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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.
VOLUME II.
1858
CHAPTER
1.--RELATES TO MR. HARRY FOKER's AFFAIRS
2.--CARRIES THE READER BOTH TO RICHMOND AND GREENWICH
3.--CONTAINS A NOVEL INCIDENT
4.--ALSATIA
5.--IN WHICH THE COLONEL NARRATES SOME OF HIS ADVENTURES
6.--A CHAPTER OF CONVERSATIONS
7.--MISS AMORY'S PARTNERS
8.--MONSEIGNEUR S'AMUSE
9.--A VISIT OF POLITENESS
10.--IN SHEPHERD'S INN
11.--IN OR NEAR THE TEMPLE GARDEN
12.--THE HAPPY VILLAGE AGAIN
13.--WHICH HAD VERY NEARLY BEEN THE LAST OF THE STORY
14.--A CRITICAL CHAPTER
15.--CONVALESCENCE
16.--FANNY'S OCCUPATION'S GONE
17.--IN WHICH FANNY ENGAGES A NEW MEDICAL MAN
18.--FOREIGN GROUND
19.--"FAIROAKS TO LET"
20.--OLD FRIENDS
21.--EXPLANATIONS
22.--CONVERSATIONS
23.--THE WAY OF THE WORLD
24.--WHICH ACCOUNTS PERHAPS FOR CHAPTER XXIII
25.--PHILLIS AND CORYDON
26.--TEMPTATIONS
27.--IN WHICH PEN BEGINS HIS CANVASS
28.--IN WHICH PEN BEGINS TO DOUBT ABOUT HIS ELECTION
29.--IN WHICH THE MAJOR IS BIDDEN TO STAND AND DELIVER
30.--IN WHICH THE MAJOR NEITHER YIELDS HIS MONEY NOR HIS LIFE
31.--IN WHICH PENDENNIS COUNTS HIS EGGS
32.--FIAT JUSTITIA
33.--IN WHICH THE DECKS BEGIN TO CLEAR
34.--MR. AND MRS. SAM HUXTER
35.--SHOWS HOW ARTHUR HAD BETTER HAVE TAKEN A RETURN-TICKET
36.--A CHAPTER OF MATCH-MAKING
37.--EXEUNT OMNES PENDENNIS.
CHAPTER I.
RELATES TO MR. HARRY FOKER'S AFFAIRS.
Since that fatal but delightful night in Grosvenor place, Mr. Harry
Foker's heart had been in such a state of agitation as you would
hardly have thought so great a philosopher could endure. When we
remember what good advice he had given to Pen in former days, how an
early wisdom and knowledge of the world had manifested itself in the
gifted youth; how a constant course of self-indulgence, such as
becomes a gentleman of his means and expectations, ought by right to
have increased his cynicism, and made him, with every succeeding day
of his life, care less and less for every individual in the world,
with the single exception of Mr. Harry Foker, one may wonder that he
should fall into the mishap to which most of us are subject once or
twice in our lives, and disquiet his great mind about a woman. But
Foker, though early wise, was still a man. He could no more escape the
common lot than Achilles, or Ajax, or Lord Nelson, or Adam our first
father, and now, his time being come, young Harry became a victim to
Love, the All-conqueror.
When he went to the Back Kitchen that night after quitting Arthur
Pendennis at his staircase-door in Lamb-court, the gin-twist and
deviled turkey had no charms for him, the jokes of his companions
fell flatly on his ear; and when Mr. Hodgen, the singer of "The Body
Snatcher," had a new chant even more dreadful and humorous than that
famous composition, Foker, although he appeared his friend, and said
"Bravo Hodgen," as common politeness, and his position as one of the
chiefs of the Back Kitchen bound him to do, yet never distinctly heard
one word of the song, which under its title of "The Cat in the
Cupboard," Hodgen has since rendered so famous. Late and very tired,
he slipped into his private apartments at home and sought the downy
pillow, but his slumbers were disturbed by the fever of his soul, and
the very instant that he woke from his agitated sleep, the image of
Miss Amory presented itself to him, and said, "Here I am, I am your
princess and beauty, you have discovered me, and shall care for
nothing else hereafter."
