The History of Pendennis

by William Makepeace Thackeray

  CHAPTER XII. In which a Shooting Match is proposed

  Early mention has been made in this history of Mr. Garbetts, PrincipalTragedian, a promising and athletic young actor, of jovial habitsand irregular inclinations, between whom and Mr. Costigan there was aconsiderable intimacy. They were the chief ornaments of the convivialclub held at the Magpie Hotel; they helped each other in various billtransactions in which they had been engaged, with the mutual loan ofeach other's valuable signatures. They were friends, in fine: althoughMr. Garbetts seldom called at Costigan's house, being disliked by MissFotheringay, of whom in her turn Mrs. Garbetts was considerably jealous.The truth is, that Garbetts had paid his court to Miss Fotheringayand been refused by her, before he offered his hand to Mrs. G. Theirhistory, however, forms no part of our present scheme--suffice it,Mr. Garbetts was called in by Captain Costigan immediately after hisdaughter and Mr. Bows had quitted the house, as a friend proper to beconsulted at the actual juncture. He was a large man, with a loud voiceand fierce aspect, who had the finest legs of the whole company, andcould break a poker in mere sport across his stalwart arm.

  "Run, Tommy," said Mr. Costigan to the little messenger, "and fetch Mr.Garbetts from his lodgings over the tripe shop, ye know, and tell 'emto send two glasses of whisky-and-water, hot, from the Grapes." So Tommywent his way; and presently Mr. Garbetts and the whisky came.

  Captain Costigan did not disclose to him the whole of the previousevents, of which the reader is in possession; but, with the aid of thespirits-and-water, he composed a letter of a threatening nature to MajorPendennis's address, in which he called upon that gentleman to offer nohindrance to the marriage projected between Mr. Arthur Pendennis and hisdaughter, Miss Fotheringay, and to fix an early day for its celebration:or, in any other case, to give him the satisfaction which was usualbetween gentlemen of honour. And should Major Pendennis be disinclinedto this alternative, the Captain hinted, that he would force him toaccept by the use of a horsewhip, which he should employ upon theMajor's person. The precise terms of this letter we cannot give, forreasons which shall be specified presently; but it was, no doubt,couched in the Captain's finest style, and sealed elaborately with thegreat silver seal of the Costigans--the only bit of the family platewhich the Captain possessed.

  Garbetts was despatched then with this message and letter; and biddingHeaven bless 'um the General squeezed his ambassador's hand, and saw himdepart. Then he took down his venerable and murderous duelling-pistols,with flint locks, that had done the business of many a pretty fellowin Dublin: and having examined these, and seen that they were in asatisfactory condition, he brought from the drawer all Pen's letters andpoems which he kept there, and which he always read before he permittedhis Emily to enjoy their perusal.

  In a score of minutes Garbetts came back with an anxious and crestfallencountenance.

  "Ye've seen 'um?" the Captain said.

  "Why, yes," said Garbetts.

  "And when is it for?" asked Costigan, trying the lock of one of theancient pistols, and bringing it to a level with his oi--as he calledthat bloodshot orb.

  "When is what for?" asked Mr. Garbetts.

  "The meeting, my dear fellow?"

  "You don't mean to say, you mean mortal combat, Captain," Garbetts said,aghast.

  "What the devil else do I mean, Garbetts?--I want to shoot that man thathas trajuiced me honor, or meself dthrop a victim on the sod."

  "D---- if I carry challenges," Mr. Garbetts replied. "I'm a familyman, Captain, and will have nothing to do with pistols--take back yourletter;" and, to the surprise and indignation of Captain Costigan, hisemissary flung the letter down, with its great sprawling superscriptionand blotched seal.

  "Ye don't mean to say ye saw 'um and didn't give 'um the letter?" criedout the Captain in a fury.

  "I saw him, but I could not have speech with him, Captain," said Mr.Garbetts.

  "And why the devil not?" asked the other.

  "There was one there I cared not to meet, nor would you," the tragediananswered in a sepulchral voice. "The minion Tatham was there, Captain."

  "The cowardly scoundthrel!" roared Costigan. "He's frightened, andalready going to swear the peace against me."

  "I'll have nothing to do with the fighting, mark that," the tragediandoggedly said, "and I wish I'd not seen Tatham neither, nor that bitof----"

  "Hold your tongue, Bob Acres. It's my belief ye're no better than acoward," said Captain Costigan, quoting Sir Lucius O'Trigger, whichcharacter he had performed with credit, both off and on the stage, andafter some more parley between the couple they separated in not verygood humour.

