The Adventures of Philip

by William Makepeace Thackeray

want to keep her, and fancy she can't be happy without you!" I can fancy the

  general grimly replying to the partner of his existence. Hanging down her

  withered head, with a tear mayhap trickling down her cheek, I can fancy the old

  woman silently departing to do the bidding of her lord. She selects a trunk out

  of the store of Baynes's baggage. A young lady's trunk was a trunk in those

  days. Now it is a two or three storied edifice of wood, in which two or three

  full-grown bodies of young ladies (without crinoline) might be packed. I saw a

  little old countrywoman at the Folkestone station last year with her travelling

  baggage contained in a band-box tied up in an old cotton handkerchief hanging on

  her arm; and she surveyed Lady Knightsbridge's twenty-three black trunks, each

  well nigh as large as her ladyship's opera-box. Before these great edifices that

  old woman stood wondering dumbly. That old lady and I had lived in a time when

  crinoline was not; and yet, I think, women looked even prettier in that time

  than they do now. Well, a trunk and a band-box were fetched out of the baggage

  heap for little Charlotte, and I daresay her little brothers jumped and danced

  on the box with much energy to make the lid shut, and the general brought out

  his hammer and nails, and nailed a card on the box with "Mademoiselle Baynes"

  thereon printed. And mamma had to look on and witness those preparations. And

  Hely Walsingham had called; and he wouldn't call again, she knew; and that fair

  chance for the establishment of her child was lost by the obstinacy of her

  self-willed, reckless husband. That woman had to water her soup with her furtive

  tears, to sit of nights behind hearts and spades, and brood over her crushed

  hopes. If I contemplate that wretched old Niobe much longer, I shall begin to

  pity her. Away softness! Take out thy arrows, the poisoned, the barbed, the

  rankling, and prod me the old creature well, god of the silver bow! Eliza Baynes

  had to look on, then, and see the trunks packed; to see her own authority over

  her own daughter wrested away from her; to see the undutiful girl prepare with

  perfect delight and alacrity to go away, without feeling a pang at leaving a

  mother who had nursed her through adverse illnesses, who had scolded her for

  seventeen years.

  The general accompanied the party to the diligence office. Little Char was very

  pale and melancholy indeed when she took her place in the coup�. "She should

  have a corner: she had been ill, and ought to have a corner," uncle Mac said,

  and cheerfully consented to be bodkin. Our three special friends are seated. The

  other passengers clamber into their places. Away goes the clattering team, as

  the general waves an adieu to his friends. "Monstrous fine horses those grey

  Normans; famous breed, indeed," he remarks to his wife on his return.

  "Indeed," she echoes. "Pray, in what part of the carriage was Mr. Firmin," she

  presently asks.

  "In no part of the carriage at all!" Baynes answers fiercely, turning beet-root

  red. And thus, though she had been silent, obedient, hanging her head, the woman

  showed that she was aware of her master's schemes, and why her girl had been

  taken away. She knew; but she was beaten. It remained for her but to be silent

  and bow her head. I daresay she did not sleep one wink that night. She followed

  the diligence in its journey. "Char is gone," she thought. "Yes; in due time he

  will take from me the obedience of my other children, and tear them out of my

  lap." He�� that is, the general��was sleeping meanwhile. He had had in the last

  few days four awful battles��with his child, with his friends, with his wife��in

  which latter combat he had been conqueror. No wonder Baynes was tired, and

  needed rest. Any one of those engagements was enough to weary the veteran.

  If we take the liberty of looking into double-bedded rooms, and peering into the

  thoughts which are passing under private nightcaps, may we not examine the coup�

  of a jingling diligence with an open window, in which a young lady sits wide

  awake by the side of her uncle and aunt! These perhaps are asleep; but she is

  not. Ah! she is thinking of another journey! that blissful one from Boulogne,

  when he was there yonder in the imperial, by the side of the conductor. When the

  MacWhirter party had come to the diligence office, how her little heart had

  beat! How she had looked under the lamps at all the people lounging about the

  court! How she had listened when the clerk called out the names of the

  passengers; and, mercy, what a fright she had been in, lest he should be there

  after all, while she stood yet leaning on her father's arm! But there was

  no��well, names, I think, need scarcely be mentioned. There was no sign of the

  individual in question. Papa kissed her, and sadly said good-by. Good Madame

  Smolensk came with an adieu and an embrace for her dear Miss, and whispered,

  "Courage, mon enfant," and then said, "Hold, I have brought you some bonbons."

