A History of Pendennis Volume I Part 39

Pen remembered that n.o.bleman's name, and with a bow and a blush said he believed he had to thank Lord Colchic.u.m for having proposed him at the Megatherium Club, at the request of his uncle, Major Pendennis.

"What, you're Wigsby's nephew, are you?" said the peer. "I beg your pardon, we always call him Wigsby." Pen blushed to hear his venerable uncle called by such a familiar name. "We balloted you in last week, didn't we? Yes, last Wednesday night. Your uncle wasn't there."

Here was delightful news for Pen! He professed himself very much obliged indeed to Lord Colchic.u.m, and made him a handsome speech of thanks, to which the other listened, with his double opera-gla.s.s up to his eyes.

Pen was full of excitement at the idea of being a member of this polite club.

"Don't be always looking at that box, you naughty creature," cried Miss Blenkinsop.

"She's a dev'lish fine woman, that Mirabel," said Tiptoff; "though Mirabel was a d--d fool to marry her."

"A stupid old spooney," said the peer.

"Mirabel!" cried out Pendennis.

"Ha! ha!" laughed out Harry Foker. "We've heard of her before, haven't we, Pen?"

It was Pen's first love. It was Miss Fotheringay. The year before she had been led to the altar by Sir Charles Mirabel, G.C.B., and formerly envoy to the Court of Pumpernickel, who had taken so active a part in the negotiations before the Congress of Swammerdam, and signed, on behalf of H.B.M. the peace of Pultusk.

"Emily was always as stupid as an owl," said Miss Blenkinsop.

"Eh! Eh! pas si bete," the old peer said.

"Oh, for shame!" cried the actress, who did not in the least know what he meant.

And Pen looked out, and beheld his first love once again--and wondered how he ever could have loved her.

Thus, on the very first night of his arrival in London, Mr. Arthur Pendennis found himself introduced to a club, to an actress of genteel comedy, and a heavy father of the stage, and to a das.h.i.+ng society of jovial blades, old and young; for my Lord Colchic.u.m, though stricken in years, bald of head, and enfeebled in person, was still indefatigable in the pursuit of enjoyment, and it was the venerable viscount's boast that he could drink as much claret as the youngest member of the society which he frequented. He lived with the youth about town: he gave them countless dinners at Richmond and Greenwich: an enlightened patron of the drama in all languages, and of the Terpsich.o.r.ean art, he received dramatic professors of all nations at his banquets--English from the Covent Garden and Strand houses, Italians from the Haymarket, French from their own pretty little theater, or the boards of the Opera where they danced. And at his villa on the Thames, this pillar of the state gave sumptuous entertainments to scores of young men of fas.h.i.+on, who very affably consorted with the ladies and gentlemen of the green-room--with the former chiefly, for Viscount Colchic.u.m preferred their society, as more polished and gay than that of their male brethren.

Pen went the next day and paid his entrance-money at the club, which operation carried off exactly one-third of his hundred pounds; and took possession of the edifice, and ate his luncheon there with immense satisfaction. He plunged into an easy chair in the library, and tried to read all the magazines. He wondered whether the members were looking at him, and that they could dare to keep on their hats in such fine rooms.

He sate down and wrote a letter to Fairoaks on the club paper, and said, what a comfort this place would be to him after his day's work was over. He went over to his uncle's lodgings in Bury-street with some considerable tremor, and in compliance with his mother's earnest desire, that he should instantly call on Major Pendennis; and was not a little relieved to find that the major had not yet returned to town. His apartments were blank. Brown hollands covered his library-table, and bills and letters lay on the mantle-piece, grimly awaiting the return of their owner. The major was on the continent, the landlady of the house said, at Badnbadn, with the Marcus of Steyne. Pen left his card upon the shelf with the rest. Fairoaks was written on it still.

When the major returned to London, which he did in time for the fogs of November, after enjoying which he proposed to spend Christmas with some friends in the country, he found another card of Arthur's, on which Lamb Court, Temple, was engraved, and a note from that young gentleman and from his mother, stating that he was come to town, was entered a member of the Upper Temple, and was reading hard for the bar.

Lamb Court, Temple:--where was it? Major Pendennis remembered that some ladies of fas.h.i.+on used to talk of dining with Mr. Ayliffe, the barrister, who was "in society," and who lived there in the King's Bench, of which prison there was probably a branch in the Temple, and Ayliffe was very likely an officer. Mr. Deuceace, Lord Crab's son, had also lived there, he recollected. He dispatched Morgan to find out where Lamb Court was, and to report upon the lodging selected by Mr. Arthur.

