Meanwhile they were wondering at Fairoaks that the Major had not returned. Dr. Portman and his lady, on their way home to Clavering, stopped at Helen’s lodge-gate, with a brief note for her from Major Pendennis, in which he said he should remain at Chatteris another day, being anxious to have some talk with Messrs. Tatham, the lawyers, whom he would meet that afternoon; but no mention was made of the transaction in which the writer had been engaged during the morning. Indeed the note was written at the pause after the first part of the engagement, and when the Major had decidedly had the worst of the battle.
Pen did not care somehow to go into the town whilst his uncle was there. He did not like to have to fancy that his guardian might be spying at him from that abominable Dean’s grass-plat, whilst he was making love in Miss Costigan’s drawing-room; and the pleasures of a walk (a delight which he was very rarely permitted to enjoy) would have been spoiled if he had met the man of the polished boots on that occasion. His modest love could not show in public by any outward signs, except the eyes (with which the poor fellow ogled and gazed violently to be sure), but it was dumb in the presence of third parties; and so much the better, for of all the talk which takes place in this world, that of love-makers is surely, to the uninitiated, the most silly. It is the vocabulary without the key; it is the lamp without the flame. Let the respected reader look or think over some old love-letters that he (or she) has had and forgotten, and try them over again. How blank and meaningless they seem! What glamour of infatuation was it which made that nonsense beautiful? One wonders that such puling and trash could ever have made one happy. And yet there were dates when you kissed those silly letters with rapture — lived upon six absurd lines for a week, and until the reactionary period came, when you were restless and miserable until you got a fresh supply of folly.
That is why we decline to publish any of the letters and verses which Mr. Pen wrote at this period of his life, out of mere regard for the young fellow’s character. They are too spooney and wild. Young ladies ought not to be called upon to read them in cold blood. Bide your time, young women; perhaps you will get and write them on your own account soon. Meanwhile we will respect Mr. Pen’s first outpourings, and keep them tied up in the newspapers with Miss Fotheringay’s string, and sealed with Captain Costigan’s great silver seal.
The Major came away from his interview with Captain Costigan in a state of such concentrated fury as rendered him terrible to approach! “The impudent bog-trotting scamp,” he thought, “dare to threaten me! Dare to talk of permitting his damned Costigans to marry with the Pendennises! Send me a challenge! If the fellow can get anything in the shape of a gentleman to carry it, I have the greatest mind in life not to baulk him.— Psha! what would people say if I were to go out with a tipsy mountebank, about a row with an actress in a barn!” So when the Major saw Dr. Portman, who asked anxiously regarding the issue of his battle with the dragon, Mr. Pendennis did not care to inform the divine of the General’s insolent behaviour, but stated that the affair was a very ugly and disagreeable one, and that it was by no means over yet.
He enjoined Doctor and Mrs. Portman to say nothing about the business at Fairoaks; whither he contented himself with despatching the note we have before mentioned. And then he returned to his hotel, where he vented his wrath upon Mr. Morgan his valet, “dammin and cussin upstairs and downstairs,” as that gentleman observed to Mr. Foker’s man, in whose company he partook of dinner in the servants’ room of the George.
The servant carried the news to his master; and Mr. Foker having finished his breakfast about this time, it being two o’clock in the afternoon, remembered that he was anxious to know the result of the interview between his two friends, and having inquired the number of the Major’s sitting-room, went over in his brocade dressing-gown, and knocked for admission.
Major Pendennis had some business, as he had stated, respecting a lease of the widow’s, about which he was desirous of consulting old Mr. Tatham, the lawyer, who had been his brother’s man of business, and who had a branch-office at Clavering, where he and his son attended market and other days three or four in the week. This gentleman and his client were now in consultation when Mr. Foker showed his grand dressing-gown and embroidered skull-cap at Major Pendennis’s door.
Seeing the Major engaged with papers and red-tape, and an old man with a white head, the modest youth was for drawing back — and said, “O, you’re busy — call again another time.” But Mr. Pendennis wanted to see him, and begged him, with a smile, to enter: whereupon Mr. Foker took off the embroidered tarboosh or fez (it had been worked by the fondest of mothers) and advanced, bowing to the gentlemen and smiling on them graciously. Mr. Tatham had never seen so splendid an apparition before as this brocaded youth, who seated himself in an arm-chair, spreading out his crimson skirts, and looking with exceeding kindness and frankness on the other two tenants of the room. “You seem to like my dressing-gown, sir,” he said to Mr. Tatham. “A pretty thing, isn’t it? Neat, but not in the least gaudy. And how do you do, Major Pendennis, sir, and how does the world treat you?”
There was that in Foker’s manner and appearance which would have put an Inquisitor into good humour, and it smoothed the wrinkles under Pendennis’s head of hair.
“I have had an interview with that Irishman (you may speak before my friend, Mr. Tatham here, who knows all the affairs of the family), and it has not, I own, been very satisfactory. He won’t believe that my nephew is poor: he says we are both liars: he did me the honour to hint that I was a coward, as I took leave. And I thought when you knocked at the door, that you might be the gentleman whom I expect with a challenge from Mr. Costigan — that is how the world treats me, Mr. Foker.”