  There they were in a little packet. Little Charlotte put the packet into her

  little basket. Away goes the diligence, but the individual had made no sign.

  Away goes the diligence; and every now and then Charlotte feels the little

  packet in her little basket. What does it contain��oh, what? If Charlotte could

  but read with her heart, she would see in that little packet��the sweetest

  bonbon of all perhaps it might be, or, ah me! the bitterest almond! Through the

  night goes the diligence, passing relay after relay. Uncle Mac sleeps. I think I

  have said he snored. Aunt Mac is quite silent, and Char sits plaintively with

  her lonely thoughts and her bonbons, as miles, hours, relays pass.

  "These ladies, will they descend and take a cup of coffee, a cup of bouillon?"

  at last cries a waiter at the coup� door, as the carriage stops in Orleans. "By

  all means a cup of coffee," says Aunt Mac. "The little Orleans wine is good,"

  cries Uncle Mac. "Descendons!" "This way, madame," says the waiter. "Charlotte,

  my love, some coffee?"

  "I will��I will stay in the carriage. I don't want anything, thank you," says

  Miss Charlotte. And the instant her relations are gone, entering the gate of the

  Lion Noir, where, you know, are the Bureaux des Messageries, Lafitte, Caillard

  et Cie��I say, on the very instant when her relations have disappeared, what do

  you think Miss Charlotte does?

  She opens that packet of bonbons with fingers that tremble��tremble so, I wonder

  how she could undo the knot of the string (or do you think she had untied that

  knot under her shawl in the dark? I can't say. We never shall know). Well; she

  opens the packet. She does not care one fig for the lollipops, almonds, and so

  forth. She pounces on a little scrap of paper, and is going to read it by the

  lights of the steaming stable lanterns, when��oh, what made her start so?��

  In those old days there used to be two diligences which travelled nightly to

  Tours, setting out at the same hour, and stopping at almost the same relays. The

  diligence of Lafitte and Caillard supped at the Lion Noir at Orleans��the

  diligence of the Messageries Royales stopped at the Ecu de France, hard by.

  Wel
l, as the Messageries Royales are supping at the Ecu de France, a passenger

  strolls over from that coach, and strolls and strolls until he comes to the

  coach of Lafitte, Caillard, and Company, and to the coup� window where Miss

  Baynes is trying to decipher her bonbon.

  He comes up��and as the night-lamps fall on his face and beard��his rosy face,

  his yellow beard��oh! ��What means that scream of the young lady in the coup� of

  Lafitte, Caillard et Compagnie! I declare she has dropped the letter which she

  was about to read. It has dropped into a pool of mud under the diligence off

  fore-wheel. And he with the yellow beard, and a sweet happy laugh, and a tremble

  in his deep voice, says, "You need not read it. It was only to tell you what you

  know."

  Then the coup� window says, "Oh, Philip! Oh, my��"

  My what? You cannot hear the words, because the grey Norman horses come

  squealing and clattering up to their coach-pole with such accompanying cries and

  imprecations from the horsekeepers and postilions, that no wonder the little

  warble is lost. It was not intended for you and me to hear; but perhaps you can

  guess the purport of the words. Perhaps in quite old, old days, you may remember

  having heard such little whispers, in a time when the song-birds in your grove

  carolled that kind of song very pleasantly and freely. But this, my good madam,

  is written in February. The birds are gone: the branches are bare: the gardener

  has actually swept the leaves off the walks: and the whole affair is an affair

  of a past year, you understand. Well! carpe diem, fugit hora, There, for one

  minute, for two minutes, stands Philip over the diligence off fore-wheel,

  talking to Charlotte at the window, and their heads are quite close��quite

  close. What are those two pairs of lips warbling, whispering? "Hi! Gare! Oh�!"

  The horsekeepers, I say, quite prevent you from hearing; and here come the

  passengers out of the Lion Noir, aunt Mac still munching a great slice of

  bread-and-butter. Charlotte is quite comfortable, and does not want anything,

  dear aunt, thank you. I hope she nestles in her corner, and has a sweet slumber.

