Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

and kissed her father and mother, and talked to
the old gentleman, and made him more merry than he
had been for many a day. She sate down at the piano
which Dobbin had bought for her, and sang over all her
father's favourite old songs. She pronounced the tea to
be excellent, and praised the exquisite taste in which
the marmalade was arranged in the saucers. And in
determining to make everybody else happy, she found
herself so; and was sound asleep in the great funereal
pavilion, and only woke up with a smile when George
arrived from the theatre.
For the next day, George had more important "business"
to transact than that which took him to see Mr.
Kean in Shylock. Immediately on his arrival in London
he had written off to his father's solicitors, signifying his
royal pleasure that an interview should take place between
them on the morrow. His hotel bill, losses at
billiards and cards to Captain Crawley had almost drained
the young man's purse, which wanted replenishing before
he set out on his travels, and he had no resource but
to infringe upon the two thousand pounds which the
attorneys were commissioned to pay over to him. He
had a perfect belief in his own mind that his father
would relent before very long. How could any parent
be obdurate for a length of time against such a
paragon as he was? If his mere past and personal merits did
not succeed in mollifying his father, George determined
that he would distinguish himself so prodigiously in the
ensuing campaign that the old gentleman must give in to
him. And if not? Bah! the world was before him. His
luck might change at cards, and there was a deal of
spending in two thousand pounds.
So he sent off Amelia once more in a carriage to her
mamma, with strict orders and carte blanche to the two
ladies to purchase everything requisite for a lady of Mrs.
George Osborne's fashion, who was going on a foreign
tour. They had but one day to complete the outfit, and
it may be imagined that their business therefore occupied
them pretty fully. In a carriage once more, bustling
about from milliner to linen-draper, escorted back to the
carriage by obsequious shopmen or polite owners, Mrs.
Sedley was herself again almost, and sincerely happy for
the first time since their misfortunes. Nor was Mrs.
Amelia at all above the pleasure of shopping, and
bargaining, and seeing and buying pretty things. (Would
any man, the most philosophic, give twopence for a
woman who was?) She gave herself a little treat,
obedient to her husband's orders, and purchased a
quantity of lady's gear, showing a great deal of taste and
elegant discernment, as all the shopfolks said.
And about the war that was ensuing, Mrs. Osborne
was not much alarmed; Bonaparty was to be crushed
almost without a struggle. Margate packets were sailing
every day, filled with men of fashion and ladies of note,
on their way to Brussels and Ghent. People were going
not so much to a war as to a fashionable tour. The
newspapers laughed the wretched upstart and swindler to
scorn. Such a Corsican wretch as that withstand the
armies of Europe and the genius of the immortal
Wellington! Amelia held him in utter contempt; for it needs
not to be said that this soft and gentle creature took her
opinions from those people who surrounded her, such
fidelity being much too humble-minded to think for itself.
Well, in a word, she and her mother performed a
great day's shopping, and she acquitted herself with
considerable liveliness and credit on this her first
appearance in the genteel world of London.
George meanwhile, with his hat on one side, his elbows
squared, and his swaggering martial air, made for
Bedford Row, and stalked into the attorney's offices as if
he was lord of every pale-faced clerk who was scribbling
there. He ordered somebody to inform Mr. Higgs that
Captain Osborne was waiting, in a fierce and patronizing
way, as if the pekin of an attorney, who had thrice his
brains, fifty times his money, and a thousand times his
experience, was a wretched underling who should
instantly leave all his business in life to attend on the
Captain's pleasure. He did not see the sneer of contempt
which passed all round the room, from the first
clerk to the articled gents, from the articled gents to the
ragged writers and white-faced runners, in clothes too
tight for them, as he sate there tapping his boot with his
cane, and thinking what a parcel of miserable poor devils
these were. The miserable poor devils knew all about his
affairs. They talked about them over their pints of beer
at their public-house clubs to other clerks of a night.
Ye gods, what do not attorneys and attorneys' clerks
know in London! Nothing is hidden from their
inquisition, and their families mutely rule our city.
Perhaps George expected, when he entered Mr. Higgs's
apartment, to find that gentleman commissioned to give
him some message of compromise or conciliation from
his father; perhaps his haughty and cold demeanour
was adopted as a sign of his spirit and resolution: but if
so, his fierceness was met by a chilling coolness and
indifference on the attorney's part, that rendered
swaggering absurd. He pretended to be writing at a paper,
when the Captain entered. "Pray, sit down, sir," said he,
"and I will attend to your little affair in a moment. Mr.
Poe, get the release papers, if you please"; and then he
fell to writing again.
Poe having produced those papers, his chief calculated
the amount of two thousand pounds stock at the rate of
the day; and asked Captain Osborne whether he would
take the sum in a cheque upon the bankers, or whether
he should direct the latter to purchase stock to that
amount. "One of the late Mrs. Osborne's trustees is out
of town," he said indifferently, "but my client wishes to
meet your wishes, and have done with the business as
quick as possible."
"Give me a cheque, sir," said the Captain very surlily.
"Damn the shillings and halfpence, sir," he added, as the
lawyer was making out the amount of the draft; and,
flattering himself that by this stroke of magnanimity he
had put the old quiz to the blush, he stalked out of
the office with the paper in his pocket.
"That chap will be in gaol in two years," Mr. Higgs said
to Mr. Poe.
"Won't O. come round, sir, don't you think?"
"Won't the monument come round," Mr. Higgs replied.
"He's going it pretty fast," said the clerk. "He's only
married a week, and I saw him and some other military
chaps handing Mrs. Highflyer to her carriage after the
play." And then another case was called, and Mr. George
Osborne thenceforth dismissed from these worthy
gentlemen's memory.
The draft was upon our friends Hulker and Bullock of
Lombard Street, to whose house, still thinking he was
doing business, George bent his way, and from whom he
received his money. Frederick Bullock, Esq., whose
yellow face was over a ledger, at which sate a demure clerk,
happened to be in the banking-room when George entered.
His yellow face turned to a more deadly colour
when he saw the Captain, and he slunk back guiltily into
the inmost parlour. George was too busy gloating over
the money (for he had never had such a sum before), to
mark the countenance or flight of the cadaverous suitor
of his sister.
Fred Bullock told old Osborne of his son's appearance
and conduct. "He came in as bold as brass," said
Frederick. "He has drawn out every shilling. How long
will a few hundred pounds last such a chap as that?"
Osborne swore with a great oath that he little cared when or
how soon he spent it. Fred dined every day in Russell
Square now. But altogether, George was highly pleased
with his day's business. All his own baggage and outfit
was put into a state of speedy preparation, and he paid
Amelia's purchases with cheques on his agents, and with
the splendour of a lord.
CHAPTER XXVII
In Which Amelia Joins Her Regiment
When Jos's fine carriage drove up to the inn door at
Chatham, the first face which Amelia recognized was the
friendly countenance of Captain Dobbin, who had been
pacing the street for an hour past in expectation of his
friends' arrival. The Captain, with shells on his frockcoat,
and a crimson sash and sabre, presented a military
appearance, which made Jos quite proud to be able to
claim such an acquaintance, and the stout civilian hailed
him with a cordiality very different from the reception
which Jos vouchsafed to his friend in Brighton and Bond
Street.
Along with the Captain was Ensign Stubble; who, as
the barouche neared the inn, burst out with an exclamation
of "By Jove! what a pretty girl"; highly applauding
Osborne's choice. Indeed, Amelia dressed in her weddingpelisse
and pink ribbons, with a flush in her face,
occasioned by rapid travel through the open air, looked so
fresh and pretty, as fully to justify the Ensign's compliment.
Dobbin liked him for making it. As he stepped forward
to help the lady out of the carriage, Stubble saw
what a pretty little hand she gave him, and what a sweet
pretty little foot came tripping down the step. He blushed
profusely, and made the very best bow of which he was
capable; to which Amelia, seeing the number of the the
regiment embroidered on the Ensign's cap, replied with a
blushing smile, and a curtsey on her part; which finished
the young Ensign on the spot. Dobbin took most kindly to
Mr. Stubble from that day, and encouraged him to talk
about Amelia in their private walks, and at each other's
quarters. It became the fashion, indeed, among all the
honest young fellows of the --th to adore and admire
Mrs. Osborne. Her simple artless behaviour, and
modest kindness of demeanour, won all their unsophisticated
hearts; all which simplicity and sweetness are quite
impossible to describe in print. But who has not beheld
these among women, and recognised the presence of all
sorts of qualities in them, even though they say no more
to you than that they are engaged to dance the next
quadrille, or that it is very hot weather? George, always the
champion of his regiment, rose immensely in the opinion
of the youth of the corps, by his gallantry in marrying this
portionless young creature, and by his choice of such a
pretty kind partner.
In the sitting-room which was awaiting the travellers,
Amelia, to her surprise, found a letter addressed to Mrs.
Captain Osborne. It was a triangular billet, on pink paper,
and sealed with a dove and an olive branch, and a
profusion of light blue sealing wax, and it was written in
a very large, though undecided female hand.
"It's Peggy O'Dowd's fist," said George, laughing. "I
know it by the kisses on the seal." And in fact, it was a
note from Mrs. Major O'Dowd, requesting the pleasure
of Mrs. Osborne's company that very evening to a small
friendly party. "You must go," George said. "You will
make acquaintance with the regiment there. O'Dowd goes
in command of the regiment, and Peggy goes in command
But they had not been for many minutes in the enjoyment
of Mrs. O'Dowd's letter, when the door was flung
open, and a stout jolly lady, in a riding-habit, followed by
a couple of officers of Ours, entered the room.
"Sure, I couldn't stop till tay-time. Present me, Garge,
my dear fellow, to your lady. Madam, I'm deloighted to
see ye; and to present to you me husband, Meejor
O'Dowd"; and with this, the jolly lady in the riding-habit
grasped Amelia's hand very warmly, and the latter knew
at once that the lady was before her whom her husband
had so often laughed at. "You've often heard of me from
that husband of yours," said the lady, with great vivacity.
"You've often heard of her," echoed her husband, the
Major.
Amelia answered, smiling, "that she had."
"And small good he's told you of me," Mrs. O'Dowd
replied; adding that "George was a wicked divvle."
"That I'll go bail for," said the Major, trying to look
knowing, at which George laughed; and Mrs. O'Dowd,
with a tap of her whip, told the Major to be quiet; and
then requested to be presented in form to Mrs. Captain
Osborne.
"This, my dear," said George with great gravity, "is my
very good, kind, and excellent friend, Auralia Margaretta,
otherwise called Peggy."
"Faith, you're right," interposed the Major.
"Otherwise called Peggy, lady of Major Michael
O'Dowd, of our regiment, and daughter of Fitzjurld
Ber'sford de Burgo Malony of Glenmalony, County Kildare."
"And Muryan Squeer, Doblin," said the lady with calm
superiority.
"And Muryan Square, sure enough," the Major
whispered.
"'Twas there ye coorted me, Meejor dear," the lady
said; and the Major assented to this as to every other
proposition which was made generally in company.
Major O'Dowd, who had served his sovereign in every
quarter of the world, and had paid for every step in his
profession by some more than equivalent act of daring
and gallantry, was the most modest, silent, sheep-faced
and meek of little men, and as obedient to his wife as if
he had been her tay-boy. At the mess-table he sat silently,
and drank a great deal. When full of liquor, he
reeled silently home. When he spoke, it was to agree with
everybody on every conceivable point; and he passed
through life in perfect ease and good-humour. The
hottest suns of India never heated his temper; and the
Walcheren ague never shook it. He walked up to a battery
with just as much indifference as to a dinner-table; had
dined on horse-flesh and turtle with equal relish and
appetite; and had an old mother, Mrs. O'Dowd of
O'Dowdstown indeed, whom he had never disobeyed
but when he ran away and enlisted, and when he persisted
in marrying that odious Peggy Malony.
Peggy was one of five sisters, and eleven children of the
noble house of Glenmalony; but her husband, though her
own cousin, was of the mother's side, and so had not the
inestimable advantage of being allied to the Malonys,
whom she believed to be the most famous family in the
world. Having tried nine seasons at Dublin and two at
Bath and Cheltenham, and not finding a partner for life,
Miss Malony ordered her cousin Mick to marry her when
she was about thirty-three years of age; and the honest
fellow obeying, carried her off to the West Indies, to
preside over the ladies of the --th regiment, into which he
had just exchanged.
Before Mrs. O'Dowd was half an hour in Amelia's (or
indeed in anybody else's) company, this amiable lady told
all her birth and pedigree to her new friend. "My dear,"
said she, good-naturedly, "it was my intention that Garge
should be a brother of my own, and my sister Glorvina
would have suited him entirely. But as bygones are
bygones, and he was engaged to yourself, why, I'm
determined to take you as a sister instead, and to look upon
you as such, and to love you as one of the family. Faith,
you've got such a nice good-natured face and way widg
you, that I'm sure we'll agree; and that you'll be an
addition to our family anyway."
"'Deed and she will," said O'Dowd, with an approving
air, and Amelia felt herself not a little amused and
grateful to be thus suddenly introduced to so large a
party of relations.
"We're all good fellows here," the Major's lady continued.
"There's not a regiment in the service where you'll
find a more united society nor a more agreeable messroom.
There's no quarrelling, bickering, slandthering, nor
small talk amongst us. We all love each other."
"Especially Mrs. Magenis," said George, laughing.
"Mrs. Captain Magenis and me has made up, though
her treatment of me would bring me gray hairs with
sorrow to the grave."
"And you with such a beautiful front of black, Peggy,
my dear," the Major cried.
"Hould your tongue, Mick, you booby. Them husbands
are always in the way, Mrs. Osborne, my dear; and as
for my Mick, I often tell him he should never open his
mouth but to give the word of command, or to put meat
and drink into it. I'll tell you about the regiment, and
warn you when we're alone. Introduce me to your brother
now; sure he's a mighty fine man, and reminds me of me
cousin, Dan Malony (Malony of Ballymalony, my dear,
you know who mar'ied Ophalia Scully, of Oystherstown,
own cousin to Lord Poldoody). Mr. Sedley, sir, I'm
deloighted to be made known te ye. I suppose you'll dine
at the mess to-day. (Mind that divvle of a docther, Mick,
and whatever ye du, keep yourself sober for me party
this evening.)"
"It's the 150th gives us a farewell dinner, my love,"
interposed the Major, "but we'll easy get a card for Mr.
Sedley."
"Run Simple (Ensign Simple, of Ours, my dear Amelia.
I forgot to introjuice him to ye). Run in a hurry, with
Mrs. Major O'Dowd's compliments to Colonel Tavish,
and Captain Osborne has brought his brothernlaw down,
and will bring him to the 150th mess at five o'clock sharp
--when you and I, my dear, will take a snack here, if you
like." Before Mrs. O'Dowd's speech was concluded, the
young Ensign was trotting downstairs on his commission.
"Obedience is the soul of the army. We will go to our
duty while Mrs. O'Dowd will stay and enlighten you,
Emmy," Captain Osborne said; and the two gentlemen,
taking each a wing of the Major, walked out with that
officer, grinning at each other over his head.
And, now having her new friend to herself, the impetuous
Mrs: O'Dowd proceeded to pour out such a
quantity of information as no poor little woman's memory
could ever tax itself to bear. She told Amelia a thousand
particulars relative to the very numerous family of which
the amazed young lady found herself a member. "Mrs.
Heavytop, the Colonel's wife, died in Jamaica of the
yellow faver and a broken heart comboined, for the horrud
old Colonel, with a head as bald as a cannon-ball, was
making sheep's eyes at a half-caste girl there. Mrs.
Magenis, though without education, was a good woman,
but she had the divvle's tongue, and would cheat her own
mother at whist. Mrs. Captain Kirk must turn up her
lobster eyes forsooth at the idea of an honest round game
(wherein me fawther, as pious a man as ever went to
church, me uncle Dane Malony, and our cousin the
Bishop, took a hand at loo, or whist, every night of their
lives). Nayther of 'em's goin' with the regiment this time,"
Mrs. O'Dowd added. "Fanny Magenis stops with her
mother, who sells small coal and potatoes, most likely,
in Islington-town, hard by London, though she's always
bragging of her father's ships, and pointing them out to us
as they go up the river: and Mrs. Kirk and her children
will stop here in Bethesda Place, to be nigh to her favourite
preacher, Dr. Ramshorn. Mrs. Bunny's in an interesting
situation--faith, and she always is, then--and has
given the Lieutenant seven already. And Ensign Posky's
wife, who joined two months before you, my dear, has
quarl'd with Tom Posky a score of times, till you can
hear'm all over the bar'ck (they say they're come to
broken pleets, and Tom never accounted for his black oi),
and she'll go back to her mother, who keeps a ladies'
siminary at Richmond--bad luck to her for running away
from it! Where did ye get your finishing, my dear? I had
moin, and no expince spared, at Madame Flanahan's, at
Ilyssus Grove, Booterstown, near Dublin, wid a Marchioness
to teach us the true Parisian pronunciation, and a retired
Mejor-General of the French service to put us
through the exercise."
Of this incongruous family our astonished Amelia found
herself all of a sudden a member: with Mrs. O'Dowd as
an elder sister. She was presented to her other female
relations at tea-time, on whom, as she was quiet, goodnatured,
and not too handsome, she made rather an
agreeable impression until the arrival of the gentlemen from
the mess of the 150th, who all admired her so, that her
sisters began, of course, to find fault with her.
"I hope Osborne has sown his wild oats," said Mrs.
Magenis to Mrs. Bunny. "If a reformed rake makes a
good husband, sure it's she will have the fine chance with
Garge," Mrs. O'Dowd remarked to Posky, who had lost
her position as bride in the regiment, and was quite angry
with the usurper. And as for Mrs. Kirk: that disciple of
Dr. Ramshorn put one or two leading professional
questions to Amelia, to see whether she was awakened,
whether she was a professing Christian and so forth, and
finding from the simplicity of Mrs. Osborne's replies that
she was yet in utter darkness, put into her hands three
little penny books with pictures, viz., the "Howling
Wilderness," the "Washerwoman of Wandsworth Common,"
and the "British Soldier's best Bayonet," which, bent upon
awakening her before she slept, Mrs. Kirk begged Amelia
to read that night ere she went to bed.
But all the men, like good fellows as they were, rallied
round their comrade's pretty wife, and paid her their
court with soldierly gallantry. She had a little triumph,
which flushed her spirits and made her eyes sparkle.
George was proud of her popularity, and pleased with the
manner (which was very gay and graceful, though naive
and a little timid) with which she received the gentlemen's attentions, and answered their
compliments. And
he in his uniform--how much handsomer he was than
any man in the room! She felt that he was affectionately
watching her, and glowed with pleasure at his kindness. "I
will make all his friends welcome," she resolved in her
heart. "I will love all as I love him. I will always try and
be gay and good-humoured and make his home happy."
The regiment indeed adopted her with acclamation.
The Captains approved, the Lieutenants applauded, the
Ensigns admired. Old Cutler, the Doctor, made one or
two jokes, which, being professional, need not be repeated;
and Cackle, the Assistant M.D. of Edinburgh, condescended
to examine her upon leeterature, and tried her
with his three best French quotations. Young Stubble went
about from man to man whispering, "Jove, isn't she a
pretty gal?" and never took his eyes off her except when
the negus came in.
As for Captain Dobbin, he never so much as spoke to
her during the whole evening. But he and Captain Porter
of the l50th took home Jos to the hotel, who was in a
very maudlin state, and had told his tiger-hunt story with
great effect, both at the mess-table and at the soiree, to
Mrs. O'Dowd in her turban and bird of paradise. Having
put the Collector into the hands of his servant, Dobbin
loitered about, smoking his cigar before the inn door.
George had meanwhile very carefully shawled his wife,
and brought her away from Mrs. O'Dowd's after a general
handshaking from the young officers, who accompanied
her to the fly, and cheered that vehicle as it drove off. So
Amelia gave Dobbin her little hand as she got out of the
carriage, and rebuked him smilingly for not having taken
any notice of her all night.
The Captain continued that deleterious amusement of
smoking, long after the inn and the street were gone to
bed. He watched the lights vanish from George's sittingroom
windows, and shine out in the bedroom close at
hand. It was almost morning when he returned to his own
quarters. He could hear the cheering from the ships in
the river, where the transports were already taking in
their cargoes preparatory to dropping down the Thames.
CHAPTER XVIII
In Which Amelia Invades the Low Countries
The regiment with its officers was to be transported in
ships provided by His Majesty's government for the
occasion: and in two days after the festive assembly at Mrs.
O'Dowd's apartments, in the midst of cheering from all
the East India ships in the river, and the military on shore,
the band playing "God Save the King," the officers waving
their hats, and the crews hurrahing gallantly, the transports
went down the river and proceeded under convoy to
Ostend. Meanwhile the gallant Jos had agreed to escort
his sister and the Major's wife, the bulk of whose goods
and chattels, including the famous bird of paradise and
turban, were with the regimental baggage: so that our
two heroines drove pretty much unencumbered to
Ramsgate, where there were plenty of packets plying, in
one of which they had a speedy passage to Ostend.
That period of Jos's life which now ensued was so full
of incident, that it served him for conversation for
many years after, and even the tiger-hunt story was put
aside for more stirring narratives which he had to tell
about the great campaign of Waterloo. As soon as he
had agreed to escort his sister abroad, it was remarked
that he ceased shaving his upper lip. At Chatham he
followed the parades and drills with great assiduity. He
listened with the utmost attention to the conversation of
his brother officers (as he called them in after days
sometimes), and learned as many military names as he could.
In these studies the excellent Mrs. O'Dowd was of great
assistance to him; and on the day finally when they
embarked on board the Lovely Rose, which was to carry
them to their destination, he made his appearance in a
braided frock-coat and duck trousers, with a foraging
cap ornamented with a smart gold band. Having his
carriage with him, and informing everybody on board
confidentially that he was going to join the Duke of
Wellington's army, folks mistook him for a great personage, a
commissary-general, or a government courier at the very
least.
He suffered hugely on the voyage, during which the
ladies were likewise prostrate; but Amelia was brought to
life again as the packet made Ostend, by the sight of
the transports conveying her regiment, which entered the
harbour almost at the same time with the Lovely Rose.
Jos went in a collapsed state to an inn, while Captain
Dobbin escorted the ladies, and then busied himself in
freeing Jos's carriage and luggage from the ship and the
custom-house, for Mr. Jos was at present without a
servant, Osborne's man and his own pampered menial
having conspired together at Chatham, and refused pointblank
to cross the water. This revolt, which came very
suddenly, and on the last day, so alarmed Mr. Sedley,
junior, that he was on the point of giving up the expedition,
but Captain Dobbin (who made himself immensely
officious in the business, Jos said), rated him and
laughed at him soundly: the mustachios were grown in
advance, and Jos finally was persuaded to embark. In
place of the well-bred and well-fed London domestics,
who could only speak English, Dobbin procured for Jos's
party a swarthy little Belgian servant who could speak
no language at all; but who, by his bustling behaviour,
and by invariably addressing Mr. Sedley as "My lord,"
speedily acquired that gentleman's favour. Times are
altered at Ostend now; of the Britons who go thither,
very few look like lords, or act like those members of
our hereditary aristocracy. They seem for the most part
shabby in attire, dingy of linen, lovers of billiards and
brandy, and cigars and greasy ordinaries.
But it may be said as a rule, that every Englishman
in the Duke of Wellington's army paid his way. The
remembrance of such a fact surely becomes a nation of
shopkeepers. It was a blessing for a commerce-loving
country to be overrun by such an army of customers:
and to have such creditable warriors to feed. And the
country which they came to protect is not military. For
a long period of history they have let other people fight
there. When the present writer went to survey with eagle
glance the field of Waterloo, we asked the conductor of
the diligence, a portly warlike-looking veteran, whether
he had been at the battle. "Pas si bete"--such an
answer and sentiment as no Frenchman would own to--
was his reply. But, on the other hand, the postilion
who drove us was a Viscount, a son of some bankrupt
Imperial General, who accepted a pennyworth of beer
on the road. The moral is surely a good one.
This flat, flourishing, easy country never could have
looked more rich and prosperous than in that opening
summer of 1815, when its green fields and quiet cities
were enlivened by multiplied red-coats: when its wide
chaussees swarmed with brilliant English equipages:
when its great canal-boats, gliding by rich pastures and
pleasant quaint old villages, by old chateaux lying
amongst old trees, were all crowded with well-to-do English travellers: when the soldier who
drank at the village
inn, not only drank, but paid his score; and Donald,
the Highlander, billeted in the Flemish farm-house,
rocked the baby's cradle, while Jean and Jeannette were
out getting in the hay. As our painters are bent on military
subjects just now, I throw out this as a good subject
for the pencil, to illustrate the principle of an honest
English war. All looked as brilliant and harmless as a
Hyde Park review. Meanwhile, Napoleon screened behind
his curtain of frontier-fortresses, was preparing for
the outbreak which was to drive all these orderly people
into fury and blood; and lay so many of them low.
Everybody had such a perfect feeling of confidence
in the leader (for the resolute faith which the Duke of
Wellington had inspired in the whole English nation was
as intense as that more frantic enthusiasm with which
at one time the French regarded Napoleon), the country
seemed in so perfect a state of orderly defence, and the
help at hand in case of need so near and overwhelming,
that alarm was unknown, and our travellers, among
whom two were naturally of a very timid sort, were,
like all the other multiplied English tourists, entirely at
ease. The famous regiment, with so many of whose
officers we have made acquaintance, was drafted in canal
boats to Bruges and Ghent, thence to march to Brussels.
Jos accompanied the ladies in the public boats; the which
all old travellers in Flanders must remember for the
luxury and accommodation they afforded. So prodigiously
good was the eating and drinking on board these
sluggish but most comfortable vessels, that there are legends
extant of an English traveller, who, coming to Belgium
for a week, and travelling in one of these boats, was so
delighted with the fare there that he went backwards
and forwards from Ghent to Bruges perpetually until the
railroads were invented, when he drowned himself on the
last trip of the passage-boat. Jos's death was not to be
of this sort, but his comfort was exceeding, and Mrs.
O'Dowd insisted that he only wanted her sister Glorvina
to make his happiness complete. He sate on the roof
of the cabin all day drinking Flemish beer, shouting for
Isidor, his servant, and talking gallantly to the ladies.
His courage was prodigious. "Boney attack us!" he
cried. "My dear creature, my poor Emmy, don't be
frightened. There's no danger. The allies will be in Paris
in two months, I tell you; when I'll take you to dine
in the Palais Royal, by Jove! There are three hundred
thousand Rooshians, I tell you, now entering France by
Mayence and the Rhine--three hundred thousand under
Wittgenstein and Barclay de Tolly, my poor love. You
don't know military affairs, my dear. I do, and I tell
you there's no infantry in France can stand against
Rooshian infantry, and no general of Boney's that's fit
to hold a candle to Wittgenstein. Then there are the
Austrians, they are five hundred thousand if a man, and
they are within ten marches of the frontier by this time,
under Schwartzenberg and Prince Charles. Then there are
the Prooshians under the gallant Prince Marshal. Show
me a cavalry chief like him now that Murat is gone.
Hey, Mrs. O'Dowd? Do you think our little girl here
need be afraid? Is there any cause for fear, Isidor? Hey,
sir? Get some more beer."
Mrs. O'Dowd said that her "Glorvina was not afraid
of any man alive, let alone a Frenchman," and tossed
off a glass of beer with a wink which expressed her
liking for the beverage.
Having frequently been in presence of the enemy, or,
in other words, faced the ladies at Cheltenham and Bath,
our friend, the Collector, had lost a great deal of his
pristine timidity, and was now, especially when fortified
with liquor, as talkative as might be. He was rather a
favourite with the regiment, treating the young officers
with sumptuosity, and amusing them by his military airs.
And as there is one well-known regiment of the army
which travels with a goat heading the column, whilst
another is led by a deer, George said with respect to his
brother-in-law, that his regiment marched with an
elephant.
Since Amelia's introduction to the regiment, George
began to be rather ashamed of some of the company to
which he had been forced to present her; and determined,
as he told Dobbin (with what satisfaction to the latter
it need not be said), to exchange into some better regiment
soon, and to get his wife away from those damned
vulgar women. But this vulgarity of being ashamed of
one's society is much more common among men than
women (except very great ladies of fashion, who, to be
sure, indulge in it); and Mrs. Amelia, a natural and
unaffected person, had none of that artificial shamefacedness
which her husband mistook for delicacy on his own
part. Thus Mrs. O'Dowd had a cock's plume in her hat,
and a very large "repayther" on her stomach, which she
used to ring on all occasions, narrating how it had been
presented to her by her fawther, as she stipt into the
car'ge after her mar'ge; and these ornaments, with other
outward peculiarities of the Major's wife, gave excruciating
agonies to Captain Osborne, when his wife and the
Major's came in contact; whereas Amelia was only
amused by the honest lady's eccentricities, and not in
the least ashamed of her company.
As they made that well-known journey, which almost
every Englishman of middle rank has travelled since,
there might have been more instructive, but few more
entertaining, companions than Mrs. Major O'Dowd. "Talk
about kenal boats; my dear! Ye should see the kenal
boats between Dublin and Ballinasloe. It's there the rapid
travelling is; and the beautiful cattle. Sure me fawther
got a goold medal (and his Excellency himself eat a slice
of it, and said never was finer mate in his loif) for a
four-year-old heifer, the like of which ye never saw in
this country any day." And Jos owned with a sigh, "that
for good streaky beef, really mingled with fat and lean,
there was no country like England."
"Except Ireland, where all your best mate comes from,"
said the Major's lady; proceeding, as is not unusual with
patriots of her nation, to make comparisons greatly in
favour of her own country. The idea of comparing the
market at Bruges with those of Dublin, although she had
suggested it herself, caused immense scorn and derision
on her part. "I'll thank ye tell me what they mean by
that old gazabo on the top of the market-place," said
she, in a burst of ridicule fit to have brought the old
tower down. The place was full of English soldiery as
they passed. English bugles woke them in the morning;
at nightfall they went to bed to the note of the British
fife and drum: all the country and Europe was in arms,
and the greatest event of history pending: and honest
Peggy O'Dowd, whom it concerned as well as another,
went on prattling about Ballinafad, and the horses in the
stables at Glenmalony, and the clar't drunk there; and
Jos Sedley interposed about curry and rice at Dumdum;
and Amelia thought about her husband, and how best
she should show her love for him; as if these were
the great topics of the world.
Those who like to lay down the History-book, and to
speculate upon what MIGHT have happened in the world,
but for the fatal occurrence of what actually did take
place (a most puzzling, amusing, ingenious, and profitable
kind of meditation), have no doubt often thought to
themselves what a specially bad time Napoleon took to
come back from Elba, and to let loose his eagle from
Gulf San Juan to Notre Dame. The historians on our
side tell us that the armies of the allied powers were
all providentially on a war-footing, and ready to bear
down at a moment's notice upon the Elban Emperor.
The august jobbers assembled at Vienna, and carving
out the kingdoms of Europe according to their wisdom,
had such causes of quarrel among themselves as might
have set the armies which had overcome Napoleon to
fight against each other, but for the return of the object
of unanimous hatred and fear. This monarch had an army
in full force because he had jobbed to himself Poland,
and was determined to keep it: another had robbed half
Saxony, and was bent upon maintaining his acquisition:
Italy was the object of a third's solicitude. Each was
protesting against the rapacity of the other; and could the
Corsican but have waited in prison until all these parties
were by the ears, he might have returned and reigned
unmolested. But what would have become of our story
and all our friends, then? If all the drops in it were dried
up, what would become of the sea?
In the meanwhile the business of life and living, and
the pursuits of pleasure, especially, went on as if no end
were to be expected to them, and no enemy in front.
When our travellers arrived at Brussels, in which their
regiment was quartered, a great piece of good fortune,
as all said, they found themselves in one of the gayest
and most brilliant little capitals in Europe, and where
all the Vanity Fair booths were laid out with the most
tempting liveliness and splendour. Gambling was here in
profusion, and dancing in plenty: feasting was there to
fill with delight that great gourmand of a Jos: there
was a theatre where a miraculous Catalani was delighting
all hearers: beautiful rides, all enlivened with martial
splendour; a rare old city, with strange costumes and
wonderful architecture, to delight the eyes of little Amelia,
who had never before seen a foreign country, and fill
her with charming surprises: so that now and for a few
weeks' space in a fine handsome lodging, whereof the
expenses were borne by Jos and Osborne, who was flush
of money and full of kind attentions to his wife--for
about a fortnight, I say, during which her honeymoon
ended, Mrs. Amelia was as pleased and happy as any
little bride out of England.
Every day during this happy time there was novelty
and amusement for all parties. There was a church to
see, or a picture-gallery--there was a ride, or an opera.
The bands of the regiments were making music at all
hours. The greatest folks of England walked in the Park
--there was a perpetual military festival. George, taking
out his wife to a new jaunt or junket every night, was
quite pleased with himself as usual, and swore he was
becoming quite a domestic character. And a jaunt or
a junket with HIM! Was it not enough to set this little
heart beating with joy? Her letters home to her mother
were filled with delight and gratitude at this season. Her
husband bade her buy laces, millinery, jewels, and
gimcracks of all sorts. Oh, he was the kindest, best, and
most generous of men!
The sight of the very great company of lords and ladies
and fashionable persons who thronged the town, and
appeared in every public place, filled George's truly British
soul with intense delight. They flung off that happy
frigidity and insolence of demeanour which occasionally
characterises the great at home, and appearing in
numberless public places, condescended to mingle with the
rest of the company whom they met there. One night
at a party given by the general of the division to which
George's regiment belonged, he had the honour of dancing
with Lady Blanche Thistlewood, Lord Bareacres'
daughter; he bustled for ices and refreshments for the
two noble ladies; he pushed and squeezed for Lady
Bareacres' carriage; he bragged about the Countess when
he got home, in a way which his own father could not
have surpassed. He called upon the ladies the next day;
he rode by their side in the Park; he asked their party
to a great dinner at a restaurateur's, and was quite
wild with exultation when they agreed to come. Old
Bareacres, who had not much pride and a large appetite,
would go for a dinner anywhere.
"I.hope there will be no women besides our own
party," Lady Bareacres said, after reflecting upon the
invitation which had been made, and accepted with too
much precipitancy.
"Gracious Heaven, Mamma--you don't suppose the
man would bring his wife," shrieked Lady Blanche, who
had been languishing in George's arms in the newly
imported waltz for hours the night before. "The men are
bearable, but their women--"
"Wife, just married, dev'lish pretty woman, I hear,"
the old Earl said.
"Well, my dear Blanche," said the mother, "I suppose,
as Papa wants to go, we must go; but we needn't know
them in England, you know." And so, determined to cut
their new acquaintance in Bond Street, these great folks
went to eat his dinner at Brussels, and condescending to
make him pay for their pleasure, showed their dignity
by making his wife uncomfortable, and carefully excluding
her from the conversation. This is a species of dignity
in which the high-bred British female reigns supreme. To
watch the behaviour of a fine lady to other and humbler
women, is a very good sport for a philosophical frequenter
of Vanity Fair.
This festival, on which honest George spent a great
deal of money, was the very dismallest of all the
entertainments which Amelia had in her honeymoon. She
wrote the most piteous accounts of the feast home to
her mamma: how the Countess of Bareacres would not
answer when spoken to; how Lady Blanche stared at her
with her eye-glass; and what a rage Captain Dobbin was
in at their behaviour; and how my lord, as they came
away from the feast, asked to see the bill, and pronounced
it a d-- bad dinner, and d-- dear. But though Amelia
told all these stories, and wrote home regarding
her guests' rudeness, and her own discomfiture,
old Mrs. Sedley was mightily pleased nevertheless,
and talked about Emmy's friend, the Countess of
Bareacres, with such assiduity that the news how his son
was entertaining peers and peeresses actually came to
Osborne's ears in the City.
Those who know the present Lieutenant-General Sir
George Tufto, K.C.B., and have seen him, as they may
on most days in the season, padded and in stays, strutting
down Pall Mall with a rickety swagger on his high-heeled
lacquered boots, leering under the bonnets of passersby,
or riding a showy chestnut, and ogling broughams in
the Parks--those who know the present Sir George Tufto
would hardly recognise the daring Peninsular and Waterloo
officer. He has thick curling brown hair and black
eyebrows now, and his whiskers are of the deepest
purple. He was light-haired and bald in 1815, and stouter
in the person and in the limbs, which especially have
shrunk very much of late. When he was about seventy
years of age (he is now nearly eighty), his hair, which
was very scarce and quite white, suddenly grew thick,
and brown, and curly, and his whiskers and eyebrows
took their present colour. Ill-natured people say that
his chest is all wool, and that his hair, because it never
grows, is a wig. Tom Tufto, with whose father he quarrelled
ever so many years ago, declares that Mademoiselle
de Jaisey, of the French theatre, pulled his
grandpapa's hair off in the green-room; but Tom is
notoriously spiteful and jealous; and the General's wig has
nothing to do with our story.
One day, as some of our friends of the --th were
sauntering in the flower-market of Brussels, having been
to see the Hotel de Ville, which Mrs. Major O'Dowd
declared was not near so large or handsome as her
fawther's mansion of Glenmalony, an officer of rank, with
an orderly behind him, rode up to the market, and
descending from his horse, came amongst the flowers, and
selected the very finest bouquet which money could buy.
The beautiful bundle being tied up in a paper, the officer
remounted, giving the nosegay into the charge of his
military groom, who carried it with a grin, following his
chief, who rode away in great state and self-satisfaction.
"You should see the flowers at Glenmalony," Mrs.
O'Dowd was remarking. "Me fawther has three Scotch
garners with nine helpers. We have an acre of hot-houses,
and pines as common as pays in the sayson. Our greeps
weighs six pounds every bunch of 'em, and upon me
honour and conscience I think our magnolias is as big
as taykettles."
Dobbin, who never used to "draw out" Mrs. O'Dowd
as that wicked Osborne delighted in doing (much to
Amelia's terror, who implored him to spare her), fell
back in the crowd, crowing and sputtering until he
reached a safe distance, when he exploded amongst the
astonished market-people with shrieks of yelling laughter.
"Hwhat's that gawky guggling about?" said Mrs.
O'Dowd. "Is it his nose bleedn? He always used to say
'twas his nose bleedn, till he must have pomped all the
blood out of 'um. An't the magnolias at Glenmalony
as big as taykettles, O'Dowd?"
"'Deed then they are, and bigger, Peggy," the Major
said. When the conversation was interrupted in the
manner stated by the arrival of the officer who purchased
the bouquet.
"Devlish fine horse--who is it?" George asked.
"You should see me brother Molloy Malony's horse,
Molasses, that won the cop at the Curragh," the Major's
wife was exclaiming, and was continuing the family
history, when her husband interrupted her by saying--
"It's General Tufto, who commands the ---- cavalry
division"; adding quietly, "he and I were both shot in
the same leg at Talavera."
"Where you got your step," said George with a laugh.
"General Tufto! Then, my dear, the Crawleys are come."
Amelia's heart fell--she knew not why. The sun did
not seem to shine so bright. The tall old roofs and
gables looked less picturesque all of a sudden, though
it was a brilliant sunset, and one of the brightest and
most beautiful days at the end of May.
CHAPTER XXIX
Brussels
Mr. Jos had hired a pair of horses for his open carriage,
with which cattle, and the smart London vehicle, he made
a very tolerable figure in the drives about Brussels.
George purchased a horse for his private riding, and
he and Captain Dobbin would often accompany the
carriage in which Jos and his sister took daily excursions
of pleasure. They went out that day in the park for their
accustomed diversion, and there, sure enough, George's
remark with regard to the arrival of Rawdon Crawley and
his wife proved to be correct. In the midst of a little
troop of horsemen, consisting of some of the very greatest
persons in Brussels, Rebecca was seen in the prettiest
and tightest of riding-habits, mounted on a beautiful
little Arab, which she rode to perfection (having acquired
the art at Queen's Crawley, where the Baronet, Mr.
Pitt, and Rawdon himself had given her many lessons),
and by the side of the gallant General Tufto.
"Sure it's the Juke himself," cried Mrs. Major O'Dowd
to Jos, who began to blush violently; "and that's Lord
Uxbridge on the bay. How elegant he looks! Me brother,
Molloy Malony, is as like him as two pays."
Rebecca did not make for the carriage; but as soon
as she perceived her old acquaintance Amelia seated in
it, acknowledged her presence by a gracious nod and
smile, and by kissing and shaking her fingers playfully
in the direction of the vehicle. Then she resumed her
conversation with General Tufto, who asked "who the
fat officer was in the gold-laced cap?" on which Becky
replied, "that he was an officer in the East Indian service."
But Rawdon Crawley rode out of the ranks of his
company, and came up and shook hands heartily with
Amelia, and said to Jos, "Well, old boy, how are you?"
and stared in Mrs. O'Dowd's face and at.the black cock's
feathers until she began to think she had made a
conquest of him.
George, who had been delayed behind, rode up almost
immediately with Dobbin, and they touched their caps to
the august personages, among whom Osborne at once
perceived Mrs. Crawley. He was delighted to see Rawdon
leaning over his carriage familiarly and talking to Amelia,
and met the aide-de-camp's cordial greeting with more
than corresponding warmth. The nods between Rawdon
and Dobbin were of the very faintest specimens of
politeness.
Crawley told George where they were stopping with
General Tufto at the Hotel du Parc, and George made
his friend promise to come speedily to Osborne's own
residence. "Sorry I hadn't seen you three days ago,"
George said. "Had a dinner at the Restaurateur's--rather a
nice thing. Lord Bareacres, and the Countess, and Lady
Blanche, were good enough to dine with us--wish we'd
had you." Having thus let his friend know his claims to be
a man of fashion, Osborne parted from Rawdon, who
followed the august squadron down an alley into which
they cantered, while George and Dobbin resumed their
places, one on each side of Amelia's carriage.
"How well the Juke looked," Mrs. O'Dowd remarked.
"The Wellesleys and Malonys are related; but, of course,
poor I would never dream of introjuicing myself unless
his Grace thought proper to remember our family-tie."
"He's a great soldier," Jos said, much more at ease
now the great man was gone. "Was there ever a battle
won like Salamanca? Hey, Dobbin? But where was it he
learnt his art? In India, my boy! The jungle's the school
for a general, mark me that. I knew him myself, too,
Mrs. O'Dowd: we both of us danced the same evening
with Miss Cutler, daughter of Cutler of the Artillery, and
a devilish fine girl, at Dumdum."
The apparition of the great personages held them
all in talk during the drive; and at dinner; and until the
hour came when they were all to go to the Opera.
It was almost like Old England. The house was filled
with familiar British faces, and those toilettes for which
the British female has long been celebrated. Mrs.
O'Dowd's was not the least splendid amongst these, and
she had a curl on her forehead, and a set of Irish diamonds
and Cairngorms, which outshone all the decorations
in the house, in her notion. Her presence used to
excruciate Osborne; but go she would upon all parties of
pleasure on which she heard her young friends were bent.
It never entered into her thought but that they must be
charmed with her company.
"She's been useful to you, my dear," George said to
his wife, whom he could leave alone with less scruple
when she had this society. "But what a comfort it is that
Rebecca's come: you will have her for a friend, and we
may get rid now of this damn'd Irishwoman." To this
Amelia did not answer, yes or no: and how do we know
what her thoughts were?
The coup d'oeil of the Brussels opera-house did not
strike Mrs. O'Dowd as being so fine as the theatre in
Fishamble Street, Dublin, nor was French music at all
equal, in her opinion, to the melodies of her native country.
She favoured her friends with these and other opinions
in a very loud tone of voice, and tossed about a
great clattering fan she sported, with the most splendid
complacency.
"Who is that wonderful woman with Amelia, Rawdon,
love?" said a lady in an opposite box (who, almost always
civil to her husband in private, was more fond than
ever of him in company).
"Don't you see that creature with a yellow thing in
her turban, and a red satin gown, and a great watch?"
"Near the pretty little woman in white?" asked a
middle-aged gentleman seated by the querist's side, with
orders in his button, and several under-waistcoats, and
a great, choky, white stock.
"That pretty woman in white is Amelia, General: you
are remarking all the pretty women, you naughty man."
"Only one, begad, in the world!" said the General, delighted,
and the lady gave him a tap with a large bouquet
which she had.
"Bedad it's him," said Mrs. O'Dowd; "and that's the
very bokay he bought in the Marshy aux Flures!" and
when Rebecca, having caught her friend's eye, performed
the little hand-kissing operation once more, Mrs. Major
O'D., taking the compliment to herself, returned the salute
with a gracious smile, which sent that unfortunate
Dobbin shrieking out of the box again.
At the end of the act, George was out of the box in a
moment, and he was even going to pay his respects to
Rebecca in her loge. He met Crawley in the lobby, however,
where they exchanged a few sentences upon the
occurrences of the last fortnight.
"You found my cheque all right at the agent's?
George said, with a knowing air.
"All right, my boy," Rawdon answered. "Happy to give
you your revenge. Governor come round?"
"Not yet," said George, "but he will; and you know I've
some private fortune through my mother. Has Aunty
relented?"
"Sent me twenty pound, damned old screw. When shall
we have a meet? The General dines out on Tuesday.
Can't you come Tuesday? I say, make Sedley cut off his
moustache. What the devil does a civilian mean with a
moustache and those infernal frogs to his coat! By-bye.
Try and come on Tuesday"; and Rawdon was going-off
with two brilliant young gentlemen of fashion, who were,
like himself, on the staff of a general officer.
George was only half pleased to be asked to dinner on
that particular day when the General was not to dine. "I
will go in and pay my respects to your wife," said he; at
which Rawdon said, "Hm, as you please," looking very
glum, and at which the two young officers exchanged
knowing glances. George parted from them and strutted
down the lobby to the General's box, the number of which
he had carefully counted.
"Entrez," said a clear little voice, and our friend found
himself in Rebecca's presence; who jumped up, clapped
her hands together, and held out both of them to George,
so charmed was she to see him. The General, with the
orders in his button, stared at the newcomer with a sulky
scowl, as much as to say, who the devil are you?
"My dear Captain George!" cried little Rebecca in an
ecstasy. "How good of you to come. The General and I
were moping together tete-a-tete. General, this is my
Captain George of whom you heard me talk."
"Indeed," said the General, with a very small bow; "of
what regiment is Captain George?"
George mentioned the --th: how he wished he could
have said it was a crack cavalry corps.
"Come home lately from the West Indies, I believe.
Not seen much service in the late war. Quartered here,
Captain George?"--the General went on with killing
haughtiness.
"Not Captain George, you stupid man; Captain Osborne,"
Rebecca said. The General all the while was looking
savagely from one to the other.
"Captain Osborne, indeed! Any relation to the L--
Osbornes?"
"We bear the same arms," George said, as indeed was
the fact; Mr. Osborne having consulted with a herald in
Long Acre, and picked the L-- arms out of the peerage,
when he set up his carriage fifteen years before. The
General made no reply to this announcement; but took
up his opera-glass--the double-barrelled lorgnon was not
invented in those days--and pretended to examine the
house; but Rebecca saw that his disengaged eye was
working round in her direction, and shooting out
bloodshot glances at her and George.
She redoubled in cordiality. "How is dearest Amelia?
But I needn't ask: how pretty she looks! And who is that
nice good-natured looking creature with her--a flame of
yours? O, you wicked men! And there is Mr. Sedley
eating ice, I declare: how he seems to enjoy it! General, why
have we not had any ices?"
"Shall I go and fetch you some?" said the General,
bursting with wrath.
"Let ME go, I entreat you," George said.
"No, I will go to Amelia's box. Dear, sweet girl! Give
me your arm, Captain George"; and so saying, and with a
nod to the General, she tripped into the lobby. She gave
George the queerest, knowingest look, when they were
together, a look which might have been interpreted,
"Don't you see the state of affairs, and what a fool I'm
making of him?" But he did not perceive it. He was
thinking of his own plans, and lost in pompous admiration
of his own irresistible powers of pleasing.
The curses to which the General gave a low utterance,
as soon as Rebecca and her conqueror had quitted him,
were so deep, that I am sure no compositor would
venture to print them were they written down. They came
from the General's heart; and a wonderful thing it is to
think that the human heart is capable of generating such
produce, and can throw out, as occasion demands, such
a supply of lust and fury, rage and hatred.
Amelia's gentle eyes, too, had been fixed anxiously on
the pair, whose conduct had so chafed the jealous General;
but when Rebecca entered her box, she flew to her
friend with an affectionate rapture which showed itself, in
spite of the publicity of the place; for she embraced her
dearest friend in the presence of the whole house, at least
in full view of the General's glass, now brought to bear
upon the Osborne party. Mrs. Rawdon saluted Jos, too,
with the kindliest greeting: she admired Mrs. O'Dowd's
large Cairngorm brooch and superb Irish diamonds, and
wouldn't believe that they were not from Golconda direct.
She bustled, she chattered, she turned and twisted,
and smiled upon one, and smirked on another, all in full
view of the jealous opera-glass opposite. And when the
time for the ballet came (in which there was no dancer
that went through her grimaces or performed her comedy
of action better), she skipped back to her own box, leaning
on Captain Dobbin's arm this time. No, she would
not have George's: he must stay and talk to his dearest,
best, little Amelia.
"What a humbug that woman is!" honest old Dobbin
mumbled to George, when he came back from Rebecca's
box, whither he had conducted her in perfect silence, and
with a countenance as glum as an undertaker's. "She
writhes and twists about like a snake. All the time she
was here, didn't you see, George, how she was acting at
the General over the way?"
"Humbug--acting! Hang it, she's the nicest little
woman in England," George replied, showing his white
teeth, and giving his ambrosial whiskers a twirl. "You
ain't a man of the world, Dobbin. Dammy, look at her
now, she's talked over Tufto in no time. Look how he's
laughing! Gad, what a shoulder she has! Emmy, why
didn't you have a bouquet? Everybody has a bouquet."
"Faith, then, why didn't you BOY one?" Mrs. O'Dowd
said; and both Amelia and William Dobbin thanked her
for this timely observation. But beyond this neither of
the ladies rallied. Amelia was overpowered by the flash
and the dazzle and the fashionable talk of her worldly rival.
Even the O'Dowd was silent and subdued after Becky's
brilliant apparition, and scarcely said a word more about
Glenmalony all the evening.
"When do you intend to give up play, George, as you
have promised me, any time these hundred years?" Dobbin
said to his friend a few days after the night at the
Opera. "When do you intend to give up sermonising?"
was the other's reply. "What the deuce, man, are you
alarmed about? We play low; I won last night. You
don't suppose Crawley cheats? With fair play it comes
to pretty much the same thing at the year's end."
"But I don't think he could pay if he lost," Dobbin
said; and his advice met with the success which advice
usually commands. Osborne and Crawley were repeatedly
together now. General Tufto dined abroad almost constantly.
George was always welcome in the apartments
(very close indeed to those of the General) which the
aide-de-camp and his wife occupied in the hotel.
Amelia's manners were such when she and George visited
Crawley and his wife at these quarters, that they had
very nearly come to their first quarrel; that is, George
scolded his wife violently for her evident unwillingness to
go, and the high and mighty manner in which she comported
herself towards Mrs. Crawley, her old friend; and
Amelia did not say one single word in reply; but with her
husband's eye upon her, and Rebecca scanning her as she
felt, was, if possible, more bashful and awkward on the
second visit which she paid to Mrs. Rawdon, than on her
first call.
Rebecca was doubly affectionate, of course, and would
not take notice, in the least, of her friend's coolness. "I
think Emmy has become prouder since her father's name
was in the--since Mr. Sedley's MISFORTUNES," Rebecca
said, softening the phrase charitably for George's ear.
"Upon my word, I thought when we were at Brighton
she was doing me the honour to be jealous of me; and
now I suppose she is scandalised because Rawdon, and I,
and the General live together. Why, my dear creature,
how could we, with our means, live at all, but for a friend
to share expenses? And do you suppose that Rawdon is
not big enough to take care of my honour? But I'm very
much obliged to Emmy, very," Mrs. Rawdon said.
"Pooh, jealousy!" answered George, "all women are
jealous."
"And all men too. Weren't you jealous of General
Tufto, and the General of you, on the night of the Opera?
Why, he was ready to eat me for going with you to visit
that foolish little wife of yours; as if I care a pin for
either of you," Crawley's wife said, with a pert toss of
her head. "Will you dine here? The dragon dines with the
Commander-in-Chief. Great news is stirring. They say
the French have crossed the frontier. We shall have a
quiet dinner."
George accepted the invitation, although his wife was a
little ailing. They were now not quite six weeks married.
Another woman was laughing or sneering at her expense,
and he not angry. He was not even angry with himself,
this good-natured fellow. It is a shame, he owned to himself;
but hang it, if a pretty woman WILL throw herself in
your way, why, what can a fellow do, you know? I AM
rather free about women, he had often said, smiling and
nodding knowingly to Stubble and Spooney, and other
comrades of the mess-table; and they rather respected
him than otherwise for this prowess. Next to conquering
in war, conquering in love has been a source of pride,
time out of mind, amongst men in Vanity Fair, or how
should schoolboys brag of their amours, or Don Juan be
popular?
So Mr. Osborne, having a firm conviction in his own
mind that he was a woman-killer and destined to conquer,
did not run counter to his fate, but yielded himself
up to it quite complacently. And as Emmy did not say
much or plague him with her jealousy, but merely became
unhappy and pined over it miserably in secret, he chose
to fancy that she was not suspicious of what all his
acquaintance were perfectly aware--namely, that he was
carrying on a desperate flirtation with Mrs. Crawley. He
rode with her whenever she was free. He pretended
regimental business to Amelia (by which falsehood she was
not in the least deceived), and consigning his wife to
solitude or her brother's society, passed his evenings in
the Crawleys' company; losing money to the husband and
flattering himself that the wife was dying of love for him.
It is very likely that this worthy couple never absolutely
conspired and agreed together in so many words: the one
to cajole the young gentleman, whilst the other won his
money at cards: but they understood each other perfectly
well, and Rawdon let Osborne come and go with entire
good humour.
George was so occupied with his new acquaintances
that he and William Dobbin were by no means so much
together as formerly. George avoided him in public and
in the regiment, and, as we see, did not like those
sermons which his senior was disposed to inflict upon him.
If some parts of his conduct made Captain Dobbin
exceedingly grave and cool; of what use was it to tell George
that, though his whiskers were large, and his own
opinion of his knowingness great, he was as green as a
schoolboy? that Rawdon was making a victim of him as he had
done of many before, and as soon as he had used him
would fling him off with scorn? He would not listen: and
so, as Dobbin, upon those days when he visited the
0sborne house, seldom had the advantage of meeting his
old friend, much painful and unavailing talk between
them was spared. Our friend George was in the full career
of the pleasures of Vanity Fair.
There never was, since the days of Darius, such a brilliant
train of camp-followers as hung round the Duke of
Wellington's army in the Low Countries, in 1815; and
led it dancing and feasting, as it were, up to the very
brink of battle. A certain ball which a noble Duchess
gave at Brussels on the 15th of June in the above-named
year is historical. All Brussels had been in a state of
excitement about it, and I have heard from ladies who
were in that town at the period, that the talk and interest
of persons of their own sex regarding the ball was much
greater even than in respect of the enemy in their front.
The struggles, intrigues, and prayers to get tickets were
such as only English ladies will employ, in order to gain
admission to the society of the great of their own nation.
Jos and Mrs. O'Dowd, who were panting to be asked,
strove in vain to procure tickets; but others of our friends
were more lucky. For instance, through the interest of
my Lord Bareacres, and as a set-off for the dinner at the
restaurateur's, George got a card for Captain and Mrs.
Osborne; which circumstance greatly elated him. Dobbin,
who was a friend of the General commanding the division
in which their regiment was, came laughing one
day to Mrs. Osborne, and displayed a similar invitation,
which made Jos envious, and George wonder how the
deuce he should be getting into society. Mr. and Mrs.
Rawdon, finally, were of course invited; as became the
friends of a General commanding a cavalry brigade.
On the appointed night, George, having commanded
new dresses and ornaments of all sorts for Amelia, drove
to the famous ball, where his wife did not know a single
soul. After looking about for Lady Bareacres, who cut
him, thinking the card was quite enough--and after
placing Amelia on a bench, he left her to her own
cogitations there, thinking, on his own part, that he had
behaved very handsomely in getting her new clothes, and
bringing her to the ball, where she was free to amuse
herself as she liked. Her thoughts were not of the
pleasantest, and nobody except honest Dobbin came to
disturb them.
Whilst her appearance was an utter failure (as her
husband felt with a sort of rage), Mrs. Rawdon Crawley's
debut was, on the contrary, very brilliant. She arrived
very late. Her face was radiant; her dress perfection. In
the midst of the great persons assembled, and the eyeglasses
directed to her, Rebecca seemed to be as cool
and collected as when she used to marshal Miss Pinkerton's
little girls to church. Numbers of the men she knew
already, and the dandies thronged round her. As for the
ladies, it was whispered among them that Rawdon had
run away with her from out of a convent, and that she
was a relation of the Montmorency family. She spoke
French so perfectly that there might be some truth in
this report, and it was agreed that her manners were
fine, and her air distingue. Fifty would-be partners
thronged round her at once, and pressed to have the
honour to dance with her. But she said she was engaged,
and only going to dance very little; and made her way at
once to the place where Emmy sate quite unnoticed, and
dismally unhappy. And so, to finish the poor child at
once, Mrs. Rawdon ran and greeted affectionately her
dearest Amelia, and began forthwith to patronise her.
She found fault with her friend's dress, and her
hairdresser, and wondered how she could be so chaussee,
and vowed that she must send her corsetiere the next
morning. She vowed that it was a delightful ball; that
there was everybody that every one knew, and only a
VERY few nobodies in the whole room. It is a fact, that
in a fortnight, and after three dinners in general society,
this young woman had got up the genteel jargon so well,
that a native could not speak it better; and it was only
from her French being so good, that you could know she
was not a born woman of fashion.
George, who had left Emmy on her bench on entering
the ball-room, very soon found his way back when
Rebecca was by her dear friend's side. Becky was just
lecturing Mrs. Osborne upon the follies which her
husband was committing. "For God's sake, stop him from
gambling, my dear," she said, "or he will ruin himself.
He and Rawdon are playing at cards every night, and you
know he is very poor, and Rawdon will win every shilling
from him if he does not take care. Why don't you prevent
him, you little careless creature? Why don't you
come to us of an evening, instead of moping at home
with that Captain Dobbin? I dare say he is tres aimable;
but how could one love a man with feet of such size?
Your husband's feet are darlings--Here he comes. Where
have you been, wretch? Here is Emmy crying her eyes
out for you. Are you coming to fetch me for the quadrille?"
And she left her bouquet and shawl by Amelia's
side, and tripped off with George to dance. Women only
know how to wound so. There is a poison on the tips of
their little shafts, which stings a thousand times more
than a man's blunter weapon. Our poor Emmy, who had
never hated, never sneered all her life, was powerless in
the hands of her remorseless little enemy.
George danced with Rebecca twice or thrice--how many
times Amelia scarcely knew. She sat quite unnoticed in
her corner, except when Rawdon came up with some
words of clumsy conversation: and later in the evening,
when Captain Dobbin made so bold as to bring her
refreshments and sit beside her. He did not like to ask her
why she was so sad; but as a pretext for the tears which
were filling in her eyes, she told him that Mrs. Crawley
had alarmed her by telling her that George would go on
playing.
"It is curious, when a man is bent upon play, by what
clumsy rogues he will allow himself to be cheated,"
Dobbin said; and Emmy said, "Indeed." She was thinking of
something else. It was not the loss of the money that
grieved her.
At last George came back for Rebecca's shawl and
flowers. She was going away. She did not even
condescend to come back and say good-bye to Amelia. The
poor girl let her husband come and go without saying a
word, and her head fell on her breast. Dobbin had been
called away, and was whispering deep in conversation
with the General of the division, his friend, and had not
seen this last parting. George went away then with the
bouquet; but when he gave it to the owner, there lay a
note, coiled like a snake among the flowers. Rebecca's
eye caught it at once. She had been used to deal with
notes in early life. She put out her hand and took the
nosegay. He saw by her eyes as they met, that she was
aware what she should find there. Her husband hurried her
away, still too intent upon his own thoughts, seemingly,
to take note of any marks of recognition which might
pass between his friend and his wife. These were,
however, but trifling. Rebecca gave George her hand with one
of her usual quick knowing glances, and made a curtsey
and walked away. George bowed over the hand, said
nothing in reply to a remark of Crawley's, did not hear it
even, his brain was so throbbing with triumph and
excitement, and allowed them to go away without a word.
His wife saw the one part at least of the bouquet-scene.
It was quite natural that George should come at Rebecca's
request to get her her scarf and flowers: it was no
more than he had done twenty times before in the course
of the last few days; but now it was too much for her.
"William," she said, suddenly clinging to Dobbin, who was
near her, "you've always been very kind to me--I'm--
I'm not well. Take me home." She did not know she called
him by his Christian name, as George was accustomed to
do. He went away with her quickly. Her lodgings were
hard by; and they threaded through the crowd without,
where everything seemed to be more astir than even in the
ball-room within.
George had been angry twice or thrice at finding his
wife up on his return from the parties which he
frequented: so she went straight to bed now; but although
she did not sleep, and although the din and clatter, and
the galloping of horsemen were incessant, she never heard
any of these noises, having quite other disturbances to
keep her awake.
Osborne meanwhile, wild with elation, went off to a
play-table, and began to bet frantically. He won repeatedly. "Everything succeeds with me
to-night," he said.
But his luck at play even did not cure him of his restlessness,
and he started up after awhile, pocketing his winnings,
and went to a buffet, where he drank off many
bumpers of wine.
Here, as he was rattling away to the people around,
laughing loudly and wild with spirits, Dobbin found him.
He had been to the card-tables to look there for his
friend. Dobbin looked as pale and grave as his comrade
was flushed and jovial.
''Hullo, Dob! Come and drink, old Dob! The Duke's
wine is famous. Give me some more, you sir"; and he
held out a trembling glass for the liquor.
"Come out, George," said Dobbin, still gravely; "don't
drink."
"Drink! there's nothing like it. Drink yourself, and
light up your lantern jaws, old boy. Here's to you."
Dobbin went up and whispered something to him, at
which George, giving a start and a wild hurray, tossed off
his glass, clapped it on the table, and walked away
speedily on his friend's arm. "The enemy has passed the
Sambre," William said, "and our left is already engaged.
Come away. We are to march in three hours."
Away went George, his nerves quivering with excitement
at the news so long looked for, so sudden when it
came. What were love and intrigue now? He thought
about a thousand things but these in his rapid walk to his
quarters--his past life and future chances--the fate which
might be before him--the wife, the child perhaps, from
whom unseen he might be about to part. Oh, how he
wished that night's work undone! and that with a clear
conscience at least he might say farewell to the tender
and guileless being by whose love he had set such little
store!
He thought over his brief married life. In those few
weeks he had frightfully dissipated his little capital. How
wild and reckless he had been! Should any mischance
befall him: what was then left for her? How unworthy he
was of her. Why had he married her? He was not fit for
marriage. Why had he disobeyed his father, who had been
always so generous to him? Hope, remorse, ambition,
tenderness, and selfish regret filled his heart. He sate
down and wrote to his father, remembering what he had
said once before, when he was engaged to fight a duel.
Dawn faintly streaked the sky as he closed this farewell
letter. He sealed it, and kissed the superscription. He
thought how he had deserted that generous father, and of
the thousand kindnesses which the stern old man had
done him.
He had looked into Amelia's bedroom when he entered;
she lay quiet, and her eyes seemed closed, and he
was glad that she was asleep. On arriving at his quarters
from the ball, he had found his regimental servant already
making preparations for his departure: the man
had understood his signal to be still, and these arrangements
were very quickly and silently made. Should he go
in and wake Amelia, he thought, or leave a note for her
brother to break the news of departure to her? He went
in to look at her once again.
She had been awake when he first entered her room,
but had kept her eyes closed, so that even her wakefulness
should not seem to reproach him. But when he had
returned, so soon after herself, too, this timid little heart
had felt more at ease, and turning towards him as he
stept softly out of the room, she had fallen into a light
sleep. George came in and looked at her again, entering
still more softly. By the pale night-lamp he could see her
sweet, pale face--the purple eyelids were fringed and
closed, and one round arm, smooth and white, lay outside
of the coverlet. Good God! how pure she was; how
gentle, how tender, and how friendless! and he, how
selfish, brutal, and black with crime! Heart-stained, and
shame-stricken, he stood at the bed's foot, and looked at
the sleeping girl. How dared he--who was he, to pray for
one so spotless! God bless her! God bless her! He came to
the bedside, and looked at the hand, the little soft hand,
lying asleep; and he bent over the pillow noiselessly
towards the gentle pale face.
Two fair arms closed tenderly round his neck as he
stooped down. "I am awake, George," the poor child said,
with a sob fit to break the little heart that nestled so
closely by his own. She was awake, poor soul, and to
what? At that moment a bugle from the Place of Arms
began sounding clearly, and was taken up through the
town; and amidst the drums of the infantry, and the
shrill pipes of the Scotch, the whole city awoke.
CHAPTER XXX
"The Girl I Left Behind Me"
We do not claim to rank among the military novelists.
Our place is with the non-combatants. When the decks
are cleared for action we go below and wait meekly. We
should only be in the way of the manoeuvres that the
gallant fellows are performing overhead. We shall go no
farther with the --th than to the city gate: and leaving
Major O'Dowd to his duty, come back to the Major's
wife, and the ladies and the baggage.
Now the Major and his lady, who had not been invited
to the ball at which in our last chapter other of our
friends figured, had much more time to take their
wholesome natural rest in bed, than was accorded to people
who wished to enjoy pleasure as well as to do duty. "It's
my belief, Peggy, my dear," said he, as he placidly pulled
his nightcap over his ears, "that there will be such a ball
danced in a day or two as some of 'em has never heard
the chune of"; and he was much more happy to retire to
rest after partaking of a quiet tumbler, than to figure at
any other sort of amusement. Peggy, for her part, would
have liked to have shown her turban and bird of
paradise at the ball, but for the information which her
husband had given her, and which made her very grave.
"I'd like ye wake me about half an hour before the assembly
beats," the Major said to his lady. "Call me at halfpast
one, Peggy dear, and see me things is ready. May be
I'll not come back to breakfast, Mrs. O'D." With which
words, which signified his opinion that the regiment would
march the next morning, the Major ceased talking, and
fell asleep.
Mrs. O'Dowd, the good housewife, arrayed in curl
papers and a camisole, felt that her duty was to act, and
not to sleep, at this juncture. "Time enough for that," she
said, "when Mick's gone"; and so she packed his travelling
valise ready for the march, brushed his cloak, his cap, and
other warlike habiliments, set them out in order for him;
and stowed away in the cloak pockets a light package of
portable refreshments, and a wicker-covered flask or
pocket-pistol, containing near a pint of a remarkably
sound Cognac brandy, of which she and the Major approved
very much; and as soon as the hands of the
"repayther" pointed to half-past one, and its interior
arrangements (it had a tone quite equal to a cathaydral, its
fair owner considered) knelled forth that fatal hour, Mrs.
O'Dowd woke up her Major, and had as comfortable a
cup of coffee prepared for him as any made that morning
in Brussels. And who is there will deny that this worthy
lady's preparations betokened affection as much as the
fits of tears and hysterics by which more sensitive females
exhibited their love, and that their partaking of this coffee,
which they drank together while the bugles were sounding
the turn-out and the drums beating in the various quarters
of the town, was not more useful and to the purpose than
the outpouring of any mere sentiment could be? The
consequence was, that the Major appeared on parade quite
trim, fresh, and alert, his well-shaved rosy countenance,
as he sate on horseback, giving cheerfulness and confidence
to the whole corps. All the officers saluted her
when the regiment marched by the balcony on which this
brave woman stood, and waved them a cheer as they
passed; and I daresay it was not from want of courage,
but from a sense of female delicacy and propriety, that
she refrained from leading the gallant --th personally
into action.
On Sundays, and at periods of a solemn nature, Mrs.
