box, and took out that strange-looking wig inside it, and put
it on and looked at myself in the glass in it."

Suppose Percy Sibwright had come in at such a moment as
that? What would he have said, — the enraptured rogue?
What would have been all the pictures of disguised beauties
in his room compared to that living one? Ah, we are speaking
of old times, when Sibwright was a bachelor and before he
got a county court, — when people were young — when most
people were young. Other people are young now; but we
no more.

When Miss Laura played this prank with the wig, you
can't suppose that Pen could have been very ill up-stairs;
otherwise, though she had grown to care for him ever so
little, common sense of feeling and decorum would have
prevented her from performing any tricks or trying any dis-
guises.

But all sorts of events had occurred in the course of the
last few days which had contributed to increase or account for
her gaiety, and a little colony of the reader's old friends and
acquaintances was by this time established in Lamb Court,
Temple, and round Pen's sick bed there. First, Martha,
Mrs. Pendennis's servant, had arrived from Fairoaks, being
summoned thence by the Major, who justly thought her pre-
sence would be comfortable and useful to her mistress and her



104



young master, for neither of whom the constant neighbour-
hood of Mrs. Flanagan (who during Pen's illness required
more spirituous consolation than ever to support her) could
be pleasant. Martha then made her appearance in due season
to wait upon Mrs. Pendennis, nor did that lady go once to bed
until the faithful servant had reached her, when, with a heart
full of maternal thankfulness, she went and lay down upon
Warrington's straw mattress, and among his mathematical
books, as has been already described.

It is true that ere that day a great and delightful alteration
in Pen's condition had taken place. The fever, subjugated
by Dr. Goodenough's blisters, potions, and lancet, had left
the young man, or only returned at intervals of feeble inter-
mitten ce; his wandering senses had settled in his weakened
brain: he had had time to kiss and bless his mother for coming
to him, and calling for Laura and his uncle (who were both
aiSected according to their different natures by his wan ap-
pearance, his lean shrunken hands, his hollow eyes and voice,
his thin bearded face) to press their hands and thank them
affectionately; and after this greeting, and after they had
been turned out of the room by his affectionate nurse, he had
sunk into a fine sleep which had lasted for about sixteen hours,
at the end of which period he awoke calling out that he was
very hungry. If it is hard to be ill and to loathe food, oh,
how pleasant to be getting well and to be feeling hungry —
how hungry! Alas, the joys of convalescence become
feebler with increasing years, as other joys do — and then —
and then comes that illness when one does not convalesce
at all.

On the day of this happy event, too, came another arrival
in Lamb Court. This was introduced into the Pen- Warring-
ton sitting-room by large puffs of tobacco smoke — the puffs
of smoke were followed by an individual with a cigar in his



105



mouth, and a carpet bag under his arm — this was Warring-
ton, who had run back from Norfolk, when Mr. Bows
thoughtfully wrote to inform him of his friend's calamity.
But he had been from home when Bows's letter had reached
his brother's house — the Eastern Counties did not then boast
of a railway (for we beg the reader to understand that we only
commit anachronisms when we choose, and when by a daring
violation of those natural laws some great ethical truth is to be
advanced) — in fine, Warrington only appeared with the rest
of the good luck upon the lucky day after Pen's convalescence
may have been said to have begun.

His surprise was, after all, not very great when he found
the chambers of his sick friend occupied, and his old ac-
quaintance the Major seated demurely in an easy chair,
(Warrington had let himself into the rooms with his own
pass-key,) listening, or pretending to listen, to a young lady
who was reading to him a play of Shakspeare in a low sweet
voice. The lady stopped and started, and laid down her
book, at the apparition of the tall traveller with the cigar
and the carpet-bag. He blushed, he flung the cigar into the
passage: he took oflf his hat, and dropped that too, and going
up to the Major, seized that old gentleman's hand, and asked
questions about Arthur.

