Pen's conduct in this business of course was soon made public and angered his friend Doctor Portman, not a little: while it only amused Major Pendennis. As for the good Mrs. Pendennis, she was almost distracted when she heard of the squabble, and of Pen's unchristian behavior. All sorts of wretchedness, discomfort, crime, annoyance, seemed to come out of this transaction in which the luckless boy had engaged; and she longed more than ever to see him out of Chatteries for a while—any where removed from the woman who had brought him into so much trouble.
Pen, when remonstrated with by this fond parent, and angrily rebuked by the doctor for his violence and ferocious intentions, took the matterau grand sérieux, with the happy conceit and gravity of youth: said that he himself was very sorry for the affair, that the insult had come upon him without the slightest provocation on his part; that he would permit no man to insult him upon this head without vindicating his own honor, and appealing with great dignity to his uncle, asked whether he could have acted otherwise as a gentleman, than as he did in resenting the outrage offered to him, and in offering satisfaction to the person chastised?
"Vous allez trop vite, my good sir," said the uncle, rather puzzled, for he had been indoctrinating his nephew with some of his own notions upon the point of honor—old-world notions savoring of the camp and pistol a great deal more than our soberer opinions of the present day—"between men of the world I don't say; but between two school-boys, this sort of thing is ridiculous, my dear boy—perfectly ridiculous."
"It is extremely wicked, and unlike my son," said Mrs. Pendennis, with tears in her eyes; and bewildered with the obstinacy of the boy.
Pen kissed her, and said with great pomposity, "Women, dear mother, don't understand these matters—I put myself into Foker's hands—I had no other course to pursue."
Major Pendennis grinned and shrugged his shoulders. The young ones were certainly making great progress, he thought. Mrs. Pendennis declared that that Foker was a wicked horrid little wretch, and was sure that he would lead her dear boy into mischief, if Pen went to the same college with him. "I have a great mind not to let him go at all," she said: and only that she remembered that the lad's father had always destined him for the college in which he had had his own brief education, very likely the fond mother would have put a veto upon his going to the University.
That he was to go, and at the next October term, had been arranged between all the authorities who presided over the lad's welfare. Foker had promised to introduce him to the right set; and Major Pendennis laid great store upon Pen's introduction into college life and society by this admirable young gentleman. "Mr. Foker knows the very best young men now at the University," the major said, "and Pen will form acquaintances there who will be of the greatest advantage through life to him. The young Marquis of Plinlimmon is there, eldest son of the Duke of Saint David's—Lord Magnus Charters is there, Lord Runnymede's son; and a first cousin of Mr. Foker (Lady Runnymede, my dear, was Lady Agatha Milton, you of course remember), Lady Agnes will certainly invite him to Logwood; and far from being alarmed at his intimacy with her son, who is a singular and humorous, but most prudent and amiable young man, to whom, I am sure, we are under every obligation for his admirable conduct in the affair of the Fotheringay marriage, I look upon it as one of the very luckiest things which could have happened to Pen, that he should have formed an intimacy with this most amusing young gentleman."
Helen sighed, she supposed the major knew best. Mr. Foker had been very kind in the wretched business with Miss Costigan, certainly, and she was grateful to him. But she could not feel otherwise than a dim presentiment of evil; and all these quarrels, and riots, and worldliness, scared her about the fate of her boy.
Doctor Portman was decidedly of opinion that Pen should go to college. He hoped the lad would read, and have a moderate indulgence of the best society too. He was of opinion that Pen would distinguish himself: Smirke spoke very highly of his proficiency: the doctor himself had heard him construe, and thought he acquitted himself remarkably well. That he should go out of Chatteries was a great point, at any rate, and Pen, who was distracted from his private grief by the various rows and troubles which had risen round about him, gloomily said he would obey.
There were assizes, races, and the entertainments, and the flux of company consequent upon them, at Chatteries, during a part of themonths of August and September, and Miss Fotheringay still continued to act, and take farewell of the audiences at the Chatteries Theater during that time. Nobody seemed to be particularly affected by her presence, or her announced departure, except those persons whom we have named; nor could the polite county folks who had houses in London, and very likely admired the Fotheringay prodigiously in the capital, when they had been taught to do so by the fashion which set in in her favor find any thing remarkable in the actress performing on the little Chatteries boards. Many a genius and many a quack, for that matter, has met with a similar fate before and since Miss Costigan's time. This honest woman meanwhile bore up against the public neglect, and any other crosses or vexations which she might have in life, with her usual equanimity; and ate, drank, acted, slept, with that regularity and comfort which belongs to people of her temperament. What a deal of grief, care, and other harmful excitement, does a healthy dullness and cheerful insensibility avoid! Nor do I mean to say that Virtue is not Virtue because it is never tempted to go astray; only that dullness is a much finer gift than we give it credit for being, and that some people are very lucky whom Nature has endowed with a good store of that great anodyne.
Pen used to go drearily in and out from the play at Chatteries during this season, and pretty much according to his fancy. His proceedings tortured his mother not a little, and her anxiety would have led her often to interfere, had not the major constantly checked, and at the same time encouraged her; for the wily man of the world fancied he saw that a favorable turn had occurred in Pen's malady. It was the violent efflux of versification, among other symptoms, which gave Pen's guardian and physician satisfaction. He might be heard spouting verses in the shrubbery walks, or muttering them between his teeth as he sat with the home party of evenings. One day prowling about the house in Pen's absence, the major found a great book full of verses in the lad's study. They were in English, and in Latin; quotations from the classic authors were given in the scholastic manner in the foot-notes. He can't be very bad, wisely thought the Pall Mall Philosopher: and he made Pen's mother remark (not, perhaps, without a secret feeling of disappointment, for she loved romance like other soft women), that the young gentleman during the last fortnight came home quite hungry to dinner at night, and also showed a very decent appetite at the breakfast table in the morning. "Gad, I wish I could," said the major, thinking ruefully of his dinner pills. "The boy begins to sleep well, depend upon that." It was cruel, but it was true.
