"I beg your pardon. I don't think you know | little woman, and puts out a firm little arm who I am," continues the other, with a simper. against this odious invader. She has seen pa"Yes, I do," says Phil, glaring at him. tients in hospital raging in fever: she is not "You're a painter, and your name is Mr. frightened by a tipsy man. "La! is it you, Envy." "Sir!" shrieks the painter; but he is addressing himself to the tails of Phil's coat, the superior half of Mr. Firmin's body is stretching out of the window. Now, you may speak of a man behind his back, but not to him. So Mr. Jarman withdraws, and addresses himself, face to face, to somebody else in the company. I dare say he abuses that upstart, impudent, bumptious young doctor's son. Have I not owned that Philip was often very rude? and to-night he is in a specially bad humor. As he continues to stare into the street, who is that who has just reeled up to the railings below, and is talking in at Mrs. Brandon's window? Whose blackguard voice and laugh are those which Phil recognizes with a shudder? It is the voice and laugh of our friend Mr. Hunt, whom Philip left, not very long since, near his father's house in Old Parr Street; and both of those familiar sounds are more vinous, more odious, more impudent than they were even two hours ago. "Holloa! I say!" he calls out with a laugh and a curse. "Pst! Mrs. Whatdyoucallem! Hang it! don't shut the window. Let a fellow in!" and as he looks toward the upper window, where Philip's head and bust appear dark before the light, Hunt cries out, "Holloa! what game's up now, I wonder? Supper and ball. Shouldn't be surprised." And he hiccups a waltz tune, and clatters time to it with his dirty boots. "Mrs. Whatdyoucall! Mrs. B-!" the sot then recommences to shriek out. "Must see you-most particular business. Private and confidential. Hear of something to your advantage. And rap, rap, rap, he is now thundering at the door. In the clatter of twenty voices few hear Hunt's noise except Philip; or, if they do, only imagine that another of Ridley's guests is arriving. At the hall door there is talk and altercation, and the high shriek of a well-known odious voice. Philip moves quickly from his window, shoulders friend Jarman at the studio door, and hustling past him obtains, no doubt, more good wishes from that ingenious artist. Philip is so rude and overbearing that I really have a mind to depose him from his place of hero-only, you see, we are committed. His name is on the page overhead, and we can't take it down and put up another. The Little Sister is standing in her hall by the just opened door, and remonstrating with Mr. Hunt, who appears to wish to force his way in. "Pooh! shtuff, my dear! If he's here I musht see him-particular business-get out of that!" and he reels forward and against little Caroline's shoulder. "Get away, you brute, you!" cries the little lady. "Go home, Mr. Hunt; you are worse than you were this morning." She is a resolute Mr. Philip? Who ever will take this horrid man? He ain't fit to go up stairs among the gentlemen; indeed he ain't." "You said Firmin was here-and it isn't the father. It's the cub! I want the doctor. Where's the doctor?" hiccups the chaplain, lurching against the wall; and then he looks at Philip with bloodshot eyes, that twinkle hate. "Who wantsh you, I shlike to know? Had enough of you already to-day. Conceited brute. Don't look at me in that sortaway! I ain't afraid of you ain't afraid any body. Time was when I was a young man fight you as soon as look at you. I say, Philip!" "Go home, now. man," says the landlady. Do go home, there's a good "I say! Look here-hic-hi! Philip! On your word as a gentleman, your father's not here? He's a sly old boots, Brummell Firmin is-Trinity man-I'm not a Trinity man-Corpus man. I say, Philip, give us your hand. Bear no malice. Look here-something very particular. After dinner-went into Air Street you know-rouge gagne, et couleur-cleaned out. Cleaned out, on the honor of a gentleman and master of arts of the University of Cambridge. So was your father-no, he went out in medicine. I say, Philip, hand us out five sovereigns, and let's try the luck again! What, you won't? It's mean, I say. Don't be mean." "Oh, here's five shillings! Go and have a cab. Fetch a cab for him, Virgilio, do!" cries the mistress of the house. "That's not enough, my dear!" cries the chaplain, advancing toward Mrs. Brandon with such a leer and air that Philip, half choked with passion, runs forward, grips Hunt by the collar, and crying out, "You filthy scoundrel! as this is not my house, I may kick you out of it!"