Rake’s Progress
Some short time before Mr. Foker’s departure from Oxbridge, there had
come up to Boniface a gentleman who had once, as it turned out,
belonged to the other University of Camford, which he had quitted on
account of some differences with the tutors and authorities there. This
gentleman, whose name was Horace Bloundell, was of the ancient Suffolk
family of Bloundell-Bloundell, of Bloundell-Bloundell Hall,
Bloundell-Bloundellshire, as the young wags used to call it; and no
doubt it was on account of his descent, and because Dr. Donne, the
Master of Boniface, was a Suffolk man, and related perhaps to the
family, that Mr. Horace Bloundell was taken in at Boniface, after St.
George’s and one or two other Colleges had refused to receive him.
There was a living in the family, which it was important for Mr.
Bloundell to hold; and, being in a dragoon regiment at the time when
his third brother, for whom the living was originally intended,
sickened and died, Mr. Bloundell determined upon quitting crimson
pantaloons and sable shakos, for the black coat and white neckcloth of
the English divine. The misfortunes which occurred at Camford,
occasioned some slight disturbance to Mr. Bloundell’s plans; but
although defeated upon one occasion, the resolute ex-dragoon was not
dismayed, and set to work to win a victory elsewhere.
In Pen’s second year Major Pendennis paid a brief visit to his nephew,
and was introduced to several of Pen’s university friends—the gentle
and polite Lord Plinlimmon, the gallant and open-hearted Magnus
Charters, the sly and witty Harland; the intrepid Ringwood, who was
called Rupert in the Union Debating Club, from his opinions and the
bravery of his blunders; Broadbent, styled Barebones Broadbent from the
republican nature of his opinions (he was of a dissenting family from
Bristol and a perfect Boanerges of debate); Mr. Bloundell-Bloundell
finally, who had at once taken his place among the select of the
university.
Major Pendennis, though he did not understand Harland’s Greek
quotations, or quite appreciate Broadbent’s thick shoes and dingy
hands, was nevertheless delighted with the company assembled round his
nephew, and highly approved of all the young men with the exception of
that one who gave himself the greatest airs in the society, and
affected most to have the manners of a man of the world.
As he and Pen sate at breakfast on the morning after the party in the
rooms of the latter, the Major gave his opinions regarding the young
men, with whom he was in the greatest good-humour. He had regaled them
with some of his stories, which, though not quite so fresh in London
(where people have a diseased appetite for novelty in the way of
anecdotes), were entirely new at Oxbridge, and the lads heard them with
that honest sympathy, that eager pleasure, that boisterous laughter, or
that profound respect, so rare in the metropolis, and which must be so
delightful to the professed raconteur. Only once or twice during the
telling of the anecdote Mr. Bloundell’s face wore a look of scorn, or
betrayed by its expression that he was acquainted with the tales
narrated. Once he had the audacity to question the accuracy of one of
the particulars of a tale as given by Major Pendennis, and gave his own
version of the anecdote, about which he knew he was right, for he heard
it openly talked of at the Club by So-and-so and T’other who were
present at the business. The youngsters present looked up with wonder
at their associate, who dared to interrupt the Major—few of them could
appreciate that melancholy grace and politeness with which Major
Pendennis at once acceded to Mr. Bloundell’s version of the story, and
thanked him for correcting his own error. They stared on the next
occasion of meeting, when Bloundell spoke in contemptuous terms of old
Pen; said everybody knew old Pen, regular old trencherman at Gaunt
House, notorious old bore, regular old fogy.
Major Pendennis on his side liked Mr. Bloundell not a whit. These
sympathies are pretty sure to be mutual amongst men and women, and if,
for my part, some kind friend tells me that such and such a man has
been abusing me, I am almost sure, on my own side, that I have a
misliking to such and such a man. We like or dislike each other, as
folks like or dislike the odour of certain flowers, or the taste of
certain dishes or wines, or certain books. We can’t tell why—but as a
general rule, all the reasons in the world will not make us love Dr.
Fell, and as sure as we dislike him, we may be sure that he dislikes
us.
