The Adventures of Philip

by William Makepeace Thackeray

at once. Philip will entertain my friends for the evening. My dear lord, you

  won't mind an old doctor leaving you to attend an old patient? I will write from

  Groningen. I shall be there on Friday morning. Farewell, gentlemen! Brice,

  another bottle of that sherry! I pray, don't let anybody stir! God bless you,

  Philip, my boy!" And with this the doctor went up, took his son by the hand, and

  laid the other very kindly on the young man's shoulder. Then he made a bow round

  the table to his guests��one of his graceful bows, for which he was famous. I

  can see the sad smile on his face now, and the light from the chandelier over

  the dining-table glancing from his shining forehead, and casting deep shadows on

  to his cheek from his heavy brows.

  The departure was a little abrupt, and, of course, cast somewhat of a gloom upon

  the company.

  "My carriage ain't ordered till ten��must go on sitting here, I suppose.

  Confounded life doctor's must be! Called up any hour in the night! Get their

  fees! Must go!" growled the great man of the party.

  "People are glad enough to have them when they are ill, my lord. I think I have

  heard that once, when you were at Ryde��"

  The great man started back as if a little shock of cold water had fallen on him;

  and then looked at Philip with not unfriendly glances. "Treated for gout��so he

  did. Very well, too!" said my lord; and whispered, not inaudibly, "Cool hand,

  that boy!" And then his lordship fell to talk with General Baynes about his

  campaigning, and his early acquaintance with his own brother, Philip's

  grandfather.

  The general did not care to brag about his own feats of arms, but was loud in

  praises of his old comrade. Philip was pleased to hear his grandsire so well

  spoken of. The general had known Dr. Firmin's father also, who likewise had been

  a colonel in the famous old Peninsular army. "A Tartar that fellow was, and no

  mistake!" said the good officer. "Your father has a strong look of him; and you

  have a glance of him at times. But you remind me of Philip Ringwood not a

  little; and you could not belong to a better man."

  "Ha!" says my lord. There has been differences between him and his brother. He

  may have been thinking of days when they were friends. Lord Ringwood now

  graciously asked if General Baynes was staying in London? But the general had

  only come to do this piece of business, which must now be delayed. He was too

  poor to live in London. He must look out for a country place, where he and his

  children could live cheaply. "Three boys at school, and one at college, Mr.

  Philip��you know what that must cost; though, thank my stars, my college boy

  does not spend nine hundred a year. Nine hundred! Where should we be if he did?"

  In fact, the days of nabobs are long over, and the general had come back to his

  native country with only very small means for the support of a great family.

  When my lord's carriage came, he departed, and the other guests presently took

  their leave. The general, who was a bachelor for the nonce, remained awhile, and

  we three prattled over cheroots in Philip's smokingroom. It was a night like a

  hundred I have spent there, and yet how well I remember it! We talked about

  Philip's future prospects, and he communicated his intentions to us in his

  lordly way. As for practising at the bar: No, sir! he said, in reply to General

  Baynes' queries, he should not make much hand of that: shouldn't if he were ever

  so poor. He had his own money, and his father's, and he condescended to say that

  he might, perhaps, try for Parliament, should an eligible opportunity offer.

  "Here's a fellow born with a silver spoon in his mouth," says the general, as we

  walked away together. "A fortune to begin with; a fortune to inherit. My fortune

  was two thousand pounds and the price of my two first commissions; and when I

  die my children will not be quite so well off as their father was when he

  began!"

  Having parted with the old officer at his modest sleeping quarters near his

  club, I walked to my own home, little thinking that yonder cigar, of which I had

  shaken some of ashes in Philip's smoking-room, was to be the last tobacco I ever

  should smoke there. The pipe was smoked out. The wine was drunk. When that door

  closed on me, it closed for the last time��at least, was never more to admit me

  as Philip's, as Dr. Firmin's, guest and friend. I pass the place often now. My

  youth comes back to me as I gaze at those blank, shining windows. I see myself a

  boy, and Philip a child; and his fair mother; and his father, the hospitable,

  the melancholy, the magnificent. I wish I could have helped him. I wish somehow

  he had borrowed money. He never did. He gave me his often. I have never seen him

  since that night when his own door closed upon him.

