Fiat Justitia
The dinner was served when Arthur returned, and Lady Rockminster began
to scold him for arriving late. But Laura, looking at her cousin, saw
that his face was so pale and scared, that she interrupted her
imperious patroness; and asked, with tender alarm, what had happened?
Was Arthur ill?
Arthur drank a large bumper of sherry. “I have heard the most
extraordinary news; I will tell you afterwards,” he said, looking at
the servants. He was very nervous and agitated during the dinner.
“Don’t tramp and beat so with your feet under the table,” Lady
Rockminster said. “You have trodden on Fido, and upset his saucer. You
see Mr. Warrington keeps his boots quiet.”
At the dessert—it seemed as if the unlucky dinner would never be
over—Lady Rockminster said, “This dinner has been exceedingly stupid. I
suppose something has happened, and that you want to speak to Laura. I
will go and have my nap. I am not sure that I shall have any tea—no.
Good night, Mr. Warrington. You must come again, and when there is no
business to talk about.” And the old lady, tossing up her head, walked
away from the room with great dignity.
George and the others had risen with her, and Warrington was about to
go away, and was saying “Good night” to Laura, who, of course, was
looking much alarmed about her cousin, when Arthur said, “Pray, stay,
George. You should hear my news too, and give me your counsel in this
case. I hardly know how to act in it.”
“It’s something about Blanche, Arthur,” said Laura, her heart beating,
and her cheek blushing as she thought it had never blushed in her life.
“Yes—and the most extraordinary story,” said Pen. “When I left you to
go to my uncle’s lodgings, I found his servant, Morgan, who has been
with him so long, at the door, and he said that he and his master had
parted that morning; that my uncle had quitted the house, and had gone
to an hotel—this hotel. I asked for him when I came in; but he was gone
out to dinner. Morgan then said that he had something of a most
important nature to communicate to me, and begged me to step into the
house; his house it is now. It appears the scoundrel has saved a great
deal of money whilst in my uncle’s service, and is now a capitalist and
a millionaire, for what I know. Well, I went into the house, and what
do you think he told me? This must be a secret between us all—at least
if we can keep it, now that it is in possession of that villain.
Blanche’s father is not dead. He has come to life again. The marriage
between Clavering and the Begum is no marriage.”
“And Blanche, I suppose, is her grandfather’s heir,” said Warrington.
“Perhaps: but the child of what a father! Amory is an escaped
convict—Clavering knows it; my uncle knows it—and it was with this
piece of information held over Clavering in terrorem that the wretched
old man got him to give up his borough to me.”
“Blanche doesn’t know it,” said Laura, “nor poor Lady Clavering?”
“No,” said Pen; “Blanche does not even know the history of her father.
She knew that he and her mother had separated, and had heard as a
child, from Bonner, her nurse, that Mr. Amory was drowned in New South
Wales. He was there as a convict, not as a ship’s-captain, as the poor
girl thought. Lady Clavering has told me that they were not happy, and
that her husband was a bad character. She would tell me all, she said,
some day: and I remember her saying to me, with tears in her eyes, that
it was hard for a woman to be forced to own that she was glad to hear
her husband was dead: and that twice in her life she should have chosen
so badly. What is to be done now? The man can’t show and claim his
wife: death is probably over him if he discovers himself: return to
transportation certainly. But the rascal has held the threat of
discovery over Clavering for some time past, and has extorted money
from him time after time.”
“It is our friend Colonel Altamont, of course,” said Warrington “I see
all now.”
“If the rascal comes back,” continued Arthur, “Morgan, who knows his
secret, will use it over him—and having it in his possession, proposes
to extort money from us all. The d——d rascal supposed I was cognisant
of it,” said Pen, white with anger; “asked me if I would give him an
annuity to keep it quiet; threatened me, me, as if I was trafficking
with this wretched old Begum’s misfortune, and would extort a seat in
Parliament out of that miserable Clavering. Good heavens! was my uncle
mad, to tamper in such a conspiracy? Fancy our mother’s son, Laura,
trading on such a treason!”
“I can’t fancy it, dear Arthur,” said Laura, seizing Arthur’s hand, and
kissing it.