So the Major said, “Pen, my boy, your dinner went off a merveille; you
did the honours very nicely—you carved well—I am glad you learned to
carve—it is done on the sideboard now in most good houses, but is still
an important point, and may aid you in middle-life—young Lord
Plinlimmon is a very amiable young man, quite the image of his dear
mother (whom I knew as Lady Aquila Brownbill); and Lord Magnus’s
republicanism will wear off—it sits prettily enough on a young
patrician in early life, though nothing is so loathsome among persons
of our rank—Mr. Broadbent seems to have much eloquence and considerable
reading—your friend Foker is always delightful: but your acquaintance,
Mr. Bloundell, struck me as in all respects a most ineligible young
man.”
“Bless my soul, sir, Bloundell-Bloundell!” cried Pen, laughing; “why,
sir, he’s the most popular man of the university. We elected him of the
Barmecides the first week he came up—had a special meeting on
purpose—he’s of an excellent family—Suffolk Bloundells, descended from
Richard’s Blondel, bear a harp in chief—and motto O Mong Roy.”
“A man may have a very good coat-of-arms, and be a tiger, my boy,” the
Major said, chipping his egg; “that man is a tiger, mark my word—a low
man. I will lay a wager that he left his regiment, which was a good one
(for a more respectable man than my friend Lord Martingale never sate
in a saddle), in bad odour. There is the unmistakable look of slang and
bad habits about this Mr. Bloundell. He frequents low gambling-houses
and billiard-hells, sir—he haunts third-rate clubs—I know he does. I
know by his style. I never was mistaken in my man yet. Did you remark
the quantity of rings and jewellery he wore? That person has Scamp
written on his countenance, if any man ever had. Mark my words and
avoid him. Let us turn the conversation. The dinner was a leetle too
fine, but I don’t object to your making a few extra frais when you
receive friends. Of course, you don’t do it often, and only those whom
it is your interest to fêter. The cutlets were excellent, and the
souffle uncommonly light and good. The third bottle of champagne was
not necessary; but you have a good income, and as long as you keep
within it, I shall not quarrel with you, my dear boy.”
Poor Pen! the worthy uncle little knew how often those dinners took
place, while the reckless young Amphitryon delighted to show his
hospitality and skill in gourmandise. There is no art than that (so
long to learn, so difficult to acquire, so impossible and beyond the
means of many unhappy people!) about which boys are more anxious to
have an air of knowingness. A taste and knowledge of wines and cookery
appears to them to be the sign of an accomplished roue and manly
gentleman. I like to see them wink at a glass of claret, as if they had
an intimate acquaintance with it, and discuss a salmi—poor boys—it is
only when they grow old that they know they know nothing of the
science, when perhaps their conscience whispers them that the science
is in itself little worth, and that a leg of mutton and content is as
good as the dinners of pontiffs. But little Pen, in his character of
Admirable Crichton, thought it necessary to be a great judge and
practitioner of dinners; we have just said how the college cook
respected him, and shall soon have to deplore that that worthy man so
blindly trusted our Pen. In the third year of the lad’s residence at
Oxbridge, his staircase was by no means encumbered with dish-covers and
desserts, and waiters carrying in dishes, and skips opening iced
champagne; crowds of different sorts of attendants, with faces sulky or
piteous, hung about the outer oak, and assailed the unfortunate lad as
he issued out of his den.
Nor did his guardian’s advice take any effect, or induce Mr. Pen to
avoid the society of the disreputable Mr. Bloundell. What young men
like in their companions is, what had got Pen a great part of his own
repute and popularity, a real or supposed knowledge of life. A man who
has seen the world, or can speak of it with a knowing air—a roue, or
Lovelace, who has his adventures to relate, is sure of an admiring
audience among boys. It is hard to confess, but so it is. We respect
that sort of prowess. From our school-days we have been taught to
admire it. Are there five in the hundred, out of the hundreds and
hundreds of English school-boys, brought up at our great schools and
colleges, that must not own at one time of their lives to having read
and liked Don Juan? Awful propagation of evil!—The idea of it should
make the man tremble who holds the pen, lest untruth, or impurity, or
unjust anger, or unjust praise escape it.
