at once. Philip will entertain my friends for the evening. My dear lord, you
won't mind an old doctor leaving you to attend an old patient? I will write from
Groningen. I shall be there on Friday morning. Farewell, gentlemen! Brice,
another bottle of that sherry! I pray, don't let anybody stir! God bless you,
Philip, my boy!" And with this the doctor went up, took his son by the hand, and
laid the other very kindly on the young man's shoulder. Then he made a bow round
the table to his guests��one of his graceful bows, for which he was famous. I
can see the sad smile on his face now, and the light from the chandelier over
the dining-table glancing from his shining forehead, and casting deep shadows on
to his cheek from his heavy brows.
The departure was a little abrupt, and, of course, cast somewhat of a gloom upon
the company.
"My carriage ain't ordered till ten��must go on sitting here, I suppose.
Confounded life doctor's must be! Called up any hour in the night! Get their
fees! Must go!" growled the great man of the party.
"People are glad enough to have them when they are ill, my lord. I think I have
heard that once, when you were at Ryde��"
The great man started back as if a little shock of cold water had fallen on him;
and then looked at Philip with not unfriendly glances. "Treated for gout��so he
did. Very well, too!" said my lord; and whispered, not inaudibly, "Cool hand,
that boy!" And then his lordship fell to talk with General Baynes about his
campaigning, and his early acquaintance with his own brother, Philip's
grandfather.
The general did not care to brag about his own feats of arms, but was loud in
praises of his old comrade. Philip was pleased to hear his grandsire so well
spoken of. The general had known Dr. Firmin's father also, who likewise had been
a colonel in the famous old Peninsular army. "A Tartar that fellow was, and no
mistake!" said the good officer. "Your father has a strong look of him; and you
have a glance of him at times. But you remind me of Philip Ringwood not a
little; and you could not belong to a better man."
"Ha!" says my lord. There has been differences between him and his brother. He
may have been thinking of days when they were friends. Lord Ringwood now
graciously asked if General Baynes was staying in London? But the general had
only come to do this piece of business, which must now be delayed. He was too
poor to live in London. He must look out for a country place, where he and his
children could live cheaply. "Three boys at school, and one at college, Mr.
Philip��you know what that must cost; though, thank my stars, my college boy
does not spend nine hundred a year. Nine hundred! Where should we be if he did?"
In fact, the days of nabobs are long over, and the general had come back to his
native country with only very small means for the support of a great family.
When my lord's carriage came, he departed, and the other guests presently took
their leave. The general, who was a bachelor for the nonce, remained awhile, and
we three prattled over cheroots in Philip's smokingroom. It was a night like a
hundred I have spent there, and yet how well I remember it! We talked about
Philip's future prospects, and he communicated his intentions to us in his
lordly way. As for practising at the bar: No, sir! he said, in reply to General
Baynes' queries, he should not make much hand of that: shouldn't if he were ever
so poor. He had his own money, and his father's, and he condescended to say that
he might, perhaps, try for Parliament, should an eligible opportunity offer.
"Here's a fellow born with a silver spoon in his mouth," says the general, as we
walked away together. "A fortune to begin with; a fortune to inherit. My fortune
was two thousand pounds and the price of my two first commissions; and when I
die my children will not be quite so well off as their father was when he
began!"
Having parted with the old officer at his modest sleeping quarters near his
club, I walked to my own home, little thinking that yonder cigar, of which I had
shaken some of ashes in Philip's smoking-room, was to be the last tobacco I ever
should smoke there. The pipe was smoked out. The wine was drunk. When that door
closed on me, it closed for the last time��at least, was never more to admit me
as Philip's, as Dr. Firmin's, guest and friend. I pass the place often now. My
youth comes back to me as I gaze at those blank, shining windows. I see myself a
boy, and Philip a child; and his fair mother; and his father, the hospitable,
the melancholy, the magnificent. I wish I could have helped him. I wish somehow
he had borrowed money. He never did. He gave me his often. I have never seen him
since that night when his own door closed upon him.