Heavens, how stale and distasteful his former pursuits and friendships
appeared to him! He had not been, up to the present time, much
accustomed to the society of females of his own rank in life. When he
spoke of such, he called them "modest women." That virtue which, let
us hope they possessed, had not hitherto compensated to Mr. Foker for
the absence of more lively qualities which most of his own relatives
did not enjoy, and which he found in Mesdemoiselles, the ladies of the
theater. His mother, though good and tender, did not amuse her boy;
his cousins, the daughters of his maternal uncle, the respectable Earl
of Rosherville, wearied him beyond measure. One was blue, and a
geologist; one was a horsewoman, and smoked cigars; one was
exceedingly Low Church, and had the most heterodox views on religious
matters; at least, so the other said, who was herself of the very
Highest Church faction, and made the cupboard in her room into an
oratory, and fasted on every Friday in the year. Their paternal house
of Drummington, Foker could very seldom be got to visit. He swore he
had rather go to the tread-mill than stay there. He was not much
beloved by the inhabitants. Lord Erith, Lord Rosherville's heir,
considered his cousin a low person, of deplorably vulgar habits and
manners; while Foker, and with equal reason, voted Erith a prig and a
dullard, the nightcap of the House of Commons, the Speaker's
opprobrium, the dreariest of philanthropic spouters. Nor could George
Robert, Earl of Gravesend and Rosherville, ever forget that on one
evening when he condescended to play at billiards with his nephew,
that young gentleman poked his lordship in the side with his cue, and
said, "Well, old cock, I've seen many a bad stroke in my life, but I
never saw such a bad one as that there." He played the game out with
angelic sweetness of temper, for Harry was his guest as well as his
nephew; but he was nearly having a fit in the night; and he kept to
his own rooms until young Harry quitted Drummington on his return to
Oxbridge, where the interesting youth was finishing his education at
the time when the occurrence took place. It was an awful blow to the
venerable earl; the circumstance was never alluded to in the family:
he shunned Foker whenever he came to see them in London or in the
country, and could hardly be brought to gasp out a "How d'ye do?" to
the young blasphemer. But he would not break his sister Agnes's
heart, by banishing Harry from the family altogether; nor, indeed,
could he afford to break with Mr. Foker, senior, between whom and his
lordship there had been many private transactions, producing an
exchange of bank checks from Mr. Foker, and autographs from the earl
himself, with the letters I O U written over his illustrious
signature.
[Illustration]
Besides the four daughters of Lord Gravesend whose various qualities
have been enumerated in the former paragraph, his lordship was blessed
with a fifth girl, the Lady Ann Milton, who, from her earliest years
and nursery, had been destined to a peculiar position in life. It was
ordained between her parents and her aunt, that when Mr. Harry Foker
attained a proper age, Lady Ann should become his wife. The idea had
been familiar to her mind when she yet wore pinafores, and when
Harry, the dirtiest of little boys, used to come back with black eyes
from school to Drummington, or to his father's house of Logwood, where
Lady Ann lived much with her aunt. Both of the young people coincided
with the arrangement proposed by the elders, without any protests or
difficulty. It no more entered Lady Ann's mind to question the order
of her father, than it would have entered Esther's to dispute the
commands of Ahasuerus. The heir-apparent of the house of Foker was
also obedient, for when the old gentleman said, "Harry, your uncle and
I have agreed that when you're of a proper age, you'll marry Lady Ann.
She won't have any money, but she's good blood, and a good one to look
at, and I shall make you comfortable. If you refuse, you'll have your
mother's jointure, and two hundred a year during my life:" Harry, who
knew that his sire, though a man of few words, was yet implicitly to
be trusted, acquiesced at once in the parental decree, and said,
"Well, sir, if Ann's agreeable, I say ditto. She's not a
bad-looking girl."
"And she has the best blood in England, sir. Your mother's blood, your
own blood, sir," said the brewer. "There's nothing like it, sir."
"Well, sir, as you like it," Harry replied. "When you want me, please
ring the bell. Only there's no hurry, and I hope you'll give us a long
day. I should like to have my fling out before I marry."