“No!” broke out Warrington’s deep voice, with a tremor; he surveyed the
two generous and loving young people with a pang of indescribable love
and pain. “No. Our boy can’t meddle with such a wretched intrigue as
that. Arthur Pendennis can’t marry a convict’s daughter; and sit in
Parliament as member for the hulks. You must wash your hands of the
whole affair, Pen. You must break off. You must give no explanations of
why and wherefore, but state that family reasons render a match
impossible. It is better that those poor women should fancy you false
to your word than that they should know the truth. Besides, you can get
from that dog Clavering—I can fetch that for you easily enough an
acknowledgment that the reasons which you have given to him as the head
of the family are amply sufficient for breaking off the union. Don’t
you think with me, Laura?” He scarcely dared to look her in the face as
he spoke. Any lingering hope that he might have—any feeble hold that he
might feel upon the last spar of his wrecked fortune, he knew he was
casting away; and he let the wave of his calamity close over him. Pen
had started up whilst he was speaking, looking eagerly at him. He
turned his head away. He saw Laura rise up also and go to Pen, and once
more take his hand and kiss it. “She thinks so too—God bless her!” said
George.
“Her father’s shame is not Blanche’s fault, dear Arthur, is it?” Laura
said, very pale, and speaking very quickly. “Suppose you had been
married, would you desert her because she had done no wrong? Are you
not pledged to her? Would you leave her because she is in misfortune?
And if she is unhappy, wouldn’t you console her? Our mother would, had
she been here.” And, as she spoke, the kind girl folded her arms round
him, and buried her face upon his heart.
“Our mother is an angel with God,” Pen sobbed out. “And you are the
dearest and best of women—the dearest, the dearest and the best. Teach
me my duty. Pray for me that I may do it—pure heart. God bless you—God
bless you, my sister!”
“Amen,” groaned out Warrington, with his head in his hands. “She is
right,” he murmured to himself. “She can’t do any wrong, I think—that
girl.” Indeed, she looked and smiled like an angel. Many a day after he
saw that smile—saw her radiant face as she looked up at Pen—saw her
putting back her curls, blushing and smiling, and still looking fondly
towards him.
She leaned for a moment her little fair hand on the table, playing on
it. “And now, and now,” she said, looking at the two gentlemen—
“And what now?” asked George.
“And now we will have some tea,” said Miss Laura, with her smile.
But before this unromantic conclusion to a rather sentimental scene
could be suffered to take place, a servant brought word that Major
Pendennis had returned to the hotel, and was waiting to see his nephew.
Upon this announcement, Laura, not without some alarm, and an appealing
look to Pen, which said, “Behave yourself well—hold to the right, and
do your duty—be gentle, but firm with your uncle”—Laura, we say, with
these warnings written in her face, took leave of the two gentlemen,
and retreated to her dormitory. Warrington, who was not generally fond
of tea, yet grudged that expected cup very much. Why could not old
Pendennis have come in an hour later? Well, an hour sooner or later,
what matter? The hour strikes at last. The inevitable moment comes to
say Farewell, The hand is shaken, the door closed, and the friend gone;
and, the brief joy over, you are alone. “In which of those many windows
of the hotel does her light beam?” perhaps he asks himself as he passes
down the street. He strides away to the smoking-room of a neighbouring
Club, and, there applies himself to his usual solace of a cigar. Men
are brawling and talking loud about politics, opera-girls,
horse-racing, the atrocious tyranny of the committee:—bearing this
sacred secret about him, he enters into this brawl. Talk away, each
louder than the other. Rattle and crack jokes. Laugh and tell your wild
stories. It is strange to take one’s place and part in the midst of the
smoke and din, and think every man here has his secret ego most likely,
which is sitting lonely and apart, away in the private chamber, from
the loud game in which the rest of us is joining!
Arthur, as he traversed the passages of the hotel, felt his anger
rousing up within him. He was indignant to think that yonder old
gentleman whom he was about to meet, should have made him such a tool
and puppet, and so compromised his honour and good name. The old
fellow’s hand was very cold and shaky when Arthur took it. He was
coughing; he was grumbling over the fire; Frosch could not bring his
dressing-gown or arrange his papers as that d——d confounded impudent
scoundrel of a Morgan. The old gentleman bemoaned himself, and cursed
Morgan’s ingratitude with peevish pathos.