One such diseased creature as this is enough to infect a whole colony,
and the tutors of Boniface began to find the moral tone of their
college lowered and their young men growing unruly, and almost
ungentleman-like, soon after Mr. Bloundell’s arrival at Oxbridge. The
young magnates of the neighbouring great College of St. George’s, who
regarded Pen, and in whose society he lived, were not taken in by
Bloundell’s flashy graces, and rakish airs of fashion. Broadbent called
him Captain Macheath, and said he would live to be hanged. Foker,
during his brief stay at the university with Macheath, with
characteristic caution declined to say anything in the Captain’s
disfavour, but hinted to Pen that he had better have him for a partner
at whist than play against him, and better back him at ecarte than bet
on the other side. “You see, he plays better than you do, Pen,” was the
astute young gentleman’s remark: “he plays uncommon well, the Captain
does;—and Pen, I wouldn’t take the odds too freely from him, if I was
you. I don’t think he’s too flush of money, the Captain ain’t.” But
beyond these dark suggestions and generalities, the cautious Foker
could not be got to speak.
Not that his advice would have had more weight with a headstrong young
man, than advice commonly has with a lad who is determined on pursuing
his own way. Pen’s appetite for pleasure was insatiable, and he rushed
at it wherever it presented itself, with an eagerness which bespoke his
fiery constitution and youthful health. He called taking pleasure
“Seeing life,” and quoted well-known maxims from Terence, from Horace,
from Shakspeare, to show that one should do all that might become a
man. He bade fair to be utterly used up and a roue, in a few years, if
he were to continue at the pace at which he was going.
One night after a supper-party in college, at which Pen and Macheath
had been present, and at which a little quiet vingt-et-un had been
played (an amusement much pleasanter to men in their second and third
year than the boisterous custom of singing songs, which bring the
proctors about the rooms, and which have grown quite stale by this
time, every man having expended his budget)—as the men had taken their
caps and were going away, after no great losses or winnings on any
side, Mr. Bloundell playfully took up a green wine-glass from the
supper-table, which had been destined to contain iced cup, but into
which he inserted something still more pernicious, namely a pair of
dice, which the gentleman took out of his waistcoat-pocket, and put
into the glass. Then giving the glass a graceful wave which showed that
his hand was quite experienced in the throwing of dice, he called
sevens the main, and whisking the ivory cubes gently on the table,
swept them up lightly again from the cloth, and repeated this process
two or three times. The other men looked on, Pen, of course, among the
number, who had never used the dice as yet, except to play a humdrum
game of backgammon at home.
Mr. Bloundell, who had a good voice, began to troll out the chorus from
Robert the Devil, an Opera then in great vogue, in which chorus many of
the men joined, especially Pen, who was in very high spirits, having
won a good number of shillings and half-crowns at the vingt-et-un—and
presently, instead of going home, most of the party were seated round
the table playing at dice, the green glass going round from hand to
hand until Pen finally shivered it, after throwing six mains.
From that night Pen plunged into the delights of the game of hazard, as
eagerly as it was his custom to pursue any new pleasure. Dice can be
played of mornings as well as after dinner or supper. Bloundell would
come into Pen’s rooms after breakfast, and it was astonishing how quick
the time passed as the bones were rattling. They had little quiet
parties with closed doors, and Bloundell devised a box lined with felt,
so that the dice should make no noise, and their tell-tale rattle not
bring the sharp-eared tutors up to the rooms. Bloundell, Ringwood, and
Pen were once very nearly caught by Mr. Buck, who, passing in the
Quadrangle, thought he heard the words “Two to one on the caster,”
through Pen’s open window; but when the tutor got into Arthur’s rooms
he found the lads with three Homers before them, and Pen said he was
trying to coach the two other men, and asked Mr. Buck with great
gravity what was the present condition of the River Scamander, and
whether it was navigable or no?
Mr. Arthur Pendennis did not win much money in these transactions with
Mr. Bloundell, or indeed gain good of any kind except a knowledge of
the odds at hazard, which he might have learned out of books.
