Armadale (47 page)

Established in perfect comfort in the boat – the major and his daughter on one side, the curate and his mother on the other, and Allan and young Pedgift between the two – the water party floated smoothly towards the little nest of islands at the end of the Broad. Miss Milroy was in raptures; Allan was delighted; and the major for once forgot his
clock. Every one felt pleasurably, in their different ways, the quiet and beauty of the scene. Mrs Pentecost, in her way, felt it like a clairvoyante – with closed eyes.

‘Look behind you, Mr Armadale,' whispered young Pedgift. ‘I think the parson's beginning to enjoy himself

An unwonted briskness – portentous apparently of coming speech – did certainly at that moment enliven the curate's manner. He jerked his head from side to side like a bird; he cleared his throat, and clasped his hands, and looked with a gentle interest at the company. Getting into spirits seemed, in the case of this excellent person, to be alarmingly like getting into the pulpit.

‘Even in this scene of tranquillity,' said the Reverend Samuel, coming out softly with his first contribution to the society, in the shape of a remark, ‘the Christian mind – led, so to speak, from one extreme to another – is forcibly recalled to the unstable nature of all earthly enjoyments. How, if this calm should not last? How, if the winds rose and the waters became agitated?'

‘You needn't alarm yourself about that, sir,' said young Pedgift; ‘June's the fine season here – and you can swim.'

Mrs Pentecost (mesmerically affected in all probability by the near neighbourhood of her son) opened her eyes suddenly, and asked with her customary eagerness, ‘What does my boy say?'

The Reverend Samuel repeated his words in the key that suited his mother's infirmity. The old lady nodded in high approval, and pursued her son's train of thought through the medium of a quotation.

‘Ah!' sighed Mrs Pentecost, with infinite relish, ‘He rides the whirlwind,
1
Sammy, and directs the storm!'

‘Noble words!' said the Reverend Samuel. ‘Noble and consoling words!'

‘I say,' whispered Allan, ‘if he goes on much longer in that way, what's to be done?'

‘I told you, papa, it was a risk to ask them,' added Miss Milroy, in another whisper.

‘My dear!' remonstrated the major. ‘We knew nobody else in the neighbourhood; and as Mr Armadale kindly suggested our bringing our friends, what could we do?'

‘We can't upset the boat,' remarked young Pedgift, with sardonic gravity. ‘It's a lifeboat, unfortunately. May I venture to suggest putting something into the reverend gentleman's mouth, Mr Armadale? It's close on three o'clock. What do you say to ringing the dinner-bell, sir?'

Never was the right man more entirely in the right place than Pedgift Junior at the picnic. In ten minutes more the boat was brought to a standstill among the reeds; the Thorpe-Ambrose hampers were unpacked on the roof of the cabin; and the current of the curate's eloquence was checked for the day.

How inestimably important in its moral results – and therefore how praiseworthy in itself – is the act of eating and drinking! The social virtues centre in the stomach. A man who is not a better husband, father, and brother, after dinner than before, is, digestively speaking, an incurably vicious man. What hidden charms of character disclose themselves, what dormant amiabilities awaken when our common humanity gathers together to pour out the gastric juice! At the opening of the hampers from Thorpe-Ambrose, sweet Sociability (offspring of the happy union of Civilization and Mrs Gripper) exhaled among the boating party, and melted in one friendly fusion the discordant elements of which that party had hitherto been composed. Now did the Reverend Samuel Pentecost, whose light had hitherto been hidden under a bushel, prove at last that he could do something, by proving that he could eat. Now did Pedgift Junior shine brighter than ever he had shone yet, in gems of caustic humour and exquisite fertilities of resource. Now did the squire, and the squire's charming guest, prove the triple connection between Champagne that sparkles, Love that grows bolder, and Eyes whose vocabulary is without the word No. Now did cheerful old times come back to the major's memory, and cheerful old stories not told for years find their way to the major's lips. And now did Mrs Pentecost, coming out wakefully in the whole force of her estimable maternal character, seize on a supplementary fork, and ply that useful instrument incessantly between the choicest morsels in the whole round of dishes, and the few vacant places left available on the Reverend Samuel's plate. ‘Don't laugh at my son,' cried the old lady, observing the merriment which her proceedings produced among the company. ‘It's my fault, poor dear –
I
make him eat!' And there are men in this world who, seeing virtues such as these developed at the table, as they are developed nowhere else, can, nevertheless, rank the glorious privilege of dining with the smallest of the diurnal personal worries which necessity imposes on mankind – with buttoning your waistcoat, for example, or lacing your stays! Trust no such monster as this with your tender secrets, your loves and hatreds, your hopes and fears. His heart is uncorrected by his stomach, and the social virtues are not in him.

