The Adventures of Philip

thing, and she led me down to my cousin; and??Captain Woolcomb, I think, is your

  name, sir?"

  As Philip curls his moustache and smiles blandly, Captain Woolcomb pulls his and

  scowls fiercely. "Yes, sir," he mutters, "my name is Woolcomb." Another bow and

  a touch of the hat from Mr. Firmin. A touch? ??a gracious wave of the hat;

  acknowledged by no means so gracefully by Captain Woolcomb.

  To these remarks, Mrs. Penfold says, "Oh!" In fact, "Oh!" is about the best

  thing that could be said under the circumstances.

  "My cousin, Miss Twysden, looks so pale because she was out very late dancing

  last night. I hear it was a very pretty ball. But ought she to keep such late

  hours, Mrs. Penfold, with her delicate health? Indeed, you ought not, Agnes!

  Ought she to keep late hours, Brownie? There??don't, you little foolish thing! I

  gave my cousin the dog: and she's very fond of me?? the dog is??still. You were

  saying, Captain Woolcomb, when I came up, that you would give Miss Twysden a dog

  on whose nose you could hang your??I beg pardon?"

  Mr. Woolcomb, as Philip made this second allusion to the peculiar nasal

  formation of the pug, ground his little white teeth together, and let slip a

  most improper monosyllable. More acute bronchial suffering was manifested on the

  part of Miss Twysden. Mrs. Penfold said, "The day is clouding over. I think,

  Agnes, I will have my chair, and go home."

  "May I be allowed to walk with you as far as your house?" says Philip, twiddling

  a little locket which he wore at his watch-chain. It was a little gold locket,

  with a little pale hair inside. Whose hair could it have been that was so pale

  and fine? As for the pretty hieroglyphical A. T. at the back, those letters

  might indicate Alfred Tennyson, or Anthony Trollope, who might have given a lock

  of their golden hair to Philip, for I know he is an admirer of their works.

  Agnes looked guiltily at the little locket. Captain Woolcomb pulled his

  moustache so, that you would have thought he would have pulled it off; and his

  opal eyes glared with fearful confusion and wrath.

  "Will you please to fall back and let me speak to you, Agnes? Pardon me, Captain

  Woolcomb, I have a private message for my cousin; and I came from London

  expressly to deliver it."

  "If Miss Twysden desires me to withdraw, I fall back in one moment," says the

  captain, clenching the little lemon-coloured gloves.

  "My cousin and I have lived together all our lives, and I bring her a family

  message. Have you any particular claim to hear it, Captain Woolcomb?"

  "Not if Miss Twysden don't want me hear it. ... D??the little brute."

  "Don't kick poor little harmless Brownie! He shan't kick you, shall he,

  Brownie?"

  "If the brute comes between my shins, I'll kick her!" shrieks the captain. "Hang

  her, I'll throw her into the sea!"

  "Whatever you do to my dog, I swear I will do to you!" whispers Philip to the

  captain.

  "Where are you staying?" shrieks the captain. "Hang you, you shall hear from

  me."

  "Quiet??Bedford Hotel. Easy, or I shall think you want the ladies to overhear."

  "Your conduct is horrible, sir," says Agnes, rapidly, in the French language.

  "Mr. does not comprehend it."

  "??it! If you have any secrets to talk, I'll withdraw fast enough, Miss Agnes,"

  says Othello.

  "Oh, Grenville! can I have any secrets from you? Mr. Firmin is my first-cousin.

  We have lived together all our lives. Philip, I??I don't know whether mamma

  announced to you my??my engagement with Captain Grenville Woolcomb." The

  agitation has brought on another severe bronchial attack. Poor, poor little

  Agnes! What it is to have a delicate throat!

  The pier tosses up to the skies, as though it had left its moorings??the houses

  on the cliff dance and reel, as though an earthquake was driving them??the sea

  walks up into the lodging-houses??and Philip's legs are failing from under him:

  it is only for a moment. When you have a large, tough double tooth out, doesn't

  the chair go up to the ceiling, and your head come off too? But, in the next

  instant, there is a grave gentleman before you, making you a bow, and concealing

  something in his right sleeve. The crash is over. You are a man again. Philip

  clutches hold of the chain pier for a minute: it does not sink under him. The

  houses, after reeling for a second or two, reassume the perpendicular, and bulge

  their bow windows towards the main. He can see the people looking from the

  windows, the carriages passing, Professor Spurrier riding on the cliff with

  eighteen young ladies, his pupils. In long after days he remembers those absurd

  little incidents with a curious tenacity.

