In which Pen begins to doubt about his Election
Whilst Pen, in his own county, was thus carrying on his selfish plans
and parliamentary schemes, news came to him that Lady Rockminster had
arrived at Baymouth, and had brought with her our friend Laura. At the
announcement that Laura his sister was near him, Pen felt rather
guilty. His wish was to stand higher in her esteem, perhaps; than in
that of any other person in the world. She was his mother’s legacy to
him. He was to be her patron and protector in some sort. How would she
brave the news which he had to tell her; and how should he explain the
plans which he was meditating? He felt as if neither he nor Blanche
could bear Laura’s dazzling glance of calm scrutiny, and as if he would
not dare to disclose his worldly hopes and ambitions to that spotless
judge. At her arrival at Baymouth, he wrote a letter thither which
contained a great number of fine phrases and protests of affection, and
a great deal of easy satire and raillery; in the midst of all which Mr.
Pen could not help feeling that he was in panic, and that he was acting
like a rogue and hypocrite.
How was it that a simple country girl should be the object of fear and
trembling to such an accomplished gentleman as Mr. Pen? His worldly
tactics and diplomacy, his satire and knowledge of the world, could not
bear the test of her purity, he felt somehow. And he had to own to
himself that his affairs were in such a position, that he could not
tell the truth to that honest soul. As he rode from Clavering to
Baymouth he felt as guilty as a schoolboy who doesn’t know his lesson
and is about to face the awful master. For is not truth the master
always, and does she not have the power and hold the book?
Under the charge of her kind, though somewhat wayward and absolute
patroness, Lady Rockminster, Laura had seen somewhat of the world in
the last year, had gathered some accomplishments, and profited by the
lessons of society. Many a girl who had been accustomed to that too
great tenderness in which Laura’s early life had been passed, would
have been unfitted for the changed existence which she now had to lead.
Helen worshipped her two children, and thought, as home-bred women
will, that all the world was made for them, or to be considered after
them. She tended Laura with a watchfulness of affection which never
left her. If she had a headache, the widow was as alarmed as if there
had never been an aching head before in the world. She slept and woke,
read and moved under her mother’s fond superintendence, which was now
withdrawn from her, along with the tender creature whose anxious heart
would beat no more. And painful moments of grief and depression no
doubt Laura had, when she stood in the great careless world alone.
Nobody heeded her griefs or her solitude. She was not quite the equal,
in social rank, of the lady whose companion she was, or of the friends
and relatives of the imperious, but kind old dowager. Some very likely
bore her no goodwill—some, perhaps, slighted her: it might have been
that servants were occasionally rude; their mistress certainly was
often. Laura not seldom found herself in family meetings, the
confidence and familiarity of which she felt were interrupted by her
intrusion; and her sensitiveness of course was wounded at the idea that
she should give or feel this annoyance. How many governesses are there
in the world, thought cheerful Laura,—how many ladies, whose
necessities make them slaves and companions by profession! What bad
tempers and coarse unkindness have not these to encounter? How
infinitely better my lot is with these really kind and affectionate
people than that of thousands of unprotected girls! It was with this
cordial spirit that our young lady adapted herself to her new position;
and went in advance of her fortune with a trustful smile.
Did you ever know a person who met Fortune in that way, whom the
goddess did not regard kindly? Are not even bad people won by a
constant cheerfulness and a pure and affectionate heart? When the babes
in the wood, in the ballad, looked up fondly and trustfully at those
notorious rogues whom their uncle had set to make away with the little
folks, we all know how one of the rascals relented, and made away with
the other—not having the heart to be unkind to so much innocence and
beauty. Oh, happy they who have that virgin loving trust and sweet
smiling confidence in the world, and fear no evil because they think
none! Miss Laura Bell was one of these fortunate persons; and besides
the gentle widow’s little cross, which, as we have seen, Pen gave her,
had such a sparkling and brilliant kohinoor in her bosom, as is even
more precious than that famous jewel; for it not only fetches a price,
and is retained, by its owner in another world where diamonds are
stated to be of no value, but here, too, is of inestimable worth to its
possessor; is a talisman against evil, and lightens up the darkness of
life, like Cogia Hassan’s famous stone.
