his dreary aunt or either of his supercilious cousins!" Upon my word, when this
lady did speak her mind, there was no mistaking her meaning.
I believe Mr. Firmin took a considerable number of people into his confidence
regarding this love affair. He is one of those individuals who can't keep their
secrets; and when hurt he roars so loudly that all his friends can hear. It has
been remarked that the sorrows of such persons do not endure very long; nor
surely was there any great need in this instance that Philip's heart should wear
a lengthened mourning. Ere long he smoked his pipes, he played his billiards, he
shouted his songs; he rode in the Park for the pleasure of severely cutting his
aunt and cousins when their open carriage passed, or of riding down Captain
Woolcomb or his cousin Ringwood, should either of those worthies come in his
way.
One day, when the old Lord Ringwood came to town for his accustomed spring
visit, Philip condescended to wait upon him, and was announced to his lordship
just as Talbot Twysden and Ringwood his son were taking leave of their noble
kinsman. Philip looked at them with a flashing eye and a distended nostril,
according to his swaggering wont. I daresay they on their part bore a very mean
and hangdog appearance; for my lord laughed at their discomfiture, and seemed
immensely amused as they slunk out of the door when Philip came hectoring in.
"So, sir, there has been a family row. Heard all about it: at least, their side.
Your father did me the favour to marry my niece, having another wife already?"
"Having no other wife already, sir??though my dear relations wish to show that
he had."
"Wanted your money; thirty thousand pounds is not a trifle. Ten thousand apiece
for those children. And no more need of any confounded pinching and scraping, as
they have to do at Beaunash Street. Affair off between you and Agnes? Absurd
affair. So much the better."
"Yes, sir, so much the better."
"Have ten thousand apiece. Would have twenty thousand if they got yours. Quite
natural to want it."
"Quite."
"Woolcomb a sort of negro, I understand. Fine property here: besides the West
India rubbish. Violent man??so people tell me. Luckily Agnes seems a cool,
easy-going woman, and must put up with the rough as well as the smooth in
marrying a property like that. Very lucky for you that that woman persists there
was no marriage with your father. Twysden says the doctor bribed her. Take it
he's not got much money to bribe, unless you gave some of yours."
"I don't bribe people to bear false witness, my lord?? and if??
"Don't be in a huff; I didn't say so. Twysden says so??perhaps thinks so. When
people are at law they believe anything of one another."
"I don't know what other people may do, sir. If I had another man's money, I
should not be easy until I had paid him back. Had my share of my grandfather's
property not been lawfully mine??and for a few hours I thought it was
not??please God, I would have given it up to its rightful owners??at least, my
father would."
"Why, hang it all, man, you don't mean to say your father has not settled with
you?"
Philip blushed a little. He had been rather surprised that there had been no
settlement between him and his father.
"I am only of age a few months, sir. I am not under any apprehension. I get my
dividends regularly enough. One of my grandfather's trustees, General Baynes, is
in India. He is to return almost immediately, or we should have sent a power of
attorney out to him. There's no hurry about the business."
Philip's maternal grandfather, and Lord Ringwood's brother, the late Colonel
Philip Ringwood, had died possessed of but trifling property of his own; but his
wife had brought him a fortune of sixty thousand pounds, which was settled on
their children, and in the names of trustees??Mr. Briggs, a lawyer, and Colonel
Baynes, an East India officer, and friend of Mrs. Philip Ringwood's family.