  "This news, "Philip says, "was not??not altogether unexpected. I congratulate my

  cousin, I am sure. Captain Woolcomb, had I known this for certain, I am sure I

  should not have interrupted you. You were going, perhaps, to ask me to your

  hospitable house, Mrs. Penfold?"

  "Was she though?" cries the captain.

  "I have asked a friend to dine with me at the Bedford, and shall go to town, I

  hope, in the morning. Can I take anything for you, Agnes? Good-by:" and he

  kisses his hand in quite a d?gag? manner, as Mrs. Penfold's chair turns eastward

  and he goes to the west. Silently the tall Agnes sweeps along, a fair hand laid

  upon her friend's chair.

  It's over! it's over! She has done it. He was bound, and kept his honour, but

  she did not: it was she who forsook him. And I fear very much Mr. Philip's heart

  leaps with pleasure and an immense sensation of relief at thinking he is free.

  He meets half a dozen acquaintances on the cliff. He laughs, jokes, shakes

  hands, invites two or three to dinner in the gayest manner. He sits down on that

  green, not very far from his inn, and is laughing to himself, when he suddenly

  feels something nestling at his knee,??rubbing, and nestling, and whining

  plaintively. "What, is that you?" It is little Brownie, who has followed him.

  Poor little rogue!

  Then Philip bent down his head over the dog, and as it jumped on him, with

  little bleats, and whines, and innocent caresses, he broke out into a sob, and a

  great refreshing rain of tears fell from his eyes. Such a little illness! Such a

  mild fever! Such a speedy cure! Some people have the complaint so mildly that

  they are scarcely ever kept to their beds. Some bear its scars for ever.

  Philip sat resolutely at the hotel all night, having given special orders to the

  porter to say that he was at home, in case any gentleman should call. He had a

  faint hope, he afterwards owned, that some friend of Captain Woolcomb might wait

  on him on that officer's part. He had a faint hope that a letter might come

  explaining that treason,??as people will have a sick, gnawing, yearning, foolish

  desire for letters??letters which contain nothing, which never did contain

  anything ??letters which, nevertheless, you?? You know, in fact, about those

  letters, and there is no earthly use in asking to read Philip's. Have we not all

  read those love-letters which, after love-quarrels, come into court sometimes?

  We have all re
ad them; and how many have written them? Nine o'clock. Ten

  o'clock. Eleven o'clock. No challenge from the captain; no explanation from

  Agnes. Philip declares he slept perfectly well. But poor little Brownie the dog

  made a piteous howling all night in the stables. She was not a well-bred dog.

  You could not have hung the least hat on her nose.

  We compared anon our dear Agnes to a Brahmin lady, meekly offering herself up to

  sacrifice according to the practice used in her highly respectable caste. Did we

  speak in anger or in sorrow???surely in terms of respectful grief and sympathy.

  And if we pity her, ought we not likewise to pity her highly respectable

  parents? When the notorious Brutus ordered his sons to execution, you can't

  suppose he was such a brute as to be pleased? All three parties suffered by the

  transaction: the sons, probably, even more than their austere father; but it

  stands to reason that the whole trio were very melancholy. At least, were I a

  poet or musical composer depicting that business, I certainly should make them

  so:??the sons, piping in a very minor key indeed; the father's manly basso,

  accompanied by deep wind instruments, and interrupted by appropriate sobs.

  Though pretty fair Agnes is being led to execution, I don't suppose she likes

  it, or that her parents are happy, who are compelled to order the tragedy.

  That the rich young proprietor of Mangrove Hall should be fond of her, was

  merely a coincidence, Mrs. Twysden afterwards always averred. Not for mere

  wealth??ah, no! not for mines of gold??would they sacrifice their darling child.

