I'm so pressed and badgered, I don't know where to turn. I shall go mad; by Jove, I shall. I wish I was dead, for I'm the most miserable brute alive. I say, Mr. Altamont, don't mind me. When I'm out of health--and I'm devilish bilious this morning--hang me, I abuse every body, and don't know what I say. Excuse me if I've offended you.

I--I'll try and get that little business done. Strong shall try. Upon my word he shall. And I say, Strong, my boy, I want to speak to you.

Come into the office for a minute."

Almost all Clavering's a.s.saults ended in this ignominious way, and in a shameful retreat. Altamont sneered after the baronet as he left the room, and entered into the office, to talk privately with his factotum.

"What is the matter now?" the latter asked of him. "It's the old story, I suppose."

"D----it, yes," the baronet said. "I dropped two hundred in ready money at the Little Coventry last night, and gave a check for three hundred more. On her ladyship's bankers, too, for to-morrow; and I must meet it, for there'll be the deuce to pay else. The last time she paid my play-debts, I swore I would not touch a dice-box again, and she'll keep her word, Strong, and dissolve partnership, if I go on. I wish I had three hundred a year, and was away. At a German watering-place you can do devilish well with three hundred a year. But my habits are so d----reckless: I wish I was in the Serpentine. I wish I was dead, by Gad, I wish I was. I wish I had never touched those confounded bones. I had such a run of luck last night, with five for the main, and seven to five all night, until those ruffians wanted to pay me with Altamont's bill upon me. The luck turned from that minute.

Never held the box again for three mains, and came away cleaned out, leaving that infernal check behind me. How shall I pay it? Blackland won't hold it over. Hulker and Bullock will write about it directly to her ladyship. By Jove, Ned, I'm the most miserable brute in all England."

It was necessary for Ned to devise some plan to console the baronet under this pressure of grief; and no doubt he found the means of procuring a loan for his patron, for he was closeted at Mr. Campion's offices that day for some time. Altamont had once more a guinea or two in his pocket, with a promise of a farther settlement; and the baronet had no need to wish himself dead for the next two or three months at least. And Strong, putting together what he had learned from the colonel and Sir Francis, began to form in his own mind a pretty accurate opinion as to the nature of the tie which bound the two men together.

CHAPTER VI.

A CHAPTER OF CONVERSATIONS.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Every day, after the entertainments at Grosvenor-place and Greenwich, of which we have seen Major Pendennis partake, the worthy gentleman's friendship and cordiality for the Clavering family seemed to increase.

His calls were frequent; his attentions to the lady of the house unremitting. An old man about town, he had the good fortune to be received in many houses, at which a lady of Lady Clavering's distinction ought also to be seen. Would her ladyship not like to be present at the grand entertainment at Gaunt House? There was to be a very pretty breakfast ball at Viscount Marrowfat's, at Fulham. Every body was to be there (including august personages of the highest rank), and there was to be a Watteau quadrille, in which Miss Amory would surely look charming. To these and other amus.e.m.e.nts the obsequious old gentleman kindly offered to conduct Lady Clavering, and was also ready to make himself useful to the baronet in any way agreeable to the latter.

In spite of his present station and fortune, the world persisted in looking rather coldly upon Clavering, and strange suspicious rumors followed him about. He was blackballed at two clubs in succession. In the house of commons, he only conversed with a few of the most disreputable members of that famous body, having a happy knack of choosing bad society, and adapting himself naturally to it, as other people do to the company of their betters. To name all the senators with whom Clavering consorted, would be invidious. We may mention only a few. There was Captain Raff, the honorable member for Epsom, who retired after the last Goodwood races, having accepted, as Mr.

Hotspur, the whip of the party, said, a mission to the Levant; there was Hustingson, the patriotic member for Islington, whose voice is never heard now denunciating corruption, since his appointment to the Governorship of Coventry Island; there was Bob Freeny, of the Booterstown Freenys, who is a dead shot, and of whom we therefore wish to speak with every respect; and of all these gentlemen, with whom in the course of his professional duty Mr. Hotspur had to confer, there was none for whom he had a more thorough contempt and dislike than for Sir Francis Clavering, the representative of an ancient race, who had sat for their own borough of Clavering time out of mind in the house.

"If that man is wanted for a division," Hotspur said, "ten to one he is to be found in a h.e.l.l. He was educated in the Fleet, and he has not heard the end of Newgate yet, take my word for it. He'll muddle away the Begum's fortune at thimble-rig, be caught picking pockets, and finish on board the hulks." And if the high-born Hotspur, with such an opinion of Clavering, could yet from professional reasons be civil to him, why should not Major Pendennis also have reasons of his own for being attentive to this unlucky gentleman?