On the second day after the doctor's departure, as I was at breakfast with my
family, I received the following letter:��
My dear Pendennis,
Could I have seen you in private on Tuesday night, I might have warned you of
the calamity which was hanging over my house. But to what good end? That you
should know a few weeks, hours before, what all the world will ring with
to-morrow? Neither you nor I, nor one whom we both love, would have been the
happier for knowing my misfortunes a few hours sooner. In four-and-twenty hours
every club in London will be busy with talk of the departure of the celebrated
Dr. Firmin��the wealthy Dr. Firmin; a few months more and (I have strict and
confidential reason to believe) hereditary rank would have been mine, but Sir
George Firmin would have been an insolvent man, and his son Sir Philip a beggar.
Perhaps the thought of this honour has been one of the reasons which has
determined me on expatriating myself sooner than I otherwise needed to have
done.
George Firmin, the honoured, the wealthy physician, and his son a beggar? I see
you are startled at the news! You wonder how, with a great practice, and no
great ostensible expenses, such ruin should have come upon me��upon him. It has
seemed as if for years past Fate has been determined to make war upon George
Brand Firmin; and who can battle against Fate? A man universally admitted to be
of good judgment, I have embarked in mercantile speculations the most promising.
Everything upon which I laid my hand has crumbled to ruin; but I can say with
the Roman bard, "Impavidum ferient ruin�." And, almost penniless, almost aged,
an exile driven from my country, I seek another where I do not despair��I even
have a firm belief that I small be enabled to repair my shattered fortunes! My
race has never been deficient in courage, and Philip and Philip's father must
use all theirs, so as to be enabled to face the dark times which menace them. Si
celeres quatit pennas Fortuna, we must resign what she gave us, and bear our
calamity with unshaken hearts!
There is a man, I own to you, whom I cannot, I must not face. General Baynes has
just come from India, with but very small savings, I fear; and these are
jeopardized by his imprudence and my most cruel and unexpected misfortune. I
need not tell you that my all would ha
ve been my boy's. My will, made long
since, will be found in the tortoiseshell secretaire standing in my
consulting-room under the picture of Abraham offering up Isaac. In it you will
see that everything, except annuities to old and deserving servants and a legacy
to one excellent and faithful woman whom I own I have wronged��my all, which
once was considerable, is left to my boy.
I am now worth less than nothing, and have compromised Philip's property along
with my own. As a man of business, General Baynes, Colonel Ringwood's old
companion in arms, was culpably careless, and I��alas! that I must own
it��deceived him. Being the only surviving trustee (Mrs. Philip Ringwood's other
trustee was an unprincipled attorney who has been long dead), General B. signed
a paper authorizing, as he imagined, my bankers to receive Philip's dividends,
but, in fact, giving me the power to dispose of the capital sum. On my honour,
as a man, as a gentleman, as a father, Pendcnnis, I hoped to replace it! I took
it; I embarked it in speculations in which it sank down with ten times the
amount of my own private property. Half-year after halfyear, with straitened
means and with the greatest difficulty to myself, my poor boy has had his
dividend; and he at least has never known what was want or anxiety until now.
Want? Anxiety? Pray heaven he never may suffer the sleepless anguish, the
racking care which has pursued me! "Post equitem sedet atra cura," our favourite
poet says. Ah! how truly, too, does he remark, "Patri� quis exul se quoque
fugit?" Think you where I go grief and remorse will not follow me? They will
never leave me until I shall return to this country ��for that I shall return,
my heart tells me��until I can reimburse General Baynes, who stands indebted to
Philip through his incautiousness and my overpowering necessity; and my
heart��an erring but fond father's heart��tells me that my boy will not
eventually lose a penny by my misfortune.
