Chapter 66
"Indeed," said he, kindly; "you do me a wrong if you fancy I intend one to poor little f.a.n.n.y. I never saw her till Friday night. It was the merest chance that our friend Costigan threw her into my way. I have no intentions regarding her--that is--"
"That is, you know very well that she is a foolish girl, and her mother a foolish woman--that is, you meet her in the Temple Gardens, and of course, without previous concert, that is, that when I found her yesterday, reading the book you've wrote, she scorned me," Bows said. "What am I good for but to be laughed at? a deformed old fellow like me; an old fiddler, that wears a thread-bare coat, and gets his bread by playing tunes at an alehouse? You are a fine gentleman, you are. You wear scent in your handkerchief, and a ring on your finger.
You go to dine with great people. Who ever gives a crust to old Bows?
And yet I might have been as good a man as the best of you. I might have been a man of genius, if I had had the chance; ay, and have lived with the master-spirits of the land. But every thing has failed with me. I'd ambition once, and wrote plays, poems, music--n.o.body would give me a hearing. I never loved a woman, but she laughed at me; and here I am in my old age alone--alone! Don't take this girl from me, Mr. Pendennis, I say again. Leave her with me a little longer. She was like a child to me till yesterday. Why did you step in and make her mock my deformity and old age?"
CHAPTER XII.
THE HAPPY VILLAGE AGAIN.
Early in this history, we have had occasion to speak of the little town of Clavering, near which Pen's paternal home of Fairoaks stood, and of some of the people who inhabited the place, and as the society there was by no means amusing or pleasant, our reports concerning it were not carried to any very great length. Mr. Samuel Huxter, the gentleman whose acquaintance we lately made at Vauxhall, was one of the choice spirits of the little town, when he visited it during his vacations, and enlivened the tables of his friends there, by the wit of Bartholomew's and the gossip of the fas.h.i.+onable London circles which he frequented.
Mr. Hobnell, the young gentleman whom Pen had thrashed, in consequence of the quarrel in the Fotheringay affair, was, while a pupil at the Grammar-school at Clavering, made very welcome at the tea-table of Mrs. Huxter, Samuel's mother, and was free of the surgery, where he knew the way to the tamarind-pots, and could scent his pocket-handkerchief with rose-water. And it was at this period of his life that he formed an attachment for Miss Sophy Huxter, whom, on his father's demise, he married, and took home to his house of the Warren, at a few miles from Clavering.
The family had possessed and cultivated an estate there for many years as yeomen and farmers. Mr. Hobnell's father pulled down the old farm-house; built a flaring new white-washed mansion, with capacious stables; and a piano in the drawing-room; kept a pack of harriers; and a.s.sumed the t.i.tle of Squire Hobnell. When he died, and his son reigned in his stead, the family might be fairly considered to be established as county gentry. And Sam Huxter, at London, did no great wrong in boasting about his brother-in-law's place, his hounds, horses, and hospitality, to his admiring comrades at Bartholomew's. Every year, at a time commonly when Mrs. Hobnell could not leave the increasing duties of her nursery, Hobnell came up to London for a lark, had rooms at the Tavistock, and indulged in the pleasures of the town together.
Ascott, the theaters, Vauxhall, and the convivial taverns in the joyous neighborhood of Covent Garden, were visited by the vivacious squire, in company with his learned brother. When he was in London, as he said, he liked to do as London does, and to "go it a bit," and when he returned to the west, he took a new bonnet and shawl to Mrs.
Hobnell, and relinquished for country sports and occupations, during the next eleven months, the elegant amus.e.m.e.nts of London life.
Sam Huxter kept up a correspondence with his relative, and supplied him with choice news of the metropolis, in return for the baskets of hares, partridges, and clouted cream which the squire and his good-natured wife forwarded to Sam. A youth more brilliant and distinguished they did not know. He was the life and soul of their house, when he made his appearance in his native place. His songs, jokes, and fun kept the Warren in a roar. He had saved their eldest darling's life, by taking a fish-bone out of her throat; in fine, he was the delight of their circle.
