTER XXV.

PHILLIS AND CORYDON.


[Illustration]

On a picturesque common in the neighborhood of Tunbridge Wells, Lady
Clavering had found a pretty villa, whither she retired after her
conjugal disputes at the end of that unlucky London season. Miss
Amory, of course, accompanied her mother, and Master Clavering came
home for the holidays, with whom Blanche's chief occupation was to
fight and quarrel. But this was only a home pastime, and the young
school-boy was not fond of home sports. He found cricket, and horses,
and plenty of friends at Tunbridge. The good-natured Begum's house was
filled with a constant society of young gentlemen of thirteen, who ate
and drank much too copiously of tarts and Champagne, who rode races on
the lawn, and frightened the fond mother; who smoked and made
themselves sick, and the dining-room unbearable to Miss Blanche. She
did not like the society of young gentlemen of thirteen.

As for that fair young creature, any change, as long as it was change,
was pleasant to her; and for a week or two she would have liked
poverty and a cottage, and bread and cheese; and, for a night,
perhaps, a dungeon and bread and water, and so the move to Tunbridge
was by no means unwelcome to her. She wandered in the woods, and
sketched trees and farm-houses; she read French novels habitually; she
drove into Tunbridge Wells pretty often, and to any play, or ball, or
conjuror, or musician who might happen to appear in the place; she
slept a great deal; she quarreled with mamma and Frank during the
morning; she found the little village school and attended it, and
first fondled the girls and thwarted the mistress, then scolded the
girls and laughed at the teacher; she was constant at church, of
course. It was a pretty little church, of immense antiquity--a little
Anglo-Norman _bijou,_ built the day before yesterday, and decorated
with all sorts of painted windows, carved saints' heads, gilt
Scripture texts, and open pews. Blanche began forthwith to work a most
correct high-church altar-cover for the church. She passed for a saint
with the clergyman for a while, whom she quite took in, and whom she
coaxed, and wheedled, and fondled so artfully, that poor Mrs. Smirke,
who at first was charmed with her, then bore with her, then would
hardly speak to her, was almost mad with jealousy. Mrs. Smirke was the
wife of our old friend Smirke, Pen's tutor and poor Helen's suitor. He
had consoled himself for her refusal with a young lady from Clapham
whom his mamma provided. When the latter died, our friend's views
became every day more and more pronounced. He cut off his coat collar,
and let his hair grow over his back. He rigorously gave up the curl
which he used to sport on his forehead, and the tie of his neckcloth
of which he was rather proud. He went without any tie at all. He went
without dinner on Fridays. He read the Roman Hours, and intimated that
he was ready to receive confessions in the vestry. The most harmless
creature in the world, he was denounced as a black and a most
dangerous Jesuit and Papist, by Muffin of the Dissenting chapel, and
Mr. Simeon Knight at the old church. Mr. Smirke had built his chapel
of ease with the money left him by his mother at Clapham. Lord! lord!
what would she have said to hear a table called an altar! to see
candlesticks on it! to get letters signed on the Feast of Saint
So-and-so, or the Vigil of Saint What-do-you-call-'em! All these
things did the boy of Clapham practice; his faithful wife following
him. But when Blanche had a conference of near two hours in the vestry
with Mr. Smirke, Belinda paced up and down on the grass, where there
were only two little grave-stones as yet; she wished that she had a
third there: only, only he would offer very likely to that creature,
who had infatuated him, in a fortnight. No, she would retire; she
would go into a convent, and profess, and leave him. Such bad thoughts
had Smirke's wife and his neighbors regarding him; these, thinking him
in direct correspondence with the bishop of Rome; that, bewailing
errors to her even more odious and fatal; and yet our friend meant no
earthly harm. The post-office never brought him any letters from the
Pope; he thought Blanche, to be sure, at first, the most pious,
gifted, right-thinking, fascinating person he had ever met; and her
manner of singing the chants delighted him--but after a while he began
to grow rather tired of Miss Amory, her ways and graces grew stale
somehow; then he was doubtful about Miss Amory; then she made a
disturbance in his school, lost her temper, and rapped the children's
fingers. Blanche inspired this admiration and satiety, somehow, in
many men. She tried to please them, and flung out all her graces at
once; came down to them with all her jewels on, all her smiles, and
cajoleries, and coaxings, and ogles. Then she grew tired of them and
of trying to please them, and never having cared about them, dropped
them: and the men grew tired of her, and dropped her too. It was a
happy night for Belinda when Blanche went away; and her husband, with
rather a blush and a sigh, said "he had been deceived in her; he had
thought her endowed with many precious gifts, he feared they were mere
tinsel; he thought she had been a right-thinking person, he feared she
had merely made religion an amusement--she certainly had quite lost
her temper to the schoolmistress, and beat Polly Rucker's knuckles
cruelly." Belinda flew to his arms, there was no question about the
grave or the veil any more. He tenderly embraced her on the forehead.
"There is none like thee, my Belinda," he said, throwing his fine eyes
up to the ceiling, "precious among women!" As for Blanche, from the
instant she lost sight of him and Belinda, she never thought or cared
about either any more.

But when Arthur went down to pass a few days at Tunbridge Wells with
the Begum, this stage of indifference had not arrived on Miss
Blanche's part or on that of the simple clergyman. Smirke believed her
to be an angel and wonder of a woman. Such a perfection he had never
seen, and sate listening to her music in the summer evenings,
open-mouthed, rapt in wonder, tea-less, and bread-and-butterless.
Fascinating as he had heard the music of the opera to be--he had never
but once attended an exhibition of that nature (which he mentioned
with a blush and a sigh--it was on that day when he had accompanied
Helen and her son to the play at Chatteris)--he could not conceive any
thing more delicious, more celestial, he had almost said, than Miss
Amory's music. She was a most gifted being: she had a precious soul:
she had the most remarkable talents--to all outward seeming, the most
heavenly disposition, &c. It was in this way that, being then at the
height of his own fever and bewitchment for Blanche, Smirke discoursed
to Arthur about her.

The meeting between the two old acquaintances had been very cordial.
Arthur loved any body who loved his mother; Smirke could speak on that
theme with genuine feeling and emotion. They had a hundred things to
tell each other of what had occurred in their lives. "Arthur would
perceive," Smirke said, "that his--his views on Church matters had
developed themselves since their acquaintance." Mrs. Smirke, a most
exemplary person, seconded them with all her endeavors. He had built
this little church on his mother's demise, who had left him provided
with a sufficiency of worldly means. Though in the cloister himself,
he had heard of Arthur's reputation. He spoke in the kindest and most
saddened tone; he held his eyelids down, and bowed his fair head on
one side. Arthur was immensely amused with him; with his airs; with
his follies and simplicity; with his blank stock and long hair; with
his real goodness, kindness, friendliness of feeling. And his praises
of Blanche pleased and surprised our friend not a little, and made him
regard her with eyes of particular favor.

The truth is, Blanche was very glad to see Arthur; as one is glad to
see an agreeable man in the country, who brings down the last news and
stories from the great city; who can talk better than most country
folks, at least can talk that darling London jargon, so dear and
indispensable to London people, so little understood by persons out
of the world. The first day Pen came down, he kept Blanche laughing
for hours after dinner. She sang her songs with redoubled spirit. She
did not scold her mother; she fondled and kissed her to the honest
Begum's surprise. When it came to be bed-time, she said, "_Déjà!_"
with the prettiest air of regret possible; and was really quite sorry
to go to bed, and squeezed Arthur's hand quite fondly. He on his side
gave her pretty palm a very cordial pressure. Our young gentleman was
of that turn, that eyes very moderately bright dazzled him.

[Illustration]

"She is very much improved," thought Pen, looking out into the night,
"very much. I suppose the Begum won't mind my smoking with the window
open. She's a jolly good old woman, and Blanche is immensely improved.
I liked her manner with her mother to-night. I liked her laughing way
with that stupid young cub of a boy, whom they oughtn't to allow to
get tipsy. She sang those little verses very prettily; they were
devilish pretty verses too, though I say it who shouldn't say it." And
he hummed a tune which Blanche had put to some verses of his own. "Ah!
what a fine night! How jolly a cigar is at night! How pretty that
little Saxon church looks in the moonlight! I wonder what old
Warrington's doing? Yes, she's a dayvlish nice little thing, as my
uncle says."

"O heavenly!" here broke out a voice from a clematis-covered casement
near--a girl's voice: it was the voice of the author of _Mes Larmes_.

Pen burst into a laugh. "Don't tell about my smoking," he said,
leaning out of his own window.

"O! go on! I adore it," cried the lady of _Mes Larmes_. "Heavenly
night! Heavenly, heavenly moon! but I most shut my window, and not
talk to you on account of _les moeurs_. How droll they are, _les
moeurs!_ Adieu." And Pen began to sing the good night to Don Basilio.

The next day they were walking in the fields together, laughing and
chattering--the gayest pair of friends. They talked about the days of
their youth, and Blanche was prettily sentimental. They talked about
Laura, dearest Laura--Blanche had loved her as a sister: was she happy
with that odd Lady Rockminster? Wouldn't she come and stay with them
at Tunbridge? O, what walks they would take together! What songs they
would sing--the old, old songs. Laura's voice was splendid. Did
Arthur--she must call him Arthur--remember the songs they sang in the
happy old days, now he was grown such a great man, and had such a
_succès?_ &c. &c.

And the day after, which was enlivened with a happy ramble through
the woods to Penshurst, and a sight of that pleasant Park and Hall,
came that conversation with the curate which we have narrated, and
which made our young friend think more and more.

"Is she all this perfection?" he asked himself. "Has she become
serious and religious? Does she tend schools, and visit the poor? Is
she kind to her mother and brother? Yes, I am sure of that, I have
seen her." And walking with his old tutor over his little parish, and
going to visit his school, it was with inexpressible delight that Pen
found Blanche seated instructing the children, and fancied to himself
how patient she must be, how good-natured, how ingenuous, how really
simple in her tastes, and unspoiled by the world.

"And do you really like the country?" he asked her, as they walked
together.

"I should like never to see that odious city again. O Arthur--that is,
Mr.--well, Arthur, then--one's good thoughts grow up in these sweet
woods and calm solitudes, like those flowers which won't bloom in
London, you know. The gardener comes and changes our balconies once a
week. I don't think I shall bear to look London in the face again--its
odious, smoky, brazen face! But, heigho!"

"Why that sigh, Blanche?" "Never mind why."

"Yes, I do mind why. Tell me, tell me every thing."

"I wish you hadn't come down;" and a second edition of _Mes Soupirs_
came out.

"You don't want me, Blanche?"

"I don't want you to go away. I don't think this house will be very
happy without you, and that's why I wish that you never had come."

_Mes Soupirs_ were here laid aside, and _Mes Larmes_ had begun.

Ah! What answer is given to those in the eyes of a young woman? What
is the method employed for drying them? What took place? O ringdoves
and roses, O dews and wildflowers, O waving greenwoods and balmy airs
of summer! Here were two battered London rakes, taking themselves in
for a moment, and fancying that they were in love with each other,
like Phillis and Corydon!

When one thinks of country houses and country walks, one wonders that
any man is left unmarried.



CHAPTER XXVI.

TEMPTATION


[Illustration]

Easy and frank-spoken as Pendennis commonly was with Warrington, how
came it that Arthur did not inform the friend and depository of all
his secrets, of the little circumstances which had taken place at the
villa near Tunbridge Wells? He talked about the discovery of his old
tutor Smirke, freely enough, and of his wife, and of his Anglo-Norman
church, and of his departure from Clapham to Rome; but, when asked
about Blanche, his answers were evasive or general; he said she was a
good-natured, clever little thing--that, rightly guided, she might
make no such bad wife after all; but that he had for the moment no
intention of marriage, that his days of romance were over, that he was
contented with his present lot, and so forth.

In the mean time there came occasionally to Lamb Court, Temple, pretty
little satin envelopes, superscribed in the neatest handwriting, and
sealed with one of those admirable ciphers, which, if Warrington had
been curious enough to watch his friend's letters, or indeed if the
cipher had been decipherable, would have shown George that Mr. Arthur
was in correspondence with a young lady whose initials were B. A. To
these pretty little compositions Mr. Pen replied in his best and
gallantest manner; with jokes, with news of the town, with points of
wit, nay, with pretty little verses very likely, in reply to the
versicles of the Muse of "Mes Larmes." Blanche we know rhymes with
"branch," and "stanch," and "launch," and no doubt a gentleman of
Pen's ingenuity would not forego these advantages of position, and
would ring the pretty little changes upon these pleasing notes. Indeed
we believe that those love-verses of Mr. Pen's, which had such
a pleasing success in the "Roseleaves," that charming Annual edited by
Lady Violet Lebas, and illustrated by portraits of the female nobility
by the famous artist Pinkney, were composed at this period of our
hero's life; and were first addressed to Blanche, per post, before
they figured in print, _cornets_ as it were to Pinkney's
pictorial garland.

"Verses are all very well," the elder Pendennis said, who found Pen
scratching down one of these artless effusions at the Club as he was
waiting for his dinner; "and letter-writing if mamma allows it, and
between such old country friends of course there may be a
correspondence, and that sort of thing--but mind, Pen, and don't
commit yourself, my boy. For who knows what the doose may happen? The
best way is to make your letters safe. I never wrote a letter in all
my life that would commit me, and demmy, sir, I have had some
experience of women." And the worthy gentleman, growing more garrulous
and confidential with his nephew as he grew older, told many affecting
instances of the evil results consequent upon this want of caution to
many persons in "society;"--how from using too ardent expressions in
some poetical notes to the widow Naylor, young Spoony had subjected
himself to a visit of remonstrance from the widow's brother, Colonel
Flint; and thus had been forced into a marriage with a woman old
enough to be his mother: how when Louisa Salter had at length
succeeded in securing young Sir John Bird, Hopwood, of the Blues,
produced some letters which Miss S. had written to him, and caused a
withdrawal on Bird's part, who afterward was united to Miss Stickney,
of Lyme Regis, &c. The major, if he had not reading, had plenty of
observation, and could back his wise saws with a multitude of modern
instances, which he had acquired in a long and careful perusal of the
great book of the world.

Pen laughed at the examples, and blushing a little at his uncle's
remonstrances, said that he would bear them in mind and be cautious.
He blushed, perhaps, because he _had_ borne them in mind; because he
_was_ cautious: because in his letters to Miss Blanche he had from
instinct or honesty perhaps refrained from any avowals which might
compromise him. "Don't you remember the lesson I had, sir, in Lady
Mirabel's--Miss Fotheringay's affair? I am not to be caught again,
uncle," Arthur said with mock frankness and humility. Old Pendennis
congratulated himself and his nephew heartily on the latter's prudence
and progress, and was pleased at the position which Arthur was taking
as a man of the world.

No doubt, if Warrington had been consulted, his opinion would have
been different; and he would have told Pen that the boy's foolish
letters were better than the man's adroit compliments and slippery
gallantries; that to win the woman he loves, only a knave or a coward
advances under cover, with subterfuges, and a retreat secured behind
him: but Pen spoke not on this matter to Mr. Warrington, knowing
pretty well that he was guilty, and what his friend's verdict
would be.

Colonel Altamont had not been for many weeks absent on his foreign
tour, Sir Francis Clavering having retired meanwhile into the
country pursuant to his agreement with Major Pendennis, when the ills
of fate began to fall rather suddenly and heavily upon the sole
remaining partner of the little firm of Shepherd's Inn. When Strong,
at parting with Altamont, refused the loan proffered by the latter in
the fullness of his purse and the generosity of his heart, he made
such a sacrifice to conscience and delicacy as caused him many an
after-twinge and pang; and he felt--it was not very many hours in his
life he had experienced the feeling--that in this juncture of his
affairs he had been too delicate and too scrupulous. Why should a
fellow in want refuse a kind offer kindly made? Why should a thirsty
man decline a pitcher of water from a friendly hand, because it was a
little soiled? Strong's conscience smote him for refusing what the
other had fairly come by, and generously proffered: and he thought
ruefully, now it was too late, that Altamont's cash would have been as
well in his pocket as in that of the gambling-house proprietor at
Baden or Ems, with whom his Excellency would infallibly leave his
Derby winnings. It was whispered among the tradesmen,
bill-discounters, and others who had commercial dealings with Captain
Strong, that he and the baronet had parted company, and that the
captain's "paper" was henceforth of no value. The tradesmen,
who had put a wonderful confidence in him hitherto--for who could
resist Strong's jolly face and frank and honest demeanor?--now began
to pour in their bills with a cowardly mistrust and unanimity. The
knocks at the Shepherd's Inn Chambers' door were constant, and
tailors, bootmakers, pastrycooks who had furnished dinners, in their
own persons, or by the boys their representatives, held levees on
Strong's stairs. To these were added one or two persons of a less
clamorous but far more sly and dangerous sort--the young clerks of
lawyers, namely, who lurked about the Inn, or concerted with Mr.
Campion's young man in the chambers hard by, having in their dismal
pocketbooks copies of writs to be served on Edward Strong, requiring
him to appear on an early day next term before our Sovereign Lady the
Queen, and answer to, &c., &c.

[Illustration]

From this invasion of creditors, poor Strong, who had not a guinea in
his pocket, had, of course, no refuge but that of the Englishman's
castle, into which he retired, shutting the outer and inner door upon
the enemy, and not quitting his stronghold until after nightfall.
Against this outer barrier the foe used to come and knock and curse in
vain, while the chevalier peeped at them from behind the little
curtain which he had put over the orifice of his letter-box; and had
the dismal satisfaction of seeing the faces of furious clerk and fiery
dun, as they dashed up against the door and retreated from it. But as
they could not be always at his gate, or sleep on his staircase, the
enemies of the chevalier sometimes left him free.

Strong, when so pressed by his commercial antagonists, was not quite
alone in his defense against them, but had secured for himself an ally
or two. His friends were instructed to communicate with him by a
system of private signals: and they thus kept the garrison from
starving by bringing in necessary supplies, and kept up Strong's heart
and prevented him from surrendering, by visiting him and cheering him
in his retreat. Two of Ned's most faithful allies were Huxter and Miss
Fanny Bolton: when hostile visitors were prowling about the Inn,
Fanny's little sisters were taught a particular cry or _jödel_, which
they innocently whooped in the court: when Fanny and Huxter came up to
visit Strong, they archly sang this same note at his door; when that
barrier was straightway opened, the honest garrison came out smiling,
the provisions and the pot of porter were brought in, and, in the
society of his faithful friends, the beleaguered one passed a
comfortable night. There are some men who could not live under this
excitement, but Strong was a brave man, as we have said, who had seen
service and never lost heart in peril.

But besides allies, our general had secured for himself, under
difficulties, that still more necessary aid--a retreat. It has been
mentioned in a former part of this history, how Messrs. Costigan and
Bows lived in the house next door to Captain Strong, and that the
window of one of their rooms was not very far off the kitchen-window
which was situated in the upper story of Strong's chambers. A leaden
water-pipe and gutter served for the two; and Strong, looking out from
his kitchen one day, saw that he could spring with great ease up to
the sill of his neighbor's window, and clamber up the pipe which
communicated from one to the other. He had laughingly shown this
refuge to his chum, Altamont; and they had agreed that it would be as
well not to mention the circumstance to Captain Costigan, whose duns
were numerous, and who would be constantly flying down the pipe into
their apartments if this way of escape were shown to him.

But now that the evil days were come, Strong made use of the passage,
and one afternoon burst in upon Bows and Costigan with his jolly face,
and explained that the enemy was in waiting on his staircase, and that
he had taken this means of giving them the slip. So while Mr. Marks's
aid-de-camps were in waiting in the passage of No. 3, Strong walked
down the steps of No. 4, dined at the Albion, went to the play, and
returned home at midnight, to the astonishment of Mrs. Bolton and
Fanny, who had not seen him quit his chambers and could not conceive
how he could have passed the line of sentries.

Strong bore this siege for some weeks with admirable spirit and
resolution, and as only such an old and brave soldier would, for the
pains and privations which he had to endure were enough to depress any
man of ordinary courage; and what vexed and "riled" him (to use his
own expression) was the infernal indifference and cowardly ingratitude
of Clavering, to whom he wrote letter after letter, which the baronet
never acknowledged by a single word, or by the smallest remittance,
though a five-pound note, as Strong said, at that time would have been
a fortune to him.

But better days were in store for the chevalier, and in the midst of
his despondency and perplexities there came to him a most welcome aid,
"Yes, if it hadn't been for this good fellow here," said Strong; "for
a good fellow you are, Altamont, my boy, and hang me if I don't stand
by you as long as I live; I think, Pendennis, it would have been all
up with Ned Strong. It was the fifth week of my being kept a prisoner,
for I couldn't be always risking my neck across that water-pipe, and
taking my walks abroad through poor old Cos's window, and my spirit
was quite broken, sir--dammy, quite beat, and I was thinking of
putting an end to myself, and should have done it in another week,
when who should drop down from heaven but Altamont!"

"Heaven ain't exactly the place, Ned," said Altamont. "I came from
Baden-Baden," said he, "and I'd had a deuced lucky month there,
that's all."

"Well, sir, he took up Marks's bill, and he paid the other fellows
that were upon me, like a man, sir, that he did," said Strong,
enthusiastically.

"And I shall be very happy to stand a bottle of claret for this
company, and as many more as the company chooses," said Mr. Altamont,
with a blush. "Hallo! waiter, bring us a magnum of the right sort, do
you hear? And we'll drink our healths all round, sir--and may every
good fellow like Strong find another good fellow to stand by him at a
pinch. That's _my_ sentiment, Mr. Pendennis, though I don't like your
name." "No! And why?" asked Arthur.

Strong pressed the colonel's foot under the table here; and Altamont,
rather excited, filled up another bumper, nodded to Pen, drank off his
wine, and said, "_He_ was a gentleman, and that was sufficient, and
they were all gentlemen."

The meeting between these "all gentlemen" took place at Richmond,
whither Pendennis had gone to dinner, and where he found the chevalier
and his friend at table in the coffee-room. Both of the latter were
exceedingly hilarious, talkative, and excited by wine; and Strong, who
was an admirable story-teller, told the story of his own siege, and
adventures, and escapes with great liveliness and humor, and described
the talk of the sheriff's officers at his door, the pretty little
signals of Fanny, the grotesque exclamations of Costigan when the
chevalier burst in at his window, and his final rescue by Altamont, in
a most graphic manner, and so as greatly to interest his hearers.

"As for me, it's nothing," Altamont said. "When a ship's paid off, a
chap spends his money, you know. And it's the fellers at the black and
red at Baden-Baden that did it. I won a good bit of money there, and
intend to win a good bit more, don't I, Strong? I'm going to take him
with me. I've got a system. I'll make his fortune, I tell you. I'll
make your fortune, if you like--dammy, every body's fortune. But what
I'll do, and no mistake, boys, I promise you. I'll put in for that
little Fanny. Dammy, sir, what do you think she did? She had two
pound, and I'm blest if she didn't go and lend it to Ned Strong!
Didn't she, Ned? Let's drink her health."

"With all my heart," said Arthur, and pledged this toast with the
greatest cordiality.

Mr. Altamont then began, with the greatest volubility, and at great
length, to describe his system. He said that it was infallible, if
played with coolness; that he had it from a chap at Baden, who had
lost by it, it was true, but because he had not capital enough; if he
could have stood one more turn of the wheel, he would have all his
money back; that he and several more chaps were going to make a bank,
and try it; and that he would put every shilling he was worth into it,
and had come back to this country for the express purpose of fetching
away his money, and Captain Strong; that Strong should play for him;
that he could trust Strong and his temper much better than he could
his own, and much better than Bloundell-Bloundell or the Italian that
"stood in." As he emptied his bottle, the colonel described at full
length all his plans and prospects to Pen, who was interested in
listening to his story, and the confessions of his daring and lawless
good-humor.

"I met that queer fellow Altamont the other day," Pen said to his
uncle, a day or two afterward.

"Altamont? What Altamont? There's Lord Westport's son," said the
major.

"No, no; the fellow who came tipsy into Clavering's dining-room one
day when we were there," said the nephew, laughing; "and he said he
did not like the name of Pendennis, though he did me the honor to
think that I was a good fellow."

"I don't know any man of the name of Altamont, I give you my honor,"
said the impenetrable major; "and as for your acquaintance, I think
the less you have to do with him the better, Arthur."

Arthur laughed again. "He is going to quit the country, and make his
fortune by a gambling system. He and my amiable college acquaintance,
Bloundell, are partners, and the colonel takes out Strong with him as
aid-de-camp. What is it that binds the chevalier and Clavering,
I wonder?"

"I should think, mind you, Pen, I should think, but of course I have
only the idea, that there has been something in Clavering's previous
life which gives these fellows, and some others, a certain power over
him; and if there should be such a secret, which is no affair of ours,
my boy, dammy, I say, it ought to be a lesson to a man to keep himself
straight in life, and not to give any man a chance over him."

"Why, I think _you_ have some means of persuasion over Clavering,
uncle, or why should he give me that seat in Parliament?"

"Clavering thinks he ain't fit for Parliament!" the major answered.
"No more he is. What's to prevent him from putting you or any body
else into his place if he likes? Do you think that the Government or
the Opposition would make any bones about accepting the seat if he
offered it to them? Why should you be more squeamish than the first
men, and the most honorable men, and men of the highest birth and
position in the country, begad?" The major had an answer of this kind
to most of Pen's objections, and Pen accepted his uncle's replies, not
so much because he believed them, but because he wished to believe
them. We do a thing--which of us has not? not because "every body does
it," but because we like it; and our acquiescence, alas! proves not
that every body is right, but that we and the rest of the world are
poor creatures alike.

At his next visit to Tunbridge, Mr. Pen did not forget to amuse Miss
Blanche with the history which he had learned at Richmond of the
chevalier's imprisonment, and of Altamont's gallant rescue. And after
he had told his tale in his usual satirical way, he mentioned with
praise and emotion little Fanny's generous behavior to the chevalier,
and Altamont's enthusiasm in her behalf.

Miss Blanche was somewhat jealous, and a good deal piqued and curious
about Fanny. Among the many confidential little communications which
Arthur made to Miss Amory in the course of their delightful rural
drives and their sweet evening walks, it may be supposed that our hero
would not forget a story so interesting to himself and so likely to be
interesting to her, as that of the passion and care of the poor little
Ariadne of Shepherd's Inn. His own part in that drama he described, to
do him justice, with becoming modesty; the moral which he wished to
draw from the tale being one in accordance with his usual satirical
mood, viz., that women get over their first loves quite as easily as
men do (for the fair Blanche, in their _intimes_ conversations, did
not cease to twit Mr. Pen about his notorious failure in his own
virgin attachment to the Fotheringay), and, number one being
withdrawn, transfer themselves to number two without much difficulty.
And poor little Fanny was offered up in sacrifice as an instance to
prove this theory. What griefs she had endured and surmounted, what
bitter pangs of hopeless attachment she had gone through, what time it
had taken to heal those wounds of the tender little bleeding heart,
Mr. Pen did not know, or perhaps did not choose to know; for he was at
once modest and doubtful about his capabilities as a conqueror of
hearts, and averse to believe that he had executed any dangerous
ravages on that particular one, though his own instance and argument
told against himself in this case; for if, as he said, Miss Fanny was
by this time in love with her surgical adorer, who had neither good
looks, nor good manners, nor wit, nor any thing but ardor and fidelity
to recommend him, must she not in her first sickness of the
love-complaint, have had a serious attack, and suffered keenly for a
man, who had certainly a number of the showy qualities which Mr.
Huxter wanted?

"You wicked, odious creature," Miss Blanche said, "I believe that you
are enraged with Fanny for being so impudent as to forget you, and
that you are actually jealous of Mr. Huxter." Perhaps Miss Amory was
right, as the blush which came in spite of himself and tingled upon
Pendennis's cheek (one of those blows with which a man's vanity is
constantly slapping his face), proved to Pen that he was angry to
think he had been superseded by such a rival. By such a fellow as
that! without any conceivable good quality! Oh, Mr. Pendennis!
(although this remark does not apply to such a smart fellow as you) if
Nature had not made that provision for each sex in the credulity of
the other, which sees good qualities where none exist, good looks in
donkeys' ears, wit in their numskulls, and music in their bray, there
would not have been near so much marrying and giving in marriage as
now obtains, and as is necessary for the due propagation and
continuance of the noble race to which we belong!

"Jealous or not," Pen said, "and, Blanche, I don't say no, I should
have liked Fanny to have come to a better end than that. I don't like
histories that end in that cynical way; and when we arrive at the
conclusion of the story of a pretty girl's passion, to find such a
figure as Huxter's at the last page of the tale. Is all life a
compromise, my lady fair, and the end of the battle of love an ignoble
surrender? Is the search for the Cupid which my poor little Psyche
pursued in the darkness--the god of her soul's longing--the God of the
blooming cheek and rainbow pinions--to result in Huxter, smelling of
tobacco and gallypots? I wish, though I don't see it in life, that
people could be like Jenny and Jessamy, or my lord and lady Clementina
in the storybook and fashionable novels, and at once under the
ceremony, and, as it were, at the parson's benediction, become
perfectly handsome and good and happy ever after."

"And don't you intend to be good and happy, pray, Monsieur
le Misanthrope--and are you very discontented with your lot--and will
your marriage be a compromise "--(asked the author of "Mes Larmes,"
with a charming _moue_)--"and is your Psyche an odious vulgar wretch?
You wicked, satirical creature, I can't abide you! You take the hearts
of young things, play with them, and fling them away with scorn. You
ask for love and trample on it. You--you make me cry, that you do,
Arthur, and--and don't--and I _won't_ be consoled in that way--and I
think Fanny was quite right in leaving such a heartless creature."

"Again, I don't say no," said Pen, looking very gloomily at Blanche,
and not offering by any means to repeat the attempt at consolation,
which had elicited that sweet monosyllable "don't" from the young
lady. "I don't think I have much of what people call heart; but I
don't profess it. I made my venture when I was eighteen, and lighted
my lamp and went in search of Cupid. And what was my discovery of
love!--a vulgar dancing woman. I failed, as every body does, almost
every body; only it is luckier to fail before marriage than after."

_"Merci du choix, Monsieur"_ said the Sylphide, making a courtesy.

"Look, my little Blanche," said Pen, taking her hand, and with his
voice of sad good-humor; "at least I stoop to no flatteries."

"Quite the contrary," said Miss Blanche.

"And tell you no foolish lies, as vulgar men do. Why should you and I,
with our experience, ape romance and dissemble passion? I do not
believe Miss Blanche Amory to be peerless among the beautiful, nor the
greatest poetess, nor the most surpassing musician, any more than I
believe you to be the tallest woman in the whole world--like the
giantess whose picture we saw as we rode through the fair yesterday.
But if I don't set you up as a heroine, neither do I offer you your
very humble servant as a hero. But I think you are--well, there, I
think you are very sufficiently good-looking."

_"Merci,"_ Miss Blanche said, with another courtesy.

"I think you sing charmingly. I'm sure you're clever. I hope and
believe that you are good-natured, and that you will be
companionable."

"And so, provided I bring you a certain sum of money and a seat in
Parliament, you condescend to fling to me your royal
pocket-handkerchief," said Blanche. _"Que dhonneur!_ We used to call
your Highness the Prince of Fairoaks. What an honor to think that I am
to be elevated to the throne, and to bring the seat in Parliament as
backsheesh to the sultan! I am glad I am clever, and that I can play
and sing to your liking; my songs will amuse my lord's leisure."

"And if thieves are about the house," said Pen, grimly pursuing the
simile, "forty besetting thieves in the shape of lurking cares and
enemies in ambush and passions in arms, my Morgiana will dance round
me with a tambourine, and kill all my rogues and thieves with a smile.
Won't she?" But Pen looked as if he did not believe that she would.
"Ah, Blanche," he continued after a pause, "don't be angry; don't be
hurt at my truth-telling. Don't you see that I always take you at your
word? You say you will be a slave and dance--I say, dance. You say, 'I
take you with what you bring;' I say, 'I take you with what you
bring.' To the necessary deceits and hypocrisies of our life, why add
any that are useless and unnecessary? If I offer myself to you because
I think we have a fair chance of being happy together, and because by
your help I may get for both of us a good place and a not
undistinguished name, why ask me to feign raptures and counterfeit
romance, in which neither of us believe? Do you want me to come wooing
in a Prince Prettyman's dress from the masquerade warehouse, and to
pay you compliments like Sir Charles Grandison? Do you want me to make
you verses as in the days when we were--when we were children? I will
if you like, and sell them to Bacon and Bungay afterward. Shall I feed
my pretty princess with _bonbons_."

"_Mais j'adore les bonbons, moi_," said the little Sylphide, with a
queer, piteous look.

"I can buy a hatful at Fortnum and Mason's for a guinea. And it shall
have its bonbons, its pootty little sugar-plums, that it shall," Pen
said, with a bitter smile. "Nay, my dear, nay my dearest little
Blanche, don't cry. Dry the pretty eyes, I can't bear that;" and he
proceeded to offer that consolation which the circumstance required,
and which the tears, the genuine tears of vexation, which now sprang
from the angry eyes of the author of "Mes Larmes" demanded.

