The History of Pendennis

by William Makepeace Thackeray

  CHAPTER VIII. In which Pen is kept waiting at the Door, while the Readeris informed who little Laura was.

  Once upon a time, then, there was a young gentleman of CambridgeUniversity who came to pass the long vacation at the village whereyoung Helen Thistlewood was living with her mother, the widow of thelieutenant slain at Copenhagen. This gentleman, whose name wasthe Reverend Francis Bell, was nephew to Mrs. Thistlewood, and byconsequence, own cousin to Miss Helen, so that it was very right that heshould take lodgings in his aunt's house, who lived in a very small way;and there he passed the long vacation, reading with three or four pupilswho accompanied him to the village. Mr. Bell was fellow of a college,and famous in the University for his learning and skill as a tutor.

  His two kinswomen understood pretty early that the reverend gentlemanwas engaged to be married, and was only waiting for a college living toenable him to fulfil his engagement. His intended bride was the daughterof another parson, who had acted as Mr. Bell's own private tutor inBell's early life, and it was whilst under Mr. Coacher's roof, indeed,and when only a boy of seventeen or eighteen years of age, that theimpetuous young Bell had flung himself at the feet of Miss MarthaCoacher, whom he was helping to pick peas in the garden. On his knees,before those peas and her, he pledged himself to an endless affection.

  Miss Coacher was by many years the young fellow's senior and herown heart had been lacerated by many previous disappointments in thematrimonial line. No less than three pupils of her father had trifledwith those young affections. The apothecary of the village haddespicably jilted her. The dragoon officer, with whom she had danced somany many times during that happy season which she passed at Bath withher gouty grandmamma, one day gaily shook his bridle-rein and gallopedaway never to return. Wounded by the shafts of repeated ingratitude, canit be wondered at that the heart of Martha Coacher should pant to findrest somewhere? She listened to the proposals of the gawky gallanthonest boy, with great kindness and good-humour; at the end of hisspeech she said, "Law, Bell, I'm sure you are too young to think of suchthings;" but intimated that she too would revolve them in her own virginbosom. She could not refer Mr. Bell to her mamma, for Mr. Coacher was awidower, and being immersed in his books, was of course unable to takethe direction of so frail and wondrous an article as a lady's heart,which Miss Martha had to manage for herself.

  A lock of her hair, tied up in a piece of blue ribbon, conveyed to thehappy Bell the result of the Vestal's conference with herself. Thricebefore had she snipt off one of her auburn ringlets, and given themaway. The possessors were faithless, but the hair had grown again:and Martha had indeed occasion to say that men were deceivers when shehanded over this token of love to the simple boy.

  Number 6, however, was an exception to former passions--Francis Bell wasthe most faithful of lovers. When his time arrived to go to college, andit became necessary to acquaint Mr. Coacher of the arrangements that hadbeen made, the latter cried, "God bless my soul, I hadn't the least ideawhat was going on;" as was indeed very likely, for he had been taken inthree times before in precisely a similar manner; and Francis went tothe University resolved to conquer honours, so as to be able to lay themat the feet of his beloved Martha.

  This prize in view made him labour prodigiously. News came, term afterterm, of the honours he won. He sent the prize-books for his collegeessays to old Coacher, and his silver declamation cup to Miss Martha. Indue season he was high among the Wranglers, and a fellow of hiscollege; and during all the time of these transactions a constant tendercorrespondence was kept up with Miss Coacher, to whose influence, andperhaps with justice, he attributed the successes which he had won.

  By the time, however, when the Rev. Francis Bell, M.A., and Fellow andTutor of his College, was twenty-six years of age, it happened that MissCoacher was thirty-four, nor had her charms, her manners, or her temperimproved since that sunny day in the springtime of life when he foundher picking peas in the garden. Having achieved his honours he relaxedin the ardour of his studies, and his judgment and tastes also perhapsbecame cooler. The sunshine of the pea-garden faded away from MissMartha, and poor Bell found himself engaged--and his hand pledgedto that bond in a thousand letters--to a coarse, ill-tempered,ill-favoured, ill-mannered, middle-aged woman.

