Doctor Portman’s letter was sent off to its destination in London, and the worthy clergyman endeavoured to soothe down Mrs. Pendennis into some state of composure until an answer should arrive, which the Doctor tried to think, or at any rate persisted in saying, would be satisfactory as regarded the morality of Mr. Pen. At least Helen’s wisdom of moving upon London and appearing in person to warn her son of his wickedness, was impracticable for a day or two. The apothecary forbade her moving even so far as Fairoaks for the first day, and it was not until the subsequent morning that she found herself again back on her sofa at home, with the faithful, though silent, Laura nursing at her side.
Unluckily for himself and all parties, Pen never read that homily which Doctor Portman addressed to him, until many weeks after the epistle had been composed; and day after day the widow waited for her son’s reply to the charges against him; her own illness increasing with every day’s delay. It was a hard task for Laura to bear the anxiety; to witness her dearest friend’s suffering; worst of all, to support Helen’s estrangement, and the pain caused to her by that averted affection. But it was the custom of this young lady to the utmost of her power, and by means of that gracious assistance which Heaven awarded to her pure and constant prayers, to do her duty. And; as that duty was performed quite noiselessly,— while the supplications, which endowed her with the requisite strength for fulfilling it, also took place in her own chamber, away from all mortal sight,— we, too, must be perforce silent about these virtues of hers, which no more bear public talking about, than a flower will bear to bloom in a ballroom. This only we will say — that a good woman is the loveliest flower that blooms under heaven; and that we look with love and wonder upon its silent grace, its pure fragrance, its delicate bloom of beauty. Sweet and beautiful!— the fairest and the most spotless!— is it not pity to see them bowed down or devoured by Grief or Death inexorable — wasting in disease — pining with long pain — or cut off by sudden fate in their prime? We may deserve grief — but why should these be unhappy?— except that we know that Heaven chastens those whom it loves best; being pleased, by repeated trials, to make these pure spirits more pure.
So Pen never got the letter, although it was duly posted and faithfully discharged by the postman into his letter-box in Lamb Court, and thence carried by the laundress to his writing-table with the rest of his lordship’s correspondence; into which room, have we not seen a picture of him, entering from his little bedroom adjoining, as Mrs. Flanagan, his laundress, was in the act of drinking his gin?
Those kind readers who have watched Mr. Arthur’s career hitherto, and have made, as they naturally would do, observations upon the moral character and peculiarities of their acquaintance, have probably discovered by this time what was the prevailing fault in Mr. Pen’s disposition, and who was that greatest enemy, artfully indicated in the title-page, with whom he had to contend. Not a few of us, my beloved public, have the very same rascal to contend with: a scoundrel who takes every opportunity of bringing us into mischief, of plunging us into quarrels, of leading us into idleness and unprofitable company, and what not. In a word, Pen’s greatest enemy was himself: and as he had been pampering, and coaxing, and indulging that individual all his life, the rogue grew insolent, as all spoiled servants will be; and at the slightest attempt to coerce him, or make him do that which was unpleasant to him, became frantically rude and unruly. A person who is used to making sacrifices — Laura, for instance, who had got such a habit of giving up her own pleasure for others — can do the business quite easily; but Pen, unaccustomed as he was to any sort of self-denial, suffered woundily when called on to pay his share, and savagely grumbled at being obliged to forgo anything he liked.
He had resolved in his mighty mind then that he would not see Fanny; and he wouldn’t. He tried to drive the thoughts of that fascinating little person out of his head, by constant occupation, by exercise, by dissipation and society. He worked then too much; he walked and rode too much; he ate, drank, and smoked too much: nor could all the cigars and the punch of which he partook drive little Fanny’s image out of his inflamed brain, and at the end of a week of this discipline and self-denial our young gentleman was in bed with a fever. Let the reader who has never had a fever in chambers pity the wretch who is bound to undergo that calamity.