“You don’t mean that Irishman, the actress’s father?” cried Mr. Tatham, who was a dissenter himself, and did not patronise the drama.
“That Irishman, the actress’s father — the very man. Have not you heard what a fool my nephew has made of himself about the girl?”— Mr. Tatham, who never entered the walls of a theatre, had heard nothing: and Major Pendennis had to recount the story of his nephew’s loves to the lawyer, Mr. Foker coming in with appropriate comments in his usual familiar language.
Tatham was lost in wonder at the narrative. Why had not Mrs. Pendennis married a serious man, he thought — Mr. Tatham was a widower — and kept this unfortunate boy from perdition? As for Mr. Costigan’s daughter, he would say nothing: her profession was sufficient to characterise her. Mr. Foker here interposed to say he had known some uncommon good people in the booths, as he called the Temple of the Muses. Well, it might be so, Mr. Tatham hoped so — but the father, Tatham knew personally — a man of the worst character, a wine-bibber and an idler in taverns and billiard-rooms, and a notorious insolvent. “I can understand the reason, Major,” he said, “why the fellow would not come to my office to ascertain the truth of the statements which you made him.— We have a writ out against him and another disreputable fellow, one of the play-actors, for a bill given to Mr. Skinner of this city, a most respectable Grocer and Wine and Spirit Merchant, and a Member of the Society of Friends. This Costigan came crying to Mr. Skinner,— crying in the shop, sir,— and we have not proceeded against him or the other, as neither were worth powder and shot.”
It was whilst Mr. Tatham was engaged in telling this story that a third knock came to the door, and there entered an athletic gentleman in a shabby braided frock, bearing in his hand a letter with a large blotched red seal.
“Can I have the honour of speaking with Major Pendennis in private?” he began —“I have a few words for your ear, sir. I am the bearer of a mission from my friend Captain Costigan,”— but here the man with the bass voice paused, faltered, and turned pale — he caught sight of the red and well-remembered face of Mr. Tatham.
“Hullo, Garbetts, speak up!” cried Mr. Foker, delighted.
“Why, bless my soul, it is the other party to the bill!” said Mr. Tatham. “I say, sir; stop I say.” But Garbetts, with a face as blank as Macbeth’s when Banquo’s ghost appears upon him, gasped some inarticulate words, and fled out of the room.
The Major’s gravity was also entirely upset, and he burst out laughing. So did Mr. Foker, who said, “By Jove, it was a good ’un.” So did the attorney, although by profession a serious man.
“I don’t think there’ll be any fight, Major,” young Foker said; and began mimicking the tragedian. “If there is, the old gentleman — your name Tatham?— very happy to make your acquaintance, Mr. Tatham — may send the bailiffs to separate the men;” and Mr. Tatham promised to do so. The Major was by no means sorry at the ludicrous issue of the quarrel. “It seems to me, sir,” he said to Mr. Foker, “that you always arrive to put me into good-humour.”
Nor was this the only occasion on which Mr. Foker this day was destined to be of service to the Pendennis family. We have said that he had the entree of Captain Costigan’s lodgings, and in the course of the afternoon he thought he would pay the General a visit, and hear from his own lips what had occurred in the conversation, in the morning, with Mr. Pendennis. Captain Costigan was not at home. He had received permission, nay, encouragement from his daughter, to go to the convivial club at the Magpie Hotel, where no doubt he was bragging at that moment of his desire to murder a certain ruffian; for he was not only brave, but he knew it too, and liked to take out his courage, and, as it were, give it an airing in company.
Costigan then was absent, but Miss Fotheringay was at home washing the tea-cups whilst Mr. Bows sate opposite to her.
“Just done breakfast I see — how do?” said Mr. Foker, popping in his little funny head.
“Get out, you funny little man,” cried Miss Fotheringay.
“You mean come in, answered the other.— Here we are!” and entering the room he folded his arms and began twirling his head round and round with immense rapidity, like Harlequin in the Pantomime when he first issues from his cocoon or envelope. Miss Fotheringay laughed with all her heart: a wink of Foker’s would set her off laughing, when the bitterest joke Bows ever made could not get a smile from her, or the finest of poor Pen’s speeches would only puzzle her. At the end of the harlequinade he sank down on one knee and kissed her hand. “You’re the drollest little man,” she said, and gave him a great good-humoured slap. Pen used to tremble as he kissed her hand. Pen would have died of a slap.
These preliminaries over, the three began to talk; Mr. Foker amused his companions by recounting to them the scene which he had just witnessed of the discomfiture of Mr. Garbetts, by which they learned, for the first time, how far the General had carried his wrath against Major Pendennis. Foker spoke strongly in favour of the Major’s character for veracity and honour, and described him as a tip-top swell, moving in the upper-circle of society, who would never submit to any deceit — much more to deceive such a ............