BABYLON.
[Illustration]
Our reader must now please to quit the woods and sea-shore of the
west, and the gossip of Clavering, and the humdrum life of poor little
Fairoaks, and transport himself with Arthur Pendennis, on the "Alacrity"
coach, to London, whither he goes once for all to face the world and to
make his fortune. As the coach whirls through the night away from the
friendly gates of home, many a plan does the young man cast in his mind
of future life and conduct, prudence, and peradventure success and fame.
He knows he is a better man than many who have hitherto been ahead of
him in the race: his first failure has caused him remorse, and brought
with it reflection; it has not taken away his courage, or, let us add,
his good opinion of himself. A hundred eager fancies and busy hopes
keep him awake. How much older his mishaps and a year's thought and
self-communion have made him, than when, twelve months since, he passed
on this road on his way to and from Oxbridge! His thoughts turn in the
night with inexpressible fondness and tenderness toward the fond mother,
who blessed him when parting, and who, in spite of all his past faults
and follies, trusts him and loves him still. Blessings be on her! he
prays, as he looks up to the stars overhead. O heaven, give him strength
to work, to endure, to be honest, to avoid temptation, to be worthy of
the loving soul who loves him so entirely! Very likely she is awake,
too, at that moment, and sending up to the same Father purer prayers
than his for the welfare of her boy. That woman's love is a talisman by
which he holds and hopes to get his safety. And Laura's--he would have
fain carried her affection with him too, but she has denied it, as he is
not worthy of it. He owns as much with shame and remorse; confesses how
much better and loftier her nature is than his own--confesses it, and
yet is glad to be free. "I am not good enough for such a creature," he
owns to himself. He draws back before her spotless beauty and innocence,
as from something that scares him. He feels he is not fit for such a
mate as that; as many a wild prodigal who has been pious and guiltless
in early days, keeps away from a church which he used to frequent
once--shunning it, but not hostile to it--only feeling that he has no
right in that pure place.
With these thoughts to occupy him, Pen did not fall asleep until the
nipping dawn of an October morning, and woke considerably refreshed when
the coach stopped at the old breakfasting place at B----, where he had
had a score of merry meals on his way to and from school and college
many times since he was a boy. As they left that place, the sun broke
out brightly, the pace was rapid, the horn blew, the milestones flew by,
Pen smoked and joked with guard and fellow-passengers and people along
the familiar road; it grew more busy and animated at every instant; the
last team of grays came out at H----, and the coach drove into London.
What young fellow has not felt a thrill as he entered the vast place?
Hundreds of other carriages, crowded with their thousands of men, were
hastening to the great city. "Here is my place," thought Pen; "here is
my battle beginning, in which I must fight and conquer, or fall. I have
been a boy and a dawdler as yet. Oh, I long, I long to show that I can
be a man." And from his place on the coach-roof the eager young fellow
looked down upon the city, with the sort of longing desire which young
soldiers feel on the eve of a campaign.
As they came along the road, Pen had formed an acquaintance with a
cheery fellow-passenger in a shabby cloak, who talked a great deal about
men of letters with whom he was very familiar, and who was, in fact,
the reporter of a London newspaper, as whose representative he had
been to attend a great wrestling-match in the west. This gentleman knew
intimately, as it appeared, all the leading men of letters of his day,
and talked about Tom Campbell, and Tom Hood, and Sydney Smith, and this
and the other, as if he had been their most intimate friend. As they
passed by Brompton, this gentleman pointed out to Pen, Mr. Hurtle, the
reviewer, walking with his umbrella. Pen craned over the coach to have
a long look at the great Hurtle. He was a Boniface man, said Pen. And
Mr. Doolan of the Star newspaper (for such was the gentleman's name and
address upon the card which he handed to Pen), said "Faith he was, and
he knew him very well." Pen thought it was quite an honor to have seen
the great Mr. Hurtle, whose works he admired. He believed fondly, as
yet, in authors, reviewers, and editors of newspapers. Even Wagg, whose
books did not appear to him to be masterpieces of human intellect, he
yet secretly revered as a successful writer. He mentioned that he had
met Wagg in the country, and Doolan told him how that famous novelist
received three hundred pounds a volume for every one of his novels. Pen
began to calculate instantly whether he might not make five thousand a
year.
