The Adventures of Philip

by William Makepeace Thackeray

house. Then the knife and fork are removed from poor Kate's side, and she

  swallows her own sad meal in tears. Then if one of the little Thompsons says,

  artlessly, "Papa, I met Teddy Brown in Regent Street; he looked so��" "Hold your

  tongue, unfeeling wretch!" cries mamma. "Look at that dear child!" Kate is

  swooning. She has salvolatile. The medical man is sent for. And presently��

  Charles Jones is taking Kate Thompson to dinner. Long voyages are dangerous; so

  are long courtships. In long voyages passengers perpetually quarrel (for that

  Mrs. General could vouch); in long courtships the same danger exists; and how

  much the more when in that latter ship you have a mother who is for ever putting

  in her oar! And then to think of the annoyance of that love voyage, when you and

  the beloved and beloved's papa, mamma, half a dozen brothers and sisters, are

  all in one cabin! For economy's sake the Bayneses had no sitting-room at

  madame's��for you could not call that room on the second floor a sittingroom

  which had two beds in it, and in which the young ones practised the piano, with

  poor Charlotte as their mistress. Philip's courting had to take place for the

  most part before the whole family; and to make love under such difficulties

  would have been horrible and maddening and impossible almost, only we have

  admitted that our young friends had little walks in the Champs Elys�es; and then

  you must own that it must have been delightful for them to write each other

  perpetual little notes, which were delivered occultly under the very nose of

  papa and mamma, and in the actual presence of the other boarders at madame's,

  who, of course, never saw anything that was going on. Yes, those sly monkeys

  actually made little post-offices about the room. There was, for instance, the

  clock on the mantelpiece in the salon on which was carved the old French

  allegory, "Le temps fait passer l'amour." One of those artful young people would

  pop a note into Time's boat, where you may be sure no one saw it. The trictrac

  board was another post-office. So was the drawer of the music-stand. So was the

  S�vres China flower-pot, to each of which repositories in its turn the lovers

  confided the delicious secrets of their wooing.

  Have you ever looked at your love-letters to Darby, when you were courting, dear

  Joan? They are sacred pages to read. You have his tied up somewhere in a faded

  ribbon. You scarce need spectacles as you look at them. The hair grows black;

  the eyes moisten and brighten; the cheeks fill and blush again. I protest there

  is nothing so beautiful as Darby and Joan in the world. I hope Philip and his

  wife will be Darby and Joan to the end. I tell you they are married; and don't

  want to make any mysteries about the business. I disdain that sort of artifice.

  In the days of the old three-volume novels, didn't you always look at the end,

  to see that Louisa and the earl (or young clergyman, as the case might be) were

  happy? If they died, or met with other grief, for my part I put the book away.

  This pair, then, are well; are married; are, I trust, happy: but before they

  married, and afterwards, they had great griefs and troubles; as no doubt you

  have had, dear sir, or madam, since you underwent that ceremony. Married? Of

  course they are. Do you suppose I would have allowed little Charlotte to meet

  Philip in the Champs Elys�es with only a giddy little boy of a brother for a

  companion, who would turn away to see Punch, Guignol, the soldiers marching by,

  the old woman's gingerbread and toffy stall and so forth? Do you, I say, suppose

  I would have allowed those two to go out together, unless they were to be

  married afterwards? Out walking together they did go; and, once, as they were

  arm-in-arm in the Champs Elys�es, whom should they see in a fine open carriage

  but young Twysden and Captain and Mrs. Woolcomb, to whom, as they passed, Philip

  doffed his hat with a profound bow, and whom he further saluted with a roar of

  immense laughter. Woolcomb must have heard the peal. I daresay it brought a

  little blush into Mrs. Woolcomb's cheek; and��and so, no doubt, added to the

  many attractions of that elegant lady. I have no secrets about my characters,

  and speak my mind about them quite freely. They said that Woolcomb was the most

  jealous, stingy, ostentatious, cruel little brute; that he led his wife a dismal

  life. Well? If he did? I'm sure, I don't care. "There is that swaggering

  bankrupt beggar Firmin!" cries the tawny bridegroom, biting his moustache.

  "Impudent ragged blackguard," says Twysden minor, "I saw him."