The last mellow hours of the day and the first cool breezes of the long
summer evening had met, before the dishes were all laid waste, and the bottles as empty as bottles should be. This point in the proceedings attained, the picnic party looked lazily at Pedgift Junior to know what was to be done next. That inexhaustible functionary was equal as ever to all the calls on him. He had a new amusement ready before the quickest of the company could so much as ask him what that amusement was to be.

‘Fond of music on the water, Miss Milroy?' he asked in his airiest and pleasantest manner.

Miss Milroy adored music, both on the water and the land – always excepting the one case when she was practising the art herself on the piano at home.

‘We'll get out of the reeds first,' said young Pedgift. He gave his orders to the boatmen – dived briskly into the little cabin – and reappeared with a concertina in his hand. ‘Neat, Miss Milroy, isn't it?' he observed, pointing to his initials, inlaid on the instrument in mother-of-pearl. ‘My name's Augustus, like my father's. Some of my friends knock off the “A ”, and call me “Gustus Junior”. A small joke goes a long way among friends, doesn't it, Mr Armadale? I sing a little, to my own accompaniment, ladies and gentlemen; and, if quite agreeable, I shall be proud and happy to do my best.'

'Stop!' cried Mrs Pentecost; ‘I doat on music'

With this formidable announcement, the old lady opened a prodigious leather-bag, from which she never parted night or day, and took out an ear-trumpet of the old-fashioned kind – something between a key bugle and a French horn. ‘I don't care to use the thing generally,' explained Mrs Pentecost, ‘because I'm afraid of it's making me deafer than ever. But I can't and won't miss the music. I doat on music. If you'll hold the other end, Sammy, I'll stick it in my ear. Neelie, my dear, tell him to begin.'

Young Pedgift was troubled with no nervous hesitation: he began at once – not with songs of the light and modern kind, such as might have been expected from an amateur of his age and character – but with declamatory and patriotic bursts of poetry, set to the bold and blatant music which the people of England loved dearly at the earlier part of the present century, and which, whenever they can get it, they love dearly still. ‘The Death of Marmion', ‘The Battle of the Baltic', ‘The Bay of Biscay', ‘Nelson',
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under various vocal aspects, as exhibited by the late Braham – these were the songs in which the roaring concertina and strident tenor of Gustus Junior exulted together. ‘Tell me when you're tired, ladies and gentlemen,' said the minstrel solicitor. ‘There's
no conceit about
me
. Will you have a little sentiment by way of variety? Shall I wind up with “The Mistletoe Bough”, and “Poor Mary Anne”?'
³

Having favoured his audience with those two cheerful melodies, young Pedgift respectfully requested the rest of the company to follow his vocal example in turn; offering, in every case, to play ‘a running accompaniment' impromptu, if the singer would only be so obliging as to favour him with the key-note.

‘Go on, somebody!' cried Mrs Pentecost eagerly. ‘I tell you again, I doat on music. We haven't had half enough yet, have we, Sammy?'

The Reverend Samuel made no reply. The unhappy man had reasons of his own – not exactly in his bosom, but a little lower – for remaining silent, in the midst of the general hilarity and the general applause. Alas for humanity! Even maternal love is alloyed with mortal fallibility. Owing much already to his excellent mother, the Reverend Samuel was now additionally indebted to her for a smart indigestion.

Nobody, however, noticed as yet the signs and tokens of internal revolution in the curate's face. Everybody was occupied in entreating everybody else to sing. Miss Milroy appealed to the founder of the feast. ‘Do sing something, Mr Armadale,' she said; ‘I should so like to hear you!'

‘If you once begin, sir,' added the cheerful Pedgift, ‘you'll find it get uncommonly easy as you go on. Music is a science which requires to be taken by the throat at starting.'

‘With all my heart,' said Allan, in his good-humoured way. ‘I know lots of tunes, but the worst of it is the words escape me. I wonder if I can remember one of Moore's Melodies? My poor mother used to be fond of teaching me Moore's Melodies when I was a boy.'

‘Whose melodies?' asked Mrs Pentecost. ‘Moore's? Aha! I know Tom Moore by heart.'