The scornful and sarcastic tone of Pendennis quite frightened and
overcame the girl. "I--I don't want your consolation. I--I never
was--so--spoken to bef--by any of my--my--by any body"--she sobbed
out, with much simplicity.

"_Any body!_" shouted out Pen, with a savage burst of laughter, and
Blanche blushed one of the most genuine blushes which her cheek had
ever exhibited, and she cried out, "O, Arthur, _vous êtes un homme
terrible!_" She felt bewildered, frightened, oppressed, the worldly
little flirt who had been playing at love for the last dozen years of
her life, and yet not displeased at meeting a master.

"Tell me, Arthur," she said, after a pause in this strange
love-making. "Why does Sir Francis Clavering give up his seat in
Parliament?"

"_Au fait_, why does he give it to me?" asked Arthur, now blushing in
his turn.

"You always mock me, sir," she said. "If it is good to be in
Parliament, why does Sir Francis go out?"

"My uncle has talked him over. He always said that you were not
sufficiently provided for. In the--the family disputes, when your
mamma paid his debts so liberally, it was stipulated, I suppose, that
you--that is, that I--that is, upon my word, I don't know why he goes
out of Parliament," Pen said, with rather a forced laugh. "You see,
Blanche, that you and I are two good little children, and that this
marriage has been arranged for us by our mammas and uncles, and that
we must be obedient, like a good little boy and girl."

So, when Pen went to London, he sent Blanche a box of bonbons, each
sugar plum of which was wrapped up in ready-made French verses, of the
most tender kind; and, besides, dispatched to her some poems of his
own manufacture, quite as artless and authentic; and it was no wonder
that he did not tell Warrington what his conversations with Miss Amory
had been, of so delicate a sentiment were they, and of a nature so
necessarily private.

And if, like many a worse and better man, Arthur Pendennis, the
widow's son, was meditating an apostasy, and going to sell himself
to--we all know whom--at least the renegade did not pretend to be a
believer in the creed to which he was ready to swear. And if every
woman and man in this kingdom, who has sold her or himself for money
or position, as Mr. Pendennis was about to do, would but purchase a
copy of his memoirs, what tons of volumes the Publishers would
sell!



CHAPTER XXVII.

IN WHICH PEN BEGINS HIS CANVASS.


[Illustration]

Melancholy as the great house at Clavering Park had been in the days
before his marriage, when its bankrupt proprietor was a refugee in
foreign lands, it was not much more cheerful now when Sir Francis
Clavering came to inhabit it. The greater part of the mansion was shut
up, and the baronet only occupied a few of the rooms on the ground
floor, where his housekeeper and her assistant from the lodge gate
waited upon the luckless gentleman in his forced retreat, and cooked a
part of the game which he spent the dreary mornings in shooting.
Lightfoot, his man, had passed over to my lady's service; and, as Pen
was informed in a letter from Mr. Smirke, who performed the ceremony,
had executed his prudent intention of marrying Mrs. Bonner, my lady's
woman, who, in her mature years, was stricken with the charms of the
youth, and endowed him with her savings and her mature person. To be
landlord and landlady of the Clavering Arms was the ambition of both
of them; and it was agreed that they were to remain in Lady
Clavering's service until quarter-day arrived, when they were to take
possession of their hotel. Pen graciously promised that he would give
his election dinner there, when the baronet should vacate his seat in
the young man's favor; and, as it had been agreed by his uncle, to
whom Clavering seemed to be able to refuse nothing, Arthur came down
in September on a visit to Clavering Park, the owner of which was very
glad to have a companion who would relieve his loneliness, and perhaps
would lend him a little ready money.

Pen furnished his host with the desirable supplies a couple of days
after he had made his appearance at Clavering: and no sooner were
these small funds in Sir Francis's pocket, than the latter found he
had business at Chatteris and at the neighboring watering-places, of
which----shire boasts many, and went off to see to his affairs, which
were transacted, as might be supposed, at the county race-grounds and
billiard-rooms. Arthur could live alone well enough, having many
mental resources and amusements which did not require other persons'
company: he could walk with the game-keeper of a morning, and for the
evenings there was a plenty of books and occupation for a literary
genius like Mr. Arthur, and who required but a cigar and a sheet of
paper or two to make the night pass away pleasantly. In truth, in two
or three days he had found the society of Sir Francis Clavering
perfectly intolerable; and it was with a mischievous eagerness and
satisfaction that he offered Clavering the little pecuniary aid which
the latter according to his custom solicited; and supplied him with
the means of taking flight from his own house.

Besides, our ingenious friend had to ingratiate himself with the
townspeople of Clavering, and with the voters of the borough which he
hoped to represent; and he set himself to this task with only the more
eagerness, remembering how unpopular he had before been in Clavering,
and determined to vanquish the odium which he had inspired among the
simple people there. His sense of humor made him delight in this task.
Naturally rather reserved and silent in public, he became on a sudden
as frank, easy, and jovial, as Captain Strong. He laughed with every
body who would exchange a laugh with him, shook hands right and left,
with what may be certainly called a dexterous cordiality; made his
appearance at the market-day and the farmers' ordinary; and, in fine,
acted like a consummate hypocrite, and as gentlemen of the highest
birth and most spotless integrity act when they wish to make
themselves agreeable to their constituents, and have some end to gain
of the country folks. How is it that we allow ourselves not to be
deceived, but to be ingratiated so readily by a glib tongue, a ready
laugh, and a frank manner? We know, for the most part, that it is
false coin, and we take it: we know that it is flattery, which it
costs nothing to distribute to every body, and we had rather have it
than be without it. Friend Pen went about at Clavering, laboriously
simple and adroitly pleased, and quite a different being from the
scornful and rather sulky young dandy whom the inhabitants remembered
ten years ago.

The Rectory was shut up. Doctor Portman was gone, with his gout and
his family, to Harrowgate--an event which Pen deplored very much in a
letter to the doctor, in which, in a few kind and simple words, he
expressed his regret at not seeing his old friend, whose advice he
wanted and whose aid he might require some day: but Pen consoled
himself for the doctor's absence by making acquaintance with Mr.
Simcoe, the opposition preacher, and with the two partners of the
cloth-factory at Chatteris, and with the Independent preacher there, all
of whom he met at the Clavering Athenaeum, which the Liberal party had
set up in accordance with the advanced spirit of the age, and perhaps
in opposition to the aristocratic old reading-room, into which the
Edinburgh Review had once scarcely got an admission, and where no
tradesmen were allowed an entrance He propitiated the younger
partner of the cloth-factory, by asking him to dine in a friendly
way at the Park; he complimented the Honorable Mrs. Simcoe with hares
and partridges from the same quarter, and a request to read her
husband's last sermon; and being a little unwell one day, the rascal
took advantage of the circumstance to show his tongue to Mr. Huxter,
who sent him medicines and called the next morning. How delighted old
Pendennis would have been with his pupil! Pen himself was amused with
the sport in which he was engaged, and his success inspired him with a
wicked good-humor.

[Illustration]

And yet, as he walked out of Clavering of a night, after "presiding"
at a meeting of the Athenaeum, or working through an evening with Mrs.
Simcoe, who, with her husband, was awed by the young Londoner's
reputation, and had heard of his social successes; as he passed over
the old familiar bridge of the rushing Brawl, and heard that
well-remembered sound of waters beneath, and saw his own cottage of
Fairoaks among the trees, their darkling outlines clear against the
starlit sky, different thoughts no doubt came to the young man's mind,
and awakened pangs of grief and shame there. There still used to be a
light in the windows of the room which he remembered so well, and in
which the saint who loved him had passed so many hours of care and
yearning and prayer. He turned away his gaze from the faint light
which seemed to pursue him with its wan reproachful gaze, as though it
was his mother's spirit watching and warning. How clear the night was!
How keen the stars shone; how ceaseless the rush of the flowing
waters; the old home trees whispered, and waved gently their dark
heads and branches over the cottage roof. Yonder, in the faint
starlight glimmer, was the terrace where, as a boy, he walked of
summer evenings, ardent and trustful, unspotted, untried, ignorant of
doubts or passions; sheltered as yet from the world's contamination in
the pure and anxious bosom of love.... The clock of the near town
tolling midnight, with a clang disturbs our wanderer's reverie, and
sends him onward toward his night's resting-place, through the lodge
into Clavering avenue, and under the dark arcades of the
rustling limes.

When he sees the cottage the next time, it is smiling in sunset; those
bedroom windows are open where the light was burning the night before;
and Pen's tenant, Captain Stokes, of the Bombay Artillery, (whose
mother, old Mrs. Stokes, lives in Clavering), receives his landlord's
visit with great cordiality: shows him over the grounds and the new
pond he has made in the back-garden from the stables; talks to him
confidentially about the roof and chimneys, and begs Mr. Pendennis to
name a day when he will do himself and Mrs. Stokes the pleasure to,
&c. Pen, who has been a fortnight in the country, excuses himself for
not having called sooner upon the captain by frankly owning that he
had not the heart to do it. "I understand you, sir," the captain says;
and Mrs. Stokes who had slipped away at the ring of the bell (how odd
it seemed to Pen to ring the bell!) comes down in her best gown,
surrounded by her children. The young ones clamber about Stokes: the
boy jumps into an arm-chair. It was Pen's father's arm-chair;
and Arthur remembers the days when he would as soon have thought of
mounting the king's throne as of seating himself in that arm-chair. He
asks if Miss Stokes--she is the very image of her mamma--if she can
play? He should like to hear a tune on that piano. She plays. He hears
the notes of the old piano once more, enfeebled by age, but he does
not listen to the player. He is listening to Laura singing as in the
days of their youth, and sees his mother bending and beating time over
the shoulder of the girl.

The dinner at Fairoaks given in Pen's honor by his tenant, and at
which old Mrs. Stokes, Captain Glanders, Squire Hobnell, and the
clergyman and his lady, from Tinckleton, were present, was very stupid
and melancholy for Pen, until the waiter from Clavering (who aided the
captain's stable-boy and Mrs. Stokes's butler) whom Pen remembered as
a street boy, and who was now indeed barber in that place, dropped a
plate over Pen's shoulder, on which Mr. Hobnell (who also employed
him) remarked, "I suppose, Hodson, your hands are slippery with
bear's-grease. He's always dropping the crockery about, that Hodson
is--haw, haw!" On which Hodson blushed, and looked so disconcerted,
that Pen burst out laughing; and good humor and hilarity were the
order of the evening. For the second course there was a hare and
partridges top and bottom, and when after the withdrawal of the
servants, Pen said to the Vicar of Tinckleton, "I think, Mr. Stooks,
you should have asked Hodson to _cut the hare_," the joke was taken
instantly by the clergyman, who was followed in the course of a few
minutes by Captains Stokes and Glanders, and by Mr. Hobnell, who
arrived rather late, but with an immense guffaw.

While Mr. Pen was engaged in the country in the above schemes, it
happened that the lady of his choice, if not of his affections, came
up to London from the Tunbridge villa, bound upon shopping expeditions
or important business, and in company of old Mrs. Bonner, her mother's
maid, who had lived and quarreled with Blanche many times since she
was an infant, and who now being about to quit Lady Clavering's
service for the hymeneal state, was anxious like a good soul to bestow
some token of respectful kindness upon her old and young mistress
before she quitted them altogether, to take her post as the wife of
Lightfoot, and landlady of the Clavering Arms.

The honest woman took the benefit of Miss Amory's taste to make the
purchase which she intended to offer her ladyship; and requested the
fair Blanche to choose something for herself that should be to her
liking, and remind her of her old nurse who had attended her through
many a wakeful night, and eventful teething, and childish fever, and
who loved her like a child of her own a'most. These purchases were
made, and as the nurse insisted on buying an immense Bible for
Blanche, the young lady suggested that Bonner should purchase a large
Johnson's Dictionary for her mamma. Each of the two women might
certainly profit by the present made to her.

Then Mrs. Bonner invested money in some bargains in linendrapery,
which might be useful at the Clavering Arms, and bought a red
and yellow neck-handkerchief, which Blanche could see at once was
intended for Mr. Lightfoot. Younger than herself by at least
five-and-twenty years, Mrs. Bonner regarded that youth with a fondness
at once parental and conjugal, and loved to lavish ornaments on his
person, which already glittered with pins, rings, shirt-studs, and chains
and seals, purchased at the good creature's expense.

[Illustration]

It was in the Strand that Mrs. Bonner made her purchases, aided by
Miss Blanche, who liked the fun very well, and when the old lady had
bought every thing that she desired, and was leaving the shop,
Blanche, with a smiling face, and a sweet bow to one of the shop,
said, "Pray, sir, will you have the kindness to show us the way to
Shepherd's Inn."

Shepherd's Inn was but a few score of yards off, Old Castle Street was
close by, the elegant young shopman pointed out the turning which the
young lady was to take, and she and her companion walked off
together. "Shepherd's Inn! what can you want in Shepherd's Inn, Miss
Blanche?" Bonner inquired. "Mr. Strong lives there. Do you want to go
and see the captain?"

"I should like to see the captain very well. I like the captain; but
it is not him I want. I want to see a dear little good girl, who was
very kind to--to Mr. Arthur when he was so ill last year, and saved
his life almost; and I want to thank her, and ask her if she would
like any thing. I looked out several of my dresses on purpose this
morning, Bonner!" and she looked at Bonner as if she had a right to
admiration, and had performed an act of remarkable virtue. Blanche,
indeed, was very fond of sugar-plums; she would have fed the poor upon
them, when she had had enough, and given a country girl a ball dress
when she had worn it and was tired of it.

"Pretty girl, pretty young woman!" mumbled Mrs. Bonner. "I know _I_
want no pretty young women come about Lightfoot," and in imagination
she peopled the Clavering Arms with a Harem of the most hideous
chambermaids and barmaids.

Blanche, with pink and blue, and feathers, and flowers, and trinkets
(that wondrous invention, a châtelaine, was not extant yet, or she
would have had one, we may be sure), and a shot silk dress, and a
wonderful mantle, and a charming parasol, presented a vision of
elegance and beauty such as bewildered the eyes of Mrs. Bolton, who
was scrubbing the lodge-floor of Shepherd's Inn, and caused
Betsy-Jane, and Ameliar-Ann to look with delight.

Blanche looked on them with a smile of ineffable sweetness and
protection; like Rowena going to see Ivanhoe; like Marie Antoinette
visiting the poor in the famine; like the Marchioness of Carabas
alighting from her carriage and four at a pauper-tenant's door, and
taking from John No. II., the packet of Epsom salts for the invalid's
benefit, carrying it with her own imperial hand into the sick
room--Blanche felt a queen stepping down from her throne to visit a
subject, and enjoyed all the bland consciousness of doing a
good action.

"My good woman! I want to see Fanny--Fanny Bolton; is she here?"

Mrs. Bolton had a sudden suspicion, from the splendor of Blanche's
appearance, that it must be a play-actor, or something worse.

"What do you want with Fanny, pray?" she asked.

"I am Lady Clavering's daughter--you have heard of Sir Francis
Clavering? And I wish very much indeed to see Fanny Bolton."

"Pray step in, Miss--Betsy-Jane, where's Fanny?"

Betsy-Jane said Fanny had gone into No. 3 staircase, on which Mrs.
Bolton said she was probably in Strong's rooms, and bade the child go
and see if she was there.

"In Captain Strong's rooms! oh, let us go to Captain Strong's rooms,"
cried out Miss Blanche. "I know him very well. You dearest little
girl, show us the way to Captain Strong!" cried out Miss Blanche, for
the floor reeked with the recent scrubbing, and the goddess did not
like the smell of brown soap. And as they passed up the stairs, a
gentleman by the name of Costigan, who happened to be swaggering about
the court, and gave a very knowing look with his "oi" under Blanche's
bonnet, remarked to himself, "That's a devilish foine gyurll, bedad,
goan up to Sthrong and Altamont: they're always having foine gyurlls
up their stairs."

"Halloo--hwhat's that?" he presently said, looking up at the windows:
from which some piercing shrieks issued.

At the sound of the voice of a distressed female the intrepid Cos
rushed up the stairs as fast as his old legs would carry him, being
nearly overthrown by Strong's servant, who was descending the stair.
Cos found the outer door of Strong's chambers opened, and began to
thunder at the knocker. After many and fierce knocks, the inner door
was partially unclosed, and Strong's head appeared.

"It's oi, me boy. Hwhat's that noise, Sthrong?" asked Costigan.

"Go to the d--" was the only answer, and the door was shut on Cos's
venerable red nose, and he went down stairs muttering threats at the
indignity offered to him, and vowing that he would have satisfaction.
In the meanwhile the reader, more lucky than Captain Costigan, will
have the privilege of being made acquainted with the secret which was
withheld from that officer.

It has been said of how generous a disposition Mr. Altamont was, and
when he was well supplied with funds, how liberally he spent them. Of
a hospitable turn, he had no greater pleasure than drinking in company
with other people; so that there was no man more welcome at Greenwich
and Richmond than the Emissary of the Nawaub of Lucknow.

Now it chanced that on the day when Blanche and Mrs. Bonner ascended
the staircase to Strong's room in Shepherd's Inn, the colonel had
invited Miss Delaval of the----Theatre Royal, and her mother, Mrs.
Hodge, to a little party down the river, and it had been agreed that
they were to meet at Chambers, and thence walk down to a port in the
neighboring Strand to take water. So that when Mrs. Bonner and Mes
Larmes came to the door, where Grady, Altamont's servant, was
standing, the domestic said, "Walk in, ladies," with the utmost
affability, and led them into the room, which was arranged as if they
had been expected there. Indeed, two bouquets of flowers, bought at
Covent Garden that morning, and instances of the tender gallantry of
Altamont, were awaiting his guests upon the table. Blanche smelt at
the bouquet, and put her pretty little dainty nose into it, and
tripped about the room, and looked behind the curtains, and at the
books and prints, and at the plan of Clavering estate hanging up on
the wall; and had asked the servant for Captain Strong, and had almost
forgotten his existence and the errand about which she had come,
namely, to visit Fanny Bolton; so pleased was she with the new
adventure, and the odd, strange, delightful, droll little idea of
being in a bachelor's chambers in a queer old place in the city!

Grady meanwhile, with a pair of ample varnished boots, had
disappeared into his master's room. Blanche had hardly the leisure
to remark how big the boots were, and how unlike Mr. Strong's.

"The women's come," said Grady, helping his master to the boots.

"Did you ask 'em if they would take a glass of any thing?" asked
Altamont.

Grady came out--"He says, will you take any thing to drink?" the
domestic asked of them; at which Blanche, amused with the artless
question, broke out into a pretty little laugh, and asked of Mrs.
Bonner, "Shall we take any thing to drink?"

"Well, you may take it or lave it," said Mr. Grady, who thought his
offer slighted, and did not like the contemptuous manners of the
newcomers, and so left them.

"Will we take any thing to drink?" Blanche asked again: and again
began to laugh.

"Grady," bawled out a voice from the chamber within:--a voice that
made Mrs. Bonner start.

Grady did not answer: his song was heard from afar off, from the
kitchen, his upper room, where Grady was singing at his work.

"Grady, my coat!" again roared the voice from within.

"Why, that is not Mr. Strong's voice," said the Sylphide, still half
laughing. "Grady my coat!--Bonner, who is Grady my coat? We ought
to go away."

Bonner still looked quite puzzled at the sound of the voice which she
had heard.

The bedroom door here opened and the individual who had called out
"Grady, my coat," appeared without the garment in question.

He nodded to the women, and walked across the room. "I beg your
pardon, ladies. Grady, bring my coat down, sir! Well, my dears, it's a
fine day, and we'll have a jolly lark at----"

He said no more; for here Mrs. Bonner, who had been looking at him
with scared eyes, suddenly shrieked out, "Amory! Amory!" and fell back
screaming and fainting in her chair.

The man, so apostrophized, looked at the woman an instant, and,
rushing up to Blanche, seized her and kissed her. "Yes, Betsy," he
said, "by G--it is me. Mary Bonner knew me. What a fine gal we've
grown! But it's a secret, mind. I'm dead, though I'm your father. Your
poor mother don't know it. What a pretty gal we've grown! Kiss
me--kiss me close, my Betsy! D--it, I love you: I'm your old father."

Betsy or Blanche looked quite bewildered, and began to scream too
--once, twice, thrice; and it was her piercing shrieks which Captain
Costigan heard as he walked the court below.

At the sound of these shrieks the perplexed parent clasped his hands
(his wristbands were open, and on one brawny arm you could see letters
tattooed in blue), and, rushing to his apartment, came back with an
eau de Cologne bottle from his grand silver dressing-case, with the
fragrant contents of which he began liberally to sprinkle Bonner
and Blanche.

The screams of these women brought the other occupants of the chamber
into the room: Grady from his kitchen, and Strong from his apartment
in the upper story. The latter at once saw from the aspect of the two
women what had occurred.

"Grady, go and wait in the court," he said, "and if any body comes
--you understand me."

"Is it the play-actress and her mother?" said Grady.

"Yes--confound you--say that there's nobody in Chambers, and the
party's off for to-day."

"Shall I say that, sir? and after I bought them bokays?" asked Grady
of his master.

"Yes," said Amory, with a stamp of his foot; and Strong going to the
door, too, reached it just in time to prevent the entrance of Captain
Costigan, who had mounted the stair.

The ladies from the theatre did not have their treat to Greenwich, nor
did Blanche pay her visit to Fanny Bolton on that day. And Cos, who
took occasion majestically to inquire of Grady what the mischief was,
and who was crying?--had for answer that 'twas a woman, another of
them, and that they were, in Grady's opinion, the cause of 'most all
the mischief in the world.



CHAPTER XXVIII.

IN WHICH PEN BEGINS TO DOUBT ABOUT HIS ELECTION.


[Illustration]

While Pen, in his own county, was thus carrying on his selfish plans
and parliamentary schemes, news came to him that Lady Rockminster had
arrived at Baymouth, and had brought with her our friend Laura. At the
announcement that Laura his sister was near him, Pen felt rather
guilty. His wish was to stand higher in her esteem, perhaps, than in
that of any other person in the world. She was his mother's legacy to
him. He was to be her patron and protector in some sort. How would she
brave the news which he had to tell her; and how should he explain the
plans which he was meditating? He felt as if neither he nor Blanche
could bear Laura's dazzling glance of calm scrutiny, and as if he
would not dare to disclose his worldly hopes and ambitions to that
spotless judge. At her arrival at Baymouth, he wrote a letter thither
which contained a great number of fine phrases and protests of
affection, and a great deal of easy satire and raillery; in the midst
of all which Mr. Pen could not help feeling that he was in a panic,
and that he was acting like a rogue and hypocrite.

How was it that a single country-girl should be the object of fear and
trembling to such an accomplished gentleman as Mr. Pen? His worldly
tactics and diplomacy, his satire and knowledge of the world, could
not bear the test of her purity, he felt somehow. And he had to own to
himself that his affairs were in such a position, that he could not
tell the truth to that honest soul. As he rode from Clavering to
Baymouth he felt as guilty as a school-boy, who doesn't know his
lesson and is about to face the awful master. For is not truth the
master always, and does she not have the power and hold the book?

Under the charge of her kind, though somewhat wayward and absolute,
patroness, Lady Rockminster, Laura had seen somewhat of the world in
the last year, had gathered some accomplishments, and profited by the
lessons of society. Many a girl who had been accustomed to that too
great tenderness in which Laura's early life had been passed, would
have been unfitted for the changed existence which she now had to
lead. Helen worshiped her two children, and thought, as home-bred
women will, that all the world was made for them, or to be considered
after them. She tended Laura with a watchfulness of affection which
never left her. If she had a headache, the widow was as alarmed as if
there had never been an aching head before in the world. She slept and
woke, read, and moved under her mother's fond superintendence, which
was now withdrawn from her, along with the tender creature whose
anxious heart would beat no more. And painful moments of grief and
depression no doubt Laura had, when she stood in the great careless
world alone. Nobody heeded her griefs or her solitude. She was not
quite the equal, in social rank, of the lady whose companion she was,
or of the friends and relatives of the imperious, but kind
old dowager.

Some, very likely, bore her no good-will--some, perhaps, slighted her:
it might have been that servants were occasionally rude; their
mistress certainly was often. Laura not seldom found herself in family
meetings, the confidence and familiarity of which she felt were
interrupted by her intrusion; and her sensitiveness of course was
wounded at the idea that she should give or feel this annoyance. How
many governesses are there in the world, thought cheerful Laura--how
many ladies, whose necessities make them slaves and companions by
profession! What bad tempers and coarse unkindness have not these to
encounter! How infinitely better my lot is with these really kind and
affectionate people than that of thousands of unprotected girls! It
was with this cordial spirit that our young lady adapted herself to
her new position; and went in advance of her fortune with a
trustful smile.

Did you ever know a person who met Fortune in that way, whom the
goddess did not regard kindly? Are not even bad people won by a
constant cheerfulness and a pure and affectionate heart? When the
babes in the wood, in the ballad, looked up fondly and trustfully at
those notorious rogues whom their uncle had set to make away with the
little folks, we all know how one of the rascals relented, and made
away with the other--not having the heart to be unkind to so much
innocence and beauty. Oh happy they who have that virgin, loving trust
and sweet smiling confidence in the world, and fear no evil because
they think none! Miss Laura Bell was one of these fortunate persons;
and besides the gentle widow's little cross, which, as we have seen,
Pen gave her, had such a sparkling and brilliant _koh-i-noor_ in her
bosom, as is even more precious than that famous jewel; for it not
only fetches a price, and is retained by its owner in another world
where diamonds are stated to be of no value, but here, too, is of
inestimable worth to its possessor; is a talisman against evil, and
lightens up the darkness of life, like Cogia Hassan's famous stone.

So that before Miss Bell had been a year in Lady Rockminster's house,
there was not a single person in it whose love she had not won by the
use of this talisman. From the old lady to the lowest dependent of her
bounty, Laura had secured the good-will and kindness of every body.
With a mistress of such a temper, my lady's woman (who had endured her
mistress for forty years, and had been clawed and scolded and jibed
every day and night in that space of time), could not be expected to
have a good temper of her own; and was at first angry against Miss
Laura, as she had been against her ladyship's fifteen preceding
companions. But when Laura was ill at Paris, this old woman nursed her
in spite of her mistress, who was afraid of catching the fever, and
absolutely fought for her medicine with Martha from Fairoaks, now
advanced to be Miss Laura's own maid. As she was recovering, Grandjean
the chef wanted to kill her by the numbers of delicacies which he
dressed for her, and wept when she ate her first slice of chicken. The
Swiss major-domo of the house celebrated Miss Bell's praises in almost
every European language, which he spoke with indifferent
incorrectness; the coachman was happy to drive her out; the page cried
when he heard she was ill; and Calverley and Coldstream (those two
footmen, so large, so calm ordinarily, and so difficult to move),
broke out into extraordinary hilarity at the news of her
convalescence, and intoxicated the page at a wine shop, to _fete_
Laura's recovery. Even Lady Diana Pynsent (our former acquaintance Mr.
Pynsent had married by this time), Lady Diana, who had had a
considerable dislike to Laura for some time, was so enthusiastic as to
say that she thought Miss Bell was a very agreeable person, and that
grandmamma had found a great _trouvaille_ in her. All this good-will
and kindness Laura had acquired, not by any arts, not by any flattery,
but by the simple force of good-nature, and by the blessed gift of
pleasing and being pleased.

On the one or two occasions when he had seen Lady Rockminster, the old
lady, who did not admire him, had been very pitiless and abrupt with
our young friend, and perhaps Pen expected when he came to Baymouth to
find Laura installed in her house in the quality of humble companion,
and treated no better than himself. When she heard of his arrival she
came running down stairs, and I am not sure that she did not embrace
him in the presence of Calverley and Coldstream: not that those
gentleman ever told: if the _fractus orbis_ had come to a smash, if
Laura, instead of kissing Pen, had taken her scissors and snipped off
his head--Calverly and Coldstream would have looked on impavidly,
without allowing a grain of powder to be disturbed by the calamity.

Laura had so much improved in health and looks that Pen could not but
admire her. The frank and kind eyes which met his, beamed with good
health; the cheek which he kissed blushed with beauty. As he looked at
her, artless and graceful, pure and candid, he thought he had never
seen her so beautiful. Why should he remark her beauty now so much,
and remark too to himself that he had not remarked it sooner? He took
her fair trustful hand and kissed it fondly: he looked in her bright
clear eyes, and read in them that kindling welcome which he was always
sure to find there. He was affected and touched by the tender tone and
the pure sparkling glance; their innocence smote him somehow and
moved him.

"How good you are to me, Laura--sister!" said Pen, "I don't deserve
that you should--that you should be so kind to me."

"Mamma left you to me," she said, stooping down and brushing his
forehead with her lips hastily. "You know you were to come to me when
you were in trouble, or to tell me when you were very happy: that was
our compact, Arthur, last year, before we parted. Are you very happy
now, or are you in trouble, which is it?" and she looked at him with
an arch glance of kindness. "Do you like going into Parliament? Do you
intend to distinguish yourself there? How I shall tremble for your
first speech!"

"Do you know about the Parliament plan, then?" Pen asked.

"Know?--all the world knows! I have heard it talked about many times.
Lady Rockminster's doctor talked about it to-day. I daresay it will be
in the Chatteris paper to-morrow. It is all over the county that Sir
Francis Clavering, of Clavering, is going to retire, in behalf of Mr.
Arthur Pendennis, of Fairoaks; and that the young and beautiful Miss
Blanche Amory is--"

"What! that too?" asked Pendennis.

"That, too, dear Arthur. _Tout se sait_, as somebody would say, whom I
intend to be very fond of; and who I am sure is very clever and
pretty. I have had a letter from Blanche. The kindest of letters. She
speaks so warmly of you, Arthur! I hope--I know she feels what she
writes. When is it to be, Arthur? Why did you not tell me? I may come
and live with you then, mayn't I?"

"My home is yours, dear Laura, and every thing I have," Pen said. "If
I did not tell you, it was because--because--I do not know: nothing is
decided as yet. No words have passed between us. But you think Blanche
could be happy with me--don't you? Not a romantic fondness, you know.
I have no heart, I think; I've told her so: only a sober-sided
attachment: and want my wife on one side of the fire and my sister on
the other, Parliament in the session and Fairoaks in the holidays, and
my Laura never to leave me until somebody who has a right comes to
take her away."

Somebody who has a right--somebody with a right! Why did Pen as he
looked at the girl and slowly uttered the words, begin to feel angry
and jealous of the invisible somebody with the right to take her away?
Anxious, but a minute ago, how she would take the news regarding his
probable arrangements with Blanche, Pen was hurt somehow that she
received the intelligence so easily, and took his happiness
for granted.

"Until somebody comes," Laura said, with a laugh, "I will stay at home
and be aunt Laura, and take care of the children when Blanche is in
the world. I have arranged it all. I am an excellent house-keeper. Do
you know I have been to market at Paris with Mrs. Beck, and have taken
some lessons from M. Grandjean. And I have had some lessons in Paris
in singing too, with the money which you sent me, you kind boy: and I
can sing much better now: and I have learned to dance, though not so
well as Blanche, and when you become a minister of state, Blanche
shall present me:" and with this, and with a provoking good-humor, she
performed for him the last Parisian courtesy.

Lady Rockminster came in while this courtesy was being performed, and
gave to Arthur one finger to shake; which he took, and over which he
bowed as well as he could, which, in truth, was very clumsily.

"So you are going to be married, sir," said the old lady.

"Scold him, Lady Rockminster, for not telling us," Laura said, going
away: which, in truth, the old lady began instantly to do. "So you are
going to marry, and to go into Parliament in place of that
good-for-nothing Sir Francis Clavering. I wanted him to give my
grandson his seat--why did he not give my grandson his seat? I hope
you are to have a great deal of money with Miss Amory. I wouldn't
take her without a great deal."

"Sir Francis Clavering is tired of Parliament," Pen said, wincing,
"and--and I rather wish to attempt that career. The rest of the story
is at least premature."

"I wonder, when you had Laura at home, you could take up with such an
affected little creature as that," the old lady continued.

"I am very sorry Miss Amory does not please your ladyship," said Pen,
smiling.

"You mean--that it is no affair of mine, and that I am not going to
marry her. Well I'm not, and I'm very glad I am not--a little odious
thing--when I think that a man could prefer her to my Laura, I've no
patience with him, and so I tell you, Mr. Arthur Pendennis."

"I am very glad you see Laura with such favorable eyes," Pen said.

