Boys and Girls from Thackeray

by Kate Dickinson Sweetser

In letter No. 2, Clive, after giving amusing details of life at Baden and the company whom he met there, concludes with this: "Ethel is looking over my shoulder. She thinks me such a delightful creature that she is never easy without me. She bids me to say that I am the best of sons and cousins, and am, in a word, a darling du—" The rest of this important word is not given, but "goose" is added in the female hand.

Ethel takes up the pen. "My dear uncle," she says, "while Clive is sketching out of the window, let me write to you a line or two on his paper, though I know you like to hear no one speak but him. I wish I could draw him for you as he stands yonder looking the picture of good health, good spirits, and good-humour. Everybody likes him. He is quite unaffected; always gay, always pleased, and he draws more beautifully every day."

When these letters were received by the good Colonel in India we can well imagine the joy that warmed his fond heart. He, himself, was comfortably settled in the only place which would ever be home to him,—his son, the idol of his heart, was with Ethel, his darling. The objects of his tenderest affection were gay, happy, together, and, best of all, thinking of him. That he was not with them gave him no regrets; his love was too great for that. That their youth was soon to give place to the soberer experiences of life, gave him no pang of fear for them. Reading their letters, the Colonel was filled with quiet contentment; their future he could trust to the care of that Guiding Hand to whom he had entrusted his boy in childhood's earliest days.

ARTHUR PENDENNIS

[Illustration: ARTHUR PENDENNIS AT FAIR-OAKS.]

Early in the Regency of George the Magnificent there lived in a small town in the west of England, called Clavering, a gentleman whose name was Pendennis. At an earlier date Mr. Pendennis had exercised the profession of apothecary and surgeon, and had even condescended to sell a plaster across the counter of his humble shop, or to vend tooth-brushes, hair-powder, and London perfumery. And yet that little apothecary was a gentleman with good education, and of as old a family as any in the county of Somerset. He had a Cornish pedigree which carried the Pendennises back to the time of the Druids. He had had a piece of University education, and might have pursued that career with honour, but in his second year at Oxford his father died insolvent, and he was obliged to betake himself to the trade which he always detested. For some time he had a hard struggle with poverty, but his manners were so gentleman-like and soothing that he was called in to prescribe for some of the ladies in the best families of Bath. Then his humble little shop became a smart one; then he shut it up altogether; then he had a gig with a man to drive in; and before she died his poor old mother had the happiness of seeing her beloved son step into a close carriage of his own; with the arms of the family of Pendennis handsomely emblazoned on the panels. He married Miss Helen Thistlewood, a very distant relative of the noble family of Bareacres, having met that young lady under Lady Pentypool's roof.

The secret ambition of Mr. Pendennis had always been to be a gentleman. By prudence and economy, his income was largely increased, and finally he sold his business for a handsome sum, and retired forever from handling of the mortar and pestle, having purchased as a home the house of Fair-Oaks, nearly a mile out of Clavering.

The estate was a beautiful one, and Arthur Pendennis, his son, being then but eight years of age, dated his earliest recollections from that place.

Fair-Oaks lawn comes down to the little river Brawl, and on the other side were the plantations and woods of Clavering Park. The park was let out in pasture when the Pendennises came first to live at Fair-Oaks. Shutters were up in the house; a splendid free stone palace, with great stairs, statues and porticos. Sir Richard Clavering, Sir Francis's grandfather, had commenced the ruin of the family by the building of this palace: his successor had achieved the ruin by living in it. The present Sir Francis was abroad somewhere, and until now nobody could be found rich enough to rent that enormous mansion; through the deserted rooms, mouldy, clanking halls, and dismal galleries of which Arthur Pendennis many a time walked trembling when he was a boy. At sunset from the lawn of Fair-Oaks there was a pretty sight: it and the opposite park of Clavering were in the habit of putting on a rich golden tinge, which became them both wonderfully. The upper windows of the great house flamed so as to make your eyes wink; the little river ran off noisily westward and was lost in sombre wood, behind which the towers of the old abbey church of Clavering (whereby that town is called Clavering St. Mary's to the present day) rose up in purple splendour. Little Arthur's figure and his mother's cast long blue shadows over the grass: and he would repeat in a low voice (for a scene of great natural beauty always moved the boy, who inherited this sensibility from his mother) certain lines beginning, "These are thy glorious works. Parent of Good; Almighty! thine this universal frame," greatly to Mrs. Pendennis's delight. Such walks and conversation generally ended in a profusion of filial and maternal embraces; for to love and to pray were the main occupations of this dear woman's life; and I have often heard Pendennis say in his wild way, that he felt that he was sure of going to heaven, for his mother never could be happy there without him.

As for John Pendennis, as the father of the family, and that sort of thing, everybody had the greatest respect for him: and his orders were obeyed like those of the Medes and Persians. His hat was as well brushed perhaps as that of any man in this empire. His meals were served at the same minute every day, and woe to those who came late, as little Pen, a disorderly little rascal, sometimes did. Prayers were recited, his letters were read, his business despatched, his stables and garden inspected, his hen-houses and kennel, his barn and pig-sty visited, always at regular hours. After dinner he always had a nap with the Globe newspaper on his knee, and his yellow bandanna handkerchief on his face. And so, as his dinner took place at six o'clock to a minute, and the sunset business alluded to may be supposed to have occurred at half-past seven, it is probable that he did not much care for the view in front of his lawn windows, or take any share in the poetry and caresses which were taking place there.