The very first acquaintance of his own whom Arthur met, as the coach
pulled up at the Gloster Coffee House, was his old friend Harry Foker,
who came prancing down Arlington-street behind an enormous cab-horse.
He had white kid gloves and white reins, and nature had by this time
decorated him with a considerable tuft on the chin. A very small cab-boy,
vice Stoopid retired, swung on behind Foker's vehicle; knock-kneed and
in the tightest leather breeches. Foker looked at the dusty coach, and
the smoking horses of the "Alacrity" by which he had made journeys in
former times.--"What, Foker!" cried out Pendennis--"Hullo! Pen, my boy!"
said the other, and he waved his whip by way of amity and salute to
Arthur, who was very glad to see his queer friend's kind old face. Mr.
Doolan had a great respect for Pen who had an acquaintance in such a
grand cab; and Pen was greatly excited and pleased to be at liberty
and in London. He asked Doolan to come and dine with him at the Covent
Garden Coffee House, where he put up: he called a cab and rattled away
thither in the highest spirits. He was glad to see the bustling waiter
and polite bowing landlord again; and asked for the landlady, and missed
the old Boots, and would have liked to shake hands with every body.
He had a hundred pounds in his pocket. He dressed himself in his very
best; dined in the coffee-room with a modest pint of sherry (for he was
determined to be very economical), and went to the theater adjoining.
The lights and the music, the crowd and the gayety, charmed and
exhilarated Pen, as those sights will do young fellows from college and
the country, to whom they are tolerably new. He laughed at the jokes; he
applauded the songs, to the delight of some of the dreary old _habitues_
of the boxes, who had ceased long ago to find the least excitement in
their place of nightly resort, and were pleased to see any one so fresh,
and so much amused. At the end of the first piece, he went and strutted
about the lobbies of the theater, as if he was in a resort of the
highest fashion. What tired frequenter of the London pave is there that
can not remember having had similar early delusions, and would not call
them back again? Here was young Foker again, like an ardent votary of
pleasure as he was. He was walking with Granby Tiptoff, of the Household
Brigade, Lord Tiptoff's brother, and Lord Colchicum, Captain Tiptoff's
uncle, a venerable peer, who had been a man of pleasure since the first
French Revolution. Foker rushed upon Pen with eagerness, and insisted
that the latter should come into his private box, where a lady with the
longest ringlets, and the fairest shoulders, was seated. This was Miss
Blenkinsop, the eminent actress of high comedy; and in the back of the
box snoozing in a wig, sate old Blenkinsop, her papa. He was described
in the theatrical prints as the 'veteran Blenkinsop'--'the useful
Blenkinsop'--'that old favorite of the public, Blenkinsop'--those parts
in the drama, which are called the heavy fathers, were usually assigned
to this veteran, who, indeed, acted the heavy father in public, as in
private life.
At this time, it being about eleven o'clock, Mrs. Pendennis was gone to
bed at Fairoaks, and wondering whether her dearest Arthur was at rest
after his journey. At this time Laura, too, was awake. And at this time
yesterday night, as the coach rolled over silent commons, where cottage
windows twinkled, and by darkling woods under calm starlit skies, Pen
was vowing to reform and to resist temptation, and his heart was at
home.... Meanwhile the farce was going on very successfully, and Mrs.
Leary, in a hussar jacket and braided pantaloons, was enchanting the
audience with her archness, her lovely figure, and her delightful
ballads.
Pen, being new to the town, would have liked to listen to Mrs. Leary
but the other people in the box did not care about her song or her
pantaloons, and kept up an incessant chattering. Tiptoff knew where her
_maillots_ came from. Colchicum saw her when she came out in '14. Miss
Blenkinsop said she sang out of all tune, to the pain and astonishment
of Pen, who thought that she was as beautiful as an angel, and that
she sang like a nightingale; and when Hoppus came on as Sir Harcourt
Featherby, the young man of the piece, the gentlemen in the box declared
that Hoppus was getting too stale, and Tiptoff was for flinging Miss
Blenkinsop's bouquet to him.
"Not for the world," cried the daughter of the veteran Blenkinsop; "Lord
Colchicum gave it to me."
