A History of Pendennis Volume II Part 4

Lucky he who has been educated to bear his fate, whatsoever it may be, by an early example of uprightness, and a childish training in honor!

CHAPTER IV.

ALSATIA.

Bred up, like a bailiff or a shabby attorney, about the purlieus of the Inns of Court, Shepherd's Inn is always to be found in the close neighborhood of Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, and the Temple. Somewhere behind the black gables and s.m.u.tty chimney-stacks of Wych-street, Holywell-street, Chancery-lane, the quadrangle lies, hidden from the outer world; and it is approached by curious pa.s.sages, and ambiguous smoky alleys, on which the sun has forgotten to s.h.i.+ne. Slop-sellers, brandy-ball and hard-bake venders, purveyors of theatrical prints for youth, dealers in dingy furniture, and bedding suggestive of any thing but sleep, line the narrow walls and dark cas.e.m.e.nts with their wares.

The doors are many-belled, and crowds of dirty children form endless groups about the steps, or around the sh.e.l.l-fish dealers' trays in these courts, whereof the damp pavements resound with pattens, and are drabbled with a never-failing mud. Ballad-singers come and chant here, in deadly, guttural tones, satirical songs against the Whig administration, against the bishops and dignified clergy, against the German relatives of an august royal family; Punch sets up his theater, sure of an audience, and occasionally of a halfpenny from the swarming occupants of the houses; women scream after their children for loitering in the gutter, or, worse still, against the husband who comes reeling from the gin-shop. There is a ceaseless din and life in these courts, out of which you pa.s.s into the tranquil, old-fas.h.i.+oned quadrangle of Shepherd's Inn. In a mangy little gra.s.s-plat in the center rises up the statue of Shepherd, defended by iron railings from the a.s.saults of boys. The hall of the Inn, on which the founder's arms are painted, occupies one side of the square, the tall and ancient chambers are carried round other two sides, and over the central archway, which leads into Oldcastle-street, and so into the great London thoroughfare.

The Inn may have been occupied by lawyers once: but the laity have long since been admitted into its precincts, and I do not know that any of the princ.i.p.al legal firms have their chambers here. The offices of the Polwheedle and Tredyddlum Copper Mines occupy one set of the ground-floor chambers; the Registry of Patent Inventions and Union of Genius and Capital Company, another--the only gentleman whose name figures here and in the "Law List," is Mr. Campion, who wears mustaches, and who comes in his cab twice or thrice in a week; and whose West End offices are in Curzon-street, Mayfair, where Mrs.

Campion entertains the n.o.bility and gentry to whom her husband lends money. There, and on his glazed cards, he is Mr. Somerset Campion; here he is Campion and Co.; and the same tuft which ornaments his chin, sprouts from the under lip of the rest of the firm. It is splendid to see his cab-horse harness blazing with heraldic bearings, as the vehicle stops at the door leading to his chambers. The horse flings froth off his nostrils as he chafes and tosses under the s.h.i.+ning bit. The reins and the breeches of the groom are glittering white--the l.u.s.ter of that equipage makes a suns.h.i.+ne in that shady place.

Our old friend, Captain Costigan, has examined Campion's cab and horse many an afternoon, as he trailed about the court in his carpet slippers and dressing-gown, with his old hat c.o.c.ked over his eye. He suns himself there after his breakfast when the day is suitable; and goes and pays a visit to the porter's lodge, where he pats the heads of the children, and talks to Mrs. Bolton about the thayatres and me daughter Leedy Mirabel. Mrs. Bolton was herself in the profession once, and danced at the Wells in early days as the thirteenth of Mr.

Serle's forty pupils.