Captain Macheath had other accomplishments which he exercised for Pen’s
benefit. The Captain’s stories had a great and unfortunate charm for
Arthur, who was never tired of hearing Bloundell’s histories of
garrison conquests, and of his feats in country-quarters.—He had been
at Paris, and had plenty of legends about the Palais Royal, and the
Salon, and Frascati’s. He had gone to the Salon one night, after a
dinner at the Cafe de Paris, “when we were all devilishly cut, by Jove;
and on waking in the morning in my own rooms, I found myself with
twelve thousand francs under my pillow, and a hundred and forty-nine
Napoleons in one of my boots. Wasn’t that a coup, hay?” the Captain
said. Pen’s eyes glistened with excitement as he heard this story. He
respected the man who could win such a sum of money. He sighed, and
said it would set him all right. Macheath laughed, and told him to
drink another drop of Maraschino. “I could tell you stories much more
wonderful than that,” he added; and so indeed the Captain could have
done, without any further trouble than that of invention, with which
portion of the poetic faculty Nature had copiously endowed him.
He laughed to scorn Pen’s love for Miss Fotheringay, when he came to
hear of that amour from Arthur, as he pretty soon did, for, we have
said, Pen was not averse to telling the story now to his confidential
friends, and he and they were rather proud of the transaction. But
Macheath took away all Pen’s conceit on this head, not by demonstrating
the folly of the lad’s passion for an uneducated woman much his senior
in years, but by exposing his absurd desire of gratifying his passion
in a legitimate way. “Marry her,” said he, “you might as well marry
——,” and he named one of the most notorious actresses on the stage.
“She hadn’t a shred of a character.” He knew twenty men who were openly
admirers of her, and named them, and the sums each had spent upon her.
I know no kind of calumny more frightful or frequent than this which
takes away the character of women, no men more reckless and mischievous
than those who lightly use it, and no kind of cowards more despicable
than the people who invent these slanders.
Is it, or not, a misfortune that a man, himself of a candid
disposition, and disposed, like our friend Pen, to blurt out the truth
on all occasions, begins life by believing all that is said to him?
Would it be better for a lad to be less trustful, and so less honest?
It requires no small experience of the world to know that a man, who
has no especial reason thereto, is telling you lies. I am not sure
whether it is not best to go on being duped for a certain time. At all
events, our honest Pen had a natural credulity, which enabled him to
accept all statements which were made to him, and he took every one of
Captain Macheath’s figments as if they had been the most unquestioned
facts of history.
So Bloundell’s account about Miss Fotheringay pained and mortified Pen
exceedingly. If he had been ashamed of his passion before,—what were
his feelings regarding it now, when the object of so much pure flame
and adoration turned out to be only a worthless impostor, an impostor
detected by all but him? It never occurred to Pen to doubt the fact, or
to question whether the stories of a man who, like his new friend,
never spoke well of any woman, were likely to be true.
One Easter vacation, when Pen had announced to his mother and uncle his
intention not to go down, but stay at Oxbridge and read, Mr. Pen was
nevertheless induced to take a brief visit to London in company with
his friend Mr. Bloundell. They put up at a hotel in Covent Garden,
where Bloundell had a tick, as he called it, and took the pleasures of
the town very freely after the wont of young university men. Bloundell
still belonged to a military club, whither he took Pen to dine once or
twice (the young men would drive thither in a cab, trembling lest they
should meet Major Pendennis on his beat in Pall Mall), and here Pen was
introduced to a number of gallant young fellows with spurs and
mustachios, with whom he drank pale-ale of mornings and beat the town
of a night. Here he saw a deal of life, indeed: nor in his career about
the theatres and singing-houses which these roaring young blades
frequented, was he very likely to meet his guardian. One night,
nevertheless, they were very near to each other: a plank only
separating Pen, who was in the boxes of the Museum Theatre, from the
Major, who was in Lord Steyne’s box, along with that venerated
nobleman. The Fotheringay was in the pride of her glory. She had made a
hit: that is, she had drawn very good houses for nearly a year, had
starred the provinces with great eclat, had come back to shine in
London with somewhat diminished lustre, and now was acting with “ever
increasing attraction; etc.,” “triumph of the good old British drama,”
as the play-bills avowed, to houses in which there was plenty of room
for anybody who wanted to see her.
