The History of Pendennis

by William Makepeace Thackeray

  CHAPTER XLI. Carries the Reader both to Richmond and Greenwich

  Poor Foker found the dinner at Richmond to be the most drearyentertainment upon which ever mortal man wasted his guineas. "I wonderhow the deuce I could ever have liked these people," he thought in hisown mind. "Why, I can see the crow's-feet under Rougemont's eyes, andthe paint on her cheeks is laid on as thick as Clown's in a pantomime!The way in which that Calverley talks slang, is quite disgusting. I hatechaff in a woman. And old Colchicum! that old Col, coming down herein his brougham, with his coronet on it, and sitting bodkin betweenMademoiselle Coralie and her mother! It's too bad. An English peer, anda horse-rider of Franconi's!--It won't do; by Jove, it won't do. I ain'tproud; but it will not do!"

  "Twopence-halfpenny for your thoughts, Fokey!" cried out Miss Rougemont,taking her cigar from her truly vermilion lips, as she beheld the youngfellow lost in thought, seated at the head of his table, amidst meltingices, and cut pineapples, and bottles full and empty, and cigar-ashesscattered on fruit, and the ruins of a dessert which had no pleasure forhim.

  "Does Foker ever think?" drawled out Mr. Poyntz. "Foker, here is aconsiderable sum of money offered by a fair capitalist at this endof the table for the present emanations of your valuable and acuteintellect, old boy!"

  "What the deuce is that Poyntz a talking about?" Miss Calverley asked ofher neighbour. "I hate him. He's a drawlin', sneerin' beast."

  "What a droll of a little man is that little Fokare, my lor',"Mademoiselle Coralie said, in her own language, and with the rich twangof that sunny Gascony in which her swarthy cheeks and bright black eyeshad got their fire. "What a droll of a man! He does not look to havetwenty years."

  "I wish I were of his age," said the venerable Colchicum, with a sigh,as he inclined his purple face towards a large goblet of claret.

  "C'te Jeunesse. Peuh! je m'en fiche" said Madame Brack, Coralie's mamma,taking a great pinch out of Lord Colchicum's delicate gold snuff-box."Je m'aime que les hommes faits, moi. Comme milor. Coralie! n'est-ce pasque tu n'aimes que les hommes faits, ma bichette?"

  My lord said, with a grin, "You flatter me, Madame Brack."

  "Taisez-vous, Maman, vous n'etes qu'une bete," Coralie cried, with ashrug of her robust shoulders; upon which, my lord said that she didnot flatter at any rate; and pocketed his snuff-box, not desirous thatMadame Brack's dubious fingers should plunge too frequently into hisMackabaw.

  There is no need to give a prolonged detail of the animated conversationwhich ensued during the rest of the banquet; a conversation which wouldnot much edify the reader. And it is scarcely necessary to say, that allladies of the corps de dance are not like Miss Calverley, any more thanthat all peers resemble that illustrious member of their order, the latelamented Viscount Colchicum. But there have been such in our memorieswho have loved the society of riotous youth better than the companyof men of their own age and rank, and have given the young ones theprecious benefit of their experience and example; and there have beenvery respectable men too who have not objected so much to the kind ofentertainment as to the publicity of it. I am sure, for instance, thatour friend Major Pendennis would have made no sort of objection to joina party of pleasure, provided that it were en petit comite, and thatsuch men as my Lord Steyne and my Lord Colchicum were of the society."Give the young men their pleasures," this worthy guardian said to Penmore than once. "I'm not one of your strait-laced moralists, but an oldman of the world, begad; and I know that as long as it lasts young menwill be young men." And there were some young men to whom this estimablephilosopher accorded about seventy years as the proper period for sowingtheir wild oats: but they were men of fashion.