"He has a very good cellar and a very good cook," the major said; "as long as he is silent he is not offensive, and he very seldom speaks.

If he chooses to frequent gambling-tables, and lose his money to blacklegs, what matters to me? Don't look too curiously into any man's affairs, Pen, my boy; every fellow has some cupboard in his house, begad, which he would not like you and me to peep into. Why should we try, when the rest of the house is open to us? And a devilish good house, too, as you and I know. And if the man of the family is not all one could wish, the women are excellent. The Begum is not over-refined, but as kind a woman as ever lived, and devilish clever too; and as for the little Blanche, you know my opinion about her, you rogue; you know my belief is that she is sweet on you, and would have you for the asking. But you are growing such a great man, that I suppose you won't be content under a duke's daughter--Hey, sir? I recommend you to ask one of them, and try."

Perhaps Pen was somewhat intoxicated by his success in the world; and it may also have entered into the young man's mind (his uncle's perpetual hints serving not a little to encourage the notion) that Miss Amory was tolerably well disposed to renew the little flirtation which had been carried on in the early days of both of them, by the banks of the rural Brawl. But he was little disposed to marriage, he said, at that moment, and, adopting some of his uncle's worldly tone, spoke rather contemptuously of the inst.i.tution, and in favor of a bachelor life.

"You are very happy, sir," said he, "and you get on very well alone, and so do I. With a wife at my side, I should lose my place in society; and I don't, for my part, much fancy retiring into the country with a Mrs. Pendennis; or taking my wife into lodgings to be waited upon by the servant-of-all-work. The period of my little illusions is over. You cured me of my first love, who certainly was a fool, and would have had a fool for her husband, and a very sulky, discontented husband, too, if she had taken me. We young fellows live fast, sir; and I feel as old at five-and-twenty as many of the old fo--, the old bachelors--whom I see in the bay-window at Bays's. Don't look offended, I only mean that I am _blase_ about love matters, and that I could no more fan myself into a flame for Miss Amory now, than I could adore Lady Mirabel over again. I wish I could; I rather like old Mirabel for his infatuation about her, and think his pa.s.sion is the most respectable part of his life."

"Sir Charles Mirabel was always a theatrical man, sir," the major said, annoyed that his nephew should speak flippantly of any person of Sir Charles's rank and station. "He has been occupied with theatricals since his early days. He acted at Carlton House when he was page to the prince; he has been mixed up with that sort of thing; he could afford to marry whom he chooses; and Lady Mirabel is a most respectable woman, received every where--every where, mind. The d.u.c.h.ess of Connaught receives her, Lady Rockminster receives her--it doesn't become young fellows to speak lightly of people in that station. There's not a more respectable woman in England than Lady Mirabel: and the old fogies, as you call them at Bays's, are some of the first gentlemen in England, of whom you youngsters had best learn a little manners, and a little breeding, and a little modesty." And the major began to think that Pen was growing exceedingly pert and conceited, and that the world made a great deal too much of him.

The major's anger amused Pen. He studied his uncle's peculiarities with a constant relish, and was always in a good humor with his worldly old Mentor. "I am a youngster of fifteen years standing, sir,"

he said, adroitly, "and if you think that _we_ are disrespectful, you should see those of the present generation. A protege of yours came to breakfast with me the other day. You told me to ask him, and I did it to please you. We had a day's sights together, and dined at the club, and went to the play. He said the wine at the Polyanthus was not so good as Ellis's wine at Richmond, smoked Warrington's cavendish after breakfast, and when I gave him a sovereign as a farewell token, said he had plenty of them, but would take it to show he wasn't proud."

"Did he?--did you ask young Clavering?" cried the major, appeased at once, "fine boy, rather wild, but a fine boy--parents like that sort of attention, and you can't do better than pay it to our worthy friends of Grosvenor-place. And so you took him to the play and tipped him? That was right, sir, that was right;" with which Mentor quitted Telemachus, thinking that the young men were not so very bad, and that he should make something of that fellow yet.

As Master Clavering grew into years and stature, he became too strong for the authority of his fond parents and governess; and rather governed them than permitted himself to be led by their orders. With his papa he was silent and sulky, seldom making his appearance, however, in the neighborhood of that gentleman; with his mamma he roared and fought when any contest between them arose as to the gratification of his appet.i.te, or other wish of his heart; and in his disputes with his governess over his book, he kicked that quiet creature's shins so fiercely, that she was entirely overmastered and subdued by him. And he would have so treated his sister Blanche, too, and did on one or two occasions attempt to prevail over her; but she showed an immense resolution and spirit on her part, and boxed his ears so soundly, that he forebore from molesting Miss Amory, as he did the governess and his mamma, and his mamma's maid.

