Our readers have already heard Sir Francis Clavering's candid opinion of the lady who had given him her fortune and restored him to his native country and home, and it must be owned that the baronet was not far wrong in his estimate of his wife, and that Lady Clavering was not the wisest or the best educated of women. She had had a couple of years' education in Europe, in a suburb of London, which she persisted in calling Ackney to her dying day, whence she had been summoned to join her father at Calcutta at the age of fifteen. And it was on her voyage thither, on board the Ramchunder East Indiaman, Captain Bragg, in which ship she had two years previously made her journey to Europe, that she formed the acquaintance of her first husband, Mr. Amory, who was third mate of the vessel in question.
We are not going to enter into the early part of Lady Clavering's history, but Captain Bragg, under whose charge Miss Snell went out to her father, who was one of the captain's consignees, and part owner of the Ramchunder and many other vessels, found reason to put the rebellious rascal of a mate in irons, until they reached the Cape, wherethe captain left his officer behind; and finally delivered his ward to her father at Calcutta, after a stormy and perilous voyage in which the Ramchunder and the cargo and passengers incurred no small danger and damage.
Some months afterward Amory made his appearance at Calcutta, having worked his way out before the mast from the Cape—married the rich attorney's daughter in spite of that old speculator—set up as indigo planter and failed—set up as agent and failed again—set up as editor of the "Sunderbund Pilot" and failed again—quarreling ceaselessly with his father-in-law and his wife during the progress of all these mercantile transactions and disasters, and ending his career finally with a crash which compelled him to leave Calcutta and go to New South Wales. It was in the course of these luckless proceedings, that Mr. Amory probably made the acquaintance of Sir Jasper Rogers, the respected Judge of the Supreme Court of Calcutta, who has been mentioned before: and, as the truth must out, it was by making an improper use of his father-in-law's name, who could write perfectly well, and had no need of an amanuensis, that fortune finally forsook Mr. Amory and caused him to abandon all further struggles with her.
Not being in the habit of reading the Calcutta law-reports very assiduously, the European public did not know of these facts as well as people did in Bengal, and Mrs. Amory and her father, finding her residence in India not a comfortable one, it was agreed that the lady should return to Europe, whither she came with her little daughter Betsy or Blanche, then four years old. They were accompanied by Betsy's nurse, who has been presented to the reader in the last chapter as the confidential maid of Lady Clavering, Mrs. Bonner: and Captain Bragg took a house for them in the near neighborhood of his residence in Pocklington-street.
It was a very hard, bitter summer, and the rain, it rained every day for some time after Mrs. Amory's arrival. Bragg was very pompous and disagreeable, perhaps ashamed, perhaps anxious, to get rid of the Indian lady. She believed that all the world in London was talking about her husband's disaster, and that the king and queen and the court of directors were aware of her unlucky history. She had a good allowance from her father; she had no call to live in England; and she determined to go abroad. Away she went, then, glad to escape the gloomy surveillance of the odious bully, Captain Bragg. People had no objection to receive her at the continental towns where she stopped, and at the various boarding-houses, where she royally paid her way. She called Hackney Ackney, to be sure (though otherwise she spoke English with a little foreign twang, very curious and not unpleasant); she dressed amazingly; she was conspicuous for her love of eating and drinking, and prepared curries and pillaws at every boarding-house which she frequented; but her singularities of language and behavior only gave a zest to her society, and Mrs. Amory was deservedly popular. She was the most good-natured, jovial, and generous of women. She was up to any party of pleasure by whomsoever proposed. She broughtthree times more champagne and fowls and ham to the picnics than any one else. She took endless boxes for the play, and tickets for the masked balls, and gave them away to every body. She paid the boarding-house people months beforehand; she helped poor shabby mustached bucks and dowagers, whose remittances had not arrived, with constant supplies from her purse; and in this way she tramped through Europe, and appeared at Brussels, at Paris, at Milan, at Naples, at Rome, as her fancy led her. News of Amory's death reached her at the latter place, where Captain Clavering was then staying, unable to pay his hotel bill, as, indeed, was his friend, the Chevalier Strong, and the good-natured widow married the descendant of the ancient house of Clavering—professing, indeed, no particular grief for the scapegrace of a husband whom she had lost. We have brought her thus up to the present time when she was mistress of Clavering Park, in the midst of which Mr. Pinckney, the celebrated painter, portrayed her, with her little boy by her side.
Missy followed her mamma in most of her peregrinations, and so learned a deal of life. She had a governess for some time; and after her mother's second marriage, the benefit of Madame de Caramel's select pension in the Champs Elysées. When the Claverings came to England, she of course came with them. It was only within a few years, after the death of her grandfather, and the birth of her little brother, that she began to understand that her position in life was altered, and that Miss Amory, nobody's daughter, was a very small personage in ahouse compared with Master Francis Clavering, heir to an ancient baronetcy, and a noble estate. But for little Frank, she would have been an heiress, in spite of her father: and though she knew, and cared not much about money, of which she never had any stint, and though she was a romantic little muse, as we have seen, yet she could not reasonably be grateful to the persons who had so contributed to change her condition; nor, indeed, did she understand what the latter really was, until she had made some further progress, and acquired more accurate knowledge in the world.
But this was clear, that her step-father was dull and weak; that mamma dropped her H's, and was not refined in manners or appearance; and that little Frank was a spoiled quarrelsome urchin, always having his way, always treading upon her feet, always upsetting his dinner on her dresses, and keeping her out of her inheritance. None of these, as she felt, could comprehend her: and her solitary heart naturally pined for other attachments, and she sought around her where to bestow the precious boon of her unoccupied affection.
This dear girl, then, from want of sympathy, or other cause, made herself so disagreeable at home, and frightened her mother, and bored her step-father so much, that they were quite as anxious as she could be that she should settle for herself in life; and hence Sir Francis Clavering's desire expressed to his friend, in the last chapter, that Mrs. Strong should die, and that he would take Blanche to himself as a second Mrs. Strong.