Costigan lives in the third floor at No. 4, in the rooms which were Mr. Podmore's, and whose name is still on the door (somebody else's name, by the way, is on almost all the doors in Shepherd's Inn). When Charley Podmore (the pleasing tenor singer, T.R.D.L., and at the Back-Kitchen Concert Rooms), married, and went to live at Lambeth, he ceded his chambers to Mr. Bows and Captain Costigan, who occupy them in common now, and you may often hear the tones of Mr. Bows's piano of fine days when the windows are open, and when he is practicing for amus.e.m.e.nt, or for the instruction of a theatrical pupil, of whom he has one or two. f.a.n.n.y Bolton is one, the porteress's daughter, who has heard tell of her mother's theatrical glories, which she longs to emulate. She has a good voice and a pretty face and figure for the stage; and she prepares the rooms and makes the beds and breakfasts for Messrs. Costigan and Bows, in return for which the latter instructs her in music and singing. But for his unfortunate propensity to liquor (and in that excess she supposes that all men of fas.h.i.+on indulge), she thinks the captain the finest gentleman in the world, and believes in all the versions of all his stories; and she is very fond of Mr. Bows, too, and very grateful to him; and this shy, queer old gentleman has a fatherly fondness for her, too, for in truth his heart is full of kindness, and he is never easy unless he loves somebody.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Costigan has had the carriages of visitors of distinction before his humble door in Shepherd's Inn: and to hear him talk of a morning (for his evening song is of a much more melancholy nature) you would fancy that Sir Charles and Lady Mirabel were in the constant habit of calling at his chambers, and bringing with them the select n.o.bility to visit the "old man, the honest old half-pay captain, poor old Jack Costigan," as Cos calls himself.

The truth is, that Lady Mirabel has left her husband's card (which has been stuck in the little looking-gla.s.s over the mantle-piece of the sitting-room at No. 4, for these many months past), and has come in person to see her father, but not of late days. A kind person, disposed to discharge her duties gravely, upon her marriage with Sir Charles, she settled a little pension upon her father, who occasionally was admitted to the table of his daughter and son-in-law.

At first poor Cos's behavior "in the hoight of poloit societee," as he denominated Lady Mirabel's drawing-room table, was harmless, if it was absurd. As he clothed his person in his best attire, so he selected the longest and richest words in his vocabulary to deck his conversation, and adopted a solemnity of demeanor which struck with astonishment all those persons in whose company he happened to be.

"Was your Leedys.h.i.+p in the Pork to-dee?" he would demand of his daughter. "I looked for your equipage in veen:--the poor old man was not gratified by the soight of his daughter's choriot. Sir Chorlus, I saw your neem at the Levee; many's the Levee at the Castle at Dublin that poor old Jack Costigan has attended in his time. Did the Juke look pretty well? Bedad, I'll call at Apsley House and lave me cyard upon 'um. I thank ye, James, a little dthrop more champeane." Indeed, he was magnificent in his courtesy to all, and addressed his observations not only to the master and the guests, but to the domestics who waited at the table, and who had some difficulty in maintaining their professional gravity while they waited on Captain Costigan.

On the first two or three visits to his son-in-law, Costigan maintained a strict sobriety, content to make up for his lost time when he got to the Back-Kitchen, where he bragged about his son-in-law's clart and burgundee, until his own utterance began to fail him, over his sixth tumbler of whiskey-punch. But with familiarity his caution vanished, and poor Cos lamentably disgraced himself at Sir Charles Mirabel's table, by premature inebriation. A carriage was called for him: the hospitable door was shut upon him.

Often and sadly did he speak to his friends at the Kitchen of his resemblance to King Lear in the plee--of his having a thankless choild, bedad--of his being a pore worn-out, lonely old man, dthriven to dthrinking by ingrat.i.tude, and seeking to dthrown his sorrows in punch.