"You are very glad, and you are very sorry. What does it matter, sir,
whether you are very glad or very sorry? A young man who prefers Miss
Amory to Miss Bell has no business to be sorry or glad. A young man
who takes up with such a crooked lump of affectation as that little
Amory--for she is crooked, I tell you she is--after seeing my Laura,
has no right to hold up his head again. Where is your friend
Bluebeard? The tall young man, I mean--Warrington, isn't his name? Why
does he not come down, and marry Laura? What do the young men mean by
not marrying such a girl as that? They all marry for money now. You
are all selfish and cowards. We ran away with each other and made
foolish matches in my time. I have no patience with the young men!
When I was at Paris in the winter, I asked all the three attaches at
the Embassy why they did not fall in love with Miss Bell? They
laughed--they said they wanted money. You are all selfish--you are
all cowards."

"I hope before you offered Miss Bell to the attaches," said Pen, with
some heat, "you did her the favor to consult her?"

"Miss Bell has only a little money. Miss Bell must marry soon.
Somebody must make a match for her, sir; and a girl can't offer
herself," said the old dowager, with great state. "Laura, my dear,
I've been telling your cousin that all the young men are selfish; and
that there is not a pennyworth of romance left among them. He is as
bad as the rest."

"Have you been asking Arthur why he won't marry me?" said Laura, with
a kindling smile, coming back and taking her cousin's hand. (She had
been away, perhaps, to hide some traces of emotion, which she did not
wish others to see). "He is going to marry somebody else; and I intend
to be very fond of her, and to go and live with them, provided he then
does not ask every bachelor who comes to his house, why he does not
marry me?"

       *       *        *       *        *

The terrors of Pen's conscience being thus appeased, and his
examination before Laura over without any reproaches on the part of
the latter, Pen began to find that his duty and inclination led him
constantly to Baymouth, where Lady Rockminster informed him that a
place was always reserved for him at her table. "And I recommend you
to come often," the old lady said, "for Grandjean is an excellent
cook, and to be with Laura and me will do your manners good. It is
easy to see that you are always thinking about yourself. Don't blush
and stammer--almost all young men are always thinking about
themselves. My sons and grandsons always were until I cured them. Come
here, and let us teach you to behave properly; you will not have to
carve, that is done at the side-table. Hecker will give you as much
wine as is good for you; and on days when you are very good and
amusing you shall have some Champagne. Hecker, mind what I say, Mr.
Pendennis is Miss Laura's brother; and you will make him comfortable,
and see that he does not have too much wine, or disturb me while I am
taking my nap after dinner. You are selfish; I intend to cure you of
being selfish. You will dine here when you have no other engagements;
and if it rains you had better put up at the hotel." As long as the
good lady could order every body round about her, she was not hard to
please; and all the slaves and subjects of her little dowager court
trembled before her, but loved her.

She did not receive a very numerous or brilliant society. The doctor,
of course, was admitted as a constant and faithful visitor; the vicar
and his curate; and on public days the vicar's wife and daughters, and
some of the season visitors at Baymouth were received at the old
lady's entertainments: but generally the company was a small one, and
Mr. Arthur drank his wine by himself, when Lady Rockminster retired to
take her doze, and to be played and sung to sleep by Laura
after dinner.

"If my music can give her a nap," said the good-natured girl, "ought I
not to be very glad that I can do so much good? Lady Rockminster
sleeps very little of nights: and I used to read to her until I fell
ill at Paris, since when she will not hear of my sitting up."

"Why did you not write to me when you were ill?" asked Pen, with a
blush.

"What good could you do me? I had Martha to nurse me; and the doctor
every day. You are too busy to write to women or to think about them.
You have your books and your newspapers, and your politics and your
railroads to occupy you. I wrote when I was well."

And Pen looked at her, and blushed again, as he remembered that,
during all the time of her illness, he had never written to her, and
had scarcely thought about her.

In consequence of his relationship, Pen was free to walk and ride with
his cousin constantly, and in the course of those walks and rides,
could appreciate the sweet frankness of her disposition, and the
truth, simplicity, and kindliness, of her fair and spotless heart. In
their mother's life-time, she had never spoken so openly or so
cordially as now. The desire of poor Helen to make an union between
her two children, had caused a reserve on Laura's part toward Pen; for
which, under the altered circumstances of Arthur's life, there was now
no necessity. He was engaged to another woman; and Laura became his
sister at once--hiding, or banishing from herself, any doubts which
she might have as to his choice; striving to look cheerfully forward,
and hope for his prosperity; promising herself to do all that
affection might do to make her mother's darling happy.

Their talk was often about the departed mother. And it was from a
thousand stories which Laura told him that Arthur was made aware how
constant and absorbing that silent maternal devotion had been, which
had accompanied him, present and absent, through life, and had only
ended with the fond widow's last breath. One day the people in
Clavering saw a lad in charge of a couple of horses at the
church-yard-gate: and it was told over the place that Pen and Laura
had visited Helen's grave together. Since Arthur had come down into
the country, he had been there once or twice: but the sight of the
sacred stone had brought no consolation to him. A guilty man doing a
guilty deed: a mere speculator, content to lay down his faith and
honor for a fortune and a worldly career; and owning that his life was
but a contemptible surrender--what right had he in the holy place?
what booted it to him in the world he lived in, that others were no
better than himself? Arthur and Laura rode by the gates of Fairoaks;
and he shook hands with his tenant's children, playing on the lawn and
the terrace--Laura looked steadily at the cottage wall, at the creeper
on the porch and the magnolia growing up to her window. "Mr. Pendennis
rode by to-day," one of the boys told his mother, "with a lady, and he
stopped and talked to us, and he asked for a bit of honeysuckle off
the porch, and gave it the lady. I couldn't see if she was pretty; she
had her veil down. She was riding one of Cramp's horses, out of
Baymouth."

As they rode over the downs between home and Baymouth, Pen did not
speak much, though they rode very close together. He was thinking what
a mockery life was, and how men refuse happiness when they may have
it; or, having it, kick it down; or barter it, with their eyes open,
for a little worthless money or beggarly honor. And then the
thought came, what does it matter for the little space? The lives of
the best and purest of us are consumed in a vain desire, and end in a
disappointment: as the dear soul's who sleeps in her grave yonder. She
had her selfish ambition, as much as Caesar had; and died, balked of
her life's longing. The stone covers over our hopes and our memories.
Our place knows us not. "Other people's children are playing on the
grass," he broke out, in a hard voice, "where you and I used to play,
Laura. And you see how the magnolia we planted has grown up since our
time. I have been round to one or two of the cottages where my mother
used to visit. It is scarcely more than a year that she is gone, and
the people whom she used to benefit care no more for her death than
for Queen Anne's. We are all selfish: the world is selfish: there are
but a few exceptions, like you, my dear, to shine like good deeds in a
naughty world, and make the blackness more dismal."

"I wish you would not speak in that way, Arthur," said Laura, looking
down and bending her head to the honeysuckle on her breast. "When you
told the little boy to give me this, you were not selfish."

"A pretty sacrifice I made to get it for you!" said the sneerer.

"But your heart was kind and full of love when you did so. One can not
ask for more than love and kindness; and if you think humbly of
yourself, Arthur, the love and kindness are not diminished--are they?
I often thought our dearest mother spoiled you at home, by worshiping
you; and that if you are--I hate the word--what you say, her too great
fondness helped to make you so. And as for the world, when men go out
into it, I suppose they can not be otherwise than selfish. You have to
fight for yourself, and to get on for yourself, and to make a name for
yourself. Mamma and your uncle both encouraged you in this ambition.
If it is a vain thing, why pursue it? I suppose such a clever man as
you intend to do a great deal of good to the country, by going into
Parliament, or you would not wish to be there. What are you going to
do when you are in the House of Commons?"

"Women don't understand about politics, my dear," Pen said, sneering
at himself as he spoke.

"But why don't you make us understand? I could never tell about Mr.
Pynsent why he should like to be there so much. He is not a
clever man--"

"He certainly is not a genius, Pynsent," said Pen.

"Lady Diana says that he attends Committees all day; that then again
he is at the House all night; that he always votes as he is told; that
he never speaks; that he will never get on beyond a subordinate place,
and as his grandmother tells him, he is choked with red-tape. Are you
going to follow the same career, Arthur? What is there in it so
brilliant that you should be so eager for it? I would rather that you
should stop at home, and write books--good books, kind books, with
gentle kind thoughts, such as you have, dear Arthur, and such as might
do people good to read. And if you do not win fame, what then? You own
it is vanity, and you can live very happily without it. I must not
pretend to advise; but I take you at your own word about the world;
and as you own it is wicked, and that it tires you, ask you why you
don't leave it?"

"And what would you have me do?" asked Arthur.

"I would have you bring your wife to Fairoaks to live there, and
study, and do good round about you. I would like to see your own
children playing on the lawn, Arthur, and that we might pray in our
mother's church again once more, dear brother. If the world is a
temptation, are we not told to pray that we may not be led into it?"

"Do you think Blanche would make a good wife for a petty country
gentleman? Do you think I should become the character very well,
Laura?" Pen asked. "Remember temptation walks about the hedgerows as
well as the city streets: and idleness is the greatest tempter
of all."

"What does--does Mr. Warrington say?" said Laura, as a blush mounted
up to her cheek, and of which Pen saw the fervor, though Laura's veil
fell over her face to hide it.

Pen rode on by Laura's side silently for a while. George's name, so
mentioned, brought back the past to him, and the thoughts which he had
once had regarding George and Laura. Why should the recurrence of the
thought agitate him, now that he knew the union was impossible? Why
should he be curious to know if, during the months of their intimacy,
Laura had felt a regard for Warrington? From that day until the
present time George had never alluded to his story, and Arthur
remembered now that since then George had scarcely ever mentioned
Laura's name.

At last he came close to her. "Tell me something, Laura," he said.

She put back her veil and looked at him. "What is it, Arthur?" she
asked--though from the tremor of her voice she guessed very well.

"Tell me--but for George's misfortune--I never knew him speak of it
before or since that day--would you--would you have given him--what
you refused me?"

"Yes, Pen," she said, bursting into tears.

"He deserved you better than I did," poor Arthur groaned forth, with
an indescribable pang at his heart. "I am but a selfish wretch, and
George is better, nobler, truer, than I am. God bless him!"

"Yes, Pen," said Laura, reaching out her hand to her cousin, and he
put his arm round her, and for a moment she sobbed on his shoulder.

The gentle girl had had her secret, and told it. In the widow's last
journey from Fairoaks, when hastening with her mother to Arthur's sick
bed, Laura had made a different confession; and it was only when
Warrington told his own story, and described the hopeless condition of
his life, that she discovered how much her feelings had changed, and
with what tender sympathy, with what great respect, delight, and
admiration she had grown to regard her cousin's friend. Until she knew
that some plans she might have dreamed of were impossible, and that
Warrington reading in her heart, perhaps, had told his melancholy
story to warn her, she had not asked herself whether it was possible
that her affections could change; and had been shocked and scared by
the discovery of the truth. How should she have told it to Helen, and
confessed her shame? Poor Laura felt guilty before her friend, with
the secret which she dared not confide to her; felt as if she had been
ungrateful for Helen's love and regard; felt as if she had been
wickedly faithless to Pen in withdrawing that love from him which he
did not even care to accept; humbled even and repentant before
Warrington, lest she should have encouraged him by undue sympathy, or
shown the preference which she began to feel.

The catastrophe which broke up Laura's home, and the grief and anguish
which she felt for her mother's death, gave her little leisure for
thoughts more selfish; and by the time she rallied from that grief the
minor was also almost cured. It was but for a moment that she had
indulged a hope about Warrington. Her admiration and respect for him
remained as strong as ever. But the tender feeling with which she knew
she had regarded him, was schooled into such calmness, that it may be
said to have been dead and passed away. The pang which it left behind
was one of humility and remorse. "O how wicked and proud I was about
Arthur," she thought, "how self-confident and unforgiving! I never
forgave from my heart this poor girl, who was fond of him, or him for
encouraging her love; and I have been more guilty than she, poor,
little artless creature! I, professing to love one man, could listen
to another only too eagerly; and would not pardon the change of
feelings in Arthur, while I myself was changing and unfaithful." And
so humiliating herself, and acknowledging her weakness, the poor girl
sought for strength and refuge in the manner in which she had been
accustomed to look for them.

She had done no wrong: but there are some folks who suffer for a fault
ever so trifling as much as others whose stout consciences can walk
under crimes of almost any weight; and poor Laura chose to fancy that
she had acted in this delicate juncture of her life as a very great
criminal. She determined that she had done Pen a great injury by
withdrawing that love which, privately in her mother's hearing, she
had bestowed upon him; that she had been ungrateful to her dead
benefactress by ever allowing herself to think of another or of
violating her promise; and that, considering her own enormous crimes,
she ought to be very gentle in judging those of others, whose
temptations were much greater, very likely; and whose motives she
could not understand.

A year back Laura would have been indignant at the idea that Arthur
should marry Blanche: and her high spirit would have risen, as she
thought that from worldly motives he should stoop to one so unworthy.
Now when the news was brought to her of such a chance (the
intelligence was given to her by old Lady Rockminster, whose speeches
were as direct and rapid as a slap on the face), the humbled girl
winced a little at the blow, but bore it meekly, and with a desperate
acquiescence. "He has a right to marry, he knows a great deal more of
the world than I do," she argued with herself. "Blanche may not be so
light-minded as she seemed, and who am I to be her judge? I daresay it
is very good that Arthur should go into Parliament and distinguish
himself, and my duty is to do every thing that lies in my power to aid
him and Blanche, and to make his home happy. I daresay I shall live
with them. If I am godmother to one of their children, I will leave
her my three thousand pounds!" And forthwith she began to think what
she could give Blanche out of her small treasures, and how best to
conciliate her affection. She wrote her forthwith a kind letter, in
which, of course, no mention was made of the plans in contemplation,
but in which Laura recalled old times, and spoke her good-will, and in
reply to this she received an eager answer from Blanche: in which not
a word about marriage was said, to be sure, but Mr. Pendennis was
mentioned two or three times in the letter, and they were to be
henceforth, dearest Laura, and dearest Blanche, and loving sisters,
and so forth.

When Pen and Laura reached home, after Laura's confession (Pen's noble
acknowledgment of his own inferiority, and generous expression of love
for Warrington, causing the girl's heart to throb, and rendering
doubly keen those tears which she sobbed on his shoulder), a little
slim letter was awaiting Miss Bell in the hall, which she trembled
rather guiltily as she unsealed, and which Pen blushed as he
recognized; for he saw instantly that it was from Blanche.

Laura opened it hastily, and cast her eyes quickly over it, as Pen
kept his fixed on her, blushing.

"She dates from London," Laura said. "She has been with old Bonner,
Lady Clavering's maid. Bonner is going to marry Lightfoot the butler.
Where do you think Blanche has been?" she cried out eagerly.

"To Paris, to Scotland, to the Casino?"

"To Shepherd's Inn, to see Fanny; but Fanny wasn't there, and Blanche
is going to leave a present for her. Isn't it kind of her and
thoughtful?" And she handed the letter to Pen who read--

"'I saw Madame Mère who was scrubbing the room, and looked at me with
very _scrubby_ looks; but _la belle_ Fanny was not _au logis;_ and as
I heard that she was in Captain Strong's apartments, Bonner and I
mounted _au troisième_ to see this famous beauty. Another
disappointment--only the Chevalier Strong and a friend of his in the
room: so we came away, after all, without seeing the enchanting Fanny.

"'_Je t'envoie mille et mille baisers_. When will that horrid
canvassing be over? Sleeves are worn, &c. &c. &c.'"

After dinner the doctor was reading the _Times_, "A young gentleman I
attended when he was here some eight or nine years ago, has come into
a fine fortune," the doctor said. "I see here announced the death of
John Henry Foker, Esq., of Logwood Hall, at Pau, in the Pyrenees, on
the 15th ult."



CHAPTER XXIX.

IN WHICH THE MAJOR IS BIDDEN TO STAND AND DELIVER.


[Illustration]

Any gentleman who has frequented the Wheel of Fortune public-house,
where it may be remembered that Mr. James Morgan's Club was held, and
where Sir Francis Clavering had an interview with Major Pendennis, is
aware that there are three rooms for guests upon the ground floor,
besides the bar where the landlady sits. One is a parlor frequented by
the public at large; to another room gentlemen in livery resort; and
the third apartment, on the door of which "Private" is painted, is
that hired by the Club of "The Confidentials," of which Messrs. Morgan
and Lightfoot were members.

The noiseless Morgan had listened to the conversation between Strong
and Major Pendennis at the latter's own lodgings, and had carried away
from it matter for much private speculation; and a desire of knowledge
had led him to follow his master when the major came to the Wheel of
Fortune, and to take his place quietly in the confidential room, while
Pendennis and Clavering had their discourse in the parlor. There was a
particular corner in the confidential room from which you could hear
almost all that passed in the next apartment; and as the conversation
between the two gentlemen there was rather angry, and carried on in a
high key, Morgan had the benefit of overhearing almost the whole of
it: and what he heard, strengthened the conclusions which his mind had
previously formed.

"He knew Altamont at once, did he, when he saw him in Sidney?
Clavering ain't no more married to my lady than I am! Altamont's the
man: Altamont's a convick; young Harthur comes into Parlyment, and the
Gov'nor promises not to split. By Jove, what a sly old rogue it is,
that old Gov'nor! No wonder he's anxious to make the match between
Blanche and Harthur; why, she'll have a hundred thousand if she's a
penny, and bring her man a seat in Parlyment into the bargain." Nobody
saw, but a physiognomist would have liked to behold, the expression of
Mr. Morgan's countenance, when this astounding intelligence was made
clear to him. "But for my hage, and the confounded prejudices of
society," he said, surveying himself in the glass, "dammy, James
Morgan, you might marry her yourself," But if he could not marry Miss
Blanche and her fortune, Morgan thought he could mend his own by the
possession of this information, and that it might be productive of
benefit to him from very many sources. Of all the persons whom the
secret affected, the greater number would not like to have it known.
For instance, Sir Francis Clavering, whose fortune it involved, would
wish to keep it quiet; Colonel Altamont, whose neck it implicated,
would naturally be desirous to hush it; and that young hupstart beast,
Mr. Harthur, who was for gettin' into Parlyment on the strenth of it,
and was as proud as if he was a duke with half a million a year (such,
we grieve to say, was Morgan's opinion of his employer's nephew),
would pay any think sooner than let the world know that he was married
to a convick's daughter, and had got his seat in Parlyment by
trafficking with this secret. As for Lady C., Morgan thought, if she's
tired of Clavering, and wants to get rid of him, she'll pay: if she's
frightened about her son, and fond of the little beggar, she'll pay
all the same: and Miss Blanche will certainly come down handsome to
the man who will put her into her rights, which she was unjustly
defrauded of them, and no mistake. "Dammy," concluded the valet,
reflecting upon this wonderful hand which luck had given him to play,
"with such cards as these, James Morgan, you are a made man. It may be
a reg'lar enewity to me. Every one of 'em must susscribe. And with
what I've made already, I may cut business, give my old Gov'nor
warning, turn gentleman, and have a servant of my own, begad."
Entertaining himself with calculations such as these, that were not a
little likely to perturb a man's spirit, Mr. Morgan showed a very
great degree of self-command by appearing and being calm, and by not
allowing his future prospects in any way to interfere with his
present duties.

One of the persons whom the story chiefly concerned, Colonel Altamont,
was absent from London, when Morgan was thus made acquainted with his
history. The valet knew of Sir Francis Clavering's Shepherd's Inn
haunt, and walked thither an hour or two after the baronet and
Pendennis had had their conversation together. But that bird was
flown; Colonel Altamont had received his Derby winnings and was gone
to the Continent. The fact of his absence was exceedingly vexatious to
Mr. Morgan. "He'll drop all that money at the gambling-shops on the
Rhind," thought Morgan, "and I might have had a good bit of it. It's
confounded annoying to think he's gone and couldn't have waited a few
days longer." Hope, triumphant or deferred, ambition or
disappointment, victory or patient ambush, Morgan bore all alike, with
similar equable countenance. Until the proper day came, the major's
boots were varnished and his hair was curled, his early cup of tea was
brought to his bedside, his oaths, rebukes, and senile satire borne,
with silent, obsequious fidelity. Who would think, to see him waiting
upon his master, packing and shouldering his trunks, and occasionally
assisting at table, at the country-houses where he might be staying,
that Morgan was richer than his employer, and knew his secrets and
other people's? In the profession Mr. Morgan was greatly respected and
admired, and his reputation for wealth and wisdom got him much renown
at most supper-tables: the younger gentlemen voted him stoopid, a
feller of no idears, and a fogey, in a word: but not one of them would
not say amen to the heartfelt prayer which some of the most
serious-minded among the gentlemen uttered, "When I die may I cut up
as well as Morgan Pendennis!"

As became a man of fashion, Major Pendennis spent the autumn passing
from house to house of such country friends as were at home to receive
him, and if the duke happened to be abroad, or the marquis in
Scotland, condescending to sojourn with Sir John or the plain squire.
To say the truth, the old gentleman's reputation was somewhat on the
wane: many of the men of his time had died out, and the occupants of
their halls and the present wearers of their titles knew not Major
Pendennis: and little cared for his traditions "of the wild Prince and
Poyns," and of the heroes of fashion passed away. It must have struck
the good man with melancholy as he walked by many a London door, to
think how seldom it was now opened for him, and how often he used to
knock at it--to what banquets and welcome he used to pass through
it--a score of years back. He began to own that he was no longer of
the present age, and dimly to apprehend that the young men laughed at
him. Such melancholy musings must come across many a Pall Mall
philosopher. The men, thinks he, are not such as they used to be in
his time: the old grand manner and courtly grace of life are gone:
what is Castlewood House and the present Castlewood, compared to the
magnificence of the old mansion and owner? The late lord came to
London with four post-chaises and sixteen horses: all the North Road
hurried out to look at his cavalcade: the people in London streets
even stopped as his procession passed them. The present lord travels
with five bagmen in a railway carriage, and sneaks away from the
station, smoking a cigar in a brougham. The late lord in autumn filled
Castlewood with company, who drank claret till midnight: the present
man buries himself in a hut on a Scotch mountain, and passes November
in two or three closets in an entresol at Paris, where his amusements
are a dinner at a café and a box at a little theatre. What a contrast
there is between _his_ Lady Lorraine, the Regent's Lady Lorraine, and
her little ladyship of the present era! He figures to himself the
first, beautiful, gorgeous, magnificent in diamonds and velvets,
daring in rouge, the wits of the world (the old wits, the old polished
gentlemen--not the _canaille_ of to-day with their language of the
cab-stand, and their coats smelling of smoke) bowing at her feet; and
then thinks of to-day's Lady Lorraine--a little woman in a black silk
gown, like a governess, who talks astronomy, and laboring classes, and
emigration, and the deuce knows what, and lurks to church at eight
o'clock in the morning. Abbots-Lorraine, that used to be the noblest
house in the county, is turned into a monastery--a regular La Trappe.
They don't drink two glasses of wine after dinner, and every other man
at table is a country curate, with a white neckcloth, whose talk is
about Polly Higson's progress at school, or widow Watkins's lumbago.
"And the other young men, those lounging guardsmen and great lazy
dandies--sprawling over sofas and billiard-tables, and stealing off
to smoke pipes in each other's bedrooms, caring for nothing,
reverencing nothing, not even an old gentleman who has known their
fathers and their betters, not even a pretty woman--what a difference
there is between these men who poison the very turnips and
stubble-fields with their tobacco, and the gentlemen of our time!"
thinks the major; "the breed is gone--there's no use for 'em; they're
replaced by a parcel of damned cotton-spinners and utilitarians, and
young sprigs of parsons with their hair combed down their backs. I'm
getting old: they're getting past me: they laugh at us old boys,"
thought old Pendennis. And he was not far wrong; the times and manners
which he admired were pretty nearly gone--the gay young men 'larked'
him irreverently, while the serious youth had a grave pity and wonder
at him, which would have been even more painful to bear, had the old
gentleman been aware of its extent. But he was rather simple: his
examination of moral questions had never been very deep; it had never
struck him perhaps, until very lately, that he was otherwise than a
most respectable and rather fortunate man. Is there no old age but his
without reverence? Did youthful folly never jeer at other bald pates?
For the past two or three years, he had begun to perceive that his day
was well nigh over, and that the men of the new time had begun
to reign.

After a rather unsuccessful autumn season, then, during which he was
faithfully followed by Mr. Morgan, his nephew Arthur being engaged, as
we have seen, at Clavering, it happened that Major Pendennis came back
for awhile to London, at the dismal end of October, when the fogs and
the lawyers come to town. Who has not looked with interest at those
loaded cabs, piled boxes, and crowded children, rattling through the
streets on the dun October evenings; stopping at the dark houses,
where they discharge nurse and infant, girls, matron, and father,
whose holidays are over? Yesterday it was France and sunshine, or
Broadstairs and liberty; to-day comes work and a yellow fog; and, ye
gods! what a heap of bills there lies in master's study. And the clerk
has brought the lawyer's papers from Chambers; and in half an hour the
literary man knows that the printer's boy will be in the passage; and
Mr. Smith with that little account (that particular little account)
has called presentient of your arrival, and has left word that he will
call to-morrow morning at ten. Who among us has not said good-by to
his holiday; returned to dun London, and his fate; surveyed his labors
and liabilities laid out before him, and been aware of that inevitable
little account to settle? Smith and his little account, in the
morning, symbolize duty, difficulty, struggle, which you will meet,
let us hope, friend, with a manly and honest heart. And you think of
him, as the children are slumbering once more in their own beds, and
the watchful housewife tenderly pretends to sleep.

Old Pendennis had no special labors or bills to encounter on the
morrow, as he had no affection at home to soothe him. He had always
money in his desk sufficient for his wants; and being by nature and
habit tolerably indifferent to the wants of other people, these latter
were not likely to disturb him. But a gentleman may be out of temper
though he does not owe a shilling: and though he may be ever so
selfish, he must occasionally feel dispirited and lonely. He had had
two or three twinges of gout in the country-house where he had been
staying: the birds were wild and shy, and the walking over the plowed
fields had fatigued him deucedly: the young men had laughed at him,
and he had been peevish at table once or twice: he had not been able
to get his whist of an evening: and, in fine, was glad to come away.
In all his dealings with Morgan, his valet, he had been exceedingly
sulky and discontented. He had sworn at him and abused him for many
days past. He had scalded his mouth with bad soup at Swindon. He had
left his umbrella in the rail-road carriage: at which piece of
forgetfulness, he was in such a rage, that he cursed Morgan more
freely than ever. Both the chimneys smoked furiously in his lodgings;
and when he caused the windows to be flung open, he swore so
acrimoniously, that Morgan was inclined to fling him out of window,
too, through that opened casement. The valet swore after his master,
as Pendennis went down the street on his way to the Club.

Bays's was not at all pleasant. The house had been new painted, and
smelt of varnish and turpentine, and a large streak of white paint
inflicted itself on the back of the old boy's fur-collared surtout.
The dinner was not good: and the three most odious men in all London--
old Hawkshaw, whose cough and accompaniments are fit to make any man
uncomfortable; old Colonel Gripley, who seizes on all the newspapers;
and that irreclaimable old bore Jawkins, who would come and dine at
the next table to Pendennis, and describe to him every inn-bill which
he had paid in his foreign tour: each and all of these disagreeable
personages and incidents had contributed to make Major Pendennis
miserable; and the Club waiter trod on his toe as he brought him his
coffee. Never alone appear the Immortals. The Furies always hunt in
company: they pursued Pendennis from home to the Club, and from the
Club home.

While the major was absent from his lodgings, Morgan had been seated
in the landlady's parlor, drinking freely of hot brandy-and-water,
and pouring out on Mrs. Brixham some of the abuse which he had
received from his master up-stairs. Mrs. Brixham was Morgan's slave.
He was his landlady's landlord. He had bought the lease of the house
which she rented; he had got her name and her son's to acceptances,
and a bill of sale which made him master of the luckless widow's
furniture. The young Brixham was a clerk in an insurance office, and
Morgan could put him into what he called quod any day. Mrs. Brixham
was a clergyman's widow, and Mr. Morgan, after performing his duties
on the first floor, had a pleasure in making the old lady fetch him
his boot-jack and his slippers. She was his slave. The little black
profiles of her son and daughter; the very picture of Tiddlecot
church, where she was married, and her poor dear Brixham lived and
died, was now Morgan's property, as it hung there over the
mantle-piece of his back-parlor. Morgan sate in the widow's back-room,
in the ex-curate's old horse-hair study-chair, making Mrs. Brixham
bring supper for him, and fill his glass again and again.

The liquor was bought with the poor woman's own coin, and hence Morgan
indulged in it only the more freely; and he had eaten his supper and
was drinking a third tumbler, when old Pendennis returned from the
Club, and went up-stairs to his rooms. Mr. Morgan swore very savagely
at him and his bell, when he heard the latter, and finished his
tumbler of brandy before he went up to answer the summons.

He received the abuse consequent on this delay in silence, nor did the
major condescend to read in the flushed face and glaring eyes of the
man, the anger under which he was laboring. The old gentleman's
foot-bath was at the fire; his gown and slippers awaiting him there.
Morgan knelt down to take his boots off with due subordination: and as
the major abused him from above, kept up a growl of maledictions below
at his feet. Thus, when Pendennis was crying "Confound you, sir; mind
that strap--curse you, don't wrench my foot off," Morgan _sotto voce_
below was expressing a wish to strangle him, drown him, and punch
his head off.

The boots removed, it became necessary to divest Mr. Pendennis of his
coat: and for this purpose the valet had necessarily to approach very
near to his employer; so near that Pendennis could not but perceive
what Mr. Morgan's late occupation had been; to which he adverted in
that simple and forcible phraseology which men are sometimes in the
habit of using to their domestics; informing Morgan that he was a
drunken beast, and that he smelt of brandy.

At this the man broke out, losing patience, and flinging up all
subordination? "I'm drunk, am I? I'm a beast, am I? I'm d----d, am I?
you infernal old miscreant. Shall I wring your old head off, and
drownd yer in that pail of water? Do you think I'm a-goin' to bear
your confounded old harrogance, you old Wigsby! Chatter your old
hivories at me, do you, you grinning old baboon! Come on, if you are a
man, and can stand to a man. Ha! you coward, knives, knives!"

"If you advance a step, I'll send it into you," said the major,
seizing up a knife that was on the table near him. "Go down stairs,
you drunken brute, and leave the house; send for your book and your
wages in the morning, and never let me see your insolent face again.
This d----d impertinence of yours has been growing for some months
past. You have been growing too rich. You are not fit for service. Get
out of it, and out of the house."

"And where would you wish me to go, pray, out of the ouse?" asked the
man, "and won't it be equal convenient to-morrow mornin'?--_tooty-fay
mame shose, sivvaplay, munseer?_"

"Silence, you beast, and go!" cried out the major.

[Illustration]

Morgan began to laugh, with rather a sinister laugh. "Look yere,
Pendennis," he said, seating himself; "since I've been in this room
you've called me beast, brute, dog: and d----d me, haven't you? How do
you suppose one man likes that sort of talk from another? How many
years have I waited on you, and how many damns and cusses have you
given me, along with my wages? Do you think a man's a dog, that you
can talk to him in this way? If I choose to drink a little, why
shouldn't I? I've seen many a gentleman drunk formly, and peraps have
the abit from them. I ain't a-goin' to leave this house, old feller,
and shall I tell you why? The house is my house, every stick of
furnitur' in it is mine, excep' _your_ old traps, and your
shower-bath, and your wig-box. I've bought the place, I tell you, with
my own industry and perseverance. I can show a hundred pound, where
you can show a fifty, or your damned supersellious nephew either. I've
served you honorable, done every thing for you these dozen years, and
I'm a dog, am I? I'm a beast, am I? That's the language for gentlemen,
not for our rank. But I'll bear it no more. I throw up your service;
I'm tired on it; I've combed your old wig and buckled your old girths
and waistbands long enough, I tell you. Don't look savage at me, I'm
sitting in my own chair, in my own room, a-telling the truth to
you. I'll be your beast, and your brute, and your dog, no more, Major
Pendennis AlfPay."

The fury of the old gentleman, met by the servant's abrupt revolt, had
been shocked and cooled by the concussion, as much as if a sudden
shower-bath or a pail of cold water had been flung upon him. That
effect produced, and his anger calmed, Morgan's speech had interested
him, and he rather respected his adversary, and his courage in facing
him, as of old days, in the fencing-room, he would have admired the
opponent who hit him.

"You are no longer my servant," the major said, "and the house may be
yours; but the lodgings are mine, and you will have the goodness to
leave them. To-morrow morning, when we have settled our accounts, I
shall remove into other quarters. In the mean time, I desire to go to
bed, and have not the slightest wish for your farther company."

"_We'll_ have a settlement, don't you be afraid," Morgan said, getting
up from his chair. "I ain't done with you yet; nor with your family,
nor with the Clavering family, Major Pendennis; and that you
shall know."

"Have the goodness to leave the room, sir;--I'm tired," said the
major.

"Hah! you'll be more tired of me afore you've done," answered the man,
with a sneer, and walked out of the room; leaving the major to compose
himself, as best he might, after the agitation of this extraordinary
scene.

