The History of Pendennis | Page 4

and deaths, and the
fashionable intelligence, to see that his name was down among the
guests at my Lord So-and-so's fete, and in the intervals of these
occupations carried on cheerful conversation with his acquaintances
about the room.
Among the letters which formed Major Pendennis's budget for that
morning there was only one unread, and which lay solitary and apart
from all the fashionable London letters, with a country postmark and a
homely seal. The superscription was in a pretty delicate female hand,
and though marked 'Immediate' by the fair writer, with a strong dash of
anxiety under the word, yet the Major had, for reasons of his own,
neglected up to the present moment his humble rural petitioner, who to
be sure could hardly hope to get a hearing among so many grand folks
who attended his levee. The fact was, this was a letter from a female
relative of Pendennis, and while the grandees of her brother's
acquaintance were received and got their interview, and drove off, as it
were, the patient country letter remained for a long time waiting for an

audience in the ante-chamber under the slop-bason.
At last it came to be this letter's turn, and the Major broke a seal with
'Fairoaks' engraved upon it, and 'Clavering St. Mary's' for a postmark. It
was a double letter, and the Major commenced perusing the envelope
before he attacked the inner epistle.
"Is it a letter from another Jook," growled Mr. Glowry, inwardly,
"Pendennis would not be leaving that to the last, I'm thinking."
"My dear Major Pendennis," the letter ran, "I beg and implore you to
come to me immediately "--very likely, thought Pendennis, and
Steyne's dinner to-day--"I am in the very greatest grief and perplexity.
My dearest boy, who has been hitherto everything the fondest mother
could wish, is grieving me dreadfully. He has formed--I can hardly
write it--a passion, an infatuation,"--the Major grinned--"for an actress
who has been performing here. She is at least twelve years older than
Arthur--who will not be eighteen till next February--and the wretched
boy insists upon marrying her."
"Hay! What's making Pendennis swear now?"--Mr. Glowry asked of
himself, for rage and wonder were concentrated in the Major's open
mouth, as he read this astounding announcement.
"Do, my dear friend," the grief-stricken lady went on, "come to me
instantly on the receipt of this; and, as Arthur's guardian, entreat,
command, the wretched child to give up this most deplorable
resolution." And, after more entreaties to the above effect, the writer
concluded by signing herself the Major's 'unhappy affectionate sister,
Helen Pendennis.'
"Fairoaks, Tuesday"--the Major concluded, reading the last words of
the letter--"A d---d pretty business at Fairoaks, Tuesday; now let us see
what the boy has to say;" and he took the other letter, which was
written in a great floundering boy's hand, and sealed with the large
signet of the Pendennises, even larger than the Major's own, and with
supplementary wax sputtered all round the seal, in token of the writer's
tremulousness and agitation.

The epistle ran thus:
"Fairoaks, Monday, Midnight.
"My Dear Uncle,--In informing you of my engagement with Miss
Costigan, daughter of J. Chesterfield Costigan, Esq., of Costiganstown,
but, perhaps, better known to you under her professional name of Miss
Fotheringay, of the Theatres Royal Drury Lane and Crow Street, and of
the Norwich and Welsh Circuit, I am aware that I make an
announcement which cannot, according to the present prejudices of
society at least, be welcome to my family. My dearest mother, on
whom, God knows, I would wish to inflict no needless pain, is deeply
moved and grieved, I am sorry to say, by the intelligence which I have
this night conveyed to her. I beseech you, my dear Sir, to come down
and reason with her and console her. Although obliged by poverty to
earn an honourable maintenance by the exercise of her splendid talents,
Miss Costigan's family is as ancient and noble as our own. When our
ancestor, Ralph Pendennis, landed with Richard II. in Ireland, my
Emily's forefathers were kings of that country. I have the information
from Mr. Costigan, who, like yourself, is a military man.
"It is in vain I have attempted to argue with my dear mother, and prove
to her that a young lady of irreproachable character and lineage,
endowed with the most splendid gifts of beauty and genius, who
devotes herself to the exercise of one of the noblest professions, for the
sacred purpose of maintaining her family, is a being whom we should
all love and reverence, rather than avoid;--my poor mother has
prejudices which it is impossible for my logic to overcome, and refuses
to welcome to her arms one who is disposed to be her most affectionate
daughter through life.
"Although Miss Costigan is