But as this could not be, any other person was welcome to win her; and a smart young fellow, well-looking and well-educated, like our friend Arthur Pendennis, was quite free to propose for her if he had a mind, and would have been received with open arms by Lady Clavering as a son-in-law, had he had the courage to come forward as a competitor for Miss Amory's hand.
Mr. Pen, however, besides other drawbacks, chose to entertain an extreme diffidence about himself. He was ashamed of his late failures, of his idle and nameless condition, of the poverty which he had brought on his mother by his folly, and there was as much of vanity as remorse in his present state of doubt and distrust. How could he ever hope for such a prize as this brilliant Blanche Amory, who lived in a fine park and mansion, and was waited on by a score of grand domestics, while a maid-servant brought in their meager meal at Fairoaks, and his mother was obliged to pinch and manage to make both ends meet? Obstacles seemed to him insurmountable, which would have vanished had he marched manfully upon them; and he preferred despairing, or dallying with his wishes—or perhaps he had not positively shaped them as yet—to attempting to win gallantly the object of his desire. Many a young man fails by that species of vanity called shyness, who might, for the asking, have his will.
But we do not pretend to say that Pen had, as yet, ascertained his; or that he was doing much more than thinking about falling in love. Miss Amory was charming and lively. She fascinated and cajoled himby a thousand arts or natural graces or flatteries. But there were lurking reasons and doubts, besides shyness and vanity, withholding him. In spite of her cleverness, and her protestations, and her fascinations, Pen's mother had divined the girl, and did not trust her. Mrs. Pendennis saw Blanche light-minded and frivolous, detected many wants in her which offended the pure and pious-minded lady; a want of reverence for her parents, and for things more sacred, Helen thought: worldliness and selfishness couched under pretty words and tender expressions. Laura and Pen battled these points strongly at first with the widow—Laura being as yet enthusiastic about her new friend, and Pen not far-gone enough in love to attempt any concealment of his feelings. He would laugh at these objections of Helen's, and say, "Psha, mother, you are jealous about Laura—all women are jealous."
But when, in the course of a month or two, and by watching the pair with that anxiety with which brooding women watch over their sons' affections—and in acknowledging which, I have no doubt there is a sexual jealousy on the mother's part, and a secret pang—when Helen saw that the intimacy appeared to make progress, that the two young people were perpetually finding pretexts to meet, and that Miss Blanche was at Fairoaks or Mr. Pen at the Park every day, the poor widow's heart began to fail her—her darling project seemed to vanish before her; and giving way to her weakness, she fairly told Pen one day what her views and longings were; that she felt herself breaking, and not long for this world, and that she hoped and prayed before she went, that she might see her two children one. The late events, Pen's life and career and former passion for the actress, had broken the spirit of this tender lady. She felt that he had escaped her, and was in the maternal nest no more; and she clung with a sickening fondness to Laura, Laura who had been left to her by Francis in Heaven.
Pen kissed and soothed her in his grand, patronizing way. He had seen something of this, he had long thought his mother wanted to make this marriage—did Laura know any thing of it? (Not she—Mrs. Pendennis said—not for worlds would she have breathed a word of it to Laura)—"Well, well, there was time enough, his mother wouldn't die," Pen said laughingly: "he wouldn't hear of any such thing, and as for the muse, she is too grand a lady to think about poor little me—and as for Laura, who knows that she would have me. She would do any thing you told her, to be sure. But am I worthy of her?"
"Oh, Pen, you might be," was the widow's reply; not that Mr. Pen ever doubted that he was; and a feeling of indefinable pleasure and self-complacency came over him as he thought over this proposal, and imaged Laura to himself as his memory remembered her for years past, always fair and open, kindly and pious, cheerful, tender, and true. He looked at her with brightening eyes as she came in from the garden at the end of this talk, her cheeks rather flushed, her looks frank and smiling—a basket of roses in her hand.
She took the finest of them and brought it to Mrs. Pendennis, whowas refreshed by the odor and color of these flowers; and hung over her fondly, and gave it to her.
"And I might have this prize for the asking!" Pen thought, with a thrill of triumph, as he looked at the kindly girl. "Why, she is as beautiful and as generous as her roses." The image of the two women remained forever after in his mind, and he never recalled it but the tears came into his eyes.
Before very many weeks' intimacy with her new acquaintance, however, Miss Laura was obliged to give in to Helen's opinion, and own that the muse was selfish, unkind, and inconstant. Of course Blanche confided to her bosom friend all the little griefs and domestic annoyances; how the family could not comprehend her, and she moved among them an isolated being; how her poor mamma's education had been neglected, and she was forced to blush for her blunders; how Sir Francis was a weak person deplorably unintellectual, and only happy when smoking his odious cigars; how, since the birth of her little brother, she had seen her mother's precious affection, which she valued more than any thing in life, estranged from her once darling daughter; how she was alone, alone, alone in the world.
But these griefs, real and heart-rending though they might be to a young lady of exquisite sensibility, did not convince Laura of the propriety of Blanche's conduct in many small incidents of life. Little Frank, for instance, might be very provoking, and might have deprived Blanche of her mamma's affection, but this was no reason why Blanche should box the child's ears because he upset a glass of water over her drawing, and why she should call him many opprobrious names in the English and French language; and the preference accorded to little Frank was certainly no reason why Blanche should give herself imperial airs of command toward the boy's governess, and send that young lady upon messages through the house to bring her book or to fetch her pocket-handkerchief. When a domestic performed an errand for honest Laura, she was always thankful and pleased; whereas she could not but perceive that the little muse had not the slightest scruple in giving her commands to all the world round about her, and in disturbing any body's ease or comfort, in order to administer to her own. It was Laura's first experience in friendship; and it pained the kind creature's heart, to be obliged to give up as delusions, one by one, those charms and brilliant qualities in which her fancy had dressed her new friend, and to find that the fascinating little fairy was but a mortal, and not a very amiable mortal, after all. What generous person is there that has not been so deceived in his time?—what person, perhaps, that has not so disappointed others in his turn?
