LX. Explanations…

LX. 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 Steyne.

This was a measure strongly and pathetically urged by Arthur’s uncle. The Major would not hear of a year passing before this ceremony of gentlemanhood was gone through. The old gentleman thought that his nephew should belong to some rather more select Club than the Megatherium; and has announced 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 are by no means uncivil to him. For if the pretty daughters are, naturally, to marry people of very different expectations—at any rate, he will be eligible for the plain ones: and if the brilliant and fascinating Myra is to hook an Earl, poor little Beatrice, who has one shoulder higher than the other, must hang on to some boor through life, and why should not Mr. Pendennis be her support? In the very first winter after the accession to his mother’s fortune, Mrs. Hawxby in a country-house caused her Beatrice to learn billiards from Mr. Pendennis and would be driven by nobody but him in the pony carriage, because he was literary and her Beatrice was literary too, and declared that the young man, under the instigation of his horrid old uncle, had behaved most infamously in trifling with Beatrice’s feelings. The truth is the old gentleman, who knew Mrs. Hawxby’s character, and how desperately that lady would 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 not out of the reach of her tongue. The elder Pendennis would have had his nephew pass a part of the Christmas at Clavering, whither the family had returned; but Arthur had not the heart for that. Clavering was too near poor old Fairoaks; and that was too full of sad recollections for the young man.

We have lost sight of the Claverings, too, until their reappearance upon the Epsom race-ground, and must give a brief account of them in the interval. During the past year, the world has not treated any member of the Clavering family very kindly; Lady Clavering, one of the best-natured women that ever enjoyed a good dinner, or made a slip in grammar, has had her appetite and good-nature sadly tried by constant family grievances, and disputes such as make the efforts of the best French cook unpalatable, and the most delicately-stuffed sofa-cushion hard to lie on. “I’d rather have a turnip, Strong, for dessert, than that pineapple, and all them Muscatel grapes, from Clavering,” says poor Lady Clavering, looking at her dinner-table, and confiding her grief 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 conduct, 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 entourages. Who was the Begum, with her money, and without her h’s, and where did she come from? What an extraordinary little piece of conceit the daughter was, with her Gallicised graces and daring affectations, not fit for well-bred English girls to associate with! What strange people were those they assembled round about them! Sir Francis Clavering was a gambler, living notoriously in the society of blacklegs and profligates. Hely Clinker, who was in his regiment, said that he not only cheated at cards, but showed the white feather. What could Lady Rockminster have meant by taking her up? After the first season, indeed, Lady Rockminster, who had taken up Lady Clavering, put her down; the great ladies would not take their daughters to her parties; the young men who attended them behaved with the most odious freedom and scornful familiarity; and poor Lady Clavering herself avowed that she was obliged to take what she called ‘the canal’ into her parlour, because the tip-tops wouldn’t come.”

She had not the slightest ill-will towards “the canal,” the poor 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 proverbially accompanies the exile; and with this crape over his eyes, even the Parisian Boulevard looked melancholy to him, and the sky of Italy black.

To Sir Francis Clavering, that year was a most unfortunate one. The events described in the last chapter came to complete the ruin of the year. It was that year of grace in which, as our sporting readers may remember, Lord Harrowhill’s horse (he was a classical young nobleman, and named his stud out of the Iliad)—when Podasokus won the Derby, to the dismay of the knowing ones, who pronounced the winning horse’s name in various extraordinary ways, and who backed Borax, who was nowhere in the race. Sir Francis Clavering, who was intimate with some of the most rascally characters of the turf, and, of course, had “valuable information,” had laid heavy odds against the winning horse, and backed the 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 husband’s debts many times over; who had received as many times his oaths and promises of amendment; who had paid his money-lenders and horse-dealers; who had furnished his town and country houses, and who was called upon now instantly to meet this enormous sum, the penalty of her cowardly husband’s extravagance.

It has been described in former pages how the elder Pendennis had become the adviser of the Clavering family, and, in his quality of intimate friend of the house, had gone over every room of it, and even seen that ugly closet which we all of us have, and in which, according to the proverb, the family skeleton is locked up. About the Baronet’s pecuniary matters, if the Major did not know, it was because Clavering himself did not know them, and hid them from himself and others in such a hopeless entanglement of lies that it was impossible for adviser or attorney or principal to get an accurate knowledge of his affairs. But, concerning Lady Clavering, the Major was much better informed; and when the unlucky mishap of the Derby arose, he took upon himself to become completely and thoroughly acquainted with all her means, whatsoever they were; and was now accurately informed of the vast and repeated sacrifices which the widow Amory had made in behalf of her present husband.

He did not conceal—and he had won no small favour from Miss Blanche by avowing it—his opinion, that Lady Clavering’s daughter had been hardly treated at the expense of her son, by her second marriage: and in his conversations with Lady Clavering had fairly hinted that he thought Miss Blanche ought to have a better provision. We have said that he had already given the widow to understand that he knew all the particulars of her early and unfortunate history, having been in India at the time when—when the painful circumstances occurred which had ended in her parting from her first husband. He could tell her where to find the Calcutta newspaper which contained the account of Amory’s trial, and he showed, and the Begum was not a little grateful to him for his forbearance, how, being aware all along of this mishap which had befallen her, he had kept all knowledge of it to himself, and been constantly the friend of her family.

“Interested motives, my dear Lady Clavering,” he said, “of course I may have had. We all have interested motives, and mine, I don’t conceal from you, was to make a marriage between my nephew and your daughter.” To which Lady Clavering, perhaps with some surprise that the Major should choose her family for a union with his own, said she was quite willing to consent.

But frankly he said, “My dear lady, my boy has but five hundred a year, and a wife with ten thousand pounds to her fortune would scarcely better him. We could do better for him than that, permit me to say, and he is a shrewd, cautious young fellow who has sown his wild oats now—who has very good parts and plenty of ambition—and whose object in marrying is to better himself. If you and Sir Francis chose—and Sir Francis, take my word for it, will refuse you nothing—you could put Arthur in a way to advance very considerably in the world, and show the stuff which he has in him. Of what use is that seat in Parliament to Clavering, who scarcely ever shows his face in the House, or speaks a word there? I’m told by gentlemen who heard my boy at Oxbridge, that he was famous as an orator, begad!—and once put his foot into the stirrup and mount him, I’ve no doubt he won’t be the last of the field, ma’am. I’ve tested the chap, and know him pretty well, I think. He is much too lazy, and careless, and flighty a fellow, to make a jog-trot journey, and arrive, as your lawyers do, at the end of their lives! but give him a start and good friends, and an opportunity, and take my word for it, he’ll make himself a name that his sons shall be proud of. I don’t see any way for a fellow like him to parvenir, but by making a prudent marriage—not with a 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 Parliament, 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 marry.

“Marry on five hundred a year! My dear good soul, you are mad!” Major Pendennis said. “Think over what I have said to you. Do nothing in your affairs with that unhappy husband of yours without consulting me; and remember that old Pendennis is always your friend.”

For some time previous, Pen’s uncle had held similar language to Miss Amory. He had pointed out to her the convenience of the match which he had at heart, and was bound to say, that mutual convenience was of all things the very best in the world to marry upon—the only thing. “Look at your love-marriages, my dear young creature. The love-match people are the most notorious of all for quarrelling afterwards; and a girl who runs away with Jack to Gretna Green, constantly runs away with Tom to Switzerland afterwards. The great point in marriage is for people to agree to be useful to one another. The lady brings the means, and the gentleman avails himself of them. My boy’s wife brings the horse, and begad Pen goes in and wins the plate. That’s what I call a sensible union. A couple like that have something to talk to each other about when they come together. If you had Cupid himself to talk to—if Blanche and Pen were Cupid and Psyche, begad—they’d begin to yawn after a few evenings, if they had nothing but sentiment to speak on.”

As for Miss Amory, she was contented enough with Pen as long as there was nobody better. And how many other young ladies are like her?—and how many love-marriages carry on well to the last?—and how sentimental firms do not finish in bankruptcy?—and how many heroic passions don’t dwindle down into despicable indifference, or end in shameful defeat?

These views of life and philosophy the Major was constantly, according to his custom, inculcating to Pen, whose mind was such that he could see the right on both sides of many questions, and, comprehending the sentimental life which was quite out of the reach of the honest Major’s intelligence, could understand the practical life too, and accommodate himself, or think he could accommodate himself, to it. So it came to pass that during the spring succeeding his mother’s death he became a good deal under the influence of his uncle’s advice, and domesticated in Lady Clavering’s house; and in a measure was accepted by Miss Amory without being a suitor, and was received without being engaged. The young people were extremely familiar, without being particularly sentimental, and met and parted with each other in perfect good-humour. “And I,” thought Pendennis, “am the fellow who eight years ago had a Grand passion, and last year was raging in a fever about Briseis!”

Yes, it was the same Pendennis, and time had brought to him, as to the rest of us, its ordinary consequences, consolations, developments. We alter very little. When we talk of this man or that woman being no longer the same person whom we remember in youth, and remark (of course to deplore) changes in our friends, we don’t, perhaps, calculate that circumstance only brings out the latent defect or quality, and does not create it. The selfish languor and indifference of to-day’s possession is the consequence of the selfish ardour of yesterday’s pursuit: the scorn and weariness which cries vanitas vanitatum is but the lassitude of the sick appetite palled with pleasure: the insolence of the successful parvenu is only the necessary continuance of the career of the needy struggler: our mental changes are like our 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 awestricken, you, friendly reader, who, taking the page up for a moment’s light reading, lay it down, perchance, for a graver reflection,—to think how you, who have consummated your success or your disaster, may be holding marked station, or a hopeless and nameless place, in the 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 hopeless spar, drowning out of sight; alone in the midst of the crowd applauding you.

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LXI. 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 leave him to the consequences of his incorrigible weakness and waste. After that fatal day’s transactions at the Derby, the unlucky gambler was in such a condition of mind that he was disposed to avoid everybody; alike his turf-associates with whom he had made the debts which he trembled lest he should not have the means of paying, and his wife, his long-suffering banker, on whom he reasonably doubted whether he should be allowed any longer to draw. When Lady Clavering asked the next morning whether Sir Francis was in the house, she received answer that he had not returned that night, but had sent a messenger to his valet, ordering him to forward clothes and letters by the bearer. Strong knew that he should have a visit or a message from him in the course of that or the subsequent day, and accordingly got a note beseeching him to call upon his distracted friend F. C. at Short Hotel, Blackfriars, and ask for Mr. Francis there. For the Baronet was a gentleman of that peculiarity of mind that he would rather tell a lie than not, and always began a contest with fortune by running away and hiding himself. The Boots of Mr. Short’s establishment, who carried Clavering’s message to Grosvenor Place, and brought back his carpet-bag, was instantly aware who was the owner of the bag, and he imparted his information to the footman who was laying the breakfast-table, who carried down the news to the servants’-hall, who took it to Mrs. Bonner, my lady’s housekeeper and confidential maid, who carried it to my lady. And thus every single person in the Grosvenor Place establishment knew that Sir Francis was in hiding, under the name of Francis, at an inn in the Blackfriars Road. And Sir Francis’s coachman 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 Francis Clavering, Bart., which found their way to his hall-table, was quite remarkable. The French cook sent in his account to my lady; the tradesmen who supplied her ladyship’s table, and Messrs. Finer and Gimcrack, the mercers and ornamental dealers, and Madame Crinoline, the eminent milliner, also forwarded their little bills to her ladyship, in company with Miss Amory’s private, and by no means inconsiderable, account at each establishment.

In the afternoon of the day after the Derby, when Strong (after a colloquy with his principal at Short’s Hotel, whom he found crying and drinking Curacoa) 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 ourselves, 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 for him at this juncture, and the Chevalier went up to her ladyship not without hopes that he should find her more tractable than her factotum Mrs. Bonner. Many a time before had he pleaded his client’s cause with Lady Clavering and caused her good-nature to relent. He tried again once more. He painted in dismal 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 engagements.

“Kill hisself,” laughed Mrs. Bonner, “kill hisself, will he? Dying’s the best thing he could do.” Strong vowed that he had found him with the razors on the table; but at this, in her turn, Lady Clavering laughed bitterly. “He’ll do himself no harm, as long as there’s a shilling left of which he can rob a poor woman. His life’s quite safe, Captain: you may depend upon that. Ah! it was a bad day that ever I set eyes on him.”

“He’s worse than the first man,” cried out my lady’s 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 sympathy for Lady Clavering’s troubles, and admiration for her untiring good-nature, and with a show of enthusiasm which advanced not a little his graceless patron’s cause—“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 will subscribe them.”

“And break ’em,” said Mrs. Bonner.

“And keep ’em this time,” cried out Strong. “He must keep them. If you could have seen how he wept, ma’am! ‘Oh, Strong,’ he said to me, ‘it’s not for myself I feel now: it’s for my boy—it’s for the best woman in England, whom I have treated basely—I know I have.’ He didn’t intend to bet upon this race, ma’am—indeed he didn’t. He was cheated into it: all the ring was taken in. He thought he might make the bet quite safely, without the least risk. And it will be a lesson to him for all his life long. To see a man cry—oh, it’s dreadful.”

“He don’t think much of making my dear missus cry,” said Mrs. Bonner—“poor dear soul!—look if he does, Captain.”

“If you’ve the soul of a man, Clavering,” Strong said to his principal, when he recounted this scene to him, “you’ll keep your promise this time: and, so help me Heaven! if you break word with her, I’ll turn against you, and tell all.”

“What all?” cried Mr. Francis, to whom his ambassador brought the news back at Short’s Hotel, where Strong found the Baronet crying and drinking curacoa.

“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 recognised 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 curacoa), “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 Clavering, and another of the occupants of Mr. Strong’s chambers in Shepherd’s Inn. The man was “good,” by a lucky hap, with whom Colonel Altamont made his bet; and on the settling day of the Derby—as Captain Clinker, who was appointed to settle Sir Francis Clavering’s book for him (for Lady Clavering by the advice of Major Pendennis, would not allow the Baronet to liquidate his own money transactions), paid over the notes to the Baronet’s many creditors—Colonel Altamont had the satisfaction of receiving the odds of thirty to one in fifties, which he had taken against the winning horse of the day.

Numbers of the Colonel’s friends were present on the occasion to congratulate him on his luck—all Altamont’s own set, and the gents who met in the private 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 sympathy for success, to share in it. “Now was the time,” Tom Driver had suggested to the Colonel, “to have up the specie ship that was sunk in the Gulf of Mexico, with the three hundred and eighty thousand dollars on board, besides bars and doubloons.” “The Tredyddlums were very low—to be bought for an old song—never was such an opportunity for buying shares,” Mr. Keightley insinuated; and Jack Holt pressed forward his tobacco-smuggling scheme, the audacity of which pleased the Colonel more than any other of the speculations proposed to him. Then of the Harlequin’s Head boys: there was Jack 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 influence, Colonel, you rogue, and the entree of the green-rooms in London,” Tom urged; whilst little Moss Abrams entreated the Colonel not to listen to these absurd fellows with their humbugging speculations, but to invest his money in some good bills which Moss could get for him, and which would return him fifty per cent as safe as the Bank of England.

Each and all of these worthies came round the Colonel with their various blandishments; but he had courage enough to resist them, and to button up his notes in the pocket of his coat, and go home to Strong, and “sport” the outer door of the chambers. Honest Strong had given his fellow-lodger good advice about all his acquaintances; and though, when pressed, he did not mind frankly taking twenty pounds himself out of the Colonel’s winnings, Strong was a great deal too upright to let others cheat him.

