sunk 
 
 mf^ ^f
 
 THE WORKS 
 
 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
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 II.
 
 THE WORKS 
 
 OF 
 
 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY, 
 
 'iV TWELVE VOLUMES. 
 VOLUME 11. 
 
 THE HISTORY OF PENDENNIS. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 JAMES R. OSGOOD & COMPANY. 
 
 1872.
 
 5&I 
 
 
 
 
 S%& 
 
 ^^t'^'?
 
 ^. 
 
 (P-^ C^^y^ r 
 
 ?^^
 
 THE HISTORY 
 
 OF 
 
 PENDENNIS. 
 
 HIS FORTUNES AND MISFORTUNES, HIS FRIENDS 
 AND HIS GREATEST ENEMY. 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. 
 
 WITH A FRONTISPIECK 
 
 BOSTON: 
 JAMES R. OSGOOD & COMPANY 
 
 I 872.
 
 PR 
 Al 
 
 TO DR. JOHN ELLIOTSON. 
 
 My dear Doctor — 
 
 Thirteen months ago, when it seemed likely that this 
 story had come to a close, a kind friend brought you to my bed- 
 side, whence, in all probability, I never should have risen but for 
 your constant watchfulness and skill. I like to recall your great 
 goodness and kindness (as well as many acts of others, showing 
 quite a surprising friendship and sympathy) at that time, when 
 kindness and friendship were most needed and welcome. 
 
 And as you would take no other fee but thanks, let me record 
 them here in behalf of me and mine, and subscribe myself 
 
 Yours most sincerely and gratefully, 
 
 W. M. THACKERAY.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 F this kind of composition, of which the two years' product 
 is now laid before the pubhc, fail in art, as it constantly does 
 i: and must, it at least has the advantage of a certain truth and 
 j honesty, v/hich a work more elaborate might lose. In his constant 
 I communication with the reader, the writer is forced into frankness 
 I of expression, and to speak out his own mind and feelings as 
 ' they urge him. Many a slip of the pen and the printer, many a 
 I word spoken in haste, he sees and would recall as he looks over 
 his volume. It is a sort of confidential talk between writer and 
 ! reader, which must often be dull, must often flag. In the course 
 of his volubility, the perpetual speaker must of necessity lay bare 
 his own weaknesses, vanities, peculiarities. And as we judge of 
 a man's character, after long frequenting his society, not by one 
 speech, or by one mood or o]3inion, or by one day's talk, but by 
 the tenor of his general bearing and conversation ; so of a writer 
 who delivers himself up to you perforce unreservedly, you say, Is 
 he honest ? Does he tell the truth in the main ? Does he seem 
 actuated by a desire to find out and speak it ? Is he a quack, 
 who shams sentiment, or mouths for effect ? Does he seek popu- 
 larity by claptraps or other arts ? I can no more ignore good 
 fortune than any other chance which has befallen me. I have 
 found m.any thousands more readers than I ever looked for, I 
 have no right to say to these, You shall not find fault with my 
 art, or fall asleep over my pages ; but I ask you to believe that 
 this person writing strives to tell the truth. If there is not that, 
 there is nothing. 
 
 Perhaps the lovers of " excitement " may care to know, that 
 this book began with a very precise plan, which was entirely put 
 aside. Ladies and gentlemen, you were to have been treated, 
 and the writer's and the publisher's pocket benefited, by the
 
 X PRE FACE. 
 
 recital of the most active horrors. What more exciting than a 
 ruflian (with many achnirable virtues) in St. Giles's, visited con- 
 stantly by a young lady from Belgravia ? What more stirring than 
 the contrasts of society? the mixture of slang and fashionable 
 language ? the escapes, the battles, the murders ? Nay, up to 
 nine o'clock this very morning, my poor friend, Colonel Altamont, 
 was doomed to execution, and the author only relented when his 
 victim was actually at the window. 
 
 The "exciting" plan was laid aside (with a very honourable 
 forbearance on the part of the publishers), because, on attempting 
 it, I found that I failed from want of experience of my subject ; 
 and never having been intimate with any convict in my life, and 
 the manners of ruffians and gaol-birds being quite unfamiliar to 
 me, the idea of entering into competition with M. Eugene Sue 
 was abandoned. To describe a real rascal, you must make him 
 so horrible that he would be too hideous to show ; and unless tlie 
 painter paints him fairly, I hold he has no right to show him at all. 
 
 Even the gentlemen of our age — this is an attempt to describe 
 one of them, no better nor worse than most educated men — even 
 these we cannot show as they are, with the notorious foibles and 
 selfishness of their lives and their education. Since the author of 
 Tom Jones was buried, no writer of fiction among us has been 
 permitted to depict to his utmost power a man. We must drape 
 him, and give him a certain conventional simper. Society will 
 not tolerate the Natural in our Art. Many ladies have remon- 
 strated and subscribers left me, because in the course of the story, 
 I described a young man resisting and affected by temptation. 
 My object was to say, that he had the passions to feel, and the 
 manliness and generosity to overcome them. You will not hear 
 — it is best to know it — what moves in the real world, what passes 
 in society, in the clubs, colleges, mess-rooms, — what is the life 
 and talk of your sons. A little more frankness than is customary 
 has been attempted in this story; with no bad desire on the 
 writer's part, it is hoped, and with no ill consequence to any 
 reader. If truth is not always pleasant ; at any rate truth is best, 
 from whatever chair — from those whence graver writers or thinkers 
 argue, as from that at which the story-teller sits as he concludes 
 his labour, and bids his kind reader farewell. 
 
 Kensington, Nov. zbth, 1850.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER TAGS 
 
 I. Shows how First Love may interrupt Breakfast i 
 
 II. A Pedigree and other Family Matters 6 
 
 III. In which Pendennis appears as a very Young Man 
 
 INDEED 21 
 
 IV. Mrs. Haller 33 
 
 V. Mrs. Haller at Home 41 
 
 VI. Contains both Love and War 54 
 
 VII. In which the Major makes his Appearance 65 
 
 VIII. In which Pen is kept waiting at the Door, while 
 
 THE Reader is informed who little Laura was 73 
 
 IX. In which the Major opens the Campaign 84 
 
 X. Facing the Enemy 91 
 
 XL Negotiation 97 
 
 XII. In which a Shooting Match is proposed 106 
 
 XIII. A Crisis 114 
 
 XIV. In which Miss Fotheringay makes a new Engage- 
 
 ment 122 
 
 XV. The Happy Village 129 
 
 XVI. Which concludes the First Part of this History 139 
 
 XVII. Alma Mater 155 
 
 XVIII. Pendennis of Boniface 164 
 
 XIX. Rake's Progress 1 77 
 
 XX. Flight after Defeat 1S5 
 
 XXI. Prodigal's Return 192 
 
 XXII. New Faces 201 
 
 XXIII. A Little Innocent 217 
 
 XXIV. Contains both Love and Jealousy 226 
 
 XXV. A House full of Visitors 235 
 
 XXVI. Contains some Ball-practising 24S 
 
 XXVII. Which is both Quarrelsome and Sentimental 256 
 
 XXVIII. Babylon 269 
 
 XXIX. The Knights of the Temple 280 
 
 XXX. Old and New Acquaintances 2SS 
 
 XXXI. In which the Printer's Devil comes to the Door 300 
 
 XXXII. Which is passed in the Neighbourhood of Lud- 
 
 GATE Hill 312 
 
 XXXIII. In which the History still hovers about Fleet 
 
 Street -322
 
 COXTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTHR PAGE 
 
 XXXIV. A Dinner in the Row 328 
 
 XXXV. The "Pall Mall Gazette" 338 
 
 XXXVI. Where Pen appears in Town and Country 344 
 
 XXXVII. In which the Sylph reappears 358 
 
 XXXVIII. In which Colonel Altamoxt appears and dis- 
 appears 366 
 
 XXXIX. Relates to ]Mr. Harry Foker's Affairs 375 
 
 XL. Carries the Reader both to Richmond and Green- 
 wich 386 
 
 XLI. Contains a Novel Incident 395 
 
 XLII. Alsatia 406 
 
 XLIII. In which the Colonel narrates some of his 
 
 Adventures 413 
 
 XLIV. A Chapter of Conversations 424 
 
 XLV. Miss Amory's Partners 437 
 
 XLVI. Monseigneur s'amuse 448 
 
 XLVII. A Visit of Politeness 462 
 
 XLVIII. In Shepherd's Inn 468 
 
 XLIX. In or near the Temple Garden 474 
 
 L. The Happy Village again 483 
 
 LI. Which had very nearly been the last of the Story 4S9 
 
 LII. A Critical Chapter 500 
 
 LIII. Convalescence ., 510 
 
 LIV. Fanny's Occupation's gone 522 
 
 LV, In which Fanny engages a new Medical Man 533 
 
 LVI. Foreign Ground 544 
 
 LVII. "Fairoaks to let" 555 
 
 LVIII. Old Friends 565 
 
 LIX. Explanations 577 
 
 LX. Conversations 5S4 
 
 LXI. The Way of the World 597 
 
 LXII. Which accounts perhaps for Chapter LXI 611 
 
 LXIII. Phillis and Corydon 624 
 
 LXIV. Temptation 629 
 
 LXV. In which Pen begins his Canvass 640 
 
 LXVI. In which Pen begins to doubt his Election 649 
 
 LXVII. In which the Major is bidden to stand and deliver 661 
 LXVIII. In which the Major neither yields his Money nor 
 
 HIS Life 671 
 
 LXIX. In WHICH Pendennis counts his Eggs 679 
 
 LXX. Fiat Justitia 685 
 
 LXXI. In which the Decks begin to clear 693 
 
 LXXII. Mr. and Mrs. Sam Huxter 701 
 
 LXXIII. Shows how Arthur had better have taken a 
 
 Return-Ticket 7 1 1 
 
 LXXIV. A Chapter of Match-Making 71S 
 
 LXXV. Exeunt Omnes 726
 
 P EN D E N N I S. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 SHOWS HOW FIRST LOVE MAY INTERRUPT BREAKFAST. 
 
 ONE fine morning in the full London season, Major Arthur Pen- 
 dennis came over from his lodgings, according to his custom, 
 to breakfast at a certain Club in Pall Mall, of which he was a chief 
 ornament. At a quarter past ten the Major invariably made his 
 appearance in the best blacked boots in all London, with a checked 
 morning cravat that never was rumpled until dinner time, a buff waist- 
 coat which bore the crown of his sovereign on the buttons, and linen 
 so spotless that Mr. Brummel himself asked the name of his laundress, 
 and would probably have employed her had not misfortunes compelled 
 that great man to fly the country. Pendennis's coat, his white gloves, 
 his whiskers, his very cane, were perfect of their kind as specimens of 
 the costume of a military man en reiraite. At a distance, or seeing 
 his back merely, you would have taken him to be not more than thirty 
 years old : it was only by a nearer inspection that you saw the facti- 
 tious nature of his rich brown hair, and that there were a few crows- 
 feet round about the somewhat faded eyes of his handsome mottled 
 face. His nose was of the Wellington pattern. His hands and 
 wristbands were beautifully long and white. On the latter he wore 
 handsome gold buttons given to him by his Royal Highness the 
 Duke of York, and on the others more than one elegant ring, the 
 chief and largest of them being emblazoned with the famous arms of 
 Pendennis. 
 
 He always took possession of the same table in the same corner 
 of the room, from which nobody ever now thought of ousting him. 
 One or two mad wags and wild fellows had, in former days, endeavoured 
 to deprive him of this place ; but there was a quiet dignity in the 
 Major's manner as he took his seat at the next table, and surveyed 
 
 I
 
 2 PENDENNIS, 
 
 the interlopers, which rendered it impossible for any man to sit and 
 breakfast under his eye ; and that table — by the fire, and yet near 
 the window — became his own. His letters were laid out there in 
 expectation of his arrival, and many was the young fellow about town 
 who looked with wonder at the number of those notes, and at the seals 
 and franks which they bore. If there was any question about etiquette, 
 society, who was married to whom, of what age such and such a duke 
 was, Pendennis was the man to whom everj' one appealed. Marchion- 
 esses used to drive up to the Club, and leave notes for him, or fetch 
 him out. He was perfectly affable. The young men liked to walk 
 with him in the Park or down Pall ]\Iall ; for he touched his hat to 
 ever)'body, and every other man he met was a lord. 
 
 The Major sate down at his accustomed table then, and while the 
 waiters went to bring him his toast and his hot newspaper, he surveyed 
 his letters through his gold double eye-glass, and examined one pretty 
 note after another, and laid them by in order. There were large 
 solemn dinner cards, suggestive of three courses and heavy con- 
 versation ; there were neat little confidential notes, conveying female 
 entreaties ; there was a note on thick official paper from the Marquis 
 of Steyne, telling him to come to Richmond to a little party at the Star 
 and Garter ; and another from the Bishop of Ealing and Mrs. Trail, 
 requesting the honour of Major Pendennis's company at Ealing House, 
 all of which letters Pendennis read gracefully, and with the more satis- 
 faction, because dowry, the Scotch surgeon, breakfasting opposite to 
 him, was looking on, and hating him for having so many invitations, 
 which nobody ever sent to dowry. 
 
 These perused, the Major took out his pocket-book to see on what 
 days he was disengaged, and which of these many hospitable calls he 
 could afford to accept or decline. 
 
 He threw over Cutler, the East India Director, in Baker Street, 
 in order to dine with Lord Steyne and the little French party at the 
 Star and Garter — the Bishop he accepted, because, though the dinner 
 was slow, he liked to dine with bishops — and so went through his list 
 and disposed of them according to his fancy or interest. Then he 
 took his breakfast and looked over the paper, the gazette, the births 
 and deaths, and the fashionable intelligence, to see that his name was 
 down among the guests at my Lord So-and-so's fete, and in the inter- 
 vals of these occupations carried on cheerful conversation with his 
 acquaintances about the room. 
 
 Among the letters which formed Major Pendennis's budget for 
 that morning there was only one unread, and which lay solitary and 
 apart from all the fashionable London letters, with a country post- 
 mark and a homely seal. The superscription was in a pretty delicate 
 female hand, marked " immediate " by the fair ^^Titer ; yet the Major
 
 PENDENNIS. 3 
 
 had, for reasons of his own, neglected up to the present moment his 
 humble rural petitioner, who, to be sure, could hardly hope to get a 
 hearing among so many grand folks who attended his levee. The 
 fact was, this was a letter from a female relative of Pendennis', and 
 while the grandees of her brother's acquaintance were received and 
 got their interview, and drove off, as it were, the patient country 
 letter remained for a long time waiting for an audience in the ante- 
 chamber, under the slop-basin. 
 
 At last it came to be this letter's turn, and the Major broke a seal 
 with " Fairoaks " engraved upon it, and " Clavering St. Mary's " for a 
 post-mark. It was a double letter, and the Major commenced 
 perusing the envelope before he attacked the inner epistle. 
 
 " Is it a letter from another Jook?" growled Mr. dowry, inwardly. 
 '" Pendennis would not be leaving that to the last, I'm thinking.'' 
 
 " My dear Major Pendennis," the letter ran, " I beg and implore 
 you to come to me im7nediately^' — very likely, thought Pendennis, 
 and Steyne's dinner to-day — " I am in the greatest grief and per- 
 plexity. My dearest boy, who has been hitherto everything the 
 fondest mother could wish, is grieving me dreadfully. He has formed 
 ■ — I can hardly write it — a passion, an infatuation," — the Major grinned 
 — " for an actress who has been performing here. She is at least 
 twelve years older than Arthur — who will not be eighteen till next 
 February — and the wretched boy insists upon marrying her." 
 
 " Hay ! What's making , Pendennis swear now ? " — Mr. dowry 
 asked of himself, for rage and wonder were concentrated in the Major's 
 open mouth, as he read this astounding announcement. 
 
 " Do, my dear friend," the grief-stricken lady went on, " come to 
 me instantly on the receipt of this ; and, as Arthur's guardian, entreat, 
 command, the wretched child to give up this most deplorable resolu- 
 tion." And, after more entreaties to the above effect, the writer con- 
 cluded by signing herself the Major's " unhappy, affectionate sister, 
 Helen Pendennis." 
 
 " Fairoaks, Tuesday " — the Major concluded, reading the last 
 words of the letter — " A d — d pretty business at Fairoaks, Tuesday ; 
 now let us see what the boy has to say ; " and he took the other letter, 
 which was written in a great floundering boy's hand, and sealed with 
 the large signet of the Pendennises, even larger than the Major's own, 
 and with supplementary wax sputtered all round the seal, in token of 
 the writer's tremulousness and agitation. 
 
 The epistle ran thus — 
 
 " Fai7-oaks, Monday, Midnight. 
 "My dear Uncle, 
 
 *' In informing you of my engagement with Miss Costigan, daughter of 
 J. Chesterfield Costigan, Esq., of Costiganstown, but, perhaps, better known
 
 4 PENDENNIS. 
 
 to you under her professional name of Miss Fotheringay, of the Theatres Royal 
 Drury Lane and Crow Street, and of the Nor^vich and Welsh Circuit, I am 
 aware that I make an announcement which cannot, according to the present 
 prejudices of society at least, be welcome to my family. My dearest mother, 
 on whom, God knows, I would wish to inflict no needless pain, is deeply 
 moved and grieved, I am sorry to say, by the intelligence which I have this 
 night conveyed to her. I beseech you, my dear Sir, to come down and reason 
 with her and console her. Although obliged by poverty to earn an honourable 
 maintenance by the exercise of her splendid talents, Miss Costigan's family is 
 as ancient and noble as our own. When our ancestor, Ralph Pendennis, 
 landed with Richard II. in Ireland, my ILmily's forefathers were kings of that 
 country. I have the information from Mr. Costigan, who, like yourself, is a 
 military man. 
 
 "It is in vain I have attempted to argue with my dear mother, and prove 
 to her that a young lady of irreproachable character and lineage, endowed with 
 the most splendid gifts of beauty and genius, who devotes herself to the exer- 
 cise of one of the noblest professions, for the sacred purpose of maintaining her 
 family, is a being whom we should all love and reverence, rather than avoid ; 
 — my poor mother has prejudices which it is impossible for my logic to over- 
 come, and refuses to welcome to her arms one who is disposed to be her most 
 affectionate daughter through life. 
 
 "Although Miss Costigan is some years older than myself, that circum- 
 stance does not operate as a barrier to my affection, and I am sure will not 
 influence its duration. A love like mine. Sir, I feel, is contracted once and 
 for ever. As I never had dreamed of love until I saw her — I feel now that I 
 shall die without ever knowing another passion. It is the fate of my life ; and 
 having loved once, I should despise myself, and be unworthy of my name as a 
 gentleman, if I hesitated to abide by my passion : if I did not give all where I 
 felt all, and endow the woman who loves me fondly with my whole heart and 
 my whole fortune. 
 
 " I press for a speedy marriage with my Emily — for why, in truth, should 
 it be delayed ? A delay implies a doubt, which I cast from me as unworthy. 
 It is impossible that my sentiments can change towards Emily — that at any 
 age she can be anything but the sole object of my love. Why, then, wait? 
 I entreat you, my dear Uncle, to come down and reconcile my dear mother to 
 our union, and I address you as a man of the world, qui mores hominum 
 vmltortivi vjdit et iirbes, who will not feel any of the weak scruples and fears 
 which agitate a lady who has scarcely ever left her village. 
 
 " Pray come do\\'n to us immediately. I am quite confident that — apart 
 from considerations of fortune — you will admire and approve of my Emily. 
 
 " Your afiectionate Nephew, 
 
 "Arthur Pendennis, Jr." 
 
 When the Major had concluded the perusal of this letter, his 
 countenance assumed an expression of such rage and horror that 
 Glowry, the surgeon, felt in his pocket for his lancet, which he always 
 carried in his card-case, and thought his respected friend was going
 
 PENDENNIS. 5 
 
 into a fit. The intelligence was indeed sufficient to agitate Pendennis. 
 The head of the Pendennises going to marry an actress ten years his 
 senior, — the head-strong boy about to plunge into matrimony. " The 
 mother has spoiled the young rascal," groaned the Major inwardly, 
 " with her cursed sentimentality and romantic rubbish. My nephew 
 marry a tragedy queen ! Gracious mercy, people will laugh at me so 
 that I shall not dare show my head ! " And he thought with an 
 inexpressible pang that he must give up Lord Steyne's dinner at 
 Richmond, and must lose his rest and pass the night in an abominable 
 tight mail-coach, instead of taking pleasure, as he had promised him- 
 self, in some of the most agreeable and select society in England. 
 
 He quitted his breakfast-table for the adjoining writing-room, and 
 there ruefully wrote off refusals to the Marquis, the Earl, the Bishop, 
 and all his entertainers; and he ordered his servant to take places in 
 the mail-coach for that evening, of course charging the sum which he 
 disbursed for the seats to the account of the widow and the young 
 scapegrace of whom he was guardian.
 
 PENDENNIS. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 A PEDIGREE AND OTHER FAMILY MATTERS. 
 
 EARLY in the Regency of George the Magnificent, there lived in 
 a small town in the west of England, called Clavering, a gentle- 
 man whose name was Pendennis. There were those alive who 
 remembered having seen his name painted on a board, which was 
 surmounted by a gilt pestle and mortar over the door of a very 
 humble little shop in the city of Bath, where Mr. Pendennis exercised 
 the profession of apothecary and surgeon; and where he not only 
 attended gentlemen in their sick-rooms, and ladies at the most interest- 
 ing periods of their lives, but would condescend to sell a brown-paper 
 plaster to a farmer's wife across the counter — or to vend tooth-brushes, 
 hair-powder, and London perfumery. 
 
 And yet that little apothecary who sold a stray customer a penny- 
 worth of salts, or a more fragrant cake of Windsor soap, was a gentle- 
 man of good education, and of as old a family as any in the whole 
 county of Somerset. He had a Cornish pedigree which carried the 
 Pendennises up to the time of the Druids, — and who knows how much 
 farther back? They had intermarried with the Normans at a very 
 late period of their family existence, and they were related to all the 
 great families of Wales and Brittany. Pendennis had had a piece of 
 University education too, and might have pursued that career with 
 honour, but in his second year at Oxbridge his father died insolvent, 
 and poor Pen was obliged to betake himself to the pestle and apron. 
 He always detested the trade, and it was only necessity, and the offer 
 of his mother's brother, a London apothecary of low family, into which 
 Pendennis's father had demeaned himself by marrying, that forced 
 John Pendennis into so odious a calling. 
 
 He quickly after his apprenticeship parted from the coarse-minded 
 practitioner his relative, and set up for himself at Bath with his modest 
 medical ensign. He had for some time a hard struggle with poverty ; 
 and it was all he could do to keep the shop in decent repair, and his 
 bed-ridden mother in comfort: but Lady Ribstone happening to be 
 passing to the Rooms with an intoxicated Irish chairman who bumped 
 her ladyship up against Pen's very door-post, and drove his chair-pole 
 through the handsomest pink-bottle in the surgeon's window, alighted
 
 PENDENNIS. 7 
 
 screaming from her vehicle, and was accommodated with a chair in 
 Mr. Pendennis's shop, where she was brought round with cinnamon 
 and sal-volatile. 
 
 Mr. Pendennis's manners were so uncommonly gentlemanlike and 
 soothing, that her ladyship, the wife of Sir Pepin Ribstone, of Codling- 
 bury, in the county of Somerset, Bart., appointed her preserver, as 
 she called him, apothecary to her person and family, which was very 
 large. Master Ribstone coming home for the Christmas holidays 
 from Eton, over-ate himself and had a fever, in which Mr. Pendennis 
 treated him with the greatest skill and tenderness. In a word, he got 
 the good graces of the Codlingbury family, and from that day began 
 to prosper. The good company of Bath patronised him, and amongst 
 the ladies especially he was beloved and admired. First his humble 
 little shop became a smart one : then he discarded the selling of tooth- 
 brushes and perfumery: then he shut up the shop altogether, and 
 only had a little surgery attended by a genteel young man : then he 
 had a gig with a man to drive him ; and, before her exit from this 
 world, his poor old mother had the happiness of seeing from her bed- 
 room window, to which her chair was rolled, her beloved John step 
 into a close carriage of his own, a one-horse carriage it is true, but 
 with the arms of the family of Pendennis handsomely emblazoned on 
 the panels. " What would Arthur say now ? " she asked, speaking of 
 a younger son of hers — " who never so much as once came to see my 
 dearest Johnny through all the time of his poverty and struggles ! " 
 
 " Captain Pendennis is with his regiment in India, mother," Mr. 
 Pendennis remarked, " and, if you please, I wish you would not call 
 me Johnny before the young man — before Mr. Parkins." 
 
 Presently the day came when she ceased to call her son by any 
 title of endearment or affection ; and his house was very lonely with- 
 out that kind though querulous voice. He had his night-bell altered 
 and placed in the room in which the good old lady had grumbled for 
 many a long year, and he slept in the great large bed there. He was 
 upwards of forty years old when these events befel : before the war 
 was over ; before George the Magnificent came to the throne ; before 
 this history indeed : but what is a gentleman without his pedigree ? 
 Pendennis, by this time, had his handsomely framed and glazed, and 
 hanging up in his drawing-room between the pictures of Codlingbury 
 House in Somersetshire, and St. Boniface's College, Oxbridge, where 
 he had passed the brief and happy days of his early manhood. As for 
 the pedigree, he had taken it out of a trunk, as Sterne's officer called 
 for his sword, now that he was a gentleman and could show it. 
 
 About the time of Mrs. Pendennis's demise, another of her son's 
 patients likewise died at Bath; that virtuous old woman, old Lady 
 Pontypool, daughter of Reginald twelfth Earl of Bareacres, and by
 
 8 PENDENNIS. 
 
 consequence great grand aunt to the preserii Earl, and widow of John 
 second Lord Pontypool, and likewise of the Reverend Jonas Wales, 
 of the Armageddon Chapel, Clifton. For the last five years of her 
 life her ladyship had been attended by Miss Helen Thistlewood, a 
 very distant relative of the noble house of Bareacres, before mentioned, 
 and daughter of Lieutenant R. Thistlewood, R.N., killed at the battle 
 of Copenhagen. Under Lady Pontypool's roof Miss Thistlewood 
 found a shelter : the Doctor, who paid his visits to my Lady Ponty- 
 pool at least twice a day, could not but remark the angelical sweetness 
 and kindness with which the young lady bore her elderly relative's ill- 
 temper ; and it was as they were going in the fourth mourning coach 
 to attend her ladyship's venerated remains to Bath Abbey, where they 
 now repose, that he looked at her sweet pale face and resolved upon 
 putting a certain question to her, the very nature of which made his 
 pulse beat ninety, at least. 
 
 He was older than she by more than twenty years, and at no time 
 the most ardent of men. Perhaps he had had a love affair in earlv 
 life which he had to strangle — perhaps all early love affairs ought to 
 be strangled or drowned, like so many blind kittens : well, at three- 
 and-forty he was a collected quiet little gentleman in black stockings 
 with a bald head, and a few days after the ceremony he called to see 
 her, and, as he felt her pulse, he kept hold of her hand in his, and 
 asked her where she was going to live now that the Pontypool family 
 had come down upon the property, which was being nailed into boxes, 
 and packed into hampers, and swaddled up with haybands, and buried 
 in straw, and locked under three keys in green-baize plate-chests, and 
 carted away under the eyes of poor Miss Helen, — he asked her where 
 she was going to live finally. 
 
 Her eyes filled with tears, and she said she did not know. She had 
 a little money. The old lady had left her a thousand pounds, indeed ; 
 and she would go into a boarding-house or into a school : in fine, she 
 did not know where. 
 
 Then Pendennis, looking into her pale face, and keeping hold of 
 her cold little hand, asked her if she would come and live with him ? 
 He was old compared to— to so blooming a young lady as Miss 
 Thistlewood (Pendennis was of the grave old complimentary school 
 of gentlemen and apothecaries), but he was of good birth, and, he 
 flattered himself, of good principles and temper. His prospects were 
 good, and daily mending. He was alone in the world, and had need 
 of a kind and constant companion, whom it would be the study of his 
 life to make happy ; in a word, he recited to her a little speech, which 
 he had composed that morning in bed, and rehearsed and perfected in 
 his carriage, as he was coming to wait upon the young lady. 
 
 Perhaps if he had had an eai-ly love-passage, she too had one day
 
 PENDENNIS. 9 
 
 hoped for a different lot than to be wedded to a little gentleman who 
 rapped his teeth and smiled artificially, who was laboriously polite to 
 the butler as he slid upstairs into the drawing-room, and profusely 
 civil to the lady's-maid, who waited at the bed-room door ; for whom 
 her old patroness used to ring as for a servant, and who came with 
 even more eagerness ; perhaps she would have chosen a different man 
 — but she knew, on the other hand, how worthy Pendennis was, how 
 prudent, how honourable ; how good he had been to his mother, and 
 constant in his care of her; and the upshot of this interview was, that 
 she, blushing very much, made Pendennis an extremely low curtsey, 
 and asked leave to — to consider his very kind proposal. 
 
 They were married in the dull Bath season, which was the height 
 of the season in London. And Pendennis having previously, through 
 a professional friend, M.R.C.S., secured lodgings in Holies Street, 
 Cavendish Square, took his wife thither in a chaise and pair; con- 
 ducted her to the theatres, the Parks, and the Chapel Royal ; showed 
 her the folks going to a drawing-room, and, in a word, gave her all the 
 pleasures of the town. He likewise left cards upon Lord Pontypool, 
 upon the Right Honourable the Earl of Bareacres, and upon Sir Pepin 
 and Lady Ribstone, his earliest and kindest patrons. Bareacres took 
 no notice of the cards. Pontypool called, admired Mrs. Pendennis, 
 and said Lady Pontypool would come and see her, which her ladyship 
 did, per proxy of John her footman, who brought her card, and an 
 invitation to a concert five weeks off. Pendennis was back in his little 
 one-horse carriage, dispensing draughts and pills at that time : but the 
 Ribstones asked him and Mrs. Pendennis to an entertainment, of 
 which Mr. Pendennis talked to the last day of his life. 
 
 The secret ambition of Mr. Pendennis had always been to be a 
 gentleman. It takes much time and careful saving for a provincial 
 doctor, whose gains are not very large, to lay by enough money 
 wherewith to purchase a house and land : but besides our friend's 
 own frugality and prudence, fortune aided him considerably in his 
 endeavour, and brought him to the point which he so panted to attain. 
 He laid out some money very advantageously in the purchase of a 
 house and small estate close upon the village of Clavering before 
 mentioned. A lucky purchase which he had made of shares in a 
 copper-mine added very considerably to his wealth, and he realised 
 with great prudence while this mine was still at its full vogue. Finally, 
 he sold his business, at Bath, to Mr. Parkins, for a handsome sum of 
 ready money, and for an annuity to be paid to him during a certain 
 number of years after he had for ever retired from the handling of the 
 mortar and pestle. 
 
 Arthur Pendennis, his son, was eight years old at the time of this
 
 lo PENDENNIS. 
 
 event, so that it is no wonder that the lad, who left Bath and the 
 surgery so young, should forget the existence of such a place almost 
 entirely, and that his father's hands had ever been dirtied by the com- 
 pounding of odious pills, or the preparation of filthy plasters. The 
 old man never spoke about the shop himself, never alluded to it ; called 
 in the medical practitioner of Clavering to attend his family ; sunk the 
 black breeches and stockings altogether; attended market and ses- 
 sions, and wore a bottle-green coat and brass buttons with drab gaiters, 
 just as if he had been an English gentleman all his life. He used to 
 stand at his lodge-gate, and see the coaches come in, and bow gravely 
 to the guards and coachmen as they touched their hats and drove by. 
 It was he who founded the Clavering Book Club : and set up the 
 Samaritan Soup and Blanket Society. It was he who brought the 
 mail, which used to run through Cacklefield before, away from that 
 village and through Clavering. At church he was equally active as a 
 vestryman and a worshipper. At market every Thursday, he went 
 from pen to stall ; looked at samples of oats, and munched com ; felt 
 beasts, punched geese in the breast, and weighed them with a knowing 
 air ; and did business with the farmers at the Clavering Arms, as well 
 as the oldest frequenter of that house of call. It was now his shame, 
 as it formerly was his pride, to be called Doctor, and those who wished 
 to please him always gave him the title of Squire. 
 
 Heaven knows where they came from, but a whole range of Pen- 
 denni6 portraits presently hung round the Doctor's oak dining-room ; 
 Lelys and Vandykes he vowed all the portraits to be, and when 
 questioned as to the history of the originals, would vaguely say they 
 were "ancestors of his." His little boy believed in them to their fullest 
 extent, and Roger Pendennis of Agincourt, Arthur Pendennis of Cregy. 
 General Pendennis of Blenheim and Oudenarde, were as real and 
 actual beings for this young gentleman as — whom shall we say ? — as 
 Robinson Crusoe, or Peter Wilkins, or the Seven Champions of 
 Christendom, whose histories were in his library. 
 
 Pendennis's fortune, which was not above eight hundred pounds a 
 year, did not, with the best economy and management, permit of his 
 living with the great folks of the county ; but he had a decent com- 
 fortable society of the second sort. If they were not the roses, they 
 lived near the roses, as it were, and had a good deal of the odour of 
 genteel life. They had out their plate, and dined each other round in 
 the moonlight nights twice a year, coming a dozen miles to these 
 festivals ; and besides the county, the Pendennises had the society of 
 the town of Clavering, as much as, nay, more than they liked : for 
 Mrs. Pybus was always poking about Helen's conservatories, and 
 intercepting the operation of her soup-tickets and coal-clubs : Captain 
 Glanders (H. P., 50th Dragoon Guards) was for ever swaggering
 
 PENDENNIS. II 
 
 about the Squire's stables and gardens, and endeavouring to enlist 
 him in his quarrels with the Vicar, with the Postmaster, with the 
 •Reverend F. Wapshot of Clavering Grammar School, for overflogging 
 his son, Anglesea Glanders, — with all the village in fine. And Pen- 
 dennis and his wife often blessed themselves, that their house of 
 Fairoaks was nearly a mile out of Clavering, or their premises would 
 never have been free from the prying eyes and prattle of one or other 
 of the male and female inhabitants there. 
 
 Fairoaks lawn comes down to the little river Brawl, and on the 
 other side were the plantations and woods (as much as were left of 
 them) of Clavering Park, Sir Francis Clavering, Bart. The park was 
 let out in pasture and fed down by sheep and cattle when the Pen- 
 dennises came first to live at Fairoaks. Shutters were up in the 
 house; a splendid freestone palace, with great stairs, statues, and 
 porticos, whereof you may see a picture in the " Beauties of England 
 and Wales." Sir Richard Clavering, Sir Francis's grandfather, had 
 commenced the ruin of the family by the building of this palace : his 
 successor had achieved the ruin by living in it. The present Sir 
 Francis was abroad somewhere; nor could anybody be found rich 
 enough to rent that enormous mansion, through the deserted rooms, 
 mouldy clanking halls, and dismal galleries of which, Arthur Penden- 
 nis many a time walked trembling when he was a boy. At sunset, 
 from the lawn of Fairoaks, there was a pretty sight : it and the 
 opposite park of Clavering were in the habit of putting on a rich 
 golden tinge, which became them both wonderfully. The upper 
 windows of the great house flamed so as to make your eyes wink; 
 the little river ran off noisily westward, and was lost in a sombre 
 wood, behind which the towers of the old abbey church of Clavering 
 (whereby that town is called Clavering St. Mary's to the present day) 
 rose up in purple splendour. Little Arthur's figure and his mother's 
 cast long blue shadows over the grass : and he would repeat in a low 
 voice (for a scene of great natural beauty always moved the boy, who 
 inherited this sensibility from his mother) certain lines beginning, 
 " These are thy glorious works. Parent of Good ; Almighty ! thine 
 this universal frame," greatly to Mrs. Pendennis's delight. Such 
 walks and conversation generally ended in a profusion of filial and 
 maternal embraces ; for to love and to pray were the main occupations 
 of this dear woman's life ; and I have often heard Pendennis say in 
 his wild way, that he felt that he was sure of going to heaven, for his 
 mother never could be happy there without him. 
 
 As for John Pendennis, as the father of the family, and that sort 
 of thing, everybody had the greatest respect for him : and his orders 
 were obeyed like those of the Medes and Persians. His hat was as 
 well brushed, perhaps, as that of any man in this empire. His meals
 
 12 PENDENNIS: 
 
 were served at the same minute every day, and woe to those who came 
 late, as little Pen, a disorderly little rascal, sometimes did. Prayers 
 were recited, his letters were read, his business dispatched, his stables 
 and garden inspected, his hen-houses and kennel, his bam and pigstye 
 visited, always at regular hours. After dinner he always had a nap 
 with the Globe newspaper on his knee, and his yellow bandanna 
 handkerchief on his face (Major Pendennis sent the yellow hand- 
 kerchiefs from India, and his brother had helped in the purchase of his 
 majority, so that they were good friends now). And so, as his dinner 
 took place at six o'clock to a minute, and the sunset business alluded 
 to may be supposed to have occurred at about half-past seven, it is 
 probable that he did not much care for the view in front of his lawn 
 windows, or take any share in the poetry and caresses which were 
 taking place there. 
 
 They seldom occurred in his presence. However frisky they were 
 before, mother and child were hushed and quiet when Mr. Pendennis 
 walked into the drawing-room, his newspaper under his arm. , . And 
 here, while little Pen, buried in a great chair, read all the books of 
 which he could lay hold, the Squire perused his own articles in the 
 " Gardener's Gazette," or took a solemn hand at picquet with Mrs. 
 Pendennis, or an occasional friend from the village. 
 
 Pendennis usually took care that at least one of his grand dinners 
 should take place when his brother, the Major, who, on the return of 
 his regiment from India and New South Wales, had sold out and gone 
 upon half-pay, came to pay his biennial visit to Fairoaks. " My brother, 
 Major Pendennis," was a constant theme of the retired Doctor's con- 
 versation. All the family delighted in my brother the Major. He was 
 the link which bound them to the great world of London, and the 
 fashion. He always brought down the last news of the nobility, and 
 spoke of such with soldier-like respect and decorum. He would say, 
 " My Lord Bareacres has been good enough to invite me to Bareacres 
 for the pheasant shooting," or, " My Lord Stej-ne is so kind as to wish 
 for my presence at Stillbrook for the Easter holidays ; " and you may 
 be sure the whereabouts of my brother the Major was carefully made 
 known by worthy Mr. Pendennis to his friends at the Clavering 
 Reading-Room, at Justice meetings, or at the County-town. Their 
 carriages would come from ten miles round to call upon Major Pen- 
 dennis in his visits to Fairoaks; the fame of his fashion as a man 
 about town was established throughout the county. There was a talk 
 of his marrying Miss Hunkle, of Lilybank, old Hunkle the Attorney's 
 daughter, with at least fifteen hundred a year to her fortune ; but my 
 brother the Major declined. " As a bachelor," he said, " nobody cares 
 how poor I am. I have the happiness to live with people who are so
 
 PENDENNIS. 13 
 
 highly placed in the world, that a few hundreds or thousands a year 
 more or less can make no difference in the estimation in which they 
 are pleased to hold me. Miss Hunkle, though a most respectable lady, 
 is not in possession of either the birth or the manners which would 
 entitle her to be received into the sphere in which I have the honour 
 to move. I shall live and die an old bachelor, John : and your worthy 
 friend, Miss Hunkle, I have no doubt, will find some more worthy 
 object of her affection, than a worn-out old soldier on half-pay." 
 Time showed the correctness of the surmise ; Miss Hunkle married 
 a young French nobleman, and is now at this moment living at Lily- 
 bank, under the title of Baroness de Carambole, having been sepa- 
 rated from her wild young scapegrace of a Baron very shortly after 
 their union. 
 
 The Major had a sincere liking and regard for his sister-in-law, 
 whom he pronounced, and with perfect truth, to be as fine a lady as 
 any in England. Indeed, Mrs. Pendennis's tranquil beauty, her 
 natural sweetness and kindness, and that simplicity and dignity which 
 a perfect purity and innocence are sure to bestow upon a handsome 
 woman, rendered her quite worthy of her brother's praises. I think 
 it is not national prejudice which makes me believe that a high-bred 
 English lady is the most complete of all Heaven's subjects in this 
 world. In whom else do you see so much grace, and so much virtue; 
 so much faith, and so much tenderness : with such a perfect refine- 
 ment and chastity ? And by high-bred ladies I don't mean duchesses 
 and countesses. Be they ever so high in station, they can be but 
 ladies, and no more. But almost every man who lives in the world 
 has the happiness, let us hope, of counting a few such persons amongst 
 his circle of acquaintance — women in whose angelical natures there 
 is something awful, as well as beautiful, to contemplate ; at whose feet 
 the wildest and fiercest of us must fall down and humble ourselves, in 
 admiration of that adorable purity which never seems to do or to think 
 wrong. 
 
 Arthur Pendennis had the good fortune to have such a mother. 
 During his child^hood and youth, the boy thought of her as little less 
 than an angel — a supernatural being, all wisdom, love, and beauty. 
 When her husband drove her into the county town, to the assize balls 
 or concerts, he would step into the assembly with his wife on his arm, 
 and look the great folks in the face, as much as to say, " Look at that, 
 my lord ; can any of you show me a woman like that?" She enraged 
 some country ladies with three times her money by a sort of desperate 
 perfection which they found i'n her. Miss Pybus said she was cold 
 and haughty; Miss Pierce that she was too proud for her station; 
 Mrs. Wapshot, as a doctor of divinity's lady, would have the pas of 
 her, who was only the wife of a medical practitioner. In the mean-
 
 14 PENDENNIS. 
 
 while, this lady moved through the world quite regardless of all the 
 comments that were made in her praise or disfavour. She did not 
 seem to know that she was admired or hated for being so perfect ; but 
 carried on calmly through life, saying her prayers, loving her family, 
 helping her neighbours, and doing her duty. 
 
 That even a woman should be faultless, however, is an arrange- 
 ment not permitted by nature, which assigns to us mental defects, as 
 it awards to us headaches, illnesses, or death : without which the 
 scheme of the world could not be carried on, — nay, some of the best 
 qualities of mankind could not be brought into exercise. As pain 
 produces or elicits fortitude and endurance ; difficulty, perseverance ; 
 poverty, industry and ingenuity ; danger, courage and what not ; so 
 the very virtues, on the other hand, will generate some vices ; and, in 
 fine, Mrs. Pendennis had that vice which Miss Pybus and Miss Pierce 
 discovered in her, namely, that of pride j which did not vest itself so 
 much in her own person, as in that of her family. She spoke about 
 Mr. Pendennis (a worthy little gentleman enough, but there are others 
 as good as he) with an awful reverence, as if he had been the Pope of 
 Rome on his throne, and she a cardinal kneeling at his feet, and giving 
 him incense. The Major she held to be a sort of Bayard among 
 Majors : and as for her son Arthur, she worshipped that youth with an 
 ardour which the young scapegrace accepted almost as coolly as the 
 statue of the Saint in Saint Peter's receives the rapturous osculations 
 which the faithful deliver on his toe. 
 
 This unfortunate superstition and idol-worship of this good woman 
 was the cause of a great deal of the misfortune which befel the young 
 gentleman who is the hero of this history, and deserves therefore to be 
 mentioned at the outset of his stor}'. * 
 
 Arthur Pendennis's schoolfellows at the Greyfriars School state 
 that, as a boy, he was in no ways remarkable either as a dunce or as a 
 scholar. He never read to improve himself out of school-hours, but, 
 on the contrarj', devoured all the novels, plays, and poetry on which 
 he could lay his hands. He never was flogged, but it was a wonder 
 how he escaped the whipping-post. When he had money be spent it 
 royally in tarts for himself and his friends ; he has been known to 
 disburse nine and sixpence out of ten shillings awarded to him in a 
 single day. When he had no funds he went on tick. When he could 
 get no credit he went without, and was almost as happy. He has 
 been known to take a thrashing for a crony without saying a word ; 
 but a blow, ever so slight from a friend, would make him roar. To 
 fighting he was averse from his earliest youth, as indeed to physic, the 
 Greek Grammar, or any other exertion, and would engage in none of 
 them, except at the last extremity. He seldom if ever told lies, and 
 never bullied little boys. Those masters or seniors who were kind to
 
 PENDENNIS. ' IS 
 
 him, he loved with boyish ardour. And though the Doctor, when he 
 did not know his Horace, or could not construe his Greek play, said 
 that that boy Pendennis was a disgrace to the school, a candidate for 
 ruin in this world, and perdition in the next ; a profligate who would 
 most likely bring his venerable father to ruin and his mother to a dis- 
 honoured grave, and the like — yet as the Doctor made use of these 
 compliments to most of the boys in the place (which has not turned 
 out an unusual number of felons and pickpockets), little Pen, at first 
 uneasy and terrified by these charges, became gradually accustomed 
 to hear them ; and he has not, in fact, either murdered his parents, 
 or committed any act worthy of transportation or hanging up to the 
 present day. 
 
 There were many of the upper boys, among the Cistercians with 
 whom Pendennis was educated, who assumed all the privileges of 
 men long before they quitted that seminary. Many of them, for 
 example, smoked cigars — and some had already begun the practice of 
 inebriation. One had fought a duel with an Ensign in a marching 
 regiment in consequence of a row at the theatre — another actually 
 kept a buggy and horse at a livery stable in Covent Garden, and might 
 be seen driving any Sunday in Hyde Park with a groom with squared 
 arms and armorial buttons by his side. Many of the seniors were in 
 love, and showed each other in confidence poems addressed to, or 
 letters and locks of hair received from, young ladies — but Pen, a 
 modest and timid youth, rather envied these than imitated them as 
 yet. He had not got beyond the theory as yet — the practice of life 
 was all to come. And by the way, ye tender mothers and sober fathers 
 of Christian families, a prodigious thing that theory of life is as orally 
 learned at a great public school. Why, if you could hear those boys 
 of fourteen who blush before mothers and sneak off in silence in the 
 presence of their daughters, talking among each other — it would be 
 the woman's turn to blush then. Before he was twelve years old little 
 Pen had heard talk enough to make him quite awfully wise upon 
 certain points — and so, Madam, has your pretty little rosy-cheeked 
 son, who is coming home from school for the ensuing holidays. I 
 don't say that the boy is lost, or that the innocence has le^t hrn v.-hic-i 
 he had from " Heaven, which is our home," but that the shades of 
 the prison-house are closing very fast over him, and that we are 
 helping as much as possible to corrupt him. 
 
 Well — Pen had just made his public appearance in a coat with a 
 tail, or cauda-virilis, and was looking most anxiously in his little study- 
 glass to see if his whiskers were growing, like those of more fortunate 
 youths his companions ; and, instead of the treble voice with which 
 he used to speak and sing (for his singing voice was a very sweet 
 one, and he used when little to be made to perform " Home, sweet
 
 i6 PENDENNIS. 
 
 Home," "My pretty Page," and a French song or two which his 
 mother had taught him, and other ballads for the delectation of the 
 senior boys), had suddenly plunged into a deep bass diversified by a 
 squeak, which set master and scholars laughing— he was about sixteen 
 years old in a word, when he was suddenly called away from his 
 academic studies. 
 
 It was at the close of the forenoon school, and Pen had been 
 unnoticed all the previous part of the morning till now, when the 
 Doctor put him on to construe in a Greek play. He did not know a 
 word of it, though little Timmins, his form fellow, was prompting him 
 with all his might. Pen had made a sad blunder or two — when the 
 awful chief broke out upon him. 
 
 " Pendennis, sir," he said, " your idleness is incorrigible and your 
 stupidity beyond example. You are a disgrace to your school, and 
 to your family, and I have no doubt will prove so in after-life to your 
 countr)'. If that vice, sir, which is described to us as the root of all 
 evil, be really what moralists have represented (and I have no doubt 
 of the correctness of their opinion), for what a prodigious quantity of 
 future crime and wickedness are you, unhappy boy, laying the seed ! 
 Miserable trifler ! A boy who construes Si and, instead of ci but, 
 at sixteen years of age, is guilty not merely of folly, and ignorance, 
 raid dullness inconceivable, but of crime, of deadly crime, of filial 
 ingratitude, which I tremble to contemplate. A boy, sir, who does 
 not learn his Greek play cheats the parent who spends money for his 
 education. A boy who cheats his parent is not very far from robbing 
 or forging upon his neighbour. A man who forges on his neighbour 
 pays the penalty of his crime at the gallows. And it is not such a 
 one that I pity (for he will be deservedly cut off) ; but his maddened 
 and heart-broken parents, who are driven to a premature grave by 
 his crimes, or, if they live, drag on a wretched and dishonoured old 
 age. Go on, sir ; and I warn you that the very next mistake mat you 
 make shall subject you to the punishment of the rod. Who's that 
 laughing? What ill-conditioned boy is there that dares to laugh?" 
 shouted the Doctor. 
 
 Indeed, while the master was making this oration, there was a 
 general titter behind him in the school-room. The orator had his 
 back to the door of this ancient apartment, which was open, and a 
 centleman who was quite familiar with the place — for both Major 
 Arthur and Mr. John Pendennis had been at the school— was asking 
 the fifth-form boy who sat by the door for Pendennis. The lad 
 grinning pointed to the culprit against whom the Doctor was pouring 
 out the thunders of his just wrath — Major Pendennis could not help 
 laughing. He remembered having stood under that ver>' pillar where 
 Pen the younger now stood, and having been assaulted by the
 
 PENDENNIS. 17 
 
 Doctor's predecessor years and years ago. The intelligence was 
 "passed round" that it was Pendennis's uncle in an instant, and 
 a hundred young faces wondering and giggling, between terror and 
 laughter, turned now to the new comer and then to the awful Doctor. 
 
 The Major asked the fifth-form boy to carry his card up to the 
 Doctor, which the lad did with an arch look. Major Pendennis 
 had writcn on the card, " I must take A. P. home ; his father is 
 very ill." 
 
 As the Doctor received the card, and stopped his harangue with 
 rather a scared look, the laughter of the boys, half constrained until 
 then, burst out in a general shout. " Silence ! " roared out the Doctor 
 stamping with his foot. Pen looked up and saw who was his deliverer ; 
 the Major beckoned to him gravely, and tumbling down his books. 
 Pen went across. 
 
 The Doctor took out his watch. It was two minutes to one. 
 " We will take the Juvenal at afternoon school," he said, nodding to 
 the Captain, and all the boys understanding the signal gathered up 
 their books and poured out of the hall. 
 
 Young Pen saw by his uncle's face that something had happened 
 at home. "Is there anything the matter with — my mother?" he 
 said. He could hardly speak, though, for emotion, and the tears 
 which were ready to start. 
 
 " No," said the Major, " but your father's very ill. Go and pack 
 your trunk directly ; I have got a post-chaise at the gate." 
 
 Pen went off quickly to his boarding-house to do as his uncle 
 bade him ; and the Doctor, now left alone in the school-room, came 
 out to shake hands with his old schoolfellow. You would not have 
 thought it was the same man. As Cinderella at a particular hour 
 became, from a blazing and magnificent princess, quite an ordinary 
 little maid in a grey petticoat, so, as the clock struck one, all 
 the thundering majesty and awful wrath of the schoolmaster dis- 
 appeared. 
 
 " There is nothing serious, I hope," said the Doctor. "It is a 
 pity to take the boy otherwise. He is a good boy, rather idle and 
 unenergetic, but an honest gentlemanlike little fellow, though I can't 
 get him to construe as I wish. Won't you come in and have some 
 luncheon } My wife will be very happy to see you." 
 
 But Major Pendennis declined the luncheon. He said his brother 
 was very ill, had had a fit the day before, and it was a great question 
 if they should see him alive. 
 
 "There's no other son, is there?" said the Doctor. The Major 
 answered " No." 
 
 " And there's a good eh — a good eh — property I believe ? " asked 
 the other in an off-hand way. 
 
 2
 
 1 8 PENDENNIS. 
 
 " H'm — so so,' said the Major. Whereupon this colloquy came to 
 an end. And Arthur Pendennis got into a post-chaise with his uncle, 
 never to come back to school any more. 
 
 As the chaise drove through Clavering, the ostler standing 
 whistling under the archway of the Clavering Arms, winked the 
 postilion ominously, as much as to say all was over. The gardener's 
 wife came and opened the lodge-gates, and let the travellers through 
 with a silent shake of the head. All the blinds were down at Fairoaks 
 — the face of the old footman was as blank when he let them in. 
 Arthur's face was white too, with terror more than with grief. What- 
 ever of warmth and love the deceased man might have had, and he 
 adored his wife and loved and admired his son with all his heart, he 
 had shut them up within himself; nor had the boy been ever able 
 to penetrate that frigid outward barrier. But Arthur had been his 
 father's pride and glory through life, and his name the last which 
 John Pendennis had tried to articulate whilst he lay with his wife's 
 hand clasping his own cold and clammy palm, as the flickering spirit 
 went out into the darkness of death, and life and the world passed 
 away from him. 
 
 The little girl, whose face had peered for a moment under the 
 blinds as the chaise came up, opened the door from the stairs into the 
 hall, and taking Arthur's hand silently as he stooped down to kiss her, 
 led him up-stairs to his mother. Old John opened the dining-room 
 for the ]Major. The room was darkened with the blinds down, and 
 surrounded by all the gloomy pictures of the Pendennises. He drank 
 a glass of wine. The bottle had been opened for the Squire four days 
 before. His hat was brushed, and laid on the hall table: his news- 
 papers, and his letter bag, with John Pendennis, Esquire, Fairoaks, 
 engraved upon the brass plate, were there in waiting. The doctor and 
 the lawyer from Clavering, who had seen the chaise pass through, 
 came up in a gig half an hour after the Major's arrival, and entered 
 by the back door. The former gave a detailed account of the seizure 
 and demise of Mr. Pendennis, enlarged on his virtues and the estima- 
 tion in which the neighbourhood held him ; on what a loss he would 
 be to the magistrates' bench, the County Hospital, &c. Mrs. Pen- 
 dennis bore up wonderfully, he said, especially since Master Arthur's 
 arrival. The la\\yer stayed and dined with Major Pendennis, and they 
 talked business all the evening. The Major was his brother's executor, 
 and joint guardian to the boy with Mrs. Pendennis. Ever>-thing was 
 left unreservedly to her, except in case of a second marriage, — an 
 occasion which might offer itself in the case of so young and hand- 
 some a woman, Mr. Tatham gallantly said, when different provisions 
 were enacted by the deceased. The Major would of course take 
 entire superintendence of ever\-thing under this most impressive and
 
 PENDENNIS. 19 
 
 melancholy occasion. Aware of this authority, old John the footman, 
 when he brought Major Pendennis the candle to go to bed, followed 
 afterwards with the plate-basket ; and the next morning brought him 
 the key of the hall clock — the Squire always used to wind it up of a 
 Thursday, John said. Mrs. Pendennis's maid brought him messages 
 from her mistress. She confirmed the doctor's report, of the comfort 
 which Master Arthur's arrival had caused to his mother. 
 
 What passed between that lady and the boy is not of import. A 
 veil should be thrown over those sacred emotions of love and grief. 
 The maternal passion is a sacred mystery to me. What one sees 
 symbolized in the Roman churches in the image of the .Virgin Mother 
 with a bosom bleeding with love, 1 think one may witness (and admire 
 the Almighty bounty for) every day. I saw a Jewish lady, only yesterday, 
 with a child at her knee, and from whose face towards the child there 
 shone a sweetness so angelical, that it seemed to form a sort of glory 
 round both. 1 protest I could have knelt before her too, and adored 
 in her the Divine beneficence in endowing us with the maternal siorgc, 
 which began with our race and sanctifies the history of mankind. 
 
 As for Arthur Pendennis, after that awful shock which the sight of 
 his dead father must have produced on him, and the pity and feeling 
 which such an event no doubt occasioned, I am not sure that in the 
 very moment of the grief, and as he embraced his mother, and tenderly 
 consoled her, and promised to love her for ever, there was not springing 
 up in his breast a sort of secret triumph and exultation. He was the 
 chief now and lord. He was Pendennis ; and all round about him 
 were his servants and handmaids. " You'll never send me away," 
 little 'Laura said, tripping by him, and holding his hand. " You won't 
 send me to school, will you, Arthur .-" " 
 
 Arthur kissed her and patted her head. No, she shouldn't go to 
 school. As for going himself, that was quite out of the question. He 
 had determined that that part of his life should not be renewed. In 
 the midst of the general gi'ief, and the corpse still lying above, he had 
 leisure to conclude that he would have it all holidays for the future, 
 that he wouldn't get up till he liked, or stand the bullying of the 
 Doctor any more, and had made a hundred of such day dreams and 
 resolves for the future. How one's thoughts will travel! and how 
 quickly our wishes beget them! When he with Laura in his hand 
 went into the kitchen on his way to the dog-kennel, the fowl-houses, 
 and other his favourite haunts, all the servants there assembled in 
 great silence with their friends, and the labouring men and their 
 wives, and Sally Potter who went with the post-bag to Clavering, and 
 the baker's man from Clavering — all there assembled and drinking 
 beer on the melancholy occasion — rose up on his entrance and bowed 
 or curtsied to him. They never used to do so last holidays, he felt at
 
 20 PENDENNIS. 
 
 once and with indescribable pleasure. The cook cried out, " O Lord," 
 and whispered, " How Master Arthur do grow ! " Thomas, the groom, 
 in the act of drinking, put down the jug alarmed before his master. 
 Thomas's master felt the honour keenly. He went through and looked 
 at the pointers. As Flora put her nose up to his waistcoat, and Ponto, 
 yelling with pleasure, hurtled at his chin. Pen patronized the dogs, and 
 said, " Poo Ponto, poo Plora," in his most condescending manner. 
 And then he went and looked at Laura's hens, and at the pigs, and at 
 the orchard, and at the dairy ; perhaps he blushed to think that it was 
 only last holidays he had in a manner robbed the great apple-tree, 
 and been scolded by the dairymaid for taking cream. 
 
 They buried John Pendennis, Esquire, " formerly an eminent 
 medical practitioner at Bath, and subsequently an able magistrate, a 
 benevolent landlord, and a benefactor to many charities and public 
 institutions in this neighbourhood and countrj'," with one of the most 
 handsome funerals that had been seen since Sir Roger Clavering 
 was buried here, the clerk said, in the abbey church of Clavering 
 St. Mary's. A fair marble slab, from which the above inscription is 
 copied, was erected over the Fairoaks' pew in the church. On it you 
 may see the Pendennis coat of arms and crest, an eagle looking 
 towards the sun, with the motto " nee temii peniid" to the present 
 day. Doctor Portman alluded to the deceased most handsomely and 
 affectingly, as " our dear departed friend," in his sermon next Sunday; 
 and Arthur Pendennis reigned in his stead.
 
 PENDENNIS. 21 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 IN WHICH PENDENNIS APPEARS AS A VERY YOUNG MAN INDEED. 
 
 ARTHUR was about sixteen years old, we have said, when he 
 began to reign ; in person, he had what his friends would call 
 a dumpy, but his mamma styled a neat little figure. His hair was of 
 a healthy brown colour, which looks like gold in the sunshine, his face 
 was round, rosy, freckled, and good-humoured, his whiskers were 
 decidedly of a reddish hue ; in fact, without being a beauty, he had 
 such a frank, good-natured, kind face, and laughed so merrily at you 
 out of his honest blue eyes, that no wonder Mrs. Pendennis thought 
 him the pride of the whole country. Between the ages of sixteen 
 and eighteen he rose from five feet six to five feet eight inches in 
 height, at which altitude he paused. But his mother wondered at it. 
 He was three inches taller than his father. Was it possible that any 
 man could grow to be three inches taller than Mr. Pendennis.'' 
 
 You may be certain he never went back to school ; the discipline 
 of the establishment did not suit him, and he liked being at home 
 much better. The question of his return was debated, and his uncle 
 was for his going back. The Doctor wrote his opinion that it was 
 most important for Arthur's success in after-life that he should know 
 a Greek play thoroughly, but Pen adroitly managed to hint to his 
 mother what a dangerous place Greyfriars was, and what sad wild 
 fellows some of the chaps there were, and the timid soul, taking alarm 
 at once, acceded to his desire to stay at home. 
 
 Then Pen's uncle offered to use his influence with his Royal 
 Highness the Commander-in-Chief, who was pleased to be very kind 
 to him, and proposed to get Pen a commission in the Foot Guards. 
 Pen's heart leaped at this : he had been to hear the band at St. 
 James's play on a Sunday, when he went out to his uncle. He had 
 seen Tom Ricketts, of the fourth form, who used to wear a jacket 
 and trowsers so ludicrously tight, that the elder boys could not for- 
 bear using him in the quality of a butt or "cockshy" — he had seen 
 this very Ricketts arrayed in crimson and gold, with an immense 
 bearskin cap on his head, staggering under the colours of the regi- 
 ment. Tom had recognized him and gave him a patronizing nod. 
 Tom, a little wretch whom he had cut over the back with a hockey-
 
 22 PENDENNIS. 
 
 stick last quarter — and there he was in the centre of the square, 
 rallying round the flag of his country, surrounded by bayonets, 
 crossbelts, and scarlet, the band blowing trumpets and banging 
 cymbals — talking familiarly to immense warriors with tufts to their 
 chins and Waterloo medals. What would not Pen have given to 
 enter such a service ? 
 
 But Helen Pendennis, when this point was proposed to her by 
 her son, put on a face full of terror and alarm. She said " she did 
 not quarrel with others who thought differently, but that in her 
 opinion a Christian had no right to make the army a profession. 
 Mr. Pendennis never, never would have permitted his son to be a 
 soldier. Finally, she should be very unhappy if he thought of it." 
 Now Pen would have as soon cut off his nose and ears as deliberately, 
 and of aforethought malice, made his mother unhappy ; and, as he 
 was of such a generous disposition that he would give away anything 
 to any one, he instantly made a present of his visionary red coat and 
 epaulettes to his mother. 
 
 She thought him the noblest creature in the world. But Major 
 Pendennis, when the offer of the commission was acknowledged and 
 refused, wrote back a curt and somewhat angry letter to the widow, 
 and thought his nephew was rather a spooney. 
 
 He was contented, however, when he saw the boy's performances 
 out hunting at Christmas, when the Major came down as usual to 
 Fairoaks. Pen had a very good mare, and rode her with uncommon 
 pluck and grace. He took his fences with great coolness and 
 judgment. He wrote to the chaps at school about his top-boots, 
 and his feats across country. He began to think seriously of a 
 scarlet coat : and his mother must own that she thought it would 
 become him remarkably well ; though, of course, she passed hours of 
 anguish during his absence, and daily e.xpected to see him brought 
 home on a shutter. 
 
 With these amusements, in rather too great plenty, it must not be 
 assumed that Pen neglected his studies altogether. He had a natural 
 taste for reading every possible kind of book which did not fall into 
 his school-course. It was only when they forced his head into the 
 waters of knowledge that he refused to drink. He devoured aU the 
 books at home, from Inchbald's Theatre to White's Farriery ; he 
 ransacked the neighbouring book-cases. He found at Clavering an 
 old cargo of French novels, which he read with all his might ; and he 
 would sit for hours perched up on the topmost bar of Doctor Portman's 
 library' steps with a folio on his knees, whether it were Hakluj-t's 
 Travels, Hobbes's Leviathan, Augustini Opera, or Chaucer's Poems. 
 He and the Vicar were very good friends, and from his Reverence, 
 Pen learned that honest taste for port wine which distinguished him
 
 PENDENNIS. 23; 
 
 through life. And as for Mrs. Portman, who was not in the least 
 jealous, though her Doctor avowed himself in love with Mrs. Pendennis, 
 •whom he pronounced to be by far the finest lady in the country — all 
 her grief was, as she looked up fondly at Pen perched on the book- 
 ladder, that her daughter, Mira, was too old for him — as indeed she 
 was— Miss Maria Portman being at that period only two years 
 younger than Pen's mother, and weighing as much as Pen and 
 Mrs. Pendennis together. 
 
 Are these details insipid ? Look back, good friend, at your own 
 youth, and ask how was that ? I like to think of a well-nurtured boy, 
 brave and gentle, wai'm-hearted and loving, and looking the world in 
 the face with kind honest eyes. What bright colours it wore then, 
 and how you enjoyed it ! A man has not many years of such time. 
 He does not know them whilst they are with him. It is only when 
 they are passed long away that he remembers how dear and happy 
 they were. 
 
 Mr. Smirke, Dr. Portman's curate, was engaged, at a liberal salary, 
 to walk or ride over from Clavering and pass several hours daily with 
 the young gentleman. Smirke was a man perfectly faultless at a tea- 
 table, wore a curl on his fair forehead, and tied his neck-cloth with a 
 melancholy grace. He was a decent scholar and mathematician, and 
 taught Pen as much as the lad was ever disposed to learn, which was 
 not much. For Pen had soon taken the measure of his tutor, who, 
 when he came riding into the court-yard at Fairoaks on his pony, 
 turned out his toes so absurdly, and left such a gap between his knees 
 and the saddle, that it was impossible for any lad endowed with a 
 sense of humour to respect such an equestrian. He nearly killed 
 Smirke with terror by putting him on his mare, and taking him a ride 
 over a common, where the county fox-hounds (then hunted by that 
 staunch old sportsman, Mr. Hardhead, of Dumplingbeare) happened 
 to meet. Mr. Smirke, on Pen's mare, Rebecca (she was named after 
 Pen's favourite heroine, the daughter of Isaac of York), astounded the 
 hounds as much as he disgusted the huntsman, laming one of the 
 former by persisting in riding amongst the pack, and receiving a 
 speech from the latter, more remarkable for energy of language, than 
 any oration he had ever heard since he left the bargemen on the banks 
 of I sis. 
 
 Smirke and his pupil read the ancient poets together, and rattled 
 through them at a pleasant rate, very different from that steady 
 grubbing pace with which the Cistercians used to go over the classic 
 ground, scenting out each word as they went, and digging up ever} 
 root in the way. Pen never liked to halt, but made his tutor construe 
 when he was at fault, and thus galloped through the Iliad and the 
 Odyssey, the tragic play-writers, and the charming wicked Aristo-
 
 24 PENDENNIS. 
 
 phanes (whom he vowed to be the greatest poet of all). But he went 
 so fast that, though he certainly galloped through a considerable 
 extent of the ancient country, he clean forgot it in after-life, and had 
 only such a vague remembrance of his early classic course as a man 
 has in the House of Commons, let us say, who still keeps up two or 
 three quotations ; or a reviewer who, just for decency's sake, hints at a 
 little Greek. 
 
 Besides the ancient poets, you may be sure Pen read the English 
 with great gusto. Smirke sighed and shook his head sadly both about 
 Byron and Moore. But Pen was a sworn fire-worshipper and 2 
 Corsair ; he had them by heart, and used to take little Laura into the 
 window and say, " Zuleika, I am not thy brother," in tones so tragic, 
 that they caused the solemn little maid to open her great eyes still 
 wider. She sat, until the proper hour for retirement, sewing at 
 Mrs. Pendennis's knee, and listening to Pen reading out to her of 
 nights without comprehending one word of what he read. 
 
 He read Shakspeare to his mother (which she said she liked, but 
 didn't), and Byron, and Pope, and his favourite Lalla Rookh, which 
 pleased her indifferently. But as for Bishop Heber, and Mrs. Hemans 
 above all, this lady used to melt right away, and be absorbed into her 
 pocket-handkerchief, when Pen read those authors to her in his kind 
 boyish voice. The " Christian Year " was a book which appeared 
 about that time. The son and the mother whispered it to each other 
 with awe — Faint, very faint, and seldom in after-life Pendennis heard 
 that solemn church-music : but he always loved the remembrance of 
 it, and of the times when it struck on his heart, and he walked over 
 the fields full of hope and void of doubt, as the church-bells rang on 
 Sunday morning. 
 
 It was at this period of his existence, that Pen broke out in the 
 Poets' Corner of the County Chronicle, with some verses with which 
 he was perfectly well satisfied. His are the verses signed " NEP.," 
 addressed " To a Tear ; " " On the Anniversary of the Battle of 
 Waterloo ;" "To Madame Caradori singing at the Assize Meetings ;" 
 " On Saint Bartholomew's Day" (a tremendous denunciation of Poper)-, 
 and a solemn warning to the people of England to rally against 
 emancipating the Roman Catholics), Sec. &c. — all which master- 
 pieces, poor Mrs. Pendennis kept along with his first socks, the first 
 cutting of his hair, his bottle, and other interesting relics of his infancy. 
 He used to gallop Rebecca over the neighbouring Dumpling Downs, 
 or into the county town, which, if you please, we shall call Chatteris, 
 spouting his own poems, and filled with quite a Byronic afflatus as 
 he thought. 
 
 His genius at this time was of a decidedly gloomy cast. • He brought 
 his mother a tragedy, at which, though he killed sixteen people before
 
 PENDENNIS. 25 
 
 the second act, Helen laughed so, that he thrust the master-piece 
 into the fire in a pet. He projected an epic poem in blank verse, 
 " Cortez, or the Conqueror of Mexico, and the Inca's daughter." He 
 wrote part of " Seneca, or the Fatal Bath," and "Ariadne in Naxos ; " 
 classical pieces, with choruses and strophes and antistrophes, which 
 sadly puzzled Mrs. Pendennis ; and began a " History of the Jesuits," 
 in which he lashed that Order with tremendous severity. His loyalty 
 did his mother's heart good to witness. He was a staunch, unflinching 
 Church-and-King man in those days ; and at the election, when 
 Sir Giles Beanfield stood on the Blue interest, against Lord Tre- 
 hawk. Lord Eyrie's son, a Whig and a friend of Popery, Arthur 
 Pendennis, with an immense bow for himself, which his mother made, 
 and with a blue ribbon for Rebecca, rode alongside of the Reverend 
 Doctor Portman, on his grey mare Dowdy, and at the head of the 
 Clavering voters, whom the Doctor brought up to plump for the 
 Protestant Champion. 
 
 On that day Pen made his first speech at the Blue Hotel : and 
 also, it appears, for the first time in his life — took a little more wine 
 than was good for him. Mercy ! what a scene it was at Fairoaks, 
 when he rode back at ever so much o'clock at night. What moving 
 about of lanterns in the court-yard and stables, though the moon was 
 shining out ; what a gathering of servants, as Pen came home, 
 clattering over the bridge and up the stable-yard, with half a score of 
 the Clavering voters yelling after him the Blue song of the election. 
 
 He wanted them all to come in and have some wine — some very 
 good Madeira — some capital Madeira — John, go and get some 
 Madeira, — and there is no knowing what the farmers would have 
 done, had not Madam Pendennis made her appearance in a white 
 wrapper, with a candle — and scared those zealous Blues so by the 
 sight of her pale handsome face, that they touched their hats and 
 rode off. 
 
 Besides these amusements and occupations in which Mr. Pen 
 indulged, there was one which forms the main business and pleasure 
 of youth, if the poets tell us aright, whom Pen was always studying ; 
 and which, ladies, you have rightly guessed to be that of Love. Pen 
 sighed for it first in secret, and, like the love-sick swain in Ovid, 
 opened his breast and said, " Aura, veni." What generous youth is 
 there that has not courted some such windy mistress in his time? 
 
 Yes, Pen began to feel the necessity of a first love — of a consuming 
 passion — of an object on which he could concentrate all those vague 
 floating fancies under which he sweetly suffered — of a young lady 
 to whom he could really make verses, and whom he could set up and 
 adore, in place of those unsubstantial lanthes and Zuleikas to whom 
 he addressed the outpourings of his gushing muse. He read his
 
 26 PENDENNIS. 
 
 favourite poems over and over again, he called upon Alma Venus the 
 delight of gods and men, he translated Anacreon's odes, and picked 
 out passages suitable to his complaint from Waller, Dr>'den, Prior, 
 and the like. Smirke and he were never weary, in their interviews, 
 of discoursing about love. The faithless tutor entertained him 
 with sentimental conversations in place of lectures on algebra and 
 Greek ; for Smirke was in love too. Who could help it, being in 
 daily intercourse with such a woman ? Smirke was madly in love 
 (as far as such a mild flame as Mr. Smirke's may be called madness) 
 with Mrs. Pendennis. That honest lady, sitting down below stairs 
 teaching little Laura to play the piano, or devising flannel petticoats 
 for the poor round about her, or otherwise busied with the calm 
 routine of her modest and spotless Christian life, was little aware what 
 storms were brewing in two bosoms up-stairs in the study — in Pen's 
 as he sate in his shooting-jacket, with his elbows on the green study- 
 table, and his hands clutching his curly brown hair, Homer under his 
 nose, — and in worthy Mr. Smirke's, with whom he was reading. Here 
 they would talk about Helen and Andromache. " Andromache's like 
 my mother," Pen used to avouch ; " but I say, Smirke, by Jove Pd 
 cut off my nose to see Helen ; " and he would spout certain favourite 
 lines which the reader will flnd in their proper place in the third book. 
 He drew portraits of her — they are extant still — with straight noses 
 and enormous eyes, and " Arthur Pendennis delineavit et pinxit " 
 gallantly written underneath. 
 
 As for Mr. Smirke he naturally preferred Andromache. And in 
 consequence he was uncommonly kind to Pen. He gave him his 
 Elzevir Horace, of which the boy was fond, and his little Greek 
 Testament which his own mamma at Clapham had purchased and 
 presented to him. He bought him a silver pencil case ; and in the 
 matter of learning let him do just as much or as little as ever he 
 pleased. He always seemed to be on the point of unbosoming himself 
 to Pen : nay, he confessed to the latter that he had a — an attachment, 
 an ardently cherished attachment, about which Pendennis longed to 
 hear, and said, " Tell us, old chap, is she handsome ? has she got blue 
 eyes or black?" But Doctor Portman's curate, heaving a gentle sigh, 
 cast up his eyes to the ceiling, and begged Pen faintly to change the 
 conversation. Poor Smirke ! He invited Pen to dine at his lodgings 
 over Madame Fribsby's, the milliner's, in Clavering, and once when it 
 was raining, and Mrs. Pendennis, who had driven in her pony-chaise 
 into Clavering with respect to some arrangements, about leaving off 
 mourning probably, was prevailed upon to enter the curate's apart- 
 ments, he sent for pound-cakes instantly. The sofa on which she sate 
 became sacred to him from that day ; and he kept flowers in the glass 
 which she drank from ever after.
 
 PENDENNIS. 27 
 
 As Mrs. Pendennis was never tired of hearing the praises of her 
 son, we may be certain that this rogue of a tutor neglected no oppor- 
 tunity of conversing with her upon the subject. It might be a little 
 tedious to him to hear the stories about Pen's generosity, about his 
 bravery in fighting the big naughty boy, about his fun and jokes, 
 about his prodigious skill in Latin, music, riding, &c. — but what price 
 would he not pay to be in her company ? and the widow, after these 
 conversations, thought Mr. Smirke a very pleasing and well-informed 
 man. As for her son, she had not settled in her mind, whether he 
 was to be Senior Wrangler and Archbishop of Canterbury, or Double 
 First Class at Oxford, and Lord Chancellor. That all England did 
 not possess his peer, was a fact about which there was, in her mind, 
 no manner of question. 
 
 A simple person, of inexpensive habits, she began forthwith to 
 save, and, perhaps, to be a little parsimonious, in favour of her boy. 
 There were no entertainments, of course, at Fairoaks, during the year 
 of her weeds. Nor, indeed, did the Doctor's silver dish-covers, of 
 which he was so proud, and which were flourished all over with the 
 arms of the Pendennises, and surmounted with their crest, come out 
 of the plate-chest again for long, long years. The household was 
 diminished, and its expenses curtailed. There was a very blank 
 anchorite repast when Pen dined from home : and he himself headed 
 the remonstrance from the kitchen regarding the deteriorated quality 
 of the Fairoaks beer. She was becoming miserly for Pen. Indeed, 
 who ever accused women of being just } They are always sacrificing 
 themselves or somebody for somebody else's sake. 
 
 There happened to be no young woman in the small circle of 
 friends who were in the widow's intimacy whom Pendennis could by 
 any possibility gratify by endowing her with the inestimable treasure 
 of a heart which he was longing to give away. Some young fellows 
 in this predicament bestow their young affections upon Dolly, the 
 dairymaid, or cast the eyes of tenderness upon Molly, the black- 
 smith's daughter. Pen thought a Pendennis much too grand a 
 personage to stoop so low. He was too high-minded for a vulg<ir 
 intrigue, and at the idea of a seduction, had he ever entertained it, 
 his heart would have revolted as from the notion of any act of 
 baseness or dishonour. Miss Mira Portman was too old, too large, 
 and too fond of reading " Rollin's Ancient History." The Miss 
 Boardbacks, Admiral Boardback's daughters (of St. Vincent's, or 
 Fourth of June House, as it was called), disgusted Pen with the 
 London airs which they brought into the country. Captain Glandcrs's 
 (H. P., 50th Dragoon Guards) three girls were in brown-holland 
 pinafores as yet, with the ends of their hair-plaits tied up in dirty 
 pink ribbon. Not having acquired the art of dancing, the youth
 
 28 PENDENNIS. 
 
 avoided such chances as he might have had of meeting with the fair 
 sex at the Chatteris Assembhes ; in fine, he was not in love, because 
 there was nobody at hand to fall in love with. And the young monkey 
 used to ride out, day after day, in quest of Dulcinea ; and peep into 
 the pony-chaises and gentlefolks' carriages, as they drove along the 
 broad turnpike roads, with a heart beating within him, and a secret 
 tremor and hope that she might be in that yellow post-chaise coming 
 swinging up the hill, or one of those three girls in beaver bonnets in 
 the back seat of the double gig, which the fat old gentleman in black 
 was driving, at four miles an hour. The post-chaise contained a snuffy 
 old dowager of seventy, with a maid, her contemporary. The three 
 girls in the beaver bonnets were no handsomer than the turnips that 
 skirted the roadside. Do as he might, and ride where he would, the 
 fairy princess whom he was to rescue and win, had not yet appeared 
 to honest Pen. 
 
 Upon these points he did not discourse to his mother. He had a 
 world of his own. What ardent, imaginative soul has not a secret 
 pleasure-place in which it disports ? Let no clumsy prying or dull 
 meddling of ours try to disturb it in our children. Actaeon was a 
 brute for wanting to push in where Diana was bathing. Leave him 
 occasionally alone, my good madam, if you have a poet for a child. 
 Even your admirable advice may be a bore sometimes. Yonder little 
 child may have thoughts too deep even for your great mind, and 
 fancies so coy and timid that they will not bare themselves when your 
 ladyship sits by. 
 
 Helen Pendennis by the force of sheer love divined a great number 
 of her son's secrets. But she kept these things in her heart (if we may 
 so speak), and did not speak of them. Besides, she had made up her 
 mind that he was to marry little Laura : she would be eighteen when 
 Pen was six-and-twenty ; and had finished his college career; and had 
 made his grand tour ; and was settled either in London, astonishing 
 all the metropolis by his learning and eloquence at the bar, or better 
 still, in a sweet country parsonage surrounded with hollyhocks and 
 roses, close to a delightful romantic ivy-covered church, from the 
 pulpit of which Pen would utter the most beautiful sermons ever 
 preached. 
 
 While these natural sentiments were waging war and trouble in 
 honest Pen's bosom, it chanced one day that he rode into Chatteris 
 for the purpose of carrying to the County Chronicle a tremendous 
 and thrilling poem for the next week's paper ; and putting up his 
 horse, according to custom, at the stables of the George Hotel there, 
 he fell in with an old acquaintance. A grand black tandem, with 
 scarlet wheels, came rattling into the inn yard, as Pen stood there in
 
 PENDENNIS. 29 
 
 converse with the ostler about Rebecca ; and the voice of the driver 
 called out, " Hallo, Pendennis, is that you ? " in a loud patronizing 
 manner. Pen had some difficulty in recognizing, under the broad- 
 brimmed hat and the vast greatcoats and neckcloths, with which the 
 new comer was habited, the person and figure of his quondam school- 
 fellow, Mr. Foker. 
 
 A year's absence had made no small difference in that gentleman. 
 A youth who had been deservedly whipped a few months previously, 
 and who spent his pocket-money on tarts and hardbake, now appeared 
 before Pen in one of those costumes to which the public consent, 
 which I take to be quite as influential in this respect as " Johnson's 
 Dictionary," has awarded the title of " Swell." He had a bull-dog 
 between his legs, and in his scarlet shawl neckcloth, was a pin repre- 
 senting another bull-dog in gold : he wore a fur waistcoat laced over 
 with gold chains ; a green cut-away coat with basket buttons, and a 
 white upper-coat ornamented with cheese-plate buttons, on each of 
 which was engraved some stirring incident of the road or the chase ; 
 all of which ornaments set off this young fellow's figure to such 
 advantage, that you would hesitate to say which character in life he 
 most resembled, and whether he was a boxer en goguette, or a coach- 
 man in his gala suit. 
 
 " Left that place for good, Pendennis .'"' Mr, Foker said, descending 
 from his landau and giving Pendennis a finger. 
 
 " Yes, this year or more," Pen said. 
 
 " Beastly old hole," Mr. Foker remarked. " Hate it. Hate the 
 Doctor : hate Towzer, the second master ; hate everybody there. Not 
 a fit place for a gentleman." 
 
 " Not at all," said Pen, with an air of the utmost consequence. 
 
 " By gad, sir, I sometimes dream, now, that the Doctor's walking 
 into me," Foker continued (and Pen smiled as he thought that he 
 himself had likewise fearful dreams of this nature). " When I think 
 of the diet there, by gad, sir, I wonder how I stood it. Mangy mutton, 
 brutal beef, pudding on Thursdays and Sundays, and that fit to poison 
 you. Just look at my leader — did you ever see a prettier animal } 
 Drove over from Baymouth. Came the nine mile in two-and-forty 
 minutes. Not bad going, sir." 
 
 " Are you stopping at Baymouth, Foker ? " Pendennis asked. 
 
 " I'm coaching there," said the other with a nod. 
 
 " What ? " asked Pen, and in a tone of such wonder, that Foker 
 burst out laughing, and said, "He was blowed if he didn't think Pen 
 was such a flat as not to know what coaching meant." 
 
 " I'm come down with a coach from Oxbridge. A tutor, don't you 
 see, old boy ? He's coaching me, and some other men, for the little- 
 go. Me and Spavin have the drag between us. And I thought I'd
 
 30 PENDENNIS. 
 
 just tool over, and go to the play. Did you ever see Rowkins do the 
 hornpipe ? " and Mr. Foker began to perform some steps of that 
 popular dance in the inn yard, looking round for the sympathy of his 
 groom and the stable men. 
 
 Pen thought he would like to go to the play too : and could ride 
 home afterwards, as there was a moonlight. So he accepted Poker's 
 invitation to dinner, and the young men entered the inn together, 
 where Mr. Foker stopped at the bar, and called upon Miss Rummer, 
 the landlady's fair daughter, who presided there, to give him a glass 
 of "his mixture." 
 
 Pen and his family had been known at the George ever since they 
 came into the county; and Mr. Pendennis's carriage and horses 
 always put up there when he paid a visit to the county town. The 
 landlady dropped the heir of Fairoaks a very respectful curtsey, and 
 complimented him upon his growth and manly appearance, and asked 
 news of the family at Fairoaks, and of Dr. Portman and the Clavering 
 people, to all of which questions the young gentleman answered with 
 much affability. But he spoke to Mr. and Mrs. Rummer with that 
 sort of good nature with which a young Prince addresses his father's 
 subjects; never dreaming that those "bonnes gens "were his equals 
 in life. 
 
 Mr. Foker's behaviour was quite different. He inquired for Rum- 
 mer and the cold in his nose, told Mrs. Rummer a riddle, asked Miss 
 Rummer when she would be ready to marry him, and paid his compli- 
 ments to Miss Brett, the other young lady in the bar, all in a minute 
 of time, and with a liveliness and facetiousness which set all these 
 ladies in a giggle; and he gave a cluck, expressive of great satisfac- 
 tion as he tossed off his mixture which Miss Rummer prepared and 
 handed to him. 
 
 " Have a drop," said he to Pen. " Give the young one a glass, R., 
 and score it up to yours truly." 
 
 Poor Pen took a glass, and everybody laughed at the face which 
 he made as he put it down — Gin, bitters, and some other cordial, was 
 the compound with which Mr. Foker was so delighted as to call it by 
 the name of Foker's own. As Pen choked, sputtered, and made faces, 
 the other took occasion to remark to Mr. Rummer that the young 
 fellow was green, very green, but that he would soon form him ; and 
 then they proceeded to order dinner — which Mr. Foker determined 
 should consist of turtle and venison; cautioning the landlady to be 
 very particular about icing the wine. 
 
 Then Messrs. Foker and Pen strolled down the High Street 
 together — the former having a cigar in his mouth, which he had 
 drawn out of a case almost as big as a portmanteau. He went in to 
 replenish it at Mr. Lewis's, and talked to that gentleman for a while.
 
 PENDENNIS. 31 
 
 sitting down on the counter : he then looked in at the fruiterer's, to 
 see the pretty girl there : then they passed the County Chronicle 
 office, for which Pen had his packet ready, in the shape of " Lines to 
 Thyrza," but poor Pen did not like to put the letter into the editor's 
 box while walking in company with such a fine gentleman as Mr. Foker. 
 They met heavy dragoons of the regiment always quartered at Chat- 
 teris ; and stopped and talked about the Baymouth balls, and what a 
 pretty girl was Miss Brown, and what a dem fine woman Mrs. Jones 
 was. It was in vain that Pen recalled to his own mind how stupid 
 Foker used to be at school — how he could scarcely read, how he was 
 not cleanly in his person, and notorious for his blunders and dullness. 
 Mr. Foker was not much more refined now than in his school days : 
 and yet Pen felt a secret pride in strutting down High Street with a 
 young fellow who owned tandems, talked to officers, and ordered 
 turtle and champagne for dinner. He listened, and with respect too, 
 to Mr. Foker's accounts of what the men did at the University of 
 which Mr. F. was an ornament, and encountered a long series of 
 stories about boat-racing, bumping. College grass-plats, and milk- 
 punch — and began to wish to go up himself to College, to a place 
 where there were such manly pleasures and enjoyments. Farmer 
 Gurnett, who lives close by Fairoaks, riding by at this minute and 
 touching his hat to Pen, the latter stopped him, and sent a message 
 to his mother to say that he had met with an old schoolfellow, and 
 should dine in Chatteris. 
 
 The two young gentlemen continued their walk, and were passing 
 round the Cathedral Yard, where they could hear the music of the 
 afternoon service (a music which always exceedingly affected Pen), 
 but whither Mr. Foker came for the purpose of inspecting the nursery- 
 maids who frequent the Elms Walk there, and here they strolled until 
 with a final burst of music the small congregation was played out. 
 
 Old Doctor Portman was one of the few who came from the 
 venerable gate. Spying Pen, he came and shook him by the hand, 
 and eyed with wonder Pen's friend, from whose mouth and cigar 
 clouds of fragrance issued, which curled round the Doctor's honest 
 face and shovel hat. 
 
 " An old schoolfellow of mine, Mr. Foker," said Pen. The Doctor 
 said " H'm," and scowled at the cigar. He did not mind a pipe in 
 his study, but the cigar was an abomination to the worthy gentleman. 
 
 " I came up on Bishop's business," the Doctor said. " We'll ride 
 home, Arthur, if you like ? " 
 
 " I — Pm engaged to my friend here," Pen answered. 
 
 " You had better come home with me," said the Doctor. 
 
 "His mother knows he's out, sir," Mr. Foker remarked: "don't 
 she, Pendennis?"
 
 11 PENDENNIS. 
 
 " But that does not prove that he had not better come home with 
 me," the Doctor growled, and he walked off with great dignity. 
 
 " Old boy don't like the weed, I suppose," Foker said. " Ha I 
 who's here ? — here's the General, and Bingley, the manager. How 
 do, Cos? How do, Bingley?" 
 
 "How does my worthy and gallant young Foker?" said the 
 gentleman addressed as the General ; and who wore a shabby mili- 
 tary cape with a mangy collar, and a hat cocked very much over 
 one eye. 
 
 " Trust you are ver}- well, my very dear sir," said the other gentle- 
 man, " and that the Theatre Royal will have the honour of your 
 patronage to-night ? We perform ' The Stranger,' in which your 
 humble servant will — " 
 
 " Can't stand you in tights and Hessians, Bingley," young Mr. 
 Foker said. On which the General, with the Irish accent, said, " But 
 I think yell like Miss Fotheringay, in Mrs. Haller, or me name's not 
 Jack Costigan." 
 
 Pen looked at these individuals with the greatest interest. He 
 had never seen an actor before ; and he saw Dr. Portman's red face 
 looking over the Doctor's shoulder, as he retreated from the Cathedral 
 Yard, evidently quite dissatisfied with the acquaintances into whose 
 hands Pen had fallen. 
 
 Perhaps it would have been much better for him had he taken 
 the parson's advice and company home. But which of us knows his 
 fate?
 
 PENDENNIS, 33 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MRS. HALLER. 
 
 HAVING returned to the George, Mr. Foker and his guest sate down 
 to a handsome repast in the coffee-room ; where Mr. Rummer 
 brought in the first dish, and bowed as gravely as if he was waiting upon 
 the Lord-Lieutenant of the county. Pen could not but respect Foker's 
 connoisseurship as he pronounced the champagne to be condemned 
 gooseberry, and winked at the port with one eye. The latter he 
 declared to be of the right sort ; and told the waiters, there was no way 
 of humbugging Jihn. All these attendants he knew by their Christian 
 names, and showed a great interest in their families ; and as the 
 London coaches drove up, which in those early days used to set off 
 from the George, Mr. Foker flung the coffee-room window open, and 
 called the guards and coachmen by their Christian names, too, asking 
 about their respective families, and imitating with great liveliness and 
 accuracy the tooting of the horns as Jem the ostler whipped the 
 horses' cloths off, and the carriages drove gaily away. 
 
 " A bottle of sherry, a bottle of sham, a bottle of port and a shass 
 caffy, it ain't so bad, hay, Pen ? " Foker said, and pronounced, after all 
 these delicacies and a quantity of nuts and fruit had been dispatched, 
 that it was time to " toddle." Pen sprang up with with very bright 
 eyes, and a flushed face ; and they moved off towards the theatre, 
 where they paid their money to the wheezy old lady slumbering in 
 the money-taker's box. " Mrs. Dropsicum, Bingley's mother-in-law, 
 great in Lady Macbeth," Foker said to his companion. Foker knew 
 her, too. 
 
 They had almost their choice of places in the boxes of the theatre, 
 which was no better filled than country theatres usually are in spite 
 of the " universal burst of attraction and galvanic thrills of delight " 
 advertised by Bingley in the play-bills. A score or so of people dotted 
 the pit-benches, a few more kept a kicking and whistling in the galleries, 
 and a dozen others, who came in with free admissions, were in the 
 boxes where our young gentlemen sate. Lieutenant Rodgers and 
 Podgers, and young Cornet Tidmus, of the Dragoons, occupied a 
 private box. The performers acted to them, and these gentlemen 
 
 3
 
 34 PENDENNIS. 
 
 seemed to hold conversations with the players when not engaged in 
 the dialogue, and applauded them by name loudly. 
 
 Bingley the manager, who assumed all the chief tragic and comic 
 parts except when he modestly retreated to make way for the London 
 stars, who came down occasionally to Chatteris; was great in the 
 character of the " Stranger." He was attired in the tight pantaloons 
 and Hessian boots which the stage legend has given to that injured 
 man, with a large cloak and beaver and a hearse-feather in it drooping 
 over his raddled old face, and only partially concealing his great 
 buckled brown wig. He had the stage -jewellery on too, of which he 
 selected the largest and most shiny rings for himself, and allowed his 
 little finger to quiver out of his cloak with a sham diamond ring cover- 
 ing the first joint of the finger and twiddling in the faces of the pit. 
 Bingley made it a favour to the young men of his company to go on 
 in light comedy parts with that ring. TLey flattered him by asking 
 its history. The stage has its traditional jewels, as the Crown and all 
 great families have. This had belonged to George Frederick Cooke, 
 who had had it from IMr. Quin, who may have bought it for a shilling. 
 Bingley fancied the world was fascinated with its glitter. 
 
 He was reading out of the stage-book — that wonderful stage-book 
 — which is not bound like any other book in the world, but is rouged 
 and tawdry like the hero or heroine who holds it ; and who holds it 
 as people never do hold books : and points with his finger to a 
 passage, and wags his head ominously at the audience, and then lifts 
 up eyes and finger to the ceiling, professing to derive some intense 
 consolation from the work between Avhich and heaven there is a strong 
 affinity. 
 
 As soon as the Stranger saw the young men, he acted at them ; 
 eyeing them solemnly over his gilt volume as he lay on the stage-bank 
 showing his hand, his ring, and his Hessians. He calculated the 
 effect that every one of these ornaments would produce upon his 
 victims : he was determined to fascinate them, for he knew they had 
 paid their money; and he saw their families coming in from the 
 country and filling the cane chairs in his boxes. 
 
 As he lay on the bank reading, his servant, Francis, made remarks 
 upon his master. 
 
 " Again reading," said Francis ; '"' thus it is, from mom to night. 
 To him nature has no beauty — life no charm. For three years I have 
 never seen him smile " (the gloom of Bingley's face was fearful to 
 witness during these comments of the faithful domestic.) " Nothing 
 diverts him. O, if he would but attach himself to any living thing, 
 were it an animal — for something man must love." 
 
 [Etiter Tobias {Coll) from the hut\ He cries, '' O, how refreshing-, 
 after seven long weeks, to feel these warm sunbeams once aga a.
 
 PENDENNIS. 35 
 
 Thanks, bounteous heaven, for the joy I taste ! " He presses his cap 
 between his hands, looks up and prays. The Stranger eyes him 
 attentively. 
 
 Francis to the Stranger. " This old man's share of earthly happi- 
 ness can be but little. Yet mark how grateful he is for his portion 
 of it." 
 
 Bingley. " Because though old, he is but a child in the leading- 
 string of hope." (He looks steadily at Foker, who, however, continues 
 to suck the top of his stick in an unconcerned manner.) 
 
 Francis. " Hope is the nurse of life." 
 
 Bingley. " And her cradle — is the grave." 
 
 The Stranger uttered this with the moan of a bassoon in agony, 
 and fixed his glance on Pendennis so steadily, that the poor lad was 
 quite put out of countenance. He thought the whole house must be 
 looking at him ; and cast his eyes down. As soon as ever he raised 
 them Bingley's were at him again. All through the scene the manager 
 played at him. How relieved the lad was when the scene ended, and 
 Foker, tapping with his cane, cried out " Bravo, Bingley ! " 
 
 " Give him a hand, Pendennis ; you know every chap likes a 
 hand," Mr. Foker said ; and the good-natured young gentleman, and 
 Pendennis laughing, and the Dragoons in the opposite box, began 
 clapping hands to the best of their power. 
 
 A chamber in Wintersen Castle closed over Tobias's hut and the 
 Stranger and his boots; and servants appeared bustling about with 
 chairs and tables — " That's Hicks and Miss Thackthwaite," whispered 
 Foker. " Pretty girl, ain't she, Pendennis ? But stop — hurray — bravo ! 
 here's the Fotheringay." 
 
 The pit thrilled and thumped its umbrellas ; a volley of applause 
 was fired from the gallery : the Di-agoon officers and Foker clapped 
 their hands furiously : you would have thought the house was full, so 
 loud were their plaudits. The red face and ragged whiskers of 
 Mr. Costigan were seen peering from the side-scene. Pen's eyes 
 opened wide and bright, as Mrs. Haller entered with a downcast look, 
 then rallying at the sound of the applause, swept the house with a 
 grateful glance, and, folding her hands across her breast, sank down 
 in a magnificent curtsey. More applause, more umbrellas ; Pen this 
 time, flaming with wine and enthusiasm, clapped hands and sang 
 " Bravo " louder than all. Mrs. Haller saw him, and everybody else, 
 and old Mr. Bows, the little first fiddler of the orchestra (which was 
 this night increased by a detachment of the band of the Dragoons, by 
 the kind permission of Colonel Swallowtail), looked up from the desk 
 where he was perched, with his crutch beside him, and smiled at the 
 enthusiasm of the lad. 
 
 Those who have only seen Miss Fotheringay in later days, since
 
 36 PENDENNIS. 
 
 her marriage and introduction into London life, have Httle idea how 
 beautiful a creature she was at the time when our friend Pen first set 
 eyes on her. She was of the tallest of women, and at her then age 
 of six-and-twenty — for six-and-twenty she was, though she vows she 
 was only nineteen — in the prime and fullness of her beauty. Her fore- 
 head was vast, and her black hair waved over it with a natural ripple, 
 and was confined in shining and voluminous braids at the back of a 
 neck such as you see on the shoulders of the LouvTe Venus — that 
 delight of gods and men. Her eyes, when she lifted them up to gaze 
 on you, and ere she dropped their purple deep-fringed lids, shone with 
 tenderness and mystery unfathomable. Love and Genius seemed to 
 look out from them and then retire coyly, as if ashamed to have been 
 seen at the lattice. Who could have had such a commanding brow but a 
 woman of high intellect ? She never laughed (indeed her teeth were 
 not good), but a smile of endless tenderness and sweetness played 
 round her beautiful lips, and in the dimples of her cheeks and her 
 lovely chin. Her nose defied description in those days. Her ears 
 were like two little pearl shells, which the earrings she wore (though 
 the handsomest properties in the theatre) only insulted. She was 
 dressed in long flowing robes of black, which she managed and swept 
 to and fro with wonderful grace, and out of the folds of which you 
 only saw her sandals occasionally ; they were of rather a large size : 
 but Pen thought them as ravishing as the slippers of Cinderella. But 
 it was her hand and arm that this magnificent creature most excelled 
 in, and somehow you could never see her but through them. They 
 surrounded her. When she folded them over her bosom in resigna- 
 tion ; when she dropped them in mute agony, or raised them in superb 
 command ; when in sportive gaiety her hands fluttered and waved 
 before her, like — what shall we say ? — like the snowy doves before the 
 chariot of Venus — it was with these arms and hands that she beckoned, 
 repelled, entreated, embraced her admirers — no single one, for she was 
 armed with her own virtue, and with her fathers valour, whose sword 
 would have leapt from its scabbard at any insult oftered to his child — 
 but the whole house ; which rose to her, as the phrase was, as she 
 curtsied and bowed, and charmed it. 
 
 Thus she stood for a minute — complete and beautiful — as Pen 
 stared at her. " I say. Pen, isn't she a stunner } " asked Mr. Foker. 
 
 " Hush : '' Pen said. " She's speaking." 
 
 She began her business in a deep sweet voice. Those who know 
 the play of the " Stranger," are aware that the remarks made by the 
 various characters are not valuable in themselves, either for their 
 sound sense, their novelty of observation, or their poetic fancy. 
 
 Nobody ever talked so. If wc meet idiots in hfe, as will happen, 
 it is a great mercy that they do not use such absurdly fine words. The
 
 PENDENNIS. 37 
 
 Stranger's talk is sham, like the book he reads, and the hair he wears, 
 and the bank he sits on, and the diamond ring he makes play with— 
 but, in the midst of the balderdash, there runs that reality of love, 
 children, and forgiveness of wrong, which will be listened to wherever 
 it is preached, and sets all the world sympathizing. 
 
 With what smothered sorrow, with what gushing pathos, Mrs. 
 Ilnller delivered her part! At first, when as Count Wintersen's 
 housekeeper, and preparing for his Excellency's arrival, she has to 
 give orders about the beds and furniture, and the dinner, &c. to be 
 got ready, she did so with the calm agony of despair. But when she 
 could get rid of the stupid servants, and give vent to her feehngs to 
 the pit and the house, she overflowed to each individual as if he were 
 her particular confidant, and she was crying out her griefs on his 
 shoulder : the little fiddler in the orchestra (whom she did not seem to 
 watch, though he followed her ceaselessly) twitched, twisted, nodded, 
 pointed about, and when she came to the favourite passage, " I have 
 a William, too, if he be still alive — Ah, yes, if he be still alive. His 
 little sisters, too ! Why, Fancy, dost thou rack me so ? Why dost 
 thou image my poor children fainting in sickness, and crying to — to 
 — their mw\\\-\xv^-ot]ier" — when she came to this passage little Bows 
 buried his face in his blue cotton handkerchief, after crying out 
 " Bravo." 
 
 All the house was affected. Foker, for his part, taking out a large 
 yellow bandanna, wept piteously. As for Pen, he was gone too far for 
 that. He followed the woman about and about — when she was off the 
 stage, it and the house were blank; the lights and the red officers 
 reeled wildly before his sight. He watched her at the side-scene — 
 where she stood waiting to come on the stage, and where her father 
 took off her shawl: when the reconciliation arrived, and she flung 
 herself down on Mr. Bingley's shoulders, whilst the children clung to 
 their knees, and the Countess (Mrs. Bingley) and Baron Steinforth 
 (performed with great liveliness and spirit by Garbetts,) — while the 
 rest of the characters formed a group round them, Pen's hot eyes 
 only saw Fotheringay, Fotheringay. The curtain fell upon him like a 
 pall. He did not hear a word of what Bingley said, who came 
 forward to announce the play for the next evening, and who took the 
 tumult lous applause, as usual, for himself. Pen was not even dis- 
 tinctly aware that the house was calling for Miss Fotheringay, nor did 
 the manager seem to comprehend that anybody else but himself had 
 caused the success of the play. At last he understood it — stepped 
 back with a grin, and presently appeared with Mrs. Haller on his arm. 
 How beautiful she looked! Her hair had fallen down, the officers 
 threw her flowers. She clutched them to her heart. She put back 
 her hair, and smiled all round. Her eyes met Pen's. Down went the
 
 38 PENDENNIS. 
 
 curtain again: and she was gone. Not one note could he hear of 
 the overture which the brass band of the Dragoons blew by kind per- 
 mission of Colonel Swallowtail. 
 
 " She is a crusher, ain't she now ? " Mr. Foker asked of his com- 
 panion. 
 
 Pen did not know exactly what Foker said, and answered vaguely. 
 He could not tell the other what he felt ; he could not have spoken, 
 just then, to any mortal. Besides, Pendennis did not quite know what 
 he felt yet ; it was something overwhelming, maddening, delicious ; a 
 fever of wild joy and undefined longing. 
 
 And now Rowkins and ^liss Thackthwaite came on to dance the 
 favourite double hornpipe, and Foker abandoned himself to the 
 delights of this ballet, just as he had to the tears of the tragedy, 
 a few minutes before. Pen did not care for it, or indeed think about 
 the dance, except to remember that that woman was acting with her 
 in the scene where she first came in. It was a mist before his eyes. 
 At the end of the dance he looked at his watch and said it was time 
 for him to go. 
 
 " Hang it, stay to see The Bravo of the Battle-Axe," Foker said, 
 " Bingle/s splendid in it ; he wears red tights, and has to carry 
 Mrs. B. over the Pine-bridge of the Cataract, only she's too heavy. 
 It's great fun, do stop." 
 
 Pen looked at the bill with one lingering fond hope that 2vliss 
 Fotheringay's name might be hidden, somewhere, in the list of the 
 actors of the after-piece, but there was no such name. Go he must. 
 He had a long ride home. He squeezed Foker's hand. He was 
 choking to speak, but he couldn't. He quitted the theatre and walked 
 frantically about the town, he knew not how long; then he mounted 
 at the George and rode homewards, and Clavering clock sang out 
 one as he came into the yard at Fairoaks. The lady of the house 
 might have been awake, but she only heard him from the passage 
 outside his room as he dashed into bed and pulled the clothes over his 
 head. 
 
 Pen had not been in the habit of passing wakeful nights, so he at 
 once fell off into a sound sleep. Even in later days, and with a great 
 deal of care and other thoughtful matter to keep him awake, a man 
 from long practice or fatigue or resolution begins by going to sleep as 
 usual : and gets a nap in advance of Anxiety. But she soon comes 
 up with him and jogs his shoulder, and says " Come, my man, no 
 more of this laziness, you must wake up and have a talk with me." 
 Then they fall to together in the midnight. Well, whatever might 
 afterwards happen to him, poor little Pen was not come to this state 
 yet ; he tumbled into a sound sleep — did not wake until an early hour
 
 PENDENNIS. 39 
 
 in the morning, when the rooks began to caw from the little wood 
 beyond his bed-room windows ; and — at that very instant and as his 
 eyes started open, the beloved image was in his mind. " My dear 
 boy," he heard her say, " you were in a sound sleep, and I would not 
 disturb you : but I have been close by your pillow all this while : and 
 I don't intend that you shall leave me. I am Love ! I bring with me 
 fever and passion : wild longing, maddening desire ; restless craving 
 and seeking. Many a long day ere this I heard you calling out for 
 me ; and behold now I am come." 
 
 Was Pen frightened at the summons? Not he. He did not know 
 what was coming : it was all wild pleasure and delight as yet. And 
 as, when three years previously, and on entering the fifth form at the 
 Cistercians, his father had made him a present of a gold watch which 
 the boy took from under his pillow and examined on the instant 
 of waking : for ever rubbing and polishing it up in private and retiring 
 into corners to listen to its ticking : so the young man exulted over 
 his new delight ; felt in his waistcoat pocket to see that it was safe ; 
 wound it up at nights, and at the very first moment of waking hugged 
 it and looked at it. — By the way, that first watch of Pen's was a showy 
 ill-manufactured piece : it never went well from the beginning, and was 
 always getting out of order. And after putting it aside into a drawer 
 and forgetting it for some time, he swopped it finally away for a more 
 useful time-keeper. 
 
 Pen felt himself to be ever so many years older since yesterday. 
 There was no mistake about it now. He was as much in love as the 
 best hero in the best romance he ever read. He told John to bring 
 his shaving water with the utmost confidence. He dressed himself in 
 some of his finest clothes that morning : and came splendidly down 
 to breakfast, patronizing his mother and little Laura, who had been 
 strumming her music lesson for hours before ; and who after he had 
 read the prayers (of which he did not heed one single syllable), 
 wondered at his grand appearance, and asked him to tell her what the 
 play was about ? 
 
 Pen laughed and declined to tell Laura what the play was about. 
 In fact it was quite as well that she should not know. Then she asked 
 him why he had got on his fine pin and beautiful new waistcoat ? 
 
 Pen blushed, and told his mother that the old schoolfellow with 
 whom he had dined at Chatteris was reading with a tutor at Bay- 
 mouth, a very learned man ; and as he was himself to go to College, 
 and as there were several young men pursuing their studies at Bay- 
 mouth — he was anxious to ride over — and — and just see what the 
 course of their reading was. 
 
 Laura made a long face. Helen Pendennis looked hard at her son, 
 troubled more than ever with the vague doubt and terror which had l:)ccn
 
 40 PENDENNIS. 
 
 haunting her ever since the last night, when Farmer Gurnett brought 
 back the news that Pen would not return home to dinner. Arthur's 
 eyes defied her. She tried to console herself, and drive off her fears. 
 The boy had never told her an untruth. Pen conducted himself 
 during breakfast in a very haughty and supercilious manner ; and, 
 taking leave of the elder and younger lady, was presently heard riding 
 out of the stable-court. He went gently at first, but galloped like a 
 madman as soon as he thought that he was out of hearing. 
 
 Smirke, thinkmg of his own affairs, and softly riding with his toes 
 out, to give Pen his three hours' reading at Fairoaks, met his pupil, 
 who shot by him like the wind. Smirke's pony shied, as the other 
 thundered past him ; the gentle curate went over his head among the 
 stinging-nettles in the hedge. Pen laughed as they met, pointed 
 towards the Baymouth road, and was gone half-a-mile in that direction 
 before poor Smirke had picked himself up. 
 
 Pen had resolved in his mind that he miist see Foker that 
 morning; he must hear about her; know about her; be with some- 
 body who knew her; and honest Smirke, for his part, sitting up 
 among the stinging-nettles, as his pony cropped quietly in the hedge, 
 thought dismally to himself, ought he to go to Fairoaks now that his 
 pupil was evidently gone away for the day. Yes, he thought he 
 might go, too. He might go and ask Mrs. Pendennis when Arthur 
 would be back ; and hear Miss Laura her Watts's Catechism. He 
 got up on the little pony — both were used to his slipping off— and 
 advanced upon the house from which his scholar had just rushed away 
 in a whirlwind. 
 
 Thus love makes fools of all of us, big and little ; and the curate 
 had tumbled over head and heels in pursuit of it, and Pen had started 
 in the first heat of the mad race.
 
 PENDENNJS, 4! 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 MRS. HALLER AT HOME. 
 
 WITHOUT slackening his pace Pen galloped on to Baymouth, 
 put the mare up at the inn stables, and ran straightway to 
 Mr. Foker's lodgings, of whom he had taken the direction on the 
 previous day. On reaching these apartments, which were over a 
 chemist's shop whose stock of cigars and soda-water went off rapidly by 
 the kind patronage of his young inmates, Pen only found Mr. Spavin, 
 Foker's friend, and part owner of the tandem which the latter had 
 driven into Chatteris, who was smoking, and teaching a little dog, a 
 friend of his, tricks with a bit of biscuit. 
 
 Pen's healthy red face fresh from the gallop, compared oddly with 
 the waxy debauched little features of Foker's chum; Mr. Spavin 
 remarked the circumstance. " Who's that man ? " he thought ; " he 
 looks as fresh as a bean. His hand don't shake of a morning, I'd bet 
 five to one." 
 
 Foker had not come home at all. Here was a disappointment ! — 
 Mr. Spavin could not say when his friend would return. Sometimes 
 he stopped a day, sometimes a week. Of what college was Pen ? 
 Would he have anything ? There was a very fair tap of ale. Mr. 
 Spavin was enabled to know Pendennis's name, on the card which the 
 latter took out and laid down (perhaps Pen in these days was rather 
 proud of having a card) — and so the young men took leave. 
 
 Then Pen went down the rock, and walked about on the sand, 
 biting his nails by the shore of the much-sounding sea. It stretched 
 before him bright and immeasurable. The blue waters came rolling 
 into the bay, foaming and roaring hoarsely : Pen looked them in the 
 face with blank eyes, hardly regarding them. What a tide there was 
 pouring into the lad's own mind at the time, and what a little power 
 had he to check it ! Pen flung stones into the sea, but it still kept 
 coming on. He was in a rage at not seeing Foker. He wanted to see 
 Foker. He must see Foker. "Suppose I go on — on the Chatteris 
 road, just to see if I can meet him," Pen thought. Rebecca was 
 saddled in another half hour, and galloping on the grass by the 
 Chatteris road. About four miles from Baymouth, the Clav^ering road 
 branches off, as everybody knows, and the mare naturally was for
 
 42 PENDENNIS. 
 
 taking that turn, but, cutting her over the shoulder, Pen passed the 
 turning, and rode on to the turnpike without seeing any sign of the 
 black tandem and red wheels. 
 
 As he was at the turnpike he might as well go on ; that was quite 
 clear. So Pen rode to the George, and the ostler told him that 
 Mr. Foker was there sure enough, and that "he'd been a makin' a 
 tremendous row the night afore, a drinkin' and a singin', and wanting 
 to fight Tom the post-boy : which I'm thinking he'd have had the 
 worst of it," the man added, with a grin. " Have you carried up your 
 master's 'ot water to shave with ? " he added, in a very satirical manner, 
 to Mr. Foker's domestic, who here came down the yard bearing his 
 master's clothes, most beautifully brushed and arranged. " Show 
 Mr. Pcndennis up to 'un." And Pen followed the man at last to the 
 apartment, where, in the midst of an immense bed, Mr. Harry Foker 
 lay reposing. 
 
 The feather-bed and bolsters swelled up all round Mr. Foker, so 
 that you could hardly see his little sallow face and red silk nightcap. 
 
 "Hullo! "said Pen. 
 
 " Who goes there ? brother, quickly tell ! " sang out the voice from 
 the bed. "What! Pcndennis again.'' Is your Mamma acquainted 
 with your absence .'' Did you sup with us last night ? No — stop — 
 who supped with us last night, Stoopid?" 
 
 " There was the three officers, sir, and Mr. Bingley, sir, and 
 Mr. Costigan, sir," the man answered, who received all Mr. Foker's 
 remarks with perfect gravity. 
 
 " Ah yes : the cup and merry jest went round. We chanted : 
 and I remember I wanted to fight a post-boy. Did I thrash him, 
 Stoopid ? " 
 
 " No, sir. Fight didn't come off, sir," said Stoopid, still with 
 perfect gravity. He was arranging Mr. Foker's dressing-case — a 
 trunk, the gift of a fond mother, without which the young fellow never 
 travelled. It contained a prodigious apparatus in plate ; a silver dish, 
 a silver mug, silver boxes and bottles for all sorts of essences, and a 
 choice of razors ready against the time when Mr. Foker's beard should 
 come. 
 
 " Do it some other day," said the young fellow, yawning and 
 throwing up his little lean arms over his head. " No, there was no 
 fight ; but there was chanting. Bingley chanted, I chanted, the 
 General chanted — Costigan I mean. — Did you ever hear him sing 
 ' The Little Pig under the Bed,' Pen ? " 
 
 "The man we met yesterday," said Pen, all in a tremor, "the 
 father of—" 
 
 " Of the Fotheringay, — the very man. Ain't she a \'onus, Pen ?'' 
 
 " Please, sir, Mr. Costigan's in the sittin'-room, sir, and says, sir,
 
 PENDENNIS. 43 
 
 you asked him to brcakfiist, sir. Called five times, sir; but wouldn't 
 wake you on no account ; and has been year since eleven o'clock, 
 sir—" 
 
 " How much is it now ? " 
 
 " One, sir." 
 
 " What would the best of mothers say," cried the little sluggard, 
 " if she saw me in bed at this hour ? She sent me down here with a 
 grinder. She wants me to cultivate my neglected genius — He, he ! 
 I say, Pen, this isn't quite like seven o'clock school, — is it, old boy?" 
 — and the young fellow burst out into a boyish laugh of enjoyment. 
 Then he added — " Go in and talk to the General whilst I dress. And 
 I say, Pendennis, ask him to sing you ' The Little Pig under the Pcd ;' 
 it's capital." Pen went off in great perturbation, to meet l\Ir. Costigan, 
 and Mr. Foker commenced his toilet. 
 
 Of Mr, Foker's two grandfathers, the one from whom he inherited 
 a fortune, was a brewer; the other was an earl, who endowed him 
 with the most doting mother in the world. The Fokers had been at 
 the Cistercian school froni father to son ; at which place, our friend, 
 whose name could be seen over the playground wall, on a public-house 
 sign, under which " Foker's Entire " was painted, had been dreadfully 
 bullied on account of his trade, his uncomely countenance, his inapti- 
 tude for learning and cleanliness, his gluttony and other weak points. 
 But those who know how a susceptible youth, under the tyranny of 
 his schoolfellows, becomes silent and a sneak, may understand how in 
 a very few months after his liberation from bondage, he developed 
 himself as he had done ; and became the humorous, the sarcastic, 
 tlie brilliant Foker, with whom we have made acquaintance. A dunce 
 he always was, it is true ; for learning cannot be acquired by leaving 
 school and entering at college as a fellow-commoner; but he was now 
 (in his own peculiar manner) as great a dandy as he before had been 
 a slattern, and when he entered his sitting-room to join his two guests, 
 arrived scented and arrayed in fine linen, and perfectly splendid in 
 appearance. 
 
 General or Captain Costigan — for the latter was the rank which 
 he preferred to assume — was seated in the window with the newspaper 
 held before him at arm's length. The Captain's eyes were somewhat 
 dim ; and he was spelling the paper, with the help of his lips, as well 
 as of those bloodshot eyes of his, as you sec gentlemen do to whom 
 reading is a rare and dii'licult occupation. His hat was cocked very 
 much on one ear; and as one of his feet lay up in the window-soat, 
 the observer of such matters might remark, by the size and shabbincss 
 of the boots which the Captain wore, that times did not go very well 
 with him. Poverty seems as if it were disposed, before it takes posses- 
 sion of a man entirely, to attack his extremities first : the Coverings of
 
 44 PENDENNIS. 
 
 his head, feet, and hands, are its first prey. All these parts of the 
 Captain's person were particularly rakish and shabby. As soon as he 
 saw Pen he descended from the window-seat and saluted the new 
 comer, first in a military manner, by conveying a couple of his fingers 
 (covered with a broken black glove) to his hat, and then removing 
 that ornament altogether. The Captain was inclined to be bald, but 
 he brought a quantity of lank iron-grey hair over his pate, and had a 
 couple of wisps of the same falling down on each side of his face. 
 Much whisky had spoiled what complexion Mr. Costigan may have 
 possessed in his youth. His once handsome face had now a copper 
 tinge. He wore a very high stock, scarred and stained in many places ; 
 and a dress-coat tightly buttoned up in those parts where the buttons 
 had not parted company from the garment. 
 
 " The young gentleman to whom 1 had the honour to be introjuiced 
 yesterday in the Cathedral Yard," said the Captain with a splendid 
 bow and wave of his hat. " I hope I see you well, sir ? I marked ye 
 in the thayater last night during me daughter's perfawrumance ; and 
 missed ye on my return. I did but conduct her home, sir, for Jack 
 Costigan, though poor, is a gentleman ; and when I reintered the 
 house to pay me respects to me joyous young friend, Mr. Foker — ye 
 were gone. We had a jolly night of ut, sir — Mr. Foker, the three 
 gallant young Dragoons, and your 'umble servant. Gad, sir, it put 
 me in mind of one of our old nights when I bore his Majesty's com- 
 mission in the Foighting Hundtherd and Third." And he pulled out 
 an old snuff-box, which he presented with a stately air to his new 
 acquaintance. 
 
 Arthur was a great deal too much flurried to speak. This shabby- 
 looking buck was — was her father. '• I hope. Miss F , Miss 
 
 Costigan is well, sir ?" Pen said, flushing up. " She — she gave me 
 greater pleasure, than— than I — I — I ever enjoyed at a play. I think, 
 sir_I think she's the finest actress in the world," he gasped out. 
 
 " Your hand, young man ! for yc speak from your heart," cried 
 the Captain. " Thank ye, sir, an old soldier and a fond father thanks 
 ye. She is the finest actress in the world. I've seen the Siddons, sir, 
 and the O'Nale — they were great, but w^hat were they compared to 
 Miss Fotheringay? I do not wish she should ashumc her own name 
 while on the stage. Me family, sir, are proud people ; and the Costigans 
 of Costiganstown think that an honest man, who has borne his Majesty's 
 colours in the Hundtherd and Third, would demean himself, by per- 
 mitting his daughter to earn her old father's bread." 
 
 " There cannot be a more honourable duty, surely," Pen said. 
 
 " Honourable ! Bedad, sir, I'd like to see the man who said Jack 
 Costigan would consent to anything dishonourable. I have a heart, 
 sir, though I am poor ; I like a man who has a heart. You have : I
 
 FENDENNIS. 45 
 
 read it in your honest face and steady eye. And womM you believe 
 it," he added, after a pause, and with a pathetic whisper, " that that 
 Bingley, who has made his fortune by me child, gives her but two 
 guineas a week : out of which she finds herself in dresses, and which, 
 added to me own small means, makes our all ? " 
 
 Now the Captain's means were so small as to be, it may be said, 
 quite invisible. But nobody knows how the wind is tempered to shorn 
 Irish lambs, and in what marvellous places they find pasture. If 
 Captain Costigan, whom I had the honour to know, would but have 
 told his history, it would have been a great moral story. But he 
 neither would have told it if he could, nor could if he would ; for the 
 Captain was not only unaccustomed to tell the truth, — he was unable 
 even to think it — and fact and fiction reeled together in his muzzy, 
 whiskified brain. 
 
 He began life rather brilliantly with a pair of colours, a fine person 
 and legs, and one of the most beautiful voices in the world. To his 
 latest day he sang with admirable pathos and humour, those wonderful 
 Irish ballads which are so mirthful and so melancholy : and was 
 always the first himself to cry at their pathos. Poor Cos ! he was at 
 once brave and maudlin, humorous and an idiot ; always good-natured, 
 and sometimes almost trustworthy. Up to the last day of his life he 
 would drink with any man, and back any man's bill : and his end was 
 in a spunging-house, where the sheriff's officer, who took him, was fond 
 of him. 
 
 In his brief morning of life, Cos formed the delight of regimental 
 messes, and had the honour of singing his songs, bacchanalian and 
 sentimental, at the tables of the most illustrious generals and com- 
 manders-in-chief, in the course of v/hich period he drank three times 
 as much claret as was good for him, and spent his doubtful patrimony. 
 What became of him subsequently to his retirement from the army, is 
 no affair of ours. I take it, no foreigner understands the life of an 
 Irish gentleman without money, the way in which he manages to keep 
 afloat — the wind-raising conspiracies, in which he engages with heroes 
 as unfortunate as himself — the means by which he contrives, during 
 most days of the week, to get his portion of whisky-and-water : all 
 these are mysteries to us inconceivable : but suffice it to say, that 
 through all the storms of life Jack had floated somehow, and the lamp 
 of his nose had never gone out. 
 
 Before he and Pen had had a half hour's conversation, the Captain 
 managed to extract a couple of sovereigns from the young gentleman 
 for tickets for his daughter's benefit, which was to take place speedily ; 
 and was not a bond fide transaction such as that of the last year, when 
 poor Miss Fotheringay had lost fifteen shillings by her venture ; but 
 was an arrangement with the manager, by which the lady was to have
 
 46 PENDENNIS. 
 
 the sale of a certain number of tickets, keeping for herself a large 
 portion of the sum for which they were sold. 
 
 Pen had but two pounds in his purse, and he handed them over to 
 the Captain for the tickets ; he would have been afraid to offer more 
 lest he should offend the latter's delicacy, Costigan scrawled him an 
 order for a box, lightly slipped the sovereigns into his waistcoat, and 
 slapped his hand over the place where they lay. They seemed to 
 warm his old sides. 
 
 " 'Faith, sir," said he, " the bullion's scarcer with me than it used to 
 be, as is the case with many a good fellow, I won six hundtherd of 
 'em in a single night, sir, when me kind friend, his Royal Highness 
 the Duke of Kent, was in Gibralther," 
 
 Then it was good to see the Captain's behaviour at breakfast, 
 before the devilled turkey and the mutton-chops ! His stories poured 
 forth unceasingly, and his spirits rose as he chatted to the young men. 
 When he got a bit of sunshine, the old lazzarone basked in it; he 
 prated about his own affairs and past splendour, and all the lords, 
 generals, and Lord-Lieutenants he had ever known. He described 
 the death of his darling Bessie, the late Mrs. Costigan, and the 
 challenge he had sent to Captain Shanty Clancy, of the Slashers, for 
 looking rude at Miss Fotheringay as she was on her kyar in the 
 Phaynix; and then he described how the Captain apologized, gave a 
 dinner at the Kildare Street, where six of them drank twinty-one 
 bottles of claret, &c. He announced that to sit with two such noble 
 and generous young fellows was the happiness and pride of an old 
 soldier's existence ; and having had a second glass of curagoa, was so 
 happy that he began to cry. Altogether we should say that the 
 Captain was not a man of much strength of mind, or a very eligible 
 companion for youth ; but there are worse men, holding much better 
 places in life, and more dishonest, who have never committed half so 
 many rogueries as he. .They walked out, the Captain holding an arm 
 of each of his dear young friends, and in a maudlin state of content- 
 ment. He winked at one or two tradesmen's shops where, possibly, he 
 owed a bill, as much as to say, " See the company I'm in — sure I'll pay 
 you, my boy," — and they parted finally with Mr. Foker at a billiard- 
 room, where the latter had a particular engagement with some gentle- 
 men of Colonel Swallowtail's regiment. 
 
 Pen and the shabby Captain still walked the street together ; the 
 Captain, in his sly way, making inquiries about Mr, Foker's fortune 
 and station in life. Pen told him how Foker's father was a celebrated 
 brewer, and his mother was Lady Agnes Milton, Lord Rosherville's 
 daughter. The Captain broke out into a strain of exaggerated com- 
 pliment and panegyric about Mr. Foker, whose " native aristocracie," 
 he saidj " could be seen with the twinkling of an oi — and only served
 
 PENDENNIS. 47 
 
 to adawrun other qualities which he possessed, a foin intellect and a 
 generous heart." 
 
 Pen walked on, listening to his companion's prate, wondering, 
 amused, and puzzled. It had not as yet entered into the boy's 
 head to disbelieve any statement that was made to him ; and being 
 of a candid nature himself, he took naturally for truth what other people 
 told him. Costigan had never had a better listener, and was highly 
 flattered by the attentiveness and modest bearing of the young man. 
 
 So much pleased was he with the young gentleman, so artless, 
 honest, and cheerful did Pen seem to be, that the Captain finally 
 made him an invitation, which he very seldom accorded to young 
 men, and asked Pen if he would do him the fevor to enter his humble 
 abode, which was near at hand, where the Captain would have the 
 honour of inthrojuicing his young friend to his daughther. Miss 
 Fotheringay ? 
 
 Pen was so delightfully shocked at this invitation, that he thought 
 he should have dropped from the Captain's arm at first, and trembled 
 lest the other should discover his emotion. He gasped out a few 
 incoherent words, indicative of the high gratification he should have 
 in being presented to the lady for whose — for whose talents he had 
 conceived such an admiration — such an extreme admiration ; and 
 followed the Captain, scarcely knowing whither that gentleman led 
 him. He was going to see her ! He was going to see her ! In her 
 was the centre of the universe. She was the kernel of the world for 
 Pen. Yesterday, before he knew her, seemed a period ever so long 
 ago — a revolution was between him and that time, and a new world 
 about to begin. 
 
 The Captain conducted his young friend to that quiet little street 
 in Chatteris, called Prior's Lane, which lies close by Dean's Green 
 and the canons' houses, and is overlooked by the enormous towers of 
 the cathedral ; there the Captain dwelt modestly in the first floor of a 
 low gabled house, on the door of which was the brass-plate of " Creed, 
 Tailor and Robe-maker." Creed was dead, however. His widow 
 was a pew-opener in the cathedral hard by ; his eldest son was a 
 little scamp of a choir-boy, who played toss-halfpenny, led his little 
 brothers into mischief, and had a voice as sweet as an angel. A 
 couple of the latter were sitting on the door-step, and they jumped 
 up with great alacrity to meet their lodger, and plunged wildly, and 
 rather to Pen's surprise, at the swallow-tails of the Captain's dress- 
 coat ; for the truth is, that the good-natured gentleman, when he was 
 in cash, generally brought home an apple, or a piece of gingerbread 
 for these children. " Whereby the widdy never pressed me for rint 
 when not convanient," as he remarke'd afterwards to Pen, winking 
 knowingly, and laying a finger on his nose.
 
 48 PENDENNIS. 
 
 As Pen followed his companion up the creaking old stair, his 
 knees trembled under him. He could hardly see when he entered, 
 following the Captain, and stood in the room — in her room. He 
 saw something black before him, and waving as if making a curtsey, 
 and heard, but quite indistinctly, Costigan making a speech over him, 
 in which the Captain, with his usual magniloquence, expressed to 
 " me child " his wish to make her known to " his dear and admirable 
 young friend, Mr. Awther Pindinnis, a young gentleman of property 
 in the neighbourhood, a person of refoined moind, and emiable 
 manners, a sinsare lover of poethry, and a man possest of a feeling 
 and affectionate heart." 
 
 "It is very fine weather," Miss Fotheringay said, in an Irish 
 accent, and with a deep rich melancholy voice. 
 
 "Very," said Mr. Pendennis. In this romantic way their conver- 
 sation began ; and he found himself seated on a chair, and having 
 leisure to look at the young lady. 
 
 She looked stiU handsomer off the stage than before the lamps. 
 All her attitudes were naturally grand and majestical. If she went 
 and stood up against the mantel-piece her robe draped itself classically 
 round her ; her chin supported itself on her hand, the other lines of 
 her form arranged themselves in full harmonious undulations — she 
 looked like a muse in contemplation. If she sate dowTi on a cane- 
 bottomcd chair, her arm rounded itself over the back of the seat, 
 her hand seemed as if it ought to have a sceptre put into it, the folds 
 of her dress fell naturally round her in order : all her movements 
 were graceful and imperial. In the morning you could see her hair 
 was blue-black, her complexion of dazzling fairness, with the faintest 
 possible blush flickering, as it were, in her cheek. Her eyes were 
 gray, with prodigious long lashes ; and as for her mouth, Mr. Pen- 
 dennis has given me subsequently to understand, that it was of a 
 staring red colour, with which the most brilliant geranium, sealing-wax, 
 or Guardsman's coat, could not vie. 
 
 " And ver}' warm," continued this empress and Queen of Sheba. 
 
 Mr. Pen again assented, and the conversation rolled on in this 
 manner. She asked Costigan whether he had had a pleasant evening 
 at the George, and he recounted the supper and the tumblers of 
 punch. Then the father asked her how she had been employing the 
 morning. 
 
 " Bows came," said she, " at ten, and we studied Ophalia. It's 
 for the twenty-fourth, wlren I hope, sir, we shall have the honour of 
 seeing ye." 
 
 " Indeed, indeed, you will," Mr. Pendennis cried ; wondering that 
 she could say " Ophalia," and speak with an Irish inflection of voice 
 naturally, who had not the least Hibernian accent on the stage.
 
 PENDENNIS. 49 
 
 " I've secured 'um for your benefit, dear," said the Captain, tapping 
 his waistcoat pocket, wherein lay Pen's sovereigns, and winking at Pen 
 with one eye, at which the boy blushed. 
 
 " Mr. the gentleman's very obleeging," said Mrs. Haller. 
 
 " My name is Pendennis," said Pen, blushing.. " I — I— hope you'll 
 — you'll remember it." His heart thumped so as he made this audacious 
 declaration, that he almost choked in uttering it. 
 
 " Pendennis " — she answered slowly, and looking him full in the 
 eyes, with a glance so straight, so clear, so bright, so killing, with a 
 voice so sweet, so round, so low, that the word and the glance shot Pen 
 through and through, and perfectly transfixed him with pleasure. 
 
 " I never knew the name was so pretty before," Pen said. 
 
 " 'Tis a very pretty name," Ophelia said. " Pentweazle's not a 
 pretty name. Remember, papa, when we were on the Norwich Cir- 
 cuit, Young Pentweazle, who used to play second old men, and married 
 Miss Rancy, the Columbine; they're both engaged in London now, 
 at the Queen's, and get five pounds a week. Pentweazle wasn't his 
 real name. 'Twas Judkin gave it him, I don't know why. His name 
 was Harrington ; that is, his real name was Potts ; fawther a clergy- 
 man, very respectable. Harrington was in London, and got in debt. 
 Ye remember, he came out in Falkland, to Mrs. Bunce's Julia." 
 
 " And a pretty Julia she was," the Captain interposed ; " a woman 
 of fifty, and a mother of ten children! 'Tis you who ought to have been 
 Julia, or my name's not Jack Costigan." 
 
 " I didn't take the leading business then," Miss Fotheringay said 
 modestly ; " I wasn't fit for't till Bows taught me." 
 
 " True for you, my dear," said the Captain; and bending to Pen- 
 dennis, he added, " Rejuiced in circumstances, sir, I was for some time 
 a fencing-master in Dublin ; (there's only three men in the empire 
 could touch me with the foil once, but Jack Costigan's getting old and 
 stiff now, sir,) and my daughter had an engagement at the thayater 
 there; and 'twas there that my friend, Mr. Bows, gave her lessons, 
 and made her what ye see. What have ye done since Bows went, 
 Emily?" 
 
 " Sure Pve made a pie," Emily said, with perfect simplicity. She 
 pronounced it " poy." 
 
 " If ye'll try it at four o'clock, sir, say the word," said Costigan 
 gallantly. " That girl, sir, makes the best veal and ham pie in 
 England, and I think I can promise ye a glass of punch of the right 
 flavour." 
 
 Pen had promised to be home to dinner at six o'clock, but the 
 rascal thought he could accommodate pleasure and duty in this point, 
 and was only too eager to accept this invitation. He looked on with 
 delight and wonder whilst Ophelia busied herself about the room, 
 
 4
 
 50 PENDENNIS. 
 
 and prepared for the dinner. She arranged the glasses, and laid and 
 smoothed the little cloth, all which duties she performed with a quiet 
 grace and good humour, which enchanted her guest more and more. 
 The "poy" arrived from the baker's in the hands of one of the little 
 choir-boy's brothers at the proper hour ; and at four o'clock, Pen found 
 himself at dinner — actually at dinner with the handsomest woman in 
 all creation — with his first and only love, whom he had adored ever 
 since when ? — ever since yesterday, ever since for ever. He ate a crust 
 of her making, he poured her out a glass of beer, he saw her drink a 
 glass of punch — ^just one wine-glass full — out of the tumbler which she 
 mixed for her papa. She was perfectly good-natured, and offered to 
 mix one for Pendennis too. It was prodigiously strong; Pen had 
 never in his life drunk so much spirits and water. Was it the punch,- 
 or the punch-maker who intoxicated him ? 
 
 Pen tried to engage her in conversation about poetry and about 
 her profession. He asked her what she thought of Ophelia's madness, 
 and whether she was in love with Hamlet or not ? " In love with 
 such a little ojus wretch as that stunted manager of a Bingley ? " She 
 bristled with indignation at the thought. Pen explained it was not of 
 her he spoke, but of Ophelia of the play. " Oh, indeed ; if no offence 
 was meant, none was taken : but as for Bingley, indeed, she did not 
 value him — not that glass of punch." Pen next tried her on Kotzebue. 
 " Kotzebue ? who was he ? " — " The author of the play in which she 
 had been performing so admirably." " She did not know that — the 
 man's name at the beginning of the book was Thompson," she said. 
 Pen laughed at her adorable simplicity. He told her of the melan- 
 choly fate of the author of the play, and how Sand had killed him. It 
 was the first time in her life that Miss Costigan had ever heard of 
 Mr. Kotzebue's existence, but she looked as if she was ver}' much 
 interested, and her sympathy sufficed for honest Pen. 
 
 And in the midst of this simple conversation, the hour and a 
 quarter which poor Pen could afford to allow himself, passed away 
 only too quickly ; and he had taken leave, he was gone and away on 
 his rapid road homewards on the back of Rebecca. She was called 
 upon to show her mettle in the three journeys which she made 
 that day. 
 
 " What was that he was talking about, the madness of Hamlet, and 
 the theory of the great German critic on the subject ? " Emily asked of 
 her father. 
 
 " 'Deed then I don't know, IMilly dear," answered the Captain. 
 " We'll ask Bows when he comes." 
 
 " Anyhow, he's a nice, fair-spoken pretty young man,'' the lady 
 said : " how many tickets did he take of you 1 " 
 
 " 'Faith, then, he took six, and gev me two guineas, Milly," the
 
 PENDENNIS. 51 
 
 Captain said, " I suppose them young chaps is not too flush of 
 coin." 
 
 " He's full of book-learning," Miss Fotheringay continued. " Kot- 
 zebue ! He, he ! what a droll name indeed, now; and the poor fellow 
 killed by Saad, too ! Did ye ever hear such a thing ? I'll ask Bows 
 about it, papa dear." 
 
 " A queer death, sure enough," ejaculated the Captain, and changed 
 the painful theme. " 'Tis an elegant mare the young gentleman rides," 
 Costigan went on to say ; " and a grand breakfast, intirely, that young 
 Mister Foker gave us." 
 
 " He's good for two private boxes, and at least twenty tickets, I 
 should say," cried the daughter, a prudent lass, who always kept her 
 fine eyes on the main chance. 
 
 " I'll go bail of that," answered the Papa ; and so their conversation 
 continued awhile, until the tumbler of punch was finished ; and their 
 hour of departure soon came, too ; for at half-past six Miss Fotherin- 
 gay was to appear at the theatre again, whither her father always 
 accompanied her; and stood, as we have seen, in the side-scene 
 watching her, and drank spirits-and-water in the green-room with the 
 company there. 
 
 " How beautiful she is," thought Pen, cantering homewards. " How 
 simple and how tender! How charming it is to see a woman of her 
 genius busying herself with the humble offices of domestic life, cooking 
 dishes to make her old father comfortable, and brewing him drink ! 
 How rude it was of me to begin to talk about professional matters, and 
 how well she turned the conversation ! By-the-way, she talked about 
 professional matters herself ; but then with what fun and humour she 
 told the story of her comrade, Pentweazle, as he was called ! There 
 is no humour like Irish humour. Her father is rather tedious, but 
 thoroughly amiable ; and how fine of him, giving lessons in fencing 
 after he quitted the army, where he was the pet of the Duke of Kent ! 
 Fencing ! I should like to continue my fencing, or I shall forget what 
 Angelo taught me. Uncle Arthur always liked me to fence — he says 
 it is the exercise of a gentleman. Hang it. I'll take some lessons of 
 Captain Costigan. Go along, Rebecca— up the hill, old lady. Pen- 
 dennis, Pendennis— how she spoke the word ! Emily, Emily ! how 
 good, how noble, how beautiful, how perfect she is ! " 
 
 Now the reader, who has had the benefit of overhearing the entire 
 conversation which Pen had with Miss Fotheringay, can judge for 
 himself about the powers of her mind, and may perhaps be disposed 
 to think that she has not said anything astonishingly humorous or 
 intellectual in the course of the above interview. 
 
 But what did our Pen care ? He saw a pair of bright eyes, and he 
 believed in them— a beautiful image, and he fell down and worshipped
 
 52 PENDENNIS. 
 
 it. He supplied the meaning which her words wanted ; and created 
 the divinity which he loved. Was Titania the first who fell in love 
 with an ass, or Pygmalion the only, artist who has gone crazy about a 
 stone ? He had found her ; he had found what his soul thirsted after. 
 He flung himself into the stream and drank with all his might. Let 
 those who have been thirsty own how delicious that first draught is. 
 As he rode down the avenue towards home — Pen shrieked with 
 laughter as he saw the Reverend Mr. Smirke once more coming 
 demurely away from Fairoaks on his pony. Smirke had dawdled and 
 stayed at the cottages on the way, and then dawdled with Laura over 
 her lessons — and then looked at Mrs. Pendennis's gardens and im- 
 provements until he had perfectly bored out that lady : and he had 
 taken his leave at the very last minute without that invitation to 
 dinner which he fondly expected. 
 
 Pen was full of kindness and triumph. " What, picked up and 
 sound .'' " he cried out laughing. " Come along back, old fellow, and 
 eat my dinner — I have had mine : but we will have a bottle of the old 
 wine and drink her health, Smirke." 
 
 Poor Smirke turned the pony's head round, and jogged along with 
 Arthur. His mother was charmed to see him in such high spirits, and 
 welcomed Mr. Smirke for his sake, when Arthur said he had forced 
 the curate back to dine. He gave a most ludicrous account of the 
 play of the night before, and of the acting of Bingley the manager, 
 in his rickety Hessians, and the enormous Mrs. Bingley as the 
 Countess, in rumpled green satin and a Polish cap : he mimicked 
 them, and delighted his mother and little Laura, who clapped her 
 hands with pleasiire. 
 
 " And Mrs. Haller ? " said Mrs. Pendennis. 
 
 " She's a stunner, ma'am," Pen said, laughing, and using the words 
 of his revered friend, Mr. Foker. 
 
 " A -what, Arthur ? " asked the lady. 
 
 " What is a stunner, Arthur ? " cried Laura, in the same voice. 
 
 So he gave them a queer account of Mr. Foker, and how he used 
 to be called Vats and Grains, and by other contumelious names at 
 school : and how he was now exceedingly rich, and a Fellow Com- 
 moner at St. Boniface. But gay and communicative as he was. 
 Mr. Pen did not say one syllable about his ride to Chatteris that day, 
 or about the new friends whom he had made there. 
 
 When the two ladies retired, Pen, with flashing eyes, filled up two 
 great bumpers of Madeira, and looking Smirke full in the face said, 
 " Here's to her!" 
 
 " Here's to her," said the curate with a sigh, lifting the glass: and 
 emptying it, so that his face was a little pink when he put it 
 down.
 
 PENDENNIS. S3 
 
 Pen had even less sleep that night than on the night before. In 
 the morning, and almost before dawn, he went out and saddled that 
 unfortunate Rebecca himself, and rode her on the Downs like mad. 
 Again Love had roused him — and said, " Awake, Pendennis, I am 
 here." That charming fever — that delicious longing— and fire, and 
 uncertainty ; he hugged them to him — he would not have lost them 
 for all the world.
 
 54 PENDENNIS. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 CONTAINS BOTH LOVE AND WAR. 
 
 CICERO and Euripides did not occupy Mr. Pen much for some 
 time after this, and honest Mr. Smirke had a very easy time 
 with his pupil. Rebecca was the animal who suffered most in the 
 present state of Pen's mind, for, besides those days when he could 
 publicly announce his intention of going to Chatteris to take a fencing- 
 lesson, and went thither with the knowledge of his mother, whenever 
 he saw three hours clear before him, the young rascal made a rush for 
 the city, and found his way to Prior's Lane. He was as frantic with 
 vexation when Rebecca went lame, as Richard at Bosworth when his 
 horse was killed under him : and got deeply into the books of the man 
 who kept the hunting stables at Chatteris for the doctoring of his own, 
 and the hire of another animal. 
 