O'Dowd used to read with great gravity out of a large
volume of her uncle the Dean's sermons. It had been of
great comfort to her on board the transport as they were
coming home, and were very nearly wrecked, on their
return from the West Indies. After the regiment's
departure she betook herself to this volume for meditation;
perhaps she did not understand much of what she was
reading, and her thoughts were elsewhere: but the sleep
project, with poor Mick's nightcap there on the pillow,
was quite a vain one. So it is in the world. Jack or Donald
marches away to glory with his knapsack on his shoulder,
stepping out briskly to the tune of "The Girl I Left Behind
Me." It is she who remains and suffers--and has the
leisure to think, and brood, and remember.
Knowing how useless regrets are, and how the indulgence
of sentiment only serves to make people more miserable,
Mrs. Rebecca wisely determined to give way to no
vain feelings of sorrow, and bore the parting from her
husband with quite a Spartan equanimity. Indeed Captain
Rawdon himself was much more affected at the leavetaking
than the resolute little woman to whom he bade
farewell. She had mastered this rude coarse nature;
and he loved and worshipped her with all his faculties of
regard and admiration. In all his life he had never been so
happy, as, during the past few months, his wife had made
him. All former delights of turf, mess, hunting-field, and
gambling-table; all previous loves and courtships of
milliners, opera-dancers, and the like easy triumphs of the
clumsy military Adonis, were quite insipid when
compared to the lawful matrimonial pleasures which of late he
had enjoyed. She had known perpetually how to divert
him; and he had found his house and her society a
thousand times more pleasant than any place or company
which he had ever frequented from his childhood until
now. And he cursed his past follies and extravagances,
and bemoaned his vast outlying debts above all, which
must remain for ever as obstacles to prevent his wife's
advancement in the world. He had often groaned over
these in midnight conversations with Rebecca, although as
a bachelor they had never given him any disquiet. He
himself was struck with this phenomenon. "Hang it,"
he would say (or perhaps use a still stronger expression
out of his simple vocabulary), "before I was married I
didn't care what bills I put my name to, and so long as
Moses would wait or Levy would renew for three months,
I kept on never minding. But since I'm married, except
renewing, of course, I give you my honour I've not
touched a bit of stamped paper."
Rebecca always knew how to conjure away these
moods of melancholy. "Why, my stupid love," she would
say, "we have not done with your aunt yet. If she fails us,
isn't there what you call the Gazette? or, stop, when your
uncle Bute's life drops, I have another scheme. The living
has always belonged to the younger brother, and why
shouldn't you sell out and go into the Church?" The idea
of this conversion set Rawdon into roars of laughter:
you might have heard the explosion through the hotel at
midnight, and the haw-haws of the great dragoon's voice.
General Tufto heard him from his quarters on the first
floor above them; and Rebecca acted the scene with great
spirit, and preached Rawdon's first sermon, to the
immense delight of the General at breakfast.
But these were mere by-gone days and talk. When the
final news arrived that the campaign was opened, and the
troops were to march, Rawdon's gravity became such
that Becky rallied him about it in a manner which rather
hurt the feelings of the Guardsman. "You don't suppose
I'm afraid, Becky, I should think," he said, with a tremor
in his voice. "But I'm a pretty good mark for a shot, and
you see if it brings me down, why I leave one and
perhaps two behind me whom I should wish to provide for,
as I brought 'em into the scrape. It is no laughing matter
that, Mrs. C., anyways."
Rebecca by a hundred caresses and kind words tried
to soothe the feelings of the wounded lover. It was only
when her vivacity and sense of humour got the better of
this sprightly creature (as they would do under most
circumstances of life indeed) that she would break out
with her satire, but she could soon put on a demure face.
"Dearest love," she said, "do you suppose I feel nothing?"
and hastily dashing something from her eyes, she
looked up in her husband's face with a smile.
"Look here," said he. "If I drop, let us see what there
is for you. I have had a pretty good run of luck here, and
here's two hundred and thirty pounds. I have got ten
Napoleons in my pocket. That is as much as I shall want;
for the General pays everything like a prince; and if I'm
hit, why you know I cost nothing. Don't cry, little woman;
I may live to vex you yet. Well, I shan't take either of my
horses, but shall ride the General's grey charger: it's
cheaper, and I told him mine was lame. If I'm done, those
two ought to fetch you something. Grigg offered ninety
for the mare yesterday, before this confounded news
came, and like a fool I wouldn't let her go under the two
o's. Bullfinch will fetch his price any day, only you'd
better sell him in this country, because the dealers have so
many bills of mine, and so I'd rather he shouldn't go
back to England. Your little mare the General gave you
will fetch something, and there's no d--d livery stable
bills here as there are in London," Rawdon added, with a
laugh. "There's that dressing-case cost me two hundred
--that is, I owe two for it; and the gold tops and bottles
must be worth thirty or forty. Please to put THAT up the
spout, ma'am, with my pins, and rings, and watch and
chain, and things. They cost a precious lot of money. Miss
Crawley, I know, paid a hundred down for the chain and
ticker. Gold tops and bottles, indeed! dammy, I'm sorry
I didn't take more now. Edwards pressed on me a silvergilt
boot-jack, and I might have had a dressing-case fitted
up with a silver warming-pan, and a service of plate. But
we must make the best of what we've got, Becky, you
know."
And so, making his last dispositions, Captain Crawley,
who had seldom thought about anything but himself, until
the last few months of his life, when Love had obtained
the mastery over the dragoon, went through the various
items of his little catalogue of effects, striving to see how
they might be turned into money for his wife's benefit, in
case any accident should befall him. He pleased himself
by noting down with a pencil, in his big schoolboy
handwriting, the various items of his portable property which
might be sold for his widow's advantage as, for example,
"My double-barril by Manton, say 40 guineas; my driving
cloak, lined with sable fur, 50 pounds; my duelling pistols in
rosewood case (same which I shot Captain Marker),
20 pounds; my regulation saddle-holsters and housings; my
Laurie ditto," and so forth, over all of which articles he
made Rebecca the mistress.
Faithful to his plan of economy, the Captain dressed
himself in his oldest and shabbiest uniform and epaulets,
leaving the newest behind, under his wife's (or it might
be his widow's) guardianship. And this famous dandy of
Windsor and Hyde Park went off on his campaign with a
kit as modest as that of a sergeant, and with something
like a prayer on his lips for the woman he was leaving.
He took her up from the ground, and held her in his
arms for a minute, tight pressed against his strong-beating
heart. His face was purple and his eyes dim, as he put her
down and left her. He rode by his General's side, and
smoked his cigar in silence as they hastened after the
troops of the General's brigade, which preceded them;
and it was not until they were some miles on their way
that he left off twirling his moustache and broke silence.
And Rebecca, as we have said, wisely determined not to
give way to unavailing sentimentality on her husband's
departure. She waved him an adieu from the window, and
stood there for a moment looking out after he was gone.
The cathedral towers and the full gables of the quaint old
houses were just beginning to blush in the sunrise. There
had been no rest for her that night. She was still in her
pretty ball-dress, her fair hair hanging somewhat out of
curl on her neck, and the circles round her eyes dark with
watching. "What a fright I seem," she said, examining
herself in the glass, "and how pale this pink makes one
look!" So she divested herself of this pink raiment; in
doing which a note fell out from her corsage, which she
picked up with a smile, and locked into her dressing-box.
And then she put her bouquet of the ball into a glass of
water, and went to bed, and slept very comfortably.
The town was quite quiet when she woke up at ten
o'clock, and partook of coffee, very requisite and
comforting after the exhaustion and grief of the morning's
occurrences.
This meal over, she resumed honest Rawdon's calculations
of the night previous, and surveyed her position.
Should the worst befall, all things considered, she was
pretty well to do. There were her own trinkets and trousseau,
in addition to those which her husband had left behind.
Rawdon's generosity, when they were first married,
has already been described and lauded. Besides these,
and the little mare, the General, her slave and worshipper,
had made her many very handsome presents, in the shape
of cashmere shawls bought at the auction of a bankrupt
French general's lady, and numerous tributes from the
jewellers' shops, all of which betokened her admirer's
taste and wealth. As for "tickers," as poor Rawdon called
watches, her apartments were alive with their clicking.
For, happening to mention one night that hers, which
Rawdon had given to her, was of English workmanship,
and went ill, on the very next morning there came to her
a little bijou marked Leroy, with a chain and cover
charmingly set with turquoises, and another signed Brequet,
which was covered with pearls, and yet scarcely bigger
than a half-crown. General Tufto had bought one, and
Captain Osborne had gallantly presented the other. Mrs.
Osborne had no watch, though, to do George justice, she
might have had one for the asking, and the Honourable
Mrs. Tufto in England had an old instrument of her
mother's that might have served for the plate-warming
pan which Rawdon talked about. If Messrs. Howell and
James were to publish a list of the purchasers of all the
trinkets which they sell, how surprised would some
families be: and if all these ornaments went to gentlemen's
lawful wives and daughters, what a profusion of jewellery
there would be exhibited in the genteelest homes of
Vanity Fair!
Every calculation made of these valuables Mrs. Rebecca
found, not without a pungent feeling of triumph and selfsatisfaction,
that should circumstances occur, she might
reckon on six or seven hundred pounds at the very least,
to begin the world with; and she passed the morning
disposing, ordering, looking out, and locking up her
properties in the most agreeable manner. Among the notes
in Rawdon's pocket-book was a draft for twenty pounds
on Osborne's banker. This made her think about Mrs.
Osborne. "I will go and get the draft cashed," she said,
"and pay a visit afterwards to poor little Emmy." If this
is a novel without a hero, at least let us lay claim to a
heroine. No man in the British army which has marched
away, not the great Duke himself, could be more cool or
collected in the presence of doubts and difficulties, than
the indomitable little aide-de-camp's wife.
And there was another of our acquaintances who was
also to be left behind, a non-combatant, and whose emotions
and behaviour we have therefore a right to know.
This was our friend the ex-collector of Boggley Wollah,
whose rest was broken, like other people's, by the sounding
of the bugles in the early morning. Being a great
sleeper, and fond of his bed, it is possible he would have
snoozed on until his usual hour of rising in the forenoon,
in spite of all the drums, bugles, and bagpipes in the
British army, but for an interruption, which did not come
from George Osborne, who shared Jos's quarters with
him, and was as usual occupied too much with his own
affairs or with grief at parting with his wife, to think of
taking leave of his slumbering brother-in-law--it was not
George, we say, who interposed between Jos Sedley and
sleep, but Captain Dobbin, who came and roused him up,
insisting on shaking hands with him before his departure.
"Very kind of you," said Jos, yawning, and wishing
the Captain at the deuce.
"I--I didn't like to go off without saying good-bye, you
know," Dobbin said in a very incoherent manner; "because
you know some of us mayn't come back again, and
I like to see you all well, and--and that sort of thing, you
know."
"What do you mean?" Jos asked, rubbing his eyes. The
Captain did not in the least hear him or look at the stout
gentleman in the nightcap, about whom he professed to
have such a tender interest. The hypocrite was looking
and listening with all his might in the direction of George's
apartments, striding about the room, upsetting the chairs,
beating the tattoo, biting his nails, and showing other
signs of great inward emotion.
Jos had always had rather a mean opinion of the
Captain, and now began to think his courage was somewhat
equivocal. "What is it I can do for you, Dobbin?" he said,
in a sarcastic tone.
"I tell you what you can do," the Captain replied, coming
up to the bed; "we march in a quarter of an hour,
Sedley, and neither George nor I may ever come back.
Mind you, you are not to stir from this town until you
ascertain how things go. You are to stay here and watch
over your sister, and comfort her, and see that no harm
comes to her. If anything happens to George, remember
she has no one but you in the world to look to. If it goes
wrong with the army, you'll see her safe back to England;
and you will promise me on your word that you will
never desert her. I know you won't: as far as money goes,
you were always free enough with that. Do you want any?
I mean, have you enough gold to take you back to
England in case of a misfortune?"
"Sir," said Jos, majestically, "when I want money, I
know where to ask for it. And as for my sister, you
needn't tell me how I ought to behave to her."
"You speak like a man of spirit, Jos," the other answered
good-naturedly, "and I am glad that George can
leave her in such good hands. So I may give him your
word of honour, may I, that in case of extremity you
will stand by her?"
"Of course, of course," answered Mr. Jos, whose
generosity in money matters Dobbin estimated quite
correctly.
"And you'll see her safe out of Brussels in the event of
a defeat?"
"A defeat! D-- it, sir, it's impossible. Don't try and
frighten ME," the hero cried from his bed; and Dobbin's
mind was thus perfectly set at ease now that Jos had
spoken out so resolutely respecting his conduct to his
sister. "At least," thought the Captain, "there will be a
retreat secured for her in case the worst should ensue."
If Captain Dobbin expected to get any personal comfort
and satisfaction from having one more view of Amelia
before the regiment marched away, his selfishness was
punished just as such odious egotism deserved to be. The
door of Jos's bedroom opened into the sitting-room which
was common to the family party, and opposite this door
was that of Amelia's chamber. The bugles had wakened
everybody: there was no use in concealment now. George's
servant was packing in this room: Osborne coming in
and out of the contiguous bedroom, flinging to the man
such articles as he thought fit to carry on the campaign.
And presently Dobbin had the opportunity which his
heart coveted, and he got sight of Amelia's face once
more. But what a face it was! So white, so wild and
despair-stricken, that the remembrance of it haunted him
afterwards like a crime, and the sight smote him with
inexpressible pangs of longing and pity.
She was wrapped in a white morning dress, her hair
falling on her shoulders, and her large eyes fixed and
without light. By way of helping on the preparations for
the departure, and showing that she too could be useful
at a moment so critical, this poor soul had taken up a
sash of George's from the drawers whereon it lay, and
followed him to and fro with the sash in her hand, looking
on mutely as his packing proceeded. She came out and
stood, leaning at the wall, holding this sash against her
bosom, from which the heavy net of crimson dropped
like a large stain of blood. Our gentle-hearted Captain
felt a guilty shock as he looked at her. "Good God,"
thought he, "and is it grief like this I dared to pry into?"
And there was no help: no means to soothe and comfort
this helpless, speechless misery. He stood for a moment
and looked at her, powerless and torn with pity, as a
parent regards an infant in pain.
At last, George took Emmy's hand, and led her back
into the bedroom, from whence he came out alone. The
parting had taken place in that moment, and he was gone.
"Thank Heaven that is over," George thought, bounding
down the stair, his sword under his arm, as he ran
swiftly to the alarm ground, where the regiment was
mustered, and whither trooped men and officers hurrying
from their billets; his pulse was throbbing and his cheeks
flushed: the great game of war was going to be played,
and he one of the players. What a fierce excitement of
doubt, hope, and pleasure! What tremendous hazards of
loss or gain! What were all the games of chance he had
ever played compared to this one? Into all contests
requiring athletic skill and courage, the young man, from
his boyhood upwards, had flung himself with all his might.
The champion of his school and his regiment, the bravos
of his companions had followed him everywhere; from
the boys' cricket-match to the garrison-races, he had won
a hundred of triumphs; and wherever he went women
and men had admired and envied him. What qualities
are there for which a man gets so speedy a return of
applause, as those of bodily superiority, activity, and
valour? Time out of mind strength and courage have been
the theme of bards and romances; and from the story of
Troy down to to-day, poetry has always chosen a soldier
for a hero. I wonder is it because men are cowards in
heart that they admire bravery so much, and place
military valour so far beyond every other quality for
reward and worship?
So, at the sound of that stirring call to battle, George
jumped away from the gentle arms in which he had been
dallying; not without a feeling of shame (although his
wife's hold on him had been but feeble), that he should
have been detained there so long. The same feeling of
eagerness and excitement was amongst all those friends
of his of whom we have had occasional glimpses, from
the stout senior Major, who led the regiment into action,
to little Stubble, the Ensign, who was to bear its colours
on that day.
The sun was just rising as the march began--it was
a gallant sight--the band led the column, playing the
regimental march--then came the Major in command,
riding upon Pyramus, his stout charger--then marched
the grenadiers, their Captain at their head; in the centre
were the colours, borne by the senior and junior Ensigns
--then George came marching at the head of his company.
He looked up, and smiled at Amelia, and passed
on; and even the sound of the music died away.
CHAPTER XXXI
In Which Jos Sedley Takes Care of His Sister
Thus all the superior officers being summoned on duty
elsewhere, Jos Sedley was left in command of the little
colony at Brussels, with Amelia invalided, Isidor, his
Belgian servant, and the bonne, who was maid-of-all-work
for the establishment, as a garrison under him. Though
he was disturbed in spirit, and his rest destroyed by
Dobbin's interruption and the occurrences of the morning,
Jos nevertheless remained for many hours in bed,
wakeful and rolling about there until his usual hour of
rising had arrived. The sun was high in the heavens, and
our gallant friends of the --th miles on their march,
before the civilian appeared in his flowered dressing-gown
at breakfast.
About George's absence, his brother-in-law was very
easy in mind. Perhaps Jos was rather pleased in his heart
that Osborne was gone, for during George's presence, the
other had played but a very secondary part in the
household, and Osborne did not scruple to show his contempt
for the stout civilian. But Emmy had always been good
and attentive to him. It was she who ministered to his
comforts, who superintended the dishes that he liked,
who walked or rode with him (as she had many, too
many, opportunities of doing, for where was George?)
and who interposed her sweet face between his anger
and her husband's scorn. Many timid remonstrances had
she uttered to George in behalf of her brother, but the
former in his trenchant way cut these entreaties short.
"I'm an honest man," he said, "and if I have a feeling
I show it, as an honest man will. How the deuce, my
dear, would you have me behave respectfully to such a
fool as your brother?" So Jos was pleased with George's
absence. His plain hat, and gloves on a sideboard, and
the idea that the owner was away, caused Jos I don't
know what secret thrill of pleasure. "HE won't be
troubling me this morning," Jos thought, "with his
dandified airs and his impudence."
"Put the Captain's hat into the ante-room," he said
to Isidor, the servant.
"Perhaps he won't want it again," replied the lackey,
looking knowingly at his master. He hated George too,
whose insolence towards him was quite of the English
sort.
"And ask if Madame is coming to breakfast," Mr.
Sedley said with great majesty, ashamed to enter with a
servant upon the subject of his dislike for George. The
truth is, he had abused his brother to the valet a score
of times before.
Alas! Madame could not come to breakfast, and cut
the tartines that Mr. Jos liked. Madame was a great deal
too ill, and had been in a frightful state ever since her
husband's departure, so her bonne said. Jos showed his
sympathy by pouring her out a large cup of tea It was
his way of exhibiting kindness: and he improved on this;
he not only sent her breakfast, but he bethought him
what delicacies she would most like for dinner.
Isidor, the valet, had looked on very sulkily, while
Osborne's servant was disposing of his master's baggage
previous to the Captain's departure: for in the first place
he hated Mr. Osborne, whose conduct to him, and to
all inferiors, was generally overbearing (nor does the
continental domestic like to be treated with insolence as
our own better-tempered servants do), and secondly, he
was angry that so many valuables should be removed
from under his hands, to fall into other people's possession
when the English discomfiture should arrive. Of this
defeat he and a vast number of other persons in Brussels
and Belgium did not make the slightest doubt. The almost
universal belief was, that the Emperor would divide
the Prussian and English armies, annihilate one after the
other, and march into Brussels before three days were
over: when all the movables of his present masters, who
would be killed, or fugitives, or prisoners, would lawfully
become the property of Monsieur Isidor.
As he helped Jos through his toilsome and complicated
daily toilette, this faithful servant would calculate what
he should do with the very articles with which he was
decorating his master's person. He would make a present
of the silver essence-bottles and toilet knicknacks to a
young lady of whom he was fond; and keep the English
cutlery and the large ruby pin for himself. It would
look very smart upon one of the fine frilled shirts, which,
with the gold-laced cap and the frogged frock coat, that
might easily be cut down to suit his shape, and the Captain's
gold-headed cane, and the great double ring with
the rubies, which he would have made into a pair of
beautiful earrings, he calculated would make a perfect
Adonis of himself, and render Mademoiselle Reine an
easy prey. "How those sleeve-buttons will suit me!"
thought he, as he fixed a pair on the fat pudgy wrists of
Mr. Sedley. "I long for sleeve-buttons; and the Captain's
boots with brass spurs, in the next room, corbleu! what
an effect they will make in the Allee Verte!" So while
Monsieur Isidor with bodily fingers was holding on to his
master's nose, and shaving the lower part of Jos's face,
his imagination was rambling along the Green Avenue,
dressed out in a frogged coat and lace, and in company
with Mademoiselle Reine; he was loitering in spirit on
the banks, and examining the barges sailing slowly under
the cool shadows of the trees by the canal, or refreshing
himself with a mug of Faro at the bench of a beer-house
on the road to Laeken.
But Mr. Joseph Sedley, luckily for his own peace, no
more knew what was passing in his domestic's mind than
the respected reader, and I suspect what John or Mary,
whose wages we pay, think of ourselves. What our
servants think of us!--Did we know what our intimates and
dear relations thought of us, we should live in a world
that we should be glad to quit, and in a frame of mind
and a constant terror, that would be perfectly unbearable.
So Jos's man was marking his victim down, as you
see one of Mr. Paynter's assistants in Leadenhall Street
ornament an unconscious turtle with a placard on which
is written, "Soup to-morrow."
Amelia's attendant was much less selfishly disposed.
Few dependents could come near that kind and gentle
creature without paying their usual tribute of loyalty
and affection to her sweet and affectionate nature. And
it is a fact that Pauline, the cook, consoled her mistress
more than anybody whom she saw on this wretched
morning; for when she found how Amelia remained for hours,
silent, motionless, and haggard, by the windows in which
she had placed herself to watch the last bayonets of the
column as it marched away, the honest girl took the
lady's hand, and said, Tenez, Madame, est-ce qu'il n'est
pas aussi a l'armee, mon homme a moi? with which
she burst into tears, and Amelia falling into her arms,
did likewise, and so each pitied and soothed the other.
Several times during the forenoon Mr. Jos's Isidor
went from his lodgings into the town, and to the gates
of the hotels and lodging-houses round about the Parc,
where the English were congregated, and there mingled
with other valets, couriers, and lackeys, gathered such
news as was abroad, and brought back bulletins for his
master's information. Almost all these gentlemen were in
heart partisans of the Emperor, and had their opinions
about the speedy end of the campaign. The Emperor's
proclamation from Avesnes had been distributed
everywhere plentifully in Brussels. "Soldiers!" it said, "this
is the anniversary of Marengo and Friedland, by which the
destinies of Europe were twice decided. Then, as after
Austerlitz, as after Wagram, we were too generous. We
believed in the oaths and promises of princes whom we
suffered to remain upon their thrones. Let us march once
more to meet them. We and they, are we not still the
same men? Soldiers! these same Prussians who are so
arrogant to-day, were three to one against you at Jena,
and six to one at Montmirail. Those among you who
were prisoners in England can tell their comrades what
frightful torments they suffered on board the English
hulks. Madmen! a moment of prosperity has blinded
them, and if they enter into France it will be to find a
grave there!" But the partisans of the French prophesied
a more speedy extermination of the Emperor's enemies
than this; and it was agreed on all hands that Prussians
and British would never return except as prisoners in the
rear of the conquering army.
These opinions in the course of the day were brought
to operate upon Mr. Sedley. He was told that the Duke
of Wellington had gone to try and rally his army, the
advance of which had been utterly crushed the night
before.
"Crushed, psha!" said Jos, whose heart was pretty
stout at breakfast-time. "The Duke has gone to beat the
Emperor as he has beaten all his generals before."
"His papers are burned, his effects are removed, and his
quarters are being got ready for the Duke of Dalmatia,"
Jos's informant replied. "I had it from his own maitre
d'hotel. Milor Duc de Richemont's people are packing
up everything. His Grace has fled already, and the
Duchess is only waiting to see the plate packed to join the
King of France at Ostend."
"The King of France is at Ghent, fellow," replied Jos,
affecting incredulity.
"He fled last night to Bruges, and embarks today from
Ostend. The Duc de Berri is taken prisoner. Those who
wish to be safe had better go soon, for the dykes will
be opened to-morrow, and who can fly when the whole
country is under water?"
"Nonsense, sir, we are three to one, sir, against any
force Boney can bring into the field," Mr. Sedley
objected; "the Austrians and the Russians are on their
march. He must, he shall be crushed," Jos said, slapping
his hand on the table.
"The Prussians were three to one at Jena, and he
took their army and kingdom in a week. They were
six to one at Montmirail, and he scattered them like sheep.
The Austrian army is coming, but with the Empress and
the King of Rome at its head; and the Russians, bah!
the Russians will withdraw. No quarter is to be given
to the English, on account of their cruelty to our braves
on board the infamous pontoons. Look here, here it is
in black and white. Here's the proclamation of his
Majesty the Emperor and King," said the now declared
partisan of Napoleon, and taking the document from his
pocket, Isidor sternly thrust it into his master's face,
and already looked upon the frogged coat and valuables
as his own spoil.
Jos was, if not seriously alarmed as yet, at least
considerably disturbed in mind. "Give me my coat and cap,
sir, said he, "and follow me. I will go myself and learn
the truth of these reports." Isidor was furious as Jos put
on the braided frock. "Milor had better.not wear that
military coat," said he; "the Frenchmen have sworn not
to give quarter to a single British soldier."
"Silence, sirrah!" said Jos, with a resolute countenance
still, and thrust his arm into the sleeve with indomitable
resolution, in the performance of which heroic act he
was found by Mrs. Rawdon Crawley, who at this juncture
came up to visit Amelia, and entered without ringing
at the antechamber door.
Rebecca was dressed very neatly and smartly, as usual:
her quiet sleep after Rawdon's departure had refreshed
her, and her pink smiling cheeks were quite pleasant to
look at, in a town and on a day when everybody else's
countenance wore the appearance of the deepest anxiety
and gloom. She laughed at the attitude in which Jos was
discovered, and the struggles and convulsions with which
the stout gentleman thrust himself into the braided coat.
"Are you preparing to join the army, Mr. Joseph?"
she said. "Is there to be nobody left in Brussels to
protect us poor women?" Jos succeeded in plunging into
the coat, and came forward blushing and stuttering out
excuses to his fair visitor. "How was she after the events
of the morning--after the fatigues of the ball the night
before?" Monsieur Isidor disappeared into his master's
adjacent bedroom, bearing off the flowered dressing-gown.
"How good of you to ask," said she, pressing one of
his hands in both her own. "How cool and collected you
look when everybody else is frightened! How is our dear
little Emmy? It must have been an awful, awful parting."
"Tremendous," Jos said.
"You men can bear anything," replied the lady. "Parting
or danger are nothing to you. Own now that you
were going to join the army and leave us to our fate.
I know you were--something tells me you were. I was
so frightened, when the thought came into my head (for
I do sometimes think of you when I am alone, Mr.
Joseph), that I ran off immediately to beg and entreat
you not to fly from us."
This speech might be interpreted, "My dear sir, should
an accident befall the army, and a retreat be necessary,
you have a very comfortable carriage, in which I
propose to take a seat." I don't know whether Jos
understood the words in this sense. But he was profoundly
mortified by the lady's inattention to him during their
stay at Brussels. He had never been presented to any
of Rawdon Crawley's great acquaintances: he had scarcely
been invited to Rebecca's parties; for he was too timid
to play much, and his presence bored George and Rawdon
equally, who neither of them, perhaps, liked to have a
witness of the amusements in which the pair chose to
indulge. "Ah!" thought Jos, "now she wants me she
comes to me. When there is nobody else in the way she
can think about old Joseph Sedley!" But besides these
doubts he felt flattered at the idea Rebecca expressed
of his courage.
He blushed a good deal, and put on an air of importance.
"I should like to see the action," he said. "Every
man of any spirit would, you know. I've seen a little
service in India, but nothing on this grand scale."
"You men would sacrifice anything for a pleasure,"
Rebecca answered. "Captain Crawley left me this morning
as gay as if he were going to a hunting party. What
does he care? What do any of you care for the agonies
and tortures of a poor forsaken woman? (I wonder
whether he could really have been going to the troops,
this great lazy gourmand?) Oh! dear Mr. Sedley, I have
come to you for comfort--for consolation. I have been
on my knees all the morning. I tremble at the frightful
danger into which our husbands, our friends, our brave
troops and allies, are rushing. And I come here for shelter,
and find another of my friends--the last remaining to
me--bent upon plunging into the dreadful scene!"
"My dear madam," Jos replied, now beginning to be
quite soothed, "don't be alarmed. I only said I should
like to go--what Briton would not? But my duty keeps
me here: I can't leave that poor creature in the next
room." And he pointed with his finger to the door of
the chamber in which Amelia was.
"Good noble brother!" Rebecca said, putting her
handkerchief to her eyes, and smelling the eau-de-cologne
with which it was scented. "I have done you injustice:
you have got a heart. I thought you had not."
"O, upon my honour!" Jos said, making a motion as
if he would lay his hand upon the spot in question. "You
do me injustice, indeed you do--my dear Mrs. Crawley."
"I do, now your heart is true to your sister. But I
remember two years ago--when it was false to me!"
Rebecca said, fixing her eyes upon him for an instant, and
then turning away into the window.
Jos blushed violently. That organ which he was
accused by Rebecca of not possessing began to thump
tumultuously. He recalled the days when he had fled from
her, and the passion which had once inflamed him--the
days when he had driven her in his curricle: when she
had knit the green purse for him: when he had sate
enraptured gazing at her white arms and bright eyes.
"I know you think me ungrateful," Rebecca continued,
coming out of the window, and once more looking at
him and addressing him in a low tremulous voice. "Your
coldness, your averted looks, your manner when we have
met of late--when I came in just now, all proved it to
me. But were there no reasons why I should avoid you?
Let your own heart answer that question. Do you think
my husband was too much inclined to welcome you?
The only unkind words I have ever had from him (I
will do Captain Crawley that justice) have been about
you--and most cruel, cruel words they were."
"Good gracious! what have I done?" asked Jos in a
flurry of pleasure and perplexity; "what have I done--
to--to--?"
"Is jealousy nothing?" said Rebecca. "He makes me
miserable about you. And whatever it might have been
once--my heart is all his. I am innocent now. Am I
not, Mr. Sedley?"
All Jos's blood tingled with delight, as he surveyed
this victim to his attractions. A few adroit words, one
or two knowing tender glances of the eyes, and his heart
was inflamed again and his doubts and suspicions
forgotten. From Solomon downwards, have not wiser men
than he been cajoled and befooled by women? "If the
worst comes to the worst," Becky thought, "my retreat
is secure; and I have a right-hand seat in the barouche."
There is no knowing into what declarations of love
and ardour the tumultuous passions of Mr. Joseph
might have led him, if Isidor the valet had not made
his reappearance at this minute, and begun to busy
himself about the domestic affairs. Jos, who was just going
to gasp out an avowal, choked almost with the emotion
that he was obliged to restrain. Rebecca too bethought
her that it was time she should go in and comfort her
dearest Amelia. "Au revoir," she said, kissing her hand
to Mr. Joseph, and tapped gently at the door of his
sister's apartment. As she entered and closed the door
on herself, he sank down in a chair, and gazed and
sighed and puffed portentously. "That coat is very tight
for Milor," Isidor said, still having his eye on the frogs;
but his master heard him not: his thoughts were
elsewhere: now glowing, maddening, upon the contemplation
of the enchanting Rebecca: anon shrinking guiltily
before the vision of the jealous Rawdon Crawley, with his
curling, fierce mustachios, and his terrible duelling pistols
loaded and cocked.
Rebecca's appearance struck Amelia with terror, and
made her shrink back. It recalled her to the world and
the remembrance of yesterday. In the overpowering fears
about to-morrow she had forgotten Rebecca--jealousy--
everything except that her husband was gone and was
in danger. Until this dauntless worldling came in and
broke the spell, and lifted the latch, we too have
forborne to enter into that sad chamber. How long had that
poor girl been on her knees! what hours of speechless
prayer and bitter prostration had she passed there! The
war-chroniclers who write brilliant stories of fight and
triumph scarcely tell us of these. These are too mean
parts of the pageant: and you don't hear widows' cries
or mothers' sobs in the midst of the shouts and jubilation
in the great Chorus of Victory. And yet when was
the time that such have not cried out: heart-broken,
humble protestants, unheard in the uproar of the triumph!
After the first movement of terror in Amelia's mind
--when Rebecca's green eyes lighted upon her, and
rustling in her fresh silks and brilliant ornaments, the latter
tripped up with extended arms to embrace her--a feeling
of anger succeeded, and from being deadly pale before,
her face flushed up red, and she returned Rebecca's look
after a moment with a steadiness which surprised and
somewhat abashed her rival.
"Dearest Amelia, you are very unwell," the visitor said,
putting forth her hand to take Amelia's. "What is it?
I could not rest until I knew how you were."
Amelia drew back her hand--never since her life
began had that gentle soul refused to believe or to
answer any demonstration of good-will or affection. But
she drew back her hand, and trembled all over. "Why
are you here, Rebecca?" she said, still looking at her
solemnly with her large eyes. These glances troubled her
visitor.
"She must have seen him give me the letter at the
ball," Rebecca thought. "Don't be agitated, dear Amelia,"
she said, looking down. "I came but to see if I could--
if you were well."
"Are you well?" said Amelia. "I dare say you are.
You don't love your husband. You would not be here if
you did. Tell me, Rebecca, did I ever do you anything
but kindness?"
"Indeed, Amelia, no," the other said, still hanging
down her head.
"When you were quite poor, who was it that befriended
you? Was I not a sister to you? You saw us
all in happier days before he married me. I was all in
all then to him; or would he have given up his fortune,
his family, as he nobly did to make me happy? Why did
you come between my love and me? Who sent you to
separate those whom God joined, and take my darling's
heart from me-- my own husband? Do you think you
could I love him as I did? His love was everything to me.
You knew it, and wanted to rob me of it. For shame,
Rebecca; bad and wicked woman--false friend and false
wife."
"Amelia, I protest before God, I have done my
husband no wrong," Rebecca said, turning from her.
"Have you done me no wrong, Rebecca? You did not
succeed, but you tried. Ask your heart if you did not."
She knows nothing, Rebecca thought.
"He came back to me. I knew he would. I knew that
no falsehood, no flattery, could keep him from me long.
I knew he would come. I prayed so that he should."
The poor girl spoke these words with a spirit and
volubility which Rebecca had never before seen in her,
and before which the latter was quite dumb. "But what
have I done to you," she continued in a more pitiful tone,
"that you should try and take him from me? I had him
but for six weeks. You might have spared me those,
Rebecca. And yet, from the very first day of our wedding,
you came and blighted it. Now he is gone, are you come
to see how unhappy I am?" she continued. "You made
me wretched enough for the past fortnight: you might
have spared me to-day."
"I--I never came here," interposed Rebecca, with
unlucky truth.
"No. You didn't come. You took him away. Are you
come to fetch him from me?" she continued in a wilder
tone. "He was here, but he is gone now. There on that
very sofa he sate. Don't touch it. We sate and talked
there. I was on his knee, and my arms were round his
neck, and we said 'Our Father.' Yes, he was here: and
they came and took him away, but he promised me to
come back."
"He will come back, my dear," said Rebecca, touched
in spite of herself.
"Look," said Amelia, "this is his sash--isn't it a pretty
colour?'' and she took up the fringe and kissed it. She
had tied it round her waist at some part of the day. She
had forgotten her anger, her jealousy, the very presence
of her rival seemingly. For she walked silently and almost
with a smile on her face, towards the bed, and began to
smooth down George's pillow.
Rebecca walked, too, silently away. "How is Amelia?"
asked Jos, who still held his position in the chair.
"There should be somebody with her," said Rebecca.
"I think she is very unwell": and she went away with a
very grave face, refusing Mr. Sedley's entreaties that she
would stay and partake of the early dinner which he had
ordered.
Rebecca was of a good-natured and obliging disposition;
and she liked Amelia rather than otherwise. Even
her hard words, reproachful as they were, were
complimentary--the groans of a person stinging under defeat.
Meeting Mrs. O'Dowd, whom the Dean's sermons had
by no means comforted, and who was walking very
disconsolately in the Parc, Rebecca accosted the latter,
rather to the surprise of the Major's wife, who was not
accustomed to such marks of politeness from Mrs.
Rawdon Crawley, and informing her that poor little Mrs.
Osborne was in a desperate condition, and almost mad
with grief, sent off the good-natured Irishwoman straight
to see if she could console her young favourite.
"I've cares of my own enough," Mrs. O'Dowd said,
gravely, "and I thought poor Amelia would be little
wanting for company this day. But if she's so bad as you
say, and you can't attend to her, who used to be so
fond of her, faith I'll see if I can be of service. And so
good marning to ye, Madam"; with which speech and a
toss of her head, the lady of the repayther took a
farewell of Mrs. Crawley, whose company she by no means
courted.
Becky watched her marching off, with a smile on her
lip. She had the keenest sense of humour, and the
Parthian look which the retreating Mrs. O'Dowd flung
over her shoulder almost upset Mrs. Crawley's gravity.
"My service to ye, me fine Madam, and I'm glad to see
ye so cheerful," thought Peggy. "It's not YOU that will cry
your eyes out with grief, anyway." And with this she
passed on, and speedily found her way to Mrs. Osborne's
lodgings.
The poor soul was still at the bedside, where Rebecca
had left her, and stood almost crazy with grief. The
Major's wife, a stronger-minded woman, endeavoured her
best to comfort her young friend. "You must bear up,
Amelia, dear," she said kindly, "for he mustn't find you
ill when he sends for you after the victory. It's not you
are the only woman that are in the hands of God this
day."
"I know that. I am very wicked, very weak," Amelia
said. She knew her own weakness well enough. The
presence of the more resolute friend checked it, however; and
she was the better of this control and company. They
went on till two o'clock; their hearts were with the column
as it marched farther and farther away. Dreadful doubt
and anguish--prayers and fears and griefs unspeakable--
followed the regiment. It was the women's tribute to the
war. It taxes both alike, and takes the blood of the men,
and the tears of the women.
At half-past two, an event occurred of daily importance
to Mr. Joseph: the dinner-hour arrived. Warriors
may fight and perish, but he must dine. He came into
Amelia's room to see if he could coax her to share that
meal. "Try," said he; "the soup is very good. Do try,
Emmy," and he kissed her hand. Except when she was
married, he had not done so much for years before. "You
are very good and kind, Joseph," she said. "Everybody
is, but, if you please, I will stay in my room to-day."
The savour of the soup, however, was agreeable to
Mrs. O'Dowd's nostrils: and she thought she would bear
Mr. Jos company. So the two sate down to their meal.
"God bless the meat," said the Major's wife, solemnly:
she was thinking of her honest Mick, riding at the head
of his regiment: " 'Tis but a bad dinner those poor
boys will get to-day," she said, with a sigh, and then,
like a philosopher, fell to.
Jos's spirits rose with his meal. He would drink the
regiment's health; or, indeed, take any other excuse to
indulge in a glass of champagne. "We'll drink to O'Dowd
and the brave --th," said he, bowing gallantly to his
guest. "Hey, Mrs. O'Dowd? Fill Mrs. O'Dowd's glass,
Isidor."
But all of a sudden, Isidor started, and the Major's
wife laid down her knife and fork. The windows of the
room were open, and looked southward, and a dull distant
sound came over the sun-lighted roofs from that
direction. ''What is it?" said Jos. "Why don't you pour, you
rascal?"
"Cest le feu!" said Isidor, running to the balcony.
"God defend us; it's cannon!" Mrs. O'Dowd cried,
starting up, and followed too to the window. A thousand
pale and anxious faces might have been seen looking
from other casements. And presently it seemed as if the
whole population of the city rushed into the streets.
CHAPTER XXXII
In Which Jos Takes Flight, and the War Is Brought to a Close
We of peaceful London City have never beheld--and
please God never shall witness--such a scene of hurry
and alarm, as that which Brussels presented. Crowds
rushed to the Namur gate, from which direction the noise
proceeded, and many rode along the level chaussee, to
be in advance of any intelligence from the army. Each
man asked his neighbour for news; and even great
English lords and ladies condescended to speak to persons
whom they did not know. The friends of the French went
abroad, wild with excitement, and prophesying the
triumph of their Emperor. The merchants closed their
shops, and came out to swell the general chorus of alarm
and clamour. Women rushed to the churches, and
crowded the chapels, and knelt and prayed on the flags
and steps. The dull sound of the cannon went on rolling,
rolling. Presently carriages with travellers began to leave
the town, galloping away by the Ghent barrier. The
prophecies of the French partisans began to pass for
facts. "He has cut the armies in two," it was said. "He is
marching straight on Brussels. He will overpower the
English, and be here to-night." "He will overpower the
English," shrieked Isidor to his master, "and will be here
to-night." The man bounded in and out from the lodgings
to the street, always returning with some fresh particulars
of disaster. Jos's face grew paler and paler. Alarm began
to take entire possession of the stout civilian. All the
champagne he drank brought no courage to him. Before
sunset he was worked up to such a pitch of nervousness
as gratified his friend Isidor to behold, who now counted
surely upon the spoils of the owner of the laced coat.
The women were away all this time. After hearing
the firing for a moment, the stout Major's wife bethought
her of her friend in the next chamber, and ran in to watch,
and if possible to console, Amelia. The idea that she had
that helpless and gentle creature to protect, gave
additional strength to the natural courage of the honest
Irishwoman. She passed five hours by her friend's side,
sometimes in remonstrance, sometimes talking cheerfully,
oftener in silence and terrified mental supplication. "I
never let go her hand once," said the stout lady
afterwards, "until after sunset, when the firing was over."
Pauline, the bonne, was on her knees at church hard by,
praying for son homme a elle.
When the noise of the cannonading was over, Mrs.
O'Dowd issued out of Amelia's room into the parlour
adjoining, where Jos sate with two emptied flasks, and
courage entirely gone. Once or twice he had ventured into
his sister's bedroom, looking very much alarmed, and
as if he would say something. But the Major's wife kept
her place, and he went away without disburthening
himself of his speech. He was ashamed to tell her that he
wanted to fly.
But when she made her appearance in the dining-room,
where he sate in the twilight in the cheerless company
of his empty champagne bottles, he began to open his
mind to her.
"Mrs. O'Dowd," he said, "hadn't you better get Amelia
ready?"
"Are you going to take her out for a walk?" said the
Major's lady; "sure she's too weak to stir."
"I--I've ordered the carriage," he said, "and--and
post-horses; Isidor is gone for them," Jos continued.
"What do you want with driving to-night?" answered
the lady. "Isn't she better on her bed? I've just got her
to lie down."
"Get her up," said Jos; "she must get up, I say": and
he stamped his foot energetically. "I say the horses are
ordered--yes, the horses are ordered. It's all over, and--"
"And what?" asked Mrs. O'Dowd.
"I'm off for Ghent," Jos answered. "Everybody is
going; there's a place for you! We shall start in half-anhour."
The Major's wife looked at him with infinite scorn. "I
don't move till O'Dowd gives me the route," said she.
"You may go if you like, Mr. Sedley; but, faith, Amelia
and I stop here."
"She SHALL go," said Jos, with another stamp of his
foot. Mrs. O'Dowd put herself with arms akimbo before
the bedroom door.
"Is it her mother you're going to take her to?" she
said; "or do you want to go to Mamma yourself, Mr.
Sedley? Good marning--a pleasant journey to ye, sir.
Bon voyage, as they say, and take my counsel, and shave
off them mustachios, or they'll bring you into mischief."
"D--n!" yelled out Jos, wild with fear, rage, and
mortification; and Isidor came in at this juncture, swearing in
his turn. "Pas de chevaux, sacre bleu!" hissed out the
furious domestic. All the horses were gone. Jos was
not the only man in Brussels seized with panic that day.
But Jos's fears, great and cruel as they were already,
were destined to increase to an almost frantic pitch
before the night was over. It has been mentioned how
Pauline, the bonne, had son homme a elle also in the
ranks of the army that had gone out to meet the Emperor
Napoleon. This lover was a native of Brussels, and a
Belgian hussar. The troops of his nation signalised
themselves in this war for anything but courage, and young
Van Cutsum, Pauline's admirer, was too good a soldier
to disobey his Colonel's orders to run away. Whilst in
garrison at Brussels young Regulus (he had been born in
the revolutionary times) found his great comfort, and
passed almost all his leisure moments, in Pauline's
kitchen; and it was with pockets and holsters crammed
full of good things from her larder, that he had take
leave of his weeping sweetheart, to proceed upon the
campaign a few days before.
As far as his regiment was concerned, this campaign
was over now. They had formed a part of the division
under the command of his Sovereign apparent, the Prince
of Orange, and as respected length of swords and
mustachios, and the richness of uniform and equipments,
Regulus and his comrades looked to be as gallant a body
of men as ever trumpet sounded for.
When Ney dashed upon the advance of the allied
troops, carrying one position after the other, until the
arrival of the great body of the British army from
Brussels changed the aspect of the combat of Quatre Bras,
the squadrons among which Regulus rode showed the
greatest activity in retreating before the French, and were
dislodged from one post and another which they occupied
with perfect alacrity on their part. Their movements
were only checked by the advance of the British in their
rear. Thus forced to halt, the enemy's cavalry (whose
bloodthirsty obstinacy cannot be too severely
reprehended) had at length an opportunity of coming to close
quarters with the brave Belgians before them; who
preferred to encounter the British rather than the French,
and at once turning tail rode through the English
regiments that were behind them, and scattered in all
directions. The regiment in fact did not exist any more. It was
nowhere. It had no head-quarters. Regulus found himself
galloping many miles from the field of action, entirely
alone; and whither should he fly for refuge so naturally
as to that kitchen and those faithful arms in which
Pauline had so often welcomed him?
At some ten o'clock the clinking of a sabre might have
been heard up the stair of the house where the Osbornes
occupied a story in the continental fashion. A knock
might have been heard at the kitchen door; and poor
Pauline, come back from church, fainted almost with
terror as she opened it and saw before her her haggard
hussar. He looked as pale as the midnight dragoon who
came to disturb Leonora. Pauline would have screamed,
but that her cry would have called her masters, and
discovered her friend. She stifled her scream, then, and
leading her hero into the kitchen, gave him beer, and
the choice bits from the dinner, which Jos had not had
the heart to taste. The hussar showed he was no ghost by
the prodigious quantity of flesh and beer which he
devoured--and during the mouthfuls he told his tale of
disaster.
His regiment had performed prodigies of courage, and
had withstood for a while the onset of the whole French
army. But they were overwhelmed at last, as was the
whole British army by this time. Ney destroyed each
regiment as it came up. The Belgians in vain interposed to
prevent the butchery of the English. The Brunswickers
were routed and had fled--their Duke was killed. It was
a general debacle. He sought to drown his sorrow for
the defeat in floods of beer.
Isidor, who had come into the kitchen, heard the
conversation and rushed out to inform his master. "It is
all over," he shrieked to Jos. "Milor Duke is a prisoner;
the Duke of Brunswick is killed; the British army is in
full flight; there is only one man escaped, and he is in the
kitchen now--come and hear him." So Jos tottered into
that apartment where Regulus still sate on the kitchen
table, and clung fast to his flagon of beer. In the best
French which he could muster, and which was in sooth
of a very ungrammatical sort, Jos besought the hussar to
tell his tale. The disasters deepened as Regulus spoke. He
was the only man of his regiment not slain on the field.
He had seen the Duke of Brunswick fall, the black
hussars fly, the Ecossais pounded down by the cannon.
"And the --th?" gasped Jos.
"Cut in pieces," said the hussar--upon which Pauline
cried out, "O my mistress, ma bonne petite dame," went
off fairly into hysterics, and filled the house with her
screams.
Wild with terror, Mr. Sedley knew not how or where
to seek for safety. He rushed from the kitchen back to
the sitting-room, and cast an appealing look at Amelia's
door, which Mrs. O'Dowd had closed and locked in his
face; but he remembered how scornfully the latter had
received him, and after pausing and listening for a brief
space at the door, he left it, and resolved to go into the
street, for the first time that day. So, seizing a candle, he
looked about for his gold-laced cap, and found it lying in its
usual place, on a console-table, in the anteroom, placed
before a mirror at which Jos used to coquet, always
giving his side-locks a twirl, and his cap the proper cock
over his eye, before he went forth to make appearance in
public. Such is the force of habit, that even in the midst
of his terror he began mechanically to twiddle with his
hair, and arrange the cock of his hat. Then he looked
amazed at the pale face in the glass before him, and
especially at his mustachios, which had attained a rich
growth in the course of near seven weeks, since they had
come into the world. They WILL mistake me for a military
man, thought he, remembering Isidor's warning as
to the massacre with which all the defeated British army
was threatened; and staggering back to his bedchamber,
he began wildly pulling the bell which summoned his
valet.
Isidor answered that summons. Jos had sunk in a chair
--he had torn off his neckcloths, and turned down his
collars, and was sitting with both his hands lifted to his
throat.
"Coupez-moi, Isidor," shouted he; "vite! Coupez-moi!"
Isidor thought for a moment he had gone mad, and
that he wished his valet to cut his throat.
"Les moustaches," gasped Joe; "les moustaches--
coupy, rasy, vite!"--his French was of this sort--voluble,
as we have said, but not remarkable for grammar.
Isidor swept off the mustachios in no time with the
razor, and heard with inexpressible delight his master's
orders that he should fetch a hat and a plain coat. "Ne
porty ploo--habit militair--bonn--bonny a voo, prenny
dehors"--were Jos's words--the coat and cap were at
last his property.
This gift being made, Jos selected a plain black coat
and waistcoat from his stock, and put on a large white
neckcloth, and a plain beaver. If he could have got a
shovel hat he would have worn it. As it was, you would
have fancied he was a flourishing, large parson of the
Church of England.
"Venny maintenong," he continued, "sweevy--ally--
party--dong la roo." And so having said, he plunged
swiftly down the stairs of the house, and passed into the
street.
Although Regulus had vowed that he was the only
man of his regiment or of the allied army, almost, who
had escaped being cut to pieces by Ney, it appeared
that his statement was incorrect, and that a good number
more of the supposed victims had survived the massacre.
Many scores of Regulus's comrades had found their way
back to Brussels, and all agreeing that they had run
away--filled the whole town with an idea of the defeat
of the allies. The arrival of the French was expected
hourly; the panic continued, and preparations for flight
went on everywhere. No horses! thought Jos, in terror.
He made Isidor inquire of scores of persons, whether
they had any to lend or sell, and his heart sank within
him, at the negative answers returned everywhere. Should
he take the journey on foot? Even fear could not render
that ponderous body so active.
Almost all the hotels occupied by the English in Brussels
face the Parc, and Jos wandered irresolutely about
in this quarter, with crowds of other people, oppressed as
he was by fear and curiosity. Some families he saw more
happy than himself, having discovered a team of horses,
and rattling through the streets in retreat; others again
there were whose case was like his own, and who
could not for any bribes or entreaties procure the
necessary means of flight. Amongst these would-be fugitives,
Jos remarked the Lady Bareacres and her daughter, who
sate in their carriage in the porte-cochere of their hotel,
all their imperials packed, and the only drawback to
whose flight was the same want of motive power which
kept Jos stationary.
Rebecca Crawley occupied apartments in this hotel;
and had before this period had sundry hostile meetings
with the ladies of the Bareacres family. My Lady
Bareacres cut Mrs. Crawley on the stairs when they met
by chance; and in all places where the latter's name was
mentioned, spoke perseveringly ill of her neighbour. The
Countess was shocked at the familiarity of General Tufto
with the aide-de-camp's wife. The Lady Blanche avoided
her as if she had been an infectious disease. Only the
Earl himself kept up a sly occasional acquaintance with
her, when out of the jurisdiction of his ladies.
Rebecca had her revenge now upon these insolent
enemies. If became known in the hotel that Captain
Crawley's horses had been left behind, and when the
panic began, Lady Bareacres condescended to send her
maid to the Captain's wife with her Ladyship's compliments,
and a desire to know the price of Mrs. Crawley's
horses. Mrs. Crawley returned a note with her compliments,
and an intimation that it was not her custom to
transact bargains with ladies' maids.
This curt reply brought the Earl in person to Becky's
apartment; but he could get no more success than the
first ambassador. "Send a lady's maid to ME!" Mrs.
Crawley cried in great anger; "why didn't my Lady
Bareacres tell me to go and saddle the horses! Is it her
Ladyship that wants to escape, or her Ladyship's femme
de chambre?" And this was all the answer that the Earl
bore back to his Countess.
What will not necessity do? The Countess herself
actually came to wait upon Mrs. Crawley on the failure
of her second envoy. She entreated her to name her own
price; she even offered to invite Becky to Bareacres
House, if the latter would but give her the means of
returning to that residence. Mrs. Crawley sneered at her.
"I don't want to be waited on by bailiffs in livery," she
said; "you will never get back though most probably--
at least not you and your diamonds together. The French
will have those They will be here in two hours, and I
shall be half way to Ghent by that time. I would not sell
you my horses, no, not for the two largest diamonds that
your Ladyship wore at the ball." Lady Bareacres trembled
with rage and terror. The diamonds were sewed into her
habit, and secreted in my Lord's padding and boots.
"Woman, the diamonds are at the banker's, and I WILL
have the horses," she said. Rebecca laughed in her face.
The infuriate Countess went below, and sate in her
carriage; her maid, her courier, and her husband were sent
once more through the town, each to look for cattle; and
woe betide those who came last! Her Ladyship was
resolved on departing the very instant the horses arrived
from any quarter--with her husband or without him.
Rebecca had the pleasure of seeing her Ladyship in
the horseless carriage, and keeping her eyes fixed upon
her, and bewailing, in the loudest tone of voice, the
Countess's perplexities. "Not to be able to get horses!"
she said, "and to have all those diamonds sewed into the
carriage cushions! What a prize it will be for the French
when they come!--the carriage and the diamonds, I mean;
not the lady!" She gave this information to the landlord,
to the servants, to the guests, and the innumerable
stragglers about the courtyard. Lady Bareacres could have
shot her from the carriage window.
It was while enjoying the humiliation of her enemy that
Rebecca caught sight of Jos, who made towards her
directly he perceived her.
That altered, frightened, fat face, told his secret well
enough. He too wanted to fly, and was on the look-out
for the means of escape. "HE shall buy my horses,"
thought Rebecca, "and I'll ride the mare."
Jos walked up to his friend, and put the question for
the hundredth time during the past hour, "Did she know
where horses were to be had?"
"What, YOU fly?" said Rebecca, with a laugh. "I
thought you were the champion of all the ladies, Mr.
Sedley."
"I--I'm not a military man," gasped he.
"And Amelia?--Who is to protect that poor little sister
of yours?" asked Rebecca. "You surely would not desert
her?"
"What good can I do her, suppose--suppose the enemy
arrive?" Jos answered. "They'll spare the women; but my
man tells me that they have taken an oath to give no
quarter to the men--the dastardly cowards."
"Horrid!" cried Rebecca, enjoying his perplexity.
"Besides, I don't want to desert her," cried the brother.
"She SHAN'T be deserted. There is a seat for her in my
carriage, and one for you, dear Mrs. Crawley, if you will
come; and if we can get horses--" sighed he--
"I have two to sell," the lady said. Jos could have
flung himself into her arms at the news. "Get the carriage,
Isidor," he cried; "we've found them--we have found
them."
My horses never were in harness," added the lady.
"Bullfinch would kick the carriage to pieces, if you put
him in the traces."
"But he is quiet to ride?" asked the civilian.
"As quiet as a lamb, and as fast as a hare," answered
Rebecca.
"Do you think he is up to my weight?" Jos said. He
was already on his back, in imagination, without ever so
much as a thought for poor Amelia. What person who
loved a horse-speculation could resist such a temptation?
In reply, Rebecca asked him to come into her room,
whither he followed her quite breathless to conclude the
bargain. Jos seldom spent a half-hour in his life which
cost him so much money. Rebecca, measuring the value
of the goods which she had for sale by Jos's eagerness to
purchase, as well as by the scarcity of the article, put
upon her horses a price so prodigious as to make even
the civilian draw back. "She would sell both or neither,"
she said, resolutely. Rawdon had ordered her not to part
with them for a price less than that which she specified.
Lord Bareacres below would give her the same money--
and with all her love and regard for the Sedley family,
her dear Mr. Joseph must conceive that poor people must
live--nobody, in a word, could be more affectionate, but
more firm about the matter of business.
Jos ended by agreeing, as might be supposed of him.
The sum he had to give her was so large that he was
obliged to ask for time; so large as to be a little fortune
to Rebecca, who rapidly calculated that with this sum,
and the sale of the residue of Rawdon's effects, and her
pension as a widow should he fall, she would now be
absolutely independent of the world, and might look her
weeds steadily in the face.
Once or twice in the day she certainly had herself
thought about flying. But her reason gave her better
counsel. "Suppose the French do come," thought Becky,
"what can they do to a poor officer's widow? Bah! the
times of sacks and sieges are over. We shall be let to go
home quietly, or I may live pleasantly abroad with a snug
little income."
Meanwhile Jos and Isidor went off to the stables to
inspect the newly purchased cattle. Jos bade his man
saddle the horses at once. He would ride away that very
night, that very hour. And he left the valet busy in getting
the horses ready, and went homewards himself to
prepare for his departure. It must be secret. He would go to
his chamber by the back entrance. He did not care to face
Mrs. O'Dowd and Amelia, and own to them that he was
about to run.
By the time Jos's bargain with Rebecca was completed,
and his horses had been visited and examined, it was
almost morning once more. But though midnight was long
passed, there was no rest for the city; the people were
up, the lights in the houses flamed, crowds were still
about the doors, and the streets were busy. Rumours of
various natures went still from mouth to mouth: one
report averred that the Prussians had been utterly
defeated; another that it was the English who had been
attacked and conquered: a third that the latter had held
their ground. This last rumour gradually got strength. No
Frenchmen had made their appearance. Stragglers had
come in from the army bringing reports more and more
favourable: at last an aide-de-camp actually reached
Brussels with despatches for the Commandant of the
place, who placarded presently through the town an
official announcement of the success of the allies at Quatre
Bras, and the entire repulse of the French under Ney
after a six hours' battle. The aide-de-camp must have
arrived sometime while Jos and Rebecca were making their
bargain together, or the latter was inspecting his
purchase. When he reached his own hotel, he found a score
of its numerous inhabitants on the threshold discoursing
of the news; there was no doubt as to its truth. And he
went up to communicate it to the ladies under his charge.
He did not think it was necessary to tell them how he
had intended to take leave of them, how he had bought
horses, and what a price he had paid for them.
But success or defeat was a minor matter to them, who
had only thought for the safety of those they loved.
Amelia, at the news of the victory, became still more
agitated even than before. She was for going that
moment to the army. She besought her brother with tears to
conduct her thither. Her doubts and terrors reached their
paroxysm; and the poor girl, who for many hours had
been plunged into stupor, raved and ran hither and
thither in hysteric insanity--a piteous sight. No man
writhing in pain on the hard-fought field fifteen miles
off, where lay, after their struggles, so many of the brave
--no man suffered more keenly than this poor harmless
victim of the war. Jos could not bear the sight of her
pain. He left his sister in the charge of her stouter female
companion, and descended once more to the threshold
of the hotel, where everybody still lingered, and talked,
and waited for more news.
It grew to be broad daylight as they stood here, and
fresh news began to arrive from the war, brought by
men who had been actors in the scene. Wagons and long
country carts laden with wounded came rolling into the
town; ghastly groans came from within them, and
haggard faces looked up sadly from out of the straw. Jos
Sedley was looking at one of these carriages with a
painful curiosity--the moans of the people within were
frightful--the wearied horses could hardly pull the cart.
"Stop! stop!" a feeble voice cried from the straw, and the
carriage stopped opposite Mr. Sedley's hotel.
"It is George, I know it is!" cried Amelia, rushing in a
moment to the balcony, with a pallid face and loose
flowing hair. It was not George, however, but it was the
next best thing: it was news of him.
It was poor Tom Stubble, who had marched out of
Brussels so gallantly twenty-four hours before, bearing
the colours of the regiment, which he had defended very
gallantly upon the field. A French lancer had speared the
young ensign in the leg, who fell, still bravely holding to
his flag. At the conclusion of the engagement, a place
had been found for the poor boy in a cart, and he had
been brought back to Brussels.
"Mr. Sedley, Mr. Sedley!" cried the boy, faintly, and
Jos came up almost frightened at the appeal. He had not
at first distinguished who it was that called him.
Little Tom Stubble held out his hot and feeble hand.
"I'm to be taken in here," he said. "Osborne--and--and
Dobbin said I was; and you are to give the man two
napoleons: my mother will pay you." This young fellow's
thoughts, during the long feverish hours passed in the
cart, had been wandering to his father's parsonage which
he had quitted only a few months before, and he had
sometimes forgotten his pain in that delirium.
The hotel was large, and the people kind, and all the
inmates of the cart were taken in and placed on various
couches. The young ensign was conveyed upstairs to
Osborne's quarters. Amelia and the Major's wife had
rushed down to him, when the latter had recognised him
from the balcony. You may fancy the feelings of these
women when they were told that the day was over, and
both their husbands were safe; in what mute rapture
Amelia fell on her good friend's neck, and embraced
her; in what a grateful passion of prayer she fell on her
knees, and thanked the Power which had saved her
husband.
Our young lady, in her fevered and nervous condition,
could have had no more salutary medicine prescribed for
her by any physician than that which chance put in her
way. She and Mrs. O'Dowd watched incessantly by the
wounded lad, whose pains were very severe, and in the
duty thus forced upon her, Amelia had not time to brood
over her personal anxieties, or to give herself up to her
own fears and forebodings after her wont. The young
patient told in his simple fashion the events of the day, and
the actions of our friends of the gallant --th. They had
suffered severely. They had lost very many officers and
men. The Major's horse had been shot under him as the
regiment charged, and they all thought that O'Dowd was
gone, and that Dobbin had got his majority, until on their
return from the charge to their old ground, the Major was
discovered seated on Pyramus's carcase, refreshing himself
from a case-bottle. It was Captain Osborne that cut
down the French lancer who had speared the ensign.
Amelia turned so pale at the notion, that Mrs. O'Dowd
stopped the young ensign in this story. And it was
Captain Dobbin who at the end of the day, though wounded
himself, took up the lad in his arms and carried him to
the surgeon, and thence to the cart which was to bring
him back to Brussels. And it was he who promised the
driver two louis if he would make his way to Mr. Sedley's
hotel in the city; and tell Mrs. Captain Osborne that the
action was over, and that her husband was unhurt and
well.
"Indeed, but he has a good heart that William
Dobbin," Mrs. O'Dowd said, "though he is always laughing
at me."
Young Stubble vowed there was not such another
officer in the army, and never ceased his praises of the
senior captain, his modesty, his kindness, and his admirable
coolness in the field. To these parts of the conversation,
Amelia lent a very distracted attention: it was only when
George was spoken of that she listened, and when he
was not mentioned, she thought about him.
In tending her patient, and in thinking of the wonderful
escapes of the day before, her second day passed
away not too slowly with Amelia. There was only one
man in the army for her: and as long as he was well, it
must be owned that its movements interested her little.
All the reports which Jos brought from the streets fell
very vaguely on her ears; though they were sufficient to
give that timorous gentleman, and many other people
then in Brussels, every disquiet. The French had been
repulsed certainly, but it was after a severe and doubtful
struggle, and with only a division of the French army.
The Emperor, with the main body, was away at Ligny,
where he had utterly annihilated the Prussians, and was
now free to bring his whole force to bear upon the allies.
The Duke of Wellington was retreating upon the capital,
and a great battle must be fought under its walls
probably, of which the chances were more than doubtful.
The Duke of Wellington had but twenty thousand British
troops on whom he could rely, for the Germans were
raw militia, the Belgians disaffected, and with this handful
his Grace had to resist a hundred and fifty thousand men
that had broken into Belgium under Napoleon. Under
Napoleon! What warrior was there, however famous and
skilful, that could fight at odds with him?
Jos thought of all these things, and trembled. So did
all the rest of Brussels--where people felt that the fight
of the day before was but the prelude to the greater
combat which was imminent. One of the armies opposed to
the Emperor was scattered to the winds already. The
few English that could be brought to resist him would
perish at their posts, and the conqueror would pass over
their bodies into the city. Woe be to those whom he
found there! Addresses were prepared, public functionaries assembled and debated
secretly, apartments were
got ready, and tricoloured banners and triumphal
emblems manufactured, to welcome the arrival of His
Majesty the Emperor and King.
The emigration still continued, and wherever families
could find means of departure, they fled. When Jos, on
the afternoon of the 17th of June, went to Rebecca's
hotel, he found that the great Bareacres' carriage had at
length rolled away from the porte-cochere. The Earl
had procured a pair of horses somehow, in spite of Mrs.
Crawley, and was rolling on the road to Ghent. Louis the
Desired was getting ready his portmanteau in that city,
too. It seemed as if Misfortune was never tired of
worrying into motion that unwieldy exile.
Jos felt that the delay of yesterday had been only a
respite, and that his dearly bought horses must of a
surety be put into requisition. His agonies were very
severe all this day. As long as there was an English army
between Brussels and Napoleon, there was no need of
immediate flight; but he had his horses brought from
their distant stables, to the stables in the court-yard of
the hotel where he lived; so that they might be under his
own eyes, and beyond the risk of violent abduction.
Isidor watched the stable-door constantly, and had the
horses saddled, to be ready for the start. He longed
intensely for that event.
After the reception of the previous day, Rebecca did
not care to come near her dear Amelia. She clipped the
bouquet which George had brought her, and gave fresh
water to the flowers, and read over the letter which he
had sent her. "Poor wretch," she said, twirling round the
little bit of paper in her fingers, "how I could crush her
with this!--and it is for a thing like this that she must
break her heart, forsooth--for a man who is stupid--a
coxcomb--and who does not care for her. My poor good
Rawdon is worth ten of this creature." And then she fell
to thinking what she should do if--if anything happened
to poor good Rawdon, and what a great piece of luck it
was that he had left his horses behind.
In the course of this day too, Mrs. Crawley, who saw
not without anger the Bareacres party drive off,
bethought her of the precaution which the Countess had
taken, and did a little needlework for her own advantage;
she stitched away the major part of her trinkets, bills,
and bank-notes about her person, and so prepared, was
ready for any event--to fly if she thought fit, or to stay
and welcome the conqueror, were he Englishman or
Frenchman. And I am not sure that she did not dream
that night of becoming a duchess and Madame la
Marechale, while Rawdon wrapped in his cloak, and making
his bivouac under the rain at Mount Saint John, was
thinking, with all the force of his heart, about the little
wife whom he had left behind him.
The next day was a Sunday. And Mrs. Major O'Dowd
had the satisfaction of seeing both her patients refreshed
in health and spirits by some rest which they had taken
during the night. She herself had slept on a great chair in
Amelia's room, ready to wait upon her poor friend or the
ensign, should either need her nursing. When morning
came, this robust woman went back to the house where
she and her Major had their billet; and here performed
an elaborate and splendid toilette, befitting the day. And
it is very possible that whilst alone in that chamber, which
her husband had inhabited, and where his cap still lay on
the pillow, and his cane stood in the corner, one prayer at
least was sent up to Heaven for the welfare of the brave
soldier, Michael O'Dowd.
When she returned she brought her prayer-book with
her, and her uncle the Dean's famous book of sermons,
out of which she never failed to read every Sabbath; not
understanding all, haply, not pronouncing many of the
words aright, which were long and abstruse--for the
Dean was a learned man, and loved long Latin words--
but with great gravity, vast emphasis, and with tolerable
correctness in the main. How often has my Mick listened
to these sermons, she thought, and me reading in the
cabin of a calm! She proposed to resume this exercise on
the present day, with Amelia and the wounded ensign
for a congregation. The same service was read on that
day in twenty thousand churches at the same hour; and
millions of British men and women, on their knees,
implored protection of the Father of all.
They did not hear the noise which disturbed our little
congregation at Brussels. Much louder than that which
had interrupted them two days previously, as Mrs.
O'Dowd was reading the service in her best voice, the
cannon of Waterloo began to roar.
When Jos heard that dreadful sound, he made up his
mind that he would bear this perpetual recurrence of
terrors no longer, and would fly at once. He rushed into the
sick man's room, where our three friends had paused in
their prayers, and further interrupted them by a
passionate appeal to Amelia
"I can't stand it any more, Emmy," he said; 'I won't
stand it; and you must come with me. I have bought a
horse for you--never mind at what price--and you must
dress and come with me, and ride behind Isidor."
"God forgive me, Mr. Sedley, but you are no better
than a coward," Mrs. O'Dowd said, laying down the
book.
