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The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2

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




"I wish you would not speak in that way, Arthur," said Laura, looking
down and bending her head to the honeysuckle on her breast. "When you
told the little boy to give me this, you were not selfish."

"A pretty sacrifice I made to get it for you!" said the sneerer.

"But your heart was kind and full of love when you did so. One can not
ask for more than love and kindness; and if you think humbly of
yourself, Arthur, the love and kindness are not diminished--are they?
I often thought our dearest mother spoiled you at home, by worshiping
you; and that if you are--I hate the word--what you say, her too great
fondness helped to make you so. And as for the world, when men go out
into it, I suppose they can not be otherwise than selfish. You have to
fight for yourself, and to get on for yourself, and to make a name for
yourself. Mamma and your uncle both encouraged you in this ambition.
If it is a vain thing, why pursue it? I suppose such a clever man as
you intend to do a great deal of good to the country, by going into
Parliament, or you would not wish to be there. What are you going to
do when you are in the House of Commons?"

"Women don't understand about politics, my dear," Pen said, sneering
at himself as he spoke.

"But why don't you make us understand? I could never tell about Mr.
Pynsent why he should like to be there so much. He is not a
clever man--"

"He certainly is not a genius, Pynsent," said Pen.

"Lady Diana says that he attends Committees all day; that then again
he is at the House all night; that he always votes as he is told; that
he never speaks; that he will never get on beyond a subordinate place,
and as his grandmother tells him, he is choked with red-tape. Are you
going to follow the same career, Arthur? What is there in it so
brilliant that you should be so eager for it? I would rather that you
should stop at home, and write books--good books, kind books, with
gentle kind thoughts, such as you have, dear Arthur, and such as might
do people good to read. And if you do not win fame, what then? You own
it is vanity, and you can live very happily without it. I must not
pretend to advise; but I take you at your own word about the world;
and as you own it is wicked, and that it tires you, ask you why you
don't leave it?"

"And what would you have me do?" asked Arthur.

"I would have you bring your wife to Fairoaks to live there, and
study, and do good round about you. I would like to see your own
children playing on the lawn, Arthur, and that we might pray in our
mother's church again once more, dear brother. If the world is a
temptation, are we not told to pray that we may not be led into it?"

"Do you think Blanche would make a good wife for a petty country
gentleman? Do you think I should become the character very well,
Laura?" Pen asked. "Remember temptation walks about the hedgerows as
well as the city streets: and idleness is the greatest tempter
of all."

"What does--does Mr. Warrington say?" said Laura, as a blush mounted
up to her cheek, and of which Pen saw the fervor, though Laura's veil
fell over her face to hide it.

Pen rode on by Laura's side silently for a while. George's name, so
mentioned, brought back the past to him, and the thoughts which he had
once had regarding George and Laura. Why should the recurrence of the
thought agitate him, now that he knew the union was impossible? Why
should he be curious to know if, during the months of their intimacy,
Laura had felt a regard for Warrington? From that day until the
present time George had never alluded to his story, and Arthur
remembered now that since then George had scarcely ever mentioned
Laura's name.

At last he came close to her. "Tell me something, Laura," he said.

She put back her veil and looked at him. "What is it, Arthur?" she
asked--though from the tremor of her voice she guessed very well.

"Tell me--but for George's misfortune--I never knew him speak of it
before or since that day--would you--would you have given him--what
you refused me?"

"Yes, Pen," she said, bursting into tears.

"He deserved you better than I did," poor Arthur groaned forth, with
an indescribable pang at his heart. "I am but a selfish wretch, and
George is better, nobler, truer, than I am. God bless him!"

"Yes, Pen," said Laura, reaching out her hand to her cousin, and he
put his arm round her, and for a moment she sobbed on his shoulder.

The gentle girl had had her secret, and told it. In the widow's last
journey from Fairoaks, when hastening with her mother to Arthur's sick
bed, Laura had made a different confession; and it was only when
Warrington told his own story, and described the hopeless condition of
his life, that she discovered how much her feelings had changed, and
with what tender sympathy, with what great respect, delight, and
admiration she had grown to regard her cousin's friend. Until she knew
that some plans she might have dreamed of were impossible, and that
Warrington reading in her heart, perhaps, had told his melancholy
story to warn her, she had not asked herself whether it was possible
that her affections could change; and had been shocked and scared by
the discovery of the truth. How should she have told it to Helen, and
confessed her shame? Poor Laura felt guilty before her friend, with
the secret which she dared not confide to her; felt as if she had been
ungrateful for Helen's love and regard; felt as if she had been
wickedly faithless to Pen in withdrawing that love from him which he
did not even care to accept; humbled even and repentant before
Warrington, lest she should have encouraged him by undue sympathy, or
shown the preference which she began to feel.

