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THE HISTORY OF PENDENNIS.
HIS FORTUNES AND MISFORTUNES, HIS FRIENDS AND HIS GREATEST ENEMY.
BY
WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS ON WOOD BY THE AUTHOR.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
NEW YORK:
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS
329 & 331 PEARL STREET,
FRANKLIN SQUARE.
1858.
TO DR. JOHN ELLIOTSON.
My Dear Doctor,
Thirteen months ago, when it seemed likely that this story had
come to a close, a kind friend brought you to my bedside, whence,
in all probability, I never should have risen but for your constant
watchfulness and skill. I like to recall your great goodness and
kindness (as well as many acts of others, showing quite a surprising
friendship and sympathy) at that time, when kindness and friendship
were most needed and welcome.
* * * * *
And as you would take no other fee but thanks, let me record them
here in behalf of me and mine, and subscribe myself,
Yours, most sincerely and gratefully,
W. M. THACKERAY.
CONTENTS.
CHAP. PAGE
1.--SHOWS HOW FIRST LOVE MAY INTERRUPT BREAKFAST 9
2.--A PEDIGREE AND OTHER FAMILY MATTERS 14
3.--IN WHICH PENDENNIS APPEARS AS A VERY YOUNG MAN INDEED 30
4.--MRS. HALLER 41
5.--MRS. HALLER AT HOME 49
6.--CONTAINS BOTH LOVE AND WAR 62
7.--IN WHICH THE MAJOR MAKES HIS APPEARANCE 73
8.--IN WHICH PEN IS KEPT WAITING AT THE DOOR, WHILE THE READER
IS INFORMED WHO LITTLE LAURA WAS 81
9.--IN WHICH THE MAJOR OPENS THE CAMPAIGN 92
10.--FACING THE ENEMY 99
11.--NEGOTIATION 105
12.--IN WHICH A SHOOTING MATCH IS PROPOSED 114
13.--A CRISIS 122
14.--IN WHICH MISS FOTHERINGAY MAKES A NEW ENGAGEMENT 130
15.--THE HAPPY VILLAGE 137
16.--MORE STORMS IN THE PUDDLE 147
17.--WHICH CONCLUDES THE FIRST PART OF THIS HISTORY 158
18.--ALMA MATER 169
19.--PENDENNIS OF BONIFACE 178
20.--RAKE'S PROGRESS 191
21.--FLIGHT AFTER DEFEAT 201
22.--PRODIGAL'S RETURN 209
23.--NEW FACES 217
24.--A LITTLE INNOCENT 233
25.--CONTAINS BOTH LOVE AND JEALOUSY 243
26.--A HOUSE FULL OF VISITORS 253
27.--CONTAINS SOME BALL PRACTICING 265
28.--WHICH IS BOTH QUARRELSOME AND SENTIMENTAL 274
29.--BABYLON 287
30.--THE KNIGHTS OF THE TEMPLE 297
31.--OLD AND NEW ACQUAINTANCES 306
32.--IN WHICH THE PRINTER'S DEVIL COMES TO THE DOOR 317
33.--WHICH IS PASSED IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD OF LUDGATE HILL 329
34.--IN WHICH THE HISTORY STILL HOVERS ABOUT FLEET STREET 339
35.--A DINNER IN THE ROW 345
36.--THE PALL MALL GAZETTE 355
37.--WHERE PEN APPEARS IN TOWN AND COUNTRY 361
38.--IN WHICH THE SYLPH REAPPEARS 376
39.--IN WHICH COLONEL ALTAMONT APPEARS AND DISAPPEARS 384
PREFACE.
If this kind of composition, of which the two years' product is now laid
before the public, fail in art, as it constantly does and must, it at
least has the advantage of a certain truth and honesty, which a work
more elaborate might lose. In his constant communication with the
reader, the writer is forced into frankness of expression, and to speak
out his own mind and feelings as they urge him. Many a slip of the pen
and the printer, many a word spoken in haste, he sees and would recall
as he looks over his volume. It is a sort of confidential talk between
writer and reader, which must often be dull, must often flag. In the
course of his volubility, the perpetual speaker must of necessity lay
bare his own weaknesses, vanities, peculiarities. And as we judge of a
man's character, after long frequenting his society, not by one speech,
or by one mood or opinion, or by one day's talk, but by the tenor of his
general bearing and conversation; so of a writer, who delivers himself
up to you perforce unreservedly, you say, Is he honest? Does he tell the
truth in the main? Does he seem actuated by a desire to find out and
speak it? Is he a quack, who shams sentiment, or mouths for effect? Does
he seek popularity by clap-traps or other arts? I can no more ignore
good fortune than any other chance which has befallen me. I have found
many thousands more readers than I ever looked for. I have no right to
say to these, You shall not find fault with my Art, or fall asleep over
my pages; but I ask you to believe that this person writing strives to
tell the truth. If there is not that, there is nothing.
