The History of Pendennis

by William Makepeace Thackeray

  CHAPTER LVIII. "Fairoaks to let"

  Our poor widow (with the assistance of her faithful Martha of Fairoaks,who laughed and wondered at the German ways, and superintend the affairsof the simple household) had made a little feast in honour of MajorPendennis's arrival, of which, however, only the Major and his twoyounger friends partook, for Helen sent to say that she was too unwellto dine at their table, and Laura bore her company. The Major talked forthe party, and did not perceive, or choose to perceive, what a gloomand silence pervaded the other two sharers of the modest dinner. It wasevening before Helen and Laura came into the sitting-room to join thecompany there. She came in leaning on Laura, with her back to the waninglight, so that Arthur could not see how pallid and woe-stricken her facewas, and as she went up to Pen, whom she had not seen during the day,and placed her fond arms on his shoulders and kissed him tenderly, Lauraleft her, and moved away to another part of the room. Pen remarked thathis mother's voice and her whole frame trembled, her hand was clammycold as she put it up to his forehead, piteously embracing him. Thespectacle of her misery only added, somehow, to the wrath and testinessof the young man. He scarcely returned the kiss which the suffering ladygave him: and the countenance with which he met the appeal of her lookwas hard and cruel. "She persecutes me," he thought within himself,"and she comes to me with the air of a martyr!" "You look very ill, mychild," she said. "I don't like to see you look in that way." And shetottered to a sofa, still holding one of his passive hands in her thincold clinging fingers.

  "I have had much to annoy me, mother," Pen said, with a throbbingbreast: and as he spoke Helen's heart began to beat so, that she satealmost dead and speechless with terror.

  Warrington, Laura, and Major Pendennis, all remained breathless, awarethat the storm was about to break.

  "I have had letters from London," Arthur continued, "and one that hasgiven me more pain than I ever had in my life. It tells me thatformer letters of mine have been intercepted and purloined away fromme;--that--that a young creature who has shown the greatest love andcare for me, has been most cruelly used by--by you, mother."

  "For God's sake stop," cried out Warrington. "She's ill--don't you seeshe is ill?"

  "Let him go on," said the widow, faintly.

  "Let him go on and kill her," said Laura, rushing up to her mother'sside. "Speak on, sir, and see her die."

  "It is you who are cruel," cried Pen, more exasperated and more savage,because his own heart, naturally soft and weak, revolted indignantly atthe injustice of the very suffering which was laid at his door. "It isyou that are cruel, who attribute all this pain to me: it is you who arecruel with your wicked reproaches, your wicked doubts of me, your wickedpersecutions of those who love me,--yes, those who love me, and whobrave everything for me, and whom you despise and trample upon becausethey are of lower degree than you. Shall I tell you what I willdo,--what I am resolved to do, now that I know what your conduct hasbeen?--I will go back to this poor girl whom you turned out of my doors,and ask her to come back and share my home with me. I'll defy the pridewhich persecutes her, and the pitiless suspicion which insults her andme."

  "Do you mean, Pen, that you----" here the widow, with eager eyes andoutstretched hands, was breaking out, but Laura stopped her: "Silence,hush, dear mother," she cried, and the widow hushed. Savagely as Penspoke, she was only too eager to hear what more he had to say. "Go on,Arthur, go on, Arthur," was all she said, almost swooning away as shespoke.

  "By Gad, I say he shan't go on, or I won't hear him, by Gad," the Majorsaid, trembling too in his wrath. "If you choose, sir, after all we'vedone for you, after all I've done for you myself, to insult yourmother and disgrace your name, by allying yourself with a low-bornkitchen-girl, go and do it, by Gad,--but let us, ma'am, have no more todo with him. I wash my hands of you, sir,--I wash my hands of you. I'man old fellow,--I ain't long for this world. I come of as ancient andhonourable a family as any in England, by Gad, and I did hope, before Iwent off the hooks, by Gad, that the fellow that I'd liked, and broughtup, and nursed through life, by Jove, would do something to show me thatour name--yes, the name of Pendennis, by Gad, was left undishonouredbehind us, but if he won't, dammy, I say, amen. By G--, both my fatherand my brother Jack were the proudest men in England, and I neverwould have thought that there would come this disgrace to myname,--never--and--and I'm ashamed that it's Arthur Pendennis." The oldfellow's voice here broke off into a sob: it was the second time thatArthur had brought tears from those wrinkled lids.

