"_Me_ again at Oxbridge," Pen thought, "after such a humiliation as that!" He felt that, except he went down to burn the place, he could not enter it.

But it was when he came to tell his uncle of his debts that the other felt surprise and anger most keenly, and broke out into speeches most severe upon Pen, which the lad bore, as best he might, without flinching.

He had determined to make a clean breast, and had formed a full, true, and complete list of all his bills and liabilities at the University, and in London, They consisted of various items, such as

London Tailor.

Oxbridge do.

Haberdasher, for shirts and gloves.

Jeweler.

College Cook.

Crump, for desserts.

Bootmaker.

Wine Merchant in London.

Oxbridge do.

Bill for horses.

Printseller.

Books.

Binding.

Hairdresser and Perfumery.

Hotel Bill in London.

Sundries.

All which items the reader may fill in at his pleasure--such accounts have been inspected by the parents of many University youth--and it appeared that Mr. Pen's bills in all amounted to about seven hundred pounds; and, furthermore, it was calculated that he had had more than twice that sum of ready money during his stay at Oxbridge. This sum he had spent, and for it had to show--what?

"You need not press a man who is down, sir," Pen said to his uncle gloomily. "I know very well, sir, how wicked and idle I have been. My mother won't like to see me dishonored, sir," he continued, with his voice failing; "and I know she will pay these accounts. But I shall ask her for no more money."

"As you like, sir," the major said. "You are of age, and my hands are washed of your affairs. But you can't live without money, and have no means of making it that I see, though you have a fine talent in spending it, and it is my belief that you will proceed as you have begun, and ruin your mother before you are five years older.--Good morning; it is time for me to go to breakfast. My engagements won't permit me to see you much during the time that you stay in London. I presume that you will acquaint your mother with the news which you have just conveyed to me."

And pulling on his hat, and trembling in his limbs somewhat, Major Pendennis walked out of his lodgings before his nephew, and went ruefully off to take his accustomed corner at the club. He saw the Oxbridge examination-lists in the morning papers, and read over the names, not understanding the business, with mournful accuracy. He consulted various old fogies of his acquaintance, in the course of the day, at his clubs; Wenham, a dean, various civilians; and, as it is called, "took their opinion," showing to some of them the amount of his nephew's debts, which he had dotted down on the back of a card, and asking what was to be done, and whether such debts were not monstrous, preposterous? What was to be done?--There was nothing for it but to pay.

Wenham and the others told the major of young men who owed twice as much--five times as much--as Arthur, and with no means at all to pay.

The consultations, and calculations, and opinions, comforted the major somewhat. After all, _he_ was not to pay.

But he thought bitterly of the many plans he had formed to make a man of his nephew, of the sacrifices which he had made, and of the manner in which he was disappointed. And he wrote off a letter to Doctor Portman, informing him of the direful events which had taken place, and begging the doctor to break them to Helen. For the orthodox old gentleman, preserved the regular routine in all things, and was of opinion that it was more correct to "break" a piece of bad news to a person by means of a (possibly maladroit and unfeeling) messenger, than to convey it simply to its destination by a note. So the major wrote to Doctor Portman, and then went out to dinner, one of the saddest men in any London dining-room that day.

Pen, too, wrote his letter, and skulked about London streets for the rest of the day, fancying that every body was looking at him and whispering to his neighbor, "That is Pendennis of Boniface, who was plucked yesterday." His letter to his mother was full of tenderness and remorse: he wept the bitterest tears over it--and the repentance and pa.s.sion soothed him to some degree.

He saw a party of roaring young blades from Oxbridge in the coffee-room of his hotel, and slunk away from them, and paced the streets. He remembers, he says, the prints which he saw hanging up at Ackermann's window in the rain, and a book which he read at a stall near the Temple: at night he went to the pit of the play, and saw Miss Fotheringay, but he doesn't in the least recollect in what piece.

On the second day there came a kind letter from his tutor, containing many grave and appropriate remarks upon the event which had befallen him, but strongly urging Pen not to take his name off the University books, and to retrieve a disaster which, every body knew, was owing to his own carelessness alone, and which he might repair by a month's application. He said he had ordered Pen's skip to pack up some trunks of the young gentleman's wardrobe, which duly arrived, with fresh copies of all Pen's bills laid on the top.

On the third day there arrived a letter from home; which Pen read in his bed-room, and the result of which was that he fell down on his knees, with his head in the bed-clothes, and there prayed out his heart, and humbled himself; and having gone down stairs and eaten an immense breakfast, he sallied forth and took his place at the Bull and Mouth, Piccadilly, by the Chatteries coach for that evening.