It was not the first time Pen had seen her, since that memorable day
when the two had parted in Chatteris. In the previous year, when the
town was making much of her, and the press lauded her beauty, Pen had
found a pretext for coming to London in term-time, and had rushed off
to the theatre to see his old flame. He recollected it rather than
renewed it. He remembered how ardently he used to be on the look-out at
Chatteris, when the speech before Ophelia’s or Mrs. Haller’s entrance
on the stage was made by the proper actor. Now, as the actor spoke, he
had a sort of feeble thrill: as the house began to thunder with
applause, and Ophelia entered with her old bow and sweeping curtsey,
Pen felt a slight shock and blushed very much as he looked at her, and
could not help thinking that all the house was regarding him. He hardly
heard her for the first part of the play: and he thought with such rage
of the humiliation to which she had subjected him, that he began to
fancy he was jealous and in love with her still. But that illusion did
not last very long. He ran round to the stage-door of the theatre to
see her if possible, but he did not succeed. She passed indeed under
his nose with a female companion, but he did not know her,—nor did she
recognise him. The next night he came in late, and stayed very quietly
for the afterpiece, and on the third and last night of his stay in
London—why, Taglioni was going to dance at the Opera,—Taglioni! and
there was to be Don Giovanni, which he admired of all things in the
world: so Mr. Pen went to Don Giovanni and Taglioni.
This time the illusion about her was quite gone. She was not less
handsome, but she was not the same, somehow. The light was gone out of
her eyes which used to flash there, or Pen’s no longer were dazzled by
it. The rich voice spoke as of old, yet it did not make Pen’s bosom
thrill as formerly. He thought he could recognise the brogue
underneath: the accents seemed to him coarse and false. It annoyed him
to hear the same emphasis on the same words, only uttered a little
louder: worse than this, it annoyed him to think that he should ever
have mistaken that loud imitation for genius, or melted at those
mechanical sobs and sighs. He felt that it was in another life almost,
that it was another man who had so madly loved her. He was ashamed and
bitterly humiliated, and very lonely. Ah, poor Pen! the delusion is
better than the truth sometimes, and fine dreams than dismal waking.
They went and had an uproarious supper that night, and Mr. Pen had a
fine headache the next morning, with which he went back to Oxbridge,
having spent all his ready money.
As all this narrative is taken from Pen’s own confessions, so that the
reader may be assured of the truth of every word of it, and as Pen
himself never had any accurate notion of the manner in which he spent
his money, and plunged himself in much deeper pecuniary difficulties,
during his luckless residence at Oxbridge University, it is, of course,
impossible for me to give any accurate account of his involvements,
beyond that general notion of his way of life, which has been sketched
a few pages back. He does not speak too hardly of the roguery of the
university tradesmen, or of those in London whom he honoured with his
patronage at the outset of his career. Even Finch, the money-lender, to
whom Bloundell introduced him, and with whom he had various
transactions, in which the young rascal’s signature appeared upon
stamped paper, treated him, according to Pen’s own account, with
forbearance, and never mulcted him of more than a hundred per cent. The
old college-cook, his fervent admirer, made him a private bill, offered
to send him in dinners up to the very last, and never would have
pressed his account to his dying day. There was that kindness and
frankness about Arthur Pendennis, which won most people who came in
contact with him, and which, if it rendered him an easy prey to rogues,
got him, perhaps, more goodwill than he merited from many honest men.
It was impossible to resist his good-nature, or, in his worst moments,
not to hope for his rescue from utter ruin.
At the time of his full career of university pleasure, he would leave
the gayest party to go and sit with a sick friend. He never knew the
difference between small and great in the treatment of his
acquaintances, however much the unlucky lad’s tastes, which were of the
sumptuous order, led him to prefer good society; he was only too ready
to share his guinea with a poor friend, and when he got money had an
irresistible propensity for paying, which he never could conquer
through life.