After the scene with little Frank, in which that refractory son and heir of the house of Clavering, had received the compliments in French and English, and the accompanying box on the ear from his sister, Miss Laura, who had plenty of humor, could not help calling to mind some very touching and tender verses which the muse had read to her out of Mes Larmes, and which began, "My pretty baby brother, may angelsguard thy rest," in which the muse, after complimenting the baby upon the station in life which it was about to occupy, and contrasting it with her own lonely condition, vowed, nevertheless, that the angel boy would never enjoy such affection as hers was, or find in the false world before him any thing so constant and tender as a sister's heart. "It may be," the forlorn one said, "it may be, you will slight it, my pretty baby sweet, you will spurn me from your bosom, I'll cling around your feet! Oh let me, let me love you! the world will prove to you as false as 'tis to others, butIam ever true." And behold the muse was boxing the darling brother's ears instead of kneeling at his feet, and giving Miss Laura her first lesson in the Cynical philosophy—not quite her first, however—something like this selfishness and waywardness, something like this contrast between practice and poetry, between grand versified aspirations andevery-day life, she had witnessed at home in the person of our young friend Mr. Pen.
But then Pen was different. Pen was a man. It seemed natural, somehow, that he should be self-willed, and should have his own way. And under his waywardness and selfishness, indeed there was a kind and generous heart. O it was hard that such a diamond should be changed away against such a false stone as this. In a word, Laura began to be tired of her admired Blanche. She had assayed her, and found her not true; and her former admiration and delight, which she had expressed with her accustomed generous artlessness, gave way to a feeling, which we shall not call contempt, but which was very near it; and which caused Laura to adopt toward Miss Amory, a grave and tranquil tone of superiority, which was at first by no means to the muse's liking. Nobody likes to be found out, or having held a high place, to submit to step down.
The consciousness that this event was impending did not serve to increase Miss Blanche's good humor, and as it made her peevish and dissatisfied with herself, it probably rendered her even less agreeable to the persons round about her. So there arose one fatal day a battle-royal between dearest Blanche and dearest Laura, in which the friendship between them was all but slain outright. Dearest Blanche had been unusually capricious and wicked on this day. She had been insolent to her mother; savage with little Frank; odiously impertinent in her behavior to the boy's governess; and intolerably cruel to Pincott, her attendant. Not venturing to attack her friend (for the little tyrant was of a timid feline nature, and only used her claws upon those who were weaker than herself) she maltreated all these, and especially poor Pincott, who was menial, confidante, companion (slave always), according to the caprice of her young mistress.
This girl who had been sitting in the room with the young ladies, being driven thence in tears, occasioned by the cruelty of her mistress, and raked with a parting sarcasm as she went sobbing from the door, Laura fairly broke out into a loud and indignant invective—wondered how one so young could forget the deference owing to her elders as well as to her inferiors in station; and professing so much sensibility of her own, could torture the feelings of others so wantonly. Laura told her friend that her conduct was absolutely wicked, and that she ought to ask pardon of Heaven on her knees for it. And having delivered herself of a hot and voluble speech whereof the delivery astonished the speaker as much almost as her auditor, she ran to her bonnet and shawl, and went home across the park, in a great flurry and perturbation, and to the surprise of Mrs. Pendennis, who had not expected her until night.
Alone with Helen, Laura gave an account of the scene, and gave up her friend henceforth. "O mamma," she said, "you were right; Blanche, who seems so soft and so kind, is, as you have said, selfish and cruel. She who is always speaking of her affections can have no heart. No honest girl would afflict a mother so, or torture a dependent; and—and,I give her up from this day, and I will have no other friend but you."
On this the two ladies went through the osculatory ceremony which they were in the habit of performing, and Mrs. Pendennis got a great secret comfort from the little quarrel—for Laura's confession seemed to say, "That girl can never be a wife for Pen, for she is light-minded and heartless, and quite unworthy of our noble hero. He will be sure to find out her unworthiness for his own part, and then he will be saved from this flighty creature, and awake out of his delusion."
But Miss Laura did not tell Mrs. Pendennis, perhaps did not acknowledge to herself, what had been the real cause of the day's quarrel. Being in a very wicked mood, and bent upon mischief every where, the little wicked muse of a Blanche had very soon begun her tricks. Her darling Laura had come to pass a long day; and as they were sitting in her own room together, had chosen to bring the conversation round to the subject of Mr. Pen.
"I am afraid he is sadly fickle," Miss Blanche observed; "Mrs. Pybus, and many more Clavering people, have told us all about the actress."
"I was quite a child when it happened, and I don't know any thing about it," Laura answered, blushing very much.
"He used her very ill," Blanche said, wagging her little head. "He was false to her."
"I am sure he was not," Laura cried out; "he acted most generously by her: he wanted to give up every thing to marry her. It was she that was false to him. He nearly broke his heart about it: he—"
"I thought you didn't know any thing about the story, dearest," interposed Miss Blanche.
"Mamma has said so," said Laura.
"Well, he is very clever," continued the other little dear. "What a sweet poet he is! Have you ever read his poems?"
"Only the 'Fisherman and the Diver,' which he translated for us, and his prize Poem, which didn't get the prize; and, indeed, I thought it very pompous and prosy," Laura said, laughing.
"Has he never writtenyouany poems, then, love?" asked Miss Amory.
"No, my dear," said Miss Bell.
Blanche ran up to her friend, kissed her fondly, called her my dearest Laura at least three times, looked her archly in the face, nodded her head, and said, "Promise to tell no-o-body, and I will show you something."
And tripping across the room daintily, to a little mother-of-pearl inlaid desk, she opened it with a silver key, and took out two or three papers crumpled and rather stained with green, which she submitted to her friend. Laura took them and read them. They were love-verses sure enough—something about Undine—about a Naiad—about a river. She looked at them for a long time; but, in truth, the lines were not very distinct before her eyes.
"And you have answered them, Blanche?" she asked, putting them back.
"O no! not for worlds, dearest," the other said: and when her dearest Laura hadquitedone with the verses, she tripped back, and popped them again into the pretty desk.