  "Hadn't you better stop the carriage, and abuse him to himself, and not to me?"

  says Mrs. Woolcomb, languidly, flinging herself back on her cushions.

  "Go on. Hang you! Ally! Vite!" cry the gentlemen in the carriage to the laquais

  de place on the box.

  "I can fancy you don't care about seeing him," resumes Mrs. Woolcomb. "He has a

  violent temper, and I would not have you quarrel for the world." So I suppose

  Woolcomb again swears at the laquais de place: and the happy couple, as the

  saying is, roll away to the Bois de Boulogne.

  "What makes you laugh so?" says little Charlotte, fondly, as she trips along by

  her lover's side.

  "Because I am so happy, my dearest!" says the other, squeezing to his heart the

  little hand that lies on his arm. As he thinks on yonder woman, and then looks

  into the pure eager face of the sweet girl beside him, the scornful laughter

  occasioned by the sudden meeting which is just over hushes;��and an immense

  feeling of thankfulness fills the breast of the young man:��thankfulness for the

  danger from which he has escaped, and for the blessed prize which has fallen to

  him.

  But Mr. Philip's walks were not to be as pleasant as this walk; and we are now

  coming to history of wet, slippery roads, bad times, and winter weather. All I

  can promise about this gloomy part is, that it shall not be a long story. You

  will acknowledge we made very short work with the love-making, which I give you

  my word I consider to be the very easiest part of the novel-writer's business.

  As those rapturous scenes between the captain and the heroine are going on, a

  writer who knows his business may be thinking about anything else��about the

  ensuing chapter, or about what he is going to have for dinner, or what you will;

  therefore, as we passed over the raptures and joys of the courting so very

  curtly, you must please to gratify me by taking the grief in a very short

  measure. If our young people are going to suffer, let the pain be soon over. Sit

  down in the chair, Miss Baynes, if you please, and you, Mr. Firmin, in this.

  Allow me to examine you; just open your mouth if you please; and��oh, oh, my

  dear miss�� there it is out! A little eau-de-Cologne and water, my dear. And

  now, Mr. Firmin, if you please, we will�� what fangs! what a big one! Two

  guineas. Thank you. Good morning. Come to me once a year. John, show in the next

  party. About the ensuing painful business, then, I protest I don't intend to be

  much longer occupied than the humane and dexterous operator to whom I have made

  so bold as to liken myself. If my pretty Charl
otte is to have a tooth out, it

  shall be removed as gently as possible, poor dear. As for Philip, and his great

  red-bearded jaw, I don't care so much if the tug makes him roar a little. And

  yet they remain, they remain and throb in after life, those wounds of early

  days. Have I not said how, as I chanced to walk with Mr. Firmin in Paris, many

  years after the domestic circumstances here recorded, he paused before the

  window of that house near the Champs Elys�es where Madame Smolensk once held her

  pension, shook his fist at a jalousie of the now dingy and dilapidated mansion,

  and intimated to me that he had undergone severe sufferings in the chamber

  lighted by yonder window? So have we all suffered; so, very likely, my dear

  young miss, or master, who peruses this modest page, will you have to suffer in

  your time. You will not die of the operation, most probably: but it is painful:

  it makes a gap in the mouth, voyez-vous? and years and years, maybe, after, as

  you think of it, the smart is renewed, and the dismal tragedy enacts itself over

  again.

  Philip liked his little maiden to go out, to dance, to laugh, to be admired, to

  be happy. In her artless way she told him of her balls, her tea-parties, her

  pleasures, her partners. In a girl's first little season nothing escapes her.

  Have you not wondered to hear them tell about the events of the evening, about

  the dresses of the dowagers, about the compliments of the young men, about the

  behaviour of the girls, and what not?

  Little Charlotte used to enact the over-night's comedy for Philip, pouring out

  her young heart in her prattle as her little feet skipped by his side. And to

  hear Philip roar with laughter! It would have done you good. You might have

  heard him from the Obelisk to the Etoile. People turned round to look at him,

  and shrugged their shoulders wonderingly, as good-natured French folks will do.

