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such a friendly halo to set off her beauty. Her complexion
could bear any sunshine as yet, and her dress, though if
you were to see it now, any present lady of Vanity Fair
would pronounce it to be the most foolish and preposterous
attire ever worn, was as handsome in her eyes
and those of the public, some five-and-twenty years since,
as the most brilliant costume of the most famous beauty
of the present season. A score of years hence that too,
that milliner's wonder, will have passed into the domain
of the absurd, along with all previous vanities. But we
are wandering too much. Mrs. Rawdon's dress was
pronounced to be charmante on the eventful day of her
presentation. Even good little Lady Jane was forced to
acknowledge this effect, as she looked at her kinswoman,
and owned sorrowfully to herself that she was quite
inferior in taste to Mrs. Becky.
She did not know how much care, thought, and genius
Mrs. Rawdon had bestowed upon that garment. Rebecca
had as good taste as any milliner in Europe, and such a
clever way of doing things as Lady Jane little understood.
The latter quickly spied out the magnificence of the
brocade of Becky's train, and the splendour of the lace on
her dress.
The brocade was an old remnant, Becky said; and as
for the lace, it was a great bargain. She had had it these
hundred years.
"My dear Mrs. Crawley, it must have cost a little
fortune," Lady Jane said, looking down at her own lace,
which was not nearly so good; and then examining the
quality of the ancient brocade which formed the
material of Mrs. Rawdon's Court dress, she felt inclined to
say that she could not afford such fine clothing, but
checked that speech, with an effort, as one uncharitable
to her kinswoman.
And yet, if Lady Jane had known all, I think even her
kindly temper would have failed her. The fact is, when
she was putting Sir Pitt's house in order, Mrs. Rawdon
had found the lace and the brocade in old wardrobes,
the property of the former ladies of the house, and had
quietly carried the goods home, and had suited them to
her own little person. Briggs saw her take them, asked
no questions, told no stories; but I believe quite
sympathised with her on this matter, and so would
many another honest woman.
And the diamonds--"Where the doose did you get the
diamonds, Becky?" said her husband, admiring some
jewels which he had never seen before and which sparkled
in her ears and on her neck with brilliance and profusion.
Becky blushed a little and looked at him hard for a
moment. Pitt Crawley blushed a little too, and looked
out of window. The fact is, he had given her a very
small portion of the brilliants; a pretty diamond clasp,
which confined a pearl necklace which she wore- and the
Baronet had omitted to mention the circumstance to
his lady.
Becky looked at her husband, and then at Sir Pitt,
with an air of saucy triumph--as much as to say, "Shall
I betray you?"
"Guess!" she said to her husband. "Why, you silly
man," she continued, "where do you suppose I got them?
--all except the little clasp, which a dear friend of mine
gave me long ago. I hired them, to be sure. I hired them
at Mr. Polonius's, in Coventry Street. You don't suppose
that all the diamonds which go to Court belong to the
wearers; like those beautiful stones which Lady Jane has,
and which are much handsomer than any which I have,
I am certain."
"They are family jewels," said Sir Pitt, again looking
uneasy. And in this family conversation the carriage
rolled down the street, until its cargo was finally
discharged at the gates of the palace where the Sovereign
was sitting in state.
The diamonds, which had created Rawdon's admiration,
never went back to Mr. Polonius, of Coventry Street, and
that gentleman never applied for their restoration, but
they retired into a little private repository, in an old desk,
which Amelia Sedley had given her years and years ago,
and in which Becky kept a number of useful and,
perhaps, valuable things, about which her husband
knew nothing. To know nothing, or little, is in the
nature of some husbands. To hide, in the nature of how
many women? Oh, ladies! how many of you have
surreptitious milliners' bills? How many of you have gowns
and bracelets which you daren't show, or which you wear
trembling?--trembling, and coaxing with smiles the
husband by your side, who does not know the new velvet
gown from the old one, or the new bracelet from last
year's, or has any notion that the ragged-looking yellow
lace scarf cost forty guineas and that Madame Bobinot is
writing dunning letters every week for the money!
