The dinner was served when Arthur returned, and Lady Rockminster began to scold him for arriving late. But Laura, looking at her cousin, saw that his face was so pale and scared, that she interrupted her imperious patroness; and asked, with tender alarm, what had happened? Was Arthur ill?
Arthur drank a large bumper of sherry. “I have heard the most extraordinary news; I will tell you afterwards,” he said, looking at the servants. He was very nervous and agitated during the dinner. “Don’t tramp and beat so with your feet under the table,” Lady Rockminster said. “You have trodden on Fido, and upset his saucer. You see Mr. Warrington keeps his boots quiet.”
At the dessert — it seemed as if the unlucky dinner would never be over — Lady Rockminster said, “This dinner has been exceedingly stupid. I suppose something has happened, and that you want to speak to Laura. I will go and have my nap. I am not sure that I shall have any tea — no. Good night, Mr. Warrington. You must come again, and when there is no business to talk about.” And the old lady, tossing up her head, walked away from the room with great dignity.
George and the others had risen with her, and Warrington was about to go away, and was saying “Good night” to Laura, who, of course, was looking much alarmed about her cousin, when Arthur said, “Pray, stay, George. You should hear my news too, and give me your counsel in this case. I hardly know how to act in it.”
“It’s something about Blanche, Arthur,” said Laura, her heart beating, and her cheek blushing as she thought it had never blushed in her life.
“Yes — and the most extraordinary story,” said Pen. “When I left you to go to my uncle’s lodgings, I found his servant, Morgan, who has been with him so long, at the door, and he said that he and his master had parted that morning; that my uncle had quitted the house, and had gone to an hotel — this hotel. I asked for him when I came in; but he was gone out to dinner. Morgan then said that he had something of a most important nature to communicate to me, and begged me to step into the house; his house it is now. It appears the scoundrel has saved a great deal of money whilst in my uncle’s service, and is now a capitalist and a millionaire, for what I know. Well, I went into the house, and what do you think he told me? This must be a secret between us all — at least if we can keep it, now that it is in possession of that villain. Blanche’s father is not dead. He has come to life again. The marriage between Clavering and the Begum is no marriage.”
“And Blanche, I suppose, is her grandfather’s heir,” said Warrington.
“Perhaps: but the child of what a father! Amory is an escaped convict — Clavering knows it; my uncle knows it — and it was with this piece of information held over Clavering in terrorem that the wretched old man got him to give up his borough to me.”
“Blanche doesn’t know it,” said Laura, “nor poor Lady Clavering?”
“No,” said Pen; “Blanche does not even know the history of her father. She knew that he and her mother had separated, and had heard as a child, from Bonner, her nurse, that Mr. Amory was drowned in New South Wales. He was there as a convict, not as a ship’s-captain, as the poor girl thought. Lady Clavering has told me that they were not happy, and that her husband was a bad character. She would tell me all, she said, some day: and I remember her saying to me, with tears in her eyes, that it was hard for a woman to be forced to own that she was glad to hear her husband was dead: and that twice in her life she should have chosen so badly. What is to be done now? The man can’t show and claim his wife: death is probably over him if he discovers himself: return to transportation certainly. But the rascal has held the threat of discovery over Clavering for some time past, and has extorted money from him time after time.”
“It is our friend Colonel Altamont, of course,” said Warrington “I see all now.”
“If the rascal comes back,” continued Arthur, “Morgan, who knows his secret, will use it over him — and having it in his possession, proposes to extort money from us all. The d —— d rascal supposed I was cognisant of it,” said Pen, white with anger; “asked me if I would give him an annuity to keep it quiet; threatened me, me, as if I was trafficking with this wretched old Begum’s misfortune, and would extort a seat in Parliament out of that miserable Clavering. Good heavens! was my uncle mad, to tamper in such a conspiracy? Fancy our mother’s son, Laura, trading on such a treason!”
“I can’t fancy it, dear Arthur,” said Laura, seizing Arthur’s hand, and kissing it.
