Part 74 (1/2)
”Don't call Major Pendennis an old cove, if you'll 'ave the goodness, Lightfoot, and don't call me an old cove, nether. Such words ain't used in society; and we have lived in the fust society, both at 'ome and foring. We've been intimate with the fust statesmen of Europe. When we go abroad we dine with Prince Metternitch and Louy Philup reg'lar. We go here to the best houses, the tip-tops, I tell you. We ride with Lord John and the n.o.ble Whycount at the edd of Foring Affairs. We dine with the Hearl of Burgrave, and are consulted by the Marquis of Steyne in everythink. We ought to know a thing or two, Mr. Lightfoot. You're a young man, I'm an old cove, as you say. We've both seen the world, and we both know that it ain't money, nor bein' a Baronet, nor 'avin' a town and country 'ouse, nor a paltry five or six thousand a year.”
”It's ten, Mr. Morgan,” cried Mr. Lightfoot, with great animation.
”It may have been, sir,” Morgan said, with calm severity; ”it may have been, Mr. Lightfoot, but it ain't six now, nor five, sir. It's been doosedly dipped and cut into, sir, by the confounded extravygance of your master, with his helbow shakin', and his bill discountin', and his cottage in the Regency Park, and his many wickednesses. He's a bad un, Mr. Lightfoot,--a bad lot, sir, and that you know. And it ain't money, sir--not such money as that, at any rate, come from a Calcuttar attorney, and I dussay wrung out of the pore starving blacks--that will give a pusson position in society, as you know very well. We've no money, but we go everywhere; there's not a housekeeper's room, sir, in this town of any consiquince, where James Morgan ain't welcome. And it was me who got you into this Club, Lightfoot, as you very well know, though I am an old cove, and they would have blackballed you without me as sure as your name is Frederic.”
”I know they would, Mr. Morgan,” said the other, with much humility.
”Well, then, don't call me an old cove, sir. It ain't gentlemanlike, Frederic Lightfoot, which I knew you when you was a cab-boy, and when your father was in trouble, and got you the place you have now when the Frenchman went away. And if you think, sir, that because you're making up to Mrs. Bonner, who may have saved her two thousand pound--and I dare say she has in five-and-twenty years as she have lived confidential maid to Lady Clavering--yet, sir, you must remember who put you into that service; and who knows what you were before, sir, and it don't become you, Frederic Lightfoot, to call me an old cove.”
”I beg your pardon, Mr. Morgan--I can't do more than make an apology--will you have a gla.s.s, sir, and let me drink your 'ealth?”
”You know I don't take sperrits. Lightfoot,” replied Morgan, appeased.
”And so you and Mrs. Bonner is going to put up together, are you?”
”She's old, but two thousand pound's a good bit, you see, Mr Morgan. And we'll get the 'Clavering Arms' for a very little; and that'll be no bad thing when the railroad runs through Clavering. And when we are there, I hope you'll come and see us, Mr. Morgan.”
”It's a stoopid place, and no society,” said Mr. Morgan. ”I know it well. In Mrs Pendennis's time we used to go down, reg'lar, and the hair refreshed me after the London racket.”
”The railroad will improve Mr. Arthur's property,” remarked Lightfoot.
”What's about the figure of it, should you say, sir?”
”Under fifteen hundred, sir,” answered Morgan; at which the other, who knew the extent of poor Arthur's acres, thrust his tongue in his cheek, but remained wisely silent.
”Is his man any good, Mr. Morgan?” Lightfoot resumed.
”Pidgeon ain't used to society as yet; but he's young and has good talents, and has read a good deal, and I dessay he will do very well,”
replied Morgan. ”He wouldn't quite do for this kind of thing, Lightfoot, for he ain't seen the world yet.”
When the pint of sherry for which Mr. Lightfoot called, upon Mr.
Morgan's announcement that he eclined to drink spirits, had been discussed by the two gentlemen, who held the wine up to the light, and smacked their lips, and winked their eyes at it, and rallied the landlord as to the vintage, in the most approved manner of connoisseurs, Morgan's ruffled equanimity was quite restored, and he was prepared to treat his young friend with perfect good-humour.
”What d'you think about Miss Amory, Lightfoot--tell us in confidence, now--Do you think we should do well--you understand--if we make Miss A.
into Mrs. A. P., comprendy vous?”
