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The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2

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




"You judge wisely about the world, and about your position, my dear
Miss Blanche," the major said. "The prince don't marry nowadays, as
you say: unless the princess has a doosid deal of money in the funds,
or is a lady of his own rank. The young folks of the great families
marry into the great families: if they haven't fortune they have each
other's shoulders, to push on in the world, which is pretty nearly as
good. A girl with your fortune can scarcely hope for a great match:
but a girl with your genius and your admirable tact and fine manners,
with a clever husband by her side, may make _any_ place for herself in
the world. We are grown doosid republican. Talent ranks with birth and
wealth now, begad: and a clever man with a clever wife, may take any
place they please."

Miss Amory did not of course in the least understand what Major
Pendennis meant. Perhaps she thought over circumstances in her mind,
and asked herself, could he be a negotiator for a former suitor of
hers, and could he mean Pen? No, it was impossible; he had been civil,
but nothing more. So she said, laughing, "Who is the clever man, and
when will you bring him to me, Major Pendennis? I am dying to see
him." At this moment a servant threw open the door, and announced
Mr. Henry Foker: at which name, and at the appearance of our friend
both the lady and the gentleman burst out laughing.

"That is not the man," Major Pendennis said. "He is engaged to his
cousin, Lord Gravesend's daughter. Good-by, my dear Miss Amory."

Was Pen growing worldly, and should a man not get the experience of
the world and lay it to his account? "He felt, for his part," as he
said, "that he was growing very old very soon. How this town forms and
changes us," he said once to Warrington. Each had come in from his
night's amusement; and Pen was smoking his pipe, and recounting, as
his habit was, to his friend the observations and adventures of the
evening just past. "How I am changed," he said, "from the simpleton
boy at Fairoaks, who was fit to break his heart about his first love?
Lady Mirabel had a reception to-night, and was as grave and collected
as if she had been born a duchess, and had never seen a trap-door in
her life. She gave me the honor of a conversation, and patronized me
about Walter Lorraine, quite kindly."

"What condescension," broke in Warrington.

"Wasn't it?" Pen said, simply; at which the other burst out laughing
according to his wont. "Is it possible," he said, "that any body
should think of patronizing the eminent author of Walter Lorraine?"

"You laugh at both of us," Pen said, blushing a little: "I was coming
to that myself. She told me that she had not read the book (as indeed
I believe she never read a book in her life), but that Lady
Rockminster had, and that the Duchess of Connaught pronounced it to be
very clever. In that case, I said I should die happy, for that to
please those two ladies was in fact the great aim of my existence, and
having their approbation, of course I need look for no other. Lady
Mirabel looked at me solemnly out of her fine eyes, and said, 'O
indeed,' as if she understood me, and then she asked me whether I went
to the duchess's Thursdays; and when I said no, hoped she should see
me there, and that I must try and get there, every body went there
--every body who was in society: and then we talked of the new
embassador from Timbuctoo, and how he was better than the old one; and
how Lady Mary Billington was going to marry a clergyman quite below
her in rank; and how Lord and Lady Ringdove had fallen out three
months after their marriage about Tom Pouter of the Blues, Lady
Ringdove's cousin, and so forth. From the gravity of that woman you
would have fancied she had been born in a palace, and lived all the
seasons of her life in Belgrave-square."

"And you, I suppose you took your part in the conversation pretty
well, as the descendant of the earl your father, and the heir of
Fairoaks Castle?" Warrington said. "Yes, I remember reading of the
festivities which occurred when you came of age. The countess gave a
brilliant tea soirée to the neighboring nobility; and the tenantry
were regaled in the kitchen with a leg of mutton and a quart of ale.
The remains of the banquet were distributed among the poor of the
village, and the entrance to the park was illuminated until old John
put the candle out on retiring to rest at his usual hour."

[Illustration]

"My mother is not a countess," said Pen, "though she has very good
blood in her veins, too; but commoner as she is, I have never met a
peeress who was more than her peer, Mr. George; and if you will come
to Fairoaks Castle you shall judge for yourself of her and of my
cousin too. They are not so witty as the London women, but they
certainly are as well bred. The thoughts of women in the country are
turned to other objects than those which occupy your London ladies. In
the country a woman has her household and her poor, her long calm days
and long calm evenings."