Then she went to her piano, and sang two or three songs of Rossini, whose flourishes of music her flexible little voice could execute to perfection, and Laura sate by, vaguely listening, as she performed these pieces. What was Miss Bell thinking about the while? She hardly knew; but sate there silent as the songs rolled by. After this concert the young ladies were summoned to the room where luncheon was served; and whither they of course went with their arms round each other's waists.
And it could not have been jealousy or anger on Laura's part which had made her silent; for, after they had tripped along the corridor and descended the steps, and were about to open the door which leads into the hall, Laura paused, and looking her friend kindly and frankly in the face, kissed her with a sisterly warmth.
Something occurred after this—Master Frank's manner of eating, probably, or mamma's blunders, or Sir Francis smelling of cigars—which vexed Miss Blanche, and she gave way to that series of naughtinesses whereof we have spoken, and which ended in the above little quarrel.
The difference between the girls did not last long. Laura was always too eager to forgive and be forgiven, and as for Miss Blanche, her hostilities, never very long or durable, had not been provoked by the above scene. Nobody cares about being accused of wickedness. No vanity is hurt by that sort of charge: Blanche was rather pleased than provoked by her friend's indignation, which never would have been raised but for a cause which both knew, though neither spoke of.
And so, Laura, with a sigh, was obliged to confess that the romantic part of her first friendship was at an end, and that the object of it was only worthy of a very ordinary sort of regard.
As for Blanche, she instantly composed a copy of touching verses, setting forth her desertion and disenchantment. It was only the old story she wrote, of love meeting with coldness, and fidelity returned by neglect; and some new neighbors arriving from London about this time, in whose family there were daughters, Miss Amory had the advantage of selecting an eternal friend from one of these young ladies, and imparting her sorrows and disappointments to this new sister. The tall footmen came but seldom now with notes to the sweet Laura; the pony-carriage was but rarely dispatched to Fairoaks to be at the orders of the ladies there. Blanche adopted a sweet look of suffering martyrdomwhen Laura came to see her. The other laughed at her friend's sentimental mood, and treated it with a good humor that was by no means respectful.
But if Miss Blanche found new female friends to console her, the faithful historian is also bound to say, that she discovered some acquaintances of the other sex who seemed to give her consolation too. If ever this artless young creature met a young man, and had ten minutes' conversation with him in a garden walk, in a drawing-room window, or in the intervals of a waltz, she confided in him, so to speak—made play with her beautiful eyes—spoke in a tone of tender interest, and simple and touching appeal, and left him, to perform the same pretty little drama in behalf of his successor.
When the Claverings first came down to the Park, there were very few audiences before whom Miss Blanche could perform: hence Pen had all the benefits of her glances, and confidences, and the drawing-room window, or the garden walk all to himself. In the town of Clavering, it has been said, there were actually no young men: in the near surrounding country, only a curate or two, or a rustic young squire, with large feet, and ill-made clothes. To the dragoons quartered at Chatteries the baronet made no overtures: it was unluckily his own regiment: he had left it on bad terms with some officers of the corps—an ugly business about a horse bargain—a disputed play account—blind-Hookey—a white feather—who need ask?—it is not our business to inquire too closely into the bygones of our characters, except in so far as their previous history appertains to the development of this present story.
But the autumn, and the end of the parliamentary session, and the London season, brought one or two country families down to their houses, and filled tolerably the neighboring little watering-place of Baymouth, and opened our friend Mr. Bingley's Theater Royal at Chatteries, and collected the usual company at the Assizes and Race-balls there. Up to this time, the old county families had been rather shy of our friends of Clavering Park. The Fogys of Drummington: the Squares of Tozely Park; the Welbores of The Barrow, &c. All sorts of stories were current among these folks regarding the family at Clavering;—indeed, nobody ought to say that people in the country have no imagination, who heard them talk about new neighbors. About Sir Francis and his lady, and her birth and parentage, about Miss Amory, about Captain Strong, there had been endless histories which need not be recapitulated; and the family of the Park had been three months in the country before the great people around began to call.
But at the end of the season, the Earl of Trehawke, Lord Lieutenant of the County, coming to Eyrie Castle, and the Countess Dowager of Rockminster, whose son was also a magnate of the land, to occupy a mansion on the Marine Parade at Baymouth—these great folks came publicly immediately, and in state, to call upon the family of Clavering Park; and the carriages of the county families speedily followed in the track, which had been left in the avenue by their lordly wheels.
It was then that Mirobolant began to have an opportunity of exercising that skill which he possessed, and of forgetting, in the occupations of his art, the pangs of love. It was then that the large footmen were too much employed at Clavering Park to be able to bring messages, or dally over the cup of small beer with the poor little maids at Fairoaks. It was then that Blanche found other dear friends than Laura, and other places to walk in besides the river side, where Pen was fishing. He came day after day, and whipped the stream, but the "fish, fish!" wouldn't do their duty, nor the Peri appear. And here, though in strict confidence, and with a request that the matter go no further, we may as well allude to a delicate business, of which previous hint has been given. Mention has been made, in a former page, of a certain hollow tree, at which Pen used to take his station when engaged in his passion for Miss Fotheringay, and the cavity of which he afterward used for other purposes than to insert his baits and fishing-cans in. The truth is, he converted this tree into a post-office. Under a piece of moss and a stone, he used to put little poems, or letters equally poetical, which were addressed to a certain Undine, or Naiad who frequented the stream, and which, once or twice, were replaced by a receipt in the shape of a flower, or by a modest little word or two of acknowledgment, written in a delicate hand, in French or English, and on pink scented paper. Certainly, Miss Amory used to walk by this stream, as we have seen; and it is a fact that she used pink scented paper for her correspondence. But after the great folks had invaded Clavering Park, and the family coach passed out of the lodge-gates, evening after evening, on their way to the other great country houses, nobody came to fetch Pen's letters at the post-office; the white paper was not exchanged for the pink, but lay undisturbed under its stone and its moss, while the tree was reflected into the stream, and the Brawl went rolling by. There was not much in the letters certainly; in the pink notes scarcely any thing—merely a little word or two, half jocular, half sympathetic, such as might be written by any young lady. But oh, you silly Pendennis, if you wanted this one, why did you not speak? Perhaps neither party was in earnest. You were only playing at being in love, and the sportive little Undine was humoring you at the same play.