The catastrophe which broke up Laura's home, and the grief and anguish
which she felt for her mother's death, gave her little leisure for
thoughts more selfish; and by the time she rallied from that grief the
minor was also almost cured. It was but for a moment that she had
indulged a hope about Warrington. Her admiration and respect for him
remained as strong as ever. But the tender feeling with which she knew
she had regarded him, was schooled into such calmness, that it may be
said to have been dead and passed away. The pang which it left behind
was one of humility and remorse. "O how wicked and proud I was about
Arthur," she thought, "how self-confident and unforgiving! I never
forgave from my heart this poor girl, who was fond of him, or him for
encouraging her love; and I have been more guilty than she, poor,
little artless creature! I, professing to love one man, could listen
to another only too eagerly; and would not pardon the change of
feelings in Arthur, while I myself was changing and unfaithful." And
so humiliating herself, and acknowledging her weakness, the poor girl
sought for strength and refuge in the manner in which she had been
accustomed to look for them.

She had done no wrong: but there are some folks who suffer for a fault
ever so trifling as much as others whose stout consciences can walk
under crimes of almost any weight; and poor Laura chose to fancy that
she had acted in this delicate juncture of her life as a very great
criminal. She determined that she had done Pen a great injury by
withdrawing that love which, privately in her mother's hearing, she
had bestowed upon him; that she had been ungrateful to her dead
benefactress by ever allowing herself to think of another or of
violating her promise; and that, considering her own enormous crimes,
she ought to be very gentle in judging those of others, whose
temptations were much greater, very likely; and whose motives she
could not understand.

A year back Laura would have been indignant at the idea that Arthur
should marry Blanche: and her high spirit would have risen, as she
thought that from worldly motives he should stoop to one so unworthy.
Now when the news was brought to her of such a chance (the
intelligence was given to her by old Lady Rockminster, whose speeches
were as direct and rapid as a slap on the face), the humbled girl
winced a little at the blow, but bore it meekly, and with a desperate
acquiescence. "He has a right to marry, he knows a great deal more of
the world than I do," she argued with herself. "Blanche may not be so
light-minded as she seemed, and who am I to be her judge? I daresay it
is very good that Arthur should go into Parliament and distinguish
himself, and my duty is to do every thing that lies in my power to aid
him and Blanche, and to make his home happy. I daresay I shall live
with them. If I am godmother to one of their children, I will leave
her my three thousand pounds!" And forthwith she began to think what
she could give Blanche out of her small treasures, and how best to
conciliate her affection. She wrote her forthwith a kind letter, in
which, of course, no mention was made of the plans in contemplation,
but in which Laura recalled old times, and spoke her good-will, and in
reply to this she received an eager answer from Blanche: in which not
a word about marriage was said, to be sure, but Mr. Pendennis was
mentioned two or three times in the letter, and they were to be
henceforth, dearest Laura, and dearest Blanche, and loving sisters,
and so forth.

When Pen and Laura reached home, after Laura's confession (Pen's noble
acknowledgment of his own inferiority, and generous expression of love
for Warrington, causing the girl's heart to throb, and rendering
doubly keen those tears which she sobbed on his shoulder), a little
slim letter was awaiting Miss Bell in the hall, which she trembled
rather guiltily as she unsealed, and which Pen blushed as he
recognized; for he saw instantly that it was from Blanche.

Laura opened it hastily, and cast her eyes quickly over it, as Pen
kept his fixed on her, blushing.

"She dates from London," Laura said. "She has been with old Bonner,
Lady Clavering's maid. Bonner is going to marry Lightfoot the butler.
Where do you think Blanche has been?" she cried out eagerly.

"To Paris, to Scotland, to the Casino?"