"Devilish long," Warrington said, "and a great deal too calm; I've
tried 'em." "The monotony of that existence must be to a certain
degree melancholy--like the tune of a long ballad; and its harmony
grave and gentle, sad and tender: it would be unendurable else. The
loneliness of women in the country makes them of necessity soft and
sentimental. Leading a life of calm duty, constant routine, mystic
reverie--a sort of nuns at large--too much gayety or laughter would
jar upon their almost sacred quiet, and would be as out of place there
as in a church."

"Where you go to sleep over the sermon," Warrington said.

"You are a professed misogynist, and hate the sex because, I suspect,
you know very little about them," Mr. Pen continued, with an air of
considerable self-complacency. "If you dislike the women in the
country for being too slow, surely the London women ought to be fast
enough for you. The pace of London life is enormous: how do people
last at it, I wonder--male and female? Take a woman of the world:
follow her course through the season; one asks how she can survive it?
or if she tumbles into a sleep at the end of August, and lies torpid
until the spring? She goes into the world every night, and sits
watching her marriageable daughters dancing till long after dawn. She
has a nursery of little ones, very likely, at home, to whom she
administers example and affection; having an eye likewise to
bread-and-milk, catechism, music and French, and roast leg of mutton
at one o'clock; she has to call upon ladies of her own station, either
domestically or in her public character, in which she sits upon
Charity Committees, or Ball Committees, or Emigration Committees, or
Queen's College Committees, and discharges I don't know what more
duties of British stateswomanship. She very likely keeps a poor
visiting list; has combinations with the clergyman about soup or
flannel, or proper religious teaching for the parish; and (if she
lives in certain districts) probably attends early church. She has the
newspapers to read, and, at least, must know what her husband's party
is about, so as to be able to talk to her neighbor at dinner; and it
is a fact that she reads every new book that comes out; for she can
talk, and very smartly and well, about them all, and you see them all
upon her drawing-room table. She has the cares of her household
besides: to make both ends meet; to make the girl's milliner's bills
appear not too dreadful to the father and paymaster of the family; to
snip off, in secret, a little extra article of expenditure here and
there, and convey it, in the shape of a bank-note, to the boys at
college or at sea; to check the encroachments of tradesmen, and
housekeepers' financial fallacies; to keep upper and lower servants
from jangling with one another, and the household in order. Add to
this, that she has a secret taste for some art or science, models in
clay, makes experiments in chemistry, or plays in private on the
violoncello,--and I say, without exaggeration, many London ladies are
doing this--and you have a character before you such as our ancestors
never heard of, and such as belongs entirely to our era and period of
civilization. Ye gods! how rapidly we live and grow! In nine months,
Mr. Paxton grows you a pine apple as large as a portmanteau, whereas a
little one, no bigger than a Dutch cheese, took three years to attain
his majority in old times; and as the race of pine-apples so is the
race of man. Hoiaper--what's the Greek for a pine-apple, Warrington?"

"Stop, for mercy's sake, stop with the English and before you come to
the Greek," Warrington cried out, laughing. "I never heard you make
such a long speech, or was aware that you had penetrated so deeply
into the female mysteries. Who taught you all this, and into whose
boudoirs and nurseries have you been peeping, while I was smoking my
pipe, and reading my book, lying on my straw bed?"

"You are on the bank, old boy, content to watch the waves tossing in
the winds, and the struggles of others at sea," Pen said. "I am in the
stream now, and, by Jove, I like it. How rapidly we go down it, hey?
--strong and feeble, old and young--the metal pitchers and the earthen
pitchers--the pretty little china boat swims gayly till the big
bruised brazen one bumps him and sends him down--eh, vogue la
galère!--you see a man sink in the race, and say good-by to him--look,
he has only dived under the other fellow's legs, and comes up shaking
his pole, and striking out ever so far ahead. Eh, vogue la galère, I
say. It's good sport, Warrington--not winning merely, but playing."

"Well, go in and win, young 'un. I'll sit and mark the game,"
Warrington said, surveying the ardent young fellow with an almost
fatherly pleasure. "A generous fellow plays for the play, a sordid one
for the stake; an old fogy sits by and smokes the pipe of
tranquillity, while Jack and Tom are pommeling each other in
the ring."

"Why don't you come in, George, and have a turn with the gloves? You
are big enough and strong enough," Pen said. "Dear old boy, you are
worth ten of me."