  The sound of his breaking voice stayed Pen's anger instantly, and hestopped pacing the room, as he had been doing until that moment. Laurawas by Helen's sofa; and Warrington had remained hitherto an almostsilent, but not uninterested spectator of the family storm. As theparties were talking, it had grown almost dark; and after the lull whichsucceeded the passionate outbreak of the Major, George's deep voice, asit here broke trembling into the twilight room, was heard with no smallemotion by all.

  "Will you let me tell you something about myself, my kind friends?" hesaid,--"you have been so good to me, ma'am, you have been so kind to me,Laura--I hope I may call you so sometimes--my dear Pen and I have beensuch friends that I have long wanted to tell you my story such as itis, and would have told it to you earlier but that it is a sad one andcontains another's secret. However, it may do good for Arthur to knowit--it is right that every one here should. It will divert you from thinkingabout a subject, which, out of a fatal misconception, has caused a greatdeal of pain to all of you. May I please tell you, Mrs. Pendennis?"

  "Pray speak," was all Helen said; and indeed she was not much heeding;her mind was full of another idea with which Pen's words had suppliedher, and she was in a terror of hope that what he had hinted might be asshe wished.

  George filled himself a bumper of wine and emptied it, and began tospeak. "You all of you know how you see me," he said, "a man without adesire to make an advance in the world: careless about reputation; andliving in a garret and from hand to mouth, though I have friends and aname, and I daresay capabilities of my own, that would serve me if I hada mind. But mind I have none. I shall die in that garret most likely,and alone. I nailed myself to that doom in early life. Shall I tellyou what it was that interested me about Arthur years ago, and made meinclined towards him when first I saw him? The men from our college atOxbridge brought up accounts of that early affair with the Chatterisactress, about whom Pen has talked to me since; and who, but for theMajor's generalship, might have been your daughter-in-law, ma'am. Ican't see Pen in the dark, but he blushes, I'm sure; and I dare say MissBell does; and my friend Major Pendennis, I dare say, laughs as he oughtto do--for he won. What would have been Arthur's lot now had he beentied at nineteen to an illiterate woman older than himself, with noqualities in common between them to make one a companion for the other,no equality, no confidence, and no love speedily? What could he havebeen but most miserable? And when he spoke just now and threatened asimilar union, be sure it was but a threat occasioned by anger, whichyou must give me leave to say, ma'am, was very natural on his part,for after a generous and manly conduct--let me say who know thecircumstances well--most generous and manly and self-denying (which israre with him),--he has met from some friends of his with a most unkindsuspicion, and has had to complain of the unfair treatment of anotherinnocent person, towards whom he and you all are under much obligation."

  The widow was going to get up here, and Warrington, seeing her attemptto rise, said, "Do I tire you, ma'am?"

  "Oh no--go on--go on," said Helen, delighted, and he continued.

  "I liked him, you see, because of that early history of his, which hadcome to my ears in college gossip, and because I like a man, if you willpardon me for saying so, Miss Laura, who shows that he can have a greatunreasonable attachment for a woman. That was why we became friends--andare all friends here--for always, aren't we?" he added, in a lowervoice, leaning over to her, "and Pen has been a great comfort andcompanion to a lonely and unfortunate man.

  "I am
not complaining of my lot, you see; for no man's is what he wouldhave it; and up in my garret, where you left the flowers, and withmy old books and my pipe for a wife, I am pretty contented, and onlyoccasionally envy other men, whose careers in life are more brilliant,or who can solace their ill fortune by what Fate and my own fault hasdeprived me of--the affection of a woman or a child." Here there came asigh from somewhere near Warrington in the dark, and a hand was heldout in his direction, which, however, was instantly, withdrawn, for theprudery of our females is such, that before all expression of feeling,or natural kindness and regard, a woman is 'taught to think of herselfand the proprieties, and to be ready to blush at the very slightestnotice;' and checking, as, of course, it ought, this spontaneous motion,modesty drew up again, kindly friendship shrank back ashamed of itself,and Warrington resumed his history. "My fate is such as I made it, andnot lucky for me or for others involved in it.

  "I, too, had an adventure before I went to college; and there was noone to save me as Major Pendennis saved Pen. Pardon me, Miss Laura, ifI tell this story before you. It is as well that you all of you shouldhear my confession. Before I went to college, as a boy of eighteen, Iwas at a private tutor's, and there, like Arthur, I became attached, orfancied I was attached, to a woman of a much lower degree and a greaterage than my own. You shrink from me----"

  "No, I don't," Laura said, and here the hand went out resolutely,and laid itself in Warrington's. She had divined his story from someprevious hints let fall by him, and his first words at its commencement.

