Chapter 22

As the chaise drove through Clavering, the ostler standing whistling under the archway of the Clavering Arms winked to the postilion ominously, as much as to say all was over. The gardener's wife came and opened the lodge-gates and let the travellers through with a silent shake of the head. All the blinds were down at Fair-Oaks; and the face of the old footman was as blank when he let them in. Arthur's face was white, too, with terror more than with grief. Whatever of warmth and love the deceased man might have had, and he adored his wife, and loved and admired his son with all his heart, he had shut them up within himself; nor had the boy ever been able to penetrate that frigid outward barrier.

A little girl, who was Mrs. Pendennis's adopted daughter, the child of a dear old friend, peered for a moment under the blinds as the chaise came up, opened the door from the stairs into the hall, and there taking Arthur's hand silently as he stooped down to kiss her, led him upstairs to his mother. What passed between that lady and the boy is not of import; a veil should be thrown over those sacred emotions of love and grief.

As for Arthur Pendennis, after that awful shock which the sight of his dead father must have produced on him, and the pity and feeling which such an event no doubt occasioned, I am not sure that in the very moment of the grief, and as he embraced his mother and tenderly consoled her and promised to love her forever, there was not springing up in his breast a sort of secret triumph and exultation. He was the chief now and lord. He was Pendennis; and all round about him were his servants and handmaids.

"You'll never send me away," little Laura said, tripping by him and holding his hand. "You won't send me to school, will you, Arthur?"

Arthur kissed her and patted her head. No, she shouldn't go to school. As for going himself that was quite out of the question. He had determined that his life should be all holidays for the future; that he wouldn't get up till he liked, or stand the bullying of the Doctor any more; and made a hundred such day-dreams and resolves for the future. Then in due time they buried John Pendennis, Esquire, in the Abbey Church of Clavering St. Mary's, and Arthur Pendennis reigned in his stead.

Arthur was about sixteen years old when he began to reign; in person he had what his friends would call a dumpy, but his mamma styled, a neat little figure. His hair was of a healthy brown colour, which looked like gold in the sunshine. His face was round, rosy, freckled, and good-humoured. In fact, without being a beauty, he had such a frank, good-natured, kind face and laughed so merrily at you out of his honest blue eyes that no wonder Mrs. Pendennis thought him the pride of the whole country. You may be certain he never went back to school; the discipline of the establishment did not suit him, and he liked being at home much better. The question of his return was debated, and his uncle was for his going back. The Doctor wrote his opinion that it was most important for Arthur's success in after life that he should know a Greek play thoroughly, but Pen adroitly managed to hint to his mother what a dangerous place Grey Friars was, and what sad wild fellows some of the chaps there were, and the timid soul, taking alarm at once, acceded to his desire to stay at home.

Then Pen's uncle offered to use his influence with his Royal Highness, the Commander-in-Chief, to get Pen a commission in the Foot Guards. Pen's heart leaped at this: he had been to hear the band at St. James's play on a Sunday, when he went out to his uncle. He had seen Tom Ricketts, of the fourth form, who used to wear a jacket and trousers so ludicrously tight that the elder boys could not forbear using him in the quality of a butt or "cockshy"--he had seen this very Ricketts arrayed in crimson and gold, with an immense bearskin cap on his head, staggering under the colours of the regiment. Tom had recognised him and gave him a patronising nod--Tom, a little wretch whom he had cut over the back with a hockey-stick last quarter, and there he was in the centre of the square, rallying round the flag of his county, surrounded by bayonets, cross-belts, and scarlet, the band blowing trumpets and banging cymbals--talking familiarly to immense warriors with tufts to their chins and Waterloo medals. What would not Pen have given to enter such a service?

But Helen Pendennis, when this point was proposed to her by her son, put on a face full of terror and alarm, and confessed that she should be very unhappy if he thought of entering the army. Now Pen would as soon have cut off his nose and ears as deliberately and of malice aforethought have made his mother unhappy; and as he was of such a generous disposition that he would give away anything to any one, he instantly made a present of his visionary red coat and epaulettes to his mother.

She thought him the noblest creature in the world. But Major Pendennis, when the offer of the commission was acknowledged and refused, wrote back a curt and somewhat angry letter to the widow, and thought his nephew was rather a spooney.

He was contented, however, when he saw the boy's performances out hunting at Christmas, when the Major came down as usual to Fair-Oaks. Pen had a very good mare, and rode her with uncommon pluck and grace. He took his fences with great coolness and judgment. He wrote to the chaps at school about his topboots, and his feats across country. He began to think seriously of a scarlet coat: and his mother must own that she thought it would become him remarkably well; though, of course, she passed hours of anguish during his absence, and daily expected to see him brought home on a shutter.