 Then, and perhaps once in a week, under pretence of going to read 
 a Greek play with Smirke, this young reprobate set off so as to'be in 
 time for the Competitor down coach, stayed a couple of hours in Chat- 
 teris, and returned on the Rival, which left for London at ten at night. 
 Once his secret was nearly lost by Smirke's simplicity, of whom Mrs. 
 Pendennis asked whether they had read a great deal the night before, 
 or a question to that effect. Smirke was about to tell the truth, that 
 he had never seen Mr. Pen at all, when the latter's boot-heel came 
 grinding down on I^Ir. Smirke's toe under the table, and warned the 
 curate not to betray him. 
 
 They had had conversations on the tender subject of course. There 
 must be a confidant and depositary somewhere. When informed, 
 under the most solemn vows of secrecy, of Pen's condition of mind, 
 the curate said, with no small tremor, "that he hoped it was no 
 unwoi'thy object — no unlawful attachment, which Pen had formed "■ — 
 for if so, the poor fellow felt it would be his duty to break his vow 
 and inform Pen's mother, and then there would be a quarrel, he felt, 
 with sickening apprehension, and he would never again have a chance 
 of seeing what he most liked in the world. 
 
 " Unlawful, unworthy ! " Pen bounced out at the curate "s question. 
 " She is as pure as she is beautiful ; I would give my heart to no other 
 woman. I keep the matter a secret in my family, because — because
 
 PENDENNIS. 55 
 
 — there are reasons of a weighty nature which I am not at liberty to 
 disclose. But any man who breathes a word against her purity insults 
 both her honour and mine, and — and dammy, I won't stand it." 
 
 Smirke, with a faint laugh, only said, " Well, well, don't call me 
 out, Arthur, for you know I can't fight : " but by this compromise the 
 wretched curate was put more than ever into the power of his pupil, 
 and the Greek and mathematics suffered correspondingly. 
 
 If the reverend gentleman had had much discernment, and looked 
 into the Poet's corner of the County Chronicle, as it arrived in the 
 Wednesday's bag, he might have seen " Mrs. Haller," " Passion and 
 Genius," " Lines to Miss Fotheringay, of the Theatre Royal," appearing 
 every week; and other verses of the most gloomy, thrilling, and pas- 
 sionate cast. But as these poems were no longer signed NEP by 
 their artful composer, but subscribed EROS ; neither the tutor nor 
 Helen, the good soul, who cut all her son's verses out of the paper, 
 knew that Nep was no other than that flaming Eros, who sang so 
 vehemently the charms of the new actress. 
 
 "Who is the lady," at last asked Mrs. Pendennis, "whom your 
 rival is always singing in the County Chronicle ? He writes something 
 Hke you, dear Pen, but yours is much the best. Have you seen Miss 
 Fotheringay ? " 
 
 Pen said yes, he had ; that night he went to see the " Stranger," 
 she acted Mrs. Haller. By the way, she was going to have a benefit, 
 and was to appear in Ophelia — suppose we were to go — Shakspeare 
 you know, mother — we can get horses from the Clavering Arms. 
 Little Laura sprang up with delight, she longed for a play. 
 
 Pen introduced " Shakspeare you know," because the deceased 
 Pendennis, as became a man of his character, professed an uncommon 
 respect for the bard of Avon, in whose works he safely said there was 
 more poetry than in all "Johnson's Poets" put together. And though 
 Mr. Pendennis did not much read the works in question, yet he 
 enjoined Pen to peruse them, and often said what pleasure he should 
 have, when the boy was of a proper age, in taking hini and mother to 
 see some good plays of the immortal poet. 
 
 The ready tears welled up in the kind mother's eyes as she 
 remembered these speeches of the man who was gone. She kissed 
 her son fondly, and said she would go. Laura jumped for joy. Was 
 Pen happy ? — was he ashamed ? As he held his mother to him, he 
 longed to tell her all, but he kept his counsel. He would see how his 
 mother liked her ; the play should be the thing, and he would try his 
 mother like Hamlet's. 
 
 Helen, in her good humour, asked Mr. Smirke to be of the party. 
 That ecclesiastic had been bred up by a fond parent at Clapham, who 
 had an objection to dramatic entertainments, and he had never yet
 
 56 PENDENNIS. 
 
 seen a play. But, Shakspeare ! — but to go with Mrs. Pendennis in 
 her carriage, and sit a whole night by her side ! — he could not resist 
 the idea of so much pleasure, and made a feeble speech, in which he 
 spoke of temptation and gratitude, and finally accepted Mrs. Pen- 
 dennis's most kind offer. As he spoke he gave her a look, which made 
 her exceedingly uncomfortable. She had seen that look more than 
 once, of late, pursuing her. He became more positively odious every 
 day in the widow's eyes. 
 
 We are not going to say a great deal about Pen's courtship of 
 Miss Fotheringay, for the reader has already had a specimen of her 
 conversation, much of which need surely not be reported. Pen sate 
 with her hour after hour, and poured forth all* his honest boyish soul 
 to her. Everything he knew, or hoped, or felt, or had read, or fancied, 
 he told to her. He never tired of talking and longing. One after 
 another, as his thoughts rose in his hot eager brain, he clothed them 
 in words, and told them to her. Her part of the tete-a-teie was not to 
 talk, but to appear as if she understood what Pen talked, and to look 
 exceedingly handsome and sympathising. The fact is, whilst he was 
 making one of his tirades, the lovely Emily, who could not compre- 
 hend a tenth part of his talk, had leisure to think about her own 
 affairs, and would arrange in her own mind how they should dress the 
 cold mutton, or how she would turn the black satin, or make herself 
 out of her scarf a bonnet like Miss Thackthwaite's new one, and so 
 forth. Pen spouted Byron and Moore; passion and poetry: her 
 business was to throw up her eyes, or fixing them for a moment on 
 his face, to cry, " Oh, 'tis beautiful ! Ah, how exquisite ! Repeat 
 those lines again." And off the boy went, and she returned to her 
 own simple thoughts about the turned gown, or the hashed mutton. 
 
 In fact Pen's passion was not long a secret from the lovely Emily 
 or her father. Upon his second visit, his admiration was quite evident 
 to both of them, and on his departure the old gentleman said to his 
 daughter, as he winked at her over his glass of grog, '"Faith, Milly 
 darling, I think ye've hooked that chap." 
 
 " Pooh, 'tis only a boy, papa dear," Milly remarked. " Sure he's 
 but a child." 
 
 '■ Ve've hooked 'um anyhow," said the Captain, " and let me tell 
 yc he's not a bad fish. I asked Tom at the George, and Flint, the 
 grocer, where his mother dales — fine fortune — drives in her chariot — 
 splendid park and grounds — Fairoaks Park — only son — property all 
 liis own at twenty-one — ye might go further and not fare so well, Miss 
 Fotheringay." 
 
 '• Them boys are mostly talk," said Milly, seriously. " Ye know at 
 Dublin how ye went on about young Poldoody, and I've a whole desk
 
 PENDENNIS. 57 
 
 full of verses he wrote me when he was in Trinity College ; but he 
 went abroad, and his mother married him to an Englishwoman." 
 
 " Lord Poldoody was a young nobleman ; and in them it's natural ; 
 and ye weren't in the position in which ye are now, Milly dear. But 
 ye mustn't encourage this young chap too much, for, bedad. Jack 
 Costigan won't have any thrifling with his daughter." 
 
 " No more will his daughter, papa, you may be sure of that" Milly 
 said. " A little sip more of the punch, — sure, 'tis beautiful. Ye 
 needn't be afraid about the young chap — I think I'm old enough to 
 take care of myself, Captain Costigan." 
 
 So Pen used to come day after day, rushing in and galloping away, 
 and growing more wild about the girl with every visit. Sometimes 
 the Captain was present at their meetings ; but having a perfect con- 
 fidence in his daughter, he was more often inclined to leave the young 
 couple to themselves, and cocked his hat over his eye, and strutted off 
 on some errand when Pen entered. How delightful those interviews 
 were ! The Captain's drawing-room was a low wainscoted room, 
 with a large window looking into the Dean's garden. There Pen sate 
 and talked — and talked to Emily, looking beautiful as she sate at her 
 work — looking beautiful and calm, and the sunshine came streaming 
 in at the great windows, and lighted up her superb face and form. In 
 the midst of the conversation, the great bell would begin to boom, and 
 he would pause smiling, and be silent until the sound of the vast music 
 died away— or the rooks in the cathedral elms would make a great 
 noise towards sunset — or the sound of the organ and the choristers 
 would come over the quiet air, and gently hush Pen's talking. 
 
 By the way, it must be said, that Miss Fotheringay, in a plain 
 shawl and a close bonnet and veil, went to church every Sunday of her 
 life, accompanied by her indefatigable father, who gave the responses 
 in a very rich and fine brogue, joined in the psalms and chanting, and 
 behaved in the most exemplary manner. 
 
 Little Bows, the house-friend of the family, was exceedingly wroth 
 at the notion of Miss Fotheringay's marriage with a stripling seven or 
 eight years her junior. Bows, who was a cripple, and owned that he 
 was a little more deformed even than Bingley the manager, so that he 
 could not appear on the stage, was a singular wild man of no small 
 talents and humour. Attracted first by Miss Fotheringay's beauty, he 
 began to teach her how to act. He shrieked out in his cracked voice 
 the parts, and his pupil learned them from his lips by rote, and 
 repeated them in her full rich tones. He indicated the attitudes, and 
 set and moved those beautiful arms of hers. Those who remember 
 this grand actress on the stage can recall how she used always pre- 
 cisely the same gestures, looks, and tones ; how she stood on the same 
 plank of the stage in the same position, rolled her eyes at the
 
 58 PENDENNIS. 
 
 same instant and to the same degree, and wept with precisely the 
 same heart-rending pathos and over the same pathetic syllable. And 
 after she had come out trembling with emotion before the audience, 
 and looking so exhausted and tearful that you fancied she would faint 
 with sensibility, she would gather up her hair the instant she was 
 behind the curtain, and go home to a mutton-chop and a glass of 
 brown stout ; and the harrowing labours of the day over, she went to 
 bed and snored as resolutely and as regularly as a porter. 
 
 Bows then was indignant at the notion that his pupil should throw 
 her chances away in life by bestowing her hand upon a little country 
 squire. As soon as a London manager saw her he prophesied that 
 she would get a London engagement, and a great success. The mis- 
 fortune was that the London managers had seen her. She had played 
 in London three years before, and had failed from utter stupidity. 
 Since then it was that Bows had taken her in hand and taught her 
 part after part. How he worked and screamed, and twisted, and 
 repeated lines over and over again, and with what indomitable 
 patience and dullness she followed him ! She knew that he made 
 her : and let herself be made. She was not grateful, or ungrateful, or 
 unkind, or ill-humoured. She was only stupid ; and Pen was madly 
 in love with her. 
 
 The post-horses from the Clavering Arms arrived in due time, and 
 carried the party to the theatre at Chatteris, where Pen was gratified 
 in perceiving that a tolerably large audience was assembled. The 
 young gentleman from Baymouth had a box, in the front of which 
 sate Mr, Foker and his friend Mr. Spavin splendidly attired in the 
 most full-blown evening costume. They saluted Pen in a cordial 
 manner, and examined his party, of which they approved, for little 
 Laura was a pretty little red-cheeked girl with a quantity of shining 
 brown ringlets, and Mrs. Pendennis, dressed in black velvet with the 
 diamond cross which she sported on great occasions, looked uncom- 
 monly handsome and majestic. Behind these sate Mr, Arthur, and 
 the gentle Smirke with the curl reposing on his fair forehead, and his 
 white tie in perfect order. He blushed to find himself in such a place 
 — but how happy was he to be there. He and Mrs. Pendennis 
 brought books of " Hamlet " with them to follow the tragedy, as is 
 the custom of honest country-folks who go to a play in state. Samuel, 
 coachman, groom, and gardener to Mrs. Pendennis, took his place in 
 the pit, where Mr. Foker's man was also visible. It was dotted with 
 non-commissioned officers of the Dragoons, whose band, by kind per- 
 mission of Colonel Swallowtail, were, as usual, in the orchestra ; and 
 that corpulent and distinguished warrior himself, with his Waterloo 
 medal and a number of his young men, made a handsome show in 
 the boxes.
 
 PENDENNIS. 59 
 
 "Who is that odd-looking person bowing to you, Arthur?" Mrs. 
 Pendennis asked of her son. 
 
 Pen blushed a great deal. " His name is Captain Costigan, ma'am," 
 he said — "a Peninsular officer." In fact it was the Captain in a new 
 shoot of clothes, as he called them, and with a large pair of white kid 
 gloves, one of which he waved to Pendennis, whilst he laid the other 
 sprawling over his heart and coat-buttons. Pen did not say any more. 
 And how was Mrs. Pendennis to know that Mr. Costigan was the 
 father of Miss Fothe^ringay ? 
 
 Mr. Hornbull, from London, was the Hamlet of the night, Mr. 
 Bingley modestly contenting himself with the part of Horatio, and 
 reserving his chief strength for William in " Black-Eyed Susan," which 
 was the second piece. 
 
 We have nothing to do with the play : except to say, that Ophelia 
 looked lovely, and performed with admirable wild pathos: laughing, 
 weeping, gazing wildly, waving her beautiful white arms, and flinging 
 about her snatches of flowers and songs with the most charming mad- 
 ness. What an opportunity her splendid black hair had of tossing 
 over her shoulders ! She made the most charming corpse ever seen ; 
 and while Hamlet and Laertes were battling in her grave, she was 
 looking out from the back scenes with some curiosity towards Pen's 
 box, and the family party assembled in it. 
 
 There was but one voice in her praise there. Mrs. Pendennis was 
 in ecstacies with her beauty. Little Laura was bewildered by the piece, 
 and the Ghost, and the play within the play : during which, as Hamlet 
 lay at Ophelia's knee. Pen felt that he would have liked to strangle 
 Mr. Hornbull, but cried out great praises of that beautiful young crea- 
 ture. Pen was charmed with the effect which she produced on his 
 mother — and the clergyman, for his part, was exceedingly enthusiastic. 
 
 When the curtain fell upon that group of slaughtered personages, 
 who are dispatched so suddenly at the end of " Hamlet," and whose 
 demise astonished poor little Laura not a little, there was an immense 
 shouting and applause from ail quarters of the house; the intrepid 
 Smirke, violently excited, clapped his hands, and cried out " Bravo, 
 bravo," as loud as the Dragoon officers themselves. These were 
 greatly moved, — ils s'agitaient sur leurs bancs, — to borrow a phrase 
 from our neighbours. They were led cheering into action by the portly 
 Swallowtail, who waved his cap — the non-commissioned officers in the 
 pit, of course, gallantly following their chiefs. There was a roar of 
 bravos rang through the house ; Pen bellowing with the loudest. 
 *' Fotheringay ! Fotheringay !" Messrs. Spavin and Foker giving the 
 view halloo from their box. Even Mrs. Pendennis began to wave 
 about her pocket-handkerchief, and little Laura danced, laughed, 
 clapped, and looked up at Pen with wonder.
 
 6o PENDENNIS. 
 
 HornbuU led the baiejiciaire fonvard, amidst bursts of enthusiasm — 
 and she looked so handsome and radiant, with her hair still over her 
 shoulders, that Pen hardly could contain himself for rapture : and he 
 leaned over his mother's chair, and shouted and hurrayed, and waved 
 his hat. It was all he could do to keep his secret from Helen, and not 
 say, " Look ! That's the woman I Isn't she peerless ? I tell you I love 
 her." But he disguised these feelings under an enormous bellowing 
 and hurraying. 
 
 As for Miss Fotheringay and her behaviour, the reader is referred 
 to a former page for an account of that. She went through precisely 
 the same business. She surveyed the house all round with glances 
 of gratitude ; and trembled, and almost sank with emotion, over her 
 favourite trap-door. She seized the flowers (Foker discharged a 
 prodigious bouquet at her, and even Smirke made a feeble shy with 
 a rose, and blushed dreadfully when it fell into the pit) — she seized 
 the flowers and pressed them to her swelling heart — &c. &c. — in a 
 word — we refer the reader to page 35. Twinkling in her breast poor 
 old Pen saw a locket which he had bought of Mr. Nathan in High 
 Street, with the last shilling he was worth, and a sovereign borrowed 
 from Smirke. 
 
 " Black-Eyed Susan " followed, at which sweet story our gentle- 
 hearted friends were exceedingly charmed and aff'ected : and in which 
 Susan, with a russet gown and a pink ribbon in her cap, looked to the 
 full as lovely as Ophelia. Bingley was great in William. Goll, as the 
 Admiral, looked like the figure-head of a seventy-four ; and Garbetts, 
 as Captain Boldweather, a miscreant who forms a plan for carrying off 
 Black-Eyed Susan, and waving an immense cocked hat, says, '' Come 
 what may, he luill be the ruin of her "—all these performed their parts 
 with their accustomed talent ; and it was with a sincere regret that all 
 our friends saw the curtain drop down and end that pretty and tender 
 story. 
 
 If Pen had been alone with his mother in the carriage as they 
 went home, he would have told her all that night ; but he sate on the 
 box in the moonshine smoking a cigar by the side of Smirke, who 
 warmed himself with a comforter. Mr. Poker's tandem and lamps 
 whirled by the sober old Clavering posters, as they were a couple of 
 miles on their road home, and Mr. Spavin saluted Mrs. Pendennis's 
 carriage with some considerable variations of Rule Britannia on the 
 key-bugle. 
 
 It happened two days after the above gaieties that the Dean of 
 Chatteris entertained a few select clerical friends at dinner at his 
 Deanery House. That they drank uncommonly good port wine, and 
 abused the Bishop over their dessert, are very likely matters, but with
 
 PENDENNIS. 6l 
 
 such we have nothing at present to do. Our friend Doctor Portman, 
 of Clavering, was one of the Dean's guests, and being a gallant man, 
 and seeing from his place at the mahogany, the Dean's lady walking 
 up and down the grass, with her children sporting around her, and her 
 pink parasol over her lovely head — the Doctor stept out of the French 
 windows of the dining-room into the lawn, which skirts that apart- 
 ment, and left the other white neckcloths to gird at my lord Bishop. 
 Then the Doctor went up and offered Mrs. Dean his arm, and they 
 sauntered over the ancient velvet lawn, which had been mowed and 
 rolled for immemorial Deans, in that easy, quiet, comfortable manner, 
 in which people of middle age and good temper walk after a good 
 dinner, in a calm golden summer evening, when the sun has but just 
 sunk behind the enormous cathedral towers, and the sickle-shaped 
 moon is growing every instant brighter in the heavens. 
 
 Now at the end of the Dean's garden, there is, as we have stated, 
 Mrs. Creed's house, and the windows of the first-floor room were open 
 to admit the pleasant summer air. A young lady of six-and-twenty, 
 whose eyes were perfectly wide open, and a luckless boy of eighteen, 
 blind with love and infatuation, were in that chamber together ; in 
 which persons, as we have before seen them in the same place, the 
 reader will have no difficulty in recognising Mr. Arthur Pendennis and 
 Miss Costigan. 
 
 The poor boy had taken the plunge. Trembling with passionate 
 emotion, his heart beating and throbbing fiercely, tears rushing forth 
 in spite of him, his voice almost choking with feeling, poor Pen had 
 said those words which he could withhold no more, and flung himself 
 and his whole store of love, and admiration, and ardour, at the feet of 
 this mature beauty. Is he the first who has done so? Have none 
 before or after him staked all their treasure of life, as a savage does 
 his land and possessions against a draught of the fair-skins' fire-water, 
 or a couple of bauble eyes ? 
 
 " Does your mother know of this, Arthur?" said Miss Fotheringay, 
 slowly. He seized her hand madly and kissed it a thousand times. 
 She did not withdraw it. " Does the old lady know it ?" Miss Costigan 
 thought to herself. " Well, perhaps she may." And then she remem- 
 bered what a handsome diamond cross Mrs. Pendennis had on the 
 night of the play, and thought, " Sure 'twill go in the family." 
 
 " Calm yourself, dear Arthur," she said, in her low rich voice, and 
 smiled sweetly and gravely upon him. Then, with her disengaged 
 hand, she put the hair lightly off his throbbing forehead. He was in 
 such a rapture and whirl of happiness that he could hardly speak. 
 At last he gasped out, " My mother has seen you and admires you 
 beyond measure. She will learn to love you soon : who can do other- 
 wise ? She will love you because I do."
 
 62 PENDEiXNTS. 
 
 " 'Deed then, I think you do," said Miss Costigan, perhaps with a 
 sort of pity for Pen. 
 
 Think he did ! Of course here Mr. Pen went off into a rhapsody, 
 which, as we have perfect command over our own feehngs, we have 
 no right to overhear. Let the poor boy fling out his simple heart at 
 the woman's feet, and deal gently with him. It is best to love wisely, 
 no doubt : but to love foolishly is better than not to be able to love at 
 all. Some of us can't: and are proud of our impotence too. 
 
 At the end of his speech, Pen again kissed the imperial hand with 
 rapture — and I believe it was at this very moment, and while Mrs. 
 Dean and Doctor Portman were engaged in conversation, that young 
 Master Ridley Roset, her son, pulled his mother by the back of her 
 capacious dress, and said — 
 
 " I say. Ma ! look up there " — and he waggled his innocent 
 head. 
 
 That was, indeed, a view from the Dean's garden such as seldom 
 is seen by Deans— or is written in Chapters. There was poor Pen 
 performing a salute upon the rosy fingers of his charmer, who received 
 the embrace with perfect calmness and good-humour. Master Ridley 
 looked up and grinned, little Miss Rosa looked at her brother, and 
 opened the mouth of astonishment. Mrs. Dean's countenance defied 
 expression, and as for Dr. Portman, when he beheld the scene, and 
 saw his prime favourite and dear pupil Pen, he stood mute with rage 
 and wonder. 
 
 Mrs. Haller spied the party below at the same moment, and gave 
 a start and a laugh. " Sure there's somebody in the Dean's garden," 
 she cried out ; and withdrew with perfect calmness, whilst Pen darted 
 away with his face glowing like coals. The garden party had re-entered 
 the house when he ventured to look out again. The sickle moon was 
 blazing bright in the heavens then, the stars were glittering, the bell 
 of the cathedral tolling nine, the Dean's guests (all save one, who had 
 called for his horse Dumpling, and ridden off early) were partaking of 
 tea and buttered cakes in Mrs. Dean's drawing-room — when Pen took 
 leave of Miss Costigan. 
 
 Pen arrived at home in due time afterwards, and was going to slip 
 off to bed, for the poor lad was greatly worn and agitated, and his 
 high-strung nerves had been at almost a maddening pitch — when a 
 summons came to him by John the old footman, whose countenance 
 bore a veiy ominous look, that his mother must see him below. 
 
 On this he tied on his neckcloth again, and went downstairs to 
 the drawing-room. There sate not only his mother, but her friend, the 
 Reverend Doctor Portman. Helen's face looked very pale by the light 
 of the lamp — the Doctor's was flushed, on the contran,-, and quivering 
 with anger and emotion.
 
 PENDENNIS. 63 
 
 Pen saw at once that there was a crisis, and that there had been a 
 discovery. " Now for it," he thought. 
 
 " Where have you been, Arthur.?" Helen said in a trembling voice. 
 
 " How can you look that — that dear lady, and a Christian clergy^ 
 man in the face, sir.?" bounced out the Doctor, in spite of Helen's 
 pale, appealing looks. "Where has he been? Where his mother's 
 son should have been ashamed to go. For your mother's an angel, 
 sir, an angel. How dare you bring pollution into her house, and make 
 that spotless creature wretched with the thoughts of your crime?" 
 
 "Sir!" said Pen. 
 
 " Don't deny it, sir," roared the Doctor. " Don't add lies, sir, to 
 your other infamy. I saw you myself, sir. I saw you from the Dean's 
 garden. I saw you kissing the hand of that infernal painted — " 
 
 " Stop," Pen said, clapping his fist on the table, till the lamp 
 flickered up and shook. " I am a very young man, but you will please 
 to remember that I am a gentleman — I will hear no abuse of that 
 lady." 
 
 " Lady, sir," cried the Doctor, " that a lady — you — you — you stand 
 in your mother's presence and call that — that woman a lady ! " — 
 
 " In anybody's presence," shouted out Pen. " She is worthy of any 
 place. She is as pure as any woman. She is as good as she is 
 beautiful. If any man but you insulted her, I would tell him. what I 
 thought; but as you are my oldest friend, I suppose you have the 
 privilege to doubt of my honour." 
 
 " No, no. Pen, dearest Pen," cried out Helen in an excess of joy. 
 " I told, I told you. Doctor, he was not — not what you thought:" and 
 the tender creature coming trembling forward flung herself on Pen's 
 shoulder. 
 
 Pen felt himself a man, and a match for all the Doctors in 
 Doctordom. He was glad this explanation had come. "You saw 
 how beautiful she was," he said to his mother, with a soothing, pro- 
 tecting air, like Hamlet with Gertrude in the play. " I tell you, dear 
 mother, she is as good. When you know her you will say so. She is 
 of all, except you, the simplest, the kindest, the most affectionate of 
 women. Why should she not be on the stage ?— She maintains her 
 father by her labour." 
 
 " Drunken old reprobate," growled the Doctor, but Pen did not 
 hear or heed. 
 
 " If you could see, as I have, how orderly her life is, how pure 
 and pious her whole conduct, you would — as I do — yes, as I do " — 
 (with a savage look at the Doctor)—" spurn the slanderer who dared 
 to do her wrong. Her father was an officer, and distinguished himself 
 in Spain. He was a friend of his Royal Highness the Duke of 
 Kent, and is intimately known to the Duke of Wellington, and some
 
 64 PENDENNIS. 
 
 of the first officers of our army. He has met my uncle Arthur at 
 Lord Hill's, he thinks. His own family is one of the most ancient 
 and respectable in Ireland, and indeed is as good as our own. The — 
 the Costigans were kings of Ireland." 
 
 "Why, God bless my soul," shrieked out the Doctor, hardly know- 
 ing whether to burst with rage or laughter, " you don't mean to say 
 you want to marry her ? " 
 
 Pen put on his most princely air. " What else, Dr. Portman," he 
 said, " do you suppose would be my desire ? " 
 
 Utterly foiled in his attack, and knocked down by this sudden 
 lunge of Pen's, the Doctor could only gasp out, " Mrs. Pendennis, 
 ma'am, send for the Major." 
 
 " Send for the Major ? with all my heart," said Arthur, Prince of 
 Pendennis and Grand Duke of Fairoaks, with a most superb wave of 
 the hand. And the colloquy terminated by the writing of those two 
 letters which were laid on Major Pendennis's breakfast-table, in 
 London, at the commencement of Prince Arthur's most veracious 
 histor}'.
 
 PENDENNIS. 65 
 
 CHAPTER VII, 
 
 IN WHICH THE MAJOR MAKES HIS APPEARANCE. 
 
 OUR acquaintance, Major Arthur Pendennis, arrived in due time 
 at Fairoaks, after a dreary night passed in the mail-coach, where 
 a stout fellow-passenger, swelling preternaturally with great -coats, 
 had crowded him into a corner, and kept him awake by snoring 
 indecently ; where a widow lady, opposite, had not only shut out the 
 fresh air by closing all the windows of the vehicle, but had filled the 
 interior with fumes of Jamaica rum and water, which she sucked 
 perpetually from a bottle in her reticule ; where, whenever he caught 
 a brief moment of sleep, the twanging of the horn at the turnpike 
 gates, or the scuffling of his huge neighbour wedging him closer 
 and closer, or the play of the widow's feet on his own tender toes, 
 speedily woke up the poor gentleman to the horrors and realities of 
 life — -a life which has passed away now, and become impossible, and 
 only lives in fond memories. Eight miles an hour, for twenty or 
 five-and-twenty hours, a tight mail-coach, a hard seat, a gouty 
 tendency, a perpetual change of coachmen grumbling because you 
 did not fee them enough, a fellow-passenger partial to spirits-and- 
 water, — who has not borne these evils in the jolly old times .'' and 
 how could people travel under such difficulties .'' And yet they did. 
 Night and morning passed, and the Major, with a yellow face, a 
 bristly beard, a wig out of curl, and strong rheumatic griefs shooting 
 through various limbs of his uneasy body, descended at the little 
 lodge-gate at Fairoaks, where the porteress and gardener's wife 
 reverentially greeted him ; and, still more respectfully, Mr. Morgan, 
 his man. 
 
 Helen was on the look-out for this expected guest, and saw him 
 from her window. But she did not come forward immediately to 
 greet him. She knew the Major did not like to be seen at a surprise, 
 and required a little preparation before he cared to be visible. Pen, 
 when a boy, had incurred sad disgrace, by carrying off from the 
 Major's dressing-table a little morocco box, which it must be confessed 
 contained the Major's back teeth, which he naturally would leave out 
 of his jaws in a jolting mail-coach, and without which he would not 
 choose to appear. Morgan, his man, made a mystery of mystery o( 
 
 5
 
 66 FEXDEXNIS. 
 
 his wigs : curling them in private places : introducing them privily to 
 his master's room ; — nor without his head of hair would the Major 
 care to show himself to any member of his family, or any acquaint- 
 ance. He went to his apartment then and supplied these deficiencies ; 
 he groaned, and moaned, and wheezed, and cursed Morgan through 
 his toilet, as an old buck will, who has been up all night with a rheu- 
 matism, and has a long duty to perform. And finally being belted, 
 curled, and set straight, he descended upon the drawing-room, with a 
 grave majestic air, such as befitted one who was at once a man of 
 business and a man of fashion. 
 
 Pen was not there, however; only Helen, and little Laura sewing 
 at her knees ; and to whom he never presented more than a forefinger, 
 as he did on this occasion after saluting his sister-in-law. Laura took 
 the finger trembling and dropped it — and then fled out of the room. 
 Major Pendennis did not want to keep her, or indeed to have her in 
 the house at all, and had his private reason for disapproving of her ; 
 which we may mention on some future occasion. Meanwhile Laura 
 disappeared, and wandered about the premises seeking for Pen : whom 
 she presently found in the orchard,, pacing up and down a walk there 
 in earnest conversation with Mr. Smirke. He was so occupied that he 
 did not hear Laura's clear voice singing out, until Smirke pulled him 
 by the coat, and pointed towards her as she came running. 
 
 She ran up and put her hand into his. " Come in, Pen," she said, 
 " there's somebody come ; uncle Arthurs come." 
 
 " He is, is he?" said Pen, and she felt him grasp her little hand. 
 He looked round at Smirke with uncommon fierceness, as much as to 
 say, I am ready for him or any man — Mr. Smirke cast up his eyes as 
 usual, and heaved a gentle sigh. 
 
 " Lead on, Laura," Pen said, with a half fierce, half comic air — 
 " Lead on, and say I wait upon my uncle." But he was laughing in 
 order to hide a great an.xiety : and was screwing his courage inwardly 
 to face the ordeal which he knew was now before him. 
 
 Pen had taken Smirke into his confidence in the last two days, 
 and after the outbreak attendant on the discovery of Doctor Portman, 
 and during every one of those forty-eight hours which he had passed 
 in Mr. Smirke's society, had done nothing but talk to his tutor about 
 Miss Fotheringay — Miss Emily Fotheringay — Emily, «S:c., to all which 
 talk Smirke listened without difficulty, for he was in love himself, 
 most anxious in all things to propitiate Pen, and indeed ver}- much 
 liimself enraptured by the personal charms of this goddess, whose 
 like, never having been before at a theatrical representation, he had 
 not beheld until now. Pen's fire and volubility, his hot eloquence 
 and rich poetical tropes and figures, his manly heart, kind, ardent, 
 and hopeful, refusing to see any defects in the person he loved, any
 
 PENDENNIS. 67 
 
 difficulties in their position that he might not overcome, had half con- 
 vinced Mr. Smirke that the arrangement proposed by Mr. Pen was a 
 very feasible and prudent one, and that it would be a great comfort to 
 have Emily settled at Fairoaks, Captain Costigan in the yellow room, 
 established for life there, and Pen married at eighteen. 
 
 And it is a fact that in these two days, the boy had almost talked 
 over his mother, too ; had parried all her objections one after another 
 with that indignant good sense which is often the perfection of 
 absurdity ; and had brought her almost to acquiesce in the belief that 
 if the marriage was doomed in heaven, why doomed it was — that if 
 the young woman was a good person, it was all that she for her part 
 had to ask ; and rather to dread the arrival of the guardian uncle who 
 she foresaw would regard Mr. Pen's marriage in a manner very 
 different to that simple, romantic, honest, and utterly absurd way, in 
 which the widow was already disposed to look at questions of this 
 sort. Helen Pendennis was a country-bred woman, and the book of 
 life, as she interpreted it, told her a different story to that page which 
 is read in cities. It pleased her (with that dismal pleasure which the 
 idea of sacrificing themselves gives to certain women), to think of the 
 day when she would give up all to Pen, and he should bring his wife 
 home, and she would surrender the keys and the best bed-room, and 
 go and sit at the side of the table, and see him happy. What did she 
 want in life, but to see the lad prosper ? As an empress was certainly 
 not too good for him, and would be honoured by becoming Mrs. Pen ; 
 so if he selected humble Esther instead of Queen Vashti, she would 
 be content with his lordship's choice. Never mind how lowly or 
 poor the person might be who was to enjoy that prodigious honour, 
 Mrs. Pendennis was willing to bow before her and welcome her, and 
 yield her up the first place. But an actress — a mature woman, who 
 had long ceased blushing except with rouge, as she stood under the 
 eager glances of thousands of eyes — an illiterate and ill-bred person, 
 very likely, who must have lived with light associates, and have heard 
 doubtful conversation — Oh ! it was hard that such a one should be 
 chosen, and that the matron should be deposed to give place to such 
 a Sultana. 
 
 ■ All these doubts the widow laid before Pen during the two days 
 which had of necessity to elapse ere the uncle came down ; but he met 
 them with that happy frankness and ease which a young gentleman 
 exhibits at his time of hfe, and routed his mother's objections with 
 infinite satisfaction to himself. Miss Costigan was a paragon of virtue 
 and delicacy ! she was as sensitive as the most timid maiden ; she was 
 as pure as the unsullied snow ; she had the finest manners, the most 
 graceful wit and genius, the most charming refinement, and justness 
 of appreciation in all matters of taste ; she had the most admirable
 
 68 PENDENNIS. 
 
 temper and devotion to her father, a good old gentleman of high family 
 and fallen fortunes, who had lived, however, with the best society in 
 Europe: he was in no hurry, and could afford to wait any time — till he 
 was one-and-twenty. But he felt (and here his face assumed an awful 
 and harrowing solemnity) that he was engaged in the one only passion 
 of his life, and that DEATH alone could close it. 
 
 Helen told him, with a sad smile and a shake of the head, that 
 people survived these passions, and as for long engagements con- 
 tracted between very young men and old women — she knew an 
 instance in her own family — Laura's poor father was an instance — 
 how fatal they were. 
 
 Mr. Pen, however, was resolved that death must be his doom in 
 case of disappointment, and rather than this — rather than baulk him 
 in fact— this lady would have submitted to any sacrifice or personal 
 pain, and would have gone down on her knees and have kissed the 
 feet of a Hottentot daughter-in-law. 
 
 Arthur knew his power over the widow, and the young tyrant was 
 touched whilst he exercised it. In those two days he brought her 
 almost into submission, and patronized her very kindly; and he 
 passed one evening with the lovely pie-maker at Chatteris, in which 
 he bragged of his influence over his mother ; and he spent the other 
 night in composing a most flaming and conceited copy of verses to 
 his divinity, in which he vowed, like Montrose, that he would make 
 her famous with his sword and glorious by his pen, and that he would 
 love her as no mortal woman had been adored since the creation of 
 womankind. 
 
 It was on that night, long after midnight, that wakeful Helen, 
 passing stealthily by her son's door, saw a light streaming through the 
 chink of the door into the dark passage, and heard Pen tossing and 
 tumbling and mumbling verses in his bed. She waited outside for a 
 while, anxiously listening to him. In infantile fevers and early boyish 
 illnesses, many a night before, the kind soul had so kept watch. She 
 turned the lock very softly now, and went in so gently, that Pen for a 
 moment did not see her. His face was turned from her. His papers 
 on his desk were scattered about, and more were lying on the bed 
 round him. He was biting a pencil and thinking of rhymes and all 
 sorts of follies and passions. He was Hamlet jumping into Ophelia's 
 grave : he was the Stranger taking Mrs. Haller to his arms, beautiful 
 Mrs. Haller, with the raven ringlets falling over her shoulders. 
 Despair and Byron, Thomas Moore and all the Loves of the Angels. 
 Waller and Herrick, Beranger and all the love-songs he had ever 
 read, were working and seething in this young gentleman's mind, and 
 he was at the very height and paroxysm of the imaginative phrensy. 
 when his mother found him.
 
 PENDENNIS. 69 
 
 " Arthur," said the mother's soft silver voice : and he started up 
 and turned round. He clutched some of the papers and pushed them 
 under the pillow. 
 
 " Why don't you go to sleep, my dear .'' " she said, with a sweet 
 tender smile, and sate down on the bed and took one of his hot hands. 
 
 Pen looked at her wildly for an instant — " I couldn't sleep," he said 
 — " I — I was — I was writing." — And hereupon he flung his arms round 
 her neck and said, " O mother! I love her, I love her !'' — How could 
 such a kind soul as that help soothing and pitying him ? The gentle 
 creature did her best : and thought with a strange wonderment and 
 tenderness, that it was only yesterday that he was a child in that bed: 
 and how she used to come and say her prayers over it before he woke 
 upon holiday mornings. 
 
 They were very grand verses, no doubt, although Miss Fotheringay 
 did not understand them ; but old Cos, with a wipk and a knowing 
 finger on his nose, said, " Put them up with th' bother letthers, Milly 
 darling. Poldoody's pomes was nothing to this." So Milly locked up 
 the manuscripts. 
 
 When then, the Major being dressed and presentable, presented 
 himself to Mrs. Pendennis, he found in the course of ten minutes' 
 colloquy that the poor widow was not merely distressed at the idea 
 of the marriage contemplated by Pen, but actually more distressed at 
 thinking that the boy himself was unhappy about it, and that his uncle 
 and he should have any violent altercation on the subject. She 
 besought Major Pendennis to be very gentle with Arthur : " He 
 has a very high spirit, and will not brook unkind words," she hinted. 
 " Doctor Portman spoke to him rather roughly — and I must own 
 unjustly, the other night — for my dearest boy's honour is as high 
 as any mother can desire — but Pen's answer quite frightened me, it 
 was so indignant. Recollect he is a man now ; and be very — very 
 cautious," said the widow, laying a fair long hand on the Major's 
 sleeve. 
 
 He took it up, kissed it gallantly, and looked in her alarmed face 
 with wonder, and a scorn which he was too polite to show. '■'■ Bon 
 Dieu!" thought the old negotiator, " the boy has actually talked the 
 woman round, and she'd get him a wife as she would a toy if Master 
 cried for it. Why arc there no such things as lettrcs-dc-cacJiet — and a 
 Bastille for young fellows of family ?" The Major lived in such good 
 company that he might be excused for feeling like an Earl. — He kissed 
 the widow's timid hand, pressed it in both his, and laid it down on the 
 table with one of his own over it, as he smiled and looked her in 
 the face. 
 
 " Confess,-' said he, " now, that you are thinking how you possibly 
 can make it up to your conscience to let the boy have his own way?"
 
 70 PENDENNIS. 
 
 She blushed, and was moved in the usual manner of females. " I 
 am thinking that he is very unhappy — and I am too — " 
 
 " To contradict him or to let him have his own wish ? " asked the 
 other; and added, with great comfort to his inward self, " I'm d — d if 
 he shall." 
 
 " To think that he should have formed so foolish and cruel and fatal 
 an attachment," the widow said, " which can but end in pain whatever 
 be the issue." 
 
 " The issue shan't be marriage, my dear sister," the Major said 
 resolutely. " We're not going to have a Pendennis, the head of the 
 house, marry a strolling mountebank from a booth. No, no, we won't 
 marr>' into Greenwich Fair, ma'am." 
 
 "If the match is broken suddenly off," the widow interposed, " I 
 don't know what may be the consequence. I know Arthur's ardent 
 temper, the intensity of his affections, the agony of his pleasures and 
 disappointments, and I tremble at this one if "it must be. Indeed, 
 indeed, it must not come on him too suddenly." 
 
 " My dear madam," the Major said, with an air of the deepest com- 
 miseration, " I've no doubt Arthur will have to suffer confoundedly 
 before he gets over the little disappointment. But is he, think you, 
 the only person who has been so rendered miserable ? " 
 
 " No, indeed," said Helen, holding down her eyes. She was 
 thinking of her own case, and was at that moment seventeen again, 
 and most miserable. 
 
 " I, myself," whispered her brother-in-law, " have undergone a 
 disappointment in early life. A young woman with fifteen thousand 
 pounds, niece to an Earl — most accomplished creature — a third of her 
 money would have run up my promotion in no time, and I should 
 have been a lieutenant-colonel at thirty : but it might not be. I was 
 but a penniless lieutenant: her parents interfered: and I embarked 
 for India, where I had the honour of being secretary- to Lord Buckley, 
 when Commander-in-Chief— without her. \\Tiat happened ? We 
 returned our letters, sent back our locks of hair (the Major here passed 
 his fingers through his •n'ig), we suffered — but we recovered. She is 
 now a baronet's wife with thirteen grown-up children ; altered, it is 
 true, in person ; but her daughters remind me of what she was, and 
 the third is to be presented early next week." 
 
 Helen did not answer. She was still thinking of old times. I 
 suppose if one lives to be a hundred, there are certain passages of 
 one's early life whereof the recollection will always cany us back to 
 youth again, and that Helen was thinking of one of these. 
 
 " Look at my own brother, my dear creature," the Major continued 
 gallantly: "he himself, you know, had a little disappointment when 
 he started in the — the medical profession — an eligible opportunity
 
 PENDENNIS. 71 
 
 presented itself. Miss Balls, I remember the name, was daughter of 
 an apoth — a practitioner in very large practice ; my brother had very 
 nearly succeeded in his suit. But difficulties arose : disappointijients 
 supervened, and — and I am sure he had no reason to regret the dis- 
 appointment which gave him this hand," said the Major, and he once 
 more politely pressed Helen's fingers. 
 
 " Those marriages between people of such different rank and age," 
 said Helen, " are sad things. I have known them produce a great 
 deal of unhappiness. — Laura's father, my cousin, who— who was 
 brought up with me" — she added, in a low. voice, " was an instance of 
 that." 
 
 " Most injudicious," cut in the Major. " I don't know anything 
 more painful than for a man to marry his superior in age or his inferior 
 in station. Fancy marrying a woman of a low rank of life, and having 
 your house filled with her confounded tag-rag-and-bobtail relations ! 
 Fancy your wife attached to a mother who dropped her h's, or called 
 Maria Marire ! How are you to introduce her into society ? My dear 
 Mrs. Pendeimis, I will name no names, but in the very best circles 
 of London society I have seen men suffering the most excruciating 
 agony, I have known them to be cut, to be lost utterly, from the 
 vulgarity of their wives' connections. What did Lady Snapperton do 
 last year at her dejeiine dansant after the Bohemian Ball ? She told 
 Lord Brouncker that he might bring his daughters or send them with 
 a proper chaperon, but that she would not receive Lady Brouncker : 
 who was a druggist's daughter, or some such thing, and as Tom Wag 
 remarked of her, never wanted medicine certainly, for she never had 
 an h in her life. Good Ged, what would have been the trifling pang 
 of a separation in the first instance to the enduring infliction of a con- 
 stant vihalliance and intercourse with low people .''" 
 
 " What, indeed ! " said Helen, dimly disposed towards laughter, 
 but yet checking the inclination, because she remembered in what 
 prodigious respect her deceased husband held Major Pendennis and 
 his stories of the great world. 
 
 " Then this fatal woman is ten years older than that silly young 
 scapegrace of an Arthur. What happens in such cases, my dear 
 creature ? I don't mind telling you now we are alone : that in the 
 highest state of society, misery, undeviating misery, is the result. 
 Look at Lord Clodworthy come into a room with his wife — why, good 
 Ged, she looks like Clodworthy's mother. What's the case between 
 Lord and Lady Willowbank, whose love match was notorious .'' He 
 has already cut her down twice when she has hanged herself out of 
 jealousy for Mademoiselle de Sainte Cunegonde, the dancer j and 
 mark my words, good Ged, one day he'll not cut the old woman down. 
 No, my dear madam, you are not in the world, but 1 am: you are a
 
 72 PENDENNIS. 
 
 little romantic and sentimental (you know you are — women with those 
 large beautiful eyes always are) ; you must leave this matter to my 
 experience. Marry this woman ! Marry at eighteen an actress of 
 thirty — bah bah ! — I would as soon he sent into the kitchen and 
 married the cook." 
 
 " I know the evils of premature engagements," sighed out Helen : 
 and as she has made this allusion no less than thrice in the course of 
 the above conversation, and seems to be so oppressed with the notion 
 of long engagements and unequal marriages, and as the circumstance 
 we have to relate will explain what perhaps some persons are anxious 
 to know, namely who little Laura is, who has appeared more than 
 once before us, it will be as well to clear up these points in another 
 chapter.
 
 PENDENNIS. 73 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 IN WHICH PEN IS KEPT WAITING AT THE DOOR, WHILE THE 
 READER IS INFORMED WHO LITl'LE LAURA WAS. 
 
 ONCE upon a time, then, there was a young gentleman of Cam- 
 bridge University who came to pass the long vacation at the 
 village where young Helen Thistlewood was living with her mother, 
 the widow of the lieutenant slain at Copenhagen. This gentleman, 
 whose name was the Reverend Francis Bell, was nephew to Mrs. 
 Thistlewood, and by consequence, own cousin to Miss Helen, so that 
 it was very right that he should take lodgings in his aunt's house, who 
 lived in a very small way; and there he passed the long vacation, 
 reading with three or four pupils who accompanied him to the village. 
 Mr. Bell was fellow of a college, and famous in the University for his 
 learning and skill as a tutor. 
 
 His two kinswomen understood pretty early that the reverend 
 gentleman was engaged to be married, and was only waiting for a 
 college living to enable him to fulfil his engagement. His intended 
 bride was the daughter of another parson, who had acted as Mr. Bell's 
 own private tutor in Bell's early life, and it was whilst under 
 Mr. Coacher's roof, indeed, and when only a boy of seventeen or 
 eighteen years of age, that the impetuous young Bell had flung himself 
 at the feet of Miss Martha Coacher, whom he was helping to pick peas 
 in the garden. On his knees, before those peas and her, he pledged 
 himself to an endless affection. 
 
 Miss Coacher was by many years the young fellow's senior : and 
 her own heart had been lacerated by many previous disappointments 
 in the matrimonial line. No less than three pupils of her father had 
 trifled with those young affections. The apothecary of the village had 
 despicably jilted her. The dragoon officer, with whom she had danced 
 so many many times during that happy season which she passed at 
 Bath with her gouty grandmamma, one day gaily shook his bridle- 
 rein and galloped away, never to return. Wounded by the shafts of 
 repeated ingratitude, can it be wondered at that the heart of Martha 
 Coacher should pant to find rest somewhere ? She listened to the 
 proposals of the gawky gallant honest boy, with great kindness and 
 good-humour; at the end of his speech she said, " Law, Bell, I'm sure
 
 74 PENDENXIS. 
 
 you are too young to think of such things ;" but intimated that she too 
 would revolve them in her own virgin bosom. She could not refer 
 j\Ir. Bell to her mamma, for Mr. Coacher was a widower, and being 
 immersed in his books, w^as of course unable to take the direction of so 
 frail and wondrous an article as a lady's heart, which Miss Martha 
 had to manage for herself. 
 
 A lock of her hair tied up in a piece of blue ribbon, conveyed to the 
 happy Bell the result of the Vestal's conference with herself. Thrice 
 before had she snipt off one of her auburn ringlets, and given them 
 away. The possessors were faithless, but the hair had gro\\Ti again : 
 and Martha had indeed occasion to say that men were deceivers, when 
 she handed over this token of love to the simple boy. 
 
 Number 6, however, was an exception to fonner passions — Francis 
 Bell was the most faithful of lovers. When his time arrived to go to 
 college, and it became necessary to acquaint Mr. Coacher of the 
 arrangements that had been made, the latter cried, " God bless my 
 soul, I hadn't the least idea what was going on ; "' as was indeed very 
 likely, for he had been taken in three times before in precisely a 
 similar manner ; and Francis went to the University resolved to conquer 
 honours, so as to be able to lay them at the feet of his beloved Martha, 
 
 This prize in view made him labour prodigiously. News came, 
 term after term, of the honours he won. He sent the prize-books for 
 his college essays to old Coacher, and his silver declamation cup to 
 Miss Martha. In due season he was high among the Wranglers, and 
 a fellow of his college ; and during all the time of these transactions 
 a constant tender correspondence was kept up with Miss Coacher, to 
 whose influence, and perhaps with justice, he attributed the successes 
 which he had won. 
 
 By the time, however, when the Rev. Francis Bell, M.A., and 
 Fellow and Tutor of his College, was twenty-six years of age, it hap- 
 pened that' Miss Coacher was thirty-four, nor had her charms, her 
 manners, or her temper improved since that sunny day in the spring- 
 time of life when he found her picking peas in the garden. Having 
 achieved his honours, he relaxed in the ardour of his studies, and his 
 judgment and tastes also perhaps became cooler. The sunshine of 
 the pea-garden faded away from Miss Martha, and poor Bell found 
 himself engaged — and his hand pledged to that bond in a thousand 
 letters — to a coarse, ill-tempered, ill-favoured, ill-mannered, middle- 
 aged woman. 
 
 It was in consequence of one of many altercations (in which 
 Martha's eloquence shone, and in which therefore she was frequently 
 pleased to indulge), that Francis refused to take his pupils to Bear- 
 leader's Green, where Mr. Coacher's living was, and where Bell was 
 in the habit of spending the summor : and he bethought him that he
 
 PENDENNIS. 75 
 
 would pass the vacation at his aunt's village, which he had not seen 
 for many years — not since little Helen was a girl, and used to sit on 
 his knee. Down then he came and lived with them. Helen was 
 grown a beautiful young woman now. The cousins were nearly four 
 months together, from June to October. They walked in the summer 
 evenings : they met in the early morn. They read out of the same 
 book when the old lady dozed at night over the candles. What little 
 Helen knew, Frank taught her. She sang to him : she gave her artless 
 heart to him. She was aware of all his story. Had he made any 
 secret ? — had he not shown the picture of the woman to whom he was 
 engaged, and with a blush, — her letters, hard, eager, and cruel ? — The 
 days went on and on, happier and closer, with more kindness, more 
 confidence, and more pity. At last one morning in October came 
 when Francis went back to college, and the poor girl felt that her 
 tender heart was gone with him. 
 
 Frank too wakened up from the delightful midsummer-dream to 
 the horrible reality of his own pain. He gnashed and tore at the 
 chain which bound him. He was frantic to break it and be free. 
 Should he confess ? — give his savings to the woman to whom he was 
 bound, and beg his release? — there was time yet — he temporized. No 
 living might fall in for years to come. The cousins went on corre- 
 sponding sadly and fondly : the betrothed woman, hard, jealous, and 
 dissatisfied, complaining bitterly, and with reason, of her Francis's 
 altered tone. 
 
 At last things came to a crisis, and the new attachment was dis- 
 covered. Francis owned it, cared not to disguise it, rebuked Martha 
 with her violent temper and angry imperiousness, and, worst of all, 
 . with her inferiority and her age. 
 
 Her reply was, that if he did not keep his promise she would carry 
 his letters into every court in the kingdom — letters in which his love 
 was pledged to her ten thousand times ; and, after exposing him to the 
 world as the perjurer and traitor he was, she would kill herself. 
 
 Frank had one more interview with Helen, whose mother was dead 
 then, and who was living companion with old Lady Pontypool, — one 
 more interview, where it was resolved that he was to do his duty ; that 
 is, to redeem his vow ; that is, to pay a debt cozened from him by a 
 sharper ; that is, to make two honest people miserable. So the two 
 judged their duty to be, and they parted. 
 
 The living fell in only too soon ; but yet Frank Bell was quite a 
 grey and worn-out man when he was inducted into it. Helen wrote 
 him a letter on his marriage, beginning, " My dear cousin," and ending 
 " always truly yours." She sent him back the other letters, and the 
 lock of his hair — all but a small piece. She had it in her desk when 
 she was talking to the Major.
 
 76 PENDENNIS. I 
 
 Bell lived for three or four years in his living, at the end of which 
 time, the Chaplainship of Coventry Island falling vacant, Frank applied 
 for it privately, and having procured it, announced the appointment . 
 to his wife. She objected, as she did to everything. He told her 1 
 bitterly that he did not want her to come : so she went. Bell went ' 
 out in Governor Crawley's time, and was very intimate with that I 
 gentleman in his later years. And it was in Coventry Island, years 
 after his own marriage, and five years after he had heard of the birth 
 of Helen's boy, that his own daughter was born. 
 
 She was not the daughter of the first Mrs. Bell, who died of island 
 fever very soon after Helen Pendennis and her husband, to whom 
 Helen had told everything, wrote to inform Bell of the birth of their 
 child. " I was old, was I ? " said Mrs. Bell the first ; " I was old, and 
 her inferior, was I ? but I married you, Mr. Bell, and kept you from 
 marrying her ! " and hereupon she died. Bell married a colonial lady, 
 whom he loved fondly. But he was not doomed to prosper in love ; 
 and, this lady dying in child-birth, Bell gave up too : sending his little 
 girl home to Helen Pendennis and her husband, with a parting prayer 
 that they would befriend her. 
 
 The little thing came to Fairoaks from Bristol, which is not very 
 far off, dressed in black, and in company of a soldier's wife, her nurse, 
 at parting from whom she wept bitterly. But she soon dried up her 
 grief under Helen's motherly care. 
 
 Round her neck she had a locket with hair, which Helen had 
 given, ah how many years ago ! to poor Francis, dead and buried. 
 This child was all that was left of him, and she cherished, as so tender 
 a creature would, the legacy which he had bequeathed to her. The 
 girl's name, as his dying letter stated, was Helen Laura. But John 
 Pendennis, though he accepted the trust, was always rather jealous 
 of the orphan ; and gloomily ordered that she should be called by her 
 own mother's name ; and not by that first one which her father had 
 given her. She was afraid of Mr. Pendennis, to the last moment of 
 his life. And it was only when her husband was gone that Helen 
 dared openly to indulge in the tenderness which she felt for the little 
 girl. 
 
 Thus it was that Laura Bell became Mrs. Pendennis's daughter. 
 Neither her husband nor that gentleman's brother, the Major, viewed 
 her with very favourable eyes. She reminded the first of circumstances 
 in his wife's life which he was forced to accept, but would have for- 
 gotten much more willingly : and as for the second, how could he 
 regard her ? She was neither related to his own family of Pendennis, 
 nor to any nobleman in this empire, and she had but a couple of 
 thousand pounds for her fortune. 
 
 And now let Mr. Pen come in, who has been waiting all this while.
 
 PENDENNIS. 77 
 
 Having strung up his nerves, and prepared himself, without at the 
 loor, for the meeting, he came to it, determined to face the awful 
 mole. He had settled in his mind that the encounter was to be a 
 ierce one, and was resolved on bearing it through with all the courage 
 md dignity of the famous family which he represented. And he 
 dung open the door and entered with the most severe and warlike 
 expression, armed cap-a-pie as it were, with lance couched and plumes 
 displayed, and glancing at his adversary, as if to say, " Come on, I'm 
 ready." 
 
 The old man of the world, as he surveyed the boy's demeanour, 
 could hardly help a grin at his admirable pompous simplicity. Major 
 Pendennis too had examined his ground ; and finding that the widow 
 Avas already half won over to the enemy, and having a shrewd notion 
 that threats and tragic exhortations would have no effect upon the 
 boy, who was inclined to be perfectly stubborn and awfully serious, 
 the Major laid aside the authoritative manner at once, and with the 
 most good-humoured natural smile in the world, held out his hands 
 to Pen, shook the lad's passive fingers gaily, and said, " Well, Pen, 
 my boy, tell us all about it." 
 
 Helen was delighted with the generosity of the Major's good 
 humour. On the contrary, it quite took aback and disappointed poor 
 Pen, whose nerves were strung up for a tragedy, and who felt that his 
 grand entree was altogether baulked and ludicrous. He blushed and 
 winced with mortified vanity and bewilderment. He felt immensely 
 inclined to begin to cry. " I — I — I didn't know that you were come 
 till just now," he said : " is — is — town very full I suppose ?" 
 
 If Pen could hardly gulp his tears down, it was all the Major could 
 do to keep from laughter. He turned round and shot a comical glance 
 at Mrs. Pendennis, who too felt that the scene was at once ridiculous 
 and sentimental. And so, having nothing to say, she went up and 
 kissed Mr. Pen : as he thought of her tenderness and soft obedience 
 to his wishes, it is very possible too the boy was melted. 
 
 " What a couple of fools they are," thought the old guardian. " If 
 I hadn't come down, she would have driven over in state to pay a visit 
 and give her blessing to the young lady's family." 
 
 " Come, come," said he, still grinning at the couple, " let us have as 
 little sentiment as possible, and Pen, my good fellow, tell us the whole 
 story." 
 
 Pen got back at once to his tragic and heroical air. " The story is, 
 sir," said he, " as I have written it to you before. I have made the 
 acquaintance of a most beautiful and most virtuous lady ; of a high 
 family, although in reduced circumstances ; I have found the woman 
 in whom I know that the happiness of my life is centred ; I feel that I 
 never, never can think about any woman but her. I am aware of the
 
 78 FENDENNIS. 
 
 difference of our ages and other difficulties in my way. But my affec- 
 tion was so great that I felt I could surmount all these ; — that we both 
 could : and she has consented to unite her lot with mine, and to accept 
 my heart and my fortune." 
 
 " How much is that, my boy?" said the Major. " Has anybody 
 left you some money ? I don't know that you are worth a shilling in 
 the world." 
 
 " You know what I have is his," cried out Mrs. Pendennis. 
 
 " Good heavens, madam, hold your tongue ! " was what the guardian 
 was disposed to say ; but he kept his temper, not without a struggle. 
 " No doubt, no doubt," he said. " You would sacrifice anything for 
 him. Everybody knows that. But it is, after all then, your fortune 
 which Pen is offering to the young lady; and of which he wishes to 
 take possession at eighteen." 
 
 " I know my mother will give me anything," Pen said, looking 
 rather disturbed. 
 
 " Yes, my good fellow, but there is reason in all things. If your 
 mother keeps the house, it is but fair that she should select her 
 company. When you give her house over her head, and transfer her 
 bankers account to yourself for the benefit of Miss What-d'-you-call- 
 'em — Miss Costigan — don't you think you should at least have con- 
 sulted my sister as one of the principal parties in the transaction ? I 
 am speaking to you, you see, without the least anger or assumption of 
 authority, such as the law and your father's will give me over you for 
 three years to come — but as one man of the world to another, — and I 
 ask you, if you think that, because you can do what you like with 
 your mother, therefore you have a right to do so ? As you are her 
 dependant, would it not have been more generous to wait before you 
 took this step, and at least to have paid her the courtesy to ask her 
 leave ? " 
 
 Pen held down his head, and began dimly to perceive that the 
 action on which he had prided himself as a most romantic, generous 
 instance of disinterested affection, was perhaps a very selfish and 
 headstrong piece of folly. 
 
 " I did it in a moment of passion," said Pen, floundering ; " I was 
 not aware what I was going to say or to do " (and in this he spoke 
 with perfect sincerity). " But now it is said, and I stand to it. No; 
 I neither can nor will recall it. I'll die rather than do so. And I — I 
 don't want to burden my mother," he continued. " I'll work for 
 myself. I'll go on the stage, and act with her. She — she says I 
 should do well there." 
 
 " But will she take you on those terms.'" the Major interposed. 
 " Mind, I do not say that INIiss Costigan is not the most disinterested 
 of women : but, don't you suppose now, fairlv, that your position as a
 
 PENDENNIS. 79 
 
 young gentleman of ancient birth and decent expectations, forms a 
 part of the cause why she finds your addresses welcome ? " 
 
 " I'll die, I say, rather than forfeit my pledge to her," said Pen, 
 doubling his fists and turning red. 
 
 " Who asks you, my dear friend ? " answered the imperturbable 
 guardian. " No gentleman breaks his word, of course, when it has 
 been given freely. But after all, you can wait. You owe something 
 to your mother, something to your family — something to me as your 
 father's representative." 
 
 " Oh, of course," Pen said, feeling rather relieved. 
 
 " Well, as you have pledged your word to her, give us another, will 
 you, Arthur ? " 
 
 "What is it?" Arthur asked. 
 
 " That you will make no private marriage — that you won't be 
 taking a trip to Scotland, you understand." 
 
 " That would be a falsehood. Pen never told his mother a false- 
 hood," Helen said. 
 
 Pen hung down his head again, and his eyes filled with tears of 
 shame. Had not this whole intrigue been a falsehood to that tender 
 and confiding creature who was ready to give up all for his sake. He 
 gave his uncle his hand. 
 
 " No, sir — on my word of honour, as a gentleman," he said, " I will 
 never marry without my mother's consent ! " and giving Helen a bright 
 parting look of confidence and affection unchangeable, the boy went 
 out of the drawing-room into his own study. 
 
 " He's an angel — he's an angel," the mother cried out in one of her 
 usual raptures. 
 
 " He comes of a good stock, ma'am," said her brother-in-law — " of 
 a good stock on both sides." The Major was greatly pleased with the 
 result of his diplomacy — so much so, that he once more saluted the 
 tips of Mrs. Pendennis's glove, and dropping the curt, manly, and 
 straightforward tone in which he had conducted the conversation with 
 the lad, assumed a certain drawl, which he always adopted when he 
 was most conceited and fine. 
 
 " My dear creature," said he, in that his politest tone, " I think it 
 certainly as well that I came down, and I flatter myself that last boiie 
 was a successful one. I tell you how I came to think of it. Three 
 years ago my kind friend Lady Ferrybridge sent for me in the greatest 
 state of alarm about her son Gretna, whose affair you remember, and 
 implored me to use my influence with the young gentleman, who was 
 engaged in an affaire de cosur with a Scotch clergyman's daughter, 
 Miss Mac Toddy. I implored, I entreated gentle measures. But 
 Lord Ferrybridge was furious, and tried the high hand. Gretna was 
 sulky and silent, and his parents thought they had conquered. But
 
 8o • PENDENNIS. 
 
 what was the fact, my dear creature ? The young people had been 
 married for three months before Lord Ferrybridge knew anything 
 about it. And that was why I extracted the promise from Master 
 Pen." 
 
 " Arthur would never have done so," Mrs. Pendennis said. 
 
 "He hasn't, — that is one comfort," answered the brother-in-law. 
 
 Like a wary and patient man of the world, Major Pendennis did 
 not press poor Pen any farther for the moment, but hoped the best 
 from time, and that the young fellow's eyes would be opened before 
 long to see the absurdity of which he was guilty. And having found 
 out how keen the boy's point of honour was, he worked kindly upon 
 that kindly feeling with great skill, discoursing him over their wine 
 after dinner, and pointing out to Pen the necessity of a perfect 
 uprightness and openness in all his dealings, and entreating that his 
 communications with his interesting young friend (as the Major 
 politely called Miss Fotheringay) should be carried on with the know- 
 ledge, if not approbation, of Mrs. Pendennis. " After all. Pen," the 
 Major said, with a convenient frankness that did not displease the boy, 
 whilst it advanced the interests of the negotiator, " you must bear in 
 mind that you are throwing yourself away. Your mother may submit 
 to your marriage as she would to anything else you desired, if you did 
 but cry long enough for it : but be sure of this, that it can never please 
 her. You take a young woman off the boards of a country theatre and 
 prefer her, for such is the case, to one of the finest ladies in England. 
 And your mother will submit to your choice, but you can't suppose 
 that she will be happy under it. I have often fancied, cnire jioiis, that 
 my sister had it in her eye to make a marriage between you and that 
 little ward of hers — Flora, Laura — what's her name ? And I always 
 determined to do my small endeavour to prevent any such match. 
 The child has but two thousand pounds, 1 am given to understand. 
 It is only with the utmost economy and care that my sister can provide 
 for the decent maintenance of her house, and for your appearance and 
 education as a gentleman ; and I don't care to own to you that I had 
 other and much higher views for you. With your name and birth, sir 
 — with your talents, which I suppose are respectable, with the friends 
 whom I have the honour to possess, I could have placed you in an 
 excellent position — a remarkable position for a young man of such 
 exceeding small means, and had hoped to see you, at least, try to 
 restore the honours of our name. Your mother's softness stopped one 
 prospect, or you might have been a general, like our gallant ancestor 
 who fought at Ramillies and Malplaquet. I had another plan in view : 
 my excellent and kind friend. Lord Bag\vig, who is very well disposed 
 towards me, would, I have little doubt, have attached you to his 
 mission at Pumpernickel, and you might have advanced in the dipk)-
 
 PENDENNIS. 8r 
 
 matic service. But, pardon me for recurring to the subject ; how is a 
 man to serve a young gentleman of eighteen, who proposes to marry a 
 lady of thirty, whom he has selected from a booth in a fair ? — well, not 
 a fair, — barn. That profession at once is closed to you. The public 
 service is closed to you. Society is closed to you. You see, my good 
 friend, to what you bring yourself. You may get on at the bar to be 
 sure, where 1 am given to understand that gentlemen of merit occa- 
 sionally marry out of their kitchens ; but in no other profession. Or 
 you may come and live down here — down here, nion DienI for ever" 
 (said the Major, with a dreary shrug, as he thought with inexpressible 
 fondness of Pall Mall), "where your mother will receive the Mrs. 
 Arthur that is to be, with perfect kindness ; where the good people of 
 the county won't visit you ; and where, by Gad, sir, I shall be shy of 
 visiting you myself, for I'm a plain-spoken man, and I own to you that 
 I like to live with gentlemen for my companions ; where you will have 
 to live, with rum-and-water-drinking gentlemen-farmers, and drag 
 through your life the young husband of an old woman, who, if she 
 doesn't quarrel with your mother, will at least cost that lady her 
 position in society, and drag her down into that dubious caste into 
 which you must inevitably fall. It is no affair of mine, my good sir. 
 I am not angr)'. Your downfall will not hurt me farther than that it 
 will extinguish the hopes I had of seeing my family once more taking 
 its place in the world. It is only your mother and yourself that will 
 be ruined. And I pity you both from my soul. Pass the claret : it is 
 some I sent to your poor father ; I remember I bought it at poor Lord 
 Levant's sale. But of course," added the Major, smacking the wine, 
 " having engaged yourself, you will do what becomes you as a man of 
 honour, however fatal your promise may be. However, promise us on 
 our side, my boy, what I set out by entreating you to grant, — that there 
 shall be nothing clandestine, that you will pursue your studies, that 
 you will only visit your interesting friend at proper intervals. Do you 
 write to her much ?" 
 
 Pen blushed and said, " Why, yes, he had written." 
 " I suppose verses, eh ! as well as prose ? I was a dab at verses 
 myself. I recollect when I first joined, I used to write verses for the 
 fellows in the regiment ; and did some pretty things in that way. I 
 was talking to my old friend General Hobbler about some lines I 
 dashed off for him in the year 1806, when we were at the Cape, and. 
 Gad, he remembered every line of them still ; for he'd used 'em so 
 often, the old rogue, and had actually tried 'em on Mrs. Hobbler, sir 
 — who brought him sixty thousand pounds. I suppose you've tried 
 verses, eh Pen ? " 
 
 Pen blushed again, and said, " Why, yes, he had written verses." 
 " And does the fair one respond in poetry or prose ? " asked the 
 
 6
 
 82 PENDENNIS. 
 
 jNIajor, eyeing his nephew with the queerest expression, as much as to 
 say, " O Moses and Green Spectacles ! what a fool the boy is." 
 
 Pen blushed again. She had written, but not in verse, the young 
 lover owned, and he gave his breast-pocket the benefit of a squeeze 
 with his left arm, which the Major remarked, according to his wont. 
 
 " You have got the letters there, I see," said the old campaigner, 
 nodding at Pen and pointing to his own chest (which was manfully 
 wadded with cotton by Mr. Stultz). " You know you have. I would 
 give twopence to see 'em." 
 
 " Why," said Pen, twiddling the stalks of the strawberries, " I — I," 
 but this sentence was never finished ; for Pen's face was so comical and 
 embarrassed, as the Major watched it, that the elder could contain his 
 gravity no longer, and burst into a fit of laughter, in which chorus Pen 
 himself was obliged to join after a minute : when he broke out fairly 
 into a guffaw. 
 
 It sent them with great good humour into Mrs. Pendennis's 
 drawing-room. She was pleased to hear them laughing in the hall as 
 they crossed it. 
 
 " You sly rascal ! " said the Major, putting his arm gaily on Pen's 
 shoulder, and giving a playful push at the boy's breast-pocket. He 
 felt the papers crackling there sure enough. The young fellow was 
 delighted — conceited — triumphant — and in one word, a spoony. 
 
 The pair came to the tea-table in the highest spirits. The Majors 
 politeness was beyond expression. He had never tasted such good 
 tea, and such bread was only to be had in the country. He asked 
 Mrs. Pendennis for one of her charming songs. He then made Pen 
 sing, and was delighted and astonished at the beauty of the boy's 
 voice : he made his nephew fetch his maps and drawings, and praised 
 them as really remarkable works of talent in a young fellow : he com- 
 plimented him on his French pronunciation: he flattered the simple 
 boy as adroitly as ever lover flattered a mistress : and when bed-time 
 came, mother and son went to their several rooms perfectly enchanted 
 with the kind Major. 
 
 When they had reached those apartments, I suppose Helen took 
 to her knees as usual : and Pen read over his letters before going to 
 bed: just as if he didn't know eveiy word of them by heart already. 
 In truth there were but three of those documents: and to learn their 
 contents required no great eftbrt of memor}-. 
 
 In No. I, Miss Fotheringay presents grateful compliments to 
 Mr. Pendennis, and in her papa's name and her own begs to thank 
 him for his tnosi beautiful presents. They will always be kept carefully; 
 and Miss F. and Captain C. will never forget the delightful evening 
 which they passed on Tuesday last.
 
 PENDENNIS. -83 
 
 No. 2 said — " Dear Sir, we shall have a small quiet party of social 
 friends at our humble board, next Tuesday evening, at an early tea, 
 when I shall wear the beautiful scarf which, with its accompajiying 
 delightful verses, I shall ever, ever cherish : and papa bids me say 
 how happy he will be if you will join ' the feast of reason and the flow 
 of soul ' in our festive [lit tic party, as I am sure will be your truly 
 grateful 
 
 " Emii.y Fotheringay." 
 
 No. 3 was somewhat more confidential, and showed that matters 
 had proceeded rather far. " You were odious yesterday night," the letter 
 said. " Why did you not come to the stage-door ? Papa could not 
 escort me on account of his eye ; he had an accident, and fell down 
 over a loose carpet on the stair on Sunday night. I saw you looking 
 at Miss Diggle all night; and you were so enchanted with Lydia 
 Languish you scarcely once looked at Julia. I could have crushed 
 Bingley, I was so angry. I play Ella Rosenberg on Friday : will you 
 come then ? Miss Diggle performs— qvqx your 
 
 " E. F." 
 
 These three letters Air. Pen used to read at intervals, during the 
 day and night, and embrace with that delight and fervour which such 
 beautiful compositions surely warranted. A thousand times at least 
 he had kissed fondly the musky satin paper, made sacred to him by 
 the hand of Emily Fotheringay. This was all he had in return for 
 his passion and flames, his vows and protests, his rhymes and similes, 
 his wakeful nights and endless thoughts, his fondness, fears and folly. 
 The young wiseacre had pledged away his all for this: signed his 
 name to endless promissory notes, conferring his heart upon the 
 bearer : bound himself for life, and got back twopence as an equiva- 
 lent. For Miss Costigan was a young lady of such perfect good 
 conduct and self-command, that she never would have thought of 
 giving more, and reserved the treasures of her affection until she could 
 transfer them lawfully at church. 
 
 ■ Howbeit, Mr. Pen was content with what tokens of regard he had 
 got, and mumbled over his three letters in a rapture of high spirits, 
 and went to sleep delighted with his kind old uncle from London, 
 who must evidently yield to his wishes in time ; and, in a word, in a 
 preposterous state of contentment with himself and all the world.
 
 84 PENDENNIS, 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 IN WHICH THE MAJOR OPENS THE CAMPAIGN. 
 
 LE T those who have the blessed privilege of an entree into the 
 most select circles, admit that Major Pendennis was a man of 
 no ordinary generosity and affection, in the sacrifice which he now 
 made. He gave up London in May, — his newspapers and his 
 mornings — his afternoons from club to club, his little confidential 
 visits to my Ladies, his rides in Rotten Row, his dinners, and his stall 
 at the Opera, his rapid escapades to Fulham or Richmond on Satur- 
 days and Sundays, his bow from my Lord Duke or my Lord Marquis 
 at the great London entertainments, and his name in the " Morning 
 Post" of the succeeding day, — his quieter little festivals, more select, 
 secret, and delightful — all these he resigned to lock himself into a lone 
 little countr}' house, with a simple widow and a greenhorn of a son, a 
 mawkish curate, and a little girl of twelve years of age. 
 
 He made the sacrifice, and it was the greater that few knew the 
 extent of it. His letters came down franked from town, and he 
 showed the invitations to Helen with a sigh. It was beautiful and 
 tragical to see him refuse one party after another — at least to those 
 who could understand, as Helen didn't, the melancholy grandeur of 
 his self-denial. Helen did not, or only smiled at the awful pathos with 
 which the Major spoke of the Court Guide in general : but young Pen 
 looked with great respect at the great names upon the superscriptions 
 of his uncle's letters, and listened to the Majors stories about the 
 fashionable world with constant interest and sympathy. 
 
 The elder Pendennis's rich memory was stored with thousands of 
 these delightful tales, and he poured them into Pen's willing car. He 
 knew the name and pedigree of ever}-body in the Peerage, and everj- 
 body's relations. " My dear boy," he would say, with a mournful 
 earnestness and veracity, " you cannot begin your genealogical studie 
 too early ; I wish to Heavens you would read in Debrett ever)' day 
 Not so much the historical part (for the pedigrees, between ourselves 
 are many of them very fabulous, and there are few families that cai 
 show such a clear descent as our own) as the account of famil 
 alliances, and who is related to whom. I have known a man's caree 
 in life blasted, by ignorance on this all-important subject. Why, onl
 
 PENDENNIS. 85 
 
 last month, at dinner at my Lord Hobanob's, a young man, who has 
 lately been received amongst us, young Mr. Suckling (author of a 
 work, I believe), began to speak lightly of Admiral Bowser's conduct 
 for ratting to Ministers, in what I must own is the most audacious 
 manner. But who do you think sate next and opposite to this 
 Mr. Suckling ? Why — why, next to him was Lady Grampound, 
 Bowser's daughter, and opposite to him was Lord Grampound, 
 Bowser's son-in-law. The infatuated young man went on cutting his 
 jokes at the Admiral's expense, fancying that all the world was laugh- 
 ing with him, and I leave you to imagine Lady Hobanob's feelings — 
 Hobanob's ! — those of every well-bred man, as the wretched intrus 
 was so exposing himself. He will never dine again in South Street. 
 I promise you thatP 
 
 With such discourses the Major entertained his nephew, as he 
 paced the terrace in front of the house for his two hours' constitutional 
 Avalk, or as they sate together after dinner over their wine. He grieved 
 that Sir Francis Clavering had not come down to the Park, to live 
 in it since his marriage, and to make a society for the neighbourhood. 
 He mourned that Lord Eyrie was not in the country, that he might 
 take Pen and present him to his lordship. " He has daughters," 
 the Major said. " Who knows "i you might have married Lady 
 Emily or Lady Barbara Trehawk ; but all those dreams are over \ 
 my poor fellow, you must lie on the bed which you have made for 
 yourself." 
 
 These things to hear did young Pendennis seriously incline. They 
 are not so interesting in print as when delivered orally ; but the Major's 
 anecdotes of the great George, of the Royal Dukes, of the statesmen, 
 beauties, and fashionable ladies of the day, filled young Pen's soul 
 with longing and wonder; and he found the conversations with his 
 guardian, which sadly bored and perplexed poor Mrs. Pendennis, for 
 his own part never tedious. 
 
 It can't be said that Mr. Pen's new guide, philosopher and friend, 
 discoursed him on the most elevated subjects, or treated the subjects 
 which he chose in the most elevated manner. But his morality, such 
 as it was, was consistent. It might not, perhaps, tend to a man's 
 progress in another world, but it was pretty well calculated to advance 
 his interests in this; and then it must be remembered, that the Major 
 never for one instant doubted that his views were the only views prac- 
 ticable, and that his conduct was perfectly virtuous and respectable. 
 He was a man of honour, in a word : and had his eyes, what he called, 
 open. He took pity on this young greenhorn of a nephew, and wanted 
 to open his eyes too. 
 
 No man, for instance, went more regularly to church when in the 
 country than the old bachelor. " It don't matter so much in town,
 
 86 PENDENNIS. 
 
 Pen," he said, " for there the women go and the men are not missed. 
 But when a gentleman is sur ses terres, he must give an example to 
 the country people : and if I could turn a tune, I even think I should 
 sing. The Duke of St. David's, whom I have the honour of knowing, 
 always sings in the countr\^, and let me tell you, it has a doosed fine 
 effect from the family pew. And you are somebody down here. As 
 long as the Claverings are away you are the first man in the parish : 
 or as good as any. You might represent the town if you played your 
 cards well. Your poor dear father would have done so had he lived ; 
 so might you. — Not if you marry a lady, however amiable, whom the 
 country people won't meet. — Well, well : it's a painful subject. Let 
 us change it, my boy." But if Major Pendennis changed the subject 
 once he recurred to it a score of times in the day: and the moral of 
 his discourse always was, that Pen was throwing himself away. Now 
 it does not require much coaxing or wheedling to make a simple boy 
 believe that he is a very fine fellow. 
 
 Pen was glad enough, we have said, to listen to his elders talk. 
 The conversation of Captain Costigan became by no means pleasant 
 to him, and the idea of that tipsy old father-in-law haunted him with 
 terror. He couldn't bring that man, unshaven and reeking of punch, 
 to associate with his mother. Even about Emily — he faltered when 
 the pitiless guardian began to question him. " Was she accom- 
 plished?" He was obliged to own, no. " Was she clever ? " Well, 
 she had a very good average intellect : but he could not absolutely 
 say she was clever. " Come, let us see some of her letters." So Pen 
 confessed that he had but those three of which we have made mention 
 — and that they were but trivial invitations or answers. 
 
 " She is cautious enough," the Major said, drily. " She is older 
 than you, my poor boy ; " and then he apologized with the utmost 
 frankness and humility, and flung himself upon Pen's good feelings, 
 begging the lad to excuse a fond old uncle, who had only his family's 
 honour in view — for Arthur was ready to flame up in indignation 
 whenever Miss Costigan's honesty was doubted, and swore that he 
 would never have her name mentioned lightly, and never, never would 
 part from her. 
 
 He repeated this to his uncle and his friends at home, and also, it 
 must be confessed, to Miss Fotheringay and the amiable family at 
 Chatteris, with whom he still continued to spend some portion of his 
 time. Miss Emily was alarmed when she heard of the arrival ot 
 Pen's guardian, and rightly conceived that the Major came down with 
 hostile intentions to herself. " I suppose ye intend to leave me, now 
 your grand relation has come down from town. He'll carr}- ye off, and 
 you'll forget your poor Emily, Mr. Arthur ! " 
 
 Forget her! In h^r presence, in that of Miss Rouncy, the Colum-
 
 PENDENNIS. 87 
 
 bine and Milly's confidential friend of the Company, in the presence of 
 the Captain himself, Pen swore he never could think of any other 
 woman but his beloved Miss Fotheringay ; and the Captain, looking 
 up at his foils, which were hung as a trophy on the wall of the room 
 where Pen and he used to fence, grimly said, he would not advoise any 
 man to meddle rashly with the affections of his darling child; and 
 would never believe his gallant young Arthur, whom he treated as his 
 son, whom he called his son, would ever be guilty of conduct so 
 revolting to every idaya of honour and humanitee. 
 
 He went up and embraced Pen after speaking. He cried, and 
 wiped his eye with one large dirty hand as he clasped Pen with the 
 other. Arthur shuddered in that grasp, and thought of his uncle at 
 home. His father-in-law looked unusually dirty and shabby; the 
 odour of whisky-and-water was even more decided than in common. 
 How was he to bring that man and his mother together ? He trembled 
 when he thought that he had absolutely written to Costigan (inclosing 
 to him a sovereign, the loan of which the worthy gentleman needed), 
 and saying, that one day he hoped to sign himself his affectionate son, 
 Arthur Pendennis. He was glad to get away from Chatteris that day ; 
 from Miss Rouncy the confida7ite ; from the old toping father-in-law; 
 from the divine Emily herself " O Emily, Emily," he cried inwardly, 
 as he rattled homewards on Rebecca, " you little know what sacrifices 
 I am making for you ! — for you who are always so cold, so cautious, so 
 mistrustful ! " 
 
 Pen never rode over to Chatteris, but the Major found out on what 
 errand the boy had been. Faithful to his plan. Major Pendennis gave 
 his nephew no let or hindrance; but somehow the constant feeling 
 that the senior's eye was upon him, an uneasy shame attendant upon 
 that inevitable confession which the evening's conversation would be 
 sure to elicit in the most natural simple manner, made Pen go less 
 frequently to sigh away his soul at the feet of his charmer than he had 
 been wont to do previous to his uncle's arrival. There was no use 
 trying to deceive him; there was no pretext of dining with Smirke, or 
 reading Greek plays with Foker ; Pen felt, when he returned from one 
 of his flying visits, that everybody knew whence he came, and appeared 
 quite guilty before his mother and guardian, over their books or their 
 game at picquet. 
 
 Once having walked out half-a-mile, to the Fairoaks' Inn, beyond 
 the Lodge gates, to be in readiness for the Competitor coach, which 
 changed horses there, to take a run for Chatteris, a man on the roof 
 touched his hat to the young gentleman : it was his uncle's man, 
 Mr. Morgan, who was going on a message for his master, and had 
 been took up at the Lodge, as he said. And Mr. Morgan came back 
 by the Rival, too; so that Pen had the pleasure of that domestic's
 
 88 PENDENNIS. 
 
 company both ways. Nothing was said at home. The lad seemed 
 to have every decent liberty ; and yet he felt himself dimly watched 
 and guarded, and that there were eyes upon him even in the presence 
 of his Dulcinea. 
 
 In fact, Pen's suspicions were not unfounded, and his guardian had 
 sent forth to gather all possible information regarding the lad and his 
 interesting young friend. The discreet and ingenious Mr. Morgan, a 
 London confidential valet, whose fidelity could be trusted, had been to 
 Chatteris more than once, and made every inquiry regarding the past 
 history and present habits of the Captain and his daughter. He deli- 
 cately cross-examined the waiters, the ostlers, and all the inmates of 
 the bar at the George, and got from them what little they knew 
 respecting the worthy Captain. He was not held in ver)' great regard 
 there, as it appeared. The waiters never saw the colour of his money, 
 and were warned not to furnish the poor gentleman with any liquor for 
 which some other party was not responsible. He swaggered sadly 
 about the coffee-room there, consumed a tooth-pick, and looked over 
 the paper, and if any friend asked him to dinner he stayed. 
 
 From the servants of the officers at the barracks Mr. Morgan 
 found that the Captain had so frequently and outrageously inebriated 
 himself there, that Colonel Swallowtail had forbidden him the mess- 
 room. The indefatigable Morgan then put himself in communication 
 with some of the inferior actors at the theatre, and pumped them over 
 their cigars and punch, and all agreed that Costigan was poor, shabby, 
 and given to debt and to drink. But there was not a breath upon the 
 reputation of Miss Fotheringay : her father's courage was reported to 
 have displayed itself on more than one occasion towards persons dis- 
 posed to treat his daughter with freedom. She never came to the theatre 
 but with her father : in his most inebriated moments, that gentleman 
 kept a watch over her; finally Mr. Morgan, from his own experience, 
 added that he had been to see her hact, and was uncommon delighted 
 with the performance, besides thinking her a most splendid woman. 
 
 Mrs. Creed, the pew-opener, confirmed these statements to Doctor 
 Portman, who examined her personally. Mrs. Creed had nothing 
 unfavourable to her lodger to divulge. She saw nobody ; only one or 
 two ladies of the theatre. The Captain did intoxicate himself some- 
 times, and did not always pay his rent regularly, but he did when I'.e 
 had money, or rather Miss Fotheringay did. Since the young gentle- 
 man from Clavering had been and took lessons in fencing, one or two 
 more had come from the barracks ; Sir Derby Oaks, and his young 
 friend, Mr. Foker, which was often together; and which was always 
 driving over from Baymouth in the tandem. But on the occasions of 
 the lessons. Miss F. was very seldom present, and generally came 
 downstairs to Mrs. Creed's own room.
 
 PENDENNIS. 89 
 
 The Doctor and the Major consulting together as they often did, 
 groaned in spirit over that information. Major Pendennis openly 
 expressed his disappointment; and, I believe, the Divine himself was 
 ill-pleased at not being able to pick a hole in poor Miss Fotheringay's 
 reputation. 
 
 Even about Pen himself, Mrs. Creed's reports were desperately 
 favourable. " Whenever he come," Mrs. Creed said, " she always 
 have me or one of the children with her. And Mrs. Creed, marm, 
 says she, if you please, marm, you'll on no account leave the room 
 when that young gentleman's here. And many's the time I've seen 
 him a lookin' as if he wished I was away, poor young man : and he 
 took to coming in service time, when I wasn't at home, of course : but 
 she always had one of the boys up if her Pa wasn't at home, or old 
 Mr. Bows with her a teaching of her her lesson, or one of the young 
 ladies of the theayter." 
 
 It was all true : whatever encouragements might have been given 
 him before he avowed his passion, the prudence of Miss Emily was 
 prodigious after Pen had declared himself: and the poor fellow chafed 
 against her hopeless reserve. 
 
 The Major surveyed the state of things with a sigh, " If it were 
 but a temporary liaison," the excellent man said, " one could bear it. 
 A young fellow must sow his wild oats, and that sort of thing. But 
 a virtuous attachment is the deuce. It comes of the d — d romantic 
 notions boys get from being brought up by women." 
 
 " Allow me to say. Major, that you speak a little too like a man 
 of the world," replied the Doctor. " Nothing can be more desirable 
 for Pen than a virtuous attachment for a young lady of his own rank 
 and with a corresponding fortune — this present infatuation, of course, 
 I must deplore as sincerely as you do. If I were his guardian I should 
 command him to give it up." 
 
 " The very means, I tell you, to make him marry to-morrow. We 
 have got time from him, that is all, and we must do our best with that." 
 
 " I say, Major," said the Doctor, at the end of the conversation in 
 which the above subject was discussed — " I am not, of course, a play- 
 going man — but suppose, I say, we go and see her." 
 
 The Major laughed — he had been a fortnight at Fairoaks, and 
 strange to say, had not thought of that. " Well," he said, " why noc ? 
 After all, it is not my niece, but Miss Fotheringay the actress, and we 
 have as good a right as any other of the public to see her if we pay 
 our money." So upon a day when it was arranged that Pen was to 
 dine at home, and pass the evening with his mother, the two elderly 
 gentlemen drove over to Chatteris in the Doctor's chaise, and there, 
 like a couple of jolly bachelors, dined at the George Inn, before pro- 
 ceeding to the play.
 
 90 PENDENNIS. 
 
 Only two other guests were in the room, — an officer of the regiment 
 quartered at Chatteris, and a young gentleman whom the Doctor 
 thought he had somewhere seen. They left them at their meal, 
 however, and hastened to the theatre. It was Hamlet over again. 
 Shakspeare was Article XL. of stout old Doctor Portman's creed, to 
 which he always made a point of testifying publicly at least once in 
 a year. 
 
 We have described the play before, and how those who saw 
 Miss Fotheringay perform in Ophelia saw precisely the same thing on 
 one night as on another. Both the elderly gentlemen looked at her 
 with extraordinary interest, thinking how very much young Pen was 
 charmed with her. 
 
 " Gad," said the Major, between his teeth, as he surveyed her when 
 she was called forward as usual, and swept her curtsies to the scanty 
 audience, " the young rascal has not made a bad choice." 
 
 The Doctor applauded her loudly and loyally. " Upon my word," 
 said he, " she is a very clever actress ; and I must say. Major, she is 
 endowed with very considerable personal attractions." 
 
 " So that young officer thinks in the stage-box," Major Pendennis 
 answered, and he pointed out to Dr. Portman's attention the young 
 dragoon of the George Coffee-room, who sate in the box in question, 
 and applauded with immense enthusiasm. She looked extremely 
 sweet upon him too, thought the IMajor : but that's their way — and 
 he shut up his natty opera-glass and pocketed it, as if he wished to 
 see no more that night. Nor did the Doctor, of course, propose to 
 stay for the after-piece, so they rose and left the theatre ; the Doctor 
 returning to Mrs. Portman, who was on a visit at the Deanerj', and 
 the Major walking home full of thought towards the George, where 
 he had bespoken a bed.
 
 PENDENNIS. 
 
 91 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 FACING THE ENEMY. 
 
 SAUNTERING homewards, Major Pendennis reached the hotel 
 presently, and found Mr. Morgan, his faithful valet, awaiting him 
 at the door, who stopped his master as he was about to take a candle 
 to go to bed, and said, with his usual air of knowing deference, " I 
 think, sir, if you would go into the coffee-room, there's a young gentle- 
 man there as you would like to see." 
 
 "What, is Mr. Arthur here?" the Major said, in great anger. 
 
 " No, sir — but his great friend, Mr. Foker, sir. Lady Hagnes 
 Poker's son is here, sir. He's been asleep in the coffee-room since he 
 took his dinner, and has just rung for his coffee, sir. And I think, 
 p'raps, you might like to git into conversation with him," the valet 
 said, opening the coffee-room door. 
 
 The Major entered ; and there indeed was Mr. Foker, the only 
 occupant of the place. He had intended to go to the play too, but 
 sleep had overtaken him after a copious meal, and he had flung up 
 his legs on the bench, and indulged in a nap instead of the dramatic 
 amusement. The Major was meditating how to address the young 
 man, but the latter prevented him that trouble. 
 
 " Like to look at the evening paper, sir ? " said Mr. Foker, who 
 was always communicative and affable ; and he took up the " Globe " 
 from his table, and offered it to the new comer. 
 
 " I am very much obliged to you," said the Major, with a grateful 
 bow and smile. " If I don't mistake the family likeness, I have the 
 pleasure of speaking to Mr. Henry Foker, Lady Agnes Poker's son. 
 I have the happiness to name her ladyship among my acquaintances, 
 and you bear, sir, a Rosherville face." 
 
 " Hullo ! I beg your pardon," Mr. Foker said, " I took you " — 
 he was going to say — " I took you for a commercial gent." But he 
 stopped that phrase. " To whom have I the pleasure of speaking ? " 
 he added. 
 
 " To a relative of a friend and schoolfellow of yours — Arthur Pen- 
 dennis, my nephew, who has often spoken to me about you in terms of 
 great regard. I am Major Pendennis, of whom you may have heard 
 him speak. May I take my soda-water at your table ? I have had 
 the pleasure of sitting at your grandfather's."
 
 92 PENDENNIS. 
 
 " Sir, you do me proud," said Mr. Foker, with much courtesy. 
 " And so you are Arthur Pendennis's uncle, are you ?" 
 
 " And guardian," added the Major. 
 
 " He's as good a fellow as ever stepped, sir," said Mr. Foker. 
 
 " I am glad you think so." 
 
 " And clever, too — I was always a stupid chap, I was — but you 
 see, sir, I know 'em when they are clever, and like 'em of that sort." 
 
 " You show your taste and your modesty, too," said the Major. 
 " I have heard Arthur repeatedly speak of you, and he said your 
 talents were very good." 
 
 " I'm not good at the books," Mr. Foker said, wagging his head — 
 " never could manage that — Pendennis could — he used to do half the 
 chaps' verses — and yet you are his guardian j and I hope you will 
 pardon me for saying that I think he's what luc call a flat," the candid 
 young gentleman said. 
 
 The Major found himself on the instant in the midst of a most 
 interesting and confidential conversation. '" And how is Arthur a 
 flat ? " he asked, with a smile. 
 
 " You know," Fcker answered, winking at him — he would have 
 winked at the Duke of Wellington with just as little scruple. " You 
 know Arthur's a flat, — about women I mean." 
 
 " He is not the first of us, my dear Mr. Harry," answered the 
 Major. " I have heard something of this — but pray tell me more." 
 
 " Why, sir, you see — it's partly my fault. W^e went to the play 
 one night, and Pen was struck all of a heap with Miss Fotheringay — 
 Costigan her real name is — an uncommon fine gal she is too ; and the 
 next morning 1 intr®duced him to the General, as we call her father 
 — a regular old scamp — and such a boy for the whisky-and-water ! 
 — and he's gone on being intimate there. And he's fallen in love 
 with her — and I'm blessed if he hasn't proposed to her," Foker said, 
 slapping his hand on the table, until all the dessert began to jingle. 
 
 " What ! you know it too .?" asked the Major. 
 
 " Know it ! don't I ? and many more too. We were talking about 
 it at mess, yesterday, and chaffing Derby Oaks — until he was as mad 
 as a hatter. Know Sir Derby Oaks ? We dined together, and he 
 went to the play : we were standing at the door smoking, I remember, 
 when you passed in to dinner." 
 
 " I remember Sir Thomas Oaks, his father, before he was a 
 Baronet or a Knight ; he lived in Cavendish Square, and was Physi- 
 cian to Queen Charlotte." 
 
 " The young one is making the money spin, I can tell you," 
 Mr. Foker said. 
 
 " And is Sir Derby Oaks," the Major said, with great delight and 
 anxiety, " another soupirant ? "
 
 PENDENNIS. 93 
 
 * Another whatf" inquired Mr. Foker. 
 
 "Another admirer of Miss Fotheringay ?" 
 
 " Lord bless you ! we call him Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, 
 and Pen Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. But mind you, nothing 
 wrong ! No, no ! Miss F. is a deal too wide awake for that, Major 
 Pendennis. She plays one off against the other. What you call two 
 strings to her bow." 
 
 " I think you seem tolerably wide awake, too, Mr. Foker," Pen- 
 dennis said, laughing. 
 
 " Pretty well, thank you, sir — how are you ? " Foker replied, imper- 
 turbably. "I'm not clever, p'raps: but I am rather downy; and 
 partial friends say I know what's o'clock tolerably well. Can I tell 
 you the time of day in any way .? " 
 
 " Upon my word," the Major answered, quite delighted, " I think 
 you may be of very great service to me. You are a young man of the 
 world, and with such one likes to deal. And as such I need not 
 inform you that our family is by no means delighted at this absurd 
 intrigue in which Arthur is engaged." 
 
 " I should rather think not," said Mr. Foker. " Connexion not 
 eligible. Too much beer drunk on the premises. No Irish need 
 apply. That I take to be your meaning." 
 
 The Major said it was, exactly : and he proceeded to examine his 
 new acquaintance regarding the amiable family into which his nephew 
 proposed to enter, and soon got from the candid witness a number of 
 particulars regarding the House of Costigan. 
 
 We must do Mr. Foker the justice to say that he spoke most 
 favourably of Mr. and Miss Costigan's moral character. " You see," 
 said he, " I think the General is fond of the jovial bowl, and if I 
 wanted to be very certain of my money, it isn't in his pocket I'd invest 
 it — but he has always kept a watchful eye on his daughter, and neither 
 he nor she will stand anything but what's honourable. Pen's attentions 
 to her are talked about in the whole Company, and I hear all about 
 them from a young lady who used to be very intimate with her, and 
 with whose family I sometimes take tea in a friendly way. Miss 
 Rouncy says, Sir Derby Oaks has been hanging about Miss Fotherin- 
 gay ever since his regiment has been down here ; but Pen has come in 
 and cut him out lately, which has made the Baronet so mad, that he 
 has been very near on the point of proposing too. Wish he would ; 
 and you'd see which of the two Miss Fotheringay would jump at." 
 
 " I thought as much," the Major said. " You give me a great deal 
 of pleasure, Mr. Foker. I wish I could have seen you before." 
 
 " Didn't like to put in my oar," replied the other. " Don't speak 
 till I'm asked, when, if there's no objections, I speak pretty freely. 
 Heard your man had been hankering about my servant — didn't know
 
 94 PENDENNIS. 
 
 myself what was going od until Miss Fotheringay and Miss Rouncy 
 had the row about the ostrich feathers, when ISIiss R. told me ever}-- 
 thing." 
 
 " Miss Rouncy, I gather, was the confidante of the other." 
 
 " Confidant ? I believe you. ^Vhy, she's twice as clever a girl as 
 Fotheringay, and literary and that, while j\Iiss Foth can't do much 
 more than read." 
 
 "She can write," said the Major, remembering Pen's breast-pocket. 
 
 Foker broke out into a sardonic " He, he ! Rouncy writes her 
 letters," he said : " every one of 'em ; and since they've quarrelled, 
 she don't know how the deuce to get on. Miss Rouncy is an uncom- 
 mon pretty hand, whereas the other one makes dreadful work of the 
 writing and spelling when Bows ain't by. Rouncy's been settin' her 
 copies lately — she writes a beautiful hand, Rouncy does." 
 
 " I suppose you know it pretty well," said the Major, archly : upon 
 which Mr. Foker winked at him again. 
 
 " I would give a great deal to have a specimen of her hand- 
 writing," continued Major Pendennis, " I dare say you could give me 
 one." 
 
 " That would be too bad," Foker replied. " Miss F.'s writin' ain't 
 so very bad, I dare say ; only she got Miss R. to write the first letter, 
 and has gone on ever since. But you mark my word, that till they 
 are friends again the letters will stop." 
 
 " I hope they will never be reconciled," the Major said with great 
 sincerity. " You must feel, my dear sir, as a man of the world, how 
 fatal to my nephew's prospects in life is this step which he contem- 
 plates, and how eager we all must be to free him from this absurd 
 engagement." 
 
 " He has come out uncommon strong," said Mr. Foker ; " I have 
 seen his verses ; Rouncy copied 'em. And I said to myself when I 
 saw 'em, ' Catch me writin' verses to a woman, — that's all." 
 
 " He has made a fool of himself, as many a good fellow has before 
 him. How can we make him see his folly, and cure it ? I am sure 
 you will give us what aid you can in extricating a generous young man 
 from such a pair of schemers as this father and daughter seem to be. 
 Love on the lady's side is out of the question." 
 
 " Love, indeed ! " Foker said. " If Pen hadn't two thousand a-year 
 when he came of age — " 
 
 " If Pen hadn't luhat?" cried out the Major in astonishment. 
 
 " Two thousand a-year : hasn't he got t%vo thousand a-year ? — the 
 General says he has." 
 
 " My dear friend," shrieked, out the Major, with an eagerness which 
 this gentleman rarely showed, " thank you !— thank you !— I begin to see 
 now. — Two thousand a-year ! Why, his mother has but five hundred
 
 PENDENNIS. 95 
 
 a-year in the world. — She is Hkely to hve to eighty, and Arthur has 
 not a shilling but what she can allow him." 
 
 " What ! he ain't rich then ? " Foker asked. 
 
 " Upon my honour he has no more than what I say." 
 
 " And you ain't going to leave him anything?'' 
 
 The Major had sunk every shilling he could scrape together on 
 an annuity, and of course was going to leave Pen nothing; but he did 
 not tell Foker this. " How much do you think a Major on half-pay 
 can save?" he asked. " If these people have been looking at him as 
 a fortune, they are utterly mistaken — and — and you have made me the 
 happiest man in the world." 
 
 " Sir to YOU," said Mr. Foker, politely, and when they parted for 
 the night they shook hands with the greatest cordiality; the younger 
 gentleman promising the elder not to leave Chatteris without a further 
 conversation in the morning. And as the Major went up to his room, 
 and Mr. Foker smoked his cigar against the door pillars of the George, 
 Pen, very likely, ten miles off, was lying in bed kissing the letter from 
 his Emily. 
 
 The next morning, before Mr. Foker drove off in his drag, the 
 insinuating Major had actually got a letter of Miss Rouncy's in his 
 own pocket-book. Let it be a lesson to women how they write. And 
 in very high spirits Major Pendennis went to call upon Doctor Portman 
 at the Deanery, and told him what happy discoveries he had made on 
 the previous night. As they sate in confidential conversation in the 
 Dean's oak breakfast parlour they could look across the lawn and see 
 Captain Costigan's window, at which poor Pen had been only too 
 visible some three weeks since. The Doctor was most indignant 
 against Mrs. Creed, the landlady, for her duplicity, in concealing Sir 
 Derby Oaks's constant visits to her lodgers, and threatened to excom- 
 municate her out of the Cathedral. But the wary Major thought that 
 all things were for the best ; and, having taken counsel with himself 
 overnight, felt himself quite strong enough to go and face Captain 
 Costigan. 
 
 " I'm going to fight the dragon," he said, with a laugh, to Doctor 
 Portman. 
 
 " And I shrive you, sir, and bid good fortune go with you," answered 
 the Doctor. Perhaps he and Mrs. Portman and Miss Mira, as they 
 sate with their friend, the Dean's lady, in her drawing-room, looked 
 up more than once at the enemy's window to see if they could perceive 
 any signs of the combat. 
 
 The Major walked round, according to the directions given him, 
 and soon found Mrs. Creed's little door. He passed it, and as he 
 ascended to Captain Costigan's apartment, he could hear a stamping 
 of feet, and a great shouting of " Ha, ha ! " within.
 
 96 PENDENNIS. 
 
 " It's Sir Derby Oaks taking his fencing lesson," said the child, 
 who piloted Major Pendennis. " He takes it Mondays, Wednesdays, 
 and Fridays." 
 
 The Major knocked, and at length a tall gentleman came forth, 
 with a foil and mask in one hand, and a fencing glove on the other. 
 
 Pendennis made him a deferential bow. " I believe I have the 
 honour of speaking to Captain Costigan — My name is Major 
 Pendennis." 
 
 The Captain brought his weapon up to the salute, and said, 
 "Major, the honer is moine; I'm deloighted to see ye."
 
 PENDENNIS. 97 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 NEGOTIATION. 
 
 THE Major and Captain Costigan were old soldiers and accustomed 
 to face the enemy, so we may presume that they retained their 
 presence of mind perfectly: but the rest of the party assembled in 
 Cos's sitting-room were, perhaps, a little flurried at Pendennis's appa- 
 rition. Miss Fotheringay's slow heart began to beat no doubt, for her 
 cheek flushed up with a great healthy blush, as Lieutenant Sir Derby 
 Oaks looked at her with a scowl. The little crooked old man in the 
 window-seat, who had been witnessing the fencing-match between the 
 two gentlemen (whose stamping and jumping had been such as to 
 cause him to give up all attempts to continue writing the theatre music, 
 in the copying of which he had been engaged) looked up eagerly 
 towards the new comer as the Major of the well-blacked boots entered 
 the apartment, distributing the most graceful bows to everybody 
 present. 
 
 " Me daughter^me friend, Mr. Bows— me gallant young pupil and 
 friend, I may call 'um. Sir Derby Oaks," said Costigan, splendidly 
 waving his hand, and pointing each of these individuals to the Major's 
 attention. " In one moment, Meejor, I'm your humble servant," and 
 to dash into the little adjoining chamber where he slept, to give a 
 twist to his lank hair with his hair-brush (a wonderful and ancient 
 piece), to tear off his old stock and put on a new one which Emily 
 had constructed for him, and to assume a handsome clean collar, and 
 the new coat which had been ordered upon the occasion of Miss 
 Fotheringay's benefit, was with the still active Costigan the work of a 
 minute. 
 
 After him Sir Derby entered, and presently emerged from the same 
 apartment, where he also cased himself in his little shell-jacket, 
 which fitted tightly upon the young officer's big person ; and which 
 he and Miss Fotheringay, and poor Pen too, perhaps, admired pro- 
 digiously. 
 
 Meanwhile conversation was engaged in between the actress and 
 the new comer ; and the usual remarks about the weather had been 
 interchanged before Costigan re-entered in his new " shoot," as he 
 called it, 
 
 7
 
 98 PENDENNIS. 
 
 " I needn't apologoise to ye, Meejor,"' he said, in his richest and most 
 courteous manner, " for receiving ye in me shirt-sleeves." 
 
 " An old soldier can't be better employed than in teaching a young 
 one the use of his sword," answered the Major, gallantly. " I remem- 
 ber in old times hearing that you could use yours pretty well, Captain 
 Costigan." 
 
 "What, ye've heard of Jack Costigan, Major," said the ether, 
 greatly. 
 
 The Major had, indeed; he had pumped his nephew concernmg 
 his new friend, the Irish officer; and said that he perfectly well recol- 
 lected meeting Mr. Costigan, and hearing him sing at Sir Richard 
 Strachan's table at Walcheren. 
 
 At this information, and the bland and cordial manner in which it 
 was conveyed, Bows looked up, entirely puzzled. " But we will talk of 
 these matters another time," the Major continued, perhaps not wishing 
 to commit himself; " it is to Miss Fotheringay that I came to pay my 
 respects to-day :" and he performed another bow for her, so courtly 
 and gracious, that if she had been a duchess he could not have made 
 it more handsome. 
 
 " I had heard of your performances from my nephew, madam,'" 
 the Major said, " who raves about you, as I believe you know pretty 
 well. But Arthur is but a boy, and a wild enthusiastic young fellow, 
 whose opinions one must not take an pied de la lettrej and I confess 
 I was anxious to judge for myself. Permit me to say your perfonnance 
 delighted and astonished me. I have seen our best actresses, and, 
 on my word, I think you surpass them all. You are as majestic as 
 Mrs. Siddons." 
 
 " Faith, I always said so," Costigan said, winking at his daughter : 
 " Major, take a chair." Milly rose at this hint, took an unripped satin 
 garment off the only vacant seat, and brought the latter to Major Pen- 
 dennis with one of her finest curtseys. 
 
 " You are as pathetic as Miss O'Neill," he continued, bowing and 
 seating himself; "your snatches of song remind me of Mrs. Jordan in 
 her best time, when we were young men, Captain Costigan ; and your 
 manner reminded me of Mars. Did you ever see the Mars, Miss 
 Fotheringay ? " 
 
 " There was two Mahers in Crow Street," remarked Miss Emily ; 
 " Fanny was well enough, but Biddy was no great things." 
 
 " Sure, the Major means the god of war, Milly, my dear," inter- 
 posed the parent. 
 
 " It is not that IMars I meant, though Venus, I suppose, may be 
 pardoned for thinking about him ; " the Major replied with a smile 
 directed in full to Sir Derby Oaks, who now re-entered in his shell- 
 jacket, but the lady did not understand the words of which he made
 
 PENDENNIS. 99 
 
 use, nor did the compliment at all pacify Sir Derby, who, probably, 
 did not understand it either, and at any rate received it with great 
 sulkiness and stiffness ; scowling uneasily at Miss Fotheringay, with 
 an expression which seemed to ask what the deuce does this man 
 here ? 
 
 Major Pendennis was not in the least annoyed by the gentleman's 
 ill-humour. On the contrary, it delighted him. " So," thought he, " a 
 rival is in the field ; " and he offered up vows that Sir Derby might be, 
 not only a rival, but a winner too, in this love-match in which he and 
 Pen were engaged. 
 
 " I fear I interrupted your fencing lesson ; but my stay in Chatteris 
 is very short, and I was anxious to make myself known to my old 
 fellow-campaigner Captain Costigan, and to see a lady nearer who had 
 charmed me so much from the stage. I was not the only man epris 
 last night. Miss Fotheringay (if I must call you so, though your own 
 family name is a very ancient and noble one). There was a reverend 
 friend of mine, who went home in raptures with Ophelia ; and I saw 
 Sir Derby Oaks fling a bouquet which no actress ever merited better. 
 I should have brought one myself, had I known what I was going to 
 see. Are not those the very flowers in a glass of water on the mantel- 
 piece yonder ? " 
 
 " I am very fond of flowers," said Miss Fotheringay, with a 
 languishing ogle at Sir Derby Oaks — but the Baronet still scowled 
 sulkily. 
 
 "Sweets to the sweet — isn't that the expression of the play?" 
 Major Pendennis asked, bent upon being good-humoured. 
 
 " 'Pon my life, I don't know. Very likely it is. I ain't much of a 
 literary man," answered Sir Derby. 
 
 "Is it possible?" the Major continued, with an air of surprise. 
 " You don't inherit your father's love of letters, then. Sir Derby ? He 
 was a remarkably fine scholar, and I had the honour of knowing him 
 very well." 
 
 " Indeed," said the other, and gave a sulky wag of his head. 
 
 " He saved my life," continued Pendennis. 
 
 " Did he now ?" cried Miss Fotheringay, rolling her eyes first upon 
 the Major with surprise, then towards Sir Derby with gratitude — but 
 the latter was proof against those glances ; and far from appearing to 
 be pleased that the Apothecary, his father, should have saved Major 
 Pendennis's life, the young man actually looked as if he wished the 
 event had turned the other way. 
 
 " My father, I believe, was a very good doctor," the young gentle- 
 
 ^man said by way of reply. " I'm not in that line myself. I wish you 
 
 good morning, sir. I've got an appointment — Cos, bye-bye — Miss 
 
 Fotheringay, good morning." And, in spite of the young lady's
 
 lOO PENDENNIS. 
 
 imploring looks and appealing smiles, the Dragoon bowed stiffly out 
 of the room, and the clatter of his sabre was heard as he strode down 
 the creaking stair ; and the angry tones of his voice as he cursed little 
 Tom Creed, who was disporting in the passage, and whose peg-top Sir 
 Derby kicked away with an oath into the street. 
 
 The Major did not smile in the least, though he had every reason 
 to be amused. " Monstrous handsome young man that — as fine a 
 looking soldier as ever I saw," he said to Costigan. 
 
 " A credit to the army and to human nature in general," answered 
 Costigan. "A young man of refoined manners, polite affabilitee, 
 and princely fortune. His table is sumptuous : he's adawr'd in the 
 regiment : and he rides sixteen stone." 
 
 " A perfect champion," said the Major, laughing. " I have no 
 doubt all the ladies admire him." 
 
 " He's very well, in spite of his weight, now he's young," said 
 Milly; "but he's no conversation." 
 
 " He's best on horseback," Mr. Uows said; on which Milly replied, 
 that the Baronet had ridden third in the steeple-chase on his horse 
 Tareaways, and the Major began to comprehend that the young lady 
 herself was not of a particular genius, and to wonder how she should 
 be so stupid and act so well. 
 
 Costigan, with Irish hospitality, of course pressed refreshment 
 upon his guest : and the Major, who was no more hungry than you 
 are after a Lord Mayors dinner, declared that he should like a biscuit 
 and a glass of wine above all things, as he felt quite faint from long 
 fasting — but he knew that to receive small kindnesses flatters the 
 donors very much, and that people must needs grow well disposed 
 towards you as they give you their hospitality, 
 
 " Some of the old Madara, Milly, love," Costigan said, winking to 
 his child — and that lady, turning to her father a glance of intelligence, 
 went out of the room, and down the stair, where she softly summoned 
 her little emissary Master Tommy Creed : and giving him a piece of 
 money, ordered him to go buy a pint of Madara wine at the Grapes, 
 and sixpennyworth of sorted biscuits at the baker's, and to return in a 
 hurry, when he might have two biscuits for himself. 
 
 Whilst Tommy Creed was gone on this errand, Miss Costigan sate 
 below with Mrs. Creed, telling her landlady how Mr. Arthur Penden- 
 nis's uncle, the Major, was above stairs ; a nice, soft-spoken old 
 gentleman ; that butter wouldn't melt in his mouth : and how Sir 
 Derby had gone out of the room in a rage of jealousy, and thinking 
 what must be done to pacify both of them. 
 
 " She keeps the keys of the cellar. Major," said Mr. Costigan, as 
 the girl left the room. 
 
 " Upon my word you have a verj- beautiful butler," answered Pen* 
 
 J
 
 PENDENNIS. 101 
 
 fdennis, gallantly, " and I don't wonder at the young fellows raving 
 about her. When we were of their age, Captain Costigan, I think 
 plainer women would have done our business." 
 
 " Faith, and ye may say that, sir — and lucky is the man who gets 
 jher. Ask me friend Bob Bows here whether Miss Fotheringay's 
 moind is not even shuparior to her person, and whether she does not 
 possess a cultiveated intellect, a refoined understanding, and an 
 emiable disposition ? " 
 
 " O, of course," said Mr. Bows, rather drily. " Here comes Hebe 
 blushing from the cellar. Don't you think it is time to go to rehearsal, 
 Miss Hebe? You will be fined if you are late" — and he gave the 
 young lady a look, which intimated that they had much better leave 
 the room and the two elders together. 
 
 At this order Miss Hebe took up her bonnet and shawl, looking 
 uncommonly pretty, good-humoured, and smiling: and Bows gathered 
 up his roll of papers, and hobbled across the room for his hat and 
 cane. 
 
 "Must you go?" said the Major. "Can't you give us a few 
 minutes more. Miss Fotheringay ? Before you leave us, permit an 
 old fellow to shake you by the hand, and believe that I am proud to 
 have had the honour of making your acquaintance, and am most 
 sincerely anxious to be your friend." 
 
 Miss Fotheringay made a low curtsey at the conclusion of this 
 gallant speech, and the Major followed her retreating steps to the 
 door, where he squeezed her hand with the kindest and most paternal 
 pressure. Bows was puzzled with this exhibition of cordiality : " The 
 lad's relatives can't be really wanting to marry him to her," he thought 
 — and so they departed. 
 
 " Now for it," thought Major Pendennis ; and as for Mr. Costigan 
 he profited instantaneously by his daughter's absence to drink up the 
 rest of the wine ; and tossed off one bumper after another of the 
 Madeira from the Grapes, with an eager shaking hand. The Major 
 came up to the table, and took up his glass and drained it with a 
 jovial smack. If it had been Lord Steyne's particular, and not public- 
 house Cape, he could not have appeared to relish it more. 
 
 ' Capital Madeira, Captain Costigan," he said. " Where do you 
 get it ? I drink the health of that charming creature in a bumper. 
 Faith, Captain, I don't wonder that the men are wild about her. I 
 never saw such eyes in my life, or such a grand manner. 1 am sure 
 she is as intellectual as she is beautiful ; and I have no doubt she is as 
 good as she is clever." 
 
 " A good girl, sir, — a good girl, sir," said the delighted father ; 
 " and I pledge a toast to her with all my heart. Shall I send to the — 
 to the cellar for another pint ? It's handy by. No? Well, indeed, sir,
 
 I02 PEXDEXA'IS. 
 
 ye may say she is a good girl, and the pride and glor>- of her father — 
 honest old Jack Costigan. The man who gets her will have a jew'l 
 to a wife, sir ; and I drink his health, sir, and ye know who I mean, 
 Major." 
 
 " I am not surprised at young or old falling in love with her," said 
 the Major, " and frankly must tell you, that though I was very angry- 
 with my poor nephew Arthur, when I heard of the boy's passion — now 
 I have seen the lady I can pardon him any extent of it. By George, I 
 should like to enter for the race myself, if I weren't an old fellow and 
 a poor one." 
 
 "And no better man. Major, I'm sure," cried Jack enraptured. 
 "Your friendship, sir, delights me. Your admiration for my girl 
 brings tears to me eyes — tears, sir — manlee tears— and when she 
 leaves me humble home for your own more splendid mansion, I hope 
 she'll keep a place for her poor old father, poor old Jack Costigan." — • 
 The Captain suited the action to the word, and his blood-shot eyes 
 were suffused with water, as he addressed the Major. 
 
 " Your sentiments do you honour," the other said. " But, Captain 
 Costigan, I can't help smiling at one thing you have just said." 
 
 - " And what's that, sir ?" asked Jack, who was at a too heroic and 
 sentimental pitch to descend from it. 
 
 " You were speaking about our splendid mansion — my sister's 
 house, I mean." 
 
 "I mane the park and mansion of Arthur Pendennis, Esquire, of 
 Fairoaks Park, whom I hope to see a Mimber of Parliament for his 
 native town of Clavering, when he is of ege to take that responsible 
 st.etion," cried the Captain with much dignity. 
 
 The Major smiled. " Fairoaks Park, my dear sir! " he said. " Do 
 you know our history ? We are of excessively ancient family certainly, 
 but I began life with scarce enough money to purchase my commission, 
 and my eldest brother was a country apothecary: who made every 
 shilling he died possessed of out of his pestle and mortar." 
 
 " I have consented to waive that objection, sir," said Costigan majes- 
 tically, " in consideration of the known respectability of your family." 
 
 " Curse your impudence," thought the Major ; but he only smiled 
 and bowed. 
 
 " The Costigans, too, have met with misfortunes ; and our house of 
 Castle Costigan is by no manes what it was. I have known very honest 
 men apothecaries, sir, and there's some in Dublin that has had the 
 honour of dining at the Lord Leftenant's teeble." 
 
 " You are very kind to give us the benefit of your charity," the 
 ^Tajor continued : " but permit me to say that is not the question. 
 You spoke just now of my little nephew as heir of Fairoaks Park, and 
 I don't know what besides."
 
 PENDENNIS. 103 
 
 " Funded property, I've no doubt, Meejor, and something hand- 
 some eventually from yourself." 
 
 " My good sir, I tell you the boy is the son of a country apothe- 
 cary," cried out Major Pendennis, " and that when he comes of age he 
 won't have a shilling." 
 
 " Pooh, Major, you're laughing at me," said Mr. Costigan, " me 
 young friend, I make no doubt, is heir to two thousand pounds 
 a-year." 
 
 ' Two thousand fiddlesticks ! I beg your pardon, my dear sir; but 
 has the boy been humbugging you ? — it is not his habit. Upon my 
 word and honour, as a gentleman and an executor to my brother's will 
 too, he left little more than five hundred a year behind him." 
 
 "And with aconomy, a handsome sum of money too, sir," the 
 Captain answered. " Faith, I've known a man drink his clar't, and 
 drive his coach-and-four on five hundred a-year and strict aconomy, in 
 Ireland, sir. We'll manage on it, sir — trust Jack Costigan for that." 
 
 " My dear Captain Costigan — I give you my word that my brother 
 did not leave a shilling to his son Arthur." 
 
 " Are ye joking with me, Meejor Pendennis ? " cried Jack Costigan. 
 " Are ye thrifling with the feelings of a father and a gentleman ? " 
 
 " I am telling you the honest truth," said Major Pendennis. 
 " Every shilling my brother had, he left to his widow : with a partial 
 reversion, it is true, to the boy. But she is a young woman, and may 
 marry if he offends her — or she may outlive him, for she comes of an 
 uncommonly long-lived family. And I ask you, as a gentleman and a 
 man of the world, what allowance can my sister, Mrs. Pendennis, 
 make to her son out of five hundred a-year, which is all her fortune — 
 that shall enable him to maintain himself and your daughter in the 
 rank befitting such an accomplished young lady ? " 
 
 " Am I to understand, sir, that the young gentleman, your nephew, 
 and whom I have fosthered and cherished as the son of me bosom, is 
 an imposther who has been thrifling with the affections of me beloved 
 child ?" exclaimed the General, with an outbreak of wrath. " Have a 
 care, sir, how you thrifle with the honour of John Costigan. If I 
 thought any mortal man meant to do so, be heavens I'd have his 
 blood, sir — were he old or young." 
 
 " Mr. Costigan ! " cried out the Major. 
 
 " Mr. Costigan can protect his own and his daughter's honour, and 
 will, sir," said the other. " Look at that chest of dthrawers, it contains 
 heaps of letthers that that viper has addressed to that innocent child. 
 There's promises there, sir, enough to fill a band-box with ; and when 
 I have dragged the scoundthrel before the Courts of Law, and shown 
 up his perjury and his dishonour, I have another remedy in yondther 
 mahogany case, sir, which shall set me right, sir, with any individual
 
 I04 PENDENNIS. 
 
 — ye mark me words, Major Pendennis — with any individual who has 
 counselled your nephew to insult a soldier and a gentleman. What ? 
 Me daughter to be jilted, and me gray hairs dishonoured by an 
 apothecar)''s son ! By the laws of Keaven, sir, I should like to see the 
 man that shall do it." 
 
 " I am to understand, then, that you threaten in the firs^ place to 
 publish the letters of a boy of eighteen to a woman of eight-and- 
 twenty : and afterwards to do me the honour of calling me out,'" the 
 Major said, still with perfect coolness. 
 
 " You have described my intentions with perfect accuracy, Meejor 
 Pendennis," answered the Captain, as he pulled his ragged whiskers 
 over his chin. 
 
 "Well, well; these shall be the subjects of future arrangements, 
 but before we come to powder and ball, my good sir, — do have the 
 kindness to think with yourself in what eartiily way I have injured 
 you ? I have told you that my nephew is dependent upon his mother, 
 who has scarcely more than five hundred a-year." 
 
 " I have my own opinion of the correctness of that assertion," said 
 the Captain. 
 
 " Will you go to my sister's lawyers, Messrs. Tatham here, and 
 satisfy yourself.'"' 
 
 " I decline to meet those gentlemen," said the Captain, with rather 
 a disturbed air. " If it be as you say, I have been athrociously deceived 
 by some one, and on that person I'll be revenged." 
 
 "Is it my nephew ?" cried the Major, starting up and putting on his 
 hat. " Did he ever tell you that his property was two thousand a-year? 
 If he did, I'm mistaken in the boy. To tell lies has not been a habit 
 in our family, Mr. Costigan, and I don't think my brother's son has 
 learned it as yet. Trj^ and consider whether you have not deceived 
 yourself; or adopted extravagant reports from hearsay. As for me, 
 sir, you are at liberty to understand that I am not afraid of all the 
 Costigans in Ireland, and know quite well how to defend myself against 
 any threats from any quarter. I come here as the boy's guardian to 
 protest against a marriage, most absurd and unequal, that cannot but 
 bring poverty and misery with it : and in preventing it I conceive I 
 am quite as much your daughter's friend (who I have no doubt is an 
 honourable young lady), as the friend of my own family: and prevent 
 the marriage I will, sir, by every means in my power. There, I have 
 said my say, sir." 
 
 " But I have not said mine. Major Pendennis — and ye shall hear 
 more from me," Mr. Costigan said, with a look of tremendous severity. 
 
 '•'Sdeath, sir, what do you mean.^" the Major asked, turning 
 round on the threshold of the door, and looking the intrepid Costigan 
 in the face.
 
 PENDENNIS. 105 
 
 " Ye said, in the course of conversation, that ye were at the George 
 Hotel, I think," Mr. Costigan said in a stately manner. " A friend 
 shall wait upon ye there before ye leave town, sir." 
 
 " Let him make haste, Mr. Costigan," cried out the Major, almost 
 beside himself with rage. " I wish you a good morning, sir." And 
 Captain Costigan bowed a magnificent bow of defiance to Major 
 Pendennis over the landing-place as the latter retreated down the 
 stairs.
 
 ro6 PENDENNIS. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 IN WHICH A SHOOTING MATCH IS PROPOSED. 
 
 EARLY mention has been made in this history of Mr. Garbetts, 
 Principal Tragedian, a promising and athletic young actor, of 
 jovial habits and irregular inclinations, between whom and Mr. 
 Costigan there was a considerable intimacy. They were the chief 
 ornaments of the convivial club held at the Magpie Hotel ; they 
 helped each other in various bill transactions in which they had been 
 engaged, with the mutual loan of each other's valuable signatures. 
 They were friends, in fine ; and Mr. Garbetts was called in by Captain 
 Costigan immediately after Major Pendennis had quitted the house, 
 as a friend proper to be consulted at the actual juncture. He was a 
 large man, with a loud voice and fierce aspect, who had the finest • 
 legs of the whole company, and could break a poker in mere sport 
 across his stalwart arm. 
 
 " Run, Tommy," said Mr. Costigan to the little messenger, " and 
 fetch Mr. Garbetts from his lodgings over the tripe-shop, ye know, and 
 tell 'em to send two glasses of whisky-and-water, hot, from the Grapes." 
 So Tommy went his way ; and presently Mr. Garbetts and the whisky 
 came. 
 
 Captain Costigan did not disclose to him the whole of the previous 
 events, of which the reader is in possession ; but, with the aid of the 
 spirits and water, he composed a letter of a threatening nature to Major 
 Pendennis's address, in which he called upon that gentleman to offer 
 no hindrance to the marriage projected between Mr. Arthur Pendennis 
 and his daughter. Miss Fotheringay, and to fix an early day for its 
 celebration : or, in any other case, to give him the satisfaction which 
 was usual between gentlemen of honour. And should Major Pendennis 
 be disinclined to this alternative, the Captain hinted, that he would 
 force him to accept it by the use of a horsewhip, which he should 
 employ upon the Major's person. The precise terms of this letter we 
 cannot give, for reasons which shall be specified presently ; but it was, 
 no doubt, couched in the Captain's finest style, and sealed elaborately 
 with the great silver seal of the Costigans — the only bit of the family 
 plate which the Captain possessed. 
 
 Garbetts was despatched, then, with this message and letter; and
 
 PENDENNIS. io7 
 
 bidding Heaven bless 'um, the General squeezed his ambassador's 
 hand, and saw him depart. Then he took down his venerable and 
 murderous duelling-pistols, with flint locks, that had done the business 
 of many a pretty fellow in Dublin : and having examined these, and 
 seen that they were in a satisfactory condition, he brought from the 
 drawer all Pen's letters and poems which he kept there, and which he 
 always read before he permitted his Emily to enjoy their perusal. 
 
 In a score of minutes Garbetts came back with an anxious and 
 crest-fallen countenance. 
 
 " Ye 've seen 'um ? " the Captain said. 
 
 " Why, yes," said Garbetts. 
 
 " And when is it for ?" asked Costigan, trying the lock of one of the 
 ancient pistols, and bringing it to a level with his oi — as he called that 
 blood-shot orb. 
 
 " When is what for ? " asked Mr. Garbetts. 
 
 " The meeting, my dear fellow ? " 
 
 " You don't mean to say you mean mortal combat, Captain ? " 
 Garbetts said, aghast. 
 
 " What the devil else do I mean, Garbetts ? — I want to shoot 
 that man that has trajuiced me honor, or meself dthrop a victim on 
 the sod." 
 
 " D — if I carry challenges," Mr. Garbetts replied. " I'm a family 
 man. Captain, and will have nothing to do with pistols — take back your 
 letter ; " and, to the surprise and indignation of Captain Costigan, his 
 emissary flung the lettfer down, with its great sprawling superscription 
 and blotched seal. 
 
 " Ye don't mean to say ye saw 'um and didn't give 'um the letter?" 
 cried out the Captain, in a fury. 
 
 " I saw him, but I could not have speech with him, Captain," said 
 Mr. Garbetts. 
 
 " And why the devil not ?" asked the other. 
 
 " There was one there I cared not to meet, nor would you," the 
 tragedian answered in a sepulchral voice. " The minion Tatham was 
 there, Captain." 
 
 " The cowardly scoundthrel ! " roared Costigan. " He's frightened, 
 and already going to swear the peace against me." 
 
 " I'll have nothing to do with the fighting, mark that," the tragedian 
 doggedly said, " and I wish I'd not seen Tatham neither, nor that bit 
 of " 
 
 " Hold your tongue ! Bob Acres. It's my belief ye're no better 
 than a coward," said Captain Costigan, quoting Sir Lucius O'Trigger, 
 which character he had performed with credit, both off and on the 
 stage, and after some more parley between the couple they separated 
 in not very good humour.
 
 io8 PENDENNIS. 
 
 Their colloquy has been here condensed, as the reader knows the 
 main point upon which it turned. But the latter will now see how it 
 is impossible to give a correct account of the letter which the Captain 
 wrote to Major Pendennis, as it was never opened at all by that 
 gentleman. 
 
 When Miss Costigan came home from rehearsal, which she did in 
 the company of the faithful Mr. Bows, she found her father pacing up 
 and down their apartment in a great state of agitation, and in the 
 midst of a powerful odour of spirits and water, which, as it appeared, 
 had not succeeded in pacifying his disordered mind. The Pendennis 
 papers were on the table surrounding the empty goblets and now 
 useless teaspoon, which had served to hold and mix the Captain's 
 liquor and his friend's. As Emily entered he seized her in his arms, 
 and cried out, " Prepare yourself, me child, me blessed child," in a 
 voice of agony, and with eyes brimful of tears. 
 
 " Ye're tipsy again, papa," Miss Fotheringay said, pushing back licr 
 sire. "Ye promised me ye wouldn't take spirits before dinner." 
 
 "It's to forget me sorrows, me poor girl, that I've taken just a 
 drop," cried the bereaved father — "it's to drown me care that 1 drain 
 the bowl." 
 
 " Your care takes a deal of drowning, Captain dear,'" said Bows, 
 mimicking his friend's accent; "what has happened. Has that sofi- 
 spoken gentleman in the wig been vexing you ? " 
 
 "The oily miscreant! I'll have his blood!" roared Cos. Miss 
 Milly, it must be premised, had fled to her room out of his embrace, 
 and was taking off her bonnet and shawl there. 
 
 " I thought he meant mischief. He was so uncommon civil," the 
 other said. " What has he come to say ?" 
 
 " O Bows ! He has overwhellum'd me," the Captain said. " There's 
 a hellish conspiracy on foot against me poor girl ; and it's me opinion 
 that both them Pendennises, nephew and uncle, is two infernal thrators 
 and scoundthrels, who should be conshumed from off the face of the 
 earth." 
 
 "What is it? What has happened.^" said Mr. Bows, growing 
 rather excited. 
 
 Costigan then told him the Major's statement that the young Pen- 
 dennis had not two thousand, nor two hundred pounds a-year ; and 
 expressed his fury that he should have permitted such an impostor to 
 coax and wheedle his innocent girl, and that he should have nourished 
 such a viper in his own personal bosom. " I have shaken the reptile 
 from me, however," said Costigan ; " and as for his uncle, I'll have 
 Kuch a revenge on that old man, as shall make 'um rue the day he ever 
 insulted a Costigan." 
 
 "What do you mean. General?" said Bows.
 
 PENDENNIS. 109 
 
 " I mean to have his hfe, Bows — his villanous, skulking Hfe, my 
 boy ;" and he rapped upon the battered old pistol-case in an ominous 
 and savage manner. Bows had often heard him appeal to that box of 
 death, with which he proposed to sacrifice his enemies ; but the Captain 
 did not tell him that he had actually written and sent a challenge to 
 Major Pendennis, and Mr. Bows therefore rather disregarded the 
 pistols in the present instance. 
 
 At this juncture Miss Fotheringay returned to the common sitting- 
 room from her private apartment, looking perfectly healthy, happy, and 
 unconcerned, a striking and wholesqme contrast to her father, who was 
 in a dehrious tremor of grief, anger, and other agitation. She brought 
 in a pair of ex-white satin shoes with her, which she proposed to rub 
 as clean as might be with bread-crumb ; intending to go mad with them 
 upon next Tuesday evening in Ophelia, in which character she was to 
 reappear on that night. 
 
 She looked at the papers on the table ; stopped as if she was going 
 to ask a question, but thought better of it, and going to the cupboard, 
 selected an eligible piece of bread wherewith she might operate on the 
 satin slippers : and afterwards coming back to the table, seated herself 
 there commodiously with the shoes, and then asked her father, in her 
 honest Irish brogue, "What have ye got them letthers, and pothry, 
 and stuff, of Master Arthur"; out for. Pa? Sure ye don't want to be 
 reading over that nonsense." 
 
 " O Emilee ! " cried the Captain, " that boy whom I loved as the 
 boy of mee bosom is only a scoundthrel, and a deceiver, mee poor 
 girl:" and he looked in the most tragical way at Mr. Bows, opposite ; 
 who, in his turn, gazed somewhat anxiously at Miss Costigan. 
 
 " He ! pooh ! Sure the poor lad's as simple as a schoolboy," she 
 said. "All them children write verses and nonsense." 
 
 " He's been acting the part of a viper to this fireside, and a traitor 
 in this familee," cried the Captain. " I tell ye he's no better than an 
 impostor." 
 
 " What has the poor fellow done. Papa ?" asked Emily. 
 
 " Done ? He has deceived us in the most athrocious manner," 
 Miss Emily's papa said. " He has thrifled with your affections, and 
 outraged my own fine feelings. He has represented himself as a 
 man of property, and it turruns out that he is no betther than a beggar. 
 Haven't I often told ye he had two thousand a-year ? He's a pauper, 
 I tell ye. Miss Costigan ; a depindent upon the bountee of his mother; 
 a good woman, who may marry again, who's likely to live for ever, 
 and who has but five hundred a-year. How dar he ask ye to marry 
 into a family which has not the means of providing for ye .'' YeVe 
 been grossly deceived and put upon, Milly, and it's my belief his old 
 ruffian of an uncle in a wig is in the plot against us."
 
 no PENDEA'NIS. 
 
 •* That soft old gentleman? What has he been doing, Papa?" 
 continued Emily, still imperturbable. 
 
 Costigan informed Milly that when she was gone, Major Pendennis 
 told him in his double-faced Pall Mall polite manner, that young 
 Arthur had no fortune at all, that the Major had asked him (Costigan) 
 to go to the lawyers ("wherein he knew the scoundthrels have a 
 bill of mine, and I can't meet them," the Captain parenthetically 
 remarked), and see the lad's father's will : and finally, that an infernal 
 swindle had been practised upon him by the pair, and that he was 
 resolved either on a marriage, or on the blood of both of them. 
 
 Milly looked very grave and thoughtful, rubbing the white satin 
 shoe. " Sure, if he's no money, there's no use marrj'ing him, Papa," 
 she said sententiously. 
 
 " Why did the villain say he was a man of prawpertee ? " asked 
 Costigan. 
 
 " The poor feUow always said he was poor," answered the girl. 
 " 'Twas you who would have it he was rich, Papa — and made me agree 
 to take him." 
 
 " He should have been explicit and told us his income, Milly,'' 
 answered the father. " A young fellow who rides a blood mare, and 
 makes presents of shawls and bracelets, is an impostor if he has no 
 money; — and as for his uncle, bedad I'll pull off his wig whenever 1 
 see 'um. Bows, here, shall take a message to him and tell him so. 
 Either it's a marriage, or he meets me in the field like a man, or I 
 tweak 'um on the nose in front of his hotel, or in the gravel walks of 
 Fairoaks Park before aU the county, bedad." 
 
 " Bedad, you may send somebody else with the message," said 
 Bows, laughing. " I'm a fiddler, not a fighting man. Captain." 
 
 " Pooh, you've no spirit, sir," roared the General. " I'll be my 
 own second, if no one will stand by and see me injured. And I'll take 
 my case of pistols and shoot 'um in the Coffee Room of the George." 
 
 " And so poor Arthur has no money ? " sighed out Miss Costigan. 
 rather plaintively. " Poor lad, he was a good lad too : wild and 
 talking nonsense, with his verses and pothry and that, but a brave, 
 generous boy, and indeed I liked him — and he liked me too," she 
 added, rather softly, and rubbing away at the shoe. 
 
 " Why don't you marrj^ him if you like him so?" Mr. Bows said, 
 rather savagely. " He is not more than ten years younger than you 
 are. His mother may relent, and you might go and live and have 
 enough at Fairoaks Park. Why not go and be a lady ? I could go on 
 with the fiddle, and the General live on his half-pay. Why don't you 
 marry him ? You know he likes you." 
 
 " There's others that likes me as well, Bows, that has no monc\ 
 and that's old enough," Miss Milly said sententiously.
 
 PEN DENNIS. Ill 
 
 " Yes, d it," said Bows, with a bitter curse — " that are old 
 
 enough and poor enough and fools enough for anything." 
 
 " There's old fools, and young fools too. You've often said so, 
 you silly man," the imperious beauty said, with a conscious glance at 
 the old gentleman. " If Pendennis has not enough money to live 
 upon, it's folly to talk about marrying him : and that's the long and 
 short of it." 
 
 "And the boy.?" said Mr. Bows. "By Jove! you throw a man 
 away like an old glove, Miss Costigan." 
 
 " I don't know what you mean. Bows," said Miss Fotheringay, 
 placidly, rubbing the second shoe. " If he had had half of the two 
 thousand a-year that Papa gave him, or the half of that, I would 
 marry him. But what is the good of taking on with a beggar? 
 We're poor enough already. There's no use in my going to live with 
 an old lady that's testy and cross, maybe, and would grudge me every 
 morsel of meat. (Sure, it's near dinner-time, and Suky not laid the 
 cloth yet.) And then," added Miss Costigan, quite simply, " suppose 
 there was a family ? — why. Papa, we shouldn't be as well off as we 
 are now." 
 
 " 'Deed, then, you would not, Milly dear," answered the father. 
 " And there's an end to all the fine talk about Mrs. Arthur 
 Pendennis of Fairoaks Park — the member of Parliament's lady," 
 said Milly, with a laugh. " Pretty carriages and horses we should 
 have to ride ! — that you were always talking about, Papa. But it's 
 always the same. If a man looked at me, you fancied he was going 
 to marry me ; and if he had a good coat, yoa fancied he was as rich 
 as Crazes." 
 
 "As Croesus," said Mr. Bows. 
 
 " Well, call 'um what ye like. But it's a fact now that Papa has 
 married me these eight years a score of times. Wasn't I to be my 
 Lady Poldoody of Oystherstown Castle ? Then there was the Navy 
 captain at Portsmouth, and the old surgeon at Norwich, and the 
 Methodist preacher here last year, and who knows how many more .? 
 Well, I bet a penny, with all your scheming, I shall die Milly Costigan 
 at last. So poor little Arthur has no money .? Stop and take dinner. 
 Bows : we've a beautiful beef-steak pudding." 
 
 " I wonder whether she is on with Sir Derby Oaks," thought 
 Bows, whose eyes and thoughts were always watching her. " The 
 dodges of women beat all comprehension; and I am sure she 
 wouldn't let the lad off so easily, if she had not some other scheme 
 on" hand." 
 
 It will have been perceived that Miss Fotheringay, though silent 
 in general, and by no means brilliant as a conversationist where 
 poetry, literature, or the fine arts were concerned, could talk freely
 
 112 PENDENNIS. 
 
 and with good sense, too, in her ov/n family circle. She cannot justly 
 be called a romantic person : nor were her literary acquirements 
 great : she never opened a Shakspeare from the day she left the stage, 
 nor, indeed, understood it during all the time she adorned the boards : 
 but about a pudding, a piece of needle-work, or her own domestic 
 affliirs, she was as good a judge as could be found ; and not being 
 misled by a strong imagination or a passionate temper, was better 
 enabled to keep her judgment cool. When, over their dinner, Costigan 
 tried to convince himself and the company, that the Major's statement 
 regarding Pen's finances was unworthy of credit, and a mere ruse upon 
 the old hypocrite's part so as to induce them, on their side, to break 
 off the match, Miss Milly would not, for a moment, admit the possi- 
 bility of deceit on the side of the adversary : and pointed out clearly 
 that it was her father who had deceived himself, and not poor little 
 Pen who had tried to take them in. As for that poor lad, she said she 
 pitied him with all her heart. And she ate an exceedingly good 
 dinner ; to the adm.iration of Mr. Bows, who had a remarkable regard 
 and contempt for this woman, during and after which repast, the party 
 devised upon the best means of bringing this love-matter to a close. 
 As for Costigan, his idea of tweaking the Major's nose vanished with 
 his supply of after-dinner whisky-and-water ; and he was submissive 
 to his daughter, and ready for any plan on which she might decide, in 
 order to meet the crisis which she saw was at hand. 
 
 The Captain, who, as long as he had a notion that he was wronged, 
 was eager to face and demolish both Pen and his uncle, perhaps 
 shrank from the idea of meeting the former, and asked " what the 
 juice they were to say to the lad if he remained steady to his engage- 
 ment, and they broke from theirs ? " " What ? don't you know how 
 to throw a man over ? " said Bows ; " ask a woman to tell you ; " and 
 Miss Fotheringay showed how this feat was to be done simply enough 
 — nothing was more easy. " Papa writes to Arthur to know what 
 settlements he proposes to make in event of a marriage ; and asks 
 what his means are. Arthur writes back and says what he's got, and 
 you'll find it's as the Major says, I'll go bail. Then papa writes, and 
 says it's not enough, and the match had best be at an end." 
 
 "And of course you enclose a parting line, in which you say you 
 will always regard him as a brother," said Mr. Bows, eyeing her in 
 his scornful way. 
 
 " Of course, and so I shall," answered IVIiss Fotheringay. '■ He's 
 a most worthy young man, I'm sure. I'll thank ye hand me the salt. 
 Them filberts is beautiful." 
 
 "And there will be no noses pulled, Cos, my boy.' I'm sorry 
 you're balked," said ]\Ir. Bows. 
 
 "'Dad, I suppose not," said Cos, rubbing his own. — *" What'll ye
 
 PENDENNIS. 113 
 
 do about them letters, and verses, and pomes, Milly, darling? — Ye 
 must send 'em back." 
 
 " Wigsby would give a hundred pound for 'em," Bows said, with 
 a sneer. 
 