He was not a bad fellow when in good fortune, this Altamont. He ordered a smart livery for Grady, and made poor old Costigan shed tears of quickly dried gratitude by giving him a five-pound note after a snug dinner at the Back Kitchen, and he bought a green shawl for Mrs. Bolton, and a yellow one for Fanny: the most brilliant “sacrifices” of a Regent Street haberdasher’s window. And a short time after this, upon her 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 accompanied with a couple of gown pieces of the most astounding colours, the receipt of which goods made the Sylphide laugh and wonder immoderately. Now it is a fact that Colonel Altamont had made a purchase of cigars and French silks from some duffers in Fleet Street about this period; and he was found by Strong in the open Auction Room in Cheapside, having invested some money in two desks, several pairs of richly-plated candlesticks, a dinner epergne, and a bagatelle-board. The dinner epergne 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, as her ladyship’s friend; Strong, on the part of poor Clavering; her ladyship’s lawyer, and the honest Begum herself, executed these reforms with promptitude and severity. After paying the Baronet’s debts, the settlement of which occasioned considerable public scandal, and caused the Baronet to sink even lower in the world’s estimation than he had been before, Lady Clavering quitted London for Tunbridge Wells in high dudgeon, refusing to see her reprobate husband, whom nobody pitied. Clavering remained in London patiently, by no means anxious to meet his wife’s just indignation, and sneaked in and out of the House of Commons, whence he and Captain Raff and Mr. Marker would go to have a game at billiards and a cigar or showed in the sporting public-houses; or might be seen lurking about Lincoln’s Inn and his lawyers’, where the principals kept him for hours waiting, and the clerks winked at each other, as he 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 addressed him with “Yes, Sir Francis” and “No, Sir Francis,” where he told his wretched jokes, and where he quavered his dreary little French song, after Strong had sung his Jovial chorus, and honest Costigan had piped his Irish ditties. Such a jolly menage as Strong’s, with Grady’s Irish-stew, and the Chevalier’s brew of punch after dinner, would have been welcome to many a better man than Clavering, the solitude of whose great house at home frightened him, where he was attended only by the old woman who kept the house, and his valet who sneered at him.

“Yes, dammit,” said he to his friends in Shepherd’s Inn, “that fellow of mine, I must turn him away, only I owe him two years’ wages, curse him, and can’t ask my lady. He brings me my tea cold of a morning, with a dem’d leaden teaspoon, and he says my lady’s sent all the plate to the banker’s because it ain’t safe.—Now ain’t it hard that she won’t trust me with a single teaspoon; ain’t it ungentlemanlike, Altamont? You know my lady’s of low birth—that is—I beg your pardon—hem—that is, it’s most cruel of her not to show more confidence in me. And the very servants begin to laugh—the damn scoundrels! I’ll break every bone in their great hulking bodies, curse ’em, I will.—They don’t answer my bell: and—and my man was at Vauxhall last night with one of my dress-shirts and my velvet waistcoat on, I know it was mine—the confounded impudent blackguard—and he went on dancing before my eyes confound him! I’m sure he’ll live to be hanged—he deserves to be hanged—all those infernal rascals of valets.”

He was very kind to Altamont now: he listened to the Colonel’s loud stories when Altamont described how—when he was working his way home once from New Zealand, where he had been on a whaling expedition—he and his comrades had been obliged to slink on board at night, to escape from their wives, by Jove—and how the poor devils put out in their canoes when they saw the ship under sail, and paddled madly after her: how he had been lost in the bush once for three months in New South Wales, when he was there once on a trading speculation: how he had seen Boney at Saint Helena, and been presented to him with the rest of the officers of the Indiaman of which he was a mate—to all these tales (and over his cups Altamont told many of them; and, it must be owned, lied and bragged a great deal) Sir Francis now listened with great attention; making a point of drinking wine with Altamont at dinner and of treating him with every distinction.

“Leave him alone, I know what he’s a-coming to,” Altamont said, laughing to Strong, who remonstrated with him, “and leave me alone; I know what I’m a-telling, very well. I was officer on board an Indiaman, so I was; I traded to New South Wales, so I did, in a ship of my own, and lost her. I became officer to the Nawaub, so I did; only me and my royal master have had a difference, Strong—that’s it. Who’s the better or the worse for what I tell? or knows anything about me? The other chap is dead—shot in the bush, and his body reckonised at Sydney. If I thought anybody would split, do you think I wouldn’t wring his neck? I’ve done as good before now, Strong—I told you how I did for the overseer before I took leave—but in fair fight, I mean—in fair fight; or, rayther, he had the best of it. He had his gun and bay’net, and I had only an axe. Fifty of ’em saw it—ay, and cheered me when I did it—and I’d do it again,—him, wouldn’t I? I ain’t afraid of 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 rum-bottle.”

“Take my counsel, Altamont,” Strong said, gravely, “and mind how you deal with that man. Don’t make it too much his interest to get rid of you; or who knows what he may do?”

The event for which, with cynical enjoyment, Altamont had been on the look-out, came very speedily. One day, Strong being absent upon an errand for his principal, Sir Francis made his appearance in the chambers, and found the envoy of the Nawaub alone. He abused the world in general for being heartless and unkind to him: he abused his wife for being ungenerous to him; he abused Strong for being ungrateful—hundreds of pounds had he given Ned Strong—been his friend for life and kept him out of 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!—he had the confounded impudence to threaten to tell my lady: as the things in my own house weren’t my own, to sell or to keep, or fling out of window if I chose—by Gad! the confounded scoundrel.

“Cry a little; don’t mind cryin’ before me—it’ll relieve you Clavering,” the other said. “Why, I say, old feller, what a happy feller I once thought you, and what a miserable son of a gun you really are!”

“It’s a shame that they treat me so, ain’t it?” Clavering went on,—for, though ordinarily silent and apathetic, about his own griefs the Baronet could whine for an hour at a time. “And—and, by Gad, sir, I haven’t got the money to pay the very cab that’s waiting for me at the door; and the porteress, that Mrs. Bolton, lent me three shillin’s, and I don’t like to ask her for any more: and I asked that d——d old Costigan, the confounded old penniless Irish miscreant, and he hadn’t got a shillin’, the beggar; and Campion’s out of town, or else he’d do a little bill for me, I know he would.”

“I thought you swore on your 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, Altamont, I’m the most miserable beggar alive.”

“You’d like a chap to lend you a twenty-pound note, wouldn’t you now?” the other asked.

“If you would, I’d be grateful to you 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 banker’s: 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 obliged to you; and I’ll not take it as a gift—only as a loan, and pay you back in six months. I take my oath, I will.”

“Well—well—there’s the money, Sir Francis Clavering. I ain’t a bad fellow. When I’ve money in my pocket, dammy, I spend it like a man. Here’s five-and-twenty for you. Don’t be losing it at the hells now. Don’t be making a fool of yourself. Go down to Clavering Park, and it’ll keep you ever so long. You needn’t ’ave butchers’ meat: there’s pigs, I dare say, on the premises: and you can shoot rabbits for dinner, you know, every day till the game comes in. Besides, the neighbours will ask you about to dinner, you know, sometimes: for you are a Baronet, though you have outrun the constable. And you’ve got this comfort, that I’m off your shoulders for a good bit to come—p’raps this two years—if I don’t play; and I don’t intend to touch the confounded black and red: and by that time my lady, as you call her—Jimmy, I used to say—will have come round again; and you’ll be ready for me, you know, and come down handsomely to yours truly.”

At this juncture of their conversation Strong returned, nor did the Baronet care much about prolonging the talk, having got the money: and he made his way from Shepherd’s Inn, and went home and bullied his servant in a manner so unusually brisk and insolent that the man concluded his master must have pawned some more of the house furniture, or, at any rate, have come into possession of some ready money.

“And yet I’ve looked over the house, Morgan, and I don’t thin 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 bejews afore she went away, and he couldn’t take away the picters and looking-glasses in a cab and he wouldn’t spout the fenders and fire-irons—he ain’t so bad as that. But he’s got money somehow. He’s so dam’d imperent when he have. A few nights ago I sor him at Vauxhall, where I was a-polkin with Lady Hemly Babewood’s gals—a wery pleasant room that is, and an uncommon good lot in it, hall except the ’ousekeeper, and she’s methodisticle—I was a-polkin—you’re too old a cove to polk, Mr. Morgan—and ’ere’s your ’ealth—and I ’appened to ’ave on some of Clavering’s abberdashery, and he sor it too: and he didn’t dare so much as speak a word.”

“How about the house in St. John’s Wood?” Mr. Morgan asked.

“Execution in it.—Sold up heverythin: ponies, and pianna, and brougham, and all. Mrs. Montague were 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: he went down on his knees, my lady told Mrs. Bonner, as told me,—and swear as he never more would touch a card or a dice, or put his name to a bit of paper; and my lady was a-goin’ to give him the notes down to pay his liabilities after the race: only your Governor said (which he wrote it on a piece of paper, and passed it across the table to the lawyer and my lady) that some one else had better book up for him, for he’d have kep’ some of the money. He’s a sly old cove, your Gov’nor.”

The expression of “old cove,” thus flippantly applied by the younger gentleman to himself and his master, displeased Mr. Morgan exceedingly. On the first occasion, when Mr. Lightfoot used the obnoxious expression, his comrade’s anger was only indicated by a silent frown; but on the second 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 Pendennis an old cove, if you’ll ’ave the goodness, Lightfoot, and don’t call me an old cove, nether. Such words ain’t used in society; and we have lived in the fust society, both at ’ome and foring. We’ve been intimate with the fust statesmen of Europe. When we go abroad we dine with Prince Metternitch and Louy Philup reg’lar. We go here to the best houses, the tip-tops, I tell you. We ride with Lord John and the noble Whycount at the edd of Foring Affairs. We dine with the Hearl of Burgrave, and are consulted by the Marquis of Steyne in everythink. We ought to know a thing or two, Mr. Lightfoot. You’re a young man, I’m an old cove, as you say. We’ve both seen the world, and we both know that it ain’t money, nor bein’ a Baronet, nor ’avin’ a town and country ’ouse, nor a paltry five or six thousand a year.”

“It’s ten, Mr. Morgan,” cried Mr. Lightfoot, with great animation.

“It may have been, sir,” Morgan said, with calm severity; “it may have been, Mr. Lightfoot, but it ain’t six now, nor five, sir. It’s been doosedly dipped and cut into, sir, by the confounded extravygance of your master, with his helbow shakin’, and his bill discountin’, and his cottage in the Regency Park, and his many wickednesses. He’s a bad un, Mr. Lightfoot,—a bad lot, sir, and that you know. And it ain’t money, sir—not such money as that, at any rate, come from a Calcuttar attorney, and I 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 who got you into this Club, Lightfoot, as you very well know, though I am an old cove, and they would have blackballed you without me as sure as your name is Frederic.”

“I know they would, Mr. Morgan,” said the other, with much humility.

“Well, then, don’t call me an old cove, sir. It ain’t gentlemanlike, Frederic Lightfoot, which I knew you when you was a cab-boy, and when your father was in trouble, and got you the place you have now when the Frenchman went away. And if you think, sir, that because you’re making up to Mrs. Bonner, who may have saved her two thousand pound—and I dare say she has in five-and-twenty years as she have lived confidential maid to Lady Clavering—yet, sir, you must remember who put you into that service; and who knows what you were before, sir, and it don’t become you, Frederic Lightfoot, to call me an old cove.”

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Morgan—I can’t do more than make an apology—will you have a glass, sir, and let me drink your ’ealth?”

“You know I don’t take sperrits. Lightfoot,” replied Morgan, appeased. “And so you and Mrs. Bonner is going to put up together, are you?”

“She’s old, but two thousand pound’s a good bit, you see, Mr Morgan. And we’ll get the ‘Clavering Arms’ for a very little; and that’ll be no bad thing when the railroad runs through Clavering. And when we are there, I hope you’ll come and see us, Mr. Morgan.”

“It’s a stoopid place, and no society,” said Mr. Morgan. “I know it well. In Mrs Pendennis’s time we used to go down, reg’lar, and the hair refreshed me after the London racket.”

“The railroad will improve Mr. Arthur’s property,” remarked Lightfoot. “What’s about the figure of it, should you say, sir?”

“Under fifteen hundred, sir,” answered Morgan; at which the other, who knew the extent of poor Arthur’s acres, thrust his tongue in his cheek, but remained wisely silent.

“Is his man any good, Mr. Morgan?” Lightfoot resumed.

“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, Lightfoot, for he ain’t seen the world yet.”

When the pint of sherry for which Mr. Lightfoot called, upon Mr. Morgan’s announcement that he declined to drink spirits, had been discussed by the two gentlemen, who held the wine up to the light, and smacked their lips, and winked their eyes at it, and rallied the landlord as to the vintage, in the most approved manner of connoisseurs, Morgan’s ruffled equanimity was quite restored, and he was prepared to treat his young friend with perfect good-humour.

“What d’you think about Miss Amory, Lightfoot—tell us in confidence, now—Do you think we should do well—you understand—if we make Miss A. into Mrs. A. P., comprendy vous?”

“She and her Ma’s always quarrellin’,” said Mr. Lightfoot. “Bonner is more than a match for the old lady, and treats Sir Francis like that—like this year spill, which I fling into the grate. But she daren’t say a word to Miss Amory. No more dare none of us. When a visitor comes in, she smiles and languishes, you’d think that butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth: and the minute he is gone, very likely, she flares up like a little demon, and says things fit to send you wild. If Mr. Arthur comes, it’s ‘Do let’s sing that there delightful Song!’ or, ‘Come and write me them pooty verses in this halbum!’ and very likely she’s been a-rilin’ her mother, or sticking pins into her maid, a minute before. She do stick pins into her and pinch her. Mary Hann showed me one of her arms quite black and blue; and I recklect Mrs. Bonner, who’s as jealous of me as a old cat, boxed her ears for showing me. And then you should see Miss at luncheon, when there’s nobody but the family! She makes b’leave she never heats, and my! you should only jest see her. She has Mary Hann to bring her up plum-cakes and creams into her bedroom; and the cook’s the only man in the house she’s civil to. Bonner says, how, the second season in London, Mr. Soppington was a-goin’ to propose for her, and actially came one day, and sor her fling a book into the fire, and scold her mother so, that he went down softly by the back droring-room door, which he came in by; and next thing we heard of him was, he was married to Miss Rider. Oh, she’s a devil, that little Blanche, and that’s my candig apinium, Mr. Morgan.”

“Apinion, not apinium, Lightfoot, my good fellow,” Mr. Morgan said, with parental kindness, and then asked of his own bosom with a sigh, why the deuce does my Governor want Master Arthur to marry such a girl as this? and the tete-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 perfect freedom and confidence, and here, when about to enter into a new situation, a gentleman was enabled to get every requisite information regarding the family of which he proposed to become a member. Liveries it may be imagined were excluded from this select precinct; and the powdered heads of the largest metropolitan footmen might bow down in vain entreating admission into the Gentleman’s Club. These outcast giants in plush took their beer in an outer apartment of the Wheel of Fortune, and could no more get an entry into the Clubroom 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 permitted to overhear here, in some measure explains the characters and bearings of our story, that we have ventured to introduce the reader into a society so exclusive.

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LXII. 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 projected foreign tour, and the chronicler of the polite world who goes down to London Bridge for the purpose of taking leave of the people of fashion who quit this country, announced that among the company on board the Soho to Antwerp last Saturday, were “Sir Robert, Lady, and the Misses Hodge; Mr. Serjeant Kewsy, and Mrs. and Miss Kewsy; Colonel Altamont, Major Coddy, etc.” 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-servant; the faithful Irish legionary who had been for some time in waiting upon himself and Captain Strong in their chambers of Shepherd’s Inn.

The Chevalier partook of a copious dinner at Blackwall with his departing friend the Colonel, and one or two others, who drank many healths to Altamont at that liberal gentleman’s expense. “Strong, old boy,” the Chevalier’s worthy chum said, “if you want a little money, now’s your time. I’m your man. You’re a good feller, and have been a good feller to me, and a twenty-pound note, more or less, will make no odds to me,” But Strong said, No, he didn’t want any money; he was flush, quite flush—“that is, not flush enough to pay you back your last loan, Altamont, but quite able to carry on for some time to come,” and so, with a not uncordial greeting between them, the two parted. Had the possession of money really made Altamont more honest and amiable than he had hitherto been, or only caused him to seem more amiable in Strong’s eyes? Perhaps he really was better, and money improved him. Perhaps it was the beauty of wealth Strong saw and respected. But he argued within himself, “This poor devil, this unlucky outcast of a returned convict, is ten times as good a fellow as my friend Sir Francis Clavering, Bart. He has pluck and honesty in his way. He will stick to a friend, and face an enemy. The other never had courage to do either. And what is it that has put the poor devil under a cloud? He was only a little wild, and signed his father-in-law’s name. Many a man has done worse, and come to no wrong, and holds his head up. Clavering does. No, he don’t hold his head up: he never did in his best days.” And Strong, perhaps, repented him of the falsehood which he had told to the free-handed Colonel, that he was not in want of money; but it was a falsehood on the side of honesty, and the Chevalier could not bring down his stomach to borrow a second time from his outlawed friend. Besides, he could get on. Clavering had promised him some: not that Clavering’s promises were much to be believed, but the Chevalier was of a hopeful turn, and trusted in many chances of catching his patron, and waylaying some of those stray remittances and supplies, in the procuring of which for his principal lay Mr. Strong’s chief business.

