CHAPTER II. A Pedigree and other Family Matters
Early in the Regency of George the Magnificent, there lived in a smalltown in the west of England, called Clavering, a gentleman whose namewas Pendennis. There were those alive who remembered having seen hisname painted on a board, which was surmounted by a gilt pestle andmortar over the door of a very humble little shop in the city of Bath,where Mr. Pendennis exercised the profession of apothecary and surgeon;and where he not only attended gentlemen in their sick-rooms, and ladiesat the most interesting periods of their lives, but would condescend tosell a brown-paper plaster to a farmer's wife across the counter,--or tovend tooth-brushes, hair-powder, and London perfumery. For these factsa few folks at Clavering could vouch, where people's memories were moretenacious, perhaps, than they are in a great bustling metropolis.
And yet that little apothecary who sold a stray customer a pennyworth ofsalts, or a more fragrant cake of Windsor soap, was a gentleman ofgood education, and of as old a family as any in the whole county ofSomerset. He had a Cornish pedigree which carried the Pendennises up tothe time of the Druids, and who knows how much farther back? They hadintermarried with the Normans at a very late period of their familyexistence, and they were related to all the great families of Wales andBrittany. Pendennis had had a piece of University education too, andmight have pursued that career with great honour, but that in his secondyear at Cambridge his father died insolvent, and poor Pen was obligedto betake himself to the pestle and apron. He always detested the trade,and it was only necessity, and the offer of his mother's brother, aLondon apothecary of low family, into which Pendennis's father haddemeaned himself by marrying, that forced John Pendennis into so odiousa calling.
He quickly after his apprenticeship parted from the coarse-mindedpractitioner his relative, and set up for himself at Bath with hismodest medical ensign. He had for some time a hard struggle withpoverty; and it was all he could do to keep the shop and its giltornaments in decent repair, and his bed-ridden mother in comfort: butLady Ribstone happening to be passing to the Rooms with an intoxicatedIrish chairman who bumped her ladyship up against Pen's very door-post,and drove his chair-pole through the handsomest pink bottle inthe surgeon's window, alighted screaming from her vehicle, and wasaccommodated with a chair in Mr. Pendennis's shop, where she was broughtround with cinnamon and sal-volatile.
Mr. Pendennis's manners were so uncommonly gentlemanlike and soothing,that her ladyship, the wife of Sir Pepin Ribstone, of Codlingbury, inthe county of Somerset, Bart., appointed her preserver, as she calledhim, apothecary to her person and family, which was very large. MasterRibstone coming home for the Christmas holidays from Eton, over-atehimself and had a fever, in which Mr. Pendennis treated him with thegreatest skill and tenderness. In a word, he got the good graces of theCodlingbury family, and from that day began to prosper. The good companyof Bath patronised him, and amongst the ladies especially he was belovedand admired. First his humble little shop became a smart one: then hediscarded the selling of tooth-brushes and perfumery, as unworthy of agentleman of an ancient lineage: then he shut up the shop altogether,and only had a little surgery attended by a genteel young man: then hehad a gig with a man to drive him; and, before her exit from this world,his poor old mother had the happiness of seeing from her bedroom windowto which her chair was rolled, her beloved John step into a closecarriage of his own, a one-horse carriage it is true, but with the armsof the family of Pendennis handsomely emblazoned on the panels."What would Arthur say now?" she asked, speaking of a younger son ofhers--"who never so much as once came to see my dearest Johnny throughall the time of his poverty and struggles!"
"Captain Pendennis is with his regiment in India, mother," Mr. Pendennisremarked, "and, if you please, I wish you would not call me Johnnybefore the young man--before Mr. Parkins."
Presently the day came when she ceased to call her son by the name ofJohnny, or by any other title of endearment or affection; and his housewas very lonely without that kind though querulous voice. He had hisnight-bell altered and placed in the room in which the good old ladyhad grumbled for many a long year, and he slept in the great largebed there. He was upwards of forty years old when these events befell;before the war was over; before George the Magnificent came to thethrone; before this history indeed: but what is a gentleman without hispedigree? Pendennis, by this time, had his handsomely framed and glazed,and hanging up in his drawing-room between the pictures of CodlingburyHouse in Somersetshire, and St. Boniface's College, Cambridge, wherehe had passed the brief and happy days of his early manhood. As for thepedigree he had taken it out of a trunk, as Sterne's officer called forhis sword, now that he was a gentleman and could show it.