"Fling away, Harry," answered the benevolent father. "Nobody prevents
you, do they?" And so very little more was said upon this subject, and
Mr. Harry pursued those amusements in life which suited him best; and
hung up a little picture of his cousin in his sitting-room, amidst the
French prints, the favorite actresses and dancers, the racing and
coaching works of art, which suited his taste and formed his gallery.
It was an insignificant little picture, representing a simple round
face with ringlets; and it made, as it must be confessed, a very poor
figure by the side of Mademoiselle Petitot, dancing over a rainbow, or
Mademoiselle Redowa, grinning in red boots and a lancer's cap.
Being engaged and disposed of, Lady Ann Milton did not go out so much
in the world as her sisters; and often stayed at home in London at the
parental house in Gaunt-square, when her mamma with the other ladies
went abroad. They talked and they danced with one man after another,
and the men came and went, and the stories about them were various.
But there was only this one story about Ann: she was engaged to Harry
Foker: she never was to think about any body else. It was not a very
amusing story.
Well, the instant Foker awoke on the day after Lady Clavering's
dinner, there was Blanche's image glaring upon him with its clear gray
eyes, and winning smile. There was her tune ringing in his ears, "Yet
round about the spot, ofttimes I hover, ofttimes I hover," which poor
Foker began piteously to hum, as he sat up in his bed under the
crimson silken coverlet. Opposite him was a French print, of a Turkish
lady and her Greek lover, surprised by a venerable Ottoman, the
lady's husband; on the other wall, was a French print of a gentleman
and lady, riding and kissing each other at the full gallop; all round
the chaste bed-room were more French prints, either portraits of gauzy
nymphs of the Opera or lovely illustrations of the novels; or mayhap,
an English chef-d'oeuvre or two, in which Miss Calverley of T. R. E. O.
would be represented in tight pantaloons in her favorite page part; or
Miss Rougemont as Venus; their value enhanced by the signatures of
these ladies, Maria Calverley, or Frederica Rougemont, inscribed
underneath the prints in an exquisite fac-simile. Such were the
pictures in which honest Harry delighted. He was no worse than many of
his neighbors; he was an idle, jovial, kindly fast man about town; and
if his rooms were rather profusely decorated with works of French art,
so that simple Lady Agnes, his mamma, on entering the apartments where
her darling sate enveloped in fragrant clouds of Latakia, was often
bewildered by the novelties which she beheld there, why, it must be
remembered, that he was richer than most young men, and could better
afford to gratify his taste.
A letter from Miss Calverley written in a very dégagé style of
spelling and hand-writing, scrawling freely over the filigree paper,
and commencing by calling Mr. Harry, her dear Hokey-pokey-fokey, lay
on his bed table by his side, amid keys, sovereigns, cigar-cases, and
a bit of verbena, which Miss Amory had given him, and reminding him of
the arrival of the day when he was "to stand that dinner at the
Elefant and Castle, at Richmond, which he had promised;" a card for a
private box at Miss Rougemont's approaching benefit, a bundle of
tickets for "Ben Budgeon's night, the North Lancashire Pippin, at
Martin Faunce's, the Three-corned Hat in St. Martin's Lane; where
Conkey Sam, Dick the Nailor, and Deadman (the Worcestershire Nobber),
would put on the gloves, and the lovers of the good old British sport
were invited to attend"--these and sundry other memoirs of Mr. Foker's
pursuits and pleasures lay on the table by his side when he woke.
Ah! how faint all these pleasures seemed now. What did he care for
Conkey Sam or the Worcestershire Nobber? What for the French prints
ogling him from all sides of the room; those regular stunning slap-up
out-and-outers? And Calverley spelling bad, and calling him
Hokey-fokey, confound her impudence! The idea of being engaged to a
dinner at the Elephant and Castle at Richmond, with that old woman
(who was seven and thirty years old, if she was a day), filled his
mind with dreary disgust now, instead of that pleasure which he had
only yesterday expected to find from the entertainment.
When his fond mamma beheld her boy that morning, she remarked on the
pallor of his cheek, and the general gloom of his aspect. "Why do you
go on playing billiards at that wicked Spratt's?" Lady Agnes asked.
"My dearest child, those billiards will kill you, I'm sure they will."