Thus Rawdon knew nothing about the brilliant diamond
ear-rings, or the superb brilliant ornament which
decorated the fair bosom of his lady; but Lord Steyne,
who was in his place at Court, as Lord of the Powder
Closet, and one of the great dignitaries and illustrious
defences of the throne of England, and came up with all
his stars, garters, collars, and cordons, and paid particular
attention to the little woman, knew whence the jewels
came and who paid for them.
As he bowed over her he smiled, and quoted the
hackneyed and beautiful lines from The Rape of the Lock
about Belinda's diamonds, "which Jews might kiss and
infidels adore."
"But I hope your lordship is orthodox," said the little
lady with a toss of her head. And many ladies round
about whispered and talked, and many gentlemen nodded
and whispered, as they saw what marked attention the
great nobleman was paying to the little adventuress.
What were the circumstances of the interview between
Rebecca Crawley, nee Sharp, and her Imperial Master,
it does not become such a feeble and inexperienced pen
as mine to attempt to relate. The dazzled eyes close
before that Magnificent Idea. Loyal respect and decency tell
even the imagination not to look too keenly and audaciously
about the sacred audience-chamber, but to back away
rapidly, silently, and respectfully, making profound
bows out of the August Presence.
This may be said, that in all London there was no
more loyal heart than Becky's after this interview. The
name of her king was always on her lips, and he was
proclaimed by her to be the most charming of men. She
went to Colnaghi's and ordered the finest portrait of him
that art had produced, and credit could supply. She chose
that famous one in which the best of monarchs is
represented in a frock-coat with a fur collar, and breeches
and silk stockings, simpering on a sofa from under his
curly brown wig. She had him painted in a brooch and
wore it--indeed she amused and somewhat pestered her
acquaintance with her perpetual talk about his urbanity
and beauty. Who knows! Perhaps the little woman
thought she might play the part of a Maintenon or a
Pompadour.
But the finest sport of all after her presentation was to
hear her talk virtuously. She had a few female acquaintances,
not, it must be owned, of the very highest reputation
in Vanity Fair. But being made an honest woman of,
so to speak, Becky would not consort any longer with
these dubious ones, and cut Lady Crackenbury when the
latter nodded to her from her opera-box, and gave Mrs.
Washington White the go-by in the Ring. "One must, my
dear, show one is somebody," she said. "One mustn't be
seen with doubtful people. I pity Lady Crackenbury from
my heart, and Mrs. Washington White may be a very
good-natured person. YOU may go and dine with them,
as you like your rubber. But I mustn't, and won't; and
you will have the goodness to tell Smith to say I am not
at home when either of them calls."
The particulars of Becky's costume were in the newspapers
--feathers, lappets, superb diamonds, and all the
rest. Lady Crackenbury read the paragraph in bitterness
of spirit and discoursed to her followers about the airs
which that woman was giving herself. Mrs. Bute Crawley
and her young ladies in the country had a copy of the
Morning Post from town, and gave a vent to their honest
indignation. "If you had been sandy-haired, green-eyed,
and a French rope-dancer's daughter," Mrs. Bute said
to her eldest girl (who, on the contrary, was a very
swarthy, short, and snub-nosed young lady), "You might
have had superb diamonds forsooth, and have been
presented at Court by your cousin, the Lady Jane. But you're
only a gentlewoman, my poor dear child. You have only
some of the best blood in England in your veins, and
good principles and piety for your portion. I, myself,
the wife of a Baronet's younger brother, too, never
thought of such a thing as going to Court--nor would
other people, if good Queen Charlotte had been alive."
In this way the worthy Rectoress consoled herself, and
her daughters sighed and sat over the Peerage all night.
A few days after the famous presentation, another
great and exceeding honour was vouchsafed to the
virtuous Becky. Lady Steyne's carriage drove up to Mr.
