CONTAINS BOTH LOVE AND JEALOUSY.
[Illustration]
Our readers have already heard Sir Francis Clavering's candid opinion
of the lady who had given him her fortune and restored him to his native
country and home, and it must be owned that the baronet was not far
wrong in his estimate of his wife, and that Lady Clavering was not the
wisest or the best educated of women. She had had a couple of years'
education in Europe, in a suburb of London, which she persisted in
calling Ackney to her dying day, whence she had been summoned to join
her father at Calcutta at the age of fifteen. And it was on her voyage
thither, on board the Ramchunder East Indiaman, Captain Bragg, in which
ship she had two years previously made her journey to Europe, that she
formed the acquaintance of her first husband, Mr. Amory, who was third
mate of the vessel in question.
We are not going to enter into the early part of Lady Clavering's
history, but Captain Bragg, under whose charge Miss Snell went out to
her father, who was one of the captain's consignees, and part owner
of the Ramchunder and many other vessels, found reason to put the
rebellious rascal of a mate in irons, until they reached the Cape, where
the captain left his officer behind; and finally delivered his ward to
her father at Calcutta, after a stormy and perilous voyage in which the
Ramchunder and the cargo and passengers incurred no small danger and
damage.
Some months afterward Amory made his appearance at Calcutta, having
worked his way out before the mast from the Cape--married the rich
attorney's daughter in spite of that old speculator--set up as indigo
planter and failed--set up as agent and failed again--set up as editor
of the "Sunderbund Pilot" and failed again--quarreling ceaselessly
with his father-in-law and his wife during the progress of all these
mercantile transactions and disasters, and ending his career finally
with a crash which compelled him to leave Calcutta and go to New South
Wales. It was in the course of these luckless proceedings, that Mr.
Amory probably made the acquaintance of Sir Jasper Rogers, the respected
Judge of the Supreme Court of Calcutta, who has been mentioned before:
and, as the truth must out, it was by making an improper use of his
father-in-law's name, who could write perfectly well, and had no need of
an amanuensis, that fortune finally forsook Mr. Amory and caused him to
abandon all further struggles with her.
Not being in the habit of reading the Calcutta law-reports very
assiduously, the European public did not know of these facts as well
as people did in Bengal, and Mrs. Amory and her father, finding her
residence in India not a comfortable one, it was agreed that the lady
should return to Europe, whither she came with her little daughter
Betsy or Blanche, then four years old. They were accompanied by Betsy's
nurse, who has been presented to the reader in the last chapter as the
confidential maid of Lady Clavering, Mrs. Bonner: and Captain Bragg took
a house for them in the near neighborhood of his residence in
Pocklington-street.
It was a very hard, bitter summer, and the rain, it rained every day
for some time after Mrs. Amory's arrival. Bragg was very pompous and
disagreeable, perhaps ashamed, perhaps anxious, to get rid of the
Indian lady. She believed that all the world in London was talking
about her husband's disaster, and that the king and queen and the court
of directors were aware of her unlucky history. She had a good allowance
from her father; she had no call to live in England; and she determined
to go abroad. Away she went, then, glad to escape the gloomy
surveillance of the odious bully, Captain Bragg. People had no objection
to receive her at the continental towns where she stopped, and at the
various boarding-houses, where she royally paid her way. She called
Hackney Ackney, to be sure (though otherwise she spoke English with a
little foreign twang, very curious and not unpleasant); she dressed
amazingly; she was conspicuous for her love of eating and drinking,
and prepared curries and pillaws at every boarding-house which she
frequented; but her singularities of language and behavior only gave
a zest to her society, and Mrs. Amory was deservedly popular. She was
the most good-natured, jovial, and generous of women. She was up to
any party of pleasure by whomsoever proposed. She brought three times
more champagne and fowls and ham to the picnics than any one else. She
took endless boxes for the play, and tickets for the masked balls, and
gave them away to every body. She paid the boarding-house people months
beforehand; she helped poor shabby mustached bucks and dowagers, whose
remittances had not arrived, with constant supplies from her purse;
and in this way she tramped through Europe, and appeared at Brussels,
at Paris, at Milan, at Naples, at Rome, as her fancy led her. News of
Amory's death reached her at the latter place, where Captain Clavering
was then staying, unable to pay his hotel bill, as, indeed, was his
friend, the Chevalier Strong, and the good-natured widow married the
descendant of the ancient house of Clavering--professing, indeed, no
particular grief for the scapegrace of a husband whom she had lost.