With these amusements, in rather too great plenty, it must not be assumed that Pen neglected his studies altogether. He had a natural taste for reading every possible kind of book which did _not_ fall into his school course. It was only when they forced his head into the waters of knowledge that he refused to drink. He devoured all the books at home and ransacked the neighbouring book-cases. He found at Clavering an old cargo of French novels which he read with all his might; and he would sit for hours perched on the topmost bar of Dr. Portman's library steps with an old folio on his knees.

Mr. Smirke, Dr. Portman's curate, was engaged at a liberal salary to pass several hours daily with the young gentleman. He was a decent scholar and mathematician, and taught Pen as much as the lad was ever disposed to learn, which was not much. Pen soon took the measure of his tutor, who, when he came riding into the court-yard at Fair-Oaks on his pony, turned out his toes so absurdly, and left such a gap between his knees and the saddle, that it was impossible for any lad endowed with a sense of humour to respect such a rider. He nearly killed Smirke with terror by putting him on his mare, and taking him a ride over a common where the county fox-hounds happened to meet.

Smirke and his pupil read the ancient poets together, and rattled through them at a pleasant rate, very different from that steady grubbing pace with which he was obliged to go over the _classis_ ground at Grey Friars, scenting out each word and digging up every root in the way. Pen never liked to halt, but made his tutor construe when he was at fault, and thus galloped through the Iliad and the Odyssey and the charming, wicked Aristophanes. But he went so fast that though he certainly galloped through a considerable extent of the ancient country, he clean forgot it in after life. Besides the ancient poets, Pen read the English with great gusto. Smirke sighed and shook his head sadly both about Byron and Moore. But Pen was a sworn fire-worshipper and a corsair; he had them by heart, and used to take little Laura into the window and say, "Zuleika, I am not thy brother," in tones so tragic that they caused the solemn little maid to open her great eyes still wider. She sat sewing at Mrs. Pendennis's knee, listening to Pen reading to her without understanding one word of what he said.

He read Shakespeare to his mother, and Byron and Pope, and his favourite "Lalla Rookh" and Bishop Heber and Mrs. Hemans, and about this period of his existence began to write verses of his own. He broke out in the poet's corner of the County Chronicle with some verses with which he was perfectly well satisfied. His are the verses signed NEP addressed "To a Tear," "On the Anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo," "On St. Bartholomew's Day," etc., etc., all of which masterpieces Mrs. Pendennis kept along with his first socks, the first cutting of his hair, his bottle and other interesting relics of his infancy. His genius at this time was of a decidedly gloomy cast. He brought his mother a tragedy in which, though he killed sixteen people before the second act, she laughed so that he thrust the masterpiece into the fire in a pet. He also projected an epic poem in blank verse, and several other classical pieces of a gloomy character, and was altogether of an intense and sentimental turn of mind quite in contrast with his practical and merry appearance. The sentimental side of his nature, fed by the productions of his favourite poets and fanned by the romantic temperament of his tutor, soon found an object to kindle the spark into a blaze, and a most unfortunate blaze for Pen.

While Mrs. Pendennis was planning her son's career and had not yet settled in her mind whether he was to be Senior Wrangler and Archbishop of Canterbury, or Double First Class at Oxford and Lord Chancellor, young Pen himself was starting out on quite a different career, which seemed destined to lead him in the opposite direction from that of his mother's day-dreams, who had made up her mind that in time he was to marry little Laura, settle in London and astonish that city by his learning and eloquence at the Bar; or, better still, in a sweet country parsonage surrounded by hollyhocks and roses close to a delightful, romantic, ivy-covered church, from the pulpit of which Pen would utter the most beautiful sermons ever preached.

While these plans and decisions were occupying his mother's thoughts, Pen was getting into mischief. One day he rode into Chatteris to carry to the County Chronicle a thrilling poem for the next week's paper; and while putting up his horse at the stables at the George hotel, he fell in with an old school-fellow, Mr. Foker, who after a desultory conversation with Pen strolled down High Street with him, and persuaded him not only to dine at the George with him, but to accompany him later to the theatre. Mr. Foker, who was something of a sport, was acquainted with the troupe who were then acting at that theatre, and the entire atmosphere was so new and exciting to Pen that his emotional nature, which had been waiting for many months for a sensational thrill, responded at once to the idea; and later on to the applause of pit and gallery, and to the personal magnetism of the heroine of the play, one Miss Fotheringay.