But if a man is balked at this game; he not unfrequently loses his temper; and when nobody came any more for Pen's poems, he began to look upon those compositions in a very serious light. He felt almost tragical and romantic again, as in his first affair of the heart:—at any rate he was bent upon having an explanation. One day he went to the Hall, and there was a room-full of visitors: on another, Miss Amory was not to be seen; she was going to a ball that night, and was lying down to take a little sleep. Pen cursed balls, and the narrowness of his means, and the humility of his position in the county, that caused him to be passed over by the givers of these entertainments. On a third occasion, Miss Amory was in the garden, and he ran thither; she was walking there in state with no less personages than the Bishop and Bishopess of Chatteries and the episcopal family, who scowled at him,and drew up in great dignity when he was presented to them, and they heard his name. The Right Reverend prelate had heard it before, and also of the little transaction in the dean's garden.
"The bishop says you're a sad young man," good-natured Lady Clavering whispered to him. "What have you been a doing of? Nothink, I hope, to vex such a dear Mar as yours? How is your dear Mar? Why don't she come and see me? We an't seen her this ever such a time. We're a goin about a gaddin, so that we don't see no neighbors now. Give my love to her and Laurar, and come all to dinner to-morrow."
Mrs. Pendennis was too unwell to come out, but Laura and Pen came, and there was a great party, and Pen only got an opportunity of a hurried word with Miss Amory. "You never come to the river now," he said.
"I can't," said Blanche, "the house is full of people."
"Undine has left the stream," Mr. Pen went on, choosing to be poetical.
"She never ought to have gone there," Miss Amory answered. "She won't go again. It was very foolish: very wrong: it was only play. Besides, you have other consolations at home," she added, looking him full in the face an instant, and dropping her eyes.
If he wanted her, why did he not speak then? She might have said "Yes" even then. But as she spoke of other consolations at home, he thought of Laura, so affectionate and so pure, and of his mother at home, who had bent her fond heart upon uniting him with her adopted daughter. "Blanche!" he began, in a vexed tone—"Miss Amory!"
"Laura is looking at us, Mr. Pendennis," the young lady said. "I must go back to the company," and she ran off, leaving Mr. Pendennis to bite his nails in perplexity, and to look out into the moonlight in the garden.
Laura indeed was looking at Pen. She was talking with, or appearing to listen to the talk of, Mr. Pynsent, Lord Rockminster's son, and grandson of the Dowager Lady, who was seated in state in the place of honor, gravely receiving Lady Clavering's bad grammar, and patronizing the vacuous Sir Francis, whose interest in the county she was desirous to secure. Pynsent and Pen had been at Oxbridge together, where the latter, during his heyday of good fortune and fashion, had been the superior of the young patrician, and perhaps rather supercilious toward him. They had met for the first time, since they parted at the University, at the table to-day, and given each other that exceedingly impertinent and amusing demi-nod of recognition which is practiced in England only, and only to perfection by University men—and which seems to say, "Confound you—what do you do here?"
"I knew that man at Oxbridge," Mr. Pynsent said to Miss Bell—"a Mr. Pendennis, I think."
"Yes," said Miss Bell.
"He seems rather sweet upon Miss Amory," the gentleman went on. Laura looked at them, and perhaps thought so too, but said nothing.
"A man of large property in the county, ain't he? He used to talk about representing it. He used to speak at the Union. Whereabouts do his estates lie?"
Laura smiled. "His estates lie on the other side of the river, near the lodge gate. He is my cousin, and I live there."
"Where?" asked Mr. Pynsent, with a laugh.
"Why, on the other side of the river, at Fairoaks," answered Miss Bell.
"Many pheasants there? Cover looks rather good," said the simple gentleman.
Laura smiled again. "We have nine hens and a cock, a pig, and an old pointer."
"Pendennis don't preserve then?" continued Mr. Pynsent.
"You should come and see him," the girl said, laughing, and greatly amused at the notion that her Pen was a great county gentleman, and perhaps had given himself out to be such.
"Indeed, I quite long to renew our acquaintance," Mr. Pynsent said, gallantly, and with a look which fairly said, "It is you that I would like to come and see"—to which look and speech Miss Laura vouchsafed a smile, and made a little bow.
Here Blanche came stepping up with her most fascinating smile and ogle, and begged dear Laura to come and take the second in a song. Laura was ready to do any thing good-natured, and went to the piano; by which Mr. Pynsent listened as long as the duet lasted, and until Miss Amory began for herself, when he strode away.
"What a nice, frank, amiable, well-bred girl that is, Wagg," said Mr. Pynsent to a gentleman who had come over with him from Baymouth—"the tall one I mean, with the ringlets and the red lips—monstrous red, ain't they?"
"What do you think of the girl of the house?" asked Mr. Wagg.
"I think she's a lean scraggy humbug;" said Mr. Pynsent, with great candor. "She drags her shoulders out of her dress: she never lets her eyes alone: and she goes simpering and ogling about like a French waiting-maid."
"Pynsent, be civil," cried the other, "somebody can hear."
"Oh, it's Pendennis of Boniface," Mr. Pynsent said. "Fine evening, Mr. Pendennis; we were just talking of your charming cousin."
"Any relation to my old friend, Major Pendennis?" asked Mr. Wagg.
"His nephew. Had the pleasure of meeting you at Gaunt House," Mr. Pen said, with his very best air—the acquaintance between the gentleman was made in an instant.