As ill-luck would have it, Pen again fell in with Mr. Huxter, only three days after the rencounter at Vauxhall. Faithful to his vow, he had not been to see little f.a.n.n.y. He was trying to drive her from his mind by occupation, or other mental excitement. He labored, though not to much profit, incessantly in his rooms; and, in his capacity of critic for the "Pall Mall Gazette," made woeful and savage onslaught on a poem and a romance which came before him for judgment. These authors slain, he went to dine alone at the lonely club of the Polyanthus, where the vast solitudes frightened him, and made him only the more moody. He had been to more theaters for relaxation. The whole house was roaring with laughter and applause, and he saw only an ign.o.ble farce that made him sad. It would have damped the spirits of the buffoon on the stage to have seen Pen's dismal face. He hardly knew what was happening; the scene, and the drama pa.s.sed before him like a dream or a fever. Then he thought he would go to the Back-Kitchen, his old haunt with Warrington--he was not a bit sleepy yet. The day before he had walked twenty miles in search after rest, over Hampstead Common and Hendon lanes, and had got no sleep at night.
He would go to the Back-Kitchen. It was a sort of comfort to him to think he should see Bows. Bows was there, very calm, presiding at the old piano. Some tremendous comic songs were sung, which made the room crack with laughter. How strange they seemed to Pen! He could only see Bows. In an extinct volcano, such as he boasted that his breast was, it was wonderful how he should feel such a flame! Two days' indulgence had kindled it; two days' abstinence had set it burning in fury. So, musing upon this, and drinking down one gla.s.s after another, as ill-luck would have it, Arthur's eyes lighted upon Mr. Huxter, who had been to the theater, like himself, and, with two or three comrades, now entered the room, Huxter whispered to his companions, greatly to Pen's annoyance. Arthur felt that the other was talking about him.
Huxter then worked through the room, followed by his friends, and came and took a place opposite to Pen, nodding familiarly to him, and holding him out a dirty hand to shake.
Pen shook hands with his fellow townsman. He thought he had been needlessly savage to him on the last night when they had met. As for Huxter, perfectly at good humor with himself and the world, it never entered his mind that he could be disagreeable to any body; and the little dispute, or "chaff," as he styled it, of Vauxhall, was a trifle which he did not in the least regard.
The disciple of Galen having called for "four stouts," with which he and his party refreshed themselves, began to think what would be the most amusing topic of conversation with Pen, and hit upon that precise one which was most painful to our young gentleman.
"Jolly night at Vauxhall--wasn't it?" he said, and winked in a very knowing way.
"I'm glad you liked it," poor Pen said, groaning in spirit.
"I was dev'lish cut--uncommon--been dining with some chaps at Greenwich. That was a pretty bit of muslin hanging on your arm--who was she?" asked the fascinating student.
The question was too much for Arthur. "Have I asked you any questions about yourself, Mr. Huxter?" he said.
"I didn't mean any offense--beg pardon--hang it, you cut up quite savage," said Pen's astonished interlocutor.
"Do you remember what took place between us the other night?" Pen asked, with gathering wrath. "You forget? Very probably. You were tipsy, as you observed just now, and very rude."
"Hang it, sir, I asked your pardon," Huxter said, looking red.
"You did certainly, and it was granted with all my heart, I am sure.
But if you recollect I begged that you would have the goodness to omit me from the list of your acquaintance for the future; and when we met in public, that you would not take the trouble to recognize me. Will you please to remember this hereafter; and as the song is beginning, permit me to leave you to the unrestrained enjoyment of the music."
He took his hat, and making a bow to the amazed Mr. Huxter, left the table, as Huxter's comrades, after a pause of wonder, set up such a roar of laughter at Huxter, as called for the intervention of the president of the room; who bawled out, "Silence, gentlemen; do have silence for the Body s.n.a.t.c.her!" which popular song began as Pen left the Back-Kitchen. He flattered himself that he had commanded his temper perfectly. He rather wished that Huxter had been pugnacious. He would have liked to fight him or somebody. He went home. The day's work, the dinner, the play, the whisky-and-water, the quarrel-- nothing soothed him. He slept no better than on the previous night.