"You are not quite as tall as Goliath, certainly," the other answered,
with a laugh that was rough and yet tender. "And as for me, I am
disabled. I had a fatal hit in early life. I will tell you about it
some day. You may, too, meet with your master. Don't be too eager, or
too confident, or too worldly, my boy."

Was Pendennis becoming worldly, or only seeing the world, or both? and
is a man very wrong for being after all only a man? Which is the most
reasonable, and does his duty best: he who stands aloof from the
struggle of life, calmly contemplating it, or he who descends to the
ground, and takes his part in the contest? "That philosopher," Pen
said, "had held a great place among the leaders of the world, and
enjoyed to the full what it had to give of rank and riches, renown and
pleasure, who came, weary-hearted, out of it, and said that all was
vanity and vexation of spirit. Many a teacher of those whom we
reverence, and who steps out of his carriage up to his carved
cathedral place, shakes his lawn ruffles over the velvet cushion, and
cries out, that the whole struggle is an accursed one, and the works
of the world are evil. Many a conscience-striken mystic flies from it
altogether, and shuts himself out from it within convent walls (real
or spiritual), whence he can only look up to the sky, and contemplate
the heaven out of which there is no rest, and no good. But the
earth, where our feet are, is the work of the same Power as the
immeasurable blue yonder, in which the future lies into which we would
peer. Who ordered toil as the condition of life, ordered weariness,
ordered sickness, ordered poverty, failure, success--to this man a
foremost place, to the other a nameless struggle with the crowd--to
that a shameful fall, or paralyzed limb, or sudden accident--to each
some work upon the ground he stands on, until he is laid beneath it."
While they were talking, the dawn came shining through the windows of
the room, and Pen threw them open to receive the fresh morning air.
"Look, George," said he; "look and see the sun rise: he sees the
laborer on his way a-field, the work-girl plying her poor needle; the
lawyer at his desk, perhaps; the beauty smiling asleep upon her pillow
of down; or the jaded reveler reeling to bed; or the fevered patient
tossing on it; or the doctor watching by it, over the throes of the
mother for the child that is to be born into the world; to be born and
to take his part in the suffering and struggling, the tears and
laughter, the crime, remorse, love, folly, sorrow, rest."





CHAPTER VII.

MISS AMORY'S PARTNERS.


The noble Henry Foker, of whom we have lost sight for a few pages, has
been in the mean while occupied, as we might suppose a man of his
constancy would be, in the pursuit and indulgence of his all-absorbing
passion of love.

I wish that a few of my youthful readers who are inclined to that
amusement would take the trouble to calculate the time which is spent
in the pursuit, when they would find it to be one of the most costly
occupations in which a man can possibly indulge. What don't you
sacrifice to it, indeed, young gentlemen and young ladies of
ill-regulated minds? Many hours of your precious sleep, in the first
place, in which you lie tossing and thinking about the adored object,
whence you come down late to breakfast, when noon is advancing, and
all the family is long since away to its daily occupations. Then when
you at length get to these occupations you pay no attention to them,
and engage in them with no ardor, all your thoughts and powers of mind
being fixed elsewhere. Then the day's work being slurred over, you
neglect your friends and relatives, your natural companions and usual
associates in life, that you may go and have a glance at the dear
personage, or a look up at her windows, or a peep at her carriage in
the Park. Then at night the artless blandishments of home bore you;
mamma's conversation palls upon you; the dishes which that good soul
prepares for the dinner of her favorite are sent away untasted, the
whole meal of life, indeed, except one particular _plat_, has no
relish. Life, business, family ties, home, all things useful and dear
once become intolerable, and you are never easy except when you are in
pursuit of your flame.