Pen remembered that nobleman's name, and with a bow and a blush said he
believed he had to thank Lord Colchicum for having proposed him at the
Megatherium Club, at the request of his uncle, Major Pendennis.
"What, you're Wigsby's nephew, are you?" said the peer. "I beg your
pardon, we always call him Wigsby." Pen blushed to hear his venerable
uncle called by such a familiar name. "We balloted you in last week,
didn't we? Yes, last Wednesday night. Your uncle wasn't there."
Here was delightful news for Pen! He professed himself very much obliged
indeed to Lord Colchicum, and made him a handsome speech of thanks, to
which the other listened, with his double opera-glass up to his eyes.
Pen was full of excitement at the idea of being a member of this polite
club.
"Don't be always looking at that box, you naughty creature," cried Miss
Blenkinsop.
"She's a dev'lish fine woman, that Mirabel," said Tiptoff; "though
Mirabel was a d--d fool to marry her."
"A stupid old spooney," said the peer.
"Mirabel!" cried out Pendennis.
"Ha! ha!" laughed out Harry Foker. "We've heard of her before, haven't
we, Pen?"
It was Pen's first love. It was Miss Fotheringay. The year before she
had been led to the altar by Sir Charles Mirabel, G.C.B., and formerly
envoy to the Court of Pumpernickel, who had taken so active a part in
the negotiations before the Congress of Swammerdam, and signed, on
behalf of H.B.M. the peace of Pultusk.
"Emily was always as stupid as an owl," said Miss Blenkinsop.
"Eh! Eh! pas si bete," the old peer said.
"Oh, for shame!" cried the actress, who did not in the least know what
he meant.
And Pen looked out, and beheld his first love once again--and wondered
how he ever could have loved her.
* * * * *
Thus, on the very first night of his arrival in London, Mr. Arthur
Pendennis found himself introduced to a club, to an actress of genteel
comedy, and a heavy father of the stage, and to a dashing society of
jovial blades, old and young; for my Lord Colchicum, though stricken in
years, bald of head, and enfeebled in person, was still indefatigable in
the pursuit of enjoyment, and it was the venerable viscount's boast that
he could drink as much claret as the youngest member of the society
which he frequented. He lived with the youth about town: he gave them
countless dinners at Richmond and Greenwich: an enlightened patron of
the drama in all languages, and of the Terpsichorean art, he received
dramatic professors of all nations at his banquets--English from the
Covent Garden and Strand houses, Italians from the Haymarket, French
from their own pretty little theater, or the boards of the Opera where
they danced. And at his villa on the Thames, this pillar of the state
gave sumptuous entertainments to scores of young men of fashion, who
very affably consorted with the ladies and gentlemen of the
green-room--with the former chiefly, for Viscount Colchicum preferred
their society, as more polished and gay than that of their male
brethren.
Pen went the next day and paid his entrance-money at the club, which
operation carried off exactly one-third of his hundred pounds; and took
possession of the edifice, and ate his luncheon there with immense
satisfaction. He plunged into an easy chair in the library, and tried to
read all the magazines. He wondered whether the members were looking at
him, and that they could dare to keep on their hats in such fine rooms.
He sate down and wrote a letter to Fairoaks on the club paper, and said,
what a comfort this place would be to him after his day's work was
over. He went over to his uncle's lodgings in Bury-street with some
considerable tremor, and in compliance with his mother's earnest desire,
that he should instantly call on Major Pendennis; and was not a little
relieved to find that the major had not yet returned to town. His
apartments were blank. Brown hollands covered his library-table, and
bills and letters lay on the mantle-piece, grimly awaiting the return of
their owner. The major was on the continent, the landlady of the house
said, at Badnbadn, with the Marcus of Steyne. Pen left his card upon the
shelf with the rest. Fairoaks was written on it still.
When the major returned to London, which he did in time for the fogs of
November, after enjoying which he proposed to spend Christmas with some
friends in the country, he found another card of Arthur's, on which Lamb
Court, Temple, was engraved, and a note from that young gentleman and
from his mother, stating that he was come to town, was entered a member
of the Upper Temple, and was reading hard for the bar.
