However much they like each other, men in the London world see their friends but seldom. The place is so vast that even next door is distant; the calls of business, society, pleasure, so multifarious that mere friendship can get or give but an occasional shake of the hand in the hurried moments of passage. Men must live their lives; and are perforce selfish, but not unfriendly. At a great need you know where to look for your friend, and he that he is secure of you. So I went very little to Howland Street, where Clive now lived; very seldom to Lamb Court, where my dear old friend Warrington still sate in his old chambers, though our meetings were none the less cordial when they occurred, and our trust in one another always the same. Some folks say the world is heartless: he who says so either prates commonplaces (the most likely and charitable suggestion), or is heartless himself, or is most singular and unfortunate in having made no friends. Many such a reasonable mortal cannot have: our nature, I think, not sufficing for that sort of polygamy. How many persons would you have to deplore your death; or whose death would you wish to deplore? Could our hearts let in such a harem of dear friendships, the mere changes and recurrences of grief and mourning would be intolerable, and tax our lives beyond their value. In a word, we carry our own burthen in the world; push and struggle along on our own affairs; are pinched by our own shoes—though Heaven forbid we should not stop and forget ourselves sometimes, when a friend cries out in his distress, or we can help a poor stricken wanderer in his way. As for good women—these, my worthy reader, are different from us—the nature of these is to love, and to do kind offices, and devise untiring charities:—so I would have you to know, that, though Mr. Pendennis was parcus suorum cultor et infrequens, Mrs. Laura found plenty of time to go from Westminster to Bloomsbury; and to pay visits to her Colonel and her Clive, both of whom she had got to love with all her heart again, now misfortune was on them; and both of whom returned her kindness with an affection blessing the bestower and the receiver; and making the husband proud and thankful whose wife had earned such a noble regard. What is the dearest praise of all to a man? his own—or that you should love those whom he loves? I see Laura Pendennis ever constant and tender and pure, ever ministering in her sacred office of kindness—bestowing love and followed by blessings. Which would I have, think you; that priceless crown hymeneal, or the glory of a Tenth Edition?
Clive and his father had found not only a model friend in the lady above mentioned, but a perfect prize landlady in their happy lodgings. In her house, besides those apartments which Mr. Newcome had originally engaged, were rooms just sufficient to accommodate his wife, child, and servant, when they should come to him, with a very snug little upper chamber for the Colonel, close by Boy’s nursery, where he liked best to be. “And if there is not room for the Campaigner, as you call her,” says Mrs. Laura, with a shrug of her shoulders, “why, I am very sorry, but Clive must try and bear her absence as well as possible. After all, my dear Pen, you know he is married to Rosa and not to her mamma; and so, and so I think it will be quite best that they shall have their ménage as before.”
The cheapness of the lodgings which the prize landlady let, the quantity of neat new furniture which she put in, the consultations which she had with my wife regarding these supplies, were quite singular to me. “Have you pawned your diamonds, you reckless little person, in order to supply all this upholstery?” “No, sir, I have not pawned my diamonds,” Mrs. Laura answers; and I was left to think (if I thought on the matter at all) that the landlady’s own benevolence had provided these good things for Clive. For the wife of Laura’s husband was perforce poor; and she asked me for no more money at this time than at any other.
At first, in spite of his grumbling, Clive’s affairs looked so prosperous, and so many sitters came to him from amongst his old friends, that I was half inclined to believe with the Colonel and my wife, that he was a prodigious genius, and that his good fortune would go on increasing. Laura was for having Rosey return to her husband. Every wife ought to be with her husband. J. J. shook his head about the prosperity. “Let us see whether the Academy will have his pictures this year, and what a place they will give him,” said Ridley. To do him justice, Clive thought far more humbly of his compositions than Ridley did. Not a little touching was it to us, who had known the young men in former days, to see them in their changed positions. It was Ridley, whose genius and industry had put him in the rank of a patron—Ridley, the good industrious apprentice, who had won the prize of his art—and not one of his many admirers saluted his talent and success with such a hearty recognition as Clive, whose generous soul knew no envy, and who always fired and kindled at the success of his friends.
When Mr. Clive used to go over to Boulogne from time to time to pay his dutiful visits to his wife, the Colonel did not accompany his son, but, during the latter’s absence, would dine with Mrs. Pendennis.
Though the preparations were complete in Howland Street, and Clive dutifully went over to Boulogne, Mrs. Pendennis remarked that he seemed still to hesitate about bringing his wife to London.
Upon this Mr. Pendennis observed that some gentlemen were not particularly anxious about the society of their wives, and that this pair were perhaps better apart. Upon which Mrs. Pendennis, drubbing on the ground with a little foot, said, “Nonsense, for shame, Arthur! How can you speak so flippantly? Did he not swear before Heaven to love and cherish her, never to leave her, sir? Is not his duty his duty, sir?” (a most emphatic stamp of the foot). “Is she not his for better, or for worse?”
“Including the Campaigner, my dear?” says Mr. P.
“Don’t laugh, sir! She must come to him. There is no room in Howland Street for Mrs. Mackenzie.”
“You artful scheming creature! We have some spare rooms. Suppose we ask Mrs. Mackenzie to come and live with us, my dear? and we could then have the benefit of the garrison anecdotes, and mess jocularities of your favourite, Captain Goby.”