We have brought her thus up to the present time when she was mistress
of Clavering Park, in the midst of which Mr. Pinckney, the celebrated
painter, portrayed her, with her little boy by her side.
[Illustration]
Missy followed her mamma in most of her peregrinations, and so learned a
deal of life. She had a governess for some time; and after her mother's
second marriage, the benefit of Madame de Caramel's select pension in
the Champs Elysees. When the Claverings came to England, she of course
came with them. It was only within a few years, after the death of her
grandfather, and the birth of her little brother, that she began to
understand that her position in life was altered, and that Miss Amory,
nobody's daughter, was a very small personage in a house compared with
Master Francis Clavering, heir to an ancient baronetcy, and a noble
estate. But for little Frank, she would have been an heiress, in spite
of her father: and though she knew, and cared not much about money, of
which she never had any stint, and though she was a romantic little
muse, as we have seen, yet she could not reasonably be grateful to the
persons who had so contributed to change her condition; nor, indeed,
did she understand what the latter really was, until she had made some
further progress, and acquired more accurate knowledge in the world.
But this was clear, that her step-father was dull and weak; that mamma
dropped her H's, and was not refined in manners or appearance; and that
little Frank was a spoiled quarrelsome urchin, always having his way,
always treading upon her feet, always upsetting his dinner on her
dresses, and keeping her out of her inheritance. None of these, as she
felt, could comprehend her: and her solitary heart naturally pined for
other attachments, and she sought around her where to bestow the
precious boon of her unoccupied affection.
This dear girl, then, from want of sympathy, or other cause, made
herself so disagreeable at home, and frightened her mother, and bored
her step-father so much, that they were quite as anxious as she could
be that she should settle for herself in life; and hence Sir Francis
Clavering's desire expressed to his friend, in the last chapter, that
Mrs. Strong should die, and that he would take Blanche to himself as
a second Mrs. Strong.
But as this could not be, any other person was welcome to win her; and
a smart young fellow, well-looking and well-educated, like our friend
Arthur Pendennis, was quite free to propose for her if he had a mind,
and would have been received with open arms by Lady Clavering as a
son-in-law, had he had the courage to come forward as a competitor for
Miss Amory's hand.
Mr. Pen, however, besides other drawbacks, chose to entertain an extreme
diffidence about himself. He was ashamed of his late failures, of his
idle and nameless condition, of the poverty which he had brought on his
mother by his folly, and there was as much of vanity as remorse in his
present state of doubt and distrust. How could he ever hope for such
a prize as this brilliant Blanche Amory, who lived in a fine park and
mansion, and was waited on by a score of grand domestics, while a
maid-servant brought in their meager meal at Fairoaks, and his mother
was obliged to pinch and manage to make both ends meet? Obstacles seemed
to him insurmountable, which would have vanished had he marched manfully
upon them; and he preferred despairing, or dallying with his wishes--or
perhaps he had not positively shaped them as yet--to attempting to win
gallantly the object of his desire. Many a young man fails by that species
of vanity called shyness, who might, for the asking, have his will.