In his third year at college, the duns began to gather awfully round
about him, and there was a levee at his oak which scandalised the
tutors, and would have scared many a stouter heart. With some of these
he used to battle, some he would bully (under Mr. Bloundell’s
directions, who was a master in this art, though he took a degree in no
other), and some deprecate. And it is reported of him that little Mary
Frodsham, the daughter of a certain poor gilder and frame-maker, whom
Mr. Pen had thought fit to employ, and who had made a number of
beautiful frames for his fine prints, coming to Pendennis with a
piteous tale that her father was ill with ague, and that there was an
execution in their house, Pen in an anguish of remorse rushed away,
pawned his grand watch and every single article of jewellery except two
old gold sleeve-buttons, which had belonged to his father, and rushed
with the proceeds to Frodsham’s shop, where, with tears in his eyes,
and the deepest repentance and humility, he asked the poor tradesman’s
pardon.
This, young gentlemen, is not told as an instance of Pen’s virtue, but
rather of his weakness. It would have been much more virtuous to have
had no prints at all. He still stood for the baubles which he sold in
order to pay Frodsham’s bill, and his mother had cruelly to pinch
herself in order to discharge the jeweller’s account, so that she was
in the end the sufferer by the lad’s impertinent fancies and follies.
We are not presenting Pen to you as a hero or a model, only as a lad,
who, in the midst of a thousand vanities and weaknesses, has as yet
some generous impulses, and is not altogether dishonest.
We have said it was to the scandal of Mr. Buck the tutor that Pen’s
extravagances became known: from the manner in which he entered
college, the associates he kept, and the introductions of Doctor
Portman and the Major, Buck for a long time thought that his pupil was
a man of large property, and wondered rather that he only wore a plain
gown. Once on going up to London to the levee with an address from his
Majesty’s Loyal University of Oxbridge, Buck had seen Major Pendennis
at St. James’s in conversation with two knights of the garter, in the
carriage of one of whom the dazzled tutor saw the Major whisked away
after the levee. He asked Pen to wine the instant he came back, let him
off from chapels and lectures more than ever, and felt perfectly sure
that he was a young gentleman of large estate.
Thus, he was thunderstruck when he heard the truth, and received a
dismal confession from Pen. His university debts were large, and the
tutor had nothing to do, and of course Pen did not acquaint him, with
his London debts. What man ever does tell all when pressed by his
friends about his liabilities? The tutor learned enough to know that
Pen was poor, that he had spent a handsome, almost a magnificent
allowance, and had raised around him such a fine crop of debts, as it
would be very hard work for any man to mow down; for there is no plant
that grows so rapidly when once it has taken root.
Perhaps it was because she was so tender and good that Pen was
terrified lest his mother should know of his sins. “I can’t bear to
break it to her,” he said to the tutor in an agony of grief. “O! sir,
I’ve been a villain to her”—and he repented, and he wished he had the
time to come over again, and he asked himself, “Why, why did his uncle
insist upon the necessity of living with great people, and in how much
did all his grand acquaintance profit him?”
They were not shy, but Pen thought they were, and slunk from them
during his last terms at college. He was as gloomy as a death’s-head at
parties, which he avoided of his own part, or to which his young
friends soon ceased to invite him. Everybody knew that Pendennis was
“hard up.” That man Bloundell, who could pay nobody, and who was
obliged to go down after three terms, was his ruin, the men said. His
melancholy figure might be seen shirking about the lonely quadrangles
in his battered old cap and torn gown, and he who had been the pride of
the university but a year before, the man whom all the young ones loved
to look at, was now the object of conversation at freshmen’s
wine-parties, and they spoke of him with wonder and awe.
At last came the Degree Examinations. Many a young man of his year
whose hob-nailed shoes Pen had derided, and whose face or coat he had
caricatured—many a man whom he had treated with scorn in the
lecture-room or crushed with his eloquence in the debating-club—many of
his own set who had not half his brains, but a little regularity and
constancy of occupation, took high places in the honours or passed with
decent credit. And where in the list was Pen the superb, Pen the wit
and dandy, Pen the poet and orator? Ah, where was Pen the widow’s
darling and sole pride? Let us hide our heads, and shut up the page.
The lists came out; and a dreadful rumour rushed through the
university, that Pendennis of Boniface was plucked.