About the time of Mrs. Pendennis's demise, another of her son's patientslikewise died at Bath; that virtuous woman, old Lady Pontypool,daughter of Reginald twelfth Earl of Bareacres, and by consequencegreat-grand-aunt to the present Earl, and widow of John second LordPontypool, and likewise of the Reverend Jonas Wales, of the ArmageddonChapel, Clifton. For the last five years of her life her ladyship hadbeen attended by Miss Helen Thistlewood, a very distant relative of thenoble house of Bareacres, before mentioned, and daughter of LieutenantR. Thistlewood, R.N., killed at the battle of Copenhagen. Under LadyPontypool's roof Miss Thistlewood found a comfortable shelter, as far asboarding and lodging went, but suffered under such an infernal tyrannyas only women can inflict on, or bear from, one another: the Doctor, whopaid his visits to my Lady Pontypool at least twice a day, could not butremark the angelical sweetness and kindness with which the young ladybore her elderly relative's insults; and it was, as they were going inthe fourth mourning coach to attend her ladyship's venerated remains toBath Abbey, where they now repose, that he looked at her sweet pale faceand resolved upon putting a certain question to her, the very nature ofwhich made his pulse beat ninety, at least.
He was older than she by more than twenty years, and at no time the mostardent of men. Perhaps he had had a love affair in early life which hehad to strangle--perhaps all early love affairs ought to be strangled ordrowned, like so many blind kittens: well, at three-and-forty he was acollected quiet little gentleman in black stockings with a bald head,and a few days after the ceremony he called to see her, and, as he felther pulse, he kept hold of her hand in his, and asked her where shewas going to live now that the Pontypool family had come down upon theproperty, which was being nailed into boxes, and packed into hampers,and swaddled up with haybands, and buried in straw, and locked underthree keys in green baize plate-chests, and carted away under the eyesof poor Miss Helen,--he asked her where she was going to live finally.
Her eyes filled with tears, and she said she did not know. She had alittle money. The old lady had left her a thousand pounds, indeed; andshe would go into a boarding-house or into a school: in fine, she didnot know where.
Then Pendennis, looking into her pale face, and keeping hold of her coldlittle hand, asked her if she would come and live with him? He was oldcompared to--to so blooming a young lady as Miss Thistlewood(Pendennis was of the grave old complimentary school of gentlemen andapothecaries), but he was of good birth, and, he flattered himself, ofgood principles and temper. His prospects were good, and dailymending. He was alone in the world, and had need of a kind and constantcompanion, whom it would be the study of his life to make happy; ina word, he recited to her a little speech, which he had composed thatmorning in bed, and rehearsed and perfected in his carriage, as he wascoming to wait upon the young lady.
Perhaps if he had had an early love-passage, she too had one day hopedfor a different lot than to be wedded to a little gentleman who rappedhis teeth and smiled artificially, who was laboriously polite to thebutler as he slid upstairs into the drawing-room, and profusely civilto the lady's-maid, who waited at the bed-room door; for whom her oldpatroness used to ring as for a servant, and who came with even moreeagerness; who got up stories, as he sent in draughts, for his patient'samusement and his own profit: perhaps she would have chosen a diff
erentman--but she knew, on the other hand, how worthy Pendennis was, howprudent, how honourable; how good he had been to his mother, andconstant in his care of her; and the upshot of this interview was, thatshe, blushing very much, made Pendennis an extremely low curtsey, andasked leave to--to consider his very kind proposal.
They were married in the dull Bath season, which was the height ofthe season in London. And Pendennis having previously, through aprofessional friend, M.R.C.S., secured lodgings in Holles Street,Cavendish Square, took his wife thither in a chaise and pair; conductedher to the theatres, the Parks, and the Chapel Royal; showed herthe folks going to a drawing-room, and, in a word, gave her all thepleasures of the town. He likewise left cards upon Lord Pontypool, uponthe Right Honourable the Earl of Bareacres, and upon Sir Pepin and LadyRibstone, his earliest and kindest patrons. Bareacres took no noticeof the cards. Pontypool called, admired Mrs. Pendennis, and said LadyPontypool would come and see her, which her ladyship did, per proxy ofJohn her footman, who brought her card, and an invitation to a concertfive weeks off. Pendennis was back in his little one-horse carriage,dispensing draughts and pills at that time: but the Ribstones asked himand Mrs. Pendennis to an entertainment, of which Mr. Pendennis braggedto the last day of his life.
