Chapter 77
Hawxby's character, and how desperately that lady would practice upon unwary young men, had come to the country-house in question and carried Arthur out of the danger of her immediate claws, though not out of the reach of her tongue. The elder Pendennis would have had his nephew pa.s.s a part of the Christmas at Clavering, whither the family had returned; but Arthur had not the heart for that. Clavering was too near poor old Fairoaks; and that was too full of sad recollections for the young man.
We have lost sight of the Claverings, too, until their reappearance upon the Epsom race-ground, and must give a brief account of them in the interval. During the past year, the world has not treated any member of the Clavering family very kindly. Lady Clavering, one of the best-natured women that ever enjoyed a good dinner, or made a slip in grammar, has had her appet.i.te and good-nature sadly tried by constant family grievances, and disputes such as make the efforts of the best French cook unpalatable, and the most delicately-stuffed sofa-cus.h.i.+on hard to lie on. "I'd rather have a turnip, Strong, for dessert, than that pineapple, and all them Muscatel grapes, from Clavering," says poor Lady Clavering, looking at her dinner-table, and confiding her griefs to her faithful friend, "if I could but have a little quiet to eat it with. Oh, how much happier I was when I was a widow, and before all this money fell in to me!"
The Clavering family had indeed made a false start in life, and had got neither comfort, nor position, nor thanks for the hospitalities which they administered, nor a return of kindness from the people whom they entertained. The success of their first London season was doubtful; and their failure afterward notorious. "Human patience was not great enough to put up with Sir Francis Clavering," people said.
"He was too hopelessly low, dull, and disreputable. You could not say what, but there was a taint about the house and its _entourages_. Who was the Begum, with her money, and without her h's, and where did she come from? What an extraordinary little piece of conceit the daughter was, with her Gallicised graces and daring affectations, not fit for well-bred English girls to a.s.sociate with! What strange people were those they a.s.sembled round about them! Sir Francis Clavering was a gambler, living notoriously in the society of blacklegs and profligates. Hely Clinker, who was in his regiment, said that he not only cheated at cards, but showed the white feather. What could Lady Rockminster have meant by taking her up?" After the first season, indeed, Lady Rockminster, who had taken up Lady Clavering, put her down; the great ladies would not take their daughters to her parties; the young men who attended them behaved with the most odious freedom and scornful familiarity; and poor Lady Clavering herself avowed that she was obliged to take what she called "the ca.n.a.l" into her parlor, because the tiptops wouldn't come.
She had not the slightest ill-will toward "the ca.n.a.l," the poor, dear lady, or any pride about herself, or idea that she was better than her neighbor; but she had taken implicitly the orders which, on her entry into the world, her social G.o.dmother had given her: she had been willing to know whom they knew, and ask whom they asked. The "ca.n.a.l,"
in fact, was much pleasanter than what is called "society;" but, as we said before, that to leave a mistress is easy, while, on the contrary, to be left by her is cruel; so you may give up society without any great pang, or any thing but a sensation of relief at the parting; but severe are the mortifications and pains you have if society gives up you.
One young man of fas.h.i.+on we have mentioned, who at least, it might have been expected, would have been found faithful among the faithless, and Harry Foker, Esq., was indeed that young man. But he had not managed matters with prudence, and the unhappy pa.s.sion at first confided to Pen became notorious and ridiculous to the town, was carried to the ears of his weak and fond mother, and finally brought under the cognizance of the bald-headed and inflexible Foker senior.
When Mr. Foker learned this disagreeable news, there took place between him and his son a violent and painful scene which ended in the poor little gentleman's banishment from England for a year, with a positive order to return at the expiration of that time and complete his marriage with his cousin, or to retire into private life and three hundred a year altogether, and never see parent or brewery more. Mr.
Henry Foker went away, then, carrying with him that grief and care which pa.s.ses free at the strictest custom-houses, and which proverbially accompanies the exile, and with this c.r.a.pe over his eyes, even the Parisian Boulevard looked melancholy to him, and the sky of Italy black.
