IN WHICH THE MAJOR IS BIDDEN TO STAND AND DELIVER.
[Illustration]
Any gentleman who has frequented the Wheel of Fortune public-house,
where it may be remembered that Mr. James Morgan's Club was held, and
where Sir Francis Clavering had an interview with Major Pendennis, is
aware that there are three rooms for guests upon the ground floor,
besides the bar where the landlady sits. One is a parlor frequented by
the public at large; to another room gentlemen in livery resort; and
the third apartment, on the door of which "Private" is painted, is
that hired by the Club of "The Confidentials," of which Messrs. Morgan
and Lightfoot were members.
The noiseless Morgan had listened to the conversation between Strong
and Major Pendennis at the latter's own lodgings, and had carried away
from it matter for much private speculation; and a desire of knowledge
had led him to follow his master when the major came to the Wheel of
Fortune, and to take his place quietly in the confidential room, while
Pendennis and Clavering had their discourse in the parlor. There was a
particular corner in the confidential room from which you could hear
almost all that passed in the next apartment; and as the conversation
between the two gentlemen there was rather angry, and carried on in a
high key, Morgan had the benefit of overhearing almost the whole of
it: and what he heard, strengthened the conclusions which his mind had
previously formed.
"He knew Altamont at once, did he, when he saw him in Sidney?
Clavering ain't no more married to my lady than I am! Altamont's the
man: Altamont's a convick; young Harthur comes into Parlyment, and the
Gov'nor promises not to split. By Jove, what a sly old rogue it is,
that old Gov'nor! No wonder he's anxious to make the match between
Blanche and Harthur; why, she'll have a hundred thousand if she's a
penny, and bring her man a seat in Parlyment into the bargain." Nobody
saw, but a physiognomist would have liked to behold, the expression of
Mr. Morgan's countenance, when this astounding intelligence was made
clear to him. "But for my hage, and the confounded prejudices of
society," he said, surveying himself in the glass, "dammy, James
Morgan, you might marry her yourself," But if he could not marry Miss
Blanche and her fortune, Morgan thought he could mend his own by the
possession of this information, and that it might be productive of
benefit to him from very many sources. Of all the persons whom the
secret affected, the greater number would not like to have it known.
For instance, Sir Francis Clavering, whose fortune it involved, would
wish to keep it quiet; Colonel Altamont, whose neck it implicated,
would naturally be desirous to hush it; and that young hupstart beast,
Mr. Harthur, who was for gettin' into Parlyment on the strenth of it,
and was as proud as if he was a duke with half a million a year (such,
we grieve to say, was Morgan's opinion of his employer's nephew),
would pay any think sooner than let the world know that he was married
to a convick's daughter, and had got his seat in Parlyment by
trafficking with this secret. As for Lady C., Morgan thought, if she's
tired of Clavering, and wants to get rid of him, she'll pay: if she's
frightened about her son, and fond of the little beggar, she'll pay
all the same: and Miss Blanche will certainly come down handsome to
the man who will put her into her rights, which she was unjustly
defrauded of them, and no mistake. "Dammy," concluded the valet,
reflecting upon this wonderful hand which luck had given him to play,
"with such cards as these, James Morgan, you are a made man. It may be
a reg'lar enewity to me. Every one of 'em must susscribe. And with
what I've made already, I may cut business, give my old Gov'nor
warning, turn gentleman, and have a servant of my own, begad."
Entertaining himself with calculations such as these, that were not a
little likely to perturb a man's spirit, Mr. Morgan showed a very
great degree of self-command by appearing and being calm, and by not
allowing his future prospects in any way to interfere with his
present duties.