"To Shepherd's Inn, to see Fanny; but Fanny wasn't there, and Blanche
is going to leave a present for her. Isn't it kind of her and
thoughtful?" And she handed the letter to Pen who read--

"'I saw Madame Mère who was scrubbing the room, and looked at me with
very _scrubby_ looks; but _la belle_ Fanny was not _au logis;_ and as
I heard that she was in Captain Strong's apartments, Bonner and I
mounted _au troisième_ to see this famous beauty. Another
disappointment--only the Chevalier Strong and a friend of his in the
room: so we came away, after all, without seeing the enchanting Fanny.

"'_Je t'envoie mille et mille baisers_. When will that horrid
canvassing be over? Sleeves are worn, &c. &c. &c.'"

After dinner the doctor was reading the _Times_, "A young gentleman I
attended when he was here some eight or nine years ago, has come into
a fine fortune," the doctor said. "I see here announced the death of
John Henry Foker, Esq., of Logwood Hall, at Pau, in the Pyrenees, on
the 15th ult."





CHAPTER XXIX.

IN WHICH THE MAJOR IS BIDDEN TO STAND AND DELIVER.


[Illustration]

Any gentleman who has frequented the Wheel of Fortune public-house,
where it may be remembered that Mr. James Morgan's Club was held, and
where Sir Francis Clavering had an interview with Major Pendennis, is
aware that there are three rooms for guests upon the ground floor,
besides the bar where the landlady sits. One is a parlor frequented by
the public at large; to another room gentlemen in livery resort; and
the third apartment, on the door of which "Private" is painted, is
that hired by the Club of "The Confidentials," of which Messrs. Morgan
and Lightfoot were members.

The noiseless Morgan had listened to the conversation between Strong
and Major Pendennis at the latter's own lodgings, and had carried away
from it matter for much private speculation; and a desire of knowledge
had led him to follow his master when the major came to the Wheel of
Fortune, and to take his place quietly in the confidential room, while
Pendennis and Clavering had their discourse in the parlor. There was a
particular corner in the confidential room from which you could hear
almost all that passed in the next apartment; and as the conversation
between the two gentlemen there was rather angry, and carried on in a
high key, Morgan had the benefit of overhearing almost the whole of
it: and what he heard, strengthened the conclusions which his mind had
previously formed.

"He knew Altamont at once, did he, when he saw him in Sidney?
Clavering ain't no more married to my lady than I am! Altamont's the
man: Altamont's a convick; young Harthur comes into Parlyment, and the
Gov'nor promises not to split. By Jove, what a sly old rogue it is,
that old Gov'nor! No wonder he's anxious to make the match between
Blanche and Harthur; why, she'll have a hundred thousand if she's a
penny, and bring her man a seat in Parlyment into the bargain." Nobody
saw, but a physiognomist would have liked to behold, the expression of
Mr. Morgan's countenance, when this astounding intelligence was made
clear to him. "But for my hage, and the confounded prejudices of
society," he said, surveying himself in the glass, "dammy, James
Morgan, you might marry her yourself," But if he could not marry Miss
Blanche and her fortune, Morgan thought he could mend his own by the
possession of this information, and that it might be productive of
benefit to him from very many sources. Of all the persons whom the
secret affected, the greater number would not like to have it known.
For instance, Sir Francis Clavering, whose fortune it involved, would
wish to keep it quiet; Colonel Altamont, whose neck it implicated,
would naturally be desirous to hush it; and that young hupstart beast,
Mr. Harthur, who was for gettin' into Parlyment on the strenth of it,
and was as proud as if he was a duke with half a million a year (such,
we grieve to say, was Morgan's opinion of his employer's nephew),
would pay any think sooner than let the world know that he was married
to a convick's daughter, and had got his seat in Parlyment by
trafficking with this secret. As for Lady C., Morgan thought, if she's
tired of Clavering, and wants to get rid of him, she'll pay: if she's
frightened about her son, and fond of the little beggar, she'll pay
all the same: and Miss Blanche will certainly come down handsome to
the man who will put her into her rights, which she was unjustly
defrauded of them, and no mistake. "Dammy," concluded the valet,
reflecting upon this wonderful hand which luck had given him to play,
"with such cards as these, James Morgan, you are a made man. It may be
a reg'lar enewity to me. Every one of 'em must susscribe. And with
what I've made already, I may cut business, give my old Gov'nor
warning, turn gentleman, and have a servant of my own, begad."
Entertaining himself with calculations such as these, that were not a
little likely to perturb a man's spirit, Mr. Morgan showed a very
great degree of self-command by appearing and being calm, and by not
allowing his future prospects in any way to interfere with his
present duties.

