IN WHICH FANNY ENGAGES A NEW MEDICAL MAN.
[Illustration]
Could Helen have suspected that, with Pen's returning strength, his
unhappy partiality for little Fanny would also reawaken? Though she
never spoke a word regarding that young person, after her conversation
with the major, and though, to all appearance, she utterly ignored
Fanny's existence, yet Mrs. Pendennis kept a particularly close watch
upon all Master Arthur's actions; on the plea of ill-health, would
scarcely let him out of her sight; and was especially anxious that he
should be spared the trouble of all correspondence for the present at
least. Very likely Arthur looked at his own letters with some tremor;
very likely, as he received them at the family table, feeling his
mother's watch upon him (though the good soul's eye seemed fixed upon
her tea-cup or her book), he expected daily to see a little
handwriting, which he would have known, though he had never seen it
yet, and his heart beat as he received the letters to his address. Was
he more pleased or annoyed, that, day after day, his expectations were
not realized; and was his mind relieved, that there came no letter
from Fanny? Though, no doubt, in these matters, when Lovelace is tired
of Clarissa (or the contrary), it is best for both parties to break at
once, and each, after the failure of the attempt at union, to go his
own way, and pursue his course through life solitary; yet our
self-love, or our pity, or our sense of decency, does not like that
sudden bankruptcy. Before we announce to the world that our firm of
Lovelace and Co. can't meet its engagements, we try to make
compromises: we have mournful meetings of partners: we delay the
putting up of the shutters, and the dreary announcement of the
failure. It must come: but we pawn our jewels to keep things going a
little longer. On the whole, I dare say, Pen was rather annoyed that
he had no remonstrances from Fanny. What! could she part from him, and
never so much as once look round? could she sink, and never once hold
a little hand out, or cry, "Help, Arthur?" Well, well: they don't all
go down who venture on that voyage. Some few drown when the vessel
founders; but most are only ducked, and scramble to shore. And the
reader's experience of A. Pendennis, Esquire, of the Upper Temple,
will enable him to state whether that gentleman belonged to the class
of persons who were likely to sink or to swim.
Though Pen was as yet too weak to walk half a mile; and might not, on
account of his precious health, be trusted to take a drive in a
carriage by himself, and without a nurse in attendance; yet Helen
could not keep watch over Mr. Warrington too, and had no authority to
prevent that gentleman from going to London if business called him
thither. Indeed, if he had gone and staid, perhaps the widow, from
reasons of her own, would have been glad; but she checked these
selfish wishes as soon as she ascertained or owned them; and,
remembering Warrington's great regard and services, and constant
friendship for her boy, received him as a member of her family almost,
with her usual melancholy kindness and submissive acquiescence. Yet
somehow, one morning when his affairs called him to town, she divined
what Warrington's errand was, and that he was gone to London, to get
news about Fanny for Pen.
Indeed, Arthur had had some talk with his friend, and told him more at
large what his adventures had been with Fanny (adventures which the
reader knows already), and what were his feelings respecting her. He
was very thankful that he had escaped the great danger, to which
Warrington said Amen heartily: that he had no great fault wherewith to
reproach himself in regard of his behavior to her, but that if they
parted, as they must, he would be glad to say a God bless her, and to
hope that she would remember him kindly. In his discourse with
Warrington he spoke upon these matters with so much gravity, and so
much emotion, that George, who had pronounced himself most strongly
for the separation too, began to fear that his friend was not so well
cured as he boasted of being; and that, if the two were to come
together again, all the danger and the temptation might have to be
fought once more. And with what result? "It is hard to struggle,
Arthur, and it is easy to fall," Warrington said: "and the best
courage for us poor wretches is to fly from danger. I would not have
been what I am now, had I practiced what I preach."
"And what did you practice, George?" Pen asked, eagerly. "I knew there
was something. Tell us about it, Warrington."
"There was something that can't be mended, and that shattered my whole
fortunes early," Warrington answered, "I said I would tell you about
it some day, Pen: and will, but not now. Take the moral without the
fable now, Pen, my boy; and if you want to see a man whose whole life
has been wrecked, by an unlucky rock against which he struck as a
boy--here he is, Arthur: and so I warn you."