The secret ambition of Mr. Pendennis had always been to be a gentleman.It takes much time and careful saving for a provincial doctor, whosegains are not very large, to lay by enough money wherewith to purchasea house and land: but besides our friend's own frugality and prudence,fortune aided him considerably in his endeavour, and brought him tothe point which he so panted to attain. He laid out some money veryadvantageously in the purchase of a house and small estate close uponthe village of Clavering before mentioned. Words cannot describe, nordid he himself ever care to confess to any one, his pride when he foundhimself a real landed proprietor, and could walk over acres of whichhe was the master. A lucky purchase which he had made of shares in acopper-mine added very considerably to his wealth, and he realised withgreat prudence while this mine was still at its full vogue. Finally, hesold his business at Bath, to Mr. Parkins, for a handsome sum of readymoney, and for an annuity to be paid to him during a certain number ofyears after he had for ever retired from the handling of the mortar andpestle.
Arthur Pendennis, his son, was eight years old at the time of thisevent, so that it is no wonder that the latter, who left Bath and thesurgery so young, should forget the existence of such a place almostentirely, and that his father's hands had ever been dirtied by thecompounding of odious pills, or the preparation of filthy plasters. Theold man never spoke about the shop himself, never alluded to it; calledin the medical practitioner of Clavering to attend his family whenoccasion arrived; sunk the black breeches and stockings altogether;attended market and sessions, and wore a bottle-green coat and brassbuttons with drab gaiters, just as if he had been an English gentlemanall his life. He used to stand at his lodge-gate, and see the coachescome in, and bow gravely to the guards and coachmen as they touchedtheir hats and drove by. It was he who founded the Clavering Book Club:and set up the Samaritan Soup and Blanket Society. It was he who broughtthe mail, which used to run through Cacklefield before, away from thatvillage and through Clavering. At church he was equally active as avestryman and a worshipper. At market every Thursday, he went from pento stall, looked at samples of oats, and munched corn, felt beasts,punched geese in the breast, and weighed them with a knowing air, anddid business with the farmers at the Clavering Arms, as well as theoldest frequenter of that house of call. It was now his shame, as itformerly was his pride, to be called Doctor, and those who wished toplease him always gave him the title of Squire.
Heaven knows where they came from, but a whole range of Pendennisportraits presently hung round the Doctor's oak dining-room; Lelys andVandykes he vowed all the portraits to be, and when questioned as tothe history of the originals, would vaguely say they were 'ancestors ofhis.' You could see by his wife's looks that she disbelieved inthese genealogical legends, for she generally endeavoured to turn theconversation when he commenced them. But his little boy believed them totheir fullest extent, and Roger Pendennis of Agincourt, Arthur Pendennisof Crecy, General Pendennis of Blenheim and Oudenarde, were as realand actual beings for this young gentleman as--whom shall wesay?--as Robinson Crusoe, or Peter Wilkins, or the Seven Champions ofChristendom, whose histories were in his library.
Pendennis's fortune, which, at the best, was not above eight hundredpounds a year, did not, with the best economy and management, permitof his living with the great folks of the county; but he had a decentcomfortable society of the second-best sort. If they were not the roses,they lived near the roses, as it were, and had a good deal of the odourof genteel life. They had out their plate, and dined each other roundin the moonlight nights twice a year, coming a dozen miles to thesefestivals; and besides the county, the Pendennises had the society ofthe town of Clavering, as much as, nay, more than they liked: for Mrs.Pybus was always poking about Helen's conservatories, and interceptingthe operation of her soup-tickets and coal-clubs. Captain Glanders (H.P., 50th Dragoon Guards) was for ever swaggering about the Squire'sstables and gardens, and endeavouring to enlist him in his quarrelswith the Vicar, with the Postmaster, with the Reverend F. Wapshotof Clavering Grammar School, for overflogging his son, AngleseaGlanders,--with all the village in fine. And Pendennis and his wifeoften blessed themselves, that their house of Fairoaks was nearly a mileout of Clavering, or their premises would never have been free fromthe prying eyes and prattle of one or other of the male and femaleinhabitants there.
Fairoaks lawn comes down to the little river Brawl, and on the otherside were the plantations and woods (as much as were left of them) ofClavering Park, Sir Francis Clavering, Bart. The park was let out inpasture and fed down by sheep and cattle, when the Pendennises camefirst to live at Fairoaks. Shutters were up in the house; a splendidfreestone palace, with great stairs, statues, and porticos, whereof youmay see a picture in the 'Beauties of England and Wales.' Sir RichardClavering, Sir Francis's grandfather, had commenced the ruin of thefamily by the building of this palace: his successor had achieved theruin by living in it. The present Sir Francis was abroad somewhere;nor could anybody be found rich enough to rent that enormous mansion,through the deserted rooms, mouldy clanking halls, and dismal galleriesof which, Arthur Pendennis many a time walked trembling when he was aboy. At sunset, from the lawn of Fairoaks, there was a pretty sight:it and the opposite park of Clavering were in the habit of putting on arich golden tinge, which became them both wonderfully. The upper windowsof the great house flamed so as to make your eyes wink; the little riverran off noisily westward, and was lost in a sombre wood, behind whichthe towers of the old abbey church of Clavering (whereby that townis called Clavering St. Mary's to the present day) rose up in purplesplendour. Little Arthur's figure and his mother's, cast long blueshadows over the grass; and he would repeat in a low voice (for ascene of great natural beauty always moved the boy, who inherited thissensibility from his mother) certain lines beginning, "These are thyglorious works, Parent of Good; Almighty! thine this universal frame,"greatly to Mrs. Pendennis's delight. Such walks and conversationgenerally ended in a profusion of filial and maternal embraces; for tolove and to pray were the main occupations of this dear woman's life;and I have often heard Pendennis say in his wild way, that he felt thathe was sure of going to heaven, for his mother never could be happythere without him.