  It was in consequence of one of many altercations (in which Martha'seloquence shone, and in which therefore she was frequently pleased toindulge) that Francis refused to take his pupils to Bearleader's Green,where Mr. Coacher's living was, and where Bell was in the habit ofspending the summer: and he bethought him that he would pass thevacation at his aunt's village, which he had not seen for manyyears--not since little Helen was a girl and used to sit on his knee.Down then he came and lived with them. Helen was grown a beautiful youngwoman now. The cousins were nearly four months together, from June toOctober. They walked in the summer evenings: they met in the early morn.They read out of the same book when the old lady dozed at night over thecandles. What little Helen knew, Frank taught her. She sang to him: shegave her artless heart to him. She was aware of all his story. Had hemade any secret?--had he not shown the picture of the woman to whomhe was engaged, and with a blush,--her letters, hard, eager, andcruel?--The days went on and on, happier and closer, with more kindness,more confidence, and more pity. At last one morning in October came,when Francis went back to college, and the poor girl felt that hertender heart was gone with him.

  Frank too wakened up from the delightful midsummer dream to the horriblereality of his own pain. He gnashed and tore at the chain which boundhim. He was frantic to break it and be free. Should he confess?--givehis savings to the woman to whom he was bound, and beg hisrelease?--there was time yet--he temporised. No living might fall in foryears to come. The cousins went on corresponding sadly and fondly: thebetrothed woman, hard, jealous, and dissatisfied, complaining bitterly,and with reason, of her Francis's altered tone.

  At last things came to a crisis, and the new attachment was discovered.Francis owned it, cared not to disguise it, rebuked Martha with herviolent temper and angry imperiousness, and, worst of all, with herinferiority and her age.

  Her reply was, that if he did not keep his promise she would carry hisletters into every court in the kingdom--letters in which his love waspledged to her ten thousand times; and, after exposing him to the worldas the perjurer and traitor he was, she would kill herself.

  Frank had one more interview with Helen, whose mother was dead then, andwho was living companion with old Lady Pontypool,--one more interview,where it was resolved that he was to do his duty; that is, to redeem hisvow; that is, to pay a debt cozened from him by a sharper; that is, tomake two honest people miserable. So the two judged their duty to be,and they parted.

  The living fell in only too soon; but yet Frank Bell was quite a greyand worn-out man when he was inducted into it. Helen wrote him a letteron his marriage, beginning "My dear Cousin," and ending "always trulyyours." She sent him back the other letters, and the lock of hishair--all but a small piece. She had it in her desk when she was talkingto the Major.

  Bell lived for three or four years in his living, at the end of whichtime, the Chaplainship of Coventry Island falling vacant, Frank appliedfor it privately, and having procured it, announced the appointment tohis wife. She objected, as she did to everything. He told her bitterlythat he did not want her to come: so she went. Bell went out in GovernorCrawley's time, and was very intimate with that gentleman in his lateryears. And it was in Coventry Island, years after his own marriage, andfive years after he had heard of the birth of Helen's boy, that his owndaughter was born.

  She was not the daughter of the first Mrs. Bell, who died of islandfever very soon after Helen Pendennis and her husband, to whom Helen hadtold everything, wrote to inform Bell of the birth of their child. "Iwas old, was I?" said Mrs. Bell the first; "I was old, and her inferior,was I? but I married you, Mr. Bell, and kept you from marrying her?" andhereupon she died. Bell married a colonial lady, whom he loved fondly.But he was not doomed to prosper in love; and
, this lady dying inchildbirth, Bell gave up too: sending his little girl home to HelenPendennis and her husband, with a parting prayer that they wouldbefriend her.

  The little thing came to Fairoaks from Bristol, which is not very faroff, dressed in black, and in company of a soldier's wife, her nurse,at parting from whom she wept bitterly. But she soon dried up her griefunder Helen's motherly care.

  Round her neck she had a locket with hair, which Helen had given, ahhow many years ago! to poor Francis, dead and buried. This child was allthat was left of him, and she cherished, as so tender a creature would,the legacy which he had bequeathed to her. The girl's name, as his dyingletter stated, was Helen Laura. But John Pendennis, though he acceptedthe trust, was always rather jealous of the orphan; and gloomily orderedthat she should be called by her own mother's name; and not by thatfirst one which her father had given her. She was afraid of Mr.Pendennis, to the last moment of his life. And it was only when herhusband was gone that Helen dared openly to indulge in the tendernesswhich she felt for the little girl.