-in another instant has run Hunt through the passage, hurled him down the steps, and sent him sprawling into the kennel. "Row down below," says Rosebury, placidly, looking from above. "Personal conflict. Intoxicated individual-in gutter. Our impetuous friend has floored him." Hunt, after a moment, sits up and glares at Philip. He is not hurt. Perhaps the shock has sobered him. He thinks, perhaps, Philip is going to strike again. "Hands off, BASTARD!" shrieks out the prostrate wretch. "Oh, Philip, Philip! He's mad, he's tipsy!" cries out the Little Sister, running into the street. She puts her arms round Philip. "Don't mind him, dear-he's mad! Policeman! The gentleman has had too much. Come in, Philip; come in!" She took him into her little room. She was pleased with the gallantry of the boy. She liked to see him just now, standing over her enemy, courageous, victorious, her champion. "La! how savage he did look; and how brave and strong you are! But the little wretch ain't fit to stand before such as you!" And she passed her little hand down his arm, of which the muscles were all in a quiver from the recent skirmish. "What did the scoundrel mean by calling me bastard?" said Philip, the wild blue eyes glaring round about with more than ordinary fierceness. "Nonsense, dear! Who minds any thing he says, that beast? His language is always horrid; he's not a gentleman. He had had too much this morning when he was here. What matters what he says? He won't know any thing about it to-morrow. But it was kind of my Philip to rescue his poor little nurse, wasn't it? Like a novel. Come in, and let me make you some tea. Don't go to no more smoking: you have had enough. Come in and talk to me." And as a mother, with sweet, pious face, yearns to her little children from her seat, she fondles him, she watches him; she fills her teapot from her singing kettle. She talks-talks in her homely way, and on this subject and that. It is a wonder how she prattles on, who is generally rather silent. She won't see Phil's eyes, which are following her about very strangely and fiercely. And when again he mutters, "What did he mean by........." "La, my dear, how cross you are!" she breaks out. "It's always so; you won't be happy without your cigar. Here's a cheroot, a beauty! Pa brought it home from the club. A China captain gave him some. You must light it at the little end. There!" And if I could draw the picture which my mind sees of her lighting Phil's cheroot for him, and smiling the while, the little innocent Delilah coaxing and wheedling this young Samson, I know it would be a pretty picture. I wish Ridley would sketch it for me. CHAPTER XII. DAMOCLES. On the next morning, at an hour so early that Old Parr Street was scarce awake, and even the maids who wash the broad steps of the houses of the tailors and medical gentlemen who inhabit that region had not yet gone down on their knees before their respective doors, a ring was heard at Dr. Firmin's night bell, and when the door was opened by the yawning attendant, a little person in a gray gown and a black bonnet made her appearance, handed a note to the servant, and said the case was most urgent and the doctor must come at once. Was not Lady Humandhaw the noble person whom we last mentioned, as the invalid about whom the doctor and the nurse had spoken a few words on the previous evening? The Little Sister, for it was she, used the very same name to the servant, who retired grumbling to waken up his master and deliver the note. Nurse Brandon sate a while in the great gaunt dining-room where hung the portrait of the doctor in his splendid black collar and cuffs, and contemplated this master-piece until an invasion of housemaids drove her from the apartment, when she took refuge in that other little room to which Mrs. Firmin's portrait had been consigned. "That's like him ever so many years and years ago," she thinks. "It is a little handsomer; but it has his wicked look that I used to think so killing, and so did my sisters both of them-they were ready to tear out each other's eyes for jealousy. And that's Mrs. Firmin's! Well, I suppose the painter haven't flattered her. If he have she could have been no great things, Mrs. F. couldn't." And the doctor, entering softly by the opened door and over the thick Turkey carpet, comes up to her noiseless, and finds the Little Sister gazing at the portrait of the departed lady. "Oh! it's you, is it? I wonder whether you treated her no better than you treated me, Dr. F. I've a notion she's not the only one. She don't look happy, poor thing!" says the little lady. "What is it, Caroline?" asks the deep-voiced doctor; "and what brings you so early ?" The Little Sister then explains to him. "Last night after he went away Hunt came sure enough. He had been drinking. He was very rude, and Philip wouldn't bear it. Philip had a good courage of his own and a hot blood. And Philip thought Hunt was insulting her, the Little Sister. So he up with his hand and down goes Mr. Hunt on the pavement. Well, when he was down he was in a dreadful way, and he called Philip a dreadful name." "A name? what name?" Then Caroline told the doctor the name Mr. Hunt had used; and if Firmin's face usually looked wicked, I dare say it did not seem very angelical when he heard son. how this odious name had been applied to his "Can he do Philip a mischief?" Caroline continued. "I thought I was bound to tell his father. Look here, Dr. F., I don't want to do my dear boy a harm. But suppose what you told me last night isn't true-as I don't think you much mind-mind—saying things as are incorrect, you know, when us women are in the case. But suppose when you played the villian, thinking only to take in a poor innocent girl of sixteen, it was you who were took in, and that I was your real wife after all? There would be a punishment!" gentleman doze; but after discovery has come, and opened your curtains, and said, 'You desired to be called