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The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2

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




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

"The women's come," said Grady, helping his master to the boots.

"Did you ask 'em if they would take a glass of any thing?" asked
Altamont.

Grady came out--"He says, will you take any thing to drink?" the
domestic asked of them; at which Blanche, amused with the artless
question, broke out into a pretty little laugh, and asked of Mrs.
Bonner, "Shall we take any thing to drink?"

"Well, you may take it or lave it," said Mr. Grady, who thought his
offer slighted, and did not like the contemptuous manners of the
newcomers, and so left them.

"Will we take any thing to drink?" Blanche asked again: and again
began to laugh.

"Grady," bawled out a voice from the chamber within:--a voice that
made Mrs. Bonner start.

Grady did not answer: his song was heard from afar off, from the
kitchen, his upper room, where Grady was singing at his work.

"Grady, my coat!" again roared the voice from within.

"Why, that is not Mr. Strong's voice," said the Sylphide, still half
laughing. "Grady my coat!--Bonner, who is Grady my coat? We ought
to go away."

Bonner still looked quite puzzled at the sound of the voice which she
had heard.

The bedroom door here opened and the individual who had called out
"Grady, my coat," appeared without the garment in question.

He nodded to the women, and walked across the room. "I beg your
pardon, ladies. Grady, bring my coat down, sir! Well, my dears, it's a
fine day, and we'll have a jolly lark at----"

He said no more; for here Mrs. Bonner, who had been looking at him
with scared eyes, suddenly shrieked out, "Amory! Amory!" and fell back
screaming and fainting in her chair.

The man, so apostrophized, looked at the woman an instant, and,
rushing up to Blanche, seized her and kissed her. "Yes, Betsy," he
said, "by G--it is me. Mary Bonner knew me. What a fine gal we've
grown! But it's a secret, mind. I'm dead, though I'm your father. Your
poor mother don't know it. What a pretty gal we've grown! Kiss
me--kiss me close, my Betsy! D--it, I love you: I'm your old father."

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

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

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

"Grady, go and wait in the court," he said, "and if any body comes
--you understand me."

"Is it the play-actress and her mother?" said Grady.

"Yes--confound you--say that there's nobody in Chambers, and the
party's off for to-day."

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

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

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





CHAPTER XXVIII.

IN WHICH PEN BEGINS TO DOUBT ABOUT HIS ELECTION.


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While Pen, in his own county, was thus carrying on his selfish plans
and parliamentary schemes, news came to him that Lady Rockminster had
arrived at Baymouth, and had brought with her our friend Laura. At the
announcement that Laura his sister was near him, Pen felt rather
guilty. His wish was to stand higher in her esteem, perhaps, than in
that of any other person in the world. She was his mother's legacy to
him. He was to be her patron and protector in some sort. How would she
brave the news which he had to tell her; and how should he explain the
plans which he was meditating? He felt as if neither he nor Blanche
could bear Laura's dazzling glance of calm scrutiny, and as if he
would not dare to disclose his worldly hopes and ambitions to that
spotless judge. At her arrival at Baymouth, he wrote a letter thither
which contained a great number of fine phrases and protests of
affection, and a great deal of easy satire and raillery; in the midst
of all which Mr. Pen could not help feeling that he was in a panic,
and that he was acting like a rogue and hypocrite.

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

Under the charge of her kind, though somewhat wayward and absolute,
patroness, Lady Rockminster, Laura had seen somewhat of the world in
the last year, had gathered some accomplishments, and profited by the
lessons of society. Many a girl who had been accustomed to that too
great tenderness in which Laura's early life had been passed, would
have been unfitted for the changed existence which she now had to
lead. Helen worshiped her two children, and thought, as home-bred
women will, that all the world was made for them, or to be considered
after them. She tended Laura with a watchfulness of affection which
never left her. If she had a headache, the widow was as alarmed as if
there had never been an aching head before in the world. She slept and
woke, read, and moved under her mother's fond superintendence, which
was now withdrawn from her, along with the tender creature whose
anxious heart would beat no more. And painful moments of grief and
depression no doubt Laura had, when she stood in the great careless
world alone. Nobody heeded her griefs or her solitude. She was not
quite the equal, in social rank, of the lady whose companion she was,
or of the friends and relatives of the imperious, but kind
old dowager.

Some, very likely, bore her no good-will--some, perhaps, slighted her:
it might have been that servants were occasionally rude; their
mistress certainly was often. Laura not seldom found herself in family
meetings, the confidence and familiarity of which she felt were
interrupted by her intrusion; and her sensitiveness of course was
wounded at the idea that she should give or feel this annoyance. How
many governesses are there in the world, thought cheerful Laura--how
many ladies, whose necessities make them slaves and companions by
profession! What bad tempers and coarse unkindness have not these to
encounter! How infinitely better my lot is with these really kind and
affectionate people than that of thousands of unprotected girls! It
was with this cordial spirit that our young lady adapted herself to
her new position; and went in advance of her fortune with a
trustful smile.