  Their colloquy has been here condensed, as the reader knows the mainpoint upon which it turned. But the latter will now see how it isimpossible to give a correct account of the letter which the Captainwrote to Major Pendennis, as it was never opened at all by thatgentleman.

  When Miss Costigan came home from rehearsal, which she did in thecompany of the faithful Mr. Bows, she found her father pacing up anddown their apartment in a great state of agitation, and in the midst ofa powerful odour of spirits-and-water, which, as it appeared, had notsucceeded in pacifying his disordered mind. The Pendennis papers were onthe table surrounding the empty goblets and now useless teaspoon whichhad served to hold and mix the Captain's liquor and his friend's.As Emily entered he seized her in his arms, and cried out, "Prepareyourself, me child, me blessed child," in a voice of agony, and witheyes brimful of tears.

  "Ye're tipsy again, Papa," Miss Fotheringay said, pushing back her sire."Ye promised me ye wouldn't take spirits before dinner."

  "It's to forget me sorrows, me poor girl, that I've taken just a drop,"cried the bereaved father--"it's to drown me care that I drain thebowl."

  "Your care takes a deal of drowning, Captain dear," said Bows, mimickinghis friend's accent; "what has happened? Has that soft-spoken gentlemanin the wig been vexing you?"

  "The oily miscreant! I'll have his blood!" roared Cos. Miss Milly,it must be premised, had fled to her room out of his embrace, and wastaking off her bonnet and shawl there.

  "I thought he meant mischief. He was so uncommon civil," the other said."What has he come to say?"

  "O Bows! He has overwhellum'd me," the Captain said. "There's a hellishconspiracy on foot against me poor girl; and it's me opinion thatboth them Pendennises, nephew and uncle, is two infernal thrators andscoundthrels, who should be conshumed from off the face of the earth."

  "What is it? What has happened?" said Mr. Bows, growing rather excited.

  Costigan then told him the Major's statement that the young Pendennishad not two thousand, nor two hundred pounds a year; and expressed hisfury that he should have permitted such an impostor to coax and wheedlehis innocent girl, and that he should have nourished such a viper in hisown personal bosom. "I have shaken the reptile from me, however," saidCostigan; "and as for his uncle, I'll have such a revenge on that oldman, as shall make 'um rue the day he ever insulted a Costigan."

  "What do you mean, General?" said Bows.

  "I mean to have his life, Bows--his villanous, skulking life, my boy;"and he rapped upon the battered old pistol-case in an ominous and savagemanner. Bows had often heard him appeal to that box of death, with whichhe proposed to sacrifice his enemies; but the Captain did not tell himthat he had actually written and sent a challenge to Major Pendennis,and Mr. Bows therefore rather disregarded the pistols in the presentinstance.

  At this juncture Miss Fotheringay returned to the common sitting-roomfrom her private apartment, looking perfectly healthy, happy, andunconcerned, a striking and wholesome contrast to her father, who was ina delirious tremor of grief, anger, and other agitation. She brought ina pair of ex-white satin shoes with her, which she proposed to rub asclean as might be with bread-crumb: intending to go mad with them uponnext Tuesday evening in Ophelia, in which character she was to reappearon that night.

  She looked at the papers on the table; stopped as if she was going toask a question, but thought better of it
, and going to the cupboard,selected an eligible piece of bread wherewith she might operate on thesatin slippers: and afterwards coming back to the table, seated herselfthere commodiously with the shoes, and then asked her father, in herhonest, Irish brogue, "What have ye got them letthers, and pothry, andstuff, of Master Arthur's out for, Pa? Sure ye don't want to be readingover that nonsense."

  "O Emilee!" cried the Captain, "that boy whom I loved as the boy ofmee bosom is only a scoundthrel, and a deceiver, mee poor girl:" and helooked in the most tragical way at Mr. Bows, opposite; who, in his turn,gazed somewhat anxiously at Miss Costigan.

  "He! pooh! Sure the poor lad's as simple as a schoolboy," she said. "Allthem children write verses and nonsense."

  "He's been acting the part of a viper to this fireside, and a traitorin this familee," cried the Captain. "I tell ye he's no better than animpostor."

  "What has the poor fellow done, Papa?" asked Emily.

