CHAPTER I.
SHOWS HOW FIRST LOVE MAY INTERRUPT BREAKFAST.
One fine morning in the full London season, Major Arthur Pendenniscame over from his lodgings, according to his custom, to breakfast ata certain club in Pall Mall, of which he was a chief ornament. As hewas one of the finest judges of wine in England, and a man of active,dominating, and inquiring spirit, he had been very properly chosen to bea member of the committee of this club and indeed was almost the managerof the institution; and the stewards and waiters bowed before him asreverentially as to a duke or a field-marshal.
At a quarter past ten the major invariably made his appearance in thebest blacked boots in all London, with a checked morning cravat thatnever was rumpled until dinner time, a buff waistcoat which bore thecrown of his sovereign on the buttons, and linen so spotless that Mr.Brummel himself asked the name of his laundress, and would probably haveemployed her, had not misfortunes compelled that great man to fly thecountry. Pendennis's coat, his white gloves, his whiskers, his verycane, were perfect of their kind as specimens of the costume of amilitary man _en retraite_. At a distance, or seeing his back merely,you would have taken him to be not more than thirty years old: it wasonly by a nearer inspection that you saw the factitious nature of hisrich brown hair, and that there were a few crows'-feet round about thesomewhat faded eyes of his handsome mottled face. His nose was of theWellington pattern. His hands and wristbands were beautifully long andwhite. On the latter he wore handsome gold buttons given to him by hisRoyal Highness the Duke of York, and on the others more than one elegantring, the chief and largest of them being emblazoned with the famousarms of Pendennis.
He always took possession of the same table in the same corner of theroom, from which nobody ever now thought of ousting him. One or twomad wags and wild fellows had in former days, and in freak or bravado,endeavored twice or thrice to deprive him of this place; but there wasa quiet dignity in the major's manner as he took his seat at the nexttable, and surveyed the interlopers, which rendered it impossible forany man to sit and breakfast under his eye; and that table--by the fireand yet near the window--became his own. His letters were laid out therein expectation of his arrival, and many was the young fellow about townwho looked with wonder at the number of those notes, and at the sealsand franks which they bore. If there was any question about etiquette,society, who was married to whom, of what age such and such a duke was,Pendennis was the man to whom every one appealed. Marchionesses used todrive up to the club, and leave notes for him or fetch him out. He wasperfectly affable. The young men liked to walk with him in the Park ordown Pall Mall; for he touched his hat to every body, and every otherman he met was a lord.
The major sate down at his accustomed table then, and while the waiterswent to bring him his toast and his hot newspaper, he surveyed hisletters through his gold double eye-glass. He carried it so gayly, youwould hardly have known it was spectacles in disguise, and examined onepretty note after another, and laid them by in order. There were largesolemn dinner cards, suggestive of three courses and heavy conversation;there were neat little confidential notes, conveying female entreaties;there was a note on thick official paper from the Marquis of Steyne,telling him to come to Richmond to a little party at the Star andGarter, and speak French, which language the major possessed veryperfectly; and another from the Bishop of Ealing and Mrs. Trail,requesting the honor of Major Pendennis's company at Ealing House,all of which letters Pendennis read gracefully, and with the moresatisfaction, because Glowry, the Scotch surgeon, breakfasting oppositeto him, was looking on, and hating him for having so many invitations,which nobody ever sent to Glowry.
These perused, the major took out his pocket-book to see on what days hewas disengaged, and which of these many hospitable calls he could affordto accept or decline.
He threw over Cutler, the East India Director, in Baker-street, in orderto dine with Lord Steyne and the little French party at the Star andGarter--the bishop he accepted, because, though the dinner was slow heliked to dine with bishops--and so went through his list and disposedof them according to his fancy or interest. Then he took his breakfastand looked over the paper, the gazette, the births and deaths, and thefashionable intelligence, to see that his name was down among the guestsat my Lord So-and-so's fete, and in the intervals of these occupationscarried on cheerful conversation with his acquaintances about the room.
Among the letters which formed Major Pendennis's budget for that morningthere was only one unread, and which lay solitary and apart from all thefashionable London letters, with a country postmark and a homely seal.The superscription was in a pretty, delicate female hand, and thoughmarked "Immediate" by the fair writer, with a strong dash of anxietyunder the word, yet the major had, for reasons of his own, neglected upto the present moment his humble rural petitioner, who to be sure couldhardly hope to get a hearing among so many grand folks who attended hislevee. The fact was, this was a letter from a female relative ofPendennis, and while the grandees of her brother's acquaintance werereceived and got their interview, and drove off, as it were, the patientcountry letter remained for a long time waiting for an audience in theante-chamber under the slop-basin.
At last it came to be this letter's turn, and the major broke a sealwith "Fairoaks" engraved upon it, and "Clavering St. Mary's" for apost-mark. It was a double letter, and the major commenced perusing theenvelope before he attacked the inner epistle.
"Is it a letter from another _Jook_?" growled Mr. Glowry, inwardly,"Pendennis would not be leaving that to the last, I'm thinking."