  How could a man who had been lately ruined, a man who had just been disappointed

  of a great legacy from the earl his great uncle, a man whose boots were in that

  lamentable condition, laugh so, and have such high spirits? To think of such an

  impudent ragged blackguard (as Ringwood Twysden called his cousin) daring to be

  happy! The fact is, that clap of laughter smote those three Twysden people like

  three boxes on the ear, and made all their cheeks tingle and blush at once. At

  Philip's merriment, clouds which had come over Charlotte's sweet face would be

  chased away. As she clung to him doubts which throbbed at the girl's heart would

  vanish. When she was acting those scenes of the past night's entertainment, she

  was not always happy. As she talked and prattled, her own spirits would rise;

  and hope and natural joy would spring in her heart again, and come flushing up

  to her cheek. Charlotte was being a hypocrite, as, thank heaven, all good women

  sometimes are. She had griefs: she hid them from him. She had doubts and fears:

  they fled when he came in view, and she clung to his strong arm, and looked in

  his honest blue eyes. She did not tell him of those painful nights when her eyes

  were wakeful and tearful. A yellow old woman in a white jacket, with a nightcap

  and a night-light, would come, night after night, to the side of her little bed;

  and there stand, and with her grim voice bark against Philip. That old woman's

  lean finger would point to all the rents in poor Philip's threadbare paletot of

  a character��point to the holes, and tear them wider open. She would stamp on

  those muddy boots. She would throw up a peaked nose at the idea of the poor

  fellow's pipe��his pipe, his great companion and comforter when his dear little

  mistress was away. She would discourse on the partners of the night; the evident

  attentions of this gentleman, the politeness and high breeding of that.

  And when that dreary nightly torture was over, and Charlotte's mother had left

  the poor child to herself, sometimes Madame Smolensk, sitting up over her

  ledgers and bills, and wakeful with her own cares, would steal up and console

  poor Charlotte; and bring her some tisane, excellent for the nerves; and talk to

  her about ��about the subject of which Charlotte best liked to hear. And though

  Smolensk was civil to Mrs. Baynes in the morning, as her professional duty

  obliged her to be, she has owned that she often felt a desire to strangle Madame

  la G�n�rale for her conduct to her little angel of a daughter; and all because

  Monsieur Philippe smells the pipe, parbleu! "What? a family that owes you the

  bread which they eat; and they draw back for a pipe! The cowards, the cowards! A

  soldier's daughter is not afraid of it. Merci! Tenez, M. Philippe," she said to

  our friend when matters came to an extremity. "Do you know what in your place I

  would do? To a Frenchman I would not say so; that understands itself. But these

  things make themselves otherwise in England. I have no money, but I have a

  cachemire. Take him; and if I were you, I would make a little voyage to Gretna

  Grin."

  And now, if you please, we will quit the Champs Elys�es. We will cross the road

  from madame's boarding-house. We will make our way into the Faubourg St. Honor�,

  and actually enter a gate over which the L-on, the Un-c-rn, and the R-y-l Cr-wn

  and A-ms of the Three K-ngd-ms are sculptured, and going under the

  porte-coch�re, and turning to the right, ascend a little stair, and ask of the

  attendant on the landing, who is in the chancellerie? The attendant says that

  several of those messieurs y sont. In fact, on entering the room, you find Mr.

  Motcomb,��let us say��Mr. Lowndes, Mr. Halkin, and our young friend Mr.

  Walsingham Hely, seated at their respective tables in the midst of considerable

  smoke. Smoking in the midst of these gentlemen, and bestriding his chair, as

  though it were his horse, sits that gallant young Irish chieftain, The O'Rourke.

  Some of the gentlemen are copying, in a large handwriting, despatches on

  foolscap paper. I would rather be torn to pieces by O'Rourke's wildest horses,

  than be understood to hint at what those despatches, at what those

  despatch-boxes contain. Perhaps they contain some news from the Court of Spain,

  where some intrigues are carried on, a knowledge of which would make your hair

  start off your head; perhaps that box, for which a messenger is waiting in a

  neighbouring apartment, has locked up twenty-four yards of Chantilly lace for

  Lady Belweather, and six new French farces for Tom Tiddler of the Foreign

  Office, who is mad about the theatre. It is years and years ago; how should I

  know what there is in those despatch-boxes?

  But the work, whatever it may be, is not very pressing��for there is only Mr.

  Chesham��[Did I say Chesham before, by the way? You may call him Mr.