The Major answered in a tremulous, though cheery
voice — it was curious how emotion seemed to olden him —
and returning Warrington's pressure with a shaking hand,
told him the news — of Arthur's happy crisis, of his mother's
arrival — with her young charge — with Miss —

"You need not tell me her name," Mr. Warrington said
with great animation, for he was affected and elated with the
thought of his friend's recovery — "you need not tell me your
name. I knew at once it was Laura." And he held out his
hand and took hers. Immense kindness and tenderness



106



gleamed from under his rough eyebrows, and shook his voice
as he gazed at her and spoke to her. "And this is Laura I"
his looks seemed to say. "And this is Warrington," the
generous girl's heart beat back. " Arthur's hero — the brave
and the kind — he has come hundreds of miles to succour him,
when he heard of his friend's misfortune ! "

"Thank you, Mr. Warrington," was all that Laura said,
however; and as she returned the pressure of his kind hand,
she blushed so, that she was glad the lamp was behind her to
conceal her flushing face.

As these two were standing in this attitude, the door of
Pen's bed-chamber was opened stealthily as his mother was
wont to open it, and Warrington saw another lady, who first
looked at him, and then turning round towards the bed, said,
"HshI" and put up her hand.

It was to Pen Helen was turning, and giving caution. He
called out with a feeble, tremulous, but cheery voice, " Come
in, Stunner — come in, Warrington. I knew it was you —
by the — by the smoke, old boy," he said, as holding his
worn hand out, and with tears at once of weakness and plea-
sure in his eyes, he greeted his friend.

"I — I beg pardon, Ma'am, for smooking," Warrington
said, who now almost for the first time blushed for his wicked
propensity.

Helen only said, "God bless you, Mr. Warrington." She
was se happy, she would have liked to kiss George. Then,
and after the friends had had a brief, very brief interview, the
delighted and inexorable mother, giving her hand to War-
rington, sent him out of the room too, back to Laura and the
Major, who had not resumed their play of Cymbeline where
they had left it off at the arrival of the rightful owner of Pen's
chambers.



107



CHAPTER IX.

Convalescence.

Our duty now Is to record a fact concerning Pendennis,
which, however shameful and disgraceful, when told re-
garding the chief personage and Godfather of a novel, must,
nevertheless, be made known to the public who reads his
veritable memoirs. Having gone to bed ill with fever, and
suffering to a certain degree under the passion of love, after
he had gone through his physical malady, and had been bled
and had been blistered, and had had his head shaved, and
had been treated and medicamented as the doctor ordained:
— it is a fact, that, when he rallied up from his bodily ail-
ment, his mental malady had likewise quitted him, and he
was no more in love with Fanny Bolton than you or I, who are
much too wise, or too moral, to allow our hearts to go gadding
after porter's daughters.

He laughed at himself as he lay on his pillow, thinking
of this second cure which had been effected upon him. He
did not care the least about Fanny now: he wondered how he
ever should have cared : and according to his custom made an
autopsy of that dead passion, and anatomised his own defunct
sensation for his poor little nurse. What could have made
him so hot and eager about her but a few weeks back? Not
her wit, not her breeding, not her beauty — there were hun-
dreds of women better looking than she. It was out of him-
self that the passion had gone : it did not reside in her. She
was the same; but the eyes which saw her were changed;
and, alas, that it should be sol were not particularly eager
to see her any more. He felt very well disposed towards the
little thing, and so forth, but as for violent personal regard,



108



such as he had but a few weeks ago, it had fled under the
influence of the pill and lancet, which had destroyed the fever
in his frame. And an immense source of comfort and grati-
tude it was to Pendennis (though there was something selfish
in that feeling, as in most others of our young man), that he
had been enabled to resist temptation at the time when the
danger was greatest, and had no particular cause of self-
reproach as he remembered his conduct towards the young
girl. As from a precipice down which he might have fallen,
so from the fever from which he had recovered, he reviewed
the Fanny Bolton snare, now that he had escaped out of it,
but I 'm not sure that he was not ashamed of the very satis-
faction which he experienced. It is pleasant, perhaps, but
it is humiliating to own that you love no more.

Meanwhile the kind smiles and tender watchfulness of the
mother at his bed-side, filled the young man with peace and
security. To see that health was returning, was all the un-
wearied nurse demanded: to execute any caprice or order
of her patient's, her chiefest joy and reward. He felt him-
self environed by her love, and thought himself almost as
grateful for it as he had been when weak and helpless in
childhood.

