The History of Pendennis

by William Makepeace Thackeray

  CHAPTER IV. Mrs. Haller

  Having returned to the George, Mr. Foker and his guest sate down toa handsome repast in the coffee-room; where Mr. Rincer brought inthe first dish, and bowed as gravely as if he was waiting upon theLord-Lieutenant of the county. Mr. Foker attacked the turtle and venisonwith as much gusto as he had shown the year before, when he used to makefeasts off ginger-beer and smuggled polonies. Pen could not but respecthis connoisseurship as he pronounced the champagne to be condemnedgooseberry, and winked at the port with one eye. The latter he declaredto be of the right sort; and told the waiters there was no way ofhumbugging him. All these attendants he knew by their Christian names,and showed a great interest in their families; and as the London coachesdrove up, which in those early days used to set off from the George,Mr. Foker flung the coffee-room window open, and called the guards andcoachmen by their Christian names, too, asking about their respectivefamilies, and imitating with great liveliness and accuracy the tootingof the horns as Jem the ostler whipped the horses' cloths off, and thecarriages drove gaily away.

  "A bottle of sherry, a bottle of sham, a bottle of port and a shasscaffy, it ain't so bad, hay, Pen?" Foker said, and pronounced, after allthese delicacies and a quantity of nuts and fruit had been dispatched,that it was time to "toddle." Pen sprang up with very bright eyes, anda flushed face; and they moved off towards the theatre, where they paidtheir money to the wheezy old lady slumbering in the money-taker's box."Mrs. Dropsicum, Bingley's mother-in-law, great in Lady Macbeth," Fokersaid to his companion. Foker knew her, too.

  They had almost their choice of places in the boxes of the theatre,which was no better filled than country theatres usually are in spiteof the "universal burst of attraction and galvanic thrills of delight"advertised by Bingley in the play-bills. A score or so of peopledotted the pit-benches, a few more kept a kicking and whistling in thegalleries, and a dozen others, who came in with free admissions, werein the boxes where our young gentlemen sate. Lieutenants Rodgers andPodgers, and young Cornet Tidmus, of the Dragoons, occupied a privatebox. The performers acted to them, and these gentlemen seemed to holdconversations with the players when not engaged in the dialogue, andapplauded them by name loudly.

  Bingley the manager, who assumed all the chief tragic and comic partsexcept when he modestly retreated to make way for the London stars, whocame down occasionally to Chatteris, was great in the character of the'Stranger.' He was attired in the tight pantaloons and Hessian bootswhich the stage legend has given to that injured man, with a large cloakand beaver and a hearse feather in it drooping over his raddled oldface, and only partially concealing his great buckled brown wig. He hadthe stage jewellery on too, of which he selected the largest and mostshiny rings for himself, and allowed his little finger to quiver outof his cloak with a sham diamond ring covering the first joint of thefinger and twiddling in the faces of the pit. Bingley made it a favourto the young men of his company to go on in light comedy parts withthat ring. They flattered him by asking its history. The stage has itstraditional jewels as the Crown and all great families have. This hadbelonged to George Frederick Cooke, who had had it from Mr. Quin,who may have bought it for a shilling. Bingley fancied the world wasfascinated with its glitter.

  He was reading out of the stage-book--that wonderful stage-book whichis not bound like any other book in the world, but is rouged and tawdrylike the hero or heroine who holds it; and who holds it as people neverdo hold books: and points with his finger to a passage, and wags hishead ominously at the audience, and then lifts up eyes and finger tothe ceiling professing to derive some intense consolation from the workbetween which and heaven there is a strong affinity. Anybody whohas ever seen one of our great light comedians, X., in a chintzdressing-gown, such as nobody ever wore, and representing himself to thepublic as a young nobleman in his apartments, and whiling away the timewith light literature until his friend Sir Harry shall arrive, or hisfather shall come down to breakfast--anybody, I say, who has seen thegreat X. over a sham book has indeed had a great pleasure and an abidingmatter for thought.

  Directly the Stranger saw the young men, he acted at them; eyeing themsolemnly over his gilt volume as he lay on the stage-bank showing hishand, his ring, and his Hessians. He calculated the effect that everyone of these ornaments would produce upon his victims: he was determinedto fascinate them, for he knew they had paid their money; and he sawtheir families coming in from the country and filling the cane chairs inhis boxes.

  As he lay on the bank reading, his servant, Francis, made remarks uponhis master.

  "Again reading," said Francis, "thus it is, from morn to night. To himnature has no beauty--life no charm. For three years I have never seenhim smile" (the gloom of Bingley's face was fearful to witness duringthese comments of the faithful domestic). "Nothing diverts him. O, ifhe would but attach himself to any living thing, were it an animal--forsomething man must love."

