Which concludes the first Part of this History
The Curate had gone on his daily errand to Fairoaks, and was upstairs
in Pen’s study pretending to read with his pupil, in the early part of
that very afternoon when Mrs. Portman, after transacting business with
Mrs. Pybus, had found the weather so exceedingly fine that she pursued
her walk as far as Fairoaks, in order to pay a visit to her dear friend
there. In the course of their conversation, the Rector’s lady told Mrs.
Pendennis and the Major a very great secret about the Curate, Mr.
Smirke, which was no less than that he had an attachment, a very old
attachment, which he had long kept quite private.
“And on whom is it that Mr. Smirke has bestowed his heart?” asked Mrs.
Pendennis, with a superb air but rather an inward alarm.
“Why, my dear,” the other lady answered, “when he first came and used
to dine at the Rectory, people said we wanted him for Myra, and we were
forced to give up asking him. Then they used to say he was smitten in
another quarter; but I always contradicted it for my part, and said
that you——”
“That I,” cried Mrs. Pendennis; “people are very impertinent, I am
sure. Mr. Smirke came here as Arthur’s tutor, and I am surprised that
anybody should dare to speak so——”
“’Pon my soul, it is a little too much,” the Major said, laying down
the newspaper and the double eye-glass.
“I’ve no patience with that Mrs. Pybus,” Helen continued indignantly.
“I told her there was no truth in it,” Mrs. Portman said. “I always
said so, my dear: and now it comes out that my demure gentleman has
been engaged to a young lady—Miss Thompson, of Clapham Common, ever so
long: and I am delighted for my part, and on Myra’s account, too, for
an unmarried curate is always objectionable about one’s house: and of
course it is strictly private, but I thought I would tell you, as it
might remove unpleasantnesses. But mind: not one word, if you please,
about the story.”
Mrs. Pendennis said, with perfect sincerity, that she was exceedingly
glad to hear the news: and hoped Mr. Smirke, who was a very kind and
amiable man, would have a deserving wife: and when her visitor went
away, Helen and her brother talked of the matter with great
satisfaction, the kind lady rebuking herself for her haughty behaviour
to Mr. Smirke, whom she had avoided of late, instead of being grateful
to him for his constant attention to Arthur.
“Gratitude to this kind of people,” the Major said, “is very well; but
familiarity is out of the question. This gentleman gives his lessons
and receives his money like any other master. You are too humble, my
good soul. There must be distinctions in ranks, and that sort of thing.
I told you before, you were too kind to Mr. Smirke.”
But Helen did not think so: and now that Arthur was going away, and she
bethought her how very polite Mr. Smirke had been; how he had gone on
messages for her; how he had brought books and copied music; how he had
taught Laura so many things, and given her so many kind presents, her
heart smote her on account of her ingratitude towards the Curate;—so
much so, that when he came down from study with Pen, and was hankering
about the hall previous to his departure, she went out and shook hands
with him with rather a blushing face, and begged him to come into her
drawing-room, where she said they now never saw him. And as there was
to be rather a good dinner that day, she invited Mr. Smirke to partake
of it; and we may be sure that he was too happy to accept such a
delightful summons.
Eased, by the above report, of all her former doubts and misgivings
regarding the Curate, Helen was exceedingly kind and gracious to Mr.
Smirke during dinner, redoubling her attentions, perhaps, because Major
Pendennis was very high and reserved with his nephew’s tutor. When
Pendennis asked Smirke to drink wine, he addressed him as if he was a
Sovereign speaking to a petty retainer, in a manner so condescending,
that even Pen laughed at it, although quite ready, for his part, to be
as conceited as most young men are.
But Smirke did not care for the impertinences of the Major so long as
he had his hostess’s kind behaviour; and he passed a delightful time by
her side at table, exerting all his powers of conversation to please
her, talking in a manner both clerical and worldly, about the Fancy
Bazaar, and the Great Missionary Meeting, about the last new novel, and
the Bishop’s excellent sermon about the fashionable parties in London,
an account of which he read in the newspapers—in fine, he neglected no
art, by which a College divine who has both sprightly and serious
talents, a taste for the genteel, an irreproachable conduct, and a
susceptible heart, will try and make himself agreeable to the person on
whom he has fixed his affections.