A committee of marriageable ladies, or of any Christian persons interested in the propagation of the domestic virtues, should employ a Cruikshank or a Leech, or some other kindly expositor of the follies of the day, to make a series of designs representing the horrors of a bachelor’s life in chambers, and leading the beholder to think of better things, and a more wholesome condition. What can be more uncomfortable than the bachelor’s lonely breakfast?— with the black kettle in the dreary fire in midsummer; or, worse still, with the fire gone out at Christmas, half an hour after the laundress has quitted the sitting-room? Into this solitude the owner enters shivering, and has to commence his day by hunting for coals and wood; and before he begins the work of a student, has to discharge the duties of a housemaid, vice Mrs. Flanagan, who is absent without leave. Or, again, what can form a finer subject for the classical designer than the bachelor’s shirt — that garment which he wants to assume just at dinner-time, and which he finds without any buttons to fasten it? Then there is the bachelor’s return to chambers, after a merry Christmas holiday, spent in a cosy country-house, full of pretty faces, and kind welcomes and regrets. He leaves his portmanteau at the barber’s in the Court: he lights his dismal old candle at the sputtering little lamp on the stair: he enters the blank familiar room, where the only tokens to greet him, that show any interest in his personal welfare, are the Christmas bills, which are lying in wait for him, amiably spread out on his reading-table. Add to these scenes an appalling picture of bachelor’s illness, and the rents in the Temple will begin to fall from the day of the publication of the dismal diorama. To be well in chambers is melancholy, and lonely and selfish enough; but to be ill in chambers — to pass long nights of pain and watchfulness — to long for the morning and the laundress — to serve yourself your own medicine by your own watch — to have no other companion for long hours but your own sickening fancies and fevered thoughts: no kind hand to give you drink if you are thirsty, or to smooth the hot pillow that crumples under you,— this, indeed, is a fate so dismal and tragic, that we shall not enlarge upon its horrors, and shall only heartily pity those bachelors in the Temple, who brave it every day.
This lot befell Arthur Pendennis after the various excesses which we have mentioned, and to which he had subjected his unfortunate brains. One night he went to bed ill, and the next day awoke worse. His only visitor that day, besides the laundress, was the Printer’s Devil, from the Pall Mall Gazette office, whom the writer endeavoured, as best he could, to satisfy. His exertions to complete his work rendered his fever the greater: he could only furnish a part of the quantity of “copy” usually supplied by him; and Shandon being absent, and Warrington not in London to give a help, the political and editorial columns of the Gazette looked very blank indeed; nor did the sub-editor know how to fill them.
Mr. Finucane rushed up to Pen’s chambers, and found that gentleman so exceedingly unwell, that the good-natured Irishman set to work to supply his place, if possible, and produced a series of political and critical compositions, such as no doubt greatly edified the readers of the periodical in which he and Pen were concerned. Allusions to the greatness of Ireland, and the genius and virtue of the inhabitants of that injured country, flowed magnificently from Finucane’s pen; and Shandon, the Chief of the paper, who was enjoying himself placidly at Boulogne-sur-Mer, looking over the columns of the journal, which was forwarded to him, instantly recognised the hand of the great Sub-editor, and said, laughing, as he flung over the paper to his wife, “Look here, Mary, my dear, here is Jack at work again.” Indeed, Jack was a warm friend, and a gallant partisan, and when he had the pen in hand, seldom let slip an opportunity of letting the world know that Rafferty was the greatest painter in Europe, and wondering at the petty jealousy of the Academy, which refused to make him an R.A.: of stating that it was generally reported at the West End, that Mr. Rooney, M.P., was appointed Governor of Barataria; or of introducing into the subject in hand, whatever it might be, a compliment to the Round Towers, or the Giant’s Causeway. And besides doing Pen’s work for him, to the best of his ability, his kind-hearted comrade offered to forgo his Saturday’s and Sunday’s holiday, and pass those days of holiday and rest as nurse-tender to Arthur, who, however, insisted, that the other should not forgo his pleasure, and thankfully assured him that he could bear best his malady alone.
Taking his supper at the Back Kitchen on the Friday night, after having achieved the work of the paper, Finucane informed Captain Costigan of the illness of their young friend in the Temple; and remembering the fact two days afterwards, the Captain went to Lamb Court and paid a visit to the invalid on Sunday afternoon.
