The History of Pendennis

by William Makepeace Thackeray

  CHAPTER XLIII. Alsatia

  Bred up, like a bailiff or a shabby attorney, about the purlieus ofthe Inns of Court, Shepherd's Inn is always to be found in the closeneighbourhood of Lincoln's-Inn Fields, and the Temple. Some where behindthe black gables and smutty chimney-stacks of Wych Street, HolywellStreet, Chancery Lane, the quadrangle lies, hidden from the outer world;and it is approached by curious passages and ambiguous smoky alleys,on which the sun has forgotten to shine. Slop-sellers, brandy-ball andhard-bake vendors, purveyors of theatrical prints for youth, dealers indingy furniture and bedding suggestive of anything but sleep, linethe narrow walls and dark casements with their wares. The doors aremany-belled: and crowds of dirty children form endless groups about thesteps: or around the shell-fish dealers' trays in these courts; whereofthe damp pavements resound with pattens, and are drabbled with anever-failing mud. Ballad-singers come and chant here, in deadlyguttural tones, satirical songs against the Whig administration, againstthe bishops and dignified clergy, against the German relatives of anaugust royal family: Punch sets up his theatre, sure of an audience, andoccasionally of a halfpenny from the swarming occupants of the houses:women scream after their children for loitering in the gutter, or, worsestill, against the husband who comes reeling from the gin-shop;--thereis a ceaseless din and life in these courts out of which you pass intothe tranquil, old-fashioned quadrangle of Shepherd's Inn. In a mangylittle grass-plat in the centre rises up the statue of Shepherd,defended by iron railings from the assaults of boys. The hall of theInn, on which the founder's arms are painted, occupies one side of thesquare, the tall and ancient chambers are carried round other two sides,and over the central archway, which leads into Oldcastle Street, and sointo the great London thoroughfare.

  The Inn may have been occupied by lawyers once: but the laity have longsince been admitted into its precincts, and I do not know that any ofthe principal legal firms have their chambers here. The offices ofthe Polwheedle and Tredyddlum Copper Mines occupy one set of theground-floor chambers; the Registry of Patent Inventions and Union ofGenius and Capital Company, another;--the only gentleman whosename figures here, and in the "Law List," is Mr. Campion, who wearsmustachios, and who comes in his cab twice or thrice in a week; andwhose West End offices are in Curzon Street, Mayfair, where Mrs. Campionentertains the nobility and gentry to whom her husband lends money.There, and on his glazed cards, he is Mr. Somerset Campion; here he isCampion and Co.; and the same tuft which ornaments his chin, sproutsfrom the under lip of the rest of the firm. It is splendid to see hiscab-horse harness blazing with heraldic bearings, as the vehicle stopsat the door leading to his chambers: The horse flings froth off hisnostrils as he chafes and tosses under the shining bit. The reins andthe breeches of the groom are glittering white,--the lustre of thatequipage makes a sunshine in that shady place.

  Our old friend, Captain Costigan, has examined Campion's cab and horsemany an afternoon, as he trailed about the court in his carpet slippersand dressing-gown, with his old hat cocked over his eye. He suns himselfthere after his breakfast when the day is suitable; and goes and paysa visit to the porter's lodge, where he pats the heads of the children,and talks to Mrs. Bolton about the thayatres and me daughther LeedyMirabel. Mrs. Bolton was herself in the profession once, and danced atthe Wells in early days as the thirteenth of Mr. Serle's forty pupils.

  Costigan lives in the third floor at No. 4, in the rooms which were Mr.Podmore's, and whose name is still on the door--(somebody else's name,by the way, is on almost all the doors in Shepherd's Inn). When CharleyPodmore (the pleasing tenor singer, T.R.D.L., and at the Back KitchenConcert Rooms) married, and went to live at Lambeth, he ceded hischambers to Mr. Bows and Captain Costigan, who occupy them in commonnow, and you may often hear the tones of Mr. Bows's piano of fine dayswhen the windows are open, and when he is practising for amusement, orfor the instruction of a theatrical pupil, of whom he has one or two.Fanny Bolton is one, the porteress's daughter, who has heard tell of hermother's theatrical glories, which she longs to emulate. She has a goodvoice and a pretty face and figure for the stage; and she prepares therooms and makes the beds and breakfasts for Messrs. Costigan and Bows,in return for which the latter instructs her in music and singing.But for his unfortunate propensity to liquor (and in that excess shesupposes that all men of fashion indulge), she thinks the Captain thefinest gentleman in the world, and believes in all the versions of allhis stories, and she is very fond of Mr. Bows too, and very grateful tohim, and this shy queer old gentleman has a fatherly fondness for hertoo, for in truth his heart is full of kindness, and he is never easyunless he loves somebody.

