“Oh, of course,” Pen said, feeling rather relieved.
“Well, as you have pledged your word to her, give us another, will you Arthur?”
“What is it?” Arthur asked.
“That you will make no private marriage—that you won’t be taking a trip to Scotland, you understand.”
“That would be a falsehood. Pen never told his mother a falsehood,” Helen said.
Pen hung down his head again, and his eyes filled with tears of shame. Had not this whole intrigue been a falsehood to that tender and confiding creature who was ready to give up all for his sake? He gave his uncle his hand.
“No, sir—on my word of honour, as a gentleman,” he said, “I will never marry without my mother’s consent!” and giving Helen a bright parting look of confidence and affection unchangeable, the boy went out of the drawing-room into his own study.
“He’s an angel—he’s an angel,” the mother cried out in one of her usual raptures.
“He comes of a good stock, ma’am,” said her brother-in-law—“of a good stock on both sides.” The Major was greatly pleased with the result of his diplomacy—so much so, that he once more saluted the tips of Mrs. Pendennis’s glove, and dropping the curt, manly, and straightforward tone in which he had conducted the conversation with the lad, assumed a certain drawl which he always adopted when he was most conceited and fine.
“My dear creature,” said he, in that his politest tone, “I think it certainly as well that I came down, and I flatter myself that last botte was a successful one. I tell you how I came to think of it. Three years ago my kind friend Lady Ferrybridge sent for me in the greatest state of alarm about her son Gretna, whose affair you remember, and implored me to use my influence with the young gentleman, who was engaged in an affaire de coeur with a Scotch clergyman’s daughter, Miss MacToddy. I implored, I entreated gentle measures. But Lord Ferrybridge was furious, and tried the high hand. Gretna was sulky and silent, and his parents thought they had conquered. But what was the fact, my dear creature? The young people had been married for three months before Lord Ferrybridge knew anything about it. And that was why I extracted the promise from Master Pen.”