It is painful to be obliged to record the weaknesses of fathers, but it must be furthermore told of Costigan, that when his credit was exhausted and his money gone, he would not unfrequently beg money from his daughter, and make statements to her not altogether consistent with strict truth. On one day a bailiff was about to lead him to prison, he wrote, "unless the--to you insignificant--sum of three pound five can be forthcoming to liberate a poor man's gray hairs from jail." And the good-natured Lady Mirabel dispatched the money necessary for her father's liberation, with a caution to him to be more economical for the future. On a second occasion the captain met with a frightful accident, and broke a plate-gla.s.s window in the Strand, for which the proprietor of the shop held him liable. The money was forthcoming on this time too, to repair her papa's disaster, and was carried down by Lady Mirabel's servant to the slip-shod messenger and aid-de-camp of the captain, who brought the letter announcing his mishap. If the servant had followed the captain's aid-de-camp who carried the remittance, he would have seen that gentleman, a person of Costigan's country too (for have we not said, that however poor an Irish gentleman is, he always has a poorer Irish gentleman to run on his errands and transact his pecuniary affairs?) call a cab from the nearest stand, and rattle down to the Roscius's Head, Harlequin-yard, Drury-lane, where the captain was indeed in p.a.w.n, and for several gla.s.ses containing rum and water, or other spirituous refreshment, of which he and his staff had partaken. On a third melancholy occasion he wrote that he was attacked by illness, and wanted money to pay the physician whom he was compelled to call in; and this time Lady Mirabel, alarmed about her father's safety, and perhaps reproaching herself that she had of late lost sight of her father, called for her carriage and drove to Shepherd's Inn, at the gate of which she alighted, whence she found the way to her father's chambers, "No. 4, third floor, name of Podmore over the door," the porteress said, with many courtesies, pointing toward the door of the house into which the affectionate daughter entered, and mounted the dingy stair. Alas! the door, surmounted by the name of Podmore, was opened to her by poor Cos in his s.h.i.+rt-sleeves, and prepared with the gridiron to receive the mutton-chops, which Mrs. Bolton had gone to purchase.

Also, it was not pleasant for Sir Charles Mirabel to have letters constantly addressed to him at Brookes's, with the information that Captain Costigan was in the hall waiting for an answer; or when he went to play his rubber at the Travelers', to be obliged to shoot out of his brougham and run up the steps rapidly, lest his father-in-law should seize upon him; and to think that while he read his paper or played his whist, the captain was walking on the opposite side of Pall Mall, with that dreadful c.o.c.ked hat, and the eye beneath it fixed steadily upon the windows of the club. Sir Charles was a weak man; he was old, and had many infirmities: he cried about his father-in-law to his wife, whom he adored with senile infatuation: he said he must go abroad--he must go and live in the country--he should die, or have another fit if he saw that man again--he knew he should. And it was only by paying a second visit to Captain Costigan, and representing to him, that if he plagued Sir Charles by letters, or addressed him in the street, or made any further applications for loans, his allowance would be withdrawn altogether; that Lady Mirabel was enabled to keep her papa in order, and to restore tranquillity to her husband. And on occasion of this visit, she sternly rebuked Bows for not keeping a better watch over the captain; desired that he should not be allowed to drink in that shameful way; and that the people at the horrid taverns which he frequented should be told, upon no account to give him credit. "Papa's conduct is bringing me to the grave," she said (though she looked perfectly healthy), "and you, as an old man, Mr.

Bows, and one that pretended to have a regard for us, ought to be ashamed of abetting him in it." These were the thanks which honest Bows got for his friends.h.i.+p and his life's devotion. And I do not suppose that the old philosopher was much worse off than many other men, or had greater reason to grumble. On the second floor of the next house to Bows's, in Shepherd's Inn, at No. 3, live two other acquaintances of ours. Colonel Altamont, agent to the Nawaab of Lucknow, and Captain the Chevalier Edward Strong. No name at all is over their door. The captain does not choose to let all the world know where he lives, and his cards bear the address of a Jermyn-street hotel; and as for the Emba.s.sador Plenipotentiary of the Indian potentate, he is not an envoy accredited to the Courts of St. James's or Leadenhall-street, but is here on a confidential mission, quite independent of the East India Company or the Board of Control.

"In fact," as Strong says, "Colonel Altamont's object being financial, and to effectuate a sale of some of the princ.i.p.al diamonds and rubies of the Lucknow crown, his wish is _not_ to report himself at the India House or in Cannon-row, but rather to negotiate with private capitalists--with whom he has had important transactions both in this country and on the Continent."

We have said that these anonymous chambers of Strong's had been very comfortably furnished since the arrival of Sir Francis Clavering in London, and the chevalier might boast with reason to the friends who visited him, that few retired captains were more snugly quartered than he, in his crib in Shepherd's Inn. There were three rooms below: the office where Strong transacted his business--whatever that might be--and where still remained the desk and railings of the departed officials who had preceded him, and the chevalier's own bedroom and sitting room; and a private stair led out of the office to two upper apartments, the one occupied by Colonel Altamont, and the other serving as the kitchen of the establishment, and the bedroom of Mr.