  Costigan has had the carriages of visitors of distinction before hishumble door in Shepherd's Inn: and to hear him talk of a morning (forhis evening song is of a much more melancholy nature) you would fancythat Sir Charles and Lady Mirabel were in the constant habit of callingat his chambers, and bringing with them the select nobility to visit the"old man, the honest old half-pay Captain, poor old Jack Costigan," asCos calls himself.

  The truth is, that Lady Mirabel has left her husband's card (whichhas been stuck in the little looking-glass over the mantelpiece of thesitting-room at No. 4, for these many months past), and has come inperson to see her father, but not of late days. A kind person, disposedto discharge her duties gravely, upon her marriage with Sir Charles shesettled a little pension upon her father, who occasionally was admittedto the table of his daughter and son-in-law. At first poor Cos'sbehaviour "in the hoight of poloit societee," as he denominated LadyMirabel's drawing-room table, was harmless, if it was absurd. As heclothed his person in his best attire, so he selected the longest andrichest words in his vocabulary to deck his conversation, and adopted asolemnity of demeanour which struck with astonishment all those personsin whose company he happened to be.--"Was your Leedyship in the Pork todee?" he would demand of his daughter. "I looked for your equipagein veen:--the poor old man was not gratified by the soight of hisdaughther's choriot. Sir Chorlus, I saw your neem at the Levee; many'sthe Levee at the Castle at Dublin that poor old Jack Costigan hasattended in his time. Did the Juke look pretty well? Bedad, I'll callat Apsley House and lave me cyard upon 'um. I thank ye, James, a littledthrop more champeane." Indeed, he was magnificent in his courtesyto all, and addressed his observations not only to the master and theguests, but to the domestics who waited at the table, and who had somedifficulty in maintaining their professional gravity while they waitedon Captain Costigan.

  On the first two or three visits to his son-in-law, Costigan maintaineda strict sobriety, content to make up for his lost time when he gotto the Back Kitchen, where he bragged about his son-in-law's dart andburgundee, until his own utterance began to fail him, over his sixthtumbler of whisky-punch. But with familiarity his caution vanished, andpoor Cos lamentably disgraced himself at Sir Charles Mirabel's table,by premature inebriation. A carriage was called for him: the hospitabledoor was shut upon him. Often and sadly did he speak to his friends atthe Kitchen of his resemblance to King Lear in the plee--of his havinga thankless choild, bedad--of his being a pore worn-out lonely oldman, dthriven to dthrinking by ingratitude, and seeking to dthrown hissorrows in punch.

  It is painful to be obliged to record the weaknesses of fathers, but itmust be furthermore told of Costigan, that when his credit was exhaustedand his money gone, he would not unfrequently beg money from hisdaughter, and made statements to her not altogether consistent withstrict truth. On one day a bailiff was about to lead him to prison, hewrote, "unless the--to you insignificant--sum of three pound five canbe forthcoming to liberate a poor man's grey hairs from gaol." Andthe good-natured Lady Mirabel despatched the money necessary for herfather's liberation, with a caution to him to be more economical for thefuture. On a second occasion the Captain met with a frightful accident,and broke a plate-glass window in the Strand, for which the proprietorof the shop held him liable. The money was forthcoming on this time too,to repair her papa's disaster, and was carried down by Lady Mirabel'sservant to
the slipshod messenger and aide-de-camp of the Captain, whobrought the letter announcing his mishap. If the servant had followedthe Captain's aide-de-camp who carried the remittance, he would haveseen that gentleman, a person of Costigan's country too (for have we notsaid, that however poor an Irish gentleman is, he always has a poorerIrish gentleman to run on his errands and transact his pecuniaryaffairs?), call a cab from the nearest stand, and rattle down to theRoscius Head, Harlequin Yard, Drury Lane, where the Captain was indeedin pawn, and for several glasses containing rum-and-water, or otherspirituous refreshment, of which he and his staff had partaken. On athird melancholy occasion he wrote that he was attacked by illness, andwanted money to pay the physician whom he was compelled to call in; andthis time Lady Mirabel, alarmed about her father's safety, and perhapsreproaching herself that she had of late lost sight of her father,called for her carriage and drove to Shepherd's Inn, at the gate ofwhich she alighted, whence she found the way to her father's chambers,"No. 4, third floor, name of Podmore over the door," the porteress said,with many curtsies, pointing towards the door of the house, into whichthe affectionate daughter entered and mounted the dingy stair. Alas! thedoor, surmounted by the name of Podmore, was opened to her by poor Cosin his shirt-sleeves, and prepared with the gridiron to receive themutton-chops which Mrs. Bolton had gone to purchase.