But we do not pretend to say that Pen had, as yet, ascertained his; or
that he was doing much more than thinking about falling in love. Miss
Amory was charming and lively. She fascinated and cajoled him by a
thousand arts or natural graces or flatteries. But there were lurking
reasons and doubts, besides shyness and vanity, withholding him. In
spite of her cleverness, and her protestations, and her fascinations,
Pen's mother had divined the girl, and did not trust her. Mrs. Pendennis
saw Blanche light-minded and frivolous, detected many wants in her which
offended the pure and pious-minded lady; a want of reverence for her
parents, and for things more sacred, Helen thought: worldliness and
selfishness couched under pretty words and tender expressions. Laura and
Pen battled these points strongly at first with the widow--Laura being
as yet enthusiastic about her new friend, and Pen not far-gone enough in
love to attempt any concealment of his feelings. He would laugh at these
objections of Helen's, and say, "Psha, mother, you are jealous about
Laura--all women are jealous."
But when, in the course of a month or two, and by watching the pair
with that anxiety with which brooding women watch over their sons'
affections--and in acknowledging which, I have no doubt there is a
sexual jealousy on the mother's part, and a secret pang--when Helen saw
that the intimacy appeared to make progress, that the two young people
were perpetually finding pretexts to meet, and that Miss Blanche was at
Fairoaks or Mr. Pen at the Park every day, the poor widow's heart began
to fail her--her darling project seemed to vanish before her; and giving
way to her weakness, she fairly told Pen one day what her views and
longings were; that she felt herself breaking, and not long for this
world, and that she hoped and prayed before she went, that she might see
her two children one. The late events, Pen's life and career and former
passion for the actress, had broken the spirit of this tender lady. She
felt that he had escaped her, and was in the maternal nest no more; and
she clung with a sickening fondness to Laura, Laura who had been left to
her by Francis in Heaven.
Pen kissed and soothed her in his grand, patronizing way. He had
seen something of this, he had long thought his mother wanted to
make this marriage--did Laura know any thing of it? (Not she--Mrs.
Pendennis said--not for worlds would she have breathed a word of it to
Laura)--"Well, well, there was time enough, his mother wouldn't die,"
Pen said laughingly: "he wouldn't hear of any such thing, and as for the
muse, she is too grand a lady to think about poor little me--and as for
Laura, who knows that she would have me. She would do any thing you told
her, to be sure. But am I worthy of her?"
"Oh, Pen, you might be," was the widow's reply; not that Mr. Pen
ever doubted that he was; and a feeling of indefinable pleasure and
self-complacency came over him as he thought over this proposal, and
imaged Laura to himself as his memory remembered her for years past,
always fair and open, kindly and pious, cheerful, tender, and true. He
looked at her with brightening eyes as she came in from the garden at
the end of this talk, her cheeks rather flushed, her looks frank and
smiling--a basket of roses in her hand.
She took the finest of them and brought it to Mrs. Pendennis, who was
refreshed by the odor and color of these flowers; and hung over her
fondly, and gave it to her.
"And I might have this prize for the asking!" Pen thought, with a thrill
of triumph, as he looked at the kindly girl. "Why, she is as beautiful
and as generous as her roses." The image of the two women remained
forever after in his mind, and he never recalled it but the tears came
into his eyes.
Before very many weeks' intimacy with her new acquaintance, however,
Miss Laura was obliged to give in to Helen's opinion, and own that the
muse was selfish, unkind, and inconstant. Of course Blanche confided to
her bosom friend all the little griefs and domestic annoyances; how the
family could not comprehend her, and she moved among them an isolated
being; how her poor mamma's education had been neglected, and she was
forced to blush for her blunders; how Sir Francis was a weak person
deplorably unintellectual, and only happy when smoking his odious
cigars; how, since the birth of her little brother, she had seen her
mother's precious affection, which she valued more than any thing in
life, estranged from her once darling daughter; how she was alone,
alone, alone in the world.