 " 'Deed, then, he would," said Captain Costigan, who wns 
 easily led. 
 
 "Papa!" said Miss Milly. — " Ye wouldn't be for not sending the 
 poor boy his letters back ? Them letters and pomes is mine. They 
 were very long, and full of all sorts of nonsense, and Latin, and 
 things I couldn't understand the half of; indeed, I've not read 'em all ; 
 but we'll send 'em back to him when the proper time comes.'' And 
 going to a drawer. Miss Fotheringay took out from it a number of the 
 County Chronicle and Chatteris Champion, in which Pen had written 
 a copy of flaming verses celebrating her appearance in the character 
 of Imogen, and putting by the leaf upon which the poem appeared 
 (for, like ladies of her profession, she kept the favourable printed 
 notices of her performances), she wrapped up Pen's letters, poems, 
 passions, and fancies, and tied them with a piece of string neatly, as 
 she would a parcel of sugar. 
 
 Nor was she in the least moved while performing this act. What 
 hours the boy had passed over those papers ! What love and longing : 
 what generous faith and manly devotion — what watchful nights and 
 lonely fevers might they tell of! She tied them up like so much 
 grocery, and sate down and made tea afterwards with a perfectly 
 placid and contented heart : while Pen was yearning after her ten 
 miles off: and hugging her image to his soul.
 
 414 PENDENNTS, 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 A CRISIS. 
 
 i\ /TAJOR PENDENNIS came away from his interview with 
 iVl Captain Costigan in a state of such concentrated fury as 
 rendered him terrible to approach. " The impudent bog-trotting 
 scamp," he thought, "dare to threaten me! Dare to talk of per- 
 mitting his damned Costigans to marry with the Pendennises ! Send 
 me a challenge ! If the fellow can get anything in the shape of a 
 gentleman to carry it, I have the greatest mind in life not to balk 
 him. — Psha ! what would people say if I were to go out with a tipsy 
 mountebank, about a row with an actress in a bam ! " So when the 
 Major saw Dr. Portman, who asked anxiously regarding the issue of 
 his battle with the dragon, jMajor Pendennis did not care to inform 
 the divine of the General's insolent behaviour, but stated that the 
 affair was a very ugly and disagreeable one, and that it was by no 
 means over yet. 
 
 He enjoined Doctor and Mrs. Portman to say nothing about the 
 business at Fairoaks ; and then he returned to his hotel, where he 
 vented his wrath upon Mr. Morgan his valet, " dammin' and cussin' 
 upstairs and downstairs," as that gentleman observed to Mr, Poker's 
 man, in whose company he partook of dinner in the servants' room 
 of the George. 
 
 The servant carried the news to his master ; and Mr. Foker having 
 finished his breakfast about this time, it being two o'clock in the 
 afternoon, remembered that he was anxious to know the result of the 
 intendew between his two friends, and having inquired the number of 
 the Major's sitting-room, went over in his brocade dressing-gown, and 
 knocked for admission. 
 
 The Major had some business, as he had stated, respecting a 
 lease of the widow's, about which he was desirous of consulting old 
 Mr. Tatham the lawyer, who had been his brothers man of business, 
 and who had a branch office at Clavering, where he and his son 
 attended market and other days three or four in the week. This 
 gentleman and his client were now in consultation when Mr. Foker 
 showed his grand dressing-gown and embroidered skull-cap at Major 
 Pendennis's door.
 
 PENDENNIS. 115 
 
 Seeing the Major engaged with papers and red tape, and an old 
 man with a white head, the modest youth was for drawing back — and 
 said, " O, you're busy — call again another time." But Major Pendennis 
 wanted to see him, and begged him, with a smile, to enter : where- 
 up6n Mr. Foker took off the embroidered tarboosh or fez (it had 
 been worked by the fondest of mothers) and advanced, bowing to the 
 gentlemen and smiling on them graciously. Mr. Tatham had never 
 seen so splendid an apparition before as this brocaded youth, who 
 seated himself in an arm-chair, spreading out his crimson skirts, and 
 looking with exceeding kindness and frankness on the other two 
 tenants of the room. " You seem to like my dressing-gown, sir," he 
 said to Mr. Tatham. " A pretty thing, isn't it.'' Neat, but not in the 
 least gaudy. And how do yoic do. Major Pendennis, sir, and how 
 does the world treat you ? " 
 
 There was that in Foker's manner and appearance which would 
 have put an Inquisitor into good humour, and it smoothed the wrinkles 
 under Pendennis's head of hair. 
 
 " I have had an interview with that Irishman, (you may speak 
 before my friend, Mr. Tatham here, who knows all the affairs of the 
 family,) and it has not, I own, been very satisfactory. He won't 
 believe that my nephew is poor : he says we are both liars : he did 
 me the honour to hint that I was a coward, as I took leave. And I 
 thought when you knocked at the door, that you might be the gentle- 
 man whom I expect with a challenge from Mr. Costigan— that is how 
 the world treats me, Mr. Foker." 
 
 "You don't mean that Irishman, the actress's father?" cried 
 Mr. Tatham, who was a dissenter himself, and did not patronize the 
 drama. 
 
 " That Irishman, the actress's father — the very man. Have not 
 you heard what a fool my nephew has made of himself about the girl 1 " 
 — and Major Pendennis had to recount the story of his nephew's loves 
 to the lawyer, Mr. Foker coming in with appropriate comments in his 
 usual familiar language. 
 
 Tatham was lost in wonder at the narrative. Why had not Mrs. 
 Pendennis married a serious man, he thought — Mr. Tatham was a 
 widower — and kept this unfortunate boy from perdition? As for 
 Miss Costigan, he would say nothing: her profession was sufficient 
 to characterize her. Mr. Foker here interposed to say he had known 
 some uncommon good people in the booths, as he called the Temple 
 of the Muses. Well it might be so, Mr. Tatham hoped so— but the 
 father, Tatham knew personally — a man of the worst character — a 
 wine-bibber and an idler in taverns and billiard-rooms, and a noto- 
 rious insolvent. " I can understand the reason, Major," he said, "why 
 tlie fellow would not come to my office to ascertain the truth of the
 
 Ii6 PEXDENNIS. 
 
 statements which you made him. — -We have a writ out against him 
 and another disreputable fellow, one of the play-actors, for a bill given 
 to Mr. Skinner of this city, a most respectable Grocer and Wine and 
 Spirit Merchant, and a Member of the Society of Friends. This 
 Costigan came crj-ing to Mr. Skinner, — crying in the shop, sir, — and 
 we have not proceeded against him or the other, as neither were worth 
 powder and shot." 
 
 It was whilst I\Ir. Tatham was engaged in telling his story that a 
 third knock came to the door, and there entered an athletic gentleman 
 in a shabby braided frock, bearing in his hand a letter with a large 
 blotched red seal. 
 
 " Can I have the honour of speaking with Major Pendennis in 
 private ? " he began — " I have a few words for your ear, sir. I am the 
 bearer of a mission from my friend Captain Costigan," — but here the 
 man with the bass voice paused, faltered, and turned pale —he caught 
 sight of the red and well-remembered face of Mr. Tatham. 
 
 " Hullo, Garbetts, speak up ! " cried Mr. Foker, delighted. 
 
 " Why, bless my soul, it is the other party to the bill ! " said Mr. 
 Tatham. " I say, sir ; stop I say." But Garbetts, with a face as blank 
 as Macbeth's when Banquo's ghost appears upon him, gasped some 
 inarticulate words, and fled out of the room. 
 
 The Major's gravity was entirely upset, and he burst out laughing. 
 So did Mr. Foker, who said, " By Jove, it was a good 'un." So did 
 the attorney, although by profession a serious man. 
 
 " I don't think there'll be any fight. Major," young Foker said ; and 
 began mimicking the tragedian. " If there is, the old gentleman — 
 your name Tatham ? — ver%' happy to make your acquaintance, I\Ir. 
 Tatham — may send the bailiffs to separate the men ; " and Mr. Tatham 
 promised to do so. The Major was by no means sorry at the ludicrous 
 issue of the quarrel. " It seems to me, sir," he said to Mr. Foker, 
 '' that you always arrive to put me into good humour." 
 
 Nor was this the only occasion on which Mr. Foker this day was 
 destined to be of service to the Pendennis family. We have said that 
 he had the entree of Captain Costigan's lodgings, and in the course of 
 the afternoon he thought he would pay the General a visit, and hear 
 from his own lips what had occurred in the conversation, in the 
 morning, with Mr. Pendennis. Captain Costigan was not at home. 
 He had received permission, nay, encouragement from his daughter, 
 to go to the convivial club at the Magpie Hotel, where no doubt he 
 was bragging at that moment of his desire to murder a certain ruffian ; 
 for he was not only brave, but he knew it too, and liked to take out 
 his courage, and, as it were, give it an airing in company. 
 
 Costigan then was absent, but Miss Fotheringay was at home 
 washing the tea-cups whilst Mr. Bows sate opposite to her.
 
 PENDENNIS. 117 
 
 "Just done breakfast I see — how do ?" said Mr, Foker, popping in 
 his little funny head. 
 
 " Get out, you funny little man," cried Miss Fotheringay. 
 
 "You mean come in," answered the other. — " Here we are 1 " and 
 entering the room he folded his arms and began twirling his head 
 round and round with immense rapidity, like Harlequin in the Panto- 
 mime when he first issues from his cocoon or envelope. Miss Fother- 
 ingay laughed with all her heart : a wink of Foker^s would set her off 
 laughing, when the bitterest joke Bows ever made could not get a 
 smile from her, or the finest of poor Pen's speeches would only puzzle 
 her. At the end of the harlequinade he sank down on one knee and 
 kissed her hand. 
 
 " You're the drollest httle man," she said, and gave him a great 
 good-humoured slap. Pen used to tremble as he kissed her hand. 
 Pen would have died of a slap. 
 
 These preliminaries over, the three began to talk; Mr. Foker 
 amused his companions by recounting to them the scene which he 
 had just witnessed of the discomfiture of Mr. Garbetts, by which they 
 learned, for the first time, how far the General had carried his wrath 
 against Major Pendeniiis. Foker spoke strongly in favour of the 
 Major's character for veracity and honour, and described him as a 
 tip-top swell, moving in the upper circle of society, who would never 
 submit to any deceit — much more to deceive such a charming young 
 woman as Miss Foth. 
 
 He touched delicately upon the delicate marriage question, though 
 he couldn't help showing that he held Pen rather cheap. In fact, he 
 had a perhaps just contempt for Mr. Pen's high-flown sentimentality ; 
 his own weakness, as he thought, not lying that way. " I knew it 
 wouldn't do. Miss Foth," said he, nodding his little head. " Couldn't 
 do. Didn't like to put my hand into the bag, but knew it couldn't do. 
 He's too young for you: too green : a deal too green : and he turns 
 out to be poor as Job. Can't have him at no price, can she, 
 Mr. Bo?" 
 
 " Indeed he's a nice poor boy," said the Fotheringay, rather sadly. 
 
 " Poor little beggar," said Bows, with his hands in his pockets, 
 and stealing up a queer look at Miss Fotheringay. Perhaps he 
 thought and wondered at the way in which women play with men, 
 and coax them and win them and drop them. 
 
 But Mr. Bows had not the least objection to acknowledge that he 
 thought Miss Fotheringay was perfectly right in giving up Mr. Arthur 
 Pendennis, and that in his idea the match was always an absurd one : 
 and Miss Costigan owned that she thought so herself, only she couldn't 
 send away two thousand a-year. " It all comes of believing Papa's 
 silly stories," she said ; " faith, I'll choose for mcsclf another time " —
 
 li8 PENDENNIS. 
 
 and very likely the large image of Lieutenant Sir Derby Oaks entered 
 into her mind at that instant. 
 
 After praising Major Pendennis, whom Miss Costigan declared to 
 be a proper gentleman entirely, smelling of lavender, and as neat as a 
 pin, — and who was pronounced by Mr. Bows to be the right sort of 
 fellow, though rather too much of an old buck, Mr. Foker suddenly 
 bethought him to ask the pair to come and meet the Major that very- 
 evening at dinner at his apartment at the George. " He agreed to 
 dine with me, and I think after the — after the little shindy this 
 morning, in which I must say the General was wrong, it would look 
 kind, you know. — I know the Major fell in love with you, Miss Foth : 
 he said so." 
 
 " So she may be Mrs. Pendennis still," Bows said with a sneer — 
 " No, thank you, Mr. F. — I've dined." 
 
 " Sure, that was at three o'clock," said Miss Costigan, who had an 
 honest appetite, " and I can't go without you." 
 
 " We'll have lobster-salad and champagne," said the little monster, 
 who could not construe a line of Latin, or do a sum beyond the Rule 
 of Three. Now, for lobster-salad and champagne in an honourable 
 manner. Miss Costigan would have gone anywhere — and Major Pen- 
 dennis actually found himself at seven o'clock seated at a dinner-table 
 in company with Mr, Bows, a professional fiddler, and Miss Costigan, 
 whose father had wanted to blow his brains out a few hours before. 
 
 To make the happy meeting complete, Mr. Foker, who knew 
 Costigan's haunts, despatched Stoopid to the club at the Magpie, 
 where the General was in the act of singing a pathetic song, and 
 brought him off to supper. To find his daughter and Bows seated 
 at the board was a surprise indeed — Major Pendennis laughed, and 
 cordially held out his hand, which the General Officer grasped avec 
 effusion as the French say. In fact he was considerably inebriated, 
 and had already been crjang over his own song before he joined the 
 little party at the George. He burst into tears more than once, 
 during the entertainment, and called the Major his dearest friend. 
 Stoopid and Mr. Foker walked home with him : the Major gallantly 
 giving his arm to Miss Costigan. He was received with great friendli- 
 ness when he called the next day, when many civilities passed between 
 the gentlemen. On taking leave he expressed his anxious desire to 
 serve Miss Costigan on any occasion in which he could be useful to 
 her, and he shook hands with Mr. Foker most cordially and gratefully, 
 and said that gentleman had done him the very greatest service. 
 
 " All right," said Mr. Foker : and they parted with mutual esteem. 
 
 On his return to Fairoaks the next day. Major Pendennis did not 
 say what had happened to him on the previous night, or allude to the 
 company in which he had passed it. But he engaged Mr. Smirke to
 
 PENDENNIS. 119 
 
 stop to dinner ; and any person accustomed to watch his manner 
 might have remarked that there was something constrained in his 
 hilarity and talkativeness, and that he was unusually gracious and 
 watchful in his communications with his nephew. He gave Pen an 
 emphatic God-bless-you when the lad went to bed ; and as they were 
 about to part for the night, he seemed as if he were going to say 
 something to Mrs. Pendennis, but he bethought him that if he spoke 
 he might spoil her night's rest, and allowed her to sleep in peace. 
 
 The next morning he was down in the breakfast-room earlier than 
 was his custom, and saluted everybody there with great cordiality. 
 The post used to arrive commonly about the end of this meal. When 
 John, the old servant, entered, and discharged the bag of its letters 
 and papers, the Major looked hard at Pen as the lad got his — Arthur 
 blushed, and put his letter down. He knew the hand, it was that of 
 old Costigan, and he did not care to read it in public. Major Pen- 
 dennis knew the letter, too. He had put it into the post himself in 
 Chatteris the day before. 
 
 He told little Laura to go away, which the child did, having a 
 thorough dislike to him ; and as the door closed on her, he took 
 Mrs. Pendennis's hand, and giving her a look full of meaning, pointed 
 to the letter under the newspaper which Pen was pretending to read. 
 " Will you come into the drawing-room ? " he said. " I want to speak 
 to you." 
 
 And she followed him, wondering, into the hall. 
 
 " What is it ? " she said nervously. 
 
 " The affair is at an end," Major Pendennis said. " He has a 
 letter there giving him his dismissal. I dictated it myself yesterday. 
 There are a few lines from the lady, too, bidding him farewell. It is 
 all over." 
 
 Helen ran back to the dining-room, her brother following. Pen 
 had jumped at his letter the instant they were gone. He was reading 
 it with a stupefied face. It stated what the Major had said, that 
 Mr. Costigan was most gratified for the kindness with which Arthur 
 had treated his daughter, but that he was only now made aware of 
 Mr. Pendennis's pecuniary circumstances. They were such that 
 marriage was at present out of the question, and considering the 
 great disparity in the age of the two, a future union was impossible. 
 Under these circumstances, and with the deepest regret and esteem 
 for him, Mr. Costigan bade Arthur farewell, and suggested that he 
 should cease visiting, for some time at least, at his house. 
 
 A few lines from Miss Costigan were inclosed. She acquiesced in 
 the decision of her Papa. She pointed out that she was many years 
 older than Arthur, and that an engagement was not to be thought of 
 She would always be grateful for his kindness to her, and hoped to
 
 I20 PENDEiXNIS. 
 
 keep his friendship. But at present, and until the pain of the separa- 
 tion should be over, she entreated they should not meet. 
 
 Pen read Costigan's letter and its inclosure mechanically, hardly 
 knowing what was before his eyes. He looked up wildly, and saw his 
 mother and uncle regarding him with sad faces. Helen's, indeed, was 
 full of tender maternal anxiety. 
 
 " What — what is this ?" Pen said. " It's some joke. This is not 
 her writing. This is some servant's writing. Who's playing these 
 tricks upon me ? " 
 
 " It comes under her father's envelope," the Major said. '■ Those 
 letters you had before were not in her hand : that is hers." 
 
 " How do you know?" said Pen ver)- fiercely. 
 
 " I saw her write it," the uncle answered, as the boy started up ; 
 and his mother, coming forward, took his hand. He put her away. 
 
 " How came you to see her ? How came you between me and her .' 
 What have I ever done to you that you should — Oh, it's not true ; it's 
 not true !" — Pen broke out with a wild execration. " She can't have 
 done it of her own accord. She can't mean it. She's pledged to me. 
 Who has told her lies to break her from me .'' " 
 
 " Lies are not told in the family, Arthur," Major Pendennis replied. 
 " I told her the truth, which was, that you had no money to maintain 
 her, for her foolish father had represented you to be rich. And when 
 she knew how poor you were, she withdrew at once, and without any 
 persuasion of mine. She was quite right. She is ten years older than 
 you are. She is perfectly unfitted to be your wife, and knows it. Look 
 at that hand-writing, and ask yourself, is such a woman fitted to be 
 the companion of your mother ? " 
 
 '' I will know from herself if it is true," Arthur said, crumpling up 
 the paper. 
 
 " Won't you take my word of honour ? Her letters were written 
 by a confidante of hers, who writes better than she can — look here. 
 Here's one from the lady to your friend, Mr. Foker. You have seen 
 her with Miss Costigan, as whose amanuensis she acted " — the Major 
 said, with ever so little of a sneer, and laid down a certain billet which 
 Mr. Foker had given to him. 
 
 " It's not that," said Pen, burning with shame and rage. " I suppose 
 what you say is true, sir, but I'll hear it from herself." 
 
 " Arthur! " appealed his mother. 
 
 " I will see her," said Arthur. " I'll ask her to marrj- me, once 
 more. I will. No one shall prevent me." 
 
 " What, a woman who spells affection with one f .-* Nonsense, sir. 
 Be a man, and remember that your mother is a lady. She was never 
 made to associate with that tipsy old swindler or his daughter. Be a 
 man and forget her, as she does you."
 
 PEXDENNIS. 121 
 
 " Be a man and comfort your mother, my Arthur," Helen said, 
 sjohig and embracing him : and seeing that the pair were greatly 
 moved, Major Pendennis went out of the room and shut the door upon 
 them, wisely judging that they were best alone. 
 
 He had won a complete victory. He actually had brought away 
 Pen's letters in his portmanteau from Chatteris : having complimented 
 Mr. Costigan, when he returned them, by giving him the little pro- 
 missory note which had disquieted himself and Mr. Garbetts : and for 
 which the Major settled with Mr. Tatham. 
 
 Pen rushed wildly oft" to Chatteris that day, but in vain attempted 
 to see Miss Fotheringay, for whom he left a letter, inclosed to her 
 father. The inclosure was returned by Mr. Costigan, who begged that 
 all correspondence might end ; and after one or two further attempts of 
 the lad's, the indignant General desired that their acquaintance might 
 cease. He cut Pen in the street. As Arthur and Foker were pacing 
 the Castle walk, one day, they came upon Emily on her father's arm. 
 .She passed without any nod of recognition. Foker felt poor Pen 
 trembling on his arm. 
 
 His uncle wanted him to travel, to quit the country for a while, and 
 his mother urged him too : for he was growing very ill, and suffered 
 severely. But he refused, and said point-blank he would not go. He 
 would not obey in this instance : and his mother was too fond, and his 
 uncle too wise to force him. Whenever Miss Fotheringay acted, he 
 rode over to the Chatteris Theatre and saw her. One night there 
 were so few people in the house that the Manager returned the money. 
 Pen came home and went to bed at eight o'clock and had a fever. If 
 this continues, his mother will be going over and fetching the girl, the 
 Major thought, in despair. As for Pen, he thought he should die. 
 We are not going to describe his feelings, or give a dreary journal of 
 his despair and passion. Have not other gentlemen been balked in 
 love besides Mr. Pen ? Yes, indeed : but few die of the malady.
 
 PENDENNIS. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 IN WHICH MISS FOTHERINGAV MAKES A NEW ENGAGEMENT. 
 
 WITHIN a short period of the events above narrated, Mr. 
 Manager Bingley was performing his famous character of 
 " Rolla," in " Pizarro," to a house so exceedingly thin, that it would 
 appear as if the part of Rolla was by no means such a favourite with 
 the people of Chatteris as it was with the accomplished actor himself. 
 Scarce anybody was in the theatre. Poor Pen had the boxes almost 
 all to himself, and sate there lonely, with bloodshot eyes, leaning over 
 the ledge, and gazing haggardly towards the scene, when Cora came 
 in. When she was not on the stage, he saw nothing. Spaniards and 
 Peruvians, processions and battles, priests and virgins of the sun, went 
 in and out, and had their talk, but Arthur took no note of any one of 
 them ; and only saw Cora whom his soul longed after. He said after- 
 wards that he wondered he had not taken a pistol to shoot her, so mad 
 was he with love, and rage, and despair; and had it not been for his 
 mother at home, to whom he did not speak about his luckless con- 
 dition, but whose silent sympathy and watchfulness greatly comforted 
 the simple half heart-broken fellow, who knows but he might have 
 done something desperate, and have ended his days prematurely in 
 front of Chatteris gaol ? There he sate then, miserable, and gazing at 
 her. And she took no more notice of him than he did of the rest of 
 the house. 
 
 The Fotheringay was uncommonly handsome, in a white raiment 
 and leopard skin, with a sun upon her breast, and fine tawdry brace- 
 lets on her beautiful glancing arms. She spouted to admiration the 
 few words of her part, and looked it still better. The eyes, which 
 had overthrown Pen's soul, rolled and gleamed as lustrous as ever; 
 but it was not to him that they were directed that night. He did 
 not know to whom, or remark a couple of gentlemen, in the bOx 
 next to him, upon whom Miss Fotheringay's glances were perpetu- 
 ally shining. 
 
 Nor had Pen noticed the extraordinary change which had taken 
 place on the stage a short time after the entr>- of these two gentlemen 
 into the theatre. There were so few people in the house, that the first 
 act of the play languished entirely, and there had been some question
 
 PENDENNIS. 123 
 
 of returning the money, as upon that other unfortunate night when 
 poor Pen had been driven away. The actors were perfectly careless 
 about their parts, and yawned through the dialogue, and talked loud 
 to each other in the intervals. Even Bingley was listless, and Mrs. B. 
 in Elvira spoke under her breath. 
 
 How came it that all of a sudden Mrs. Bingley began to raise her 
 voice and bellow like a bull of Bashan ? Whence was it that Bingley, 
 flinging off his apathy, darted about the stage and yelled like Kean ? 
 Why did Garbetts and Rowkins and Miss Rouncy try, each of them, 
 the force of their charms or graces, and act and swagger and scowl and 
 spout their very loudest at the two gentlemen in box No. 3 ? 
 
 One was a quiet little man in black, with a grey head and a jolly 
 shrewd face — the other was in all respects a splendid and remarkable 
 individual. He was a tall and portly gentleman with a hooked nose 
 and a profusion of curling brown hair and whiskers ; his coat was 
 covered with the richest frogs, braiding, and velvet. He had under- 
 waistcoats, many splendid rings, jewelled pins and neck-chains. When 
 he took out his yellow pocket-handkerchief with his hand that was 
 cased in white kids, a delightful odour of musk and bergamot was 
 shaken through the house. He was evidently a personage of rank, and 
 it was at him that the little Chatteris company was acting. 
 
 He was, in a word, no other than Mr. Dolphin, the great manager 
 from London, accompanied by his faithful friend and secretary Mr. 
 William Minns: without whom he never travelled. He had not been 
 ten minutes in the theatre before his august presence there was per- 
 ceived by Bingley and the rest : and they all began to act their best 
 and try to engage his attention. Even Miss Fotheringay's dull heart, 
 which was disturbed at nothing, felt perhaps a flutter, when she came 
 in presence of the famous London Impresario. She had not much to 
 do in her part, but to look handsome, and stand in picturesque atti- 
 tudes encircling her child : and she did this work to admiration. In 
 vain the various actors tried to win the favour of the great stage 
 Sultan. Pizarro never got a hand from him. Bingley yelled, and 
 Mrs. Bingley bellowed , and the Manager only took snuff out of his 
 great gold box. It was only in the last scene, when Rolla comes in 
 staggering with the infant (Bingley is not so strong as he was, and his 
 fourth son Master Talma Bingley is a monstrous large child for his 
 age) — when Rolla comes staggering with the child to Cora, who rushes 
 forward with a shriek and says — " O God, there's blood upon him ! " 
 — that the London manager clapped his hands, and broke out with an 
 enthusiastic bravo. 
 
 Then having concluded his applause, Mr. Dolphin gave his secre- 
 tary a slap on the shoulder, and said, " By Jove, Billy, she'll do ! " 
 "Who taught her that dodge?" said old Billy, who was a sardonic
 
 124 PEA'DENNIS. 
 
 old gentleman—" I remember her at the Olympic, and hang me if she 
 could say Bo to a goose."' 
 
 It was httle Mr. Bows in the orchestra who had taught her the 
 '•dodge" in question. All the company heard the applause, and, as 
 the curtain went down, came round her and congratulated and hated 
 Miss Fotheringay. 
 
 Now Mr, Dolphin's appearance in the remote little Chatteris 
 theatre may be accounted for in this manner. In spite of all his 
 exertions, and the perpetual blazes of triumph, coruscations of talent, 
 victories of good old English comedy, which his play-bills advertised, 
 his theatre (which, if you please, and to injure no present suscepti- 
 bilities and vested interests, we shall call the Museum Theatre) by no 
 means prospered, and the famous Impresario found himself on the 
 verge of ruin. The great Hubbard had acted legitimate drama for 
 twenty nights, and failed to remunerate anybody but himself: the 
 celebrated Mr, and Mrs. Cawdor had come out in Mr. Rawhead's 
 tragedy, and in their favourite round of pieces, and had not attracted 
 the public. Herr Garbage's lions and tigers had drawn for a little 
 time, until one of the animals had bitten a piece out of the Herrs 
 shoulder ; when the Lord Chamberlain interfered, and put a stop to 
 this species of performance : and the grand Lyrical Drama, though 
 brought out with unexampled splendour and success, with Monsieur 
 Poumons as first tenor, and an enormous orchestra, had almost crushed 
 poor Dolphin in its triumphant progress : so that great as his genius 
 and resources were, they seemed to be at an end. He was dragging on 
 his season wretchedly with half salaries, small operas, feeble old come- 
 dies, and his ballet company ; and everybody was looking out for the 
 day when he should appear in the Gazette. 
 
 One of the illustrious patrons of the Museum Theatre, and occu- 
 pant of the great proscenium-box, was a gentleman whose name has 
 been mentioned in a previous historj-; that refined patron of the arts, 
 and enlightened lover of music and the drama, the Most Noble the 
 Marquis of Steyne. His lordship's avocations as a statesman pre- 
 vented him from attending the playhouse very often, or coming very 
 early. But he occasionally appeared at the theatre in time for the 
 ballet, and was always received with the greatest respect by the 
 Manager, from whom he sometimes condescended to receive a visit in 
 his box. It communicated with the stage, and when anything occurred 
 there which particularly pleased him, when a new face made its 
 appearance among the cor\ph^es, or a fair dancer executed 3. pas with 
 especial grace or agility, Mr. Wenham, Mr. Wagg, or some other aide- 
 de-camp of the noble Marquis, would be commissioned to go behind 
 the scenes, and express the great man's approbation, or make the 
 inquiries which were prompted by his lordship's curiosity, or his
 
 PENDENNIS. 125 
 
 interest in the dramatic art. He could not be seen by the audience, 
 for Lord Steyne sate modestly behind a curtain, and looked only 
 towards the stage — but you could know he was in the house, by the 
 glances which all the corps-de-ballet, and all the principal dancers, 
 cast towards his box. I have seen many scores of pairs of eyes (as in 
 the Palm Dance in the ballet of Cook at Otaheite, where no less than 
 a hundred-and-twenty lovely female savages in palm-leaves and feather 
 aprons, were made to dance round Floridar as Captain Cook,) ogling 
 that box as they performed before it, and have often wondered to 
 remark the presence of mind of Mademoiselle Sauterelle, or Made- 
 moiselle de Bondi (known as la petite Caoutchouc), who, when actually 
 up in the air quivering like so many shuttlecocks, always kept their 
 lovely eyes winking at that box in which the great Steyne sate. Now 
 and then you would hear a harsh voice from behind the curtain, cry, 
 " Brava, Brava," or a pair of white gloves wave from it, and begin to 
 applaud. Bondi, or Sauterelle, when they came down to earth, curtsied 
 and smiled, especially to those hands, before they walked up the stage 
 again, panting and happy. 
 
 One night this great Prince surrounded by a few choice friends 
 was in his box at the Museum, and they were making such a noise 
 and laughter that the pit was scandalized, and many indignant voices 
 were bawling out silence so loudly, that Wagg wondered the police 
 did not interfere to take the rascals out. Wenham was amusing the 
 party in the box with extracts from a private letter which he had 
 received from Major Pendennis, whose absence in the country at the 
 full London season had been remarked, and of course deplored by his 
 friends. 
 
 " The secret is out," said Mr. Wenham, " there's a woman in the 
 case." 
 
 " Why, d it, Wenham, he's your age," said the gentleman 
 
 behind the curtain. 
 
 " Pour les ames bien nees, I'amour ne compte pas le nombre des 
 annees," said Mr. Wenham, with a gallant air. " For my part, I hope 
 to be a victim till I die, and to break my heart every year of my life." 
 The meaning of which sentence was, " My lord, you need not talk ; 
 I'm three years younger than you, and twice as well conserve'." 
 
 "Wenham, you affect me," said the great man, with one of his 
 
 usual oaths. " By you do. I like to see a fellow preserving all 
 
 the illusions of youth up to our time of life — and keeping his heart 
 warm as yours is. Hang it, sir, — it's a comfort to meet with such 
 a generous, candid creature. — Who's that gal in the second row, with 
 blue ribbons, third from the stage — fine gal. Yes, you and I are 
 sentimentalists. Wagg I don't think so much cares — it's the storaacl) 
 rather more than the heart with you, eh, Wagg, my boy ?"
 
 126 PENDENNIS. 
 
 " I like everything that's good," said Mr. Wagg, generously. 
 '' Beauty and Burgundy, Venus and Venison. I don't say that 
 Venus's turtles are to be despised, because they don't cook them 
 at the London Tavern : but — but tell us about old Pendennis, 
 Mr. Wenham," he abruptly concluded — for his joke flagged just then, 
 as he saw that his patron was not listening. In fact, Steyne's glasses 
 were up, and he was examining some object on the stage. 
 
 " Yes, I've heard that joke about Venus's turtle and the London 
 Tavern before — you begin to fail, my poor Wagg. If you don't mind 
 I shall be obliged to have a new Jester," Lord Steyne said, laying down 
 his glass. " Go on, Wenham, about old Pendennis." 
 
 " Dear Wenham, he begins," — Mr. Wenham read,-r-" As you have 
 had my character in your hands for the last three weeks, and no doubt 
 have torn me to shreds, according to your custom, I think you can 
 afford to be good-humoured by way of variety, and to do me a 
 service. It is a delicate matter, entre nous, iitte affaire de cceiir. There 
 is a young friend of mine who is gone wild about a certain Miss 
 Fotheringay, an actress at the theatre here, and I must ovn\ to you, 
 as handsome a woman, and, as it appears to me, as good an actress 
 as ever put on rouge. She does Ophelia, Lady Teazle, i^Irs. Haller — 
 that sort of thing. Upon my word, she is as splendid as Georges in 
 her best days, and, as far as I know, utterly superior to anything we 
 have on our scene. / waiti a Lotidoti engagcinent for her. Can't you 
 get your friend Dolphin to come and see her — to engage her — to take 
 her out of this place '^. A word from a noble friend of ours (you under- 
 stand) would be invaluable, and if you could get the Gaunt House 
 interest for me — I will promise aiiytlmig I can in return for your 
 service — which I shall consider one of the greatest that can be done io 
 ine. Do, do this now as a good fellow, which / always said you were: 
 and in return, command yours truly, 
 
 " A. Pendennis." 
 
 " It's a clear case," said Mr. Wenham, having read this letter; 
 " old Pendennis is in love." 
 
 "And wants to get the woman up to London — evidently," con- 
 tinued Mr. Wagg. 
 
 " I should like to see Pendennis on his knees, with the rheuma- 
 tism," said Mr. Wenham. 
 
 " Or accommodating the beloved object with a lock of his hair," 
 said Wagg. 
 
 " Stuff," said the great man. " He has relations in the county, 
 liasn't he ? He said something about a nephew, whose interest could 
 return a member. It is the nephew's affair, depend on it. The young 
 one is in a scrape. I was mysdf — when I was in the fifth fonn at 
 
 K
 
 PENDENNIS. 127 
 
 Eton — a market-gardener's daughter — and swore I'd marry her. I 
 was mad about her— poor Polly ! " — Here he made a pause, and 
 perhaps the past rose up to Lord Steyne, and George Gaunt was a boy 
 again not altogether lost. — " But I say, she must be a fine woman 
 from Pendennis's account. Have in Dolphin, and let us hear if he 
 knows anything of her." 
 
 At this Wenham sprang out of the box, passed the servitor who 
 
 waited at the door communicating with the stage, and who saluted 
 
 Mr. Wenham with profound respect ; and the latter emissary, pushing 
 
 on and familiar with the place, had no difficulty in finding ciut the 
 
 manager, who was employed, as he not unfrequently was, in swearing 
 
 and cursing the ladies of the corps-de-ballet for not doing their duty. 
 
 j The oaths died away on Mr. Dolphin's lips, as soon as he saw 
 
 j Mr. Wenham ; and he drew off the hand which was clenched in the 
 
 I face of one of the offending coryphees, to grasp that of the new 
 
 I comer. "How do, Mr. Wenham? How's his lordship to-night? 
 
 J Looks uncommonly well," said the manager, smiling, as if he had 
 
 \ never been out of temper in his life ; and he was only too delighted 
 
 !j to follow Lord Steyne's ambassador, and pay his personal respects to 
 
 ij that great man. 
 
 1 The visit to Chatteris was the result of their conversation ; and 
 ^ Mr. Dolphin wrote to his Lordship from that place, and did himself 
 if the honour to inform the Marquis of Steyne, that he had seen the lady 
 i about whom his Lordship had spoken, that he was as much struck by 
 \\ her talents as he was by her personal appearance, and that he had 
 ; j made an engagement with Miss Fotheringay, who would soon have 
 ' I the honour of appearing before a London audience, and his noble and 
 I enlightened patron the Marquis of Steyne. 
 
 ! Pen read the announcement of Miss Fotheringay's engagement in 
 : \ the Chatteris paper, where he had so often praised her charms. The 
 I editor made very handsome mention of her talent and beauty, and 
 I I prophesied her success in the metropolis. Bingley, the manager, 
 I began to advertise " The last night of Miss Fotheringay's engage- 
 I ment." Poor Pen and Sir Derby Oaks were very constant at the 
 I play: Sir Derby in the stage-box, throwing bouquets and getting 
 1 glances. — Pen in the almost deserted boxes, haggard, wretched, and 
 ' lonely. Nobody cared whether Miss Fotheringay was going or staying 
 . except those two — and perhaps one more, which was Mr. Bows of the 
 ' orchestra. 
 
 He came out of his place one night, and went into the house to the 
 
 j box where Pen was ; and he held out his hand to him, and asked him 
 
 I to come and walk. They walked down the street together ; and went 
 
 , j and sate upon Chatteris bridge in the moonlight, and talked about 
 
 . ! Her. " We may sit on the same bridge," said he : " we have been
 
 128 P£XDL\yA7S. 
 
 in the same boat for a long time. You arc not the only man who has 
 made a fool of himself about that woman. And I have less excuse 
 than you, because I'm older and know her better. She has no more 
 heart than the stone you are leaning on ; and it or you or I might fall 
 into the water, and never come up again, and she wouldn't care. Yes 
 — she would care for me, because she wants me to teach her: and she 
 won't be able to get on without me, and wnll be forced to send for me 
 from London. But she wouldn't if she didn't want me. She has no 
 heart and no head, and no sense, and no feelings, and no griefs or 
 cares, whatever. I w-as going to say no pleasures — but the fact is, she 
 does like her dinner, and she is pleased when people admire her." 
 
 " And you do ?" said Pen, interested out of himself, and wondering 
 at the crabbed homely little old man. 
 
 " It's a habit, like taking snuff, or drinking drams," said the other, 
 " I've been taking her these five years, and can't do without her. It 
 was I made her. If she doesn't send for me, I shall follow her : but 1 
 know she'll send for me. She wants me. Some day she'll marry, and 
 fling me over, as I do the end of this cigar." 
 
 The little flaming spark dropped into the water below, and disap- 
 peared ; and Pen, as he rode home that night, actually thought about 
 somebodv but himself.
 
 PENDENNIS, J 29 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE HAPPY VILLAGE. 
 
 UNTIL the enemy had retired altogether from before the place, 
 Major Pendennis was resolved to keep his garrison in Fairoaks. 
 He did not appear to watch Pen's behaviour, or to put any restraint 
 on his nephew's actions, but he managed, nevertheless, to keep the lad 
 constantly under his eye or those of his agents, and young Arthur's 
 comings and goings were quite well known to his vigilant guardian. 
 
 I suppose there is scarcely any man who reads this or any other 
 novel but has been balked in love sometime or the other, by fate, and 
 circumstance, by falsehood of women, or his own fault. Let that 
 worthy friend recall his own sensations under the circumstances, and 
 apply them as illustrative of Mr. Pen's anguish. Ah ! what weary 
 nights and sickening fevers ! Ah ! what mad desires dashing up 
 against some rock of obstruction or indifference, and flung back agai^ 
 from the unimpressionable granite ! If a list could be made this very 
 night in London of the groans, thoughts, imprecations of tossing 
 lovers, what a catalogue it would be ! I wonder what a per-centage of 
 the male population of the metropolis will be lying awake at two oi- 
 three o'clock to-morrow morning, counting the hours as they go by 
 knelling drearily, and rolling from left to right, restless, yearning, and 
 heart-sick ? What a pang it is ! I never knew a man die of love, 
 certainly, but I have known a twelve-stone man go down to nine stone 
 five under a disappointed passion, so that pretty nearly a quarter of him 
 may be said to have perished: and that is no small portion. He has 
 come back to his old size subsequently — perhaps is bigger than ever: 
 very likely some new affection has closed round his heart and ribs and 
 ' made them comfortable, and young Pen is a man who will console 
 himself like the rest of us. We say this lest the ladies should be dis- 
 posed to deplore him prematurely, or be seriously uneasy with regard to 
 his complaint. His mother was, but what will not a maternal fondness 
 fear or invent? " Depend on it, my dear creature," Major Pendennis 
 would say gallantly to her, " the boy will recover. As soon as we get 
 her out of the country, we will take him somewhere, and show him a 
 little life. Meantime make yourself easy .-about him. Half a fellow's 
 pangs at losing a woman result from vanity more than affection. To 
 
 9
 
 ■130 PENDENNIS. 
 
 be left by a woman is the deuce and all, to be sure ; but look how 
 easily we leave 'em." 
 
 Mrs. Pendennis did not know. This sort of knowledge had by 
 no means come within the simple lad>^s scope. Indeed, she did not 
 like the subject or to talk of it : her heart had had its own little private 
 misadventure, and she had borne up against it, and cured it: and 
 perhaps she had not much patience with other folks' passions, except, 
 of course, Arthur's, whose sufferings she made her own, feeling indeed 
 very likely, in many of the boy's illnesses and pains, a great deal more 
 than Pen himself endured. And she watched him through this present 
 grief with a jealous silent sympathy; although, as we have said, he did 
 not talk to her of his unfortunate condition. 
 
 The Major must be allowed to have had not a little merit and for- 
 bearance, and to have exhibited a highly creditable degree of family 
 affection. The life at Fairoaks was uncommonly dull to a man who 
 had the entree of half the houses in London, and was in the habit of 
 making his bow in three or four drawing-rooms of a night. A dinner 
 with Doctor Portman or a neighbouring Squire now and then ; a 
 drcaiy rubber at backgammon with the widow, who did her utmost to 
 amuse him ; these were the chief of his pleasures. He used to long 
 for the arrival of the bag with the letters, and he read every word of 
 the evening paper. He doctored himself too, assiduously, — a course 
 of quiet living would suit him well, he thought, after the London ban- 
 quets. He dressed himself laboriously every morning and afternoon : 
 he took regular exercise up and down the terrace walk. Thus, with 
 his cane, his toilet, his medicine-chest, his backgammon-box, and his 
 newspaper, this worthy and worldly philosopher fenced himself against 
 ennui ; and if he did not improve each shining hour, like the bees by 
 the widoVs garden wall. Major Pendennis made one hour after another 
 pass as he could ; and rendered his captivity just tolerable. 
 
 Pen sometimes took the box at backgammon of a night, or would 
 listen to his mother's simple music of summer evenings — but he was 
 very restless and wretched in spite of all : and has been known to be 
 up before the early daylight even : and down at a carp-pond in 
 Clavering Park, a dreary pool with innumerable whispering rushes 
 ind green alders, where a milkmaid drowned herself in the Baronet's 
 grandfather's time, and her ghost was said to walk still. But Pen 
 did not drown himself, as perhaps his mother fancied might be his 
 intention. He liked to go and fish there, and tliink and think at 
 leisure, as the float quivered in the little eddies of the pond, and the 
 fish flapped about him. If he got a bite he was excited enough: and 
 in this way occasionally brought home carps, tenches, and eels, which 
 the Major cooked in the Continental fashion. 
 
 By this pond, and under a tree, which was his favourite resort, Pea
 
 PENDENNIS. 131 
 
 composed a number of poems suitable to his circumstances — over 
 which verses he blushed in after days, wondering how he could ever 
 have invented such rubbish. And as for the tree, why it is in a 
 hollow of this very tree, where he used to put his tin-box of ground- 
 bait, and other fishing commodities, that he afterwards — but we are 
 advancing matters. Suffice it to say, he wrote poems and relieved 
 himself very much. When a man's grief or passion is at this point, 
 it may be loud, but it is not very severe. When a gentleman is 
 cudgelling his brain to find any rhyme for sorrow, besides borrow 
 and to-morrow, his woes are nearer at an end than he thinks for. So 
 were Pen's. He had his hot and cold fits, his days of sullenness 
 and peevishness, and of blank resignation and despondency, and 
 occasional mad paroxysms of rage and longing, in which fits Rebecca 
 •would be saddled and galloped fiercely about the country, or into 
 Chatteris, her rider gesticulating wildly on her back, and astonishing 
 carters and turnpikemen as he passed, crying out the name of the 
 false one. 
 
 Mr. Foker became a very frequent and welcome visitor at Fairoaks 
 during this period, where his good spirits and oddities always amused 
 the Major and Pendennis, while they astonished the widow and little 
 Laura not a little. His tandem made a great sensation in Clavering 
 market-place : where he upset a market stall, and cut Mrs. Pybus's 
 poodle over the shaven quarters, and drank a glass of raspberry bitters 
 at the Clavering Arms. All the society in the little place heard who 
 he was, and looked out his name in their Peerages. He was so young, 
 and their books so old, that his name did not appear in many of their 
 volumes; and his mamma, now quite an antiquated lady, figured 
 amongst the progeny of the Earl of Rosherville, as Lady Agnes 
 Milton still. But his name, wealth, and honourable lineage were 
 speedily known about Clavering, where you may be sure that poor 
 Pen's little transaction with the Chatteris actress was also pretty freely 
 discussed. 
 
 Looking at the little old town of Clavering St. Mary from the 
 London road as it runs by the lodge at Fairoaks, and seeing the rapid 
 and shining Brawl winding dqwn from the town and skirting the 
 woods of Clavering Park, and the ancient church tower and peaked 
 roofs of the houses rising up amongst trees and old walls, behind 
 which swells a fair back-ground of sunshiny hills that stretch from 
 Clavering westwards towards the sea — the place appears to be 
 so cheery and comfortable that many a traveller's heart must have 
 yearned towards it from the coach-top, and he must have thought 
 that it was in such a calm friendly nook he would like to shelter at 
 jle. Tom Smith, who used to drive the Alacrity 
 
 Ifcr
 
 132 PENDENXJS. 
 
 coach, would often point to a tree near the river, from which a fine 
 view of the church and town was commanded, and inform his com- 
 panion on the box that " Artises come and take hoff the Church from 
 that there tree.— It was a Habby once, sir:" — and indeed a pretty 
 view it is, which I recommend to Mr. Stanfield or Mr. Roberts, for 
 their next tour. 
 
 Like Constantinople seen from the Bosphorus ; like Mrs. Rouge- 
 mont viewed in her box from the opposite side of the house ; like 
 many an object which we pursue in life, and admire before we have 
 attained it ; Clavering is rather prettier at a distance than it is on a 
 closer acquaintance. The town so cheerful of aspect a few furlongs 
 off, looks very blank and dreary. Except on market days there is 
 nobody in the streets. The clack of a pair of pattens echoes through 
 half the place, and you may hear the creaking of the rusty old ensign 
 at the Clavering Arms, without being disturbed by any other noise. 
 There has not been a ball in the Assembly Rooms since the Clavering 
 volunteers gave one to their Colonel, the old Sir Francis Clavering; 
 and the stables which once held a great part of that brilliant, but 
 defunct regiment, are now cheerless and empty, except on Thursdays, 
 when the farmers put up there, and their tilted carts and gigs make a 
 feeble show of liveliness in the place, or on Petty Sessions, when the 
 magistrates attend in what used to be the old card-room. 
 
 On the south side of the market rises up the church, with its great 
 grey towers, of which the sun illuminates the delicate carving ; deepen- 
 ' ing the shadows of the huge buttresses, and gilding the glittering 
 windows, and flaming vanes. The image of the Patroness of the 
 Church was wrenched out of the porch centuries ago : such of the 
 statues of saints as were within reach of stones and hammer at that 
 period of pious demolition, are maimed and headless, and of those who 
 were out of fire, only Doctor Portman knows the names and histor)-, 
 for his curate, Smirke, is not much of an antiquarian, and Mr. Simcoe 
 (husband of the Honourable Mrs. Simcoe), incumbent and architect of 
 the Chapel of Ease in the lower town, thinks them the abomination of 
 desolation. 
 
 The Rectory is a stout, broad-shouldered brick house, of the reign 
 of Anne. It communicates with the church and market by different 
 gates, and stands at the opening of Yew-tree Lane, where the Grammar 
 
 School (Rev. Wapshot) is ; Yew-tree Cottage (Miss Flather) ; 
 
 the butcher's slaughtering-house, an old barn or brew-house of the 
 Abbey times, and the Misses Finucane's establishment for young 
 ladies. The two schools had their pews in the loft on each side of the 
 organ, until the Abbey Church getting rather empty through the 
 falling off of the congregation, who were inveigled to the Heresy-shop 
 in the lower town, the Doctor induced the Misses Finucane to brin"
 
 PENDENNIS. 133 
 
 their pretty little flock downstairs ; and the young ladies' bonnets 
 make a tolerable show in the rather vacant aisles. Nobody is in the 
 great pew of the Clavering family, excopt the statues of defunct 
 baronets and their ladies : there is Sir Poyntz Clavering, Knight and 
 Baronet, kneeling in a square beard opposite his wife in a ruff: a very 
 fat lady, the Dame Rebecca Clavering, in alto-relievo, is borne up to 
 Heaven by two little blue-veined angels, who seem to have a severe 
 task — and so forth. How well in after life Pen remembered those 
 effigies, and how often in youth he scanned them as the Doctor was 
 grumbling the sermon from the pulpit, and Smirke's mild head and 
 forehead curl peered over the great prayer-book in the desk ! 
 
 The Fairoaks folks were constant at the old church ; their servants 
 had a pew, so had the Doctor's, so had Wapshot's, and those of the 
 Misses Finucane's establishment, three maids and a very nice-looking 
 young man in a livery. The Wapshot family were numerous and 
 faithful. Glanders and his children regularly came to church : so did 
 one of the apothecaries. Mrs. Pybus went, turn and turn about, to the 
 Low Town Church, and to the Abbey : the Charity School and their 
 families of course came; Wapshot's boys made a good cheerful noise, 
 scuffling with their feet as they marched into church and up the organ- 
 loft stair, and blowing their noses a good deal during the service. To 
 be brief, the congregation looked as decent as might be in these bad 
 time's. The Abbey Church was furnished with a magnificent screen, 
 and many hatchments and heraldic tombstones. The Doctor spent a 
 great part of his income in beautifying his darling place ; he had 
 endowed it with a superb painted window, bought in the Netherlands, 
 and an organ grand enough for a cathedral. 
 
 But in spite of organ and window, in consequence of the latter very 
 likely, which had come out of a Papistical place of worship and was 
 blazoned all over with idolatry, Clavering New Church prospered 
 scandalously in the teeth of Orthodoxy; and many of the Doctors 
 congregation deserted to Mr. Simcoe and the honourable woman his 
 wife. Their efforts had thinned the very Ebenezer hard by them, 
 which building before Simcoe's advent used to be so full, that you 
 could see the backs of the congregation squeezing out of the arched 
 windows thereof. Mr. Simcoe's tracts fluttered into the doors of 
 all the Doctor's cottages, and were taken as greedily as honest 
 Mrs. Portman's soup, with the quality of which the graceless people 
 found fault. With the folks at the Ribbon Factory situated by the 
 weir on the Brawl side, and round which the Low Town had grown, 
 Orthodoxy could make no way at all. Quiet Miss Mira was put out 
 of court by impetuous Mrs. Simcoe and her female aides-de-camp. 
 Ah, it was a hard burthen for the Doctor's lady to bear, to behold her 
 husband's congregation dwindling away ; to give the precedence on
 
 134 PENDENNIS. 
 
 the few occasions when they met to a notorious low-churchman's wife 
 wlio was the daughter of an Irish Peer ; to know that there was a 
 party in Clavering, their own town of Clavering, on which her Doctor 
 spent a great deal more than his professional income, who held him 
 up to odium because he played a rubber at whist ; and pronounced 
 him to be a Heathen because he went to the play. In her grief she 
 besought him to give up the play and the rubber, — indeed they could 
 scarcely get a table now, so dreadful was the outcry against the 
 sport, — but the Doctor declared that he would do what he thought right, 
 and what the great and good George the Third did (whose Chaplain 
 he had been) : and as for giving up Avhist because those silly folks 
 cried out against it, he would play dummy to the end of his days with 
 his wife and Mira, rather than yield to their despicable persecutions. 
 
 Of the two families, owners of the Factory (which had spoiled the 
 Brawl as a trout-stream and brought all the mischief into the town), 
 the senior partner, Mr. Rolt, went to Ebenezer ; the junior, Mr. Barker, 
 to the New Church. In a word, people quarrelled in this little place 
 a great deal more than neighbours do in London; and in the Book 
 Club, which the prudent and conciliating Pendennis had set up, and 
 which ought to have been a neutral territor)-, they bickered so much 
 that nobody scarcely was ever seen in the reading-room, except 
 Smirke, who, though he kept up a faint amity with the Simcoe faction, 
 had still a taste for magazines and light worldly literature ; and old 
 Glanders, whose white head and grizzly moustache might be seen at 
 the window ; and of course, little Mrs. Pybus, who looked at every- 
 body's letters as the post brought them (for the Cla\ering Reading- 
 Room, as every one knows, used to be held at Baker's Librarj-, 
 London Street, formerly Hog Lane), and read ever}' advertisement in 
 the paper. 
 
 It may be imagined how great a sensation was created in this 
 amiable little community when the news reached it of Mr. Pen's love- 
 passages at Chatteris. It was carried from house to house, and 
 formed the subject of talk at high-church, low-church, and no-church 
 tables; it was canvassed by the Misses Finucane and their teachers, 
 and very likely debated by the young ladies in the dormitories, for 
 what we know; Wapshot's big boys had their version of the stor)- 
 and eyed Pen curiously as he sate in his pew at church, or raised the 
 finger of scorn at him as he passed through Chatteris. They always 
 hated him and called him Lord Pendennis, because he did not wear 
 corduroys as they did, and rode a horse, and gave himself the airs 
 of a buck. 
 
 And, if the truth must be told, it was Mrs. Portman herself who 
 was the chief narrator of the story of Pen's loves. Whatever tales 
 this candid woman heard, she was sure to impart them to her neigh-
 
 PENDENNIS. 135 
 
 bours ; and after she had been put into possession of Pen's secret by 
 the little scandal at Chatteris, poor Doctor Portman knew that it 
 would next day be about the parish of which he was the Rector. And 
 so indeed it was; the whole society there had the legend — at the 
 news-room, at the milliner's, at the shoe-shop, and the general ware- 
 house at the corner of the market ; at Mrs. Pybus's, at the Glanders's, 
 at the Honourable Mrs. Simcoe's soiree, at the Factory; nay, through 
 the mill itself the tale was current in a few hours, and young Arthur 
 Pendennis's madness was in every mouth. 
 
 All Doctor Portman's acquaintances barked out upon him when 
 he walked the street the next day. The poor divine knew that his 
 Betsy was the author of the rumour, and groaned in spirit. Well, 
 well, — it must have come in a day or two, and it was as well that the 
 town should have the real story. What the Clavering folks thought 
 of Mrs. Pendennis for spoiling her son, and of that precocious young 
 rascal of an Arthur, for daring to propose to a play-actress, need not 
 be told here. If pride exists amongst any folks in our country, and 
 assuredly we have enough of it, there is no pride more deep-seated 
 than that of twopenny old gentlewomen in small towns. " Gracious 
 goodness," the cry was, " how infatuated the mother is about that pert 
 and headstrong boy who gives himself the airs of a lord on his blood- 
 horse, and for whom otir society is not good enough, and who would 
 marry an odious painted actress off a booth, where very likely he 
 wants to rant himself. If dear good Mr. Pendennis had been alive 
 this scandal would never have happened." 
 
 No more it would, very likely, nor should we have been occupied 
 in narrating Pen's history. It was true that he gave himself airs to 
 the Clavering folks. Naturally haughty and frank, their cackle and 
 small talk and small dignities bored him, and he showed a contempt 
 which he could not conceal. The Doctor and the Curate were the 
 only people Pen cared for in the place — even Mrs. Portman shared 
 in the general distrust of him, and of his mother, the widow, who 
 kept herself aloof from the village society, and was sneered at accord- 
 ingly, because she tried, forsooth, to keep her head up with the great 
 County families. She, indeed ! Mrs. Barker at the Factory has four 
 times the butcher's meat that goes up to Fairoaks, with all their 
 fine airs. 
 
 &c. &;c. &c. : let the reader fill up these details according to his 
 liking and experience of village scandal. They will suffice to show 
 how it was that a good woman, occupied solely in doing her duty to 
 her neighbour and her children, and an honest, brave lad, impetuous, 
 and full of good, and wishing well to every mortal alive, found enemies 
 and detractors amongst people to whom they were superior, and to 
 whom they had never done anything like harm. The Clavering curs
 
 136 PENDENNIS. 
 
 were yelping all round the house of Fairoaks, and delighted to pull 
 Pen down. 
 
 Doctor Portman and Smirke were both cautious of informing the 
 v/idovv of the constant outbreak of calumny which was pursuing poor 
 Pen, though Glanders, who was a friend of the house, kept him au 
 courant. It may be imagined what his indignation was: was there 
 any man in the village whom he could call to account ? Presently 
 some wags began to chalk up " Fotheringay for ever ! " and other sar- 
 castic allusions to late transactions at P'airoaks' gate. Another brought 
 a large playbill from Chatteris, and wafered it there one night. On 
 one occ^ision Pen, riding through the Low Town, fancied he heard the 
 Factory boys jeer him ; and finally, going through the Doctor's gate 
 into the churchyard, where some of Wapshot's boys were lounging, 
 the biggest of them, a young gentleman about twenty years of age, son 
 of a neighbouring small Squire, who lived in the doubtful capacity of 
 parlour-boarder with Mr. Wapshot, flung himself into a theatrical 
 attitude near a newly-made grave, and began repeating Hamlet's 
 verses over Ophelia, with a hideous leer at Pen. 
 
 The young fellow was so enraged that he rushed at Hobnell Major 
 with a shriek ver>^ much resembling an oath, cut him furiously across 
 the face with the riding-whip which he carried, flung it away, calling 
 upon the cowardly villain to defend himself, and in another minute 
 knocked the bewildered young ruffian into the grave which was just 
 v/aiting for a different lodger. 
 
 Then, with his fists clenched, and his face quivering with passion 
 and indignation, he roared out to Mr. HobneU's gaping companions, 
 to know if any of the blackguards would come on .' But they held 
 back with a growl, and retreated, as Doctor Portman came up to his 
 wicket, and Mr. Hobnell, with his nose and lip bleeding piteously, 
 emerged from the grave. 
 
 Pen, looking death and defiance at the lads, who retreated towards 
 their side of the churchyard, walked back again through the Doctor's 
 wicket, and was interrogated by that gentleman. The young fellow 
 was so agitated he could scarcely speak. His voice broke into a sob 
 as he answered, '" The — coward insulted me, sir," he said ; and the 
 Doctor passed over the oath, and respected the emotion of the honest 
 suffering young heart. 
 
 Pendennis the elder, who, like a real man of the world, had a 
 proper and constant dread of the opinion of his neighbour, was pro- 
 digiously annoyed by the absurd little tempest which was blowing in 
 Chatteris, and tossing about Master Pen's reputation. Doctor Portman 
 and Captain Glanders had to support the charges of the whole Chatteris 
 society against the young reprobate, who was looked upon as a monster
 
 PENDENNIS. 137 
 
 of crime. Pen did not say anything about the churchyard s ;uffle at 
 home ; but went over to Baymouth, and took counsel with his friend 
 Harry Foker, Esq., who drove over his drag presently to the Clavering 
 Arms, whence he sent Stoopid with a note to Thomas Hobnell, Esq., 
 at the Rev. J. Wapshot's, and a civil message to ask when he should 
 wait upon that gentleman. 
 
 Stoopid brought back word that the note had been opened by 
 Mr. Hobnell, and read to half-a-dozen of the big boys, on whom it 
 seemed to make a great impression ; and that after consulting together 
 and laughing, Mr. Hobnell said he would send an answer "arterarter- 
 noon school, which the bell was a ringing : and Mr. Wapshot he came 
 out in his Master's gownd." Stoopid was learned in academical cos- 
 tume, having attended Mr. Foker at St. Boniface. 
 
 Mr. Foker went out to see the curiosities of Clavering meanwhile ; 
 but not having a taste for architecture, Doctor Portman's fine church 
 did not engage his attention much, and he pronounced the tower to 
 be as mouldy as an old Stilton cheese. He walked down the street 
 and looked at the few shops there ; he saw Captain Glanders at the 
 window of the Reading-room, and having taken a good stare at that 
 gentleman, he wagged his head at him in token of satisfaction ; he 
 inquired the price of meat at the butcher's with an air of the greatest 
 interest, and asked "when was ne.xt killing day?" he flattened his 
 little nose against Madam Fribsby's window to see if haply there was 
 a pretty workwoman in her premises ; but there was no face more 
 comely than the doll's or dummy's wearing the French cap in the 
 window, only that of Madame Fribsby herself, dimly visible in the 
 parlour, reading a novel. That object was not of sufficient interest to 
 keep Mr. Foker very long in contemplation, and so having exhausted 
 the town and the inn stables, in which there were no cattle, save the 
 single old pair of posters that earned a scanty livelihood by transport- 
 ing the gentry round about to the county dinners, Mr. Foker was 
 giving himself up to ennui entirely, when a messenger from Mr. Hob- 
 nell was at length announced. 
 
 It was no other than Mr. Wapshot himself, who came with an air 
 of great indignation, and holding Pen's missive in his hand, asked 
 Mr. Foker " how dared he bring such an unchristian message as a 
 challenge to a boy of his school .'' " 
 
 In fact Pen had written a note to his adversary of the day before, 
 telling him that if after the chastisement which his insolence richly 
 deserved, he felt inclined to ask the reparation which was usually 
 given amongst gentlemen, Mr. Arthur Pendennis's friend, Mr. Henry 
 Foker, was empowered to make any arrangements for the satisfaction 
 of Mr. Hobnell. 
 
 "And so he sent _>'^« with the answer — did he, sir.?" Mr. Foker
 
 138 PENDENNIS. 
 
 said, surveying the Schoolmaster in his black coat and clerical 
 costume. 
 
 " If he had accepted this wicked challenge, I should have flogged 
 him," Mr. Wapshot said, and gave Mr. Foker a glance which seemed 
 to say, " and I should like very much to flog you too." 
 
 " Uncommon kind of you, sir, I'm sure," said Pen's emissary. " I 
 told my principal that I didn't think the other man would fight," he 
 continued with a great air of dignity. " He prefers being flogged to 
 fighting, sir, I dare say. May I offer you any refreshment, Mr. — ? 
 I haven't the advantage of your name." 
 
 " My name is Wapshot, sir, and I am Master of the Grammai 
 School of this town, sir," cried the other : " and I want no refresh- 
 ment, sir, I thank you, and have no desire to make your acquaint- 
 ance, sir." 
 
 " I didn't seek yours, sir, I'm sure," replied Mr. Foker. "In aff'airs 
 of this sort, you see, I think it is a pity that the clergy should be called 
 in, but there's no accounting for tastes, sir." 
 
 " I think it's a pity that boys should talk about committing murder, 
 sir, as lightly as you do," roared the Schoolmaster; "and if I had you 
 in my school — " 
 
 " I dare say you would teach me better, sir," Mr. Foker said, with 
 a bow. " Thank you, sir. I've finished my education, sir, and ain't 
 a-going back to school, sir — when I do, I'll remember your kind off"er, 
 sir. John, show this gentleman downstairs — and, of course, as Mr. 
 Hobnell likes being thrashed, we can have no objection, sir, and we 
 shall be very happy to accommodate him, whenever he comes our 
 waj'." 
 
 And with this, the young fellow bowed the elder gentleman out of 
 the room, and sate down and wrote a note off" to Pen, in which he 
 informed the latter, that Mr. Hobnell was not disposed to fight, and 
 proposed to put up with the caning which Pen had administered to 
 him. 
 
 I
 
 PENDENNIS. 139 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 WHICH CONCLUDES THE FIRST PART OF THIS HISTORY. 
 
 PEN'S conduct in this business of course was soon made public, 
 and angered his friend Doctor Portman not a httle ; while it 
 only amused Major Pendennis. As for the good Mrs. Pendennis, she 
 was almost distracted when she heard of the squabble, and of Pen's 
 unchristian behaviour. All sorts of wretchedness, discomfort, crime, 
 annoyance, seemed to come out of this transaction in which the luck- 
 less boy had engaged : and she longed more than ever to see him out 
 of Chatteris for a while, — anywhere removed from the woman who 
 had brought him into so much trouble. 
 
 Pen, when remonstrated with by this fond parent, and angrily 
 rebuked by the Doctor for his violence and ferocious intentions, took 
 the matter aje grand se'rieux, with the happy conceit and gravity of 
 youth : said that he would permit no man to insult him upon this 
 head without vindicating his own honour, and appealing, asked 
 whether he could have acted otherwise as a gentleman, than as he 
 did in resenting the outrage offered to him, and in offering satisfaction 
 to the person chastised ? 
 
 " Vous allez trop vite, rny good sir," said the uncle, rather puzzled, 
 for he had been indoctrinating his nephew with some of his own 
 notions upon the pcint of honour— old-world notions savouring of the 
 camp and pistol a great deal more than our soberer opinions of the 
 present day — "between men of the world I don't say; but between 
 two schoolboys, this sort of thing is ridiculous, my dear boy — perfectly 
 ridiculous." 
 
 " It is extremely wicked, and unlike my son," said Mrs. Pen- 
 dennis, with tears in her eyes ; and bewildered with the obstinacy 
 of the boy. 
 
 Pen kissed her, and said with great pomposity, " Women, dear 
 mother, don't understand these matters— I put myself into Foker's 
 hands — I had no other course to pursue." 
 
 Major Pendennis grinned and shrugged his shoulders. The youijg 
 ones were certainly making great progress, he thought. Mrs. Pen- 
 dennis declared that that Foker was a wicked horrid little wretch, and 
 was sure that he would lead her dear boy into mischief, if Pen went to
 
 I40 PENDEXNIS. 
 
 the same college with him. " I have a great mind not to let him go 
 at all," she said : and only that she remembered that the lad's father 
 had always destined him for the College in which he had had his own 
 brief education, very likely the fond mother would have put a veto 
 upon his going to the University. 
 
 That he was to go, and at the next October term, had been 
 arranged between all the authorities who presided over the lad's 
 welfare. Foker had promised to introduce him to the right set ; and 
 Major Pendennis laid great store upon Pen's introduction into College 
 life and society by this admirable young gentleman. " Mr. Foker 
 knows the very best young men now at the University," the Major 
 said, "and Pen will form acquaintances there who will be of the 
 greatest advantage through life to him. The young Marquis of Plin- 
 limmon is there, eldest son of the Duke of St. David's — Lord Magnus 
 Charters is there. Lord Runnymede's son ; and' a first cousin of 
 Mr. Foker, (Lady Runnymede, my dear, was Lady Agatha Milton, 
 you of course remember,) Lady Agnes will certainly invite him to 
 Logwood ; and far from being alarmed at his intimacy with her son, 
 who is a singular and humorous, but most prudent and amiable young 
 man, to whom, I am sure, we are under every obligation for his 
 admirable conduct in the affair of the Fotheringay marriage, I look 
 upon it as one of the very luckiest things which could have happened 
 to Pen, that he should have formed an intimacy with this most 
 amusing young gentleman." 
 
 Helen sighed, she supposed the Major knew best. Mr. Foker had 
 been very kind in the wretched business with Miss Costigan, certainly, 
 and she was grateful to him. But she could not feel otherwise than a 
 dim presentiment of evil ; and all these quarrels, and riots, and world- 
 liness, scared her about the fate of her boy. 
 
 Doctor Portman was decidedly of opinion that Pen should go to 
 College. He hoped the lad would read, and have a moderate indul- 
 gence of the best society too. He was of opinion that Pen would 
 distinguish himself: Smirke spoke very highly of his proficiency : the 
 Doctor himself had heard him construe, and thought he acquitted 
 himself remarkably well. That he should go out of Chatteris was a 
 great point at any rate ; and Pen, who was distracted from his private 
 grief by the various rows and troubles which had risen round about 
 him, gloomily said he would obey. 
 
 There were assizes, races, and the entertainments and the flu.x of 
 company consequent upon them, at Chatteris, during a part of the 
 months of August and September, and Miss Fotheringay still continued 
 to act, and take farewell of the audiences at the Chatteris Theatre 
 during that time. Nobody seemed to be particularly afiected by her 
 presence, or her announced departure, except those persons whom we
 
 PENDENNIS. 141 
 
 have named; nor could the pohte county folks, who had houses in 
 London, and very likely admired the Fotheringay prodigiously in the 
 capital, when they had been taught to do so by the Fashion which set 
 in in her favour, find anything remarkable in the actress performing on 
 the little Chatteris boards. Many a genius and many a quack, for that 
 matter, has met with a similar fate before and since Miss Costigan's 
 time. This honest woman meanwhile bore up against the public 
 neglect, and any other crosses or vexations which she might have in 
 life, with her usual equanimity ; and ate, drank, acted, slept, with that 
 regularity and comfort which belongs to people of her temperament. 
 What a deal of grief, care, and other harmful excitement does a 
 healthy dulness and cheerful insensibility avoid ! Nor do I mean to 
 say that Virtue is not Virtue because it is never tempted to go astray; 
 only that dulness is a much finer gift than we give it credit for being, 
 and that some people are very lucky whom Nature has endowed with 
 a good store of that great anodyne. 
 
 Pen used to go drearily in and out from the play at Chatteris during 
 this season, and pretty much according to his fancy. His proceedings 
 tortured his mother not a little, and her anxiety would have led her 
 often to interfere, had not the Major constantly checked, and at the 
 same time encouraged her ; for the wily man of the world fancied he 
 saw that a favourable turn had occurred in Pen's malady. It was the 
 violent efflux of versification, among other symptoms, which gave Pen's 
 guardian and physician satisfaction. He might be heard spouting 
 verses in the shrubbery walks, or muttering them between his teeth as 
 he sat with the home party of evenings. One day prowling about the 
 house in Pen's absence, the Major found a great book full of verses in 
 the lad's study. They were in English, and in Latin ; quotations from 
 the classic authors were given in the scholastic manner in the fool- 
 notes. He can't be very bad, wisely thought the Pall Mall Philosopher : 
 and he made Pen's mother remark (not, perhaps, without a secret feel- 
 ing of disappointment, for she loved romance like other soft women), 
 that the young gentleman during the last fortnight came home quite 
 hungry to dinner at night, and also showed a very decent appetite at 
 the breakfast table in the morning. " Gad, I wish I could," said the 
 Major, thinking ruefully of his dinner pills. *' The boy begins to sleep 
 well, depend upon that." It was cruel, but it was true. 
 
 Having no other soul to confide in, the lad's friendship for the 
 Curate redoubled, or rather, he was never tired of having Smirke for 
 a listener on that one subject. What is a lover without a confidant ? 
 Pen employed Mr. Smirke, as Corydon does the elm-tree, to cut out 
 his mistress's name upon. He made him echo with the name of the 
 beautiful Amaryllis. When men have left off playing the tune, they do 
 not care much for the pipe: but Pen thought he had a great friendship
 
 142 PENDENNIS. 
 
 for Smirke, because he could sigh out his loves and griefs into his 
 tutor's ears : and Smirke had his ov-n reasons for always being ready 
 at the lad's call. 
 
 The poor Curate was naturally very much dismayed at the con- 
 templated departure of his pupil. When Arthur should go, Smirke's 
 occupation and delight would go too. What pretext could he find for 
 a daily visit to Fairoaks, and that kind word or glance from the lady 
 there, which was as necessary to the Curate as the frugal dinner which 
 Madame Fribsby served him ? Arthur gone, he would only be allowed 
 to make visits like any other acquaintance: little Laura could not 
 accommodate him by learning the Catechism more than once a week : 
 he had curled himself like ivy round Fairoaks : he pined at the thought 
 that he must lose his hold of the place. Should he speak his mind and 
 go down on his knees to the widow ? He thought over any indica- 
 tions in her behaviour which flattered his hopes. She had praised his 
 sermon three weeks before : she had thanked him exceedingly for his 
 present of a melon, for a small dinner party which Mrs. Pendennis 
 gave : she said she should always be grateful to him for his kindness 
 to Arthur: and when he declared that there were no bounds to his 
 love and affection for that dear boy, she had certainly replied in a 
 romantic manner, indicating her own strong gratitude and regard to 
 all her son's friends. Should he speak out ? — or should he delay ? If 
 he spoke and she refused him, it was awful to think that the gate of 
 Fairoaks might be shut upon him for ever — and within that door lay 
 all the world for Mr. Smirke. 
 
 Thus, oh friendly readers, we see how every man in the world has 
 his own private griefs and business, by which he is more cast down or 
 occupied than by the affairs or sorrows of any other person. Wbile 
 Mrs. Pendennis is disquieting herself about losing her son, and that 
 anxious hold she has had of him, as long as he has remained in the 
 mother's nest, whence he is about to take flight into the great world 
 beyond — while the Majors great soul chafes and frets, inwardly vexed 
 as he thinks what great parties are going on in London, and that he 
 might be sunning himself in the glances of Dukes and Duchesses, but 
 for those cursed affairs which keep him in a wretched little country 
 hole — while Pen is tossing between his passion and a more agreeable 
 sensation, unacknowledged yet, but swaying him considerably, namely, 
 his longing to see the world — Mr. Smirke has a private care watching 
 at his bed-side, and sitting behind him on his pony ; and is no more 
 satisfied than the rest of us. How lonely we are in the world ! how 
 selfish and secret, ever)body ! You and your wife have pressed the 
 same pillow for forty years and fancy yourselves united. — Psha, does 
 she cry out when you have the gout, or do you lie awake when she has 
 the toothache .'' Your artless daughter, seemingly all innocence and
 
 PENDENNIS. 143 
 
 devoted to her mamma and her piano-lesson, is thinking of neither, 
 but of the young Lieutenant with whom she danced at the last ball — 
 the honest frank boy just returned from school is secretly speculating 
 upon the money you will give him, and the debts he owes the tart-man. 
 The old grandmother crooning in the corner and bound to another 
 world within a few months, has some business or cares which are 
 quite private and her own — very likely she is thinking of fifty years 
 back, and that night when she made such an impression, and danced 
 a cotillon with the Captain before your father proposed for her : or, 
 what a silly little over-rated creature your wife is, and how absurdly you 
 are infatuated about her — and, as for your wife — O philosophic reader, 
 answer and say,^Do you tell /ler all ? Ah, sir — a distinct universe 
 walks about under your hat and under mine — all things in nature are 
 different to each — the woman we look at has not the same features, 
 the dish we eat from has not the same taste to the one and the other 
 — you and I are but a pair of infinite isolations, with some fellow- 
 islands a little more or less near to us. Let us return, however, to the 
 solitary Smirke. 
 
 Smirke had one confidante for his passion — that most injudicious 
 woman, Madame Fribsby. How she became Madame Fribsby, no- 
 body knows : she had left Clavering to go to a milliner's in London as 
 Miss Fribsby^she pretended that she had got the rank in Paris during 
 her residence in that city. But how could the French king, were he 
 ever so much disposed, give her any such title ? We shall not inquire 
 into this mystery, however. Suffice to say, she went away from home 
 a bouncing young lass ; she returned a rather elderly character, with a 
 Madonna front and a melancholy countenance — bought the late 
 Mrs. Harbottle's business for a song — took her elderly mother to live 
 with her; was very good to the poor, was constant at church, and had 
 the best of characters. But there was no one in all Clavering, not 
 Mrs. Portman herself, who read so many novels as Madame Fribsby. 
 She had plenty of time for this amusement, for, in truth, very few 
 people besides the folks at the Rectory and Fairoaks employed her ; 
 and by a perpetual perusal of such works (which were by no means 
 so moral or edifying in the days of which we write, as they are at 
 present), she had got to be so absurdly sentimental, that in her eyes 
 life was nothing but an immense love-match ; and she never could 
 see two people together, but she fancied they were dying for one 
 another. 
 
 On the day after Mrs. Pendennis's visit to the Curate, which we 
 have recorded many pages back, Madame Fribsby settled in her mind 
 that Mr. Smirke must be in love with the widow, and did everything 
 in her power to encourage this passion on both sides. Mrs. Pendennis 
 she very seldom saw, indeed, except in public, and in her pew at
 
 144 PENDENNIS. 
 
 church. That lady had very little need of millinery, or made most 
 of her own dresses and caps ; but on the rare occasions when Madame 
 Fribsby received visits from Mrs. Pendennis, or paid her respects at 
 Fairoaks, she never failed to entertain the widow with praises of the 
 Curate, pointing out what an angelical man he was, how gentle, how 
 studious, how lonely ; and she would wonder that no lady would take 
 pity upon him. 
 
 Helen laughed at these sentimental remarks, and wondered that 
 Madame herself did not compassionate her lodger, and console him. 
 Madame Fribsby shook her Madonna front. " Along cure a boco 
 soiiffare" she said, laying her hand on the part she designated as her 
 cure. '■'■] I est more en Espang, Madame" she said with a sigh. She 
 was proud of her intimacy with the French language, and spoke it 
 with more volubility than correctness. Mrs. Pendennis did not care 
 to penetrate the secrets of this wounded heart: except to her few 
 intimates she was a reserved, and it may be a %'ery proud woman; she 
 looked upon her son's tutor merely as an attendant on that young 
 Prince, to be treated with respect as a clergyman certainly, but with 
 proper dignity as a dependant on the house of Pendennis. Nor were 
 Madame's constant allusions to the Curate particularly agreeable to 
 her. It required a very ingenious sentimental turn indeed to find out 
 that the widow had a secret regard for Mr. Smirke, to which pernicious 
 error however Madame Fribsby persisted in holding. 
 
 Her lodger was very much more willing to talk on this subject with 
 his soft-hearted landlady. Ever)- time after that she praised the Curate 
 to Mrs. Pendennis, she came away from the latter with the notion that 
 the widow herself had been praising him. " Etre soul au monde est 
 bien ouneeyotig" she would say, glancing up at a print of a French 
 carbineer in a green coat and brass cuirass which decorated her 
 apartment — " Depend upon it when Master Pendennis goes to College, 
 his Ma will find herself ver>' lonely. She is quite young yet. — You 
 wouldn't suppose her to be five-and-twenty. Monsieur le Cury, song 
 cure est touchy— j^ong suis sure — yeconny cela biatig — Ally, Monsieur 
 Smirke." 
 
 He softly blushed ; he sighed ; he hoped ; he feared ; he doubted ; 
 he sometimes yielded to the delightful idea — his pleasure was to sit 
 in Madame Fribsby's apartment, and talk upon the subject, where, 
 as the greater part of the conversation was carried on in French by 
 the Milliner, and her old mother was deaf, that retired old individual 
 (who had once been a housekeeper, wife and widow of a butler 
 in the Clavering family) could understand scarce one syllable of their 
 talk. 
 
 When Major Pendennis announced to his nephew's tutor that the 
 young fellow would go to College in October, and that Mr. Smirl;os
 
 PENDENNIS. 145 
 
 \ aluable services would no longer be needful to his pupil, for which 
 services the Major, who spoke as grandly as a lord, professed himself 
 exceedingly grateful, and besought Mr. Smirke to command his 
 interest in any way — the Curate felt that the critical moment was 
 come for him, and was racked and tortured by those severe pangs 
 which the occasion warranted. 
 
 And now that Arthur was going away, Helen's heart was rather 
 softened towards the Curate, from whom, perhaps divining his inten- 
 tions, she had shrunk hitherto: she bethought her how very polite 
 Mr. Smirke had been; how he had gone on messages for her; how he 
 had brought books and copied music ; how he had taught Laura so 
 many things, and given her so many kind presents. Her heart smote 
 her on account of her ingratitude towards the Curate : — so much so, 
 that one afternoon when he came down from study with Pen, and was 
 hankering about the hall previous to his departure, she went out and 
 shook hands with him with rather a blushing face, and begged him to 
 come into her drawing-room, where she said they now never saw him. 
 And as there was to be rather a good dinner that day, she invited 
 Mr. Smirke to partake of it ; and we may be sure that he was too 
 happy to accept such a delightful summons. 
 
 Helen was exceedingly kind and gracious to Mr. Smirke during 
 dinner, redoubling her attentions, perhaps because Major Pendennis 
 was very high and reserved with his nephew's tutor. When Pen- 
 dennis asked Smirke to drink wine, he addressed him as if he was a 
 sovereign speaking to a petty retainer, in a manner so condescending, 
 that even Pen laughed at it, although quite ready, for his part, to be 
 as conceited as most young men are. 
 
 But Smirke did not care for the impertinences of the Major so 
 long as he had his hostess's kind behaviour ; and he passed a delight- 
 ful time by her side at table, exerting all his powers of conversation to 
 please her, talking in a manner both clerical and worldly, about the 
 fancy Bazaar, and the Great Missionary Meeting, about the last new 
 novel, and the Bishop's excellent sermon — about the fashionable 
 parties in London, an account of which he read in the newspapers — 
 in fine, he neglected no art, by which a College divine who has both 
 sprightly and serious talents, a taste for the genteel, an irreproachable 
 conduct, and a susceptible heart, will try and make himself agreeable 
 to the person on whom he has fixed his affections. 
 
 Major Pendennis came yawning out of the dining-room very soon 
 after his sister and httle Laura had left the apartment. 
 
 Now Arthur, flushed with a good deal of pride at the privilege of 
 having the keys of the cellar, and remembering that a very few more 
 dinners would probably take place which he and his dear friend 
 Smirke could share, had brought up a liberal supply of claret for the 
 
 10
 
 146 PENDENNIS. 
 
 company's drinking, and when the elders with httle Laura left, he and 
 the Curate began to pass the wine very freely. 
 
 One bottle speedily yielded up the ghost, another shed more than 
 half its blood, before the two topers had been much more than half 
 an hour together — Pen, with a hollow laugh and voice, had drunk off 
 one bumper to the falsehood of women, and had said sardonically, that 
 wine at any rate was a mistress who never deceived, and was sure to 
 give a man a welcome. 
 
 Smirke gently said that he knew for his part some women who were 
 all truth and tenderness ; and casting up his eyes towards the ceiling, 
 and heaving a sigh as if evoking some being dear and unmentionable, 
 he took up his glass and drained it, and the rosy liquor began to suffuse 
 his face. 
 
 Pen trolled over some verses he had been making that morning, 
 in which he informed himself that the woman who had slighted his 
 passion could not be worthy to win it : that he was awaking from 
 love's mad fever, and, of course, under these circumstances, proceeded 
 to leave her, and to quit a heartless deceiver : that a name which had 
 one day been famous in the land, might again be heard in it : and, 
 that though he never should be the happy and careless boy he was 
 but a few months since, or his heart be what it had been ere passion 
 had filled it and grief had well-nigh killed it ; that though to him 
 personally death was as welcome as life, and that he would not hesitate 
 to part with the latter, but for the love of one kind being whose happi- 
 ness depended on his own, — yet he hoped to show he was a man 
 worthy of his race, and that one day the false one should be brought 
 to know how great was the treasure and noble the heart which she had 
 flung away. 
 
 Pen, we say, who was a very excitable person, rolled out these 
 verses in his rich sweet voice, which trembled with emotion whilst our 
 young poet spoke. He had a trick of blushing wheji in this excited 
 state, and his large and honest grey eyes also exhibited proofs of a 
 sensibility so genuine, hearty, and manly, that Miss Costigan, if she 
 had a heart, must needs have softened toward him ; and very likely 
 she was, as he said, altogether unworthy of the affection which he 
 lavished upon her. 
 
 The sentimental Smirke was caught by the emotion which agitated 
 his young friend. He grasped Pen's hand over the dessert dishes and 
 wine glasses. He said the verses were beautiful : that Pen was a poet, 
 a great poet, and likely by Heaven's permission to run a great career 
 in the world. " Go on and prosper, dear Arthur," he cried : " the 
 wounds under which at present you suffer are only temporary, and the 
 very grief you endure will cleanse and strengthen your heart. I have 
 always prophesied the greatest and brightest things of you, as soon as
 
 PENDENNIS. 147 
 
 you have corrected some failings and weaknesses of character, which 
 at present belong to you. But you will get over these, my boy, you 
 will get over these ; and when you are famous and celebrated, as 
 I know you will be, will you remember your old tutor and the happy 
 early days of your youth ? " 
 
 Pen swore he would: with another shake of the hand across the 
 glasses and apricots. " I shall never forget how kind you have been 
 to me, Smirke," he said. " I don't know what I should have done 
 without you. You are my best friend." 
 
 " Am I really, Arthur ? " said Smirke, looking through his spec- 
 tacles ; and his heart began to beat so that he thought Pen must 
 almost hear it throbbing. 
 
 " My best friend, my friend for ever" Pen said. " God bless you, 
 old boy," and he drank up the last glass of the second bottle of the 
 famous wine which his father had laid in, which his uncle had bought, 
 which Lord Levant had imported, and which now, like a slave indif- 
 ferent, was ministering pleasure to its present owner, and giving its 
 young master delectation. 
 
 " We'll have another bottle, old boy," Pen said, " by Jove we will. 
 Hurray ! — claret goes for nothing. My uncle was telling me that he 
 saw Sheridan drink five bottles at Brookes's, besides a bottle of Mara- 
 schino. This is some of the finest wine in England, he says. So it is 
 by Jove. There's nothing like it. Nunc vino pellite curas — eras 
 ingens iterabimus ceq — fill your glass, Old Smirke, a hogshead of it 
 won't do you any harm." And Mr. Pen began to sing the drinking 
 song out of Der Freischutz. The dining-room windows were open, 
 and his mother was softly pacing on the lawn outside, while little 
 Laura was looking at the sunset. The sweet fresh notes of the boy's 
 voice came to the widow. It cheered her kind heart to hear him sing. 
 
 " You — you are taking too much wine, Arthur," Mr. Smirke said 
 softly — " you are exciting yourself" 
 
 " No," said Pen, " women give headaches, but this don't. Fill 
 your glass, old fellow, and let's drink — I say, Smirke, my boy — let's 
 drink to her — your her, I mean, not mine, for whom I swear PU 
 care no more — no, not a penny — no, not a fig — no, not a glass of 
 wine. Tell us about the lady, Smirke ; Pve often seen you sighing 
 about her." 
 
 " Oh ! " said Smirke — and his beautiful cambric shirt front and 
 glistening studs heaved with the emotion which agitated his gentle 
 and suffering bosom. 
 
 " Oh — what a sigh ! " Pen cried, growing very hilarious : " fill, my 
 boy, and drink the toast : you can't refuse a toast, no gentleman refuses 
 a toast. Here's her health, and good luck to you, and may she soon 
 be Mrs. Smirke."
 
 148 PENDEXXIS. 
 
 "Do you say so?" Smirke said, all of a tremble. " Do you really 
 say so, Arthur ? " 
 
 " Say so; of course, I say so. Down with it. Here's Mrs. Smirke's 
 good health ; hip, hip, hurray ! " 
 
 Smirke convulsively gulped down his glass of wine, and Pen waved 
 his over his head, cheering so as to make his mother and Laura 
 wonder on the lawn, and his uncle, who was dozing over the paper in 
 the drawing-room, start, and say to himself, " That boy's drinking too 
 much." Smirke put down the glass. 
 
 " I accept the omen," gasped out the blushing Curate. " Oh, my 
 dear Arthur, you — you know her — " 
 
 "What — Mira Portman .'' I wish you joy: she's got a dev'lish 
 large waist ; but I wish you joy, old fellov.-." 
 
 " Oh, Arthur ! " groaned the Curate again, and nodded his head, 
 speechless. 
 
 " Beg your pardon— sorry I offended you — but she has got a large 
 waist, you know — devilish large waist," Pen continued — the third 
 bottle evidently beginning to act upon the young gentleman. 
 
 " It's not Miss Portman," the other said, in a voice of agony. 
 
 " Is it anybody at Chatteris or at Clapham ? Somebody here ? No 
 — it ain't old Pybus ? it can't be Miss Rolt at the Factory — she's only 
 fourteen." 
 
 " It's somebody rather older than I am, Pen," the Curate cried, 
 looking up at his friend, and then guiltily casting his eyes down into 
 his plate. 
 
 Pen burst out laughing. " It's Madame Fribsby, by Jove, it's 
 Madame Fribsby. Madame Frib by the immortal Gods I " 
 
 The Curate could contain no more. " O Pen," he cried, " how can 
 you suppose that any of those — of those more than ordinary beings 
 you have named— could have an influence upon this heart, when I 
 have been daily in the habit of contemplating perfection ! I may be 
 insane, I may be madly ambitious, I may be presumptuous — but for 
 two years my heart has been filled by one image, and has known no 
 other idol. Haven't I loved you as a son, Arthur ? — say, hasn't Charles 
 Smirke loved you as a son ? " 
 
 " Yes, old boy, you've been very good to me," Pen said, whose 
 liking, however, for his tutor was not by any means of the fihal kind. 
 
 " My means," rushed on Smirke, " are at present limited, I own, 
 and my mother is not so liberal as might be desired ; but what she has 
 will be mine at her death. Were she to hear of my marrj-ing a lady 
 of rank and good fortune, my mother would be liberal, I am sure she 
 would' be liberal. Whatever I have or subsequently inherit — and it's 
 fi\'e hundred a year at the very least — would be settled upon her, and 
 — and — and vou at mv death — that is — "
 
 rENDEXXlS. ■ 149 
 
 " What the deuce do you mean ? — and what have I to do with your 
 rnoney ?" cried out Pen, in a puzzle. 
 
 " Arthur, Arthur ! '' exclaimed the other wildly ; " you say I am 
 your dearest friend — Let me be more. Oh, can't you see that the 
 angelic being I love — the purest, the best of women — is no other than 
 your dear, dear angel of a — mother." 
 
 "My mother!" cried out Arthur, jumping up and sober in a 
 minute. " Pooh ! damn it, Smirke, you must be mad — she's seven 
 or eight years older than you are." 
 
 " Did you find that any objection } " cried Smirke piteously, and 
 alluding, of course, to the elderly subject of Pen's own passion. 
 
 The lad felt the hint, and blushed quite red. " The cases are not 
 similar, Smirke," he said, " and the allusion might have been spared. 
 A man may forget his own rank and elevate any woman to it ; but 
 allow me to say our positions are very different." 
 
 " How do you mean, dear Arthur.'"' the Curate interposed sadly, 
 cowering as he felt that his sentence was about to be read. 
 
 "Mean?" said Arthur. "I mean what I say. My tutor, I say 
 f//j' tittot\ has no right to ask a lady of my mother's rank of life to 
 marry him. It's a breach of confidence. I say it's a liberty you take, 
 Smirke — it's a liberty. Mean, indeed!" 
 
 " O Arthur ! " the Curate began to cry with clasped hands, and a 
 scared face, but Arthur gave another stamp with his foot, and began 
 to pull at the bell. " Don't let's have any more of this. We'll have 
 some coffee, if you please," he said with a majestic air: and the 
 old butler entering at the summons, Arthur bade him to serve that 
 refreshment. 
 
 John said he had just carried coffee into the drawing-room, vv-here 
 his uncle was asking for Master Arthur, and the old man gave a glance 
 of wonder at the three empty claret-bottles. Smirke said he thought 
 he'd — he'd rather not go into the drawing-room, on which Arthur 
 haughtily said, " As you please," and called for Mr. Smirke's horse to 
 be brought round. The poor fellow said he knew the way to the 
 stable and would get his pony himself, and he went into the hall and 
 sadly put on his coat and hat. 
 
 Pen followed him out uncovered. Helen was still walking up and 
 down the soft lawn as the sun was setting, and the Curate took off h.is 
 hat and bowed by way of farewell, and passed on to the door leading 
 to the stable court by which the pair disappeared. Smirke knew the 
 way to the stable, as he said, well enough. He fumbled at the girths 
 of the saddle, which Pen fastened for him, and put on the bridle and 
 led the pony into the yard. The boy was touched by the grief which 
 appeared in the other's face as he mounted. Pen held out his hand, 
 and Smirke wrung it silently.
 
 156 ■ PENDEXMS. 
 
 " I say, Smirke," he said, in an agitated voice, " forgive me if I 
 have said anything harsh — for you have ahvays been very, very kind 
 to me. But it can't be, old fellow, it can't be. Be a man. God 
 bless you." 
 
 Smirke nodded his head silently, and rode out of the lodge gate : 
 and Pen looked after him for a couple of minutes, until he disappeared 
 down the road, and the clatter of the pony's hoofs died away. Helen 
 was still lingering on the lawn waiting until the boy came back — she 
 put his hair off his forehead and kissed it fondly. She was afraid he 
 had been drinking too much wine. Why had Mr. Smirke gone away 
 without any tea ? 
 
 He looked at her with a kind humour beaming in his eyes ; 
 " Smirke is unwell," he said with a laugh. For a long while Helen 
 had not seen the boy looking so cheerful. He put his arm round her 
 waist, and walked her up and down the walk in front of the house. 
 Laura began to drub on the drawing-room window and nod and laugh 
 from it. " Come along you two people," cried out Major Pendennis, 
 " your coffee is getting quite cold." 
 
 When Laura Avas gone to bed. Pen, who was big with his secret, 
 burst out with it, and described the dismal but ludicrous scene which 
 had occurred. Helen heard of it with many blushes, which became 
 her pale face very well, and a perplexity which Arthur roguishly 
 enjoyed. 
 
 " Confound the felloAv's impudence," Major Pendennis said as he 
 took his candle, " where will the assurance of these people stop ? " Pen 
 and his mother had a long talk that night, full of love, confidence, and 
 laughter, and the boy somehow slept more soundly and woke up more 
 easily than he had done for many months before. 
 
 Before the great Mr. Dolphin quitted Chatteris, he not only made 
 an advantageous engagement with Miss Fotheringay, but he liberally 
 left with her a sum of money to pay off any debts which the little 
 family might have contracted during their stay in the place, and 
 which, mainly through the lady's own economy and management, were 
 not considerable. The small account with the spirit merchant, which 
 Major Pendennis had settled, was the chief of Captain Costigan's 
 debts, and though the Captain at one time talked about repaying every 
 farthing of the money, it never appears that he executed his menace, 
 nor did the laws of honour in the least call upon him to accomplish 
 that threat. 
 
 When Miss Costigan had seen all the outstanding bills paid to 
 the uttermost shilling, she handed over the balance to her father, who 
 broke out into hospitalities to all his friends, gave the little Creeds 
 more apples and gingerbread than he had ever bestowed upon them,
 
 PENDENNIS. 151 
 
 so that the widow Creed ever after held the memory of her lodger in 
 veneration, and the young ones wept bitterly when he went away; 
 and in a word managed the money so cleverly that it was entirely 
 expended before many days, and he was compelled to draw upon 
 Mr. Dolphin for a sum to pay for travelling expenses when the time 
 of their departure arrived. 
 
 There was held at an inn in that county town a weekly meeting of 
 a festive, almost a riotous character, of a society of gentlemen who 
 called themselves the Buccaneers. Some of the choice spirits of 
 Chatteris • belonged to this cheerful club. Graves, the apothecary 
 (than whom a better fellow never put a pipe in his mouth and smoked 
 it). Smart, the talented and humorous portrait-painter of High Street, 
 Croker, an excellent auctioneer, and the uncompromising Hicks, the 
 able Editor for twenty-three years of the County Chronicle and Chat- 
 teris Champion, were amongst the crew of the Buccaneers, whom also 
 Bingley, the manager, liked to join of a Saturday evening, whenever 
 he received permission from his lady. 
 
 Costigan had been also an occasional Buccaneer. But a want of 
 punctuality of payments had of late somewhat excluded him from 
 the Society, where he was subject to disagreeable remarks from the 
 landlord, who said that a Buccaneer who didn't pay his shot was 
 utterly unworthy to be a Marine Bandit. But when it became known 
 to the 'Ears, as the Clubbists called themselves familiarly, that Miss 
 Fotheringay had made a splendid engagement, a great revolution of 
 feeling took place in the club regarding Captain Costigan. Solly, mine 
 host of the Grapes, told the gents in the Buccaneers' room one night 
 how noble the Captain had beayved ; having been round and paid off 
 all his ticks in Chatteris, including his score of three pound fourteen 
 here — and pronounced that Cos was a good fellar, a gentleman at 
 bottom, and he, Solly, had always said so, and finally worked upon the 
 feelings of the Buccaneers to give the Captain a dinner. 
 
 The banquet took place on the last night of Costigan's stay at 
 Chatteris, and was served in Solly's accustomed manner. As good a 
 plain dinner of old English fare as ever smoked on a table was pre- 
 pared by Mrs. Solly ; and about eighteen gentlemen sat down to the 
 festive board. Mr. Jubber (the eminent draper of High Street) was in 
 the chair, having the distinguished guest of the Club on his right. The 
 able and consistent Hicks officiated as croupier on the occasion; most 
 of the gentlemen of the Club were present, and H. Foker, Esq., and 
 
 Spavin, Esq., friends of Captain Costigan, were also participators 
 
 in the entertainment. The cloth having been drawn, the Chairman 
 said, " Costigan, there is wine, if you like," but the Captain preferring 
 punch, that liquor was voted by acclamation: and "Non Nobis" 
 having been sung in admirable style by Messrs. Bingley, Hicks, and
 
 lyZ PENDENNIS. 
 
 BuUby (of the Cathedral choir, than whom a more jovial spirit " ne'er 
 tossed off a bumper or emptied a bowl"), the Chairman gave the health 
 of the " King ! " which was drunk with the loyalty of Chatteris men, 
 and then, without further circumlocution, proposed their friend " Cap- 
 tain Costigan." 
 
 After the enthusiastic cheering, which rang through old Chatteris, 
 had subsided, Captain Costigan rose in reply, and made a speech of 
 twenty minutes, in which he was repeatedly overcome by his emotions. 
 
 The gallant Captain said he must be pardoned for incoherence, if 
 his heart was too full to speak. He was quitting a city celebrated for 
 its antiquitee, its hospitalitee, the beautee of its women, the manly 
 hdelitee, generositee, and jovialitee of its men. (Cheers.) He was 
 going from that ancient and venerable city, of which, while iMimoree 
 held her sayt, he should never think without the fondest emotion, to a 
 methrawpolis where the talents of his daughter were about to have 
 full play, and where he would watch over her like a guardian angel. 
 He should never forget that it was at Chatteris she had acquired the 
 skill which she was about to exercise in another sphere, and in her 
 name and his own. Jack Costigan thanked and blessed them. The 
 gallant officer's speech was received with tremendous cheers. 
 
 Mr. Hicks, Croupier, in a brilliant and energetic manner, proposed 
 Miss Fotheringay's health. 
 
 Captain Costigan returned thanks in a speech full of feeling and 
 eloquence. 
 
 Mr. Jubber proposed the Drama and the Chatteris Theatre, and 
 Mr. Bingley was about to rise, but was prevented by Captain Costigan, 
 Avho, as long connected with the Chatteris Theatre, and on behalf of 
 his daughter, thanked the company. He informed them that he had 
 been in garrison at Gibraltar and at Malta, and had been at the 
 taking of Flushing. The Duke of York was a patron of the Drama ; 
 he had the honour of dining with his Royal Highness and the Duke 
 of Kent many times ; and the former had justly been named the friend 
 of the soldier. (Cheers.) 
 
 The Army was then proposed, and Captain Costigan returned 
 thanks. In the course of the night, he sang his well-known songs, 
 - The Deserter," " The Shan van Voght," '" The Little Pig under the 
 Bed," and " The Vale of Avoca." The evening was a great triumph 
 for him — it ended. All triumphs and all evenings end. And the next 
 day. Miss Costigan having taken leave of all her friends, having been 
 reconciled to Miss Rouncy, to whom she left a necklace and a white 
 satin gown — the next day, he and Miss Costigan had places in the 
 Competitor coach rolling by the gates of Fairoaks Lodge — and Pen- 
 dennis never saw them. 
 
 Tom Smith, the coachman, pointed out Fairoaks to Mr. Costigan.
 
 PENDENNIS. 153 
 
 who sate on the box smelling of rum-and-water — and the Captain 
 said it was a poor place — and added — " Ye should see Castle Costigan, 
 county Mayo, me boy," — which Tom said he should like very mucli 
 to see. 
 
 They were gone, and Pen had never seen them ! He only knew 
 of their departure by its announcement in the county paper the next 
 day : and straight galloped over to Chatteris- to hear the truth of this 
 news. They were gone indeed. A card of " Lodgings to let " was 
 placed in the dear little familiar window. He rushed up into the 
 room and viewed it over. He sate ever so long in the old window- 
 sea.t looking into the Dean's Garden: whence he and Emily had so 
 often looked out together. He walked, with a sort of terror, into her 
 little empty bed-room. It was swept out and prepared for new comers. 
 The glass which had reflected her fair face was shining ready for her 
 successor. The curtains lay square folded on the little bed : he flung 
 himself down and buried his head on the vacant pillow. 
 
 Laura had netted a purse into which his mother had put some 
 sovereigns, and Pen had found it on his dressing-table that very 
 morning. He gave one to the little servant who had been used to 
 wait upon the Costigans, and another to the children, because they 
 said they were very fond of her. It was but a few months back, yet 
 what years ago it seemed since he had first entered that room! Pie 
 felt that it was all done. The very missing her at the coach had 
 something fatal in it. Blank, weary, utterly wretched and lonely the 
 poor lad felt. 
 
 His mother saw She was gone by his look when he came home. 
 He was eager to fly too now, as were other folks round about Chat- 
 teris. Poor Smirke wanted to go away from the sight of the Siren 
 widow, Foker began to think he had had enough of Baymouth, and 
 that a few supper-parties at Saint Boniface would not be unpleasant. 
 And Major Pendennis longed to be off, and have a little pheasant- 
 shooting at Stillbrook, and get rid of all the annoyances and tra- 
 casseries of the village. The widow and Laura nervously set about 
 the preparations for Pen's kit, and filled trunks with his books and 
 linen. Helen wrote cards with the name of Arthur Pendennis, Esq., 
 which were duly nailed on the boxes ; and at which both she and 
 Laura looked with tearful, wistful eyes. It was not until long, long 
 after he was gone, that Pen remembered how constant and tender 
 the affection of these women had been, and how selfish his own 
 conduct was. 
 
 A night soon comes, when the mail, with echoing horn and blazing 
 lamps, stops at the lodge-gate of Fairoaks, and Pen's trunks and his 
 Uncle's are placed on the roof of the carriage, into which the pair
 
 154 PENDENNIS. 
 
 presently afterwards enter. Helen and Laura are standing by the 
 evergreens of the shrubbery, their figures lighted up by the coach 
 lamps : the guard cries " All right : " in another instant the carriage 
 whirls onward ; the lights disappear, and Helen's heart and prayers 
 go with them. Her sainted benedictions follow the departing boyc 
 He has left the home-nest in which he has been chafing, and whither, 
 after his very first flight, he returned bleeding and wounded; he is 
 eager to go forth again and try his restless wings. 
 
 How lonely the house looks without him ! The corded trunks and 
 book-boxes are there in his empty study. Laura asks leave to come 
 and sleep in Helen's room : and when she has cried herself to sleep 
 there, the mother goes softly into Pen's vacant chamber, and kneels 
 down by the bed on which the moon is shining, and there prays for 
 her boy, as mothers only know how to plead. He knows that her 
 pure blessings are following him, as he is carried miles away.
 
 PENDENNIS. 155 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 j ALMA MATER. 
 
 ; T^ VERY man, however brief or inglorious may have been his 
 [ -L-' academical career, must remember with kindness and tender- 
 ! ness the old university comrades and days. The young man's life is 
 just beginning : the bo/s leading-strings are cut, and he has all the 
 novel delights and dignities of freedom. He has no idea of cares yet, 
 ' or of bad health, or of roguery, or poverty, or to-morrow's disappoint- 
 1 ment. The play has not been acted so often as to make him tired. 
 j Though the after-drink, as we mechanically go on repeating it, is stale 
 I and bitter, how pure and brilliant was that first sparkling draught of 
 1 pleasure! — How the boy rushes at the cup, and with what a wild 
 eagerness he drains it! But old epicures who are cut off from the 
 delights of the table, and are restricted to a poached &gg and a glass 
 of water, like to see people with good appetites ; and, as the next best 
 I thing to being amused at a pantomime one's-self is to see one's children 
 I enjoy it, I hope there may be no degree of age or experience to which 
 ; mortal may attain, when he shall become such a glum philosopher, as 
 j not to be pleased by the sight of happy youth. Coming back a few 
 'weeks since from a brief visit to the old University of Oxbridge, where 
 ;my friend Mr. Arthur Pendennis passed some period of his life, I made 
 ;the journey in the railroad by the side of a young fellow at present a 
 I student of Saint Boniface. He had got an <?;i-i?^^ somehow, and was 
 'bent on a day's lark in London : he never stopped rattling and talking 
 |from the commencement of the journey until its close (which was a 
 I great deal too soon for me, for I never was tired of listening to the 
 ihonest young fellow's jokes and cheery laughter) ; and when we arrived 
 'at the terminus nothing would satisfy him but a Hansom cab, so that 
 'he might get into town the quicker, and plunge into the pleasures 
 i awaiting him there. Away the young lad went whirling, with joy light- 
 ing up his honest face ; and as for the reader's humble servant, having 
 |but a small carpet-bag, I got up on the outside of the omnibus, and 
 I sate there very contentedly between a Jew pedlar smoking bad cigars, 
 land a gentleman's servant taking care of a poodle-dog, until we got 
 jDur fated complement of passengers and boxes, when the coachman 
 'drove leisurely away. IVe weren't in a hurry to get to town. Neither
 
 156 PEXDENNIS. 
 
 one of us was particularly eager about rushing into that near smoking 
 Babylon, or thought of dining at the Club that night, or dancing at 
 the Casino. Yet a few years more, and my young friend of the rail- 
 road will be not a whit more eager. 
 
 There were no railroads made when Arthur Pendennis went to the 
 famous University of Oxbridge ; but he drove thither in a well- 
 appointed coach, filled inside and out with dons, gownsmen, young 
 freshmen about to enter, and their guardians, who were conducting 
 them to the university. A fat old gentleman, in grey stockings, from 
 the City, who sate by Major Pendennis inside the coach, having his 
 pale-faced son opposite, was frightened beyond measure, when he 
 heard that the coach had been driven for a couple of stages by young 
 Mr. Foker, of Saint Boniface College, who was the friend of all men, 
 including coachmen, and could drive as well as Tom Hicks himself. 
 Pen sate on the roof, examining coach, passengers, and country, with 
 great delight and curiosity. His heart jumped with pleasure as the 
 famous university came in view, and the magnificent prospect of 
 venerable towers and pinnacles, tall elms and shining river, spread 
 before him. 
 
 Pen had passed a few days with his uncle at the Major's lodgings, 
 in Bury Street, before they set out for Oxbridge. Major Pendennis 
 thought that the lad's wardrobe wanted renewal ; and Arthur was by ' 
 no means averse to any plan which was to bring him new coats and 
 waistcoats. There was no end to the sacrifices which the self-denying 
 uncle made in the youth's behalf. London was awfully lonely. The . 
 Pall Mall pavement was deserted ; the very red-jackets had gone out 
 of town. There was scarce a face to be seen in the bow-windows ol ; 
 the clubs. The Major conducted his nephew into one or two of those i 
 desert mansions, and wrote down the lad's name on the candidate-lisi 
 of one of them ; and Arthur's pleasure at this compliment on hi 
 guardian's part was excessive. He read in the parchment volume 
 his name and titles, as " Arthur Pendennis, Esquire, of Fairoak.<| 
 
 Lodge, shire, and Saint Boniface College, Oxbridge ; proposes 
 
 by Major Pendennis, and seconded by Viscount Colchicum,"' with 
 thrill of intense gratification. " You will come in for ballot in abou 
 three years, by which time you will have taken your degree," tht 
 guardian said. Pen longed for the three years to be over, and survcye( 
 the stucco-halls, and vast libraries, and drawing-rooms, as already hi 
 own property. The Major laughed slily to see the pompous airs of th< 
 simple young fellow, as he strutted out of the building. He and Foke 
 drove down in the latter's cab one day to the Greyfriars, and renewec 
 acquaintance with some of their old comrades there. The boys cann 
 crowding up to the cab as it stood by the Greyfriars gates, wher 
 they were entering, and admired the chestnut horse, and the tights an 

 
 PENDENNIS. 157 
 
 livery and gravity of Stoopid, the tiger. The bell for afteiTioon-school 
 rang as they were swaggering about the play-ground talking to their 
 old cronies. The awful Doctor passed into school with his grammar 
 in his hand. Foker slunk away uneasily at his presence, but Pen went 
 up blushing, and shook the dignitary by the hand. He laughed as he 
 thought that well-remembered Latin Grammar had boxed his ears 
 many a time. He was generous, good-natured, and, in a word, per- 
 fectly conceited and satisfied with himself. 
 
 Then they drove to the parental brew-house. Foker's Entire is 
 
 !:omposed in an enormous pile of buildings, not far from the Grey- 
 
 fi iars, and the name of that well-known firm is gilded upon innumer- 
 
 \h\c public-house signs, tenanted by its vassals in the neighbourhood : 
 
 he venerable junior partner and manager did honour to the young 
 
 ord of the vats and his friend, and served them with silver flagons of 
 
 jrown-stout, so strong, that you would have thought, not only the 
 
 young men, but the very horse Mr. Harry Foker drove, was affected 
 
 3y the potency of the drink, for he rushed home to the west-end of 
 
 he town at a rapid pace, which endangered the pie-stalls and the 
 
 I A omen on the crossings, and brought the cab-steps into collision with 
 
 ' lie posts at the street corners, and caused Stoopid to swing fearfully 
 
 )n his board behind. 
 
 01 The Major was quite pleased when Pen was with his young 
 
 icquaintance ; listened to Mr. Foker's artless stories with the greatest 
 
 merest : gave the two boys a fine dinner at a Covent Garden Coffee- 
 
 louse, whence they proceeded to the play ; but was above all happy 
 
 ivhen Mr. and Lady Agnes Foker, who happened to be in London, 
 
 •equested the pleasure of Major Pendennis and Mr. Arthur Pen- 
 
 hos iennis's company at dinner in Grosvenor Street. " Having obtained 
 
 ;.lis .he entree into Lady Agnes Foker's house," he said to Pen with an 
 
 hi iiffectionate solemnity which befitted the importance of the occasion^ 
 
 it behoves you, my dear boy, to keep it. You must mind and 
 
 lever neglect to call in Grosvenor Street when you come to London. 
 
 '. recommend you to read up carefully, in Debrett, the alliances and 
 
 I'nljenealogy of the Earls of Rosherville, and if you can, to make some 
 
 rifling allusions to the family, something historical, neat, and com- 
 
 )limcntary, and that sort of thing, which you, who have a poetic fancy, 
 
 an do pretty well. Mr. Foker himself is a worthy man, though not 
 
 ij^lij )f high extraction or indeed much education. He always makes a 
 
 (In :)oint of having some of the family porter served round after dinner, 
 
 vhich you will on no account refuse, and which I shall drink myself, 
 
 hough all beer disagrees with me confoundedly." And the heroic 
 
 .j-jji nartyr did actually sacrifice himself, as he said he would, on the day 
 
 ,],([ vhen the dinner took place, and old Mr. Foker, at the head of his 
 
 .jj (able, made his usual joke about Foker's Entire. We should all of 
 
 loui
 
 158 PENDENXIS. 
 
 tis, I am sure, have liked to see the Major's grin, when the worthy old 
 gentleman made his time-honoured joke. 
 
 Lady Agnes, who, wrapped up in Harry, was the fondest ot 
 mothers, and one of the most good-natured though not the wisest ot 
 women, received her son's friend with great cordiality ; and astonished 
 Pen by accounts of the severe course of studies which her darling 
 boy was pursuing, and which she feared might injure his dear health. 
 Foker the elder burst into a horse-laugh at some of these speeches, 
 and the heir of the house winked his eye very knowingly a.t his friend. 
 And Lady Agnes then going through her son's history from the earliest 
 time, and recounting his miraculous suflerings in the measles and 
 whooping-cough, his escape from drowning, the shocking tyrannies 
 practised upon him at that horrid school, whither Mr. Foker would 
 send him because he had been brought up there himself, and she never 
 would forgive that disagreeable Doctor, no, never — Lady Agnes, we 
 say, having prattled away for an hour incessantly about her son, voted 
 the two Messieurs Pendennis most agreeable men; and when the 
 pheasants came with the second course, which the Major praised as 
 the very finest birds he ever saw, her Ladyship said they came from 1 
 Logwood (as the Major knew perfectly well), and hoped that they 
 would both pay her a visit there — at Christmas, or when dear Harry 
 was at home for the vacations. 
 
 " God bless you, my dear boy," Pendennis said to Arthur, as they 
 were lighting their candles in Bur}' Street afterwards to go to bed. 
 " You made that little allusion to Agincourt, where one of the Rosher- 
 villes distinguished himself, very neatly and well, although Lady Agnes 
 did not quite understand it : but it w-as exceedingly well for a beginner 
 — though you oughtn't to blush so, by the way — and I beseech you, 
 my dear Arthur, to remember through life, that with an etitree — with a 
 good entree, mind — it is just as easy for you to have good society as 
 bad, and that it costs a man, when properly introduced, no more 
 trouble or soins to keep a good footing in the best houses in London 
 than to dine with a lawyer in Bedford Square. Mind this when you 
 are at Oxbridge pursuing your studies, and for Heaven's sake be very 
 particular in the acquaintances which you make. The premier pas 
 in life is the most important of all — did you write to your mother to- 
 day ? — No ? — well, do, before you go, and call and ask Mr. Foker for a 
 frank — They like it — Good night. God bless you." 
 
 Pen wrote a droll account of his doings in London, and the play, 
 and the visit to the old Friars, and the brewer)', and the party at 
 Mr. Poker's, to his dearest mother, who was saying her prayers at 
 home in the lonely house at Fairoaks, her heart full of love and 
 tenderness un\itterable for the boy : and she and Laura road that 
 letter and those which followed, many, many times, and brooded over 
 
 3
 
 PENDENNIS. 159 
 
 them as women do. It was the first step in hfe that Pen was making — 
 
 Ah ! what a dangerous journey it is, and how the l.iravest may stumble 
 
 and the strongest fail. Brother wayfarer ! may you have a kind arm 
 
 to support yours on the path, and a friendly hand to succour those 
 
 who fall beside you. May truth guide, mercy forgive at the end, and 
 
 love accompany always. Without that lamp how blind the traveller 
 
 would be, and how black and cheerless the journey ! 
 
 \ So the coach drove up to that ancient and comfortable inn the 
 
 I! Trencher, which stands in Main Street, Oxbridge, and Pen with delight 
 
 5 and eagerness remarked, for the first time, gownsmen going about, 
 
 chapel bells clinking (bells in Oxbridge are ringing from morning-tide 
 
 I till even-song,) — towers and pinnacles rising calm and stately over the 
 gables and antique house-roofs of the city. Previous communications 
 had taken place between Dr. Portman on Pen's part, and Mr. Buck, 
 Tutor of Boniface, on whose side Pen was entered ; and as soon as 
 Major Pendennis had arranged his personal appearance, so that it 
 should make a satisfactory impression upon Pen's tutor, the pair 
 walked down Main Street, and passed the great gate and belfry-tower 
 of Saint George's College, and so came, as they were directed, to Saint 
 Boniface, where again Pen's heart began to beat as they entered at 
 the wicket of the venerable ivy-mantled gate of the College. It is 
 surmounted with an ancient dome almost covered with creepers, and 
 adorned with the effigy of the Saint from whom the House takes its 
 name, and many coats-of-arms of its royal and noble benefactors. 
 
 The porter pointed out a queer old tower at the corner of the 
 quadrangle, by which Mr. Buck's rooms were approached, and the 
 two gentlemen walked across the square, the main features of which 
 were at once and for ever stamped in Pen's mind — the pretty fountain 
 playing in the centre of the fair grass plats ; the tall chapel windows 
 ; and buttresses rising to the right ; the hall, with its tapering lantern 
 1 and oriel window ; the lodge, from the doors of which the Master 
 i issued awfully in rustling silks : the lines of the surrounding rooms 
 I pleasantly broken by carved chimnies, grey turrets, and quaint gables 
 j — all these Mr. Pen's eyes drank in with an eagerness which belongs 
 ) to first impressions ; and Major Pendennis surveyed with that calm- 
 
 ( I ness which belongs to a gentleman who does not care for the pic- 
 
 ; jturesque, and whose eyes have been somewhat dimmed by the constant 
 
 ) ! glare of the pavement of Pall Mall. 
 
 • I Saint George's is the great College of the University of Oxbridge, 
 (with its four vast quadrangles, and its beautiful hall and gardens, and 
 I the Georgians, as the men are called, wear gowns of a peculiar cut, 
 land give themselves no small airs of superiority over all other young 
 
 . jmen. Little Saint Boniface is but a petty hermitage in comparison of 
 
 . the huge consecrated pile alongside of which it lies. But considering
 
 i6o PEXDENiXIS. 
 
 its size it has always kept an excellent name in the university. Its 
 Ion is very good: the best families of certain counties have time. out of 
 mind sent up their young men to Saint Boniface : the college livings 
 are remarkably good, the fellowships easy ; the Boniface men had had 
 more than their fair share of university honours ; their boat was third 
 upon the river; their chapel-choir is not inferior to Saint George's 
 itself; and the Boniface ale the best in Oxbridge. In the comfortable 
 old wainscoted College-Hall, and round about Roubilliac's statue ot 
 Saint Boniface (who stands in an attitude of seraphic benediction over 
 the uncommonly good cheer of the fellows' table) there are portraits 
 of many most eminent Bonifacians. There is the learned Dr. Griddle, 
 who suftered in Henry VIII.'s time, and Archbishop Bush who roasted 
 him — there is Lord Chief Justice Hicks — the Duke of St. Davids, K.G., 
 Chancellor of the University and Member of this College — Sprott the 
 Poet, of whose fame the college is justly proud — Doctor Blogg, the 
 late master, and friend of Doctor Johnson, who visited him at St. 
 Boniface — and other lawyers, scholars, and divines, whose portraitures 
 look from the walls, or whose coats-of-arms shine in emerald and ruby, 
 gold, and azure, in the tall windows of the refectory. The venerable 
 cook of the college is one of the best artists in Oxbridge, and the 
 wine in the fellows' room has long been famed for its excellence and 
 abundance. 
 
 Into this certainly not the least snugly sheltered arbour amongst 
 the groves of Academe, Pen now found his way, leaning on his uncle's 
 arm, and they speedily reached Mr. Buck's rooms, and were conducted 
 into the apartment of that courteous gentleman. 
 
 He had received previous information from Dr. Portman regarding 
 Pen, with respect to whose family, fortune, and personal merits the 
 honest doctor had spoken with no small enthusiasm. Indeed Portman 
 had described Arthur to the tutor as " a young gentleman of some 
 fortune and landed estate, of one of the most ancient families in the 
 kingdom, and possessing such a character and genius as were sure, 
 under proper guidance, to make him a credit to the college and the 
 university." Under such recommendations, the tutor was, of course, 
 most cordial to the young freshman and his guardian, invited the 
 latter to dine in hall, where he would have the satisfaction of seeing 
 his nephew wear his gown and eat his dinner for the first time, and 
 requested the pair to take wine at his rooms after hall, and in con- 
 sequence of the highly favourable report he had received of Mr. Arthur \ 
 Pendennis, said, he should be happy to give him the best set of rooms j 
 to be had in college — a gentleman-pensioners set, indeed, which werej 
 just luckily vacant. When a College Magnate takes the trouble to be] 
 polite, there is no man more splendidly courteous. Immersed in theirJ 
 books, and excluded from the world by the gravity of tlieir occupa-J
 
 PENDENNIS. i6i 
 
 tions, these reverend men assume a solemn magnificence of compli- 
 ment in which they rustle and swell as in their grand robes of state. 
 Those silks and brocades are not put on for all comers or every day. 
 When the two gentlemen had taken leave of the tutor in his study| 
 ; and had returned to Mr. Buck's ante-room, or lecture-room, a very 
 I handsome apartment, turkey-carpeted, and hung with excellent prints 
 ; and richly-framed pictures, they found the tutor's servant already in 
 \ waiting there, accompanied by a man with a bag full of caps and a 
 r number of gowns, from which Pen might select a cap and gown for 
 I himself, and the servant, no doubt, would get a commission propor- 
 t tionable to the service done by him. Mr. Pen was all in a tremor of 
 [ pleasure as the bustling tailor tried on a gown, and pronounced that it 
 was an excellent fit; and then he put the pretty college cap on, in 
 rather a dandified manner, and somewhat on one side, as he had 
 seen Fiddicombe, the youngest master at Greyfriars, wear it. And he 
 inspected the entire costume with a great deal of satisfaction in one 
 of the great gilt mirrors which ornamented Mr. Buck's lecture-room: 
 for some of these college divines are no more above looking-glasses 
 than a lady is, and look to the set of their gowns and caps quite as 
 anxiously as folks do of the lovelier sex. 
 
 Then Davis, the skip or attendant, led the way, keys in hand, across 
 the quadrangle, the Major and Pen following him, the latter blushing, 
 and pleased with his new academical habiliments, across the quad- 
 rangle to the rooms which were destined for the freshman ; and which 
 were vacated by the retreat of the gentleman-pensioner, Mr. Spicer. 
 The rooms were very comfortable, with large cross-beams, high wain- 
 scots, and small windows in deep embrasures. Mr. Spicer's furniture 
 'jwas there, and to be sold at a valuation, and Major Pendennis agreed 
 on his nephew's behalf to take the available part of it, laughingly, how- 
 ever, declining (as, indeed, Pen did for his own part) six sporting 
 prints, and four groups of opera-dancers with gauze draperies, which 
 formed the late occupant's pictorial collection. 
 
 Then they went to hall, where Pen sate down and ate his commons 
 I with his brother freshmen, and the Major took his place at the high 
 j table along with the college dignitaries and other fathers or guardians 
 ,of youth, who had come up with their sons to Oxbridge; and after all 
 ithey went to Mr. Buck's to take wine; and after wine to chapel, where 
 Ithe Major sate with great gravity in the upper place, having a fine view 
 of the Master in his carved throne or stall under the organ-loft, where 
 Ithat gentleman, the learned Doctor Donne, sate magnificent, with his 
 I great prayer-book before him, an image of statuesque piety and rigid 
 I devotion. All the young freshmen behaved with gravity and decorum, 
 I but Pen was shocked to see that atrocious little Foker, who came in 
 (very late, and half-a-dozen of his comrades in the gentlemen-pen- 
 i II
 
 1 62 PENDENNIS. 
 
 sioners' seats, giggling and talking as if they had been in so many 
 stalls at the Opera. 
 
 Pen could hardly sleep at night in his bed-room at the Trencher ; 
 *so anxious was he to begin his college life, and to get into his own 
 apartments. What did he think about, as he lay tossing and awake ? 
 Was it about his mother at home ; the pious soul whose life was bound 
 up in his ? Yes, let us hope he thought of her a little. Was it about 
 Miss Fotheringay, and his eternal passion, which had kept him awake 
 so many nights, and created such wretchedness and such longing ? 
 He had a trick of blushing, and if you had been in the room, and the 
 candle had not been out, you might have seen the youth's countenance 
 redden more than once, as he broke out into passionate incoherent 
 exclamations regarding that luckless event of his life. His uncle's 
 lessons had not been thrown away upon him ; the mist of passion had 
 passed from his eyes now, and he saw her as she was. To think that 
 he, Pendennis, had been enslaved by such a woman, and then jilted by 
 her ! that he should have stooped so low, to be trampled on in the 
 mire ! that there was a time in his life, and that but a few months back, 
 when he was willing to take Costigan for his father-in-law ! — 
 
 " Poor old Smirke ! " Pen presently laughed out — " well. 111 write 
 and try and console the poor old boy. He won't die of his passion, 
 ha, ha ! " The Major, had he been awake, might have heard a score of 
 such ejaculations uttered by Pen as he lay awake and restless through 
 the first night of his residence at Oxbridge. 
 
 It would, perhaps, have been better for a youth, the battle of whose 
 life was going to begin on the morrow, to have passed the eve in a 
 difterent sort of vigil: but the world had got hold of Pen in the shape 
 of his selfish old Mentor : and those who have any interest in his 
 character, must have perceived ere now, that this lad was verj" weak 
 as well as very impetuous, very vain as well as verj- frank, and if of a 
 generous disposition, not a little selfish, in the midst of his profuseness, 
 and also rather fickle, as all eager pursuers of self-gratification are. 
 
 The six-months' passion had aged him very considerably. There 
 was an immense gulf between Pen the victim of love, and Pen the 
 innocent boy of eighteen, sighing after it : and so Arthur Pendennis 
 had all the experience and superiority, besides that command whicl" 
 afterwards conceit and imperiousness of disposition gave him over th< 
 young men with whom he now began to live. 
 
 He and his uncle passed the morning with great satisfaction ii 
 making purchases for the better comfort of the apartments which th 
 lad was about to occupy. Mr. Spiccr's china and glass were in 
 dreadfully dismantled condition, his lamps smashed, and his boolt 
 cases by no means so spacious as those shelves which would be reqa 
 site to receive the contents of the boxes which were Iving in the ha
 
 RENDENNIS. i.i&3 
 
 at Fairoaks, and which were addressed to Arthur in the hand of poor 
 Helen. 
 
 The boxes arrived in a few days, that his mother had packed with 
 3o much care. Pen was touched as he read the superscriptions in the 
 idear well-known hand, and he arranged in their proper places all 
 ;he books, his old friends, and all the linen and table-cloths which 
 Helen had selected from the family stock, and all the jam-pots 
 vhich little Laura had bound in straw, and the hundred simple 
 its of home. 
 
 aoi 
 
 in 
 
 bed ■ 
 le^ ■
 
 i64 PENDENNIS. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 PENDENNIS OF BONIFACE. 
 
 OUR friend Pen was not sorry when his Mentor took leave of the 
 young gentleman on the second day after the arrival of the pair 
 in Oxbridge, and we may be sure that the Major on his part was very 
 glad to have discharged his duty, and to have the duty over. More 
 than three months of precious time had that martyr of a Major given 
 up to his nephew — Was ever selfish man called upon to make a greater 
 sacrifice ? Do you know many men or Majors who would do as much plT 
 A man will lay down his head, or peril his life for his honour, but let! 
 us be shy how we ask him to give up his ease or his heart's desire. 
 Very few of us can bear that trial. Let us give the Major due credit 
 for his conduct during the past quarter, and own that he has quite a 
 right to be pleased at getting a holiday. Foker and Pen saw him off 
 in the coach, and the former youth gave particular orders to the coach- 
 man to take care of that gentleman inside. It pleased the elder Pen- 
 dennis to have his nephew in the company of a young fellow who 
 would introduce him to the best set of the university. The Major' 
 rushed off to London and thence to Cheltenham,' from which watering- 
 place he descended upon some neighbouring great houses, whereof the 
 families were not gone abroad, and where good shooting and companj 
 Avere to be had. 
 
 We are not about to go through young Pen's academical careei 
 very minutely. Alas, the life of such boys does not bear telling alta 
 gether. I wish it did. I ask you, does yours } As long as what w< 
 call our honour is clear, I suppose your mind is pretty easy. Womei 
 are pure, but not men. Women are unselfish, but not men. And 
 would not wish to say of poor Arthur Pendennis that he was worS'' 
 than his neighbours, only that his neighbours are bad for the mos 
 part. Let us have the candour to own as much, at least. Can yo 
 point out ten spotless men of your acquaintance .' Mine is prett 
 large, but I can't find ten saints in the list. 
 
 During the first term of Mr. Pen's university life, he attende 
 classical and mathematical lectures with tolerable assiduity ; but di 
 covering before very long time that he had little taste or genius for tb 
 pursuing of the exact sciences, and being perhaps rather annoyed tlu
 
 PENDENNIS. 165 
 
 ne or two very vulgar young men, who did not even use straps to 
 licir trousers, so as to cover the abominably thick and coarse shoes 
 nd stockings which they wore, beat him completely in the lecture- 
 00m, he gave up his attendance at that course, and announced to his 
 and parent that he proposed to devote himself exclusively to the culti- 
 ation of Greek and Roman Literature. 
 
 Mrs. Pendennis was, for her part, quite satisfied that her darling 
 oy should pursue that branch of learning for which he had the 
 ixatest inclination ; and only besought him not to ruin his health by 
 30 much study, for she had heard the most melancholy stories of 
 oiing students who, by over-fatigue, had brought on brain-fevers and 
 ci'ished untimely in the midst of their university career. And Pen's 
 L.ihh, which was always delicate, was to be regarded, as she justly 
 lid, beyond all considerations or vain honours. Pen, although not 
 ware of any lurking disease which was likely to endanger his life, yet 
 , iiully promised his mamma not to sit up reading too late of nights, 
 nd stuck to his word in this respect with a great deal more tenacity 
 f resolution than he exhibited upon some other occasions, when per- 
 aps he was a little remiss. 
 
 Presently he began too to find that he learned little good in the 
 i.issical lecture. His fellow-students there were too dull, as in mathe- 
 matics they were too learned for him. Mr. Buck, the tutor, was no 
 otter a scholar than many a fifth-form boy at Greyfriars ; might 
 ave some stupid humdrum notions about the metre and grammatical 
 onstruction of a passage of yEschylus or Aristophanes, but had no 
 lore notion of the poetry than Mrs. Binge, his bed-maker ; and Pen 
 row weary of hearing the dull students and tutor blunder through a 
 ;w lines of a play, which he could read in a tenth part of the time 
 hich they gave to it. After all, private reading, as he began to per- 
 cive, was the only study which was really profitable to a man ; and he 
 nnounced to his mamma that he should read by himself a great deal 
 lore, and in public a great deal less. That excellent woman knew no 
 ,iore about Homer than she did about Algebra, but she was quite con- 
 futed with Pen's arrangements regarding his course of studies, and 
 jilt perfectly confident that her dear boy would get the place which he 
 iierited. 
 
 Pen did not come home until after Christmas, a little to the fond 
 lother's disappointment, and Laura's, who was longing for him to 
 lake a fine snow fortification, such as he had made three winters 
 1 efore. But he was invited to Logwood, Lady Agnes Foker's, where 
 iiere were private theatricals, and a gay Christmas party of very fine 
 )lks, some of them whom Major Pendennis would on no account 
 ave his nephew neglect. However, he stayed at home for the last 
 iree weeks of the vacation, and Laura had the opportunity of
 
 1 66 PENDENNIS. 
 
 remarking what a quantity of fine new clothes he brought with him, 
 and his mother admired his improved appearance and manly and 
 decided tone. 
 
 He did not come home at Easter; but when he arrived for the long 
 vacation, he brought more smart clothes ; appearing in the morning in 
 wonderful shooting-jackets, with remarkable buttons ; and in the even- 
 ing in gorgeous velvet waistcoats, with richly embroidered cravats, 
 and curious linen. And as she pried about his room, she saw, oh, 
 such a beautiful dressing-case, with silver mountings, and a quantity 
 of lovely rings and jewellery. And he had a new French watch and 
 gold chain, in place of the big old chronometer, with its bunch of 
 jingling seals, which had hung from the fob of John Pendennis, and by 
 the second-hand of which the defunct doctor had felt many a patient's 
 pulse in his time. It was but a few months back Pen had longed for 
 this watch, which he thought the most splendid and august time-piece 
 in the world ; and just before he went to college, Helen had taken it 
 out of her trinket-box (where it had remained unwound since the death 
 of her husband) and given it to Pen with a solemn and appropriate 
 little speech respecting his father's virtues and the proper use of time. 
 This portly and valuable chronometer Pen now pronounced to be out 
 of date, and indeed made some comparisons between it and a warming- 
 pan, which Laura thought disrespectful, and he left the watch in a 
 drawer, in the company of soiled primrose gloves, cravats which had 
 gone out of favour, and of that other school watch which has once 
 before been mentioned in this history. Our old friend, Rebecca, Pen 
 pronounced to be no longer up to his weight, and swopped her away 
 for another and more powerful horse, for which he had to pay rather 
 a heavy figure. Mrs. Pendennis gave the boy the money for the new 
 horse ; and Laura cried when Rebecca was fetched away. 
 
 Also Pen brought a large box of cigars branded Colorados, Afran- 
 cesados, Telescopies^ Fudson, Oxford Street, or by some such strange 
 titles, and began to consume these not only about the stables and 
 green-houses, where they were very good for Helen's plants, but in his 
 own study, — which practice his mother did not at first approve. But 
 he was at work upon a prize poem, he said, and could not compose 
 without his cigar, and quoted the late lamented Lord Byron's lines in 
 favour of the custom of smoking. As he was smoking to such good 
 purpose, his mother could not, of course, refuse permission : in fact, 
 the good soul coming into the room one day in the midst of Pen's 
 labours (he was consulting a novel which had recently appeared, for 
 the cultivation of the light literature of his own country as well as of 
 foreign nations became every student) — Helen, we say, coming into 
 the room and finding Pen on the sofa at this work, rather than disturb 
 him went for a light-box and his cigar-ca'je to his bed room which was
 
 PENDENNIS. 167 
 
 adjacent, and actually put the cigar into his mouth and hghted the 
 match at which he kindled it. Pen laughed, and kissed his mother's 
 hand as it hung fondly over the back of the sofa. " Dear old mother," 
 he said, " if I were to tell you to burn the house down, I think you 
 would do it." And it is very likely that Mr. Pen was right, and 
 that the foolish woman would have done almost as much for him as 
 he said. 
 
 Besides the works of English "light literature" which this diligent 
 student devoured, he brought down boxes of the light literature of the 
 neighbouring country of France : into the leaves of which when Helen 
 dipped, she read such things as caused her to open her eyes with 
 wonder. But Pen showed her that it was not he who made the books, 
 though it was absolutely necessary that he should keep up his French 
 by an acquaintance with the most celebrated writers of the day, and 
 that it was as clearly his duty to read the eminent Paul de Kock, as to 
 study Swift or Moliere. And Mrs. Pendennis yielded with a sigh of 
 perplexity. But Miss Laura was warned off the books, both by his 
 anxious mother, and that rigid moralist Mr. Arthur Pendennis himself, 
 who, however he might be called upon to study every branch of litera- 
 ture in order to form his mind and to perfect his style, would by no 
 means prescribe such a course of reading to a young lady whose busi- 
 ness in life was very different. 
 
 In the course of this long vacation Mr. Pen drank up the bin of 
 claret which his father had laid in, and of which we have heard the 
 son remark that there was not a headache in a hogshead ; and this 
 wine being exhausted, he wrote for a further supply to " his wine- 
 merchants," Messrs. Binney and Latham of Mark Lane, London: 
 from whom, indeed, old Doctor Portman had recommended Pen to 
 get a supply of port and sherry on going to college. " You will have, 
 no doubt, to entertain your young friends at Boniface witli wine 
 parties," the honest rector had remarked to the lad. " They used to 
 be customary at college in my time, and I would advise you to employ 
 an honest and respectable house in London for your small stock of 
 wine, rather than to have recourse to the Oxbridge tradesmen, whose 
 liquor, if I remember rightly, was both deleterious in quality and 
 exorbitant in price." And the obedient young gentleman took the 
 Doctor's advice, and patronised Messrs. Binney and Latham at the 
 rector's suggestion. 
 
 So when he wrote orders for a stock of wine to be sent down to 
 the cellars at Fairoaks, he hinted that Messrs. B. and L. miglit send 
 in his university account for wine at the same time with the Fairoaks 
 bill. The poor widow was frightened at the amount. But Pen laughed 
 at her old-fashioned views, said that the bill was moderate, that every- 
 body drank claret and champagne now, and, fmally, the widow paid.
 
 i6S PEXDENNIS. 
 
 feeling dimly that the expenses of her household were increasing con- 
 siderably, and that her narrow income would scarce suffice to meet 
 them. But they were only occasional. Pen merely came home for a 
 few weeks at the vacation. Laura and she might pinch when he was 
 gone. In the brief time he was with them ought they not to make 
 him happy ? 
 
 Arthurs own allowances were liberal all this time ; indeed, much 
 more so than those of the sons of far more wealthy men. Years 
 before, the thrifty and affectionate John Pendennis, whose darling 
 project it had ever been to give his son a university education, and 
 those advantages of which his ov/n father's extravagance had deprived 
 him, had begun laying by a store of money which he called Arthurs 
 Education Fund. Year after year in his book his executors found 
 entries of sums vested as A.E.F., and during the period subsequent to 
 her husband's decease, and before Pen's entry at college, the widow 
 had added sundry sums to this fund, so that when Arthur went up to 
 Oxbridge it reached no inconsiderable amount. Let him be liberally 
 allowanced, was Major Pendennis's maxim. Let him make his first 
 entree into the world as a gentleman, and take his place with men of 
 good rank and station ; after giving it to him, it will be his own duty 
 to hold it. There is no such bad policy as stinting a boy — or putting 
 him on a lower allowance than his fellows. Arthar will have to face 
 the world and fight for himself presently. ^leanwhile we shall have 
 procured for him good friends, gentlemanly habits, and have him well 
 backed and well trained against the time when the real struggle 
 comes. And these liberal opinions the Major probably advanced 
 both because they were just, and because he was not dealing with 
 his own money. 
 
 Thus young Pen, the only son of an estated country' gentleman, 
 with a good allowance, and a gentlemanlike bearing and person, 
 looked to be a lad of much more consequence than he was really ; 
 and was held by the Oxbridge authorities, tradesmen, and under- 
 graduates, as quite a young buck and member of the aristocracy. His 
 manner was frank, brave, and perhaps a little impertinent, as becomes 
 a high-spirited youth. He was perfectly generous and free-handed 
 with his money, which seemed pretty plentiful. He loved joviality, 
 and had a good voice for a song. Boat-racing had not risen in Pen's 
 time to the fureur which, as we are given to understand, it has since 
 attained in the university ; and riding and tandem-driving were the 
 fashions of the ingenuous youth. Pen rode well to hounds, appeared 
 in pink, as became a young buck, and not particularly extravagant in 
 equestrian or any other amusement, yet managed to run up a fine bill 
 at Nile's, the livery-stable keeper, and in a number of other quarters. 
 In fact, this lucky young gentleman had almost every taste to a con-
 
 PENDENNIS. 169 
 
 siderable degree. He was very fond of books of all sorts : Doctor 
 Portman had taught him to like rare editions, and his own taste led 
 him to like beautiful bindings. It was marvellous what tall copies, 
 and gilding, and marbling, and blind-tooling, the booksellers and 
 binders put upon Pen's book-shelves. He had a very fair taste in 
 matters of art, and a keen relish for prints of a high school — none of 
 your French Opera Dancers, or tawdry Racing Prints, such as had 
 delighted the simple eyes of Mr. Spicer, his predecessor — but your 
 Stranges, and Rembrandt etchings, and'Wilkies before the letter, 
 with which his apartments were furnished presently in the most 
 perfect good taste, as was allowed in the university, where this young 
 fellow got no small reputation. We have mentioned that he exhibited 
 a certain partiality for rings, jewellery, and tine raiment of all sorts ; 
 and it must be owned that Mr. Pen, during his time at the university, 
 was rather a dressy man, and loved to array himself in splendour. 
 He and his polite friends would dress themselves out with as much 
 care in order to go and dine at each other's rooms, as other folks 
 would who were going to enslave a mistress. They said he used to 
 wear rings over his kid gloves, which he always denies ; but what 
 follies will not youth perpetrate with its own admirable gravity and 
 simplicity ^ That he took perfumed baths is a truth ; and he used 
 to say that he took them after meeting certain men of a very low sot 
 in hall. 
 
 In Pen's second year, when Miss Fotheringay made her chief hit 
 in London, and scores of prints were published of her, Pen had one of 
 these hung in his bed-room, and confided to the men of his set how 
 awfully, how wildly, how madly, how passionately, he had loved that 
 woman. He showed them in confidence the verses that he had written 
 to her, and his brow would darken, his eyes roll, his chest heave with 
 emotion as he recalled that fatal period of his life, and described the 
 woes and agonies which he had suffered. The verses were copied out, 
 handed about, sneered at, admired, passed from coterie to coterie. 
 There are few things which elevate a lad in the estimation of his 
 brother boys more than to have a character for a great and romantic 
 passion. Perhaps there is something noble in it at all times — among 
 very young men, it is considered heroic — Pen was pronounced a 
 tremendous fellow. They said he had almost committed suicide : that 
 he had fought a duel with a baronet about her. Freshmen pointed 
 him out to each other. As at the promenade time at two o'clock he 
 swaggered out of college, surrounded by his cronies, he was famous to 
 behold. He was elaborately attired. He would ogle the ladies who 
 came to lionise the University, and passed before him on the arms of 
 happy gownsmen, and give his opinion upon their personal charms, or 
 their toilettes, with the gravity of a critic v/hose experience entitled
 
 170 PENDEXiXIS. 
 
 him to speak with authority. ■Men used to say that they had been 
 walking with Pendennis, and were as pleased to be seen in his com- 
 pany as some of us would be if we walked with a duke down Pall Mall. 
 He and the Proctor capped each other as they met, as if they were 
 rival powers, and the men hardly knew which was the greater. 
 
 In fact, in the course of his second year, Arthur Pendennis had 
 become one of the men of fashion in the university. It is curious to 
 watch that facile admiration,, and simple fidelity of youth. They hang 
 round a leader : and wonder at him, and love him, and imitate him. 
 No generous boy ever lived, I suppose, that has not had some wonder- 
 ment of admiration for another boy ; and Monsieur Pen at Oxbridge 
 had his school, his faithful band of friends, and his rivals. When the 
 young men heard at the haberdashers' shops that Mr. Pendennis, of 
 Boniface, had just ordered a crimson satin cravat, you would see a 
 couple of dozen crimson satin cravats in Main Street in the course of 
 the week — and Simon, the Jeweller, was known to sell no less than 
 two gross of Pendennis pins, from a pattern which the young gentle- 
 man had selected in his shop. 
 