We have shown how Mr. Huxter, in writing home to his Clavering
friends, mentioned that there was a fashionable club in London of
which he was an attendant, and that he was there in the habit of
meeting an Irish officer of distinction, who, among other news, had
given that intelligence regarding Pendennis, which the young surgeon
had transmitted to Clavering. This club was no other than the Back
Kitchen, where the disciple of Saint Bartholomew was accustomed to
meet the general, the peculiarities of whose brogue, appearance,
disposition, and general conversation, greatly diverted many young
gentlemen who used the Back Kitchen as a place of nightly
entertainment and refreshment. Huxter, who had a fine natural genius
for mimicking every thing, whether it was a favorite tragic or comic
actor, a cock on a dunghill, a corkscrew going into a bottle and a
cork issuing thence, or an Irish officer of genteel connections who
offered himself as an object of imitation with only too much
readiness, talked his talk, and twanged his poor old long bow whenever
drink, a hearer, and an opportunity occurred, studied our friend the
general with peculiar gusto, and drew the honest fellow out many a
night. A bait, consisting of sixpenny-worth of brandy and water, the
worthy old man was sure to swallow: and under the influence of this
liquor, who was more happy than he to tell his stories of his
daughter's triumphs and his own, in love, war, drink, and polite
society? Thus Huxter was enabled to present to his friends many
pictures of Costigan: of Costigan fighting a jewel in the Phaynix--of
Costigan and his interview with the Juke of York--of Costigan at his
sonunlaw's teeble, surrounded by the nobilitee of his countree--of
Costigan, when crying drunk, at which time he was in the habit of
confidentially lamenting his daughter's ingratichewd, and stating that
his gray hairs were hastening to a praymachure greeve, And thus our
friend was the means of bringing a number of young fellows to the Back
Kitchen, who consumed the landlord's liquors while they relished the
general's peculiarities, so that mine host pardoned many of the
latter's foibles, in consideration of the good which they brought to
his house. Not the highest position in life was this certainly, or one
which, if we had a reverence for an old man, we would be anxious that
he should occupy: but of this aged buffoon it may be mentioned that he
had no particular idea that his condition of life was not a high one,
and that in his whiskied blood there was not a black drop, nor in his
muddled brains a bitter feeling, against any mortal being. Even his
child, his cruel Emily, he would have taken to his heart and forgiven
with tears; and what more can one say of the Christian charity of a
man than that he is actually ready to forgive those who have done him
every kindness, and with whom he is wrong in a dispute?
There was some idea among the young men who frequented, the Back
Kitchen, and made themselves merry with the society of Captain
Costigan, that the captain made a mystery regarding his lodgings for
fear of duns, or from a desire of privacy, and lived in some wonderful
place. Nor would the landlord of the premises, when questioned upon
this subject, answer any inquiries; his maxim being that he only knew
gentlemen who frequented that room, _in_ that room; that when they
quitted that room, having paid their scores as gentlemen, and behaved
as gentlemen, his communication with them ceased; and that, as a
gentleman himself, he thought it was only impertinent curiosity to ask
where any other gentleman lived. Costigan, in his most intoxicated and
confidential moments, also evaded any replies to questions or hints
addressed to him on this subject: there was no particular secret about
it, as we have seen, who have had more than once the honor of entering
his apartments, but in the vicissitudes of a long life he had been
pretty often in the habit of residing in houses where privacy was
necessary to his comfort, and where the appearance of some visitors
would have brought him any thing but pleasure. Hence all sorts of
legends were formed by wags or credulous persons respecting his place
of abode. It was stated that he slept habitually in a watch-box in the
city; in a cab at a mews, where a cab proprietor gave him a shelter;
in the Duke of York's Column, &c., the wildest of these theories being
put abroad by the facetious and imaginative Huxter. For Huxey, when
not silenced by the company of "swells," and when in the society of
his own friends, was a very different fellow to the youth whom we have
seen cowed by Pen's impertinent airs; and, adored by his family at
home, was the life and soul of the circle whom he met, either round
the festive board or the dissecting table.