Major Pendennis came yawning out of the dining-room very soon after his
sister and little Laura had left the apartment. “What an unsufferable
bore that man is, and how he did talk!” the Major said.
“He has been very good to Arthur, who is very fond of him,” Mrs.
Pendennis said,—“I wonder who the Miss Thompson is whom he is going to
marry?”
“I always thought the fellow was looking in another direction,” said
the Major.
“And in what?” asked Mrs. Pendennis quite innocently,—“towards Myra
Portman?”
“Towards Helen Pendennis, if you must know,” answered her
brother-in-law.
“Towards me! impossible!” Helen said, who knew perfectly well that such
had been the case. “His marriage will be a very happy thing. I hope
Arthur will not take too much wine.”
Now Arthur, flushed with a good deal of pride at the privilege of
having the keys of the cellar, and remembering that a very few more
dinners would probably take place which he and his dear friend Smirke
could share, had brought up a liberal supply of claret for the
company’s drinking, and when the elders with little Laura left him, he
and the Curate began to pass the wine very freely.
One bottle speedily yielded up the ghost, another shed more than half
its blood, before the two topers had been much more than half an hour
together—Pen, with a hollow laugh and voice, had drunk off one bumper
to the falsehood of women, and had said sardonically, that wine at any
rate was a mistress who never deceived, and was sure to give a man a
welcome.
Smirke gently said that he knew for his part some women who were all
truth and tenderness; and casting up his eyes towards the ceiling, and
heaving a sigh as if evoking some being dear and unmentionable, he took
up his glass and drained it, and the rosy liquor began to suffuse his
face.
Pen trolled over some verses he had been making that morning, in which
he informed himself that the woman who had slighted his passion could
not be worthy to win it: that he was awaking from love’s mad fever,
and, of course, under these circumstances, proceeded to leave her, and
to quit a heartless deceiver: that a name which had one day been famous
in the land, might again be heard in it: and, that though he never
should be the happy and careless boy he was but a few months since, or
his heart be what it had been ere passion had filled it and grief had
well-nigh killed it; that though to him personally death was as welcome
as life, and that he would not hesitate to part with the latter, but
for the love of one kind being whose happiness depended on his own,—yet
he hoped to show he was a man worthy of his race, and that one day the
false one should be brought to know how great was the treasure and
noble the heart which she had flung away.
Pen, we say, who was a very excitable person, rolled out these verses
in his rich sweet voice, which trembled with emotion whilst our young
poet spoke. He had a trick of blushing when in this excited state, and
his large and honest grey eyes also exhibited proofs of a sensibility
so genuine, hearty, and manly, that Miss Costigan, if she had a heart,
must needs have softened towards him; and very likely she was, as he
said, altogether unworthy of the affection which he lavished upon her.
The sentimental Smirke was caught by the emotion which agitated his
young friend. He grasped Pen’s hand over the dessert dishes and
wine-glasses. He said the verses were beautiful: that Pen was a poet, a
great poet, and likely by Heaven’s permission to run a great career in
the world. “Go on and prosper, dear Arthur,” he cried; “the wounds
under which at present you suffer are only temporary, and the very
grief you endure will cleanse and strengthen your heart. I have always
prophesied the greatest and brightest things of you, as soon as you
have corrected some failings and weaknesses of character, which at
present belong to you. But you will get over these, my boy; you will
get over these; and when you are famous and celebrated, as I know you
will be, will you remember your old tutor and the happy early days of
your youth?”
Pen swore he would: with another shake of the hand across the glasses
and apricots. “I shall never forget how kind you have been to me,
Smirke,” he said. “I don’t know what I should have done without you.
You are my best friend.”
“Am I, really, Arthur?” said Smirke, looking through his spectacles;
and his heart began to beat so that he thought Pen must almost hear it
throbbing.
“My best friend, my friend for ever,” Pen said. “God bless you, old
boy,” and he drank up the last glass of the second bottle of the famous
wine which his father had laid in, which his uncle had bought, which
Lord Levant had imported, and which now, like a slave indifferent, was
ministering pleasure to its present owner, and giving its young master
delectation.
“We’ll have another bottle, old boy,” Pen said, “by Jove we will.