A few days afterward, Mr. Sam Huxter wrote home a letter to Mr.
Hobnell in the country, of which Mr. Arthur Pendennis formed the princ.i.p.al subject. Sam described Arthur's pursuits in London, and his confounded insolence of behavior to his old friends from home. He said he was an abandoned criminal, a regular Don Juan, a fellow who, when he _did_ come into the country, ought to be kept out of _honest people's houses_. He had seen him at Vauxhall, dancing with an innocent girl in the lower ranks of life, of whom he was making a victim. He had found out from an Irish gentleman (formerly in the army), who frequented a club
About once a year, as we have stated, there was occasion for a christening at the Warren, and it happened that this ceremony took place a day after Hobnell had received the letter of his brother-in-law in town. The infant (a darling little girl) was christened Myra-Lucretia, after its two G.o.dmothers, Miss Portman and Mrs. Pybus of Clavering, and as of course Hobnell had communicated Sam's letter to his wife, Mrs. Hobnell imparted its horrid contents to her two gossips. A pretty story it was, and prettily it was told throughout Clavering in the course of that day.
Myra did not--she was too much shocked to do so--speak on the matter to her mamma, but Mrs. Pybus had no such feelings of reserve. She talked over the matter not only with Mrs. Portman, but with Mr. and the Honorable Mrs. Simcoe, with Mrs. Glanders, her daughters being to that end ordered out of the room, with Madame Fribsby, and, in a word, with the whole of the Clavering society. Madam Fribsby looking furtively up at her picture of the dragoon, and inwards into her own wounded memory, said that men would be men, and as long as they were men would be deceivers; and she pensively quoted some lines from Marmion, requesting to know where deceiving lovers should rest? Mrs.
Pybus had no words of hatred, horror, contempt, strong enough for a villain who could be capable of conduct so base. This was what came of early indulgence, and insolence, and extravagance, and aristocratic airs (it is certain that Pen had refused to drink tea with Mrs.
Pybus), and attending the corrupt and horrid parties in the dreadful modern Babylon! Mrs. Portman was afraid that she must acknowledge that the mother's fatal partiality had spoiled this boy, that his literary successes had turned his head, and his horrid pa.s.sions had made him forget the principles which Dr. Portman had instilled into him in early life. Glanders, the atrocious Captain of Dragoons, when informed of the occurrence by Mrs. Glanders, whistled and made jocular allusions to it at dinner time; on which Mrs. Glanders called him a brute, and ordered the girls again out of the room, as the horrid captain burst out laughing. Mr. Simcoe was calm under the intelligence; but rather pleased than otherwise; it only served to confirm the opinion which he had always had of that wretched young man: not that he knew any thing about him--not that he had read one line of his dangerous and poisonous works; Heaven forbid that he should: but what could be expected from such a youth, and such frightful, such lamentable, such deplorable want of seriousness? Pen formed the subject for a second sermon at the Clavering chapel of ease: where the dangers of London, and the crime of reading and writing novels, were pointed out on a Sunday evening to a large and warm congregation. They did not wait to hear whether he was guilty or not. They took his wickedness for granted: and with these admirable moralists, it was who should fling the stone at poor Pen.
The next day Mrs. Pendennis, alone and almost fainting with emotion and fatigue, walked or rather ran to Dr. Portman's house, to consult the good doctor. She had had an anonymous letter; some Christian had thought it his or her duty to stab the good soul who had never done mortal a wrong--an anonymous letter with references to Scripture, pointing out the doom of such sinners, and a detailed account of Pen's crime. She was in a state of terror and excitement pitiable to witness. Two or three hours of this pain had aged her already. In her first moment of agitation she had dropped the letter, and Laura had read it. Laura blushed when she read it; her whole frame trembled, but it was with anger. "The cowards," she said. "It isn't true. No, mother, it isn't true."
"It _is_ true, and you've done it, Laura," cried out Helen fiercely.