  Mr. Foker drove his lovely guests home to Brompton in the drag thatnight; but he was quite thoughtful and gloomy during the whole of thelittle journey from Richmond; neither listening to the jokes of thefriends behind him and on the box by his side nor enlivening them as washis wont, by his own facetious sallies. And when the ladies whom hehad conveyed alighted at the door of their house, and asked theiraccomplished coachman whether he would not step in and take somethingto drink, he declined with so melancholy an air, that they supposedthat the Governor and he had had a difference or that some calamity hadbefallen him; and he did not tell these people what the cause of hisgrief was, but left Mesdames Rougemont and Calverley, unheeding thecries of the latter, who hung over her balcony like Jezebel, and calledout to him to ask him to give another party soon.

  He sent the drag home under the guidance of one of the grooms, and wenton foot himself; his hands in his pockets, plunged in thought. The starsand moon shining tranquilly overhead, looked down upon Mr. Foker thatnight, as he in his turn sentimentally regarded them. And he went andgazed upwards at the house in Grosvenor Place, and at the windows whichhe supposed to be those of the beloved object; and he moaned and hesighed in a way piteous and surprising to witness, which PolicemanX did, who informed Sir Francis Clavering's people, as they took therefreshment of beer on the coach-box at the neighbouring public-house,after bringing home their lady from the French play, that there had beenanother chap hanging about the premises that evening--a little chap,dressed like a swell.

  And now with that perspicuity and ingenuity and enterprise which onlybelongs to a certain passion, Mr. Foker began to dodge Miss Amorythrough London, and to appear wherever he could meet her. If LadyClavering went to the French play, where her ladyship had a box, Mr.Foker, whose knowledge of the language, as we have heard, was notconspicuous, appeared in a stall. He found out where her engagementswere (it is possible that Anatole, his man, was acquainted with SirFrancis Clavering's gentleman, and so got a sight of her ladyship'sengagement-book), and at many of these evening parties Mr. Fokermade his appearance--to the surprise of the world, and of his motherespecially, whom he ordered to apply for cards to these parties, forwhich until now he had shown a supreme contempt. He told the pleased andunsuspicious lady that he went to parties because it was right for himto see the world: he told her that he went to the French play becausehe wanted to perfect himself in the language, and there was no such goodlesson as a comedy or vaudeville,--and when one night the astonishedLady Agnes saw him stand up and dance, and complimented him upon hiselegance and activity, the mendacious little rogue asserted that he hadlearned to dance in Paris, whereas Anatole knew that his young masterused to go off privily to an academy in Brewer Street, and study therefor some hours in the morning. The casino of our modern days was notinvented, or was in its infancy as yet; and gentlemen of Mr. Foker'stime had not the facilities of acquiring the science of dancing whichare enjoyed by our present youth.

  Old Pendennis seldom missed going to church. He considered it to be hisduty as a gentleman to patronise the institution of public worship andthat it was quite a correct thing to be seen at church of a Sunday. Oneday it chanced that he and Arthur went thither together: the latter, whowas now in high favour, had been to breakfast with his uncle, from whoselodging they walked across the park to a church not far from BelgraveSquare. There was a charity sermon at Saint James's, as the Major knewby the bills posted on the pillars of his parish church, which probablycaused him, for he was a thrifty man, to forsake it for that day:besides he had other views for himself and Pen. "We will go to church,sir, across the Park; and then, begad, we will go to the Claverings'house and ask them for lunch in a friendly way. Lady Clavering likes tobe asked for lunch, and is uncommonly kind, and monstrous hospitable."

  "I met them at dinner last week, at Lady Agnes Foker's, sir," Pen said,"and the Begum was very kind indeed. So she was in the country: so sheis everywhere. But I share your opinion about Miss Amory; one of youropinions, that is, uncle, for you were changing the last time we spokeabout her."

  "And what do you think of her now?" the elder said.

  "I think her the most confounded little flirt in London," Pen answered,laughing "She made a tremendous assault upon Harry Foker, who sat nextto her; and to whom she gave all the talk, though I took her down."