  But when that sad Firmin affair happened, you see it also happened that Captain

  Woolcomb was much struck by dear Agnes, whom he met everywhere. Her scapegrace

  of a cousin would go nowhere. He preferred his bachelor associates, and horrible

  smoking and drinking habits, to the amusements and pleasures of more refined

  society. He neglected Agnes. There is not the slightest doubt he neglected and

  mortified her, and his wilful and frequent absence showed how little he cared

  for her. Would you blame the dear girl for coldness to a man who himself showed

  such indifference to her? "No, my good Mrs. Candour. Had Mr. Firmin been ten

  times as rich as Mr. Woolcomb, I should have counselled my child to refuse him.

  I take the responsibility of the measure entirely on myself??I, and her father,

  and her brother." So Mrs. Twysden afterwards spoke, in circles where an absurd

  and odious rumour ran, that the Twysdens had forced their daughter to jilt young

  Mr. Firmin in order to marry a young quadroon. People will talk, you know, de

  me, de te. If Woolcomb's dinners had not gone off so after his marriage, I have

  little doubt the scandal would have died away, and he and his wife might have

  been pretty generally respected and visited.

  Nor must you suppose, as we have said, that dear Agnes gave up her first love

  without a pang. That bronchitis showed how acutely the poor thing felt her

  position. It broke out very soon after Mr. Woolcomb's attentions became a little

  particular; and she actually left London in consequence. It is true that he

  could follow her without difficulty, but so, for the matter of that, could

  Philip, as we have seen, when he came down and behaved so rudely to Captain

  Woolcomb. And before Philip came, poor Agnes could plead, "My father pressed me

  sair," as in the case of the notorious Mrs. Robin Gray.

  Father and mother both pressed her sair. Mrs. Twysden, I think I have mentioned,

  wrote an admirable letter, and was aware of her accomplishment. She used to

  write reams of gossip regularly every week to dear uncle Ringwood when he was in

  the country: and when her daughter Blanche married, she is said to have written

  several of her new son's sermons. As a Christian mother, was she not to give her

  daughter her advice at this momentous period of her life? That advice went

  against poor Philip's chances with his cousin, who was kept acquainted with all

  the circumstances of the controversy of which we have just seen the issue. I do

  not mean to say that Mrs. Twysden gave an impartial statement of case. What

  parties in a lawsuit do speak impartily on their own side or their adversaries'?

  Mrs. Twysden's view, as I have learned subsequently, and as imparted to her

  daughter, was this:?? That most unprincipled man, Dr. Firmin, who had already

  attempted, and unjustly, to deprive the Twysdens of a part of their property,

  had commenced in quite early life his career of outrage and wickedness against

  the Ringwood family. He had led dear Lord Ringwood's son, poor dear Lord

  Cinqbars, into a career of vice and extravagance which caused the premature

  death of that unfortunate young nobleman. Mr. Firmin had then made a marriage,

  in spite of the tears and entreaties of Mrs. Twysden, with her late unhappy

  sister, whose whole life had been made wretched by the doctor's conduct. But the

  climax of outrage and wickedness was, that when he??he, a low, penniless

  adventurer??married Colonel Ringwood's daughter, he was married already, as

  could be sworn by the repentant clergyman who had been forced, by threats of

  punishment which Dr. Firmin held over him, to perform the rite! "The mind"??Mrs.

  Talbot Twysden's fine mind??"shuddered at the thought of such wickedness." But

  most of all (for to think ill of any one whom she had once loved gave her pain)

  there was reason to believe that the unhappy Philip Firmin was his father's

  accomplice, and that he knew of his own illegitimacy, which he was determined to

  set aside by any fraud or artifice??(she trembled, she wept to have to say this:

  O heaven! that there should be such perversity in thy creatures!) And so little

  store did Philip set by his mother's honour, that he actually visited the

  abandoned woman who acquiesced in her own infamy, and had brought such

  unspeakable disgrace on the Ringwood family! The thought of this crime had

  caused Mrs. Twysden and her dear husband nights of sleepless anguish??had made

  them years and years older ??had stricken their hearts with a grief which must

  endure to the end of their days. With people so unscrupulous, so grasping, so

  artful as Dr. Firmin and (must she say?) his son, they were bound to be on their

  guard; and though they had avoided Philip, she had deemed it right, on the rare

  occasions when she and the young man whom she must now call her illegitimate

  nephew met, to behave as though she knew nothing of this most dreadful

  controversy.