early!' there's little use in trying to sleep much. You look very much frightened, Doctor F.," the nurse continues. "You haven't such a courage as Philip has; or as you had when you were a young man, and came a leading poor girls astray. You used to be afraid of nothing then. Do you remember that fellow on board the steamboat in Scotland in our wedding-trip, and, la, I thought you was going to kill him. That poor little Lord Cinqbars told me ever so many stories then about your courage and shooting people. It wasn't very courageous, leaving a poor girl without even a "This would be a punishment, not for you, name, and scarce a guinea, was it? But I ain't but for my poor Philip," the woman goes on. come to call up old stories-only to warn you. "What has he done that his honest name should Even in old times, when he married us, and I be took from him--and his fortune perhaps? I thought he was doing a kindness, I never could have been lying broad awake all night thinking abide this horrible man. In Scotland, when you of him. Ah, George Brandon! Why, why did was away shooting with your poor little lord, the you come to my poor old father's house, and things Hunt used to say and look was dreadful. bring this misery down on me, and on your child I wonder how ever you, who were gentlemen, unborn ?" could put up with such a fellow! Ah, that was "I should have an honest and good wife, Caroline," said the doctor, with a groan. tor. "On myself the worst of all," says the doc- a sad honey-moon of ours! I wonder why I'm "You deserve it. But it's us innocent that has had, or will have, to suffer most. Oh, George Brandon! Think of a poor child, flung away, and left to starve and die, without even so much as knowing your real name! Think of your boy, perhaps brought to shame and poverty through your fault!" "Do you suppose I don't often think of my wrong?" says the doctor. "That it does not cause me sleepless nights, and hours of anguish? Ah! Caroline!" and he looks in the glass; "I am not shaved, and it's very unbecoming," he thinks; that is, if I may dare to read his thoughts, as I do to report his unheard words. a thinking of it now? I suppose it's from having seen the picture of the other one-poor lady!" "I have told you, Caroline, that I was so wild and desperate at that unhappy time, I was scarcely accountable for my actions. If I left you, it was because I had no other resource but flight. I was a ruined, penniless man but for my marriage with Ellen Ringwood. You don't suppose the marriage was happy? Happy! when have I ever been happy? My lot is to be wretched, and bring wretchedness down on those I love! On you, on my father, on my wife, on my boy-I am a doomed man. Ah that the innocent should suffer for me!" And our friend "You think of your wrong now it may be looks askance in the glass at the blue chin and found out, I dare say!" says Caroline. "Sup-hollow eyes which make his guilt look the more pose this Hunt turns against you? He is des- haggard. perate; mad for drink and money; has been in jail-as he said this very night to me and my papa. He'll do or say any thing. If you treat him hard, and Philip have treated him hardnot harder than served him right though-he'll pull the house down and himself under it; but he'll be revenged. Perhaps he drank so much last night that he may have forgot. But I fear he means mischief, and I came here to say so, and hoping that you might be kep on your guard, Doctor F., and if you have to quarrel with him, I don't know what you ever will do, I am sure -no more than if you had to fight a chimneysweep in the street. I have been awake all night thinking, and as soon as ever as I saw the daylight I determined I would run and tell you." "When he called Philip that name did the boy seem much disturbed?" asked the doctor. "Yes; he referred to it again and againthough I tried to coax him out of it. But it was on his mind last night, and I am sure he will think of it the first thing this morning. Ah yes, doctor! conscience will sometimes let a "I never had my lines," the Little Sister continued, "I never knew there were papers, or writings, or any thing but a ring and a clergyman, when you married me. But I've heard tell that people in Scotland don't want a clergyman at all; and if they call themselves man and wife, they are man and wife. Now, Sir, Mr. and Mrs. Brandon certainly did travel together in Scotland-witness that man whom you were going to throw into the lake for being rude to your wife-and.........La! Don't fly out so! It wasn't me, a poor girl of sixteen, who did wrong. It was you, a man of the world, who was years and years older." When Brandon carried off his poor little victim and wife, there had been a journey to Scotland, where Lord Cinqbars, then alive, had sporting quarters. His lordship's chaplain, Mr. Hunt, had been of the party, which fate very soon afterward separated. Death seized on Cinqbars at Naples. Debt caused Firmin-Brandon, as he called himself then-to fly the country. The chaplain wandered from jail to jail. And as for poor little Caroline Brandon, I suppose the husband who had married her under a false name thought that to escape her, leave her, and disown her altogether was an easier and less dangerous plan than to continue relations with her. So one day, four