  "Bah! Henry Foke
r is engaged to his cousin all the world knows it: nota bad coup of Lady Rosherville's, that. I should say, that the young manat his father's death, and old Foker's life's devilish bad: you know hehad a fit at Arthur's, last year: I should say, that young Foker won'thave less than fourteen thousand a year from the brewery, besidesLogwood and Norfolk property. I've no pride about me, Pen. I like a manof birth certainly, but dammy, I like a brewery which brings in a manfourteen thousand a year; hey, Pen? Ha, ha, that's the sort of man forme. And I recommend you now that you are lanced in the world, to stickto fellows of that sort, to fellows who have a stake in the country,begad."

  "Foker sticks to me, sir," Arthur answered. "He has been at our chambersseveral times lately. He has asked me to dinner. We are almost as greatfriends, as we used to be in our youth: and his talk is about BlancheAmory from morning till night. I'm sure he's sweet upon her."

  "I'm sure he is engaged to his cousin, and that they will keep the youngman to his bargain," said the Major. "The marriages in these familiesare affairs of state. Lady Agnes was made to marry old Foker by the lateLord, although she was notoriously partial to her cousin who waskilled at Albuera afterwards, and who saved her life out of the lake atDrummington. I remember Lady Agnes, sir, an exceedingly fine woman. Butwhat did she do?--of course she married her father's man. Why, Mr. Fokersate for Drummington till the Reform Bill, and paid dev'lish well forhis seat, too. And you may depend upon this, sir, that Foker senior, whois a parvenu, and loves a great man, as all parvenus do, has ambitiousviews for his son as well as himself, and that your friend Harry mustdo as his father bids him. Lord bless you! I've known a hundred casesof love in young men and women: hey, Master Arthur, do you take me? Theykick, sir, they resist, they make a deuce of a riot and that sort ofthing, but they end by listening to reason, begad."

  "Blanche is a dangerous girl, sir," Pen said. "I was smitten with hermyself once, and very far gone, too," he added; "but that is years ago."

  "Were you? How far did it go? Did she return it?" asked the Major,looking hard at Pen.

  Pen, with a laugh, said "that at one time he did think he was prettywell in Miss Amory's good graces. But my mother did not like her, andthe affair went off." Pen did not think it fit to tell his uncle all theparticulars of that courtship which had passed between himself and theyoung lady.

  "A man might go farther and fare worse, Arthur," the Major said, stilllooking queerly at his nephew.

  "Her birth, sir; her father was the mate of a ship, they say: and shehas not money enough," objected Pen, in a dandified manner. "What's tenthousand pound and a girl bred up like her?"

  "You use my own words, and it is all very well. But, I tell you inconfidence, Pen,--in strict honour, mind,--that it's my belief she hasa devilish deal more than ten thousand pound: and from what I saw ofher the other day, and--and have heard of her--I should say she was adevilish accomplished, clever girl: and would make a good wife with asensible husband."

  "How do you know about her money?" Pen asked, smiling. "You seem to haveinformation about everybody, and to know about all the town."

  "I do know a few things, sir, and I don't tell all I know. Mark that,"the uncle replied. "And as for that charming Miss Amory,--for charming,begad! she is,--if I saw her Mrs. Arthur Pendennis, I should neitherbe sorry nor surprised, begad! and if you object to ten thousand pound,what would you say, sir, to thirty, or forty, or fifty?" and the Majorlooked still more knowingly, and still harder at Pen.

  "Well, sir," he said to his godfather and namesake, "make her Mrs.Arthur Pendennis. You can do it as well as I."

  "Psha! you are laughing at me, sir," the other replied rather peevishly,"and you ought not to laugh so near a church gate. Here we are at St.Benedict's. They say Mr. Oriel is a beautiful preacher."