  "She was a yeoman's daughter in the neighbourhood," Warrington said,with rather a faltering voice, "and I fancied--what all young men fancy.Her parents knew who my father was, and encouraged me, with all sorts ofcoarse artifices and scoundrel flatteries, which I see now, about theirhouse. To do her justice, I own she never cared for me, but was forcedinto what happened by the threats and compulsion of her family. Would toGod that I had not been deceived: but in these matters we are deceivedbecause we wish to be so, and I thought I loved that poor woman.

  "What could come of such a marriage? I found, before long, that I wasmarried to a boor. She could not comprehend one subject that interestedme. Her dulness palled upon me till I grew to loathe it. And after sometime of a wretched, furtive union--I must tell you all--I found letterssomewhere (and such letters they were!) which showed me that her heart,such as it was, had never been mine, but had always belonged to a personof her own degree.

  "At my father's death, I paid what debts I had contracted at college,and settled every shilling which remained to me in an annuity upon--uponthose who bore my name, on condition that they should hide themselvesaway, and not assume it. They have kept that condition, as they wouldbreak it, for more money. If I had earned fame or reputation, that womanwould have come to claim it: if I had made a name for myself those whono right to it would have borne it; and I entered life at twenty, Godhelp me--hopeless and ruined beyond remission. I was the boyish victimof vulgar cheats, and, perhaps, it is only of late I have found out howhard--ah, how hard--it is to forgive them. I told you the moral before,Pen; and now I have told you the fable. Beware how you marry out ofyour degree. I was made for a better lot than this, I think: but God hasawarded me this one--and so, you see, it is for me to look on, and seeothers successful and others happy, with a heart that shall be as littlebitter as possible."

  "By Gad, sir," cried the Major, in high good-humour, "I intended you tomarry Miss Laura here."

  "And, by Gad, Master Shallow, I owe you a thousand pound," Warringtonsaid.

  "How d'ye mean a thousand? it was only a pony, sir," replied the Majorsimply, at which the other laughed.

  As for Helen, she was so delighted, that she started up, and said, "Godbless you--God for ever bless you, Mr. Warrington;" and kissed both hishands, and ran up to Pen, and fell into his arms.

  "Yes, dearest mother," he said as he held her to him, and with a nobletenderness and emotion, embraced and forgave her. "I am innocent, and mydear, dear mother has done me a wrong."

  "Oh yes, my child, I have wronged you, thank God, I have wronged you!"Helen whispered. "Come away, Arthur--not here--I want to ask my child toforgive me--and--and my God, to forgive me; and to bless you, and loveyou, my son."

  He led her, tottering, into her room, and closed the door, as the threetouched spectators of the reconciliation looked on in pleased silence.Ever after, ever after, the tender accents of that voice falteringsweetly at his ear--the look of the sacred eyes beaming withan affection unutterable--the quiver of the fond lips smilingmournfully--were remembered by the young man. And at his best moments,and at his hours of trial and grief, and at his times of success orwell-doing, the mother's face looked down upon him, and blessed him withits gaze of pity and purity, as he saw it in that night when she yetlingered with him; and when she seemed, ere she quite left him, anangel, transfigured and glorified with love--for which love, as for thegreatest of the bounties and wonders of God's provision for us, let uskneel and thank Our Father.

  The moon had risen by this time; Arthur recollected well afterwards howit lighted up his mother's sweet pale face. Their talk, or his rather,for she scarcely could speak, was more tender and confidential thanit had been for years before. He was the frank and generous boy of herearly days and love. He told her the story, the mistake regarding whichhad caused her so much pain--his struggles to fly from temptation, andhis thankfulness that he had been able to overcome it. He never woulddo the girl wrong, never; or wound his own honour or his mother'spure heart. The threat that he would return was uttered in a moment ofexasperation, of which he repented. He never would see her again. Buthis mother said yes he should; and it was she who had been proud andculpable--and she would like to give Fanny Bolton something--and shebegged her dear boy's pardon for opening the letter--and she would writeto the young girl, if,--if she had time. Poor thing! was it not naturalthat she should love her Arthur? And again she kissed him, and sheblessed him.

  As they were talking the clock struck nine, and Helen reminded him how,when he was a little boy, she used to go up to his bedroom at that hour,and hear him say Our Father. And once more, oh, once more, the young manfell down at his mother's sacred knees, and sobbed out the prayer whichthe Divine Tenderness uttered for us, and which has been echoed bytwenty ages since by millions of sinful and humbled men. And as he spokethe last words of the supplication, the mother's head fell down on herboy's, and her arms closed round him, and together they repeated thewords "for ever and ever" and "Amen."