  Thus it was that Laura Bell became Mrs. Pendennis's daughter. Neitherher husband nor that gentleman's brother, the Major, viewed her withvery favourable eyes. She reminded the first of circumstances in hiswife's life which he was forced to accept, but would have forgotten muchmore willingly and as for the second, how could he regard her? She wasneither related to his own family of Pendennis, nor to any noblemanin this empire, and she had but a couple of thousand pounds for herfortune.

  And now let Mr. Pen come in, who has been waiting all this while.

  Having strung up his nerves, and prepared himself, without at the door,for the meeting, he came to it, determined to face the awful uncle. Hehad settled in his mind that the encounter was to be a fierce one, andwas resolved on bearing it through with all the courage and dignity ofthe famous family which he represented. And he flung open the door andentered with the most severe and warlike expression, armed cap-a-pie asit were, with lance couched and plumes displayed, and glancing at hisadversary, as if to say, "Come on, I'm ready."

  The old man of the world, as he surveyed the boy's demeanour, couldhardly help a grin at his admirable pompous simplicity. Major Pendennistoo had examined his ground; and finding that the widow was alreadyhalf won over to the enemy, and having a shrewd notion that threats andtragic exhortations would have no effect upon the boy, who was inclinedto be perfectly stubborn and awfully serious, the Major laid aside theauthoritative manner at once, and with the most good-humoured naturalsmile in the world, held out his hands to Pen, shook the lad's passivefingers gaily, and said, "Well, Pen, my boy, tell us all about it."

  Helen was delighted with the generosity of the Major's good-humour.On the contrary, it quite took aback and disappointed poor Pen, whosenerves were strung up for a tragedy, and who felt that his grandentree was altogether baulked and ludicrous. He blushed and winced withmortified vanity and bewilderment. He felt immensely inclined to beginto cry--"I--I--I didn't know that you were come till just now," he said:"is--is--town very full, I suppose?"

  If Pen could hardly gulp his tears down, it was all the Major could doto keep from laughter. He turned round and shot a comical glance atMrs. Pendennis, who too felt that the scene was at once ridiculous andsentimental. And so, having nothing to say, she went up and kissed Mr.Pen: as he thought of her tenderness and soft obedience to his wishes,it is very possible too the boy was melted.

  "What a couple of fools they are," thought the old guardian. "If Ihadn't come down, she would have driven over in state to pay a visit andgive her blessing to the young lady's family."

  "Come, come," said he, still grinning at the couple, "let us have aslittle sentiment as possible, and, Pen, my good fellow, tell us thewhole story."

  Pen got back at once to his tragic and heroical air. "The story is,sir," said he, "as I have written it to you before. I have made theacquaintance of a most beautiful and most virtuous lady; of a highfamily, although in reduced circumstances: I have found the woman inwhom I know that the happiness of my life is centred; I feel thatI never, never can think about any woman but her. I am aware ofthe difference of our ages and other difficulties in my way. But myaffection was so great that I felt I could surmount all these; that weboth could: and she has consented to unite her lot with mine, and toaccept my heart and my fortune."

  "How much is that, my boy?" said the Major. "Has anybody left you somemoney? I don't know that you are worth a shilling in the world."

  "You know what I have is his," cried out Mrs. Pendennis.

  "Good heavens, madam, hold your tongue!" was what the guardian wasdisposed to say; but he kept his temper, not without a struggle. "Nodoubt, no doubt," he said. "You would sacrifice anything for him.Everybody knows that. But it is, after all then, your fortune which Penis offering to the young lady; and of which he wishes to take possessionat eighteen."

  "I know my mother will give me anything," Pen said, looking ratherdisturbed.

