A History of Pendennis Volume I Part 6

"It is very fine weather," Miss Fotheringay said, in an Irish accent, and with a deep, rich, melancholy voice.

"Very," said Mr. Pendennis. In this romantic way their conversation began, and he found himself seated on a chair, and having leisure to look at the young lady.

She looked still handsomer off the stage than before the lamps. All her att.i.tudes were naturally grand and majestical. If she went and stood up against the mantle-piece her robe draped itself cla.s.sically round her; her chin supported itself on her hand, the other lines of her form arranged themselves in full harmonious undulations: she looked like a muse in contemplation. If she sate down on a cane-bottomed chair, her arm rounded itself over the back of the seat, her hand seemed as if it ought to have a scepter put into it, the folds of her dress fell naturally round her in order, like ladies of honor round a throne, and she looked like an empress. All her movements were graceful and imperial. In the morning you could see her hair was blue-black, her complexion of dazzling fairness, with the faintest possible blush flickering, as it were, in her cheek. Her eyes were gray, with prodigious long lashes; and as for her mouth, Mr. Pendennis has given me subsequently to understand, that it was of a staring red color, with which the most brilliant geranium, sealing-wax, or guardsman's coat, could not vie.

"And very warm," continued this empress and Queen of Sheba.

Mr. Pen again a.s.sented, and the conversation rolled on in this manner.

She asked Costigan whether he had had a pleasant evening at the George, and he recounted the supper and the tumblers of punch. Then the father asked her how she had been employing the morning.

"Bows came," said she, "at ten, and we studied Ophalia. It's for the twenty-fourth, when I hope, sir, we shall have the honor of seeing ye."

"Indeed, indeed, you will," Mr. Pendennis cried, wondering that she should say "Ophalia," and speak with an Irish inflection of voice naturally, who had not the least Hibernian accent on the stage.

"I've secured 'um for your benefit, dear," said the captain, tapping his waistcoat pocket, wherein lay Pen's sovereigns, and winking at Pen with one eye, at which the boy blushed.

"Mr. ---- the gentleman's very obleging," said Mrs. Haller.

"My name is Pendennis," said Pen, blus.h.i.+ng. "I--I--hope you'll--you'll remember it." His heart thumped so as he made this audacious declaration, that he almost choked in uttering it.

"Pendennis," she answered slowly, and looking him full in the eyes, with a glance so straight, so clear, so bright, so killing, with a voice so sweet, so round, so low, that the word and the glance shot Pen through and through, and perfectly transfixed him with pleasure.

"I never knew the name was so pretty before," Pen said.

"'Tis a very pretty name," Ophelia said. "Pentweazle's not a pretty name. Remember, papa, when we were on the Norwich Circuit, Young Pentweazle, who used to play second old men, and married Miss Rancy, the Columbine; they're both engaged in London now, at the Queen's, and get five pounds a week. Pentweazle wasn't his real name. 'Twas Judkin gave it him, I don't know why. His name was Harrington; that is, his real name was Potts; fawther a clergyman, very respectable. Harrington was in London, and got in debt. Ye remember, he came out in Falkland, to Mrs.

Bunce's Julia."

"And a pretty Julia she was," the captain interposed; "a woman of fifty, and a mother of ten children. 'Tis you ought to have been Julia, or my name's not Jack Costigan."

"I didn't take the leading business then," Miss Fotheringay said, modestly; "I wasn't fit for't till Bows taught me."

"True for you, my dear," said the captain: and bending to Pendennis, he added, "Rejuced in circ.u.mstances, sir, I was for some time a fencing master in Dublin (there's only three men in the empire could touch me with the foil once, but Jack Costigan's getting old and stiff now, sir); and my daughter had an engagement at the thayater there; and 'twas there that my friend, Mr. Bows, who saw her capabilities, and is an uncommon 'cute man, gave her lessons in the dramatic art, and made her what ye see. What have ye done since Bows went, Emily?"

"Sure, I've made a pie," Emily said, with perfect simplicity. She, p.r.o.nounced it "poy."

"If ye'll try it at four o'clock, sir, say the word," said Costigan, gallantly. "That girl, sir, makes the best veal and ham pie in England, and I think I can promise ye a gla.s.s of punch of the right flavor."