So that before Miss Bell had been a year in Lady Rockminster’s house,
there was not a single person in it whose love she had not won by the
use of this talisman. From the old lady to the lowest dependent of her
bounty, Laura had secured the goodwill and kindness of everybody. With
a mistress of such a temper, my Lady’s woman (who had endured her
mistress for forty years, and had been clawed and scolded and jibed
every day and night in that space of time) could not be expected to
have a good temper of her own; and was at first angry against Miss
Laura, as she had been against her Ladyship’s fifteen preceding
companions. But when Laura was ill at Paris, this old woman nursed her
in spite of her mistress, who was afraid of catching the fever, and
absolutely fought for her medicine with Martha from Fairoaks, now
advanced to be Miss Laura’s own maid. As she was recovering, Grandjean
the chef wanted to kill her by the numbers of delicacies which he
dressed for her, and wept when she ate her first slice of chicken. The
Swiss major-domo of the house celebrated Miss Bell’s praises in almost
every European language, which he spoke with indifferent incorrectness;
the coachman was happy to drive her out; the page cried when he heard
she was ill; and Calverley and Coldstream (those two footmen, so large,
so calm ordinarily, and so difficult to move) broke out into
extraordinary hilarity at the news of her convalescence, and
intoxicated the page at a wine-shop, to fête Laura’s recovery. Even
Lady Diana Pynsent (our former acquaintance Mr. Pynsent had married by
this time), Lady Diana, who had had a considerable dislike to Laura for
some time, was so enthusiastic as to say that she thought Miss Bell was
a very agreeable person, and that grandmamma had found a great
trouvaille in her. All this goodwill and kindness Laura had acquired,
not by any arts, not by any flattery, but by the simple force of
good-nature, and by the blessed gift of pleasing and being pleased.
On the one or two occasions when he had seen Lady Rockminster, the old
lady, who did not admire him, had been very pitiless and abrupt with
our young friend, and perhaps Pen expected when he came to Baymouth to
find Laura installed in her house in the quality of humble companion,
and treated no better than himself. When she heard of his arrival she
came running downstairs, and I am not sure that she did not embrace him
in the presence of Calverley and Coldstream: not that those gentlemen
ever told: if the fractus orbis had come to a smash, if Laura, instead
of kissing Pen, had taken her scissors and snipped off his
head—Calverley and Coldstream would have looked on impavidly, without
allowing a grain of powder to be disturbed by the calamity.
Laura had so much improved in health and looks that Pen could not but
admire her. The frank and kind eyes which met his, beamed with
good-health; the cheek which he kissed blushed with beauty. As he
looked at her, artless and graceful, pure and candid, he thought he had
never seen her so beautiful. Why should he remark her beauty now so
much, and remark too to himself that he had not remarked it sooner? He
took her fair trustful hand and kissed it fondly: he looked in her
bright clear eyes, and read in them that kindling welcome which he was
always sure to find there. He was affected and touched by the tender
tone and the pure sparkling glance; their innocence smote him somehow
and moved him.
“How good you are to me, Laura—sister!” said Pen; “I don’t deserve that
you should—that you should be so kind to me.”
“Mamma left you to me,” she said, stooping down and brushing his
forehead with her lips hastily. “You know you were to come to me when
you were in trouble, or to tell me when you were very happy: that was
our compact, Arthur, last year, before we parted. Are you very happy
now, or are you in trouble—which is it?” and she looked at him with an
arch glance of kindness. “Do you like going into Parliament! Do you
intend to distinguish yourself there? How I shall tremble for your
first speech!”
“Do you know about the Parliament plan, then?” Pen asked.
“Know?—all the world knows! I have heard it talked about many times.
Lady Rockminster’s doctor talked about it to-day. I daresay it will be
in the Chatteris paper to-morrow. It is all over the county that Sir
Francis Clavering, of Clavering, is going to retire, in behalf of Mr.
