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The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2

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




And it was Blanche who, when the conversation flagged, and the youth's
modesty came rushing back and overpowering him, knew how to reanimate
her companion: asked him questions about Logwood, and whether it was a
pretty place? Whether he was a hunting-man, and whether he liked women
to hunt? (in which case she was prepared to say that she adored
hunting)--but Mr. Foker expressing his opinion against sporting
females, and pointing out Lady Bullfinch, who happened to pass by, as
a horse god-mother, whom he had seen at cover with a cigar in her
face, Blanche too expressed her detestation of the sports of the
field, and said it would make her shudder to think of a dear, sweet
little fox being killed, on which Foker danced and waltzed with
renewed vigor and grace.

At the end of the waltz--the last waltz they had on that night--
Blanche asked him about Drummington, and whether it was a fine house.
His cousins, she had heard, were very accomplished; Lord Erith she had
met, and which of his cousins was his favorite? Was it not Lady Ann?
Yes, she was sure it was she: sure by his looks and his blushes. She
was tired of dancing; it was getting very late; she must go to mamma;
and, without another word, she sprang away from Harry Foker's arm, and
seized upon Pen's, who was swaggering about the dancing-room, and
again said, "Mamma, mamma!--take me to mamma, dear Mr. Pendennis!"
transfixing Harry with a Parthian shot, as she fled from him.

My Lord Steyne, with garter and ribbon, with a bald head and shining
eyes, and a collar of red whiskers round his face, always looked grand
upon an occasion of state; and made a great effect upon Lady
Clavering, when he introduced himself to her at the request of the
obsequious Major Pendennis. With his own white and royal hand, he
handed to her ladyship a glass of wine, said he had heard of her
charming daughter, and begged to be presented to her; and, at this
very juncture, Mr. Arthur Pendennis came up with the young lady on
his arm.

The peer made a profound bow, and Blanche the deepest courtesy that
ever was seen. His lordship gave Mr. Arthur Pendennis his hand to
shake; said he had read his book, which was very wicked and clever;
asked Miss Blanche if she had read it, at which Pen blushed and
winced. Why, Blanche was one of the heroines of the novel. Blanche, in
black ringlets and a little altered, was the Neaera of Walter Lorraine.

Blanche had read it; the language of the eyes expressed her admiration
and rapture at the performance. This little play being achieved, the
Marquis of Steyne made other two profound bows to Lady Clavering and
her daughter, and passed on to some other of his guests at the
splendid entertainment.

Mamma and daughter were loud in their expression of admiration of the
noble marquis so soon as his broad back was turned upon them. "He said
they make a very nice couple," whispered Major Pendennis to Lady
Clavering. Did he now, really? Mamma thought they would; Mamma was so
flustered with the honor which had just been shown to her, and with
other intoxicating events of the evening, that her good humor knew no
bounds. She laughed, she winked, and nodded knowingly at Pen; she
tapped him on the arm with her fan; she tapped Blanche; she tapped the
major; her contentment was boundless; and her method of showing her
joy equally expansive.

As the party went down the great staircase of Gaunt House, the morning
had risen stark and clear over the black trees of the square, the
skies were tinged with pink; and the cheeks of some of the people at
the ball--ah, how ghastly they looked! That admirable and devoted
major above all--who had been for hours by Lady Clavering's side,
ministering to her and feeding her body with every thing that was
nice, and her ear with every thing that was sweet and flattering--oh!
what an object he was! The rings round his eyes were of the color of
bistre; those orbs themselves were like the plovers' eggs whereof Lady
Clavering and Blanche had each tasted; the wrinkles in his old face
were furrowed in deep gashes; and a silver stubble, like an elderly
morning dew, was glittering on his chin, and alongside the dyed
whiskers, now limp and out of curl.

