Boys and girls from Thackeray Part 27

Presently he began to find that he learned little good in the cla.s.sical lecture. His fellow-students there were too dull, as in mathematics they were too learned for him. Pen grew weary of hearing the students and tutor blunder through a few lines of a play which he could read in a tenth part of the time which they gave to it. After all, private reading, he decided, was the only study which was really profitable, and he announced to his mamma that he should read by himself a great deal more and in public a great deal less. That excellent woman knew no more about Homer than she did about Algebra, but she was quite contented with Pen's arrangements regarding his course of study, and felt perfectly confident that her dear boy would get the place which he merited.

Pen did not come home until after Christmas, a little to the fond mother's disappointment, and Laura's, who was longing for him to make a fine snow fortification, such as he had made three winters before. But he was invited to Logwood, Lady Agnes Foker's, where there were private theatricals, and a gay Christmas party of very fine folks, some of whom Major Pendennis would on no account have his nephew neglect. However, he stayed at home for the last three weeks of the vacation, and Laura had the opportunity of remarking what a quant.i.ty of fine new clothes he brought with him, and his mother admired his improved appearance and manly and decided tone.

He had not come home at Easter; but when he arrived for the long vacation he brought more smart clothes; appearing in the morning in wonderful shooting-jackets, with remarkable b.u.t.tons; and in the evening in gorgeous velvet waistcoats, with richly embroidered cravats, and curious linen.

And as she pried about his room, she saw, oh, such a beautiful dressing-case, with silver mountings, and a quant.i.ty of lovely rings and jewellery. And he had a new French watch and gold chain, in place of the big old chronometer, with its bunch of jingling seals, which had hung from the fob of John Pendennis. It was but a few months back Pen had longed for this watch, which he thought the most splendid and august time-piece in the world; and just before he went to college, Helen had taken it out of her trinket box and given it to Pen with a solemn and appropriate little speech respecting his father's virtues and the proper use of time. This portly and valuable chronometer Pen now p.r.o.nounced to be out of date, and indeed made some comparisons between it and a warming-pan, which Laura thought disrespectful; and he left it in a drawer in the company of soiled primrose gloves and cravats which had gone out of favour. His horse Pen p.r.o.nounced no longer up to his weight, and swapped her for another for which he had to pay rather a heavy figure. Mrs. Pendennis gave the boy the money for the new horse, and Laura cried when the old one was fetched away.

Arthur's allowances were liberal at this time, and thus he, the only son of a country gentleman, and of a gentleman-like bearing and person, was looked up to as a lad of much more consequence than he really was. His manner was frank, brave and perhaps a little impertinent, as becomes a high-spirited youth. He was generous and freehanded with his money, loved joviality, and had a good voice for a song. He rode well to hounds, appeared in pink as became a young buck, and managed to run up fine bills in a number of quarters. In fact, he had almost every taste to a considerable degree. He was very fond of books of all sorts and had a very fair taste in matters of art; also a great partiality for fine clothes and expensive jewellery.

In the course of his second year he had become one of the men of fashion in the University, and a leader of the faithful band who hung around him and wondered at him and loved him and imitated him. Now, it is easy to calculate that with such tastes as Mr. Pen possessed he must in the course of two or three years spend or owe a very handsome sum of money.

As he was not of a calculating turn he certainly found himself frequently in debt, but this did not affect his gaiety of spirit. He got a prodigious in the University and was hailed as a sort of Crichton: and as for the English verse prize, although Jones carried it that year, the undergraduates thought Pen's a much finer poem, and he had his verses printed at his own expense, and distributed in gilt morocco covers amongst his acquaintance.

Amidst his friends, and a host of them there were, Pen pa.s.sed more than two brilliant and happy years. He had his fill of pleasure and popularity. No dinner or supper party was complete without him. He became the favourite and leader of young men who were his superiors in wealth and station, but also did not neglect the humblest man of his acquaintance in order to curry favour with the richest young grandee in the University. He became famous and popular: not that he did much, but there was a general idea that he could do a great deal if he chose. "Ah, if Pendennis would only _try_" the men said, "he might do anything." One by one the University honours were lost by him, until he ceased to compete. But he got a declamation prize and brought home to his mother and Laura a set of prize books begilt with the college arms, and so magnificent that the ladies thought that Pen had won the largest honour which Oxbridge was capable of awarding.