Arthur Pendennis, of Fairoaks; and that the young and beautiful Miss
Blanche Amory is——”
“What! that too?” asked Pendennis.
“That, too, dear Arthur. Tout se sait, as somebody would say, whom I
intend to be very fond of; and who I am sure is very clever and pretty.
I have had a letter from Blanche. The kindest of letters. She speaks so
warmly of you, Arthur! I hope—I know she feels what she writes.—When is
it to be, Arthur? Why did you not tell me? I may come and live with you
then, mayn’t I?”
“My home is yours, dear Laura, and everything I have,” Pen said. “If I
did not tell you, it was because—because—I do not know: nothing is
decided as yet. No words have passed between us. But you think Blanche
could be happy with me—don’t you? Not a romantic fondness, you know. I
have no heart, I think; I’ve told her so: only a sober-sided
attachment:—and want my wife on one side of the fire and my sister on
the other,—Parliament in the session and Fairoaks in the holidays, and
my Laura never to leave me until somebody who has a right comes to take
her away.”
Somebody who has a right—somebody with a right! Why did Pen, as he
looked at the girl and slowly uttered the words, begin to feel angry
and jealous of the invisible somebody with the right to take her away?
Anxious, but a minute ago, how she would take the news regarding his
probable arrangements with Blanche, Pen was hurt somehow that she
received the intelligence so easily, and took his happiness for
granted.
“Until somebody comes,” Laura said, with a laugh, “I will stay at home
and be aunt Laura, and take care of the children when Blanche is in the
world. I have arranged it all. I am an excellent housekeeper. Do you
know I have been to market at Paris with Mrs. Beck, and have taken some
lessons from M. Grandjean? And I have had some lessons in Paris in
singing too, with the money which you sent me, you kind boy: and I can
sing much better now: and I have learned to dance, though not so well
as Blanche; and when you become a minister of state, Blanche shall
present me:” and with this, and with a provoking good-humour, she
performed for him the last Parisian curtsey.
Lady Rockminster came in whilst this curtsey was being performed, and
gave to Arthur one finger to shake; which he took, and over which he
bowed as well as he could, which, in truth, was very clumsily.
“So you are going to be married, sir,” said the old lady.
“Scold him, Lady Rockminster, for not telling us,” Laura said, going
away: which, in truth, the old lady began instantly to do. “So you are
going to marry, and to go into Parliament in place of that
good-for-nothing Sir Francis Clavering. I wanted him to give my
grandson his seat—why did he not give my grandson his seat? I hope you
are to have a great deal of money with Miss Amory. I wouldn’t take her
without a great deal.”
“Sir Francis Clavering is tired of Parliament,” Pen said, wincing,
“and—and I rather wish to attempt that career. The rest of the story is
at least premature.”
“I wonder, when you had Laura at home, you could take up with such an
affected little creature as that,” the old lady continued.
“I am very sorry Miss Amory does not please your ladyship,” said Pen,
smiling.
“You mean—that it is no affair of mine, and that I am not going to
marry her. Well, I’m not, and I’m very glad I am not—a little odious
thing—when I think that a man could prefer her to my Laura, I’ve no
patience with him, and so I tell you, Mr. Arthur Pendennis.”
“I am very glad you see Laura with such favourable eyes,” Pen said.
“You are very glad, and you are very sorry. What does it matter, sir,
whether you are very glad or very sorry? A young man who prefers Miss
Amory to Miss Bell has no business to be sorry or glad. A young man who
takes up with such a crooked lump of affectation as that little
Amory,—for she is crooked, I tell you she is,—after seeing my Laura,
has no right to hold up his head again. Where is your friend Bluebeard?
The tall young man, I mean,—Warrington, isn’t his name? Why does he not
come down, and marry Laura? What do the young men mean by not marrying
such a girl as that? They all marry for money now. You are all selfish
and cowards. We ran away with each other, and made foolish matches in
my time. I have no patience with the young men! When I was at Paris in
the winter, I asked all the three attaches at the Embassy why they did
not fall in love with Miss Bell? They laughed—they said they wanted
money. You are all selfish—you are all cowards.”