He had grumbled about Altamont’s companionship in the Shepherd’s Inn chambers; but he found those lodgings more glum now without his partner than with him. The solitary life was not agreeable to his social soul; and he had got into extravagant and luxurious habits, too, having a servant at his command to run his errands, to arrange his toilets, and to cook his meal. It was rather a grand and touching sight now to see the portly and handsome gentleman painting his own boots, and broiling his own mutton chop. It has been before stated that the Chevalier had a wife, a Spanish lady of Vittoria, who had gone back to her friends, after a few months’ union with the Captain, whose head she broke with a dish. He began to think whether he should not go back and see his Juanita. The Chevalier was growing melancholy after the departure of his friend the Colonel; or, to use his own picturesque expression, was “down on his luck.” These moments of depression and intervals of ill fortune occur constantly in the lives of heroes; Marius at Minturme, Charles Edward in the Highlands, Napoleon before Elba. What great man has not been called upon to face evil fortune?

From Clavering no supplies were to be had for some time, the five-and-twenty pounds or the “pony,” which the exemplary Baronet had received from Mr. Altamont, had fled out of Clavering’s keeping as swiftly as many previous ponies. He had been down the river with a choice party of sporting gents, who dodged the police and landed in Essex, where they put up Billy Bluck to fight Dick the cabman whom the Baronet backed, and who had it all his own way for thirteen rounds, when, by an unlucky blow in the windpipe, Billy killed him. “It’s always my luck, Strong,” Sir Francis said; “the betting was three to one on the cabman, and I thought myself as sure of thirty pound, as if I had it in my pocket. And dammy, I owe my man Lightfoot fourteen pound now which he’s lent and paid for me: and he duns me—the confounded impudent blackguard: and I wish to Heaven I knew any way of getting a bill done, or of screwing a little out of my lady! I’ll give you half, Ned, upon my soul and 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 Fanny, in the lodge, that, after all, there was nothing like a thoroughbred 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 had actially refused him twice, and had had to wait three months to get seven shillings which he had borrowed 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 Dr. Sam were on exceedingly familiar and confidential terms by this time, and that time had brought to the former certain consolations, and soothed certain regrets, which are deucedly bitter when they occur, but which are, no more than tooth-pulling, or any other pang, eternal.

As you sit, surrounded by respect and affection; happy, honoured, and flattered in your old age; your foibles gently indulged; your least words kindly cherished; your garrulous old stories received for the hundredth time with dutiful forbearance, and never-failing hypocritical smiles; the women of your house constant in their flatteries; the young men hushed and attentive when you begin to speak; the servants awestricken; 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 servants will bow, and the tenants shout, for your son as for you; that the butler will fetch him the wine (improved by a little keeping) that’s now in your cellar; and that, when your night is come, and the light of your life is gone down, as sure as the morning rises after you and without you, the sun of prosperity and flattery shines on your heir. Men come and bask in the halo of consols and acres that beams round about him: the reverence is transferred with the estate; of which, with all its advantages, pleasures, respect, and good-will, he in turn becomes the life-tenant. How long do you wish or expect that your people will regret you? How much time does a man devote to grief before he begins to enjoy? A great man must keep his heir at his feast like a living memento mori. If he holds very much by life, the presence of the other must be a constant sting and warning. “Make ready to go,” says the successor to your honour; “I am waiting: and I could hold it as well as you.”

What has this reference to the possible reader, to do with any of the characters of this history? Do we wish to apologise for Pen because he has got a white hat, and because his mourning for his mother is fainter? All the lapse of years, all the career of fortune, all the events of life, however strongly they may move or eagerly excite him, never can remove that sainted image from his heart, or banish that blessed love from its sanctuary. If he yields to wrong, the dear eyes will look sadly upon him when he dares to meet them; if he does well, endures pain, or conquers temptation, the ever present love will greet him, he knows, with approval and pity; if he falls, plead for him; if he suffers, cheer him;—be with him and accompany him always until death is past; and sorrow and sin are no more. Is this mere dreaming, or, on the part of an idle story-teller, useless moralising? 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 conversations, any outer stranger, Major Pendennis for instance, had walked into Pen’s chambers, Arthur and Warrington would have stopped their talk, and chosen another subject, and discoursed about the Opera, or the last debate in Parliament, or Miss Jones’s marriage with Captain Smith, or what not,—so, let us imagine that the public steps in at this juncture, and stops the confidential talk between author and reader, and begs us to resume our remarks about this world, with which both are certainly better acquainted than with that other one into which we have just been peeping.

On coming into his property, Arthur Pendennis at first comported himself with a modesty and equanimity which obtained his friend Warrington’s praises, though Arthur’s uncle was a little inclined to quarrel with his nephew’s meanness of spirit, for not assuming greater state and pretensions now that he had entered on the enjoyment of his kingdom. He would have had Arthur installed in handsome quarters, and riding on showy park hacks, or in well-built cabriolets, every day. “I am too absent,” Arthur said, with a laugh, “to drive a cab in London; the omnibus would cut me in two, or I should send my horse’s head into the ladies’ carriage-windows; and you wouldn’t have me driven about by my servant like an apothecary, uncle?” No, Major Pendennis would on no account have his nephew appear like an apothecary; the august representative of the house of Pendennis must not so demean himself. And when Arthur, pursuing his banter, said, “And yet, I dare say, sir, my father was proud enough when he first set up his gig,” the old Major hemmed and ha’d, and his wrinkled face reddened with a blush as he answered, “You know what Buonaparte said, sir, ‘Il faut laver son linge sale en famille.’ There is no need, sir, for you to brag that your father was a—a medical man. He came of a most ancient but fallen house, and was obliged to reconstruct the family fortunes as many a man of good family has done before him. You are like the fellow in Sterne, sir—the Marquis who came to demand his sword again. Your father got back yours for you. You are a man of landed estate, by Gad, sir, and a gentleman—never forget you are a gentleman.”

Then Arthur slily turned on his uncle the argument which he had heard the old gentleman often use regarding himself. “In the society which I have the honour of frequenting through your introduction, who cares to ask about my paltry means or my humble gentility, uncle?” he asked. “It would be absurd of me to attempt to compete with the great folks; and all that 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 to the second floor in Lamb Court: Warrington still occupying his old quarters, and the two friends being determined not to part one from the other. Cultivate kindly, reader, those friendships of your youth: it is only in that generous time that they are formed. How different the intimacies of after days are, and how much weaker the grasp of your own hand after it has been shaken about in twenty years’ commerce with the world, and has squeezed and dropped a thousand equally careless palms! As you can seldom fashion your tongue to speak a new language after twenty, the heart refuses to receive friendship pretty soon: it gets too hard to yield to the impression.

So Pen had many acquaintances, and being of a jovial and easy turn, got more daily: but no friend like Warrington; and the two men continued to live almost as much in common as the Knights of the Temple, riding upon one horse (for Pen’s was at Warrington’s service), and having their chambers and their servitor in common.

Mr. Warrington had made the acquaintance of Pen’s friends of Grosvenor Place during their last unlucky season in London, and had expressed himself no better satisfied with Sir Francis and Lady Clavering and her ladyship’s daughter than was the public in general. “The world is right,” George said, “about those people. The young men laugh and talk freely before those ladies, and about them. The girl sees people whom she has no right to know, and talks to men with whom no girl should have an intimacy. Did you see those two reprobates leaning over Lady Clavering’s carriage in the Park the other day, and leering under Miss Blanche’s bonnet? No good mother would let her daughter know those men, or admit them within her doors.”

“The Begum is the most innocent and good-natured soul alive,” interposed Pen. “She never heard any harm of Captain Blackball, or read that trial in which Charley Lovelace figures. Do you suppose that honest ladies read and remember the Chronique Scandaleuse as well as you, you old grumbler?”

“Would you like Laura Bell to know those fellows?” Warrington asked, his face turning rather red. “Would you let any woman you loved be contaminated by their company? I have no doubt that the poor Begum is ignorant of their histories. It seems to me she is ignorant of a great number of better things. It seems to me that your honest Begum is not a lady, Pen. It is not her fault, doubtless, that she has not had the education, or learned the refinements of a lady.”

“She is as moral as Lady Portsea, who has all the world at her balls, and as refined as Mrs. Bull, who breaks the King’s English, and has half a dozen dukes at her table,” Pen answered, rather sulkily. “Why should you and I be more squeamish than the rest of the world? Why are we to visit the sins of her father 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 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 with any, provided you get a stalled ox to feed on? You call me a Cynic—why, what a monstrous Cynicism it is, which you and the rest of you men of the world admit! I’d rather live upon raw turnips and sleep in a hollow tree, or turn backwoodsman or savage, than degrade myself to this civilisation, and own that a French cook was the thing in life best worth living for.”

“Because you like a raw beefsteak 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 continued, “if I concede that I am no better,—I also doubt whether he is better than I. I see men who begin with ideas of universal reform, and who, before their beards are grown, propound their loud plans for the regeneration of mankind, give up their schemes after a few years of bootless talking and vainglorious attempts to lead their fellows; and after they have found that men will no longer bear them, as indeed they never were in the least worthy to be heard, sink quietly into the ranks-and-file,—acknowledging their aims impracticable, or thankful that they were never put into practice. The fiercest reformers grow calm, and are faire 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 the Thiers, look at Guizot, in opposition and in place! Look at the Whigs appealing to the country, and the Whigs in power! Would you say that the conduct of these men is an act of treason, as the Radicals bawl,—who would give way in their turn, were their turn ever to come? No, only that they submit to circumstances which are stronger than they,—march as the world marches towards reform, but at the world’s pace (and the movements of the vast body of mankind must needs be slow), forgo 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 takes these institutions as I find them, and waits for time and truth to develop, or fortify, or (if you like) destroy them? A college tutor, or a nobleman’s toady, who appears one fine day as my right reverend lord, in a silk apron and a shovel-hat, and assumes benedictory airs over me, is still the same man we remember at Oxbridge, when he was truckling to the tufts, and bullying the poor undergraduates in the lecture-room. An hereditary legislator, 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 overcame twelve thousand Frenchmen, or fifty thousand Indians—such a man, I say, inspires me with no more respect than the bitterest democrat can feel 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 acquiescence; and he takes his place above the best of us at all dinner-parties, and there bides his time. I don’t want to chop his head off with a guillotine, or to fling mud at him in the streets. When they call such a man a disgrace to his order; and such another, who is good and gentle, refined and generous, who employs his great means in promoting every kindness and charity, and art and grace of life, in the kindest and most gracious manner, an ornament to his rank—the question as to the use and propriety of the order is not in the least affected one way or other. There it is, extant among us, a part of our habits, the creed of many of us, the growth of centuries, the symbol of a most complicated tradition—there stand my lord the bishop and my lord the hereditary legislator—what the French call transactions both of them,—representing in their present shape mail-clad barons and double-sworded chiefs (from whom their lordships the hereditaries, for the most part, don’t descend), and priests, professing to hold an absolute truth and a divinely inherited power, the which truth absolute our ancestors burned at the stake, and denied there; the which divine transmissible power still exists in print—to be believed, or not, pretty much at choice; and of these, I say, I acquiesce that they exist, and no more. If you say that these schemes, devised before printing was known, or steam was born; when thought was an infant, scared and whipped; and truth under its guardians was gagged, and swathed, and blindfolded, and not allowed to lift its voice, or to look out or to walk under the sun; before men were permitted to meet, or to trade, or to speak with each other—if any one says (as some faithful souls do) that these schemes are for ever, and having been changed and modified constantly are to be subject to no further development or decay, I laugh, and let the man speak. But I would have toleration for these, as I would ask it for my own opinions; and if they are to die, I would rather they had a decent and natural than an abrupt and violent death.”

“You would have sacrificed to Jove,” Warrington said, “had you lived in the time of the Christian persecutions.”

“Perhaps I would,” said Pen, with some sadness. “Perhaps I am a coward,—perhaps my faith is unsteady; but this is my own reserve. What I argue here is that I will not persecute. Make a faith or a dogma absolute, and persecution becomes a logical consequence; and Dominic burns a Jew, or Calvin an Arian, or Nero a Christian, or Elizabeth or Mary a Papist or Protestant; or their father both or either, according to his humour; and acting without any pangs of remorse,—but, on the contrary, notions of duty fulfilled. Make dogma absolute, and to inflict or to suffer death becomes easy and necessary; and Mahomet’s soldiers shouting, ‘Paradise! Paradise!’ and dying on the Christian spears, are not more or less praiseworthy than the same men slaughtering a townful of Jews, or cutting off the heads of all prisoners who would not acknowledge that there was but one Prophet of God.”

“A little while since, young one,” Warrington said, who had been listening to his friend’s confessions neither without sympathy nor scorn, for his mood led him to indulge in both, “you asked me why I remained out of the strife of the world, and looked on at the great 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 blase as a rake of sixty. You neither hope much nor care much, nor believe much. You doubt about other men as much as about yourself. Were it made of such pococuranti as you, the world would be intolerable; and I had rather live in a wilderness of monkeys, and listen to their chatter, than in a company of men who denied 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 scores of years would cease to exist altogether. Would you have every man with his head shaved, and every woman in a cloister,—carrying out to the full the ascetic principle? Would you have conventicle hymns twanging from every lane in every city in the world? Would you have all the birds of the forest sing one note and fly with one feather? You call me a 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,” Pendennis replied; “but it is not; and it could be replied to you, that even to the wretched outcry of the thief on the tree, the wisest and the best of all teachers we know of, the untiring Comforter and Consoler, promised a pitiful hearing and a certain hope. Hymns of saints! odes of poets! who are we to measure the chances and opportunities, the means of doing, or even judging, right and wrong, awarded to men; and to establish the rule for meting out their punishments and rewards? We are as insolent and unthinking in judging of men’s morals as of their intellects. We admire this man as being a great philosopher, and set down the other as a dullard, not knowing either, or the amount of truth in either, or being certain of the truth 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 world we strive to pursue men, and send after them our impotent party verdicts of condemnation or acquittal. We set up our paltry little rods to measure Heaven immeasurable, as if, in comparison to that, Newton’s mind or Pascal’s or Shakspeare’s was any loftier than mine; as if the ray which travels from the sun would reach me sooner than the man who blacks my boots. Measured by that altitude, the tallest and the smallest among us are so alike diminutive and pitifully base, that I say we should take no count of the calculation, and it is a meanness to reckon the difference.”

“Your figure fails there, Arthur,” said the other, better pleased; “if even by common arithmetic we can multiply as we can reduce almost infinitely, the Great Reckoner must take count of all; and the small is not small, or the great great, to his infinity.”

“I don’t call those calculations in question,” Arthur said; “I only say that yours are incomplete and premature; false in consequence, and, by every operation, multiplying into wider error. I do not condemn the men who murdered Socrates and damned Galileo. I say that they damned Galileo and murdered Socrates.”

“And yet but a moment since you admitted the propriety of acquiescence in the present, and, I suppose, all other tyrannies?”

“No: but that if an opponent menaces me, of whom and without cost of blood and violence I can get rid, I would rather wait him out, and starve him out, than fight him out. Fabius fought Hannibal sceptically. Who was his Roman coadjutor, whom we read of in Plutarch when we were boys, who scoffed at the other’s procrastination and doubted his courage, and engaged the enemy and was beaten for his pains?”

In these speculations and confessions of Arthur, the reader may perhaps see allusions to questions which, no doubt, have occupied and discomposed himself, and which he has answered by very different solutions to those come to by our friend. We are not pledging ourselves for the correctness of his opinions, which readers will please to consider are delivered dramatically, the writer being no more answerable for them, than for the sentiments uttered by any other character of the story: our 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 as many loud reformers are constantly ready with; much more of uttering downright falsehoods in arguing questions or abusing opponents, which he would die or starve rather than use. It was not in our friend’s nature to be able to utter certain lies; nor was he strong enough to protest against others, except with a polite sneer; his maxim being, that he owed obedience to all Acts of Parliament, as long as they were not repealed.