"I say come, Amelia," the civilian went on; "never
mind what she says; why are we to stop here and be
butchered by the Frenchmen?"
"You forget the --th, my boy," said the little Stubble,
the wounded hero, from his bed--"and and you
won't leave me, will you, Mrs. O'Dowd?"
"No, my dear fellow," said she, going up and kissing
the boy. "No harm shall come to you while I stand by.
I don't budge till I get the word from Mick. A pretty
figure I'd be, wouldn't I, stuck behind that chap on a
pillion?"
This image caused the young patient to burst out
laughing in his bed, and even made Amelia smile. "I
don't ask her," Jos shouted out--"I don't ask that--that
Irishwoman, but you Amelia; once for all, will you
come?"
"Without my husband, Joseph?" Amelia said, with a
look of wonder, and gave her hand to the Major's wife.
Jos's patience was exhausted.
"Good-bye, then," he said, shaking his fist in a rage,
and slamming the door by which he retreated. And this
time he really gave his order for march: and mounted in
the court-yard. Mrs. O'Dowd heard the clattering hoofs
of the horses as they issued from the gate; and looking
on, made many scornful remarks on poor Joseph as he
rode down the street with Isidor after him in the laced
cap. The horses, which had not been exercised for some
days, were lively, and sprang about the street. Jos, a
clumsy and timid horseman, did not look to advantage in
the saddle. "Look at him, Amelia dear, driving into the
parlour window. Such a bull in a china-shop I never
saw." And presently the pair of riders disappeared at a
canter down the street leading in the direction of the
Ghent road, Mrs. O'Dowd pursuing them with a fire of
sarcasm so long as they were in sight.
All that day from morning until past sunset, the
cannon never ceased to roar. It was dark when the
cannonading stopped all of a sudden.
All of us have read of what occurred during that
interval. The tale is in every Englishman's mouth; and
you and I, who were children when the great battle was
won and lost, are never tired of hearing and recounting
the history of that famous action. Its remembrance
rankles still in the bosoms of millions of the countrymen of
those brave men who lost the day. They pant for an
opportunity of revenging that humiliation; and if a contest,
ending in a victory on their part, should ensue, elating
them in their turn, and leaving its cursed legacy of hatred
and rage behind to us, there is no end to the so-called
glory and shame, and to the alternations of successful
and unsuccessful murder, in which two high-spirited
nations might engage. Centuries hence, we Frenchmen and
Englishmen might be boasting and killing each other still,
carrying out bravely the Devil's code of honour.
All our friends took their share and fought like men in
the great field. All day long, whilst the women were
praying ten miles away, the lines of the dauntless English
infantry were receiving and repelling the furious charges of
the French horsemen. Guns which were heard at Brussels
were ploughing up their ranks, and comrades falling, and
the resolute survivors closing in. Towards evening, the
attack of the French, repeated and resisted so bravely,
slackened in its fury. They had other foes besides the
British to engage, or were preparing for a final onset. It
came at last: the columns of the Imperial Guard marched
up the hill of Saint Jean, at length and at once to sweep
the English from the height which they had maintained
all day, and spite of all: unscared by the thunder of the
artillery, which hurled death from the English line--the
dark rolling column pressed on and up the hill. It seemed
almost to crest the eminence, when it began to wave and
falter. Then it stopped, still facing the shot. Then at last
the English troops rushed from the post from which no
enemy had been able to dislodge them, and the Guard
turned and fled.
No more firing was heard at Brussels--the pursuit
rolled miles away. Darkness came down on the field and
city: and Amelia was praying for George, who was lying
on his face, dead, with a bullet through his heart.
CHAPTER XXXIII
In Which Miss Crawley's Relations Are Very Anxious About Her
The kind reader must please to remember--while the
army is marching from Flanders, and, after its heroic
actions there, is advancing to take the fortifications on the
frontiers of France, previous to an occupation of that
country--that there are a number of persons living
peaceably in England who have to do with the history at
present in hand, and must come in for their share of the
chronicle. During the time of these battles and dangers,
old Miss Crawley was living at Brighton, very moderately
moved by the great events that were going on. The great
events rendered the newspapers rather interesting, to be
sure, and Briggs read out the Gazette, in which Rawdon
Crawley's gallantry was mentioned with honour, and his
promotion was presently recorded.
"What a pity that young man has taken such an
irretrievable step in the world!" his aunt said; "with his rank
and distinction he might have married a brewer's
daughter with a quarter of a million--like Miss Grains; or have
looked to ally himself with the best families in England.
He would have had my money some day or other; or his
children would--for I'm not in a hurry to go, Miss Briggs,
although you may be in a hurry to be rid of me; and
instead of that, he is a doomed pauper, with a dancing-girl
for a wife."
"Will my dear Miss Crawley not cast an eye of
compassion upon the heroic soldier, whose name is inscribed
in the annals of his country's glory?" said Miss Briggs,
who was greatly excited by the Waterloo proceedings,
and loved speaking romantically when there was an
occasion. "Has not the Captain--or the Colonel as I may
now style him--done deeds which make the name of
Crawley illustrious?"
"Briggs, you are a fool," said Miss Crawley: "Colonel
Crawley has dragged the name of Crawley through the
mud, Miss Briggs. Marry a drawing-master's daughter,
indeed!--marry a dame de compagnie--for she was no
better, Briggs; no, she was just what you are--only younger,
and a great deal prettier and cleverer. Were you an
accomplice of that abandoned wretch, I wonder, of whose
vile arts he became a victim, and of whom you used to
be such an admirer? Yes, I daresay you were an accomplice.
But you will find yourself disappointed in my will,
I can tell you: and you will have the goodness to write to
Mr. Waxy, and say that I desire to see him immediately."
Miss Crawley was now in the habit of writing to Mr.
Waxy her solicitor almost every day in the week, for her
arrangements respecting her property were all revoked,
and her perplexity was great as to the future disposition
of her money.
The spinster had, however, rallied considerably; as
was proved by the increased vigour and frequency of her
sarcasms upon Miss Briggs, all which attacks the poor
companion bore with meekness, with cowardice, with a
resignation that was half generous and half hypocritical
--with the slavish submission, in a word, that women of
her disposition and station are compelled to show. Who
has not seen how women bully women? What tortures
have men to endure, comparable to those daily repeated
shafts of scorn and cruelty with which poor women are
riddled by the tyrants of their sex? Poor victims! But we
are starting from our proposition, which is, that Miss
Crawley was always particularly annoying and savage
when she was rallying from illness--as they say wounds
tingle most when they are about to heal.
While thus approaching, as all hoped, to convalescence,
Miss Briggs was the only victim admitted into the
presence of the invalid; yet Miss Crawley's relatives afar
off did not forget their beloved kinswoman, and by a
number of tokens, presents, and kind affectionate
messages, strove to keep themselves alive in her
recollection.
In the first place, let us mention her nephew, Rawdon
Crawley. A few weeks after the famous fight of Waterloo,
and after the Gazette had made known to her the promotion
and gallantry of that distinguished officer, the Dieppe
packet brought over to Miss Crawley at Brighton, a box
containing presents, and a dutiful letter, from the
Colonel her nephew. In the box were a pair of French
epaulets, a Cross of the Legion of Honour, and the hilt of a
sword--relics from the field of battle: and the letter
described with a good deal of humour how the latter
belonged to a commanding officer of the Guard, who having
sworn that "the Guard died, but never surrendered,"
was taken prisoner the next minute by a private soldier,
who broke the Frenchman's sword with the butt of his
musket, when Rawdon made himself master of the
shattered weapon. As for the cross and epaulets, they came
from a Colonel of French cavalry, who had fallen under
the aide-de-camp's arm in the battle: and Rawdon Crawley
did not know what better to do with the spoils than
to send them to his kindest and most affectionate old
friend. Should he continue to write to her from Paris,
whither the army was marching? He might be able to
give her interesting news from that capital, and of some
of Miss Crawley's old friends of the emigration, to whom
she had shown so much kindness during their distress.
The spinster caused Briggs to write back to the Colonel
a gracious and complimentary letter, encouraging
him to continue his correspondence. His first letter was
so excessively lively and amusing that she should look
with pleasure for its successors.--"Of course, I know,"
she explained to,Miss Briggs, "that Rawdon could not
write such a good letter any more than you could, my
poor Briggs, and that it is that clever little wretch of a
Rebecca, who dictates every word to him; but that is no
reason why my nephew should not amuse me; and so I
wish to let him understand that I am in high good
humour."
I wonder whether she knew that it was not only Becky
who wrote the letters, but that Mrs. Rawdon actually
took and sent home the trophies which she bought for a
few francs, from one of the innumerable pedlars who
immediately began to deal in relics of the war. The
novelist, who knows everything, knows this also. Be this,
however, as it may, Miss Crawley's gracious reply greatly
encouraged our young friends, Rawdon and his lady, who
hoped for the best from their aunt's evidently pacified
humour: and they took care to entertain her with many
delightful letters from Paris, whither, as Rawdon said,
they had the good luck to go in the track of the
conquering army.
To the rector's lady, who went off to tend her
husband's broken collar-bone at the Rectory at Queen's
Crawley, the spinster's communications were by no
means so gracious. Mrs. Bute, that brisk, managing,
lively, imperious woman, had committed the most fatal of
all errors with regard to her sister-in-law. She had not
merely oppressed her and her household--she had bored
Miss Crawley; and if poor Miss Briggs had been a
woman of any spirit, she might have been made happy
by the commission which her principal gave her to write
a letter to Mrs. Bute Crawley, saying that Miss Crawley's
health was greatly improved since Mrs. Bute had left her,
and begging the latter on no account to put herself to
trouble, or quit her family for Miss Crawley's sake. This
triumph over a lady who had been very haughty and
cruel in her behaviour to Miss Briggs, would have rejoiced
most women; but the truth is, Briggs was a woman of no
spirit at all, and the moment her enemy was discomfited,
she began to feel compassion in her favour.
"How silly I was," Mrs. Bute thought, and with
reason, "ever to hint that I was coming, as I did, in that
foolish letter when we sent Miss Crawley the guineafowls.
I ought to have gone without a word to the poor
dear doting old creature, and taken her out of the hands
of that ninny Briggs, and that harpy of a femme de
chambre. Oh! Bute, Bute, why did you break your collarbone?"
Why, indeed? We have seen how Mrs. Bute, having the
game in her hands, had really played her cards too well.
She had ruled over Miss Crawley's household utterly and
completely, to be utterly and completely routed when a
favourable opportunity for rebellion came. She and her
household, however, considered that she had been the
victim of horrible selfishness and treason, and that her
sacrifices in Miss Crawley's behalf had met with the most
savage ingratitude. Rawdon's promotion, and the
honourable mention made of his name in the Gazette, filled
this good Christian lady also with alarm. Would his aunt
relent towards him now that he was a Lieutenant-Colonel
and a C.B.? and would that odious Rebecca once more
get into favour? The Rector's wife wrote a sermon for her
husband about the vanity of military glory and the
prosperity of the wicked, which the worthy parson read in
his best voice and without understanding one syllable of
it. He had Pitt Crawley for one of his auditors--Pitt, who
had come with his two half-sisters to church, which.the
old Baronet could now by no means be brought to
frequent.
Since the departure of Becky Sharp, that old wretch
had given himself up entirely to his bad courses, to the
great scandal of the county and the mute horror of his
son. The ribbons in Miss Horrocks's cap became more
splendid than ever. The polite families fled the hall and
its owner in terror. Sir Pitt went about tippling at his
tenants' houses; and drank rum-and-water with the
farmers at Mudbury and the neighbouring places on
market-days. He drove the family coach-and-four to
Southampton with Miss Horrocks inside: and the county people
expected, every week, as his son did in speechless agony,
that his marriage with her would be announced in the
provincial paper. It was indeed a rude burthen for Mr.
Crawley to bear. His eloquence was palsied at the
missionary meetings, and other religious assemblies in the
neighbourhood, where he had been in the habit of
presiding, and of speaking for hours; for he felt, when he rose,
that the audience said, "That is the son of the old
reprobate Sir Pitt, who is very likely drinking at the public
house at this very moment." And once when he was
speaking of the benighted condition of the king of
Timbuctoo, and the number of his wives who were likewise in
darkness, some gipsy miscreant from the crowd asked,
"How many is there at Queen's Crawley, Young
Squaretoes?" to the surprise of the platform, and the ruin
of Mr. Pitt's speech. And the two daughters of the house of
Queen's Crawley would have been allowed to run utterly
wild (for Sir Pitt swore that no governess should ever
enter into his doors again), had not Mr. Crawley, by
threatening the old gentleman, forced the latter to send
them to school.
Meanwhile, as we have said, whatever individual
differences there might be between them all, Miss Crawley's
dear nephews and nieces were unanimous in loving her
and sending her tokens of affection. Thus Mrs. Bute sent
guinea-fowls, and some remarkably fine cauliflowers, and
a pretty purse or pincushion worked by her darling girls,
who begged to keep a LITTLE place in the recollection of
their dear aunt, while Mr. Pitt sent peaches and grapes
and venison from the Hall. The Southampton coach used
to carry these tokens of affection to Miss Crawley at
Brighton: it used sometimes to convey Mr. Pitt thither
too: for his differences with Sir Pitt caused Mr. Crawley
to absent himself a good deal from home now: and
besides, he had an attraction at Brighton in the person of
the Lady Jane Sheepshanks, whose engagement to Mr.
Crawley has been formerly mentioned in this history.
Her Ladyship and her sisters lived at Brighton with their
mamma, the Countess Southdown, that strong-minded
woman so favourably known in the serious world.
A few words ought to be said regarding her Ladyship
and her noble family, who are bound by ties of present
and future relationship to the house of Crawley.
Respecting the chief of the Southdown family, Clement
William, fourth Earl of Southdown, little need be told,
except that his Lordship came into Parliament (as Lord
Wolsey) under the auspices of Mr. Wilberforce, and for
a time was a credit to his political sponsor, and decidedly
a serious young man. But words cannot describe the
feelings of his admirable mother, when she learned, very
shortly after her noble husband's demise, that her son
was a member of several worldly clubs, had lost largely
at play at Wattier's and the Cocoa Tree; that he had
raised money on post-obits, and encumbered the family
estate; that he drove four-in-hand, and patronised the
ring; and that he actually had an opera-box, where he
entertained the most dangerous bachelor company. His
name was only mentioned with groans in the dowager's
circle.
The Lady Emily was her brother's senior by many
years; and took considerable rank in the serious world as
author of some of the delightful tracts before mentioned,
and of many hymns and spiritual pieces. A mature
spinster, and having but faint ideas of marriage, her love for
the blacks occupied almost all her feelings. It is to her, I
believe, we owe that beautiful poem
Lead us to some sunny isle,
Yonder in the western deep;
Where the skies for ever smile,
And the blacks for ever weep, &c.
She had correspondences with clerical gentlemen in
most of our East and West India possessions; and was
secretly attached to the Reverend Silas Hornblower, who
was tattooed in the South Sea Islands.
As for the Lady Jane, on whom, as it has been said, Mr.
Pitt Crawley's affection had been placed, she was gentle,
blushing, silent, and timid. In spite of his falling away,
she wept for her brother, and was quite ashamed of
loving him still. Even yet she used to send him little hurried
smuggled notes, and pop them into the post in private.
The one dreadful secret which weighed upon her life was,
that she and the old housekeeper had been to pay
Southdown a furtive visit at his chambers in the Albany; and
found him--O the naughty dear abandoned wretch!--
smoking a cigar with a bottle of Curacao before him. She
admired her sister, she adored her mother, she thought
Mr. Crawley the most delightful and accomplished of
men, after Southdown, that fallen angel: and her mamma
and sister, who were ladies of the most superior sort,
managed everything for her, and regarded her with that
amiable pity, of which your really superior woman always
has such a share to give away. Her mamma ordered her
dresses, her books, her bonnets, and her ideas for her.
She was made to take pony-riding, or piano-exercise, or
any other sort of bodily medicament, according as my
Lady Southdown saw meet; and her ladyship would have
kept her daughter in pinafores up to her present age of
six-and-twenty, but that they were thrown off when Lady
Jane was presented to Queen Charlotte.
When these ladies first came to their house at Brighton,
it was to them alone that Mr. Crawley paid his personal
visits, contenting himself by leaving a card at his aunt's
house, and making a modest inquiry of Mr. Bowls or his
assistant footman, with respect to the health of the
invalid. When he met Miss Briggs coming home from the
library with a cargo of novels under her arm, Mr. Crawley
blushed in a manner quite unusual to him, as he
stepped forward and shook Miss Crawley's companion by
the hand. He introduced Miss Briggs to the lady with
whom he happened to be walking, the Lady Jane
Sheepshanks, saying, "Lady Jane, permit me to introduce to
you my aunt's kindest friend and most affectionate
companion, Miss Briggs, whom you know under another title,
as authoress of the delightful 'Lyrics of the Heart,' of
which you are so fond." Lady Jane blushed too as she
held out a kind little hand to Miss Briggs, and said
something very civil and incoherent about mamma, and
proposing to call on Miss Crawley, and being glad to be
made known to the friends and relatives of Mr. Crawley;
and with soft dove-like eyes saluted Miss Briggs as
they separated, while Pitt Crawley treated her to a
profound courtly bow, such as he had used to H.H. the
Duchess of Pumpernickel, when he was attache at that court.
The artful diplomatist and disciple of the Machiavellian
Binkie! It was he who had given Lady Jane that copy of
poor Briggs's early poems, which he remembered to have
seen at Queen's Crawley, with a dedication from the
poetess to his father's late wife; and he brought the
volume with him to Brighton, reading it in the Southampton
coach and marking it with his own pencil, before he
presented it to the gentle Lady Jane.
It was he, too, who laid before Lady Southdown the
great advantages which might occur from an intimacy
between her family and Miss Crawley--advantages both
worldly and spiritual, he said: for Miss Crawley was now
quite alone; the monstrous dissipation and alliance of his
brother Rawdon had estranged her affections from that
reprobate young man; the greedy tyranny and avarice of
Mrs. Bute Crawley had caused the old lady to revolt
against the exorbitant pretensions of that part of the
family; and though he himself had held off all his life from
cultivating Miss Crawley's friendship, with perhaps an
improper pride, he thought now that every becoming
means should be taken, both to save her soul from
perdition, and to secure her fortune to himself as the head of
the house of Crawley.
The strong-minded Lady Southdown quite agreed in
both proposals of her son-in-law, and was for converting
Miss Crawley off-hand. At her own home, both at
Southdown and at Trottermore Castle, this tall and awful
missionary of the truth rode about the country in her
barouche with outriders, launched packets of tracts among
the cottagers and tenants, and would order Gaffer Jones
to be converted, as she would order Goody Hicks to take
a James's powder, without appeal, resistance, or benefit of
clergy. My Lord Southdown, her late husband, an epileptic
and simple-minded nobleman, was in the habit of
approving of everything which his Matilda did and
thought. So that whatever changes her own belief might
undergo (and it accommodated itself to a prodigious
variety of opinion, taken from all sorts of doctors among
the Dissenters) she had not the least scruple in ordering
all her tenants and inferiors to follow and believe after
her. Thus whether she received the Reverend Saunders
McNitre, the Scotch divine; or the Reverend Luke Waters,
the mild Wesleyan; or the Reverend Giles Jowls, the
illuminated Cobbler, who dubbed himself Reverend as
Napoleon crowned himself Emperor--the household,
children, tenantry of my Lady Southdown were expected to
go down on their knees with her Ladyship, and say Amen
to the prayers of either Doctor. During these exercises old
Southdown, on account of his invalid condition, was
allowed to sit in his own room, and have negus and the
paper read to him. Lady Jane was the old Earl's favourite
daughter, and tended him and loved him sincerely: as for
Lady Emily, the authoress of the "Washerwoman of
Finchley Common," her denunciations of future punishment
(at this period, for her opinions modified afterwards)
were so awful that they used to frighten the timid
old gentleman her father, and the physicians declared his
fits always occurred after one of her Ladyship's sermons.
"I will certainly call," said Lady Southdown then, in
reply to the exhortation of her daughter's pretendu, Mr.
Pitt Crawley--"Who is Miss Crawley's medical man?"
Mr. Crawley mentioned the name of Mr. Creamer.
"A most dangerous and ignorant practitioner, my dear
Pitt. I have providentially been the means of removing
him from several houses: though in one or two
instances I did not arrive in time. I could not save poor
dear General Glanders, who was dying under the hands of
that ignorant man--dying. He rallied a little under the
Podgers' pills which I administered to him; but alas! it
was too late. His death was delightful, however; and his
change was only for the better; Creamer, my dear Pitt,
must leave your aunt."
Pitt expressed his perfect acquiescence. He, too, had
been carried along by the energy of his noble kinswoman,
and future mother-in-law. He had been made to accept
Saunders McNitre, Luke Waters, Giles Jowls, Podgers'
Pills, Rodgers' Pills, Pokey's Elixir, every one of her
Ladyship's remedies spiritual or temporal. He never left
her house without carrying respectfully away with him
piles of her quack theology and medicine. O, my dear
brethren and fellow-sojourners in Vanity Fair, which
among you does not know and suffer under such
benevolent despots? It is in vain you say to them, "Dear
Madam, I took Podgers' specific at your orders last year,
and believe in it. Why, why am I to recant and accept the
Rodgers' articles now?" There is no help for it; the faithful proselytizer, if she cannot
convince by argument,
bursts into tears, and the refusant finds himself, at the
end of the contest, taking down the bolus, and saying,
"Well, well, Rodgers' be it."
"And as for her spiritual state," continued the Lady,
"that of course must be looked to immediately: with
Creamer about her, she may go off any day: and in what
a condition, my dear Pitt, in what a dreadful condition!
I will send the Reverend Mr. Irons to her instantly. Jane,
write a line to the Reverend Bartholomew Irons, in the
third person, and say that I desire the pleasure of his
company this evening at tea at half-past six. He is an
awakening man; he ought to see Miss Crawley before she
rests this night. And Emily, my love, get ready a packet
of books for Miss Crawley. Put up 'A Voice from the
Flames,' 'A Trumpet-warning to Jericho,' and the
'Fleshpots Broken; or, the Converted Cannibal.' "
"And the 'Washerwoman of Finchley Common,'
Mamma," said Lady Emily. "It is as well to begin
soothingly at first."
"Stop, my dear ladies," said Pitt, the diplomatist.
"With every deference to the opinion of my beloved and
respected Lady Southdown, I think it would be quite
unadvisable to commence so early upon serious topics with
Miss Crawley. Remember her delicate condition, and how
little, how very little accustomed she has hitherto been
to considerations connected with her immortal welfare."
"Can we then begin too early, Pitt?" said Lady Emily,
rising with six little books already in her hand.
"If you begin abruptly, you will frighten her altogether.
I know my aunt's worldly nature so well as to be sure
that any abrupt attempt at conversion will be the very
worst means that can be employed for the welfare of that
unfortunate lady. You will only frighten and annoy her.
She will very likely fling the books away, and refuse all
acquaintance with the givers."
"You are as worldly as Miss Crawley, Pitt," said Lady
Emily, tossing out of the room, her books in her hand.
"And I need not tell you, my dear Lady Southdown,"
Pitt continued, in a low voice, and without heeding the
interruption, "how fatal a little want of gentleness and
caution may be to any hopes which we may entertain with
regard to the worldly possessions of my aunt. Remember
she has seventy thousand pounds; think of her age, and
her highly nervous and delicate condition; I know that she
has destroyed the will which was made in my brother's
(Colonel Crawley's) favour: it is by soothing that
wounded spirit that we must lead it into the right path,
and not by frightening it; and so I think you will agree
with me that--that--'
"Of course, of course," Lady Southdown remarked.
"Jane, my love, you need not send that note to Mr. Irons.
If her health is such that discussions fatigue her, we will
wait her amendment. I will call upon Miss Crawley
tomorrow."
"And if I might suggest, my sweet lady," Pitt said in a
bland tone, "it would be as well not to take our precious
Emily, who is too enthusiastic; but rather that you should
be accompanied by our sweet and dear Lady Jane."
"Most certainly, Emily would ruin everything," Lady
Southdown said; and this time agreed to forego her usual
practice, which was, as we have said, before she bore
down personally upon any individual whom she proposed
to subjugate, to fire in a quantity of tracts upon the
menaced party (as a charge of the French was always
preceded by a furious cannonade). Lady Southdown, we
say, for the sake of the invalid's health, or for the sake
of her soul's ultimate welfare, or for the sake of her
money, agreed to temporise.
The next day, the great Southdown female family
carriage, with the Earl's coronet and the lozenge (upon
which the three lambs trottant argent upon the field vert
of the Southdowns, were quartered with sable on a bend
or, three snuff-mulls gules, the cognizance of the house of
Binkie), drove up in state to Miss Crawley's door, and
the tall serious footman handed in to Mr. Bowls her
Ladyship's cards for Miss Crawley, and one likewise for
Miss Briggs. By way of compromise, Lady Emily sent in a
packet in the evening for the latter lady, containing
copies of the "Washerwoman," and other mild and favourite
tracts for Miss B.'s own perusal; and a few for the
servants' hall, viz.: "Crumbs from the Pantry," "The
Frying Pan and the Fire," and "The Livery of Sin," of a
much stronger kind.
CHAPTER XXXIV
James Crawley's Pipe Is Put Out
The amiable behaviour of Mr. Crawley, and Lady Jane's
kind reception of her, highly flattered Miss Briggs, who
was enabled to speak a good word for the latter, after
the cards of the Southdown family had been presented to
Miss Crawley. A Countess's card left personally too for
her, Briggs, was not a little pleasing to the poor friendless
companion. "What could Lady Southdown mean by
leaving a card upon you, I wonder, Miss Briggs?" said
the republican Miss Crawley; upon which the companion
meekly said "that she hoped there could be no harm in a
lady of rank taking notice of a poor gentlewoman," and
she put away this card in her work-box amongst her most
cherished personal treasures. Furthermore, Miss Briggs
explained how she had met Mr. Crawley walking with his
cousin and long affianced bride the day before: and she
told how kind and gentle-looking the lady was, and what
a plain, not to say common, dress she had, all the articles
of which, from the bonnet down to the boots, she
described and estimated with female accuracy.
Miss Crawley allowed Briggs to prattle on without
interrupting her too much. As she got well, she was pining
for society. Mr. Creamer, her medical man, would not
hear of her returning to her old haunts and dissipation in
London. The old spinster was too glad to find any
companionship at Brighton, and not only were the cards
acknowledged the very next day, but Pitt Crawley was
graciously invited to come and see his aunt. He came,
bringing with him Lady Southdown and her daughter. The
dowager did not say a word about the state of Miss
Crawley's soul; but talked with much discretion about the
weather: about the war and the downfall of the monster
Bonaparte: and above all, about doctors, quacks, and the
particular merits of Dr. Podgers, whom she then
patronised.
During their interview Pitt Crawley made a great
stroke, and one which showed that, had his diplomatic
career not been blighted by early neglect, he might have
risen to a high rank in his profession. When the Countess
Dowager of Southdown fell foul of the Corsican upstart,
as the fashion was in those days, and showed that he was
a monster stained with every conceivable crime, a coward
and a tyrant not fit to live, one whose fall was predicted,
&c., Pitt Crawley suddenly took up the cudgels in favour
of the man of Destiny. He described the First Consul as
he saw him at Paris at the peace of Amiens; when he, Pitt
Crawley, had the gratification of making the acquaintance
of the great and good Mr. Fox, a statesman whom,
however much he might differ with him, it was impossible not
to admire fervently--a statesman who had always had
the highest opinion of the Emperor Napoleon. And he
spoke in terms of the strongest indignation of the faithless
conduct of the allies towards this dethroned monarch,
who, after giving himself generously up to their mercy,
was consigned to an ignoble and cruel banishment, while
a bigoted Popish rabble was tyrannising over France in
his stead.
This orthodox horror of Romish superstition saved
Pitt Crawley in Lady Southdown's opinion, whilst his
admiration for Fox and Napoleon raised him immeasurably
in Miss Crawley's eyes. Her friendship with that
defunct British statesman was mentioned when we first
introduced her in this history. A true Whig, Miss Crawley
had been in opposition all through the war, and though, to
be sure, the downfall of the Emperor did not very much
agitate the old lady, or his ill-treatment tend to shorten
her life or natural rest, yet Pitt spoke to her heart when
he lauded both her idols; and by that single speech made
immense progress in her favour.
"And what do you think, my dear?" Miss Crawley said
to the young lady, for whom she had taken a liking at
first sight, as she always did for pretty and modest young
people; though it must be owned her affections cooled as
rapidly as they rose.
Lady Jane blushed very much, and said "that she did
not understand politics, which she left to wiser heads
than hers; but though Mamma was, no doubt, correct,
Mr. Crawley had spoken beautifully." And when the ladies
were retiring at the conclusion of their visit, Miss Crawley
hoped "Lady Southdown would be so kind as to send
her Lady Jane sometimes, if she could be spared to come
down and console a poor sick lonely old woman." This
promise was graciously accorded, and they separated
upon great terms of amity.
"Don't let Lady Southdown come again, Pitt," said the
old lady. "She is stupid and pompous, like all your mother's
family, whom I never could endure. But bring that nice
good-natured little Jane as often as ever you please." Pitt
promised that he would do so. He did not tell the Countess
of Southdown what opinion his aunt had formed of
her Ladyship, who, on the contrary, thought that she had
made a most delightful and majestic impression on Miss
Crawley.
And so, nothing loth to comfort a sick lady, and
perhaps not sorry in her heart to be freed now and again
from the dreary spouting of the Reverend Bartholomew
Irons, and the serious toadies who gathered round the
footstool of the pompous Countess, her mamma, Lady
Jane became a pretty constant visitor to Miss Crawley,
accompanied her in her drives, and solaced many of her
evenings. She was so naturally good and soft, that even
Firkin was not jealous of her; and the gentle Briggs
thought her friend was less cruel to her when kind Lady
Jane was by. Towards her Ladyship Miss Crawley's
manners were charming. The old spinster told her a thousand
anecdotes about her youth, talking to her in a very
different strain from that in which she had been accustomed
to converse with the godless little Rebecca; for there was
that in Lady Jane's innocence which rendered light talking impertinence before her, and Miss
Crawley was too
much of a gentlewoman to offend such purity. The young
lady herself had never received kindness except from this
old spinster, and her brother and father: and she repaid
Miss Crawley's engoument by artless sweetness and
friendship.
In the autumn evenings (when Rebecca was flaunting
at Paris, the gayest among the gay conquerors there, and
our Amelia, our dear wounded Amelia, ah! where was
she?) Lady Jane would be sitting in Miss Crawley's
drawing-room singing sweetly to her, in the twilight, her
little simple songs and hymns, while the sun was setting
and the sea was roaring on the beach. The old spinster
used to wake up when these ditties ceased, and ask for
more. As for Briggs, and the quantity of tears of happiness
which she now shed as she pretended to knit, and
looked out at the splendid ocean darkling before the
windows, and the lamps of heaven beginning more brightly to
shine--who, I say can measure the happiness and
sensibility of Briggs?
Pitt meanwhile in the dining-room, with a pamphlet on
the Corn Laws or a Missionary Register by his side, took
that kind of recreation which suits romantic and unromantic
men after dinner. He sipped Madeira: built castles
in the air: thought himself a fine fellow: felt himself much
more in love with Jane than he had been any time these
seven years, during which their liaison had lasted without
the slightest impatience on Pitt's part--and slept a good
deal. When the time for coffee came, Mr. Bowls used to
enter in a noisy manner, and summon Squire Pitt, who
would be found in the dark very busy with his pamphlet.
"I wish, my love, I could get somebody to play piquet
with me," Miss Crawley said one night when this functionary
made his appearance with the candles and the coffee.
"Poor Briggs can no more play than an owl, she is so
stupid" (the spinster always took an opportunity of abusing
Briggs before the servants); "and I think I should
sleep better if I had my game."
At this Lady Jane blushed to the tips of her little ears,
and down to the ends of her pretty fingers; and when Mr.
Bowls had quitted the room, and the door was quite shut,
she said:
"Miss Crawley, I can play a little. I used to--to play
a little with poor dear papa."
"Come and kiss me. Come and kiss me this instant,
you dear good little soul," cried Miss Crawley in an ecstasy:
and in this picturesque and friendly occupation Mr. Pitt
found the old lady and the young one, when he came
upstairs with him pamphlet in his hand. How she did blush
all the evening, that poor Lady Jane!
It must not be imagined that Mr. Pitt Crawley's artifices
escaped the attention of his dear relations at the
Rectory at Queen's Crawley. Hampshire and Sussex lie
very close together, and Mrs. Bute had friends in the
latter county who took care to inform her of all, and a great
deal more than all, that passed at Miss Crawley's house
at Brighton. Pitt was there more and more. He did not
come for months together to the Hall, where his abominable
old father abandoned himself completely to rumand-
water, and the odious society of the Horrocks family.
Pitt's success rendered the Rector's family furious, and
Mrs. Bute regretted more (though she confessed less)
than ever her monstrous fault in so insulting Miss Briggs,
and in being so haughty and parsimonious to Bowls and
Firkin, that she had not a single person left in Miss Crawley's household to give her
information of what took place
there. "It was all Bute's collar-bone," she persisted in
saying; "if that had not broke, I never would have left her. I
am a martyr to duty and to your odious unclerical habit
of hunting, Bute."
"Hunting; nonsense! It was you that frightened her,
Barbara," the divine interposed. "You're a clever woman,
but you've got a devil of a temper; and you're a screw
with your money, Barbara."
"You'd have been screwed in gaol, Bute, if I had not
kept your money."
"I know I would, my dear," said the Rector, good-naturedly.
"You ARE a clever woman, but you manage too
well, you know": and the pious man consoled himself
with a big glass of port.
"What the deuce can she find in that spooney of a Pitt
Crawley?" he continued. "The fellow has not pluck enough
to say Bo to a goose. I remember when Rawdon, who is a
man, and be hanged to him, used to flog him round the
stables as if he was a whipping-top: and Pitt would go
howling home to his ma--ha, ha! Why, either of my boys
would whop him with one hand. Jim says he's
remembered at Oxford as Miss Crawley still--the spooney.
"I say, Barbara," his reverence continued, after a pause.
"What?" said Barbara, who was biting her nails, and
drumming the table.
"I say, why not send Jim over to Brighton to see if he
can do anything with the old lady. He's very near getting
his degree, you know. He's only been plucked twice--so
was I--but he's had the advantages of Oxford and a
university education. He knows some of the best chaps there.
He pulls stroke in the Boniface boat. He's a handsome
feller. D-- it, ma'am, let's put him on the old woman,
hey, and tell him to thrash Pitt if he says anything.
Ha, ha, ha!
"Jim might go down and see her, certainly," the housewife
said; adding with a sigh, "If we could but get one of
the girls into the house; but she could never endure them,
because they are not pretty!" Those unfortunate and
well-educated women made themselves heard from the
neighbouring drawing-room, where they were thrumming
away, with hard fingers, an elaborate music-piece on the
piano-forte, as their mother spoke; and indeed, they were at
music, or at backboard, or at geography, or at history,
the whole day long. But what avail all these accomplishments,
in Vanity Fair, to girls who are short, poor, plain,
and have a bad complexion? Mrs. Bute could think of
nobody but the Curate to take one of them off her hands;
and Jim coming in from the stable at this minute, through
the parlour window, with a short pipe stuck in his
oilskin cap, he and his father fell to talking about odds on
the St. Leger, and the colloquy between the Rector and his
wife ended.
Mrs. Bute did not augur much good to the cause from
the sending of her son James as an ambassador, and saw
him depart in rather a despairing mood. Nor did the
young fellow himself, when told what his mission was to
be, expect much pleasure or benefit from it; but he was
consoled by the thought that possibly the old lady would
give him some handsome remembrance of her, which
would pay a few of his most pressing bills at the
commencement of the ensuing Oxford term, and so took his
place by the coach from Southampton, and was safely
landed at Brighton on the same evening? with his
portmanteau, his favourite bull-dog Towzer, and an
immense basket of farm and garden produce, from the dear
Rectory folks to the dear Miss Crawley. Considering it
was too late to disturb the invalid lady on the first night
of his arrival, he put up at an inn, and did not wait upon
Miss Crawley until a late hour in the noon of next day.
James Crawley, when his aunt had last beheld him, was
a gawky lad, at that uncomfortable age when the voice
varies between an unearthly treble and a preternatural
bass; when the face not uncommonly blooms out with
appearances for which Rowland's Kalydor is said to act as
a cure; when boys are seen to shave furtively with their
sister's scissors, and the sight of other young women
produces intolerable sensations of terror in them; when the
great hands and ankles protrude a long way from
garments which have grown too tight for them; when their
presence after dinner is at once frightful to the ladies, who
are whispering in the twilight in the drawing-room, and
inexpressibly odious to the gentlemen over the mahogany,
who are restrained from freedom of intercourse and
delightful interchange of wit by the presence of that gawky
innocence; when, at the conclusion of the second glass,
papa says, "Jack, my boy, go out and see if the evening
holds up," and the youth, willing to be free, yet hurt at
not being yet a man, quits the incomplete banquet. James,
then a hobbadehoy, was now become a young man,
having had the benefits of a university education, and
acquired the inestimable polish which is gained by living in a
fast set at a small college, and contracting debts, and
being rusticated, and being plucked.
He was a handsome lad, however, when he came to
present himself to his aunt at Brighton, and good looks
were always a title to the fickle old lady's favour. Nor did
his blushes and awkwardness take away from it: she
was pleased with these healthy tokens of the young
gentleman's ingenuousness.
He said "he had come down for a couple of days to see
a man of his college, and--and to pay my respects to you,
Ma'am, and my father's and mother's, who hope you are
well."
Pitt was in the room with Miss Crawley when the lad
was announced, and looked very blank when his name
was mentioned. The old lady had plenty of humour, and
enjoyed her correct nephew's perplexity. She asked after
all the people at the Rectory with great interest; and said
she was thinking of paying them a visit. She praised the
lad to his face, and said he was well-grown and very much
improved, and that it was a pity his sisters had not some
of his good looks; and finding, on inquiry, that he had
taken up his quarters at an hotel, would not hear of his
stopping there, but bade Mr. Bowls send for Mr. James
Crawley's things instantly; "and hark ye, Bowls," she
added, with great graciousness, "you will have the
goodness to pay Mr. James's bill."
She flung Pitt a look of arch triumph, which caused
that diplomatist almost to choke with envy. Much as he
had ingratiated himself with his aunt, she had never yet
invited him to stay under her roof, and here was a young
whipper-snapper, who at first sight was made welcome
there.
"I beg your pardon, sir," says Bowls, advancing with a
profound bow; "what otel, sir, shall Thomas fetch the
luggage from?"
"O, dam," said young James, starting up, as if in some
alarm, "I'll go."
"What!" said Miss Crawley.
"The Tom Cribb's Arms," said James, blushing deeply.
Miss Crawley burst out laughing at this title. Mr.
Bowls gave one abrupt guffaw, as a confidential servant
of the family, but choked the rest of the volley; the
diplomatist only smiled.
"I--I didn't know any better," said James, looking down.
"I've never been here before; it was the coachman told
me." The young story-teller! The fact is, that on the
Southampton coach, the day previous, James Crawley had
met the Tutbury Pet, who was coming to Brighton to
make a match with the Rottingdean Fibber; and enchanted
by the Pet's conversation, had passed the evening in
company with that scientific man and his friends, at the inn
in question.
"I--I'd best go and settle the score," James continued.
"Couldn't think of asking you, Ma'am," he added,
generously.
This delicacy made his aunt laugh the more.
"Go and settle the bill, Bowls," she said, with a wave of
her hand, "and bring it to me."
Poor lady, she did not know what she had done! "There
--there's a little dawg," said James, looking frightfully
guilty. "I'd best go for him. He bites footmen's calves."
All the party cried out with laughing at this description;
even Briggs and Lady Jane, who was sitting mute
during the interview between Miss Crawley and her
nephew: and Bowls, without a word, quitted the room.
Still, by way of punishing her elder nephew, Miss
Crawley persisted in being gracious to the young Oxonian.
There were no limits to her kindness or her compliments
when they once began. She told Pitt he might come to
dinner, and insisted that James should accompany her
in her drive, and paraded him solemnly up and down the
cliff, on the back seat of the barouche. During all this
excursion, she condescended to say civil things to him:
she quoted Italian and French poetry to the poor
bewildered lad, and persisted that he was a fine scholar,
and was perfectly sure he would gain a gold medal, and
be a Senior Wrangler.
"Haw, haw," laughed James, encouraged by these
compliments; "Senior Wrangler, indeed; that's at the other
shop."
"What is the other shop, my dear child?" said the lady.
"Senior Wranglers at Cambridge, not Oxford," said the
scholar, with a knowing air; and would probably have
been more confidential, but that suddenly there
appeared on the cliff in a tax-cart, drawn by a bang-up
pony, dressed in white flannel coats, with mother-of-pearl
buttons, his friends the Tutbury Pet and the Rottingdean
Fibber, with three other gentlemen of their acquaintance,
who all saluted poor James there in the carriage as he
sate. This incident damped the ingenuous youth's spirits,
and no word of yea or nay could he be induced to utter
during the rest of the drive.
On his return he found his room prepared, and his
portmanteau ready, and might have remarked that Mr.
Bowls's countenance, when the latter conducted him to
his apartments, wore a look of gravity, wonder, and
compassion. But the thought of Mr. Bowls did not enter
his head. He was deploring the dreadful predicament
in which he found himself, in a house full of old women,
jabbering French and Italian, and talking poetry to him.
"Reglarly up a tree, by jingo!" exclaimed the modest
boy, who could not face the gentlest of her sex--not
even Briggs--when she began to talk to him; whereas,
put him at Iffley Lock, and he could out-slang the
boldest bargeman.
At dinner, James appeared choking in a white
neckcloth, and had the honour of handing my Lady Jane
downstairs, while Briggs and Mr. Crawley followed
afterwards, conducting the old lady, with her apparatus of
bundles, and shawls, and cushions. Half of Briggs's time
at dinner was spent in superintending the invalid's
comfort, and in cutting up chicken for her fat spaniel. James
did not talk much, but he made a point of asking all
the ladies to drink wine, and accepted Mr. Crawley's
challenge, and consumed the greater part of a bottle of
champagne which Mr. Bowls was ordered to produce in
his honour. The ladies having withdrawn, and the two
cousins being left together, Pitt, the ex-diplomatist, be
came very communicative and friendly. He asked after
James's career at college--what his prospects in life
were--hoped heartily he would get on; and, in a word,
was frank and amiable. James's tongue unloosed with
the port, and he told his cousin his life, his prospects,
his debts, his troubles at the little-go, and his rows with
the proctors, filling rapidly from the bottles before him,
and flying from Port to Madeira with joyous activity.
"The chief pleasure which my aunt has," said Mr.
Crawley, filling his glass, "is that people should do as they
like in her house. This is Liberty Hall, James, and you
can't do Miss Crawley a greater kindness than to do
as you please, and ask for what you will. I know you
have all sneered at me in the country for being a Tory.
Miss Crawley is liberal enough to suit any fancy. She
is a Republican in principle, and despises everything like
rank or title."
"Why are you going to marry an Earl's daughter?"
said James.
"My dear friend, remember it is not poor Lady Jane's
fault that she is well born," Pitt replied, with a courtly
air. "She cannot help being a lady. Besides, I am a
Tory, you know."
"Oh, as for that," said Jim, "there's nothing like old
blood; no, dammy, nothing like it. I'm none of your
radicals. I know what it is to be a gentleman, dammy.
See the chaps in a boat-race; look at the fellers in a
fight; aye, look at a dawg killing rats--which is it wins?
the good-blooded ones. Get some more port, Bowls, old
boy, whilst I buzz this bottle-here. What was I asaying?"
"I think you were speaking of dogs killing rats," Pitt
remarked mildly, handing his cousin the decanter to
"buzz.~
"Killing rats was I? Well, Pitt, are you a sporting
man? Do you want to see a dawg as CAN kill a rat?
If you do, come down with me to Tom Corduroy's, in
Castle Street Mews, and I'll show you such a bull-terrier
as--Pooh! gammon," cried James, bursting out laughing
at his own absurdity--"YOU don't care about a dawg
or rat; it's all nonsense. I'm blest if I think you know
the difference between a dog and a duck."
"No; by the way," Pitt continued with increased blandness,
"it was about blood you were talking, and the
personal advantages which people derive from patrician
birth. Here's the fresh bottle."
"Blood's the word," said James, gulping the ruby fluid
down. "Nothing like blood, sir, in hosses, dawgs, AND
men. Why, only last term, just before I was rusticated,
that is, I mean just before I had the measles, ha, ha--there
was me and Ringwood of Christchurch, Bob Ringwood,
Lord Cinqbars' son, having our beer at the Bell at
Blenheim, when the Banbury bargeman offered to fight either
of us for a bowl of punch. I couldn't. My arm was in a
sling; couldn't even take the drag down--a brute of a
mare of mine had fell with me only two days before,
out with the Abingdon, and I thought my arm was broke.
Well, sir, I couldn't finish him, but Bob had his coat
off at once--he stood up to the Banbury man for three
minutes, and polished him off in four rounds easy. Gad,
how he did drop, sir, and what was it? Blood, sir, all
blood."
"You don't drink, James," the ex-attache continued.
"In my time at Oxford, the men passed round the bottle
a little quicker than you young fellows seem to do."
"Come, come," said James, putting his hand to his
nose and winking at his cousin with a pair of vinous
eyes, "no jokes, old boy; no trying it on on me. You
want to trot me out, but it's no go. In vino veritas, old
boy. Mars, Bacchus, Apollo virorum, hey? I wish my
aunt would send down some of this to the governor; it's
a precious good tap."
"You had better ask her," Machiavel continued, "or
make the best of your time now. What says the bard?
'Nunc vino pellite curas, Cras ingens iterabimus aequor,' "
and the Bacchanalian, quoting the above with a House
of Commons air, tossed off nearly a thimbleful of wine
with an immense flourish of his glass.
At the Rectory, when the bottle of port wine was
opened after dinner, the young ladies had each a glass
from a bottle of currant wine. Mrs. Bute took one glass
of port, honest James had a couple commonly, but as
his father grew very sulky if he made further inroads
on the bottle, the good lad generally refrained from
trying for more, and subsided either into the currant wine,
or to some private gin-and-water in the stables, which
he enjoyed in the company of the coachman and his
pipe. At Oxford, the quantity of wine was unlimited,
but the quality was inferior: but when quantity and
quality united as at his aunt's house, James showed that
he could appreciate them indeed; and hardly needed any
of his cousin's encouragement in draining off the
second bottle supplied by Mr. Bowls.
When the time for coffee came, however, and for a
return to the ladies, of whom he stood in awe, the young
gentleman's agreeable frankness left him, and he relapsed
into his usual surly timidity; contenting himself by
saying yes and no, by scowling at Lady Jane, and by
upsetting one cup of coffee during the evening.
If he did not speak he yawned in a pitiable manner,
and his presence threw a damp upon the modest
proceedings of the evening, for Miss Crawley and Lady Jane
at their piquet, and Miss Briggs at her work, felt that
his eyes were wildly fixed on them, and were uneasy
under that maudlin look.
"He seems a very silent, awkward, bashful lad," said
Miss Crawley to Mr. Pitt.
"He is more communicative in men's society than with
ladies," Machiavel dryly replied: perhaps rather
disappointed that the port wine had not made Jim
speak more.
He had spent the early part of the next morning in
writing home to his mother a most flourishing account
of his reception by Miss Crawley. But ah! he little knew
what evils the day was bringing for him, and how short his
reign of favour was destined to be. A circumstance
which Jim had forgotten--a trivial but fatal circumstance
--had taken place at the Cribb's Arms on the night
before he had come to his aunt's house. It was no other
than this--Jim, who was always of a generous disposition,
and when in his cups especially hospitable, had in the
course of the night treated the Tutbury champion and
the Rottingdean man, and their friends, twice or thrice
to the refreshment of gin-and-water--so that no less than
eighteen glasses of that fluid at eightpence per glass were
charged in Mr. James Crawley's bill. It was not the
amount of eightpences, but the quantity of gin which
told fatally against poor James's character, when his
aunt's butler, Mr. Bowls, went down at his mistress's
request to pay the young gentleman's bill. The landlord,
fearing lest the account should be refused altogether,
swore solemnly that the young gent had consumed
personally every farthing's worth of the liquor: and Bowls
paid the bill finally, and showed it on his return home
to Mrs. Firkin, who was shocked at the frightful
prodigality of gin; and took the bill to Miss Briggs as
accountant-general; who thought it her duty to mention
the circumstance to her principal, Miss Crawley.
Had he drunk a dozen bottles of claret, the old
spinster could have pardoned him. Mr. Fox and Mr.
Sheridan drank claret. Gentlemen drank claret. But eighteen
glasses of gin consumed among boxers in an ignoble
pot-house--it was an odious crime and not to be
pardoned readily. Everything went against the lad: he came
home perfumed from the stables, whither he had been
to pay his dog Towzer a visit--and whence he was
going to take his friend out for an airing, when he met
Miss Crawley and her wheezy Blenheim spaniel, which
Towzer would have eaten up had not the Blenheim fled
squealing to the protection of Miss Briggs, while the
atrocious master of the bull-dog stood laughing at the
horrible persecution.
This day too the unlucky boy's modesty had likewise
forsaken him. He was lively and facetious at dinner.
During the repast he levelled one or two jokes against Pitt
Crawley: he drank as much wine as upon the previous
day; and going quite unsuspiciously to the drawing-room,
began to entertain the ladies there with some choice
Oxford stories. He described the different pugilistic qualities
of Molyneux and Dutch Sam, offered playfully to give
Lady Jane the odds upon the Tutbury Pet against the
Rottingdean man, or take them, as her Ladyship chose:
and crowned the pleasantry by proposing to back
himself against his cousin Pitt Crawley, either with or without
the gloves. "And that's a fair offer, my buck," he said,
with a loud laugh, slapping Pitt on the shoulder, "and
my father told me to make it too, and he'll go halves
in the bet, ha, ha!" So saying, the engaging youth nodded
knowingly at poor Miss Briggs, and pointed his thumb
over his shoulder at Pitt Crawley in a jocular and
exulting manner.
Pitt was not pleased altogether perhaps, but still not
unhappy in the main. Poor Jim had his laugh out: and
staggered across the room with his aunt's candle, when
the old lady moved to retire, and offered to salute her
with the blandest tipsy smile: and he took his own leave
and went upstairs to his bedroom perfectly satisfied with
himself, and with a pleased notion that his aunt's money
would be left to him in preference to his father and all
the rest of the family.
Once up in the bedroom, one would have thought he
could not make matters worse; and yet this unlucky boy
did. The moon was shining very pleasantly out on the
sea, and Jim, attracted to the window by the romantic
appearance of the ocean and the heavens, thought he
would further enjoy them while smoking. Nobody would
smell the tobacco, he thought, if he cunningly opened
the window and kept his head and pipe in the fresh air.
This he did: but being in an excited state, poor Jim
had forgotten that his door was open all this time, so
that the breeze blowing inwards and a fine thorough
draught being established, the clouds of tobacco were
carried downstairs, and arrived with quite undiminished
fragrance to Miss Crawley and Miss Briggs.
The pipe of tobacco finished the business: and the
Bute-Crawleys never knew how many thousand pounds
it cost them. Firkin rushed downstairs to Bowls who
was reading out the "Fire and the Frying Pan" to his
aide-de-camp in a loud and ghostly voice. The dreadful
secret was told to him by Firkin with so frightened a look,
that for the first moment Mr. Bowls and his young man
thought that robbers were in the house, the legs of whom
had probably been discovered by the woman under Miss
Crawley's bed. When made aware of the fact, however
--to rush upstairs at three steps at a time to enter
the unconscious James's apartment, calling out, "Mr.
James," in a voice stifled with alarm, and to cry, "For
Gawd's sake, sir, stop that 'ere pipe," was the work of
a minute with Mr. Bowls. "O, Mr. James, what 'AVE you
done!" he said in a voice of the deepest pathos, as he
threw the implement out of the window. "What 'ave you
done, sir! Missis can't abide 'em."
"Missis needn't smoke," said James with a frantic
misplaced laugh, and thought the whole matter an excellent
joke. But his feelings were very different in the morning,
when Mr. Bowls's young man, who operated upon Mr.
James's boots, and brought him his hot water to shave
that beard which he was so anxiously expecting, handed
a note in to Mr. James in bed, in the handwriting of
Miss Briggs.
"Dear sir," it said, "Miss Crawley has passed an
exceedingly disturbed night, owing to the shocking manner
in which the house has been polluted by tobacco; Miss
Crawley bids me say she regrets that she is too unwell
to see you before you go--and above all that she ever
induced you to remove from the ale-house, where she is
sure you will be much more comfortable during the rest
of your stay at Brighton."
And herewith honest James's career as a candidate for
his aunt's favour ended. He had in fact, and without
knowing it, done what he menaced to do. He had fought
his cousin Pitt with the gloves.
Where meanwhile was he who had been once first
favourite for this race for money? Becky and Rawdon,
as we have seen, were come together after Waterloo,
and were passing the winter of 1815 at Paris in great
splendour and gaiety. Rebecca was a good economist,
and the price poor Jos Sedley had paid for her two
horses was in itself sufficient to keep their little
establishment afloat for a year, at the least; there was no
occasion to turn into money "my pistols, the same which
I shot Captain Marker," or the gold dressing-case, or
the cloak lined with sable. Becky had it made into a
pelisse for herself, in which she rode in the Bois de
Boulogne to the admiration of all: and you should have
seen the scene between her and her delighted husband,
whom she rejoined after the army had entered Cambray,
and when she unsewed herself, and let out of her dress
all those watches, knick-knacks, bank-notes, cheques, and
valuables, which she had secreted in the wadding, previous
to her meditated flight from Brussels! Tufto was charmed,
and Rawdon roared with delighted laughter, and swore
that she was better than any play he ever saw, by Jove.
And the way in which she jockeyed Jos, and which
she described with infinite fun, carried up his delight to
a pitch of quite insane enthusiasm. He believed in his
wife as much as the French soldiers in Napoleon.
Her success in Paris was remarkable. All the French
ladies voted her charming. She spoke their language
admirably. She adopted at once their grace, their liveliness,
their manner. Her husband was stupid certainly--all
English are stupid--and, besides, a dull husband at Paris is
always a point in a lady's favour. He was the heir of the
rich and spirituelle Miss Crawley, whose house had been
open to so many of the French noblesse during the
emigration. They received the colonel's wife in their own
hotels--"Why," wrote a great lady to Miss Crawley, who
had bought her lace and trinkets at the Duchess's own
price, and given her many a dinner during the pinching
times after the Revolution--"Why does not our dear Miss
come to her nephew and niece, and her attached friends
in Paris? All the world raffoles of the charming Mistress
and her espiegle beauty. Yes, we see in her the grace,
the charm, the wit of our dear friend Miss Crawley!
The King took notice of her yesterday at the Tuileries,
and we are all jealous of the attention which Monsieur
pays her. If you could have seen the spite of a certain
stupid Miladi Bareacres (whose eagle-beak and toque
and feat,hers may be seen peering over the heads of all
assemblies) when Madame, the Duchess of Angouleme,
the august daughter and companion of kings, desired
especially to be presented to Mrs. Crawley, as your dear
daughter and protegee, and thanked her in the name
of France, for all your benevolence towards our
unfortunates during their exile! She is of all the societies,
of all the balls--of the balls--yes--of the dances, no;
and yet how interesting and pretty this fair creature looks
surrounded by the homage of the men, and so soon to
be a mother! To hear her speak of you, her protectress,
her mother, would bring tears to the eyes of ogres. How
she loves you! how we all love our admirable, our
respectable Miss Crawley!"
It is to be feared that this letter of the Parisian great
lady did not by any means advance Mrs. Becky's interest
with her admirable, her respectable, relative. On the
contrary, the fury of the old spinster was beyond bounds,
when she found what was Rebecca's situation, and how
audaciously she had made use of Miss Crawley's name,
to get an entree into Parisian society. Too much shaken
in mind and body to compose a letter in the French
language in reply to that of her correspondent, she
dictated to Briggs a furious answer in her own native tongue,
repudiating Mrs. Rawdon Crawley altogether, and warning
the public to beware of her as a most artful and
dangerous person. But as Madame the Duchess of X--
had only been twenty years in England, she did not
understand a single word of the language, and contented
herself by informing Mrs. Rawdon Crawley at their next
meeting, that she had received a charming letter from
that chere Mees, and that it was full of benevolent
things for Mrs. Crawley, who began seriously to have
hopes that the spinster would relent.
Meanwhile, she was the gayest and most admired of
Englishwomen: and had a little European congress on her
reception-night. Prussians and Cossacks, Spanish and
English--all the world was at Paris during this famous
winter: to have seen the stars and cordons in Rebecca's
humble saloon would have made all Baker Street pale
with envy. Famous warriors rode by her carriage in
the Bois, or crowded her modest little box at the Opera.
Rawdon was in the highest spirits. There were no duns
in Paris as yet: there were parties every day at Very's
or Beauvilliers'; play was plentiful and his luck good.
Tufto perhaps was sulky. Mrs. Tufto had come over to
Paris at her own invitation, and besides this
contretemps, there were a score of generals now round
Becky's chair, and she might take her choice of a dozen
bouquets when she went to the play. Lady Bareacres
and the chiefs of the English society, stupid and
irreproachable females, writhed with anguish at the
success of the little upstart Becky, whose poisoned jokes
quivered and rankled in their chaste breasts. But she
had all the men on her side. She fought the women
with indomitable courage, and they could not talk
scandal in any tongue but their own.
So in fetes, pleasures, and prosperity, the winter of
1815-16 passed away with Mrs. Rawdon Crawley,
who accommodated herself to polite life as if her
ancestors had been people of fashion for centuries past--
and who from her wit, talent, and energy, indeed merited
a place of honour in Vanity Fair. In the early spring of
1816, Galignani's Journal contained the following
announcement in an interesting corner of the paper: "On
the 26th of March--the Lady of Lieutenant-Colonel
Crawley, of the Life Guards Green--of a son and heir."
This event was copied into the London papers, out of
which Miss Briggs read the statement to Miss Crawley,
at breakfast, at Brighton. The intelligence, expected as
it might have been, caused a crisis in the affairs of
the Crawley family. The spinster's rage rose to its height,
and sending instantly for Pitt, her nephew, and for the
Lady Southdown, from Brunswick Square, she requested
an immediate celebration of the marriage which had been
so long pending between the two families. And she
announced that it was her intention to allow the young
couple a thousand a year during her lifetime, at the
expiration of which the bulk of her property would be
settled upon her nephew and her dear niece, Lady Jane
Crawley. Waxy came down to ratify the deeds--Lord
Southdown gave away his sister--she was married by a
Bishop, and not by the Rev. Bartholomew Irons--to the
disappointment of the irregular prelate.
When they were married, Pitt would have liked to
take a hymeneal tour with his bride, as became people
of their condition. But the affection of the old lady
towards Lady Jane had grown so strong, that she fairly
owned she could not part with her favourite. Pitt and
his wife came therefore and lived with Miss Crawley:
and (greatly to the annoyance of poor Pitt, who
conceived himself a most injured character--being subject
to the humours of his aunt on one side, and of his
mother-in-law on the other) Lady Southdown, from her
neighbouring house, reigned over the whole family--
Pitt, Lady Jane, Miss Crawley, Briggs, Bowls, Firkin, and
all. She pitilessly dosed them with her tracts and her
medicine, she dismissed Creamer, she installed Rodgers,
and soon stripped Miss Crawley of even the semblance
of authority. The poor soul grew so timid that she
actually left off bullying Briggs any more, and clung to
her niece, more fond and terrified every day. Peace to
thee, kind and selfish, vain and generous old heathen!--
We shall see thee no more. Let us hope that Lady Jane
supported her kindly, and led her with gentle hand out
of the busy struggle of Vanity Fair.
CHAPTER XXXV
Widow and Mother
The news of the great fights of Quatre Bras and Waterloo
reached England at the same time. The Gazette first
published the result of the two battles; at which glorious
intelligence all England thrilled with triumph and fear.
Particulars then followed; and after the announcement of
the victories came the list of the wounded and the slain.
Who can tell the dread with which that catalogue was
opened and read! Fancy, at every village and homestead
almost through the three kingdoms, the great news
coming of the battles in Flanders, and the feelings of
exultation and gratitude, bereavement and sickening dismay,
when the lists of the regimental losses were gone through,
and it became known whether the dear friend and relative
had escaped or fallen. Anybody who will take the trouble
of looking back to a file of the newspapers of the
time, must, even now, feel at second-hand this breathless
pause of expectation. The lists of casualties are carried
on from day to day: you stop in the midst as in a story
which is to be continued in our next. Think what the
feelings must have been as those papers followed each
other fresh from the press; and if such an interest could
be felt in our country, and about a battle where but
twenty thousand of our people were engaged, think of
the condition of Europe for twenty years before, where
people were fighting, not by thousands, but by millions;
each one of whom as he struck his enemy wounded
horribly some other innocent heart far away.
The news which that famous Gazette brought to the
Osbornes gave a dreadful shock to the family and its chief.
The girls indulged unrestrained in their grief. The
gloom-stricken old father was still more borne down by his fate
and sorrow. He strove to think that a judgment was on
the boy for his disobedience. He dared not own that the
severity of the sentence frightened him, and that its
fulfilment had come too soon upon his curses. Sometimes a
shuddering terror struck him, as if he had been the author
of the doom which he had called down on his son. There
was a chance before of reconciliation. The boy's wife
might have died; or he might have come back and said,
Father I have sinned. But there was no hope now. He
stood on the other side of the gulf impassable, haunting
his parent with sad eyes. He remembered them once
before so in a fever, when every one thought the lad was
dying, and he lay on his bed speechless, and gazing with a
dreadful gloom. Good God! how the father clung to the
doctor then, and with what a sickening anxiety he
followed him: what a weight of grief was off his mind when,
after the crisis of the fever, the lad recovered, and looked
at his father once more with eyes that recognised him.
But now there was no help or cure, or chance of
reconcilement: above all, there were no humble words to
soothe vanity outraged and furious, or bring to its natural
flow the poisoned, angry blood. And it is hard to say
which pang it was that tore the proud father's heart most
keenly--that his son should have gone out of the reach
of his forgiveness, or that the apology which his own
pride expected should have escaped him.
Whatever his sensations might have been, however, the
stem old man would have no confidant. He never
mentioned his son's name to his daughters; but ordered the
elder to place all the females of the establishment in
mourning; and desired that the male servants should be
similarly attired in deep black. All parties and entertainments,
of course, were to be put off. No communications
were made to his future son-in-law, whose marriage-day
had been fixed: but there was enough in Mr. Osborne's
appearance to prevent Mr. Bullock from making any
inquiries, or in any way pressing forward that ceremony.
He and the ladies whispered about it under their voices
in the drawing-room sometimes, whither the father never
came. He remained constantly in his own study; the
whole front part of the house being closed until some
time after the completion of the general mourning.
About three weeks after the 18th of June, Mr.
Osborne's acquaintance, Sir William Dobbin, called at Mr.
Osborne's house in Russell Square, with a very pale and
agitated face, and insisted upon seeing that gentleman.
Ushered into his room, and after a few words, which
neither the speaker nor the host understood, the former
produced from an inclosure a letter sealed with a large
red seal. "My son, Major Dobbin," the Alderman said,
with some hesitation, "despatched me a letter by an
officer of the --th, who arrived in town to-day. My son's
letter contains one for you, Osborne." The Alderman
placed the letter on the table, and Osborne stared at him
for a moment or two in silence. His looks frightened the
ambassador, who after looking guiltily for a little time at
the grief-stricken man, hurried away without another
word.
The letter was in George's well-known bold handwriting.
It was that one which he had written before daybreak
on the 16th of June, and just before he took leave
of Amelia. The great red seal was emblazoned with the
sham coat of arms which Osborne had assumed from
the Peerage, with "Pax in bello" for a motto; that of the
ducal house with which the vain old man tried to fancy
himself connected. The hand that signed it would never
hold pen or sword more. The very seal that sealed it
had been robbed from George's dead body as it lay on the
field of battle. The father knew nothing of this, but sat and
looked at the letter in terrified vacancy. He almost fell
when he went to open it.
Have you ever had a difference with a dear friend?
How his letters, written in the period of love and
confidence, sicken and rebuke you! What a dreary mourning
it is to dwell upon those vehement protests of dead
affection! What lying epitaphs they make over the corpse of
love! What dark, cruel comments upon Life and Vanities!
Most of us have got or written drawers full of them.
They are closet-skeletons which we keep and shun.
Osborne trembled long before the letter from his dead
son.
The poor boy's letter did not say much. He had been
too proud to acknowledge the tenderness which his heart
felt. He only said, that on the eve of a great battle, he
wished to bid his father farewell, and solemnly to implore
his good offices for the wife--it might be for the child--
whom he left behind him. He owned with contrition that
his irregularities and his extravagance had already wasted
a large part of his mother's little fortune. He thanked his
father for his former generous conduct; and he promised
him that if he fell on the field or survived it, he would
act in a manner worthy of the name of George Osborne.
His English habit, pride, awkwardness perhaps, had
prevented him from saying more. His father could not
see the kiss George had placed on the superscription of
his letter. Mr. Osborne dropped it with the bitterest,
deadliest pang of balked affection and revenge. His son
was still beloved and unforgiven.
About two months afterwards, however, as the young
ladies of the family went to church with their father, they
remarked how he took a different seat from that which
he usually occupied when he chose to attend divine
worship; and that from his cushion opposite, he looked up at
the wall over their heads. This caused the young women
likewise to gaze in the direction towards which their
father's gloomy eyes pointed: and they saw an elaborate
monument upon the wall, where Britannia was represented
weeping over an urn, and a broken sword and a
couchant lion indicated that the piece of sculpture had
been erected in honour of a deceased warrior. The
sculptors of those days had stocks of such funereal
emblems in hand; as you may see still on the walls of St.
Paul's, which are covered with hundreds of these
braggart heathen allegories. There was a constant demand
for them during the first fifteen years of the present
century.
Under the memorial in question were emblazoned the
well-known and pompous Osborne arms; and the
inscription said, that the monument was "Sacred to the
memory of George Osborne, Junior, Esq., late a Captain
in his Majesty's --th regiment of foot, who fell on the
18th of June, 1815, aged 28 years, while fighting for his
king and country in the glorious victory of Waterloo.
Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori."
The sight of that stone agitated the nerves of the
sisters so much, that Miss Maria was compelled to leave
the church. The congregation made way respectfully for
those sobbing girls clothed in deep black, and pitied the
stern old father seated opposite the memorial of the dead
soldier. "Will he forgive Mrs. George?" the girls said to
themselves as soon as their ebullition of grief was over.
Much conversation passed too among the acquaintances
of the Osborne family, who knew of the rupture between
the son and father caused by the former's marriage, as
to the chance of a reconciliation with the young widow.
There were bets among the gentlemen both about Russell
Square and in the City.
If the sisters had any anxiety regarding the possible
recognition of Amelia as a daughter of the family, it
was increased presently, and towards the end of the
autumn, by their father's announcement that he was going
abroad. He did not say whither, but they knew at once
that his steps would be turned towards Belgium, and were
aware that George's widow was still in Brussels. They
had pretty accurate news indeed of poor Amelia from
Lady Dobbin and her daughters. Our honest Captain had
been promoted in consequence of the death of the second
Major of the regiment on the field; and the brave O'Dowd,
who had distinguished himself greatly here as upon all
occasions where he had a chance to show his coolness
and valour, was a Colonel and Companion of the Bath.
Very many of the brave --th, who had suffered
severely upon both days of action, were still at Brussels
in the autumn, recovering of their wounds. The city was
a vast military hospital for months after the great battles;
and as men and officers began to rally from their hurts,
the gardens and places of public resort swarmed with
maimed warriors, old and young, who, just rescued out of
death, fell to gambling, and gaiety, and love-making, as
people of Vanity Fair will do. Mr. Osborne found out
some of the --th easily. He knew their uniform quite
well, and had been used to follow all the promotions and
exchanges in the regiment, and loved to talk about it and
its officers as if he had been one of the number. On the
day after his arrival at Brussels, and as he issued from
his hotel, which faced the park, he saw a soldier in the
well-known facings, reposing on a stone bench in the
garden, and went and sate down trembling by the
wounded convalescent man.