“I hope before you offered Miss Bell to the attaches,” said Pen, with
some heat, “you did her the favour to consult her?”
“Miss Bell has only a little money. Miss Bell must marry soon. Somebody
must make a match for her, sir; and a girl can’t offer herself,” said
the old dowager, with great state. “Laura, my dear, I’ve been telling
your cousin that all the young men are selfish; and that there is not a
pennyworth of romance left among them. He is as bad as the rest.”
“Have you been asking Arthur why he won’t marry me?” said Laura, with a
kindling smile, coming back and taking her cousin’s hand. (She had been
away, perhaps, to hide some traces of emotion, which she did not wish
others to see.) “He is going to marry somebody else; and I intend to be
very fond of her, and to go and live with them, provided he then does
not ask every bachelor who comes to his house, why he does not marry
me?”
The terrors of Pen’s conscience being thus appeased, and his
examination before Laura over without any reproaches on the part of the
latter, Pen began to find that his duty and inclination led him
constantly to Baymouth, where Lady Rockminster informed him that a
place was always reserved for him at her table. “And I recommend you to
come often,” the old lady said, “for Grandjean is an excellent cook,
and to be with Laura and me will do your manners good. It is easy to
see that you are always thinking about yourself. Don’t blush and
stammer—almost all young men are always thinking about themselves. My
sons and grandsons always were until I cured them. Come here, and let
us teach you to behave properly; you will not have to carve, that is
done at the side-table. Hecker will give you as much wine as is good
for you; and on days when you are very good and amusing you shall have
some champagne. Hecker, mind what I say. Mr. Pendennis is Miss Laura’s
brother; and you will make him comfortable, and see that he does not
have too much wine, or disturb me whilst I am taking my nap after
dinner. You are selfish: I intend to cure you of being selfish. You
will dine here when you have no other engagements; and if it rains you
had better put up at the hotel.” As long as the good lady could order
everybody round about her, she was not hard to please; and all the
slaves and subjects of her little dowager court trembled before her,
but loved her.
She did not receive a very numerous or brilliant society. The doctor,
of course, was admitted as a constant and faithful visitor; the vicar
and his curate; and on public days the vicar’s wife and daughters, and
some of the season visitors at Baymouth, were received at the old
lady’s entertainments: but generally the company was a small one, and
Mr. Arthur drank his wine by himself, when Lady Rockminster retired to
take her doze, and to be played and sung to sleep by Laura after
dinner.
“If my music can give her a nap,” said the good-natured girl, “ought I
not to be very glad that it can do so much good? Lady Rockminster
sleeps very little of nights: and I used to read to her until I fell
ill at Paris, since when she will not hear of my sitting up.”
“Why did you not write to me when you were ill?” asked Pen, with a
blush.
“What good could you do me? I had Martha to nurse me and the doctor
every day. You are too busy to write to women or to think about them.
You have your books and your newspapers, and your politics and your
railroads to occupy you. I wrote when I was well.”
And Pen looked at her, and blushed again, as he remembered that, during
all the time of her illness, he had never written to her and had
scarcely thought about her.
In consequence of his relationship, Pen was free to walk and ride with
his cousin constantly, and in the course of those walks and rides,
could appreciate the sweet frankness of her disposition, and the truth,
simplicity, and kindliness of her fair and spotless heart. In their
mother’s lifetime, she had never spoken so openly or so cordially as
now. The desire of poor Helen to make an union between her two
children, had caused a reserve on Laura’s part towards Pen; for which,
under the altered circumstances of Arthur’s life, there was now no
necessity. He was engaged to another woman; and Laura became his sister
at once,—hiding, or banishing from herself, any doubts which she might
have as to his choice; striving to look cheerfully forward, and hope
for his prosperity; promising herself to do all that affection might do
to make her mother’s darling happy.
