Part 88 (1/2)
The fulness of innocent love beamed from her in reply. A smile heavenly pure, a glance of unutterable tenderness, sympathy, pity, shone in her face--all which indications of love and purity Arthur beheld and wors.h.i.+pped in her, as you would watch them in a child, as one fancies one might regard them in an angel.
”I--I don't know what I have done,” he said, simply, ”to have merited such regard from two such women. It is like undeserved praise, Laura--or too much good fortune, which frightens one--or a great post, when a man feels that he is not fit for it. Ah, sister, how weak and wicked we are; how spotless, and full of love and truth, Heaven made you! I think for some of you there has been no fall,” he said, looking at the charming girl with an almost paternal glance of admiration. ”You can't help having sweet thoughts, and doing good actions. Dear creature! they are the flowers which you bear.”
”And what else, sir?” asked Laura. ”I see a sneer coming over your face.
What is it? Why does it come to drive all the good thoughts away?”
”A sneer, is there? I was thinking, my dear, that nature in making you so good and loving did very well: but----”
”But what? What is that wicked but? and why are you always calling it up?”
”But will come in spite of us. But is reflection. But is the sceptic's familiar, with whom he has made a compact; and if he forgets it, and indulges in happy day-dreams, or building of air-castles, or listens to sweet music let us say, or to the bells ringing to church, But taps at the door, and says, Master, I am here. You are my master; but I am yours. Go where you will you can't travel without me. I will whisper to you when you are on your knees at church. I will be at your marriage pillow. I will sit down at your table with your children. I will be behind your deathbed curtain. That is what But is,” Pen said.
”Pen, you frighten me,” cried Laura.
”Do you know what But came and said to me just now, when I was looking at you? But said, If that girl had reason as well as love, she would love you no more. If she knew you as you are--the sullied, selfish being which you know--she must part from you, and could give you no love and no sympathy. Didn't I say,” he added fondly, ”that some of you seem exempt from the fall? Love you know; but the knowledge of evil is kept from you.”
”What is this you young folks are talking about?” asked Lady Rockminster, who at this moment made her appearance in the room, having performed, in the mystic retirement of her own apartments, and under the hands of her attendant, those elaborate toilet-rites without which the worthy old lady never presented herself to public view. ”Mr. Pendennis, you are always coming here.”
”It is very pleasant to be here,” Arthur said; ”and we were talking, when you came in, about my friend Foker, whom I met just now; and who, as your ladys.h.i.+p knows, has succeeded to his father's kingdom.”
”He has a very fine property, he has fifteen thousand a year. He is my cousin. He is a very worthy young man. He must come and see me,” said Lady Rockminster, with a look at Laura.
”He has been engaged for many years past to his cousin, Lady----”
”Lady Ann is a foolish little chit,” Lady Rockminster said, with much dignity; ”and I have no patience with her. She has outraged every feeling of society. She has broken her father's heart, and thrown away fifteen thousand a year.”
”Thrown away? What has happened?” asked Pen.
”It will be the talk of the town in a day or two; and there is no need why I should keep the secret any longer,” said Lady Rockminster, who had written and received a dozen letters on the subject. ”I had a letter yesterday from my daughter, who was staying at Drummington until all the world was obliged to go away on account of the frightful catastrophe which happened there. When Mr. Foker came home from Nice, and after the funeral, Lady Ann went down on her knees to her father, said that she never could marry her cousin, that she had contracted another attachment, and that she must die rather than fulfil her contract. Poor Lord Rosherville, who is dreadfully embarra.s.sed, showed his daughter what the state of his affairs was, and that it was necessary that the arrangements should take place; and in fine, we all supposed that she had listened to reason, and intended to comply with the desires of her family. But what has happened?--last Thursday she went out after breakfast with her maid, and was married in the very church in Drummington Park to Mr. Hobson, her father's own chaplain and her brother's tutor; a red-haired widower with two children. Poor dear Rosherville is in a dreadful way: he wishes Henry Foker should marry Alice or Barbara; but Alice is marked with the small-pox, and Barbara is ten years older than he is. And, of course, now the young man is his own master, he will think of choosing for himself. The blow on Lady Agnes is very cruel. She is inconsolable. She has the house in Grosvenor Street for her life, and her settlement, which was very handsome. Have you not met her? Yes, she dined one day at Lady Clavering's--the first day I saw you, and a very disagreeable young man I thought you were. But I have formed you. We have formed him, haven't we, Laura? Where is Bluebeard?
