Some short time before Mr. Foker's departure from Oxbridge, there had
come up to Boniface a gentleman who had once, as it turned out,
belonged to the other University of Camford, which he had quitted on
account of some differences with the tutors and authorities there. This
gentleman, whose name was Horace Bloundell, was of the ancient Suffolk
family of Bloundell-Bloundell, of Bloundell-Bloundell Hall,
Bloundell-Bloundellshire, as the young wags used to call it; and no
doubt it was on account of his descent, and because Dr. Donne, the Master
of Boniface, was a Suffolk man, and related perhaps to the family, that
Mr. Horace Bloundell was taken in at Boniface, after St. George's and one
or two other Colleges had refused to receive him. There was a living in
the family, which it was important for Mr. Bloundell to hold; and, being
in a dragoon regiment at the time when his third brother, for whom the
living was originally intended, sickened and died, Mr. Bloundell
determined upon quitting crimson pantaloons and sable shakos, for the
black coat and white neckcloth of the English divine. The misfortunes
which occurred at Camford, occasioned some slight disturbance to Mr.
Bloundell's plans; but although defeated upon one occasion, the resolute
ex-dragoon was not dismayed, and set to work to win a victory elsewhere.
In Pen's second year Major Pendennis paid a brief visit to his nephew,
and was introduced to several of Pen's university friends--the gentle and
polite Lord Plinlimmon, the gallant and open-hearted Magnus Charters, the
sly and witty Harland; the intrepid Ringwood, who was called Rupert in
the Union Debating Club, from his opinions and the bravery of his
blunders; Broadbent, styled Barebones Broadbent from the republican
nature of his opinions (he was of a dissenting family from Bristol and a
perfect Boanerges of debate); Mr. Bloundell-Bloundell finally, who had at
once taken his place among the select of the university.
Major Pendennis, though he did not understand Harland's Greek quotations,
or quite appreciate Broadbent's thick shoes and dingy hands, was
nevertheless delighted with the company assembled round his nephew, and
highly approved of all the young men with the exception of that one who
gave himself the greatest airs in the society, and affected most to have
the manners of a man of the world.
As he and Pen sate at breakfast on the morning after the party in the
rooms of the latter, the Major gave his opinions regarding the young men,
with whom he was in the greatest good-humour. He had regaled them with
some of his stories, which, though not quite so fresh in London (where
people have a diseased appetite for novelty in the way of anecdotes),
were entirely new at Oxbridge, and the lads heard them with that honest
sympathy, that eager pleasure, that boisterous laughter, or that profound
respect, so rare in the metropolis, and which must be so delightful to
the professed raconteur. Only once or twice during the telling of the
anecdote Mr. Bloundell's face wore a look of scorn, or betrayed by its
expression that he was acquainted with the tales narrated. Once he had
the audacity to question the accuracy of one of the particulars of a tale
as given by Major Pendennis, and gave his own version of the anecdote,
about which he knew he was right, for he heard it openly talked of at
the Club by So-and-so and T'other who were present at the business. The
youngsters present looked up with wonder at their associate, who dared to
interrupt the Major--few of them could appreciate that melancholy grace
and politeness with which Major Pendennis at once acceded to Mr.
Bloundell's version of the story, and thanked him for correcting his own
error. They stared on the next occasion of meeting, when Bloundell spoke
in contemptuous terms of old Pen; said everybody knew old Pen, regular
old trencherman at Gaunt House, notorious old bore, regular old fogy.
Major Pendennis on his side liked Mr. Bloundell not a whit. These
sympathies are pretty sure to be mutual amongst men and women, and if,
for my part, some kind friend tells me that such and such a man has been
abusing me, I am almost sure, on my own side, that I have a misliking to
such and such a man. We like or dislike each other, as folks like or
dislike the odour of certain flowers, or the taste of certain dishes or
wines, or certain books. We can't tell why--but as a general rule, all
the reasons in the world will not make us love Dr. Fell, and as sure as
we dislike him, we may be sure that he dislikes us.