Lamb Court, Temple:--where was it? Major Pendennis remembered that
some ladies of fashion used to talk of dining with Mr. Ayliffe, the
barrister, who was "in society," and who lived there in the King's
Bench, of which prison there was probably a branch in the Temple, and
Ayliffe was very likely an officer. Mr. Deuceace, Lord Crab's son, had
also lived there, he recollected. He dispatched Morgan to find out where
Lamb Court was, and to report upon the lodging selected by Mr. Arthur.
That alert messenger had little difficulty in discovering Mr. Pen's
abode. Discreet Morgan had in his time traced people far more difficult
to find than Arthur.
"What sort of a place is it, Morgan?" asked the major, out of the
bed-curtains in Bury-street the next morning, as the valet was arranging
his toilet in the deep yellow London fog.
"I should say rayther a shy place," said Mr. Morgan. "The lawyers lives
there, and has their names on the doors. Mr. Harthur lives three pair
high, sir. Mr. Warrington live there too, sir."
"Suffolk Warringtons! I shouldn't wonder: a good family," thought the
major. "The cadets of many of our good families follow the robe as a
profession. Comfortable rooms, eh?"
"Honly saw the outside of the door, sir, with Mr. Warrington's name and
Mr. Arthur's painted up, and a piece of paper with 'Back at 6;' but I
couldn't see no servant, sir."
"Economical at any rate," said the major.
"Very, sir. Three pair, sir. Nasty black staircase as ever I see. Wonder
how a gentleman can live in such a place."
"Pray, who taught you where gentlemen should or should not live, Morgan.
Mr. Arthur, sir, is going to study for the bar, sir;" the major said
with much dignity; and closed the conversation and began to array
himself, in the yellow fog.
"Boys will be boys," the mollified uncle thought to himself. "He has
written to me a dev'lish good letter. Colchicum says he has had him to
dine, and thinks him agentleman like lad. His mother is one of the best
creatures in the world. If he has sown his wild oats, and will stick to
his business, he may do well yet. Think of Charley Mirabel, the old fool
marrying that flame of his! that Fotheringay! He doesn't like to come
here until I give him leave, and puts it in a very manly, nice way. I
was deuced angry with him, after his Oxbridge escapades--and showed it,
too, when he was here before--Gad, I'll go and see him, hang me if I
don't."
And having ascertained from Morgan that he could reach the Temple
without much difficulty, and that a city omnibus would put him down
at the gate, the major one day after breakfast at his club--not the
Polyanthus, whereof Mr. Pen was just elected a member, but another club:
for the major was too wise to have a nephew as a constant inmate of any
house where he was in the habit of passing his time--the major one day
entered one of those public vehicles, and bade the conductor to put him
down at the gate of the Upper Temple.
When Major Pendennis reached that dingy portal it was about twelve
o'clock in the day; and he was directed by a civil personage with a
badge and a white apron, through some dark alleys, and under various
melancholy archways into courts each more dismal than the other, until
finally he reached Lamb Court. If it was dark in Pall Mall, what was it
in Lamb Court? Candles were burning in many of the rooms there--in the
pupil-room of Mr. Hodgeman, the special pleader, where six pupils were
scribbling declarations under the tallow; in Sir Hokey Walker's clerk's
room, where the clerk, a person far more gentlemanlike and cheerful in
appearance than the celebrated counsel, his master, was conversing in a
patronizing manner with the managing clerk of an attorney at the door;
and in Curling, the wig-maker's melancholy shop, where, from behind the
feeble glimmer of a couple of lights, large sergeants' and judges' wigs
were looming drearily, with the blank blocks looking at the lamp-post in
the court. Two little clerks were playing at toss-halfpenny under that
lamp. A laundress in pattens passed in at one door, a newspaper boy
issued from another. A porter, whose white apron was faintly visible,
paced up and down. It would be impossible to conceive a place more
dismal, and the major shuddered to think that any one should select such
a residence. "Good Ged!" he said, "the poor boy mustn't live on here."
The feeble and filthy oil-lamps, with which the stair-cases of the Upper
Temple are lighted of night, were of course not illuminating the stairs
by day, and Major Pendennis, having read with difficulty his nephew's
name under Mr. Warrington's on the wall of No. 6, found still greater
difficulty in climbing the abominable black stairs, up the banisters of
which, which contributed their damp exudations to his gloves, he groped
painfully until he came to the third story. A candle was in the passage
of one of the two sets of rooms; the doors were open, and the names of
Mr. Warrington and Mr. A. Pendennis were very clearly visible to the
major as he went in. An Irish charwoman, with a pail and broom, opened
the door for the major.
