position. It broke out very soon after Mr. Woolcomb's attentions became a little
particular; and she actually left London in consequence. It is true that he
could follow her without difficulty, but so, for the matter of that, could
Philip, as we have seen, when he came down and behaved so rudely to Captain
Woolcomb. And before Philip came, poor Agnes could plead, "My father pressed me
sair," as in the case of the notorious Mrs. Robin Gray.
Father and mother both pressed her sair. Mrs. Twysden, I think I have mentioned,
wrote an admirable letter, and was aware of her accomplishment. She used to
write reams of gossip regularly every week to dear uncle Ringwood when he was in
the country: and when her daughter Blanche married, she is said to have written
several of her new son's sermons. As a Christian mother, was she not to give her
daughter her advice at this momentous period of her life? That advice went
against poor Philip's chances with his cousin, who was kept acquainted with all
the circumstances of the controversy of which we have just seen the issue. I do
not mean to say that Mrs. Twysden gave an impartial statement of case. What
parties in a lawsuit do speak impartily on their own side or their adversaries'?
Mrs. Twysden's view, as I have learned subsequently, and as imparted to her
daughter, was this:�� That most unprincipled man, Dr. Firmin, who had already
attempted, and unjustly, to deprive the Twysdens of a part of their property,
had commenced in quite early life his career of outrage and wickedness against
the Ringwood family. He had led dear Lord Ringwood's son, poor dear Lord
Cinqbars, into a career of vice and extravagance which caused the premature
death of that unfortunate young nobleman. Mr. Firmin had then made a marriage,
in spite of the tears and entreaties of Mrs. Twysden, with her late unhappy
sister, whose whole life had been made wretched by the doctor's conduct. But the
climax of outrage and wickedness was, that when he��he, a low, penniless
adventurer��married Colonel Ringwood's daughter, he was married already, as
could be sworn by the repentant clergyman who had been forced, by threats of
punishment which Dr. Firmin held over him, to perform the rite! "The mind"��Mrs.
Talbot Twysden's fine mind��"shuddered at the thought of such wickedness." But
most of all (for to think ill of any one whom she had once loved gave her pain)
there was reason to believe that the unhappy Philip Firmin was his father's
accomplice, and that he knew of his own illegitimacy, which he was determined to
set aside by any fraud or artifice��(she trembled, she wept to have to say this:
O heaven! that there should be such perversity in thy creatures!) And so little
store did Philip set by his mother's honour, that he actually visited the
abandoned woman who acquiesced in her own infamy, and had brought such
unspeakable disgrace on the Ringwood family! The thought of this crime had
caused Mrs. Twysden and her dear husband nights of sleepless anguish��had made
them years and years older ��had stricken their hearts with a grief which must
endure to the end of their days. With people so unscrupulous, so grasping, so
artful as Dr. Firmin and (must she say?) his son, they were bound to be on their
guard; and though they had avoided Philip, she had deemed it right, on the rare
occasions when she and the young man whom she must now call her illegitimate
nephew met, to behave as though she knew nothing of this most dreadful
controversy.
"And now, dearest child" ... Surely the moral is obvious? The dearest child
"must see at once that any foolish plans which were formed in childish days and
under former delusions must be cast aside for ever as impossible, as unworthy of
a Twysden��of a Ringwood. Be not concerned for the young man himself," wrote
Mrs. Twysden��"I blush that he should bear that dear father's name who was slain
in honour on Busaco's glorious field. P. F. has associates amongst whom he has
ever been much more at home than in our refined circle, and habits which will
cause him to forget you only too easily. And if near you is one whose ardour
shows itself in his every word and action, whose wealth and property may raise
you to a place worthy of my child, need I say, a mother's, a father's blessing
go with you." This letter was brought to Miss Twysden, at Brighton, by a special
messenger; and the superscription announced that it was "honoured by Captain
Grenville Woolcomb."