"It isn't the billiards," Harry said, gloomily. "Then it's the
dreadful Back Kitchen," said the Lady Agnes. "I've often thought,
d'you know, Harry, of writing to the landlady, and begging that she
would have the kindness to put only very little wine in the negus
which you take, and see that you have your shawl on before you get
into your brougham."
"Do, ma'am. Mrs. Cutts is a most kind, motherly woman," Harry said.
"But it isn't the Back Kitchen, neither," he added with a
ghastly sigh.
As Lady Agnes never denied her son any thing, and fell into all his
ways with the fondest acquiescence, she was rewarded by a perfect
confidence on young Harry's part, who never thought to disguise from
her a knowledge of the haunts which he frequented; and, on the
contrary, brought her home choice anecdotes from the clubs and
billiard-rooms, which the simple lady relished, if she did not
understand. "My son goes to Spratt's," she would say to her
confidential friends. "All the young men go to Spratt's after their
balls. It is _de rigeur_, my dear; and they play billiards as they
used to play macao and hazard in Mr. Fox's time. Yes, my dear father
often told me that they sate up _always_ until nine o'clock the next
morning with Mr. Fox at Brooks's, whom I remember at Drummington, when
I was a little girl, in a buff waistcoat and black satin small
clothes. My brother Erith never played as a young man, nor sate up
late--he had no health for it; but my boy must do as every body does,
you know. Yes, and then he often goes to a place called the Back
Kitchen, frequented by all the wits and authors, you know, whom one
does not see in society, but whom it is a great privilege and pleasure
for Harry to meet, and there he hears the questions of the day
discussed; and my dear father often said that it was our duty to
encourage literature, and he had hoped to see the late Dr. Johnson at
Drummington, only Dr. Johnson died. Yes, and Mr. Sheridan came over
and drank a great deal of wine--every body drank a great deal of wine
in those days--and papa's wine-merchant's bill was ten times as much
as Erith's is, who gets it as he wants it from Fortnum and Mason's,
and doesn't keep any stock at all."
"That was an uncommon good dinner we had yesterday, ma'am," the artful
Harry broke out. "Their clear soup's better than ours. Moufflet will
put too much taragon into every thing. The suprème de volaille was
very good--uncommon, and the sweets were better than Moufflet's
sweets. Did you taste the plombière, ma'am and the maraschino jelly?
Stunningly good that maraschino jelly!"
Lady Agnes expressed her agreement in these, as in almost all other
sentiments of her son, who continued the artful conversation, saying,
"Very handsome house that of the Claverings. Furniture, I should say,
got up regardless of expense. Magnificent display of plate, ma'am."
The lady assented to all these propositions.
"Very nice people the Claverings."
"Hem!" said Lady Agnes.
"I know what you mean. Lady C. ain't distangy exactly, but she is very
good-natured." "O very," mamma said, who was herself one of the
most good-natured of women.
"And Sir Francis, he don't talk much before ladies: but after dinner
he comes out uncommon strong, ma'am--a highly agreeable well-informed
man. When will you ask them to dinner? Look out for an early day,
ma'am;" and looking into Lady Agnes's pocket-book, he chose a day only
a fortnight hence (an age that fortnight seemed to the young
gentleman), when the Claverings were to be invited to Grosvenor-street.
The obedient Lady Agnes wrote the required invitation. She was
accustomed to do so without consulting her husband, who had his own
society and habits, and who left his wife to see her own friends
alone. Harry looked at the card; but there was an omission in the
invitation which did not please him.
"You have not asked Miss Whatdyecallem--Miss Emery, Lady Clavering's
daughter."
"O, that little creature!" Lady Agnes cried. "No, I think not, Harry."
"We must ask Miss Amory," Foker said. "I--I want to ask Pendennis; and
he's very sweet upon her. Don't you think she sings very well, ma'am?"
"I thought her rather forward, and didn't listen to her singing. She
only sang at you and Mr. Pendennis, it seemed to me. But I will ask
her if you wish, Harry," and so Miss Amory's name was written on the
card with her mother's.
This piece of diplomacy being triumphantly executed, Harry embraced
his fond parent with the utmost affection, and retired to his own
apartments, where he stretched himself on his ottoman, and lay
brooding silently, sighing for the day which was to bring the fair
Miss Amory under his paternal roof, and devising a hundred wild
schemes for meeting her.