CHAPTER XXII.

PRODIGAL'S RETURN.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Such a letter as the major wrote, of course sent Doctor Portman, to Fairoaks, and he went off with that alacrity which a good man shows when he has disagreeable news to communicate. He wishes the deed were done, and done quickly. He is sorry, but _que voulez-vous?_ the tooth must be taken out, and he has you into the chair, and it is surprising with what courage and vigor of wrist he applies the forceps. Perhaps he would not be quite so active or eager if it were _his_ tooth; but, in fine, it is your duty to have it out. So the doctor, having read the epistle out to Mira and Mrs. Portman, with many d.a.m.natory comments upon the young scapegrace who was going deeper and deeper into perdition, left those ladies to spread the news through the Clavering society, which they did with their accustomed accuracy and dispatch, and strode over to Fairoaks to break the intelligence to the widow.

She had the news already. She had read Pen's letter, and it had relieved her somehow. A gloomy presentiment of evil had been hanging over her for many, many months past. She knew the worst now, and her darling boy was come back to her repentant and tender-hearted. Did she want more? All that the rector could say (and his remarks were both dictated by common sense, and made respectable by antiquity) could not bring Helen to feel any indignation or particular unhappiness, except that the boy should be unhappy. What was this degree that they made such an outcry about, and what good would it do Pen? Why did Doctor Portman and his uncle insist upon sending the boy to a place where there was so much temptation to be risked, and so little good to be won? Why didn't they leave him at home with his mother? As for his debts, of course they must be paid;--his debts!--wasn't his father's money all his, and hadn't he a right to spend it. In this way the widow met the virtuous doctor, and all the arrows of his indignation somehow took no effect upon her gentle bosom.

For some time past, an agreeable practice, known since times ever so ancient, by which brothers and sisters are wont to exhibit their affection toward one another, and in which Pen and his little sister Laura had been accustomed to indulge pretty frequently in their childish days, had been given up by the mutual consent of those two individuals.

Coming back from college after an absence from home of some months, in place of the simple girl whom he had left behind him, Mr. Arthur found a tall, slim, handsome young lady, to whom he could not somehow proffer the kiss which he had been in the habit of administering previously, and who received him with a gracious courtesy and a proffered hand, and with a great blush which rose up to the cheek, just upon the very spot which young Pen had been used to salute.

I am not good at descriptions of female beauty; and, indeed, do not care for it in the least (thinking that goodness and virtue are, of course, far more advantageous to a young lady than any mere fleeting charms of person and face), and so shall not attempt any particular delineation of Miss Laura Bell at the age of sixteen years. At that age she had attained her present alt.i.tude of five feet four inches, so that she was called tall and gawky by some, and a Maypole by others, of her own s.e.x, who prefer littler women. But if she was a Maypole, she had beautiful roses about her head, and it is a fact that many swains were disposed to dance round her. She was ordinarily pale, with a faint rose tinge in her cheeks; but they flushed up in a minute when occasion called, and continued so blushing ever so long, the roses remaining after the emotion had pa.s.sed away which had summoned those pretty flowers into existence. Her eyes have been described as very large from her earliest childhood, and retained that characteristic in later life. Good-natured critics (always females) said that she was in the habit of making play with those eyes, and ogling the gentlemen and ladies in her company; but the fact is, that nature had made them so to shine and to look, and they could no more help so looking and shining than one star can help being brighter than another. It was doubtless to mitigate their brightness that Miss Laura's eyes were provided with two pairs of vails in the shape of the longest and finest black eyelashes, so that, when she closed her eyes, the same people who found fault with those orbs, said that she wanted to show her eyelashes off; and, indeed, I dare say that to see her asleep would have been a pretty sight.

As for her complexion, that was nearly as brilliant as Lady Mantrap's, and without the powder which her ladyship uses. Her nose must be left to the reader's imagination: if her mouth was rather large (as Miss Piminy avers, who, but for her known appet.i.te, one would think could not swallow any thing larger than a b.u.t.ton) every body allowed that her smile was charming, and showed off a set of pearly teeth, while her voice was so low and sweet, that to hear it was like listening to sweet music. Because she is in the habit of wearing very long dresses, people of course say that her feet are not small: but it may be, that they are of the size becoming her figure, and it does not follow, because Mrs.

Pincher is always putting _her_ foot out, that all other ladies should be perpetually bringing theirs on the tapis. In fine, Miss Laura Bell, at the age of sixteen, was a sweet young lady. Many thousands of such are to be found, let us hope, in this country, where there is no lack of goodness, and modesty, and purity, and beauty.