One of the persons whom the story chiefly concerned, Colonel Altamont,
was absent from London, when Morgan was thus made acquainted with his
history. The valet knew of Sir Francis Clavering's Shepherd's Inn
haunt, and walked thither an hour or two after the baronet and
Pendennis had had their conversation together. But that bird was
flown; Colonel Altamont had received his Derby winnings and was gone
to the Continent. The fact of his absence was exceedingly vexatious to
Mr. Morgan. "He'll drop all that money at the gambling-shops on the
Rhind," thought Morgan, "and I might have had a good bit of it. It's
confounded annoying to think he's gone and couldn't have waited a few
days longer." Hope, triumphant or deferred, ambition or
disappointment, victory or patient ambush, Morgan bore all alike, with
similar equable countenance. Until the proper day came, the major's
boots were varnished and his hair was curled, his early cup of tea was
brought to his bedside, his oaths, rebukes, and senile satire borne,
with silent, obsequious fidelity. Who would think, to see him waiting
upon his master, packing and shouldering his trunks, and occasionally
assisting at table, at the country-houses where he might be staying,
that Morgan was richer than his employer, and knew his secrets and
other people's? In the profession Mr. Morgan was greatly respected and
admired, and his reputation for wealth and wisdom got him much renown
at most supper-tables: the younger gentlemen voted him stoopid, a
feller of no idears, and a fogey, in a word: but not one of them would
not say amen to the heartfelt prayer which some of the most
serious-minded among the gentlemen uttered, "When I die may I cut up
as well as Morgan Pendennis!"
As became a man of fashion, Major Pendennis spent the autumn passing
from house to house of such country friends as were at home to receive
him, and if the duke happened to be abroad, or the marquis in
Scotland, condescending to sojourn with Sir John or the plain squire.
To say the truth, the old gentleman's reputation was somewhat on the
wane: many of the men of his time had died out, and the occupants of
their halls and the present wearers of their titles knew not Major
Pendennis: and little cared for his traditions "of the wild Prince and
Poyns," and of the heroes of fashion passed away. It must have struck
the good man with melancholy as he walked by many a London door, to
think how seldom it was now opened for him, and how often he used to
knock at it--to what banquets and welcome he used to pass through
it--a score of years back. He began to own that he was no longer of
the present age, and dimly to apprehend that the young men laughed at
him. Such melancholy musings must come across many a Pall Mall
philosopher. The men, thinks he, are not such as they used to be in
his time: the old grand manner and courtly grace of life are gone:
what is Castlewood House and the present Castlewood, compared to the
magnificence of the old mansion and owner? The late lord came to
London with four post-chaises and sixteen horses: all the North Road
hurried out to look at his cavalcade: the people in London streets
even stopped as his procession passed them. The present lord travels
with five bagmen in a railway carriage, and sneaks away from the
station, smoking a cigar in a brougham. The late lord in autumn filled
Castlewood with company, who drank claret till midnight: the present
man buries himself in a hut on a Scotch mountain, and passes November
in two or three closets in an entresol at Paris, where his amusements
are a dinner at a café and a box at a little theatre. What a contrast
there is between _his_ Lady Lorraine, the Regent's Lady Lorraine, and
her little ladyship of the present era! He figures to himself the
first, beautiful, gorgeous, magnificent in diamonds and velvets,
daring in rouge, the wits of the world (the old wits, the old polished
gentlemen--not the _canaille_ of to-day with their language of the
cab-stand, and their coats smelling of smoke) bowing at her feet; and
then thinks of to-day's Lady Lorraine--a little woman in a black silk
gown, like a governess, who talks astronomy, and laboring classes, and
emigration, and the deuce knows what, and lurks to church at eight
o'clock in the morning. Abbots-Lorraine, that used to be the noblest
house in the county, is turned into a monastery--a regular La Trappe.
They don't drink two glasses of wine after dinner, and every other man
at table is a country curate, with a white neckcloth, whose talk is
about Polly Higson's progress at school, or widow Watkins's lumbago.