"Why did you refuse him when he asked you? Why did you break my heart and refuse him? It is you who led him into crime. It is you who flung him into the arms of this--this woman. Don't speak to me. Don't answer me. I will never forgive you, never. Martha, bring me my bonnet and shawl. I'll go out. I won't have you come with me. Go away. Leave me, cruel girl; why have you brought this shame on me?" And bidding her daughter and her servants keep away from her, she ran down the road to Clavering.
Doctor Portman, glancing over the letter, thought he knew the hand writing, and, of course, was already acquainted with the charge made against poor Pen. Against his own conscience, perhaps (for the worthy doctor, like most of us, had a considerable natural apt.i.tude for receiving any report unfavorable to his neighbors), he strove to console Helen; he pointed out that the slander came from an anonymous quarter, and therefore must be the work of a rascal; that the charge might not be true--was not true, most likely--at least, that Pen must be heard before he was condemned; that the son of such a mother was not likely to commit such a crime, &c., &c.
Helen at once saw through his feint of objection and denial. "You think he has done it," she said, "you know you think he has done it, Oh, why did I ever leave him, Doctor Portman, or suffer him away from me? But he can't be dishonest--pray G.o.d, not dishonest--you don't think that, do you? Remember his conduct about that other--person --how madly he was attached to her. He was an honest boy then--he is now. And I thank G.o.d--yes, I fall down on my knees and thank G.o.d he paid Laura. You said he was good--you did yourself. And now--if this woman loves him--and you know they must--if he has taken her from her home, or she tempted him, which is most likely-why still, she must be his wife and my daughter. And he must leave the dreadful world and come back to me--to his mother, Doctor Portman. Let us go away and bring him back--yes--bring him back--and there shall be joy for the--the sinner that repenteth. Let us go now, directly, dear friend--this very--"
Helen could say no more. She fell back and fainted. She was carried to a bed in the house of the pitying doctor, and the surgeon was called to attend her. She lay all night in an alarming state. Laura came to her, or to the rectory rather; for she would not see Laura. And Doctor Portman, still beseeching her to be tranquil, and growing bolder and more confident of Arthur's innocence as he witnessed the terrible grief of the poor mother, wrote a letter to Pen warning him of the rumors that were against him, and earnestly praying that he would break off and repent of a connection so fatal to his best interests and his soul's welfare.
And Laura?--was her heart not wrung by the thought of Arthur's crime and Helen's estrangement? Was it not a bitter blow for the innocent girl to think that at one stroke she should lose _all_ the love which she cared for in the world?
CHAPTER XIII.
WHICH HAD VERY NEARLY BEEN THE LAST OF THE STORY.
Doctor Portman's letter was sent off to its destination in London, and the worthy clergyman endeavored to sooth down Mrs. Pendennis into some state of composure until an answer should arrive, which the doctor tried to think, or, at any rate, persisted in saying, would be satisfactory as regarded the morality of Mr. Pen. At least Helen's wish of moving upon London and appearing in person to warn her son of his wickedness, was impracticable for a day or two. The apothecary forbade her moving even so far as Fairoaks for the first day, and it was not until the subsequent morning that she found herself again back on her sofa at home, with the faithful, though silent Laura, nursing at her side.
Unluckily for himself and all parties, Pen never read that homily which Doctor Portman addressed to him, until many weeks after the epistle had been composed; and day after day, the widow waited for her son's reply to the charges against him; her own illness increasing with every day's delay. It was a hard task for Laura to bear the anxiety; to witness her dearest friend's suffering: worst of all, to support Helen's estrangement, and the pain caused to her by that averted affection. But it was the custom of this young lady to the utmost of her power, and by means of that gracious a.s.sistance which Heaven awarded to her pure and constant prayers, to do her duty. And, as that duty was performed quite noiselessly--while, the supplications, which endowed her with the requisite strength for fulfilling it, also took place in her own chamber, away from all mortal sight,--we, too, must be perforce silent about these virtues of hers, which no more bear public talking about, than a flower will bear to bloom in a ball-room. This only we will say-that a good woman is the loveliest flower that blooms under Heaven; and that we look with love and wonder upon its silent grace, its pure fragrance, its delicate bloom of beauty. Sweet and beautiful!--the fairest and the most spotless!--is it not pity to see them bowed down or devoured by Grief or Death inexorable--wasting in disease-pining with long pain-or cut off by sudden fate in their prime? _We_ may deserve grief--but why should these be unhappy?--except that we know that Heaven chastens those whom it loves best; being pleased, by repeated trials, to make these pure spirits more pure.