Perhaps the lovers of "excitement" may care to know, that this book
began with a very precise plan, which was entirely put aside. Ladies and
gentlemen, you were to have been treated, and the writer's and the
publishers' pocket benefited, by the recital of the most active horrors.
What more exciting than a ruffian (with many admirable virtues) in St.
Giles's, visited constantly by a young lady from Belgravia? What more
stirring than the contrasts of society? the mixture of slang and
fashionable language? the escapes, the battles, the murders? Nay, up to
nine o'clock this very morning, my poor friend, Colonel Altamont, was
doomed to execution, and the author only relented when his victim was
actually at the window.
The "exciting" plan was laid aside (with a very honorable forbearance
on the part of the publishers), because, on attempting it, I found that
I failed, from want of experience of my subject; and never having been
intimate with any convict in my life, and the manners of ruffians and
jail-birds being quite unfamiliar to me, the idea of entering into
competition with M. Eugene Sue was abandoned. To describe a real rascal,
you must make him so horrible that he would be too hideous to show; and
unless the painter paints him fairly, I hold he has no right to show him
at all.
Even the gentlemen of our age--this is an attempt to describe one of
them, no better nor worse than most educated men--even these we can not
show as they are, with the notorious foibles and selfishness of their
lives and their education. Since the author of Tom Jones was buried, no
writer of fiction among us has been permitted to depict, to his utmost
power, a MAN. We must drape him, and give him a certain conventional
simper. Society will not tolerate the Natural in our Art. Many ladies
have remonstrated, and subscribers left me, because, in the course of
the story, I described a young man resisting and affected by temptation.
My object was to say, that he had the passions to feel, and the
manliness and generosity to overcome them. You will not hear--it is best
to know it--what moves in the real world, what passes in society, in
the clubs, colleges, newsrooms--what is the life and talk of your sons.
A little more frankness than is customary has been attempted in this
story; with no bad desire on the writer's part, it is hoped, and with
no ill consequence to any reader. If truth is not always pleasant; at
any rate truth is best, from whatever chair--from those whence graver
writers or thinkers argue, as from that at which the story-teller sits
as he concludes his labor, and bids his kind reader farewell.
Kensington, _Nov. 26th, 1850_.
PENDENNIS.
CHAPTER I.
SHOWS HOW FIRST LOVE MAY INTERRUPT BREAKFAST.
[Illustration]
One fine morning in the full London season, Major Arthur Pendennis
came over from his lodgings, according to his custom, to breakfast at
a certain club in Pall Mall, of which he was a chief ornament. As he
was one of the finest judges of wine in England, and a man of active,
dominating, and inquiring spirit, he had been very properly chosen to be
a member of the committee of this club and indeed was almost the manager
of the institution; and the stewards and waiters bowed before him as
reverentially as to a duke or a field-marshal.
At a quarter past ten the major invariably made his appearance in the
best blacked boots in all London, with a checked morning cravat that
never was rumpled until dinner time, a buff waistcoat which bore the
crown of his sovereign on the buttons, and linen so spotless that Mr.
Brummel himself asked the name of his laundress, and would probably have
employed her, had not misfortunes compelled that great man to fly the
country. Pendennis's coat, his white gloves, his whiskers, his very
cane, were perfect of their kind as specimens of the costume of a
military man _en retraite_. At a distance, or seeing his back merely,
you would have taken him to be not more than thirty years old: it was
only by a nearer inspection that you saw the factitious nature of his
rich brown hair, and that there were a few crows'-feet round about the
somewhat faded eyes of his handsome mottled face. His nose was of the
Wellington pattern. His hands and wristbands were beautifully long and
white. On the latter he wore handsome gold buttons given to him by his
Royal Highness the Duke of York, and on the others more than one elegant
ring, the chief and largest of them being emblazoned with the famous
arms of Pendennis.