  "Yes, my good fellow, but there is reason in all things. If your motherkeeps the house, it is but fair that she should select her company. Whenyou give her house over her head, and transfer her banker's accountto yourself for the benefit of Miss What-d'-you-call-'em--MissCostigan--don't you think you should at least have consulted my sisteras one of the principal parties in the transaction? I am speaking toyou, you see, without the least anger or assumption of authority, suchas the law and your father's will give me over you for three years tocome--but as one man of the world to another,--and I ask you, if youthink that, because you can do what you like with your mother, thereforeyou have a right to do so? As you are her dependent, would it not havebeen more generous to wait before you took this step, and at least tohave paid her the courtesy to ask her leave?"

  Pen held down his head, and began dimly to perceive that the action onwhich he had prided himself as a most romantic, generous instance ofdisinterested affection, was perhaps a very selfish and headstrong pieceof folly.

  "I did it in a moment of passion," said Pen, floundering; "I was notaware what I was going to say or to do" (and in this he spoke withperfect sincerity) "But now it is said, and I stand to it. No; I neithercan nor will recall it. I'll die rather than do so. And I--I don't wantto burthen my mother," he continued. "I'll work for myself. I'll go onthe stage, and act with her. She--she says I should do well there."

  "But will she take you on those terms?" the Major interposed. "Mind, Ido not say that Miss Costigan is not the most disinterested of women:but, don't you suppose now, fairly, that your position as a younggentleman of ancient birth and decent expectations forms a part of thecause why she finds your addresses welcome?"

  "I'll die, I say, rather than forfeit my pledge to her," said Pen,doubling his fists and turning red.

  "Who asks you, my dear friend?" answered the imperturbable guardian. "Nogentleman breaks his word, of course, when it has been given freely. Butafter all, you can wait. You owe something to your mother, something toyour family--something to me as your father's representative."

  "Oh, of course," Pen said, feeling rather relieved.

  "Well, as you have pledged your word to her, give us another, will youArthur?"

  "What is it?" Arthur asked.

  "That you will make no private marriage--that you won't be taking a tripto Scotland, you understand."

  "That would be a falsehood. Pen never told his mother a falsehood,"Helen said.

  Pen hung down his head again, and his eyes filled with tears ofshame. Had not this whole intrigue been a falsehood to that tender andconfiding creature who was ready to give up all for his sake? He gavehis uncle his hand.

  "No, sir--on my word of honour, as a gentleman," he said, "I will nevermarry without my mother's consent!" and giving Helen a bright partinglook of confidence and affection unchangeable, the boy went out of thedrawing-room into his own study.

  "He's an angel--he's an angel," the mother cried out in one of her usualraptures.

  "He comes of a good stock, ma'am," said her brother-i
n-law--"of a goodstock on both sides." The Major was greatly pleased with the result ofhis diplomacy--so much so, that he once more saluted the tips of Mrs.Pendennis's glove, and dropping the curt, manly, and straightforwardtone in which he had conducted the conversation with the lad, assumeda certain drawl which he always adopted when he was most conceited andfine.

  "My dear creature," said he, in that his politest tone, "I think itcertainly as well that I came down, and I flatter myself that last bottewas a successful one. I tell you how I came to think of it. Three yearsago my kind friend Lady Ferrybridge sent for me in the greatest state ofalarm about her son Gretna, whose affair you remember, and imploredme to use my influence with the young gentleman, who was engaged in anaffaire de coeur with a Scotch clergyman's daughter, Miss MacToddy. Iimplored, I entreated gentle measures. But Lord Ferrybridge was furious,and tried the high hand. Gretna was sulky and silent, and his parentsthought they had conquered. But what was the fact, my dear creature? Theyoung people had been married for three months before Lord Ferrybridgeknew anything about it. And that was why I extracted the promise fromMaster Pen."

  "Arthur would never have done so," Mrs. Pendennis said.

  "He hasn't,--that is one comfort," answered the brother-in-law.