Having no other soul to confide in—for he could not speak to his mother of his loves and disappointments—his uncle treated them in a scornful and worldly tone, which, though carefully guarded and polite, yet jarred greatly on the feelings of Mr. Pen—and Foker was much too coarse to appreciate those refined sentimental secrets—the lad's friendship for the curate redoubled, or rather, he was never tired of having Smirke for a listener on that one subject. What is a lover without aconfidant? Pen employed Mr. Smirke, as Corydon does the elm-tree, to cut out his mistress's name upon. He made him echo with the name of the beautiful Amaryllis. When men have left off playing the tune, they do not care much for the pipe: but Pen thought he had a great friendship for Smirke, because he could sigh out his loves and griefs into his tutor's ears; and Smirke had his own reasons for always being ready at the lad's call.
Pen's affection gushed out in a multitude of sonnets to the friend of his heart, as he styled the curate, which the other received with great sympathy. He plied Smirke with Latin Sapphics and Alcaics. The love-songs multiplied under his fluent pen; and Smirke declared and believed that they were beautiful. On the other hand, Pen expressed a boundless gratitude to think that Heaven should have sent him such a friend at such a moment. He presented his tutor with his best bound books, and his gold guard chain, and wanted him to take his double-barreled gun. He went into Chatteries and got a gold pencil-case on credit (for he had no money, and indeed was still in debt to Smirke for some of the Fotheringay presents), which he presented to Smirke, with an inscription indicative of his unalterable and eternal regard for the curate; who of course was pleased with every mark of the boy's attachment.
The poor curate was naturally very much dismayed at the contemplated departure of his pupil. When Arthur should go, Smirke's occupation and delight would go too. What pretext could he find for a daily visit to Fairoaks, and that kind word or glance from the lady there, which was as necessary to the curate as the frugal dinner which Madam Fribsby served him? Arthur gone, he would only be allowed to make visits like any other acquaintance: little Laura could not accommodate him by learning the catechism more than once a week: he had curled himself like ivy round Fairoaks: he pined at the thought that he must lose his hold of the place. Should he speak his mind and go down on his knees to the widow? He thought over any indications in her behavior which flattered his hopes. She had praised his sermon three weeks before; she had thanked him exceedingly for his present of a melon, for a small dinner party which Mrs. Pendennis gave: she said she should always be grateful to him for his kindness to Arthur, and when he declared that there were no bounds to his love and affection for that dear boy, she had certainly replied in a romantic manner, indicating her own strong gratitude and regard to all her son's friends. Should he speak out?—or should he delay? If he spoke and she refused him, it was awful to think that the gate of Fairoaks might be shut upon him forever—and within that door lay all the world for Mr. Smirke.
Thus, oh friendly readers, we see how every man in the world, has his own private griefs and business, by which he is more cast down or occupied than by the affairs or sorrows of any other person. While Mrs. Pendennis is disquieting herself about losing her son and that anxious hold she has had of him, as long as he has remained in the mother'snest, whence he is about to take flight into the great world beyond—while the major's great soul chafes and frets, inwardly vexed as he thinks what great parties are going on in London, and that he might be sunning himself in the glances of dukes and duchesses, but for those cursed affairs which keep him in a wretched little country hole—while Pen is tossing between his passion and a more agreeable sensation, unacknowledged yet, but swaying him considerably, namely, his longing to see the world—Mr. Smirke has a private care watching at his bed side, and sitting behind him on his pony; and is no more satisfied than the rest of us. How lonely we are in the world; how selfish and secret, every body! You and your wife have pressed the same pillow for forty years and fancy yourselves united.—Pshaw, does she cry out when you have the gout, or do you lie awake when she has the tooth-ache? Your artless daughter, seemingly all innocence, and devoted to her mamma and her piano lesson, is thinking of neither, but of the young lieutenant with whom she danced at the last ball—the honest frank boy just returned from school is secretly speculating upon the money you will give him, and the debts he owes the tart man. The old grandmother crooning in the corner and bound to another world within a few months, has some business or cares which are quite private and her own—very likely she is thinking of fifty years back, and that night when she made such an impression, and danced a cotillion with the captain, before your father proposed for her; or, what a silly little over-rated creature your wife is, and how absurdly you are infatuated about her—and, as for your wife—O philosophic reader, answer and say—Do you tell her all? Ah, sir—a distinct universe walks about under your hat and under mine—all things in nature are different to each—the woman we look at has not the same features, the dish we eat from has not the same taste to the one and the other—you and I are but a pair of infinite isolations, with some fellow-islands a little more or less near to us. Let us return, however, to the solitary Smirke.