As for John Pendennis, as the father of the family, and that sort ofthing, everybody had the greatest respect for him: and his orderswere obeyed like those of the Medes and Persians. His hat was as wellbrushed, perhaps, as that of any man in this empire. His meals wereserved at the same minute every day, and woe to those who came late,as little Pen, a disorderly little rascal, sometimes did. Prayers wererecited, his letters were read, his business dispatched, his stablesand garden inspected, his hen-houses and kennel, his barn and pigstyevisited, always at regular hours. After dinner he always had a nap withthe Glo
be newspaper on his knee, and his yellow bandanna handkerchief onhis face (Major Pendennis sent the yellow handkerchiefs from India, andhis brother had helped in the purchase of his majority, so that theywere good friends now). And so, as his dinner took place at six o'clockto a minute, and the sunset business alluded to may be supposed to haveoccurred at about half-past seven, it is probable that he did not muchcare for the view in front of his lawn windows or take any share in thepoetry and caresses which were taking place there.
They seldom occurred in his presence. However frisky they were before,mother and child were hushed and quiet when Mr. Pendennis walked intothe drawing-room, his newspaper under his arm. And here, while littlePen, buried in a great chair, read all the books of which he could layhold, the Squire perused his own articles in the 'Gardener's Gazette,'or took a solemn hand at picquet with Mrs. Pendennis, or an occasionalfriend from the village.
Pendennis usually took care that at least one of his grand dinnersshould take place when his brother, the Major, who, on the return ofhis regiment from India and New South Wales, had sold out and gone uponhalf-pay, came to pay his biennial visit to Fairoaks. "My brother, MajorPendennis," was a constant theme of the retired Doctor's conversation.All the family delighted in my brother the Major. He was the link whichbound them to the great world of London, and the fashion. He alwaysbrought down the last news of the nobility, and was in the constanthabit of dining with lords and great folks. He spoke of such withsoldierlike respect and decorum. He would say, "My Lord Bareacres hasbeen good enough to invite me to Bareacres for the pheasant shooting,"or, "My Lord Steyne is so kind as to wish for my presence at Stillbrookfor the Easter holidays;" and you may be sure the whereabouts of mybrother the Major was carefully made known by worthy Mr. Pendennis tohis friends at the Clavering Reading room, at Justice-meetings, or atthe County-town. Their carriages would come from ten miles round to callupon Major Pendennis in his visits to Fairoaks; the fame of his fashionas a man about town was established throughout the county. There was atalk of his marrying Miss Hunkle, of Lilybank, old Hunkle the Attorney'sdaughter, with at least fifteen hundred a-year to her fortune: but mybrother the Major refused this negotiation, advantageous as it mightseem to most persons. "As a bachelor," he said, "nobody cares how poor Iam. I have the happiness to live with people who are so highly placed inthe world, that a few hundreds or thousands a year more or less can makeno difference in the estimation in which they are pleased to hold me.Miss Hunkle, though a most respectable lady, is not in possession ofeither the birth or the manners, which would entitle her to be receivedinto the sphere in which I have the honour to move. I shall live and diean old bachelor, John: and your worthy friend, Miss Hunkle, I haveno doubt, will find some more worthy object of her affection, than aworn-out old soldier on half-pay." Time showed the correctness of thesurmise of the old man of the world; Miss Hunkle married a young Frenchnobleman, and is now at this moment living at Lilybank, under the titleof Baroness de Carambole, having been separated from her wild youngscapegrace of a Baron very shortly after their union.