Pen had promised to be at home to dinner at six o'clock, but the rascal thought he could accommodate pleasure and duty in this point, and was only too eager to accept this invitation. He looked on with delight and wonder while Ophelia busied herself about the room, and prepared for the dinner. She arranged the gla.s.ses, and laid and smoothed the little cloth, all which duties she performed with a quiet grace and good humor, which enchanted her guest more and more. The "poy" arrived from the baker's, in the hands of one of the little choir-boy's brothers, at the proper hour: and at four o'clock, Pen found himself at dinner--actually at dinner with the greatest tragic actress in the world, and her father--with the handsomest woman in all creation--with his first and only love, whom he had adored ever since when?--ever since yesterday, ever since forever. He ate a crust of her making, he poured her out a gla.s.s of beer, he saw her drink a gla.s.s of punch--just one wine-gla.s.s full--out of the tumbler which she mixed for her papa. She was perfectly good-natured, and offered to mix one for Pendennis too. It was prodigiously strong; Pen had never in his life drunk so much spirits and water. Was it the punch, or the punch-maker who intoxicated him?

During dinner, when the captain, whom his daughter treated most respectfully, ceased prattling about himself and his adventures, Pen tried to engage the Fotheringay in conversation about poetry and about her profession. He asked her what she thought of Ophelia's madness, and whether she was in love with Hamlet or not? "In love with such a little ojous wretch as that stunted manager of a Bingley?" She bristled with indignation at the thought. Pen explained it was not of her he spoke, but of Ophelia of the play. "Oh, indeed; if no offense was meant, none was taken; but as for Bingley, indeed, she did not value him--not that gla.s.s of punch." Pen next tried her on Kotzebue. "Kotzebue? who was he?"--"The author of the play in which she had been performing so admirably." "She did not know that--the man's name at the beginning of the book was Thompson," she said. Pen laughed at her adorable simplicity. He told her of the melancholy fate of the author of the play, and how Sand had killed him. It was for the first time in her life that Miss Costigan had ever heard of Mr. Kotzebue's existence, but she looked as if she was very much interested, and her sympathy sufficed for honest Pen.

And in the midst of this simple conversation, the hour and a quarter which poor Pen could afford to allow himself, pa.s.sed away only too quickly; and he had taken leave, he was gone, and away on his rapid road homeward on the back of Rebecca. She was called upon to show her mettle in the three journeys which she made that day.

"What was that he was talking about, the madness of Hamlet, and the theory of the great German critic on the subject?" Emily asked of her father.

"'Deed then I don't know, Milly dear," answered the captain. "We'll ask Bows when he comes."

"Anyhow, he's a nice, fair-spoken, pretty young man," the lady said: "how many tickets did he take of you?"

"'Fait, then, he took six, and gev me two guineas, Milly," the captain said, "I suppose them young chaps is not too flush of coin."

"He's full of book-learning," Miss Fotheringay continued. "Kotzebue! He, he, what a droll name indeed, now; and the poor fellow killed by Sand, too! Did ye ever hear such a thing? I'll ask Bows about it, papa, dear."

"A queer death, sure enough," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the captain, and changed the painful theme. "'Tis an elegant mare the young gentleman rides,"

Costigan went on to say; "and a grand breakfast, intirely, that young Mister Foker gave us."

"He's good for two private boxes, and at least twenty tickets, I should say," cried the daughter, a prudent la.s.s, who always kept her fine eyes on the main chance.

"I'll go bail of that," answered the papa; and so their conversation continued awhile, until the tumbler of punch was finished; and their hour of departure soon came, too; for at half past six Miss Fotheringay was to appear at the theater again, whither her father always accompanied her; and stood, as we have seen, in the side-scene watching her, and drank spirits-and-water in the green-room with the company there.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"How beautiful she is," thought Pen, cantering homeward. "How simple and how tender! How charming it is to see a woman of her commanding genius busying herself with the delightful, though humble, offices of domestic life, cooking dishes to make her old father comfortable, and brewing drink for him with her delicate fingers! How rude it was of me to begin to talk about professional matters, and how well she turned the conversation! By-the-way, she talked about professional matters herself; but then with what fun and humor she told the story of her comrade, Pentweazle, as he was called! There is no humor like Irish humor. Her father is rather tedious, but thoroughly amiable; and how fine of him, giving lessons in fencing after he quitted the army, where he was the pet of the Duke of Kent! Fencing! I should like to continue my fencing, or I shall forget what Angelo taught me. Uncle Arthur always liked me to fence--he says it is the exercise of a gentleman. Hang it. I'll take some lessons of Captain Costigan. Go along, Rebecca--up the hill, old lady. Pendennis, Pendennis--how she spoke the word! Emily, Emily! how good, how n.o.ble, how beautiful, how perfect, she is!"

