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The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2

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




"Do I cause you many thoughts and many tears, Laura?" asked Arthur.
The fullness of innocent love beamed from her in reply. A smile
heavenly pure, a glance of unutterable tenderness, sympathy, pity,
shone in her face--all which indications of love and purity Arthur
beheld and worshiped in her, as you would watch them in a child, as
one fancies one might regard them in an angel.

"I--I don't know what I have done," he said, simply, "to have merited
such regard from two such women. It is like undeserved praise,
Laura--or too much good fortune, which frightens one--or a great post,
when a man feels that he is not fit for it. Ah, sister, how weak and
wicked we are; how spotless, and full of love and truth, Heaven made
you! I think for some of you there has been no fall," he said, looking
at the charming girl with an almost paternal glance of admiration.
"You can't help having sweet thoughts, and doing good actions. Dear
creature! they are the flowers which you bear."

"And what else, sir?" asked Laura. "I see a sneer coming over your
face. What is it? Why does it come to drive all the good
thoughts away?"

"A sneer, is there? I was thinking, my dear, that nature in making you
so good and loving did very well: but--"

"But what? What is that wicked but? and why are you always calling it
up?"

"But will come in spite of us. But is reflection. But is the skeptic's
familiar, with whom he has made a compact; and if he forgets it, and
indulges in happy day-dreams, or building of air castles, or listens
to sweet music, let us say, or to the bells ringing to church, But
taps at the door, and says, 'Master, I am here. You are my master; but
I am yours. Go where you will you can't travel without me. I will
whisper to you when you are on your knees at church. I will be at your
marriage pillow. I will sit down at your table with your children. I
will be behind your death-bed curtain.' That is what But is,"
Pen said.

"Pen, you frighten me," cried Laura.

"Do you know what But came and said to me just now, when I was looking
at you? But said, 'If that girl had reason as well as love, she would
love you no more. If she knew you as you are--the sullied, selfish
being which _you_ know--she must part from you, and could give you no
love and no sympathy.' Didn't I say," he added fondly, "that some of
you seem exempt from the fall? Love you know; but the knowledge of
evil is kept from you."

"What is this you young folks are talking about?" asked Lady
Rockminster, who at this moment made her appearance in the room,
having performed in the mystic retirement of her own apartments, and
under the hands of her attendant, those elaborate toilet-rites without
which the worthy old lady never presented herself to public view "Mr.
Pendennis, you are always coming here."

"It is very pleasant to be here," Arthur said; "and we were talking
when you came in, about my friend Foker, whom I met just now; and who,
as your ladyship knows, has succeeded to his father's kingdom."

"He has a very fine property, he has fifteen thousand a year. He is my
cousin. He is a very worthy young man. He must come and see me," said
Lady Rockminster, with a look at Laura.

"He has been engaged for many years past to his cousin, Lady--"

"Lady Ann is a foolish little chit," Lady Rockminster said, with much
dignity; "and I have no patience with her. She has outraged every
feeling of society. She has broken her father's heart, and thrown away
fifteen thousand a year."

"Thrown away? What has happened?" asked Pen.

"It will be the talk of the town in a day or two; and there is no need
why I should keep the secret any longer," said Lady Rockminster, who
had written and received a dozen letters on the subject. "I had a
letter yesterday from my daughter, who was staying at Drummington
until all the world was obliged to go away on account of the frightful
catastrophe which happened there. When Mr. Foker came home from Nice,
and after the funeral, Lady Ann went down on her knees to her father,
said that she never could marry her cousin, that she had contracted
another attachment, and that she must die rather than fulfill her
contract. Poor Lord Rosherville, who is dreadfully embarrassed, showed
his daughter what the state of his affairs was, and that it was
necessary that the arrangements should take place; and in fine, we all
supposed that she had listened to reason, and intended to comply with
the desires of her family. But what has happened--last Thursday she
went out after breakfast with her maid, and was married in the very
church in Drummington Park to Mr. Hobson, her father's own chaplain
and her brother's tutor; a red-haired widower with two children. Poor
dear Rosherville is in a dreadful way: he wishes Henry Foker should
marry Alice or Barbara; but Alice is marked with the small-pox, and
Barbara is ten years older than he is. And, of course, now the young
man is his own master, he will think of choosing for himself. The blow
on Lady Agnes is very cruel. She is inconsolable. She has the house in
Grosvenor-street for her life, and her settlement, which was very
handsome. Have you not met her? Yes, she dined one day at Lady
Clavering's--the first day I saw you, and a very disagreeable young
man I thought you were. But I have formed you. We have formed him,
haven't we, Laura? Where is Bluebeard? let him come. That horrid
Grindley, the dentist, will keep me in town another week." To the
latter part of her ladyship's speech Arthur gave no ear. He was
thinking for whom could Foker be purchasing those trinkets which he
was carrying away from the jeweler's. Why did Harry seem anxious to
avoid him? Could he be still faithful to the attachment which had
agitated him so much, and sent him abroad eighteen months back? Psha!
The bracelets and presents were for some of Harry's old friends of the
Opera or the French theatre. Rumors from Naples and Paris, rumors,
such as are borne to club smoking-rooms, had announced that the young
man had found distractions; or, precluded from his virtuous
attachment, the poor fellow had flung himself back upon his old
companions and amusements--not the only man or woman whom society
forces into evil, or debars from good; not the only victim of the
world's selfish and wicked laws.