Now when Miss Agnes has had a letter to this effect, from a mother in whose
prudence and affection a child could surely confide; when she remembers all the
abuse her brother lavishes against Philip, as, heaven bless some of them! dear
relatives can best do; when she thinks how cold he has of late been��how he will
come smelling of cigars��how he won't conform to the usages du monde, and has
neglected all the decencies of society��how she often can't understand his
strange rhapsodies about poetry, painting, and the like, nor how he can live
with such associates as those who seem to delight him��and now how he is showing
himself actually unprincipled and abetting his horrid father; when we consider
mither pressing sair, and all these points in mither's favour, I don't think we
can order Agnes to instant execution for the resolution to which she is coming.
She will give him up��she will give him up. Good-by, Philip. Good-by the past.
Be forgotten, be forgotten, fond words spoken in not unwilling ears! Be still
and breathe not, eager lips, that have trembled so near to one another! Unlock,
hands, and part for ever, that seemed to be formed for life's long journey! Ah,
to part for ever is hard; but harder and more humiliating still to part without
regret!
That papa and mamma had influenced Miss Twysden in her behaviour my wife and I
could easily imagine, when Philip, in his wrath and grief, came to us and poured
out the feelings of his heart. My wife is a repository of men's secrets, and
untiring consoler and comforter; and she knows many a sad story which we are not
at liberty to tell, like this one of which this person, Mr. Firmin, has given us
possession.
"Father and mother's orders," shouts Philip, "I daresay, Mrs. Pendennis; but the
wish was father to the thought of parting, and it was for the blackamoor's parks
and acres that the girl jilted me. Look here. I told you just now that I slept
perfectly well on that infernal night after I had said farewell to her. Well, I
didn't. It was a lie. I walked ever so many times the whole length of the cliff,
from Hove to Rottingdean almost, and then went to bed afterwards, and slept a
little out of sheer fatigue. And as I was passing by Horizontal Place (��I
happened to pass by there two or three times in the moonlight, like a great
jackass��) you know those verses of mine which I have hummed here sometimes?"
(hummed! he used to roar them!) "'When the locks of burnished gold, lady, shall
to silver turn!' Never mind the rest. You know the verses about fidelity and old
age? She was singing them on that night, to that negro. And I heard the beggar's
voice say, 'Bravo!' through
the open windows."
"Ah, Philip! it was cruel," says my wife, heartily pitying our friend's anguish
and misfortune. "It was cruel indeed. I am sure we can feel for you. But think
what certain misery a marriage with such a person would have been! Think of your
warm heart given away for ever to that heartless creature."
"Laura, Laura, have you not often warned me not to speak ill of people?" says
Laura's husband.
"I can't help it sometimes," cries Laura in a transport. "I try and do my best
not to speak ill of my neighbours; but the worldliness of those people shocks me
so that I can't bear to be near them. They are so utterly tied and bound by
conventionalities, so perfectly convinced of their own excessive high-breeding,
that they seem to me more odious and more vulgar than quite low people; and I am
sure Mr. Philip's friend, the Little Sister, is infinitely more ladylike than
his dreary aunt or either of his supercilious cousins!" Upon my word, when this
lady did speak her mind, there was no mistaking her meaning.
I believe Mr. Firmin took a considerable number of people into his confidence
regarding this love affair. He is one of those individuals who can't keep their
secrets; and when hurt he roars so loudly that all his friends can hear. It has
been remarked that the sorrows of such persons do not endure very long; nor
surely was there any great need in this instance that Philip's heart should wear
a lengthened mourning. Ere long he smoked his pipes, he played his billiards, he
shouted his songs; he rode in the Park for the pleasure of severely cutting his
aunt and cousins when their open carriage passed, or of riding down Captain
Woolcomb or his cousin Ringwood, should either of those worthies come in his
way.