Hurray!—claret goes for nothing. My uncle was telling me that he saw
Sheridan drink five bottles at Brookes’s, besides a bottle of
Maraschino. This is some of the finest wine in England, he says. So it
is, by Jove. There’s nothing like it. Nunc vino pellite curas—cras
ingens iterabimus aeq,—fill your glass, Old Smirke, a hogshead of it
won’t do you any harm.” And Mr. Pen began to sing the drinking song out
of Der Freischuetz. The dining-room windows were open, and his mother
was softly pacing on the lawn outside, while little Laura was looking
at the sunset. The sweet fresh notes of the boy’s voice came to the
widow. It cheered her kind heart to hear him sing.
“You—you are taking too much wine, Arthur,” Mr. Smirke said softly—“you
are exciting yourself.”
“No,” said Pen, “women give headaches, but this don’t. Fill your glass,
old fellow, and let’s drink—I say, Smirke, my boy—let’s drink to
her—your her, I mean, not mine, for whom I swear I’ll care no more—no,
not a penny—no, not a fig—no, not a glass of wine. Tell us about the
lady, Smirke; I’ve often seen you sighing about her.”
“Oh!” said Smirke—and his beautiful cambric shirt front and glistening
studs heaved with the emotion which agitated his gentle and suffering
bosom.
“Oh—what a sigh!” Pen cried, growing very hilarious; “fill, my boy, and
drink the toast, you can’t refuse a toast, no gentleman refuses a
toast. Here’s her health, and good luck to you, and may she soon be
Mrs. Smirke.”
“Do you say so?” Smirke said, all of a tremble. “Do you really say so,
Arthur?”
“Say so; of course, I say so. Down with it. Here’s Mrs. Smirke’s good
health: Hip, hip, hurray!”
Smirke convulsively gulped down his glass of wine, and Pen waved his
over his head, cheering so as to make his mother and Laura wonder on
the lawn, and his uncle, who was dozing over the paper in the
drawing-room, start, and say to himself, “That boy’s drinking too
much.” Smirke put down the glass.
“I accept the omen,” gasped out the blushing Curate. “Oh my dear
Arthur, you—you know her——”
“What—Myra Portman? I wish you joy; she’s got a dev’lish large waist;
but I wish you joy, old fellow.”
“Oh, Arthur!” groaned the Curate again, and nodded his head,
speechless.
“Beg your pardon—sorry I offended you—but she has got a large waist,
you know—devilish large waist,” Pen continued—the third bottle
evidently beginning to act upon the young gentleman.
“It’s not Miss Portman,” the other said, in a voice of agony.
“Is it anybody at Chatteris or at Clapham? Somebody here? No—it ain’t
old Pybus? it can’t be Miss Rolt at the Factory—she’s only fourteen.”
“It’s somebody rather older than I am, Pen,” the Curate cried, looking
up at his friend, and then guiltily casting his eyes down into his
plate.
Pen burst out laughing. “It’s Madame Fribsby; by Jove, it’s Madame
Fribsby. Madame Frib. by the immortal Gods!”
The Curate could contain no more. “O Pen,” he cried, “how can you
suppose that any of those—of those more than ordinary beings you have
named could have an influence upon this heart, when I have been daily
in the habit of contemplating perfection! I may be insane, I may be
madly ambitious, I may be presumptuous—but for two years my heart has
been filled by one image, and has known no other idol. Haven’t I loved
you as a son, Arthur?—say, hasn’t Charles Smirke loved you as a son?”
“Yes, old boy, you’ve been very good to me,” Pen said, whose liking,
however, for his tutor was not by any means of the filial kind.
“My means,” rushed on Smirke, “are at present limited, I own, and my
mother is not so liberal as might be desired; but what she has will be
mine at her death. Were she to hear of my marrying a lady of rank and
good fortune, my mother would be liberal, I am sure she would be
liberal. Whatever I have or subsequently inherit—and it’s five hundred
a year at the very least—would be settled upon her and—and—and you at
my death—that is.”
“What the deuce do you mean?—and what have I to do with your money?”
cried out Pen, in a puzzle.
“Arthur, Arthur!” exclaimed the other wildly; “you say I am your
dearest friend—Let me be more. Oh, can’t you see that the angelic being
I love—the purest, the best of women—is no other than your dear, dear
angel of a—mother.”