I own, between ourselves, that this illness of the Grand Duke of Groningen was a
pretext which I put forward. You will hear of me cre long from the place whither
for some time past I have determined on bending my steps. I placed 2001. on
Saturday, to Philip's credit, at his banker's I take little more than that sum
retrieve it, and vowing that ere I die my poor boy shall not have to blush at
bearing the name of
George Brand Firmin.
Good-by, dear Philip! Your old friend will tell you of my misfortunes. When I
write again, it will be to tell you where to address me; and wherever I am, or
whatever misfortunes oppress me, think of me always as your fond.
Father.
I had scarce read this awful letter when Philip Firmin himself came into our
breakfast-room, looking very much disturbed.
CHAPTER XV. SAMARITANS.
The children trotted up to their friend with outstretched hands and their usual
smiles of welcome. Philip patted their heads, and sate down with very wobegone
aspect at the family table. "Ah, friends," said he, "do you know all?"
"Yes, we do," said Laura, sadly, who has ever compassion for others'
misfortunes.
"What! is it all over the town already?" asked poor Philip.
"We have a letter from your father this morning." And we brought the letter to
him, and showed him the affectionate special message for himself.
"His last thought was for you, Philip!" cries Laura. "See here, those last kind
words!"
Philip shook his head. "It is not untrue, what is written here: but it is not
all the truth." And Philip Firmin dismayed us by the intelligence which he
proceeded to give. There was an execution in the house in Old Parr Street. A
hundred clamorous creditors had already appeared there. Before going away, the
doctor had taken considerable sums from those dangerous financiers to whom he
had been of late resorting. They were in possession of numberless lately-signed
bills, upon which the desperate man had raised money. He had professed to share
with Philip, but he had taken the great share, and left Philip two hundred
pounds of his own money. All the rest was gone. All Philip's stock had been sold
out. The father's fraud had made him master of the trustee's signature: and
Philip Firmin, reputed to be so wealthy, was a beggar, in my room. Luckily he
had few, or very trifling, debts. Mr. Philip had a lordly impatience of
indebtedness, and, with a good bachelor-income, had paid for all his pleasures
as he enjoyed them.
Well! He must work. A young man ruined at two-and-twenty, with a couple of
hundred pounds yet in his pocket, hardly knows that he is ruined. He will sell
his horses��live in chambers��has enough to go on for a year. "When I am very
hard put to it," says Philip, "I will come and dine with the children at one. I
daresay you haven't dined much at Williams's in the Old Bailey? You can get a
famous dinner there for a shilling��beef, bread, potatoes, beer, and a penny for
the waiter." Yes, Philip seemed actually to enjoy his discomfiture. It was long
since we had seen him in such spirits. "The weight is off my mind now. It has
been throttling me for some time past. Without understanding why or wherefore, I
have always been looking out for this. My poor father had ruin written in his
face: and when those bailiffs made their appearance in Old Parr Street
yesterday, I felt as if I had known them before. I had seen their hooked beaks
in my dreams."
"That unlucky General Baynes, when he accepted your mother's trust, took it with
its consequences. If the sentry falls asleep on his post, he must pay the
penalty," says Mr. Pendennis, very severely.
"Great powers! you would not have me come down on an old man with a large
family, and ruin them all?" cries Philip.
"No: I don't think Philip will do that," says my wife, looking exceedingly
pleased.
"If men accept trusts they must fulfil them, my dear," cries the master of the
house.
"And I must make that old gentleman suffer for my father's wrong? If I do, may I
starve! there!" cries Philip.
"And so that poor Little Sister has made her sacrifice in vain!" sighed my wife.
"As for the father�� oh, Arthur! I can't tell you how odious that man was to me.
There was something dreadful about him. And in his manner to women��oh!��"
"If he had been a black draught, my dear, you could not have shuddered more
naturally."