"And the other young men, those lounging guardsmen and great lazy
dandies--sprawling over sofas and billiard-tables, and stealing off
to smoke pipes in each other's bedrooms, caring for nothing,
reverencing nothing, not even an old gentleman who has known their
fathers and their betters, not even a pretty woman--what a difference
there is between these men who poison the very turnips and
stubble-fields with their tobacco, and the gentlemen of our time!"
thinks the major; "the breed is gone--there's no use for 'em; they're
replaced by a parcel of damned cotton-spinners and utilitarians, and
young sprigs of parsons with their hair combed down their backs. I'm
getting old: they're getting past me: they laugh at us old boys,"
thought old Pendennis. And he was not far wrong; the times and manners
which he admired were pretty nearly gone--the gay young men 'larked'
him irreverently, while the serious youth had a grave pity and wonder
at him, which would have been even more painful to bear, had the old
gentleman been aware of its extent. But he was rather simple: his
examination of moral questions had never been very deep; it had never
struck him perhaps, until very lately, that he was otherwise than a
most respectable and rather fortunate man. Is there no old age but his
without reverence? Did youthful folly never jeer at other bald pates?
For the past two or three years, he had begun to perceive that his day
was well nigh over, and that the men of the new time had begun
to reign.
After a rather unsuccessful autumn season, then, during which he was
faithfully followed by Mr. Morgan, his nephew Arthur being engaged, as
we have seen, at Clavering, it happened that Major Pendennis came back
for awhile to London, at the dismal end of October, when the fogs and
the lawyers come to town. Who has not looked with interest at those
loaded cabs, piled boxes, and crowded children, rattling through the
streets on the dun October evenings; stopping at the dark houses,
where they discharge nurse and infant, girls, matron, and father,
whose holidays are over? Yesterday it was France and sunshine, or
Broadstairs and liberty; to-day comes work and a yellow fog; and, ye
gods! what a heap of bills there lies in master's study. And the clerk
has brought the lawyer's papers from Chambers; and in half an hour the
literary man knows that the printer's boy will be in the passage; and
Mr. Smith with that little account (that particular little account)
has called presentient of your arrival, and has left word that he will
call to-morrow morning at ten. Who among us has not said good-by to
his holiday; returned to dun London, and his fate; surveyed his labors
and liabilities laid out before him, and been aware of that inevitable
little account to settle? Smith and his little account, in the
morning, symbolize duty, difficulty, struggle, which you will meet,
let us hope, friend, with a manly and honest heart. And you think of
him, as the children are slumbering once more in their own beds, and
the watchful housewife tenderly pretends to sleep.
Old Pendennis had no special labors or bills to encounter on the
morrow, as he had no affection at home to soothe him. He had always
money in his desk sufficient for his wants; and being by nature and
habit tolerably indifferent to the wants of other people, these latter
were not likely to disturb him. But a gentleman may be out of temper
though he does not owe a shilling: and though he may be ever so
selfish, he must occasionally feel dispirited and lonely. He had had
two or three twinges of gout in the country-house where he had been
staying: the birds were wild and shy, and the walking over the plowed
fields had fatigued him deucedly: the young men had laughed at him,
and he had been peevish at table once or twice: he had not been able
to get his whist of an evening: and, in fine, was glad to come away.
In all his dealings with Morgan, his valet, he had been exceedingly
sulky and discontented. He had sworn at him and abused him for many
days past. He had scalded his mouth with bad soup at Swindon. He had
left his umbrella in the rail-road carriage: at which piece of
forgetfulness, he was in such a rage, that he cursed Morgan more
freely than ever. Both the chimneys smoked furiously in his lodgings;
and when he caused the windows to be flung open, he swore so
acrimoniously, that Morgan was inclined to fling him out of window,
too, through that opened casement. The valet swore after his master,
as Pendennis went down the street on his way to the Club.
Bays's was not at all pleasant. The house had been new painted, and
smelt of varnish and turpentine, and a large streak of white paint
inflicted itself on the back of the old boy's fur-collared surtout.
