The Works of William Makepeace Thackeray

Front matter

THE WORKS OF WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. X, THE WORKS OF WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. IN TWENTY-TWO VOLUMES. VOLUME X. THE ADVENTURES OF PHILIP ON HIS WAY THROUGH THE WORLD. VOL. I. LONDON : SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE. 1869. " Good Samaritan-,." THE ADVENTURES OF PHILIP ON HIS WAY THROUGH THE AVORLD; SHEWING WHO ROBBED HIM, WHO HELPED HIM, AND WHO PASSED HIM BY: TO WHICH IS NOW PREFIXED A SHABBY GENTEEL STORY. By W. M. THACKERAY. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY FREDERICK WALKER AND BY THE AUTHOR. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON : SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE. 186-9.

ADVERTISEMENT.

. When the " Shabby Genteel Story " was first reprinted with other stories and sketches by Mr. Thackeray, collected together under the title of " Miscellanies," the following note was appended to it :— It was my intention to complete the little story, of which only the first part is here written. Perhaps novel-readers will understand, even from the above chapters, what vvas to ensue. Caroline was to be disowned and deserted by her wicked husband : that abandoned man vvas to marry somebody else : hence, bitter trials and grief, patience and virtue, for poor little Caroline, and a melancholy ending — as how should it have been gay? The tale was interrupted at a sad period of the writer's own life. The colours are long since dry ; the artist's hand is changed. It is best to leave the sketch, as it was when first designed seventeen years ago.

Chapter I. At

that remarkable period when Louis XVIII. was restored a second time to the throne of his fathers, and all the English who had money or leisure rushed over to the Continent, there lived in a certain boarding-house at Brussels a genteel young widow, who bore the elegant name of Mrs. AVellesley Macarty. In the same house and room with the widow lived her mamma, a lady who was called Mrs. Crabb. Both professed to be rather fashionable people. The Crabbs were of a very old English stock, and the Macartys were, as the world knows, County Cork people ; related to the Sheenys, Finnigans, Clancys, and other distinguished families in their part of Ireland. But Ensign AA 'ellesley Mac, not having a shilling, ran off with Miss Crabb, who possessed the same independence ; and after having been married about six months to the lady, was carried off suddenly, on the 18th of June, 1815, by a disease very prevalent in those glorious times — the fatal cannon-shot morbus.

He, and many hundred young fellows of his regiment, the Clonakilty Fencibles, were attacked by this epidemic on the same day, at a place about ten miles from Brussels, and there perished. The ensign's lady had accompanied her husband to the Continent, and about five months after his death brought into the world two remarkably fine female children. Mrs. Wellesley's mother had been reconciled to her daughter by this time — for, in truth, Mrs. Crabb had no other child but her runaway Juliana, to whom she flew when she heard of her destitute condition. And, indeed, it was high time that some one should come to the young widow's aid ; for as her husband did not leave vol. 1. 1 3v money, nor anything that represented money, except a number of tailors' and bootmakers' bills, neatly docketed, in his writing-desk, Mrs. Wellesley was in danger of starvation, should no friendly person assist her.

Mrs. Crabb, then, came off to her daughter, whom the Sheenys, Finnigans, and Clancys refused, with one scornful voice, to assist. The fact is, that Mr. Crabb had once been butler to a lord, and his lady a lady's-maid ; and at Crabb's death, Mrs. Crabb disposed of the " Ram " hotel and posting-house, where her husband had made three thousand pounds, and vvas living in genteel ease in a country town, when Ensign Macarty came, saw, and ran away with Juliana. Of such a connexion, it was impossible that the great Clancys and Finnigans could take notice ; and so once more widow Crabb was compelled to share with her daughter her small income of a hundred and twenty a year. Upon this, at a boarding-house in Brussels, the two managed to live pretty smartly, and to maintain an honourable reputation.

