Boys and girls from Thackeray Part 28

"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, where he saw the Oxbridge examination lists in the morning papers, and read over the names with mournful accuracy, thinking also with bitterness 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 a letter to Dr. Portman telling him what had happened and begging the Doctor to break the sad news to Helen. Then the Major went out to dinner, one of the saddest men in any London dining-room that day.

On receipt of the Major's letter Dr. Portman went at once to Fair-Oaks to break the disagreeable news to Mrs. Pendennis. She had already received a letter from Pen, and to the Doctor's great indignation she seemed to feel no particular unhappiness except that her darling boy should be unhappy.

What was this degree that they made such an outcry about, and what good would it do Pen? Why did Dr. Portman and his uncle insist upon sending the boy 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? Her boy was coming back to her repentant and tender-hearted,--why should she want more? 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 his anger took no effect upon her gentle bosom.

As for Laura, Pen's little adopted sister, she was no longer the simple girl of Pen's college days, but a tall, slim, handsome young lady. At the age of sixteen she was a sweet young lady indeed, ordinarily pale, with a faint rose-tinge in her cheeks. Her eyes were very large and some critics said that she was in the habit of making play with those eyes, but the fact is that nature had made them so to shine and to look, that they could no more help so looking and shining than one star can help being brighter than another. It was doubtless to soften their brightness that Miss Laura's eyes were provided with two veils in the shape of the longest and finest black eyelashes. Her complexion was brilliant, her smile charming, while her voice was so low and sweet that to hear it was like listening to sweet music.

Now, this same charming Miss Laura had only been half pleased with Pen's general conduct and bearing during the past two years. His letters to his mother had been 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 that will love him half as much as you do." Thus Laura declared stoutly, 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.

But as soon as Miss Laura heard that Pen was unfortunate and unhappy, all her anger straightway vanished, giving place to the most tender compa.s.sion. He was the Pen of old days, the frank and affectionate, the generous and tender-hearted. She at once took side with Helen against Dr.

Portman when he cried out 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 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 favourites 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 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?

Directly the Doctor was gone, Laura ordered fires to be lighted in Mr.

Arthur's rooms, and his bedding to be aired; and by the time Helen had completed a tender and affectionate letter to Pen, Laura had her preparations completed, and, smiling fondly, went with her mamma into Pen's room, which was now ready for him to occupy. Laura also added a postscript to Helen's letter, in which she called him her dearest friend, and bade him come home _instantly_ and be happy with his mother and his affectionate Laura.

That night when Mrs. Pendennis was lying sleepless, thinking of Pen, a voice at her side startled her, saying softly: "Mamma, are you awake?"

It was Laura. "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 were 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 as 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 Chatteris for me, and which doesn't belong to me a bit. Now, to-morrow we will go to Chatteris, 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 daresay he will lend 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 anybody, and then we will live happy ever after."

What Mrs. Pendennis replied to this speech need not be repeated, but we may be sure that its terms were those of the deepest grat.i.tude, and that the widow lost no time in writing off to Pen an account of the n.o.ble, the magnificent offer of Laura, filling up her letter with a profusion of benedictions upon both her children.

As for Pen, after being deserted by the Major, and writing his letter to his mother, he skulked about London streets for the rest of the day, fancying that everybody was looking at him and whispering to his neighbour, "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 soothed him to some degree.

On the second day of his London wanderings there came a kind letter from his tutor, containing many grave and appropriate remarks upon what had befallen him, but strongly urging Pen not to take his name off the University books, and to retrieve a disaster which everybody knew was owing to his own carelessness alone, and which he might repair by a month of application.

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

And so the Prodigal came home, and the fatted calf was killed for him, and he was made as happy as two simple women could make him.

For some time he said no power on earth could induce him to go back to Oxbridge again after his failure there; but one day Laura said to him, with many blushes, that she thought, as some sort of reparation, or punishment on himself for his idleness, he ought to go back and get his degree if he could fetch it by doing so; and so back Mr. Pen went.