So Pen never got the letter, although it was duly posted and faithfully discharged by the postman into his letter-box in Lamb Court, and thence carried by the laundress to his writing-table with the rest of his lords.h.i.+p's correspondence; into which room, have we not seen a picture of him, entering from his little bedroom adjoining, as Mrs. Flanagan, his laundress, was in the act of drinking his gin?
Those kind readers who have watched Mr. Arthur's career hitherto, and have made, as they naturally would do, observations upon the moral character and peculiarities of their acquaintance, have probably discovered by this time what was the prevailing fault in Mr. Pen's disposition, and who was that greatest enemy, artfully indicated in the t.i.tle-page, with whom he had to contend. Not a few of us, my beloved public, have the very same rascal to contend with: a scoundrel who takes every opportunity of bringing us into mischief, of plunging us into quarrels, of leading us into idleness and unprofitable company, and what not. In a word, Pen's greatest enemy was himself: and as he had been pampering, and coaxing, and indulging that individual all his life, the rogue grew insolent, as all spoiled servants will be; and at the slightest attempt to coerce him, or make him do that which was unpleasant to him, became frantically rude and unruly. A person who is used to making sacrifices--Laura, for instance, who had got such a habit of giving up her own pleasure for others-can do the business quite easily; but Pen, unaccustomed as he was to any sort of self-denial, suffered woundily when called on to pay his share, and savagely grumbled at being obliged to forego any thing he liked.
He had resolved in his mighty mind then that he would not see f.a.n.n.y; and he wouldn't. He tried to drive the thoughts of that fascinating little person out of his head, by constant occupation, by exercise, by dissipation, and society. He worked, then, too much; he walked and rode too much; he ate, drank, and smoked too much; nor could all the cigars and the punch of which he partook drive little f.a.n.n.y's image out of his inflamed brain, and at the end of a week of this discipline and self-denial our young gentleman was in bed with a fever. Let the reader who has never had a fever in chambers pity the wretch who is bound to undergo that calamity.
A committee of marriageable ladies, or of any Christian persons interested in the propagation of the domestic virtues, should employ a Cruikshank, or a Leech, or some other kindly expositor of the follies of the day, to make a series of designs representing the horrors of a bachelor's life in chambers, and leading the beholder to think of better things, and a more wholesome condition. What can be more uncomfortable than the bachelor's lonely breakfast?--with the black kettle in the dreary fire in Midsummer; or, worse still, with the fire gone out at Christmas, half an hour after the laundress has quitted the sitting-room? Into this solitude the owner enters s.h.i.+vering, and has to commence his day by hunting for coals and wood: and before he begins the work of a student, has to discharge the duties of a housemaid, vice Mrs. Flanagan, who is absent without leave. Or, again, what can form a finer subject for the cla.s.sical designer than the bachelor's s.h.i.+rt--that garment which he wants to a.s.sume just at dinner-time, and which he finds without any b.u.t.tons to fasten it? Then there is the bachelor's return to chambers after a merry Christmas holiday, spent in a cozy country-house, full of pretty faces, and kind welcomes and regrets. He leaves his portmanteau at the barber's in the court: he lights his dismal old candle at the sputtering little lamp on the stair: he enters the blank familiar room, where the only tokens to greet him, that show any interest in his personal welfare, are the Christmas bills, which are lying in wait for him, amicably spread out on his reading-table. Add to these scenes an appalling picture of bachelor's illness, and the rents in the Temple will begin to fall from the day of the publication of the dismal diorama. To be well in chambers is melancholy, and lonely and selfish enough; but to be ill in chambers--to pa.s.s nights of pain and watchfulness--to long for the morning and the laundress--to serve yourself your own medicine by your own watch--to have no other companion for long hours but your own sickening fancies and fevered thoughts: no kind hand to give you drink if you are thirsty, or to smooth the hot pillow that crumples under you--this indeed, is a fate so dismal and tragic, that we shall not enlarge upon its horrors; and shall only heartily pity those bachelors in the Temple who brave it every day.