The twins were put out, after the foreign fashion, to nurse, at a village in the neighbourhood ; for Mrs. Macarty had been too ill to nurse them ; and Mrs. Crabb could not afford to purchase that most expensive article, a private wet-nurse. There had been numberless tiffs and quarrels between mother and daughter when the latter was in her maiden state ; and Mrs. Crabb was, to tell the truth, in nowise sorry when her Jooly disappeared with the ensign, — for the old lady dearly loved a gentleman, and was not a little flattered at being the mother to Mrs. Ensign Macarty. AArhy the ensign should have run away with his lady at all, as he might have had her for the asking, is no business of ours ; nor are we going to rake up old stories and village scandals, which insinuate that Miss Crabb ran away with him, for with these points the writer and the reader have nothing to do.

Well, then, the reconciled mother and daughter lived once more together, at Brussels. In the course of a year, Mrs. Macarty's sorrow had much abated ; and having a great natural love of dress, and a tolerably handsome face and person, she was induced, without much reluctance, to throw her weeds aside, and to appear in the most becoming and varied costumes which her means and ingenuity could furnish. Considering, indeed, the smallness of the former, it was agreed on all hands that Mrs. Crabb and her daughter deserved wonderful credit, — that is, they managed to keep up as respectable an appearance as if they had five hundred a year ; and at church, at tea-parties, and abroad in the streets, to be what is called quite the gentlewomen. If they starved at home, nobody saw it; if they patched and pieced, nobody (it was to be hoped) knew it ; if they bragged about their relations and property, could any one say them nay?

Thus they lived, hanging on with desperate energy to the skirts of genteel society ; Mrs. Crabb, a sharp woman, rather respected her daughter's superior rank ; and Mrs. Macarty did not quarrel so much as heretofore with her mamma, on whom herself and her two children were entirely dependent. While affairs were at this juncture, it happened that a young Englishman, James Gann, Esq., of the great oil-house of Gann, Blubbery and Gann (as he took care to tell you before you had been an hour in his company), — it happened, I say, that James Gann, Esq., came to Brussels for a month, for the purpose of perfecting himself in the French language ; and while in that capital went to lodge at the very boarding-house which contained Mrs. Crabb and her daughter. Gann vvas young, weak, inflammable ; he saw and adored Mrs. AA'ellesley Macarty ; and she, who was at this period all but engaged to a stout old wooden-legged Scotch regimental surgeon, pitilessly sent Dr. M'Lint about his business, and accepted the addresses of Mr. Gann.

How the young maiu arranged matters with his papa the senior partner, I don't know ; but it is certain that there was a quarrel, and afterwards a recon ciliation ; and it is also known that James Gann fought a duel with the surgeon, — receiving the Æsculapian fire, and discharging his own bullet into the azure skies. About nine thousand times in the course of his after-years did Mr. Gann narrate the history of the combat ; it enabled him to go through life with the reputation of a man of courage, and won for him, as he said with pride, the hand of his Juliana ; perhaps this vvas rather a questionable benefit. One part of the tale, however, honest James never did dare to tell, except when peculiarly excited by wrath or liquor ; it was this : that on the day after the wedding, and in the presence of many friends who had come to offer their congratulations, a stout nurse, bearing a brace of chubby little ones, made her appearance ; and these rosy urchins, springing forward at the sight of Mrs. James Gann, shouted affectionately, " Maman! mamanl" at which the I lady, blushing rosy red, said, " James, these two are yours ; ' and poor James well nigh fainted at this sudden paternity so put upon him.

" Children ! " screamed he, aghast ; " whose children ? " at which Mrs. Crabb, majestically checking him, said, "These, my dear James, are the daughteis of the gallant and good Ensign Macarty, whose widow you yesterday led to the altar. May you be happy with her, and may these blessed children " (tears) " find in you a father, who shall replace him that fell in the field of glory ! " Mrs. Crabb, Mrs. James Gann, Mrs. Major Lolly, Mrs. Piffler, and several ladies present, set up a sob immediately ; and James Gann, a good-humoured, soft-hearted man, was quite taken aback. Kissing his lady hurriedly, he vowed that he would take care of the poor little things, and proposed to kiss them likewise ; which caress the darlings refused with many roars. Gann's fate was sealed from that minute ; and he was properly henpecked by his wife and mother in-law during the life of the latter.