”She and her Ma's always quarrellin',” said Mr. Lightfoot. ”Bonner is more than a match for the old lady, and treats Sir Francis like that--like this year spill, which I fling into the grate. But she daren't say a word to Miss Amory. No more dare none of us. When a visitor comes in, she smiles and languishes, you'd think that b.u.t.ter wouldn't melt in her mouth: and the minute he is gone, very likely, she flares up like a little demon, and says things fit to send you wild. If Mr. Arthur comes, it's 'Do let's sing that there delightful Song!' or, 'Come and write me them pooty verses in this halb.u.m!' and very likely she's been a-rilin' her mother, or sticking pins into her maid, a minute before. She do stick pins into her and pinch her. Mary Hann showed me one of her arms quite black and blue; and I recklect Mrs. Bonner, who's as jealous of me as a old cat, boxed her ears for showing me. And then you should see Miss at luncheon, when there's n.o.body but the family! She makes b'leave she never heats, and my! you should only jest see her. She has Mary Hann to bring her up plum-cakes and creams into her bedroom; and the cook's the only man in the house she's civil to. Bonner says, how, the second season in London, Mr. Soppington was a-goin' to propose for her, and actially came one day, and sor her fling a book into the fire, and scold her mother so, that he went down softly by the back droring-room door, which he came in by; and next thing we heard of him was, he was married to Miss Rider. Oh, she's a devil, that little Blanche, and that's my candig apinium, Mr. Morgan.”
”Apinion, not apinium, Lightfoot, my good fellow,” Mr. Morgan said, with parental kindness, and then asked of his own bosom with a sigh, why the deuce does my Governor want Master Arthur to marry such a girl as this?
and the tete-a-tete of the two gentlemen was broken up by the entry of other gentlemen, members of the Club--when fas.h.i.+onable town-talk, politics, cribbage, and other amus.e.m.e.nts ensued, and the conversation became general.
The Gentleman's Club was held in the parlour of the Wheel of Fortune public-house, in a snug little by-lane, leading out of one of the great streets of Mayfair, and frequented by some of the most select gentlemen about town. Their masters' affairs, debts, intrigues, adventures; their ladies' good and bad qualities and quarrels with their husbands; all the family secrets were here discussed with perfect freedom and confidence, and here, when about to enter into a new situation, a gentleman was enabled to get every requisite information regarding the family of which he proposed to become a member. Liveries it may be imagined were excluded from this select precinct; and the powdered heads of the largest metropolitan footmen might bow down in vain entreating admission into the Gentleman's Club. These outcast giants in plush took their beer in an outer apartment of the Wheel of Fortune, and could no more get an entry into the Clubroom than a Pall Mall tradesman or a Lincoln's Inn attorney could get admission into Bays's or Spratt's. And it is because the conversation which we have permitted to overhear here, in some measure explains the characters and bearings of our story, that we have ventured to introduce the reader into a society so exclusive.
CHAPTER LXII. The Way of the World
A short time after the piece of good fortune which befell Colonel Altamont at Epsom, that gentleman put into execution his projected foreign tour, and the chronicler of the polite world who goes down to London Bridge for the purpose of taking leave of the people of fas.h.i.+on who quit this country, announced that among the company on board the Soho to Antwerp last Sat.u.r.day, were ”Sir Robert, Lady, and the Misses Hodge; Mr. Serjeant Kewsy, and Mrs. and Miss Kewsy; Colonel Altamont, Major Coddy, etc.” The Colonel travelled in state, and as became a gentleman: he appeared in a rich travelling costume; he drank brandy-and-water freely during the pa.s.sage, and was not sick, as some of the other pa.s.sengers were; and he was attended by his body-servant; the faithful Irish legionary who had been for some time in waiting upon himself and Captain Strong in their chambers of Shepherd's Inn.
The Chevalier partook of a copious dinner at Blackwall with his departing friend the Colonel, and one or two others, who drank many healths to Altamont at that liberal gentleman's expense. ”Strong, old boy,” the Chevalier's worthy chum said, ”if you want a little money, now's your time. I'm your man. You're a good feller, and have been a good feller to me, and a twenty-pound note, more or less, will make no odds to me,” But Strong said, No, he didn't want any money; he was flush, quite flush--”that is, not flush enough to pay you back your last loan, Altamont, but quite able to carry on for some time to come,” and so, with a not uncordial greeting between them, the two parted. Had the possession of money really made Altamont more honest and amiable than he had hitherto been, or only caused him to seem more amiable in Strong's eyes? Perhaps he really was better, and money improved him. Perhaps it was the beauty of wealth Strong saw and respected. But he argued within himself, ”This poor devil, this unlucky outcast of a returned convict, is ten times as good a fellow as my friend Sir Francis Clavering, Bart.
He has pluck and honesty in his way. He will stick to a friend, and face an enemy. The other never had courage to do either. And what is it that has put the poor devil under a cloud? He was only a little wild, and signed his father-in-law's name. Many a man has done worse, and come to no wrong, and holds his head up. Clavering does. No, he don't hold his head up: he never did in his best days.” And Strong, perhaps, repented him of the falsehood which he had told to the free-handed Colonel, that he was not in want of money; but it was a falsehood on the side of honesty, and the Chevalier could not bring down his stomach to borrow a second time from his outlawed friend. Besides, he could get on.