Grady, the attendant. These rooms were on a level with the apartments of our friends Bows and Costigan next door at No. 4; and by reaching over the communicating leads, Grady could command the mignonnette-box which bloomed in Bows's window.

From Grady's kitchen cas.e.m.e.nt often came odors still more fragrant.

The three old soldiers who formed the garrison of No. 4, were all skilled in the culinary art. Grady was great at an Irish stew; the colonel was famous for pillaus and curries; and as for Strong, he could cook any thing. He made French dishes and Spanish dishes, stews, frica.s.sees, and omelettes, to perfection; nor was there any man in England more hospitable than he when his purse was full, or his credit was good. At those happy periods, he could give a friend, as he said, a good dinner, a good gla.s.s of wine, and a good song afterward; and poor Cos often heard with envy the roar of Strong's choruses, and the musical clinking of the gla.s.ses as he sate in his own room, so far removed and yet so near to those festivities. It was not expedient to invite Mr. Costigan always; his practice of inebriation was lamentable; and he bored Strong's guests with his stories when sober, and with his maudlin tears when drunk.

A strange and motley set they were, these friends of the chevalier; and though Major Pendennis would not much have relished their company, Arthur and Warrington liked it not a little, and Pen thought it as amusing as the society of the finest gentlemen in the finest houses which he had the honor to frequent. There was a history about every man of the set: they seemed all to have had their tides of luck and bad fortune. Most of them had wonderful schemes and speculations in their pockets, and plenty for making rapid and extraordinary fortunes.

Jack Holt had been in Don Carlos's army, when Ned Strong had fought on the other side; and was now organizing a little scheme for smuggling tobacco into London, which must bring thirty thousand a year to any man who would advance fifteen hundred, just to bribe the last officer of the Excise who held out, and had wind of the scheme. Tom Diver, who had been in the Mexican navy, knew of a specie-s.h.i.+p which had been sunk in the first year of the war, with three hundred and eighty thousand dollars on board, and a hundred and eighty thousand pounds in bars and doubloons. "Give me eighteen hundred pounds," Tom said, "and I'm off tomorrow. I take out four men, and a diving-bell with me; and I return in ten months to take my seat in parliament, by Jove! and to buy back my family estate." Keightley, the manager of the Tredyddlum and Polwheedle Copper Mines (which were as yet under water), besides singing as good a second as any professional man, and besides the Tredyddlum Office, had a Smyrna Sponge Company, and a little quicksilver operation in view, which would set him straight with the world yet. Filby had been every thing: a corporal of dragoons, a field-preacher, and missionary-agent for converting the Irish; an actor at a Greenwich fair-booth, in front of which his father's attorney found him when the old gentleman died and left him that famous property, from which he got no rents now, and of which n.o.body exactly knew the situation. Added to these was Sir Francis Clavering, Bart., who liked their society, though he did not much add to its amus.e.m.e.nts by his convivial powers. But he was made much of by the company now, on account of his wealth and position in the world. He told his little story and sang his little song or two with great affability; and he had had his own history, too, before his accession to good fortune; and had seen the inside of more prisons than one, and written his name on many a stamped paper.

When Altamont first returned from Paris, and after he had communicated with Sir Francis Clavering from the hotel at which he had taken up his quarters (and which he had reached in a very denuded state, considering the wealth of diamonds and rubies with which this honest man was intrusted), Strong was sent to him by his patron the baronet; paid his little bill at the inn, and invited him to come and sleep for a night or two at the chambers, where he subsequently took up his residence. To negotiate with this man was very well, but to have such a person settled in his rooms, and to be constantly burdened with such society, did not suit the chevalier's taste much: and he grumbled not a little to his princ.i.p.al.

