A History of Pendennis. Volume 1. His fortunes and misfortunes, his friends and his greatest enemy. Thackeray William Makepeace

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СКАЧАТЬ set off so as to be in time for the Competitor down coach, staid a couple of hours in Chatteries, and returned on the Rival which left for London at ten at night. Once his secret was nearly lost by Smirke's simplicity, of whom Mrs. Pendennis asked whether they had read a great deal the night before, or a question to that effect. Smirke was about to tell the truth, that he had never seen Mr. Pen at all, when the latter's boot-heel came grinding down on Mr. Smirke's toe under the table, and warned the curate not to betray him.

      They had had conversations on the tender subject of course. It is good sport (if you are not yourself engaged in the conversation) to hear two men in love talk. There must be a confidant and depositary somewhere. When informed, under the most solemn vows of secrecy, of Pen's condition of mind, the curate said, with no small tremor, "that he hoped it was no unworthy object – no unlawful attachment, which Pen had formed" – for if so, the poor fellow felt it would be his duty to break his vow and inform Pen's mother, and then there would be a quarrel, he felt, with sickening apprehension, and he would never again have a chance of seeing what he most liked in the world.

      "Unlawful, unworthy!" Pen bounced out at the curate's question. "She is as pure as she is beautiful; I would give my heart to no other woman. I keep the matter a secret in my family, because – because – there are reasons of a weighty nature which I am not at liberty to disclose. But any man who breathes a word against her purity insults both her honor and mine, and – and dammy, I won't stand it."

      Smirke, with a faint laugh, only said, "Well, well, don't call me out, Arthur, for you know I can't fight;" but by this compromise the wretched curate was put more than ever into the power of his pupil, and the Greek and mathematics suffered correspondingly.

      If the reverend gentleman had had much discernment, and looked into the poet's corner of the County Chronicle, as it arrived in the Wednesday's bag, he might have seen "Mrs. Haller," "Passion and Genius," "Lines to Miss Fotheringay, of the Theater Royal," appearing every week; and other verses of the most gloomy, thrilling, and passionate cast. But as these poems were no longer signed NEP. by their artful composer, but subscribed EROS; neither the tutor nor Helen, the good soul, who cut all her son's verses out of the paper, knew that Nep. was no other than that flaming Eros, who sang so vehemently the character of the new actress.

      "Who is the lady," at last asked Mrs. Pendennis, "whom your rival is always singing in the County Chronicle. He writes something like you, dear Pen, but yours is much the best. Have you seen Miss Fotheringay?"

      Pen said yes, he had; that night he went to see the "Stranger," she acted Mrs. Haller. By the way she was going to have a benefit, and was to appear in Ophelia – suppose we were to go – Shakspeare you know, mother – we can get horses from the Clavering Arms. Little Laura sprang up with delight, she longed for a play.

      Pen introduced "Shakspeare you know," because the deceased Pendennis, as became a man of his character, professed an uncommon respect for the bard of Avon, in whose works he safely said there was more poetry than in all "Johnson's Poets" put together. And though Mr. Pendennis did not much read the works in question, yet he enjoined Pen to peruse them, and often said what pleasure he should have, when the boy was of a proper age, in taking him and his mother to see some good plays of the immortal poet.

      The ready tears welled up in the kind mother's eyes as she remembered these speeches of the man who was gone. She kissed her son fondly, and said she would go. Laura jumped for joy. Was Pen happy? – was he ashamed? As he held his mother to him, he longed to tell her all, but he kept his counsel. He would see how his mother liked her; the play should be the thing, and he would try his mother like Hamlet's.