"Were you in Captain Osborne's company?" he said,
and added, after a pause, "he was my son, sir."
The man was not of the Captain's company, but he
lifted up his unwounded arm and touched-his cap sadly
and respectfully to the haggard broken-spirited gentleman
who questioned him. "The whole army didn't contain
a finer or a better officer," the soldier said. "The Sergeant
of the Captain's company (Captain Raymond had it
now), was in town, though, and was just well of a shot
in the shoulder. His honour might see him if he liked,
who could tell him anything he wanted to know about--
about the --th's actions. But his honour had seen
Major Dobbin, no doubt, the brave Captain's great
friend; and Mrs. Osborne, who was here too, and had
been very bad, he heard everybody say. They say she
was out of her mind like for six weeks or more. But your
honour knows all about that--and asking your pardon"
--the man added.
Osborne put a guinea into the soldier's hand, and told
him he should have another if he would bring the Sergeant
to the Hotel du Parc; a promise which very soon
brought the desired officer to Mr. Osborne's presence.
And the first soldier went away; and after telling a
comrade or two how Captain Osborne's father was arrived,
and what a free-handed generous gentleman he was, they
went and made good cheer with drink and feasting, as
long as the guineas lasted which had come from the
proud purse of the mourning old father.
In the Sergeant's company, who was also just convalescent,
Osborne made the journey of Waterloo and
Quatre Bras, a journey which thousands of his countrymen
were then taking. He took the Sergeant with him in
his carriage, and went through both fields under his
guidance. He saw the point of the road where the regiment
marched into action on the 16th, and the slope down
which they drove the French cavalry who were pressing
on the retreating Belgians. There was the spot where the
noble Captain cut down the French officer who was
grappling with the young Ensign for the colours, the
Colour-Sergeants having been shot down. Along this road
they retreated on the next day, and here was the bank
at which the regiment bivouacked under the rain of the
night of the seventeenth. Further on was the position
which they took and held during the day, forming time
after time to receive the charge of the enemy's horsemen
and lying down under the shelter of the bank from the
furious French cannonade. And it was at this declivity
when at evening the whole English line received the order
to advance, as the enemy fell back after his last charge,
that the Captain, hurraying and rushing down the hill
waving his sword, received a shot and fell dead. "It was
Major Dobbin who took back the Captain's body to
Brussels," the Sergeant said, in a low voice, "and had him
buried, as your honour knows." The peasants and relichunters
about the place were screaming round the pair,
as the soldier told his story, offering for sale all sorts of
mementoes of the fight, crosses, and epaulets, and
shattered cuirasses, and eagles.
Osborne gave a sumptuous reward to the Sergeant
when he parted with him, after having visited the scenes
of his son's last exploits. His burial-place he had already
seen. Indeed, he had driven thither immediately after his
arrival at Brussels. George's body lay in the pretty burialground
of Laeken, near the city; in which place, having
once visited it on a party of pleasure, he had lightly
expressed a wish to have his grave made. And there the
young officer was laid by his friend, in the unconsecrated
corner of the garden, separated by a little hedge from
the temples and towers and plantations of flowers and
shrubs, under which the Roman Catholic dead repose. It
seemed a humiliation to old Osborne to think that his
son, an English gentleman, a captain in the famous British
army, should not be found worthy to lie in ground where
mere foreigners were buried. Which of us is there can
tell how much vanity lurks in our warmest regard for
others, and how selfish our love is? Old Osborne did
not speculate much upon the mingled nature of his feelings,
and how his instinct and selfishness were combating
together. He firmly believed that everything he did was
right, that he ought on all occasions to have his own way
--and like the sting of a wasp or serpent his hatred
rushed out armed and poisonous against anything like
opposition. He was proud of his hatred as of everything
else. Always to be right, always to trample forward, and
never to doubt, are not these the great qualities with
which dullness takes the lead in the world?
As after the drive to Waterloo, Mr. Osborne's carriage
was nearing the gates of the city at sunset, they met
another open barouche, in which were a couple of ladies
and a gentleman, and by the side of which an officer was
riding. Osborne gave a start back, and the Sergeant,
seated with him, cast a look of surprise at his neighbour,
as he touched his cap to the officer, who mechanically
returned his salute. It was Amelia, with the lame young
Ensign by her side, and opposite to her her faithful
friend Mrs. O'Dowd. It was Amelia, but how changed
from the fresh and comely girl Osborne knew. Her face
was white and thin. Her pretty brown hair was parted
under a widow's cap--the poor child. Her eyes were
fixed, and looking nowhere. They stared blank in the
face of Osborne, as the carriages crossed each other, but
she did not know him; nor did he recognise her, until
looking up, he saw Dobbin riding by her: and then he
knew who it was. He hated her. He did not know how
much until he saw her there. When her carriage had
passed on, he turned and stared at the Sergeant, with a
curse and defiance in his eye cast at his companion, who
could not help looking at him--as much as to say "How
dare you look at me? Damn you! I do hate her. It is she
who has tumbled my hopes and all my pride down."
"Tell the scoundrel to drive on quick," he shouted with
an oath, to the lackey on the box. A minute afterwards, a
horse came clattering over the pavement behind
Osborne's carriage, and Dobbin rode up. His thoughts
had been elsewhere as the carriages passed each other,
and it was not until he had ridden some paces forward,
that he remembered it was Osborne who had just passed
him. Then he turned to examine if the sight of her fatherin-
law had made any impression on Amelia, but the poor
girl did not know who had passed. Then William, who
daily used to accompany her in his drives, taking out his
watch, made some excuse about an engagement which he
suddenly recollected, and so rode off. She did not
remark that either: but sate looking before her, over the
homely landscape towards the woods in the distance, by
which George marched away.
Mr. Osborne, Mr. Osborne!" cried Dobbin, as he rode
up and held out his hand. Osborne made no motion to
take it, but shouted out once more and with another curse
to his servant to drive on.
Dobbin laid his hand on the carriage side. "I will see
you, sir," he said. "I have a message for you."
"From that woman?" said Osborne, fiercely.
"No," replied the other, "from your son"; at which
Osborne fell back into the corner of his carriage, and
Dobbin allowing it to pass on, rode close behind it, and
so through the town until they reached Mr. Osborne's
hotel, and without a word. There he followed Osborne
up to his apartments. George had often been in the
rooms; they were the lodgings which the Crawleys had
occupied during their stay in Brussels.
"Pray, have you any commands for me, Captain
Dobbin, or, I beg your pardon, I should say MAJOR Dobbin,
since better men than you are dead, and you step into
their SHOES?" said Mr. Osborne, in that sarcastic tone
which he sometimes was pleased to assume.
"Better men ARE dead," Dobbin replied. "I want to
speak to you about one."
"Make it short, sir," said the other with an oath,
scowling at his visitor.
"I am here as his closest friend," the Major resumed,
"and the executor of his will. He made it before he went
into action. Are you aware how small his means are,
and of the straitened circumstances of his widow?"
"I don't know his widow, sir," Osborne said. "Let her
go back to her father." But the gentleman whom he
addressed was determined to remain in good temper, and
went on without heeding the interruption.
"Do you know, sir, Mrs. Osborne's condition? Her life
and her reason almost have been shaken by the blow
which has fallen on her. It is very doubtful whether she
will rally. There is a chance left for her, however, and it
is about this I came to speak to you. She will be a mother
soon. Will you visit the parent's offence upon the child's
head? or will you forgive the child for poor George's
sake?"
Osborne broke out into a rhapsody of self-praise and
imprecations;--by the first, excusing himself to his own
conscience for his conduct; by the second, exaggerating
the undutifulness of George. No father in all England
could have behaved more generously to a son, who had
rebelled against him wickedly. He had died without even
so much as confessing he was wrong. Let him take
the consequences of his undutifulness and folly. As for
himself, Mr. Osborne, he was a man of his word. He
had sworn never to speak to that woman, or to recognize
her as his son's wife. "And that's what you may tell
her," he concluded with an oath; "and that's what I will
stick to to the last day of my life."
There was no hope from that quarter then. The widow
must live on her slender pittance, or on such aid as Jos
could give her. "I might tell her, and she would not heed
it," thought Dobbin, sadly: for the poor girl's thoughts
were not here at all since her catastrophe, and, stupefied
under the pressure of her sorrow, good and evil were
alike indifferent to her.
So, indeed, were even friendship and kindness. She
received them both uncomplainingly, and having accepted
them, relapsed into her grief.
Suppose some twelve months after the above conversation
took place to have passed in the life of our poor
Amelia. She has spent the first portion of that time in a
sorrow so profound and pitiable, that we who have been
watching and describing some of the emotions of that
weak and tender heart, must draw back in the presence
of the cruel grief under which it is bleeding. Tread silently
round the hapless couch of the poor prostrate soul.
Shut gently the door of the dark chamber wherein she
suffers, as those kind people did who nursed her through
the first months of her pain, and never left her until
heaven had sent her consolation. A day came--of
almost terrified delight and wonder--when the poor
widowed girl pressed a child upon her breast--a child, with
the eyes of George who was gone--a little boy, as beautiful
as a cherub. What a miracle it was to hear its first
cry! How she laughed and wept over it--how love, and
hope, and prayer woke again in her bosom as the baby
nestled there. She was safe. The doctors who attended
her, and had feared for her life or for her brain, had
waited anxiously for this crisis before they could
pronounce that either was secure. It was worth the long
months of doubt and dread which the persons who had
constantly been with her had passed, to see her eyes once
more beaming tenderly upon them.
Our friend Dobbin was one of them. It was he who
brought her back to England and to her mother's house;
when Mrs. O'Dowd, receiving a peremptory summons
from her Colonel, had been forced to quit her patient.
To see Dobbin holding the infant, and to hear Amelia's
laugh of triumph as she watched him, would have done
any man good who had a sense of humour. William was
the godfather of the child, and exerted his ingenuity in
the purchase of cups, spoons, pap-boats, and corals for
this little Christian.
How his mother nursed him, and dressed him, and
lived upon him; how she drove away all nurses, and
would scarce allow any hand but her own to touch him;
how she considered that the greatest favour she could
confer upon his godfather, Major Dobbin, was to allow
the Major occasionally to dandle him, need not be told
here. This child was her being. Her existence was a
maternal caress. She enveloped the feeble and unconscious
creature with love and worship. It was her life
which the baby drank in from her bosom. Of nights, and
when alone, she had stealthy and intense raptures of
motherly love, such as God's marvellous care has awarded
to the female instinct--joys how far higher and lower
than reason--blind beautiful devotions which only women's
hearts know. It was William Dobbin's task to muse
upon these movements of Amelia's, and to watch her
heart; and if his love made him divine almost all the feelings
which agitated it, alas! he could see with a fatal
perspicuity that there was no place there for him. And
so, gently, he bore his fate, knowing it, and content to
bear it.
I suppose Amelia's father and mother saw through the
intentions of the Major, and were not ill-disposed to
encourage him; for Dobbin visited their house daily, and
stayed for hours with them, or with Amelia, or with the
honest landlord, Mr. Clapp, and his family. He brought,
on one pretext or another, presents to everybody, and
almost every day; and went, with the landlord's little girl,
who was rather a favourite with Amelia, by the name of
Major Sugarplums. It was this little child who commonly
acted as mistress of the ceremonies to introduce him
to Mrs. Osborne. She laughed one day when Major Sugarplums'
cab drove up to Fulham, and he descended from
it, bringing out a wooden horse, a drum, a trumpet, and
other warlike toys, for little Georgy, who was scarcely
six months old, and for whom the articles in question were
entirely premature.
The child was asleep. "Hush," said Amelia, annoyed,
perhaps, at the creaking of the Major's boots; and she
held out her hand; smiling because William could not
take it until he had rid himself of his cargo of toys. "Go
downstairs, little Mary," said he presently to the child,
"I want to speak to Mrs. Osborne." She looked up rather
astonished, and laid down the infant on its bed.
"I am come to say good-bye, Amelia," said he, taking
her slender little white hand gently.
"Good-bye? and where are you going?" she said, with
a smile.
"Send the letters to the agents," he said; "they will
forward them; for you will write to me, won't you? I
shall be away a long time."
"I'll write to you about Georgy," she said. "Dear' William,
how good you have been to him and to me. Look at
him. Isn't he like an angel?"
The little pink hands of the child closed mechanically
round the honest soldier's finger, and Amelia looked up
in his face with bright maternal pleasure. The cruellest
looks could not have wounded him more than that glance
of hopeless kindness. He bent over the child and mother.
He could not speak for a moment. And it was only with
all his strength that he could force himself to say a God
bless you. "God bless you," said Amelia, and held up her
face and kissed him.
"Hush! Don't wake Georgy!" she added, as William
Dobbin went to the door with heavy steps. She did not
hear the noise of his cab-wheels as he drove away: she
was looking at the child, who was laughing in his sleep.
CHAPTER XXXVI
How to Live Well on Nothing a Year
I suppose there is no man in this Vanity Fair of ours so
little observant as not to think sometimes about the
worldly affairs of his acquaintances, or so extremely
charitable as not to wonder how his neighbour Jones,
or his neighbour Smith, can make both ends meet at the
end of the year. With the utmost regard for the family,
for instance (for I dine with them twice or thrice in the
season), I cannot but own that the appearance of the
Jenkinses in the park, in the large barouche with the
grenadier-footmen, will surprise and mystify me to my
dying day: for though I know the equipage is only
jobbed, and all the Jenkins people are on board wages,
yet those three men and the carriage must represent an
expense of six hundred a year at the very least--and then
there are the splendid dinners, the two boys at Eton, the
prize governess and masters for the girls, the trip
abroad, or to Eastbourne or Worthing, in the autumn,
the annual ball with a supper from Gunter's (who, by the
way, supplies most of the first-rate dinners which J. gives,
as I know very well, having been invited to one of them to
fill a vacant place, when I saw at once that these repasts are
very superior to the common run of entertainments for which the
humbler sort of J.'s acquaintances get cards)--who, I say, with the
most good-natured feelings in the world, can help wondering how
the Jenkinses make out matters? What is Jenkins? We all know
--Commissioner of the Tape and Sealing Wax Office, with
1200 pounds a year for a salary. Had his wife a private
fortune? Pooh!--Miss Flint--one of eleven children of a
small squire in Buckinghamshire. All she ever gets from
her family is a turkey at Christmas, in exchange for which
she has to board two or three of her sisters in the off
season, and lodge and feed her brothers when they
come to town. How does Jenkins balance his income? I
say, as every friend of his must say, How is it that he
has not been outlawed long since, and that he ever came
back (as he did to the surprise of everybody) last year
from Boulogne?
"I" is here introduced to personify the world in
general--the Mrs. Grundy of each respected reader's private
circle--every one of whom can point to some families
of his acquaintance who live nobody knows how. Many
a glass of wine have we all of us drunk, I have very
little doubt, hob-and-nobbing with the hospitable giver
and wondering how the deuce he paid for it.
Some three or four years after his stay in Paris, when
Rawdon Crawley and his wife were established in a very
small comfortable house in Curzon Street, May Fair, there
was scarcely one of the numerous friends whom they
entertained at dinner that did not ask the above question
regarding them. The novelist, it has been said before,
knows everything, and as I am in a situation to be
able to tell the public how Crawley and his wife lived
without any income, may I entreat the public newspapers
which are in the habit of extracting portions of the
various periodical works now published not to reprint
the following exact narrative and calculations--of which
I ought, as the discoverer (and at some expense, too),
to have the benefit? My son, I would say, were I blessed
with a child--you may by deep inquiry and constant
intercourse with him learn how a man lives comfortably
on nothing a year. But it is best not to be intimate with
gentlemen of this profession and to take the calculations
at second hand, as you do logarithms, for to work
them yourself, depend upon it, will cost you something
considerable.
On nothing per annum then, and during a course of
some two or three years, of which we can afford to
give but a very brief history, Crawley and his wife lived
very happily and comfortably at Paris. It was in this
period that he quitted the Guards and sold out of the
army. When we find him again, his mustachios and the
title of Colonel on his card are the only relics of his
military profession.
It has been mentioned that Rebecca, soon after her
arrival in Paris, took a very smart and leading position in
the society of that capital, and was welcomed at some
of the most distinguished houses of the restored French
nobility. The English men of fashion in Paris courted her,
too, to the disgust of the ladies their wives, who could
not bear the parvenue. For some months the salons
of the Faubourg St. Germain, in which her place was
secured, and the splendours of the new Court, where she
was received with much distinction, delighted and
perhaps a little intoxicated Mrs. Crawley, who may have
been disposed during this period of elation to slight the
people--honest young military men mostly--who formed
her husband's chief society.
But the Colonel yawned sadly among the Duchesses
and great ladies of the Court. The old women who
played ecarte made such a noise about a five-franc
piece that it was not worth Colonel Crawley's while to
sit down at a card-table. The wit of their conversation he
could not appreciate, being ignorant of their language.
And what good could his wife get, he urged, by making
curtsies every night to a whole circle of Princesses? He
left Rebecca presently to frequent these parties alone,
resuming his own simple pursuits and amusements
amongst the amiable friends of his own choice.
The truth is, when we say of a gentleman that he
lives elegantly on nothing a year, we use the word
"nothing" to signify something unknown; meaning, simply,
that we don't know how the gentleman in question defrays
the expenses of his establishment. Now, our friend the
Colonel had a great aptitude for all games of chance:
and exercising himself, as he continually did, with the
cards, the dice-box, or the cue, it is natural to suppose
that he attained a much greater skill in the use of these
articles than men can possess who only occasionally
handle them. To use a cue at billiards well is like using a
pencil, or a German flute, or a small-sword--you cannot
master any one of these implements at first, and it is only
by repeated study and perseverance, joined to a natural
taste, that a man can excel in the handling of either.
Now Crawley, from being only a brilliant amateur, had
grown to be a consummate master of billiards. Like a
great General, his genius used to rise with the danger,
and when the luck had been unfavourable to him for a
whole game, and the bets were consequently against him,
he would, with consummate skill and boldness, make
some prodigious hits which would restore the battle, and
come in a victor at the end, to the astonishment of
everybody--of everybody, that is, who was a stranger to his
play. Those who were accustomed to see it were cautious
how they staked their money against a man of such
sudden resources and brilliant and overpowering skill.
At games of cards he was equally skilful; for though
he would constantly lose money at the commencement
of an evening, playing so carelessly and making such
blunders, that newcomers were often inclined to think
meanly of his talent; yet when roused to action and
awakened to caution by repeated small losses, it was
remarked that Crawley's play became quite different, and
that he was pretty sure of beating his enemy thoroughly
before the night was over. Indeed, very few men could
say that they ever had the better of him.
His successes were so repeated that no wonder the
envious and the vanquished spoke sometimes with
bitterness regarding them. And as the French say of the
Duke of Wellington, who never suffered a defeat, that
only an astonishing series of lucky accidents enabled him
to be an invariable winner; yet even they allow that he
cheated at Waterloo, and was enabled to win the last
great trick: so it was hinted at headquarters in England
that some foul play must have taken place in order to
account for the continuous successes of Colonel Crawley.
Though Frascati's and the Salon were open at that time
in Paris, the mania for play was so widely spread that
the public gambling-rooms did not suffice for the general
ardour, and gambling went on in private houses as
much as if there had been no public means for gratifying
the passion. At Crawley's charming little reunions of an
evening this fatal amusement commonly was practised--
much to good-natured little Mrs. Crawley's annoyance.
She spoke about her husband's passion for dice with the
deepest grief; she bewailed it to everybody who came to
her house. She besought the young fellows never, never
to touch a box; and when young Green, of the Rifles,
lost a very considerable sum of money, Rebecca passed a
whole night in tears, as the servant told the unfortunate
young gentleman, and actually went on her knees to her
husband to beseech him to remit the debt, and burn the
acknowledgement. How could he? He had lost just as
much himself to Blackstone of the Hussars, and Count
Punter of the Hanoverian Cavalry. Green might have any
decent time; but pay?--of course he must pay; to talk
of burning IOU's was child's play.
Other officers, chiefly young--for the young fellows
gathered round Mrs. Crawley--came from her parties
with long faces, having dropped more or less money at
her fatal card-tables. Her house began to have an
unfortunate reputation. The old hands warned the less
experienced of their danger. Colonel O'Dowd, of the --th
regiment, one of those occupying in Paris, warned
Lieutenant Spooney of that corps. A loud and violent fracas
took place between the infantry Colonel and his lady,
who were dining at the Cafe de Paris, and Colonel and
Mrs. Crawley; who were also taking their meal there.
The ladies engaged on both sides. Mrs. O'Dowd snapped
her fingers in Mrs. Crawley's face and called her
husband "no betther than a black-leg." Colonel Crawley
challenged Colonel O'Dowd, C.B. The Commander-in-Chief
hearing of the dispute sent for Colonel Crawley, who was
getting ready the same pistols "which he shot Captain
Marker," and had such a conversation with him that no
duel took place. If Rebecca had not gone on her knees
to General Tufto, Crawley would have been sent back
to England; and he did not play, except with civilians,
for some weeks after.
But, in spite of Rawdon's undoubted skill and constant
successes, it became evident to Rebecca, considering
these things, that their position was but a precarious
one, and that, even although they paid scarcely anybody,
their little capital would end one day by dwindling into
zero. "Gambling," she would say, "dear, is good to help
your income, but not as an income itself. Some day
people may be tired of play, and then where are we?"
Rawdon acquiesced in the justice of her opinion; and in
truth he had remarked that after a few nights of his
little suppers, &c., gentlemen were tired of play with him,
and, in spite of Rebecca's charms, did not present
themselves very eagerly.
Easy and pleasant as their life at Paris was, it was
after all only an idle dalliance and amiable trifling; and
Rebecca saw that she must push Rawdon's fortune in
their own country. She must get him a place or appointment
at home or in the colonies, and she determined to
make a move upon England as soon as the way could be
cleared for her. As a first step she had made Crawley
sell out of the Guards and go on half-pay. His function
as aide-de-camp to General Tufto had ceased previously.
Rebecca laughed in all companies at that officer, at his
toupee (which he mounted on coming to Paris), at his
waistband, at his false teeth, at his pretensions to be a
lady-killer above all, and his absurd vanity in fancying
every woman whom he came near was in love with
him. It was to Mrs. Brent, the beetle-browed wife of
Mr. Commissary Brent, to whom the general transferred
his attentions now--his bouquets, his dinners at the
restaurateurs', his opera-boxes, and his knick-knacks. Poor
Mrs. Tufto was no more happy than before, and had still
to pass long evenings alone with her daughters, knowing
that her General was gone off scented and curled to
stand behind Mrs. Brent's chair at the play. Becky had a
dozen admirers in his place, to be sure, and could cut
her rival to pieces with her wit. But, as we have said, she.
was growing tired of this idle social life: opera-boxes and
restaurateur dinners palled upon her: nosegays could not
be laid by as a provision for future years: and she could
not live upon knick-knacks, laced handkerchiefs, and kid
gloves. She felt the frivolity of pleasure and longed for
more substantial benefits.
At this juncture news arrived which was spread among
the many creditors of the Colonel at Paris, and which
caused them great satisfaction. Miss Crawley, the rich
aunt from whom he expected his immense inheritance,
was dying; the Colonel must haste to her bedside. Mrs.
Crawley and her child would remain behind until he
came to reclaim them. He departed for Calais, and having
reached that place in safety, it might have been
supposed that he went to Dover; but instead he took the
diligence to Dunkirk, and thence travelled to Brussels,
for which place he had a former predilection. The fact
is, he owed more money at London than at Paris; and he
preferred the quiet little Belgian city to either of the more
noisy capitals.
Her aunt was dead. Mrs. Crawley ordered the most
intense mourning for herself and little Rawdon. The Colonel
was busy arranging the affairs of the inheritance. They
could take the premier now, instead of the little entresol
of the hotel which they occupied. Mrs. Crawley and the
landlord had a consultation about the new hangings,
an amicable wrangle about the carpets, and a final adjustment
of everything except the bill. She went off in one
of his carriages; her French bonne with her; the child
by her side; the admirable landlord and landlady smiling
farewell to her from the gate. General Tufto was furious
when he heard she was gone, and Mrs. Brent furious
with him for being furious; Lieutenant Spooney was cut
to the heart; and the landlord got ready his best apartments
previous to the return of the fascinating little
woman and her husband. He serred the trunks which
she left in his charge with the greatest care. They had been
especially recommended to him by Madame Crawley. They
were not, however, found to be particularly valuable
when opened some time after.
But before she went to join her husband in the Belgic
capital, Mrs. Crawley made an expedition into England,
leaving behind her her little son upon the continent,
under the care of her French maid.
The parting between Rebecca and the little Rawdon did
not cause either party much pain. She had not, to say
truth, seen much of the young gentleman since his birth.
After the amiable fashion of French mothers, she had
placed him out at nurse in a village in the neighbourhood
of Paris, where little Rawdon passed the first months of
his life, not unhappily, with a numerous family of
foster-brothers in wooden shoes. His father would ride over
many a time to see him here, and the elder Rawdon's
paternal heart glowed to see him rosy and dirty,
shouting lustily, and happy in the making of mud-pies
under the superintendence of the gardener's wife, his
nurse.
Rebecca did not care much to go and see the son
and heir. Once he spoiled a new dove-coloured pelisse
of hers. He preferred his nurse's caresses to his mamma's,
and when finally he quitted that jolly nurse and almost
parent, he cried loudly for hours. He was only consoled
by his mother's promise that he should return to his nurse
the next day; indeed the nurse herself, who probably
would have been pained at the parting too, was told that
the child would immediately be restored to her, and for
some time awaited quite anxiously his return.
In fact, our friends may be said to have been among
the first of that brood of hardy English adventurers who
have subsequently invaded the Continent and swindled
in all the capitals of Europe. The respect in those happy
days of 1817-18 was very great for the wealth and
honour of Britons. They had not then learned, as I am
told, to haggle for bargains with the pertinacity which
now distinguishes them. The great cities of Europe had
not been as yet open to the enterprise of our rascals.
And whereas there is now hardly a town of France or
Italy in which you shall not see some noble countryman
of our own, with that happy swagger and insolence
of demeanour which we carry everywhere, swindling
inn-landlords, passing fictitious cheques upon credulous
bankers, robbing coach-makers of their carriages, goldsmiths
of their trinkets, easy travellers of their money at cards,
even public libraries of their books--thirty years ago you
needed but to be a Milor Anglais, travelling in a private
carriage, and credit was at your hand wherever you chose
to seek it, and gentlemen, instead of cheating, were
cheated. It was not for some weeks after the Crawleys'
departure that the landlord of the hotel which they
occupied during their residence at Paris found out the losses
which he had sustained: not until Madame Marabou, the
milliner, made repeated visits with her little bill for
articles supplied to Madame Crawley; not until Monsieur
Didelot from Boule d'Or in the Palais Royal had asked
half a dozen times whether cette charmante Miladi who
had bought watches and bracelets of him was de retour.
It is a fact that even the poor gardener's wife, who
had nursed madame's child, was never paid after the
first six months for that supply of the milk of human
kindness with which she had furnished the lusty and
healthy little Rawdon. No, not even the nurse was paid
--the Crawleys were in too great a hurry to remember
their trifling debt to her. As for the landlord of the hotel,
his curses against the English nation were violent for the
rest of his natural life. He asked all travellers whether
they knew a certain Colonel Lor Crawley--avec sa
femme une petite dame, tres spirituelle. "Ah,
Monsieur!" he would add--"ils m'ont affreusement vole." It
was melancholy to hear his accents as he spoke of that
catastrophe.
Rebecca's object in her journey to London was to
effect a kind of compromise with her husband's numerous
creditors, and by offering them a dividend of ninepence
or a shilling in the pound, to secure a return for him into
his own country. It does not become us to trace the steps
which she took in the conduct of this most difficult
negotiation; but, having shown them to their satisfaction
that the sum which she was empowered to offer was all
her husband's available capital, and having convinced
them that Colonel Crawley would prefer a perpetual
retirement on the Continent to a residence in this country
with his debts unsettled; having proved to them that there
was no possibility of money accruing to him from other
quarters, and no earthly chance of their getting a larger
dividend than that which she was empowered to offer,
she brought the Colonel's creditors unanimously to
accept her proposals, and purchased with fifteen hundred
pounds of ready money more than ten times that amount
of debts.
Mrs. Crawley employed no lawyer in the transaction.
The matter was so simple, to have or to leave, as she
justly observed, that she made the lawyers of the
creditors themselves do the business. And Mr. Lewis
representing Mr. Davids, of Red Lion Square, and Mr. Moss
acting for Mr. Manasseh of Cursitor Street (chief
creditors of the Colonel's), complimented his lady upon the
brilliant way in which she did business, and declared
that there was no professional man who could beat her.
Rebecca received their congratulations with perfect
modesty; ordered a bottle of sherry and a bread cake
to the little dingy lodgings where she dwelt, while
conducting the business, to treat the enemy's lawyers:
shook hands with them at parting, in excellent good
humour, and returned straightway to the Continent, to
rejoin her husband and son and acquaint the former
with the glad news of his entire liberation. As for the
latter, he had been considerably neglected during his
mother's absence by Mademoiselle Genevieve, her French
maid; for that young woman, contracting an attachment
for a soldier in the garrison of Calais, forgot her charge
in the society of this militaire, and little Rawdon very
narrowly escaped drowning on Calais sands at this
period, where the absent Genevieve had left and lost
him.
And so, Colonel and Mrs. Crawley came to London:
and it is at their house in Curzon Street, May Fair, that
they really showed the skill which must be possessed by
those who would live on the resources above named.
CHAPTER XXXVII
The Subject Continued
In the first place, and as a matter of the greatest
necessity, we are bound to describe how a house
may be got for nothing a year. These mansions
are to be had either unfurnished, where, if you
have credit with Messrs. Gillows or Bantings, you
can get them splendidly montees and decorated
entirely according to your own fancy; or they are
to be let furnished, a less troublesome and
complicated arrangement to most parties. It was so
that Crawley and his wife preferred to hire their house.
Before Mr. Bowls came to preside over Miss Crawley's
house and cellar in Park Lane, that lady had had
for a butler a Mr. Raggles, who was born on the family
estate of Queen's Crawley, and indeed was a younger
son of a gardener there. By good conduct, a handsome
person and calves, and a grave demeanour, Raggles rose
from the knife-board to the footboard of the carriage;
from the footboard to the butler's pantry. When he had
been a certain number of years at the head of Miss
Crawley's establishment, where he had had good wages,
fat perquisites, and plenty of opportunities of saving, he
announced that he was about to contract a matrimonial
alliance with a late cook of Miss Crawley's, who had
subsisted in an honourable manner by the exercise of a
mangle, and the keeping of a small greengrocer's shop in
the neighbourhood. The truth is, that the ceremony had
been clandestinely performed some years back; although
the news of Mr. Raggles' marriage was first brought to
Miss Crawley by a little boy and girl of seven and eight
years of age, whose continual presence in the kitchen
had attracted the attention of Miss Briggs.
Mr. Raggles then retired and personally undertook the
superintendence of the small shop and the greens. He
added milk and cream, eggs and country-fed pork to his
stores, contenting himself whilst other retired butlers
were vending spirits in public houses, by dealing in the
simplest country produce. And having a good connection
amongst the butlers in the neighbourhood, and a
snug back parlour where he and Mrs. Raggles received
them, his milk, cream, and eggs got to be adopted by
many of the fraternity, and his profits increased every
year. Year after year he quietly and modestly amassed
money, and when at length that snug and complete bachelor's residence at No. 201,
Curzon Street, May Fair, lately
the residence of the Honourable Frederick Deuceace,
gone abroad, with its rich and appropriate furniture by
the first makers, was brought to the hammer, who should
go in and purchase the lease and furniture of the house
but Charles Raggles? A part of the money he borrowed, it
is true, and at rather a high interest, from a brother
butler, but the chief part he paid down, and it was with
no small pride that Mrs. Raggles found herself sleeping in
a bed of carved mahogany, with silk curtains, with a
prodigious cheval glass opposite to her, and a wardrobe
which would contain her, and Raggles, and all the family.
Of course, they did not intend to occupy permanently
an apartment so splendid. It was in order to let the house
again that Raggles purchased it. As soon as a tenant
was found, he subsided into the greengrocer's shop once
more; but a happy thing it was for him to walk out of
that tenement and into Curzon Street, and there survey
his house--his own house--with geraniums in the
window and a carved bronze knocker. The footman
occasionally lounging at the area railing, treated him with
respect; the cook took her green stuff at his house and
called him Mr. Landlord, and there was not one thing
the tenants did, or one dish which they had for dinner,
that Raggles might not know of, if he liked.
He was a good man; good and happy. The house
brought him in so handsome a yearly income that he was
determined to send his children to good schools, and
accordingly, regardless of expense, Charles was sent to
boarding at Dr. Swishtail's, Sugar-cane Lodge, and
little Matilda to Miss Peckover's, Laurentinum House,
Clapham.
Raggles loved and adored the Crawley family as the
author of all his prosperity in life. He had a silhouette of
his mistress in his back shop, and a drawing of the
Porter's Lodge at Queen's Crawley, done by that spinster
herself in India ink--and the only addition he made to
the decorations of the Curzon Street House was a print
of Queen's Crawley in Hampshire, the seat of Sir Walpole
Crawley, Baronet, who was represented in a gilded car
drawn by six white horses, and passing by a lake
covered with swans, and barges containing ladies in hoops,
and musicians with flags and penwigs. Indeed Raggles
thought there was no such palace in all the world, and
no such august family.
As luck would have it, Raggles' house in Curzon Street
was to let when Rawdon and his wife returned to London.
The Colonel knew it and its owner quite well; the latter's
connection with the Crawley family had been kept up
constantly, for Raggles helped Mr. Bowls whenever Miss
Crawley received friends. And the old man not only let
his house to the Colonel but officiated as his butler
whenever he had company; Mrs. Raggles operating in the
kitchen below and sending up dinners of which old Miss
Crawley herself might have approved. This was the way,
then, Crawley got his house for nothing; for though
Raggles had to pay taxes and rates, and the interest of the
mortgage to the brother butler; and the insurance of his
life; and the charges for his children at school; and the
value of the meat and drink which his own family--and
for a time that of Colonel Crawley too--consumed; and
though the poor wretch was utterly ruined by the
transaction, his children being flung on the streets, and himself
driven into the Fleet Prison: yet somebody must pay even
for gentlemen who live for nothing a year--and so it was
this unlucky Raggles was made the representative of
Colonel Crawley's defective capital.
I wonder how many families are driven to roguery and
to ruin by great practitioners in Crawlers way?--how
many great noblemen rob their petty tradesmen,
condescend to swindle their poor retainers out of wretched
little sums and cheat for a few shillings? When we read
that a noble nobleman has left for the Continent, or that
another noble nobleman has an execution in his house
--and that one or other owes six or seven millions, the
defeat seems glorious even, and we respect the victim in
the vastness of his ruin. But who pities a poor barber who
can't get his money for powdering the footmen's heads;
or a poor carpenter who has ruined himself by fixing up
ornaments and pavilions for my lady's dejeuner; or the
poor devil of a tailor whom the steward patronizes, and
who has pledged all he is worth, and more, to get the
liveries ready, which my lord has done him the honour
to bespeak? When the great house tumbles down, these
miserable wretches fall under it unnoticed: as they say in
the old legends, before a man goes to the devil himself,
he sends plenty of other souls thither.
Rawdon and his wife generously gave their patronage
to all such of Miss Crawley's tradesmen and purveyors
as chose to serve them. Some were willing,enough,
especially the poor ones. It was wonderful to see the
pertinacity with which the washerwoman from Tooting
brought the cart every Saturday, and her bills week after week.
Mr. Raggles himself had to supply the greengroceries. The
bill for servants' porter at the Fortune of War public
house is a curiosity in the chronicles of beer. Every
servant also was owed the greater part of his wages, and
thus kept up perforce an interest in the house. Nobody in
fact was paid. Not the blacksmith who opened the lock;
nor the glazier who mended the pane; nor the jobber who
let the carriage; nor the groom who drove it; nor the
butcher who provided the leg of mutton; nor the coals
which roasted it; nor the cook who basted it; nor the
servants who ate it: and this I am given to understand is not
unfrequently the way in which people live elegantly on
nothing a year.
In a little town such things cannot be done without
remark. We know there the quantity of milk our
neighbour takes and espy the joint or the fowls which are
going in for his dinner. So, probably, 200 and 202 in Curzon
Street might know what was going on in the house
between them, the servants communicating through the
area-railings; but Crawley and his wife and his friends
did not know 200 and 202. When you came to 201 there
was a hearty welcome, a kind smile, a good dinner, and
a jolly shake of the hand from the host and hostess there,
just for all the world as if they had been undisputed
masters of three or four thousand a year--and so they were,
not in money, but in produce and labour--if they did
not pay for the mutton, they had it: if they did not give
bullion in exchange for their wine, how should we know?
Never was better claret at any man's table than at honest
Rawdon's; dinners more gay and neatly served. His
drawing-rooms were the prettiest, little, modest salons
conceivable: they were decorated with the greatest taste,
and a thousand knick-knacks from Paris, by Rebecca:
and when she sat at her piano trilling songs with a
lightsome heart, the stranger voted himself in a little
paradise of domestic comfort and agreed that, if the
husband was rather stupid, the wife was charming, and the
dinners the pleasantest in the world.
Rebecca's wit, cleverness, and flippancy made her speedily
the vogue in London among a certain class. You saw
demure chariots at her door, out of which stepped very
great people. You beheld her carriage in the park,
surrounded by dandies of note. The little box in the third
tier of the opera was crowded with heads constantly
changing; but it must be confessed that the ladies held
aloof from her, and that their doors were shut to our
little adventurer.
With regard to the world of female fashion and its
customs, the present writer of course can only speak at
second hand. A man can no more penetrate or understand
those mysteries than he can know what the ladies
talk about when they go upstairs after dinner. It is only
by inquiry and perseverance that one sometimes gets
hints of those secrets; and by a similar diligence every
person who treads the Pall Mall pavement and frequents
the clubs of this metropolis knows, either through his
own experience or through some acquaintance with whom
he plays at billiards or shares the joint, something about
the genteel world of London, and how, as there are men
(such as Rawdon Crawley, whose position we mentioned
before) who cut a good figure to the eyes of the ignorant
world and to the apprentices in the park, who behold
them consorting with the most notorious dandies there,
so there are ladies, who may be called men's women,
being welcomed entirely by all the gentlemen and cut
or slighted by all their wives. Mrs. Firebrace is of this sort;
the lady with the beautiful fair ringlets whom you see
every day in Hyde Park, surrounded by the greatest and
most famous dandies of this empire. Mrs. Rockwood is
another, whose parties are announced laboriously in the
fashionable newspapers and with whom you see that all
sorts of ambassadors and great noblemen dine; and
many more might be mentioned had they to do with the
history at present in hand. But while simple folks who
are out of the world, or country people with a taste for
the genteel, behold these ladies in their seeming glory in
public places, or envy them from afar off, persons who
are better instructed could inform them that these envied
ladies have no more chance of establishing themselves
in "society," than the benighted squire's wife in
Somersetshire who reads of their doings in the Morning Post.
Men living about London are aware of these awful truths.
You hear how pitilessly many ladies of seeming rank and
wealth are excluded from this "society." The frantic
efforts which they make to enter this circle, the meannesses
to which they submit, the insults which they undergo,
are matters of wonder to those who take human or
womankind for a study; and the pursuit of fashion under
difficulties would be a fine theme for any very great
person who had the wit, the leisure, and the knowledge of
the English language necessary for the compiling of
such a history.
Now the few female acquaintances whom Mrs. Crawley
had known abroad not only declined to visit her when
she came to this side of the Channel, but cut her severely
when they met in public places. It was curious to see how
the great ladies forgot her, and no doubt not altogether
a pleasant study to Rebecca. When Lady Bareacres met
her in the waiting-room at the opera, she gathered her
daughters about her as if they would be contaminated
by a touch of Becky, and retreating a step or two, placed
herself in front of them, and stared at her little enemy.
To stare Becky out of countenance required a severer
glance than even the frigid old Bareacres could shoot out
of her dismal eyes. When Lady de la Mole, who had ridden
a score of times by Becky's side at Brussels, met Mrs.
Crawley's open carriage in Hyde Park, her Ladyship was
quite blind, and could not in the least recognize her
former friend. Even Mrs. Blenkinsop, the banker's wife,
cut her at church. Becky went regularly to church now; it
was edifying to see her enter there with Rawdon by her
side, carrying a couple of large gilt prayer-books, and
afterwards going through the ceremony with the gravest
resignation.
Rawdon at first felt very acutely the slights which were
passed upon his wife, and was inclined to be gloomy and
savage. He talked of calling out the husbands or brothers
of every one of the insolent women who did not pay a
proper respect to his wife; and it was only by the strongest commands and entreaties on
her part that he was
brought into keeping a decent behaviour. "You can't
shoot me into society," she said good-naturedly. "Remember,
my dear, that I was but a governess, and you, you
poor silly old man, have the worst reputation for debt, and
dice, and all sorts of wickedness. We shall get quite as
many friends as we want by and by, and in the meanwhile
you must be a good boy and obey your schoolmistress in
everything she tells you to do. When we heard that your
aunt had left almost everything to Pitt and his wife, do
you remember what a rage you were in? You would
have told all Paris, if I had not made you keep your
temper, and where would you have been now?--in
prison at Ste. Pelagie for debt, and not established in
London in a handsome house, with every comfort about
you--you were in such a fury you were ready to murder
your brother, you wicked Cain you, and what good
would have come of remaining angry? All the rage in the
world won't get us your aunt's money; and it is much
better that we should be friends with your brother's
family than enemies, as those foolish Butes are. When
your father dies, Queen's Crawley will be a pleasant house
for you and me to pass the winter in. If we are ruined,
you can carve and take charge of the stable, and I can
be a governess to Lady Jane's children. Ruined!
fiddlede-dee! I will get you a good place before that; or Pitt
and his little boy will die, and we will be Sir Rawdon and my
lady. While there is life, there is hope, my dear, and I
intend to make a man of you yet. Who sold your horses for
you? Who paid your debts for you?" Rawdon was obliged
to confess that he owed all these benefits to his wife, and
to trust himself to her guidance for the future.
Indeed, when Miss Crawley quitted the world, and that
money for which all her relatives had been fighting so
eagerly was finally left to Pitt, Bute Crawley, who found
that only five thousand pounds had been left to him
instead of the twenty upon which he calculated, was in
such a fury at his disappointment that he vented it in
savage abuse upon his nephew; and the quarrel always
rankling between them ended in an utter breach of
intercourse. Rawdon Crawley's conduct, on the other hand,
who got but a hundred pounds, was such as to astonish
his brother and delight his sister-in-law, who was
disposed to look kindly upon all the members of her
husband's family. He wrote to his brother a very frank, manly,
good-humoured letter from Paris. He was aware, he said,
that by his own marriage he had forfeited his aunt's
favour; and though he did not disguise his disappointment
that she should have been so entirely relentless towards
him, he was glad that the money was still kept in their
branch of the family, and heartily congratulated his brother
on his good fortune. He sent his affectionate remembrances
to his sister, and hoped to have her good-will for
Mrs. Rawdon; and the letter concluded with a postscript
to Pitt in the latter lady's own handwriting. She, too,
begged to join in her husband's congratulations. She should
ever remember Mr. Crawley's kindness to her in early
days when she was a friendless orphan, the instructress of
his little sisters, in whose welfare she still took the
tenderest interest. She wished him every happiness in his
married life, and, asking his permission to offer her
remembrances to Lady Jane (of whose goodness all the
world informed her), she hoped that one day she might
be allowed to present her little boy to his uncle and aunt,
and begged to bespeak for him their good-will and
protection.
Pitt Crawley received this communication very
graciously--more graciously than Miss Crawley had received
some of Rebecca's previous compositions in Rawdon's
handwriting; and as for Lady Jane, she was so charmed
with the letter that she expected her husband would
instantly divide his aunt's legacy into two equal portions
and send off one-half to his brother at Paris.
To her Ladyship's surprise, however, Pitt declined to
accommodate his brother with a cheque for thirty
thousand pounds. But he made Rawdon a handsome offer
of his hand whenever the latter should come to England
and choose to take it; and, thanking Mrs. Crawley for
her good opinion of himself and Lady Jane, he graciously
pronounced his willingness to take any opportunity to
serve her little boy.
Thus an almost reconciliation was brought about
between the brothers. When Rebecca came to town Pitt
and his wife were not in London. Many a time she drove
by the old door in Park Lane to see whether they had
taken possession of Miss Crawley's house there. But the
new family did not make its appearance; it was only
through Raggles that she heard of their movements--how
Miss Crawley's domestics had been dismissed with decent
gratuities, and how Mr. Pitt had only once made his
appearance in London, when he stopped for a few days
at the house, did business with his lawyers there, and sold
off all Miss Crawley's French novels to a bookseller out
of Bond Street. Becky had reasons of her own which
caused her to long for the arrival of her new relation.
"When Lady Jane comes," thought she, "she shall be my
sponsor in London society; and as for the women! bah!
the women will ask me when they find the men want to
see me."
An article as necessary to a lady in this position as her
brougham or her bouquet is her companion. I have
always admired the way in which the tender creatures, who
cannot exist without sympathy, hire an exceedingly plain
friend of their own sex from whom they are almost
inseparable. The sight of that inevitable woman in her
faded gown seated behind her dear friend in the operabox,
or occupying the back seat of the barouche, is
always a wholesome and moral one to me, as jolly a
reminder as that of the Death's-head which figured in
the repasts of Egyptian bon-vivants, a strange sardonic
memorial of Vanity Fair. What? even battered, brazen,
beautiful, conscienceless, heartless, Mrs. Firebrace, whose
father died of her shame: even lovely, daring Mrs.
Mantrap, who will ride at any fence which any man in
England will take, and who drives her greys in the
park, while her mother keeps a huckster's stall in Bath
still--even those who are so bold, one might fancy
they could face anything dare not face the world without
a female friend. They must have somebody to cling to, the
affectionate creatures! And you will hardly see them in
any public place without a shabby companion in a dyed
silk, sitting somewhere in the shade close behind them.
"Rawdon," said Becky, very late one night, as a party
of gentlemen were seated round her crackling drawingroom
fire (for the men came to her house to finish the
night; and she had ice and coffee for them, the best in
London): "I must have a sheep-dog."
"A what?" said Rawdon, looking up from an ecarte
table.
"A sheep-dog!" said young Lord Southdown. "My dear
Mrs. Crawley, what a fancy! Why not have a Danish
dog? I know of one as big as a camel-leopard, by Jove.
It would almost pull your brougham. Or a Persian
greyhound, eh? (I propose, if you please); or a little pug
that would go into one of Lord Steyne's snuff-boxes?
There's a man at Bayswater got one with such a nose that
you might--I mark the king and play--that you might
hang your hat on it."
"I mark the trick," Rawdon gravely said. He attended
to his game commonly and didn't much meddle with
the conversation, except when it was about horses and
betting.
"What CAN you want with a shepherd's dog?" the lively
little Southdown continued.
"I mean a MORAL shepherd's dog," said Becky, laughing
and looking up at Lord Steyne.
"What the devil's that?" said his Lordship.
"A dog to keep the wolves off me," Rebecca continued.
"A companion."
"Dear little innocent lamb, you want one," said the
marquis; and his jaw thrust out, and he began to grin
hideously, his little eyes leering towards Rebecca.
The great Lord of Steyne was standing by the fire
sipping coffee. The fire crackled and blazed pleasantly
There was a score of candles sparkling round the mantel
piece, in all sorts of quaint sconces, of gilt and bronze and
porcelain. They lighted up Rebecca's figure to admiration,
as she sat on a sofa covered with a pattern of gaudy
flowers. She was in a pink dress that looked as fresh as
a rose; her dazzling white arms and shoulders were halfcovered
with a thin hazy scarf through which they
sparkled; her hair hung in curls round her neck; one of her
little feet peeped out from the fresh crisp folds of the
silk: the prettiest little foot in the prettiest little sandal
in the finest silk stocking in the world.
The candles lighted up Lord Steyne's shining bald head,
which was fringed with red hair. He had thick bushy
eyebrows, with little twinkling bloodshot eyes, surrounded
by a thousand wrinkles. His jaw was underhung, and
when he laughed, two white buck-teeth protruded
themselves and glistened savagely in the midst of the grin.
He had been dining with royal personages, and wore
his garter and ribbon. A short man was his Lordship,
broad-chested and bow-legged, but proud of the fineness
of his foot and ankle, and always caressing his garterknee.
"And so the shepherd is not enough," said he, "to
defend his lambkin?"
"The shepherd is too fond of playing at cards and going
to his clubs," answered Becky, laughing.
" 'Gad, what a debauched Corydon!" said my lord--
"what a mouth for a pipe!"
"I take your three to two," here said Rawdon, at the
card-table.
"Hark at Meliboeus," snarled the noble marquis; "he's
pastorally occupied too: he's shearing a Southdown.
What an innocent mutton, hey? Damme, what a snowy
fleece!"
Rebecca's eyes shot out gleams of scornful humour.
"My lord," she said, "you are a knight of the Order."
He had the collar round his neck, indeed--a gift of the
restored princes of Spain.
Lord Steyne in early life had been notorious for his
daring and his success at play. He had sat up two days
and two nights with Mr. Fox at hazard. He had won
money of the most august personages of the realm: he
had won his marquisate, it was said, at the gamingtable;
but he did not like an allusion to those bygone
fredaines. Rebecca saw the scowl gathering over his heavy
brow.
She rose up from her sofa and went and took his coffee
cup out of his hand with a little curtsey. "Yes," she said,
"I must get a watchdog. But he won't bark at YOU.
And, going into the other drawing-room, she sat down to
the piano and began to sing little French songs in such a
charming, thrilling voice that the mollified nobleman
speedily followed her into that chamber, and might be seen
nodding his head and bowing time over her.
Rawdon and his friend meanwhile played ecarte until
they had enough. The Colonel won; but, say that he won
ever so much and often, nights like these, which occurred
many times in the week--his wife having all the talk and
all the admiration, and he sitting silent without the circle,
not comprehending a word of the jokes, the allusions, the
mystical language within--must have been rather
wearisome to the ex-dragoon.
"How is Mrs. Crawley's husband?" Lord Steyne used
to say to him by way of a good day when they met; and
indeed that was now his avocation in life. He was
Colonel Crawley no more. He was Mrs. Crawley's husband.
About the little Rawdon, if nothing has been said all
this while, it is because he is hidden upstairs in a garret
somewhere, or has crawled below into the kitchen for
companionship. His mother scarcely ever took notice of
him. He passed the days with his French bonne as long
as that domestic remained in Mr. Crawley's family, and
when the Frenchwoman went away, the little fellow,
howling in the loneliness of the night, had compassion taken
on him by a housemaid, who took him out of his solitary
nursery into her bed in the garret hard by and comforted
him.
Rebecca, my Lord Steyne, and one or two more were
in the drawing-room taking tea after the opera, when this
shouting was heard overhead. "It's my cherub crying for
his nurse," she said. She did not offer to move to go and
see the child. "Don't agitate your feelings by going to look
for him," said Lord Steyne sardonically. "Bah!" replied
the other, with a sort of blush, "he'll cry himself to sleep";
and they fell to talking about the opera.
Rawdon had stolen off though, to look after his son
and heir; and came back to the company when he found
that honest Dolly was consoling the child. The Colonel's
dressing-room was in those upper regions. He used to see
the boy there in private. They had interviews together
every morning when he shaved; Rawdon minor sitting on a
box by his father's side and watching the operation with
never-ceasing pleasure. He and the sire were great friends.
The father would bring him sweetmeats from the dessert
and hide them in a certain old epaulet box, where the
child went to seek them, and laughed with joy on
discovering the treasure; laughed, but not too loud: for mamma
was below asleep and must not be disturbed. She did not
go to rest till very late and seldom rose till after noon.
Rawdon bought the boy plenty of picture-books and
crammed his nursery with toys. Its walls were covered with
pictures pasted up by the father's own hand and purchased
by him for ready money. When he was off duty with
Mrs. Rawdon in the park, he would sit up here, passing
hours with the boy; who rode on his chest, who pulled his
great mustachios as if they were driving-reins, and spent
days with him in indefatigable gambols. The room was
a low room, and once, when the child was not five years
old, his father, who was tossing him wildly up in his
arms, hit the poor little chap's skull so violently against
the ceiling that he almost dropped the child, so terrified
was he at the disaster.
Rawdon minor had made up his face for a tremendous
howl--the severity of the blow indeed authorized that
indulgence; but just as he was going to begin, the father
interposed.
"For God's sake, Rawdy, don't wake Mamma," he
cried. And the child, looking in a very hard and piteous
way at his father, bit his lips, clenched his hands, and
didn't cry a bit. Rawdon told that story at the clubs, at
the mess, to everybody in town. "By Gad, sir," he
explained to the public in general, "what a good plucked one
that boy of mine is--what a trump he is! I half-sent his
head through the ceiling, by Gad, and he wouldn't cry for
fear of disturbing his mother."
Sometimes--once or twice in a week--that lady visited
the upper regions in which the child lived. She came like
a vivified figure out of the Magasin des Modes--blandly
smiling in the most beautiful new clothes and little gloves
and boots. Wonderful scarfs, laces, and jewels glittered
about her. She had always a new bonnet on, and flowers
bloomed perpetually in it, or else magnificent curling
ostrich feathers, soft and snowy as camellias. She nodded
twice or thrice patronizingly to the little boy, who looked
up from his dinner or from the pictures of soldiers he was
painting. When she left the room, an odour of rose, or
some other magical fragrance, lingered about the nursery.
She was an unearthly being in his eyes, superior to his
father--to all the world: to be worshipped and admired
at a distance. To drive with that lady in the carriage was
an awful rite: he sat up in the back seat and did not dare
to speak: he gazed with all his eyes at the beautifully
dressed Princess opposite to him. Gentlemen on splendid
prancing horses came up and smiled and talked with her.
How her eyes beamed upon all of them! Her hand used
to quiver and wave gracefully as they passed. When
he went out with her he had his new red dress on. His old
brown holland was good enough when he stayed at home.
Sometimes, when she was away, and Dolly his maid was
making his bed, he came into his mother's room. It was as
the abode of a fairy to him--a mystic chamber of
splendour and delights. There in the wardrobe hung those
wonderful robes--pink and blue and many-tinted. There
was the jewel-case, silver-clasped, and the wondrous
bronze hand on the dressing-table, glistening all over
with a hundred rings. There was the cheval-glass, that
miracle of art, in which he could just see his own
wondering head and the reflection of Dolly (queerly
distorted, and as if up in the ceiling), plumping and patting
the pillows of the bed. Oh, thou poor lonely little
benighted boy! Mother is the name for God in the lips and
hearts of little children; and here was one who was
worshipping a stone!
Now Rawdon Crawley, rascal as the Colonel was, had
certain manly tendencies of affection in his heart and
could love a child and a woman still. For Rawdon minor
he had a great secret tenderness then, which did not
escape Rebecca, though she did not talk about it to her
husband. It did not annoy her: she was too goodnatured.
It only increased her scorn for him. He felt
somehow ashamed of this paternal softness and hid it
from his wife--only indulging in it when alone with the
boy.
He used to take him out of mornings when they would
go to the stables together and to the park. Little Lord
Southdown, the best-natured of men, who would make
you a present of the hat from his head, and whose main
occupation in life was to buy knick-knacks that he might
give them away afterwards, bought the little chap a
pony not much bigger than a large rat, the donor said,
and on this little black Shetland pygmy young Rawdon's
great father was pleased to mount the boy, and to walk
by his side in the park. It pleased him to see his old
quarters, and his old fellow-guardsmen at Knightsbridge:
he had begun to think of his bachelorhood with
something like regret. The old troopers were glad to recognize
their ancient officer and dandle the little colonel.
Colonel Crawley found dining at mess and with his
brother-officers very pleasant. "Hang it, I ain't clever
enough for her--I know it. She won't miss me," he used to
say: and he was right, his wife did not miss him.
Rebecca was fond of her husband. She was always
perfectly good-humoured and kind to him. She did not
even show her scorn much for him; perhaps she liked
him the better for being a fool. He was her upper servant
and maitre d'hotel. He went on her errands; obeyed
her orders without question; drove in the carriage in the
ring with her without repining; took her to the opera-box,
solaced himself at his club during the performance, and
came punctually back to fetch her when due. He would
have liked her to be a little fonder of the boy, but even
to that he reconciled himself. "Hang it, you know she's so
clever," he said, "and I'm not literary and that, you
know." For, as we have said before, it requires no great
wisdom to be able to win at cards and billiards, and
Rawdon made no pretensions to any other sort of skill.
When the companion came, his domestic duties became
very light. His wife encouraged him to dine
abroad: she would let him off duty at the opera. "Don't
stay and stupefy yourself at home to-night, my dear,"
she would say. "Some men are coming who will only bore
you. I would not ask them, but you know it's for your
good, and now I have a sheep-dog, I need not be afraid
to be alone."
"A sheep-dog--a companion! Becky Sharp with a
companion! Isn't it good fun?" thought Mrs. Crawley to
herself. The notion tickled hugely her sense of humour.
One Sunday morning, as Rawdon Crawley, his little
son, and the pony were taking their accustomed walk in
the park, they passed by an old acquaintance of the
Colonel's, Corporal Clink, of the regiment, who was in
conversation with a friend, an old gentleman, who held
a boy in his arms about the age of little Rawdon. This
other youngster had seized hold of the Waterloo medal
which the Corporal wore, and was examining it with
delight.
"Good morning, your Honour," said Clink, in reply to
the "How do, Clink?" of the Colonel. "This ere young
gentleman is about the little Colonel's age, sir,"
continued the corporal.
"His father was a Waterloo man, too," said the old
gentleman, who carried the boy. "Wasn't he, Georgy?"
"Yes," said Georgy. He and the little chap on the pony
were looking at each other with all their might--solemnly
scanning each other as children do.
"In a line regiment," Clink said with a patronizing air.
"He was a Captain in the --th regiment," said the old
gentleman rather pompously. "Captain George Osborne,
sir--perhaps you knew him. He died the death of a
hero, sir, fighting against the Corsican tyrant."
Colonel Crawley blushed quite red. "I knew him very
well, sir," he said, "and his wife, his dear little wife,
sir--how is she?"
"She is my daughter, sir," said the old gentleman,
putting down the boy and taking out a card with great
solemnity, which he handed to the Colonel. On it
written--
"Mr. Sedley, Sole Agent for the Black Diamond and
Anti-Cinder Coal Association, Bunker's Wharf, Thames
Street, and Anna-Maria Cottages, Fulham Road West."
Little Georgy went up and looked at the Shetland
pony.
"Should you like to have a ride?" said Rawdon minor
from the saddle.
"Yes," said Georgy. The Colonel, who had been
looking at him with some interest, took up the child
and put him on the pony behind Rawdon minor.
"Take hold of him, Georgy," he said--"take my little
boy round the waist--his name is Rawdon." And both the
children began to laugh.
"You won't see a prettier pair I think, THIS summer's
day, sir," said the good-natured Corporal; and the
Colonel, the Corporal, and old Mr. Sedley with his umbrella,
walked by the side of the children.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
A Family in a Very Small Way
We must suppose little George Osborne has ridden from
Knightsbridge towards Fulham, and will stop and make
inquiries at that village regarding some friends whom we
have left there. How is Mrs. Amelia after the storm of
Waterloo? Is she living and thriving? What has come of
Major Dobbin, whose cab was always hankering about
her premises? And is there any news of the Collector
of Boggley Wollah? The facts concerning the latter are
briefly these:
Our worthy fat friend Joseph Sedley returned to India
not long after his escape from Brussels. Either his
furlough was up, or he dreaded to meet any witnesses of his
Waterloo flight. However it might be, he went back to his
duties in Bengal very soon after Napoleon had taken
up his residence at St. Helena, where Jos saw the ex-
Emperor. To hear Mr. Sedley talk on board ship you
would have supposed that it was not the first time he and
the Corsican had met, and that the civilian had bearded
the French General at Mount St. John. He had a
thousand anecdotes about the famous battles; he knew the
position of every regiment and the loss which each
had incurred. He did not deny that he had been
concerned in those victories--that he had been with the
army and carried despatches for the Duke of Wellington.
And he described what the Duke did and said on
every conceivable moment of the day of Waterloo, with
such an accurate knowledge of his Grace's sentiments
and proceedings that it was clear he must have been by
the conqueror's side throughout the day; though, as a
non-combatant, his name was not mentioned in the
public documents relative to the battle. Perhaps he actually
worked himself up to believe that he had been engaged
with the army; certain it is that he made a prodigious
sensation for some time at Calcutta, and was called
Waterloo Sedley during the whole of his subsequent stay in
Bengal.
The bills which Jos had given for the purchase of those
unlucky horses were paid without question by him and
his agents. He never was heard to allude to the bargain,
and nobody knows for a certainty what became
of the horses, or how he got rid of them, or of Isidor, his
Belgian servant, who sold a grey horse, very like the one
which Jos rode, at Valenciennes sometime during the
autumn of 1815.
Jos's London agents had orders to pay one hundred
and twenty pounds yearly to his parents at Fulham. It
was the chief support of the old couple; for Mr. Sedley's
speculations in life subsequent to his bankruptcy did not
by any means retrieve the broken old gentleman's
fortune. He tried to be a wine-merchant, a coal-merchant,
a commission lottery agent, &c., &c. He sent round
prospectuses to his friends whenever he took a new trade,
and ordered a new brass plate for the door, and talked
pompously about making his fortune still. But Fortune
never came back to the feeble and stricken old man. One
by one his friends dropped off, and were weary of
buying dear coals and bad wine from him; and there
was only his wife in all the world who fancied, when he
tottered off to the City of a morning, that he was still
doing any business there. At evening he crawled slowly
back; and he used to go of nights to a little club at a
tavern, where he disposed of the finances of the nation.
It was wonderful to hear him talk about millions, and
agios, and discounts, and what Rothschild was
doing, and Baring Brothers. He talked of such vast sums
that the gentlemen of the club (the apothecary, the
undertaker, the great carpenter and builder, the parish clerk,
who was allowed to come stealthily, and Mr. Clapp, our
old acquaintance,) respected the old gentleman. "I was
better off once, sir," he did not fail to tell everybody who
"used the room." "My son, sir, is at this minute chief
magistrate of Ramgunge in the Presidency of Bengal, and
touching his four thousand rupees per mensem. My
daughter might be a Colonel's lady if she liked. I might
draw upon my son, the first magistrate, sir, for two
thousand pounds to-morrow, and Alexander would cash my
bill, down sir, down on the counter, sir. But the Sedleys
were always a proud family." You and I, my dear
reader, may drop into this condition one day: for have
not many of our friends attained it? Our luck may fail:
our powers forsake us: our place on the boards be taken
by better and younger mimes--the chance of life roll
away and leave us shattered and stranded. Then men
will walk across the road when they meet you--or, worse
still, hold you out a couple of fingers and patronize you
in a pitying way--then you will know, as soon as your
back is turned, that your friend begins with a "Poor
devil, what imprudences he has committed, what chances
that chap has thrown away!" Well, well--a carriage and
three thousand a year is not the summit of the reward
nor the end of God's judgment of men. If quacks prosper
as often as they go to the wall--if zanies succeed and
knaves arrive at fortune, and, vice versa, sharing ill
luck and prosperity for all the world like the ablest and
most honest amongst us--I say, brother, the gifts and
pleasures of Vanity Fair cannot be held of any great
account, and that it is probable . . . but we are
wandering out of the domain of the story.
Had Mrs. Sedley been a woman of energy, she would
have exerted it after her husband's ruin and, occupying
a large house, would have taken in boarders. The broken
Sedley would have acted well as the boarding-house
landlady's husband; the Munoz of private life; the titular lord
and master: the carver, house-steward, and humble
husband of the occupier of the dingy throne. I have seen
men of good brains and breeding, and of good hopes and
vigour once, who feasted squires and kept hunters in
their youth, meekly cutting up legs of mutton for
rancorous old harridans and pretending to preside over their
dreary tables--but Mrs. Sedley, we say, had not spirit
enough to bustle about for "a few select inmates to join
a cheerful musical family," such as one reads of in the
Times. She was content to lie on the shore where
fortune had stranded her--and you could see that the
career of this old couple was over.
I don't think they were unhappy. Perhaps they were
a little prouder in their downfall than in their prosperity.
Mrs. Sedley was always a great person for her landlady,
Mrs. Clapp, when she descended and passed many hours
with her in the basement or ornamented kitchen. The
Irish maid Betty Flanagan's bonnets and ribbons, her
sauciness, her idleness, her reckless prodigality of kitchen
candles, her consumption of tea and sugar, and so forth
occupied and amused the old lady almost as much as the
doings of her former household, when she had Sambo and
the coachman, and a groom, and a footboy, and a
housekeeper with a regiment of female domestics--her former
household, about which the good lady talked a hundred
times a day. And besides Betty Flanagan, Mrs. Sedley
had all the maids-of-all-work in the street to superintend.
She knew how each tenant of the cottages paid or
owed his little rent. She stepped aside when Mrs.
Rougemont the actress passed with her dubious family. She
flung up her head when Mrs. Pestler, the apothecary's
lady, drove by in her husband's professional one-horse
chaise. She had colloquies with the greengrocer about
the pennorth of turnips which Mr. Sedley loved; she kept
an eye upon the milkman and the baker's boy; and
made visitations to the butcher, who sold hundreds of
oxen very likely with less ado than was made about
Mrs. Sedley's loin of mutton: and she counted the
potatoes under the joint on Sundays, on which days, dressed
in her best, she went to church twice and read Blair's
Sermons in the evening.
On that day, for "business" prevented him on weekdays
from taking such a pleasure, it was old Sedley's
delight to take out his little grandson Georgy to the
neighbouring parks or Kensington Gardens, to see the soldiers
or to feed the ducks. Georgy loved the redcoats, and his
grandpapa told him how his father had been a famous
soldier, and introduced him to many sergeants and others
with Waterloo medals on their breasts, to whom the
old grandfather pompously presented the child as the
son of Captain Osborne of the --th, who died gloriously
on the glorious eighteenth. He has been known to treat
some of these non-commissioned gentlemen to a glass of
porter, and, indeed, in their first Sunday walks was
disposed to spoil little Georgy, sadly gorging the boy with
apples and parliament, to the detriment of his health--
until Amelia declared that George should never go out
with his grandpapa unless the latter promised solemnly,
and on his honour, not to give the child any cakes,
lollipops, or stall produce whatever.
Between Mrs. Sedley and her daughter there was a sort
of coolness about this boy, and a secret jealousy--for
one evening in George's very early days, Amelia, who
had been seated at work in their little parlour scarcely
remarking that the old lady had quitted the room, ran
upstairs instinctively to the nursery at the cries of the
child, who had been asleep until that moment--and
there found Mrs. Sedley in the act of surreptitiously
administering Daffy's Elixir to the infant. Amelia, the
gentlest and sweetest of everyday mortals, when she
found this meddling with her maternal authority, thrilled
and trembled all over with anger. Her cheeks, ordinarily
pale, now flushed up, until they were as red as they used
to be when she was a child of twelve years old. She
seized the baby out of her mother's arms and then
grasped at the bottle, leaving the old lady gaping at her,
furious, and holding the guilty tea-spoon.
Amelia flung the bottle crashing into the fire-place.
"I will NOT have baby poisoned, Mamma," cried Emmy,
rocking the infant about violently with both her arms
round him and turning with flashing eyes at her mother.
"Poisoned, Amelia!" said the old lady; "this language
to me?"
"He shall not have any medicine but that which Mr.
Pestler sends for hi n. He told me that Daffy's Elixir was
poison."
"Very good: you think I'm a murderess then," replied
Mrs. Sedley. "This is the language you use to your mother.
I have met with misfortunes: I have sunk low in life: I
have kept my carriage, and now walk on foot: but I did
not know I was a murderess before, and thank you for the
NEWS."
