wise as Socrates have their demons, who will be heard and whisper in the
queerest times and places. Perhaps I shall have to tell of a funeral presently,
and shall be outrageously cheerful; or of an execution, and shall split my sides
with laughing. Arrived at my time of life, when I see a penniles young friend
falling in love and thinking of course of committing matrimony, what can I do
but be melancholy? How is a man to marry who has not enough to keep ever so
miniature a brougham??ever so small a house??not enough to keep himself, let
alone a wife and family? Gracious powers! is it not blasphemy to marry without
fifteen hundred a year? Poverty, debt, protested bills, duns, crime, fall
assuredly on the wretch who has not fifteen??say at once two thousand a year;
for you can't live decently in London for less. And a wife whom you have met a
score of times at balls or breakfasts, and with her best dresses and behaviour
at a country house;??how do you know how she will turn out; what her temper is;
what her relations are likely to be? Suppose she has poor relations, or loud
coarse brothers who are always dropping in to dinner? What is her mother like;
and can you bear to have that woman meddling and domineering over your
establishment? Old General Baynes was very well; a weak, quiet, and presentable
old man: but Mrs. General Baynes, and that awful Mrs. Major MacWhirter,??and
those hobbledehoys of boys in creaking shoes, hectoring about the premises? As a
man of the world I saw all these dreadful liabilities impending over the husband
of Miss Charlotte Baynes, and could not view them without horror. Gracefully and
slightly, but wittily and in my sarcastic way, I thought it my duty to show up
the oddities of the Baynes family to Philip. I mimicked the boys, and their
clumping blucher-boots. I touched off the dreadful military ladies, very smartly
and cleverly as I thought, and as if I never supposed that Philip had any idea
of Miss Baynes. To do him justice, he laughed once or twice; then he grew very
red. His sense of humour is very limited; that even Laura allows. Then he came
out with strong expressions, and said it was a confounded shame, and strode off
with his cigar. And when I remarked to my wife how susceptible he was in some
things, and how little in the matter of joking, she shrugged her shoulders and
said, "Philip not only understood perfectly well what I said, but would tell it
all to Mrs. General and Mrs. Major on the first opportunity." And this was the
fact, as Mrs. Baynes took care to tell me afterwards. She was aware who was her
enemy. She was aware who spoke ill of her, and her blessed darling behind our
backs. And "do you think it was to see you or any one belonging to your stuck-up
house, sir, that we came to you so often, which we certainly did, day and night,
breakfast and supper, and no thanks to you? No, sir! ha, ha!" I can see her
flaunting out of my sitting-room as she speaks, with a strident laugh, and
snapping her dingily-gloved fingers at the door. Oh, Philip, Philip! To think
that you were such a coward as to go and tell her! But I pardon him. From my
heart I pity and pardon him.
For the step which he is meditating, you may be sure that the young man himself
does not feel the smallest need of pardon or pity. He is in a state of happiness
so crazy that it is useless to reason with him. Not being at all of a poetical
turn originally, the wretch is actually perpetrating verse in secret, and my
servants found fragments of his manuscript on the dressing-table in his bedroom.
Heart and art, sever and for ever, and so on; what stale rhymes are these? I do
not feel at liberty to give in entire the poem which our maid found in Mr.
Philip's room, and brought sniggering to my wife, who only said, "Poor thing!"
The fact is, it was too pitiable. Such maundering rubbish! Such stale rhymes,
and such old thoughts! But then, says Laura, "I daresay all people's love-making
is not amusing to their neighbours; and I know who wrote not very wise
love-verses when he was young." No, I won't publish Philip's verses, until some
day he shall mortally offend me. I can recal some of my own written under
similar circumstances with twinges of shame; and shall drop a veil of decent
friendship over my friend's folly.