Rawdon Crawley's door, and the footman, instead of driving
down the front of the house, as by his tremendous
knocking he appeared to be inclined to do, relented and only
delivered in a couple of cards, on which were engraven
the names of the Marchioness of Steyne and the
Countess of Gaunt. If these bits of pasteboard had been
beautiful pictures, or had had a hundred yards of Malines lace
rolled round them, worth twice the number of guineas,
Becky could not have regarded them with more pleasure.
You may be sure they occupied a conspicuous place in
the china bowl on the drawing-room table, where Becky
kept the cards of her visitors. Lord! lord! how poor
Mrs. Washington White's card and Lady Crackenbury's
card--which our little friend had been glad enough to
get a few months back, and of which the silly little
creature was rather proud once--Lord! lord! I say, how soon
at the appearance of these grand court cards, did those
poor little neglected deuces sink down to the bottom of
the pack. Steyne! Bareacres, Johnes of Helvellyn! and
Caerylon of Camelot! we may be sure that Becky and
Briggs looked out those august names in the Peerage,
and followed the noble races up through all the
ramifications of the family tree.
My Lord Steyne coming to call a couple of hours
afterwards, and looking about him, and observing
everything as was his wont, found his ladies' cards already
ranged as the trumps of Becky's hand, and grinned, as
this old cynic always did at any naive display of human
weakness. Becky came down to him presently; whenever
the dear girl expected his lordship, her toilette was
prepared, her hair in perfect order, her mouchoirs, aprons,
scarfs, little morocco slippers, and other female
gimcracks arranged, and she seated in some artless and
agreeable posture ready to receive him--whenever she
was surprised, of course, she had to fly to her apartment
to take a rapid survey of matters in the glass, and
to trip down again to wait upon the great peer.
She found him grinning over the bowl. She was
discovered, and she blushed a little. "Thank you,
Monseigneur," she said. "You see your ladies have
been here. How good of you! I couldn't come before
--I was in the kitchen making a pudding."
"I know you were, I saw you through the area-railings
as I drove up," replied the old gentleman.
"You see everything," she replied.
"A few things, but not that, my pretty lady," he said
good-naturedly. "You silly little fibster! I heard you in
the room overhead, where I have no doubt you were
putting a little rouge on--you must give some of yours to
my Lady Gaunt, whose complexion is quite preposterous
--and I heard the bedroom door open, and then you
came downstairs."
"Is it a crime to try and look my best when YOU come
here?" answered Mrs. Rawdon plaintively, and she rubbed
her cheek with her handkerchief as if to show there was
no rouge at all, only genuine blushes and modesty in her
case. About this who can tell? I know there is some
rouge that won't come off on a pocket-handkerchief,
and some so good that even tears will not disturb it.
"Well," said the old gentleman, twiddling round his
wife's card, "you are bent on becoming a fine lady.
You pester my poor old life out to get you into the
world. You won't be able to hold your own there, you
silly little fool. You've got no money."
"You will get us a place," interposed Becky, "as quick
as possible."
"You've got no money, and you want to compete with
those who have. You poor little earthenware pipkin, you
want to swim down the stream along with the great cop-
per kettles. All women are alike. Everybody is striving
for what is not worth the having! Gad! I dined with the
King yesterday, and we had neck of mutton and turnips.
A dinner of herbs is better than a stalled ox very often.
You will go to Gaunt House. You give an old fellow no
rest until you get there. It's not half so nice as here.
You'll be bored there. I am. My wife is as gay as Lady
Macbeth, and my daughters as cheerful as Regan and
Goneril. I daren't sleep in what they call my bedroom.
The bed is like the baldaquin of St. Peter's, and the
pictures frighten me. I have a little brass bed in a
dressing-room, and a little hair mattress like an anchorite.
I am an anchorite. Ho! ho! You'll be asked to dinner next
week. And gare aux femmes, look out and hold your
own! How the women will bully you!" This was a very
long speech for a man of few words like my Lord Steyne;
nor was it the first which he uttered for Becky's benefit
on that day.