On one brilliant September morning, as Huxter was regaling himself
with a cup of coffee at a stall in Covent Garden, having spent a
delicious night dancing at Vauxhall, he spied the general reeling down
Henrietta-street, with a crowd of hooting, blackguard boys at his
heels, who had left their beds under the arches of the river betimes,
and were prowling about already for breakfast, and the strange
livelihood of the day. The poor old general was not in that condition
when the sneers and jokes of these young beggars had much effect upon
him: the cabmen and watermen at the cab-stand knew him, and passed
their comments upon him: the policemen gazed after him, and warned the
boys off him, with looks of scorn and pity; what did the scorn and
pity of men, the jokes of ribald children, matter to the general? He
reeled along the street with glazed eyes, having just sense enough to
know whither he was bound, and to pursue his accustomed beat homeward.
He went to bed not knowing how he had reached it, as often as any man
in London. He woke and found himself there, and asked no questions,
and he was tacking about on this daily though perilous voyage, when,
from his station at the coffee-stall, Huxter spied him. To note his
friend, to pay his twopence (indeed, he had but eightpence left, or he
would have had a cab from Vauxhall to take him home), was with the
eager Huxter the work of an instant--Costigan dived down the alleys by
Drury-lane Theater, where gin-shops, oyster-shops, and theatrical
wardrobes abound, the proprietors of which were now asleep behind
the shutters, as the pink morning lighted up their chimneys; and
through these courts Huxter followed the general, until he reached
Oldcastle-street, in which is the gate of Shepherd's Inn.
Here, just as he was within sight of home, a luckless slice of
orange-peel came between the general's heel and the pavement, and
caused the poor fellow to fall backward.
[Illustration]
Huxter ran up to him instantly, and after a pause, during which the
veteran, giddy with his fall and his previous whisky, gathered as he
best might, his dizzy brains together, the young surgeon lifted up the
limping general, and very kindly and good-naturedly offered to conduct
him to his home. For some time, and in reply to the queries which the
student of medicine put to him, the muzzy general refused to say where
his lodgings were, and declared that they were hard by, and that he
could reach them without difficulty; and he disengaged himself from
Huxter's arm, and made a rush, as if to get to his own home
unattended: but he reeled and lurched so, that the young surgeon
insisted upon accompanying him, and, with many soothing expressions
and cheering and consolatory phrases, succeeded in getting the
general's dirty old hand under what he called his own fin, and led the
old fellow, moaning piteously, across the street. He stopped when he
came to the ancient gate, ornamented with the armorial bearings of
the venerable Shepherd. "Here 'tis," said he, drawing up at the
portal, and he made a successful pull at the gatebell, which presently
brought out old Mr. Bolton, the porter, scowling fiercely, and
grumbling as he was used to do every morning when it became his turn
to let in that early bird.
Costigan tried to hold Bolton for a moment in genteel conversation,
but the other surlily would not. "Don't bother me," he said; "go to
your hown bed, capting, and don't keep honest men out of theirs." So
the captain tacked across the square and reached his own staircase, up
which he stumbled with the worthy Huxter at his heels. Costigan had a
key of his own, which Huxter inserted into the keyhole for him, so
that there was no need to call up little Mr. Bows from the sleep into
which the old musician had not long since fallen, and Huxter having
aided to disrobe his tipsy patient, and ascertained that no bones were
broken, helped him to bed, and applied compresses and water to one of
his knees and shins, which, with the pair of trowsers which encased
them, Costigan had severely torn in his fall. At the general's age,
and with his habit of body, such wounds as he had inflicted on himself
are slow to heal: a good deal of inflammation ensued, and the old
fellow lay ill for some days suffering both pain and fever.
Mr. Huxter undertook the case of his interesting patient with great
confidence and alacrity, and conducted it with becoming skill. He
visited his friend day after day, and consoled him with lively rattle
and conversation, for the absence of the society which Costigan
needed, and of which he was an ornament; and he gave special
instructions to the invalid's nurse about the quantity of whisky which
the patient was to take--instructions which, as the poor old fellow
could not for many days get out of his bed or sofa himself, he could
not by any means infringe. Bows, Mrs. Bolton, and our little friend
Fanny, when able to do so, officiated at the general's bedside, and
the old warrior was made as comfortable as possible under
his calamity.