‘Perhaps, in that case, you will be good enough to help me, ma'am, if my memory breaks down,' rejoined Allan. ‘I'll take the easiest melody in the whole collection, if you'll allow me. Everybody knows it – “Eveleen's Bower”.'
⁴

‘I'm familiar, in a general sort of way, with the national melodies of England, Scotland, and Ireland,' said Pedgift Junior. ‘I'll accompany you, sir, with the greatest pleasure. This is the sort of thing, I think.' He seated himself cross-legged on the roof of the cabin, and burst into a complicated musical improvisation, wonderful to hear – a mixture of instrumental flourishes and groans; a jig corrected by a dirge, and a
dirge enlivened by a jig. ‘That's the sort of thing,' said young Pedgift, with his smile of supreme confidence. ‘Fire away, sir!'

Mrs Pentecost elevated her trumpet, and Allan elevated his voice. ‘“Oh, weep for the hour when to Eveleen's Bower—”' He stopped; the accompaniment stopped; the audience waited. ‘It's a most extraordinary thing,' said Allan; ‘I thought I had the next line on the tip of my tongue, and it seems to have escaped me. I'll begin again, if you have no objection. “Oh, weep for the hour when to Eveleen's Bower—”'

‘“The lord of the valley with false vows came,”' said Mrs Pentecost.

‘Thank you, ma'am,' said Allan. ‘Now I shall get on smoothly. “Oh, weep for the hour when to Eveleen's Bower, the lord of the valley with false vows came. The moon was shining bright—”'

‘No!' said Mrs Pentecost.

‘I beg your pardon, ma'am,' remonstrated Allan. ‘“The moon was shining bright—”'

‘The moon wasn't doing anything of the kind,' said Mrs Pentecost. Pedgift Junior, foreseeing a dispute, persevered
sotto voce
with the accompaniment, in the interests of harmony.

‘Moore's own words, ma'am,' said Allan, ‘in my mother's copy of the Melodies.'

‘Your mother's copy was wrong,' retorted Mrs Pentecost. ‘Didn't I tell you just now that I knew Tom Moore by heart?'

Pedgift Junior's peace-making concertina still flourished and groaned, in the minor key.

‘Well, what
did
the moon do?' asked Allan, in despair.

‘What the moon
ought
to have done, sir, or Tom Moore wouldn't have written it so,' rejoined Mrs Pentecost. ‘“ The moon hid her light from the heaven that night, and wept behind her clouds o'er the maiden's shame!” I wish that young man would leave off playing,' added Mrs Pentecost, venting her rising irritation on Gustus Junior. ‘I've had enough of him – he tickles my ears.'

‘Proud, I'm sure, ma'am,' said the unblushing Pedgift. ‘The whole science of music consists in tickling the ears.'

‘We seem to be drifting into a sort of argument,' remarked Major Milroy, placidly. ‘Wouldn't it be better if Mr Armadale went on with his song?'

‘Do go on, Mr Armadale!' added the major's daughter. ‘Do go on, Mr Pedgift!'

‘One of them doesn't know the words, and the other doesn't know the music,' said Mrs Pentecost. ‘Let them go on, if they can!'

‘Sorry to disappoint you, ma'am,' said Pedgift Junior; ‘I'm ready to go on, myself, to any extent. Now, Mr Armadale!'

Allan opened his lips to take up the unfinished melody where he had last left it. Before he could utter a note, the curate suddenly rose, with a ghastly face, and a hand pressed convulsively over the middle region of his waistcoat.

‘What's the matter?' cried the whole boating party in chorus.

‘I am exceedingly unwell,' said the Reverend Samuel Pentecost.

The boat was instantly in a state of confusion. ‘Eveleen's Bower' expired on Allan's lips, and even the irrepressible concertina of Pedgift was silenced at last. The alarm proved to be quite needless. Mrs Pentecost's son possessed a mother, and that mother had a bag. In two seconds, the art of medicine occupied the place left vacant in the attention of the company by the art of music.

‘Rub it gently, Sammy,' said Mrs Pentecost. ‘I'll get out the bottles and give you a dose. It's his poor stomach, major. Hold my trumpet, somebody – and stop the boat. You take that bottle, Neelie, my dear; and you take this one, Mr Armadale; and give them to me as I want them. Ah, poor dear, I know what's the matter with him! Want of power
here
, major – cold, acid, and flabby. Ginger to warm him; soda to correct him; salvolatile to hold him up. There, Sammy! drink it before it settles – and then go and lie down, my dear, in that dog-kennel of a place they call the cabin. No more music!' added Mrs Pentecost, shaking her forefinger at the proprietor of the concertina – unless it's a hymn, and that I don't object to.'