 Now if any person with an arithmetical turn of mind will take the 
 trouble to calculate what a sum of money it would cost a young man 
 to indulge freely in all the above propensities which Ave have said 
 Mr. Pen possessed, it will be seen that a young fellow, with such 
 liberal tastes and amusements, must needs in the course of two or 
 three years spend or owe a very handsome sum of money. We have 
 said our friend Pen had not a calculating turn. No one propensity of 
 his was outrageously extravagant : and it is certain that Paddington's 
 tailors account ; Guttlebury's cook's bill for dinners ; Dilley Tandy's 
 bill with Finn, the print-seller, for Raphael-Morghens, and Landseer 
 proofs, and Wormall's dealings with Parkton, the great bookseller, for 
 Aldine editions, black-letter folios, and richly illuminated Missals of 
 the XVI, Centurj^; and Snaffle's or Foker's score with Nile the horse- 
 dealer, were, each and all of them, incomparably greater than any 
 little bills which ISIr. Pen might run up with the above-mentioned 
 tradesmen. But Pendennis of Boniface had the advantage over all 
 these young gentlemen, his friends and associates, of a universality of 
 taste: and whereas young Lord Paddington did not care twopence 
 for the most beautiful print, or to look into any gilt frame that had 
 not a mirror within it : and Guttlebury did not mind in the least how 
 he was dressed, and had an aversion for horse exercise, nay a terror 
 of it ; and Snaffle never read any printed works but the " Racino- 
 Calendar," or " Bell's Life," or cared for any manuscript except his 
 greasy little scrawl of a betting-book: — our catholic-minded young 
 friend occupied himself in every one of the branches of science or 
 pleasure above mentioned, and distinguished himself tolerablv in each.
 
 PENDENNIS. 171 
 
 Hence young Pen got a prodigious reputation in the university, 
 and was hailed as a sort of Crichton ; and as for the EngHsh verse 
 prize, in competition for which we have seen him busily engaged at 
 Fairoaks, Jones of Jesus carried it that year certainly, but the under- 
 graduates thought Pen's a much finer poem, and he had his verses 
 printed at his own expense, and distributed in gilt morocco covers 
 amongst his acquaintance. I found a copy of it lately in a dusty 
 corner of Mr. Pen's bookcases, and have it before me this minute, 
 bound up in a collection of old Oxbridge tracts, university statutes, 
 prize poems by successful and unsuccessful candidates, declamations 
 recited in the college chapel, speeches delivered at the Union 
 Debating Society, and inscribed by Arthur with his name and 
 college, Pendennis — Boniface ; or presented to him by his affection- 
 ate friend Thompson or Jackson, the author. How strange the 
 epigraphs look in those half-boyish hands, and what a thrill the sight 
 of the documents gives one after the lapse of a few lustres ! How 
 fate, since that time, has removed some, estranged others, dealt 
 awfully with all. Many a hand is cold that wrote those kindly 
 memorials and that we pressed in the confident and generous grasp 
 of youthful friendship. What passions our friendships were in those 
 old days, how artless and void of doubt ! How the arm you were 
 never tired of having linked in yours under the fair college avenues 
 or by the river side, where it washes Magdalen Gardens, or Christ 
 Church Meadows, or winds by Trinity and King's, was withdrawn of 
 necessity, when you entered presently the world, and each parted to 
 push and struggle for himself through the great mob on the way 
 through life ! Are we the same men now that wrote those inscriptions 
 — that read those poems ? that delivered or heard those essays and 
 speeches so simple, so pompous, so ludicrously solemn ; parodied so 
 artlessly from books, and spoken with smug chubby faces, and such 
 an admirable aping of wisdom and gravity ? Here is the book before 
 me: it is scarcely fifteen years old. Here is Jack moaning with 
 despair and Byronic misanthropy, whose career at the university 
 was one of unmixed milk-punch. Here is Tom's daring Essay in 
 defence of suicide and of republicanism in general, apropos oi the death 
 of Roland and the Girondins — Tom's, who wears the starchcst tie in 
 all the diocese, and would go to Smithfield rather than eat a beef- 
 steak on a Friday in Lent. Here is Bob, of the Circuit, who has 
 
 made a fortune in Railroad Committees,— bellowing out with Tancrcd 
 and Godfrey, " On to the breach, ye soldiers of the Cross, Scale the 
 red wall and swim the choking foss. Ye dauntless archers, twang 
 your cross-bows well ; On, bill and battle-axe and mangonel ! Ply 
 battering-ram and hurtling catapult, Jerusalem is ours— id Detis viilt." 
 After which comes a mellifluous description of the gardens of Sharon
 
 I -z PEXDENNIS. 
 
 and the maids of Salem, and a prophecy that roses shall deck the 
 entire countr)' of Syria, and a speedy reign of peace be established 
 — all in undeniably decasyllabic lines, and the queerest aping of sense 
 and sentiment and poetr)'. And there are essays and poems along 
 with these grave parodies, and boyish exercises (which are at once 
 frank and false, and so mirthful, yet, somehow, so mournful), by 
 youthful hands, that shall never write more. Fate has interposed 
 darkly, and the young voices are silent, and the eager brains have 
 ceased to work. This one had genius and a great descent, and 
 seemed to be destined for honours which now are of little worth to 
 him : that had virtue, learning, genius — everj- faculty and endowment 
 which might secure love, admiration, and worldly fame : an obscure 
 and solitar}' churchyard contains the grave of many fond hopes, and 
 the pathetic stone which bids them farewell. I saw the sun shining 
 on it in the fall of last year, and heard the sweet village choir raising 
 anthem»s round about. What boots whether it be Westminster or a 
 little country spire which covers your ashes, or if, a few days sooner or 
 later, the world forgets you ? 
 
 Amidst these friends then, and a host more. Pen passed more than 
 two brilliant and happy years of his life. He had his fill of pleasure 
 and popularity. No dinner or supper party was complete without 
 him; and Pen's jovial wit, and Pen's songs, and dashing courage, and 
 frank and manly bearing, charmed all the undergraduates. Though 
 he became the favourite and leader of young men who were much his 
 superiors in wealth and station, he was much too generous to endeavour 
 to propitiate them by any meanness or cringing on his own part, and 
 would not neglect the humblest man of his acquaintance in order to 
 curr\- favour with the richest young grandee in the university. His 
 name is still remembered at the Union Debating Club, as one of the 
 brilliant orators of his day. By the way, from having been an ardent 
 Tory in his freshman's year, his principles took a sudden turn after- 
 wards, and he became a liberal of the most violent order. He avowed 
 himself a Dantonist, and asserted that Louis the Sixteenth was served 
 right. And as for Charles the First, he vowed that he would chop off 
 that monarch's head with his own right hand were he then in the room 
 at the Union Debating Club, and had Cromwell no other executioner 
 for the traitor. He and Lord Magnus Charters, the Marquis of 
 Runnymede's son before mentioned, were the most ti-uculent repub- 
 licans of their day. 
 
 There are reputations of this sort made quite independent of the 
 collegiate hierarchy, in the republic of gownsmen. A man may be 
 famous in the Honour-lists and entirely unknown to the undergra- 
 duates : who elect kings and chieftains of their own, whom they admire 
 and obey, as negro-gangs have private black sovereigns in their own
 
 PENDENNIS. 
 
 173 
 
 body, to whom they pay an occult obedience, besides that wkich they 
 pubHcly profess for their owners and drivers. Among the young ones 
 Pen became famous and popular: not that he did much, but there 
 was a general determination that he could do a great deal if he chose. 
 " Ah, if Pendennis of Boniface would but try," the men said, " he 
 might do anything." He was backed for the Greek Ode won by 
 Smith of Trinity ; everybody was sure he would have the Latin 
 hexameter prize, which Brown of St. John's, however, carried off, and 
 in this way one university honour after another was lost by him, until, 
 after two or three failures, Mr. Pen ceased to compete. But he got a 
 declamation prize in his own college, and brought home to his mother 
 and Laura at Fairoaks a set of prize-books begilt with the college 
 arms, and so big, well-bound, and magnificent, that these ladies thought 
 there had been no such prize ever given in a college before as this of 
 Pen's, and that he had won the very largest honour which Oxbridge 
 was capable of awarding. 
 
 As vacation after vacation and term after term passed away with- 
 out the desired news that Pen had sate for any scholarship or won any 
 honour. Doctor Portman grew mightily gloomy in his behaviour 
 towards Arthur, and adopted a sulky grandeur of deportment towards 
 him, which the lad returned by a similar haughtiness. One vaca- 
 tion he did not call upon the Doctor at all, much to his mother's 
 annoyance, who thought that it was a privilege to enter the Rectory- 
 house at Clavering, and listened to Dr. Portman's antique jokes and 
 stories, though ever so often repeated, with unfailing veneration. " I 
 cannot stand the Doctor's patronising air," Pen said. " He's too kind 
 to me, a great deal too fatherly. I have seen in the world better men 
 than him, and I am not going to bore myself by listening to his dull 
 old stories." The tacit feud between Pen and the Doctor made the 
 widow nervous, so that she too avoided Portman, and was afraid to go 
 to the Rectory when Arthur was at home. 
 
 One Sunday in the last long vacation, the wretched boy pushed 
 his rebellious spirit so far as not to go to church, and he was seen at 
 the gate of the Clavering Arms smoking a cigar, in the face of the 
 congregation as it issued from St. Mary's. There was an awful sensa- 
 tion in the village society, Portman prophesied Pen's ruin after that, 
 and groaned in spirit over the rebellious young prodigal. 
 
 So did Helen tremble in her heart, and Little Laura — Laura had 
 grown to be a fine young stripling by this time, graceful and fair, 
 clinging round Helen and worshipping her, with a passionate affection. 
 Both of these women felt that their boy was changed. He was no 
 longer the artless Pen of old days, so brave, so artless, so impetuous, 
 and tender. His face looked careworn and haggard, his voice had a 
 deeper sound, and tones more sarcastic. Care seemed to be pursuing
 
 174 PENDENNIS. 
 
 him ; but he only laughed when his mother questioned him, and 
 parried her anxious queries with some scornful jest. Nor did he 
 spend much of his vacations at home : he went on visits to one great 
 friend or another, and scared the quiet pair at Fairoaks by stories of 
 great houses whither he had been invited, and by talking of lords 
 without their titles. 
 
 Honest Harry Foker, who had been the means of introducing 
 Arthirr Pendennis to that set of young men at the university, from 
 whose society and connections Arthur's uncle expected that the lad 
 would get so much benefit ; who had called for Arthur's first song at 
 his first supper-party; and who had presented him at the Barmecide 
 Club, where none but the very best men of Oxbridge were admitted 
 (it consisted in Pen's time of six noblemen, eight gentlemen-pensioners, 
 and twelve of the most select commoners of the university), soon 
 found himself left far behind by the young freshman in the fashion- 
 able world of Oxbridge, and being a generous and worthy fellow, 
 without a spark of envy in his composition, was exceedingly pleased 
 at the success of his young protege, and admired Pen quite as much 
 as any of the other youth did. It was he who followed Pen now, and 
 quoted his sayings ; learned his songs, and retailed them at minor 
 supper-parties, and was never weary of hearing them from the gifted 
 young poet's own mouth — for a good deal of the time which Mr. Pen 
 might have employed much more advantageously in the pursuit of 
 the regular scholastic studies, was given up to the composition of 
 secular ballads, which he sang about at parties according to university 
 wont. 
 
 It had been as well for Arthur if the honest Foker had remained 
 for some time at college, for, with all his vivacity, he was a prudent 
 young man, and often curbed Pen's propensity to extravagance : but 
 Poker's collegiate career did not last very long after Arthur's entrance 
 at Boniface. Repeated differences with the university authorities 
 caused Mr. Foker to quit Oxbridge in an untimely manner. He 
 W'ould persist in attending races on the neighbouring Hungerford 
 Heath, in spite of the injunctions of his academic superiors. He 
 never could be got to frequent the chapel of the college with that 
 regularity of piety which Alma Mater demands from her children ; 
 tandems, which are abominations in the eyes of the heads and tutors, 
 were Foker's greatest delight, and so reckless was his driving and 
 frequent the accidents and upsets out of his drag, that Pen called 
 taking a drive with him taking the "Diversions of Purley;" finally, 
 having a dinner-party at his rooms to entertain some friends from 
 London, nothing would satisfy Mr. Foker but painting Mr. Buck's 
 door vermilion, in which freak he was caught by the proctor ; and 
 although young Black Strap, the celebrated negro fighter, who was
 
 fENDENNIS. 175 
 
 one of Mr. Faker's distinguished guests, and was holding the can of 
 paint while the young artist operated on the door, knocked down two 
 of the proctor's attendants, and performed prodigies of valour, yet 
 these feats rather injured than served Foker, whom the proctor knew 
 very well and who was taken with the brush in his hand, summarily 
 convened and sent down from the university. 
 
 The tutor wrote a very kind and feeling letter to Lady Agnes on 
 the subject, stating that everybody was fond of the youth ; that he 
 never meant harm to any mortal creature ; that he for his own part 
 would have been delighted to pardon the harmless little boyish frolic, 
 had not its unhappy publicity rendered it impossible to look the freak 
 over, and breathing the most fervent wishes for the young fellow's 
 welfare — wishes no doubt sincere, for Foker, as we know, came of a 
 noble family on his mother's side, and on the other was heir to a great 
 number of thousand pounds a year. 
 
 " It don't matter," said Foker, talking over the matter with Pen, 
 — " a little sooner or a little later, what is the odds ? I should have 
 been plucked for my little go again, I know I should — that Latin I 
 cannot screw into my head, and my mamma's anguish would have 
 broke out next term. The Governor will blow like an old grampus, 
 I know he will, — well, we must stop till he gets his wind again. I 
 shall probably go abroad and improve my mind with foreign travel. 
 Yes, parly vods the ticket. It'ly, and that sort of thing. I'll go to 
 Paris, and learn to dance and complete my education. But it's not 
 me I'm anxious about. Pen. As long as people drink beer I don't 
 care, — it's about you I'm doubtful, my boy. You're going too fast, 
 and can't keep up the pace, I tell you. It's not the fifty you owe me, 
 — pay it or not when you like, — but it's the every-day pace, and I tell 
 you it will kill you. You're livin' as if there was no end to the money 
 in the stockin' at home. You oughtn't to give dinners, you ought to 
 eat 'em. Fellows are glad to have you. You oughtn't to owe horse 
 bills, you ought to ride other chaps' nags. You know no more about 
 betting than I do about algebra : the chaps will win your money as 
 sure as you sport it. Hang me if you are not trying at everything. I 
 saw you sit down to ccarte last week at Trumpington's, and taking 
 your turn with the bones after Ringwood's supper. They'll beat you 
 at it. Pen, my boy, even if they play on the square, which I don't say 
 they don't, nor which I don't say they do, mind. Hut / won't play 
 with 'em. You're no match for 'em. You ain't up to their weight. 
 It's like little Black Strap standing up to Tom Spring,— the Black's a 
 pretty fighter, but. Law bless you, his arm ain't long enough to touch 
 Tom, — and I tell you, you're going it with fellers beyond your weight. 
 Look here — If you'll promise me never to bet nor touch a box nor a 
 card, I'll let you off the two ponies."
 
 1)6 FENDENXIS. 
 
 But Pen, laughingly, said, " that though it wasn't convenient to 
 him to pay the two ponies at that moment, he by no means wished to 
 be let off any just debts he owed ; " and he and Foker parted, not 
 without many dark forebodings on the latter's part with regard to his 
 friend, who Harry thought was travelling speedily on the road to ruin. 
 
 " One must do at Rome as Rome does," Pen said, in a dandified 
 manner, jingling some sovereigns in his waistcoat pocket. " A little 
 quiet play at ecarte can't hurt a man who plays pretty well — I came 
 away fourteen sovereigns richer from Ringwood's supper, and, gad ! I 
 wanted the money." — And he walked off, after having taken leave of 
 poor Foker, who went away without any beat of drum, or offer to drive 
 the coach out of Oxbridge, to superintend a little dinner which he was 
 going to give at his own rooms in Boniface, about which dinners, the 
 cook of the college, who had a great respect for Mr. Pendennis, always 
 took especial pains for his young favourite.
 
 PENDENNIS. 171 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 rake's progress. 
 
 So in Pen's second year Major Pendennis paid a brief visit to his 
 nephew, and was introduced to several of Pen's university 
 friends — the gentle and polite Lord Plinlimmon, the gallant and open- 
 hearted Magnus Charters, the sly and witty Harland; the intrepid 
 Ringwood, who was called Rupert in the Union Debating Club, from 
 his opinions and the bravery of his blunders ; Broadbent, styled Bare- 
 bones Broadbent from the republican nature of his opinions (he was 
 of a dissenting family from Bristol, and a perfect Boanerges of 
 Debate) ; and Bloundell-Bloundell, whom Mr. Pen entertained at a 
 dinner whereof his uncle was the chief guest. 
 
 The Major said, " Pen, my boy, your dinner went off a nicr^'cillc ; 
 you did the honours very nicely — you carved well — I am glad you 
 learned to carve — it is done on the side-board now in most good 
 houses, but is still an important point, and may aid you in middle life 
 — young Lord Plinlimmon is a very amiable young man, cjuite the 
 image of his dear mother (whom I knew as Lady Aquila Brownbill) ; 
 and Lord Magnus's republicanism will wear off— it sits prettily enough 
 on a young patrician in early life, though nothing is so loathsome 
 among persons of our rank — Wx. Broadbent seems to have much 
 eloquence and considerable reading ; your friend Foker is always 
 delightful; but your acquaintance, Mr. Bloundell, struck me as in all 
 respects a most ineligible young man." 
 
 "Bless my soul, sir, Bloundell-Bloundell!" cried Pen, laughing: 
 " why, sir, he's the most popular man of the university. He was in 
 
 the ■ Dragoons before he came up. We elected him of the 
 
 Barmecides the first week he came up — had a special meeting on 
 purpose — he's of an excellent family — Suffolk Bloundells, descended 
 from Richard's Blondel, bear a harp in chief— and motto O Mong 
 Roy." 
 
 "A man may have a very good coat-of-arms, and be a tiger, ray 
 boy," the Major said, chipping his egg ; " that man is a tiger, mark 
 my word — a low man. I will lay a wager that he left his regiment, 
 which was a good one (for a more respectable man than my friend, 
 Lord Martingale, never sat in a saddle), in bad odour. There is the 
 
 12
 
 178 PENDENNIS. 
 
 unmistakable look of slang and bad habits about this Mr. Bloundell. 
 He frequents low gambling-houses and billiard hells, sir — he haunts 
 third-rate clubs— I know he does. I know by his style. I never was 
 mistaken in my man yet. Did you remark the quantity of rings and 
 jewellery he wore? That person has Scamp written on his coun- 
 tenance, if any man ever had. Mark my words and avoid him. Let 
 us turn the conversation. The dinner was a leelle too fine, but I don't 
 object to your making a few extra /ra/V when you receive friends. Of 
 course you don't do it often, and only those whom it is your interest 
 to fcter. The cutlets were excellent, and the j-(7/</^^' uncommonly light 
 and good. The third bottle of champagne was not necessary ; but 
 you have a good income, and as long as you keep within it, I shall not 
 quarrel with you, my dear boy." 
 
 Poor Pen ! the worthy uncle little knew how often those dinners 
 took place, while the reckless young Amphitryon delighted to show his 
 hospitality and skill in gourjnandise. There is no art about which 
 boys are more anxious to have an air of knowingness. A taste and 
 knowledge of wines and cookery appears to them to be the sign of an 
 accomplished rojie and manly gentleman. Pen, in his character of 
 Admirable Crichton, thought it necessary- to be a great judge and 
 practitioner of dinners ; we have just said how the college cook 
 respected him, and shall soon have to deplore that that worthy man 
 so blindly trusted our Pen. In the third year of the lad's residence 
 at Oxbridge, his staircase was by no means encumbered with dish- 
 covers and desserts, and waiters carrying in dishes, and skips opening 
 ided champagne ; crowds of different sorts of attendants, with faces 
 sulky or piteous, hung about the outer oak, and assailed the unfor- 
 tunate lad as he issued out of his den. 
 
 Nor did his guardian's advice take any effect, or induce Mr. Pen to 
 avoid the society of the disreputable Mr. Bloundell. 
 
 The young magnates of the neighbouring great College of St. 
 George's, who regarded Pen, and in whose society he lived, were not 
 taken in by Bloundell's flashy graces, and rakish airs of fashion. 
 Broadbent called him Captain Macheath, and said he would live to be 
 hanged. Foker, during his brief stay at the university with Macheath, 
 with characteristic caution, declined to say anj'thing in the Captain's 
 disfavour, but hinted to Pen that he had better have him for a partner 
 at whist than play against him, and better back him at ecarte than bet 
 on the other side. " You see, he plays better than you do, Pen," was 
 the astute young gentleman's remark : " he plays uncommon well, 
 the Captain does ; — and. Pen, I wouldn't take the odds too freely fron\ 
 him, if I was you. I don't think he's too flush of money, the Captain 
 ain't." But beyond these dark suggestions and generalities, the 
 cautious Foker could not be got to speak.
 
 PENDENNIS. 179 
 
 Not that his advice would have had more weight with a headstrong 
 young man, than advice commonly has with a lad who is determined 
 on pursuing his own way. Pen's appetite for pleasure was insatiable, 
 and he i-ushed at it wherever it presented itself, with an eagerness 
 which bespoke his fiery constitution and youthful health. He called 
 taking pleasure "seeing hfe," and quoted well-known maxims from 
 Terence, from Horace, from Shakspeare, to show that one should do 
 all that might become a man. He bade fair to be utterly used up and 
 a roue, in a few years, if he were to continue at the pace at which he 
 was going. 
 
 One night after a supper-party in college, at which Pen and Mac- 
 heath had been present, and at which a little quiet vingt-et-un had 
 been played, as the men had taken their caps and were going away, 
 after no great losses or winnings on any side, Mr. Bloundell play- 
 fully took up a green wine-glass from the supper-table, which had 
 been destined to contain iced cup, but into which he inserted some- 
 thing still more pernicious, namely a pair of dice, which the gentleman 
 took out of his waistcoat-pocket, and put into the glass. Then giving 
 the glass a graceful wave which showed that his hand was quite 
 experienced in the throwing of dice, he called seven's the main, and 
 whisking the ivory cubes gently on the table, swept them up lightly 
 again from the cloth, and repeated this process two or three times. 
 The other men looked on, Pen, of course, among the number, who 
 had never used the dice as yet, except to play a humdrum game of 
 backgammon at home. 
 
 Mr. Bloundell, who had a good voice, began to troll out the chorus 
 from Robert the Devil, an Opera then in great vogue, in which chorus 
 many of the men joined, especially Pen, who was in very high spirits, 
 having won a good number of shillings and half-crowns at the vingt- 
 et-tin — and presently, instead of going home, most of the party were 
 seated round the table playing at dice, the green glass going round 
 from hand to hand until Pen finally shivered it, after throwing six 
 mains. 
 
 From that night Pen plunged into the delights of the game of 
 hazard, as eagerly as it was his custom to pursue any new pleasure. 
 Dice can be played of mornings as well as after dinner or supper. 
 Bloundell would come into Pen's rooms after breakfast, and it was 
 astonishing how quick the time passed as the bones were rattling. 
 They had little quiet parties with closed doors, and Bloundell devised 
 a box lined with felt, so that the dice should make no noise, and their 
 tell-tale rattle not bring the sharp-cared tutors up to the rooms. 
 Bloundell, Ringwood, and Pen were once very nearly caught by 
 Mr. Buck, who, passing in the quadrangle, thought he heard the 
 words, "Two to one on the caster,'' through Pen's open window; but
 
 I So PENDENNIS. 
 
 when the tutor got into Arthur's rooms he found the lads with three 
 Homers before them, and Pen said, he was trying to coach the two 
 other men, and asked Mr. Buck with great gravity what was the 
 present condition of the River Scamander, and whether it was navig- 
 able or no ? 
 
 Mr. Arthur Pendennis did not win much money in these trans- 
 actions with Mr. Bloundell, or indeed gain good of any kind except a 
 knowledge of the odds at hazard, which he might have learned out of 
 books. 
 
 One Easter vacation, when Pen had announced to his mother and 
 uncle his intention not to go down, but stay at Oxbridge and read, 
 Mr. Pen was nevertheless induced to take a brief visit to London in 
 company with his friend Mr. BloundelL They put up at a hotel in 
 Covent Garden, where Bloundell had a tick, as he called it, and took 
 the pleasures of the town verj' freely after the wont of young university 
 men. Bloundell still belonged to a military club, whither he took Pen 
 to dine once or twice (the young men would drive thither in a cab, 
 trembling lest they should meet Major Pendennis on his beat in Pall 
 Mall), and here Pen was introduced to a number of gallant young 
 fellows with spurs and mustachios, with whom he drank pale ale of 
 mornings and beat the town of a night. Here he saw a deal of life, 
 indeed : nor in his career about the theatres and singing-houses which 
 these roaring young blades frequented, was he very likely to meet his 
 guardian. One night, nevertheless, they were very near to each other : 
 a plank only separating Pen, who was in the boxes of the Museum 
 Theatre, from the Major, who was in Lord Steyne's box, along with 
 that venerated nobleman. The Fotheringay was in the pride of her 
 glory. She had made a hit : that is, she had drawn very good houses 
 for nearly a year, had starred the provinces with great eclat, had come 
 back to shine in London with somewhat diminished lustre, and now 
 was acting with " ever increasing attraction, &c.,"' " triumph of the 
 good old British drama," as the play-bills avowed, to houses in which 
 there was plenty of room for anybody who wanted to see her. 
 
 It was not the first time Pen had seen her, since that memorable 
 day when the two had parted in Chatteris. In the previous year, 
 when the town was making much of her, and the press lauded her 
 beauty. Pen had found a pretext for coming to London in term-time, 
 and had rushed off to the theatre to see his old flame. He recollected 
 it rather than renewed it He remembered how ardently he used to 
 be on the look-out at Chatteris, when the speech before Ophelia's or 
 Mrs. nailer's entrance on the stage was made by the proper actor. 
 Now, as the actor spoke, he had a sort of feeble thrill : as the house 
 began to thunder with applause, and Ophelia entered with her old 
 bow and sweeping curtsey. Pen felt a slight shock and blushed very
 
 PENDENNIS. 1 81 
 
 much as he looked at her, and could not help thinking that all the 
 house was regarding him. He hardly heard her for the first part of 
 the play : and he thought with such rage of the humiliation to which 
 she had subjected him, that he began to fancy he was jealous and in 
 love with her still. But that illusion did not last very long. He ran 
 round to the stage door of the theatre to see her if possible, but he did 
 not succeed. She passed indeed under his nose with a female com- 
 panion, but he did not know her, — nor did she recognize him. The 
 next night he came in late, and stayed very quietly for the after-piece, 
 and on the third and last night of his stay in London — why, Taglioni 
 was going to dance at the Opera, — Taglioni! and there was to be 
 Don Giovanni, which he admired of all things in the world : so 
 Mr. Pen went to Don Giovanni and Taglioni. 
 
 This time the illusion about her was quite gone. She was not less 
 handsome, but she was not the same, somehow. The light was gone 
 out of her eyes which used to flash there, or Pen's no longer were 
 dazzled by it. The rich voice spoke as of old, yet it did not make 
 Pen's bosom thrill as fonnerly. He thought he could recognize the 
 brogue underneath: the accents seemed to him coarse and false. It 
 annoyed him to hear the same emphasis on the same words, only 
 uttered a little louder : worse than this, it annoyed him to think that 
 he should ever have mistaken that loud imitation for genius, or melted 
 at those mechanical sobs and sighs. He felt that it was in another life 
 almost, that it was another man who had so madly loved her. He was 
 ashamed and bitterly humiliated, and very lonely. Ah, poor Pen ! 
 the delusion is better than the truth sometimes, and fine dreams than 
 dismal waking. 
 
 They went and had an uproarious supper that night, and Mr. Pen 
 had a fine headache the next morning, with which he went back to 
 Oxbridge, having spent all his ready money. 
 
 As all this narrative is taken from Pen's own confessions, so that 
 the reader may be assured of the truth of every word of it, and as Pen 
 himself never had any accurate notion of the manner in which he 
 spent his money, and plunged himself in much deeper pecuniary diffi- 
 culties, during his luckless residence at Oxbridge University, it is, of 
 course, impossible for me to give any accurate account of his involve- 
 ments, beyond that general notion of his way of life, which we have 
 sketched a few pages back. He does not speak too hardly of the 
 roguery of the university tradesmen, or of those in London whom he 
 honoured with his patronage at the outset of his career. Even Finch, 
 the money-lender, to whom Bloundell introduced him, and with whom 
 he had various transactions, in which the young rascal's signature 
 appeared upon stamped paper, treated him, according to Pen's own 
 account, with forbearance, and never mulcted him of more than a
 
 i82 PEXDENNIS. 
 
 hundred per cent. The old college cook, his fervent admirer, made 
 him a private bill, offered to send him in dinners up to the very last, 
 and never would have pressed his account to his dying day. There 
 was that kindness and frankness about Arthur Pendennis, which won 
 most people who came in contact with him, and which, if it rendered 
 him an easy prey to rogues, got him, perhaps, more goodwill than he 
 merited from many honest men. It was impossible to resist his good 
 nature, or, in his worst moments, not to hope for his rescue from utter 
 ruin. 
 
 At the time of his full career of university pleasure, he would leave 
 the gayest party to go and sit with a sick friend. He never knew the 
 difference between small and great in the treatment of his acquaint- 
 ances, however much the unlucky lad's tastes, which were of the 
 sumptuous order, led him to prefer good society; he was only too 
 ready to share his guinea with a poor friend, and when he got money 
 had an irresistible propensity for paying, which he never could 
 conquer through life. 
 
 In his third year at college, the duns began to gather awfully 
 round about him, and there was a levee at his oak which scandalized 
 the tutors, and v/ould have scared many a stouter heart. With some 
 of these he used to battle, some he would bully (under Mr. Bloundell's 
 directions, who was a master in this art, though he took a degree in 
 no other), and some deprecate. And it is reported of him that little 
 INIary Frodsham, the daughter of a certain poor gilder and frame- 
 maker, whom Mr. Pen had thought fit to employ, and who had made 
 a number of beautiful frames for his fine prints, coming to Pendermis 
 with a piteous tale that her father was ill with ague, and that there was 
 an execution in their house, Pen in an anguish of remorse rushed away, 
 pawned his grand watch and ever)' single article of jeweller}' except 
 two old gold sleeve-buttons, which had belonged to his father, and 
 rushed with the proceeds to Frodsham's shop, where, with tears in his 
 eyes, and the deepest repentance and humility, he asked the poor 
 tradesman's pardon. 
 
 This, young gentlemen, is not told as an instance of Pen"s virtue, 
 but rather of his weakness. It would have been much more virtuous 
 to have had no prints at all. He still owed for the baubles which he 
 sold in order to pay Frodsham's bill, and his mother had cruelly to 
 pinch herself in order to discharge the jeweller's account, so that she 
 was in the end the sufferer by the lad's impertinent fancies and follies. 
 We are not presenting Pen to you as a hero or a model, onlv as a lad, 
 who, in the midst of a thousand vanities and weaknesses, has as yet 
 some generous impulses, and is not altogether dishonest. 
 
 We have said it was to the scandal of Mr. Buck the tutor that 
 Pen's extravagances became known : from the manner in which he
 
 PENDENI^IS. 183 
 
 entered college, the associates he kept, and the introductions of 
 Doctor Portman and the Major, Buck for a long time thought that his 
 pupil was a man of large property, and wondered rather that he only 
 wore a plain gown. Once on going up to London to the levee with 
 an address from his Majesty's Loyal University of Oxbridge, Buck 
 had seen Major Pendennis at St. James's, in conversation with two 
 knights of the Garter, in the carriage of one of whom the dazzled tutor 
 saw the Major whisked away after the levee. He asked Pen to wine 
 the instant he came back, let him off from chapels and lectures more 
 than ever, and felt perfectly sure that he was a young gentleman of 
 large estate. 
 
 Thus, he was thunderstruck when he heard the truth, and received 
 a dismal confession from Pen. His university debts were large, and 
 the tutor had nothing to do, and of course Pen did not acquaint him, 
 with his London debts. What man ever does tell all when pressed by 
 his friends about his liabilities ? The tutor learned enough to know 
 that Pen was poor, that he had spent a handsome, almost a magnificent 
 allowance, and had raised around him such a fine crop of debts, as it 
 would be very hard work for any man to mow down : for there is no 
 plant that grows so rapidly when once it has taken root. 
 
 Perhaps it was because she was so tender and good that Pen was 
 terrified lest his mother should know of his sins. " I can't bear to 
 break it to her," he said to the tutor in an agony of grief. " O ! sir, Pve 
 been a villain to her" — and he repented, and he wished he had the 
 time to come over again, and he asked himself, " Why, why did his 
 uncle insist upon the necessity of living with great people, and in how 
 much did all his grand acquaintance profit him ?" 
 
 They were not shy, but Pen thought they were, and slunk from 
 them during his last terms at college. He was as gloomy as a death's- 
 head at parties, which he avoided of his own part, or to which his 
 young friends soon ceased to invite him. Everybody knew that Pen- 
 dennis was " hard up." That man Bloundell, who could pay nobody, 
 and who was obliged to go down after three terms, was his ruin, the 
 men said. His melancholy figure might be seen shirking about the 
 lonely quadrangles in his battered old cap anci torn gown, and he who 
 had been the pride of the university but a year before, the man whom 
 all the young ones loved to look at, was now the object of conversa- 
 tion at freshmen's wine-parties, and they spoke of him with wonder 
 and awe. 
 
 At last came the Degree Examinations. Many a young man of his 
 year whose hobnailed shoes Pen had derided, and whose face or coat 
 he had caricatured — many a man whom he had treated with scorn in 
 the lecture-room or crushed with his gloquence in the debating-club — 
 many of his own set who had not half his brains, but 3- little regularity
 
 1 84 PENDENNIS. 
 
 and constancy of occupation, took high places in the honours or passed 
 with decent credit. And where in the list was Pen the superb, Pen 
 the wit and dandy, Pen the poet and orator ? Ah, where was Pen the 
 widow's darling and sole pride ? Let us hide our heads, and shut up 
 the page. The lists came out; and a dreadful rumour rushed through 
 the university, that Pendennis of Boniface was plucked.
 
 PENDENNIS. 185 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 FLIGHT AFTER DEFEAT, 
 
 DURING the latter part of Pen's residence at the University of 
 Oxbridge, his uncle's partiality had greatly increased for the 
 lad. The Major was proud of Arthur, who had high spirits, frank 
 manners, a good person, and high gentlemanlike bearing. It pleased 
 the old London bachelor to see Pen walking with the young patricians 
 of his university, and he (who was never known to entertain his friends, 
 and whose stinginess had passed into a sort of byword among some 
 wags at the Club, who envied his many engagements, and did not 
 choose to consider his poverty) was charmed to give his nephew and 
 the young lords snug little dinners at his lodgings, and to regale them 
 with good claret, and his very best bons mots and stories : some of 
 which would be injured by the repetition, for the Major's manner of 
 telling them was incomparably neat and careful ; and others, whereof 
 the repetition would do good to nobody. He paid his court to their 
 parents through the young men, and to himself as it were by their 
 company. He made more than one visit to Oxbridge, where the 
 young fellows were amused by entertaining the old gentleman, and 
 gave parties and breakfasts, and fetes, partly to joke him and partly 
 to do him honour. He plied them with his stories. He made him- 
 self juvenile and hilarious in the company of the young lords. He 
 went to hear Pen at a grand debate at the Union, crowed and cheered, 
 and rapped his stick in chorus with the cheers of the men, and was 
 astounded at the boy's eloquence and fire. He thought he had got a 
 young Pitt for a nephew. He had an almost paternal fondness for 
 Pen. He wrote to the lad letters with playful advice and the news of 
 the town. He bragged about Arthur at his Clubs, and introduced 
 him with pleasure into his conversation ; saying, that, egad, the young 
 fellows were putting the old ones to the wall ; that the lads who were 
 coming up, young Lord Plinlimmon, a friend of my boy, young Lord 
 Magnus Charters, a chum of my scapegrace, (Sec, would make a greater 
 figure in the world than ever their fathers had done before them. He 
 asked permission to bring Arthur to a grand fete at Gaunt House; 
 saw him with ineffable satisfaction dancing with the sisters of the 
 young noblemen before mentioned ; and gave himself as much trouble
 
 1 86 PENDENNIS. 
 
 to procure cards of invitation for the lad to some good houses, as if he 
 had been a mamma with a daughter to marry, and not an old half-pay 
 officer in a wig. And he boasted everywhere of the boy's great talents, 
 and remarkable oratorical powers ; and of the brilliant degree he was 
 going to take. Lord Runnymede would take him on his embassy, or 
 the Duke would bring him in for one of his boroughs, he wrote over 
 and over again to Helen ; who, for her part, was too ready to believe 
 anything that anybody chose to say in favour of her son. 
 
 And all this pride and affection of uncle and mother had been 
 trampled down by Pen's wicked extravagance and idleness ! I don't 
 envy Pen's feelings (as the phrase is), as he thought of what he had 
 done. He had slept, and the tortoise had won the race. He had 
 marred at its outset what might have been a brilliant career. He 
 had dipped ungenerously into a generous mother's purse ; basely and 
 recklessly spilt her little cruse. O ! it was a coward hand that could 
 strike and rob a creature so tender. And if Pen felt the wrong which 
 he had done to others, are we to suppose that a young gentleman of 
 his vanity did not feel still more keenly the shame he had brought 
 upon himself ? Let us be assured that there is no more cruel remorse 
 than that ; and no groans more piteous than those of wounded self- 
 love. Like Joe Miller's friend, the Senior Wrangler, who bowed to 
 the audience from his box at the play, because he and the king 
 happened to enter the theatre at the same time, only, with a fatuity 
 by no means so agreeable to himself, poor Arthur Pendennis felt 
 perfectly convinced that all England would remark the absence of his 
 name from the examination-lists, and talk about his misfortune. His 
 wounded tutor, his many duns, the skip and bed-maker who waited 
 upon him, the undergraduates of his own time and the years below 
 him, whom he had patronised or scorned — how could he bear to look 
 any of them in the face now 1 He rushed to his rooms, into which 
 he shut himself, and there he penned a letter to his tutor, full of 
 thanks, regards, remorse, and despair, requesting that his name might 
 be taken off the college books, and intimating a wish and expectation 
 that death would speedily end the woes of the disgraced Arthur 
 Pendennis. 
 
 Then he slunk out, scarcely knowing whither he went, but 
 mechanically taking the unfrequented little lanes by the backs of 
 the colleges, until he cleared the university precincts, and got down 
 to the banks of the Camisis river, now deserted, but so often alive 
 with the boat-races, and the crowds of cheering gownsmen, he 
 wandered on and on, until he found himself at some miles' distance 
 from Oxbridge, or rather was found by some acquaintance, leaving 
 that city. 
 
 As Pen went up a hill, a drizzling January rain beating in his face,
 
 PENBENNIS. 187 
 
 and his ragged gown tiying behind him — for he had not divested him- 
 self of his academical garments since the morning — a postchaise came 
 ratthng up the road, on the box of which a servant was seated, whilst 
 within, or rather half out of the carriage window, sate a young gentle- 
 man smoking a cigar, and loudly encouraging the postboy. It was 
 our young acquaintance of Baymouth, Mr. Spavin, who had got his 
 degree, and was driving homewards in triumph in his yellow post- 
 chaise. He caught a sight of the figure, madly gesticulating as he 
 worked up the hill, and of poor Pen's pale and ghastly face as the 
 chaise whirled by him. 
 
 " Wo ! '"' roared Mr. Spavin to the postboy, and the horses stopped 
 in their mad career, and the carriage pulled up some fifty yards before 
 Pen. He presently heard his own name shouted, and beheld the upper 
 half of the body of Mr. Spavin thrust out of the side-window of the 
 vehicle, and beckoning Pen vehemently towards it. 
 
 Pen stopped, hesitated — nodded his head fiercely, and pointed 
 onwards, as if desirous that the postilion should proceed. He did not 
 speak : but his countenance must have looked very desperate, for 
 young Spavin, having stared at him with an expression of blank alarm, 
 jumped out of the carriage presently, ran towards Pen holding out his 
 hand, and grasping Pen's, said, " I say — hullo, old boy, where are you 
 going, and what's the row now } " 
 
 " I'm going where I deserve to go," said Pen with an imprecation. 
 " This ain't the way," said Mr. Spavin, smiling. " This is the 
 Fenbury road. I say, Pen, don't take on because you are plucked. 
 It's nothing when you are used to it. I've been plucked three times, 
 old boy— and after the first time I didn't care. Glad it's over, though. 
 You'll have better luck next time." 
 
 Pen looked at his early acquaintance, — who had been plucked, 
 who had been rusticated, who had only, after repeated failures, learned 
 to read and write correctly, and who, in spite of all these drawbacks, 
 had attained the honour of a degree. " This man has passed," he 
 thought, "and I have failed!" It was almost too much for him 
 to bear. 
 
 " Good-bye, Spavin," said he ; " I'm very glad you are through. 
 Don't let me keep you ; I'm in a hurry— I'm going to town to-night." 
 " Gammon," said Mr. Spavin. " This ain't the way to town ; this 
 16 the Fenbury road, I tell you." 
 
 " I was just going to turn back," Pen said. 
 
 " All the coaches are full with the men going down," Spavin said. 
 Pen winced. " You'd not get a place for a ten-pound note. Get into 
 my yellow; I'll drop you at Mudford, where you have a chance of the 
 Fenbury mail. I'll lend you a hat and a coat ; I've got lots. Come 
 along ; jump in, old boy— go it, leathers ! "—and in this way Pen found
 
 1 88 PENDENNIS. 
 
 himself in Mr. Spavin's postchaise, and rode with that gentleman as 
 far as the Ram Inn at Mudford, fifteen miles from Oxbridge ; where 
 the Fenbury mail changed horses, and where Pen got a place on to 
 London. 
 
 The next day there was an immense excitement in Boniface 
 College, Oxbridge, where, for some time, a rumour prevailed, to the 
 terror of Pen's tutor and tradesmen, that Pendennis, maddened at 
 losing his degree, had made away with himself — a battered cap, in 
 which his name was almost discernible, together with a seal bearing 
 his crest of an eagle looking at a now extinct sun, had been found 
 three miles on the Fenbury road, near a mill-stream ; and, for four and- 
 twenty hours, it was supposed that poor Pen had flung himself into the 
 stream, until letters arrived from him, bearing the London post-mark. 
 
 The mail reached London at the dreary hour of five ; and he 
 hastened to the inn at Covent Garden, at which he was accustomed 
 to put up, where the ever-wakeful porter admitted him, and showed 
 him to a bed. Pen looked hard at the man, and wondered whether 
 Boots knew he was plucked? When in bed he could not sleep there. 
 He tossed about until the appearance of the dismal London daylight, 
 when he sprang up desperately, and walked off to his uncle's lodgings 
 in Bury Street ; where the maid, who was scouring the steps, looked 
 up suspiciously at him, as he came with an unshaven face, and yester- 
 day's linen. He thought she knew of his mishap, too. 
 
 " Good 'evens ! Mr. Harthur, what 'as 'appened, sir.'" Mr. Morgan, 
 the valet, asked, who had just arranged the well-brushed clothes and 
 shiny boots at the door of his masters bed-room, and was carrying in 
 his wig to the Major. 
 
 '• I want to see my uncle," he cried, in a ghastly voice, and flung 
 himself down on a chair. 
 
 Morgan backed before the pale and desperate-looking young man, 
 with terrified and wondering glances, and disappeared into his master's 
 apartment. 
 
 The Major put his head out of the bed-room door, as soon as he 
 had his wig on. 
 
 " What ? examination over ? Senior Wrangler, double First Class, 
 hay?" said the old gentleman — "I'll come directly;" and the head 
 disappeared. 
 
 " They don't know what has happened," groaned Pen ; " what will 
 they say when they know all ?" 
 
 Pen had been standing with his back to the window, and to such a 
 dubious light as Bury Street enjoys of a foggy January morning, so 
 that his uncle could not see the expression of the young man's 
 countenance, or the looks of gloom and despair which even Mr. 
 Morgan had remarked.
 
 PEN DENNIS. 189 
 
 But when the Major came out of his dressing-room, neat and 
 radiant, and preceded by faint odours from Delcroix's shop, from 
 which emporium Major Pendennis's wig and his pocket-handkerchief 
 got their perfume, he held out one of his hands to Pen, and was about 
 addressing him in his cheery high-toned voice, when he caught sight 
 of the boy's face at length, and dropping his hand, said, " Good God ! 
 Pen, what's the matter ?" 
 
 " You'll see it in the papers at breakfast, sir," Pen said. 
 
 "See what?" 
 
 " My name isn't there, sir." 
 
 " Hang it, why should \\. be ?" asked the Major, more perplexed. 
 
 " I have lost everything, sir," Pen groaned out ; " my honours 
 gone; I'm ruined irretrievably; I can't go back to Oxbridge." 
 
 " Lost your honour ? " screamed out the Major. " Heaven alive ! 
 you don't mean to say you have shown the white feather?" 
 
 Pen laughed bitterly at the word feather, and repeated it. " No, 
 it isn't that, sir. I'm not afraid of being shot ; I wish to God any- 
 body would shoot me. I have not got my degree. I — I'm plucked, 
 sir." 
 
 The Major had heard of plucking, but in a very vague and cursory 
 way, and concluded that it was some ceremony performed corporally 
 upon rebellious university youth. " I wonder you can look me in the 
 face after such a disgrace, sir," he said : " I wonder you submitted to 
 it as a gentleman." 
 
 " I couldn't help it, sir. I did my classical papers well enough ; it 
 was those infernal mathematics, which I have always neglected." 
 
 "Was it — was it done in public, sir?" the Major said. 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " The— the plucking?" asked the guardian, looking Pen anxiously 
 in the face. 
 
 Pen perceived the error under which his guardian was labouring, 
 and in the midst of his misery the blunder caused the poor wretch a 
 faint smile, and served to bring down the conversation from the tragedy- 
 key, in which Pen had been disposed to carry it on. He explained to 
 his uncle that he had gone in to pass his examination, and failed. On 
 which the Major said, that though he had expected far better things 
 of his nephew, there was no great misfortune in this, and no dishonour 
 as far as he saw, and that Pen must try again. 
 
 " Me again at Oxbridge," Pen thought, " after such a humiliation 
 as that!" He felt that, except he went down to burn the place, he 
 could not enter it. 
 
 But it was when he came to tell his uncle of his debts that the 
 other felt surprise and anger most keenly, and broke out into speeches 
 most severe upon Pen, which the lad bore, as best he might, without
 
 igo PENDEiVNIS. 
 
 flinching. He had determined to make a clean breast, and I'.ad 
 formed a full, true, and complete list of all his bills and liabilities 
 at the university, and in London. They consisted of various items, 
 such as 
 
 London Tailor. Oxbridge do. 
 
 Oxbridge do. Bill for horses. 
 
 Haberdasher, for shirts and gloves. Printseller. 
 
 Jeweller. Books. 
 
 College Cook. Binding. 
 
 Crump, for desserts. Hairdresser and Perfumery. 
 
 Bootmaker. Hotel Bill in London. 
 
 Wine Merchant in London. Sundries. 
 
 All which items the reader may fill in at his pleasure — such accounts 
 have been inspected by the parents of many university youth, — and 
 it appeared that Mr. Pen's bills in all amounted to about seven 
 hundred pounds ; and, furthermore, it was calculated that he had had 
 more than twice that sum of ready money during his stay at Oxbridge. 
 This sum he had spent, and for it had to show — what ? 
 
 " You need not press a man who is down, sir," Pen said to his 
 uncle, gloomily. " I know very well, how wicked and idle I have 
 been. My mother won't like to see me dishonoured, sir," he con- 
 tinued, with his voice failing ; " and I know she will pay these accounts. 
 But I shall ask her for no more money." 
 
 " As you like, sir,"' the Major said. " You are of age, and my 
 hands are washed of your affairs. But you can't live without money, 
 and have no means of making it that I see, though you have a fine 
 talent in spending it, and it is my belief that you will proceed as you 
 have begun, and ruin your mother before you are five years older. — 
 Good morning ; it is time for me to go to breakfast. My engagements 
 won't permit me to see you much during the time that you stav in 
 London. I presume that you will acquaint your mother with the news 
 which you have just conveyed to me." 
 
 And pulling on his hat, and trembling in his limbs somewhat, 
 Major Pendennis walked out of his lodgings before his nephew, and 
 went ruefully off to take his accustomed corner at the Club. He saw 
 the Oxbridge examination-lists in the morning papers, and read over 
 the names, not understanding the business, with mournful accuracy. 
 He consulted various old fogies of his acquaintance, in the course of 
 the day, at his Clubs ; Wenham, a Dean, various Civilians ; and, as it 
 is called, " took their opinion," showing to some of them the amount 
 of his nephew's debts, which he had dotted down on the back of a 
 card, and asking what was to be done, and whether such debts were 
 not monstrous, preposterous ? What was to be done ? — There was
 
 PFNDENNIS. 
 
 191 
 
 nothing for it but to pay. Wenham and the others told the Major of 
 young men who owed twice as much — five times as muoh — as Arthur, 
 and with no means at all to pay. The consultations and calculations, 
 and opinions, comforted the Major somewhat. After all, he was not 
 to pay. 
 
 But he thought bitterly of the many plans he had formed to make 
 a man of his nephew, of the sacrifices which he had made, and of the 
 manner in which he was disappointed. And he wrote off a letter to 
 Doctor Portman, informing him of the direful events which had taken 
 place, and begging the Doctor to break them to Helen. For the 
 orthodox old gentleman preserved the regular routine in all things, 
 and was of opinion that it was more correct to " break " a piece of bad 
 news to a person by means of a (possibly maladroit and unfeeling) 
 messenger, than to convey it simply to its destination by a note. So 
 the Major wrote to Doctor Portman, and then went out to dinner, one 
 of the saddest men in any London dining-room that day. 
 
 Pen, too, wrote his letter, and skulked about London streets for the 
 rest of the day, fancying that everybody was looking at him and 
 whispering to his neighbour, " That is Pendennis of Boniface, who 
 was plucked yesterday." His letter to his mother was full of ten- 
 derness and remorse : he wept the bitterest tears over it — and the 
 repentance and passion soothed him to some degree. 
 
 He saw a party of roaring young blades from Oxbridge in the 
 coffee-room of his hotel, and slunk away from them, and paced the 
 streets. He remembers, he says, the prints which he saw hanging up 
 at Ackermann's window in the rain, and a book which he read at a 
 stall near the Temple : at night he went to the pit of the play, and saw 
 Miss Fotheringay, but he doesn't in the least recollect in what piece. 
 
 On the second day there came a kind letter from his tutor, con- 
 taining many grave and appropriate remarks upon the event which 
 had befallen him, but strongly urging Pen not to take his name off 
 the university books, and to retrieve a disaster which, everybody knew, 
 was owing to his own carelessness alone, and which he might repair 
 by a month's application. He said he had ordered Pen's skip to pack 
 up some trunks of the young gentleman's wardrobe, which duly arrived 
 with fresh copies of all Pen's bills laid on the top. 
 
 On the third day there arrived a letter from Home; which Pen 
 pjad in his bedroom, and the result of which was that he fell down on 
 his knees, with his head in the bed-clothes, and there prayed out his 
 heart, and humbled himself; and having gone downstairs and eaten 
 an immense breakfast, he sallied forth and took his place at the Bull 
 and Mouth, Piccadilly, by the Chatteris coach for that evening.
 
 193 PMNDENNIS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 prodigal's return. 
 
 SUCH a letter as the Major wrote of course sent Doctor Portman 
 to Fairoaks, and he went off with that alacrity which a good 
 man shows when he has disagreeable news to communicate. He 
 wishes the deed were done, and done quickly. He is sorr)-, but que 
 voulez-voHS ? the tooth must be taken out, and he has you into the 
 chair, and it is surprising with what courage and vigour of wTist he 
 applies the forceps. Perhaps he would not be quite so active or eager 
 if it were his tooth ; but, in fine, it is your duty to have it out. So the 
 Doctor, having read the epistle out to Mira and Mrs. Portman, with 
 many damnatory comments upon the young scapegrace who was going 
 deeper and deeper into perdition, left those ladies to spread the news 
 through the Clavering society, which they did with their accustomed 
 accuracy and despatch, and strode over to Fairoaks to break the 
 intelligence to the widow. 
 
 She had the news already. She had read Pen's letter, and it had 
 relieved her somehow. A gloomy presentiment of evil had been 
 hanging over her for many, many months past. She knew the worst 
 now, and her darling boy was come back to her repentant and tender- 
 hearted. Did she want more ? All that the Rector could say (and his 
 remarks were both dictated by common sense, and made respectable 
 by antiquity) could not bring Helen to feel any indignation or par- 
 ticular unhappiness, except that the boy should be unhappy. What 
 Avas this degree that they made such an outcry about, and what good 
 would it do Pen? Why did Doctor Portmar and his uncle insist upon 
 sending the boy to a place where there was so much temptation to be 
 risked, and so little good to be won ? Why didn't they leave him at 
 home with his mother? As for his debts, of course they must be 
 paid ; — his debts ! — wasn't his father's money all his, and hadn't he a 
 right to spend it? In this way the widow met the virtuous Doctor, 
 and all the arrows of his indignation somehow took no effect upon her 
 gentle bosom. 
 
 For some time past, an agreeable practice, known since times ever 
 so ancient, by which brothers and sisters are wont to exhibit their 
 affection towards one another, and in which Pen and his little sister
 
 PENDENNIS. I9J 
 
 Laura had been accustomed to indulge pretty frequently in their 
 childish days, had been given up by the mutual consent of those two 
 individuals. Coming back from college after an absence from home 
 of some months, in place of the simple girl whom he had left behind 
 him, Mr. Arthur found a tall, slim, handsome young lady, to whom he 
 could not somehow proffer the kiss which he had been in the habit 
 of administering previously, and who received him with a gracious 
 curtsey and a proffered hand, and with a great blush which rose up to 
 the cheek, just upon the very spot which young Pen had been used 
 to salute. 
 
 I am not good at descriptions of female beauty ; and, indeed, do 
 not care for it in the least (thinking that goodness and virtue are, of 
 course, far more advantageous to a young lady than any mere fleeting 
 charms of person and face), and so shall not attempt any particular 
 delineation of Miss Laura Bell at the age of sixteen years. At that 
 age she had attained her present altitude of five feet four inches, so 
 that she was called tall and gawky by some, and a Maypole by others, 
 of her own sex, who prefer littler women. But if she was a Maypole, 
 she had beautiful roses about her head, and it is a fact that many 
 swains were disposed to dance round her. She was ordinarily pale, 
 with a faint rose tinge in her cheeks ; but they flushed up in a minute 
 when occasion called, and continued so blushing ever so long, the 
 roses remaining after the emotion had passed away which had 
 summoned those pretty flowers into existence. Her eyes have been 
 described as very large from her earliest childhood, and retained that 
 characteristic in later life. Good-natured critics (always females) said 
 that she was in the habit of making play with those eyes, and ogling 
 the gentlemen and ladies in her company ; but the fact is, that Nature 
 had made them so to shine and to look, and they could no more help 
 so looking and shining than one star can help being brighter than 
 another. It was doubtless to mitigate their brightness that Miss Laura's 
 eyes were provided with two pairs of veils in the shape of the longest 
 and finest black eyelashes, so that, when she closed her eyes, the same 
 people who found fault with those orbs, said that she wanted to show 
 her eyelashes off; and, indeed, I dare say that to see her asleep would 
 have been a pretty sight. 
 
 As for her complexion, that was nearly as brilliant as Lady Man- 
 trap's, and without the powder which her ladyship uses. Her nose 
 must be left to the reader's imagination: if her mouth was rather large 
 (as Miss Piminy avers, who, but for her known appetite, one would 
 think could not swallow anything larger than a button) everybody 
 allowed that her smile was charming, and showed off a set of pearly 
 teeth, whilst her voice was so low and sweet, that to hear it was like 
 listening to sweet music. Because she is in the habit of wearing very 
 
 13
 
 194 PENDENNIS. 
 
 long dresses, people of course say that her feet are not small : but it 
 may be, that they are of the size becoming her figure, and it does not 
 follow, because Mrs. Pincher is always putting her foot out, that all 
 other ladies should be perpetually bringing theirs on the tapis. In 
 fine, Miss Laura Bell, at the age of sixteen, was a sweet young lady. 
 Many thousands of such are to be found, let us hope, in this country, 
 where there is no lack of goodness, and modesty, and purity, and beauty. 
 
 Now, Miss Laura, since she had learned to think for herself (and 
 in the past two years her mind and her person had both developed 
 themselves considerably), had only been half pleased with Pen's 
 general conduct and bearing. His letters to his mother at home had 
 become of late very rare and short. It was in vain that the fond 
 widow urged how constant Arthur's occupations and studies were, and 
 how many his engagements. " It is better that he should lose a prize," 
 Laura said, " than forget his mother : and indeed, mamma, I dont see 
 that he gets many prizes. Why doesn't he come home and stay with 
 you, instead of passing his vacations at his great friends' fine houses .'' 
 There is nobody there will love him half as much as — as you do." 
 "As /do only, Laura?" sighed out Mrs. Pendennis. Laura declared 
 stoutly that she did not love Pen a bit, when he did not do his dut\- to 
 his mother: nor would she be convinced by any of Helen's fond argu- 
 ments, that the boy must make his way in the world ; that his uncle 
 was most desirous that Pen should cultivate the acquaintance of per- 
 sons who were likely to befriend him in life ; ihat men had a thousand 
 ties and caUs which women could not understand, and so forth. 
 Perhaps Helen no more believed in these excuses than her adopted 
 daughter did; but she tried to believe that she believed them, and 
 comforted herself with the maternal infatuation. And that is a point 
 whereon I suppose many a gentleman has retlected, that, do what we 
 win, we are pretty sure of the woman's love that once has been ours ; 
 and that that untiring tenderness and forgiveness never fail us. 
 
 Also, there had been that freedom, not to say audacity, in Arthur's 
 latter talk and ways, which had shocked and displeased Laura. Not 
 that he ever offended her by rudeness, or addressed to her a word 
 which she ought not to hear, for ^Ir. Pen was a gentleman, and by 
 nature and education polite to ever\' woman high and low; but he 
 spoke lightly and laxly of women in general ; was less courteous 
 in his actions than in his words — neglectful in sundry ways, and 
 in many of the little offices of life. It offended Miss Laura that he 
 should smoke his horrid pipes in the house ; that he should refuse to 
 go to church with his mother, or on walks or visits with her, and be 
 found yawning over his novel in his dressing-gown, when the gentle 
 widow returned from those duties. The hero of Laura's early infancy, 
 about whom she had passed so many, many nights talking with
 
 PENDENNIS. 195 
 
 Helen (who recited endless stories of the boy's virtues, and love, and 
 bravery, when he was away at school), was a very different person from 
 the young man whom now she knew ; bold and brilliant, sarcastic and 
 defiant, seeming to scorn the simple occupations or pleasures, or even 
 devotions, of the women with whom he lived, and whom he quitted on 
 such light pretexts. 
 
 The Fotheringay affair, too, when Laura came to hear of it (which 
 she did first by some sarcastic allusions of Major Pendennis, when on 
 a visit to Fairoaks, and then from their neighbours at Clavering, who 
 had plenty of information to give her on this head), vastly shocked 
 and outraged Miss Laura. A Pendennis fling himself away on such 
 a woman as that ! Helen's boy galloping away from home, day after 
 day, to fall on his knees to an actress, and drink with her horrid 
 father ! A good son want to bring such a man and such a woman 
 into his house, and set her over his mother! " I would have runaway, 
 mamma; I would, if I had had to walk barefoot through the snow," 
 Laura said. 
 
 " And /(?« would have left me too, then?" Helen answered; on 
 which, of course, Laura withdrew her previous observation, and tha 
 two women rushed into each other's embraces with that warmth which 
 belonged to both their natures, and which characterizes not a few of 
 their sex. Whence came all this indignation of Miss Laura about 
 Arthur's passion 1 Perhaps she did not know, that if men throw 
 themselves away upon women, women throw themselves away upon 
 men, too ; and that there is no more accounting for love, than for 
 any other physical liking or antipathy : perhaps she had been misin- 
 formed by the Clavering people and old Mrs. Portman, who was vastly 
 'bitter against Pen, especially since his impertinent behaviour to the 
 Doctor, and since the wretch had smoked cigars in church-time; 
 perhaps, finally, she was jealous ; but this is a vice in which it is said 
 the ladies very seldom indulge. 
 
 Albeit she was angry with Pen, against his mother she had no 
 such feeling ; but devoted herself to Helen with the utmost force of 
 her girlish affection — such affection as women, whose hearts are dis-_ 
 engaged, are apt to bestow upon the near female friend. It was devo- 
 tion; — it was passion — it was all sorts of fondness and folly ; it was a 
 profusion of caresses, tender epithets and endearments, such as it does 
 not become sober historians with beards to narrate. Do not let us 
 men despise these instincts because we cannot feel them. These 
 women were made for our comfort and delectation, gentlemen — with 
 all the rest of the minor animals. 
 
 But as soon as Miss Laura heard that Pen was unfortunate and 
 unhappy, all her wrath against him straightway vanished, and gave 
 place to the most tender and unreasonable compassion. He was the
 
 196 PENDEAWIS. 
 
 Pen of old days once more restored to her, the frank and affectionate, 
 the generous and tender-hearted. She at once took side with Helen 
 against Doctor Portman, when he outcried at the enormity of Pen's 
 transgressions. Debts ? what were his debts ? they were a trifle ; he 
 had been thrown into expensive society by his uncle's order, and of 
 course was obliged to live in the same manner as the young gentlemen 
 whose company he frequented. Disgraced by not getting his degree ? 
 the poor boy was ill when he went in for the examinations : he couldn't 
 think of his mathematics and stuff on account of those very debts 
 which oppressed him; very likely some of the odious tutors and 
 masters were jealous of him, and had favourites of their own whom 
 they wanted to put over his head. Other people disliked him and 
 were cruel to him, and were unfair to him, she was very sure. And 
 so, with flushing cheeks and eyes bright with anger, this young creature 
 reasoned ; and she went up and seized Helen's hand, and kissed her in 
 the Doctor's presence, and her looks braved the Doctor, and seemed 
 to ask how he dared to say a word against her darling mothers Pen ? 
 
 When that divine took his leave, not a little discomfited and 
 amazed at the pertinacious obstinacy of the women, Laura repeated 
 her embraces and arguments with tenfold fervour to Helen, who felt 
 that there was a great deal of cogency in most of the latter. There 
 must be some jealousy against Pen. She felt quite sure that he had 
 offended some of the examiners, who had taken a mean revenge of 
 him — nothing more likely. Altogether, the announcement of the 
 misfortune vexed these two ladies very little indeed. Pen, who was 
 plunged in his shame and grief in London, and torn with great 
 remorse for thinking of his mothers sorrow, would have wondered, 
 had he seen how easily she bore the calamity. Indeed, calamity is 
 welcome to women if they think it will bring truant affection home 
 again : and if you have reduced your mistress to a crust, depend upon 
 it that she won't repine, and only take a verj' little bit of it for herself, 
 provided you will eat the remainder in her company. 
 
 And directly the Doctor was gone, Laura ordered fires to be lighted 
 in Mr. Arthur's rooms, and his bedding to be aired ; and had these 
 preparations completed by the time Helen had finished a most tender 
 and affectionate letter to Pen : when the girl, smiling fondly, took her 
 mamma by the hand, and led her into those apartments where the 
 fires were blazing so cheerfully, and there the two kind creatures sate 
 down on the bed, and talked about Pen ever so long. Laura added a 
 postscript to Helen's letter, in which she called him her dearest Pen, 
 and bade him come home instantly, with two of the handsomest 
 dashes under the word, and be happy with his mother and his affec- 
 tionate sister Laura. 
 
 In the middle of the night — as these two ladies, after reading their
 
 PENDENNIS. 197 
 
 Bibles a great deal during the evening, and after taking just a look 
 into Pen's room as they passed to their own — in the middle of the 
 night, I say, Laura, whose head not unfrequently chose to occupy that 
 pillow which the nightcap of the late Pendennis had been accustomed 
 to press, cried out suddenly, " Mamma, are you awake ? " 
 
 Helen stirred and said, " Yes, I'm awake." The truth is, though 
 she had been lying quite still and silent, she had not been asleep one 
 instant, but had been looking at the night-lamp in the chimney, and 
 had been thinking of Pen for hours and hours. 
 
 Then Miss Laura (who had been acting with similar hypocrisy, 
 and lying, occupied with her own thoughts, as motionless as Helen's 
 brooch, with Pen's and Laura's hair in it, on the frilled white pin- 
 cushion on the dressing-table) began to tell Mrs. Pendennis of a 
 notable plan which she had been forming in her busy little brains ; 
 and by which all Pen's embarrassments would be made to vanish in a 
 moment, and without the least trouble to anybody. 
 
 " You know, mamma,"' this young lady said, " that I have been 
 living with you for ten years, during which time you have never taken 
 any of my money, and have been treating me just as if I was a charity 
 girl. Now, this obligation has offended me very much, because I am 
 proud and do not like to be beholden to people. And as, if I had 
 gone to school — only I wouldn't — it must have cost me at least fifty 
 pounds a year, it is clear that I owe you fifty times ten pounds, which 
 I know you have put into the bank at Chatteris for me, and which 
 doesn't belong to me a bit. Now, to morrow we will go to Chatteris, 
 and see that nice old Mr. Rowdy, with the bald head, and ask him for 
 it, — not for his head, but for the five hundred pounds, and I daresay 
 he will lend you two more, which we will save and pay back ; and we 
 will send the money to Pen, who can pay all his debts without hurting 
 anybody, and then we will live happy ever after." 
 
 What Helen replied to this speech need not be repeated, as the 
 widow's answer was made up of a great number of incoherent ejacu- 
 lations, embraces, and other irrelative matter. But the two women 
 slept well after that talk ; and when the night-lamp went out with a 
 splutter, and the sun rose gloriously over the purple hills, and the birds 
 began to sing and pipe cheerfully amidst the leafless trees and glisten- 
 ing evergreens on Fairoaks lawn, Helen woke too, and as she looked 
 at the sweet face of the girl sleeping beside her, her lips parted with a 
 smile, blushes on her cheeks, her spotless bosom heaving and falling 
 with gentle undulations, as if happy dreams were sweeping over it- 
 Pen's mother felt happy and grateful beyond all power of words, save 
 such as pious women offer up to the Beneficent Dispenser of love and 
 mercy— in whose honour a chorus of such praises is constantly rising 
 up all round the world.
 
 ■198 PENDEXNIS. 
 
 Although it was January and rather cold weather, so sincere was 
 Mr. Pen's remorse, and so determined his plans of economy, that he 
 would not take an inside place in the coach, but sate up behind with 
 his friend the Guard, who remembered his foiTner liberality, and lent 
 him plenty of great-coats. Perhaps it was the cold that made his 
 knees tremble as he got down at the lodge-gate, or it may be that 
 he was agitated at the notion of seeing the kind creature for whose 
 love he had made so selfish a return. Old John was in waiting to 
 receive his master's baggage, but he appeared in a fustian jacket, and 
 no longer wore his liver\' of drab and blue. " I'se gar'ner and stable- 
 man, and lives in the ladge now," this worthy man remarked, with a 
 grin of welcome to Pen, and something of a blush ; but instantly as 
 Pen turned the comer of the shrubberj^ and was out of eye-shot of the 
 coach, Helen made her appearance, her face beaming with love and 
 forgiveness — for forgiving is what some women love best of all. 
 
 We may be sure that the widow, having a certain other object in 
 view, had lost no time in writing off to Pen an account of the noble, 
 the magnanimous, the magnificent ofter of Laura, filling up her letter 
 with a profusion of benedictions upon both her children. It was pro- 
 bably the knowledge of this money obligation which caused Pen to 
 blush very much when he saw Laura, who was in waiting in the hall, 
 and who this time, and for this time only, broke through the little 
 arrangement of which we have spoken, as having subsisted between 
 her and Arthur for the last few years ; but the truth is, there has been 
 a great deal too much said about kissing in the present chapter. 
 
 So the Prodigal came home, and the fatted calf was killed for him, 
 and he. was made as happy as two simple women could make him. 
 No allusions were made to the Oxbridge mishap, or questions asked 
 as to his farther proceedings, for some time. But Pen debated these 
 anxiously in his own mind, and up in his own room, where he passed 
 much time in cogitation. 
 
 A few days after he came home, he rode to Chatteris on his horse, 
 and came back on the top of the coach. He then informed his mother 
 that he had left the horse to be sold ; and when that operation was 
 effected, he handed her over the cheque, which she, and possiblv Pen 
 himself, thought was an act of uncommon virtue and self-denial, but 
 which Laura pronounced to be only strict justice. 
 
 He rarely mentioned the loan which she had made, and which, 
 indeed, had been accepted by the widow with certain modifications; 
 but once or twice, and with great hesitation and stammering, he 
 alluded to it, and thanked her. It evidently pained his vanitv to be 
 beholden to the orphan for succour. He was wild to find some means 
 of repaying her.
 
 PENDENNIS. 
 
 199 
 
 He left off drinking wine, and betook himself, but with great 
 moderation, to the refreshment of whisky-and-water. He gave up 
 cigar-smoking ; but it must be confessed that of late years he had 
 liked pipes and tobacco as well or even better, so that this sacrifice 
 was not a very severe one. 
 
 He fell asleep a great deal after dinner when he joined the ladies 
 in the drawing-room, and was certainly very moody and melancholy. 
 He Avatched the coaches with great interest, walked in to read the 
 papers at Clavering assiduously, dined with anybody who would ask 
 him (and the widow was glad that he should have any entertainment 
 in their solitary place), and played a good deal at cribbage with 
 Captain Glanders. 
 
 He avoided Dr. Portman, who, in his turn, whenever Pen passed, 
 gave him very severe looks from under his shovel-hat. He went to 
 church with his mother, however, very regularly, and read prayers for 
 her at home to the little household. Always humble, it was greatly 
 diminished now : a couple of maids did the work of the house of 
 Fairoaks : the silver dish-covers never saw the light at all. John put 
 on his livery to go to church, and assert his dignity on Sundays, but 
 it was only for form's sake. He was gardener and out-door man, vice 
 Upton, resigned. There was but little fire in Fairoaks kitchen, and 
 John and the maids drank their evening beer there by the light of a 
 single candle. All this was Mr. Pen's doing, and the state of things 
 did not increase his cheerfulness. 
 
 For some time Pen said no power on earth could induce him to go 
 back to Oxbridge again, after his failure there ; but one day, Laura 
 said to him, with many blushes, that she thought, as some sort of 
 reparation, of punishment on himself for his — for his idleness, he 
 ought to go back and get his degree, if he could fetch it by doing so ; 
 and so back Mr. Pen went. 
 
 A plucked man is a dismal being in a university ; belonging to no 
 set of men there, and owned by no one. Pen felt himself plucked 
 indeed of all the fine feathers which he had won during his brilliant 
 years, and rarely appeared out of his college; regularly going to 
 morning chapel, and shutting himself up in his rooms of nights, away 
 from the noise and suppers of the undergraduates. There were no duns 
 about his door, they were all paid — scarcely any cards were left there. 
 The men of his year had taken their degrees, and were gone. Pie went 
 into a second examination, and passed with perfect ease. He was some- 
 what more easy in his mind when he appeared in his bachelor's gown. 
 
 On his way back from Oxbridge he paid a visit to his uncle in 
 London ; but the old gentleman received him with very cold looks, and 
 would scarcely give him his forefinger to shake. He called a second 
 time, but Morgran, the valet, said his master was from home.
 
 200 PENDENNIS. 
 
 Pen came back to Fairoaks, and to his books and to his idleness, 
 and loneliness and despair. He commenced several tragedies, and 
 wrote many copies of verses of a gloomy cast. He formed plans of 
 reading and broke them. He thought about enlisting — about the 
 Spanish legion — about a profession. He chafed against his captivity, 
 and cursed the idleness which had caused it. Helen said he was 
 breaking his heart, and was sad to see his prostration. As soon as 
 they could afford it, he should go abroad — he should go to London — 
 he should be freed from the dull society of two poor women. It was 
 dull — very, certainly. The tender widow's habitual melancholy seemed 
 to deepen into a sadder gloom ; and Laura saw with alarm that the 
 dear friend became ever}' year more languid and weary, and that her 
 pale cheek grew more v/an.
 
 PENDENNIS, 20I 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 NEW FACES. 
 
 ^ I "HE inmates of Fairoalis were drowsily pursuing this humdrum 
 -L existence, while the great house upon the hill, on the other side 
 of the River Brawl, was shaking off the slumber in which it had lain 
 during the lives of two generations of masters, and giving extraordinary 
 signs of renewed liveliness. 
 
 Just about the time of Pen's little mishap, and when he was so 
 absorbed in the grief occasioned by that calamity as to take no notice 
 of events which befel persons less interesting to himself than Arthur 
 Pendennis, an announcement appeared in the provincial journals 
 which caused no small sensation in the county at least, and in all the 
 towns, villages, halls, and mansions and parsonages for many miles 
 round Clavering Park. At Clavering Market; at Cackleby Fair; at 
 Chatteris Sessions; on Gooseberry Green, as the squire's carriage met 
 the vicar's one-horse contrivance, and the inmates of both vehicles 
 stopped on the road to talk ; at Tinkleton Church gate, as the bell was 
 tolling in the sunshine, and the white smocks and scarlet cloaks came 
 trooping over the green common, to Sunday worship ; in a hundred 
 societies round about — the word was, that Clavering Park was to be 
 inhabited again. 
 
 Some five years before, the county papers had advertised the 
 marriage at Florence, at the British Legation, of Francis Clavering, 
 Esq., only son of Sir Francis Clavering, Bart., of Clavering Park, with 
 Jemima Augusta, daughter of Samuel Snell, of Calcutta, Esq., and 
 widow of the late J. Amory, Esq. At that time the legend in the 
 county was that Clavering, who had been ruined for many a year, had 
 married a widow from India with some money. Some of the county 
 folks caught a sight of the newly-married pair. The Kickleburys, 
 travelling in Italy, had seen them. Clavering occupied the Poggi 
 Palace at Florence, gave parties, and lived comfortably— but could 
 never come to England. Another year — young Peregrine, of Cackleby, 
 making a Long Vacation tour, had fallen in with the Claverings 
 occupying Schloss Schinkenstein, on the Mummul See. At Rome, 
 at Lucca, at Nice, at the baths and gambling places of the Rhine and 
 Belgium, this worthy couple might occasionally be heard of by the 
 
 SANTA Wmm STATE GOLLECZ mWl
 
 2oi PENDENNIS. 
 
 curious, and rumours of them came, as it were by gusts, to Clavering's 
 ancestral place. 
 
 Their last place of abode was Paris, where they appear to have 
 lived in great fashion and splendour after the news of the death of 
 Samuel Snell, Esq., of Calcutta, reached his orphan daughter in 
 Europe. 
 
 Of Sir Francis Clavering's antecedents little can be said that would 
 be advantageous to that respected baronet. The son of an outlaw, 
 living in adismal old chateau near Bruges, this gentleman had made 
 a feeble attempt to start in life with a commission in a dragoon regi- 
 ment, and had broken down almost at the outset. Transactions at the 
 gambling-table had speedily effected his ruin ; after a couple of years 
 in the army he had been forced to sell out, had passed some time in 
 his Majesty's prison of the Fleet, and had then shipped over to 
 Ostend to join the gouty exile his father. And in Belgium, France, 
 and Germany, for some years, this decayed and abortive prodigal 
 might be seen lurking about billiard-rooms and watering-places, 
 punting at gambling-houses, dancing at boarding-house balls, and 
 riding steeple-chases on other folks' horses. 
 
 It was at a boarding-house at Lausanne, that Francis Clavering 
 made what he called the lucky coup of marrying the widow Amon-, verj' 
 lately returned from Calcutta. His father died soon after, by conse- 
 quence of whose demise his wife became Lady Clavering. The title 
 so delighted Mr. Snell of Calcutta, that he doubled his daughter's 
 allowance ; and, dying himself soon after, left a fortune to her and 
 her children, the amount of which was, if not magnified by rumour, 
 something very splendid indeed. 
 
 Before this time there had been, not rumours unfavourable to 
 Lady Clavering's reputation, but unpleasant impressions regarding her 
 ladyship. The best English people abroad were shy of making her 
 acquaintance; her manners were not the most refined; her origin was 
 lamentably low and doubtful. The retired East Indians, who are to 
 be found in considerable force in most of the continental towns 
 frequented by English, spoke with much scorn of the disreputable 
 old la-\\yer and indigo-smuggler her father, and of Amon,-, her first 
 husband, who had been mate of the Indiaman in which Miss Snell 
 came out to join her father at Calcutta. Neither father nor daughter 
 were in society at Calcutta, or had ever been heard of at Government 
 House. Old Sir Jasper Rogers, who had been Chief Justice of 
 Calcutta, had once said to his wife, that he could tell a queer stor}' 
 about Lady Clavering's first husband; but greatly to Lady Rogers's 
 disappointment, and that of the young ladies his daughters, the old 
 Judge could never be got to reveal that myster)-. 
 
 They were all, ho\vever, glad enough to go to Lady Clavering's
 
 PENDE'N'NIS 203 
 
 patties, when her ladyship took the Hotel Bouilli in the Rue Crenelle 
 at Paris, and blazed out in the polite world there in the winter of 
 1 83 — . The Faubourg St. Germain took her up. Viscount Bagwig, 
 our excellent ambassador, paid her marked attention. The princes 
 of the family frequented her salons. The most rigid and noted of the 
 English ladies resident in the French capital acknowledged and 
 countenanced her ; the virtuous Lady Elderbury, the severe Lady 
 Rockminster, the venerable Countess of Southdown — people, in a 
 word, renowned for austerity, and of quite a dazzling moral purity : — 
 so great and beneficent an influence had the possession of ten (some 
 said twenty) thousand a year exercised upon Lady Clavering's cha- 
 racter and reputation. And her munificence and good-will were 
 unbounded. Anybody (in society) who had a scheme of charity was 
 sure to find her purse open. The French ladies of piety got money 
 from her to support their schools and convents ; she subscribed 
 indifferently for the Armenian patriarch ; for Father Barbarossa, who 
 came to Europe to collect funds for his monastery on Mount Athos ; 
 for the Baptist Mission to Ouashyboo, and the Orthodox Settlement 
 in Feefawfoo, the largest and most savage of the Cannibal Islands. 
 And it is on record of her, that, on the Same day on which Madame 
 de Cricri got five napoleons from her in support of the poor perse- 
 cuted Jesuits, who were at that time in very bad odour in France, 
 Lady Budelight put her down in her subscription-list for the Rev. J. 
 Ramshorn, who had had a vision which ordered him to convert the 
 Pope of Rome. And more than this, and for the benefit of the worldly, 
 her ladyship gave the best dinners, and the grandest balls and suppers, 
 which were known at Paris during that season. 
 
 And it was during this time, that the good-natured lady must 
 have arranged matters with her husband's creditors in England, for 
 Sir Francis re-appeared in his native country, without fear of arrest ; 
 was announced in the Morning Post, and the county paper, as having 
 taken up his residence at Mivart's hotel ; and one day the anxious old 
 housekeeper at Clavering House beheld a carriage and four horses 
 drive up the long avenue, and stop before the moss-grown steps in 
 front of the vast melancholy portico. 
 
 Three gentlemen were in the carriage — an open one. On the back 
 seat was our old acquaintance, Mr. Tatham of Chatteris, whilst in the 
 places of honour sate a handsome and portly gentleman enveloped in 
 mustachios, whiskers, fur collars, and braiding, and by him a pale 
 languid m.an, who descended feebly from the carriage, v/hen the little 
 lawyer, and the gentleman in fur, had nimbly jumped out of it. 
 
 They walked up the great moss-grown steps to the hall-door, and 
 a foreign attendant, with ear-rings and a gold-laccd cap, pulled strcnu- 
 ouslv at the great bell-handle at the cracked and sculptured gMe.
 
 204 PENDENNIS. 
 
 The bell was heard clanging loudly through the vast gloomy mansion. 
 Steps resounded presently upon the marble pavement of the hall 
 within ; and the doors opened, and finally, Mrs. Blenkinsop, the house- 
 keeper, Polly, her aide-de-camp, and Smart, the keeper, appeared, 
 bowing humbly. 
 
 . Smart, the keeper, pulled the wisp of hay-coloured hair which 
 adorned his sunburnt forehead, kicked out his left heel, as if there 
 were a dog biting at his calves, and brought down his head to a bow. 
 Old Mrs. Blenkinsop dropped a curtsey. Little Polly, her aide-de- 
 camp, made a curtsey, and several rapid bows likewise: and Mrs. 
 Blenkinsop, with a great deal of emotion, quavered out, " Welcome to 
 Clavering, Sir Francis. It du my poor eyes good to see one of the 
 family once more." 
 
 The speech and the greetings were all addressed to the grand 
 gentleman in fur and braiding, who wore his hat so magnificently on 
 one side, and twirled his mustachios so royally. But he burst out 
 laughing, and said, "You've saddled the wrong horse, old lady — Tm 
 not Sir Francis Clavering what's come to revisit the halls of my 
 ancestors. Friends and vassals ! behold your rightful lord I " 
 
 And he pointed his hand towards the pale, languid gentleman, who 
 said, " Don't be an ass, Ned." 
 
 "Yes, Mrs. Blenkinsop, Fm Sir Francis Clavering; I recollect 
 you quite well. Forgot me, I suppose?— How dy do.''" and he took 
 the old lady's trembling hand ; and nodded in her astonished face, in 
 a not unkind manner. 
 
 Mrs. Blenkinsop declared upon her conscience that she would 
 have known Sir Francis anywhere; that he was the very image of 
 Sir Francis his father, and of Sir John who had gone before. 
 
 " O yes — thanky — of course — very much obliged — and that sort of 
 thing," Sir Francis said, looking vacantly about the hall. " Dismal 
 old place, ain't it, Ned.'' Never saw it but once, when my governor 
 quarrelled with my gwandfather, in the year twenty-thwee." 
 
 " Dismal ? — beautiful ! — the Castle of Otranto ! — the Mysteries of 
 Udolpho, by Jove !" said the individual addressed as Ned. "What 
 a fire-place ! You might roast an elephant in it. Splendid carved 
 gallerj'! Inigo Jones, by Jove ! Fd lay five to two it's Inigo Jones." 
 
 "The upper part by Inigo Jones; the lower was altered by the 
 eminent Dutch architect, Vanderputty, in George the First his time, 
 by Sir Richard, fourth baronet," said the housekeeper. 
 
 " O indeed," said the Baronet. " 'Gad, Ned, you know everv- 
 thing." 
 
 " I know a few things, Frank," Ned answered. " I know that's 
 not a Snyders over the mantel-piece — bet you three to one it's a copy. 
 We'll restore it, my boy. A lick of varnish, and it will come out
 
 PENDENNIS. 205 
 
 tvonderfully, sir. That old fellow in the red gown, I suppose, is 
 Sir Richard." 
 
 " Sheriff of the county, and sate in parliament in the reign of 
 Queen Anne," said the housekeeper, wondering at the stranger's 
 knowledge; "that on the right is Theodosia, wife of Harbottle, 
 second baronet, by Lely, represented in the character of Venus, the 
 Goddess of Beauty, — her son Gregory, the third baronet, by her side, 
 as Cupid, God of Love, with a bow and arrows ; that on the next panel 
 is Sir Rupert, made a knight banneret by Charles the First, and whose 
 property was confuscated by Oliver Cromwell." 
 
 " Thank you — needn't go on, Mrs. Blenkinsop,'' said the Baronet. 
 " We'll walk about the place ourselves. Frosch, give me a cigar. 
 Have a cigar, Mr. Tatham ? " 
 
 Little Mr. Tatham tried a cigar which Sir Francis's courier handed 
 to him, and over which the lawyer spluttered fearfully. " Needn't 
 come with us, Mrs. Blenkinsop. What's-his-name — you — Smart — 
 feed the horses and wash their mouths. Sha'n't stay long. Come along. 
 Strong, — I know the way : I was here in twenty- thwee, at the end of 
 my gwandfather's time." And Sir Francis and Captain Strong, for 
 such was the style and title of Sir Francis's friend, passed out of the 
 hall into the reception-rooms, leaving the discomfited Mrs. Blenkinsop 
 to disappear by a side-door which led to her apartments, now the only 
 habitable rooms in the long-uninhabited mansion. 
 
 It was a place so big that no tenant could afford to live in it ; and 
 Sir Francis and his friend walked through room after room, admiring 
 their vastness and dreary and deserted grandeur. On the right of the 
 hall door were the saloons and drawing-rooms, and on the other side 
 the oak room, the parlour, the grand dining-room, the library, where 
 Fen had found books in old days. Round three sides of the hall ran 
 a gallery, by which, and corresponding passages, the chief bed-rooms 
 were approached, and of which many were of stately proportions and 
 exhibited marks of splendour. On the second story was a labyrinth of 
 little discomfortable garrets, destined for the attendants of the great 
 folks who inhabited the mansion in the days when it was first 
 built : and I do not know any more cheering mark of the increased 
 philanthropy of our own times, than to contrast our domestic architec- 
 ture with that of our ancestors, and to see how much better servants 
 and poor are cared for at present, than in times when my lord and 
 my lady slept under gold canopies, and their servants lay above them 
 in quarters not so airy or so clean as stables are now. 
 
 Up and down the house the two gentlemen wandered, the owner 
 of the mansion being very silent and resigned about the pleasure of 
 possessing it ; whereas the Captain his friend examined the premises 
 with so much interest and eagerness that you would have thought he
 
 2o6 PENDENiYIS. 
 
 was the master, and the other the indifferent spectator of the place. 
 " I see capabilities in it — capabilities in it, sir," cried the Captain. 
 " Gad, sir, leave it to me, and 111 make it the pride of the country, at 
 a small expense. What a theatre we can have in the library' here, the 
 curtains between the columns which divide the room ! What a famous 
 room for a galop ! — it will hold the whole shire. We'll hang the 
 morning parlour with the tapestry- in your second salon in the Rue de 
 Crenelle, and furnish the oak room with the Moyen-age cabinets and 
 the armour. Armour looks splendid against black oak, and there's a 
 Venice glass in the Quai Voltaire, which will suit that high mantel- 
 piece to an inch, sir. The long saloon, white and crimson, of course ; 
 the drawing-room yellow satin ; and the little drawing-room light blue, 
 with lace over — hey ? " 
 
 " I recollect my old governor caning me in that little room," Sir 
 Francis said sententiously ; " he always hated me, my old governor." 
 
 " Chintz is the dodge, I suppose, for my lady's rooms — the suite 
 in the landing, to the south, the bed-room, the sitting-room, and the 
 dressing-room. We'll throw a conservatory out, over the balcony. 
 Where will you have your rooms ? " 
 
 " Put mine in the north wing," said the baronet, with a yawn, " and 
 out of the reach of Miss Amory's confounded piano. I can't bear it. 
 She's scweeching from morning till night." 
 
 The Captain burst out laughing. He settled the whole further 
 arrangements of the house in the course of their walk through it ; and, 
 the promenade ended, they went into the steward's room, now inha- 
 bited by Mrs. Blenkinsop, and where Mr. Tatham was sitting poring 
 over a plan of the estate, and the old housekeeper had prepared a 
 collation in honour of her lord and master. 
 
 Then they inspected the kitchen and stables, about both of 
 which Sir Francis was rather interested, and Captain Strong was for 
 
 examining the gardens ; but the baronet said, " D the gardens, 
 
 and that sort of thing ! " and finally he drove away from the house as 
 unconcernedly as he had entered it; and that night the people of 
 Clavering learned that Sir Francis Clavering had paid a visit to the 
 Park, and was coming to live in the county. 
 
 When this fact came to be known at Chatteris, all the folks in the 
 place were set in commotion: High Church and Low Church, half- 
 pay captains and old maids and dowagers, sporting squireens of the 
 vicinage, farmers, tradesmen, and factory- people — all the population 
 in and round about the little place. The news was brought to Fair- 
 oaks, and received by the ladies there, and by Mr. Pen, with some 
 excitement. " Mrs. Pybus says there is a ver>- pretty girl in the family, 
 Arthur," Laura said, who was as kind and thoughtful upon this point 
 as women generally are : " a Miss Amory, Lady Clavering's daughter
 
 PENDENNIS. 207 
 
 by her first marriage. Of course, you will fall in love with her as soon 
 as she arrives." 
 
 Helen cried out, " Don't talk nonsense, Laura." Pen laughed, and 
 said, " Well, there is the young Sir Francis for you." 
 
 " He is but four years old," Miss Laura replied. " But I shall 
 console myself with that handsome officer. Sir Francis's friend. He 
 was at church last Sunday, in the Clavering Pew, and his mustachios 
 were beautiful." 
 
 Indeed the number of Sir Francis's family (whereof the members 
 have all been mentioned in the above paragraphs) was pretty soon 
 known in the town, and everything else, as nearly as human industry 
 and ingenuity could calculate, regarding his household. The Park 
 avenue and grounds were dotted now with townfolks of the summer 
 evenings, who made their way up to the great house, peered about 
 the premises, and criticised the improvements which were taking 
 place there. Loads upon loads of furniture arrived in numberless 
 vans from Chatteris and London ; and numerous as the vans were, 
 there was not one but Captain Glanders knew what it contained, and 
 escorted the baggage up to the Park house. 
 
 He and Captain Edward Strong had formed an intimate acquaint- 
 ance by this time. The younger Captain occupied those very lodgings 
 at Clavering, which the peaceful Smirke had previously tenanted, and' 
 was deep in the good graces of Madame Fribsby, his landlady ; and of 
 the whole town, indeed. The Captain was splendid in person and 
 raiment ; fresh-coloured, blue-eyed, black-whiskered, broad-chested, 
 athletic — a slight tendency to fulness did not take away from the 
 comeliness of his jolly figure — a braver soldier never presented a 
 broader chest to the enemy. As he strode down Clavering High 
 Street, his hat on one side, his cane clanking on the pavement, or 
 waving round him in the execution of military cuts and soldatesque 
 manoeuvres — his jolly laughter ringing through the otherwise silent 
 street — he was as welcome as sunshine to the place, and a comfort to 
 every inhabitant in it. 
 
 On the first market-day he knew every pretty girl in tlie market : 
 he joked with all the women ; had a word with the farmers about their 
 stock, and dined at the Agricultural Ordinary at the Clavering Arms, 
 where he set them all dying with laughter by his fun and jokes. " Tu 
 be sure he be a vine feller, tu be sure that he be," was the universal 
 opinion of the gentlemen in top-boots. He shook hands with a 
 score of them, as they rode out of the inn-yard on their old nags, 
 waving his hat to them splendidly as he smoked his cigar in the inn- 
 gate. In the course of the evening he was free of the landlady's bar, 
 knew what rent the landlord paid, how many acres he farmed, how 
 much malt he put in his strong beer; and whether he ever run in a
 
 2o8 PENDENNIS. 
 
 little brandy unexcised by kings from Baymouth, or the fishing villages 
 along the coast. 
 
 He had tried to live at the great house first ; but it was so dull he 
 couldn't stand it. " I am a creature born for society," he told Captain 
 Glanders. " I'm down here to see Clavering's house set in order; for, 
 between ourselves, Frank has no energy, sir, no energy ; he's not the 
 chest for it, sir (and he threw out his own trunk as he spoke) ; but I 
 must have social intercourse. Old Mrs. Blenkinsop goes to bed at 
 seven, and takes Polly with her. There was nobody but me and the 
 Ghost for the first two nights at the great house, and I owti it, sir, I 
 like company. Most old soldiers do." 
 
 Glanders asked Strong where he had ser\-ed ? Captain Strong curled 
 his moustache, and said with a laugh, that the other might almost 
 ask where he had fiot served. " I began, sir, as cadet of Hungarian 
 Uhlans, and when the war of Greek independence broke out, quitted 
 that servdce in consequence of a quarrel with my governor, and was 
 one of seven who escaped from Missolonghi, and was blown up in one 
 of Botzaris's fireships, at the age of seventeen. I'll show you my Cross 
 of the Redeemer, if you'll come over to my lodgings and take a glass of 
 grog with me. Captain, this evening. I've a few of those baubles in 
 my desk. I've the White Eagle of Poland; Skrzynecki gave it me" 
 (he pronounced Skrzynecki's name with wonderful accuracy and gusto) 
 " upon the field of Ostrolenko. I was a lieutenant of the fourth regi- 
 ment, sir, and we marched through Diebitsch's lines — bang thro' "em 
 into Prussia, sir, without firing a shot. Ah, Captain, that was a mis- 
 managed business. I received this wound by the side of the King 
 before Oporto — where he would have pounded the stock-jobbing 
 Pedroites, had Bourmont followed my advice ; and I served in Spain 
 with the King's troops, until the death of my dear friend, Zumalacar- 
 reguy, when I saw the game was over, and hung up my toasting-iron. 
 Captain. Alava offered me a regiment ; but I couldn't — damme I 
 couldn't — and now, sir, you know Xed Strong — the Chevalier Strong 
 they call me abroad — as well as he knows himself." 
 
 In this way almost even'body in Clavering came to know Xed 
 Strong. He told Madame Fribsby, he told the landlord of the 
 George, he told Baker at the reading-rooms, he told Mrs. Glanders, 
 and the young ones, at dinner : and finally, he told Mr. Arthur Pen- 
 dennis, who, yawning into Clavering one day, found the Chevalier 
 Strong in company with Captain Glanders ; and who was delighted 
 with his new acquaintance. 
 
 Before many days were over. Captain Strong was as much at home 
 in Helen's drawing-room as he was in Madame Fribsbys first floor ; 
 and made the lonely house very gay with his good humour and cease- 
 less flow of talk. The two Vr-omen had never before seen such a man.
 
 PENDENNIS. 209 
 
 He had a thousand stories about battles and dangers to interest them 
 — about Greek captives, PoHsh beauties, and Spanish nuns. He could 
 sing scores of songs, in half-a-dozen languages, and would sit down to 
 the piano and troll them off in a rich manly voice. Both the ladies 
 pronounced him to be delightful — and so he was: though, indeed, they 
 had not had much choice of man's society as yet, having seen in the 
 course of their lives but few persons, except old Portman and the 
 Major, and Mr. Pen, who was a genius, to be sure; but then your 
 geniuses are somewhat flat and moody at home. 
 
 And Captain Strong acquainted his new friends at Fairoaks, not 
 only with his own biography, but with the whole history of the family 
 now coming to Clavering. It was he who had made the marriage 
 between his friend Frank and the widow Amory. She wanted rank, 
 and he wanted money. What match could be more suitable? He 
 organised it ; he made those two people happy. There was no par- 
 ticular romantic attachment between them ; the widow was not of an 
 age or a person for romance, and Sir Francis, if he had his game at 
 billiards, and his dinner, cared for little besides. But they were as 
 happy as people could be. Clavering would return to his native place 
 and country, his wife's fortune would pay his encumbrances off, and 
 his son and heir would be one of the first men in the county. 
 
 "And Miss Amory.'"' Laura asked. Laura was uncommonly 
 curious about Miss Amory. 
 
 Strong laughed. " Oh, Miss Amory is a muse — Miss Amory is a 
 mystery — Miss Amory is 3. feiiiine i7icoinprise." "What is that.'*" 
 asked simple Mrs. Pendennis— but the Chevalier gave her no answer; 
 perhaps could not give her one. " Miss Amory paints, Miss Amory 
 writes poems. Miss Amory composes music. Miss Amory rides like 
 Diana Vernon. Miss Amory is a paragon, in a word." 
 
 " I hate clever women," said Pen. 
 
 " Thank you," said Laura. For her part she was sure she should 
 be charmed with Miss Amory, and quite longed to have such a friend. 
 And with this she looked Pen full in the face, as if every word the little 
 hypocrite said was Gospel truth. 
 
 Thus an intimacy was arranged and prepared beforehand between 
 the Fairoaks family and their wealthy neighbours at the Park ; and 
 Pen and Laura were to the full as eager for their arrival, as even the 
 most curious of the Clavering folks. A Londoner, who sees fresh faces 
 and yawns at them every day, may smile at the eagerness with which 
 country people expect a visitor. A cockney comes amongst them, and 
 is remembered by his rural entertainers for years after he has left them, 
 and forgotten them very likely — floated far away from them on the 
 vast London sea. But the islanders remember long after the mariner 
 has sailed away, and can tell you what he said and what he wore, and 
 
 14
 
 2IO PENDENNIS. 
 
 how he looked and how he laughed. In fine, a new arrival is an event 
 in the country not to be understood by us, who don't, and had rather 
 not, know who lives next door. 
 
 When the painters and upholsterers had done their work in the 
 house, and so beautified it, under Captain Strong's superintendence, 
 that he might well be proud of his taste, that gentleman announced 
 that he should go to London, where the whole family had arrived by 
 this time, and should speedily return to establish them in their reno- 
 vated mansion. 
 
 Detachments of domestics preceded them. Carriages came down 
 by sea, and were brought over from Baymouth by horses which had 
 previously arrived under the care of grooms and coachmen. One day 
 the " Alacrity" coach brought down on its roof two large and melan- 
 choly men, who were dropped at the Park lodge with their trunks, and 
 who were ^Messieurs Frederick and James, metropolitan footmen, who 
 had no objection to the country, and brought with them state and other 
 suits of the Clavering uniform. 
 
 On another day, the mail deposited at the gate a foreign gentle- 
 man, adorned with many ringlets and chains. He made a great riot 
 at the lodge gate to the keeper's wife (who, being a west-country 
 woman, did not understand his English or his Gascon French), 
 because there was no carriage in waiting to drive him to the house, a 
 mile off, and because he could not walk entire leagues in his fatigued 
 state and varnished boots. This was ]\Ionsieur Alcide Mirobolant, 
 formerly Chef of his Highness the Due de Borodino, of H. Eminence 
 Cardinal Beccafico, and at present Chef of the bouche of Sir Clavering, 
 Baronet : — INIonsieur Mirobolant's library, pictures, and piano, had 
 arrived previously in charge of the intelligent young Englishman his 
 aide-de-camp. He was, moreover, aided by a professed female cook, 
 likewise from London, who had inferior females under her orders. 
 
 He did not dine in the steward's room, but took his nutriment in 
 solitude in his own apartments, where a female servant was affected to 
 his private use. It was a grand sight to behold him in his dressing- 
 gown composing a menu. He always sate down and played the piano 
 for some time before. If interrupted, he remonstrated pathetically. 
 Ever)' great artist, he said, had need of solitude to perfectionate his 
 works. 
 
 But we are advancing matters in the fulness of our love and 
 respect for Monsieur IMirobolant, and bringing him prematurely on 
 the stage. 
 
 The Chevalier Strong had a hand in the engagement of all the 
 London domestics, and, indeed, seemed to be the master of the house. 
 There were those among them who said he was the house-steward, 
 only he dined with the family. Howbcit, he knew how to make him-
 
 PENDENNIS. 211 
 
 self respected, and two of by no means the least comfortable rooms of 
 the house were assigned to his particular use. 
 
 He was walking upon the terrace finally upon the eventful day, 
 when, amidst an immense jangling of bells from Clavering Church, 
 where the flag was flying, an open carriage and one of those travelling 
 chariots or family arks, which only English philo-progenitiveness could 
 invent, drove rapidly with foaming horses through the park-gates, and 
 up to the steps of the Hall. The two battans of the sculptured door 
 flew open. Two superior officers in black, the large and melancholy 
 gentlemen, now in livery with their hair in powder, the country 
 menials engaged to aid them, were in waiting in the hall, and bowed 
 like tall elms when autumn winds wail in the park. Through this 
 avenue passed Sir Francis Clavering with a most unmoved face : 
 Lady Clavering, with a pair of bright black eyes, and a good-humoured 
 countenance, which waggled and nodded very graciously: Master 
 Francis Clavering, who was holding his inamma's skirt (and who 
 stopped the procession to look at the largest footman, whose appear- 
 ance seemed to strike the young gentleman), and Miss Blandy, 
 governess to Master Francis, and Miss Amory, her ladyship's 
 daughter, giving her arm to Captain Strong. It was summer, but 
 fires of welcome were crackling in the great hall chimney, and in 
 the rooms which the family were to occupy. 
 
 Monsieur Mirobolant had looked at the procession from one of 
 the lime-trees in the avenue. " Elle est Ik," he said, laying his jewelled 
 hand on his richly-embroidered velvet waistcoat with glass buttons. 
 " Je t'ai vue ; je te benis, O ma sylphide, O mon ange ! " and he dived 
 into the thicket, and made his way back to his furnaces and saucepans. 
 
 The next Sunday the same party Vv^hich had just made its appear- 
 ance at Clavering Park, came and publicly took possession of the 
 ancient pew in the church, where so many of the baronet's ancestors 
 had prayed, and were now kneeling in efSgy. There was such a run 
 to see the new folk, that the Low Church was deserted, to the disgust 
 of its pastor ; and as the state barouche, with the greys and coachman 
 in silver wig, and solemn footmen, drew up at the old church-yard 
 gate, there was such a crowd assembled there as had not been seen 
 for many a long day. Captain Strong knew everybody, and saluted 
 for all the company. The country people vowed my lady was not 
 handsome, to be sure, but pronounced her to be uncommon fine 
 dressed, as indeed she was— with the finest of shawls, the finest of 
 pelisses, the brilliantest of bonnets and wreaths, and a power of rings, 
 cameos, brooches, chains, bangles, and other nameless gimcracks ; 
 and ribbons of every breadth and colour of the rainbow flaming on 
 her person. Miss Amory appeared meek in dove-colour, like a vestal 
 virgin— while Master Francis was in the costume then prevalent of
 
 212 FENDENNIS. 
 
 Rob Roy Macgregor, a celebrated Highland outlaw. The baronet was 
 not more animated than ordinarily — there was a happy vacuity about 
 him which enabled him to face a dinner, a death, a church, a marriage, 
 with the same indifferent ease. 
 
 A pew for the Clavering servants was filled by these domestics, 
 and the enraptured congregation saw the gentlemen from London with 
 " vlower on their heeds," and the miraculous coachman with his silver 
 wig, take their places in that pew so soon as his horses were put up at 
 the Clavering Arms. 
 
 In the course of the service, Master Francis began to make such 
 a yelling in the pew, that Frederick, the tallest of the footmen, was 
 beckoned by his master, and rose and went and carried out Master 
 Francis, who roared and beat him on the head, so that the powder 
 flew round about, like clouds of incense. Nor was he pacified until 
 placed on the box of the carriage, where he played at horses with 
 John's whip. 
 
 " You see the little beggar's never been to church before. Miss 
 Bell," the baronet drawled out to a young lady who was visiting him ; 
 " no wonder he should make a row : I don't go in town neither, but I 
 think it's right in the country to give a good example — and that sort 
 of thing." 
 
 Miss Bell laughed and said, " The little boy had not given a par- 
 ticularly good example." 
 
 " Gad, I don't know," said the baronet. " It ain't so bad neither. 
 Whenever he wants a thing, Frank always cwies, and whenever he 
 cwies he gets it." 
 
 Here the child in question began to howl for a dish of sweetmeats 
 on the luncheon-table, and making a lunge across the table-cloth, 
 upset a glass of wine over the best waistcoat of one of the guests 
 present, Mr. Arthur Pendennis, who was greatly annoyed at being 
 made to look foolish ; and at having his spotless cambric shirt-front 
 blotched with wine. 
 
 "We do spoil him so," said Lady Clavering to Mrs. Pendennis. 
 fondly gazing at the cherub, whose hands and face were now frothed 
 over with the species of lather which is inserted in the confection called 
 meringues d la cretne. 
 
 " Gad, I was quite wight," said the baronet. " He has cwied, and 
 he has got it, you see. Go it, Fwank, old boy." 
 
 "Sir Francis is a very judicious parent," Miss Amory whispered. 
 "Don"t you think so. Miss Bell.' I sha'nt call you Miss Bell— I shall 
 call you Laura. I admired you so at church. Your robe was not well 
 made, nor your bonnet very fresh. But you have such beautiful grey 
 eyes, and such a lovely tint." 
 
 " Thank you," said Miss Bell, laughing.
 
 PENDENNIS. 213 
 
 "Your cousin is handsome, and thinks so. He is uneasy de sa 
 pcrsoniic. He has not seen the world yet. Has he genius ? Has he 
 suffered ? A lady, a little woman in a rumpled satin and velvet shoes 
 —a Miss Pybus — came here, and said he has suffered. I, too, have 
 suffered, — and you, Laura, has your heart ever been touched.'"' 
 
 Laura said " No !" but perhaps blushed a little at the idea or the 
 question, so that the other said, — 
 
 " Ah, Laura ! I see it all. It is the beau cousin. Tell me every- 
 thing. I already love you as a sister." 
 
 " You are very kind," said Miss Bell, smiling, " and — and it must 
 be owned that it is a very sudden attachment." 
 
 " All attachments are so. It is electricity — spontaneity. It is 
 instantaneous. I knew I should love you from the moment I saw you. 
 Do you not feel it yourself.''" 
 
 " Not yet," said Laura; " but I daresay I shall if I try." 
 
 " Call me by my name, then." 
 
 " But I don't know it," Laura cried out. 
 
 " My name is Blanche — isn't it a pretty name ? Call me by it." 
 
 " Blanche — it is very pretty indeed." 
 
 " And while mamma talks with that kind-looking lady — what 
 relation is she to you .'' She must have been pretty once, but is 
 x'H'CnCiX passee J she is not well gantee, but she has a pretty hand^and 
 while mamma talks to her, come with me to my own room,^ — my own, 
 own room. It's a darling room, though that horrid creature. Captain 
 Strong, did arrange it. Are you epris of him? He says you are, 
 but I know better; it is the beau cousin. Yes—// a dc beaux yeux. 
 Je li'aime pas les blonds ordinairemeiit : car je suis blonde tnoi—je 
 sitis Blanche el blonde" — and she looked at her face and made a mone 
 in the glass ; and never stopped for Laura's answer to the questions 
 which she had put. 
 
 Blanche was fair and like a sylph. She had fair hair, with green 
 reflections in it. But she had dark eyebrows. She had long black 
 eyelashes, which veiled beautiful brown eyes. She had such a slim 
 waist, that it was a wonder to behold ; and such slim little feet, that 
 you would have thought the grass would hardly bend under them. 
 Her lips were of the colour of faint rosebuds, and her voice warbled 
 limpidly over a set of the sweetest little pearly teeth ever seen. She 
 showed them very often, for they were very pretty. She was always 
 smiling, and a smile not only showed her teeth wonderfully, but 
 likewise e.xhibited two lovely little pink dimples, that nestled in 
 cither cheek. 
 
 She showed Laura her drawings, which the other thought charming. 
 She played her some of her waltzes, with a rapid and brilliant finger, 
 and Laura was still more charmed. And she then read her some
 
 214 PENDENNIS. 
 
 poems, in French and English, hkewise of her own composition, and 
 which she kept locked in her own book — her own dear little book ; it 
 was bound in blue velvet, with a gilt lock, and on it was printed in gold 
 the title of " Mes Larmes."' 
 
 "'Ales Larmes!' — isn't it a pretty name?"' the young lady con- 
 tinued, who was pleased with everjthing that she did, and did ever>'- 
 thing very well. Laura owned that it was. She had never seen 
 anything like it before ; anything so lovely, so accomplished, so 
 fragile and pretty; warbling so prettily, and tripping about such a 
 pretty room, with such a number of pretty books, pictures, flowers, 
 round about her. The honest and generous country- girl forgot even 
 jealousy in her admiration. " Indeed, Blanche," she said, '• even-- 
 thing in the room is pretty ; and you are the prettiest of all. The 
 other smiled, looked in the glass, went up and took both of Laura's 
 hands, and kissed them, and sat down to the piano, and shook out a 
 little song. 
 
 The intimacy between the young ladies sprang up like Jack's 
 beanstalk to the skies in a single night. The large footmen were 
 perpetually walking with little pink notes to Fairoaks; where there 
 was a pretty housemaid in the kitchen, who might possibly tempt 
 those gentlemen to so humble a place. Miss Amory sent music, or 
 Miss Amory sent a new novel, or a picture from the " Journal des 
 Modes," to Laura ; or my lady's compliments arrived with flowers 
 and fruit; or Miss Amory begged and prayed Miss Bell to come 
 to dinner ; and dear Airs. Pendennis, if she was strong enough ; and 
 Mr. Arthur, if a humdrum party were not too stupid for him ; and 
 would send a pony-carriage for Mrs. Pendennis; and would take 
 no denial. 
 
 Neither Arthur nor Laura wished to refuse. And Helen, who was, 
 indeed, somewhat ailing, was glad that the two should have their 
 pleasure ; and would look at them fondly as they set forth, and ask 
 in her heart that she might not be called away until those two beings 
 whom she loved best in the world should be joined together. As 
 they went out and crossed over the bridge, she remembered summer 
 evenings live-and-twenty years ago, when she, too, had bloomed in her 
 brief prime of love and happiness. It was all over now. The moon 
 w^as looking from the purpling sky, and the stars glittering there, just 
 as they used in the early well-remembered evenings. He was lying 
 dead far away, with the billows rolling between them. Good God ! 
 how well she remembered the last look of his face as they parted. It 
 looked out at her through the vista of long years, as sad and as dear 
 as then. 
 
 So Mr. Pen and Miss Laura found the socictvat Clavcrins: Park an
 
 PENDENNIS. 215 
 
 uncommonly agreeable resort of summer evenings. Blanche vowed 
 that she raffble'd of Laura ; and, very likely, Mr. Pen was pleased with 
 Blanche. His spirits came back: he laughed and rattled till Laura 
 wondered to hear him. It was not the same Pen, yawning in a 
 shooting-jacket, in the Fairoaks parlour, who appeared alert and brisk, 
 and smiling, and well-dressed, in Lady Clavering's drawing-room. 
 Sometimes they had music. Laura had a sweet contralto voice, and 
 sang with Blanche, who had had the best continental instruction, and 
 was charmed to be her friend's mistress. Sometimes Mr. Pen joined 
 in these concerts, or oftener looked sweet upon Miss Blanche as she 
 sang. Sometimes they had glees, when Captain Strong's chest was of 
 vast service, and he boomed out in a prodigious bass, of which he was 
 not a little proud. 
 
 "Good fellow, Strong — ain't he. Miss Bell.'"' Sir Francis would 
 say to her. " Plays at ecarte with Lady Clavering — plays anything, 
 pitch and toss, pianoforty, cwibbage if you like. How long do you 
 think he's been staying with me "i He came for a week with a 
 carpet-bag, and Gad, he's been staying thwee years. Good fellow, 
 ain't he.'' Don't know how he gets a shillin', though, by Jove I don't, 
 Miss Lauwa." 
 
 And yet the Chevalier, if he lost his money to Lady Clavering, 
 always paid it ; and if he lived with his friend for three years, paid for 
 that too — in good humour, in kindness and joviality, in a thousand 
 little services by which he made himself agreeable. What gentleman 
 could want a better friend than a man who was always in spirits, never 
 in the way or out of it, and was ready to execute any commission for 
 his patron, whether it was to sing a song or meet a lawyer, to fight a 
 duel, or to carve a capon ? 
 
 Although Laura and Pen commonly went to Clavering Park 
 together, yet sometimes Mr. Pen took walks there unattended by 
 her, and about which he did not tell her. He took to fishing the 
 Brawl, which runs through the Park, and passes not very far from 
 the garden-wall ; and by the oddest coincidence, Miss Amory would 
 walk out (having been to look at her flowers), and would be quite 
 surprised to see Mr. Pendennis fishing. 
 
 I wonder what trout Pen caught while the young lady was looking 
 on ? or whether Miss Blanche was the pretty httle fish which played 
 round his fly, and which Mr. Pen was endeavouring to hook ? 
 
 As for Miss Blanche, she had a kind heart; and having, as she 
 owned, herself " suffered " a good deal in the course of her brief life 
 and experience — why, she could compassionate other susceptible beings 
 like Pen, who had suffered too. Her love for Laura and that dear 
 Mrs. Pendennis redoubled : if threy were not at the Park, she was not 
 easy unless she herself was at Fairoaks. She played with Laura ; she
 
 2i6 PENDENNIS. 
 
 read French and German with Laura ; and Mr. Pen read French and 
 German along with them. He turned sentimental ballads of Schiller 
 and Goethe into English verse for the ladies, and Blanche unlocked 
 " Mes Larmes " for him, and imparted to him some of the plaintive 
 outpourings of her own tender Muse. 
 
 It appeared from these poems that the young creature had indeed 
 suffered prodigiously. She was familiar with the idea of suicide. 
 Death she repeatedly longed for. A faded rose inspired her with such 
 grief that you would have thought she must die in pain of it. It was a 
 wonder how a young creature should have suffered so much — should 
 have found the means of getting at such an ocean of despair and 
 passion (as a run-away boy who will get to sea), and having embarked 
 on it, should survive it. What a talent she must have had for weep- 
 ing to be able to pour out so many of " Mes Larmes ! " 
 
 They were not particularly briny. Miss Blanche's tears, that is the 
 truth ; but Pen, who read her verses, thought them verj' well for a 
 lady — and wrote some verses himself for her. His were ver)- violent 
 and passionate, very hot, sweet, and strong : and he not only wrote 
 verses ; but — O, the villain ! O, the deceiver ! he altered and adapted 
 former poems in his possession, and which had been composed for a 
 certain Miss Emily Fotheringay, for the use and to the Christian name 
 of Miss Blanche Amory.
 
 PENDENNIS. 217 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 A LITTLE INNOCENT. 
 
 «"C* GAD, Strong," one day the Baronet said, as the pair were con- 
 -L-' versing after dinner over the bilHard-table, and that great 
 unbosomer of secrets, a cigar — " Egad, Strong, I wish to the doose 
 your wife was dead." 
 
 " So do I. That's a cannon, by Jove ! But she won't ; she'll live 
 for ever — you see if she don't. Why do you wish her off the hooks, 
 Frank, my boy 1 " asked Captain Strong. 
 
 " Because then you might marry Missy. She ain't bad-looking. 
 She'll have ten thousand, and that's a good bit of money for such a 
 poor old devil as you," drawled out the other gentleman. " And egad. 
 Strong, I hate her worse and worse every day. I can't stand her. 
 Strong ; by gad, I can't." 
 
 " I wouldn't take her at twice the figure," Captain Strong said, 
 laughing. " I never saw such a little devil in my life." 
 
 " I should like to poison her," said the sententious Baronet ; " by 
 Jove I should." 
 
 " Why, what has she been at now ? " asked his friend. 
 
 " Nothing particular," answered Sir Francis ; " only her old tricks. 
 That girl has such a knack of making everybody miserable that, hang 
 me, it's quite surprising. Last night she sent the governess crying 
 away from the dinner-table. Afterwards, as I was passing Frank's 
 room, I heard the poor little beggar howling in the dark, and found 
 his sister had been frightening his soul out of his body, by telling him 
 stories about the ghost that's in the house. At lunch she gave my 
 lady a turn; and though my wife's a fool, she's a good soul — I'm 
 hanged if she ain't." 
 
 " What did Missy do to her ? " Strong asked. 
 
 " Why, hang me, if she didn't begin talking about the late Amory, 
 my predecessor," the Baronet said, with a grin. " She got some 
 picture out of ' the Keepsake,' and said she was sure it was like her 
 dear father. She wanted to know where her father's grave was. Hang 
 her father! Whenever Miss Amory talks about him. Lady Clavering 
 always bursts out crying : and the little devil will talk about him in 
 order to spite her mother. To-day when she be^an, I got in a con-
 
 2i8 PENDENNIS. 
 
 founded rage, said I was her father, and — and that sort of thing, and 
 then, sir, she took a shy at me.'"' 
 
 " And what did she say about you, Frank ? '"' Mr. Strong, still 
 laughing, inquired of his friend and patron. 
 
 " Gad, she said I wasn't her father ; that I wasn't fit to compre- 
 hend her; that her father must have been a man of genius, and fine 
 feelings, and that sort of thing ; whereas 1 had married her mother for 
 money." 
 
 " Well, didn't you ? " asked Strong. 
 
 " It don't make it any the pleasanter to hear because it's true, don't 
 you know ? " Sir Francis Clavering answered. " I ain't a literary man 
 and that ; but I ain't such a fool as she makes me out. I don't know- 
 how it is, but she always manages to — to put me in the hole, don't 
 you understand ? She turns aU the house round her in her quiet 
 way, and with her confounded sentimental airs. I wish she was 
 dead, Ned." 
 
 " It was my wife whom you wanted dead just now," Strong said, 
 always in perfect good humour; upon which the Baronet, with his 
 accustomed candour, said, " Well, when people bore my life out, I do 
 wish they were dead, and I wish Missy were down a well with all my 
 heart." 
 
 Thus it will be seen from the above report of this candid conver- 
 sation that our accomplished little friend had some peculiarities or 
 defects of character which rendered her not very popular. She was a 
 young lady of some genius, exquisite sympathies and considerable 
 literary attainments, living, like many another genius, with relatives 
 who could not comprehend her. Neither her mother nor her step- 
 father were persons of a literarj' turn. " BeU's Life " and the " Racing 
 Calendar " were the extent of the Baronet's reading, and Lady Claver- 
 ing still wrote like a school-girl of thirteen, and with an extraordinary 
 disregard to grammar and spelling. And as Miss Amor\' felt very 
 keenly that she was not appreciated, and that she lived with persons 
 who were not her equals in intellect or conversational power, she lost 
 no opportunity to acquaint her family circle with their inferiority to 
 herself, and not only was a martyr, but took care to let ever)-body 
 know that she was so. If she suffered, as she said and thought she 
 did, severely, are we to wonder that a young creature of such delicate 
 sensibilities should shriek and cry out a good deal } If a poetess may 
 not bemoan her lot, of what earthly use is her lyre ? Blanche struck 
 hers only to the saddest of tunes; and sang elegies over her dead 
 hopes, dirges over her early frost-nipt buds of affection, as beoame such 
 a melancholy fate and Muse. 
 
 Her actual distresses, as we have said, had not been up to the 
 present time very considerable ; but her griefs lay, like those of most
 
 PENDENNIS. 219 
 
 of us, in her own soul— that being sad and habitually dissatisfied, 
 what wonder that she should weep ? So " Mes Larmes" dribbled out 
 of her eyes any day at command: she could furnish an unlimited 
 supply of tears, and her faculty of shedding them increased by prac- 
 tice. For sentiment is like another complaint mentioned by Horace, 
 as increasing by self-indulgence (I am sorry to say, ladies, that the 
 complaint in question is called the dropsy), and the more you cry, the 
 more you will be able and desirous to do so. 
 
 Missy had begun to gush at a very early age. Lamartine was her 
 favourite bard from the period when she first could feel ; and she had 
 subsequently improved her mind by a sedulous study of novels of the 
 great modern authors of the French language. There was not a 
 romance of Balzac and George Sand which the indefatigable little 
 creature had not devoured by the time she was sixteen : and, however 
 little she sympathised with her relatives at home, she had friends, as 
 she said, in the spirit-world, meaning the tender Indiana, the pas- 
 sionate and poetic Lelia, the amiable Trenmor, that high-souled 
 convict, that angel of the galleys, — the fiery Stenio, — and other num- 
 berless heroes of the French romances. She had been in love with 
 Prince Rodolph and Prince Djalma while she was yet at school, and 
 had settled the divorce question, and the rights of women, with Indiana, 
 before she had left off pinafores. The impetuous little lady played at 
 love with these imaginary worthies, as a little while before she had 
 played at maternity with her doll. Pretty little poetical spirits ! it is 
 curious to watch them with those playthings. To-day the blue-eyed 
 one is the favourite, and the black-eyed one is pushed behind the 
 drawers. To-morrow blue-eyes may take its turn of neglect : and it 
 may be an odious little wretch with a burnt nose, or torn head of hair, 
 and no eyes at all, that takes the first place in Miss's affections, and is 
 dandled and caressed in her arms. 
 
 As novelists are supposed to know everything, even the secrets of 
 female hearts, which the owners themselves do not perhaps know, we 
 may state that at eleven years of age, Mademoiselle Betsi, as Miss 
 Amory was then called, had felt tender emotions towards a young 
 Savoyard organ-grinder at Paris, whom she persisted in believing to 
 be a prince carried off from his parents ; that at twelve an old and 
 hideous drawing-master — (but, ah, what age or personal defects are 
 proof against woman's love ?) had agitated her young heart ; and that, 
 at thirteen, being at Madame de Carmel's boarding-school, in the 
 Champs Elysdes, which, as everybody knows, is ne.xt door to Monsieur 
 Rogron's (Chevalier of the Legion of Honour) pension for young gen- 
 tlemen, a correspondence by letter took place between the seduisante 
 Miss Betsi and two young gentlemen of the College of Charlemagne, 
 who were pensioners of the Chevalier Rogron.
 
 220 PENDENNIS. 
 
 In the above paragraph our young friend has been called by a 
 Christian name, different to that under which we were lately presented 
 to her. The fact is, that Miss Amory, called Missy at home, had 
 really at the first been christened Betsy — but assumed the name of 
 Blanche of her own will and fantasy, and crowned herself with it; and 
 the weapon which the Baronet, her step-father, held in terror over her, 
 was the threat to call her publicly by her name of Betsy, by which 
 menace he sometimes managed to keep the young rebel in order. 
 
 Blanche had had hosts of dear, dear, darling friends ere now, and 
 had quite a little museum of locks of hair in her treasure-chest, which 
 she had gathered in the course of her sentimental progress. Some 
 dear friends had married : some had gone to other schools : one 
 beloved sister she had lost from the pension, and found again, O 
 horror ! her darling, her L^ocadie, keeping the books in her father's 
 shop, a grocer in the Rue du Bac : in fact, she had met with a number 
 of disappointments, estrangements, disillusionments, as she called 
 them in her pretty French jargon, and had seen and suffered a great 
 deal for so young a woman. But it is the lot of sensibility to suffer, 
 and of confiding tenderness to be deceived, and she felt that she was 
 only undergoing the penalties of genius in these pangs and disappoint- 
 ments of her young career. 
 
 Meanwhile, she managed to make the honest lady, her mother, as 
 uncomfortable as circumstances would permit ; and caused her worthy 
 step-father to wish she was dead. With the exception of Captain 
 Strong, whose invincible good humour was proof against her sar- 
 casms, the little lady ruled the whole house with her tongue. If Lady 
 Clavering talked about Sparrowgrass instead of Asparagus, or called 
 an object a hobject, as this unfortunate lady would sometimes do, 
 Missy calmly corrected her, and frightened the good soul her mother 
 into errors only the more frequent as she grew more nerv-ous under 
 her daughter's eye. 
 
 It is not to be supposed, considering the vast interest which the 
 arrival of the family at Clavering Park inspired in the inhabitants 
 of the little town, that Madame Fribsby alone, of all the folks in 
 Clavering, should have remained unmoved and incurious. At the first 
 appearance of the Park family in church, Madame noted evers- article 
 of toilette which the ladies wore, from their bonnets to their brode- 
 quins, and took a survey of the attire of the ladies'-maids in the pew 
 allotted to them. We fear that Doctor Portman's scniion, though it 
 was one of his oldest and most valued compositions, had little effect 
 upon Madame Fribsby on that day. In a ver>- few days afterwards, 
 she had managed for herself an interview with Lady Clavering's con- 
 fidential attendant, in the housekeepers room at the Park; and hei
 
 PENDENNIS. 221 
 
 cards in French and English, stating that she received the newest 
 fashions from Paris from her correspondent Madame Victorine, and 
 that she was in the custom of making court and ball dresses for the 
 nobility and gentry of the shire, were in the possession of Lady 
 Clavering and Miss Amory, and favourably received, as she was 
 happy to hear, by those ladies. 
 
 Mrs. Bonner, Lady Clavering's lady, became soon a great fre- 
 quenter of Madame Fribsby's drawing-room, and partook of many 
 entertainments at the milliner's expense. A meal of green tea, 
 scandal, hot Sally-Lunn cakes, and a little novel-reading, were 
 always at the service of Mrs. Bonner, whenever she was free to pass 
 an evening in the town. And she found much more time for these 
 pleasures than her junior officer, Miss Amory's maid, who seldom 
 could be spared for a holiday, and was worked as hard as any factory 
 girl by that inexorable little Muse, her mistress. 
 
 And there was another person connected with the Clavering estab- 
 lishment, who became a constant guest of our friend, the milliner. 
 This was the chief of the kitchen. Monsieur Mirobolant, with whom 
 Madame Fribsby soon formed an intimacy. 
 
 Not having been accustomed to the appearance or society of 
 persons of the French nation, the rustic inhabitants of Clavering 
 were not so favourably impressed by Monsieur Alcide's manners and 
 appearance, as that gentleman might have desired that they should 
 be. He walked among them quite unsuspiciously upon the afternoon 
 of a summer day, when his services were not required at the House, in 
 his usual favourite costume, namely, his light green frock or paletot, 
 his crimson velvet waistcoat, with blue glass buttons, his pantalon 
 Ecossais, of a very large and decided check pattern, his orange satin 
 neckcloth, and his jean-boots, with tips of shiny leather, — these, with 
 a gold-embroidered cap, and a richly-gilt cane, or other varieties of 
 ornament of a similar tendency, formed his usual holiday costume, 
 in which he flattered himself there was nothing remarkable (unless, 
 indeed, the beauty of his person should attract observation), and in 
 which he considered that he exhibited the appearance of a gentleman 
 of good Parisian ton. 
 
 He walked then down the street, grinning and ogling every woman 
 he met with glances, which he meant should kill them outright, and 
 peered over the railings, and in at the windows, where females were, 
 in the tranquil summer evening. But Betsy, Mrs. Pybus's maid, 
 shrank back with a " Lor' bless us ! " as Alcide ogled her over the 
 laurel bush; the Miss Bakers, and their mamma, stared with wonder; 
 and presently a crowd began to follow the interesting foreigner, of 
 ragged urchins and children, who left their dirt -pies in the street to 
 pursue him.
 
 222 FENDENNIS. 
 
 For some time he thought that admiration was the cause which 
 led these persons in his wake, and walked on, pleased himself that he 
 could so easily confer on others so much harmless pleasure. But the 
 little children and dirt-pie manufacturers were presently succeeded 
 by followers of a larger growth, and a number of lads and girls from 
 the factory being let loose at this hour, joined the mob, and began 
 laughing, jeering, hooting, and calling opprobrious names at the 
 Frenchman. Some cried out, " Frenchy ! Frenchy !" some exclaimed 
 " Frogs ! " one asked for a lock of his hair, which was long and in 
 richly-flowing ringlets ; and at length the poor artist began to perceive 
 that he was an object of derision rather than of respect to the rude 
 grinning mob. 
 
 It was at this juncture that Madame Fribsby spied the unlucky 
 gentleman with the train at his heels, and heard the scornful shouts 
 with which they assailed him. She ran out of her room, and across 
 the street to the persecuted foreigner; she held out her hand, and, 
 addressing him in his own language, invited him into her abode ; and 
 when she had housed him fairly within her door, she stood bravely 
 at the threshold before the gibing factory girls and boys, and said they 
 were a pack of cowards to insult a poor man who could not speak their 
 language, and was alone and without protection. The little crowd, 
 with some ironical cheers and hootings, nevertheless felt the force of 
 Madame Fribsby's vigorous allocution, and retreated before her; for 
 the old lady was rather respected in the place, and her oddity and 
 her kindness had made her many friends there. 
 
 Poor Mirobolant was grateful indeed to hear the language of his 
 country ever so iU spoken. Frenchmen pardon our faults in their 
 language much more readily than we excuse their bad English ; and 
 will face our blunders throughout a long conversation, without the least 
 propensity to grin. The rescued artist vowed that Madame Fribsby 
 was his guardian angel, and that he had not as yet met with such 
 suavity and pohteness among les Anglaises. He was as courteous 
 and complimentaiy to her as if it was the fairest and noblest of ladies 
 whom he was addressing ; for Alcide Mirobolant paid homage after 
 his fashion to all womankind, and never dreamed of a distinction of 
 ranks in the realms of beauty, as his phrase was. 
 
 A cream, flavoured with pine-apple — a mayonnaise of lobster, 
 which he flattered himself was not unworthy of his hand, or of her 
 to whom he had the honour to offer it as an homage, and a box of 
 presened fruits of Provence, were brought by one of the chefs 
 aides-de-camp, in a basket, the next day, to the milliner's, and were 
 accompanied with a gallant note to the amiable Madame Fribsby. 
 " Her kindness," Alcides said, " had made a green place in the desert 
 of his existence, — her suavity would ever contrast in memor}' with the
 
 PENDENNIS. 223 
 
 gi'ossieretS of the rustic population, who weie not worthy to possess 
 such a jewel." An intimacy of the most confidential nature thus 
 sprang up between the milliner and the chief of the kitchen ; but I do 
 not know whether it was with pleasure or mortification that Madame 
 received the declarations of friendship which the young Alcides prof- 
 fered to her, for he persisted in calling her, " La respectable Fribsbi^' 
 " La vertiieiise Fribsbi" — and in stating that he should consider her 
 as his mother, while he hoped she would regard him as her son. Ah ! 
 it was not very long ago, Fribsby thought, that words had been 
 addressed to her in that dear French language, indicating a different 
 sort of attachment. And she sighed as she looked up at the picture of 
 her Carabineer. For it is surprising how young some people's hearts 
 remain when their heads have need of a front or a little hair-dye, and, 
 at this moment, Madame Fribsby, as she told young Alcide, felt as 
 romantic as a girl of eighteen. 
 
 When the conversation took this turn — and at their first intimacy 
 Madame Fribsby was rather inclined so to lead it — Alcide always 
 politely diverged to another subject : it was as his mother that he per- 
 sisted in considering the good milliner. He would recognize her in no 
 other capacity, and with that relationship the gentle lady was forced 
 to content herself, when she found how deeply the artist's heart was 
 engaged elsewhere. 
 
 He was not long before he described to her the subject and origin 
 of his passion. 
 
 " I declared myself to her," said Alcide, laying his hand on his 
 heart, " in a manner which was as novel as I am charmed to think it 
 was agreeable. Where cannot Love penetrate, respectable Madame 
 Fribsbi ? Cupid is the father of invention ! — I inquired of the 
 domestics what were the plats of which Mademoiselle partook with 
 most pleasure, and built up my little battery accordingly. On a day 
 when her parents had gone to dine in the world (and I am grieved to 
 say that a grossier dinner at a restaurant, on the Boulevard, or in 
 the Palais Royal, seemed to form the delights of these unrefined 
 persons), the charming Miss entertained some comrades of the 
 pension ; and I advised myself to send up a little repast suitable to 
 so delicate young palates. Her lovely name is Blanche. The veil of 
 the maiden is white ; the wreath of roses which she wears is white. 
 I determined that my dinner should be as spotless as the snow. At 
 her accustomed hour, and instead of the rude gigot il lean which was 
 ordinarily served at her too simple table, I sent her up a \\n\c potage 
 a la Reine—a la Rcine Blanche I called it,— as white as her own tint, 
 and confectioned with the most fragrant cream and almonds. I then 
 offered up at her shrine ?i filet de vierlan ct P Agnes, and a delicate 
 plat, which I have designated as Eperlan d, la Sainte Therlse, and of
 
 224 PENDENNIS. 
 
 which my charming INIiss partook with pleasure. I followed this by 
 two little entrees of sweetbread and chicken ; and the only brown 
 thing which I permitted myself in the entertainment was a little roast 
 of lamb, which I laid in a meadow of spinaches, surrounded with 
 croustillons, representing sheep, and ornamented with daisies and 
 other savage flowers. After this came my second ser\ice : a pudding 
 a la Reine Elizabeth (who, Madame Fribsbi knows, was a maiden 
 princess) ; a dish of opal-coloured plovers' eggs, which I called Nid 
 lie toiirtereatix a la Roiicotdej placing in the midst of them two of 
 those tender volatiles, billing each other, and confectioned with 
 butter ; a basket containing little gateaux of apricots, which I know 
 all young ladies adore; and a jelly of marasquin, bland, insinuating, 
 intoxicating as the glance of beauty. This I designated Ambroisie de 
 Calypso a la Souveraine de mon Ccsur. And when the ice was brought 
 in — an ice o^ plotnbiere and cherries — how do you think I had shaped 
 them, Madame Fribsbi? In the form of two hearts united with an 
 arrow, on which I had laid, before it entered, a bridal veil, in cut- 
 paper, surmounted by a wreath of virginal orange-flowers. I stood 
 at the door to watch the effect of this entry. It was but one cry of 
 admiration. The three young ladies filled their glasses with the 
 sparkling Ay, and carried me in a toast. I heard it — I heard Miss speak 
 of me — I heard her say, ' Tell Monsieur Mirobolant that we thank him 
 — we admire him — we love him ! ' My feet almost failed me as she spoke. 
 
 " Since that, can I have any reason to doubt that the young artist 
 has made some progress in the heart of the F.nglish Miss ? I am 
 modest, but my glass informs me that I am not ill-looking. Other 
 victories have convinced me of the fact." 
 
 " Dangerous man ! " cried the milliner. 
 
 " The blonde misses of Albion see nothing in the dull inhabitants 
 of their brumous isle, which can compare with the ardour and vivacity 
 of the children of the South. We bring our sunshine with us ; we are 
 Frenchmen, and accustomed to conquer. Were it not for this affair 
 of the heart, and my determination to marry an Anglaise, do you think 
 I would stop in this island (which is not altogether ungrateful, since I 
 have found here a tender mother in the respectable Madame Fribsbi), 
 in this island, in this family .^ My genius would use itself in the com- 
 pany of these rustics — the poesy of my art cannot be understood by 
 these carnivorous insularies. No — the men are odious, but the women 
 — the women, I own, dear Fribsbi, are seducing ! I have vowed to 
 marry one : and as I cannot go into your markets and purchase, 
 according to the custom of the country, I am resolved to adopt 
 another custom, and fly with one to Gretna Grin. The blonde Miss 
 will go. She is fascinated. Her eyes have told me so. The white 
 dove wants but the signal to fly."
 
 PENDENNIS. 225 
 
 "Have you any correspondence with her?" asked Fribsby, in 
 amazement, and not knowing whether the young lady or the lover 
 might be labouring under a romantic delusion. 
 
 " I correspond with her by means of my art. She partakes of 
 dishes which I make expressly for her. I insinuate to her thus a 
 thousand hints, which, as she is perfectly spiritual, she receives. But 
 I want other intelligences near her." 
 
 " There is Pincott, her maid," said Madame Fribsby, who, by 
 aptitude or education, seemed to have some knowledge of affairs of 
 the heart, but the great artist's brow darkened at this suggestion. 
 
 " Madame," he said, " there are points upon which a gallant man 
 ought to silence himself; though, if he break the secret, he may do so 
 with the least impropriety to his best friend — his adopted mother. 
 Know then, that there is a cause why Miss Pincott should be hostile 
 to me — a cause not uncommon with your sex — ^jealousy." 
 
 " Perfidious monster ! " said the confidante. 
 
 " Ah, no," said the artist, with a deep bass voice, and a tragic 
 accent worthy of the Porte St. Martin and his favourite melo-drames, 
 " not perfidious, but fatal. Yes, I an: a fatal man, Madame Fribsbi. 
 To inspire hopeless passion is my destiny. I cannot help it that 
 women love me. Is it my fault that that young woman deperishes 
 and languishes to the view of the eye, consumed by a flame which I 
 cannot return ? Listen ! There are others in this family who are 
 similarly unhappy. The governess of the young Milor has encountered 
 me in my walks, and looked at me in a way which can bear but one 
 interpretation. And Milady herself, who is of mature age, but who 
 has oriental blood, has once or twice addressed compliments to the 
 lonely artist which can admit of no mistake. I avoid the household, 
 I seek solitude, I undergo my destiny. I can marry but one, and am 
 resolved it shall be to a lady of your nation. And, if her fortune is 
 sufficient, I think Miss would be the person who would be most 
 suitable. I wish to ascertain what her means are before I lead her to 
 Gretna Grin." 
 
 Whether Alcide was as irresistible a conqueror as his namesake, or 
 whether he was simply crazy, is a point which must be left to the 
 reader's judgment. But the latter, if he has had the benefit of much 
 French acquaintance, has perhaps met with men amongst them who 
 fancied themselves almost as invincible ; and who, if you credit them, 
 have made equal havoc in the hearts oi Ics Aitglafses. 
 
 IS
 
 226 PENDENNIS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 CONTAINS BOTH LOVE AND JEALOUSY. 
 
 OUR readers have already heard Sir Francis Clavering's candid 
 opinion of the lady who had given him her fortune and restored 
 him to his native country and home, and it must be owned that the 
 baronet was not far wrong in his estimate of his wife, and that Lady 
 Clavering was not the wisest or the best educated of women. She 
 had had a couple of years' education in Europe, in a suburb of 
 London, which she persisted in calling 'Ackney to her dying day, 
 whence she had been summoned to join her father at Calcutta at the 
 age of fifteen. And it was on her voyage thither, on board the Ram- 
 chunder East Indiaman, Captain Bragg, in which ship she had two 
 years previously made her journey to Europe, that she formed the 
 acquaintance of her first husband, Mr. Amory, who was third mate of 
 the vessel in question. 
 
 We are not going to enter into the early part of Lady Clavering's 
 histor}', but Captain Bragg, under whose charge Miss Snell went out 
 to her father, who was one of the Captain's consignees, and part owner 
 of the Ramchunder and many other vessels, found reason to put the 
 rebellious rascal of a mate in irons, until they reached the Cape, where 
 the Captain left his officer behind : and finally delivered his ward to 
 her father at Calcutta, after a stormy and perilous voyage in which the 
 Ramchunder and the cargo and passengers incurred no small danger 
 and damage. 
 
 Some months afterwards Amor}' made his appearance at Calcutta, 
 having worked his way out before the mast from the Cape — married 
 the rich Attorney's daughter in spite of that old speculator — set up as 
 indigo-planter and failed — set up as agent and failed again — set up 
 as editor of the " Sunderbund Pilot " and failed again — quarrelling 
 ceaselessly with his father-in-law and his wife during the progress of 
 all these mercantile transactions and disasters, and ending his career 
 finally with a crash which compelled him to leave Calcutta and go to 
 New South Wales. It was in the course of these luckless proceedings, 
 that Mr. Amor>' probably made the acquaintance of Sir Jasper Rogers, 
 the respected Judge of the Supreme Court of Calcutta, who has been 
 mentioned before : and, as the truth must out, it was by making an
 
 PE.WDEANIS. 
 
 227 
 
 improper use of his father-in-law's name, who could write perfectly 
 well, and had no need of an amanuensis, that fortune finally forsook 
 Mr. Amory and caused him to abandon all further struggles with her. 
 
 Not being in the habit of reading the Calcutta law-reports very 
 assiduously, the European public did not know of these facts as well 
 as people did in Bengal, and Mrs. Amory and her father finding her 
 residence in India not a comfortable one, it was agreed that the lady 
 should return to Europe, whither she came with her little daughter 
 Betsy or Blanche, then four years old. They were accompanied by 
 Betsy's nurse, who has been presented to the reader in the last chapter 
 as the confidential maid of Lady Clavering, Mrs. Bonner: and Captain 
 Bragg took a house for them in the near neighbourhood of his residence 
 in Pocklington Street. 
 
 It was a very hard bitter summer, and the rain it rained every day 
 for some time after Mrs. Amory's arrival. Bragg was very pompous 
 and disagreeable, perhaps ashamed, perhaps anxious, to get rid of the 
 Indian lady. She believed that all the world in London was talking 
 about her husband's disaster, and that the King and Queen and tlie 
 Court of Directors were aware of her unlucky history. She had a 
 good allowance from her father ; she had no call to live in England ; 
 and she determined to go abroad. Away she went, then, glad to 
 escape the gloomy surveillance of the odious bully. Captain Bragg. 
 People had no objection to receive her at the continental towns where 
 she stopped, and at the various boarding-houses, where she royally 
 paid her way. She called Hackney 'Ackney, to be sure (though other- 
 wise she spoke English with a little foreign twang, very curious and 
 not unpleasant) ; she dressed amazingly ; she was conspicuous for her 
 love of eating and drinking, and prepared curries and pillaus at every 
 boarding-house which she frequented ; but her singularities of language 
 and behaviour only gave a zest to her society, and Mrs. Amory was 
 deservedly popular. She was the most good-natured, jovial, and 
 generous of women. She was up to any party of pleasure by whom- 
 soever proposed. She brought three times more champagne and fowls 
 and ham to the picnics than any one else. She took endless boxes for 
 the play, and tickets for the masked balls, and gave them away to 
 everybody. She paid the boarding-house people months bcforeliand ; 
 she helped poor shabby mustachiod bucks and dowagers, whose 
 remittances had not arrived, with constant supplies from her purse; 
 and in this way she tramped through Europe, and appeared at Brussels, 
 at Paris, at Milan, at Naples, at Rome, as her fancy led her. News of 
 Amory's death reached her at the latter place, where Captain Clavering 
 was then staying, unable to pay his hotel bill, as, indeed, was his 
 friend, the Chevalier Strong, and the good-natured widow married the 
 descendant of the ancient house of Clavering— professing, indeed, no
 
 228 PENDEN.WIS. 
 
 particular grief for the scapegrace of a husband whom she had lost : 
 and thus we have brought her up to the present time when she was 
 mistress of Clavering Park, 
 
 Missy followed her mamma in most of her peregrinations, and so 
 learned a deal of life. She had a governess for some time ; and after 
 her mother's second marriage, the benefit of Madame de Caramel's 
 select pension in the Champs Elysees. When the Claverings came 
 to England, she of course came with them. It was only within a few 
 years, after the death of her grandfather, and the birth of her little 
 brother, that she began to understand that her position in life was 
 altered, and that Miss Amorj', nobody's daughter, was a ven>' small 
 personage in a house compared with Master Francis Clavering, heir 
 to an ancient baronetcy, and a noble estate. But for little Frank, she 
 would have been an heiress, in spite of her father : and though she 
 knew and cared not much about money, of which she never had any 
 stint, and though she was a romantic little Muse, as we have seen, yet 
 she could not reasonably be grateful to the persons who had so con- 
 tributed to change her condition : nor, indeed, did she understand 
 what the matter really was, until she had made some further progress, 
 and acquired more accurate knowledge in the world. 
 
