CHAPTER LXXII. In which the Decks begin to clear
When, arrayed in his dressing-gown, Pen walked up, according to custom,to Warrington's chambers next morning, to inform his friend of the issueof the last night's interview with his uncle, and to ask, as usual, forGeorge's advice and opinion, Mrs. Flanagan, the laundress, was the onlyperson whom Arthur found in the dear old chambers. George had taken acarpet-bag, and was gone. His address was to his brother's house, inSuffolk. Packages addressed to the newspaper and review for which hewrote lay on the table, awaiting delivery.
"I found him at the table, when I came, the dear gentleman!" Mrs.Flanagan said, "writing at his papers, and one of the candles was burnedout; and hard as his bed is, he wasn't in it all night, sir."
Indeed, having sat at the Club until the brawl there became intolerableto him, George had walked home, and had passed the night finishing somework on which he was employed, and to the completion of which he benthimself with all his might. The labour was done, and the night was wornaway somehow, and the tardy November dawn came and looked in onthe young man as he sate over his desk. In the next day's paper, orquarter's review, many of us very likely admired the work of his genius,the variety of his illustration, the fierce vigour of his satire, thedepth of his reason. There was no hint in his writing of the otherthoughts which occupied him, and always accompanied him in his work--atone more melancholy than was customary, a satire more bitter andimpatient than that which he afterwards showed, may have marked thewritings of this period of his life to the very few persons who knew hisstyle or his name. We have said before, could we know the man's feelingsas well as the author's thoughts--how interesting most books wouldbe!--more interesting than merry. I suppose harlequin's face behind hismask is always grave, if not melancholy--certainly each man who livesby the pen, and happens to read this, must remember, if he will, his ownexperiences, and recall many solemn hours of solitude and labour. What aconstant care sate at the side of the desk and accompanied him! Feveror sickness were lying possibly in the next room: a sick child might bethere, with a wife watching over it terrified and in prayer: or griefmight be bearing him down, and the cruel mist before the eyes renderingthe paper scarce visible as he wrote on it, and the inexorable necessitydrove on the pen. What man among us has not had nights and hours likethese? But to the manly heart--severe as these pangs are, they areendurable: long as the night seems, the dawn comes at last, and thewounds heal, and the fever abates, and rest comes, and you can afford tolook back on the past misery with feelings that are anything but bitter.
Two or three books for reference, fragments of torn-up manuscript,drawers open, pens and inkstand, lines half visible on theblotting-paper, a bit of sealing-wax twisted and bitten and broken intosundry pieces--such relics as these were about the table, and Pen flunghimself down in George's empty chair--noting things according to hiswont, or in spite of himself. There was a gap in the bookcase (next tothe old College Plato, with the Boniface Arms), where Helen's bible usedto be. He has taken that with him, thought Pen. He knew why his friendwas gone. Dear, dear old George!
Pen rubbed his hand over his eyes. Oh, how much wiser, how much better,how much nobler he is than I! he thought. Where was such a friend, orsuch a brave heart? Where shall I ever hear such a frank voice, and kindlaughter? Where shall I ever see such a true gentleman? No wonder sheloved him. God bless him! What was I compared to him? What could she doelse but love him? To the end of our days we will be her brothers, asfate wills that we can be no more. We'll be her knights, and wait onher: and when we're old, we'll say how we loved her. Dear, dear oldGeorge!
When Pen descended to his own chambers, his eye fell on the letter-boxof his outer door, which he had previously overlooked, and there was alittle note to A. P., Esq., in George's well-known handwriting, Georgehad put into Pen's box probably as he was going away.
"Dear Pen,--I shall be half-way home when you breakfast, and intend to stay over Christmas, in Norfolk, or elsewhere.
"I have my own opinion of the issue of matters about which we talked in J------ St. yesterday; and think my presence de trop.
"Vale. G. W."
"Give my very best regards and adieux to your cousin."
And so George was gone, and Mrs. Flanagan, the laundress, ruled over hisempty chambers.
Pen of course had to go and see his uncle on the day after theircolloquy, and not being admitted, he naturally went to LadyRockminster's apartments, where the old lady instantly asked forBluebeard, and insisted that he should come to dinner.