To Miss Fotheringay's attractions, natural and artificial, Pen responded at once, and sat in breathless enchanted silence through all the conversations and melodramatic situations of the mediocre performance. When the curtain went down he felt that he now had a subject to inspire his Muse forever. He quitted the theatre in a state of intense excitement, and rode homeward in a state of numb ecstasy. Notwithstanding his sentimental mood, Pen was so normal in mind and body that he slept as soundly as ever, but when he awoke he felt himself to be many years older than yesterday. He dressed himself in some of his finest clothes, and came down to breakfast, patronising his mother and little Laura, who wondered at his grand appearance, and asked him to tell her what the play was about.

Pen laughed and declined to tell her. Then she asked him why he had got on his fine pin and beautiful new waistcoat?

Pen blushed and said that Mr. Foker was reading with a tutor at Baymouth, a very learned man; and as he was himself to go to college he was anxious to ride over--and--just see what their course of reading was. The truth was Pen had resolved that he must see Foker that morning and find out all that was possible concerning the object of his last night's enthusiasm; and soon after breakfast he was on his horse galloping away towards Baymouth like a madman.

From that time the lad's chief object in life was visiting the theatre, or Miss Fotheringay herself, to whom he had speedily received an introduction; and although she was a young woman not at all conversant with the social side of life with which he was familiar, she was nevertheless fascinating to Pen, who saw her always in the glamour of lime lights and applause. It was not long before Mrs. Pendennis discovered the lad's new interest, which naturally disquieted her. Finally, however, for reasons of her own, she assented to Pen's suggestion that Miss Fotheringay was to appear as Ophelia in a benefit performance.

"Suppose we were to go--Shakespeare, you know, mother. We can get horses from the Clavering Arms," he said. Little Laura sprang up with delight; she longed for a play. The mother was delighted that Pen should suggest their going, and in her good-humour asked Mr. Smirke to be one of the party. They arrived at the theatre ahead of time, and were cordially saluted by Mr. Foker and a friend, who sat in a box near theirs. The young fellows saluted Pen cordially, and examined his party with approval; for little Laura was a pretty red-cheeked girl with a quantity of shining brown ringlets, and Mrs. Pendennis, dressed in black velvet, with a diamond cross which she wore on great occasions, looked uncommonly handsome and majestic.

"Who is that odd-looking person bowing to you, Arthur?" Mrs. Pendennis asked of her son, after a critical examination of the audience.

Pen blushed a great deal. "His name is Captain Costigan, ma'am," he said, "a Peninsular officer." Pen did not volunteer anything more; and how was Mrs. Pendennis to know that Mr. Costigan was the father of Miss Fotheringay?

We have nothing to do with the play except to say that Ophelia looked lovely, and performed with admirable wild pathos, laughing, weeping, gazing wildly, waving her beautiful white arms and flinging about her snatches of flowers and songs with the most charming madness. What an opportunity her splendid black hair had of tossing over her shoulders! She made the most charming corpse ever seen, and while Hamlet and Laertes were battling in her grave she was looking out from the back scenes with some curiosity towards Pen's box, and the family party assembled in it.

There was but one voice in her praise there. Mrs. Pendennis was in ecstasies with her beauty. Little Laura was bewildered by the piece and the Ghost, and the play within the play, but cried out great praises of that beautiful young creature, Ophelia. Pen was charmed with the effect which she produced on his mother, and the clergyman on his part was exceedingly enthusiastic.

When the curtain fell upon that group of slaughtered personages who are despatched so suddenly at the end of "Hamlet," and whose death astonished poor little Laura, there was an immense shouting and applause from all quarters of the house. There was a roar of bravoes rang through the house; Pen bellowing with the loudest. "Fotheringay! Fotheringay!" Even Mrs. Pendennis began to wave about her pocket-handkerchief, and little Laura danced, laughed, clapped, and looked up at Pen with wonder.

If Pen had been alone with his mother in the carriage as they drove home that night he would have told her the extent of his devotion for Miss Fotheringay, but he had no chance to do so, and it remained for that good lady to hear of her boy's intimacy with the actress from good Dr. Portman, who, on the following evening, happening to see Pen in Miss Fotheringay's company and much absorbed by her charms, lost no time in hurrying to Mrs. Pendennis with the news. Now, although Mrs. Pendennis had been wise enough to appreciate Pen's infatuation, she had looked upon it as the merest boyish fancy, induced by the glamour of the stage, and did not dream that there was a personal intimacy behind it. She heard Dr. Portman's statement in horrified silence, and before she slept that night had despatched letters to Major Pendennis demanding his immediate return from London to help her in the management of her son at this critical point in his youthful career.