There he stood, with admirable patience, enduring uncomplainingly, a
silent agony; knowing that people could see the state of his face (for
could he not himself perceive the condition of others, males and
females, of his own age?)--longing to go to rest for hours past; aware
that suppers disagreed with him, and yet having eaten a little so as
to keep his friend, Lady Clavering, in good humor; with twinges of
rheumatism in the back and knees; with weary feet burning in his
varnished boots; so tired, oh, so tired, and longing for bed! If a
man, struggling with hardship and bravely overcoming it, is an object
of admiration for the gods, that Power in whose chapels the old major
was a faithful worshiper must have looked upward approvingly upon the
constancy of Pendennis's martyrdom. There are sufferers in that cause
as in the other; the negroes in the service of Mumbo Jumbo tattoo and
drill themselves with burning skewers with great fortitude; and we
read that the priests in the service of Baal gashed themselves and
bled freely. You who can smash the idols, do so with a good courage;
but do not be too fierce with the idolaters--they worship the best
thing they know.

[Illustration]

The Pendennises, the elder and the younger, waited with Lady Clavering
and her daughter until her ladyship's carriage was announced, when the
elder's martyrdom may be said to have come to an end, for the
good-natured Begum insisted upon leaving him at his door in
Bury-street; so he took the back seat of the carriage, after a feeble
bow or two, and speech of thanks, polite to the last, and resolute in
doing his duty. The Begum waved her dumpy little hand by way of
farewell to Arthur and Foker, and Blanche smiled languidly out upon
the young men, thinking whether she looked very wan and green under
her rose-colored hood, and whether it was the mirrors at Gaunt House,
or the fatigue and fever of her own eyes, which made her fancy
herself so pale.

Arthur, perhaps, saw quite well how yellow Blanche looked, but did not
attribute that peculiarity of her complexion to the effect of the
looking-glasses, or to any error in his sight or her own. Our young
man of the world could use his eyes very keenly, and could see
Blanche's face pretty much as nature had made it. But for poor Foker
it had a radiance which dazzled and blinded him: he could see no
more faults in it than in the sun, which was now flaring over the
house-tops.

Among other wicked London habits which Pen had acquired, the moralist
will remark that he had got to keep very bad hours; and often was
going to bed at the time when sober country people were thinking of
leaving it. Men get used to one hour as to another. Editors of
newspapers, Covent-Garden market people, night cabmen, and
coffee-sellers, chimney-sweeps, and gentlemen and ladies of fashion
who frequent balls, are often quite lively at three or four o'clock of
a morning, when ordinary mortals are snoring. We have shown in the
last chapter how Pen was in a brisk condition of mind at this period,
inclined to smoke his cigar at ease, and to speak freely.

Foker and Pen walked away from Gaunt House, then, indulging in both
the above amusements; or rather Pen talked, and Foker looked as if he
wanted to say something. Pen was sarcastic and dandyfied when he had
been in the company of great folks; he could not help imitating some
of their airs and tones, and having a most lively imagination, mistook
himself for a person of importance very easily. He rattled away, and
attacked this person and that; sneered at Lady John Turnbull's bad
French, which her ladyship will introduce into all conversations, in
spite of the sneers of every body: at Mrs. Slack Roper's extraordinary
costume and sham jewels; at the old dandies and the young ones; at
whom didn't he sneer and laugh?

"You fire at everybody, Pen--you're grown awful, that you are," Foker
said. "Now, you've pulled about Blondel's yellow wig, and Colchicum's
black one, why don't you have a shy at a brown one, hay? you know
whose I mean. It got into Lady Clavering's carriage."

"Under my uncle's hat? My uncle is a martyr, Foker, my boy. My uncle
has been doing excruciating duties all night. He likes to go to bed
rather early. He has a dreadful headache if he sits up and touches
supper. He always has the gout if he walks or stands much at a ball.
He has been sitting up, and standing up, and supping. He has gone home
to the gout and the headache, and for my sake. Shall I make fun of the
old boy? no, not for Venice!"

"How do you mean that he has been doing it for your sake?" Foker
asked, looking rather alarmed.