  Also, it was not pleasant for Sir Charles Mirabel to have lettersconstantly addressed to him at Brookes's, with the information thatCaptain Costigan was in the hall, waiting for an answer; or when he wentto play his rubber at the Travellers', to be obliged to shoot out ofhis brougham and run up the steps rapidly, lest his father-in-law shouldseize upon him; and to think that while he read his paper or played hiswhist, the Captain was walking on the opposite side of Pall Mall, withthat dreadful cocked hat, and the eye beneath it fixed steadily uponthe windows of the club. Sir Charles was a weak man; he was old, and hadmany infirmities: he cried about his father-in-law to his wife, whom headored with senile infatuation: he said he must go abroad,--he must goand live in the country--he should die or have another fit if he sawthat man again--he knew he should. And it was only by paying a secondvisit to Captain Costigan, and representing to him, that if he plaguedSir Charles by letters or addressed him in the street, or made anyfurther applications for loans, his allowance would be withdrawnaltogether, that Lady Mirabel was enabled to keep her papa in order, andto restore tranquillity to her husband. And on occasion of this visit,she sternly rebuked Bows for not keeping a better watch over theCaptain; desired that he should not be allowed to drink in that shamefulway; and that the people at the horrid taverns which he frequentedshould be told, upon no account to give him credit. "Papa's conductis bringing me to the grave," she said (though she looked perfectlyhealthy), "and you, as an old man, Mr. Bows, and one that pretended tohave a regard for us, ought to be ashamed of abetting him in it." Thosewere the thanks which honest Bows got for his friendship and his life'sdevotion. And I do not suppose that the old philosopher was much worseoff than many other men, or had greater reason to grumble.

  On the second floor of the next house to Bows's, in Shepherd's Inn, atNo. 3, live two other acquaintances of ours: Colonel Altamont, agent tothe Nawaub of Lucknow, and Captain Chevalier Edward Strong. No name atall is over their door. The Captain does not choose to let all the worldknow where he lives and his cards bear the address of a JermynStreet hotel; and as for the Ambassador Plenipotentiary of the Indianpotentate, he is not an envoy accredited to the Courts of St. James'sor Leadenhall Street but is here on a confidential mission quiteindependent of the East India Company or the Board of Control. "Infact," Strong says, "Colonel Altamont's object being financial, and toeffectuate a sale of some of the principal diamonds and rubies of theLucknow crown, his wish is not to report himself at the India House orin Cannon Row, but rather to negotiate with private capitalists--withwhom he has had important transactions both in this country and on theContinent."

  We have said that these anonymous chambers of Strong's had been verycomfortably furnished since the arrival of Sir Francis Clavering inLondon, and the Chevalier might boast with reason to the friends whovisited him, that few retired Captains were more snugly quartered thanhe, in his crib in Shepherd's Inn. There were three rooms below: theoffice where Strong transacted his business--whatever that might be--andwhere still remained the desk and railings of the departed officials whohad preceded him, and the Chevalier's own bedroom and sitting-room; anda private stair led out of the office to two upper apartments, the oneoccupied by Colonel Altamont, and the other serving as the kitchen ofthe establishment, and the bedroom of Mr. Grady, the attendant. Theserooms were on a level with the apartments of our friends Bows andCostigan next door at No. 4; and by reaching over the communicatingleads, Grady could command the mignonette-box which bloomed in Bows'swindow.