A plucked man is a dismal being in a university; belonging to no set of men there and owned by no one. Pen felt himself plucked indeed of all the fine feathers which he had won during his brilliant years, and rarely appeared out of his college; regularly going to morning chapel and shutting himself up in his rooms of nights, away from the noise and suppers of the undergraduates. The men of his years had taken their degrees and were gone. He went into a second examination, and pa.s.sed with perfect ease. He was somewhat more easy in his mind when he appeared in his bachelor's gown, and could cast aside the hated badge of disgrace.

On his way back from Oxbridge he paid a visit to his uncle in London, hoping that gentleman would accept his present success in place of his past failure, but the old gentleman received him with very cold looks, and would scarcely give him his forefinger to shake. He called a second time, but the valet said his master was not at home.

So Pen went back to Fair-Oaks. True, he had retrieved his failure, had won his honours, but he came back to his home a very different fellow from the bright-faced youth who had gone out into college life some years before. He no longer laughed, sang, or rollicked about the house as of old; he had tasted of the fruit of the awful Tree of Life which from the beginning had tempted all mankind, and which had changed Arthur Pendennis the light-hearted boy into a man. Young, he is, of course, and still awaiting the development which life's deeper experiences are to bring, but nevertheless he is not again to taste the joy, the zest, or the enthusiasm which come to careless boyhood.

Arthur Pendennis is now a compet.i.tor among the ranks of men striving after life's prizes, and this narrative of his boyhood ends.

CAROLINE

[Ill.u.s.tration: Miss CAROLINE AND BECKY.]

Since the time of Cinderella the First there have been many similar instances in real life of the persecution of youth by family injustice and cruelty, and no case more strikingly similar than that of Miss Caroline Brandenburg Gann, whose youthful career was one of monotonous hardship and injustice until the arrival of her fairy prince.

The story is a short one to relate, but to live through the days and months of sixteen unhappy years seemed an eternal process to the young heart beating high with hopes which must constantly be stifled, and give place to bitter disappointment.

But to go back for a moment to the time when Louis XVIII. was restored a second time to the throne of his father, and all the English who had money or leisure rushed over to the Continent. At that time there lived in a certain boarding-house at Brussels a lady who was called Mrs. Crabb; and her daughter, a genteel young widow, who bore the name of Mrs.

Wellesley McCarty. Previous to this Mrs. McCarty, who was then Miss Crabb, had run off one day with a young Ensign, who possessed not a shilling, and who speedily died, leaving his widow without property, but with a remarkably fine pair of twins, named Rosalind Clancy and Isabella Finigan Wellesley McCarty.

The young widow being left penniless, her mother, who had disowned the runaway couple, was obliged to become reconciled to her daughter and to share her small income of one hundred and twenty pounds a year with her.

Upon this at the boarding-house in Brussels the two managed to live. The twins were put out, after the foreign fashion, to nurse, and a village in the neighbourhood, and the widow and her mother maintained a very good appearance despite their small income; and it was not long before the Widow McCarty married a young Englishman, James Gann, Esq.--of the great oil-house of Gann, Blubbery, and Gann,--who was boarding in the same house with Mrs. Crabb and her daughter. These ladies, who had their full share of common sense, took care to keep the twins in the background until such time as the Widow McCarty had become Mrs. Gann. Then on the day after the wedding, in the presence of many friends who had come to offer their congratulations, a stout nurse, bearing the two chubby little ones, made her appearance; and these rosy urchins, springing forward, shouted affectionately, "_Maman! Maman_!" to the great astonishment and bewilderment of James Gann, who well-nigh fainted at this sudden paternity so put upon him. However, being a good-humoured, soft-hearted man, he kissed his lady hurriedly, and vowed that he would take care of the poor little things, whom he would also have kissed, but the darlings refused his caress with many roars.

Soon after their marriage Mr. and Mrs. James Gann returned to England and occupied a house in Thames Street, City, until the death of Gann, Sr., when his son, becoming head of the firm, mounted higher on the social ladder and went to live in the neighbourhood of Putney, where a neat box, a couple of spare bedrooms, a good cellar, and a smart gig made a real gentleman of him. About this period, a daughter was born to him, called Caroline Blandenburg Gann, so named after a large mansion near Hammersmith, and an injured queen who lived there at the time of the little girl's birth.