“My mother!” cried out Arthur, jumping up and sober in a minute. “Pooh!
damn it, Smirke, you must be mad—she’s seven or eight years older than
you are.”
“Did you find that any objection?” cried Smirke piteously, and
alluding, of course, to the elderly subject of Pen’s own passion.
The lad felt the hint, and blushed quite red. “The cases are not
similar, Smirke,” he said, “and the allusion might have been spared. A
man may forget his own rank and elevate any woman to it: but allow me
to say our positions are very different.”
“How do you mean, dear Arthur?” the Curate interposed sadly, cowering
as he felt that his sentence was about to be read.
“Mean?” said Arthur. “I mean what I say. My tutor, I say my tutor, has
no right to ask a lady of my mother’s rank of life to marry him. It’s a
breach of confidence. I say it’s a liberty you take, Smirke—it’s a
liberty. Mean, indeed!”
“O Arthur!” the Curate began to cry with clasped hands, and a scared
face, but Arthur gave another stamp with his foot and began to pull at
the bell. “Don’t let’s have any more of this. We’ll have some coffee,
if you please,” he said with a majestic air; and the old butler
entering at the summons, Arthur bade him to serve that refreshment.
John said he had just carried coffee into the drawing-room, where his
uncle was asking for Master Arthur, and the old man gave a glance of
wonder at the three empty claret-bottles. Smirke said he thought
he’d—he’d rather not go into the drawing-room, on which Arthur
haughtily said, “As you please,” and called for Mr. Smirke’s horse to
be brought round. The poor fellow said he knew the way to the stable
and would get his pony himself, and he went into the hall and sadly put
on his coat and hat.
Pen followed him out uncovered. Helen was still walking up and down the
soft lawn as the sun was setting, and the Curate took off his hat and
bowed by way of farewell, and passed on to the door leading to the
stable court, by which the pair disappeared. Smirke knew the way to the
stable, as he said, well enough. He fumbled at the girths of the
saddle, which Pen fastened for him, and put on the bridle and led the
pony into the yard. The boy was touched by the grief which appeared in
the other’s face as he mounted. Pen held out his hand, and Smirke wrung
it silently.
“I say, Smirke,” he said in an agitated voice, “forgive me if I have
said anything harsh—for you have always been very, very kind to me. But
it can’t be, old fellow, it can’t be. Be a man. God bless you.”
Smirke nodded his head silently, and rode out of the lodge-gate: and
Pen looked after him for a couple of minutes, until he disappeared down
the road, and the clatter of the pony’s hoofs died away. Helen was
still lingering on the lawn waiting until the boy came back—she put his
hair off his forehead and kissed it fondly. She was afraid he had been
drinking too much wine. Why had Mr. Smirke gone away without any tea?
He looked at her with a kind humour beaming in his eyes “Smirke is
unwell,” he said with a laugh. For a long while Helen had not seen the
boy looking so cheerful. He put his arm round her waist, and walked her
up and down the walk in front of the house. Laura began to drub on the
drawing-room window and nod and laugh from it. “Come along, you two
people,” cried on Major Pendennis, “your coffee is getting quite cold.”
When Laura was gone to bed, Pen, who was big with his secret, burst out
with it, and described the dismal but ludicrous scene which had
occurred. Helen heard of it with many blushes, which became her pale
face very well, and a perplexity which Arthur roguishly enjoyed.
“Confound the fellow’s impudence,” Major Pendennis said as he took his
candle, “where will the assurance of these people stop?” Pen and his
mother had a long talk that night, full of love, confidence, and
laughter, and the boy somehow slept more soundly and woke up more
easily than he had done for many months before.
Before the great Mr. Dolphin quitted Chatteris, he not only made an
advantageous engagement with Miss Fotheringay, but he liberally left
with her a sum of money to pay off any debts which the little family
might have contracted during their stay in the place, and which, mainly
through the lady’s own economy and management, were not considerable.
The small account with the spirit merchant, which Major Pendennis had
settled, was the chief of Captain Costigan’s debts, and though the
Captain at one time talked about repaying every farthing of the money,
it never appears that he executed his menace, nor did the laws of
honour in the least call upon him to accomplish that threat.