let him come. That horrid Grindley, the dentist, will keep me in town another week.”
To the latter part of her ladys.h.i.+p's speech Arthur gave no ear. He was thinking for whom could Foker be purchasing those trinkets which he was carrying away from the jeweller's? Why did Harry seem anxious to avoid him? Could he be still faithful to the attachment which had agitated him so much, and sent him abroad eighteen months back? Psha! The bracelets and presents were for some of Harry's old friends of the Opera or the French theatre. Rumours from Naples and Paris, rumours such as are borne to Club smoking-rooms, had announced that the young man had found distractions; or, precluded from his virtuous attachment, the poor fellow had flung himself back upon his old companions and amus.e.m.e.nts--not the only man or woman whom society forces into evil, or debars from good; not the only victim of the world's selfish and wicked laws.
As a good thing when it is to be done cannot be done too quickly, Laura was anxious that Pen's marriage intentions should be put into execution as speedily as possible, and pressed on his arrangements with rather a feverish anxiety. Why could she not wait? Pen could afford to do so with perfect equanimity, but Laura would hear of no delay. She wrote to Pen: she implored Pen: she used every means to urge expedition. It seemed as if she could have no rest until Arthur's happiness was complete.
She offered herself to dearest Blanche to come and stay at Tunbridge with her, when Lady Rockminster should go on her intended visit to the reigning house of Rockminster; and although the old dowager scolded, and ordered, and commanded, Laura was deaf and disobedient: she must go to Tunbridge, she would go to Tunbridge: she who ordinarily had no will of her own, and complied smilingly with anybody's whim and caprices, showed the most selfish and obstinate determination in this instance. The dowager lady must nurse herself in her rheumatism, she must read herself to sleep, if she would not hear her maid, whose voice croaked, and who made sad work of the sentimental pa.s.sages in the novels--Laura must go,--and be with her new sister. In another week, she proposed, with many loves and regards to dear Lady Clavering, to pa.s.s some time with dearest Blanche.
Dearest Blanche wrote instantly in reply to dearest Laura's No. 1, to say with what extreme delight she should welcome her sister: how charming it would be to practise their old duets together, to wander o'er the gra.s.sy sward, and amidst the yellowing woods of Penshurst and Southborough! Blanche counted the hours till she should embrace her dearest friend.
Laura, No. 2, expressed her delight at dearest Blanche's affectionate reply. She hoped that their friends.h.i.+p would never diminish; that the confidence between them would grow in after years; that they should have no secrets from each other; that the aim of the life of each would be to make one person happy.
Blanche, No. 2, followed in two days. ”How provoking! Their house was very small, the two spare bedrooms were occupied by that horrid Mrs.
Planter and her daughter, who had thought proper to fall ill (she always fell ill in country-houses), and she could not or would not be moved for some days.”
Laura, No. 3. ”It was indeed very provoking. L. had hoped to hear one of dearest B.'s dear songs on Friday; but she was the more consoled to wait, because Lady R. was not very well, and liked to be nursed by her.
Poor Major Pendennis was very unwell, too, in the same hotel--too unwell even to see Arthur, who was constant in his calls on his uncle. Arthur's heart was full of tenderness and affection. She had known Arthur all her life. She would answer”--yes, even in italics she would answer--”for his kindness, his goodness, and his gentleness.”
Blanche, No. 3. ”What is this most surprising, most extraordinary letter from A. P.? What does dearest Laura know about it? What has happened?