  [Enter Tobias (Goll) from the hut.] He cries, "O, how refreshing,after seven long weeks, to feel these warm sunbeams once again. Thanks,bounteous heaven, for the joy I taste!" He presses his cap between hishands, looks up and prays. The Stranger eyes him attentively.

  Francis to the Stranger. "This old man's share of earthly happiness canbe but little. Yet mark how grateful he is for his portion of it."

  Bingley. "Because though old, he is but a child in the leading-string ofhope." (He looks steadily at Foker, who, however, continues to suck thetop of his stick in an unconcerned manner.)

  Francis. "Hope is the nurse of life."

  Bingley. "And her cradle--is the grave."

  The Stranger uttered this with the moan of a bassoon in agony, and fixedhis eyes on Pendennis so steadily, that the poor lad was quite put outof countenance. He thought the whole house must be looking at him; andcast his eyes down. As soon as ever he raised them Bingley's were athim again. All through the scene the manager played at him. When he wasabout to do a good action, and sent off Francis with his book, sothat that domestic should not witness the deed of benevolence which hemeditated, Bingley marked the page carefully, so that he might continuethe perusal of the volume off the stage if he liked. But all was donein the direct face of Pendennis, whom the manager was bent uponsubjugating. How relieved the lad was when the scene ended, and Foker,tapping with his cane, cried out "Bravo, Bingley!"

  "Give him a hand, Pendennis; you know every chap likes a hand,"Mr. Foker said; and the good-natured young gentleman, and Pendennislaughing, and the dragoons in the opposite box, began clapping hands tothe best of their power.

  A chamber in Wintersen Castle closed over Tobias's hut and the Strangerand his boots; and servants appeared bustling about with chairs andtables--"That's Hicks and Miss Thackthwaite," whispered Foker. "Prettygirl, ain't she, Pendennis? But stop--hurray--bravo! here's theFotheringay."

  The pit thrilled and thumped its umbrellas; a volley of applause wasfired from the gallery: the Dragoon officers and Foker clapped theirhands furiously: you would have thought the house was full, so loud weretheir plaudits. The red face and ragged whiskers of Mr. Costigan wereseen peering from the side-scene. Pen's eyes opened wide and bright asMrs. Haller entered with a downcast look, then rallying at the sound ofthe applause, swept the house with a grateful glance, and, foldingher hands across her breast, sank down in a magnificent curtsey.More applause, more umbrellas; Pen this time, flaming with wine andenthusiasm, clapped hands and sang "bravo" louder than all. Mrs. Hallersaw him, and everybody else, and old Mr. Bows, the little first fiddlerof the orchestra (which was this night increased by a detachment of theband of the Dragoons, by the kind permission of Colonel Swallowtail),looked up from the desk where he was perched, with his crutch besidehim, and smiled at the enthusiasm of the lad.

  Those who have only seen Miss Fotheringay in later days, since hermarriage and introduction into London life, have little idea howbeautiful a creature she was at the time when our friend Pen first seteyes on her: and I warn my reader, as beforehand, that the pencil whichillustrates this wo
rk (and can draw an ugly face tolerably well, but issadly put out when it tries to delineate a beauty) can give no sort ofnotion of her. She was of the tallest of women, and at her then age ofsix-and-twenty--for six-and-twenty she was, though she vows she was onlynineteen--in the prime and fulness of her beauty. Her forehead was vast,and her black hair waved over it with a natural ripple (that beautiesof late days have tried to imitate with the help of the crimping-irons),and was confined in shining and voluminous braids at the back of a necksuch as you see on the shoulders of the Louvre Venus--that delight ofgods and men. Her eyes, when she lifted them up to gaze on you, and ereshe dropped their purple deep-fringed lids, shone with tenderness andmystery unfathomable. Love and Genius seemed to look out from them andthen retire coyly, as if ashamed to have been seen at the lattice. Whocould have had such a commanding brow but a woman of high intellect? Shenever laughed (indeed her teeth were not good), but a smile of endlesstenderness and sweetness played round her beautiful lips, and in thedimples of her cheeks and her lovely chin. Her nose defied descriptionin those days. Her ears were like two little pearl shells, which theearrings she wore (though the handsomest properties in the theatre)only insulted. She was dressed in long flowing robes of black, which shemanaged and swept to and fro with wonderful grace, and out of the foldsof which you only saw her sandals occasionally; they were of rathera large size; but Pen thought them as ravishing as the slippers ofCinderella. But it was her hand and arm that this magnificent creaturemost excelled in, and somehow you could never see her but through them.They surrounded her. When she folded them over her bosom in resignation;when she dropped them in mute agony, or raised them in superb command;when in sportive gaiety her hands fluttered and waved before her, likewhat shall we say?--like the snowy doves before the chariot of Venus--itwas with these arms and hands that she beckoned, repelled, entreated,embraced, her admirers--no single one, for she was armed with her ownvirtue, and with her father's valour, whose sword would have leapt fromits scabbard at any insult offered to his child--but the whole house;which rose to her, as the phrase was, as she curtseyed and bowed, andcharmed it.