As a good thing when it is to be done can not be done too quickly,
Laura was anxious that Pen's marriage intentions should be put into
execution as speedily as possible, and pressed on his arrangements
with rather a feverish anxiety. Why could she not wait? Pen could
afford to do so with perfect equanimity, but Laura would hear of no
delay. She wrote to Pen: she implored Pen: she used every means to
urge expedition. It seemed as if she could have no rest until Arthur's
happiness was complete.

She offered herself to dearest Blanche to come and stay at Tunbridge
with her, when Lady Rockminster should go on her intended visit to the
reigning house of Rockminster; and although the old dowager scolded,
and ordered, and commanded, Laura was deaf and disobedient: she must
go to Tunbridge, she would go to Tunbridge: she who ordinarily had no
will of her own, and complied, smilingly, with any body's whim and
caprices, showed the most selfish and obstinate determination in this
instance. The dowager lady must nurse herself in her rheumatism, she
must read herself to sleep; if she would not hear her maid, whose
voice croaked, and who made sad work of the sentimental passages in
the novels--Laura must go, and be with her new sister. In another
week, she proposed, with many loves and regards to dear Lady
Clavering, to pass some time with dearest Blanche.

Dearest Blanche wrote instantly in reply to dearest Laura's No. 1, to
say with what extreme delight she should welcome her sister: how
charming it would be to practice their old duets together, to wander
o'er the grassy sward, and amidst the yellowing woods of Penshurst and
Southborough! Blanche counted the hours till she should embrace her
dearest friend.

Laura, No. 2, expressed her delight at dearest Blanche's affectionate
reply. She hoped that their friendship would never diminish; that the
confidence between them would grow in after years; that they should
have no secrets from each other; that the aim of the life of each
would be to make one person happy.

Blanche, No. 2 followed in two days. "How provoking! Their house was
very small, the two spare bedrooms were occupied by that horrid Mrs.
Planter and her daughter, who had thought proper to fall ill (she
always fell ill in country houses), and she could not, or would not be
moved for some days."

Laura, No. 3. "It was indeed very provoking. L. had hoped to hear one
of dearest B.'s dear songs on Friday; but she was the more consoled to
wait, because Lady R. was not very well, and liked to be nursed by
her. Poor Major Pendennis was very unwell, too, in the same hotel--too
unwell even to see Arthur, who was constant in his calls on his uncle.
Arthur's heart was full of tenderness and affection. She had known
Arthur all her life. She would answer--yes, even in italics she would
answer--for his kindness, his goodness, and his gentleness."

Blanche, No. 3. "What is this most surprising, most extraordinary
letter from A.P.? What does dearest Laura know about it? What has
happened? What, what mystery is enveloped under his frightful reserve?"

Blanche, No. 3, requires an explanation; and it can not be better
given than in the surprising and mysterious letter of Arthur
Pendennis.





CHAPTER XXXIV.

MR. AND MRS. SAM HUXTER.


"Dear Blanche," Arthur wrote, "you are always reading and dreaming
pretty dramas, and exciting romances in real life, are you now
prepared to enact a part of one? And not the pleasantest part, dear
Blanche--that in which the heroine takes possession of her father's
palace and wealth, and, introducing her husband to the loyal retainers
and faithful vassals, greets her happy bridegroom with 'All of this is
mine and thine;' but the other character--that of the luckless lady,
who suddenly discovers that she is not the prince's wife, but Claude
Melnotte's the beggar's; that of Alnaschar's wife, who comes in just
as her husband has kicked over the tray of porcelain which was to be
the making of his fortune. But stay; Alnaschar, who kicked down the
china, was not a married man; he had cast his eye on the vizier's
daughter, and his hopes of her went to the ground with the shattered
bowls and tea-cups.