  "Done? He has deceived us in the most athrocious manner," Miss Emily'spapa said. "He has thrifled with your affections, and outraged my ownfine feelings. He has represented himself as a man of property, and itturruns out that he is no betther than a beggar. Haven't I often told yehe had two thousand a year? He's a pauper, I tell ye, Miss Costigan; adepindent upon the bountee of his mother; a good woman, who may marryagain, who's likely to live for ever, and who has but five hundred ayear. How dar he ask ye to marry into a family which has not the meansof providing for ye? Ye've been grossly deceived and put upon, Milly,and it's my belief his old ruffian of an uncle in a wig is in the plotagainst us."

  "That soft old gentleman? What has he been doing, Papa?" continuedEmily, still imperturbable.

  Costigan informed Milly, that when she was gone, Major Pendennis toldhim in his double-faced Pall Mall polite manner, that young Arthur hadno fortune at all, that the Major had asked him (Costigan) to go to thelawyers ("wherein he knew the scoundthrels have a bill of mine, and Ican't meet them," the Captain parenthetically remarked), and see thelad's father's will and finally, that an infernal swindle had beenpractised upon him by the pair, and that he was resolved either on amarriage, or on the blood of both of them.

  Milly looked very grave and thoughtful, rubbing the white satin shoes."Sure, if he's no money, there's no use marrying him, Papa," she saidsententiously.

  "Why did the villain say he was a man of prawpertee?" asked Costigan.

  "The poor fellow always said he was poor," answered the girl. "'Twas youwould have it he was rich, Papa--and made me agree to take him."

  "He should have been explicit and told us his income, Milly," answeredthe father. "A young fellow who rides a blood mare, and makes presentsof shawls and bracelets, is an impostor if he has no money;--and as forhis uncle, bedad I'll pull off his wig whenever I see 'um. Bows, here,shall take a message to him and tell him so. Either it's a marriage, orhe meets me in the field like a man, or I tweak 'um on the nose in frontof his hotel or in the gravel walks of Fairoaks Park before all thecounty, bedad."

  "Bedad, you may send somebody else with the message," said Bows,laughing. "I'm a fiddler, not a fighting man, Captain."

  "Pooh, you've no spirit, sir," roared the General. "I'll be my ownsecond, if no one will stand by and see me injured. And I'll take mycase of pistols and shoot 'um in the Coffee-room of the George."

  "And so poor Arthur has no money?" sighed out Miss Costigan, ratherplaintively. "Poor lad, he was a good lad too: wild and talkingnonsense, with his verses and pothry and that, but a brave, generousboy, and indeed I liked him--and he liked me too," she added, rathersoftly, and rubbing away at the shoe.

  "Why don't you marry him if you like him so?" Mr. Bows said, rathersavagely. "He is not more than ten years younger than you are. Hismother may relent, and you might go and live and have enough at FairoaksPark. Why not go and be a lady? I could go on with the fiddle, and theGeneral live on his half-pay. Why don't you marry him? You know he likesyou."

  "There's others that likes me as well, Bows, that has no money andthat's old enough," Miss Milly said sententiously.

  "Yes, d---- it," said Bows, with a bitter curse--"that are old enoughand poor enough and fools enough for anything."

  "There's old fools, and young fools too. You've often said so you sillyman," the imperious beauty said, with a conscious glance at the oldgentleman. "If Pendennis has not enough money to live upon, it's follyto talk about marrying him: and that's the long and short of it."

  "And the boy?" said Mr. Bows. "By Jove! you throw a man away like an oldglove, Miss Costigan."

  "I don't know what you mean, Bows," said Miss Fotheringay, placidly,rubbing the second shoe. "If he had had half of the two thousand a yearthat Papa gave him, or the half of that, I would marry him. But what isthe good of taking on with a beggar? We're poor enough already. There'sno use in my going to live with an old lady that's testy and cross,maybe, and would grudge me every morsel of meat." (Sure, it's neardinner time, and Suky not laid the cloth yet.) "And then," added MissCostigan quite simply, "suppose there was a family?--why, Papa, weshouldn't be as well off as we are now."

  "'Deed, then, you would not, Milly dear," answered the father.

  "And there's an end to all the fine talk about Mrs. Arthur Pendennisof Fairoaks Park--the member of Parliament's lady," said Milly, with alaugh. "Pretty carriages and horses we should have to ride!--that youwere always talking about, Papa! But it's always the same. If a manlooked at me, you fancied he was going to marry me; and if he had a goodcoat, you fancied he was as rich as Crazes."

  "--As Croesus," said Mr. Bows.