So the Major said, "Pen, my boy, your dinner went off a merveille; you
did the honours very nicely--you carved well--I am glad you learned to
carve--it is done on the sideboard now in most good houses, but is still
an important point, and may aid you in middle-life--young Lord Plinlimmon
is a very amiable young man, quite the image of his dear mother (whom I
knew as Lady Aquila Brownbill); and Lord Magnus's republicanism will wear
off--it sits prettily enough on a young patrician in early life, though
nothing is so loathsome among persons of our rank--Mr. Broadbent seems to
have much eloquence and considerable reading your friend Foker is always
delightful: but your acquaintance, Mr. Bloundell, struck me as in all
respects a most ineligible young man."
"Bless my soul, sir, Bloundell-Bloundell!" cried Pen, laughing; "why,
sir, he's the most popular man of the university. We elected him of the
Barmecides the first week he came up--had a special meeting on purpose--
he's of an excellent family--Suffolk Bloundells, descended from Richard's
Blondel, bear a harp in chief--and motto O Mong Roy."
"A man may have a very good coat-of-arms, and be a tiger, my boy," the
Major said, chipping his egg; "that man is a tiger, mark my word--a low
man. I will lay a wager that he left his regiment, which was a good one
(for a more respectable man than my friend Lord Martingale never sate in
a saddle), in bad odour. There is the unmistakable look of slang and bad
habits about this Mr. Bloundell. He frequents low gambling-houses and
billiard-hells, sir--he haunts third-rate clubs--I know he does. I know
by his style. I never was mistaken in my man yet. Did you remark the
quantity of rings and jewellery he wore? That person has Scamp written on
his countenance, if any man ever had. Mark my words and avoid him. Let us
turn the conversation. The dinner was a leetle too fine, but I don't
object to your making a few extra frais when you receive friends. Of
course, you don't do it often, and only those whom it is your interest to
feter. The cutlets were excellent, and the souffle uncommonly light and
good. The third bottle of champagne was not necessary; but you have a
good income, and as long as you keep within it, I shall not quarrel with
you, my dear boy."
Poor Pen! the worthy uncle little knew how often those dinners took
place, while the reckless young Amphitryon delighted to show his
hospitality and skill in gourmandise. There is no art than that (so long
to learn, so difficult to acquire, so impossible and beyond the means of
many unhappy people!) about which boys are more anxious to have an air of
knowingness. A taste and knowledge of wines and cookery appears to them
to be the sign of an accomplished roue and manly gentleman. I like to see
them wink at a glass of claret, as if they had an intimate acquaintance
with it, and discuss a salmi--poor boys--it is only when they grow old
that they know they know nothing of the science, when perhaps their
conscience whispers them that the science is in itself little worth, and
that a leg of mutton and content is as good as the dinners of pontiffs.
But little Pen, in his character of Admirable Crichton, thought it
necessary to be a great judge and practitioner of dinners; we have just
said how the college cook respected him, and shall soon have to deplore
that that worthy man so blindly trusted our Pen. In the third year of the
lad's residence at Oxbridge, his staircase was by no means encumbered
with dish-covers and desserts, and waiters carrying in dishes, and skips
opening iced champagne; crowds of different sorts of attendants, with
faces sulky or piteous, hung about the outer oak, and assailed the
unfortunate lad as he issued out of his den.
Nor did his guardian's advice take any effect, or induce Mr. Pen to avoid
the society of the disreputable Mr. Bloundell. What young men like in
their companions is, what had got Pen a great part of his own repute and
popularity, a real or supposed knowledge of life. A man who has seen the
world, or can speak of it with a knowing air--a roue, or Lovelace, who
has his adventures to relate, is sure of an admiring audience among boys.
It is hard to confess, but so it is. We respect that sort of prowess.
From our school-days we have been taught to admire it. Are there five in
the hundred, out of the hundreds and hundreds of English school-boys,
brought up at our great schools and colleges, that must not own at one
time of their lives to having read and liked Don Juan? Awful propagation
of evil!--The idea of it should make the man tremble who holds the pen,
lest untruth, or impurity, or unjust anger, or unjust praise escape it.