"Boy! canst thou keep a secret if I impart it to thee?" Pen cried out,
in high spirits. "Art thou of good counsel? Wilt thou swear? Wilt thou
be mum, or wilt thou peach? Wilt thou be silent and hear, or wilt thou
speak and die?" And as he spoke, flinging himself into an absurd
theatrical attitude, the men in the cab-stand in Piccadilly wondered
and grinned at the antics of the two young swells.

"What the doose are you driving at?" Foker asked, looking very much
agitated.

Pen, however, did not remark this agitation much, but continued in the
same bantering and excited vein. "Henry, friend of my youth," he
said, "and witness of my early follies, though dull at thy books, yet
thou art not altogether deprived of sense; nay, blush not, Henrico,
thou hast a good portion of that, and of courage and kindness too, at
the service of thy friends. Were I in a strait of poverty, I would
come to my Foker's purse. Were I in grief, I would discharge my grief
upon his sympathizing bosom--"

"Gammon, Pen; go on," Foker said.

"I would, Henrico, upon thy studs, and upon thy cambric, worked by the
hands of beauty, to adorn the breast of valor! Know then, friend of my
boyhood's days, that Arthur Pendennis, of the Upper Temple,
student-at-law, feels that he is growing lonely, and old Care is
furrowing his temples, and Baldness is busy with his crown. Shall we
stop and have a drop of coffee at this stall, it looks very hot and
nice? Look how that cabman is blowing at his saucer. No, you won't?
Aristocrat! I resume my tale. I am getting on in life. I have got
devilish little money. I want some. I am thinking of getting some, and
settling in life. I'm thinking of settling. I'm thinking of marrying,
old boy. I'm thinking of becoming a moral man; a steady port and
sherry character: with a good reputation in my _quartier_, and a
moderate establishment of two maids and a man; with an occasional
brougham to drive out Mrs. Pendennis, and a house near the Parks for
the accommodation of the children. Ha! what sayest thou? Answer thy
friend, thou worthy child of beer. Speak, I adjure thee, by all
thy vats."

"But you ain't got any money, Pen," said the other, still looking
alarmed.

"I ain't? No, but _she_ ave. I tell thee there is gold in store for me
--not what _you_ call money, nursed in the lap of luxury, and cradled
on grains, and drinking in wealth from a thousand mash-tubs. What do
you know about money? What is poverty to you, is splendor to the hardy
son of the humble apothecary. You can't live without an establishment,
and your houses in town and country. A snug little house somewhere off
Belgravia, a brougham for my wife, a decent cook, and a fair bottle of
wine for my friends at home sometimes; these simple necessaries
suffice for me, my Foker." And here Pendennis began to look more
serious. Without bantering further, Pen continued, "I've rather
serious thoughts of settling and marrying. No man can get on in the
world without some money at his back. You must have a certain stake to
begin with, before you can go in and play the great game. Who knows
that I'm not going to try, old fellow? Worse men than I have won at
it. And as I have not got enough capital from my fathers, I must get
some by my wife--that's all."

They were walking down Grosvenor-street, as they talked, or rather as
Pen talked, in the selfish fullness of his heart; and Mr. Pen must
have been too much occupied with his own affairs to remark the concern
and agitation of his neighbor, for he continued, "We are no longer
children, you know, you and I, Harry. Bah! the time of our romance has
passed away. We don't marry for passion, but for prudence and for
establishment. What do you take your cousin for? Because she is a nice
girl, and an earl's daughter, and the old folks wish it, and that sort
of thing."

"And you, Pendennis," asked Foker, "you ain't very fond of the
girl--you're going to marry?"

Pen shrugged his shoulders. "_Comme ça_," said he; "I like her well
enough. She's pretty enough; she's clever enough. I think she'll do
very well. And she has got money enough--that's the great point. Psha!
you know who she is, don't you? I thought you were sweet on her
yourself one night when we dined with her mamma. It's little Amory."

"I--I thought so," Foker said; "and has she accepted you?"

"Not quite," Arthur replied, with a confident smile, which seemed to
say, I have but to ask, and she comes to me that instant.

"Oh, not quite," said Foker; and he broke out with such a dreadful
laugh, that Pen, for the first time, turned his thoughts from himself
toward his companion, and was struck by the other's ghastly pale face.