To Sir Francis Clavering, that year was a most unfortunate one. The events described in the last chapter came to complete the ruin of the year. It was that year of grace in which, as our sporting readers may remember, Lord Harrowhill's horse (he was a cla.s.sical young n.o.bleman, and named his stud out of the Iliad)--when Podasokus won the "Derby,"
to the dismay of the knowing ones, who p.r.o.nounced the winning horse's name in various extraordinary ways, and who backed Borax, who was nowhere in the race. Sir Francis Clavering, who was intimate with some of the most rascally characters of the turf, and, of course, had valuable "information," had laid heavy odds against the winning horse, and backed the favorite freely, and the result of his dealings was, as his son correctly stated to poor Lady Clavering, a loss of seven thousand pounds.
Indeed, it was a cruel blow upon the lady, who had discharged her husband's debts many times over; who had received as many times his oaths and promises of amendment; who had paid his money-lenders and horse-dealers; who had furnished his town and country houses, and who was called upon now instantly to meet this enormous sum, the penalty of her cowardly husband's extravagance. It has been described in former pages how the elder Pendennis had become the adviser of the Clavering family, and, in his quality of intimate friend of the house, had gone over every room of it, and even seen that ugly closet which we all of us have, and in which, according to the proverb, the family skeleton is locked up. About the baronet's pecuniary matters, if the major did not know, it was because Clavering himself did not know them, and hid them from himself and others in such a hopeless entanglement of lies that it was impossible for adviser or attorney or princ.i.p.al to get an accurate knowledge of his affairs. But, concerning Lady Clavering, the major was much better informed; and when the unlucky mishap of the "Derby" arose, he took upon himself to become completely and thoroughly acquainted with all her means, whatsoever they where; and was now accurately informed of the vast and repeated sacrifices which the widow Amory had made in behalf of her present husband.
He did not conceal--and he had won no small favor from Miss Blanche by avowing it--his opinion, that Lady Clavering's daughter had been hardly treated at the expense of her son by her second marriage: and in his conversations with Lady Clavering had fairly hinted that he thought Miss Blanche ought to have a better provision. We have said that he had already given the widow to understand that he knew _all_ the particulars of her early and unfortunate history, having been in India at the time when--when the painful circ.u.mstances occurred which had ended in her parting from her first husband. He could tell her where to find the Calcutta newspaper which contained the account of Amory's trial, and he showed, and the Begum was not a little grateful to him for his forbearance, how being aware all along of this mishap which had befallen her, he had kept all knowledge of it to himself, and been constantly the friend of her family.
"Interested motives, my dear Lady Clavering," he said, "of course I may have had. We all have interested motives, and mine I don't conceal from you, was to make a marriage between my nephew and your daughter."
To which Lady Clavering, perhaps with some surprise that the major should choose her family for a union with his own, said she was quite willing to consent.
But frankly he said, "My dear lady, my boy has but five hundred a year, and a wife with ten thousand pounds to her fortune would scarcely better him. We could do better for him than that, permit me to say, and he is a shrewd, cautious young fellow who has sown his wild oats now--who has very good parts and plenty of ambition--and whose object in marrying is to better himself. If you and Sir Francis chose--and Sir Francis, take my word for it, will refuse you nothing--you could put Arthur in a way to advance very considerably in the world, and show the stuff which he has in him. Of what use is that seat in Parliament to Clavering, who scarcely ever shows his face in the House, or speaks a word there? I'm told by gentlemen who heard my boy at Oxbridge, that he was famous as an orator, begad!--and once put his foot into the stirrup and mount him, I've no doubt he won't be the last of the field ma'am. I've tested the chap, and know him pretty well, I think. He is much too lazy, and careless, and flighty a fellow, to make a jog-trot journey, and arrive, as your lawyers do, at the end of their lives! but give him a start and good friends, and an opportunity, and take my word for it, he'll make himself a name that his sons shall be proud of. I don't see any way for a fellow like him to _parvenir_, but by making a prudent marriage--not with a beggerly heiress--to sit down for life upon a miserable fifteen hundred a year--but with somebody whom he can help, and who can help him forward in
"You know I look upon Arthur as one of the family almost now," said the good-natured Begum; "he comes and goes when he likes; and the more I think of his dear mother, the more I see there's few people so good--none so good to me. And I'm sure I cried when I heard of her death, and would have gone into mourning for her myself, only black don't become me. And I know who his mother wanted him to marry --Laura, I mean--whom old Lady Rockminster has taken such a fancy to, and no wonder. She's a better girl than my girl. I know both, And my Betsy--Blanche, I mean--ain't been a comfort to me, major. It's Laura Penn ought to marry."