Now, Miss Laura, since she had learned to think for herself (and in the past two years her mind and her person had both developed themselves considerably), had only been half pleased with Pen's general conduct and bearing. His letters to his mother at home had become of late very rare and short. It was in vain that the fond widow urged how constant Arthur's occupations and studies were, and how many his engagements.

"It is better that he should lose a prize," Laura said, "than forget his mother: and indeed, mamma, I don't see that he gets many prizes. Why doesn't he come home and stay with you, instead of pa.s.sing his vacations at his great friends' fine houses? There is n.o.body there will love him half so much as--as you do." "As _I_ do only, Laura," sighed out Mrs.

Pendennis. Laura declared stoutly that she did not love Pen a bit, when he did not do his duty to his mother: nor would she be convinced by any of Helen's fond arguments, that the boy must make his way in the world; that his uncle was most desirous that Pen should cultivate the acquaintance of persons who were likely to befriend him in life; that men had a thousand ties and calls which women could not understand, and so forth. Perhaps Helen no more believed in these excuses than her adopted daughter did; but she tried to believe that she believed them, and comforted herself with the maternal infatuation. And that is a point whereon, I suppose, many a gentleman has reflected, that, do what we will, we are pretty sure of the woman's love that once has been ours; and that that untiring tenderness and forgiveness never fail us.

Also, there had been that freedom, not to say audacity, in Arthur's latter talk and ways, which had shocked and displeased Laura. Not that he ever offended her by rudeness, or addressed to her a word which she ought not to hear, for Mr. Pen was a gentleman, and by nature and education polite to every woman, high and low; but he spoke lightly and laxly of women in general; was less courteous in his actions than in his words--neglectful in sundry ways, and in many of the little offices of life. It offended Miss Laura that he should smoke his horrid pipes in the house; that he should refuse to go to church with his mother, or on walks or visits with her, and be found yawning over his novel in his dressing-gown, when the gentle widow returned from those duties. The hero of Laura's early infancy, about whom she had pa.s.sed so many, many nights talking with Helen (who recited endless stories of the boy's virtues, and love, and bravery, when he was away at school), was a very different person from the young man whom now she knew; bold and brilliant, sarcastic and defiant, seeming to scorn the simple occupations or pleasures, or even devotions, of the women with whom he lived, and whom he quitted on such light pretexts.

The Fotheringay affair, too, when Laura came to hear of it (which she did first by some sarcastic allusions of Major Pendennis, when on a visit to Fairoaks, and then from their neighbors at Clavering, who had plenty of information to give her on this head), vastly shocked and outraged Miss Laura. A Pendennis fling himself away on such a woman as that! Helen's boy galloping away from home, day after day, to fall on his knees to an actress, and drink with her horrid father! A good son want to bring such a man and such a woman into his house, and set her over his mother! "I would have run away, mamma; I would, if I had had to walk barefoot through the snow," Laura said.

"And _you_ would have left me too, then?" Helen answered; on which, of course, Laura withdrew her previous observation, and the two women rushed into each other's embraces, with that warmth which belonged to both their natures, and which characterizes not a few of their s.e.x.

Whence came all this indignation of Miss Laura about Arthur's pa.s.sion?

Perhaps she did not know, that, if men throw themselves away upon women, women throw themselves away upon men, too; and that there is no more accounting for love, than for any other physical liking or antipathy: perhaps she had been misinformed by the Clavering people and old Mrs.

Portman, who was vastly bitter against Pen, especially since his impertinent behavior to the doctor, and since the wretch had smoked cigars in church-time: perhaps, finally, she was jealous: but this is a vice in which, it is said, the ladies very seldom indulge.

Albeit she was angry with Pen; against his mother she had no such feeling; but devoted herself to Helen with the utmost force of her girlish affection--such affection as women, whose hearts are disengaged, are apt to bestow upon the near female friend. It was devotion--it was pa.s.sion--it was all sorts of fondness and folly; it was a profusion of caresses, tender epithets and endearments, such as it does not become sober historians with beards to narrate. Do not let us men despise these instincts because we can not feel them. These women were made for our comfort and delectation, gentlemen--with all the rest of the minor animals.

But as soon as Miss Laura heard that Pen was unfortunate and unhappy, all her wrath against him straightway vanished, and gave place to the most tender and unreasonable compa.s.sion. He was the Pen of old days once more restored to her, the frank and affectionate, the generous and tender-hearted. She at once took side with Helen against Doctor Portman, when he outcried at the enormity of Pen's transgressions. Debts? what were his debts? they were a trifle; he had been thrown into expensive society by his uncle's order, and of course was obliged to live in the same manner as the young gentlemen whose company he frequented.