months after their marriage, the young couple being then at Dover, Caroline's husband happened to go out for a walk. But he sent away a portmanteau by the back door when he went out for the walk, and as Caroline was waiting for her little dinner some hours after, the porter who carried the luggage came with a little note from her dearest G. B.; and it was full of little fond expressions of regard and affection, such as gentlemen put into little notes; but dearest G. B. said the bailiffs were upon him, and one of them had arrived that morning, and he must fly: and he took half the money he had, and left half for his little Carry. And he would be back soon and arrange matters, or tell her where to write and follow him. And she was to take care of her little health, and to write a great deal to her Georgy. And she did not know how to write very well then; but she did her best, and improved a great deal; for, indeed, she wrote a great deal, poor thing. Sheets and sheets of paper she blotted with ink and tears. And then the money was spent; and the next money; and no more came, and no more letters. And she was alone at sea, sinking, sinking, when it pleased Heaven to send that friend who rescued her. It is such a sad, sad, little story, that in fact I don't like dwelling on it; not caring to look upon poor, innocent, trusting creatures in pain. If you right to come with such a pede claudo. There ought to be limitations, and it is shabby and revengeful of Justice to present her little bill when it has been more than twenty years owing......... Having had his talk out with the Little Sister, having a long past crime suddenly taken down from the shelf; having a remorse, long since supposed to be dead and buried, suddenly starting up in the most blustering, boisterous, inconvenient manner; having a rage and terror tearing him within; I can fancy this most respectable physician going about his day's work, and most sincerely sympathize with him. Who is to heal the physician? Is he not more sick at heart than most of his patients that day? He has to listen to Lady Megrim cackling for half an hour at least, and describing her little ailments. He has to listen, and never once to dare to say, "Confound you, old chatter-box! What are you prating about your ailments to me, who am suffering real torture while I am smirking in your face?" He has to wear the inspiriting smile, to breathe the gentle joke, to console, to whisper hope, to administer remedy; and all day, perhaps, he sees no one so utterly sick, so sad, so despairing, as himself. The first person on whom he had to practice hypocrisy that day was his own son, who chose to come to breakfast-a meal of which son and father seldom now partook in company. "What does he know, and what does he suspect?" are the father's thoughts; but a lowering gloom is on Philip's face, and the father's eyes look into the son's, but can not penetrate their darkness. "Did you stay late last night, Philip?" says papa. "Yes, Sir, rather late," answers the son. "Pleasant party ?" "No, Sir, stupid. wanted to come in. Your friend Mr. Hunt He was drunk, and rude to Mrs. Brandon, and I was obliged to put him out of the door. He was dreadfully violent and "Swore a good deal, I suppose?" .Well, then, when Caroline exclaimed, "La! don't fly out so, Dr. Firmin!" I suppose the doctor had been crying out, and swearing fiercely, at the recollections of his friend Mr. Brandon, and at the danger which possibly hung over that gentleman. Marriage ceremonies are dangerous risks in jest or in earnest. You can't pretend to marry even a poor old bankrupt lodg-abusive." ing-house keeper's daughter without some risk of being brought subsequently to book. have a vulgar wife alive, and afterward choose to leave her and marry an earl's niece, you will come to trouble, however well connected you are and highly placed in society. If you have had thirty thousand pounds with wife No. 2, and have to pay it back on a sudden, the payment may be inconvenient. You may be tried for bigamy, and sentenced, goodness knows to what punishment. At any rate, if the matter is made public, and you are a most respectable man, moving in the highest scientific and social circles, those circles may be disposed to request you to walk out of their circumference. A novelist, I know, ought to have no likes, dislikes, pity, partiality for his characters; but I declare I can not help feeling a respectful compassion for a gentleman, who, in consequence of a youthful, and, I am sure, sincerely regretted folly, may be liable to lose his fortune, his place in society, and his considerable practice. Punishment hasn't a I dare say Philip's heart beat so when he said these last words that they were inaudible: at all events, Philip's father did not appear to pay much attention to the words, for he was busy reading the Morning Post, and behind that sheet of fashionable news hid whatever expression of agony there might be on his face. Philip afterward told his present biographer of this breakfast meeting and dreary tête-à-tête. "I burned to ask what was the meaning of that scoundrel's words of the past night," Philip said to his biographer; "but I did not dare, somehow. You see, Pendennis, it is not pleasant to say pointblank to your father, 'Sir, are