And to what does this easy and 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 his roll of Plato, or his pleasant Greek songbook 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 protest further 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, who, driven fatally by the remorseless logic of his creed, gives up everything, 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 will serve henceforth as a nameless private soldier:—I see the truth in that man, as I do in his brother, whose logic drives him to quite a different conclusion, and who, after having passed a life in vain endeavours to reconcile an irreconcilable book, flings it at last down in despair, and declares, with tearful eyes, and hands up to heaven, his revolt and recantation. If the truth is with all these, why should I take side with any one of them? Some are called upon to preach: let them preach. Of these preachers there are somewhat too many, methinks, who fancy they have the gift. But we cannot all be parsons in church, that is clear. Some must sit silent and listen, or go to sleep mayhap. Have we not all our duties? The head charity-boy blows the bellows; the master canes the other boys in the organ-loft; the clerk sings out Amen from the desk; and the beadle with the staff opens the door for his Reverence, who rustles in silk up to the cushion. I won’t cane the boys, nay, or say Amen always, or act as the church’s champion and warrior, in the shape of the beadle with the staff; but I will take off my hat in the place, and say my prayers there too, and shake hands with the clergyman as he steps on the grass outside. Don’t I know that his being there is a compromise, and that he stands before me an Act of Parliament? That the church he occupies was built for other worship? That the Methodist chapel is next door; and that Bunyan the tinker is bawling out the tidings of damnation on the common hard by? Yes, I am a Sadducee; and I take things as I find them, and the world, and the Acts of Parliament of the world, as they are; and as I intend to take a wife, if I find one—not to be madly in love and prostrate at her feet like a fool—not to worship her as an angel, or to expect to find her as such—but to be good-natured to her, and courteous, expecting good-nature and pleasant society from her in turn. And so, George, if ever you hear of my marrying, depend on it, it won’t be a romantic attachment on my side: and if you hear of any good place under Government, I have no particular scruples that I know of, which would prevent me from accepting your offer.”

“O Pen, you scoundrel! I know what you mean,” here Warrington broke out. “This is the meaning of your 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 little dinner at the Club; the chef’s in town, and he’ll cook a good one for me. No, you won’t? Don’t be sulky, old boy, I’m going down to—to the country to-morrow.”

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LXIII. 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 Altamont in public would be the signal for his instantaneous withdrawal and condign punishment,—for the fugitive convict had cut down the officer in charge of him,—and a rope would be inevitably his end; if he came again under British authorities; yet, no guardian would like to secure for his ward a wife, whose parent was to be got rid of in such a way; and the old gentleman’s notion always had been that Altamont, with the gallows before his eyes, would assuredly avoid recognition; while, at the same time, by holding the threat of his discovery over Clavering, the latter, who would lose everything by Amory’s appearance, would be a slave in the hands of the person who knew so fatal a secret.

But if the Begum paid Clavering’s debts many times more, her wealth would be expended altogether upon this irreclaimable reprobate; and her heirs, whoever they might be, would succeed but to an emptied treasury; and Miss Amory, instead of bringing her husband a good income and a seat in Parliament, would bring to that individual her person only, and her pedigree with that lamentable note of sus. per coll. at the name of the last male of her line.

There was, however, to the old schemer revolving these things in his mind, another course yet open; the which will appear to the reader who may take the trouble to peruse a conversation, which presently ensued, between Major Pendennis and the 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 flock of birds in which he is accustomed to sail, it is wonderful at what strange and distant nooks he comes up again for breath. I have known a Pall Mall lounger and Rotten Row buck, of no inconsiderable fashion, vanish from amongst his comrades of the Clubs and the Park, and be discovered, very happy and affable, at an eighteenpenny ordinary in Billingsgate: another gentleman, of great learning and wit, when outrunning the constable (were I to say he was a literary man, some critics would vow that I intended to insult the literary profession), once sent me his address at a little public-house called the “Fox under the Hill,” down a most darksome and cavernous archway in the Strand. Such a man, under such misfortunes, may have a house, but he is never in his house; and has an address where letters may be left; but only simpletons go with the hopes of seeing him.—Only a few of the faithful know where he is to be found, and have the 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 country 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 conversation, as were necessary for the ends which the Major had in view. For since the Major had been called in as family friend, and had 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 the note, and made the appointment at four o’clock the next day at Bays’s precisely (he carefully underlined the “precisely”); but though four o’clock came, as in the course of time and destiny it could not do otherwise, no Clavering made his appearance. Indeed, if he had borrowed twenty pounds of Pendennis, he could not have been more timid, or desirous of avoiding the Major; and the latter found that it was one thing to seek a man, and another to find him.

Before the close of that day in which Strong’s patron had given the Chevalier the benefit of so many blessings before his face and curses behind his back, Sir Francis Clavering, who had pledged his word and his oath to his wife’s advisers to draw or accept no more bills of exchange, and to be content with the allowance which his 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 was constantly in the habit of spending an hour in the evening.

“He is at his old work again,” Mr. Santiago told his customer. “He and Moss Abrams were in my 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 satisfaction of knowing, too, that his affairs are known and canvassed, and his signature handed round among the very worst knaves and rogues of London.

Mr. Santiago’s shop was close by St. James’s Street and Bury Street, where we have had the 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 everything with their smoke,” thought the Major. “Here comes a fellow with mustachios 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.

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 further, and condescending to address to him an observation; 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.”

“My news is bad news, sir,” Strong answered; “it concerns our friends at Tunbridge Wells, and I should like to talk to you about it. Clavering is at his old tricks again, Major Pendennis.”

“Indeed! Pray do me the 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 unburthened 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: and will deceive anybody, his wife or his child, or his old friend, who has backed him a hundred times. Why, there’s a bill of his and mine will be due next week.”

“I thought we had paid all.”

“Not that one,” Strong said, blushing. “He asked me not to mention it, and—and—I had half the money for that, Major; And they will be down on me. But I don’t care for it; I’m used to it. It’s Lady Clavering that riles me. It’s a shame that that good-natured woman, who has paid him out of 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 countenance. “Who is Altamont, Mr. Strong?”

“I am sure I don’t know, if you don’t know,” the Chevalier answered, with a look of surprise and suspicion.

“To tell you frankly,” said the Major, “I have my suspicions—I suppose—mind, I only suppose—that in our friend Clavering’s a life—who, between you and me, Captain Strong, we must own about as loose a fish as any in my acquaintance—there are, no doubt, some queer secrets and stories which he would not like to have known: none of us would. And very likely this fellow, who calls himself Altamont, knows some story against Clavering, and has some hold on him, and gets money out of him on the strength of his information. I know some of the best men of the best families in England who are paying through the nose in that way. But their private affairs are no business of mine, Mr. Strong; and it is not to be supposed that because I go and dine with a man, I pry into his secrets, or am answerable for all his past life. And so with our friend Clavering, I am most interested for his wife’s sake, and her daughter’s, who is a most charming creature: and when her ladyship asked me, I looked into her affairs, and tried to set them straight; and shall do so again, you understand, to the best of my humble power and ability, if I can make myself useful. And if I am called upon—you understand, if I am called upon—and—by the way, this Mr. Altamont, Mr. Strong? How is this Mr. Altamont? I believe you are acquainted with him. Is he in town?”

“I don’t know that I am called upon to know where he is, Major Pendennis,” said Strong, rising and taking up his hat in dudgeon, for the Major’s 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 know, eh, Captain? and which I, for one, won’t know until I have reason for knowing them: and that I believe is your maxim too. With regard to our friend the Baronet, I think with you, it would be most advisable that he should be checked in his imprudent courses; and most strongly reprehend any man’s departure from his word, or any conduct of his which can give any pain to his family, or cause them annoyance in any way. That is my full and frank opinion, and I am sure it is yours.”

“Certainly,” said Mr. Strong, drily.

“I am delighted to hear it; delighted that an old brother soldier should agree with me so fully. And I am exceedingly glad of the lucky meeting which has procured me the good fortune of your visit. Good evening. Thank you. Morgan, show the door to Captain Strong.”

And Strong, preceded by Morgan, took his leave of Major Pendennis; the Chevalier not a little puzzled at the old fellow’s prudence; and the valet, to say the truth, to the full as much perplexed at his master’s reticence. For Mr. Morgan, in his capacity of accomplished valet, moved here and there in a house as silent as a shadow; and, as it so happened, during the latter part of his master’s conversation with his visitor, had been standing very close to the door, and had overheard not a little of the talk between the two gentlemen, and a great deal more than he could understand.

“Who is that Altamont? know 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 Governor’s bills, and indosses ’em, and does his odd jobs and that; and I suppose Altamont’s in it too,” Mr. Lightfoot replied. “That kite-flying, you know, Mr. M., always takes two or three on ’em to set the paper going. Altamont put the pot on at the Derby, and won a good bit of money. I wish the Governor could get some somewhere, and I could get my book paid up.”

“Do you think my Lady would pay his debts again?” Morgan asked. “Find out that for me, Lightfoot, and I’ll make it worth your while, my boy.”

Major Pendennis had often said with a laugh, that his valet Morgan was a much richer man than himself: and, indeed, by long course of careful speculation, this wary and silent attendant had been amassing a considerable sum of money, during the year which he had passed in the Major’s service, where he had made the acquaintance of many other valets of distinction, from whom he had learned the affairs of their principals. When Mr. Arthur came into his property, but not until then, Morgan had surprised the young gentleman, by saying that he had a little sum of money, some fifty or a hundred pound, which he wanted to lay out to advantage; perhaps the gentlemen in the Temple, knowing about affairs and business and that, could help a poor fellow to a good investment? Morgan would be very much obliged to Mr. Arthur, most grateful and obliged indeed, if Arthur could tell him of one. When Arthur laughingly replied, that he knew nothing about money matters, and knew no earthly way of helping Morgan, the latter, with the utmost simplicity, was very grateful, very grateful indeed, to Mr. Arthur, and if Mr. Arthur should want a little money before his rents was paid, perhaps he would kindly remember that his uncle’s old and faithful servant had some as he would like to put out: and be most proud if he could be useful anyways to any of the family.

The Prince of Fairoaks, who was tolerably prudent and had no need of ready money, would as soon have thought of borrowing from his uncle’s servant as of stealing the valet’s pocket-handkerchief, and was on the point of making some haughty reply to Morgan’s offer, but was checked by the 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 proposal of money a simple offer of good-will. So Arthur withheld the sarcasm that was rising to his lips, and contented himself by declining Mr. Morgan’s kind proposal. He mentioned the matter to his uncle, however, and congratulated the latter on having such a treasure in his service.

It was then that the Major said that he believed Morgan had been getting devilish rich for a devilish long time; in fact, he had bought the house in Bury Street, in which his master was a lodger and had actually made a considerable sum of money, from his acquaintance with the Clavering family and his knowledge obtained through his master that the Begum would pay all her husband’s debts, by buying up as many of the Baronet’s acceptances as he could raise money to purchase. Of these transactions the Major, however, knew no more than most gentlemen do of their servants, who live with us all our days and are strangers to us, so strong custom is, and so pitiless the distinction between class and class.

“So he offered to lend you money, did he?” the elder Pendennis remarked to his nephew. “He’s a dev’lish sly fellow, and a dev’lish rich fellow; and there’s many a nobleman would like to have such a valet in his service, and borrow from him too. And he ain’t a bit changed, Monsieur Morgan. He does his work just as well as ever—he’s always ready to my bell—steals about the room like a cat—he’s so dev’lishly attached to me, Morgan!”

On the day of Strong’s visit, the Major bethought him of Pen’s story, and that Morgan might help him, and rallied the valet regarding his wealth with that free and insolent way which so high-placed a gentleman might be disposed to adopt 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 I’m glad you get on well. And I hope you’ll be prudent, and not be taking a public-house or that kind of thing.”

A public-house, thought Morgan—me in a public-house!—the old fool!—Dammy, if I was ten years younger I’d set in Parlyment before I died, that I would.—“No, thank you kindly, sir. I don’t think of the public line, sir. And I’ve got my little savings pretty well put out, sir.”

“You do a little in the discounting way, eh, Morgan?”

“Yes, sir, a very little—I—I beg your pardon, sir—might I be so free as to ask a question——”

“Speak on, my good fellow,” the elder said, graciously.

“About Sir Francis Clavering’s paper, sir? Do you think he’s any longer any good, sir? Will my Lady pay on ’em, any more, sir?”

“What, you’ve done something in that business already?”

“Yes, sir, a little,” replied Morgan, dropping down his eyes. “And I don’t mind owning, sir, and I hope I may take the liberty of saying, sir, that a little more would make me very comfortable if it turned out as well as the last.”

“Why, how much have you netted by him, in Gad’s name?” asked the Major.

“I’ve done a good bit, sir, at it: that I own, sir. Having some information, and made acquaintance with the fam’ly through your kindness, I put on the pot, sir.”

“You did what?”

“I laid my money on, sir—I got all I could, and borrowed, and bought Sir Francis’s bills; many of ’em had his name, and the gentleman’s as is just gone out, Edward Strong, Esquire, sir: and of course I know of the blow-hup and shindy as is took place in Grosvenor Place, sir: and as I may as well make my money as another, I’d be very much obleeged to you if you’d tell me whether my Lady will come down any more.”

Although Major Pendennis was as much surprised at this intelligence regarding his servant, as if he had heard that Morgan was a disguised Marquis, about to throw off his mask and assume his seat in the House of Peers; and although he was of course indignant at the audacity of the fellow who had dared to grow rich under his nose, and without his cognisance; yet he had a natural admiration for every man who represented money and success, and found himself respecting Morgan, and being rather afraid of that worthy, as the truth began to dawn upon him.

“Well, Morgan,” said he, “I mustn’t ask how rich you are; and the richer the better for your sake, I’m sure. And if I could give you any information that could serve you, I would speedily help you. But frankly, if Lady Clavering asks me whether she shall pay any more of Sir Francis’s debts, I shall advise and I hope she won’t, though I fear she will—and that is all I know. And so you are aware that Sir Francis is beginning again in his—eh—reckless and imprudent course?”

“At his old games, sir—can’t prevent that gentleman. He will do it.”

“Mr. Strong was saying that a Mr. Moss Abrams was the holder of one of Sir Francis 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 see Sir Francis Clavering, Morgan.”

And Morgan said, “Thank you, sir, yes, sir, I will, sir;” and retired from the room, as he had entered it, with his usual stealthy respect and quiet humility; leaving the Major to muse and wonder over what he had just heard.

The next morning the valet informed Major Pendennis that he had seen Mr. Abrams; what was the amount of the bill that gentleman was desirous to negotiate; and that the Baronet would be sure to be in the back-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, surrounded by spittoons, Windsor chairs, cheerful prints of boxers, trotting horses, and pedestrians, and the lingering of last night’s tobacco fumes—as the descendant of an ancient line sate in this delectable place accommodated with an old copy of Bell’s Life in London, much blotted with beer, the polite Major Pendennis walked into the apartment.

“So it’s you, old boy?” asked the Baronet, thinking that Mr. Moss Abrams had arrived with the money.

“How do you do, Sir Francis Clavering? I wanted to see you, and followed you here,” said the Major, at sight of whom the other’s countenance fell.

Now that he had his opponent before him, the Major was determined to make a brisk and sudden attack upon him, and went into action at once. “I know,” he continued, “who is the exceedingly disreputable person for whom you took me, Clavering; and the errand which brought you here.”

“It ain’t your business, is it?” asked the Baronet, with a sulky and deprecatory look. “Why are you following me about and taking the command, and meddling in my affairs, Major Pendennis? I’ve never done you any harm, have I? I’ve never had your money. And I don’t choose to be dodged about in this way, and domineered over. I don’t choose it, and I won’t have it. If Lady Clavering has any proposal to make to me, let it be done in the regular way, and through the lawyers. I’d rather not have you.”

“I am not come from Lady Clavering,” the Major said, “but of my own accord, to try and remonstrate with you, Clavering, and see if you can be kept from ruin. It is but a month ago that you swore on your 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 three months back purposely. By Gad, Clavering, you sicken me with lies, I can’t help telling you so. I’ve no patience with you, by Gad. You cheat everybody, yourself included. I’ve seen a deal of the world, but I never met your equal at humbugging. It’s my belief you had rather lie than not.”

“Have you come here, you old—old beast, to tempt me to—to pitch into you, and—and knock your old head off?” said the Baronet, with a poisonous look of hatred at the Major.