"Mamma," said the poor girl, who was always ready for
tears--"you shouldn't be hard upon me. I--I didn't mean
--I mean, I did not wish to say you would to any
wrong to this dear child, only--"
"Oh, no, my love,--only that I was a murderess; in
which case I had better go to the Old Bailey. Though I
didn't poison YOU, when you were a child, but gave you
the best of education and the most expensive masters
money could procure. Yes; I've nursed five children and
buried three; and the one I loved the best of all, and
tended through croup, and teething, and measles, and
hooping-cough, and brought up with foreign masters,
regardless of expense, and with accomplishments at Minerva
House--which I never had when I was a girl--when I was
too glad to honour my father and mother, that I might
live long in the land, and to be useful, and not to mope
all day in my room and act the fine lady--says I'm a
murderess. Ah, Mrs. Osborne! may YOU never nourish a
viper in your bosom, that's MY prayer."
"Mamma, Mamma!" cried the bewildered girl; and the
child in her arms set up a frantic chorus of shouts.
"A murderess, indeed! Go down on your knees and
pray to God to cleanse your wicked ungrateful heart,
Amelia, and may He forgive you as I do." And Mrs.
Sedley tossed out of the room, hissing out the word
poison once more, and so ending her charitable
benediction.
Till the termination of her natural life, this breach
between Mrs. Sedley and her daughter was never thoroughly mended. The quarrel gave
the elder lady numberless
advantages which she did not fail to turn to account with
female ingenuity and perseverance. For instance, she
scarcely spoke to Amelia for many weeks afterwards.
She warned the domestics not to touch the child, as Mrs.
Osborne might be offended. She asked her daughter to
see and satisfy herself that there was no poison prepared
in the little daily messes that were concocted for Georgy.
When neighbours asked after the boy's health, she
referred them pointedly to Mrs. Osborne. SHE never
ventured to ask whether the baby was well or not. SHE
would not touch the child although he was her grandson,
and own precious darling, for she was not USED to
children, and might kill it. And whenever Mr. Pestler came
upon his healing inquisition, she received the doctor with
such a sarcastic and scornful demeanour, as made the
surgeon declare that not Lady Thistlewood herself, whom
he had the honour of attending professionally, could
give herself greater airs than old Mrs. Sedley, from whom
he never took a fee. And very likely Emmy was jealous
too, upon her own part, as what mother is not, of those
who would manage her children for her, or become
candidates for the first place in their affections. It is certain
that when anybody nursed the child, she was uneasy, and
that she would no more allow Mrs. Clapp or the
domestic to dress or tend him than she would have let them
wash her husband's miniature which hung up over her
little bed--the same little bed from which the poor girl
had gone to his; and to which she retired now for many
long, silent, tearful, but happy years.
In this room was all Amelia's heart and treasure. Here
it was that she tended her boy and watched him through
the many ills of childhood, with a constant passion of
love. The elder George returned in him somehow, only
improved, and as if come back from heaven. In a
hundred little tones, looks, and movements, the child was
so like his father that the widow's heart thrilled as she
held him to it; and he would often ask the cause of her
tears. It was because of his likeness to his father, she
did not scruple to tell him. She talked constantly to him
about this dead father, and spoke of her love for George
to the innocent and wondering child; much more than she
ever had done to George himself, or to any confidante of
her youth. To her parents she never talked about this
matter, shrinking from baring her heart to them. Little
George very likely could understand no better than they,
but into his ears she poured her sentimental secrets
unreservedly, and into his only. The very joy of this
woman was a sort of grief, or so tender, at least, that
its expression was tears. Her sensibilities were so weak
and tremulous that perhaps they ought not to be talked
about in a book. I was told by Dr. Pestler (now a most
flourishing lady's physician, with a sumptuous dark green
carriage, a prospect of speedy knighthood, and a house
in Manchester Square) that her grief at weaning the child
was a sight that would have unmanned a Herod. He was
very soft-hearted many years ago, and his wife was
mortally jealous of Mrs. Amelia, then and long afterwards.
Perhaps the doctor's lady had good reason for her
jealousy: most women shared it, of those who formed the
small circle of Amelia's acquaintance, and were quite
angry at the enthusiasm with which the other sex regarded
her. For almost all men who came near her loved
her; though no doubt they would be at a loss to tell you
why. She was not brilliant, nor witty, nor wise over
much, nor extraordinarily handsome. But wherever she
went she touched and charmed every one of the male
sex, as invariably as she awakened the scorn and
incredulity of her own sisterhood. I think it was her
weakness which was her principal charm--a kind of sweet
submission and softness, which seemed to appeal to
each man she met for his sympathy and protection. We
have seen how in the regiment, though she spoke but to
few of George's comrades there, all the swords of the
young fellows at the mess-table would have leapt from
their scabbards to fight round her; and so it was in
the little narrow lodging-house and circle at Fulham, she
interested and pleased everybody. If she had been Mrs.
Mango herself, of the great house of Mango, Plantain,
and Co., Crutched Friars, and the magnificent proprietress
of the Pineries, Fulham, who gave summer dejeuners
frequented by Dukes and Earls, and drove about
the parish with magnificent yellow liveries and bay horses,
such as the royal stables at Kensington themselves could
not turn out--I say had she been Mrs. Mango herself, or
her son's wife, Lady Mary Mango (daughter of the
Earl of Castlemouldy, who condescended to marry the
head of the firm), the tradesmen of the neighbourhood
could not pay her more honour than they invariably
showed to the gentle young widow, when she passed by
their doors, or made her humble purchases at their shops.
Thus it was not only Mr. Pestler, the medical man, but
Mr. Linton the young assistant, who doctored the servant
maids and small tradesmen, and might be seen any day
reading the Times in the surgery, who openly declared
himself the slave of Mrs. Osborne. He was a personable
young gentleman, more welcome at Mrs. Sedley's lodgings
than his principal; and if anything went wrong with
Georgy, he would drop in twice or thrice in the day to
see the little chap, and without so much as the thought
of a fee. He would abstract lozenges, tamarinds, and
other produce from the surgery-drawers for little
Georgy's benefit, and compounded draughts and mixtures
for him of miraculous sweetness, so that it was quite a
pleasure to the child to be ailing. He and Pestler, his
chief, sat up two whole nights by the boy in that
momentous and awful week when Georgy had the measles; and
when you would have thought, from the mother's terror,
that there had never been measles in the world before.
Would they have done as much for other people? Did
they sit up for the folks at the Pineries, when Ralph
Plantagenet, and Gwendoline, and Guinever Mango had the
same juvenile complaint? Did they sit up for little Mary
Clapp, the landlord's daughter, who actually caught the
disease of little Georgy? Truth compels one to say, no.
They slept quite undisturbed, at least as far as she was
concerned--pronounced hers to be a slight case, which
would almost cure itself, sent her in a draught or two,
and threw in bark when the child rallied, with perfect
indifference, and just for form's sake.
Again, there was the little French chevalier opposite,
who gave lessons in his native tongue at various schools
in the neighbourhood, aud who might be heard in his
apartment of nights playing tremulous old gavottes and
minuets on a wheezy old fiddle. Whenever this powdered
and courteous old man, who never missed a Sunday at the
convent chapel at Hammersmith, and who was in all
respects, thoughts, conduct, and bearing utterly unlike the
bearded savages of his nation, who curse perfidious
Albion, and scowl at you from over their cigars, in the
Quadrant arcades at the present day--whenever the
old Chevalier de Talonrouge spoke of Mistress Osborne,
he would first finish his pinch of snuff, flick away the
remaining particles of dust with a graceful wave of his
hand, gather up his fingers again into a bunch, and,
bringing them up to his mouth, blow them open with a kiss,
exclaiming, Ah! la divine creature! He vowed and
protested that when Amelia walked in the Brompton Lanes
flowers grew in profusion under her feet. He called little
Georgy Cupid, and asked him news of Venus, his mamma;
and told the astonished Betty Flanagan that she was
one of the Graces, and the favourite attendant of the
Reine des Amours.
Instances might be multiplied of this easily gained and
unconscious popularity. Did not Mr. Binny, the mild
and genteel curate of the district chapel, which the family
attended, call assiduously upon the widow, dandle the
little boy on his knee, and offer to teach him Latin, to the
anger of the elderly virgin, his sister, who kept house
for him? "There is nothing in her, Beilby," the latter
lady would say. "When she comes to tea here she does
not speak a word during the whole evening. She is but a
poor lackadaisical creature, and it is my belief has no
heart at all. It is only her pretty face which all you
gentlemen admire so. Miss Grits, who has five thousand
pounds, and expectations besides, has twice as much
character, and is a thousand times more agreeable to my
taste; and if she were good-looking I know that you would
think her perfection."
Very likely Miss Binny was right to a great extent. It
IS the pretty face which creates sympathy in the hearts of
men, those wicked rogues. A woman may possess the
wisdom and chastity of Minerva, and we give no heed to
her, if she has a plain face. What folly will not a pair of
bright eyes make pardonable? What dulness may not
red lips and sweet accents render pleasant? And so, with
their usual sense of justice, ladies argue that because a
woman is handsome, therefore she is a fool. O ladies,
ladies! there are some of you who are neither handsome
nor wise.
These are but trivial incidents to recount in the life of
our heroine. Her tale does not deal in wonders, as the
gentle reader has already no doubt perceived; and if a
journal had been kept of her proceedings during the
seven years after the birth of her son, there would be
found few incidents more remarkable in it than that of
the measles, recorded in the foregoing page. Yes, one
day, and greatly to her wonder, the Reverend Mr. Binny,
just mentioned, asked her to change her name of Osborne
for his own; when, with deep blushes and tears in her
eyes and voice, she thanked him for his regard for her,
expressed gratitude for his attentions to her and to her
poor little boy, but said that she never, never could
think of any but--but the husband whom she had lost.
On the twenty-fifth of April, and the eighteenth of
June, the days of marriage and widowhood, she kept her
room entirely, consecrating them (and we do not know
how many hours of solitary night-thought, her little boy
sleeping in his crib by her bedside) to the memory of that
departed friend. During the day she was more active.
She had to teach George to read and to write and a little
to draw. She read books, in order that she might tell
him stories from them. As his eyes opened and his mind
expanded under the influence of the outward nature
round about him, she taught the child, to the best of
her humble power, to acknowledge the Maker of all, and
every night and every morning he and she--(in that
awful and touching communion which I think must bring
a thrill to the heart of every man who witnesses or who
remembers it)--the mother and the little boy--prayed
to Our Father together, the mother pleading with all her
gentle heart, the child lisping after her as she spoke. And
each time they prayed to God to bless dear Papa, as
if he were alive and in the room with them.
To wash and dress this young gentleman--to take him
for a run of the mornings, before breakfast, and the
retreat of grandpapa for "business"--to make for him the
most wonderful and ingenious dresses, for which end the
thrifty widow cut up and altered every available little bit
of finery which she possessed out of her wardrobe during
her marriage--for Mrs. Osborne herself (greatly to her
mother's vexation, who preferred fine clothes, especially
since her misfortunes) always wore a black gown and a
straw bonnet with a black ribbon--occupied her many
hours of the day. Others she had to spare, at the service
of her mother and her old father. She had taken the pains
to learn, and used to play cribbage with this gentleman
on the nights when he did not go to his club. She sang
for him when he was so minded, and it was a good
sign, for he invariably fell into a comfortable sleep during
the music. She wrote out his numerous memorials,
letters, prospectuses, and projects. It was in her
handwriting that most of the old gentleman's former
acquaintances were informed that he had become an agent for
the Black Diamond and Anti-Cinder Coal Company and
could supply his friends and the public with the best coals
at --s. per chaldron. All he did was to sign the circulars
with his flourish and signature, and direct them in a
shaky, clerklike hand. One of these papers was sent to
Major Dobbin, --Regt., care of Messrs. Cox and Greenwood;
but the Major being in Madras at the time, had no
particular call for coals. He knew, though, the hand
which had written the prospectus. Good God! what
would he not have given to hold it in his own! A second
prospectus came out, informing the Major that J. Sedley
and Company, having established agencies at Oporto,
Bordeaux, and St. Mary's, were enabled to offer to their
friends and the public generally the finest and most
celebrated growths of ports, sherries, and claret wines at
reasonable prices and under extraordinary advantages.
Acting upon this hint, Dobbin furiously canvassed the
governor, the commander-in-chief, the judges, the
regiments, and everybody whom he knew in the Presidency,
and sent home to Sedley and Co. orders for wine which
perfectly astonished Mr. Sedley and Mr. Clapp, who was
the Co. in the business. But no more orders came after
that first burst of good fortune, on which poor old Sedley
was about to build a house in the City, a regiment of
clerks, a dock to himself, and correspondents all over
the world. The old gentleman's former taste in wine had
gone: the curses of the mess-room assailed Major Dobbin
for the vile drinks he had been the means of introducing
there; and he bought back a great quantity of the wine
and sold it at public outcry, at an enormous loss to himself.
As for Jos, who was by this time promoted to a seat
at the Revenue Board at Calcutta, he was wild with rage
when the post brought him out a bundle of these
Bacchanalian prospectuses, with a private note from his
father, telling Jos that his senior counted upon him in
this enterprise, and had consigned a quantity of select
wines to him, as per invoice, drawing bills upon him for
the amount of the same. Jos, who would no more have it
supposed that his father, Jos Sedley's father, of the Board
of Revenue, was a wine merchant asking for orders, than
that he was Jack Ketch, refused the bills with scorn, wrote
back contumeliously to the old gentleman, bidding him
to mind his own affairs; and the protested paper coming
back, Sedley and Co. had to take it up, with the profits
which they had made out of the Madras venture, and
with a little portion of Emmy's savings.
Besides her pension of fifty pounds a year, there had
been five hundred pounds, as her husband's executor
stated, left in the agent's hands at the time of Osborne's
demise, which sum, as George's guardian, Dobbin
proposed to put out at 8 per cent in an Indian house of
agency. Mr. Sedley, who thought the Major had some
roguish intentions of his own about the money, was
strongly against this plan; and he went to the agents to
protest personally against the employment of the money
in question, when he learned, to his surprise, that there
had been no such sum in their hands, that all the late
Captain's assets did not amount to a hundred pounds,
and that the five hundred pounds in question must be a
separate sum, of which Major Dobbin knew the particulars.
More than ever convinced that there was some
roguery, old Sedley pursued the Major. As his daughter's
nearest friend, he demanded with a high hand a statement
of the late Captain's accounts. Dobbin's stammering,
blushing, and awkwardness added to the other's
convictions that he had a rogue to deal with, and in a
majestic tone he told that officer a piece of his mind, as
he called it, simply stating his belief that the Major was
unlawfully detaining his late son-in-law's money.
Dobbin at this lost all patience, and if his accuser had
not been so old and so broken, a quarrel might have
ensued between them at the Slaughters' Coffee-house, in
a box of which place of entertainment the gentlemen had
their colloquy. "Come upstairs, sir," lisped out the
Major. "I insist on your coming up the stairs, and I will
show which is the injured party, poor George or I"; and,
dragging the old gentleman up to his bedroom, he
produced from his desk Osborne's accounts, and a bundle
of IOU's which the latter had given, who, to do him
justice, was always ready to give an IOU. "He paid
his bills in England," Dobbin added, "but he had not a
hundred pounds in the world when he fell. I and one or
two of his brother officers made up the little sum, which
was all that we could spare, and you dare tell us that
we are trying to cheat the widow and the orphan."
Sedley was very contrite and humbled, though the fact is
that William Dobbin had told a great falsehood to the old
gentleman; having himself given every shilling of the
money, having buried his friend, and paid all the fees and
charges incident upon the calamity and removal of poor
Amelia.
About these expenses old Osborne had never given
himself any trouble to think, nor any other relative of
Amelia, nor Amelia herself, indeed. She trusted to Major
Dobbin as an accountant, took his somewhat confused
calculations for granted, and never once suspected how
much she was in his debt.
Twice or thrice in the year, according to her promise,
she wrote him letters to Madras, letters all about
little Georgy. How he treasured these papers! Whenever
Amelia wrote he answered, and not until then. But
he sent over endless remembrances of himself to his
godson and to her. He ordered and sent a box of scarfs
and a grand ivory set of chess-men from China. The
pawns were little green and white men, with real swords
and shields; the knights were on horseback, the castles
were on the backs of elephants. "Mrs. Mango's own set at
the Pineries was not so fine," Mr. Pestler remarked. These
chess-men were the delight of Georgy's life, who printed
his first letter in acknowledgement of this gift of his
godpapa. He sent over preserves and pickles, which latter
the young gentleman tried surreptitiously in the sideboard
and half-killed himself with eating. He thought it was a
judgement upon him for stealing, they were so hot. Emmy
wrote a comical little account of this mishap to the
Major: it pleased him to think that her spirits were rallying
and that she could be merry sometimes now. He
sent over a pair of shawls, a white one for her and a black
one with palm-leaves for her mother, and a pair of red
scarfs, as winter wrappers, for old Mr. Sedley and George.
The shawls were worth fifty guineas apiece at the very
least, as Mrs. Sedley knew. She wore hers in state at
church at Brompton, and was congratulated by her
female friends upon the splendid acquisition. Emmy's, too,
became prettily her modest black gown. "What a pity it
is she won't think of him!" Mrs. Sedley remarked to
Mrs. Clapp and to all her friends of Brompton. "Jos never
sent us such presents, I am sure, and grudges us
everything. It is evident that the Major is over head and ears
in love with her; and yet, whenever I so much as hint it,
she turns red and begins to cry and goes and sits upstairs
with her miniature. I'm sick of that miniature. I wish we
had never seen those odious purse-proud Osbornes."
Amidst such humble scenes and associates George's
early youth was passed, and the boy grew up delicate,
sensitive, imperious, woman-bred--domineering the
gentle mother whom he loved with passionate affection. He
ruled all the rest of the little world round about him.
As he grew, the elders were amazed at his haughty
manner and his constant likeness to his father. He asked
questions about everything, as inquiring youth will do. The
profundity of his remarks and interrogatories astonished
his old grandfather, who perfectly bored the club at the
tavern with stories about the little lad's learning and
genius. He suffered his grandmother with a good-humoured indifference. The small circle
round about him
believed that the equal of the boy did not exist upon the
earth. Georgy inherited his father's pride, and perhaps
thought they were not wrong.
When he grew to be about six years old, Dobbin began
to write to him very much. The Major wanted to hear
that Georgy was going to a school and hoped he would
acquit himself with credit there: or would he have a good
tutor at home? It was time that he should begin to learn;
and his godfather and guardian hinted that he hoped to
be allowed to defray the charges of the boy's education,
which would fall heavily upon his mother's straitened
income. The Major, in a word, was always thinking about
Amelia and her little boy, and by orders to his agents
kept the latter provided with picture-books, paint-boxes,
desks, and all conceivable implements of amusement and
instruction. Three days before George's sixth birthday a
gentleman in a gig, accompanied by a servant, drove
up to Mr. Sedley's house and asked to see Master George
Osborne: it was Mr. Woolsey, military tailor, of Conduit
Street, who came at the Major's order to measure the
young gentleman for a suit of clothes. He had had the
honour of making for the Captain, the young
gentleman's father.
Sometimes, too, and by the Major's desire no doubt,
his sisters, the Misses Dobbin, would call in the family
carriage to take Amelia and the little boy to drive if they
were so inclined. The patronage and kindness of these
ladies was very uncomfortable to Amelia, but she bore it
meekly enough, for her nature was to yield; and, besides,
the carriage and its splendours gave little Georgy
immense pleasure. The ladies begged occasionally that the
child might pass a day with them, and he was always glad
to go to that fine garden-house at Denmark Hill, where
they lived, and where there were such fine grapes in the
hot-houses and peaches on the walls.
One day they kindly came over to Amelia with news
which they were SURE would delight her--something VERY
interesting about their dear William.
"What was it: was he coming home?" she asked with
pleasure beaming in her eyes.
"Oh, no--not the least--but they had very good reason
to believe that dear William was about to be married--
and to a relation of a very dear friend of Amelia's--to
Miss Glorvina O'Dowd, Sir Michael O'Dowd's sister,
who had gone out to join Lady O'Dowd at Madras--a very
beautiful and accomplished girl, everybody said."
Amelia said "Oh!" Amelia was very VERY happy indeed.
But she supposed Glorvina could not be like her old
acquaintance, who was most kind--but--but she was
very happy indeed. And by some impulse of which I
cannot explain the meaning, she took George in her arms
and kissed him with an extraordinary tenderness. Her
eyes were quite moist when she put the child down; and
she scarcely spoke a word during the whole of the
drive--though she was so very happy indeed.
CHAPTER XXXIX
A Cynical Chapter
Our duty now takes us back for a brief space to some old
Hampshire acquaintances of ours, whose hopes respecting
the disposal of their rich kinswoman's property were so
woefully disappointed. After counting upon thirty thousand
pounds from his sister, it was a heavy blow. to Bute Crawley
to receive but five; out of which sum, when he had paid
his own debts and those of Jim, his son at college, a very
small fragment remained to portion off his four plain
daughters. Mrs. Bute never knew, or at least never
acknowledged, how far her own tyrannous behaviour had
tended to ruin her husband. All that woman could do, she
vowed and protested she had done. Was it her fault if
she did not possess those sycophantic arts which her
hypocritical nephew, Pitt Crawley, practised? She wished
him all the happiness which he merited out of his
ill-gotten gains. "At least the money will remain in the
family," she said charitably. "Pitt will never spend it, my
dear, that is quite certain; for a greater miser does not
exist in England, and he is as odious, though in a
different way, as his spendthrift brother, the abandoned
Rawdon."
So Mrs. Bute, after the first shock of rage and
disappointment, began to accommodate herself as best
she could to her altered fortunes and to save and retrench
with all her might. She instructed her daughters how to
bear poverty cheerfully, and invented a thousand notable
methods to conceal or evade it. She took them about to
balls and public places in the neighbourhood, with
praiseworthy energy; nay, she entertained her friends in a
hospitable comfortable manner at the Rectory, and much
more frequently than before dear Miss Crawley's legacy
had fallen in. From her outward bearing nobody would
have supposed that the family had been disappointed
in their expectations, or have guessed from her frequent
appearance in public how she pinched and starved at
home. Her girls had more milliners' furniture than they
had ever enjoyed before. They appeared perseveringly
at the Winchester and Southampton assemblies; they
penetrated to Cowes for the race-balls and regatta-gaieties
there; and their carriage, with the horses taken from the
plough, was at work perpetually, until it began almost to
be believed that the four sisters had had fortunes left them
by their aunt, whose name the family never mentioned in
public but with the most tender gratitude and regard. I
know no sort of lying which is more frequent in Vanity
Fair than this, and it may be remarked how people who
practise it take credit to themselves for their hypocrisy,
and fancy that they are exceedingly virtuous and
praiseworthy, because they are able to deceive the world
with regard to the extent of their means.
Mrs. Bute certainly thought herself one of the most
virtuous women in England, and the sight of her happy
family was an edifying one to strangers. They were so
cheerful, so loving, so well-educated, so simple! Martha
painted flowers exquisitely and furnished half the charity
bazaars in the county. Emma was a regular County Bulbul,
and her verses in the Hampshire Telegraph were
the glory of its Poet's Corner. Fanny and Matilda sang
duets together, Mamma playing the piano, and the other
two sisters sitting with their arms round each other's waists
and listening affectionately. Nobody saw the poor girls
drumming at the duets in private. No one saw Mamma
drilling them rigidly hour after hour. In a word, Mrs. Bute
put a good face against fortune and kept up appearances
in the most virtuous manner.
Everything that a good and respectable mother could
do Mrs. Bute did. She got over yachting men from
Southampton, parsons from the Cathedral Close at Winchester,
and officers from the barracks there. She tried to inveigle
the young barristers at assizes and encouraged Jim to
bring home friends with whom he went out hunting with
the H. H. What will not a mother do for the benefit of
her beloved ones?
Between such a woman and her brother-in-law, the
odious Baronet at the Hall, it is manifest that there could
be very little in common. The rupture between Bute and
his brother Sir Pitt was complete; indeed, between Sir
Pitt and the whole county, to which the old man was a
scandal. His dislike for respectable society increased with
age, and the lodge-gates had not opened to a gentleman's
carriage-wheels since Pitt and Lady Jane came to pay their
visit of duty after their marriage.
That was an awful and unfortunate visit, never to be
thought of by the family without horror. Pitt begged his
wife, with a ghastly countenance, never to speak of it,
and it was only through Mrs. Bute herself, who still
knew everything which took place at the Hall, that the
circumstances of Sir Pitt's reception of his son and
daughter-in-law were ever known at all.
As they drove up the avenue of the park in their neat
and well-appointed carriage, Pitt remarked with dismay
and wrath great gaps among the trees--his trees--which
the old Baronet was felling entirely without license. The
park wore an aspect of utter dreariness and ruin. The
drives were ill kept, and the neat carriage splashed and
floundered in muddy pools along the road. The great
sweep in front of the terrace and entrance stair was
black and covered with mosses; the once trim flower-beds
rank and weedy. Shutters were up along almost the
whole line of the house; the great hall-door was unbarred
after much ringing of the bell; an individual in ribbons
was seen flitting up the black oak stair, as Horrocks at
length admitted the heir of Queen's Crawley and his bride
into the halls of their fathers. He led the way into Sir
Pitt's "Library," as it was called, the fumes of tobacco
growing stronger as Pitt and Lady Jane approached that
apartment, "Sir Pitt ain't very well," Horrocks remarked
apologetically and hinted that his master was afflicted
with lumbago.
The library looked out on the front walk and park.
Sir Pitt had opened one of the windows, and was bawling
out thence to the postilion and Pitt's servant, who seemed
to be about to take the baggage down.
"Don't move none of them trunks," he cried, pointing
with a pipe which he held in his hand. "It's only a morning
visit, Tucker, you fool. Lor, what cracks that off hoss
has in his heels! Ain't there no one at the King's Head to
rub 'em a little? How do, Pitt? How do, my dear? Come
to see the old man, hay? 'Gad--you've a pretty face, too.
You ain't like that old horse-godmother, your mother.
Come and give old Pitt a kiss, like a good little gal."
The embrace disconcerted the daughter-in-law
somewhat, as the caresses of the old gentleman, unshorn and
perfumed with tobacco, might well do. But she
remembered that her brother Southdown had mustachios,
and smoked cigars, and submitted to the Baronet with a
tolerable grace.
"Pitt has got vat," said the Baronet, after this mark of
affection. "Does he read ee very long zermons, my dear?
Hundredth Psalm, Evening Hymn, hay Pitt? Go and get
a glass of Malmsey and a cake for my Lady Jane, Horrocks,
you great big booby, and don't stand stearing there like
a fat pig. I won't ask you to stop, my dear; you'll find it too
stoopid, and so should I too along a Pitt. I'm an old man
now, and like my own ways, and my pipe and backgammon
of a night."
"I can play at backgammon, sir," said Lady Jane,
laughing. "I used to play with Papa and Miss Crawley, didn't
I, Mr. Crawley?"
"Lady Jane can play, sir, at the game to which you
state that you are so partial," Pitt said haughtily.
But she wawn't stop for all that. Naw, naw, goo back
to Mudbury and give Mrs. Rincer a benefit; or drive down
to the Rectory and ask Buty for a dinner. He'll be charmed
to see you, you know; he's so much obliged to you for
gettin' the old woman's money. Ha, ha! Some of it will
do to patch up the Hall when I'm gone."
"I perceive, sir," said Pitt with a heightened voice,
"that your people will cut down the timber."
"Yees, yees, very fine weather, and seasonable for the
time of year," Sir Pitt answered, who had suddenly
grown deaf. "But I'm gittin' old, Pitt, now. Law bless you,
you ain't far from fifty yourself. But he wears well, my
pretty Lady Jane, don't he? It's all godliness, sobriety, and
a moral life. Look at me, I'm not very fur from fowr-score
--he, he"; and he laughed, and took snuff, and leered
at her and pinched her hand.
Pitt once more brought the conversation back to the
timber, but the Baronet was deaf again in an instant.
"I'm gittin' very old, and have been cruel bad this year
with the lumbago. I shan't be here now for long; but I'm
glad ee've come, daughter-in-law. I like your face, Lady
Jane: it's got none of the damned high-boned Binkie look
in it; and I'll give ee something pretty, my dear, to go to
Court in." And he shuffled across the room to a cupboard,
from which he took a little old case containing jewels of
some value. "Take that," said he, "my dear; it belonged
to my mother, and afterwards to the first Lady Binkie.
Pretty pearls--never gave 'em the ironmonger's daughter.
No, no. Take 'em and put 'em up quick," said he, thrusting
the case into his daughter's hand, and clapping the door of
the cabinet to, as Horrocks entered with a salver and
refreshments.
"What have you a been and given Pitt's wife?" said
the individual in ribbons, when Pitt and Lady Jane had
taken leave of the old gentleman. It was Miss Horrocks,
the butler's daughter--the cause of the scandal
throughout the county--the lady who reigned now almost
supreme at Queen's Crawley.
The rise and progress of those Ribbons had been
marked with dismay by the county and family. The
Ribbons opened an account at the Mudbury Branch Savings
Bank; the Ribbons drove to church, monopolising the
pony-chaise, which was for the use of the servants at
the Hall. The domestics were dismissed at her pleasure.
The Scotch gardener, who still lingered on the premises,
taking a pride in his walls and hot-houses, and indeed
making a pretty good livelihood by the garden, which he
farmed, and of which he sold the produce at Southampton,
found the Ribbons eating peaches on a sunshiny morning
at the south-wall, and had his ears boxed when he
remonstrated about this attack on his property. He and
his Scotch wife and his Scotch children, the only
respectable inhabitants of Queen's Crawley, were forced to
migrate, with their goods and their chattels, and left the
stately comfortable gardens to go to waste, and the
flower-beds to run to seed. Poor Lady Crawley's rose-garden
became the dreariest wilderness. Only two or three
domestics shuddered in the bleak old servants' hall. The
stables and offices were vacant, and shut up, and half
ruined. Sir Pitt lived in private, and boozed nightly with
Horrocks, his butler or house-steward (as he now began
to be called), and the abandoned Ribbons. The times
were very much changed since the period when she drove
to Mudbury in the spring-cart and called the small tradesmen
"Sir." It may have been shame, or it may have been
dislike of his neighbours, but the old Cynic of Queen's
Crawley hardly issued from his park-gates at all now. He
quarrelled with his agents and screwed his tenants by
letter. His days were passed in conducting his own
correspondence; the lawyers and farm-bailiffs who had to
do business with him could not reach him but through the
Ribbons, who received them at the door of the
housekeeper's room, which commanded the back entrance by
which they were admitted; and so the Baronet's daily
perplexities increased, and his embarrassments multiplied
round him.
The horror of Pitt Crawley may be imagined, as these
reports of his father's dotage reached the most exemplary
and correct of gentlemen. He trembled daily lest he should
hear that the Ribbons was proclaimed his second legal
mother-in-law. After that first and last visit, his father's
name was never mentioned in Pitt's polite and genteel
establishment. It was the skeleton in his house, and all the
family walked by it in terror and silence. The Countess
Southdown kept on dropping per coach at the lodge-gate
the most exciting tracts, tracts which ought to frighten
the hair off your head. Mrs. Bute at the parsonage
nightly looked out to see if the sky was red over the
elms behind which the Hall stood, and the mansion was on
fire. Sir G. Wapshot and Sir H. Fuddlestone, old friends of
the house, wouldn't sit on the bench with Sir Pitt at
Quarter Sessions, and cut him dead in the High Street
of Southampton, where the reprobate stood offering his
dirty old hands to them. Nothing had any effect upon him;
he put his hands into his pockets, and burst out laughing,
as he scrambled into his carriage and four; he used to
burst out laughing at Lady Southdown's tracts; and he
laughed at his sons, and at the world, and at the
Ribbons when she was angry, which was not seldom.
Miss Horrocks was installed as housekeeper at Queen's
Crawley, and ruled all the domestics there with great
majesty and rigour. All the servants were instructed to
address her as "Mum," or "Madam"--and there was one
little maid, on her promotion, who persisted in calling
her "My Lady," without any rebuke on the part of the
housekeeper. "There has been better ladies, and there
has been worser, Hester," was Miss Horrocks' reply to
this compliment of her inferior; so she ruled, having
supreme power over all except her father, whom,
however, she treated with considerable haughtiness, warning
him not to be too familiar in his behaviour to one "as was
to be a Baronet's lady." Indeed, she rehearsed that exalted
part in life with great satisfaction to herself, and to the
amusement of old Sir Pitt, who chuckled at her airs and
graces, and would laugh by the hour together at her
assumptions of dignity and imitations of genteel life.
He swore it was as good as a play to see her in the
character of a fine dame, and he made her put on one of
the first Lady Crawley's court-dresses, swearing (entirely
to Miss Horrocks' own concurrence) that the dress
became her prodigiously, and threatening to drive her off
that very instant to Court in a coach-and-four. She had
the ransacking of the wardrobes of the two defunct ladies,
and cut and hacked their posthumous finery so as to suit
her own tastes and figure. And she would have liked to
take possession of their jewels and trinkets too; but the
old Baronet had locked them away in his private cabinet;
nor could she coax or wheedle him out of the keys. And
it is a fact, that some time after she left Queen's Crawley
a copy-book belonging to this lady was discovered, which
showed that she had taken great pains in private to learn
the art of writing in general, and especially of writing
her own name as Lady Crawley, Lady Betsy Horrocks,
Lady Elizabeth Crawley, &c.
Though the good people of the Parsonage never went to
the Hall and shunned the horrid old dotard its owner, yet
they kept a strict knowledge of all that happened there,
and were looking out every day for the catastrophe for
which Miss Horrocks was also eager. But Fate intervened
enviously and prevented her from receiving the reward due
to such immaculate love and virtue.
One day the Baronet surprised "her ladyship," as he
jocularly called her, seated at that old and tuneless piano
in the drawing-room, which had scarcely been touched
since Becky Sharp played quadrilles upon it--seated at
the piano with the utmost gravity and squalling to the
best of her power in imitation of the music which she
had sometimes heard. The little kitchen-maid on her
promotion was standing at her mistress's side, quite delighted
during the operation, and wagging her head up and down
and crying, "Lor, Mum, 'tis bittiful"--just like a genteel
sycophant in a real drawing-room.
This incident made the old Baronet roar with laughter,
as usual. He narrated the circumstance a dozen times to
Horrocks in the course of the evening, and greatly to the
discomfiture of Miss Horrocks. He thrummed on the table
as if it had been a musical instrument, and squalled in
imitation of her manner of singing. He vowed that such
a beautiful voice ought to be cultivated and declared she
ought to have singing-masters, in which proposals she
saw nothing ridiculous. He was in great spirits that night,
and drank with his friend and butler an extraordinary
quantity of rum-and-water--at a very late hour the
faithful friend and domestic conducted his master to his
bedroom.
Half an hour afterwards there was a great hurry and
bustle in the house. Lights went about from window to
window in the lonely desolate old Hall, whereof but two or
three rooms were ordinarily occupied by its owner.
Presently, a boy on a pony went galloping off to Mudbury,
to the Doctor's house there. And in another hour (by
which fact we ascertain how carefully the excellent Mrs.
Bute Crawley had always kept up an understanding with
the great house), that lady in her clogs and calash, the
Reverend Bute Crawley, and James Crawley, her son,
had walked over from the Rectory through the park, and
had entered the mansion by the open hall-door.
They passed through the hall and the small oak parlour,
on the table of which stood the three tumblers and the
empty rum-bottle which had served for Sir Pitt's carouse,
and through that apartment into Sir Pitt's study, where
they found Miss Horrocks, of the guilty ribbons, with a
wild air, trying at the presses and escritoires with a
bunch of keys. She dropped them with a scream of
terror, as little Mrs. Bute's eyes flashed out at her from
under her black calash.
"Look at that, James and Mr. Crawley,?" cried Mrs.
Bute, pointing at the scared figure of the black-eyed,
guilty wench.
"He gave 'em me; he gave 'em me!" she cried.
"Gave them you, you abandoned creature!" screamed
Mrs. Bute. "Bear witness, Mr. Crawley, we found this
good-for-nothing woman in the act of stealing your
brother's property; and she will be hanged, as I always
said she would."
Betsy Horrocks, quite daunted, flung herself down on
her knees, bursting into tears. But those who know a really
good woman are aware that she is not in a hurry to
forgive, and that the humiliation of an enemy is a triumph
to her soul.
"Ring the bell, James," Mrs. Bute said. "Go on ringing it
till the people come." The three or four domestics
resident in the deserted old house came presently at that
jangling and continued summons.
"Put that woman in the strong-room," she said. "We
caught her in the act of robbing Sir Pitt. Mr. Crawley,
you'll make out her committal--and, Beddoes, you'll
drive her over in the spring cart, in the morning, to
Southampton Gaol."
"My dear," interposed the Magistrate and Rector--
"she's only--"
"Are there no handcuffs?" Mrs. Bute continued,
stamping in her clogs. "There used to be handcuffs.
Where's the creature's abominable father?"
"He DID give 'em me," still cried poor Betsy; "didn't
he, Hester? You saw Sir Pitt--you know you did--
give 'em me, ever so long ago--the day after Mudbury
fair: not that I want 'em. Take 'em if you think they
ain't mine." And here the unhappy wretch pulled out
from her pocket a large pair of paste shoe-buckles which
had excited her admiration, and which she had just
appropriated out of one of the bookcases in the study,
where they had lain.
"Law, Betsy, how could you go for to tell such a wicked
story!" said Hester, the little kitchen-maid late on her
promotion--"and to Madame Crawley, so good and kind,
and his Rev'rince (with a curtsey), and you may search
all MY boxes, Mum, I'm sure, and here's my keys as I'm
an honest girl, though of pore parents and workhouse
bred--and if you find so much as a beggarly bit of lace
or a silk stocking out of all the gownds as YOU'VE had the
picking of, may I never go to church agin."
"Give up your keys, you hardened hussy," hissed out
the virtuous little lady in the calash.
"And here's a candle, Mum, and if you please, Mum,
I can show you her room, Mum, and the press in the
housekeeper's room, Mum, where she keeps heaps and
heaps of things, Mum," cried out the eager little Hester
with a profusion of curtseys.
"Hold your tongue, if you please. I know the room
which the creature occupies perfectly well. Mrs. Brown,
have the goodness to come with me, and Beddoes don't
you lose sight of that woman," said Mrs. Bute, seizing the
candle. "Mr. Crawley, you had better go upstairs and
see that they are not murdering your unfortunate brother"
--and the calash, escorted by Mrs. Brown, walked away
to the apartment which, as she said truly, she knew
perfectly well.
Bute went upstairs and found the Doctor from
Mudbury, with the frightened Horrocks over his master in a
chair. They were trying to bleed Sir Pitt Crawley.
With the early morning an express was sent off to Mr.
Pitt Crawley by the Rector's lady, who assumed the
command of everything, and had watched the old Baronet
through the night. He had been brought back to a sort of
life; he could not speak, but seemed to recognize people.
Mrs. Bute kept resolutely by his bedside. She never seemed
to want to sleep, that little woman, and did not close her
fiery black eyes once, though the Doctor snored in the
arm-chair. Horrocks made some wild efforts to assert
his authority and assist his master; but Mrs. Bute called
him a tipsy old wretch and bade him never show his face
again in that house, or he should be transported like his
abominable daughter.
Terrified by her manner, he slunk down to the oak
parlour where Mr. James was, who, having tried the
bottle standing there and found no liquor in it, ordered
Mr. Horrocks to get another bottle of rum, which he
fetched, with clean glasses, and to which the Rector and
his son sat down, ordering Horrocks to put down the keys
at that instant and never to show his face again.
Cowed by this behaviour, Horrocks gave up the keys,
and he and his daughter slunk off silently through the
night and gave up possession of the house of Queen's
Crawley.
CHAPTER XL
In Which Becky Is Recognized by the Family
The heir of Crawley arrived at home, in due time, after
this catastrophe, and henceforth may be said to have
reigned in Queen's Crawley. For though the old Baronet
survived many months, he never recovered the use of
his intellect or his speech completely, and the government
of the estate devolved upon his elder son. In a
strange condition Pitt found it. Sir Pitt was always buying
and mortgaging; he had twenty men of business, and
quarrels with each; quarrels with all his tenants, and
lawsuits with them; lawsuits with the lawyers; lawsuits
with the Mining and Dock Companies in which he was
proprietor; and with every person with whom he had
business. To unravel these difficulties and to set the
estate clear was a task worthy of the orderly and
persevering diplomatist of Pumpernickel, and he set
himself to work with prodigious assiduity. His whole family,
of course, was transported to Queen's Crawley, whither
Lady Southdown, of course, came too; and she set about
converting the parish under the Rector's nose, and
brought down her irregular clergy to the dismay of the
angry Mrs Bute. Sir Pitt had concluded no bargain for
the sale of the living of Queen's Crawley; when it should
drop, her Ladyship proposed to take the patronage into
her own hands and present a young protege to the
Rectory, on which subject the diplomatic Pitt said
nothing.
Mrs. Bute's intentions with regard to Miss Betsy
Horrocks were not carried into effect, and she paid no visit
to Southampton Gaol. She and her father left the Hall
when the latter took possession of the Crawley Arms in
the village, of which he had got a lease from Sir Pitt.
The ex-butler had obtained a small freehold there
likewise, which gave him a vote for the borough. The Rector
had another of these votes, and these and four others
formed the representative body which returned the two
members for Queen's Crawley.
There was a show of courtesy kept up between the
Rectory and the Hall ladies, between the younger ones at
least, for Mrs. Bute and Lady Southdown never could
meet without battles, and gradually ceased seeing each
other. Her Ladyship kept her room when the ladies from
the Rectory visited their cousins at the Hall. Perhaps Mr.
Pitt was not very much displeased at these occasional
absences of his mamma-in-law. He believed the Binkie
family to be the greatest and wisest and most interesting
in the world, and her Ladyship and his aunt had long held
ascendency over him; but sometimes he felt that she
commanded him too much. To be considered young was
complimentary, doubtless, but at six-and-forty to be
treated as a boy was sometimes mortifying. Lady Jane
yielded up everything, however, to her mother. She was
only fond of her children in private, and it was lucky
for her that Lady Southdown's multifarious business, her
conferences with ministers, and her correspondence with
all the missionaries of Africa, Asia, aud Australasia, &c.,
occupied the venerable Countess a great deal, so that
she had but little time to devote to her granddaughter,
the little Matilda, and her grandson, Master Pitt Crawley.
The latter was a feeble child, and it was only by
prodigious quantities of calomel that Lady Southdown was
able to keep him in life at all.
As for Sir Pitt he retired into those very apartments
where Lady Crawley had been previously extinguished,
and here was tended by Miss Hester, the girl upon her
promotion, with constant care and assiduity. What love,
what fidelity, what constancy is there equal to that of a
nurse with good wages? They smooth pillows; and make
arrowroot; they get up at nights; they bear complaints
and querulousness; they see the sun shining out of doors
and don't want to go abroad; they sleep on arm-chairs
and eat their meals in solitude; they pass long long
evenings doing nothing, watching the embers, and the
patient's drink simmering in the jug; they read the weekly
paper the whole week through; and Law's Serious Call or
the Whole Duty of Man suffices them for literature for
the year--and we quarrel with them because, when their
relations come to see them once a week, a little gin
is smuggled in in their linen basket. Ladies, what man's
love is there that would stand a year's nursing of the
object of his affection? Whereas a nurse will stand by you
for ten pounds a quarter, and we think her too highly
paid. At least Mr. Crawley grumbled a good deal about
paying half as much to Miss Hester for her constant
attendance upon the Baronet his father.
Of sunshiny days this old gentleman was taken out in a
chair on the terrace--the very chair which Miss Crawley
had had at Brighton, and which had been transported
thence with a number of Lady Southdown's effects to
Queen's Crawley. Lady Jane always walked by the old
man, and was an evident favourite with him. He used to
nod many times to her and smile when she came in, and
utter inarticulate deprecatory moans when she was going
away. When the door shut upon her he would cry and
sob--whereupon Hester's face and manner, which was
always exceedingly bland and gentle while her lady was
present, would change at once, and she would make faces
at him and clench her fist and scream out "Hold your
tongue, you stoopid old fool," and twirl away his chair
from the fire which he loved to look at--at which he
would cry more. For this was all that was left after more
than seventy years of cunning, and struggling, and
drinking, and scheming, and sin and selfishness--a
whimpering old idiot put in and out of bed and cleaned
and fed like a baby.
At last a day came when the nurse's occupation was
over. Early one morning, as Pitt Crawley was at his
steward's and bailiff's books in the study, a knock came
to the door, and Hester presented herself, dropping a
curtsey, and said,
"If you please, Sir Pitt, Sir Pitt died this morning, Sir
Pitt. I was a-making of his toast, Sir Pitt, for his gruel,
Sir Pitt, which he took every morning regular at six, Sir
Pitt, and--I thought I heard a moan-like, Sir Pitt--and--
and--and--" She dropped another curtsey.
What was it that made Pitt's pale face flush quite
red? Was it because he was Sir Pitt at last, with a seat
in Parliament, and perhaps future honours in prospect?
"I'll clear the estate now with the ready money," he
thought and rapidly calculated its incumbrances and the
improvements which he would make. He would not use his
aunt's money previously lest Sir Pitt should recover and
his outlay be in vain.
All the blinds were pulled down at the Hall and Rectory:
the church bell was tolled, and the chancel hung in
black; and Bute Crawley didn't go to a coursing meeting,
but went and dined quietly at Fuddleston, where
they talked about his deceased brother and young Sir
Pitt over their port. Miss Betsy, who was by this time
married to a saddler at Mudbury, cried a good deal.
The family surgeon rode over and paid his respectful
compliments, and inquiries for the health of their
ladyships. The death was talked about at Mudbury and at
the Crawley Arms, the landlord whereof had become
reconciled with the Rector of late, who was occasionally
known to step into the parlour and taste Mr. Horrocks'
mild beer.
"Shall I write to your brother--or will you?" asked
Lady Jane of her husband, Sir Pitt.
"I will write, of course," Sir Pitt said, "and invite him
to the funeral: it will be but becoming."
"And--and--Mrs. Rawdon," said Lady Jane timidly.
"Jane!" said Lady Southdown, "how can you think of
such a thing?"
"Mrs. Rawdon must of course be asked," said Sir Pitt,
resolutely.
"Not whilst I am in the house!" said Lady Southdown.
"Your Ladyship will be pleased to recollect that I am
the head of this family," Sir Pitt replied. "If you please,
Lady Jane, you will write a letter to Mrs. Rawdon
Crawley, requesting her presence upon this melancholy
occasion."
"Jane, I forbid you to put pen to paper!" cried the
Countess.
"I believe I am the head of this family," Sir Pitt
repeated; "and however much I may regret any
circumstance which may lead to your Ladyship quitting this
house, must, if you please, continue to govern it as I see
fit."
Lady Southdown rose up as magnificent as Mrs. Siddons
in Lady Macbeth and ordered that horses might be put
to her carriage. If her son and daughter turned her out
of their house, she would hide her sorrows somewhere in
loneliness and pray for their conversion to better
thoughts.
"We don't turn you out of our house, Mamma," said
the timid Lady Jane imploringly.
"You invite such company to it as no Christian lady
should meet, and I will have my horses to-morrow
morning."
"Have the goodness to write, Jane, under my dictation,"
said Sir Pitt, rising and throwing himself into an attitude
of command, like the portrait of a Gentleman in the
Exhibition, "and begin. 'Queen's Crawley, September 14,
1822.--My dear brother--' "
Hearing these decisive and terrible words, Lady Macbeth,
who had been waiting for a sign of weakness or
vacillation on the part of her son-in-law, rose and, with a
scared look, left the library. Lady Jane looked up to
her husband as if she would fain follow and soothe her
mamma, but Pitt forbade his wife to move.
"She won't go away," he said. "She has let her house
at Brighton and has spent her last half-year's dividends.
A Countess living at an inn is a ruined woman. I have
been waiting long for an opportunity--to take this--this
decisive step, my love; for, as you must perceive, it is
impossible that there should be two chiefs in a family:
and now, if you please, we will resume the dictation. 'My
dear brother, the melancholy intelligence which it is my
duty to convey to my family must have been long
anticipated by,' " &c.
In a word, Pitt having come to his kingdom, and having
by good luck, or desert rather, as he considered, assumed
almost all the fortune which his other relatives
had expected, was determined to treat his family kindly
and respectably and make a house of Queen's Crawley
once more. It pleased him to think that he should be its
chief. He proposed to use the vast influence that his
commanding talents and position must speedily acquire
for him in the county to get his brother placed and his
cousins decently provided for, and perhaps had a little
sting of repentance as he thought that he was the
proprietor of all that they had hoped for. In the course of
three or four days' reign his bearing was changed and
his plans quite fixed: he determined to rule justly and
honestly, to depose Lady Southdown, and to be on the
friendliest possible terms with all the relations of his
blood.
So he dictated a letter to his brother Rawdon--a solemn
and elaborate letter, containing the profoundest
observations, couched in the longest words, and filling with
wonder the simple little secretary, who wrote under her
husband's order. "What an orator this will be," thought
she, "when he enters the House of Commons" (on which
point, and on the tyranny of Lady Southdown, Pitt had
sometimes dropped hints to his wife in bed); "how wise
and good, and what a genius my husband is! I fancied
him a little cold; but how good, and what a genius!"
The fact is, Pitt Crawley had got every word of the
letter by heart and had studied it, with diplomatic
secrecy, deeply and perfectly, long before he thought fit to
communicate it to his astonished wife.
This letter, with a huge black border and seal, was
accordingly despatched by Sir Pitt Crawley to his brother
the Colonel, in London. Rawdon Crawley was but
half-pleased at the receipt of it. "What's the use of going
down to that stupid place?" thought he. "I can't stand
being alone with Pitt after dinner, and horses there
and back will cost us twenty pound."
He carried the letter, as he did all difficulties, to Becky,
upstairs in her bedroom--with her chocolate, which he
always made and took to her of a morning.
He put the tray with the breakfast and the letter on
the dressing-table, before which Becky sat combing her
yellow hair. She took up the black-edged missive, and
having read it, she jumped up from the chair, crying
"Hurray!" and waving the note round her head.
"Hurray?" said Rawdon, wondering at the little figure
capering about in a streaming flannel dressing-gown, with
tawny locks dishevelled. "He's not left us anything,
Becky. I had my share when I came of age."
"You'll never be of age, you silly old man," Becky
replied. "Run out now to Madam Brunoy's, for I must
have some mourning: and get a crape on your hat, and a
black waistcoat--I don't think you've got one; order it
to be brought home to-morrow, so that we may be able
to start on Thursday."
"You don't mean to go?" Rawdon interposed.
"Of course I mean to go. I mean that Lady Jane shall
present me at Court next year. I mean that your brother
shall give you a seat in Parliament, you stupid old
creature. I mean that Lord Steyne shall have your vote and
his, my dear, old silly man; and that you shall be an Irish
Secretary, or a West Indian Governor: or a Treasurer,
or a Consul, or some such thing."
"Posting will cost a dooce of a lot of money," grumbled
Rawdon.
"We might take Southdown's carriage, which ought to
be present at the funeral, as he is a relation of the
family: but, no--I intend that we shall go by the coach.
They'll like it better. It seems more humble--"
"Rawdy goes, of course?" the Colonel asked.
"No such thing; why pay an extra place? He's too big to
travel bodkin between you and me. Let him stay here in
the nursery, and Briggs can make him a black frock. Go
you, and do as I bid you. And you had best tell Sparks,
your man, that old Sir Pitt is dead and that you will
come in for something considerable when the affairs are
arranged. He'll tell this to Raggles, who has been pressing
for money, and it will console poor Raggles." And so
Becky began sipping her chocolate.
When the faithful Lord Steyne arrived in the evening,
he found Becky and her companion, who was no other
than our friend Briggs, busy cutting, ripping, snipping,
and tearing all sorts of black stuffs available for the
melancholy occasion.
"Miss Briggs and I are plunged in grief and despondency
for the death of our Papa," Rebecca said. "Sir Pitt
Crawley is dead, my lord. We have been tearing our hair
all the morning, and now we are tearing up our old
clothes."
"Oh, Rebecca, how can you--" was all that Briggs could
say as she turned up her eyes.
"Oh, Rebecca, how can you--" echoed my Lord. "So
that old scoundrel's dead, is he? He might have been a
Peer if he had played his cards better. Mr. Pitt had very
nearly made him; but he ratted always at the wrong
time. What an old Silenus it was!"
"I might have been Silenus's widow," said Rebecca.
"Don't you remember, Miss Briggs, how you peeped in
at the door and saw old Sir Pitt on his knees to me?"
Miss Briggs, our old friend, blushed very much at this
reminiscence, and was glad when Lord Steyne ordered
her to go downstairs and make him a cup of tea.
Briggs was the house-dog whom Rebecca had provided
as guardian of her innocence and reputation. Miss Crawley
had left her a little annuity. She would have been
content to remain in the Crawley family with Lady Jane,
who was good to her and to everybody; but Lady
Southdown dismissed poor Briggs as quickly as decency
permitted; and Mr. Pitt (who thought himself much injured
by the uncalled-for generosity of his deceased relative
towards a lady who had only been Miss Crawley's
faithful retainer a score of years) made no objection to that
exercise of the dowager's authority. Bowls and Firkin
likewise received their legacies and their dismissals, and
married and set up a lodging-house, according to the
custom of their kind.
Briggs tried to live with her relations in the country,
but found that attempt was vain after the better society
to which she had been accustomed. Briggs's friends, small
tradesmen, in a country town, quarrelled over Miss
Briggs's forty pounds a year as eagerly and more openly
than Miss Crawley's kinsfolk had for that lady's
inheritance. Briggs's brother, a radical hatter and grocer, called
his sister a purse-proud aristocrat, because she would not
advance a part of her capital to stock his shop; and she
would have done so most likely, but that their sister, a
dissenting shoemaker's lady, at variance with the hatter
and grocer, who went to another chapel, showed how
their brother was on the verge of bankruptcy, and took
possession of Briggs for a while. The dissenting
shoemaker wanted Miss Briggs to send his son to college
and make a gentleman of him. Between them the two
families got a great portion of her private savings out of
her, and finally she fled to London followed by the
anathemas of both, and determined to seek for servitude
again as infinitely less onerous than liberty. And advertising
in the papers that a "Gentlewoman of agreeable
manners, and accustomed to the best society, was anxious
to," &c., she took up her residence with Mr. Bowls
in Half Moon Street, and waited the result of the
advertisement.
So it was that she fell in with Rebecca. Mrs. Rawdon's
dashing little carriage and ponies was whirling down the
street one day, just as Miss Briggs, fatigued, had
reached Mr. Bowls's door, after a weary walk to the
Times Office in the City to insert her advertisement for
the sixth time. Rebecca was driving, and at once
recognized the gentlewoman with agreeable manners, and
being a perfectly good-humoured woman, as we have
seen, and having a regard for Briggs, she pulled up the
ponies at the doorsteps, gave the reins to the groom,
and jumping out, had hold of both Briggs's hands, before
she of the agreeable manners had recovered from the
shock of seeing an old friend.
Briggs cried, and Becky laughed a great deal and
kissed the gentlewoman as soon as they got into the
passage; and thence into Mrs. Bowls's front parlour, with
the red moreen curtains, and the round looking-glass,
with the chained eagle above, gazing upon the back of
the ticket in the window which announced "Apartments
to Let."
Briggs told all her history amidst those perfectly
uncalled-for sobs and ejaculations of wonder with which
women of her soft nature salute an old acquaintance, or
regard a rencontre in the street; for though people meet
other people every day, yet some there are who insist
upon discovering miracles; and women, even though they
have disliked each other, begin to cry when they meet,
deploring and remembering the time when they last
quarrelled. So, in a word, Briggs told all her history, and
Becky gave a narrative of her own life, with her usual
artlessness and candour.
Mrs. Bowls, late Firkin, came and listened grimly in
the passage to the hysterical sniffling and giggling which
went on in the front parlour. Becky had never been a
favourite of hers. Since the establishment of the married
couple in London they had frequented their former
friends of the house of Raggles, and did not like the
latter's account of the Colonel's menage. "I wouldn't trust
him, Ragg, my boy," Bowls remarked; and his wife,
when Mrs. Rawdon issued from the parlour, only saluted
the lady with a very sour curtsey; and her fingers
were like so many sausages, cold and lifeless, when she
held them out in deference to Mrs. Rawdon, who persisted
in shaking hands with the retired lady's maid. She whirled
away into Piccadilly, nodding with the sweetest of smiles
towards Miss Briggs, who hung nodding at the window
close under the advertisement-card, and at the next
moment was in the park with a half-dozen of dandies
cantering after her carriage.
When she found how her friend was situated, and how
having a snug legacy from Miss Crawley, salary was no
object to our gentlewoman, Becky instantly formed some
benevolent little domestic plans concerning her. This
was just such a companion as would suit her establishment,
and she invited Briggs to come to dinner with her
that very evening, when she should see Becky's dear little
darling Rawdon.
Mrs. Bowls cautioned her lodger against venturing into
the lion's den, "wherein you will rue it, Miss B., mark my
words, and as sure as my name is Bowls." And Briggs
promised to be very cautious. The upshot of which
caution was that she went to live with Mrs. Rawdon the next
week, and had lent Rawdon Crawley six hundred pounds
upon annuity before six months were over.
CHAPTER XLI
In Which Becky Revisits the Halls of Her Ancestors
So the mourning being ready, and Sir Pitt Crawley warned
of their arrival, Colonel Crawley and his wife took a
couple of places in the same old High-flyer coach by
which Rebecca had travelled in the defunct Baronet's
company, on her first journey into the world some nine
years before. How well she remembered the Inn Yard,
and the ostler to whom she refused money, and the
insinuating Cambridge lad who wrapped her in his coat on
the journey! Rawdon took his place outside, and would
have liked to drive, but his grief forbade him. He sat by
the coachman and talked about horses and the road the
whole way; and who kept the inns, and who horsed the
coach by which he had travelled so many a time, when
he and Pitt were boys going to Eton. At Mudbury a
carriage and a pair of horses received them, with a
coachman in black. "It's the old drag, Rawdon," Rebecca said
as they got in. "The worms have eaten the cloth a good
deal--there's the stain which Sir Pitt--ha! I see Dawson
the Ironmonger has his shutters up--which Sir Pitt made
such a noise about. It was a bottle of cherry brandy he
broke which we went to fetch for your aunt from
Southampton. How time flies, to be sure! That can't be Polly
Talboys, that bouncing girl standing by her mother at
the cottage there. I remember her a mangy little urchin
picking weeds in the garden."
"Fine gal," said Rawdon, returning the salute which the
cottage gave him, by two fingers applied to his crape
hatband. Becky bowed and saluted, and recognized
people here and there graciously. These recognitions were
inexpressibly pleasant to her. It seemed as if she was
not an imposter any more, and was coming to the home
of her ancestors. Rawdon was rather abashed and cast
down, on the other hand. What recollections of boyhood
and innocence might have been flitting across his brain?
What pangs of dim remorse and doubt and shame?
"Your sisters must be young women now," Rebecca
said, thinking of those girls for the first time perhaps
since she had left them.
"Don't know, I'm shaw," replied the Colonel. "Hullo!
here's old Mother Lock. How-dy-do, Mrs. Lock? Remember
me, don't you? Master Rawdon, hey? Dammy how
those old women last; she was a hundred when I was a
boy."
They were going through the lodge-gates kept by old
Mrs. Lock, whose hand Rebecca insisted upon shaking,
as she flung open the creaking old iron gate, and the
carriage passed between the two moss-grown pillars
surmounted by the dove and serpent.
"The governor has cut into the timber," Rawdon said,
looking about, and then was silent--so was Becky. Both
of them were rather agitated, and thinking of old times.
He about Eton, and his mother, whom he remembered,
a frigid demure woman, and a sister who died, of whom
he had been passionately fond; and how he used to thrash
Pitt; and about little Rawdy at home. And Rebecca
thought about her own youth and the dark secrets of
those early tainted days; and of her entrance into life
by yonder gates; and of Miss Pinkerton, and Joe, and
Amelia.
The gravel walk and terrace had been scraped quite
clean. A grand painted hatchment was already over the
great entrance, and two very solemn and tall personages
in black flung open each a leaf of the door as the
carriage pulled up at the familiar steps. Rawdon turned red,
and Becky somewhat pale, as they passed through the
old hall, arm in arm. She pinched her husband's arm
as they entered the oak parlour, where Sir Pitt and his
wife were ready to receive them. Sir Pitt in black, Lady
Jane in black, and my Lady Southdown with a large black
head-piece of bugles and feathers, which waved on her
Ladyship's head like an undertaker's tray.
Sir Pitt had judged correctly, that she would not quit
the premises. She contented herself by preserving a
solemn and stony silence, when in company of Pitt and
his rebellious wife, and by frightening the children in
the nursery by the ghastly gloom of her demeanour.
Only a very faint bending of the head-dress and plumes
welcomed Rawdon and his wife, as those prodigals
returned to their family.
To say the truth, they were not affected very much
one way or other by this coolness. Her Ladyship was a
person only of secondary consideration in their minds
just then--they were intent upon the reception which
the reigning brother and sister would afford them.
Pitt, with rather a heightened colour, went up and
shook his brother by the hand, and saluted Rebecca with
a hand-shake and a very low bow. But Lady Jane took both
the hands of her sister-in-law and kissed her affectionately.
The embrace somehow brought tears into the eyes of
the little adventuress--which ornaments, as we know,
she wore very seldom. The artless mark of kindness and
confidence touched and pleased her; and Rawdon,
encouraged by this demonstration on his sister's part,
twirled up his mustachios and took leave to salute Lady
Jane with a kiss, which caused her Ladyship to blush
exceedingly.
"Dev'lish nice little woman, Lady Jane," was his verdict,
when he and his wife were together again. "Pitt's got fat,
too, and is doing the thing handsomely." "He can afford
it," said Rebecca and agreed in her husband's farther
opinion "that the mother-in-law was a tremendous old
Guy--and that the sisters were rather well-looking
young women."
They, too, had been summoned from school to attend
the funeral ceremonies. It seemed Sir Pitt Crawley, for
the dignity of the house and family, had thought right to
have about the place as many persons in black as could
possibly be assembled. All the men and maids of the
house, the old women of the Alms House, whom the elder
Sir Pitt had cheated out of a great portion of their
due, the parish clerk's family, and the special retainers
of both Hall and Rectory were habited in sable; added to
these, the undertaker's men, at least a score, with crapes
and hatbands, and who made goodly show when the
great burying show took place--but these are mute
personages in our drama; and having nothing to do or say,
need occupy a very little space here.
With regard to her sisters-in-law Rebecca did not
attempt to forget her former position of Governess
towards them, but recalled it frankly and kindly, and asked
them about their studies with great gravity, and told them
that she had thought of them many and many a day,
and longed to know of their welfare. In fact you would
have supposed that ever since she had left them she had
not ceased to keep them uppermost in her thoughts and to
take the tenderest interest in their welfare. So supposed
Lady Crawley herself and her young sisters.
"She's hardly changed since eight years," said Miss
Rosalind to Miss Violet, as they were preparing for dinner.
"Those red-haired women look wonderfully well,"
replied the other.
"Hers is much darker than it was; I think she must dye
it," Miss Rosalind added. "She is stouter, too, and
altogether improved," continued Miss Rosalind, who was
disposed to be very fat.
"At least she gives herself no airs and remembers that
she was our Governess once," Miss Violet said, intimating
that it befitted all governesses to keep their proper place,
and forgetting altogether that she was granddaughter not
only of Sir Walpole Crawley, but of Mr. Dawson of
Mudbury, and so had a coal-scuttle in her scutcheon. There
are other very well-meaning people whom one meets
every day in Vanity Fair who are surely equally oblivious.
"It can't be true what the girls at the Rectory said, that
her mother was an opera-dancer--"
"A person can't help their birth," Rosalind replied with
great liberality. "And I agree with our brother, that as she
is in the family, of course we are bound to notice her.
I am sure Aunt Bute need not talk; she wants to marry
Kate to young Hooper, the wine-merchant, and absolutely
asked him to come to the Rectory for orders."
"I wonder whether Lady Southdown will go away, she
looked very glum upon Mrs. Rawdon," the other said.
"I wish she would. I won't read the Washerwoman
of Finchley Common," vowed Violet; and so saying, and
avoiding a passage at the end of which a certain coffin was
placed with a couple of watchers, and lights perpetually
burning in the closed room, these young women came
down to the family dinner, for which the bell rang as
usual.
But before this, Lady Jane conducted Rebecca to the
apartments prepared for her, which, with the rest of the
house, had assumed a very much improved appearance
of order and comfort during Pitt's regency, and here
beholding that Mrs. Rawdon's modest little trunks had
arrived, and were placed in the bedroom and
dressing-room adjoining, helped her to take off her neat
black bonnet and cloak, and asked her sister-in-law in
what more she could be useful.
"What I should like best," said Rebecca, "would be to
go to the nursery and see your dear little children." On
which the two ladies looked very kindly at each other
and went to that apartment hand in hand.
Becky admired little Matilda, who was not quite four
years old, as the most charming little love in the world;
and the boy, a little fellow of two years--pale, heavy-eyed,
and large-headed--she pronounced to be a perfect
prodigy in point of size, intelligence, and beauty.
"I wish Mamma would not insist on giving him so much
medicine," Lady Jane said with a sigh. "I often think we
should all be better without it." And then Lady Jane and
her new-found friend had one of those confidential medical conversations about the children,
which all mothers,
and most women, as I am given to understand, delight in.
Fifty years ago, and when the present writer, being an
interesting little boy, was ordered out of the room with
the ladies after dinner, I remember quite well that their
talk was chiefly about their ailments; and putting this
question directly to two or three since, I have always got
from them the acknowledgement that times are not
changed. Let my fair readers remark for themselves this
very evening when they quit the dessert-table and
assemble to celebrate the drawing-room mysteries. Well
--in half an hour Becky and Lady Jane were close and
intimate friends--and in the course of the evening her
Ladyship informed Sir Pitt that she thought her new
sister-in-law was a kind, frank, unaffected, and affectionate
young woman.
And so having easily won the daughter's good-will, the
indefatigable little woman bent herself to conciliate the
august Lady Southdown. As soon as she found her Ladyship
alone, Rebecca attacked her on the nursery question
at once and said that her own little boy was saved,
actually saved, by calomel, freely administered, when all the
physicians in Paris had given the dear child up. And then
she mentioned how often she had heard of Lady Southdown
from that excellent man the Reverend Lawrence
Grills, Minister of the chapel in May Fair, which she
frequented; and how her views were very much changed
by circumstances and misfortunes; and how she hoped that
a past life spent in worldliness and error might not
incapacitate her from more serious thought for the future.
She described how in former days she had been indebted
to Mr. Crawley for religious instruction, touched upon
the Washerwoman of Finchley Common, which she had
read with the greatest profit, and asked about Lady
Emily, its gifted author, now Lady Emily Hornblower, at
Cape Town, where her husband had strong hopes of
becoming Bishop of Caffraria.
But she crowned all, and confirmed herself in Lady
Southdown's favour, by feeling very much agitated and
unwell after the funeral and requesting her Ladyship's
medical advice, which the Dowager not only gave, but,
wrapped up in a bed-gown and looking more like Lady
Macbeth than ever, came privately in the night to Becky's
room with a parcel of favourite tracts, and a medicine
of her own composition, which she insisted that Mrs.
Rawdon should take.
Becky first accepted the tracts and began to examine
them with great interest, engaging the Dowager in a
conversation concerning them and the welfare of her soul,
by which means she hoped that her body might escape
medication. But after the religious topics were exhausted,
Lady Macbeth would not quit Becky's chamber until her
cup of night-drink was emptied too; and poor Mrs. Rawdon
was compelled actually to assume a look of gratitude, and
to swallow the medicine under the unyielding old Dowager's
nose, who left her victim finally with a benediction.
It did not much comfort Mrs. Rawdon; her countenance
was very queer when Rawdon came in and heard what
had happened; and. his explosions of laughter were as
loud as usual, when Becky, with a fun which she could
not disguise, even though it was at her own expense,
described the occurrence and how she had been victimized
by Lady Southdown. Lord Steyne, and her son in
London, had many a laugh over the story when Rawdon
and his wife returned to their quarters in May Fair. Becky
acted the whole scene for them. She put on a night-cap
and gown. She preached a great sermon in the true serious
manner; she lectured on the virtue of the medicine
which she pretended to administer, with a gravity of
imitation so perfect that you would have thought it was
the Countess's own Roman nose through which she snuffled.