Some misty notions regarding the first part of his illness,
and that Fanny had nursed him, Pen may have had, but they
were so dim that he could not realise them with accuracy, or
distinguish them from what he knew to be delusions which had
occurred and were remembered during the delirium of his
fever. So as he had not thought proper on former occasions
to make any allusions about Fanny Bolton to his mother,
of course he could not now confide to her his sentiments
regarding Fanny, or make this worthy lady a confidante.
It was on both sides an unlucky precaution and want of
confidence; and a word or two in time might have spared



109



the good lady, and those connected with her, a deal of pain
and anguish.

Seeing Miss Bolton installed as nurse and tender to Pen,
I am sorry to say Mrs. Pendennis had put the worst construc-
tion on the fact of the intimacy of these two unlucky young
persons, and had settled in her own mind that the accusations
against Arthur were true. Why not have stopped to in-
quire? — There are stories to a man's disadvantage that the
women who are fondest of him are always the most eager
to believe. Isn't a man's wife often the first to be jealous
of him? Poor Pen got a good stock of this suspicious kind
of love from the nurse who was now watching over him;
and the kind and pure creature thought that her boy had
gone through a malady much more awful and debasing than
the mere physical fever, and was stained by crime as well
as weakened by illness. The consciousness of this she had
to beai perforce silently, and to try to put a mask of cheer-
fulness and confidence over her inward doubt and despair and
horror.

When Captain Shandon, at Boulogne, read the next
number of the "Pall-Mall Gazette , " it was to remark to Mrs.
Shandon that Jack Finucane's hand was no longer visible in
the leading articles, and that Mr. Warrington must be at work
there again. "I know the crack of his whip in a hundred , and
the cut which the fellow's thong leaves. There 's Jack
Bludyer, goes to work like a butcher, and mangles a subject.
Mr. Warrington finishes a man, and lays his cuts neat and
regular, straight down the back, and drawing blood every
line;" at which dreadful metaphor, Mrs. Shandon said, "Law,
Charles , how can you talk so 1 I alwaiys thought Mr. War-
rington very high, but a kind gentleman ; and I 'm sure he was
most kind to the children." Upon which Shandon said,
"Yes; he 's kind to the children; but he 's savage to the men;



110



and to be sure, my dear, you don*t understand a word about
what I 'm saying; and it 's best you shouldn't; for it 's little
good comes out of writing for newspapers; and it's better
here, living easy at Boulogne, wherethe wine 's plenty, and
the brandy costs but two franks a bottle. Mix us another
tumbler, Mary, my dear; we'll go back into harness soon.
*Cras ingens iterabimus asquor' — bad luck to it."

In a word, Warrington went to work with all his might, in
place of his prostrate friend, and did Pen's portion of the
"Pall-Mall Gazette" "with a vengeance," as the saying is. He
wrote occasional articles and literary criticisms ; he attended
theatres and musical performances, and discoursed about them
with his usual savage energy. His hand was too strong for
such small subjects, and it pleased him to tell Arthur's mother,
and uncle, and Laura, that there was no hand in all the band of
penmen more graceful and light, more pleasant and more
elegant, than Arthur's. " The people in this country. Ma'am,
don't understand what style is, or they would see the merits
of our young one," he said to Mrs. Pendennis. "I call him
ours , Ma'am , for I bred him ; and I am as proud of him as you
are ; and , bating a little wilfulness , and a little selfishness , and
a little dandyfication, I don't know a more honest, or loyal, or
gentle creature. His pen is wicked sometimes, but he is as
kind as a young lady — as Miss Laura here — and I believe he
would not do any living mortal harm."

At this Helen, though she heaved a deep, deep sigh, and
Laura, though she, too, was sadly wounded, nevertheless were
most thankful for Warrington's good opinion of Arthur, and
loved him for being so attached to their Pen. And Major
Pendennis was loud in his praises of Warrington, — more loud
and enthusiastic than it was the Major's wont to be. "He is a
gentleman, my dear creature, " he said to Helen, "every inch
a gentleman, my good Madam — the Suffolk Warringtons —



Ill

Charles the First's baronets : — what could he be but a gentle-
man, come out of that family? — father,- — Sir Miles War-
rington; ran away with — beg your pardon, Miss Bell. Sir
Miles was a very well-known man in London, and a friend of
the Prince of Wales. This gentleman is a man of the greatest
talents , the very highest accomplishments , — sure to get on , if
he had a motive to put his energies to work."