One of the persons whom the story chiefly concerned, Colonel Altamont,
was absent from London, when Morgan was thus made acquainted with his
history. The valet knew of Sir Francis Clavering's Shepherd's Inn
haunt, and walked thither an hour or two after the baronet and
Pendennis had had their conversation together. But that bird was
flown; Colonel Altamont had received his Derby winnings and was gone
to the Continent. The fact of his absence was exceedingly vexatious to
Mr. Morgan. "He'll drop all that money at the gambling-shops on the
Rhind," thought Morgan, "and I might have had a good bit of it. It's
confounded annoying to think he's gone and couldn't have waited a few
days longer." Hope, triumphant or deferred, ambition or
disappointment, victory or patient ambush, Morgan bore all alike, with
similar equable countenance. Until the proper day came, the major's
boots were varnished and his hair was curled, his early cup of tea was
brought to his bedside, his oaths, rebukes, and senile satire borne,
with silent, obsequious fidelity. Who would think, to see him waiting
upon his master, packing and shouldering his trunks, and occasionally
assisting at table, at the country-houses where he might be staying,
that Morgan was richer than his employer, and knew his secrets and
other people's? In the profession Mr. Morgan was greatly respected and
admired, and his reputation for wealth and wisdom got him much renown
at most supper-tables: the younger gentlemen voted him stoopid, a
feller of no idears, and a fogey, in a word: but not one of them would
not say amen to the heartfelt prayer which some of the most
serious-minded among the gentlemen uttered, "When I die may I cut up
as well as Morgan Pendennis!"

As became a man of fashion, Major Pendennis spent the autumn passing
from house to house of such country friends as were at home to receive
him, and if the duke happened to be abroad, or the marquis in
Scotland, condescending to sojourn with Sir John or the plain squire.
To say the truth, the old gentleman's reputation was somewhat on the
wane: many of the men of his time had died out, and the occupants of
their halls and the present wearers of their titles knew not Major
Pendennis: and little cared for his traditions "of the wild Prince and
Poyns," and of the heroes of fashion passed away. It must have struck
the good man with melancholy as he walked by many a London door, to
think how seldom it was now opened for him, and how often he used to
knock at it--to what banquets and welcome he used to pass through
it--a score of years back. He began to own that he was no longer of
the present age, and dimly to apprehend that the young men laughed at
him. Such melancholy musings must come across many a Pall Mall
philosopher. The men, thinks he, are not such as they used to be in
his time: the old grand manner and courtly grace of life are gone:
what is Castlewood House and the present Castlewood, compared to the
magnificence of the old mansion and owner? The late lord came to
London with four post-chaises and sixteen horses: all the North Road
hurried out to look at his cavalcade: the people in London streets
even stopped as his procession passed them. The present lord travels
with five bagmen in a railway carriage, and sneaks away from the
station, smoking a cigar in a brougham. The late lord in autumn filled
Castlewood with company, who drank claret till midnight: the present
man buries himself in a hut on a Scotch mountain, and passes November
in two or three closets in an entresol at Paris, where his amusements
are a dinner at a café and a box at a little theatre. What a contrast
there is between _his_ Lady Lorraine, the Regent's Lady Lorraine, and
her little ladyship of the present era! He figures to himself the
first, beautiful, gorgeous, magnificent in diamonds and velvets,
daring in rouge, the wits of the world (the old wits, the old polished
gentlemen--not the _canaille_ of to-day with their language of the
cab-stand, and their coats smelling of smoke) bowing at her feet; and
then thinks of to-day's Lady Lorraine--a little woman in a black silk
gown, like a governess, who talks astronomy, and laboring classes, and
emigration, and the deuce knows what, and lurks to church at eight
o'clock in the morning. Abbots-Lorraine, that used to be the noblest
house in the county, is turned into a monastery--a regular La Trappe.
They don't drink two glasses of wine after dinner, and every other man
at table is a country curate, with a white neckcloth, whose talk is
about Polly Higson's progress at school, or widow Watkins's lumbago.
"And the other young men, those lounging guardsmen and great lazy
dandies--sprawling over sofas and billiard-tables, and stealing off
to smoke pipes in each other's bedrooms, caring for nothing,
reverencing nothing, not even an old gentleman who has known their
fathers and their betters, not even a pretty woman--what a difference
there is between these men who poison the very turnips and
stubble-fields with their tobacco, and the gentlemen of our time!"
thinks the major; "the breed is gone--there's no use for 'em; they're
replaced by a parcel of damned cotton-spinners and utilitarians, and
young sprigs of parsons with their hair combed down their backs. I'm
getting old: they're getting past me: they laugh at us old boys,"
thought old Pendennis. And he was not far wrong; the times and manners
which he admired were pretty nearly gone--the gay young men 'larked'
him irreverently, while the serious youth had a grave pity and wonder
at him, which would have been even more painful to bear, had the old
gentleman been aware of its extent. But he was rather simple: his
examination of moral questions had never been very deep; it had never
struck him perhaps, until very lately, that he was otherwise than a
most respectable and rather fortunate man. Is there no old age but his
without reverence? Did youthful folly never jeer at other bald pates?
For the past two or three years, he had begun to perceive that his day
was well nigh over, and that the men of the new time had begun
to reign.