 But this was clear, that her step-father was duU and weak: that 
 mamma dropped her //"s, and was not refined in manners or appear- 
 ance ; and that little Frank was a spoiled quarrelsome urchin, always 
 having his way, always treading upon her feet, always upsetting his 
 dinner on her dresses, and keeping her out of her inheritance. None 
 of these, as she felt, could comprehend her : and her solitary heart 
 naturally pined for other attachments, and she sought around her where 
 to bestow the precious boon of her unoccupied affection. 
 
 This dear girl, then, from want of sympathy, or other cause, made 
 herself so disagreeable at home, and frightened her mother, and bored 
 her step-father so much, that they were quite as anxious as she could 
 be that she should settle for herself in life ; and hence Sir Francis 
 Clavering's desire expressed to his friend, in the last chapter, that 
 Mrs. Strong should die. and that he would take Blanche to himself 
 as a second ]\Irs. Strong. 
 
 But as this could not be, any other person was welcome to win 
 her: and a smart young fellow, well-looking and well educated, like 
 our friend Arthur Pendennis, was quite free to propose for her if he 
 had a mind, and would have been received with open arms by Lady 
 Clavering as a son-in-law, had he had the courage to come forward as 
 a competitor for Miss Amory's hand. 
 
 Mr. Pen, however, besides other drawbacks, chose to entertain 
 an extreme diffidence about himself He was ashamed of his late 
 failures, of his idle and nameless condition, of the poverty which he
 
 PENDENNIS. 229 
 
 had brought on his mother by his folly, and there was as much of 
 vanity as remorse in his present state of doubt and distrust. How 
 could he ever hope for such a prize as this brilliant Blanche Amory, 
 who lived in a fine park and mansion, and was waited on by a score 
 of grand domestics, whilst a maid-servant brought in their meagre 
 meal at Fairoaks, and his mother was obliged to pinch and manage 
 to make both ends meet ? Obstacles seemed to him insurmountable, 
 which would have vanished had he marched manfully upon them : 
 and he preferred despairing, or dallying with his wishes, — or perhaps 
 he had not positively shaped them as yet, — to attempting to win 
 gallantly the object of his desire. Many a young man fails by that 
 species of vanity called shyness, who might, for the asking, have 
 his will. 
 
 But we do not pretend to say that Pen had, as yet, ascertained 
 his : or that he was doing much more than thinking about falling in 
 love. Miss Amory was charming and lively. She fascinated and 
 cajoled him by a thousand arts or natural graces or flatteries. But 
 there were lurking reasons and doubts, besides shyness and vanity, 
 withholding him. In spite of her cleverness, and her protestations, 
 and her fascinations. Pen's mother had divined the girl, and did not 
 trust her. Mrs. Pendennis saw Blanche light-minded and frivolous, 
 detected many wants in her which offended the pure and pious- 
 minded lady; a want of reverence for her parents, and for things 
 more sacred, Helen thought : worldliness and selfishness couched 
 under pretty words and tender expressions. Laura and Pen battled 
 these points strongly at first with the widow — Laura being as yet 
 enthusiastic about her new friend, and Pen not far-gone enough in 
 love to attempt any concealment of his feelings. He would laugh at 
 these objections of Helen's, and say, " Psha, mother! you are jealous 
 about Laura — all women are jealous." 
 
 But when, in the course of a month or two, and by watching the 
 pair with that anxiety with which brooding women watch over their 
 sons' affections — and in acknowledging which, I have no doubt there 
 is a sexual jealousy on the mother's part, and a secret pang — when 
 Helen saw that the intimacy appeared to make progress, that the two 
 young people were perpetually finding pretexts to meet, and that 
 Miss Blanche was at Fairoaks or Mr. Pen at the park every day, the 
 poor widow's heart began to fail her— her darling project seemed to 
 vanish before her ; and, giving way to her weakness, she fairly told 
 Pen one day what her views and longings were ; that she felt herself 
 breaking, and not long for this world, and that she hoped and prayed 
 before she went, that she might see her two children one. The late 
 events. Pen's life and career and former passion for the actress, had 
 broken the spirit of this tender lady. She felt that he had escaped
 
 230 PENDENNIS. 
 
 her, and was in the maternal nest no more : and she clung with a 
 sickening fondness to Laura, Laura who had been left to her by 
 Francis in Heaven. 
 
 Pen kissed and soothed her in his grand patronising way. He 
 had seen something of this, he had long thought his mother wanted 
 to make this marriage — did Laura know anything of it ? (Not she, — 
 Mrs. Pendennis said — not for worlds would she have breathed a word 
 of it to Laura) — " Well, well, there was time enough, his mother 
 wouldn't die," Pen said, laughingly : " he wouldn't hear of any such 
 thing, and as for the Muse, she is too grand a lady to think about 
 poor little me — and as for Laura, who knows that she would have 
 me? She would do anything you told her, to be sure. But am I 
 worthy of her ? " 
 
 " O, Pen, you might be," was the widow's reply ; not that Mr. Pen 
 ever doubted that he was ; and a feeling of indefinable pleasure and 
 self-complacency came over him as he thought over this proposal, and 
 imaged Laura to himself, as his memory remembered her for years 
 past, always fair and open, kindly and pious, cheerful, tender, and true. 
 He looked at her with brightening eyes as she came in from the garden 
 at the end of this talk, her cheeks rather flushed, her looks frank and 
 smiling — a basket of roses in her hand. 
 
 She took the finest of them and brought it to Mrs. Pendennis, who 
 was refreshed by the odour and colour of these flowers ; and hung over 
 her fondly and gave it to her. 
 
 " And I might have this prize for the asking ! " Pen thought, with 
 a thrill of triumph, as he looked at the kindly girl. " Why, she is as 
 beautiful and as generous as her roses." The image of the two women 
 remained for ever after in his mind, and he never recalled it but the 
 tears came into his eyes. 
 
 Before very many weeks' intimacy with her new acquaintance, 
 however, Miss Laura was obliged to give in to Helen's opinion, and 
 own that the Muse was selfish, unkind, and inconstant. 
 
 Little Frank, for instance, might be very provoking, and might 
 have deprived Blanche of her mamma's affection, but this was no 
 reason why Blanche should box the child's ears because he upset a 
 glass of water over her drawing, and why she should call him many 
 opprobrious names in the English and French language; and the 
 preference accorded to little Frank was certainly no reason why 
 Blanche should give herself imperial airs of command towards the 
 boy's governess, and send that young lady upon messages through the 
 house to bring her book or to fetch her pocket-handkerchief. When 
 a domestic performed an errand for honest Laura, she was always 
 thankful and pleased ; whereas, she could not but perceive that the 
 little Muse had not the slightest scruple in giving her commands to
 
 PENDENNIS. 231 
 
 all the world round about her, and in disturbing anybody's ease or 
 comfort, in order to administer to her own. It was Laura's first 
 experience in friendship ; and it pained the kind creature's heart to 
 be obliged to give up as delusions, one by one, those charms and 
 brilliant qualities in which her fancy had dressed her new friend, and 
 to find that the fascinating little fairy was but a mortal, and not a very 
 amiable mortal after all. What generous person is there that has not 
 been so deceived in his time ? — what person, perhaps, that has not so 
 disappointed others in his turn ? 
 
 After the scene with little Frank, in which that refractory son and 
 heir of the house of Clavering had received the compliments in French 
 and English, and the accompanying box on the ear from his sister. 
 Miss Laura, who had plenty of humour, could not help calling to mind 
 some very touching and tender verses which the Muse had read to her 
 out of " Mes Larmes," and which began, " My pretty baby brother, may 
 angels guard thy rest," in which the Muse, after complimenting the 
 baby upon the station in life which it was about to occupy, and con- 
 trasting it with her own lonely condition, vowed nevertheless that the 
 angel boy would never enjoy such affection as hers was, or find in the 
 false world before him anything so constant and tender as a sister's 
 heart. " It may be," the forlorn one said, " it may be, you will slight 
 it, my pretty baby sweet. You will spurn me from your bosom, I'll 
 cling around your feet ! O let me, let me, love you ! the world will 
 prove to you As false as 'tis to others, but / am ever true." And 
 behold the Muse was boxing the darling brother's ears instead of 
 kneeling at his feet, and giving Miss Laura her first lesson in the 
 Cynical philosophy — not quite her first, however, — something like this 
 selfishness and waywardness, something like this contrast between 
 practice and poetry, between grand versified aspirations and every- 
 day life, she had witnessed at home in the person of our young friend 
 Mr. Pen. 
 
 But then Pen was different. Pen was a man. It seemed natural, 
 somehow, that he should be self-willed and should have his own way. 
 And under his waywardness and selfishness, indeed, there was a kind 
 and generous heart. O it was hard that such a diamond should be 
 changed away against such a false stone as this. In a word, Laura 
 began to be tired of her admired Blanche. She had assayed her and 
 found her not true ; and her former admiration and delight, which she 
 had expressed with her accustomed generous artlessness, gave way to 
 a feeling, which we shall not call contempt, but which was very near 
 it; and which caused Laura to adopt towards Miss Amory a grave 
 and tranquil tone of superiority, which was at first by no means to the 
 Muse's liking. Nobody likes to be found out, or, having held a high 
 place, to submit to step down.
 
 232 PENDENXIS. 
 
 The consciousness that this event was impending did not serve to 
 increase Miss Blanche's good humour, and as it made her peevish 
 and dissatisfied with herself, it probably rendered her even less agree- 
 able to the persons round about her. So there arose, one fatal day, a 
 battle-royal between dearest Blanche and dearest Laura, in which the 
 friendship between them was all but slain outright. Dearest Blanche 
 had been unusually capricious and wicked on this day. She had been 
 insolent to her mother ; savage with little Frank ; odiously impertinent 
 in her behaviour to the boy's governess; and intolerably cruel to Pin- 
 cott, her attendant. Not venturing to attack her friend (for the little 
 tyrant was of a timid feline nature, and only used her claws upon those 
 who were weaker than herself), she maltreated all these, and especially 
 poor Pincott, who was menial, confidante, companion (slave always), 
 according to the caprice of her young mistress. 
 
 This girl, who had been sitting in the room with the young ladies, 
 being driven thence in tears, occasioned by the cruelty of her mistress, 
 and raked with a parting sarcasm as she went sobbing from the door, 
 Laura fairly broke out into a loud and indignant invective — wondered 
 how one so young could forget the deference owing to her elders as 
 well as to her inferiors in station; and professing so much sensibility 
 of her own, could torture the feelings of others so wantonly. Laura 
 told her friend that her conduct was absolutely wicked, and that she 
 ought to ask pardon of Heaven on her knees for it. And having 
 delivered herself of a hot and voluble speech whereof the deliver)' 
 astonished the speaker as much almost as her auditor, she ran to her 
 bonnet and shawl, and went home across the park in a great flurrj' 
 and perturbation, and to the surprise of Mrs. Pendennis, who had not 
 expected her until night. 
 
 Alone with Helen, Laura gave an account of the scene, and gave 
 up her friend henceforth. "O Mamma," she said, "you were right; 
 Blanche, who seems so soft and so kind, is, as you have said, selfish 
 and cruel. She who is always speaking of her affections can have no 
 heart. No honest girl would aftlict a mother so, or torture a depen- 
 dant ; and — and I give her up from this day, and I will have no other 
 friend but you." 
 
 On this the two ladies went through the osculaton.- ceremony 
 which they were in the habit of performing, and Mrs. Pendennis got 
 a great secret comfort from the little quarrel — for Laura's confession 
 seemed to say, " That girl can never be a wife for Pen, for she is 
 light-minded and heartless, and quite unworthy of our noble hero. 
 He will be sure to find out her unworthiness for his own part, and 
 then he will be saved from this flighty creature, and awake out of 
 his delusion. 
 
 But Miss Laura did not tell Mrs. Pendennis, perhaps did not
 
 PENDENNIS. 233 
 
 acknowledge to herself, what had been the real cause of the day's 
 quarrel. Being in a very wicked mood, and bent upon mischief 
 everywhere, the little wicked Muse of a Blanche had very soon begun 
 her tricks. Her darling Laura had come to pass a long day; and as 
 they were sitting in her own room together, had chosen to bring the 
 conversation round to the subject of Mr. Pen. 
 
 " I am afraid he is sadly fickle," Miss Blanche observed ; " Mrs. 
 Pybus, and many more Clavering people, have told us all about 
 the actress." 
 
 " I was quite a child when it happened, and I don't know anything 
 about it," Laura answered, blushing very much. 
 
 " He used her very ill," Blanche said, wagging her little head. " He 
 was false to her." 
 
 " I am sure he was not," Laura cried out ; " he acted most gene- 
 rously by her: he wanted to give up everything to marry her. It 
 was she that was false to him. He nearly broke his heart about it: 
 he " 
 
 " I thought you didn't know anything about the story, dearest," 
 interposed Miss Blanche. 
 
 " Mamma has said so," said Laura. 
 
 " Well, he is very clever,'' continued the other little dear. " What 
 a sweet poet he is ! Have you ever read his poems ?" 
 
 " Only the ' Fisherman and the Diver,' which he translated for us, 
 and his Prize Poem, which didn't get the prize ; and, indeed, I thought 
 it very pompous and prosy," Laura said, laughing. 
 
 "Has he never written you any poems, then, love ?" asked Miss 
 Amory. 
 
 " No, my dear," said Miss Bell. 
 
 Blanche ran up to her friend, kissed her fondly, called her my 
 dearest Laura at least three times, looked her archly in the face, 
 nodded her head, and said, " Promise to tell no-o-body, and I will 
 show you something." 
 
 And tripping across the room daintily to a httle mother-of-pearl 
 inlaid desk, she opened it with a silver key, and took out two or three 
 papers crumpled and rather stained with green, which she submitted 
 to her friend. Laura took them and read them. They were love- 
 verses sure enough — something about Undine— about a Naiad — about 
 a river. She looked at them for a long time ; but in truth the hnes 
 were not very distinct before her eyes. 
 
 "And you have answered them, Blanche?" she asked, putting 
 them back. 
 
 " O no ! not for worlds, dearest," the other said : and when her 
 dearest Laura had quite done with the verses, she tripped back, and 
 popped them again into the pretty desk.
 
 234 PENDENNIS. 
 
 Then she went to her piano, and sang two or three songs of 
 Rossini, whose flourishes of music her flexible little voice could 
 execute to perfection, and Laura sate by, vaguely listening, as she 
 performed these pieces. What was Miss Bell thinking about the 
 while? She hardly knew; but sate there silent as the songs rolled 
 by. After this concert the young ladies were summoned to the room 
 where luncheon was served ; and whither they of course went with 
 their arms round each other's waists. 
 
 And it could not have been jealousy or anger on Laura's part which 
 had made her silent : for, after they had tripped along the corridor 
 and descended the steps, and were about to open the door which leads 
 into the hall, Laura paused, and looking her friend kindly and frankly 
 in the face, kissed her with a sisterly warmth. 
 
 Something occurred after this — Master Frank's manner of eating, 
 probably, or mamma's blunders, or Sir Francis smelling of cigars — ■ 
 which vexed Miss Blanche, and she gave way to that series of naughti- 
 nesses whereof we have spoken, and which ended in the above little 
 quarrel.
 
 PENDENNIS. 235 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 A HOUSE FULL OF VISITORS. 
 
 THE difference between the girls did not last long. Laura wais 
 always too eager to forgive and be forgiven, and as for Miss 
 Blanche, her hostilities, never very long or durable, had not been 
 provoked by the above scene. Nobody cares about being accused of 
 wickedness. No vanity is hurt by that sort of charge : Blanche was 
 rather pleased than provoked by her friend's indignation, which never 
 would have been raised but for a cause which both knew, though 
 neither spoke of. 
 
 And so Laura, with a sigh, was ©bliged to confess that the romantic 
 part of her first friendship was at an end, and that the object of it was 
 only worthy of a very ordinary sort of regard. 
 
 As for Blanche, she instantly composed a copy of touching verses, 
 setting forth her desertion and disenchantment. It was only the old 
 story she wrote, of love meeting with coldness, and fidelity returned 
 by neglect ; and some new neighbours arriving from London about 
 this time, in whose family there were daughters, Miss Amory had the 
 advantage of selecting an eternal friend from one of these young ladies, 
 and imparting her sorrows and disappointments to this new sister. 
 The tall footmen came but seldom now with notes to the sweet Laura ; 
 the pony carriage was but rarely despatched to Fairoaks to be at the 
 orders of the ladies there. Blanche adopted a sweet look of suffering 
 martyrdom when Laura came to see her. The other laughed at her 
 friend's sentimental mood, and treated it with a good humour that was 
 by no means respectful. 
 
 But if Miss Blanche found new female friends to console her, the 
 faithful historian is also bound to say, that she discovered some 
 acquaintances of the other sex who seemed to give her consolation 
 too. If ever this artless young creature met a young man, and had 
 ten minutes' conversation with him in a garden walk, in a drawing- 
 room window, or in the intervals of a waltz, she confided in him, so to 
 speak — made play with her beautiful eyes — spoke in a tone of tender 
 interest, and simple and touching appeal, and left him, to perform the 
 same pretty little drama in behalf of his successor. 
 
 When the Claverings first came down to the Park, there were very
 
 236 PENDENNIS. 
 
 few audiences before whom Miss Blanche could perform : hence Pen 
 had all the benefits of her glances, and confidences, and the drawing- 
 room window, or the garden walk all to himself. In the town of 
 Clavering, it has been said, there were actually no young men : in the 
 near surrounding country', only a curate or two, or a rustic young 
 squire, with large feet and ill-made clothes. To the dragoons quartered 
 at Chatteris the Baronet made no overtures : it was unluckily his own 
 regiment : he had left it on bad terms with some officers of the corps 
 — an ugly business about a horse bargain — a disputed play account at 
 blind-hookey — a white feather — who need ask ? — it is not our business 
 to inquire too closely into the bygones of our characters, except in so 
 far as their previous history appertains to the development of this 
 present story. 
 
 The autumn, and the end of the parliamentary session, and the 
 London season, brought one or two county families down to their 
 houses, and filled tolerably the neighbouring little watering-place of 
 Baymouth, and opened our friend Mr. Bingley's Theatre Royal at 
 Chatteris, and collected the usual company at the assizes and race- 
 balls there. Up to this time, the old county families had been rather 
 shy of our friends of Clavering Park. The Fogeys of Drummington ; 
 the Squares of Dozley Park; the Welbores of The Barrow, &c. All 
 sorts of stories were current among these folks regarding the family at 
 Clavering ; — indeed, nobody ought to say that people in the country 
 have no imagination, who hears them talk about new neighbours. 
 About Sir Francis and his Lady, and her birth and parentage, about 
 Miss Amor)', about Captain Strong, there had been endless histories 
 which need not be recapitulated: and the family of the Park had 
 been three months in the county before the great people around began 
 to call. 
 
 But at the end of the season, the Earl of Trehawk, Lord 
 Lieutenant of the county, coming to Eyrie Castle, and the Countess 
 Dowager of Rockminster, whose son was also a magnate of the land, 
 to occupy a mansion on the Marine Parade at Baymouth — these great 
 folks came publicly, immediately, and in state, to call upon the family 
 of Clavering Park ; and the carriages of the county families speedily 
 followed in the track, which had been left in the avenue by their 
 lordly wheels. 
 
 It was then that IMirobolant began to have an opportunity of 
 exercising that skill which he possessed, and of forgetting, in the 
 occupations of his art, the pangs of love. It was then that the large 
 footmen were too much employed at Clavering Park to be able to 
 bring messages, or dally over the cup of small beer with the poor little 
 maids at Fairoaks. It was then that Blanche found other dear friends 
 than Laura, and other places to walk in besides the river side, where
 
 PENDENNIS. 237 
 
 Pen was fishing. He came day after day, and whipped the stream, 
 but the " fish, fish ! " wouldn't do their duty, nor the Peri appear. 
 And here, though in strict confidence, and with a request that the 
 matter go no further, we may as well allude to a delicate business, of 
 which previous hint has been given. Mention has been made, in a 
 former page, of a certain hollow tree, at which Pen used to take his 
 station when engaged in his passion for Miss Fotheringay, and the 
 cavity of which he afterwards used for other purposes than to insert 
 his baits and fishing-cans in. The truth is, he converted this tree into 
 a post-office. Under a piece of moss and a stone, he used to put 
 little poems, or letters equally poetical, which were addressed to a 
 certain Undine, or Naiad who frequented the stream, and which, once 
 or twice, were replaced by a receipt in the shape of a flower, or by a 
 modest little word or two of acknowledgment, written in a delicate 
 hand, in French or English, and on pink scented paper. Certainly, 
 Miss Amory used to walk by this stream, as we have seen ; and it is 
 a fact that she used pink scented pape-r for her correspondence. But 
 after the great folks had invaded Clavering Park, and the family coach 
 passed out of the lodge-gates, evening after evening, on their way to 
 the other great country houses, nobody came to fetch Pen's letters at 
 the post-office ; the white paper was not exchanged for the pink, but 
 lay undisturbed under its stone and its moss, whilst the tree was 
 reflected into the stream, and the Brawl went rolling by. There was 
 not much in the letters certainly : in the pink notes scarcely anything 
 — merely a little word or two, half jocular, half sympathetic, such as 
 might be written by any young lady. But oh, you silly Pendennis, if 
 you wanted this one, why did you not speak ? Perhaps neither party 
 was in earnest. You were only playing at being in love, and the 
 sportive little Undine was humouring you at the same play. 
 
 Nevertheless if a man is baulked at this game, he not unfrequently 
 loses his temper ; and when nobody came any more for Pen's poems, 
 he began to look upon those compositions in a very serious light. He 
 felt almost tragical and romantic again, as in his first afi"air of the 
 heart : — at any rate he was bent upon having an explanation. One 
 day he went to the Hall, and there was a room-full of visitors : on 
 another. Miss Amory was not to be seen ; she was going to a ball that 
 night, and was lying down to take a little sleep. Pen cursed balls, and 
 the narrowness of his means, and the humility of his position in the 
 county that caused him to be passed over by the givers of these enter- 
 tainments. On a third occasion. Miss Amory was in the garden, and 
 he ran thither ; she was walking there in state with no less personages 
 than the Bishop and Bishopess of Chatteris and the episcopal family, 
 who scowled at him, and drew up in great dignity when he was pre- 
 sented to them, and they heard his name. The Right Reverend
 
 238 PENDENNJS. 
 
 Prelate had beard it before, and also of the httle transaction in the 
 Dean's garden. 
 
 " The Bishop says you're a sad young man," good-natured Lady 
 Clavering whispered to him. "What have you been a doing of? 
 Nothink, I hope, to vex such a dear Mar as yours ? How is your 
 dear Mar ? Why don't she come and see me ? We a'n't seen her 
 this ever such a time. We're a goin' about a gaddin', so that' we don't 
 see no neighbours now. Give my love to her and Laurar, and come 
 all to dinner to-morrow." 
 
 Mrs. Pendennis was too unwell to come out, but Laura and Pen 
 came, and there was a great party, and Pen only got an opportunhy 
 of a hurried word with Miss Amory. " You never come to the river 
 now," he said. 
 
 " I can't," said Blanche, " the house is full of people." 
 
 " Undine has left the stream," Mr. Pen went on, choosing to be 
 poetical. 
 
 " She never ought to have gone there," Miss Amorj* answered. 
 " She won't go again. It was very foolish, ver>' wrong : it was only 
 play. Besides, you have other consolations at home," she added, 
 looking him full in the face an instant, and dropping her eyes. 
 
 If he wanted her, why did he not speak then ? She might have 
 said " Yes " even then. But as she spoke of other consolations at 
 home, he thought of Laura, so affectionate and so pure, and of his 
 mother at home, who had bent her fond heart upon uniting him with 
 her adopted daughter. " Blanche ! " he began, in a vexed tone, — 
 "]\Iiss Amory!" 
 
 " Laura is looking at us, Mr. Pendennis," the young lady said. " I 
 must go back to the company," and she ran off, leaving Mr. Pendennis 
 to bite his nails in perplexity, and to look out into the moonhght in 
 the garden. 
 
 Laura indeed was looking at Pen. She was talking with, or 
 appearing to listen to the talk of, Mr. Pynsent, Lord Rockminsters 
 son, and grandson of the Dowager Lady, who was seated in state in 
 the place of honour, gravely receiving Lady Clavering^s bad grammar, 
 and patronising the vacuous Sir Francis, whose interest in the county 
 she was desirous to secure. Pynsent and Pen had been at Oxbridge 
 together, where the latter, during his heyday of good fortune and 
 fashion, had been the superior of the young patrician, and perhaps 
 rather supercilious towards him. They had met for the first time, 
 since they had parted at the University, at the table to-day, and given 
 each other that exceedingly impertinent and amusing demi-nod of 
 recognition which is practised in England only, and only to perfection 
 by University men, — and which seems to say, " Confound you — what 
 do you do here ? "
 
 PENDENNIS. iy) 
 
 " I knew that man at Oxbridge," Mr. Pynsent said to Miss Bell— 
 " a Mr. Pendennis, I think." 
 
 " Yes," said Miss Bell— 
 
 " He seems rather sweet upon Miss Amory," the gentleman went 
 on. Laura looked at them, and perhaps thought so too, but said 
 nothing. 
 
 " A man of large property in the county, ain't he ? He used to 
 talk about representing it. He used to speak at the Union. Where- 
 abouts do his estates lie 1 " 
 
 Laura smiled. " His estates lie on the other side of the river, near 
 the lodge gate. He is my cousin, and I live there." 
 
 " Where ? " asked Mr. Pynsent, with a laugh. 
 
 " Why, on the other side of the river, at Fairoaks," answered 
 Miss Bell. 
 
 "Many pheasants there? Cover looks rather good," said the 
 simple gentleman. 
 
 Laura smiled again. " We have nine hens and a cock, a pig, and 
 an old pointer." 
 
 " Pendennis don't preserve then ? " continued Mr, Pynsent. 
 
 " You should come and see him," the girl said, laughing, and 
 greatly amused at the notion that her Pen was a great county gentle- 
 map, and perhaps had given himself out to be such. 
 
 " Indeed, I quite long to renew our acquaintance," Mr. Pynsent 
 said, gallantly, and with a look which fairly said, " It is you that I 
 would like to come and see " — to which look and speech Miss Laura 
 vouchsafed a smile, and made a little bow. 
 
 Here Blanche came stepping up with her most fascinating smile 
 and ogle, and begged dear Laura to come and take the second in a 
 song. Laura was ready to do anything good-natured, and went to the 
 piano ; by which Mr. Pynsent listened as long as the duet lasted, and 
 until Miss Amory began for herself, when he strode away. 
 
 " What a nice, frank, amiable, well-bred girl that is, Wagg," said 
 Mr. Pynsent to a gentleman who had come over with him from Bay- 
 mouth — " the tall one I mean, with the ringlets and the red lips — 
 monstrous red, ain't they ? " 
 
 " What do you think of the girl of the house ? " asked Mr. Wagg. 
 
 " I think she's a lean, scraggy humbug," said Mr. Pynsent, with 
 great candour. " She drags her shoulders out of her dress : she never 
 lets her eyes alone : and she goes simpering and ogling about like a 
 French waiting-maid." 
 
 " Pynsent, be civil," cried the other; "somebody can hear." 
 
 " Oh, it's Pendennis of Boniface," Mr. Pynsent said. " Fine 
 evening, Mr. Pendennis; we were just talking of your charming 
 cousin."
 
 240 PENDENNIS. 
 
 "Any relation to my old friend, Major Pendennis ? " asked 
 Mr. Wagg. 
 
 " His nephew. Had the pleasure of meeting you at Gaunt House," 
 Mr. Pen said with his very best air — the acquaintance between the 
 gentlemen was made in an instant. 
 
 In the afternoon of the next day, the two gentlemen who were 
 staying at Clavering Park were found by Mr. Pen on his return from 
 a fishing excursion, in which he had no sport, seated in his mother's 
 drawing-room in comfortable conversation with the widow and her 
 ward. Mr. Pynsent, tall and gaunt, with large red whiskers, and an 
 imposing tuft to his chin, was striding over a chair in the intimate 
 neighbourhood of Miss Laura. She was amused by his talk, which 
 was simple, straightforward, rather humorous, and keen, and inter- 
 spersed with homely expressions of a style which is sometimes called 
 slang. It was the first specimen of a young London dandy that 
 Laura had seen or heard ; for she had been but a chit at the time of 
 Mr. Foker's introduction at Fairoaks, nor indeed was that ingenuous 
 gentleman much more than a boy, and his refinement was only that of 
 a school and college. 
 
 Mr. Wagg, as he entered the Fairoaks premises with his com- 
 panion, eyed and noted everj-thing. " Old gardener," he said, seeing 
 Mr. John at the lodge — " old red livery waistcoat — clothes hanging 
 out to dry on the gooseberry- -bushes —blue aprons, white ducks — gad, 
 they must be young Pendennis's white ducks — nobody else wears 'em 
 in the family. Rather a shy place for a sucking county member, 
 ay, Pynsent ? " 
 
 " Snug little crib," said Mr. Pj-nsent ; " pretty cozy little lawn." 
 
 "Mr. Pendennis at home, old gentleman?" Mr. Wagg said to 
 the old domestic. John answered, " No, Master Pendennis was 
 agone out." 
 
 "Are the ladies at home .-'" asked the younger visitor. Tvlr. John 
 answered, " Yes, they be ; " and as the pair walked over the trim gravel, 
 and by the neat shrubberies, up the steps to the hall-door, which old 
 John opened, Mr. Wagg noted ever)-thing that he saw ; the barometer 
 and the letter-bag, the umbrellas and the ladies' clogs. Pen's hats and 
 tartan wrapper, and old John opening the drawing-room door, to intro- 
 duce the new comers. Such minutiae attracted Wagg instinctively ; he 
 seized them in spite of himself. 
 
 " Old fellow does all the work," he whispered to Pynsent. " Caleb 
 Balderstone. Shouldn't wonder if he's the housemaid." The next 
 minute the pair were in the presence of the Fairoaks ladies ; in whom 
 Pynsent could not help recognising two perfectly well-bred ladies, and 
 to whom Mr. Wagg made his obeisance, with florid bows and extra
 
 PENDENNIS. '241 
 
 courtesy, accompanied with an occasional knowing leer at his com- 
 panion. Mr. Pynsent did not choose to acknowledge these signals, 
 except by extreme haughtiness towards Mr. Wagg, and particular de- 
 ference to the ladies. If there was one thing laughable in Mr. Wagg's 
 eyes, it was poverty. He had the soul of a butler who had been brought 
 from his pantry to make fun in the drawing-room. His jokes were 
 plenty, and his good-nature thoroughly genuine, but he did not seem 
 to understand that a gentleman could wear an old coat, or that a lady 
 could be respectable unless she had her carriage, or employed a 
 French milliner. 
 
 " Charming place, ma'am," said he, bowing to the widow ; " noble 
 prospect — delightful to us cockneys, who seldom see anything but 
 Pall Mall." The widow said, simply, she had never been in London 
 but once in her life — before her son was born. 
 
 " Fine village, ma'am, fine village," said Mr. Wagg, " and increas- 
 ing every day. It'll be quite a large town soon. It's not a bad place 
 to live in for those who can't get the country, and will repay a visit 
 when you honour it." 
 
 " My brother. Major Pendennis, has often mentioned your name to 
 us," the widow said, " and we have been — amused by some of your 
 droll books, sir," Helen continued, who never could be brought to like 
 Mr. Wagg's books, and detested their tone most thoroughly. 
 
 " He is my very good friend," Mr. Wagg said, with a low bow, 
 " and one of the best known men about town, and where known, 
 ma'am, appreciated — I assure you appreciated. He is with our 
 friend Steyne, at Aix-la-Chapelle. Steyne has a touch of the gout, 
 and so, between ourselves, has your brother. I am going to Still- 
 brook for the pheasant-shooting, and afterwards to Bareacres, where 
 Pendennis and I shall probably meet ; " and he poured out a flood of 
 fashionable talk, introducing the names of a score of peers and rattling 
 on with breathless spirits, whilst the simple widow listened in silent 
 wonder. What a man, she thought; are all the men of fashion in 
 London like this ? I am sure Pen will never be like him. 
 
 Mr. Pynsent was in the meanwhile engaged with Miss Laura. He 
 named some of the houses in the neighbourhood whither he was going, 
 and hoped very much that he should see Miss Bell at some of them. 
 He hoped that her aunt would give her a season in London. He said, 
 that in the next parliament it was probable he should canvass the 
 county, and he hoped to get Pendennis's interest here. He spoke of 
 Pen's triumph as an orator at Oxbridge, and asked was he coming into 
 parliament too ? He talked on very pleasantly, and greatly to Laura's 
 satisfaction, until Pen himself appeared, and, as has been said, found 
 these gentlemen. 
 
 Pen behaved very courteously to the pair, now that they had found 
 
 16
 
 •242 PENDENNTS. 
 
 their way into his quarters ; and though he recollected with some 
 twinges a conversation at Oxbridge, when Pynsent was present, and in 
 which, after a great debate at the Union, and in the midst of consider- 
 able excitement, produced by a supper and champagne-cup, — he had 
 announced his intention of coming in for his native county, and had 
 absolutely returned thanks in a fine speech as the future member ; yet 
 Mr. Pynsent's manner was so frank and cordial, that Pen hoped 
 Pynsent might have forgotten his little fanfaronnade, and any other 
 braggadocio speeches or actions which he might have made. He 
 suited himself to the tone of the visitors then, and talked about 
 Plinlimmon and Magnus Charters, and the old set at Oxbridge, with 
 careless familiarity and high-bred ease, as if he lived with marquises 
 every day, and a duke was no more to him than a village curate. 
 
 But at this juncture, and it being then six o'clock in the evening, 
 Betsy, the maid, who did not know of the advent of strangers, walked 
 into the room without any preliminary but that of flinging the door 
 wide open before her, and bearing in her arms a tray, containing 
 three tea-cups, a tea-pot, and a plate of thick bread-and-butter. All 
 Pen's splendour and magnificence vanished away at this — and he 
 faltered and became quite abashed. " What will they think of us ? " 
 he thought : and, indeed, Wagg thrust his tongue in his cheek, thought 
 the tea utterly contemptible, and leered and winked at Pynsent to that 
 effect. 
 
 But to Mr. Pynsent the transaction appeared perfectly simple — 
 there was no reason present to his mind why people should not drink 
 tea at six if they were minded, as well as at any other hour ; and he 
 a.sked of Mr. Wagg, when they went away, " What the devil he was 
 grinning and winking at, and what amused him ? " 
 
 " Didn't you see how the cub was ashamed of the thick bread-and- 
 butter? I daresay they're going to have treacle if they are good. Ill 
 take an opportunity of telling old Pendennis when we get back to 
 town," Mr. Wagg chuckled out. 
 
 " Don't see the fun," said Mr. Pynsent. 
 
 " Never thought you did," growled Wagg between his teeth ; and 
 they walked home rather sulkily. 
 
 Wagg told the stor>' at dinner very smartly, with wonderful accuracy 
 of observation. He described old John, the clothes that were drying, 
 the clogs in the hall, the drawing-room, and its furniture and pictures : 
 " Old man with a beak and bald head— ^« Pendennis I bet two to 
 one ; sticking-plaster full-length of a youth in a cap and gown-;-the 
 present Marquis of Fairoaks, of course ; the widow when young in a 
 miniature, Mrs. Mee ; she had the gown on when we came, or a dress 
 made the year after, and the tips cut off the fingers of her gloves 
 which she stitches her son's collars with ; and then the sarving maid
 
 PENVEXNIS. 243 
 
 came in with their teas ; so we left the earl and the countess to their 
 bread-and-butter." 
 
 Blanche, near whom he sate as he told this story, and who adored 
 les hoimnes d'espn't, burst out laughing, and called him such an odd, 
 droll creature. But Pynsent, who began to be utterly disgusted with 
 him, broke out in a loud voice, and said, " I don't know, Mr. Wagg, 
 what sort of ladies you are accustomed to meet in your own family, 
 but by gad, as far as a first acquaintance can show, I never met two 
 better-bred women in my life, and I hope, ma'am, you'll call upon 
 'em," he added, addressing Lady Rockminster, who was seated at 
 Sir Francis Clavering's right hand. 
 
 Sir Francis turned to the guest on his left, and whispered, "That's 
 what I call a sticker for Wagg." And Lady Clavering, giving the 
 young gentleman a delighted tap with her fan, winked her black eyes 
 at him, and said, " Mr. Pynsent, you're a good feller." 
 
 After the affair with Blanche, a difference ever so slight, a tone 
 of melancholy perhaps a little bitter, might be perceived in Laura's 
 converse with her cousin. She seemed to weigh him, and find him 
 wanting too ; the widow saw the girl's clear and honest eyes watching 
 the young man at times, and a look of almost scorn pass over her 
 face, as he lounged in the room with the women, or lazily sauntered 
 smoking upon the lawn, or lolled under a tree there over a book, which 
 he was too listless to read. 
 
 "What has happened between you?" eager-sighted Helen asked of 
 the girl. " Something has happened. Has that wicked little Blanche 
 been making mischief ? Tell me, Laura." 
 
 " Nothing has happened at all," Laura said. 
 
 " Then why do you look at Pen so ? " asked his mother quickly. 
 
 " Look at him, dear mother !" said the girl. " We two women are 
 no society for him : we don't interest him ; we are not clever enough 
 for such a genius as Pen. He wastes his hfe and energies away among 
 us, tied to our apron-strings. He interests himself in nothing: he 
 scarcely cares to go beyond the garden-gate. Even Captain Glanders 
 and Captain Strong pall upon him," she added with a bitter laugh ; 
 " and they are men you know, and our superiors. He will never be 
 happy while he is here. Why is he not facing the world, and without 
 a profession ? " 
 
 " We have got enough, with great economy," said the widow, her 
 heart beginning to beat violently. " Pen has spent nothing for 
 months. I'm sure he is very good. I am sure he might be very happy 
 with us." 
 
 " Don't agitate yourself so, dear mother," the girl answered. " I 
 don't like to see you so. You should not be sad because Pen is 
 unhappy here. All men are so. They must work. They must make
 
 244 PEXDEA'NIS. 
 
 themselves names and a place in the world. Look, the two captains 
 have fought and seen battles : that Mr. Pynsent, who came here, and 
 who will be very rich, is in a public ofifice; he works very hard, he 
 aspires to a name and a reputation. He says Pen was one of the best 
 speakers at Oxbridge, and had as great a character for talent as any 
 of the young gentlemen there. Pen himself laughs at Mr. Wagg's 
 celebrity (and indeed he is a horrid person), and says he is a dunce, 
 and that anybody could write his books." 
 
 " I am sure they are odious.'" interposed the widow. 
 
 " Yet he has a reputation. — You see the County Chronicle says, 
 ' The celebrated Mr. Wagg has been sojourning at Baymouth — let our 
 fashionables and eccentrics look out for something from his caustic 
 pen.' If Pen can write better than this gentleman, and speak better 
 than Mr. Pynsent, why doesn"t he ? Mamma, he can't make speeches 
 to us ; or distinguish himself here. He ought to go away, indeed he 
 ought." 
 
 " Dear Laura," said Helen, taking the girl's hand. " Is it kind of 
 you to hurry him so ? I have been waiting. I have been saving up 
 money these many months — to — to pay back your advance to us." 
 
 " Hush, mother !" Laura cried, embracing her friend hastily. " It 
 was your money, not mine. Never speak about that again. How 
 much money have you saved V 
 
 Helen said there were more than two hundred pounds at the bank, 
 and that she would be enabled to pay off all Laura's money by the end 
 of the next year. 
 
 " Give it him — let him have the two hundred pounds. Let him go 
 to London and be a lawyer : be something, be worthy of his mother — 
 and of mine, dearest mamma," said the good girl; upon which, and 
 with her usual tenderness and emotion, the fond widow declared that 
 Laura was a blessing to her, and the best of girls — and I hope no one 
 in this instance will be disposed to contradict her. 
 
 The widow and her daughter had more than one conversation on 
 this subject : the elder gave way to the superior reason of the honest 
 and stronger minded girl ; and, indeed, whenever there was a sacrifice 
 to be made on her part, this kind lady was only too eager to make it. 
 But she took her own way, and did not lose sight of the end she had 
 in view, in imparting these new plans to Pen. One day she told him 
 of these projects, and who it was that had formed them ; how it was 
 Laura who insisted upon his going to London and studying ; how it 
 was Laura who would not hear of the — the money arrangements 
 when he came back from Oxbridge — being settled just then : how it 
 was Laura whom he had to thank, if indeed he thought he ought 
 to go. 
 
 At that news Pen's countenance blazed up with pleasure, and he
 
 PENDENNIS. 245 
 
 hugged his mother to his heart with an ardour that I fear disappointed 
 the fond lady; but she ralHed when he said, " By Heaven ! she is a 
 noble girl, and may God Almighty bless her ! Oh mother ! I have 
 been wearying myself away for months here, longing to work, and not 
 knowing how. I've been fretting over the thoughts of my shame, and 
 my debts, and my past cursed extravagance and follies. I've suffered 
 infernally. My heart has been half-broken — never mind about that. 
 If I can get a chance to redeem the past, and to do my duty to 
 myself and the best mother in the world, indeed, indeed, I will. I'll 
 be worthy of you yet. Heaven bless you ! God bless Laura ! Why 
 isn't she here, that I may go and thank her ?" Pen went on with 
 more incoherent phrases; paced up and down the room, drank 
 glasses of water, jumped about his mother with a thousand embraces 
 — began to laugh — began to sing — was happier than she had seen 
 him since he was a boy — since he had tasted of the fruit of that 
 awful Tree of Life which, from the beginning, has tempted all man- 
 kind. 
 
 Laura was not at home. Laura was on a visit to the stately Lady 
 Rockminster, daughter to my Lord Bareacres, sister to the late Lady 
 Pontypool, and by consequence a distant kinswoman of Helen's, as 
 her ladyship, who was deeply versed in genealogy, was the first 
 graciously to point out to the modest country lady. Mr. Pen was 
 greatly delighted at the relationship being acknowledged, though 
 perhaps not over well pleased that Lady Rockminster took Miss Bell 
 home with her for a couple of days to Baymouth, and did not make 
 the slightest invitation to Mr. Arthur Pendennis. There was to be a 
 ball at Baymouth, and it was to be Miss Laura's first appearance. 
 The dowager came to fetch her in her carriage, and she went off with 
 a white dress in her bo.x, happy and blushing, like the rose to which 
 Pen compared her. 
 
 This was the night of the ball — a public entertainment at the Bay- 
 mouth Hotel. " By Jove ! " said Pen, " I'll ride over — No, I won't ride, 
 but I'll go too." His mother was charmed that he should do so; and, 
 as he was debating about the conveyance in which he should start for 
 Baymouth, Captain Strong called opportunely, said he was going him- 
 self, and that he would put his horse, The Butcher Boy, into the gig, 
 and drive Pen over. 
 
 When the grand company began to fill the house at Clavering 
 Park, the Chevalier Strong seldom intruded himself upon its society, 
 but went elsewhere to seek his relaxation. " I've seen plenty of grand 
 dinners in my time," he said, "and dined, by Jove, in a company 
 where there was a king and royal duke at top and bottom, and every 
 man along the table had six stars on his coat ; but dammy, Glanders,
 
 246 PEXDENNIS. 
 
 this finer}' don't suit me; and the EngHsh ladies, with their confounded 
 buckram airs, and the squires with their pohtics after dinner, send me 
 to sleep — sink me dead if they don't. I like a place where I can blow 
 my cigar when the cloth is removed, and when I'm thirsty, have my 
 beer in its native pewter." So on a gala day at Clavering Park, the 
 Chevalier would content himself with superintending the arrangements 
 of the table, and drilling the major-domo and servants; and having 
 looked over the bill of fare with JNIonsieur Mirobolant, would not care 
 to take the least part in the banquet. " Send me up a cutlet and a 
 bottle of claret to my room,'' this philosopher would say, and from the 
 windows of that apartment, which commanded the terrace and avenue, 
 he would survey the company as they arrived in their carriages, or 
 take a peep at the ladies in the hall through an ceil-de-boeuf which 
 commanded it from his corridor. And the guests being seated. Strong 
 would cross the park to Captain Glanders's cottage at Clavering, or to 
 pay the landlady a visit at the Clavering Arms, or to drop in upon 
 Madame Fribsby o\er her novel and tea. Wherever the Chevalier 
 went he was welcome, and whenever he came away a smell of hot 
 brandy and water lingered behind him. 
 
 The Butcher Boy — not the worst horse in Sir Francis's stable — 
 was appropriated to Captain Strong's express use; and the old Cam- 
 paigner saddled him and brought him home at all hours of the day or 
 night, and drove or rode him up and down the countr}-. Where there 
 was a public-house with a good tap of beer — where there was a tenant 
 with a pretty daughter who played on the piano — to Chatteris, to the 
 play, or the barracks — to Baymouth, if any fun was on foot there ; to 
 the rural fairs or races, the Che\alier and his bro%\"n horse made their 
 way continually ; and this Avorthy gentleman lived at free quarters in a 
 friendly country. The Butcher Boy soon took Pen and the Chevalier 
 to Baymouth. The latter was as familiar with the hotel and landlord 
 there as with everj' other inn round about ; and having been accom- 
 modated with a bed-room to dress, they entered the ball-room. The 
 Chevalier was splendid. He wore three little gold crosses in a 
 brochette on the portly breast of his blue coat, and looked like a 
 foreign field-marshal. 
 
 The ball was public and all sorts of persons were admitted and 
 encouraged to come, young Pynsent having views upon the county, and 
 Lady Rockminster being patroness of the ball. There was a quadrille 
 for the aristocracy at one end, and select benches for the people of 
 fashion. Towards this end the Chevalier ditl not care to penetrate far 
 (as he said he did not care for the nobs) ; but in the other part of the 
 room he knew everybody — the wine-merchants', innkeepers", trades- 
 men's, solicitors', squire-farmers' daughters, their sires ajid brothers, 
 and plunged about shaking hands.
 
 PENDENNIS. 247 
 
 "Who is that man with the blue ribbon and the three-pointed 
 star?" asked Pen. A gentleman in black with ringlets and a tuft 
 stood gazing fiercely about him, with one hand in the arm-hole of his 
 waistcoat and the other holding his claque. 
 
 " By Jupiter, it's Mirobolant ! " cried Strong, bursting out laughing. 
 " Bon jour, Chef! — Bon jour, Chevalier I " 
 
 '■'■Do la croix de Juillet, Chevalier!''^ said the Chef, laying his hand 
 on his decoration. 
 
 " By Jove, here's some more ribbon ! " said Pen, amused. 
 
 A man with very black hair and whiskers, dyed evidently with the 
 purple of Tyre, with twinkling eyes and white eyelashes, and a thou- 
 sand wrinkles in his face, which was of a strange red colour, with two 
 under-vests, and large gloves and hands, and a profusion of diamonds 
 and jewels in his waistcoat and stock, with coarse feet crumpled into 
 immense shiny boots, and a piece of particoloured ribbon in his button- 
 hole, here came up and nodded familiarly to the Chevalier. 
 
 The Chevalier shook hands. " My friend Mr. Pendennis," Strong 
 said. " Colonel Altamont, of the body-guard of his Highness the 
 Nawaub of Lucknow." That officer bowed to the salute of Pen; who 
 was now looking out eagerly to see if the person he wanted had entered 
 the room. 
 
 Not yet. But the band began presently performing " See the 
 Conquering Hero Comes," and a host of fashionables — Dowager 
 Countess of Rockminster, Mr. Pynsent and Miss Bell, Sir Francis 
 Clavering, Bart., of Clavering Park, Lady Clavering and Miss Amory, 
 Sir Horace Fogey, Bart., Lady Fogey, Colonel and Mrs. Higgs, 
 
 Wagg, Esq. (as the county paper afterwards described them), 
 
 entered the room. 
 
 Pen rushed by Blanche, ran up to Laura, and seized her hand. 
 " God bless you ! " he said. " I want to speak to you — I must speak to 
 you — Let me dance with you." " Not for three dances, dear Pen," 
 she said, smiling : and he fell back, biting his nails with vexation, and 
 forgetting to salute Pynsent. 
 
 After Lady Rockminster's party. Lady Clavering's followed in the 
 procession. 
 
 Colonel Altamont eyed it hard, holding a most musky pocket- 
 handkerchief up to his face, and bursting with laughter behind it. 
 
 "Who's the gal in green along with 'em, Cap'n.?" he asked of 
 Strong. 
 
 "That's Miss Amory,. Lady Clavering's daughter," replied the 
 Chevalier. 
 
 The Colonel could hardly contain himself for laughing.
 
 24S PENDENiYIS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 CONTAIXS SOME BALL-PRACTISING. 
 
 UNDER some calico draperies in the shady embrasure of a 
 window, Arthur Pendennis chose to assume a very gloomy and 
 frowning countenance, and to watch Miss Bell dance her first quadrille 
 with Mr. Pynsent for a partner. Miss Laura's face was beaming with 
 pleasure and good-nature. The lights and the crowd and music 
 excited her. As she spread out her white robes, and performed her 
 part of the dance, smiling and happy, her brown ringlets flowing back 
 over her fair shoulders from her honest rosy face, more than one gen- 
 tleman in the room admired and looked after her ; and Lady Fogey, 
 who had a house in London, and gave herself no small airs of fashion 
 when in the country, asked of Lady Rockminster who the young person 
 was, mentioned a reigning beauty in London whom, in her ladyship's 
 opinion, Laura was rather like, and pronounced that she would '• do." 
 
 Lady Rockminster would have been very much surprised if any 
 protegee of hers would not " do," and wondered at Lady Fogey's 
 impudence in judging upon the point at all. She surveyed Laura with 
 majestic glances through her eyeglass. She was pleased with the girl's 
 artless looks, and gay innocent manner. " Her manner is verj- good,'' 
 her ladyship thought. " Her arms are rather red, but that is a defect 
 of her youth. Her ton is far better than that of the little pert Miss 
 Amory, who is dancing opposite to her." 
 
 Miss Blanche was, indeed, the vis-a-vis of Miss Laura, and smiled 
 most killingly upon her dearest friend, and nodded to her, and talked 
 to her, when they met during the quadrille evolutions, and patronised 
 her a great deal. Her shoulders were the whitest in the whole room : 
 and they were never easy in her frock for one single instant : nor were 
 her eyes, which rolled about incessantly : nor was her little fig^ire : — 
 it seemed to say to all the people, " Come and look at me — not at 
 that pink, healthy, bouncing country lass. Miss Bell, who scarcely 
 knew how to dance till I taught her. This is the true Parisian manner 
 — this is the prettiest httle foot in the room, and the prettiest little 
 chaussure, too. Look at it, Mr. Pynsent. Look at it, Mr. Pendennis, 
 you who are scowling behind the curtain — I know you arc longing to 
 dance with me.'' 
 
 Laura went on dancing, and keeping an attentive eye upon
 
 PENDENNIS. 249 
 
 Mr. Pen in the embrasure of the window. He did not quit that 
 retirement during the first quadrille, nor until the second, when the 
 good-natured Lady Clavering beckoned to him to come up to her 
 to the dais or place of honour where the dowagers were, and whither 
 Pen went blushing and exceedingly awkward, as most conceited 
 young fellows are. He performed a haughty salutation to Lady 
 Rockminster, who hardly acknowledged his bow, and then went and 
 paid his respects to the widow of the late Amory, who was splendid in 
 diamonds, velvet, lace, feathers, and all sorts of millinery and gold- 
 smith's ware. 
 
 Young Mr. Fogey, then in the fifth form at Eton, and ardently 
 expecting his beard and his commission in a dragoon regiment, was 
 the second partner who was honoured with Miss Bell's hand. He 
 was rapt in admiration of that young lady. He thought he had never 
 seen so charming a creature. "I like you much better than the French 
 girl " (for this young gentleman had been dancing with Miss Amory 
 before), he candidly said to her. Laura laughed, and looked more 
 good-humoured than ever ; and in the midst of her laughter caught a 
 sight of Pen, and continued to laugh, as he, on his side, continued to 
 look absurdly pompous and sulky. The next dance was a waltz, and 
 young Fogey thought, with a sigh, that he did not know how to waltz, 
 and vowed he would have a master the next holidays. 
 
 Mr. Pynsent again claimed Miss Bell's hand for this dance ; and 
 Pen beheld her, in a fury, twirling round the room, her waist encircled 
 by the arm of that gentleman. He never used to be angry before 
 when, on summer evenings, the chairs and tables being removed, 
 and the governess called downstairs to play the piano, he and the 
 Chevalier Strong (who was a splendid performer, and could dance a 
 British hornpipe, a German waltz, or a Spanish fandango, if need 
 were), and the two young ladies, Blanche and Laura, improvised little 
 balls at Clavering Park. Laura enjoyed this dancing so much, and 
 was so animated, that she even animated Mr. Pynsent. Blanche, v/ho 
 could dance beautifully, had an unlucky partner, Captain Broadfoot, 
 of the Dragoons, then stationed at Chatteris. For Captain Broadfoot, 
 though devoting himself with great energy to the object in view, could 
 not get round in time : and, not having the least ear for music, was 
 unaware that his movements were too slow. 
 
 So, in the waltz as in the quadrille. Miss Blanche saw that her 
 dear friend Laura had the honours of the dance, and was by no means 
 pleased Avith the latter's success. After a couple of turns with the 
 heavy dragoon, she pleaded fatigue, and requested to be led back to 
 her place, near her mamma, to whom Pen was talking : and she asked 
 him why he had not asked her to waltz, and had left her to the mercies 
 of that great odious man in spurs and a red coat .''
 
 250 PENDENNIS. 
 
 " I thought spurs and scarlet were the most fascinating objects in 
 the world to young ladies," Pen answered. " I never should have dared 
 to put my black coat in competition with that splendid red jacket." 
 
 " You are verj^ unkind and cruel and sulky and naughty," said 
 Miss Amory, with another shrug of the shoulders. " You had better 
 go away. Your cousin is looking at us over ]Mr. Pynsent's shoulder." 
 
 " Will you waltz with me ?" said Pen. 
 
 " Not this waltz. I can't, having just sent away that great hot 
 Captain Broadfoot. Look at Mr. Pynsent, did you ever see such a 
 creature .'' But I will dance the next waltz with you, and the quadrille 
 too. I am promised, but I will tell Mr. Poole that I had forgotten my 
 engagement to you." 
 
 " Women forget very readily," Pendennis said. 
 
 " But they always come back and are very repentant and sorrj^ for 
 what they've done," Blanche said. " See, here comes the Poker, and 
 dear Laura leaning on him. How pretty she looks ! " 
 
 Laura came up, and put out her hand to Pen, to whom Pynsent 
 made a sort of bow, appearing to be not much more graceful than that 
 domestic instrument to which Miss Amory compared him. 
 
 But Laura's face was full of kindness. " I am so glad you have 
 come, dear Pen," she said. " I can speak to you now. How is 
 mamma ? The three dances are over, and I am engaged to you for 
 the next. Pen." 
 
 " I have just engaged myself to IMiss Amory," said Pen ; and Miss 
 Amory nodded her head, and made her usual little curtsey. " I don't 
 intend to give him up, dearest Laura," she said. 
 
 " Well, then, he'll waltz with me, dear Blanche," said the other. 
 "Won't you, Pen ?" 
 
 " I promised to waltz with Miss Amor)-." 
 
 " Provoking ! " said Laura, and making a curtsey in her turn, she 
 went and placed herself under the ample wing of Lady Rockminster. 
 
 Pen was delighted with his mischief The two prettiest girls in 
 the room were quarrelling about him. He flattered himself he had 
 punished Miss Laura. He leaned in a dandified air, with his elbow 
 over the wall, and talked to Blanche ; he quizzed unmercifully all the 
 men in the room — the heavy dragoons in their tight jackets — the 
 country dandies in their queer attire — the strange toilettes of the ladies. 
 One seemed to have a bird's nest in her head ; another had six pounds 
 of grapes in her hair, beside her false pearls. " It's a coiffure of 
 almonds and raisins," said Pen, " and might be scr\^ed up for dessert." 
 In a word, he was exceedingly satirical and amusing. 
 
 During the quadrille he carried on this kind of conversation with 
 unflinching bitterness and vivacity, and kept Blanche continually 
 laughing, both at his wickedness and jokes, which were good, and also
 
 PENDEKNIS. 251 
 
 because Laura was again their vis-d-vis, and could see and hear how 
 merry and confidential they were. 
 
 "Arthur is charming to-night," she whispered to Laura, across 
 Cornet Perch's shell-jacket, as Pen was performing cavalier seiil before 
 them, drawling through that figure with a thumb in the pocket of each 
 waistcoat. 
 
 " ?F/^(7.?"said Laura. 
 
 " Arthur," answered Blanche, in French. " Oh, it's such a pretty 
 name ! " And now the young ladies went over to Pen's side, and 
 Cornet Perch performed z.pas seul in his turn. He had no waistcoat- 
 pocket to put his hands into, and they looked large and swollen as they 
 hung before him depending from the tight arms in the jacket. 
 
 During the interval between the quadrille and the succeeding 
 waltz. Pen did not take any notice of Laura, except to ask her 
 whether her partner. Cornet Perch, was an amusing youth, and 
 whether she liked him so well as her other partner, Mr. Pynsent. 
 Having planted which two daggers in Laura's bosom, Mr. Pendennis 
 proceeded to rattle on with Blanche Amory, and to make jokes good 
 or bad, but which were always loud. Laura was at a loss to account 
 for her cousin's sulky behaviour, and ignorant in what she had offended 
 him ; however, she was not angry in her turn at Pen's splenetic mood, 
 for she was the most good-natured and forgiving of women, and 
 besides, an exhibition of jealousy on a man's part is not always 
 disagreeable to a lady. 
 
 As Pen could not dance with her, she was glad to take up with 
 the active Chevalier Strong, who was a still better performer than Pen; 
 and being very fond of dancing, as every brisk and innocent young 
 girl should be, when the waltz music began she set off, and chose to 
 enjoy herself with all her heart. Captain Broadfoot on this occasion 
 occupied the floor in conjunction with a lady of proportions scarcely 
 inferior to his own : Miss Roundle, a large young woman in a straw- 
 berry-ice coloured crape dress, the daughter of the lady with the grapes 
 in her head, whose bunches Pen had admired. 
 
 And now taking his time, and with his fair partner Blanche hanging 
 lovingly on the arm which encircled her, Mr. Arthur Pendennis set 
 out upon his waltzing career, and felt, as he whirled round to the 
 music, that he and Blanche were performing very brilliantly indeed. 
 Very likely he looked to see if Miss Bell thought so too; but she did 
 not or would not see him, and was always engaged with her partner 
 Captain Strong. But Pen's triumph was not destined to last long: 
 and it was doomed that poor Blanche was to have yet another dis- 
 comfiture on that unfortunate night. While she and Pen were 
 whirling round as light and brisk as a couple of opera-dancers, honest 
 Captain Broadfoot and the lady round whose large waist he was
 
 252 PENDENNIS. 
 
 clinging, were twisting round very leisurely according to their natures, 
 and indeed were in everj'body's way. But they were more in Pen- 
 dennis's way than in anybody's else, for he and Blanche, whilst 
 executing their rapid gjTations, came bolt up against the heavy- 
 dragoon and his lady, and with such force that the centre of gravity 
 was lost by all four of the circumvolving bodies ; Captain Broadfoot 
 and Miss Roundle were fairly upset, as was Pen himself, who was less 
 lucky than his partner Miss Amor)', who was only thrown upon a 
 bench against a wall. 
 
 But Pendennis came fairly down upon the floor, sprawling in the 
 general ruin with Broadfoot and Miss Roundle. The Captain, though 
 heavy, was good-natured, and was the first to burst out into a loud 
 laugh at his own misfortune, which nobody therefore heeded. But 
 Miss Amor>' was savage at her mishap ; Miss Roundle, placed on her 
 scant, and looking pitifully round, presented an object which verj^ few 
 people could see without laughing ; and Pen was furious when he 
 heard the people giggling about him. He was one of those sarcastic 
 young fellows that did not bear a laugh at his own expense, and of all 
 things in the world feared ridicule most. 
 
 As he got up Laura and Strong were laughing at him; everybody 
 was laughing ; Pynsent and his partner were laughing ; and Pen 
 boiled with wrath against the pair, and could have stabbed them both 
 on the spot. He turned away in a fury from them, and began blun- 
 dering out apologies to Miss Amory. It was the other couple's fault 
 — the woman in pink had done it — Pen hoped Miss Amory was not 
 hurt — would she not have the courage to take another turn .'' 
 
 Miss Amory in a pet said she was very much hurt indeed, and 
 she would not take another turn ; and she accepted with great thanks 
 a glass of water which a cavalier, who wore a blue ribbon and a 
 three-pointed star, rushed to fetch for her when he had seen the 
 deplorable accident. She drank the water, smiled upon the bringer 
 gracefully, and turning her white shoulder at Mr. Pen in the most 
 marked and haughty manner, besought the gentleman with the star 
 to conduct her to her mamma ; and she held out her hand in order to 
 take his arm. 
 
 The man with the star trembled with delight at this mark of her 
 favour; he bowed over her hand, pressed it to his coat fervidly, and 
 looked round him with triumph. 
 
 It was no other than the happy Mirobolant whom Blanche had 
 selected as an escort. But the truth is, that the young lady had never 
 fairly looked in the artist's face since he had been employed in her 
 mothers family, and had no idea but it was a foreign nobleman on 
 whose arm she was leaning. As she went otT, Pen forgot his humilia- 
 tion in his surprise, and cried out, " By Jove, it's the cook ! "
 
 PENDENNIS. . 253 
 
 The instant he had uttered the words, he was sorry for having 
 spoken them — for it was Blanche who had herself invited Mirobolant 
 to escort her, nor could the artist do otherwise than comply with a 
 lady's command. Blanche in her flutter did not hear what Arthur 
 said ; but Mirobolant heard him, and cast a furious glance at him 
 over his shoulder, which rather amused Mr. Pen. He was in a 
 mischievous and sulky humour; wanting perhaps to pick a quarrel 
 with somebody; but the idea of having insulted a cook, or that 
 such an individual should have any feeling of honour at all, did 
 not much enter into the mind of this lofty young aristocrat, the 
 apothecary's son. 
 
 It had never entered that poor artist's head, that he as a man was 
 not equal to any other mortal, or that there was anything in his 
 position so degrading as to prevent him from giving his arm to a 
 lady who asked for it. He had seen in the fetes in his own country 
 line ladies, not certainly demoiselles (but the demoiselle Anglaise he 
 knew was a great deal more free than the spinster in France), join in 
 the dance with Blaise or Pierre : and he would have taken Blanche 
 up to Lady Clavering, and possibly have asked her to dance too, but 
 he heard Pen's exclamation, which struck him as if it had shot him, 
 and cruelly humiliated and angered him. She did not know what 
 caused him to start, and to grind a Gascon oath between his teeth. 
 
 But Strong, who was acquainted with the poor fellow's state of 
 mind, having had the interesting information from our friend Madame 
 Fribsby, was luckily in the way when wanted, and saying something 
 rapidly in Spanish, which the other understood, the Chevalier begged 
 Miss Amory to come and take an ice before she went back to Lady 
 Clavering. Upon which the unhappy Mirobolant relinquished the 
 arm which he had held for a minute, and with a most profound and 
 piteous bow, fell back. " Don't you know who it is ? " Strong asked 
 of Miss Amory, as he led her away. " It is the chef Mirobolant." 
 
 " How should I know?" asked Blanche. "He has a croixj he 
 is very distingue; he has beautiful eyes." 
 
 " The poor fellow is mad for your beatix yeux, I believe," Strong 
 said. " He is a very good cook, but he is not quite right in the 
 head." 
 
 "What did you say to him in the unknown tongue ?" asked Miss 
 Blanche. 
 
 " He is a Gascon, and comes from the borders of Spain," Strong 
 
 answered. " I told him he would lose his place if he walked with you." 
 
 " Poor Monsieur Mirobolant!" said Blanche. 
 
 "Did you see the look he gave Pendennis ? " — Strong asked, 
 
 enjoying the idea of the mischief—" I think he would like to run little 
 
 Pen through with one of his spits."
 
 254 PENDENNIS. 
 
 " He is an odious, conceited, clumsy creature, that Mr. Pen," said 
 Blanche. 
 
 " Broadfoot looked as if he would like to kill him too, so did 
 Pynsent,'"' Strong said. " What ice will you have — water ice or 
 cream ice.'"' 
 
 " Water ice. Who is that odd man staring at me — he is decore 
 too." 
 
 " That is my friend Colonel Altamont, a very queer character, in 
 the service of the Nawaub of Lucknow. Hallo ! what's that noise "i 
 I'll be back in an instant," said the Chevalier, and sprang out of the 
 room to the ball-room, where a scuffle and noise of high voices was 
 heard. 
 
 The refreshment-room, in which Aliss Amory now found herself, 
 was a room set apart for the purposes of supper, which Mr. Rincer the 
 landlord had provided for those who chose to partake, at the rate of 
 five shillings per head. Also, refreshments of a superior class were 
 here ready for the ladies and gentlemen of the county families who 
 came to the ball ; but the commoner sort of persons were kept out of 
 the room by a waiter who stood at the portal, and who said that was 
 a select room for Lady Clavering and Lady Rockminster's parties, and 
 not to be opened to the public till supper-time, which was not to 
 be until past midnight. Pynsent, who danced with his constituents' 
 daughters, took them and their mammas in for their refreshment 
 there. Strong, who was manager and master of the revels wherever 
 he went, had of course the entree — and the only person who was now 
 occupying the room, was the gentleman with the black wig and the 
 orders in his button-hole; the officer in the service of his Highness the 
 Nawaub of Lucknow. 
 
 This gentleman had established himself very early in the evening 
 in this apartment, where, saying he was confoundedly thirsty, he called 
 for a bottle of champagne. At this order, the waiter instantly sup- 
 posed that he had to do with a grandee, and the Colonel sate down 
 and began to eat his supper and absorb his drink, and enter affably 
 into conversation with anybody who entered the room. 
 
 Sir Francis Clavering and Mr. Wagg found him there ; when they 
 left the ball-room, which they did pretty early — Sir Francis to go and 
 smoke a cigar, and look at the people gathered outside the ball-room 
 on the shore, which he declared was much better fun than to remain 
 within ; Mr. Wagg to hang on to a Baronet's arm, as he was always 
 pleased to do on the arm of the greatest man in the company. Colonel 
 Altamont had stared at these gentlemen in so odd a manner, as they 
 passed through the " Select" room, that Clavering made inquiries of 
 the landlord who he was, and hinted a strong opinion that the officer 
 of the Nawaub's service was drunk.
 
 PENDENNIS. 255 
 
 Mr. Pynsent, too, had had the honour of a conversation with the 
 servant of the Indian potentate. It was Pynsent's cue to speak to 
 everybody ; (which he did, to do him justice, in the most ungracious 
 manner;) and he took the gentleman in the black wig for some con- 
 stitueiit, some merchant captain, or other outlandish man of the place. 
 Mr. Pynsent, then, coming into the refreshment-room with a lady, the 
 wife of a constituent, on his arm, the Colonel asked him if he would 
 try a glass of Sham? Pynsent took it with great gravity, bowed, 
 tasted the wine, and pronounced it excellent, and with the utmost 
 politeness retreated before Colonel Altamont. This gravity and 
 decorum routed and surprised the Colonel more than any other kind 
 of behaviour probably would : he stared after Pynsent stupidly, and 
 pronounced to the landlord over the counter that he was a rum one. 
 Mr. Rincer blushed, and hardly knew what to say. Mr. Pynsent was 
 a county earl's grandson, going to set up as a Parliament man. 
 Colonel Altamont, on the other hand, wore orders and diamonds, 
 jingled sovereigns constantly in his pocket, and paid his way like a 
 man ; so not knowing what to say, Mr. Rincer said, " Yes, Colonel — 
 yes, ma'am, did you say tea ? Cup a tea for Mr. Jones, Mrs. R.," and 
 so got off that discussion regarding Mr. Pynsent's qualities, into which 
 the Nizam's officer appeared inclined to enter. 
 
 In fact, if the truth must be told, Mr. Altamont, having remained 
 at the buffet almost all night, and employed himself very actively 
 whilst there, had considerably flushed his brain by drinking, and he 
 was still going on drinking, when Mr. Strong and Miss Amory entered 
 the room. 
 
 When the Chevalier ran out of the apartment, attracted by the 
 noise in the dancing-room, the Colonel rose from his chair with his 
 little red eyes glowing like coals, and, with rather an unsteady gait, 
 advanced towards Blanche, who was sipping her ice. She was 
 absorbed in absorbing it, for it was very fresh and good ; or she was 
 not curious to know what was going on in the adjoining room, 
 although the waiters were, who ran after Chevalier Strong. So that 
 when she looked up from her glass, she beheld this strange man 
 staring at her out of his little red eyes. " Who was he .'' It was quite 
 exciting." 
 
 " And so you're Betsy Amory," said he, after gazing at her. " Betsy 
 Amory, by Jove ! " 
 
 "Who — who speaks to me.?" said Betsy, alias Blanche. 
 
 But the noise in the ball-room is really becoming so loud, that we 
 must rush back thither, and see what is the cause of the disturbance.
 
 256 PENDENNIS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 WHICH IS BOTH QUARRELSOME AND SENTIMENTAL. 
 
 CIVIL war was raging, high words passing, people pushing and 
 squeezing together in an unseemly manner, round a window in 
 the corner of the ball-room, close by the door through which the 
 Chevalier Strong shouldered his way. Through the opened window, 
 the crowd in the street below was sending up sarcastic remarks, such 
 as "Pitch into him!" "Where's the police.^" and the like; and a 
 ring of individuals, among whom Madame Fribsby was conspicuous, 
 Avas gathered round Monsieur Alcide Mirobolant on the one side ; 
 whilst several gentlemen and ladies surrounded our friend Arthur 
 Pendennis on the other. Strong penetrated into this assembly, 
 elbowing by Madame Fribsby, who was charmed at the Chevaliers 
 appearance, and cried, " Save him, save him ! " in frantic and pathetic 
 accents. 
 
 The cause of the disturbance, it appeared, was the angry little chef 
 of Sir Francis Clavering's culinary establishment. Shortly after Strong 
 had quitted the room, and whilst Mr. Pen, greatly irate at his downfall 
 in the waltz, which had made him look ridiculous in the eyes of the 
 nation, and by Miss Amory's behaviour to him, which had still further 
 insulted his dignity, was endeavouring to get some coolness of body 
 and temper, by looking out of window towards the sea, which was 
 sparkling in the distance, and murmuring in a wonderful calm — whilst 
 he was really trj-ing to compose himself, and owning to himself, per- 
 haps, that he had acted in a ver\' absurd and peevish manner during 
 the night — he felt a hand upon his shoulder ; and, on looking round, 
 beheld, to his utter surprise and horror, that the hand in question 
 belonged to Monsieur Mirobolant, whose eyes were glaring out of his 
 pale face and ringlets at Mr. Pen. To be tapped on the shoulder by 
 a French cook was a piece of familiarity which made the blood of the 
 Pendennises to boil up in the veins of their descendant, and he was 
 astounded, almost more than enraged, at such an indignity. 
 
 " You speak French ?" Mirobolant said in his own language, to Pen. 
 
 "What is that to you, pray?" said Pen, in English. 
 
 " At any rate, you understand it ? " continued the other, with a bow. 
 
 " Yes, sir," said Pen, with a stamp of his foot ; " I understand it 
 pretty well."
 
 PENDENNIS. 257 
 
 " Vous me comprendrez alors, Monsieur Pendennis," replied the 
 other, rolling out his r with Gascon force, " quand je vous dis 
 que vous etes un liche, Monsieur Pendennis — un lache, entendez- 
 vous ?" 
 
 "What?" said Pen, starting round on him. 
 
 " You understand the meaning of the word and its consequences 
 among men of honour ? " the artist said, putting his hand on his hip, 
 and staring at Pen. 
 
 " The consequences are, that I will fling you out of window, you 
 — impudent scoundrel," bawled out Mr. Pen ; and darting upon the 
 Frenchman, he would very likely have put his threat into execution, 
 for the window was -at hand, and the artist by no means a match for 
 the young gentleman^ — had not Captain Broadfoot and another heavy 
 officer flung themselves between the combatants, — had not the ladies 
 begun to scream, — had not the fiddles stopped, — had not the crowd of 
 people come running in that direction, — had not Laura, with a face of 
 great alarm, looked over their heads and asked for Heaven's sake what 
 was wrong, — had not the opportune Strong made his appearance from 
 the refreshment-room, and found Alcides grinding his teeth and jab- 
 bering oaths in his Gascon French, and Pen looking uncommonly 
 wicked, although trying to appear as calm as possible, when the ladies 
 and the crowd came up. 
 
 " What has happened ? " Strong asked of the chef, in Spanish. 
 
 " I am Chevalier de Juillet," said the other, slapping his breast, 
 " and he has insulted me." 
 
 " What has he said to you ?" asked Strong. 
 
 " II m'a appele — Cuisinier" hissed out the little Frenchman. 
 
 Strong could hardly help laughing. " Come away with me, my poor 
 Chevalier," he said. " We must not quarrel before ladies. Come away; 
 I will carry your message to Mr. Pendennis. — The poor fellow is not 
 right in his head," he whispered to one or two people about him ; — and 
 others, and anxious Laura's face visible amongst these, gathered round 
 Pen and asked the cause of the disturbance. 
 
 Pen did not know. "The man was going to give his arm to a 
 young lady, on which I said that he was a cook, and the man called 
 me a coward and challenged me to fight. I own I was so surprised 
 and indignant, that if you gentlemen had not stopped me, 1 should 
 have thrown him out of window," Pen said. 
 
 " D him, serve him right, too,— the d — - impudent foreign 
 
 scoundrel," the gentlemen said. 
 
 " I— I'm very sorry if I hurt his feelings, though," Pen added : and 
 Laura was glad to hear him say that ; although some of the young 
 bucks said, " No, hang the fellow,— hang those impudent foreigners- 
 little thrashing would do them good." 
 
 17
 
 258 PENDENNIS. 
 
 " You will go and shake hands with him before you go to sleep— 
 won't you, Pen?" said Laura, coming up to him. " Foreigners may- 
 be more susceptible than we are, and have different manners. If you 
 hurt a poor man's feelings, I am sure you would be the first to ask his 
 pardon. Wouldn't you, dear Pen?" 
 
 She looked all forgiveness and gentleness, like an angel, as she 
 spoke, and Pen took both her hands, and looked into her kind face, 
 and said indeed he would. 
 
 " How fond that girl is of me ! " he thought, as she stood gazing at 
 him. " Shall I speak to her now ? No — not now. I must have this 
 absurd business with the Frenchman over." 
 
 Laura asked — Wouldn't he stop and dance with her ? She was as 
 anxious to keep him in the room, as he to quit it. " Won't you stop 
 and waltz with me. Pen ? I'm not afraid to waltz with you." 
 
 This was an affectionate, but an unlucky speech. Pen saw himself 
 prostrate on the ground, having tumbled over Miss Roundle and the 
 dragoon, and flung Blanche up against the wall — saw himself on the 
 ground, and all the people laughing at him, Laura and Pynsent 
 amongst them. 
 
 " I shall never dance again," he replied, with a dark and determined 
 face. " Never. I'm surprised you should ask me." 
 
 " Is it because you can't get Blanche for a partner?" asked Laura, 
 with a wicked, unlucky captiousness. 
 
 " Because I don't wish to make a fool of myself, for other people to 
 laugh at me," Pen answered — " for you to laugh at me, Laura. I saw 
 you and Pynsent. By Jove ! no man shall laugh at me." 
 
 " Pen, Pen, don't be so wicked ! " cried out the poor girl, hurt at the 
 morbid perverseness and savage vanity of Pen. He was glaring round 
 in the direction of Mr. Pynsent as if he would have hked to engage 
 that gentleman as he had done the cook. " Who thinks the worse of 
 you for stumbling in a waltz ?" If Laura does, we don't. " Why are 
 you so sensitive, and ready to think evil ? " 
 
 Here again, by ill luck, Mr. Pynsent came up to Laura, and said, 
 " I have it in command from Lady Rockminster to ask v.hether I may 
 take you in to supper ? " 
 
 " I — I was going in with my cousin," Laura said. 
 
 " O — pray, no ! " said Pen. " You are in such good hands, that I 
 can't do better than leave you : and I'm going home." 
 
 " Good night, Mr. Pendennis," Pynsent said, drily — to which 
 speech (which in fact meant, " Go to the deuce for an insolent, 
 jealous, impertinent jacknapes, whose ears I should like to bo.\") 
 Mr. Pendennis did not vouchsafe any reply, except a bow : and, in 
 spile of Laura's imploring looks, he left the room. 
 
 " How beautifully calm and bright the night outside is ! " said
 
 PENDENNIS. - 259 
 
 Mr. Pynsent; "and what a murmur the sea is makhig ! It would be 
 pleasanter to be walking on the beach, than in this hot room." 
 
 " Very," said Laura. 
 
 " What a strange congregation of people," continued Pynsent. 
 " I have had to go up and perform the agreeable to most of them — 
 the attorney's daughters — the apothecary's wife — I scarcely know 
 whom. There was a man in the refreshment-room, who insisted upon 
 treating me to champagne — a seafaring-looking man — extraordinarily 
 dressed, and seeming half tipsy. As a public man, one is bound to 
 conciliate all these people, but it is a hard task— especially when one 
 would so very much like to be elsewhere" — and he blushed rather as 
 he spoke. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," said Laura — " I — I was not listening. 
 Indeed — I was frightened about that quarrel between my cousin and 
 that — that — French person." 
 
 " Your cousin has been rather unlucky to-night," Pynsent said. 
 " There are three or four persons whom he has not succeeded in 
 pleasing — Captain Broadwood ; what is his name — the officer^and 
 the young lady in red with whom he danced — and Miss Blanche — 
 and the poor chef — and I don't think he seemed to be particularly 
 pleased with me." 
 
 "Didn't he leave me in charge to you?" Laura said, looking up 
 into Mr. Pynsent's face, and dropping her eyes instantly, like a guilty 
 little story-telling coquette. 
 
 " Indeed, I can forgive him a good deal for that," Pynsent eagerly 
 cried out, and she took his arm, and he led off his little prize in the 
 direction of the supper-room. 
 
 She had no great desire for that repast, though it was served in 
 Rincer's well-known style, as the county paper said, giving an account 
 of the entertainment afterwards ; indeed, she was very distraite j and 
 e.Kceedingly pained and unhappy about Pen. Captious and quarrel- 
 some ; jealous and selfish ; fickle and violent and unjust when his 
 anger led him astray ; how could her mother (as indeed Helen had by 
 a thousand words and hints) ask her to give her heart to such a man } 
 and suppose she were to do so, would it make him happy ? 
 
 But she got some relief at length, when, at the end of half an hour 
 —a long half-hour it had seemed to her — a waiter brought her a little 
 note in pencil from Pen, who said, " I met Cooky below ready to 
 fight me ; and I asked his pardon. I'm glad I did it. I wanted to 
 speak to you to-night, but will keep what I had to say till you come 
 home. God bless you. Dance away all night with Pynsent, and 
 be very happy. Pen." — Laura was very thankful for this letter, and 
 to think that there was goodness and forgiveness still in her mother's 
 boy.
 
 26c FENDEiYNIS. 
 
 Pen went downstairs, his heart reproaching him for his absurd 
 behaviour to Laura, whose gentle and imploring looks followed and 
 rebuked him ; and he was scarcely out of the ball-room door before 
 he longed to turn back and ask her pardon. But he remembered that 
 he had left her with that confounded Pynsent. He could not apologise 
 before him. He would compromise and forget his wrath, and make 
 his peace with the Frenchman. 
 
 The Chevalier was pacing down below in the haU of the inn when 
 Pen descended from the ball-room ; and he came up to Pen, with all 
 sorts of fun and mischief lighting up his jolly face. 
 
 " I have got him in the coffee-room," he said, " with a brace of 
 pistols and a candle. Or would you like swords on the beach ? 
 Mirobolant is a dead hand with the foils, and killed four gardes-dit- 
 corps with his own point in the barricades of July." 
 
 " Confound it," said Pen, in a fury, " I can't fight a cook !" 
 
 " He is a Chevalier of July," replied the other. " They present 
 arms to him in his own country." 
 
 " And do you ask me. Captain Strong, to go out with a servant?" 
 Pen asked fiercely ; " 111 call a policeman for himj but — but — " 
 
 " You'll invite me to hair triggers ? " cried Strong, with a laugh. 
 " Thank you for nothing ; I was but joking. I came to settle quarrels, 
 not to fight them. I have been soothing down Mirobolant ; I have 
 told him that you did not apply the word ' Cook ' to him in an offen- 
 sive sense : that it was contrary to all the customs of the country that 
 a hired officer of a household, as I called it, should give his arm to the 
 daughter of the house." And then he told Pen the grand secret which 
 he had had from Madame Fribsby, of the violent passion under which 
 the poor artist was labouring. 
 
 When Arthur heard this tale, he broke out into a hearty laugh, in 
 which Strong joined, and his rage against the poor cook vanished at 
 once. He had been absurdly jealous himself all the evening, and had 
 longed for a pretext to insult Pynsent. He remembered how jealous 
 he had been of Oaks in his first affair ; he was ready to pardon any- 
 thing to a man under a passion like that : and he went into the coffee- 
 room where Mirobolant was waiting, with an out-stretched hand, and 
 made him a speech in French, in which he declared that he was 
 " sincerement fache d'avoir use une expression qui avoit pu blesser 
 Monsieur Mirobolant, et qu'il donnoit sa parole comme un gentil- 
 homme qu'il ne I'avoit jamais, jamais — intende," said Pen, who made 
 a shot at a French word for " intended," and was secretly much 
 pleased with his own fluency and correctness in speaking that lan- 
 guage. 
 
 " Bravo, bravo ! " cried Strong, as much amused with Pen's speech 
 as pleased by his kind manner. " And the Chevalier Mirobolant of
 
 FEA'DEAW/S. 261 
 
 course withdraws and sincerely regrets the expression of which he 
 made use." 
 
 " Monsieur Pendennis has disproved my words himself," said Alcide 
 with great politeness ; " he has shown that he is a galant hoininc." 
 
 And so they shook hands and parted, Arthur in the first place 
 dispatching his note to Laura before he and Strong committed them- 
 selves to the Butcher Boy. 
 
 As they drove along, Strong complimented Pen upon his behaviour, 
 as well as upon his skill in French. " You're a good fellow, Pendennis, 
 and you speak French like Chateaubriand, by Jove." 
 
 " I've been accustomed to it from my youth upwards,'-' said Pen ; 
 and Strong had the grace not to laugh for five minutes, when he 
 exploded into fits of hilarity which Pendennis has never, perhaps, 
 understood up to this day. 
 
 It was daybreak when they got to the Brawl, where they separated. 
 By that time the ball at Baymouth was over too. Madame Fribsby 
 and Mirobolant were on their way home in the Clavering fly ; Laura 
 was in bed with an easy heart and asleep at Lady Rockminster's ; and 
 the Claverings at rest at the inn at Baymouth, where they had quarters 
 for the night. A short time after the disturbance between Pen and the 
 chef, Blanche had come out of the refreshment-room, looking as pale 
 as a lemon-ice. She told her maid, having no other confidante -^sX hand, 
 that she had met with the most romantic adventure — the most singular 
 man — one who had known the author of her being — her persecuted — 
 her unhappy — her heroic — her murdered father ; and she began a 
 sonnet to his manes before she went to sleep. 
 
 So Pen returned to Fairoaks, in company with his friend the 
 Chevalier, without having uttered a word of the message which he 
 had been so anxious to deliver to Laura at Baymouth. He could wait, 
 however, until her return home, which was to take place on the 
 succeeding day. He was not seriously jealous of the progress made 
 by Mr. Pynsent in her favour ; and he felt pretty certain that in this, 
 as in any other family arrangement, he had but to ask and have, and 
 Laura, like his mother, could refuse him nothing. 
 
 When Helen's anxious looks inquired of him what had happened 
 at Baymouth, and whether her darling project was fulfilled, Pen, in a 
 gay tone, told of the calamity which had befallen ; laughingly said, 
 that no man could think about declarations under such a mishap, and 
 made light of the matter. " There will be plenty of time for sentiment, 
 dear mother, when Laura comes back," he said, and he looked in the 
 glass with a killing air, and his mother put his hair off his forehead 
 and kissed him, and of course thought, for her part, that no woman 
 could resist him ; and was exceedingly happy that day.
 
 262 PENDEXNIS. 
 
 When he was not with her, Mr. Pen occupied himself in packing 
 books and portmanteaus, burning and arranging papers, cleaning his 
 gun and putting it into its case : in fact, in making dispositions for 
 departure. For though he was ready to marrj-, this gentleman was 
 eager to go to London too, rightly considering that at three-and-twenty 
 it was quite time for him to begin upon the serious business of life, 
 and to set about making a fortune as quickly as possible. 
 
 The means to this end he had already shaped out for himself. " I 
 shall take chambers," he said, " and enter myself at an Inn of Court. 
 With a couple of hundred pounds I shall be able to carr)' through the 
 first year verj- well ; after that I have little doubt my pen will support 
 me, as it is doing with several Oxbridge men now in town. I have a 
 tragedy, a comedy, and a novel, all nearly finished, and for which T 
 can't fail to get a price. And so I shall be able to live pretty well, 
 without drawing upon my poor mother, until I have made my way at 
 the bar. Then, some day I will come back and make her dear soul 
 happy by marrying Laura. She is as good and as sweet-tempered a 
 girl as ever lived, besides being really very good-looking, and the 
 engagement will serve to steady me, — won't it, Ponto?" Thus, 
 smoking his pipe, and talking to his dog as he sauntered through the 
 gardens and orchards of the little domain of Fairoaks, this young day- 
 dreamer built castles in the air for himself: "Yes, she'll steady me, 
 won't she ? And you'll miss me when IVe gone, won't you, old boy -^ " 
 he asked of Ponto, who quivered his tail and thinist his brown nose 
 into his master's fist. Ponto licked his hand and shoe, as they all did 
 in that house, and Mr. Pen received their homage as other folks do the 
 flattery which they get. 
 
 Laura came home rather late in the evening of the second day ; 
 and Mr. Pynsent, as ill luck would have it, drove her from Clavering. 
 The poor girl could not refuse his offer, but his appearance brought a 
 dark cloud upon the brow of Arthur Pendennis. Laura saw this, and 
 was pained by it : the eager widow, however, was aware of nothing, 
 and being anxious, doubtless, that the delicate question should be 
 asked at once, was for going to bed ver\' soon after Laura's arrival, 
 and rose for that purpose to leave the sofa where she now generallv 
 lay, and where Laura would come and sit and work or read by her. 
 But when Helen rose, Laura said, with a blush and rather an alarmed 
 voice, that she was also ver)' tired and wanted to go to bed : so that 
 the widow was disappointed in her scheme for that night at least, and 
 Mr. Pen was left another day in suspense regarding his fate. 
 
 His dignity was offended at being thus obliged to remain in the 
 ante-chamber when he wanted an audience. Such a sultan as he 
 could not afford to be kept waiting. However he went to bed and 
 slept upon his disappointment pretty comfortably, and did not wake
 
 PEABENNIS. 263 
 
 until the early morning, when he looked up and saw his mother stand- 
 ing in his room. 
 
 " Dear Pen, rouse up," said this lady. " Do not be lazy. It is the 
 most beautiful morning in the world. I have not been able to sleep 
 since daybreak ; and Laura has been out for an hour. She is in the 
 garden. Everybody ought to be in the garden and out on such a 
 morning as this." 
 
 Pen laughed. He sav/ what thoughts were uppermost in the simple 
 woman's heart. His good-natured laughter cheered the widow. " Oh 
 you profound dissembler," he said, kissing his mother. " Oh you 
 artful creature ! Can nobody escape from your wicked tricks .' and 
 will you make your only son your victim.^" Helen too laughed, she 
 blushed, she fluttered, and was agitated. She was as happy as she 
 could be — a good, tender, matchmaking woman, the dearest project of 
 whose heart was about to be accomplished. 
 
 So, after exchanging some knowing looks and hasty words, Helen 
 left Arthur ; and this young hero, rising from his bed, proceeded to 
 decorate his beautiful person, and shave his ambrosial chin ; and in 
 half an hour he issued out from his apartment into the garden in quest 
 of Laura. His reflections as he made his toilette were rather dismal. 
 " 1 am going to tie myself for life," he thought, " to please my mother. 
 Laura is the best of women, and — and she has given me her money. 
 I wish to Heaven I had not received it ; I wish I had not this duty to 
 perform just yet. But as both the women have set their hearts on the 
 match, why I suppose I must satisfy them — and now for it. A man 
 may do worse than make happy two of the best creatures in the 
 world." .So Pen, now he was actually come to the point, felt very 
 grave, and by no means elated, and, indeed, thought it was a great 
 sacrifice he was going to perform. 
 
 It was Miss Laura's custom, upon her garden excursions, to wear 
 a sort of uniform, which, though homely, was thought by many people 
 to be not unbecoming. She had a large straw hat, with a streamer 
 of broad ribbon, which was useless probably, but the hat sufficiently 
 protected the owner's pretty face from the sun. Over her accustomed 
 gown she wore a blouse or pinafore, which, being fastened round 
 her little waist by a smart belt, looked extremely well, and her 
 hands were guaranteed from the thorns of her favourite rose-bushes 
 by a pair of gauntlets, which gave this young lady a military and 
 resolute air. 
 
 Somehow she had the very same smile with which she had laughed 
 at him on the night previous, and the recollection of his disaster again 
 offended Pen. But Laura, though she saw him coming down the 
 walk looking so gloomy and full of care, accorded to him a smile of
 
 . 264 PENDENNTS. 
 
 the most perfect and provoking good-humour, and went to meet him, 
 holding one of the gauntlets to him, so that he might shake it if he 
 liked — and Mr. Pen condescended to do so. His face, however, did 
 not lose its tragic expression in consequence of this favour, and he 
 continued to regard her with a dismal and solemn air. 
 
 " Excuse my glove," said Laura, with a laugh, pressing Pen's hand 
 kindly with it. '• We are not angry again, are we. Pen .'"' 
 
 " Why do you laugh at me .'' " said Pen. " You did the other night, 
 and made a fool of me to the people at Baymouth." 
 
 " My dear Arthur, I meant you no wrong," the girl answered. 
 " You and Miss Roundle looked so droll as you — as you met with 
 your little accident, that I could not make a tragedy of it. Dear Pen, 
 it wasn't a serious fall. And, besides, it was Miss Roundle who was 
 the most unfortunate." 
 
 " Confound Miss Roundle ! " bellowed out Pen. 
 
 " I'm sure she looked so," said Laura, archly. " You were up in 
 an instant ; but that poor lady sitting on the ground in her red crape 
 dress, and looking about her with that piteous face — can I ever forget 
 her .'' " — and Laura began to make a face in imitation of Miss Roundle's 
 under the disaster, but she checked herself repentantly, saying, '" Well, 
 we must not laugh at her, but I am sure we ought to laugh at you, 
 Pen, if you were angry about such a trifle." 
 
 "Yo7i should not laugh at me, Laura," said Pen, with some bitter- 
 ness ; " not you, of all people." 
 
 " And why not ? Are you such a great man } " asked Laura. 
 
 " Ah, no, Laura, I'm such a poor one," Pen answered. " Haven't 
 you baited me enough already } " 
 
 " My dear Pen, and how ? " cried Laura. " Indeed, indeed, I 
 didn't think to vex you by such a trifle. I thought such a clever man 
 as you could bear a harmless little joke from his sister," she said, 
 holding her hand out again. " Dear Arthur, if I have hurt you, I beg 
 your pardon." 
 
 " It is your kindness that humiliates me more even than your 
 laughter, Laura," Pen said. " You are always my superior." 
 
 "What ! superior to the great Arthur Pendennis ? How can it be 
 possible ? " said Miss Laura, who may have had a little wickedness as 
 well as a great deal of kindness in her composition. " You can't mean 
 that any woman is your equal .'' " 
 
 " Those who confer benefits should not sneer," said Pen. " I 
 don't like my benefactor to laugh at me, Laura ; it makes the obliga- 
 tion very hard to bear. You scorn me because I have taken your 
 money, and I am worthy to be scorned j but the blow is hard, coming 
 from you." 
 
 " Money ! Obligation ! For shame, Pen ; this is ungenerous,"
 
 PENDENNIS. 26; 
 
 Laura said, flushing red. " May not our mother claim everything 
 that belongs to us ? Don't I owe her all my happiness in this world, 
 Arthur ? What matters about a few paltry guineas, if we can set her 
 tender heart at rest, and ease her mind regarding you ? I would dig 
 in the fields, I would go out and be a servant — I would die for her. 
 You know I would," said Miss Laura, kindling up ; " and you call 
 this paltry money an obligation ? Oh, Pen, it's cruel — it's unworthy 
 of you to take it so ! If my brother may not share with me my 
 superfluity, who may ? — Mine ? — I tell you it was not mine; it was all 
 mamma's to do with as she chose, and so is everything I have," said 
 Laura; " my life is hers." And the enthusiastic girl looked towards 
 the windows of the widow's room, and blessed in her heart the kind 
 creature within. 
 
 Helen was looking, unseen, out of that window towards which 
 Laura's eyes and heart were turned as she spoke, and was watching 
 her two children with the deepest interest and emotion, longing and 
 hoping that the prayer of her life might be fulfilled ; and if Laura 
 had spoken as Helen hoped, who knows what temptations Arthur 
 Pendennis might have been spared, or what different trials he would 
 have had to undergo ? He might have remained at Fairoaks all his 
 days, and died a country gentleman. But would he have escaped 
 then ? Temptation is an obsequious servant that has no objection to 
 the country, and we know that it takes up its lodging in hermitages 
 as well as in cities ; and that in the most remote and inaccessible 
 desert it keeps company with the fugitive solitary. 
 
 "/r your life my mother's," said Pen, beginning to tremble, and 
 speak in a very agitated manner. " You know, Laura, what the great 
 object of hers is ? '' And he took her hand once more. 
 
 " What, Arthur.''" she said, dropping it, and looking at him, at the 
 window again, and then dropping her eyes to the ground, so that they 
 avoided Pen's gaze. She, too, trembled, for she felt that the crisis for 
 which she had been secretly preparing was come. 
 
 " Our mother has one wish above all others in the world, Laura," 
 Pen said, " and I think you know it. I own to you that she has 
 spoken to me of it ; and if you will fulfil it, dear sister, I am ready. 
 I am but very young as yet ; but I have had so many pains and dis- 
 appointments, but I am old and weary. I think I have hardly got a 
 heart to offer. Before I have almost begun the race in life, I am a 
 tired man. My career has been a failure ; I have been protected by 
 those whom I by right should have protected. I own that your 
 nobleness and generosity, dear Laura, shame me, whilst they render 
 me grateful. When I heard from our mother what you had done for 
 me : that it was you who armed me and bade me go out for one 
 struggle more ; I longed to go and throw myself at your feet, and
 
 266 PENDE.XNIS. 
 
 say, ' Laura, will you come and share the contest with me ? Your 
 sympathy will cheer me while it lasts. I shall have one of the 
 tenderest and most generous creatures under heaven to aid and bear 
 me company.' Will you take me, dear Laura, and make our mother 
 happy?" 
 
 " Do you think mamma would be happy if you Avere otherwise, 
 Arthur ? " Laura said in a low sad voice. 
 
 " And why should I not be," asked Pen eagerly, " with so dear a 
 creature as you by my side } I have not my first love to give you. I 
 am a broken man. But indeed I would love you fondly and truly. 
 I have lost many an illusion and ambition, but I am not without hope 
 still. Talents I know I have, wretchedly as I have misapplied them : 
 they may serve me yet : they would, had I a motive for action. Let 
 me go away and think that I am pledged to return to you. Let me 
 go and work, and hope that you will share my success if I gain it. You 
 have given me so much, dear Laura, will you take from me nothing.''" 
 
 " What have you got to give, Arthur ? " Laura said, with a grave 
 sadness of tone, which made Pen start, and see that his words had 
 committed him. Indeed, his declaration had not been such as he 
 would have made it two days earlier, when, full of hope and gratitude, 
 he had run over to Laura, his liberatress, to thank her for his 
 recovered freedom. Had he been permitted to speak then, he had 
 spoken, and she, perhaps, had listened differently. It would have 
 been a grateful heart asking for hers ; not a weary one offered to her, 
 to take or to leave. Laura was offended with the terms in which Pen 
 offered himself to her. He had. in fact, said that he had no love, and 
 yet would take no denial. " I give myself to you to please my 
 mother," he had said : " take me, as she wishes that I should make 
 this sacrifice." The girl's spirit would brook a husband under no such 
 conditions : she was not minded to run forward because Pen chose to 
 hold out the handkerchief, and her tone, in reply to Arthur, showed 
 her determination to be independent. 
 
 " No, Arthur," she said, " our maiTiage would not make mamma 
 happy, as she fancies ; for it would not content you very long. I, too, 
 have known what her wishes were ; for she is too open to conceal 
 anything she has at heart : and once, perhaps, I thought — but that is 
 over now — that I could have made you — that it might have been as 
 she wished." 
 
 " You have seen somebody else ? " said Pen, angrj- at her tone, and 
 recalling the incidents of the past days. 
 
 " That allusion might have been spared," Laura replied, flinging up 
 her head. " A heart which has worn out love at three-and-twenty, as 
 yours has, you say, should have survived jealousy too. I do not con- 
 descend to say whether I have se6n or encouraged any other person.
 
 PENDENNIS. 267 
 
 I shall neither admit the charge, nor deny it : and beg you also to 
 allude to it no more." 
 
 " I ask your pardon, Laura, if I have offended you ; but if I am 
 jealous, does it not prove that I have a heart ?" 
 
 " Not for me, Arthur. Perhaps you think you love me now : but 
 it is only for an instant, and because you are foiled. Were there no 
 obstacle, you would feel no ardour to overcome it. No, Arthur, you 
 don't love me. You would weary of me in three months, as — as you 
 do of most things; and mamma, seeing you tired of me, would be 
 more unhappy than at my refusal to be yours. Let us be brother and 
 sister, Arthur, as heretofore — but no more. You will get over this 
 little disappointment." 
 
 " I will try," said Arthur, in a great indignation. 
 
 "Have you not tried before?" Laura said, with some anger, for 
 she had been angry with Arthur for a very long time, and was now 
 determined, I suppose, to speak her mind. " And the next time, 
 Arthur, when you offer yourself to a woman, do not say as you have 
 done to me, ' I have no heart — I do not love you ; but I am ready to 
 marry you because my mother wishes for the match.' We require 
 more than this in return for our love — that is, I think so. I have had 
 no experience hitherto, and have not had the — the practice which you 
 supposed me to have, when you spoke but now of my having seen 
 somebody else. Did you tell your first love that you had no heart, 
 Arthur .'' or your second that you did not love her, but that she might 
 have you if she liked .'' " 
 
 " What — what do you mean ? " asked Arthur, blushing, and still in 
 great wrath. 
 
 " I mean Blanche Amory, Arthur Pendennis," Laura said, proudly. 
 " It is but two months since you were sighing at her feet — making 
 poems to her — placing them in hollow trees by the river-side. I knew 
 all. I watched you — that is, she showed them to me. Neither one 
 nor the other were in earnest perhaps ; but it is too soon now, Arthur, to 
 begin a new attachment. Go through the time of your — your widow- 
 hood at least, and do not think of marrying until you are out of mourn- 
 ing." — (Here the girl's eyes filled with tears, and she passed her hand 
 across them.) " I am angry and hurt, and I have no right to be so, 
 and I ask your pardon in my turn now, dear Arthur. You had a right 
 to love Blanche. She was a thousand times prettier and more accom- 
 plished than — than any girl near us here ; and you could not know that 
 she had no heart ; and so you were right to leave her too. 1 ought not 
 to rebuke you about Blanche Amory, and because she deceived you. 
 Pardon me. Pen," — and she held the kind hand out to Pen once more, 
 
 "We were both jealous," said Pen. "Dear Laura, let us both 
 forgive " — and he seized her hand and would have drawn her towards
 
 368 PENDENNIS. 
 
 him. He thought that she was relenting, and already assumed the 
 airs of a victor. 
 
 But she shrank back, and her tears passed away ; and she fixed 
 on him a look so melancholy and severe, that the young man in his 
 turn shrunk before it. " Do not mistake me, Arthur," she said : " it 
 cannot be. You do not know what you ask, and do not be too angry 
 with me for saying that I think you do not deserve it. What do you 
 offer in exchange to a woman for her love, honour, and obedience ? 
 If ever I say these words, dear Pen, I hope to say them in earnest, 
 and by the blessing of God to keep my vow. But you — what tie binds 
 you .'' You do not care about many things which we poor women hold 
 sacred. I do not like to think or ask how far your incredulity leads 
 you. You offer to marry to please our mother, and own that you have 
 no heart to give away. Oh, Arthur, what is it you offer me ? What 
 a rash compact would you enter into so lightly ! A month ago, and 
 you would have given yourself to another. I pray you do not trifle 
 with your own or others' hearts so recklessly. Go and work ; go and 
 mend, dear Arthur, for I see your faults, and dare speak of them now: 
 go and get fame, as you say that you can, and I Avill pray for my 
 brother, and watch our dearest mother at home." 
 
 " Is that your final decision, Laura?" Arthur cried. 
 
 " Yes," said Laura, bowing her head ; and once more giving him 
 her hand, she went away. He saw her pass under the creepers of the 
 little porch, and disappear into the house. The curtains of his mother's 
 window fell at the same minute, but he did not mark that, or suspect 
 that Helen had been witnessing the scene. 
 
 Was he pleased, or was he angry at its termination ? He had 
 asked her, and a secret triumph filled his heart to think that he was 
 still free. She had refused him, but did she not love him? That 
 avowal of jealousy made him still think that her heart was his own, 
 whatever her lips might utter. 
 
 And now we ought, perhaps, to describe another scene which took 
 place at Fairoaks, between the widow and Laura, when the latter had 
 to tell Helen that she had refused Arthur Pendennis. Perhaps it was 
 the hardest task of all which Laura had to go through in this matter : 
 and the one which gave her the most pain. But as we do not like to 
 see a good woman unjust, we shall not say a word more of the quarrel 
 which now befel between Helen and her adopted daughter, or of the 
 bitter tears which the poor girl was made to shed. It was the only 
 difference which she and the widow had ever had as yet, and the more 
 cruel from this cause. Pen left home whilst it was as yet pending — 
 and Helen, who could pardon almost everything, could not pardon an 
 act of justice in Laura.
 
 PENDENNIS. 369 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 BABYLON. 
 
 OUR reader must now please to quit the woods and sea-shore of 
 the west, and the gossip of Clavering, and the humdrum hfe of 
 poor little Fairoaks, and transport himself with Arthur Pendennis, on 
 the " Alacrity " coach, to London, whither he goes once for all to face 
 the world and to make his fortune. As the coach whirls through the 
 night away from the friendly gates of home, many a plan does the 
 young man cast in his mind of future life and conduct, prudence, and 
 peradventure success and fame. He knows he is a better man than 
 many who have hitherto been ahead of him in the race : his lirst 
 failure has caused him remorse, and brought with it reflection ; it has 
 not taken away his courage, or, let us add, his good opinion of him- 
 self. A hundred eager fancies and busy hopes keep him awake. How 
 much older his mishaps and a year's thought and self-communion 
 have made him, than when, twelve months since, he passed on this 
 road on his way to and from Oxbridge ! His thoughts turn in the 
 night with inexpressible fondness and tenderness towards the fond 
 mother, who blessed him when parting, and who, in spite of all his 
 past faults and follies, trusts him and loves him still. Blessings be 
 on her! he prays, as he looks up to the stars overhead. O Heaven, 
 give him strength to work, to endure, to be honest, to avoid tempta- 
 tion, to be worthy of the loving soul who loves him so entirely ! Very 
 likely she is awake too, at that moment, and sending up to the same 
 Father purer prayers than his for the welfare of her boy. That 
 woman's love is a talisman by which he holds and hopes to get his 
 safety. And Laura's — he would have fain carried her affection with 
 him too, but she has denied it, as he is not worthy of it. He owns as 
 much with shame and remorse ; confesses how much better and loftier 
 her nature is than his own — -confesses it, and yet is glad to be free. 
 " I am not good enough for such a creature," he owns to himself He 
 draws back before her spotless beauty and innocence, as from some- 
 thing that scares him. He feels he is not fit for such a mate as that ; 
 as many a wild prodigal who has been pious and guiltless in early 
 days, keeps away from a church which he used to frequent once — 
 shunning it, but not hostile to it— only feeling that he has no right in 
 that pure place.
 
 270 PENDENNIS. 
 
 With these thoughts to occupy him, Pen did not fall asleep until 
 the nipping dawn of an October morning, and woke considerably 
 refreshed when the coach stopped at the old breakfasting place at 
 
 B ^ where he had had a score of merry meals on his way to and 
 
 from school and college many times since he was a boy. As they left 
 that place, the sun broke out brightly, the pace was rapid, the horn 
 blew, the milestones flew by. Pen smoked and joked with guard and 
 fellow-passengers and people along the familiar road; it grew more 
 busy and animated at every instant ; the last team of greys came out 
 
 at H , and the coach drove into London. What young fellow has 
 
 not felt a thrill as he entered the vast place? Hundreds of other 
 carriages, crowded with their thousands of men, were hastening to the 
 great city, "Here is my place," thought Pen; "here is my battle 
 beginning, in which I must fight and conquer, or fall. I have been a 
 boy and a dawdler as yet. Oh, I long, I long to show that I can be a 
 man. And from his place on the coach-roof the eager young fellow 
 looked down upon the city, with the sort of longing aesire which young 
 soldiers feel on the eve of a campaign. 
 
 As they came along the road. Pen had formed acquaintance with 
 a cheery fellow-passenger in a shabby cloak, who talked a great deal 
 about men of letters with whom he was very familiar, and who was, in 
 fact, the reporter of a London newspaper, as whose representative he 
 had been to attend a great wrestling-match in the west. This gentle- 
 man knew intimately, as it appeared, all the leading men of letters of 
 his day, and talked about Tom Campbell, and Tom Hood, and 
 Sydney Smith, and this and the other, as if he had been their most 
 intimate friend. As they passed by Brompton, this gentleman pointed 
 out to Pen Mr. Hurtle, the reviewer, walking with his umbrella. Pen 
 craned over the coach to have a long look at the great Hurtle. He 
 was a Boniface man, said Pen. And Mr. Doolan, of the •' Tom and 
 Jerry" newspaper (for such was the gentleman's name and address 
 upon the card which he handed to Pen), said, " Faith he was, and he 
 knew him very well." Pen thought it was quite an honour to have seen 
 the great Mr. Hurtle, whose works he admired. He believed fondly, 
 as yet, in authors, reviewers, and editors of newspapers. E\en Wagg, 
 whose books did not appear to him to be masterpieces of human intel- 
 lect, he yet secretly revered as a successful writer. He mentioned that 
 he had met Wagg in the country, and Doolan told him how that famous 
 novelist received three hundther pounds a volume for every one of his 
 novels. Pen began to calculate instantly whether he might not make 
 five thousand a year. 
 
 The very first acquaintance of his own whom Arthur met, as the 
 coach pulled up at the Glo'ster Coffec-House, was his old friend Harry 
 Foker, who came prancing down Arlington Street behind an enormous
 
 PENDENNIS. 271 
 
 cab-horse. He had white kid-gloves and white reins, and nature had 
 by this time decorated him with a considerable tuft on the chin. A 
 very small cab-boy, vice Stoopid retired, swung on behind Faker's 
 vehicle ; knock-knee'd and in the tightest leather-breeches. Foker 
 looked at the dusty coach and the smoking horses of the " Alacrity," 
 by which he had made journeys in former times. — " What, Foker ! " 
 cried out Pendennis — " Hullo ! Pen, my boy !" said the other, and he 
 waved his whip by way of amity and salute to Arthur, who was very 
 glad to see his queer friend's kind old face. Mr. Doolan had a great 
 respect for Pen, who had an acquaintance in such a grand cab ; and 
 Pen was greatly excited and pleased to be at liberty and in London. 
 He asked Doolan to come and dine with him at the Covent Garden 
 Coffee-House, where he put up : he called a cab and rattled away 
 thither in the highest spirits. He was glad to see the bustling waiter 
 and polite 'jowing landlord again : and asked for the landlady, and 
 missed the old Boots, and would have liked to shake hands with 
 everybody. He had a hundred pounds in his pocket. He dressed 
 himself in his very best ; dined in the coffee-room with a modest pint 
 of sherry (for he was determined to be very economical), and went to 
 the theatre adjoining. 
 
 The lights and the music, the crowd and the gaiety, charmed and 
 exhilarated Pen, as those sights will do young fellows from college 
 and the country, to whom they are tolerably new. He laughed at the 
 jokes ; he applauded the songs, to the delight of some of the dreary 
 old habitue's of the boxes, who had ceased long ago to find the least 
 excitement in their place of nightly resort, and were pleased to see 
 any one so fresh, and so much amused. At the end of the first piece 
 he went and strutted about the lobbies of the theatre, as if he was in 
 a resort of the highest fashion. What tired frequenter of the London 
 pavd is there that cannot remember having had similar early delusions, 
 and would not call them back again? Here was young Foker again, 
 like an ardent votary of pleasure as he was. He was walking with 
 Granby Tiptoff, of the Household Brigade, Lord Tiptoff's brother, 
 and Lord Colchicum, Captain Tiptoff's uncle, a venerable peer, who 
 had been a man of pleasure since the first French Revolution. Foker 
 rushed upon Pen with eagerness, and insisted that the latter should 
 come into his private box, where a lady with the longest ringlets, and 
 the fairest shoulders, was seated. This was Miss Blenkinsop, the 
 eminent actress of high comedy ; and in the back of the box, snoozing 
 in a wig, sate old Blenkinsop, her papa. He was described in the 
 theatrical prints as the " veteran Blenkinsop " — " the useful Blenkin- 
 sop "— " that old favourite of the public, Blenkinsop : " those parts in the 
 drama, which are called the heavy fathers, were usually assigned to this 
 veteran, who, indeed, acted the heavy father in public, as in private life.
 
 372 PENDENNIS. 
 
 At this time, it being about eleven o'clock, Mrs. Pendennis wa? 
 gone to bed at Fairoaks, and wondering whether her dearest Arthur 
 was at rest after his journey. At this time Laura, too, was awake. 
 And at this time yesterday night, as the coach rolled over silent 
 commons, where cottage windows twinkled, and by darkling woods 
 under calm starlit skies, Pen was vowing to reform and to resist 
 
 temptation, and his heart was at home Meanwhile the farce 
 
 was going on very successfully, and Mrs. Lear}^, in a hussar jacket and 
 braided pantaloons, was enchanting the audience with her archness, 
 her lovely figure, and her delightful ballads. 
 
 Pen, being new to the town, would have liked to listen to Mrs. 
 Leary ; but the other people in the box did not care about her song 
 or her pantaloons, and kept up an incessant chattering. Tiptoff knew 
 where her maillots came from. Colchicum saw her when she came 
 out in '14. Miss Blenkinsop said she sang out of all tune, to the pain 
 and astonishment of Pen, who thought that she was as beautiful as an 
 angel, and that she sang like a nightingale; and when Hoppus came 
 on as Sir Harcourt Featherby, the young man of the piece, the gentle- 
 men in the box declared that Hoppus was getting too stale, and Tiptoff 
 was for flinging Miss Blenkinsop's bouquet to him. 
 
 " Not for the world," cried the daughter of the veteran Blenkinsop j 
 " Lord Colchicum gave it to me." 
 
 Pen remembered that nobleman's name, and with a bow and a 
 blush said he believed he had to thank Lord Colchicum for having 
 proposed him at the Polyanthus Club, at the request of his uncle 
 Major Pendennis. 
 
 " What, you're Wigsby's nephew, are you } " said the peer. " I beg 
 your pardon, we always call him Wigsby." Pen blushed to hear his 
 venerable uncle called by such a familiar name. " We balloted you in 
 last week, didn't we ? Yes, last Wednesday night. Your uncle wasn't 
 there." 
 
 Here was delightful news for Pen ! He professed himself ver>' 
 much obliged indeed to Lord Colchicum, and made him a handsome 
 speech of thanks, to which the other listened, with his double opera- 
 glass up to his eyes. Pen was full of excitement at the idea of being a 
 member of this polite Club. 
 
 " Don't be always looking at that box, you naughty creature," cried 
 Miss Blenkinsop. 
 
 " She's a dev'lish fine woman, that Mirabel," said Tiptoff; " though 
 Mirabel was a d — d fool to marry her." 
 
 " A stupid old spooney," said the peer. 
 
 " Mirabel ! " cried out Pendennis. 
 
 " Ha ! ha ! " laughed out Harry Foker. " We've heard of her 
 before, haven't we, Pen 1 "
 
 PENDENNIS. ' 273 
 
 It was Pen's first love. It was Miss Fotheringay. The year before 
 she had been led to the altar by Sir Charles Mirabel, G.C.B., and 
 formerly envoy to the Court of Pumpernickel, who had taken so active 
 a part in the negotiations before the Congress of Swammerdan, and 
 signed, on behalf of H. B. M., the Peace of Pultusk. 
 
 " Emily was always as stupid as an owl," said Miss Blenkinsop. 
 
 " Eh ! eh ! pas si bSte," the old Peer said. 
 
 " Oh, for shame ! " cried the actress, who did not in the least know 
 what he meant. 
 
 And Pen looked out and beheld his first love once again — and 
 wondered how he ever could have loved her. 
 
 Thus, on the very first night of his arrival in London, Mr. Arthur 
 Pendennis found himself introduced to a Club, to an actress of genteel 
 comedy and a heavy father of the Stage, and to a dashing society of 
 jovial blades, old and young ; for my Lord Colchicum, though stricken 
 in years, bald of head, and enfeebled in person, was still indefatigable 
 in the pursuit of enjoyment, and it was the venerable Viscount's boast 
 that he could drink as much claret as the youngest member of the 
 society which he frequented. He lived with the youth about town : 
 he gave them countless dinners at Richmond and Greenwich : an 
 enlightened patron of the drama in all languages and of the Terpsi- 
 chorean art, he received dramatic professors of all nations at his 
 banquets — English from the Covent Garden and Strand houses, 
 Italians from the Haymarket, French from their own pretty little 
 theatre, or the boards of the Opera where they danced. And at 
 his villa on the Thames, this pillar of the State gave sumptuous 
 entertainments to scores of young men of fashion, who very affably 
 consorted with the ladies and gentlemen of the green-room — with the 
 former chiefly, for Viscount Colchicum preferred their society as more 
 polished and gay than that of their male brethren. 
 
 Pen went the next day and paid his entrance money at the Club, 
 which operation carried off exactly one-third of his hundred pounds ; 
 and took possession of the edifice, and ate his luncheon there with 
 immense satisfaction. He plunged into an easy chair in the library, 
 and tried to read all the magazines. He wondered whether the 
 members were looking at him, and that they could dare to keep on 
 their hats in such fine rooms. He sate down and wrote a letter to 
 Fairoaks on the Club paper, and said what a comfort this place would 
 be to him after his day's work was over. He went over to his uncle's 
 lodgings in Bury Street with some considerable tremor, and in com- 
 pliance with his mother's earnest desire, that he should instantly 
 call on Major Pendennis ; and was not a little relieved to find that 
 the Major had not yet returned to town. His apartments were blank. 
 
 18
 
 274 PENDENNIS. 
 
 Brown Hollands covered his library-table, and bills and letters lay on 
 the mantel-piece, grimly awaiting the return of their owner. The 
 Major was on the continent, the landlady of the house said, at Badn- 
 Badn, with the Marcus of Steyne. Pen left his card upon the shelf 
 with the rest. Fairoaks was written on it still. When the Major 
 returned to London, which he did in time for the fogs of November, 
 after enjoying which he proposed to spend Christmas with some 
 friends in the country, he found another card of Arthur's, on which 
 Lamb Court, Temple, was engraved, and a note from that young 
 gentleman and from his mother, stating that he was come to town, 
 was entered a member of the L^pper Temple, and was reading hard 
 for the bar. 
 
 Lamb Court, Temple : — where was it ? Major Pendennis remem- 
 bered that some ladies of fashion used to talk of dining with Mr. Ayliffe, 
 the barrister, who was in " society," and who lived there in the King's 
 Bench, of which prison there was probably a branch in the Temple, 
 and Ayliffe was ver>- likely an officer. Mr. Deuceace, Lord Crabs's 
 son, had also lived there, he recollected. He dispatched Morgan to 
 find out where Lamb Court was, and to report upon the lodging 
 selected by Mr. Arthur. That alert messenger had little difficulty in 
 discovering 'Mr. Pen's abode. Discreet ^Morgan had in his time traced 
 people far more difficult to find than Arthur. 
 
 " What sort of a place is it, Morgan ? " asked the Major out of the 
 bed-curtains in Bury Street the next morning, as the valet was 
 arranging his toilette in the deep yellow London fog. 
 
 " I should say rayther a shy place," said Mr. Morgan. " The 
 lawyers lives there, and has their names on the doors. Mr. Harthur 
 lives three pair high, sir. Mr. Warrington lives there too, sir." 
 
 " Suffolk Warringtons ! I shouldn't wonder : a good family," 
 thought the Major. " The cadets of many of our good families 
 follow the robe as a profession. Comfortable rooms, eh ? " 
 
 " Honly saw the outside of the door, sir, with Mr. Warrington's 
 name and Mr. Arthurs painted up, and a piece of paper with ' Back 
 at 6 ; " but I couldn't see no servant, sir." 
 
 " Economical at any rate," said the Major. 
 
 " Ver)', sir. Three pair, sir. Nasty black staircase as ever I see. 
 Wonder how a gentleman can live in such a place." 
 
 " Pray, who taught you where gentlemen should or should not 
 live, Morgan ? Mr. Arthur, sir, is going to study for the bar, sir," the 
 Major said with much dignity ; and closed the conversation and began 
 to array himself in the yellow fog. 
 
 " Boys will be boys," the mollified uncle thought to himself. " He 
 has written to me a devilish good letter. Colchicum says he has had 
 him to dine, and thinks him a gentlemanlike lad. His mother is one
 
 PENDENNIS. 275 
 
 of the best creatures in the world. If he has sown his wild oats, and 
 will stick to his business, he may do well yet. Think of Charley 
 Mirabel, the old fool, marrying that flame of his; that Fotheringay ! 
 He doesn't like to come here till I give him leave, and puts it in a very 
 manly nice way. I was deuced angry with him, after his Oxbridge 
 escapades — and showed it, too, when he was here before — Gad, 111 go 
 and see him, hang me if I don't." 
 
 And having ascertained from Morgan that he could reach the 
 Temple without much difficulty, and that a city omnibus would put 
 him down at the gate, the Major one day after breakfast at his Club- 
 not the Polyanthus, whereof Mr. Pen was just elected a member, but 
 another Club : for the Major was too wise to have a nephew as a con- 
 stant inmate of any house where he was in the habit of passing his 
 time — the Major one day entered one of those public vehicles, and bade 
 the conductor to put him down at the gate of the Upper Temple. 
 
 When Major Pendennis reached that dingy portal it was about 
 twelve o'clock in the day ; and he was directed by a civil personage 
 with a badge and a white apron, through some dark alleys, and under 
 various melancholy archways, into courts each more dismal than the 
 other, until finally he reached Lamb Court. If it was dark in Pall 
 Mall, what was it in Lamb Court ? Candles were burning in many of 
 the rooms there — in the pupil-room of Mr. Hodgeman, the special 
 pleader, whose six pupils were scribbling declarations under the 
 tallow ; in Sir Hokey Walker's clerk's room, where the clerk, a person 
 far more gentlemanlike and cheerful in appearance than the celebrated 
 counsel his master, was conversing in a patronising manner with the 
 managing clerk of an attorney at the door ; and in Curling the wig- 
 makers melancholy shop, where, from behind the feeble glimmer of 
 a couple of lights, large Serjeants' and judges' wigs were looming 
 drearily, with the blank blocks looking at the lamp-post in the court. 
 Two little clerks were playing at toss-halfpenny under that lamp. A 
 laundress in pattens passed in at one door, a newspaper boy issued 
 from another. A porter, whose white apron was faintly visible, paced 
 up and down. It would be impossible to conceive a place more 
 dismal, and the Major shuddered to think that any one should select 
 such a residence. " Good Ged ! " he said, " the poor boy mustn't live 
 on here." 
 
 The feeble and filthy oil-lamps, with which the stair-cases of the 
 Upper Temple are lighted of nights, were of course not illuminating 
 the stairs by day, and Major Pendennis, having read with difficulty 
 his nephew's name under Mr. Warrington's on the wall of No. 6, 
 found still greater difficulty in climbing the abominable black stairs, 
 up the banisters of which, which contributed their damp exudations to 
 his gloves, he groped painfully until he came to the third story. A
 
 276 PENDEXA'IS. 
 
 candle was in the passage of one of the two sets of rooms ; the doors 
 were open, and the names of Mr. Warrington and Mr. A. Pendennis 
 were very clearly visible to the Major as he went in. An Irish char- 
 woman, with a pail and broom, opened the door for the Major. 
 
 " Is that the beer?" cried out a great voice: "give us hold of it." 
 
 The gentleman who was speaking was seated on a table, unshorn 
 and smoking a short pipe ; in a farther chair sate Pen, with a cigar, 
 and his legs near the fire. A little boy, who acted as the clerk of these 
 gentlemen, was grinning in the Major's face, at the idea of his being 
 mistaken for beer. Here, upon the third floor, the rooms were some- 
 what lighter, and the Major could see the place. 
 
 " Pen, my boy, it's I — it's your uncle," he said, choking with the 
 smoke. But as most young men of fashion used the weed he pardoned 
 the practice easily enough. 
 
 Mr. Warrington got up from the table, and Pen, in a very per- 
 turbed manner, from his chair. " Beg your pardon for mistaking you," 
 said Warrington, in a frank, loud voice. "Will you take a cigar, 
 sir? Clear those things off the chair, Pidgeon, and pull it round to 
 the fire." 
 
 Pen flung his cigar into the grate ; and was pleased with the cor- 
 diality with which his uncle shook him by the hand. As soon as he 
 could speak for the stairs and the smoke, the Major began to ask Pen 
 very kindly about himself and about his mother ; for blood is blood, 
 and he was pleased once more to see the boy. 
 
 Pen gave his news, and then introduced Mr. Warrington^an old 
 Boniface man — whose chambers he shared. 
 
 The Major was quite satisfied when he heard that Mr. Warrington 
 was a younger son of Sir Miles W^arrington of Suffolk. He had served 
 with an uncle of his in India and in New South Wales, years ago. 
 
 " Took a sheep-farm there, sir, made a fortune — better thing than 
 law or soldiering," Warrington said. " Think I shall go there, too." 
 And here, the expected beer coming in, in a tankard with a glass 
 bottom, Mr. Warrington, with a laugh, said he supposed the Major 
 would not have any, and took a long, deep draught himself, after 
 which he wiped his wrist across his beard with great satisfaction. 
 The young man was perfectly easy and unembarrassed. He was 
 dressed in a ragged old shooting-jacket, and had a bristly blue beard. 
 He was drinking beer like a coal-heaver, and yet you couldn't but per- 
 ceive that he was a gentleman. 
 
 When he had sate for a minute or two after his draught he went 
 out of the room, leaving it to Pen and his uncle, that they might talk 
 over family affairs were they so inclined. 
 
 " Rough and ready, your chum seems," the Major said. " Some- 
 what different from your dandy friends at Oxbridge."
 
 PENDENNIS. 277 
 
 " Times are altered," Arthur replied, with a blush. " Warrington 
 is only just called, and has no business, but he knows law pretty well ; 
 and until I can afford to read with a pleader, I use his books and get 
 his help." 
 
 "Is that one of the books ?" the Major asked, with a smile. A 
 French novel was lying at the foot of Pen's chair. 
 
 " This is not a working day, sir," the lad said. " We were out 
 very late at a party last night — at Lady Whiston's," Pen added, 
 knowing his uncle's weakness. " Everybody in town was there 
 except you, sir: Counts, Ambassadors, Turks, Stars and Garters — I 
 don't know who — it's all in the paper — and my name, too," said Pen, 
 with great glee. " I met an old flame of mine there, sir," he added, 
 with a laugh. " You know whom I mean, sir, — Lady Mirabel — to 
 whom I was introduced over again. She shook hands, and was 
 gracious enough. I may thank you for being out of that scrape, 
 sir. She presented me to the husband, too — an old beau in a star 
 and a blonde wig. He does not seem very wise. She has asked me 
 to call on her, sir ; and I may go now without any fear of losing my 
 heart." 
 
 " What, we have had some new loves, have we ?" the Major asked, 
 in high good-humour. 
 
 " Some two or three," Mr. Pen said, laughing. " But 1 don't put 
 on my grand serieiix any more, sir. That goes off after the first 
 flame." 
 
 " Very right, my dear boy. Flames and darts and passion, and 
 that sort of thing, do very well for a lad : and you were but a lad when 
 that affair with the Fotheringill — Fotheringay — (what's her name ?) 
 came off. But a man of the world gives up those follies. You still 
 may do very well. You have been hit, but you may recover. You 
 are heir to a little independence, which everybody fancies is a doosid 
 deal more. You have a good name, good wits, good manners, and a 
 good person — and, begad ! I don't see why you shouldn't marry a 
 woman with money — get into Parliament — distinguish yourself, and — 
 and, in fact, that sort of thing. Remember, it's as easy to marry a 
 rich woman as a poor woman : and a devilish deal pleasanter to sit 
 down to a good dinner than to a scrag of mutton in lodgings. Make 
 up your mind to that. A woman with . a good jointure is a doosid 
 deal easier a profession than the law, let me tell you. Look out ; / 
 shall be on the watch for you : and I shall die content, my boy, if I 
 can see you with a good lady-hke wife, and a good carriage, and a 
 good pair of horses, living in society, and seeing your friends, like a 
 gentleman." It was thus this affectionate uncle spoke, and expounded 
 to Pen his simple philosophy. 
 
 " What would my mother and Laura say to this, I wonder ? "
 
 278 PENDEXXIS. 
 
 thought the lad. Indeed, old Pendennis's morals were not their 
 morals, nor was his wisdom theirs. 
 
 This aft'ecting conversation between uncle and nephew had scarcely- 
 concluded, when Warrington came out of his bed-room, no longer in 
 rags, but dressed like a gentleman, straight and tall, and perfectly- 
 frank and good-humoured. He did the honours of his ragged sitting- 
 room with as much ease as if it had been the finest apartment in 
 London. And queer rooms they were in which the Major found his 
 nephew. The carpet was full of holes^the table stained with many- 
 circles of Warrington's previous ale-pots. There was a small library 
 of law-books, books of poetry, and of mathematics, of which he 
 was very fond. (He had been one of the hardest livers and hardest 
 readers of his time at Oxbridge, where the name of Stunning War- 
 rington was yet famous for beating bargemen, pulling matches, winning 
 prizes, and drinking milk-punch.) A print of the old college hung up 
 over the mantel-piece, and some battered volumes of Plato, bearing its 
 well-known arms, were on the book-shelves. There were two easy- 
 chairs ; a standing reading-desk piled with bills ; a couple of very- 
 meagre briefs on a broken-legged study-table. Indeed, there was 
 scarcely any article of furniture that had not been in the wars, and 
 was not wounded. " Look here, sir, here is Pen's room. He is a 
 dandy, and has got curtains to his bed, and wears shiny boots, and 
 has a silver dressing-case." Indeed, Pen's room was rather coquet- 
 tishly arranged, and a couple of neat prints of opera-dancers, besides a 
 drawing of Fairoaks, hung on the walls. In Warrington's room there 
 was scarcely any article of furniture, save a great shower-bath, and a 
 heap of books by the bed-side ; where he lay upon straw, like Margery- 
 Daw, and smoked his pipe, and read half through the night his 
 favourite poetry or mathematics. 
 
 When he had completed his simple toilette, Mr. Warrington came 
 out of this room, and proceeded to the cupboard to search for his 
 breakfast. 
 
 " i\Iight I offer you a mutton-chop, sir ? We cook 'em ourselves, 
 hot and hot ; and I am teaching Pen the first principles of law, cook- 
 ing, and morality at the same time. He's a lazy beggar, sir, and too 
 much of a dandy." 
 
 And so saying, Mr. Warrington wiped a gridiron with a piece of 
 paper, put it on the fire, and on it two mutton chops, and took from 
 the cupboard a couple of plates, and some knives and silver forks, 
 and castors. 
 
 ''Say but a word. Major Pendennis," he said; "there's another 
 chop in the cupboard, or Pidgeon shall go out and get you anything 
 you like." 
 
 Major Pendennis sate in wonder and amusement, but he said he
 
 PENDENNIS. 379 
 
 had just breakfasted, and wouldn't have any lunch. So Warrington 
 cooked the chops, and popped them hissing hot upon the plates. 
 
 Pen fell to at his chop with a good appetite, after looking up at his 
 uncle, and seeing that gentleman was still in good-humour. 
 
 " You see, sir," Warrington said, " Mrs. Flans.gan isn't here to 
 do 'em, and we can't employ the boy, for the little beggar is all day 
 occupied cleaning Pen's boots. And now for another swig at the beer. 
 Pen drinks tea ; it's only fit for old women." 
 
 " And so you were at Lady Whiston's last night ?" the Major said, 
 not in truth knowing what observation to make to this rough 
 diamond. 
 
 " I at Lady Whiston's ! not such a flat, sir. I don't care for female 
 society. In fact it bores me. I spent my evening philosophically at 
 the Back Kitchen." 
 
 " The Back Kitchen ? indeed ! " said the Major. 
 
 " I see you don't know what it means," Warrington said. " Ask 
 Pen. He was there after Lady Whiston's. Tell Major Pendennis 
 about the Back Kitchen, Pen — don't be ashamed of yourself." 
 
 So Pen said it was a little eccentric society of men of letters and 
 men about town, to which he had been presented ; and the Major 
 began to think that the young fellow had seen a good deal of the 
 woild since his arrival in London.
 
 28o PENDENNIS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 THE KNIGHTS OF THE TEMPLE. 
 
 COLLEGES, schools, and inns of court, still have some respect for 
 antiquity, and maintain a great number of the customs and in- 
 stitutions of our ancestors, with which those persons who do not 
 particularly regard their forefathers, or perhaps are not very well 
 acquainted with them, have long since done away. A well-ordained 
 workhouse or prison is much better provided with the appliances of 
 health, comfort, and cleanliness than a respectable Foundation School, 
 a venerable College, or a learned Inn. In the latter place of residence 
 men are contented to sleep in ding}- closets, and to pay for the sitting- 
 room and the cupboard, which is their dormitorj-, the price of a good 
 villa and garden in the suburbs, or of a roomy house in the neglected 
 squares of the town. The poorest mechanic in Spitalfields has a 
 cistern and an unbounded supply of water at his command ; but the 
 gentlemen of the Inns of Court, and the gentlemen of the universities, 
 have their supply of this cosmetic fetched in jugs by laundresses and 
 bedmakers, and live in ab'^des which were erected long before the 
 custom of cleanliness and decency obtained among us. There are 
 individuals still alive who sneer at the people and speak of them with 
 epithets of scorn. Gentlemen, there can be but little doubt that your 
 ancestors were the Great Unwashed : and in the Temple especially, it 
 is pretty certain, that only under the greatest difficulties and restric- 
 tions, the virtue which has been pronounced to be next to godliness 
 could have been practised at all. 
 
 Old Grump, of the Norfolk Circuit, who had lived for more than 
 thirty years in the chambers under those occupied by Warrington and 
 Pendennis, and who used to be awakened by the roaring of the shower- 
 baths which those gentlemen had erected in their apartments, — part 
 of the contents of which occasionally trickled through the roof into 
 Mr. Grump's room, — declared that the practice was an absurd, new- 
 fangled, dandyfied folly, and daily cursed the laundress who slopped 
 the staircase by which he had to pass. Grump, now much more than 
 half a century old, had indeed never used the lu.xury in question. He 
 had done without w-ater verj- well, and so had our fathers before him. 
 Of all those knights and baronets, lords and gentlemen bearing arms, 
 whose escutcheons are painted upon the walls of the famous hall of
 
 PENDENNIS. 281 
 
 the Upper Temple, was there no philanthropist good-natured enough 
 to devise a set of Hummums for the benefit of the lawyers, his fellows 
 and successors ? The Temple historian makes no mention of such a 
 scheme. There is Pump Court and Fountain Court, with their hydraulic 
 apparatus, but one never heard of a bencher disporting in the fountain ; 
 and can't but think how many a counsel learned in the law of old days 
 might have benefited by the pump. 
 
 Nevertheless, those venerable Inns which have the Lamb and Flag 
 and the Winged Horse for their ensigns, have attractions for persons 
 who inhabit them, and a share of rough comforts and freedom, which 
 men always remember with pleasure. I don't know whether the 
 student of law permits himself the refreshment of enthusiasm, or 
 indulges in poetical reminiscences as he passes by historical chambers, 
 and says, "Yonder Eldon lived — upon this site Coke mused upon 
 Lyttleton — here Chitty toiled — here Barnwell and Alderson joined in 
 their famous labours — here Byles composed his great work upon bills, 
 and Smith compiled his immortal leading cases — here Gustavus still 
 toils, with Solomon to aid him : " but the man of letters can't but love 
 the place which has been inhabited by so many of his brethren, or 
 peopled by their creations as real to us at this day as the authors 
 whose children they were — and Sir Roger de Coverley walking in the 
 Temple Garden, and discoursing with Mr. Spectator about the beau- 
 ties in hoops and patches who are sauntering over the grass, is just 
 as lively a figure to me as old Samuel Johnson rolling through the 
 fog with the Scotch gentleman at his heels on their way to Dr. Gold- 
 smith's chambers in Brick Court ; or Harry Fielding, with inked ruffles 
 and a wet towel round his head, dashing off articles at midnight for the 
 Covent Garden Journal, while the printer's boy is asleep in the passage. 
 
 If we could but get the history of a single day as it passed in any 
 one of those four-storied houses in the dingy court where our friends 
 Pen and Warrington dwelt, some Temple Asmodeus might furnish us 
 with a queer volume. There may be a great parliamentary counsel on 
 the ground-floor, who drives oiT to Belgravia at dinner-time, when his 
 clerk, too, becomes a gentleman, and goes away to entertain his friends, 
 and to take his pleasure. But a short time since he was hungry and 
 briefless in some garret of the Inn; lived by stealthy literature; hoped, 
 and waited, and sickened, and no chents came; exhausted his own 
 means and his friends' kindness ; had to remonstrate humbly with 
 duns, and to implore the patience of poor creditors. Ruin seemed to 
 be staring him in the face, when, behold, a turn of the wheel of 
 fortune, and the lucky wretch in possession of one of those prodigious 
 prizes which are sometimes drawn in the great lottery of the Bar. 
 Many a better lawyer than himself does not make a fifth part of the 
 income of his clerk, who, a few months since, could scarcely get credit
 
 282 PENDENNIS. 
 
 for blacking for his master's unpaid boots. On the first-floor, perhaps, 
 you will have a venerable man v/hose name is famous, who has lived 
 for half a century in the Inn, whose brains are full of books, and whose 
 shelves are stored with classical and legal lore. He has lived alone all 
 these fifty years, alone and for himself, amassing learning, and com- 
 piling a fortune. He comes home now at night only from the club, 
 where he has been dining freely, to the lonely chambers where he lives 
 a godless old recluse. When he dies, his Inn will erect a tablet to his 
 honour, and his heirs burn a part of his library. Would you like to 
 have such a prospect for your old age, to store up learning and money, 
 and end so ? But we must not linger too long by Mr. Doomsday's 
 door. Worthy Mr. Grump lives over him, who is also an ancient 
 inhabitant of the Inn, and who, when Doomsday comes home to read 
 Catullus, is sitting down with three steady seniors of his standing to 
 a steady rubber at whist, after a dinner at which they have consumed 
 their three steady bottles of Port. You may see the old boys asleep at 
 the Temple Church of a Sunday. Attornies seldom trouble them, and 
 they have small fortunes of their own. On the other side of the third 
 landing, where Pen and Warrington live, till long after midnight, sits 
 Mr. Paley, who took the highest honours, and who is a fellow of his 
 college, who will sit and read and note cases until two o'clock in the 
 morning; who will rise at seven and be at the pleader's chambers as 
 soon as they are open, where he will work until an hour before dinner- 
 time ; who will come home from Hall and read and note cases again 
 until dawn next day, when perhaps Mr. Arthur Pendennis and his 
 friend Mr. Warrington are returning from some of their wild expedi- 
 tions. How differently employed Mr. Paley has been! He has not 
 been throwing himself away: he has only been bringing a great 
 intellect laboriously down to the comprehension of a mean subject, 
 and in his fierce grasp of that, resolutely excluding from his mind all 
 higher thoughts, all better things, all the wisdom of philosophers and 
 historians, all the thoughts of poets ; all wit, fancy, reflection, art, 
 love, truth altogether — so that he may master that enormous legend 
 of the law, which he proposes to gain his livelihood by expounding. 
 Warrington and Paley had been competitors for university honours in- 
 former days, and had run each other hard ; and everybody said now 
 that the former was wasting his time and energies, whilst all people 
 praised Paley for his industry. There may be doubts, however, as to 
 which was using his time best. The one could afford time to think, 
 and the other never could. The one could have sympathies and do 
 kindnesses ; and the other must needs be always selfish. He could 
 not cultivate a friendship or do a charity, or admire a work of genius, 
 or kindle at the sight of beauty or the sound of a sweet song — he had 
 no time, and no eyes for anything but his law-books. All was dark
 
 PENDENNIS. 283 
 
 outside his reading-lamp. Love, and Nature, and Art, (which is the 
 expression of our praise and sense of the beautiful world of God), were 
 shut out from him. And as he turned off his lonely lamp at night, he 
 never thought but that he had spent the day profitably, and went to 
 sleep alike tliankless and remorseless. But he shuddered when he 
 met his old companion Wamngton on the stairs, and shunned him as 
 one that was doomed to perdition. 
 
 It may have been the sight of that cadaverous ambition and self- 
 complacent meanness, which showed itself in Paley's yellow face, and 
 twinkled in his narrow eyes, or it may have been a natural appetite 
 for pleasure and joviality, of which it must be confessed Mr. Pen was 
 exceedingly fond, which deterred that luckless youth from pursuing 
 his designs upon the Bench or the Woolsack v.dth the ardour, or rather 
 steadiness, which is requisite in gentlemen who would climb to those 
 seats of honour. He enjoyed the Temple life with a great deal of 
 relish : his worthy relatives thought he was reading as became a 
 regular student : and his uncle wrote home congratulatory letters to 
 the kind widow at Fairoaks, announcing that the lad had sown his 
 wild oats, and was becoming quite steady. The truth is, that it was 
 a new sort of excitement to Pen, the life in which he was now engaged, 
 and having given up some of the dandyfied pretensions and fine- 
 gentleman airs which he had contracted among his aristocratic college 
 acquaintances, of whom he now saw but little, the rough pleasures and 
 amusements of a London bachelor were very novel and agreeable to 
 him, and he enjoyed them all. Time was he would have envied the 
 dandies their fine .horses in Rotten Row, but he was contented now 
 to walk in the Park and look at them. He was too young to succeed 
 in London society without a better name and a larger fortune than he 
 had, and too lazy to get on without these adjuncts. Old Pendennis 
 fondly thought he was busied with law because he neglected the 
 social advantages presented to him, and, having been at half a dozen 
 balls and evening-parties, retreated before their dullness and same- 
 ness ; and whenever anybody made inquiries of the worthy Major 
 about his nephew, the old gentleman said the young rascal was 
 reformed, and could not be got away from his books. But the Major 
 would have been almost as much horrified as Mr. Paley was, had he 
 known what was Mr. Pen's real course of life, and how much pleasure 
 entered into his law studies. 
 