"My dear Major Pendennis," the letter ran, "I beg and implore you tocome to me _immediately_"--very likely, thought Pendennis, and Steyne'sdinner to-day--"I am in the very greatest grief and perplexity. Mydearest boy, who has been hitherto every thing the fondest mother couldwish, is grieving me _dreadfully_. He has formed--I can hardly writeit--a passion, an infatuation,"--the major grinned--"for an actresswho has been performing here. She is at least twelve years older thanArthur--who will not be eighteen till next February--and the wretchedboy insists upon marrying her."
"Hay! What's making Pendennis swear now?"--Mr. Glowry asked of himself,for rage and wonder were concentrated in the major's open mouth, as heread this astounding announcement.
"Do, my dear friend," the grief-stricken lady went on, "come to meinstantly on the receipt of this; and, as Arthur's guardian, entreat,command, the wretched child to give up this most deplorable resolution."And, after more entreaties to the above effect, the writer concludedby signing herself the major's "unhappy affectionate sister, HelenPendennis."
"Fairoaks, Tuesday"--the major concluded, reading the last words ofthe letter--"A d--d pretty business at Fairoaks, Tuesday; now let ussee what the boy has to say;" and he took the other letter, which waswritten in a great floundering boy's hand, and sealed with the largesignet of the Pendennises, even larger than the major's own, and withsupplementary wax sputtered all round the seal, in token of the writer'stremulousness and agitation.
The epistle ran thus--
"Fairoaks, "_Monday, Midnight_.
"My dear Uncle,
"In informing you of my engagement with Miss Costigan, daughter of J. Chesterfield Costigan Esq., of Costiganstown, but, perhaps, better known to you under her professional name of Miss Fotheringay, of the Theaters Royal Drury Lane and Crow-street, and of the Norwich and Welsh Circuit, I am aware that I make an announcement which can not, according to the present prejudices of society, at least, be welcome to my family. My dearest mother, on whom, God knows I would wish to inflict no needless pain, is deeply moved and grieved, I am sorry to say, by the intelligence which I have this night conveyed to her. I beseech you, my dear sir, to come down and reason with her, and console her. Although obliged by poverty to earn an honorable maintenance by the exercise of her splendid talents, Miss Costigan's family is as ancient and noble as our own. When our ancestor, Ralph Pendennis, landed with Richard II. in Ireland, my Emil
y's forefathers were kings of that country. I have the information from Mr. Costigan, who, like yourself, is a military man.
"It is in vain I have attempted to argue with my dear mother, and prove to her that a young lady of irreproachable character and lineage, endowed with the most splendid gifts of beauty and genius, who devotes herself to the exercise of one of the noblest professions, for the sacred purpose of maintaining her family, is a being whom we should all love and reverence, rather than avoid;--my poor mother has prejudices which it is impossible for my logic to overcome, and refuses to welcome to her arms one who is disposed to be her most affectionate daughter through life.
"Although Miss Costigan is some years older than myself, that circumstance does not operate as a barrier to my affection, and I am sure will not influence its duration. A love like mine, sir, I feel, is contracted once and for ever. As I never had dreamed of love until I saw her--I feel now that I shall die without ever knowing another passion. It is the fate of my life. It was Miss C.'s own delicacy which suggested that the difference of age, which I never felt, might operate as a bar to our union. But having loved once, I should despise myself, and be unworthy of my name as a gentleman, if I hesitated to abide by my passion: if I did not give all where I felt all, and endow the woman who loves me fondly with my whole heart and my whole fortune.
"I press for a speedy marriage with my Emily--for why, in truth, should it be delayed? A delay implies a doubt, which I cast from me as unworthy. It is impossible that my sentiments can change toward Emily--that at any age she can be any thing but the sole object of my love. Why, then, wait? I entreat you, my dear uncle, to come down and reconcile my dear mother to our union, and I address you as a man of the world, _qui mores hominum multorum vidit et urbes_, who will not feel any of the weak scruples and fears which agitate a lady who has scarcely ever left her village.
"Pray come down to us immediately. I am quite confident that--apart from considerations of fortune--you will admire and approve of my Emily.
"Your affectionate Nephew.
"ARTHUR PENDENNIS, Jr."
When the major had concluded the perusal of this letter, hiscountenance assumed an expression of such rage and horror that Glowrythe surgeon-official, felt in his pocket for his lancet, which he alwayscarried in his card-case, and thought his respected friend was goinginto a fit. The intelligence was indeed sufficient to agitate Pendennis.The head of the Pendennises going to marry an actress ten years hissenior--a headstrong boy going to plunge into matrimony. "The mother hasspoiled the young rascal," groaned the major inwardly, "with her cursedsentimentality and romantic rubbish. My nephew marry a tragedy queen!Gracious mercy, people will laugh at me so that I shall not dare showmy head!" And he thought with an inexpressible pang that he must giveup Lord Steyne's dinner at Richmond, and must lose his rest and pass thenight in an abominable tight mail-coach, instead of taking pleasure,as he had promised himself, in some of the most agreeable and selectsociety in England.
And he must not only give up this but all other engagements for sometime to come. Who knows how long the business might detain him. Hequitted his breakfast table for the adjoining writing-room, and thereruefully wrote off refusals to the marquis, the earl, the bishop, andall his entertainers; and he ordered his servant to take places inthe mail-coach for that evening, of course charging the sum which hedisbursed for the seats to the account of the widow and the youngscapegrace of whom he was guardian.