“And what,” continued Miss Amory, musing, “what are the men whom we see about at the balls every night—dancing guardsmen, penniless treasury clerks—boobies! If I had my brother’s fortune, I might have such an establishment as you promise me—but with my name, and with my little means, what am I to look to! A country parson, or a barrister in a street near Russell Square, or a captain in a dragoon regiment, who will take lodgings for me, and come home from the mess tipsy and smelling of smoke like Sir Francis Clavering. That is how we girls are destined to end life. O Major Pendennis, I am sick of London, and of balls, and of young dandies with their chin-tips, and of the insolent great ladies who know us one day and cut us the next—and of the world altogether. I should like to leave it and to go into a convent, that I should. I shall never find anybody to understand me. And I live here as much alone in my family and in the world, as if I were in a cell locked up for ever. I wish there were Sisters of Charity here, and that I could be one and catch the plague, and die of it—I wish to quit the world. I am not very old: but I am tired, I have suffered so much—I’ve been so disillusionated—I’m weary, I’m weary—O that the Angel of Death would come and beckon me away!”
This speech may be interpreted as follows. A few nights since a great lady, Lady Flamingo, had cut Miss Amory and Lady Clavering. She was quite mad because she could not get an invitation to Lady Drum’s ball: it was the end of the season and nobody had proposed to her: she had made no sensation at all, she who was so much cleverer than any girl of the year, and of the young ladies forming her special circle. Dora who had but five thousand pounds, Flora who had nothing, and Leonora who had red hair, were going to be married, and nobody had come for Blanche Amory!
“You judge wisely about the world, and about your position, my dear Miss Blanche,” the Major said. “The Prince don’t marry nowadays, as you say: unless the Princess has a doosid deal of money in the funds, or is a lady of his own rank.—The young folks of the great families marry into the great families: if they haven’t fortune they have each other’s shoulders, to push on in the world, which is pretty nearly as good.—A girl with your fortune can scarcely hope for a great match: but a girl with your genius and your admirable tact and fine manners, with a clever husband by her side, may make any place for herself in the world.—We are grown doosid republican. Talent ranks with birth and wealth now, begad: and a clever man with a clever wife, may take any place they please.”
Miss Amory did not of course in the least understand what Major Pendennis meant.—Perhaps she thought over circumstances in her mind and asked herself, could he be a negotiator for a former suitor of hers, and could he mean Pen? No, it was impossible—He had been civil, but nothing more.—So she said laughing, “Who is the clever man, and when will you bring him to me, Major Pendennis? I am dying to see him.”
At this moment a servant threw open the door, and announced Mr. Henry Foker: at which name, and at the appearance of our friend, both the lady and the gentleman burst out laughing.
“That is not the man,” Major Pendennis said. “He is engaged to his cousin, Lord Gravesend’s daughter.—Good-bye, my dear Miss Amory.”
Was Pen growing worldly, and should a man not get the experience of the world and lay it to his account? “He felt, for his part,” as he said, “that he was growing very old very soon.” “How this town forms and changes us,” he said once to Warrington. Each had come in from his night’s amusement; and Pen was smoking his pipe, and recounting, as his habit was, to his friend the observations and adventures of the evening just past. “How I am changed,” he said, “from the simpleton boy at Fairoaks, who was fit to break his heart about his first love! Lady Mirabel had a reception to-night, and was as grave and collected as if she had been born a Duchess, and had never seen a trap-door in her life. She gave me the honour of a conversation, and patronised me about ‘Walter Lorraine,’ quite kindly.”
“What condescension!” broke in Warrington.
“Wasn’t it?” Pen said, simply—at which the other burst out laughing according to his wont. “Is it possible,” he said, “that anybody should think of patronising the eminent author of ‘Walter Lorraine?’”