"Is that the beer?" cried out a great voice: "give us hold of it."
The gentleman who was speaking was seated on a table, unshorn and
smoking a short pipe; in a farther chair sate Pen, with a cigar, and
his legs near the fire. A little boy, who acted as the clerk of these
gentlemen, was grinning in the major's face, at the idea of his being
mistaken for beer. Here, upon the third floor, the rooms were somewhat
lighter, and the major could see the place.
"Pen, my boy, it's I--it's your uncle," he said, choking with the smoke.
But as most young men of fashion used the weed, he pardoned the practice
easily enough.
Mr. Warrington got up from the table, and Pen, in a very perturbed
manner, from his chair. "Beg your pardon, for mistaking you," said
Warrington, in a frank, loud voice. "Will you take a cigar, sir? Clear
those things off the chair, Pidgeon, and pull it round to the fire."
Pen flung his cigar into the grate; and was pleased with the cordiality
with which his uncle shook him by the hand. As soon as he could speak
for the stairs and the smoke, the major began to ask Pen very kindly
about himself and about his mother; for blood is blood, and he was
pleased once more to see the boy.
Pen gave his news, and then introduced Mr. Warrington--an old Boniface
man--whose chambers he shared.
The major was quite satisfied when he heard that Mr. Warrington was a
younger son of Sir Miles Warrington of Suffolk. He had served with an
uncle of his in India and in New South Wales, years ago.
"Took a sheep-farm there, sir, made a fortune--better thing than law
or soldiering," Warrington said. "Think I shall go there too." And here
the expected beer coming in, in a tankard with a glass bottom, Mr.
Warrington, with a laugh, said he supposed the major would not have any,
and took a long, deep draught himself, after which he wiped his wrist
across his beard with great satisfaction. The young man was perfectly
easy and unembarrassed. He was dressed in a ragged old shooting-jacket,
and had a bristly blue beard. He was drinking beer like a coal-heaver,
and yet you couldn't but perceive that he was a gentleman.
When he had sate for a minute or two after his draught he went out of
the room, leaving it to Pen and his uncle, that they might talk over
family affairs were they so inclined.
"Rough and ready, your chum seems," the major said. "Somewhat different
from your dandy friends at Oxbridge."
"Times are altered," Arthur replied, with a blush. "Warrington is only
just called, and has no business, but he knows law pretty well: and
until I can afford to read with a pleader, I use his books, and get his
help."
"Is that one of the books?" the major asked, with a smile. A French
novel was lying at the foot of Pen's chair.
"This is not a working day, sir," the lad said. "We were out very late
at a party last night--at Lady Whiston's," Pen added, knowing his
uncle's weakness. "Every body in town was there except you, sir; Counts,
Embassadors, Turks, Stars and Garters--I don't know who--it's all in the
paper--and my name, too," said Pen, with great glee. "I met an old flame
of mine there, sir," he added, with a laugh. "You know whom I mean,
sir--Lady Mirabel--to whom I was introduced over again. She shook hands,
and was gracious enough. I may thank you for being out of that scrape,
sir. She presented me to the husband, too--an old beau in a star and a
blonde wig. He does not seem very wise. She has asked me to call on her,
sir: and I may go now without any fear of losing my heart."
"What, we have had some new loves, have we?" the major asked, in high
good-humor.
"Some two or three," Mr. Pen said, laughing. "But I don't put on my
_grand serieux_ any more, sir. That goes off after the first flame."
"Very right, my dear boy. Flames and darts and passion, and that sort
of thing, do very well for a lad: and you were but a lad when that
affair with the Fotheringill--Fotheringay--(what's her name?) came off.
But a man of the world gives up those follies. You still may do very
well. You have been hit, but you may recover. You are heir to a little
independence, which every body fancies is a doosid deal more. You have
a good name, good wits, good manners, and a good person--and, begad!
I don't see why you shouldn't many a woman with money--get into
Parliament--distinguish yourself, and--and, in fact, that sort of thing.