The Major was a great favourite with almost all the little establishmentof Fairoaks. He was as good-natured as he was well bred, and had asincere liking and regard for his sister-in-law, whom he pronounced,and with perfect truth, to be as fine a lady as any in England, andan honour to the family. Indeed, Mrs. Pendennis's tranquil beauty, hernatural sweetness and kindness, and that simplicity and dignity which aperfect purity and innocence are sure to bestow upon a handsome woman,rendered her quite worthy of her brother's praises. I think it is notnational prejudice which makes me believe that a high-bred English ladyis the most complete of all Heaven's subjects in this world. In whomelse do you see so much grace, and so much virtue; so much faith, andso much tenderness; with such a perfect refinement and chastity? And byhigh-bred ladies I don't mean duchesses and countesses. Be they ever sohigh in station, they can be but ladies, and no more. But almost everyman who lives in the world has the happiness, let us hope, of countinga few such persons amongst his circle of acquaintance--women, in whoseangelical natures, there is something awful, as well as beautiful, tocontemplate; at whose feet the wildest and fiercest of us must fall downand humble ourselves;--in admiration of that adorable purity which neverseems to do or to think wrong.
Arthur Pendennis had the good fortune to have a mother endowed withthese happy qualities. During his childhood and youth, the boy thoughtof her as little less than an angel,--as a supernatural being, allwisdom, love, and beauty. When her husband drove her into the countytown, or to the assize balls or concerts there, he would step into theassembly with his wife on his arm, and look the great folks in the face,as much as to say, "Look at that, my lord; can any of you show me awoman like that?" She enraged some country ladies with three times hermoney, by a sort of desperate perfection which they found in her. MissPybus said she was cold and haughty; Miss Pierce, that she was too proudfor her station; Mrs. Wapshot, as a doctor of divinity's lady, wouldhave the pas of her, who was only the wife of a medical practitioner. Inthe meanwhile, this lady moved through the world quite regardless of allthe comments that were made in her praise or disfavour. She did not seemto know that she was admired or hated for being so perfect: but carriedon calmly through life, saying her prayers, loving her family, helpingher neighbours, and doing her duty.
That even a woman should be faultless, however, is an arrangement notpermitted by nature, which assigns to us mental defects, as it awards tous headaches, illnesses, or death; without which the scheme of the worldcould not be carried on,--nay, some of the best qualities of mankindcould not be brought into exercise. As pain produces or elicitsfortitude and endurance; difficulty, perseverance; poverty, industryand ingenuity; danger, courage and what not; so the very virtues, on theother hand, will generate some vices: and, in fine, Mrs. Pendennis hadthat vice which Miss Pybus and Miss Pierce discovered in her, namely,that of pride; which did not vest itself so much in her own person, asin that of her family. She spoke about Mr. Pendennis (a worthy littlegentleman enough, but there are others as good as he) with an awfulreverence, as if he had been the Pope of Rome on his throne, and shea cardinal kneeling at his feet, and giving him incense. The Major sheheld to be a sort of Bayard among Majors: and as for her son Arthur sheworshipped that youth with an ardour which the young scapegrace acceptedalmost as coolly as the statue of the Saint in Saint Peter's receivesthe rapturous osculations which the faithful deliver on his toe.
This unfortunate superstition and idol-worship of this good woman wasthe cause of a great deal of the misfortune which befell the younggentleman who is the hero of this history, and deserves therefore to bementioned at the outset of his story.
Arthur Pendennis's schoolfellows at the Greyfriars School state that, asa boy, he was in no ways remarkable either as a dunce or as a scholar.He did, in fact, just as much as was required of him, and no more. Ifhe was distinguished for anything it was for verse-writing: but was hisenthusiasm ever so great, it stopped when he had composed the numberof lines demanded by the regulations (unlike young Swettenham, forinstance, who, with no more of poetry in his composition than Mr.Wakley, yet would bring up a hundred dreary hexameters to the masterafter a half-holiday; or young Fluxmore, who not only did his ownverses, but all the fifth form's besides). He never read to improvehimself out of school-hours, but, on the contrary, devoured all thenovels, plays, and poetry, on which he could lay his hands. He never wasflogged, but it was a wonder how he escaped the whipping-post. When hehad money he spent it royally in tarts for himself and his friends;he has been known to disburse nine and sixpence out of ten shillingsawarded to him in a single day. When he had no funds he went on tick.When he could get no credit he went without, and was almost as happy.He has been known to take a thrashing for a crony without saying aword; but a blow, ever so slight from a friend, would make him roar. Tofighting he was averse from his earliest youth, as indeed to physic, theGreek Grammar, or any other exertion, and would engage in none of them,except at the last extremity.
