The History of Pendennis

crowded him into a corner, and kept him awake by snoring indecently; where a widow lady, opposite, had not only shut out the fresh air by closing all the windows of the vehicle, but had filled the in

? And yet they did, and were merry too. Next the widow, and by the side of the Major’s servant on the roof, were a couple of school-boys going home for the midsummer holidays, and Major Pendennis wondered to see them sup at the inn at Bagshot, where they took in a cargo of ham, eggs, pie, pickles, tea, coffee, and boiled beef, which surprised the poor Major, sipping a cup of very feeble tea, and thinking with a tender dejection that Lord Steyne’s dinner was coming off at that very moment. The ingenuous ardour of the boys, however, amused the Major, who was very good-natured, and he became the more interested when he found that the o

Major’s back teeth, which he naturally would leave out of his jaws in a jolting mail-coach, and without which he would not choose to appear. Morgan, his man, made a mystery of mystery of his wigs: curling them in private places: introducing them mysteriously to his master’s room;— nor without his head of hair would the Major care to show himself to any member of his family, or any acquaintance. He went to his

room. Major Pendennis did not want to keep her, or indeed to have her in the house at all, and had his private reason for disapproving of her: which we may mention on some future occasion. Meanwhile Laura disappeared and wandered about the premises seeking for Pen:

. “Come in, Pen,” she said, “there’s

ound at Smirke with uncommon fierceness, as much as to say, I am ready for hi

wait upon my uncle.” But he was laughing in order to hide a great anxiety: and was

or he was in love himself, most anxious in all things to propitiate Pen, and indeed very much himself enraptured by the personal charms of this goddess, whose like, never having been before at a theatrical representation, he had not beheld until now. Pen’s fire and volubility, his hot eloquence and rich poetical tropes and figures, his manly heart, kind, ardent, and hopeful, refu

ht her almost to acquiesce in the belief that if the marriage was doomed in heaven, why doomed it was — that if the young woman was a good person, it was all that she for her part had to ask; and rather to dread the arrival o

but for the little Belgravians to come; and if these are the necessaries of life (and they are with many honest people), to talk of any other arrangement is an absurdity: of love in lodgings — a babyish folly of affection: that can’t pay coach-hire or afford a decent milliner — as mere wicked balderdash and childish romance. If on the other hand your opinion is that people, not with an assured subsistence, but with a fair chance to obtain it, and with the stimulus of h

ing themselves gives to certain women) to think of the day when she would give up all to Pen, and he should bring his wife home, and she would surrender the keys and the best bedroom, and go and sit at the side of the table, and see him happy. What did she want in life, but to see the lad prosper? As an empress certainly was not too good for him, and would be honoured by becoming Mrs. Pen; so if he selected humble Esther instead of Queen Vashti, she would be content with his lordship’s choice. Never mind how lowly or poor the person

e and delicacy; she was as sensitive as the most timid maiden; she was as pure as the unsullied snow; she had the finest manners, the most graceful wit and genius, the most charming refinement and justness of appreciation in all matters of taste; she had the most admirable temper and devotion to her father, a good old gentleman of hig

s, and as for long engagements contracted between very young men and old women — she knew

n this — rather than baulk him, in fact — this lady would have submitted to any sacrifice or persona

evening with the lovely pie-maker at Chatteris, in which he bragged of his influence over his mother; and he spent the other night in composing a most flaming and conceited copy of verses to his divin

ad so kept watch. She turned the lock very softly now, and went in so gently, that Pen for a moment did not see her. His face was turned from her. His papers on his desk were scattered about, and more were lying on the bed round him. He was biting a pencil and thinking of rhymes and all sorts of follies and passions. He was Hamlet jumping into Ophelia’s grave: he was the Stranger takin

d he started up and turned round. He clutched som

aid, with a sweet tender smile, and sate do

! I love her, I love her!”— How could such a kind soul as that help soothing and pitying him? The gentle creature did her best: and thought with a strange wonderment

old Cos, with a wink and a knowing finger on his nose, said, “Put them up with th’ other letth

himself was unhappy about it, and that his uncle and he should have any violent altercation on the subject. She besought Major Pendennis to be very gentle with Arthur: “He has a very high spirit, and will not brook unkind words,” she hinted. “Dr. Portman spoke to him rather roughly — a

d, and she’d get him a wife as she would a toy if Master cried for it. Why are there no such things as lettres-de-cachet — and a Bastille for young fellows of family?” The Major lived in such good company th

ing how you possibly can make it up to your

manner of females. “I am thinking tha

sh?” asked the other; and added, with great comf

d cruel and fatal an attachment,” the widow said,

We’re not going to have a Pendennis, the head of the house, marry a strollin

I know Arthur’s ardent temper, the intensity of his affections, the agony of his pleasures and disappo

doubt Arthur will have to suffer confoundedly before he gets over the little disapp

. She was thinking of her own case, and was at

— colonel at thirty: but it might not be. I was but a penniless lieutenant: her parents interfered: and I embarked for India, where I had the honour of being secretary to Lord Buckley, when commander-inChief without her. What happened? We returned our letters, sent back our locks

be a hundred: there are certain passages of one’s early life whereof the recollection

tunity presented itself. Miss Balls, I remember the name, was daughter of an apoth — a practitioner in very large practice; my brother had very nearly succeeded in his suit.— But difficulties a

ings. I have known them produce a great deal of unhappiness.— Laura’s father, my cousin,

My dear Mrs. Pendennis, I will name no names, but in the very best circles of London society I have seen men suffering the most excruciating agony, I have known them to be cut, to be lost utterly, from the vulgarity of their wives’ connections. What did Lady Snapperton do last year at her dejeune dansant after the Bohemian Ball? She told Lord Brouncker that he might bring his daughters or send t

ing the inclination, because she remembered in what prodigious respect her

she looks like Clodworthy’s mother. What’s the case between Lord and Lady Willowbank, whose love match was notorious? He has already cut her down twice when she has hanged herself out of jealousy for Mademoiselle de Sainte Cunegonde, the dancer; and mark my words, good Ged, one day he’ll not cut the old woman down. No, my dear ma

d seems to be so oppressed with the notion of long engagements and unequal marriages, and as the circumstance we have to relate will explain what perhaps some p