Indeed, it was to Mrs. Crabb that the stratagem of the infant concealment vvas due ; for when her daughter innocently proposed to have or to see the children, the old lady strongly pointed out the folly of such an arrangement, which might, perhaps, frighten away Mr. Gann from the delightful matri monial trap into which (lucky rogue !) he vvas about to fall. Soon after the marriage, the happy pair returned to England, occupying the house in Thames Street, City, until the death of Gann senior; when his son, becoming head of the firm of Gann and Blubbery, quitted the dismal precincts of Billingsgate and colonized in the neighbourhood of Putney ; where a neat box, a couple of spare bed-rooms, a good cellar, and a smart gig to drive into and out from town, made a real gentleman of him. Mrs. Gann treated him with much scorn, to be sure, called him a sot, and abused hugely the male companions that he brought down with him to Putney.

Honest James would listen meekly, would yield, and would bring down a brace more friends the next day, with whom he would discuss his accustomed number of bottles of port. About this period, a daughter was born to him, called Caroline Brandenburg Gann; so named after a large mansion near Hammersmith, and an injured queen who lived there at the time of the little girl's birth, and who was greatly compassioned and patronized by Mrs. James Gann, and other ladies of distinction. Mrs. James was a lady in those days, and gave evening-parties of the very first order. At this period of time, Mrs. James Gann sent the twins, Rosalind Clancy and Isabella Finnigan AVellesley Macarty, to a boarding school for young ladies, and grumbled much at the amount of the half-years' bills which her husband vvas called upon to pay for them ; for though James discharged them with perfect good-humour, his lady began to entertain a mean opinion indeed of her pretty young children.

They could expect no fortune, she said, from Mr. Gann, and she wondered that he should think of bringing them up expen sively, when he had a darling child of his own, for whom he was bound to save all the money that he could lay by. Grandmamma, too, doted on the little Caroline Brandenburg, and vowed that she would leave her three thousand pounds to this dear infant ; for in this way does the world show its respect for that most respectable thing prosperity. Who in this life get the smiles, and the acts of friendship, and the pleasing legacies ? — The rich. And I do, for my part, heartily wish that some one would leave me a trifle — say twenty thousand pounds — being perfectly con fident that some one else would leave me more ; and that I should sink into my grave worth a plum at least. Little Caroline then had her maid, her airy nursery, her little carriage to drive in, the promise of her grandmamma's consols, and that priceless treasure — her mamma's undivided affection.

Gann, too, loved her sincerely, in his careless, good-humoured way ; but he determined, notwithstanding, that his step-daughters should have something handsome at his death, but — but for a great But. Gann and Blubbery were in the oil line, — have we not said so ? Their profits arose from contracts for lighting a great number of streets in London ; and about this period Gas came into use. Gann and Blubbery appeared in the Gazette; and, I am sorry to say, so bad had been the management of Blubbery, — so great the extravagance of both partners and their ladies, — that they only paid their creditors fourteenpence halfpenny in the pound. AA _en Mrs. Crabb heard of this dreadful accident — Mrs. Crabb, who dined thrice a week with her son-in-law ; who never would have been allowed to enter the house at all had not honest James inter posed his good nature between her quarrelsome daughter and herself — Mrs. Crabb, I say, proclaimed James Gann to be a swindler, a villain, a disreputable, tipsy, vulgar man, and made over her money to the Misses Rosalind Clancy and Isabella Finnigan Macarty; leaving poor little Caroline without one single maravedi.