That alert messenger had little difficulty in discovering Mr. Pen's abode. Discreet Morgan had in his time traced people far more difficult to find than Arthur.

"What sort of a place is it, Morgan?" asked the major, out of the bed-curtains in Bury-street the next morning, as the valet was arranging his toilet in the deep yellow London fog.

"I should say rayther a shy place," said Mr. Morgan. "The lawyers lives there, and has their names on the doors. Mr. Harthur lives three pair high, sir. Mr. Warrington live there too, sir."

"Suffolk Warringtons! I shouldn't wonder: a good family," thought the major. "The cadets of many of our good families follow the robe as a profession. Comfortable rooms, eh?"

"Honly saw the outside of the door, sir, with Mr. Warrington's name and Mr. Arthur's painted up, and a piece of paper with 'Back at 6;' but I couldn't see no servant, sir."

"Economical at any rate," said the major.

"Very, sir. Three pair, sir. Nasty black staircase as ever I see. Wonder how a gentleman can live in such a place."

"Pray, who taught you where gentlemen should or should not live, Morgan.

Mr. Arthur, sir, is going to study for the bar, sir;" the major said with much dignity; and closed the conversation and began to array himself, in the yellow fog.

"Boys will be boys," the mollified uncle thought to himself. "He has written to me a dev'lish good letter. Colchic.u.m says he has had him to dine, and thinks him agentleman like lad. His mother is one of the best creatures in the world. If he has sown his wild oats, and will stick to his business, he may do well yet. Think of Charley Mirabel, the old fool marrying that flame of his! that Fotheringay! He doesn't like to come here until I give him leave, and puts it in a very manly, nice way. I was deuced angry with him, after his...o...b..idge escapades--and showed it, too, when he was here before--Gad, I'll go and see him, hang me if I don't."

And having ascertained from Morgan that he could reach the Temple without much difficulty, and that a city omnibus would put him down at the gate, the major one day after breakfast at his club--not the Polyanthus, whereof Mr. Pen was just elected a member, but another club: for the major was too wise to have a nephew as a constant inmate of any house where he was in the habit of pa.s.sing his time--the major one day entered one of those public vehicles, and bade the conductor to put him down at the gate of the Upper Temple.

When Major Pendennis reached that dingy portal it was about twelve o'clock in the day; and he was directed by a civil personage with a badge and a white ap.r.o.n, through some dark alleys, and under various melancholy archways into courts each more dismal than the other, until finally he reached Lamb Court. If it was dark in Pall Mall, what was it in Lamb Court? Candles were burning in many of the rooms there--in the pupil-room of Mr. Hodgeman, the special pleader, where six pupils were scribbling declarations under the tallow; in Sir Hokey Walker's clerk's room, where the clerk, a person far more gentlemanlike and cheerful in appearance than the celebrated counsel, his master, was conversing in a patronizing manner with the managing clerk of an attorney at the door; and in Curling, the wig-maker's melancholy shop, where, from behind the feeble glimmer of a couple of lights, large sergeants' and judges' wigs were looming drearily, with the blank blocks looking at the lamp-post in the court. Two little clerks were playing at toss-halfpenny under that lamp. A laundress in pattens pa.s.sed in at one door, a newspaper boy issued from another. A porter, whose white ap.r.o.n was faintly visible, paced up and down. It would be impossible to conceive a place more dismal, and the major shuddered to think that any one should select such a residence. "Good Ged!" he said, "the poor boy mustn't live on here."

The feeble and filthy oil-lamps, with which the stair-cases of the Upper Temple are lighted of night, were of course not illuminating the stairs by day, and Major Pendennis, having read with difficulty his nephew's name under Mr. Warrington's on the wall of No. 6, found still greater difficulty in climbing the abominable black stairs, up the banisters of which, which contributed their damp exudations to his gloves, he groped painfully until he came to the third story. A candle was in the pa.s.sage of one of the two sets of rooms; the doors were open, and the names of Mr. Warrington and Mr. A. Pendennis were very clearly visible to the major as he went in. An Irish charwoman, with a pail and broom, opened the door for the major.

"Is that the beer?" cried out a great voice: "give us hold of it."