One such diseased creature as this is enough to infect a whole colony,
and the tutors of Boniface began to find the moral tone of their college
lowered and their young men growing unruly, and almost ungentleman-like,
soon after Mr. Bloundell's arrival at Oxbridge. The young magnates of the
neighbouring great College of St. George's, who regarded Pen, and in
whose society he lived, were not taken in by Bloundell's flashy graces,
and rakish airs of fashion. Broadbent called him Captain Macheath, and
said he would live to be hanged. Foker, during his brief stay at the
university with Macheath, with characteristic caution declined to say
anything in the Captain's disfavour, but hinted to Pen that he had better
have him for a partner at whist than play against him, and better back
him at ecarte than bet on the other side. "You see, he plays better than
you do, Pen," was the astute young gentleman's remark: "he plays uncommon
well, the Captain does;--and Pen, I wouldn't take the odds too freely
from him, if I was you. I don't think he's too flush of money, the
Captain ain't." But beyond these dark suggestions and generalities, the
cautious Foker could not be got to speak.
Not that his advice would have had more weight with a headstrong young
man, than advice commonly has with a lad who is determined on pursuing
his own way. Pen's appetite for pleasure was insatiable, and he rushed at
it wherever it presented itself, with an eagerness which bespoke his
fiery constitution and youthful health. He called taking pleasure "Seeing
life," and quoted well-known maxims from Terence, from Horace, from
Shakspeare, to show that one should do all that might become a man. He
bade fair to be utterly used up and a roue, in a few years, if he were to
continue at the pace at which he was going.
One night after a supper-party in college, at which Pen and Macheath had
been present, and at which a little quiet vingt-et-un had been played (an
amusement much pleasanter to men in their second and third year than the
boisterous custom of singing songs, which bring the proctors about the
rooms, and which have grown quite stale by this time, every man having
expended his budget)--as the men had taken their caps and were going
away, after no great losses or winnings on any side, Mr. Bloundell
playfully took up a green wine-glass from the supper-table, which had
been destined to contain iced cup, but into which he inserted something
still more pernicious, namely a pair of dice, which the gentleman took
out of his waistcoat-pocket, and put into the glass. Then giving the
glass a graceful wave which showed that his hand was quite experienced in
the throwing of dice, he called sevens the main, and whisking the ivory
cubes gently on the table, swept them up lightly again from the cloth,
and repeated this process two or three times. The other men looked on,
Pen, of course, among the number, who had never used the dice as yet,
except to play a humdrum game of backgammon at home.
Mr. Bloundell, who had a good voice, began to troll out the chorus from
Robert the Devil, an Opera then in great vogue, in which chorus many of
the men joined, especially Pen, who was in very high spirits, having won
a good number of shillings and half-crowns at the vingt-et-un--and
presently, instead of going home, most of the party were seated round the
table playing at dice, the green glass going round from hand to hand
until Pen finally shivered it, after throwing six mains.
From that night Pen plunged into the delights of the game of hazard, as
eagerly as it was his custom to pursue any new pleasure. Dice can be
played of mornings as well as after dinner or supper. Bloundell would
come into Pen's rooms after breakfast, and it was astonishing how quick
the time passed as the bones were rattling. They had little quiet parties
with closed doors, and Bloundell devised a box lined with felt, so that
the dice should make no noise, and their tell-tale rattle not bring the
sharp-eared tutors up to the rooms. Bloundell, Ringwood, and Pen were
once very nearly caught by Mr. Buck, who, passing in the Quadrangle,
thought he heard the words "Two to one on the caster," through Pen's open
window; but when the tutor got into Arthur's rooms he found the lads with
three Homers before them, and Pen said he was trying to coach the two
other men, and asked Mr. Buck with great gravity what was the present
condition of the River Scamander, and whether it was navigable or no?
Mr. Arthur Pendennis did not win much money in these transactions with
Mr. Bloundell, or indeed gain good of any kind except a knowledge of the
odds at hazard, which he might have learned out of books.