At this time Mrs. James Gann sent the twins, Rosalind Clancy and Isabella Finigan Wellesley McCarty, to a boarding-school for young ladies, and grumbled much at the amount of the bills which her husband was obliged to pay for them; for, although James discharged them with perfect good-humour, his lady began to entertain a mean opinion indeed of her pretty young children. They could expect no fortune, she said, from Mr.

Gann, and she wondered that he should think of bringing them up expensively, when he had a darling child of his own for whom to save all the money that he could lay by.

Grandmamma, too, doted on the little Caroline Brandenburg, and vowed that she would leave her three thousand pounds to this dear infant; for in this way does the world show its respect for that most respectable thing, prosperity, and little Caroline was the daughter of prosperous James Gann.

Little Caroline, then, had her maid, her airy nursery, her little carriage to drive in, the promise of her grandmamma's money, and her mamma's undivided affection. Gann, too, loved her sincerely in his careless good-humoured way; but he determined, notwithstanding, that his step-daughters should have something handsome at his death, but--but for a great But.

Gann and Blubbery were in the oil line; their profits arose from contracts for lighting a great number of streets in London; and about this period gas came into use. The firm of Gann and Blubbery had been so badly managed, I am sorry to say, and so great had been the extravagance of both partners and their ladies, that they only paid their creditors fourteen-pence halfpenny in the pound.

When Mrs. Crabb heard of this dreadful accident she at once proclaimed James Gann to be a swindler, a villain, a disreputable, vulgar man, and made over her money to the Misses Rosalind Clancy and Isabella Finigan McCarty, leaving poor little Caroline without a cent of legacy. Half of one thousand five hundred pounds allotted to each twin was to be paid at marriage, the other half on the death of Mrs. James Gann, who was to enjoy the interest thereof. Thus did the fortunes of little Caroline alter in a single night! Thus did Cinderella enter upon the period of her loneliness!

After James Gann's failure his family lived in various uncomfortable ways, until at length Mrs. Gann opened a lodging-house in a certain back street in the town of Margate, on the door of which house might be read in gleaming bra.s.s the name of MR. GANN. It was the work of a single s.m.u.tty servant-maid to clean this bra.s.s plate every morning, and to attend to the wants of Mr. Gann, his family, and lodgers. In this same house Mr. Gann had his office, though if truth be told he had nothing to do from morning until night. He was very much changed, poor fellow! He was now a fat, bald-headed man of fifty whose tastes were no longer aristocratic, and who loved public-house jokes and company.

As for Mrs. Gann, she had changed, too, under the pressure of misfortune. Her chief occupation was bragging of her former acquaintances, taking medicine, and mending and altering her gowns. She had a huge taste for cheap finery, loved raffles, tea-parties, and walks on the pier, where she flaunted herself and daughters as gay as b.u.t.terflies. She stood upon her rank, did not fail to tell her lodgers that she was "a gentlewoman," and was mighty sharp with Becky, the maid, and Carrie, her youngest child.

For the tide of affection had turned now, and the Misses Wellesley McCarty were the darlings of their mother's heart, as Caroline had been in the early days of Putney prosperity. Mrs. Gann respected and loved her elder daughters, the stately heiresses of 1500, and scorned poor Caroline, who was likewise scorned, like Cinderella, by her brace of haughty, thoughtless sisters. These young women were tall, well-grown, black-browed girls, fond of fun, and having great health and spirits.

They had pink cheeks, white shoulders, and many glossy curls about their shining foreheads. Such charms cannot fail of having their effect, and it was very lucky for Caroline that she did not possess them, or she might have been as vain, frivolous, and vulgar as these young ladies were. As it was, Caroline was pale and thin, with fair hair and neat grey eyes; n.o.body thought her a beauty in her moping cotton gown, and while her sisters enjoyed their pleasures and tea-parties abroad, it was Carrie's usual fate to remain at home and help the servant in the many duties which were required in Mrs. Gann's establishment. She dressed her mamma and her sisters, brought her papa his tea in bed, kept the lodgers'

bills, bore their scoldings, and sometimes gave a hand in the kitchen if any extra cookery was required. At two she made a little toilette for dinner, and was employed on numberless household darnings and mendings in the long evenings while her sisters giggled over the jingling piano.