Although loath to leave London, Major Pendennis straightway came to Fair-Oaks. He came; he saw the situation at a glance; and after a prolonged conversation with Mrs. Pendennis he summoned Pen himself. That young man having strung up his nerves, and prepared himself for the encounter, determined to face the awful uncle, with all the courage and dignity of the famous family which he represented. He marched into Major Pendennis's presence with a most severe and warlike expression, as if to say, "Come on, I am ready."

The old man of the world, as he surveyed the boy's demeanour, could hardly help a grin at his admirable pompous simplicity, and having a shrewd notion that threats and tragic exaltations would have no effect upon the boy, said with the most good-humoured smile in the world, as he shook Pen's passive fingers gaily: "Well, Pen, my boy, tell us all about it!"

Helen was delighted with the generosity of the Major's good-humour. On the contrary, it quite took aback and disappointed poor Pen, whose nerves were strung up for a tragedy, and who felt that his grand entrance was altogether balked and ludicrous. He blushed and winced with mortified vanity and bewilderment. He felt immensely inclined to begin to cry. "I--I didn't know you were come till just now," he said; "is--is--town very full, I suppose?"

If Pen could hardly gulp his tears down it was all the Major could do to keep from laughter. He turned round and shot a comical glance at Mrs. Pendennis, who, too, felt that the scene was at once ridiculous and sentimental. And so, having nothing to say, she went up and kissed Mr. Pen, while the Major said: "Come, come, Pen, my good fellow, tell us the whole story."

Pen got back at once to his tragic and heroical air while he told the story of his devotion to the charming Miss Fotheringay, to which the Major gave quiet attention, and then asked many practical questions, and made so many remarks of a worldly-wise nature that the boy was obliged to give in and acknowledge the sound wisdom of them, and also before the interview was over he gave his mother a promise that he would never do anything which would bring shame upon the family; which promise given, the Major could contain his gravity at the situation no longer, but burst into a fit of laughter so infectious that Pen was obliged to join in it. This sent them with great good-humour into Mrs. Pendennis's drawing-room, and she was pleased to hear the Major and Pen laughing together as they walked across the hall with the Major's arm laid gayly on Pen's shoulder. The pair came to the tea-table in the highest spirits. The Major's politeness was beyond expression. He was secretly delighted with himself that he had been able to win such a victory over the young fellow's feelings. He had never tasted such good tea, and such bread was only to be had in the country. He asked Mrs. Pendennis for one of her charming songs. He then made Pen sing, and was delighted at the beauty of the boy's voice; he made his nephew fetch his maps and drawings, and praised them as really remarkable works of talent in a young fellow; he complimented him on his French pronunciation. He flattered the simple boy to the extent of his ability, and when bedtime came mother and son went to their rooms perfectly enchanted with him.

Unwilling to leave his work half done, the Major remained at Fair-Oaks for some time that he might watch his nephew's actions. Pen never rode over to Chatteris but that the Major found out on what errand the boy had been. Faithful to his plan, he gave his nephew no hindrance. Yet somehow the constant feeling that his uncle's eye was upon him made Pen go less frequently to sigh away his soul at the feet of his charmer than he had done before his uncle's arrival. But even so, and despite Pen's promise to his mother, the Major felt that if he were to succeed in permanently curing the lad of his interest in the actress, it would be well to have more help in achieving it. In pursuance of this aim, the Major went to Chatteris himself privately, sought out the actress's father, and presented to him the practical facts of his nephew's extreme youth and lack of money, as hindrances to his devotion going further. After a rather heated argument with Captain Costigan, that gentleman was made to understand the situation, and finally gave his promise so to present the case to his daughter, that she should herself write a letter to Pen setting forth her firm determination to have no more intercourse with him.

Captain Costigan was as good as his word, and his letter to Pen was sent immediately. A few lines from Miss Costigan were enclosed. She agreed in the decision of her papa, pointed out several reasons why they should meet no more, and thanked him for his kindness and friendship.

Major Pendennis had won a complete victory, and his secret delight at having rescued Pen from an unwise attachment was only equalled by his regret at the real suffering he was obliged to allow the lad to go through.

After receiving the letter Pen rushed wildly off to Chatteris; but in vain attempted to see Miss Fotheringay, for whom he left a letter enclosed to her father. The enclosure was returned by Mr. Costigan, who begged that all correspondence might end; and after one or two further attempts of the lad's, Captain Costigan insisted that their acquaintance should cease. He cut Pen in the street. As Arthur and Foker were pacing the street one day they came upon the daughter on her father's arm. She passed without any nod of recognition. Foker felt poor Pen trembling on his arm.