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The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2

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




"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 any where. 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 afterward
by the policemen. 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 man 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
skeptically. 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 endeavor 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 skepticism 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 skeptical 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 song-book babbling of honey and
Hybla, and nymphs and fountains and love. To what, we say, does this
skepticism lead? It leads a man to a shameful loneliness and
selfishness, so to speak--the more shameful, because it is so
good-humored 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
farther 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 honor 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 in the Conservative side of the house, and among 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 every thing, friends, fame, dearest ties,
closest vanities, the respect of an army of churchmen, the recognized
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 endeavors to reconcile an irreconcileable
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
can not 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 skepticism, of your quietism, of
your atheism, my poor fellow. You're going to sell yourself, and
Heaven help you! You're 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."





CHAPTER XXIV.

WHICH ACCOUNTS PERHAPS FOR CHAPTER XXIII.


[Illustration]

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,
neutralized 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 every thing 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 honorable 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 among 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 out
running the constables (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 clew 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
down stairs," 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 scenes and other fugitive stratagems.

So, though the elder Pendennis, having his own ulterior object, was
bent upon seeing Pen's country neighbor 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
cognizance 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 done: 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 victimized
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 favored. And it chanced that Strong
heard of this transaction at the place where the writings had been
drawn--in the back parlor, 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 parlor. 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 daresay 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 honor of visiting our friend Major Pendennis in
his lodgings. The major was walking daintily toward 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 every thing with their
smoke," thought the major. "Here comes a fellow with mustaches and a
cigar. Every fellow who smokes and wears mustaches 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 toward 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 toward him a couple of
ungracious fingers.

"What is your good news?" said Major Pendennis, patronizing the other
still farther, and condescending to address to him an observation, for
old Pendennis had kept such good company all his life, that he vaguely
imagined he honored 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 favor 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 unburdened 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 honor, 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 any body, 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 jail 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 life--
who, between you and me, Captain Strong, we must own is 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 hest
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 patronizing 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-humor. "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 any thing 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 a long course of
careful speculation, this wary and silent attendant had been amassing
a considerable sum of money, during the years 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.

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