“What, sir?” shouted out the old Major, rising to his feet and clasping his cane, and looking so fiercely, that the Baronet’s tone instantly changed 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 Major’s 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; indeed it is,” the Baronet cried, clasping his hands.

“I knew your secret from the very first day when I saw Amory come drunk into your dining-room in Grosvenor Place. I never forget faces. I remember that fellow in 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 that you are no more married to Lady Clavering than I am. I’ve kept your secret well enough, for I’ve not told a single soul that I know it,—not your wife, not yourself till now.”

“Poor Lady C., it would cut her up dreadfully,” whimpered Sir Francis; “and it wasn’t my fault, Major; you know it wasn’t.”

“Rather than allow you to go on ruining her as you do; I will tell her, Clavering, and tell all the world too; that is what I swear I will do, unless I can come to some terms with you, and put some curb on your infernal folly. By play, debt, and extravagance of all kind, you’ve got through half your wife’s fortune, and that of her legitimate heirs, mind—her legitimate heirs. Here it must stop. You can’t live together. You’re not fit to live in a great house like Clavering; and before three years’ more were over would not leave a shilling to carry on. I’ve settled what must be done. You shall have six hundred a year; you shall go abroad and live on that. You must give up Parliament, and get on as well as you can. If you refuse, I give you my word I’ll make the real state of things known to-morrow; I’ll swear to Amory, who, when identified, will go back to the country from whence he came, and will rid the widow of you and himself together. And so that boy of yours loses at once all title to old Spell’s property, and it goes to your wife’s daughter. Ain’t I making myself pretty clearly understood?”

“You wouldn’t be so cruel to that poor boy, would you, Pendennis?” asked the father, pleading piteously; “hang it, think about him. He’s a nice boy: though he’s dev’lish wild, I own he’s dev’lish wild.”

“It’s you who are cruel to him,” said the old moralist. “Why, sir, you’ll ruin him yourself inevitably in three years.”

“Yes, but perhaps I won’t have such dev’lish bad luck, you know;—the luck must turn: and I’ll reform, by Gad, I’ll reform. And if you were to split on me, it would cut up my wife so; you know it would, most infernally.”

“To be parted from you,” said the old Major, with a sneer; “you know she won’t live with you again.”

“But why can’t Lady C. live abroad, or at Bath, or at Tunbridge, or at the doose, and I go on here?” Clavering continued. “I like being here better than abroad, and I like being in Parliament. It’s dev’lish convenient being in Parliament. There’s very few seats like mine left; and if I gave it to ’em, I should not wonder the ministry would give me an island to govern, or some dev’lish good thing; for you know I’m a gentleman of dev’lish good family, and have a handle to my name, and—and that sort of thing, Major Pendennis. Eh, don’t you see? Don’t you think they’d give me something dev’lish good if I was to play my cards well? And then, you know, I’d save money, and be kept out of the way of the confounded hells and rouge et noir—and—and so I’d rather not give up Parliament, please.” For at one instant to hate and defy a man, at the next to weep before him, and at the next to be perfectly confidential and friendly with him, was not an unusual process with our versatile-minded Baronet.

“As for your seat in Parliament,” the Major said, with something of a blush on his cheek, and a certain tremor, which the other did not see, “you must part with that, Sir Francis Clavering, to—to me.”

“What! are you going into the House, Major Pendennis?”

“No—not I; but my nephew, Arthur, is a very clever fellow and would make a figure there: and when Clavering had two members, his father might very likely have been one; and—and 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 anything with Lady Clavering; and, upon my oath, I’ll take up that bill of Abrams’. The little dam scoundrel, I know he’ll do me in the business—he always does; and if you could do this for me, we’d see, Major.”

“And I think your best plan would be to go down in September to Clavering to shoot, and take my nephew with you, and introduce him. Yes, that will be the best time. And we will try and manage about the advance.” (Arthur may lend him that, thought old Pendennis. Confound him, a seat in Parliament is worth a hundred and fifty pounds.) “And, Clavering, you understand, of course, my nephew knows nothing about this business. You have a mind to retire: he is a Clavering man and a good representative for the borough; you introduce him, and your people vote for him—you see.”

“When can you get me the hundred and fifty, Major? When shall I come and see you? Will you be at home this evening or to-morrow morning? Will you have anything here? They’ve got some dev’lish good bitters in the bar. I often have a glass of bitters, it sets one up so.”

The old Major would take no refreshment; but rose and took his leave of the Baronet, who walked with him to the door of the Wheel of Fortune, and then strolled into the bar, where he took a glass of gin and bitters with the landlady there: and a gentleman connected with the ring (who boarded at the Wheel of F.) coming in, he and Sir Francis Clavering and the landlord talked about the fights and the news of the sporting world in general; and at length Mr. Moss Abrams arrived with the proceeds of the Baronet’s bill, from which his own handsome commission was deducted, and out of the remainder Sir Francis “stood” a dinner at Greenwich to his distinguished friend, and passed the evening 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 compromise with his conscience, and that Sadduceeism was a very convenient and good-humoured profession of faith.

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LXIV. Phyllis and Corydon

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 schoolboy was not fond of home sports. He found cricket, and horses, and plenty of friends at Tunbridge. The good-natured Begum’s house was filled with a constant society of young gentlemen of thirteen, who ate and drank much too copiously of tarts and champagne, who rode races on the lawn, and frightened the fond mother, who smoked and made themselves sick, and the dining-room unbearable to Miss Blanche. She did not like the society of young gentlemen of thirteen.

As for that fair young creature, any change as long as it was change was pleasant to her; and for a week or two she would have liked poverty and a cottage, and bread-and-cheese; and, for a night, perhaps, a dungeon and bread-and-water, and so the move to Tunbridge was by no means unwelcome to her. She wandered in the woods, and sketched trees and farmhouses; she read French novels habitually; she drove into Tunbridge Wells pretty often, and to any play, or ball, or conjurer, 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, carved saints’ heads, gilt scripture texts, and open pews. Blanche began forthwith to work a most correct high-church altar-cover for the church. She passed for a saint with the clergyman for a while, whom she quite took in, and whom she coaxed, and wheedled, and fondled so artfully, that poor Mrs. Smirke, who at first was charmed with her, then bore with her, then would hardly speak to her, was almost mad with jealousy. Mrs. Smirke was the wife of our old friend Smirke, Pen’s tutor and poor Helen’s suitor. He had consoled himself for her refusal with a young lady from Clapham whom his mamma provided. When the latter died, our friend’s views became every day more and more pronounced. He cut off his coat collar, and let his hair grow over his back. He rigorously gave up the curl which he used to sport on his forehead, and the tie of his neckcloth, of which he was rather proud. He went without any tie at all. He went without dinner on Fridays. He read the Roman Hours, and intimated that he was ready to receive confessions in the vestry. The most harmless creature in the world, he was denounced as a black and most dangerous Jesuit and Papist, by Muffin of the Dissenting chapel, and Mr. Simeon Knight at the old church. Mr. Smirke had built his chapel-of-ease with the money left him by his mother at Clapham. Lord! lord! what would she have said to hear a table called an altar! to see candlesticks on it! to get letters signed on the Feast of Saint So-and-so, or the Vigil of Saint What-do-you-call-’em! All these things did the boy of Clapham 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 little grave-stones as yet; she wished that she had a third there: only, only he would offer very likely to that creature, who had infatuated him in a fortnight. No, she would retire; she would go into a convent, and profess and leave him. Such bad thoughts had Smirke’s wife and his neighbours regarding him; these, thinking him in direct correspondence with the Bishop of Rome; that, bewailing errors to her even more odious and fatal; and yet our friend meant no earthly harm. The post-office never brought him any letters from the Pope; he thought Blanche, to be sure, at first, the most pious, gifted, right-thinking, fascinating person he had ever met; and her manner of singing the Chants delighted him—but after a while he began to grow rather tired of Miss Amory, her ways and graces grew stale somehow; then he was doubtful about Miss Amory; then she made a disturbance in his school, lost her temper, and rapped the children’s fingers. Blanche inspired this admiration and satiety, somehow, in many men. She tried to please them, and flung out all her graces at once; came down to them with all her jewels on, all her smiles, and cajoleries, and coaxings, and ogles. Then she grew tired of them and of trying to please them, and never having cared about them, dropped them: and the men grew tired of her, and dropped her too. It was a happy night for Belinda when Blanche went away; and her husband, with rather a blush and a sigh, said “he had been deceived in her; he had thought her endowed with many precious gifts, he feared they were mere tinsel; he thought she had been a right-thinking person, he feared she had merely made religion an amusement—she certainly had quite lost her temper to the schoolmistress, and beat Polly Rucker’s knuckles cruelly.” Belinda flew to his arms, there was no question about the grave or the veil any more. He tenderly embraced her on the forehead. “There is none like thee, my Belinda,” he said, throwing his fine eyes up to the ceiling, “precious among women!” As for Blanche, from the instant she lost sight of him and Belinda, she never thought or cared about either any more.

But when Arthur went down to pass a few days at Tunbridge Wells with the Begum, this stage of indifference had not arrived on Miss Blanche’s part or on that of the simple clergyman. Smirke believed her to be an angel and wonder of a woman. Such a perfection he had never seen, and sate listening to her music in the summer evenings, open-mouthed, rapt in wonder, tea-less, and bread-and-butter-less. 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, etc. etc. It was in this way that, being then at the height of his own fever and bewitchment for Blanche, Smirke discoursed to Arthur about her.

The meeting between the two old acquaintances had been very cordial. Arthur loved 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 exemplary person, seconded them with all her endeavours. He had built this little church on his mother’s demise, who had left him provided with a sufficiency of worldly means. Though in the cloister himself, he had heard of Arthur’s reputation. He spoke in the kindest and most saddened tone; he held his eyelids down, and bowed his fair head on one side. Arthur was immensely amused with him; with his airs; with his follies and simplicity; with his blank stock and long hair; with his real goodness, kindness, friendliness of feeling. And his praises of Blanche pleased and surprised our friend not a little, and made him regard her with eyes of particular favour.

The truth is, Blanche was very glad to see Arthur; as one is glad to see an agreeable man in the country, who brings down the last news and stories from the great city; who can talk better than most country-folks, at least can talk that darling London jargon, so dear and indispensable to London people, so little understood by persons out of the world. The first day Pen came down, he kept Blanche laughing for hours after dinner. She sang her songs with redoubled spirit. She did not scold her mother; she fondled and kissed her, to the honest Begum’s surprise. When it came to be bedtime, she said, “Deja!” with the prettiest air of regret possible; and was really quite sorry to go to bed, and squeezed Arthur’s hand quite fondly. He on his side gave her pretty palm a very cordial pressure. Our young gentleman was of that turn, that eyes very moderately bright dazzled him.

“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 tonight. I liked her laughing way with that stupid young cub of a boy, whom they oughtn’t to allow to get tipsy. She sang those little verses very prettily; they were devilish pretty verses too, though I say it who shouldn’t say it.” And he hummed a tune which Blanche had put to some verses of his own. “Ah! what a fine night! How jolly a cigar is at night! How pretty that little Saxon church looks in the moonlight! I wonder what old Warrington’s doing? Yes, she’s a dayvlish nice little thing, as my uncle says.”

“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 ‘Mes Larmes.’

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 moeurs. How droll they are, les moeurs! Adieu.” And Pen began to sing the Goodnight to Don Basilio.

The next day they were walking in the fields together, laughing and chattering—the gayest pair of friends. They talked about the days of their youth, and Blanche was prettily sentimental. They talked about Laura, dearest Laura—Blanche had loved her as a sister: was she happy with that odd Lady Rockminster? Wouldn’t she come and stay with them at Tunbridge? 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—remember the songs they sang in the happy old days, now he was grown such a great man, and had such a succes? etc. etc.

And the day after, which was enlivened with a happy ramble through the woods to Penshurst, and a sight of that pleasant park and hall, came that conversation with the curate which we have narrated, and which made our young friend think more and more.

“Is she all this perfection?” he asked himself. “Has she become serious and religious? Does she tend schools, and visit the poor? Is she kind to her mother and brother? Yes, I am sure of that, I have seen her.” And walking with his old tutor over his little parish, and going to visit his school, it was with inexpressible delight that Pen found Blanche seated instructing the children, and fancied to himself how patient she must be, how good-natured, how ingenuous, how really simple in her tastes, and unspoiled by the world.

“And do you really like the country?” he asked her, as they walked together.

“I should like never to see that odious city again. O Arthur—that is, Mr.—well, Arthur, then—one’s good thoughts grow up in these sweet woods and calm solitudes, like those flowers which won’t bloom in London, you know. The gardener comes and changes our balconies once a week. I don’t think I shall bear to look London in the face again—its odious, smoky, brazen face! But, heigho!”

“Why that sigh, Blanche?”

“Never mind why.”

“Yes, I do mind why. Tell me, tell me everything.”

“I wish you hadn’t come down;” and a second edition of ‘Mes Soupirs’ came out.

“You don’t want me, Blanche?”

“I don’t want you to go away. I don’t think this house will be very happy without you, and that’s why I wish that you never had come.”

‘Mes Soupirs’ were here laid aside, and ‘Mes Larmes’ had begun.

Ah! What answer is given to those in the eyes of a young woman? What is the method employed for drying them? What took place? O ringdoves and roses, O dews and wildflowers, O waving greenwoods and balmy airs of summer! Here were two battered London rakes, taking themselves in for a moment, and fancying that they were in love with each other, like Phillis and Corydon!

When one thinks of country houses and country walks, one wonders that any man is left unmarried.

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LXV. Temptation

Easy and frank-spoken as Pendennis commonly was with Warrington, how came it that Arthur did not inform the friend and depository of all his secrets, of the little circumstances which had taken place at the villa near Tunbridge Wells? He talked about the discovery of his old tutor Smirke, freely enough, and of his wife, and of his Anglo-Norman church, and of his departure from Clapham to Rome; but, when asked about Blanche, his answers were evasive or general: he said she was a good-natured clever little thing, that rightly guided she might make no such bad wife after all, but that he had for the moment no intention of marriage, that his days of romance were over, that he was contented with his present lot, and so forth.

In the 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 “stanch,” and “launch,” and no doubt a gentleman of Pen’s ingenuity would not forgo these advantages of position, and would ring the pretty little changes upon these pleasing notes. Indeed we believe that those love-verses of Mr. Pen’s, which had such a pleasing success in the ‘Roseleaves,’ that charming Annual edited by Lady Violet Lebas, and illustrated by portraits of the female nobility by the famous artist Pinkney, were composed at this period of our hero’s life; and were first addressed to Blanche per post, before they figured in print, cornets as it were to Pinkney’s pictorial garland.

“Verses are all very well,” the elder Pendennis said, who found Pen scratching down one of these artless effusions at the Club as he was waiting for his dinner; “and letter-writing if mamma allows it, and between such old country friends of course there may be a correspondence, and that sort of thing—but mind, Pen, and don’t commit yourself, my boy. For who knows what the doose may happen? The best way is to make your letters safe. I never wrote a letter in all my life that would commit me, and demmy, sir, I have had some experience of women.” And the worthy gentleman, growing more garrulous and confidential with his nephew as he grew older, told many affecting instances of the evil results consequent upon this want of caution to many persons in “Society;”—how from using too ardent expressions in some poetical notes to the widow Naylor, young Spoony had subjected himself to a visit of remonstrance from the widow’s brother, Colonel Flint; and thus had been forced into a marriage with a woman old enough to be his mother: how when Louisa Salter had at length succeeded in securing young Sir John Bird, Hopwood, of the Blues, produced some letters which Miss S. had written to him, and caused a withdrawal on Bird’s part, who afterwards was united to Miss Stickney, of Lyme Regis, etc. The Major, if he had not reading, had plenty of observation, and could back his wise saws with a multitude of modern instances, which he had acquired in a long and careful perusal of the great book of the world.

Pen laughed at the examples, and blushing a little at his uncle’s remonstrances, said that he would bear them in mind and be cautious. He blushed, perhaps, because he had borne them in mind; because he was cautious: because in his letters to Miss Blanche he had from instinct, or honesty perhaps, refrained from any avowals which might compromise him. “Don’t you remember the lesson I had, sir, in Lady Mirabel’s—Miss Fotheringay’s affair? I am not to be caught again, uncle,” Arthur said with mock frankness and humility. Old Pendennis congratulated himself and his nephew heartily on the latter’s prudence and progress, and was pleased at the position which Arthur was taking as a man of the world.