"I wish you would put this bear into somebody else's cage," he said to Clavering. "The fellow's no gentleman. I don't like walking with him. He dresses himself like a n.i.g.g.e.r on a holiday. I took him to the play the other night: and, by Jove, sir, he abused the actor who was doing the part of villain in the play, and swore at him so, that the people in the boxes wanted to turn him out. The after-piece was the 'Brigand,' where Wallack comes in wounded, you know, and dies. When he died, Altamont began to cry like a child, and said it was a d--d shame, and cried and swore so, that there was another row, and every body laughing. Then I had to take him away, because he wanted to take his coat off to one fellow who laughed at him; and bellowed to him to stand up like a man. Who is he? Where the deuce does he come from? You had best tell me the whole story. Frank, you must one day. You and he have robbed a church together, that's my belief. You had better get it off your mind at once, Clavering, and tell me what this Altamont is, and what hold he has over you."

"Hang him! I wish he was dead!" was the baronet's only reply; and his countenance became so gloomy, that Strong did not think fit to question his patron any further at that time; but resolved, if need were, to try and discover for himself what was the secret tie between Altamont and Clavering.

CHAPTER V.

IN WHICH THE COLONEL NARRATES SOME OF HIS ADVENTURES.

Early in the forenoon of the day after the dinner in Grosvenor-place, at which Colonel Altamont had chosen to appear, the colonel emerged from his chamber in the upper story at Shepherd's Inn, and entered into Strong's sitting-room, where the chevalier sat in his easy-chair with the newspaper and his cigar. He was a man who made his tent comfortable wherever he pitched it, and long before Altamont's arrival, had done justice to a copious breakfast of fried eggs and broiled rashers, which Mr. Grady had prepared _secundum artem_.

Good-humored and talkative, he preferred any company rather than none; and though he had not the least liking for his fellow-lodger, and would not have grieved to hear that the accident had befallen him which Sir Francis Clavering desired so fervently, yet kept on fair terms with him. He had seen Altamont to bed with great friendliness on the night previous, and taken away his candle for fear of accidents; and finding a spirit-bottle empty, upon which he had counted for his nocturnal refreshment, had drunk a gla.s.s of water with perfect contentment over his pipe, before he turned into his own crib and to sleep. That enjoyment never failed him: he had always an easy temper, a faultless digestion, and a rosy cheek; and whether he was going into action the next morning or to prison (and both had been his lot), in the camp or the Fleet, the worthy captain snored healthfully through the night, and woke with a good heart and appet.i.te, for the struggles or difficulties or pleasures of the day.

The first act of Colonel Altamont was to bellow to Grady for a pint of pale ale, the which he first poured into a pewter flagon, whence he transferred it to his own lips. He put down the tankard empty, drew a great breath, wiped his mouth in his dressing-gown (the difference of the color of his heard from his dyed whiskers had long struck Captain Strong, who had seen too that his hair was fair under his black wig, but made no remarks upon these circ.u.mstances)--the colonel drew a great breath, and professed himself immensely refreshed by his draught. "Nothing like that beer," he remarked, "when the coppers are hot. Many a day I've drunk a dozen of Ba.s.s at Calcutta, and--and--"

"And at Lucknow, I suppose," Strong said with a laugh. "I got the beer for you on purpose: knew you'd want it after last night." And the colonel began to talk about his adventures of the preceding evening.

"I can not help myself," the colonel said, beating his head with his big hand. "I'm a madman when I get the liquor on board me; and ain't fit to be trusted with a spirit-bottle. When I once begin I can't stop till I've emptied it; and when I've swallowed it, Lord knows what I say or what I don't say. I dined at home here quite quiet. Grady gave me just my two tumblers, and I intended to pa.s.s the evening at the Black and Red as sober as a parson. Why did you leave that confounded sample-bottle of Hollands out of the cupboard, Strong? Grady must go out, too, and leave me the kettle a-boiling for tea. It was of no use, I couldn't keep away from it. Washed it all down, sir, by Jingo. And it's my belief I had some more, too, afterward at that infernal little thieves' den."

"What, were you there, too?" Strong asked, "and before you came to Grosvenor-place? That was beginning betimes."