  A little time after, it might have been a quarter of an hour, Lauraheard Arthur's voice call from within, "Laura! Laura!" She rushed intothe room instantly and found the young man still on his knees, andholding his mother's hand. Helen's head had sunk back and was quitepale in the room. Pen looked round, scared with a ghastly terror. "Help,Laura, help!" he said, "she's fainted--she's----"

  Laura screamed, and fell by the side of Helen. The shriek broughtWarrington and Major Pendennis and the servants to the room. Thesainted woman was dead. The last emotion of her soul here was joy to behenceforth unchequered and eternal. The tender heart beat no more; itwas to have no more pangs, no more doubts, no more griefs and trials.Its last throb was love; and Helen's last breath was a benediction.

  The melancholy party bent their way speedily homewards, and Helen waslaid by her husband's side at Clavering, in the old church where she hadprayed so often. For a while Laura went to stay with Dr. Portman, whoread the service over his dear departed sister, amidst his own sobs andthose of the little congregation which assembled round Helen's tomb.There were not many who cared for her, or who spoke of her when gone.Scarcely more than of a nun in a cloister did people know of that piousand gentle lady. A few words among the cottagers whom her bounty wasaccustomed to relieve, a little talk from house to house at Clavering,where this lady told how their neighbour died of a complaint in theheart; whilst that speculated upon the amount of a property which thewidow had left; and a third wondered whether Arthur would le
t Fairoaksor live in it, and expected that he would not be long getting throughhis property,--this was all, and except with one or two who cherishedher, the kind soul was forgotten by the next market-day. Would youdesire that grief for you should last for a few more weeks? and doesafter-life seem less solitary, provided that our names, when we "go downinto silence," are echoing on this side of the grave yet for a littlewhile, and human voices are still talking about us? She was gone, thepure soul, whom only two or three loved and knew. The great blank sheleft was in Laura's heart, to whom her love had been everything, andwho had now but to worship her memory. "I am glad that she gave meher blessing before she went away," Warrington said to Pen; and as forArthur, with a humble acknowledgment and wonder at so much affection, hehardly dared to ask of Heaven to make him worthy of it, though he feltthat a saint there was interceding for him.

  All the lady's affairs were found in perfect order, and her littleproperty ready for transmission to her son, in trust for whom sheheld it. Papers in her desk showed that she had long been aware of thecomplaint, one of the heart, under which she laboured, and knew that itwould suddenly remove her: and a prayer was found in her handwriting,asking that her end might be, as it was, in the arms of her son.

  Laura and Arthur talked over her sayings, all of which the former mostfondly remembered, to the young man's shame somewhat, who thought howmuch greater her love had been for Helen than his own. He referredhimself entirely to Laura to know what Helen would have wished should bedone; what poor persons she would have liked to relieve; what legaciesor remembrances she would have wished to transmit. They packed up thevase which Helen in her gratitude had destined to Dr. Goodenough, andduly sent it to the kind Doctor; a silver coffee-pot, which she used,was sent off to Portman: a diamond ring, with her hair, was given withaffectionate greeting to Warrington.

  It must have been a hard day for poor Laura when she went over toFairoaks first and to the little room which she had occupied, and whichwas hers no more, and to the widow's own blank chamber in which thosetwo had passed so many beloved hours. There, of course, were the clothesin the wardrobe, the cushion on which she prayed, the chair at thetoilette: the glass that was no more to reflect her dear sad face. Aftershe had been here a while Pen knocked and led her downstairs to theparlour again, and made her drink a little wine, and said, "God blessyou," as she touched the glass. "Nothing shall ever be changed in yourroom," he said--"it is always your room--it is always my sister's room.Shall it not be so, Laura?" and Laura said, "Yes!"

  Among the widow's papers was found a packet, marked by the widow,"Letters from Laura's father," and which Arthur gave to her. They werethe letters which had passed between the cousins in the early daysbefore the marriage of either of them. The ink was faded in which theywere written: the tears dried out that both perhaps had shed over them:the grief healed now whose bitterness they chronicled: the friendsdoubtless united whose parting on earth had caused to both pangs socruel. And Laura learned fully now for the first time what the tie waswhich had bound her so tenderly to Helen: how faithfully her more thanmother had cherished her father's memory, how truly she had loved him,how meekly resigned him.