“The confounded impudent scoundrel! He was drunk last night, and
challenged me to fight him, Pen; and, begad, at one time I was so
excited that I thought I should have driven a knife into him; and the
infernal rascal has made ten thousand pound, I believe—and deserves to
be hanged, and will be; but, curse him, I wish he could have lasted out
my time. He knew all my ways, and, dammy, when I rang the bell, the
confounded thief brought the thing I wanted—not like that stupid German
lout. And what sort of time have you had in the country? Been a good
deal with Lady Rockminster? You can’t do better. She is one of the old
school—vieille ecole, bonne ecole, hey? Dammy, they don’t make
gentlemen and ladies now; and in fifty years you’ll hardly know one man
from another. But they’ll last my time. I ain’t long for this business:
I am getting very old, Pen, my boy; and, gad, I was thinking to-day, as
I was packing up my little library, there’s a bible amongst the books
that belonged to my poor mother; I would like you to keep that, Pen. I
was thinking, sir, that you would most likely open the box when it was
your property, and the old fellow was laid under the sod, sir,” and the
Major coughed and wagged his old head over the fire.
His age—his kindness, disarmed Pen’s anger somewhat, and made Arthur
feel no little compunction for the deed which he was about to do. He
knew that the announcement which he was about to make would destroy the
darling hope of the old gentleman’s life, and create in his breast a
woeful anger and commotion.
“Hey—hey—I’m off, sir,” nodded the Elder; “but I’d like to read a
speech of yours in the Times before I go—‘Mr. Pendennis said,
Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking’—hey, sir? hey, Arthur? Begad,
you look dev’lish well and healthy, sir. I always said my brother Jack
would bring the family right. You must go down into the west, and buy
the old estate, sir. Nec tenui penna, hey? We’ll rise again, sir—rise
again on the wing—and, begad, I shouldn’t be surprised that you will be
a Baronet before you die.”
His words smote Pen. “And it is I,” he thought, “that am going to fling
down the poor old fellow’s air-castle. Well, it must be. Here goes.—I—I
went into your lodgings at Bury Street, though I did not find you,” Pen
slowly began—“and I talked with Morgan, uncle.”
“Indeed!” The old gentleman’s cheek began to flush involuntarily, and
he muttered, “The cat’s out of the bag now, begad!”
“He told me a story, sir, which gave me the deepest surprise and pain,”
said Pen.
The Major tried to look unconcerned. “What—that story
about—about—What-d’-you-call-’em, hey?”
“About Miss Amory’s father—about Lady Clavering’s first husband, and
who he is, and what.”
“Hem—a dev’lish awkward affair!” said the old man, rubbing his nose.
“I—I’ve been aware of that—eh—confounded circumstance for some time.”
“I wish I had known it sooner, or not at all,” said Arthur, gloomily.
“He is all safe,” thought the Senior, greatly relieved. “Gad! I should
have liked to keep it from you altogether—and from those two poor
women, who are as innocent as unborn babes in the transaction.”
“You are right. There is no reason why the two women should hear it;
and I shall never tell them—though that villain, Morgan, perhaps may,”
Arthur said, gloomily. “He seems disposed to trade upon his secret, and
has already proposed terms of ransom to me. I wish I had known of the
matter earlier, sir. It is not a very pleasant thought to me that I am
engaged to a convict’s daughter.”
“The very reason why I kept it from you—my dear boy. But Miss Amory is
not a convict’s daughter, don’t you see? Miss Amory is the daughter of
Lady Clavering, with fifty or sixty thousand pounds for a fortune; and
her father-in-law, a Baronet and country gentleman, of high reputation,
approves of the match, and gives up his seat in Parliament to his
son-in-law. What can be more simple?”
“Is it true, sir?”
“Begad, yes, it is true, of course it’s true. Amory’s dead. I tell you
he is dead. The first sign of life he shows, he is dead. He can’t
appear. We have him at a deadlock, like the fellow in the play—the
‘Critic,’ hey?—dev’lish amusing play, that ‘Critic.’ Monstrous witty
man, Sheridan; and so was his son. By Gad, sir, when I was at the Cape,
I remember——”
The old gentleman’s garrulity, and wish to conduct Arthur to the Cape,
perhaps arose from a desire to avoid the subject which was nearest his
nephew’s heart; but Arthur broke out, interrupting him—“If you had told
me this tale sooner, I believe you would have spared me and yourself a
great deal of pain and disappointment; and I should not have found
myself tied to an engagement from which I can’t, in honour, recede.”