The dinner was not good: and the three most odious men in all London--
old Hawkshaw, whose cough and accompaniments are fit to make any man
uncomfortable; old Colonel Gripley, who seizes on all the newspapers;
and that irreclaimable old bore Jawkins, who would come and dine at
the next table to Pendennis, and describe to him every inn-bill which
he had paid in his foreign tour: each and all of these disagreeable
personages and incidents had contributed to make Major Pendennis
miserable; and the Club waiter trod on his toe as he brought him his
coffee. Never alone appear the Immortals. The Furies always hunt in
company: they pursued Pendennis from home to the Club, and from the
Club home.
While the major was absent from his lodgings, Morgan had been seated
in the landlady's parlor, drinking freely of hot brandy-and-water,
and pouring out on Mrs. Brixham some of the abuse which he had
received from his master up-stairs. Mrs. Brixham was Morgan's slave.
He was his landlady's landlord. He had bought the lease of the house
which she rented; he had got her name and her son's to acceptances,
and a bill of sale which made him master of the luckless widow's
furniture. The young Brixham was a clerk in an insurance office, and
Morgan could put him into what he called quod any day. Mrs. Brixham
was a clergyman's widow, and Mr. Morgan, after performing his duties
on the first floor, had a pleasure in making the old lady fetch him
his boot-jack and his slippers. She was his slave. The little black
profiles of her son and daughter; the very picture of Tiddlecot
church, where she was married, and her poor dear Brixham lived and
died, was now Morgan's property, as it hung there over the
mantle-piece of his back-parlor. Morgan sate in the widow's back-room,
in the ex-curate's old horse-hair study-chair, making Mrs. Brixham
bring supper for him, and fill his glass again and again.
The liquor was bought with the poor woman's own coin, and hence Morgan
indulged in it only the more freely; and he had eaten his supper and
was drinking a third tumbler, when old Pendennis returned from the
Club, and went up-stairs to his rooms. Mr. Morgan swore very savagely
at him and his bell, when he heard the latter, and finished his
tumbler of brandy before he went up to answer the summons.
He received the abuse consequent on this delay in silence, nor did the
major condescend to read in the flushed face and glaring eyes of the
man, the anger under which he was laboring. The old gentleman's
foot-bath was at the fire; his gown and slippers awaiting him there.
Morgan knelt down to take his boots off with due subordination: and as
the major abused him from above, kept up a growl of maledictions below
at his feet. Thus, when Pendennis was crying "Confound you, sir; mind
that strap--curse you, don't wrench my foot off," Morgan _sotto voce_
below was expressing a wish to strangle him, drown him, and punch
his head off.
The boots removed, it became necessary to divest Mr. Pendennis of his
coat: and for this purpose the valet had necessarily to approach very
near to his employer; so near that Pendennis could not but perceive
what Mr. Morgan's late occupation had been; to which he adverted in
that simple and forcible phraseology which men are sometimes in the
habit of using to their domestics; informing Morgan that he was a
drunken beast, and that he smelt of brandy.
At this the man broke out, losing patience, and flinging up all
subordination? "I'm drunk, am I? I'm a beast, am I? I'm d----d, am I?
you infernal old miscreant. Shall I wring your old head off, and
drownd yer in that pail of water? Do you think I'm a-goin' to bear
your confounded old harrogance, you old Wigsby! Chatter your old
hivories at me, do you, you grinning old baboon! Come on, if you are a
man, and can stand to a man. Ha! you coward, knives, knives!"
"If you advance a step, I'll send it into you," said the major,
seizing up a knife that was on the table near him. "Go down stairs,
you drunken brute, and leave the house; send for your book and your
wages in the morning, and never let me see your insolent face again.
This d----d impertinence of yours has been growing for some months
past. You have been growing too rich. You are not fit for service. Get
out of it, and out of the house."
"And where would you wish me to go, pray, out of the ouse?" asked the
man, "and won't it be equal convenient to-morrow mornin'?--_tooty-fay
mame shose, sivvaplay, munseer?_"
"Silence, you beast, and go!" cried out the major.