But these griefs, real and heart-rending though they might be to a young
lady of exquisite sensibility, did not convince Laura of the propriety
of Blanche's conduct in many small incidents of life. Little Frank, for
instance, might be very provoking, and might have deprived Blanche of
her mamma's affection, but this was no reason why Blanche should box the
child's ears because he upset a glass of water over her drawing, and why
she should call him many opprobrious names in the English and French
language; and the preference accorded to little Frank was certainly no
reason why Blanche should give herself imperial airs of command toward
the boy's governess, and send that young lady upon messages through the
house to bring her book or to fetch her pocket-handkerchief. When a
domestic performed an errand for honest Laura, she was always thankful
and pleased; whereas she could not but perceive that the little muse had
not the slightest scruple in giving her commands to all the world round
about her, and in disturbing any body's ease or comfort, in order to
administer to her own. It was Laura's first experience in friendship;
and it pained the kind creature's heart, to be obliged to give up as
delusions, one by one, those charms and brilliant qualities in which
her fancy had dressed her new friend, and to find that the fascinating
little fairy was but a mortal, and not a very amiable mortal, after
all. What generous person is there that has not been so deceived in his
time?--what person, perhaps, that has not so disappointed others in his
turn?
[Illustration][**moved up from 249]
After the scene with little Frank, in which that refractory son and
heir of the house of Clavering, had received the compliments in French
and English, and the accompanying box on the ear from his sister, Miss
Laura, who had plenty of humor, could not help calling to mind some very
touching and tender verses which the muse had read to her out of Mes
Larmes, and which began, "My pretty baby brother, may angels guard thy
rest," in which the muse, after complimenting the baby upon the station
in life which it was about to occupy, and contrasting it with her own
lonely condition, vowed, nevertheless, that the angel boy would never
enjoy such affection as hers was, or find in the false world before him
any thing so constant and tender as a sister's heart. "It may be," the
forlorn one said, "it may be, you will slight it, my pretty baby sweet,
you will spurn me from your bosom, I'll cling around your feet! Oh let
me, let me love you! the world will prove to you as false as 'tis to
others, but _I_ am ever true." And behold the muse was boxing the
darling brother's ears instead of kneeling at his feet, and giving Miss
Laura her first lesson in the Cynical philosophy--not quite her first,
however--something like this selfishness and waywardness, something like
this contrast between practice and poetry, between grand versified
aspirations and every-day life, she had witnessed at home in the person
of our young friend Mr. Pen.
But then Pen was different. Pen was a man. It seemed natural, somehow,
that he should be self-willed, and should have his own way. And under
his waywardness and selfishness, indeed there was a kind and generous
heart. O it was hard that such a diamond should be changed away against
such a false stone as this. In a word, Laura began to be tired of her
admired Blanche. She had assayed her, and found her not true; and
her former admiration and delight, which she had expressed with her
accustomed generous artlessness, gave way to a feeling, which we shall
not call contempt, but which was very near it; and which caused Laura to
adopt toward Miss Amory, a grave and tranquil tone of superiority, which
was at first by no means to the muse's liking. Nobody likes to be found
out, or having held a high place, to submit to step down.
The consciousness that this event was impending did not serve to
increase Miss Blanche's good humor, and as it made her peevish and
dissatisfied with herself, it probably rendered her even less agreeable
to the persons round about her. So there arose one fatal day a
battle-royal between dearest Blanche and dearest Laura, in which the
friendship between them was all but slain outright. Dearest Blanche had
been unusually capricious and wicked on this day. She had been insolent
to her mother; savage with little Frank; odiously impertinent in her
behavior to the boy's governess; and intolerably cruel to Pincott, her
attendant. Not venturing to attack her friend (for the little tyrant was
of a timid feline nature, and only used her claws upon those who were
weaker than herself) she maltreated all these, and especially poor
Pincott, who was menial, confidante, companion (slave always), according
to the caprice of her young mistress.
This girl who had been sitting in the room with the young ladies, being
driven thence in tears, occasioned by the cruelty of her mistress, and
raked with a parting sarcasm as she went sobbing from the door, Laura
fairly broke out into a loud and indignant invective--wondered how one
so young could forget the deference owing to her elders as well as to
her inferiors in station; and professing so much sensibility of her own,
could torture the feelings of others so wantonly. Laura told her friend
that her conduct was absolutely wicked, and that she ought to ask pardon
of Heaven on her knees for it. And having delivered herself of a hot
and voluble speech whereof the delivery astonished the speaker as much
almost as her auditor, she ran to her bonnet and shawl, and went home
across the park, in a great flurry and perturbation, and to the surprise
of Mrs. Pendennis, who had not expected her until night.