"Marry on five hundred a year! My dear good soul, you are mad!" Major Pendennis said. "Think over what I have said to you. Do nothing in your affairs with that unhappy husband of yours without consulting me; and remember that old Pendennis is always your friend."
For some time previous, Pen's uncle had held similar language to Miss Amory. He had pointed out to her the convenience of the match which he had at heart, and was bound to say, that mutual convenience was of all things the very best in the world to marry upon--the only thing. "Look at your love-marriages, my dear young creature. The love-match people are the most notorious of all for quarreling, afterward; and a girl who runs away with Jack to Gretna Green, constantly runs away with Tom to Switzerland afterward. The great point in marriage is for people to agree to be useful to one another. The lady brings the means, and the gentleman avails himself of them. My boy's wife brings the horse, and begad, Pen goes in and wins the plate. That's what I call a sensible union. A couple like that have something to talk to each other about when they come together. If you had Cupid himself to talk to--if Blanche and Pen were Cupid and Psyche, begad--they'd begin to yawn after a few evenings, if they had nothing but sentiment to speak on."
As for Miss Amory, she was contented enough with Pen as long as there was n.o.body better. And how many other young ladies are like her?--and how many love marriages carry on well to the last?--and how many sentimental firms do not finish in bankruptcy?--and how many heroic pa.s.sions don't dwindle down into despicable indifference, or end in shameful defeat?
These views of life and philosophy the major was constantly, according to his custom, inculcating to Pen, whose mind was such that he could see the right on both sides of many questions, and comprehending the sentimental life which was quite out of the reach of the honest major's intelligence, could understand the practical life too, and accommodate himself, or think he could accommodate himself to it. So it came to pa.s.s that during the spring succeeding his mother's death he became a good deal under the influence of his uncle's advice, and domesticated in Lady Clavering's house; and in a measure was accepted by Miss Amory without being a suitor, and was received without being engaged. The young people were extremely familiar, without being particularly sentimental, and met and parted with each other in perfect good-humor. "And I," thought Pendennis, "am the fellow who eight years ago had a grand pa.s.sion, and last year was raging in a fever about Briseis!"