"My dear fellow, Fo! what's the matter? You're ill," Pen said, in a
tone of real concern.

"You think it was the Champagne at Gaunt House, don't you? It ain't
that. Come in; let me talk to you for a minute. I'll tell you what it
is. D--it, let me tell somebody," Foker said.

They were at Mr. Foker's door by this time, and, opening it, Harry
walked with his friend into his apartments, which were situated in the
back part of the house, and behind the family dining-room, where the
elder Foker received his guests, surrounded by pictures of himself,
his wife, his infant son on a donkey, and the late Earl of Gravesend
in his robes as a peer. Foker and Pen passed by this chamber, now
closed with death-like shutters, and entered into the young man's own
quarters. Dusky streams of sunbeams were playing into that room, and
lighting up poor Harry's gallery of dancing girls and opera nymphs
with flickering illuminations.

"Look here! I can't help telling you, Pen," he said. "Ever since the
night we dined there, I'm so fond of that girl, that I think I shall
die if I don't get her. I feel as if I should go mad sometimes. I
can't stand it, Pen. I couldn't bear to hear you talking about her,
just now, about marrying her only because she's money. Ah, Pen! _that_
ain't the question in marrying. I'd bet any thing it ain't. Talking
about money and such a girl as that, it's--it's--what-d'ye-callem--_you_
know what I mean--I ain't good at talking--sacrilege, then. If she'd have
me, I'd take and sweep a crossing, that I would!"

"Poor Fo! I don't think that would tempt her," Pen said, eying his
friend with a great deal of real good-nature and pity. "She is not a
girl for love and a cottage."

"She ought to be a duchess, I know that very well, and I know she
wouldn't take me unless I could make her a great place in the
world--for I ain't good for any thing myself much--I ain't clever and
that sort of thing," Foker said, sadly. "If I had all the diamonds
that all the duchesses and marchionesses had on to-night, wouldn't I
put 'em in her lap? But what's the use of talking? I'm booked for
another race. It's that kills me, Pen. I can't get out of it; though I
die, I can't get out of it. And though my cousin's a nice girl, and I
like her very well, and that, yet I hadn't seen this one when our
governors settled that matter between us. And when you talked, just
now, about her doing very well, and about her having money enough for
both of you, I thought to myself, it isn't money or mere liking a
girl, that ought to be enough to make a fellow marry. He may marry,
and find he likes somebody else better. All the money in the world
won't make you happy then. Look at me; I've plenty of money, or shall
have, out of the mash-tubs, as you call 'em. My governor thought he'd
made it all right for me in settling my marriage with my cousin. I
tell you it won't do; and when Lady Ann has got her husband, it won't
be happy for either of us, and she'll have the most miserable
beggar in town."

"Poor old fellow!" Pen said, with rather a cheap magnanimity, "I wish
I could help you. I had no idea of this, and that you were so wild
about the girl. Do you think she would have you without your money?
No. Do you think your father would agree to break off your engagement
with your cousin? You know him very well, and that he would cast you
off rather than do so."

The unhappy Foker only groaned a reply, flinging himself prostrate on
the sofa, face forward, his head in his hands.

"As for my affair," Pen went on--"my dear fellow, if I had thought
matters were so critical with you, at least I would not have pained
you by choosing you as my confidant. And my business is not serious,
at least, not as yet. I have not spoken a word about it to Miss Amory.
Very likely she would not have me if I asked her. Only I have had a
great deal of talk about it with my uncle, who says that the match
might be an eligible one for me. I'm ambitious and I'm poor. And it
appears Lady Clavering will give her a good deal of money, and Sir
Francis might be got to--never mind the rest. Nothing is settled,
Harry. They are going out of town directly. I promise you I won't ask
her before she goes. There's no hurry: there's time for every body.
But, suppose you got her, Foker. Remember what you said about
marriages just now, and the misery of a man who doesn't care for his
wife: and what sort of a wife would you have who didn't care for
her husband?"