Captain Macheath had other accomplishments which he exercised for Pen's
benefit. The Captain's stories had a great and unfortunate charm for
Arthur, who was never tired of hearing Bloundell's histories of garrison
conquests, and of his feats in country-quarters.--He had been at Paris,
and had plenty of legends about the Palais Royal, and the Salon, and
Frascati's. He had gone to the Salon one night, after a dinner at the
Cafe de Paris, "when we were all devilishly cut, by Jove; and on waking
in the morning in my own rooms, I found myself with twelve thousand
francs under my pillow, and a hundred and forty-nine Napoleons in one of
my boots. Wasn't that a coup, hay?" the Captain said. Pen's eyes
glistened with excitement as he heard this story. He respected the man
who could win such a sum of money. He sighed, and said it would set him
all right. Macheath laughed, and told him to drink another drop of
Maraschino. "I could tell you stories much more wonderful than that," he
added; and so indeed the Captain could have done, without any further
trouble than that of invention, with which portion of the poetic faculty
Nature had copiously endowed him.
He laughed to scorn Pen's love for Miss Fotheringay, when he came to hear
of that amour from Arthur, as he pretty soon did, for, we have said, Pen
was not averse to telling the story now to his confidential friends, and
he and they were rather proud of the transaction. But Macheath took away
all Pen's conceit on this head, not by demonstrating the folly of the
lad's passion for an uneducated woman much his senior in years, but by
exposing his absurd desire of gratifying his passion in a legitimate way.
"Marry her," said he, "you might as well marry ----," and he named one of
the most notorious actresses on the stage.
"She hadn't a shred of a character." He knew twenty men who were openly
admirers of her, and named them, and the sums each had spent upon her. I
know no kind of calumny more frightful or frequent than this which takes
away the character of women, no men more reckless and mischievous than
those who lightly use it, and no kind of cowards more despicable than the
people who invent these slanders.
Is it, or not, a misfortune that a man, himself of a candid disposition,
and disposed, like our friend Pen, to blurt out the truth on all
occasions, begins life by believing all that is said to him? Would it be
better for a lad to be less trustful, and so less honest? It requires no
small experience of the world to know that a man, who has no especial
reason thereto, is telling you lies. I am not sure whether it is not best
to go on being duped for a certain time. At all events, our honest Pen
had a natural credulity, which enabled him to accept all statements which
were made to him, and he took every one of Captain Macheath's figments as
if they had been the most unquestioned facts of history.
So Bloundell's account about Miss Fotheringay pained and mortified Pen
exceedingly. If he had been ashamed of his passion before,--what were his
feelings regarding it now, when the object of so much pure flame and
adoration turned out to be only a worthless impostor, an impostor
detected by all but him? It never occurred to Pen to doubt the fact, or
to question whether the stories of a man who, like his new friend, never
spoke well of any woman, were likely to be true.
One Easter vacation, when Pen had announced to his mother and uncle his
intention not to go down, but stay at Oxbridge and read, Mr. Pen was
nevertheless induced to take a brief visit to London in company with his
friend Mr. Bloundell. They put up at a hotel in Covent Garden, where
Bloundell had a tick, as he called it, and took the pleasures of the town
very freely after the wont of young university men. Bloundell still
belonged to a military club, whither he took Pen to dine once or twice
(the young men would drive thither in a cab, trembling lest they should
meet Major Pendennis on his beat in Pall Mall), and here Pen was
introduced to a number of gallant young fellows with spurs and
mustachios, with whom he drank pale-ale of mornings and beat the town of
a night. Here he saw a deal of life, indeed: nor in his career about the
theatres and singing-houses which these roaring young blades frequented,
was he very likely to meet his guardian. One night, nevertheless, they
were very near to each other: a plank only separating Pen, who was in the
boxes of the Museum Theatre, from the Major, who was in Lord Steyne's
box, along with that venerated nobleman. The Fotheringay was in the pride
of her glory. Shad made a hit: that is, she had drawn very good houses
for nearly a year, had starred the provinces with great eclat, had come
back to shine in London with somewhat diminished lustre, and now was
acting with "ever increasing attraction; etc.," "triumph of the good old
British drama," as the play-bills avowed, to houses in which there was
plenty of room for anybody who wanted to see her.