"Give us Lady Southdown and the black dose," was
a constant cry amongst the folks in Becky's little
drawing-room in May Fair. And for the first time in her
life the Dowager Countess of Southdown was made amusing.
Sir Pitt remembered the testimonies of respect and
veneration which Rebecca had paid personally to himself
in early days, and was tolerably well disposed towards
her. The marriage, ill-advised as it was, had improved
Rawdon very much--that was clear from the Colonel's
altered habits and demeanour--and had it not been a
lucky union as regarded Pitt himself? The cunning
diplomatist smiled inwardly as he owned that he owed his
fortune to it, and acknowledged that he at least ought not
to cry out against it. His satisfaction was not removed
by Rebecca's own statements, behaviour, and
conversation.
She doubled the deference which before had charmed
him, calling out his conversational powers in such a
manner as quite to surprise Pitt himself, who, always
inclined to respect his own talents, admired them the more
when Rebecca pointed them out to him. With her
sister-in-law, Rebecca was satisfactorily able to prove that it
was Mrs. Bute Crawley who brought about the marriage
which she afterwards so calumniated; that it was Mrs.
Bute's avarice--who hoped to gain all Miss Crawley's
fortune and deprive Rawdon of his aunt's favour--which
caused and invented all the wicked reports against
Rebecca. "She succeeded in making us poor," Rebecca
said with an air of angelical patience; "but how can I
be angry with a woman who has given me one of the best
husbands in the world? And has not her own avarice
been sufficiently punished by the ruin of her own hopes and
the loss of the property by which she set so much
store? Poor!" she cried. "Dear Lady Jane, what care we
for poverty? I am used to it from childhood, and I am
often thankful that Miss Crawley's money has gone to
restore the splendour of the noble old family of which
I am so proud to be a member. I am sure Sir Pitt will
make a much better use of it than Rawdon would."
All these speeches were reported to Sir Pitt by the
most faithful of wives, and increased the favourable
impression which Rebecca made; so much so that when,
on the third day after the funeral, the family party were
at dinner, Sir Pitt Crawley, carving fowls at the head of
the table, actually said to Mrs. Rawdon, "Ahem! Rebecca,
may I give you a wing?"--a speech which made the little
woman's eyes sparkle with pleasure.
While Rebecca was prosecuting the above schemes and
hopes, and Pitt Crawley arranging the funeral ceremonial
and other matters connected with his future progress and
dignity, and Lady Jane busy with her nursery, as far as
her mother would let her, and the sun rising and setting,
and the clock-tower bell of the Hall ringing to dinner and
to prayers as usual, the body of the late owner of Queen's
Crawley lay in the apartment which he had occupied,
watched unceasingly by the professional attendants who
were engaged for that rite. A woman or two, and three
or four undertaker's men, the best whom Southampton
could furnish, dressed in black, and of a proper stealthy
and tragical demeanour, had charge of the remains which
they watched turn about, having the housekeeper's room
for their place of rendezvous when off duty, where they
played at cards in privacy and drank their beer.
The members of the family and servants of the house
kept away from the gloomy spot, where the bones of the
descendant of an ancient line of knights and gentlemen
lay, awaiting their final consignment to the family crypt.
No regrets attended them, save those of the poor woman
who had hoped to be Sir Pitt's wife and widow and who
had fled in disgrace from the Hall over which she had so
nearly been a ruler. Beyond her and a favourite old pointer
he had, and between whom and himself an attachment
subsisted during the period of his imbecility, the old man
had not a single friend to mourn him, having indeed,
during the whole course of his life, never taken the least
pains to secure one. Could the best and kindest of us who
depart from the earth have an opportunity of revisiting
it, I suppose he or she (assuming that any Vanity Fair
feelings subsist in the sphere whither we are bound)
would have a pang of mortification at finding how soon
our survivors were consoled. And so Sir Pitt was
forgotten--like the kindest and best of us--only a few
weeks sooner.
Those who will may follow his remains to the grave,
whither they were borne on the appointed day, in the most
becoming manner, the family in black coaches, with their
handkerchiefs up to their noses, ready for the tears which
did not come; the undertaker and his gentlemen in deep
tribulation; the select tenantry mourning out of
compliment to the new landlord; the neighbouring gentry's
carriages at three miles an hour, empty, and in profound
affliction; the parson speaking out the formula about "our
dear brother departed." As long as we have a man's body,
we play our Vanities upon it, surrounding it with
humbug and ceremonies, laying it in state, and packing it
up in gilt nails and velvet; and we finish our duty by
placing over it a stone, written all over with lies. Bute's
curate, a smart young fellow from Oxford, and Sir Pitt
Crawley composed between them an appropriate Latin
epitaph for the late lamented Baronet, and the former
preached a classical sermon, exhorting the survivors not
to give way to grief and informing them in the most
respectful terms that they also would be one day called
upon to pass that gloomy and mysterious portal which had
just closed upon the remains of their lamented brother.
Then the tenantry mounted on horseback again, or stayed
and refreshed themselves at the Crawley Arms. Then,
after a lunch in the servants' hall at Queen's Crawley,
the gentry's carriages wheeled off to their different
destinations: then the undertaker's men, taking the ropes,
palls, velvets, ostrich feathers, and other mortuary
properties, clambered up on the roof of the hearse and rode
off to Southampton. Their faces relapsed into a natural
expression as the horses, clearing the lodge-gates, got into
a brisker trot on the open road; and squads of them
might have been seen, speckling with black the
public-house entrances, with pewter-pots flashing in the
sunshine. Sir Pitt's invalid chair was wheeled away into a
tool-house in the garden; the old pointer used to howl
sometimes at first, but these were the only accents of
grief which were heard in the Hall of which Sir Pitt
Crawley, Baronet, had been master for some threescore years.
As the birds were pretty plentiful, and partridge shooting
is as it were the duty of an English gentleman of
statesmanlike propensities, Sir Pitt Crawley, the first shock of
grief over, went out a little and partook of that diversion
in a white hat with crape round it. The sight of those fields
of stubble and turnips, now his own, gave him many secret
joys. Sometimes, and with an exquisite humility, he
took no gun, but went out with a peaceful bamboo cane;
Rawdon, his big brother, and the keepers blazing away at
his side. Pitt's money and acres had a great effect upon
his brother. The penniless Colonel became quite obsequious
and respectful to the head of his house, and despised
the milksop Pitt no longer. Rawdon listened with sympathy
to his senior's prospects of planting and draining, gave
his advice about the stables and cattle, rode
over to Mudbury to look at a mare, which he thought
would carry Lady Jane, and offered to break her,
&c.: the rebellious dragoon was quite humbled and
subdued, and became a most creditable younger brother. He
had constant bulletins from Miss Briggs in London
respecting little Rawdon, who was left behind there, who
sent messages of his own. "I am very well," he wrote. "I
hope you are very well. I hope Mamma is very well. The
pony is very well. Grey takes me to ride in the park.
I can canter. I met the little boy who rode before. He
cried when he cantered. I do not cry." Rawdon read these
letters to his brother and Lady Jane, who was delighted
with them. The Baronet promised to take charge of the lad
at school, and his kind-hearted wife gave Rebecca a
bank-note, begging her to buy a present with it for her little
nephew.
One day followed another, and the ladies of the house
passed their life in those calm pursuits and amusements
which satisfy country ladies. Bells rang to meals and
to prayers. The young ladies took exercise on the
pianoforte every morning after breakfast, Rebecca giving
them the benefit of her instruction. Then they put on thick
shoes and walked in the park or shrubberies, or beyond
the palings into the village, descending upon the cottages,
with Lady Southdown's medicine and tracts for the
sick people there. Lady Southdown drove out in a
pony-chaise, when Rebecca would take her place by the
Dowager's side and listen to her solemn talk with the utmost
interest. She sang Handel and Haydn to the family of
evenings, and engaged in a large piece of worsted work, as if
she had been born to the business and as if this kind
of life was to continue with her until she should sink to
the grave in a polite old age, leaving regrets and a great
quantity of consols behind her--as if there were not cares
and duns, schemes, shifts, and poverty waiting outside
the park gates, to pounce upon her when she issued into
the world again.
"It isn't difficult to be a country gentleman's wife,"
Rebecca thought. "I think I could be a good woman if
I had five thousand a year. I could dawdle about in the
nursery and count the apricots on the wall. I could water
plants in a green-house and pick off dead leaves from the
geraniums. I could ask old women about their rheumatisms
and order half-a-crown's worth of soup for
the poor. I shouldn't miss it much, out of five thousand
a year. I could even drive out ten miles to dine at a
neighbour's, and dress in the fashions of the year before last.
I could go to church and keep awake in the great family
pew, or go to sleep behind the curtains, with my veil
down, if I only had practice. I could pay everybody, if
I had but the money. This is what the conjurors here
pride themselves upon doing. They look down with pity
upon us miserable sinners who have none. They think
themselves generous if they give our children a five-pound
note, and us contemptible if we are without one." And
who knows but Rebecca was right in her speculations
--and that it was only a question of money and fortune
which made the difference between her and an honest
woman? If you take temptations into account, who is to
say that he is better than his neighbour? A comfortable
career of prosperity, if it does not make people honest, at
least keeps them so. An alderman coming from a turtle
feast will not step out of his carnage to steal a leg of
mutton; but put him to starve, and see if he will not
purloin a loaf. Becky consoled herself by so balancing the
chances and equalizing the distribution of good and evil
in the world.
The old haunts, the old fields and woods, the copses,
ponds, and gardens, the rooms of the old house where
she had spent a couple of years seven years ago, were all
carefully revisited by her. She had been young there, or
comparatively so, for she forgot the time when she ever
WAS young--but she remembered her thoughts and
feelings seven years back and contrasted them with those
which she had at present, now that she had seen the
world, and lived with great people, and raised herself far
beyond her original humble station.
"I have passed beyond it, because I have brains," Becky
thought, "and almost all the rest of the world are fools.
I could not go back and consort with those people now,
whom I used to meet in my father's studio. Lords come up
to my door with stars and garters, instead of poor
artists with screws of tobacco in their pockets. I have a
gentleman for my husband, and an Earl's daughter for my
sister, in the very house where I was little better than a
servant a few years ago. But am I much better to do now
in the world than I was when I was the poor painter's
daughter and wheedled the grocer round the corner for
sugar and tea? Suppose I had married Francis who was
so fond of me--I couldn't have been much poorer than
I am now. Heigho! I wish I could exchange my position
in society, and all my relations for a snug sum in the
Three Per Cent. Consols"; for so it was that Becky felt
the Vanity of human affairs, and it was in those securities
that she would have liked to cast anchor.
It may, perhaps, have struck her that to have been
honest and humble, to have done her duty, and to have
marched straightforward on her way, would have brought
her as near happiness as that path by which she was
striving to attain it. But--just as the children at Queen's
Crawley went round the room where the body of their
father lay--if ever Becky had these thoughts, she was
accustomed to walk round them and not look in. She
eluded them and despised them--or at least she was
committed to the other path from which retreat was now
impossible. And for my part I believe that remorse is the
least active of all a man's moral senses--the very easiest to
be deadened when wakened, and in some never wakened
at all. We grieve at being found out and at the idea of
shame or punishment, but the mere sense of wrong makes
very few people unhappy in Vanity Fair.
So Rebecca, during her stay at Queen's Crawley, made as
many friends of the Mammon of Unrighteousness as she
could possibly bring under control. Lady Jane and her
husband bade her farewell with the warmest
demonstrations of good-will. They looked forward with
pleasure to the time when, the family house in Gaunt
Street being repaired and beautified, they were to meet
again in London. Lady Southdown made her up a packet of
medicine and sent a letter by her to the Rev. Lawrence
Grills, exhorting that gentleman to save the brand who
"honoured" the letter from the burning. Pitt accompanied
them with four horses in the carriage to Mudbury, having
sent on their baggage in a cart previously, accompanied
with loads of game.
"How happy you will be to see your darling little boy
again!" Lady Crawley said, taking leave of her kinswoman.
"Oh so happy!" said Rebecca, throwing up the green eyes.
She was immensely happy to be free of the place, and yet
loath to go. Queen's Crawley was abominably stupid, and
yet the air there was somehow purer than that which she
had been accustomed to breathe. Everybody had been dull,
but had been kind in their way. "It is all the influence of a
long course of Three Per Cents," Becky said to herself, and
was right very likely.
However, the London lamps flashed joyfully as the stage
rolled into Piccadilly, and Briggs had made a beautiful fire
in Curzon Street, and little Rawdon was up to welcome
back his papa and mamma.
CHAPTER XLII
Which Treats of the Osborne Family
Considerable time has elapsed since we have seen our
respectable friend, old Mr. Osborne of Russell Square. He
has not been the happiest of mortals since last we met him.
Events have occurred which have not improved his
temper, and in more in stances than one he has not been
allowed to have his own way. To be thwarted in this
reasonable desire was always very injurious to the old
gentleman; and resistance became doubly exasperating
when gout, age, loneliness, and the force of many
disappointments combined to weigh him down. His stiff
black hair began to grow quite white soon after his son's
death; his-face grew redder; his hands trembled more and
more as he poured out his glass of port wine. He led his
clerks a dire life in the City: his family at home were not
much happier. I doubt if Rebecca, whom we have seen
piously praying for Consols, would have exchanged her
poverty and the dare-devil excitement and chances of her
life for Osborne's money and the humdrum gloom which
enveloped him. He had proposed for Miss Swartz, but had
been rejected scornfully by the partisans of that lady, who
married her to a young sprig of Scotch nobility. He was a
man to have married a woman out of low life and bullied
her dreadfully afterwards; but no person presented herself
suitable to his taste, and, instead, he tyrannized over his
unmarried daughter, at home. She had a fine carriage and
fine horses and sat at the head of a table loaded with the
grandest plate. She had a cheque-book, a prize footman to
follow her when she walked, unlimited credit, and bows
and compliments from all the tradesmen, and all the
appurtenances of an heiress; but she spent a woeful time.
The little charity-girls at the Foundling, the sweeperess at
the crossing, the poorest under-kitchen-maid in the
servants' hall, was happy compared to that unfortunate
and now middle-aged young lady.
Frederick Bullock, Esq., of the house of Bullock, Hulker, and
Bullock, had married Maria Osborne, not without a great
deal of difficulty and grumbling on Mr. Bullock's part.
George being dead and cut out of his father's will,
Frederick insisted that the half of the old gentleman's
property should be settled upon his Maria, and indeed, for
a long time, refused, "to come to the scratch" (it was Mr.
Frederick's own expression) on any other terms. Osborne
said Fred had agreed to take his daughter with twenty
thousand, and he should bind himself to no more. "Fred
might take it, and welcome, or leave it, and go and be
hanged." Fred, whose hopes had been raised when George
had been disinherited, thought himself infamously
swindled by the old merchant, and for some time made as
if he would break off the match altogether. Osborne
withdrew his account from Bullock and Hulker's, went on
'Change with a horsewhip which he swore he would lay
across the back of a certain scoundrel that should be
nameless, and demeaned himself in his usual violent
manner. Jane Osborne condoled with her sister Maria
during this family feud. "I always told you, Maria, that it
was your money he loved and not you," she said,
soothingly.
"He selected me and my money at any rate; he didn't
choose you and yours," replied Maria, tossing up her head.
The rapture was, however, only temporary. Fred's father
and senior partners counselled him to take Maria, even
with the twenty thousand settled, half down, and half at
the death of Mr. Osborne, with the chances of the further
division of the property. So he "knuckled down," again to
use his own phrase, and sent old Hulker with peaceable
overtures to Osborne. It was his father, he said, who would
not hear of the match, and had made the difficulties; he
was most anxious to keep the engagement. The excuse was
sulkily accepted by Mr. Osborne. Hulker and Bullock were
a high family of the City aristocracy, and connected with
the "nobs" at the West End. It was something for the old
man to be able to say, "My son, sir, of the house of Hulker,
Bullock, and Co., sir; my daughter's cousin, Lady Mary
Mango, sir, daughter of the Right Hon. The Earl of
Castlemouldy." In his imagination he saw his house
peopled by the "nobs." So he forgave young Bullock and
consented that the marriage should take place.
It was a grand affair--the bridegroom's relatives giving the
breakfast, their habitations being near St. George's,
Hanover Square, where the business took place. The "nobs
of the West End" were invited, and many of them signed
the book. Mr. Mango and Lady Mary Mango were there,
with the dear young Gwendoline and Guinever Mango as
bridesmaids; Colonel Bludyer of the Dragoon Guards (eldest
son of the house of Bludyer Brothers, Mincing Lane),
another cousin of the bridegroom, and the Honourable Mrs.
Bludyer; the Honourable George Boulter, Lord Levant's son,
and his lady, Miss Mango that was; Lord Viscount
Castletoddy; Honourable James McMull and Mrs. McMull
(formerly Miss Swartz); and a host of fashionables, who
have all married into Lombard Street and done a great
deal to ennoble Cornhill.
The young couple had a house near Berkeley Square and a
small villa at Roehampton, among the banking colony
there. Fred was considered to have made rather a
mesalliance by the ladies of his family, whose grandfather
had been in a Charity School, and who were allied through
the husbands with some of the best blood in England. And
Maria was bound, by superior pride and great care in the
composition of her visiting-book, to make up for the
defects of birth, and felt it her duty to see her father and
sister as little as possible.
That she should utterly break with the old man, who had
still so many scores of thousand pounds to give away, is
absurd to suppose. Fred Bullock would never allow her to
do that. But she was still young and incapable of hiding her
feelings; and by inviting her papa and sister to her thirdrate
parties, and behaving very coldly to them when they
came, and by avoiding Russell Square, and indiscreetly
begging her father to quit that odious vulgar place, she did
more harm than all Frederick's diplomacy could repair, and
perilled her chance of her inheritance like a giddy heedless
creature as she was.
So Russell Square is not good enough for Mrs. Maria, hay?"
said the old gentleman, rattling up the carriage windows as
he and his daughter drove away one night from Mrs.
Frederick Bullock's, after dinner. "So she invites her father
and sister to a second day's dinner (if those sides, or
ontrys, as she calls 'em, weren't served yesterday, I'm
d--d), and to meet City folks and littery men, and keeps
the Earls and the Ladies, and the Honourables to herself.
Honourables? Damn Honourables. I am a plain British
merchant I am, and could buy the beggarly hounds over
and over. Lords, indeed!--why, at one of her swarreys I
saw one of 'em speak to a dam fiddler--a fellar I despise.
And they won't come to Russell Square, won't they? Why,
I'll lay my life I've got a better glass of wine, and pay a
better figure for it, and can show a handsomer service of
silver, and can lay a better dinner on my mahogany, than
ever they see on theirs--the cringing, sneaking, stuck-up
fools. Drive on quick, James: I want to get back to Russell
Square--ha, ha!" and he sank back into the corner with a
furious laugh. With such reflections on his own superior
merit, it was the custom of the old gentleman not
unfrequently to console himself.
Jane Osborne could not but concur in these opinions
respecting her sister's conduct; and when Mrs. Frederick's
first-born, Frederick Augustus Howard Stanley Devereux
Bullock, was born, old Osborne, who was invited to the
christening and to be godfather, contented himself with
sending the child a gold cup, with twenty guineas inside it
for the nurse. "That's more than any of your Lords will
give, I'LL warrant," he said and refused to attend at the
ceremony.
The splendour of the gift, however, caused great
satisfaction to the house of Bullock. Maria thought that her
father was very much pleased with her, and Frederick
augured the best for his little son and heir.
One can fancy the pangs with which Miss Osborne in her
solitude in Russell Square read the Morning Post, where
her sister's name occurred every now and then, in the
articles headed "Fashionable Reunions," and where she had
an opportunity of reading a description of Mrs. F. Bullock's
costume, when presented at the drawing room by Lady
Frederica Bullock. Jane's own life, as we have said,
admitted of no such grandeur. It was an awful existence.
She had to get up of black winter's mornings to make
breakfast for her scowling old father, who would have
turned the whole house out of doors if his tea had not been
ready at half-past eight. She remained silent opposite to
him, listening to the urn hissing, and sitting in tremor
while the parent read his paper and consumed his
accustomed portion of muffins and tea. At half-past nine
he rose and went to the City, and she was almost free till
dinner-time, to make visitations in the kitchen and to scold
the servants; to drive abroad and descend upon the
tradesmen, who were prodigiously respectful; to leave her
cards and her papa's at the great glum respectable houses
of their City friends; or to sit alone in the large drawingroom,
expecting visitors; and working at a huge piece of
worsted by the fire, on the sofa, hard by the great
Iphigenia clock, which ticked and tolled with mournful
loudness in the dreary room. The great glass over the
mantelpiece, faced by the other great console glass at the
opposite end of the room, increased and multiplied
between them the brown Holland bag in which the
chandelier hung, until you saw these brown Holland bags
fading away in endless perspectives, and this apartment of
Miss Osborne's seemed the centre of a system of
drawing-rooms. When she removed the cordovan leather
from the grand piano and ventured to play a few notes on
it, it sounded with a mournful sadness, startling the dismal
echoes of the house. George's picture was gone, and laid
upstairs in a lumber-room in the garret; and though there
was a consciousness of him, and father and daughter often
instinctively knew that they were thinking of him, no
mention was ever made of the brave and once darling son.
At five o'clock Mr. Osborne came back to his dinner, which
he and his daughter took in silence (seldom broken, except
when he swore and was savage, if the cooking was not to
his liking), or which they shared twice in a month with a
party of dismal friends of Osborne's rank and age. Old Dr.
Gulp and his lady from Bloomsbury Square; old Mr.
Frowser, the attorney, from Bedford Row, a very great
man, and from his business, hand-in-glove with the "nobs
at the West End"; old Colonel Livermore, of the Bombay
Army, and Mrs. Livermore, from Upper Bedford Place; old
Sergeant Toffy and Mrs. Toffy; and sometimes old Sir
Thomas Coffin and Lady Coffin, from Bedford Square. Sir
Thomas was celebrated as a hanging judge, and the
particular tawny port was produced when he dined with
Mr. Osborne.
These people and their like gave the pompous Russell
Square merchant pompous dinners back again. They had
solemn rubbers of whist, when they went upstairs after
drinking, and their carriages were called at half past ten.
Many rich people, whom we poor devils are in the habit of
envying, lead contentedly an existence like that above
described. Jane Osborne scarcely ever met a man under
sixty, and almost the only bachelor who appeared in their
society was Mr. Smirk, the celebrated ladies' doctor.
I can't say that nothing had occurred to disturb the
monotony of this awful existence: the fact is, there had
been a secret in poor Jane's life which had made her father
more savage and morose than even nature, pride, and
over-feeding had made him. This secret was connected
with Miss Wirt, who had a cousin an artist, Mr. Smee, very
celebrated since as a portrait-painter and R.A., but who
once was glad enough to give drawing lessons to ladies of
fashion. Mr. Smee has forgotten where Russell Square is
now, but he was glad enough to visit it in the year 1818,
when Miss Osborne had instruction from him.
Smee (formerly a pupil of Sharpe of Frith Street, a
dissolute, irregular, and unsuccessful man, but a man with
great knowledge of his art) being the cousin of Miss Wirt,
we say, and introduced by her to Miss Osborne, whose
hand and heart were still free after various incomplete
love affairs, felt a great attachment for this lady, and it is
believed inspired one in her bosom. Miss Wirt was the
confidante of this intrigue. I know not whether she used to
leave the room where the master and his pupil were
painting, in order to give them an opportunity for
exchanging those vows and sentiments which cannot be
uttered advantageously in the presence of a third party; I
know not whether she hoped that should her cousin
succeed in carrying off the rich merchant's daughter, he
would give Miss Wirt a portion of the wealth which she
had enabled him to win--all that is certain is that Mr.
Osborne got some hint of the transaction, came back from
the City abruptly, and entered the drawing-room with his
bamboo cane; found the painter, the pupil, and the
companion all looking exceedingly pale there; turned the
former out of doors with menaces that he would break
every bone in his skin, and half an hour afterwards
dismissed Miss Wirt likewise, kicking her trunks down the
stairs, trampling on her bandboxes, and shaking his fist at
her hackney coach as it bore her away.
Jane Osborne kept her bedroom for many days. She was
not allowed to have a companion afterwards. Her father
swore to her that she should not have a shilling of his
money if she made any match without his concurrence;
and as he wanted a woman to keep his house, he did not
choose that she should marry, so that she was obliged to
give up all projects with which Cupid had any share.
During her papa's life, then, she resigned herself to the
manner of existence here described, and was content to be
an old maid. Her sister, meanwhile, was having children
with finer names every year and the intercourse between
the two grew fainter continually. "Jane and I do not move
in the same sphere of life," Mrs. Bullock said. "I regard her
as a sister, of course"--which means--what does it mean
when a lady says that she regards Jane as a sister?
It has been described how the Misses Dobbin lived with
their father at a fine villa at Denmark Hill, where there
were beautiful graperies and peach-trees which delighted
little Georgy Osborne. The Misses Dobbin, who drove often
to Brompton to see our dear Amelia, came sometimes to
Russell Square too, to pay a visit to their old acquaintance
Miss Osborne. I believe it was in consequence of the
commands of their brother the Major in India (for whom
their papa had a prodigious respect), that they paid
attention to Mrs. George; for the Major, the godfather and
guardian of Amelia's little boy, still hoped that the child's
grandfather might be induced to relent towards him and
acknowledge him for the sake of his son. The Misses
Dobbin kept Miss Osborne acquainted with the state of
Amelia's affairs; how she was living with her father and
mother; how poor they were; how they wondered what
men, and such men as their brother and dear Captain
Osborne, could find in such an insignificant little chit; how
she was still, as heretofore, a namby-pamby milk-andwater
affected creature--but how the boy was really the
noblest little boy ever seen--for the hearts of all women
warm towards young children, and the sourest spinster is
kind to them.
One day, after great entreaties on the part of the Misses
Dobbin, Amelia allowed little George to go and pass a day
with them at Denmark Hill--a part of which day she spent
herself in writing to the Major in India. She congratulated
him on the happy news which his sisters had just
conveyed to her. She prayed for his prosperity and that of
the bride he had chosen. She thanked him for a thousand
thousand kind offices and proofs of stead fast friendship to
her in her affliction. She told him the last news about little
Georgy, and how he was gone to spend that very day with
his sisters in the country. She underlined the letter a great
deal, and she signed herself affectionately his friend,
Amelia Osborne. She forgot to send any message of
kindness to Lady O'Dowd, as her wont was--and did not
mention Glorvina by name, and only in italics, as the
Major's BRIDE, for whom she begged blessings. But the
news of the marriage removed the reserve which she had
kept up towards him. She was glad to be able to own and
feel how warmly and gratefully she regarded him--and as
for the idea of being jealous of Glorvina (Glorvina, indeed!),
Amelia would have scouted it, if an angel from heaven had
hinted it to her. That night, when Georgy came back in the
pony-carriage in which he rejoiced, and in which he was
driven by Sir Wm. Dobbin's old coachman, he had round
his neck a fine gold chain and watch. He said an old lady,
not pretty, had given it him, who cried and kissed him a
great deal. But he didn't like her. He liked grapes very
much. And he only liked his mamma. Amelia shrank and
started; the timid soul felt a presentiment of terror when
she heard that the relations of the child's father had seen
him.
Miss Osborne came back to give her father his dinner. He
had made a good speculation in the City, and was rather in
a good humour that day, and chanced to remark the
agitation under which she laboured. "What's the matter,
Miss Osborne?" he deigned to say.
The woman burst into tears. "Oh, sir," she said, "I've seen
little George. He is as beautiful as an angel--and so like
him!" The old man opposite to her did not say a word, but
flushed up and began to tremble in every limb.
CHAPIER XLIII
In Which the Reader Has to Double the Cape
The astonished reader must be called upon to transport
himself ten thousand miles to the military station of
Bundlegunge, in the Madras division of our Indian empire,
where our gallant old friends of the --th regiment are
quartered under the command of the brave Colonel,
Sir Michael O'Dowd. Time has dealt kindly with that
stout officer, as it does ordinarily with men who have
good stomachs and good tempers and are not perplexed
over much by fatigue of the brain. The Colonel plays a
good knife and fork at tiffin and resumes those weapons
with great success at dinner. He smokes his hookah after
both meals and puffs as quietly while his wife scolds
him as he did under the fire of the French at Waterloo. Age
and heat have not diminished the activity or the eloquence
of the descendant of the Malonys and the Molloys. Her
Ladyship, our old acquaintance, is as much at home at
Madras as at Brussels in the cantonment as under the
tents. On the march you saw her at the head of the
regiment seated on a royal elephant, a noble sight.
Mounted on that beast, she has been into action with tigers
in the jungle, she has been received by native princes, who
have welcomed her and Glorvina into the recesses of their
zenanas and offered her shawls and jewels which it went
to her heart to refuse. The sentries of all arms salute her
wherever she makes her appearance, and she touches her
hat gravely to their salutation. Lady O'Dowd is one of the
greatest ladies in the Presidency of Madras--her quarrel
with Lady Smith, wife of Sir Minos Smith the puisne judge,
is still remembered by some at Madras, when the Colonel's
lady snapped her fingers in the Judge's lady's face and said
SHE'D never walk behind ever a beggarly civilian. Even
now, though it is five-and-twenty years ago, people
remember Lady O'Dowd performing a jig at Government
House, where she danced down two Aides-de-Camp, a
Major of Madras cavalry, and two gentlemen of the Civil
Service; and, persuaded by Major Dobbin, C.B., second in
command of the --th, to retire to the supper-room, lassata
nondum satiata recessit.
Peggy O'Dowd is indeed the same as ever, kind in act and
thought; impetuous in temper; eager to command; a tyrant
over her Michael; a dragon amongst all the ladies of the
regiment; a mother to all the young men, whom she tends
in their sickness, defends in all their scrapes, and with
whom Lady Peggy is immensely popular. But the
Subalterns' and Captains' ladies (the Major is unmarried)
cabal against her a good deal. They say that Glorvina gives
herself airs and that Peggy herself is ill tolerably
domineering. She interfered with a little congregation
which Mrs. Kirk had got up and laughed the young men
away from her sermons, stating that a soldier's wife had no
business to be a parson--that Mrs. Kirk would be much
better mending her husband's clothes; and, if the regiment
wanted sermons, that she had the finest in the world, those
of her uncle, the Dean. She abruptly put a termination to a
flirtation which Lieutenant Stubble of the regiment had
commenced with the Surgeon's wife, threatening to come
down upon Stubble for the money which he had borrowed
from her (for the young fellow was still of an extravagant
turn) unless he broke off at once and went to the Cape on
sick leave. On the other hand, she housed and sheltered
Mrs. Posky, who fled from her bungalow one night,
pursued by her infuriate husband, wielding his second
brandy bottle, and actually carried Posky through the
delirium tremens and broke him of the habit of drinking,
which had grown upon that officer, as all evil habits will
grow upon men. In a word, in adversity she was the best
of comforters, in good fortune the most troublesome of
friends, having a perfectly good opinion of herself always
and an indomitable resolution to have her own way.
Among other points, she had made up her mind that
Glorvina should marry our old friend Dobbin. Mrs. O'Dowd
knew the Major's expectations and appreciated his good
qualities and the high character which he enjoyed in his
profession. Glorvina, a very handsome, fresh-coloured,
black-haired, blue-eyed young lady, who could ride a
horse, or play a sonata with any girl out of the County
Cork, seemed to be the very person destined to insure
Dobbin's happiness--much more than that poor good little
weak-spur'ted Amelia, about whom he used to take on so.--
"Look at Glorvina enter a room," Mrs. O'Dowd would say,
"and compare her with that poor Mrs. Osborne, who
couldn't say boo to a goose. She'd be worthy of you, Major--
you're a quiet man yourself, and want some one to talk for
ye. And though she does not come of such good blood as
the Malonys or Molloys, let me tell ye, she's of an ancient
family that any nobleman might be proud to marry into."
But before she had come to such a resolution and determined to
subjugate Major Dobbin by her endearments, it must be owned
that Glorvina had practised them a good deal elsewhere. She had
had a season in Dublin, and who knows how many in Cork,
Killarney, and Mallow? She had flirted with all the marriageable
officers whom the depots of her country afforded, and all the
bachelor squires who seemed eligible. She had been
engaged to be married a half-score times in Ireland,
besides the clergyman at Bath who used her so ill. She had
flirted all the way to Madras with the Captain and chief
mate of the Ramchunder East Indiaman, and had a season
at the Presidency with her brother and Mrs. O'Dowd, who
was staying there, while the Major of the regiment was in
command at the station. Everybody admired her there;
everybody danced with her; but no one proposed who was
worth the marrying--one or two exceedingly young
subalterns sighed after her, and a beardless civilian or two,
but she rejected these as beneath her pretensions--and
other and younger virgins than Glorvina were married
before her. There are women, and handsome women too,
who have this fortune in life. They fall in love with the
utmost generosity; they ride and walk with half the
Army-list, though they draw near to forty, and yet the
Misses O'Grady are the Misses O'Grady still: Glorvina
persisted that but for Lady O'Dowd's unlucky quarrel with
the Judge's lady, she would have made a good match at
Madras, where old Mr. Chutney, who was at the head of
the civil service (and who afterwards married Miss Dolby,
a young lady only thirteen years of age who had just
arrived from school in Europe), was just at the point of
proposing to her.
Well, although Lady O'Dowd and Glorvina quarrelled a
great number of times every day, and upon almost every
conceivable subject--indeed, if Mick O'Dowd had not
possessed the temper of an angel two such women
constantly about his ears would have driven him out of his
senses--yet they agreed between themselves on this point,
that Glorvina should marry Major Dobbin, and were
determined that the Major should have no rest until the
arrangement was brought about. Undismayed by forty or
fifty previous defeats, Glorvina laid siege to him. She sang
Irish melodies at him unceasingly. She asked him so
frequently and pathetically, Will ye come to the bower?
that it is a wonder how any man of feeling could have
resisted the invitation. She was never tired of inquiring, if
Sorrow had his young days faded, and was ready to listen
and weep like Desdemona at the stories of his dangers and
his campaigns. It has been
said that our honest and dear old friend used to perform
on the flute in private; Glorvina insisted upon having duets
with him, and Lady O'Dowd would rise and artlessly quit
the room when the young couple were so engaged.
Glorvina forced the Major to ride with her of mornings. The
whole cantonment saw them set out and return. She was
constantly writing notes over to him at his house,
borrowing his books, and scoring with her great
pencil-marks such passages of sentiment or humour as
awakened her sympathy. She borrowed his horses, his
servants, his spoons, and palanquin--no wonder that public
rumour assigned her to him, and that the Major's sisters in
England should fancy they were about to have a sister-inlaw.
Dobbin, who was thus vigorously besieged, was in the
meanwhile in a state of the most odious tranquillity. He
used to laugh when the young fellows of the regiment
joked him about Glorvina's manifest attentions to him.
"Bah!" said he, "she is only keeping her hand in--she
practises upon me as she does upon Mrs. Tozer's piano,
because it's the most handy instrument in the station. I am
much too battered and old for such a fine young lady as
Glorvina." And so he went on riding with her, and copying
music and verses into her albums, and playing at chess
with her very submissively; for it is with these simple
amusements that some officers in India are accustomed to
while away their leisure moments, while others of a less
domestic turn hunt hogs, and shoot snipes, or gamble and
smoke cheroots, and betake themselves to brandy-andwater.
As for Sir Michael O'Dowd, though his lady and her
sister both urged him to call upon the Major to explain
himself and not keep on torturing a poor innocent girl in
that shameful way, the old soldier refused point-blank to
have anything to do with the conspiracy. "Faith, the Major's
big enough to choose for himself," Sir Michael said; "he'll
ask ye when he wants ye"; or else he would turn the
matter off jocularly, declaring that "Dobbin was too young
to keep house, and had written home to ask lave of his
mamma." Nay, he went farther, and in private
communications with his Major would caution and rally
him, crying, "Mind your oi, Dob, my boy, them girls is bent
on mischief--me Lady has just got a box of gowns from Europe, and there's a pink satin for
Glorvina, which will finish ye, Dob, if it's in the power of woman or satin to move ye."
But the truth is, neither beauty nor fashion could conquer
him. Our honest friend had but one idea of a woman in his
head, and that one did not in the least resemble Miss
Glorvina O'Dowd in pink satin. A gentle little woman in black,
with large eyes and brown hair, seldom speaking, save when
spoken to, and then in a voice not the least resembling
Miss Glorvina's--a soft young mother tending an infant
and beckoning the Major up with a smile to look at him--a
rosy-cheeked lass coming singing into the room in Russell
Square or hanging on George Osborne's arm, happy and
loving--there was but this image that filled our honest
Major's mind, by day and by night, and reigned over it
always. Very likely Amelia was not like the portrait the
Major had formed of her: there was a figure in a book of
fashions which his sisters had in England, and with which
William had made away privately, pasting it into the lid
of his desk, and fancying he saw some resemblance to
Mrs. Osborne in the print, whereas I have seen it, and
can vouch that it is but the picture of a high-waisted
gown with an impossible doll's face simpering over it--
and, perhaps, Mr. Dobbin's sentimental Amelia was no
more like the real one than this absurd little print which
he cherished. But what man in love, of us, is better
informed?--or is he much happier when he sees and owns his
delusion? Dobbin was under this spell. He did not bother
his friends and the public much about his feelings, or
indeed lose his natural rest or appetite on account
of them. His head has grizzled since we saw him last, and
a line or two of silver may be seen in the soft brown hair
likewise. But his feelings are not in the least changed or
oldened, and his love remains as fresh as a man's
recollections of boyhood are.
We have said how the two Misses Dobbin and Amelia, the
Major's correspondents in Europe, wrote him letters from
England, Mrs. Osborne congratulating him with great candour
and cordiality upon his approaching nuptials with Miss O'Dowd.
"Your sister has just kindly visited me," Amelia wrote
in her letter, "and informed me of an INTERESTING EVENT,
upon which I beg to offer my MOST SINCERE CONGRATULATIONS.
I hope the young lady to whom I hear you are to
be UNITED will in every respect prove worthy of one who
is himself all kindness and goodness. The poor widow has
only her prayers to offer and her cordial cordial wishes
for YOUR PROSPERITY! Georgy sends his love to HIS DEAR GODPAPA
and hopes that you will not forget him. I tell
him that you are about to form OTHER TIES, with one who
I am sure merits ALL YOUR AFFECTION, but that, although
such ties must of course be the strongest and most
sacred, and supersede ALL OTHERS, yet that I am sure the
widow and the child whom you have ever protected and
loved will always HAVE A CORNER IN YOUR HEART" The letter,
which has been before alluded to, went on in this
strain, protesting throughout as to the extreme satisfaction
of the writer.
This letter, .which arrived by the very same ship which
brought out Lady O'Dowd's box of millinery from London
(and which you may be sure Dobbin opened before any
one of the other packets which the mail brought him),
put the receiver into such a state of mind that Glorvina,
and her pink satin, and everything belonging to her became
perfectly odious to him. The Major cursed the talk
of women, and the sex in general. Everything annoyed
him that day--the parade was insufferably hot and
wearisome. Good heavens! was a man of intellect to waste
his life, day after day, inspecting cross-belts and putting
fools through their manoeuvres? The senseless chatter
of the young men at mess was more than ever jarring.
What cared he, a man on the high road to forty, to
know how many snipes Lieutenant Smith had shot, or
what were the performances of Ensign Brown's mare? The
jokes about the table filled him with shame. He was too
old to listen to the banter of the assistant surgeon and
the slang of the youngsters, at which old O'Dowd, with
his bald head and red face, laughed quite easily. The
old man had listened to those jokes any time these
thirty years--Dobbin himself had been fifteen years hearing
them. And after the boisterous dulness of the mess-table,
the quarrels and scandal of the ladies of the regiment!
It was unbearable, shameful. "O Amelia, Amelia,"
he thought, "you to whom I have been so faithful--
you reproach me! It is because you cannot feel for me
that I drag on this wearisome life. And you reward me
after years of devotion by giving me your blessing upon
my marriage, forsooth, with this flaunting Irish girl!"
Sick and sorry felt poor William; more than ever
wretched and lonely. He would like to have done with
life and its vanity altogether--so bootless and unsatisfactory
the struggle, so cheerless and dreary the prospect
seemed to him. He lay all that night sleepless, and
yearning to go home. Amelia's letter had fallen as a
blank upon him. No fidelity, no constant truth and passion,
could move her into warmth. She would not see
that he loved her. Tossing in his bed, he spoke out to her.
"Good God, Amelia!" he said, "don't you know that I
only love you in the world--you, who are a stone to me
--you, whom I tended through months and months of
illness and grief, and who bade me farewell with a smile
on your face, and forgot me before the door shut between
us!" The native servants lying outside his verandas beheld
with wonder the Major, so cold and quiet ordinarily,
at present so passionately moved and cast down. Would
she have pitied him had she seen him? He read over and
over all the letters which he ever had from her--letters
of business relative to the little property which he had
made her believe her husband had left to her--brief notes
of invitation--every scrap of writing that she had ever
sent to him--how cold, how kind, how hopeless, how
selfish they were!
Had there been some kind gentle soul near at hand who
could read and appreciate this silent generous heart, who
knows but that the reign of Amelia might have been over,
and that friend William's love might have flowed into a
kinder channel? But there was only Glorvina of the jetty
ringlets with whom his intercourse was familiar, and this
dashing young woman was not bent upon loving the
Major, but rather on making the Major admire HER--a
most vain and hopeless task, too, at least considering
the means that the poor girl possessed to carry
it out. She curled her hair and showed her shoulders
at him, as much as to say, did ye ever see such jet
ringlets and such a complexion? She grinned at him so
that he might see that every tooth in her head was
sound--and he never heeded all these charms. Very soon
after the arrival of the box of millinery, and perhaps indeed
in honour of it, Lady O'Dowd and the ladies of
the King's Regiment gave a ball to the Company's
Regiments and the civilians at the station. Glorvina
sported the killing pink frock, and the Major, who attended
the party and walked very ruefully up and down
the rooms, never so much as perceived the pink garment.
Glorvina danced past him in a fury with all the young
subalterns of the station, and the Major was not in the
least jealous of her performance, or angry because Captain
Bangles of the Cavalry handed her to supper. It was
not jealousy, or frocks, or shoulders that could move him,
and Glorvina had nothing more.
So these two were each exemplifying the Vanity of this
life, and each longing for what he or she could not get.
Glorvina cried with rage at the failure. She had set her
mind on the Major "more than on any of the others,"
she owned, sobbing. "He'll break my heart, he will,
Peggy," she would whimper to her sister-in-law when
they were good friends; "sure every one of me frocks
must be taken in--it's such a skeleton I'm growing."
Fat or thin, laughing or melancholy, on horseback or the
music-stool, it was all the same to the Major. And the
Colonel, puffing his pipe and listening to these complaints,
would suggest that Glory should have some black frocks
out in the next box from London, and told a mysterious
story of a lady in Ireland who died of grief for the loss of
her husband before she got ere a one.
While the Major was going on in this tantalizing way,
not proposing, and declining to fall in love, there came
another ship from Europe bringing letters on board, and
amongst them some more for the heartless man. These
were home letters bearing an earlier postmark than that
of the former packets, and as Major Dobbin recognized
among his the handwriting of his sister, who always
crossed and recrossed her letters to her brother--gathered
together all the possible bad news which she could
collect, abused him and read him lectures with sisterly
frankness, and always left him miserable for the day after
"dearest William" had achieved the perusal of one of her
epistles--the truth must be told that dearest William did
not hurry himself to break the seal of Miss Dobbin's
letter, but waited for a particularly favourable day and
mood for doing so. A fortnight before, moreover, he
had written to scold her for telling those absurd stories
to Mrs. Osborne, and had despatched a letter in reply
to that lady, undeceiving her with respect to the reports
concerning him and assuring her that "he had no sort of
present intention of altering his condition."
Two or three nights after the arrival of the second
package of letters, the Major had passed the evening
pretty cheerfully at Lady O'Dowd's house, where Glorvina
thought that he listened with rather more attention
than usual to the Meeting of the Wathers, the Minsthrel
Boy, and one or two other specimens of song with which
she favoured him (the truth is, he was no more listening
to Glorvina than to the howling of the jackals in the
moonlight outside, and the delusion was hers as usual),
and having played his game at chess with her (cribbage
with the surgeon was Lady O'Dowd's favourite evening
pastime), Major Dobbin took leave of the Colonel's family
at his usual hour and retired to his own house.
There on his table, his sister's letter lay reproaching
him. He took it up, ashamed rather of his negligence
regarding it, and prepared himself for a disagreeable hour's
communing with that crabbed-handed absent relative.
. . . It may have been an hour after the Major's departure
from the Colonel's house--Sir Michael was sleeping
the sleep of the just; Glorvina had arranged her
black ringlets in the innumerable little bits of paper, in
which it was her habit to confine them; Lady O'Dowd,
too, had gone to her bed in the nuptial chamber, on the
ground-floor, and had tucked her musquito curtains
round her fair form, when the guard at the gates of the
Commanding-Officer's compound beheld Major Dobbin,
in the moonlight, rushing towards the house with a swift
step and a very agitated countenance, and he passed the
sentinel and went up to the windows of the Colonel's
bedchamber.
"O'Dowd--Colonel!" said Dobbin and kept up a great
shouting.
"Heavens, Meejor!" said Glorvina of the curl-papers,
putting out her head too, from her window.
"What is it, Dob, me boy?" said the Colonel, expecting
there was a fire in the station, or that the route had
come from headquarters.
"I--I must have leave of absence. I must go to England
--on the most urgent private affairs," Dobbin said.
"Good heavens, what has happened!" thought Glorvina,
trembling with all the papillotes.
"I want to be off--now--to-night," Dobbin continued;
and the Colonel getting up, came out to parley with him.
In the postscript of Miss Dobbin's cross-letter, the
Major had just come upon a paragraph, to the following
effect:--"I drove yesterday to see your old ACQUAINTANCE,
Mrs. Osborne. The wretched place they live at, since
they were bankrupts, you know--Mr. S., to judge from
a BRASS PLATE on the door of his hut (it is little better)
is a coal-merchant. The little boy, your godson, is
certainly a fine child, though forward, and inclined to be
saucy and self-willed. But we have taken notice of him
as you wish it, and have introduced him to his aunt,
Miss O., who was rather pleased with him. Perhaps his
grandpapa, not the bankrupt one, who is almost doting,
but Mr. Osborne, of Russell Square, may be induced to
relent towards the child of your friend, HIS ERRING AND
SELF-WILLED SON. And Amelia will not be ill-disposed to
give him up. The widow is CONSOLED, and is about to
marry a reverend gentleman, the Rev. Mr. Binny, one
of the curates of Brompton. A poor match. But Mrs. O.
is getting old, and I saw a great deal of grey in her hair--
she was in very good spirits: and your little godson overate
himself at our house. Mamma sends her love with
that of your affectionate, Ann Dobbin."
CHAPTER XLIV
A Round-about Chapter between London and
Hampshire
Our old friends the Crawleys' family house, in Great
Gaunt Street, still bore over its front the hatchment which
had been placed there as a token of mourning for Sir
Pitt Crawley's demise, yet this heraldic emblem was in
itself a very splendid and gaudy piece of furniture, and
all the rest of the mansion became more brilliant than it
had ever been during the late baronet's reign. The black
outer-coating of the bricks was removed, and they
appeared with a cheerful, blushing face streaked with white:
the old bronze lions of the knocker were gilt handsomely,
the railings painted, and the dismallest house in Great
Gaunt Street became the smartest in the whole quarter,
before the green leaves in Hampshire had replaced those
yellowing ones which were on the trees in Queen's Crawley
Avenue when old Sir Pitt Crawley passed under them
for the last time.
A little woman, with a carriage to correspond, was
perpetually seen about this mansion; an elderly spinster,
accompanied by a little boy, also might be remarked
coming thither daily. It was Miss Briggs and little Rawdon,
whose business it was to see to the inward renovation
of Sir Pitt's house, to superintend the female band
engaged in stitching the blinds and hangings, to poke
and rummage in the drawers and cupboards crammed
with the dirty relics and congregated trumperies of a
couple of generations of Lady Crawleys, and to take
inventories of the china, the glass, and other properties
in the closets and store-rooms.
Mrs. Rawdon Crawley was general-in-chief over these
arrangements, with full orders from Sir Pitt to sell, barter,
confiscate, or purchase furniture, and she enjoyed herself
not a little in an occupation which gave full scope to her
taste and ingenuity. The renovation of the house was
determined upon when Sir Pitt came to town in November
to see his lawyers, and when he passed nearly a week in
Curzon Street, under the roof of his affectionate brother
and sister.
He had put up at an hotel at first, but, Becky, as soon
as she heard of the Baronet's arrival, went off alone to
greet him, and returned in an hour to Curzon Street
with Sir Pitt in the carriage by her side. It was impossible
sometimes to resist this artless little creature's hospitalities,
so kindly were they pressed, so frankly and amiably
offered. Becky seized Pitt's hand in a transport of
gratitude when he agreed to come. "Thank you," she
said, squeezing it and looking into the Baronet's eyes,
who blushed a good deal; "how happy this will make
Rawdon!" She bustled up to Pitt's bedroom, leading
on the servants, who were carrying his trunks thither. She
came in herself laughing, with a coal-scuttle out of
her own room.
A fire was blazing already in Sir Pitt's apartment (it
was Miss Briggs's room, by the way, who was sent
upstairs to sleep with the maid). "I knew I should bring
you," she said with pleasure beaming in her glance. Indeed,
she was really sincerely happy at having him for a guest.
Becky made Rawdon dine out once or twice on business,
while Pitt stayed with them, and the Baronet passed
the happy evening alone with her and Briggs. She went
downstairs to the kitchen and actually cooked little
dishes for him. "Isn't it a good salmi?" she said; "I
made it for you. I can make you better dishes than that,
and will when you come to see me."
"Everything you do, you do well," said the Baronet
gallantly. "The salmi is excellent indeed."
"A poor man's wife," Rebecca replied gaily, "must
make herself useful, you know"; on which her brotherin-
law vowed that "she was fit to be the wife of an
Emperor, and that to be skilful in domestic duties was
surely one of the most charming of woman's qualities."
And Sir Pitt thought, with something like mortification,
of Lady Jane at home, and of a certain pie which she had
insisted on making, and serving to him at dinner--a
most abominable pie.
Besides the salmi, which was made of Lord Steyne's
pheasants from his lordship's cottage of Stillbrook, Becky
gave her brother-in-law a bottle of white wine, some
that Rawdon had brought with him from France, and had
picked up for nothing, the little story-teller said; whereas
the liquor was, in truth, some White Hermitage from
the Marquis of Steyne's famous cellars, which brought fire
into the Baronet's pallid cheeks and a glow into his feeble
frame.
Then when he had drunk up the bottle of petit vin
blanc, she gave him her hand, and took him up to the
drawing-room, and made him snug on the sofa by the
fire, and let him talk as she listened with the tenderest
kindly interest, sitting by him, and hemming a shirt
for her dear little boy. Whenever Mrs. Rawdon wished
to be particularly humble and virtuous, this little shirt
used to come out of her work-box. It had got to be too
small for Rawdon long before it was finished.
Well, Rebecca listened to Pitt, she talked to him, she
sang to him, she coaxed him, and cuddled him, so that
he found himself more and more glad every day to get
back from the lawyer's at Gray's Inn, to the blazing fire
in Curzon Street--a gladness in which the men of law
likewise participated, for Pitt's harangues were of the
longest--and so that when he went away he felt quite a
pang at departing. How pretty she looked kissing her
hand to him from the carriage and waving her handkerchief
when he had taken his place in the mail! She put
the handkerchief to her eyes once. He pulled his
sealskin cap over his, as the coach drove away, and,
sinking back, he thought to himself how she respected
him and how he deserved it, and how Rawdon was a foolish
dull fellow who didn't half-appreciate his wife; and
how mum and stupid his own wife was compared to that
brilliant little Becky. Becky had hinted every one of these
things herself, perhaps, but so delicately and gently that
you hardly knew when or where. And, before they
parted, it was agreed that the house in London should be
redecorated for the next season, and that the brothers'
families should meet again in the country at Christmas.
"I wish you could have got a little money out of
him," Rawdon said to his wife moodily when the Baronet
was gone. "I should like to give something to old Raggles,
hanged if I shouldn't. It ain't right, you know, that the
old fellow should be kept out of all his money. It may be
inconvenient, and he might let to somebody else besides
us, you know."
"Tell him," said Becky, "that as soon as Sir Pitt's
affairs are settled, everybody will be paid, and give him a
little something on account. Here's a cheque that Pitt
left for the boy," and she took from her bag and gave
her husband a paper which his brother had handed over
to her, on behalf of the little son and heir of the younger
branch of the Crawleys.
The truth is, she had tried personally the ground on
which her husband expressed a wish that she should
venture--tried it ever so delicately, and found it unsafe.
Even at a hint about embarrassments, Sir Pitt Crawley was
off and alarmed. And he began a long speech, explaining
how straitened he himself was in money matters; how
the tenants would not pay; how his father's affairs, and
the expenses attendant upon the demise of the old
gentleman, had involved him; how he wanted to pay off
incumbrances; and how the bankers and agents were
overdrawn; and Pitt Crawley ended by making a
compromise with his sister-in-law and giving her a very
small sum for the benefit of her little boy.
Pitt knew how poor his brother and his brother's family
must be. It could not have escaped the notice of such a
cool and experienced old diplomatist that Rawdon's family
had nothing to live upon, and that houses and carriages
are not to be kept for nothing. He knew very well that
he was the proprietor or appropriator of the money,
which, according to all proper calculation, ought to have fallen to his younger brother, and he
had, we may be sure, some
secret pangs of remorse within him, which warned
him that he ought to perform some act of justice,
or, let us say, compensation, towards these disappointed
relations. A just, decent man, not without brains,
who said his prayers, and knew his catechism, and
did his duty outwardly through life, he could not be
otherwise than aware that something was due to his
brother at his hands, and that morally he was Rawdon's
debtor.
But, as one reads in the columns of the Times newspaper
every now and then, queer announcements from
the Chancellor of the Exchequer, acknowledging the receipt
of 50 pounds from A. B., or 10 pounds from W. T., as
conscience-money, on account of taxes due by the said
A. B. or W. T., which payments the penitents beg the
Right Honourable gentleman to acknowledge through the
medium of the public press--so is the Chancellor no
doubt, and the reader likewise, always perfectly sure that
the above-named A. B. and W. T. are only paying a
very small instalment of what they really owe, and that
the man who sends up a twenty-pound note has very
likely hundreds or thousands more for which he ought
to account. Such, at least, are my feelings, when I see
A. B. or W. T.'s insufficient acts of repentance. And I
have no doubt that Pitt Crawley's contrition, or kindness
if you will, towards his younger brother, by whom
he had so much profited, was only a very small dividend
upon the capital sum in which he was indebted to Rawdon.
Not everybody is willing to pay even so much. To part
with money is a sacrifice beyond almost all men endowed
with a sense of order. There is scarcely any man alive
who does not think himself meritorious for giving
his neighbour five pounds. Thriftless gives, not from a
beneficent pleasure in giving, but from a lazy delight in
spending. He would not deny himself one enjoyment; not
his opera-stall, not his horse, not his dinner, not even
the pleasure of giving Lazarus the five pounds. Thrifty,
who is good, wise, just, and owes no man a penny, turns
from a beggar, haggles with a hackney-coachman, or
denies a poor relation, and I doubt which is the most
selfish of the two. Money has only a different value in
the eyes of each.
So, in a word, Pitt Crawley thought he would do something
for his brother, and then thought that he would think
about it some other time.
And with regard to Becky, she was not a woman who
expected too much from the generosity of her
neighbours, and so was quite content with all that Pitt Crawley
had done for her. She was acknowledged by the head
of the family. If Pitt would not give her anything, he
would get something for her some day. If she got no
money from her brother-in-law, she got what was as good
as money--credit. Raggles was made rather easy in his
mind by the spectacle of the union between the brothers,
by a small payment on the spot, and by the promise of a
much larger sum speedily to be assigned to him. And
Rebecca told Miss Briggs, whose Christmas dividend
upon the little sum lent by her Becky paid with an air of
candid joy, and as if her exchequer was brimming over
with gold--Rebecca, we say, told Miss Briggs, in strict
confidence that she had conferred with Sir Pitt, who was
famous as a financier, on Briggs's special behalf, as to
the most profitable investment of Miss B.'s remaining
capital; that Sir Pitt, after much consideration, had
thought of a most safe and advantageous way in which
Briggs could lay out her money; that, being especially
interested in her as an attached friend of the late Miss
Crawley, and of the whole family, and that long before
he left town, he had recommended that she should be
ready with the money at a moment's notice, so as to
purchase at the most favourable opportunity the shares
which Sir Pitt had in his eye. Poor Miss Briggs was very
grateful for this mark of Sir Pitt's attention--it came so
unsolicited, she said, for she never should have thought of
removing the money from the funds--and the delicacy
enhanced the kindness of the office; and she promised to
see her man of business immediately and be ready with
her little cash at the proper hour.
And this worthy woman was so grateful for the
kindness of Rebecca in the matter, and for that of her
generous benefactor, the Colonel, that she went out and
spent a great part of her half-year's dividend in the
purchase of a black velvet coat for little Rawdon, who, by
the way, was grown almost too big for black velvet now,
and was of a size and age befitting him for the assumption
of the virile jacket and pantaloons.
He was a fine open-faced boy, with blue eyes and
waving flaxen hair, sturdy in limb, but generous and soft in
heart, fondly attaching himself to all who were good to
him--to the pony--to Lord Southdown, who gave him
the horse (he used to blush and glow all over when he
saw that kind young nobleman)--to the groom who had
charge of the pony--to Molly, the cook, who crammed
him with ghost stories at night, and with good things from
the dinner--to Briggs, whom he plagued and laughed at
--and to his father especially, whose attachment
towards the lad was curious too to witness. Here, as he
grew to be about eight years old, his attachments may
be said to have ended. The beautiful mother-vision had
faded away after a while. During near two years she had
scarcely spoken to the child. She disliked him. He had
the measles and the hooping-cough. He bored her. One
day when he was standing at the landing-place, having
crept down from the upper regions, attracted by the sound
of his mother's voice, who was singing to Lord Steyne,
the drawing room door opening suddenly, discovered the
little spy, who but a moment before had been rapt in
delight, and listening to the music.
His mother came out and struck him violently a couple
of boxes on the ear. He heard a laugh from the Marquis
in the inner room (who was amused by this free and
artless exhibition of Becky's temper) and fled down below
to his friends of the kitchen, bursting in an agony of
grief.
"It is not because it hurts me," little Rawdon gasped
out--"only--only"--sobs and tears wound up the
sentence in a storm. It was the little boy's heart that was
bleeding. "Why mayn't I hear her singing? Why don't
she ever sing to me--as she does to that baldheaded
man with the large teeth?" He gasped out at various
intervals these exclamations of rage and grief. The cook
looked at the housemaid, the housemaid looked
knowingly at the footman--the awful kitchen inquisition which
sits in judgement in every house and knows everything--
sat on Rebecca at that moment.
After this incident, the mother's dislike increased to
hatred; the consciousness that the child was in the house
was a reproach and a pain to her. His very sight
annoyed her. Fear, doubt, and resistance sprang up, too,
in the boy's own bosom. They were separated from that
day of the boxes on the ear.
Lord Steyne also heartily disliked the boy. When they
met by mischance, he made sarcastic bows or remarks
to the child, or glared at him with savage-looking eyes.
Rawdon used to stare him in the face and double his
little fists in return. He knew his enemy, and this gentleman,
of all who came to the house, was the one who
angered him most. One day the footman found him
squaring his fists at Lord Steyne's hat in the hall. The
footman told the circumstance as a good joke to Lord
Steyne's coachman; that officer imparted it to Lord
Steyne's gentleman, and to the servants' hall in general.
And very soon afterwards, when Mrs. Rawdon Crawley
made her appearance at Gaunt House, the porter who
unbarred the gates, the servants of all uniforms in the hall,
the functionaries in white waistcoats, who bawled out
from landing to landing the names of Colonel and Mrs.
Rawdon Crawley, knew about her, or fancied they did.
The man who brought her refreshment and stood behind
her chair, had talked her character over with the large
gentleman in motley-coloured clothes at his side. Bon
Dieu! it is awful, that servants' inquisition! You see a
woman in a great party in a splendid saloon, surrounded
by faithful admirers, distributing sparkling glances,
dressed to perfection, curled, rouged, smiling and happy
--Discovery walks respectfully up to her, in the shape of
a huge powdered man with large calves and a tray of ices
--with Calumny (which is as fatal as truth) behind
him, in the shape of the hulking fellow carrying the waferbiscuits.
Madam, your secret will be talked over by those
men at their club at the public-house to-night. Jeames
will tell Chawles his notions about you over their pipes
and pewter beer-pots. Some people ought to have mutes
for servants in Vanity Fair--mutes who could not write.
If you are guilty, tremble. That fellow behind your chair
may be a Janissary with a bow-string in his plush breeches
pocket. If you are not guilty, have a care of
appearances, which are as ruinous as guilt.
"Was Rebecca guilty or not?" the Vehmgericht of tho
servants' hall had pronounced against her.
And, I shame to say, she would not have got credit
had they not believed her to be guilty. It was the sight of
the Marquis of Steyne's carriage-lamps at her door,
contemplated by Raggles, burning in the blackness of
midnight, "that kep him up," as he afterwards said, that
even more than Rebecca's arts and coaxings.
And so--guiltless very likely--she was writhing and
pushing onward towards what they call "a position in
society," and the servants were pointing at her as lost
and ruined. So you see Molly, the housemaid, of a morning,
watching a spider in the doorpost lay his thread and
laboriously crawl up it, until, tired of the sport, she
raises her broom and sweeps away the thread and the
artificer.
A day or two before Christmas, Becky, her husband
and her son made ready and went to pass the holidays
at the seat of their ancestors at Queen's Crawley. Becky
would have liked to leave the little brat behind, and
would have done so but for Lady Jane's urgent invitations
to the youngster, and the symptoms of revolt and
discontent which Rawdon manifested at her neglect of her
son. "He's the finest boy in England," the father said in a
tone of reproach to her, "and you don't seem to care for
him, Becky, as much as you do for your spaniel. He
shan't bother you much; at home he will be away from
you in the nursery, and he shall go outside on the coach
with me."
"Where you go yourself because you want to smoke
those filthy cigars," replied Mrs. Rawdon.
"I remember when you liked 'em though," answered the
husband.
Becky laughed; she was almost always good-humoured.
"That was when I was on my promotion, Goosey," she
said. "Take Rawdon outside with you and give him a cigar
too if you like."
Rawdon did not warm his little son for the winter's
journey in this way, but he and Briggs wrapped up the
child in shawls and comforters, and he was hoisted
respectfully onto the roof of the coach in the.dark morning,
under the lamps of the White Horse Cellar; and with
no small delight he watched the dawn rise and made
his first journey to the place which his father still called
home. It was a journey of infinite pleasure to the boy, to
whom the incidents of the road afforded endless interest,
his father answering to him all questions connected with it
and telling him who lived in the great white house to the
right, and whom the park belonged to. His mother, inside
the vehicle, with her maid and her furs, her wrappers, and
her scent bottles, made such a to-do that you would have
thought she never had been in a stage-coach before--
much less, that she had been turned out of this very one
to make room for a paying passenger on a certain
journey performed some half-score years ago.
It was dark again when little Rawdon was wakened up
to enter his uncle's carriage at Mudbury, and he sat and
looked out of it wondering as the great iron gates flew
open, and at the white trunks of the limes as they swept
by, until they stopped, at length, before the light windows
of the Hall, which were blazing and comfortable with
Christmas welcome. The hall-door was flung open--a big
fire was burning in the great old fire-place--a carpet was
down over the chequered black flags--"It's the old Turkey
one that used to be in the Ladies' Gallery," thought
Rebecca, and the next instant was kissing Lady Jane.
She and Sir Pitt performed the same salute with great
gravity; but Rawdon, having been smoking, hung back
rather from his sister-in-law, whose two children came
up to their cousin; and, while Matilda held out her hand
and kissed him, Pitt Binkie Southdown, the son and heir,
stood aloof rather and examined him as a little dog does
a big dog.
Then the kind hostess conducted her guests to the snug
apartments blazing with cheerful fires. Then the young
ladies came and knocked at Mrs. Rawdon's door, under
the pretence that they were desirous to be useful, but in
reality to have the pleasure of inspecting the contents of
her band and bonnet-boxes, and her dresses which, though
black, were of the newest London fashion. And they told
her how much the Hall was changed for the better, and
how old Lady Southdown was gone, and how Pitt was
taking his station in the county, as became a Crawley in
fact. Then the great dinner-bell having rung, the family
assembled at dinner, at which meal Rawdon Junior was
placed by his aunt, the good-natured lady of the house,
Sir Pitt being uncommonly attentive to his sister-in-law at
his own right hand.
Little Rawdon exhibited a fine appetite and showed a
gentlemanlike behaviour.
"I like to dine here," he said to his aunt when he had
completed his meal, at the conclusion of which, and
after a decent grace by Sir Pitt, the younger son and
heir was introduced, and was perched on a high chair
by the Baronet's side, while the daughter took possession
of the place and the little wine-glass prepared for her
near her mother. "I like to dine here," said Rawdon Minor,
looking up at his relation's kind face.
"Why?" said the good Lady Jane.
"I dine in the kitchen when I am at home," replied
Rawdon Minor, "or else with Briggs." But Becky was so
engaged with the Baronet, her host, pouring out a flood of
compliments and delights and raptures, and admiring
young Pitt Binkie, whom she declared to be the most
beautiful, intelligent, noble-looking little creature, and so
like his father, that she did not hear the remarks of her
own flesh and blood at the other end of the broad
shining table.
As a guest, and it being the first night of his arrival,
Rawdon the Second was allowed to sit up until the hour
when tea being over, and a great gilt book being laid on
the table before Sir Pitt, all the domestics of the family
streamed in, and Sir Pitt read prayers. It was the first
time the poor little boy had ever witnessed or heard of
such a ceremonial.
The house had been much improved even since the
Baronet's brief reign, and was pronounced by Becky to be
perfect, charming, delightful, when she surveyed it in
his company. As for little Rawdon, who examined it with
the children for his guides, it seemed to him a perfect
palace of enchantment and wonder. There were long
galleries, and ancient state bedrooms, there were
pictures and old China, and armour. There were the rooms
in which Grandpapa died, and by which the children
walked with terrified looks. "Who was Grandpapa?" he
asked; and they told him how he used to be very old, and
used to be wheeled about in a garden-chair, and they
showed him the garden-chair one day rotting in the
out-house in which it had lain since the old gentleman had
been wheeled away yonder to the church, of which the
spire was glittering over the park elms.
The brothers had good occupation for several mornings
in examining the improvements which had been effected
by Sir Pitt's genius and economy. And as they walked
or rode, and looked at them, they could talk without
too much boring each other. And Pitt took care to tell
Rawdon what a heavy outlay of money these improvements
had occasioned, and that a man of landed and funded
property was often very hard pressed for twenty pounds.
"There is that new lodge-gate," said Pitt, pointing to
it humbly with the bamboo cane, "I can no more pay for it
before the dividends in January than I can fly."
"I can lend you, Pitt, till then," Rawdon answered rather
ruefully; and they went in and looked at the restored lodge,
where the family arms were just new scraped in stone,
and where old Mrs. Lock, for the first time these many
long years, had tight doors, sound roofs, and whole
windows.
CHAPTER XLV
Between Hampshire and London
Sir Pitt Crawley had done more than repair fences and
restore dilapidated lodges on the Queen's Crawley estate.