  Indeed, the bells were tolling, the people were trooping into thehandsome church, the carriages of the inhabitants of the lordly quarterpoured forth their pretty loads of devotees, in whose company Pen andhis uncle, ending their edifying conversation, entered the fane. I donot know whether other people carry their worldly affairs to the churchdoor. Arthur, who, from habitual reverence and feeling, was always morethan respectful in a place of worship, thought of the incongruity oftheir talk, perhaps; whilst the old gentleman at his side was utterlyunconscious of any such contrast. His hat was brushed: his wig wastrim: his neckcloth was perfectly tied. He looked at every soul in thecongregation, it is true: the bald heads and the bonnets, the flowersand the feathers: but so demurely that he hardly lifted up his eyes fromhis book--from his book which he could not read without glasses. Asfor Pen's gravity, it was sorely put to the test when, upon looking bychance towards the seats where the servants were collected, he spiedout, by the side of a demure gentleman in plush, Henry Foker, Esquire,who had discovered this place of devotion. Following the direction ofHarry's eye, which strayed a good deal from his book, Pen found thatit alighted upon a yellow bonnet and a pink one: and that these bonnetswere on the heads of Lady Clavering and Blanche Amory. If Pen's uncleis not the only man who has talked about his worldly affairs up tothe church door, is poor Harry Foker the only one who has brought hisworldly love into the aisle?

  When the congregation issued forth at the conclusion of the service,Foker was out amongst the first, but Pen came up with him presently, ashe was hankering about the entrance, which he was unwilling to leave,until my lady's barouche, with the bewigged coachman, had borne away itsmistress and her daughter from their devotions.

  When the two ladies came out, they found together the Pendennises, uncleand nephew, and Harry Foker, Esquire, sucking the crook of hisstick, standing there in the sunshine. To see and to ask to eat weresimultaneous with the good-natured Begum, and she invited the threegentlemen to luncheon straightway.

  Blanche was, too, particularly gracious. "O! do come," she said toArthur, "if you are not too great a man. I want so to talk to youabout--but we mustn't say what, here, you know. What would Mr.Oriel say?" And the young devotee jumped into the carriage after hermamma.--"I've read every word of it. It's adorable," she added, stilladdressing herself to Pen.

  "I know who is," said Mr. Arthur, making rather a pert bow.

  "What's the row about?" asked Mr. Foker, rather puzzled.

  "I suppose Miss Clavering means 'Walter Lorraine,'" said the Major,looking knowing, and nodding at Pen.

  "I suppose so, sir. There was a famous review in the Pall Mall thismorning. It was Warrington's doing though, and I must not be too proud."

  "A review in Pall Mall?--Walter Lorraine? What the doose do you mean?"Foker asked. "Walter Lorraine died of the measles, poor little beggar,when we were at Grey Friars. I remember his mother coming up."

  "You are not a literary man, Foker," Pen said, laughing, and hooking hisarm into his friend's. "You must know I have been writing a novel, andsome of the papers have spoken very well of it. Perhaps you don't readthe Sunday Papers?"

  "I read Bell's Life regular, old boy," Mr Foker answered: at which Penlaughed again, and the three gentlemen proceeded in great good-humour toLady Clavering's house.

  The subject of the novel was resumed after luncheon by Miss Amory, whoindeed loved poets and men of letters if she loved anything, and wassincerely an artist in feeling. "Some of the passages in the book mademe cry, positively they did," she said.

  Pen said, with some fatuity, "I am happy to think I have a part of voslarmes, Miss Blanche,"--and the Major (who had not read more than sixpages of Pen's book) put on his sanctified look, saying, "Yes, thereare some passages quite affecting, mons'ous affecting:" and,--"Oh, ifit makes you cry,"--Lady Amory declared she would not read it, "that shewouldn't."

  "Don't, mamma," Blanche said, with a French shrug of her shoulders;and then she fell into a rhapsody about the book, about the snatches ofpoetry interspersed in it about the two heroines, Leonora and Neaera;about the two heroes, Walter Lorraine and his rival the young Duke--"andwhat good company you introduce us to," said the young lady archly "quelton! How much of your life have you passe
d at court, and are you a primeminister's son, Mr. Arthur?"

  Pen began to laugh--"It is as cheap for a novelist to create a Duke asto make a Baronet," he said. "Shall I tell you a secret, Miss Amory? Ipromoted all my characters at the request of the publisher. The youngDuke was only a young Baron when the novel was first written; his falsefriend, the Viscount, was a simple commoner and so on with all thecharacters of the story."