[Illustration]
Morgan began to laugh, with rather a sinister laugh. "Look yere,
Pendennis," he said, seating himself; "since I've been in this room
you've called me beast, brute, dog: and d----d me, haven't you? How do
you suppose one man likes that sort of talk from another? How many
years have I waited on you, and how many damns and cusses have you
given me, along with my wages? Do you think a man's a dog, that you
can talk to him in this way? If I choose to drink a little, why
shouldn't I? I've seen many a gentleman drunk formly, and peraps have
the abit from them. I ain't a-goin' to leave this house, old feller,
and shall I tell you why? The house is my house, every stick of
furnitur' in it is mine, excep' _your_ old traps, and your
shower-bath, and your wig-box. I've bought the place, I tell you, with
my own industry and perseverance. I can show a hundred pound, where
you can show a fifty, or your damned supersellious nephew either. I've
served you honorable, done every thing for you these dozen years, and
I'm a dog, am I? I'm a beast, am I? That's the language for gentlemen,
not for our rank. But I'll bear it no more. I throw up your service;
I'm tired on it; I've combed your old wig and buckled your old girths
and waistbands long enough, I tell you. Don't look savage at me, I'm
sitting in my own chair, in my own room, a-telling the truth to
you. I'll be your beast, and your brute, and your dog, no more, Major
Pendennis AlfPay."
The fury of the old gentleman, met by the servant's abrupt revolt, had
been shocked and cooled by the concussion, as much as if a sudden
shower-bath or a pail of cold water had been flung upon him. That
effect produced, and his anger calmed, Morgan's speech had interested
him, and he rather respected his adversary, and his courage in facing
him, as of old days, in the fencing-room, he would have admired the
opponent who hit him.
"You are no longer my servant," the major said, "and the house may be
yours; but the lodgings are mine, and you will have the goodness to
leave them. To-morrow morning, when we have settled our accounts, I
shall remove into other quarters. In the mean time, I desire to go to
bed, and have not the slightest wish for your farther company."
"_We'll_ have a settlement, don't you be afraid," Morgan said, getting
up from his chair. "I ain't done with you yet; nor with your family,
nor with the Clavering family, Major Pendennis; and that you
shall know."
"Have the goodness to leave the room, sir;--I'm tired," said the
major.
"Hah! you'll be more tired of me afore you've done," answered the man,
with a sneer, and walked out of the room; leaving the major to compose
himself, as best he might, after the agitation of this extraordinary
scene.
He sate and mused by his fire-side over the past events, and the
confounded impudence and ingratitude of servants; and thought how he
should get a new man: how devilish unpleasant it was for a man of his
age, and with his habits, to part with a fellow to whom he had been
accustomed: how Morgan had a receipt for boot-varnish, which was
incomparably better and more comfortable to the feet than any he had
ever tried; how very well he made mutton-broth, and tended him when he
was unwell. "Gad, it's a hard thine: to lose a fellow of that sort:
but he must go," thought the major. "He has grown rich, and impudent
since he has grown rich. He was horribly tipsy and abusive tonight. We
must part, and I must go out of the lodgings. Dammy, I like the
lodgings; I'm used to 'em. It's very unpleasant, at my time of life,
to change my quarters." And so on, mused the old gentleman. The
shower-bath had done him good: the testiness was gone: the loss of the
umbrella, the smell of paint at the Club, were forgotten under the
superior excitement. "Confound the insolent villain!" thought the old
gentleman. "He understood my wants to a nicety: he was the best
servant in England." He thought about his servant as a man thinks of a
horse that has carried him long and well, and that has come down with
him, and is safe no longer. How the deuce to replace him? Where can he
get such another animal?
In these melancholy cogitations the major, who had donned his own
dressing gown and replaced his head of hair (a little gray had been
introduced into the _coiffure_ of late by Mr. Truefitt, which had
given the major's head the most artless and respectable appearance);
in these cogitations, we say, the major, who had taken off his wig and
put on his night-handkerchief, sate absorbed by the fire-side, when a
feeble knock came at his door, which was presently opened by the
landlady of the lodgings.