Under that veil, meanwhile, the young man is perfectly contented, nay,
uproariously happy. All earth and nature smile round about him. "When Jove meets
his Juno, in Homer, sir," says Philip, in his hectoring way, "don't immortal
flowers of beauty spring up around them, and rainbows of celestial hues bend
over their heads? Love, sir, flings a halo round the loved one. Where she moves,
rise roses, hyacinths, and ambrosial odours. Don't talk to me about poverty,
sir! He either fears his fate too much or his desert is small, who dares not put
it to the touch and win or lose it all! Haven't I endured poverty? Am I not as
poor now as a man can be??and what is there in it? Do I want for anything?
Haven't I got a guinea in my pocket? Do I owe any man anything? Isn't there
manna in the wilderness for those who have faith to walk in it? That's where you
fail, Pen. By all that is sacred, you have no faith; your heart is cowardly,
sir; and if you are to escape, as perhaps you may, I suspect it is by your wife
that you will be saved. Laura has a trust in heaven, but Arthur's morals are a
genteel atheism. Just reach me that claret??the wine's not bad. I say your
morals are a genteel atheism, and I shudder when I think of your condition. Talk
to me about a brougham being necessary for the comfort of a woman! A broomstick
to ride to the moon! And I don't say that a brougham is not a comfort, mind you;
but that, when it is a necessity, mark you, heaven will provide it! Why, sir,
hang it, look at me! Ain't I suffering in the most abject poverty? I ask you is
there a man in London so poor as I am? And since my father's ruin do I want for
anything? I want for shelter for a day or two. Good. There's my dear Little
Sister ready to give it to me. I want for money. Does not that sainted widow's
cruse pour its oil out for me? Heaven bless and reward her. Boo!" (Here, for
reasons which need not be named, the orator squeezes his fists into his eyes.)
"I want shelter; ain't I in good quarters? I want work; haven't I got work, and
did you not get it for me? You should just see, sir, how I polished off that
book of travels this morning. I read some of the article to Char??, to Miss??,
to some friends, in fact. I don't mean to say that they are very intellectual
people, but your common humdrum average audience is the public to try. Recollect
Moli?re and his housekeeper, you know."
"By the housekeeper, do you mean Mrs. Baynes?" I ask, in my amontillado manner.
(By the way, who ever heard of amontillado in the early days of which I write?)
"In manner she would do, and I daresay in accomplishments; but I doubt her
temper."
"You're almost as wordly as the Twysdens, by George, you are! Unless persons are
of a certain monde, you don't value them. A little adversity would do you good,
Pen; and I heartily wish you might get it, except f
or the dear wife and
children. You measure your morality by May Fair standards; and if an angel
unawares came to you in pattens and a cotton umbrella, you would turn away from
her. You would never have found out the Little Sister. A duchess??God bless her!
A creature of an imperial generosity, and delicacy, and intrepidity, and the
finest sense of humour, but she drops her h's often, and how could you pardon
such a crime? Sir, you are my better in wit and a dexterous application of your
powers; but I think, sir," says Phil, curling the flaming mustachios, "I am your
superior in a certain magnanimity; though, by Jove! old fellow, man and boy, you
have always been one of the best fellows in the world to P. F.; one of the best
fellows, and the most generous, and the most cordial,??that you have: only you
do rile me when you sing in that confounded May Fair twang."
Here one of the children summoned us to tea??and "Papa was laughing, and uncle
Philip was flinging his hands about and pulling his beard off," said the little
messenger.
"I shall keep a fine lock of it for you, Nelly, my dear," says uncle Philip. On
which the child said, "Oh, no! I know to whom you'll give it, don't I, mamma?"
and she goes up to her mamma, and whispers.
Miss Nelly knows? At what age do those little match-makers begin to know, and
how soon do they practise the use of their young eyes, their little smiles,
wiles, and ogles? This young woman, I believe, coquetted whilst she was yet a
baby in arms, over her nurse's shoulder. Before she could speak, she could be
pround of her new vermilion shoes, and would point out the charms of her blue
sash. She was jealous in the nursery, and her little heart had beat for years
and years before she left off pinafores.