“No, begad, we’ve fixed you—and a man who’s fixed to a seat in
Parliament, and a pretty girl, with a couple of thousand a year, is
fixed to no bad thing, let me tell you,” said the old man.
“Great Heavens, sir!” said Arthur, “are you blind? Can’t you see?”
“See what, young gentleman?” asked the other.
“See, that rather than trade upon this secret of Amory’s,” Arthur cried
out, “I would go and join my father-in-law at the hulks! See, that
rather than take a seat in Parliament as a bribe from Clavering for
silence, I would take the spoons off the table! See, that you have
given me a felon’s daughter for a wife; doomed me to poverty and shame;
cursed my career when it might have been—when it might have been so
different but for you! Don’t you see that we have been playing a guilty
game, and have been overreached;—that in offering to marry this poor
girl, for the sake of her money, and the advancement she would bring, I
was degrading myself, and prostituting my honour?”
“What in Heaven’s name do you mean, sir?” cried the old man.
“I mean to say that there is a measure of baseness which I can’t pass,”
Arthur said. “I have no other words for it, and am sorry if they hurt
you. I have felt, for months past, that my conduct in this affair has
been wicked, sordid, and worldly. I am rightly punished by the event,
and having sold myself for money and a seat in Parliament, by losing
both.”
“How do you mean that you lose either?” shrieked the old gentleman.
“Who the devil’s to take your fortune or your seat away from you? By
G—, Clavering shall give ’em to you. You shall have every shilling of
eighty thousand pounds.”
“I’ll keep my promise to Miss Amory, sir,” said Arthur.
“And, begad, her parents shall keep theirs to you.”
“Not so, please God,” Arthur answered. “I have sinned, but, Heaven help
me, I will sin no more. I will let Clavering off from that bargain
which was made without my knowledge. I will take no money with Blanche
but that which was originally settled upon her; and I will try to make
her happy. You have done it. You have brought this on me, sir. But you
knew no better: and I forgive——”
“Arthur—in God’s name—in your father’s, who, by Heavens, was the
proudest man alive, and had the honour of the family always at heart—in
mine—for the sake of a poor broken-down old fellow, who has always been
dev’lish fond of you—don’t fling this chance away—I pray you, I beg
you, I implore you, my dear, dear boy, don’t fling this chance away.
It’s the making of you. You’re sure to get on. You’ll be a Baronet;
it’s three thousand a year: dammy, on my knees, there, I beg of you,
don’t do this.”
And the old man actually sank down on his knees, and, seizing one of
Arthur’s hands, looked up piteously at him. It was cruel to remark the
shaking hands, the wrinkled and quivering face, the old eyes weeping
and winking, the broken voice. “Ah, sir,” said Arthur, with a groan,
“you have brought pain enough on me, spare me this. You have wished me
to marry Blanche. I marry her. For God’s sake, sir, rise! I can’t bear
it.”
“You—you mean to say that you will take her as a beggar, and be one
yourself?” said the old gentleman, rising up and coughing violently.
“I look at her as a person to whom a great calamity has befallen, and
to whom I am promised. She cannot help the misfortune; and as she had
my word when she was prosperous, I shall not withdraw it now she is
poor. I will not take Clavering’s seat, unless afterwards it should be
given of his free will. I will not have a shilling more than her
original fortune.”
“Have the kindness to ring the bell,” said the old gentleman. “I have
done my best, and said my say; and I’m a dev’lish old fellow.
And—and—it don’t matter. And—and Shakspeare was right—and Cardinal
Wolsey—begad—‘and had I but served my God as I’ve served you’—yes, on
my knees, by Jove, to my own nephew—I mightn’t have been—Good night,
sir, you needn’t trouble yourself to call again.”
Arthur took his hand, which the old man left to him; it was quite
passive and clammy. He looked very much oldened; and it seemed as if
the contest and defeat had quite broken him.
On the next day he kept his bed, and refused to see his nephew.