"God bless my soul, Mrs. Brixham!" cried out the major, startled that
a lady should behold him in the _simple appareil_ of his night-toilet.
"It--it's very late, Mrs. Brixham."
[Illustration]
"I wish I might speak to you, sir," said the landlady, very piteously.
"About Morgan, I suppose? He has cooled himself at the pump. Can't
take him back, Mrs. Brixham. Impossible. I'd determined to part with
him before, when I heard of his dealings in the discount business--I
suppose you've heard of them, Mrs. Brixham? My servant's a
capitalist, begad."
"O sir," said Mrs. Brixham, "I know it to my cost. I borrowed from him
a little money five years ago; and though I have paid him many times
over, I am entirely in his power. I am ruined by him, sir. Every thing
I had is his. He's a dreadful man." "Eh, Mrs. Brixham? _tant
pis_--dev'lish sorry for you, and that I must quit your house after
lodging here so long: there's no help for it. I must go."
"He says we must all go, sir," sobbed out the luckless widow. "He came
down stairs from you just now--he had been drinking, and it always
makes him very wicked--and he said that you had insulted him, sir, and
treated him like a dog, and spoken to him unkindly; and he swore he
would be revenged, and--and I owe him a hundred and twenty pounds,
sir--and he has a bill of sale of all my furniture--and says he will
turn me out of my house, and send my poor George to prison. He has
been the ruin of my family, that man."
"Dev'lish sorry, Mrs. Brixham; pray take a chair. What can I do?"
"Could you not intercede with him for us? George will give half his
allowance; my daughter can send something. If you will but stay on,
sir, and pay a quarter's rent in advance--"
"My good madam, I would as soon give you a quarter in advance as not,
if I were going to stay in the lodgings. But I can't; and I can't
afford to fling away twenty pounds, my good madam. I'm a poor half-pay
officer, and want every shilling I have, begad. As far as a few pounds
goes--say five pounds--I don't say--and shall be most happy, and that
sort of thing: and I'll give it you in the morning with pleasure:
but--but it's getting late, and I have made a railroad journey."
"God's will be done, sir," said the poor woman, drying her tears. "I
must bear my fate."
"And a dev'lish hard one it is, and most sincerely I pity you, Mrs.
Brixham. I--I'll say ten pounds, if you will permit me. Good night."
"Mr. Morgan, sir, when he came down stairs, and when--when I besought
him to have pity on me, and told him he had been the ruin of my
family, said something which I did not well understand--that he would
ruin every family in the house--that he knew something would bring you
down too--and that you should pay him for your--your insolence to him.
I--I must own to you, that I went down on my knees to him, sir; and he
said, with a dreadful oath against you, that he would have you on
your knees."
"Me?--by Gad, that is too pleasant! Where is the confounded fellow?"
"He went away, sir. He said he should see you in the morning. O, pray
try and pacify him, and save me and my poor boy." And the widow went
away with this prayer, to pass her night as she might, and look for
the dreadful morrow.
The last words about himself excited Major Pendennis so much, that his
compassion for Mrs. Brixham's misfortunes was quite forgotten in the
consideration of his own case.
"Me on my knees?" thought he, as he got into bed: "confound his
impudence. Who ever saw me on my knees? What the devil does the fellow
know? Gad, I've not had an affair these twenty years. I defy him." And
the old campaigner turned round and slept pretty sound, being rather
excited and amused by the events of the day--the last day in
Bury-street, he was determined it should be. "For it's impossible to
stay on with a valet over me and a bankrupt landlady. What good can I
do this poor devil of a woman? I'll give her twenty pound--there's
Warrington's twenty pound, which he has just paid--but what's the
use? She'll want more, and more, and more, and that cormorant Morgan
will swallow all. No, dammy, I can't afford to know poor people; and
to-morrow I'll say good-by--to Mrs. Brixham and Mr. Morgan."