Their talk was often about the departed mother. And it was from a
thousand stories which Laura told him that Arthur was made aware how
constant and absorbing that silent maternal devotion had been; which
had accompanied him present and absent through life, and had only ended
with the fond widow’s last breath. One day the people in Clavering saw
a lad in charge of a couple of horses at the churchyard-gate: and it
was told over the place that Pen and Laura had visited Helen’s grave
together. Since Arthur had come down into the country, he had been
there once or twice: but the sight of the sacred stone had brought no
consolation to him. A guilty man doing a guilty deed: a mere
speculator, content to lay down his faith and honour for a fortune and
a worldly career; and owning that his life was but a contemptible
surrender—what right had he in the holy place? what booted it to him in
the world he lived in, that others were no better than himself? Arthur
and Laura rode by the gates of Fairoaks; and he shook hands with his
tenant’s children, playing on the lawn and the terrace—Laura looked
steadily at the cottage wall, at the creeper on the porch and the
magnolia growing up to her window. “Mr. Pendennis rode by to-day,” one
of the boys told his mother, “with a lady, and he stopped and talked to
us, and he asked for a bit of honeysuckle off the porch, and gave it
the lady. I couldn’t see if she was pretty; she had her veil down. She
was riding one of Cramp’s horses, out of Baymouth.”
As they rode over the downs between home and Baymouth, Pen did not
speak much, though they rode very close together. He was thinking what
a mockery life was, and how men refuse happiness when they may have it;
or, having it, kick it down; or barter it, with their eyes open, for a
little worthless money or beggarly honour. And then the thought came,
what does it matter for the little space? The lives of the best and
purest of us are consumed in a vain desire, and end in a
disappointment: as the dear soul’s who sleeps in her grave yonder. She
had her selfish ambition, as much as Caesar had; and died, baulked of
her life’s longing. The stone covers over our hopes and our memories.
Our place knows us not. “Other people’s children are playing on the
grass,” he broke out, in a hard voice, “where you and I used to play,
Laura. And you see how the magnolia we planted has grown up since our
time. I have been round to one or two of the cottages where my mother
used to visit. It is scarcely more than a year that she is gone, and
the people whom she used to benefit care no more for her death than for
Queen Anne’s. We are all selfish: the world is selfish: there are but a
few exceptions, like you, my dear, to shine like good deeds in a
naughty world, and make the blackness more dismal.”
“I wish you would not speak in that way, Arthur,” said Laura, looking
down and bending her head to the honeysuckle on her breast. “When you
told the little boy to give me this, you were not selfish.”
“A pretty sacrifice I made to get it for you!” said the sneerer.
“But your heart was kind and full of love when you did so. One cannot
ask for more than love and kindness; and if you think humbly of
yourself Arthur, the love and kindness are—diminished—are they? I often
thought our dearest mother spoiled you at home, by worshipping you; and
that if you are—I hate the word—what you say, her too great fondness
helped to make you so. And as for the world, when men go out into it, I
suppose they cannot be otherwise than selfish. You have to fight for
yourself, and to get on for yourself, and to make a name for yourself.
Mamma and your uncle both encouraged you in this ambition. If it is a
vain thing, why pursue it? I suppose such a clever man as you intend to
do a great deal of good to the country, by going into Parliament, or
you would not wish to be there. What are you going to do when you are
in the House of Commons?”
“Women don’t understand about politics, my dear,” Pen said sneering at
himself as he spoke.
“But why don’t you make us understand? I could never tell about Mr.
Pynsent why he should like to be there so much. He is not a clever
man——”
“He certainly is not a genius, Pynsent,” said Pen.