  "And now, dearest child" ... Surely the moral is obvious? The dearest child

  "must see at once that any foolish plans which were formed in childish days and

  under former delusions must be cast aside for ever as impossible, as unworthy of

  a Twysden??of a Ringwood. Be not concerned for the young man himself," wrote

  Mrs. Twysden??"I blush that he should bear that dear father's name who was slain

  in honour on Busaco's glorious field. P. F. has associates amongst whom he has

  ever been much more at home than in our refined circle, and habits which will

  cause him to forget you only too easily. And if near you is one whose ardour

  shows itself in his every word and action, whose
wealth and property may raise

  you to a place worthy of my child, need I say, a mother's, a father's blessing

  go with you." This letter was brought to Miss Twysden, at Brighton, by a special

  messenger; and the superscription announced that it was "honoured by Captain

  Grenville Woolcomb."

  Now when Miss Agnes has had a letter to this effect, from a mother in whose

  prudence and affection a child could surely confide; when she remembers all the

  abuse her brother lavishes against Philip, as, heaven bless some of them! dear

  relatives can best do; when she thinks how cold he has of late been??how he will

  come smelling of cigars??how he won't conform to the usages du monde, and has

  neglected all the decencies of society??how she often can't understand his

  strange rhapsodies about poetry, painting, and the like, nor how he can live

  with such associates as those who seem to delight him??and now how he is showing

  himself actually unprincipled and abetting his horrid father; when we consider

  mither pressing sair, and all these points in mither's favour, I don't think we

  can order Agnes to instant execution for the resolution to which she is coming.

  She will give him up??she will give him up. Good-by, Philip. Good-by the past.

  Be forgotten, be forgotten, fond words spoken in not unwilling ears! Be still

  and breathe not, eager lips, that have trembled so near to one another! Unlock,

  hands, and part for ever, that seemed to be formed for life's long journey! Ah,

  to part for ever is hard; but harder and more humiliating still to part without

  regret!

  That papa and mamma had influenced Miss Twysden in her behaviour my wife and I

  could easily imagine, when Philip, in his wrath and grief, came to us and poured

  out the feelings of his heart. My wife is a repository of men's secrets, and

  untiring consoler and comforter; and she knows many a sad story which we are not

  at liberty to tell, like this one of which this person, Mr. Firmin, has given us

  possession.

  "Father and mother's orders," shouts Philip, "I daresay, Mrs. Pendennis; but the

  wish was father to the thought of parting, and it was for the blackamoor's parks

  and acres that the girl jilted me. Look here. I told you just now that I slept

  perfectly well on that infernal night after I had said farewell to her. Well, I

  didn't. It was a lie. I walked ever so many times the whole length of the cliff,

  from Hove to Rottingdean almost, and then went to bed afterwards, and slept a

  little out of sheer fatigue. And as I was passing by Horizontal Place (??I

  happened to pass by there two or three times in the moonlight, like a great

  jackass??) you know those verses of mine which I have hummed here sometimes?"

  (hummed! he used to roar them!) "'When the locks of burnished gold, lady, shall

  to silver turn!' Never mind the rest. You know the verses about fidelity and old

  age? She was singing them on that night, to that negro. And I heard the beggar's

  voice say, 'Bravo!' through the open windows."

  "Ah, Philip! it was cruel," says my wife, heartily pitying our friend's anguish

  and misfortune. "It was cruel indeed. I am sure we can feel for you. But think

  what certain misery a marriage with such a person would have been! Think of your

  warm heart given away for ever to that heartless creature."

  "Laura, Laura, have you not often warned me not to speak ill of people?" says

  Laura's husband.

  "I can't help it sometimes," cries Laura in a transport. "I try and do my best

  not to speak ill of my neighbours; but the worldliness of those people shocks me

  so that I can't bear to be near them. They are so utterly tied and bound by

  conventionalities, so perfectly convinced of their own excessive high-breeding,

  that they seem to me more odious and more vulgar than quite low people; and I am

  sure Mr. Philip's friend, the Little Sister, is infinitely more ladylike than