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The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2

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




She had not the slightest ill-will toward "the canal," the poor, dear
lady, or any pride about herself, or idea that she was better than her
neighbor; 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 any thing 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 among 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 cognizance 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 favorite 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 where; 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 favor 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 beggerly
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
any body 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
Penn 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 quarreling, afterward; and a girl
who runs away with Jack to Gretna Green, constantly runs away with Tom
to Switzerland afterward. 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
many 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-humor. "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 ardor 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 gray hairs or our wrinkles--but the fulfillment
of the plan of mortal growth and decay: that which is snow-white now
was glossy black once; that which is sluggish obesity to-day was
boisterous rosy health a few years back; that calm weariness,
benevolent, resigned, and disappointed, was ambition, fierce and
violent, but a few years since, and has only settled into submissive
repose after many a battle and defeat. Lucky he who can bear his
failure so generously, and give up his broken sword to Fate the
Conqueror with a manly and humble heart! Are you not awe-stricken,
you, friendly reader, who, taking the page up for a moment's light
reading, lay it down, perchance, for a graver 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
crowds 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 no body 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.





CHAPTER XXII.

CONVERSATIONS.


[Illustration]

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
honor, 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 every body--alike
his turf-associates with whom he had made 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's Hotel,
Blackfriars, and ask for Mr. Francis there. For the baronet was a
gentleman of that peculiarity of mind that he would rather tell a lie
than not, and always began a contest with fortune by running away and
hiding himself. The boots of Mr. Short's 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 servant's 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 Blackfriar's-road. And Sir
Francis's coachman told the news to other gentlemen's coachmen, who
carried it to their masters, and to the neighboring 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 Curaçoa) 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 while
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 jail (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 to 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
wont 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 colors 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 aid-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--"any thing 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 embassador brought the
news back at Short's hotel, where Strong found the baronet crying and
drinking Curaçoa.

"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, with out
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 recognized 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 Curaçoa), 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 honored 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 parlor 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 Hackstraw, 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 _entrée_ of all the green-rooms in London," Tom urged; while
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.

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