Good Helen, ever since her son’s illness, had taken, as we have seen, entire possession of the young man, of his drawers and closets and all which they contained: whether shirts that wanted buttons, or stockings that required mending, or, must it be owned? letters that lay amongst those articles of raiment, and which of course it was necessary that somebody should answer during Arthur’s weakened and incapable condition. Perhaps Mrs. Pendennis was laudably desirous to have some explanations about the dreadful Fanny Bolton mystery, regarding which she had never breathed a word to her son, though it was present in her mind always, and occasioned her inexpressible anxiety and disquiet. She had caused the brass knocker to be screwed off the inner door of the chambers, where upon the postman’s startling double rap would, as she justly argued, disturb the rest of her patient, and she did not allow him to see any letter which arrived, whether from bootmakers who importuned him, or hatters who had a heavy account to make up against next Saturday, and would be very much obliged if Mr. Arthur Pendennis would have the kindness to settle, etc. Of these documents, Pen, who was always freehanded and careless, of course had his share, and though no great one, one quite enough to alarm his scrupulous and conscientious mother. She had some savings; Pen’s magnificent self-denial, and her own economy, amounting from her great simplicity and avoidance of show to parsimony almost, had enabled her to put by a little sum of money, a part of which she delightedly consecrated to the paying off the young gentleman’s obligations. At this price, many a worthy youth and respected reader would hand over his correspondence to his parents; and perhaps there is no greater test of a man’s regularity and easiness of conscience, than his readiness to face the postman. Blessed is he who is made happy by the sound of the rat-tat! The good are eager for it: but the naughty tremble at the sound thereof. So it was very kind of Mrs. Pendennis doubly to spare Pen the trouble of hearing or answering letters during his illness.
There could have been nothing in the young man’s chest of drawers and wardrobes which could be considered as inculpating him in any way, nor any satisfactory documents regarding the Fanny Bolton affair found there, for the widow had to ask her brother-inlaw if he knew anything about the odious transaction, and the dreadful intrigue about which her son was engaged. When they were at Richmond one day, and Pen with Warrington had taken a seat on a bench on the terrace, the widow kept Major Pendennis in consultation, and laid her terrors and perplexities before him, such of them at least (for as is the wont of men and women, she did not make quite a clean confession, and I suppose no spendthrift asked for a schedule of his debts, no lady of fashion asked by her husband for her dressmaker’s bills, ever sent in the whole of them yet)— such, we say, of her perplexities, at least, as she chose to confide to her Director for the time being.
When, then, she asked the Major what course she ought to pursue, about this dreadful — this horrid affair, and whether he knew anything regarding it? the old gentleman puckered up his face, so that you could not tell whether he was smiling or not; gave the widow one queer look with his little eyes; cast them down to the carpet again, and said, “My dear, good creature, I don’t know anything about it; and I don’t wish to know anything about it; and, as you ask me my opinion, I think you had best know nothing about it too. Young men will be young men; begad, and, my good ma’am, if you think our boy is a Jo ——”
“Pray, spare me this,” Helen broke in, looking very stately.
“My dear creature, I did not commence the conversation, permit me to say,” the Major said, bowing very blandly.
“I can’t bear to hear such a sin — such a dreadful sin — spoken of in such a way,” the widow said, with tears of annoyance starting from her eyes. “I can’t bear to think that my boy should commit such a crime. I wish he had died, almost, before he had done it. I don’t know how I survive it myself; for it is breaking my heart, Major Pendennis, to think that his father’s son — my child — whom I remember so good — oh, so good, and full of honour!— should be fallen so dreadfully low, as to — as to ——”
“As to flirt with a little grisette, my dear creature?” said the Major. “Egad, if all the mothers in England were to break their hearts because — Nay, nay; upon my word and honour, now, don’t agitate yourself — don’t cry. I can’t bear to see a woman’s tears — I never could — never. But how do we know that anything serious has happened? Has Arthur said anything?”
“His silence confirms it,” sobbed Mrs. Pendennis, behind her pocket-handkerchief.
“Not at all. There are subjects, my dear, about which a young fellow cannot surely talk to his mamma,” insinuated the brother-inlaw.
“She has written to him,” cried the lady, behind the cambric.
“What, before he was ill? Nothing more likely.”
“No, since,” the mourner with the batiste mask gasped out; not before; that is, I don’t think so — that is, I——”
“Only since; and you have — yes, I understand. I suppose when he was too ill to read his own correspondence, you took charge of it, did you?”
“I am the most unhappy mother in the world,” cried out the unfortunate Helen.
“The most unhappy mother in the world, because your son is a man and not a hermit! Have a care, my dear sister. If you have suppressed any letters to him, you may have done yourself a great injury; and, if I know anything of Arthur’s spirit, may cause a difference between him and you, which you’ll rue all your life — a difference that’s a dev’lish deal more important, my good madam, than the little — little — trumpery cause which originated it.”
“There was only one letter,” broke out Helen,—“only a very little one — only a few words. Here it is — Oh — how can you, how can you speak so?”
When the good soul said “only a very little one,” the Major could not speak at all, so inclined was he to laugh, in spite of the agonies of the poor soul before him, and for whom he had a hearty pity and liking too. But each was looking at the matter with his or her peculiar eyes and views of morals, and the Major’s morals, as the reader knows, were not those of an ascetic.
“I recommend you,” he gravely continued, “if you can, to seal it up — those letters ain’t unfrequently sealed with wafers — and to put it amongst Pen’s other letters, and let him have them when he calls for them Or if we’ll can’t seal it, we mistook it for a bill.”