In the afternoon of the next day, the two gentleman who were staying at Clavering Park were found by Mr. Pen on his return from a fishing excursion, in which he had no sport, seated in his mother's drawing-room in comfortable conversation with the widow and her ward. Mr. Pynsent, tall and gaunt, with large red whiskers and an imposing tuft to his chin, was striding over a chair in the intimate neighborhoodof Miss Laura. She was amused by his talk, which was simple, straightforward, rather humorous and keen, and interspersed with homely expressions of a style which is sometimes called slang. It was the first specimen of a young London dandy that Laura had seen or heard: for she had been but a chit at the time of Mr. Foker's introduction at Fairoaks, nor indeed was that ingenuous gentleman much more than a boy, and his refinement was only that of a school and college.
Mr. Wagg, as he entered the Fairoaks premises with his companion, eyed and noted every thing. "Old gardener," he said, seeing Mr. John at the lodge—"old red livery waistcoat—clothes hanging out to dry on the gooseberry bushes—blue aprons, white ducks—gad, they must be young Pendennis's white ducks—nobody else wears 'em in the family. Rather a shy place for a sucking county member, ay, Pynsent?"
"Snug little crib," said Mr. Pynsent, "pretty cozy little lawn."
"Mr. Pendennis at home, old gentleman?" Mr. Wagg said to the old domestic. John answered, "No, Master Pendennis was agone out."
"Are the ladies at home?" asked the younger visitor. Mr. John answered, "Yes, they be;" and as the pair walked over the trim gravel, and by the neat shrubberies, up the steps to the hall-door, which old John opened, Mr. Wagg noted every thing that he saw; the barometer and the letter-bag, the umbrellas and the ladies' clogs, Pen's hats and tartan wrapper, and old John opening the drawing-room door, to introduce the new comers. Such minutiæ attracted Wagg instinctively; he seized them in spite of himself.
"Old fellow does all the work," he whispered to Pynsent. "Caleb Balderstone. Shouldn't wonder if he's the housemaid." The next minute the pair were in the presence of the Fairoaks ladies; in whom Pynsent could not help recognizing two perfectly well-bred ladies, and to whom Mr. Wagg made his obeisance, with florid bows, and extra courtesy, accompanied with an occasional knowing leer at his companion. Mr. Pynsent did not choose to acknowledge these signals, except by extreme haughtiness toward Mr. Wagg, and particular deference to the ladies. If there was one thing laughable in Mr. Wagg's eyes, it was poverty. He had the soul of a butler who had been brought from his pantry to make fun in the drawing-room. His jokes were plenty, and his good-nature thoroughly genuine, but he did not seem to understand that a gentleman could wear an old coat, or that a lady could be respectable unless she had her carriage, or employed a French milliner.
"Charming place, ma'am," said he, bowing to the widow; "noble prospect—delightful to us Cockneys, who seldom see any thing but Pall-mall." The widow said simply, she had never been in London but once in her life—before her son was born.
"Fine village, ma'am, fine village," said Mr. Wagg, "and increasing every day. It'll be quite a large town soon. It's not a bad place to live in for those who can't get the country, and will repay a visit when you honor it."
"My brother, Major Pendennis, has often mentioned your name tous," the widow said, "and we have been very much amused by some of your droll books, sir," Helen continued, who never could be brought to like Mr. Wagg's books, and detested their tone most thoroughly.
"He is my very good friend," Mr. Wagg said, with a low bow, "and one of the best known men about town, and where known, ma'am, appreciated—I assure you, appreciated. He is with our friend Steyne, at Aix-la-Chapelle. Steyne has a touch of the gout, and so, between ourselves, has your brother. I am going to Stillbrook for the pheasant-shooting, and afterward to Bareacres, where Pendennis and I shall probably meet;" and he poured out a flood of fashionable talk, introducing the names of a score of peers, and rattling on with breathless spirits, while the simple widow listened in silent wonder. What a man, she thought; are all the men of fashion in London like this? I am sure Pen will never be like him.
Mr. Pynsent was in the mean while engaged with Miss Laura. He named some of the houses in the neighborhood whither he was going, and hoped very much that he should see Miss Bell at some of them. He hoped that her aunt would give her a season in London. He said that in the next parliament it was probable that he should canvass the county, and he hoped to get Pendennis's interest here. He spoke of Pen's triumph as an orator at Oxbridge, and asked was he coming into parliament too? He talked on very pleasantly, and greatly to Laura's satisfaction, until Pen himself appeared, and, as has been said, found these gentlemen.
Pen behaved very courteously to the pair, now that they had found their way into his quarters; and though he recollected with some twinges a conversation at Oxbridge, when Pynsent was present, and in which after a great debate at the Union, and in the midst of considerable excitement produced by a supper and champagne-cup—he had announced his intention of coming in for his native county, and had absolutely returned thanks in a fine speech as the future member; yet Mr. Pynsent's manner was so frank and cordial, that Pen hoped Pynsent might have forgotten his little fanfaronade, and any other braggadocio speeches or actions which he might have made. He suited himself to the tone of the visitors then, and talked about Plinlimmon and Magnus Charters, and the old set at Oxbridge, with careless familiarity and high-bred ease, as if he lived with marquises every day, and a duke was no more to him than a village curate.
But at this juncture, and it being then six o'clock in the evening, Betsy, the maid, who did not know of the advent of strangers, walked into the room without any preliminary but that of flinging the door wide open before her, and bearing in her arms a tray, containing three tea-cups, a tea-pot, and a plate of thick bread-and-butter. All Pen's splendor and magnificence vanished away at this—and he faltered and became quite abashed. "What will they think of us?" he thought: and, indeed, Wagg thrust his tongue in his cheek, thought the tea infinitely contemptible, and leered and winked at Pynsent to that effect.
But to Mr. Pynsent the transaction appeared perfectly simple—therewas no reason present to his mind why people should not drink tea at six if they were minded, as well as at any other hour; and he asked of Mr. Wagg, when they went away, "What the devil he was grinning and winking at, and what amused him?"
"Didn't you see how the cub was ashamed of the thick bread-and-butter? I dare say they're going to have treacle if they are good. I'll take an opportunity of telling old Pendennis, when we get back to town," Mr. Wagg chuckled out.
"Don't see the fun," said Mr. Pynsent.
"Never thought you did," growled Wagg between his teeth; and they walked home rather sulkily.