No doubt, if Warrington had been consulted, his opinion would have been different: and he would have told Pen that the boy’s foolish letters were better than the man’s adroit compliments and slippery gallantries; that to win the woman he loves, only a knave or a coward advances under cover, with subterfuges, and a retreat secured behind him: but Pen spoke not on this matter to Mr. Warrington, knowing pretty well that he was guilty, and what his friend’s verdict would be.

Colonel Altamont had not been for many weeks absent on his foreign tour, Sir Francis Clavering having retired meanwhile into the country pursuant to his agreement with Major Pendennis, when the ills of fate began to fall rather suddenly and heavily upon the sole remaining partner of the little firm of Shepherd’s Inn. When Strong, at parting with Altamont, refused the loan proffered by the latter in the fulness of his purse and the generosity of his heart, he made such a sacrifice to conscience and delicacy as caused him many an after twinge and pang; and he felt—it was not very many hours in his life he had experienced the feeling—that in this juncture of his affairs he had been too delicate and too scrupulous. Why should a fellow in want refuse a kind offer kindly made? Why should a thirsty man decline a pitcher of water from a friendly hand, because it was a little soiled? Strong’s conscience smote him for refusing what the other had fairly come by, and generously proffered: and he thought ruefully, now it was too late, that Altamont’s cash would have been as well in his pocket as in that of the gambling-house proprietor at Baden or Ems, with whom his Excellency would infallibly leave his Derby winnings. It was whispered among the tradesmen, bill-discounters, and others who had commercial dealings with Captain Strong, that he and the Baronet had parted company, and that the Captain’s “paper” was henceforth of no value. The tradesmen, who had put a wonderful confidence in him hitherto,—for who could resist Strong’s jolly face and frank and honest 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 representatives, held levees on Strong’s stairs. To these were added one or two persons of a less clamorous but far more sly and dangerous sort,—the young clerks of lawyers, namely, who lurked about the Inn, or concerted with Mr. Campion’s young man in the chambers hard by, having in their dismal pocketbooks copies of writs to be served on Edward Strong, requiring him to appear on an early day next term before our Sovereign Lady the Queen, and answer to, etc. etc.

From this invasion of creditors, poor Strong, who had not a guinea in his pocket, had, of course, no refuge but that of the Englishman’s castle, into which he retired, shutting the outer and inner door upon the enemy, and not quitting his stronghold until after nightfall. Against this outer barrier the foe used to come and knock and curse in vain, 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 dashed up against the door and retreated from it. But as they could not be always at his gate, or sleep on his staircase, the enemies of the Chevalier sometimes left him free.

Strong, when so pressed by his commercial antagonists, was not quite alone in his 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 necessary supplies, and kept up Strong’s heart and prevented him from surrendering by visiting him and cheering him in his retreat. Two of Ned’s most faithful allies were Huxter and Miss Fanny Bolton: when hostile visitors were prowling about the Inn, Fanny’s little sisters were taught a particular cry or jodel, which they innocently whooped in the court: when Fanny and Huxter came up to visit Strong, they archly sang this same note at his door; when that barrier was straightway opened, the honest garrison came out smiling, the provisions and the pot of porter were brought in, and in the society of his faithful friends the beleaguered one passed a comfortable night. There are some men who could not live under this excitement, but Strong was a brave man, as we have said, who had seen service and never lost heart in peril.

But besides allies, our general had secured for himself, under difficulties, that still more necessary aid, a retreat. It has been mentioned in a former part of this history, how Messrs. Costigan and Bows lived in the house next door to Captain Strong, and that the window of one of their rooms was not very far off the kitchen-window which was situated in the upper story of Strong’s chambers. A leaden water-pipe and gutter served for the two; and Strong, looking out from his kitchen one day, saw that he could spring with great ease up to the sill of his 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. Marks’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 astonishment of Mrs. Bolton and Fanny, who had not seen him quit his chambers and could not conceive how he could have passed the line of sentries.

Strong bore this siege for some weeks with admirable spirit and resolution, and as only such an old and brave soldier would, for the pains and privations which he had to endure were enough to depress any man of ordinary courage; and what vexed and riled him (to use his own expression) was the infernal indifference and cowardly ingratitude of Clavering, to whom he wrote letter after letter, which the Baronet never acknowledged by a single word, or by the smallest remittance, though a five-pound note, as Strong said, at that time would have been a fortune to him.

But better days were in store for the Chevalier, and in the midst of his despondency and perplexities there came to him a most welcome aid. “Yes, if it hadn’t been for this good fellow here,” said Strong,—“for a good fellow you are, Altamont, my boy, and hang me if I don’t stand by you as long as I live,—I think, Pendennis, it would have been all up with Ned Strong. I was the fifth week of my being kept a prisoner, for I couldn’t be always risking my neck across that water-pipe, and taking my walks abroad through poor old Cos’s window, and my spirit was quite broken, sir—dammy, quite beat, and I was thinking of putting an end to myself, and should have done it in another week, when who should drop down from heaven but Altamont!”

“Heaven ain’t exactly the place, Ned,” said Altamont. “I came from Baden-Baden,” said he, “and I’d had a deuced lucky month there, that’s all.”

“Well, sir, he took up Marks’s bill, and he paid the other fellows that were upon me, like a man, sir, that he did,” said Strong, enthusiastically.

“And I shall be very happy to stand a bottle of claret for this company, and as many more as the company chooses,” said Mr. Altamont, with a blush. “Hallo! waiter, bring us a magnum of the right sort, do you hear? And we’ll drink our healths all round, sir—and may every good fellow like Strong find another good fellow to stand by him at a pinch. That’s my sentiment, Mr. Pendennis, though I don’t like your name.”

“No! And why?” asked Arthur.

Strong pressed the Colonel’s foot under the table here; and Altamont, rather excited, filled up another bumper, nodded to Pen, drank off his wine, and said, “He was a gentleman, and that was sufficient, and they were all gentlemen.”

The meeting between these “all gentlemen” took place at Richmond, whither Pendennis had gone to dinner, and where he found the Chevalier and his friend at table in the coffee-room. Both of the latter were exceedingly hilarious, talkative, and excited by wine; and Strong, who was an admirable story-teller, told the story of his own siege, and adventures, and escapes with great liveliness and 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 spends his money, you know. And it’s the fellers at the black and red at Baden-Baden that did it. I won a good bit of money there, and intend to win a good bit more, don’t I, Strong? I’m going to take him with me. I’ve got a system. I’ll make his fortune, I tell you. I’ll make your fortune, if you like—dammy, 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, 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 enough capital; if he could have stood one more turn of the wheel, he would 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 the country for the express purpose of fetching away his money, and Captain Strong; that Strong should play for him; that he could trust Strong and his temper much better than he could his own; and much better than Bloundell-Bloundell or the Italian that “stood in.” As he emptied his bottle, the Colonel described at full length all his plans and prospects to Pen, who was interested in listening to his story, and the confessions of his daring and lawless good-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 Westport’s son,” said the Major.

“No, no; the fellow who came tipsy into Clavering’s dining-room one day when we were there,” said the nephew, laughing, “he said he did not like the name of Pendennis, though he did me the honour to think that I was a good fellow.”

“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 country, and make his fortune by a gambling system. He and my amiable college acquaintance, Bloundell, are partners, and the Colonel takes out Strong with him as aide-de-camp. What is it that binds the Chevalier and Clavering, I wonder?”

“I should think, mind you, Pen, I should think, but of course I have only the idea, that there has been something in Clavering’s previous life which gives these fellows and some others a certain power over him; and if there should be no such a secret, which 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 Parlament?”

“Clavering thinks he ain’t fit for Parliament,” the Major answered. “No more he is. What’s to prevent him from putting you or anybody else into his place if he likes? Do you think that 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 Major had an answer of this kind to most of Pen’s objections, and Pen accepted his uncle’s replies, not so much because he believed them, but because he wished to believe them. We do a thing—which of us has not?—not because “everybody does it,” but because we like it; and our acquiescence, alas! proves not that everybody is right, but that we and the rest of the world are poor creatures alike.

At his next visit to Tunbridge, Mr. Pen did not forget to amuse Miss Blanche with the history which he had learned at Richmond of the Chevalier’s imprisonment, and of Altamont’s gallant rescue. And after he had told his tale in his usual satirical way, he mentioned with praise and emotion little Fanny’s generous 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 communications which Arthur made to Miss Amory in the course of their delightful rural drives and their sweet evening walks, it may be supposed that our hero would not forget a story so interesting to himself and so likely to be interesting to her, as that of the passion and cure of the poor little Ariadne of Shepherd’s Inn. His own part in that drama he described, to do him justice, with becoming modesty; the moral which he wished to draw from the tale being one in accordance with his usual satirical mood, viz., that women get over their first loves quite as easily as men do (for the fair Blanche, in their intimes conversations, did not cease to twit Mr. Pen about his notorious failure in his own virgin attachment to the Fotheringay), and, number one being withdrawn, transfer themselves to number two without much difficulty. And poor little Fanny was offered up in sacrifice as an instance to prove this theory. What griefs she had endured and surmounted, what bitter pangs of hopeless attachment she had gone through, what time it had taken to heal those wounds of the tender little bleeding heart, Mr. Pen did not know, or perhaps did not choose to know; for he was at once modest and doubtful about his capabilities as a conqueror of hearts, and averse to believe that he had executed any dangerous ravages on that particular one, though his own instance and argument told against himself in this case; for if, as he said, Miss Fanny was by this time in love with her surgical adorer, who had neither good looks, nor good manners, nor wit, nor anything 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! O Mr. Pendennis! (although this remark does not apply to such a smart fellow as you) if Nature had not made that provision for each sex in the credulity of the other, which sees good qualities where none exist, good looks in donkeys’ ears, wit in their numskulls, and music in their bray, there would not have been near so much marrying and giving in marriage as now obtains, and as is necessary for the due propagation and continuance of the noble race to which we belong.

“Jealous or not,” Pen said, “and, Blanche, I don’t say no, I should have liked Fanny to have come to a better end than that. I don’t like histories that end in that cynical way; and when we arrive at the conclusion of the story of a pretty girl’s passion, to find such a figure as Huxter’s at the last page of the tale. Is a life a compromise, my lady fair, and the end of the battle of love an ignoble surrender? Is the search for the Cupid which my poor little Psyche pursued in the darkness—the god of her soul’s longing—the god of the blooming cheek and rainbow pinions,—to result in Huxter smelling of tobacco and gallypots? I wish, though I don’t see it in life, that people could be like Jenny and Jessamy, or my Lord and Lady Clementina in the story-books and fashionable novels, and at once under the ceremony, and, as it were, at the parson’s benediction, become perfectly handsome and good and happy ever after.”

“And don’t you intend to be good and happy, pray, Monsieur le Misanthrope—and are you very discontented with your lot—and will your marriage be a compromise”—(asked the author of ‘Mes Larmes,’ with a charming moue)—“and is your Psyche an odious vulgar wretch? You wicked satirical creature, I can’t abide you! You take the hearts of young things, play with them, and fling them away with scorn. You ask for love and trample on it. You—you make me cry, that you do, Arthur, and—and don’t—and I won’t be consoled in that way—and I think Fanny was quite right in leaving such a heartless creature.”

“Again, I don’t say no,” said Pen, looking very gloomily at Blanche, and not offering by any means to repeat the attempt at consolation, which had elicited that sweet monosyllable “don’t” from the young lady. “I don’t think I have much of what people call heart; but I don’t profess it. I made my venture when I was eighteen, and lighted my lamp and went in search of Cupid. And what was my discovery of love?—a vulgar dancing-woman! I failed, as 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 beautiful, nor the greatest poetess, nor the most surpassing musician, any more than I believe you to be the tallest woman in the whole world—like the giantess whose picture we saw as we rode through the fair yesterday. But if I don’t set you up as a heroine, neither do I offer you your very humble servant as a hero. But I think you are—well, there, I think you are very sufficiently good-looking.”

“Merci,” Miss Blanche said, with another curtsey.

“I think you sing charmingly. I’m sure you’re clever. I hope and believe that you are good-natured, and that you will be companionable.”

“And so, provided I bring you a certain sum of money and a seat in Parliament, you condescend to fling to me your royal pocket-handkerchief,” said Blanche. “Que d’honneur! 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 round me with a tambourine, and kill all my rogues and thieves with a smile. Won’t she?” But Pen looked as if he did not believe that she would. “Ah, Blanche,” he continued after a pause, “don’t be angry; don’t be hurt at my truth-telling.—Don’t you see that I always take you at your word? You say you will be a slave and dance—I say, dance. You say, ‘I take you with what you bring:’ I say, ‘I take you with what you bring.’ To the necessary deceits and hypocrisies of our life, why add any that are useless and unnecessary? If I offer myself to you because I think we have a fair chance of being happy together, and because by your help I may get for both of us a good place and a not undistinguished name, why ask me to feign raptures and counterfeit romance, in which neither of us believe? Do you want me to come wooing in a Prince Prettyman’s dress from the masquerade warehouse, and to pay you compliments like Sir Charles Grandison? Do you want me to make you verses as in the days when we were—when we were children? I will if you like, and sell them to Bacon and Bungay afterwards. Shall I feed my pretty princess with bonbons?”

“Mais j’adore les bonbons, moi,” said the little Sylphide, with a queer piteous look.

“I can buy a hatful at Fortnum and Mason’s for a guinea. And it shall have its bonbons, its 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 before—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, “O Arthur, vous etes un homme terrible!” She felt bewildered, frightened, oppressed, the worldly little flirt who had been playing at love for the last dozen years of her life, and yet not displeased at meeting a master.

“Tell me, Arthur,” she said, after a pause in this strange love-making. “Why does Sir Francis Clavering give up his seat in Parliament?”

“Au fait, why does he give it to me?” asked Arthur, now blushing in his turn.

“You always mock me, sir,” she said. “If it is good to be in Parliament, why does Sir Francis go out?”

“My uncle has talked him over. He always said that you were not sufficiently provided for. In the—the family disputes, when your mamma paid his debts so liberally, it was stipulated, I suppose, that you—that is, that I—that is, upon my word, I don’t know why he goes out of Parliament,” Pen said, with rather a forced laugh. “You see, Blanche, that you and I are two good little children, and that this marriage has been arranged for us by our mammas and uncles, and that we must be obedient, like a good little boy and girl.”

So, when Pen went to London, he sent Blanche a box of bonbons, each sugar-plum of which was wrapped up in ready-made French verses, of the most tender kind; and, besides, 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. Bradbury and Evans would sell!

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LXVI. 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 dreary mornings in shooting. Lightfoot, his man, had passed over to my Lady’s service; and, as Pen was informed in a letter from Mr. Smirke, who performed the ceremony, had executed his prudent intention of marrying Mrs. Bonner, my Lady’s woman, who, in her mature years, was stricken with the charms of the youth, and endowed him with her savings and her mature person.

To be landlord and landlady of the Clavering Arms was the ambition of both of them; and it was agreed that they were to remain in Lady Clavering’s service until quarter-day arrived, when they were to take possession of their hotel. Pen graciously promised that he would give his election dinner there, when the Baronet should vacate his seat in the young man’s 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 companion 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 at 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 county race-grounds and billiard-rooms. Arthur could live alone well enough, having many mental resources and amusements which did not require other persons’ company: he could walk with the gamekeeper of a morning, and for the evenings there was a plenty of books and occupation for a 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 inspired 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’ ordinary; and, in fine, acted like a consummate hypocrite, and as gentlemen of the highest birth and most spotless integrity act when they wish to make themselves agreeable to their constituents, and have some end to gain of the country-folks. How is it that we allow ourselves not to be deceived, but to be ingratiated so readily by a glib tongue, a ready laugh, and a frank manner? We know, for the most part, that it is false coin, and we take it: we know that it is flattery, which it costs nothing to distribute to 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 different being from the scornful and rather sulky young dandy whom the inhabitants remembered ten years ago.

