Part 59 (1/2)

When the supper, which was very brisk and gay, was over, and Captain Costigan and Mrs. Bolton had partaken of some of the rack-punch that is so fragrant at Vauxhall, the bill was called and discharged by Pen with great generosity,--”loike a foin young English gentleman of th' olden toime, be Jove,” Costigan enthusiastically remarked. And as, when they went out of the box, he stepped forward and gave Mrs. Bolton his arm, f.a.n.n.y fell to Pen's lot, and the young people walked away in high good-humour together, in the wake of their seniors.

The champagne and the rack-punch, though taken in moderation by all persons, except perhaps poor Cos, who lurched ever so little in his gait, had set them in high spirits and good-humour, so that f.a.n.n.y began to skip and move her brisk little feet in time to the band, which was playing waltzes and galops for the dancers. As they came up to the dancing, the music and f.a.n.n.y's feet seemed to go quicker together--she seemed to spring, as if naturally, from the ground, and as if she required repression to keep her there.

”Shouldn't you like a turn?” said the Prince of Fairoaks. ”What fun it would be! Mrs. Bolton, ma'am, do let me take her once round.” Upon which Mr. Costigan said, ”Off wid you!” and Mrs. Bolton not refusing (indeed, she was an old war-horse, and would have liked, at the trumpet's sound, to have entered the arena herself), f.a.n.n.y's shawl was off her back in a minute, and she and Arthur were whirling round in a waltz in the midst of a great deal of queer, but exceedingly joyful company.

Pen had no mishap this time with little f.a.n.n.y, as he had with Miss Blanche in old days,--at least, there was no mishap of his making. The pair danced away with great agility and contentment,--first a waltz, then a galop, then a waltz again, until, in the second waltz, they were b.u.mped by another couple who had joined the Terpsich.o.r.ean choir. This was Mr. Huxter and his pink satin young friend, of whom we have already had a glimpse.

Mr. Huxter very probably had been also partaking of supper, for he was even more excited now than at the time when he had previously claimed Pen's acquaintance; and, having run against Arthur and his partner, and nearly knocked them down, this amiable gentleman of course began to abuse the people whom he had injured, and broke out into a volley of slang against the unoffending couple. ”Now then, stoopid! Don't keep the ground if you can't dance, old Slow Coach!” the young surgeon roared out (using, at the same time, other expressions far more emphatic), and was joined in his abuse by the shrill language and laughter of his partner; to the interruption of the ball, the terror of poor little f.a.n.n.y, and the immense indignation of Pen.

Arthur was furious; and not so angry at the quarrel as at the shame attending it. A battle with a fellow like that! A row in a public garden, and with a porter's daughter on his arm! What a position for Arthur Pendennis! He drew poor little f.a.n.n.y hastily away from the dancers to her mother, and wished that lady, and Costigan, and poor f.a.n.n.y underground, rather than there, in his companions.h.i.+p, and under his protection.

When Huxter commenced his attack, that free-spoken young gentleman had not seen who was his opponent; and directly he was aware that it was Arthur whom he had insulted, he began to make apologies. ”Hold your stoopid tongue, Mary,” he said to his partner. ”It's an old friend and crony at home. I beg pardon, Pendennis; wasn't aware it was you, old boy.” Mr. Huxter had been one of the boys of the Clavering School, who had been present at a combat which has been mentioned in the early part of this story, when young Pen knocked down the biggest champion of the academy, and Huxter knew that it was dangerous to quarrel with Arthur.

His apologies were as odious to the other as his abuse had been. Pen stopped his tipsy remonstrance, by telling him to hold his tongue, and desiring him not to use his (Pendennis's) name in that place or any other; and he walked out of the gardens with a t.i.tter behind him from the crowd, every one of whom he would have liked to ma.s.sacre for having been witness to the degrading broil. He walked out of the gardens, quite forgetting poor little f.a.n.n.y, who came trembling behind him with her mother and the stately Costigan.

He was brought back to himself by a word from the Captain, who touched him on the shoulder just as they were pa.s.sing the inner gate.

”There's no ray-admittance except ye pay again,” the Captain said.

”Hadn't I better go back and take the fellow your message?”

Pen burst out laughing. ”Take him a message! Do you think I would fight with such a fellow as that?” he asked.

”No, no! Don't, don't?” cried out little f.a.n.n.y. ”How can you be so wicked, Captain Costigan?” The Captain muttered something about honour, and winked knowingly at Pen, but Arthur said gallantly, ”No, f.a.n.n.y, don't be frightened. It was my fault to have danced in such a place,--I beg your padon to have asked you to dance there.” And he gave her his arm once more, and called a cab, and put his three friends into it.