"Will you be the vizier's daughter, and refuse and laugh to scorn
Alnaschar, or will you be the Lady of Lyons, and love the penniless
Claude Melnotte? I will act that part, if you like. I will love you my
best in return. I will do my all to make your humble life happy: for
humble it will be: at least the odds are against any other conclusion;
we shall live and die in a poor, prosy, humdrum way. There will be no
stars and epaulets for the hero of our story. I shall write one or two
more stories, which will presently be forgotten. I shall be called
to the bar, and try to get on in my profession: perhaps some day, if I
am very lucky, and work very hard (which is absurd), I may get a
colonial appointment, and you may be an Indian judge's lady. Meanwhile
I shall buy back the Pall Mall Gazette: the publishers are tired of it
since the death of poor Shandon, and will sell it for a small sum.
Warrington will be my right hand, and write it up to a respectable
sale. I will introduce you to Mr. Finucane, the sub-editor, and I know
who, in the end, will be Mrs. Finucane--a very nice, gentle creature,
who has lived sweetly through a sad life--and we will jog on, I say,
and look out for better times, and earn our living decently. You shall
have the opera-boxes, and superintend the fashionable intelligence,
and break your little heart in the poet's corner. Shall we live over
the offices?--there are four very good rooms, a kitchen, and a garret
for Laura, in Catherine-street, in the Strand; or would you like a
house in the Waterloo-road?--it would be very pleasant, only there is
that halfpenny toll at the bridge. The boys may go to King's College,
mayn't they? Does all this read to you like a joke?

"Ah, dear Blanche, it is no joke, and I am sober and telling the
truth. Our fine day-dreams are gone. Our carriage has whirled out of
sight like Cinderella's: our house in Belgravia has been whisked away
into the air by a malevolent Genius, and I am no more a member of
Parliament than I am a Bishop on his bench in the House of Lords, or a
Duke with a garter at his knee. You know pretty well what my property
is, and your own little fortune: we may have enough with those two to
live in decent comfort; to take a cab sometimes when we go out to see
our friends, and not to deny ourselves an omnibus when we are tired.
But that is all: is that enough for you, my little dainty lady? I
doubt sometimes whether you can bear the life which I offer you--at
least, it is fair that you should know what it will be. If you say,
'Yes, Arthur, I will follow your fate whatever it may be, and be a
loyal and loving wife to aid and cheer you'--come to me, dear Blanche,
and may God help me so that I may do my duty to you. If not, and you
look to a higher station, I must not bar Blanche's fortune--I will
stand in the crowd, and see your ladyship go to Court where you are
presented, and you shall give me a smile from your chariot window. I
saw Lady Mirable going to the drawing-room last season: the happy
husband at her side glittered with stars and cordons. All the flowers
in the garden bloomed in the coachman's bosom. Will you have these and
the chariot, or walk on foot and mend your husband's stockings?

"I can not tell you now--afterward I might, should the day come when
we may have no secrets from one another--what has happened within the
last few hours which has changed all my prospects in life; but so it
is, that I have learned something which forces me to give up the plans
which I had formed, and many vain and ambitious hopes in which I had
been indulging. I have written and dispatched a letter to Sir Francis
Clavering, saying that I can not accept his seat in Parliament until
after my marriage; in like manner I can not and will not accept any
larger fortune with you than that which has always belonged to you
since your grandfather's death, and the birth of your half-brother.
Your good mother is not in the least aware--I hope she never may
be--of the reasons which force me to this very strange decision. They
arise from a painful circumstance, which is attributable to none of
our faults; but, having once befallen, they are as fatal and
irreparable as that shock which overset honest Alnaschar's porcelain,
and shattered all his hopes beyond the power of mending. I write gayly
enough, for there is no use in bewailing such a hopeless mischance. We
have not drawn the great prize in the lottery, dear Blanche: But I
shall be contented enough without it, if you can be so; and I repeat,
with all my heart, that I will do my best to make you happy.