Like a wise man he had set to work to rebuild the
injured popularity of his house and stop up the gaps and
ruins in which his name had been left by his disreputable
and thriftless old predecessor. He was elected for the
borough speedily after his father's demise; a magistrate,
a member of parliament, a county magnate and representative
of an ancient family, he made it his duty to show
himself before the Hampshire public, subscribed
handsomely to the county charities, called assiduously upon
all the county folk, and laid himself out in a word to take
that position in Hampshire, and in the Empire afterwards,
to which he thought his prodigious talents justly
entitled him. Lady Jane was instructed to be friendly with
the Fuddlestones, and the Wapshots, and the other
famous baronets, their neighbours. Their carriages might
frequently be seen in the Queen's Crawley avenue now;
they dined pretty frequently at the Hall (where the cookery
was so good that it was clear Lady Jane very seldom
had a hand in it), and in return Pitt and his wife most
energetically dined out in all sorts of weather and at all
sorts of distances. For though Pitt did not care for joviality,
being a frigid man of poor hearth and appetite, yet he
considered that to be hospitable and condescending
was quite incumbent on-his station, and every time that
he got a headache from too long an after-dinner sitting,
he felt that he was a martyr to duty. He talked about
crops, corn-laws, politics, with the best country gentlemen.
He (who had been formerly inclined to be a sad
free-thinker on these points) entered into poaching and
game preserving with ardour. He didn't hunt; he wasn't
a hunting man; he was a man of books and peaceful
habits; but he thought that the breed of horses must be
kept up in the country, and that the breed of foxes must
therefore be looked to, and for his part, if his friend,
Sir Huddlestone Fuddlestone, liked to draw his country
and meet as of old the F. hounds used to do at Queen's
Crawley, he should be happy to see him there, and the
gentlemen of the Fuddlestone hunt. And to Lady Southdown's
dismay too he became more orthodox in his tendencies
every day; gave up preaching in public and attending
meeting-houses; went stoutly to church; called
on the Bishop and all the Clergy at Winchester; and made
no objection when the Venerable Archdeacon Trumper
asked for a game of whist. What pangs must have been
those of Lady Southdown, and what an utter castaway she
must have thought her son-in-law for permitting such
a godless diversion! And when, on the return of the family
from an oratorio at Winchester, the Baronet announced
to the young ladies that he should next year very
probably take them to the "county balls," they worshipped
him for his kindness. Lady Jane was only too obedient, and
perhaps glad herself to go. The Dowager wrote off the
direst descriptions of her daughter's worldly behaviour to
the authoress of the Washerwoman of Finchley Common
at the Cape; and her house in Brighton being about this
time unoccupied, returned to that watering-place, her
absence being not very much deplored by her children.
We may suppose, too, that Rebecca, on paying a second
visit to Queen's Crawley, did not feel particularly grieved
at the absence of the lady of the medicine chest; though
she wrote a Christmas letter to her Ladyship, in which she
respectfully recalled herself to Lady Southdown's
recollection, spoke with gratitude of the delight which her
Ladyship's conversation had given her on the former
visit, dilated on the kindness with which her Ladyship had
treated her in sickness, and declared that everything at
Queen's Crawley reminded her of her absent friend.
A great part of the altered demeanour and popularity
of Sir Pitt Crawley might have been traced to the counsels
of that astute little lady of Curzon Street. "You remain a
Baronet--you consent to be a mere country gentleman,"
she said to him, while he had been her guest in London.
"No, Sir Pitt Crawley, I know you better. I know your
talents and your ambition. You fancy you hide them
both, but you can conceal neither from me. I showed
Lord Steyne your pamphlet on malt. He was familiar
with it, and said it was in the opinion of the whole Cabinet
the most masterly thing that had appeared on the subject.
The Ministry has its eye upon you, and I know what you
want. You want to distinguish yourself in Parliament;
every one says you are the finest speaker in England
(for your speeches at Oxford are still remembered). You
want to be Member for the County, where, with your own
vote and your borough at your back, you can command
anything. And you want to be Baron Crawley of Queen's
Crawley, and will be before you die. I saw it all. I could
read your heart, Sir Pitt. If I had a husband who
possessed your intellect as he does your name, I sometimes
think I should not be unworthy of him--but--but I am
your kinswoman now," she added with a laugh. "Poor
little penniless, I have got a little interest--and who
knows, perhaps the mouse may be able to aid the lion."
Pitt Crawley was amazed and enraptured with her
speech. "How that woman comprehends me!" he said.
"I never could get Jane to read three pages of the malt
pamphlet. She has no idea that I have commanding
talents or secret ambition. So they remember my speaking
at Oxford, do they? The rascals! Now that I represent
my borough and may sit for the county, they begin to
recollect me! Why, Lord Steyne cut me at the levee last
year; they are beginning to find out that Pitt Crawley is
some one at last. Yes, the man was always the same
whom these people neglected: it was only the opportunity
that was wanting, and I will show them now that I can
speak and act as well as write. Achilles did not declare
himself until they gave him the sword. I hold it now, and
the world shall yet hear of Pitt Crawley."
Therefore it was that this roguish diplomatist has grown
so hospitable; that he was so civil to oratorios and
hospitals; so kind to Deans and Chapters; so generous in
giving and accepting dinners; so uncommonly gracious to
farmers on market-days; and so much interested about
county business; and that the Christmas at the Hall was the
gayest which had been known there for many a long day.
On Christmas Day a great family gathering took place.
All the Crawleys from the Rectory came to dine. Rebecca
was as frank and fond of Mrs. Bute as if the other had
never been her enemy; she was affectionately interested
in the dear girls, and surprised at the progress which they
had made in music since her time, and insisted upon
encoring one of the duets out of the great song-books
which Jim, grumbling, had been forced to bring under his
arm from the Rectory. Mrs. Bute, perforce, was obliged
to adopt a decent demeanour towards the little adventuress
--of course being free to discourse with her daughters
afterwards about the absurd respect with which Sir Pitt
treated his sister-in-law. But Jim, who had sat next to
her at dinner, declared she was a trump, and one and all
of the Rector's family agreed that the little Rawdon was a
fine boy. They respected a possible baronet in the boy,
between whom and the title there was only the little
sickly pale Pitt Binkie.
The children were very good friends. Pitt Binkie was too
little a dog for such a big dog as Rawdon to play with; and
Matilda being only a girl, of course not fit companion
for a young gentleman who was near eight years old, and
going into jackets very soon. He took the command of
this small party at once--the little girl and the little boy
following him about with great reverence at such times
as he condescended to sport with them. His happiness
and pleasure in the country were extreme. The kitchen
garden pleased him hugely, the flowers moderately, but
the pigeons and the poultry, and the stables when he
was allowed to visit them, were delightful objects to
him. He resisted being kissed by the Misses Crawley,
but he allowed Lady Jane sometimes to embrace him, and
it was by her side that he liked to sit when, the signal
to retire to the drawing-room being given, the ladies
left the gentlemen to their claret--by her side rather
than by his mother. For Rebecca, seeing that tenderness
was the fashion, called Rawdon to her one evening and
stooped down and kissed him in the presence of all the
ladies.
He looked her full in the face after the operation,
trembling and turning very red, as his wont was when
moved. "You never kiss me at home, Mamma," he said,
at which there was a general silence and consternation and
a by no means pleasant look in Becky's eyes.
Rawdon was fond of his sister-in-law, for her regard
for his son. Lady Jane and Becky did not get on quite so
well at this visit as on occasion of the former one, when
the Colonel's wife was bent upon pleasing. Those two
speeches of the child struck rather a chill. Perhaps Sir
Pitt was rather too attentive to her.
But Rawdon, as became his age and size, was fonder
of the society of the men than of the women, and never
wearied of accompanying his sire to the stables, whither
the Colonel retired to smoke his cigar--Jim, the Rector's
son, sometimes joining his cousin in that and other amusements.
He and the Baronet's keeper were very close
friends, their mutual taste for "dawgs" bringing them
much together. On one day, Mr. James, the Colonel, and
Horn, the keeper, went and shot pheasants, taking little
Rawdon with them. On another most blissful morning,
these four gentlemen partook of the amusement of
rat-hunting in a barn, than which sport Rawdon as yet had
never seen anything more noble. They stopped up the
ends of certain drains in the barn, into the other openings
of which ferrets were inserted, and then stood silently
aloof, with uplifted stakes in their hands, and an anxious
little terrier (Mr. James's celebrated "dawg" Forceps,
indeed) scarcely breathing from excitement, listening
motionless on three legs, to the faint squeaking of the
rats below. Desperately bold at last, the persecuted
animals bolted above-ground--the terrier accounted for one,
the keeper for another; Rawdon, from flurry and
excitement, missed his rat, but on the other hand he
half-murdered a ferret.
But the greatest day of all was that on which Sir
Huddlestone Fuddlestone's hounds met upon the lawn
at Queen's Crawley.
That was a famous sight for little Rawdon. At half-past
ten, Tom Moody, Sir Huddlestone Fuddlestone's
huntsman, was seen trotting up the avenue, followed by the
noble pack of hounds in a compact body--the rear being
brought up by the two whips clad in stained scarlet
frocks--light hard-featured lads on well-bred lean horses,
possessing marvellous dexterity in casting the points of
their long heavy whips at the thinnest part of any dog's
skin who dares to straggle from the main body, or to
take the slightest notice, or even so much as wink, at the
hares and rabbits starting under their noses.
Next comes boy Jack, Tom Moody's son, who weighs
five stone, measures eight-and-forty inches, and will never
be any bigger. He is perched on a large raw-boned hunter,
half-covered by a capacious saddle. This animal is Sir
Huddlestone Fuddlestone's favourite horse the Nob.
Other horses, ridden by other small boys, arrive from
time to time, awaiting their masters, who will come
cantering on anon.
Tom Moody rides up to the door of the Hall, where he
is welcomed by the butler, who offers him drink, which he
declines. He and his pack then draw off into a sheltered
corner of the lawn, where the dogs roll on the grass, and
play or growl angrily at one another, ever and anon
breaking out into furious fight speedily to be quelled by
Tom's voice, unmatched at rating, or the snaky thongs
of the whips.
Many young gentlemen canter up on thoroughbred
hacks, spatter-dashed to the knee, and enter the house to
drink cherry-brandy and pay their respects to the ladies,
or, more modest and sportsmanlike, divest themselves
of their mud-boots, exchange their hacks for their hunters,
and warm their blood by a preliminary gallop round the
lawn. Then they collect round the pack in the corner and
talk with Tom Moody of past sport, and the merits of
Sniveller and Diamond, and of the state of the country
and of the wretched breed of foxes.
Sir Huddlestone presently appears mounted on a clever
cob and rides up to the Hall, where he enters and does the
civil thing by the ladies, after which, being a man of
few words, he proceeds to business. The hounds are
drawn up to the hall-door, and little Rawdon descends
amongst them, excited yet half-alarmed by the caresses
which they bestow upon him, at the thumps he receives
from their waving tails, and at their canine bickerings,
scarcely restrained by Tom Moody's tongue and lash.
Meanwhile, Sir Huddlestone has hoisted himself
unwieldily on the Nob: "Let's try Sowster's Spinney, Tom,"
says the Baronet, "Farmer Mangle tells me there are two
foxes in it." Tom blows his horn and trots off, followed by
the pack, by the whips, by the young gents from
Winchester, by the farmers of the neighbourhood, by the
labourers of the parish on foot, with whom the day is
a great holiday, Sir Huddlestone bringing up the rear with
Colonel Crawley, and the whole cortege disappears
down the avenue.
The Reverend Bute Crawley (who has been too modest
to appear at the public meet before his nephew's
windows), whom Tom Moody remembers forty years back
a slender divine riding the wildest horses, jumping the
widest brooks, and larking over the newest gates in the
country--his Reverence, we say, happens to trot out from
the Rectory Lane on his powerful black horse just as Sir
Huddlestone passes; he joins the worthy Baronet. Hounds
and horsemen disappear, and little Rawdon remains on the
doorsteps, wondering and happy.
During the progress of this memorable holiday, little
Rawdon, if he had got no special liking for his uncle,
always awful and cold and locked up in his study, plunged
in justice-business and surrounded by bailiffs and farmers
--has gained the good graces of his married and maiden
aunts, of the two little folks of the Hall, and of Jim of the
Rectory, whom Sir Pitt is encouraging to pay his addresses
to one of the young ladies, with an understanding doubtless
that he shall be presented to the living when it shall
be vacated by his fox-hunting old sire. Jim has given up
that sport himself and confines himself to a little harmless
duck- or snipe-shooting, or a little quiet trifling with the
rats during the Christmas holidays, after which he will
return to the University and try and not be plucked, once
more. He has already eschewed green coats, red
neckcloths, and other worldly ornaments, and is preparing
himself for a change in his condition. In this cheap and
thrifty way Sir Pitt tries to pay off his debt to his family.
Also before this merry Christmas was over, the Baronet
had screwed up courage enough to give his brother
another draft on his bankers, and for no less a sum than a
hundred pounds, an act which caused Sir Pitt cruel pangs
at first, but which made him glow afterwards to think
himself one of the most generous of men. Rawdon and his
son went away with the utmost heaviness of heart. Becky
and the ladies parted with some alacrity, however, and our
friend returned to London to commence those avocations
with which we find her occupied when this chapter begins.
Under her care the Crawley House in Great Gaunt Street
was quite rejuvenescent and ready for the reception of
Sir Pitt and his family, when the Baronet came to
London to attend his duties in Parliament and to assume that
position in the country for which his vast genius fitted
him.
For the first session, this profound dissembler hid his
projects and never opened his lips but to present a
petition from Mudbury. But he attended assiduously in his
place and learned thoroughly the routine and business of
the House. At home he gave himself up to the perusal of
Blue Books, to the alarm and wonder of Lady Jane, who
thought he was killing himself by late hours and intense
application. And he made acquaintance with the ministers,
and the chiefs of his party, determining to rank as
one of them before many years were over.
Lady Jane's sweetness and kindness had inspired
Rebecca with such a contempt for her ladyship as the little
woman found no small difficulty in concealing. That sort
of goodness and simplicity which Lady Jane possessed
annoyed our friend Becky, and it was impossible for her at
times not to show, or to let the other divine, her scorn.
Her presence, too, rendered Lady Jane uneasy. Her
husband talked constantly with Becky. Signs of intelligence
seemed to pass between them, and Pitt spoke with her on
subjects on which he never thought of discoursing with
Lady Jane. The latter did not understand them, to be sure,
but it was mortifying to remain silent; still more
mortifying to know that you had nothing to say, and hear that
little audacious Mrs. Rawdon dashing on from subject to
subject, with a word for every man, and a joke always pat;
and to sit in one's own house alone, by the fireside, and
watching all the men round your rival.
In the country, when Lady Jane was telling stories to
the children, who clustered about her knees (little
Rawdon into the bargain, who was very fond of her), and
Becky came into the room, sneering with green scornful
eyes, poor Lady Jane grew silent under those baleful
glances. Her simple little fancies shrank away tremulously,
as fairies in the story-books, before a superior bad
angel. She could not go on, although Rebecca, with the
smallest inflection of sarcasm in her voice, besought her
to continue that charming story. And on her side gentle
thoughts and simple pleasures were odious to Mrs. Becky;
they discorded with her; she hated people for liking them;
she spurned children and children-lovers. "I have no
taste for bread and butter," she would say, when
caricaturing Lady Jane and her ways to my Lord Steyne.
"No more has a certain person for holy water," his
lordship replied with a bow and a grin and a great jarring
laugh afterwards.
So these two ladies did not see much of each other
except upon those occasions when the younger brother's
wife, having an object to gain from the other, frequented
her. They my-loved and my-deared each other assiduously,
but kept apart generally, whereas Sir Pitt, in the
midst of his multiplied avocations, found daily time to
see his sister-in-law.
On the occasion of his first Speaker's dinner, Sir Pitt
took the opportunity of appearing before his sister-in-law
in his uniform--that old diplomatic suit which he had
worn when attache to the Pumpernickel legation.
Becky complimented him upon that dress and admired
him almost as much as his own wife and children, to
whom he displayed himself before he set out. She said
that it was only the thoroughbred gentleman who could
wear the Court suit with advantage: it was only your men
of ancient race whom the culotte courte became. Pitt
looked down with complacency at his legs, which had not,
in truth, much more symmetry or swell than the lean
Court sword which dangled by his side--looked down
at his legs, and thought in his heart that he was killing.
When he was gone, Mrs. Becky made a caricature
of his figure, which she showed to Lord Steyne when he
arrived. His lordship carried off the sketch, delighted
with the accuracy of the resemblance. He had done Sir
Pitt Crawley the honour to meet him at Mrs. Becky's
house and had been most gracious to the new Baronet
and member. Pitt was struck too by the deference with
which the great Peer treated his sister-in-law, by her ease
and sprightliness in the conversation, and by the delight
with which the other men of the party listened to her talk.
Lord Steyne made no doubt but that the Baronet had
only commenced his career in public life, and expected
rather anxiously to hear him as an orator; as they were
neighbours (for Great Gaunt Street leads into Gaunt
Square, whereof Gaunt House, as everybody knows, forms
one side) my lord hoped that as soon as Lady Steyne
arrived in London she would have the honour of making
the acquaintance of Lady Crawley. He left a card upon
his neighbour in the course of a day or two, having never
thought fit to notice his predecessor, though they had
lived near each other for near a century past.
In the midst of these intrigues and fine parties and
wise and brilliant personages Rawdon felt himself more
and more isolated every day. He was allowed to go to
the club more; to dine abroad with bachelor friends;
to come and go when he liked, without any questions
being asked. And he and Rawdon the younger many a
time would walk to Gaunt Street and sit with the lady
and the children there while Sir Pitt was closeted with
Rebecca, on his way to the House, or on his return
from it.
The ex-Colonel would sit for hours in his brother's
house very silent, and thinking and doing as little as
possible. He was glad to be employed of an errand; to
go and make inquiries about a horse or a servant, or to
carve the roast mutton for the dinner of the children.
He was beat and cowed into laziness and submission.
Delilah had imprisoned him and cut his hair off, too. The
bold and reckless young blood of ten-years back was
subjugated and was turned into a torpid, submissive,
middle-aged, stout gentleman.
And poor Lady Jane was aware that Rebecca had
captivated her husband, although she and Mrs. Rawdon
my-deared and my-loved each other every day they met.
CHAPTER XLVI
Struggles and Trials
Our friends at Brompton were meanwhile passing their
Christmas after their fashion and in a manner by no
means too cheerful.
Out of the hundred pounds a year, which was about
the amount of her income, the Widow Osborne had been
in the habit of giving up nearly three-fourths to her
father and mother, for the expenses of herself and her
little boy. With #120 more, supplied by Jos, this family
of four people, attended by a single Irish servant who
also did for Clapp and his wife, might manage to live
in decent comfort through the year, and hold up their
heads yet, and be able to give a friend a dish of tea still,
after the storms and disappointments of their early life.
Sedley still maintained his ascendency over the family of
Mr. Clapp, his ex-clerk. Clapp remembered the time
when, sitting on the edge of the chair, he tossed off a
bumper to the health of "Mrs. S--, Miss Emmy, and
Mr. Joseph in India," at the merchant's rich table in
Russell Square. Time magnified the splendour of those
recollections in the honest clerk's bosom. Whenever he came
up from the kitchen-parlour to the drawing-room and
partook of tea or gin-and-water with Mr. Sedley, he
would say, "This was not what you was accustomed to
once, sir," and as gravely and reverentially drink the
health of the ladies as he had done in the days of their
utmost prosperity. He thought Miss 'Melia's playing the
divinest music ever performed, and her the finest lady.
He never would sit down before Sedley at the club even,
nor would he have that gentleman's character abused by
any member of the society. He had seen the first men in
London shaking hands with Mr. S--; he said, "He'd
known him in times when Rothschild might be seen on
'Change with him any day, and he owed him personally
everythink."
Clapp, with the best of characters and handwritings,
had been able very soon after his master's disaster to find
other employment for himself. "Such a little fish as me
can swim in any bucket," he used to remark, and a
member of the house from which old Sedley had seceded was
very glad to make use of Mr. Clapp's services and to
reward them with a comfortable salary. In fine, all Sedley's
wealthy friends had dropped off one by one, and this
poor ex-dependent still remained faithfully attached to
him.
Out of the small residue of her income which Amelia
kept back for herself, the widow had need of all the
thrift and care possible in order to enable her to keep
her darling boy dressed in such a manner as became
George Osborne's son, and to defray the expenses of the
little school to which, after much misgiving and
reluctance and many secret pangs and fears on her own
part, she had been induced to send the lad. She had sat up
of nights conning lessons and spelling over crabbed
grammars and geography books in order to teach them to
Georgy. She had worked even at the Latin accidence,
fondly hoping that she might be capable of instructing
him in that language. To part with him all day, to send
him out to the mercy of a schoolmaster's cane and his
schoolfellows' roughness, was almost like weaning him
over again to that weak mother, so tremulous and full of
sensibility. He, for his part, rushed off to the school with
the utmost happiness. He was longing for the change.
That childish gladness wounded his mother, who was
herself so grieved to part with him. She would rather have
had him more sorry, she thought, and then was deeply
repentant within herself for daring to be so selfish as to
wish her own son to be unhappy.
Georgy made great progress in the school, which was
kept by a friend of his mother's constant admirer, the
Rev. Mr. Binny. He brought home numberless prizes and
testimonials of ability. He told his mother countless stories
every night about his school-companions: and what a
fine fellow Lyons was, and what a sneak Sniffin was, and
how Steel's father actually supplied the meat for the
establishment, whereas Golding's mother came in a
carriage to fetch him every Saturday, and how Neat had
straps to his trowsers--might he have straps?--and how
Bull Major was so strong (though only in Eutropius) that
it was believed he could lick the Usher, Mr. Ward,
himself. So Amelia learned to know every one of the boys
in that school as well as Georgy himself, and of nights
she used to help him in his exercises and puzzle her little
head over his lessons as eagerly as if she was herself
going in the morning into the presence of the master.
Once, after a certain combat with Master Smith, George
came home to his mother with a black eye, and bragged
prodigiously to his parent and his delighted old
grandfather about his valour in the fight, in which, if the
truth was known he did not behave with particular heroism,
and in which he decidedly had the worst. But Amelia
has never forgiven that Smith to this day, though he is
now a peaceful apothecary near Leicester Square.
In these quiet labours and harmless cares the gentle
widow's life was passing away, a silver hair or two marking
the progress of time on her head and a line deepening
ever so little on her fair forehead. She used to smile at
these marks of time. "What matters it," she asked, "For
an old woman like me?" All she hoped for was to live to
see her son great, famous, and glorious, as he deserved
to be. She kept his copy-books, his drawings, and
compositions, and showed them about in her little circle as
if they were miracles of genius. She confided some of
these specimens to Miss Dobbin, to show them to Miss
Osborne, George's aunt, to show them to Mr. Osborne
himself--to make that old man repent of his cruelty and
ill feeling towards him who was gone. All her husband's
faults and foibles she had buried in the grave with him:
she only remembered the lover, who had married her at
all sacrifices, the noble husband, so brave and beautiful,
in whose arms she had hung on the morning when he had
gone away to fight, and die gloriously for his king. From
heaven the hero must be smiling down upon that paragon
of a boy whom he had left to comfort and console her.
We have seen how one of George's grandfathers (Mr.
Osborne), in his easy chair in Russell Square, daily grew
more violent and moody, and how his daughter, with her
fine carriage, and her fine horses, and her name on half
the public charity-lists of the town, was a lonely, miserable, persecuted old maid. She
thought again and again
of the beautiful little boy, her brother's son, whom she
had seen. She longed to be allowed to drive in the fine
carriage to the house in which he lived, and she used
to look out day after day as she took her solitary drive
in the park, in hopes that she might see him. Her sister,
the banker's lady, occasionally condescended to pay her
old home and companion a visit in Russell Square. She
brought a couple of sickly children attended by a prim
nurse, and in a faint genteel giggling tone cackled to her
sister about her fine acquaintance, and how her little
Frederick was the image of Lord Claud Lollypop and
her sweet Maria had been noticed by the Baroness as they
were driving in their donkey-chaise at Roehampton. She
urged her to make her papa do something for the darlings.
Frederick she had determined should go into the Guards;
and if they made an elder son of him (and Mr. Bullock
was positively ruining and pinching himself to death to
buy land), how was the darling girl to be provided for?
"I expect YOU, dear," Mrs. Bullock would say, "for of
course my share of our Papa's property must go to the
head of the house, you know. Dear Rhoda McMull will
disengage the whole of the Castletoddy property as soon
as poor dear Lord Castletoddy dies, who is quite
epileptic; and little Macduff McMull will be Viscount
Castletoddy. Both the Mr. Bludyers of Mincing Lane have
settled their fortunes on Fanny Bludyer's little boy. My
darling Frederick must positively be an eldest son; and--
and do ask Papa to bring us back his account in
Lombard Street, will you, dear? It doesn't look well, his going
to Stumpy and Rowdy's." After which kind of speeches,
in which fashion and the main chance were blended
together, and after a kiss, which was like the contact of an
oyster--Mrs. Frederick Bullock would gather her
starched nurslings and simper back into her carriage.
Every visit which this leader of ton paid to her family
was more unlucky for her. Her father paid more money
into Stumpy and Rowdy's. Her patronage became more
and more insufferable. The poor widow in the little
cottage at Brompton, guarding her treasure there, little
knew how eagerly some people coveted it.
On that night when Jane Osborne had told her father
that she had seen his grandson, the old man had made
her no reply, but he had shown no anger--and had bade
her good-night on going himself to his room in rather a
kindly voice. And he must have meditated on what she
said and have made some inquiries of the Dobbin family
regarding her visit, for a fortnight after it took place, he
asked her where was her little French watch and chain
she used to wear?
"I bought it with my money, sir," she said in a great
fright.
"Go and order another like it, or a better if you can
get it," said the old gentleman and lapsed again into
silence.
Of late the Misses Dobbin more than once repeated
their entreaties to Amelia, to allow George to visit them.
His aunt had shown her inclination; perhaps his
grandfather himself, they hinted, might be disposed to be
reconciled to him. Surely, Amelia could not refuse such
advantageous chances for the boy. Nor could she, but
she acceded to their overtures with a very heavy and
suspicious heart, was always uneasy during the child's
absence from her, and welcomed him back as if he was
rescued out of some danger. He brought back money and
toys, at which the widow looked with alarm and jealousy;
she asked him always if he had seen any gentleman--
"Only old Sir William, who drove him about in the fourwheeled
chaise, and Mr. Dobbin, who arrived on the
beautiful bay horse in the afternoon--in the green coat
and pink neck-cloth, with the gold-headed whip, who
promised to show him the Tower of London and take
him out with the Surrey hounds." At last, he said, "There
was an old gentleman, with thick eyebrows, and a broad
hat, and large chain and seals." He came one day as the
coachman was lunging Georgy round the lawn on the
gray pony. "He looked at me very much. He shook very
much. I said 'My name is Norval' after dinner. My aunt
began to cry. She is always crying." Such was George's
report on that night.
Then Amelia knew that the boy had seen his
grandfather; and looked out feverishly for a proposal
which she was sure would follow, and which came, in fact,
in a few days afterwards. Mr. Osborne formally offered to
take the boy and make him heir to the fortune which he
had intended that his father should inherit. He would
make Mrs. George Osborne an allowance, such as to
assure her a decent competency. If Mrs. George Osborne
proposed to marry again, as Mr. O. heard was her
intention, he would not withdraw that allowance. But it
must be understood that the child would live entirely with
his grandfather in Russell Square, or at whatever other
place Mr. O. should select, and that he would be
occasionally permitted to see Mrs. George Osborne at her
own residence. This message was brought or read to her
in a letter one day, when her mother was from home
and her father absent as usual in the City.
She was never seen angry but twice or thrice in her
life, and it was in one of these moods that Mr. Osborne's
attorney had the fortune to behold her. She rose up
trembling and flushing very much as soon as, after
reading the letter, Mr. Poe handed it to her, and she tore the
paper into a hundred fragments, which she trod on. "I
marry again! I take money to part from my child! Who
dares insult me by proposing such a thing? Tell Mr.
Osborne it is a cowardly letter, sir--a cowardly letter--
I will not answer it. I wish you good morning, sir--and
she bowed me out of the room like a tragedy Queen,"
said the lawyer who told the story.
Her parents never remarked her agitation on that day,
and she never told them of the interview. They had their
own affairs to interest them, affairs which deeply
interested this innocent and unconscious lady. The old
gentleman, her father, was always dabbling in speculation.
We have seen how the wine company and the coal
company had failed him. But, prowling about the City
always eagerly and restlessly still, he lighted upon some
other scheme, of which he thought so well that he
embarked in it in spite of the remonstrances of Mr. Clapp,
to whom indeed he never dared to tell how far he had
engaged himself in it. And as it was always Mr. Sedley's
maxim not to talk about money matters before women,
they had no inkling of the misfortunes that were in store
for them until the unhappy old gentleman was forced to
make gradual confessions.
The bills of the little household, which had been settled
weekly, first fell into arrear. The remittances had not
arrived from India, Mr. Sedley told his wife with a disturbed
face. As she had paid her bills very regularly hitherto,
one or two of the tradesmen to whom the poor lady was
obliged to go round asking for time were very angry at
a delay to which they were perfectly used from more
irregular customers. Emmy's contribution, paid over
cheerfully without any questions, kept the little company
in half-rations however. And the first six months passed
away pretty easily, old Sedley still keeping up with the
notion that his shares must rise and that all would be
well.
No sixty pounds, however, came to help the household
at the end of the half year, and it fell deeper and deeper
into trouble--Mrs. Sedley, who was growing infirm and
was much shaken, remained silent or wept a great deal
with Mrs. Clapp in the kitchen. The butcher was
particularly surly, the grocer insolent: once or twice little
Georgy had grumbled about the dinners, and Amelia, who
still would have been satisfied with a slice of bread for
her own dinner, could not but perceive that her son was
neglected and purchased little things out of her private
purse to keep the boy in health.
At last they told her, or told her such a garbled story
as people in difficulties tell. One day, her own money
having been received, and Amelia about to pay it over,
she, who had kept an account of the moneys expended
by her, proposed to keep a certain portion back out of
her dividend, having contracted engagements for a new
suit for Georgy.
Then it came out that Jos's remittances were not paid,
that the house was in difficulties, which Amelia ought to
have seen before, her mother said, but she cared for
nothing or nobody except Georgy. At this she passed all
her money across the table, without a word, to her
mother, and returned to her room to cry her eyes out.
She had a great access of sensibility too that day, when
obliged to go and countermand the clothes, the darling
clothes on which she had set her heart for Christmas
Day, and the cut and fashion of which she had arranged
in many conversations with a small milliner, her friend.
Hardest of all, she had to break the matter to Georgy,
who made a loud outcry. Everybody had new clothes at
Christmas. The others would laugh at him. He would
have new clothes. She had promised them to him. The
poor widow had only kisses to give him. She darned the
old suit in tears. She cast about among her little ornaments
to see if she could sell anything to procure the desired
novelties. There was her India shawl that Dobbin had
sent her. She remembered in former days going with her
mother to a fine India shop on Ludgate Hill, where the
ladies had all sorts of dealings and bargains in these
articles. Her cheeks flushed and her eyes shone with
pleasure as she thought of this resource, and she kissed
away George to school in the morning, smiling brightly
after him. The boy felt that there was good news in her
look.
Packing up her shawl in a handkerchief (another of
the gifts of the good Major), she hid them under her
cloak and walked flushed and eager all the way to
Ludgate Hill, tripping along by the park wall and running
over the crossings, so that many a man turned as she
hurried by him and looked after her rosy pretty face. She
calculated how she should spend the proceeds of her
shawl--how, besides the clothes, she would buy the books
that he longed for, and pay his half-year's schooling; and
how she would buy a cloak for her father instead of
that old great-coat which he wore. She was not mistaken
as to the value of the Major's gift. It was a very fine and
beautiful web, and the merchant made a very good
bargain when he gave her twenty guineas for her shawl.
She ran on amazed and flurried with her riches to
Darton's shop, in St. Paul's Churchyard, and there
purchased the Parents' Assistant and the Sandford and
Merton Georgy longed for, and got into the coach there
with her parcel, and went home exulting. And she pleased
herself by writing in the fly-leaf in her neatest little
hand, "George Osborne, A Christmas gift from his
affectionate-mother." The books are extant to this day,
with the fair delicate superscription.
She was going from her own room with the books in
her hand to place them on George's table, where he
might find them on his return from school, when in
the passage, she and her mother met. The gilt bindings
of the seven handsome little volumes caught the old lady's
eye.
"What are those?" she said.
"Some books for Georgy," Amelia replied--I--I
promised them to him at Christmas."
"Books!" cried the elder lady indignantly, "Books,
when the whole house wants bread! Books, when to keep
you and your son in luxury, and your dear father out of
gaol, I've sold every trinket I had, the India shawl from
my back even down to the very spoons, that our tradesmen
mightn't insult us, and that Mr. Clapp, which indeed
he is justly entitled, being not a hard landlord, and a
civil man, and a father, might have his rent. Oh, Amelia!
you break my heart with your books and that boy of
yours, whom you are ruining, though part with him you
will not. Oh, Amelia, may God send you a more dutiful
child than I have had! There's Jos, deserts his father in
his old age; and there's George, who might be provided
for, and who might be rich, going to school like a lord,
with a gold watch and chain round his neck--while my
dear, dear old man is without a sh--shilling." Hysteric
sobs and cries ended Mrs. Sedley's speech--it echoed
through every room in the small house, whereof the other
female inmates heard every word of the colloquy.
"Oh, Mother, Mother!" cried poor Amelia in reply.
"You told me nothing--I--I promised him the books.
I--I only sold my shawl this morning. Take the money
--take everything"--and with quivering hands she took
out her silver, and her sovereigns--her precious golden
sovereigns, which she thrust into the hands of her
mother, whence they overflowed and tumbled, rolling
down the stairs.
And then she went into her room, and sank down in
despair and utter misery. She saw it all now. Her
selfishness was sacrificing the boy. But for her he might have
wealth, station, education, and his father's place, which
the elder George had forfeited for her sake. She had but
to speak the words, and her father was restored to
competency and the boy raised to fortune. Oh, what a
conviction it was to that tender and stricken heart!
CHAPTER XLVII
Gaunt House
All the world knows that Lord Steyne's town palace
stands in Gaunt Square, out of which Great Gaunt Street
leads, whither we first conducted Rebecca, in the time
of the departed Sir Pitt Crawley. Peering over the railings
and through the black trees into the garden of the
Square, you see a few miserable governesses with
wan-faced pupils wandering round and round it, and round
the dreary grass-plot in the centre of which rises the
statue of Lord Gaunt, who fought at Minden, in a
three-tailed wig, and otherwise habited like a Roman
Emperor. Gaunt House occupies nearly a side of the Square.
The remaining three sides are composed of mansions that
have passed away into dowagerism--tall, dark houses,
with window-frames of stone, or picked out of a lighter
red. Little light seems to be behind those lean,
comfortless casements now, and hospitality to have passed
away from those doors as much as the laced lacqueys
and link-boys of old times, who used to put out their
torches in the blank iron extinguishers that still flank the
lamps over the steps. Brass plates have penetrated into
the square--Doctors, the Diddlesex Bank Western
Branch--the English and European Reunion, &c.--it has
a dreary look--nor is my Lord Steyne's palace less
dreary. All I have ever seen of it is the vast wall in
front, with the rustic columns at the great gate, through
which an old porter peers sometimes with a fat and
gloomy red face--and over the wall the garret and
bedroom windows, and the chimneys, out of which there
seldom comes any smoke now. For the present Lord
Steyne lives at Naples, preferring the view of the Bay
and Capri and Vesuvius to the dreary aspect of the wall
in Gaunt Square.
A few score yards down New Gaunt Street, and leading
into Gaunt Mews indeed, is a little modest back
door, which you would not remark from that of any of
the other stables. But many a little close carriage has
stopped at that door, as my informant (little Tom Eaves,
who knows everything, and who showed me the place)
told me. "The Prince and Perdita have been in and out
of that door, sir," he had often told me; "Marianne
Clarke has entered it with the Duke of --. It conducts
to the famous petits appartements of Lord Steyne--one,
sir, fitted up all in ivory and white satin, another in
ebony and black velvet; there is a little banqueting-room
taken from Sallust's house at Pompeii, and painted by
Cosway--a little private kitchen, in which every saucepan
was silver and all the spits were gold. It was there
that Egalite Orleans roasted partridges on the night
when he and the Marquis of Steyne won a hundred
thousand from a great personage at ombre. Half of the
money went to the French Revolution, half to purchase
Lord Gaunt's Marquisate and Garter--and the
remainder--" but it forms no part of our scheme to tell
what became of the remainder, for every shilling of
which, and a great deal more, little Tom Eaves, who
knows everybody's affairs, is ready to account.
Besides his town palace, the Marquis had castles and
palaces in various quarters of the three kingdoms,
whereof the descriptions may be found in the road-books
--Castle Strongbow, with its woods, on the Shannon
shore; Gaunt Castle, in Carmarthenshire, where Richard
II was taken prisoner--Gauntly Hall in Yorkshire, where
I have been informed there were two hundred silver
teapots for the breakfasts of the guests of the house, with
everything to correspond in splendour; and Stillbrook in
Hampshire, which was my lord's farm, an humble place
of residence, of which we all remember the wonderful
furniture which was sold at my lord's demise by a late
celebrated auctioneer.
The Marchioness of Steyne was of the renowned and
ancient family of the Caerlyons, Marquises of Camelot,
who have preserved the old faith ever since the
conversion of the venerable Druid, their first ancestor, and
whose pedigree goes far beyond the date of the arrival of
King Brute in these islands. Pendragon is the title of the
eldest son of the house. The sons have been called
Arthurs, Uthers, and Caradocs, from immemorial time.
Their heads have fallen in many a loyal conspiracy.
Elizabeth chopped off the head of the Arthur of her day,
who had been Chamberlain to Philip and Mary, and
carried letters between the Queen of Scots and her uncles
the Guises. A cadet of the house was an officer of the
great Duke and distinguished in the famous Saint
Bartholomew conspiracy. During the whole of Mary's
confinement, the house of Camelot conspired in her behalf.
It was as much injured by its charges in fitting out an
armament against the Spaniards, during the time of the
Armada, as by the fines and confiscations levied on it
by Elizabeth for harbouring of priests, obstinate
recusancy, and popish misdoings. A recreant of James's time
was momentarily perverted from his religion by the
arguments of that great theologian, and the fortunes of the
family somewhat restored by his timely weakness. But
the Earl of Camelot, of the reign of Charles, returned to
the old creed of his family, and they continued to fight
for it, and ruin themselves for it, as long as there was a
Stuart left to head or to instigate a rebellion.
Lady Mary Caerlyon was brought up at a Parisian
convent; the Dauphiness Marie Antoinette was her
godmother. In the pride of her beauty she had been
married--sold, it was said--to Lord Gaunt, then at Paris,
who won vast sums from the lady's brother at some of
Philip of Orleans's banquets. The Earl of Gaunt's famous
duel with the Count de la Marche, of the Grey
Musqueteers, was attributed by common report to the
pretensions of that officer (who had been a page, and
remained a favourite of the Queen) to the hand of the
beautiful Lady Mary Caerlyon. She was married to Lord
Gaunt while the Count lay ill of his wound, and came to
dwell at Gaunt House, and to figure for a short time in
the splendid Court of the Prince of Wales. Fox had
toasted her. Morris and Sheridan had written songs about
her. Malmesbury had made her his best bow; Walpole
had pronounced her charming; Devonshire had been
almost jealous of her; but she was scared by the wild
pleasures and gaieties of the society into which she was
flung, and after she had borne a couple of sons, shrank
away into a life of devout seclusion. No wonder that
my Lord Steyne, who liked pleasure and cheerfulness,
was not often seen after their marriage by the side of
this trembling, silent, superstitious, unhappy lady.
The before-mentioned Tom Eaves (who has no part
in this history, except that he knew all the great folks in
London, and the stories and mysteries of each family)
had further information regarding my Lady Steyne,
which may or may not be true. "The humiliations," Tom
used to say, "which that woman has been made to
undergo, in her own house, have been frightful; Lord
Steyne has made her sit down to table with women with
whom I would rather die than allow Mrs. Eaves to
associate--with Lady Crackenbury, with Mrs. Chippenham,
with Madame de la Cruchecassee, the French secretary's
wife (from every one of which ladies Tom Eaves--
who would have sacrificed his wife for knowing them--
was too glad to get a bow or a dinner) with the REIGNING
FAVOURITE in a word. And do you suppose that that
woman, of that family, who are as proud as the Bourbons,
and to whom the Steynes are but lackeys, mushrooms of
yesterday (for after all, they are not of the Old Gaunts,
but of a minor and doubtful branch of the house); do
you suppose, I say (the reader must bear in mind that
it is always Tom Eaves who speaks) that the Marchioness
of Steyne, the haughtiest woman in England, would
bend down to her husband so submissively if there were
not some cause? Pooh! I tell you there are secret reasons.
I tell you that, in the emigration, the Abbe de la
Marche who was here and was employed in the
Quiberoon business with Puisaye and Tinteniac, was the
same Colonel of Mousquetaires Gris with whom Steyne
fought in the year '86--that he and the Marchioness met
again--that it was after the Reverend Colonel was shot
in Brittany that Lady Steyne took to those extreme
practices of devotion which she carries on now; for she is
closeted with her director every day--she is at service
at Spanish Place, every morning, I've watched her there
--that is, I've happened to be passing there--and
depend on it, there's a mystery in her case. People are not
so unhappy unless they have something to repent of,"
added Tom Eaves with a knowing wag of his head; "and
depend on it, that woman would not be so submissive
as she is if the Marquis had not some sword to hold
over her."
So, if Mr. Eaves's information be correct, it is very
likely that this lady, in her high station, had to submit
to many a private indignity and to hide many secret
griefs under a calm face. And let us, my brethren who
have not our names in the Red Book, console ourselves
by thinking comfortably how miserable our betters may
be, and that Damocles, who sits on satin cushions and
is served on gold plate, has an awful sword hanging
over his head in the shape of a bailiff, or an hereditary
disease, or a family secret, which peeps out every now
and then from the embroidered arras in a ghastly
manner, and will be sure to drop one day or the other in the
right place.
In comparing, too, the poor man's situation with that
of the great, there is (always according to Mr. Eaves)
another source of comfort for the former. You who have
little or no patrimony to bequeath or to inherit, may be
on good terms with your father or your son, whereas the
heir of a great prince, such as my Lord Steyne, must
naturally be angry at being kept out of his kingdom, and
eye the occupant of it with no very agreeable glances.
"Take it as a rule," this sardonic old Laves would say,
"the fathers and elder sons of all great families hate each
other. The Crown Prince is always in opposition to the
crown or hankering after it. Shakespeare knew the world,
my good sir, and when he describes Prince Hal (from
whose family the Gaunts pretend to be descended, though
they are no more related to John of Gaunt than you are)
trying on his father's coronet, he gives you a natural
description of all heirs apparent. If you were heir to a
dukedom and a thousand pounds a day, do you mean to
say you would not wish for possession? Pooh! And it
stands to reason that every great man, having experienced
this feeling towards his father, must be aware that his
son entertains it towards himself; and so they can't but
be suspicious and hostile.
"Then again, as to the feeling of elder towards younger
sons. My dear sir, you ought to know that every elder
brother looks upon the cadets of the house as his natural
enemies, who deprive him of so much ready money which
ought to be his by right. I have often heard George Mac
Turk, Lord Bajazet's eldest son, say that if he had his
will when he came to the title, he would do what the
sultans do, and clear the estate by chopping off all his
younger brothers' heads at once; and so the case is,
more or less, with them all. I tell you they are all Turks
in their hearts. Pooh! sir, they know the world." And
here, haply, a great man coming up, Tom Eaves's hat
would drop off his head, and he would rush forward with
a bow and a grin, which showed that he knew the world
too--in the Tomeavesian way, that is. And having laid
out every shilling of his fortune on an annuity, Tom
could afford to bear no malice to his nephews and nieces,
and to have no other feeling with regard to his betters
but a constant and generous desire to dine with them.
Between the Marchioness and the natural and tender
regard of mother for children, there was that cruel
barrier placed of difference of faith. The very love which she
might feel for her sons only served to render the timid
and pious lady more fearful and unhappy. The gulf which
separated them was fatal and impassable. She could not
stretch her weak arms across it, or draw her children
over to that side away from which her belief told her
there was no safety. During the youth of his sons, Lord
Steyne, who was a good scholar and amateur casuist,
had no better sport in the evening after dinner in the
country than in setting the boys' tutor, the Reverend
Mr. Trail (now my Lord Bishop of Ealing) on her
ladyship's director, Father Mole, over their wine, and in
pitting Oxford against St. Acheul. He cried "Bravo,
Latimer! Well said, Loyola!" alternately; he promised
Mole a bishopric if he would come over, and vowed he
would use all his influence to get Trail a cardinal's hat
if he would secede. Neither divine allowed himself to be
conquered, and though the fond mother hoped that her
youngest and favourite son would be reconciled to her
church--his mother church--a sad and awful disappointment
awaited the devout lady--a disappointment which
seemed to be a judgement upon her for the sin of her
marriage.
My Lord Gaunt married, as every person who frequents
the Peerage knows, the Lady Blanche Thistlewood,
a daughter of the noble house of Bareacres, before
mentioned in this veracious history. A wing of
Gaunt House was assigned to this couple; for the head
of the family chose to govern it, and while he reigned to
reign supreme; his son and heir, however, living little at
home, disagreeing with his wife, and borrowing upon
post-obits such moneys as he required beyond the very
moderate sums which his father was disposed to allow
him. The Marquis knew every shilling of his son's debts.
At his lamented demise, he was found himself to be
possessor of many of his heir's bonds, purchased for their
benefit, and devised by his Lordship to the children of
his younger son.
As, to my Lord Gaunt's dismay, and the chuckling
delight of his natural enemy and father, the Lady Gaunt
had no children--the Lord George Gaunt was desired to
return from Vienna, where he was engaged in waltzing
and diplomacy, and to contract a matrimonial alliance
with the Honourable Joan, only daughter of John Johnes,
First Baron Helvellyn, and head of the firm of Jones,
Brown, and Robinson, of Threadneedle Street, Bankers;
from which union sprang several sons and daughters,
whose doings do not appertain to this story.
The marriage at first was a happy and prosperous one.
My Lord George Gaunt could not only read, but write
pretty correctly. He spoke French with considerable
fluency; and was one of the finest waltzers in Europe. With
these talents, and his interest at home, there was little
doubt that his lordship would rise to the highest dignities
in his profession. The lady, his wife, felt that courts were
her sphere, and her wealth enabled her to receive
splendidly in those continental towns whither her husband's
diplomatic duties led him. There was talk of appointing
him minister, and bets were laid at the Travellers' that
he would be ambassador ere long, when of a sudden,
rumours arrived of the secretary's extraordinary behaviour.
At a grand diplomatic dinner given by his chief, he
had started up and declared that a pate de foie gras was
poisoned. He went to a ball at the hotel of the Bavarian
envoy, the Count de Springbock-Hohenlaufen, with his
head shaved and dressed as a Capuchin friar. It was not
a masked ball, as some folks wanted to persuade you. It
was something queer, people whispered. His grandfather
was so. It was in the family.
His wife and family returned to this country and took
up their abode at Gaunt House. Lord George gave up
his post on the European continent, and was gazetted to
Brazil. But people knew better; he never returned from
that Brazil expedition--never died there--never lived
there--never was there at all. He was nowhere; he was
gone out altogether. "Brazil," said one gossip to another,
with a grin--"Brazil is St. John's Wood. Rio de Janeiro
is a cottage surrounded by four walls, and George Gaunt
is accredited to a keeper, who has invested him with the
order of the Strait-Waistcoat." These are the kinds of
epitaphs which men pass over one another in Vanity
Fair.
Twice or thrice in a week, in the earliest morning, the
poor mother went for her sins and saw the poor invalid.
Sometimes he laughed at her (and his laughter was more
pitiful than to hear him cry); sometimes she found the
brilliant dandy diplomatist of the Congress of Vienna
dragging about a child's toy, or nursing the keeper's
baby's doll. Sometimes he knew her and Father Mole,
her director and companion; oftener he forgot her, as he
had done wife, children, love, ambition, vanity. But he
remembered his dinner-hour, and used to cry if his
wine-and-water was not strong enough.
It was the mysterious taint of the blood; the poor
mother had brought it from her own ancient race. The
evil had broken out once or twice in the father's family,
long before Lady Steyne's sins had begun, or her fasts
and tears and penances had been offered in their
expiation. The pride of the race was struck down as the
first-born of Pharaoh. The dark mark of fate and doom was
on the threshold--the tall old threshold surmounted by
coronets and caned heraldry.
The absent lord's children meanwhile prattled and
grew on quite unconscious that the doom was over them
too. First they talked of their father and devised plans
against his return. Then the name of the living dead man
was less frequently in their mouth--then not mentioned
at all. But the stricken old grandmother trembled to think
that these too were the inheritors of their father's shame
as well as of his honours, and watched sickening for the
day when the awful ancestral curse should come down
on them.
This dark presentiment also haunted Lord Steyne. He
tried to lay the horrid bedside ghost in Red Seas of wine
and jollity, and lost sight of it sometimes in the crowd
and rout of his pleasures. But it always came back to
him when alone, and seemed to grow more threatening
with years. "I have taken your son," it said, "why not
you? I may shut you up in a prison some day like your
son George. I may tap you on the head to-morrow, and
away go pleasure and honours, feasts and beauty, friends,
flatterers, French cooks, fine horses and houses--in
exchange for a prison, a keeper, and a straw mattress like
George Gaunt's." And then my lord would defy the ghost
which threatened him, for he knew of a remedy by which
he could baulk his enemy.
So there was splendour and wealth, but no great
happiness perchance, behind the tall caned portals of Gaunt
House with its smoky coronets and ciphers. The feasts
there were of the grandest in London, but there was not
overmuch content therewith, except among the guests
who sat at my lord's table. Had he not been so great a
Prince very few possibly would have visited him; but in
Vanity Fair the sins of very great personages are looked
at indulgently. "Nous regardons a deux fois" (as the
French lady said) before we condemn a person of my
lord's undoubted quality. Some notorious carpers and
squeamish moralists might be sulky with Lord Steyne,
but they were glad enough to come when he asked them.
"Lord Steyne is really too bad," Lady Slingstone said,
"but everybody goes, and of course I shall see that my
girls come to no harm." "His lordship is a man to whom
I owe much, everything in life," said the Right Reverend
Doctor Trail, thinking that the Archbishop was rather
shaky, and Mrs. Trail and the young ladies would as
soon have missed going to church as to one of his
lordship's parties. "His morals are bad," said little Lord
Southdown to his sister, who meekly expostulated,
having heard terrific legends from her mamma with respect
to the doings at Gaunt House; "but hang it, he's got the
best dry Sillery in Europe!" And as for Sir Pitt Crawley,
Bart.--Sir Pitt that pattern of decorum, Sir Pitt who
had led off at missionary meetings--he never for one
moment thought of not going too. "Where you see such
persons as the Bishop of Ealing and the Countess of
Slingstone, you may be pretty sure, Jane," the Baronet
would say, "that we cannot be wrong. The great rank
and station of Lord Steyne put him in a position to
command people in our station in life. The Lord Lieutenant
of a County, my dear, is a respectable man. Besides,
George Gaunt and I were intimate in early life; he was
my junior when we were attaches at Pumpernickel
together."
In a word everybody went to wait upon this great man
--everybody who was asked, as you the reader (do not
say nay) or I the writer hereof would go if we had an
invitation.
CHAPTER XLVIII
In Which the Reader Is Introduced to the Very
Best of Company
At last Becky's kindness and attention to the chief of
her husband's family were destined to meet with an
exceeding great reward, a reward which, though certainly
somewhat unsubstantial, the little woman coveted with
greater eagerness than more positive benefits. If she did
not wish to lead a virtuous life, at least she desired to
enjoy a character for virtue, and we know that no lady
in the genteel world can possess this desideratum, until
she has put on a train and feathers and has been
presented to her Sovereign at Court. From that august
interview they come out stamped as honest women. The
Lord Chamberlain gives them a certificate of virtue. And
as dubious goods or letters are passed through an oven
at quarantine, sprinkled with aromatic vinegar, and then
pronounced clean, many a lady, whose reputation would
be doubtful otherwise and liable to give infection, passes
through the wholesome ordeal of the Royal presence and
issues from it free from all taint.
It might be very well for my Lady Bareacres, my
Lady Tufto, Mrs. Bute Crawley in the country, and other
ladies who had come into contact with Mrs. Rawdon
Crawley to cry fie at the idea of the odious little
adventuress making her curtsey before the Sovereign, and
to declare that, if dear good Queen Charlotte had been
alive, she never would have admitted such an extremely
ill-regulated personage into her chaste drawing-room. But
when we consider that it was the First Gentleman in
Europe in whose high presence Mrs. Rawdon passed her
examination, and as it were, took her degree in reputation,
it surely must be flat disloyalty to doubt any more
about her virtue. I, for my part, look back with love and
awe to that Great Character in history. Ah, what a high
and noble appreciation of Gentlewomanhood there must
have been in Vanity Fair, when that revered and august
being was invested, by the universal acclaim of the
refined and educated portion of this empire, with the title
of Premier Gentilhomme of his Kingdom. Do you
remember, dear M--, oh friend of my youth, how one
blissful night five-and-twenty years since, the "Hypocrite"
being acted, Elliston being manager, Dowton and Liston
performers, two boys had leave from their loyal masters
to go out from Slaughter-House School where they were
educated and to appear on Drury Lane stage, amongst a
crowd which assembled there to greet the king. THE
KING? There he was. Beefeaters were before the
august box; the Marquis of Steyne (Lord of the Powder
Closet) and other great officers of state were behind the
chair on which he sat, HE sat--florid of face, portly of
person, covered with orders, and in a rich curling head of
hair--how we sang God save him! How the house rocked
and shouted with that magnificent music. How they
cheered, and cried, and waved handkerchiefs. Ladies
wept; mothers clasped their children; some fainted with
emotion. People were suffocated in the pit, shrieks and
groans rising up amidst the writhing and shouting mass
there of his people who were, and indeed showed themselves
almost to be, ready to die for him. Yes, we saw
him. Fate cannot deprive us of THAT. Others have seen
Napoleon. Some few still exist who have beheld Frederick
the Great, Doctor Johnson, Marie Antoinette, &c.--be it
our reasonable boast to our children, that we saw George
the Good, the Magnificent, the Great.
Well, there came a happy day in Mrs. Rawdon Crawley's
existence when this angel was admitted into the
paradise of a Court which she coveted, her sister-in-law
acting as her godmother. On the appointed day, Sir Pitt
and his lady, in their great family carriage (just newly
built, and ready for the Baronet's assumption of the
office of High Sheriff of his county), drove up to the little
house in Curzon Street, to the edification of Raggles, who
was watching from his greengrocer's shop, and saw fine
plumes within, and enormous bunches of flowers in the
breasts of the new livery-coats of the footmen.
Sir Pitt, in a glittering uniform, descended and went
into Curzon Street, his sword between his legs. Little
Rawdon stood with his face against the parlour windowpanes,
smiling and nodding with all his might to his aunt
in the carriage within; and presently Sir Pitt issued forth
from the house again, leading forth a lady with grand
feathers, covered in a white shawl, and holding up
daintily a train of magnificent brocade. She stepped into the
vehicle as if she were a princess and accustomed all her
life to go to Court, smiling graciously on the footman at
the door and on Sir Pitt, who followed her into the
carriage.
Then Rawdon followed in his old Guards' uniform,
which had grown woefully shabby, and was much too
tight. He was to have followed the procession and waited
upon his sovereign in a cab, but that his good-natured
sister-in-law insisted that they should be a family party.
The coach was large, the ladies not very big, they would
hold their trains in their laps--finally, the four went
fraternally together, and their carriage presently joined
the line of royal equipages which was making its way
down Piccadilly and St. James's Street, towards the old
brick palace where the Star of Brunswick was in waiting
to receive his nobles and gentlefolks.
Becky felt as if she could bless the people out of the
carriage windows, so elated was she in spirit, and so
strong a sense had she of the dignified position which
she had at last attained in life. Even our Becky had her
weaknesses, and as one often sees how men pride
themselves upon excellences which others are slow to
perceive: how, for instance, Comus firmly believes that he
is the greatest tragic actor in England; how Brown, the
famous novelist, longs to be considered, not a man of
genius, but a man of fashion; while Robinson, the great
lawyer, does not in the least care about his reputation in
Westminster Hall, but believes himself incomparable
across country and at a five-barred gate--so to be, and
to be thought, a respectable woman was Becky's aim in
life, and she got up the genteel with amazing assiduity,
readiness, and success. We have said, there were times
when she believed herself to be a fine lady and forgot
that there was no money in the chest at home--duns
round the gate, tradesmen to coax and wheedle--no
ground to walk upon, in a word. And as she went to
Court in the carriage, the family carriage, she adopted a
demeanour so grand, self-satisfied, deliberate, and
imposing that it made even Lady Jane laugh. She walked
into the royal apartments with a toss of the head which
would have befitted an empress, and I have no doubt had
she been one, she would have become the character
perfectly.
We are authorized to state that Mrs. Rawdon Crawley's
costume de cour on the occasion of her presentation
to the Sovereign was of the most elegant and brilliant
description. Some ladies we may have seen--we
who wear stars and cordons and attend the St. James's
assemblies, or we, who, in muddy boots, dawdle up and
down Pall Mall and peep into the coaches as they drive
up with the great folks in their feathers--some ladies of
fashion, I say, we may have seen, about two o'clock of
the forenoon of a levee day, as the laced-jacketed band
of the Life Guards are blowing triumphal marches seated
on those prancing music-stools, their cream-coloured
chargers--who are by no means lovely and enticing
objects at that early period of noon. A stout countess of
sixty, decolletee, painted, wrinkled with rouge up to her
drooping eyelids, and diamonds twinkling in her wig, is a
wholesome and edifying, but not a pleasant sight. She
has the faded look of a St. James's Street illumination, as
it may be seen of an early morning, when half the lamps
are out, and the others are blinking wanly, as if they
were about to vanish like ghosts before the dawn. Such
charms as those of which we catch glimpses while her
ladyship's carriage passes should appear abroad at night
alone. If even Cynthia looks haggard of an afternoon, as
we may see her sometimes in the present winter season,
with Phoebus staring her out of countenance from the
opposite side of the heavens, how much more can old
Lady Castlemouldy keep her head up when the sun is
shining full upon it through the chariot windows, and
showing all the chinks and crannies with which time has
marked her face! No. Drawing-rooms should be
announced for November, or the first foggy day, or the
elderly sultanas of our Vanity Fair should drive up in
closed litters, descend in a covered way, and make their
curtsey to the Sovereign under the protection of lamplight.
Our beloved Rebecca had no need, however, of any
such a friendly halo to set off her beauty. Her complexion
could bear any sunshine as yet, and her dress, though if
you were to see it now, any present lady of Vanity Fair
would pronounce it to be the most foolish and preposterous
attire ever worn, was as handsome in her eyes
and those of the public, some five-and-twenty years since,
as the most brilliant costume of the most famous beauty
of the present season. A score of years hence that too,
that milliner's wonder, will have passed into the domain
of the absurd, along with all previous vanities. But we
are wandering too much. Mrs. Rawdon's dress was
pronounced to be charmante on the eventful day of her
presentation. Even good little Lady Jane was forced to
acknowledge this effect, as she looked at her kinswoman,
and owned sorrowfully to herself that she was quite
inferior in taste to Mrs. Becky.
She did not know how much care, thought, and genius
Mrs. Rawdon had bestowed upon that garment. Rebecca
had as good taste as any milliner in Europe, and such a
clever way of doing things as Lady Jane little understood.
The latter quickly spied out the magnificence of the
brocade of Becky's train, and the splendour of the lace on
her dress.
The brocade was an old remnant, Becky said; and as
for the lace, it was a great bargain. She had had it these
hundred years.
"My dear Mrs. Crawley, it must have cost a little
fortune," Lady Jane said, looking down at her own lace,
which was not nearly so good; and then examining the
quality of the ancient brocade which formed the
material of Mrs. Rawdon's Court dress, she felt inclined to
say that she could not afford such fine clothing, but
checked that speech, with an effort, as one uncharitable
to her kinswoman.
And yet, if Lady Jane had known all, I think even her
kindly temper would have failed her. The fact is, when
she was putting Sir Pitt's house in order, Mrs. Rawdon
had found the lace and the brocade in old wardrobes,
the property of the former ladies of the house, and had
quietly carried the goods home, and had suited them to
her own little person. Briggs saw her take them, asked
no questions, told no stories; but I believe quite
sympathised with her on this matter, and so would
many another honest woman.
And the diamonds--"Where the doose did you get the
diamonds, Becky?" said her husband, admiring some
jewels which he had never seen before and which sparkled
in her ears and on her neck with brilliance and profusion.
Becky blushed a little and looked at him hard for a
moment. Pitt Crawley blushed a little too, and looked
out of window. The fact is, he had given her a very
small portion of the brilliants; a pretty diamond clasp,
which confined a pearl necklace which she wore- and the
Baronet had omitted to mention the circumstance to
his lady.
Becky looked at her husband, and then at Sir Pitt,
with an air of saucy triumph--as much as to say, "Shall
I betray you?"
"Guess!" she said to her husband. "Why, you silly
man," she continued, "where do you suppose I got them?
--all except the little clasp, which a dear friend of mine
gave me long ago. I hired them, to be sure. I hired them
at Mr. Polonius's, in Coventry Street. You don't suppose
that all the diamonds which go to Court belong to the
wearers; like those beautiful stones which Lady Jane has,
and which are much handsomer than any which I have,
I am certain."
"They are family jewels," said Sir Pitt, again looking
uneasy. And in this family conversation the carriage
rolled down the street, until its cargo was finally
discharged at the gates of the palace where the Sovereign
was sitting in state.
The diamonds, which had created Rawdon's admiration,
never went back to Mr. Polonius, of Coventry Street, and
that gentleman never applied for their restoration, but
they retired into a little private repository, in an old desk,
which Amelia Sedley had given her years and years ago,
and in which Becky kept a number of useful and,
perhaps, valuable things, about which her husband
knew nothing. To know nothing, or little, is in the
nature of some husbands. To hide, in the nature of how
many women? Oh, ladies! how many of you have
surreptitious milliners' bills? How many of you have gowns
and bracelets which you daren't show, or which you wear
trembling?--trembling, and coaxing with smiles the
husband by your side, who does not know the new velvet
gown from the old one, or the new bracelet from last
year's, or has any notion that the ragged-looking yellow
lace scarf cost forty guineas and that Madame Bobinot is
writing dunning letters every week for the money!
Thus Rawdon knew nothing about the brilliant diamond
ear-rings, or the superb brilliant ornament which
decorated the fair bosom of his lady; but Lord Steyne,
who was in his place at Court, as Lord of the Powder
Closet, and one of the great dignitaries and illustrious
defences of the throne of England, and came up with all
his stars, garters, collars, and cordons, and paid particular
attention to the little woman, knew whence the jewels
came and who paid for them.
As he bowed over her he smiled, and quoted the
hackneyed and beautiful lines from The Rape of the Lock
about Belinda's diamonds, "which Jews might kiss and
infidels adore."
"But I hope your lordship is orthodox," said the little
lady with a toss of her head. And many ladies round
about whispered and talked, and many gentlemen nodded
and whispered, as they saw what marked attention the
great nobleman was paying to the little adventuress.
What were the circumstances of the interview between
Rebecca Crawley, nee Sharp, and her Imperial Master,
it does not become such a feeble and inexperienced pen
as mine to attempt to relate. The dazzled eyes close
before that Magnificent Idea. Loyal respect and decency tell
even the imagination not to look too keenly and audaciously
about the sacred audience-chamber, but to back away
rapidly, silently, and respectfully, making profound
bows out of the August Presence.
This may be said, that in all London there was no
more loyal heart than Becky's after this interview. The
name of her king was always on her lips, and he was
proclaimed by her to be the most charming of men. She
went to Colnaghi's and ordered the finest portrait of him
that art had produced, and credit could supply. She chose
that famous one in which the best of monarchs is
represented in a frock-coat with a fur collar, and breeches
and silk stockings, simpering on a sofa from under his
curly brown wig. She had him painted in a brooch and
wore it--indeed she amused and somewhat pestered her
acquaintance with her perpetual talk about his urbanity
and beauty. Who knows! Perhaps the little woman
thought she might play the part of a Maintenon or a
Pompadour.
But the finest sport of all after her presentation was to
hear her talk virtuously. She had a few female acquaintances,
not, it must be owned, of the very highest reputation
in Vanity Fair. But being made an honest woman of,
so to speak, Becky would not consort any longer with
these dubious ones, and cut Lady Crackenbury when the
latter nodded to her from her opera-box, and gave Mrs.
Washington White the go-by in the Ring. "One must, my
dear, show one is somebody," she said. "One mustn't be
seen with doubtful people. I pity Lady Crackenbury from
my heart, and Mrs. Washington White may be a very
good-natured person. YOU may go and dine with them,
as you like your rubber. But I mustn't, and won't; and
you will have the goodness to tell Smith to say I am not
at home when either of them calls."
The particulars of Becky's costume were in the newspapers
--feathers, lappets, superb diamonds, and all the
rest. Lady Crackenbury read the paragraph in bitterness
of spirit and discoursed to her followers about the airs
which that woman was giving herself. Mrs. Bute Crawley
and her young ladies in the country had a copy of the
Morning Post from town, and gave a vent to their honest
indignation. "If you had been sandy-haired, green-eyed,
and a French rope-dancer's daughter," Mrs. Bute said
to her eldest girl (who, on the contrary, was a very
swarthy, short, and snub-nosed young lady), "You might
have had superb diamonds forsooth, and have been
presented at Court by your cousin, the Lady Jane. But you're
only a gentlewoman, my poor dear child. You have only
some of the best blood in England in your veins, and
good principles and piety for your portion. I, myself,
the wife of a Baronet's younger brother, too, never
thought of such a thing as going to Court--nor would
other people, if good Queen Charlotte had been alive."
In this way the worthy Rectoress consoled herself, and
her daughters sighed and sat over the Peerage all night.
A few days after the famous presentation, another
great and exceeding honour was vouchsafed to the
virtuous Becky. Lady Steyne's carriage drove up to Mr.
Rawdon Crawley's door, and the footman, instead of driving
down the front of the house, as by his tremendous
knocking he appeared to be inclined to do, relented and only
delivered in a couple of cards, on which were engraven
the names of the Marchioness of Steyne and the
Countess of Gaunt. If these bits of pasteboard had been
beautiful pictures, or had had a hundred yards of Malines lace
rolled round them, worth twice the number of guineas,
Becky could not have regarded them with more pleasure.
You may be sure they occupied a conspicuous place in
the china bowl on the drawing-room table, where Becky
kept the cards of her visitors. Lord! lord! how poor
Mrs. Washington White's card and Lady Crackenbury's
card--which our little friend had been glad enough to
get a few months back, and of which the silly little
creature was rather proud once--Lord! lord! I say, how soon
at the appearance of these grand court cards, did those
poor little neglected deuces sink down to the bottom of
the pack. Steyne! Bareacres, Johnes of Helvellyn! and
Caerylon of Camelot! we may be sure that Becky and
Briggs looked out those august names in the Peerage,
and followed the noble races up through all the
ramifications of the family tree.
My Lord Steyne coming to call a couple of hours
afterwards, and looking about him, and observing
everything as was his wont, found his ladies' cards already
ranged as the trumps of Becky's hand, and grinned, as
this old cynic always did at any naive display of human
weakness. Becky came down to him presently; whenever
the dear girl expected his lordship, her toilette was
prepared, her hair in perfect order, her mouchoirs, aprons,
scarfs, little morocco slippers, and other female
gimcracks arranged, and she seated in some artless and
agreeable posture ready to receive him--whenever she
was surprised, of course, she had to fly to her apartment
to take a rapid survey of matters in the glass, and
to trip down again to wait upon the great peer.
She found him grinning over the bowl. She was
discovered, and she blushed a little. "Thank you,
Monseigneur," she said. "You see your ladies have
been here. How good of you! I couldn't come before
--I was in the kitchen making a pudding."
"I know you were, I saw you through the area-railings
as I drove up," replied the old gentleman.
"You see everything," she replied.
"A few things, but not that, my pretty lady," he said
good-naturedly. "You silly little fibster! I heard you in
the room overhead, where I have no doubt you were
putting a little rouge on--you must give some of yours to
my Lady Gaunt, whose complexion is quite preposterous
--and I heard the bedroom door open, and then you
came downstairs."