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

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

On the one or two occasions when he had seen Lady Rockminster, the old
lady, who did not admire him, had been very pitiless and abrupt with
our young friend, and perhaps Pen expected when he came to Baymouth to
find Laura installed in her house in the quality of humble companion,
and treated no better than himself. When she heard of his arrival she
came running down stairs, and I am not sure that she did not embrace
him in the presence of Calverley and Coldstream: not that those
gentleman ever told: if the _fractus orbis_ had come to a smash, if
Laura, instead of kissing Pen, had taken her scissors and snipped off
his head--Calverly and Coldstream would have looked on impavidly,
without allowing a grain of powder to be disturbed by the calamity.

Laura had so much improved in health and looks that Pen could not but
admire her. The frank and kind eyes which met his, beamed with good
health; the cheek which he kissed blushed with beauty. As he looked at
her, artless and graceful, pure and candid, he thought he had never
seen her so beautiful. Why should he remark her beauty now so much,
and remark too to himself that he had not remarked it sooner? He took
her fair trustful hand and kissed it fondly: he looked in her bright
clear eyes, and read in them that kindling welcome which he was always
sure to find there. He was affected and touched by the tender tone and
the pure sparkling glance; their innocence smote him somehow and
moved him.

"How good you are to me, Laura--sister!" said Pen, "I don't deserve
that you should--that you should be so kind to me."

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

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

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

"What! that too?" asked Pendennis.

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

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

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

"Until somebody comes," Laura said, with a laugh, "I will stay at home
and be aunt Laura, and take care of the children when Blanche is in
the world. I have arranged it all. I am an excellent house-keeper. Do
you know I have been to market at Paris with Mrs. Beck, and have taken
some lessons from M. Grandjean. And I have had some lessons in Paris
in singing too, with the money which you sent me, you kind boy: and I
can sing much better now: and I have learned to dance, though not so
well as Blanche, and when you become a minister of state, Blanche
shall present me:" and with this, and with a provoking good-humor, she
performed for him the last Parisian courtesy.

Lady Rockminster came in while this courtesy was being performed, and
gave to Arthur one finger to shake; which he took, and over which he
bowed as well as he could, which, in truth, was very clumsily.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I am very glad you see Laura with such favorable eyes," Pen said.

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

"I hope before you offered Miss Bell to the attaches," said Pen, with
some heat, "you did her the favor to consult her?"

"Miss Bell has only a little money. Miss Bell must marry soon.
Somebody must make a match for her, sir; and a girl can't offer
herself," said the old dowager, with great state. "Laura, my dear,
I've been telling your cousin that all the young men are selfish; and
that there is not a pennyworth of romance left among them. He is as
bad as the rest."

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

* * * * *

The terrors of Pen's conscience being thus appeased, and his
examination before Laura over without any reproaches on the part of
the latter, Pen began to find that his duty and inclination led him
constantly to Baymouth, where Lady Rockminster informed him that a
place was always reserved for him at her table. "And I recommend you
to come often," the old lady said, "for Grandjean is an excellent
cook, and to be with Laura and me will do your manners good. It is
easy to see that you are always thinking about yourself. Don't blush
and stammer--almost all young men are always thinking about
themselves. My sons and grandsons always were until I cured them. Come
here, and let us teach you to behave properly; you will not have to
carve, that is done at the side-table. Hecker will give you as much
wine as is good for you; and on days when you are very good and
amusing you shall have some Champagne. Hecker, mind what I say, Mr.
Pendennis is Miss Laura's brother; and you will make him comfortable,
and see that he does not have too much wine, or disturb me while I am
taking my nap after dinner. You are selfish; I intend to cure you of
being selfish. You will dine here when you have no other engagements;
and if it rains you had better put up at the hotel." As long as the
good lady could order every body round about her, she was not hard to
please; and all the slaves and subjects of her little dowager court
trembled before her, but loved her.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As they rode over the downs between home and Baymouth, Pen did not
speak much, though they rode very close together. He was thinking what
a mockery life was, and how men refuse happiness when they may have
it; or, having it, kick it down; or barter it, with their eyes open,
for a little worthless money or beggarly honor. And then the
thought came, what does it matter for the little space? The lives of
the best and purest of us are consumed in a vain desire, and end in a
disappointment: as the dear soul's who sleeps in her grave yonder. She
had her selfish ambition, as much as Caesar had; and died, balked of
her life's longing. The stone covers over our hopes and our memories.
Our place knows us not. "Other people's children are playing on the
grass," he broke out, in a hard voice, "where you and I used to play,
Laura. And you see how the magnolia we planted has grown up since our
time. I have been round to one or two of the cottages where my mother
used to visit. It is scarcely more than a year that she is gone, and
the people whom she used to benefit care no more for her death than
for Queen Anne's. We are all selfish: the world is selfish: there are
but a few exceptions, like you, my dear, to shine like good deeds in a
naughty world, and make the blackness more dismal."

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