On his return from making the grand tour, Mr. Foker, junior, had
brought with him a polyglot valet, who took the place of Stoopid, and
condescended to wait at dinner, attired in shirt fronts of worked
muslin, with many gold studs and chains, upon his master and the
elders of the family. This man, who was of no particular country, and
spoke all languages indifferently ill, made himself useful to Mr.
Harry in a variety of ways--read all the artless youth's
correspondence, knew his favorite haunts and the addresses of his
acquaintance, and officiated at the private dinners which the young
gentleman gave. As Harry lay upon his sofa after his interview with
his mamma, robed in a wonderful dressing-gown, and puffing his pipe in
gloomy silence, Anatole, too, must have remarked that something
affected his master's spirits; though he did not betray any ill-bred
sympathy with Harry's agitation of mind. When Harry began to dress
himself in his out-of-door morning costume: he was very hard indeed to
please, and particularly severe and snappish about his toilet: he
tried, and cursed, pantaloons of many different stripes, checks, and
colors: all the boots were villainously varnished, the shirts too
"loud" in pattern. He scented his linen and person with peculiar
richness this day; and what must have been the valet's astonishment,
when, after some blushing and hesitation on Harry's part, the young
gentleman asked, "I say, Anatole, when I engaged you, didn't
you--hem--didn't you say that you could dress--hem--dress hair?"
The valet said, "Yes, he could."
"_Cherchy alors une paire de tongs--et--curly moi un pew_" Mr. Foker
said, in an easy manner; and the valet wondering whether his master
was in love or was going masquerading, went in search of the
articles--first from the old butler who waited upon Mr. Foker, senior,
on whose bald pate the tongs would have scarcely found a hundred hairs
to seize, and finally of the lady who had the charge of the meek
auburn fronts of the Lady Agnes. And the tongs being got, Monsieur
Anatole twisted his young master's locks until he had made Harry's
head as curly as a negro's; after which the youth dressed himself with
the utmost care and splendor and proceeded to sally out.
"At what time sall I order de drag, sir, to be to Miss Calverley's
door, sir?" the attendant whispered as his master was going forth.
"Confound her! Put the dinner off--I can't go!" said Foker. "No, hang
it--I must go. Poyntz and Rougemont, and ever so many more are coming.
The drag at Pelham Corner at six o'clock, Anatole."
The drag was not one of Mr. Foker's own equipages, but was hired from
a livery stable for festive purposes; Foker, however, put his own
carriage into requisition that morning, and for what purpose does the
kind reader suppose? Why to drive down to Lamb-court, Temple, taking
Grosvenor-place by the way (which lies in the exact direction of the
Temple from Grosvenor-street, as every body knows), where he just had
the pleasure of peeping upward at Miss Amory's pink window curtains,
having achieved which satisfactory feat, he drove off to Pen's
chambers. Why did he want to see his dear friend Pen so much? Why did
he yearn and long after him; and did it seem necessary to Foker's very
existence that he should see Pen that morning, having parted with him
in perfect health on the night previous? Pen had lived two years in
London, and Foker had not paid half a dozen visits to his chambers.
What sent him thither now in such a hurry?