He sate and mused by his fire-side over the past events, and the
confounded impudence and ingratitude of servants; and thought how he
should get a new man: how devilish unpleasant it was for a man of his
age, and with his habits, to part with a fellow to whom he had been
accustomed: how Morgan had a receipt for boot-varnish, which was
incomparably better and more comfortable to the feet than any he had
ever tried; how very well he made mutton-broth, and tended him when he
was unwell. "Gad, it's a hard thine: to lose a fellow of that sort:
but he must go," thought the major. "He has grown rich, and impudent
since he has grown rich. He was horribly tipsy and abusive tonight. We
must part, and I must go out of the lodgings. Dammy, I like the
lodgings; I'm used to 'em. It's very unpleasant, at my time of life,
to change my quarters." And so on, mused the old gentleman. The
shower-bath had done him good: the testiness was gone: the loss of the
umbrella, the smell of paint at the Club, were forgotten under the
superior excitement. "Confound the insolent villain!" thought the old
gentleman. "He understood my wants to a nicety: he was the best
servant in England." He thought about his servant as a man thinks of a
horse that has carried him long and well, and that has come down with
him, and is safe no longer. How the deuce to replace him? Where can he
get such another animal?

In these melancholy cogitations the major, who had donned his own
dressing gown and replaced his head of hair (a little gray had been
introduced into the _coiffure_ of late by Mr. Truefitt, which had
given the major's head the most artless and respectable appearance);
in these cogitations, we say, the major, who had taken off his wig and
put on his night-handkerchief, sate absorbed by the fire-side, when a
feeble knock came at his door, which was presently opened by the
landlady of the lodgings.

"God bless my soul, Mrs. Brixham!" cried out the major, startled that
a lady should behold him in the _simple appareil_ of his night-toilet.
"It--it's very late, Mrs. Brixham."

[Illustration]

"I wish I might speak to you, sir," said the landlady, very piteously.
"About Morgan, I suppose? He has cooled himself at the pump. Can't
take him back, Mrs. Brixham. Impossible. I'd determined to part with
him before, when I heard of his dealings in the discount business--I
suppose you've heard of them, Mrs. Brixham? My servant's a
capitalist, begad."

"O sir," said Mrs. Brixham, "I know it to my cost. I borrowed from him
a little money five years ago; and though I have paid him many times
over, I am entirely in his power. I am ruined by him, sir. Every thing
I had is his. He's a dreadful man." "Eh, Mrs. Brixham? _tant
pis_--dev'lish sorry for you, and that I must quit your house after
lodging here so long: there's no help for it. I must go."

"He says we must all go, sir," sobbed out the luckless widow. "He came
down stairs from you just now--he had been drinking, and it always
makes him very wicked--and he said that you had insulted him, sir, and
treated him like a dog, and spoken to him unkindly; and he swore he
would be revenged, and--and I owe him a hundred and twenty pounds,
sir--and he has a bill of sale of all my furniture--and says he will
turn me out of my house, and send my poor George to prison. He has
been the ruin of my family, that man."

"Dev'lish sorry, Mrs. Brixham; pray take a chair. What can I do?"

"Could you not intercede with him for us? George will give half his
allowance; my daughter can send something. If you will but stay on,
sir, and pay a quarter's rent in advance--"

"My good madam, I would as soon give you a quarter in advance as not,
if I were going to stay in the lodgings. But I can't; and I can't
afford to fling away twenty pounds, my good madam. I'm a poor half-pay
officer, and want every shilling I have, begad. As far as a few pounds
goes--say five pounds--I don't say--and shall be most happy, and that
sort of thing: and I'll give it you in the morning with pleasure:
but--but it's getting late, and I have made a railroad journey."

"God's will be done, sir," said the poor woman, drying her tears. "I
must bear my fate."

"And a dev'lish hard one it is, and most sincerely I pity you, Mrs.
Brixham. I--I'll say ten pounds, if you will permit me. Good night."

"Mr. Morgan, sir, when he came down stairs, and when--when I besought
him to have pity on me, and told him he had been the ruin of my
family, said something which I did not well understand--that he would
ruin every family in the house--that he knew something would bring you
down too--and that you should pay him for your--your insolence to him.
I--I must own to you, that I went down on my knees to him, sir; and he
said, with a dreadful oath against you, that he would have you on
your knees."

"Me?--by Gad, that is too pleasant! Where is the confounded fellow?"

"He went away, sir. He said he should see you in the morning. O, pray
try and pacify him, and save me and my poor boy." And the widow went
away with this prayer, to pass her night as she might, and look for
the dreadful morrow.

The last words about himself excited Major Pendennis so much, that his
compassion for Mrs. Brixham's misfortunes was quite forgotten in the
consideration of his own case.

"Me on my knees?" thought he, as he got into bed: "confound his
impudence. Who ever saw me on my knees? What the devil does the fellow
know? Gad, I've not had an affair these twenty years. I defy him." And
the old campaigner turned round and slept pretty sound, being rather
excited and amused by the events of the day--the last day in
Bury-street, he was determined it should be. "For it's impossible to
stay on with a valet over me and a bankrupt landlady. What good can I
do this poor devil of a woman? I'll give her twenty pound--there's
Warrington's twenty pound, which he has just paid--but what's the
use? She'll want more, and more, and more, and that cormorant Morgan
will swallow all. No, dammy, I can't afford to know poor people; and
to-morrow I'll say good-by--to Mrs. Brixham and Mr. Morgan."



CHAPTER XXX.

IN WHICH THE MAJOR NEITHER YIELDS HIS MONEY NOR HIS LIFE.


[Illustration]

Early next morning Pendennis's shutters were opened by Morgan, who
appeared as usual, with a face perfectly grave and respectful, bearing
with him the old gentleman's clothes, cans of water, and elaborate
toilet requisites.

"It's you, is it?" said the old fellow from his bed. "I shan't take
you back again, you understand."

"I ave not the least wish to be took back agin, Major Pendennis," Mr.
Morgan said, with grave dignity, "nor to serve you nor hany man. But
as I wish you to be comftable as long as you stay in my house, I came
up to do what's nessary." And once more, and for the last time, Mr.
James Morgan laid out the silver dressing-case, and strapped the
shining razor.

These offices concluded, he addressed himself to the major with an
indescribable solemnity, and said: "Thinkin' that you would most
likely be in want of a respectable pusson, until you suited yourself,
I spoke to a young man last night, who is 'ere."

"Indeed," said the warrior in the tent-bed.

"He ave lived in the fust families, and I can vouch for his
respectability."

"You are monstrous polite," grinned the old major. And the truth is
that after the occurrences of the previous evening, Morgan had gone
out to his own Club at the Wheel of Fortune, and there finding Frosch,
a courier and valet just returned from a foreign tour with young Lord
Cubley, and for the present disposable, had represented to Mr.
Frosch, that he, Morgan, had "a devil of a blow hup with his own
Gov'ner and was goin' to retire from the business haltogether, and
that if Frosch wanted a tempory job, he might probbly have it by
applying in Bury street."

"You are very polite," said the major, "and your recommendation, I am
sure, will have every weight."

Morgan blushed, he felt his master was "a-chaffin' of him." "The man
have waited on you before, sir," he said with great dignity. "Lord De
la Pole, sir, gave him to his nephew young Lord Cubley, and he have
been with him on his foring tour, and not wishing to go to Fitzurse
Castle, which Frosch's chest is delicate, and he can not bear the cold
in Scotland, he is free to serve you or not, as you choose."

"I repeat, sir, that you are exceedingly polite," said the major.
"Come in, Frosch--you will do very well--Mr. Morgan, will you have the
great kindness to--"

"I shall show him what is nessary, sir, and what is customry for you
to wish to ave done. Will you please to take breakfast 'ere or at the
Club, Major Pendennis?"

"With your kind permission, I will breakfast here, and afterward we
will make our little arrangements."

"If you please, sir."

"Will you now oblige me by leaving the room?"

Morgan withdrew; the excessive politeness of his ex-employer made him
almost as angry as the major's bitterest words. And while the old
gentleman is making his mysterious toilet, we will also
modestly retire.

After breakfast, Major Pendennis and his new aid-de-camp occupied
themselves in preparing for their departure. The establishment of the
old bachelor was not very complicated. He encumbered himself with no
useless wardrobe. A Bible (his mother's), a road-book, Pen's novel
(calf elegant), and the Duke of Wellington's Dispatches, with a few
prints, maps, and portraits of that illustrious general, and of
various sovereigns and consorts of this country, and of the general
under whom Major Pendennis had served in India, formed his literary
and artistical collection; he was always ready to march at a few
hours' notice, and the cases in which he had brought his property into
his lodgings some fifteen years before, were still in the lofts amply
sufficient to receive all his goods. These, the young woman who did
the work of the house, and who was known by the name of Betty to her
mistress, and of 'Slavey' to Mr. Morgan, brought down from their
resting place, and obediently dusted and cleaned under the eyes of the
terrible Morgan. His demeanor was guarded and solemn; he had spoken no
word as yet to Mrs. Brixham respecting his threats of the past night,
but he looked as if he would execute them, and the poor widow
tremblingly awaited her fate.

Old Pendennis, armed with his cane, superintended the package of his
goods and chattels under the hands of Mr. Frosch, and the Slavey
burned such of his papers as he did not care to keep; flung open
doors and closets until they were all empty; and now all boxes and
chests were closed, except his desk, which was ready to receive the
final accounts of Mr. Morgan.

That individual now made his appearance, and brought his books. "As I
wish to speak to you in privick, peraps you will ave the kindness to
request Frosch to step down stairs," he said, on entering.

"Bring a couple of cabs, Frosch, if you please--and wait down stairs
until I ring for you," said the major. Morgan saw Frosch down stairs,
watched him go along the street upon his errand and produced his books
and accounts, which were simple and very easily settled.

"And now, sir," said he, having pocketed the check which his
ex-employer gave him, and signed his name to his book with a flourish,
"and now that accounts is closed between us, sir," he said, "I porpose
to speak to you as one man to another" (Morgan liked the sound of his
own voice; and, as an individual, indulged in public speaking whenever
he could get an opportunity, at the Club, or the housekeeper's room),
"and I must tell you, that I'm in _possussion of certing
information._"

"And may I inquire of what nature, pray?" asked the major.

"It's valuble information, Major Pendennis, as you know very well I
know of a marriage as is no marriage--of a honorable baronet as is no
more married than I am; and which his wife is married to somebody
else, as you know too, sir."

Pendennis at once understood all. "Ha! this accounts for your
behavior. You have been listening at the door, sir, I suppose," said
the major, looking very haughty; "I forgot to look at the key-hole
when I went to that public-house, or I might have suspected what sort
of person was behind it."

"I may have my schemes as you may have yours, I suppose," answered
Morgan. "I may get my information, and I may act on that information,
and I may find that information valuble as any body else may. A poor
servant may have a bit of luck as well as a gentleman, mayn't he?
Don't you be putting on your aughty looks, sir, and comin' the
aristocrat over me. That's all gammon with me. I'm an Englishman, I
am, and as good as you."

"To what the devil does this tend, sir? and how does the secret which
you have surprised concern me, I should like to know?" asked Major
Pendennis, with great majesty.

"How does it concern me, indeed? how grand we are! how does it concern
my nephew, I wonder? How does it concern my nephew's seat in
Parlyment: and to subornation of bigamy? How does it concern that?
What, are you to be the only man to have a secret, and to trade on it?
Why shouldn't I go halves, Major Pendennis? I've found it out too.
Look here! I ain't goin' to be unreasonable with you. Make it worth my
while, and I'll keep the thing close. Let Mr. Arthur take his seat,
and his rich wife, if you like; I don't want to marry her. But I will
have my share as sure as my name's James Morgan. And if I don't--"

"And if you don't, sir--what?" Pendennis asked. "If I don't, I split,
and tell all. I smash Clavering, and have him and his wife up for
bigamy--so help me, I will! I smash young Hopeful's marriage, and I
show up you and him as makin' use of this secret, in order to squeeze
a seat in Parlyment out of Sir Francis, and a fortune out of
his wife."

"Mr. Pendennis knows no more of this business than the babe unborn,
sir," cried the major, aghast. "No more than Lady Clavering, than Miss
Amory does."

"Tell that to the marines, major," replied the valet; "that cock won't
fight with me."

"Do you doubt my word, you villain?"

"No bad language. I don't care one twopence'a'p'ny whether your word's
true or not. I tell you, I intend this to be a nice little annuity to
me, major: for I have every one of you; and I ain't such a fool as to
let you go. I should say that you might make it five hundred a year to
me among you, easy. Pay me down the first quarter now, and I'm as mum
as a mouse. Just give me a note for one twenty-five. There's your
check-book on your desk."

"And there's this, too, you villain," cried the old gentleman. In the
desk to which the valet pointed was a little double-barreled pistol,
which had belonged to Pendennis's old patron, the Indian
commander-in-chief, and which had accompanied him in many a campaign.
"One more word, you scoundrel, and I'll shoot you, like a mad dog.
Stop--by Jove, I'll do it now. You'll assault me will you? You'll
strike at an old man, will you, you lying coward? Kneel down and say
your prayers, sir, for by the Lord you shall die."

The major's face glared with rage at his adversary, who looked
terrified before him for a moment, and at the next, with a shriek of
"Murder," sprang toward the open window, under which a policeman
happened to be on his beat. "Murder! Police!" bellowed Mr. Morgan. To
his surprise, Major Pendennis wheeled away the table and walked to the
other window, which was also open. He beckoned the policeman. "Come up
here, policeman," he said, and then went and placed himself
against the door.

"You miserable sneak," he said to Morgan; "the pistol hasn't been
loaded these fifteen years as you have known very well: if you had not
been such a coward. That policeman is coming, and I will have him up,
and have your trunks searched; I have reason to believe that you are a
thief, sir. I know you are. I'll swear to the things."

"You gave 'em to me--you gave 'em to me!" cried Morgan.

The major laughed. "We'll see," he said; and the guilty valet
remembered some fine lawn-fronted shirts--a certain gold-headed cane--
an opera-glass, which he had forgotten to bring down, and of which he
had assumed the use along with certain articles of his master's
clothes, which the old dandy neither wore nor asked for.

Policeman X entered; followed by the scared Mrs. Brixham and her
maid-of-all-work, who had been at the door and found some
difficulty in closing it against the street amateurs, who wished to
see the row. The major began instantly to speak.

"I have had occasion to discharge this drunken scoundrel," he said,
"Both last night and this morning he insulted and assaulted me. I am
an old man and took up a pistol. You see it is not loaded, and this
coward cried out before he was hurt. I am glad you are come. I was
charging him with taking my property, and desired to examine his
trunks and his room."

"The velvet cloak you ain't worn these three years, nor the weskits,
and I thought I might take the shirts, and I--I take my hoath I
intended to put back the hopera-glass," roared Morgan, writhing with
rage and terror.

"The man acknowledges that he is a thief," the major said, calmly, "He
has been in my service for years, and I have treated him with every
kindness and confidence. We will go up-stairs and examine his trunks."
In those trunks Mr. Morgan had things which he would fain keep from
public eyes. Mr. Morgan, the bill discounter, gave goods as well as
money to his customers. He provided young spendthrifts with
snuff-boxes and pins and jewels and pictures and cigars, and of a very
doubtful quality those cigars and jewels and pictures were. Their
display at a police-office, the discovery of his occult profession,
and the exposure of the major's property, which he had appropriated,
indeed, rather than stolen--would not have added to the reputation of
Mr. Morgan. He looked a piteous image of terror and discomfiture.

"He'll smash me, will he?" thought the major. "I'll crush him now, and
finish with him."

But he paused. He looked at poor Mrs. Brixham's scared face; and he
thought for a moment to himself that the man brought to bay and in
prison might make disclosures which had best be kept secret, and that
it was best not to deal too fiercely with a desperate man.

"Stop," he said, "policeman. I'll speak with this man by himself." "Do
you give Mr. Morgan in charge?" said the policeman.

"I have brought no charge as yet," the major said, with a significant
look at his man.

"Thank you sir," whispered Morgan, very low.

"Go outside the door, and wait there, policeman, if you please--Now,
Morgan, you have played one game with me, and you have not had the
best of it, my good man. No, begad, you've not had the best of it,
though you had the best hand; and you've got to pay, too, now, you
scoundrel."

"Yes, sir," said the man.

"I've only found out, within the last week, the game which you have
been driving, you villain. Young De Boots, of the Blues, recognized
you as the man who came to barracks, and did business one-third in
money, one-third in Eau-de-Cologne, and one-third in French prints,
you confounded demure old sinner! I didn't miss any thing, or care a
straw what you'd taken, you booby; but I took the shot, and it hit--hit
the bull's-eye, begad. Dammy, sir, I'm an old campaigner." "What do
you want with me, sir?"

"I'll tell you. Your bills, I suppose, you keep about you in that
dem'd great leather pocket-book, don't you? You'll burn Mrs.
Brixham's bill?"

"Sir, I ain't a-goin' to part with my property," growled the man.

"You lent her sixty pounds five years ago. She and that poor devil of
an insurance clerk, her son, have paid you fifty pounds a year ever
since; and you have got a bill of sale of her furniture, and her note
of hand for a hundred and fifty pounds. She told me so last night. By
Jove, sir, you've bled that poor woman enough."

"I won't give it up," said Morgan; "If I do I'm--"

"Policeman!" cried the major.

"You shall have the bill," said Morgan. "You're not going to take
money of me, and you a gentleman?"

"I shall want you directly," said the major to X, who here entered,
and who again withdrew.

"No, my good sir," the old gentleman continued; "I have not any desire
to have farther pecuniary transactions with you; but we will draw out
a little paper, which, you will have the kindness to sign. No,
stop!--you shall write it: you have improved immensely in writing of
late, and have now a very good hand. You shall sit down and write, if
you please--there, at that table--so--let me see--we may as well have
the date. Write 'Bury-street, St. James's, October 21, 18--.'"

And Morgan wrote as he was instructed, and as the pitiless old major
continued:

"I, James Morgan, having come in extreme poverty into the service of
Arthur Pendennis, Esquire, of Bury-street, St. James's, a major in her
Majesty's service, acknowledge that I received liberal wages and board
wages from my employer, during fifteen years. You can't object to
that, I am sure," said the major.

"During fifteen years," wrote Morgan.

"In which time, by my own care and prudence," the dictator resumed, "I
have managed to amass sufficient money to purchase the house in which
my master resides, and, besides, to effect other savings. Among other
persons from whom I have had money, I may mention my present tenant,
Mrs. Brixham, who, in consideration of sixty pounds advanced by me
five years since, has paid back to me the sum of two hundred and fifty
pounds sterling, besides giving me a note of hand for one hundred and
twenty pounds, which I restore to her at the desire of my late master,
Major Arthur Pendennis, and therewith free her furniture, of which I
had a bill of sale. Have you written?"

"I think if this pistol was loaded, I'd blow your brains out," said
Morgan.

"No, you wouldn't. You have too great a respect for your valuable
life, my good man," the major answered. "Let us go on and begin a
new sentence."

"And having, in return for my master's kindness, stolen his property
from him, which I acknowledge to be now up-stairs in my trunks;
and having uttered falsehoods regarding his and other honorable
families, I do hereby, in consideration of his clemency to me, express
my regret for uttering these falsehoods, and for stealing his
property; and declare that I am not worthy of belief, and that I
hope--yes, begad--that I hope to amend for the future. Signed,
James Morgan."

"I'm d--d if I sign it," said Morgan.

"My good man, it will happen to you, whether you sign or no, begad,"
said the old fellow, chuckling at his own wit. "There, I shall not use
this, you understand, unless--unless I am compelled to do so. Mrs.
Brixham, and our friend the policeman, will witness it, I dare say,
without reading it: and I will give the old lady back her note of
hand, and say, which you will confirm, that she and you are quits. I
see there is Frosch come back with the cab for my trunks; I shall go
to an hotel. You may come in now, policeman; Mr. Morgan and I have
arranged our little dispute. If Mrs. Brixham will sign this paper, and
you, policeman, will do so, I shall be very much obliged to you both.
Mrs. Brixham, you and your worthy landlord, Mr. Morgan, are quits. I
wish you joy of him. Let Frosch come and pack the rest of the things."

Frosch, aided by the Slavey, under the calm superintendence of Mr.
Morgan, carried Major Pendennis's boxes to the cabs in waiting; and
Mrs. Brixham, when her persecutor was not by, came and asked a
Heaven's blessing upon the major, her preserver, and the best and
quietest and kindest of lodgers. And having given her a finger to
shake, which the humble lady received with a courtesy, and over which
she was ready to make a speech full of tears, the major cut short that
valedictory oration, and walked out of the house to the hotel in
Jermyn street, which was not many steps from Morgan's door.

That individual, looking forth from the parlor-window, discharged any
thing but blessings at his parting guest; but the stout old boy could
afford not to be frightened at Mr. Morgan, and flung him a look of
great contempt and humor as he strutted away with his cane.

Major Pendennis had not quitted his house of Bury street many hours,
and Mr. Morgan was enjoying his _otium_, in a dignified manner,
surveying the evening fog, and smoking a cigar, on the doorsteps, when
Arthur Pendennis, Esq., the hero of this history, made his appearance
at the well-known door.

"My uncle out, I suppose, Morgan?" he said to the functionary; knowing
full well that to smoke was treason, in the presence of the major.

"Major Pendennis _i_s hout, sir," said Morgan, with gravity, bowing,
but not touching the elegant cap which he wore. "Major Pendennis have
left this ouse to-day, sir, and I have no longer the honor of being in
his service, sir."

"Indeed, and where is he?"

"I believe he ave taken tempory lodgings at Cox's otel, in Jummin
street," said Mr. Morgan; and added, after a pause, "Are you in
town for some time, pray, sir? Are you in Chambers? I should like to
have the honor of waiting on you there: and would be thankful if you
would favor me with a quarter of an hour."

"Do you want my uncle to take you back?" asked Arthur, insolent and
good-natured.

"I want no such thing; I'd see him--" the man glared at him for a
minute, but he stopped. "No, sir, thank you," he said in a softer
voice; "it's only with you that I wish to speak, on some business
which concerns you; and perhaps you would favor me by walking into
my house."

"If it is but for a minute or two, I will listen to you, Morgan," said
Arthur; and thought to himself, "I suppose the fellow wants me to
patronize him;" and he entered the house. A card was already in the
front windows, proclaiming that apartments were to be let, and having
introduced Mr. Pendennis into the dining-room, and offered him a
chair, Mr. Morgan took one himself, and proceeded to convey some
information to him, with which the reader has already had
cognizance.



CHAPTER XXXI.

IN WHICH PENDENNIS COUNTS HIS EGGS.


[Illustration]

Our friend had arrived in London on that day only,
though but for a brief visit, and having left some fellow-travelers at
an hotel to which he had conveyed them from the West, he hastened to
the Chambers in Lamb-court, which were basking in as much sun as chose
to visit that dreary but not altogether comfortless building. Freedom
stands in lieu of sunshine in Chambers; and Templars grumble, but take
their ease in their Inn. Pen's domestic announced to him that
Warrington was in Chambers too, and, of course, Arthur ran up to his
friend's room straightway, and found it, as of old, perfumed with the
pipe, and George once more at work at his newspapers and reviews. The
pair greeted each other with the rough cordiality which young
Englishmen use one to another: and which carries a great deal of
warmth and kindness under its rude exterior. Warrington smiled and
took his pipe out of his mouth, and said, "Well, young one!" Pen
advanced and held out his hand, and said, "How are you, old boy?" And
so this greeting passed between two friends who had not seen each
other for months. Alphonse and Frederic would have rushed into each
other's arms and shrieked _Ce bon coeur! ce cher Alphonse!_ over each
other's shoulders. Max and Wilhelm would have bestowed half a dozen
kisses, scented with Havanna, upon each other's mustaches. "Well,
young one!" "How are you, old boy?" is what two Britons say: after
saving each other's lives, possibly, the day before. To-morrow they
will leave off shaking hands, and only wag their heads at one another
as they come to breakfast. Each has for the other the very warmest
confidence and regard: each would share his purse with the other; and
hearing him attacked would break out in the loudest and most
enthusiastic praise of his friend; but they part with a mere Good-by,
they meet with a mere How-d'you-do: and they don't write to each other
in the interval. Curious modesty, strange stoical decorum of English
friendship! "Yes, we are not demonstrative like those confounded
foreigners," says Hardman; who not only shows no friendship, but
never felt any all his life long.

"Been in Switzerland?" says Pen. "Yes," says Warrington. "Couldn't
find a bit of tobacco fit to smoke till we came to Strasburg, where I
got some caporal." The man's mind is full, very likely, of the great
sights which he has seen, of the great emotions with which the vast
works of nature have inspired it. But his enthusiasm is too coy to
show itself, even to his closest friend, and he veils it with a cloud
of tobacco. He will speak more fully of confidential evenings,
however, and write ardently and frankly about that which he is shy of
saying. The thoughts and experience of his travel will come forth in
his writings; as the learning, which he never displays in talk,
enriches his style with pregnant allusion and brilliant illustration,
colors his generous eloquence, and points his wit.

The elder gives a rapid account of the places which he has visited in
his tour. He has seen Switzerland, North Italy, and the Tyrol--he has
come home by Vienna, and Dresden, and the Rhine. He speaks about these
places in a shy, sulky voice, as if he had rather not mention them at
all, and as if the sight of them had rendered him very unhappy. The
outline of the elder man's tour thus gloomily sketched out, the young
one begins to speak. He has been in the country--very much
bored--canvassing--uncommonly slow--he is here for a day or two, and
going on to--to the neighborhood of Tunbridge Wells, to some
friends--that will be uncommonly slow, too. How hard it is to make an
Englishman acknowledge that he is happy!

"And the seat in Parliament, Pen? Have you made it all right?" asks
Warrington.

"All right--as soon as Parliament meets and a new writ can be issued,
Clavering retires, and I step into his shoes," says Pen.

"And under which king does Bezonian speak or die?" asked Warrington.
"Do we come out as Liberal Conservative, or as Government man, or on
our own hook?"

"Hem! There are no politics now; every man's politics, at least, are
pretty much the same. I have not got acres enough to make me a
Protectionist; nor could I be one, I think, if I had all the land in
the county. I shall go pretty much with Government, and in advance of
them upon some social questions which I have been getting up during
the vacation; don't grin, you old Cynic, I _have_ been getting up the
Blue Books, and intend to come out rather strong on the Sanitary and
Colonization questions."

"We reserve to ourselves the liberty of voting against
Government, though, we are generally friendly. We are, however,
friends of the people _avant tout_. We give lectures at the Clavering
Institute, and shake hands with the intelligent mechanics. We think
the franchise ought to be very considerably enlarged; at the same time
we are free to accept office some day, when the House has listened to
a few crack speeches from us, and the Administration perceives
our merit."

"I am not Moses," said Pen, with, as usual, somewhat of melancholy in
his voice. "I have no laws from Heaven to bring down to the people
from the mountain. I don't belong to the mountain at all, or set up to
be a leader and reformer of mankind. My faith is not strong enough for
that; nor my vanity, nor my hypocrisy, great enough. I will tell no
lies, George, that I promise you: and do no more than coincide in
those which are necessary and pass current, and can't be got in
without recalling the whole circulation. Give a man at least the
advantage of his skeptical turn. If I find a good thing to say in the
House, I will say it; a good measure, I will support it; a fair place,
I will take it, and be glad of my luck. But I would no more flatter a
great man than a mob; and now you know as much about my politics as I
do. What call have I to be a Whig? Whiggism is not a divine
institution. Why not vote with the Liberal Conservatives? They have
done for the nation what the Whigs would never have done without them.
Who converted both?--the Radicals and the country outside. I think the
_Morning Post_ is often right, and _Punch_ is often wrong. I don't
profess a call, but take advantage of a chance. _Parlons
d'autre chose_."

"The next thing at your heart, after ambition, is love, I suppose?"
Warrington said. "How have our young loves prospered? Are we going to
change our condition, and give up our chambers? Are you going to
divorce me, Arthur, and take unto yourself a wife?"

"I suppose so. She is very good-natured and lively. She sings, and she
don't mind smoking. She'll have a fair fortune--I don't know how
much--but my uncle augurs every thing from the Begum's generosity, and
says that she will come down very handsomely. And I think Blanche is
devilish fond of me," said Arthur, with a sigh.

"That means that we accept her caresses and her money."

"Haven't we said before that life was a transaction?" Pendennis said.
"I don't pretend to break my heart about her. I have told her pretty
fairly what my feelings are--and--and have engaged myself to her. And
since I saw her last, and for the last two months especially, while I
have been in the country, I think she has been growing fonder and
fonder of me; and her letters to me, and especially to Laura, seem to
show it. Mine have been simple enough--no raptures nor vows, you
understand--but looking upon the thing as an _affaire faite_; and not
desirous to hasten or defer the completion."

"And Laura? how is she?" Warrington asked frankly.

"Laura, George," said Pen, looking his friend hard in the face; "by
Heaven, Laura is the best, and noblest, and dearest girl the sun ever
shone upon." His own voice fell as he spoke: it seemed as if he
could hardly utter the words: he stretched out his hand to his
comrade, who took it and nodded his head.

"Have you only found out that now, young un?" Warrington said after a
pause.

"Who has not learned things too late, George?" cried Arthur, in his
impetuous way, gathering words and emotion as he went on. "Whose life
is not a disappointment? Who carries his heart entire to the grave
without a mutilation? I never knew any body who was happy quite: or
who has not had to ransom himself out of the hands of Fate with the
payment of some dearest treasure or other. Lucky if we are left alone
afterward, when we have paid our fine, and if the tyrant visits us no
more. Suppose I have found out that I have lost the greatest prize in
the world, now that it can't be mine--that for years I had an angel
under my tent, and let her go?--am I the only one--ah, dear old boy,
am I the only one? And do you think my lot is easier to bear because I
own that I deserve if? She's gone from us. God's blessing be with her!
She might have staid, and I lost her; it's like Undine: isn't
it, George?"

"She was in this room once," said George.

He saw her there--he heard the sweet low voice--he saw the sweet smile
and eyes shining so kindly--the face remembered so fondly--thought of
in what night-watches--blest and loved always--gone now! A glass that
had held a nosegay--a Bible with Helen's hand-writing--were all that
were left him of that brief flower of his life. Say it is a dream: say
it passes: better the recollection of a dream than an aimless waking
from a blank stupor.

The two friends sate in silence awhile, each occupied with his own
thoughts and aware of the other's. Pen broke it presently, by saying
that he must go and seek for his uncle, and report progress to the old
gentleman. The major had written in a very bad humor; the major was
getting old. "I should like to see you in Parliament, and snugly
settled with a comfortable house and an heir to the name before I make
my bow. Show me these," the major wrote, "and then, let old Arthur
Pendennis make room for the younger fellows: he has walked the Pall
Mall _pavé_ long enough."

"There is a kindness about the old heathen," said Warrington. "He
cares for somebody besides himself, at least for some other part of
himself besides that which is buttoned into his own coat;--for you and
your race. He would like to see the progeny of the Pendennises
multiplying and increasing, and hopes that they may inherit the land.
The old patriarch blesses you from the Club window of Bays's, and is
carried off and buried under the flags of St. James's Church, in sight
of Piccadilly, and the cab-stand, and the carriages going to the
levee. It is an edifying ending."

"The new blood I bring into the family," mused Pen, "is rather
tainted. If I had chosen, I think my father-in-law, Amory, would not
have been the progenitor I should have desired for my race; nor my
grandfather-in-law Snell; nor our Oriental ancestors. By the way, who
was Amory? Amory was lieutenant of an Indiaman. Blanche wrote some
verses about him, about the storm, the mountain wave, the seaman's
grave, the gallant father, and that sort of thing. Amory was drowned
commanding a country ship between Calcutta and Sydney; Amory and the
Begum weren't happy together. She has been unlucky in her selection of
husbands, the good old lady, for, between ourselves, a more despicable
creature than Sir Francis Clavering, of Clavering Park, Baronet,
never--" "Never legislated for his country," broke in Warrington; at
which Pen blushed rather.

"By the way, at Baden," said Warrington, "I found our friend the
Chevalier Strong in great state, and wearing his orders. He told me
that he had quarreled with Clavering, of whom he seemed to have almost
as bad an opinion as you have, and in fact, I think, though I will not
be certain, confided to me his opinion, that Clavering was an utter
scoundrel. That fellow Bloundell, who taught you card-playing at
Oxbridge, was with Strong; and time, I think, has brought out his
valuable qualities, and rendered him a more accomplished rascal than
he was during your undergraduateship. But the king of the place was
the famous Colonel Altamont, who was carrying all before him, giving
fetes to the whole society, and breaking the bank, it was said."

"My uncle knows something about that fellow--Clavering knows something
about him. There's something _louche_ regarding him. But come! I must
go to Bury-street, like a dutiful nephew." And, taking his hat, Pen
prepared to go.

"I will walk, too," said Warrington. And they descended the stairs,
stopping, however, at Pen's chambers, which, as the reader has been
informed, were now on the lower story.