This lot befell Arthur Pendennis after the various excesses which we have mentioned, and to which he had subjected his unfortunate brains.
One night he went to bed ill, and next the day awoke worse. His only visitor that day, besides the laundress, was the Printer's Devil, from the "Pall Mall Gazette Office," whom the writer endeavored, as best he could, to satisfy. His exertions to complete his work rendered his fever the greater: he could only furnish a part of the quant.i.ty of "copy" usually supplied by him; and Shandon being absent, and Warrington not in London to give a help, the political and editorial columns of the "Gazette" looked very blank indeed; nor did the sub-editor know how to fill them. Mr. Finucane rushed up to Pen's Chambers, and found that gentleman so exceedingly unwell, that the good-natured Irishman set to work to supply his place, if possible, and produced a series of political and critical compositions, such as no doubt greatly edified the readers of the periodical in which he and Pen were concerned. Allusions to the greatness of Ireland, and the genius and virtue of the inhabitants of that injured country, flowed magnificently from Finucane's pen; and Shandon, the Chief of the paper, who was enjoying himself placidly at Boulogne-sur-mer, looking over the columns of the journal, which was forwarded to him, instantly recognized the hand of the great sub-editor, and said, laughing, as he flung over the paper to his wife, "Look here, Mary, my dear, here is Jack at work again." Indeed, Jack was a warm friend, and a gallant partisan, and when he had the pen in hand, seldom let slip an opportunity of letting the world know that Rafferty was the greatest painter in Europe, and wondering at the petty jealousy of the Academy, which refused to make him an R. A.: of stating that it was generally reported at the West End, that Mr. Rooney, M. P. was appointed Governor of Barataria; or of introducing into the subject in hand, whatever it might be, a compliment to the Round Towers, or the Giant's Causeway. And besides doing Pen's work for him, to the best of his ability, his kind-hearted comrade offered to forego his Sat.u.r.day's and Sunday's holiday, and pa.s.s those days of holiday and rest as nurse-tender to Arthur, who, however, insisted, that the other should not forego his pleasure, and thankfully a.s.sured him that he could bear best his malady alone.
Taking his supper at the Back-Kitchen on the Friday night, after having achieved the work of the paper, Finucane informed Captain Costigan of the illness of their young friend in the Temple; and remembering the fact two days afterward, the captain went to Lamb Court and paid a visit to the invalid on Sunday afternoon. He found Mrs. Flanagan, the laundress, in tears in the sitting-room, and got a bad report of the poor dear young gentleman within. Pen's condition had so much alarmed her, that she was obliged to have recourse to the stimulus of brandy to enable her to support the grief which his illness occasioned. As she hung about his bed, and endeavored to minister to him, her attentions became intolerable to the invalid, and he begged her peevishly not to come near him. Hence the laundress's tears and redoubled grief, and renewed application to the bottle, which she was accustomed to use as an anodyne. The captain rated the woman soundly for her intemperance, and pointed out to her the fatal consequences which must ensue if she persisted in her imprudent courses. Pen, who was by this time in a very fevered state, was yet greatly pleased to receive Costigan's visit. He heard the well-known voice in his sitting-room, as he lay in the bedroom within, and called the captain eagerly to him, and thanked him for coming, and begged him to take a chair and talk to him. The captain felt the young man's pulse with great gravity--(his own tremulous and clammy hand growing steady for the instant while his finger pressed Arthur's throbbing vein)--the pulse was beating very fiercely--Pen's face was haggard and hot--his eyes were bloodshot and gloomy; his "bird," as the captain p.r.o.nounced the word, afterward giving a description of his condition, had not been shaved for nearly a week. Pen made his visitor sit down, and, tossing and turning in his comfortless bed, began to try and talk to the captain in a lively manner, about the Back-Kitchen, about Vauxhall and when they should go again, and about f.a.n.n.y--how was little f.a.n.n.y?