Vacation after vacation pa.s.sed without the desired news that Pen had sat for any scholarship or won any honour, and Pen grew rebellious and unhappy, and there was a tacit feud between Dr. Portman, who was disappointed in Arthur, and the lad himself. Mrs. Pendennis, hearing Dr.

Portman prophesy that Pen would come to ruin, trembled in her heart, and little Laura also--Laura who had grown to be a fine young stripling, graceful and fair, clinging to her adopted mother and worshipping her with a pa.s.sionate affection. Both of these women felt that their boy was changed. He was no longer the artless Pen of old days, so brave, so impetuous, so tender. He spent little of his vacations at home, but went on visits, and scared the quiet pair at Fair-Oaks by stories of great houses to which he had been invited, and by talking of lords without their t.i.tles.

But even with all his weaknesses there was a kindness and frankness about Arthur Pendennis which won most people who came in contact with him, and made it impossible to resist his good-nature, or in his worst moments not to hope for his rescue from utter ruin. At the time of his career of university pleasure he would leave the gayest party to sit with a sick friend and was only too ready to share any money which he had with a poorer one.

In his third year at college the duns began to gather awfully round about him, and descended upon him in such a number that the tutors were scandalised, and even brave-hearted Pen was scared. Hearing of his nephew's extravagances, Major Pendennis interviewed that young man, and was thunderstruck at the extent of his liabilities after receiving Pen's dismal confession of the trouble in which he was involved.

Perhaps it was because she was so tender and good that Pen was terrified lest his mother should know of his sins. "I can't bear to break it to her," he said to the tutor, in an agony of grief. "Oh! sir, I've been a villain to her!"

--and he repented, and asked himself, Why, why, did his uncle insist upon the necessity of living with great people, and in how much did all his grand acquaintance profit him?

They were not shy of him, but Pen thought they were, and slunk from them during his last terms at college. He was as gloomy as a death's-head at parties, which he avoided of his own part, or to which his young friends soon ceased to invite him. Everybody knew that Pendennis was "hard up."

At last came the Degree Examinations. Many a young man of his year, whose hob-nailed shoes Pen had derided, and whose face or coat he had caricatured, many a man whom he had treated with scorn in the lecture-room or crushed with his eloquence in the debating club, many of his own set who had not half his brains, but a little regularity and constancy of occupation, took high places in the honours or pa.s.sed within decent credit. And where in the list was Pen, the superb; Pen, the wit and dandy; Pen, the poet and orator? Ah, where was Pen, the widow's darling and sole pride? Let us hide our heads and shut up the page. The lists came out; and a dreadful rumour rushed through the University, that Pendennis of Boniface was plucked.

During the latter part of Pen's university career the Major had become very proud of Arthur on account of his high spirits, frank manners, and high, gentleman-like bearing. He made more than one visit to Oxbridge and had an almost paternal fondness for Pen, whom he bragged about at his clubs, and introduced with pleasure into his conversation. He boasted everywhere of the boy's great talents and of the brilliant degree he was going to take as he wrote over and over again to Pen's mother, who for her part was ready to believe anything that anybody chose to say in favour of her son.

And all this pride and affection of uncle and mother had been trampled down by Pen's wicked extravagance and idleness. I don't envy Pen's feelings as he thought of what he had done. He had marred at its outset what might have been a brilliant career. He had dipped ungenerously into a generous mother's purse, and basely and recklessly spent her little income. Poor Arthur Pendennis felt perfectly convinced that all England would remark the absence of his name from the examination lists and talk about his misfortune. His wounded tutor, his many duns, the undergraduates--how could he bear to look any of them in the face now?

After receiving the news of his disgrace he rushed to his rooms and there penned a letter to his tutor full of thanks, regards, remorse and despair, requesting that his name might be taken off the college books, and intimating a wish that death might speedily end the woes of the disgraced Arthur Pendennis. Then he slunk out, scarcely knowing where he went, taking the unfrequented little lanes at the backs of the college buildings until he found himself some miles distant from Oxbridge. As he went up a hill, a drizzling January rain beating in his face and his ragged gown flying behind him, for he had not taken it off since the morning, a post-chaise came rattling up the road with a young gentleman in it who caught sight of poor Pen's pale face, jumped out of the carriage and ran towards him, exclaiming, "I say,--h.e.l.lo, old boy, where are you going, and what's the row now?"

"I am going where I deserve to go," said Pen.

"This ain't the way," said his friend Spavin, smiling. "I say, Pen, don't take on because you are plucked. It is nothing when you are used to it.

I've been plucked three times, old boy, and after the first time I didn't care. You'll have better luck next time."