Smirke had one confidante for his passion—that most injudicious woman, Madame Fribsby. How she became Madame Fribsby, nobody knows; she had left Clavering to go to a milliner's in London as Miss Fribsby—she pretended that she had got the rank in Paris during her residence in that city. But how could the French king, were he ever so much disposed, give her any such title? We shall not inquire into this mystery, however. Suffice to say, she went away from home a bouncing young lass; she returned a rather elderly character, with a Madonna front and a melancholy countenance—bought the late Mrs. Harbottle's business for a song—took her elderly mother to live with her; was very good to the poor, was constant at church, and had the best of characters. But there was no one in all Clavering, not Mrs. Portman herself, who read so many novels as Madame Fribsby. She had plenty of time for this amusement, for, in truth, very few people besides the folks at the Rectory and Fairoaks employed her; and by aperpetual perusal of such works (which were by no means so moral or edifying in the days of which we write, as they are at present), she had got to be so absurdly sentimental, that in her eyes life was nothing but an immense love-match; and she never could see two people together, but she fancied they were dying for one another.
On the day after Mrs. Pendennis's visit to the curate, which we have recorded many pages back, Madame Fribsby settled in her mind that Mr. Smirke must be in love with the widow, and did every thing in her power to encourage this passion on both sides. Mrs. Pendennis she very seldom saw, indeed, except in public, and in her pew at church. That lady had very little need of millinery, or made most of her own dresses and caps; but on the rare occasions when Madame Fribsby received visits from Mrs. Pendennis, or paid her respects at Fairoaks, she never failed to entertain the widow with praises of the curate, pointing out what an angelical man he was, how gentle, how studious, how lonely; and she would wonder that no lady would take pity upon him.
Helen laughed at these sentimental remarks, and wondered that madame herself did not compassionate her lodger, and console him. Madame Fribsby shook her Madonna front, "Mong cure a boco souffare," she said, laying her hand on the part she designated as her cure. "Il est more en Espang, Madame," she said with a sigh. She was proud of her intimacy with the French language, and spoke it with more volubility than correctness. Mrs. Pendennis did not care to penetrate the secrets of this wounded heart: except to her few intimates she was a reserved and it may be a very proud woman; she looked upon her son's tutor merely as an attendant on that young prince, to be treated with respect as a clergyman, certainly, but with proper dignity as a dependent on the house of Pendennis. Nor were madame's constant allusions to the curate particularly agreeable to her. It required a very ingenious sentimental turn indeed to find out that the widow had a secret regard for Mr. Smirke, to which pernicious error, however, Madame Fribsby persisted in holding.
Her lodger was very much more willing to talk on this subject with his soft-hearted landlady. Every time after that she praised the curate to Mrs. Pendennis, she came away from the latter with the notion that the widow herself had been praising him. "Etre soul au monde est bien ouneeyong," she would say, glancing up at a print of a French carbineer in a green coat and brass cuirass which decorated her apartment—"Depend upon it when Master Pendennis goes to college, his ma will find herself very lonely. She is quite young yet.—You wouldn't suppose her to be five-and-twenty.Monsieur le Cury, song cure est touchy—j'ong suis sure—Je conny cela biang—Ally, Monsieur Smirke."
He softly blushed; he sighed; he hoped; he feared; he doubted; he sometimes yielded to the delightful idea—his pleasure was to sit in Madame Fribsby's apartment, and talk upon the subject, where, as the greater part of the conversation was carried on in French by the milliner, and her old mother was deaf, that retired old individual(who had once been a housekeeper, wife and widow of a butler in the Clavering family), could understand scarce one syllable of their talk.
Thus it was, that when Major Pendennis announced to his nephew's tutor that the young fellow would go to college in October, and that Mr. Smirke's valuable services would no longer be needful to his pupil, for which services the major, who spoke as grandly as a lord, professed himself exceedingly grateful, and besought Mr. Smirke to command his interest in any way—thus it was, that the curate felt that the critical moment was come for him, and was racked and tortured by those severe pangs which the occasion warranted.
Madame Fribsby had, of course, taken the strongest interest in the progress of Mr. Pen's love affair with Miss Fotheringay. She had been over to Chatteries, and having seen that actress perform, had pronounced that she was old and overrated: and had talked over Master Pen's passion in her shop many and many a time to the half-dozen old maids, and old women in male clothes, who are to be found in little country towns, and who formed the genteel population of Clavering. Captain Glanders, H.P., had pronounced that Pen was going to be a devil of a fellow, and had begun early; Mrs. Glanders had told him to check his horrid observations, and to respect his own wife, if he pleased. She said it would be a lesson to Helen for her pride and absurd infatuation about that boy. Mrs. Pybus said many people were proud of very small things, and for her part, she didn't know why an apothecary's wife should give herself such airs. Mrs. Wapshot called her daughters away from that side of the street, one day when Pen, on Rebecca, was stopping at the saddler's, to get a new lash to his whip—one and all of these people had made visits of curiosity to Fairoaks, and had tried to condole with the widow, or bring the subject of the Fotheringay affair on the tapis, and had been severally checked by the haughty reserve of Mrs. Pendennis, supported by the frigid politeness of the major her brother.
These rebuffs, however, did not put an end to the gossip, and slander went on increasing about the unlucky Fairoaks family. Glanders (H.P.), a retired cavalry officer, whose half-pay and large family compelled him to fuddle himself with brandy-and-water instead of claret, after he quitted the dragoons, had the occasionalentréeat Fairoaks, and kept his friend the major there informed of all the stories which were current at Clavering. Mrs. Pybus had taken an inside place by the coach to Chatteries, and gone to the George on purpose to get the particulars. Mrs. Speers's man had treated Mr. Foker's servant to drink at Baymouth for a similar purpose. It was said that Pen had hanged himself for despair in the orchard, and that his uncle had cut him down; that, on the contrary, it was Miss Costigan who was jilted, and not young Arthur; and that the affair had only been hushed up by the payment of a large sum of money, the exact amount of which there were several people in Clavering could testify—the sum of course varying according to the calculation of the individual narrator of the story.