He was about to pay the driver, and to take another carriage for himself, when little f.a.n.n.y, still alarmed, put her little hand out, and caught him by the coat, and implored him and besought him to come in.

”Will nothing satisfy you,” said Pen, in great good-humour, ”that I am not going back to fight him? Well, I will come home with you. Drive to Shepherd's Inn, cab.” The cab drove to its destination. Arthur was immensely pleased by the girl's solicitude about him: her tender terrors quite made him forget his previous annoyance.

Pen put the ladies into their lodge, having shaken hands kindly with both of them; and the Captain again whispered to him that he would see um in the morning if he was inclined, and take his message to that ”scounthrel.” But the Captain was in his usual condition when he made the proposal; and Pen was perfectly sure that neither he nor Mr. Huxter, when they awoke, would remember anything about the dispute.

CHAPTYER XLVIII. A Visit of Politeness

Costigan never roused Pen from his slumbers; there was no hostile message from Mr. Huxter to disturb him; and when Pen woke, it was with a brisker and more lively feeling than ordinarily attends that moment in the day of the tired and blase London man. A City man wakes up to care and consols, and the thoughts of 'Change and the counting-house take possession of him as soon as sleep flies from under his night-cap; a lawyer rouses himself with the early morning to think of the case that will take him all his day to work upon, and the inevitable attorney to whom he has promised his papers ere night. Which of us has not his anxiety instantly present when his eyes are opened, to it and to the world, after his night's sleep? Kind strengthener that enables us to face the day's task with renewed heart! Beautiful ordinance of Providence that creates rest as it awards labour!

Mr. Pendennis's labour, or rather his disposition, was of that sort that his daily occupations did not much interest him, for the excitement of literary composition pretty soon subsides with the hired labourer, and the delight of seeing one's-self in print only extends to the first two or three appearances in the magazine or newspaper page. Pegasus put into harness, and obliged to run a stage every day, is as prosaic as any other hack, and won't work without his whip or his feed of corn.

So, indeed, Mr. Arthur performed his work at the Pall Mall Gazette (and since his success as a novelist with an increased salary), but without the least enthusiasm, doing his best or pretty nearly, and sometimes writing ill and sometimes well. He was a literary hack, naturally fast in pace, and brilliant in action.

Neither did society, or that portion which he saw, excite or amuse him over much. In spite of his brag and boast to the contrary, he was too young as yet for women's society, which probably can only be had in perfection when a man has ceased to think about his own person, and has given up all designs of being a conqueror of ladies; he was too young to be admitted as an equal amongst men who had made their mark in the world, and of whose conversation he could scarcely as yet expect to be more than a listener. And he was too old for the men of pleasure of his own age; too much a man of pleasure for the men of business; destinied in a word to be a good deal alone. Fate awards this lot of solitude to many a man; and many like it from taste, as many without difficulty bear it. Pendennis, in reality, suffered it very equanimously; but in words, and according to his wont, grumbled over it not a little.

”What a nice little artless creature that was,” Mr. Pen thought at the very instant of waking after the Vauxhall affair; ”what a pretty natural manner she has; how much pleasanter than the minauderies of the young ladies in the ballrooms” (and here he recalled to himself some instances of what he could not help seeing was the artful simplicity of Miss Blanche, and some of the stupid graces of other young ladies in the polite world); ”who could have thought that such a pretty rose could grow in a porter's lodge, or bloom in that dismal old flower-pot of a Shepherd's Inn? So she learns to sing from old Bows? If her singing voice is as sweet as her speaking voice, it must be pretty. I like those low voilees voices. 'What would you like me to call you?' indeed, poor little f.a.n.n.y! It went to my heart to adopt the grand air with her and tell her to call me, 'Sir.' But we'll have no nonsense of that sort--no Faust and Margaret business for me. That old Bows! So he teaches her to sing, does he? He's a dear old fellow, old Bows: a gentleman in those old clothes: a philosopher, and with a kind heart, too. How good he was to me in the Fotheringay business. He, too, has had his griefs and his sorrows. I must cultivate old Bows. A man ought to see people of all sorts. I am getting tired of genteel society. Besides, there's n.o.body in town. Yes, I'll go and see Bows, and Costigan too; what a rich character! begad, I'll study him, and put him into a book.” In this way our young anthropologist talked with himself, and as Sat.u.r.day was the holiday of the week, the Pall Mall Gazette making its appearance upon that day, and the contributors to that journal having no further calls upon their brains or ink-bottles, Mr. Pendennis determined he would take advantage of his leisure, and pay a visit to Shepherd's Inn--of course to see old Bows.