  "What a wicked, satirical, pert young man you have become! Comme vousvoila forme!" said the young lady. "How different from Arthur Pendennisof the country! Ah! I think I like Arthur Pendennis of the country best,though!" and she gave him the full benefit of her eyes,--both of thefond appealing glance into his own, and of the modest look downwardstowards the carpet, which showed off her dark eyelids and long fringedlashes.

  Pen of course protested that he had not changed in the least, to whichthe young lady replied by a tender sigh; and thinking that she had donequite enough to make Arthur happy or miserable (as the case might be),she proceeded to cajole his companion, Mr. Harry Foker, who during theliterary conversation had sate silently imbibing the head of his cane,and wishing that he was a clever chap like that Pen.

  If the Major thought that by telling Miss Amory of Mr. Foker'sengagement to his cousin, Lady Ann Milton (which information the oldgentleman neatly conveyed to the girl as he sate by her side at luncheonbelow-stairs),--if, we say, the Major thought that the knowledge ofthis fact would prevent Blanche from paying any further attention to theyoung heir of Foker's Entire, he was entirely mistaken. She became onlythe more gracious to Foker: she praised him, and everything belongingto him; she praised his mamma; she praised the pony which he rode inthe Park; she praised the lovely breloques or gimcracks which the younggentleman wore at his watch-chain, and that dear little darling of acane, and those dear little delicious monkeys' heads with ruby eyes,which ornamented Harry's shirt, and formed the buttons of his waistcoat.And then, having praised and coaxed the weak youth until he blushed andtingled with pleasure, and until Pen thought she really had gone quitefar enough, she took another theme.

  "I am afraid Mr. Foker is a very sad young man," she said, turning roundto Pen.

  "He does not look so," Pen answered with a sneer.

  "I mean we have heard sad stories about him. Haven't we, mamma? What wasMr. Poyntz saying here, the other day, about that party at Richmond? Oyou naughty creature!" But here, seeing that Harry's countenance assumeda great expression of alarm, while Pen's wore a look of amusement, sheturned to the latter and said, "I believe you are just as bad: I believeyou would have liked to have been there,--wouldn't you? I know youwould: yes--and so should I."

  "Lor, Blanche!" mamma cried.

  "Well, I would. I never saw an actress in my life. I would give anythingto know one; for I adore talent. And I adore Richmond, that I do; and Iadore Greenwich, and I say, I should like to go there."

  "Why should not we three bachelors," the Major here broke out,gallantly, and to his nephew's special surprise, "beg these ladies tohonour us with their company at Greenwich? Is Lady Clavering to go onfor ever being hospitable to us, and may we make no return? Speak foryourselves, young men,--eh, begad! Here is my nephew, with his pocketsfull of money--his pockets full, begad! and Mr. Henry Foker, who, as Ihave heard say, is pretty well to do in the world,--how is your lovelycousin, Lady Ann, Mr. Foker?--here are these two young ones,--and theyallow an old fellow like me to speak. Lady Clavering, will you do me thefavour to be my guest? and Miss Blanche shall be Arthur's, if she willbe so good."

  "Oh, delightful!" cried Blanche.

  "I like a bit of fun too," said Lady Clavering; and we will take someday when Sir Francis----"

  "When Sir Francis dines out,--yes, mamma," the daughter said, "it willbe charming."

  And a charming day it was. The dinner was ordered at Greenwich,and Foker, though he did not invite Miss Amory, had some deliciousopportunities of conversation with her during the repast, and afterwardson the balcony of their room at the hotel, and again during the drivehome in her ladyship's barouche. Pen came down with his uncle, in SirHugh Trumpington's brougham, which the Major borrowed for the occasion."I am an old soldier, begad," he said, "and I learned in early life tomake myself comfortable."

  And, being an old soldier, he allowed the two young men to pay for thedinner between them, and all the way home in the brougham he ralliedPen, about Miss Amory's evident partiality for him: praised her goodlooks, spirits, and wit: and again told Pen in the strictest confidence,that she would be a devilish deal richer than people thought.