      Helen, in her good humor, asked Mr. Smirke to be of the party. That ecclesiastic had been bred up by a fond parent at Clapham, who had an objection to dramatic entertainments, and he had never yet seen a play. But, Shakspeare! – but to go with Mrs. Pendennis in her carriage, and sit a whole night by her side! – he could not resist the idea of so much pleasure, and made a feeble speech, in which he spoke of temptation and gratitude, and finally accepted Mrs. Pendennis's most kind offer. As he spoke he gave her a look, which made her exceedingly uncomfortable. She had seen that look more than once, of late, pursuing her. He became more positively odious every day in the widow's eyes.

      We are not going to say a great deal about Pen's courtship of Miss Fotheringay, for the reader has already had a specimen of her conversation, much of which need surely not be reported. Pen sate with her hour after hour, and poured forth all his honest boyish soul to her. Every thing he knew, or hoped, or felt, or had read, or fancied, he told to her. He never tired of talking and longing. One after another, as his thoughts rose in his hot eager brain, he clothed them in words, and told them to her. Her part of the tête-à-tête was not to talk, but to appear as if she understood what Pen talked (a difficult matter, for the young fellow blurted out no small quantity of nonsense), and to look exceedingly handsome and sympathizing. The fact is, while he was making one of his tirades – and delighted, perhaps, and wondering at his own eloquence, the lad would go on for twenty minutes at a time – the lovely Emily, who could not comprehend a tenth part of his talk, had leisure to think about her own affairs, and would arrange, in her own mind how they should dress the cold mutton, or how she would turn the black satin, or make herself out of her scarf a bonnet like Miss Thackthwaite's new one, and so forth. Pen spouted Byron and Moore; passion and poetry: her business was to throw up her eyes, or fixing them for a moment on his face, to cry, "Oh, 'tis beautiful! Ah, how exquisite! Repeat those lines again." And off the boy went, and she returned to her own simple thoughts about the turned gown, or the hashed mutton.

      In fact Pen's passion was not long a secret from the lovely Emily or her father. Upon his second visit, his admiration was quite evident to both of them, and on his departure the old gentleman said to his daughter, as he winked at her over his glass of grog, "Faith, Milly darling, I think ye've hooked that chap."

      "Pooh, 'tis only a boy, papa dear," Milly remarked. "Sure he's but a child." Pen would have been very much pleased if he had heard that phrase – he was galloping home wild with pleasure, and shouting out her name as he rode.

      "Ye've hooked 'um any how," said the captain, "and let me tell ye he's not a bad fish. I asked Tom at the George, and Flint, the grocer, where his mother dales – fine fortune – drives in her chariot – splendid park and grounds – Fairoaks Park – only son – property all his own at twenty-one – ye might go further and not fare so well, Miss Fotheringay."

      "Them boys are mostly talk," said Milly, seriously. "Ye know at Dublin how ye went on about young Poldoody, and I've a whole desk full of verses he wrote me when he was in Trinity College; but he went abroad, and his mother married him to an Englishwoman."

      "Lord Poldoody was a young nobleman; and in them it's natural: and ye weren't in the position in which ye are now, Milly dear. But ye mustn't encourage this young chap too much, for, bedad, Jack Costigan wont have any thrifling with his daughter."

      "No more will his daughter, papa, you may be sure of that," Milly said. "A little sip more of the punch – sure, 'tis beautiful. Ye needn't be afraid about the young chap – I think I'm old enough to take care of myself, Captain Costigan."

      So Pen used to come day after day, rushing in and galloping away, and growing more wild about the girl with every visit. Sometimes the captain was present at their meetings; but having a perfect confidence in his daughter, he was more often inclined to leave the young couple to themselves, and cocked his hat over his eye, and strutted off on some errand when Pen entered. How delightful these interviews were! The captain's drawing-room was a low wainscoted room, with a large window looking into the dean's garden. There Pen sate and talked – and talked to Emily, looking beautiful as she sate at her work – looking beautiful and calm, and the sunshine came streaming in at the great windows, and lighted up her superb face and form. In the midst of the conversation, the great bell would begin to boom, and he would pause, smiling, and be silent until the sound of the vast music died away – or the rooks СКАЧАТЬ