The truth is, that if Arthur had been the most determined roue and artful Lovelace who ever set about deceiving a young girl, he could hardly have adopted better means for fascinating and overcoming poor little f.a.n.n.y Bolton than those which he had employed on the previous night. His dandified protecting air, his conceit, generosity, and good-humour, the very sense of good and honesty which had enabled him to check the tremulous advances of the young creature, and not to take advantage of that little fluttering sensibility,--his faults and his virtues at once contributed to make her admire him; and if we could peep into f.a.n.n.y's bed (which she shared in a cupboard, along with those two little sisters to whom we have seen Mr. Costigan administering gingerbread and apples), we should find the poor little maid tossing upon her mattress, to the great disturbance of its other two occupants, and thinking over all the delights and events of that delightful, eventful night, and all the words, looks, and actions of Arthur, its splendid hero. Many novels had f.a.n.n.y read, in secret and at home, in three volumes and in numbers. Periodical literature had not reached the height which it has attained subsequently, and the girls of f.a.n.n.y's generation were not enabled to purchase sixteen pages of excitement for a penny, rich with histories of crime, murder, oppressed virtue, and the heartless seductions of the aristocracy; but she had had the benefit of the circulating library which, in conjunction with her school and a small brandy-ball and millinery business, Miss Minifer kept,--and Arthur appeared to her at once as the type and realisation of all the heroes of all those darling greasy volumes which the young girl had devoured. Mr.

Pen, we have seen, was rather a dandy about s.h.i.+rts and haberdashery in general. f.a.n.n.y had looked with delight at the fineness of his linen, at the brilliancy of his s.h.i.+rt-studs, at his elegant cambric pocket-handkerchief and white gloves, and at the jetty brightness of his charming boots. The Prince had appeared and subjugated the poor little handmaid. His image traversed constantly her restless slumbers; the tone of his voice, the blue light of his eyes, the generous look, half love, half pity,--the manly protecting smile, the frank, winning laughter,--all these were repeated in the girl's fond memory. She felt still his arm encircling her, and saw him smiling so grand as he filled up that delicious gla.s.s of champagne. And then she thought of the girls, her friends, who used to sneer at her--of Emma Baker, who was so proud, forsooth, because she was engaged to a cheesemonger, in a white ap.r.o.n, near Clare Market; and of Betsy Rodgers, who make such a to-do about her young man--an attorney's clerk, indeed, that went about with a bag!

So that, at about two o'clock in the afternoon--the Bolton family having concluded their dinner (and Mr. B., who besides his place of porter of the Inn, was in the employ of Messrs. Tressler, the eminent undertakers of the Strand, being absent in the country with the Countess of Estrich's hea.r.s.e), when a gentleman in a white hat and white trousers made his appearance under the Inn archway, and stopped at the porter's wicket, f.a.n.n.y was not in the least surprised, only delightful, only happy, and blus.h.i.+ng beyond all measure. She knew it could be no other than He. She knew He'd come. There he was; there was His Royal Highness beaming upon her from the gate. She called to her mother, who was busy in the upper apartment, ”Mamma, mamma,” and ran to the wicket at once, and opened it, pus.h.i.+ng aside the other children. How she blushed as she gave her hand to him! How affably he took off his white hat as he came in; the children staring up at him! He asked Mrs. Bolton if she had slept well, after the fatigues of the night, and hoped she had no headache; and he said that as he was going that way, he could not pa.s.s the door without asking news of his little partner.

Mrs. Bolton was perhaps rather shy and suspicious about these advances; but Mr. Pen's good-humour was inexhaustible, he could not see that he was unwelcome. He looked about the premises for a seat, and none being disengaged, for a dish-cover was on one, a workbox on the other, and so forth, he took one of the children's chairs, and perched himself upon that uncomfortable eminence. At this, the children began laughing, the child f.a.n.n.y louder than all--at least, she was more amused than any of them, and amazed at His Royal Highness's condescension. He to sit down in that chair--that little child's chair!--Many and many a time after, she regarded it: haven't we almost all, such furniture in our rooms, that our fancy peoples with dear figures, that our memory fills with sweet smiling faces, which may never look on us more?