Thus Huxter, whose affable manners and social turn made him quickly
intimate with persons in whose society he fell, and whose
over-refinement did not lead them to repulse the familiarities of this
young gentleman, became pretty soon intimate in Shepherd's Inn, both
with our acquaintances in the garrets and those in the Porter's Lodge.
He thought he had seen Fanny somewhere: he felt certain that he had:
but it is no wonder that he should not accurately remember her, for
the poor little thing never chose to tell him where she had met him:
he himself had seen her at a period, when his own views both of
persons and of right and wrong were clouded by the excitement of
drinking and dancing, and also little Fanny was very much changed and
worn by the fever and agitation, and passion and despair, which the
past three weeks had poured upon the head of that little victim. Borne
down was the head now, and very pale and wan the face; and many and
many a time the sad eyes had looked into the postman's, as he came to
the Inn, and the sickened heart had sunk as he passed away. When Mr.
Costigan's accident occurred, Fanny was rather glad to have an
opportunity of being useful and doing something kind--something that
would make her forget her own little sorrows perhaps: she felt she
bore them better while she did her duty, though I dare say many a tear
dropped into the old Irishman's gruel. Ah, me! stir the gruel well,
and have courage, little Fanny! If every body who has suffered from
your complaint were to die of it straightway, what a fine year the
undertakers would have!
Whether from compassion for his only patient, or delight in his
society, Mr. Huxter found now occasion to visit Costigan two or three
times in the day at least, and if any of the members of the Porter's
Lodge family were not in attendance on the general, the young doctor
was sure to have some particular directions to address to those at
their own place of habitation. He was a kind fellow; he made or
purchased toys for the children; he brought them apples and brandy
balls; he brought a mask and frightened them with it, and caused a
smile upon the face of pale Fanny. He called Mrs. Bolton Mrs. B., and
was very intimate, familiar, and facetious with that lady, quite
different from that "aughty artless beast," as Mrs. Bolton now
denominated a certain young gentleman of our acquaintance, and whom
she now vowed she never could abear.
It was from this lady, who was very free in her conversation, that
Huxter presently learned what was the illness which was evidently
preying upon little Fan, and what had been Pen's behavior regarding
her. Mrs. Bolton's account of the transaction was not, it may be
imagined, entirely an impartial narrative. One would have thought from
her story that the young gentleman had employed a course of the most
persevering and flagitious artifices to win the girl's heart, had
broken the most solemn promises made to her, and was a wretch to be
hated and chastised by every champion of woman. Huxter, in his present
frame of mind respecting Arthur, and suffering under the latter's
contumely, was ready, of course, to take all for granted that was said
in the disfavor of this unfortunate convalescent. But why did he not
write home to Clavering, as he had done previously, giving an account
of Pen's misconduct, and of the particulars regarding it, which had
now come to his knowledge? He once, in a letter to his brother-in-law,
announced that that _nice young man_, Mr. Pendennis, had escaped
narrowly from a fever, and that no doubt all Clavering, _where he was
so popular_, would be pleased at his recovery; and he mentioned that
he had an interesting case of compound fracture, an officer of
distinction, which kept him in town; but as for Fanny Bolton, he made
no more mention of her in his letters--no more than Pen himself had
made mention of her. O you mothers at home, how much do you think you
know about your lads? How much do you think you know?
But with Bows, there was no reason why Huxter should not speak his
mind, and so, a very short time after his conversation with Mrs.
Bolton. Mr. Sam talked to the musician about his early acquaintance
with Pendennis; described him as a confounded conceited blackguard,
and expressed a determination to punch, his impudent head as soon as
ever he should be well enough to stand up like a man.
Then it was that Bows on his part spoke, and told _his_ version of the
story, whereof Arthur and little Fan were the hero and heroine; how
they had met by no contrivance of the former, but by a blunder of the
old Irishman, now in bed with a broken shin--how Pen had acted with
manliness and self-control in the business--how Mrs. Bolton was an
idiot; and he related the conversation which he, Bows, had had with
Pen, and the sentiments uttered by the young man. Perhaps Bows's story
caused some twinges of conscience in the breast of Pen's accuser, and
that gentleman frankly owned that he had been wrong with regard to
Arthur, and withdrew his project for punching Mr. Pendennis's head.