He always took possession of the same table in the same corner of the
room, from which nobody ever now thought of ousting him. One or two
mad wags and wild fellows had in former days, and in freak or bravado,
endeavored twice or thrice to deprive him of this place; but there was
a quiet dignity in the major's manner as he took his seat at the next
table, and surveyed the interlopers, which rendered it impossible for
any man to sit and breakfast under his eye; and that table--by the fire
and yet near the window--became his own. His letters were laid out there
in expectation of his arrival, and many was the young fellow about town
who looked with wonder at the number of those notes, and at the seals
and franks which they bore. If there was any question about etiquette,
society, who was married to whom, of what age such and such a duke was,
Pendennis was the man to whom every one appealed. Marchionesses used to
drive up to the club, and leave notes for him or fetch him out. He was
perfectly affable. The young men liked to walk with him in the Park or
down Pall Mall; for he touched his hat to every body, and every other
man he met was a lord.
The major sate down at his accustomed table then, and while the waiters
went to bring him his toast and his hot newspaper, he surveyed his
letters through his gold double eye-glass. He carried it so gayly, you
would hardly have known it was spectacles in disguise, and examined one
pretty note after another, and laid them by in order. There were large
solemn dinner cards, suggestive of three courses and heavy conversation;
there were neat little confidential notes, conveying female entreaties;
there was a note on thick official paper from the Marquis of Steyne,
telling him to come to Richmond to a little party at the Star and
Garter, and speak French, which language the major possessed very
perfectly; and another from the Bishop of Ealing and Mrs. Trail,
requesting the honor of Major Pendennis's company at Ealing House,
all of which letters Pendennis read gracefully, and with the more
satisfaction, because Glowry, the Scotch surgeon, breakfasting opposite
to him, was looking on, and hating him for having so many invitations,
which nobody ever sent to Glowry.
These perused, the major took out his pocket-book to see on what days he
was disengaged, and which of these many hospitable calls he could afford
to accept or decline.
He threw over Cutler, the East India Director, in Baker-street, in order
to dine with Lord Steyne and the little French party at the Star and
Garter--the bishop he accepted, because, though the dinner was slow he
liked to dine with bishops--and so went through his list and disposed
of them according to his fancy or interest. Then he took his breakfast
and looked over the paper, the gazette, the births and deaths, and the
fashionable intelligence, to see that his name was down among the guests
at my Lord So-and-so's fete, and in the intervals of these occupations
carried on cheerful conversation with his acquaintances about the room.
Among the letters which formed Major Pendennis's budget for that morning
there was only one unread, and which lay solitary and apart from all the
fashionable London letters, with a country postmark and a homely seal.
The superscription was in a pretty, delicate female hand, and though
marked "Immediate" by the fair writer, with a strong dash of anxiety
under the word, yet the major had, for reasons of his own, neglected up
to the present moment his humble rural petitioner, who to be sure could
hardly hope to get a hearing among so many grand folks who attended his
levee. The fact was, this was a letter from a female relative of
Pendennis, and while the grandees of her brother's acquaintance were
received and got their interview, and drove off, as it were, the patient
country letter remained for a long time waiting for an audience in the
ante-chamber under the slop-basin.
At last it came to be this letter's turn, and the major broke a seal
with "Fairoaks" engraved upon it, and "Clavering St. Mary's" for a
post-mark. It was a double letter, and the major commenced perusing the
envelope before he attacked the inner epistle.
"Is it a letter from another _Jook_?" growled Mr. Glowry, inwardly,
"Pendennis would not be leaving that to the last, I'm thinking."
"My dear Major Pendennis," the letter ran, "I beg and implore you to
come to me _immediately_"--very likely, thought Pendennis, and Steyne's
dinner to-day--"I am in the very greatest grief and perplexity. My
dearest boy, who has been hitherto every thing the fondest mother could
wish, is grieving me _dreadfully_. He has formed--I can hardly write
it--a passion, an infatuation,"--the major grinned--"for an actress
who has been performing here. She is at least twelve years older than
Arthur--who will not be eighteen till next February--and the wretched
boy insists upon marrying her."
"Hay! What's making Pendennis swear now?"--Mr. Glowry asked of himself,
for rage and wonder were concentrated in the major's open mouth, as he
read this astounding announcement.
"Do, my dear friend," the grief-stricken lady went on, "come to me
instantly on the receipt of this; and, as Arthur's guardian, entreat,
command, the wretched child to give up this most deplorable resolution."
And, after more entreaties to the above effect, the writer concluded
by signing herself the major's "unhappy affectionate sister, Helen
Pendennis."