It was not the first time Pen had seen her, since that memorable day when
the two had parted in Chatteris. In the previous year, when the town was
making much of her, and the press lauded her beauty, Pen had found a
pretext for coming to London in term-time, and had rushed off to the
theatre to see his old flame. He recollected it rather than renewed it.
He remembered how ardently he used to be on the look-out at Chatteris,
when the speech before Ophelia's or Mrs. Haller's entrance on the stage
was made by the proper actor. Now, as the actor spoke, he had a sort of
feeble thrill: as the house began to thunder with applause, and Ophelia
entered with her old bow and sweeping curtsey, Pen felt a slight shock
and blushed very much as he looked at her, and could not help thinking
that all the house was regarding him. He hardly heard her for the first
part of the play: and he thought with such rage of the humiliation to
which she had subjected him, that he began to fancy he was jealous and in
love with her still. But that illusion did not last very long. He ran
round to the stage-door of the theatre to see her if possible, but he did
not succeed. She passed indeed under his nose with a female companion,
but he did not know her,--nor did she recognise him. The next night he
came in late, and stayed very quietly for the afterpiece, and on the
third and last night of his stay in London--why, Taglioni was going to
dance at the Opera,--Taglioni! and there was to be Don Giovanni, which he
admired of all things in the world: so Mr. Pen went to Don Giovanni and
Taglioni.
This time the illusion about her was quite gone. She was not less
handsome, but she was not the same, somehow. The light was gone out of
her eyes which used to flash there, or Pen's no longer were dazzled by
it. The rich voice spoke as of old, yet it did not make Pen's bosom
thrill as formerly. He thought he could recognise the brogue underneath:
the accents seemed to him coarse and false. It annoyed him to hear the
same emphasis on the same words, only uttered a little louder: worse than
this, it annoyed him to think that he should ever have mistaken that loud
imitation for genius, or melted at those mechanical sobs and sighs. He
felt that it was in another life almost, that it was another man who had
so madly loved her. He was ashamed and bitterly humiliated, and very
lonely. Ah, poor Pen! the delusion is better than the truth sometimes,
and fine dreams than dismal waking.
They went and had an uproarious supper that night, and Mr. Pen had a fine
headache the next morning, with which he went back to Oxbridge, having
spent all his ready money.
As all this narrative is taken from Pen's own confessions, so that the
reader may be assured of the truth of every word of it, and as Pen
himself never had any accurate notion of the manner in which he spent his
money, and plunged himself in much deeper pecuniary difficulties, during
his luckless residence at Oxbridge University, it is, of course,
impossible for me to give any accurate account of his involvements,
beyond that general notion of his way of life, which has been sketched a
few pages back. He does not speak too hardly of the roguery of the
university tradesmen, or of those in London whom he honoured with his
patronage at the outset of his career. Even Finch, the money-lender, to
whom Bloundell introduced him, and with whom he had various transactions,
in which the young rascal's signature appeared upon stamped paper,
treated him, according to Pen's own account, with forbearance, and never
mulcted him of more than a hundred per cent. The old college-cook, his
fervent admirer, made him a private bill, offered to send him in dinners
up to the very last, and never would have pressed his account to his
dying day. There was that kindness and frankness about Arthur Pendennis,
which won most people who came in contact with him, and which, if it
rendered him an easy prey to rogues, got him, perhaps, more goodwill than
he merited from many honest men. It was impossible to resist his
good-nature, or, in his worst moments, not to hope for his rescue from
utter ruin.
At the time of his full career of university pleasure, he would leave the
gayest party to go and sit with a sick friend. He never knew the
difference between small and great in the treatment of his acquaintances,
however much the unlucky lad's tastes, which were of the sumptuous order,
led him to prefer good society; he was only too ready to share his guinea
with a poor friend, and when he got money had an irresistible propensity
for paying, which he never could conquer through life.