The Rectory was shut up. Doctor Portman was gone, with his gout and his family, to Harrogate,—an event which Pen deplored very much in a letter to the Doctor, in which, in a few kind and simple words, he expressed his regret at not seeing his old friend, whose advice he wanted and whose aid he might require some day: but Pen consoled himself for the Doctor’s absence by making acquaintance with Mr. Simcoe, the opposition preacher, and with the two partners of the cloth-factory at Chatteris, and with the Independent preacher there, all of whom he met at Clavering Athenaeum, which the Liberal party had set up in accordance with the advanced spirit of the age, and perhaps in opposition to the aristocratic old reading-room, into which the Edinburgh Review had once scarcely got an admission, and where no tradesmen were allowed an entrance. He propitiated the younger partner of the cloth-factory, by asking him to dine in a friendly way at the Park; he complimented the 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 tongue to Mr. Huxter, who sent him medicines and called the next morning. How delighted old Pendennis would have been with his pupil! Pen himself was amused with the sport in which he was engaged, and his success inspired him with a wicked good-humour.

And yet, as he walked out of Clavering of a night, after “presiding” at a meeting of the Athenaeum, or working through an evening with Mrs. Simcoe, who, with her husband, was awed by the young Londoner’s reputation, and had heard of his social successes; as he passed over the old familiar bridge of the rushing Brawl, and heard that well-remembered sound of waters beneath, and saw his own cottage of Fairoaks among the trees, their darkling outlines clear against the starlit sky, different thoughts no doubt came to the young man’s mind, and awakened pangs of grief and shame there. There still used to be a light in the windows of the room which he remembered so well, and in which the Saint who loved him had passed so many hours of care and yearning and prayer. He turned away his gaze from the faint light which seemed to pursue him with its wan reproachful gaze, as though it was his mother’s spirit watching and warning. How clear the night was! How keen the stars shone! how ceaseless the rush of the flowing waters! the old home trees whispered, and waved gently their dark heads and branches over the cottage roof. Yonder, in the faint starlight glimmer, was the terrace where, as a boy, he walked of summer evenings, ardent and trustful, unspotted, untried, ignorant of doubts or passions; sheltered as yet from the world’s contamination in the pure and anxious bosom of love. The clock of the near town tolling midnight, with a clang, disturbs our wanderer’s reverie, and sends him 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 Artillery (whose mother, old Mrs. Stokes, lives in Clavering), receives his landlord’s visit with great cordiality: shows him over the grounds and the new pond he has made in the back-garden from the stables; talks to him confidentially about the roof and chimneys, and begs Mr. Pendennis to name a day when he will do himself and Mrs. Stokes the pleasure to, etc. Pen, who has been a fortnight in the country, excuses himself for not having called sooner upon the Captain by frankly owning that he had not the heart to do it. “I understand you, sir,” the Captain says; and Mrs. Stokes, who had slipped away at the ring of the bell (how odd it seemed to Pen to ring the bell!), comes down in her best gown, surrounded by her children. The young ones clamber about Stokes: the boy jumps into an arm-chair. It was Pen’s father’s arm-chair; and Arthur remembers the days when he would as soon have thought of mounting the king’s throne as of seating himself in that arm-chair. He asks if Miss Stokes—she is the very image of her mamma—if she can play? He should like to hear a tune on that piano. She plays. He hears the notes of the old piano once more, enfeebled by age, but he does not listen to the player. He is listening to Laura singing as in the days of their youth, and sees his mother bending and beating time over the shoulder of the girl.

The dinner at Fairoaks given in Pen’s honour by his tenant, and at which old Mrs. Stokes, Captain Glanders, Squire Hobnel and the clergyman and his lady from Tinckleton, were present, was very stupid and melancholy for Pen, until the waiter from Clavering (who aided the captain’s stable-boy and Mrs. Stokes’s butler) whom Pen remembered as a street boy, and who was now indeed barber in that place, dropped a plate over Pen’s shoulder, on which Mr. Hobnell (who also employed him) remarked, “I suppose, Hodson, your hands are slippery with bear’s-grease. He’s always dropping the crockery about, that Hodson is—haw, haw!” On which Hodson blushed, and looked so disconcerted, that Pen burst out laughing; and good-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 Tinckleton, “I think, Mr. Stooks, you should have asked Hodson to cut the hare,” the joke was taken instantly by the clergyman, who was followed in the course of a few minutes by Captains Stokes and Glanders, and by Mr. Hobnell, who arrived rather late, but with an immense guffaw.

While Mr. Pen was engaged in the country in the above schemes, it happened that the lady of his choice, if not of his affections, came up to London from the Tunbridge villa bound upon shopping expeditions or important business, and in company of old Mrs. Bonner, her mother’s maid, who had lived and 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.

The honest woman took the benefit of Miss Amory’s taste to make the purchase which she intended to offer her ladyship; and, requested the fair Blanche to choose something for herself that should be to her liking, and remind her of her old nurse who had attended her through many a wakeful night, and eventful teething, and childish fever, and who loved her like a child of her own a’most. These purchases were made, and as the nurse insisted on buying an immense Bible for Blanche, the young lady suggested that Bonner should purchase a large Johnson’s Dictionary for her mamma. Each of the two women might certainly profit by the present made to her.

Then Mrs. Bonner invested money in some bargains in linen-drapery, which might be useful at the Clavering Arms, and bought a red and yellow neck-handkerchief, which Blanche could see at once was intended for Mr. Lightfoot. Younger than herself by at least five-and-twenty years, Mrs. Bonner regarded that youth with a fondness at once parental and conjugal, and loved to lavish ornaments on his person, which already glittered with pins, rings, shirt-studs, and chains and seals, purchased at the good creature’s expense.

It was in the Strand that Mrs. Bonner made her purchases, aided by Miss Blanche, who liked the fun very well; and when the old lady had bought 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, Old Castle Street was close by, the elegant young shopman pointed out the turning which the young lady was to take, and she and her companion walked off together.

“Shepherd’s Inn! what can you want in Shepherd’s Inn, Miss Blanche?” Bonner inquired. “Mr. Strong lives there. Do you want to go and see the Captain?”

“I should like to see the Captain very well. I like the Captain; but it is not him I want. I want to see a dear little good girl, who was very kind to—to Mr. Arthur when he was so ill last year, and saved his life almost; and I want to thank her and ask her if she would like 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 admiration, and had performed an act of remarkable virtue. Blanche, indeed, was very fond of sugar-plums; she would have fed the poor upon them, when she had had enough, and given a country girl a ball-dress, when she had worn it and was tired of it.

“Pretty girl—pretty young woman!” mumbled Mrs. Bonner. “I know I want no pretty young women to come about Lightfoot,” and in imagination she peopled the Clavering Arms with a harem of the most hideous chambermaids and barmaids.

Blanche, with pink and blue, and feathers, and flowers, and trinkets (that wondrous invention, a chatelaine, was not extant yet, or she would have had one, we may be sure), and a shot-silk dress, and a wonderful mantle, and a charming parasol, presented a vision of elegance and beauty such as bewildered the eyes of Mrs. Bolton, who was scrubbing the lodge-floor of Shepherd’s Inn and caused Betsy-Jane and Ameliar-Ann to look with delight.

Blanche looked on them with a smile of ineffable sweetness and protection; like Rowena going to see 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 very well. You dearest little girl, show us the way to Captain Strong!” cried out Miss Blanche, for the floor reeked with the recent scrubbing, and the goddess did not like the smell of brown-soap.

And as they passed up the stairs, a gentleman by the name of Costigan, who happened to be swaggering about the court, and gave a very knowing look with his “oi” under Blanche’s bonnet, remarked to himself, “That’s a devilish foine gyurll, bedad, goan up to Sthrong and Altamont: they’re always having foine gyurlls up their stairs.”

“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 opened, and began to thunder at the knocker. After many and fierce knocks, the inner door was partially unclosed, and Strong’s head appeared.

“It’s oi, me boy. Hwhat’s that noise, Sthrong?” asked Costigan.

“Go to the d——!” was the only answer, and the door was shut on Cos’s venerable red nose: and he went downstairs muttering threats at the indignity offered to him, and vowing that he would have satisfaction. In the meanwhile the reader, more lucky than Captain Costigan, will have the privilege of being made acquainted with the secret which was withheld from that officer.

It has been said of how generous a disposition Mr. Altamont was, and when he was well supplied with funds how liberally he spent them. Of a hospitable turn, he had no greater pleasure than drinking in company with other people; so that there was no man more welcome at Greenwich and Richmond than the Emissary of the Nawaub of Lucknow.

Now it chanced that on the day when Blanche and Mrs. Bonner ascended the staircase to Strong’s room in Shepherd’s Inn, the Colonel had invited Miss Delaval of the ——— Theatre Royal, and her mother, Mrs. Hodge, to a little party down the river, and it had been agreed that they were to meet at Chambers, and thence walk down to a port in the 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 affability, and led them into the room, which was arranged as if they had been expected there. Indeed, two bouquets of flowers, bought at Covent Garden that morning, and instances of the tender gallantry of Altamont, were awaiting his guests upon the table. Blanche smelt at the bouquet, and put her pretty little dainty nose into it, and tripped about the room, and looked behind the curtains, and at the books and prints, and at the plan of Clavering estate hanging up on the wall; and had asked the servant for Captain Strong, and had almost forgotten his existence and the errand about which she had come, namely, to visit Fanny Bolton; so pleased was she with the new adventure, and the odd, strange, delightful, droll little idea of being in a bachelor’s chambers in a queer old place in the city!

Grady meanwhile, with a pair of ample varnished boots, had disappeared into his master’s room. Blanche had hardly the leisure to remark how big the boots were, and how unlike Mr. Strong’s.

“The women’s come,” said Grady, helping his master to the boots.

“Did you ask ’em if they would take a glass of anything?” asked Altamont.

Grady came out—“He says, will you take anything to drink?” the domestic asked of them; at which Blanche, amused with the artless question, broke out into a pretty little laugh, and asked of Mrs. Bonner, “Shall we take 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 grown! But it’s a secret, mind. I’m dead, though I’m your father. Your poor mother don’t know it. What a pretty gal we’ve grown! Kiss me—kiss me close, my Betsy? D—— it, I love you: I’m your old father.”

Betsy or Blanche looked quite bewildered, and began to scream too—once, twice, thrice; and it was her piercing shrieks which Captain Costigan heard as he walked the court below.

At the sound of these shrieks the perplexed parent clasped his hands (his wristbands were open, and on one brawny arm you could see letters tattooed in blue), and, rushing to his apartment, came back with an eau-de-Cologne bottle from his grand silver dressing-case, with the fragrant contents of which he began liberally to sprinkle Bonner and Blanche.

The screams of these women brought the other occupants of the chambers into the room: Grady from his kitchen, and Strong from his apartment in the upper story. The latter at once saw from the aspect of the two women what had occurred.

“Grady, go and wait in the court,” he said, “and if 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 off for to-day.”

“Shall I say that, sir? and after I bought them bokays?” asked Grady of his master.

“Yes,” said Amory, with a stamp of his foot; and Strong going to the door, too, reached it just in time to prevent the entrance of Captain Costigan, who had mounted the stair.

The ladies from the theatre did not have their treat to Greenwich, nor did Blanche pay her visit to Fanny Bolton on that day. And Cos, who took occasion majestically to inquire of Grady what the mischief was, and who was crying?—had for answer that ’twas a woman, another of them, and that they were, in Grady’s opinion, the cause of ’most all the mischief in the world.

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LXVII. In which Pen begins to doubt about 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 protector in some sort. How would she brave the news which he had to tell her; and how should he explain the plans which he was meditating? He felt as if neither he nor Blanche could bear Laura’s dazzling glance of calm scrutiny, and as if he would not dare to disclose his worldly hopes and ambitions to that spotless judge. At her arrival at Baymouth, he wrote a letter thither which contained a great number of fine phrases and protests of affection, and a great deal of easy satire and raillery; in the midst of all which Mr. Pen could not help feeling that he was in panic, and that he was acting like a rogue and hypocrite.

How was it that a simple country girl should be the object of fear and trembling to such an accomplished gentleman as Mr. Pen? His worldly tactics and diplomacy, his satire and knowledge of the world, could not bear the test of her purity, he felt somehow. And he had to own to himself that his affairs were in such a position, that he could not tell the truth to that honest soul. As he rode from Clavering to Baymouth he felt as guilty as a schoolboy who doesn’t know his lesson and is about to face the awful master. For is not truth the master always, and does she not have the power and hold the book?

Under the charge of her kind, though somewhat wayward and absolute patroness, Lady Rockminster, Laura had seen somewhat of the world in the last year, had gathered some accomplishments, and profited by the lessons of society. Many a girl who had been accustomed to that too great tenderness in which Laura’s early life had been passed, would have been unfitted for the changed existence which she now had to lead. Helen worshipped her two children, and thought, as home-bred women will, that all the world was made for them, or to be considered after them. She tended Laura with a watchfulness of affection which never left her. If she had a headache, the widow was as alarmed as if there had never been an aching head before in the world. She slept and woke, read and moved under her mother’s fond superintendence, which was now withdrawn from her, along with the tender creature whose anxious heart would beat no more. And painful moments of grief and depression no doubt Laura had, when she stood in the great careless world alone. Nobody heeded her griefs or her solitude. She was not quite the equal, in social rank, of the lady whose companion she was, or of the friends and relatives of the imperious, but kind old dowager. Some very likely bore her no goodwill—some, perhaps, slighted her: it might have been that servants were occasionally rude; their mistress certainly was often. Laura not seldom found herself in family meetings, the confidence and familiarity of which she felt were interrupted by her intrusion; and her sensitiveness of course was wounded at the idea that she should give or feel this annoyance. How many governesses are there in the world, thought cheerful Laura,—how many ladies, whose necessities make them slaves and companions by profession! What bad tempers and coarse unkindness have not these to encounter? How infinitely better my lot is with these really kind and affectionate people than that of thousands of unprotected girls! It was with this cordial spirit that our young lady adapted herself to her new position; and went in advance of her fortune with a trustful smile.

Did you ever know a person who met Fortune in that way, whom the goddess did not regard kindly? Are not even bad people won by a constant cheerfulness and a pure and affectionate heart? When the babes in the wood, in the ballad, looked up fondly and trustfully at those notorious rogues whom their uncle had set to make away with the little folks, we all know how one of the rascals relented, and made away with the other—not having the heart to be unkind to so much innocence and beauty. Oh, happy they who have that virgin loving trust and sweet smiling confidence in the world, and fear no evil because they think none! Miss Laura Bell was one of these fortunate persons; and besides the gentle widow’s little cross, which, as we have seen, Pen gave her, had such a sparkling and brilliant kohinoor in her bosom, as is even more precious than that famous jewel; for it not only fetches a price, and is retained, by its owner in another world where diamonds are stated to be of no value, but here, too, is of inestimable worth to its possessor; is a talisman against evil, and lightens up the darkness of life, like Cogia Hassan’s famous stone.

So that before Miss Bell had been a year in Lady Rockminster’s house, there was not a single person in it whose love she had not won by the use of this talisman. From the old lady to the lowest dependent of her bounty, Laura had secured the goodwill and kindness 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 companions. But when Laura was ill at Paris, this old woman nursed her in spite of her mistress, who was afraid of catching the fever, and absolutely fought for her medicine with Martha from Fairoaks, now advanced to be Miss Laura’s own maid. As she was recovering, Grandjean the chef wanted to kill her by the numbers of delicacies which he dressed for her, and wept when she ate her first slice of chicken. The Swiss major-domo of the house celebrated Miss Bell’s praises in almost every European language, which he spoke with indifferent incorrectness; the coachman was happy to drive her out; the page cried when he heard she was ill; and Calverley and Coldstream (those two footmen, so large, so calm ordinarily, and so difficult to move) broke out into extraordinary hilarity at the news of her convalescence, and intoxicated the page at a wine-shop, to fête Laura’s recovery. Even Lady Diana Pynsent (our former acquaintance Mr. Pynsent had married by this time), Lady Diana, who had had a considerable dislike to Laura for some time, was so enthusiastic as to say that she thought Miss Bell was a very agreeable person, and that grandmamma had found a great trouvaille in her. All this goodwill and kindness Laura had acquired, not by any arts, not by any flattery, but by the simple force of good-nature, and by the blessed gift of pleasing and being pleased.

On the one or two occasions when he had seen Lady Rockminster, the old lady, who did not admire him, had been very pitiless and abrupt with our young friend, and perhaps Pen expected when he came to Baymouth to find Laura installed in her house in the quality of humble companion, and treated no better than himself. When she heard of his arrival she came running 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 the fractus orbis had 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 and kind eyes which met his, beamed with good-health; the cheek which he kissed blushed with beauty. As he looked at her, artless and graceful, pure and candid, he thought he had never seen her so beautiful. Why should he remark her beauty now so much, and remark too to himself that he had not remarked it sooner? He took her fair trustful hand and kissed it fondly: he looked in her bright clear eyes, and read in them that kindling welcome which he was always sure to find there. He was affected and touched by the tender tone and the pure sparkling glance; their innocence smote him somehow and moved him.