He found Mrs. Flanagan, the laundress, in tears in the sitting-room, and got a bad report of the poor dear young gentleman within. Pen’s condition had so much alarmed her, that she was obliged to have recourse to the stimulus of brandy to enable her to support the grief which his illness occasioned. As she hung about his bed, and endeavoured to minister to him, her attentions became intolerable to the invalid, and he begged her peevishly not to come near him. Hence the laundress’s tears and redoubled grief, and renewed application to the bottle, which she was accustomed to use as an anodyne. The Captain rated the woman soundly for her intemperance, and pointed out to her the fatal consequences which must ensue if she persisted in her imprudent courses.
Pen, who was by this time in a very fevered state, yet was greatly pleased to receive Costigan’s visit. He heard the ell-known voice in his sitting-room, as he lay in the bedroom within, and called the Captain eagerly to him, and thanked him for coming, and begged him to take a chair and talk to him. The Captain felt the young man’s pulse with great gravity —(his own tremulous and clammy hand growing steady for the instant while his finger pressed Arthur’s throbbing vein)— the pulse was beating very fiercely — Pen’s face was haggard and hot — his eyes were bloodshot and gloomy; his “bird,” as the Captain pronounced the word, afterwards giving a description of his condition, had not been shaved for nearly a week. Pen made his visitor sit down, and, tossing and turning in his comfortless bed, began to try and talk to the Captain in a lively manner, about the Back Kitchen, about Vauxhall and when they should go again, and about Fanny — how was little Fanny?
Indeed how was she? We know how she went home very sadly on the previous Sunday evening, after she had seen Arthur light his lamp in his chambers, whilst he was having his interview with Bows. Bows came back to his own rooms presently, passing by the lodge door, and looking into Mrs. Bolton’s, according to his wont, as he passed, but with a very melancholy face. She had another weary night that night. Her restlessness wakened her little bedfellows more than once. She daren’t read more of ‘Walter Lorraine:’ Father was at home, and would suffer no light. She kept the book under her pillow, and felt for it in the night. She had only just got to sleep, when the children began to stir with the morning, almost as early as the birds. Though she was very angry with Bows, she went to his room at her accustomed hour in the day, and there the good-hearted musician began to talk to her.
“I saw Mr. Pendennis last night, Fanny,” he said.
“Did you? I thought you did,” Fanny answered, looking fiercely at the melancholy old gentleman.
“I’ve been fond of you ever since we came to live in this place,” he continued. “You were a child when I came; and you used to like me, Fanny, until three or four days ago: until you saw this gentleman.”
“And now, I suppose, you are going to say ill of him,” said Fanny. “Do, Mr. Bows — that will make me like you better.”
“Indeed I shall do no such thing,” Bows answered; “I think he is a very good and honest young man.”
“Indeed! you know that if you said a word against him, I would never speak a word to you again — never!” cried Miss Fanny; and clenched her little hand, and paced up and down the room. Bows noted, watched, and followed the ardent little creature with admiration and gloomy sympathy. Her cheeks flushed, her frame trembled; her eyes beamed love, anger, defiance. “You would like to speak ill of him,” she said; “but you daren’t — you know you daren’t!”
“I knew him many years since,” Bows continued, “when he was almost as young as you are, and he had a romantic attachment for our friend the Captain’s daughter — Lady Mirabel that is now.”
Fanny laughed. “I suppose there was other people, too, that had romantic attachments for Miss Costigan,” she said: “I don’t want to hear about ’em.”
“He wanted to marry her; but their ages were quite disproportionate: and their rank in life. She would not have him because he had no money. She acted very wisely in refusing him; for the two would have been very unhappy, and she wasn’t a fit person to go and live with his family, or to make his home comfortable. Mr. Pendennis has his way to make in the world, and must marry a lady of his own rank. A woman who loves a man will not ruin his prospects, cause him to quarrel with his family, and lead him into poverty and misery for her gratification. An honest girl won’t do that, for her own sake, or for the man’s.”
Fanny’s emotion, which but now had been that of defiance and anger, here turned to dismay and supplication. “What do I know about marrying, Bows?” she said. “When was there any talk of it? What has there been between this young gentleman and me that’s to make people speak so cruel? It was not my doing; nor Arthur’s — Mr. Pendennis’s — that I met him at Vauxhall. I............