Pen looked at his early acquaintance who had been plucked, who had been rusticated, who had only after repeated failures learned to read and write correctly, but who, in spite of all these drawbacks had attained the honour of a degree.

"This man has pa.s.sed," he thought, "and I have failed." It was almost too much for him to bear.

"Good-bye," said he; "I am very glad you are through. Don't let me keep you. I am in a hurry--I am going to town to-night."

"Gammon!" said his friend, "this ain't the way to town; this is the Fenbury road, I tell you."

"I was just going to turn back," Pen said.

"All the coaches are full with the men going down," Spavin said. Pen winced. "You'd not get a place for a ten-pound note. Get in here. I'll drop you where you have a chance of the Fenbury mail. I'll lend you a hat and coat; I've got lots. Come along; jump in, old boy--go it, leathers!"

And in this way Pen found himself in Mr. Spavin's post-chaise and rode with that gentleman as far as the Ram Inn at Mudford, fifteen miles from Oxbridge, where the Fenbury mail changed horses, and where Pen got a place on to London.

The next day there was an immense excitement at Oxbridge, where, for some time, a rumour prevailed, to the terror of Pen's tutor and tradesmen, that Pendennis, maddened at losing his degree, had made away with himself. A battered cap, in which his name was almost discernible, together with a seal bearing his crest of an eagle looking at a now extinct sun, had been found three miles on the Fenbury road, near a mill stream; and for four-and-twenty hours it was supposed that poor Pen had flung himself into the stream, until letters arrived from him, bearing the London post-mark.

The coach reached London at the dreary hour of five; and he hastened to the inn at Covent Garden, where the ever-wakeful porter admitted him, and showed him to a bed. Pen looked hard at the man, and wondered whether Boots knew he was plucked? When in bed he could not sleep there. He tossed about restlessly until the appearance of daylight, when he sprang up desperately, and walked off to his uncle's lodgings in Bury Street.

"Good 'evens! Mr. Arthur, what 'as 'appened, sir?" asked the valet, who was just carrying in his wig to the Major.

"I want to see my uncle," Pen cried in a ghastly voice, and flung himself down on a chair.

The valet backed before the pale and desperate-looking young man, with terrified and wondering glances, and disappeared into his master's apartment, whence the Major put out his head as soon as he had his wig on.

"What? Examination over? Senior Wrangler, Double First Cla.s.s, hey?" said the old gentleman. "I'll come directly," and the head disappeared.

Pen was standing with his back to the window, so that his uncle could not see the expression of gloomy despair on the young man's face. But when he held out his hand to Pen, and was about to address him in his cheery, high-toned voice, he caught sight of the boy's face; and dropping his hand said, "Why, Pen, what's the matter?"

"You'll see it in the papers at breakfast, sir," Pen said.

"See what?"

"My name isn't there, sir."

"Hang it, why _should_ it be?" asked the Major, more perplexed.

"I have lost everything, sir," groaned out Pen; "my honour's gone; I'm ruined irretrievably; I can't go back to Oxbridge."

"Lost your honour?" screamed out the Major. "Heaven alive! You don't mean to say you have shown the white feather?"

Pen laughed bitterly at the word feather, and repeated it. "No, it isn't that, sir. I'm not afraid of being shot; I wish anybody would shoot me. I have not got my degree. I--I'm plucked, sir."

The Major had heard of plucking, but in a very vague and cursory way, and concluded that it was some ceremony performed corporally upon rebellious university youth. "I wonder you can look me in the face after such a disgrace, sir," he said; "I wonder you submitted to it as a gentleman."

"I couldn't help it, sir. I did my cla.s.sical papers well enough: it was those infernal mathematics, which I have always neglected."

"Was it--was it done in public, sir?" the Major said.

"What?"

"The--the plucking?" asked the guardian, looking Pen anxiously in the face.

Pen perceived the error under which his guardian was labouring, and in the midst of his misery the blunder caused the poor wretch a faint smile, and served to bring down the conversation from the tragedy-key in which Pen had been disposed to carry it on. He explained to his uncle that he had gone in to pa.s.s his examination, and failed. On which the Major said, that though he had expected far better things of his nephew, there was no great misfortune in this, and no dishonour as far as he saw, and that Pen must try again.

"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.

It appeared that his bills in all amounted to about 700; and furthermore it was calculated that he had had more than twice that sum during his stay at Oxbridge. This sum he had spent, and for it he had to show--what?

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