The History of Pendennis | Page 7

kindness with which the young lady bore her elderly
relative's insults; and it was, as they were going in the fourth mourning
coach to attend her ladyship's venerated remains to Bath Abbey, where
they now repose, that he looked at her sweet pale face and resolved
upon putting a certain question to her, the very nature of which made
his pulse beat ninety, at least.
He was older than she by more than twenty years, and at no time the
most ardent of men. Perhaps he had had a love affair in early life which
he had to strangle--perhaps all early love affairs ought to be strangled
or drowned, like so many blind kittens: well, at three-and-forty he was
a collected quiet little gentleman in black stockings with a bald head,
and a few days after the ceremony he called to see her, and, as he felt
her pulse, he kept hold of her hand in his, and asked her where she was
going to live now that the Pontypool family had come down upon the
property, which was being nailed into boxes, and packed into hampers,
and swaddled up with haybands, and buried in straw, and locked under
three keys in green baize plate-chests, and carted away under the eyes
of poor Miss Helen,--he asked her where she was going to live finally.
Her eyes filled with tears, and she said she did not know. She had a
little money. The old lady had left her a thousand pounds, indeed; and
she would go into a boarding-house or into a school: in fine, she did not
know where.
Then Pendennis, looking into her pale face, and keeping hold of her
cold little hand, asked her if she would come and live with him? He
was old compared to--to so blooming a young lady as Miss
Thistlewood (Pendennis was of the grave old complimentary school of
gentlemen and apothecaries), but he was of good birth, and, he flattered
himself, of good principles and temper. His prospects were good, and
daily mending. He was alone in the world, and had need of a kind and
constant companion, whom it would be the study of his life to make
happy; in a word, he recited to her a little speech, which he had
composed that morning in bed, and rehearsed and perfected in his
carriage, as he was coming to wait upon the young lady.
Perhaps if he had had an early love-passage, she too had one day hoped

for a different lot than to be wedded to a little gentleman who rapped
his teeth and smiled artificially, who was laboriously polite to the butler
as he slid upstairs into the drawing-room, and profusely civil to the
lady's-maid, who waited at the bed-room door; for whom her old
patroness used to ring as for a servant, and who came with even more
eagerness; who got up stories, as he sent in draughts, for his patient's
amusement and his own profit: perhaps she would have chosen a
different man--but she knew, on the other hand, how worthy Pendennis
was, how prudent, how honourable; how good he had been to his
mother, and constant in his care of her; and the upshot of this interview
was, that she, blushing very much, made Pendennis an extremely low
curtsey, and asked leave to--to consider his very kind proposal.
They were married in the dull Bath season, which was the height of the
season in London. And Pendennis having previously, through a
professional friend, M.R.C.S., secured lodgings in Holles Street,
Cavendish Square, took his wife thither in a chaise and pair; conducted
her to the theatres, the Parks, and the Chapel Royal; showed her the
folks going to a drawing-room, and, in a word, gave her all the
pleasures of the town. He likewise left cards upon Lord Pontypool,
upon the Right Honourable the Earl of Bareacres, and upon Sir Pepin
and Lady Ribstone, his earliest and kindest patrons. Bareacres took no
notice of the cards. Pontypool called, admired Mrs. Pendennis, and said
Lady Pontypool would come and see her, which her ladyship did, per
proxy of John her footman, who brought her card, and an invitation to a
concert five weeks off. Pendennis was back in his little one-horse
carriage, dispensing draughts and pills at that time: but the Ribstones
asked him and Mrs. Pendennis to an entertainment, of which Mr.
Pendennis bragged to the last day of his life.
The secret ambition of Mr. Pendennis had always been to be a
gentleman. It takes much time and careful saving for a provincial
doctor, whose gains are not very large, to lay by enough money
wherewith to purchase a house and land: but besides our friend's own
frugality and prudence, fortune aided him considerably in his
endeavour,