Pen shook his mane and raged like a furious lion when these scandals,affecting Miss Costigan's honor and his own, came to his ears. Why was not Pybus a man (she had whiskers enough), that he might call her out and shoot her? Seeing Simcoe pass by, Pen glared at him so from his saddle on Rebecca, and clutched his whip in a manner so menacing, that that clergyman went home and wrote a sermon, or thought over a sermon (for he delivered oral testimony at great length), in which he spoke of Jezebel, theatrical entertainments (a double cut this—for Doctor Portman, the rector of the old church, was known to frequent such), and of youth going to perdition, in a manner which made it clear to every capacity that Pen was the individual meant, and on the road alluded to. What stories more were there not against young Pendennis, while he sate sulking, Achilles-like in his tent, for the loss of his ravished Briseis?
After the affair with Hobnell, Pen was pronounced to be a murderer as well as a profligate, and his name became a name of terror and a byword in Clavering. But this was not all; he was not the only one of the family about whom the village began to chatter, and his unlucky mother was the next to become a victim to their gossip.
"It is all settled," said Mrs. Pybus to Mrs. Speers, "the boy is to go to college, and then the widow is to console herself."
"He's been there every day, in the most open manner, my dear," continued Mrs. Speers.
"Enough to make poor Mr. Pendennis turn in his grave," said Mrs. Wapshot.
"She never liked him, that we know," says No. 1.
"Married him for his money. Every body knows that; was a penniless hanger-on of Lady Pontypool's," says No. 2.
"It's rather too open, though, to encourage a lover under pretense of having a tutor for your son," cried No. 3.
"Hush! here comes Mrs. Portman," some one said; as the good rector's wife entered Madame Fribsby's shop, to inspect her monthly book of fashions just arrived from London. And the fact is, that Madame Fribsby had been able to hold out no longer; and one day, after she and her lodger had been talking of Pen's approaching departure, and the curate had gone off to give one of his last lessons to that gentleman, Madame Fribsby had communicated to Mrs. Pybus, who happened to step in with Mrs. Speers, her strong suspicion, her certainty almost, that there was an attachment between a certain clerical gentleman and a certain lady, whose naughty son was growing quite unmanageable, and that a certain marriage would take place pretty soon.
Mrs. Portman saw it all, of course, when the matter was mentioned. What a sly fox that curate was! He was low-church, and she never liked him. And to think of Mrs. Pendennis taking a fancy to him after she had been married to such a man as Mr. Pendennis! She could hardly stay five minutes at Madame Fribsby's, so eager was she to run to the Rectory and give Doctor Portman the news.
When Doctor Portman heard this piece of intelligence, he was in such a rage with his curate, that his first movement was to break withMr. Smirke, and to beg him to transfer his services to some other parish. "That milksop of a creature pretend to be worthy of such a woman as Mrs. Pendennis," broke out the doctor: "where will impudence stop next?"
"She is much too old for Mr. Smirke," Mrs. Portman remarked: "why, poor dear Mrs. Pendennis might be his mother almost."
"You always choose the most charitable reason, Betsy," cried the rector. "A matron with a son grown up—she would never think of marrying again."
"You only thinkmenshould marry again, Doctor Portman," answered his lady, bridling up.
"You stupid old woman," said the doctor, "when I am gone, you shall marry whomsoever you like. I will leave orders in my will, my dear, to that effect: and I'll bequeath a ring to my successor, and my ghost shall come and dance at your wedding."
"It is cruel for a clergyman to talk so," the lady answered, with a ready whimper: but these little breezes used to pass very rapidly over the surface of the doctor's domestic bliss; and were followed by a great calm and sunshine. The doctor adopted a plan for soothing Mrs. Portman's ruffled countenance, which has a great effect when it is tried between a worthy couple who are sincerely fond of one another; and which I think becomes "John Anderson" at three-score, just as much as it used to do when he was a black haired young Jo of five-and-twenty.
"Hadn't you better speak to Mr. Smirke, John?" Mrs. Portman asked.
"When Pen goes to college,cadit quæstio," replied the rector, "Smirke's visits at Fairoaks will cease of themselves, and there will be no need to bother the widow. She has trouble enough on her hands, with the affairs of that silly young scapegrace, without being pestered by the tittle-tattle of this place. It is all an invention, of that fool, Fribsby."
"Against whom I always warned you—you know I did, my dear John," interposed Mrs. Portman.
"That you did; you very often do, my love," the doctor answered, with a laugh. "It is not from want of warning on your part, I am sure, that I have formed my opinion of most women with whom we are acquainted. Madam Fribsby is a fool, and fond of gossip, and so are some other folks. But she is good to the poor: she takes care of her mother, and she comes to church twice every Sunday. And as for Smirke, my dear—" here the doctor's face assumed for one moment a comical expression, which Mrs. Portman did not perceive (for she was looking out of the drawing-room window, and wondering what Mrs. Pybus could want, cheapening fowls again in the market, when she had had poultry from Livermore's two days before)—"and as for Mr. Smirke, my dear Betsy, will you promise me that you will never breathe to any mortal what I am going to tell you as a profound secret?"
"What is it, my dear John?—of course I won't," answered the rector's lady.