Briggs looked up from the work-table at which she
was seated in the farther room and gave a deep sigh
as she heard the great Marquis speak so lightly of her sex.
"If you don't turn off that abominable sheep-dog," said
Lord Steyne, with a savage look over his shoulder at
her, "I will have her poisoned."
"I always give my dog dinner from my own plate,"
said Rebecca, laughing mischievously; and having
enjoyed for some time the discomfiture of my lord, who
hated poor Briggs for interrupting his tete-a-tete
with the fair Colonel's wife, Mrs. Rawdon at length had
pity upon her admirer, and calling to Briggs, praised the
fineness of the weather to her and bade her to take out
the child for a walk.
"I can't send her away," Becky said presently, after
a pause, and in a very sad voice. Her eyes filled with
tears as she spoke, and she turned away her head.
"You owe her her wages, I suppose?" said the Peer.
"Worse than that," said Becky, still casting down her
eyes; "I have ruined her."
"Ruined her? Then why don't you turn her out?" the
gentleman asked.
"Men do that," Becky answered bitterly. "Women are
not so bad as you. Last year, when we were reduced
to our last guinea, she gave us everything. She shall
never leave me, until we are ruined utterly ourselves,
which does not seem far off, or until I can pay her the
utmost farthing."
--it, how much is it?" said the Peer with an oath.
And Becky, reflecting on the largeness of his means,
mentioned not only the sum which she had borrowed from
Miss Briggs, but one of nearly double the amount.
This caused the Lord Steyne to break out in another
brief and energetic expression of anger, at which Rebecca
held down her head the more and cried bitterly. "I could
not help it. It was my only chance. I dare not tell my
husband. He would kill me if I told him what I have
done. I have kept it a secret from everybody but you
--and you forced it from me. Ah, what shall I do, Lord
Steyne? for I am very, very unhappy!"
Lord Steyne made no reply except by beating the
devil's tattoo and biting his nails. At last he clapped
his hat on his head and flung out of the room. Rebecca
did not rise from her attitude of misery until the door
slammed upon him and his carriage whirled away. Then
she rose up with the queerest expression of victorious
mischief glittering in her green eyes. She burst out laughing
once or twice to herself, as she sat at work, and
sitting down to the piano, she rattled away a triumphant
voluntary on the keys, which made the people pause
under her window to listen to her brilliant music.
That night, there came two notes from Gaunt House
for the little woman, the one containing a card of
invitation from Lord and Lady Steyne to a dinner at Gaunt
House next Friday, while the other enclosed a slip of
gray paper bearing Lord Steyne's signature and the
address of Messrs. Jones, Brown, and Robinson, Lombard
Street.
Rawdon heard Becky laughing in the night once or
twice. It was only her delight at going to Gaunt House
and facing the ladies there, she said, which amused her
so. But the truth was that she was occupied with a great
number of other thoughts. Should she pay off old Briggs
and give her her conge? Should she astonish Raggles
by settling his account? She turned over all these thoughts
on her pillow, and on the next day, when Rawdon went
out to pay his morning visit to the Club, Mrs. Crawley
(in a modest dress with a veil on) whipped off in a
hackney-coach to the City: and being landed at Messrs.
Jones and Robinson's bank, presented a document there
to the authority at the desk, who, in reply, asked her
"How she would take it?"
She gently said "she would take a hundred and fifty
pounds in small notes and the remainder in one note":
and passing through St. Paul's Churchyard stopped there
and bought the handsomest black silk gown for Briggs
which money could buy; and which, with a kiss and the
kindest speeches, she presented to the simple old
spinster.
Then she walked to Mr. Raggles, inquired about his
children affectionately, and gave him fifty pounds on
account. Then she went to the livery-man from whom
she jobbed her carriages and gratified him with a similar
sum. "And I hope this will be a lesson to you, Spavin,"
she said, "and that on the next drawing-room day my
brother, Sir Pitt, will not be inconvenienced by being
obliged to take four of us in his carriage to wait upon
His Majesty, because my own carriage is not forthcoming."