But the cessation of his hostility for Pen did not diminish Huxter's
attentions to Fanny, which unlucky Mr. Bows marked with his usual
jealousy and bitterness of spirit. "I have but to like any body," the
old fellow thought, "and somebody is sure to come and be preferred to
me. It has been the same ill-luck with me since I was a lad, until now
that I am sixty years old. What can such a man as I am expect better
than to be laughed at? It is for the young to succeed, and to be
happy, and not for old fools like me. I've played a second fiddle all
through life," he said, with a bitter laugh; "how can I suppose the
luck is to change after it has gone against me so long?" This was the
selfish way in which Bows looked at the state of affairs: though few
persons would have thought there was any cause for his jealousy, who
looked at the pale and grief-stricken countenance of the hapless
little girl, its object. Fanny received Huxter's good-natured efforts
at consolation and kind attentions kindly. She laughed now and again
at his jokes and games with her little sisters, but relapsed quickly
into a dejection which ought to have satisfied Mr. Bows that the
new-comer had no place in her heart as yet, had jealous Mr. Bows been
enabled to see with clear eyes.
But Bows did not. Fanny attributed Pen's silence somehow to Bows's
interference. Fanny hated him. Fanny treated Bows with constant
cruelty and injustice. She turned from him when he spoke--she loathed
his attempts at consolation. A hard life had Mr. Bows, and a cruel
return for his regard.
* * * * *
When Warrington came to Shepherd's Inn as Pen's embassador, it was for
Mr. Bows's apartments he inquired (no doubt upon a previous agreement
with the principal for whom he acted in this delicate negotiation),
and he did not so much as catch a glimpse of Miss Fanny when he
stopped at the inn-gate and made his inquiry. Warrington was, of
course, directed to the musician's chambers, and found him tending the
patient there, from whose chamber he came out to wait upon his guest.
We have said that they had been previously known to one another, and
the pair shook hands with sufficient cordiality. After a little
preliminary talk, Warrington said that he had come from his friend
Arthur Pendennis, and from his family, to thank Bows for his attention
at the commencement of Pen's illness, and for his kindness in
hastening into the country to fetch the major.
Bows replied that it was but his duty: he had never thought to have
seen the young gentleman alive again when he went in search of Pen's
relatives, and he was very glad of Mr. Pendennis's recovery, and that
he had his friends with him. "Lucky are they who have friends, Mr.
Warrington," said the musician. "I might be up in this garret and
nobody would care for me, or mind whether I was alive or dead."
"What! not the general, Mr. Bows?" Warrington asked.
"The general likes his whisky-bottle more than any thing in life," the
other answered; "we live together from habit and convenience; and he
cares for me no more than you do. What is it you want to ask me, Mr.
Warrington? You ain't come to visit _me_, I know very well. Nobody
comes to visit me. It is about Fanny, the porter's daughter, you are
come--I see that very well. Is Mr. Pendennis, now he has got well,
anxious to see her again? Does his lordship the Sultan propose to
throw his 'andkerchief to her? She has been very ill, sir, ever since
the day when Mrs. Pendennis turned her out of doors--kind of a lady,
wasn't it? The poor girl and myself found the young gentleman raving
in a fever, knowing nobody, with nobody to tend him but his drunken
laundress--she watched day and night by him. I set off to fetch his
uncle. Mamma comes and turns Fanny to the right about. Uncle comes and
leaves me to pay the cab. Carry my compliments to the ladies and
gentleman, and say we are both very thankful, very. Why, a countess
couldn't have behaved better, and for an apothecary's lady, as I'm
given to understand Mrs. Pendennis was--I'm sure her behavior is most
uncommon aristocratic and genteel. She ought to have a double gilt
pestle and mortar to her coach."
It was from Mr. Huxter that Bows had learned Pen's parentage, no
doubt, and if he took Pen's part against the young surgeon, and
Fanny's against Mr. Pendennis, it was because the old gentleman was in
so savage a mood, that his humor was to contradict every body.