 A long morning's reading, a walk in the Park, a pull on the river, 
 a stretch up the hill to Hampstead, and a modest tavern dinner ; a 
 bachelor night passed here or there, in joviality, not vice (for Arthur 
 Pendennis admired women so heartily that he could never bear the 
 society of any of them that were not, in his fancy at least, good and 
 pure) ; a quiet evening at home, alone with a friend and a pipe or
 
 284 ■ PENDENNIS. 
 
 two, and a humble potation of British spirits, whereof Mrs. Flanagan, 
 the laundress, invariably tested the quality ; — these were our young 
 gentleman's pursuits, and it must be owned that his life was not 
 unpleasant. In term-time, Mr. Pen showed a most praiseworthy 
 regularity in performing one part of the law-student's course of duty, 
 and eating his dinners in Hall. Indeed, that Hall of the Upper 
 Temple is a sight not uninteresting, and with the exception of some 
 trifling improvements and anachronisms which have been introduced 
 into the practice there, a man may sit down ai)d fancy that he joins 
 in a meal of the seventeenth centur>'. The bar have their messes, 
 the students their tables apart ; the benchers sit at the high table on 
 the raised platform, surrounded by pictures of judges of the law and 
 portraits of royal personages who have honoured its festivities with 
 their presence and patronage. Pen looked about, on his first intro- 
 duction, not a little amused with the scene which he witnessed. 
 Among his comrades of the student class there were gentlemen of all 
 ages, from sixty to seventeen ; stout grey-headed attornies who v.ere 
 proceeding to take the superior dignity, — dandies and men about town 
 who wished for some reason to be barristers of seven years' standing, 
 — swarthy, black-eyed natives of the Colonies, who came to be called 
 here before they practised in their own islands, — and many gentlemen 
 of the Irish nation, who make a sojourn in Middle Temple Lane before 
 they return to the green country of their birth. There were little squads 
 of reading students who talked law all dinner-time ; there were rowing 
 men, whose discourse was of sculling matches, the Red House, Vaux- 
 haU, and the Opera ; there were others great in politics, and orators 
 of the students' debating clubs ; with all of which sets, except the first, 
 whose talk was an almost unknown and a quite uninteresting language 
 to him, Mr. Pen made a gradual acquaintance, and had many points 
 of sympathy. 
 
 The ancient and liberal Inn of the Upper Temple provides in its 
 hall, and for a most moderate price, an excellent wholesome dinner 
 of soup, meat, tarts, and port wine or sherry, for the barristers and 
 students who attend that place of refection. The parties are arranged 
 in messes of four, each of which quartets has its piece of beef or leg 
 of mutton, its sufficient apple-pie and its bottle of wine. But the 
 honest habitues of the hall, amongst the lower rank of students, who 
 have a taste for good living, have many harmless arts by which they 
 improve their banquet, and innocent '" dodges " (if we may be per- 
 mitted to use an excellent phrase that has become vernacular since 
 the appearance of the last dictionaries) by which they strive to attain 
 for themselves more delicate food than the common every-day roast- 
 meat of the students' tables. 
 
 " Wait a bit," said Mr. Lowton, one of these Temple gourmands.
 
 PENDENNIS. 285 
 
 " Wait a bit," said Mr. Lowton tugging at Pen's gown — " the tables 
 are very full, and there's only three benchers to eat ten side dishes — 
 if we wait, perhaps we shall get something from their table." And 
 Pen looked with some amusement, as did Mr. Lowton with eyes of 
 fond desire, towards the benchers' high table, where three old gentle- 
 men were standing up before a dozen silver dish-covers, while the 
 clerk was quavering out a grace. 
 
 Lowton was great in the conduct of the dinner. His aim was to 
 manage so as to be the first, or captain of the mess, and to secure 
 for himself the thirteenth glass of the bottle of port wine. Thus he 
 would have the command of the joint, on which he operated his 
 favourite cuts, and made rapid dexterous appropriations of gravy, 
 which amused Pen infinitely. Poor Jack Lowton ! thy pleasures in 
 life were very harmless ; an eager epicure, thy desires did not go 
 beyond eighteen-pence. 
 
 Pen was somewhat older than many of his fellow-students, and 
 there was that about his style and appearance which, as we have said, 
 was rather haughty and impertinent, that stamped him as a man of 
 ton — very unlike those pale students who were talking law to one 
 another, and those ferocious dandies, in rowing shirts and astonishing 
 pins and waistcoats, who represented the idle part of the little com- 
 munity. The humble and good-natured Lowton had felt attracted by 
 Pen's superior looks and presence — and had made acquaintance with 
 him at the mess by opening the conversation. 
 
 " This is boiled-beef day, I believe, sir," said Lowton to Pen. 
 " Upon my word, sir, I'm not aware," said Pen, hardly able to contain 
 his laughter, but added, " I'm a stranger ; this is my first term;" on 
 which Lowton began to point out to him the notabilities in the Hall. 
 
 " That's Boosey the bencher, the bald one sitting under the picture 
 and 'aving soup ; I wonder whether it's turtle ? They often 'ave turtle. 
 Next is Balls, the King's Counsel, and Swettenham — Hodge and 
 Swettenham, you know. That's old Grump, the senior of the bar ; 
 they say he's dined here forty years. They often send 'em down their 
 fish from the benchers to the senior table. Do you see those four 
 fellows seated opposite us ? They are regular swells — tip-top fellows, 
 I can tell you — Mr. Trail, the Bishop of Ealing's son. Honourable 
 Fred Ringwood, Lord Cinqbars' brother, you know. He'll have a 
 good place, I bet any money : and Bob Suckling, who's always with 
 him — a high fellow too. Ha ! ha !" Here Lowton burst into a laugh. 
 "What is it?" said Pen, still amused. 
 
 " I say, I 'd like to mess with those chaps," Lowton said, winking 
 his eye knowingly, and pouring out his glass of wine. 
 " And why ? " asked Pen. 
 "Why! they don't come down here to dine, you know, they only
 
 286 PENDENNIS. 
 
 make believe to dine. They dine here, Law bless you ! They go to 
 some of the swell clubs, or else to some giand dinner party. You see 
 their names in the 'Morning Post' at all the fine parties in London. 
 Why, I bet anything that Ringwood has his cab, or Trail his brougham 
 (he's a devil of a fellow, and makes the bishop's money spin, I can tell 
 you) at the corner of Essex Street at this minute. They dine ! They 
 won't dine these two hours, I dare say." 
 
 " But why should you like to mess with them, if they don't eat any 
 dinner ? " Pen asked, still puzzled. " There's plenty, isn't there ? " 
 
 " How green you are," said Lowton. " Excuse me, but you are 
 green. They don't drink any wine, don't you see, and a fellow gets 
 the bottle to himself if he likes it when he messes with those three 
 chaps. That's why Corkoran got in with 'em." 
 
 " Ah, Mr. Lowton, I see you are a sly fellow," Pen said, delighted 
 with his acquaintance : on which the other modestly replied, that he 
 had lived in London the better part of his life, and of course had his 
 eyes about him ; and went on with his catalogue to Pen. 
 
 " There's a lot of Irish here," he said: " that Corkoran's one, and 
 I can't say I like him. You see that handsome chap with the blue 
 neckcloth, and pink shirt, and yellow waistcoat, that's another; that's 
 IMolloy Maloney, of Ballymaloney, and nephew to Major-General Sir 
 Hector O'Dowd — he, he !" Lowton said, trj'ing to imitate the Hibernian 
 accent. " He's always bragging about his uncle; and came into Hall 
 in silver-striped trowsers the day he had been presented. That other 
 near him, with the long black hair, is a tremendous rebel. By Jove, 
 sir, to hear him at the Forum it makes your blood freeze ; and the next 
 is an Irishman, too, Jack Finucane, reporter of a newspaper. They 
 all stick together, those Irish. It's your turn to fill your glass. What .'' 
 you won't have any port ? Don't like port with your dinner ? Here's 
 your health." And this worthy man found himself not the less attached 
 to Pendennis because the latter disliked port wine at dinner. 
 
 It was while Pen was taking his share of one of these dinners with 
 his acquaintance Lowton as the captain of his mess, that there came 
 to join them a gentleman in a barristers gown, who could not find a 
 seat, as it appeared, amongst the persons of his own degree, and who 
 strode over the table and took his place on the bench where Pen sate. 
 He was dressed in old clothes and a faded gown, which hung behind 
 him, and he wore a shirt which, though clean, was extremely ragged, 
 and very different to the magnificent pink raiment of Mr. Molloy 
 Maloney, who occupied a commanding position in the next mess. In 
 order to notify their appearance at dinner, it is the custom of the 
 gentlemen who eat in the Upper Temple Hall to write down their 
 names upon slips of paper, which are provided for that purpose, with 
 a pencil for each mess. Lowton wrote his name first, then came
 
 PENDENNIS. 287 
 
 Arthur Pendennis, and the next was that of the gentleman in the old 
 clothes. He smiled when he saw Pen's name, and looked at him. 
 " We ought to know each other," he said. '■ We're both Boniface 
 men ; my name's Warrington." 
 
 " Are you St Warrington ? "Pen said, delighted to see this hero. 
 
 Warrington laughed — " Stunning Warrington — yes," he said. " I 
 recollect you in your freshman's term. But you appear to have quite 
 cut me out." 
 
 " The college talks about you still," said Pen, who had a generous 
 admiration for talent and pluck. " The bargeman you thrashed, Bill 
 Simes, don't you remember, wants you up again at Oxbridge. The 
 Miss Notleys, the haberdashers " 
 
 "Hush!" said Warrington — "glad to make your acquaintance, 
 Pendennis. Heard a good deal about you." 
 
 The young men were friends immediately, and at once deep in 
 college-talk. And Pen, who had been acting rather the fine gentle- 
 man on a previous day, when he pretended to Lowton that he could 
 not drink port wine at dinner, seeing Warrington take his share with a 
 great deal of gusto, did not scruple about helping himself any more, 
 rather to the disappointment of honest Lowton. When the dinner was 
 over, Warrington asked Arthur where he was going. 
 
 " I thought of going home to dress, and hear Grisi in Norma," 
 Pen said. 
 
 " Are you going to meet anybody there ?" he asked. 
 
 Pen said, " No — only to hear the music, of which he was very fond." 
 
 " You had much better come home and smoke a pipe with me," 
 said Warrington, — " a very short one. Come, I live close by in 
 Lamb Court, and we'll talk over Boniface and old times." 
 
 They went away ; Lowton sighed after them. He knew that 
 Warrington was a baronet's son, and he looked up with simple rever- 
 ence to all the aristocracy. Pen and Warrington became sworn friends 
 from that night. Warrington's cheerfulness and jovial temper, his 
 good sense, his rough welcome, and his never-failing pipe of tobacco, 
 charmed Pen, who found it more pleasant to dive into shilling taverns 
 with him, than to dine in solitary state amongst the silent and polite 
 frequenters of the Polyanthus. 
 
 Ere long Pen gave up his lodgings in St. James's, to which he had 
 migrated on quitting his hotel, and found it was much more economical 
 to take up his abode with Warrington in Lamb Court, and furnish and 
 occupy his friend's vacant room there. For it must be said of Pen, 
 that no man was more easily led than he to do a thing, when it was 
 a novelty, or when he had a mind to it. And Pidgeon, the youth, 
 and Flanagan, the laundress, divided their allegiance now between 
 Warrington and Pen.
 
 2.88 PENDENNJS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 OLD AND NEW ACQUAINTANCES. 
 
 ELATED with the idea of seeing hfe, Pen went into a hundred 
 queer London haunts. He hked to think he was consorting 
 with all sorts of men — so he beheld coalheavers in their taprooms ; 
 boxers in their inn-parlours ; honest citizens disporting in the suburbs or 
 on the river ; and he would have liked to hob-and-nob with celebrated 
 pickpockets, or drink a pot of ale with a company of burglars and 
 cracksmen, had chance afforded him an opportunity of making the 
 acquaintance of this class of society. It was good to see the gravity 
 with which Warrington listened to the Tutbury Pet or the Brighton 
 Stunner at the Champion's Arms, and behold the interest which he 
 took in the coalheaving company assembled at the Fox-under-the- 
 Hill. His acquaintance with the public-houses of the metropolis and 
 its neighbourhood, and with the frequenters of their various parlours, 
 was prodigious. He w-as the personal friend of the landlord and land- 
 lady, and welcome to the bar as to the club-room. He liked their 
 society, he said, better than that of his own class, whose manners 
 annoyed him, and whose conversation bored him. " In society,"' he 
 used to say, " everybody is the same, wears the same dress, eats and 
 drinks, and says the same things ; one young dandy at the club talks 
 and looks just like another, one Miss at a ball exactly resembles 
 another, whereas there's character here. I like to talk with the 
 strongest man in England, or the man who can drink the most beer 
 in England, or with that tremendous republican of a hatter, who thinks 
 Thistlewood was the greatest character in history. I like gin-and- 
 water better than claret. I like a sanded floor in Camaby Market 
 better than a chalked one in Mayfair. I prefer Snobs, I own it."' 
 Indeed, this gentleman was a social republican ; and it never entered 
 his head while conversing with Jack and Tom that he was in any 
 respect their better ; although, perhaps, the deference which they paid 
 him might secretly please him. 
 
 Pen followed him then to these various resorts of men with great 
 glee and assiduity. But he was considerably younger, and therefore 
 much more pompous and stately than Warrington ; in fact, a young 
 prince in disguise, visiting the poor of his fathers kingdom. They
 
 PENDENNIS. 289 
 
 respected him as a high chap, a fine fellow, a regular young swell. He 
 had somehow about him an air of imperious good-humour, and a 
 royal frankness and majesty, although he was only heir apparent to 
 twopence-halfpenny, and but one- in descent from a gallipot. If these 
 positions are made for us, we acquiesce in them very easily; and are 
 always pretty ready to assume a superiority over those who are as good 
 as ourselves. Pen's condescension at this time of his life was a fine 
 thing to witness. Amongst men of ability this assumption and imper- 
 tinence passes off with extreme youth : but it is curious to watch the 
 conceit of a generous and clever lad — there is something almost touch- 
 ing in that early exhibition of simplicity and folly. 
 
 So, after reading pretty hard of a morning, and, I fear, not law 
 merely, but politics and general history and literature, which were as 
 necessary for the advancement and instruction of a young man as mere 
 dry law, after applying with tolerable assiduity to letters, to reviews, to 
 elemental books of law, and, above all, to the newspaper, until the 
 hour of dinner was drawing nigh, these young gentlemen would sally 
 out upon the town with great spirits and appetite, and bent upon 
 enjoying a merry night as they had passed a pleasant forenoon. It 
 was a jovial time, that of four-and-twenty, when every muscle of mind 
 and body was in healthy action, when the world was new as yet, and 
 one moved over it spurred onwards by good spirits and the delightful 
 capability to enjoy. If ever we feel young afterwards, it is with the 
 comrades of that time : the tunes we hum in our old age, are those we 
 learned then. Sometimes, perhaps, the festivity of that period revives 
 in our memory ; but how dingy the pleasure-garden has grown, how 
 tattered the garlands look, how scant and old the company, and what 
 a number of the lights have gone out since that day ! Grey hairs have 
 come on like daylight streaming in — daylight and a headache with it. 
 Pleasure has gone to bed with the rouge on her cheeks. Well, friend, 
 let us wnlk through the day, sober and sad, but friendly. 
 
 I wonder what Laura and Helen would have said, could they have 
 seen, as they might not unfrequently have done had they been up and 
 in London, in the very early morning when the bridges began to blush 
 in the sunrise, and the tranquil streets of the city to shine in the dawn, 
 Mr. Pen and Mr. Warrington rattling over the echoing flags towards 
 the Temple, after one of their wild nights of carouse — nights wild, but 
 not so wicked as such nights sometimes are, for Warrington was a 
 woman-hater; and Pen, as we have said, too lofty to stoop to a vulgar 
 intrigue. Our young Prince of Fairoaks never could speak to one of 
 the sex but with respectful courtesy, and shrank from a coarse word or 
 gesture with instinctive delicacy— for though we have seen him fall in 
 love with a fool, as his betters and inferiors have done, and as it is 
 probable that he did more than once in his life, yet for the time of the 
 
 19
 
 E90 PENDENNIS. 
 
 delusion it was always as a Goddess that he considered her, and chose 
 to wait upon her. Men serve women kneehng — when they get on their 
 feet, they go away. 
 
 That was what an acquaintance of Pen's said to him in his hard 
 homely way; — an old friend with whom he had fallen in again in 
 London — no other than honest Mr. Bows of the Chatteris Theatre, 
 who was now employed as pianoforte player, to accompany the 
 eminent lyrical talent which nightly delighted the public at the Field- 
 ing's Head in Covent Garden : and where was held the little club 
 called the Back Kitchen. 
 
 Numbers of Pen's friends frequented this very merry meeting. The 
 Fielding's Head had been a house of entertainment, almost since the 
 time when the famous author of Tom Jones presided as magistrate in 
 the neighbouring Bow Street ; his place was pointed out, and the chair 
 said to have been his, still occupied by the president of the night's 
 entertainment. The worthy Cutts, the landlord of the Fielding's 
 Head, generally occupied this post when not disabled by gout or 
 other illness. His jolly appearance and fine voice may be remem- 
 bered by some of my male readers ; he used to sing profusely in the 
 course of the harmonic meeting, and his songs were of what may be 
 called the British Brandy and Water School of Song — such as " The 
 Good old English Gentleman," " Dear Tom, this Brown Jug," and so 
 forth — songs in which pathos and hospitality are blended, and the 
 praises of good liquor and the social affections are chanted in a bari- 
 tone voice. The charms of our women, the heroic deeds of our naval 
 and military commanders, are often sung in the ballads of this school, 
 and many a time in my youth have I admired how Cutts the singer, 
 after he had worked us all up to patriotic enthusiasm, by describing 
 the way in which the brave Abercrombie received his death-wound, or 
 made us join him in tears, which he shed liberally himself, as in falter- 
 ing accents he told " how autumn's falling leaf proclaimed the old 
 man he must die" — how Cutts the singer became at once Cutts the 
 landlord, and, before the applause which we were making with our 
 fists on his table, in compliment to his heart-stirring melody, had 
 died away, was calling, '' Now, gentlemen, give your orders, the 
 waiter's in the room — John, a champagne cup for Mr. Green. I 
 think, sir, you said sausages and mashed potatoes 1 John, attend on 
 the gentleman." 
 
 " And I'll thank ye give me a glass of punch too, John, and take 
 care the wather boils," a voice would cry not unfrequcntly, a well-known 
 voice to Pen, which made the lad blush and start when he heard it first 
 — that of the venerable Captain Costigan ; who was now established 
 in London, and one of the great pillars of the harmonic meetings at 
 the Fielding's Head.
 
 PENDENNIS. 291 
 
 The Captain's manners and conversation brought very many young 
 men to the place. He was a character, and his fame had begun to 
 spread soon after his arrival in the metropolis, and especially after his 
 daughter's marriage. He was great in his conversation to the friend 
 for the time being (who was the neighbour drinking by his side), about 
 "me daughter." He told of her marriage, and of the events previous 
 and subsequent to that ceremony ; of the carriages she kept ; of 
 iMirabel's adoration for her and for him; of the hunther pounds which 
 he was at perfect liberty to draw from his son-in-law, whenever neces- 
 sity urged him. And having stated that it was his firm intention to 
 "dthraw next Sathurday, I give ye me secred word and honour next 
 Sathurday, the fourteenth, when ye'll see the money will be handed over 
 to me at Coutts's, the very instant I present the cheque," the Captain 
 would not unfrequently propose to borrow half-a-crown of his friend 
 until the arrival of that day of Greek Calends, when, on the honour 
 of an officer and a gentleman, he would repee the thrifling obligetion. 
 
 Sir Charles Mirabel had not that enthusiastic attachment to his 
 father-in-law, of which the latter sometimes boasted (although in other 
 stages of emotion Cos would inveigh, with tears in his eyes, against 
 the ingratitude of the child of his bosom, and the stinginess of the 
 wealthy old man who had married her) ; but the pair had acted not 
 unkindly towards Costigan; had settled a small pension on him, 
 which was paid regularly, and forestalled with even more regularity 
 by poor Cos ; and the period of the payments were always well 
 known by his friends at the Fielding's Head, whither the honest 
 Captain took care to repair, bank-notes in hand, calling loudly for 
 change in the midst of the full harmonic meeting. " I think ye'll 
 find ihai note won't be refused at the Bank of England, Cutts, my 
 boy," Captain Costigan would say. " Bows, have a glass .-' Ye needn't 
 stint yourself to-night, anyhow; and a glass of punch will make ye 
 play cott spirito." For he was lavishly free with his money when it 
 came to him, and was scarcely known to button his breeches-pocket, 
 except when the coin was gone, or sometimes, indeed, when a creditor 
 came by. 
 
 It was in one of these moments of exultation that Pen found his 
 old friend swaggering at the singers' table at the Back Kitchen of the 
 Fielding's Head, and ordering glasses of brandy-and-water for any of 
 his acquaintances who made their appearance in the apartment. 
 Warrington, who was on confidential terms with the bass singer, 
 made his way up to this quarter of the room, and Pen walked at his 
 friend's heels. 
 
 Pen started and blushed to see Costigan. He had just come 
 from Lady Whiston's party, where he had met and spoken with the 
 Captain's daughter again for the first time after ver}' old old days.
 
 29- 
 
 PEiYDEiXNIS. 
 
 He came up with outstretched hand, very kindly and wannly to greet 
 the old man ; still retaining a strong remembrance of the time when 
 Costigan's daughter had been everything in the world to him. For 
 though this young gentleman may have been somewhat capricious in 
 his attachments, and occasionally have transferred his affections from 
 one woman to another, yet he always respected the place where Love 
 had dwelt, and, like the Sultan of Turkey, desired that honours should 
 be paid to the lady towards whom he had once thrown the royal 
 pocket-handkerchief. 
 
 The tipsy Captain returned the clasp of Pen's hand with all the 
 strength of a palm which had become very shaky by the constant 
 lifting up of weights of brandy and water, looked hard in Pen's face, 
 and said, " Grecious heavens, is it possible ? Me dear boy, me dear 
 fellow, me dear friend ; " and then with a look of muddled curiosity, 
 fairly broke down with, " I know your face, me dear dear friend, but, 
 bedad, Pve forgot your name." Five years of constant punch had 
 passed since Pen and Costigan met. Arthur was a good deal changed, 
 and the Captain may surely be excused for forgetting him ; when a 
 man at the actual moment sees things double, we m.ay expect that his 
 view of the past will be rather muzzy. 
 
 Pen saw his condition and laughed, although, perhaps, he was 
 somewhat mortified. " Don't you remember me. Captain.^" he said. 
 " I am Pendennis — Arthur Pendennis, of Chatteris." 
 
 The sound of the young man's friendly voice recalled and steadied 
 Cos's, tipsy remembrance, and he saluted Arthur, as soon as he knew 
 him, with a loud volley of friendly greetings. Pen was his dearest boy, 
 his gallant young friend, his noble collagian, whom he had held in his 
 inmost heart ever since they had parted — how was his fawther, no, 
 his mother, and his guardian, the General, the Major .' " I preshoom, 
 from your appearance, that you've come into your prawpertee ; and, 
 bedad, ye'll spend it like a man of spirit — Pll go bail for /hat. No ! 
 not yet come into your estete ? If ye want any thrifle, heark ye, 
 there's poor old Jack Costigan has got a guinea or two in his pocket 
 — and, be heavens ! yon shall never want, Awthur, me dear boy. 
 What'll ye have ? John, come hither, and look aloive ; give this gen- 
 tleman a glass of punch, and Pll pay for't. — You?- friend ? P've seen 
 him before. Permit me to have the honour of making meself known 
 to ye, sir, and requesting ye'll take a glass of punch." 
 
 " I don't envy Sir Charles Mirabel his father-in-law," thought Pen- 
 dennis, "And how is my old friend, Mr. Bows, Captain ? Have yoa 
 any news of him, and do you see him still ? " 
 
 " No doubt he's very well," said the Captain, jingling his money, 
 and whistling the air of a song—" The Little Doodcen "—for the 
 singing of which he was celebrated at the Fielding's Head. " Me
 
 PENDENNIS. 293 
 
 dear boy — I've forgot your name again— but me name's Costigan, 
 Jack Costigan, and I'd loike ye to take as many tumblers of punch in 
 me name as ever ye loike. Ye know me name; I'm not ashamed of 
 it." And so the Captain went maundering on. 
 
 " It's pay-day with the General," said Mr. Hodgen, the bass singer, 
 with whom Warrington was in deep conversation : " and he's a precious 
 deal more than half-seas over. He has already tried that ' Little 
 Doodeen' of his, and broke it, too, just before I sang 'King Death.' 
 Have you heard my new song, ' The Body Snatcher,' Mr. Warrington ? 
 — angcored at St. Bartholomew's the other night — composed expressly 
 for me. Perhaps you or your friend would like a copy of the song, sir? 
 John, just 'ave the kindness to 'and over a ' Body Snatcher' 'ere, will 
 yer ? — There's a portrait of me, sir, as I sing it — as the Snatcher — 
 considered rather like." 
 
 " Thank you," said Warrlngtor ; " heard it nine times — know it by 
 heart, Hodgen." 
 
 Here the gentleman who presided at the pianoforte began to play 
 upon his instrument, and Pen, looking in the direction of the music, 
 beheld that very Mr. Bows, for whom he had been asking but now, 
 and whose existence Costigan had momentarily forgotten. The little 
 old man sate before the battered piano (which had injured its consti- 
 tution wofully by sitting up so many nights, and spoke with a voice, 
 as it were, at once hoarse and faint), and accompanied the singers, or 
 played with taste and grace in the intervals of the songs. 
 
 Bows had seen and recollected Pen at once when the latter came 
 into the room, and had remarked the eager warmth of the young 
 man's recognition of Costigan. He now began to play an air, which 
 Pen instantly remembered as one which used to be sung by the chorus 
 of villagers in " The Stranger," just before Mrs. Haller came in. It 
 shook Pen as he heard it. He remembered how his heart used to beat 
 as that air v/as played, and before the divine Emily made her entry. 
 Nobody, save Arthur, took any notice of old Bows's playing: it was 
 scarcely heard amidst the clatter of knives and forks, the calls for 
 poached eggs and kidneys, and the tramp of guests and waiters. 
 
 Pen went up and kindly shook the player by the hand at the end 
 of his performance; and Bows greeted Arthur with great respect and 
 cordiality. "What, you haven't forgot the old tune, Mr. Pendennis?" 
 he said ; " I thought you'd remember it. I take it, it was the first 
 tune of that sort you ever heard played — wasn't it, sir? You were 
 quite a young chap then. I fear the Captain's very bad to night. He 
 breaks out on a pay-day; and I shall have the deuce's own trouble 
 in getting him home. We live together. We still hang on, sir, in 
 partnership, though Miss Em — though my Lady Mirabel has left 
 the firm. And so you remember old times, do you ? Wasn't she
 
 294 PENDENNIS. 
 
 a beauty, sir ? — Your health and my service to you," — and he took 
 a sip at the pewter measure of porter which stood by his side as 
 he played. 
 
 Pen had many opportunities of seeing his early acquaintances 
 afterwards, and of renewing his relations with Costigan and the old 
 musician. 
 
 As they sate thus in friendly colloquy, men of all sorts and con- 
 ditions entered and quitted the house of entertainment ; and Pen had 
 the pleasure of seeing as many different persons of his race, as the 
 most eager observer need desire to inspect. Healthy country trades- 
 men and farmers, in London for their business, came and recreated 
 themselves with the jolly singing and suppers of the Back Kitchen, — 
 squads of young apprentices and assistants, the shutters being closed 
 over the scene of their labours, came hither, for fresh air doubtless, 
 — rakish young medical students, gallant, dashing, what is called 
 " loudly " dressed, and (must it be owned ?) somewhat dirty, — were 
 here smoking and drinking, and vociferously applauding the songs; — 
 young university bucks were to be found here, too, with that inde- 
 scribable genteel simper which is only learned at the knees of Alma 
 Mater ; — and handsome young guardsmen, and florid bucks from the 
 St. James's Street Clubs ; — nay, senators English and Irish : and even 
 members of the House of Peers. 
 
 The bass singer had made an immense hit with his song of " The 
 Body Snatcher," and the town rushed to listen to it. A curtain drew 
 aside, and Mr. Hodgen appeared in the character of the Snatcher, 
 sitting on a coffin, with a flask of gin before him, with a spade, and 
 a candle stuck in a skull. The song was sung with a really admirable 
 terrific humour. The singer's voice went down so low, that its 
 grumbles rumbled into the hearer's awe-stricken soul ; and in the 
 chorus he clamped with his spade, and gave a demoniac " Ha! ha!" 
 which caused the very glasses to quiver on the table, as with terror. 
 None of the other singers, not even Cutts himself, as that high-minded 
 man owned, could stand up before the Snatcher, and he commonly 
 used to retire to Mrs. Cutts's private apartments, or into the bar, before 
 that fatal song extinguished him. Poor Cos's ditty, '• The Little 
 Doodeen," which Bows accompanied charmingly on the piano, was 
 sung but to a few admirers, who might choose to remain after the tre- 
 mendous resurrectionist chant. The room was commonly emptied 
 after that, or only left in possession of a verj' few and persevering 
 votaries of pleasure. 
 
 Whilst Pen and his friend were sitting here together one night, or 
 rather morning, two habituds of the house entered almost together. 
 " Mr. Hoolan and Mr. Doolan," whispered Warrington to Pen, saluting
 
 PENDENNIS. 295 
 
 these gentlemen, and in the latter Pen recognised his friend of the 
 " Alacrity " coach, who could not dine with Pen on the day on -which the 
 latter had invited him, being compelled by his professional duties to 
 decline dinner-engagements on Fridays, he had stated, with his com- 
 pliments to Mr. Pendennis. 
 
 Doolan's paper, the " Dawn," was lying on the table much bestained 
 by porter, and cheek-by-jowl with Hoolan's paper, which we shall call 
 the " Day;" the " Dawn" was liberal — the " Day" was ultra conser- 
 vative. Many of our Journals are officered by Irish gentlemen, and 
 their gallant brigade does the penning among us, as their ancestors 
 used to transact the fighting in Europe ; and engage under many a 
 flag, to be good friends when the battle is over. 
 
 " Kidneys, John, and a glass of stout,'' says Hoolan. " How are 
 you, Morgan ? how's Mrs. Doolan ? " 
 
 " Doing pretty well, thank ye, Mick, my boy — faith she's accus- 
 tomed to it," said Doolan. " How's the lady that owns ye? Maybe 
 I'll step down Sunday, and have a glass of punch, Kilburn way." 
 
 " Don't bring Patsey with you, Morgan, for our Georgey's got the 
 measles," said the friendly Mick, and they straightway fell to talk 
 about matters connected with their trade — about the foreign mails — 
 about who was correspondent at Paris, and who wrote from Madrid — 
 about the expense the " Morning Journal " was at in sending couriers, 
 about the circulation of the " Evening Star," and so forth. 
 
 Warrington, laughing, took the " Dawn " which was lying before 
 him, and pointed to one of the leading articles in that journal, which 
 commenced thus — 
 
 " As rogues of note in former days who had some wicked work to 
 perform, — an enemy to put out of the way, a quantity of false coin to 
 be passed, a lie to be told or a murder to be done, — employed a pro- 
 fessional perjurer or assassin to do the work, which they were them- 
 selves too notorious or too cowardly to execute; our notorious con- 
 temporary, the 'Day,' engages smashers out of doors to utter forgeries 
 against individuals, and calls in auxiliary cut-throats to murder the 
 reputation of those who offended him. A black-vizardcd ruffian 
 (whom we will unmask), who signs the forged name of Trefoil, is at 
 present one of the chief bravoes and bullies in our contemporary's 
 estabhshment. He is the eunuch who brings the bowstring, and 
 strangles at the order of the ' Day.' We can convict this cowardly 
 slave, and propose to do so. The charge which he has brought 
 against Lord Bangbanagher, because he is a hbcral Irish peer, and 
 against the Board of Poor Law Guardians of the Bangbanagher 
 Union, is," &c. 
 
 "How did they like the article at your place, Mick?" asked 
 Morgan ; " when tlie Captain puts his hand to it he's a tremendous
 
 296 PENDENNIS. 
 
 liand at a smasher. He wrote the article in two hours — in — whew — 
 you know where, while the boy was waiting." 
 
 " Our governor thinks the pubhc don't mind a straw about these 
 newspaper rows, and has told the Docther to stop answering," said 
 the other. " Them two talked it out together in my room. The 
 Docther would have liked a turn, for he says it's such easy writing, 
 and requires no reading up of a subject : but the governor put a stopper 
 on him.'' 
 
 " The taste for eloquence is going out, Mick," said Morgan. 
 
 " ' Deed then it is, Morgan," said Mick. " That was fine writing 
 when the Docther wrote in the ' Phaynix,' and he and Condy Rooney 
 blazed away at each other day after day." 
 
 " And with powder and shot, too, as well as paper," said Morgan. 
 " Faith, the Docther was out twice, and Condy Rooney winged his 
 man." 
 
 " They are talking about Doctor Boyne and Captain Shandon," 
 Warrington said, "who are the two Irish controversialists of the 
 'Dawn' and the 'Day,' Dr. Boyne being the Protestant champion, 
 and Captain Shandon the liberal orator. They are the best friends in 
 the world, I believe, in spite of their newspaper controversies; and 
 though they cry out against the English for abusing their countrj-, 
 by Jove they abuse it themselves more in a single article than we 
 should take the pains to do in a dozen volumes. How are you. 
 Doolan?" 
 
 " Your servant, Mr. Warrington — Mr. Pendennis, I am delighted 
 to have the honour of seeing ye again. The night's journey on the 
 top of the ' Alacrity ' was one of the most agreeable I ever enjoyed in 
 my life, and it was your liveliness and urbanity that made the trip so 
 charming. I have often thought over that happy night, sir, and 
 talked over it to Mrs. Doolan. I have seen your elegant young friend, 
 Mr. Foker, too, here, sir, not unfrequently. He is an occasional 
 frequenter of this hostelry, and a right good one it is. Mr. Pendennis, 
 when I saw you I was on the ' Tom and Jerry ' Weekly Paper ; I have 
 now the honour to be sub-editor of the ' Dawn,' one of the best written 
 papers of the empire " — and he bowed verj- slightly to Mr. Warrington. 
 His speech was unctuous and nieasured, his courtesy oriental, his tone, 
 when talking with the two Englishmen, quite difierent to that with 
 which he spoke to his comrade. 
 
 " Why the devil will the fellow compliment so 1 " gi-owled War- 
 rington, with a sneer which he hardly took the pains to suppress. 
 " Psha — who comes here ? — all Parnassus is abroad to-night : here's 
 Archer. We shall have some fun. Well, Archer, House up ?" 
 
 "Haven't been there. I have been," said Archer, with an air of 
 mystery, "where I was wanted. Get me some supper, John— some-
 
 PENDENNIS. 297 
 
 thing substantial. I hate your grandees who give you nothing to cat. 
 If it had been at Apsley House, it would have been quite different. 
 The Duke knows what I like, and says to the Groom of the Chambers, 
 'Martin, you will have some cold beef, not too much done, and a 
 pint bottle of pale ale, and some brown sherry, ready in my study as 
 usual ; Archer is coming here this evening.' The Duke doesn't eat 
 supper himself, but he likes to see a man enjoy a hearty meal, and 
 he knows that I dine early. A man can't live upon air, be hanged to 
 him." 
 
 " Let me introduce you to my friend, Mr. Pendennis," Warrington 
 said, with great gravity. " Pen, this is Mr. Archer, whom you have 
 heard me talk about. You must know Pen's uncle, the Major, Archer, 
 you who know everybody.'"' 
 
 " Dined with him the day before yesterday at Gaunt House," 
 Archer said. " We were four — the French Ambassador, Steyne, and 
 we two commoners." 
 
 " Why, my uncle is in Scot — " Pen was going to break out, but 
 Warrington pressed his foot under the table as a signal for him to 
 he quiet. 
 
 " It was about the same business that I have been to the palace 
 to-night," Archer went on simply, "and where I've been kept four 
 hours, in an anteroom, with nothing but yesterday's ' Times,' which 1 
 knew by heart, as I wrote three of the leading articles myself ; and 
 though the Lord Chamberlain came in four times, and once holding 
 the royal teacup and saucer in his hand, he did not so much as say to 
 me, ' Archer, will you have a cup of tea ? ' " 
 
 "Indeed! what is in the wind now?" asked Warrington — and 
 turning to Pen, added, " You know, I suppose, that when there is 
 anything wrong at court they always send for Arclier." 
 
 " There is something wrong," said Mr. Archer, " and as the story 
 will be all over the town in a day or two I don't mind telling it. At 
 the last Chantilly races, where I rode Brian Boru for my old friend 
 the Duke de St. Cloud — the old king said to me. Archer, I'm uneasy 
 about Saint Cloud. I have arranged his marriage with the Princess 
 Marie Cundgonde ; the peace of Europe depends upon it — for 
 Russia will declare war if the marriage does not take place, and 
 the young fool is so mad about Madame Massena, Marshal Mas- 
 sena's wife, that he actually refuses to be a party to the marriage. 
 Well, sir, I spoke to Saint Cloud, and having got him into pretty 
 good humour by winning the race, and a good bit of money into 
 the bargain, he said to me, 'Archer, tell the Governor Til think 
 of it.'" 
 
 " How do you say Governor in French .-'" asked Pen, who piqued 
 himself on knowing that language.
 
 29S PENDEiWAIS. 
 
 " Ob, we speak in English — I taught him when we were boys, and 
 I saved his life at Twickenham, when he fell out of a punt," Archer 
 said. " I shall never forget the Queen's looks as I brought him out 
 of the water. She gave me this diamond ring, and always calls me 
 Charles to this day." 
 
 " Madame Massena must be rather an old woman, Archer," War- 
 rington said. 
 
 " Dev'lish old — old enough to be his grandmother ; I told him 
 so," Archer answered at once. " But those attachments for old 
 women are the deuce and all. That's what the king feels : that's 
 what shocks the poor queen so much. They went away from Paris 
 last Tuesday night, and are living at this present moment at Jaunay^s 
 hotel." 
 
 " Has there been a private marriage. Archer ? " asked Warrington. 
 
 " Whether there has or not I don't know," Mr. Archer replied ; 
 " all I know is that I was kept waiting for hours at the palace ; that 
 I never saw a man in such a state of agitation as the King of Belgium 
 when he came out to speak to me, and that I'm devilish hungrj- — and 
 here comes some supper." 
 
 " He has been pretty well to-night," said Warrington, as the pair 
 went home together : " but I have known him in much greater force, 
 and keeping a whole room in a state of wonder. Put aside his 
 archery practice, that man is both able and honest — a good man of 
 business, an excellent friend, admirable to his family as husband, 
 father, and son." 
 
 " What is it makes him pull the long bow in that wonderful 
 manner ? " 
 
 "An amiable insanity," answered Warrington. "He never did 
 anybody harm by his talk, or said evil of anybody. He is a stout 
 politician too, and would never write a word or do an act against his 
 party, as many of us do." 
 
 "Of tts / Who are ive?" asked Pen. "Of what profession is 
 Mr. Archer ? " 
 
 •' Of the Corporation of the Goosequill — of the Press, my boy," 
 said Warrington ; " of the fourth estate." 
 
 '■ Are you, too, of the craft, then ?" Pendennis said. 
 
 " We will talk about that another time," answered the other. 
 They were passing through the Strand as they talked, and by a 
 newspaper office, which was all lighted up and bright. Reporters 
 were coming out of the place, or rushing up to it in cabs ; there 
 were lamps burning in the editors' rooms, and above, where the 
 compositors were at work : the windows of the building were in a 
 blaze of gas. 
 
 " Look at that, Pen," Warrington said. " There she is— the
 
 PENDENNIS. 299 
 
 great engine — she never sleeps. She has her ambassadors in every 
 quarter of the world — her couriers upon every road. Her officers 
 march along with armies, and her envoys walk into statesmen's 
 cabinets. They are ubiquitous. Yonder journal has an agent, at 
 this minute, giving bribes at Madrid ; and another inspecting the 
 price of potatoes in Covent Garden. Look ! here comes the Foreign 
 Express galloping in. They will be able to give news to Downing- 
 Street to-morrow : funds will rise or fall, fortunes be made or lost ; 
 Lord B. will get up, and, holding the paper in his hand, and seeing 
 the noble marquis in his place, will make a great speech ; and — and 
 Mr. Doolan will be called away from his supper at the Back Kitchen ; 
 for he is foreign sub-editor, and sees the mail on the newspaper sheet 
 before he goes to his own." 
 
 And so talking, the friends turned into their chambers, as the 
 dawn was beginning to peep.
 
 300 PENDENNIS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 IN WHICH THE PRINTER'S DEVIL COMES TO THE DOOR. 
 
 PEN, in the midst of his revels and enjoyments, humble as they 
 were, and moderate in cost if not in kind, saw an awful sword 
 hanging over him which must drop down before long and put an end 
 to his frolics and feasting. His money was ver>' nearly spent. His 
 club subscription had carried away a third part of it. He had paid 
 for the chief articles of furniture with which he had supplied his little 
 bed-room : in fine, he was come to the last five-pound note in his 
 pocket-book, and could think of no method of providing a successor : 
 for our friend had been bred up like a young prince as yet, or as a 
 child in arms whom his mother feeds when it cries out. 
 
 Warrington did not know what his comrade's means were. An 
 only child, with a mother at her countrj' house, and an old dandy of 
 an uncle who dined with a great man every day. Pen might have a 
 large bank at his command for anything that the other knew. He had 
 gold chains and a dressing-case fit for a lord. His habits were those 
 of an aristocrat, — not that he was expensive upon any particular point, 
 for he dined and laughed over the pint of porter and the plate of beef 
 from the cook's shop with perfect content and good appetite, — but he 
 could not adopt the penny-wise precautions of hfe. He could not give 
 twopence to a waiter ; he could not refrain from taking a cab if he had 
 a mind to do so, or if it rained, and as surely as he took the cab he 
 overpaid the driver. He had a scorn for cleaned gloves and minor 
 economies. Had he been bred to ten thousand a year he could scarcely 
 have been more free-handed ; and for a beggar, with a sad stor>-, or a 
 couple of pretty piteous-faced children, he never could resist putting 
 his hand into his pocket. It was a sumptuous nature, perhaps, that 
 could not be brought to regard money ; a natural generosity and kind- 
 ness ; and possibly a petty vanity that was pleased with praise, even 
 with the praise of waiters and cabmen. I doubt whether the wisest of 
 us know what our own motives are, and whether some of the actions 
 of which we are the very proudest will not surprise us when we trace 
 them, as we shall one day, to their source. 
 
 Warrington then did not know, and Pen had not thought proper to 
 confide to his friend, his pecuniar}- historj-. That Pen had been wild
 
 PENDENNIS. 301 
 
 and wickedly extravagant at college, the other was aware ; everybody 
 at college was extravagant and wild ; but how great the son's expenses 
 had been, and how small the mother's means, were points which had 
 not been as yet submitted to Mr. Warrington's examination. 
 
 At last the story came out, while Pen was grimly surveying the 
 change for the last five-pound note, as it lay upon the tray from the 
 public-house by Mr. Warrington's pot of ale. 
 
 " It is the last rose of summer," said Pen ; " its blooming com- 
 panions have gone long ago ; and behold the last one of the garland 
 has shed its leaves ; " and he told Warrington the whole story which 
 we know of his mother's means, of his own follies, of Laura's gene- 
 rosity ; during which time Warrington smoked his pipe and listened 
 intent. 
 
 " Impecuniosity will do you good," Pen's friend said, knocking out 
 the ashes at the end of the narration ; " I don't know anything more 
 wholesome for a man — for an honest man, mind you — for another, the 
 medicine loses its effect — than a state of tick. It is an alterative and 
 a tonic ; it keeps your moral man in a perpetual state of excitement : 
 as a man who is riding at a fence, or has his opponent's singlestick 
 before him, is forced to look his obstacle steadily in the face, and 
 brace himself to repulse or overcome it ; a little necessity brings out 
 your pluck if you have any, and nerves you to grapple with fortune. 
 You will discover what a number of things you can do without when 
 you have no money to buy them. You won't want new gloves and 
 varnished boots, eau-de-Cologne, and cabs to ride in. You have been 
 bred up as a molly-coddle. Pen, and spoilt by the women. A single 
 man who has health and brains, and can't find a livelihood in the 
 world, doesn't deserve to stay there. Let him pay his last halfpenny 
 and jump over Waterloo Bridge. Let him steal a leg of mutton and 
 be transported and get out of the country — he is not fit to live in it. 
 Dixi ; I have spoken. Give us another pull at the pale ale." 
 
 "You have certainly spoken; but how is one to live.''" said Pen. 
 " There is beef and bread in plenty in England, but you must pay for 
 it with work or money. And who will take my work ? and what work 
 can I do?" 
 
 Warrington burst out laughing. " Suppose we advertise in the 
 ' Times,'" he said, " for an usher's place at a classical and commercial 
 academy— A gentleman, B.A. of St. Boniface College, Oxbridge, and 
 who was plucked for his degree — " 
 
 " Confound you," cried Pen. 
 
 " — Wishes to give lessons in classics and mathematics, and the 
 rudiments of the French language ; he can cut hair, attend to the 
 younger pupils, and play a second on the piano with the daughters of 
 the principal. Address A. P., Lamb Court, Temple." 
 
 1 mmi STATE ceiLEuZ \y^ 
 
 \H\
 
 302 PENDENNIS. 
 
 " Go on," said Pen, growling. 
 
 " Men take to all sorts of professions. Why, there is your friend 
 Bloundell — Bloundell is a professional blackleg, and travels the con- 
 tinent, where he picks up young gentlemen of fashion and fleeces them. 
 There is Bob O'Toole, with whom I was at school, who drives the 
 Ballinafad mail now, and carries honest Jack Finucane's own corre- 
 spondence to that city. I know a man, sir, a doctor's son, like — well, 
 don't be angr)^, I meant nothing offensive — a doctor^s son, I say, who 
 was walking the hospitals here, and quarrelled with his governor on 
 questions of finance, and what did he do when he came to his last 
 five-pound note t he let his mustachios grow, went into a provincial 
 town, where he announced himself as Professor Spineto, chiropodist 
 to the Emperor of All the Russias, and by a happy operation on the 
 editor of the county newspaper, established himself in practice, and 
 lived reputably for three years. He has been reconciled to his family, 
 and has now succeeded to his father's gallipots." 
 
 " Hang gallipots," cried Pen. " I can't drive a coach, cut corns, 
 or cheat at cards. There's nothing else you propose." 
 
 " Yes ; there's our own correspondent," Warrington said. " Every 
 man has his secrets, look you. Before you told me the story of your 
 money matters, I had no idea but that you were a gentleman of fortune, 
 for, with your confounded airs and appearance, anybody would suppose 
 you to be so. From what you tell me about your mother's income, it 
 is clear that you must not lay any more hands on it. You can't go on 
 sponging upon the women. You must pay off that trump of a girl. 
 Laura is her name ? — here's your health, Laura ! — and carry a hod 
 rather than ask for a shilling from home." 
 
 " But how earn one ? " asked Pen. 
 
 " How do I live, think you ? " said the other. " On my younger 
 brother's allowance, Pendennis ? I have secrets of my own, my boy ; " 
 and here Warrington's countenance fell. " I made away with that 
 allowance five years ago : if I had made away with myself a little time 
 before, it would have been better. I have played off my own bat, ever 
 since. I don't want much money. When my purse is out, I go to 
 work and fill it, and then lie idle like a serpent or an Indian, untU I 
 have digested the mass. Look, I begin to feel empty," Warrington 
 said, and showed Pen a long lean purse, with but a few sovereigns at 
 one end of it. 
 
 " But how do you fill it ? " said Pen. 
 
 " I write," said Warrington. " I don't tell the world that I do so," 
 he added, with a blush. " I do not choose that questions should be 
 asked: or, perhaps, I am an ass, and don't wish it to be said that 
 George Warrington writes for bread. But I write in the Law Reviews : 
 look here, these articles are mine." And he turned over some sheets.
 
 PENDENNIS. 303 
 
 " I write in a newspaper now and then, of which a friend of mine is 
 editor." And Warrington, going with Pendennis to the club one day, 
 called for a file of the " Dawn," and pointed with his finger silently to 
 one or two articles, which Pen read with delight. He had no difficulty 
 in recognising the style afterwards — the strong thoughts and curt 
 periods, the sense, the satire, and the scholarship. 
 
 " 1 am not up to this," said Pen, with a genuine admiration of his 
 friend's powers. " I know very little about politics or history, War- 
 rington ; and have but a smattering of letters. I can't fly upon such a 
 wing as yours." 
 
 " But you can on your own, my boy, which is lighter, and soars 
 higher, perhaps," the other said, good-naturedly. Those little scraps 
 and verses which I have seen of yours show me, what is rare in these 
 days, a natural gift, sir. You needn't blush, you conceited young jack- 
 anapes. You have thought so yourself any time these ten years. You 
 have got the sacred flame — a little of the real poetical fire, sir, I think; 
 and all our oil-lamps are nothing, compared to that, though ever so 
 well trimmed. You are a poet. Pen, my boy," and so speaking, War- 
 rington stretched out his broad hand, and clapped Pen on the shoulder. 
 
 Arthur was so delighted that the tears came into his eyes. " How 
 kind you are to me, Warrington !" he said. 
 
 " I like you, old boy," said the other. " I was dev'lish lonely in 
 chambers and wanted somebody, and the sight of your honest face 
 somehow pleased me. I liked the way you laughed at Lowton — that 
 poor good little snob. And, in fine, the reason why I cannot tell — but 
 so it is, young 'un. I'm alone in the world, sir ; and I wanted some one 
 to keep me company ; " and a glance of extreme kindness and melan- 
 choly passed out of Warrington's dark eyes. 
 
 Pen was too much pleased with his own thoughts to perceive the 
 sadness of the friend who was complimenting him. " Thank you, 
 Warrington," he said, " thank you for your friendship to me, and — and 
 what you say about me. I have often thought I was a poet, I will be 
 one — I think I am one, as you say so, though the world mayn't. Is it 
 — is it the Ariadne in Naxos which you liked (I was only eighteen when 
 I wrote it), or the Prize Poem 1 " 
 
 Warrington bursts into a roar of laughter. " Why, you young 
 goose," he yelled out — " of all the miserable weak rubbish I ever tried, 
 Ariadne in Naxos is the most mawkish and disgusting. The Prize 
 Poem is so pompous and feeble, that I'm positively surprised, sir, it 
 didn't get the medal. You don't suppose that you are a serious poet, 
 do you, and are going to cut out Milton and ^schylus.^ Are you 
 setting up to be a Pindar, you absurd little tom-tit, and fancy you have 
 the strength and pinion which the Theban eagle bear, sailing with 
 supreme dominion through the azure fields of air? No, my boy, I
 
 304 ' PENDENNIS. 
 
 think you can write a magazine article, and turn out a pretty copy of 
 verses ; that's what I think of you." 
 
 "By Jove! "said Pen, bouncing up and stamping his foot, "I'll 
 show you that I am a better man than you think for." 
 
 Warrington only laughed the more, and blew twenty-four puffs 
 rapidly out of his pipe by way of reply to Pen. 
 
 An opportunity for showing his skill presented itself before very 
 lono-. That eminent publisher, Mr. Bacon (formerly Bacon and Bun- 
 gay) of Paternoster Row, besides being the proprietor of the Legal 
 Review, in which Mr. Warrington wrote, and of other periodicals of 
 note and gravity, used to present to the world every year a beautiful 
 gilt volume called the " Spring Annual," edited by the Lady Violet 
 Lebas, and numbering amongst its contributors not only the most 
 eminent, but the most fashionable, poets of our time. Young Lord 
 Dodo's poems first appeared in this miscellany — the Honourable 
 Percy Popjoy, whose chivalrous ballads have obtained him such a 
 reputation — Bedwin Sands's Eastern Ghazuls, and many more of the 
 works of our young nobles were first given to the world in the " Spring 
 Annual," which has since shared the fate of other vernal blossoms, and 
 perished out of the world. The book was daintily illustrated with 
 pictures of reigning beauties, or other prints of a tender and volup- 
 tuous character; and, as these plates were prepared long beforehand, 
 requiring much time in engraving, it was the eminent poets who had to 
 write to the plates, and not the painters who illustrated the poems. 
 
 One day, just when this volume was on the eve of publication, it 
 chanced that Mr. Warrington called in Paternoster Row to talk with 
 Mr. Hack, Mr. Bacon's reader and general manager of publications — 
 for Mr. Bacon, not having the least taste in poetry or in literature of 
 any kind, wisely employed the services of a professional gentleman. 
 Warrington, then, going into Mr. Hack's room on business of his own, 
 found that gentleman with a bundle of proof plates and sheets of the 
 " Spring Annual" before him, and glanced at some of them. 
 
 Percy Popjoy had written some verses to illustrate one of the 
 pictures, which was called the Church Porch. A Spanish damsel was 
 hastening to church with a large prayer-book ; a youth in a cloak 
 was hidden in a niche watching this young woman. The picture was 
 pretty : but the great genius of Percy Popjoy had deserted him, for he 
 had made the most execrable verses which ever were perpetrated by a 
 young nobleman. 
 
 Warrington burst out laughing as he read the poem : and Mr. Hack 
 laughed too, but with rather a rueful face. — " It won't do," he said, 
 " the public won't stand it. Bungay's people are going to bring out a 
 very good book, and have set up Miss Bunion against Lady Violet.
 
 PENDENNIS. 305 
 
 We have most titles to be sure — but the verses are too bad. Lady 
 Violet herself owns it; she's busy with her own poem; what's to be 
 done ? We can't lose the plate. The governor gave sixty pounds 
 for it!" 
 
 " I know a fellow who would do some verses, I think," said War- 
 rington. " Let me take the plate home in my pocket : and send to my 
 chambers in the morning for the verses. You'll pay well, of course ?" 
 
 "Of course," said Mr. Hack; and Warrington, having dispatched 
 his own business, went home to Mr. Pen, plate in hand. 
 
 " Now, boy, here's a chance for you. Turn me off a copy of 
 verses to this." 
 
 " What's this ? A Church Porch— A lady entering it, and a youth 
 out of a wine-shop window ogling her. — What the deuce am I to do 
 with it ? " 
 
 " Try," said Warrington. " Earn your livelihood for once, you who 
 long so to do it." 
 
 " Well, I will try," said Pen. 
 
 " And I'll go out to dinner," said Warrington, and left Mr. Pen in 
 a brown study. 
 
 When Warrington came home that night, at a very late hour, the 
 verses were done. " There they are," said Pen. " I've screwed 'em 
 out at last. I think they'll do." 
 
 " I think they will," said Warrington, after reading them; they ran 
 as follows : — 
 
 " Although I enter not, 
 Yet round about the spot 
 
 Sometimes I hover, 
 And at the sacred gate, 
 With longing eyes I wait, 
 
 Expectant of her. 
 
 The Minster bell tolls out 
 Above the city's rout 
 
 And noise and humming: 
 They've stopp'd the chiming bell, 
 I hear the organ's swell — 
 
 She's coming, she's coming! 
 
 My lady comes at last, 
 Timid and stepping fast, 
 
 And hastening hither, 
 "With modest eyes downcast. 
 She comes — she's here — she's past 
 
 May Heaven go with her! 
 
 20
 
 3o6 PENDENNIS. 
 
 Kneel undisturb'd, fair saint, 
 Pour out your praise or plaint 
 
 Meekly and duly. 
 I will not enter there, 
 To sully your pure prayer 
 
 With thoughts unruly. 
 
 But suffer me to pace 
 Round the forbidden place, 
 
 Lingering a minute, 
 Like outcast spirits, who wait 
 And see thiough Heaven's gate 
 
 Angels within it. " 
 
 " Have you got any more, young fellow ? " asked Warrington. 
 " We must make them give you a couple of guineas a page ; and if 
 the verses are liked, why, you'll get an entree into Bacon's magazines, 
 and may turn a decent penny." 
 
 Pen examined his portfolio and found another ballad which he 
 thought might figure with advantage in the " Spring Annual," and 
 consigning these two precious documents to Warrington, the pair 
 walked from the Temple to the famous haunt of the Muses and their 
 masters, Paternoster Row. Bacon's shop was an ancient low-browed 
 building, with a few of the books published by the firm displayed in 
 the windows, under a bust of my Lord of Verulam, and the name of 
 Mr. Bacon in brass on the private door. Exactly opposite to Bacon's 
 house was that of Mr. Bungay, which was newly painted and elabo- 
 rately decorated in the style of the seventeenth century, so that you 
 might have fancied stately Mr. Evelyn passing over the threshold, or 
 curious Mr. Pepys examining the books in the window. Warrington 
 went into the shop of Mr. Bacon, but Pen stayed without. It was 
 agreed that his ambassador should act for him entirely; and the 
 young fellow paced up and down the street in a very nervous con- 
 dition, until he should learn the result of the negotiation. Many a 
 poor devil before him has trodden those flags, with similar cares and 
 anxieties at his heels, his bread and his fame dependent upon the 
 sentence of his magnanimous patrons of the Row. Pen looked at all 
 the wonders of all the shops ; and the strange variety of literature 
 which they exhibit. In this were displayed black-letter volumes and 
 books in the clear pale types of Aldus and Elzevir : in the next, you 
 might see the " Penny Horrific Register," the " Halfpenny Annals 
 of Crime," and " History of the most celebrated murderers of all 
 countries," "The Raff's Magazine," "The Larky Swell," and other 
 publications of the penny press ; whilst at the next window, portraits 
 of ill-favoured individuals, with fac-similes of the venerated signatures 
 of the Reverend Grimes Wapshot, the Reverend Elias Howie, and the
 
 PENDENNIS. 307 
 
 works written and the sermons preached by them, showed the British 
 Dissenter where he could find mental pabulum. Hard by would be 
 a little casement hung with emblems, with medals and rosaries, with 
 little paltry prints of saints gilt and painted, and books of controversial 
 theology, by which the faithful of the Roman opinion might learn a 
 short way to deal with Protestants, at a penny a piece, or ninepence 
 the dozen for distribution ; whilst in the very next window you might 
 see " Come out of Rome," a sermon preached at the opening of the 
 Shepherd's Bush College, by John Thomas, Lord Bishop of Ealing. 
 Scarce an opinion but has its expositor and its place of exhibition 
 in this peaceful old Paternoster Row, under the toll of the bells of 
 Saint Paul. 
 
 Pen looked in at all the windows and shops, as a gentleman, who 
 is going to have an interview with the dentist, examines the books on 
 the waiting-room table. He remembered them afterwards. It seemed 
 to him that Warrington would never come out ; and indeed the latter 
 was engaged for some time in pleading his friend's cause. 
 
 Pen's natural conceit would have swollen immensely if he could 
 but have heard the report which Warrington gave of him. It hap- 
 pened that Mr. Bacon himself had occasion to descend to Mr. Hack's 
 room whilst Warrington was talking there, and Warrington, knowing 
 Bacon's weaknesses, acted upon them with great adroitness in his 
 friend's behalf. In the first place, he put on his hat to speak to Bacon, 
 and addressed him from the table on which he seated himself. Bacon 
 liked to be treated with rudeness by a gentleman, and used to pass it 
 on to his inferiors as boys pass the mark. " What ! not know Mr. 
 Pendennis, Mr. Bacon } " Warrington said. " You can't live much in 
 the world, or you would know him. A man of property in the West, 
 of one of the most ancient famihes in England, related to half the 
 nobility in the empire — he's cousin to Lord Pontypool — he was one of 
 the most distinguished men at Oxbridge; he dines at Gaunt House 
 every week." 
 
 " Law bless me, you don't say so, sir ? Well— really — Law bless 
 me now," said Mr. Bacon. 
 
 " I have just been showing Mr. Hack some of his verses, which he 
 sat up last night, at my request, to write; and Hack talks about 
 giving him a copy of the book — the what-d'-you-call-'em." 
 
 " Lord • bless me now, does he ? The what-d'-you-call-'em. 
 Indeed ! " 
 
 " ' The Spring Annual ' is its name, — as payment for these verses. 
 You don't suppose that such a man as Mr. Arthur Pendennis gives up 
 a dinner at Gaunt House for nothing ? You know, as well as any- 
 body, that the men of fashion want to be paid." 
 
 "That they do, Mr. Warrington, sir," said the publisher.
 
 3oS PENDENNIS. 
 
 " I tell you he's a star ; hell make a name, sir. He's a new 
 man, sir." 
 
 " They've said that of so many of those young swells, Mr. War- 
 rington," the publisher interposed, with a sigh. " There was Lord 
 Viscount Dodo, now ; I gave his lordship a good bit of money for his 
 poems, and only sold eighty copies. Mr. Popjoy's Hadgincourt, sir, 
 fell dead." 
 
 " Well, then, I'll take my man over to Bungay," Warrington said, 
 and rose from the table. This threat was too much for Mr. Bacon, 
 who was instantly ready to accede to any reasonable proposal of 
 Mr. Warrington's, and finally asked his manager what those proposals 
 were ? When he heard that the negotiation only related as yet to a 
 couple of ballads, which Mr. Warrington offered for the " Spring 
 Annual," Mr. Bacon said, " Law bless you, give him a cheque 
 directly;" and with this paper Warrington went out to his friend, 
 and placed it, grinning, in Pen's hands. Pen was as elated as if some- 
 body had left him a fortune. He offered Warrington a dinner at 
 Richmond instantly. " What should he go and buy for Laura and 
 his mother.'' He must buy something for them." 
 
 " They'll like the book better than anything else," said Warrington, 
 " with the young one's name to the verses, printed among the swells." 
 
 " Thank God ! thank God ! " cried Arthur, " I needn't be a charge 
 upon the old mother. I can pay off Laura now. I can get my own 
 living. I can make my own way." 
 
 " I can marry the grand vizier's daughter : I can purchase a house 
 in Belgrave Square; I can build a fine castle in the air," said War- 
 rington, pleased with the others exultation. " Well, you may get 
 bread and cheese, Pen : and I own it tastes well, the bread which you 
 earn yourself" 
 
 They had a magnum of claret at dinner at the club that day, at 
 Pen's charges. It was long since he had indulged in such a luxury, 
 but Warrington would not baulk him : and they drank together to the 
 health of the " Spring Annual." 
 
 It never rains, but it pours, according to the proverb; so ver}- 
 speedily another chance occurred, by which Mr. Pen was to be 
 helped in his scheme of making a livelihood. Warrington one day 
 threw him a letter across the table, which was brought by a printer's 
 boy, "from Captain Shandon, sir" — the little emissary said: and 
 then went and fell asleep on his accustomed bench in the passage. 
 He paid many a subsequent visit there, and brought many a message 
 to Pen. 
 
 " F. P. Tuesday Marniitg. 
 " My dear Sir,— Bungay will be here to-day, about the ' Pall Mall Gazette.' 
 You would be the very man to help us 'vii/i a genuine West-end article,— yo\x
 
 PENDENNIS. 309 
 
 understand — dashing, trenchant, and d aristocratic. Lady Hipshaw will 
 
 write : but she's not much you know, and we've two lords ; but the less they do 
 the better. We must have you. We'll give you your own terms, and we'll 
 make a hit with the ' Gazette.' 
 
 " Shall B. come and see you, or can you look in upon me here? 
 
 " Ever yours, 
 
 "C. S." 
 
 " Some more opposition," Warrington said, when Pen had read 
 the note. " Bungay and Bacon are at daggers drawn ; each married 
 the sister of the other, and they were for some time the closest friends 
 and partners. Hack says it was Mrs. Bungay who caused all the 
 mischief between the two ; whereas Shandon, who reads for Bungay 
 a good deal, says Mrs. Bacon did the business ; but I don't know 
 which is right, Peachum or Lockit. Since they have separated, it is 
 a furious war between the two publishers ; and no sooner does one 
 bring out a book of travels, or poems, a magazine or periodical, 
 quarterly, or monthly, or weekly, or annual, but the rival is in the 
 field with something similar. I have heard poor Shandon tell with 
 great glee how he made Bungay give a grand dinner at Blackwall to 
 all his writers, by saying that Bacon had invited his corps to an enter- 
 tainment at Greenwich. When Bungay engaged your celebrated 
 friend Mr. Wagg to edit the ' Londoner,' Bacon straightway rushed 
 off and secured Mr, Grindle to give his name to the ' Westminster 
 Magazine.' When Bacon brought out his comic Irish novel of 
 ' Barney Brallaghan,' off went Bungay to Dublin, and produced his 
 rollicking Hibernian story of ' Looney MacTwolter.' When Doctor 
 Hicks brought out his 'Wanderings in Mesopotamia' under Bacon's 
 auspices, Bungay produced Professor Sadiman's ' Researches in 
 Zahara ; ' and Bungay is publishing his ' Pall Mall Gazette ' as a coun- 
 terpoise to Bacon's ' Whitehall Review.' Let us go and hear about 
 the ' Gazette.' There may be a place for you in it, Pen, my boy. We 
 will go and see Shandon. We are sure to find him at home." 
 
 " Where does he live ?" asked Pen. 
 
 " In the Fleet Prison," Warrington said. " And very much at 
 home he is there, too. He is the king of the place." 
 
 Pen had never seen this scene of London life, and walked with no 
 small interest in at the grim gate of that dismal edifice. They went 
 through the ante-room, where the officers and janitors of the place 
 were seated, and passing in at the wicket, entered the prison. The 
 noise and the crowd, the life and the shouting, the shabby bustle of 
 the place, struck and excited Pen. People moved about ceaselessly 
 and restless, like caged animals in a menagerie. Men were playing 
 at fives. Others pacing and tramping : this one in colloquy with his 
 lawyer in dingy black— that one walking sadly, with his wife by his
 
 310 PEiWDENNIS. 
 
 side, and a child on his arm. Some were arrayed in tattered dressing- 
 gowns, and had a look of rakish fashion. Everybody seemed to be 
 busy, humming, and on the move. Pen felt as if he choked in the 
 place, and as if the door being locked upon him, they never would let 
 him out. 
 
 They went through a court up a stone staircase, and through 
 passages full of people, and noise, and cross lights, and black doors 
 clapping and banging ; — Pen feeling as one does in a feverish morning- 
 dream. At last the same little runner who had brought Shandon's 
 note, and had followed them down Fleet Street munching apples, and 
 who showed the way to the two gentlemen through the prison, said, 
 " This is the Captain's door," and Mr. Shandon's voice from within 
 bade them enter. 
 
 The room, though bare, Avas not uncheerful. The sun was shining 
 in at the window — near which sate a lady at work, who had been gay 
 and beautiful once, but in whose faded face kindness and tenderness 
 still beamed. Through all his errors and reckless mishaps and mis- 
 fortunes, this faithful creature adored her husband, and thought him 
 the best and cleverest, as indeed he was one of the kindest of men. 
 Nothing ever seemed to disturb the sweetness of his temper; not 
 debts ; not duns : not misery : not the bottle : not his wife's unhappy 
 position, or his children's ruined chances. He was perfectly fond of 
 wife and children after his fashion : he always had the kindest words 
 and smiles for them, and ruined them with the utmost sweetness of 
 temper. He never could refuse himself or any man any enjojTnent 
 which his money could purchase ; he would share his last guinea with 
 Jack and Tom, and we may be sure he had a score of such retainers. 
 He would sign his name at the back of any man's bill, and never pay 
 any debt of his own. He would write on any side, and attack himself 
 or another man with equal indifference. He was one of the wittiest, 
 the most amiable, and the most incorrigible of Irishmen. Nobody 
 could help liking Charley Shandon who saw him once, and those whom 
 he ruined could scarcely be angry with him. 
 
 When Pen and Warrington arrived, the Captain (he had been in 
 an Irish militia regiment once, and the title remained with him) was 
 sitting on his bed in a torn dressing-gown, with a desk on his knees, 
 at which he was scribbling as fast as his rapid pen could wi ite. Slip 
 after slip of paper fell off the desk w^et on to the ground. A picture of 
 his children was hung up over his bed, and the youngest of them was 
 pattering about the room. 
 
 Opposite the Captain sate Mr. Bungay, a portly man of stolid 
 countenance, with whom the little child had been trying a conver- 
 sation. 
 
 " Papa's a verj' clever man," said she ; " mamma says so."
 
 PENDENNIS. 311 
 
 " Oh, very," said Mr. Bungay. 
 
 " And you're a very rich man, Mr. Bundy," cried the child, who 
 could hardly speak plain. 
 
 " Mary ! " said Mamma, from her work. 
 
 " Oh, never mind," Bungay roared out with a great laugh ; " no 
 harm in saying I'm rich — he, he — I am pretty well off, my little dear," 
 
 " If you're rich, why don't you take papa out of piz'n ?" asked the 
 child. 
 
 Mamma at this began to wipe her eyes with the work on which 
 she was employed. (The poor lady had hung curtains up in the 
 room, had brought the children's picture and placed it there, and had 
 made one or two attempts to ornament it.) Mamma began to cry; 
 Mr. Bungay turned red, and looked fiercely out of his bloodshot little 
 eyes ; Shandon's pen went on, and Pen and Warrington arrived with 
 their knock. 
 
 Captain Shandon looked up from his work. " How do you do, 
 Mr. Warrington," he said. " I'll speak to you in a minute. Please 
 sit down, gentlemen, if you can find places," and away went the pen 
 again. 
 
 Warrington pulled forward an old portmanteau — the only available 
 seat — and sate down on it with a bow to Mrs. Shandon, and a nod to 
 Bungay ; the child came and looked at Pen solemnly ; and in a couple 
 of minutes the swift scribbling ceased ; and Shandon, turning the desk 
 over on the bed, stopped and picked up the papers. 
 
 " I think this will do," said he. " It's the prospectus for the ' Pall 
 Mall Gazette.' " 
 
 "And here's the money for it," Mr. Bungay said, laying down a 
 five-pound note. " I'm as good as my word, I am. When I say I'll 
 pay, I pay." 
 
 " Faith that's more than some of us can say," said Shandon, and 
 he eagerly clapped the note into his pocket.
 
 312 PENDENNIS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI I. 
 WHICH IS PASSED IX THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF LUDGATE HILL. 
 
 OUR imprisoned Captain announced, in smart and emphatic 
 language in his prospectus, that the time had come at last when 
 it was necessar)- for the gentlemen of England to band together in 
 defence of their common rights and their glorious order, menaced on 
 all sides by foreign revolutions, by intestine radicalism, by the artful 
 calumnies of mill-owners and cotton-lords, and the stupid hostility of 
 the masses whom they gulled and led. " The ancient monarchy was 
 insulted," the Captain said, " by a ferocious republican rabble. The 
 Church was deserted by envious dissent, and undermined by stealthy 
 infidelity. The good institutions, which had made our country glorious, 
 and the name of English Gentlemen the proudest in the world, were 
 left without defence, and exposed to assault and contumely from men 
 to whom no sanctuary' was sacred, for they believed in nothing holy ; 
 no histor)- venerable, for they were too ignorant to have heard of the 
 past ; and no law was binding which they were strong enough to 
 break, when their leaders gave the signal for plunder. It was because 
 the kings of France mistrusted their gentlemen," Mr. Shandon re- 
 marked, " that the monarchy of Saint Louis went down : it was because 
 the people of England still believed in their gentlemen, that this 
 country encountered and overcame the greatest enemy a nation ever 
 met : it was because we were headed by gentlemen that the Eagles 
 retreated before us from the Douro to the Garonne: it was a gentle- 
 man who broke the line at Trafalgar, and swept the plain of 
 Waterioo." 
 
 Bungay nodded his head in a knowing manner, and winked his 
 eyes when the Captain came to the Waterloo passage : and Warrington 
 burst out laughing. 
 
 " You see how our venerable friend Bungay is affected," Shandon 
 said, slily looking up from his papers — " that's your true sort of test. 
 I have used the Duke of Wellington and the battle of Waterloo a 
 hundred times : and I never knew the Duke to fail." 
 
 The Captain then went on to confess, with much candour, that up 
 to the present time the gentlemen of England, confident of their right, 
 and careless of those who questioned it, had left the political interest
 
 PENDEXNIS. 313 
 
 of their order as they did the management of their estates, or the 
 settlement of their legal affairs, to persons affected to each peculiar 
 service, and had permitted their interests to be represented in the 
 press by professional proctors and advocates. That time Shandon 
 professed to consider was now gone by : the gentlemen of England 
 must be their own champions : the declared enemies of their order 
 were bvave, strong, numerous, and uncompromising. They must meet 
 their foes in the field : they must not be belied and misrepresented by 
 hireling advocates : they must not have Grub Street publishing Gazettes 
 from Whitehall : " That's a dig at Bacon's people, Mr. Bungay," said 
 Shandon, turning round to the publisher. 
 
 Bungay clapped his stick on the floor, " Hang him, pitch into 
 him, Capting," he said with exultation: and turning to Warrington, 
 wagged his dull head more vehemently than ever, and said, " For a 
 slashing article, sir, there's nobody like the Capting — no-obody like 
 him." 
 
 The prospectus-writer went on to say that some gentlemen, whose 
 names were, for obvious reasons, not brought before the public (at 
 which Mr. Warrington began to laugh again), had determined to bring 
 forward a journal, of which the principles were so and so. " These 
 men are proud of their order, and anxious to uphold it," cried out 
 Captain Shandon, flourishing his paper with a grin. " They are loyal 
 to their sovereign, by faithful conviction and ancestral allegiance ; they 
 love their Church, where they would have their children worship, and 
 for which their forefathers bled ; they love their country, and would 
 keep it what the gentlemen of England — yes, the gentlemen of England 
 (we'll have that in large caps., Bungay, my boy) have made it — the 
 greatest and freest in the world : and as the names of some of them 
 are appended to the deed which secured our liberties at Runnymede — " 
 
 " What's that?" asked Mr. Bungay. 
 
 " An ancestor of mine sealed it with his sword hilt," Pen said, with 
 great gravity. 
 
 " It's the Habeas Corpus, Mr. Bungay," Warrington said, on which 
 the publisher answered, " All right, I dare say," and yawned, tliough 
 he said, " Go on, Capting." 
 
 — " at Runnymede ; they are ready to defend that freedom to-day 
 with sword and pen, and now, as then, to rally round the old laws and 
 liberties of England." 
 
 " Brayvo ! " cried Warrington. The little child stood wondering ; 
 the lady was working silently, and looking with fond admiration. 
 " Come here, little Mary," said Warrington, and patted the child's fair 
 curls with his large hand. But she shrank back from his rough caress, 
 and preferred to go and take refuge at Pen's knee, and play with his 
 fine watch-chain : and Pen was very much pleased that she came to
 
 314 PENDENNIS. 
 
 him ; for he was very soft-hearted and simple, though he concealed his 
 gentleness under a shy and pompous demeanour. So she clambered 
 up on his lap, whilst her father continued to read his programme. 
 
 " You were laughing," the Captain said to Warrington, " about 
 ' the obvious reasons,' which I mentioned. Now, I'll show ye what 
 they are, ye unbelieving heathen. ' We have said,' " he went on, 
 " * that we cannot give the names of the parties engaged in this under- 
 taking, and that there were obvious reasons for that concealment. We 
 number influential friends in both Houses of the Senate, and have 
 secured allies in every diplomatic circle in Europe. Our sources of 
 intelligence are such as cannot, by any possibility, be made public — 
 and, indeed, such as no other London or European journal could, by 
 any chance, acquire. But this we are free to say, that the very earliest 
 information connected with the movement of English and Continental 
 politics, will be found ONLY in the columns of the ' Pall Mall Gazette.' 
 The Statesman and the Capitalist, the Country Gentleman, and the 
 Divine, will be amongst our readers, because our writers are amongst 
 them. We address ourselves to the higher circles of society : we care 
 not to disown it — the ' Pall Mall Gazette ' is ^vritten by gentlemen for 
 gentlemen ; its conductors speak to the classes in which they live and 
 were born. The field-preacher has his journal, the radical free-thinker 
 has his journal : why should the Gentlemen of England be unrepre- 
 sented in the Press ? ' " 
 
 Mr. Shandon then went on with much modesty to descant upon 
 the literar}' and fashionable departments of the " Pall Mall Gazette," 
 which were to be conducted by gentlemen of acknowledged reputa- 
 tion ; men famous at the Universities (at which Mr. Pendennis could 
 scarcely help laughing and blushing), known at the Clubs and of the 
 Society which they described. He pointed out delicately to advertisers 
 that there would be no such medium as the " Pall Mall Gazette " for 
 giving publicity to their sales ; and he eloquently called upon the 
 nobility of England, the baronetage of England, the revered clergy of 
 England, the bar of England, the matrons, the daughters, the homes 
 and hearths of England, to rally round the good old cause; and 
 Bungay at the conclusion of the reading woke up from a second snooze 
 in which he had indulged himself, and again said it was all right. 
 
 The reading of the prospectus concluded, the gentlemen present 
 entered into some details regarding the political and literary' manage- 
 ment of the paper, and Mr. Bungay sate by listening and nodding his 
 head, as if he understood what was the subject of their conversation, 
 and approved of their opinions. Bungay's opinions, in truth, were 
 pretty simple. He thought the Captain could write the best smashing 
 article in England. He wanted the opposition house of Bacon smashed, 
 and it was his opinion that the Captain could do that business. If the
 
 PENDENNIS. 315 
 
 Captain had written a letter of Junius on a sheet of paper, or copied a 
 part of the Church Catechism, Mr. Bungay would have been perfectly 
 contented, and have considered that the article was a smashing article. 
 And he pocketed the papers with the greatest satisfaction : and he not 
 only paid for the MS., as we have seen, but he called little Mary to 
 him, and gave her a penny as he went away. 
 
 The reading of the manuscript over, the party engaged in general 
 conversation, Shandon leading with a jaunty fashionable air in compli- 
 ment to the two guests who sate with him, and who, by their appear- 
 ance and manner, he presumed to be persons of the beau monde. 
 He knew very little indeed of the great world, but he had seen it, and 
 made the most of what he had seen. He spoke of the characters of 
 the day, and great personages of the fashion, with easy familiarity and 
 jocular allusions, as if it was his habit to live amongst them. He told 
 anecdotes of their private life, and of conversations he had had, and 
 entertainments at which he had been present, and at which such and 
 such a thing occurred. Pen was amused to hear the shabby prisoner 
 in a tattered dressing-gown talking glibly about the great of the land. 
 Mrs. Shandon was always delighted when her husband told these tales, 
 and believed in them fondly every one. She did not want to mingle 
 in the fashionable world herself, she was not clever enough ; but the 
 great Society was the very place for her Charles : he shone in it : he 
 was respected in it. Indeed, Shandon had once been asked to dinner 
 by the Earl of X ; his wife treasured the invitation-card in her work- 
 box at that very day. 
 
 Mr. Bungay presently had enough pf this talk and got up to take 
 leave, whereupon Warrington and Pen rose to depart with the pub- 
 lisher, though the latter would have liked to stay to make a further 
 acquaintance with this family, who interested him and touched him. 
 He said something about hoping for permission to repeat his visit, 
 upon which Shandon, with a rueful grin, said he was always to be 
 found at home, and should be delighted to see Mr. Pennington. 
 
 " I'll see you to my park-gate, gentlemen," said Captain Shandon, 
 seizing his hat, in spite of a deprecatory look, and a faint cry of 
 " Charles" from Mrs. Shandon. And the Captain, in shabby slippers, 
 shuffled out before his guests, leading the way through the dismal 
 passages of the prison. His hand was already fiddling with his 
 waistcoat-pocket, where Bungay's five-pound note was, as he took 
 leave of the three gentlemen at the wicket ; one of them, Mr. Arthur 
 Pendennis, being greatly relieved when he was out of the horrid place, 
 and again freely treading the flags of Farringdon Street. 
 
 Mrs. Shandon sadly went on with her work at the window looking 
 into the court. She saw Shandon with a couple of men at his heels 
 run rapidly in the direction of the prison tavern. She had hoped to
 
 3,6 PEXDENNIS. 
 
 have had him to dinner herself that day : there was a piece of meat, 
 and some salad in a basin, on the ledge outside of the window of their 
 room, which she had expected that she and little Mary were to share 
 with the child's father. But there was no chance of that now. He 
 would be in that tavern until the hours for closing it ; then he would 
 go and play at cards or drink in some other man's room, and come 
 back silent, with glazed eyes, reeling a little in his walk, that his wife 
 might nurse him. Oh, what varieties of pain do we not make our 
 women suffer. 
 
 So Mrs. Shandon went to the cupboard, and, in lieu of a dinner, 
 made herself som.e tea. And in those varieties of pain of which we 
 spoke anon, what a part of confidante has that poor tea-pot played 
 ever since the kindly plant was introduced among us ! What myriads 
 of women have cried over it, to be sure ! What sick beds it has 
 smoked by ! What fevered lips have received refreshment from out of 
 it! Nature meant very gently by women when she made that tea- 
 plant. With a little thought what a series of pictures and groups the 
 fancy may conjure up and assemble round the tea-pot and cup. 
 Melissa and Sacharissa are talking love secrets over it. Poor Polly 
 has it and her lover's letters upon the table; his letters who was her 
 lover yesterday, and when it was with pleasure, not despair, she wept 
 over them. Mary comes tripping noiselessly into her mother's bed- 
 room, bearing a cup of the consoler to the widow who will take no 
 other food. Ruth is busy concocting it for her husband, who is coming 
 home from the harvest field — one could fill a page with hints for such 
 pictures ; — finally, Mrs. Shandon and little Mary sit down and drink 
 their tea together, while the Captain goes out and takes his pleasure. 
 She cai-es for nothing else but that, when her husband is away. 
 
 A gentleman with whom we are already slightly acquainted, 
 Mr. Jack Finucane, a townsman of Captain Shandon's, found the 
 Captain's wife and little Mary (for whom Jack always brought a 
 sweetmeat in his pocket) over this meal. Jack thought Shandon the 
 greatest of created geniuses, and had one or two helps from the good- 
 natured prodigal, who had always a kind word, and sometimes a 
 guinea for any friend in need ; and never missed a day in seeing his 
 patron. He was ready to run Shandon's errands and transact his 
 money-business with publishers and newspaper editors, duns, cre- 
 ditors, holders of Shandon's acceptances, gentlemen disposed to 
 speculate in those securities, and to transact the thousand little affairs 
 of an embarrassed Irish gentleman. I never knew an embarrassed 
 Irish gentleman yet, but he had an aide-de-camp of his own nation, 
 likewise in circumstances of pecuniary discomfort. That aide-de- 
 camp has subordinates of his own, who again may have other in- 
 solvent dependants— ali through his life our Captain marched at
 
 ri-lNDENNIS. 317 
 
 the head of a ragf;c'd staff, wlio shared in the rough furtuncs of thcii 
 chieftain. 
 
 " lie won't have that five-pound note very long I bet a guinea," 
 Mr. Bungay said of the Captain, as lie and his two companions walked 
 away from the prison ; and the publisher judged rigluly, for when 
 Mrs. Shandon came to empty her husband's pockets, she found but a 
 couple of sliilUngs and a few lialfpence out of the morning's remittance. 
 Shandon liad given a pound to one follower ; had sent a leg of mutton 
 and potatoes and beer to an acquaintance in the poor side of the 
 prison ; liad paid an outstanding bill at liic tavern where he had 
 changed liis five-])ound note ; liad had a dinner with two friends tiiere, 
 to whom he lost sundry half-crowns at cards afterwards ; so tiiat the 
 niglit left him as poor as the morning had found him. 
 
 'I'lie |)ublisher and the two gentlemen liad had some talk together 
 after quilling Shandon, and Warrington reiterated to liungay what he 
 had said to his rival, Bacon, viz., that Pen was a high fellow, of great 
 genius, and what was more, well with the great world, and related to 
 "no end "of the peerage. Bung.ay replied that he should be happy 
 to have dealings with Mr. I'endennis, and hoped to have the pleasure 
 of seeing both gents to cut mutton with him before long, and so, with 
 mutual ijoiiteness and jirotestations, they parted. 
 
 " It is hard to see such a man as Shandon," I'en said, musing and 
 talking that night over the sight which he had witnessed, "of accom- 
 plishments so multifarious, and of such an undoubted talent and 
 humour, an inmate of a gaol for half his time, and a bookseller's 
 hanger-on when out of prison." 
 
 " I am a bookseller's hanger-on — you are going to try your paces 
 as a hack," Warrington said with a laugh. " We are all hacks upon 
 some road or other. I would rather be myself, than Paley our neigh- 
 bour in chambers : who has as much enjoyment of his life as a mole. 
 A deuced deal of undeserved compassjon has been thrown away upon 
 what you call ycjur bookseller's drudge." 
 
 " Much solitary pipes and ale make a cynic of you," I'en said. 
 " You are a Diogenes by a beer-barrel, Warrington. No man shall 
 tell me that a man of genius, as .Shandon is, ought to be driven by 
 such a vulgar slave-driver as yonder Mr. Ikingay, whom we have just 
 left, who fattens on the profits of the other's brains, and enriches 
 himself out of his journeyman's labour. It makes me indignant to 
 see a gentleman the serf of such a creature as tliat, of a man who 
 can't speak the language that he lives by, wiio is not fit to black 
 Shandon's boots." 
 
 " So you have begun already to gird at the |)ublishcrs, and to take 
 your side amongst our order. Bravo, I'en, my boy!" Warrington
 
 3iS PENDENNIS. 
 
 answered, laughing still. " What have you got to say against Bungay's 
 relations with Shandon ? Was it the publisher, think you, who sent 
 the author to prison? Is it Bungay who is tippling away the five- 
 Dound note which we saw just now, or Shandon ?" 
 
 " Misfortune drives a man into bad company," Pen said. " It is 
 easy to cry ' Fie ! ' against a poor fellow who has no society but such 
 as he finds in a prison ; and no resource except forgetfulness and the 
 bottle. We must deal kindly with the eccentricities of genius, and 
 remember that the very ardour and enthusiasm of temperament which 
 makes the author delightful often leads the man astray." 
 
 " A fiddlestick about men of genius ! " Warrington cried out, who 
 was a ver>^ severe moralist upon some points, though possibly a very 
 bad practitioner. " I deny that there are so many geniuses as people 
 who whimper about the fate of men of letters assert there are. There 
 are thousands of clever fellows in the world who could, if they would, 
 turn verses, write articles, read books, and deliver a judgment upon 
 them ; the talk of professional critics and writers is not a whit more 
 brilliant, or profound, or amusing, than that of any other society of 
 educated people. If a lawyer, or a soldier, or a parson, outruns his 
 income, and does not pay his bills, he must go to gaol ; and an author 
 must go, too. If an author fuddles himself, I don't know why he 
 should be let off a headache the next morning, — if he orders a coat 
 from the tailor's, why he shouldn't pay for it." 
 
 " I would give him more money to buy coats," said Pen, smiling. 
 " I suppose I should like to beloiig to a well-dressed profession. I 
 protest against that wretch of a middle-man whom I see between 
 Genius and his great Landlord, the Public, and who stops more than 
 half of the labourer's earnings and fame." 
 
 " I am a prose labourer," Warrington said : " you, my boy, are a 
 poet in a small way, and so, I suppose, consider you are authorised 
 to be flighty. What is it you want ? Do you want a body of capitalists 
 that shall be forced to purchase the works of all authors, who may 
 present themselves, manuscript in hand .'' Ever>'body who writes his 
 epic, every driveller who can or can't spell, and produces his novel or 
 his tragedy, — are they all to come and find a bag of sovereigns in 
 exchange for their worthless reams of paper } Who is to settle what 
 is good or bad, saleable or otherwise ? Will you give the buyer leave, 
 in fine, to purchase or not ? W^hy, sir, when Johnson sate behind the 
 screen at Saint John's Gate, and took his dinner apart, because he 
 was too shabby and poor to join the literary bigwigs who were regaling 
 themselves round Mr. Cave's best table-cloth, the tradesman was 
 doing him no wrong. You couldn't force the publisher to recognise 
 the man of genius in the young man who presented himself before 
 him, ragged, gaunt, and hungry. Rags are not a proof of genius ;
 
 PENDENNIS. 319 
 
 whereas capital is absolute, as times go, and is perforce the bargain- 
 master. It has a right to deal with the literary inventor as with any 
 other; — if I produce a novelty in the book-trade, I must do the best 
 I can with it ; but I can no more force Mr. Murray to purchase my 
 book of travels or sermons, than I can compel Mr. Tattersall to give 
 me a hundred guineas for my horse. I may have my own ideas of the 
 value of my Pegasus, and think him the most wonderful of animals ; 
 but the dealer has a right to his opinion, too, and may want a lad/s 
 horse, or a cob for a heavy timid rider, or a sound hack for the road, 
 and my beast won't suit him." 
 
 " You deal in metaphors, Warrington," Pen said ; " but you rightly 
 say that you are very prosaic. Poor Shandon ! There is something 
 about the kindness of that man, and the gentleness of that sweet 
 creature of a wife, which touches me profoundly. I like him, I am 
 afraid, better than a better man." 
 
 " And so do I," Warrington said. " Let us give him the benefit 
 of our sympathy, and the pity that is due to his weakness ; though I 
 fear that sort of kindness would be resented as contempt by a more 
 high-minded man. You see he takes his consolation along with his 
 misfortune, and one generates the other or balances it, as is the way 
 of the world. He is a prisoner, but he is not unhappy." 
 
 " His genius sings within his prison bars," Pen said. 
 
 " Yes," Warrington said, bitterly ; " Shandon accommodates him- 
 self to a cage pretty well. He ought to be wretched, but he has Jack 
 and Tom to drink with, and that consoles him : he might have a high 
 place, but, as he can't, why he can drink with Tom and Jack ; — he 
 might be providing for his wife and children, but Thomas and John 
 have got a bottle of brandy which they want him to taste j— he might 
 pay poor Snip, the tailor, the twenty pounds which the poor devil 
 wants for his landlord, but John and Thomas lay their hands upon 
 his purse ; — and so he drinks whilst his tradesman goes to gaol and 
 his family to ruin. Let us pity the misfortunes of genius, and conspire 
 against the publishing tyrants who oppress men of letters." 
 
 " What ! are you going to have another glass of brandy-and- 
 water ?" Pen said, with a humorous look. It was at the Back Kitchen 
 that the above philosophical conversation took place between the two 
 young men. 
 
 Warrington began to laugh as usual. " Video meliofa proboque — ■ 
 I mean bring it me hot with sugar, John," he said to the waiter. 
 
 " I would have some more, too, only I don't want it," said Pen. 
 " It does not seem to me, Warrington, that we are much better than 
 our neighbours." And Warrington's last glass having been dispatched, 
 the pair returned to their chambers. 
 
 They found a couple of notes in the letter-box, on their return, which
 
 320 PENDENNIS. 
 
 had been sent by their acquaintance of the morning, Mr. Bungay. 
 That hospitable gentleman presented his compliments to each of the 
 gentlemen, and requested the pleasure of their company at dinner on 
 an early day, to meet a few literar>' friends. 
 
 " We shall have a grand spread," said Warrington. "We shall meet 
 all Bungay's corps." 
 
 " All except poor Shandon," said Pen, nodding a good-night to his 
 friend, and he went into his own little room. The events and acquaint- 
 ances of the day had excited him a good deal, and he lay for some 
 time awake thinking over them, as Warrington's vigorous and regular 
 snore from the neighbouring apartment pronounced that that gentle- 
 man was engaged in deep slumber. 
 
 " Is it true," thought Pendennis, lying on his bed and gazing at a 
 bright moon without, that lighted up a corner of his dressing-table, 
 and the frame of a little sketch of Fairoaks drawn by Laura, that hung 
 over his drawers — " is it true that I am going to earn my bread at last, 
 and with my pen ? that I shall impoverish the dear mother no longer ; 
 and that I may gain a name and reputation in the world, perhaps ? 
 These are welcome if they come," thought the young visionary, laughing 
 and blushing to himself, though alone and in the night, as he thought 
 how dearly he would relish honour and fame if they could be his. " If 
 fortune favours me, I laud her; if she frowns, I resign her. I pray 
 Heaven I may be honest if I fail, or if I succeed. I pray Heaven I 
 may tell the truth as far as I know it : that I mayn't swerve from it 
 through flattery, or interest, or personal enmity, or party prejudice. 
 Dearest old mother, what a pride will you have, if I can do anything 
 worthy of our name ! and you, Laura, you won't scorn me as the worth- 
 less idler and spendthrift, when you see that 1 — when I have achieved 
 a — psha ! what an Alnaschar I am because I have made five pounds 
 by my poems, and am engaged to write half-a-dozen articles for a 
 newspaper." He went on with these musings, more happy and hopeful, 
 and in a humbler frame of mind, than he had felt to be for many a day. 
 He thought over the errors and idleness, the passions, extravagances, 
 disappointments, of his wayward youth : he got up from the bed : 
 threw open the window, and looked out into the night : and then, by 
 some impulse, which we hope was a good one, he went up and kissed 
 the picture of Fairoaks, and flinging himself down on his knees by the 
 bed, remained for some time in that posture of hope and submission. 
 When he rose, it was with streaming eyes. He had found himself 
 repeating, mechanically, some little words which he had been accus- 
 tomed to repeat as a child at his mothers side, after the saying of 
 which she would softly take him to his bed and close the curtains 
 round him, hushing him with a benediction.
 
 PENDENNIS. 321 
 
 The next day, Mr. Pidgeon, their attendant, brought In a large 
 brown paper parcel, directed to G. Warrington, Esq., with Mr. Trotter's 
 compliments, and a note- which Warrington read. 
 
 "Pen, you beggar !" roared Warrington to Pen, who ums in his 
 own room. 
 
 " Hullo ! '"' sung out Pen. 
 
 " Come here, you're wanted," cried the other, and Pen came out. 
 "What is it?" said he. 
 
 '■'' Catch!" cried Warrington, and flung the parcel at Pen's head, 
 who would have been knocked down had he not caught it. 
 
 " It's books for review for the ' Pall Mall Gazette ; ' pitch into 'em," 
 Warrington said. As for Pen, he never had been so delighted in his 
 life: his hand trembled as he cut the string of the packet, and beheld 
 within a smart set of new neat calico-bound books, travels, and novels, 
 and poems. 
 
 "Sport the oak, Pidgeon," said he. "I'm not at home to any- 
 body to-day." And he flung into his easy-chair, and hardly gave 
 liimself time to drink k's tea, 50 eager was he to begin :o read and to. 
 review. 
 
 ax
 
 ?2; 
 
 PENDENXfS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 IN WHICH THE HISTORY STILL HOVERS ABOUT FLEET STREET. 
 
 CAPTAIN SHANDON, urged on by his wife, who seldom meddled 
 in business matters, had stipulated that John Finucane, Esquire, 
 of the Upper Temple, should be appointed sub-editor of the forth- 
 coming " Pall Mall Gazette," and this post was accordingly conferred 
 upon Mr. Finucane by the spirited proprietor of the Journal. Indeed 
 he desei-ved any kindness at the hands of Shandon, so fondly attached 
 was he, as we have said, to the Captain and his family, and so eager to 
 do him a service. It was in Finucane's chambers that Shandon used 
 in former days to hide when danger was near and bailiffs abroad : 
 until at length his hiding-place was known, and the sherift's officers 
 came as regularly to wait for the Captain on Finucane's staircase as at 
 his own door. It was to Finucane's chambers that poor Mrs. Shandon 
 came often and often to explain her troubles and griefs, and devise 
 means of rescue for her adored Captain. Many a meal did Finucane 
 furnish for her and the child there. It was an honour to his little 
 rooms to be visited by such a lady ; and as she went down the stair- 
 case with her veil over her face. Fin would lean over the balustrade 
 looking after her, to see that no Temple Lovelace assailed her upon 
 the road, perhaps hoping that some rogue might be induced to waylay 
 her, so that he, Fin, might have the pleasure of rushing to her rescue, 
 and breaking the rascal's bones. It was a sincere pleasure to Mrs. 
 Shandon when the arrangements were made by which her kind honest 
 champion was appointed her husband's aide-de-camp in the newspaper. 
 He would have sate with Mrs. Shandon as late as the prison hours 
 permitted, and had indeed many a time witnessed the putting to bed 
 of little Mar}', who occupied a crib in the room ; and to whose evening 
 prayers that God might bless papa, Finucane, although of the Romish 
 faith himself, had said Amen with a great deal of sympathy — but he 
 had an appointment with Mr. Bungay regarding the affairs of the 
 paper which they were to discuss over a quiet dinner. So he went 
 away at six o'clock from Mrs. Shandon, but made his accustomed 
 appearance at the Fleet Prison next morning, having arrayed himself 
 in his best clothes and ornaments, which, though cheap as to cost, 
 r/ere very brilliant as to colour and appearance, and having in his
 
 FA\Yn£I\V\7S. 323 
 
 pocket four pounds two shillings, being the amount oi his week's 
 salary at the " Daily Journal," minus two shillings expended by him 
 in the purchase of a pair of gloves on his way to the prison. 
 
 He had cut his mutton with Mr. Bungay, as the latter gentleman 
 phrased it, and Mr. Trotter, Bungay's reader and literary man of 
 business, at Dick's Coffee-House on the previous day, and entered at 
 large into his views respecting the conduct of the " Pall Mall Gazette." 
 In a masterly manner he had pointed out what should be the sub- 
 editorial arrangements of the paper : what should be the type for the 
 various articles : who should report the markets ; who the turf and 
 ring; who the Church intelligence; and who the fashionable chit- 
 chat. He was acquainted with gentlemen engaged in cultivating these 
 various departments of knowledge, and in communicating them after- 
 wards to the public — in fine. Jack Finucane was, as Shandon had said 
 of him, and, as he proudly owned himself to be, one of the best sub- 
 editors of a paper in London. He knew the weekly earnings of every 
 man connected with the Press, and was up to a thousand dodges, or 
 ingenious economic contrivances, by which money could be saved to 
 spirited capitalists, who were going to set up a paper. He at once 
 dazzled and mystified Mr. Bungay, who was slow of comprehension, 
 by the rapidity of the calculations which he exhibited on paper, as 
 they sate in the box. And Bungay afterwards owned to his subordi- 
 nate, Mr. Trotter, that that Irishman seemed a clever fellow. 
 
 And now having succeeded in making this impression upon Mr. 
 Bungay, the faithful fellow worked round to the point which he had 
 very near at heart, viz., the liberation from prison of his admired friend 
 and chief. Captain Shandon. He knew to a shilling the amount of the 
 detainers which were against the Captain at the porter's lodge of 
 the Fleet ; and, indeed, professed to know all his debts, though this 
 was impossible, for no man in England, certainly not the Captain 
 himself, was acquainted with them. He pointed out what Shandon's 
 engagements already were; and how much better he would work if 
 removed from confinement (though this Mr. Bungay denied, for, 
 " when the Captain's locked up," he said, " we are sure to find him at 
 home ; whereas, when he's free, you can never catch hold of him ") ; 
 finally, he so worked on Mr. Bungay's feelings, by describing Mrs. 
 Shandon pining away in the prison, and the child sickening there, 
 that the publisher was induced to promise that, if Mrs. Shandon would 
 come to him in the morning, he would see what could be done. And 
 the colloquy ending at this time with the second round of brandy-and- 
 water, although Finucane, who had four guineas in his pocket, would 
 have discharged the tavern reckoning with delight, Bungay said, " No, 
 sir, — this is my affair, sir, if you please. James, take the bill, and 
 eighteenpence for yourself," and he handed over the necessary funds
 
 324 FENDENNIS. 
 
 to the waiter. Thus it was that Finucane, who went to bed at the 
 Temple after the dinner at Dick's, found himself actually with his 
 week's salary intact upon Saturday morning. 
 
 He gave Mrs. Shandon a wink so knowing and joyful, that that 
 kind creature knew some good news was. in store for her, and hastened 
 to get her bonnet and shawl, when Fin asked if he might have the 
 honour of taking her a walk, and giving her a little fresh air. And 
 little Mary jumped for joy at the idea of this holiday, for Finucane 
 never neglected to give her a toy, or to take her to a show, and brought 
 newspaper orders in his pocket for all sorts of London diversions to 
 amuse the child. Indeed, he loved them with ail his heart, and would 
 cheerfully have dashed out his rambling brains to do them, or his 
 adored Captain, a service. 
 
 '' May I go, Charley ? or shall I stay with you, for you're poorly, 
 dear, this morning ? He's got a headache, Mr. Finucane. He suffers 
 from Ireadaches, and I persuaded him to stay in bed," Mrs. Shandon 
 said. 
 
 •' Go along with you, and Polly. Jack, take care of 'em. Hand 
 me over the Burtons Anatomy, and leave me to my abominable 
 devices," Shandon said, with perfect good humour. He was wTiting, 
 and not uncommonly took his Greek and Latin quotations (of which 
 he knew the use as a public writer) from that wonderful repertory of 
 learning. 
 
 So Fin gave his arm to Mrs. Shandon, and Mar>' went skipping 
 down the passages of the prison, and through the gate into the free 
 air. From Fleet Street to Paternoster Row is not very far. As the 
 three reached Mr. Bungay's shop, Mrs. Bungay was also entering at 
 the private door, holding in her hand a paper parcel and a manuscript 
 volume bound in red, and, indeed, containing an account of her 
 transactions with the butcher in the neighbouring market. Mrs. Bun- 
 gay was in a gorgeous shot-silk dress, which flamed with red and 
 purple ; she wore a yellow shawl, and had red flowers inside her 
 bonnet, and a brilliant light blue parasol. Mrs. Shandon was in an 
 old black watered silk ; her bonnet had never seen ver>' brilliant days 
 of prosperity any more than its owner, but she could not help looking 
 like a lady whatever her attire was. The two women curtsied to each 
 other, each according to her fashion. 
 
 " I hope you're pretty well. Mum?" said !Mrs. Bungay. 
 
 " It's a very fine day," said Mrs. Shandon. 
 
 " Won't you step in, Mum ?" said Mrs. Bungay, looking so hard at 
 the child as almost to frighten her. 
 
 " I — I came about business with Mr. Bungay — I— I hope he's 
 pretty well?" said timid Mrs. Shandon. 
 
 " If you go to see him in the counting-house, couldn't you—
 
 PENDENNIS. 335 
 
 couldn't you leave your little gurl with me ?" said Mrs. Bungay, in a 
 deep voice, and with a tragic look, as she held out one finger towards 
 the child. 
 
 " I want to stay with mamma," cried little Mar>-, burying her face 
 in her mothei-'s dress. 
 
 " Go with this lady, Mary, my dear," said the mother. 
 
 '• I'll show you some pretty pictures," said Mrs. Bungay, v,-ith the 
 voice of an ogress, " and some nice things besides ; look here " — and 
 opening her brown paper parcel, Mrs. Bungay displayed some choice 
 sweet biscuits, such as her Bungay loved after his wine. Little Mary 
 followed after this attraction, the whole party entering at the private 
 entrance, from which a side door led into Mr. Bungay's commercial 
 apartments. Here, however, as the child was about to part from her 
 mother, her courage again failed her, and again she ran to the maternal 
 petticoat ; upon which the kind and gentle Mrs. Shandon, seeing the 
 look of disappointment in Mrs. Bungay's face, good-naturedly said, 
 '• If you will let me, I will come up too, and sit for a few minutes," 
 and so the three females ascended the stairs together. A second 
 biscuit charmed little Mar>' into perfect confidence, and in a minute 
 or two she prattled away without the least restraint. 
 
 Faithful Finucane meanwhile found Mr. Bungay in a severer mood 
 than he had been on the night previous, when two-thirds of a bottle 
 of' port, and two large glasses of brandy-and-water, had warmed his 
 soul into enthusiasm, and made him generous in his promises towards 
 Captain Shandon. His impetuous wife had rebuked him on his return 
 home. She had ordered that he should give no relief to the Captain ; 
 he vras a good-for-nothing fellow, whom no money would help ; she 
 disapproved of the plan of the " Pall Mali Gazette," and expected that 
 Bungay would only lose his money in it as they were losing over the 
 v/ay (she always called her brothei^'s establishment " over the way,") 
 by the " Whitehall Journal." Let Shandon stop in prison and do his 
 work; it was the best place for him. In vain Finucane pleaded and 
 promised and implored, for his friend Bungay had had an hour's lecture 
 in the morning and was inexorable. 
 
 But what honest Jack failed to do below stairs in the counting- 
 house, the pretty faces and manners of the mother and child were 
 effecting in the drawing-room, where they were melting the fierce but 
 really soft Mrs. Bungay. There was an artless sweetness in Mrs. 
 Shandon's voice, and a winning frankness of manner, which made 
 most people fond of her, and pity her : and taking courage by the 
 rugged kindness with which her hostess received her, the Captain's 
 lady told her story, and described her husband's goodness and virtues, 
 and her child's failing heakh (she was obliged to part with two of 
 them, she said, and send them to school, for she could not have them
 
 326 PENDENXIS. 
 
 in that horrid place)— that Mrs. Bungay, though as grim as Lady 
 Macbeth, melted under the influence of the simple tale, and said she 
 would go down and speak to Bungay. Now in this household to 
 speak -vvas to command, with :\Irs. Bungay; and with Bungay, to hear 
 was to obey. 
 
 It was just when poor Finucane was in despair about his negotia- 
 tion, that the majestic Mrs. Bungay descended upon her spouse, pohtely 
 requested Mr. Finucane to step up to his friends in her drawing-room, 
 while she held a few minutes' conversation with Mr. B., and when the 
 pair were alone the publisher's better half informed him of her inten- 
 tions towards the Captain's lady. 
 
 " What's in the wind now, my dear ? " Maecenas asked, surprised 
 at his wife's altered tone. " You wouldn't hear of my doing anything 
 for the Captain this morning : I wonder what has been a changing of 
 you." 
 
 " The Capting is an Irishman," Mrs. Bungay replied ; " and those 
 Irish I have always said I couldn't abide. But his wife is a lady, as 
 any one can see; and a good woman, and a clergyman's daughter, and 
 a West of England woman, B., which I am myself, by my mother's 
 5ide — and, O ^Marmaduke, didn't you remark her little gurl?" 
 
 " Yes, :\Irs. B., I saw the little girl." 
 
 " And didn't you see how like she was to our angel, Bessy, Mr. B.?" 
 —and Mrs. Bungay's thoughts flew back to a period eighteen years 
 back, when Bacon and Bungay had just set up in business as small 
 booksellers in a country town, and when she had had a child, named 
 Bessy, something like the little Mary who had just moved her com- 
 passion. 
 
 " Well, well, my dear, Mr. Bungay said, seeing the little eyes of 
 his wife begin to twinkle and grow red ; " the Captain ain't in for 
 much. There's only a hundred and thirty pound against him. Half 
 the money will take him out of the Fleet, Finucane says, and we'll pay 
 him half salaries till he has made the account square. When the little 
 'un said, ' Why don't you take Par out of piz'n ? ' I did feel it. Flora, 
 upon my honour I did, now." And the upshot of this conversation 
 was, that ]\Ir. and Mrs. Bungay both ascended to the drawing-room, 
 and Mr. Bungay made a heavy and clumsy speech, in which he 
 announced to Mrs. Shandon that, hearing sixty-five pounds would set 
 her husband free, he was ready to advance that sum of money, deduct- 
 ing it fl-om the Captain's salary, and that he would give it to her on 
 condition that she would personally settle with the creditors regarding 
 her husband's liberation. 
 
 I think this was the happiest day that Mrs. Shandon and Mr. 
 Finucane had had for a long time. " Bedad, Bungay, you're a trump !" 
 roared out Fin, in an overpowering brogue and emotion. " Give us
 
 PENDENNTS. 327 
 
 your fist, old boy : and won't we send the ' Pall Mall Gazette ' up to 
 ten thousand a week, that's all !" and he jumped about the room, and 
 tossed up little Mary, with a hundred frantic antics. 
 
 " If I could drive you anywhere in my carriage, Mrs. Shandon — 
 I'm sure it's quite at your service," Mrs. Bungay said, looking out at 
 a one-horsed vehicle which had just driven up, and in which this lady 
 took the air considerably — and the two ladies, with little Maiy between 
 them (whose tiny hand Maecenas's wife kept fixed in her great grasp), 
 with the delighted Mr. Finucane on the back seat, drove away from 
 Paternoster Row, as the owner of the vehicle threw triumphant glances 
 at the opposite windows at Bacon's. 
 
 " It won't do the Captain any good," thought Bungay, going back 
 to his desk and accounts, " but Mrs. B. becomes regular upset when 
 she thinks about her misfortune. The child would have been of age 
 yesterday, if she'd lived. Bessy told me so : " and he wondered how 
 women did remember things. 
 
 "We are happy to say that Mrs. Shandon sped with very good 
 success upon her errand. She who had had to mollify creditors when 
 she had no money at all, and only tears and entreaties wherewith to 
 soothe them, found no difficulty in making them relent by means of a 
 bribe of ten shillings in the pound ; and the next Sunday was the last, 
 for some time at least, which the Captain spent in prison.
 
 328 
 
 PENDENNIS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 A DINNER IN THE ROW. 
 
 UPON the appointed day our two friends made their appearance 
 at Mr. Bungay's door in Paternoster Row; not the pubhc 
 entrance through which booksellers' boys issued with their sacks full 
 of Bunga/s volumes, and around which timid aspirants lingered with 
 their virgin manuscripts ready for sale to Sultan Bungay, but at the 
 private door of the house, whence the splendid Mrs. Bungay would 
 come forth to step into her chaise and take her drive, settling herself 
 on the cushions, and casting looks of defiance at Mrs. Bacon's opposite 
 windows — at Mrs. Bacon, who was as yet a chaiseless woman. 
 
 On such occasions, when very much wroth at her sister-in-law's 
 splendour, Mrs. Bacon would fling up the sash of her drawing-room 
 window, and look out with her four children at the chaise, as much as 
 to say, " Look at these four darlings. Flora Bungay ! This is why I 
 can't drive in my carriage j you would give a coach and four to have 
 the same reason." And it was with these arrows out of her quiver 
 that Emma Bacon shot Flora Bungay as she sate in her chariot envious 
 and childless. 
 
 As Pen and Warrington came to Bungay's door, a carriage and a 
 cab drove up to Bacon's. Old Dr. Slocum descended heavily from the 
 first ; the Doctor's equipage was as ponderous as his style, but both 
 had a fine sonorous eftect upon the publishers in the Row. A couple 
 of d.izzling white waistcoats stepped out of the cab. 
 
 Warrington laughed. " You see Bacon has his dinner-party too. 
 Thit is Dr. Slocum, author of " Memoirs of the Poisoners." You 
 would hardly have recognised our friend Hoolan in that gallant white 
 waistcoat. Doolan is one of Bunga)-'s men, and, faith, here he comes. 
 Indeed Messrs. Hoolan and Doolan had come from the Strand in the 
 same cab, tossing up by the way which should pav the shilling ; and 
 Mr. D. stepped from the other side of the way, arrayed in black, with 
 a large pair of white gloves which were spread out on his hands, and 
 which the owner could not help regarding with pleasure. 
 
 The house porter in an evening coat, and gentlemen with o-loves as 
 large as Doolan's, but of the famous Berlin web, were on the passa<3-e 
 of Mr. Bungay's house to receive the guests' hats and coats, and
 
 PENDENNIS. 329 
 
 bawl their names up the stair. Some of the latter had arrived when 
 the three new visitors made their appearance; but there was only 
 Mrs. Bungay, in red satin and a turban, to represent her own charming 
 sex. She made curtsies to each new comer as he entered the drawing- 
 room, but her mind was evidently pre-occupied by extraneous thoughts. 
 The fact is, Mrs. Bacon's dinner-party was disturbing her, and as soon 
 as she had received each individual of her own company. Flora Bungay 
 flew back to the embrasure of the window, whence she could rake the 
 carriages of Emma Bacon's friends as they came rattling up the Row. 
 The sight of Dr. Slocum's large carriage, with the gaunt job-horses, 
 crushed Flora : none but hack cabs had driven up to her own door on 
 that day. 
 
 They were all literaiy gentlemen, though unknown as yet to Pen. 
 There was Mr. Bole, the real editor of the magazine of which 
 Mr. Wagg was the nominal chief; Mr. Trotter, who, from having 
 broken out on the world as a poet of a tragic and suicidal cast, had 
 now subsided into one of Mr. Bungay's back shops as reader for that 
 gentleman; and Captain Sumph, an ex-beau still about town, and 
 related in some indistinct manner to Literature and the Peerage, He 
 was said to have written a book once, to have been a friend of Lord 
 Byron, to be related to Lord Sumphington ; in fact, anecdotes of Byron 
 formed his staple, and he seldom spoke but with the name of that poet 
 or some of his contemporaries in his mouth, as thus : " I remember 
 poor Shelley at school being sent up for good for a copy of verses, 
 every line of which I wrote, by Jove ; " or, " I recollect, when I was at 
 Missolonghi with Byron, offering to bet Gamba," and so forth. This 
 gentleman. Pen remarked, was listened to with great attention by 
 Mrs. Bungay; his anecdotes of the aristocracy, of which he was a 
 middle-aged member, delighted the publisher's lady; and he was 
 almost a greater man than the great Mr. Wagg himself in her eyes. 
 Had he but come in his own carriage, Mrs. Bungay would have made 
 her Bungay purchase any given volume from his pen. 
 
 Mr. Bungay went about to his guests as they arrived, and did the 
 honours of his house with much cordiality. " How are y®u, sir? Fine 
 day, sir. Glad to see you year, sir. Flora, my love, let me 'ave the 
 honour of introducing Mr. Warrington to you. Mr. Warrington, 
 Mrs. Bungay; Mr. Pendennis, Mrs. Bungay. Hope you've brought 
 good appetites with you, gentlemen. You, Doolan, I know 'ave, for 
 you've always 'ad a deuce of a twist." 
 . " Lor', Bungay ! " said Mrs. Bungay. 
 " Faith, a man must be hard to please, Bungay, who can't eat a 
 good dinner in this house," Doolan said, and he winked and stroked 
 his lean chops with his large gloves ; and made appeals of friendship 
 to Mrs. Bungay, which that honest woman refused with scorn from the
 
 330 PENDENNIS. 
 
 timid man. " She couldn't abide that Doolan," she said in confidence 
 to her friends. Indeed, all his flatteries failed to win her. 
 
 As they talked, Mrs. Bungay sui-veying mankind from her vvindow, 
 a magnificent vision of an enormous grey cab-horse appeared, and 
 neared rapidly. A pair of white reins, held by small white gloves, v/ere 
 visible behind it ; a face pale, but richly decorated with a chin-tuft, the 
 head of an exiguous groom bobbing over the cab-head — these bright 
 things were revealed to the delighted Mrs. Bungay. " The Honourable 
 Percy Popjoy's quite punctual, I declare," she said, and sailed to the 
 door to be in waiting at the nobleman's arrival. 
 
 " It's Percy Popjoy," said Pen, looking out of Avindow, and seeing 
 an individual, in extremely lacquered boots, descend from the swinging 
 cab: and, in fact, it was that young nobleman — Lord Falconet's eldest 
 son, as we all very well know, who was come to dine with the publisher 
 — his publisher of the Row. 
 
 " He was my fag at Eton," Warrington said. " I ought to have 
 licked him a little more." He and Pen had had some bouts at the 
 Oxbridge Union debates, in which Pen had had very much the better 
 of Percy: who presently appeared, with his hat under his arm, and a 
 look of indescribable good humour and fatuity in his round dimpled 
 face, upon which Nature had burst out with a chin-tuft, but, exhausted 
 with the effort, had left the rest of the countenance bare of hair. 
 
 The temporary groom of the chambers bawled out, " The Honour- 
 able Percy Popjoy," much to that gentleman's discomposure at hearing 
 his titles announced. 
 
 " What did the man want to take away my hat for, Bungay ? " he 
 asked of the publisher. " Can't do without my hat — want it to make 
 my bow to Mrs. Bungay. How well you look, Mrs. Bungay, to-day. 
 Haven't seen your carriage in the Park : why haven't you been there ? 
 I missed you ; indeed, I did." 
 
 " I'm afraid you're a sad quiz," said Mrs. Bungay. 
 
 " Quiz ! Never made a joke in my — hullo ! who's here ? How 
 d'ye do, Pendennis t How d'ye do, Warrington ? These are old friends 
 of mine, i\Irs. Bungay. I say, how the doose did you come here ? " 
 he a.sked of the two young men, turning his lacquered heels upon 
 Mrs. Bungay, who respected her husband's two young guests, now 
 that she found they were intimate with a lord's son. 
 
 " What ! do they know him ?" she asked rapidly of Air. B. 
 
 " High fellers, I tell you — the young one related to all the nobility," 
 said the publisher; and both ran forward, smiling and bowing to greet 
 almost as great personages as the young lord — no less characters, 
 indeed, than the great Mr. Wenham and the great Mr. Wagg, who 
 were now announced. 
 
 Mr. Wenham entered, wearing the usual demure look and stealthy
 
 PENDENNIS. 331 
 
 smile with which he commonly surveyed the tips of his neat little 
 shining boots, and which he but seldom brought to bear upon the 
 person who addressed him. Wagg's white waistcoat, spread out, on 
 the contrary, with profuse brilliancy ; his burly, red face shone resplen- 
 dent over it, lighted up with the thoughts of good jokes and a good 
 dinner. He liked to make his enty-eemto a drawing-room with a laugh, 
 and, when he went away at night, to leave a joke exploding behind 
 him. No personal calamities or distresses (of which that humourist 
 had his share in common with the unjocular part of mankind) could 
 altogether keep his humour down. Whatever his griefs might be, the 
 thought of a dinner rallied his great soul ; and when he saw a lord ; 
 he saluted him with a pun. 
 
 Wenham went up, then, with a smug smile and whisper, to 
 Mrs. Bungay, and looked at her from under his eyes, and showed her 
 the tips of his shoes. Wagg said she looked charming, and pushed 
 on straight at the young nobleman, whom he called Pop ; and to whom 
 he instantly related a funny story, seasoned with what the French call 
 gros sel. He was delighted to see Pen, too, and shook hands with 
 him, and slapped him on the back cordially ; for he was full of spirits 
 and good humour. And he talked in a loud voice about their last 
 place and occasion of meeting at Baymouth; and asked how their 
 friends of Clavering Park were, and whether Sir Francis was not 
 coming to London for the season ; and whether Pen had been to see 
 Lady Rockminster, who had arrived — fine old lady, Lady Rockminster ! 
 These remarks Wagg made, not for Pen's ear so much as for the 
 edification of the company, whom he was glad to inform that he paid 
 visits to gentlemen's country seats, and was on intimate terms with 
 the nobility. 
 
 Wenham also shook hands with our young friend — all of which 
 scenes Mrs. Bungay remarked with respectful pleasure, and commu- 
 nicated her ideas to Bungay, afterwards, regarding the importance of 
 Mr. Pendennis — ideas by which Pen profited much more than he was 
 aware. 
 
 Pen, who had read, and rather admired some of her works (and 
 expected to find in Miss Bunion a person somewhat resembling her 
 own description of herself in the " Passion-Flowers," in which she 
 stated that her youth resembled — 
 
 " A violet, shrinking meanly 
 When blows the March wind keenly ; ' 
 A timid fawn, on wild-wood lawn, 
 Where oak- boughs mstle greenly, — " 
 
 and that her maturer beauty was something very different, certainly, 
 to the artless lovehness of her prime, but still exceedingly captivating
 
 333 PENDENNIS. 
 
 and striking;i, beheld, rather to his surprise and amusement, a large 
 and bony woman in a crumpled satin dress, who cam.e creaking into 
 the room with a step as heavy as a grenadier's. Wagg instantly noted 
 the straw which she brought in at the pjmpled skirt of her dress, and 
 would have stooped to pick it up, but Miss Bunion disarmed all 
 criticism by observing this ornament herself, and, putting down her 
 own large foot upon it, so as to separate it from her robe, she stopped 
 and picked up the straw, saying to Mrs. Bungay, that she was very 
 sorry to be a little late, but that the omnibus was ver}- slow, and what 
 a comfort it was to get a ride all the way from Brompton for sixpence. 
 Nobody laughed at the poetess's speech, it was uttered so simply. 
 Indeed, the worthy woman had not the least notion of being ashamed 
 of an action incidental upon her poverty. 
 
 " Is that ' Passion-Flowers ? '" Pen said to Wenham, by whom he 
 was standing. " Why, her picture in the volume represents her as a 
 very well-looking young woman." 
 
 " You know passion-flowers, like all others, will run to seed," 
 Wenham said ; " Miss Bunion's portrait was probably painted some 
 years ago." 
 
 " Well, I like her for not being ashamed of her poverty." 
 
 " So do I," said Mr. Wenham, who v.ould have star\-ed rather 
 than have come to dinner in an omnibus ; '• but I don't think that she 
 need flourish the straw about, do you, Mr. Pendennis ? My dear Miss 
 Bunion, how do you do ? I was in a great lad)''s drawing-room this 
 morning, and everybody was charmed with your new volume. Those 
 lines on the christening of Lady Fanny Fantail brought tears into the 
 Duchess's eyes. I said that I thought I should have the pleasure of 
 meeting you to-day, and she begged me to thank you, and say how 
 greatly she was pleased." 
 
 This histoiy, told in a bland, smiling manner, of a Duchess whom 
 Wenham had met that very morning, too, quite put poor Wagg's 
 dowager and baronet out of court, and placed Wenham beyond Wagg 
 as a man of fashion. Wenham kept this inestimable advantage, and 
 having the conversation to himself, ran on with a number of anecdotes 
 regarding the aristocracy. He tried to bring Mr. Popjoy into the 
 conversation by making appeals to him, and saying, " I was tellino- 
 your father this morning," or, " I think you were present at W. house 
 the other night when the Duke said so and so," but Mr. Popjoy would 
 not gratify him by joining in the talk, preferring to fall back into the 
 window recess with Mrs. Bungay, and watch the cabs that dro\-e up to 
 the opposite door. At least, if he would not talk, the hostess hoped 
 that those odious Bacons would see how she had secured the noble 
 Percy Popjoy for her party. 
 
 And now the bell of Saint Paul's tolled half an hour later than that
 
 PENDENNIS. 333 
 
 for which Mr, Bungay had invited his party, and it was complete with 
 the exception of two guests, who at last made their appearance, and in 
 whom Pen was pleased to recognise Captain and Mrs. Shandon. 
 
 When these two had made their greetings to the master and mis- 
 tress of the house, and exchanged nods of more or less recognition 
 with most of the people present. Pen and Warrington went up and 
 shook hands very warmly with Mrs. Shandon, who, perhaps, was 
 affected to meet them, and think where it was she had seen them but 
 a few days before. Shandon was brushed up, and looked pretty smart, 
 in a red velvet waistcoat, and a frill, into which his wife had stuck her 
 best brooch. In spite of Mrs. Bungay's kindness, perhaps in con- 
 sequence of it, Mrs. Shandon felt great terror and timidity in approach- 
 ing her : indeed, she was more awful than ever in her red satin and 
 bird of paradise, and it was not until she had asked in her great voice 
 about the dear little gurl, that the latter was somewhat encouraged, 
 and ventured to speak. 
 
 " Nice-looking woman," Popjoy whispered to Warrington. " Do 
 introduce me to Captain Shandon, Warrington, I'm told he's a tre- 
 mendous clever fellow ; and, dammy, I adore intellect, by Jove I do ! " 
 This was the truth : Heaven had not endowed young Mr. Popjoy with 
 much intellect of his own, but had given him a generous faculty for 
 admiring, if not for appreciating, the intellect of others. " And intro- 
 duce me to i\Iiss Bunion. I'm told she's very clever too. She's rum 
 to look at, certainly, but that don't matter. Dammy, I consider 
 myself a literary man, and I wish to know all the clever fellows." So 
 Mr. Popjoy and Mr. Shandon had the pleasure of becoming acquainted 
 with one another ; and now the doors of the adjoining dining-room 
 being flung open, the party entered and took their seats at table. Pen 
 found himself next to Miss Bunion on one side, and to Mr. Wagg — 
 the truth is, Wagg fled alarmed from the vacant place by the poetess, 
 and Pen was compelled to take it. 
 
 The gifted being did not talk much during dinner, but Pen remarked 
 that she ate with a vast appetite, and never refused any of the supplies 
 of wine which were offered to her by the butler. Indeed, Miss Bunion 
 having considered Mr. Pendennis for a minute, who gave himself 
 rather grand airs, and who was attired in an extremely fashionable 
 style, with his very best chains, shirt-studs, and cambric fronts, he 
 was set down, and not without reason, as a prig by the poetess ; who 
 thought it was much better to attend to her dinner than to take any 
 notice of him. She told him as much in after days with her usual 
 candour. " I took you for one of the little Mayfair dandies," she said 
 to Pen. " You looked as solemn as a little undertaker; and as I dis- 
 liked beyond measure the odious creature who was on the other side 
 of me, I thought it was best to eat my dinner and hold my tongue."
 
 3 ',4 PENDENiYIS. 
 
 " And you did both very well, my dear jNIiss Bunion," Pen said 
 with a laugh. 
 
 '• Well, so I do, but I intend to talk to you the next time a great 
 deal : for you are neither so solemn, nor so stupid, nor so pert as you 
 look." 
 
 "All, Miss Bunion, hew I pine for that ' next time' to come," Pen 
 said, with an air of comical gallantrj' : — But we must return to the day, 
 and the dinner at Paternoster Row. 
 
 The repast was of the richest description — " What I call of the 
 fiorid Gothic style," Wagg whispered to Pen, who sate beside the 
 humourist, in his side-wing voice. The men in creaking shoes and 
 Berlin gloves were numerous and solemn, carrying on rapid conversa- 
 tions behind the guests, as they moved to and fro with the dishes. 
 Doolan called out, " Waither," to one of them, and blushed when he 
 thought of his blunder. Mrs. Bungay's own footboy was lost amidst 
 those large and black-coated attendants. 
 
 '■ Look at that very bow-windowed man," Wagg said. " He's an 
 undertaker in Amen Corner, and attends funerals and dinners. Cold 
 meat and hot, don't you perceive ? He's the sham butler here, and I 
 observe, my dear Mr. Pendennis, as you will through life, that wher- 
 ever there is a sham butler at a London dinner there is sham wine — 
 this sherry is filthy. Bungay, my boy, where did you get this delicious 
 brown sherrj' ? " 
 
 '■ Pm glad you like it, Mr. Wagg ; glass with you," said the pub- 
 lisher. " It's some I got from Alderman Benning's store, and gave a 
 good figure for it, I can tell you. Mr. Pendennis, will you join us ? 
 Your 'ealth, gentlemen." 
 
 '• The old rogue, where does he expect to go to ? It came from 
 the public-house," Wagg said. " It requires two men to carry off 
 that sherr)', 'tis so uncommonly strong. I wish I had a bottle of old 
 Steyne's wine here, Pendennis : your uncle and I have had many a 
 one. He sends it about to people where he is in the habit of dining. 
 1 remember at poor Rawdon Crawley's, Sir Pitt Crawley's brother — 
 he was Governor of Coventry Island — Steyne's chef always came in 
 the morning, and the butler arrived with the champagne from Gaunt 
 House, in the ice-pails ready." 
 
 " How good this is ! " said Popjoy, good-naturedly. '• You must 
 have a cordon bleu in your kitchen." 
 
 " O yes," Mrs. Bungay said, thinking he spoke of a jack-chain verj- 
 likely. 
 
 '• I mean a French chef," said the polite guest. 
 
 " O yes, your lordship," again said the lady. 
 ^ " Does your artist say he's a Frenchman, Mrs. B. ? " called out 
 Wasre.
 
 PENDENNIS. 335 
 
 " Well, I'm sure I don't know," answered the publisher's lady. 
 
 " Because, if he does, he's a guizzm' yer" cried Mr. Wagg ; but 
 nobody saw the pun, which disconcerted somewhat the bashful 
 punster. " The dinner is from Griggs' in St. Paul's Church-yard ; so 
 is Bacon's," he whispered Pen. " Bungay writes to give half-a-crown 
 a head more than Bacon, — so does Bacon. They would poison each 
 other's ices if they could get near them ; and as for the made-dishes 
 — they are poison. This — hum — ha — this brimborio>i a la Sevigne 
 is delicious, Mrs. B.," he said, helping himself to a dish which the 
 undertaker handed to him. 
 
 " Well, I'm glad you like it," Mrs. Bungay answered, blushing, 
 and not knowing whether the name of the dish was actually that 
 which Wagg gave to it, but dimly conscious that that individual was 
 quizzing her. Accordingly she hated Mr. Wagg with female ardour ; 
 and would have deposed him from his command over Mr. Bungay's 
 periodical, but that his name was great in the trade, and his reputation 
 in the land considerable. 
 
 By the displacement of persons, Warrington had found himself on 
 the right hand of Mrs. Shandon, who sate in plain black silk and 
 faded ornaments by theside of the florid publisher. The sad smile 
 of the lady moved his rough heart to pity. Nobody seemed to interest 
 himself about her : she sate looking at her husband, who himself 
 seemed rather abashed in the presence of some of the company. 
 Wenham and Wagg both knew him and his circumstances. He had 
 worked with the latter, and vas immeasurably his superior in wit, 
 genius, and acquirement ; but Wagg's star was brilliant in the world, 
 and poor Shandon was unknown there. He could not speak before 
 the noisy talk of the coarser and more successful man ; but drank his 
 wine in silence, and as much of it as the people would give him. He 
 was under sicrveillance. Bungay had warned the undertaker not to 
 fill the Captain's glass too often or too full. It was a melancholy pre- 
 caution that, and the more melancholy that it was necessary. Mrs. 
 Shandon, too, cast alarmed glances across the table to see that her 
 husband did not exceed. 
 
 Abashed by the failure of his first pun, for he was impudent and 
 easily disconcerted, Wagg kept his conversation pretty much to Pen 
 during the rest of dinner, and of course chiefly spoke about their 
 neighbours. "This is. one of Bungay's grand field-days," he said. 
 " We are all Bungavians here. — Did you read Popjoy's novel ? It 
 was an old magazine story written by poor Buzzard years ago, and 
 forgotten here until Mr. Trotter (that is Trotter with the large shirt- 
 collar) fished it out and bethought him that it was applicable to the 
 late elopement ; so Bob wrote a faw chapters apropos — Popjoy per- 
 mitted the use of his name, and I daresay supplied a page here and
 
 ,-6 PENDENNIS. 
 
 there— and ' Desperation, or the Fugitive Duchess ' made its appear- 
 ance. The great fun is to examine Popjoy about his ouii work, of 
 which he doesn't know a word.— I say, Popjoy, what a capital passage 
 that is in Volume Three,— where the Cardinal in disguise, after 
 bein^^ converted by the Bishop of London, proposes marriage to the 
 Duchess's daughter." 
 
 " Glad you like it," Popjoy answered ; " it's a favourite bit of 
 my own." 
 
 " There's no such thing in the whole book," whispered Wagg to 
 Pen. " Invented it myself. Gad ! it wouldn't be a bad plot for a 
 high-church novel." 
 
 " I remember poor Byron, Hobhouse, Trelawney, and myself, 
 dining with Cardinal Mezzocaldo, at Rome," Captain Sumph began, 
 " and we had some Orvieto wine for dinner, which Byron liked very 
 much. And I remember how the Cardinal regretted that he was a 
 single man. We went to Civita "Vecchia two days afterwards, where 
 Byron's yacht was — and, by Jove, the Cardinal died within ;hree 
 weeks ; and Byron was very sorry, for he rather liked him." 
 
 "A devilish interesting story, Sumph, indeed,'' Wagg said. 
 
 " You should publish some of those stories, Captain Sumph, you 
 really should. Such a volume would make our friend Bungay's 
 fortune," Shandon said. 
 
 "Why don't you ask Sumph to publish 'em in your new paper — 
 the what-d'ye-call'em — hay, Shandon ?" bawled out Wagg. 
 
 " Why don't you ask him to publish 'em in your old magazine, the 
 Thingumbob ? " Shandon replied. 
 
 "Is there going to be a new paper?" asked Wenham, who 
 knew perfectly well ; but was ashamed of his connection with the 
 press. 
 
 " Bungay going to bring out a paper ? " cried Popjoy, who, or. the 
 contrary, was proud of his literary reputation and acquaintances. 
 " You must employ me. Mrs. Bungay, use your influence with him, 
 and make him employ me. Prose or verse — what shall it be 1 Novels, 
 poems, travels, or leading articles, begad. Anything or everything — 
 only let Bungay pay me, and I'm ready— I am now, my dvar ?vTrs. 
 Bungay, begad now." 
 
 " It's to be called the ' Small Beer Chronicle,' " growled Wagg, 
 " and little Popjoy is to be engaged for the infantine department." 
 
 " It is to be called the ' Pall Mall Gazette,' sir, and we sha:! be 
 very happy to have you with us," Shandon said. 
 
 " ' Pall Mall Gazette'— why ' Pall Mall Gazette ?'" asked Wagg. 
 
 " Because the editor was born at Dublin, the sub-editor at Cork, 
 because the proprietor lives in Paternoster Row, and the paper is 
 pubhshed in Catherine Street, Strand. Won't that reason sufr.ce vou.
 
 PENDENNIS. 337 
 
 Wagg ? " Shandon said ; he was getting rather angry. " Everything 
 must have a name. My dog Ponto has got a name. You've got a 
 name, and a name which you deserve, more or less, bedad. Why 
 d'ye grudge the name to our paper 1 " 
 
 " By any other name it would smell as sweet," said Wagg. 
 
 " I'll have ye remember its name's not what-d'-ye-call'-em, Mr. 
 Wagg," said Shandon. " You know its name well enough, and — and 
 you know mine." 
 
 " And I know your address, too," said Wagg, but this was spoken 
 in an undertone, and the good-natured Irishman was appeased almost 
 in an instant after his ebullition of spleen, and asked Wagg to drink 
 wine with him in a friendly voice. 
 
 When the ladies retired from the table, the talk grew louder still ; 
 and presently Wenham, in a courtly speech, proposed that everj'body 
 should drink to the health of the new Journal, eulogising highly the 
 talents, wit,, and learning of its editor. Captain Shandon. It was his 
 maxim never to lose the support of a newspaper man, and in the 
 course of that evening, he went round and saluted every literary 
 gentleman present with a privy compliment specially addressed to 
 him ; informing this one how great an impression had been made in 
 Downing Street by his last article, and telling that one how profoundly 
 his good friend the Duke of So-and-So had been struck by the ability 
 of the late numbers. 
 
 The evening came to a close, and in spite of all the precautions to 
 the contrary, poor Shandon reeled in his walk, and went home to his 
 new lodgings, with his faithful wife by his side, and the cabman on his 
 box jeering at him. Wenham had a chariot of his own, which he put 
 at Popjoy's service ; and the timid Miss Bunion seeing Mr. Wagg, who 
 was her neighbour, about to depart, insisted upon a seat in his carriage, 
 much to that gentleman's discomfiture. 
 
 Pen and Warrington walked home together in the moonlight. 
 '• And now," Warrington said, " that you have seen the men of letters, 
 tell me, was I far wrong in saying that there are thousands of people 
 in this town, who don't write books, who are, to th^ full, as clev?r ^Tid, 
 intellectual as people who do ? " 
 
 Pen was forced to confess that the literary personages with whom 
 he had become acquainted had not said much, in the course of the 
 night's conversation, that was worthy to be remembered or quoted. 
 In fact, not one word about literature had been said during the whole 
 course of the night: and it may be whispered to those uninitiated 
 people who are anxious to know the habits and make the acquaintance 
 of men of letters, that there are no race of people who talk about books, 
 or, perhaps, who read books, so little as literary men.
 
 PENDENSkJS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 THE "pall mall GAZETTE." 
 
 CONSIDERABLE success at first attended the new journal. It 
 was generally stated, that an influential political party supported 
 the paper; and great names were cited amongst the contributors to its 
 columns. Was there any foundation for these rumours 1 We are not 
 at liberty to say whether they were well or ill founded ; but this much 
 we may divulge, that an article upon foreign policy, which was gene- 
 r.'illy attributed to a noble lord, whose connection with the Foreign 
 Office is very well known, was in reality composed by Captain 
 Shandon, in the parlour of the Bear and Staff public-house near 
 Whitehall Stairs, whither the printer's boy had tracked him, and 
 where a literary ally of his, Mr. Bludyer, had a temporary residence; 
 and that a series of papers on finance questions, which were univer- 
 sally supposed to be written by a great statesman of the House of 
 Commons, were in reality composed by Mr. George Warrington of the 
 Upper Temple. 
 
 That there may have been some dealings between the " Pall Mall 
 Gazette"' and this influential party, is very possible. Percy Popjoy 
 (whose father. Lord Falconet, was a member of the party) might be 
 seen not unfrequently ascending the stairs to Warrington's chambers ; 
 and some information appeared in the paper which gave it a character, 
 and could only be got from very peculiar sources. Several poems, 
 feeble in thought, but loud and vigorous in expression, appeared in 
 the " Pall Mall Gazette," with the signature of " P. P. ; " and it must 
 be owned that his novel was praised in the new journal in a very out- 
 rageous manner. 
 
 In the political department of the paper ^Ir. Pen did not take any 
 share ; but he was a most active literary contributor. The " Pall 
 Mail Gazette" had its offices, as we have heard, in Catherine Street, 
 in the Strand, and hither Pen often came with his manuscripts in his 
 pocket, and with a great deal of bustle and pleasure ; such as a man 
 feels at the outset of his literary career, when to see himself in print 
 is still a novel sensation, and he yet pleases himself to think that his 
 writings are creating some noise in the world. 
 
 Here it was that j\Ir. Jack Finucane, the sub-editor, compiled
 
 PENDENNIS. 339 
 
 with paste and scissors the journal of Avhich he was supervisor. With 
 an eagle eye he scanned all the paragraphs of all the newspapers 
 which had anything to do with the world of fashion over which he 
 presided. He didn't let a death or a dinner-party of the aristocracy 
 pass without having the event recorded in the columns of his journal ; 
 and from the most recondite provincial prints, and distant Scotch and 
 Irish newspapers, he fished out astonishing paragraphs and intelli- 
 gence regarding the upper classes of society. It was a grand, nay, a 
 touching sight, for a philosopher, to see Jack Finucane, Esquire,, with 
 a plate of meat from the cookshop, and a glass of porter from the 
 public-house, for his meal, recounting the feasts of the great, as if he 
 had been present at them ; and in tattered trowsers and dingy shirt- 
 sleeves, cheerfully describing and arranging the most brilliant _/t'/^j of 
 the world of fashion. The incongruity of Finucane's avocation, and 
 his manners and appearance, amused his new friend Pen. Since he 
 left his own native village, where his rank probably was not very 
 lofty. Jack had seldom seen any society but such as used the parlour 
 of the taverns which he frequented, whereas from his writing, you 
 would have supposed that he dined with ambassadors, and that his 
 common lounge was the bow-window of White's. Errors of descrip- 
 tion, it is true, occasionally slipped from his pen ; but the " Ballina- 
 fad Sentinel," of which he was own correspondent, suffered by these, 
 not the " Pall Mall Gazette," in which Jack was not permitted to write 
 much, his London chiefs thinking that the scissors and the paste were 
 better wielded by him than the pen. 
 
 Pen took a great deal of pains with the writing of his reviews, and 
 having a pretty fair share of desultory reading, acquired in the early 
 years of his life, an eager fancy and a keen sense of fun, his articles 
 pleased his chief and the public, and he was proud to think that he 
 deserved the money which he earned. We may be sure that the " Pall 
 Mall Gazette " was taken in regularly at Fairoaks, and read with 
 dehght by the two ladies there. It was received at Clavering Park, 
 too, where we know there was a young lady of great literary tastes ; 
 and old Dr. Portman himself, to whom the widow sent her paper 
 after she had got her son's articles by heart, signified his approval of 
 Pen's productions, saying that the lad had spirit, taste, and fancy, and 
 wrote, if not like a scholar, at any rate like a gentleman. 
 
 And what was the astonishment and delight of our friend Major 
 Pendennis, on walking into one of his clubs, the Regent, where 
 Wenham, Lord Falconet, and some other gentlemen of good reputa- 
 tion and fashion were assembled, to hear them one day talking over a 
 number of the " Pall Mall Gazette," and of an article which appeared 
 in its columns, making some bitter fun of a book recently published 
 by the wife of a celebrated member of the opposition party. The
 
 340 PENDENNIS. 
 
 bool; in question was a Book of Travels in Spain and Italy, by the 
 Countess of Muffborough, in which it was difficult to say which was 
 the most wonderful, the French or the English, in which languages 
 her ladyship wrote indifferently, and upon the blunders of which the 
 critic pounced with delighted mischief. The critic was no other than 
 Pen: he jumped and danced round about his subject with the greatest 
 jocularity and high spirits : he showed up the noble lady's faults with 
 admirable mock gravity and decorum. There was not a word in the 
 article which was not polite and gentleman-like ; and the unfortunate 
 subject of the criticism was scarified and laughed at during the opera- 
 tion. Wenham's bilious countenance was puckered up with malign 
 pleasure as he read the critique. Lady Muffborough had not asked 
 him to her parties during the last year. Lord Falconet giggled and 
 laughed with all his heart ; Lord Muffborough and he had been 
 rivals ever since they began life; and these complimented Major 
 Pendennis, who until now had scarcely paid any attention to some 
 hints vv'hich his Fairoaks correspondence threw out of " dear Arthur's 
 constant and severe literary occupations, which I fear may undermine 
 the poor boy's health," and had thought any notice of Mr. Pen and 
 his newspaper connexions quite below his dignity as a Major and a 
 gentleman. 
 