Disgraced by not getting his degree? the poor boy was ill when he went in for the examinations; he couldn't think of his mathematics and stuff on account of those very debts which oppressed him; very likely some of the odious tutors and masters were jealous of him, and had favorites of their own whom they wanted to put over his head. _Other_ people disliked him, and were cruel to him, and were unfair to him, she was very sure. And so, with flushing cheeks and eyes bright with anger, this young creature reasoned; and she went up and seized Helen's hand, and kissed her in the doctor's presence, and her looks braved the doctor, and seemed to ask how he dared to say a word against her darling mother's Pen?

When that divine took his leave, not a little discomfited and amazed at the pertinacious obstinacy of the women, Laura repeated her embraces and arguments with tenfold fervor to Helen, who felt that there was a great deal of cogency in most of the latter. There must be some jealousy against Pen. She felt quite sure that he had offended some of the examiners, who had taken a mean revenge of him--nothing more likely.

Altogether, the announcement of the misfortune vexed these two ladies very little indeed. Pen, who was plunged in his shame and grief in London, and torn with great remorse, for thinking of his mother's sorrow, would have wondered, had he seen how easily she bore the calamity. Indeed, calamity is welcome to women if they think it will bring truant affection home again: and if you have reduced your mistress to a crust, depend upon it that she won't repine, and only take a very little bit of it for herself, provided you will eat the remainder in her company.

And directly the doctor was gone, Laura ordered fires to be lighted in Mr. Arthur's rooms, and his bedding to be aired; and had these preparations completed by the time Helen had finished a most tender and affectionate letter to Pen: when the girl, smiling fondly, took her mamma by the hand, and led her into those apartments where the fires were blazing so cheerfully, and there the two kind creatures sate down on the bed, and talked about Pen ever so long. Laura added a postscript to Helen's letter, in which she called him her dearest Pen, and bade him come home _instantly_, with two of the handsomest dashes under the word, and be happy with his mother and his affectionate sister Laura.

In the middle of the night--as these two ladies, after reading their Bibles a great deal during the evening, and after taking just a look into Pen's room as they pa.s.sed to their own--in the middle of the night, I say, Laura, whose head not unfrequently chose to occupy that pillow which the nightcap of the late Pendennis had been accustomed to press, cried out, suddenly, "Mamma, are you awake?"

Helen stirred and said, "Yes, I'm awake." The truth is, though she had been lying quite still and silent, she had not been asleep one instant, but had been looking at the night-lamp in the chimney, and had been thinking of Pen for hours and hours.

Then Miss Laura (who had been acting with similar hypocrisy, and lying, occupied with her own thoughts, as motionless as Helen's brooch, with Pen's and Laura's hair in it, on the frilled white pincushion on the dressing-table) began to tell Mrs. Pendennis of a notable plan which she had been forming in her busy little brains; and by which all Pen's embarra.s.sments would be made to vanish in a moment, and without the least trouble to any body.

"You know, mamma," this young lady said, "that I have been living with you for ten years, during which time you have never taken any of my money, and have been treating me just as if I was a charity girl. Now, this obligation has offended me very much, because I am proud, and do not like to be beholden to people. And as, if I had gone to school--only I wouldn't--it must have cost me at least fifty pounds a year, it is clear that I owe you fifty times ten pounds, which I know you have put into the bank at Chatteries for me, and which doesn't belong to me a bit. Now, to-morrow we will go to Chatteries, and see that nice old Mr.

Rowdy, with the bald head and ask him for it--not for his head, but for the five hundred pounds: and I dare say he will send you two more, which we will save and pay back; and we will send the money to Pen, who can pay all his debts without hurting any body, and then we will live happy ever after."

What Helen replied to this speech need not be repeated, as the widow's answer was made up of a great number of incoherent e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns, embraces, and other irrelative matter. But the two women slept well after that talk; and when the night-lamp went out with a splutter, and the sun rose gloriously over the purple hills, and the birds began to sing and pipe cheerfully amidst the leafless trees and glistening evergreens on Fairoaks lawn, Helen woke too, and, as she looked at the sweet face of the girl, sleeping beside her, her lips parted with a smile, blushes on her cheeks, her spotless bosom heaving and falling with gentle undulations, as if happy dreams were sweeping over it--Pen's mother felt happy and grateful beyond all power of words, save such as pious women offer up to the Beneficent Dispenser of love and mercy--in whose honor a chorus of such praises is constantly rising up all round the world.