When Miss Costigan had seen all the outstanding bills paid to the
uttermost shilling, she handed over the balance to her father, who
broke out into hospitalities to all his friends, gave the little Creeds
more apples and gingerbread than he had ever bestowed upon them, so
that the widow Creed ever after held the memory of her lodger in
veneration, and the young ones wept bitterly when he went away; and in
a word managed the money so cleverly that it was entirely expended
before many days, and that he was compelled to draw upon Mr. Dolphin
for a sum to pay for travelling expenses when the time of their
departure arrived.
There was held at an inn in that county town a weekly meeting of a
festive, almost a riotous character, of a society of gentlemen who
called themselves the Buccaneers. Some of the choice spirits of
Chatteris belonged to this cheerful club. Graves, the apothecary (than
whom a better fellow never put a pipe in his mouth and smoked it),
Smart, the talented and humorous portrait-painter of High Street,
Croker, an excellent auctioneer, and the uncompromising Hicks, the able
Editor for twenty-three years of the County Chronicle and Chatteris
Champion, were amongst the crew of the Buccaneers, whom also Bingley,
the manager, liked to join of a Saturday evening, whenever he received
permission from his lady.
Costigan had been also an occasional Buccaneer. But a want of
punctuality of payments had of late somewhat excluded him from the
Society, where he was subject to disagreeable remarks from the
landlord, who said that a Buccaneer who didn’t pay his shot was utterly
unworthy to be a Marine Bandit. But when it became known to the ‘Ears,
as the Clubbists called themselves familiarly, that Miss Fotheringay
had made a splendid engagement, a great revolution of feeling took
place in the Club regarding Captain Costigan. Solly, mine host of the
Grapes (and I need not say, as worthy a fellow as ever stood behind a
bar), told the gents in the Buccaneers’ room one night how noble the
Captain had behaved; having been round and paid off all his ticks in
Chatteris, including his score of three pound fourteen here—and
pronounced that Cos was a good feller, a gentleman at bottom, and he,
Solly, had always said so, and finally worked upon the feelings of the
Buccaneers to give the Captain a dinner.
The banquet took place on the last night of Costigan’s stay at
Chatteris, and was served in Solly’s accustomed manner. As good a plain
dinner of old English fare as ever smoked on a table was prepared by
Mrs. Solly; and about eighteen gentlemen sate down to the festive
board. Mr. Jubber (the eminent draper of High Street) was in the Chair,
having the distinguished guest of the Club on his right. The able and
consistent Hicks officiated as croupier on the occasion; most of the
gentlemen of the Club were present, and H. Foker, Esq., and Spavin,
Esq., friends of Captain Costigan, were also participators in the
entertainment. The cloth having been drawn, the Chairman said,
“Costigan, there is wine, if you like,” but the Captain preferring
punch, that liquor was voted by acclamation: and ‘Non Nobis’ having
been sung in admirable style by Messrs. Bingley, Hicks, and Bullby (of
the Cathedral choir, than whom a more jovial spirit “ne’er tossed off a
bumper or emptied a bowl”), the Chairman gave the health of the ‘King!’
which was drunk with the loyalty of Chatteris men, and then without
further circumlocution proposed their friend ‘Captain Costigan.’
After the enthusiastic cheering which rang through old Chatteris had
subsided, Captain Costigan rose in reply, and made a speech of twenty
minutes, in which he was repeatedly overcome by his emotions.
The gallant Captain said he must be pardoned for incoherence, if his
heart was too full to speak. He was quitting a city celebrated for its
antiquitee, its hospitalitee, the beautee of its women, the manly
fidelitee, generositee, and jovialitee of its men. (Cheers.) He was
going from that ancient and venerable city, of which while Mimoree held
her sayt, he should never think without the fondest emotion, to a
methrawpolis where the talents of his daughther were about to have full
play, and where he would watch over her like a guardian angel. He
should never forget that it was at Chatteris she had acquired the skill
which she was about to exercise in another sphere, and in her name and
his own Jack Costigan thanked and blessed them. The gallant officer’s
speech was received with tremendous cheers.
Mr. Hicks, Croupier, in a brilliant and energetic manner, proposed Miss
Fotheringay’s health.
Captain Costigan returned thanks in a speech full of feeling and
eloquence.
Mr. Jubber proposed the Drama and the Chatteris Theatre, and Mr.