  On the second day after the doctor's departure, as I was at breakfast with my

  family, I received the following letter:��

  My dear Pendennis,

  Could I have seen you in private on Tuesday night, I might have warned you of

  the calamity which was hanging over my house. But to what good end? That you

  should know a few weeks, hours before, what all the world will ring with

  to-morrow? Neither you nor I, nor one whom we both love, would have been the

  happier for knowing my misfortunes a few hours sooner. In four-and-twenty hours

  every club in London will be busy with talk of the departure of the celebrated

  Dr. Firmin��the wealthy Dr. Firmin; a few months more and (I have strict and

  confidential reason to believe) hereditary rank would have been mine, but Sir

  George Firmin would have been an insolvent man, and his son Sir Philip a beggar.

  Perhaps the thought of this honour has been one of the reasons which has

  determined me on expatriating myself sooner than I otherwise needed to have

  done.

  George Firmin, the honoured, the wealthy physician, and his son a beggar? I see

  you are startled at the news! You wonder how, with a great practice, and no

  great ostensible expenses, such ruin should have come upon me��upon him. It has

  seemed as if for years past Fate has been determined to make war upon George

  Brand Firmin; and who can battle against Fate? A man universally admitted to be

  of good judgment, I have embarked in mercantile speculations the most promising.

  Everything upon which I laid my hand has crumbled to ruin; but I can say with

  the Roman bard, "Impavidum ferient ruin�." And, almost penniless, almost aged,

  an exile driven from my country, I seek another where I do not despair��I even

  have a firm belief that I small be enabled to repair my shattered fortunes! My

  race has never been deficient in courage, and Philip and Philip's father must

  use all theirs, so as to be enabled to face the dark times which menace them. Si

  celeres quatit pennas Fortuna, we must resign what she gave us, and bear our

  calamity with unshaken hearts!

  There is a man, I own to you, whom I cannot, I must not face. General Baynes has

  just come from India, with but very small savings, I fear; and these are

  jeopardized by his imprudence and my most cruel and unexpected misfortune. I

  need not tell you that my all would ha
ve been my boy's. My will, made long

  since, will be found in the tortoiseshell secretaire standing in my

  consulting-room under the picture of Abraham offering up Isaac. In it you will

  see that everything, except annuities to old and deserving servants and a legacy

  to one excellent and faithful woman whom I own I have wronged��my all, which

  once was considerable, is left to my boy.

  I am now worth less than nothing, and have compromised Philip's property along

  with my own. As a man of business, General Baynes, Colonel Ringwood's old

  companion in arms, was culpably careless, and I��alas! that I must own

  it��deceived him. Being the only surviving trustee (Mrs. Philip Ringwood's other

  trustee was an unprincipled attorney who has been long dead), General B. signed

  a paper authorizing, as he imagined, my bankers to receive Philip's dividends,

  but, in fact, giving me the power to dispose of the capital sum. On my honour,

  as a man, as a gentleman, as a father, Pendcnnis, I hoped to replace it! I took

  it; I embarked it in speculations in which it sank down with ten times the

  amount of my own private property. Half-year after halfyear, with straitened

  means and with the greatest difficulty to myself, my poor boy has had his

  dividend; and he at least has never known what was want or anxiety until now.

  Want? Anxiety? Pray heaven he never may suffer the sleepless anguish, the

  racking care which has pursued me! "Post equitem sedet atra cura," our favourite

  poet says. Ah! how truly, too, does he remark, "Patri� quis exul se quoque

  fugit?" Think you where I go grief and remorse will not follow me? They will

  never leave me until I shall return to this country ��for that I shall return,

  my heart tells me��until I can reimburse General Baynes, who stands indebted to

  Philip through his incautiousness and my overpowering necessity; and my

  heart��an erring but fond father's heart��tells me that my boy will not

  eventually lose a penny by my misfortune.