It appears there had been a difference on the last
drawing-room day. Hence the degradation which the
Colonel had almost suffered, of being obliged to enter
the presence of his Sovereign in a hack cab.
These arrangements concluded, Becky paid a visit
upstairs to the before-mentioned desk, which Amelia
Sedley had given her years and years ago, and which
contained a number of useful and valuable little things--in
which private museum she placed the one note which
Messrs. Jones and Robinson's cashier had given her.
CHAPTER XLIX
In Which We Enjoy Three Courses and a Dessert
When the ladies of Gaunt House were at breakfast that
morning, Lord Steyne (who took his chocolate in private
and seldom disturbed the females of his household,
or saw them except upon public days, or when they
crossed each other in the hall, or when from his
pit-box at the opera he surveyed them in their box on the
grand tier) his lordship, we say, appeared among the
ladies and the children who were assembled over the
tea and toast, and a battle royal ensued apropos of
Rebecca.
"My Lady Steyne," he said, "I want to see the list
for your dinner on Friday; and I want you, if you please,
to write a card for Colonel and Mrs. Crawley."
"Blanche writes them," Lady Steyne said in a flutter.
"Lady Gaunt writes them."
"I will not write to that person," Lady Gaunt said,
a tall and stately lady, who looked up for an instant
and then down again after she had spoken. It was not
good to meet Lord Steyne's eyes for those who had
offended him.
"Send the children out of the room. Go!" said he
pulling at the bell-rope. The urchins, always frightened
before him, retired: their mother would have followed
too. "Not you," he said. "You stop."
"My Lady Steyne," he said, "once more will you have
the goodness to go to the desk and write that card for
your dinner on Friday?"
"My Lord, I will not be present at it," Lady Gaunt
said; "I will go home."
"I wish you would, and stay there. You will find
the bailiffs at Bareacres very pleasant company, and I
shall be freed from lending money to your relations and
from your own damned tragedy airs. Who are you to
give orders here? You have no money. You've got no
brains. You were here to have children, and you have
not had any. Gaunt's tired of you, and George's wife
is the only person in the family who doesn't wish you
were dead. Gaunt would marry again if you were."
"I wish I were," her Ladyship answered with tears
and rage in her eyes.
"You, forsooth, must give yourself airs of virtue, while
my wife, who is an immaculate saint, as everybody knows,
and never did wrong in her life, has no objection to meet
my young friend Mrs. Crawley. My Lady Steyne knows
that appearances are sometimes against the best of
women; that lies are often told about the most innocent
of them. Pray, madam, shall I tell you some little
anecdotes about my Lady Bareacres, your mamma?"
"You may strike me if you like, sir, or hit any cruel
blow," Lady Gaunt said. To see his wife and daughter
suffering always put his Lordship into a good humour.
"My sweet Blanche," he said, "I am a gentleman, and
never lay my hand upon a woman, save in the way of
kindness. I only wish to correct little faults in your
character. You women are too proud, and sadly lack
humility, as Father Mole, I'm sure, would tell my Lady
Steyne if he were here. You mustn't give yourselves airs;
you must be meek and humble, my blessings. For all
Lady Steyne knows, this calumniated, simple, good-
humoured Mrs. Crawley is quite innocent--even more
innocent than herself. Her husband's character is not
good, but it is as good as Bareacres', who has played
a little and not paid a great deal, who cheated you out
of the only legacy you ever had and left you a pauper
on my hands. And Mrs. Crawley is not very well-born,
but she is not worse than Fanny's illustrious ancestor,
the first de la Jones."
"The money which I brought into the family, sir," Lady
George cried out--
"You purchased a contingent reversion with it," the
Marquis said darkly. "If Gaunt dies, your husband may
come to his honours; your little boys may inherit them,
and who knows what besides? In the meanwhile, ladies,
be as proud and virtuous as you like abroad, but don't
give ME any airs. As for Mrs. Crawley's character, I
shan't demean myself or that most spotless and perfectly
irreproachable lady by even hinting that it requires a
defence. You will be pleased to receive her with the
utmost cordiality, as you will receive all persons whom
I present in this house. This house?" He broke out with
a laugh. "Who is the master of it? and what is it?