He seldom if ever told lies, and neverbullied little boys. Those masters or seniors who were kind to him, heloved with boyish ardour. And though the Doctor, when he did not knowhis Horace, or could not construe his Greek play, said that that boyPendennis was a disgrace to the school, a candidate for ruin in thisworld, and perdition in the next; a profligate who would most likelybring his venerable father to ruin and his mother to a dishonouredgrave, and the like--yet as the Doctor made use of these complimentsto most of the boys in the place (which has not turned out an unusualnumber of felons and pickpockets), little Pen, at first uneasy andterrified by these charges, became gradually accustomed to hear them;and he has not, in fact, either murdered his parents, or committed anyact worthy of transportation or hanging up to the present day.
There were many of the upper boys, among the Cistercians with whomPendennis was educated, who assumed all the privileges of men longbefore they quitted that seminary. Many of them, for example, smokedcigars--and some had already begun the practice of inebriation. One hadfought a duel with an Ensign in a marching, in consequence of a row atthe theatre--another actually kept a buggy and horse at a livery stablein Covent Garden, and might be seen driving any Sunday in Hyde Park witha groom with squared arms and armorial buttons by his side. Many ofthe seniors were in love, and showed each other in confidence poemsaddressed to, or letters and locks of hair received from, youngladies--but Pen, a modest and timid youth, rather envied these thanimitated them as yet. He had not got beyond the theory as yet--thepractice of life was all to come. And by the way, ye tender mothers andsober fathers of Christian families, a prodigious thing that theory oflife is as orally learned at a great public school. Why, if you couldhear those boys of fourteen who blush before mothers and sneak off insilence in the presence of their daughters, talking among each other--itwould be the women's turn to blush then. Before he was twelve years oldand if while his mother fancied him an angel of candour, little Penhad heard talk enough to make him quite awfully wise upon certainpoints--and so, Madam, has your pretty little rosy-cheeked son, who iscoming home from school for the ensuing Christmas holidays. I don't saythat the boy is lost, or that the innocence has left him which hehad from 'Heaven, which is our home,' but that the shades of theprison-house are closing very fast over him, and that we are helping asmuch as possible to corrupt him.
Well--Pen had just made his public appearance in a coat with a tail, orcauda virilis, and was looking most anxiously in his little study-glassto see if his whiskers were growing, like those of more fortunate youthshis companions; and, instead of the treble voice with which he used tospeak and sing (for his singing voice was a very sweet one, and he usedwhen little to be made to perform 'Home, sweet Home,' 'My pretty Page,'and a French song or two which his mother had taught him, and otherballads for the delectation of the senior boys), had suddenly plungedinto a deep bass diversified by a squeak, which when he was called uponto construe in school set the master and scholars laughing--he was aboutsixteen years old, in a word, when he was suddenly called away from hisacademic studies.
It was at the close of the forenoon school, and Pen had been unnoticedall the previous part of the morning till now, when the Doctor put himon to construe in a Greek play. He did not know a word of it, thoughlittle Timmins, his form-fellow, was prompting him with all his might.Pen had made a sad blunder or two when the awful Chief broke out uponhim.
"Pendennis, sir," he said, "your idleness is incorrigible and yourstupidity beyond example. You are a disgrace to your school, and to yourfamily, and I have no doubt will prove so in after-life to your country.If that vice, sir, which is described to us as the root of all evil,be really what moralists have represented (and I have no doubt of thecorrectness of their opinion), for what a prodigious quantity of futurecrime and wickedness are you, unhappy boy, laying the seed! Miserabletrifler! A boy who construes de and, instead of de but, at sixteenyears of age is guilty not merely of folly, and ignorance, and dulnessinconceivable, but of crime, of deadly crime, of filial ingratitude,which I tremble to contemplate. A boy, sir, who does not learn his Greekplay cheats the parent who spends money for his education. A boy whocheats his parent is not very far from robbing or forging upon hisneighbour. A man who forges on his neighbour pays the penalty of hiscrime at the gallows. And it is not such a one that I pity (for he willbe deservedly cut off), but his maddened and heart-broken parents, whoare driven to a premature grave by his crimes, or, if they live, drag ona wretched and dishonoured old age. Go on, sir, and I warn you that thevery next mistake that you make shall subject you to the punishment ofthe rod. Who's that laughing? What ill-conditioned boy is there thatdares to laugh?" shouted the Doctor.
Indeed, while the master was making this oration, there was a generaltitter behind him in the schoolroom. The orator had his back to the doorof this ancient apartment, which was open, and a gentleman who was quitefamiliar with the place, for both Major Arthur and Mr. John Pendennishad been at the school, was asking the fifth-form boy who sate by thedoor for Pendennis. The lad grinning pointed to the culprit againstwhom the Doctor was pouring out the thunders of his just wrath--MajorPendennis could not help laughing. He remembered having stood under thatvery pillar where Pen the younger now stood, and having been assaultedby the Doctor's predecessor years and years ago. The intelligencewas 'passed round' that it was Pendennis's uncle in an instant, and ahundred young faces wondering and giggling, between terror and laughter,turned now to the new-comer and then to the awful Doctor.