At length, when the family came to London, Sir Francis gave forth his opinion that "the little beggar had best be sent to school."

Accordingly, the young son and heir of the house of Clavering was dispatched to the Rev. Otto Rose's establishment at Twickenham, where young n.o.blemen and gentlemen were received preparatory to their introduction to the great English public schools.

It is not our intention to follow Master Clavering in his scholastic career; the paths to the Temple of learning were made more easy to him than they were to some of us of earlier generations. He advanced toward that fane in a carriage-and-four, so to speak, and might halt and take refreshments almost whenever he pleased. He wore varnished boots from the earliest period of youth, and had cambric handkerchiefs and lemon-colored kid gloves of the smallest size ever manufactured by Privat. They dressed regularly at Mr. Rose's to come down to dinner; the young gentlemen had shawl dressing-gowns, fires in their bedrooms; horse and carriage exercise occasionally, and oil for their hair.

Corporal punishment was altogether dispensed with by the princ.i.p.al, who thought that moral discipline was entirely sufficient to lead youth; and the boys were so rapidly advanced in many branches of learning, that they acquired the art of drinking spirits and smoking cigars, even before they were old enough to enter a public school.

Young Frank Clavering stole his father's Havannas, and conveyed them to school, or smoked them in the stables, at a surprisingly early period of life, and at ten years old drank his Champagne almost as stoutly as any whiskered cornet of dragoons could do.

When this interesting youth came home for his vacations, Major Pendennis was as laboriously civil and gracious to him as he was to the rest of the family; although the boy had rather a contempt for old Wigsby, as the major was denominated, mimicked him behind his back, as the polite major bowed and smirked with Lady Clavering or Miss Amory; and drew rude caricatures, such as are designed by ingenious youths, in which the major's wig, his nose, his tie, &c., were represented with artless exaggeration. Untiring in his efforts to be agreeable, the major wished that Pen, too, should take particular notice of this child; incited Arthur to invite him to his chambers, to give him a dinner at the club, to take him to Madame Tussaud's, the Tower, the play, and so forth, and to tip him, as the phrase is, at the end of the day's pleasures. Arthur, who was good-natured and fond of children, went through all these ceremonies one day; had the boy to breakfast at the Temple, where he made the most contemptuous remarks regarding the furniture, the crockery, and the tattered state of Warrington's dressing-gown; and smoked a short pipe, and recounted the history of a fight between Tuffy and Long Biggings, at Rose's, greatly to the edification of the two gentlemen his hosts.

As the major rightly predicted, Lady Clavering was very grateful for Arthur's attention to the boy; more grateful than the lad himself, who took attentions as a matter of course, and very likely had more sovereigns in his pocket than poor Pen, who generously gave him one of his own slender stock of those coins.

The major, with the sharp eyes with which nature endowed him, and with the gla.s.ses of age and experience, watched this boy, and surveyed his position in the family without seeming to be rudely curious about their affairs. But, as a country neighbor, one who had many family obligations to the Claverings, an old man of the world, he took occasion to find out what Lady Clavering's means were, how her capital was disposed, and what the boy was to inherit. And setting himself to work, for what purposes will appear, no doubt, ulteriorly, he soon had got a pretty accurate knowledge of Lady Clavering's affairs and fortune, and of the prospects of her daughter and son. The daughter was to have but a slender provision; the bulk of the property was, as before has been said, to go to the son, his father did not care for him or any body else, his mother was dotingly fond of him as the child of her latter days, his sister disliked him. Such may be stated, in round numbers, to be the result of the information which Major Pendennis got. "Ah! my dear madam," he would say, patting the head of the boy, "this boy may wear a baron's coronet on his head on some future coronation, if matters are but managed rightly, and if Sir Francis Clavering would but play his cards well."

At this the widow Amory heaved a deep sigh. "He plays only too much of his cards, major, I'm afraid," she said. The major owned that he knew as much; did not disguise that he had heard of Sir Francis Clavering's unfortunate propensity to play; pitied Lady Clavering sincerely; but spoke with such genuine sentiment and sense, that her ladyship, glad to find a person of experience to whom she could confide her grief and her condition, talked about them pretty unreservedly to Major Pendennis, and was eager to have his advice and consolation. Major Pendennis became the Begum's confidante and house-friend, and as a mother, a wife, and a capitalist, she consulted him.

