One fine morning in the full London season, Major Arthur Pendennis came
over from his lodgings, according to his custom, to breakfast at a
certain Club in Pall Mall, of which he was a chief ornament. As he was
one of the finest judges of wine in England, and a man of active,
dominating, and inquiring spirit, he had been very properly chosen to be
a member of the Committee of this Club, and indeed was almost the manager
of the institution; and the stewards and waiters bowed before him as
reverentially as to a Duke or a Field-Marshal.
At a quarter past ten the Major invariably made his appearance in the
best blacked boots in all London, with a checked morning cravat that
never was rumpled until dinner time, a buff waistcoat which bore the
crown of his sovereign on the buttons, and linen so spotless that Mr.
Brummel himself asked the name of his laundress, and would probably have
employed her had not misfortunes compelled that great man to fly the
country. Pendennis's coat, his white gloves, his whiskers, his very cane,
were perfect of their kind as specimens of the costume of a military man
en retraite. At a distance, or seeing his back merely, you would have
taken him to be not more than thirty years old: it was only by a nearer
inspection that you saw the factitious nature of his rich brown hair, and
that there were a few crow's-feet round about the somewhat faded eyes of
his handsome mottled face. His nose was of the Wellington pattern. His
hands and wristbands were beautifully long and white. On the latter he
wore handsome gold buttons given to him by his Royal Highness the Duke of
York, and on the others more than one elegant ring, the chief and largest
of them being emblazoned with the famous arms of Pendennis.
He always took possession of the same table in the same corner of the
room, from which nobody ever now thought of ousting him. One or two mad
wags and wild fellows had in former days, and in freak or bravado,
endeavoured twice or thrice to deprive him of this place; but there was a
quiet dignity in the Major's manner as he took his seat at the next
table, and surveyed the interlopers, which rendered it impossible for any
man to sit and breakfast under his eye; and that table--by the fire, and
yet near the window--became his own. His letters were laid out there in
expectation of his arrival, and many was the young fellow about town who
looked with wonder at the number of those notes, and at the seals and
franks which they bore. If there was any question about etiquette,
society, who was married to whom, of what age such and such a duke was,
Pendennis was the man to whom every one appealed. Marchionesses used to
drive up to the Club, and leave notes for him, or fetch him out. He was
perfectly affable. The young men liked to walk with him in the Park or
down Pall Mall; for he touched his hat to everybody, and every other man
he met was a lord.
The Major sate down at his accustomed table then, and while the waiters
went to bring him his toast and his hot newspaper, he surveyed his
letters through his gold double eye-glass. He carried it so gaily, you
would hardly have known it was spectacles in disguise, and examined one
pretty note after another, and laid them by in order. There were large
solemn dinner cards, suggestive of three courses and heavy conversation;
there were neat little confidential notes, conveying female entreaties;
there was a note on thick official paper from the Marquis of Steyne,
telling him to come to Richmond to a little party at the Star and Garter,
and speak French, which language the Major possessed very perfectly; and
another from the Bishop of Ealing and Mrs. Trail, requesting the honour
of Major Pendennis's company at Ealing House, all of which letters
Pendennis read gracefully, and with the more satisfaction, because
Glowry, the Scotch surgeon, breakfasting opposite to him, was looking on,
and hating him for having so many invitations, which nobody ever sent to
Glowry.
These perused, the Major took out his pocket-book to see on what days he
was disengaged, and which of these many hospitable calls he could afford
to accept or decline.
He threw over Cutler, the East India Director, in Baker Street, in order
to dine with Lord Steyne and the little French party at the Star and
Garter--the Bishop he accepted, because, though the dinner was slow, he
liked to dine with bishops--and so went through his list and disposed of
them according to his fancy or interest. Then he took his breakfast and
looked over the paper, the gazette, the births and deaths, and the
fashionable intelligence, to see that his name was down among the guests
at my Lord So-and-so's fete, and in the intervals of these occupations
carried on cheerful conversation with his acquaintances about the room.
Among the letters which formed Major Pendennis's budget for that morning
there was only one unread, and which lay solitary and apart from all the
fashionable London letters, with a country postmark and a homely seal.
The superscription was in a pretty delicate female hand, and though
marked 'Immediate' by the fair writer, with a strong dash of anxiety
under the word, yet the Major had, for reasons of his own, neglected up
to the present moment his humble rural petitioner, who to be sure could
hardly hope to get a hearing among so many grand folks who attended his
levee. The fact was, this was a letter from a female relative of
Pendennis, and while the grandees of her brother's acquaintance were
received and got their interview, and drove off, as it were, the patient
country letter remained for a long time waiting for an audience in the
ante-chamber under the slop-bason.
At last it came to be this letter's turn, and the Major broke a seal with
'Fairoaks' engraved upon it, and 'Clavering St. Mary's' for a postmark.
It was a double letter, and the Major commenced perusing the envelope
before he attacked the inner epistle.
"Is it a letter from another Jook," growled Mr. Glowry, inwardly,
"Pendennis would not be leaving that to the last, I'm thinking."
"My dear Major Pendennis," the letter ran, "I beg and implore you to come
to me immediately "--very likely, thought Pendennis, and Steyne's dinner
to-day--"I am in the very greatest grief and perplexity. My dearest boy,
who has been hitherto everything the fondest mother could wish, is
grieving me dreadfully. He has formed--I can hardly write it--a passion,
an infatuation,"--the Major grinned--"for an actress who has been
performing here. She is at least twelve years older than Arthur--who will
not be eighteen till next February--and the wretched boy insists upon
marrying her."