Half of one thousand five hundred pounds allotted to each was to be paid at marriage, the other half on the death of Mrs. James Gann, who was to enjoy the interest thereof. Thus do we rise and fall in this world— thus does Fortune shake her swift wings, and bid us abruptly to resign the gifts (or rather loans) which we have had from her. How Gann and his family lived after their stroke of misfortune, I know not ; but as the failing tradesman is going through the process of bankruptcy, and for some months afterwards, it may be remarked that he has usually some mysterious means of subsistence — stray spars of the wreck of his property, on which he manages to seize, and to float for a while. During his retirement, in an obscure lodging in Lambeth, where the poor fellow was so tormented by his wife as to be compelled to fly to the public-house for refuge, Mrs. Crabb died ; a hundred a year thus came into the possession of Mrs. Gann ; and some of James's friends, who thought him a good fellow in his prosperity, came forward, and furnished a house, in "which they placed him, and came to see and comfort him.

Then they came to see him not quite so often ; then they found out that Mrs. Gann was a sad tyrant, and a silly woman ; then the ladies declared her to be insupportable, and Gann to be a low, tipsy fellow : and the gentlemen could but shake their heads, and admit that the charge was true. Then they left off coming to see him altogether ; for such is the way of the world, where many of us have good impulses, and are generous on an occasion, but are wearied by perpetual want, and begin to grow angry at its importunities — being ver)- properly vexed at the daily recurrence of hunger, and the impudent unreasonableness of starvation. Gann, then, had a genteel wife and children, a furnished house, and a hundred pounds a year. How should he live ? The wife of James Gann, Esq., would never allow him to demean himself by taking a clerk's place ; and James himself, being as idle a fellow as ever was known, vvas fain to acquiesce in this determination of hers, and to wait for some more genteel employment.

And a curious list of such genteel employments might be made out, were one inclined to follow this interesting subject far ; shabby compromises with the world, into which poor fellows enter, and still fondly talk of their " position," and strive to imagine that they are really working for their bread. Numberless lodging-houses are kept by the females of families who have met with reverses : are not "boarding-houses, with a select musical society, in the neighbourhood of the squares," maintained by such ? Do not the gentlemen of the boarding-houses issue forth every morning to the City, or make believe to go thither, on some mysterious business which they have ? After a certain period, Mrs. James Gann kept a lodging-house (in her own words, received " two inmates into her family "), and Mr. Gann had his mysterious business.

In the year 1835, when this story begins, there stood in a certain back-street in the town of Margate a house, on the door of which might be read, in gleaming brass, the name of Mr. Gann. It was the work of a single smutty servant-maid to clean this brass plate every morning, and to attend as far as possible to the wants of Mr. Gann, his family, and lodgers ; and his house being not very far from the sea, and as you might, by climbing up to the roof, get a sight between two chimneys of that multitudinous element, Mrs. Gann set down her lodgings as fashionable ; and declared on her cards that her house commanded " a fine view of the sea." On the wire window-blind of the parlour was written, in large characters, the word Office ; and here it was that Gann's services came into play. He vvas very much changed, poor fellow ! and humbled ; and from two cards that hung outside the blind, I am led to believe that he did not disdain to be agent to the " London and Jamaica Ginger-Beer Company," and also for a certain preparation called " Gaster's Infants' Farinacio, or Mothers' Invigorating Substi tute," — a damp, black, mouldy, half-pound packet of which stood in permanence at one end of the " office " mantelpiece ; while a fly blown ginger-beer bottle occupied the other extremity Nothing else indicated that this ground-floor chamber vvas an office, except a huge black inkstand, in which stood a stumpy pen, richly crusted with ink at the nib, and to all appearance for many months enjoying a sinecure.

To this room you saw every day, at two o'clock, the employe from the neighbouring hotel bring two quarts of beer ; and if you called at that hour, a tremendous smoke, and smell of dinner, would gush out upon you from the " office," as you stumbled over sundry battered tin dish-covers, which lay gaping at the threshold. Thus had that great bulwark of gentility, the dining at six o'clock, been broken in ; and the reader must therefore judge that the house of Gann was in a demoralised state. Gann certainly was. After the ladies had retired to the back parlour (which, with yellow gauze round the frames, window-curtains, a red silk cabinet piano, and an album, was still tolerably genteel), Gann remained, to transact business in the office. This took place in the presence of friends, and usually consisted in the production of a bottle of gin from the corner cupboard, or, mayhap, a litre of brandy, which vvas given by Gann with a knowing wink, and a fat finger placed on a twinkling red nose : when Mrs. G. was out, James would also produce a number of pipes, that gave this room a constant and agreeable odour of shag tobacco.