  I own, between ourselves, that this illness of the Grand Duke of Groningen was a

  pretext which I put forward. You will hear of me cre long from the place whither

  for some time past I have determined on bending my steps. I placed 2001. on

  Saturday, to Philip's credit, at his banker's I take little more than that sum

  with me; depressed, yet full of hope; having done wrong, yet determined to

  retrieve it, and vowing that ere I die my poor boy shall not have to blush at

  bearing the name of

  George Brand Firmin.

  Good-by, dear Philip! Your old friend will tell you of my misfortunes. When I

  write again, it will be to tell you where to address me; and wherever I am, or

  whatever misfortunes oppress me, think of me always as your fond.

  Father.

  I had scarce read this awful letter when Philip Firmin himself came into our

  breakfast-room, looking very much disturbed.

  CHAPTER XV. SAMARITANS.

  The children trotted up to their friend with outstretched hands and their usual

  smiles of welcome. Philip patted their heads, and sate down with very wobegone

  aspect at the family table. "Ah, friends," said he, "do you know all?"

  "Yes, we do," said Laura, sadly, who has ever compassion for others'

  misfortunes.

  "What! is it all over the town already?" asked poor Philip.

  "We have a letter from your father this morning." And we brought the letter to

  him, and showed him the affectionate special message for himself.

  "His last thought was for you, Philip!" cries Laura. "See here, those last kind

  words!"

  Philip shook his head. "It is not untrue, what is written here: but it is not

  all the truth." And Philip Firmin dismayed us by the intelligence which he

  proceeded to give. There was an execution in the house in Old Parr Street. A

  hundred clamorous creditors had already appeared there. Before going away, the

  doctor had taken considerable sums from those dangerous financiers to whom he

  had been of late resorting. They were in possession of numberless lately-signed

  bills, upon which the desperate man had raised money. He had professed to share

  with Philip, but he had taken the great share, and left Philip two hundred

  pounds of his own money. All the rest was gone. All Philip's stock had been sold

  out. The father's fraud had made him master of the trustee's signature: and

  Philip Firmin, reputed to be so wealthy, was a beggar, in my room. Luckily he

  had few, or very trifling, debts. Mr. Philip had a lordly impatience of

  indebtedness, and, with a good bachelor-income, had paid for all his pleasures

  as he enjoyed them.

  Well! He must work. A young man ruined at two-and-twenty, with a couple of

  hundred pounds yet in his pocket, hardly knows that he is ruined. He will sell

  his horses��live in chambers��has enough to go on for a year. "When I am very

  hard put to it," says Philip, "I will come and dine with the children at one. I

  daresay you haven't dined much at Williams's in the Old Bailey? You can get a

  famous dinner there for a shilling��beef, bread, potatoes, beer, and a penny for

  the waiter." Yes, Philip seemed actually to enjoy his discomfiture. It was long

  since we had seen him in such spirits. "The weight is off my mind now. It has

  been throttling me for some time past. Without understanding why or wherefore, I

  have always been looking out for this. My poor father had ruin written in his

  face: and when those bailiffs made their appearance in Old Parr Street

  yesterday, I felt as if I had known them before. I had seen their hooked beaks

  in my dreams."

  "That unlucky General Baynes, when he accepted your mother's trust, took it with

  its consequences. If the sentry falls asleep on his post, he must pay the

  penalty," says Mr. Pendennis, very severely.

  "Great powers! you would not have me come down on an old man with a large

  family, and ruin them all?" cries Philip.

  "No: I don't think Philip will do that," says my wife, looking exceedingly

  pleased.

  "If men accept trusts they must fulfil them, my dear," cries the master of the

  house.

  "And I must make that old gentleman suffer for my father's wrong? If I do, may I

  starve! there!" cries Philip.

  "And so that poor Little Sister has made her sacrifice in vain!" sighed my wife.

  "As for the father�� oh, Arthur! I can't tell you how odious that man was to me.

  There was something dreadful about him. And in his manner to women��oh!��"

  "If he had been a black draught, my dear, you could not have shuddered more

  naturally."

  "Well, he was horrible; and I know Philip will be better now he is gone."