  Thus she stood for a minute--complete and beautiful--as Pen stared ather. "I say, Pen, isn't she a stunner?" asked Mr. Foker.

  "Hush!" Pen said, "she's speaking."

  She began her business in a deep sweet voice. Those who know the playof the 'Stranger,' are aware that the remarks made by the variouscharacters are not valuable in themselves, either for their sound sense,their novelty of observation, or their poetic fancy. In fact, if a manwere to say it was a stupid play, he would not be far wrong. Nobodyever talked so. If we meet idiots in life, as will happen, it is a greatmercy that they do not use such absurdly fine words. The Stranger's talkis sham, like the book he reads and the hair he wears, and the bank hesits on, and the diamond ring he makes play with--but, in the midstof the balderdash, there runs that reality of love, children, andforgiveness of wrong, which will be listened to wherever it is preached,and sets all the world sympathising.

  With what smothered sorrow, with what gushing pathos, Mrs. Hallerdelivered her part! At first, when as Count Wintersen's housekeeper, andpreparing for his Excellency's arrival, she has to give orders about thebeds and furniture, and the dinner, etc., to be got ready, she did sowith the calm agony of despair. But when she could get rid of the stupidservants and give vent to her feelings to the pit and the house, sheoverflowed to each individual as if he were her particular confidant,and she was crying out her griefs on his shoulder: the little fiddlerin the orchestra (whom she did not seem to watch, though he followed herceaselessly) twitched, twisted, nodded, pointed about, and when shecame to the favourite passage, "I have a William too, if he be stillalive--Ah, yes, if he be still alive. His little sisters, too! Why,Fancy, dost thou rack me so? Why dost thou image my poor childrenfainting in sickness, and crying to--to--their mum--um--other," whenshe came to this passage little Bows buried his face in his blue cottonhandkerchief, after crying out "Bravo."

  All the house was affected. Foker, for his part, taking out a largeyellow bandanna, wept piteously. As for Pen, he was gone too far forthat. He followed the woman about and about--when she was off the stage,it and the house were blank; the lights and the red officers, reeledwildly before his sight. He watched her at the side-scene--where shestood waiting to come on the stage, and where her father took off hershawl: when the reconciliation arrived, and she flung herself down onMr. Bingley's shoulders, whilst the children clung to their knees, andthe Countess (Mrs. Bingley) and Baron Steinforth (performed with greatliveliness and spirit by Garbetts)--while the rest of the charactersformed a group round them, Pen's hot eyes only saw Fotheringay,Fotheringay. The curtain fell upon him like a pall. He did not hear aword of what Bingley said, who came forward to announce the play forthe next evening, and who took the tumultuous applause, as usual, forhimself. Pen was not even distinctly aware that the house was callingfor Miss Fotheringay, nor did the manager seem to comprehend thatanybody else but himself had caused the success of the play. At lasthe understood it--stepped back with a grin, and presently appeared withMrs. Haller on his arm. How beautiful she looked! Her hair had fallendown, the officers threw her flowers. She clutched them to her heart.She put back her hair, and smiled all round. Her eyes met Pen's. Downwent the curtain again: and she was gone. Not one note could he hearof the overture which the brass band of the dragoons blew by kindpermission of Colonel Swallowtail.

  "She is a crusher, ain't she now!" Mr. Foker asked of his companion.

  Pen did not know exactly what Foker said, and answered vaguely. He couldnot tell the other what he felt; he could not have spoken, just then, toany mortal. Besides, Pendennis did not quite know what he felt yet; itwas something overwhelming, maddening, delicious; a fever of wild joyand undefined longing.

  And now Rowkins and Miss Thackthwaite came on to dance the favouritedouble hornpipe, and Foker abandoned himself to the delights of thisballet, just as he had to the tears of the tragedy, a few minutesbefore. Pen did not care for it, or indeed think about the dance, exceptto remember that that woman was acting with her in the scene where shefirst came in. It was a mist before his eyes. At the end of the dance helooked at his watch and said it was time for him to go.

  "Hang it, stay to see The Bravo of the Battle-Axe," Foker said,"Bingley's splendid in it; he wears red tights, and has to carry Mrs. B.over the Pine-bridge of the Cataract, only she's too heavy. It's greatfun, do stop."