"Bluebeard is gone," Pen said, and he took out poor George's scrap ofpaper, and handed it to Laura, who looked at it--did not look at Pen inreturn, but passed the paper back to him, and walked away. Pen rushedinto an eloquent eulogium upon his dear old George to Lady Rockminster,who was astonished at his enthusiasm. She had never heard him so warmin praise of anybody; and told him with her usual frankness, that shedidn't think it had been in his nature to care so much about any otherperson.
As Mr. Pendennis was passing in Waterloo Place, in one of his many walksto the hotel where Laura lived, and whither duty to his uncle carriedArthur every day, Arthur saw issuing from Messrs. Gimcrack's celebratedshop an old friend, who was followed to his brougham by an obsequiousshopman bearing parcels. The gentleman was in the deepest mourning:the brougham, the driver, and the horse were in mourning. Grief in easycircumstances and supported by the comfortablest springs and cushions,was typified in the equipage and the little gentleman, its proprietor.
"What, Foker! Hail, Foker!" cried out Pen--the reader, no doubt, haslikewise recognised Arthur's old schoolfellow--and he held out his handto the heir of the late lamented John Henry Foker, Esq., the master ofLogwood and other houses, the principal partner in the great brewery ofFoker and Co.: the greater portion of Foker's Entire.
A little hand, covered with a glove of the deepest ebony, and set offby three inches of a snowy wristband, was put forth to meet Arthur'ssalutation. The other little hand held a little morocco case,containing, no doubt, something precious, of which Mr. Foker had justbecome proprietor in Messrs. Gimcrack's shop. Pen's keen eyes andsatiric turn showed him at once upon what errand Mr. Foker had beenemployed; and he thought of the heir in Horace pouring forth thegathered wine of his father's vats; and that human nature is pretty muchthe same in Regent Street as in the Via Sacra.
"Le Roi est mort. Vive le Roi!" said Arthur.
"Ah!" said the other. "Yes. Thank you--very much obliged. How do you do,Pen?--very busy--good-bye!" and he jumped into the black brougham, andsate like a little black Care behind the black coachman. He had blushedon seeing Pen, and shown other signs of guilt and perturbation, whichPen attributed to the novelty of his situation; and on which he began tospeculate in his usual sardonic manner.
"Yes: so wags the world," thought Pen. "The stone closes over Harry theFourth, and Harry the Fifth reigns in his stead. The old ministers atthe brewery come and kneel before him with their books; the draymen,his subjects, fling up their red caps, and shout for him. What a gravedeference and sympathy the bankers and the lawyers show! There was toogreat a stake at issue between those two that they should ever love eachother very cordially. As long as one man keeps another out of twentythousand a year, the younger must be always hankering after the crown,and the wish must be the father to the thought of possession. ThankHeaven, there was no thought of money between me and our dear mother,Laura."
"There never could have been. You would have spurned it!" cried Laura."Why make yourself more selfish than you are, Pen; and allow your mindto own for an instant that it would have entertained such--such dreadfulmeanness? You make me blush for you, Arthur: you make me----" her eyesfinished this sentence, and she passed her handkerchief across them.
"There are some truths which women will never acknowledge," Pen said,"and from which your modesty always turns away. I do not say that I everknew the feeling, only that I am glad I had not the temptation. Is ther
eany harm in that confession of weakness?"
"We are all taught to ask to be delivered from evil, Arthur," saidLaura, in a low voice. "I am glad if you were spared from that greatcrime; and only sorry to think that you could by any possibility havebeen led into it. But you never could; and you don't think you could.Your acts are generous and kind: you disdain mean actions. You takeBlanche without money, and without a bribe. Yes, thanks be to Heaven,dear brother. You could not have sold yourself away; I knew you couldnot when it came to the day, and you did not. Praise be--be where praiseis due. Why does this horrid scepticism pursue you, my Arthur? Why doubtand sneer at your own heart--at every one's? Oh, if you knew the painyou give me--how I lie awake and think of those hard sentences, dearbrother, and wish them unspoken, unthought!"