 But when the oracular Wenham praised the boy's production ; 
 v.hen Lord Falconet, who had had the news from Percy Popjoy, 
 approved of the genius of young Pen ; when the great Lord Steyne 
 himself, to whom the Major referred the article, laughed and snig- 
 gered over it, swore it was capital, and that the Muffborough would 
 writhe under it, like a whale under a harpoon, the Major, as in duty 
 bound, began to admire his nephew very much, said, " By gad, the 
 •young rascal had some stuff in him, and would do something; he had 
 always said he would do something ;" and with a hand quite tremu- 
 lous with pleasure, the old gentleman sate down to write to the widow 
 at Fairoaks all that the great folks had said in praise of Pen ; and he 
 v.TOte to the young rascal, too, asking when he would come and eat a 
 chop with his old uncle, and saying that he was commissioned to take 
 him to dinner at Gaunt House, for Lord Steyne liked anybody who 
 could entertain him, whether by his folly, wit, or by his dulness, by his 
 oddity, affectation, good spirits, or any other quality. Pen flung his 
 letter across the table to Warrington ; perhaps he was disappointed 
 that the other did not seem to be much affected by it. 
 
 The courage of young critics is prodigious : they clamber up to 
 the judgment-seat, and, with scarce a hesitation, give their opinion 
 upon works the most intricate or profound. Had Macaulay's History 
 or Herschel's Astronomy been put before Pen at this period, he would 
 have looked through the volumes, meditated his opinion over a cigar,
 
 PENDENNIS. 341 
 
 and signified his august approval of either author, as if the critic hr.d 
 been their born superior and indulgent master and patron. By the 
 help of the Biographic Universelle or the British Museum, he would 
 be able to take a rapid resume of an historical period, and allude to 
 names, dates, and facts, in such a masterly, easy way, as to astonish 
 his mamma at home, who wondered where her boy could have 
 acquired such a prodigious store of reading, and himself, too, when 
 he came to read over his articles two or three months after they had 
 been composed, and when he had forgotten the subject and the books 
 which he had consulted. At that period of his life Mr. Pen ov^ns, 
 that he would not have hesitated, at twenty-four hours' notice, to pass 
 an opinion upon the greatest scholars, or to give a judgment upon the 
 Encyclopaedia. Luckily he had Warrington to laugh at him and to 
 keep down his impertinence by a constant and wholesome ridicule, or 
 he might have become conceited beyond all sufferance; for Shandon 
 liked the dash and flippancy of his young aide-de-camp, and v/as, 
 indeed, better pleased with Pen's light and brilliant flashes, than with 
 the heavier metal which h»« elder coadjutor brought to bear. 
 
 But though he might justly be blamed on the score of impertinence 
 and a certain prematurity of judgment, Mr. Pen was a perfectly honest 
 critic ; a great deal too candid for Mr. Bungay's purposes, indeed, who 
 grumbled sadly at his impartiality. Pen and his chief, the Captain, 
 had a dispute upon this subject one day. " In the name of common 
 sense, Mr. Pendennis," Shandon asked, " what have you been doing — 
 praising one of Mr. Bacon's books ? Bungay has been with me in a 
 fury this morning, at seeing a laudatory article upon one of the works 
 of the odious firm over the way." 
 
 Pen's eyes opened Avith wide astonishment. " Do you mean to 
 say," he asked, " that we are to praise no books that Bacon publishes ; 
 or that, if the books are good, we are to say they are bad t " 
 
 " My good young friend — for what do you suppose a benevolent 
 publisher undertakes a critical journal, to benefit his rival.?" Shandon 
 inquired. 
 
 " To benefit himself certainly, but to tell the truth too," Pen said — 
 " ruai caelum, to tell the truth." 
 
 " And my prospectus," said Shandon, with a laugh and a sneer ; 
 " do you consider that was a v/ork of mathematical accuracy of state- 
 ment ? " 
 
 " Pardon me, that is not the question," Pen said ; " and I don't 
 think you very much care to argue it. I had some qualms of con- 
 science about that same prospectus, and debated the matter with my 
 friend Warrington. We agreed, however," Pen said, laughing, " that 
 because the prospectus v/as rather declamatory and poetical, and the 
 giant was painted upon the shcw-boai'd rather larger than the original
 
 342 PENDENNIS. 
 
 who was inside the caravan, we need not be too scrupulous about this 
 trifling inaccuracy, but might do our part of the show, without loss of 
 character or remorse of conscience. We are the fiddlers, and play our 
 tunes only ; you are the showman." 
 
 •• And leader of the van," said Shandon. " Well, I am glad that 
 your conscience gave you leave to play for us." 
 
 '■ Yes, but," said Pen, with a fine sense of the dignity of his position, 
 " we are all party men in England, and I will stick to my party like a 
 Briton. I will be as good-natured as you like to our own side, he is a 
 fool who quarrels with his own nest ; and I will hit the enemy as hard 
 as you like — but with fair play. Captain, if you please. One can't tell 
 all the truth, I suppose ; but one can tell nothing but the truth : and I 
 would rather starve, by Jove, and never earn another penny by my 
 pen " (this redoubted instrument had now been in use for some six 
 weeks, and Pen spoke of it with vast enthusiasm and respect) " than 
 strike an opponent an unfair blow, or, if called upon to place him, 
 rank him below his honest desert." 
 
 " Well, Mr. Pendennis, when we want Bacon smashed, we must get 
 some other hammer to do it," Shandon said, with fatal good-nature ; 
 and very likely thought within himself, " A few years hence perhaps 
 the young gentleman won't be so squeamish." The veteran Condottiere 
 himself was no longer so scrupulous. He had fought and killed on so 
 many a side for many a year past, that remorse had long left him. 
 " Gad," said he, " you've a tender conscience, Mr. Pendennis. It's 
 the luxury of all novices, and I may have had one once myself; but 
 that sort of bloom wears off with the rubbing of the world, and I'm 
 not going to the trouble myself of putting on an artificial complexion, 
 like our pious friend Wenham, or our model of virtue, Wagg." 
 
 " I don't know whether some people's hypocrisy is not better, 
 Captain, than others' cynicism." 
 
 " It's more profitable, at any rate," said the Captain, biting his 
 nails. " That Wenham is as dull a quack as ever quacked : and you 
 see the carriage in which he drove to dinner. 'Faith, it'll be a long 
 time before Mrs. Shandon will take a drive in her own chariot. God 
 help her, poor thing ! " And Pen went away from his chief, after their 
 little dispute and colloquy, pointing his own moral to the Captain's 
 tale, and thinking to himself, " Behold this man, stored with genius, 
 wit, learning, and a hundred good natural gifts: see how he has 
 wrecked them, by paltering with his honesty, and forgetting to respect 
 himself. Wilt thou remember thyself, O Pen? thou art conceited 
 enough ! Wilt thou sell thy honour for a bottle ? No, by heaven's 
 grace, we will be honest whatever befals, and our mouths shall only 
 speak the truth when they open." 
 
 A punishment, or, at least, a trial, was in store for Mr. Pen. In
 
 PENDENNIS. 343 
 
 the very next number of the " Pall Mall Gazette," Warrington read 
 out, with roars of laughter, an article which by no means amused 
 Arthur Pendennis, who was himself at work with a criticism for the 
 next week's number of the same journal ; and in which the " Spring 
 Annual " was ferociously maltreated by some unknown writer. The 
 person of all most cruelly mauled was Pen himself. His verses had 
 not appeared with his own name in the " Spring Annual," but under 
 an assumed signature. As he had refused to review the book, Shandon 
 had handed it over to Mr. Bludyer, witli directions to that author to 
 dispose of it. And he had done so effectually. Mr. Bludyer, who 
 was a man of very considerable talent, and of a race which, I believe, 
 is quite extinct in the press of our time, had a certain notoriety in his 
 profession, and reputation for savage humour. He smashed and 
 trampled down the poor spring flowers with no more mercy than 
 a bull would have on a parterre ; and having cut up the volume to his 
 heart's content, went and sold it at a bookstall, and purchased a pint 
 of brandy with the proceeds of the volume.
 
 344 PENDENNIS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 WHERE PEN APPEARS IN TOWN AND COUNTRY. 
 
 LET US be allowed to pass over a few months of the history of 
 Mr. Arthur Pendennis's lifetime, during the which, many events 
 may have occurred which were more interesting and exciting to him- 
 self, than they would be likely to prove to the reader of his present 
 memoirs. We left him, in the last chapter, regularly entered upon his 
 business as a professional writer, or literary hack, as Mr. Warrington 
 chooses to style himself and his friend; and we know how the life of 
 any hack, legal or literary, in a curacy, or in a marching regiment, or 
 at a merchant's desk, is full of routine, and tedious of description. 
 One day's labour resem.bles another much too closely. A literary man 
 has often to work for his bread against time, or against his wiU, or 
 in spite of his health, or of his indolence, or of his repugnance to the 
 subject on which he is called to exert himself, just like any other daily 
 toiler. W^hen you want to make money by Pegasus (as he must, 
 perhaps, who has no other saleable property), farewell poetr>' and 
 aerial flights: Pegasus only rises now like Mr. Green's balloon, at 
 periods advertised beforehand, and when the spectators money has 
 been paid. Pegasus trots in harness, over the stony pavement, and 
 pulls a cart or a cab behind him. Often Pegasus does his work with 
 panting sides and trembling knees, and not seldom gets a cut of the 
 whip from his driver. 
 
 Do not let us, however, be too prodigal of our pity upon Pegasus. 
 There is no reason why this animal should be exempt from labour, or 
 illness, or decay, any more than any of the other creatures of God's 
 world. If he gets the whip, Pegasus very often deserv-es it, and I for 
 one am quite ready to protest with my friend, George Warrington, 
 against the doctrine which some poetical sympathisers are inclined to 
 put forward, viz. that men of letters, and what is called genius, are 
 to be exempt from the prose duties of this daily, bread-wanting, 
 tax-paying life, and are not to be made to work and pay like their 
 neighbours. 
 
 Well, then, the " Pall Mall Gazette " being duly established, and 
 Arthur Pendennis's merits recognized as a flippant, witty, and amusing 
 critic, he worked away hard every week, preparing reviews of such
 
 PENDENN/S. 345 
 
 works as came into his department, and writing his reviews with flip- 
 pancy certainly, but with honesty, and to the best of his power. It 
 might be that a historian of threescore, who had spent a quarter of a 
 century in composing a work of which our young gentleman disposed 
 in the course of a couple of days' reading at the British Museum, was 
 not altogether fairly treated by such a facile critic ; or that a poet, who 
 had been elaborating sublime sonnets and odes until he thought them 
 fit for the public and for fame, was annoyed by two or three dozen 
 pert lines in Mr. Pen's review, in which the poet's claims were settled 
 by the critic, as if the latter were my lord on the bench, and the autho? 
 a miserable little suitor trembling before him. The actors at the 
 theatres complained of him wofully, too, and very likely he was too 
 hard upon them. But there was not much harm done after all. It is 
 different now, as we know ; but there were so few great historians, or 
 great poets, or great actors, in Pen's time, that scarce any at all came 
 up for judgment before his critical desk. Those who got a little 
 whipping, got what in the main was good for them ; not that the judge 
 was any better or wiser than the persons whom he sentenced, or 
 indeed ever fancied himself so. Pen had a strong sense of humour 
 and justice, and had not therefore an overweening respect for his own 
 works ; besides, he had his friend Warrington at his elbow — a terrible 
 critic if the young man was disposed to be conceited, and more 
 savage over Pen than ever he was to those whom he tried at his 
 literary assize. 
 
 By these critical labours, and by occasional contributions to leading 
 articles of the journal, when, without wounding his paper, this eminent 
 publicist could conscientiously speak his mind, Mr. Arthur Pendennis 
 gained the sum of four pounds four shillings weekly, and with no small 
 pains and labour. Likewise he furnished Magazines and Reviews with 
 articles of his composition, and is believed to have been (though on 
 this score he never chooses to speak) London correspondent of the 
 Chatteris Champion, which at that time contained some very brilliant 
 and eloquent letters from the metropolis. By these labours the fortu- 
 nate youth was enabled to earn a sum very nearly equal to four hundred 
 pounds a-year; and on the second Christmas after his arrival in 
 London, he actually brought a hundred pounds to his mother, as a 
 dividend upon the debt which he owed to Laura, That Mrs. Pen- 
 dennis read every word of her son's works, and considered him to be 
 the profoundest thinker and most elegant writer of the day ; that she 
 thought his retribution of the hundred pounds an act of angehc virtue ; 
 that she feared he was ruining his health by his labours, and was 
 delighted when he told her of the society which he met, and of the 
 great men of letters and fashion whom he saw, will be imagined by all 
 readers who have seen son-worship amongst mothers, atid that charm-
 
 -^6 PENDENXIS. 
 
 in'^ simplicity of love with which women in the countr>- Tvatch the 
 career of their darlings in London. If John has held such and such a 
 brief; if Tom has been invited to such and such a ball; or George 
 has met this or that great and famous man at dinner; what a delight 
 there is in the hearts of mothers and sisters at home in Somersetshire ! 
 How young Hopeful's letters are read and remembered ! \\Tiat a 
 theme for village talk they give, and friendly congratulation ! In the 
 second winter, Pen came for a very brief space, and cheered the 
 widow's heart, and lightened up the lonely house at Fairoaks. Helen 
 had her son all to herself; Laura was away on a visit to old Lady 
 Rockminster ; the folks of Clavering Park were absent ; the very fev/ 
 old friends of the house, Doctor Portman at their head, called upon 
 Mr. Pen, and treated him with marked respect ; between mother and 
 son. it was all fondness, confidence, and aftection. It was the happiest 
 fortnight of the widow's whole life ; perhaps in the lives of both of 
 them. The holiday was gone only too quickly ; and Pen was back in 
 the busy world, and the gentle widow alone again. She sent Arthurs 
 money to Laura : I don't know why this young lady took the oppor- 
 tunity of leaving home when Pen was coming thither, or whether he 
 was the more piqued or relieved by her absence. 
 
 He was by this time, by his own merits and his uncle's introduc- 
 tions, pretty well introduced into London, and known both in literary 
 and polite circles. Amongst the former, his fashionable reputation 
 stood him in no little stead ; he was considered to be a gentleman of 
 good present means and better expectations, who wrote for his 
 pleasure, than which there cannot be a greater recommendation to a 
 young literar)^ aspirant. Bacon, Bungay and Co., were proud to 
 accept his articles; Mr. Wenham asked him to dinner; Mr. Wagg 
 looked upon him with a favourable eye ; and they reported how they 
 met him at the houses of persons of fashion, amongst whom he v%-as 
 pretty welcome, as they did not trouble themselves about his means, 
 present or future; as his appearance and address were good; and as 
 he had got a character for being a clever fellow. Finally, he was 
 asked to one house, because he was seen at another house : and thus 
 no small varieties of London life were presented to the young man : 
 he was made familiar with all sorts of people from Paternoster Row 
 to Pimlico, and was as much at home at l\Ia\'fair dining-tables as at 
 those tavern boards where some of his companions of the pen were 
 accustomed to assemble. 
 
 Full of high spirits and curiosity, easily adapting himself to all 
 whom he met, the young fellow pleased himself in this strange 
 variety and jumble of men, and made himself welcome, or at ease 
 at least, wherever he went. He would breakfast, for instance, at 
 Mr. Plover's of a morning, in company with a Peer, a Bishop, a
 
 PENDENNIS. 347 
 
 parliamentary orator, two blue ladies of fashion, a popular preacher, 
 the author of the last new novel, and the very latest lion imported 
 from Egypt or from America ; and would quit this distinguished 
 society for the back room at the newspaper office, where pens and 
 ink and the wet proof-sheets were awaiting him. Here would be 
 Finucane, the sub-editor, with the last news from the Ro\v : and 
 Shandon would come in presently, and giving a nod to Pen, would 
 begin scribbling his leading article at the other end of the table, 
 flanked by the pint of sherry, which, when the attendant boy beheld 
 him, was always silently brought for the Captain: or Mr. Bludyer's 
 roaring voice would be heard in the front room, where that truculent 
 critic would impound the books on the counter in spite of the timid 
 remonstrances of Mr. Midge, the publisher, and after looking through 
 the volumes would sell them at his accustomed book-stall, and having 
 drunken and dined upon the produce of the sale in a tavern box, 
 would call for ink and paper, and proceed to " smash " the author of 
 his dinner and the novel. Towards evening Mr. Pen would stroll in 
 the direction of his club, and take up Warrington there for a constitu- 
 tional walk. This exercise freed the lungs, and gave an appetite for 
 dinner, after which Pen had the privilege to make his bow at some 
 ver>' pleasant houses which were opened to him: or the town before 
 him for amusement. There was the Opera; or the Eagle Tavern; or 
 a ball to go to in Mayfair; or a quiet night with a cigar and a book 
 and a long talk with Warrington ; or a wonderful new song at the 
 Back Kitchen ; — at this time of his life Mr. Pen beheld all sorts of 
 places and men ; and very likely did not know how much he enjoyed 
 himself until long after, when balls gave him no pleasure, neither did 
 farces make him laugh; nor did the tavern joke produce the least 
 excitement in him ; nor did the loveliest dancer that ever showed her 
 anldes cause him to stir from his chair after dinner. At his present 
 mature age all these pleasures are over : and the times have passed 
 away too. It is but a very few years since — but the time is gone, and 
 most of the men. Bludyer will no more bully authors or cheat land- 
 lords of their score. Shandon, the learned and thriftless, the witty 
 and unwise, sleeps his last sleep. They buried honest Doolan the 
 other day: never will he cringe or flatter, never pull long-bow or empty 
 whisky-noggin any more. 
 
 The London season was now blooming in its full vigour, and the 
 fashionable newspapers abounded with information regarding the 
 grand banquets, routs and balls which were enlivening the polite 
 world. Our gracious Sovereign was holding levees and drawing- 
 rooms at St. James's: the bow-windows of the clubs were crowded 
 ■with the heads of respectable red-faced newspaper-reading gentlemen:
 
 348 FENDENNIS. 
 
 along the Serpentine trailed thousands of carriages: squadrons of 
 dandy horsemen trampled over Rotten Row : everybody was in town 
 in a word; and of course Major Arthur Pendennis, who was somebody, 
 was not absent. 
 
 With his head tied up in a smart bandana handkerchief, and his 
 meagre carcass enveloped in a brilliant Turkish dressing-gown, the 
 worthy gentleman sate on a certain morning by his lire-side, letting 
 his feet gently simmer in a bath, whilst he took his early cup of tea, 
 and perused his " Morning Post." He could not have faced the day 
 without his two hours' toilet, without his early cup of tea, without his 
 " Morning Post.'' I suppose nobody in the world except Morgan, not 
 even Morgan's master himself, knew how feeble and ancient the !Major 
 was growing, and what numberless little comforts he required. 
 
 If men sneer, as our habit is, at the .artifices of an old beauty, at 
 her paint, perfumes, ringlets ; at those innumerable, and to us unknown 
 stratagems with which she is said to remedy the ravages of time 
 and reconstruct the charms whereof years have bereft her ; the ladies, 
 it is to be presumed, are not on their side altogether ignorant that 
 men are vain as well as they, and that the toilets of old bucks are to 
 the full as elaborate as their own. How is it that old Blushingtcn 
 keeps that constant little rose-tint on his cheeks ; and where does 
 old Blondel get the preparation which makes his silver hair pass for 
 golden? Have you ever seen Lord Hotspur get off his horse when 
 he thinks nobody is looking? Taken out of his stirrups, his shiny 
 boots can hardly totter up the steps of Hotspur House. He is a 
 dashing young nobleman still as you see the back of him in Rotten 
 Row ; when you behold him on foot, what an old, old fellow ! Did 
 you ever form to yourself any idea of Dick Lacy (Dick has been Dick 
 these sixty years) in a natural state and without his stays? All these 
 men are objects whom the observer of human life and manners may 
 contemplate with as much profit as the most elderly Belgravian Venus, 
 or inveterate Mayfair Jezebel. An old reprobate daddy-longlegs, who 
 has never said his prayers (except perhaps in public) these fifty years : 
 an old buck who still clings to as many of the habits of youth as his 
 feeble grasp of health can hold by : who has given up the bottle, but 
 sits with young fellows over it, and tells naughty stories upon toast- 
 and-water — who has given up beauty, but still talks about it as 
 wickedly as the youngest roue in company — such an old fellow, I say, 
 if any parson in Pimlico or St. James's were to order the beadles to 
 bring him into the middle aisle, and there set him in an arm-chair, 
 and make a text of him, and preach about him to the congregation, 
 could be turned to a wholesome use for once in his life, and might be 
 surprised to find that some good thoughts came out of him. But we 
 are wandering from our text, the honest Major, who sits all this while
 
 PENDENNIS. 349 
 
 wkh his feet cooling in the bath : Morgan takes them out of that place 
 of purification, and dries them daintily, and proceeds to set the old 
 gentleman on his legs, with waistband and wig, starched cravat, and 
 spotless boots and gloves. 
 
 It was during these hours of the toilet that Morgan and his 
 employer had their confidential conversations, for they did not meet 
 much at other times of the day — the Major abhorring the society of 
 his own chairs and tables in his lodgings ; and Morgan, his master's 
 toilet over and letters delivered, had his time very much on his own 
 hands. 
 
 This spare time the active and well-mannered gentleman bestowed 
 among the valets and butlers of the nobility, his acquaintance ; and 
 Morgan Pendennis, as he was styled, for, by such compound names, 
 gentlemen's gentlemen are called in their private circles, v/as a frequent 
 and welcome guest at some of the very highest tables in this town. 
 He was a member of two influential clubs in Mayfair and Pimlico ; 
 and he was thus enabled to know the whole gossip of the town, and 
 entertain his master very agreeably during the two hours' toilet con- 
 versation. He knew a hundred tales and legends regarding persons 
 of the very highest ion, whose valets canvass their august secrets, 
 just, my dear madam, as our own parlour-maids and dependants in 
 the kitchen discuss our characters, our stinginess and generosity, our 
 pecuniary means or embarrassments, and our little domestic or con- 
 nubial tiffs and quarrels. If I leave this manuscript open on my 
 table, I have not the slightest doubt Betty will read it, and they will 
 talk it over in the lower regions to-night ; and to-morrow she will 
 bring in my breakfast with a face of such entire imperturbable 
 innocence, that no mortal could suppose her guilty of playing the 
 spy. If you and the Captain have high words upon any subject, 
 which is just possible, the circumstances of the quarrel, and the 
 characters of both of you, will be discussed with impartial eloquence 
 over the kitchen tea-table ; and if Mrs. Smith's maid should by 
 chance be taking a dish of tea with yours, her presence will not 
 undoubtedly act as a restraint upon the discussion in question ; her 
 opinion will be given with candour ; and the next day her mistress 
 v/ill probably know that Captam and Mrs. Jones have been a 
 quarrelling as usual. Nothing is secret. Take it as a rule that John 
 knows everything : and as in our humble world, so in the greatest : a 
 duke is no more a hero to his valei-dc-chanibre than you or I ; and his 
 Grace's Man at his club, in company doubtless with other Men of 
 equal social rank, talks over his master's character and affairs with the 
 ingenuous truthfulness which befits gentlemen who are met together in 
 confidence. Who is a niggard and screws up his money-boxes : who 
 is in the hands of the money-lenders, and is putting his noble name
 
 iSo 
 
 PENBENNIS. 
 
 on the back of bills of exchange ; who is intimate with whose wife : 
 who wants whom to marry her daughter, and which he won't — no. not 
 at any price : — all these facts gentlemen's confidential gentlemen 
 discuss confidentially, and are known and examined by every person 
 who has any claim to rank in genteel society. In a word, if old 
 Pendennis himself was said to know everything, and was at once 
 admirably scandalous and delightfully discreet ; it is but justice to 
 Morgan to say, that a great deal of his master's information was 
 supplied to that worthy man by his valet, who went out and foraged 
 knowledge for him. Indeed, what more effectual plan is there to get 
 a knowledge of London society, than to begin at the foundation — 
 that is, at the kitchen-floor ? 
 
 So Mr. Morgan and his employer conversed as the latters toilet 
 proceeded. There had been a drawing-room on the day previous, 
 and the Major read among the presentations that of Lady Clavering 
 by Lady Rockminster, and of Miss Amory by her mother Lady 
 Clavering, — and in a further part of the paper their dresses were 
 described, with a precision and in a jargon which wiU puzzle and 
 amuse the antiquary of future generations. The sight of these names 
 carried Pendennis back to the country. " How long have the Claver- 
 ings been in London?" he asked; "pray, Morgan, have you seen any 
 of their people ? " 
 
 " Sir Francis have sent away his foring man, sir," Mr. Morgan 
 replied ; " and have took a friend of mine as own man, sir. Indeed 
 he applied on my reckmendation. You may recklect Towler, sir, — 
 tall red-'aired man — but dyes his 'air. Was groom of the chambers in 
 Lord Levant's fam'ly till his lordship broke hup. It's a faU for 
 Towler, sir: but pore men can't be particklar," said the valet, with a 
 pathetic voice. 
 
 " Devilish hard on Towler, by gad ! " said the :\Iajor, amused, " and 
 not pleasant for Lord Levant — he, he ! " 
 
 '• Always knew it was coming, sir. I spoke to you of it Michaelmas 
 was four years : when her ladyship put the diamonds in pawn. It 
 was Towler, sir, took 'em in two cabs to Dobree"s — and a good deal 
 of the plate went the same way. Don't you remember seeing of it at 
 Blackwall, with the Levant arms and coronick, and Lord Levant sett'n 
 opp'sit to it at the Marquis of Ste>Tie's dinner ? Beg your pardon ; 
 did I cut you, sir ? " 
 
 Morgan was now operating upon the Major's chin — he continued 
 the theme while strapping the skilful razor. " They've took a house 
 in Grosvenor Place, and are coming out strong, sir. Her ladyship's 
 going to give three parties, besides a dinner a-week, sir. Her fortune 
 won't stand it— can't stand it." 
 
 " Gad, she had a devilish good cook when I was at Fairoaks,"
 
 PENDENNIS. 351 
 
 the Major said, with very little compassion for the widow Amory's 
 fortune. 
 
 " Marobblan was his name, sir ; — Marobblan's gone away, sir," 
 Morgan said, — and the Major, this time, with hearty sympathy, said 
 " he was devihsh sorry to lose him." 
 
 " There's been a tremenjuous row about that Mosseer Marobblan," 
 Morgan continued. " At a ball at Baymouth, sir, bless his impadence, 
 he challenged Mr. Harthur to nght a jewel, sir, which Mr. Harthur was 
 very near knocking him down, and pitchin' him outawinder, and serve 
 him right ; but Chevalier Strong, sir, came up and stopped the shindy 
 — I beg pardon, the holtercation, sir — them French cooks has as much 
 pride and insolence as if they was real gentlemen." 
 
 " I heard something of that quarrel," said the Major; "but Miro- 
 bolant was not turned off for that ?" 
 
 " No, sir — that affair, sir, which Mr. Harthur forgave it him and 
 be'aved most handsome, was hushed hup : it was about Miss Hamory, 
 sir, that he 'ad 'is dismissial. Those French fellers, they fancy every- 
 body is in love with 'em ; and he climbed up the large grape vine to 
 her winder, sir, and was trying to get in, when he was caught, sir ; 
 and Mr. Strong came out, and they got the garden-engine and played 
 on him, and there was no end of a row, sir." 
 
 " Confound his impudence ! You don't mean to say Miss Amory 
 encouraged him," cried the Major, amazed at a peculiar expression m 
 Mr. Morgan's countenance. 
 
 Morgan resumed his imperturbable demeanour. " Know nothing 
 about it, sir. Servants don't know them kind of things the least. 
 Most probbly there was nothing in it — so many lies is told about 
 families — Marobblan went away, bag and baggage, saucepans, and 
 pianna, and all — the fellow 'ad a pianna, and wrote potry in French, 
 and he took a lodging at Clavering, and he hankered about the 
 primises, and it was said that Madame Fribsby, the milliner, brought 
 letters to Miss Hamory, though I don't believe a word about it; nor 
 that he tried to pison hisself with charcoal, which it was all a humbug 
 betwigst him and Madam Fribsby ; and he was nearly shot by the 
 keeper in the park." 
 
 In the course of that very day, it chanced that the Major had 
 stationed himself in the great window of Bays's Club in St. James's 
 Street, at the hour in the afternoon when you see a half-score of 
 respectable old bucks similarly recreating themselves (Bays's is rather 
 an old-fashioned place of resort now, and many of its members more 
 than middle-aged ; but in the time of the Prince Regent, these old 
 fellows occupied the same window, and were some of the very greatest 
 dandies in this empire) — Major Pendennis was looking from the great
 
 352 PENDENNIS. 
 
 wi 
 
 ndow, and spied his nephew Arthur walking down the street in 
 company with his friend Mr. Popjoy." 
 
 " Look ! " said Popjoy to Pen, as they passed, " did you ever pass 
 Bays's at four o'clock, without seeing that collection of old fogies ? It's 
 a regular museum. They ought to be cast in wax, and set up at 
 Madame Tussaud's — " 
 
 <._In a chamber of old horrors by themselves," Pen said, laughing. 
 
 '• — In the chamber of horrors ! Gad, dooced good ! " Pop cried. 
 ''They are old rogues, most of 'em, and no mistake. There's old 
 Blondel ; there's my uncle Colchicum, the most confounded old sinner 
 in Europe ; there's— hullo ! there's somebody rapping the window and 
 nodding at us." 
 
 "It's my uncle, the Major," said Pen. "Is he an old sinner 
 too?" 
 
 " Notorious old rogue," Pop said, wagging his head. ('• Notowious 
 •old wogue," he pronounced the words, thereby rendering them much 
 more emphatic.) " He's beckoning you in ; he wants to speak to you." 
 
 " Come in too," Pen said. 
 
 " — Can't," replied the other. " Cut uncle Col. two years ago, 
 about Mademoiselle Frangipane. — Ta, ta," and the young sinner took 
 leave of Pen, and the club of the elder criminals, and sauntered into 
 Blacquiere's, an adjacent establishment, frequented by reprobates of 
 his own age. 
 
 Colchicum, Blondel, and the senior bucks had just been conversing 
 .about the Clavering family, whose appearance in London had formed 
 the subject of Major Pendennis's morning conversation with his valet. 
 Mr. Blondel's house was next to that of Sir Francis Clavering, in 
 Grosvenor Place : giving very good dinners himself, he had remarked 
 some activity in his neighbour's kitchen. Sir Francis, indeed, had a 
 iiew chef, who had come in more than once and dressed Mr. Blondel's 
 •dinner for him ; that gentleman having only a remarkably expert 
 female artist permanently engaged in his establishment, and employing 
 such chefs of note as happened to be free on the occasion of his grand 
 banquets. " They go to a devilish expense and see devilish bad 
 company as yet, I hear, Mr. Blondel said, — they scour the streets, by 
 gad, to get people to dine with 'em. Champignon says it breaks his 
 heart to serve up a dinner to their society. What a shame it is that 
 those low people should have money at all," cried Mr. Blondel, whose 
 grandfather had been a reputable leather-breeches maker, and whose 
 father had lent money to the Princes. 
 
 " I wish I had fallen in with the widow myself," sighed Lord 
 Colchicum, "and not been laid up with that confounded gout at 
 Leghorn. — I would have married the woman myself. — I'm told she 
 has six hundred thousand pounds in the Threes."
 
 PENDENNIS. 553 
 
 " Not quiit; so much as that, — I knew lier family in India," — Major 
 Pendennis said. "I knew her family in India; her father was an 
 enormously rich old indigo-planter, — know all about her, — Clavering 
 has the next estate to ours in the country. — Ha ! there's my nephew 
 walking with "' — " With mine, — the infernal young scamp," said Lord 
 Colchicum, glowering at Popjoy out of his heavy eyebrows ; and he 
 turned away from the window as Major Pendennis tapped upon it. 
 
 The Major was in high good-humour. The sun was bright, the 
 air brisk and invigorating. He had determined upon a visit to Lady 
 Clavering on that day, and bethought him that Arthur would be a 
 good companion for the walk across the Green Park to her ladyship's 
 door. Master Pen was not displeased to accompany his illustrious 
 relative, who pointed out a dozen great men in their brief transit 
 through St. James's Street, and got bows from a Duke, at a crossing, 
 a Bishop (on a cob), and a Cabinet Minister with an umbrella. The 
 Duke gave the elder Pendennis a finger of a pipe-clayed glove to 
 shake, which the Major embraced with great veneration ; and all 
 Pen's blood tingled, as he found himself in actual communication, as 
 it were, with this famous man (for Pen had possession of the Major's 
 left arm, whilst that gentleman's other wing was engaged with his 
 Grace's right), and he wished all Grey Friars' School, all Oxbridge 
 University, all Paternoster Row and the Temple, and Laura and his 
 mother at Fairoaks, could be standing on each side of the street, to 
 see the meeting between him and his uncle, and the most famous 
 duke in Christendom. 
 
 " How do, Pendennis ? — fine day," were his Grace's remarkable 
 words, and with a nod of his august head he passed on — in a blue 
 frock-coat and spotless white duck trowsers. in a white stock, with a 
 shining buckle behind. 
 
 Old Pendeniiis, whose likeness to his grace has been remarked, 
 began to imitate him unconsciously, after they had parted, speaking 
 with curt sentences, after the manner of the great man. We have all 
 of us, no doubt, met with more than one military officer who has so 
 imitated the manner of a certain Great Captain of the Age ; and has, 
 perhaps, changed his own natural character and disposition, because 
 Fate had endowed him with an aquiline nose. In like manner have 
 we not seen many another man pride himself on having a tall fore- 
 head and a supposed likeness to Mr. Canning? many another go 
 through life swelling with self-gratification on account of an imagined 
 resemblance (we say " imagined," because that anybody should be 
 really like that most beautiful and perfect of men is impossible) to the 
 great and revered George IV. : many third parties, who wore low 
 necks to their dresses because they fancied that Lord Byron and 
 themselves were similar in appearance : and has not the grave closed 
 
 23
 
 354 
 
 PENDENNIS. 
 
 but lately upon poor Tom Bickerstaff, who having no more imagina- 
 tion than Mr. Joseph Hume, looked in the glass and fancied himself 
 like Shakspeare ? shaved his forehead so as farther to resemble the 
 immortal bard, wrote tragedies incessantly, and died perfectly crazy — 
 actually perished of his forehead ? These or similar freaks of vanity 
 most people who have frequented the world must have seen in their 
 experience. Pen laughed in his roguish sleeve at the manner in which 
 his uncle began to imitate the great man from whom they had just 
 parted : but Mr. Pen was as vain in his own way, perhaps, as the elder 
 gentleman, and strutted, with a very consequential air of his own, by 
 the Major's side. 
 
 "Yes, my dear boy," said the old bachelor, as they sauntered 
 through the Green Park, where m.any poor children were disporting 
 happily, and errand boys were playing at toss halfpenny, and black 
 sheep were grazing in the sunshine, and an actor was learning his part 
 on a bench, and nursery maids and their charges sauntered here and 
 there, and several couples were walking in a leisurely manner ; " yes, 
 depend on it, my boy ; for a poor man, there is nothing like having 
 good acquaintances. Who were those men, with whom you saw me in 
 the bow window at Bays's ? Two were Peers of the realm. Hobananob 
 will be a Peer, as soon as his grand-uncle dies, and he has had his 
 third seizure; and of the other four, not one has less than his seven 
 thousand a-year. Did you see that dark blue brougham, with that 
 tremendous stepping horse, waiting at the door of the club ? You'll 
 know it again. It is Sir Hugh Trumpington's ; he was never known 
 to walk in his life; never appears in the streets on foot — never: and if 
 he is going two doors off, to see his mother, the old dowager (to whom 
 I shall certainly introduce you, for she receives some of the best com- 
 pany in London), gad, sir, he mounts his horse at No. 23, and dismounts 
 again at No. 25 A. He is now upstairs, at Bays's, playing picquet with 
 Count Punter: he is the second-best player in England — as well he 
 maybe; for he plays everyday of his life, except Sundays (for Sir 
 Hugh is an uncommonly religious man), from half-past three till half- 
 past seven, when he dresses for dinner. 
 
 "A very pious manner of spending his time," Pen said, laughing, 
 and thinking that his uncle was falling into the twaddling state. 
 
 "Gad, sir, that is not the question. A man of his estate may 
 employ his time as he chooses. When you are a baronet, a county 
 member, with ten thousand acres of the best land in Cheshire, and 
 such a place as Trumpington (though he never goes there), you may 
 do as you like." 
 
 "And so that was his brougham, sir, was it ?" the nephew said, with 
 almost a sneer. 
 
 "His brougham- -O ay, yes !— and that brings me back to my
 
 PENDENNIS. 35S 
 
 point — revenons a nos moutons. Yes, begad ! revenons k nos mou- 
 tons. Well, that brougham is mine if I choose, between four and 
 seven. Just as much mine as if I jobbed it from Tilbury's, begad, for 
 thirty pound a-month. Sir Hugh is the best-natured fellow in the 
 world ; and if it hadn't been so fine an afternoon as it is, you and I 
 would have been in that brougham at this very minute, on our way to 
 Grosvenor Place. That is the benefit of knowing rich men ; — I dine 
 for nothing, sir ; — I go into the country, and I'm mounted for nothing. 
 Other fellows keep hounds and gamekeepers for me. Sic vos non 
 vodis, as we used to say at Grey Friars, hey? I'm of the opinion 
 of my old friend Leech, of the Forty-fourth ; and a devilish good 
 shrewd fellow he was, as most Scotchmen are. Gad, sir. Leech used to 
 say, ' He was so poor that he couldn't afford to know a poor man.' " 
 
 " You don't act up to your principles. Uncle," Pen said, good- 
 naturedly. 
 
 " Up to my principles ; how, sir?" the Major asked, rather testily. 
 " You would have cut me in Saint James's Street, sir," Pen said, 
 " were your practice not more benevolent than your theory ; you who 
 live with dukes and magnates of the land, and would take no notice 
 of a poor devil like me." By which speech we may see that Mr. Pen 
 was getting on in the world, and could flatter as well as laugh in his 
 sleeve. 
 
 Major Pendennis was appeased instantly, and very much pleased. 
 He tapped affectionately his nephew's arm on which he was leaning, 
 and said, " You, sir, you are my flesh and blood ! Hang it, sir, I've 
 been very proud of you and very fond of you, but for your confounded 
 follies and extravagances — and wild oats, sir, which I hope you've 
 sown. Yes, begad ! I hope you've sown 'em ; I hope you've sown 
 'em, begad! My object. Arthur, is to make a man of you — to see 
 you well placed in the world, as becomes one of your name and my 
 own, sir. You have got yourself a little reputation by your literary 
 talents, which I am very far from undervaluing, though in my time, 
 begad, poetry and genius and that sort of thing were devilish disre- 
 putable. There was poor Byron, for instance, who ruined himself, and 
 contracted the worst habits by living with poets and newspaper- 
 writers, and people of that kind. But the times are changed now — 
 there's a run upon literature— clever fellows get into the best houses in 
 town, begad ! Tempera tnutatiijir, sir, and, by Jove, I suppose what- 
 ever is is right, as Shakspeare says." 
 
 Pen did not think fit to tell his uncle who was the author who 
 had made use of that remarkable phrase, and here descending from 
 the Green Park, the pair made their way into Grosvenor Place, and 
 to the door of the mansion occupied there by Sir Francis and Lady 
 Clavering.
 
 356 PEyDENXIS. 
 
 The dining-room sliutters of this handsome mansion were freshly 
 gilded; the knockers shone gorgeous upon the newly-painted door; 
 the balcony before the drawing-room bloomed with a portable garden 
 of the most beautiful plants, and with flowers, white, and pink, and 
 scarlet ; the windows of the upper room (the sacred chamber and 
 dressing-room of my lady, doubtless), and even a pretty little case- 
 ment of the third story, which keen-sighted Mr. Pen presumed to 
 belong to the virgin bedroom of Miss Blanche Amory, were similarly 
 adorned with floral ornaments, and the whole exterior face of the house 
 presented the most brilhant aspect which fresh new paint, shining 
 plate glass, newly cleaned bricks, and spotless mortar, could offer to 
 the beholder. 
 
 '• How Strong must have rejoiced in organising all this splendour," 
 thought Pen. He recognised the Chevalier's genius in the magnificence 
 before him. 
 
 " Lady Clavering is going out for her drive," the Major said. 
 " We shall only have to leave our pasteboards, Arthur." He used 
 the word " pasteboards," having heard it from some of the ingenious 
 youth of the nobility about town, and as a modern phrase suited to 
 Pen's tender years. Indeed, as the tv.-o gentlemen reached the door, 
 a landau drove up, a magnificent yellow carriage, lined with brocade 
 or satin of a faint cream colour, drawn by wonderful grey horses, with 
 flaming ribbons, and harness blazing all over with crests : no less 
 than three of these heraldic emblems surmounted the coats of arm.s 
 on the panels, and these shields contained a prodigious number of 
 quarterings, .betokening the antiquity and splendour of the houses of 
 Clavering and Snell. A coachman in a tight silver wig surmounted 
 the magnificent hammercloth (whereon the same arms were worked 
 in bullion), and controlled the prancing greys — a young man still, 
 but of a solemn countenance, with a laced waistcoat and buckles in 
 his shoes — little buckles, unlike those which John and Jeames, the 
 footmen, wear, and which we know are large, and spread elegantly 
 over the foot. 
 
 One of the leaves of the hall door was opened, and John — one of 
 the largest of his race — was leaning against the door pillar, with his 
 ambrosial hair powdered, his legs crossed ; beautiful, silk-stockinged ; 
 in his hand his cane, gold-headed, dolichoskion. Jeames was invisible, 
 but near at hand, waiting in the hall, with the gentleman who does not 
 wear livery, and ready to fling down the roll of hair-cloth over which 
 her ladyship was to step to her carriage. These things and men, the 
 which to tell of demands time, are seen in the glance of a practised 
 eye : and in fact, the Major and Pen had scarcely crossed the street, 
 when the second battant of the door flew open ; the horse-hair carpet 
 tumbled down the door-steps to those of the carriage; John was
 
 PENDENNIS. 3'57 
 
 opening it on one side of the emblazoned door, and Jeames on the 
 other, and two ladies, attired in the highest style of fashion, and 
 accompanied by a third, who carried a Blenheim spaniel, yelping in a 
 light blue ribbon, came forth to ascend the carriage. 
 
 Miss Amory was the first to enter, which she did with aeriel light- 
 ness, and took the place which she liked best. Lady Clavering next 
 followed, but her ladyship was more mature of age and heavy of foot, 
 and one of those feet, attired in a green satin boot, with some part of 
 a stocking, which was very fine, whatever the ancle might be which it 
 encircled, might be seen swaying on the carriage-step, as her ladyship 
 leaned for support on the arm of the unbending Jeames, by the en- 
 raptured observer of female beauty who happened to be passing at the 
 time of this imposing ceremonial. 
 
 The Pendennises senior and junior beheld those charms as they 
 came up to the door — the Major looking grave and courtly, and Pen 
 somewhat abashed at the carriage and its owners ; for he thought of 
 sundry little passages at Clavering, which made his heart beat rather 
 quick. 
 
 At that moment Lady Clavering, looking round, saw the pair — she 
 was on the first carriage-step, and would have been in the vehicle in 
 another second, but she gave a start backwards (which caused some 
 of the powder to fly from the hair of ambrosial Jeames), and crying 
 out, "Lor', if it isn't Arthur Pendennis and the old Major!" jumped 
 back to terra firma directly, and holding out two fat hands, encased in 
 tight orange-coloured gloves, the good-natured woman warmly greeted 
 the Major and his nephew. 
 
 " Come in both of you. — Why haven't you been before ? — Get out, 
 Blanche, and come and see your old friends. — O, I'm so glad to see 
 you. We've been waitin' and waitin' for you ever so long. Come in, 
 luncheon ain't gone down," cried out this hospitable lady, squeezing 
 Pen's hand in both hers (she had dropped the Major's after a brief 
 wrench of recognition), and Blanche, casting up her eyes towards the 
 chimneys, descended from the carriage presently, with a timid, blush- 
 ing, appealing look, and gave a little hand to Major Pendennis. 
 
 The companion with the spaniel looked about irresolute, and 
 doubting whether she should not take Fido his airing; but she too 
 turned right about face and entered the house, after Lady Clavering, 
 her daughter, and the two gentlemen. And the carriage, with the 
 prancing greys, was left unoccupied, save by the coachman in the 
 silver wis.
 
 358 PENDENNIS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 IN WHICH THE SYLPH REAPPEARS. 
 
 BETTER folks than Morgan, the valet, were not so well instructed 
 as that gentleman, regarding the amount of Lady Clavering's 
 riches ; and the legend in London, upon her Ladyship's arrival in the 
 polite metropolis, was, that her fortune was enormous. Indigo 
 factories, opium clippers, banks overflowing with rupees, diamonds 
 and jewels of native princes, and vast sums of interest paid by them 
 for loans contracted by themselves or their predecessors to Lady 
 Clavering's father, were mentioned as sources of her wealth. Her 
 account at her London banker's was positively known, and the sum 
 embraced so many cyphers as to create as many O's of admiration in 
 the wondering hearer. It was a known fact that an envoy from an 
 Indian Prince, a Colonel Altamont, the Nawaub of Lucknow's prime 
 favourite, an extraordinary man, who had, it was said, embraced Maho- 
 metanism, and undergone a thousand wild and perilous adventures, 
 was at present in this country, trying to negotiate with the Begum 
 Clavering, the sale of the Nawaub's celebrated nose-ring diamond, 
 " the light of the Dewan." 
 
 Under the title of the Begum, Lady Clavering's fame began to 
 spread in London before she herself descended upon the Capital, and 
 as it has been the boast of Delolme, and Blackstone, and all paneg)'- 
 rists of the British Constitution, that we admit into our aristocracy 
 merit of every kind, and that the lowliest-born man, if he but deserve it, 
 may wear the robes of a peer, and sit alongside of a Cavendish or a 
 Stanley : so it ought to be the boast of our good society, that haughty 
 though it be, naturally jealous of its privileges, and careful who shall 
 be admitted into its circle, yet, if an individual be but rich enough, all 
 barriers are instantly removed, and he or she is welcomed, as from his 
 •wealth he merits to be. This fact shows our British independence and 
 honest feeling— our higher orders are not such mere haughty aris- 
 tocrats as the ignorant represent them : on the contrary, if a man have 
 money they will hold out their hands to him, eat his dinners, dance at 
 bis balls, marry his daughters, or give their own lovely girls to his 
 sons, as affably as your commonest roturier would do. 
 
 As he had superintended the arrangements of the country mansion,
 
 PENDENNIS. 359 
 
 our friend, the Chevalier Strong, gave the benefit of his taste and 
 advice to the fashionable London upholsterers, who prepared the town 
 house for the reception of the Clavering family. In the decoration of 
 this elegant abode, honest Strong's soul rejoiced as much as if he had 
 been himself its proprietor. He hung and re-hung the pictures, he 
 studied the positions of sofas, he had interviews with wine merchants 
 and purveyors who were to supply the new establishment ; and at the 
 same time the Baronet's factotum and confidential friend took the 
 opportunity of furnishing his own chambers, and stocking his snug 
 little cellar : his friends complimented him upon the neatness of the 
 former; and the select guests who came in to share Strong's cutlet 
 now found a bottle of excellent claret to accompany the meal. The 
 Chevalier was now, as he said, " in clover: " he had a very comfortable 
 set of rooms in Shepherd's Inn. He was waited on by a former 
 Spanish Legionary and comrade of his whom he had left at a breach 
 of a Spanish fort, and found at a crossing in Tottenham-court Road, 
 and whom he had elevated to the rank of body-servant to himself 
 and to the chum who, at present, shared his lodgings. This was no 
 other than the favourite of the Nawaub of Lucknow, the valiant 
 Colonel Altamont. 
 
 No man was less curious, or at any rate, more discreet, than Ned 
 Strong, and he did not care to inquire into the mysterious connection 
 which, very soon after their first meeting at Baymouth, was established 
 between Sir Francis Clavering and the envoy of the Nawaub. The 
 latter knew some secret regarding the former, which put Clavering 
 into his power, somehow ; and Strong, who knew that his patron's 
 early life had been rather irregular, and that his career with his regi- 
 ment in India had not been brilliant, supposed that the Colonel, who 
 swore he knew Clavering well at Calcutta, had some hold upon Sir 
 Francis, to which the latter was forced to yield. In truth, Strong had 
 long understood Sir Francis Clavering's character, as that of a man 
 utterly weak in purpose, in principle, and intellect, a moral and physical 
 trifler and poltroon. 
 
 With poor Clavering, his Excellency had had one or two interviews 
 after their Baymouth meeting, the nature of which conversations the 
 Baronet did not confide to Strong: although he sent letters to Alta- 
 mont by that gentleman, who was his ambassador in all sorts of affairs. 
 On one of these occasions the Nawaub's envoy must have been in an 
 exceeding ill-humour j for he crushed Clavering's letter in his hand, 
 and said with his own particular manner and emphasis : — 
 
 " A hundred be hanged. I'll have no more letters nor no more 
 shilly-shally. Tell Clavering I'll have a thousand, or by Jove I'll split, 
 and burst him all to atoms. Let him give me a thousand and I'll go 
 abroad, and I give you my honour as a gentleman, I'll not ask him for
 
 36o rEWE.YNIS. 
 
 no more for a year. Give him that message from me, Strong, my boy ; 
 and tell him if the money ain't here next Friday at 12 o'clock, as sure 
 as my name's what it is, I'll have a paragraph in the newspaper on 
 Saturday, and next week I'll blow up the whole concern." 
 
 Strong carried back these words to his principal, on whom their 
 effect was such that actually on the day and hour appointed, the 
 Chevalier made his appearance once more at Altamont's hotel at 
 Bajmouth, with the sum of money required. Altamont was a gentle- 
 man, he said, and behaved as such; he paid his bill at the Inn, and 
 the Baymouth paper announced his departure on a foreign tour. 
 Strong saw him embark at Dover. " It must be forgery at the very 
 least,'"' he thought, " that has put Clavering into this fellow's power, 
 and the Colonel has got the bill." 
 
 Before the year was out, however, this happy country saw the 
 Colonel once more upon its shores. A confounded run on the red had 
 finished him, he said, at Baden Baden: no gentleman could stand 
 against a colour coming up fourteen times. He had been obliged to 
 draw upon Sir Francis Clavering for means of returning home : and 
 Clavering, though pressed for money (for he had election expenses, had 
 set up his establishment in the country, and was engaged in furnishing 
 his London house), yet found means to accept Colonel Altamont's bill, 
 though evidently very much against his will; for in Strong's hearing. 
 Sir Francis wished to heaven, with many curses, that the Colonel 
 could have been locked up in a debtor's gaol in Germany for life, so 
 that he might never be troubled again. 
 
 These sums for the Colonel Sir Francis was obliged to raise without 
 the knowledge of his wife ; for though perfectly liberal, nay, sumptuous 
 in her expenditure, the good lady had inherited a tolerable aptitude 
 for business along with the large fortune of her father, Snell, and gave 
 to her husband only such a handsome allowance as she thought 
 befitted a gentleman of his rank. Now and again she would give him 
 a present, or pay an outstanding gambling debt ; but she always 
 exacted a pretty accurate account of the monies so required ; and re- 
 specting the subsidies to the Colonel, Clavering fairly told Strong 
 that he couldn't speak to his wife. 
 
 Part of Mr, Strong's business in life was to procure this money 
 and other sums, for his patron. And in the Chevalier's apartments, 
 in Shepherd's Inn, many negotiations took place between gentlemen 
 of the moneyed world and Sir Francis Clavering; and many valuable 
 bank-notes and pieces of stamped paper were passed between them. 
 When a man has been in the habit of getting in debt from his early 
 youth, and of exchanging his promises to pay at twelve months against 
 present sums of money, it would seem as if no piece of good fortune 
 ever permanently benefited him: a little while after the advent of
 
 PENDEANIS. 361 
 
 prosperity, the money-lender is pretty certain to be in the house again, 
 and the bills with the old signature in the market. Clavering found 
 it more convenient to see these gentry at Strong's lodgings than at 
 his own ; and such was the Chevalier's friendship for the Baronet, that 
 although he did not possess a shilling of his own, his name might be 
 seen as the drawer of almost all the bills of exchange which Sir Francis 
 Clavering accepted. Having drawn Clavering's bills, he got them 
 discounted " in the City." When they became due he parleyed with 
 the bill-holders, and gave them instalments of their debt, or got time 
 in exchange for fresh acceptances. Regularly or irregularly, gentlemen 
 must live somehow: and as we read how, the other day, at Comorn, 
 the troops forming that garrison were gay and lively, acted plays, 
 danced at balls, and consumed their rations ; though menaced with 
 an assault from the eneniy without the walls, and with a gallows if 
 the Austrians were successful, — so there are hundreds of gallant 
 spirits in this town, walking about in good spirits, dining every day 
 in tolerable gaiety and plenty, and going to sleep comfortably; with a 
 bailiff always more or less near, and a rope of debt round their necks 
 — the which trifling inconveniences, Ned Strong, the old soldier, bore 
 very easily. 
 
 But we shall have another opportunity of. making acquaintance 
 with these and some other interesting inhabitants of Shepherd's Inn, 
 and in the meanwhile are keeping Lady Clavering and her friends too 
 long waiting on the door steps of Grosvenor Place. 
 
 First they went into the gorgeous dining-room, fitted up, Lady 
 Clavering couldn't for goodness gracious tell why, in the middle-aged 
 style, " unless," said her good-natured ladyship, laughing, " because 
 me and Clavering are middle-aged people ; " — and here they were 
 offered the copious remains of the luncheon of which Lady Clavering 
 and Blanche had just partaken. When nobody was near, our little 
 Sylphide, who scarcely ate at dinner more than the six grains of rice 
 of Amina, the friend of the Ghouls in the Arabian Nights, was most 
 active with her knife and fork, and consumed a very substantial 
 portion of mutton cutlets : in which piece of hypocrisy it is believed 
 she resembled other young ladies of fashion. Pen and his uncle 
 declined the refection, but they admired the dining-room with fitting 
 compliments, and pronounced it " very chaste," that being the proper 
 phrase. There were, indeed, high-backed Dutch chairs of the seven- 
 teenth century; there was a sculptured carved buffet of the sixteenth; 
 there was a sideboard robbed out of the carved work of a church in 
 the Low Countries, and a large brass cathedral lamp over the round 
 oak table ; there were old family portraits from Wardour Street, and 
 tapestry from France, bits of armour, double-handed swords and 
 battle-axes made of carion-pierre, looking-glasses, statuettes of saints,
 
 362 PENDENNIS. 
 
 and Dresden china— nothing, in a word, could be chaster. Behind 
 the dining-room was the library, fitted with busts and books all of a 
 size, and wonderful easy chairs, and solemn bronzes in the severe 
 classic style. Here it was that, guarded by double doors, Sir Francis 
 smoked cigars, and read " Bell's Life in London," and went to sleep 
 after dinner, when he was not smoking over the billiard-table at his 
 clubs, or punting at the gambling-houses in Saint James's. 
 
 But what could equal the chaste splendour of the drawing-room ? 
 — the carpets were so magnificently fluffy that your foot made no 
 more noise on them than your shadow : on their white ground bloomed 
 roses and tulips as big as warming-pans : about the room were high 
 chairs and low chairs, bandy-legged chairs, chairs so attenuated that 
 it was a wonder any but a sylph could sit; upon them, marqueterie- 
 tables covered with marvellous gimcracks, china ornaments of all ages 
 and countries, bronzes, gilt daggers. Books of Beauty, yataghans, 
 Turkish papooshes and boxes of Parisian bonbons. Wherever you 
 sate down there were Dresden shepherds and shepherdesses 'Conve- 
 nient at your elbow; there were, moreover, light blue poodles and 
 ducks and cocks and hens in porcelain ; there were nymphs by 
 Boucher, and shepherdesses by Greuze, very chaste indeed; there 
 were muslin curtains and brocade curtains, gilt cages with parroquets 
 and love birds, two squealing cockatoos, each out-squealing and out- 
 chattering the other; a clock singing tunes on a console-table, and 
 another booming the hours like Great Tom, on the mantel-piece — 
 there was, in a word, everything that comfort could desire, and the 
 most elegant taste devise. A London drawing-room, fitted up without 
 regard to expense, is surely one of the noblest and most curious sights 
 of the present day. The Romans of the Lower Empire, the dear 
 Marchionesses and Countesses of Louis XV., could scarcely have had 
 a finer taste than our modern folks exhibit; and everybody who saw 
 Lady Clavering's reception-rooms, was forced to confess that they 
 were most elegant; and that the prettiest rooms in London — Lady 
 Harley Ouin's, Lady Hanway Wardour's, or Mrs. Hodge-Podgson's 
 own, the great Railroad Croesus' wife, were not fitted up with a more 
 consummate " chastity." 
 
 Poor Lady Clavering, meanwhile, knew little regarding these 
 things, and had a sad want of respect for the splendours around her. 
 " I only know they cost a precious deal of money. Major," she said to 
 her guest, " and that I don't advise you to try one of them gossamer 
 gilt chairs : / came down on one the night we gave our second dinner 
 party. Why didn't you come and see us before } We'd have asked 
 you to it." 
 
 " You would have liked to see ]\Limma break a chair, wouldn't 
 you, Mr. Pendennis ?" dear Blanche said with a sneer. She was angrv
 
 PENDENNIS. 363 
 
 because Pen was talking and laughing with Mamma, because Mamma 
 had made a number of blunders in describing the house — for a 
 hundred other good reasons. 
 
 " I should like to have been by to give Lady Clavering my arm if 
 she had need of it," Pen answered, with a bow and a blush. 
 
 " Quel preux Chevalier I " cried the Sylphide, tossing up her little 
 head. 
 
 " I have a fellow-feeling with those who fall, remember," Pen said. 
 " I suffered myself very much from doing so once." 
 
 "And you went home to Laura to console you," said Miss Amory. 
 Pen winced. He did not like the remembrance of the consolation 
 which Laura had given to him, nor was he very well pleased to find 
 that his rebuff in that quarter was known to the world : so as he had 
 nothing to say in reply, he began to be immensely interested in the 
 furniture round about him, and to praise Lady Clavering's taste with 
 all his might. 
 
 " Me, don't praise me," said honest Lady Clavering, " it's all the 
 upholsterer's doings and Captain Strong's; they did it all while we was 
 at the Park — and — and — Lady Rockminster has been here and says 
 the salongs are very well," said Lady Clavering, with an air and tone 
 of great deference. 
 
 " My cousin Laura has been staying with her," Pen said. 
 
 " It's not the dowager: it is the Lady Rockminster." 
 
 " Indeed!" cried Major Pendennis, when he heard this great name 
 of fashion. " If you have her ladyship's approval, Lady Clavering, 
 you cannot be far wrong. No, no, you cannot be far wrong. Lady 
 Rockminster, I should say, Arthur, is the very centre of the circle of 
 fashion and taste. The rooms are beautiful indeed ! " and the Major's 
 voice hushed as he spoke of this great lady, and he looked round and 
 surveyed the apartments awfully and respectfully, as if he had been at 
 church. 
 
 " Yes, Lady Rockminster has took us up," said Lady Clavering. 
 
 " Taken us up, Mamma," cried Blanche, in a shrill voice. 
 
 " Well, taken us up, then," said my lady, " it's very kind of her, 
 and I dare say we shall like it when we git used to it, only at first 
 one don't fancy being took — well, taken up, at all. She is going to 
 give our balls for us ; and wants to invite all our diners. But I 
 won't stand that. I will have my old friends, and I won't let her 
 send all the cards out, and sit mum at the head of my own table. 
 You must come to me, Arthur and Major — come, let me see, on the 
 14th. — It ain't one of our grand dinners, Blanche," she said, looking 
 round at her daughter, who bit her lips and frowned very savagely for 
 a sylphide. 
 
 The Major, with a smile and a bow, said he would much rather
 
 364 PEi\'DENNIS. 
 
 come to a quiet meeting than to a grand dinner. He had had enough 
 of those large entertainments, and preferred the simphcity of the home 
 
 circle. 
 
 " I always think a dinner's the best the second day," said Lady 
 Clavering, thinking to mend her first speech. " On the 14th we'll be 
 quite a snug little party;" at which second blunder, IVIiss Blanche 
 clasped her hands in despair, and said, " O, Mamma, vous etes 
 incorrigibleP Major Pendennis vowed that he liked snug dinners of 
 all things in the world, and confounded her ladyship's impudence for 
 daring to ask such a man as ///;;/ to a second day's dinner. But he 
 was a man of an economical turn of mind, and bethinking himself 
 that he could throw over these people if anything better should offer, 
 he accepted with the blandest air. As for Pen, he was not a diner- 
 out of thirty years' standing as yet, and the idea of a fine feast in a fine 
 house was still perfectly welcome to him. 
 
 " What was that pretty little quarrel which engaged itself between 
 your worship and Miss Amory?" the Major asked of Pen, as they 
 walked away together. " I thought you used to be an juieux in that 
 quarter." 
 
 " Used to be," answered Pen, with a dandified air ; " is a vague 
 phrase regarding a woman. Was and is are two very different terms, 
 sir, as regards women's hearts especially." 
 
 " Egad, they change as we do," cried the elder. " Wlien we took 
 the Cape of Good Hope, I recollect there was a lady who talked of 
 poisoning herself for your humble servant ; and, begad, in three months, 
 she ran away from her husband with somebody else. Don't get your- 
 self entangled with that Miss Amory. She is forward, affected, and 
 underbred ; and her character is somewhat — never mind what. But 
 don't think of her; ten thousand pound won't do for you. What, my 
 good fellow, is ten thousand pound ? I would scarcely pay that girl's 
 milliner's bill with the interest of the money." 
 
 " You seem to be a connoisseur in milliner}-. Uncle," Pen said, 
 
 " I was, sir, I was," replied the senior ; " and the old war-horse, 
 you know, never hears the sound of a trumpet, but he begins to he, 
 he! — you understand," — and he gave a killing though somewhat 
 superannuated leer and bow to a carriage that passed them and 
 entered the Park. 
 
 " Lady Catherine Martingale's carriage," he said, " mons'ous fine 
 girls the daughters, though, gad, I remember their mother a thousand 
 times handsomer. No, Arthur, my dear fellow, with your person and 
 expectations, you ought to make a good coup in marriage some day 
 or other; and though I wouldn't have this repeated at Fairoaks, you 
 rogue, ha! ha! a reputation for a little wickedness, and for being an 
 homme dangereux, don't hurt a young fellow with the women. They
 
 PENDENN/S. 365 
 
 like it, sir — they hate a milksop . . . young men must be young men, 
 you know. But for marriage," continued the veteran moralist, "that 
 is a very different matter. Marry a woman with money. I've told 
 you before it is as easy to get a rich wife as a poor one ; and a doosed 
 deal more comfortable to sit down to a well-cooked dinner, with your 
 little entrees nicely served, than to have nothing but a damned cold 
 leg of mutton between you and your wife. We shall have a good 
 dinner on the 14th, when we dine with Sir Francis Clavering: stick to 
 that, my boy, in your relations with the family. Cultivate 'em, but 
 keep 'em for dining. No more of your youthful follies and nonsense 
 about love in a cottage." 
 
 " It must be a cottage with a double coach-house, a cottage of 
 gentility, sir," said Pen, quoting the hackneyed ballad of the Devil's 
 Walk: but his Uncle did not know that poem (though, perhaps, he 
 might be leading Pen upon the very promenade in question), and went 
 on with his philosophical remarks, very much pleased with the aptness 
 of the pupil to whom he addressed them. Indeed Arthur Pendennis 
 was a clever fellow, who took his colour very readily from his neigh- 
 bour and found the adaptation only too easy. 
 
 W^arrington, the grumbler, growled out that Pen was becoming 
 such a puppy that soon there would be no bearing him. But the 
 truth is, the young man's success and dashing manners pleased his 
 elder companion. He Hked to see Pen gay and spirited, and brimfuU 
 of health, and life, and hope ; as a man who has long since left off 
 being amused with clown and harlequin, still gets a pleasure in watch- 
 ing a child at a pantomime. Mr. Pen's former sulkiness disappeared 
 with his better fortune: and he bloomed as the sun b^gan to shine 
 upon him.
 
 266 PENDENNIS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 IN WHICH COLONEL ALTAMONT APPEARS AND DISAPPEARS. 
 
 ON the day appointed, Major Pendennis, who had formed no 
 better engagement, and Arthur, who desired none, airived 
 together to dine with Sir Francis Clavering. The only tenants of the 
 drawing-room when Pen and his Uncle reached it, were Sir Francis 
 and his wife, and our friend Captain Strong, whom Arthur was very 
 glad to see, though the Major looked very sulkily at Strong, being by 
 no means well pleased to sit down to dinner with Clavering's d — 
 house-steward, as he irreverently called Strong. But ]\Ir. Welbore 
 Welbore, Clavering's country neighbour and brother member of Par- 
 liament, speedily arriving, Pendennis the elder was somewhat appeased, 
 for Welbore, though perfectly dull, and taking no more part in the 
 conversation at dinner than the footman behind his chair, was a 
 respectable country gentleman of ancient family and seven thousand 
 a year; and the Major felt always at ease in such society. To these 
 were added other persons of note : the Dowager Lady Rockminster, 
 who had her reasons for being well with the Clavering family, and the 
 Lady Agnes, Foker, with her son Mr. Harry, our old acquaintance. 
 Mr. Pynsent could not come, his parliamentary duties keeping him at 
 the House, duties which sate upon the two other senators very lightly. 
 Aliss Blanche Amory was the last of the company who made her 
 appearance. She was dressed in a killing white silk dress, which dis- 
 played her pearly shoulders to the utmost advantage. Foker whispered 
 to Pen, who regarded her with eyes of evident admiration, that he 
 considered her " a stunner." She chose to be very gracious to Arthur 
 upon this day, and held out her hand most cordially, and talked about 
 dear Fairoaks, and asked for dear Laura and his mother, and said 
 she was longing to go back to the countrj-, and in fact was entirely 
 simple, affectionate, and artless. 
 
 Harry Foker thought he had never seen anybody so amiable and 
 delightful. Not accustomed much to the society of ladies, and ordi- 
 narily being dumb in their presence, he found that he could speak 
 before Miss Amory, and became uncommonly lively and talkative, 
 even before the dinner was announced and the party descended to 
 the lower rooms. He would have longed to give his arm to the fair
 
 PENDENNIS. 367 
 
 Blanche, and conduct her down the broad carpeted stair ; but she 
 fell to the lot of Pen upon this occasion, Mr. Foker being appointed 
 to escort Mrs. Welbore Welbore, in consequence of his superior rank 
 as an earl's grandson. 
 
 But though he was separated from the object of his desire during 
 the passage down stairs, the delighted Foker found himself by Miss 
 Amory's side at the dinner-table, and flattered himself that he had 
 manoeuvred very well in securing that happy place. It may be that 
 the move was not his, but that it was made by another person. 
 Blanche had thus the two young men, one on each side of her, and 
 each tried to render himself gallant and agreeable. 
 
 Foker's mamma, from her place, surveying her darling boy, was 
 surprised at his vivacity. Harry talked constantly to his fair neigh- 
 bour about the topics of the day. 
 
 "Seen Taglioni in the Sylphide, Miss Amory.? Bring me that 
 souprame of Volile again, if you please (this was addressed to the 
 attendant near him), very good : can't think where the souprames 
 come from ; what becomes of the legs of the fowls, I wonder ? She's 
 clipping in the Sylphide, ain't she .'' " and he began very kindly to 
 hum the pretty air which pervades that prettiest of all ballets, now 
 faded into the past with that most beautiful and gracious of all dancers. 
 Will the young folks ever see anything so charming, anything so 
 classic, anything like Taglioni 1 
 
 " Miss Amory is a sylph herself," said Mr. Pen. 
 
 " What a delightful tenor voice you have, Mr. Foker,'' said the 
 young lady. " I am sure you have been well taught. 1 sing a little 
 myself. I should like to sing with you." 
 
 Pen remembered that words very similar had been addressed to 
 himself by the young lady, and that she had liked to sing with him 
 in former days. And sneering within himself, he wondered with how 
 many other gentlemen she had sung duets since his time ? But he 
 did not think fit to put this awkward question aloud : and only said, 
 with the very tenderest air which he could assume, " I should like to 
 hear you sing again, Miss Blanche. I never heard a voice 1 liked so 
 well as yours, I think." 
 
 " I thought you liked Laura's," said Miss Blanche. 
 
 " Laura's is a contralto : and that voice is very often out, you 
 know," Pen said, bitterly. " I have heard a great deal of music, in 
 London," he continued. " I am tired of those professional people — 
 they sing too loud— or I have grown too old or too blase. One grows 
 old very soon, in London, Miss Amory. And like all old fellows, I 
 only care for the songs I heard in my youth." 
 
 " I like English music best. I don't care for foreign songs much. 
 Get me some saddle of mutton," said Mr. Foker.
 
 368 PENDEXNIS. 
 
 " I adore English ballads of all things," said Miss Amor)'. 
 
 " Sing me one of the old songs after dinner, will you ? " said Pen, 
 with an imploring voice, 
 
 "Shall I sing you an English song, after dinner?" asked the 
 Sylphide, turning to Mr. Foker. " I will, if you will promise to come 
 up soon : " and she gave him a perfect broadside of her eyes. 
 
 " ni come up after dinner, fast enough ? " he said simply. " I 
 don't care about much wine afterwards — I take my whack at dinner 
 — I mean my share, you know ; and when I have had as much as I 
 want, I toddle up to tea, I'm a domestic character. Miss Amory — 
 my habits are simple — and when I'm pleased I'm generally in a good 
 humour, ain't I, Pen .^ — that jelly, if you please — not that one, the 
 other with the cherries inside. How the doose do they get those 
 cherries inside the jellies?" In this way the artless youth prattled 
 on : and Miss Amor)' listened to him with inexhaustible good 
 humour. When the ladies took their departure for the upper regions, 
 Blanche made the two young men promise faithfully to quit the table 
 soon, and departed with kind glances to each. She dropped her 
 gloves on Pokers side of the table, and her handkerchief on Pen's. 
 Each had some little attention paid to him ; her politeness to 
 Mr. Foker was perhaps a little more encouraging than her kindness 
 to Arthur : but the benevolent little creature did her best to make 
 both the gentlemen happy. Foker caught her last glance as she 
 rushed out of the door ; that bright look passed over Mr. Strong's 
 broad white waistcoat, and shot straight at Harry Poker's. The door 
 closed on the charmer : he sate down with a sigh, and swallowed a 
 bumper of claret. 
 
 As the dinner at which Pen and his uncle took their places was 
 not one of our grand parties, it had been served at a considerably 
 earlier hour than those ceremonial banquets of the London season, 
 which custom has ordained shall scarcely take place before nine 
 o'clock ; and the company being small, and Miss Blanche, anxious 
 to betake herself to her piano in the drawing-room, giving constant 
 hints to her mother to retreat, — Lady Clavering made that signal \cry 
 speedily, so that it was quite daylight yet when the ladies reached the 
 upper apartments, from the flower-embroidered balconies of which 
 they could command a view of the two Parks, of the poor couples and 
 children still sauntering in the one, and of the equipages of ladies and 
 the horses of dandies passing through the arch of the other. The sun, 
 in a word, had not set behind the elms of Kensington Gardens, and 
 was still gilding the statue erected by the ladies of England in honour 
 of his Grace the Duke of Wellington, when Lady Clavering and her 
 female friends left the gentlemen drinking wine.
 
 PEA'DENNIS. 369 
 
 The windows of the dining-room were opened to let in the frrsh 
 air, and afforded to the passers-by in the street a pleasant, or, perhaps, 
 tantahsing view of six gentlemen in white waistcoats, with a quantity 
 of decanters and a variety of fruits before them — httle boys, as they 
 passed and jumped up at the area railings, and took a peep, said to 
 one another, " Mi hi, Jim, shouldn't you like to be there, and have a 
 cut of that there pine-apple ? " — the horses and carriages of the nobility 
 and gentry passed by, conveying them to Belgravian toilets; the 
 policeman, with clamping feet, patrolled up and down before the 
 mansion : the shades of evening began to fall : the gasman came 
 and lighted the lamps before Sir Francis's door: the butler entered 
 the dining-room, and illuminated the antique gothic chandelier over 
 the antique carved oak dining-table : so that from outside the house 
 you looked inwards upon a night scene of feasting and wax candles ; 
 and from within you beheld a vision of a calm summer evening, and 
 the wall of Saint James's Park, and the sky above, in which a star 
 or two was just beginning to twinkle. 
 
 Jeames, with folded legs, leaning against the door-pillar of his 
 master's abode, looked forth musingly upon the latter tranquil sight : 
 whilst a spectator, clinging to the railings, examined the former scene. 
 Policeman X, passing, gave his attention to neither, but fixed it upon 
 the individual holding by the railings, and gazing into Sir Francis 
 Clavering's dining-room, where Strong was laughing and talking away, 
 making the conversation for the party. 
 
 The man at the railings was very gorgeously attired with chains, 
 jewellery, and waistcoats, which the illumination from the house lighted 
 up to great advantage ; his boots were shiny ; he had brass buttons to 
 his coat, and large white wristbands over his knuckles ; and indeed 
 looked so grand, that X imagined he beheld a member of parliament, 
 or a person of consideration before him. Whatever his rank, however, 
 the M.P., or person of consideration, w-as considerably excited by wine ; 
 for he lurched and reeled somewhat in his gait, and his hat was cocked 
 over his wild and blood-shot eyes in a manner which no sober hat ever 
 could assume, nis copious black hair was evidently surreptitious, and 
 his whiskers of the Tyrian purple. 
 
 As Strong's laughter, following after one of his own gros inofs, CAmc 
 ringing out of window, this gentleman without laughed and sniggered 
 in the queerest way likewise, and he slapped his thigh and winked at 
 Jeames pensive in the portico, as much as to say, " Plush, my boy, isn't 
 that a good story?" 
 
 Jeames's attention had been gradually drawn from the moon in 
 the heavens to this sublunary scene; and he was puzzled and alarmed 
 by the appearance of the man in shiny boots. "A holtercation," he 
 remarked, afterwards, in the servants' hall — a " holtercation with a
 
 370 PENDENNIS. 
 
 feller in the streets is never no good ; and indeed, he was not hired for 
 any such purpose." So, having surveyed the man for some time, who 
 went on laughing, reeling, nodding his head with tipsy knowingness, 
 Jeamcs looked out of the portico, and scftly called " Pleaceman," and 
 beckoned to that officer. 
 
 X marched up resolute, with one Berlin glove stuck in his belt- 
 side, and Jeames simply pointed with his index finger to the individual 
 who was laughing against the railings. Not one single word more 
 than " Pleaceman," did he say, but stood there in the calm summer 
 evening, pointing calmly : a grand sight. 
 
 X advanced to the individual, and said, " Now, sir, will you have 
 the kindness to move hon ?" 
 
 The individual, who was in perfect good humour, did not appear 
 to hear one word which Policeman X uttered, but nodded and waggled 
 his grinning head at Strong, until his hat almost fell from his head 
 over the area railings. 
 
 "Now, sir, move on, do you hear?" cries X, in a much more 
 peremptory tone, and he touched the stranger gently with one of the 
 fingers inclosed in the gauntlets of the Berlin woof 
 
 He of the many rings instantly started, or rather staggered back, 
 into what is called an attitude of self-defence, and in that position 
 began the operation which is entitled " squaring," at Policeman X, 
 and showed himself brave and warlike, if unsteady. " Hullo ! keep 
 your hands off a gentleman," he said, with an oath which need not be 
 repeated. 
 
 " Move on out of this," said X, " and don't be a blocking up the 
 pavement, staring into gentlemen's dining-rooms." 
 
 " Not stare — ho, ho, — not stare — that is a good one," replied the 
 other, with a satiric laugh and sneer, — " Who's to prevent me from 
 staring, looking at my friends, if I like ? not you, old highlows." 
 " Friends ! I dessay. Move on," answered X. 
 " If you touch me, I'll pitch into you, I will," roared the other. 
 " I tell you I know 'em all— That's Sir Francis Clavering, Baronet, 
 M.P,— I know him, and he knows me— and that's Strong, and that's 
 the young chap that made the row at the ball. I sav. Strong, 
 Strong ! " 
 
 " It's that d Altamont," cried Sir Francis within, with a start 
 
 and a guilty look ; and Strong, also, with a look of annoyance, got up 
 from the table, and ran out to the intruder. 
 
 A gentleman in a white waistcoat, running out from a dining-room 
 bare-headed, a policeman, and an individual decently attired, engaged 
 in almost fisticuffs on the pavement, were enough to make a crowd, 
 even in that quiet neighbourhood, at half-past eight o'clock in the 
 evening, and a small mob began to assemble before Sir Francis
 
 PENDENNIS. 371 
 
 Clavering's door. " For God's sake, come in," Strong said, seizing his 
 acquaintance's arm. " Send for a cab, James, if you please," he added 
 in an under voice to that domestic ; and carrying the excited gentle- 
 man out of the street, the outer door was closed upon him, and the 
 small crowd began to move away. 
 
 Mr. Strong had intended to convey the stranger into Sir Francis's 
 private sitting-room, where the hats of the male guests were awaiting 
 them, and having there soothed his friend by bland conversation, to 
 have carried him off as soon as the cab arrived — but the new comer 
 was in a great state of wrath at the indignity which had been put 
 upon him ; and when Strong would have led him into the second 
 door, said in a tipsy voice, " T/tai ain't the door — that's the dining- 
 room door — where the drink's going on— and Fll go and have some, 
 by Jove; Fll go and have some." At this audacity the butler stood 
 aghast in the hall, and placed himself before the door : but it opened 
 behind him, and the master of the house made his appearance, with 
 anxious looks. 
 
 " I w/// have some, — by I will," the intruder was roaring out, 
 
 as Sir Francis came forward. " Hullo ! Clavering, I say, I'm come to 
 have some wine with you ; hay ! old boy — hay, old corkscrew ? Get 
 us a bottle of the yellow seal, you old thief — the very best — a hundred 
 rupees a dozen, and no mistake." 
 
 The host reflected a moment over his company. There is only 
 Welbore, Pendennis, and those two lads, he thought — and with a 
 forced laugh and piteous look, he said, — " Well, Altamont, come in. 
 I am very glad to see you, Fm sure." 
 
 Colonel Altamont, for the intelligent reader has doubtless long 
 ere this discovered in the stranger his Excellency the Ambassador 
 of the Nawaub of Lucknow, reeled into the dining-room, with a 
 triumphant look towards Jeaincs, the footman, which seemed to say, 
 " There, sir, what do you think of that .'' A''ciw, am I a gentleman or 
 no ? " and sank down into the first vacant chair. Sir Francis Clavering 
 timidly stammered out the Colonel's name to his guest Mr. Welbore 
 Welbore, and his Excellency began drinking wine forthwith and 
 gazing round upon the company, now with the most wonderful frowns, 
 and anon with the blandest smiles, and hiccupped remarks encomiastic 
 of the drink which he was imbibing. 
 
 " Very singular man. Has resided long in a native court in 
 India," Strong said, with great gravity, the Chevalier's presence of 
 mind never deserting him—" in those Indian courts they get very 
 singular habits." 
 
 " Very," said Major Pendennis, drily, and wondering what in 
 goodness' name was the company into which he had got. 
 
 Mr. Foker was pleased with the new comer. " It's the man who
 
 3; 2 PEN DENNIS. 
 
 would sing the Malay song at the Back Kitchen," he whispered to Pen. 
 •• Tr>- this pine, sir," he then said to Colonel Altamont, " it's uncom- 
 monly fine." 
 
 "Pines— I've seen 'em feed pigs on pines," said the Colonel. 
 
 "All the Nawaub of Lucknow's pigs are fed on pines," Strong 
 whispered to Major Pendsnnis. 
 
 " O, of course," the Major answered. Sir Francis Clavering was, 
 in the meanwhile, endeavouring to make an excuse to his brother guest 
 for the new comer's condition, and muttered something regarding 
 Altamont, that he was an extraordinary character, very eccentric, ver}- 
 — had Indian habits — didn't understand the rules of English society; 
 to v.-hich old Welbore, a shrewd old gentleman, who drank his wine 
 with great regularity, said, " that seemed pretty clear." 
 
 Then, the Colonel seeing Pen's honest face, regarded it for a while 
 with as much steadiness as became his condition ; and said, " I know 
 you, too, young fellow. I remember you. Baymouth ball, by Jingo. 
 Wanted to fight the Frenchman. / remember you ; " and he laughed, 
 and he squared with his fists, and seemed hugely am.used in the 
 drunken depths of his mind, as these recollections passed, or, rather, 
 reeled across it. 
 
 " i\Ir. Pendennis, you remember Colonel Altamont, at Baymouth ?" 
 Strong said: upon which Pen, bowing rather stiiily, said, "he had the 
 pleasure of remembering that circumstance perfectly." 
 
 " IVhafs his name ? " cried the Colonel. Strong named Mr. Pen- 
 dennis again, 
 
 " Pendennis I — Pendennis be hanged ! " Altamont roared out to the 
 surprise of every one, and thumping with his fist on the table. 
 
 " My name is also Pendennis, sir," said the Major, whose dignity 
 was exceedingly mortified by the evening's events — that he, Major 
 Pendennis, should have been asked to such a party, and that a 
 drunken man should have been introduced to it. " My name 
 is Pendennis, and I will be obliged to you not to curse it too 
 loudly." 
 
 The tipsy man turned round to look at him, and as he looked, it 
 appeared as if Colonel Altamont suddenly grew sober. He put his 
 hand across his forehead, and in doing so, displaced somewhat the 
 black wig which he wore; and his eyes stared fiercely at the Major, 
 who, in his turn, like a resolute old warrior as he was, looked at his 
 opponent very keenly and steadily. At the end of the mutual inspec- 
 tion, Altamont began to button up his brass-buttoned coat, and rising 
 up from his chair, suddenly, and to the company's astonishment, 
 reeled towards the door, and issued from it, followed by Strong : all 
 that the latter heard him utter was— " Captain Beak! Captain Beak, 
 by jingo ! "
 
 PENDENNIS. 373 
 
 There had not passed above a quarter of an hour from his strange 
 appearance to his equally sudden departure. The two young men and 
 the baronet's other guest wondered at the scene, and could find no 
 explanation for it. Clavering seemed exceedingly pale and agitated, 
 and turned with looks of almost terror towards Major Pendennis. 
 The latter had been eyeing his host keenly for a minute or two. " Do 
 you know him .'' " asked Sir Francis of the Major. 
 
 " I am sure I have seen the fellow," the Major replied, looking as if 
 he, too, was puzzled. " Yes, I have it. He was a deserter from the 
 Horse Artillerj^, who got into the Nawaub's service. I remember his 
 face quite well." 
 
 " Oh ! " said Clavering, with a sigh which indicated immense relief 
 of mind, and the Major looked at him with a twinkle of his sharp old 
 eyes. The cab which Strong had desired to be called, drove away 
 with the Chevalier and Colonel Altamont; coffee was brought to the 
 remaining gentlemen, and they went up-stairs to the ladies in the 
 drawing-room, Foker declaring confidentially to Pen that " this was 
 the rummest go he ever saw," which decision Pen said, laughing. 
 " showed great discrimination on Mr. Foker^s part." 
 
 Then, according to her promise, Miss Amory made music for the 
 young men. Foker was enraptured with her performance, and kindly 
 joined in the airs which she sang, when he happened to be acquainted 
 with them. Pen affected to talk aside with others of the party, but 
 Blanche brought him quickly to the piano, by singing some of his 
 own words, those which we have given in a previous number, indeed, 
 and which the Sylphide had herself, she said, set to music. I don't 
 know whether the air was hers, or how much of it was arranged for 
 her by Signor Twankidillo, from whom she took lessons : but good 
 or bad, original or otherwise, it delighted Mr. Pen, who remained by 
 her side, and turned the leaves now for her most assiduously — " Gad ! 
 how I wish I could write verses like you. Pen," Foker sighed after- 
 wards to his companion. " If I could do 'em, wouldn't I, that's all } 
 But I never was a dab at writing, you see, and I'm sorry I was so idle 
 when I was at school." 
 
 No mention was made before the ladies of the curious little scene 
 which had been transacted below stairs ; although Pen was just on 
 the poiat of describing it to Miss Amory, when that young lady 
 inquired for Captain Strong, who she wished should join her in a duet. 
 But chancing to look up towards Sir Francis Clavering, Arthur saw a 
 peculiar expression of alarm in the baronet's ordinarily vacuous face, 
 and discreetly held his tongue. It was rather a dull evening. Welbore 
 went to sleep, as he always did at music and after dinner: nor did 
 Major Pendennis entertain the ladies with copious anecdotes and 
 endless little scandalous stories, as his wont was, but sate silent for
 
 ,.. PENDEXNIS. 
 
 j/4 
 
 the most part, and appeared to be listening to the niusic, and watch- 
 ing the fair young performer. 
 
 The hour of departure having arrived, the Major rose, regretting 
 that so dehghtful an evening should have passed away so quickly, and 
 addressed a particularly fine compliment to Miss Amory, upon her 
 splendid talents as a singer. " Your daughter. Lady Clavering," he 
 said to that lady, " is a perfect nightingale— a perfect nightingale, 
 begad ! I have scarcely ever heard anything equal to her, and her 
 pronunciation of every language— begad, of every language— seems to 
 me to be perfect; and the best houses in London must open before a 
 young lady who has such talents, and, allow an old fellow to say. Miss 
 Amor)', such a face."' 
 
 Blanche was as much astonished by these compliments as Pen 
 was, to whom his uncle, a little time since, had been speaking in very^ 
 disparaging terms of the Sylph. The Major and the two young men 
 walked home together, after Mr. Foker had placed his mother in her 
 carriage, and procured a light for an enormous cigar. 
 
 The young gentleman's company or his tobacco did not appear to 
 be agreeable to IMajor Pendennis, who eyed him askance several 
 times, and with a look which plainly indicated that he wished 
 Mr. Foker would take his leave ; but Foker hung on resolutely to the 
 uncle and nephew, even until they came to the formers door in Bury 
 Street, where the Major wished the lads good night. 
 
 " And I say. Pen," he said in a confidential whisper, calling his 
 nephew back, " mind you make a point of calling in Grosvenor Place 
 to-morrow. They've been uncommonly civil; mons'ously civil and 
 kind." 
 
 Pen promised and wondered, and the INIajor's door having been 
 closed upon him by Morgan, Foker took Pen's arm, and walked with 
 him for some time silently puffing his cigar. At last, when they had 
 reached Charing Cross on Arthur's way home to the Temple, Harry 
 Foker relieved himself, and broke out with that eulogium upon poetrj-, 
 and those regrets regarding a misspent youth which have just been 
 mentioned. And all the way along the Strand, and up to the door of 
 Pen's very staircase, in Lamb Court, Temple, young Harr}- Foker did 
 not cease to speak about singing and Blanche Amor)-.
 
 PENDENNIS. 375 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 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 devilled turkey had no charms for him, the jokes of his com- 
 panions 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 chefs 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 image of Miss Amory. 
 
 Heavens, how stale and distasteful his former pursuits and friend- 
 ships 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 compen-
 
 376 PENDENNIS. 
 
 s;itocl to Mr. Foker for the absence of more lively qualities which 
 most of his own relatives did not enjoy, and which he found in 
 Mcsdcmoiselles the ladies of the theatre. 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 
 l)eyond measure. One was blue, and a geologist ; one was a horse- 
 woman, and smoked cigars; one was exceedingly Low Church, and 
 had the most heterodox views on religious matters ; at least, so the 
 otiier 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 on 
 tlie 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. Eve 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 countr)-, 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 
 Mhom and his lordship there had been many private transactions, 
 producing an exchange of bank cheques from Mr. Foker, and auto- 
 graphs from the earl himself, with the letters I O U written over his 
 illustrious signature. 
 
 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 hfe. It was ordained between her parents and her aunt, that when 
 Mr. Harry Foker attained a proper age, Lady Ann should become his
 
 PENDENNIS. 2>77 
 
 wife. The idea had been familiar to her mind when she yet woie 
 pinafores, and when Harry, the dirtiest of httle 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 iling 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. Hany 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 favourite 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 con- 
 fessed, 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 family 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 tliink about anybody 
 else. It was not a very amusing story. 
 
 Well, the instant Foker awoke on the day after Lady Clavcring's 
 dinner, there was Blanche's image glaring upon him with its clear grey
 
 378 
 
 PEXDENNIS. 
 
 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 gentle- 
 man 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 Pinckney of 
 T. R. E. O. would be represented in tight pantaloons in her favourite 
 page part; or Miss Rougemont as Venus j their value enhanced by the 
 signatures of these ladies, INIaria Pinckney, 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 hie neighbours ; 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 ^liss Pinckney, written in a very degagd 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, amidst 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-cornered Hat, in St. Martin's Lane ; 
 where Conkey Sam, Dick the Nailor, the Deadman, (the Worcester- 
 shire 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. Poker'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 Pinckney 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
 
 PENDENNIS. 379 
 
 hi'i 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 anything, 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 con- 
 trary, 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 riguetir, 
 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 
 Brookes'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 sat up late — he had no health 
 for it ; but my boy must do as everybody 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— everybody 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 Harrv broke out. "Their clear soup's better than ours.
 
 33o PENDENNIS. 
 
 Moufflet will put too much tarragon into ever)'thing. The supreme de 
 volaille was very good— uncommon, and the sweets were better than 
 Moiifflet's sweets. Did you taste the plombi^re, 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. 
 
 " Ver)' nice people the Claverings." 
 
 <' H'm ! " 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 What-d'ye-caU'um — Miss Emer}-, 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 — 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 Amorj-'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.
 
 PENDENNIS. 381 
 
 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. 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 corresponden'ce, knew his favourite 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 some- 
 thing 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 colours: all the boots were villanously 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 jnoi nil peiv,^'' 
 Mr. Foker said, in an easy manner; and the valet, wondering 
 whether his master was in love or was going masquerading, went m 
 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 mastei-'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 splendour, and proceeded to 
 sally out. 
 
 "At what dime sail I order de drag, sir, to be at Miss Pingncy'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
 
 382 PENDENNIS. 
 
 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 everybody knows), 
 where he just had the pleasure of peeping upwards at Miss Amorj-'s 
 pink window curtains ; having achieved which satisfactor>' feat, he 
 drove oflf 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 necessarj' to Poker'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. ^^Tlat 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 befals them, which now had for more 
 than twelve hours befallen Harr}- 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 
 Ehza or IMaria 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 ; whilst, 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 I 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 crj- 
 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 head- 
 strong than you : they will nash on their destiny w^hen 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. Now, then, if 
 you ask why Henr}' Foker, Esquire, was in such a hurr>' to see
 
 PENDENNIS. 383 
 
 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 had 
 yet 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 pretendue, 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 archway 
 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 Amoiy ?
 
 384 PENDENNIS. 
 
 The carriage took its fair owners to Madame Rigodon's cap and 
 lace shop, to Mrs. Wolse/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 
 50, in a white bonnet with a yellow feather, she ate a large pink ice in 
 the sunshine before Hunters 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 Amor>- 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, 
 exchange 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 everj-body, 
 and never missed a day in the Park on his grey cob, kindly said that 
 Clavering had come into an estate over head and heels in mortgage : 
 that there were devilish 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 
 honour 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.^" 
 
 " / dine there ? " said Mr. Eales, who would have dined with Beel- 
 zebub 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 verj- pleasant. Clavering goes to sleep after 
 dinner ; the Begum gets tipsy with cherr>--brandy, and the young lady 
 smgs songs to the young gentlemen. She sings well, don't she, Fo ? "'
 
 PENBElYNIS. 385 
 
 " Slap up," said Fo. " I tell you what, Poyntz, she sings like a 
 — what-d'ye-call-'um — you know what I mean — like a meruiaid, 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 1 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, moitifica- 
 tions. He ivas 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 poetrj- or 
 compose music, as easy as I could drink a glass of beer. Beer 1 — 
 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 con- 
 sequences nov/? 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. T/icn; 
 vras his fate, there, in the back seat of that carriage ! 
 
 " What is the matter, Harry .^ why are you so pale ? You l.avc 
 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-bye. 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. 
 
 "5
 
 ,^(j PENDENNIS. 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 CARRIES THE READER BOTH TO RICHMOND AND GREENWICH. 
 
 I)OOR Foker found the dinner at Richmond to be the most drean- 
 entertainment upon which ever mortal man wasted his guineas. 
 " I wonder how the deuce I could ever have liked these people," he 
 tliought 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 Pinckney talks 
 slang, is quite disgusting. 1 hate chaff in a woman. And old Col- 
 chicum ! 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 
 Frarconi'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 ? " Miss Pinckney 
 asked of her neighbour. " I hate him. He's a drawlin', sneerin' 
 beast." 
 
 " What a droll of a little man is that little Fokare, my lor," Made- 
 moiselle 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 towards a large goblet of claret. 
 
 " Cte Jeunesse. Penh / je m'en fiche" said Madame Brack, 
 Coralie's mamma, taking a great pinch out of Lord Colchicum's
 
 PENDENA'IS. 3S7 
 
 delicate gold snuff-box. " Je n'aime que les homines fails, moi. 
 Comtne milor. Coralie .' n'est-ce pas que tu n'aimes que les homines 
 fails, ma bichelle ? " 
 
 My lord said, with a grin, " You flatter me, Madame Brack." 
 
 " TaiseZ'Vous, manianj vous lieles qu'une bele," 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 Ma'dame Brack's dubious fingers should plunge too frequently 
 into his Mackabaw. 
 
 There is no need to give a prolonged detail of the animated con- 
 versation 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 Pinckney, 
 any more than that all peers resemble that illustrious member of their 
 order, the late lamented Viscount Colchicum. 
 
 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 their accomplished coachman whether he would not step 
 in and take something 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 Pinckney, unheeding the cries of the latter, who hung over her 
 balcony like Jezebel, and called out to him to ask hun 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 upwards 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 neighbouring 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
 
 jSS FEXDEXNIS. 
 
 Ainon' through London, r.nd to appear wherever he could meet her. 
 If Lady Clavering went to the French play, where her ladyship had a 
 box, .Mr. Fokcr, whose knowledge of the language, as we have heard, 
 was not conspicuous, appeared in a stall. He found out where her 
 enf'agements 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. Fokers time had not the 
 facihties 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 patronise the institution of public 
 worship, and that it was a correct thing to be seen at church of a 
 Sunday. One day, it chanced that he and Arthur went thither 
 together : the latter, who was nov\' in high favour, 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 Fokers, sir.'' Pen 
 said, " and the Begum was very kind indeed. So she was in the country : 
 so she is everywhere. 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
 
 PENDENNIS. 389 
 
 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. Poker'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 lanced 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 afterwards, and who saved her life 
 out of the lake at Drummington. I remember Lady Agnes, sir, an 
 e.Kceedingly fine woman. But what did she do ?— of course she mar- 
 ried 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 al'l the particulars of that courtship which had passed between 
 himself and the young lady.
 
 ^^ PEXDENNIS. 
 
 " 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 honour, 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 everybody, 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 Amor>-, — 
 for charming, begad ! she is, — if I saw her Mrs. Arthur Pendennis, I 
 should neither be sorrj' 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 stiU 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 Avhether 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 ; whilst 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 everj' 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 towards the seats where 
 the ser\'ants were collected, he spied out, by the side of a demure 
 gentleman in plush, Henry Foker, Esquire, who had discovered this
 
 FENDENNIS. 391 
 
 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 ? 
 
 When the congregation issued forth at the conclusion of the 
 service, Foker was out amongst 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 Pendenniscs, 
 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, too, was 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 ivho is," said Mr. Arthur, making rather a pert bow. 
 
 " What's the row about?" asked Mr. Foker, rather puzzled. 
 
 "I suppose Miss Clavering means 'Walter Lorraine,'" said the 
 Major, looking knowing, and nodding at Pen. 
 
 " I suppose so, sir. There was a famous review in the ' Pall AI.iIl ' 
 this morning. It was Warrington's doing though, and I must not be 
 too proud." 
 
 " A review in Pall Mall } — Walter Lorraine .'' What the doosc do 
 you mean ? " Foker asked. " Walter Lorraine died of the measles, 
 poor little beggar, when we were at Grey 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 humour 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-
 
 ^g, rEXDJCiWYIS. 
 
 thino, 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 ihink I have a part 
 of 7W larmeSj'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 cr>'," — Lady Amon.' declared she would 
 not read it, "that she wouldn't." 
 
 " Don't, mamma," Blanche said, with a French shioig of her 
 shoulders ; and then she fell into a rhapsody about the book, about 
 the snatclics 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 ion ! 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 v/ritten ; his false friend, the Viscount, was a simple com- 
 moner, and so on with all the characters of the storj-." 
 
 " Wliat a wicked, satirical, pert young man you hav^e become ! 
 Couune vov..s voila forme P' said the young lady. " How difterent from 
 Arthur Pendennis of the country ! Ah ! I think I like Arthur Pen- 
 dcnnis 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 downwards towards 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, v/ho during the literary conversation had sate silently imbibing 
 the head of his cane, and wishing he was a clever chap like that Pen. 
 
 If the Major thought that by telling Miss Amor)- of Mr. Poker'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, w^e say, the Major thought that the know- 
 ledge of this fact would prevent Blanche from paying any further 
 attention to the young heir of Poker's Entire, he was entirely mistaken. 
 She became only the more gracious to Foker : she praised him, and 
 everything belonging to him ; she praised his mamma ; she praised 
 the pony v/hich he rode in the Park; she praised the lovely breloques
 
 PENDENNIS. 393 
 
 or gimcracks whicn 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, turn- 
 ing 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 1 O you naughty creature ! " But hei^e, 
 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 anything to know one ; for I adore talent. And I adore Rich- 
 mond, 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 
 honour us with their company at Greenwich.? Is Lady Clavering to 
 go on for ever 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 arc these two 
 young ones, — and they allow an old fellow like me to speak. Lady 
 Clavering, will you do me the favour to be my guest ? and Miss Blanche 
 shall be Arthur's if she will be so good." 
 
 " Oh, 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 Green- 
 wich, and Foker, though he did not invite Miss Amory, had some 
 delicious opportunities of conversation with her during the repast, and 
 afterwards 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
 
 394 PENDENNIS. 
 
 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.
 
 PENDENNIS. 
 
 395 
 
 CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 CONTAINS A NOVEL INCIDENT. 
 
 SOME account has been given, in a former part of this story, how 
 Mr. Pen, during his residence at home, after his defeat at Ox- 
 bridge, had occupied himself with various Hterary compositions, and 
 amongst 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 deve- 
 loped 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 
 favourite 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 book after- 
 wards, 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 favourite 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 ground where 
 camels' hoofs are marked in the clay, and traces of withered herbage
 
 396 PEN DENNIS. 
 
 arc 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 surpHce, 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 only a 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 I mockery- 
 of Passion!' Walter cried, addressing Leonora: ' what evil spirit hath 
 sent thee to torture me so ? O Leonora * * * ' " 
 
 '■ Cut that part out," cried 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 fl.ames !— two heaps of burnt-out cinders," Warrington said. 
 " Are both the beauties in this book ?" 
 
 " Both, or something like them," Pen said. '• Leonora, who mairies
 
 FENDEXNIS. 397 
 
 the Duke, is the Fotheringay. I drew the Duke from Magnus Charters, 
 with whom 1 was at Oxfcffd ; it's a Httle Hke him ; and Miss Amory is 
 Neasra. 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 sutfer 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 m.an 
 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 thr.n 
 Prometheus." 
 
 " I suppose a poet has greater sensibility than another man," 
 said Pen, with some spirit. " That is what makes him a poet. 1 
 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 expe- 
 rience 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 expe- 
 riences upon paper as a painter does a landscape or a face upon canvas, 
 to the best of his abiUty, 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, yEschylus, Shakspeare and all.^" 
 
 " Their names are not to be breathed in the same sentence with you 
 pigmies," 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 im- 
 pudence, and resumed his pipe and his manuscript.
 
 3f,8 PENDENNIS. 
 
 There was not the slightest doubt, then, that this document con- 
 tained 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 foUies. 
 As we have become acquainted with these in the earlier part of his 
 biography, it will not be necessary to make large extracts from the 
 novel of " Walter Lorraine," in which the young gentleman had de- 
 picted such of them as he thought were Hkely to interest the reader, or 
 were suitable for the purposes of his storj-. 
 
 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 ques- 
 tioned altogether), ^Ir. 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 ics crj'pt he may find that, like small 
 wine, it has lost what flavour 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 fervour of imagination, that the storj' 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 per- 
 formance, 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 vigour, and traits, if not 
 of genius, of genuine passion and feeling. This, too, was Warring- 
 ton'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 Pens 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 fresh- 
 ness in it which I like somehow. The bloom disappears off the face
 
 PENDENNIS. 399 
 
 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-knovvs-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 Warring- 
 ton's allusion to those ornaments, which, to say the truth, the young 
 man coaxed, and curled, and oiled, and perfumed, and petted, in 
 rather an absurd manner). " Do you think we can do anything with 
 ' Walter Lorraine ? ' Shall we take him to the publisher's, 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." 
 
 "Have I? Here goes," said Pen, and "Walter Lorraine " went 
 oft" 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. 
 
 " Oh, Pen, what a humbug you are ! " Warrington said ; " and, 
 what is worst of all, sir, a clumsy humbug. I saw you look to sec 
 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 saleable 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 
 v/onder of wonders, but it will do very well." 
 
 " Do you think so, Warrington ?" said Pen, delighted, for tliis was 
 great praise from his cynical friend. 
 
 " You silly young fool ! I think it's uncommonly clever," Warring- 
 ton said, in a kind voice. " So do you, sir." And with the manuscript 
 v/hich he held in his hand he playfully struck Pen on the cheek.
 
 400 PENDENNIS. 
 
 That part of Pen"s countenance turned as red as it had ever done in 
 the earhest days of his blushes: he grasped the others hand and said. 
 " Thank you, Warrington," with all his might ; and then he retired to 
 Ills 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. 
 
 Whilst 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 distin- 
 guished 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 Pen- 
 dennis was occupied upon a work of the most exciting nature ; a w.ork 
 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 profes- 
 sional 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 outbid his rival. 
 Was anything 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 anything 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 odour 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 tattered at the elbows as usual; and the chair 
 which Bacon was requested to take on entering broke down wth the
 
 PENDENNTS. 401 
 
 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 
 bed-room. 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 humourist, 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 gentle- 
 men 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 Pen- 
 dennis upon a given day, and that another lady of distinction proposed 
 to have dancing at her house upon a certain future evening. War- 
 rington saw the admiring publisher eyeing these documents. "Ah," 
 said he, with an air of simplicity, " Pendennis is one of the most 
 aflable 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." 
 
 " Oh 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 ricketty old chambers with me. He's a 
 man that can afford to live anywhere." 
 
 " I fancy it don't cost him much here" thought Mr. Bacon ; and 
 the object of these praises presently entered the room from his adja- 
 cent 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 would 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 
 
 26 
 
 oh^lTA ^mi STATE COLLESE mm
 
 t02 
 
 PENDEXNIS. 
 
 Pendennis linally 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 witli novels, 
 whereof there is ah-eady 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 them do so at their own peril. As for those who have 
 already Avritten 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 aU 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 
 ever)' 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 skilful 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 descend- 
 ing 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 ^lajor 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. "/ never read yoiu: 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 ! Pens 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 
 Aonsense for the next four or five years, and make a fortune. In the 
 .neantime, I should wish him to live properly, take respectable apart- 
 ments, and keep a brougham.''
 
 PENDENNIS. 
 
 403 
 
 Arthur, laughing, told Warrington what his uncle's advice had 
 been ; but he luckily had a much more reasonable counsellor 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 extravagances. 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 instalment 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. Port- 
 man, when he read a passage in the letter, in which Pen, \yith 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. Penden- 
 nis's hand for a minute, the Doctor drew that lady towards 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 othei 
 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 honour, very great honour, 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 lAIrs. Pen- 
 dennis, 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 uook and the author, although she
 
 404 PENDENNIS. 
 
 said 90 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 calcula- 
 tions 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. Everybody 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 anti- 
 path)'!, 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, per- 
 haps 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 him- 
 self 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 dependant." 
 
 " A dependant ! who ever so thought of you ? You are the equal 
 of all the world," Pynsent broke out. 
 
 " I am a dependant 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^herc, 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 r.iorc. 
 I must go away if you do."— And with this she left him. 
 
 Pynsent never asked for Lady Rockminsters intercession : he
 
 PENDEXNIS. 405 
 
 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 JMrs. 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 over-much : 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- 
 humour ! Lucky he who has been educated to bear his fate, what- 
 soever it may be, by an early example of uprightness, and a childish 
 training in honour !
 
 4o6 
 
 PENDENNIS. 
 
 CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 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 neighbourhood of Lincoln's Inn Fields and the Temple. Some- 
 where 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 vendors, purveyors of theatrical 
 prints for youth, dealers in dingy furniture, and bedding suggestive 
 of anything 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 theatre, 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 
 centre rises up the statue of Shepherd, defended by iron-railings from 
 the assauks of boys. The Hall of the Inn, on which the founders 
 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
 
 PENDENNIS. 407 
 
 g.ntleman whose name figures here, and in the " Law List," is 
 Mr. Campion, who wears mustachios, 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 nobihty and gentry 
 to whom her husband lends money. There, and on his glazed cards, he 
 is Mr. Somerset Campion ; here he is Campion & 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 oft" his nostrils as he chafes and tosses under the 
 shining bit. The reins and the breeches of the groom are glittering white, 
 — the lustre 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 daughther 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 practising for amusement, or for the instruction of a theatrical 
 pupil, of whom he has one or two. Fanny Bolton is one, the portress'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 
 v.orld, 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. 
 
 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
 
 4oS PEXDEAWIS. 
 
 (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 mantel-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 behaviour " in the hoight of poloit societee," as he denominated 
 Lady Mirabels 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 demeanour 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 gra- 
 tified by the soight of his daughther's choriot. Sir Chorlus, I saw your 
 neem at the Levee; 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 profes- 
 sional gravity while they waited on Captain Costigan. 
 
 On the first two or three visits to his son-in-law, Costigan main- 
 tained 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 clar"t 
 and burgundee, until his own utterance began to fail him, over his 
 sixth tumbler of whisky-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
 
 PENDENiYIS. 409 
 
 from his daughter, and make statements to her not altogether con- 
 sistent with strict truth. On one day a baihff 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 grey hairs from 
 gaol." 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 this time too, to repair her papa's disaster, and was carried 
 down by Lady Mirabel's servant to the slipshod messenger and aide- 
 de-camp of the Captain, who brought the letter announcing his mishap. 
 If the servant had followed the Captain's aide-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, ot 
 which he and his staff had partaken. On a third melancholy occa- 
 sion 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 reproach- 
 ing herself that she had of late lost sight, of him, 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 portress said, with 
 many curtsies, pointing towards 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 Travellers', 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
 
 ^,o FEA'DEIVN/S. 
 
 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 devo- 
 tion. 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 Alta- 
 mont, agent to the Nawaub 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 Ambassador 
 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 con- 
 fidential 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 jiot 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 anon>-mous 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 bed-room and 
 sittmg-room ; and a private stair led out of the office to two upper 
 apartments, the one occupied by Colonel Altamont, and the other
 
 PENDENNIS. 411 
 
 serving as the kitchen of the estabhshment, and the bed-room 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 
 niignonette-box which bloomed in Bows's window. 
 
 From Grady's kitchen casement often came odours 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 anything. 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 after- 
 wards ; 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. 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 Queen Christina's 
 army, when Ned Strong had fought on the other side ; and was now 
 organising 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 doub- 
 loons. " Give me eighteen hundred pounds," Tom said, "and I'm off 
 to-morrow. 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." Keiglitley, the manager of the Tredyd- 
 dlum 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 
 quicJcsilver operation in view, which would set him straight with the 
 world yet. Filby had been everything: a corporal of drngonns, a
 
 4,:: r£yB£Ny/S. 
 
 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 
 liim 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 com- 
 municated 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 entrusted). 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 burthened 
 with such society, did not suit the Chevaher'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,' v.here Wallack comes in wounded, you know, 
 and dies. When he died, AJtamont 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 everybody 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, 
 ind 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 
 v/ere, to try and discover for himself what was the secret tie between 
 Altamont and Chivcrintr.
 
 PENDEXNIS. 
 
 413 
 
 CHAPTER XLIII. 
 
 IN WHICH THE COLONEL NARRATES SOME OF HIS ADVENTURES. 
 
 "T^ ARLY in the forenoon of the day aftei" 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 sate 
 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 
 arteiiz. Good-humoured 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 appe- 
 tite, 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 
 difterence of the colour of his beard 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 "
 
 ^,^ PENDENNIS. 
 
 '' 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 cannot 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, 
 afterwards 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 \vas 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 planner." 
 
 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."
 
 PENDENNIS. 415 
 
 " 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 
 anything 1 Dammy, Strong, did I split anything ? " 
 
 "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 recognised 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 anybody 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 
 with. Didn't I ever tell you of it ? Well, 1 don't mi«d. 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 soirees— such a woman. 
 Strong !— such an eye !— such a hand at the pianncr ! Lor" bless you.
 
 4i6 PENDEi\XIS. 
 
 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 c\-er>' Toosday ; and didn't I take opera-boxes and give her 
 •dinners at the restaurateur's, 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 Honourable 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 sdrvant, who said 
 the Honourable Deuceace wanted to see me, and was waiting in the 
 sitting-room. 'How are you. Colonel?' says he, a-coming into my 
 bed-room. ' 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 anything, when my servant should 
 get it for him; but the Honourable Deuceace don't drink of a morn- 
 ing, and he went away to some business which he said he had. 
 
 " Presently there's another ring at my outer door ; and this time 
 its 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
 
 PENDENA/S. 417 
 
 tliat he owed me anything, 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 anything 
 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 
 at any price.' 
 
 " ' En effet; says the Marky, twiddling his little black mustachios 
 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 
 honour 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 void T 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 L ' 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 honour. 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 liigher, 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 fellers, 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 
 
 27
 
 4iS 
 
 PENDENNIS. 
 
 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 whilst 
 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 neck- 
 laces, and pay part ? 
 
 " I swore I wouldn't touch a farthing's worth of her jewellery-, 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 Ferdi- 
 nand.' 
 
 "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 
 honour may take any name he chooses, I suppose." 
 
 " Well, go on with your story," said Strong. " She said they would 
 kiU you." 
 
 '•'No,' says I, 'they won't: for I will not let that scamp of a
 
 PENDENNIS. 419 
 
 jMavquis 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 some- 
 thing 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 honour ? ' 
 
 " ' Field of honour 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 honour — I thought, I — but no matter. Good-bye, 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 honour.' 
 
 " What could I do ? Everybody 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 honour ; 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
 
 ^3o PENDENNIS. 
 
 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 
 Ion'-' as he could renew a bill, his mind was easy regarding it: and he 
 would sign almost anything 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, chieily because he was too mean to be a suc- 
 cessful 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 sufficed 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 colours I played, — ask the Captain, 
 —I've been teUing him of it. It was with the bones. It was at 
 hazard. Sir Francis, upon my word and honour it was;" and he 
 looked at the Baronet with a knowing humourous 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
 
 PENDENNIS. 421 
 
 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-humour. " Look here. 
 Baronet, I apologise ; on my honour 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 anywhere else 
 until I speak to you — I'll disclaim you altogether — 1 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 wlicn 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 1 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 for- 
 gotten 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
 
 ^22 PENDENNIS. 
 
 you come down with the money, and let me go ? Why the devil are 
 you to be rolHng in riches, and me to have none ? Why should you 
 have a house and a table covered with plate, and mc: 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 stor}- 
 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 ever)^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 cheque 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 biU upon me. The luck turned 
 from that minute. Never held the box again for three mains, and 
 came away cleared out, leaving that infernal cheque 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
 
 PENDENms. 423 
 
 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 settle- 
 ment ; 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.
 
 424 PENDEANJS. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIV. 
 
 A CHAPTER OF CONVERSATIONS. 
 
 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 lady- 
 ship 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. Everybody 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 rumours 
 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 men- 
 tion only a few. There was Captain Raff, the honourable 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 appoint- 
 ment 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 rcpre-
 
 PENDENNIS. 
 
 425 
 
 sentative 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 Ainory was tolerably well disposed to renew the little flirta- 
 tion 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 favour 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 
 Avould 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
 
 ^26 PEA'DENNJii. 
 
 bachelors— whom I see in the bow-window at Bays's. Don't look, 
 offended, I only mean that I am blas^ 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 
 Sir 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 thea- 
 tricals 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 everywhere — everj'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 Httle 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 peculiari- 
 ties with, a constant relish, and was always in a good humour 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 proteg^ 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 fare- 
 well 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.
 
 PENDENA^IS. 427 
 
 With his papa he was silent and sulky, seldom making his appearance, 
 however, in the neighbourhood 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 dis- 
 putes 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 forbore 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 
 despatched 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 
 towards that fane in a carriage-and-four, so to speak, and might halt 
 and take refreshment almost whenever he pleased. He wore varnished 
 boots from the earliest period of youth, and had cambric handker- 
 chiefs and lemon-coloured 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 bed-rooms, horse and carriage e.xercise occasion- 
 ally, 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 
 Havannahs, 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 to Lady Clavering or 
 Miss Amory ; and drew rude caricatures, such as arc designed by 
 ingenious youths, in which the Major's wig, his nose, his tie, &c. were
 
 428 PENDEXNIS. 
 
 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 crocker)', 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 verj' 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 neighbour, 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 anybody else, — his mother was 
 dotingly fond of him as the child of her latter days,— his sister dis- 
 liked 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 
 baronet'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
 
 PENDENNIS. 429 
 
 pretty unreservedly to Major Pendennis, and was eager to have his 
 advice and consolation. Major Pendennis became the Begum's con- 
 fidant 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 Amor>-, and foolishly married him. " Oh, you don't know 
 how miserable that man made me," she said, " or what a life I passed 
 betwixt 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 I 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 faithful husband to me. Major Pendennis ; and if 
 he'd died in the gaol before his trial, instead of afterwards, he would 
 have saved me a deal of shame and of unhappiness since, sir." Lady 
 Claverin<^ 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
 
 430 PEjYDENNIS. 
 
 see 'em ; and she sneers at her mother because I haven't had learning 
 and that. How should I ? I was brought up amongst 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 upstairs and wipe my eyes, for they're red with 
 cryin'. And Lady Rockminster's a-comin', and were goin' to 'ave a 
 drive in the Park." And when Lady Rockminster made her appear- 
 ance, 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 humour. 
 
 " Begad, she is not such a bad woman ? " the Major thought 
 within himself. '' She is not refined, certainly, and calls ' Apollo ' 
 'ApoUer ;' 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 brusque, 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 adversar>' discomfitted 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
 
 PENDENNIS. -431 
 
 drawing-room, " I see what is happening. You and mamma have 
 been disagreeing. Mothers and daughters disagree in the best fami- 
 lies. 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 everybody but each other admirable. But they can't live 
 together : they oughtn't to live together : and 1 v.^sh, 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 1 — 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 anything 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 1 was a young 
 fellow like my nephew." 
 
 "And what," continued Miss Amory, musing, "what arc tlic 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 mc— but with my 
 name, and with my little means, what am I to look to ? A rn.;,-fv 
 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
 
 432 
 
 PEXDENA'IS. 
 
 from the mess tipsy and smelling of smoke like Sir Francis Clavering. 
 Tiiat is how we girls are destined to end life. Oh, Major Pendennis, 
 1 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 go into a convent, that I should. I shall never find anybody 
 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— oh ! 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 now- 
 a-days, 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 gpreat 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 repubhcan. 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 t I am 
 dying to see him." 
 
 At this moment a servant threw open the door, and announced 
 Mr. Henry Foker, at which name, and the appearance of our friend, 
 both the lady and the gentleman burst out laughino".
 
 PENDENNIS. 433 
 
 " That is not the man," Major Pendennis said. " He is engaged 
 to his cousin, Lord Gravescnd's daughter. — Good-by, my dear Miss 
 Amory." 
 
 Was Pen growing worldly, and should a man not get the expe- 
 rience 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 pi-pe, and 
 recounting, as his habit was, to his friend the observations and adven- 
 tures 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 honour of a conversation, and 
 patronised 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 
 anybody should think of patronising 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, ' Oh, 
 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, everybody went 
 there — everybody who was in society: and then we talked of the new 
 ambassador 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 Pouler 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 
 oi Fairoaks Castle ? " Warrington said. " Yes, I remember reading 
 of the festivities which occurred when you came of age. The Countess 
 
 28
 
 434 PENDENNIS. 
 
 gave ;i brilliant tea soiree to the neighbouring 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 amongst the 
 poor of the village, and the entrance to the park was illuminated until 
 old Jolin put the candle out on retiring to rest at his usual hour." 
 
 " 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 gaiety 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 verv likely 
 keeps a poor visiting-list ; has conversations with the clerg\-man about
 
 PENDENNIS. 435 
 
 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 neighbour 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 girls' 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 civi- 
 lization. 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, whilst 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 
 gaily till the big bruised brazen one bumps him and sends him down 
 — eh, vogue la galcre ! — 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 poll, and striking out ever so far ahead. 
 Eh, vogue la galcre, 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
 
 436 PENDENNIS. 
 
 for the stake ; an old fogey sits by and smokes the pipe of tranquillity, 
 while Jack and Tom are pummelling 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 amongst 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 cut 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-stricken mystic 
 flies from it altogether, and shuts himself out from it v.ithin 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 paralysed 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 labourer on his way a-fleld ; 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 reveller 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."
 
 PENDENNIS. 437 
 
 CHAPTER XLV. 
 MISS amory's partners. 
 
 THE noble Henry Foker, of whom we have lost sight for a few 
 pages, has been in the meanwhile occupied, as we might sup- 
 pose a man of his constancy would be, in the pursuit and indulgence 
 of his all-absorbing passion of love. 
 
 He longed after her, and cursed the fate which separated him from 
 her. When Lord Gravesend's family retired to the country (his lord- 
 ship 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 
 explodfe 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 honoured 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, amongst 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, pates, galantines, cups of tea, champagne, and so forth, 
 Lady Clavering partook, it does not become us to say. How much
 
 438 PENDENNIS. 
 
 the Major suffered as he followed the honest woman about, calling to 
 the solemn male attendants and lovely servant-maids, and administer- 
 ing 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 
 splendour 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 neighbourhood of Jermyn Street, where his 
 friends Loder, Punter, little Moss Abrams, and Captain Skewball 
 W'Cre 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 INIiss Amor>' 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 w-ould 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 fools- 
 cap ; 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, mechatit, perfectly abominable, and wondered what he 
 would say when her back was turned. 
 
 " Say ! — Say that you have the most beautiful figure and the slim-
 
 PENDENNIS. 439 
 
 mest 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 practised 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 practised 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 Amoiy. 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 
 ) egret, 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. Fokei ! " 
 
 " O, 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 grey 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, flavoured 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 humour. 
 
 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 Log- 
 wood, 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
 
 440 PENDENNIS. 
 
 expressing his opinion against sporting females, and pointing out 
 Lady Bullfinch, who happened to pass by, as a horse-godmother 
 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 
 Ivilled, on which Foker laughed and waltzed with renewed vigour 
 and grace. 
 
 And 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 favourite ? 
 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. 
 
 Uy 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 \Q.ry juncture, Mr. Arthur Pendennis came up with the 
 young lady on his arm. 
 
 The peer made a profound bow, and Blanche the deepest curtsey 
 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. WTiy, 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 expressions of admira- 
 tion 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 honour which had
 
 PENDENNIS. 441 
 
 just been shown to her, and with other intoxicating events of the 
 evening, that her good humour 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 everything that was sweet and 
 flattering, — oh ! what an object he was ! The rings round his eyes 
 were of the colour 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, uncomplaining, 
 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 "i) — 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 humour; 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 worshipper must have looked upwards 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 idolators, — they worship 
 the best thing they know. 
 
 The Pendenniscs, the elder and tlie younger, waited with Lady 
 Clavering and her daughter until her ladyship's carriage was an- 
 nounced, 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 reso- 
 lute in doing his duty. The Begum waved her dumpy little hand by
 
 442 
 
 PENDENNIS. 
 
 way of farewell to Arthur and Foker, and Blanche smiled languidly- 
 cut upon the young men, thinking whether she looked verj- wan and 
 o-rcen under her rose-coloured 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. 
 
 Amongst 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 
 dandified 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 intro- 
 duce into all conversations in spite of the sneers of everybody; at 
 ISIrs. 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 a\%-ful, 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 Claverings 
 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
 
 PENDENNIS. 443 
 
 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 t 
 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 Picca- 
 dilly 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 kind- 
 ness too, at the service of thy friends. Were I in a strait of poverty, 
 I would come to my Poker's purse. Were I in grief, I would discharge 
 my grief upon his sympathising 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 valour ! 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. Fm thinking of 
 marrying, old boy. Fm thinking of becoming a moral man ; a steady 
 port and sherry character : with a good reputation in my qiiartier, 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
 
 .U4 PENDENNIS. 
 
 do you know about money ? What is poverty to you, is splendour to 
 the hardy son of the humble apothecarj'. You can't live without an 
 establishment, and your houses in town and country. A snug Httle 
 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 tr)', 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 Grosv'enor Street, as they talked, or 
 rather as Pen talked, in the selfish fulness of his heart ; and Mr. Pen 
 must have been too much occupied with his own affairs to remark the 
 concern and agitation of his neighbour, 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. " Conimc ca" 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 — 1 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 towards 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. Poker's door by this time, and, opening it, Harry 
 walked with his friend into his apartments, which were situated in the
 
 PENDENNIS. 445 
 
 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 anything it ain't. Talking about 
 money and such a girl as that, it's — it's — what d'ye caW'^m— 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, eyeing 
 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 anything 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
 
 446 PENDENNIS. 
 
 eno-ao-ement with your cousin ? You know iiim very well, and that he 
 would cast you off rather than do so." 
 
 The unhappy Foker only groaned a reply, flinging himself prostrate 
 on a sofa, face forwards, 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 oft" with 
 a laugh — " Well, never mind what she said, Harry. Miss Amor)- is a 
 clever girl, and says numbers of civil things — to you — to me, perhaps 
 — and who the deuce knows to whom besides 1 -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. Goodnight! 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, ]\Ir. Arthur Pendennis, giving a very queer and rather 
 dangerous look at his companion, shook him by the hand, with some- 
 thing 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. Caunt before they fight each other for the champions 
 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.
 
 PENDENNIS. 447 
 
 "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 almo&t 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 shrivelled 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 your- 
 self 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 wilfully or fatally astray, whilst the natural truth and love 
 which should illumine him grow 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 gor- 
 geously 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?
 
 448 PENDENNIS. 
 
 CHAPTER XLVI. 
 
 MONSEIGNEUR S'AMUSE, 
 
 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. Parlia- 
 ment 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 v.as now come to a conclusion : Pen's neighbours, the 
 lawyers, were gone upon circuit, and his more fashionable friends had 
 taken their passports for the continent, or had fled for health or excite- 
 ment to the Scotch moors. Scarce a man was to be seen in the bow- 
 windows of the clubs, or on the solitary Pall Mall pavement. The 
 red jackets had disappeared from before the Palace-gate : the trades- 
 men of St. James's were abroad taking their pleasure : the tailors had 
 grown mustachios 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 clerg)-men of St. James's only preached to half a congrega- 
 tion, 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 brothers 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 charge-d'affaires during the temporary absence
 
 PENDENNIS. 449 
 
 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 dlase and wearied of life, yet the truth 
 is that he was an exceedingly healthy young fellow still ; with a tine 
 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 anything but misanthropical. If he could not get a good dinner 
 he sate down to a bad one with entire contentment ; if he could not pro- 
 cure 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 
 parlour or on board a Greenwich steamboat, or in a jaunt to Hamp- 
 
 i stead with Mr. Finucane, his colleague at the " Pall Mall Gazette;" or 
 in a visit to the summer theatres across the river : or to the Royal 
 Gardens of Vauxhall, v.'here 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 humour that 
 was not deprived of sympathy, he could look on with an eye of kind- 
 ness at the lookers on too ; at the roystering youth bent upon enjoy- 
 ment, 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 ardour for art or music, or 
 natural science, Mr. Pen said that anthropology was his favourite 
 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 coquetting 
 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 whilst 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 
 humour 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 1 have burned out that 
 flame for ever, 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-looldrig 
 
 20
 
 450 PEA'DEALYIS. 
 
 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 everj'thing. But 
 you began to use the bear's-grease pot directly the hairdresser 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 whilst 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 news- 
 paper office a brilliant leading article — such as Captain Shandon 
 himself might have written, had the Captain been in good humour, 
 and inclined to work, which he never would do except under com- 
 pulsion — 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 fireworks 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 splendours 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
 
 PENDENNIS. 451 
 
 wore a short and shabby cloak in an excessively smart manner, was 
 crying out in a voice which Pen at once recognised — 
 
 " Bedad, sir, if ye doubt me honour, will ye obleege me by slipping 
 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 quar'l with this gintleman, at anyreet 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 har'ly 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 
 check-taker 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 recognising 
 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 towards 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 favourite 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 how 
 could he refuse his sympathy in such a case as this .-* He had seen
 
 452 
 
 FENDENNIS. 
 
 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 him- 
 self. 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 — 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 oi z. grand seigiietir, 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 
 grey 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 demeanour. 
 
 " 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 curtsey, 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 j her tears had dried 
 up, her cheek mantled with youthful blushes, and her eyes glistened 
 with pleasure and gratitude, as she looked up into Arthurs kind face. 
 
 Arthur, in a protecting way, put his other hand upon the little one 
 resting on his arm. " Fannys a ver)' 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 
 curtsey ; " and I've never been at "Vauxhall, sir, and Pa didn't like me 
 to go— and— and— 0—0— 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 
 splendour such as the finest fairy tale, the finest pantomime she had 
 ever witnessed at the theatre, had never realised. Pen was pleased
 
 PENDENNIS. 453 
 
 with her pleasure, and pressed to his side the Utile hand which clung 
 so kindly to him. " What would I not give for a little of this 
 pleasure ? " said the blas^ 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 pre- 
 server. Pen, (I've known 'um since choildhood, Mrs. Bolton ; he's the 
 proprietor of Fairoaks Castle, and many's the cooper of clar't I've 
 dthrunk there with the first nobilitee of his neetive countee) — Mr. Pen- 
 dennis, 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 bis courtesy to the ladies, what was his 
 splendour 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 patronising and affable 
 manner pointing out to them the edifices worthy of note, and dis- 
 coorsing, 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 honour of an acquaintance. Nor could it be expected, 
 that, arrived in the Royal property, and strongly illuminated by the 
 flare of the twenty thousand additional lamps, the Captain could 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 colour 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 there. Of course there were votaries of 
 pleasure of all ranks in the garden — 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 Made- 
 moiselle Caracoline, who had been riding in the ring ; and who talked 
 her native French very loud, and used idiomatic expressions of exceed- 
 ing strength as she walked about, leaning on the arm of his lordship.
 
 454 PENDENNIS, 
 
 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, " Hov\- 
 are you, old boy?" and looked extremely knowing at the godfather 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 patronise 
 the j'oung 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 briUiant; her teeth 
 were like little pearls ; her mouth w-as almost as red as Mademoiselle 
 Caracohne'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 verj- lately, indeed, 
 that Fanny, when looking in the little glass over the Bows-Costigan 
 mantelpiece 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 (]\Iiss Minifers. 
 Newcastle Street, Strand ; Miss M., the younger sister, took the lead- 
 ing 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 Fannj-'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 amongst them one or 
 two of the acquaintances of Mr. Arthur Pendennis. 
 
 Amongst 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 Henr)' was trj'ing to ease his mind by 
 
 i
 
 PENDENNIS. 455 
 
 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 towards him with no little kindness and 
 pity — but Harry did not see the beautiful dark eyes. 
 
 " 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 shirt-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 daresay ? 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 1 — 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 
 
 H of his card-case with his teeth produced thence a visiting ticket, which 
 
 H - he handed to Pen. 
 
 H " You are exceedingly kind, I am sure," said Pen ; " but I regret
 
 456 PENDENNIS. 
 
 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. Pen- 
 dcnnis's papa had been a surgeon and apothecarj' 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 fireworks 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 
 firework 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 fireworks, or in their absence by the moon. Arthur 
 sav/ 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 oh, oh, oh, as the rockets soared into 
 the air, and showered down in azure, and emerald, and vermilion. As 
 tliese wonders blazed and disappeared before her, the little girl thrilled 
 and trembled with delight at Arthurs side— her hand was under his 
 arm still, he felt it pressing him as she looked up delighted. 
 
 '■ How beautiful thev are, sir ! " she cried.
 
 PENDENNIS. 457 
 
 " 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, ver)' 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 
 anything 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 fireworks. You must know I live by 
 myself, and work very hard. I write in books and newspapers, 
 Fanny; and I was quite tiied 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 grammarians' 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 Pen- 
 dennis made any use of the monosyllable in question ? Not so. In 
 the first place, it was dark: the fireworks 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 what- 
 ever 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
 
 458 PENDENNIS. 
 
 play with this httle girl's heart,'' he said within himself, " and forget 
 my own or her honour. She seems to have a great deal of dangerous 
 and rather contagious sensibility, and I am very glad the fireworks 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 eager- 
 ness, 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 fireworks, didn't we 1 " 
 
 " O yes ! " said Miss Fanny, with rather a demure look. 
 
 " And the bouquet was magnificent," said Pen. " And it is ten 
 hours since I had anything 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 collection," 
 
 Mrs. Bolton with considerable asperity said. She 'ad an 'eadache, 
 and would much rather go 'ome. 
 
 " 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 ?klrs. Bolton angry with me, 
 unless she will favour 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-humoured 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 favourite dish ; upon which the young creature said she 
 was fond of lobster, too, but also owned to a partiality for raspbern,'- 
 tart. This delicacy was provided by Pen, and a bottle of the most
 
 PENDENNIS. 459 
 
 frisky champagne was moreover ordered for the dehght 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 dis- 
 charged by Pen with great generosity,—" loike 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-humour 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 humour, 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), Fann/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 pre- 
 viously claimed Pen's acquaintance ; and, having run against Arthur 
 and his partner, and nearly knocked them down, this amiable gentle- 
 man 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
 
 46o PENDENNIS. 
 
 abuse by the shrill language and laughter of his partner ; — to the inter- 
 ruption of the ball, the terror of poor little Fanny, and the immense 
 indignation of Pen. 
 
 Arthur was furious ; and not so angrj- 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 Cos- 
 tigan, and poor Fanny underground, rather than there, in his com- 
 panionship, 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, Marj-," 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 stor)-, 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, everj- 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 honour, and winked knowingly at Pen, but Arthur said gallantly, 
 " No, Fanny, don't be frightened. It w^as 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,
 
 PENDENNIS. 461 
 
 and caught him by the coat, and implored him and besought him to 
 come in. 
 
 " Will nothing satisfy you," said Pen, in great good-humour, " 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 anything about 
 the dispute.
 
 462 PENDENNTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XLVII. 
 
 A VISIT OF POLITENESS. 
 
 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 blase 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 night-cap ; a la\vyer rouses himself with the early 
 morning to think of the case that wiU 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 labour! 
 
 Mr. Pendennis's labour, or rather his disposition, was of that sort 
 that his daily occupations did not much interest him, for the excite- 
 ment of literary composition pretty soon subsides with the hired 
 labourer, 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 jNIall Gazette " (and since his success as a novelist with an 
 increased salar}'), 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 amongst 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
 
 PENDENNIS. 463 
 
 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, grum- 
 bled 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 minauderies 
 of the young ladies in the ball-rooms " (and here he recalled to him- 
 self 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 voilees 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 1 He's a 
 dear old fellow, old Bows : a gentleman in those old clothes : a philo- 
 sopher, 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 re/// 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 dandified protecting air, his conceit, generosity, 
 and good humour, 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
 
 464 PENDENNIS. 
 
 cupboard, along with those two little sisters to whom we have seen 
 Mr. Costigan administering gingerbread 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. Periodi<;al 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 
 realisation 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 pro- 
 tecting 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, Avho 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 apart- 
 ment, " Mamma, mamma," and ran to the wicket at once, and opened 
 it, pushing aside the other children. How she blushed as she gave
 
 PENDENNIS. 465 
 
 her hand to him ! How affably he took off his white hat as he came 
 in ; the children staring at him ! He asked Mrs. Bolton if she had 
 slept well, after the fatigues of the night, and hoped she had no head- 
 ache ; 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 humour 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 
 Kighness'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 
 Tredyddlurn ; 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 jewellery, 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 Fr 
 
 in society. 
 
 " Oh, 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 wc 
 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 ? "
 
 466 PENDENNIS. 
 
 Fanny loved her mother for that speech. She cast up her dark 
 eyes to the low ceiling and said, " Oh, 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, v/hich, 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 theatre — 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 philoso- 
 phers who have examined this science. 
 
 So the offer of the play-tickets, and other pleasantries, put all 
 parties into perfect good-humour, except for one brief moment, when 
 one of the younger children, hearing the name of "Astley's" pro- 
 nounced, 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, " Get-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 
 
 I
 
 PENDENNIS. 467 
 
 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 tne, 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.
 
 468 PENDEXNJS. 
 
 CHAPTER XLVIII. 
 
 IN SHEPHERD'S INN. 
 
 OUR friend Pen said, " How d'ye do, Mr. Bows?" in a loud cheer>- 
 voice on perceiving that gentleman, and saluted him in a dash- 
 ing 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 iNIr. 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 everybody. 
 
 " 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 honour, I am sure. They are rather high up ; but — " 
 
 "Oh! 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 dis- 
 courteous — that the air up three pair of stairs is wholesomer for 
 gentlemen than the air of a porter's lodge."
 
 PENDENNIS. 469 
 
 " Sir ! " said Pen, whose candle flamed up again in his wrath, and 
 who was disposed to be as quarrelsome as men are when they arc in 
 the wrong. " Will you perm\t me to choose my society without — " 
 
 " You were so polite as to say that you were about to honour my 
 
 'umble domicile with a visit," Mr. Bows said, with his sad voice. 
 
 " Shall I show you the way ? Mr. Pendennis and I are old friends, 
 
 I Mrs. Bolton — very old acquaintances ; and at the earliest dav/n of his 
 
 life we crossed each other." 
 
 The old man pointed towards 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 masque- 
 rading, as Pen knew very well, though he was disposed to pooh-pooh 
 the old fellow's melo-dramatic 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, on'y 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 Em'ly Budd, who danced Columbine in 
 I * 'Arleykin 'Ornpipe, or the Battle of Navarino,' when Miss de la Bosky 
 i 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 ; 
 I 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 'ad 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— Captain Costigan's daughter— she was pro- 
 feshn'l, 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 dravv'er 
 in the tabic.
 
 470 PENDENNIS. 
 
 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 infomiation 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 glow- 
 ing 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 sho\\"n 
 an intimate acquaintance with Arthur's funded and landed property. 
 A^ery 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-going 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 comer of the 
 place;, and making believe to read out of a picture-book, which one of 
 thei^ 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 coun- 
 tenance feU 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."
 
 PENDENNIS. 471 
 
 "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 s/ie 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 anything 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 deshabille 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 bed-room, scented himself with otto 
 of whisky. A rich odour 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 wofuUy : 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 litho- 
 graphed 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 laboured 
 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
 
 472 
 
 PENDENNIS. 
 
 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 some- 
 thing. 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. 
 
 Meanv.'hile, 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, re- 
 membered 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 a 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 towards 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 whilst the Cap- 
 tain was talking, and Pen himself was absorbed in other selfish medi- 
 tations. 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.
 
 PENDENNIS. 473 
 
 Confound him, what docs he mean by dogging me ? thougJit Pen. 
 And he burst out laughing, when he was in the Strand and by him- 
 self, 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 humour. 
 
 He went off to endeavour 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 or 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 Theatre 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 emi- 
 nent 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 lirst night of his arrival in London, a short time — 
 what a long long time ago !
 
 474 PENDENNIS. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIX. 
 
 IN OR NEAR THE TEMPLE GARDEN. 
 
 FASHION has long deserted the green and prettj- Temple Garden, 
 in which Shakspeare makes York and Lancaster to pluck the 
 innocent white and red roses which became the badges of their blood}' 
 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 th j 
 present occupiers of the buildings round about the quarter know or car. . 
 very likely, whether or not roses grow there, or pass the old gate, excej 
 on their way to chambers. The attorneys' clerks don't carry flov.-ers 
 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 literarj' 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, New- 
 bury has sent. Treading heavily on the gravel, and rolling majes- 
 tically along in a snuff-coloured 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 the port wine that they had been taking at the Mitre), and 
 Mr. Johnson asks Mr. Goldsmith to come home and take a dish of 
 tea with Miss Williams. Kind faith of Fancy ! Sir Roger 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 neighbourhood 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.
 
 PEN'DEN'JVr^. 475 
 
 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 youiig Tiger, the student, from whose open 
 windows comes a great gush of cigar-smoke, and at whose door are a 
 quantity of dishes and covers, bearing the insignia of Dick's 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 neighbourhood 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 wharfs 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 downwards 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 on the 
 young man's face? He beat time on the bench to the chorus of the
 
 476 PENDENNIS. 
 
 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 towards the east. 
 
 One cried out '' Oh ! ■' the other began to laugh ; and with a know- 
 ing little infantine chuckle, said " Missa Pen-dennis !" And Arthur, 
 looking down, saw his two little friends of the day before, Mes- 
 demoiselles 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 countr}- 
 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
 
 PEiYDENNIS. 477 
 
 acquaintances met together, just like so many people in genteel life. 
 What could be more artless, good-natured, or natural ? 
 
 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 colours, his light waistcoat, gold chains, 
 and shirt-studs, gave him the air of a prince of the blood at least. 
 How his splendour became his figure ! Was anybody 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 wont 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 ! 
 
 If Arthur was red, Fanny, on the contrarj', 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 hQx 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 — Naera — I don't know the pronounciation. 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.
 
 478 PEiXDENNIS. 
 
 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 perfauru- 
 mance, though he intended to teak an early opporchunitee of pur- 
 chasing 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 (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 informa- 
 tion 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 her 'ave it without a seve- 
 ring : 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 IMr. Bows.
 
 PENDENNIS. 479 
 
 " 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 centre 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 
 vv^ent away, the children dragging wearily after them, and returned 
 to Mr. Bolton, who was immersed in rum-and-water at his lodgings 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 bookcase and 
 battered library. Pen's writing-table with its litter of papers, presented 
 an aspect cheerless enough. " Will you like to look in the bed-rooms, 
 Mr. Bows, and see if my victims are there?" he said bitterly; "or 
 whether I have made away with the httle girls, and hid them in the 
 coal-hole ? " 
 
 " Your word is sufficient, Mr. Pendennis," the other eaid 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 acquaint- 
 ances for me," Arthur said, in a haughty tone ; " and to suppose that 
 anybody 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 some-
 
 48o PENDENNIS. 
 
 thing." 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 ? Oh 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 
 afterwards, 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. WTiat 
 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 sorr>' 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 Thornberr}' slaps his breast, and asks my lord how dare he 
 trample on an honest man and poke out an Englishman's fireside; 
 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 her-
 
 PENDENNIS. 481 
 
 self 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 1 
 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 com- 
 menced 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 everything 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 .'' " 
 
 " I am guiltless of that, at least," Arthur said, with something of a 
 sigh. " Upon my word of honour, I wish I had never seen the girl. 
 My caUing is not seduction, Mr. Bows. I did not imagine that I had 
 made an impression on poor Fanny, until — until to-night. And then, 
 sir, I was sorry, and was flying from my temptation, as you came 
 upon me. And," he added, with a glow upon his cheek, which, in 
 the gathering darkness, his companion could not see, and with an 
 audible tremor in his voice, " I do not mind telling you, sir, that on 
 this sabbath evening, as the church bells wc-re ringing, I thought of 
 
 31
 
 482 PENDENNIS. 
 
 my own home, and of women angelically pure and good, who dwell 
 there; and I was running hither as I met you, that I might avoid the 
 danger which besets me, and ask strength of God Almighty to do 
 my duty." 
 
 After these words from Arthur a silence ensued, and when the con- 
 versation was resumed by his guest, the latter spoke in a tone which 
 was much more gentle and friendly. And on taking farewell of Pen, 
 Bows asked leave to shake hands with him, and with a very warm 
 ?.nd affectionate greeting on both sides, apologised to Arthur for having 
 mistaken him, and paid him some compliments which caused the 
 young man to squeeze his old friend's hand heartily again. And as 
 they parted at Pen's door, Arthur said he had given a promise, and he 
 hoped and trusted that Mr. Bows might rely on it ? 
 