"Is it a crime to try and look my best when YOU come
here?" answered Mrs. Rawdon plaintively, and she rubbed
her cheek with her handkerchief as if to show there was
no rouge at all, only genuine blushes and modesty in her
case. About this who can tell? I know there is some
rouge that won't come off on a pocket-handkerchief,
and some so good that even tears will not disturb it.
"Well," said the old gentleman, twiddling round his
wife's card, "you are bent on becoming a fine lady.
You pester my poor old life out to get you into the
world. You won't be able to hold your own there, you
silly little fool. You've got no money."
"You will get us a place," interposed Becky, "as quick
as possible."
"You've got no money, and you want to compete with
those who have. You poor little earthenware pipkin, you
want to swim down the stream along with the great copper
kettles. All women are alike. Everybody is striving
for what is not worth the having! Gad! I dined with the
King yesterday, and we had neck of mutton and turnips.
A dinner of herbs is better than a stalled ox very often.
You will go to Gaunt House. You give an old fellow no
rest until you get there. It's not half so nice as here.
You'll be bored there. I am. My wife is as gay as Lady
Macbeth, and my daughters as cheerful as Regan and
Goneril. I daren't sleep in what they call my bedroom.
The bed is like the baldaquin of St. Peter's, and the
pictures frighten me. I have a little brass bed in a
dressing-room, and a little hair mattress like an anchorite.
I am an anchorite. Ho! ho! You'll be asked to dinner next
week. And gare aux femmes, look out and hold your
own! How the women will bully you!" This was a very
long speech for a man of few words like my Lord Steyne;
nor was it the first which he uttered for Becky's benefit
on that day.
Briggs looked up from the work-table at which she
was seated in the farther room and gave a deep sigh
as she heard the great Marquis speak so lightly of her sex.
"If you don't turn off that abominable sheep-dog," said
Lord Steyne, with a savage look over his shoulder at
her, "I will have her poisoned."
"I always give my dog dinner from my own plate,"
said Rebecca, laughing mischievously; and having
enjoyed for some time the discomfiture of my lord, who
hated poor Briggs for interrupting his tete-a-tete
with the fair Colonel's wife, Mrs. Rawdon at length had
pity upon her admirer, and calling to Briggs, praised the
fineness of the weather to her and bade her to take out
the child for a walk.
"I can't send her away," Becky said presently, after
a pause, and in a very sad voice. Her eyes filled with
tears as she spoke, and she turned away her head.
"You owe her her wages, I suppose?" said the Peer.
"Worse than that," said Becky, still casting down her
eyes; "I have ruined her."
"Ruined her? Then why don't you turn her out?" the
gentleman asked.
"Men do that," Becky answered bitterly. "Women are
not so bad as you. Last year, when we were reduced
to our last guinea, she gave us everything. She shall
never leave me, until we are ruined utterly ourselves,
which does not seem far off, or until I can pay her the
utmost farthing."
--it, how much is it?" said the Peer with an oath.
And Becky, reflecting on the largeness of his means,
mentioned not only the sum which she had borrowed from
Miss Briggs, but one of nearly double the amount.
This caused the Lord Steyne to break out in another
brief and energetic expression of anger, at which Rebecca
held down her head the more and cried bitterly. "I could
not help it. It was my only chance. I dare not tell my
husband. He would kill me if I told him what I have
done. I have kept it a secret from everybody but you
--and you forced it from me. Ah, what shall I do, Lord
Steyne? for I am very, very unhappy!"
Lord Steyne made no reply except by beating the
devil's tattoo and biting his nails. At last he clapped
his hat on his head and flung out of the room. Rebecca
did not rise from her attitude of misery until the door
slammed upon him and his carriage whirled away. Then
she rose up with the queerest expression of victorious
mischief glittering in her green eyes. She burst out laughing
once or twice to herself, as she sat at work, and
sitting down to the piano, she rattled away a triumphant
voluntary on the keys, which made the people pause
under her window to listen to her brilliant music.
That night, there came two notes from Gaunt House
for the little woman, the one containing a card of
invitation from Lord and Lady Steyne to a dinner at Gaunt
House next Friday, while the other enclosed a slip of
gray paper bearing Lord Steyne's signature and the
address of Messrs. Jones, Brown, and Robinson, Lombard
Street.
Rawdon heard Becky laughing in the night once or
twice. It was only her delight at going to Gaunt House
and facing the ladies there, she said, which amused her
so. But the truth was that she was occupied with a great
number of other thoughts. Should she pay off old Briggs
and give her her conge? Should she astonish Raggles
by settling his account? She turned over all these thoughts
on her pillow, and on the next day, when Rawdon went
out to pay his morning visit to the Club, Mrs. Crawley
(in a modest dress with a veil on) whipped off in a
hackney-coach to the City: and being landed at Messrs.
Jones and Robinson's bank, presented a document there
to the authority at the desk, who, in reply, asked her
"How she would take it?"
She gently said "she would take a hundred and fifty
pounds in small notes and the remainder in one note":
and passing through St. Paul's Churchyard stopped there
and bought the handsomest black silk gown for Briggs
which money could buy; and which, with a kiss and the
kindest speeches, she presented to the simple old
spinster.
Then she walked to Mr. Raggles, inquired about his
children affectionately, and gave him fifty pounds on
account. Then she went to the livery-man from whom
she jobbed her carriages and gratified him with a similar
sum. "And I hope this will be a lesson to you, Spavin,"
she said, "and that on the next drawing-room day my
brother, Sir Pitt, will not be inconvenienced by being
obliged to take four of us in his carriage to wait upon
His Majesty, because my own carriage is not forthcoming."
It appears there had been a difference on the last
drawing-room day. Hence the degradation which the
Colonel had almost suffered, of being obliged to enter
the presence of his Sovereign in a hack cab.
These arrangements concluded, Becky paid a visit
upstairs to the before-mentioned desk, which Amelia
Sedley had given her years and years ago, and which
contained a number of useful and valuable little things--in
which private museum she placed the one note which
Messrs. Jones and Robinson's cashier had given her.
CHAPTER XLIX
In Which We Enjoy Three Courses and a Dessert
When the ladies of Gaunt House were at breakfast that
morning, Lord Steyne (who took his chocolate in private
and seldom disturbed the females of his household,
or saw them except upon public days, or when they
crossed each other in the hall, or when from his
pit-box at the opera he surveyed them in their box on the
grand tier) his lordship, we say, appeared among the
ladies and the children who were assembled over the
tea and toast, and a battle royal ensued apropos of
Rebecca.
"My Lady Steyne," he said, "I want to see the list
for your dinner on Friday; and I want you, if you please,
to write a card for Colonel and Mrs. Crawley."
"Blanche writes them," Lady Steyne said in a flutter.
"Lady Gaunt writes them."
"I will not write to that person," Lady Gaunt said,
a tall and stately lady, who looked up for an instant
and then down again after she had spoken. It was not
good to meet Lord Steyne's eyes for those who had
offended him.
"Send the children out of the room. Go!" said he
pulling at the bell-rope. The urchins, always frightened
before him, retired: their mother would have followed
too. "Not you," he said. "You stop."
"My Lady Steyne," he said, "once more will you have
the goodness to go to the desk and write that card for
your dinner on Friday?"
"My Lord, I will not be present at it," Lady Gaunt
said; "I will go home."
"I wish you would, and stay there. You will find
the bailiffs at Bareacres very pleasant company, and I
shall be freed from lending money to your relations and
from your own damned tragedy airs. Who are you to
give orders here? You have no money. You've got no
brains. You were here to have children, and you have
not had any. Gaunt's tired of you, and George's wife
is the only person in the family who doesn't wish you
were dead. Gaunt would marry again if you were."
"I wish I were," her Ladyship answered with tears
and rage in her eyes.
"You, forsooth, must give yourself airs of virtue, while
my wife, who is an immaculate saint, as everybody knows,
and never did wrong in her life, has no objection to meet
my young friend Mrs. Crawley. My Lady Steyne knows
that appearances are sometimes against the best of
women; that lies are often told about the most innocent
of them. Pray, madam, shall I tell you some little
anecdotes about my Lady Bareacres, your mamma?"
"You may strike me if you like, sir, or hit any cruel
blow," Lady Gaunt said. To see his wife and daughter
suffering always put his Lordship into a good humour.
"My sweet Blanche," he said, "I am a gentleman, and
never lay my hand upon a woman, save in the way of
kindness. I only wish to correct little faults in your
character. You women are too proud, and sadly lack
humility, as Father Mole, I'm sure, would tell my Lady
Steyne if he were here. You mustn't give yourselves airs;
you must be meek and humble, my blessings. For all
Lady Steyne knows, this calumniated, simple, goodhumoured
Mrs. Crawley is quite innocent--even more
innocent than herself. Her husband's character is not
good, but it is as good as Bareacres', who has played
a little and not paid a great deal, who cheated you out
of the only legacy you ever had and left you a pauper
on my hands. And Mrs. Crawley is not very well-born,
but she is not worse than Fanny's illustrious ancestor,
the first de la Jones."
"The money which I brought into the family, sir," Lady
George cried out--
"You purchased a contingent reversion with it," the
Marquis said darkly. "If Gaunt dies, your husband may
come to his honours; your little boys may inherit them,
and who knows what besides? In the meanwhile, ladies,
be as proud and virtuous as you like abroad, but don't
give ME any airs. As for Mrs. Crawley's character, I
shan't demean myself or that most spotless and perfectly
irreproachable lady by even hinting that it requires a
defence. You will be pleased to receive her with the
utmost cordiality, as you will receive all persons whom
I present in this house. This house?" He broke out with
a laugh. "Who is the master of it? and what is it?
This Temple of Virtue belongs to me. And if I invite all
Newgate or all Bedlam here, by -- they shall be
welcome."
After this vigorous allocution, to one of which sort
Lord Steyne treated his "Hareem" whenever symptoms
of insubordination appeared in his household, the
crestfallen women had nothing for it but to obey. Lady Gaunt
wrote the invitation which his Lordship required, and
she and her mother-in-law drove in person, and with
bitter and humiliated hearts, to leave the cards on Mrs.
Rawdon, the reception of which caused that innocent
woman so much pleasure.
There were families in London who would have
sacrificed a year's income to receive such an honour at the
hands of those great ladies. Mrs. Frederick Bullock, for
instance, would have gone on her knees from May Fair
to Lombard Street, if Lady Steyne and Lady Gaunt had
been waiting in the City to raise her up and say, "Come
to us next Friday"--not to one of the great crushes and
grand balls of Gaunt House, whither everybody went, but
to the sacred, unapproachable, mysterious, delicious
entertainments, to be admitted to one of which was a
privilege, and an honour, and a blessing indeed.
Severe, spotless, and beautiful, Lady Gaunt held the
very highest rank in Vanity Fair. The distinguished
courtesy with which Lord Steyne treated her charmed
everybody who witnessed his behaviour, caused the severest
critics to admit how perfect a gentleman he was, and to
own that his Lordship's heart at least was in the right
place.
The ladies of Gaunt House called Lady Bareacres in to
their aid, in order to repulse the common enemy. One
of Lady Gaunt's carriages went to Hill Street for her
Ladyship's mother, all whose equipages were in the hands
of the bailiffs, whose very jewels and wardrobe, it was
said, had been seized by those inexorable Israelites.
Bareacres Castle was theirs, too, with all its costly
pictures, furniture, and articles of vertu--the magnificent
Vandykes; the noble Reynolds pictures; the Lawrence
portraits, tawdry and beautiful, and, thirty years ago,
deemed as precious as works of real genius; the matchless
Dancing Nymph of Canova, for which Lady Bareacres
had sat in her youth--Lady Bareacres splendid then,
and radiant in wealth, rank, and beauty--a toothless,
bald, old woman now--a mere rag of a former robe of
state. Her lord, painted at the same time by Lawrence,
as waving his sabre in front of Bareacres Castle, and
clothed in his uniform as Colonel of the Thistlewood
Yeomanry, was a withered, old, lean man in a
greatcoat and a Brutus wig, slinking about Gray's Inn of
mornings chiefly and dining alone at clubs. He did not
like to dine with Steyne now. They had run races of
pleasure together in youth when Bareacres was the
winner. But Steyne had more bottom than he and had lasted
him out. The Marquis was ten times a greater man now
than the young Lord Gaunt of '85, and Bareacres
nowhere in the race--old, beaten, bankrupt, and broken
down. He had borrowed too much money of Steyne to
find it pleasant to meet his old comrade often. The latter,
whenever he wished to be merry, used jeeringly to ask
Lady Gaunt why her father had not come to see her.
"He has not been here for four months," Lord Steyne
would say. "I can always tell by my cheque-book
afterwards, when I get a visit from Bareacres. What a
comfort it is, my ladies, I bank with one of my sons'
fathers-in-law, and the other banks with me!"
Of the other illustrious persons whom Becky had the
honour to encounter on this her first presentation to the
grand world, it does not become the present historian
to say much. There was his Excellency the Prince of
Peterwaradin, with his Princess--a nobleman tightly
girthed, with a large military chest, on which the plaque
of his order shone magnificently, and wearing the red
collar of the Golden Fleece round his neck. He was the
owner of countless flocks. "Look at his face. I think he
must be descended from a sheep," Becky whispered to
Lord Steyne. Indeed, his Excellency's countenance, long,
solemn, and white, with the ornament round his neck,.
bore some resemblance to that of a venerable bell-wether.
There was Mr. John Paul Jefferson Jones, titularly
attached to the American Embassy and correspondent
of the New York Demagogue, who, by way of making
himself agreeable to the company, asked Lady Steyne,
during a pause in the conversation at dinner, how his
dear friend, George Gaunt, liked the Brazils? He and
George had been most intimate at Naples and had gone
up Vesuvius together. Mr. Jones wrote a full and
particular account of the dinner, which appeared duly in
the Demagogue. He mentioned the names and titles of
all the guests, giving biographical sketches of the principal
people. He described the persons of the ladies with
great eloquence; the service of the table; the size and
costume of the servants; enumerated the dishes and wines
served; the ornaments of the sideboard; and the probable
value of the plate. Such a dinner he calculated could not
be dished up under fifteen or eighteen dollars per head.
And he was in the habit, until very lately, of sending
over proteges, with letters of recommendation to the
present Marquis of Steyne, encouraged to do so by the
intimate terms on which he had lived with his dear
friend, the late lord. He was most indignant that a
young and insignificant aristocrat, the Earl of Southdown,
should have taken the pas of him in their procession to
the dining-room. "Just as I was stepping up to offer my
hand to a very pleasing and witty fashionable, the
brilliant and exclusive Mrs. Rawdon Crawley,"--he wrote
--"the young patrician interposed between me and the
lady and whisked my Helen off without a word of apology.
I was fain to bring up the rear with the Colonel, the
lady's husband, a stout red-faced warrior who
distinguished himself at Waterloo, where he had better luck
than befell some of his brother redcoats at New Orleans."
The Colonel's countenance on coming into this polite
society wore as many blushes as the face of a boy of
sixteen assumes when he is confronted with his sister's
schoolfellows. It has been told before that honest Rawdon
had not been much used at any period of his life to
ladies' company. With the men at the Club or the mess
room, he was well enough; and could ride, bet, smoke,
or play at billiards with the boldest of them. He had had
his time for female friendships too, but that was twenty
years ago, and the ladies were of the rank of those with
whom Young Marlow in the comedy is represented as
having been familiar before he became abashed in the
presence of Miss Hardcastle. The times are such that
one scarcely dares to allude to that kind of company
which thousands of our young men in Vanity Fair are
frequenting every day, which nightly fills casinos and
dancing-rooms, which is known to exist as well as the
Ring in Hyde Park or the Congregation at St. James's
--but which the most squeamish if not the most moral
of societies is determined to ignore. In a word, although
Colonel Crawley was now five-and-forty years of age,
it had not been his lot in life to meet with a half dozen
good women, besides his paragon of a wife. All except
her and his kind sister Lady Jane, whose gentle nature
had tamed and won him, scared the worthy Colonel,
and on occasion of his first dinner at Gaunt House he
was not heard to make a single remark except to state
that the weather was very hot. Indeed Becky would have
left him at home, but that virtue ordained that her
husband should be by her side to protect the timid and
fluttering little creature on her first appearance in polite
society.
On her first appearance Lord Steyne stepped forward,
taking her hand, and greeting her with great courtesy,
and presenting her to Lady Steyne, and their ladyships,
her daughters. Their ladyships made three stately curtsies,
and the elder lady to be sure gave her hand to the
newcomer, but it was as cold and lifeless as marble.
Becky took it, however, with grateful humility, and
performing a reverence which would have done credit
to the best dancer-master, put herself at Lady Steyne's
feet, as it were, by saying that his Lordship had been
her father's earliest friend and patron, and that she,
Becky, had learned to honour and respect the Steyne
family from the days of her childhood. The fact is that Lord
Steyne had once purchased a couple of pictures of the
late Sharp, and the affectionate orphan could never
forget her gratitude for that favour.
The Lady Bareacres then came under Becky's cognizance
--to whom the Colonel's lady made also a most respectful
obeisance: it was returned with severe dignity by the
exalted person in question.
"I had the pleasure of making your Ladyship's
acquaintance at Brussels, ten years ago," Becky said in
the most winning manner. "I had the good fortune to
meet Lady Bareacres at the Duchess of Richmond's ball,
the night before the Battle of Waterloo. And I recollect
your Ladyship, and my Lady Blanche, your daughter,
sitting in the carriage in the porte-cochere at the Inn,
waiting for horses. I hope your Ladyship's diamonds are
safe."
Everybody's eyes looked into their neighbour's. The
famous diamonds had undergone a famous seizure, it
appears, about which Becky, of course, knew nothing.
Rawdon Crawley retreated with Lord Southdown into a
window, where the latter was heard to laugh immoderately,
as Rawdon told him the story of Lady Bareacres
wanting horses and "knuckling down by Jove," to Mrs.
Crawley. "I think I needn't be afraid of THAT woman,"
Becky thought. Indeed, Lady Bareacres exchanged
terrified and angry looks with her daughter and retreated
to a table, where she began to look at pictures with
great energy.
When the Potentate from the Danube made his appearance,
the conversation was carried on in the French language,
and the Lady Bareacres and the younger ladies
found, to their farther mortification, that Mrs. Crawley
was much better acquainted with that tongue, and spoke
it with a much better accent than they. Becky had met
other Hungarian magnates with the army in France in
1816-17. She asked after her friends with great interest
The foreign personages thought that she was a lady of
great distinction, and the Prince and the Princess asked
severally of Lord Steyne and the Marchioness, whom
they conducted to dinner, who was that petite dame who
spoke so well?
Finally, the procession being formed in the order
described by the American diplomatist, they marched into
the apartment where the banquet was served, and which,
as I have promised the reader he shall enjoy it, he shall
have the liberty of ordering himself so as to suit his
fancy.
But it was when the ladies were alone that Becky
knew the tug of war would come. And then indeed the
little woman found herself in such a situation as made
her acknowledge the correctness of Lord Steyne's
caution to her to beware of the society of ladies above her
own sphere. As they say, the persons who hate Irishmen
most are Irishmen; so, assuredly, the greatest tyrants
over women are women. When poor little Becky,
alone with the ladies, went up to the fire-place whither
the great ladies had repaired, the great ladies marched
away and took possession of a table of drawings. When
Becky followed them to the table of drawings, they
dropped off one by one to the fire again. She tried to
speak to one of the children (of whom she was
commonly fond in public places), but Master George Gaunt
was called away by his mamma; and the stranger was
treated with such cruelty finally, that even Lady Steyne
herself pitied her and went up to speak to the friendless
little woman.
"Lord Steyne," said her Ladyship, as her wan cheeks
glowed with a blush, "says you sing and play very
beautifully, Mrs. Crawley--I wish you would do me the
kindness to sing to me."
"I will do anything that may give pleasure to my Lord
Steyne or to you," said Rebecca, sincerely grateful, and
seating herself at the piano, began to sing.
She sang religious songs of Mozart, which had been
early favourites of Lady Steyne, and with such sweetness
and tenderness that the lady, lingering round the piano,
sat down by its side and listened until the tears rolled
down her eyes. It is true that the opposition ladies at
the other end of the room kept up a loud and ceaseless
buzzing and talking, but the Lady Steyne did not hear
those rumours. She was a child again--and had
wandered back through a forty years' wilderness to her
convent garden. The chapel organ had pealed the same tones,
the organist, the sister whom she loved best of the
community, had taught them to her in those early happy
days. She was a girl once more, and the brief period of
her happiness bloomed out again for an hour--she
started when the jarring doors were flung open, and with
a loud laugh from Lord Steyne, the men of the party
entered full of gaiety.
He saw at a glance what had happened in his absence,
and was grateful to his wife for once. He went
and spoke to her, and called her by her Christian name,
so as again to bring blushes to her pale face--"My wife
says you have been singing like an angel," he said to
Becky. Now there are angels of two kinds, and both sorts,
it is said, are charming in their way.
Whatever the previous portion of the evening had
been, the rest of that night was a great triumph for
Becky. She sang her very best, and it was so good that
every one of the men came and crowded round the
piano. The women, her enemies, were left quite alone.
And Mr. Paul Jefferson Jones thought he had made a
conquest of Lady Gaunt by going up to her Ladyship
and praising her delightful friend's first-rate singing.
CHAPTER L
Contains a Vulgar Incident
The Muse, whoever she be, who presides over this
Comic History must now descend from the genteel heights
in which she has been soaring and have the goodness
to drop down upon the lowly roof of John Sedley at
Brompton, and describe what events are taking place
there. Here, too, in this humble tenement, live care, and
distrust, and dismay. Mrs. Clapp in the kitchen is
grumbling in secret to her husband about the rent, and
urging the good fellow to rebel against his old friend
and patron and his present lodger. Mrs. Sedley has
ceased to visit her landlady in the lower regions now,
and indeed is in a position to patronize Mrs. Clapp
no longer. How can one be condescending to a lady to
whom one owes a matter of forty pounds, and who is
perpetually throwing out hints for the money? The Irish
maidservant has not altered in the least in her kind and
respectful behaviour; but Mrs. Sedley fancies that she
is growing insolent and ungrateful, and, as the guilty
thief who fears each bush an officer, sees threatening
innuendoes and hints of capture in all the girl's speeches
and answers. Miss Clapp, grown quite a young woman
now, is declared by the soured old lady to be an unbearable
and impudent little minx. Why Amelia can be so
fond of her, or have her in her room so much, or walk
out with her so constantly, Mrs. Sedley cannot conceive.
The bitterness of poverty has poisoned the life of the
once cheerful and kindly woman. She is thankless for
Amelia's constant and gentle bearing towards her; carps
at her for her efforts at kindness or service; rails at her
for her silly pride in her child and her neglect of her
parents. Georgy's house is not a very lively one since
Uncle Jos's annuity has been withdrawn and the little
family are almost upon famine diet.
Amelia thinks, and thinks, and racks her brain, to find
some means of increasing the small pittance upon which
the household is starving. Can she give lessons in
anything? paint card-racks? do fine work? She finds that
women are working hard, and better than she can, for
twopence a day. She buys a couple of begilt Bristol
boards at the Fancy Stationer's and paints her very best
upon them--a shepherd with a red waistcoat on one, and
a pink face smiling in the midst of a pencil landscape
--a shepherdess on the other, crossing a little bridge,
with a little dog, nicely shaded. The man of the Fancy
Repository and Brompton Emporium of Fine Arts (of
whom she bought the screens, vainly hoping that he
would repurchase them when ornamented by her hand)
can hardly hide the sneer with which he examines these
feeble works of art. He looks askance at the lady who
waits in the shop, and ties up the cards again in their
envelope of whitey-brown paper, and hands them to the
poor widow and Miss Clapp, who had never seen such
beautiful things in her life, and had been quite
confident that the man must give at least two guineas for
the screens. They try at other shops in the interior of
London, with faint sickening hopes. "Don't want 'em,"
says one. "Be off," says another fiercely. Three-and-sixpence
has been spent in vain--the screens retire to Miss
Clapp's bedroom, who persists in thinking them lovely.
She writes out a little card in her neatest hand, and
after long thought and labour of composition, in which the
public is informed that "A Lady who has some time at
her disposal, wishes to undertake the education of some
little girls, whom she would instruct in English, in French,
in Geography, in History, and in Music--address A. O.,
at Mr. Brown's"; and she confides the card to the gentleman
of the Fine Art Repository, who consents to allow
it to lie upon the counter, where it grows dingy and
fly-blown. Amelia passes the door wistfully many a time,
in hopes that Mr. Brown will have some news to give
her, but he never beckons her in. When she goes to
make little purchases, there is no news for her. Poor
simple lady, tender and weak--how are you to battle
with the struggling violent world?
She grows daily more care-worn and sad, fixing upon
her child alarmed eyes, whereof the little boy cannot
interpret the expression. She starts up of a night and
peeps into his room stealthily, to see that he is sleeping
and not stolen away. She sleeps but little now. A
constant thought and terror is haunting her. How she
weeps and prays in the long silent nights--how she tries
to hide from herself the thought which will return to her,
that she ought to part with the boy, that she is the only
barrier between him and prosperity. She can't, she can't.
Not now, at least. Some other day. Oh! it is too hard to
think of and to bear.
A thought comes over her which makes her blush and
turn from herself--her parents might keep the annuity
--the curate would marry her and give a home to her
and the boy. But George's picture and dearest memory
are there to rebuke her. Shame and love say no to the
sacrifice. She shrinks from it as from something unholy,
and such thoughts never found a resting-place in that
pure and gentle bosom.
The combat, which we describe in a sentence or two,
lasted for many weeks in poor Amelia's heart, during
which she had no confidante; indeed, she could never
have one, as she would not allow to herself the
possibility of yielding, though she was giving way daily
before the enemy with whom she had to battle. One truth
after another was marshalling itself silently against her
and keeping its ground. Poverty and misery for all, want
and degradation for her parents, injustice to the boy--
one by one the outworks of the little citadel were taken,
in which the poor soul passionately guarded her only
love and treasure.
At the beginning of the struggle, she had written off a
letter of tender supplication to her brother at Calcutta,
imploring him not to withdraw the support which he had
granted to their parents and painting in terms of artless
pathos their lonely and hapless condition. She did not
know the truth of the matter. The payment of Jos's
annuity was still regular, but it was a money-lender in the
City who was receiving it: old Sedley had sold it for a
sum of money wherewith to prosecute his bootless
schemes. Emmy was calculating eagerly the time that
would elapse before the letter would arrive and be
answered. She had written down the date in her pocketbook
of the day when she dispatched it. To her son's
guardian, the good Major at Madras, she had not
communicated any of her griefs and perplexities. She had
not written to him since she wrote to congratulate him on
his approaching marriage. She thought with sickening
despondency, that that friend--the only one, the one
who had felt such a regard for her--was fallen away.
One day, when things had come to a very bad pass
--when the creditors were pressing, the mother in
hysteric grief, the father in more than usual gloom, the
inmates of the family avoiding each other, each secretly
oppressed with his private unhappiness and notion of
wrong--the father and daughter happened to be left
alone together, and Amelia thought to comfort her father
by telling him what she had done. She had written to
Joseph--an answer must come in three or four months.
He was always generous, though careless. He could not
refuse, when he knew how straitened were the
circumstances of his parents.
Then the poor old gentleman revealed the whole truth
to her--that his son was still paying the annuity, which
his own imprudence had flung away. He had not dared
to tell it sooner. He thought Amelia's ghastly and terrified
look, when, with a trembling, miserable voice he made
the confession, conveyed reproaches to him for his
concealment. "Ah!" said he with quivering lips and turning
away, "you despise your old father now!"
"Oh, papal it is not that," Amelia cried out, falling
on his neck and kissing him many times. "You are
always good and kind. You did it for the best. It is not
for the money--it is--my God! my God! have mercy
upon me, and give me strength to bear this trial"; and
she kissed him again wildly and went away.
Still the father did not know what that explanation
meant, and the burst of anguish with which the poor
girl left him. It was that she was conquered. The sentence
was passed. The child must go from her--to others--to
forget her. Her heart and her treasure--her joy, hope,
love, worship--her God, almost! She must give him up,
and then--and then she would go to George, and they
would watch over the child and wait for him until he
came to them in Heaven.
She put on her bonnet, scarcely knowing what she did,
and went out to walk in the lanes by which George used
to come back from school, and where she was in the
habit of going on his return to meet the boy. It was
May, a half-holiday. The leaves were all coming out,
the weather was brilliant; the boy came running to her
flushed with health, singing, his bundle of school-books
hanging by a thong. There he was. Both her arms were
round him. No, it was impossible. They could not be
going to part. "What is the matter, Mother?" said he;
"you look very pale."
"Nothing, my child," she said and stooped down and
kissed him.
That night Amelia made the boy read the story of
Samuel to her, and how Hannah, his mother, having
weaned him, brought him to Eli the High Priest to
minister before the Lord. And he read the song of gratitude
which Hannah sang, and which says, who it is who
maketh poor and maketh rich, and bringeth low and
exalteth--how the poor shall be raised up out of the
dust, and how, in his own might, no man shall be strong.
Then he read how Samuel's mother made him a little
coat and brought it to him from year to year when she
came up to offer the yearly sacrifice. And then, in her
sweet simple way, George's mother made commentaries
to the boy upon this affecting story. How Hannah, though
she loved her son so much, yet gave him up because
of her vow. And how she must always have thought of
him as she sat at home, far away, making the little
coat; and Samuel, she was sure, never forgot his mother;
and how happy she must have been as the time came
(and the years pass away very quick) when she should
see her boy and how good and wise he had grown. This
little sermon she spoke with a gentle solemn voice, and
dry eyes, until she came to the account of their
meeting--then the discourse broke off suddenly, the tender
heart overflowed, and taking the boy to her breast, she
rocked him in her arms and wept silently over him in
a sainted agony of tears.
Her mind being made up, the widow began to take
such measures as seemed right to her for advancing the
end which she proposed. One day, Miss Osborne, in
Russell Square (Amelia had not written the name or number
of the house for ten years--her youth, her early story
came back to her as she wrote the superscription) one
day Miss Osborne got a letter from Amelia which made
her blush very much and look towards her father, sitting
glooming in his place at the other end of the table.
In simple terms, Amelia told her the reasons which
had induced her to change her mind respecting her boy.
Her father had met with fresh misfortunes which had
entirely ruined him. Her own pittance was so small that
it would barely enable her to support her parents and
would not suffice to give George the advantages which
were his due. Great as her sufferings would be at parting
with him she would, by God's help, endure them for the
boy's sake. She knew that those to whom he was going
would do all in their power to make him happy. She
described his disposition, such as she fancied it--quick
and impatient of control or harshness, easily to be moved
by love and kindness. In a postscript, she stipulated that
she should have a written agreement, that she should
see the child as often as she wished--she could not
part with him under any other terms.
"What? Mrs. Pride has come down, has she?" old
Osborne said, when with a tremulous eager voice Miss
Osborne read him the letter. "Reg'lar starved out, hey?
Ha, ha! I knew she would." He tried to keep his dignity
and to read his paper as usual--but he could not follow
it. He chuckled and swore to himself behind the sheet.
At last he flung it down and, scowling at his daughter,
as his wont was, went out of the room into his study
adjoining, from whence he presently returned with a
key. He flung it to Miss Osborne.
"Get the room over mine--his room that was--ready,"
he said. "Yes, sir," his daughter replied in a tremble.
It was George's room. It had not been opened for more
than ten years. Some of his clothes, papers, handkerchiefs,
whips and caps, fishing-rods and sporting gear,
were still there. An Army list of 1814, with his name
written on the cover; a little dictionary he was wont to
use in writing; and the Bible his mother had given him,
were on the mantelpiece, with a pair of spurs and a
dried inkstand covered with the dust of ten years. Ah!
since that ink was wet, what days and people had passed
away! The writing-book, still on the table, was blotted
with his hand.
Miss Osborne was much affected when she first
entered this room with the servants under her. She sank
quite pale on the little bed. "This is blessed news, m'am
--indeed, m'am," the housekeeper said; "and the good
old times is returning, m'am. The dear little feller, to be
sure, m'am; how happy he will be! But some folks in
May Fair, m'am, will owe him a grudge, m'am"; and
she clicked back the bolt which held the window-sash
and let the air into the chamber.
"You had better send that woman some money," Mr.
Osborne said, before he went out. "She shan't want for
nothing. Send her a hundred pound."
"And I'll go and see her to-morrow?" Miss Osborne
asked.
"That's your look out. She don't come in here, mind.
No, by --, not for all the money in London. But she
mustn't want now. So look out, and get things right." With
which brief speeches Mr. Osborne took leave of his
daughter and went on his accustomed way into the City.
"Here, Papa, is some money," Amelia said that
night, kissing the old man, her father, and putting a bill
for a hundred pounds into his hands. "And--and, Mamma,
don't be harsh with Georgy. He--he is not going to stop
with us long." She could say nothing more, and walked
away silently to her room. Let us close it upon her
prayers and her sorrow. I think we had best speak little
about so much love and grief.
Miss Osborne came the next day, according to the
promise contained in her note, and saw Amelia. The
meeting between them was friendly. A look and a few words
from Miss Osborne showed the poor widow that, with
regard to this woman at least, there need be no fear
lest she should take the first place in her son's affection.
She was cold, sensible, not unkind. The mother had
not been so well pleased, perhaps, had the rival been
better looking, younger, more affectionate, warmerhearted.
Miss Osborne, on the other hand, thought of old
times and memories and could not but be touched with
the poor mother's pitiful situation. She was conquered,
and laying down her arms, as it were, she humbly
submitted. That day they arranged together the
preliminaries of the treaty of capitulation.
George was kept from school the next day, and saw
his aunt. Amelia left them alone together and went to
her room. She was trying the separation--as that poor
gentle Lady Jane Grey felt the edge of the axe that was
to come down and sever her slender life. Days were
passed in parleys, visits, preparations. The widow broke
the matter to Georgy with great caution; she looked to
see him very much affected by the intelligence. He was
rather elated than otherwise, and the poor woman
turned sadly away. He bragged about the news that day
to the boys at school; told them how he was going to
live with his grandpapa his father's father, not the one
who comes here sometimes; and that he would be very
rich, and have a carriage, and a pony, and go to a much
finer school, and when he was rich he would buy Leader's
pencil-case and pay the tart-woman. The boy was the
image of his father, as his fond mother thought.
Indeed I have no heart, on account of our dear
Amelia's sake, to go through the story of George's last
days at home.
At last the day came, the carriage drove up, the little
humble packets containing tokens of love and remembrance
were ready and disposed in the hall long since
--George was in his new suit, for which the tailor had
come previously to measure him. He had sprung up with
the sun and put on the new clothes, his mother hearing
him from the room close by, in which she had been
lying, in speechless grief and watching. Days before she
had been making preparations for the end, purchasing
little stores for the boy's use, marking his books and
linen, talking with him and preparing him for the change
--fondly fancying that he needed preparation.
So that he had change, what cared he? He was longing
for it. By a thousand eager declarations as to what
he would do, when he went to live with his grandfather,
he had shown the poor widow how little the idea of
parting had cast him down. "He would come and see
his mamma often on the pony," he said. "He would
come and fetch her in the carriage; they would drive
in the park, and she should have everything she wanted."
The poor mother was fain to content herself with these
selfish demonstrations of attachment, and tried to
convince herself how sincerely her son loved her. He must
love her. All children were so: a little anxious for novelty,
and--no, not selfish, but self-willed. Her child must
have his enjoyments and ambition in the world. She
herself, by her own selfishness and imprudent love for him
had denied him his just rights and pleasures hitherto.
I know few things more affecting than that timorous
debasement and self-humiliation of a woman. How she
owns that it is she and not the man who is guilty; how
she takes all the faults on her side; how she courts in a
manner punishment for the wrongs which she has not
committed and persists in shielding the real culprit! It
is those who injure women who get the most kindness
from them--they are born timid and tyrants and
maltreat those who are humblest before them.
So poor Amelia had been getting ready in silent misery
for her son's departure, and had passed many and many
a long solitary hour in making preparations for the end.
George stood by his mother, watching her arrangements
without the least concern. Tears had fallen into his boxes;
passages had been scored in his favourite books; old toys,
relics, treasures had been hoarded away for him, and
packed with strange neatness and care--and of all these
things the boy took no note. The child goes away smiling
as the mother breaks her heart. By heavens it is pitiful,
the bootless love of women for children in Vanity Fair.
A few days are past, and the great event of Amelia's
life is consummated. No angel has intervened. The child
is sacrificed and offered up to fate, and the widow is
quite alone.
The boy comes to see her often, to be sure. He rides
on a pony with a coachman behind him, to the delight
of his old grandfather, Sedley, who walks proudly down
the lane by his side. She sees him, but he is not her boy
any more. Why, he rides to see the boys at the little
school, too, and to show off before them his new wealth
and splendour. In two days he has adopted a slightly
imperious air and patronizing manner. He was born to
command, his mother thinks, as his father was before
him.
It is fine weather now. Of evenings on the days when
he does not come, she takes a long walk into London
--yes, as far as Russell Square, and rests on the stone
by the railing of the garden opposite Mr. Osborne's house.
It is so pleasant and cool. She can look up and see the
drawing-room windows illuminated, and, at about nine
o'clock, the chamber in the upper story where Georgy
sleeps. She knows--he has told her. She prays there
as the light goes out, prays with an humble heart,
and walks home shrinking and silent. She is very tired
when she comes home. Perhaps she will sleep the better
for that long weary walk, and she may dream about
Georgy.
One Sunday she happened to be walking in Russell
Square, at some distance from Mr. Osborne's house (she
could see it from a distance though) when all the bells
of Sabbath were ringing, and George and his aunt came
out to go to church; a little sweep asked for charity,
and the footman, who carried the books, tried to drive
him away; but Georgy stopped and gave him money. May
God's blessing be on the boy! Emmy ran round the square
and, coming up to the sweep, gave him her mite too.
All the bells of Sabbath were ringing, and she followed
them until she came to the Foundling Church, into which
she went. There she sat in a place whence she could
see the head of the boy under his father's tombstone.
Many hundred fresh children's voices rose up there and
sang hymns to the Father Beneficent, and little George's
soul thrilled with delight at the burst of glorious
psalmody. His mother could not see him for awhile,
through the mist that dimmed her eyes.
CHAPTER LI
In Which a Charade Is Acted Which May or May
Not Puzzle the Reader
After Becky's appearance at my Lord Steyne's private
and select parties, the claims of that estimable woman
as regards fashion were settled, and some of the very
greatest and tallest doors in the metropolis were
speedily opened to her--doors so great and tall that the
beloved reader and writer hereof may hope in vain to
enter at them. Dear brethren, let us tremble before
those august portals. I fancy them guarded by grooms
of the chamber with flaming silver forks with which they
prong all those who have not the right of the entree.
They say the honest newspaper-fellow who sits in the
hall and takes down the names of the great ones who
are admitted to the feasts dies after a little time. He
can't survive the glare of fashion long. It scorches him
up, as the presence of Jupiter in full dress wasted that
poor imprudent Semele--a giddy moth of a creature who
ruined herself by venturing out of her natural atmosphere.
Her myth ought to be taken to heart amongst the
Tyburnians, the Belgravians--her story, and perhaps
Becky's too. Ah, ladies!--ask the Reverend Mr. Thurifer
if Belgravia is not a sounding brass and Tyburnia a
tinkling cymbal. These are vanities. Even these will pass
away. And some day or other (but it will be after our
time, thank goodness) Hyde Park Gardens will be no
better known than the celebrated horticultural outskirts
of Babylon, and Belgrave Square will be as desolate as
Baker Street, or Tadmor in the wilderness.
Ladies, are you aware that the great Pitt lived in Baker
Street? What would not your grandmothers have given
to be asked to Lady Hester's parties in that now
decayed mansion? I have dined in it--moi qui vous parle,
I peopled the chamber with ghosts of the mighty dead.
As we sat soberly drinking claret there with men of
to-day, the spirits of the departed came in and took their
places round the darksome board. The pilot who
weathered the storm tossed off great bumpers of spiritual
port; the shade of Dundas did not leave the ghost of a
heeltap. Addington sat bowing and smirking in a ghastly
manner, and would not be behindhand when the
noiseless bottle went round; Scott, from under bushy eyebrows,
winked at the apparition of a beeswing; Wilberforce's
eyes went up to the ceiling, so that he did not seem to
know how his glass went up full to his mouth and came
down empty; up to the ceiling which was above us only
yesterday, and which the great of the past days have all
looked at. They let the house as a furnished lodging
now. Yes, Lady Hester once lived in Baker Street, and
lies asleep in the wilderness. Eothen saw her there--
not in Baker Street, but in the other solitude.
It is all vanity to be sure, but who will not own to
liking a little of it? I should like to know what wellconstituted
mind, merely because it is transitory, dislikes
roast beef? That is a vanity, but may every man who
reads this have a wholesome portion of it through life,
I beg: aye, though my readers were five hundred
thousand. Sit down, gentlemen, and fall to, with a good hearty
appetite; the fat, the lean, the gravy, the horse-radish
as you like it--don't spare it. Another glass of wine,
Jones, my boy--a little bit of the Sunday side. Yes, let
us eat our fill of the vain thing and be thankful therefor.
And let us make the best of Becky's aristocratic
pleasures likewise--for these too, like all other mortal
delights, were but transitory.
The upshot of her visit to Lord Steyne was that His
Highness the Prince of Peterwaradin took occasion to
renew his acquaintance with Colonel Crawley, when
they met on the next day at the Club, and to compliment
Mrs. Crawley in the Ring of Hyde Park with a
profound salute of the hat. She and her husband were
invited immediately to one of the Prince's small parties
at Levant House, then occupied by His Highness during
the temporary absence from England of its noble
proprietor. She sang after dinner to a very little comite.
The Marquis of Steyne was present, paternally
superintending the progress of his pupil.
At Levant House Becky met one of the finest gentlemen
and greatest ministers that Europe has produced--
the Duc de la Jabotiere, then Ambassador from the Most
Christian King, and subsequently Minister to that
monarch. I declare I swell with pride as these august names
are transcribed by my pen, and I think in what brilliant
company my dear Becky is moving. She became a
constant guest at the French Embassy, where no party was
considered to be complete without the presence of the
charming Madame Ravdonn Cravley.
Messieurs de Truffigny (of the Perigord family) and
Champignac, both attaches of the Embassy, were
straightway smitten by the charms of the fair Colonel's
wife, and both declared, according to the wont of their
nation (for who ever yet met a Frenchman, come out of
England, that has not left half a dozen families miserable,
and brought away as many hearts in his pocket-book?),
both, I say, declared that they were au mieux with the
charming Madame Ravdonn.
But I doubt the correctness of the assertion. Champignac
was very fond of ecarte, and made many parties
with the Colonel of evenings, while Becky was singing to
Lord Steyne in the other room; and as for Truffigny, it is
a well-known fact that he dared not go to the Travellers',
where he owed money to the waiters, and if he had not
had the Embassy as a dining-place, the worthy young
gentleman must have starved. I doubt, I say, that Becky
would have selected either of these young men as a
person on whom she would bestow her special regard. They
ran of her messages, purchased her gloves and flowers,
went in debt for opera-boxes for her, and made
themselves amiable in a thousand ways. And they talked
English with adorable simplicity, and to the constant
amusement of Becky and my Lord Steyne, she would mimic
one or other to his face, and compliment him on his
advance in the English language with a gravity which never
failed to tickle the Marquis, her sardonic old patron.
Truffigny gave Briggs a shawl by way of winning over
Becky's confidante, and asked her to take charge of a
letter which the simple spinster handed over in public
to the person to whom it was addressed, and the
composition of which amused everybody who read it greatly.
Lord Steyne read it, everybody but honest Rawdon, to
whom it was not necessary to tell everything that passed
in the little house in May Fair.
Here, before long, Becky received not only "the best"
foreigners (as the phrase is in our noble and admirable
society slang), but some of the best English people too.
I don't mean the most virtuous, or indeed the least
virtuous, or the cleverest, or the stupidest, or the richest, or
the best born, but "the best,"--in a word, people about
whom there is no question--such as the great Lady Fitz-
Willis, that Patron Saint of Almack's, the great Lady
Slowbore, the great Lady Grizzel Macbeth (she was
Lady G. Glowry, daughter of Lord Grey of Glowry),
and the like. When the Countess of Fitz-Willis (her
Ladyship is of the Kingstreet family, see Debrett and
Burke) takes up a person, he or she is safe. There is no
question about them any more. Not that my Lady Fitz-
Willis is any better than anybody else, being, on the
contrary, a faded person, fifty-seven years of age, and
neither handsome, nor wealthy, nor entertaining; but it is
agreed on all sides that she is of the "best people."
Those who go to her are of the best: and from an old
grudge probably to Lady Steyne (for whose coronet her
ladyship, then the youthful Georgina Frederica, daughter
of the Prince of Wales's favourite, the Earl of Portansherry,
had once tried), this great and famous leader of
the fashion chose to acknowledge Mrs. Rawdon
Crawley; made her a most marked curtsey at the assembly
over which she presided; and not only encouraged her
son, St. Kitts (his lordship got his place through Lord
Steyne's interest), to frequent Mrs. Crawley's house, but
asked her to her own mansion and spoke to her twice in
the most public and condescending manner during
dinner. The important fact was known all over London that
night. People who had been crying fie about Mrs.
Crawley were silent. Wenham, the wit and lawyer, Lord
Steyne's right-hand man, went about everywhere praising
her: some who had hesitated, came forward at once
and welcomed her; little Tom Toady, who had warned
Southdown about visiting such an abandoned woman,
now besought to be introduced to her. In a word, she
was admitted to be among the "best" people. Ah, my
beloved readers and brethren, do not envy poor Becky
prematurely--glory like this is said to be fugitive. It is
currently reported that even in the very inmost circles,
they are no happier than the poor wanderers outside the
zone; and Becky, who penetrated into the very centre of
fashion and saw the great George IV face to face, has
owned since that there too was Vanity.
We must be brief in descanting upon this part of her
career. As I cannot describe the mysteries of freemasonry,
although I have a shrewd idea that it is a humbug,
so an uninitiated man cannot take upon himself to
portray the great world accurately, and had best keep his
opinions to himself, whatever they are.
Becky has often spoken in subsequent years of this
season of her life, when she moved among the very
greatest circles of the London fashion. Her success
excited, elated, and then bored her. At first no occupation
was more pleasant than to invent and procure (the latter
a work of no small trouble and ingenuity, by the way, in
a person of Mrs. Rawdon Crawley's very narrow means)
--to procure, we say, the prettiest new dresses and
ornaments; to drive to fine dinner parties, where she was
welcomed by great people; and from the fine dinner
parties to fine assemblies, whither the same people came
with whom she had been dining, whom she had met the
night before, and would see on the morrow--the young
men faultlessly appointed, handsomely cravatted, with
the neatest glossy boots and white gloves--the elders
portly, brass-buttoned, noble-looking, polite, and prosy
--the young ladies blonde, timid, and in pink--the
mothers grand, beautiful, sumptuous, solemn, and in
diamonds. They talked in English, not in bad French, as
they do in the novels. They talked about each others'
houses, and characters, and families--just as the Joneses
do about the Smiths. Becky's former acquaintances hated
and envied her; the poor woman herself was yawning in
spirit. "I wish I were out of it," she said to herself. "I
would rather be a parson's wife and teach a Sunday
school than this; or a sergeant's lady and ride in the
regimental waggon; or, oh, how much gayer it would be
to wear spangles and trousers and dance before a booth
at a fair."
"You would do it very well," said Lord Steyne, laughing.
She used to tell the great man her ennuis and
perplexities in her artless way--they amused him.
"Rawdon would make a very good Ecuyer--Master of
the Ceremonies--what do you call him--the man in the
large boots and the uniform, who goes round the ring
cracking the whip? He is large, heavy, and of a military
figure. I recollect," Becky continued pensively, "my
father took me to see a show at Brookgreen Fair when I
was a child, and when we came home, I made myself a
pair of stilts and danced in the studio to the wonder of
all the pupils."
"I should have liked to see it," said Lord Steyne.
"I should like to do it now," Becky continued. "How
Lady Blinkey would open her eyes, and Lady Grizzel
Macbeth would stare! Hush! silence! there is Pasta
beginning to sing." Becky always made a point of being
conspicuously polite to the professional ladies and
gentlemen who attended at these aristocratic parties--of
following them into the corners where they sat in silence,
and shaking hands with them, and smiling in the view of
all persons. She was an artist herself, as she said very
truly; there was a frankness and humility in the manner
in which she acknowledged her origin, which provoked,
or disarmed, or amused lookers-on, as the case might
be. "How cool that woman is," said one; "what airs of
independence she assumes, where she ought to sit still
and be thankful if anybody speaks to her!" "What an
honest and good-natured soul she is!" said another.
"What an artful little minx" said a third. They were all
right very likely, but Becky went her own way, and so
fascinated the professional personages that they would
leave off their sore throats in order to sing at her parties
and give her lessons for nothing.
Yes, she gave parties in the little house in Curzon
Street. Many scores of carriages, with blazing lamps,
blocked up the street, to the disgust of No. 100, who
could not rest for the thunder of the knocking, and of
102, who could not sleep for envy. The gigantic footmen
who accompanied the vehicles were too big to be
contained in Becky's little hall, and were billeted off in the
neighbouring public-houses, whence, when they were
wanted, call-boys summoned them from their beer.
Scores of the great dandies of London squeezed and
trod on each other on the little stairs, laughing to find
themselves there; and many spotless and severe ladies of
ton were seated in the little drawing-room, listening to
the professional singers, who were singing according to
their wont, and as if they wished to blow the windows
down. And the day after, there appeared among the
fashionable reunions in the Morning Post a paragraph
to the following effect:
"Yesterday, Colonel and Mrs. Crawley entertained a
select party at dinner at their house in May Fair. Their
Excellencies the Prince and Princess of Peterwaradin,
H. E. Papoosh Pasha, the Turkish Ambassador (attended
by Kibob Bey, dragoman of the mission), the Marquess
of Steyne, Earl of Southdown, Sir Pitt and Lady
Jane Crawley, Mr. Wagg, &c. After dinner Mrs. Crawley
had an assembly which was attended by the Duchess
(Dowager) of Stilton, Duc de la Gruyere, Marchioness
of Cheshire, Marchese Alessandro Strachino, Comte de
Brie, Baron Schapzuger, Chevalier Tosti, Countess of
Slingstone, and Lady F. Macadam, Major-General and
Lady G. Macbeth, and (2) Miss Macbeths; Viscount
Paddington, Sir Horace Fogey, Hon. Sands Bedwin,
Bobachy Bahawder," and an &c., which the reader may fill
at his pleasure through a dozen close lines of small type.
And in her commerce with the great our dear friend
showed the same frankness which distinguished her
transactions with the lowly in station. On one occasion,
when out at a very fine house, Rebecca was (perhaps
rather ostentatiously) holding a conversation in the
French language with a celebrated tenor singer of that
nation, while the Lady Grizzel Macbeth looked over her
shoulder scowling at the pair.
"How very well you speak French," Lady Grizzel said,
who herself spoke the tongue in an Edinburgh accent
most remarkable to hear.
"I ought to know it," Becky modestly said, casting
down her eyes. "I taught it in a school, and my mother
was a Frenchwoman."
Lady Grizzel was won by her humility and was
mollified towards the little woman. She deplored the fatal
levelling tendencies of the age, which admitted persons
of all classes into the society of their superiors, but her
ladyship owned that this one at least was well behaved
and never forgot her place in life. She was a very good
woman: good to the poor; stupid, blameless, unsuspicious.
It is not her ladyship's fault that she fancies herself
better than you and me. The skirts of her ancestors'
garments have been kissed for centuries; it is a thousand
years, they say, since the tartans of the head of the
family were embraced by the defunct Duncan's lords and
councillors, when the great ancestor of the House
became King of Scotland.
Lady Steyne, after the music scene, succumbed before
Becky, and perhaps was not disinclined to her. The
younger ladies of the house of Gaunt were also
compelled into submission. Once or twice they set people at
her, but they failed. The brilliant Lady Stunnington tried
a passage of arms with her, but was routed with great
slaughter by the intrepid little Becky. When attacked
sometimes, Becky had a knack of adopting a demure
ingenue air, under which she was most dangerous. She
said the wickedest things with the most simple unaffected
air when in this mood, and would take care artlessly to
apologize for her blunders, so that all the world should
know that she had made them.
Mr. Wagg, the celebrated wit, and a led captain and
trencher-man of my Lord Steyne, was caused by the
ladies to charge her; and the worthy fellow, leering at his
patronesses and giving them a wink, as much as to say,
"Now look out for sport," one evening began an assault
upon Becky, who was unsuspiciously eating her dinner.
The little woman, attacked on a sudden, but never
without arms, lighted up in an instant, parried and riposted
with a home-thrust, which made Wagg's face tingle with
shame; then she returned to her soup with the most
perfect calm and a quiet smile on her face. Wagg's great
patron, who gave him dinners and lent him a little money
sometimes, and whose election, newspaper, and other
jobs Wagg did, gave the luckless fellow such a savage
glance with the eyes as almost made him sink under the
table and burst into tears. He looked piteously at my
lord, who never spoke to him during dinner, and at the
ladies, who disowned him. At last Becky herself took
compassion upon him and tried to engage him in talk.
He was not asked to dinner again for six weeks; and
Fiche, my lord's confidential man, to whom Wagg
naturally paid a good deal of court, was instructed to tell
him that if he ever dared to say a rude thing to Mrs.
Crawley again, or make her the butt of his stupid jokes,
Milor would put every one of his notes of hand into his
lawyer's hands and sell him up without mercy. Wagg
wept before Fiche and implored his dear friend to intercede
for him. He wrote a poem in favour of Mrs. R. C.,
which appeared in the very next number of the Harumscarum
Magazine, which he conducted. He implored her
good-will at parties where he met her. He cringed and
coaxed Rawdon at the club. He was allowed to come back
to Gaunt House after a while. Becky was always good to
him, always amused, never angry.
His lordship's vizier and chief confidential servant
(with a seat in parliament and at the dinner table), Mr.
Wenham, was much more prudent in his behaviour and
opinions than Mr. Wagg. However much he might be
disposed to hate all parvenus (Mr. Wenham himself was a
staunch old True Blue Tory, and his father a small coalmerchant
in the north of England), this aide-de-camp of
the Marquis never showed any sort of hostility to the
new favourite, but pursued her with stealthy kindnesses
and a sly and deferential politeness which somehow
made Becky more uneasy than other people's overt
hostilities.
How the Crawleys got the money which was spent
upon the entertainments with which they treated the
polite world was a mystery which gave rise to some
conversation at the time, and probably added zest to these
little festivities. Some persons averred that Sir Pitt Crawley
gave his brother a handsome allowance; if he did,
Becky's power over the Baronet must have been
extraordinary indeed, and his character greatly changed in his
advanced age. Other parties hinted that it was Becky's
habit to levy contributions on all her husband's friends:
going to this one in tears with an account that there was
an execution in the house; falling on her knees to that
one and declaring that the whole family must go to gaol
or commit suicide unless such and such a bill could be
paid. Lord Southdown, it was said, had been induced to
give many hundreds through these pathetic representations.
Young Feltham, of the --th Dragoons (and son of the firm of
Tiler and Feltham, hatters and army accoutrement makers),
and whom the Crawleys introduced into fashionable
life, was also cited as one of Becky's victims in the
pecuniary way. People declared that she got money
from various simply disposed persons, under pretence of
getting them confidential appointments under Government.
Who knows what stories were or were not told of
our dear and innocent friend? Certain it is that if she had
had all the money which she was said to have begged or
borrowed or stolen, she might have capitalized and been
honest for life, whereas,--but this is advancing matters.
The truth is, that by economy and good management--
by a sparing use of ready money and by paying scarcely
anybody--people can manage, for a time at least, to
make a great show with very little means: and it is our
belief that Becky's much-talked-of parties, which were
not, after all was said, very numerous, cost this lady very
little more than the wax candles which lighted the walls.
Stillbrook and Queen's Crawley supplied her with game
and fruit in abundance. Lord Steyne's cellars were at her
disposal, and that excellent nobleman's famous cooks
presided over her little kitchen, or sent by my lord's
order the rarest delicacies from their own. I protest it is
quite shameful in the world to abuse a simple creature,
as people of her time abuse Becky, and I warn the
public against believing one-tenth of the stories against her.
If every person is to be banished from society who runs
into debt and cannot pay--if we are to be peering into
everybody's private life, speculating upon their income,
and cutting them if we don't approve of their expenditure
--why, what a howling wilderness and intolerable dwelling
Vanity Fair would be! Every man's hand would be
against his neighbour in this case, my dear sir, and the
benefits of civilization would be done away with. We
should be quarrelling, abusing, avoiding one another. Our
houses would become caverns, and we should go in rags
because we cared for nobody. Rents would go down.
Parties wouldn't be given any more. All the tradesmen
of the town would be bankrupt. Wine, wax-lights,
comestibles, rouge, crinoline-petticoats, diamonds, wigs,
Louis-Quatorze gimcracks, and old china, park hacks, and
splendid high-stepping carriage horses--all the delights
of life, I say,--would go to the deuce, if people did but
act upon their silly principles and avoid those whom they
dislike and abuse. Whereas, by a little charity and mutual
forbearance, things are made to go on pleasantly
enough: we may abuse a man as much as we like, and
call him the greatest rascal unhanged--but do we wish
to hang him therefore? No. We shake hands when we
meet. If his cook is good we forgive him and go and dine
with him, and we expect he will do the same by us. Thus
trade flourishes--civilization advances; peace is kept;
new dresses are wanted for new assemblies every week;
and the last year's vintage of Lafitte will remunerate the
honest proprietor who reared it.
At the time whereof we are writing, though the Great
George was on the throne and ladies wore gigots and
large combs like tortoise-shell shovels in their hair,
instead of the simple sleeves and lovely wreaths which are
actually in fashion, the manners of the very polite world
were not, I take it, essentially different from those of the
present day: and their amusements pretty similar. To us,
from the outside, gazing over the policeman's shoulders
at the bewildering beauties as they pass into Court or
ball, they may seem beings of unearthly splendour and in
the enjoyment of an exquisite happiness by us unattainable.
It is to console some of these dissatisfied beings
that we are narrating our dear Becky's struggles, and
triumphs, and disappointments, of all of which, indeed,
as is the case with all persons of merit, she had her share.
At this time the amiable amusement of acting charades
had come among us from France, and was considerably
in vogue in this country, enabling the many ladies
amongst us who had beauty to display their charms, and
the fewer number who had cleverness to exhibit their wit.
My Lord Steyne was incited by Becky, who perhaps
believed herself endowed with both the above qualifications,
to give an entertainment at Gaunt House, which should
include some of these little dramas--and we must take
leave to introduce the reader to this brilliant reunion,
and, with a melancholy welcome too, for it will be among
the very last of the fashionable entertainments to which
it will be our fortune to conduct him.
A portion of that splendid room, the picture gallery of
Gaunt House, was arranged as the charade theatre. It
had been so used when George III was king; and a
picture of the Marquis of Gaunt is still extant, with his hair
in powder and a pink ribbon, in a Roman shape, as it
was called, enacting the part of Cato in Mr. Addison's
tragedy of that name, performed before their Royal
Highnesses the Prince of Wales, the Bishop of Osnaburgh,
and Prince William Henry, then children like the actor.
One or two of the old properties were drawn out of the
garrets, where they had lain ever since, and furbished up
anew for the present festivities.
Young Bedwin Sands, then an elegant dandy and Eastern
traveller, was manager of the revels. An Eastern traveller
was somebody in those days, and the adventurous
Bedwin, who had published his quarto and passed some
months under the tents in the desert, was a personage of
no small importance. In his volume there were several
pictures of Sands in various oriental costumes; and he
travelled about with a black attendant of most
unprepossessing appearance, just like another Brian de Bois
Guilbert. Bedwin, his costumes, and black man, were
hailed at Gaunt House as very valuable acquisitions.
He led off the first charade. A Turkish officer with an
immense plume of feathers (the Janizaries were
supposed to be still in existence, and the tarboosh had not
as yet displaced the ancient and majestic head-dress of
the true believers) was seen couched on a divan, and
making believe to puff at a narghile, in which, however,
for the sake of the ladies, only a fragrant pastille was
allowed to smoke. The Turkish dignitary yawns and
expresses signs of weariness and idleness. He claps his hands
and Mesrour the Nubian appears, with bare arms,
bangles, yataghans, and every Eastern ornament--gaunt,
tall, and hideous. He makes a salaam before my lord the
Aga.
A thrill of terror and delight runs through the assembly.
The ladies whisper to one another. The black slave
was given to Bedwin Sands by an Egyptian pasha in
exchange for three dozen of Maraschino. He has sewn up
ever so many odalisques in sacks and tilted them into
the Nile.
"Bid the slave-merchant enter," says the Turkish
voluptuary with a wave of his hand. Mesrour conducts the
slave-merchant into my lord's presence; he brings a
veiled female with him. He removes the veil. A thrill of
applause bursts through the house. It is Mrs. Winkworth
(she was a Miss Absolom) with the beautiful eyes and
hair. She is in a gorgeous oriental costume; the black
braided locks are twined with innumerable jewels; her
dress is covered over with gold piastres. The odious
Mahometan expresses himself charmed by her beauty. She
falls down on her knees and entreats him to restore her
to the mountains where she was born, and where her
Circassian lover is still deploring the absence of his Zuleikah.
No entreaties will move the obdurate Hassan. He
laughs at the notion of the Circassian bridegroom.
Zuleikah covers her face with her hands and drops down in
an attitude of the most beautiful despair. There seems to
be no hope for her, when--when the Kislar Aga appears.
The Kislar Aga brings a letter from the Sultan. Hassan
receives and places on his head the dread firman. A
ghastly terror seizes him, while on the Negro's face (it is
Mesrour again in another costume) appears a ghastly
joy. "Mercy! mercy!" cries the Pasha: while the Kislar
Aga, grinning horribly, pulls out--a bow-string.
The curtain draws just as he is going to use that awful
weapon. Hassan from within bawls out, "First two
syllables"--and Mrs. Rawdon Crawley, who is going to act in
the charade, comes forward and compliments Mrs.
Winkworth on the admirable taste and beauty of her
costume.
The second part of the charade takes place. It is still
an Eastern scene. Hassan, in another dress, is in an
attitude by Zuleikah, who is perfectly reconciled to him.
The Kislar Aga has become a peaceful black slave. It is
sunrise on the desert, and the Turks turn their heads
eastwards and bow to the sand. As there are no dromedaries
at hand, the band facetiously plays "The Camels
are coming." An enormous Egyptian head figures in the
scene. It is a musical one--and, to the surprise of the
oriental travellers, sings a comic song, composed by Mr.
Wagg. The Eastern voyagers go off dancing, like
Papageno and the Moorish King in The Magic Flute. "Last
two syllables," roars the head.
The last act opens. It is a Grecian tent this time. A
tall and stalwart man reposes on a couch there. Above
him hang his helmet and shield. There is no need for
them now. Ilium is down. Iphigenia is slain. Cassandra is
a prisoner in his outer halls. The king of men (it is
Colonel Crawley, who, indeed, has no notion about the sack
of Ilium or the conquest of Cassandra), the anax andron
is asleep in his chamber at Argos. A lamp casts the
broad shadow of the sleeping warrior flickering on the
wall--the sword and shield of Troy glitter in its light.
The band plays the awful music of Don Juan, before the
statue enters.
Aegisthus steals in pale and on tiptoe. What is that
ghastly face looking out balefully after him from behind
the arras? He raises his dagger to strike the sleeper, who
turns in his bed, and opens his broad chest as if for the
blow. He cannot strike the noble slumbering chieftain.
Clytemnestra glides swiftly into the room like an
apparition--her arms are bare and white--her tawny hair
floats down her shoulders--her face is deadly pale--and
her eyes are lighted up with a smile so ghastly that
people quake as they look at her.
A tremor ran through the room. "Good God!" somebody
said, "it's Mrs. Rawdon Crawley."
Scornfully she snatches the dagger out of Aegisthus's
hand and advances to the bed. You see it shining over
her head in the glimmer of the lamp, and--and the lamp
goes out, with a groan, and all is dark.
The darkness and the scene frightened people. Rebecca
performed her part so well, and with such ghastly
truth, that the spectators were all dumb, until, with a
burst, all the lamps of the hall blazed out again, when
everybody began to shout applause. "Brava! brava!" old
Steyne's strident voice was heard roaring over all the
rest. "By--, she'd do it too," he said between his teeth.
The performers were called by the whole house, which
sounded with cries of "Manager! Clytemnestra!"
Agamemnon could not be got to show in his classical
tunic, but stood in the background with Aegisthus and
others of the performers of the little play. Mr. Bedwin
Sands led on Zuleikah and Clytemnestra. A great
personage insisted on being presented to the charming
Clytemnestra. "Heigh ha? Run him through the body.
Marry somebody else, hay?" was the apposite remark
made by His Royal Highness.
"Mrs. Rawdon Crawley was quite killing in the part,"
said Lord Steyne. Becky laughed, gay and saucy looking,
and swept the prettiest little curtsey ever seen.
Servants brought in salvers covered with numerous cool
dainties, and the performers disappeared to get ready
for the second charade-tableau.
The three syllables of this charade were to be depicted
in pantomime, and the performance took place in the
following wise:
First syllable. Colonel Rawdon Crawley, C.B., with a
slouched hat and a staff, a great-coat, and a lantern
borrowed from the stables, passed across the stage bawling
out, as if warning the inhabitants of the hour. In the
lower window are seen two bagmen playing apparently
at the game of cribbage, over which they yawn much.
To them enters one looking like Boots (the Honourable
G. Ringwood), which character the young gentleman
performed to perfection, and divests them of their lower
coverings; and presently Chambermaid (the Right
Honourable Lord Southdown) with two candlesticks, and a
warming-pan. She ascends to the upper apartment and
warms the bed. She uses the warming-pan as a weapon
wherewith she wards off the attention of the bagmen.
She exits. They put on their night-caps and pull down
the blinds. Boots comes out and closes the shutters of
the ground-floor chamber. You hear him bolting and
chaining the door within. All the lights go out. The music
plays Dormez, dormez, chers Amours. A voice from
behind the curtain says, "First syllable."
Second syllable. The lamps are lighted up all of a
sudden. The music plays the old air from John of Paris,
Ah quel plaisir d'etre en voyage. It is the same scene.
Between the first and second floors of the house
represented, you behold a sign on which the Steyne arms
are painted. All the bells are ringing all over the house.
In the lower apartment you see a man with a long slip of
paper presenting it to another, who shakes his fists,
threatens and vows that it is monstrous. "Ostler, bring
round my gig," cries another at the door. He chucks
Chambermaid (the Right Honourable Lord Southdown)
under the chin; she seems to deplore his absence, as
Calypso did that of that other eminent traveller Ulysses.
Boots (the Honourable G. Ringwood) passes with a
wooden box, containing silver flagons, and cries "Pots"
with such exquisite humour and naturalness that the
whole house rings with applause, and a bouquet is thrown
to him. Crack, crack, crack, go the whips. Landlord,
chambermaid, waiter rush to the door, but just as some
distinguished guest is arriving, the curtains close, and the
invisible theatrical manager cries out "Second syllable."
"I think it must be 'Hotel,' " says Captain Grigg of the
Life Guards; there is a general laugh at the Captain's
cleverness. He is not very far from the mark.
While the third syllable is in preparation, the band
begins a nautical medley--"All in the Downs," "Cease Rude
Boreas," "Rule Britannia," "In the Bay of Biscay O!"--
some maritime event is about to take place. A ben is
heard ringing as the curtain draws aside. "Now, gents,
for the shore!" a voice exclaims. People take leave of
each other. They point anxiously as if towards the clouds,
which are represented by a dark curtain, and they nod
their heads in fear. Lady Squeams (the Right Honourable
Lord Southdown), her lap-dog, her bags, reticules, and
husband sit down, and cling hold of some ropes. It is
evidently a ship.
The Captain (Colonel Crawley, C.B.), with a cocked
hat and a telescope, comes in, holding his hat on his
head, and looks out; his coat tails fly about as if in the
wind. When he leaves go of his hat to use his telescope,
his hat flies off, with immense applause. It is blowing
fresh. The music rises and whistles louder and louder;
the mariners go across the stage staggering, as if the ship