After a rather unsuccessful autumn season, then, during which he was
faithfully followed by Mr. Morgan, his nephew Arthur being engaged, as
we have seen, at Clavering, it happened that Major Pendennis came back
for awhile to London, at the dismal end of October, when the fogs and
the lawyers come to town. Who has not looked with interest at those
loaded cabs, piled boxes, and crowded children, rattling through the
streets on the dun October evenings; stopping at the dark houses,
where they discharge nurse and infant, girls, matron, and father,
whose holidays are over? Yesterday it was France and sunshine, or
Broadstairs and liberty; to-day comes work and a yellow fog; and, ye
gods! what a heap of bills there lies in master's study. And the clerk
has brought the lawyer's papers from Chambers; and in half an hour the
literary man knows that the printer's boy will be in the passage; and
Mr. Smith with that little account (that particular little account)
has called presentient of your arrival, and has left word that he will
call to-morrow morning at ten. Who among us has not said good-by to
his holiday; returned to dun London, and his fate; surveyed his labors
and liabilities laid out before him, and been aware of that inevitable
little account to settle? Smith and his little account, in the
morning, symbolize duty, difficulty, struggle, which you will meet,
let us hope, friend, with a manly and honest heart. And you think of
him, as the children are slumbering once more in their own beds, and
the watchful housewife tenderly pretends to sleep.

Old Pendennis had no special labors or bills to encounter on the
morrow, as he had no affection at home to soothe him. He had always
money in his desk sufficient for his wants; and being by nature and
habit tolerably indifferent to the wants of other people, these latter
were not likely to disturb him. But a gentleman may be out of temper
though he does not owe a shilling: and though he may be ever so
selfish, he must occasionally feel dispirited and lonely. He had had
two or three twinges of gout in the country-house where he had been
staying: the birds were wild and shy, and the walking over the plowed
fields had fatigued him deucedly: the young men had laughed at him,
and he had been peevish at table once or twice: he had not been able
to get his whist of an evening: and, in fine, was glad to come away.
In all his dealings with Morgan, his valet, he had been exceedingly
sulky and discontented. He had sworn at him and abused him for many
days past. He had scalded his mouth with bad soup at Swindon. He had
left his umbrella in the rail-road carriage: at which piece of
forgetfulness, he was in such a rage, that he cursed Morgan more
freely than ever. Both the chimneys smoked furiously in his lodgings;
and when he caused the windows to be flung open, he swore so
acrimoniously, that Morgan was inclined to fling him out of window,
too, through that opened casement. The valet swore after his master,
as Pendennis went down the street on his way to the Club.

Bays's was not at all pleasant. The house had been new painted, and
smelt of varnish and turpentine, and a large streak of white paint
inflicted itself on the back of the old boy's fur-collared surtout.
The dinner was not good: and the three most odious men in all London--
old Hawkshaw, whose cough and accompaniments are fit to make any man
uncomfortable; old Colonel Gripley, who seizes on all the newspapers;
and that irreclaimable old bore Jawkins, who would come and dine at
the next table to Pendennis, and describe to him every inn-bill which
he had paid in his foreign tour: each and all of these disagreeable
personages and incidents had contributed to make Major Pendennis
miserable; and the Club waiter trod on his toe as he brought him his
coffee. Never alone appear the Immortals. The Furies always hunt in
company: they pursued Pendennis from home to the Club, and from the
Club home.

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