In fact, Mr. Gann had nothing to do from moming till night. He was now a fat, bald-headed man of fifty ; a dirty dandy on week-days, with a shawl-waistcoat, a tuft of hair to his great double chin, a snuffy shirt-frill, and enormous breast-pin and seals : he had a pilot-coat, with large mother-of-pearl buttons, and always wore a great rattling telescope, with which he might be seen for hours on the sea-shore or the pier, examining the ships, the bathing-machines, the ladies' schools as they paraded up and down the esplanade, and all other objects which the telescopic view might give him. He knew every person connected with every one of the Deal and Dover coaches, and was sure to be witness to the arrival or departure of several of them in the course of the day ; he had a word for the ostler about " that grey mare," a nod for the " shooter " or guard, and a bow for the dragsman ; he could send parcels for nothing up to town ; had twice had Sir Rumble Tumble (the noble driver of the Flash-o'-lightning light-four-inside-post-coach) "up at his place," and took care to tell you that some of the party were pretty considerably " sewn up," too.

He did not frequent the large hotels ; but in revenge he knew every person who entered or left them ; and was a great man at the " Bag of Nails " and the " Magpie and Punchbowl," where he was president of a club ; he took the bass in " Mynheer Van Dunk," " The Wolf," and many other morsels of concerted song, and used to go backwards and forwards to London in the steamers as often as ever he liked, and have his " grub," too, on board. Such was James Gann. Many people, when they wrote to him, addressed him James Gann, Esq. His reverses and former splendours afforded a never-failing theme of conversation to honest Gann and the whole of his family ■ and it may be remarked that such pecuniary misfortunes, as they are called, are by no means misfortunes to people of certain disposi tions, but actual pieces of good luck.

Gann, for instance, used to drink liberally of port and claret, when the house of Gann and Blubbery was in existence, and was henceforth compelled to imbibe only brandy and gin. Now he loved these a thousand times more than the wine ; and had the advantage of talking about the latter, and of his great merit in giving them up. In those prosperous days, too, being a gentleman, he could not frequent the public-house as he did at present ; and the sanded tavern-parlour was Gann's supreme enjoyment. He was obliged to spend many hours daily in a dark unsavoury room in an alley off Thames Street ; and Gann hated books and business, except of other people's. His tastes were low ; he loved public-house jokes and company ; and now being fallen, was voted at the "Bag of Nails" and the "Magpie" before men tioned a tip-top fellow and real gentleman, whereas he had been considered an ordinary vulgar man by his fashionable associates at Putney.

Many men are there who are made to fall, and to prosit by the tumble. As for Mrs. G., or Jooly, as she vvas indifferently called by her husband, she, too, had gained by her losses. She bragged of her former acquaintances in the most extraordinary way, and to hear her you would fancy that she was known to and connected with half the peerage. Her chief occupation was taking medicine, and mend ing and altering her gowns. She had a huge taste for cheap finery, loved raffles, tea-parties, and walks on the pier, where she flaunted herself and daughters as gay as butterflies. She stood upon her rank, did not fail to tell her lodgers that she was " a gentlewoman," and was mighty sharp with Becky the maid, and poor Carry, her youngest child. For the tide of affection had turned now, and the " Misses Wellesley Macarty" were the darlings of their mother's heart, as Caroline had been in the early days of Putney prosperity.