"Do I cause you many thoughts and many tears, Laura?" asked Arthur.The fulness of innocent love beamed from her in reply. A smile heavenlypure, a glance of unutterable tenderness, sympathy, pity, shone inher face--all which indications of love and purity Arthur beheld andworshipped in her, as you would watch them in a child, as one fanciesone might regard them in an angel.
"I--I don't know what I have done," he said, simply, "to have meritedsuch regard from two such women. It is like undeserved praise, Laura--ortoo much good fortune, which frightens one--or a great post, when a manfeels that he is not fit for it. Ah, sister, how weak and wicked we are;how spotless, and full of love and truth, Heaven made you! I think forsome of you there has been no fall," he said, looking at the charminggirl with an almost paternal glance of admiration. "You can't helphaving sweet thoughts, and doing good actions. Dear creature! they arethe flowers which you bear."
"And what else, sir?" asked Laura. "I see a sneer coming over your face.What is it? Why does it come to drive all the good thoughts away?"
"A sneer, is there? I was thinking, my dear, that nature in making youso good and loving did very well: but----"
"But what? What is that wicked but? and why are you always calling itup?"
"But will come in spite of us. But is reflection. But is the sceptic'sfamiliar, with whom he has made a compact; and if he forgets it, andindulges in happy day-dreams, or building of air-castles, or listens tosweet music let us say, or to the bells ringing to church, But tapsat the door, and says, Master, I am here. You are my master; but I amyours. Go where you will you can't travel without me. I will whisperto you when you are on your knees at church. I will be at your marriagepillow. I will sit down at your table with your children. I will bebehind your deathbed curtain. That is what But is," Pen said.
"Pen, you frighten me," cried Laura.
"Do you know what But came and said to me just now, when I was lookingat you? But said, If that girl had reason as well as love, she wouldlove you no more. If she knew you as you are--the sullied, selfish beingwhich you know--she must part from you, and could give you no love andno sympathy. Didn't I say," he added fondly, "that some of you seemexempt from the fall? Love you know; but the knowledge of evil is keptfrom you."
"What is this you young folks are talking about?" asked LadyRockminster, who at this moment made her appearance in the room, havingperformed, in the mystic retirement of her own apartments, and under thehands of her attendant, those elaborate toilet-rites without which theworthy old lady never presented herself to public view. "Mr. Pendennis,you are always coming here."
"It is very pleasant to be here," Arthur said; "and we were talking,when you came in, about my friend Foker, whom I met just now; and who,as your ladyship knows, has succeeded to his father's kingdom."
"He has a very fine property, he has fifteen thousand a year. He is mycousin. He is a very worthy young man. He must come and see me," saidLady Rockminster, with a look at Laura.
"He has been engaged for many years past to his cousin, Lady----"
"Lady Ann is a foolish little chit," Lady Rockminster said, with muchdignity; "and I have no patience with her. She has outraged everyfeeling of society. She has broken her father's heart, and thrown awayfifteen thousand a year."
"Thrown away? What has happened?" asked Pen.
"It will be the talk of the town in a day or two; and there is no needwhy I should keep the secret any longer," said Lady Rockminster, whohad written and received a dozen letters on the subject. "I had a letteryesterday from my daughter, who was staying at Drummington until allthe world was obliged to go away on account of the frightful catastrophewhich happened there. When Mr. Foker came home from Nice, and after thefuneral, Lady Ann went down on her knees to her father, said thatshe never could marry her cousin, that she had contracted anotherattachment, and that she must die rather than fulfil her contract. PoorLord Rosherville, who is dreadfully embarrassed, showed his daughterwhat the state of his affairs was, and that it was necessary that thearrangements should take place; and in fine, we all supposed that shehad listened to reason, and intended to comply with the desires ofher family. But what has happened?--last Thursday she went outafter breakfast with her maid, and was married in the very churchin Drummington Park to Mr. Hobson, her father's own chaplain and herbrother's tutor; a red-haired widower with two children. Poor dearRosherville is in a dreadful way: he wishes Henry Foker should marryAlice or Barbara; but Alice is marked with the small-pox, and Barbara isten years older than he is. And, of course, now the young man is his ownmaster, he will think of choosing for himself. The blow on Lady Agnes isvery cruel. She is inconsolable. She has the house in Grosvenor Streetfor her life, and her settlement, which was very handsome. Have you notmet her? Yes, she dined one day at Lady Clavering's--the first day I sawyou, and a very disagreeable young man I thought you were. But I haveformed you. We have formed him, haven't we, Laura? Where is Bluebeard?let him come. That horrid Grindley, the dentist, will keep me in townanother week."