"But she would care for me," said Foker, from his sofa--"that is, I
think she would. Last night only, as we were dancing, she said--"

"What did she say?" Pen cried, starting up in great wrath. But he saw
his own meaning more clearly than Foker, and broke off with a
laugh--"Well, never mind what she said, Harry. Miss Amory is a clever
girl, and says numbers of civil things--to you--to me, perhaps--and
who the deuce knows to whom besides? Nothing's settled, old boy. At
least, _my_ heart won't break if I don't get her. Win her if you can,
and I wish you joy of her. Good-by! Don't think about what I said to
you. I was excited, and confoundedly thirsty in those hot rooms, and
didn't, I suppose, put enough Seltzer water into the Champagne. Good
night! I'll keep your counsel too. 'Mum' is the word between us; and
'let there be a fair fight, and let the best man win,' as Peter
Crawley says."

So saying, Mr. Arthur Pendennis, giving a very queer and rather
dangerous look at his companion, shook him by the hand, with something
of that sort of cordiality which befitted his just repeated simile of
the boxing-match, and which Mr. Bendigo displays when he shakes hands
with Mr. Gaunt before they fight each other for the champion's belt
and two hundred pounds a side. Foker returned his friend's salute with
an imploring look, and a piteous squeeze of the hand, sank back on his
cushions again, and Pen, putting on his hat, strode forth into the
air, and almost over the body of the matutinal housemaid, who was
rubbing the steps at the door.

"And so he wants her too? does he?" thought Pen as he marched
along--and noted within himself with a fatal keenness of perception
and almost an infernal mischief, that the very pains and tortures
which that honest heart of Foker's was suffering gave a zest and an
impetus to his own pursuit of Blanche: if pursuit that might be called
which had been no pursuit as yet, but mere sport and idle dallying.
"She said something to him, did she? perhaps she gave him the fellow
flower to this;" and he took out of his coat and twiddled in his thumb
and finger a poor little shriveled, crumpled bud that had faded and
blackened with the heat and flare of the night. "I wonder to how many
more she has given her artless tokens of affection--the little
flirt"--and he flung his into the gutter, where the water may have
refreshed it, and where any amateur of rosebuds may have picked it up.
And then bethinking him that the day was quite bright, and that the
passers-by might be staring at his beard and white neckcloth, our
modest young gentleman took a cab and drove to the Temple. Ah! is this
the boy that prayed at his mother's knee but a few years since, and
for whom very likely at this hour of morning she is praying? Is this
jaded and selfish worldling the lad who, a short while back, was ready
to fling away his worldly all, his hope, his ambition, his chance of
life, for his love? This is the man you are proud of, old Pendennis.
You boast of having formed him: and of having reasoned him out of his
absurd romance and folly--and groaning in your bed over your pains and
rheumatisms, satisfy yourself still by thinking, that, at last, that
lad will do something to better himself in life, and that the
Pendennises will take a good place in the world. And is he the only
one, who in his progress through this dark life goes willfully or
fatally astray, while the natural truth and love which should illumine
him grew dim in the poisoned air, and suffice to light him no more?

When Pen was gone away, poor Harry Foker got up from the sofa, and
taking out from his waistcoat--the splendidly buttoned, the gorgeously
embroidered, the work of his mamma--a little white rosebud, he drew
from his dressing-case, also the maternal present, a pair of scissors,
with which he nipped carefully the stalk of the flower, and placing it
in a glass of water opposite his bed, he sought refuge there from care
and bitter remembrances.

It is to be presumed that Miss Blanche Amory had more than one rose in
her bouquet, and why should not the kind young creature give out of
her superfluity, and make as many partners as possible happy?





CHAPTER VIII.

MONSEIGNEUR S'AMUSE.


