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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 four-
wheeled 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 them-
selves 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 window-
panes, 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
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 four-
wheeled 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 them-
selves 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 window-
panes, 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