A History of Pendennis Volume II Part 23

Upon which, with a burst of emotion, almost as emphatic as hers, the young surgeon held the girl in his arms--swore that she was an angel, and that he was a jealous brute; owned that he was unworthy of her, and that he had no right to hate Pendennis; and asked her, implored her, to say once more that she--

That she what?--The end of the question and f.a.n.n.y's answer were p.r.o.nounced by lips that were so near each other, that no bystander could hear the words. Mrs. Bolton only said, "Come, come, Mr. H.--no nonsense, if you please; and I think you've acted like a wicked wretch, and been most uncommon cruel to f.a.n.n.y, that I do."

When Arthur left No. 2002, he went to pay his respects to the carriage to which, and to the side of her mamma, the dove colored author of _Mes Larmes_ had by this time returned. Indefatigable old Major Pendennis was in waiting upon Lady Clavering, and had occupied the back seat in her carriage; the box being in possession of young Hopeful, under the care of Captain Strong.

A number of dandies, and men of a certain fas.h.i.+on--of military bucks, of young rakes of the public offices, of those who may be styled men's men rather than ladies'--had come about the carriage during its station on the hill--and had exchanged a word or two with Lady Clavering, and a little talk (a little "chaff" some of the most elegant of the men styled their conversation) with Miss Amory. They had offered her sportive bets, and exchanged with her all sorts of free-talk and knowing innuendoes. They pointed out to her who was on the course: and the "who" was not always the person a young lady should know.

When Pen came up to Lady Clavering's carriage, he had to push his way through a crowd of these young bucks who were paying their court to Miss Amory, in order to arrive as near that young lady, who beckoned him by many pretty signals to her side.

"Je l'ai vue," she said; "elle a de bien beaux yeux; vous etes un monstre!"

"Why monster?" said Pen, with a laugh; "Honi soit qui mal y pense.

My young friend, yonder, is as well protected as any young lady in Christendom. She has her mamma on one side, her 'pretendu' on the other. Could any harm happen to a girl between those two?"

"One does not know what may or may not arrive," said Miss Blanche. in French, "when a girl has the mind, and when she is pursued by a wicked monster like you. Figure to yourself, colonel, that I come to find monsieur, your nephew, near to a cab, by two ladies, and a man, oh, such a man! and who ate lobsters, and who laughed, who laughed!"

"It did not strike me that the man laughed," Pen said. "And as for lobsters, I thought he would have liked to eat me after the lobsters.

He shook hands with me, and griped me so, that he bruised my glove black and blue. He is a young surgeon. He comes from Clavering. Don't you remember the gilt pestle and mortar in High-street?"

"If he attends you when you are sick," continued Miss Amory, "he will kill you. He will serve you right; for you are a monster."

The perpetual recurrence to the word "monster" jarred upon Pen. "She speaks about these matters a great deal too lightly," he thought. "If I had been a monster, as she calls it, she would have received me just the same. This is not the way in which an English lady should speak or think. Laura would not speak in that way, thank G.o.d!" and as he thought so, his own countenance fell.

"Of what are you thinking? Are you going to _bouder_ me at present?"

Blanche asked. "Major, scold your _mechant_ nephew. He does not amuse me at all. He is as _bete_ as Captain Crackenbury."

"What are you saying about me, Miss Amory?" said the guardsman, with a grin. "If it's any thing good, say it in English, for I don't understand French when it's spoke so devilish quick."

"It _ain't_ any thing good, Crack," said Crackenbury's fellow, Captain Clinker. "Let's come away, and don't spoil sport. They say Pendennis is sweet upon her."

"I'm told he's a devilish clever fellow," sighed Crackenbury. "Lady Violet Lebas says he's a devilish clever fellow. He wrote a work, or a poem, or something; and he writes those devilish clever things in the--in the papers you know. Dammy, I wish I was a clever fellow, Clinker."

"That's past wis.h.i.+ng for, Crack, my boy," the other said. "I can't write a good book, but I think I can make a pretty good one on the Derby. What a flat Clavering is! And the Begum! I like that old Begum.

She's worth ten of her daughter. How pleased the old girl was at winning the lottery!"