The gentleman who was speaking was seated on a table, unshorn and smoking a short pipe; in a farther chair sate Pen, with a cigar, and his legs near the fire. A little boy, who acted as the clerk of these gentlemen, was grinning in the major's face, at the idea of his being mistaken for beer. Here, upon the third floor, the rooms were somewhat lighter, and the major could see the place.

"Pen, my boy, it's I--it's your uncle," he said, choking with the smoke.

But as most young men of fas.h.i.+on used the weed, he pardoned the practice easily enough.

Mr. Warrington got up from the table, and Pen, in a very perturbed manner, from his chair. "Beg your pardon, for mistaking you," said Warrington, in a frank, loud voice. "Will you take a cigar, sir? Clear those things off the chair, Pidgeon, and pull it round to the fire."

Pen flung his cigar into the grate; and was pleased with the cordiality with which his uncle shook him by the hand. As soon as he could speak for the stairs and the smoke, the major began to ask Pen very kindly about himself and about his mother; for blood is blood, and he was pleased once more to see the boy.

Pen gave his news, and then introduced Mr. Warrington--an old Boniface man--whose chambers he shared.

The major was quite satisfied when he heard that Mr. Warrington was a younger son of Sir Miles Warrington of Suffolk. He had served with an uncle of his in India and in New South Wales, years ago.

"Took a sheep-farm there, sir, made a fortune--better thing than law or soldiering," Warrington said. "Think I shall go there too." And here the expected beer coming in, in a tankard with a gla.s.s bottom, Mr.

Warrington, with a laugh, said he supposed the major would not have any, and took a long, deep draught himself, after which he wiped his wrist across his beard with great satisfaction. The young man was perfectly easy and unembarra.s.sed. He was dressed in a ragged old shooting-jacket, and had a bristly blue beard. He was drinking beer like a coal-heaver, and yet you couldn't but perceive that he was a gentleman.

When he had sate for a minute or two after his draught he went out of the room, leaving it to Pen and his uncle, that they might talk over family affairs were they so inclined.

"Rough and ready, your chum seems," the major said. "Somewhat different from your dandy friends at Oxbridge."

"Times are altered," Arthur replied, with a blush. "Warrington is only just called, and has no business, but he knows law pretty well: and until I can afford to read with a pleader, I use his books, and get his help."

"Is that one of the books?" the major asked, with a smile. A French novel was lying at the foot of Pen's chair.

"This is not a working day, sir," the lad said. "We were out very late at a party last night--at Lady Whiston's," Pen added, knowing his uncle's weakness. "Every body in town was there except you, sir; Counts, Emba.s.sadors, Turks, Stars and Garters--I don't know who--it's all in the paper--and my name, too," said Pen, with great glee. "I met an old flame of mine there, sir," he added, with a laugh. "You know whom I mean, sir--Lady Mirabel--to whom I was introduced over again. She shook hands, and was gracious enough. I may thank you for being out of that sc.r.a.pe, sir. She presented me to the husband, too--an old beau in a star and a blonde wig. He does not seem very wise. She has asked me to call on her, sir: and I may go now without any fear of losing my heart."

"What, we have had some new loves, have we?" the major asked, in high good-humor.

"Some two or three," Mr. Pen said, laughing. "But I don't put on my _grand serieux_ any more, sir. That goes off after the first flame."

"Very right, my dear boy. Flames and darts and pa.s.sion, and that sort of thing, do very well for a lad: and you were but a lad when that affair with the Fotheringill--Fotheringay--(what's her name?) came off.

But a man of the world gives up those follies. You still may do very well. You have been hit, but you may recover. You are heir to a little independence, which every body fancies is a doosid deal more. You have a good name, good wits, good manners, and a good person--and, begad!

I don't see why you shouldn't many a woman with money--get into Parliament--distinguish yourself, and--and, in fact, that sort of thing.

Remember, it's as easy to marry a rich woman as a poor woman: and a devilish deal pleasanter to sit down to a good dinner, than to a scrag of mutton in lodgings. Make up your mind to that. A woman with a good jointure is a doosid deal easier a profession than the law, let me tell you. Look out; I shall be on the watch for you: and I shall die content, my boy, if I can see you with a good lady-like wife, and a good carriage, and a good pair of horses, living in society, and seeing your friends, like a gentleman. Would you like to vegetate like your dear good mother at Fairoaks? Dammy, sir! life, without money and the best society, isn't worth having." It was thus this affectionate uncle spoke, and expounded to Pen his simple philosophy.