This Temple of Virtue belongs to me. And if I invite all
Newgate or all Bedlam here, by -- they shall be
welcome."
After this vigorous allocution, to one of which sort
Lord Steyne treated his "Hareem" whenever symptoms
of insubordination appeared in his household, the
crestfallen women had nothing for it but to obey. Lady Gaunt
wrote the invitation which his Lordship required, and
she and her mother-in-law drove in person, and with
bitter and humiliated hearts, to leave the cards on Mrs.
Rawdon, the reception of which caused that innocent
woman so much pleasure.
There were families in London who would have
sacrificed a year's income to receive such an honour at the
hands of those great ladies. Mrs. Frederick Bullock, for
instance, would have gone on her knees from May Fair
to Lombard Street, if Lady Steyne and Lady Gaunt had
been waiting in the City to raise her up and say, "Come
to us next Friday"--not to one of the great crushes and
grand balls of Gaunt House, whither everybody went, but
to the sacred, unapproachable, mysterious, delicious
entertainments, to be admitted to one of which was a
privilege, and an honour, and a blessing indeed.
Severe, spotless, and beautiful, Lady Gaunt held the
very highest rank in Vanity Fair. The distinguished
courtesy with which Lord Steyne treated her charmed
everybody who witnessed his behaviour, caused the severest
critics to admit how perfect a gentleman he was, and to
own that his Lordship's heart at least was in the right
place.
The ladies of Gaunt House called Lady Bareacres in to
their aid, in order to repulse the common enemy. One
of Lady Gaunt's carriages went to Hill Street for her
Ladyship's mother, all whose equipages were in the hands
of the bailiffs, whose very jewels and wardrobe, it was
said, had been seized by those inexorable Israelites.
Bareacres Castle was theirs, too, with all its costly
pictures, furniture, and articles of vertu--the magnificent
Vandykes; the noble Reynolds pictures; the Lawrence
portraits, tawdry and beautiful, and, thirty years ago,
deemed as precious as works of real genius; the matchless
Dancing Nymph of Canova, for which Lady Bareacres
had sat in her youth--Lady Bareacres splendid then,
and radiant in wealth, rank, and beauty--a toothless,
bald, old woman now--a mere rag of a former robe of
state. Her lord, painted at the same time by Lawrence,
as waving his sabre in front of Bareacres Castle, and
clothed in his uniform as Colonel of the Thistlewood
Yeomanry, was a withered, old, lean man in a
greatcoat and a Brutus wig, slinking about Gray's Inn of
mornings chiefly and dining alone at clubs. He did not
like to dine with Steyne now. They had run races of
pleasure together in youth when Bareacres was the
winner. But Steyne had more bottom than he and had lasted
him out. The Marquis was ten times a greater man now
than the young Lord Gaunt of '85, and Bareacres
nowhere in the race--old, beaten, bankrupt, and broken
down. He had borrowed too much money of Steyne to
find it pleasant to meet his old comrade often. The latter,
whenever he wished to be merry, used jeeringly to ask
Lady Gaunt why her father had not come to see her.
"He has not been here for four months," Lord Steyne
would say. "I can always tell by my cheque-book
afterwards, when I get a visit from Bareacres. What a
comfort it is, my ladies, I bank with one of my sons'
fathers-in-law, and the other banks with me!"
Of the other illustrious persons whom Becky had the
honour to encounter on this her first presentation to the
grand world, it does not become the present historian
to say much. There was his Excellency the Prince of
Peterwaradin, with his Princess--a nobleman tightly
girthed, with a large military chest, on which the plaque
of his order shone magnificently, and wearing the red
collar of the Golden Fleece round his neck. He was the
owner of countless flocks. "Look at his face. I think he
must be descended from a sheep," Becky whispered to
Lord Steyne. Indeed, his Excellency's countenance, long,
solemn, and white, with the ornament round his neck,.
bore some resemblance to that of a venerable bell-wether.