Laura blushed for herself whilst the Major was talking and
praising Arthur's hero. As she looked at Warrington's manly
face , and dark, melancholy eyes, this young person had been
speculating about him, and had settled in her mind that he
must have been the victim of an unhappy attachment; and as
she caught herself so speculating, why, Miss Bell blushed.

Warrington got chambers hard by, — Grenier's chambers
in Flag Court ; and having executed Pen's task with great
energy in the morning, his delight and pleasure of an after-
noon was to come and sit with the sick man's company in the
sunny autumn evenings; and he had the honour more than
once of giving Miss Bell his arm for a walk in the Temple
Gardens ; to take which pastime , when the frank Laura asked
of Helen permission, the Major eagerly said, "Yes, yes, begad
— of course you go out with him — it 's like the country, you
know; everybody goes out with everybody in the Gardens,
and there are beadles, you know, and that sort of thing —
everybody walks in the Temple Gardens." If the great
arbiter of morals did not object, why should simple Helen?
She was glad that her girl should have such fresh air as the
river could give, and to see her return with heightened colour
and spirits from these harmless excursions.

Laura and Helen had come, you must know, to a little ex-
;Dlanation. When the news arrived of Pen's alarming illness,
Laura insisted upon accompanying the terrified mother to
London, would not hear of the refusal which the still angry



112



Helen gave her, and, when refused a second time yet more
sternly, and when it seemed that the poor lost lad's life was
despaired of, and when it was known that his conduct was
such as to render all thoughts of union hopeless, Laura had,
with many tears, told her mother a secret with which every ob-
servant person who reads this story is acquainted already.
Now she never could marry him, was she to be denied the con-
solation of owning how fondly, how truly, how entirely she had
loved him? The mingling tears of the women appeased the
agony of their grief somewhat, and the sorrows and terrors of
their journey were at least in so far mitigated that they shared
them together.

What could Fanny expect when suddenly brought up for
sentence before a couple of such judges? Nothing but swift
condemnation, awful punishment, merciless dismissal ! Women
are cruel critics in cases such as that in which poor Fanny was
implicated ; and we like them to be so ; for, besides the guard
which a man places round his own harem, and the defences
which a woman has in her heart, her faith, and honour, hasn't
she all her own friends of her own sex to keep watch that she
does not go astray, and to tear her to pieces if she is found
erring? When our Mahmouds or Selims of Baker Street or
Belgrave Square visit their Fatimas with condign punishment,
their mothers sew up Fatima's sack for her, and her sisters and
sisters-in-law see her well under water. And this present
writer does not say nay. He protests most solemnly he is a
Turk, too. He wears a turban and a beard like another, and
is all for the sack practice , Bismiilah ! But O you spotless, who
have the right of capital punishment vested in you , at least be
very cautious that you make away with the proper (if so she
may be called) person. Be very sure of the fact before you
order the barge out: and don't pop your subject into the
Bosphorous, until you are quite certain that she deserves it.



113

This is all I would urge in poor Fatiraa's behalf — absolutely
all — not a word more, by the beard of the Prophet. If she 's
guilty , down with her — heave over the sack , away with it into
the Golden Horn bubble and squeak, and justice being done,
give way, men, and let us pull back to supper.

So the Major did not in any way object to Warrington's
continued promenades with Miss Laura, but, like a benevolent
old gentleman, encouraged in every way the intimacy of that
couple. Were there any exhibitions in town? he was for
Warrington conducting her to them. If Warrington had pro-
posed to take her to Vauxhall itself, this most complaisant of
men would have seen no harm, — nor would Helen, if Pen-
dennis the elder had so ruled it, — nor would there have been
any harm between two persons whose honour was entirely
spotless , — between Warrington , who saw in intimacy a pure,
and high-minded, and artless woman for the first time in his
life, — and Laura, who too for the first time was thrown into
the constant society of a gentleman of great natural parts and
powers of pleasing; who possessed varied acquirements,
enthusiasm, simplicity, humour, and that freshness of mind
which his simple life and habits gave him, and which con-
trasted so much with Pen's dandy indifierence of manner and
faded sneer. In Warrington's very uncouthness there was a
refinement, which the other's finery lacked. In his energy,
his respect, his desire to please, his hearty laughter, or
simple confiding pathos, what a difTerence to Sultan Pen's
yawning sovereignty and languid acceptance of homage 1
What had made Pen at home such a dandy and such a despot?
The women had spoiled him, as we like them and as they like
to do. They had cloyed him with obedience, and surfeited
him with sweet respect and submission, until he grew weary of
the slaves who waited upon him, and their caresses and cajo-
leries excited him no more. Abroad , he was brisk and lively
Pendennis. Ill, 8