Wagg told the story at dinner very smartly, with wonderful accuracy of observation. He described old John, the clothes that were drying, the clogs in the hall, the drawing-room, and its furniture and pictures;—"Old man with a beak and bald head—feuPendennis, I bet two to one; sticking-plaster full-length of a youth in a cap and gown—the present Marquis of Fairoaks, of course; the widow when young in a miniature, Mrs. Mee; she had the gown on when we came, or a dress made the year after, and the tips cut off the fingers of her gloves which she stitches her son's collars with; and then the sarving maid came in with their teas; and so we left the earl and the countess to their bread-and-butter."
Blanche, near whom he sate as he told this story, and who adoredles hommes d'esprit, burst out laughing, and called him such an odd, droll creature. But Pynsent, who began to be utterly disgusted with him, broke out in a loud voice, and said, "I don't know, Mr. Wagg, what sort of ladies you are accustomed to meet in your own family, but by gad, as far as a first acquaintance can show, I never met two better-bred women in my life, and I hope, ma'am! you'll call upon 'em," he added, addressing Lady Rockminster, who was seated at Sir Francis Clavering's right hand.
Sir Francis turned to the guest on his left, and whispered, "That's what I call a sticker for Wagg." And Lady Clavering, giving the young gentleman a delighted tap with her fan, winked her black eyes at him, and said, "Mr. Pynsent, you're a good feller."
After the affair with Blanche, a difference ever so slight, a tone of melancholy, perhaps a little bitter, might be perceived in Laura's converse with her cousin. She seemed to weigh him and find him wanting too; the widow saw the girl's clear and honest eyes watching the young man at times, and a look of almost scorn pass over her face, as he lounged in the room with the women, or lazily sauntered smoking upon the lawn, or lolled under a tree there over a book which he was too listless to read.
"What has happened between you?" eager-sighted Helen asked of the girl. "Something has happened. Has that wicked little Blanche been making mischief? Tell me, Laura."
"Nothing has happened at all," Laura said.
"Then why do you look at Pen so?" asked his mother quickly.
"Look at him, dear mother!" said the girl. "We two women are no society for him: we don't interest him; we are not clever enough for such a genius as Pen. He wastes his life and energies away among us, tied to our apron-strings. He interests himself in nothing; he scarcely cares to go beyond the garden-gate. Even Captain Glanders and Captain Strong pall upon him," she added, with a bitter laugh; "and they are men, you know, and our superiors. He will never be happy while he is here. Why, is he not facing the world, and without a profession?"
"We have got enough, with great economy," said the widow, her heart beginning to beat violently. "Pen has spent nothing for months. I'm sure he is very good. I am sure he might be very happy with us."
"Don't agitate yourself so, dear mother," the girl answered. "I don't like to see you so. You should not be sad because Pen is unhappy here. All men are so. They must work. They must make themselves names and a place in the world. Look, the two captains have fought and seen battles; that Mr. Pynsent, who came here, and who will be very rich, is in a public office; he works very hard, he aspires to a name and a reputation. He says Pen was one of the best speakers at Oxbridge, and had as great a character for talent as any of the young gentlemen there. Pen himself laughs at Mr. Wagg's celebrity (and indeed he is a horrid person), and says he is a dunce, and that any body could write his books."
"I am sure they are odious and vulgar," interposed the widow.
"Yet he has a reputation.—You see the County Chronicle says, 'The celebrated Mr. Wagg has been sojourning at Baymouth—let our fashionables and eccentrics look out for something from his caustic pen.' If Pen can write better than this gentleman, and speak better than Mr. Pynsent, why doesn't he? Mamma, he can't make speeches to us; or distinguish himself here. He ought to go away, indeed he ought."
"Dear Laura," said Helen, taking the girl's hand. "Is it kind of you to hurry him so? I have been waiting. I have been saving up money these many months—to—to pay back your advance to us."
"Hush, mother!" Laura cried, embracing her friend hastily. "It was your money, not mine. Never speak about that again. How much money have you saved?"
Helen said there were more than two hundred pounds at the bank, and that she would be enabled to pay off all Laura's money by the end of the next year.
"Give it him—let him have the two hundred pounds. Let him go to London and be a lawyer: be something, be worthy of his mother—and of mine, dearest mamma," said the good girl; upon which, and with her usual tenderness and emotion, the fond widow declared that Laura was a blessing to her, and the best of girls—and I hope no one in this instance will be disposed to contradict her.
The widow and her daughter had more than one conversation on this subject; and the elder gave way to the superior reason of the honestand stronger minded girl; and, indeed, whenever there was a sacrifice to be made on her part, this kind lady was only too eager to make it. But she took her own way, and did not lose sight of the end she had in view, in imparting these new plans to Pen. One day she told him of these projects, and who it was that had formed them; how it was Laura who insisted upon his going to London and studying; how it was Laura who would not hear of the—the money arrangements when he came back from Oxbridge—being settled just then; how it was Laura whom he had to thank, if indeed he thought that he ought to go.
At that news Pen's countenance blazed up with pleasure, and he hugged his mother to his heart, with an ardor that I fear disappointed the fond lady; but she rallied when he said, "By Heaven! she is a noble girl, and may God Almighty bless her! O mother! I have been wearing myself away for months here, longing to work, and not knowing how. I've been fretting over the thoughts of my shame, and my debts, and my past cursed extravagance and follies. I've suffered infernally. My heart has been half-broken—never mind about that—if I can get a chance to redeem the past, and to do my duty to myself and the best mother in the world, indeed, indeed, I will. I'll be worthy of you yet. Heaven bless you! God bless Laura! Why isn't she here, that I may go and thank her?" Pen went on with more incoherent phrases; paced up and down the room, drank glasses of water, jumped about his mother with a thousand embraces—began to laugh—began to sing—was happier than she had seen him since he was a boy—since he had tasted of the fruit of that awful tree of life, which, from the beginning has tempted all mankind.