Here Pen began sprinkling himself with Eau-de-Cologne, and carefully
scenting his hair and whiskers with that odoriferous water.

"What is the matter? You've not been smoking. Is it my pipe that has
poisoned you?" growled Warrington.

"I am going to call upon some women," said Pen. "I'm--I'm going to
dine with 'em. They are passing through town, and are at an hotel in
Jermyn-street."

Warrington looked with good-natured interest at the young fellow
dandifying himself up to a pitch of completeness; and appearing at
length in a gorgeous shirt-front and neckcloth, fresh gloves, and
glistening boots. George had a pair of thick high-lows, and his old
shirt was torn about the breast, and ragged at the collar, where his
blue beard had worn it.

"Well, young un," said he, simply, "I like you to be a buck, somehow.
When I walk about with you, it is as if I had a rose in my
button-hole. And you are still affable. I don't think there is any
young fellow in the Temple turns out like you; and I don't believe you
were ever ashamed of walking with me yet."

"Don't laugh at me, George," said Pen.

"I say, Pen," continued the other, sadly, "if you write--if you write
to Laura, I wish you would say 'God bless her' for me." Pen blushed;
and then looked at Warrington; and then--and then burst into an
uncontrollable fit of laughing.

"I'm going to dine with her," he said. "I brought her and Lady
Rockminster up from the country to-day--made two days of it--slept
last night at Bath--I say, George, come and dine, too. I may ask any
one I please, and the old lady is constantly talking about you."

George refused. George had an article to write. George hesitated; and
oh, strange to say! at last he agreed to go. It was agreed that they
should go and call upon the ladies; and they marched away in high
spirits to the hotel in Jermyn-street. Once more the dear face shone
upon him; once more the sweet voice spoke to him, and the tender hand
pressed a welcome.

There still wanted half-an-hour to dinner, "You will go and see your
uncle now, Mr. Pendennis," old Lady Rockminster said. "You will not
bring him to dinner--no--his old stories are intolerable; and I want
to talk to Mr. Warrington; I daresay he will amuse us. I think we have
heard all your stories. We have been together for two whole days, and
I think we are getting tired of each other."

So obeying her ladyship's orders, Arthur went down stairs and walked
to his uncle's lodgings.



CHAPTER XXXII

FIAT JUSTITIA.


[Illustration]

The dinner was served when Arthur returned, and Lady
Rockminster began to scold him for arriving late. But Laura, looking
at her cousin, saw that his face was so pale and scared, that she
interrupted her imperious patroness; and asked, with tender alarm,
what had happened? Was Arthur ill?

Arthur drank a large bumper of sherry. "I have heard the most
extraordinary news; I will tell you afterward," he said, looking at
the servants. He was very nervous and agitated during the dinner.
"Don't tramp and beat so with your feet under the table," Lady
Rockminster said. "You have trodden on Fido, and upset his saucer. You
see Mr. Warrington keeps his boots quiet."

At the dessert--it seemed as if the unlucky dinner would never be
over--Lady Rockminster said, "This dinner has been exceedingly stupid.
I suppose something has happened, and that you want to speak to Laura.
I will go and have my nap. I am not sure that I shall have any
tea--no. Good night, Mr. Warrington. You must come again, and when
there is no business to talk about." And the old lady, tossing up her
head, walked away from the room with great dignity.

George and the others had risen with her, and Warrington was about to
go away, and was saying "Good-night" to Laura, who, of course was
looking much alarmed about her cousin, when Arthur said, "Pray, stay,
George. You should hear my news too, and give me your counsel in this
case. I hardly know how to act in it."

"It's something about Blanche, Arthur," said Laura, her heart beating,
and her cheek blushing, as she thought it had never blushed in
her life.

"Yes--and the most extraordinary story," said Pen. "When I left you to
go to my uncle's lodgings, I found his servant, Morgan, who has been
with him so long, at the door, and he said that he and his master had
parted that morning; that my uncle had quitted the house, and had gone
to an hotel--this hotel. I asked for him when I came in; but he was
gone out to dinner. Morgan then said that he had something of a most
important nature to communicate to me, and begged me to step into the
house; his house it is now. It appears the scoundrel has saved a great
deal of money while in my uncle's service, and is now a capitalist and
a millionaire, for what I know. Well, I went into the house, and what
do you think he told me? This must be a secret between us all--at
least if we can keep it, now that it is in possession of that villain.
Blanche's father is not dead. He has come to life again. The marriage
between Clavering and the Begum is no marriage."

"And Blanche, I suppose, is her grandfather's heir," said Warrington.

"Perhaps: but the child of what a father! Amory is an escaped
convict--Clavering knows it; my uncle knows it--and it was with this
piece of information held over Clavering _in terrorem_ that the
wretched old man got him to give up his borough to me."

"Blanche doesn't know it," said Laura, "nor poor Lady Clavering."

"No," said Pen; "Blanche does not even know the history of her father.
She knew that he and her mother had separated, and had heard, as a
child, from Bonner, her nurse, that Mr. Amory was drowned in New South
Wales. He was there as a convict, not as a ship's captain, as the poor
girl thought. Lady Clavering has told me that they were not happy, and
that her husband was a bad character. She would tell me all, she said,
some day: and I remember her saying to me, with tears in her eyes,
that it was hard for a woman to be forced to own that she was glad to
hear her husband was dead: and that twice in her life she should have
chosen so badly. What is to be done now? The man can't show and claim
his wife: death is probably over him if he discovers himself: return
to transportation certainly. But the rascal has held the threat of
discovery over Clavering for some time past, and has extorted money
from him time after time."

"It is our friend, Colonel Altamont, of course," said Warrington: "I
see all now."

"If the rascal comes back," continued Arthur, "Morgan, who knows his
secret, will use it over him--and having it in his possession,
proposes to extort money from us all. The d--d rascal supposed I was
cognizant of it," said Pen, white with anger; "asked me if I would
give him an annuity to keep it quiet; threatened me, _me_, as if I was
trafficking with this wretched old Begum's misfortune; and would
extort a seat in Parliament out of that miserable Clavering. Good
heavens! was my uncle mad, to tamper in such a conspiracy? Fancy our
mother's son, Laura, trading on such a treason!"

"I can't fancy it, dear Arthur," said Laura; seizing Arthur's hand,
and kissing it.

"No!" broke out Warrington's deep voice, with a tremor; he surveyed
the two generous and loving young people with a pang of indescribable
love and pain. "No. Our boy can't meddle with such a wretched intrigue
as that. Arthur Pendennis can't marry a convict's daughter; and sit in
Parliament as member for the hulks. You must wash your hands of the
whole affair, Pen. You must break off. You must give no explanations
of why and wherefore, but state that family reasons render a match
impossible. It is better that those poor women should fancy you false
to your word than that they should know the truth. Besides, you can
get from that dog Clavering--I can fetch that for you easily
enough--an acknowledgement that the reasons which you have given to
him as the head of the family are amply sufficient for breaking off
the union. Don't you think with me, Laura?" He scarcely dared to look
her in the face as he spoke. Any lingering hope that he might
have--any feeble hold that he might feel upon the last spar of his
wrecked fortune, he knew he was casting away; and he let the wave of
his calamity close over him. Pen had started up while he was speaking,
looking eagerly at him. He turned his head away. He saw Laura rise up
also and go to Pen, and once more take his hand and kiss it. "She
thinks so too--God bless her!" said George.

"Her father's shame is not Blanche's fault, dear Arthur, is it?" Laura
said, very pale, and speaking very quickly. "Suppose you had been
married, would you desert her because she had done no wrong? Are you
not pledged to her? Would you leave her because she is in misfortune?
And if she is unhappy, wouldn't you console her? Our mother would, had
she been here." And, as she spoke, the kind girl folded her arms round
him, and buried her face upon his heart.

"Our mother is an angel with God," Pen sobbed out. "And you are the
dearest and best of women--the dearest, the dearest and the best.
Teach me my duty. Pray for me that I may do it--pure heart. God bless
you--God bless you, my sister."

"Amen," groaned out Warrington, with his head in his hands. "She is
right," he murmured to himself. "She can't do any wrong, I think
--that girl." Indeed, she looked and smiled like an angel. Many a day
after he saw that smile--saw her radiant face as she looked up at
Pen--saw her putting back her curls, blushing and smiling, and still
looking fondly toward him.

She leaned for a moment her little fair hand on the table, playing on
it. "And now, and now," she said, looking at the two gentlemen--

"And what now?" asked George.

"And now we will have some tea," said Miss Laura, with her smile.

But before this unromantic conclusion to a rather sentimental scene
could be suffered to take place, a servant brought word that Major
Pendennis had returned to the hotel, and was waiting to see his
nephew. Upon this announcement, Laura, not without some alarm, and an
appealing look to Pen, which said "Behave yourself well--hold to the
right, and do your duty--be gentle, but firm with your uncle"--Laura,
we say, with these warnings written in her face, took leave of the
two gentlemen, and retreated to her dormitory. Warrington, who was not
generally fond of tea, yet grudged that expected cup very much. Why
could not old Pendennis have come in an hour later? Well, an hour
sooner or later, what matter? The hour strikes at last? The inevitable
moment comes to say Farewell. The hand is shaken, the door closed,
and the friend gone; and, the brief joy over, you are alone. "In which
of those many windows of the hotel does _her_ light beam?" perhaps he
asks himself as he passes down the street. He strides away to the
smoking-room of a neighboring club, and there applies himself to his
usual solace of a cigar. Men are brawling and talking loud about
politics, opera-girls, horse-racing, the atrocious tyranny of the
committee; bearing this sacred secret about him, he enters into this
brawl. Talk away, each louder than the other. Rattle and crack jokes.
Laugh and tell your wild stories. It is strange to take one's place
and part in the midst of the smoke and din, and think every man here
has his secret _ego_, most likely, which is sitting lonely and apart,
away in the private chamber, from the loud game in which the rest of
us is joining!

Arthur, as he traversed the passages of the hotel, felt his anger
rousing up within him. He was indignant to think that yonder old
gentleman whom he was about to meet, should have made him such a tool
and puppet, and so compromised his honor and good name. The old
fellow's hand was very cold and shaky when Arthur took it. He was
coughing; he was grumbling over the fire; Frosch could not bring his
dressing-gown or arrange his papers as that d--d, confounded,
impudent scoundrel of a Morgan. The old gentleman bemoaned himself,
and cursed Morgan's ingratitude with peevish pathos.

"The confounded impudent scoundrel! He was drunk last night, and
challenged me to fight him, Pen; and, bedad, at one time I was so
excited that I thought I should have driven a knife into him; and the
infernal rascal has made ten thousand pound, I believe--and deserves
to be hanged, and will be; but, curse him, I wish he could have lasted
out my time. He knew all my ways, and, dammy, when I rang the bell,
the confounded thief brought the thing I wanted--not like that stupid
German lout. And what sort of time have you had in the country? Been a
good deal with Lady Rockminster? You can't do better. She is one of
the old school--_vieille école, bonne école_, hey? Dammy, they don't
make gentlemen and ladies now; and in fifty years you'll hardly know
one man from another. But they'll last my time. I ain't long for this
business: I am getting very old, Pen, my boy; and, gad, I was thinking
to-day, as I was packing up my little library, there's a Bible among
the books that belonged to my poor mother; I would like you to keep
that, Pen. I was thinking, sir, that you would most likely open the
box when it was your property, and the old fellow was laid under the
sod, sir," and the major coughed and wagged his old head over
the fire.

His age--his kindness, disarmed Pen's anger somewhat, and made Arthur
feel no little compunction for the deed which he was about to do. He
knew that the announcement which he was about to make would destroy
the darling hope of the old gentleman's life, and create in his breast
a woeful anger and commotion.

"Hey--hey--I'm off, sir," nodded the Elder; "but I'd like to read a
speech of yours in the _Times_ before I go--'Mr. Pendennis said,
Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking'--hey, sir? hey, Arthur?
Begad, you look dev'lish well and healthy, sir. I always said my
brother Jack would bring the family right. You must go down into the
west, and buy the old estate, sir. _Nec tenui pennâ_, hey? We'll rise
again, sir--rise again on the wing--and, begad, I shouldn't be
surprised that you will be a baronet before you die."

His words smote Pen. "And it is I," he thought, "that am going to
fling down the poor old fellow's air-castle. Well, it must be. Here
goes. I--I went into your lodgings at Bury-street, though I did not
find you," Pen slowly began--"and I talked with Morgan, uncle."

"Indeed!" The old gentleman's cheek began to flush involuntarily, and
he muttered, "The cat's out of the bag now, begad!"

"He told me a story, sir, which gave me the deepest surprise and
pain," said Pen.

The major tried to look unconcerned. "What--that story about--
about--What-do-you-call-'em, hey?"

"About Miss Amory's father--about Lady Clavering's first husband, and
who he is, and what."

"Hem--a devilish awkward affair!" said the old man, rubbing his nose.
"I--I've been aware of that--eh--confounded circumstance, for
some time."

"I wish I had known it sooner, or not at all," said Arthur, gloomily.

"He is all safe," thought the senior, greatly relieved. "Gad! I should
have liked to keep it from you altogether--and from those two poor
women, who are as innocent as unborn babes in the transaction."

"You are right. There is no reason why the two women should hear it;
and I shall never tell them--though that villain, Morgan, perhaps
may," Arthur said, gloomily. "He seems disposed to trade upon his
secret, and has already proposed terms of ransom to me. I wish I had
known of the matter earlier, sir. It is not a very pleasant thought to
me that I am engaged to a convict's daughter."

"The very reason why I kept it from you--my dear boy. But Miss Amory
is not a convict's daughter, don't you see? Miss Amory is the daughter
of Lady Clavering, with fifty or sixty thousand pounds for a fortune;
and her father-in-law, a baronet and country gentleman, of high
reputation, approves of the match, and gives up his seat in Parliament
to his son-in-law. What can be more simple?"

"Is it true, sir?"

"Begad, yes, it is true, of course it's true. Amory's dead. I tell you
he _is_ dead. The first sign of life he shows, he is dead. He can't
appear. We have him at a dead-lock like the fellow in the play--the
Critic, hey?--devilish amusing play, that Critic. Monstrous witty man
Sheridan; and so was his son. By gad, sir, when I was at the Cape, I
remember--" The old gentleman's garrulity, and wish, to conduct Arthur
to the Cape, perhaps arose from a desire to avoid the subject which
was near est his nephew's heart; but Arthur broke out, interrupting
him, "If you had told me this tale sooner, I believe you would have
spared me and yourself a great deal of pain and disappointment; and I
should not have found myself tied to an engagement from which I can't,
in honor, recede."

"No, begad, we've fixed you--and a man who's fixed to a seat in
Parliament, and a pretty girl, with a couple of thousand a year, is
fixed to no bad thing, let me tell you," said the old man.

"Great Heavens, sir!" said Arthur; "are you blind? Can't you see?"

"See what, young gentleman?" asked the other.

"See, that rather than trade upon this secret of Amory's," Arthur
cried out, "I would go and join my father-in-law at the hulks! See,
that rather than take a seat in Parliament as a bribe from Clavering
for silence, I would take the spoons off the table! See, that you have
given me a felon's daughter for a wife; doomed me to poverty and
shame; cursed my career when it might have been--when it might have
been so different but for you! Don't you see that we have been playing
a guilty game, and have been over-reached; that in offering to marry
this poor girl, for the sake of her money, and the advancement she
would bring, I was degrading myself, and prostituting my honor?"

"What in Heaven's name do you mean, sir?" cried the old man.

"I mean to say that there is a measure of baseness which I can't
pass," Arthur said. "I have no other words for it, and am sorry if
they hurt you. I have felt, for months past, that my conduct in this
affair has been wicked, sordid, and worldly. I am rightly punished by
the event, and having sold myself for money and a seat in Parliament,
by losing both."

"How do you mean that you lose either?" shrieked the old gentleman.
"Who the devil's to take your fortune or your seat away from you. By
G--, Clavering _shall_ give 'em to you. You shall have every shilling
of eighty thousand pounds."

"I'll keep my promise to Miss Amory, sir," said Arthur.

"And, begad, her parents shall keep theirs to you."

"Not so, please God," Arthur answered. "I have sinned, but, Heaven
help me, I will sin no more. I will let Clavering off from that
bargain which was made without my knowledge. I will take no money with
Blanche but that which was originally settled upon her; and I will try
to make her happy. You have done it. You have brought this on me, sir.
But you knew no better: and I forgive--"

"Arthur--in God's name--in your father's, who, by Heavens, was the
proudest man alive, and had the honor of the family always at
heart--in mine--for the sake of a poor broken down old fellow, who has
always been dev'lish fond of you--don't fling this chance away--I pray
you, I beg you, I implore you, my dear, dear boy, don't fling this
chance away. It's the making of you. You're sure to get on. You'll be
a baronet; it's three thousand a year: dammy, on my knees, there, I
beg of you, don't do this."

And the old man actually sank down on his knees, and seizing one of
Arthur's hands, looked up piteously at him. It was cruel to remark the
shaking hands, the wrinkled and quivering face, the old eyes weeping
and winking, the broken voice. "Ah, sir," said Arthur, with a groan.
"You have brought pain enough on me, spare me this. You have wished me
to marry Blanche. I marry her. For God's sake, sir, rise, I can't
bear it."

"You--you mean to say that you will take her as a beggar, and be one
yourself?" said the old gentleman, rising up and coughing violently.

"I look at her as a person to whom a great calamity has befallen, and
to whom I am promised. She can not help the misfortune; and as she had
my word when she was prosperous, I shall not withdraw it now she is
poor. I will not take Clavering's seat, unless afterward it should be
given of his free will. I will not have a shilling more than her
original fortune."

"Have the kindness to ring the bell," said the old gentleman. "I have
done my best, and said my say; and I'm a dev'lish old fellow.
And--and--it don't matter. And--and Shakspeare was right--and Cardinal
Wolsey--begad--'and had I but served my God as I've served you'--yes,
on my knees, by Jove, to my own nephew--I mightn't have
been--Good-night, sir, you needn't trouble yourself to call again."

Arthur took his hand, which the old man left to him; it was quite
passive and clammy. He looked very much oldened; and it seemed as if
the contest and defeat had quite broken him.

On the next day he kept his bed, and refused to see his
nephew.



CHAPTER XXXIII.

IN WHICH THE DECK BEGINS TO CLEAR.


When, arrayed in his dressing-gown, Pen walked up, according to
custom, to Warrington's chambers next morning, to inform his friend of
the issue of the last night's interview with his uncle, and to ask, as
usual, for George's advice and opinion, Mrs. Flanagan, the laundress,
was the only person whom Arthur found in the dear old chambers. George
had taken a carpet-hag, and was gone. His address was to his brother's
house, in Suffolk. Packages addressed to the newspaper and review for
which he wrote lay on the table, awaiting delivery.

"I found him at the table, when I came, the dear gentleman!" Mrs.
Flanagan said, "writing at his papers, and one of the candles was
burned out; and hard as his bed is, he wasn't in it all night, sir."

Indeed, having sat at the Club until the brawl there became
intolerable to him, George had walked home, and had passed the night
finishing some work on which he was employed, and to the completion of
which he bent himself with all his might. The labor was done, and the
night was worn away somehow, and the tardy November dawn came and
looked in on the young man as he sate over his desk. In the next day's
paper, or quarter's review, many of us very likely admired the work of
his genius, the variety of his illustration, the fierce vigor of his
satire, the depth of his reason. There was no hint in his writing of
the other thoughts which occupied him, and always accompanied him in
his work--a tone more melancholy than was customary, a satire more
bitter and impatient than that which he afterward showed, may have
marked the writings of this period of his life to the very few persons
who knew his style or his name. We have said before, could we know the
man's feelings as well as the author's thoughts--how interesting most
books would be! more interesting than merry. I suppose harlequin's
face behind his mask is always grave, if not melancholy--certainly
each man who lives by the pen, and happens to read this, must
remember, if he will, his own experiences, and recall many solemn
hours of solitude and labor. What a constant care sate at the side of
the desk and accompanied him! Fever or sickness were lying possibly in
the next room: a sick child might be there, with a wife watching over
it terrified and in prayer: or grief might be bearing him down, and
the cruel mist before the eyes rendering the paper scarce visible as
he wrote on it, and the inexorable necessity drove on the pen. What
man among us has not had nights and hours like these? But to the manly
heart--severe as these pangs are, they are endurable: long as the
night seems, the dawn comes at last, and the wounds heal, and the
fever abates, and rest comes, and you can afford to look back on the
past misery with feelings that are any thing but bitter.

Two or three books for reference, fragments of torn up manuscript,
drawers open, pens and inkstand, lines half visible on the blotting
paper, a bit of sealing wax twisted and bitten and broken into sundry
pieces--such relics as these were about the table, and Pen flung
himself down in George's empty chair--noting things according to his
wont, or in spite of himself. There was a gap in the book-case (next
to the old College Plato, with the Boniface Arms), where Helen's Bible
used to be. He has taken that with him, thought Pen. He knew why his
friend was gone. Dear, dear old George!

Pen rubbed his hand over his eyes. O, how much wiser, how much better,
how much nobler he is than I, he thought. Where was such a friend, or
such a brave heart? Where shall I ever hear such a frank voice, and
kind laughter? Where shall I ever see such a true gentleman? No wonder
she loved him. God bless him. What was I compared to him? What could
she do else but love him? To the end of our days we will be her
brothers, as fate wills that we can be no more. We'll be her knights,
and wait on her: and when we're old, we'll say how we loved her. Dear,
dear old George!

When Pen descended to his own chambers, his eye fell on the letter-box
of his outer door, which he had previously overlooked, and there was a
little note to A. P., Esq., in George's well-known handwriting, George
had put into Pen's box probably as he was going away.

"Dr. Pen--I shall be half way home when you breakfast, and intend to
stay over Christmas, in Norfolk, or elsewhere.

"I have my own opinion of the issue of matters about which we talked
in J----street yesterday; and think my presence _de trop_." Vale.
G.W.

"Give my very best regards and adieux to your cousin." And so George
was gone, and Mrs. Flanagan, the laundress, ruled over his
empty chambers.

[Illustration]

Pen of course had to go and see his uncle on the day after their
colloquy, and not being admitted, he naturally went to Lady
Rockminister's apartments, where the old lady instantly asked for
Bluebeard, and insisted that he should come to dinner.

"Bluebeard is gone," Pen said, and he took out poor George's scrap of
paper, and handed it to Laura, who looked at it--did not look at Pen
in return, but passed the paper back to him, and walked away. Pen
rushed into an eloquent eulogium upon his dear old George to Lady
Rockminister, who was astonished at his enthusiasm. She had never
heard him so warm in praise of any body; and told him with her usual
frankness, that she didn't think it had been in his nature to care so
much about any other person.

As Mr. Pendennis was passing in Waterloo-place, in one of his many
walks to the hotel where Laura lived, and whither duty to his uncle
carried Arthur every day, Arthur saw issuing from Messrs. Gimcrack's
celebrated shop an old friend, who was followed to his Brougham by an
obsequious shopman bearing parcels. The gentleman was in the deepest
mourning: the Brougham, the driver, and the horse, were in mourning.
Grief in easy circumstances, and supported by the comfortablest
springs and cushions, was typified in the equipage and the little
gentleman, its proprietor.

"What, Foker! Hail, Foker!" cried out Pen--the reader, no doubt, has
likewise recognized Arthur's old schoolfellow--and he held out his
hand to the heir of the late lamented John Henry Foker, Esq., the
master of Logwood and other houses, the principal partner in the great
brewery of Foker & Co.: the greater portion of Foker's Entire.

A little hand, covered with a glove of the deepest ebony, and set off
by three inches of a snowy wristband, was put forth to meet Arthur's
salutation. The other little hand held a little morocco case,
containing, no doubt, something precious, of which Mr. Foker had just
become proprietor in Messrs. Gimcrack's shop. Pen's keen eyes and
satiric turn showed him at once upon what errand Mr. Foker had been
employed; and he thought of the heir in Horace pouring forth the
gathered wine of his father's vats; and that human nature is pretty
much the same in Regent-street as in the Via Sacra.

"Le roi est mort. Vive le roi!" said Arthur.

"Ah!" said the other. "Yes. Thank you--very much obliged. How do you
do, Pen? very busy--good-by!" and he jumped into the black Brougham,
and sate like a little black Care behind the black coachman. He had
blushed on seeing Pen, and showed other signs of guilt and
perturbation, which Pen attributed to the novelty of his situation;
and on which he began to speculate in his usual sardonic manner.

"Yes: so wags the world," thought Pen. "The stone closes over Harry
the Fourth, and Harry the Fifth reigns in his stead. The old ministers
at the brewery come and kneel before him with their books; the
draymen, his subjects, fling up their red caps, and shout for him.
What a grave deference and sympathy the bankers and the lawyers show!
There was too great a stake at issue between those two that they
should ever love each other very cordially. As long as one man keeps
another out of twenty thousand a year, the younger must be always
hankering after the crown, and the wish must be the father to the
thought of possession. Thank Heaven, there was no thought of money
between me and our dear mother, Laura."

"There never could have been. You would have spurned it!" cried Laura.
"Why make yourself more selfish than you are, Pen; and allow your mind
to own for an instant that it would have entertained such--such
dreadful meanness? You make me blush for you, Arthur; you make me--"
her eyes finished this sentence, and she passed her handkerchief
across them.

"There are some truths which women will never acknowledge," Pen said,
"and from which your modesty always turns away. I do not say that I
ever knew the feeling, only that I am glad I had not the temptation.
Is there any harm in that confession of weakness?"

"We are all taught to ask to be delivered from evil, Arthur," said
Laura, in a low voice. "I am glad if you were spared from that great
crime; and only sorry to think that you could by any possibility have
 been led into it. But you never could; and you don't think you
could. Your acts are generous and kind: you disdain mean actions. You
take Blanche without money, and without a bribe. Yes, thanks be to
Heaven, dear brother. You could not have sold yourself away; I knew
you could not when it came to the day, and you did not. Praise be--be
where praise is due. Why does this horrid skepticism pursue you, my
Arthur? Why doubt and sneer at your own heart--at every one's? Oh, if
you knew the pain you give me--how I lie awake and think of those hard
sentences, dear brother, and wish them unspoken, unthought!"

"Do I cause you many thoughts and many tears, Laura?" asked Arthur.
The fullness of innocent love beamed from her in reply. A smile
heavenly pure, a glance of unutterable tenderness, sympathy, pity,
shone in her face--all which indications of love and purity Arthur
beheld and worshiped in her, as you would watch them in a child, as
one fancies one might regard them in an angel.

"I--I don't know what I have done," he said, simply, "to have merited
such regard from two such women. It is like undeserved praise,
Laura--or too much good fortune, which frightens one--or a great post,
when a man feels that he is not fit for it. Ah, sister, how weak and
wicked we are; how spotless, and full of love and truth, Heaven made
you! I think for some of you there has been no fall," he said, looking
at the charming girl with an almost paternal glance of admiration.
"You can't help having sweet thoughts, and doing good actions. Dear
creature! they are the flowers which you bear."

"And what else, sir?" asked Laura. "I see a sneer coming over your
face. What is it? Why does it come to drive all the good
thoughts away?"

"A sneer, is there? I was thinking, my dear, that nature in making you
so good and loving did very well: but--"

"But what? What is that wicked but? and why are you always calling it
up?"

"But will come in spite of us. But is reflection. But is the skeptic's
familiar, with whom he has made a compact; and if he forgets it, and
indulges in happy day-dreams, or building of air castles, or listens
to sweet music, let us say, or to the bells ringing to church, But
taps at the door, and says, 'Master, I am here. You are my master; but
I am yours. Go where you will you can't travel without me. I will
whisper to you when you are on your knees at church. I will be at your
marriage pillow. I will sit down at your table with your children. I
will be behind your death-bed curtain.' That is what But is,"
Pen said.

"Pen, you frighten me," cried Laura.

"Do you know what But came and said to me just now, when I was looking
at you? But said, 'If that girl had reason as well as love, she would
love you no more. If she knew you as you are--the sullied, selfish
being which _you_ know--she must part from you, and could give you no
love and no sympathy.' Didn't I say," he added fondly, "that some of
you seem exempt from the fall? Love you know; but the knowledge of
evil is kept from you."

"What is this you young folks are talking about?" asked Lady
Rockminster, who at this moment made her appearance in the room,
having performed in the mystic retirement of her own apartments, and
under the hands of her attendant, those elaborate toilet-rites without
which the worthy old lady never presented herself to public view "Mr.
Pendennis, you are always coming here."

"It is very pleasant to be here," Arthur said; "and we were talking
when you came in, about my friend Foker, whom I met just now; and who,
as your ladyship knows, has succeeded to his father's kingdom."

"He has a very fine property, he has fifteen thousand a year. He is my
cousin. He is a very worthy young man. He must come and see me," said
Lady Rockminster, with a look at Laura.

"He has been engaged for many years past to his cousin, Lady--"

"Lady Ann is a foolish little chit," Lady Rockminster said, with much
dignity; "and I have no patience with her. She has outraged every
feeling of society. She has broken her father's heart, and thrown away
fifteen thousand a year."

"Thrown away? What has happened?" asked Pen.

"It will be the talk of the town in a day or two; and there is no need
why I should keep the secret any longer," said Lady Rockminster, who
had written and received a dozen letters on the subject. "I had a
letter yesterday from my daughter, who was staying at Drummington
until all the world was obliged to go away on account of the frightful
catastrophe which happened there. When Mr. Foker came home from Nice,
and after the funeral, Lady Ann went down on her knees to her father,
said that she never could marry her cousin, that she had contracted
another attachment, and that she must die rather than fulfill her
contract. Poor Lord Rosherville, who is dreadfully embarrassed, showed
his daughter what the state of his affairs was, and that it was
necessary that the arrangements should take place; and in fine, we all
supposed that she had listened to reason, and intended to comply with
the desires of her family. But what has happened--last Thursday she
went out after breakfast with her maid, and was married in the very
church in Drummington Park to Mr. Hobson, her father's own chaplain
and her brother's tutor; a red-haired widower with two children. Poor
dear Rosherville is in a dreadful way: he wishes Henry Foker should
marry Alice or Barbara; but Alice is marked with the small-pox, and
Barbara is ten years older than he is. And, of course, now the young
man is his own master, he will think of choosing for himself. The blow
on Lady Agnes is very cruel. She is inconsolable. She has the house in
Grosvenor-street for her life, and her settlement, which was very
handsome. Have you not met her? Yes, she dined one day at Lady
Clavering's--the first day I saw you, and a very disagreeable young
man I thought you were. But I have formed you. We have formed him,
haven't we, Laura? Where is Bluebeard? let him come. That horrid
Grindley, the dentist, will keep me in town another week." To the
latter part of her ladyship's speech Arthur gave no ear. He was
thinking for whom could Foker be purchasing those trinkets which he
was carrying away from the jeweler's. Why did Harry seem anxious to
avoid him? Could he be still faithful to the attachment which had
agitated him so much, and sent him abroad eighteen months back? Psha!
The bracelets and presents were for some of Harry's old friends of the
Opera or the French theatre. Rumors from Naples and Paris, rumors,
such as are borne to club smoking-rooms, had announced that the young
man had found distractions; or, precluded from his virtuous
attachment, the poor fellow had flung himself back upon his old
companions and amusements--not the only man or woman whom society
forces into evil, or debars from good; not the only victim of the
world's selfish and wicked laws.

As a good thing when it is to be done can not be done too quickly,
Laura was anxious that Pen's marriage intentions should be put into
execution as speedily as possible, and pressed on his arrangements
with rather a feverish anxiety. Why could she not wait? Pen could
afford to do so with perfect equanimity, but Laura would hear of no
delay. She wrote to Pen: she implored Pen: she used every means to
urge expedition. It seemed as if she could have no rest until Arthur's
happiness was complete.

She offered herself to dearest Blanche to come and stay at Tunbridge
with her, when Lady Rockminster should go on her intended visit to the
reigning house of Rockminster; and although the old dowager scolded,
and ordered, and commanded, Laura was deaf and disobedient: she must
go to Tunbridge, she would go to Tunbridge: she who ordinarily had no
will of her own, and complied, smilingly, with any body's whim and
caprices, showed the most selfish and obstinate determination in this
instance. The dowager lady must nurse herself in her rheumatism, she
must read herself to sleep; if she would not hear her maid, whose
voice croaked, and who made sad work of the sentimental passages in
the novels--Laura must go, and be with her new sister. In another
week, she proposed, with many loves and regards to dear Lady
Clavering, to pass some time with dearest Blanche.

Dearest Blanche wrote instantly in reply to dearest Laura's No. 1, to
say with what extreme delight she should welcome her sister: how
charming it would be to practice their old duets together, to wander
o'er the grassy sward, and amidst the yellowing woods of Penshurst and
Southborough! Blanche counted the hours till she should embrace her
dearest friend.

Laura, No. 2, expressed her delight at dearest Blanche's affectionate
reply. She hoped that their friendship would never diminish; that the
confidence between them would grow in after years; that they should
have no secrets from each other; that the aim of the life of each
would be to make one person happy.