"Early hours to be drunk and cleared out before nine o'clock, eh? But so it was. Yes, like a great big fool, I must go there; and found the fellows dining, Blackland and young Moss, and two or three more of the thieves. If we'd gone to Rouge et Noir, I must have won. But we didn't try the black and red. No, hang 'em, they know'd I'd have beat 'em at that--I must have beat 'em--I can't help beating 'em, I tell you. But they was too cunning for me. That rascal Blackland got the bones out, and we played hazard on the dining-table. And I dropped all the money I had from you in the morning, be hanged to my luck. It was that that set me wild, and I suppose I must have been very hot about the head, for I went off thinking to get some more money from Clavering, I recollect; and then--and then I don't much remember what happened till I woke this morning, and heard old Bows, at No. 3, playing on his pianner."

Strong mused for a while as he lighted his cigar with a coal. "I should like to know how you always draw money from Clavering, colonel," he said.

The colonel burst out with a laugh, "Ha, ha! he owes it me," he said.

"I don't know that that's a reason with Frank for paying," Strong answered. "He owes plenty besides you."

"Well, he gives it me because he is so fond of me," the other said, with the same grinning sneer. "He loves me like a brother; you know he does, captain. No?--He don't?--Well, perhaps he don't; and if you ask me no questions, perhaps I'll tell you no lies, Captain Strong--put that in your pipe and smoke it, my boy."

"But I'll give up that confounded brandy-bottle," the colonel continued, after a pause. "I must give it up, or it'll be the ruin of me." "It makes you say queer things," said the captain, looking Altamont hard in the face. "Remember what you said last night at Clavering's table."

"Say? What _did_ I say?" asked the other hastily. "Did I split any thing? Dammy, Strong, did I split any thing?"

"Ask me no questions, and I will tell you no lies," the chevalier replied on his part. Strong thought of the words Mr. Altamont had used, and his abrupt departure from the baronet's dining-table and house as soon as he recognized Major Pendennis, or Captain Beak, as he called the major. But Strong resolved to seek an explanation of these words otherwise than from Colonel Altamont, and did not choose to recall them to the other's memory. "No," he said then, "you didn't split as you call it, colonel; it was only a trap of mine to see if I could make you speak; but you didn't say a word that any body could comprehend--you were too far gone for that."

So much the better, Altamont thought; and heaved a great sigh, as if relieved. Strong remarked the emotion, but took no notice, and the other being in a communicative mood, went on speaking.

"Yes, I own to my faults," continued the colonel. "There is some things I can't, do what I will, resist: a bottle of brandy, a box of dice, and a beautiful woman. No man of pluck and spirit, no man as was worth his salt ever could, as I know of. There's hardly p'raps a country in the world in which them three ain't got me into trouble."

"Indeed?" said Strong.

"Yes, from the age of fifteen, when I ran away from home, and went cabin-boy on board an Indiaman, till now, when I'm fifty year old, pretty nigh, them women have always been my ruin. Why, it was one of 'em, and with such black eyes and jewels on her neck, and sattens and ermine like a d.u.c.h.ess, I tell you--it was one of 'em at Paris that swept off the best part of the thousand pound as I went off. Didn't I ever tell you of it? Well, I don't mind. At first I was very cautious, and having such a lot of money kep it close and lived like a gentleman--Colonel Altamont, Meurice's hotel, and that sort of thing-- never played, except at the public tables, and won more than I lost.

Well, sir, there was a chap that I saw at the hotel and the Palace Royal too, a regular swell fellow, with white kid gloves and a tuft to his chin, Bloundell-Bloundell his name was, as I made acquaintance with somehow, and he asked me to dinner, and took me to Madame the Countess de Foljambe's soirees--such a woman, Strong!--such an eye!

such a hand at the pianner. Lor bless you, she'd sit down and sing to you, and gaze at you, until she warbled your soul out of your body a'most. She asked me to go to her evening parties every Toosday; and didn't I take opera-boxes and give her dinners at the restaurateurs, that's all? But I had a run of luck at the tables, and it was not in the dinners and opera-boxes that poor Clavering's money went. No, be hanged to it, it was swep off in another way. One night, at the countess's, there was several of us at supper--Mr. Bloundell-Bloundell, the Honorable Deuceace, the Marky de la Tour de Force--all tip-top n.o.bs, sir, and the height of fas.h.i.+on, when we had supper, and champagne, you may be sure, in plenty, and then some of that confounded brandy.