"And now, what news shall I give you? My uncle is very unwell, and
takes my refusal of the seat in Parliament in sad dudgeon: the scheme
was his, poor old gentleman, and he naturally bemoans its failure. But
Warrington, Laura, and I had a council of war: they know this awful
secret, and back me in my decision. You must love George as you love
what is generous and upright and noble; and as for Laura--she must be
our sister, Blanche, our saint, our good angel. With two such friends
at home, what need we care for the world with-out, or who is member
for Clavering, or who is asked or not asked to the great balls of
the season?"

To this frank communication came back the letter from Blanche to
Laura, and one to Pen himself, which perhaps his own letter justified.
"You are spoiled by the world," Blanche wrote; "you do not love your
poor Blanche as she would be loved, or you would not offer thus
lightly to take her or leave her. No, Arthur, you love me not--a man
of the world, you have given me your plighted troth, and are ready to
redeem it; but that entire affection, that love whole and abiding,
where--where is that vision of my youth? I am but a pastime of your
life, and I would be its all;--but a fleeting thought, and I would be
your whole soul. I would have our two hearts one; but ah, my Arthur,
how lonely yours is! how little you give me of it! You speak of our
parting, with a smile on your lip; of our meeting, and you care not to
hasten it! Is life but a disillusion, then, and are the flowers of our
garden faded away? I have wept--I have prayed--I have passed sleepless
hours--I have shed bitter, bitter tears over your letter! To you I
bring the gushing poesy of my being--the yearnings of the soul that
longs to be loved--that pines for love, love, love, beyond all!--that
flings itself at your feet, and cries, Love me, Arthur! Your heart
beats no quicker at the kneeling appeal of my love!--your proud eye is
dimmed by no tear of sympathy!--you accept my soul's treasure as
though 'twere dross! not the pearls from the unfathomable deeps of
affection! not the diamonds from the caverns of the heart. You treat
me like a slave, and bid me bow to my master! Is this the guerdon of a
free maiden--is this the price of a life's passion? Ah me! when was it
otherwise? when did love meet with aught but disappointment? Could I
hope (fond fool!) to be the exception to the lot of my race; and lay
my fevered brow on a heart that comprehended my own? Foolish girl
that I was! One by one, all the flowers of my young life have faded
away; and this, the last, the sweetest, the dearest, the fondly, the
madly loved, the wildly cherished--where is it? But no more of this.
Heed not my bleeding heart.--Bless you, bless you always, Arthur!

"I will write more when I am more collected. My racking brain renders
thought almost impossible. I long to see Laura! She will come to us
directly we return from the country, will she not? And you, cold
one!" B.

The words of this letter were perfectly clear, and written in
Blanche's neatest hand, upon her scented paper; and yet the meaning of
the composition not a little puzzled Pen. Did Blanche mean to accept
or to refuse his polite offer? Her phrases either meant that Pen did
not love her, and she declined him, or that she took him, and
sacrificed herself to him, cold as he was. He laughed sardonically
over the letter, and over the transaction which occasioned it. He
laughed to think how Fortune had jilted him, and how he deserved his
slippery fortune. He turned over and over the musky, gilt-edged
riddle. It amused his humor: he enjoyed it as if it had been a
funny story.

He was thus seated, twiddling the queer manuscript in his hand, joking
grimly to himself, when his servant came in with a card from a
gentleman, who wished to speak to him very particularly. And if Pen
had gone out into the passage, he would have seen sucking his stick,
rolling his eyes, and showing great marks of anxiety, his old
acquaintance, Mr. Samuel Huxter.

"Mr. Huxter on particular business! Pray, beg Mr. Huxter to come in,"
said Pen, amused rather; and not the less so when poor Sam appeared
before him.

"Pray take a chair, Mr. Huxter," said Pen, in his most superb manner.
"In what way can I be of service to you?"

"I had rather not speak before the flunk--before the man, Mr.
Pendennis;" on which Mr. Arthur's attendant quitted the room.

"I'm in a fix," said Mr. Huxter, gloomily.

"Indeed."

"_She_ sent me to you," continued the young surgeon.

"What, Fanny? Is she well? I was coming to see her, but I have had a
great deal of business since my return to London."

"I heard of you through my governor and Jack Hobnell," broke in
Huxter. "I wish you joy, Mr. Pendennis, both of the borough and the
lady, sir. Fanny wishes you joy, too," he added, with something of
a blush.

"There's many a slip between the cup and the lip! Who knows what may
happen, Mr. Huxter, or who will sit in Parliament for Clavering
next session?"

"You can do any thing with my governor," continued Mr. Huxter. "You
got him Clavering Park. The old boy was very much pleased, sir, at
your calling him in. Hobnell wrote me so. Do you think you could speak
to the governor for me, Mr. Pendennis?"