Blanche, No. 2 followed in two days. "How provoking! Their house was
very small, the two spare bedrooms were occupied by that horrid Mrs.
Planter and her daughter, who had thought proper to fall ill (she
always fell ill in country houses), and she could not, or would not be
moved for some days."

Laura, No. 3. "It was indeed very provoking. L. had hoped to hear one
of dearest B.'s dear songs on Friday; but she was the more consoled to
wait, because Lady R. was not very well, and liked to be nursed by
her. Poor Major Pendennis was very unwell, too, in the same hotel--too
unwell even to see Arthur, who was constant in his calls on his uncle.
Arthur's heart was full of tenderness and affection. She had known
Arthur all her life. She would answer--yes, even in italics she would
answer--for his kindness, his goodness, and his gentleness."

Blanche, No. 3. "What is this most surprising, most extraordinary
letter from A.P.? What does dearest Laura know about it? What has
happened? What, what mystery is enveloped under his frightful reserve?"

Blanche, No. 3, requires an explanation; and it can not be better
given than in the surprising and mysterious letter of Arthur
Pendennis.



CHAPTER XXXIV.

MR. AND MRS. SAM HUXTER.


"Dear Blanche," Arthur wrote, "you are always reading and dreaming
pretty dramas, and exciting romances in real life, are you now
prepared to enact a part of one? And not the pleasantest part, dear
Blanche--that in which the heroine takes possession of her father's
palace and wealth, and, introducing her husband to the loyal retainers
and faithful vassals, greets her happy bridegroom with 'All of this is
mine and thine;' but the other character--that of the luckless lady,
who suddenly discovers that she is not the prince's wife, but Claude
Melnotte's the beggar's; that of Alnaschar's wife, who comes in just
as her husband has kicked over the tray of porcelain which was to be
the making of his fortune. But stay; Alnaschar, who kicked down the
china, was not a married man; he had cast his eye on the vizier's
daughter, and his hopes of her went to the ground with the shattered
bowls and tea-cups.

"Will you be the vizier's daughter, and refuse and laugh to scorn
Alnaschar, or will you be the Lady of Lyons, and love the penniless
Claude Melnotte? I will act that part, if you like. I will love you my
best in return. I will do my all to make your humble life happy: for
humble it will be: at least the odds are against any other conclusion;
we shall live and die in a poor, prosy, humdrum way. There will be no
stars and epaulets for the hero of our story. I shall write one or two
more stories, which will presently be forgotten. I shall be called
to the bar, and try to get on in my profession: perhaps some day, if I
am very lucky, and work very hard (which is absurd), I may get a
colonial appointment, and you may be an Indian judge's lady. Meanwhile
I shall buy back the Pall Mall Gazette: the publishers are tired of it
since the death of poor Shandon, and will sell it for a small sum.
Warrington will be my right hand, and write it up to a respectable
sale. I will introduce you to Mr. Finucane, the sub-editor, and I know
who, in the end, will be Mrs. Finucane--a very nice, gentle creature,
who has lived sweetly through a sad life--and we will jog on, I say,
and look out for better times, and earn our living decently. You shall
have the opera-boxes, and superintend the fashionable intelligence,
and break your little heart in the poet's corner. Shall we live over
the offices?--there are four very good rooms, a kitchen, and a garret
for Laura, in Catherine-street, in the Strand; or would you like a
house in the Waterloo-road?--it would be very pleasant, only there is
that halfpenny toll at the bridge. The boys may go to King's College,
mayn't they? Does all this read to you like a joke?

"Ah, dear Blanche, it is no joke, and I am sober and telling the
truth. Our fine day-dreams are gone. Our carriage has whirled out of
sight like Cinderella's: our house in Belgravia has been whisked away
into the air by a malevolent Genius, and I am no more a member of
Parliament than I am a Bishop on his bench in the House of Lords, or a
Duke with a garter at his knee. You know pretty well what my property
is, and your own little fortune: we may have enough with those two to
live in decent comfort; to take a cab sometimes when we go out to see
our friends, and not to deny ourselves an omnibus when we are tired.
But that is all: is that enough for you, my little dainty lady? I
doubt sometimes whether you can bear the life which I offer you--at
least, it is fair that you should know what it will be. If you say,
'Yes, Arthur, I will follow your fate whatever it may be, and be a
loyal and loving wife to aid and cheer you'--come to me, dear Blanche,
and may God help me so that I may do my duty to you. If not, and you
look to a higher station, I must not bar Blanche's fortune--I will
stand in the crowd, and see your ladyship go to Court where you are
presented, and you shall give me a smile from your chariot window. I
saw Lady Mirable going to the drawing-room last season: the happy
husband at her side glittered with stars and cordons. All the flowers
in the garden bloomed in the coachman's bosom. Will you have these and
the chariot, or walk on foot and mend your husband's stockings?

"I can not tell you now--afterward I might, should the day come when
we may have no secrets from one another--what has happened within the
last few hours which has changed all my prospects in life; but so it
is, that I have learned something which forces me to give up the plans
which I had formed, and many vain and ambitious hopes in which I had
been indulging. I have written and dispatched a letter to Sir Francis
Clavering, saying that I can not accept his seat in Parliament until
after my marriage; in like manner I can not and will not accept any
larger fortune with you than that which has always belonged to you
since your grandfather's death, and the birth of your half-brother.
Your good mother is not in the least aware--I hope she never may
be--of the reasons which force me to this very strange decision. They
arise from a painful circumstance, which is attributable to none of
our faults; but, having once befallen, they are as fatal and
irreparable as that shock which overset honest Alnaschar's porcelain,
and shattered all his hopes beyond the power of mending. I write gayly
enough, for there is no use in bewailing such a hopeless mischance. We
have not drawn the great prize in the lottery, dear Blanche: But I
shall be contented enough without it, if you can be so; and I repeat,
with all my heart, that I will do my best to make you happy.

"And now, what news shall I give you? My uncle is very unwell, and
takes my refusal of the seat in Parliament in sad dudgeon: the scheme
was his, poor old gentleman, and he naturally bemoans its failure. But
Warrington, Laura, and I had a council of war: they know this awful
secret, and back me in my decision. You must love George as you love
what is generous and upright and noble; and as for Laura--she must be
our sister, Blanche, our saint, our good angel. With two such friends
at home, what need we care for the world with-out, or who is member
for Clavering, or who is asked or not asked to the great balls of
the season?"

To this frank communication came back the letter from Blanche to
Laura, and one to Pen himself, which perhaps his own letter justified.
"You are spoiled by the world," Blanche wrote; "you do not love your
poor Blanche as she would be loved, or you would not offer thus
lightly to take her or leave her. No, Arthur, you love me not--a man
of the world, you have given me your plighted troth, and are ready to
redeem it; but that entire affection, that love whole and abiding,
where--where is that vision of my youth? I am but a pastime of your
life, and I would be its all;--but a fleeting thought, and I would be
your whole soul. I would have our two hearts one; but ah, my Arthur,
how lonely yours is! how little you give me of it! You speak of our
parting, with a smile on your lip; of our meeting, and you care not to
hasten it! Is life but a disillusion, then, and are the flowers of our
garden faded away? I have wept--I have prayed--I have passed sleepless
hours--I have shed bitter, bitter tears over your letter! To you I
bring the gushing poesy of my being--the yearnings of the soul that
longs to be loved--that pines for love, love, love, beyond all!--that
flings itself at your feet, and cries, Love me, Arthur! Your heart
beats no quicker at the kneeling appeal of my love!--your proud eye is
dimmed by no tear of sympathy!--you accept my soul's treasure as
though 'twere dross! not the pearls from the unfathomable deeps of
affection! not the diamonds from the caverns of the heart. You treat
me like a slave, and bid me bow to my master! Is this the guerdon of a
free maiden--is this the price of a life's passion? Ah me! when was it
otherwise? when did love meet with aught but disappointment? Could I
hope (fond fool!) to be the exception to the lot of my race; and lay
my fevered brow on a heart that comprehended my own? Foolish girl
that I was! One by one, all the flowers of my young life have faded
away; and this, the last, the sweetest, the dearest, the fondly, the
madly loved, the wildly cherished--where is it? But no more of this.
Heed not my bleeding heart.--Bless you, bless you always, Arthur!

"I will write more when I am more collected. My racking brain renders
thought almost impossible. I long to see Laura! She will come to us
directly we return from the country, will she not? And you, cold
one!" B.

The words of this letter were perfectly clear, and written in
Blanche's neatest hand, upon her scented paper; and yet the meaning of
the composition not a little puzzled Pen. Did Blanche mean to accept
or to refuse his polite offer? Her phrases either meant that Pen did
not love her, and she declined him, or that she took him, and
sacrificed herself to him, cold as he was. He laughed sardonically
over the letter, and over the transaction which occasioned it. He
laughed to think how Fortune had jilted him, and how he deserved his
slippery fortune. He turned over and over the musky, gilt-edged
riddle. It amused his humor: he enjoyed it as if it had been a
funny story.

He was thus seated, twiddling the queer manuscript in his hand, joking
grimly to himself, when his servant came in with a card from a
gentleman, who wished to speak to him very particularly. And if Pen
had gone out into the passage, he would have seen sucking his stick,
rolling his eyes, and showing great marks of anxiety, his old
acquaintance, Mr. Samuel Huxter.

"Mr. Huxter on particular business! Pray, beg Mr. Huxter to come in,"
said Pen, amused rather; and not the less so when poor Sam appeared
before him.

"Pray take a chair, Mr. Huxter," said Pen, in his most superb manner.
"In what way can I be of service to you?"

"I had rather not speak before the flunk--before the man, Mr.
Pendennis;" on which Mr. Arthur's attendant quitted the room.

"I'm in a fix," said Mr. Huxter, gloomily.

"Indeed."

"_She_ sent me to you," continued the young surgeon.

"What, Fanny? Is she well? I was coming to see her, but I have had a
great deal of business since my return to London."

"I heard of you through my governor and Jack Hobnell," broke in
Huxter. "I wish you joy, Mr. Pendennis, both of the borough and the
lady, sir. Fanny wishes you joy, too," he added, with something of
a blush.

"There's many a slip between the cup and the lip! Who knows what may
happen, Mr. Huxter, or who will sit in Parliament for Clavering
next session?"

"You can do any thing with my governor," continued Mr. Huxter. "You
got him Clavering Park. The old boy was very much pleased, sir, at
your calling him in. Hobnell wrote me so. Do you think you could speak
to the governor for me, Mr. Pendennis?"

"And tell him what?" "I've gone and done it, sir," said Huxter, with
a particular look.

"You--you don't mean to say you have--you have done any wrong to that
dear little creature, sir," said Pen, starting up in a great fury.

"I hope not," said Huxter, with a hang-dog look: "but I've married
her. And I know there will be an awful shindy at home. It was agreed
that I should be taken into partnership when I had passed the College,
and it was to have been Huxter and Son. But I _would_ have it,
confound it. It's all over now, and the old boy's wrote to me that
he's coming up to town for drugs: he will be here to-morrow, and then
it must all come out."

"And when did this event happen?" asked Pen, not over well pleased,
most likely, that a person who had once attracted some portion of his
royal good graces should have transferred her allegiance, and consoled
herself for his loss.

"Last Thursday was five weeks--it was two days after Miss Amory came
to Shepherd's Inn," Huxter answered.

Pen remembered that Blanche had written and mentioned her visit. "I
was called in," Huxter said. "I was in the inn looking after old Cos's
leg; and about something else too, very likely: and I met Strong, who
told me there was a woman taken ill in Chambers, and went up to give
her my professional services. It was the old lady who attends Miss
Amory--her housekeeper, or some such thing. She was taken with strong
hysterics: I found her kicking and screaming like a good one--in
Strong's chamber, along with him and Colonel Altamont, and Miss Amory
crying and as pale as a sheet; and Altamont fuming about--a regular
kick up. They were two hours in the chambers; and the old woman went
whooping off in a cab. She was much worse than the young one. I called
in Grosvenor-place next day to see if I could be of any service, but
they were gone without so much as thanking me: and the day after I had
business of my own to attend to--a bad business too," said Mr. Huxter,
gloomily. "But it's done, and can't be undone; and we must make the
best of it."

She has known the story for a month, thought Pen, with a sharp pang of
grief, and a gloomy sympathy--this accounts for her letter of to-day.
She will not implicate her father, or divulge his secret; she wishes
to let me off from the marriage--and finds a pretext--the
generous girl!

"Do you know who Altamont is, sir?" asked Huxter, after the pause
during which Pen had been thinking of his own affairs. "Fanny and I
have talked him over, and we can't help fancying that it's Mrs.
Lightfoot's first husband come to life again, and she who has just
married a second. Perhaps Lightfoot won't be very sorry for it,"
sighed Huxter, looking savagely at Arthur, for the demon of jealousy
was still in possession of his soul; and now, and more than ever since
his marriage, the poor fellow fancied that Fanny's heart belonged to
his rival.

"Let us talk about your affairs," said Pen. "Show me how I can be of
any service to you, Huxter. Let me congratulate you on your
marriage, I am thankful that Fanny, who is so good, so fascinating, so
kind a creature, has found an honest man, and a gentleman who will
make her happy. Show me what I can do to help you."

"She thinks you can, sir," said Huxter, accepting Pen's proffered
hand, "and I'm very much obliged to you, I'm sure; and that you might
talk over my father, and break the business to him, and my mother, who
always has her back up about being a clergyman's daughter. Fanny ain't
of a good family, I know, and not up to us in breeding and that--but
she's a Huxter now."

[Illustration]

"The wife takes the husband's rank, of course," said Pen.

"And with a little practice in society," continued Huxter, imbibing
his stick, "she'll be as good as any girl in Clavering. You should
hear her sing and play on the piano. Did you ever? Old Bows taught
her. And she'll do on the stage, if the governor was to throw me over;
but I'd rather not have her there. She can't help being a coquette,
Mr. Pendennis, she can't help it. Dammy, sir! I'll be bound to say,
that two or three of the Bartholomew chaps, that I've brought into my
place, are sitting with her now: even Jack Linton, that I took down as
my best man, is as bad as the rest, and she will go on singing and
making eyes at him. It's what Bows says, if there were twenty men in a
room, and one not taking notice of her, she wouldn't be satisfied
until the twentieth was at her elbow."

"You should have her mother with her," said Pen, laughing.

"She must keep the lodge. She can't see so much of her family as she
used. I can't, you know, sir, go on with that lot. Consider my rank in
life," said Huxter, putting a very dirty hand up to his chin.

"_Au fait_" said Mr. Pen, who was infinitely amused, and concerning
whom _mutato nomine_ (and of course concerning nobody else in the
world) the fable might have been narrated.

As the two gentlemen were in the midst of this colloquy, another knock
came to Pen's door, and his servant presently announced Mr. Bows. The
old man followed slowly, his pale face blushing, and his hand
trembling somewhat as he took Pen's. He coughed, and wiped his face in
his checked cotton pocket-handkerchief, and sat down, with his hands
on his knees, the sun shining on his bald head. Pen looked at the
homely figure with no small sympathy and kindness. This man, too, has
had his griefs, and his wounds, Arthur thought. This man, too, has
brought his genius and his heart, and laid them at a woman's feet;
where she spurned them. The chance of life has gone against him, and
the prize is with that creature yonder. Fanny's bridegroom, thus
mutely apostrophized, had winked meanwhile with one eye at old Bows,
and was driving holes in the floor with the cane which he loved.

"So we have lost, Mr. Bows, and here is the lucky winner," Pen said,
looking hard at the old man.

"Here is the lucky winner, sir, as you say."

"I suppose you have come from my place?" asked Huxter, who, having
winked at Bows with one eye, now favored Pen with a wink of the
other--a wink which seemed to say, "Infatuated old boy--you
understand--over head and ears in love with her--poor old fool."

"Yes, I have been there ever since you went away. It was Mrs. Sam who
sent me after you: who said that she thought you might be doing
something stupid--something like yourself, Huxter."

"There's as big fools as I am," growled the young surgeon.

"A few, p'raps," said the old man; "not many, let us trust. Yes, she
sent me after you, for fear you should offend Mr. Pendennis; and I
daresay because she thought you wouldn't give her message to him, and
beg him to go and see her; and she knew _I_ would take her errand. Did
he tell you that, sir?"

Huxter blushed scarlet, and covered his confusion with an imprecation.
Pen laughed; the scene suited his bitter humor more and more.

"I have no doubt Mr. Huxter was going to tell me," Arthur said, "and
very much flattered I am sure I shall be to pay my respects to
his wife."

"It's in Charterhouse-lane, over the baker's, on the right hand side
as you go from St. John's-street," continued Bows, without any pity.
"You know Smithfield, Mr. Pendennis? St. John's-street leads into
Smithfield. Dr. Johnson has been down the street many a time with
ragged shoes, and a bundle of penny-a-lining for the 'Gent's
Magazine.' You literary gents are better off now--eh? You ride in your
cabs, and wear yellow kid gloves now."

"I have known so many brave and good men fail, and so many quacks and
impostors succeed, that you mistake me if you think I am puffed up by
my own personal good luck, old friend," Arthur said, sadly. "Do _you_
think the prizes of life are carried by the most deserving? and set up
that mean test of prosperity for merit? You must feel that you are as
good as I. I have never questioned it. It is you that are peevish
against the freaks of fortune, and grudge the good luck that befalls
others. It's not the first time you have unjustly accused me, Bows."

"Perhaps you are not far wrong, sir," said the old fellow, wiping his
bald forehead. "I am thinking about myself and grumbling; most men do
when they get on that subject. Here's the fellow that's got the prize
in the lottery; here's the fortunate youth."

"I don't know what you are driving at," Huxter said, who had been much
puzzled as the above remarks passed between his two companions.

"Perhaps not," said Bows, drily. "Mrs. H. sent me here to look after
you, and to see that you brought that little message to Mr. Pendennis,
which you didn't, you see, and so she was right. Women always are;
they have always a reason for every thing. Why, sir," he said, turning
round to Pen with a sneer, "she had a reason even for giving me that
message. I was sitting with her after you left us, very quiet and
comfortable; I was talking away, and she was mending your shirts, when
your two young friends, Jack Linton and Bob Blades, looked in from
Bartholomew's; and then it was she found out that she had this message
to send. You needn't hurry yourself, she don't want you back again;
they'll stay these two hours, I daresay."

Huxter rose with great perturbation at this news, and plunged his
stick into the pocket of his paletot, and seized his hat.

"You'll come and see us, sir, won't you?" he said to Pen. "You'll talk
over the governor, won't you, sir, if I can get out of this place and
down to Clavering?"

"You will promise to attend me gratis if ever I fall ill at Fairoaks,
will you, Huxter?" Pen said, good-naturedly. "I will do any thing I
can for you. I will come and see Mrs. Huxter immediately, and we will
conspire together about what is to be done."

"I thought that would send him out, sir," Bows said, dropping into his
chair again as soon as the young surgeon had quitted the room. "And
it's all true, sir--every word of it. She wants you back again, and
sends her husband after you. She cajoles every body, the little devil.
She tries it on you, on me, on poor Costigan, on the young chaps from
Bartholomew's. She's got a little court of 'em already. And if there's
nobody there, she practices on the old German baker in the shop, or
coaxes the black sweeper at the crossing."

"Is she fond of that fellow?" asked Pen.

"There is no accounting for likes and dislikes," Bows answered. "Yes,
she is fond of him; and having taken the thing into her head, she
would not rest until she married him. They had their bans published at
St. Clement's, and nobody heard it or knew any just cause or
impediment. And one day she slips out of the porter's lodge, and has
the business done, and goes off to Gravesend with Lothario; and leaves
a note for me to go and explain all things to her ma. Bless you! the
old woman knew it as well as I did, though she pretended ignorance.
And so she goes, and I'm alone again. I miss her, sir, tripping along
that court, and coming for her singing lesson; and I've no heart to
look into the porter's lodge now, which looks very empty without her,
the little flirting thing. And I go and sit and dangle about her
lodgings, like an old fool. She makes 'em very trim and nice, though;
gets up all Huxter's shirts and clothes: cooks his little dinner, and
sings at her business like a little lark. What's the use of being
angry? I lent 'em three pound to go on with: for they haven't got a
shilling till the reconciliation, and pa comes down."

When Bows had taken his leave, Pen carried his letter from Blanche,
and the news which he had just received, to his usual adviser, Laura.
It was wonderful upon how many points Mr. Arthur, who generally
followed his own opinion, now wanted another person's counsel. He
could hardly so much as choose a waistcoat without referring to Miss
Bell: if he wanted to buy a horse he must have Miss Bell's opinion;
all which marks of deference tended greatly to the amusement of the
shrewd old lady with whom Miss Bell lived, and whose plans regarding
her _protégée_ we have indicated.

Arthur produced Blanche's letter then to Laura, and asked her to
interpret it. Laura was very much agitated, and puzzled by the
contents of the note.

"It seems to me," she said, "as if Blanche is acting very artfully."

"And wishes so to place matters that she may take me or leave me? Is
it not so?"

"It is, I am afraid, a kind of duplicity which does not augur well for
your future happiness; and is a bad reply to your own candor and
honesty, Arthur. Do you know I think, I think--I scarcely like to say
what I think," said Laura, with a deep blush; but of course the
blushing young lady yielded to her cousin's persuasion, and expressed
what her thoughts were. "It looks to me, Arthur, as if there might
be--there might be somebody else," said Laura, with a repetition of
the blush.

"And if there is," broke in Arthur, "and if I am free once again, will
the best and dearest of all women--"

"You are not free, dear brother," Laura said, calmly. "You belong to
another; of whom I own it grieves me to think ill. But I can't do
otherwise. It is very odd that in this letter she does not urge you to
tell her the reason why you have broken arrangements which would have
been so advantageous to you; and avoids speaking on the subject. She
somehow seems to write as if she knows her father's secret."

Pen said, "Yes, she must know it;" and told the story, which he had
just heard from Huxter, of the interview at Shepherd's Inn. "It was
not so that she described the meeting," said Laura; and, going to her
desk, produced from it that letter of Blanche's which mentioned her
visit to Shepherd's Inn. "Another disappointment--only the Chevalier
Strong and a friend of his in the room." This was all that Blanche had
said. "But she was bound to keep her father's secret, Pen," Laura
added. "And yet, and yet--it is very puzzling."

The puzzle was this, that for three weeks after this eventful
discovery Blanche had been, only too eager about her dearest Arthur;
was urging, as strongly as so much modesty could urge, the completion
of the happy arrangements which were to make her Arthur's forever; and
now it seemed as if something had interfered to mar these happy
arrangements--as if Arthur poor was not quite so agreeable to Blanche
as Arthur rich and a member of Parliament--as if there was some
mystery. At last she said--

"Tunbridge Wells is not very far off, is it, Arthur? Hadn't you better
go and see her?"

They had been in town a week and neither had thought of that simple
plan before!



CHAPTER XXXV.

SHOWS HOW ARTHUR HAD BETTER HAVE TAKEN A RETURN-TICKET.


[Illustration]

The train carried Arthur only too quickly to Tunbridge,
though he had time to review all the circumstances of his life as he
made the brief journey, and to acknowledge to what sad conclusions his
selfishness and waywardness had led him. "Here is the end of hopes and
aspirations," thought he, "of romance and ambitions! Where I yield or
where I am obstinate, I am alike unfortunate; my mother implores me,
and I refuse an angel! Say I had taken her: forced on me as she was,
Laura would never have been an angel to me. I could not have given her
my heart at another's instigation; I never could have known her as she
is, had I been obliged to ask another to interpret her qualities and
point out her virtues. I yield to my uncle's solicitations, and
accept, on his guarantee, Blanche, and a seat in Parliament, and
wealth, and ambition, and a career; and see!--fortune comes and leaves
me the wife without the dowry, which I had taken in compensation of a
heart. Why was I not more honest, or am I not less so? It would have
cost my poor old uncle no pangs to accept Blanche's fortune,
whencesoever it came; he can't even understand, he is bitterly
indignant--heart-stricken, almost--at the scruples which actuate me in
refusing it. I dissatisfy every body. A maimed, weak, imperfect
wretch, it seems as if I am unequal to any fortune. I neither make
myself nor any one connected with me happy. What prospect is there for
this poor little frivolous girl, who is to take my obscure name, and
share my fortune? I have not even ambition to excite me, or
self-esteem enough to console myself, much more her, for my failure.
If I were to write a book that should go through twenty editions, why,
I should be the very first to sneer at my reputation. Say I could
succeed at the bar, and achieve a fortune by bullying witnesses and
twisting evidence; is that a fame which would satisfy my longings, or
a calling in which my life would be well spent? How I wish I could be
that priest opposite, who never has lifted his eyes from his breviary,
except when we were in Reigate tunnel, when he could not see; or that
old gentleman next him, who scowls at him with eyes of hatred over his
newspaper. The priest shuts his eyes to the world, but has his
thoughts on the book, which is his directory to the world to come. His
neighbor hates him as a monster, tyrant, persecutor; and fancies
burning martyrs, and that pale countenance looking on, and lighted up
by the flame. These have no doubts; these march on trustfully, bearing
their load of logic."

"Would you like to look at the paper, sir?" here interposed the stout
gentleman (it had a flaming article against the order of the
blackcoated gentleman who was traveling with them in the carriage) and
Pen thanked him and took it, and pursued his reverie, without reading
two sentences of the journal.

"And yet, would you take either of those men's creeds, with its
consequences?" he thought. "Ah me! you must bear your own burden,
fashion your own faith, think your own thoughts, and pray your own
prayer. To what mortal ear could I tell all, if I had a mind? or who
could understand all? Who can tell another's short-comings, lost
opportunities, weigh the passions which overpower, the defects which
incapacitate reason?--what extent of truth and right his neighbor's
mind is organized to perceive and to do?--what invisible and forgotten
accident, terror of youth, chance or mischance of fortune, may have
altered the whole current of life? A grain of sand may alter it, as
the flinging of a pebble may end it. Who can weigh circumstances,
passions, temptations, that go to our good and evil account, save One,
before whose awful wisdom we kneel, and at whose mercy we ask
absolution? Here it ends," thought Pen; "this day or to-morrow will
wind up the account of my youth; a weary retrospect, alas! a sad
history, with many a page I would fain not look back on! But who has
not been tired or fallen, and who has escaped without scars from that
struggle?" And his head fell on his breast, and the young man's heart
prostrated itself humbly and sadly before that Throne where sits
wisdom, and love, and pity for all, and made its confession. "What
matters about fame or poverty!" he thought. "If I marry this woman I
have chosen, may I have strength and will to be true to her, and to
make her happy. If I have children, pray God teach me to speak and to
do the truth among them, and to leave them an honest name. There are
no splendors for my marriage. Does my life deserve any? I begin a new
phase of it; a better than the last may it be, I pray Heaven!"

The train stopped at Tunbridge as Pen was making these reflections;
and he handed over the newspaper to his neighbor, of whom he
took leave, while the foreign clergyman in the opposite corner still
sate with his eyes on his book. Pen jumped out of the carriage then,
his carpetbag in hand, and briskly determined to face his fortune.

A fly carried him rapidly to Lady Clavering's house from the station;
and, as he was transported thither, Arthur composed a little speech,
which he intended to address to Blanche, and which was really as
virtuous, honest, and well-minded an oration as any man of his turn of
mind, and under his circumstances, could have uttered. The purport of
it was--"Blanche, I cannot understand from your last letter what your
meaning is, or whether my fair and frank proposal to you is acceptable
or no. I think you know the reason which induces me to forego the
worldly advantages which a union with you offered, and which I could
not accept without, as I fancy, being dishonored. If you doubt of my
affection, here I am ready to prove it. Let Smirke be called in, and
let us be married out of hand; and with all my heart I purpose to keep
my vow, and to cherish you through life, and to be a true and a loving
husband to you."

From the fly Arthur sprang out then to the hall-door, where he was met
by a domestic whom he did not know. The man seemed to be surprised at
the approach of the gentleman with the carpet-bag, which he made no
attempt to take from Arthur's hands. "Her ladyship's not at home,
sir," the man remarked.

"I am Mr. Pendennis," Arthur said. "Where is Lightfoot?" "Lightfoot is
gone," answered the man. "My lady is out, and my orders was--"

"I hear Miss Amory's voice in the drawing-room," said Arthur. "Take
the bag to a dressing-room, if you please;" and, passing by the
porter, he walked straight toward that apartment, from which, as the
door opened, a warble of melodious notes issued.

Our little siren was at her piano singing with all her might and
fascinations. Master Clavering was asleep on the sofa, indifferent to
the music; but near Blanche sat a gentleman who was perfectly
enraptured with her strain, which was of a passionate and
melancholy nature.

As the door opened, the gentleman started up with a hullo! the music
stopped, with a little shriek from the singer; Frank Clavering woke up
from the sofa, and Arthur came forward and said, "What, Foker! how do
you do, Foker?" He looked at the piano, and there, by Miss Amory's
side, was just such another purple-leather box as he had seen in
Harry's hand three days before, when the heir of Logwood was coming
out of a jeweler's shop in Waterloo-place. It was opened, and curled
round the white-satin cushion within was, oh, such a magnificent
serpentine bracelet, with such a blazing ruby head and diamond tail!

"How-de-do, Pendennis?" said Foker. Blanche made many motions of the
shoulders, and gave signs of interest and agitation. And she put her
handkerchief over the bracelet, and then she advanced, with a hand
which trembled very much, to greet Pen. "How is dearest Laura?" she
said. The face of Foker looking up from his profound mourning--that
face, so piteous and puzzled, was one which the reader's imagination
must depict for himself; also that of Master Frank Clavering, who,
looking at the three interesting individuals with an expression of the
utmost knowingness, had only time to ejaculate the words, "Here's a
jolly go!" and to disappear sniggering.

[Illustration]

Pen, too, had restrained himself up to that minute; but looking still
at Foker, whose ears and cheeks tingled with blushes, Arthur burst out
into a fit of laughter, so wild and loud, that it frightened Blanche
much more than any the most serious exhibition.

"And this was the secret, was it? Don't blush and turn away, Foker, my
boy. Why, man, you are a pattern of fidelity. Could I stand between
Blanche and such constancy--could I stand between Miss Amory and
fifteen thousand a year?"

"It is not that, Mr. Pendennis," Blanche said, with great dignity. "It
is not money, it is not rank, it is not gold that moves _me_; but it
_is_ constancy, it is fidelity, it is a whole, trustful, loving heart
offered to me that I treasure--yes, that I treasure!" And she made
for her handkerchief, but, reflecting what was underneath it, she
paused. "I do not disown, I do not disguise--my life is above
disguise--to him on whom it is bestowed, my heart must be forever
bare--that I once thought I loved you,--yes, thought I was beloved by
you! I own. How I clung to that faith! How I strove, I prayed, I
longed to believe it! But your conduct always--your own words so cold,
so heartless, so unkind, have undeceived me. You trifled with the
heart of the poor maiden! You flung me back with scorn the troth which
I had plighted! I have explained all--all to Mr. Foker."

"That you have," said Foker, with devotion, and conviction in his
looks.

"What, all?" said Pen, with a meaning look at Blanche. "It is I am in
fault is it? Well, well, Blanche, be it so. I won't appeal against
your sentence, and bear it in silence. I came down here looking to
very different things, Heaven knows, and with a heart most truly and
kindly disposed toward you. I hope you may be happy with another, as,
on my word, it was my wish to make you so; and I hope my honest old
friend here will have a wife worthy of his loyalty, his constancy, and
affection. Indeed they deserve the regard of any woman--even Miss
Blanche Amory. Shake hands, Harry; don't look askance at me. Has any
body told you that I was a false and heartless character?"

"I think you're a--" Foker was beginning, in his wrath, when Blanche
interposed.

"Henry, not a word!--I pray you let there be forgiveness!"

"You're an angel, by Jove, you're an angel!" said Foker, at which
Blanche looked seraphically up to the chandelier.

"In spite of what has passed, for the sake of what has passed, I must
always regard Arthur as a brother," the seraph continued; "we have
known each other years, we have trodden the same fields, and plucked
the same flowers together. Arthur! Henry! I beseech you to take hands
and to be friends! Forgive you!--_I_ forgive you, Arthur, with my
heart I do. Should I not do so for making me so happy?"

"There is only one person of us three whom I pity, Blanche," Arthur
said, gravely, "and I say to you again, that I hope you will make this
good fellow, this honest and loyal creature, happy."

"Happy! O Heavens!" said Harry. He could not speak. His happiness
gushed out at his eyes. "She don't know--she can't know how fond I am
of her, and--and who am I? a poor little beggar, and she takes me up
and says she'll try and l-l-love me. I ain't worthy of so much
happiness. Give us your hand, old boy, since she forgives you after
your heartless conduct, and says she loves you. I'll make you welcome.
I tell you I'll love every body who loves her. By--if she tells me to
kiss the ground I'll kiss it. Tell me to kiss the ground! I say, tell
me. I love you so. You see I love you so."