"Well then—I can not say it is a fact, mind—but if you find that Smirke is at this moment—ay, and has been for years—engaged to a young lady, a Miss—a Miss Thompson, if you will have the name, who lives on Clapham Common—yes, on Clapham Common, not far from Mrs. Smirke's house, what becomes of your story then about Smirke and Mrs. Pendennis?"
"Why did you not tell me this before?" asked the doctor's wife.—"How long have you known it?—How we all of us have been deceived in that man!"
"Why should I meddle in other folks' business, my dear?" the doctor answered. "I know how to keep a secret—and perhaps this is only an invention like that other absurd story; at least, Madam Portman, I should never have told you this but for the other, which I beg you to contradict whenever you hear it." And so saying the doctor went away to his study, and Mrs. Portman, seeing that the day was a remarkably fine one, thought she would take advantage of the weather and pay a few visits.
The doctor looking out of his study window saw the wife of his bosom presently issue forth, attired in her best. She crossed the market-place, saluting the market-women right and left, and giving a glance at the grocery and general emporium at the corner: then entering London-street (formerly Hog Lane), she stopped for a minute at Madame Fribsby's window, and looking at the fashions which hung up there, seemed hesitating whether she should enter; but she passed on, and never stopped again until she came to Mrs. Pybus's little green gate and garden, through which she went to that lady's cottage.
There, of course, her husband lost sight of Mrs. Portman. "Oh, what a long bow I have pulled," he said inwardly—"Goodness forgive me! and shot my own flesh and blood. There must be no more tattling and scandal about that house. I must stop it, and speak to Smirke. I'll ask him to dinner this very day."
Having a sermon to compose, the doctor sat down to that work, and was so engaged in the composition, that he had not concluded it until near five o'clock in the afternoon: when he stepped over to Mr. Smirke's lodgings, to put his hospitable intentions, regarding that gentleman, into effect. He reached Madame Fribsby's door, just as the curate issued from it.
Mr. Smirke was magnificently dressed, and as he turned out his toes he showed a pair of elegant open-worked silk stockings and glossy pumps. His white cravat was arranged in a splendid stiff tie, and his gold shirt studs shone on his spotless linen. His hair was curled round his fair temples. Had he borrowed Madame Fribsby's irons to give that curly grace? His white cambric pocket handkerchief was scented with the most delicious Eau-de-Cologne.
"O gracilis puer,"—cried the doctor.—"Whither are you bound? I wanted you to come home to dinner."
"I am engaged to dine at—at Fairoaks," said Mr. Smirke, blushing faintly and whisking the scented pocket-handkerchief, and his pony being in waiting, he mounted and rode away simpering down the street. No accident befell him that day, and he arrived with his tie in the very best order at Mrs. Pendennis's house.
The curate had gone on his daily errand to Fairoaks, and was up-stairs in Pen's study pretending to read with his pupil, in the early part of that very afternoon when Mrs. Portman after transacting business with Mrs. Pybus had found the weather so exceedingly fine that she pursued her walk as far as Fairoaks, in order to pay a visit to her dear friend there. In the course of their conversation, the rector's lady told Mrs. Pendennis and the major a very great secret about the curate, Mr. Smirke, which was no less than that he had an attachment, a very old attachment, which he had long kept quite private.
"And on whom is it that Mr. Smirke has bestowed his heart?" asked Mrs. Pendennis, with a superb air, but rather an inward alarm.
"Why, my dear," the other lady answered, "when he first came and used to dine at the Rectory, people said we wanted him for Myra, and we were forced to give up asking him. Then they used to say he was smitten in another quarter; but I always contradicted it, for my part, and said that you—"
"ThatI," cried Mrs. Pendennis; "people are very impertinent, I am sure. Mr. Smirke came here as Arthur's tutor, and I am surprised that any body should dare to speak so—"
"'Pon my soul, it is alittletoo much," the major said, laying down the newspaper and the double eye-glass.
"I've no patience with that Mrs. Pybus," Helen continued, indignantly.
"I told her there was no truth in it," Mrs. Portman said. "I always said so, my dear: and now it comes out that my demure gentleman has been engaged to a young lady—Miss Thompson, of Clapham Common, ever so long: and I am delighted, for my part, and on Myra'saccount, too, for an unmarried curate is always objectionable about one's house: and of course it is strictly private, but I thought I would tell you, as it might remove unpleasantnesses. But mind: not one word, if you please, about the story."
Mrs. Pendennis said, with perfect sincerity, that she was exceedingly glad to hear the news: and hoped Mr. Smirke, who was a very kind and amiable man, would have a deserving wife: and when her visitor went away, Helen and her brother talked of the matter with great satisfaction, the kind lady rebuking herself for her haughty behavior to Mr. Smirke, whom she had avoided of late, instead of being grateful to him for his constant attention to Arthur.
"Gratitude to this kind of people," the major said, "is very well; but familiarity is out of the question. This gentleman gives his lessons and receives his money like any other master. You are too humble, my good soul. There must be distinctions in ranks, and that sort of thing. I told you before, you were too kind to Mr. Smirke."
But Helen did not think so; and now that Arthur was going away, and she bethought her how very polite Mr. Smirke had been; how he had gone on messages for her; how he had brought books and copied music; how he had taught Laura so many things, and given her so many kind presents, her heart smote her on account of her ingratitude toward the curate;—so much so, that when he came down from study with Pen, and was hankering about the hall previous to his departure, she went out and shook hands with him with rather a blushing face, and begged him to come into her drawing-room, where she said they now never saw him. And as there was to be rather a good dinner that day, she invited Mr. Smirke to partake of it; and we may be sure that he was too happy to accept such a delightful summons.