Colonel Baynes had been in England some eight years before; and Philip
remembered a kind old gentleman coming to see him at school, and leaving tokens
of his bounty behind. The other trustee, Mr. Briggs, a lawyer of considerable
county reputation, was dead long since, having left his affairs in an involved
condition. During the trustee's absence and the son's minority, Philip's father
received the dividends on his son's property, and liberally spent them on the
boy, Indeed, I believe that for some little time at college, and during his
first journeys abroad, Mr. Philip spent rather more than the income of his
maternal inheritance, being freely supplied by his father, who told him not to
stint himself. He was a sumptuous man, Dr.Firmin??openhanded ??subscribing to
many charities??a lover of solemn good cheer. The doctor's dinners and the
doctor's equipages were models in their way; and I remember the sincere respect
with which my uncle the major (the family guide in such matters) used to speak
of Dr. Firmin's taste. "No duchess in London, sir," he would say, "drove better
horses than Mrs. Firmin. Sir George Warrender, sir, could not give a better
dinner, sir, than that to which we sat down yesterday." And for the exercise of
these civic virtues the doctor had the hearty respect of the good major.
"Don't tell me, sir," on the other hand, Lord Ringwood would say; "I dined with
the fellow once??a swaggering fellow, sir; but a servile fellow. The way he
bowed and flattered was perfectly absurd. Those fellows think we like it??and we
may. Even at my age, I like flattery??any quantity of it; and not what you call
delicate, but strong, sir. I like a man to kneel down and kiss my shoestrings. I
have my own opinion of him afterwards, but that is what I like??what all men
like; and that is what Firmin gave in quantities. But you could see that his
house was monstrously expensive. His dinner was excellent, and you saw it was
good every day??not like your dinners, my good Maria; not like your wines,
Twysden, which, hang it, I can't swallow, unless I send 'em in myself. Even at
my own house, I don't give that kind of wine on common occasions which Firmin
used to give. I drink the best myself, of course, and give it to some who know;
but I don't give it to common fellows, who come to hunting dinners, or to girls
and boys who are dancing at my balls."
"Yes; Mr. Firmin's dinners were very handsome?? and a pretty end came of the
handsome dinners!" sighed Mrs. Twysden.
"That's not the question; I am only speaking about the fellow's meat and drink,
and they were both good. And it's my opinion, that fellow will have a good
dinner wherever he goes."
I had the fortune to be present at one of these feasts, which Lord Ringwood
attended, and at which I met Philip's trustee, General Baynes, who had just
arrived from India. I remember now the smallest details of the little
dinner,??the brightness of the old plate, on which the doctor prided himself,
and the quiet comfort, not to say splendour, of the entertainment. The general
seemed to take a great liking to Philip, whose
grandfather had been his special
friend and comrade in arms. He thought he saw something of Philip Ringwood in
Philip Firmin's face.
"Ah, indeed!" growls Lord Ringwood.
"You ain't a bit like him," says the downright general. "Never saw a handsomer
or more openlooking fellow than Philip Ringwood."
"Oh! I daresay I looked pretty open myself forty years ago," said my lord; "now
I'm shut, I suppose. I don't see the least likeness in this young man to my
brother."
"That is some sherry as old as the century," whispers the host; "it is the same
the Prince Regent liked so at a Mansion House dinner, five-and-twenty years
ago."
"Never knew anything about wine; was always tippling liqueurs and punch. What do
you give for this sherry, doctor?"
The doctor sighed, and looked up to the chandelier. "Drink it while it lasts, my
good lord; but don't ask me the price. The fact is, I don't like to say what I
gave for it."
"You need not stint yourself in the price of sherry, doctor," cries the general
gaily; "you have but one son, and he has a fortune of his own, as I happen to
know. You haven't dipped it, master Philip?"
"I fear, sir, I may have exceeded my income sometimes, in the last three years;
but my father has helped me."
"Exceeded nine hundred a-year! Upon my word! When I was a sub, my friends gave
me fifty pounds a year, and I never was a shilling in debt! What are men coming
to now?"
"If doctors drink Prince Regent's sherry at ten guineas a dozen, what can you
expect of their sons, General Baynes?" grumbles my lord.
"My father gives you his best, my lord," says Philip gaily; "if you know of any
better, he will get it for you. Si non, his utere mecum! Please to pass me that
decanter, Pen!"
I thought the old lord did not seem ill pleased at the young man's freedom; and
now, as I recal it, think I can remember, that a peculiar silence and anxiety
seemed to weigh upon our host??upon him whose face was commonly so anxious and
sad.