One day, when the old Lord Ringwood came to town for his accustomed spring
visit, Philip condescended to wait upon him, and was announced to his lordship
just as Talbot Twysden and Ringwood his son were taking leave of their noble
kinsman. Philip looked at them with a flashing eye and a distended nostril,
according to his swaggering wont. I daresay they on their part bore a very mean
and hangdog appearance; for my lord laughed at their discomfiture, and seemed
immensely amused as they slunk out of the door when Philip came hectoring in.
"So, sir, there has been a family row. Heard all about it: at least, their side.
Your father did me the favour to marry my niece, having another wife already?"
he had."
"Wanted your money; thirty thousand pounds is not a trifle. Ten thousand apiece
for those children. And no more need of any confounded pinching and scraping, as
they have to do at Beaunash Street. Affair off between you and Agnes? Absurd
affair. So much the better."
"Yes, sir, so much the better."
"Have ten thousand apiece. Would have twenty thousand if they got yours. Quite
natural to want it."
"Quite."
"Woolcomb a sort of negro, I understand. Fine property here: besides the West
India rubbish. Violent man��so people tell me. Luckily Agnes seems a cool,
easy-going woman, and must put up with the rough as well as the smooth in
marrying a property like that. Very lucky for you that that woman persists there
was no marriage with your father. Twysden says the doctor bribed her. Take it
he's not got much money to bribe, unless you gave some of yours."
"I don't bribe people to bear false witness, my lord�� and if��
"Don't be in a huff; I didn't say so. Twysden says so��perhaps thinks so. When
people are at law they believe anything of one another."
"I don't know what other people may do, sir. If I had another man's money, I
should not be easy until I had paid him back. Had my share of my grandfather's
property not been lawfully mine��and for a few hours I thought it was
not��please God, I would have given it up to its rightful owners��at least, my
father would."
"Why, hang it all, man, you don't mean to say your father has not settled with
you?"
Philip blushed a little. He had been rather surprised that there had been no
settlement between him and his father.
"I am only of age a few months, sir. I am not under any apprehension. I get my
dividends regularly enough. One of my grandfather's trustees, General Baynes, is
in India. He is to return almost immediately, or we should have sent a power of
attorney out to him. There's no hurry about the business."
Philip's maternal grandfather, and Lord Ringwood's brother, the late Colonel
Philip Ringwood, had died possessed of but trifling property of his own; but his
wife had brought him a fortune of sixty thousand pounds, which was settled on
their children, and in the names of trustees��Mr. Briggs, a lawyer, and Colonel
Baynes, an East India officer, and friend of Mrs. Philip Ringwood's family.
Colonel Baynes had been in England some eight years before; and Philip
remembered a kind old gentleman coming to see him at school, and leaving tokens
of his bounty behind. The other trustee, Mr. Briggs, a lawyer of considerable
county reputation, was dead long since, having left his affairs in an involved
condition. During the trustee's absence and the son's minority, Philip's father
received the dividends on his son's property, and liberally spent them on the
boy, Indeed, I believe that for some little time at college, and during his
first journeys abroad, Mr. Philip spent rather more than the income of his
maternal inheritance, being freely supplied by his father, who told him not to
stint himself. He was a sumptuous man, Dr.Firmin��openhanded ��subscribing to
many charities��a lover of solemn good cheer. The doctor's dinners and the
doctor's equipages were models in their way; and I remember the sincere respect
with which my uncle the major (the family guide in such matters) used to speak
of Dr. Firmin's taste. "No duchess in London, sir," he would say, "drove better
horses than Mrs. Firmin. Sir George Warrender, sir, could not give a better
dinner, sir, than that to which we sat down yesterday." And for the exercise of
these civic virtues the doctor had the hearty respect of the good major.