He gave her to understand (showing at the same time a great deal of respectful sympathy) that he was acquainted with some of the circ.u.mstances of her first unfortunate marriage, and with even the person of her late husband, whom he remembered in Calcutta--when she was living in seclusion with her father. The poor lady, with tears of shame more than of grief in her eyes, told her version of her story.

Going back a child to India after two years at a European school, she had met Amory, and foolishly married him. "O, you don't know how miserable that man made me," she said, "or what a life I pa.s.sed between him and my father. Before I saw him I had never seen a man except my father's clerks and native servants. You know we didn't go into society in India on account of--" ("I know," said Major Pendennis, with a bow). "I was a wild romantic child, my head was full of novels which I'd read at school--I listened to his wild stories and adventures, for he was a daring fellow, and I thought he talked beautifully of those calm nights on the pa.s.sage out, when he used to... Well, I married him, and was wretched from that day--wretched with my father, whose character you know, Major Pendennis, and I won't speak of: but he wasn't a good man, sir--neither to my poor mother, nor to me, except that he left me his money--nor to no one else that I ever heard of: and he didn't do many kind actions in his lifetime, I'm afraid. And as for Amory he was almost worse; he was a spendthrift, when my father was close: he drank dreadfully, and was furious when in that way. He wasn't in any way a good or a faithful husband to me, Major Pendennis; and if he'd died in the jail before his trial, instead of afterward, he would have saved me a deal of shame and unhappiness since, sir." Lady Clavering added: "For perhaps I should not have married at all if I had not been so anxious to change his horrid name, and I have not been happy in my second husband, as I suppose you know, sir. Ah, Major Pendennis, I've got money to be sure, and I'm a lady, and people fancy I'm very happy, but I ain't. We all have our cares, and griefs, and troubles: and many's the day that I sit down to one of my grand dinners with an aching heart, and many a night do I lay awake on my fine bed, a great deal more unhappy than the maid that makes it. For I'm not a happy woman, major, for all the world says; and envies the Begum her diamonds, and carriages, and the great company that comes to my house.

I'm not happy in my husband; I'm not happy in my daughter. She ain't a good girl like that dear Laura Bell at Fairoaks. She's cost me many a tear though you don't see 'em; and she sneers at her mother because I haven't had learning and that. How should I? I was brought up among natives till I was twelve, and went back to India when I was fourteen.

Ah, major I should have been a good woman if I had had a good husband.

And now I must go up-stairs and wipe my eyes, for they're red with cryin'. And Lady Rockminster's a-comin, and we're goin to 'ave a drive in the Park. And when Lady Rockminster made her appearance, there was not a trace of tears or vexation on Lady Clavering's face, but she was full of spirits, and bounced out with her blunders and talk, and murdered the king's English, with the utmost liveliness and good humor.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"Begad, she is not such a bad woman!" the major thought within himself. "She is not refined, certainly, and calls 'Apollo' 'Apoller;'

but she has some heart, and I like that sort of thing, and a devilish deal of money, too. Three stars in India Stock to her name, begad!

which that young cub is to have--is he?" And he thought how he should like to see a little of the money transferred to Miss Blanche, and, better still, one of those stars shining in the name of Mr. Arthur Pendennis.

Still bent upon pursuing his schemes, whatsoever they might be, the old negotiator took the privilege of his intimacy and age, to talk in a kindly and fatherly manner to Miss Blanche, when he found occasion to see her alone. He came in so frequently at luncheon-time, and became so familiar with the ladies, that they did not even hesitate to quarrel before him: and Lady Clavering, whose tongue was loud, and temper brusk, had many a battle with the Sylphide in the family friend's presence. Blanche's wit seldom failed to have the mastery in these encounters, and the keen barbs of her arrows drove her adversary discomfited away. "I am an old fellow," the major said; "I have nothing to do in life. I have my eyes open. I keep good counsel. I am the friend of both of you; and if you choose to quarrel before me, why I shan't tell any one. But you are two good people, and I intend to make it up between you. I have between lots of people--husbands and wives, fathers and sons, daughters and mammas, before this. I like it; I've nothing else to do."

One day, then, the old diplomatist entered Lady Clavering's drawing-room, just as the latter quitted it, evidently in a high state of indignation, and ran past him up the stairs to her own apartments.

"She couldn't speak to him now," she said; "she was a great deal too angry with that--that--that little, wicked"--anger choked the rest of the words, or prevented their utterance until Lady Clavering had pa.s.sed out of hearing.