Eased, by the above report, of all her former doubts and misgivings regarding the curate, Helen was exceedingly kind and gracious to Mr. Smirke during dinner, redoubling her attentions, perhaps because Major Pendennis was very high and reserved with his nephew's tutor. When Pendennis asked Smirke to drink wine, he addressed him as if he was a sovereign speaking to a petty retainer, in a manner so condescending, that even Pen laughed at it, although quite ready, for his part, to be as conceited as most young men are.
But Smirke did not care for the impertinences of the major so long as he had his hostess's kind behavior; and he passed a delightful time by her side at table, exerting all his powers of conversation to please her, talking in a manner both clerical and worldly, about the Fancy Bazaar, and the Great Missionary Meeting, about the last new novel, and the bishop's excellent sermon—about the fashionable parties in London, an account of which he read in the newspapers—in fine, he neglected no art, by which a college divine who has both sprightly and serious talents, a taste for the genteel, an irreproachable conduct, and a susceptible heart, will try and make himself agreeable to the person on whom he has fixed his affections.
Major Pendennis came yawning out of the dining-room very soon afterhis sister and little Laura had left the apartment—"What an unsufferable bore that man is, and how he did talk!" the major said.
"He has been very good to Arthur, who is very fond of him," Mrs. Pendennis said—"I wonder who the Miss Thompson is whom he is going to marry."
"I always thought the fellow was looking in another direction," said the major.
"And in what?" asked Mrs. Pendennis, quite innocently—"toward Myra Portman?"
"Toward Helen Pendennis, if you must know," answered her brother-in-law.
"Toward me! impossible!" Helen said, who knew perfectly well that such had been the case. "His marriage will be a very happy thing. I hope Arthur will not take too much wine."
Now Arthur flushed with a good deal of pride at the privilege of having the keys of the cellar, and remembering that a very few more dinners would probably take place which he and his dear friend Smirke could share, had brought up a liberal supply of claret for the company's drinking, and when the elders with little Laura left him, he and the curate began to pass the wine very freely.
One bottle speedily yielded up the ghost, another shed more than half its blood, before the two topers had been much more than half an hour together—Pen, with a hollow laugh and voice, had drunk off one bumper to the falsehood of women, and had said sardonically, that wine, at any rate, was a mistress who never deceived, and was sure to give a man a welcome.
Smirke gently said that he knew for his part some women who were all truth and tenderness; and casting up his eyes toward the ceiling, and heaving a sigh as if evoking some being dear and unmentionable, he took up his glass and drained it, and the rosy liquor began to suffuse his face.
Pen trolled over some verses he had been making that morning, in which he informed himself that the woman who had slighted his passion could not be worthy to win it: that he was awaking from love's mad fever, and, of course, under these circumstances, proceeded to leave her, and to quit a heartless deceiver: that a name which had one day been famous in the land, might again be heard in it: and, that though he never should be the happy and careless boy he was but a few months since, or his heart be what it had been ere passion had filled it and grief had well-nigh killed it; that though to him personally death was as welcome as life, and that he would not hesitate to part with the latter, but for the love of one kind being whose happiness depended on his own—yet he hoped to show he was a man worthy of his race, and that one day the false one should be brought to know how great was the treasure and noble the heart which she had flung away.
Pen, we say, who was a very excitable person, rolled out these verses in his rich, sweet voice, which trembled with emotion while our young poet spoke. He had a trick of blushing when in this excited state, andhis large and honest gray eyes also exhibited proofs of a sensibility so genuine, hearty, and manly, that Miss Costigan, if she had a heart, must needs have softened toward him; and very likely she was, as he said, altogether unworthy of the affection which he lavished upon her.
The sentimental Smirke was caught by the emotion which agitated his young friend. He grasped Pen's hand over the dessert dishes and wine glasses. He said the verses were beautiful: that Pen was a poet, a great poet, and likely by heaven's permission to run a great career in the world. "Go on and prosper, dear Arthur," he cried; "the wounds under which at present you suffer are only temporary, and the very grief you endure will cleanse and strengthen your heart. I have always prophesied the greatest and brightest things of you, as soon as you have corrected some failings and weaknesses of character, which at present belong to you. But you will get over these, my boy; you will get over these; and when you are famous and celebrated, as I know you will be, will you remember your old tutor and the happy early days of your youth?"
Pen swore he would: with another shake of the hand across the glasses and apricots. "I shall never forget how kind you have been to me, Smirke," he said. "I don't know what I should have done without you. You are my best friend."
"Am I,really, Arthur?" said Smirke, looking through his spectacles; and his heart began to beat so that he thought Pen must almost hear it throbbing.
"My best friend, my friendforever," Pen said. "God bless you, old boy," and he drank up the last glass of the second bottle of the famous wine which his father had laid in, which his uncle had bought, which Lord Levant had imported, and which now, like a slave indifferent, was ministering pleasure to its present owner, and giving its young master delectation.