What?--if any young ladies read this page, I have only to inform them
that when the same mishap befalls them, which now had for more than
twelve hours befallen Harry Foker, people will grow interesting to
them for whom they did not care sixpence on the day before; as on the
other hand persons of whom they fancied themselves fond will be found
to have become insipid and disagreeable. Then your dearest Eliza or
Maria of the other day, to whom you wrote letters and sent locks of
hair yards long, will on a sudden be as indifferent to you as your
stupidest relation: while, on the contrary, about _his_ relations you
will begin to feel such a warm interest! such a loving desire to
ingratiate yourself with _his_ mamma; such a liking for that dear kind
old man _his_ father! If He is in the habit of visiting at any house,
what advances you will make in order to visit there too. If He has a
married sister you will like to spend long mornings with her. You will
fatigue your servant by sending notes to her, for which there will be
the most pressing occasion, twice or thrice in a day. You will cry if
your mamma objects to your going too often to see His family. The only
one of them you will dislike, is perhaps his younger brother, who is
at home for the holidays, and who will persist in staying in the room
when you come to see your dear new-found friend, his darling second
sister. Something like this will happen to you, young ladies, or, at
any rate, let us hope it may. Yes, you must go through the hot fits
and the cold fits of that pretty fever. Your mothers, if they would
acknowledge it, have passed through it before you were born, your dear
papa being the object of the passion of course--who could it be but
he? And as you suffer it so will your brothers in their way--and after
their kind. More selfish than you: more eager and headstrong than you:
they will rush on their destiny when the doomed charmer makes her
appearance. Or if they don't, and you don't, Heaven help you! As the
gambler said of his dice, to love and win is the best thing, to love
and lose is the next best. You don't die of the complaint: or very few
do. The generous wounded heart suffers and survives it. And he is not
a man, or she a woman, who is not conquered by it, or who does not
conquer it in his time...... Now, then, if you ask why Henry Foker,
Esquire, was in such a hurry to see Arthur Pendennis, and felt such a
sudden value and esteem for him, there is no difficulty in saying it
was because Pen had become really valuable in Mr. Foker's eyes;
because if Pen was not the rose, he yet had been near that fragrant
flower of love. Was not he in the habit of going to her house in
London? Did he not live near her in the country?--know all about the
enchantress? What, I wonder, would Lady Ann Milton, Mr. Foker's cousin
and _prétendue_, have said, if her ladyship had known all that was
going on in the bosom of that funny little gentleman?
Alas! when Foker reached Lamb-court, leaving his carriage for the
admiration of the little clerks who were lounging in the arch-way that
leads thence into Flag-court which leads into Upper Temple-lane,
Warrington was in the chambers, but Pen was absent. Pen was gone to
the printing-office to see his proofs. "Would Foker have a pipe, and
should the laundress go to the Cock and get him some beer?"
--Warrington asked, remarking with a pleased surprise the
splendid toilet of this scented and shiny-booted young aristocrat; but
Foker had not the slightest wish for beer or tobacco: he had very
important business: he rushed away to the "Pall-Mall Gazette" office,
still bent upon finding Pen. Pen had quitted that place. Foker wanted
him that they might go together to call upon Lady Clavering. Foker
went away disconsolate, and whiled away an hour or two vaguely at
clubs: and when it was time to pay a visit, he thought it would be but
decent and polite to drive to Grosvenor-place and leave a card upon
Lady Clavering. He had not the courage to ask to see her when the door
was opened, he only delivered two cards, with Mr. Henry Foker engraved
upon them, to Jeames, in a speechless agony. Jeames received the
tickets bowing his powdered head. The varnished doors closed upon him.
The beloved object was as far as ever from him, though so near. He
thought he heard the tones of a piano and of a siren singing, coming
from the drawing-room and sweeping over the balcony-shrubbery of
geraniums. He would have liked to stop and listen, but it might not
be. "Drive to Tattersall's," he said to the groom, in a voice
smothered with emotion--"And bring my pony round," he added, as the
man drove rapidly away.
As good luck would have it, that splendid barouche of Lady
Clavering's, which has been inadequately described in a former
chapter, drove up to her ladyship's door just as Foker mounted the
pony which was in waiting for him. He bestrode the fiery animal, and
dodged about the arch of the Green Park, keeping the carriage well in
view, until he saw Lady Clavering enter, and with her--whose could be
that angel form, but the enchantress's, clad in a sort of gossamer,
with a pink bonnet and a light-blue parasol--but Miss Amory?
The carriage took its fair owners to Madame Rigodon's cap and lace
shop, to Mrs. Wolsey's Berlin worsted shop--who knows to what other
resorts of female commerce? Then it went and took ices at Hunter's,
for Lady Clavering was somewhat florid in her tastes and amusements,
and not only liked to go abroad in the most showy carriage in London,
but that the public should see her in it too. And so, in a white
bonnet with a yellow feather, she ate a large pink ice in the sunshine
before Hunter's door, till Foker on his pony, and the red jacket who
accompanied him, were almost tired of dodging.