"And tell him what?" "I've gone and done it, sir," said Huxter, with
a particular look.

"You--you don't mean to say you have--you have done any wrong to that
dear little creature, sir," said Pen, starting up in a great fury.

"I hope not," said Huxter, with a hang-dog look: "but I've married
her. And I know there will be an awful shindy at home. It was agreed
that I should be taken into partnership when I had passed the College,
and it was to have been Huxter and Son. But I _would_ have it,
confound it. It's all over now, and the old boy's wrote to me that
he's coming up to town for drugs: he will be here to-morrow, and then
it must all come out."

"And when did this event happen?" asked Pen, not over well pleased,
most likely, that a person who had once attracted some portion of his
royal good graces should have transferred her allegiance, and consoled
herself for his loss.

"Last Thursday was five weeks--it was two days after Miss Amory came
to Shepherd's Inn," Huxter answered.

Pen remembered that Blanche had written and mentioned her visit. "I
was called in," Huxter said. "I was in the inn looking after old Cos's
leg; and about something else too, very likely: and I met Strong, who
told me there was a woman taken ill in Chambers, and went up to give
her my professional services. It was the old lady who attends Miss
Amory--her housekeeper, or some such thing. She was taken with strong
hysterics: I found her kicking and screaming like a good one--in
Strong's chamber, along with him and Colonel Altamont, and Miss Amory
crying and as pale as a sheet; and Altamont fuming about--a regular
kick up. They were two hours in the chambers; and the old woman went
whooping off in a cab. She was much worse than the young one. I called
in Grosvenor-place next day to see if I could be of any service, but
they were gone without so much as thanking me: and the day after I had
business of my own to attend to--a bad business too," said Mr. Huxter,
gloomily. "But it's done, and can't be undone; and we must make the
best of it."

She has known the story for a month, thought Pen, with a sharp pang of
grief, and a gloomy sympathy--this accounts for her letter of to-day.
She will not implicate her father, or divulge his secret; she wishes
to let me off from the marriage--and finds a pretext--the
generous girl!

"Do you know who Altamont is, sir?" asked Huxter, after the pause
during which Pen had been thinking of his own affairs. "Fanny and I
have talked him over, and we can't help fancying that it's Mrs.
Lightfoot's first husband come to life again, and she who has just
married a second. Perhaps Lightfoot won't be very sorry for it,"
sighed Huxter, looking savagely at Arthur, for the demon of jealousy
was still in possession of his soul; and now, and more than ever since
his marriage, the poor fellow fancied that Fanny's heart belonged to
his rival.

"Let us talk about your affairs," said Pen. "Show me how I can be of
any service to you, Huxter. Let me congratulate you on your
marriage, I am thankful that Fanny, who is so good, so fascinating, so
kind a creature, has found an honest man, and a gentleman who will
make her happy. Show me what I can do to help you."

"She thinks you can, sir," said Huxter, accepting Pen's proffered
hand, "and I'm very much obliged to you, I'm sure; and that you might
talk over my father, and break the business to him, and my mother, who
always has her back up about being a clergyman's daughter. Fanny ain't
of a good family, I know, and not up to us in breeding and that--but
she's a Huxter now."

[Illustration]

"The wife takes the husband's rank, of course," said Pen.

"And with a little practice in society," continued Huxter, imbibing
his stick, "she'll be as good as any girl in Clavering. You should
hear her sing and play on the piano. Did you ever? Old Bows taught
her. And she'll do on the stage, if the governor was to throw me over;
but I'd rather not have her there. She can't help being a coquette,
Mr. Pendennis, she can't help it. Dammy, sir! I'll be bound to say,
that two or three of the Bartholomew chaps, that I've brought into my
place, are sitting with her now: even Jack Linton, that I took down as
my best man, is as bad as the rest, and she will go on singing and
making eyes at him. It's what Bows says, if there were twenty men in a
room, and one not taking notice of her, she wouldn't be satisfied
until the twentieth was at her elbow."

"You should have her mother with her," said Pen, laughing.

"She must keep the lodge. She can't see so much of her family as she
used. I can't, you know, sir, go on with that lot. Consider my rank in
life," said Huxter, putting a very dirty hand up to his chin.

"_Au fait_" said Mr. Pen, who was infinitely amused, and concerning
whom _mutato nomine_ (and of course concerning nobody else in the
world) the fable might have been narrated.

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