  Sloanestreet if you like]. There is only Chesham (and he always takes things to

  the grand serious) who seems to be much engaged in writing; and the conversation

  goes on.

  "Who gave it?" asks Motcomb.

  "The black man, of course, gave it. We would not pretend to compete with such a

  long purse as his. You should have seen what faces he made at the bill! Thirty

  francs a bottle for Rhine wine. He grinn
ed with the most horrible agony when he

  read the addition. He almost turned yellow. He sent away his wife early. How

  long that girl was hanging about London; and think of her hooking a millionnaire

  at last! Othello is a frightful screw, and diabolically jealous of his wife."

  "What is the name of the little man who got so dismally drunk, and began to cry

  about old Ringwood?"

  "Twysden��the woman's brother. Don't you know Humbug Twysden, the father? The

  youth is more offensive than the parent."

  "A most disgusting little beast. Would come to the Vari�t�s, because we said we

  were going: would go to Lamoignon's, where the Russians gave a dance and a

  lansquenet. Why didn't you come, Hely?"

  Mr. Hely.��I tell you I hate the whole thing. Those painted old actresses give

  me the horrors. What do I want with winning Motcomb's money who hasn't got any?

  Do you think it gives me any pleasure to dance with old Carodol? She puts me in

  mind of my grandmother ��only she is older. Do you think I want to go and see

  that insane old Boutzoff leering at Corinne and Palmyrine, and making a group of

  three old women together? I wonder how you fellows can go on. Aren't you tired

  of truffles and �crevisses � la Bordelaise; and those old opera people, whose

  withered old carcases are stuffed with them?

  The O'R.��There was C�risette, I give ye me honour. Ye never saw. She feel

  asleep in her cheer��

  Mr. Lowndes.��In her hwhat, O' R.?

  The O'R.��Well, in her Chair then! And Figaroff smayred her feece all over with

  the craym out of a Charlotte Roose. She's a regular bird, and mustache, you

  know, C�risette has.

  Mr. Hely.��Charlotte, Charlotte! Oh! (He clutches his hair madly. His elbows are

  on the table.)

  Mr. Lowndes.��It's that girl he meets at the teaparties, where he goes to be

  admired.

  Mr. Hely.��It is better to drink tea than, like you fellows, to muddle what

  brains you have with bad champagne. It is better to look, and to hear, and to

  see, and to dance with a modest girl, than, like you fellows, to be capering

  about in taverns with painted old hags like that old C�risette, who has got a

  face like pomme cuite, and who danced before Lord Malmesbury at the Peace of

  Amiens. She did, I tell you; and before Napoleon.

  Mr. Chesham.��(Looks up from his writing.)��There was no Napoleon then. It is of

  no consequence, but��

  Lowndes.��Thank you, I owe you one. You're a most valuable man, Chesham, and a

  credit to your father and mother.

  Mr. Chesham.��Well, the First Consul was Bonaparte.

  Lowndes.��I am obliged to you. I say I am obliged to you, Chesham, and if you

  would like any refreshment order it meis sumptibus, old boy��at my expense.

  Chesham.��These fellows will never be serious. (He resumes his writing.)

  Hely.��(Iterum, but very low.)��Oh, Charlotte, Char��

  Mr. Lowndes.��Hely is raving about that girl��that girl with the horrible old

  mother in yellow, don't you remember? and old father��good old military party,

  in a shabby old coat��who was at the last ball. What was the name? O'Rourke,

  what is the rhyme for Baynes?

  The O'R.��Pays, and be hanged to you. You're always makin fun on me, you little

  cockney!

  Mr. Motcomb.��Hely was just as bad about the Danish girl. You know, Walse, you

  composed ever so many verses to her, and wrote home to your mother to ask leave

  to marry her!

  The O'R.��I'd think him big enough to marry without anybody's leave��only they

  wouldn't have him because he's so ugly.

  Mr. Hely.��Very good, O'Rourke. Very neat and good. You were diverting the

  company with an anecdote. Will you proceed?

  The O'R.��Well, then, the C�risette had been dancing both on and off the stage

  till she was dead tired, I suppose, and so she fell dead asleep, and Figaroff,

  taking the whatdyecallem out of the Charlotte Roose, smayred her face all��

  Voice without.��Deet Mosho Ringwood Twysden, sivoplay, poor l'honorable Moshoo