  "Well, call 'um what ye like. But it's a fact now that Papa has marriedme these eight years a score of times. Wasn't I to be my Lady Poldoodyof Oystherstown Castle? Then there was the Navy Captain at Portsmouth,and the old surgeon at Norwich, and the Methodist preacher here lastyear, and who knows how many more? Well, I bet a penny, with all yourscheming, I shall die Milly Costigan at last. So poor little Arthurhas no money? Stop and take dinner, Bows; we've a beautiful beef-steakpudding."

  "I wonder whether she is on with Sir Derby Oaks," thought Bows, whoseeyes and thoughts were always watching her. "The dodges of women beatall comprehension; and I am sure she wouldn't let the lad off so easily,if she had not some other scheme on hand."

  It will have been perceived that Miss Fotheringay, though silent ingeneral, and by no means brilliant as a conversationist, where poetry,literature, or the fine arts were concerned, could talk freely, and withgood sense, too, in her own family circle. She cannot justly be calleda romantic person: nor were her literary acquirement great: she neveropened a Shakspeare from the day she left the stage, nor, indeed,understood it during all the time she adorned the boards: but about apudding, a piece of needle-work, or her own domestic affairs, she wasas good a judge as could be found; and not being misled by a strongimagination or a passionate temper, was better enabled to keep herjudgment cool. When, over their dinner, Costigan tried to convincehimself and the company, that the Major's statement regardingPen's finances was unworthy of credit, and a mere ruse upon the oldhypocrite's part so as to induce them, on their side, to break off thematch, Miss Milly would not, for a moment, admit the possibility ofdeceit on the side of the adversary: and pointed out clearly that itwas her father who had deceived himself, and not poor little Pen whohad tried to take them in. As for that poor lad, she said she pitiedhim with all her heart. And she ate an exceedingly good dinner; to theadmiration of Mr. Bows, who had a remarkable regard and contempt forthis woman, during and after which repast, the party devised upon thebest means of bringing this love-matter to a close. As for Costigan,his idea of tweaking the Major's nose vanished with his supply ofafter-dinner whisky-and-water; and he was submissive to his daughter,and ready for any plan on which she might decide, in order to meet thecrisis which she saw was at hand.

  The Captain, who, as long as he had a notion that he was wronged, waseager to face and demolish both Pen and his uncle, perhaps shrank fromthe idea of meeting the former, and asked "what th
e juice they were tosay to the lad if he remained steady to his engagement, and they brokefrom theirs?" "What? don't you know how to throw a man over?" said Bows;"ask a woman to tell you?" and Miss Fotheringay showed how this feat wasto be done simply enough--nothing was more easy. "Papa writes to Arthurto know what settlements he proposes to make in event of a marriage; andasks what his means are. Arthur writes back and says what he's got, andyou'll find it's as the Major says, I'll go bail. Then papa writes, andsays it's not enough, and the match had best be at an end."

  "And, of course, you enclose a parting line, in which you say youwill always regard him as a brother," said Mr. Bows, eyeing her in hisscornful way.

  "Of course, and so I shall," answered Miss Fotheringay. "He's a mostworthy young man, I'm sure. I'll thank ye hand me the salt. Themfilberts is beautiful."

  "And there will be no noses pulled, Cos, my boy? I'm sorry you'rebaulked," said Mr. Bows.

  "Dad, I suppose not," said Cos, rubbing his own.--"What'll ye do aboutthem letters, and verses, and pomes, Milly, darling?--Ye must send 'emback."

  "Wigsby would give a hundred pound for 'em," Bows said, with a sneer.

  "'Deed, then, he would," said Captain Costigan, who was easily led.

  "Papa!" said Miss Milly.--"Ye wouldn't be for not sending the poor boyhis letters back? Them letters and pomes is mine. They were very long,and full of all sorts of nonsense, and Latin, and things I couldn'tunderstand the half of; indeed I've not read 'em all; but we'll send'em back to him when the proper time comes." And going to a drawer,Miss Fotheringay took out from it a number of the County Chronicle andChatteris Champion, in which Pen had written a copy of flaming versescelebrating her appearance in the character of Imogen, and puttingby the leaf upon which the poem appeared (for, like ladies ofher profession, she kept the favourable printed notices of herperformances), she wrapped up Pen's letters, poems, passions, andfancies, and tied them with a piece of string neatly, as she would aparcel of sugar.

  Nor was she in the least moved while performing this act. What hours theboy had passed over those papers! What love and longing: what generousfaith and manly devotion--what watchful nights and lonely fevers mightthey tell of! She tied them up like so much grocery, and sate down andmade tea afterwards with a perfectly placid and contented heart: whilePen was yearning after her ten miles off: and hugging her image to hissoul.