Yes, it was the same Pendennis, and time had brought to him, as to the rest of us, its ordinary consequences, consolations, developments. We alter very little. When we talk of this man or that woman being no longer the same person whom we remember in youth, and remark (of course to deplore) changes in our friends, we don't, perhaps, calculate that circ.u.mstance only brings out the latent defect or quality, and does not create it. The selfish languor and indifference of to-day's possession is the consequence of the selfish ardor of yesterday's pursuit: the scorn and weariness which cries _vanitas vanitatum_ is but the la.s.situde of the sick appet.i.te palled with pleasure: the insolence of the successful _parvenu_ is only the necessary continuance of the career of the needy struggler: our mental changes are like our gray hairs or our wrinkles--but the fulfillment of the plan of mortal growth and decay: that which is snow-white now was glossy black once; that which is sluggish obesity to-day was boisterous rosy health a few years back; that calm weariness, benevolent, resigned, and disappointed, was ambition, fierce and violent, but a few years since, and has only settled into submissive repose after many a battle and defeat. Lucky he who can bear his failure so generously, and give up his broken sword to Fate the Conqueror with a manly and humble heart! Are you not awe-stricken, you, friendly reader, who, taking the page up for a moment's light reading, lay it down, perchance, for a graver reflection--to think how you, who have consummated your success or your disaster, may be holding marked station, or a hopeless and nameless place, in the crowds who have pa.s.sed through how many struggles of defeat, success, crime, remorse, to yourself only known!--who may have loved and grown cold, wept and laughed again, how often!--to think how you are the same, _You_, whom in childhood you remember, before the voyage of life began? It has been prosperous, and you are riding into port, the people huzzaing and the guns saluting,--and the lucky captain bows from the s.h.i.+p's side, and there is a care under the star on his breast which no body knows of: or you are wrecked, and lashed, hopeless, to a solitary spar out at sea:--the sinking man and the successful one are thinking each about home, very likely, and remembering the time when they were children; alone on the hopeless spar, drowning out of sight; alone in the midst of the crowd applauding you.
CHAPTER XXII.
CONVERSATIONS.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
Our good-natured Begum was at first so much enraged at this last instance of her husband's duplicity and folly, that she refused to give Sir Francis Clavering any aid in order to meet his debts of honor, and declared that she would separate from him, and leave him to the consequences of his incorrigible weakness and waste. After that fatal day's transactions at the Derby, the unlucky gambler was in such a condition of mind that he was disposed to avoid every body--alike his turf-a.s.sociates with whom he had made debts which he trembled lest he should not have the means of paying, and his wife, his long-suffering banker, on whom he reasonably doubted whether he should be allowed any longer to draw. When Lady Clavering asked the next morning whether Sir Francis was in the house, she received answer that he had not returned that night, but had sent a messenger to his valet, ordering him to forward clothes and letters by the bearer. Strong knew that he should have a visit or a message from him in the course of that or the subsequent day, and accordingly got a note beseeching him to call upon his distracted friend F. C., at Short's Hotel, Blackfriars, and ask for Mr. Francis there. For the baronet was a gentleman of that peculiarity of mind that he would rather tell a lie than not, and always began a contest with fortune by running away and hiding himself. The boots of Mr. Short's establishment, who carried Clavering's message to Grosvenor-place, and brought back his carpet-bag, was instantly aware who was the owner of the bag, and he imparted his information to the footman who was laying the breakfast-table, who carried down the news to the servant's hall, who took it to Mrs. Bonner, my lady's housekeeper and confidential maid, who carried it to my lady. And thus every single person in the Grosvenor-place establishment knew that Sir Francis was in hiding, under the name of Francis, at an inn in the Blackfriar's-road. And Sir Francis's coachman told the news to other gentlemen's coachmen, who carried it to their masters, and to the neighboring Tattersall's, where very gloomy antic.i.p.ations were formed that Sir Francis Clavering was about to make a tour in the Levant.
In the course of that day the number of letters addressed to Sir Francis Clavering, Bart., which found their way to his hall table, was quite remarkable. The French cook sent in his account to my lady; the tradesmen who supplied her ladys.h.i.+p's table, and Messrs. Finer and Gimcrack, the mercers and ornamental dealers, and Madame Crinoline, the eminent milliner, also forwarded their little bills to her ladys.h.i.+p in company with Miss Amory's private, and by no means inconsiderable, account at each establishment.
In the afternoon of the day after the Derby, when Strong (after a colloquy with his princ.i.p.al at Short's hotel, whom he found crying and drinking Curacoa) called to transact business according to his custom at Grosvenor-place, he found all these suspicious doc.u.ments ranged in the baronet's study; and began to open them and examine them with a rueful countenance.