  On the journey the twin diligences pass and repass each other. Perhaps Charlotte

  looks out of her window sometimes and towards the other carriage. I don't know.

  It is a long time ago. What used you to do in old days, ere railroads were, and

  when diligences ran? They were slow enough: but they have got to their journey's

  end somehow. They were tight, hot, dusty, dear, stuffy, and uncomfortable; but,

  for all that, travelling was good sport sometimes. And if the world would have

  the kindness to go back for five-and-twenty or thirty years, some of us who have

  travelled on the Tours and Orleans Railway very comfortably would like to take

  the diligence journey now.

  Having myself seen the city of Tours only last year, of course I don't remember

  much about it. A man remembers boyhood, and the first sight of Calais, and so

  forth. But after much travel or converse with the world, to see a new town is to

  be introduced to Jones. He is like Brown: he is not unlike Smith: in a little

  while you hash him up with Thompson. I dare not be particular, then, regarding

  Mr. Firmin's life at Tours, lest I should make topographical errors, for which

  the critical schoolmaster would justly inflict chastisement. In the last novel I

  read about Tours, there were blunders from the effect of which you know the

  wretched author never recovered. It was by one Scott, and had young Quentin

  Durward for a hero, and Isabel de Croye for a heroine; and she sate in her

  hostel, and sang, "Ah, County Guy, the hour is nigh." A pretty ballad enough:

  but what ignorance, my dear sir! What descriptions of Tours, of Liege, are in

  that fallacious story! Yes, so fallacious and misleading, that I remember I was

  sorry, not because the description was unlike Tours, but because Tours was

  unlike the description.

  So Quentin Firmin went and put up at the snug little hostel of the Faisan; and

  Isabel de Baynes took up her abode with her uncle the Sire de MacWhirter; and I

  believe Master Firmin had no more money in his pocket than the Master Durward

  whose story the Scottish novelist told some forty years since. And I cannot

  promise you that our young English adventurer shall marry a noble heiress of

  vast property, and engage the Boar of Ardennes in a hand-to-hand combat; that

  sort of Boar, madam, does not appear in our modern drawing-room histories. Of

  others, not wild, there be plenty. They gore you in clubs. They seize you by the

  doublet, and pin you against posts in public streets. They run at you in parks.

  I have seen them sit at bay after dinner, ripping, gashing, tossing a whole

  company. These our young adventurer had in good sooth to encounter, as is the

  case with most knights. Who escapes them? I remember an eminent person talking

  to me about bores for two hours once. O you stupid eminent person! You never

  knew that you yourself had tusks, little eyes in your hure; a bristly mane to

  cut into tooth-brushes; and a curly-tail! I have a notion that the multitude of

  bores is enormous in the world. If a man is a bore himself, when he is

  bored��and you can't deny this statement�� then what am I, what are you, what

  your father, grandfather, son��all your amiable acquaintance, in a word? Of this

  I am sure, Major and Mrs. MacWhirter were not brilliant in conversation. What

  would you and I do, or say, if we listen to the tittle-tattle of Tours. How the

  clergyman was certainly too fond of cards and going to the caf�; how the dinners

  those Popjoys gave were too absurdly ostentatious; and Popjoy, we know, in the

  Bench last year; how Mrs. Flights, going on with that Major of French

  Carabiniers, was really too "How could I endure those people?" Philip would ask

  himself, when talking of that personage in after days, as he loved, and loves to

  do. "How could I endure them, I say? Mac was a good man; but I knew secretly in

  my heart, sir, that he was a bore. Well: I loved him. I liked his old stories. I

  liked his bad old dinners: there is a very comfortable Touraine wine, by the

  way��a very warming little wine, sir. Mrs. Mac you never saw, my good Mrs.

  Pendennis. Be sure of this, you never would have liked her. Well, I did. I liked

  her house, though it was damp, in a damp garden, frequented by dull people. I

  should like to go and see that old house now. I am perfectly happy with my wife,

  but I sometimes go away from her to enjoy the luxury of living over our old days

  again. With nothing in the world but an allowance which was precarious, and had

  been spent in advance; with no particular plans for the future, and a few

  five-franc pieces for the present,��by Jove, sir, how did I dare to be so happy?