"We'll have another bottle, old boy," Pen said, "by Jove we will. Hurray!—claret goes for nothing. My uncle was telling me that he saw Sheridan drink five bottles at Brookes's, besides a bottle of Maraschino. This is some of the finest wine in England, he says. So it is, by Jove. There's nothing like it.Nunc vino pellite curas—cras ingens iterabimus æq—fill your glass, Old Smirke, a hogshead of it won't do you any harm." And Mr. Pen began to sing the drinking song out of Der Freischütz. The dining-room windows were open, and his mother was softly pacing on the lawn outside, while little Laura was looking at the sunset. The sweet fresh notes of the boy's voice came to the widow. It cheered her kind heart to hear him sing.
"You—you are taking too much wine, Arthur," Mr. Smirke said, softly—"you are exciting yourself."
"No," said Pen, "women give headaches, but this don't. Fill your glass, old fellow, and let's drink—I say, Smirke, my boy—let's drink to her—yourher, I mean, not mine, for whom I swear I'll care no more—no, not a penny—no, not a fig—no, not a glass of wine.Tell us about the lady, Smirke; I've often seen you sighing about her."
"Oh!" said Smirke—and his beautiful cambric shirt front and glistening studs heaved with the emotion which agitated his gentle and suffering bosom.
"Oh—what a sigh!" Pen cried, growing very hilarious; "fill, my boy, and drink the toast, you can't refuse a toast, no gentleman refuses a toast. Here's her health, and good luck to you, and may she soon be Mrs. Smirke."
"Doyou say so?" Smirke said, all of a tremble. "Do you really say so, Arthur?"
"Say so; of course, I say so. Down with it. Here's Mrs. Smirke's good health: hip, hip, hurray!"
Smirke convulsively gulped down his glass of wine, and Pen waved his over his head, cheering so as to make his mother and Laura wonder on the lawn, and his uncle, who was dozing over the paper in the drawing-room, start, and say to himself, "that boy's drinking too much."
Smirke put down the glass.
"I accept the omen," gasped out the blushing curate. "Oh, my dear Arthur, you—you know her—"
"What—Myra Portman? I wish you joy: she's got a dev'lish large waist; but I wish you joy, old fellow."
"Oh, Arthur!" groaned the curate again, and nodded his head, speechless.
"Beg your pardon—sorry I offended you—but shehasgot a large waist, you know—devilish large waist," Pen continued—the third bottle evidently beginning to act upon the young gentleman.
"It's not Miss Portman," the other said, in a voice of agony.
"Is it any body at Chatteries or at Clapham? Somebody here? No—it ain't old Pybus? it can't be Miss Rolt at the factory—she's only fourteen."
"It's somebody rather older than I am, Pen," the curate cried, looking up at his friend, and then guiltily casting his eyes down into his plate.
Pen burst out laughing. "It's Madame Fribsby, by Jove, it's Madame Fribsby. Madame Frib, by the immortal gods!"
The curate could contain no more. "O Pen," he cried, "how can you suppose that any of those—of those more than ordinary beings you have named, could have an influence upon this heart, when I have been daily in the habit of contemplating perfection! I may be insane, I may be madly ambitious, I may be presumptuous—but for two years my heart has been filled by one image, and has known no other idol. Haven't I loved you as a son, Arthur?—say, hasn't Charles Smirke loved you as a son?"
"Yes, old boy, you've been very good to me," Pen said, whose liking, however, for his tutor was not by any means of the filial kind.
"My means," rushed on Smirke, "are at present limited, I own, and my mother is not so liberal as might be desired; but what she has willbe mine at her death. Were she to hear of my marrying a lady of rank and good fortune, my mother would be liberal, I am sure she would be liberal. Whatever I have or subsequently inherit—and it's five hundred a year at the very least—would be settled upon her and—and—and you at my death—that is—"
"What the deuce do you mean?—and what have I to do with your money?" cried out Pen, in a puzzle.
"Arthur, Arthur!" exclaimed the other wildly; "You say I am your dearest friend—let me be more. Oh, can't you see that the angelic being I love—the purest, the best of women—is no other than your dear, dear angel of a mother."
"My mother!" cried out Arthur, jumping up, and sober in a minute. "Pooh! damn it, Smirke, you must be mad—she's seven or eight years older than you are."
"Didyoufind that any objection," cried Smirke piteously, and alluding, of course, to the elderly subject of Pen's own passion.
The lad felt the hint, and blushed quite red. "The cases are not similar, Smirke," he said, "and the allusion might have been spared. A man may forget his own rank and elevate any woman to it; but allow me to say our positions are very different."
"How do you mean, dear Arthur?" the curate interposed sadly, cowering as he felt that his sentence was about to be read.
"Mean?" said Arthur. "I mean what I say. My tutor, I say,my tutor, has no right to ask a lady of my mother's rank of life to marry him. It's a breach of confidence. I say it's a liberty you take, Smirke—it's a liberty. Mean, indeed!"
"Oh Arthur!" the curate began to cry, with clasped hands, and a scared face, but Arthur gave another stamp with his foot, and began to pull at the bell. "Don't let's have any more of this. We'll have some coffee, if you please," he said, with a majestic air: and the old butler entering at the summons, Arthur bade him to serve that refreshment.
John said he had just carried coffee into the drawing-room, where his uncle was asking for Master Arthur, and the old man gave a glance of wonder at the three empty claret-bottles. Smirke said he thought he'd—he'd rather not go into the drawing-room, on which Arthur haughtily said, "As you please," and called for Mr. Smirke's horse to be brought round. The poor fellow said he knew the way to the stable and would get his pony himself, and he went into the hall and sadly put on his coat and hat.