  Women often make light of ruin. Give them but the beloved objects, and poverty

  is a trifling sorrow to bear. As for Philip, he, as we have said, is gayer than

  he has been for years past. The doctor's flight occasions not a little club

  talk: but, now he is gone, many people see quite well that they were aware of

  his insolvency, and always knew it must end so. The case is told, is canvassed,

  is exaggerated as such cases will be. I daresay it forms a week's talk. But

  people know that poor Philip is his father's largest credi
tor, and eye the young

  man with no unfriendly looks when he comes to his club after his mishap,��with

  burning cheeks, and a tingling sense of shame, imagining that all the world will

  point at and avoid him as the guilty fugitive's son.

  No: the world takes very little heed of his misfortune. One or two old

  acquaintances are kinder to him than before. A few say his ruin, and his

  obligation to work, will do him good. Only a very, very few avoid him, and look

  unconscious as he passes them by. Amongst these cold countenances, you, of

  course, will recognize the faces of the whole Twysden family. Three statues,

  with marble eyes, could not look more stony-calm than aunt Twysden and her two

  daughters, as they pass in the stately barouche. The gentlemen turn red when

  they see Philip. It is rather late times for uncle Twysden to begin blushing, to

  be sure. "Hang the fellow! he will, of course, be coming for money. Dawkins, I

  am not at home, mind, when young Mr. Firmin calls." So says Lord Ringwood,

  regarding Philip fallen among thieves. Ah, thanks to heaven, travellers find

  Samaritans as well as Levites on life's hard way! Philip told us with much

  humour of a rencontre which he had had with his cousin, Ringwood Twysden, in a

  public place. Twysden was enjoying himself with some young clerks of his office;

  but as Philip advanced upon him, assuming his fiercest scowl and most hectoring

  manner, the other lost heart, and fled. And no wonder. "Do you suppose," says

  Twysden, "I will willingly sit in the same room with that cad, after the manner

  in which he has treated my family! No, sir!" And so the tall door in Beaunash

  Street is to open for Philip Firmin no more.

  The tall door in Beaunash Street flies open readily enough for another

  gentleman. A splendid cab-horse reins up before it every day. A pair of

  varnished boots leap out of the cab, and spring up the broad stairs, where

  somebody is waiting with a smile of genteel welcome ��the same smile��on the

  same sofa��the same mamma at her table writing her letters. And beautiful

  bouquets from Covent Garden decorate the room. And after half an hour mamma goes

  out to speak to the housekeeper, vous comprenez. And there is nothing

  particularly new under the sun. It will shine to-morrow upon pretty much the

  same flowers, sports, pastimes, which it illuminated yesterday. And when your

  love-making days are over, miss, and you are married, and advantageously

  established, shall not your little sisters, now in the nursery, trot down and

  play their little games? Would you, on your conscience, now�� you who are rather

  inclined to consider Miss Agnes Twysden's conduct as heartless��would you, I

  say, have her cry her pretty eyes out about a young man who does not care much

  for her, for whom she never did care much herself, and who is now, moreover, a

  beggar, with a ruined and disgraced father and a doubtful legitimacy? Absurd!

  That dear girl is like a beautiful fragrant bower-room at the Star and Garter at

  Richmond, with honeysuckles mayhap trailing round the windows, from which you

  behold one of the most lovely and pleasant of wood and river scenes. The tables

  are decorated with flowers, rich winecups sparkle on the board, and Captain

  Jones's party have everything they can desire. Their dinner over, and that

  company gone, the same waiters, the same flowers, the same cups and crystals,

  array themselves for Mr. Brown and his party. Or, if you won't have Agnes

  Twysden compared to the Star and Garter Tavern, which must admit mixed company,

  liken her to the chaste moon who shines on shepherds of all complexions, swarthy

  or fair.

  When, oppressed by superior odds, a commander is forced to retreat, we like him

  to show his skill by carrying off his guns, treasure, and camp equipages. Doctor

  Firmin, beaten by fortune and compelled to fly, showed quite a splendid skill

  and coolness in his manner of decamping, and left the very smallest amount of

  spoils in the hands of the victorious enemy. His wines had been famous amongst