“No!” broke out Warrington’s deep voice, with a tremor; he surveyed the two generous and loving young people with a pang of indescribable love and pain. “No. Our boy can’t meddle with such a wretched intrigue as that. Arthur Pendennis can’t marry a convict’s daughter; and sit in Parliament as member for the hulks. You must wash your hands of the whole affair, Pen. You must break off. You must give no explanations of why and wherefore, but state that family reasons render a match impossible. It is better that those poor women should fancy you false to your word than that they should know the truth. Besides, you can get from that dog Clavering — I can fetch that for you easily enough an acknowledgment that the reasons which you have given to him as the head of the family are amply sufficient for breaking off the union. Don’t you think with me, Laura?” He scarcely dared to look her in the face as he spoke. Any lingering hope that he might have — any feeble hold that he might feel upon the last spar of his wrecked fortune, he knew he was casting away; and he let the wave of his calamity close over him. Pen had started up whilst he was speaking, looking eagerly at him. He turned his head away. He saw Laura rise up also and go to Pen, and once more take his hand and kiss it. “She thinks so too — God bless her!” said George.
“Her father’s shame is not Blanche’s fault, dear Arthur, is it?” Laura said, very pale, and speaking very quickly. “Suppose you had been married, would you desert her because she had done no wrong? Are you not pledged to her? Would you leave her because she is in misfortune? And if she is unhappy, wouldn’t you console her? Our mother would, had she been here.” And, as she spoke, the kind girl folded her arms round him, and buried her face upon his heart.
“Our mother is an angel with God,” Pen sobbed out. “And you are the dearest and best of women — the dearest, the dearest and the best. Teach me my duty. Pray for me that I may do it — pure heart. God bless you — God bless you, my sister!”
“Amen,” groaned out Warrington, with his head in his hands. “She is right,” he murmured to himself. “She can’t do any wrong, I think — that girl.” Indeed, she looked and smiled like an angel. Many a day after he saw that smile — saw her radiant face as she looked up at Pen — saw her putting back her curls, blushing and smiling, and still looking fondly towards him.
She leaned for a moment her little fair hand on the table, playing on it. “And now, and now,” she said, looking at the two gentlemen —
“And what now?” asked George.
“And now we will have some tea,” said Miss Laura, with her smile.
But before this unromantic conclusion to a rather sentimental scene could be suffered to take place, a servant brought word that Major Pendennis had returned to the hotel, and was waiting to see his nephew. Upon this announcement, Laura, not without some alarm, and an appealing look to Pen, which said, “Behave yourself well — hold to the right, and do your duty — be gentle, but firm with your uncle”— Laura, we say, with these warnings written in her face, took leave of the two gentlemen, and retreated to her dormitory. Warrington, who was not generally fond of tea, yet grudged that expected cup very much. Why could not old Pendennis have come in an hour later? Well, an hour sooner or later, what matter? The hour strikes at last. The inevitable moment comes to say Farewell, The hand is shaken, the door closed, and the friend gone; and, the brief joy over, you are alone. “In which of those many windows of the hotel does her light beam?” perhaps he asks himself as he passes down the street. He strides away to the smoking-room of a neighbouring Club, and, there applies himself to his usual solace of a cigar. Men are brawling and talking loud about politics, opera-girls, horse-racing, the atrocious tyranny of the committee:— bearing this sacred secret about him, he enters into this brawl. Talk away, each louder than the other. Rattle and crack jokes. Laugh and tell your wild stories. It is strange to take one’s place and part in the midst of the smoke and din, and think every man here has his secret ego most likely, which is sitting lonely and apart, away in the private chamber, from the loud game in which the rest of us is joining!
Arthur, as he traversed the passages of the hotel, felt his anger rousing up within him. He was indignant to think that yonder old gentleman whom he was about to meet, should have made him such a tool and puppet, and so compromised his honour and good name. The old fellow’s hand was very cold and shaky when Arthur took it. He was coughing; he was grumbling over the fire; Frosch could not bring his dressing-gown or arrange his papers as that d —— d confounded impudent scoundrel of a Morgan. The old gentleman bemoaned himself, and cursed Morgan’s ingratitude with peevish pathos.
“The confounded impudent sco............