Such I believe to be not unfrequently the state of mind among
ill-regulated young gentlemen, and such, indeed, was Mr. H. Foker's
condition, who, having been bred up to indulge in every propensity
toward which he was inclined, abandoned himself to this one with his
usual selfish enthusiasm. Nor because he had given his friend Arthur
Pendennis a great deal of good advice on a former occasion, need men
of the world wonder that Mr. Foker became passion's slave in his turn.
Who among us has not given a plenty of the very best advice to his
friends? Who has not preached, and who has practiced? To be sure, you,
madam, are perhaps a perfect being, and never had a wrong thought in
the whole course of your frigid and irreproachable existence: or you,
sir, are a great deal too strong-minded to allow any foolish passion
to interfere with your equanimity in chambers or your attendance on
'Change; you are so strong that you don't want any sympathy. We don't
give you any, then; we keep ours for the humble and weak, that
struggle and stumble and get up again, and so march with the rest of
mortals. What need have _you_ of a hand who never fall? Your serene
virtue is never shaded by passion, or ruffled by temptation, or
darkened by remorse; compassion would be impertinence for such an
angel: but then, with such a one companionship becomes intolerable;
you are, from the very elevation of your virtue and high attributes,
of necessity lonely; we can't reach up and talk familiarly with such
potentates. Good-by, then; our way lies with humble folks, and not
with serene highnesses like you; and we give notice that there are no
perfect characters in this history, except, perhaps, one little one,
and that one is not perfect either, for she never knows to this day
that she is perfect, and with a deplorable misapprehension and
perverseness of humility, believes herself to be as great a sinner
as need be.

This young person does not happen to be in London at the present
period of our story, and it is by no means for the like of her that
Mr. Henry Foker's mind is agitated. But what matters a few failings?
Need we be angels, male or female, in order to be worshiped as such?
Let us admire the diversity of the tastes of mankind, and the oldest,
the ugliest, the stupidest and most pompous, the silliest and most
vapid, the greatest criminal, tyrant, booby, Bluebeard, Catherine
Hayes, George Barnwell, among us, we need never despair. I have read
of the passion of a transported pickpocket for a female convict (each
of them being advanced in age, repulsive in person, ignorant,
quarrelsome, and given to drink), that was as magnificent as the loves
of Cleopatra and Antony, or Lancelot and Guinever. The passion which
Count Borulawski, the Polish dwarf, inspired in the bosom of the most
beautiful baroness at the court of Dresden, is a matter with which we
are all of us acquainted: the flame which burned in the heart of young
Cornet Tozer but the other day, and caused him to run off and espouse
Mrs. Battersby, who was old enough to be his mamma; all these
instances are told in the page of history or the newspaper column. Are
we to be ashamed or pleased to think that our hearts are formed so
that the biggest and highest-placed Ajax among us may some day find
himself prostrate before the pattens of his kitchen-maid; as that
there is no poverty or shame or crime, which will not be supported,
hugged, even with delight, and cherished more closely than virtue
would be, by the perverse fidelity and admirable constant folly of
a woman?

So then Henry Foker, Esquire, longed after his love, and cursed the
fate which separated him from her. When Lord Gravesend's family
retired to the country (his lordship leaving his proxy with the
venerable Lord Bagwig), Harry still remained lingering on in London,
certainly not much to the sorrow of Lady Ann, to whom he was
affianced, and who did not in the least miss him. Wherever Miss
Clavering went, this infatuated young fellow continued to follow her;
and being aware that his engagement to his cousin was known in the
world, he was forced to make a mystery of his passion, and confine it
to his own breast, so that it was so pent in there and pressed down,
that it is a wonder he did not explode some day with the stormy
secret, and perish collapsed after the outburst.

There had been a grand entertainment at Gaunt House on one beautiful
evening in June, and the next day's journals contained almost two
columns of the names of the most closely-printed nobility and gentry
who had been honored with invitations to the ball. Among the guests
were Sir Francis and Lady Clavering and Miss Amory, for whom the
indefatigable Major Pendennis had procured an invitation, and our two
young friends Arthur and Harry. Each exerted himself, and danced a
great deal with Miss Blanche. As for the worthy major, he assumed the
charge of Lady Clavering, and took care to introduce her to that
department of the mansion where her ladyship specially distinguished
herself, namely, the refreshment-room, where, among pictures of Titian
and Giorgione, and regal portraits of Vandyke and Reynolds, and
enormous salvers of gold and silver, and pyramids of large flowers,
and constellations of wax candles--in a manner perfectly regardless of
expense, in a word--a supper was going on all night. Of how many
creams, jellies, salads, peaches, white soups, grapes, pâtes,
galantines, cups of tea, champagne, and so forth, Lady Clavering
partook, it does not become us to say. How much the major suffered as
he followed the honest woman about, calling to the solemn male
attendants, and lovely servant-maids, and administering to Lady
Clavering's various wants with admirable patience, nobody knows; he
never confessed. He never allowed his agony to appear on his
countenance in the least; but with a constant kindness brought plate
after plate to the Begum.