"Clavering's safe to pay up, ain't he?" asked Captain Crackenbury. "I hope so," said his friend; and they disappeared, to enjoy themselves among the sticks.

Before the end of the day's amus.e.m.e.nts, many more gentlemen of Lady Clavering's acquaintance came up to her carriage, and chatted with the party which it contained. The worthy lady was in high spirits and good-humor, laughing and talking according to her wont, and offering refreshments to all her friends, until her ample baskets and bottles were emptied, and her servants and postillions were in such a royal state of excitement as servants and postillions commonly are upon the Derby day.

The major remarked that some of the visitors to the carriage appeared to look with rather queer and meaning glances toward its owner. "How easily she takes it!" one man whispered to another. "The Begum's made of money," the friend replied. "How easily she takes what?" thought old Pendennis. "Has any body lost any money?" Lady Clavering said she was happy in the morning because Sir Francis had promised her not to bet.

Mr. Welbore, the country neighbor of the Claverings, was pa.s.sing the carriage, when he was called back by the Begum, who rallied him for wis.h.i.+ng to cut her. "Why didn't he come before? Why didn't he come to lunch?" Her ladys.h.i.+p was in great delight, she told him--she told every body--that she had won five pounds in a lottery. As she conveyed this piece of intelligence to him, Mr. Welbore looked so particularly knowing, and withal melancholy, that a dismal apprehension seized upon Major Pendennis. "He would go and look after the horses and those rascals of postillions, who were so long in coming round." When he came back to the carriage, his usually benign and smirking countenance was obscured by some sorrow. "What is the matter with you now?" the good-natured Begum asked. The major pretended a headache from the fatigue and suns.h.i.+ne of the day. The carriage wheeled off the course and took its way Londonwards, not the least brilliant equipage in that vast and picturesque procession. The tipsy drivers dashed gallantly over the turf, amid the admiration of foot-pa.s.sengers, the ironical cheers of the little donkey-carriages and spring vans, and the loud objurgations of horse-and-chaise men, with whom the reckless post-boys came in contact. The jolly Begum looked the picture of good humor as she reclined on her splendid cus.h.i.+ons; the lovely Sylphide smiled with languid elegance. Many an honest holiday-maker with his family wadded into a tax-cart, many a cheap dandy working his way home on his weary hack, admired that brilliant turn-out, and thought, no doubt, how happy those "swells" must be. Strong sat on the box still, with a lordly voice calling to the post-boys and the crowd. Master Frank had been put inside of the carriage and was asleep there by the side of the major, dozing away the effects of the constant luncheon and champagne of which he had freely partaken.

The major was revolving in his mind meanwhile the news the receipt of which had made him so grave. "If Sir Francis Clavering goes on in this way," Pendennis the elder thought, "this little tipsy rascal will be as bankrupt as his father and grandfather before him. The Begum's fortune can't stand such drains upon it: no fortune can stand them: she has paid his debts half-a-dozen times already. A few years more of the turf, and a few coups like this will ruin her."

"Don't you think we could get up races at Clavering, mamma?" Miss Amory asked. "Yes, we must have them there again. There were races there in the old times, the good old times. It's a national amus.e.m.e.nt you know: and we could have a Clavering ball: and we might have dances for the tenantry, and rustic sports in the park--Oh, it would he charming."

"Capital fun," said mamma. "Wouldn't it, major?"

"The turf is a very expensive amus.e.m.e.nt, my dear lady," Major Pendennis answered, with such a rueful face, that the Begum rallied him, and asked laughingly whether he had lost money on the race?

After a slumber of about an hour and a half, the heir of the house began to exhibit symptoms of wakefulness, stretching his youthful arms over the major's face, and kicking his sister's knees as she sate opposite to him. When the amiable youth was quite restored to consciousness, he began a sprightly conversation.

"I say, ma," he said, "I've gone and done it this time, I have." "What have you gone and done, Franky, dear?" asked mamma. "How much is seventeen half-crowns?" "Two pound and half-a-crown, ain't it? I drew Borax in our lottery, but I bought Podasokus and Man-milliner of Leggat minor for two open tarts and a bottle of ginger beer."

"You little wicked gambling creature, how dare you begin so soon?"

cried Miss Amory.