The famous sherry, which had made many voyages to Indian climes before it
acquired its exquisite flavour, had travelled some three or four times round the
doctor's polished table, when Brice, his man, entered with a letter on his
silver tray. Perhaps Philip's eyes and mine exchanged glances in which ever so
small a scintilla of mischief might sparkle. The doctor often had letters when
he was entertaining his friends; and his patients had a knack of falling ill at
awkward times.
"Gracious heavens!" cries the doctor, when he read the despatch??it was a
telegraphic message. "The poor Grand Duke!"
"What Grand Duke?" asks the surly lord of Ringwood.
"My earliest patron and friend??the Grand Duke of Groningen! Seized this morning
at eleven at Potzendorff! Has sent for me. I promised to go to him if ever he
had need of me. I must go! I can save the night-train yet. General! our visit to
city must be deferred till my return. Get a portmanteau, Brice; and call a cab
at once. Philip will entertain my friends for the evening. My dear lord, you
won't mind an old doctor leaving you to attend an old patient? I will write from
Groningen. I shall be there on Friday morning. Farewell, gentlemen! Brice,
another bottle of that sherry! I pray, don't let anybody stir! God bless you,
Philip, my boy!" And with this the doctor went up, took his son by the hand, and
laid the other very kindly on the young man's shoulder. Then he made a bow round
the table to his guests??one of his graceful bows, for which he was famous. I
can see the sad smile on his face now, and the light from the chandelier over
the dining-table glancing from his shining forehead, and casting deep shadows on
to his cheek from his heavy brows.
The departure was a little abrupt, and, of course, cast somewhat of a gloom upon
the company.
"My carriage ain't ordered till ten??must go on sitting here, I suppose.
Confounded life doctor's must be! Called up any hour in the night! Get their
fees! Must go!" growled the great man of the party.
"People are glad enough to have them when they are ill, my lord. I think I have
heard that once, when you were at Ryde??"
The great man started back as if a little shock of cold water had fallen on him;
and then looked at Philip with not unfriendly glances. "Treated for gout??so he
did. Very well, too!" said my lord; and whispered, not inaudibly, "Cool hand,
that boy!" And then his lordship fell to talk with General Baynes about his
campaigning, and his early acquaintance with his own brother, Philip's
grandfather.
The general did not care to brag about his own feats of arms, but was loud in
praises of his old comrade. Philip was pleased to hear his grandsire so well
spoken of. The general had known Dr. Firmin's father also, who likewise had been
a colonel in the famous old Peninsular army. "A Tartar that fellow was, and no
mistake!" said the good officer. "Your father has a strong look of him; and you
have a glance of him at times. But you remind me of Philip Ringwood not a
little; and you could not belong to a better man."
"Ha!" says my lord. There has been differences between him and his brother. He
may have been thinking of days when they were friends. Lord Ringwood now
graciously asked if General Baynes was staying in London? But the general had
only come to do this piece of business, which must now be delayed. He was too
poor to live in London. He must look out for a country place, where he and his
children could live cheaply. "Three boys at school, and one at college, Mr.
Philip??you know what that must cost; though, thank my stars, my college boy
does not spend nine hundred a year. Nine hundred! Where should we be if he did?"
In fact, the days of nabobs are long over, and the general had come back to his
native country with only very small means for the support of a great family.
When my lord's carriage came, he departed, and the other guests presently took
their leave. The general, who was a bachelor for the nonce, remained awhile, and
we three prattled over cheroots in Philip's smokingroom. It was a night like a
hundred I have spent there, and yet how well I remember it! We talked about
Philip's future prospects, and he communicated his intentions to us in his
lordly way. As for practising at the bar: No, sir! he said, in reply to General
Baynes' queries, he should not make much hand of that: shouldn't if he were ever
so poor. He had his own money, and his father's, and he condescended to say that
he might, perhaps, try for Parliament, should an eligible opportunity offer.