The Major asked the fifth-form boy to carry his card up to the Doctor,which the lad did with an arch look. Major Pendennis had written on thecard, "I must take A. P. home; his father is very ill."
As the Doctor received the card, and stopped his harangue with rathera scared look, the laughter of the boys, half constrained until then,burst out in a general shout. "Silence!" roared out the Doctor stampingwith his foot. Pen looked up and saw who was his deliverer; the Majorbeckoned to him gravely with one of his white gloves, and tumbling downhis books, Pen went across.
The Doctor took out his watch. It was two minutes to one. "We will takethe Juvenal at afternoon school," he said, nodding to the Captain, andall the boys understanding the signal gathered up their books and pouredout of the hall.
Young Pen saw by his uncle's face that something had happened at home."Is there anything the matter with my mother?" he said. He could hardlyspeak, though, for emotion, and the tears which were ready to start.
"No," said the Major, "but your father's very ill. Go and pack yourtrunk directly; I have got a postchaise at the gate."
Pen went off quickly to his boarding-house to do as his uncle bade him;and the Doctor, now left alone in the schoolroom, came out to shakehands with his old schoolfellow. You would not have thought it was thesame man. As Cinderella at a particular hour became, from a blazing andmagnificent Princess, quite an ordinary little maid in a grey petticoat,so, as the clock struck one, all the thundering majesty and awful wrathof the schoolmaster disappeared.
"There is nothing serious, I hope," said the Doctor. "It is a pity totake the boy away unless there is. He is a very good boy, rather idleand unenergetic, but he is a very honest gentlemanlike little fellow,though I can't get him to construe as I wish. Won't you come in and havesome luncheon? My wife will be very happy to see you."
But Major Pendennis declined the luncheon. He said his brother was veryill, had had a fit the day before, and it was a great question if theyshould see him alive.
"There's no other son, is there?" said the Doctor. The Major answered"No."
"And there's a good eh--a good eh--property I believe?" asked the otherin an off-hand way.
"H'm--so so," said the Major. Whereupon this colloquy came to an end.And Arthur Pendennis got into the postchaise with his uncle never tocome back to school any more.
As the chaise drove through Clavering, the hostler standing whistlingunder the archway of the Clavering Arms, winked the postilion ominously,as much as to say all was over. The gardener's wife came a
nd opened thelodge-gates, and let the travellers through with a silent shake of thehead. All the blinds were down at Fairoaks--the face of the old footmanwas as blank when he let them in. Arthur's face was white too, withterror more than with grief. Whatever of warmth and love the deceasedman might have had, and he adored his wife and loved and admired his sonwith all his heart, he had shut them up within himself; nor had the boybeen ever able to penetrate that frigid outward barrier. But Arthur hadbeen his father's pride and glory through life, and his name the lastwhich John Pendennis had tried to articulate whilst he lay with hiswife's hand clasping his own cold and clammy palm, as the flickeringspirit went out into the darkness of death, and life and the worldpassed away from him.
The little girl, whose face had peered for a moment under the blinds asthe chaise came up, opened the door from the stairs into the hall, andtaking Arthur's hand silently as he stooped down to kiss her, led himupstairs to his mother. Old John opened the dining-room door for theMajor. The room was darkened with the blinds down, and surrounded by allthe gloomy pictures of the Pendennises. He drank a glass of wine. Thebottle had been opened for the Squire four days before. His hat wasbrushed, and laid on the hall table: his newspapers, and his letter-bag,with John Pendennis, Esquire, Fairoaks, engraved upon the brass plate,were there in waiting. The doctor and the lawyer from Clavering, who hadseen the chaise pass through, came up in a gig half an hour afterthe Major's arrival, and entered by the back door. The former gave adetailed account of the seizure and demise of Mr. Pendennis, enlarged onhis virtues and the estimation in which the neighbourhood held him; onwhat a loss he would be to the magistrates' bench, the County Hospital,etc. Mrs. Pendennis bore up wonderfully, he said, especially sinceMaster Arthur's arrival. The lawyer stayed and dined with MajorPendennis, and they talked business all the evening. The Major was hisbrother's executor, and joint guardian to the boy with Mrs. Pendennis.Everything was left unreservedly to her, except in case of a secondmarriage,--an occasion which might offer itself in the case of soyoung and handsome a woman, Mr. Tatham gallantly said, when differentprovisions were enacted by the deceased. The Major would of course takeentire superintendence of everything under this most impressive andmelancholy occasion. Aware of this authority, old John the footman, whenhe brought Major Pendennis the candle to go to bed, followed afterwardswith the plate-basket; and the next morning brought him the key of thehall clock--the Squire always used to wind it up of a Thursday, Johnsaid. Mrs. Pendennis's maid brought him messages from her mistress.She confirmed the doctor's report, of the comfort which Master Arthur'sarrival had caused to his mother.