  One legacy of his mother's Pen remembered, of which Laura could have nocognisance. It was that wish of Helen's to make some present to FannyBolton; and Pen wrote to her, putting his letter under an envelope toMr. Bows, and requesting that gentleman to read it before he deliveredit to Fanny. "Dear Fanny," Pen said, "I have to acknowledge two lettersfrom you, one of which was delayed in my illness" (Pen found the firstletter in his mother's desk after her decease and the reading it gavehim a strange pang), "and to thank you, my kind nurse and friend, whowatched me so tenderly during my fever. And I have to tell you that thelast words of my dear mother who is no more, were words of goodwill andgratitude to you for nursing me: and she said she would have written toyou, had she had time--that she would like to ask your pardon if she hadharshly treated you--and that she would beg you to show your forgivenessby accepting some token of friendship and regard from her." Penconcluded by saying that his friend, George Warrington, Esq., of LambCourt, Temple, was trustee of a little sum of money, of which theinterest would be paid to her until she became of age, or changed hername, which would always be affectionately remembered by her gratefulfriend, A. Pendennis. The sum was in truth but small, although enough tomake a little heiress of Fanny Bolton, whose parents were appeased, andwhose father said Mr. P. had acted quite as the gentleman--though Bowsgrowled out that that to plaster a wounded heart with a banknote was aneasy kind of sympathy; and poor Fanny felt only too clearly that Pen'sletter was one of farewell.

  "Sending hundred-pound notes to porters' daughters is all dev'lishwell," old Major Pendennis said to his nephew (whom, as the proprietorof Fairoaks and the head of the family, he now treated with markeddeference and civility), "and as there was a little ready money at thebank, and your poor mother wished it, there's perhaps no harm done. But,my good lad, I'd have you to remember that you've not above five hundreda year, though, thanks to me the world gives you credit for being adoosid deal better off; and, on my knees, I beg you, my boy, don't breakinto your capital: Stick to it, sir; don't speculate with it, sir; keepyour land, and don't borrow on it. Tatham tells me that the Chatterisbranch of the railway may--will almost certainly pass through Chatteris,and of it can be brought on this side of the Brawl, sir, and throughyour fields, they'll be worth a dev'lish deal of money, and your fivehundred a year will jump up to eight or nine. Whatever it is, keep it,I implore you keep it. And I say, Pen, I think you should give up livingin those dirty chambers in the Temple and let a decent lodging. And Ishould have a man, sir, to wait upon me; and a horse or two in town inthe season. All this will pretty well swallow up your income, and I knowyou must live close. But remember you have a certain place in society,and you can't afford to cut a poor figure in the world. What are yougoing to do in the winter? You don't intend to stay down here, or, Isuppose, to go on writing for that--what-d'ye-call-'em--that newspaper?"

  "Warrington and I are going abroad again, sir, for a little, and then weshall see what is to be done," Arthur replied.

  "And you'll let Fairoaks, of course? Good school in the neighbourhood;cheap country: dev'lish nice place for East India Colonels, or familieswanting to retire. I'll speak about it at the club; there are lots offellows at the club want a place of that sort."

  "I hope Laura will live in it for the winter, at least, and will makeit her home," Arthur replied: at which the Major pish'd and psha'd, andsaid that there ought to be convents, begad, for English ladies,and wished that Miss Bell had not been there to interfere with thearrangements of the family, and that she would mope herself to deathalone in that place.

  Indeed, it would have been a very dismal abode for poor Laura, who wasnot too happy either in Dr. Portman's household, and in the town wheretoo many things reminded her of the dear parent whom she had lost. Butold Lady Rockminster, who adored her young friend Laura, as soon asshe read in the paper of her loss, and of her presence in the country,rushed over from Baymouth, where the old lady was staying, and insistedthat Laura should remain six months, twelve months, all her life withher; and to her ladyship's house, Martha from Fairoaks, as femme dechambre, accompanied her young mistress.

  Pen and Warrington saw her depart. It was difficult to say which of theyoung men seemed to regard her the most tenderly. "Your cousin is pertand rather vulgar, my dear, but he seems to have a good heart," littleLady Rockminster said, who said her say about everybody--"but I likeBluebeard best. Tell me, is he touche au coeur?"

  "Mr. Warrington has been long--engaged," Laura said, dropping her eyes.

  "Nonsense, child! And good heavens, my dear! that's a pretty diamondcross. What do you mean by wearing it in the morning?"

  "Arthur--my brother, gave it me just now. It was--it was----"

  She could not finish the sentence. The carriage passed over the bridge,and by the dear, dear gate of Fairoaks--home no more.