  Like a wary and patient man of the world, Major Pendennis did not presspoor Pen any farther for the moment, but hoped the best from time, andthat the young fellow's eyes would be opened before long to see theabsurdity of which he was guilty. And having found out how keen theboy's point of honour was, he worked kindly upon that kindly feelingwith great skill, discoursing him over their wine after dinner, andpointing out to Pen the necessity of a perfect uprightness and opennessin all his dealings, and entreating that his communications with hisinteresting young friend (as the Major politely called Miss Fotheringay)should be carried on with the knowledge, if not approbation, of Mrs.Pendennis. "After all, Pen," the Major said, with a convenient franknessthat did not displease the boy, whilst it advanced the interests of thenegotiator, "you must bear in mind that you are throwing yourself away.Your mother may submit to your marriage as she would to anything elseyou desired, if you did but cry long enough for it: but be sure of this,that it can never please her. You take a young woman off the boards ofa country theatre and prefer her, for such is the case, to one of thefinest ladies in England. And your mother will submit to your choice,but you can't suppose that she will be happy under it. I have oftenfancied, entre nous, that my sister had it in her eye to make a marriagebetween you and that little ward of hers--Flora, Laura--what's her name?And I always determined to do my small endeavour to prevent any suchmatch. The child has but two thousand pounds, I am given to understand.It is only with the utmost economy and care that my sister can providefor the decent maintenance of her house, and for your appearance andeducation as a gentleman; and I don't care to own to you that I hadother and much higher views for you. With your name and birth, sir--withyour talents, which I suppose are respectable, with the friends whomI have the honour to possess, I could have placed you in an excellentposition--a remarkable position for a young man of such exceeding smallmeans, and had hoped to see you, at least, try to restore the honours ofour name. Your mother's softness stopped one prospect, or you might havebeen a general, like our gallant ancestor who fought at Ramillies andMalplaquet. I had another plan in view: my excellent and kind friend,Lord Bagwig, who is very well disposed towards me, would, I have littledoubt, have attached you to his mission at Pumpernickel, and you mighthave advanced in the diplomatic service. But, pardon me for recurringto the subject; how is a man to serve a young gentleman of eighteen, whoproposes to marry a lady of thirty, whom he has selected from a booth ina fair?--well, not a fair,--a barn. That profession at once is closed toyou. The public service is closed to you. Society is closed to you. Yousee, my good friend, to what you bring yourself. You may get on at thebar to be sure, where I am given to understand that gentlemen of meritoccasionally marry out of their kitchens; but in no other profession.Or you may come and live down here--down here, mon Dieu! for ever"(said the Major, with a dreary shrug, as he thought with inexpressiblefondness of Pall Mall), "where your mother will receive the Mrs. Arthurthat is to be, with perfect kindness; where the good people of thecounty won't visit you; and where, by Gad, sir, I shall be shy ofvisiting you myself, for I'm a plain-spoken man, and I own to you thatI like to live with gentlemen for my companions; where you will have tolive, with rum-and-water--drinking gentlemen--farmers, and drag throughyour life the young husband of an old woman, who, if she doesn't quarrelwith your mother, will at least cost that lady her position in society,and drag her down into that dubious caste into which you must inevitablyfall. It is no affair of mine, my good sir. I am not angry. Yourdownfall will not hurt me farther than that it will extinguish the hopesI had of seeing my family once more taking its place in the world. It isonly your mother and yourself that will be ruined. And I pity you bothfrom my soul. Pass the claret: it is some I sent to your poor father; Iremember I bought it at poor Lord Levant's sale. But of course," addedthe Major, smacking the wine, "having engaged yourself, you will dowhat becomes you as a man of honour, however fatal your promise may be.However, promise us on our side, my boy, what I set out by entreatingyou to grant,--that there shall be nothing clandestine, that you willpursue your studies, that you will only visit your interesting friend atproper intervals. Do you write to her much?"

  Pen blushed and said, "Why, yes, he had written."

  "I suppose verses, eh! as well as prose? I was a dab at verses myself. Irecollect when I first joined, I used to write verses for the fellows inthe regiment; and did some pretty things in that way. I was talking tomy old friend General Hobbler about some lines I dashed off for him inthe year 1806, when we were at the Cape, and, Gad, he remembered everyline of them still; for he'd used 'em so often, the old rogue, and hadactually tried 'em on Mrs. Hobbler, sir--who brought him sixty thousandpounds. I suppose you've tried verses, eh, Pen?"

  Pen blushed again, and said, "Why, yes, he had written verses."

  "And does the fair one respond in poetry or prose?" asked the Major,eyeing his nephew with the queerest expression, as much as to say, "OMoses and Green Spectacles! what a fool the boy is."

