A History of Pendennis Volume II Part 7

"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 amus.e.m.e.nt; 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 d.u.c.h.ess, 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, blus.h.i.+ng 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 d.u.c.h.ess of Connaught p.r.o.nounced 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 d.u.c.h.ess'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 emba.s.sador 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 soiree to the neighboring n.o.bility; 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."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"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 s.e.x 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 stateswomans.h.i.+p. 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 G.o.ds! 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 b.u.mps him and sends him down--eh, vogue la galere!--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 galere, 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 cus.h.i.+on, 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 s.h.i.+ning 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 n.o.ble 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 pa.s.sion of love.

I wish that a few of my youthful readers who are inclined to that amus.e.m.e.nt 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 a.s.sociates 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 pa.s.sion'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 pa.s.sion 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 pa.s.sion, or ruffled by temptation, or darkened by remorse; compa.s.sion would be impertinence for such an angel: but then, with such a one companions.h.i.+p 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 wors.h.i.+ped 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, b.o.o.by, Bluebeard, Catherine Hayes, George Barnwell, among us, we need never despair. I have read of the pa.s.sion 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 pa.s.sion 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 lords.h.i.+p 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 pa.s.sion, 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 n.o.bility 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 a.s.sumed the charge of Lady Clavering, and took care to introduce her to that department of the mansion where her ladys.h.i.+p specially distinguished herself, namely, the refreshment-room, where, among pictures of t.i.tian and Giorgione, and regal portraits of Vand.y.k.e 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, pates, 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, n.o.body 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 ladys.h.i.+p 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 a.s.sembled 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 pa.s.sed 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, _mechant_, 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 n.o.body 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 a.s.sumed, 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 pa.s.sing before them, and about whose appearance or character Mr. Harry spoke with artless freedom, and a considerable dash of humor.

And it was Blanche who, when the conversation flagged, and the youth's modesty came rus.h.i.+ng 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 pa.s.s by, as a horse G.o.d-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 s.h.i.+ning 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 ladys.h.i.+p a gla.s.s 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 lords.h.i.+p 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.