Alone with Helen, Laura gave an account of the scene, and gave up her
friend henceforth. "O mamma," she said, "you were right; Blanche, who
seems so soft and so kind, is, as you have said, selfish and cruel. She
who is always speaking of her affections can have no heart. No honest
girl would afflict a mother so, or torture a dependent; and--and, I give
her up from this day, and I will have no other friend but you."
On this the two ladies went through the osculatory ceremony which they
were in the habit of performing, and Mrs. Pendennis got a great secret
comfort from the little quarrel--for Laura's confession seemed to say,
"That girl can never be a wife for Pen, for she is light-minded and
heartless, and quite unworthy of our noble hero. He will be sure to find
out her unworthiness for his own part, and then he will be saved from
this flighty creature, and awake out of his delusion."
But Miss Laura did not tell Mrs. Pendennis, perhaps did not acknowledge
to herself, what had been the real cause of the day's quarrel. Being
in a very wicked mood, and bent upon mischief every where, the little
wicked muse of a Blanche had very soon begun her tricks. Her darling
Laura had come to pass a long day; and as they were sitting in her own
room together, had chosen to bring the conversation round to the subject
of Mr. Pen.
"I am afraid he is sadly fickle," Miss Blanche observed; "Mrs. Pybus,
and many more Clavering people, have told us all about the actress."
"I was quite a child when it happened, and I don't know any thing about
it," Laura answered, blushing very much.
"He used her very ill," Blanche said, wagging her little head. "He was
false to her."
"I am sure he was not," Laura cried out; "he acted most generously by
her: he wanted to give up every thing to marry her. It was she that was
false to him. He nearly broke his heart about it: he--"
"I thought you didn't know any thing about the story, dearest,"
interposed Miss Blanche.
"Mamma has said so," said Laura.
"Well, he is very clever," continued the other little dear. "What a
sweet poet he is! Have you ever read his poems?"
"Only the 'Fisherman and the Diver,' which he translated for us, and his
prize Poem, which didn't get the prize; and, indeed, I thought it very
pompous and prosy," Laura said, laughing.
"Has he never written _you_ any poems, then, love?" asked Miss Amory.
"No, my dear," said Miss Bell.
Blanche ran up to her friend, kissed her fondly, called her my dearest
Laura at least three times, looked her archly in the face, nodded her
head, and said, "Promise to tell no-o-body, and I will show you
something."
And tripping across the room daintily, to a little mother-of-pearl
inlaid desk, she opened it with a silver key, and took out two or three
papers crumpled and rather stained with green, which she submitted to
her friend. Laura took them and read them. They were love-verses sure
enough--something about Undine--about a Naiad--about a river. She looked
at them for a long time; but, in truth, the lines were not very distinct
before her eyes.
"And you have answered them, Blanche?" she asked, putting them back.
"O no! not for worlds, dearest," the other said: and when her dearest
Laura had _quite_ done with the verses, she tripped back, and popped
them again into the pretty desk.
Then she went to her piano, and sang two or three songs of Rossini,
whose flourishes of music her flexible little voice could execute to
perfection, and Laura sate by, vaguely listening, as she performed these
pieces. What was Miss Bell thinking about the while? She hardly knew;
but sate there silent as the songs rolled by. After this concert the
young ladies were summoned to the room where luncheon was served; and
whither they of course went with their arms round each other's waists.
And it could not have been jealousy or anger on Laura's part which had
made her silent; for, after they had tripped along the corridor and
descended the steps, and were about to open the door which leads into
the hall, Laura paused, and looking her friend kindly and frankly in the
face, kissed her with a sisterly warmth.
Something occurred after this--Master Frank's manner of eating,
probably, or mamma's blunders, or Sir Francis smelling of cigars--which
vexed Miss Blanche, and she gave way to that series of naughtinesses
whereof we have spoken, and which ended in the above little quarrel.