“How good you are to me, Laura—sister!” said Pen; “I don’t deserve that you should—that you should be so kind to me.”

“Mamma left you to me,” she said, stooping down and brushing his forehead with her lips hastily. “You know you were to come to me when you were in trouble, or to tell me when you were very happy: that was our compact, Arthur, last year, before we parted. Are you very happy now, or are you in trouble—which is it?” and she looked at him with an arch glance of kindness. “Do you like going into Parliament! Do you intend to distinguish yourself there? How I shall tremble for your first speech!”

“Do you know about the Parliament plan, then?” Pen asked.

“Know?—all the world knows! I have heard it talked about many times. Lady Rockminster’s doctor talked about it to-day. I daresay it will be in the Chatteris paper to-morrow. It is all over the county that Sir Francis Clavering, of Clavering, is going to retire, in behalf of Mr. Arthur Pendennis, of Fairoaks; and that the young and beautiful Miss Blanche Amory is——”

“What! that too?” asked Pendennis.

“That, too, dear Arthur. Tout se sait, as somebody would say, whom I intend to be very fond of; and who I am sure is very clever and pretty. I have had a letter from Blanche. The kindest of letters. She speaks so warmly of you, Arthur! I hope—I know she feels what she writes.—When is it to be, Arthur? Why did you not tell me? I may come and live with you then, mayn’t I?”

“My home is yours, dear Laura, and everything I have,” Pen said. “If I did not tell you, it was because—because—I do not know: nothing is decided as yet. No words have passed between us. But you think Blanche could be happy with me—don’t you? Not a romantic fondness, you know. I have no heart, I think; I’ve told her so: only a sober-sided attachment:—and want my wife on one side of the fire and my sister on the other,—Parliament in the session and Fairoaks in the holidays, and my Laura never to leave me until somebody who has a right comes to take her away.”

Somebody who has a right—somebody with a right! Why did Pen, as he looked at the girl and slowly uttered the words, begin to feel angry and jealous of the invisible somebody with the right to take her away? Anxious, but a minute ago, how she would take the news regarding his probable arrangements with Blanche, Pen was hurt somehow that she received the intelligence so easily, and took his happiness for granted.

“Until somebody comes,” Laura said, with a laugh, “I will stay at home and be aunt Laura, and take care of the children when Blanche is in the world. I have arranged it all. I am an excellent 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 you 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 performed, and gave to Arthur one finger to shake; which he took, and over which he bowed as well as he could, which, in truth, was very clumsily.

“So you are going to be married, sir,” said the old lady.

“Scold him, Lady Rockminster, for not telling us,” Laura said, going away: which, in truth, the old lady began instantly to do. “So you are going to marry, and to go into Parliament in place of that good-for-nothing Sir Francis Clavering. I wanted him to give my grandson his seat—why did he not give my grandson his seat? I hope you are to have a great deal of money with Miss Amory. I wouldn’t take her without a great deal.”

“Sir Francis Clavering is tired of Parliament,” Pen said, wincing, “and—and I rather wish to attempt that career. The rest of the story is at least premature.”

“I wonder, when you had Laura at home, you could take up with such an affected little creature as that,” the old lady continued.

“I am very sorry Miss Amory does not please your ladyship,” said Pen, smiling.

“You mean—that it is no affair of mine, and that I am not going to marry her. Well, I’m not, and I’m very glad I am not—a little odious thing—when I think that a man could prefer her to my Laura, I’ve no patience with him, and so I tell you, Mr. Arthur Pendennis.”

“I am very glad you see Laura with such favourable eyes,” Pen said.

“You are very glad, and you are very sorry. What does it matter, sir, whether you are very glad or very sorry? A young man who prefers Miss Amory to Miss Bell has no business to be sorry or glad. A young man who takes up with such a crooked lump of affectation as that little Amory,—for she is crooked, I tell you she is,—after seeing my Laura, has no right to hold up his head again. Where is your friend Bluebeard? The tall young man, I mean,—Warrington, isn’t his name? Why does he not come down, and marry Laura? What do the young men mean by not marrying such a girl as that? They all marry for money now. You are all selfish and cowards. We ran away with each other, and made foolish matches in my time. I have no patience with the young men! When I was at Paris in the winter, I asked all the three attaches at the Embassy why they did not fall in love with Miss Bell? They laughed—they said they wanted money. You are all selfish—you are all cowards.”

“I hope before you offered Miss Bell to the attaches,” said Pen, with some heat, “you did her the 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 herself,” said the old dowager, with great state. “Laura, my dear, I’ve been telling your cousin that all the young men are selfish; and that there is not a pennyworth of romance left among them. He is as bad as the rest.”

“Have you been asking Arthur why he won’t marry me?” said Laura, with a kindling smile, coming back and taking her cousin’s hand. (She had been away, perhaps, to hide some traces of emotion, which she did not wish others to see.) “He is going to marry somebody else; and I intend to be very fond of her, and to go and live with them, provided he then does not ask every bachelor who comes to his house, why he does not marry me?”

The terrors of Pen’s conscience being thus appeased, and his examination before Laura over without any reproaches on the part of the latter, Pen began to find that his duty and inclination led him constantly to Baymouth, where Lady Rockminster informed him that a place was always reserved for him at her table. “And I recommend you to come often,” the old lady said, “for Grandjean is an excellent cook, and to be with Laura and me will do your manners good. It is easy to see that you are always thinking about yourself. Don’t blush and stammer—almost all young men are always thinking about themselves. My sons and grandsons always were until I cured them. Come here, and let us teach you to behave properly; you will not have to carve, that is done at the side-table. Hecker will give you as much wine as is good for you; and on days when you are very good and amusing you shall have some champagne. Hecker, mind what I say. Mr. Pendennis is Miss Laura’s brother; and you will make him comfortable, and see that he does not have too much wine, or disturb me 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, she was not hard to please; and all the slaves and subjects of her little dowager court trembled before her, but loved her.

She did not receive a very numerous or brilliant society. The doctor, of course, was admitted as a constant and faithful visitor; the vicar and his curate; and on public days the vicar’s wife and daughters, and some of the season visitors at Baymouth, were received at the old lady’s entertainments: but generally the company was a small one, and Mr. Arthur drank his wine by himself, when Lady Rockminster retired to take her doze, and to be played and sung to sleep by Laura after dinner.

“If my music can give her a nap,” said the good-natured girl, “ought I not to be very glad that it can do so much good? Lady Rockminster sleeps very little of nights: and I used to read to her until I fell ill at Paris, since when she will not hear of my sitting up.”

“Why did you not write to me when you were ill?” asked Pen, with a blush.

“What good could you do me? I had Martha to nurse me and the doctor every day. You are too busy to write to women or to think about them. You have your books and your newspapers, and your politics and your railroads to occupy you. I wrote when I was well.”

And Pen looked at her, and blushed again, as he remembered that, during all the time of her illness, he had never written to her and had scarcely thought about her.

In consequence of his relationship, Pen was free to walk and ride with his cousin constantly, and in the course of those walks and rides, could appreciate the sweet frankness of her disposition, and the truth, simplicity, and kindliness of her fair and spotless heart. In their mother’s lifetime, she had never spoken so openly or so cordially as now. The desire of poor Helen to make an union between her two children, had caused a reserve on Laura’s part towards Pen; for which, under the altered circumstances of Arthur’s life, there was now no necessity. He was engaged to another woman; and Laura became his sister at once,—hiding, or banishing from herself, any doubts which she might have as to his choice; striving to look cheerfully forward, and hope for his prosperity; promising herself to do all that affection might do to make her mother’s darling happy.

Their talk was often about the departed mother. And it was from a thousand stories which Laura told him that Arthur was made aware how constant and absorbing that silent maternal devotion had been; which had accompanied him present and absent through life, and had only ended with the fond widow’s last breath. One day the people in Clavering saw a lad in charge of a couple of horses at the churchyard-gate: and it was told over the place that Pen and Laura had visited Helen’s grave together. Since Arthur had come down into the country, he had been there once or twice: but the sight of the sacred stone had brought no consolation to him. A guilty man doing a guilty deed: a mere speculator, content to lay down his faith and 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 in the world he lived in, that others were no better than himself? Arthur and Laura rode by the gates of Fairoaks; and he shook hands with his tenant’s children, playing on the lawn and the terrace—Laura looked steadily at the cottage wall, at the creeper on the porch and the magnolia growing up to her window. “Mr. Pendennis rode by to-day,” one of the boys told his mother, “with a lady, and he stopped and talked to us, and he asked for a bit of honeysuckle off the porch, and gave it the lady. I couldn’t see if she was pretty; she had her veil down. She was riding one of Cramp’s horses, out of Baymouth.”

As they rode over the downs between home and Baymouth, Pen did not speak much, though they rode very close together. He was thinking what a mockery life was, and how men refuse happiness when they may have it; or, having it, kick it down; or barter it, with their eyes open, for a little worthless money or beggarly 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 exceptions, like you, my dear, to shine like good deeds in a naughty world, and make the blackness more dismal.”

“I wish you would not speak in that way, Arthur,” said Laura, looking down and bending her head to the honeysuckle on her breast. “When you told the little boy to give me this, you were not selfish.”

“A pretty sacrifice I made to get it for you!” said the sneerer.

“But your heart was kind and full of love when you did so. One cannot ask for more than love and kindness; and if you think humbly of yourself Arthur, the love and kindness are—diminished—are they? I often thought our dearest mother spoiled you at home, by 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 yourself, and to make a name for yourself. Mamma and your uncle both encouraged you in this ambition. If it is a vain thing, why pursue it? I suppose such a clever man as you intend to do a great deal of good to the country, by going into Parliament, or you would not wish to be there. What are you going to do when you are in the House of Commons?”

“Women don’t understand about politics, my dear,” Pen said sneering at himself as he spoke.

“But why don’t you make us understand? I could never tell about Mr. Pynsent why he should like to be there so much. He is not a clever man——”

“He certainly is not a genius, Pynsent,” said Pen.

“Lady Diana says that he attends Committees all day; that then again he is at the House all night; that he always votes as he is told; that he never speaks; that he will never get on beyond a subordinate place; and as his grandmother tells him, he is choked with red-tape. Are you going to follow the same career; Arthur? What is there in it so brilliant that you should be so eager for it? I would rather that you should stop at home, and write books—good books, kind books, with gentle kind thoughts, such as you have, dear Arthur, and such as might do people good to read. And if you do not win fame, what then? You own it is vanity, and you can live very happily without it. I must not pretend to advise; but I take you at your own word about the world; and as you own it is wicked, and that it tires you, ask you why you don’t leave it?”

“And what would you have me do?” asked Arthur.

“I would have you bring your wife to Fairoaks to live there, and study, and do good round about you. I would like to see your own children playing on the lawn, Arthur, and that we might pray in our mother’s church again once more, dear brother. If the world is a temptation, are we not told to pray that we may not be led into it?”

“Do you think Blanche would make a good wife for a petty country gentleman? Do you think I should become the character very well, Laura?” Pen asked. “Remember temptation walks about the hedgerows as well as the city streets: and idleness is the greatest tempter of all.”

“What does—does Mr. Warrington say?” said Laura, as a blush mounted up to her cheek, and of which Pen saw the fervour, though Laura’s veil fell over her face to hide it.

Pen rode on by Laura’s side silently for a while. George’s name so mentioned brought back the past to him, and the thoughts which he had once had regarding George and Laura. Why should the recurrence of the thought agitate him, now that he knew the union was impossible? Why should he be curious to know if, during the months of their intimacy, Laura had felt a regard for Warrington? From that day until the present time George had never alluded to his story, and Arthur remembered now that since then George had scarcely ever mentioned Laura’s name.

At last he cane close to her. “Tell me something, Laura,” he said.

She put back her veil and looked at him. “What is it, Arthur?” she asked—though from the tremor of her voice she guessed very well.

“Tell me—but for George’s misfortune—I never knew him speak of it before or since that day—would you—would you have given him—what you refused me?”

“Yes, Pen,” she said, bursting into tears.

“He deserved you better than I did,” poor Arthur groaned forth, with an indescribable pang at his heart. “I am but a selfish wretch, and George is better, nobler, truer, than I am. God bless him!”

“Yes, Pen,” said Laura, reaching out her hand to her cousin, and he put his arm round her, and for a moment she sobbed on his shoulder.

The gentle girl had had her secret, and told it. In the widow’s last journey from Fairoaks, when hastening with her mother to Arthur’s sick-bed, Laura had made a different confession; and it was only when Warrington told his own story, and described the hopeless condition of his life, that she discovered how much her feelings had changed, and with what tender sympathy, with what great respect, delight, and admiration she had grown to regard her cousin’s friend. Until she knew that some plans she might have dreamed of were impossible, and that Warrington, reading in her heart, perhaps, had told his melancholy story to warn her, she had not asked herself whether it was possible that her affections could change; and had been shocked and seared by the discovery of the truth. How should she have told it to Helen, and confessed her shame? Poor Laura felt guilty before her friend, with the secret which she dared not confide to her; felt as if she had been ungrateful for Helen’s love and regard; felt as if she had been wickedly faithless to Pen in withdrawing that love from him which he did not even care to accept; humbled even and repentant before Warrington, lest she should have encouraged him by undue sympathy, or shown the preference which she began to feel.

The catastrophe which broke up Laura’s home, and the grief and anguish which she felt for her mother’s death, gave her little leisure for thoughts more selfish; and by the time she rallied from that grief the minor 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 Arthur,” she thought, “how self-confident and unforgiving! I never forgave from my heart this poor girl, who was fond of him, or him for encouraging her love; and I have been more guilty than she, poor, little, artless creature! I, professing to love one man, could listen to another only too eagerly; and would not pardon the change of feelings in Arthur, 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, very likely, and whose motives she could not understand.

A year back Laura would have been indignant at the idea that Arthur should marry Blanche: and her high spirit would have risen, as she thought that from worldly motives he should stoop to one so unworthy. Now when the news was brought to her of such a chance (the intelligence was given to her by old Lady Rockminster, whose speeches were as direct and rapid as a slap on the face), the humbled girl winced a little at the blow, but bore it meekly, and with a desperate acquiescence. “He has a right to marry, he knows a great deal more of the world than I do,” she argued with herself. “Blanche may not be so light-minded as she seemed, and who am I to be her judge? I daresay it is very good that Arthur should go into Parliament and distinguish himself, and my duty is to do everything that lies in my power to aid him and Blanche, and to make his home happy. I daresay I shall live with them. If I am godmother to one of their children, I will leave her my three thousand pounds!” And forthwith she began to think what she could give Blanche out of her small treasures, and how best to conciliate her affection. She wrote her forthwith a kind letter, in which, of course, no mention was made of the plans in contemplation, but in which Laura recalled old times, and spoke her goodwill, and in reply to this she received an eager answer from Blanche: in which not a word about marriage was said, to be sure, but Mr. Pendennis was mentioned two or three times in the letter, and they were to be henceforth, dearest Laura, and dearest Blanche, and loving sisters, and so forth.

When Pen and Laura reached home, after Laura’s confession (Pen’s noble acknowledgment of his own inferiority and generous expression of love for Warrington, causing the girl’s heart to throb, and rendering doubly keen those tears which she sobbed on his shoulder), a little slim letter was awaiting Miss Bell in the hall, which she trembled rather guiltily as she unsealed, and which Pen blushed as he 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 Mere, who was scrubbing the room, and looked at me with very scrubby looks; but la belle Fanny was not au logis; and as I heard that she was in Captain Strong’s apartments, Bonner and I mounted au troisieme to see this famous beauty. Another disappointment—only the Chevalier Strong and a friend of his in the room: so we came away after all without seeing the enchanting Fanny.

“‘Je t’envoie mille et mille baisers. When will that horrid canvassing be over? Sleeves are worn, etc. etc. etc.’”

After dinner the doctor was reading the Times. “A young gentleman I attended when he was here some eight or nine years ago, has come into a fine fortune,” the doctor said. “I see here announced the death of John Henry Foker, Esq., of Logwood Hall, at Pau, in the Pyrenees, on the 15th ult.”

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