For whom will Philip keep a lock of that red, red gold which curls round his
face? Can you guess? Of what colour is the hair in that little locket which the
gentleman himself occultly wears? A few months ago, I believe, a pale,
straw-coloured wisp of hair occupied that place of honour; now it is a
chestnut-brown, as far as I can see, of precisely the same colour as that which
waves round Charlott Baynes' pretty face, and tumbles in clusters on her neck,
very nearly the colour of Mrs. Paynter's this last season. So, you see, we chop
and we change: straw gives place to chestnut, and chestnut is succeeded by
ebony; and, for our own parts, we defy time; and if you want a lock of my hair,
Belinda, take this pair of scissors, and look in that cupboard, in the bandbox
marked No. 3, and cut off a thick glossy piece, darling, and wear it, dear, and
my blessings go with thee! What is this? Am I sneering because Corydon and
Phyllis are wooing and happy? You see I pledged myself not to have any
sentimental nonsense. To describe love-making is immoral and immodest; you know
it is. To describe it as it really is, or would appear to you and me as
lookers-on, would be to describe the most dreary farce, to chronicle the most
tautological twaddle. To take a note of sighs, hand-squeezes, looks at the moon,
and so forth??does this business become our dignity as historians? Come away
from those foolish young people??they don't want us; and dreary as their farce
is, and tautological as their twaddle, you may be sure it amuses them, and that
they are happy enough without us. Happy? Is there any happiness like it, pray?
Was it not rapture to watch the messenger, to seize the note, and fee the
bearer???to retire out of sight of all prying eyes and read:??"Dearest! Mamma's
cold is better this morning. The Joneses came to tea, and Julia sang. I did not
enjoy it, as my dear was at his horrid dinner, where I hope he amused himself.
Send me a word by Buttles, who brings this, if only to say you are your Louisa's
own, own," That used to be the kind of thing. In such coy lines artless
Innocence used to whisper its little vows. So she used to smile; so she used to
warble; so she used to prattle. Young people, at present engaged in the pretty
sport, be assured your middle-aged parents have played the game, and remember
the rules of it. Yes, under papa's bow-window of a waistcoat is a heart which
took very violent exercise when that waist was slim. Now he sits tranquilly in
his tent, and watches the lads going in for their innings. Why, look at
grandmamma in her spectacles reading that sermon. In her old heart there is a
corner as romantic still as when she used to read the Wild Irish Girl or the
Scottish Chiefs in the days of her misshood. And as for your grandfather, my
dears, to see him now you would little suppose that that calm, polished, dear
old gentleman was once as wild??as wild as Orson. ... Under my windows, as I
write, there passes an itinerant flower-merchant. He has his roses and geraniums
on a cart drawn by a quadruped??a little long-eared quadruped, which lifts up
its voice, and sings after its manner. When I was young, donkeys used to bray
precisely in the same way; and others will heehaw so, when we are silent and our
ears hear no more.
CHAPTER II. DRUM IST'S SO WOHL MIR IN DER WELT.
Our new friends lived for awhile contentedly enough at Boulogne, where they
found comrades and acquaintances gathered together from those many regions which
they had visited in the course of their military career. Mrs. Baynes, out of the
field, was the commanding officer over the general. She ordered his clothes for
him, tied his neckcloth into a neat bow, and, on teaparty evenings, pinned his
brooch into his shirt-frill. She gave him to understand when he had had enough
to eat or drink at dinner, and explained, with great frankness, how this or that
dish did not agree with him. If he was disposed to exceed, she would call out,
in a loud voice: "Remember, general, what you took this morning!" Knowing his
constitution, as she said, she knew the remedies which were necessary for her
husband, and administered them to him with great liberality. Resistance was
impossible, as the veteran officer acknowledged. "The boys have fought about the
medicine since we came home," he confessed, "but she has me under her thumb, by
George. She really is a magnificent physician, now. She has got some invaluable
prescriptions, and in India she used to doctor the whole station." She would
have taken the present writer's little household under her care, and proposed
several remedies for my children, until their alarmed mother was obliged to keep
them out of her sight. I am not saying this was an agreeable woman. Her voice
was loud and harsh. The anecdotes which she was for ever narrating related to
military personages in foreign countries with whom I was unacquainted, and whose
history failed to interest me. She took her wine with much spirit, whilst
engaged in this prattle. I have heard talk not less foolish in much finer
company, and known people delighted to listen to anecdotes of the duchess and
the marchioness who would yawn over the history of Captain Jones's quarrels with
his lady, or Mrs. Major Wolfe's monstrous flirtations with young Ensign Kyd. My
wife, with the mischievousness of her sex, would mimic the Baynes' co
nversation
very drolly, but always insisted that she was not more really vulgar than many
much greater persons.