  Pen blushed again. She had written, but not in verse, the young loverowned, and he gave his breast-pocket the benefit of a squeeze with hisleft arm, which the Major remarked, according to his wont.

  "You have got the letters there, I see," said the old campaigner,nodding at Pen and pointing to his own chest (which was manfully waddedwith cotton by Mr. Stultz). "You know you have. I would give twopence tosee 'em."

  "Why," said Pen, twiddling the stalks of the strawberries, "I--I,"but this sentence never finished; for Pen's face was so comical andembarrassed, as the Major watched it, that the elder could contain hisgravity no longer, and burst into a fit of laughter, in which chorusPen himself was obliged to join after a minute: when he broke out fairlyinto a guffaw.

  It sent them with great good-humour into Mrs. Pendennis's drawing-room.She was pleased to hear them laughing in the hall as they crossed it.

  "You sly rascal!" said the Major, putting his arm gaily on Pen'sshoulder, and giving a playful push at the boy's breast-pocket. Hefelt the papers crackling there sure enough. The young fellow wasdelighted--conceited--triumphant--and in one word, a spoony.

  The pair came to the tea-table in the highest spirits. The Major'spoliteness was beyond expression. He had never tasted such good tea, andsuch bread was only to be had in the country. He asked Mrs. Pendennisfor one of her charming songs. He then made Pen sing, and was delightedand astonished at the beauty of the boy's voice: he made his nephewfetch his maps and drawings, and praised them as really remarkableworks of talent in a young fellow: he complimented him on his Frenchpronunciation: he flattered the simple boy as adroitly as ever loverflattered a mistress: and when bedtime came, mother and son went totheir several rooms perfectly enchanted with the kind Major.

  When they had reached those
apartments, I suppose Helen took to herknees as usual: and Pen read over his letters before going to bed: justas if he didn't know every word of them by heart already. In truth therewere but three of those documents and to learn their contents requiredno great effort of memory.

  In No. 1, Miss Fotheringay presents grateful compliments to Mr.Pendennis, and in her papa's name and her own begs to thank him for hismost beautiful presents. They will always be kept carefully; and MissF. and Captain C. will never forget the delightful evening which theypassed on Tuesday last.

  No. 2 said--Dear Sir, we shall have a small quiet party of socialfriends at our humble board, next Tuesday evening, at an early tea, whenI shall wear the beautiful scarf which, with its accompanying delightfulverses, I shall ever, ever cherish: and papa bids me say how happy hewill be if you will join 'the feast of reason and the flow of soul' inour festive little party, as I am sure will be your truly grateful EmilyFotheringay.

  No. 3 was somewhat more confidential, and showed that matters hadproceeded rather far. You were odious yesterday night, the letter said.Why did you not come to the stage-door? Papa could not escort me onaccount of his eye; he had an accident, and fell down over a loosecarpet on the stair on Sunday night. I saw you looking at Miss Diggleall night; and you were so enchanted with Lydia Languish you scarcelyonce looked at Julia. I could have crushed Bingley, I was so angry.I play Ella Rosenberg on Friday: will you come then? Miss Diggleperforms--ever your E. F.

  These three letters Mr. Pen used to read at intervals, during theday and night, and embrace with that delight and fervour which suchbeautiful compositions surely warranted. A thousand times at least hehad kissed fondly the musky satin paper, made sacred to him by the handof Emily Fotheringay. This was all he had in return for his passionand flames, his vows and protests, his rhymes and similes, his wakefulnights and endless thoughts, his fondness, fears and folly. The youngwiseacre had pledged away his all for this: signed his name to endlesspromissory notes, conferring his heart upon the bearer: bound himselffor life, and got back twopence as an equivalent. For Miss Costigan wasa young lady of such perfect good-conduct and self-command, that shenever would have thought of giving more, and reserved the treasures ofher affection until she could transfer them lawfully at church.

  Howbeit, Mr. Pen was content with what tokens of regard he had got, andmumbled over his three letters in a rapture of high spirits, and went tosleep delighted with his kind old uncle from London, who must evidentlyyield to his wishes in time; and, in a word, in a preposterous state ofcontentment with himself and all the world.