  What idiots we were, my love, to be happy at all! We were mad to marry. Don't

  tell me! With a purse which didn't contain three months' consumption, would we

  dare to marry now? We should be put into the mad ward of the workhouse: that

  would be the only place for us. Talk about trusting in heaven. Stuff and

  nonsense, ma'am! I have as good a right to go and buy a house in Belgrave

  Squ
are, and trust to heaven for the payment, as I had to marry when I did. We

  were paupers, Mrs. Char, and you know that very well!"

  "Oh, yes. We were very wrong: very!" says Mrs. Charlotte, looking up to her

  chandelier (which, by the way, is of very handsome Venetian old glass). "We were

  very wrong, were not we, my dearest?" And herewith she will begin to kiss and

  fondle two or more babies that disport in her room��as if two or more babies had

  anything to do with Philip's argument, that a man has no right to marry who has

  no pretty well-assured means of keeping a wife.

  Here, then, by the banks of the Loire, although Philip had but a very few francs

  in his pocket, and was obliged to keep a sharp look-out on his expenses at the

  Hotel of the Golden Pheasant, he passed a fortnight of such happiness as I, for

  my part, wish to all young folks who read his veracious history. Though he was

  so poor, and ate and drank so modestly in the house, the maids, waiters, the

  landlady of the Pheasant, were as civil to him��yes, as civil as they were to

  the gouty old Marchioness of Carabas herself, who stayed here on her way to the

  south, occupied the grand apartments, quarrelled with her lodging, dinner,

  breakfast, bread- and-butter in general, insulted the landlady in bad French,

  and only paid her bill under compulsion. Philip's was a little bill, but he paid

  it cheerfully. He gave only a small gratuity to the servants, but he was kind

  and hearty, and they knew he was poor. He was kind and hearty, I suppose,

  because he was so happy. I have known the gentleman to be by no means civil; and

  have heard him storm, and hector, and browbeat landlord and waiters, as fiercely

  as the Marquis of Carabas himself. But now Philip the Bear was the most gentle

  of bears, because his little Charlotte was leading him.

  Away with trouble and doubt, with squeamish pride and gloomy care! Philip had

  enough money for a fortnight, during which Tom Glazier, of the Monitor, promised

  to supply Philip's letters for the Pall Mall Gazette. All the designs of France,

  Spain, Russia, gave that idle "own correspondent" not the slightest anxiety. In

  the morning it was Miss Baynes; in the afternoon it was Miss Baynes. At six it

  was dinner and Charlotte; at nine it was Charlotte and tea. "Anyhow, love-making

  does not spoil his appetite," Major MacWhirter correctly remarked. Indeed,

  Philip had a glorious appetite; and health bloomed in Miss Charlotte's cheek,

  and beamed in her happy little heart. Dr. Firmin, in the height of his practice,

  never completed a cure more skilfully than that which was performed by Dr.

  Firmin, Junior.

  "I ran the thing so close, sir," I remember Philip bawling out, in his usual

  energetic way, whilst describing this period of his life's greatest happiness to

  his biographer, "that I came back to Paris outside the diligence, and had not

  money enough to dine on the road. But I bought a sausage, sir, and a bit of

  bread��and a brutal sausage it was, sir��and I reached my lodgings with exactly

  two sous in my pocket." Roger Bontemps himself was not more content than our

  easy philosopher.

  So Philip and Charlotte ratified and sealed a treaty of Tours, which they

  determined should never be broken by either party. Marry without papa's consent?

  Oh, never! Marry anybody but Philip? Oh, never�� never! Not if she lived to be a

  hundred, when Philip would in consequence be in his hundred and ninth or tenth

  year, would this young Joan have any but her present Darby. Aunt Mac, though she

  may not have been the most accomplished or highly-bred of ladies, was a

  warm-hearted and affectionate aunt Mac. She caught in a mild form the fever from

  these young people. She had not much to leave, and Mac's relations would want

  all he could spare when he was gone. But Charlotte should have her garnets, and

  her teapot, and her India shawl��that she should. [Note: I am sorry to say that