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The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2

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




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

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

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

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

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

* * * * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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





CHAPTER XVIII.

FOREIGN GROUND.


[Illustration]

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

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

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

[Illustration]

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

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

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