one who had many family
obligations to the Claverings, an old man of the world, he took occasion
to find out what Lady Clavering's means were, how her capital was
disposed, and what the boy was to inherit. And setting himself to
work,--for what purposes will appear, no doubt, ulteriorly,--he soon had
got a pretty accurate knowledge of Lady Clavering's affairs and fortune,
and of the prospects of her daughter and son. The daughter was to have
but a slender provision; the bulk of the property was, as before has
been said, to go to the son,--his father did not care for him or anybody
else,--his mother was dotingly fond of him as the child of her latter
days,--his sister disliked him. Such may be stated in round numbers, to
be the result of the information which Major Pendennis got. "Ah! my dear
madam," he would say, patting the head of the boy, "this boy may wear
a baron's coronet on his head on some future coronation, if matters are
but managed rightly, and if Sir Francis Clavering would but play his
cards well."

At this the widow Amory heaved a deep sigh. "He plays only much of his
cards, Major, I'm afraid," she said. The Major owned that he knew as
much; did not disguise that he had heard of Sir Francis Clavering's
unfortunate propensity to play; pitied Lady Clavering sincerely; but
spoke with such genuine sentiment and sense, that her ladyship, glad to
find a person of experience to whom she could confide her grief and her
condition, talked about them pretty unreservedly to Major Pendennis, and
was eager to have his advice and consolation. Major Pendennis became
the Begum's confidante and house-friend, and as a mother, a wife, and a
capitalist, she consulted him.

He gave her to understand (showing at the same time a great deal
of respectful sympathy) that he was acquainted with some of the
circumstances of her first unfortunate marriage, and with even the
person of her late husband, whom he remembered in Calcutta--when she was
living in seclusion with her father. The poor lady, with tears of shame
more than of grief in her eyes, told her version of her story. Going
back a child to India after two years at a European school, she had met
Amory, and foolishly married him. "Oh, you don't know how miserable that
man, made me," she said, "or what a life I passed betwixt him and my
father. Before I saw him I had never seen a man except my father's
clerks and native servants. You know we didn't go into society in India
on