For all this, Mrs. General Baynes did not hesitate to declare that we were
"stuck-up" people; and from the very first setting eyes on us, she declared,
that she viewed us with a constant darkling suspicion. Mrs. P. was a harmless,
washed-out creature with nothing in her. As for that high and mighty Mr. P. and
his airs, she would be glad to know whether the wife of a British general
officer who had seen service in every part of the globe, and met the most
distinguished governors, generals, and their ladies, several of whom were
noblemen??she would be glad to know whether such people were not good enough
for, Who has not met with these difficulties in life, and who can escape them?
"Hang it, sir," Phil would say, twirling the red mustachios, "I like to be hated
by some fellows;" and it must be owned that Mr. Philip got what he liked. I
suppose Mr. Philip's friend and biographer had something of the same feeling. At
any rate, in regard of this lady the hypocrisy of politeness was very hard to
keep up; wanting us for reasons of her own, she covered the dagger with which
she would have stabbed us: but we knew it was there clenched in her skinny hand
in her meagre pocket. She would pay us the most fulsome compliments with anger
raging out of her eyes??a little hate-bearing woman, envious, malicious, but
loving her cubs, and nursing them, and clutching them in her lean arms with a
jealous strain. It was "Good-by, darling! I shall leave you here with your
friends. Oh, how kind you are to her, Mrs. Pendennis! How can I ever thank you
and Mr. P., I am sure?" and she looked as if she could poison both of us, as she
went away, curtseying and darting dreary parting smiles.
This lady had an intimate friend and companion in arms,??Mrs. Colonel Bunch, in
fact, of the??the Bengal Cavalry,??who was now in Europe with Bunch and their
children, who were residing at Paris for the young folks' education. At first,
as we have heard, Mrs. Baynes' predilections had been all for Tours, where her
sister was living, and where lodgings were cheap and food reasonable in
proportion. But Bunch happening to pass through Boulogne on his way to his wife
at Paris, and meeting his old comrade, gave General Baynes such an account of
the cheapness and pleasures of the French capital, as to induce the general to
think of bending his steps thither. Mrs. Baynes would not hear of such a plan.
She was all for her dear sister and Tours; but when, in the course of
conversation, Colonel Bunch described a ball at the Tuileries, where he and Mrs.
B. had been received with the most flattering politeness by the royal family, it
was remarked that Mrs. Baynes' mind underwent a change. When Bunch went on to
aver that the balls at Government House at Calcutta were nothing compared to
those at the Tuileries or the Prefecture of the Seine; that the English were
invited and respected everywhere; that the ambassador was most hospitable; that
the clergymen were admirable; and that at their boarding-house, kept by Madame
la G?n?rale Baronne de Smolensk, at the Petit Ch?teau d'Espagne, Avenue de
Valmy, Champs Elys?es, they had balls twice a month, the most comfortable
apartments, the most choice society, and every comfort and luxury at so many
francs per month, with an allowance for children??I say Mrs. Baynes was very
greatly moved. "It is not," she said, "in consequence of the balls at the
ambassador's or the Tuileries, for I am an old woman; and in spite of what you
say, colonel, I can't fancy, after Government House, anything more magnificent
in any French palace. It is not for me, goodness knows, I speak: but the
children should have education, and my Charlotte an entr?e into the world; and
what you say of the invaluable clergyman, Mr. X??, I have been thinking of it