"Don't tell me, sir," on the other hand, Lord Ringwood would say; "I dined with
the fellow once��a swaggering fellow, sir; but a servile fellow. The way he
bowed and flattered was perfectly absurd. Those fellows think we like it��and we
may. Even at my age, I like flattery��any quantity of it; and not what you call
delicate, but strong, sir. I like a man to kneel down and kiss my shoestrings. I
have my own opinion of him afterwards, but that is what I like��what all men
like; and that is what Firmin gave in quantities. But you could see that his
house was monstrously expensive. His dinner was excellent, and you saw it was
good every day��not like your dinners, my good Maria; not like your wines,
Twysden, which, hang it, I can't swallow, unless I send 'em in myself. Even at
used to give. I drink the best mys
elf, of course, and give it to some who know;
but I don't give it to common fellows, who come to hunting dinners, or to girls
and boys who are dancing at my balls."
"Yes; Mr. Firmin's dinners were very handsome�� and a pretty end came of the
handsome dinners!" sighed Mrs. Twysden.
"That's not the question; I am only speaking about the fellow's meat and drink,
and they were both good. And it's my opinion, that fellow will have a good
dinner wherever he goes."
I had the fortune to be present at one of these feasts, which Lord Ringwood
attended, and at which I met Philip's trustee, General Baynes, who had just
arrived from India. I remember now the smallest details of the little
dinner,��the brightness of the old plate, on which the doctor prided himself,
and the quiet comfort, not to say splendour, of the entertainment. The general
seemed to take a great liking to Philip, whose grandfather had been his special
friend and comrade in arms. He thought he saw something of Philip Ringwood in
Philip Firmin's face.
"Ah, indeed!" growls Lord Ringwood.
"You ain't a bit like him," says the downright general. "Never saw a handsomer
or more openlooking fellow than Philip Ringwood."
"Oh! I daresay I looked pretty open myself forty years ago," said my lord; "now
I'm shut, I suppose. I don't see the least likeness in this young man to my
brother."
"That is some sherry as old as the century," whispers the host; "it is the same
the Prince Regent liked so at a Mansion House dinner, five-and-twenty years
ago."
"Never knew anything about wine; was always tippling liqueurs and punch. What do
you give for this sherry, doctor?"
The doctor sighed, and looked up to the chandelier. "Drink it while it lasts, my
good lord; but don't ask me the price. The fact is, I don't like to say what I
gave for it."
"You need not stint yourself in the price of sherry, doctor," cries the general
gaily; "you have but one son, and he has a fortune of his own, as I happen to
know. You haven't dipped it, master Philip?"
"I fear, sir, I may have exceeded my income sometimes, in the last three years;
but my father has helped me."
"Exceeded nine hundred a-year! Upon my word! When I was a sub, my friends gave
me fifty pounds a year, and I never was a shilling in debt! What are men coming
to now?"
"If doctors drink Prince Regent's sherry at ten guineas a dozen, what can you
expect of their sons, General Baynes?" grumbles my lord.
"My father gives you his best, my lord," says Philip gaily; "if you know of any
better, he will get it for you. Si non, his utere mecum! Please to pass me that
decanter, Pen!"
I thought the old lord did not seem ill pleased at the young man's freedom; and
now, as I recal it, think I can remember, that a peculiar silence and anxiety
seemed to weigh upon our host��upon him whose face was commonly so anxious and
sad.
The famous sherry, which had made many voyages to Indian climes before it
acquired its exquisite flavour, had travelled some three or four times round the
doctor's polished table, when Brice, his man, entered with a letter on his
silver tray. Perhaps Philip's eyes and mine exchanged glances in which ever so
small a scintilla of mischief might sparkle. The doctor often had letters when
he was entertaining his friends; and his patients had a knack of falling ill at
awkward times.
"Gracious heavens!" cries the doctor, when he read the despatch��it was a
telegraphic message. "The poor Grand Duke!"
"What Grand Duke?" asks the surly lord of Ringwood.
"My earliest patron and friend��the Grand Duke of Groningen! Seized this morning
at eleven at Potzendorff! Has sent for me. I promised to go to him if ever he
had need of me. I must go! I can save the night-train yet. General! our visit to
city must be deferred till my return. Get a portmanteau, Brice; and call a cab