To the latter part of her ladyship's speech Arthur gave no ear. He wasthinking for whom could Foker be purchasing those trinkets which he wascarrying away from the jeweller's? Why did Harry seem anxious to avoidhim? Could he be still faithful to the attachment which had agitated himso much, and sent him abroad eighteen months back? Psha! The braceletsand presents were for some of Harry's old friends of the Opera or theFrench theatre. Rumours from Naples and Paris, rumours such as areborne to Club smoking-rooms, had announced that the young man had founddistractions; or, precluded from his virtuous attachment, thepoor fellow had flung himself back upon his old companions andamusements--not the only man or woman whom society forces into evil, ordebars from good; not the only victim of the world's selfish and wickedlaws.
As a good thing when it is to be done cannot be done too quickly, Laurawas anxious that Pen's marriage intentions should be put into executionas speedily as possible, and pressed on his arrangements with rather afeverish anxiety. Why could she not wait? Pen could afford to do so withperfect equanimity, but Laura would hear of no delay. She wrote to Pen:she implored Pen: she used every means to urge expedition. It seemed asif she could have no rest until Arthur's happiness was complete.
She offered herself to dearest Blanche to come and stay at Tunbridgewith her, when Lady Rockminster should go on her intended visit to thereigning house of Rockminster; and although the old dowager scolded, andordered, and commanded, Laura was deaf and disobedient: she must go toTunbridge, she would go to Tunbridge: she who ordinarily had no will ofher own, and complied smilingly with anybody's whim and caprices, showedthe most selfish and obstinate determination in this instance. Thedowager lady must nurse herself in her rheumatism, she must read herselfto sleep, if she would not hear her maid, whose voice croaked, and whomade sad work of the sentimental passages in the novels--Laura mustgo,--and be with her new sister. In another week, she proposed, withmany loves and regards to dear Lady Clavering, to pass some time withdearest Blanche.
Dearest Blanche wrote instantly in reply to dearest Laura's No. 1,to say with what extreme delight she should welcome her sister: howcharming it would be to practise their old duets together, to wandero'er the grassy sward, and amidst the yellowing woods of Pensh
urst andSouthborough! Blanche counted the hours till she should embrace herdearest friend.
Laura, No. 2, expressed her delight at dearest Blanche's affectionatereply. She hoped that their friendship would never diminish; that theconfidence between them would grow in after years; that they should haveno secrets from each other; that the aim of the life of each would be tomake one person happy.
Blanche, No. 2, followed in two days. "How provoking! Their house wasvery small, the two spare bedrooms were occupied by that horrid Mrs.Planter and her daughter, who had thought proper to fall ill (she alwaysfell ill in country-houses), and she could not or would not be moved forsome days."
Laura, No. 3. "It was indeed very provoking. L. had hoped to hear oneof dearest B.'s dear songs on Friday; but she was the more consoled towait, because Lady R. was not very well, and liked to be nursed by her.Poor Major Pendennis was very unwell, too, in the same hotel--too unwelleven to see Arthur, who was constant in his calls on his uncle. Arthur'sheart was full of tenderness and affection. She had known Arthur all herlife. She would answer"--yes, even in italics she would answer--"for hiskindness, his goodness, and his gentleness."
Blanche, No. 3. "What is this most surprising, most extraordinary letterfrom A. P.? What does dearest Laura know about it? What has happened?What, what mystery is enveloped under his frightful reserve?"
Blanche, No. 3, requires an explanation; and it cannot be better giventhan in the surprising and mysterious letter of Arthur Pendennis.
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