Warrington was curious, and not ill pleased at the musician's taunts
and irascibility. "I never heard of these transactions," he said, "or
got but a very imperfect account of them from Major Pendennis. What
was a lady to do? I think (I have never spoken with her on the
subject) she had some notion that the young woman and my friend Pen
were on--on terms of--of an intimacy which Mrs. Pendennis could not,
of course, recognize--"
"Oh, of course not, sir. Speak out, sir; say what you mean at once,
that the young gentleman of the Temple had made a victim of the girl
of Shepherd's Inn, eh? And so she was to be turned out of doors--or
brayed alive in the double gilt pestle and mortar, by Jove! No, Mr.
Warrington, there was no such thing: there was no victimizing, or if
there was, Mr. Arthur was the victim, not the girl. He is an honest
fellow, he is, though he is conceited, and a puppy sometimes. He can
feel like a man, and run away from temptation like a man. I own it,
though I suffer by it, I own it. He has a heart, he has: but the girl
hasn't sir. That girl will do any thing to win a man, and fling him
away without a pang, sir. If she flung away herself, sir, she'll feel
it and cry. She had a fever when Mrs. Pendennis turned her out of
doors; and she made love to the doctor, Doctor Goodenough, who came to
cure her. Now she has taken on with another chap--another sawbones ha,
ha! d----it, sir, she likes the pestle and mortar, and hangs round the
pill boxes, she's so fond of 'em, and she has got a fellow from Saint
Bartholomew's, who grins through a horse collar for her sisters, and
charms away her melancholy. Go and see, sir: very likely he's in the
lodge now. If you want news about Miss Fanny, you must ask at the
doctor's shop, sir, not of an old fiddler like me--Good-by, sir.
There's my patient calling."
And a voice was heard from the captain's bedroom, a well-known voice,
which said, "I'd loike a dthrop of dthrink, Bows, I'm thirstee." And
not sorry, perhaps, to hear that such was the state of things, and
that Pen's forsaken was consoling herself, Warrington took his leave
of the irascible musician.
As luck would have it, he passed the lodge door just as Mr. Huxter was
in the act of frightening the children with the mask whereof we have
spoken, and Fanny was smiling languidly at his farces. Warrington
laughed bitterly. "Are all women like that?" he thought. "I think
there's one that's not," he added, with a sigh.
At Piccadilly, waiting for the Richmond omnibus, George fell in with
Major Pendennis, bound in the same direction, and he told the old
gentleman of what he had seen and heard respecting Fanny.
Major Pendennis was highly delighted: and as might be expected of such
a philosopher, made precisely the same observation as that which had
escaped from Warrington. "All women are the same," he said. "_La
petite se console_. Dayme, when I used to read 'Télémaque' at school,
_Calypso ne pouvait se consoler_--you know the rest, Warrington--I
used to say it was absard. Absard, by Gad, and so it is. And so she's
got a new _soupirant_ has she, the little porteress? Dayvlish nice
little girl. How mad Pen will be--eh, Warrington? But we must break it
to him gently, or he'll be in such a rage that he will be going after
her again. We must _ménager_ the young fellow."
"I think Mrs. Pendennis ought to know that Pen acted very well in the
business. She evidently thinks him guilty, and according to Mr. Bows,
Arthur behaved like a good fellow," Warrington said.
"My dear Warrington," said the major, with a look of some alarm. "In
Mrs. Pendennis's agitated state of health and that sort of thing, the
best way, I think, is not to say a single word about the subject--or,
stay, leave it to me: and I'll talk to her--break it to her gently,
you know, and that sort of a thing. I give you my word I will. And so
Calypso's consoled, is she?" And he sniggered over this gratifying
truth, happy in the corner of the omnibus during the rest of
the journey.
Pen was very anxious to hear from his envoy what had been the result
of the latter's mission; and as soon as the two young men could be
alone, the embassador spoke in reply to Arthur's eager queries.
"You remember your poem, Pen, of Ariadne in Naxos," Warrington said;
"devilish bad poetry it was, to be sure."
"Apres?" asked Pen, in a great state of excitement.
"When Theseus left Ariadne, do you remember what happened to her,
young fellow?"
"It's a lie, it's a lie! You don't mean that!" cried out Pen, starting
up, his face turning red.
"Sit down, stoopid," Warrington said, and with two fingers pushed Pen
back into his seat again. "It's better for you as it is, young one;"
he said sadly, in reply to the savage flush in Arthur's face.