Pen followed him out uncovered. Helen was still walking up and down the soft lawn as the sun was setting, and the curate took off his hat and bowed by way of farewell, and passed on to the door leading to the stable-court by which the pair disappeared. Smirke knew the way to the stables, as he said, well enough. He fumbled at the girths of the saddle which Pen fastened for him, and put on the bridle and led the pony into the yard. The boy was touched by the grief which appeared in the other's face as he mounted. Pen held out his hand, and Smirke wrung it silently.
"I say, Smirke," he said, in an agitated voice, "forgive me if I have said any thing harsh—for you have always been very, very kind to me. But it can't be, old fellow, it can't be. Be a man. God bless you."
Smirke nodded his head silently, and rode out of the lodge gate; and Pen looked after him for a couple of minutes, until he disappeared down the road, and the clatter of the pony's hoofs died away. Helen was still lingering in the lawn waiting until the boy came back—she put his hair off his forehead and kissed it fondly. She was afraid he had been drinking too much wine. Why had Mr. Smirke gone away without any tea?
He looked at her with a kind humor beaming in his eyes; "Smirke is unwell," he said, with a laugh. For a long while Helen had not seen the boy looking so cheerful. He put his arm round her waist, and walked her up and down the walk in front of the house. Laura began to drub on the drawing-room window and nod and laugh from it. "Come along you two people," cried out Major Pendennis, "your coffee is getting quite cold."
When Laura was gone to bed, Pen, who was big with his secret, burst out with it, and described the dismal but ludicrous scene which had occurred. Helen heard of it with many blushes, which became her pale face very well, and a perplexity which Arthur roguishly enjoyed.
"Confound the fellow's impudence," Major Pendennis said, as he took his candle, "where will the assurance of these people stop?" Pen and his mother had a long talk that night, full of love, confidence, and laughter, and the boy somehow slept more soundly and woke up more easily than he had done for many months before.
Before the great Mr. Dolphin quitted Chatteries, he not only made an advantageous engagement with Miss Fotheringay, but he liberally left with her a sum of money to pay off any debts which the little family might have contracted during their stay in the place, and which, mainly through the lady's own economy and management, were not considerable. The small account with the spirit merchant, which Major Pendennis had settled, was the chief of Captain Costigan's debts, and though the captain at one time talked about repaying every farthing of the money, it never appears that he executed his menace, nor did the laws of honor in the least call upon him to accomplish that threat.
When Miss Costigan had seen all the outstanding bills paid to the uttermost shilling, she handed over the balance to her father, who broke out into hospitalities to all his friends, gave the little Creeds more apples and gingerbread, than he had ever bestowed upon them, so that the widow Creed ever after held the memory of her lodger in veneration, and the young ones wept bitterly when he went away; and in a word, managed the money so cleverly that it was entirely expended before many days, and that he was compelled to draw upon Mr. Dolphin for a sum to pay for traveling expenses when the time of their departure arrived.
There was held at an inn in that county town a weekly meeting of a festive, almost a riotous character, of a society of gentlemen who called themselves the Buccaneers. Some of the choice spirits of Chatteries belonged to this cheerful club. Graves, the apothecary (than whom a better fellow never put a pipe in his mouth and smoked it), Smart, the talented and humorous portrait-painter of High-street, Croker, an excellent auctioneer, and the uncompromising Hicks, the able editor for twenty-three years of the County Chronicle and Chatteries Champion, were among the crew of the Buccaneers, whom also Bingley the manager liked to join of a Saturday evening, whenever he received permission from his lady.
Costigan had been also an occasional Buccaneer. But a want of punctuality of payments had of late somewhat excluded him from the society, where he was subject to disagreeable remarks from the landlord, who said that a Buccaneer who didn't pay his shot was utterly unworthy to be a Marine Bandit. But when it became known to the 'Ears, as the clubbists called themselves familiarly, that Miss Fotheringay had made a splendid engagement, a great revolution of feeling took place in the club regarding Captain Costigan. Solly, mine host of the Grapes, (and I need not say as worthy a fellow as ever stood behind a bar), told the gents in the Buccaneers' room one night how noble the captain had beayved: having been round and paid off all his ticks in Chatteries, including his score of three pound fourteen here, and pronounced that Cos was a good feller, a gentleman at bottom, and he, Solly, had always said so, and finally worked upon the feelings of the Buccaneers to give the captain a dinner.
The banquet took place on the last night of Costigan's stay in Chatteries, and was served in Solly's accustomed manner. As good a plain dinner of old English fare as ever smoked on a table was prepared by Mrs. Solly; and about eighteen gentlemen sate down to the festive board. Mr. Jubber (the eminent draper of High-street) was in the chair, having this distinguished guest of the club on his right. The able and consistent Hicks, officiated as croupier on the occasion; most of the gentlemen of the club were present, and H. Foker, Esq., and —— Spavin, Esq., friends of Captain Costigan, were also participators in the entertainment. The cloth having been drawn, the chairman said, "Costigan, there is wine, if you like," but the captain preferring punch, that liquor was voted by acclamation: and "Non Nobis," having been sung in admirable style by Messrs. Bingley, Hicks, and Bullby (of the cathedral choir, than whom a more jovial spirit ne'er tossed off a bumper or emptied a bowl), the chairman gave the health of the "King!" which was drunk with the loyalty of Chatteries men, and then without further circumlocution proposed their friend "Captain Costigan."
After the enthusiastic cheering which rang through old Chatteries had subsided, Captain Costigan rose in reply, and made a speech of twenty minutes, in which he was repeatedly overcome by his emotions.