The History of Pendennis Part 94

It wanted but very, very few days before that blissful one when Foker should call Blanche his own; the Clavering folks had all pressed to see the most splendid new carriage in the whole world, which was standing in the coach-house at the Clavering Arms; and shown, in grateful return for drink, commonly, by Mr. Foker's head-coachman. Madame Fribsby was occupied in making some lovely dresses for the tenants' daughters, who were to figure as a sort of bridesmaids' chorus at the breakfast and marriage ceremony. And immense festivities were to take place at the Park upon this delightful occasion.

"Yes, Mr. Huxter, yes; a happy tenantry, its country's pride, will a.s.semble in the baronial hall, where the beards will wag all. The ox shall be slain, and the cup they'll drain; and the bells shall peal quite genteel; and my father-in-law, with the tear of sensibility bedewing his eye, shall bless us at his baronial porch. That shall be the order of proceedings, I think, Mr. Huxter; and I hope we shall see you and your lovely bride by her husband's side; and what will you please to drink, sir? Mrs. Lightfoot, madam, you will give to my excellent friend and body-surgeon, Mr. Huxter, Mr. Samuel Huxter, M.R.C.S., every refreshment that your hostel affords, and place the festive amount to my account; and Mr. Lightfoot, sir, what will you take? though you've had enough already, I think; yes, ha."

So spoke Harry Foker in the bar of the Clavering Arms. He had apartments at that hotel, and had gathered a circle of friends round him there. He treated all to drink who came. He was hail-fellow with every man. He was so happy! He danced round Madame Fribsby, Mrs. Lightfoot's great ally, as she sate pensive in the bar. He consoled Mrs. Lightfoot, who had already begun to have causes of matrimonial disquiet; for the truth must be told, that young Lightfoot, having now the full command of the cellar, had none over his own unbridled desires, and was tippling and tipsy from morning till night. And a piteous sight it was for his fond wife to behold the big youth reeling about the yard and coffee-room, or drinking with the farmers and tradesmen his own neat wines and carefully selected stock of spirits.

When he could find time, Mr. Morgan the butler came from the Park, and took a gla.s.s at the expense of the landlord of the Clavering Arms.

He watched poor Lightfoot's tipsy vagaries with savage sneers. Mrs.

Lightfoot felt always doubly uncomfortable when her unhappy spouse was under his comrade's eye. But a few months married, and to think he had got to this! Madame Fribsby could feel for her. Madame Fribsby could tell her stories of men every bit as bad. She had had her own woes too, and her sad experience of men. So it is that n.o.body seems happy altogether; and that there's bitters, as Mr. Foker remarked, in the cup of every man's life. And yet there did not seem to be any in his, the honest young fellow! It was br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with happiness and good-humour.

Mr. Morgan was constant in his attentions to Foker. "And yet I don't like him somehow," said the candid young man to Mrs. Lightfoot.

"He always seems as if he was measuring me for my coffin somehow.

Pa-in-law's afraid of him; pa-in-law's, ahem! never mind, but ma-in-law's a trump, Mrs. Lightfoot."

"Indeed my Lady was," and Mrs. Lightfoot owned, with a sigh, that perhaps it had been better for her had she never left her mistress.

"No, I do not like thee, Dr. Fell; the reason why I cannot tell,"

continued Mr. Foker; "and he wants to be taken as my head man. Blanche wants me to take him. Why does Miss Amory like him so?"

"Did Miss Blanche like him so?" The notion seemed to disturb Mrs.

Lightfoot very much; and there came to this worthy landlady another cause for disturbance. A letter, bearing the Boulogne postmark, was brought to her one morning, and she and her husband were quarrelling over it as Foker pa.s.sed down the stairs by the bar, on his way to the Park. His custom was to breakfast there, and bask a while in the presence of Armida; then, as the company of Clavering tired him exceedingly, and he did not care for sporting, he would return for an hour or two to billiards and the society of the Clavering Arms; then it would be time to ride with Miss Amory, and, after dining with her, he left her and returned modestly to his inn.

Lightfoot and his wife were quarrelling over the letter. What was that letter from abroad? Why was she always having letters from abroad? Who wrote 'em?--he would know. He didn't believe it was her brother. It was no business of his? It was a business of his; and, with a curse, he seized hold of his wife, and dashed at her pocket for the letter.

The poor woman gave a scream; and said, "Well, take it." Just as her husband seized on the letter, and Mr. Foker entered at the door, she gave another scream at seeing him, and once more tried to seize the paper. Lightfoot opened it, shaking her away, and an enclosure dropped down on the breakfast-table.

"Hands off, man alive!" cried little Harry, springing in. "Don't lay hands on a woman, sir. The man that lays his hand upon a woman, save in the way of kindness, is a--hallo! it's a letter for Miss Amory. What's this, Mrs. Lightfoot?"

Mrs. Lightfoot began, in piteous tones of reproach to her husband,--"You unmanly! to treat a woman so who took you off the street. Oh, you coward, to lay your hand upon your wife! Why did I marry you? Why did I leave my Lady for you? Why did I spend eight hundred pound in fitting up this house that you might drink and guzzle?"

"She gets letters, and she won't tell me who writes letters," said Mr.

Lightfoot, with a muzzy voice; "it's a family affair, sir. Will you take anything, sir?"

"I will take this letter to Miss Amory, as I am going to the Park," said Foker, turning very pale; and taking it up from the table, which was arranged for the poor landlady's breakfast, he went away.

"He's comin'--dammy, who's a-comin'? Who's J. A., Mrs. Lightfoot--curse me, who's J. A.?" cried the husband.