"My dear, good Miss Amory," the major said, entering the drawing-room, "I see what is happening. You and mamma have been disagreeing.

Mothers and daughters disagree in the best families. It was but last week that I healed up a quarrel between Lady Clapperton and her daughter Lady Claudia. Lady Lear and her eldest daughter have not spoken for fourteen years. Kinder and more worthy people than these I never knew in the whole course of my life; for every body but each other admirable. But they can't live together: they oughtn't to live together: and I wish, my dear creature, with all my soul, that I could see you with an establishment of your own--for there is no woman in London who could conduct one better--with your own establishment, making your own home happy."

"I am not very happy in this one," said the Sylphide; "and the stupidity of mamma is enough to provoke a saint."

"Precisely so; you are not suited to one another. Your mother committed one fault in early life--or was it Nature, my dear, in your case?--she ought not to have educated you. You ought not to have been bred up to become the refined and intellectual being you are, surrounded, as I own you are, by those who have not your genius or your refinement. Your place would be to lead in the most brilliant circles, not to follow, and take a second place in any society. I have watched you, Miss Amory: you are ambitious; and your proper sphere is command. You ought to shine; and you never can in this house, I know it. I hope I shall see you in another and a happier one, some day, and the mistress of it."

The Sylphide shrugged her lily shoulders with a look of scorn "Where is the prince, and where is the palace, Major Pendennis?" she said. "I am ready. But there is no romance in the world now, no real affection."

"No, indeed," said the major, with the most sentimental and simple air which he could muster.

"Not that I know any thing about it," said Blanche, casting her eyes down, "except what I have read in novels."

"Of course not," Major Pendennis cried; "how should you, my dear young lady? and novels ain't true, as you remark admirably, and there is no romance left in the world. Begad, I wish I was a young fellow, like my nephew." "And what," continued Miss Amory, musing, "what are the men whom we see about at the b.a.l.l.s every night--dancing guardsmen, penniless treasury clerks--b.o.o.bies! If I had my brother's fortune, I might have such an establishment as you promise me--but with my name, and with my little means, what am I to look to? A country parson, or a barrister in a street near Russell-square, or a captain in a dragoon-regiment, who will take lodgings for me, and come home from the mess tipsy and smelling of smoke like Sir Francis Clavering. That is how we girls are destined to end life. O Major Pendennis, I am sick of London, and of b.a.l.l.s, and of young dandies with their chin-tips, and of the insolent great ladies who know us one day and cut us the next--and of the world altogether. I should like to leave it and to go into a convent, that I should. I shall never find any body to understand me. And I live here as much alone in my family and in the world, as if I were in a cell locked up for ever. I wish there were Sisters of Charity here, and that I could be one, and catch the plague, and die of it--I wish to quit the world. I am not very old: but I am tired, I have suffered so much--I've been so disillusionated--I'm weary, I'm weary--O that the Angel of Death would come and beckon me away!"

This speech may be interpreted as follows. A few nights since a great lady, Lady Flamingo, had cut Miss Amory and Lady Clavering. She was quite mad because she could not get an invitation to Lady Drum's ball: it was the end of the season and n.o.body had proposed to her: she had made no sensation at all, she who was so much cleverer than any girl of the year, and of the young ladies forming her special circle. Dora who had but five thousand pounds, Flora who had nothing, and Leonora who had red hair, were going to be married, and n.o.body had come for Blanche Amory.

"You judge wisely about the world, and about your position, my dear Miss Blanche," the major said. "The prince don't marry nowadays, as you say: unless the princess has a doosid deal of money in the funds, or is a lady of his own rank. The young folks of the great families marry into the great families: if they haven't fortune they have each other's shoulders, to push on in the world, which is pretty nearly as good. A girl with your fortune can scarcely hope for a great match: but a girl with your genius and your admirable tact and fine manners, with a clever husband by her side, may make _any_ place for herself in the world. We are grown doosid republican. Talent ranks with birth and wealth now, begad: and a clever man with a clever wife, may take any place they please."

Miss Amory did not of course in the least understand what Major Pendennis meant. Perhaps she thought over circ.u.mstances in her mind, and asked herself, could he be a negotiator for a former suitor of hers, and could he mean Pen? No, it was impossible; he had been civil, but nothing more. So she said, laughing, "Who is the clever man, and when will you bring him to me, Major Pendennis? I am dying to see him." At this moment a servant threw open the door, and announced Mr. Henry Foker: at which name, and at the appearance of our friend both the lady and the gentleman burst out laughing.