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The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2

W >> William Makepeace Thackeray >> The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2




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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * * * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Would you?" said George.

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

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

Laura blushed more red than ever and withdrew her hand.

"What is it?" Helen asked.

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

"Indeed!" Helen said.





CHAPTER XVII.

IN WHICH FANNY ENGAGES A NEW MEDICAL MAN.


[Illustration]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Illustration]

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

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

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

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

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

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