Then at last she made her way into the Park, and the rapid Foker made
his dash forward. What to do? Just to get a nod of recognition from
Miss Amory and her mother; to cross them a half-dozen times in the
drive; to watch and ogle them from the other side of the ditch, where
the horsemen assemble when the band plays in Kensington Gardens. What
is the use of looking at a woman in a pink bonnet across a ditch? What
is the earthly good to be got out of a nod of the head? Strange that
men will be contented with such pleasures, or if not contented, at
least that they will be so eager in seeking them. Not one word did
Harry, he so fluent of conversation ordinarily, change with his
charmer on that day. Mutely he beheld her return to her carriage, and
drive away among rather ironical salutes from the young men in the
Park. One said that the Indian widow was making the paternal rupees
spin rapidly; another said that she ought to have burned herself
alive, and left the money to her daughter. This one asked who
Clavering was?--and old Tom Eales, who knew every body, and never
missed a day in the Park on his gray cob, kindly said that Clavering
had come into an estate over head and heels in mortgage: that there
were dev'lish ugly stories about him when he was a young man, and that
it was reported of him that he had a share in a gambling house, and
had certainly shown the white feather in his regiment. "He plays
still; he is in a hell every night almost," Mr. Eales added. "I
should think so, since his marriage," said a wag.
"He gives devilish good dinners," said Foker, striking up for the
honor of his host of yesterday.
"I daresay, and I daresay he doesn't ask Eales," the wag said. "I say,
Eales, do you dine at Clavering's--at the Begum's?"
"_I_ dine there?" said Mr. Eales, who would have dined with Beelzebub,
if sure of a good cook, and when he came away, would have painted his
host blacker than fate had made him.
"You might, you know, although you _do_ abuse him so," continued the
wag. "They say it's very pleasant. Clavering goes to sleep after
dinner; the Begum gets tipsy with cherry-brandy, and the young lady
sings songs to the young gentlemen. She sings well, don't she, Fo?"
"Slap up," said Fo. "I tell you what, Poyntz, she sings like a--
whatdyecallum--you know what I mean--like a mermaid, you know, but
that's not their name."
"I never heard a mermaid sing," Mr. Poyntz, the wag replied. "Who ever
heard a mermaid? Eales, you are an old fellow, did you?"
"Don't make a lark of me, hang it, Poyntz," said Foker, turning red,
and with tears almost in his eyes, "you know what I mean: it's those
what's-his-names--in Homer, you know. I never said I was a
good scholar."
"And nobody ever said it of you, my boy," Mr. Poyntz remarked, and
Foker striking spurs into his pony, cantered away down Rotten Row, his
mind agitated with various emotions, ambitions, mortifications. He
_was_ sorry that he had not been good at his books in early life--that
he might have cut out all those chaps who were about her, and who
talked the languages, and wrote poetry, and painted pictures in her
album, and--and that. "What am I," thought little Foker, "compared to
her? She's all soul, she is, and can write poetry or compose music, as
easy as I could drink a glass of beer. Beer?--damme, that's all I'm
fit for, is beer. I am a poor, ignorant little beggar, good for
nothing but Foker's Entire. I misspent my youth, and used to get the
chaps to do my exercises. And what's the consequences now? O, Harry
Foker, what a confounded little fool you have been!"
As he made this dreary soliloquy, he had cantered out of Rotten Row
into the Park, and there was on the point of riding down a large, old,
roomy family carriage, of which he took no heed, when a cheery voice
cried out, "Harry, Harry!" and looking up, he beheld his aunt, the
Lady Rosherville, and two of her daughters, of whom the one who spoke
was Harry's betrothed, the Lady Ann.
He started back with a pale, scared look, as a truth about which he
had not thought during the whole day, came across him. _There_ was his
fate, there, in the back seat of that carriage.
"What is the matter Harry? why are you so pale? You have been raking
and smoking too much, you wicked boy," said Lady Ann.
Foker said, "How do, aunt?" "How do, Ann?" in a perturbed
manner--muttered something about a pressing engagement--indeed he saw
by the Park clock that he must have been keeping his party in the
drag waiting for nearly an hour--and waved a good-by. The little man
and the little pony were out of sight in an instant--the great
carriage rolled away. Nobody inside was very much interested about his
coming or going; the countess being occupied with her spaniel, the
Lady Lucy's thoughts and eyes being turned upon a volume of sermons,
and those of Lady Ann upon a new novel, which the sisters had just
procured from the library.