Mamma lay on the sofa, and Gann was at the club. A weary lot, in sooth, was yours,--poor little Caroline. Since the days of your infancy, not one hour of sunshine, no friendship, no cheery playfellows, no mother's love!

Only James Gann, of all the household, had a good-natured look for her, and a coa.r.s.e word of kindness, but Caroline did not complain, nor shed any tears. Her misery was dumb and patient; she felt that she was ill-treated, and had no companion; but was not on that account envious, only humble and depressed, not desiring so much to resist as to bear injustice, and hardly venturing to think for herself. This tyranny and humility served her in place of education and formed her manners, which were wonderfully gentle and calm. It was strange to see such a person growing up in such a family, and the neighbours spoke of her with much scornful compa.s.sion. "A poor half-witted, thing," they said, "who could not say bo! to a goose." And I think it is one good test of gentility to be thus looked down on by vulgar people.

I have said that Miss Caroline had no friend in the world except her father, but one friend she most certainly had, and that was honest Becky, the s.m.u.tty maid, whose name has been mentioned before. A great comfort it was for Caroline to descend to the calm kitchen from the stormy back-parlour, and there vent some of her little woes to the compa.s.sionate servant of all work.

When Mrs. Gann went out with her daughters Becky would take her work and come and keep Miss Caroline company; and, if the truth must be told, the greatest enjoyment the pair used to have was in these afternoons, when they read together out of the precious, greasy, marble-covered volumes that Mrs. Gann was in the habit of fetching from the library. Many and many a tale had the pair so gone through. I can see them over "Manfrone; or the One-handed Monk," the room dark, the street silent, the hour ten, the tall, red, lurid candlewick waggling down, the flame flickering pale upon Miss Caroline's pale face as she read out, and lighting up honest Becky's goggling eyes, who sat silent, her work in her lap; she had not done a st.i.tch of it for an hour. As the trapdoor slowly opens, and the scowling Alonzo, bending over the sleeping Imoinda, draws his pistol, c.o.c.ks it, looks well if the priming be right, places it then to the sleeper's ear, and--_thunder under-under_--down fall the snuffers! Becky has had them in her hand for ten minutes, afraid to use them. Up starts Caroline and flings the book back into mamma's basket. It is only that lady returned with her daughters from a tea-party, where they have been enjoying themselves.

For the sentimental, too, as well as the terrible, Miss Caroline and the cook had a strong predilection, and had wept their poor eyes out over "Thaddeus of Warsaw" and the "Scottish Chiefs." Fortified by the examples drawn from those instructive volumes, Becky was firmly convinced that her young mistress would meet with a great lord some day or other, or be carried off, like Cinderella, by a brilliant prince, to the mortification of her elder sisters, whom Becky hated.

When, therefore, a new lodger came, lonely, mysterious, melancholy, elegant, with the romantic name of George Brandon--when he actually wrote a letter directed to a lord, and Miss Caroline and Becky together examined the superscription, Becky's eyes were lighted up with a preternatural look of wondering wisdom; whereas, after an instant, Caroline dropped hers, and blushed and said, "Nonsense, Becky!"

"Is it nonsense?" said Becky, grinning, and snapping her fingers with a triumphant air; "the cards come true; I knew they would. Didn't you have a king and queen of hearts three deals running? What did you dream about last Tuesday, tell me that?"

But Miss Caroline never did tell, for just then her sisters came bouncing down the stairs, and examined the lodger's letter. Caroline, however, went away musing much upon these points; and she began to think Mr.

Brandon more wonderful and beautiful every day, whereas he was remarkable for nothing except very black eyes, a sallow face, and a habit of smoking cigars in bed till noon. His name of George Brandon was only an a.s.sumed one. He was really the son of a half-pay Colonel, of good family, who had been sent to Eton to acquire an education. From Eton he went to Oxford, took honours there, but ran up bills amounting to two thousand pounds.