"Hay! What's making Pendennis swear now?"--Mr. Glowry asked of himself,
for rage and wonder were concentrated in the Major's open mouth, as he
read this astounding announcement.
"Do, my dear friend," the grief-stricken lady went on, "come to me
instantly on the receipt of this; and, as Arthur's guardian, entreat,
command, the wretched child to give up this most deplorable resolution."
And, after more entreaties to the above effect, the writer concluded by
signing herself the Major's 'unhappy affectionate sister, Helen
Pendennis.'
"Fairoaks, Tuesday"--the Major concluded, reading the last words of the
letter--"A d---d pretty business at Fairoaks, Tuesday; now let us see
what the boy has to say;" and he took the other letter, which was written
in a great floundering boy's hand, and sealed with the large signet of
the Pendennises, even larger than the Major's own, and with supplementary
wax sputtered all round the seal, in token of the writer's tremulousness
and agitation.
The epistle ran thus:
"Fairoaks, Monday, Midnight.
"My Dear Uncle,--In informing you of my engagement with Miss Costigan,
daughter of J. Chesterfield Costigan, Esq., of Costiganstown, but,
perhaps, better known to you under her professional name of Miss
Fotheringay, of the Theatres Royal Drury Lane and Crow Street, and of the
Norwich and Welsh Circuit, I am aware that I make an announcement which
cannot, according to the present prejudices of society at least, be
welcome to my family. My dearest mother, on whom, God knows, I would wish
to inflict no needless pain, is deeply moved and grieved, I am sorry to
say, by the intelligence which I have this night conveyed to her. I
beseech you, my dear Sir, to come down and reason with her and console
her. Although obliged by poverty to earn an honourable maintenance by the
exercise of her splendid talents, Miss Costigan's family is as ancient
and noble as our own. When our ancestor, Ralph Pendennis, landed with
Richard II. in Ireland, my Emily's forefathers were kings of that
country. I have the information from Mr. Costigan, who, like yourself, is
a military man.
"It is in vain I have attempted to argue with my dear mother, and prove
to her that a young lady of irreproachable character and lineage, endowed
with the most splendid gifts of beauty and genius, who devotes herself to
the exercise of one of the noblest professions, for the sacred purpose of
maintaining her family, is a being whom we should all love and reverence,
rather than avoid;--my poor mother has prejudices which it is impossible
for my logic to overcome, and refuses to welcome to her arms one who is
disposed to be her most affectionate daughter through life.
"Although Miss Costigan is some years older than myself, that
circumstance does not operate as a barrier to my affection, and I am sure
will not influence its duration. A love like mine, Sir, I feel, is
contracted once and for ever. As I never had dreamed of love until I saw
her--I feel now that I shall die without ever knowing another passion. It
is the fate of my life. It was Miss C.'s own delicacy which suggested
that the difference of age, which I never felt, might operate as a bar to
our union. But having loved once, I should despise myself, and be
unworthy of my name as a gentleman, if I hesitated to abide by my
passion: if I did not give all where I felt all, and endow the woman who
loves me fondly with my whole heart and my whole fortune.
"I press for a speedy marriage with my Emily--for why, in truth, should
it be delayed? A delay implies a doubt, which I cast from me as unworthy.
It is impossible that my sentiments can change towards Emily--that at any
age she can be anything but the sole object of my love. Why, then, wait?
I entreat you, my dear Uncle, to come down and reconcile my dear mother
to our union, and I address you as a man of the world, qui mores hominum
multorum vidit et urbes, who will not feel any of the weak scruples and
fears which agitate a lady who has scarcely ever left her village.
"Pray, come down to us immediately. I am quite confident that--apart from
considerations of fortune--you will admire and approve of my Emily.--Your
affectionate Nephew, Arthur Pendennis, Jr."
When the Major had concluded the perusal of this letter, his countenance
assumed an expression of such rage and horror that Glowry, the
surgeon-official, felt in his pocket for his lancet, which he always
carried in his card-case, and thought his respected friend was going into
a fit. The intelligence was indeed sufficient to agitate Pendennis. The
head of the Pendennises going to marry an actress ten years his senior,--
a headstrong boy going to plunge into matrimony. "The mother has spoiled
the young rascal," groaned the Major inwardly, "with her cursed
sentimentality and romantic rubbish. My nephew marry a tragedy queen!
Gracious mercy, people will laugh at me so that I shall not dare show my
head!" And he thought with an inexpressible pang that he must give up
Lord Steyne's dinner at Richmond, and must lose his rest and pass the
night in an abominable tight mail-coach, instead of taking pleasure, as
he had promised himself, in some of the most agreeable and select society
in England.
And he must not only give up this but all other engagements for some time
to come. Who knows how long the business might detain him. He quitted his
breakfast table for the adjoining writing-room, and there ruefully wrote
off refusals to the Marquis, the Earl, the Bishop, and all his
entertainers; and he ordered his servant to take places in the mail-coach
for that evening, of course charging the sum which he disbursed for the
seats to the account of the widow and the young scapegrace of whom he was
guardian.