"Fairoaks, Tuesday"--the major concluded, reading the last words of
the letter--"A d--d pretty business at Fairoaks, Tuesday; now let us
see what the boy has to say;" and he took the other letter, which was
written in a great floundering boy's hand, and sealed with the large
signet of the Pendennises, even larger than the major's own, and with
supplementary wax sputtered all round the seal, in token of the writer's
tremulousness and agitation.
The epistle ran thus--
"Fairoaks,
"_Monday, Midnight_.
"My dear Uncle,
"In informing you of my engagement with Miss Costigan, daughter of
J. Chesterfield Costigan Esq., of Costiganstown, but, perhaps, better
known to you under her professional name of Miss Fotheringay, of the
Theaters Royal Drury Lane and Crow-street, and of the Norwich and
Welsh Circuit, I am aware that I make an announcement which can not,
according to the present prejudices of society, at least, be welcome
to my family. My dearest mother, on whom, God knows I would wish to
inflict no needless pain, is deeply moved and grieved, I am sorry to
say, by the intelligence which I have this night conveyed to her.
I beseech you, my dear sir, to come down and reason with her, and
console her. Although obliged by poverty to earn an honorable
maintenance by the exercise of her splendid talents, Miss Costigan's
family is as ancient and noble as our own. When our ancestor, Ralph
Pendennis, landed with Richard II. in Ireland, my Emily's forefathers
were kings of that country. I have the information from Mr. Costigan,
who, like yourself, is a military man.
"It is in vain I have attempted to argue with my dear mother, and
prove to her that a young lady of irreproachable character and
lineage, endowed with the most splendid gifts of beauty and genius,
who devotes herself to the exercise of one of the noblest professions,
for the sacred purpose of maintaining her family, is a being whom we
should all love and reverence, rather than avoid;--my poor mother
has prejudices which it is impossible for my logic to overcome, and
refuses to welcome to her arms one who is disposed to be her most
affectionate daughter through life.
"Although Miss Costigan is some years older than myself, that
circumstance does not operate as a barrier to my affection, and I am
sure will not influence its duration. A love like mine, sir, I feel,
is contracted once and for ever. As I never had dreamed of love until
I saw her--I feel now that I shall die without ever knowing another
passion. It is the fate of my life. It was Miss C.'s own delicacy
which suggested that the difference of age, which I never felt, might
operate as a bar to our union. But having loved once, I should despise
myself, and be unworthy of my name as a gentleman, if I hesitated
to abide by my passion: if I did not give all where I felt all, and
endow the woman who loves me fondly with my whole heart and my whole
fortune.
"I press for a speedy marriage with my Emily--for why, in truth,
should it be delayed? A delay implies a doubt, which I cast from me
as unworthy. It is impossible that my sentiments can change toward
Emily--that at any age she can be any thing but the sole object of
my love. Why, then, wait? I entreat you, my dear uncle, to come down
and reconcile my dear mother to our union, and I address you as a man
of the world, _qui mores hominum multorum vidit et urbes_, who will
not feel any of the weak scruples and fears which agitate a lady who
has scarcely ever left her village.
"Pray come down to us immediately. I am quite confident that--apart
from considerations of fortune--you will admire and approve of
my Emily.
"Your affectionate Nephew.
"ARTHUR PENDENNIS, Jr."
When the major had concluded the perusal of this letter, his
countenance assumed an expression of such rage and horror that Glowry
the surgeon-official, felt in his pocket for his lancet, which he always
carried in his card-case, and thought his respected friend was going
into a fit. The intelligence was indeed sufficient to agitate Pendennis.
The head of the Pendennises going to marry an actress ten years his
senior--a headstrong boy going to plunge into matrimony. "The mother has
spoiled the young rascal," groaned the major inwardly, "with her cursed
sentimentality and romantic rubbish. My nephew marry a tragedy queen!
Gracious mercy, people will laugh at me so that I shall not dare show
my head!" And he thought with an inexpressible pang that he must give
up Lord Steyne's dinner at Richmond, and must lose his rest and pass the
night in an abominable tight mail-coach, instead of taking pleasure,
as he had promised himself, in some of the most agreeable and select
society in England.
And he must not only give up this but all other engagements for some
time to come. Who knows how long the business might detain him. He
quitted his breakfast table for the adjoining writing-room, and there
ruefully wrote off refusals to the marquis, the earl, the bishop, and
all his entertainers; and he ordered his servant to take places in
the mail-coach for that evening, of course charging the sum which he
disbursed for the seats to the account of the widow and the young
scapegrace of whom he was guardian.