"Here's a fellow born with a silver spoon in his mouth," says the general, as we
walked away together. "A fortune to begin with; a fortune to inherit. My fortune
was two thousand pounds and the price of my two first commissions; and when I
die my children will not be quite so well off as their father was when he
began!"
Having parted with the old officer at his modest sleeping quarters near his
club, I walked to my own home, little thinking that
yonder cigar, of which I had
shaken some of ashes in Philip's smoking-room, was to be the last tobacco I ever
should smoke there. The pipe was smoked out. The wine was drunk. When that door
closed on me, it closed for the last time??at least, was never more to admit me
as Philip's, as Dr. Firmin's, guest and friend. I pass the place often now. My
youth comes back to me as I gaze at those blank, shining windows. I see myself a
boy, and Philip a child; and his fair mother; and his father, the hospitable,
the melancholy, the magnificent. I wish I could have helped him. I wish somehow
he had borrowed money. He never did. He gave me his often. I have never seen him
since that night when his own door closed upon him.
On the second day after the doctor's departure, as I was at breakfast with my
family, I received the following letter:??
My dear Pendennis,
Could I have seen you in private on Tuesday night, I might have warned you of
the calamity which was hanging over my house. But to what good end? That you
should know a few weeks, hours before, what all the world will ring with
to-morrow? Neither you nor I, nor one whom we both love, would have been the
happier for knowing my misfortunes a few hours sooner. In four-and-twenty hours
every club in London will be busy with talk of the departure of the celebrated
Dr. Firmin??the wealthy Dr. Firmin; a few months more and (I have strict and
confidential reason to believe) hereditary rank would have been mine, but Sir
George Firmin would have been an insolvent man, and his son Sir Philip a beggar.
Perhaps the thought of this honour has been one of the reasons which has
determined me on expatriating myself sooner than I otherwise needed to have
done.
George Firmin, the honoured, the wealthy physician, and his son a beggar? I see
you are startled at the news! You wonder how, with a great practice, and no
great ostensible expenses, such ruin should have come upon me??upon him. It has
seemed as if for years past Fate has been determined to make war upon George
Brand Firmin; and who can battle against Fate? A man universally admitted to be
of good judgment, I have embarked in mercantile speculations the most promising.
Everything upon which I laid my hand has crumbled to ruin; but I can say with
the Roman bard, "Impavidum ferient ruin?." And, almost penniless, almost aged,
an exile driven from my country, I seek another where I do not despair??I even
have a firm belief that I small be enabled to repair my shattered fortunes! My
race has never been deficient in courage, and Philip and Philip's father must
use all theirs, so as to be enabled to face the dark times which menace them. Si
celeres quatit pennas Fortuna, we must resign what she gave us, and bear our
calamity with unshaken hearts!
There is a man, I own to you, whom I cannot, I must not face. General Baynes has
just come from India, with but very small savings, I fear; and these are
jeopardized by his imprudence and my most cruel and unexpected misfortune. I
need not tell you that my all would have been my boy's. My will, made long
since, will be found in the tortoiseshell secretaire standing in my
consulting-room under the picture of Abraham offering up Isaac. In it you will
see that everything, except annuities to old and deserving servants and a legacy
to one excellent and faithful woman whom I own I have wronged??my all, which
once was considerable, is left to my boy.
I am now worth less than nothing, and have compromised Philip's property along
with my own. As a man of business, General Baynes, Colonel Ringwood's old
companion in arms, was culpably careless, and I??alas! that I must own
it??deceived him. Being the only surviving trustee (Mrs. Philip Ringwood's other
trustee was an unprincipled attorney who has been long dead), General B. signed
a paper authorizing, as he imagined, my bankers to receive Philip's dividends,
but, in fact, giving me the power to dispose of the capital sum. On my honour,
as a man, as a gentleman, as a father, Pendcnnis, I hoped to replace it! I took