[Illustration]

The exertions of that last night at Gaunt House had proved almost too
much for Major Pendennis; and as soon as he could move his weary old
body with safety, he transported himself groaning to Buxton, and
sought relief in the healing waters of that place. Parliament broke
up. Sir Francis Clavering and family left town, and the affairs which
we have just mentioned to the reader were not advanced, in the brief
interval of a few days or weeks which have occurred between this and
the last chapter. The town was, however, emptied since then. The
season was now come to a conclusion: Pen's neighbors, the lawyers,
were gone upon circuit: and his more fashionable friends had taken
their passports for the Continent, or had fled for health or
excitement to the Scotch moors. Scarce a man was to be seen in the
bay-windows of the Clubs, or on the solitary Pall-Mall pavement. The
red jackets had disappeared from before the Palace-gate: the tradesmen
of St. James's were abroad taking their pleasure: the tailors had
grown mustaches, and were gone up the Rhine: the bootmakers were at
Ems or Baden, blushing when they met their customers at those places
of recreation, or punting beside their creditors at the gambling
tables: the clergymen of St. James's only preached to half a
congregation, in which there was not a single sinner of distinction:
the band in Kensington Gardens had shut up their instruments of brass
and trumpets of silver: only two or three old flies and chaises
crawled by the banks of the Serpentine, and Clarence Bulbul, who was
retained in town by his arduous duties as a Treasury clerk, when he
took his afternoon ride in Rotten Row, compared its loneliness to the
vastness of the Arabian desert, and himself to a Bedouin wending his
way through that dusty solitude. Warrington stowed away a quantity of
Cavendish tobacco in his carpet bag, and betook himself, as his custom
was, in the vacation to his brother's house in Norfolk. Pen was left
alone in chambers for a while, for this man of fashion could not quit
the metropolis when he chose always: and was at present detained by
the affairs of his newspaper, the Pall Mall Gazette, of which he acted
as the editor and chargé d'affaires during the temporary absence of
the chief, Captain Shandon, who was with his family at the salutary
watering-place of Boulogne sur Mer.

Although, as we have seen, Mr. Pen had pronounced himself for years
past to be a man perfectly _blasé_ and wearied of life, yet the truth
is that he was an exceedingly healthy young fellow; still with a fine
appetite, which he satisfied with the greatest relish and satisfaction
at least once a day; and a constant desire for society, which showed
him to be any thing but misanthropical. If he could not get a good
dinner he sat down to a bad one with perfect contentment; if he could
not procure the company of witty, or great, or beautiful persons, he
put up with any society that came to hand; and was perfectly satisfied
in a tavern-parlor or on board a Greenwich steam-boat, or in a jaunt
to Hampstead with Mr. Finucane, his colleague at the Pall Mall
Gazette; or in a visit to the summer theaters across the river; or to
the Royal Gardens of Vauxhall, where he was on terms of friendship
with the great Simpson, and where he shook the principal comic singer
or the lovely equestrian of the arena by the hand. And while he could
watch the grimaces or the graces of these with a satiric humor that
was not deprived of sympathy, he could look on with an eye of kindness
at the lookers on too; at the roystering youth bent upon enjoyment,
and here taking it: at the honest parents, with their delighted
children laughing and clapping their hands at the show: at the poor
outcasts, whose laughter was less innocent, though perhaps louder, and
who brought their shame and their youth here, to dance and be merry
till the dawn at least; and to get bread and drown care. Of this
sympathy with all conditions of men Arthur often boasted: he was
pleased to possess it: and said that he hoped thus to the last he
should retain it. As another man has an ardor for art or music, or
natural science, Mr. Pen said that anthropology was his favorite
pursuit; and had his eyes always eagerly open to its infinite
varieties and beauties: contemplating with an unfailing delight all
specimens of it in all places to which he resorted, whether it was the
coqueting of a wrinkled dowager in a ball-room, or a high-bred young
beauty blushing in her prime there; whether it was a hulking guardsman
coaxing a servant-girl in the Park, or innocent little Tommy that was
feeding the ducks while the nurse listened. And indeed a man whose
heart is pretty clean, can indulge in this pursuit with an enjoyment
that never ceases, and is only perhaps the more keen because it is
secret, and has a touch of sadness in it: because he is of his mood
and humor lonely, and apart although not alone.

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