Mr. Wagg counted up all the dishes of which Lady Clavering partook as
long as he could count (but as he partook very freely himself of
Champagne during the evening, his powers of calculation were not to be
trusted at the close of the entertainment), and he recommended Mr.
Honeyman, Lady Steyne's medical man, to look carefully after the
Begum, and to call and get news of her ladyship the next day.

Sir Francis Clavering made his appearance, and skulked for a while
about the magnificent rooms; but the company and the splendor which he
met there were not to the baronet's taste, and after tossing off a
tumbler of wine or two at the buffet, he quitted Gaunt House for the
neighborhood of Jermyn-street, where his friends Loder, Punter, little
Moss Abrams, and Captain Skewball were assembled at the familiar green
table. In the rattle of the box, and of their agreeable conversation,
Sir Francis's spirits rose to their accustomed point of
feeble hilarity.

Mr. Pynsent, who had asked Miss Amory to dance, came up on one
occasion to claim her hand, but scowls of recognition having already
passed between him and Mr. Arthur Pendennis in the dancing-room,
Arthur suddenly rose up and claimed Miss Amory as his partner for the
present dance, on which Mr. Pynsent, biting his lips and scowling yet
more savagely, withdrew with a profound bow, saying that he gave up
his claim. There are some men who are always falling in one's way in
life. Pynsent and Pen had this view of each other, and regarded each
other accordingly.

"What a confounded, conceited provincial fool that is!" thought the
one. "Because he has written a twopenny novel, his absurd head is
turned, and a kicking would take his conceit out of him."

"What an impertinent idiot that man is!" remarked the other to his
partner. "His soul is in Downing-street; his neckcloth is foolscap;
his hair is sand; his legs are rulers; his vitals are tape and
sealing-wax; he was a prig in his cradle; and never laughed since he
was born, except three times at the same joke of his chief. I have the
same liking for that man, Miss Amory, that I have for cold boiled
veal." Upon which Blanche of course remarked, that Mr. Pendennis was
wicked, _méchant_, perfectly abominable, and wondered what he would
say when _her_ back was turned.

"Say!--Say that you have the most beautiful figure and the slimmest
waist in the world, Blanche--Miss Amory, I mean. I beg your pardon.
Another turn; this music would make an alderman dance."

"And you have left off tumbling, when you waltz now?" Blanche asked,
archly looking up at her partner's face.

"One falls and one gets up again in life, Blanche; you know I used to
call you so in old times, and it is the prettiest name in the world:
besides, I have practiced since then."

"And with a great number of partners, I'm afraid," Blanche said, with
a little sham sigh, and a shrug of the shoulders. And so in truth Mr.
Pen had practiced a good deal in this life; and had undoubtedly
arrived at being able to dance better.

If Pendennis was impertinent in his talk, Foker, on the other hand, so
bland and communicative on most occasions, was entirely mum and
melancholy when he danced with Miss Amory. To clasp her slender waist
was a rapture, to whirl round the room with her was a delirium; but to
speak to her, what could he say that was worthy of her? What pearl of
conversation could he bring that was fit for the acceptance of such a
queen of love and wit as Blanche? It was she who made the talk when
she was in the company of this love-stricken partner. It was she who
asked him how that dear little pony was, and looked at him and thanked
him with such a tender kindness and regret, and refused the dear
little pony with such a delicate sigh when he offered it. "I have
nobody to ride with in London," she said. "Mamma is timid, and her
figure is not pretty on horseback. Sir Francis never goes out with me,
He loves me like--like a step-daughter. Oh, how delightful it must be
to have a father--a father, Mr. Foker!"

"Oh, uncommon," said Mr. Harry, who enjoyed that blessing very calmly,
upon which, and forgetting the sentimental air which she had just
before assumed, Blanche's gray eyes gazed at Foker with such an arch
twinkle, that both of them burst out laughing, and Harry, enraptured
and at his ease, began to entertain her with a variety of innocent
prattle--good, kind, simple, Foker talk, flavored with many
expressions by no means to be discovered in dictionaries, and relating
to the personal history of himself or horses, or other things dear and
important to him, or to persons in the ball-room then passing before
them, and about whose appearance or character Mr. Harry spoke with
artless freedom, and a considerable dash of humor.

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