Bingley was about to rise but was prevented by Captain Costigan, who,
as long connected with the Chatteris Theatre and on behalf of his
daughter, thanked the company. He informed them that he had been in
garrison, at Gibraltar, and at Malta, and had been at the taking of
Flushing. The Duke of York was a patron of the Drama; he had the honour
of dining with His Royal Highness and the Duke of Kent many times; and
the former had justly been named the friend of the soldier. (Cheers.)
The Army was then proposed, and Captain Costigan returned thanks. In
the course of the night he sang his well-known songs, ‘The Deserter,’
‘The Shan Van Voght,’ ‘The Little Pig under the Bed,’ and ‘The Vale of
Avoca.’ The evening was a great triumph for him—it ended. All triumphs
and all evenings end. And the next day, Miss Costigan having taken
leave of all her friends, having been reconciled to Miss Rouncy, to
whom she left a necklace and a white satin gown—the next day, he and
Miss Costigan had places in the Competitor coach rolling by the gates
of Fairoaks Lodge—and Pendennis never saw them.
Tom Smith, the coachman, pointed out Fairoaks to Mr. Costigan, who sate
on the box smelling of rum-and-water—and the Captain said it was a poor
place—and added, “Ye should see Castle Costigan, County Mayo, me
boy,”—which Tom said he should like very much to see.
They were gone and Pen had never seen them! He only knew of their
departure by its announcement in the county paper the next day: and
straight galloped over to Chatteris to hear the truth of this news.
They were gone indeed. A card of ‘Lodgings to let’ was placed in the
dear little familiar window. He rushed up into the room and viewed it
over. He sate ever so long in the old window-seat looking into the
Dean’s garden: whence he and Emily had so often looked out together. He
walked, with a sort of terror, into her little empty bedroom. It was
swept out and prepared for new-comers. The glass which had reflected
her fair face was shining ready for her successor. The curtains lay
square folded on the little bed: he flung himself down and buried his
head on the vacant pillow.
Laura had netted a purse into which his mother had put some sovereigns,
and Pen had found it on his dressing-table that very morning. He gave
one to the little servant who had been used to wait upon the Costigans,
and another to the children, because they said they were very fond of
her. It was but a few months back, yet what years ago it seemed since
he had first entered that room! He felt that it was all done. The very
missing her at the coach had something fatal in it. Blank, weary,
utterly wretched and lonely the poor lad felt.
His mother saw She was gone by his look when he came home. He was eager
to fly too now, as were other folks round about Chatteris. Poor Smirke
wanted to go away from the sight of the syren widow. Foker began to
think he had had enough of Baymouth, and that a few supper-parties at
Saint Boniface would not be unpleasant. And Major Pendennis longed to
be off, and have a little pheasant-shooting at Stillbrook, and get rid
of all annoyances and tracasseries of the village. The widow and Laura
nervously set about the preparation for Pen’s kit, and filled trunks
with his books and linen. Helen wrote cards with the name of Arthur
Pendennis, Esq., which were duly nailed on the boxes; and at which both
she and Laura looked with tearful wistful eyes. It was not until long,
long after he was gone, that Pen remembered how constant and tender the
affection of these women had been, and how selfish his own conduct was.
A night soon comes, when the mail, with echoing horn and blazing lamps,
stops at the lodge-gate of Fairoaks, and Pen’s trunks and his uncle’s
are placed on the roof of the carriage, into which the pair presently
afterwards enter. Helen and Laura are standing by the evergreens of the
shrubbery, their figures lighted up by the coach lamps; the guard cries
all right: in another instant the carriage whirls onward; the lights
disappear, and Helen’s heart and prayers go with them. Her sainted
benedictions follow the departing boy. He has left the home-nest in
which he has been chafing, and whither, after his very first flight, he
returned bleeding and wounded; he is eager to go forth again, and try
his restless wings.
How lonely the house looks without him! The corded trunks and
book-boxes are there in his empty study. Laura asks leave to come and
sleep in Helen’s room: and when she has cried herself to sleep there,
the mother goes softly into Pen’s vacant chamber, and kneels down by
the bed on which the moon is shining, and there prays for her boy, as
mothers only know how to plead. He knows that her pure blessings are
following him, as he is carried miles away.