you a confirmed scoundrel, or are you not? Is it possible that you have made a double marriage, as yonder other rascal hinted; and that my own legitimacy and my mother's fair fame, as well as poor, harmless Caroline's honor and happiness have been destroyed by your crime?' But I had lain "I say, again, it is a lie, Sir!" screams Hunt, with a stamp on the table. "That you should give me the lie, or otherwise, is perfectly immaterial to me. But whenever you insult Mrs. Brandon, or any harmless woman in my presence, I shall do my best to chastise you," cries Philip of the red mustaches, curling them with much dignity. awake all night thinking about that scoundrel | own house, and I turned you out of it," said Hunt's words, and whether there was any mean-Phil. ing beyond drunken malice in what he said." So we find that three people had passed a bad night in consequence of Mr. Firmin's evil behavior of five-and-twenty years back, which surely was a most unreasonable punishment for a sin of such old date. I wish, dearly beloved brother sinners, we could take all the punishment for our individual crimes on our individual shoulders: but we drag them all down with us--that is the fact; and when Macheath is condemned to hang, it is Polly and Lucy who have to weep and suffer" and I think he means what he says, too." and wear piteous mourning in their hearts long after the dare-devil rogue has jumped off the Tyburn ladder. "Well, Sir, he did not say a word," said Philip, recounting the meeting to his friend; “not a word, at least, regarding the matter both of us had on our hearts. But about fashion, parties, politics, he discoursed much more freely than was usual with him. He said I might have had Lord Ringwood's seat for Whipham but for my unfortunate politics. What made a Radical of me, he asked, who was naturally one of the most haughty of men (and that, I think, perhaps I am, says Phil, and a good many liberal fellows are)? I should calm down, he was sure I should calm down, and be of the politics des hommes du monde." "You hear him, Firmin?" says the parson. "Oh! you take that line, do you?" cries Hunt of the dirty hands, the dirty teeth, the dirty neckcloth. "I take what you call that line; and whenever a rudeness is offered to that admirable woman in my son's hearing, I shall be astonished if he does not resent it," says the doctor. "Thank you, Philip!” The father's resolute speech and behavior gave Philip great momentary comfort. Hunt's words of the night before had been occupying the young man's thoughts. Had Firmin been criminal he could not be so bold. "You talk this way in presence of your son? You have been talking over the matter together before?" asks Hunt. "We have been talking over the matter before-yes. We were engaged on it when you came into breakfast," said the doctor. "Shall we go on with the conversation where we left it off?" "Well, do—that is, if you dare," said the clergyman, somewhat astonished. "Philip, my dear, it is ill for a man to hide his head before his own son; but if I am to speak—and speak I must one day or the other "Why at all, Firmin?" asks the clergyman, astonished at the other's rather sudden resolve. Their meal was scarce ended when entered to them Mr. Hunt, with his hat on. I was not present at the time, and can not speak as a cer--why not now?" tainty; but I should think at his ominous appearance Philip may have turned red and his father pale. "Now is the time," both, I dare say, thought; and the doctor remembered his stormy young days of foreign gambling, intrigue, and duel, when he was put on his ground before his adversary, and bidden, at a given signal, to fire. One, two, three! Each man's hand was armed with malice and murder. Philip had plenty of pluck for his part, but I should think on such an occasion might be a little nervous and fluttered, whereas his father's eye was keen, and his aim rapid and steady. "You and Philip had a difference last night, Philip tells me," said the doctor. "Why? Because I am sick and tired of you, Mr. Tufton Hunt," cries the physician, in his most lofty manner, "of you and your presence in my house; your blackguard behavior and your rascal extortions-because you will force me to speak one day or the other-and now, Philip, if you like, shall be the day." "Hang it, I say! Stop a bit!" cries the clergyman. "I understand you want some more money from me." "I did promise Jacobs I would pay him today, and that was what made me so sulky last "Yes, and I promised he should pay me," night; and perhaps I took a little too much. said the clergyman. You see my mind was out of order; and what's "And I said I should desire no better," says the use of telling a story that is no good to any Mr. Phil. one, Firmin-least of all to you?" cries the parson, darkly. "He struck his senior, his father's friend-a sick man, a clergyman," gasped Hunt. "Were you to repeat what you did last night, I should repeat what I did," said Phil. "You insulted a good woman." "It's a lie, Sir!" cries the other. "Because, you ruffian, I'll bear with you no more," cries the doctor, the veins of his forehead swelling as he looks fiercely at his dirty adversary. "In the last nine months, Philip, this man has had nine hundred pounds from "You insulted a good woman, a lady in her me." |