Now the reader, who has had the benefit of overhearing the entire conversation which Pen had with Miss Fotheringay, can judge for himself about the powers of her mind, and may perhaps be disposed to think that she has not said any thing astonis.h.i.+ngly humorous or intellectual in the course of the above interview. She has married, and taken her position in the world as a most spotless and irreproachable lady since, and I have had the pleasure of making her acquaintance: and must certainly own, against my friend Pen's opinion, that his adored Emily is not a clever woman. The truth is, she had not only never heard of Kotzebue, but she had never heard of Farquhar, or Congreve, or any dramatist in whose plays she had not a part: and of these dramas she only knew that part which concerned herself. A wag once told her that Dante was born at Algiers: and asked her--which Dr. Johnson wrote first, "Irene," or "Every Man in his Humor." But she had the best of the joke, for she had never heard of Irene, or Every Man in his Humor, or Dante, or perhaps Algiers. It was all one to her. She acted what little Bows told her--where he told her to sob, she sobbed--where he told her to laugh, she laughed. She gave the tirade or the repartee without the slightest notion of its meaning. She went to church and goes every Sunday, with a reputation perfectly intact, and was (and is) as guiltless of sense as of any other crime.

But what did our Pen know of these things? He saw a pair of bright eyes, and he believed in them--a beautiful image, and he fell down and wors.h.i.+ped it. He supplied the meaning which her words wanted; and created the divinity which he loved. Was t.i.tania the first who fell in love with an a.s.s, or Pygmalion the only artist who has gone crazy about a stone? He had found her; he had found what his soul thirsted after. He flung himself into the stream and drank with all his might. Let those say who have been thirsty once how delicious that first draught is. As he rode down the avenue toward home, Pen shrieked with laughter, as he saw the Reverend Mr. Smirke once more coming demurely away from Fairoaks on his pony. Smirke had dawdled and staid at the cottages on the way, and then dawdled with Laura over her lessons--and then looked at Mrs.

Pendennis's gardens and improvements until he had perfectly bored out that lady: and he had taken his leave at the very last minute without that invitation to dinner which he fondly expected.

Pen was full of kindness and triumph. "What, picked up and sound?" he cried out, laughing. "Come along back, old fellow, and eat my dinner--I have had mine: but we will have a bottle of the old wine and drink her health, Smirke."

Poor Smirke turned the pony's head round, and jogged along with Arthur.

His mother was charmed to see him in such high spirits, and welcomed Mr.

Smirke for his sake, when Arthur said he had forced the curate back to dine. He gave a most ludicrous account of the play of the night before, and of the acting of Bingley the Manager, in his ricketty Hessians, and the enormous Mrs. Bingley as the Countess, in rumpled green satin and a Polish cap: he mimicked them, and delighted his mother and little Laura, who clapped her hands with pleasure.

"And Mrs. Haller?" said Mrs. Pendennis.

"She's a stunner, ma'am," Pen said, laughing, and using the words of his reverend friend, Mr. Foker.

"A _what_, Arthur?" asked the lady.

"What _is_ a stunner, Arthur?" cried Laura, in the same voice.

So he gave them a queer account of Mr. Foker, and how he used to be called Vats and Grains, and by other contumelious names at school, and how he was now exceedingly rich, and a Fellow Commoner at St. Boniface.

But gay and communicative as he was, Mr. Pen did not say one syllable about his ride to Chatteries that day, or about the new friends whom he had made there.

When the two ladies retired, Pen, with flas.h.i.+ng eyes, filled up two great b.u.mpers of Madeira, and looking Smirke full in the face said, "Here's to her!"

"Here's to her," said the curate with a sigh, lifting the gla.s.s: and emptying it, so that his face was a little pink when he put it down.

Pen had even less sleep that night than on the night before. In the morning, and almost before dawn, he went out and saddled that unfortunate Rebecca himself, and rode her on the Downs like mad.

Again Love had roused him--and said, "Awake Pendennis, I am here."

That charming fever--that delicious longing--and fire, and uncertainty; he hugged them to him--he would not have lost them for all the world.

CHAPTER VI.