Mrs. Lightfoot cried out, "Be quiet, you tipsy brute, do," and running to her bonnet and shawl, threw them on, saw Mr. Foker walking down the street, took the by-lane which skirts it, and ran as quickly as she could to the lodge-gate, Clavering Park. Foker saw a running figure before him, but it was lost when he got to the lodge-gate. He stopped and asked, "Who was that who had just come in? Mrs. Bonner, was it?" He reeled almost in his walk: the trees swam before him. He rested once or twice against the trunks of the naked limes.

Lady Clavering was in the breakfast-room with her son, and her husband yawning over his paper. "Good morning, Harry," said the Begum. "Here's letters, lots of letters; Lady Rockminster will be here on Tuesday instead of Monday, and Arthur and the Major come to-day; and Laura is to go to Dr. Portman's, and come to church from there: and--what's the matter, my dear? What makes you so pale, Harry?"

"Where is Blanche!" asked Harry, in a sickening voice--"not down yet?"

"Blanche is always the last," said the boy, eating m.u.f.fins; "she's a regular dawdle, she is. When you're not here, she lays in bed till lunch-time."

"Be quiet, Frank," said the mother.

Blanche came down presently, looking pale, and with rather an eager look towards Foker; then she advanced and kissed her mother, and had a face beaming with her very best smiles on when she greeted Harry.

"How do you do, sir?" she said, and put out both her hands.

"I'm ill," answered Harry. "I--I've brought a letter for you, Blanche."

"A letter, and from whom is it, pray? Voyons," she said.

"I don't know--I should like to know," said Foker.

"How can I tell until I see it?" asked Blanche.

"Has Mrs. Bonner not told you?" he said, with a shaking voice;--"there's some secret. You give her the letter, Lady Clavering."

Lady Clavering, wondering, took the letter from poor Foker's shaking hand, and looked at the superscription. As she looked at it, she too began to shake in every limb, and with a scared face she dropped the letter, and running up to Frank, clutched the boy to her, and burst out with a sob--"Take that away--it's impossible, it's impossible."

"What is the matter?" cried Blanche, with rather a ghastly smile; "the letter is only from--from a poor pensioner and relative of ours."

"It's not true, it's not true," screamed Lady Clavering. "No, my Frank--is it, Clavering?"

Blanche had taken up the letter, and was moving with it towards the fire, but Foker ran to her and clutched her arm--"I must see that letter," he said; "give it me. You shan't burn it."

"You--you shall not treat Miss Amory so in my house," cried the Baronet; "give back the letter, by Jove!"

"Read it--and look at her," Blanche cried, pointing to her mother; "it--it was for her I kept the secret! Read it, cruel man!"

And Foker opened and read the letter:--

"I have not wrote, my darling Betsy, this three weeks; but this is to give her a father's blessing, and I shall come down pretty soon as quick as my note, and intend to see the ceremony, and my son-in-law. I shall put up at Bonner's. I have had a pleasant autumn, and am staying here at an hotel where there is good company, and which is kep' in good style. I don't know whether I quite approve of your throwing over Mr. P. for Mr.

F., and don't think Foker's such a pretty name, and from your account of him he seems a m.u.f.f, and not a beauty. But he has got the rowdy, which is the thing. So no more, my dear little Betsy, till we meet, from your affectionate father, J. Amory Altamont."

"Read it, Lady Clavering; it is too late to keep it from you now," said poor Foker; and the distracted woman, having cast her eyes over it, again broke out into hysterical screams, and convulsively grasped her son.

"They have made an outcast of you, my boy," she said. "They've dishonoured your old mother; but I'm innocent, Frank; before G.o.d, I'm innocent. I didn't know this, Mr. Foker; indeed, indeed, I didn't."

"I'm sure you didn't," said Foker, going up and kissing her hand.

"Generous, generous Harry!" cried out Blanche, in an ecstasy. But he withdrew his hand, which was upon her side, and turned from her with a quivering lip. "That's different," he says.

"It was for her sake--for her sake, Harry." Again Miss Amory is in an att.i.tude.

"There was something to be done for mine," said Foker. "I would have taken you, whatever you were. Everything's talked about in London. I knew that your father had come to--to grief. You don't think it was--it was for your connexion I married you? D---- it all! I've loved you with all my heart and soul for two years, and you've been playing with me, and cheating me," broke out the young man, with a cry. "Oh, Blanche, Blanche, it's a hard thing, a hard thing!" and he covered his face with his hands, and sobbed behind them.

Blanche thought, "Why didn't I tell him that night when Arthur warned me?"

"Don't refuse her, Harry," cried out Lady Clavering. "Take her, take everything I have. It's all hers, you know, at my death. This boy's disinherited."--(Master Frank, who had been looking as scared at the strange scene, here burst into a loud cry.) "Take every s.h.i.+lling. Give me just enough to live, and to go and hide my head with this child, and to fly from both. Oh, they've both been bad, bad men. Perhaps he's here now. Don't let me see him. Clavering, you coward, defend me from him."

Clavering started up at this proposal. "You ain't serious, Jemima? You don't mean that?" he said. "You won't throw me and Frank over? I didn't know it, so help me ----. Foker, I'd no more idea of it than the dead--until the fellow came and found me out, the d----d escaped convict scoundrel."

"The what?" said Foker. Blanche gave a scream.

"Yes," screamed out the Baronet in his turn, "yes, a d----d runaway convict--a fellow that forged his father-in-law's name--a d----d attorney, and killed a fellow in Botany Bay, hang him--and ran into the Bush, curse him; I wish he'd died there. And he came to me, a good six years ago, and robbed me; and I've been ruining myself to keep him, the infernal scoundrel! And Pendennis knows it, and Strong knows it, and that d----d Morgan knows it, and she knows it, ever so long; and I never would tell it, never: and I kept it from my wife."