“Lady Diana says that he attends Committees all day; that then again he
is at the House all night; that he always votes as he is told; that he
never speaks; that he will never get on beyond a subordinate place; and
as his grandmother tells him, he is choked with red-tape. Are you going
to follow the same career; Arthur? What is there in it so brilliant
that you should be so eager for it? I would rather that you should stop
at home, and write books—good books, kind books, with gentle kind
thoughts, such as you have, dear Arthur, and such as might do people
good to read. And if you do not win fame, what then? You own it is
vanity, and you can live very happily without it. I must not pretend to
advise; but I take you at your own word about the world; and as you own
it is wicked, and that it tires you, ask you why you don’t leave it?”
“And what would you have me do?” asked Arthur.
“I would have you bring your wife to Fairoaks to live there, and study,
and do good round about you. I would like to see your own children
playing on the lawn, Arthur, and that we might pray in our mother’s
church again once more, dear brother. If the world is a temptation, are
we not told to pray that we may not be led into it?”
“Do you think Blanche would make a good wife for a petty country
gentleman? Do you think I should become the character very well,
Laura?” Pen asked. “Remember temptation walks about the hedgerows as
well as the city streets: and idleness is the greatest tempter of all.”
“What does—does Mr. Warrington say?” said Laura, as a blush mounted up
to her cheek, and of which Pen saw the fervour, though Laura’s veil
fell over her face to hide it.
Pen rode on by Laura’s side silently for a while. George’s name so
mentioned brought back the past to him, and the thoughts which he had
once had regarding George and Laura. Why should the recurrence of the
thought agitate him, now that he knew the union was impossible? Why
should he be curious to know if, during the months of their intimacy,
Laura had felt a regard for Warrington? From that day until the present
time George had never alluded to his story, and Arthur remembered now
that since then George had scarcely ever mentioned Laura’s name.
At last he cane close to her. “Tell me something, Laura,” he said.
She put back her veil and looked at him. “What is it, Arthur?” she
asked—though from the tremor of her voice she guessed very well.
“Tell me—but for George’s misfortune—I never knew him speak of it
before or since that day—would you—would you have given him—what you
refused me?”
“Yes, Pen,” she said, bursting into tears.
“He deserved you better than I did,” poor Arthur groaned forth, with an
indescribable pang at his heart. “I am but a selfish wretch, and George
is better, nobler, truer, than I am. God bless him!”
“Yes, Pen,” said Laura, reaching out her hand to her cousin, and he put
his arm round her, and for a moment she sobbed on his shoulder.
The gentle girl had had her secret, and told it. In the widow’s last
journey from Fairoaks, when hastening with her mother to Arthur’s
sick-bed, Laura had made a different confession; and it was only when
Warrington told his own story, and described the hopeless condition of
his life, that she discovered how much her feelings had changed, and
with what tender sympathy, with what great respect, delight, and
admiration she had grown to regard her cousin’s friend. Until she knew
that some plans she might have dreamed of were impossible, and that
Warrington, reading in her heart, perhaps, had told his melancholy
story to warn her, she had not asked herself whether it was possible
that her affections could change; and had been shocked and seared by
the discovery of the truth. How should she have told it to Helen, and
confessed her shame? Poor Laura felt guilty before her friend, with the
secret which she dared not confide to her; felt as if she had been
ungrateful for Helen’s love and regard; felt as if she had been
wickedly faithless to Pen in withdrawing that love from him which he
did not even care to accept; humbled even and repentant before
Warrington, lest she should have encouraged him by undue sympathy, or
shown the preference which she began to feel.
The catastrophe which broke up Laura’s home, and the grief and anguish
which she felt for her mother’s death, gave her little leisure for
thoughts more selfish; and by the time she rallied from that grief the
minor one was also almost cured. It was but for a moment that she had
indulged a hope about Warrington. Her admiration and respect for him
remained as strong as ever. But the tender feeling with which she knew
she had regarded him, was schooled into such calmness, that it may be
said to have been dead and passed away. The pang which it left behind
was one of humility and remorse. “Oh, how wicked and proud I was about
Arthur,” she thought, “how self-confident and unforgiving! I never
forgave from my heart this poor girl, who was fond of him, or him for
encouraging her love; and I have been more guilty than she, poor,
little, artless creature! I, professing to love one man, could listen
to another only too eagerly; and would not pardon the change of
feelings in Arthur, whilst I myself was changing and unfaithful:” And
so humiliating herself, and acknowledging her weakness, the poor girl
sought for strength and refuge in the manner in which she had been
accustomed to look for them.