Blanche looked up seraphically again. Her gentle bosom heaved. She
held out one hand as if to bless Harry, and then royally permitted him
to kiss it. She took up the pocket handkerchief and hid her own eyes,
as the other fair hand was abandoned to poor Harry's tearful embrace.

"I swear that is a villain who deceives such a loving creature as
that," said Pen.

Blanche laid down the handkerchief, and put hand No. 2 softly on
Foker's head, which was bent down kissing and weeping over hand No. 1.
"Foolish boy!" she said, "it shall be loved as it deserves: who could
help loving such a silly creature?"

And at this moment Frank Clavering broke in upon the sentimental trio.

"I say, Pendennis!" he said.

"Well, Frank!"

"The man wants to be paid, and go back. He's had some beer."

"I'll go back with him," cried Pen. "Good-by, Blanche. God bless you,
Foker, old friend. You know, neither of you want me here." He longed
to be off that instant.

"Stay--I must say one word to you. One word in private, if you
please," Blanche said. "You can trust us together, can't you--Henry?"
The tone in which the word Henry was spoken, and the appeal, ravished
Foker with delight. "Trust you!" said he; "Oh, who wouldn't trust you!
Come along, Franky, my boy."

"Let's have a cigar," said Frank, as they went into the hall.

"She don't like it," said Foker, gently.

"Law bless you--_she don't mind. Pendennis used to smoke regular,"
said the candid youth.

"It was but a short word I had to say," said Blanche to Pen, with
great calm, when they were alone. "You never loved me, Mr. Pendennis."

"I told you how much," said Arthur. "I never deceived you."

"I suppose you will go back and marry Laura," continued Blanche.

"Was that what you had to say?" said Pen.

"You are going to her this very night, I am sure of it. There is no
denying it. You never cared for me."

_"Et vous?"

"Et moi c'est différent._ I have been spoilt early. I can not live out
of the world, out of excitement. I could have done so, but it is too
late. If I can not have emotions, I must have the world. You would
offer me neither one nor the other. You are _blasé_ in every thing,
even in ambition. You had a career before you, and you would not take
it. You give it up!--for what?--for a _bétise_, for an absurd
scruple. Why would you not have that seat, and be such a _puritain_?
Why should you refuse what is mine by right, _entendez-vous_?"

"You know all then?" said Pen.

"Only within a month. But I have suspected ever since Baymouth
--_n'importe_ since when. It is not too late. He is as if he had never
been; and there is a position in the world before you yet. Why not sit
in Parliament, exert your talent, and give a place in the world to
yourself, to your wife? I take _celui-là. Il est bon. 1l est riche.
Il est--vous le connaissez autant que moi enfin._ Think you that I
would not prefer _un homme, qui fera parler de moi?_ If the secret
appears I am rich _à millions._ How does it affect me? It is not my
fault. It will never appear."

"You will tell Harry every thing, won't you?"

_"Je comprends. Vous refusez"_ said Blanche, savagely. "I will tell
Harry at my own time, when we are married. You will not betray me,
will you? You, having a defenseless girl's secret, will not turn upon
her and use it? _S'il me plait de le cacher, mon secret; pourquoi le
donnerai-je? Je l'aime, mon pauvre père, voyez-vous?_ I would rather
live with that man than with you _fades_ intriguers of the world. I
must have emotions--_il m'en donne. Il m'écrit. Il écrit tres-bien,
voyez-vous--comme un pirate--comme un Bohémien--comme un homme._ But
for this I would have said to my mother--_Ma mère! quittons ce lâche
mari, cette lâche société--retournons à mon père._

"The pirate would have wearied you like the rest," said Pen.

_"Eh! Il me faut des émotions"_ said Blanche. Pen had never seen her
or known so much about her in all the years of their intimacy as he
saw and knew now: though he saw more than existed in reality. For this
young lady was not able to carry out any emotion to the full; but had
a sham enthusiasm, a sham hatred, a sham love, a sham taste, a sham
grief, each of which flared and shone very vehemently for an instant,
but subsided and gave place to the next sham emotion.



CHAPTER XXXVI.

A CHAPTER OF MATCH-MAKING.


[Illustration]

Upon the platform at Tunbridge, Pen fumed and fretted until the
arrival of the evening train to London, a full half-hour--six hours it
seemed to him: but even this immense interval was passed, the train
arrived, the train sped on, the London lights came in view--a
gentleman who forgot his carpet-bag in the train rushed at a cab, and
said to the man, "Drive as hard as you can go to Jermyn-street." The
cabman, although a Hansom cabman, said thank you for the gratuity
which was put into his hand, and Pen ran up the stairs of the hotel to
Lady Rockminster's apartments. Laura was alone in the drawing-room,
reading, with a pale face, by the lamp. The pale face looked up when
Pen opened the door. May we follow him? The great moments of life are
but moments like the others. Your doom is spoken in a word or two. A
single look from the eyes: a mere pressure of the hand may decide it;
or of the lips, though they can not speak.

When Lady Rockminster, who has had her after-dinner nap, gets up and
goes into her sitting-room, we may enter with her ladyship.

"Upon my word, young people!" are the first words she says, and her
attendant makes wondering eyes over her shoulder. And well may she say
so; and well may the attendant cast wondering eyes; for the young
people are in an attitude; and Pen in such a position as every young
lady who reads this has heard tell of, or has seen, or hopes, or at
any rate deserves to see.

In a word, directly he entered the room, Pen went up to Laura of the
pale face, who had not time even to say, What, back so soon? and
seizing her outstretched and trembling hand just as she was rising
from her chair, fell down on his knees before her, and said quickly,
"I have seen her. She has engaged herself to Harry Foker--and--and
NOW, Laura?"

The hand gives a pressure--the eyes beam a reply--the quivering lips
answer, though speechless. Pen's head sinks down in the girl's lap, as
he sobs out, "Come and bless us, dear mother," and arms as tender as
Helen's once more enfold him.

In this juncture it is that Lady Rockminster comes in and says, "Upon
my word, young people! Beck! leave the room. What do _you_ want poking
your nose in here?"

Pen starts up with looks of triumph, still holding Laura's hand. "She
is consoling me for my misfortune, ma'am," he says.

"What do you mean by kissing her hand? I don't know what you will be
next doing."

Pen kissed her ladyship's. "_I_ have been, to Tunbridge," he says,
"and seen Miss Amory; and find on my arrival that--that a villain has
supplanted me in her affections," he says with a tragedy air.

"Is that all? Is that what you were whimpering on your knees about?"
says the old lady, growing angry. "You might have kept the news till
to-morrow."

"Yes--another has superseded me," goes on Pen; "but why call him
villain? He is brave, he is constant, he is young, he is wealthy, he
is beautiful."

"What stuff are you talking, sir?" cried the old lady. "What has
happened?"

"Miss Amory has jilted me, and accepted Henry Foker, Esq. I found her
warbling ditties to him as he lay at her feet; presents had been
accepted, vows exchanged, these ten days. Harry was old Mrs. Planter's
rheumatism, which kept dearest Laura out of the house. He is the most
constant and generous of men. He has promised the living of Logwood to
Lady Ann's husband, and given her a splendid present on her marriage;
and he rushed to fling himself at Blanche's feet the instant he found
he was free."

"And so, as you can't get Blanche, you put up with Laura, is that it,
sir?" asked the old lady.

"He acted nobly," Laura said.

"I acted as she bade me," said Pen. "Never mind how, Lady Rockminster;
but to the best of my knowledge and power. And if you mean that I am
not worthy of Laura, I know it, and pray Heaven to better me; and if
the love and company of the best and purest creature in the world can
do so, at least I shall have these to help me."

"Hm, hm," replied the old lady to this, looking with rather
an appeased air at the young people. "It is all very well; but I
should have preferred Bluebeard."

And now Pen, to divert the conversation from a theme which was growing
painful to some parties present, bethought him of his interview with
Huxter in the morning, and of Fanny Bolton's affairs, which he had
forgotten under the immediate pressure and excitement of his own. And
he told the ladies how Huxter had elevated Fanny to the rank of wife,
and what terrors he was in respecting the arrival of his father. He
described the scene with considerable humor, taking care to dwell
especially upon that part of it which concerned Fanny's coquetry and
irrepressible desire of captivating mankind; his meaning being "You
see, Laura, I was not so guilty in that little affair; it was the girl
who made love to me, and I who resisted. As I am no longer present,
the little siren practices her arts and fascinations upon others. Let
that transaction be forgotten in your mind, if you please; or visit me
with a very gentle punishment for my error."

Laura understood his meaning under the eagerness of his explanations.
"If you did any wrong, you repented, dear Pen," she said, "and you
know," she added, with meaning eyes and blushes, "that _I_ have no
right to reproach you."

"Hm!" grumbled the old lady; "I should have preferred Bluebeard."

"The past is broken away. The morrow is before us. I will do my best
to make your morrow happy, dear Laura," Pen said. His heart was
humbled by the prospect of his happiness: it stood awe-stricken in the
contemplation of her sweet goodness and purity. He liked his wife
better that she had owned to that passing feeling for Warrington, and
laid bare her generous heart to him. And she--very likely she was
thinking "How strange it is that I ever should have cared for another;
I am vexed almost to think I care for him so little, am so little
sorry that he is gone away. Oh, in these past two months how I have
learned to love Arthur. I care about nothing but Arthur; my waking and
sleeping thoughts are about him; he is never absent from me. And to
think that he is to be mine, mine! and that I am to marry him, and not
to be his servant as I expected to be only this morning; for I would
have gone down on my knees to Blanche to beg her to let me live with
him. And now--Oh, it is too much. Oh, mother! mother, that you were
here!" Indeed, she felt as if Helen were there--by her actually,
though invisibly. A halo of happiness beamed from her. She moved with
a different step, and bloomed with a new beauty. Arthur saw the
change; and the old Lady Rockminster remarked it with her shrewd eyes.

"What a sly, demure little wretch you have been," she whispered to
Laura--while Pen, in great spirits, was laughing, and telling his
story about Huxter--"and how you have kept your secret!"

"How are we to help the young couple?" said Laura. Of course Miss
Laura felt an interest in all young couples, as generous lovers always
love other lovers.

"We must go and see them," said Pen. "Of course we must go and see
them," said Laura. "I intend to be very fond of Fanny. Let us go this
instant. Lady Rockminster, may I have the carriage?"

"Go now!--why, you stupid creature, it is eleven o'clock at night. Mr.
and Mrs. Huxter have got their night-caps on, I daresay. And it is
time for you to go now. Good-night, Mr. Pendennis."

Arthur and Laura begged for ten minutes more.

"We will go to-morrow morning, then. I will come and fetch you with
Martha."

"An earl's coronet," said Pen, who, no doubt, was pleased himself,
"will have a great effect in Lamb-court and Smithfield. Stay--Lady
Rockminster, will you join us in a little conspiracy?"

"How do you mean conspiracy, young man?"

"Will you please to be a little ill to-morrow; and when old Mr. Huxter
arrives, will you let me call him in? If he is put into a good humor
at the notion of attending a baronet in the country, what influence
won't a countess have on him? When he is softened--when he is quite
ripe, we will break the secret upon him; bring in the young people,
extort the paternal benediction, and finish the comedy."

"A parcel of stuff," said the old lady. "Take your hat, sir. Come
away, Miss. There--my head is turned another way. Good-night, young
people." And who knows but the old lady thought of her own early days
as she went away on Laura's arm, nodding her head and humming
to herself?

With the early morning came Laura and Martha, according to
appointment; and the desired sensation was, let us hope, effected in
Lamb-court, whence the three proceeded to wait upon Mr. and Mrs.
Samuel Huxter, at their residence in Charterhouse-lane.

The two ladies looked at each other with great interest, and not a
little emotion on Fanny's part. She had not seen her "guardian," as
she was pleased to call Pen in consequence of his bequest, since the
event had occurred which had united her to Mr. Huxter.

"Samuel told me how kind you had been," she said. "You were always
very kind, Mr. Pendennis. And--and I hope your friend is better, who
was took ill in Shepherd's Inn, ma'am."

"My name is Laura," said the other, with a blush. "I am--that is, I
was--that is, I am Arthur's sister; and we shall always love you for
being so good to him when he was ill. And when we live in the country,
I hope we shall see each other. And I shall be always happy to hear of
your happiness, Fanny."

"We are going to do what you and Huxter have done, Fanny.--Where is
Huxter? What nice, snug lodgings you've got! What a pretty cat!"

While Fanny is answering these questions in reply to Pen, Laura says
to herself--"Well, now really! is _this_ the creature about whom we
were all so frightened? What _could_ he see in her? She's a homely
little thing, but such manners! Well, she was very kind to him--bless
her for that." Mr. Samuel had gone out to meet his pa. Mrs. Huxter
said that the old gentleman was to arrive that day at the Somerset
coffee-house, in the Strand; and Fanny confessed that she was in a sad
tremor about the meeting. "If his parents cast him off, what are we to
do?" she said. "I shall never pardon myself for bringing ruing on my
'usband's 'ead. You must intercede for us, Mr. Arthur. If mortal man
can, you can bend and influence Mr. Huxter senior." Fanny still
regarded Pen in the light of a superior being, that was evident. No
doubt Arthur thought of the past, as he marked the solemn little
tragedy-airs and looks, the little ways, the little trepidations,
vanities, of the little bride. As soon as the interview was over,
entered Messrs. Linton and Blades, who came, of course, to visit
Huxter, and brought with them a fine fragrance of tobacco. They had
watched the carriage at the baker's door, and remarked the coronet
with awe. They asked of Fanny who was that uncommonly heavy swell who
had just driven off? and pronounced the countess was of the right
sort. And when they heard that it was Mr. Pendennis and his sister,
they remarked that Pen's father was only a sawbones; and that he gave
himself confounded airs: they had been in Huxter's company on the
night of his little altercation with Pen in the Back Kitchen.

Returning homeward through Fleet-street, and as Laura was just stating
to Pen's infinite amusement that Fanny was very well, but that really
there was no beauty in her--there might be, but _she_ could not see
it--as they were locked near Temple-bar, they saw young Huxter
returning to his bride. "The governor had arrived; was at the Somerset
coffee-house--was in tolerable good humor--something about the
railway: but he had been afraid to speak about--about that business.
Would Mr. Pendennis try it on?"

Pen said he would go and call at that moment upon Mr. Huxter, and see
what might be done. Huxter junior would lurk outside while that awful
interview took place. The coronet on the carriage inspired his soul
also with wonder; and old Mr. Huxter himself beheld it with delight,
as he looked from the coffee-house window on that Strand, which it was
always a treat to him to survey.

"And I can afford to give myself a lark, sir," said Mr. Huxter,
shaking hands with Pen. "Of course you know the news? We have got our
bill, sir. We shall have our branch line--our shares are up, sir--and
we buy your three fields along the Brawl, and put a pretty penny into
_your_ pocket, Mr. Pendennis."

"Indeed! that was good news." Pen remembered that there was a letter
from Mr. Tatham, at Chambers, these three days; but he had not opened
the communication, being interested with other affairs.

"I hope you don't intend to grow rich, and give up practice," said
Pen. "We can't lose you at Clavering, Mr. Huxter; though I hear very
good accounts of your son. My friend, Dr. Goodenough, speaks most
highly of his talents. It is hard that a man of your eminence, though,
should be kept in a country town."

"The metropolis would have been my sphere of action, sir," said Mr.
Huxter, surveying the Strand. "But a man takes his business where he
finds it; and I succeeded to that of my father."

"It was my father's, too," said Pen. "I sometimes wish I had followed
it."

"You, sir, have taken a more lofty career," said the old gentleman.
"You aspire to the senate: and to literary honors. You wield the
poet's pen, sir, and move in the circles of fashion. We keep an eye
upon you at Clavering. We read your name in the lists of the select
parties of the nobility. Why, it was only the other day that my wife
was remarking how odd it was that at a party at the Earl of
Kidderminster's your name was _not_ mentioned. To what member of the
aristocracy may I ask does that equipage belong from which I saw you
descend? The Countess Dowager of Rockminster? How is her ladyship?"

"Her ladyship is not very well; and when I heard that you were coming
to town, I strongly urged her to see you, Mr. Huxter," Pen said. Old
Huxter felt, if he had a hundred votes for Clavering, he would give
them all to Pen.

"There is an old friend of yours in the carriage--a Clavering lady,
too--will you come out and speak to her?" asked Pen. The old surgeon
was delighted to speak to a coroneted carriage in the midst of the
full Strand: he ran out bowing and smiling. Huxter junior, dodging
about the district, beheld the meeting between his father and Laura,
saw the latter put out her hand, and presently, after a little
colloquy with Pen, beheld his father actually jump into the carriage,
and drive away with Miss Bell.

There was no room for Arthur, who came back, laughing, to the young
surgeon, and told him whither his parent was bound. During the whole
of the journey, that artful Laura coaxed and wheedled, and cajoled him
so adroitly, that the old gentleman would have granted her any thing;
and Lady Rockminster achieved the victory over him by complimenting
him on his skill, and professing her anxiety to consult him. What were
her ladyship's symptoms? Should he meet her ladyship's usual medical
attendant? Mr. Jones was called out of town? He should be delighted to
devote his very best energies and experience to her ladyship's service.

He was so charmed with his patient, that he wrote home about her to
his wife and family; he talked of nothing but Lady Rockminster to
Samuel, when that youth came to partake of beef-steak and oyster-sauce
and accompany his parent to the play. There was a simple grandeur, a
polite urbanity, a high-bred grace about her ladyship, which he had
never witnessed in any woman. Her symptoms did not seem alarming; he
had prescribed--Spir:Ammon:Aromat: with a little Spir:Menth:Pip:
and orange-flower, which would be all that was necessary.

"Miss Bell seemed to be on the most confidential and affectionate
footing with her ladyship. She was about to form a matrimonial
connection. All young people ought to marry. Such were her ladyship's
words: and the countess condescended to ask respecting my own family,
and I mentioned you by name to her ladyship, Sam, my boy. I shall look
in to-morrow, when, if the remedies which I have prescribed for her
ladyship have had the effect which I anticipate, I shall probably
follow them up by a little Spir: Lavend: Comp:--and so set my noble
patient up. What is the theater which is most frequented by the--by
the higher classes in town, hey, Sam? and to what amusement will you
take an old country doctor to-night, hey, sir?"

On the next day, when Mr. Huxter called in Jermyn-street at twelve
o'clock, Lady Rockminster had not yet left her room, but Miss Bell and
Mr. Pendennis were in waiting to receive him. Lady Rockminster had
had a most comfortable night, and was getting on as well as possible.
How had Mr. Huxter amused himself? at the theater? with his son? What
a capital piece it was, and how charming Mrs. O'Leary looked and sang
it! and what a good fellow young Huxter was! liked by every body, an
honor to his profession. He has not his father's manners, I grant you,
or that old-world tone which is passing away from us, but a more
excellent, sterling fellow never lived. "He ought to practice in the
country whatever you do, sir," said Arthur, "he ought to marry--other
people are going to do so--and settle."

"The very words that her ladyship used yesterday, Mr. Pendennis He
ought to marry. Sam should marry, sir."

"The town is full of temptations, sir," continued Pen. The old
gentleman thought of that houri, Mrs. O'Leary.

"There is no better safeguard for a young man than an early marriage
with an honest affectionate creature."

"No better, sir, no better."

"And love is better than money, isn't it?"

"Indeed it is," said Miss Bell.

"I agree with so fair an authority," said the old gentleman with a
bow.

"And--and suppose, sir," Pen said, "that I had a piece of news to
communicate to you."

"God bless my soul, Mr. Pendennis! what do you mean?" asked the old
gentleman.

"Suppose I had to tell you that a young man carried away by an
irresistible passion for an admirable and most virtuous young
creature--whom every body falls in love with--had consulted the
dictates of reason and his heart, and had married. Suppose I were to
tell you that that man is my friend; that our excellent, our truly
noble friend the Countess Dowager of Rockminster is truly interested
about him (and you may fancy what a young man can do in life when THAT
family is interested for him); suppose I were to tell you that you
know him--that he is here--that he is--"

"Sam, married! God bless my soul, sir, you don't mean that!"

"And to such a nice creature, dear Mr. Huxter."

"His lordship is charmed with her," said Pen, telling almost the first
fib which he has told in the course of this story.

"Married! the rascal, is he?" thought the old gentleman. "They will do
it, sir," said Pen; and went and opened the door. Mr. and Mrs. Samuel
Huxter issued thence, and both came and knelt down before the old
gentleman. The kneeling little Fanny found favor in his sight. There
_must_ have been something attractive about her, in spite of
Laura's opinion.

"Will never do so any more, sir," said Sam.

"Get up, sir," said Mr. Huxter. And they got up, and Fanny came a
little nearer and a little nearer still, and looked so pretty and
pitiful, that somehow Mr. Huxter found himself kissing the little
crying-laughing thing, and feeling as if he liked it.

"What's your name, my dear?" he said, after a minute of this sport.

"Fanny, papa," said Mrs. Samuel.



CHAPTER XXXVII.

EXEUNT OMNES.


[Illustration]

Our characters are all a month older than they
were when the last-described adventures and conversations occurred,
and a great number of the personages of our story have chanced to
re-assemble at the little country town where we were first introduced
to them. Frederic Lightfoot, formerly _maître d'hôtel_ in the service
of Sir Francis Clavering, of Clavering Park, Bart., has begged leave
to inform the nobility and gentry of----shire that he has taken that
well-known and comfortable hotel, the Clavering Arms, in Clavering,
where he hopes for the continued patronage of the gentlemen and
families of the county. "This ancient and well-established house," Mr.
Lightfoot's manifesto states, "has been repaired and decorated in a
style of the greatest comfort. Gentlemen hunting with the
Dumplingbeare hounds will find excellent stabling and loose boxes for
horses at the Clavering Arms. A commodious billiard-room has been
attached to the hotel, and the cellars have been furnished with the
choicest wines and spirits, selected, without regard to expense, by
C.L. Commercial gentlemen will find the Clavering Arms a most
comfortable place of resort: and the scale of charges has been
regulated for all, so as to meet the economical spirit of the
present times."

Indeed, there is a considerable air of liveliness about the old inn.
The Clavering Arms have been splendidly repainted over the gate-way.
The coffee-room windows are bright and fresh, and decorated with
Christmas holly; the magistrates have met in petty sessions in the
card-room of the old Assembly. The farmers' ordinary is held as
of old, and frequented by increased numbers, who are pleased with Mrs.
Lightfoot's _cuisine_. Her Indian curries and Mulligatawny soup are
especially popular: Major Stokes, the respected tenant of Fairoaks
Cottage, Captain Glanders, H. P., and other resident gentry, have
pronounced in their favor, and have partaken of them more than once,
both in private and at the dinner of the Clavering Institute,
attendant on the incorporation of the reading-room, and when the chief
inhabitants of that flourishing little town met together and did
justice to the hostess's excellent cheer. The chair was taken by Sir
Francis Clavering, Bart., supported by the esteemed rector, Dr.
Portman; the vice-chair being ably filled by----Barker, Esq.
(supported by the Rev. J. Simcoe and the Rev. S. Jowls), the
enterprising head of the ribbon factory in Clavering, and chief
director of the Clavering and Chatteris Branch of the Great Western
Railway, which will be opened in another year, and upon the works of
which the engineers and workmen are now busily engaged.

"An interesting event, which is likely to take place in the life of
our talented townsman, Arthur Pendennis, Esq., has, we understand,
caused him to relinquish the intentions which he had of offering
himself as a candidate for our borough; and rumor whispers (says the
Chatteris Champion, Clavering Agriculturist, and Baymouth
Fisherman--that independent county paper, so distinguished for its
unswerving principles and loyalty to the British oak, and so eligible
a medium for advertisements)--rumor states, says the C. C. C. A. and
B.F., that should Sir Francis Clavering's failing health oblige him
to relinquish his seat in Parliament, he will vacate it in favor of a
young gentleman of colossal fortune and related to the highest
aristocracy of the empire, who is about to contract a matrimonial
alliance with an accomplished and LOVELY lady, connected by the
nearest ties with the respected family at Clavering Park. Lady
Clavering and Miss Amory have arrived at the Park for the Christmas
holidays; and we understand that a large number of the aristocracy are
expected, and that festivities of a peculiarly interesting nature will
take place there at the commencement of the new year."

The ingenious reader will be enabled, by the help of the above
announcement to understand what has taken place during the little
break which has occurred in our narrative. Although Lady Rockminster
grumbled a little at Laura's preference for Pendennis over Bluebeard,
those who are aware of the latter's secret will understand that the
young girl could make no other choice, and the kind old lady who had
constituted herself Miss Bell's guardian was not ill-pleased that she
was to fulfill the great purpose in life of young ladies and marry.
She informed her maid of the interesting event that very night, and of
course, Mrs. Beck, who was perfectly aware of every single
circumstance, and kept by Martha, of Fairoaks, in the fullest
knowledge of what was passing, was immensely surprised and delighted.
"Mr. Pendennis's income is so much; the railroad will give him so
much more, he states; Miss Bell has so much, and may probably have a
little more one day. For persons in their degree, they will be able to
manage very well. And I shall speak to my nephew Pynsent, who I
suspect was once rather attached to her--but of course that was out of
the question" ("Oh! of course, my lady; I should think so indeed!")--"not
that you know any thing whatever about it, or have any business
to think at all on the subject--I shall speak to George Pynsent, who
is now chief secretary of the Tape and Sealing Wax Office, and have
Mr. Pendennis made something. And, Beck, in the morning you will carry
down my compliments to Major Pendennis, and say that I shall pay him a
visit at one o'clock.--Yes," muttered the old lady, "the major must be
reconciled, and he must leave his fortune to Laura's children."

Accordingly, at one o'clock, the Dowager Lady Rockminster appeared at
Major Pendennis's, who was delighted, as may be imagined, to receive
so noble a visitor. The major had been prepared, if not for the news
which her ladyship was about to give him, at least with the
intelligence that Pen's marriage with Miss Amory was broken off. The
young gentleman bethinking him of his uncle, for the first time that
day, it must be owned, and meeting his new servant in the hall of the
hotel, asked after the major's health from Mr. Frosch; and then went
into the coffee-room of the hotel, where he wrote a half-dozen lines
to acquaint his guardian with what had occurred. "Dear uncle," he
said, "if there has been any question between us, it is over now. I
went to Tunbridge Wells yesterday, and found that somebody else had
carried off the prize about which we were hesitating. Miss A., without
any compunction for me, has bestowed herself upon Harry Foker, with
his fifteen thousand a year. I came in suddenly upon their loves, and
found and left him in possession.

"And you'll be glad to hear, Tatham writes me, that he has sold three
of my fields at Fairoaks to the Railroad Company, at a great figure. I
will tell you this, and more when we met; and am always your
affectionate--A.P."

"I think I am aware of what you were about to tell me," the major
said, with a most courtly smile and bow to Pen's embassadress, "It was
a very great kindness of your ladyship to think of bringing me the
news. How well you look! How very good you are! How very kind you have
always been to that young man!"

"It was for the sake of his uncle," said Lady Rockminster, most
politely.

"He has informed me of the state of affairs, and written me a nice
note--yes, a nice note," continued the old gentleman; "and I find he
has had an increase to his fortune--yes; and all things considered, I
don't much regret that this affair with Miss Amory is _manquée_,
though I wished for it once--in fact, all things considered, I am very
glad of it."

"We must console him, Major Pendennis," continued the lady; "we must
get him a wife." The truth then came across the major's mind, and he
saw for what purpose Lady Rockminster had chosen to assume the office
of embassadress.

It is not necessary to enter into the conversation which ensued, or to
tell at any length how her ladyship concluded a negotiation, which, in
truth, was tolerably easy. There could be no reason why Pen should not
marry according to his own and his mother's wish; and as for Lady
Rockminster, she supported the marriage by intimations which had very
great weight with the major, but of which we shall say nothing, as her
ladyship (now, of course, much advanced in years) is still alive, and
the family might be angry; and, in fine, the old gentleman was quite
overcome by the determined graciousness of the lady, and her fondness
for Laura. Nothing, indeed, could be more bland and kind than Lady
Rockminster's whole demeanor, except for one moment when the major
talked about his boy throwing himself away, at which her ladyship
broke out into a little speech, in which she made the major
understand, what poor Pen and his friends acknowledged very humbly,
that Laura was a thousand times too good for him. Laura was fit to be
the wife of a king--Laura was a paragon of virtue and excellence. And
it must be said, that when Major Pendennis found that a lady of the
rank of the Countess of Rockminster seriously admired Miss Bell, he
instantly began to admire her himself.

So that when Herr Frosch was requested to walk up-stairs to Lady
Rockminster's apartments, and inform Miss Bell and Mr. Arthur
Pendennis that the major would receive them, and Laura appeared
blushing and happy as she hung on Pen's arm, the major gave a shaky
hand to one and the other, with no unaffected emotion and cordiality,
and then went through another salutation to Laura, which caused her to
blush still more. Happy blushes! bright eyes beaming with the light of
love! The story-teller turns from this group to his young audience,
and hopes that one day their eyes may all shine so.

Pen having retreated in the most friendly manner, and the lovely
Blanche having bestowed her young affections upon a blushing bridegroom,
with fifteen thousand a year, there was such an outbreak of
happiness in Lady Clavering's heart and family as the good Begum had
not known for many a year, and she and Blanche were on the most
delightful terms of cordiality and affection. The ardent Foker pressed
onward the happy day, and was as anxious as might be expected to
abridge the period of mourning which had put him in possession of so
many charms and amiable qualities, of which he had been only, as it
were, the heir apparent, not the actual owner, until then. The gentle
Blanche, every thing that her affianced lord could desire, was not
averse to gratify the wishes of her fond Henry. Lady Clavering came up
from Tunbridge. Milliners and jewelers were set to work and engaged to
prepare the delightful paraphernalia of Hymen. Lady Clavering was in
such a good humor, that Sir Francis even benefited by it, and such a
reconciliation was effected between this pair, that Sir Francis came
to London, sate at the head of his own table once more, and appeared
tolerably flush of money at his billiard-rooms and gambling-houses
again. One day, when Major Pendennis and Arthur went to dine in
Grosvenor place, they found an old acquaintance established in the
quality of major-domo, and the gentleman in black, who, with perfect
politeness and gravity, offered them their choice of sweet or dry
champagne, was no other than Mr. James Morgan. The Chevalier Strong
was one of the party; he was in high spirits and condition, and
entertained the company with accounts of his amusements abroad.

"It was my lady who invited me," said Strong to Arthur, under his
voice--"that fellow Morgan looked as black as thunder when I came in.
He is about no good here. I will go away first, and wait for you and
Major Pendennis at Hyde Park Gate."

Mr. Morgan helped Major Pendennis to his great coat when he was
quitting the house; and muttered something about having accepted a
temporary engagement with the Clavering family.

"I have got a paper of yours, Mr. Morgan," said the old gentleman.

"Which you can show, if you please, to Sir Francis, sir, and perfectly
welcome," said Mr. Morgan, with downcast eyes. "I'm very much obliged
to you, Major Pendennis, and if I can pay you for all your kindness
I will."

Arthur overheard the sentence, and saw the look of hatred which
accompanied it, suddenly cried out that he had forgotten his
handkerchief, and ran up-stairs to the drawing-room again. Foker was
still there; still lingering about his siren. Pen gave the siren a
look full of meaning, and we suppose that the siren understood meaning
looks, for when, after finding the veracious handkerchief of which he
came in quest, he once more went out, the siren, with a laughing
voice, said, "O, Arthur--Mr. Pendennis--I want you to tell dear Laura
something?" and she came out to the door.

"What is it?" he asked, shutting the door.

"Have you told Harry? Do you know that villain Morgan knows all."

"I know it," she said.

"Have you told Harry?"

"No, no," she said. "You won't betray me?"

"Morgan will," said Pen.

"No, he wont," said Blanche. "I have promised him--_n'importe_. Wait
until after our marriage--O, until after our marriage--O, how wretched
I am," said the girl, who had been all smiles, and grace, and gayety
during the evening.

Arthur said, "I beg and implore you to tell Harry. Tell him now. It is
no fault of yours. He will pardon you any thing. Tell him tonight."

"And give her this--_Il est là_--with my love, please; and I beg your
pardon for calling you back; and if she will be at Madame Crinoline's
at half-past three, and if Lady Rockminster can spare her, I should so
like to drive with her in the park;" and she went in, singing and
kissing her little hand, as Morgan the velvet-footed came up the
carpeted stair.

Pen heard Blanche's piano breaking out into brilliant music as he went
down to join his uncle; and they walked away together. Arthur briefly
told him what he had done. "What was to be done?" he asked.

"What is to be done, begad?" said the old gentleman. "What is to be
done but to leave it alone? Begad, let us be thankful," said the old
fellow, with a shudder, "that we are out of the business, and leave it
to those it concerns."

"I hope to Heaven she'll tell him," said Pen.