What passed between that lady and the boy is not of import. A veilshould be thrown over those sacred emotions of love and grief. Thematernal passion is a sacred mystery to me. What one sees symbolisedin the Roman churches in the image of the Virgin Mother with a bosombleeding with love, I think one may witness (and admire the Almightybounty for) every day. I saw a Jewish lady, only yesterday, with achild at her knee, and from whose face towards the child there shonea sweetness so angelical, that it seemed to form a sort of glory roundboth. I protest I could have knelt before her too, and adored in her theDivine beneficence in endowing us with the maternal storge, which beganwith our race and sanctifies the history of mankind.
So it was with this, in a word, that Mrs. Pendennis comforted herselfon the death of her husband, whom, however, she always reverenced as thebest, the most upright, wise, high-minded, accomplished, and awful ofmen. If the women did not make idols of us, and if they saw us as we seeeach other, would life be bearable, or could society go on? Let a manpray that none of his womankind should form a just estimation of him.If your wife knew you as you are, neighbour, she would not grieve muchabout being your widow, and would let your grave-lamp go out verysoon, or perhaps not even take the trouble to light it. Whereas HelenPendennis put up the handsomest of memorials to her husband, andconstantly renewed it with the most precious oil.
As for Arthur Pendennis, after that awful shock which the sight of hisdead father must have produced on him, and the pity and feeling whichsuch an event no doubt occasioned, I am not sure that in the very momentof the grief, and as he embraced his mother and tenderly consoled her,and promised to love her for ever, there was not springing up in hisbreast a feeling of secret triumph and exultation. He was the chief nowand lord. He was Pendennis; and all round about him were his servantsand handmaids. "You'll never send me away," little Laura said, trippingby him, and holding his hand. "You won't send me to school, will you,Arthur?"
Arthur kissed her and patted her head. No, she shouldn't go to school.As for going himself, that was quite out of the question. He haddetermined that that part of his life should not be renewed. In themidst of the general grief, and the corpse still lying above, he hadleisure to conclude that he would have it all holidays for the future,that he wouldn't get up till he liked, or stand the bullying of theDoctor any more, and had made a hundred of such day-dreams and resolvesfor the future. How one's thoughts will travel! and how quickly ourwishes beget them! When he with Laura in his hand went into the kitchenon his way to the dog-kennel, the fowl-houses, and other his favouritehaunts, all the servants there assembled in great silence with theirfriends, and the labouring men and their wives, and Sally Potterwho went with the post-bag to Clavering, and the baker's man fromClavering--all there assembled and drinking beer on the melancholyoccasion--rose up on his entrance and bowed or curtseyed to him.They never used to do so last holidays, he felt at once and withindescribable pleasure. The cook cried out, "O Lord," and whispered,"How Master Arthur do grow!" Thomas, the groom, in the act of drinking,put down the jug alarmed before his master. Thomas's master felt thehonour keenly. He went through and looked at the pointers. As Flora puther nose up to his waistcoat, and Ponto, yelling with pleasure, hurtledat his chain, Pen patronised the dogs, and said, "Poo Ponto, poo Flora,"in his most condescending manner. And then he went and looked at Laura'shens, and at the pigs, and at the orchard, and at the dairy; perhapshe blushed to think that it was only last holidays he had in a mannerrobbed the great apple-tree, and been scolded by the dairymaid fortaking cream.
They buried John Pendennis, Esquire, "formerly an eminent medicalpractitioner at Bath, and subsequently an able magistrate, a benevolentlandlord, and a benefactor to many charities and public institutions inthis neighbourhood and county," with one of the most handsome funeralsthat had been seen since Sir Roger Clavering was buried here, the clerksaid, in the abbey church of Clavering St. Mary's. A fair marbleslab, from which the above inscription is copied, was erected over theFairoaks' pew in the church. On it you may see the Pendennis coat ofarms, and crest, an eagle looking towards the sun, with the motto 'nectenui penna,' to the present day. Doctor Portman alluded to the deceasedmost handsomely and affectingly, as "our dear departed friend," in hissermon next Sunday; and Arthur Pendennis reigned in his stead.
The History of Pendennis Page 4