RAKE'S PROGRESS.
[Illustration]
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 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 humor. 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 _racconteur_. Only once or twice during the
telling of the anecdotes, 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 every body 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 among 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 odor 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 honors very nicely--you carved well--I am glad you learned
to carve--it is done on the side-board 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 not a more respectable man than my friend Lord Martingale never
sate in a saddle), in bad odor. 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 jewelry 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 _feter_. 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 they know that 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 neighboring 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
any thing in the captain's disfavor, 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 uncommonly 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 champagne, 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, Seven's 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 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
mustaches, 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
theaters 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 Theater, 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
luster, and now was acting with "ever increasing attraction, &c.,"
"triumph of the good old British drama," as the play-bills avowed,
to houses in which there was plenty of room for any body 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 Chatteries. 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
theater 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 Chatteries,
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 courtesy, 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 theater 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 recognize him. The next
night he came in late, and staid very quietly for the after-piece, 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 recognize 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 all 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 honored 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 scandalized 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 the 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 jewelry 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 owed 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 jeweler'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 Saint 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. Every body 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 honors or passed with
decent credit. And where on 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 rumor rushed through the University, that
Pendennis of Boniface was plucked.