The History of Pendennis | Page 8

and brought him to the point which he so panted to attain.
He laid out some money very advantageously in the purchase of a

house and small estate close upon the village of Clavering before
mentioned. Words cannot describe, nor did he himself ever care to
confess to any one, his pride when he found himself a real landed
proprietor, and could walk over acres of which he was the master. A
lucky purchase which he had made of shares in a copper-mine added
very considerably to his wealth, and he realised with great prudence
while this mine was still at its full vogue. Finally, he sold his business
at Bath, to Mr. Parkins, for a handsome sum of ready money, and for an
annuity to be paid to him during a certain number of years after he had
for ever retired from the handling of the mortar and pestle.
Arthur Pendennis, his son, was eight years old at the time of this event,
so that it is no wonder that the latter, who left Bath and the surgery so
young, should forget the existence of such a place almost entirely, and
that his father's hands had ever been dirtied by the compounding of
odious pills, or the preparation of filthy plasters. The old man never
spoke about the shop himself, never alluded to it; called in the medical
practitioner of Clavering to attend his family when occasion arrived;
sunk the black breeches and stockings altogether; attended market and
sessions, and wore a bottle-green coat and brass buttons with drab
gaiters, just as if he had been an English gentleman all his life. He used
to stand at his lodge-gate, and see the coaches come in, and bow
gravely to the guards and coachmen as they touched their hats and
drove by. It was he who founded the Clavering Book Club: and set up
the Samaritan Soup and Blanket Society. It was he who brought the
mail, which used to run through Cacklefield before, away from that
village and through Clavering. At church he was equally active as a
vestryman and a worshipper. At market every Thursday, he went from
pen to stall, looked at samples of oats, and munched corn, felt beasts,
punched geese in the breast, and weighed them with a knowing air, and
did business with the farmers at the Clavering Arms, as well as the
oldest frequenter of that house of call. It was now his shame, as it
formerly was his pride, to be called Doctor, and those who wished to
please him always gave him the title of Squire.
Heaven knows where they came from, but a whole range of Pendennis
portraits presently hung round the Doctor's oak dining-room; Lelys and

Vandykes he vowed all the portraits to be, and when questioned as to
the history of the originals, would vaguely say they were 'ancestors of
his.' You could see by his wife's looks that she disbelieved in these
genealogical legends, for she generally endeavoured to turn the
conversation when he commenced them. But his little boy believed
them to their fullest extent, and Roger Pendennis of Agincourt, Arthur
Pendennis of Crecy, General Pendennis of Blenheim and Oudenarde,
were as real and actual beings for this young gentleman as--whom shall
we say?--as Robinson Crusoe, or Peter Wilkins, or the Seven
Champions of Christendom, whose histories were in his library.
Pendennis's fortune, which, at the best, was not above eight hundred
pounds a year, did not, with the best economy and management, permit
of his living with the great folks of the county; but he had a decent
comfortable society of the second-best sort. If they were not the roses,
they lived near the roses, as it were, and had a good deal of the odour of
genteel life. They had out their plate, and dined each other round in the
moonlight nights twice a year, coming a dozen miles to these festivals;
and besides the county, the Pendennises had the society of the town of
Clavering, as much as, nay, more than they liked: for Mrs. Pybus was
always poking about Helen's conservatories, and intercepting the
operation of her soup-tickets and coal-clubs Captain Glanders (H. P.,
50th Dragoon Guards) was for ever swaggering about the Squire's
stables and gardens, and endeavouring to enlist him in his quarrels with
the Vicar, with the Postmaster, with the Reverend F. Wapshot of
Clavering Grammar School, for overflogging his son, Anglesea
Glanders,--with all the village in fine. And Pendennis and his wife
often blessed themselves, that their house of Fairoaks was nearly a mile
out of Clavering, or their premises would never have been free from the
prying eyes and prattle of one or other of the male and female
inhabitants there.
Fairoaks lawn comes down to the little river