  Pen looked at the bill with one lingering fond hope that MissFotheringay's name might be hidden, somewhere, in the list of the actorsof the after-piece, but there was no such name. Go he must. He had along ride home. He squeezed Foker's hand. He was choking to speak, buthe couldn't. He quitted the theatre and walked frantically about thetown, he knew not how long; then he mounted at the George and rodehomewards, and Clavering clock sang out one as he came into the yardat Fairoaks. The lady of the house might have been awake, but she onlyheard him from the passage outside his room as he dashed into bed andpulled the clothes over his head.

  Pen had not been in the habit of passing wakeful nights, so he at oncefell off into a sound sleep. Even in later days and with a great dealof care and other thoughtful matter to keep him awake, a man from longpractice or fatigue or resolution begins by going to sleep as usual:and gets a nap in advance of Anxiety. But she soon comes up with him andjogs his shoulder, and says, "Come, my man, no more of this laziness,you must wake up and have a talk with me." Then they fall to together inthe midnight. Well, whatever might afterwards happen to him, poor littlePen was not come to this state yet; he tumbled into a sound sleep--didnot wake until an early hour in the morning, when the rooks began tocaw from the little wood beyond his bedroom windows; and--at that veryinstant and as his eyes started open, the beloved image was in his mind."My dear boy," he heard her say, "you were in a sound sleep and I wouldnot disturb you: but I have been close by your pillow all this while:and I don't intend that you shall leave me. I am Love! I bring with mefever and passi
on: wild longing, maddening desire; restless craving andseeking. Many a long day ere this I heard you calling out for me; andbehold now I am come."

  Was Pen frightened at the summons? Not he. He did not know what wascoming: it was all wild pleasure and delight as yet. And as, when threeyears previously, and on entering the fifth form at the Cistercians, hisfather had made him a present of a gold watch which the boy took fromunder his pillow and examined on the instant of waking: for ever rubbingand polishing it up in private and retiring into corners to listen toits ticking: so the young man exulted over his new delight; felt in hiswaistcoat pocket to see that it was safe; wound it up at nights, and atthe very first moment of waking hugged it and looked at it.--By the way,that first watch of Pen's was a showy ill-manufactured piece: it neverwent well from the beginning, and was always getting out of order. Andafter putting it aside into a drawer and forgetting it for some time, heswapped it finally away for a more useful time-keeper.

  Pen felt himself to be ever so many years older since yesterday. Therewas no mistake about it now. He was as much in love as the best hero inthe best romance he ever read. He told John to bring his shaving waterwith the utmost confidence. He dressed himself in some of his finestclothes that morning: and came splendidly down to breakfast, patronisinghis mother and little Laura, who had been strumming her music lesson forhours before; and who after he had read the prayers (of which he did notheed one single syllable) wondered at his grand appearance, and askedhim to tell her what the play was about?

  Pen laughed and declined to tell Laura what the play was about. In factit was quite as well that she should not know. Then she asked him why hehad got on his fine pin and beautiful new waistcoat?

  Pen blushed and told his mother that the old schoolfellow with whomhe had dined at Chatteris was reading with a tutor at Baymouth, a verylearned man; and as he was himself to go to College, and as there wereseveral young men pursuing their studies at Baymouth--he was anxious toride over--and--and just see what the course of their reading was.

  Laura made a long face. Helen Pendennis looked hard at her son, troubledmore than ever with the vague doubt and terror which had been hauntingher ever since the last night, when Farmer Gurnett brought back the newsthat Pen would not return home to dinner. Arthur's eyes defied her. Shetried to console herself, and drive off her fears. The boy had nevertold her an untruth. Pen conducted himself during breakfast in a veryhaughty and supercilious manner; and, taking leave of the elder andyounger lady, was presently heard riding out of the stablecourt. He wentgently at first, but galloped like a madman as soon as he thought thathe was out of hearing.

  Smirke, thinking of his own affairs, and softly riding with his toesout, to give Pen his three hours' reading at Fairoaks, met his pupil,who shot by him like the wind. Smirke's pony shied, as the otherthundered past him; the gentle curate went over his head among thestinging-nettles in the hedge. Pen laughed as they met, pointed towardsthe Baymouth road, and was gone half a mile in that direction beforepoor Smirke had picked himself up.

  Pen had resolved in his mind that he must see Foker that morning; hemust hear about her; know about her; be with somebody who knew her; andhonest Smirke, for his part, sitting up among the stinging-nettles,as his pony cropped quietly in the hedge, thought dismally to himself,ought he to go to Fairoaks now that his pupil was evidently gone awayfor the day. Yes, he thought he might go, too. He might go and ask Mrs.Pendennis when Arthur would be back; and hear Miss Laura her Watts'sCatechism. He got up on the little pony--both were used to his slippingoff--and advanced upon the house from which his scholar had just rushedaway in a whirlwind.

  Thus love makes fools of all of us, big and little; and the curate hadtumbled over head and heels in pursuit of it, and Pen had started in thefirst heat of the mad race.