Mrs. Bonner, my lady's maid and housekeeper, came down upon him while engaged in this occupation. Mrs. Bonner, a part of the family, and as necessary to her mistress as the chevalier was to Sir Francis, was of course on Lady Clavering's side in the dispute between her and her husband, and as by duty bound even more angry than her ladys.h.i.+p herself.
"She won't pay if she takes my advice," Mrs. Bonner said. "You'll please to go back to Sir Francis, Captain--and he lurking about in a low public-house and don't dare to face his wife like a man;--and say that we won't pay his debts no longer. We made a man of him, we took him out of jail (and other folks too perhaps), we've paid his debts over and over again--we set him up in Parliament and gave him a house in town and country, and where he don't dare to show his face, the shabby sneak! We've given him the horse he rides, and the dinner he eats, and the very clothes he has on his back; and we will give him no more. Our fortune, such as is left of it, is left to ourselves, and we wont waste any more of it on this ungrateful man. We'll give him enough to live upon and leave him, that's what we'll do: and that's what you may tell him from Susan Bonner."
Susan Bonner's mistress hearing of Strong's arrival sent for him at this juncture, and the chevalier went up to her ladys.h.i.+p not without hopes that he should find her more tractable than her factotum Mrs.
Bonner. Many a time before had he pleaded his client's cause with Lady Clavering and caused her good-nature to relent. He tried again once more. He painted in dismal colors the situation in which he had found Sir Francis: and would not answer for any consequences which might ensue if he could not find means of meeting his engagements. "Kill hisself," laughed Mrs. Bonner, "kill hisself, will he? Dying's the best thing he could do." Strong vowed that he had found him with the razors on the table; but at this, in her turn, Lady Clavering laughed bitterly. "He'll do himself no harm, as long as there's a s.h.i.+lling left of which he can rob a poor woman. His life's quite safe, captain: you may depend upon that. Ah! it was a bad day that ever I set eyes on him."
"He's worse than the first man," cried out my lady's aid-de-camp. "He was a man, he was--a wild devil, but he had the courage of a man--whereas this fellow--what's the use of my lady paying his bills, and selling her diamonds, and forgiving him? He'll be as bad again next year. The very next chance he has he'll be a cheating of her, and robbing of her; and her money will go to keep a pack of rogues and swindlers--I don't mean you, captain--you've been a good friend to us enough, bating we wish we'd never set eyes on you."
The chevalier saw from the words which Mrs. Bonner had let slip regarding the diamonds, that the kind Begum was disposed to relent once more at least, and that there were hopes still for his princ.i.p.al.
"Upon my word, ma'am," he said, with a real feeling of sympathy for Lady Clavering's troubles, and admiration for her untiring good-nature, and with a show of enthusiasm which advanced not a little his graceless patron's cause--"any thing you say against Clavering, or Mrs. Bonner here cries out against me, is no better than we deserve, both of us, and it was an unlucky day for you when you saw either. He has behaved cruelly to you; and if you were not the most generous and forgiving woman in the world, I know there would be no chance for him.
But you can't let the father of your son be a disgraced man, and send little Frank into the world with such a stain upon him. Tie him down; bind him by any promises you like: I vouch for him that he will subscribe them."
"And break 'em," said Mrs. Bonner.
"And keep 'em this time," cried out Strong. "He must keep them. If you could have seen how he wept, ma'am! 'Oh, Strong,' he said to me, 'it's not for myself I feel now: it's for my boy--it's for the best woman in England, whom I have treated basely--I know I have.' He didn't intend to bet upon this race, ma'am--indeed he didn't. He was cheated into it: all the ring was taken in. He thought he might make the bet quite safely, without the least risk. And it will be a lesson to him for all his life long. To see a man cry--Oh, it's dreadful."
"He don't think much of making my dear missus cry," said Mrs.
Bonner--"poor dear soul!--look if he does, captain."