In his third year at college, the duns began to gather awfully round
about him, and there was a levee at his oak which scandalised the tutors,
and would have scared many a stouter heart. With some of these he used to
battle, some he would bully (under Mr. Bloundell's directions, who was a
master in this art, though he took a degree in no other), and some
deprecate. And it is reported of him that little Mary Frodsham, the
daughter of a certain poor gilder and frame-maker, whom Mr. Pen had
thought fit to employ, and who had made a number of beautiful frames for
his fine prints, coming to Pendennis with a piteous tale that her father
was ill with ague, and that there was an execution in their house, Pen in
an anguish of remorse rushed away, pawned his grand watch and every
single article of jewellery except two old gold sleeve-buttons, which had
belonged to his father, and rushed with the proceeds to Frodsham's shop,
where, with tears in his eyes, and the deepest repentance and humility,
he asked the poor tradesman's pardon.
This, young gentlemen, is not told as an instance of Pen's virtue, but
rather of his weakness. It would have been much more virtuous to have had
no prints at all. He still stood for the baubles which he sold in order
to pay Frodsham's bill, and his mother had cruelly to pinch herself in
order to discharge the jeweller's account, so that she was in the end the
sufferer by the lad's impertinent fancies and follies. We are not
presenting Pen to you as a hero or a model, only as a lad, who, in the
midst of a thousand vanities and weaknesses, has as yet some generous
impulses, and is not altogether dishonest.
We have said it was to the scandal of Mr. Buck the tutor that Pen's
extravagances became known: from the manner in which he entered college,
the associates he kept, and the introductions of Doctor Portman and the
Major, Buck for a long time thought that his pupil was a man of large
property, and wondered rather that he only wore a plain gown. Once on
going up to London to the levee with an address from his Majesty's Loyal
University of Oxbridge, Buck had seen Major Pendennis at St. James's in
conversation with two knights of the garter, in the carriage of one of
whom the dazzled tutor saw the Major whisked away after the levee. He
asked Pen to wine the instant he came back, let him off from chapels and
lectures more than ever, and felt perfectly sure that he was a young
gentleman of large estate.
Thus, he was thunderstruck when he heard the truth, and received a dismal
confession from Pen. His university debts were large, and the tutor had
nothing to do, and of course Pen did not acquaint him, with his London
debts. What man ever does tell all when pressed by his friends about his
liabilities? The tutor learned enough to know that Pen was poor, that he
had spent a handsome, almost a magnificent allowance, and had raised
around him such a fine crop of debts, as it would be very hard work for
any man to mow down; for there is no plant that grows so rapidly when
once it has taken root.
Perhaps it was because she was so tender and good that Pen was terrified
lest his mother should know of his sins. "I can't bear to break it to
her," he said to the tutor in an agony of grief. "O! sir, I've been a
villain to her"--and he repented, and he wished he had the time to come
over again, and he asked himself, "Why, why did his uncle insist upon the
necessity of living with great people, and in how much did all his grand
acquaintance profit him?"
They were not shy, but Pen thought they were, and slunk from them during
his last terms at college. He was as gloomy as a death's-head at parties,
which he avoided of his own part, or to which his young friends soon
ceased to invite him. Everybody knew that Pendennis was "hard up." That
man Bloundell, who could pay nobody, and who was obliged to go down after
three terms, was his ruin, the men said. His melancholy figure might be
seen shirking about the lonely quadrangles in his battered old cap and
torn gown, and he who had been the pride of the university but a year
before, the man whom all the young ones loved to look at, was now the
object of conversation at freshmen's wine-parties, and they spoke of him
with wonder and awe.
At last came the Degree Examinations. Many a young man of his year whose
hob-nailed shoes Pen had derided, and whose face or coat he had
caricatured--many a man whom he had treated with scorn in the
lecture-room or crushed with his eloquence in the debating-club--many of
his own set who had not half his brains, but a little regularity and
constancy of occupation, took high places in the honours or passed with
decent credit. And where in the list was Pen the superb, Pen the wit and
dandy, Pen the poet and orator? Ah, where was Pen the widow's darling and
sole pride? Let us hide our heads, and shut up the page. The lists came
out; and a dreadful rumour rushed through the university, that Pendennis
of Boniface was plucked.