“I can’t tell my son a lie,” said the widow. It had been put silently into the letter-box two days previous to their departure from the Temple, and had been brought to Mrs. Pendennis by Martha. She had never seen Fanny’s handwriting, of course; but when the letter was put into her hands she knew the author at once. She had been on the watch for that letter every day since Pen had been ill. She had opened some of his other letters because she wanted to get at that one. She had the horrid paper poisoning her bag at that moment. She took it out and offered it to her brother-inlaw.
“Arther Pendennis, Esq.,” he read in a timid little sprawling handwriting, and with a sneer on his face. “No, my dear, I won’t read any more. But you who have read it may tell me what the letter contains — only prayers for his health in bad spelling, you say — and a desire to see him? Well — there’s no harm in that. And as you ask me —” Here the Major began to look a little queer for his own part, and put on his demure look —“as you ask me, my dear, for information, why, I don’t mind telling you that — ah — that — Morgan, my man, has made some inquiries regarding this affair, and that — my friend Doctor Goodenough also looked into it — and it appears that this person was greatly smitten with Arthur; that he paid for her and took her to Vauxhall Gardens, as Morgan heard from an old acquaintance of Pen’s and ours, an Irish gentleman, who was very nearly once having the honour of being the — from an Irishman, in fact;— that the girl’s father, a violent man of intoxicated habits, has beaten her mother, who persists in declaring her daughter’s entire innocence to her husband on the one hand, while on the other she told Goodenough, that Arthur has acted like a brute to her child. And so you see the story remains in a mystery. Will you have it cleared up? I have but to ask Pen, and he will tell me at once — he is as honourable a man as ever lived.”
“Honourable!” said the widow with bitter scorn. “Oh, brother, what is this you call honour? If my boy has been guilty, he must marry her. I would go down on my knees and pray him to do so.”
“Good God! are you mad?” screamed out the Major; and remembering former passages in Arthur’s history and Helen’s, the truth came across his mind that, were Helen to make this prayer to her son, he would marry the girl: he was wild enough and obstinate enough to commit any folly when a woman he loved was in the case. “My dear sister, have you lost your senses?” he continued (after an agitated pause, during which the above dreary reflection crossed him); and in a softened tone, “What right have we to suppose that anything has passed between this girl and him? Let’s see the letter. Her heart is breaking; pray, pray, write to me — home unhappy — unkind father — your nurse — poor little Fanny — spelt, as you say, in a manner to outrage all sense of decorum. But, good heavens! my dear, what is there in this? only that the little devil is making love to him still. Why, she didn’t come into his chambers until he was so delirious that he didn’t know her. What-d’you-call-’em, Flanagan, the laundress, told Morgan, my man, so. She came in company of an old fellow, an old Mr. Bows, who came most kindly down to Stillbrook and brought me away — by the way, I left him in the cab, and never paid the fare; and dev’lish kind it was of him. No, there’s nothing in the story.”
“Do you think so? Thank Heaven — thank God!” Helen cried. “I’ll take the letter to Arthur and ask him now. Look at him there. He’s on the terrace with Mr. Warrington. They are talking to some children. My boy was always fond of children. He’s innocent, thank God — thank God! Let me go to him.”
Old Pendennis had his own opinion. When he briskly took the not guilty side of the case, but a moment before, very likely the old gentleman had a different view from that which he chose to advocate, and judged of Arthur by what he himself would have done. If she goes to Arthur, and he speaks the truth, as the rascal will, it spoils all, he thought. And he tried one more effort.
“My dear, good soul,” he said, taking Helen’s hand and kissing it, “as your son has not acquainted you with this affair, think if you have any right to examine it. As you believe him to be a man of honour, what right have you to doubt his honour in this instance? Who is his accuser? An anonymous scoundrel who has brought no specific charge against him. If there were any such, wouldn’t the girl’s parents have come forward? He is not called upon to rebut, nor you to entertain an anonymous accusation; and as for believing him guilty because a girl of that rank happened to be in his rooms acting as nurse to him, begad you might as well insist upon his marrying that dem’d old Irish gin-drinking laundress, Mrs. Flanagan.”
The widow burst out laughing through her tears — the victory was gained by the old general.
“Marry Mrs. Flanagan, by Ged,” he continued, tapping her slender hand. “No. The boy has told you nothing about it, and you know nothing about it. The boy is innocent — of course. And what, my good soul, is the course for us to pursue? Suppose he is attached to this girl — don’t look sad again, it’s merely a supposition — and begad a young fellow may have an attachment, mayn’t he?— Directly he gets well he will be at her again.”
“He must come home! We must go off directly to Fairoaks,” the widow cried out.
“My good creature, he’ll bore himself to death at Fairoaks. He’ll have nothing to do but to think about his passion there. There’s no place in the world for making a little passion into a big one, and where a fellow feeds on his own thoughts, like a dem’d lonely country-house where there’s nothing to do. We must occupy him: amuse him: we must take him abroad: he’s never been abroad except to Paris for a lark. We must travel a little. He must have a nurse with him, to take great care of him, for Goodenough says he had a dev’lish narrow squeak of it (don’t look frightened), and so you must come and watch: and I suppose you’ll take Miss Bell, and I should like to ask Warrington to come. Arthur’s dev’lish fond of Warrington. He can’t do without Warrington. Warrington’s family is one of the oldest in England, and he is one of the best young fellows I ever met in my life. I like him exceedingly.”
“Does Mr. Warrington know anything about this — this affair?” asked Helen. “He had been away, I know, for two months before it happened; Pen wrote me so.”
“Not a word — I— I’ve asked him about it. I’ve pumped him. He never heard of the transaction, never; I pledge you my word,” cried out the Major, in some alarm. “And, my dear, I think you had much best not talk to him about it — much best not — of course not: the subject is most............