"If you've the soul of a man, Clavering," Strong said to his princ.i.p.al, when he recounted this scene to him, "you'll keep your promise this time: and, so help me Heaven! if you break word with her, I'll turn against you, and tell all."
"What, all?" cried Mr. Francis, to whom his emba.s.sador brought the news back at Short's hotel, where Strong found the baronet crying and drinking Curacoa.
"Psha! Do you suppose I am a fool?" burst out Strong. "Do you suppose I could have lived so long in the world, Frank Clavering, with out having my eyes about me? You know I have but to speak, and you are a beggar to-morrow. And I am not the only man who knows your secret."
"Who else does?" gasped Clavering.
"Old Pendennis does, or I am very much mistaken. He recognized the man the first night he saw him, when he came drunk into your house."
"He knows it, does he?" shrieked out Clavering. "d.a.m.n him--kill him."
"You'd like to kill us all, wouldn't you old boy?" said Strong, with a sneer, puffing his cigar.
The baronet dashed his weak hand against his forehead; perhaps the other had interpreted his wish rightly. "Oh, Strong!" he cried, "if I dared, I'd put an end to myself, for I'm the d--est miserable dog in all England. It's that that makes me so wild and reckless. It's that which makes me take to drink (and he drank, with a trembling hand, a b.u.mper of his fortifier--the Curacoa), and to live about with these thieves. I know they're thieves, every one of em, d--d thieves.
And--and how can I help it?--and I didn't know it, you know--and, by gad, I'm innocent--and until I saw the d--d scoundrel first, I knew no more about it than the dead--and I'll fly, and I'll go abroad out of the reach of the confounded h.e.l.ls, and I'll bury myself in a forest, by gad! and hang myself up to a tree--and, oh--I'm the most miserable beggar in all England!" And so with more tears, shrieks, and curses, the impotent wretch vented his grief and deplored his unhappy fate; and, in the midst of groans and despair and blasphemy, vowed his miserable repentance.
The honored proverb which declares that to be an ill wind which blows good to n.o.body, was verified in the case of Sir Francis Clavering, and another of the occupants of Mr. Strong's chambers in Shepherd's Inn.
The man was "good," by a lucky hap, with whom Colonel Altamont made his bet; and on the settling day of the Derby--as Captain Clinker, who was appointed to settle Sir Francis Clavering's book for him (for Lady Clavering, by the advice of Major Pendennis, would not allow the baronet to liquidate his own money transactions), paid over the notes to the baronet's many creditors--Colonel Altamont had the satisfaction of receiving the odds of thirty to one in fifties, which he had taken against the winning horse of the day.
Numbers of the colonel's friends were present on the occasion to congratulate him on his luck--all Altamont's own set, and the gents who met in the private parlor of the convivial Wheeler, my host of the Harlequin's Head, came to witness their comrade's good fortune, and would have liked, with a generous sympathy for success, to share in it. "Now was the time," Tom Driver had suggested to the colonel, "to have up the specie s.h.i.+p that was sunk in the Gulf of Mexico, with the three hundred and eighty thousand dollars on board, besides bars and doubloons." "The Tredyddlums were very low--to be bought for an old song--never was such an opportunity for buying shares," Mr. Keightley insinuated; and Jack Holt pressed forward his tobacco-smuggling scheme, the audacity of which pleased the colonel more than any other of the speculations proposed to him. Then of the Harlequin's Head boys: there was Jack Hackstraw, who knew of a pair of horses which the colonel must buy; Tom Fleet, whose satirical paper, "The Swell,"
wanted but two hundred pounds of capital to be worth a thousand a year to any man--"with such a power and influence, colonel, you rogue, and the _entree_ of all the green-rooms in London," Tom urged; while little Moss Abrams entreated the colonel not to listen to these absurd fellows with their humbugging speculations, but to invest his money in some good bills which Moss could get for him, and which would return him fifty per cent, as safe as the Bank of England.