Women often make light of ruin. Give them but the beloved objects, and poverty
is a trifling sorrow to bear. As for Philip, he, as we have said, is gayer than
he has been for years past. The doctor's flight occasions not a little club
talk: but, now he is gone, many people see quite well that they were aware of
his insolvency, and always knew it must end so. The case is told, is canvassed,
is exaggerated as such cases will be. I daresay it forms a week's talk. But
people know that poor Philip is his father's largest credi
tor, and eye the young
man with no unfriendly looks when he comes to his club after his mishap,��with
burning cheeks, and a tingling sense of shame, imagining that all the world will
point at and avoid him as the guilty fugitive's son.
No: the world takes very little heed of his misfortune. One or two old
acquaintances are kinder to him than before. A few say his ruin, and his
obligation to work, will do him good. Only a very, very few avoid him, and look
unconscious as he passes them by. Amongst these cold countenances, you, of
course, will recognize the faces of the whole Twysden family. Three statues,
with marble eyes, could not look more stony-calm than aunt Twysden and her two
daughters, as they pass in the stately barouche. The gentlemen turn red when
they see Philip. It is rather late times for uncle Twysden to begin blushing, to
be sure. "Hang the fellow! he will, of course, be coming for money. Dawkins, I
am not at home, mind, when young Mr. Firmin calls." So says Lord Ringwood,
regarding Philip fallen among thieves. Ah, thanks to heaven, travellers find
Samaritans as well as Levites on life's hard way! Philip told us with much
humour of a rencontre which he had had with his cousin, Ringwood Twysden, in a
public place. Twysden was enjoying himself with some young clerks of his office;
but as Philip advanced upon him, assuming his fiercest scowl and most hectoring
manner, the other lost heart, and fled. And no wonder. "Do you suppose," says
Twysden, "I will willingly sit in the same room with that cad, after the manner
in which he has treated my family! No, sir!" And so the tall door in Beaunash
Street is to open for Philip Firmin no more.
The tall door in Beaunash Street flies open readily enough for another
gentleman. A splendid cab-horse reins up before it every day. A pair of
varnished boots leap out of the cab, and spring up the broad stairs, where
somebody is waiting with a smile of genteel welcome ��the same smile��on the
same sofa��the same mamma at her table writing her letters. And beautiful
bouquets from Covent Garden decorate the room. And after half an hour mamma goes
out to speak to the housekeeper, vous comprenez. And there is nothing
particularly new under the sun. It will shine to-morrow upon pretty much the
same flowers, sports, pastimes, which it illuminated yesterday. And when your
love-making days are over, miss, and you are married, and advantageously
established, shall not your little sisters, now in the nursery, trot down and
play their little games? Would you, on your conscience, now�� you who are rather
inclined to consider Miss Agnes Twysden's conduct as heartless��would you, I
say, have her cry her pretty eyes out about a young man who does not care much
for her, for whom she never did care much herself, and who is now, moreover, a
beggar, with a ruined and disgraced father and a doubtful legitimacy? Absurd!
That dear girl is like a beautiful fragrant bower-room at the Star and Garter at
Richmond, with honeysuckles mayhap trailing round the windows, from which you
behold one of the most lovely and pleasant of wood and river scenes. The tables
are decorated with flowers, rich winecups sparkle on the board, and Captain
Jones's party have everything they can desire. Their dinner over, and that
company gone, the same waiters, the same flowers, the same cups and crystals,
array themselves for Mr. Brown and his party. Or, if you won't have Agnes
Twysden compared to the Star and Garter Tavern, which must admit mixed company,
liken her to the chaste moon who shines on shepherds of all complexions, swarthy
or fair.
When, oppressed by superior odds, a commander is forced to retreat, we like him
to show his skill by carrying off his guns, treasure, and camp equipages. Doctor
Firmin, beaten by fortune and compelled to fly, showed quite a splendid skill
and coolness in his manner of decamping, and left the very smallest amount of
spoils in the hands of the victorious enemy. His wines had been famous amongst