Mrs. Gann respected and loved her elder daughters, the stately heiresses of r,5oo/., and scorned poor Caroline, who vvas likewise scorned (like Cinderella in the sweetest of all stories) by her brace of haughty, thoughtless sisters. These young women were tall, well-grown, black browed girls, little scrupulous, fond of fun, and having great health and spirits. Caroline was pale and thin, and had fair hair and meek grey eyes ; nobody thought her a beauty in her moping cotton gown; whereas the sisters, in -Mnriting printed muslins, with pink scarfs, and artificial flowers, and brass ferronnieres, and other fallals, were voted very charming and genteel by the Ganns' circle of friends. They had pink cheeks, white shoulders, and many glossy curls stuck about their shining foreheads, as damp and as black as leeches.

Such charms, madam, cannot fail of having their effect ; and it was very lucky for Caroline that she did not possess them, for she might have been rendered as vain, frivolous, and vulgar, as these young ladies were. While these enjoyed their pleasures and tea-parties abroad, it was Carry's usual fate to remain at home, and help the servant in the many duties which were required in Mrs. Gann's establishment. She dressed that lady and her sisters, brought her papa his tea in bed, kept the lodgers' bills, bore their scoldings if they were ladies, and sometimes gave a hand in the kitchen if any extra piecrust or cookery was required. At two she made a little toilet for dinner, and vvas employed on numberless household darnings and mendings in the long evenings, while her sisters giggled over the jingling piano, mamma sprawled on the sofa, and Gann vvas over his glass at the club.

A weary lot, in sooth, was yours, poor little Caroline ! since the days of your infancy, not one hour of sunshine, no friendship, no cheery playfellows, no mother's love ; but that being dead, the affections which would have crept round it, withered and died too. Only James Gann, of all the household, had a good-natured look for her, and a coarse word of kindness ; nor, indeed, did Caroline complain, nor shed many tears, nor call for death, as she would if she had been brought up in genteeler circles. The poor thing did not know her own situation ; her misery was dumb and patient ; it is such as thousands and thousands of women in our society bear, and pine, and die of; made up of sums of small tyrannies, and long indifference, and bitter wearisome injustice, more dreadful to bear than any tortures that we of the stronger sex are pleased to cry .« ! a. ! about.

In our intercourse with the world — (which is con ducted with that kind of cordiality that we see in Sir Harry and my lady in a comedy — a couple of painted, grinning fools, talking parts that they have learned out of a book,)— as we sit and look at the smiling actors, we get a glimpse behind the scenes from time to time ; and alas for the wretched nature that appears there ! among women especially, who deceive even more than men, having more to hide, feeling more, living more than we who have our business, pleasure, ambition, which carries us abroad. Ours are the great strokes of misfortune, as they are called, and theirs the small miseries. AA'hile the male thinks, labours, and battles without, the domestic woes and wrongs are the lot of the women ; and the little ills are so bad, so infinitely fiercer and bitterer than the great, that I would not change my condition — no, not to be Helen, Queen Elizabeth, Mrs. Coutts, or the luckiest she in history.

AVell, then, in the manner we have described lived the Gann family. Mr. Gann all the better for his " misfortunes," Mrs. Gann little the worse ; the two young ladies greatly improved by the circumstance,; having been cast thereby into a society where their expected three thousand pounds made great heiresses of them ; and poor Caroline, as luckless a being as any that the wide sun shone upon. Better to be alone in the world and utterly friendless, than to have sham friends and no sympathy ; ties of kindred which bind one as it were to the corpse of relationship, and oblige one to bear through life the weight and the embraces of this lifeless, cold connexion. I do not mean to say that Caroline would ever have made use of this metaphor, or suspected that her connexion with her mamma and sisters vvas anything so loathsome.

She felt that she was ill treated, and had no companion ; but was not on that account envious, only humble and depressed, not desiring so much to resist as to bear injustice, and hardly venturing to think for herself. This tyranny and humility served her in place of education, and formed her manners, which were wonderfully gentle and calm. It was strange to see such a person growing up in such a family ; the neighbours spoke of her with much scornful compassion. " A poor half-witted thing," they said, " who could not say bo ! to a goose ; " and I think it is one good test of gentility to be thus looked down on by vulgar people. It is not to be supposed that the elder girls had reached their present age without receiving a number of offers of marriage, and been wannly in love a great many times.