"Hold _your_ tongue, if you please. Who ever asked _your_ leave, miss?" the brother said. "And I say, ma--"

"Well, Franky, dear?"

"You'll tip me all the same, you know, when I go back--" and here he broke out into a laugh. "I say, ma, shall I tell you something?"

The Begum expressed her desire to hear this something, and her son and heir continued:

"When me and Strong was down at the grand stand after the race, and I was talking to Leggat minor, who was there with his governor; I saw pa look as savage as a bear. And I say, ma, Leggat minor told me that he heard his governor say that pa had lost seven thousand backing the favorite. I'll never back the favorite when I'm of age. No, no--hang me if I do: leave me alone, Strong, will you?"

"Captain Strong! Captain Strong! is this true?" cried out the unfortunate Begum. "Has Sir Francis been betting again? He promised me he wouldn't. He gave me his word of honor he wouldn't."

Strong, from his place on the box, had overheard the end of young Clavering's communication, and was trying in vain to stop his unlucky tongue.

"I'm afraid it's true, ma'am," he said, turning round. "I deplore the loss as much as you can. He promised me as he promised you; but the play is too strong for him! he can't refrain from it."

Lady Clavering at this sad news burst into a fit of tears. She deplored her wretched fate as the most miserable of woman. She declared she would separate, and pay no more debts for this ungrateful man. She narrated with tearful volubility a score of stories only too authentic, which showed how her husband had deceived, and how constantly she had befriended him: and in this melancholy condition, while young Hopeful was thinking about the two guineas which he himself had won; and the major revolving, in his darkened mind, whether certain plans which he had been forming had better not be abandoned; the splendid carriage drove up at length to the Begum's house in Grosvenor-place; the idlers and boys lingering about the place to witness, according to public wont, the close of the Derby day, cheering the carriage as it drew up, and envying the happy folks who descended from it.

"And it's for the son of this man that I am made a beggar!" Blanche said, quivering with anger, as she walked up stairs leaning on the major's arm--"for this cheat--for this black-leg--for this liar--for this robber of women."

"Calm yourself, my dear Miss Blanche," the old gentleman said; "I pray calm yourself. You have been hardly treated, most unjustly. But remember that you have always a friend in me; and trust to an old fellow who will try and serve you."

And the young lady, and the heir of the hopeful house of Clavering, having retired to their beds, the remaining three of the Epsom party remained for some time in deep consultation.

CHAPTER XXI.

EXPLANATIONS.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Almost a year, as the reader will perceive, has pa.s.sed since an event described a few pages back. Arthur's black coat is about to be exchanged for a blue one. His person has undergone other more pleasing and remarkable changes. His wig has been laid aside, and his hair, though somewhat thinner, has returned to public view. And he has had the honor of appearing at court in the uniform of a cornet of the Clavering troop of the----s.h.i.+re Yeomanry Cavalry, being presented to the sovereign by the Marquis of Steyne.

This was a measure strongly and pathetically urged by Arthur's uncle.

The major would not hear of a year pa.s.sing before this ceremony of gentlemanhood was gone through. The old gentleman thought that his nephew should belong to some rather more select club than the Megatherium; and has announced every where in the world his disappointment that the young man's property has turned out not by any means as well as he could have hoped, and is under fifteen hundred a year.

That is the amount at which Pendennis's property is set down in the world, where his publishers begin to respect him much more than formerly, and where even mammas are by no means uncivil to him. For if the pretty daughters are, naturally, to marry people of very different expectations, at any rate, he will be eligible for the plain ones; and if the brilliant and fascinating Myra is to hook an earl, poor little Beatrice, who has one shoulder higher than the other, must hang on to some boor through life, and why should not Mr. Pendennis be her support? In the very first winter after the accession to his mother's fortune, Mrs. Hawxby in a country-house caused her Beatrice to learn billiards from Mr. Pendennis, and would be driven by n.o.body but him in the pony carriage, because he was literary and her Beatrice was literary too, and declared that the young man, under the instigation of his horrid old uncle, had behaved most infamously in trifling with Beatrice's feelings. The truth is, the old gentleman, who knew Mrs.