 " Amen to that prayer," said Mr. Bows, and went slowly down the 
 stair.
 
 PENDENNIS, 4«3 
 
 CHAPTER L. 
 
 THE HAPry 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 con- 
 cerning it were not carried to any very great length. Mr. Samuel 
 Huxter, the gentleman whose acquaintance we lately made at Vaux- 
 hall, 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, whilst 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 Burger)', 
 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, 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 whitewashed mansion, with capa- 
 cious 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 he and Sam indulged in the 
 pleasures of the town together. Ascot, the theatres, Vauxhall, and the 
 convivial taverns in the joyous neighbourhood of Covent Garden, were 
 visited by the vivacious squire, in company with his learned brother.
 
 484 PENDENNIS. 
 
 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 amuse- 
 ments 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. Hu>*'ir, only 
 three days after the rencontre at Vauxhall. Faithful to his '.ow, he 
 had not been to see little Fanny. He was trj-ing to drive her from his 
 mind by occupation, or other mental excitement. He laboured, 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 theatres 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, 
 Arthurs eyes lighted upon Mr. Huxter, who had been to the theatre, 
 like himself, and, with two or three comrades, now entered the room. 
 Huxter whispered to his companions, greatly to Pen's annoyance.
 
 PENDEA'NJS. 485 
 
 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-humour with himself and the world, 
 it never entered his mind that he could be disagreeable to anybody ; 
 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 offence^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 recognise mc. 
 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 tlie 
 president of the room ; who bawled out, " Silence, gentlemen ; da 
 have silence for the Body Snatcher ! " which popular song began as 
 Pen left the Back-Kitchen. He flattered himself that he had com- 
 manded 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
 
 48,6 PF.iXDENNIS. 
 
 and water, the quarrel — nothing soothed him. He slept no better 
 than on the previous night. 
 
 A few days afterwards, 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 behaviour 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 hoiust peoples 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 humbitg was practising his 
 infernal arts ; and he thought he should warn her father, &c. Sec. — 
 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 favours. 
 
 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 Mira- 
 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. 
 
 Mira 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 Honourable 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. 
 Madame Fribsby, looking furtively up at her picture of the Dragoon, 
 and inwards into her own wounded memor}-, 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 I Mrs. Port- 
 man was afraid that she must acknowledge that the mother's fatal 
 partiality had spoiled this boy, that his literar\' successes had turned
 
 PENDENNIS. 487 
 
 his head, and his horrid passions had made him forget the principles 
 which Doctor 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 anything 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 or 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 wont'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 
 handwriting, 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
 
 488 PENDENNIS. 
 
 aptitude for receiving any report unfavourable to his neighbours), 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, Dr. 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 rector)' 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 rumours that were against him, and earnestly 
 praying that he would break off and repent of a connexion so fatal to 
 his best interests and his soul's welfare. 
 
 And Laura ? — was her heart not w-rung by the thought of Arthur's 
 crime and Ellen'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 ?
 
 PENDENNIS. 489 
 
 CHAPTER LI. 
 
 WHICH HAD VERY NEARLY BEEN THE LAST OF THE STORY. 
 
 DOCTOR PORTMAN'S letter was sent ofif to its destination in 
 London, and the worthy clergyman endeavoured to soothe 
 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 inareasiug 
 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 suppli- 
 cations, 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 a 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
 
 490 PENDENNIS. 
 
 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 faith- 
 fully 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. 
 
 Those kind readers who have watched Mr. Arthur's career hitherto, 
 and have made, as they naturally would do, observations upon the 
 moral chai-acter 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 moodily when called on to pay his share, and savagely 
 grumbled at being obliged to forego anything 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
 
 PENDENNIS. 491 
 
 the sitting-room? Into this sohtude 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 Christ- 
 mas 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, amiably spread 
 out on his reading-table. Add to these scenes an appalling picture of 
 the 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 smoothe 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 the next 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 en- 
 deavoured, 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 gentle- 
 man 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 ;
 
 492 
 
 PENDENNIS. 
 
 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 recognised 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 intro- 
 ducing 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 afterwards, 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 endeavoured 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 \cr\ 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 bed-room 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 wnth great gravity — (his own tremulous and clammy hand 
 growing steady for the instant while his finger pressed Arthurs 
 throbbing vein) — the pulse was beating very fiercely — Pen's face was 
 haggard and hot — his eyes were bloodshot and gloom\- ; his " bird,"'
 
 PENDENNIS. 493 
 
 as the Captain pronounced the word, afterwards 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 
 I about Fanny — how was little Fanny ? 
 
 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, whilst 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 word, 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 hght. 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 wevy 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. 
 
 " Pve 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 admira- 
 tion 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 
 romantic attachments for Miss Costigan," she said : " I don't want to 
 hear about 'em." 
 
 "He wanted to marry her; but their ages were quite dispropor-
 
 494 PENDENlYIS. 
 
 tionate : 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. I\Ir. 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 marrj'ing. 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 ver)- kind. Then he came to call 
 and ask after us : and very, very good it was of such a grand gentle- 
 man 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 con- 
 versation 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 stiil of the same mind, and pro- 
 mising 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 
 aU his dangers ! And if ever}-body admires Pauline — and I'm sure 
 everybody does, for being so true to a poor man — why should a gentle- 
 man 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,
 
 PENDENNIS. 49i 
 
 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 fam'ly 
 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 wiU 
 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 aide-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 lookin' 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 practise, and with which weapons of defence nature
 
 496 PENDENNIS. 
 
 endows them, the traces of her emotion disappeared ; and she went 
 and took her work, and sate in the comer so demure and quiet, that 
 the careless male parent never suspected that anything 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 endeavouring to repress 
 her flame only augmented this unlucky fe\'er. 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 aad 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 their 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 w^ould 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 versa : 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 the 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 towards 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 \Qxy evening after Costigan hnd visited Pen,
 
 PE\J)EA'XIS. 497 
 
 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 enaged 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 foi 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 
 anybody with Mr. Arthur 1 
 
 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 abso- 
 lutely impossible that he should attend to anybody but himself. But 
 the young man must have advice — the best advice; and Morgan was 
 straightway despatched 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. Pen- 
 dennis with the greatest alacrity, and at the same time with the most 
 
 32
 
 498 PENDENNIS. 
 
 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 honour, that if he could be of any 
 use he would rush to Pen's chambers. As it was, Morgan should go 
 and see that everything was right. The Doctor must write to him by 
 every post to Stillbrook : it was but forty miles distant from London, 
 and if anything 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 ver)- 
 unhappy and gloomy in demeanour. Wagg and Wenham rallied him 
 about his low spirits; asked whether he was crossed in love.' and other- 
 wise 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 fellbw 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 neighbouring station, and a 
 grey-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
 
 PENDENNIS. 499 
 
 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 1 " cried Lord Steyne, with 
 his strident voice. " Anything 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 travelling-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, " Nee tenui penna," 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 sistci"'s arm and kissed her 
 hand; and the three entered into Lamb Court, and mounted the long 
 gloomy stair. 
 
 They knocked ver}' gently at the door, on which Arthur's name was 
 written, and it was opened by Fanny Bolton.
 
 5oo 
 
 PENDENNIS, 
 
 CHAPTER LI I. 
 
 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 afterwards ; there was no more expres- 
 sion 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 sj-mpathy 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. 
 
 " 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 under- 
 stand." 
 
 "Yes, ma'am. I — this is the way to his— Oh, 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 cr\', 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 hurray 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 in to him." And the widow hastily pushed by little 
 Fanny, and through the dark passage which led into Pen's sitting-room.
 
 PENDENNIS. 501 
 
 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 
 tlie 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." 
 
 " Oh, 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 Doctoi-'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 
 printers devil used to sit so many hours ; tapped her pale cheek with 
 his finger, and bustled into the further room. 
 
 Mrs. Pendennis was esconced 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 travelled. 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 they were at home at 
 Fairoaks ; and began to talk and chatter and laugh in a rambling 
 wild way. Laura could hear him outside. PI is laughter shot shafts 
 of poison into her heart. It was true then. He had been guilty — 
 and with //mi creature I — an intrigue with a servant-maid ; and she 
 had loved him — and lie was dying most likely — raving and unre- 
 
 '6 ^ W^
 
 502 
 
 PENDENNIS. 
 
 pentant. 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 pr)-ing into his face, to know if there is hope 
 for the sick infant that cannot 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 7nust 
 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 survavors, if the case is unfortunate — how immense the 
 delight of victor)' ! 
 
 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 everjthing 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 Pen- 
 dennis aside into the vacant room (W'arrington'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.
 
 PENDENNIS. 503 
 
 " 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 anything 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 humour will arise, and such smiles will pass, to satirize 
 the gloom, as it were, and to make it more gloomy ! 
 
 " 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, Har- 
 bottle, 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 straight- 
 way, 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 compound- 
 ing ; 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 laun- 
 dress, and the kind physician himself, as they passed out of the cham- 
 bers 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 his 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, now-a- 
 days — 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
 
 504 PENBENNIS. 
 
 with the Doctor's behaviour and skill, that, whenever he met Dr. 
 (loodenough'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 glon,' 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 literar)- 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 glorj- 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 in- 
 scription was by Mr. Birch, tutor to the young baronet. 
 
 This priceless gem of art the widow detennined to devote to Good- 
 enough, the preserver of her son; and there was scarcely any other 
 favour which her gratitude would not have conferred upon him, except 
 one, which he desired most, and which was that she should tliink a 
 little charitably and kindly of poor Fanny, of whose artless, sad stor\-, 
 he had got something during his interviews with her, and of whom he 
 w;is 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 v.idow'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 in- 
 formed 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 it rivalry and emulation in ladies. 
 
 Some of those mischievous and prosaic people who carp and calcu-
 
 PENDENNIS. 505 
 
 late 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 pos- 
 sible 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 everybody in 
 the Temple was out of town, and that there was scarcely a single occu- 
 pant of Pen's house in Lamb Court except those who were engaged 
 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. 
 
 Everybody, we have said, was out of town, and of course such a 
 fashionable man as young Mr. Sibwright, who had 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 
 bed-room 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 flovrer of Baker Street, Percy Sibwright, 
 could have known who was the occupant of his bed-room, 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 Cam- 
 ford 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 bed-room 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 bear's-grease pots, quite curious to 
 examine, too; and a choice selection of portraits of females, almost 
 always in sadness and generally in disguise or ddshabille, glittered 
 round the neat walls of his elegant little bower of repose. Medora with 
 dishevelled hair was consoling herself over her banjo for the absence 
 of her Conrad — the Princcsse Flcur de Marie (of Rudolstein and the 
 Mysteres 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
 
 5o6 PENDENNIS. 
 
 elei,'ant 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 anything 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. ]\Ir. 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 cannot 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 cannot help peeping at the shops on the 
 wa)-, or at our neighbour'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 
 humour, 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 my- 
 self 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 SibwTight 
 was a bachelor and before he got a count>^ 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 sup- 
 pose that Pen could have been very ill upstairs; otherwise, though 
 she had growTi 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.
 
 PENDENNJS. 507 
 
 But all sorts of events had occurred in the course of the last few 
 days which had contributed to increase or account for her gaiety, 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 neighbourhood of 
 Mrs. Flanagan (who during Pen's illness required more spirituous con- 
 solation 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 Wanrington's straw mattress, and among his mathematical 
 books, as has been already described. 
 
 It is true that ere that day a great and delightful alteration in 
 Pen's condition had taken place. The fever, subjugated by Dr. Good- 
 enough's blisters, potions, and lancet, had left the young man, or 
 only returned at intervals of feeble intermittence ; 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 hungiy. 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 con- 
 valescence become feebler with increasing years, as other joys do 
 — and then — and then comes that illness when one does not con- 
 valesce at all. 
 
 On the day of this happy event, too, came another arrival in 
 Lamb Court. This was introduced into the Pcn-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 viola- 
 tion of those natural laws some great ethical truth is to be advanced)
 
 5o8 PENDENNIS. 
 
 — in fine, Warrington only appeared with the rest of the good hick 
 upon the lucky day after Pen's convalescence may have been said to 
 have begun. 
 
 His surprise was, after all, not verj^ 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 traveller 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 Warring- 
 ton'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. ! 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 succour 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 tlien turn- 
 ing round towards 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 cheer)^ 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
 
 PENDENNJS. 509 
 
 happy, she would have hked to kiss George. Then, and after the 
 ifriends had had a brief, very brief interview, the dehghted and. in- 
 exorable mother, giving her hand to Warrington, sent him out of the 
 room too, back to Laura and the Major, who had not resumed their 
 jplay of Cymbeline where they had left it off at the arrival of the rightful 
 lowner of Pen's chambers.
 
 5IO PENDENNIS. 
 
 CHAPTER LIII. 
 
 CONVALESCENCE. 
 
 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 Avith 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 from his bodily ailment, his mental 
 malady had likewise quitted him, and he was no more in love mth 
 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 anatomised 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 him- 
 self 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 ver)^ well disposed towards 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 towards 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,
 
 PENDENNIS. 511 
 
 but I'm not sure that he was not ashamed of the very satisfoction 
 which he experienced. It is pleasant, perhaps, but it is humihating 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 
 I 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 realise them with accuracy, or distinguish them from 
 what he knew to be delusions which had occurred and were remem- 
 bered 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 INIrs. 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 
 lis 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 
 ubject. Mr. Warrington finishes a man, and lays his cuts neat and 
 egular, straight down the back, and drawing blood every line ; " at
 
 512 PEXDENXIS. 
 
 •\vhich dreadful metaphor, Mrs. Shandon said, " Law, Charles, how can 
 you talk so ! I always thought Mr. Warrington ver}- 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 itcrabimus asquor ' — 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 perform- 
 ances, and discoursed about them with his usual savage energ)-. His 
 hand was too strong for such small subjects, and it pleased him to tell 
 Arthurs 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 countr}', 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 wilful- 
 ness, and a little selfishness, and a little dandification, I don't know a 
 more honest, or loyal, or gentle creature. His pen is wicked some- 
 times, 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 Suftblk 
 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 vcr>- 
 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 whilst the Major was talking and praising 
 Arthur's hero. As she looked at ^\'arrington's manly face, and dark, 
 melancholy eyes, this young person had been speculating about him,
 
 PENDENNIS. 513 
 
 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 Flag 
 Court ; 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 honour 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 everybody in the Gardens, and there 
 are beadles, you know, and that sort of thing — ever>'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 colour 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 alanning 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 defences which a woman has in her heart, her 
 faith, and honour, 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 
 
 33
 
 5,4 PEN DENNIS. 
 
 and a beard like another, and is all for the sack practice, Bismillah ! 
 Hut, 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 ver>' sure of the fact before you 
 order the barge out : and don't pop your subject into the Bosphorus, 
 until you arc 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 way, 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 honour 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, humour, 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 finer}- 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 wath sweet re- 
 spect 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 rhe Prophet, again he says. He wears a 
 beard, and he likes his women to be slaves. WTiat man doesn't? 
 W hat man would be henpecked, I say ? We will cut ofif all the heads 
 in Chnstendom or Turkeydom rather than that. 
 
 Well, then, Arthur being so languid, and indifferent, and careless 
 about the favours bestowed upon him, how came it that Laura should
 
 PENDENNIS. 515 
 
 have such a love and rapturous regard for him, that a mare inadequate 
 expression of it should have kept the girl talking all the way from 
 Fairoaks to London, as she and Helen travelled 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 sen- 
 tence (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 affec- 
 tions 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 Some- 
 body : 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-flower 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 anybody else at 
 Fairoaks except Doctor Portman and Captain Glanders, and because 
 his mother constantly praised her Arthur, and because he was gentle- 
 man-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 -ihe
 
 5,6 PEA'DENNIS. 
 
 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 
 lind 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 lono- time afterwards, when these days were over, and Fate in its 
 own way had disposed of the various persons now assembled in the 
 ding}' building in Lamb Court, perhaps some of them looked back and 
 thou"-ht 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 favourable opinion of Sep- 
 tember in London from that time forward, and declared at his clubs 
 and in society that the dead season in town was often pleasant, doosed 
 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 stair- 
 case with quite a benevolent activity and perseverance. And he made 
 interest with the chef at Bays's (that renowned cook, the superin- 
 tendence 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 sherr)- 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 flavour), but the invalid 
 was greatly invigorated by it, and Warrington pronounced it super- 
 latively 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
 
 PENDENNIS. 517 
 
 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. Every- 
 body was kindly disposed towards 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 gentle- 
 man, 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 tune 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 hannony; and he could watch, with a con- 
 stant 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 con- 
 duct him ; and then the Major and Mr. Warrington, and sometimes 
 Miss Laura, would have a game at ecarte or backgammon ; or she would 
 sit by working a pair of slippers in worsted — a pair of gentleman's slip- 
 pers — they might have been for Arthur or for George or for Major Pen 
 dennis: one of those three would have given anything for the slippers, 
 
 Whilst 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 listen- 
 ing 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
 
 51 S PENDENNIS. 
 
 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 
 sword which hung up in gantleman's room," — meaning the Damascus 
 scimetar with the name of the Prophet engraved on the blade, and the 
 red-veh'et 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 Mullingars fancy ball, 
 Gloucester Square, Hyde Park. It entangled itself in Miss Kewseys 
 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-11-r's 
 lady), and led to ev^ents which have nothing to do with this histon-. 
 Is not Miss Kewsey now Mrs. Sibwright? Has Sibwright not got a 
 county court ? — Good night, Laura and Fairoaks Martha. Sleep well 
 ind 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 enthu- 
 siastic the Major, who, as we know, used to dislike her, had grown to 
 be regarding the young lady. — " Dev'lish fine girl, begad. Devlish 
 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 wTOte 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 depart- 
 ing f; lend with sad longing, and began to long for jelly or tea, or what
 
 PENDENNIS. 519 
 
 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 befel 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 vigour, 
 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 impu- 
 dence 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 bed-room ; and 
 a week afterwards 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, 2Ln6. petits jeux innocens: so that the second and third floors 
 of Number 6, Lamb Court, Temple, rang with more cheerfulness and 
 laughter than had been known in those precincts for many a long day.
 
 520 PE.XDEXyiS. 
 
 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 Rich- 
 mond for change of air. The antique travelling 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 cheer- 
 less 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 
 
 odour. 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 have 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 I 
 
 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 
 amongst his collection in a room where she had spent a number of
 
 PENDENNIS. 521 
 
 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.
 
 523 PENDENNIS. 
 
 CHAPTER LIV. 
 
 fanny's occupation's gone. 
 
 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 amongst those articles of raiment, and which of course 
 it was necessar}' 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 
 myster)', regarding which she had never breathed a word to her son, 
 though it was present in her mind always, and occasioned her in- 
 expressible anxiety and disquiet. She had caused the brass knocker 
 to be screwed oft" the inner door of the chambers, whereupon the post- 
 man'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 kind- 
 ness 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 savangs; 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 a rat-tat ! The good are eager for 
 it : but the naughty tremble at the sound thereof. So it was ver>' kind 
 of Mrs. Pendennis doubly to spare Pen the trouble of hearing or answer- 
 ing 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
 
 PENDENNIS. 523 
 
 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 anything about the. odious transaction, and the dreadful 
 intrigue in which her son was engaged. When they were at Rich- 
 mond 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 per- 
 plexities, 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 anything 
 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 anything about it ; 
 and I don't wish to know anything 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 remem- 
 ber so good — oh, so good, and full of honour ! — should be fallen so 
 dreadfully low, as to — as to — " 
 
 " As to flirt with a little grisette, my dear creature ? " said the 
 Majot. " Egad, if all the mothers in England were to break their 
 hearts because — Nay, nay; upon my word and honour, 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 anything serious has 
 happened } Has Arthur said anything .f"' 
 
 " His silence confirms it," sobbed Mrs. Pendennis, behind her 
 pocket-handkerchief. 
 
 " Not at all. There are subjects, my dear, about which a young 
 fellow cannot surely talk to his mamma," insinuated the brother-in-law.
 
 524 
 
 PENDENNIS. 
 
 " 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 .'' "' 
 
 " 1 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 anything 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 — trumperj- cause which originated it." 
 
 " There was only one letter," broke out Helen, — " only a verj' 
 little one — only a few words. Here it is — oh — how can you, how can 
 you speak so ? " 
 
 When the good soul said only " a ver)- 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 Majors 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 amongst 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. 
 
 " Arther 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
 
 PENDENMS. 525 
 
 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 acquaint- 
 ance of Pen's and ours, an Irish gentleman, who was very nearly 
 once having the honour 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 1 I have 
 but to ask Pen, and he will tell me at once ; he is as honourable a man 
 as ever lived." 
 
 " Honourable ! " said the widow, with bitter scorn. " Oh, brother, 
 what is this you call honour ? 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 remem- 
 bering 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 anything has 
 passed between this girl and him } Lef 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 out- 
 rage 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. What-d'you-call'em, 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
 
 526 PEXDEXNIS. 
 
 gentleman had a diflferent 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 honour, 
 what right have you to doubt his honour 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 victor)- was 
 gained by the old general. 
 
 " Marr)- 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 I We must go off directly to Fairoaks," the 
 widow cried out. 
 
 " My good creature, he'll bore himself to death at Fairoaks. Hell 
 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 lonely countn,- -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. 
 W^e must travel a little. He must have a nurse with him, to take great 
 care of him, for Goodenough says he had a de\-^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 anything 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
 
 PENDENNIS. 527 
 
 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 winch 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 per- 
 forming was interrupted by the entrance of Miss Bell. She had been 
 on a visit to her old friend, Lady Rockminster, who had taken a sum- 
 mer villa in the neighbourhood ; 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 towards her of late. Where had she been 
 gathering those roses which she wore on her cheeks? How happy he 
 vi-as to be disturbed out of his dreams by such a charming reality !
 
 528 PENDEA'NIS. 
 
 Laura had plenty of humour and honesty; and these two caused her 
 to have on her side something very Uke a contempt for the old gentle- 
 man. It delighted her to draw out his worldliness, and to make the 
 old habitu^ 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 oiJier 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. Doctor 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. Ever)-- 
 thing must be done to soothe and comfort their friend, and his pro- 
 posal was that they should go abroad for the autumn to a watering- 
 place in the Rhine neighbourhood, where Helen might rally her 
 exhausted spirits, and Arthur tr)' 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 anywhere 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 de- 
 lightful that Pen should never want to leave it — anywhere 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
 
 PEABEA'A'IS. 529 
 
 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 ciuit 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 mustachios grow from that 
 \-ery 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 mustachios, when they 
 came, were of a decidedly red colour. He had looked forward to an 
 iiutumn 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' stories about the Peninsular war. The Claverings 
 are the only Christian people in the neighbourhood, and they are not 
 to be at home before Christmas, my uncle says : besides, Warrington, 
 I want to get out of the country. Whilst you were away, con- 
 found 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 
 Arthurs sake that the latter had escaped from a danger which might 
 have made his whole life wretched ; " which certainly," said Warring- 
 ton, " would have occasioned the wretchedness and ruin of the other 
 party. And your mother and — and your friends — what a pain it would 
 have been to them I " urged Pen's companion, little knowing what 
 grief and annoyance these good people had already suffered. 
 
 " Not a word to my mother I " Pen cried out, in a state of great 
 alarm. " She would ne-.-er get over it. An esclanurc of that sort 
 
 34
 
 530 
 
 PEXDEXXIS. 
 
 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 affaires de cceur 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 ver>' much smitten ? " Warrington asked. 
 
 " Hm ! " said Lovelace. " She dropped her >^'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 afterwards ; and the man who betrays 
 your honour 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 conver- 
 sation 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 travelling costs money, you know." 
 
 This little obstacle seemed fatal to Pen. He mentioned it to his 
 mother: Mrs. Pendennis was ver)- sorr)-; 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 carr}' the boy off and have him to herself altogether. 
 
 " WTiat 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 ? Wc can't hear 
 of such a thing— Pen won't get well without you. I promise you. I'm
 
 PENDENNIS. 531 
 
 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 
 fogey like me. I shall go to Carlsbad veiy likely, when I've seen you 
 people settle down. Travelling costs nothing now-a-days — or so little ! 
 And — and pray, Warrington, I 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 your 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 baulked 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 eyelashes looked down towards 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 gentle- 
 man, " and then perhaps he will listen to you — " 
 
 " Why should Mr. Warrington listen to me ? " asked the young 
 lady, putting the 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 anything," 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
 
 533 PENDEi\NIS. 
 
 about to speak, when, from Pen's neighbouring 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 band. 
 
 ''What is it.?" Helen asked. 
 
 " Ifs 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
 
 PENDENNIS. 533 
 
 CHAPTER LV. 
 
 IN WHICH FANNY ENGAGES A NEW MEDICAL MAN. 
 
 COULD Helen have suspected that, with Pen's returning strength, 
 his unhappy partiahty 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 par- 
 ticularly 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 realised; and was his mind relieved, that there came no 
 letter from Fanny ? Though, no doubt, in these matters, v.-hen Love- 
 lace 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 Love- 
 lace and Co. can't meet its engagements, we try to make compromises ; 
 v/c 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 remon- 
 strances 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 cr>', "Help, Arthur!" Well, well: they don't all go 
 down vvho 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.
 
 534 
 
 PEyDEXNIS. 
 
 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 stayed, 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 .rVmen heartily; that he had no great fault 
 wherewith to reproach himself in regard of his behaviour 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 dis- 
 course with Warrington he spoke upon these matters with so much 
 gravity, and so much emotion, that George, who had pronounced him- 
 self 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 practised what I preach." 
 
 " And what did you practise, 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, amongst other news, had
 
 PENDENNIS. 535. 
 
 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, dis- 
 position, and general conversation, greatly diverted many young gentle- 
 men who used the Back-Kitchen as a place of nightly entertainment 
 and refreshment. Huxter, who had a fine natural genius for mimicking 
 everything, whether it was a favourite 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, consist- 
 ing of sixpennyworth 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 fight- 
 ing 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 
 nobilifee of his countree — of Costigan, when crying drunk, at which 
 time he was in the habit of confidentially lamenting his daughter's 
 ingratichevvd, and stating that his grey hairs were hastening to a pray- 
 machure 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 whilst they relished the General's peculiarities, so 
 that mine host pardoned many of the latter 's foibles, in consideration 
 of the good Vv'hich 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 whiskyed 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 amongst the young men who frequented the 
 Back-Kitchen, and made themselves merrj^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
 
 536 PEXDENXIS. 
 
 this subject, answer any inquiiies; his maxim being that he only knew 
 •:^entlemen who frequented that room, vi 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 honour 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 anything 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, Sec. 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 ver)- 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 him- 
 self with a cup of coffee at a stall in Covent Garden, having spent a 
 delicious night dancing at Vauxhall, he spied the General reehng 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 
 homewards. 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 Vauxliall to 
 take him home), was with the eager Huxter the work of an instant—
 
 PENDENNIS. 537 
 
 Costigan dived down the alleys by Drury Lane Theatre, where gin- 
 shops, oyster-shops, and theatrical wardrobes abound, the proprietors 
 of which were now asleep behind their 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 old fellow to fall backwards. 
 
 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 gate- 
 beil, 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.
 
 538 PENDENNIS. 
 
 Mr. Huxter undertook the case of his interestmg 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 coidd 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, 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 whilst 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 everybody 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 Porters 
 Lodge family were not in attendance on the General, the young doctor 
 was sure to have some particular directions to address to them 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
 
 PENDENNIS. 539 
 
 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 learnt what was the illness which was evidently 
 preying upon little Fan, and what had been Pen's behaviour 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 oi 
 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 disfavour 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 popidar, would be pleased at his recovel^ ; 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.
 
 540 PENDE.Yi\7S. 
 
 But the cessation of his hostihty 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 anybody," the 
 old fellow thought, " and somebody is sure to 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 I 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 Huxters good-natured ettorts at consolation and kind atten- 
 tions 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 ambassador, 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 nego- 
 tiation), and he did not so much as catch a glimpse of Miss Fanny 
 when he stopped at the inn-gate and made his inquir}-. 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."
 
 PENDENNIS. 541 
 
 " What ! not the General, Mr. Bows ? " Warrington asked. 
 
 " The General likes his whisky-bottle more than anything 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 'ankerchief to her t 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 
 oy 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 behaviour 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 
 Fann>''s against Mr. Pendennis, it was because the old gentleman was 
 in so savage a mood, that his humour was to contradict everybody. 
 
 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 Pen- 
 dennis. 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, recognise — " 
 
 " 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 victim- 
 ising, 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 some- 
 times. He can feel like a man and run away from temptation like 
 a man. I ov,-n 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 anything to win a 
 man, and fling him away without a pang, sir. If she's flung away 
 herself, sir, she'll feel it and cry. She had a fever when Mrs. Pen-
 
 542 PE\DENX/S. 
 
 dennis 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 bed-room, 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. War- 
 rington 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. Daymy, when I used to read ' T^ld- 
 maque ' 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 
 portress ? Dayvlish nice little girl. How mad Pen will be — eh, 
 Warrington ? But we must break it to him gently, or he'll be Jn such 
 a rage that he will be going after her again. We must 7nenager the 
 young fellow." 
 
 " I think Mrs. Pendennis ought to know that Pen acted ver}' 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 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.
 
 PENDENNTS. 543 
 
 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 ambassador spoke in reply to Arthur's eager queries. 
 
 "You remember your poem, Pen, of 'Ariadne in Naxos,'" War- 
 rington 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.
 
 S44 
 
 PENDENNIS. 
 
 CHAPTER LVI. 
 
 FOREIGN' GROUND. 
 
 MAJOR PENDENNIS fulfilled his promise to Wanington so 
 far as to satisfy his o\vn conscience, and in so far to ease poor 
 Helen with regard to her son, as to make her understand that all 
 connexion between Arthur and the odious little gate-keeper was at 
 an end, and that she need have no farther anxiety with respect to an 
 imprudent attachment or a degrading marriage on Pen's part. And 
 that young fello\rs 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 connexion. 
 
 So the whole party were free to carr}' into effect their projected 
 Continental trip, and Arthur Pendennis, rentier, voyageant a\ec 
 Madame Pendennis and Mademoiselle Bell, and George Warrington, 
 particulier, age de 32 ans, taille 6 pieds (Anglais), figure ordinaire, 
 cheveux noirs, barbe idem, (Sec, 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-travelled 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 kneehng 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 \vhich people were bowing down and worshipping, 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 adoptcU 
 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
 
 PENJEXNIS. 545 
 
 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 towards 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 z'y — when her Arthur's heart had no 
 secrets, and she was his all in gil : 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 disap- 
 pointment 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 l^est. 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 espe- 
 cially, 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 honeysuckle 
 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 tnmk 
 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 relaxa- 
 tion — and though the best of the partridges were thinned off, the 
 pheasants were still to be shot at Stillbrook, where the noble owner 
 then was ; old Pendennis betook himself to that hospitable mansion 
 and disported there with great comfort to himself. A royal Duke, 
 
 35
 
 546 PENDENNIS. 
 
 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 " amongst the list of the distinguished company 
 which the Marquis of Steyne was entertaining at his country-house at 
 Stillbrook. He was a verj' useful and pleasant personage in a countr)'- 
 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 
 dii pays, and where there was the best view of the mansion, and where 
 the most favourable 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 everybody, and about everj'body, and a little 
 against everybody. He was invaluable in a country-house, in a word : 
 and richly merited and enjoyed his vacation after his labours. And 
 perhaps whilst he was thus deservedly enjopng himself with his 
 country friends, the Major was not ill-pleased at transferring to War- 
 rington 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 wdling to undergo, for his friend's sake, 
 and for that of a society which he found daily more dehghtful. War- 
 rington was a good German scholar, and was willing to give Miss 
 Laura lessons in the language, who was ver}- glad to improve herself; 
 though Pen, for his part, was too weak or lazy now to resimie his 
 German studies. Warrington acted as courier and interpreter ; War- 
 rington 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 excur- 
 sions; 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 
 tked friends stopped, performed their pleasant music under the trees. 
 Many a fine whiskered Prussian or French dandy, come to the bath 
 for the " Tratfe-et-qjtarante," cast glances of longing towards the 
 pretty fresh-coloured English girl who accompanied the pale widow,
 
 PENDEXiXIS. 547 
 
 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 stayed 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. 
 
 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 per- 
 forming 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 lacquered mustachios and trim 
 varnished boots — at the English dandies. Pen amongst them, with 
 their calm domineering air, and insolent languor: and envied each 
 oi>e 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 neighbourhood, 
 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 move- 
 ment Arthur did not choose to see what was going on ; or did not
 
 548 PEADENNIS. 
 
 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 recover)'. 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 travelled 
 he wore a jaunty and juvenile travelling costume ; to see his back still 
 you w^ould have taken him for one of the young fellows whose slim 
 waist and youthful appearance Warrington v.-as 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 inter- 
 fered to impede the action of the natty little varnished boots in which 
 the gay old traveller 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 
 honour 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 
 splendours and amenities belonging to it. That very evening the reso- 
 lute old gentleman, 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 T7-£nte-et-qtiarante. 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 some- 
 thing 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 Steyno. 
 when Lord Gaunt, lose eighteen thousand at a sitting, and break the 
 bank three nights running at Paris, without ever showing the least
 
 PENDENNIS. 549 
 
 emotion at his defeat or victoiy — "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 con- 
 stantly seen in company of their faithful attendant for the time being 
 in these gay haunts of dissipation, the old Major, with eager gar- 
 rulity and mischievous relish, told his nephew wonderful particu- 
 lars 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 aide-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 Coitleur perd. She had shrunk terrified out of the 
 Pandemonium, imploring Pen, extorting from him a promise, on his 
 word of honour, 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 breathe 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 marvellous world is peopled. To the credit 
 of Mr. Pen, let it be said, that he kept honestly the promise made to 
 Ills mother, and stoutly told his uncle of his intention to abide by it. 
 
 When the Major arrived, his presence somehow cast a damp upon 
 at least three of the persons of our little party — upon Laura, who had 
 anything but respect for him ; upon Warrington, whose manner towards 
 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.
 
 550 PENDENNIS. 
 
 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 despatch-boxes and umbrella-cases, his 
 guide-books, passports, maps, and other elaborate necessaries of the 
 English traveller, all as trim and ready as they could be in their 
 master's own room in Bury Street. Everything was ready, from 
 the medicine-bottle fresh filled from the pharmacien's, down to the 
 old fello^v's prayer-book, without which he never travelled, for he made 
 a point of appearing at the English church at every place which he 
 honoured with a stay. " Everybody did it," he said ; " every English 
 gentleman did it : " and this pious man would as soon have thought 
 of not calling upon the English ambassador 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 everj-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 collaboraieur would like to sec. 
 The papers were tied together : the letters in an envelope, addressed 
 to Pen, in the last-named gentleman's handwriting. 
 
 Amongst the letters there was a little note addressed, as a former 
 letter we have heard of had been, to " Arther 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 \vithout ever leaN-ing 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 should like to keep in remembrance of him. 
 She said she would not reproach those w-ho had found her at his bed- 
 side 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 kindlv tended
 
 PENDENNIS. 551 
 
 her, and kep' her life, when, perhaps, the keeping of it was of no good, 
 and she forgave everybody : and as for Arthur, she would pray for him 
 for ever. 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 bed-room 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 boyi"' 
 he rather faintly asked ; " are the duns at you, that you look so glum ?" 
 
 " Do you know anything about this letter, sir ? " Arthur asked. 
 
 "What letter, my good sir.?" said the other drily, at once per- 
 ceiving 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 inconvenience, daymy — and 
 to meet with a return of this kind for my affection to you, is not plea- 
 sant, 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 anything harsh ro 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 towards his home.
 
 552 
 
 f£,\de:\\\'is. 
 
 " Get breakfast ! " said the old fellow to Morgan, and he wagged 
 liis 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 
 place 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 dowm on her knees and 
 ask pardon of her. I ought ! I will I I am shocked at the cruelty 
 which has been shown her. What? She gave me her all, and this 
 is her return ! She sacrifices everything for me, and they spurn her." 
 
 " Hush ! " said Warrington ; " they can hear you from the next 
 room." 
 
 " Hear.^ let them hear I " 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 neighbouring 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."
 
 PENDENNIS. 553 
 
 " 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 curtsey 
 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 
 persecutors anger. The laugh, which was one of bitter humour, 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 mis- 
 interpreted 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 emo- 
 tion, 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?"
 
 554 
 
 PENDENNIS. 
 
 So, leaving the women similarly engaged within, the two gentle- 
 men 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 mother's 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 behaviour and fickleness, and he described 
 how the girl was no better than a light-minded flirt ; and, perhaps, 
 he exaggerated the good humour and contentedness which he had 
 himself, as he thought, witnessed in her behaviour in the scene with 
 Mr. Huxter. 
 
 Now all Bows's statements had been coloured by an insane jealousy 
 and rage on that old man's part ; and instead of allaying Pen's renas- 
 cent 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 ever>' comtne-il-faut person made a point of attending 
 the Enghsh service abroad ; and he walked back with the young men, 
 prattling to them in garrulous good-humour, 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 medi- 
 tating 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 mere 
 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 crypt 
 of his own heart, whilst Mr. Shamble was feebly giving utterance to 
 his sermon.
 
 PENDENNIS. 
 
 555 
 
 CHAPTER LVII. 
 "fairoaks to le t." 
 
 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 honour 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 pallid 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 hke 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 the 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
 
 556 PENDEA'NIS. 
 
 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 indig- 
 nantly at the injustice of the very suffering which was laid at his door. 
 " It is you who 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 everything for me, and whom you despise and 
 trample upon because they are of lower degree than you. Shall I tell 
 you what I vnW 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-bom 
 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 fellov.-, — I ain't long for this world. I come of as 
 ancient and honourable a family as any in England, 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, was left undis- 
 honoured 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 oft" into a sob : 
 it was the second time that Arthur had brought tears from those 
 wrinkled lids.
 
 PENDENNIS. 557 
 
 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 Avhat 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 towards him when I 
 first saw him? The men from our college at Oxbridge brought up 
 accounts of that early aflfair 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 Arthurs 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 occa- 
 sioned by anger, which you must give me leave to say, ma'am, was
 
 558 FEXDEiVA'IS. 
 
 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, towards 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 wiU 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, w^here 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 bril- 
 liant, 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 pruder)' of our females is such, that before all ex- 
 pression 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 spon- 
 taneous 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 luckj' 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 teU 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 storj- from some 
 previous hints let fall by him, and his first w-ords at its commencement. 
 " She was a yeoman's daughter in the neighbo«-hood," 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,
 
 PENDENNIS. 559 
 
 wl'iA 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 1 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 con- 
 dition, 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-humour, " 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 for ever 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."
 
 56o PENDENNJS. 
 
 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 mourn- 
 fully — 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 gaae 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 after- 
 wards how it lighted up his mother's sweet pale face. Their talk, or 
 his rather, for she scarcely could speak, was more tender and con- 
 fidential than it had been for years before. He was the frank and 
 generous boy of her early days and love. He told her the stor>', 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 honour 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 wTite to the young girl, 
 if, — if she had time. Poor thing ! was it not natural that she shculd 
 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 bed-room 
 at that hour, and hear him say Our Father. And once more, oh, once 
 more, the young man fell down at his mothers 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 supphca- 
 tion, the mother's head feU 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
 
 PENDENNIS. 561 
 
 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 unchequered 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 awhile 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 neighbour died of a complaint of the heart; 
 whilst that speculated upon the amount of property which the widow 
 had left ; and a third wondered whether Arthur would let Fairoaks or 
 li\'e 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 moi'e weeks .^ and does 
 after-life seem less solitary, provided that our manes, 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 
 everything, 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 inter- 
 ceding 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 laboured, and knew 
 that 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. 
 
 36
 
 562 PENDENNIS. 
 
 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 Dr. 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 toilette : the glass that was no more to reflect her 
 dear sad face. After she had been here awhile, Pen knocked and led 
 her downstairs to the parlour 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 fathers memorj-, 
 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
 
 PENDENNIS. 563 
 
 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 con- 
 cluded by saying that his friend, George Warrington, Esq., of Lamb 
 Court, Temple, was trustee of a little sum of money, of wliich 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 pro- 
 prietor 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 ahorse 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 neigh- 
 bourhood ; 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."
 
 564 PENDENNIS. 
 
 " 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 feinine 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 v^ulgar, my dear, but he seems to have a 
 good heart," little Lady Rockminster said, who said her say about 
 everybody — " but I like Bluebeard best. Tell me, is he touclie au 
 cacvrf" 
 
 " 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 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. 
 
 II
 
 PENDENNIS. 565 
 
 CHAPTER LVIII. 
 
 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 per- 
 sonages 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 v/orthy 
 publishers 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 r.p to 
 pay a visit. 
 
 Among others, Mr. Archer came up to make her his bov/, 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 
 Ambassador 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 chopsticks 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 
 Ambassador was with Mrs. Archer in our garden eating gooseberries^ 
 of which the Chinese are passionately fond, the beast of a cook, seeinj 
 my wife's dear little Blenheim spaniel, (that we had from the Duke 01 
 Marlborough himself, whose ancestor's life Mrs, Archers 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."
 
 566 PENDENNIS. 
 
 " Law ! " said Mrs. Bungay. 
 
 " You may fancy my wife's agony when she knew v hat had hap- 
 pened ! The cook came screaming upstairs, 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 Ambassador again — never ; 
 and, upon my word, he has never been to dine wath us since. The 
 Lord Mayor, who did me the honour 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 
 Ambassador: 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 Avill never be able to do it — never. My wife has the 
 smallest foot in England, and wears shoes for a six-years-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 
 jest 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 everything, Mr. A. I " cried the lady of 
 Paternoster Row. 
 
 " I happen to know, because I was called in about poor Mrs. Pen- 
 dennis's will," Mr. Archer replied. " Pendennis's uncle, the Major, 
 seldom does anything without me ; and as he is likely to be extrava- 
 gant, 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 if s 
 Tom Staples, of the ' Morning Advertiser,' Archer." 
 
 " Is it?" Archer said, simply. " Well, I'm ver>' 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 !
 
 PENDENNIS. 567 
 
 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 para- 
 sols, 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 a\vfully tipsy, the little scamp; and the young lady is Miss 
 Amor}', Lady Clavering's daughter by a first marriage, and un- 
 commonly 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," 
 Ivlr. Archer said, " and his uncle, Major Pendennis, did the rest. 
 Hallo ! 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 greensward, 
 and by the shouting millions of people assembled to view that mag- 
 nificent 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 colours 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
 
 568 PENDENNIS. 
 
 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. 
 " Hurray, hurray ! '"' he bawled out. " Podasokus is the horse. Supper 
 for ten, Wheeler, my boy. Ask you all round of course, and damn the 
 expense." 
 
 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 \\\n 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 
 neighbour with suspicion, lest that neighbour, 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, cer- 
 tainly 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-humour mantled on the girl's cheeks, and played 
 over that fair countenance like the pretty shining cloudlets on the 
 serene sky overhead; the elder lady^s cheek Avas 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 un- 
 dauntedly to the most awful drags full of the biggest and most solemn 
 guardsmen ; as to the humblest donkey-chaise in which Bob the
 
 PENDENNJS. 569 
 
 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 hurraying behind the railings of their Classical and Com- 
 mercial 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 pin- 
 cushions, 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 momen- 
 tarily 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. Per- 
 haps the conjuror had used the same words to a hundred different 
 carriages on that day. 
 
 Making his way solitary amongst 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 recog- 
 nised 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 jnay 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 
 demeanour of his.
 
 57° 
 
 PENDENNIS. 
 
 Fanny's heart began to patter violently : Hunter'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 ? 
 
 Whilst Mrs. Bolton was so discoursing, I wonder how many thou- 
 sands 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 ip his shirt-front : and a pink in his coat, that some one 
 else had probably given him : with the tightest lavender-coloured 
 gloves sevvn 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 Fann\-'s mind as her 
 mamma was delivering herself of her speech, and as the girl, from 
 under her eyes, surveyed Pendennis — sur\'eyed him entirely from head 
 to foot, the circle on his white forehead that his hat left when he hfted 
 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-coloured 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 uncoloured as they were, yet 
 v,-ere 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 dis- 
 appeared, and a good-natured smile and a knowing twinkle of the eyes
 
 PENDENNIS. 571 
 
 illuminated his highness's countenance. " 1 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-coloured 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 glove ; he saw them, — he would have 
 liked to have clenched it again and dashed it into the other's good- 
 humoured 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-humour, 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-coloured dress, with a white parasol lined with 
 pink, and the prettiest dove-coloured boots that ever stepped, passed 
 by Pen, leaning on the arm of a stalwart gentleman with a military 
 moustache. 
 
 The young lady clenched her little fist, and gave a mischievous 
 side-look as she passed Pen. He of the mustachios 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- 
 coloured young lady! Immediately Huxter perceived the direction 
 which they took, they ceased looking after the dove-coloured nymph, 
 and they turned and looked into Sam Huxter's orbs with the most 
 artless good-humoured 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 neighbour 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
 
 572 PENDENNIS. 
 
 sun was less bright to Sam Huxter, the sky less blue — the Sticks had 
 no attraction for him — the bitter beer was 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 ever>'- 
 thing; 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-coloured 
 author o{ Mes Larmes had by this time returned. Indefatigable old 
 Major Pendennis was in waiting upon Lady Clavering, and had occu- 
 pied 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 2^1 iss Amory. They had offered 
 her sportive bets, and exchanged with her all sorts of free-talk and 
 knowing inuendoes. 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.
 
 PENDENNIS. 573 
 
 " Je I'ai vue," she said ; " elle a de bien beaux yeux ; vous etes un 
 monstre ! " 
 
 " Why monster? " said Pen, with a laugh. " Honi soil 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 pritendii 
 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 bonder me at 
 present?" Blanche asked. " Major, scold your w/fr//^;// nephew. He 
 does not amuse me at all. He is as bete as Captain Crackenbury." 
 
 "What are you saying about me, Miss Amory?" said the guards- 
 man, with a grin. " If it's anything good, say it in English, for I don't 
 understand French when it's spoke so devilish quick." 
 
 " It ainH anything good. Crack," said Crackenbur>-'s fellow, Captain 
 Clinker. " Let's come away, and don't spoil sport. They say Pen- 
 dennis 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 / was a 
 clev^er 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 ! "
 
 574 
 
 PENDENNIS. 
 
 " Clavering's safe to pay up, ain't he ? " asked Captain Cracken- 
 
 bury. 
 
 " I hope so," said his friend; and they disappeared, to enjoy them- 
 selves 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-humour, 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 postilions were in such 
 a royal state of excitement as servants and postilions 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 towards 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 anybody 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 neighbour of the Claverings, was passing 
 the carriage, when he was called back by the Begum, who ralhed 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 everybody, that she had won five pounds in a lotter)'. As 
 she conveyed this piece of intelligence to him, Mr. Welbore looked so 
 particularly knowing, and withal melancholy, that a dismal appre- 
 hension seized upon Major Pendennis. " He would go and look after 
 the horses and those rascals of postilions, 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, amidst 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-humour, as she reclined on her splendid 
 cushions; the lovely Sylphide smiled with languid elegance. Many 
 an honest hohday-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 lordlv voice
 
 PENDEJSfNTS^ 575 
 
 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 constiant 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," Peridennis 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 be 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 v/hether 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 con- 
 sciousness, he began a sprightly conversation. 
 
 '' I say, ma," he said, " I've gone and done it this time, 1 have." 
 
 " What have you gone and done, Franky dear ?" asked mamma. 
 
 " How much is seventeen half-crowns ? Two pound and half-a- 
 crov;n, 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 yoitr 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 1 say, ma, Leggat minor told
 
 576 PENDENNIS. 
 
 me that he heard his governor say that pa had lost seven thousand 
 backino" the favourite. I'll never back the favourite 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 pro- 
 mised me he wouldn't. He gave me his word of honour he wouldn't." 
 
 Strong, from his place on the box, had overheard the end of young 
 Clavering's communication, and was tr\-ing 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 women. 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 con- 
 stantly she had befriended him : and in this melancholy condition, 
 whilst 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, 
 and 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 I " 
 Blanche said, quivering with anger, as she walked upstairs leaning 
 en 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 \.x\ 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.
 
 PENDENNIS. 577 
 
 CHAPTER LIX. 
 
 EXPLANATIONS. 
 
 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 honour 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 Stcyne. 
 
 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 Polyanthus; and has announced everywhere 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 arc 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 Mira 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 instiga- 
 tion 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 practise 
 upon unwary young men, had come to the country-house in question 
 and carried Arthur out of the danger of her immediate claws, though 
 
 37
 
 5-8 PENDENNIS. 
 
 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 recollec- 
 tions for the young man. 
 
 We have lost sight of the Claverings, too, until their re-appearance 
 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 pine-apple, 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 afterwards 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 C7itourages. Who was the Begum, with her money and without 
 her /rs, 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 black-legs 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 familiarit>- ; 
 and poor Lady Clavering herself avowed that she was obliged to take 
 what she called " the canal " into her parlour, because the tiptops 
 wouldn't come. 
 
 She had not the slightest ill-will towards "the canal," the poor 
 
 I
 
 PENDENNIS. 579 
 
 dear lady, or any pride about herself, or idea that she was better than 
 her neighbour ; 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 anything 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 amongst 
 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 cognisance 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 pro- 
 verbiaMf 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 favourite 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 
 husb^ind's debts many times over : who had received as many times
 
 53o 
 
 PENDEiXNIS. 
 
 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 husbands extravagance. 
 
 It has been described in former pages how the elder Pendennis 
 had become the ad\'iser 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 were ; and was now accurately informed of 
 the vast and repeated sacrifices which the widow Amor)' had made in 
 behalf of her present husband. 
 
 He did not conceal, — and he had won no small favour from Miss 
 Blanche by avowing it, — his opinion, that Lady Claverings 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 circum- 
 stances 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 Amor>-^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 aU 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 aU 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 sur- I D; 
 prise that the Major should choose her family for a union with his 1 cor 
 own, said she was quite willing to consent. I tir 
 
 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 voung fellow who has sown
 
 PENDENNIS. S8r 
 
 his wild oats now — who has ver)' 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 con- 
 siderably 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 .'' Fm 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, Fve no doubt he won't be the last of the field, ma'am. Fve 
 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 \.o parvenir, but by making a prudent 
 marriage, not with a beggarly 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 Parlia- 
 ment, who's of no good to himself or to anybody 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 Pen ought to marr)-." 
 
 " 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 con- 
 venience was of all things the very best in the world to marry upon —
 
 582 
 
 PEA'DENNIS. 
 
 the only thing. " Look at your love-marriages, my dear young crea- 
 ture. The love-match people are the most notorious of all for quar- 
 relling afterwards ; and a girl who runs away with Jack to Gretna 
 Green, constantly runs away with Tom to Switzerland afterAvards. 
 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 him- 
 self 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 Amor>', 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 indiffer- 
 ence, or end in shameful defeat ? 
 
 These views of life and philosophy the Major was constantly, 
 according to his custom, inculcating on Pen, whose mind was such 
 that he could see the right on both sides of many questions, and, com- 
 prehending the sentimental life which was quite out of the reach of the 
 honest Majors intelligence, could understand the practical hfe 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 was 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 Amor>- 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-humour. " And I," thought Pendennis, " am the 
 fellow who eight years ago had a grand passion, and last year v. ns 
 raging in a fever about Briseis ! '"' 
 
 Yes, it was the same Pendennis, and time had brought to him, .:.s 
 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, calcu- 
 late that circumstance only brings out the latent defect or quality, and 
 does not create it. The selfish languor and indifference of to-day's pos- 
 session is the consequence of the selfish ardour of yesterday's pursuit : 
 the scorn and weariness which cries vanitas vanitatutn is but the 
 lassitude of the sick appetite palled with pleasure: the insolence of
 
 PENDENNIS. 583 
 
 the successful parvenu is only the necessary continuance of the career 
 of the needy struggler : our mental changes are like our grey hairs or 
 our wrinkles — but the fulfilment 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 reflec- 
 tion, — 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 crowd — 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 nobody 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 hope- 
 less spar drowning out of sight : alone in the midst of the crowd 
 applauding you.
 
 584 PENDENNIS. 
 
 CHAPTER LX. 
 
 CONVERSATIONS. 
 
 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 
 honour, and declared that she would separate from him, and lea\ c 
 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 whicli 
 he trembled lest he should not have the means of paying, and his 
 wife, his long-suftering banker, on whom heresonably 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 esta- 
 blishment, 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 ser\-ants' 
 hall, who took it to Mrs. Bonner, my lady's housekeeper and confiden- 
 tial 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 Blackfriars Road. And 
 Sir Francis's coachmen told the news to other gentlemen's coachmen, 
 who carried it to their masters, and to the neighbouring 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
 
 PENDENNIS. 585 
 
 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 miUiner, 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 Curagoa) 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 whilst 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 gaol (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 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 our- 
 selves, and we won't 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 f6r 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 colours 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 en- 
 gagements. 
 
 " 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
 
 586 PENDENNJS. 
 
 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 on 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 aide-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 sjTnpathy 
 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 — '•' anything 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 wUl 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 
 wUl be a lesson to him for all his life long. To see a man cr)' — 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 prin- 
 cipal, 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."
 
 PENDENNIS. 587 
 
 " What all ? " cried Mr. Francis, to whom his ambassador brought 
 the news back at Short's Hotel, where Strong found the Baronet crying 
 and drinking Curagoa. 
 
 " 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, 
 without 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 recog- 
 nized 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 Curagoa), 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 honoured proverb which declares that to be an ill wind which 
 blows good to nobody, was verified in the case of Sir Francis Cla- 
 vering 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 IMajor 
 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.
 
 588 PENDEXNIS. 
 
 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 parlour 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 svinpathy for success, to share 
 in it, " Now was the time," Tom Diver 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 Rackstraw, 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 in- 
 fluence, Colonel, you rogue, and the entree of all the green-rooms in 
 London," Tom urged ; whilst little Moss Abrams entreated the Colonel 
 not to listen to these absurd fellows with their humbugging specula- 
 tions, 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 haberdashers window. And a short 
 time after this, upon her birthday, 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 accom- 
 panied with a couple of go\vn-pieces of the most astounding cclours, 
 the receipt of which goods made the Sylphide laugh and wonder
 
 PENDENNIS. 589 
 
 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 Auctien- 
 Room in Cheapside, having invested some money in two desks, several 
 pairs of richly-plated candlesticks, a dinner ^pergne, and a bagatelle- 
 board. The dinner ^pergne 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 practised by the Begum in her whole household, in consequence 
 of the extravagance of which her graceless husband had been guilty. 
 The Major was 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 in- 
 dignation, 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 he 
 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 sate 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 amongst his equals, 
 who scorned him — but here he was the chief guest at the table, where 
 they continually addres'^d 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 m6iage 
 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.
 
 jgo " PENDENXIS. 
 
 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 bankers' because it ain't safe.— Now ain't it hard 
 that she won't trust me with a single tea-spoon ; ain't it ungentleman- 
 like, 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 beU: and — and my man was at 
 Vauxhall last night with one of my dress shirts and my velvet waist- 
 coat 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 pre- 
 sented 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 drink- 
 ing wine with Altamont at dinner, and of treating him with ever}- 
 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 difterence, Strong — 
 that's it. \\'ho's the better or the worse for what I tell } — or knows 
 anything about me ? The other chap is dead— shot in the bush, and 
 his body rekognised at Sydney. If I thought anybody would spht, do 
 you think I wouldn't wring his neck ? I've done as good before now. 
 Strong— J tok\ you how I did for the overseer before I took leave— but
 
 PENDENNIS. 591 
 
 ill 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 axe. Fifty of em saw 
 
 it — ay, and cheered me when I did it — and Td do it again, him, 
 
 wouldn't I ? I ain't afraid of anybody; 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- 
 humouredly. " 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 authorise you, and order you, and command 
 you, to put away the brandy-bottle." 
 
 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 gaol, 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 choose — by Gad ! the confounded 
 scoundrel." 
 
 " Cry a little ; don't mind cryin' before me — it'll relieve you,
 
 592 PENDENNIS. 
 
 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 portress, 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, 1 know he would." 
 
 " I thought you swore on your honour 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, Alta- 
 mont, 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 for ever — for ever, 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 bankers' : I'll do anything 
 you like." 
 
 " 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 obUged 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. Heine'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, everj' day till the game comes in. 
 Besides, the neighbours will ask you about to dinner, you know, some- 
 times : for you are a Baronet, though you have outnm 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
 
 PENDENNIS. 593 
 
 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 bejewtary 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 "i" 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 tremendous scene : Jie 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 
 vrote it on a piece of paper, and passed it across the table to the 
 awyer and my lady,) that some one else had better book up for him, 
 or he'd have kep' some of the money. He's a sly old cove, your 
 ov'nor." 
 
 The expression of " old cove," thus flippantly applied by the 
 ounger gentleman to himself and his master, displeased Mr. Morgan 
 xceedingly. On the first occasion, wher Mr. Lightfoot used the 
 
 3«
 
 594 PEiYDENAIS. 
 
 obnoxious expression, his comrade's anger was only indicated by a 
 silent frown; but on the second offence, 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 Pcndennis 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 Metternich and 
 Louy Philup reg'lar. We go here to the best houses, the tiptops, I 
 tell you. We ride with Lord John and the noble Whycount at the 'edd 
 of Foring Affairs. We dine with the Hearl of Burgrave, and are con- 
 sulted by the Marquis of Steyne in everythink. We might to know a 
 thing or two, Mr. Lightfoot. You're a young man ; Pm 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 7nay 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 cxtravygance of 
 your master, with his helbow shakin', and his bill discountin', and his 
 cottage in the Regency Park, and his many mckednesses. 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 dussay 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 everywhere ; there's not a housekeeper's room, sir, 
 in this town of any consiquince, where James ^Morgan ain't welcome. 
 And it was me Vv-ho got you into this club, Lightfoot, as you ver\- well 
 know, though I am an old cove, and they would have blackballed you 
 without me as sure as your name is Frederick. 
 
 " I kiiow they would, Mr. iMorgan," said the other, with much 
 humility. 
 
 " Well, then, don't call me an old cove, sir. It ain't gentleman- 
 like, Frederick 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 daresay she has in five-and-twenty vears, 
 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, Frederick Lightfoot. to 
 call me an old cove."
 
 PEiYDENXIS, 595 
 
 " 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 veiy 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 Light- 
 foot. " What's about the figure of it, should you say, sir ? " 
 
 " Under fifteen hundred, sir," answered Morgan ; at v/hich the 
 other, who knew the extent of poor Arthui-'s acres, thrust his tongue in 
 his cheek, but remained wisely silent. 
 
 " Is his man any good, Mr. Morgan ?" Lightfoot resumed. 
 
 " Pidgeon 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, Light- 
 foot, for he ain't seen the world yet." 
 
 " When the pint of sherry for which ]\Ir. Lightfoot called, upon 
 Mr. Morgan's announcement that he dechned 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 con- 
 noisseurs, Morgan's ruffled equanimity was quite restored, and he was 
 prepared to treat his young friend with perfect good-humour. 
 
 '' What d'you think about IMiss Amory, Lightfoot — tell us in con- 
 fidence, now — Do you think we should do well — you understand — if we 
 make Miss A. into Mrs. A. P., coinprendy-vojis?''' 
 
 " She and her ma's always quarrellin'," said Mr. Lightfoot. '• Bonner 
 is more than a match for the old lady, and treats Sir Francis like- 
 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 hkely, 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 rihn' 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
 
 -0 PENDENNIS. 
 
 Mrs. Honncr, who's as jealous of me as a old cat, boxed her ears for 
 showing mc. And then you should see Miss at luncheon, when there's 
 nobod>°but the family. She makej b'leave she never heats, and my ! 
 you should only jest see her. She has Mary Hann to bring her up 
 plum-cakes and creams into her bed-room ; 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 tctc-a-tete 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 parlour of the " Wheel of 
 Fortune " public-house, in a snug little by-lane, leading out of one of 
 the great streets of Mayfair, 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 per- 
 fect freedom and confidence ; and here, when about to enter into 
 a new situation, a gentleman was enabled to get ever}' requisite 
 information regarding the family of which he proposed to become a 
 member. Liveries, it may be imagined, were excluded from this select 
 piecinct ; and the powdered heads of the largest metropolitan foot- 
 men might bow down in vain entreating admission into the Gentle- 
 man's Club. These outcast giants in plush took their beer in an 
 outer apartment of the " W^heel 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 Bays's or Spratt's. And it 
 is because the conversation which we have been permitted to over- 
 hear 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.
 
 PENDENNIS. S97 
 
 CHAPTER LXI. 
 
 THE WAY OF THE WORLD. 
 
 A SHORT time after the piece of good fortune which befell Colonel 
 Altamont at Epsom, that gentleman put into execution his pro- 
 jected 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. Serjeant Kewsy, and :\Irs. and Miss 
 Kewsy ; Colonel Altamont, Major Coddy," &c. The Colonel travelled 
 in state, and as became a gentleman : he appeared in a rich travelling 
 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 ser\'ant, 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 y^ou 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
 
 59S PENDENXIS. 
 
 wild, and signed his father-in-law's name. Many a man has done 
 woise, 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 Claverings promises were much to be believed, but the 
 Chevalier was of a hopeful turn, and trusted in many chances of catch- 
 ing 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 Shep- 
 herd's Inn chambers; but he found those lodgings more glum now 
 without his partner than with him. The solitarv- life was not agree- 
 able to his social soul ; and he had got into extravagant and luxurious 
 habits, too, having a ser^i-ant at his command to run his errands, to 
 arrange his toilettes, 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 inten-als of ill-fortune 
 oc'cur 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 supphes were to be had for some time. The 
 five-and-twenty pounds, or " pony " which the exemplar)- 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 Bluckto fight Dick the cabman, whom 
 the Baronet backed, and who had it all his own way for thirteen 
 rounds, when, by an unlucky blow in the windpipe, Billy killed him. 
 "Ifs 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 Hea^•en
 
 PENDENNIS. 599 
 
 I knew any way of getting a bill done, or of screwing a little out of my 
 l.idy ! I'll give you half, Ned, upon my soul and honour, I'll give you 
 half if you can get anybody to do us a little fifty." 
 
 But Ned said sternly that he had given his word of honour, 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 
 honour 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 towards 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 Fann)-, 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 abear 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 everybody, and that Mar
 
 6oo PENDENNIS. 
 
 had actially refused him twice, and had had to wait three months to 
 j;et 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 ether pang, 
 eternal. 
 
 As you sit, surrounded by respect and affection ; happy, honoured, 
 and flattered in your old age ; your foibles gently indulged ; your lea.st 
 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 honour 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 sen-ants 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 vou 
 wish or expect that your people wiU 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 me??tettfo viori. If he holds 
 ver)' much by life, the presence of the other must be a constant sting 
 and warning. " Make ready to go," says the successor to vour honour ; 
 I am waitmg : 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 historj^ ? Do we wish to apologise for Pen
 
 PENDENNIS. 60 r 
 
 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 story-teller, useless moralis- 
 ing? 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 worshipped in his memory, and canonised 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 con- 
 versations, 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 la^ 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 nephews 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 
 
 ^ A -9 Qcr
 
 6o2 PENDENNIS. 
 
 appear like an apothecary ; the august representative of the house of 
 Pendennis must not so demean himself. And v/hen Arthur, pursuing 
 his banter, said, "And yet, I dare say, sir, my father was proud enough 
 when he first set up his gig," the old Major hemmed and ha'd, and his 
 \vrinkled face reddened with a blush as he answered, " You know 
 what Bonaparte said, sir, ' // faui laver son linge sale en fa7tiille.* 
 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 lie 
 had heard the old gentleman often use regarding himself. " In the 
 society which I have the honour of frequenting through your intro- 
 duction, who cares to ask about my paltry means or my humble gen- 
 tility, uncle ?" he asked. "It would be absurd of me to attempt to 
 compete with the great folks ; and all that they 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 lo 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 \our 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' com- 
 merce 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 friend- 
 ship pretty scon: 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 ser- 
 vice), and having their chambers and their ser\-itor in common. 
 
 Mr. Warrington had made the acquaintance of Pen's friends of 
 
 Cxrosvenor Place during their last unlucky season in London, and 
 
 had expressed himself no better satisfied with Sir Francis and Lady 
 
 Clavenng and her ladyship's daughter than was the public in general. 
 
 The world is right," George said, " about those people. The youn-
 
 PENDENNTS. 603 
 
 men laugh and talk freely before those ladies, and about them. The 
 gfirl 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 1 I have no doubt that the 
 poor Begum is ignorant of their histories. It seems to me she is igno- 
 rant 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 anything 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 worth 
 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 afterwards if he do. Are you, who are setting up to be 
 a man of the world and a 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 
 v.'ith 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
 
 6o4 PENDENNIS. 
 
 myself to this civilisation, 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 afterwards,"' 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 conventional 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 neighbour,'" Arthur con- 
 tinued,—" 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 vainglorious 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, 
 m 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 m their turn, were their turn ever to come ? No. onlv that 
 they submit to circumstances which are stronger than thev,— march
 
 PENDEmWMS. 605 
 
 as the world marches towards 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 Honourable 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 scepticism is more respectful and more modest than 
 the revolutionary ardour 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 bully- 
 ing the poor undergraduates in the lecture-room. An hereditary legis- 
 lator, who passes his time with jockeys and black-legs 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 over- 
 came twelve thousand Frenchmen, or fifty thousand Indians — such a 
 man, I say, inspires me with no more respect than the bitterest demo- 
 crat can feel towards 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 acqui- 
 escence; 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 traiisactions both
 
 5o6 PENDENNJS. 
 
 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 
 v.hipped; and truth under its guardians was gagged, and swathed, 
 and bUndfolded, and not allowed to lift its voice, or to look out, or to 
 Avalk 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 v.-ould 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 bums 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 humour; 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," Wanington 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 
 labour of my neighbour without taking any part in the struggle ? 
 "Why, what a mere dilettante you own yourself to be, in this confession 
 of general scepticism, and what a listless spectator yourself ! You 
 are six-and-twenty years old, and as l^lase as a rake of sixty. You 
 neither hope much, nor care much, nor believe much. You doubt
 
 PENDENNIS. 607 
 
 about other men as much as about yourself. Were it made of such 
 pococitranti 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 everything." 
 
 " Were the world composed of Saint Bernards or Saint Dominies, 
 it would be equally odious," said Pen, " and at the end of a few score 
 years would cease to exist altogether. Would you have every man 
 with his head shaved, and every woman in a cloister,^carrj^ing 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 sceptic because I acknowledge what is; and in 
 acknowledging that, be it linnet or lark, or 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 amongst 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," Pen- 
 dennis 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 op- 
 portunities, 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 anywhere. 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 afterwards by the policeman. 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 vi'orld we strive to pursue
 
 6o8 PENDENNIS. 
 
 men, and send after them our impotent party verdicts of condemna- 
 tion '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 con- 
 demn the men who killed Socrates and damned Galileo. I say that 
 they damned Galileo and killed 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 
 sceptically. Who was his Roman coadjutor, whom we read of in 
 Plutarch when we were boys, who scoffed at the other's procrastina- 
 tion 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 may have answered by ver>- 
 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 endeavour 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 scepticism 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
 
 PENDENNIS. 609 
 
 as many loud reformers are constantly ready with ; much more from 
 uttering downright falsehoods in arguing questions or abusing oppo- 
 nents, 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 sceptical 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 hi^ 
 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 scepticism lead } It leads a man to a shameful loneliness and 
 selfishness, so to speak — the more shameful, because it is so good- 
 humoured 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 pro- 
 test 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 honour 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 on the Conservative side of the House, and 
 amongst 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, M'ho, driven 
 fatally by the remorseless logic of his creed, gives up everj'thing, 
 friends, fame, dearest ties, closest vanities, the respect of an army 
 of churchmen, the recognised position of a leader, and passes over, 
 truth-impelled, to the enemy, in whose ranks he is ready to 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 
 endeavours to reconcile an irreconcilable book, flings it at last down 
 
 39
 
 6io PE:YDEA\\7S. 
 
 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 : 
 kt them preach. Of these preachers there are somewhat too many, 
 methinks, who fancy they have the gift. But we cannot all be parsons 
 in church, that is clear. Some must sit silent and hsten, 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 or 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 plea- 
 sant 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 scepticism, of your quietism, 
 of your atheism, my poor fellow. You're going to sell yourself, and 
 Heaven help you ! You are 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 httle dinner at the Club ; the chefs in town, and hell 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."
 
 PENDENiVJS. 611 
 
 CHAPTER LXII. 
 
 WHICH ACCOUNTS PERHAPS FOR CHAPTER LXI. 
 
 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, neutralised the other, and the appearance of Amory or Alta- 
 mont 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 tinae, by holding the threat of his discovery over 
 Clavering, the latter, who would lose everything by Amory's appear- 
 ance, 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 repro- 
 bate ; and her heirs, whoever they might be, would succeed but to an 
 emptied treasury; and Miss Amorj^, instead of bringing her husband 
 a good income and a seat in Parliament, would bring to that indi- 
 vidual her person only, and her pedigree with that lamentable note of 
 stis. 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 honourable 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
 
 6i2 PEXDEXXIS. 
 
 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 inconsider- 
 able fashion, vanish from amongst his comrades of the Clubs and the 
 Park, and be discovered, very happy and aftable, at an eighteen-penny 
 ordinary in Billingsgate: another gentleman, of great learning and 
 wit, when out-running the constable (were I to say he was a literar)- 
 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 
 clue 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 downstairs," 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 scene and other fugitive stratagems. 
 
 So, though the elder Pendennis, having his own ulterior object, 
 was bent upon seeing Pen's countr)- neighbour and representative in 
 Parliament, it took the Major no inconsiderable trouble and time 
 before he could get him into such a confidential state and conversa- 
 tion, as were necessary for the ends which the Major had in view. 
 For since the :\Iajor had been called in as family friend, and had 
 cognisance 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 alone:— on another occasion the Major wrote and 
 asked for ten minutes' talk, and the Baronet instantly acknowledged
 
 PENDENNIS. 613 
 
 the note, and made the appointment at four o'clock the next day at 
 'Qz.ys'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 victimised 
 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 favoured. And it chanced that Strong 
 heard of this transaction at the place where the writings had been 
 drawn, — in the back parlour, namely, of Mr. Santiago's cigar-shop, 
 where the Chevalier w^as 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 parlour. 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 dare say 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 satis- 
 faction 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 honour of visiting our friend Major 
 Pendennis in his lodgings. The Major was walking daintily towards 
 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 ever)'thing with 
 their smoke," thought the Major. " Here comes a fellow with musta- 
 chios and a cigar. Every fellow who smokes and wears mustachios 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 towards the lock of the door, 
 with trembling hand, the polished door-key.
 
 6i4 PENDENNIS. 
 
 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 towards him a 
 couple of ungracious fingers. 
 
 "What is your good news?" said Major Pendennis, patronising 
 the other still farther, and condescending to address to him an observa- 
 tion, for old Pendennis had kept such good company all his life, that 
 he vaguely imagined he honoured common men by speaking to them. 
 
 " Still in town, Mr. Strong ? I hope I see you well ?" 
 
 " 'Sly 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 favour 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 unbur- 
 thened 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 honour, 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 : he will deceive 
 anybody, his wife or his child, or his old friend, who has backed him 
 a hundred times. WTiy, there's a bill of his and mine will be due 
 next v.eek — " 
 
 " 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 gaol 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 coun- 
 tenance. " Who is Altamont, Mr. Strong ? " 
 
 "I am sure I don't know, if you don't know," the Chev.ilicr 
 answered, with a look of surprise snd suspicion. 
 
 " To tell you frankly," said the Major, " I have my suspicions.
 
 PENDENNIS. 615 
 
 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, 
 1 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 best of my humble power and ability, if 1 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 patronising 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-humour. " 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 knov.-, 
 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
 
 6,6 PENDEXXIS. 
 
 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 Pen- 
 dennis ; the Chevaher not a Httle 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 masters conversation 
 with his visitor, had been standing ver>' 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 anything 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 Governors bills, and 
 indosses 'em, and does his odd jobs and that ; and I suppose Alta- 
 mont'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 j\Ir. 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 ver>' 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 IMr. Arthur, and if Mr. Arthur sIiouU want a little 
 money before his rents was paid, perhaps he would kindly remember 
 that his uncle's old and faithful ser%^ant had some as he would like to
 
 PEA'J.)EANIS. 617 
 
 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 
 liis 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 humour 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 pro- 
 posal 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 dis- 
 tinction 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 ha\-e 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 regard- 
 ing his wealth with that free and insolent way which so high-placed 
 a gentleman might be disposed to adopt towards 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
 
 6,s PENDENNIS. 
 
 I'm "-lad 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 Parhinent 
 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 'i 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 
 1 don't mind owning, sir, and I hope I may take the liberty of saying, 
 sir, that a little more would make me ver)' 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 gentle- 
 man'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 
 douTi any more." 
 
 Although Major Pendennis was as much surprised at this intelli- 
 gence regarding his servant, as if he had heard that Morgan was a 
 disguised Marquis, about to throw off his mask and assume his scat 
 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 even,- 
 man who represented money and success, and found himself respecting 
 Morgan, and being rather afraid of that worthy, as the truth began t« 
 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
 
 PENDENNIS. 619 
 
 more of Sir Francis's debts, I shall advise and 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 Clavering's notes. Do you know anything 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 sec 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 ne.xt morning the valet informed Major Pendennis that he 
 had seen Mr. Abrams; what was the amount of the bill that gentle- 
 man was desirous to negotiate ; and that the Baronet would be sure 
 to be in the back parlour 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 sate in the parlour of the tavern in question, sur- 
 rounded 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 deter- 
 mined 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 1 I've 
 never done yoji any harm, have I } I've never had your money. And
 
 6;o PEyDEXXIS. 
 
 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 honour, 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 it two 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 — 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 towards him. 
 
 " No, no," said Clavering, piteously ; " I beg your pardon. I 
 didn't mean to be angry, or say anything 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 Majors hands. 
 
 " I've no errand from anybody or no design upon you," Pendennis 
 said, "but an endeavour, 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 ; 
 mdeed it is," the Baronet cried, clasping his hands. 
 
 " I knew your secret from the very first day when I saw Amor>-
 
 PEXDENNIS. 621 
 
 come drunk into your dining-room in Grosvenor Place. I never 
 forget faces. I remember that fellow in Sydney 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 
 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 ivill 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 kinds, 
 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 si.x 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 ; 
 ril 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 to- 
 gether. 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, Pen- 
 dennis ? " 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, vdth 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 'em, I should not wonder the Ministry- 
 would give me an island to govern, or some dev'lish good thing ; for
 
 522 PEXDEXXIS. 
 
 Tou know I'm a gentleman of devlish good family, and have a handle 
 \o mv name, and— and that sort of thing, Major Pendenms. Eh, 
 don't 'you see? Don't you think they'd give me something derlish 
 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 «<7/r— 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 some- 
 thing of a blush on his cheek, and a certain tremor, w^hich 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 ver>- clever fellow, and 
 would make a figure there : and when Clavering had two Members, 
 his father might ver)' hkely 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 anything out of this room," Pendennis answered; 
 " and if you do this favour 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 annhing 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 wiU tr)- and manage about 
 the advance." (Arthur may lend him that, thought old Pendennis. 
 Confoimd 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." 
 
 "\Vhen 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 anything here ? The>''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
 
 PENDEXN/S. 623 
 
 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 con- 
 nected 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 gaily 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 compro- 
 mise with his conscience, and that Sadduceeism was a very convenient 
 and good-humoured profession of faith.
 
 6:4 
 
 PENDEXXIS. 
 
 CHAPTER LXIII. 
 
 PHILLIS AND CORYDOX. 
 
 ON a picturesque common in the neighbourhood 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 societj' 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 
 hked poverty and a cottage, and bread and cheese; and, for a nighty 
 perhaps, a dungeon and bread and water, and so the move to Tun- 
 bridge 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 quarrelled 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, car\-ed 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,
 
 PENDEXXIS. 62> 
 
 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 hald 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 con- 
 fessions in the vestry. The most harmless creature in the world, he 
 was denounced as a black and 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-cali-'em ! All these things did the boy of Clapham 
 practise ; 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 httle 
 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 
 neighbours regarding him ; these, thinking him in direct correspond- 
 ence 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-think- 
 ing, 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 Amor}'; 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 v/ith 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; 
 
 4.0
 
 626 FENDEXNIS. 
 
 he thought she had been a right-thinking person, he feared she had 
 morel V made rehgion an amusement— she certainly had quite lost her 
 temper to the schoolmistress, and beat Polly Rucker's knuckles 
 cruellv.'' Belinda flew to his arms, there was no question about the 
 <'rave'or the veil any more. He tenderly embraced her on the fore- 
 head. " There is none like thee, my Belinda," he said, throwing his 
 fine eves 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 clerg)-man. 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 anything 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, (S:c. <S: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 ver>- 
 cordial. Arthur loved anybody 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 exemplar^' person, seconded them with all her 
 endeavours. He had built this little church on his mothers 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 feeUng. And his praises of Blanche pleased and 
 surprised our friend not a little, and made him regard her with eyes 
 of particular favour. 
 
 The truth is, Blanche was very glad to see Arthur; as one is ghd 
 to see an agreeable man in the co-mtrj^, who brings down the last
 
 PENDENNIS. 627 
 
 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 bed-time, she said, 
 " Dtl/'cl / " 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 ver)' moderately bright 
 dazzled him. 
 
 " 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 ver)' 
 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 moon- 
 light ! I wonder what old Warrington's doing ? Yes, she's a da)-vlish 
 nice little thing, as my uncle says." 
 
 " Oh, heavenly ! " Here broke out a voice from a clematis-covered 
 casement near — a girl's voice : it was the voice of the author of Afes 
 Lannes. 
 
 Pen burst into a laugh. " Don't tell about my smoking," he said, 
 leaning out of his own window. 
 
 " Oh ! go on ! I adore it," cried the lady of Mes Larmes. 
 "Heavenly night! Heavenly, heavenly moon! but I must shut my 
 window and not talk to you, on account of les vicrnrs! How droll they 
 are, les mams! Adieu." And Pen began to sing the Good-night tc 
 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 ? Oh, 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 — remem- 
 ber the songs they sang in the haippy old days, now he was grown such 
 a great man, and had such a succes? &c. &c.
 
 6:8 PENDEXNIS. 
 
 And the day after, which was enlivened with a happy ramble 
 ilirough 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 countrj-?" he asked her, as they 
 walked together. 
 
 " I should like never to see that odious city again. Oh, 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 V 
 
 " Never mind why." 
 
 " Yes I do mind why. Tell me, tell me ever\'thing." 
 
 " I wish you hadn't come down ; " and a second edition of Mcs 
 Soiipirs came out. 
 
 " You don't want me, Blanche ? " 
 
 '•' I don't want you to go away. I don't think this house will be 
 ver)- 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 dr>-ing them ? What took place ? 
 O rmgdoves and roses, O dews and wild-flowers, O waving greenwoods 
 and balmy airs of summer ! Here were two battered London rakes, 
 takmg themselves in for a moment, and fancying that thev were in love 
 with each other, like Phillis and Corjdon ! 
 
 When one thinks of country houses and countr>- walks, one 
 wonders that any man is left unmarried.
 
 PENDENNIS. 629 
 
 CHAPTER LXIV. 
 
 TEMPTATION. 
 
 EASY and frank-spoken as Pcndennis commonly was with War- 
 rington, how came it that Arthur did not inform the friend and 
 depositary 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 meantime 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 " staunch," 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 " Rose-leaves," 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 Pinkne/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 countr}- friends of course there may be a cor-
 
 630 PENDENNIS. 
 
 respondence, 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 expe- 
 rience 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 sub- 
 jected 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 afterwards was united to Miss Stickney, 
 of Lyme Regis, &c. The Major, if he had not reading, had plenty of 
 obsen-ation, 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 \)Oxt^q. 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
 
 PENDExWNIS. 631 
 
 the fulness of his purse and the generosity of his heart, he made such 
 a sacrifice to conscience and dcHcacy 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 aflairs 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 demeanour .'' — 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 repre- 
 sentatives, 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 pocket-books 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. 
 
 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 doors 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, whilst 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 daslied 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 defence 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 necessar}' supplies, and kept up Strong's
 
 (i32 PENDENNIS. 
 
 heart and prevented him from surrendering, by visiting him and 
 cheering him in his retreat. Two of xNed'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 
 jlidt'l, 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 garri- 
 son 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 historj', 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 neighbour'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. Mark's aides-de-camp 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 astonish- 
 ment of Mrs. Bolton and Fanny, who had not seen him quit his 
 chambers and could not concei\e 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 indifterence 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
 
 PENDENNIS. 633 
 
 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 e.xactly 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 Mark's bill, and he paid the other fellows 
 that were upon me, like a man, sir, that he did," said Strong, enthu- 
 siastically. 
 
 " And I shall be very happy to stand a bottle of claret for this com- 
 pany, 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 Alta- 
 mont, rather excited, filled up another bumper, nodded to Pen, drank 
 oft' 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 Rich- 
 mond, 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 humour, 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 sper.ds his money, you know. And it's the fellers at the
 
 634 PENDENNIS. 
 
 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, 
 everybody'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 w^ould have had 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 oi 
 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 fuU length all his plans and prospects to Pen, who was 
 interested in listening to his stoiy, and the confessions of his daring 
 and lawless good-humour. 
 
 " I met that queer fellow Altamont the other day," Pen said to his 
 uncle, a day or two afterwards. 
 
 "Altamont.? What Altamont? There's Lord W^estport'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 
 honour to think that I was a good feUow." 
 
 " I don't know any man of the name of Altamont, I give you my 
 honour," 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 countrj-, 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 aide-de-camp. W^hat is it that binds the Chevaher 
 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
 
 PENDENNIS. 635 
 
 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 pre\cnt him from putting you or anybody 
 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 honourable men, and men of the highest birth 
 and position in the country, begad ? " The Colonel 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 1 — not because 
 " everybody does it,"' but because we like it ; and our acquiescence, 
 alas 1 proves not that everybody is right, but that we and the rest of 
 the world arc poor creatures alike. 
 
 At his next visit to Tunbridgc, Mr. Pen did not forget to amuse 
 I^Iiss 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 behaviour 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 communi- 
 cations which Arthur made to Miss Amory in the course of their 
 delightful rural drives and their sweet evening walks, it may be sup- 
 posed 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 intbnes con- 
 versations, 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. W'hat griefs she had endured and surmounted, 
 what bitter pangs of hopeless attachment she had gone through, what
 
 636 PENDEXXIS. 
 
 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 con- 
 queror 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 anvthing but 
 ardour 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 marr^'ing 
 and giving in marriage as now obtains, and as is necessar)- 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 come to a better end than that. I don't like 
 histories that end in that cynical way ; and when we arrive at the con- 
 clusion 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 gallipots ? I wish, though I don't see it in hfe, that people could 
 be like Jenny and Jessamy, or my Lord and Lady Clementina in the 
 stor>'-books and fashionable novels, and at once under the ceremony, 
 and, as it were, at the parson's benediction, become perfectly hand- 
 some 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
 
 PENDENNIS. 637 
 
 your marriage be a compromise," asked the author of Mes Lannes 
 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 wonU 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 everybody does, almost everybody ; only it is luckier to fail before 
 marriage than after." 
 
 " Merci du choix, Monsieur ^^ said the Sylphide, making a curtsey. 
 
 " Look, my little Blanche," said Pen, taking her hand, and with his 
 voice of sad good-humour ; " 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 beau- 
 tiful, 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 curtsey. 
 
 " I think you sing charmingly. Fm sure you're clever, I hope 
 and believe that you are good-natured, and that you will be com- 
 panionable." 
 
 " 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 cVhomieur I We used to call 
 your Highness the Prince of Fairoaks. What an honour 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
 
 63$ PENDENNIS. 
 
 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 hj'po- 
 crisies 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 PrettjTnan'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 afterwards. Shall I feed my pretty prin- 
 cess with bofibons ? '' 
 
 " Mais f adore les bojiboiis, 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 pooty 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 anybody" — she 
 sobbed out, with much simplicity. 
 
 "Anybody!" 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, " Oh, Arthur, vous etes un Jiomme 
 terrible I" 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 Parlia- 
 ment ? " 
 
 " A7i 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?"
 
 PENDENNIS, 639 
 
 " 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-ijiade French 
 verses, of the most tender kind ; and, besides, despatched 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 Messrs. Smith, 
 Elder and Co. would sell !
 
 64D PENDENNIS. 
 
 CHAPTER LXV. 
 
 IN WHICH PEN BEGINS HIS CANVASS. 
 
 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 drear)- 
 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 
 marrjing 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 elderly 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 favour ; 
 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 com- 
 panion who would relieve his loneliness, and perhaps would lend him 
 a little ready money. 
 
 Pen furnished his host with these 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 the neighbouring watering-places, of 
 
 which shire boasts many, and went off to see to his affairs, which 
 
 were transacted, as might be supposed, at the count^' 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 were plenty of books and occupation for a
 
 PENDEXNIS. 641 
 
 literary genius like Mr. Arthur, 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 in- 
 spired amongst the simple people there. His sense of humour 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 everybody 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' ordinar)'; 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 everybody, and we had 
 rather have it than be without it. Friend Pen went about at Clavering, 
 laboriously simple and adroitly pleased, and quite a diff"erent 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 Harrogate; an event which Pen deplored verj' 
 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 w^hose 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 admis- 
 sion, and where no tradesmen were allowed an entrance. He pi'O- 
 pitiated the younger partner of the cloth-factor>', by asking him to 
 
 41
 
 1^.12 
 
 PENDEXNIS. 
 
 dine in a friendly way at the Park; he complimented the Honourable 
 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 
 tonf^ue 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-humour. 
 
 And yet, as he walked out of Clavering of a night, after " pre- 
 siding" at a meeting of the Athenseum, or working through an 
 evening with JMrs. 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 whis- 
 pered, 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 onwards towards 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 Artillerj- 
 (whose mother, old Mrs. Stokes, lives in Clavering) receives his land- 
 lord'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. 
 Siokes the pleasure to, &c. Pen, who has been a fortnight in the 
 tountry, excuses himself for not having called sooner upon the Captain 
 by frankly owning that he had not the heart to do it. '• I under-
 
 PENDENNIS. 643 
 
 stand you, sir," the Captain says ; and Mrs. Stokes, who had shpped 
 away at the ring of the bell (how odd it seemed to Pen to ring the 
 bell !), comes down in her best gown, surropnded 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 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 honour by his tenant, and at 
 which old Mrs. Stokes, Captain Glanders, Squire Hobnell, and the 
 clergyman and his lady from Tinkleton, 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- 
 humour 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 Tinkle- 
 ton, " I think, Mr. Stooks, you should have asked Hodson to ctcl 
 the hare" the joke was taken instantly by the clergj'man, 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 ]\Irs. Bonner, 
 her mother's maid, who had lived and quarrelled 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."
 
 544 PEXDEXXIS. 
 
 The honest woman took the beneiit 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 linen- 
 draper>', 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 fond- 
 ness 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. 
 
 It was in the Strand that Mrs. Bonner made her purchases, aided 
 by Miss Blanche, who liked the fun ver)- well, and when the old lady 
 had bought everything that she desired, and was leaving the shop, 
 Blanche, with a smiling face, and a sweet bow to one of the shopmen, 
 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, Oldcastle 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 ver>' 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 
 anything. I looked out several of my dresses on purpose this morning, 
 Bonner !" and she looked at Bonner as if she had a right to admira- 
 tion, 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 countr>--girl a ball- 
 dress when she had worn it and was tired of it. 
 
 " Pittty girl— pretty young woman ! " mumbled Mrs. Bonner. " I 
 know / want no pretty young women to come about Lightfoot," and
 
 PENDENNIS. « 645 
 
 in im<i?;ination 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, and a shot-silk dress, and a wonderful mantle, and a charming 
 parasoL, presented a vision of elegance and beauty such as bewil- 
 dered 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 Rebecca ; 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 splendour 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 verj' 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 g}'urlls up their stairs." 
 
 "Hallo — 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 open, and began to
 
 646 PENDENNIS. 
 
 thunder at the knocker. After many and fierce knocks, the inner door 
 was partinllv 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 downstairs muttering threats 
 at the indignity offered to him, and vowing that he would have satis- 
 faction. 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 wel- 
 come 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 neighbouring 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 
 affabilit)", 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 gallantr\- 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 masters 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 anything ?'' asked 
 Altamont. 
 
 Grady came out—" He says, will you take anuhing to drink.?" the
 
 PENDENNIS. 647 
 
 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 anything 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 
 new-comers, and so left them. 
 
 "Will we take anything 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 apostrophised, 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 growTi! 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 bra\vny 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 
 chambers into the room: Grady from his kitchen, and Strong from
 
 64S PEiXDENNIS. 
 
 his apartment in the upper stor>-. 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 anybody 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 oft' 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.
 
 PENDENNIS. 649 
 
 CHAPTER LXVI. 
 
 IN WHICH PEN BEGINS TO DOUBT HIS ELECTION. 
 
 WHILST 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 pro- 
 tector 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 medi- 
 tating.'' 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 dis- 
 close 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 railler)'; 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 simple countr)--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 accus- 
 tomed 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 worshipped her two children, and thought, 
 as home-bred women will, that all the v.-orld was made for them, or. to
 
 650 PENDENNIS. 
 
 be considered after them. She tended Laura mth 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 gi'ief 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- 
 ^vill — some, perhaps, slighted her : it might have been that ser\-ants 
 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 sensitive- 
 ness 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 I What bad tempers and 
 coarse unkindness have not these to encounter ! How infinitely better 
 my lot is Avith 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 cruel to so much 
 innocence and beauty. Oh, happy they who have that \-irgin 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 widows little cross, which, as wc 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 o\vner in another world, 
 where diamonds are stated to be of no value, but here, too, is of in- 
 estimable worth to its possessor ; is a talisman against evil, and lightens 
 up the darkness of Hfe, 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
 
 PEA'DENNIS. 651 
 
 of her bounty, Laura had secured the good-will of everybody. 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 com- 
 panions. 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 number 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 Cold- 
 stream (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), 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 a 
 great trouvaille in her. All this 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 ver>' pitiless and abrupt 
 with our young friend, and perhaps Pen expected when he came to 
 Baj-mouth 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 downstairs, and I am not sure that she did not 
 embrace him in the presence of Calverley and Coldstream : not that 
 those gentlemen ever told : if thefrachis orbish.a.d come to a smash, if 
 Laura, instead of kissing Pen, had taken her scissors and snipped off 
 his head — Calverley 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 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
 
 652 PENDENNIS. 
 
 bright clear eyes, and read in them that kindhng 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. " 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 dare say 
 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 beau- 
 tiful Miss Blanche Amor)^ is " 
 
 " What ! that too ? " asked Pendennis. 
 
 " That, too, dear Arthur. Toitt se satt, as somebody would say, 
 whom I intend to be very fond of; and who I am sure is ver}' 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 V 
 
 " My home is yours, dear Laura, and everything I have,"' Pen 
 said. " If I did not tell you, it was because — because — I do not know : 
 nothing is decided yet. No words have passed between us. But you 
 think Blanche could be happy with me — dont 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 Fairoal^.-- 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 angr>' 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 easilv, and took his 
 happiness for granted.
 
 PENDENNIS. 653 
 
 " 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 
 housekeeper. 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 j'ou 
 become a Minister of State, Blanche shall present me : " and with this, 
 and with a provoking good-humour, she performed for him the last 
 Parisian curtsey. 
 
 Lady Rockminster came in whilst this curtsey was being per- 
 formed, 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. / 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 Fm very glad I am not — a 
 little odious thing— when I think that a man could prefer her to my 
 Laura, Fve no patience with him, and so I tell you, Mr. Arthur 
 Pendennis." 
 
 " I am very glad you see Laura with such favourable eyes," 
 Pen said. 
 
 •' You are very glad, and you are very sorry. What does it matter, 
 sir, whether you are very glad or \trf 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,
 
 654 
 
 PENDENNIS 
 
 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 favour 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 her- 
 self," 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 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 recom- 
 mend you to come often," the old lady said, " for Grandjean is an 
 excellent cook, and to be with Laura and me wiU 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 vet)- 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 whilst 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 everybody round about her, sns
 
 PENDEANIS. 655 
 
 was not hard to please; and all the slaves and subjects of her little 
 dowager court trembled before her, but loved her. 
 
 She did net 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 night : and I used to read to her until 
 1 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 ?vlartha 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 ihat, 
 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 a union between her two 
 children, had caused a reserve on Laura's part towards Pen ; for which, 
 under the altered circumstances of Arthurs 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 churchyard- 
 gate : and it was told over the place that Pen and Laura had visited
 
 656 PENDEX.XIS. 
 
 Helen's grave together. Since Arthur had come down into the country, 
 lie 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 honour 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 that others in the world he lived in 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 ver>' 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 honour. 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, 
 baulked 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 e.xceptions, 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 
 cannot 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 spoilt you at home, by
 
 PENDENNIS. 657 
 
 worshipping 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 cannot be otherwise 
 than selfish. You have to fight for yourself, and to get on for your- 
 self, 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 owtl 
 children playing on the lawn, Arthur, and that we might pray in our 
 mothers 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 hedge- 
 rows 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 fervour, though 
 Laura's veil fell over her face to hide it. 
 
 Pen rode on by Laura's side silently for awhile. George's name so 
 
 42
 
 658 
 
 PENDENNIS. 
 
 mentioned brought back the past to him, and the thoughts which he 
 had once had regarding George and Laura. WTiy should the recur- 
 rence 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 widows 
 last journey from Fairoaks, when hastening with her mother to Arthurs 
 sick bed, Laura had made a different confession ; and it was only 
 when Warrington told his own storj-, and described the hopeless con- 
 dition of his life, that she discovered how much her feelings had 
 changed, and with what tender sjTnpathy, 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 her heart, perhaps, had told 
 his melancholy stor>' 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 discover}^ 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
 
 PENDENNIS. 659 
 
 for thoughts more selfish; and by the time she ralhed from that grief 
 the minor one 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. " Oh, 
 how wicked and proud I was about Artliur," 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, pro- 
 fessing to love one man, could listen to another only too eagerly ; and 
 would not pardon the change of feelings in Arthur, whilst 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, ver\' 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 despe- 
 rate 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 dare say it is very good that Arthur should go into Parliament and 
 distinguish himself, and my duty is to do everything that lies in my 
 power^to aid him and Blanche, and to make his home happy. I dare say 
 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
 
 66o PENDENNIS. 
 
 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 con- 
 templation, 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 iMr. 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 recognised : 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 M6re, who was scrubbing the room, and looked 
 at me with very scrubby looks ; but ia belle Fanny was not au logis; 
 and as I heard that she was in Captain Strong's apartments, Bonner 
 and I mounted mc troisihne to see this famous beauty. Another 
 disappointment — only the Chevalier Strong and a friend of his in the 
 room: Sv") we came away after all without seeing the enchanting 
 Fanny. 
 
 '■'■'■ Je Venvoie mille et milk baisers. When will that horrid can- 
 vassing be over } Sleeves are worn,' &c. &c. &c." 
 
 After dinner the doctor was reading the Times. " A young gentle- 
 man 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 Fokcr, Esq., of Logwood Hall, at Pau, in the 
 Pjrenees, on the 15th ult."
 
 PENDENNIS. 05< 
 
 CHAPTER LXVII. 
 
 IN WHICH THE MAJOR IS BIDDEN TO STAND AND DELIVER. 
 
 A NY 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 land- 
 lady sits. One is a parlour 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, whilst Pendennis and Clavering had their discourse' 
 in the parlour. 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 Sydney ? 
 Clavering ain't no more married to my Lady than I am ! Altamont's 
 the man : Altamont's a convict ; young Harthur comes into Parlyment, 
 and the Gov'nor promises not to split. By Jove, what a sly old rogue 
 it is, that old Go'v'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."
 
 662 PENDENNIS. 
 
 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 veiy 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 upstart 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 millium a year (such, we grieve to say, 
 was Morgan's opinion of his employei-'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 won- 
 derful 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 sne 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 ven,^ 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 flowti ; 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, victor)- or patient 
 ambush, Morgan bore all alike,' with similar equable countenance. 
 Until the proper day came, the Majors 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 tidelitv.
 
 PENDJCNA'IS. 663 
 
 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 ideas, 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 
 an:iong 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 Poins, 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 West 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 cafe 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
 
 664 PEXDENNIS. 
 
 in rouge, the wits of the world (the old wits, the old polished gentle- 
 men—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 
 think of to-da)''s Lady Lorraine — a little woman in a black silk 
 gown, like a governess, who talks astronomy, and labouring 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 monaster)- — 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' lumbago. " And the other young men, those lounging 
 guardsmen and great lazy dandies — sprawling over sofas and billiard- 
 tables, and stealing oft" to smoke pipes in each other's bed-rooms, 
 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 diff"erence there is between these men who poison 
 the very turnips and stubble-fields with their tobacco, and the gentle- 
 men 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, whilst 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 nior.il questions had 
 never been verj- deep; it had never struck him perhaps, until very- 
 lately, that he was otherwise than a most respectable and rather fortu- 
 nate 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 Pen- 
 dennis 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-dav comes work
 
 PENDENNIS. 665 
 
 and a yellow fog ; and, yc 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 amongst us has not said good-by to his holiday; returned to dun 
 London, and his fate : surveyed his labours and liabilities laid out 
 before him, and been aware of that inevitable little account to settle ? 
 Smith and his little account in the morning, symbolise 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 labours 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 countr)'-house where he had been 
 staying : the birds were wild and shy, and the walking over the 
 ploughed 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 railroad 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 news- 
 papers; and that irreclaimable old bore Jawkins, who would come 
 and dine at the next table to Pendennis, and describe to him eveiy
 
 666 PENDENNIS. 
 
 inn-bill which he had paid in his foreign tour : each and all of these 
 disao-rceablc 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. 
 
 Whilst the Major was absent from his lodgings, Morgan had been 
 seated in the landlady's parlour, drinking freely of hot brandy-and- 
 water, and pouring out on Mrs. Brixham some of the abuse which he 
 had received from his master upstairs. 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 
 widoVs 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 per- 
 fonning 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 
 mantel-piece of his back-parlour. Morgan sate in the widow's back- 
 room, in the ex-curate's old horse-hair study-chair, making Mrs. Brix- 
 ham 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 upstairs 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 labouring. The old gentle- 
 man's foot-bath was at the fire; his gown and slippers awaiting him 
 there. Morgan knelt down to take his boots off with due subordina- 
 tion : 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 sotio voce below was expressing a wish to strangle him, 
 drown him, and punch his head off. 
 
 The boots removed, it became necessary lo 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
 
 PENDENNIS, 667 
 
 perceive what Mr. Morgan's late occupation had been ; to which lie 
 adverted in that simple and forcible phraseology which men arc some- 
 limes 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 
 
 subqrdination, " 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 ycr 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 downstairs, 
 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 'i " 
 asked the man, " and won't it be equal convenient to-morrow 
 momin' ? — tootyfay Miatne shose, sivvaplay, munseer?" " 
 
 " Silence, you beast, and go !" cried out the Major. 
 
 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 
 form'ly, and per'aps 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'_y<?«r 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 honourable, done everythink 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 'Alf Pay."
 
 668 FEA'DENi\IS. 
 
 The fur>' 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 adversar)-, 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." 
 
 " IVe'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 extra- 
 ordinary 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 thing 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 to-night. We must part, and I must go out of the 
 lodgings. Dammy, I like the lodgings ; I'm used to "em. It's verj' 
 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 ; hawas the best servant in England." He thought 
 about his ser\^ant 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 !
 
 PENDENNIS. 669 
 
 In these melancholy cogitations the Major who had donned his 
 own dressing gown and replaced his head of hair (a little grey 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 bis 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- 
 toilette. " It — it's very late, Mrs. Brixham." 
 
 " 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. Brbvham. Impossible. I'd determined to 
 part with him before, when I heard of his dealings in the discount 
 Ijusiness — I suppose you've heard of them, Mrs. Brixham 1 My ser- 
 vant's a capitalist, begad." 
 
 " Oh, sir," said Mrs. Brixham, " 1 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. 
 Everything I had is his. He's a dreadful man." 
 
 " Eh, Mrs. Brixham ? iant 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 downstairs from you just now — he had been drinking, and 
 it always makes him verj' 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. Brixliam ; 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 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 to you in the morning 
 with pleasure : but — but it's getting late, and I have made a railroad 
 journey."
 
 670 
 
 PENDENNIS. 
 
 " God's will be done, sir," said the poor woman, dr>'ing her tears. 
 " I must bear my fate." 
 
 "And a dev'Hsh 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 downstairs, 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 
 feUow?" 
 
 " He went away, sir. He said he should see you in the morning. 
 Oh, 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 III say good-by^ 
 to Mrs. Brixham and Mr. Morgan."
 
 PENDENNIS. 671 
 
 CHAPTER LXVIII. 
 
 IN WHICH THE MAJOR NEITHER YIELDS HIS MONEY NOR HIS LIFE. 
 
 EARLY next morning Pendennis's shutters were opened by Mor- 
 gan, who appeared as usual, with a face perfectly grave and 
 respectful, bearing with him the old gentleman's clothes, cans of water, 
 and elaborate toilette 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 comf'table as long as you stay in my house, I 
 came up to do what's ne'ssary."' 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 fam'lies, and I can wouch 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 repre- 
 sented to Mr. Frosch, that he, Morgan, had had " a devil of a blow-hup 
 with his own Gov'nor, and was goin' to retire from the business halto- 
 gether, and that if Frosch wanted a tempo'ry job, he might prob'bly 
 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 awaited 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
 
 6?: 
 
 PENBENNIS. 
 
 to Fitzurse Castle, which Frosch's chest is delicate, and he cannot beat 
 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 ver>- well— Mr. Alorgan, will you have 
 the great kindness to " 
 
 " I shall show him what is ne'ssar\^, sir, and what is custom'n- 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 after.vards 
 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-cmployer 
 made him almost as angr)' as the Majors bitterest words. And whilst 
 the old gentleman is making his mysterious toilet, we will also modestly 
 retire. 
 
 After breakfast, Major Pendennis and his new aide-de-camp occu- 
 pied themselves in preparing for their departure. The establishment 
 of the old bachelor was not very complicated. He encumbered him- 
 self with no useless wardrobe. A bible (his mother's), a road-book. 
 Pen's novel (calf elegant), and the Duke of Wellington's Despatches, 
 with a few prints, maps, and portraits of that illustrious general, and 
 of various sovereigns and consorts of this countr)', and of the General 
 under whom Major Pendennis had served in India, formed his literan.' 
 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 suffi- 
 cient 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 demeanour w^as guarded and solemn; he had 
 spoken no word as yet to Mrs. Brixham respecting his thrcr.ts of the 
 past night, but he looked as if he would execute them, a >i 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 kind- 
 ness to request Frosch to step downstairs," he said, on entering.
 
 PENDENNIS. 673 
 
 " Bring a couple of cabs, Frosch, if you please — and wait down- 
 stairs until I ring for you," said the Major. Morgan saw Frosch 
 downstairs, 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 cheque 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 por- 
 pose 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 infamatioti." 
 
 "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 honourable 
 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 
 behaviour. You have been listening at the door, sir, I suppose," said 
 the Major, looking very haughty ; " I forgot to look at the keyhole 
 when I went to that public-house, or I might have suspected what 
 sort of a 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 anybody 
 else may. A poor servant may have a bit of luck as well as a gentle- 
 man, 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. 
 
 43
 
 674 PENDENNIS. 
 
 " 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 cheque-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-barrelled 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 towards the open window, under which a police- 
 man happened to be on his beat. " Murder ! Pohce ! " 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 would 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
 
 PENDENNIS. 67s 
 
 — 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 upstairs 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 discom- 
 fiture. 
 
 " 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 him- 
 self." 
 
 " Do you give Mr. Morgan in charge ? " said the policemafk, 
 
 " I have brought no charge as yet," the Major said, with a signi- 
 ficant look at his man. 
 
 " Thank you, sir," whispered Morgan, very low. 
 
 " Go outside the door, and wait there, policeman, if you please. —
 
 676 PENDENXIS. 
 
 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, 
 recognised 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 
 anything, 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 ? " 
 
 " rU 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. Bri.x- 
 ham'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 
 wiU draw out a little paper, which you will have the kindness to 
 sign. No, stop ! — you shaU write it : you have improved immensely 
 in WTiting of late, and have now a ver>' 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 
 ser\'ice of Arthur Pendennis, Esquire, of Bury Street, St. James's, a 
 Major in his 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.
 
 PENDENxWIS. 677 
 
 •' 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. 
 Amongst 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 pro- 
 perty from him, which I acknowledge to be now upstairs in my trunks : 
 and having uttered falsehoods regarding his and other honourable 
 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 cab 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 curtsey, and over which 
 she was ready to make a speech full of tears, the Major cut short that
 
 67S PENDENNIS. 
 
 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 parlour window, discharged 
 anything but blessings at his parting guest; but the stout old boy 
 could aftbrd not to be frightened at Mr. Morgan, and flung him a look 
 of great contempt and humour 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 oitutn in a dignified manner, 
 surveying the evening fog, and smoking a cigar on the door-steps, 
 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'; 
 kno\\-ing full well that to smoke was treason, in the presence of the 
 Major. 
 
 " Major Pendennis is 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 honour of 
 being in his service, sir." 
 
 " Indeed, and where is he?" 
 
 " I believe he 'ave taken tempor'y lodgings at Cox's 'otel, in Jum- 
 min 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 honour of waiting on you there : and would be thankful if 
 you would favour 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 favour 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 
 patronise 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, of which the reader has already had cognizance.
 
 PENDENNIS. 679 
 
 CHAPTER LXIX. 
 
 IN WHICH PENDENNIS COUNTS HIS EGGS. 
 
 OUR friend had arrived in London on that day only, though but 
 for a brief visit, and having left some fellow-travellers at an 
 hotel to which he had convoyed 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, per- 
 fumed 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. Warring- 
 ton 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 Freddric 
 would have rushed into each other's arms and shrieked " Ce bon cocur! 
 ce cher Alphotise ! '" over each other's shoulders. Max and Wilhelm 
 would have bestowed half a dozen kisses, scented with Havannah, 
 upon each other's mustachios. " 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.
 
 6So PENDENNIS. 
 
 " 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 writ- 
 ings; as the learning, which he never displays in talk, enriches his 
 style with pregnant allusion and brilliant illustration, colours his gene- 
 rous 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 neighbourhood 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 War- 
 rington. " Do we come out as Liberal Conservative, or as Government 
 man, or on our own hook ? " 
 
 " Hem ! There are no politics now ; ever>' 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 C>Tiic, I have been getting up the 
 Blue Books, and intend to come out rather strong on the Sanitar)- and 
 Colonisation questions." 
 
 "We reserve to ourselves the hberty of voting against Govern- 
 ment, though we are generally friendly. We are, however, friends of 
 the people avaiit 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."
 
 PENDENNIS. 681 
 
 " I am not Moses," said Pen, with, as usual, somewhat of melan- 
 choly 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 sceptical 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 for 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 Morjiing Post is often right, and Punch is often 
 wrong. I don't profess a call, but take advantage of a chance. Parlous 
 (Tanire 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 everything from the Begum's 
 generosity, and says that she will come down very handsomely. And 
 I think Blanche is dev'lish 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, whilst I have been in the country, I think she has been 
 growing fonder and fonder of me; and her letters to me, and espe- 
 cially 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 faitej and not desirous to hasten or defer the completion." 
 " And Laura ? how is she ? " Warrington asked frankly. 
 
 j " 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.
 
 68, PENDENNIS. 
 
 " Have you only found out that now, young 'un?" Warrington said 
 
 after a pause. -. „ . j , , 
 
 '• Who has not learned things too late, George ? cned 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 anybody who was 
 happy quite :. or who has not had to ransom himself out of the hands 
 of Fate with the pa>-ment of some dearest treasure or other. Lucky 
 if we are left alone afterwards, 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 it ? She's gone 
 from us. God's blessing be with her ! She might have stayed, 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 ver>' bad humour; 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 pave 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
 
 PENDENA'IS. 683 
 
 have been the progenitor I should have desired for my race ; nor my 
 gfrandfather-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 Clavcring 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 quarrelled 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 care- 
 fully 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'm 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, some- 
 how. When I walk about with you, it is as if I had a rose in my
 
 6S4 PENDENNIS. 
 
 button-hole. And you are still affable. 1 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 wTite — if you 
 write to Laura, I wish you would say ' God bless her ' from 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 wTite. 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 dare say he wiU 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 downstairs and 
 walked to his uncle's lodgings.
 
 PENDENNIS. C83 
 
 CHAPTER LXX. 
 
 FIAT JUSTITIA. 
 
 THE dinner was served when Arthur returned, and Lady Rock- 
 minster began to scold him for arriving late. But Laura, look- 
 ing 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 afterwards," 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 
 Rockminstcr 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
 
 686 PENDENNIS. 
 
 beco"ed me to step into the house ; his house it is now. It appears 
 the scoundrel has saved a great deal of money whilst 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 iti terroretn 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 hippy, 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 Claver- 
 ing 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 cognisant 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 wTetched old Begum's misfortune, and would 
 extort a seat in ParHament 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 Arthurs hand, 
 and kissing it.
 
 PENDENNIS. 687 
 
 "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 cant 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 Clavcring — I can 
 fetch that for you easily enough — an acknowledgment 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 whilst 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 v/ould, 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 towards 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
 
 6S8 PENDENNIS. 
 
 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 at 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 1 " perhaps he asks himself as he passes 
 down the street. He strides away to the smoking-room of a neigh- 
 bouring 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 eg^o 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 honour 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 him- 
 self, 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, begad, 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 deser\-e3 
 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— t';V/7/t' /co/f, bonne ^colc, hey .' 
 Dammy, they don't make gentlemen and ladies now j and in fifty years
 
 PENDENNIS. 689 
 
 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 amongst 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 Pd 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. Nee temii pennd^ hey ? We'll 
 rise again, sir — rise again on the wing — and, begad, I shouldn't be sur- 
 prised 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 involun- 
 tarily, 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-d'you-call-'em, hey ? " 
 
 " About Miss Amory's father — about Lady Clavering's first hus- 
 band, and who he is, and what." 
 
 " Hem — a devilish awkward affair ! " said the old man, rubbing his 
 nose. " I — Pve 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 w6men, who are as innocent as unborn babes in the trans- 
 action." 
 
 " You are right. There is no reason why the two women should 
 
 44
 
 690 PENDEA'NIS. 
 
 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 ? — devihsh 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 
 nearest 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 
 honour, 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 Heaven, sir ! " said Arthur ; " are you blind ? Can't 
 you see?" 
 
 " See what, young gentleman ? " asked the other. 
 
 " See, that rather than trade on this secret of Amor/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 wc 
 have been playing a guilty game, and have been over-reached ;— that 
 m 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 honour." 
 
 ^1 WTiat 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
 
 PENDENNIS. 691 
 
 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 wiclced, 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 gentle- 
 man. " 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 fathei-'s, who, by Heavens, was 
 the proudest man alive, and had the honour 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 cannot 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 afterwards 
 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
 
 692 
 
 PENDENNIS. 
 
 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 sen-ed 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.
 
 PENDENNIS. 693 
 
 CHAPTER LXXI. 
 
 IN WHICH THE DECKS BEGIN 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-bag, 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 in- 
 tolerable to him, George had walked home, and had passed the night 
 tinishing some work on which he was employed, and to the comple-" 
 tion of which he bent himself with all his might. The labour 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 
 tierce vigour 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 
 afterwards 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 sohtude and labour. 
 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 sicl»
 
 694 PENDENNIS. 
 
 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 anything 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 him- 
 self 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 CoUege 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. Oh, 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 wiU 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 hand- 
 writing, 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 Suffk, or elsewhere. 
 
 "I have my own opinion of the issue of matters about which we talked in 
 
 J St. yesterday; and think my presence de trap. 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. 
 
 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 Rock- 
 minster's apartments, where the old lady instantly asked for Bluebeard, 
 and uisisted that he should come to dinner.
 
 PENDENNJS. 695 
 
 " 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 culogium upon his dear old George to 
 Lady Rockminster, who was astonished at his enthusiasm. She had 
 never heard him so warm in praise of anybody ; 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 through Waterloo Place, in one of 
 his many walks to the hotel where Laura lived, and whither duty to his 
 uncle carried Arthur every day, he 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 comfort- 
 ablest 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 pro- 
 prietor 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 shown 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 
 Harrj' 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
 
 696 ■ PENDENNIS. 
 
 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 spumed 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 hand- 
 kerchief 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 never 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 scepticism 
 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 fulness 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 worshipped 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 undeser\-ed 
 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 f.owcrs which you bear.''
 
 PENDENNIS. 697 
 
 " 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 
 sceptic'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 jw^ 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 arc 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 toilette-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 verj' 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.
 
 698 PENDENNIS. 
 
 " 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 Rock- 
 minster, 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 fulfil her contract. Poor Lord Roshervdlle, 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 hstened to reason, and intended 
 to comply wuth 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 jeweller's ? Why did Harry 
 seem anxious to avoid him? Could he be still faithful to the attach- 
 ment 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. Rumours 
 from Naples and Paris, rumours 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 cannot be done too quickly,
 
 PENDENNIS. 699 
 
 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 Tun- 
 bridge with her, when Lady Rockminstcr should go on her intended 
 visit to the reigning house of Rockminstcr; 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 anybody'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. i, 
 to say with what extreme delight she should welcome her sister : how 
 charming it would be to practise 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 bed-rooms were occupied by that 
 
 horrid Mrs. Planter and her daughter, who had thought proper to faU 
 
 I ill (she always fell iU in country-houses), and she could not or would 
 
 I 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 
 j 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 
 1 calls on his uncle. Arthur's heart was full of tenderness and affection. 
 1 She had known Arthur all her life. She would answer " — yes, even in
 
 700 PENDENNIS. 
 
 italics she would answer — " for kis kindness, his goodness, and his 
 gentleness." 
 
 Blanche, No. 3 : " What is this most surprising, most extra- 
 ordinary letter from A. P. ? What does dearest Laura know about 
 it ? What has happened ? What, what mysterj' is enveloped under 
 his frightful reserve ? " 
 
 Blanche, No. 3, requires an explanation ; and it cannot be better 
 given than in the surprising and mysterious letter of Arthur Pen- 
 dennis.
 
 PENDENNIS. 701 
 
 CHAPTER LXXII. 
 
 MR. AND MRS. SAM HUXTER. 
 
 " "p\EAR BLANCHE," Arthur wrote, "you are always reading 
 •L^ 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 pos- 
 session 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 epaulettes 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. Mean- 
 while 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 respect- 
 able 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 
 
 ■^T^ 
 
 'mm 
 
 .2:i:"Uttf
 
 7o> PENDENNIS. 
 
 we Htc 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 omni- 
 bus 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 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 
 when you are presented, and you shall give me a smile from your 
 chariot window. I saw Lady Mirabel 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 hus- 
 band's stockings ? 
 
 " I cannot tell you now— afterwards 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 wTitten and despatched a 
 letter to Sir Francis Clavering, saying that I cannot accept his seat in 
 Parliament until after my marriage ; in like manner I cannot 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 ver>' strange 
 decision. They arise from a painful circumstance, which is attributable 
 to none of our faults; but, having once befallen, thcv 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
 
 PENDENNIS. 703 
 
 gaily enough, for there is no use in bewailing such a hopeless mis- 
 chance. 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 without, 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 justi- 
 fied. " 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 to 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 
 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 dis- 
 appointment ? Could I hope (fond fool !) to be the exception to the 
 lot of my race ; and lay my fevered brow on a heart that compre- 
 hended 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
 
 704 PENDENNIS. 
 
 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 pohte 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 humour: he enjoyed it as if it had been a 
 funny stor)'. 
 
 He was thus seated, twiddling the queer manuscript in his hand, 
 joking grimly to himself, when his ser\-ant 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 acquaint- 
 ance, Mr. Samuel Huxter. 
 
 " Mr. Huxter on particular business I 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 1 be of sen-ice to you ? " 
 
 " I had rather not speak before the flunk — before the man, Mr. Pen- 
 dennis : " 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 Hobncll," 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 anything with my governor." continued Mr. Huxter.
 
 PENDENNIS. 70S 
 
 " You got him Clavering Park. The old boy was very much pleased, 
 sir, at your calhng 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 mar- 
 ried 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 & Son. But I luou/d have it, 
 confound it. It's all over now, and the old boy's wrote 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 sen'ices. 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 scratching 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 imphcate 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. 
 
 45
 
 7o6 PENDENNIS. 
 
 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." 
 
 " 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 dirt>- hand up to his chin. 
 
 "Aufaii,"sa:id 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 scrA-ant 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 
 sate down with his hands on his knees, the sun shining on his bald 
 head. Pen looked at the homely figure with no small sjnnpathv and
 
 PENDENNIS. 707 
 
 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 
 hfe has gone against him, and the prize is with that creature yonder." 
 Fanny's bridegroom, thus mutely apostrophised, had winked mean- 
 while 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 favoured 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 /would take her errand. 
 Did he tell you that, sir ? " 
 
 Huxter blushed scarlet, and covered his confusion with an impre- 
 cation. Pen laughed ! the scene suited his bitter humour 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 1 St. John's Street leads into 
 Smithfield. Doctor 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."
 
 7o8 PENDENNIS. 
 
 " 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. Pen- 
 dennis, which you didn't, you see, and so she was right. Women 
 always are; they have always a reason for ever>-thing. WTiy, 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 arose 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 anything 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 ever>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 practises 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 banns pub- 
 hshed 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.
 
 PENDENNrS. 709 
 
 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 lodg- 
 ings, 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 ? 1 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 prott'gee 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 con- 
 tents 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 candour 
 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 persuasions, 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
 
 7IO PENDENNIS. 
 
 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 dis- 
 covery 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 for ever ; 
 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 
 myster)'. 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 !
 
 PENDENNIS. 711 
 
 CHAPTER LXXIII. 
 
 SHOWS HOW ARTHUR HAD BETTER HAVE TAKEN A RETURN- 
 TICKET. 
 
 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 could never 
 have known her as she is, had I been obliged to ask another to inter- 
 pret 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 everybody. 
 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
 
 -12 PENDENNIS. 
 
 the world, but has his thoughts on the book, which is his directory to 
 the world to come. His neighbour 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 black- 
 coated gentleman who was travelling 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 
 burthen, fashion your own faith, think your own thoughts, and pray 
 your o^vn prayer. To what mortal ear could I tell all, if I had a mind ? 
 or who could understand all ? Who can tell another's shortcomings, 
 lost opportunities, weigh the passions which overpower, the defects 
 whish incapacitate reason ? — what extent of truth and right his neigh- 
 bour's mind is organised to perceive and to do ? — what invisible and 
 forgotten accident, terror of youth, chance or mischance of fortune, 
 may have altered the 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 
 histor}', 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. " \Miat 
 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 I 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 splendours 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 reflec- 
 tions ; and he handed over the newspaper to his neighbour, of 
 whom he took leave, while the foreign clerg}-man in the opposite 
 corner still sate with his eyes on his book. Pen jumped out of the 
 carriage then, his carpet-bag in hand, and briskly determined to face 
 his fortune. 
 
 A fly carried him rapidly to Lady Clavering's house from the
 
 PENDENNIS. 713 
 
 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 pro- 
 posal 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 
 dishonoured. 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 
 vWth 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 lady- 
 ship'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 towards 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 jeweller'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.
 
 714 PENDENNIS. 
 
 "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. 
 
 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 for ever 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 meet 
 truly and kindly disposed towards 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 Amor)-. Shake hands, Harr>-, don't look 
 askance at me. Has anybody told you that I was a false and heart- 
 less 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 I"
 
 PENDENNIS. 715 
 
 " 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 ! — / 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 1 — 1 — 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 everybody 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 
 Poker's head, which was bent down kissing and weeping over hand 
 No. I. " 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 senti- 
 mental 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."
 
 y,6 PENDENNIS. 
 
 " 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. Pen- 
 dennis." 
 
 " 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 mc." 
 
 '' Etvous?" 
 
 " Et moi, (fest different. I have been spoilt early. I cannot live 
 out of the world, out of excitement. I could have done so, but it is 
 too late. If I cannot have emotions, I must have the world. You 
 would offer me neither one nor the other. You are blase' in ever)'- 
 thing, even in ambition. You had a career before you, and you 
 would not take it. You give it up! — for what? — for a betise, 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 — by right, 
 entendez-vous ? " 
 
 " You know all then ? " said Pen. 
 
 " Only within a month. But I have suspected ever since Bay- 
 mouth — nHmporie 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-la. Jl est bon. II est riche. 
 11 est — zwus le contiaissez autant que moi, enfin. Think you that I 
 would not prefer un homme qui /era parler de moi? If the secret 
 appears, I am rich a millions. How does it affect me ? It is not my 
 fault. It will never appear," 
 
 " You will tell Harry everything, won't you ?" 
 
 " Je comprends. Vous j-efusez," 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 defenceless girl's secret, will not turn 
 upon her and use it ? S'il me plait d£ le cachet; vion secret; pourquoi 
 le donnerai-je ? Je Vaimc, ?non pauvre pere, z'oyes-vous f I would 
 rather live with that man than with you fades intriguers of the world. 
 I must have emotions—// tn'en donne. II tn^crit—il /crit tres-bien, 
 voyez-vous—comme un pirate— comme un Bohemien — comme un 
 homme. But for this I would have said to my mother— J/j mere ! 
 quittons ce Idche mart, cette lache societt'—retournons a men pere:'
 
 PENDENNIS. 7t7 
 
 " The pirate would have wearied you lilce the rest," said Pen. 
 
 " Eh ! II me faut des emotions" said Blanche. Pen had never 
 seen her or known so much about her in all the years of their inti- 
 macy 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.
 
 7i8 PENDENNIS. 
 
 CHAPTER LXXIV. 
 
 A CHAPTER OF MATCH-MAKING. 
 
 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 cannot 
 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 Harr>- Fokcr— 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 she sobs out, '• Come and bless us, dear mother ! " and arms as 
 tender as Helen's once more enfold him.
 
 PENDENNIS. 719 
 
 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. " / have been to Tunbridge," he says, 
 " and seen Miss Amory ; and find on my arrival that — that a villain 
 has transplanted 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." 
 
 " H'm, h'm," 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
 
 ./20 PENDENNIS. 
 
 father. He described the scene with considerable humour, 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 practises 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 explana- 
 tions. " If you did any wrong, you repented, dear Pen," she said, 
 " and you know," she added, with meaning eyes and blushes, " that / 
 have no right to reproach you." 
 
 " H'm!" grumbled the old lady; " I should have preferred Blue- 
 beard." 
 
 " 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 Rockminstcr 
 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 ver)' fond of Fanny. Let us go this instant. Lady Rockminstcr, 
 may I have the carriage ? "
 
 PENDENiYIS. 721' 
 
 " 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 'i " 
 
 " 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 
 humour at the notion of attending a baronet in the countr}', 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 
 eaily 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 Charter-house 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 Arthurs sister : and we shall always love you 
 for being so good to him when he was ill. And when we live in the 
 countr}', 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 ^/n's the creature about whom 
 we were all so frightened ? What could he see in her ? She's a homely 
 
 46
 
 72^ PENDENNIS. 
 
 little thing, but such manners ! Well, she was very- kind to him,— bless 
 her for that." 
 
 ]\Ir. Samuel had gone out to meet his Pa. Mrs. Huxter said that 
 the old gentleman was to arrive that day at the Somerset Cofifee-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. 'Uxter 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 hea\7 swell who had just driven off .■* and pro- 
 nounced the countess to be 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 homewards through Fleet Street, and as Laura was just 
 stating to Pen's infinite amusement that Fanny was verj' 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 Somer- 
 set Coffee-House — was in tolerable good-humour — 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 whilst 
 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 surv-ey. 
 
 " 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 arc up, 
 sir— and we buy your three fields along the Brawl, and put a pretty 
 penny into yotir 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.
 
 PENDENNIS. 723 
 
 " 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 honours. 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 Kidder- 
 minster's your name was 7iot 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 1 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 coronetted 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 anything; and Lady Rockminster achieved the victory over him 
 by complimenting him on his skill, and professing her anxiety to con- 
 sult 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
 
 7-'4 
 
 PENDENNIS. 
 
 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 con- 
 nexion. 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 pre- 
 scribed 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 theatre which is most frequented 
 by the— by the higher classes in town, hey, Sam ? and to what amuse- 
 ment 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 
 theatre ? with his son ? What a capital piece it was, and how charm- 
 ingly Mrs. O'Lear}' looked and sang it ! and what a good fellow 
 young Huxter was ! liked by everj-body, an honour 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 practise in the country- whatever you do, 
 sir," said Arthur — " he ought to marr)- — other people are going to do 
 so — and settle.' 
 
 " The ver>- words that her ladyship used yesterday, Mr. Pendennis. 
 He ought to marry. Sam should marr>-, sir." 
 
 " The town is full of temptations, sir,"' continued Pen. The old 
 gentleman thought of that houri, Mrs. OXeary. 
 
 "There is no better safeguard for a young man than an early mar- 
 riage 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."
 
 PENDENNIS. 725 
 
 " 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 everybody 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." 
 
 " Her ladyship is charmed with her," said Pen, telling almost the 
 tirst fib which he has told in the course of this stoiy. 
 
 " 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 
 favour 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.
 
 726 
 
 PENDENNIS. 
 
 CHAPTER LXXV. 
 
 EXEUNT OMNES. 
 
 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. Frederick Lightfoot, formerly maitrc-if hotel in the senice 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 Claver- 
 ing, 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 Dump- 
 lingbeare 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 com- 
 fortable 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 gateway. 
 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' ordinarj- 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 gentr)*, have pro- 
 nounced in their favour, 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 inhabit- 
 ants of that flourishing little town met together and did justice to the 
 hostess's excellent cheer. The chair was taken by Sir Francis Claver- 
 ing, Bart., supported by the esteemed rector. Dr. Portman; the vice- 
 chair being ably filled by — Barker, Esq. (supported by the Rev. J.
 
 PENvENNIS. 727 
 
 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 him- 
 self as a candidate for our borough : and rumour whispers " (says the 
 " Chatteris Champion, Clavering Agriculturist, and Baymouth Fisher- 
 man," — that independent county paper, so distinguished for its un- 
 swerving principles and loyalty to the British oak, and so eligible a 
 medium for advertisements) — " rumour 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 favour 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 Rock- 
 minster 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 fulfil 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 anything 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
 
 72S PEiWDENNIS. 
 
 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 \nsit 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 pre- 
 pared, 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 meet ; and am always 
 your affectionate — A. P." 
 
 " I think I am aware of what you were about to tell mo,'' the Major 
 said, with a most courtly smile and bow to Pen's ambassadress. '' It 
 was a very great kindness of your ladyship to think of bringing me the 
 news. How well you look! How ver\' good you are! How ver>' 
 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 con- 
 sidered, I don't much regret that this affair with Miss Amor>- is 
 manquee, 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 Majors 
 mind, and he saw for what purpose Lady Rockminster had chosen to 
 assume the office of ambassadress. 
 
 It is not necessary to enter into the conversation which ensued, or 
 to tell at any length how her ladyship concluded a negotiation, which,
 
 PENDENNIS. 729 
 
 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 demeanour, except 
 for one moment when the Major talked about his boy throwing him- 
 self away, at which her ladyship broke out into a little speech, in which 
 she made the Major understand, what poor Pen and his friends acknow- 
 ledge 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 upstairs to Lady 
 Rockminster's apartments, and infomii 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 bride- 
 groom with fifteen thousand a-year, there was such an outbreak of 
 ! happiness in Lady Clavering's heart and family as the good Begum 
 I 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 onwards the happy day, and was as anxious as might be 
 expected to abridge the period of mourning v.hich should 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, everything that her affianced lord could 
 desire, was not averse fo gratify the wishes of her fond Henry. Lady 
 Clavering came up from Tunbridge. Milliners and jewellers were set 
 to work and engaged to prepare the delightful paraphernalia of Hymen. 
 Lady Clavering was in such a good humour, 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
 
 730 
 
 PENDENNIS. 
 
 table once more, and appeared tolerably flush of money at his bilHard- 
 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 gentle- 
 man 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 kind- 
 ness I will." 
 
 Arthur overheard the sentence, and seeing the look of hatred which 
 accompanied it, suddenly cried out that he had forgotten his handker- 
 chief, and ran upstairs 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, 
 " Oh, Arthur — Mr. Pendennis — I want you to tell dear Laura some- 
 thing ! " and she came out to the door. 
 
 "What is it?" she asked, shutting the door. 
 
 "Haveyou told Han-)'? Doyou know that villain Morgan knows all?"' 
 
 " I know it," she said. 
 
 " Have you told Harr>' ?" 
 
 " No, no," she said. " You won't betray me ?'' 
 
 " Morgan will," said Pen. 
 
 " No, he won't," said Blanche. " I have promised him — nimporte. 
 Wait until after our marriage— Oh, until after our marriage — Oh, how 
 wretched I am!" said the girl, who had been all smiles, and gi-ace, and 
 gaiety during the evening. 
 
 Arthur said, " I beg and implore you to tell Harr>-. Tell him now. 
 It is no fault of yours. He will pardon you anything. Tell him to-night." 
 
 " And give her this— 7/ est /J— with my love, please ; and I beg 
 your pardon for calhng you back; and if she will be at Madame
 
 PENDENNIS. 731 
 
 Crinoline's at half-past three, and if Lady Rockmrnster 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'Iish wideawake 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 .'' Oh, it's Mr. Strong again. He wants to put in his oar, 1 
 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 — anything 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 ofl". 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 
 ascal Morgan means mischief He has been lurking about, our 
 Chambers for the last two months : he has found out that poor mad 
 ievil Amor/s secret. He has been trying to discover where he was : he 
 las been pumping Mr. Bolton, and making old Costigan drunk several 
 imes. He bribed the Inn porter to tell him when we came back : and 
 le has got into Clavering's service on the strength of his information, 
 ie will get very good pay for it, mark my words, the villain."
 
 732 PENDENNIS. 
 
 " 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 fort- 
 night ago. He had extraordinary luck at Baden: broke the bank 
 several nights, and was the fable of the place. He /uW 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 scn-ed 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 everything 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 h.id a few bills 
 out, but who never deserted a friend, or did any unfair action, shouldn't 
 be able to turn his hand to anything to get bread "i 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 Qui.vott. 
 " Come and taste 'em, sir, — come and try 'em at my Chambers. You 
 sec, 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 tmist have sherry, sir. You must have sherry." 
 
 " I will have it from you, depend on it," said the other. " And 1 think
 
 PENDENNIS. 733 
 
 you are very well out of your other partnership. That worthy Altaniont 
 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-cassde, 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 
 Fokcr should call Blanche his own ; the Clavering folks had all 
 pressed to see the most splendid new carnage 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. Poker's head 
 coachman. Madame Fribsby was occupied in making some lovely 
 dresses for the tenants' daughters, who were to figure as a. sort of 
 bridesmaids' 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 
 liad apartments at that hotel, and had gathered a circle of friends 
 ound him there. He treated all to drink who came. He was hail- 
 ellow with every man. He was so happy ! He danced round 
 Vladame Fribsby, Mrs. Lightfoot's great ally, as she sate pensive in 
 he bar. He consoled Mrs. Lightfoot, who had already begun to
 
 734 PENDENNIS. 
 
 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 ever)' 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-humour. 
 
 Mr. Morgan was constant in his attentions to Foker. " And yet I 
 don't like him somehow," said the candid young man to Mrs. Light- 
 foot. " He always seems as if he was measuring me for my coffin 
 somehow. Pa-in-law's afraid of him ; pa-in-!aw's, a-hem ! nevermind, 
 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 cinnot tell,'' 
 continued Mr. Foker; "and he wants to be taken as my head ni.m. 
 Blanche wants me to take him. Why docs Miss .Amory like him so : ' 
 
 " Did Miss Blanche like him so.'" The notion seemed to distur'> 
 Mrs. Lightfoot verj' much ; and there came to this worthy landl.n'.y 
 another cause for disturbance. A letter, bearing the Boulogne post- 
 mark, was brought to her one morning, and she and her husband 
 were quarrelling 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 sportinc, 
 he would return for an hour or two to billiards and the socict)' of the 
 " Clavering Arms ; " then it would be time to ride with Miss Amorv. 
 and, after dining with her, he left her and returned modestly to his inn. 
 
 Lightfoot and his wife were quarrelling over the letter. Wh.it 
 was that letter from abroad.'' Why was she always having letters 
 from abroad ? Who wrote 'em ?— he would know. He didn't bcltc\e 
 it was her brother. It was no business <^\ His ^ It was a business of 
 
 t
 
 PENDENNIS. 735 
 
 his ; and, with a curse, he seized hold of his wife, and dashed at her 
 pocket f'^r 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 enclosure 
 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 hus- 
 band, — " You unmanly fellow ! to treat a woman so who took you off 
 the street. Oh, 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. Liglitfoot, with a muzzy voice ; " it's a family affair, sir. Will you 
 take anything, 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. Light- 
 foot — 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 to 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 
 do^vn yet .^ " 
 
 " Blanche is always the last," said the boy, eating muffins ; " she's
 
 756 PENDENNIS. 
 
 a regular dawdle, she is. Wlicn 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 towards Foker; then she advanced and kissed her mother, 
 and had a face beaming with her ver>- best smiles on when she greeted 
 Harry. 
 
 " How do you do, sir.'" she said, and put out both her hands. 
 
 "I'm ill," answered Harn.-. "I — Ive 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 sec it .'" asked Blanche. 
 
 " Has Mrs. Bonner not told you ? " he said, with a shaking voice ; — 
 "there's some secret. Yon 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 ever>- 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 towards 
 the fire, but Foker ran to her and clutched her arm — " I must sec that 
 letter," he said ; " give it me. You sha'n't burn it.'' 
 
 " You — you shall not treat Miss Amor>' so in my house,"' cried the 
 Baronet ; " give back the letter, by Jove I " 
 
 "Read it — and look at her," Blanche cried, pointing to her mother; 
 " it — it was for her I kept the secret I Read it, cruel man I " 
 
 And Foker opened and read the letter : — 
 
 "I H.A.VE not wrote, my darling Bessy, this three weeks; but this is to give 
 her 2k father s blessing, and 1 shall come down pretty soon as quick as my note, 
 and intend to see the ceremony, and my son-in-laxc. 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 net a 
 beauty. But he has got the roTidy, which is the thing. So no more, my dear 
 little Betsy, till we meet, from your affectionate father, 
 
 "J. .\MORY 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
 
 PEN DENNIS. y -^7 
 
 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 
 dishonoured 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. Everything'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 connexion I married you ? D it all ! 
 
 I've loved you with all my heart and soul for two years, and you've 
 been plajing 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 out Lady Clavering. " Take her, 
 take everything 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 run- 
 away 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 1 never would tell it, never : and I kept it from my wife." 
 
 "And you saw him, and you didn't kill him, Clavering, you 
 
 47
 
 738 PENDENiVIS. 
 
 coward ? " said the wife of Amon'. " Come away, Frank, your father's 
 a coward. I am dishonoured, but I'm your old mother, and you'll — 
 you'll love me, won't you ? " 
 
 Blanche, e'plore'e, 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 Harr)^ Have nothing to do with her, HarT\'. You're 
 good, you are. Don't marry that — that convict's daughter. Come 
 away, Frank, my darling ; come to }our 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 Harr>' had been a weary 
 month to her. All his fortune and splendour scarcely sufficed to make 
 the idea of himself supportable. She was wearied 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 countr>-'s laws — yes, my countr>-'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 sec Altamon 
 arrive. 
 
 The door opened, and Mr. Morgan announced Major Pcndenr.;< 
 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, Nir. Moq^an 
 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 peop' ■ 
 should ride; and at the appointed hour in the afternoon, Mr. Fokcr 
 horses arrived from the " Claverin-r Arms.'' But Miss Blanche did n. •.
 
 PENDENNIS. 739 
 
 accompany him on this occasion. Pen came out and shook hands 
 Avith 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 Claveri7tg" Arthur repeated, with particular 
 emphasis, " something very strange has happened." 
 
 " Has anything happened to him .?" gasped Lady Clavering. " Oh, 
 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 con- 
 fessed 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 interrup- 
 tions, 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 Perse- 
 verance, Amory arrived, and was set down at the " Clavering Arms."
 
 740 PENDENXIS. 
 
 He ordered his dinner at the place under his assumed name oi Alta- 
 mont ; and, being of a jovial turn, he welcomed the landlord, who 
 was nothing loth, to a share of his wine. Having extracted from 
 iMr. Liglitfoot 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 cime in such a happy state as not to be surprised 
 at anything which might occur, so that, when Altamont shook hands 
 v.ith 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- 
 watcr, which they offered to the ladies, not heeding the terrified looks 
 of one or the other. 
 
 Whilst they were so engaged, at about six o'clock in the evening, 
 Mr. Morgan, Sir Francis Clavcring's new man, came in, and was 
 requested to drink. He selected his favourite beverage, and the 
 parties engaged in general conversation. 
 
 After awhile Mr. Lightfoot began to doze. Mr. Morgan had 
 repeatedly given hints to Mrs. f'ribsby 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 occa- 
 sioned 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 cver>thing t<i 
 soothe Mr. Morgan ; and, under pretence of giving a pipe-light to the 
 stranger, she handed him a paper on which she had privilv wrirtr*^ 
 the words, "He knows you. Go.' There may have been s 
 suspicious in her manner of handing, or in her guest's of re. 
 paper : for when he got up a short time aftenvards, and said he woulci 
 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 -. " " 
 there to blow out the brains of any traitor or skulking spy." .; 
 so fiercely upon Morgan, that the latter, seizing hold of LighiK^^i l>\ 
 the collar, and waking him, said, " John .■^mor^•, I arrest you in the 
 King's nami Stand by me, Lightfoot. This capture is worth a 
 thousand poinds."
 
 PEiXDENNIS. 
 
 741 
 
 He put forward his hand as if to seize his prisoner, but the other, 
 doubhng 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 
 iuisband, whilst 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, " 1 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 out, " 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 ? " 
 
 " D/d 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 be 
 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 back to London. 
 
 iMorgan 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 dsy. 
 
 We have to chronicle the events of but one day more, and that 
 was a day w^hen 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 Honourable the Countess 
 Dowa<^er of Rockminster), made his appearance at a solitary break- 
 fast-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.
 
 742 PENDENNIS. 
 
 Note I ran as follows : — 
 
 "Garbanzos Wixe Company, Shepherd's Inn. — M^onday. 
 *' My dear Pendennis, — In congjatulating 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 difTerenje, I could not but give him food and shelter (and he partook 
 freely both of ' .e Garbanzos, Amontillado, and the Toboso ham), and he told me 
 what had hapj .ned to him, and many other surprising adventures. The rascal 
 married at sbcicen, and has repeatedly since performed that ceremony — in 
 Sydney, in New Zealand, in South .\mcrica, 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 hea\'y 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 reconnoitre. 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 policem.in), and 
 they said they had a warrant to take the person of John .\rmstrong, alias Amor)-, 
 alias Altamont, a run-away convict, and threatened to break in the oak. 
 
 "Now, sir, in my own d.iys of captivity I had discovered a little p.-i-^ .: 
 along the gutter into Bows and Costigan's window, and I sent Jack Alias al : .; 
 this covered-way, not without terror of his life, for it had grown ver)' 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 downstairs and keep the gate ; 
 and he charged up my little staircase as if he had known the premises. .\s he 
 was going out of the window we heard a voice that you know, from Bo«-s's 
 garret, saying, ' Who are ye, and hwhat the divvle arc ye at? You'd betthcr 
 leave the gutther; bcdad, there's a m;in killed himself already.' 
 
 " And as Morgan, crossing over and looking into the darkness, was tr\-ing 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 sthratagcm by remembering his 
 dorling Emilie, when she acted the pawTt of Cora in the Pice— .and by the 
 bridge in PezawTO, 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 wante-l. ' • 
 offered to give anybody a lock of his hair. Farewell— be happy ! and b 
 me always truly yours, E. Stron-
 
 PENDENNIS. 743 
 
 " 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, Ten, that you have got 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 practising 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 Port- 
 man'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 churchyard 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. 
 j\Iorgan 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-loft, and her candidate carried the chair. When 
 Sir Francis Clavering quitted this worthless life, the same little inde- 
 fatigable canvasser took the borough by storm, and it is now repre- 
 sented by Arthur Pendennis, Esq. Blanche Amory, it is well known, 
 married at Paris, and the saloons of Madame la Comtesse de Mont- 
 morenci de Valentinois were amongst the most snivis of that capital. 
 The duel between the Count and the young and fiery representative of
 
 744 PENDENXIS. 
 
 the Mountain, Alcide de Mirobo, arose solely from the latter question- 
 ing at the Club the titles borne by the former nobleman. Madame 
 de Montmorenci de Valentinois travelled 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 ot 
 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, arc 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 (its 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 
 liim 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 ever)- man's 
 life the maimed happiness, the frequent falling, the bootless endeavour, 
 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. 
 
 Lcndcn : iriineJ by Smith, Eluer S. Co , Old Bailey, E C

 
 3 1205 02091 7298 
 
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