114



and eager and impassioned enough — most men are, so
constituted and so nurtured. — Does this, like the former
sentence, run a chance of being misinterpreted, and does
any one dare to suppose that the writer would incite the
women to revolt? Never, by the whiskers of the Prophet,
again he says. He wears a beard, and he likes his women
to be slaves. What man doesn't? What man would be
henpecked, I say? We will cut off all the heads in Christen-
dom or Turkeydom rather than that.

Well, then, Arthur being so languid, and indifferent, and
careless about the favours bestowed upon him, how came it
that Laura should have such a love and rapturous regard for
him, that a mere inadequate expression of it should have kept
the girl talking all the way from Fairoaks to London , as she
and Helen travelled in the post-chaise? As soon as Helen had
finished one story about the dear fellow, and narrated, with
a hundred sobs and ejaculations, and looks up to heaven,
some thrilling incidents which occurred about the period when
the hero was breeched, Laura began another equally inter-
esting and equally ornamented with tears, and told how
heroically he had a tooth out or wouldn't have it out, or how
daringly he robbed a bird's nest, or how magnanimously he
spared it; or how he gave a shilling to the old woman on the
common, or went without his bread and butter for the beggar-
boy who came into the yard — and so on. One to another the
sobbing women sang laments upon their hero, who, my
worthy reader has long since perceived, is no more a hero
than either one of us. Being as he was, why should a sensible
girl be so fond of him?

This point has been argued before in a previous unfortu-
nate sentence (which lately drew down all the wrath of Ireland
upon the writer's head), and which said that the greatest



115



rascal-cutthroats have had somebody to be fond of them, and
if those monsters, why not ordinary mortals? And with whom
shall a young lady fall in love but with the person she sees?
She is not supposed to lose her heart in a dream, like a Prin-
cess in the Arabian Nights; or to plight her young affections
to the portrait of a gentleman in the Exhibition , or a sketch in
the Illustrated London News. You have an instinct within you
which inclines you to attach yourself to some one: you meet
Somebody: you hear Somebody constantly praised: you walk,
or ride, or waltz, or talk, or sit in the same pew at church
with Somebody: you meet again, and again, and — *Mar-
riages are made in Heaven,* your dear mamma says, pinning
your orange flowers wreath on , with her blessed eyes dimmed
with tears — and there is a wedding breakfast, and you take
off your white satin and retire to your coach and four, and you
and he are a happy pair. — Or, the affair is broken off, and
then, poor dear wounded heart! why then you meet Some-
body Else, and twine your young affections round number
two. It is your nature so to do. Do you suppose it is all for
the man's sake that you love , and not a bit for your own? Do
you suppose you would drink if you were not thirsty, or eat if
you were not hungry ?

So then Laura liked Pen because she saw scarcely anybody
else atFairoaks except DoctorPortman and Captain Glanders,
and because his mother constantly praised her Arthur, and
because he was gentleman-like, tolerably good-looking and
witty, and because, above all, it was of her nature to like
somebody. And having once received this image into her
heart, she there tenderly nursed it and clasped it — she there,
in his long absences and her constant solitudes, silently
brooded over it and fondled it — and when after this she came
to London, and had an opportunity of becoming rather inti-
mate with Mr. George Warrington, what on earth was to

8*



116



prevent her from thinking him a most odd, original, agreeable,
and pleasing person?

Along time afterwards, when these days were over, and
Fate in its own way had disposed of the various persons now
assembled in the dingy building in Lamb Court, perhaps some
of them looked back and thought how happy the time was, and
how pleasant had been their evening talks and little walks and
simple recreations round the sofa of Pen the convalescent.
The Major had a favourable opinion of September in London
from that time forward, and declared at his clubs and in so-
ciety that the dead season in town was often pleasant, doosid
pleasant, begad. He used to go home to his lodgings in Bury

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