Remember, it's as easy to marry a rich woman as a poor woman: and a
devilish deal pleasanter to sit down to a good dinner, than to a scrag
of mutton in lodgings. Make up your mind to that. A woman with a good
jointure is a doosid deal easier a profession than the law, let me tell
you. Look out; I shall be on the watch for you: and I shall die content,
my boy, if I can see you with a good lady-like wife, and a good
carriage, and a good pair of horses, living in society, and seeing your
friends, like a gentleman. Would you like to vegetate like your dear
good mother at Fairoaks? Dammy, sir! life, without money and the best
society, isn't worth having." It was thus this affectionate uncle spoke,
and expounded to Pen his simple philosophy.
"What would my mother and Laura say to this, I wonder?" thought the lad.
Indeed old Pendennis's morals were not their morals, nor was his wisdom
theirs.
This affecting conversation between uncle and nephew had scarcely
concluded, when Warrington came out of his bed-room, no longer in rags,
but dressed like a gentleman, straight and tall, and perfectly frank and
good-humored. He did the honors of his ragged sitting-room with as much
ease as if it had been the finest apartment in London. And queer rooms
they were in which the major found his nephew. The carpet was full of
holes--the table stained with many circles of Warrington's previous
ale-pots. There was a small library of law-books, books of poetry, and
of mathematics, of which he was very fond. (He had been one of the
hardest livers and hardest readers of his time at Oxbridge, where the
name of Stunning Warrington was yet famous for beating bargemen, pulling
matches, winning prizes, and drinking milk-punch.) A print of the old
college hung up over the mantle-piece, and some battered volumes of
Plato, bearing its well-known arms, were on the book-shelves. There were
two easy chairs; a standing reading-desk piled with bills; a couple of
very meager briefs on a broken-legged study-table. Indeed, there was
scarcely any article of furniture that had not been in the wars, and
was not wounded. "Look here, sir, here is Pen's room. He is a dandy,
and has got curtains to his bed, and wears shiny boots, and a silver
dressing-case." Indeed, Pen's room was rather coquettishly arranged, and
a couple of neat prints of opera-dancers, besides a drawing of Fairoaks,
hung on the walls. In Warrington's room there was scarcely any article
of furniture, save a great shower-bath, and a heap of books by the
bed-side: where he lay upon straw like Margery Daw, and smoked his pipe,
and read half through the night his favorite poetry or mathematics.
When he had completed his simple toilet, Mr. Warrington came out of this
room, and proceeded to the cupboard to search for his breakfast.
"Might I offer you a mutton-chop, sir? We cook 'em ourselves hot and
hot; and I am teaching Pen the first principles of law, cooking, and
morality at the same time. He's a lazy beggar, sir, and too much of
a dandy."
And so saying, Mr. Warrington wiped a gridiron with a piece of paper,
put it on the fire, and on it two mutton-chops, and took from the
cupboard a couple of plates and some knives and silver forks, and
castors.
"Say but a word, Major Pendennis," he said; "there's another chop in the
cupboard, or Pidgeon shall go out and get you any thing you like."
Major Pendennis sate in wonder and amusement, but he said he had just
breakfasted, and wouldn't have any lunch. So Warrington cooked the
chops, and popped them hissing hot upon the plates.
Pen fell to at his chop with a good appetite, after looking up at his
uncle, and seeing that gentleman was still in good-humor.
"You see, sir," Warrington said, "Mrs. Flanagan isn't here to do 'em,
and we can't employ the boy, for the little beggar is all day occupied
cleaning Pen's boots. And now for another swig at the beer. Pen drinks
tea; it's only fit for old women."
"And so you were at Lady Whiston's last night," the major said, not in
truth knowing what observation to make to this rough diamond.
"I at Lady Whiston's! not such a flat, sir. I don't care for female
society. In fact it bores me. I spent my evening philosophically at the
Back Kitchen."
"The Back Kitchen? indeed!" said the major.
"I see you don't know what it means," Warrington said. "Ask Pen. He was
there after Lady Whiston's. Tell Major Pendennis about the Back Kitchen,
Pen--don't be ashamed of yourself."
So Pen said it was a little eccentric society of men of letters and
men about town, to which he had been presented; and the major began to
think that the young fellow had seen a good deal of the world since his
arrival in London.