"Begad, she'll take her own course," said the old man. "Miss Amory is
a dev'lish wide-awake girl, sir, and must play her own cards; and I'm
doosid glad you are out of it--doosid glad, begad. Who's this smoking?
O, it's Mr. Strong again. He wants to put in _his_ oar, I suppose. I
tell you, don't meddle in the business, Arthur."

Strong began once or twice, as if to converse upon the subject, but
the major would not hear a word. He remarked on the moonlight on
Apsley House, the weather, the cab-stands--any thing but that subject.
He bowed stiffly to Strong, and clung to his nephew's arm, as he
turned down St. James's-street, and again cautioned Pen to leave the
affair alone. "It had like to have cost you so much, sir, that you may
take my advice," he said.

When Arthur came out of the hotel, Strong's cloak and cigar were
visible a few doors off. The jolly chevalier laughed as they met. "I'm
an old soldier too," he said. "I wanted to talk to you, Pendennis. I
have heard of all that has happened, and all the chops and changes
that have taken place during my absence. I congratulate you on your
marriage, and I congratulate you on your escape, too--you understand
me. It was not my business to speak, but I know this, that a certain
party is as arrant a little--well--well, never mind what. You acted
like a man, and a trump, and are well out of it."

"I have no reason to complain," said Pen. "I went back to beg and
entreat poor Blanche to tell Foker all: I hope, for her sake, she
will; but I fear not. There is but one policy, Strong, there is
but one."

"And lucky he that can stick to it," said the chevalier. "That rascal
Morgan means mischief. He has been lurking about our chambers for the
last two months: he has found out that poor mad devil Amory's secret.
He has been trying to discover where he was: he has been pumping Mr.
Bolton, and making old Costigan drunk several times. He bribed the Inn
porter to tell him when we came back: and he has got into Clavering's
service on the strength of his information. He will get very good pay
for it, mark my words, the villain." "Where is Amory?" asked Pen.

"At Boulogne, I believe. I left him there, and warned him not to come
back. I have broken with him, after a desperate quarrel, such as one
might have expected with such a madman. And I'm glad to think that he
is in my debt now, and that I have been the means of keeping him out
of more harms than one."

"He has lost all his winnings, I suppose," said Pen.

"No: he is rather better than when he went away, or was a fortnight
ago. He had extraordinary luck at Baden: broke the bank several
nights, and was the fable of the place. He _lied_ himself there, with
a fellow by the name of Bloundell, who gathered about him a society of
all sorts of sharpers, male and female, Russians, Germans, French,
English. Amory got so insolent, that I was obliged to thrash him one
day within an inch of his life. I couldn't help myself; the fellow has
plenty of pluck, and I had nothing for it but to hit out."

"And did he call you out?" said Pen.

"You think if I had shot him I should have done nobody any harm? No,
sir; I waited for his challenge, but it never came: and the next time
I met him he begged my pardon, and said, 'Strong, I beg your pardon;
you whopped me and you served me right.' I shook hands: but I couldn't
live with him after that. I paid him what I owed him the night
before," said Strong with a blush. "I pawned every thing to pay him,
and then I went with my last ten florins, and had a shy at the
_roulette_. If I had lost, I should have let him shoot me in the
morning. I was weary of my life. By Jove, sir, isn't it a shame that a
man like me, who may have had a few bills out, but who never deserted
a friend, or did an unfair action, shouldn't be able to turn his hand
to any thing to get bread? I made a good night, sir, at _roulette_,
and I've done with _that_. I'm going into the wine business. My wife's
relations live at Cadiz. I intend to bring over Spanish wine and hams;
there's a fortune to be made by it, sir--a fortune--here's my card. If
you want any sherry or hams, recollect Ned Strong is your man." And
the chevalier pulled out a handsome card, stating that Strong and
Company, Shepherd's Inn, were sole agents of the celebrated Diamond
Manzanilla of the Duke of Garbanzos, Grandee of Spain of the First
Class; and of the famous Toboso hams, fed on acorns only in the
country of Don Quixote. "Come and taste 'em, sir--come and try 'em at
my chambers. You see, I've an eye to business, and by Jove, this time
I'll succeed."

Pen laughed as he took the card. "I don't know whether I shall be
allowed to go to bachelors' parties," he said. "You know I'm
going to--"

"But you _must_ have sherry, sir. You must have sherry."

"I will have it from you, depend on it," said the other. "And I think
you are very well out of your other partnership. That worthy, Altamont
and his daughter correspond, I hear," Pen added after a pause "Yes;
she wrote him the longest rigmarole letters that I used to read: the
sly little devil; and he answered under cover to Mrs. Bonner. He was
for carrying her off the first day or two, and nothing would content
him but having back his child. But she didn't want to come, as you may
fancy; and he was not very eager about it." Here the chevalier burst
out in a laugh. "Why, sir, do you know what was the cause of our
quarrel and boxing match? There was a certain widow at Baden, a Madame
la Baronne de la Cruche-cassée, who was not much better than himself,
and whom the scoundrel wanted to marry; and would, but that I told her
he was married already. I don't think that she was much better than he
was. I saw her on the pier at Boulogne the day I came to England."

And now we have brought up our narrative to the point, whither the
announcement in the Chatteris Champion had already conducted us.

It wanted but very, very few days before that blissful one when Foker
should call Blanche his own; the Clavering folks had all pressed to
see the most splendid new carriage in the whole world, which was
standing in the coach-house at the Clavering Arms; and shown, in
grateful return for drink, commonly, by Mr. Foker's head coachman.
Madame Fribsby was occupied in making some lovely dresses for the
tenants' daughters, who were to figure as a sort of bridemaids' chorus
at the breakfast and marriage ceremony. And immense festivities were
to take place at the Park upon this delightful occasion.

"Yes, Mr. Huxter, yes; a happy tenantry, its country's pride, will
assemble in the baronial hall, where the beards will wag all. The ox
shall be slain, and the cup they'll drain; and the bells shall peal
quite genteel; and my father-in-law, with the tear of sensibility
bedewing his eye, shall bless us at his baronial porch. That shall be
the order of proceedings, I think, Mr. Huxter; and I hope we shall see
you and _your_ lovely bride by her husband's side; and what will you
please to drink, sir? Mrs. Lightfoot, madam, you will give to my
excellent friend and body surgeon, Mr. Huxter, Mr. Samuel Huxter,
M.R.C.S., every refreshment that your hostel affords, and place the
festive amount to my account; and Mr. Lightfoot, sir, what will _you_
take? though you've had enough already, I think; yes, ha."

So spoke Harry Foker in the bar of the Clavering Arms. He had
apartments at that hotel, and had gathered a circle of friends round
him there. He treated all to drink who came. He was hail-fellow with
every man. He was so happy! He danced round Madam Fribsby, Mrs.
Lightfoot's great ally, as she sate pensive in the bar. He consoled
Mrs. Lightfoot, who had already begun to have causes of matrimonial
disquiet; for the truth must be told, that young Lightfoot, having now
the full command of the cellar, had none over his own unbridled
desires, and was tippling and tipsy from morning till night. And a
piteous sight it was for his fond wife to behold the big youth reeling
about the yard and coffee-room, or drinking with the farmers and
tradesmen his own neat wines and carefully-selected stock of spirits.

When he could find time, Mr. Morgan the butler came from the Park, and
took a glass at the expense of the landlord of the Clavering Arms. He
watched poor Lightfoot's tipsy vagaries with savage sneers. Mrs.
Lightfoot felt always doubly uncomfortable when her unhappy spouse was
under his comrade's eye. But a few months married, and to think he had
got to this. Madame Fribsby could feel for her. Madame Fribsby could
tell her stories of men every bit as bad. She had had her own woes
too, and her sad experience of men. So it is that nobody seems happy
altogether; and that there's bitters, as Mr. Foker remarked, in the
cup of every man's life. And yet there did not seem to be any in his,
the honest young fellow! It was brimming over with happiness and
good-humor.

Mr. Morgan was constant in his attentions to Foker. "And yet I don't
like him somehow," said the candid young man to Mrs. Lightfoot. "He
always seems as if he was measuring me for my coffin somehow.
Pa-in-law's afraid of him; pa-in-law's, a-hem! never mind, but ma-in-law's
a trump, Mrs. Lightfoot."

"Indeed my lady was;" and Mrs. Lightfoot owned, with a sigh, that
perhaps it had been better for her had she never left her mistress.

"No, I do not like thee, Dr. Fell: the reason why I can not tell,"
continued Mr. Foker; "and he wants to be taken as my head man. Blanche
wants me to take him. Why does Miss Amory like him so?"

"Did Miss Blanche like him so?" The notion seemed to disturb Mrs.
Lightfoot very much; and there came to this worthy landlady another
cause for disturbance. A letter bearing the Boulogne postmark, was
brought to her one morning, and she and her husband were quarreling
over it as Foker passed down the stairs by the bar, on his way to the
Park. His custom was to breakfast there, and bask awhile in the
presence of Armida; then, as the company of Clavering tired him
exceedingly, and he did not care for sporting, he would return for an
hour or two to billiards and the society of the Clavering Arms; then
it would be time to ride with Miss Amory, and, after dining with her,
he left her and returned modestly to his inn.

Lightfoot and his wife were quarreling over the letter. What was that
letter from abroad? Why was she always having letters from abroad? Who
wrote 'em?--he would know. He didn't believe it was her brother. It
was no business of his? It _was_ a business of his; and, with a curse,
he seized hold of his wife, and dashed at her pocket for the letter.

The poor woman gave a scream; and said, "Well, take it." Just as her
husband seized on the letter, and Mr. Foker entered at the door, she
gave another scream at seeing him, and once more tried to seize the
paper. Lightfoot opened it, shaking her away, and an inclosure dropped
down on the breakfast table.

"Hands off, man alive!" cried little Harry, springing in. "Don't lay
hands on a woman, sir. The man that lays his hand upon a woman, save
in the way of kindness, is a--hallo! it's a letter for Miss Amory.
What's this, Mrs. Lightfoot?"

Mrs. Lightfoot began, in piteous tones of reproach to her husband--
"You unmanly! to treat a woman so who took you off the street. O you
coward, to lay your hand upon your wife! Why did I marry you? Why did
I leave my lady for you? Why did I spend eight hundred pound in
fitting up this house that you might drink and guzzle?"

"She gets letters, and she won't tell me who writes letters," said Mr.
Lightfoot, with a muzzy voice, "it's a family affair, sir. Will you
take any thing, sir?"

"I will take this letter to Miss Amory, as I am going to the Park,"
said Foker, turning very pale; and taking it up from the table, which
was arranged for the poor landlady's breakfast, he went away.

"He's comin'--dammy, who's a-comin'? Who's J.A., Mrs. Lightfoot
--curse me, who's J.A.," cried the husband.

Mrs. Lightfoot cried out, "Be quiet, you tipsy brute, do,"--and
running to her bonnet and shawl, threw them on, saw Mr. Foker walking
down the street, took the by-lane which skirts it, and ran as quickly
as she could to the lodge-gate, Clavering Park. Foker saw a running
figure before him, but it was lost when he got to the lodge-gate. He
stopped and asked, "Who was that who had just come in? Mrs. Bonner,
was it?" He reeled almost in his walk: the trees swam before him. He
rested once or twice against the trunks of the naked limes.

Lady Clavering was in the breakfast-room with her son, and her husband
yawning over his paper. "Good-morning, Harry," said the Begum. "Here's
letters, lots of letters; Lady Rockminster will be here on Tuesday
instead of Monday, and Arthur and the major come to-day; and Laura is
to go Dr. Portman's, and come to church from there: and--what's the
matter, my dear? What makes you so pale Harry?"

"Where is Blanche?" asked Harry, in a sickening voice "not down yet?"

"Blanche is always the last," said the boy, eating muffins; "she's a
regular dawdle, she is. When you're not here, she lays in bed till
lunch time."

"Be quiet, Frank," said the mother.

Blanche came down presently, looking pale, and with rather an eager
look toward Foker; then she advanced and kissed her mother, and had a
face beaming with her very best smiles on when she greeted Harry.

"How do you do, sir?" she said, and put out both her hands.

"I'm ill," answered Harry. "I--I've brought a letter for you, Blanche."

"A letter, and from whom is it pray? _Voyons_" she said.

"I don't know--I should like to know," said Foker.

"How can I tell until I see it?" asked Blanche. "Has Mrs. Bonner not
told you?" he said, with a shaking voice; "there's some secret. _You_
give her the letter, Lady Clavering."

Lady Clavering, wondering, took the letter from poor Foker's shaking
hand, and looked at the superscription. As she looked at it, she too
began to shake in every limb, and with a scared face she dropped the
letter, and running up to Frank, clutched the boy to her, and burst
out with a sob, "Take that away--it's impossible, it's impossible."

"What is the matter?" cried Blanche, with rather a ghastly smile, "the
letter is only from--from a poor pensioner and relative of ours."

"It's not true, it's not true," screamed Lady Clavering. "No, my
Frank--is it Clavering?"

Blanche had taken up the letter, and was moving with it toward the
fire, but Foker ran to her and clutched her arm, "I must see that
letter," he said; "give it to me. You shan't burn it."

"You--you shall not treat Miss Amory so in my house," cried the
baronet; "give back the letter, by Jove!"

"Read it--and look at her," Blanche cried, pointing to her mother;
"it--it was for her I kept the secret! Read it, cruel man!"

And Foker opened and read the letter:

"I have not wrote, my darling Bessy, this three weeks; but this is to
give her a _father's blessing_, and I shall come down pretty soon as
quick as my note, and intend to see _the ceremony, and my son-in-law_.
I shall put up at Bonner's. I have had a pleasant autumn, and am
staying here at an hotel where there _is good company_, and which is
kep' _in good style_. I don't know whether I quite approve of your
throwing over Mr. P. for Mr. F., and don't think Foker's _such a
pretty name_, and from your account of him he seems a _muff_, and _not
a beauty_. But he has got _the rowdy_, which is the thing. So no more,
my dear little Betsy, till we meet, from your affectionate father,"

"J. AMORY ALTAMONT."

"Read it, Lady Clavering; it is too late to keep it from you now,"
said poor Foker; and the distracted woman, having cast her eyes over
it, again broke out into hysterical screams, and convulsively
grasped her son.

"They have made an outcast of you, my boy," she said. "They've
dishonored your old mother; but I'm innocent, Frank; before God, I'm
innocent. I didn't know this, Mr. Foker; indeed, indeed, I didn't."

"I'm sure you didn't," said Foker, going up and kissing her hand.

"Generous, generous Harry," cried out Blanche in an ecstasy. But he
withdrew his hand, which was upon _her_ side, and turned from her with
a quivering lip. "That's different," he says.

"It was for her sake--for her sake, Harry." Again Miss Amory is in an
attitude.

"There was something to be done for mine" said Foker. "I would have
taken you, whatever you were. Every thing's talked about in London. I
knew that your father had come to--to grief. You don't think it
was--it was for your connection I married you? D--it all! I've loved
you with all my heart and soul for two years, and you've been playing
with me, and cheating me," broke out the young man, with a cry. "Oh,
Blanche, Blanche, it's a hard thing, a hard thing!" and he covered his
face with his hands, and sobbed behind them.

Blanche thought, "Why didn't I tell him that night when Arthur warned
me?"

"Don't refuse her, Harry," cried Lady Clavering. "Take her, take every
thing I have. It's all hers, you know, at my death. This boy's
disinherited."--(Master Frank, who had been looking as scared at the
strange scene, here burst into a loud cry.)--"Take every shilling.
Give me just enough to live, and to go and hide my head with this
child, and to fly from both. Oh, they've both been bad, bad men.
Perhaps he's here now. Don't let me see him. Clavering, you coward,
defend me from him."

Clavering started up at this proposal. "You ain't serious, Jemima? You
don't mean that?" he said. "You won't throw me and Frank over? I
didn't know it, so help me----. Foker I'd no more idea of it than the
dead--until the fellow came and found me out, the d--d escaped convict
scoundrel."

"The what?" said Foker. Blanche gave a scream.

"Yes," screamed out the baronet in his turn, "yes, a d--d runaway
convict--a fellow that forged his father-in-law's name--a d--d
attorney, and killed a fellow in Botany Bay, hang him--and ran into
the Bush, curse him; I wish he'd died there. And he came to me, a good
six years ago and robbed me; and I've been ruining myself to keep him,
the infernal scoundrel! And Pendennis knows it, and Strong knows it,
and that d--d Morgan knows it, and she knows it, ever so long; and I
never would tell it, never: and I kept it from my wife."

"And you saw him, and you didn't kill him, Clavering, you coward?"
said the wife of Amory. "Come away, Frank; your father's a coward. I
am dishonored, but I'm your old mother, and you'll--you'll love me,
won't you?"

Blanche _eploree_, went up to her mother; but Lady Clavering shrank
from her with a sort of terror. "Don't touch me," she said; "you've no
heart; you never had. I see all now. I see why that coward was going
to give up his place in Parliament to Arthur; yes, that coward! and
why you threatened that you would make me give you half Frank's
fortune. And when Arthur offered to marry you without a shilling,
because he wouldn't rob my boy, you left him, and you took poor Harry.
Have nothing to do with her, Harry. You're good, you are. Don't marry
that--that convict's daughter. Come away, Frank, my darling; come to
your poor old mother. We'll hide ourselves; but we're honest, yes, we
are honest."

All this while a strange feeling of exultation had taken possession of
Blanche's mind. That month with poor Harry had been a weary month to
her. All his fortune and splendor scarcely sufficed to make the idea
of himself supportable. She was weaned of his simple ways, and sick of
coaxing and cajoling him.

"Stay, mamma; stay, madam!" she cried out with a gesture, which was
always appropriate, though rather theatrical; "I have no heart? have
I? I keep the secret of my mother's shame. I give up my rights to my
half-brother and my bastard brother--yes, my rights and my fortune. I
don't betray my father, and for this I have no heart. I'll have my
rights now, and the laws of my country shall give them to me. I appeal
to my country's laws--yes, my country's laws! The persecuted one
returns this day. I desire to go to my father." And the little lady
swept round her hand, and thought that she was a heroine.

"You will, will you?" cried out Clavering, with one of his usual
oaths. "I'm a magistrate, and dammy, I'll commit him. Here's a chaise
coming; perhaps it's him. Let him come."

A chaise was indeed coming up the avenue; and the two women shrieked
each their loudest, expecting at that moment to see Altamont arrive.

The door opened, and Mr. Morgan announced Major Pendennis and Mr.
Pendennis, who entered, and found all parties engaged in this fierce
quarrel. A large screen fenced the breakfast-room from the hall; and
it is probable that, according to his custom, Mr. Morgan had taken
advantage of the screen to make himself acquainted with all
that occurred.

It had been arranged on the previous day that the young people should
ride; and at the appointed hour in the afternoon, Mr. Foker's horses
arrived from the Clavering Arms. But Miss Blanche did not accompany
him on this occasion. Pen came out and shook hands with him on the
door-steps; and Harry Foker rode away, followed by his groom, in
mourning. The whole transactions which have occupied the most active
part of our history were debated by the parties concerned during those
two or three hours. Many counsels had been given, stories told, and
compromises suggested; and at the end, Harry Foker rode away, with a
sad "God bless you!" from Pen. There was a dreary dinner at Clavering
Park, at which the lately installed butler did not attend; and the
ladies were both absent. After dinner, Pen said, "I will walk down to
Clavering and see if he is come." And he walked through the dark
avenue, across the bridge and road by his own cottage--the once quiet
and familiar fields of which were flaming with the kilns and forges of
the artificers employed on the new railroad works; and so he entered
the town, and made for the Clavering Arms.

It was past midnight when he returned to Clavering Park. He was
exceedingly pale and agitated. "Is Lady Clavering up yet?" he asked.
Yes, she was in her own sitting-room. He went up to her, and there
found the poor lady in a piteous state of tears and agitation. "It is
I--Arthur," he said, looking in; and entering, he took her hand very
affectionately and kissed it. "You were always the kindest of friends
to me, dear Lady Clavering," he said. "I love you very much. I have
got some news for you."

"Don't call me by that name," she said, pressing his hand. "You were
always a good boy, Arthur; and it's kind of you to come now--very
kind. You sometimes look very like your ma, my dear."

"Dear, good _Lady Clavering_," Arthur repeated, with particular
emphasis, "something very strange has happened."

"Has any thing happened to him?" gasped Lady Clavering. "O, it's
horrid to think I should be glad of it--horrid!"

"He is well. He has been and is gone, my dear lady. Don't alarm
yourself--he is gone, and you are Lady Clavering still."

"Is it true? what he sometimes said to me," she screamed out--"that
he--"

"He was married before he married you," said Pen. "He has confessed it
to-night. He will never come back." There came another shriek from
Lady Clavering, as she flung her arms round Pen, and kissed him, and
burst into tears on his shoulder.

What Pen had to tell, through a multiplicity of sobs and
interruptions, must be compressed briefly, for behold our prescribed
limit is reached, and our tale is coming to its end. With the Branch
Coach from the railroad, which had succeeded the old Alacrity and
Perseverance, Amory arrived, and was set down at the Clavering Arms.
He ordered his dinner at the place under his assumed name of Altamont,
and, being of a jovial turn, he welcomed the landlord, who was nothing
loth, to a share of his wine. Having extracted from Mr. Lightfoot all
the news regarding the family at the Park, and found, from examining
his host, that Mrs. Lightfoot, as she said, had kept his counsel, he
called for more wine of Mr. Lightfoot, and at the end of this
symposium, both being greatly excited, went into Mrs. Lightfoot's bar.

She was there taking tea with her friend, Madame Fribsby; and
Lightfoot was by this time in such a happy state as not to be
surprised at any thing which might occur, so that, when Altamont shook
hands with Mrs. Lightfoot as an old acquaintance, the recognition did
not appear to him to be in the least strange, but only a reasonable
cause for further drinking. The gentlemen partook then of
brandy-and-water, which they offered to the ladies, not heeding the
terrified looks of one or the other.

While they were so engaged, at about six o'clock in the evening, Mr.
Morgan, Sir Francis Clavering's new man, came in, and was requested to
drink. He selected his favorite beverage, and the parties engaged in
general conversation.

After awhile Mr. Lightfoot began to doze. Mr. Morgan had repeatedly
given hints to Mrs. Fribsby to quit the premises; but that lady,
strangely fascinated, and terrified, it would seem, or persuaded by
Mrs. Lightfoot not to go, kept her place. Her persistence
occasioned much annoyance to Mr. Morgan, who vented his displeasure in
such language as gave pain to Mrs. Lightfoot, and caused Mr. Altamont
to say, that he was a rum customer, and not polite to the sex.

The altercation between the two gentlemen became very painful to the
women, especially to Mrs. Lightfoot, who did every thing to soothe Mr.
Morgan; and, under pretense of giving a pipe-light to the stranger,
she handed him a paper on which she had privily written the words, "He
knows you. Go." There may have been something suspicious in her manner
of handing, or in her guest's of reading the paper; for when he got up
a short time afterward, and said he would go to bed, Morgan rose too,
with a laugh, and said it was too early to go to bed.

The stranger then said, he would go to his bedroom. Morgan said he
would show him the way.

At this the guest said, "Come up. I've got a brace of pistols up there
to blow out the brains of any traitor or skulking spy," and glared so
fiercely upon Morgan, that the latter, seizing hold of Lightfoot by
the collar, and waking him, said, "John Amory, I arrest you in the
Queen's name. Stand by me, Lightfoot. This capture is worth a
thousand pounds."

He put forward his hand as if to seize his prisoner, but the other,
doubling his fist, gave Morgan with his left hand so fierce a blow on
the chest, that it knocked him back behind Mr. Lightfoot. That
gentleman, who was athletic and courageous, said he would knock his
guest's head off, and prepared to do so, as the stranger, tearing off
his coat, and cursing both of his opponents, roared to them to
come on.

But with a piercing scream Mrs. Lightfoot flung herself before her
husband, while with another and louder shriek Madame Fribsby ran to
the stranger, and calling out "Armstrong, Johnny Armstrong!" seized
hold of his naked arm, on which a blue tattooing of a heart and M.F.
were visible.

The ejaculation of Madame Fribsby seemed to astound and sober the
stranger. He looked down upon her, and cried out, "It's Polly,
by Jove."

Mrs. Fribsby continued to exclaim, "This is not Amory. This is Johnny
Armstrong, my wicked--wicked husband, married to me in St. Martin's
Church, mate on board an Indiaman, and he left me two months after,
the wicked wretch. This is John Armstrong--here's the mark on his arm
which he made for me."

The stranger said, "I am John Armstrong, sure enough, Polly. I'm John
Armstrong, Amory, Altamont--and let 'em all come on, and try what they
can do against a British sailor. Hurray, who's for it!"

Morgan still called, "Arrest him!" But Mrs. Lightfoot said, "Arrest
him! arrest you, you mean spy! What! stop the marriage and ruin my
lady, and take away the Clavering Arms from us?"

"_Did_ he say he'd take away the Clavering Arms from us?" asked Mr.
Lightfoot, turning round, "Hang him, I'll throttle him." "Keep him,
darling, till the coach passes to the up train. It'll he here now
directly."

"D--him, I'll choke him if he stirs," said Lightfoot. And so they
kept Morgan until the coach came, and Mr. Amory or Armstrong went away
hack to London.

Morgan had followed him: but of this event Arthur Pendennis did not
inform Lady Clavering, and left her invoking blessings upon him at her
son's door, going to kiss him as he was asleep. It had been a
busy day.

We have to chronicle the events of but one day more, and that was a
day when Mr. Arthur, attired in a new hat, a new blue frock-coat, and
blue handkerchief, in a new fancy waistcoat, new boots, and new
shirt-studs (presented by the Right Honorable the Countess Dowager of
Rockminster), made his appearance at a solitary breakfast-table, in
Clavering Park, where he could scarce eat a single morsel of food. Two
letters were laid by his worship's plate; and he chose to open the
first, which was in a round clerk-like hand, in preference to the
second more familiar superscription.

Note 1 ran as follows:

"GARBANZOS WINE COMPANY, SHEPHERD'S INN.--_Monday_.

"MY DEAR PENDENNIS--In congratulating you heartily upon the event
which is to make you happy for life, I send my very kindest
remembrances to Mrs. Pendennis, whom I hope to know even longer than I
have already known her. And when I call her attention to the fact,
that one of the most necessary articles to her husband's comfort is
_pure sherry_, I know I shall have her for a customer for your
worship's sake.

"But I have to speak to you of other than my own concerns. Yesterday
afternoon, a certain J.A. arrived at my chambers from Clavering, which
he had left under circumstances of which you are doubtless now aware.
In spite of our difference, I could not but give him food and shelter
(and he partook freely both of the Garbanzos Amontillado and the
Toboso ham), and he told me what had happened to him, and many other
surprising adventures. The rascal married at sixteen, and has
repeatedly since performed that ceremony--in Sidney, in New Zealand,
in South America, in Newcastle, he says first, before he knew our poor
friend the milliner. He is a perfect Don Juan.

"And it seemed as if the commendatore had at last overtaken him, for,
as we were at our meal, there came three heavy knocks at my outer
door, which made our friend start. I have sustained a siege or two
here, and went to my usual place to reconnoiter. Thank my stars I have
not a bill out in the world, and besides, _those_ gentry do not come
in that way. I found that it was your uncle's late valet, Morgan, and
a policeman (I think a sham policeman), and they said they had a
warrant to take the person of John Armstrong, alias Amory, alias
Altamont, a runaway convict, and threatened to break in the oak. Now,
sir, in my own days of captivity I had discovered a little passage
along the gutter into Bows and Costigan's window, and I sent Jack
Alias along this covered way, not without terror of his life, for it
had grown very cranky; and then, after a parley, let in Mons. Morgan
and friend.

"The rascal had been instructed about that covered way, for he made
for the room instantly, telling the policeman to go down stairs and
keep the gate; and he charged up my little staircase as if he had
known, the premises. As he was going out of the window we heard a
voice that you know, from Bow's garret, saying, 'Who are ye, and hwhat
the divvle are ye at? You'd betther leave the gutther; bedad there's a
man killed himself already.'

"And as Morgan, crossing over and looking into the darkness, was
trying to see whether this awful news was true, he took a broom-stick,
and with a vigorous dash broke down the pipe of communication--and
told me this morning, with great glee, that he was reminded of that
'aisy sthratagem by remembering his dorling Emilie, when she acted the
pawrt of Cora in the Plee--and by the bridge in Pezawro, bedad: I wish
that scoundrel Morgan had been on the bridge when the general tried
his 'sthratagem.'

"If I hear more of Jack Alias I will tell you. He has got plenty of
money still, and I wanted him to send some to our poor friend the
milliner; but the scoundrel laughed and said, he had no more than he
wanted, but offered to give any body a lock of his hair. Farewell--be
happy! and believe me always truly yours.

"E. STRONG."

"And now for the other letter," said Pen. "Dear old fellow!" and he
kissed the seal before he broke it.

"WARRINGTON, _Tuesday_.

"I must not let the day pass over without saying a God bless you, to
both of you. May heaven make you happy, dear Arthur, and dear Laura. I
think, Pen, that you have the best wife in the world; and pray that,
as such, you will cherish her and tend her. The chambers will be
lonely without you, dear Pen; but if I am tired, I shall have a new
home to go to in the house of my brother and sister. I am practicing
in the nursery here, in order to prepare for the part of Uncle George.
Farewell! make your wedding tour, and come back to your affectionate

"G. W."

Pendennis and his wife read this letter together after Doctor
Portman's breakfast was over, and the guests were gone; and when the
carriage was waiting amidst the crowd at the doctor's outer gate. But
the wicket led into the church-yard of St Mary's where the bells were
pealing with all their might, and it was here, over Helen's green
grass, that Arthur showed his wife George's letter. For which of those
two--for grief was it or for happiness, that Laura's tears abundantly
fell on the paper? And once more, in the presence of the sacred dust,
she kissed and blessed her Arthur.

There was only one marriage on that day at Clavering Church; for in
spite of Blanche's sacrifices for her dearest mother, honest Harry
Foker could not pardon the woman who had deceived her husband, and
justly argued that she would deceive him again. He went to the
Pyramids and Syria, and there left his malady behind him, and returned
with a fine beard, and a supply of tarbooshes and nargillies, with
which he regales all his friends. He lives splendidly, and through
Pen's mediation, gets his wine from the celebrated vintages of the
Duke of Garbanzos.

As for poor Cos, his fate has been mentioned in an early part of this
story. No very glorious end could be expected to such a career. Morgan
is one of the most respectable men in the parish of St. James's, and
in the present political movement has pronounced himself like a man
and a Briton. And Bows--on the demise of Mr. Piper, who played the
organ at Clavering, little Mrs. Sam Huxter, who has the entire command
of Doctor Portman, brought Bows down from London to contest the organ
chair loft, and her candidate carried the chair. When Sir Francis
Clavering quitted this worthless life, the same little indefatigable
canvasser took the borough by storm, and it is now represented by
Arthur Pendennis, Esq.. Blanche Amory, it is well known, married at
Paris, and the saloons of Madame la Comtesse de Montmorenci de
Valentinois were among the most _suivis_ of that capital. The duel
between the count and the young and fiery Representative of the
Mountain, Alcide de Mirobo, arose solely from the latter questioning
at the Club the titles borne by the former nobleman. Madame de
Montmorenci de Valentinois traveled after the adventure: and Bungay
bought her poems, and published them, with the countess's coronet
emblazoned on the countess's work.

Major Pendennis became very serious in his last days, and was never
so happy as when Laura was reading to him with her sweet voice, or
listening to his stories. For this sweet lady is the friend of the young
and the old: and her life is always passed in making other lives
happy.

"And what sort of a husband would this Pendennis be?" many a
reader will ask, doubting the happiness of such a marriage, and the
fortune of Laura. The querists, if they meet her, are referred to that
lady herself, who, seeing his faults and wayward moods--seeing and
owning that there are men better than he--loves him always with the
most constant affection. His children or their mother have never heard
a harsh word from him; and when his fits of moodiness and solitude
are over, welcome him back with a never-failing regard and confidence.
His friend is his friend still--entirely heart-whole. That malady is
never fatal to a sound organ. And George goes through his part of
godpapa perfectly, and lives alone. If Mr. Pen's works have procured
him more reputation than has been acquired by his abler friend, whom
no one knows, George lives contented without the fame. If the best
men do not draw the great prizes in life, we know it has been so settled
by the Ordainer of the lottery. We own, and see daily, how the false
and worthless live and prosper, while the good are called away, and the
dear and young perish untimely--we perceive in every man's life the
maimed happiness, the frequent falling, the bootless endeavor, the
struggle of Right and Wrong, in which the strong often succumb and
the swift fail: we see flowers of good blooming in foul places, as, in the
most lofty and splendid fortunes, flaws of vice and meanness, and stains
of evil; and, knowing how mean the best of us is, let us give a hand of
charity to Arthur Pendennis, with all his faults and shortcomings, who
does not claim to be a hero but only a man and a brother.

THE END.





*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The History of Pendennis, Volume 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy" ***

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