She had done no wrong: but there are some folks who suffer for a fault
ever so trifling as much as others whose stout consciences can walk
under crimes of almost any weight; and poor Laura chose to fancy that
she had acted in this delicate juncture of her life as a very great
criminal. She determined that she had done Pen a great injury by
withdrawing that love which, privately in her mother’s hearing, she had
bestowed upon him; that she had been ungrateful to her dead
benefactress by ever allowing herself to think of another or of
violating her promise; and that, considering her own enormous crimes,
she ought to be very gentle in judging those of others, whose
temptations were much greater, very likely, and whose motives she could
not understand.
A year back Laura would have been indignant at the idea that Arthur
should marry Blanche: and her high spirit would have risen, as she
thought that from worldly motives he should stoop to one so unworthy.
Now when the news was brought to her of such a chance (the intelligence
was given to her by old Lady Rockminster, whose speeches were as direct
and rapid as a slap on the face), the humbled girl winced a little at
the blow, but bore it meekly, and with a desperate acquiescence. “He
has a right to marry, he knows a great deal more of the world than I
do,” she argued with herself. “Blanche may not be so light-minded as
she seemed, and who am I to be her judge? I daresay it is very good
that Arthur should go into Parliament and distinguish himself, and my
duty is to do everything that lies in my power to aid him and Blanche,
and to make his home happy. I daresay I shall live with them. If I am
godmother to one of their children, I will leave her my three thousand
pounds!” And forthwith she began to think what she could give Blanche
out of her small treasures, and how best to conciliate her affection.
She wrote her forthwith a kind letter, in which, of course, no mention
was made of the plans in contemplation, but in which Laura recalled old
times, and spoke her goodwill, and in reply to this she received an
eager answer from Blanche: in which not a word about marriage was said,
to be sure, but Mr. Pendennis was mentioned two or three times in the
letter, and they were to be henceforth, dearest Laura, and dearest
Blanche, and loving sisters, and so forth.
When Pen and Laura reached home, after Laura’s confession (Pen’s noble
acknowledgment of his own inferiority and generous expression of love
for Warrington, causing the girl’s heart to throb, and rendering doubly
keen those tears which she sobbed on his shoulder), a little slim
letter was awaiting Miss Bell in the hall, which she trembled rather
guiltily as she unsealed, and which Pen blushed as he recognised: for
he saw instantly that it was from Blanche.
Laura opened it hastily, and cast her eyes quickly over it, as Pen kept
his fixed on her, blushing.
“She dates from London,” Laura said. “She has been with old Bonner,
Lady Clavering’s maid. Bonner is going to marry Lightfoot the butler.
Where do you think Blanche has been?” she cried out eagerly.
“To Paris, to Scotland, to the Casino?”
“To Shepherd’s Inn, to see Fanny; but Fanny wasn’t there, and Blanche
is going to leave a present for her. Isn’t it kind of her and
thoughtful?” And she handed the letter to Pen, who read—
“‘I saw Madame Mere, who was scrubbing the room, and looked at me with
very scrubby looks; but la belle Fanny was not au logis; and as I heard
that she was in Captain Strong’s apartments, Bonner and I mounted au
troisieme to see this famous beauty. Another disappointment—only the
Chevalier Strong and a friend of his in the room: so we came away after
all without seeing the enchanting Fanny.
“‘Je t’envoie mille et mille baisers. When will that horrid canvassing
be over? Sleeves are worn, etc. etc. etc.’”
After dinner the doctor was reading the Times. “A young gentleman I
attended when he was here some eight or nine years ago, has come into a
fine fortune,” the doctor said. “I see here announced the death of John
Henry Foker, Esq., of Logwood Hall, at Pau, in the Pyrenees, on the
15th ult.”