Laura was not at home. Laura was on a visit to the stately Lady Rockminster, daughter to my Lord Bareacres, sister to the late Lady Pontypool, and by consequence a distant kinswoman of Helen's, as her ladyship, who was deeply versed in genealogy, was the first graciously to point out to the modest country lady. Mr. Pen was greatly delighted at the relationship being acknowledged, though perhaps not over well pleased that Lady Rockminster took Miss Bell home with her for a couple of days to Baymouth, and did not make the slightest invitation to Mr. Arthur Pendennis. There was to be a ball at Baymouth, and it was to be Miss Laura's first appearance. The dowager came to fetch her in her carriage, and she went off with a white dress in her box, happy and blushing like the rose to which Pen compared her.
This was the night of the ball—a public entertainment at the Baymouth Hotel. "By Jove!" said Pen, "I'll ride over.—No, I won't ride, but I'll go too." His mother was charmed that he should do so; and as he was debating about the conveyance in which he should start for Baymouth, Captain Strong called opportunely, said he was going himself, and that he would put his horse, the Butcher Boy, into the gig, and drive Pen over.
When the grand company began to fill the house at Clavering Park, the Chevalier Strong, who, as his patron said, was never in the way orout of it, seldom intruded himself upon its society, but went elsewhere to seek his relaxation. "I've seen plenty of grand dinners in my time," he said, "and dined, by Jove, in a company where there was a king and royal duke at top and bottom, and every man along the table had six stars on his coat; but dammy, Glanders, this finery don't suit me; and the English ladies with their confounded buckram airs, and the squires with their politics after dinner, send me to sleep—sink me dead if they don't. I like a place where I can blow my cigar when the cloth is removed, and when I'm thirsty, have my beer in its native pewter." So on a gala day at Clavering Park, the chevalier would content himself with superintending the arrangements of the table, and drilling the major-domo and servants; and having looked over the bill of fare with Monsieur Mirobolant, would not care to take the least part in the banquet. "Send me up a cutlet and a bottle of claret to my room," this philosopher would say, and from the windows of that apartment, which commanded the terrace and avenue, he would survey the company as they arrived in their carriages, or take a peep at the ladies in the hall through an [oe]il-de-b[oe]uf which commanded it from his corridor. And the guests being seated, Strong would cross the park to Captain Glanders's cottage at Clavering, or to pay the landlady a visit at the Clavering Arms, or to drop in upon Madame Fribsby over her novel and tea. Wherever the chevalier went he was welcome, and whenever he came away a smell of hot brandy and water lingered behind him.
The Butcher Boy—not the worst horse in Sir Francis's stable—was appropriated to Captain Strong's express use; and the old campaigner saddled him or brought him home at all hours of the day or night, and drove or rode him up and down the country. Where there was a public-house with a good tap of beer—where there was a tenant with a pretty daughter who played on the piano—to Chatteries, to the play, or the barracks—to Baymouth, if any fun was on foot there; to the rural fairs or races, the chevalier and his brown horse made their way continually; and this worthy gentleman lived at free quarters in a friendly country. The Butcher Boy soon took Pen and the chevalier to Baymouth. The latter was as familiar with the hotel and landlord there as with every other inn round about; and having been accommodated with a bed-room to dress, they entered the ball-room. The chevalier was splendid. He wore three little gold crosses in a brochette on the portly breast of his blue coat, and looked like a foreign field-marshal.
The ball was public and all sorts of persons were admitted and encouraged to come, young Pynsent having views upon the county, and Lady Rockminster being patroness of the ball. There was a quadrille for the aristocracy at one end, and select benches for the people of fashion. Toward this end the chevalier did not care to penetrate far (as he said he did not care for the nobs); but in the other part of the room he knew every body—the wine-merchants', innkeepers', tradesmen's, solicitors', squire-farmers' daughters, their sires and brothers, and plunged about shaking hands.
"Who is that man with the blue ribbon and the three-pointed star?"asked Pen. A gentleman in black with ringlets and a tuft stood gazing fiercely about him, with one hand in the arm-hole of his waistcoat and the other held his claque.
"By Jupiter, it's Mirobolant!" cried Strong, bursting out laughing. "Bon Jour, Chef!—Bon Jour, chevalier!"
"De la croix de Juillet, chevalier," said the Chef, laying his hand on his decoration.
"By Jove, here's some more ribbon!" said Pen, amused.
A man with very black hair and whiskers, dyed evidently with the purple of Tyre, with twinkling eyes and white eyelashes, and a thousand wrinkles in his face, which was of a strange red color, with two under-vests, and large gloves and hands, and a profusion of diamonds and jewels in his waistcoat and stock, with coarse feet crumpled into immense shiny boots, and a piece of parti-colored ribbon in his button-hole, here came up and nodded familiarly to the chevalier.
The chevalier shook hands. "My friend Mr. Pendennis," Strong said, "Colonel Altamont, of the body guard of his Highness the Nawaub of Lucknow." That officer bowed to the salute of Pen; who was now looking out eagerly to see if the person he wanted had entered the room.
Not yet. But the band began presently performing "See the Conquering Hero comes," and a host of fashionables—Dowager Countess of Rockminster, Mr. Pynsent and Miss Bell, Sir Francis Clavering, Bart., of Clavering Park, Lady Clavering and Miss Amory, Sir Horace Fogey, Bart., Lady Fogey, Colonel and Mrs. Higgs, —— Wagg, Esq. (as the county paper afterward described them), entered the room.
Pen rushed by Blanche, ran up to Laura, and seized her hand. "God bless you!" he said, "I want to speak to you—I must speak to you—Let me dance with you." "Not for three dances, dear Pen," she said, smiling: and he fell back, biting his nails with vexation, and forgetting to salute Pynsent.
After Lady Rockminster's party, Lady Clavering's followed in the procession.
Colonel Altamont eyed it hard, holding a most musky pocket-handkerchief up to his face, and bursting with laughter behind it.
"Who's the gal in green along with 'em, cap'n?" he asked of Strong.
"That's Miss Amory, Lady Clavering's daughter," replied the chevalier.
The colonel could hardly contain himself for laughing.