  From Grady's kitchen casement often came odours still more fragrant. Thethree old soldiers who formed the garrison of No. 3 were all skilledin the culinary art. Grady was great at an Irish stew; the Colonelwas famous for pillaus and curries; and as for Strong he could cookanything. He made French dishes and Spanish dishes, stews, fricassees,and omelettes, to perfection; nor was there any man in England morehospitable than he when his purse was full or his credit was good. Atthose happy periods, he could give a friend, as he said, a good dinner,a good glass of wine, and a good song afterwards; and poor Cos oftenheard with envy the roar of Strong's choruses, and the musical clinkingof the glasses, as he sate in his own room, so far removed and yet sonear to those festivities. It was not expedient to invite Mr. Costiganalways: his practice of inebriation was lamentable; and he boredStrong's guests with his stories when sober, and with his maudlin tearswhen drunk.

  A strange and motley set they were, these friends of the Chevalier;and though Major Pendennis would not much have relished their company,Arthur and Warrington liked it not a little, and Pen thought it asamusing as the society of the finest gentlemen in the finest houseswhich he had the honour to frequent. There was a history about everyman of the set: they seemed all to have had their tides of luck and badfortune. Most of them had wonderful schemes and speculations in theirpockets, and plenty for making rapid and extraordinary fortunes. JackHolt had been in Don Carlos's army, when Ned Strong had fought on theother side; and was now organising a little scheme for smuggling tobaccointo London, which must bring thirty thousand a year to any man whowould advance fifteen hundred, just to bribe the last officer of theExcise who held out, and had wind of the scheme. Tom Diver, who had beenin the Mexican navy, knew of a specie-ship which had been sunk in thefirst year of the war, with three hundred and eighty thousand dollars onboard, and a hundred and eighty thousand pounds in bars and doubloons."Give me eighteen hundred pounds," Tom said, "and I'm off tomorrow. Itake out four men, and a diving-bell with me; and I return in tenmonths to take my seat in Parliament, by Jove! and to buy back my familyestate." Keightley, the manager of the Tredyddlum and Polwheedle CopperMines (which were as yet under water), besides singing as good a secondas any professional man, and besides the Tredyddlum Office, had a SmyrnaSponge Company, and a little quicksilver operation in view, whichwould set him straight with the world yet. Filby had been everythinga corporal of dragoons, a field-preacher, and missionary-agent forconverting the Irish; an actor at a Greenwich fair-booth, in front ofwhich his father's attorney found him when the old gentleman died andleft him that famous property, from which he got no rents now, and ofwhich nobody exactly knew the situation. Added to these was Sir FrancisClavering, Bart., who liked their society, though he did not much add toits amusements by his convivial powers. But he was made much of by thecompany now, on account of his wealth and position in the world. He toldhis little story and sang his little song or two with great affability;and he had had his own history, too, before his accession to goodfortune; and had seen the inside of more prisons than one, and writtenhis name on many a stamped paper.

  When Altamont first returned from Paris, and after he had communicatedwith Sir Francis Clave
ring from the hotel at which he had taken up hisquarters (and which he had reached in a very denuded state, consideringthe wealth of diamonds and rubies with which this honest man wasentrusted), Strong was sent to his patron by the Baronet; paid hislittle bill at the inn, and invited him to come and sleep for a nightor two at the chambers, where he subsequently took up his residence. Tonegotiate with this man was very well, but to have such a person settledin his rooms, and to be constantly burthened with such society, did notsuit the Chevalier's taste much; and he grumbled not a little to hisprincipal.

  "I wish you would put this bear into somebody else's cage," he said toClavering. "The fellow's no gentleman. I don't like walking with him. Hedresses himself like a nigger on a holiday. I took him to the play theother night; and, by Jove, sir, he abused the actor who was doing thepart of villain in the play, and swore at him so, that the people in theboxes wanted to turn him out. The after-piece was the 'Brigand,' whereWallack comes in wounded, you know, and dies. When he died, Altamontbegan to cry like a child, and said it was a d----d shame, and cried andswore so, that there was another row, and everybody laughing. Then I hadto take him away, because he wanted to take his coat off to one fellowwho laughed at him; and bellowed to him to stand up like a man.--Who ishe? Where the deuce does he come from? You had best tell me thewhole story. Frank; you must one day. You and he have robbed a churchtogether, that's my belief. You had better get it off your mind at once,Clavering, and tell me what this Altamont is, and what hold he has overyou."

  "Hang him! I wish he was dead!" was the Baronet's only reply; and hiscountenance became so gloomy, that Strong did not think fit to questionhis patron any further at that time; but resolved, if need were, to tryand discover for himself what was the secret tie between Altamont andClavering.