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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 brother-
in-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 wafer-
biscuits. 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
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 brother-
in-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 wafer-
biscuits. 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