There was Mr. John Paul Jefferson Jones, titularly
attached to the American Embassy and correspondent
of the New York Demagogue, who, by way of making
himself agreeable to the company, asked Lady Steyne,
during a pause in the conversation at dinner, how his
dear friend, George Gaunt, liked the Brazils? He and
George had been most intimate at Naples and had gone
up Vesuvius together. Mr. Jones wrote a full and
particular account of the dinner, which appeared duly in
the Demagogue. He mentioned the names and titles of
all the guests, giving biographical sketches of the principal
people. He described the persons of the ladies with
great eloquence; the service of the table; the size and
costume of the servants; enumerated the dishes and wines
served; the ornaments of the sideboard; and the probable
value of the plate. Such a dinner he calculated could not
be dished up under fifteen or eighteen dollars per head.
And he was in the habit, until very lately, of sending
over proteges, with letters of recommendation to the
present Marquis of Steyne, encouraged to do so by the
intimate terms on which he had lived with his dear
friend, the late lord. He was most indignant that a
young and insignificant aristocrat, the Earl of Southdown,
should have taken the pas of him in their procession to
the dining-room. "Just as I was stepping up to offer my
hand to a very pleasing and witty fashionable, the
brilliant and exclusive Mrs. Rawdon Crawley,"--he wrote
--"the young patrician interposed between me and the
lady and whisked my Helen off without a word of apology.
I was fain to bring up the rear with the Colonel, the
lady's husband, a stout red-faced warrior who
distinguished himself at Waterloo, where he had better luck
than befell some of his brother redcoats at New Orleans."
The Colonel's countenance on coming into this polite
society wore as many blushes as the face of a boy of
sixteen assumes when he is confronted with his sister's
schoolfellows. It has been told before that honest Rawdon
had not been much used at any period of his life to
ladies' company. With the men at the Club or the mess
room, he was well enough; and could ride, bet, smoke,
or play at billiards with the boldest of them. He had had
his time for female friendships too, but that was twenty
years ago, and the ladies were of the rank of those with
whom Young Marlow in the comedy is represented as
having been familiar before he became abashed in the
presence of Miss Hardcastle. The times are such that
one scarcely dares to allude to that kind of company
which thousands of our young men in Vanity Fair are
frequenting every day, which nightly fills casinos and
dancing-rooms, which is known to exist as well as the
Ring in Hyde Park or the Congregation at St. James's
--but which the most squeamish if not the most moral
of societies is determined to ignore. In a word, although
Colonel Crawley was now five-and-forty years of age,
it had not been his lot in life to meet with a half dozen
good women, besides his paragon of a wife. All except
her and his kind sister Lady Jane, whose gentle nature
had tamed and won him, scared the worthy Colonel,
and on occasion of his first dinner at Gaunt House he
was not heard to make a single remark except to state
that the weather was very hot. Indeed Becky would have
left him at home, but that virtue ordained that her
husband should be by her side to protect the timid and
fluttering little creature on her first appearance in polite
society.
On her first appearance Lord Steyne stepped forward,
taking her hand, and greeting her with great courtesy,
and presenting her to Lady Steyne, and their ladyships,
her daughters. Their ladyships made three stately curtsies,
and the elder lady to be sure gave her hand to the
newcomer, but it was as cold and lifeless as marble.
Becky took it, however, with grateful humility, and
performing a reverence which would have done credit
to the best dancer-master, put herself at Lady Steyne's
feet, as it were, by saying that his Lordship had been
her father's earliest friend and patron, and that she,
Becky, had learned to honour and respect the Steyne
family from the days of her childhood. The fact is that Lord
Steyne had once purchased a couple of pictures of the
late Sharp, and the affectionate orphan could never
forget her gratitude for that favour.
The Lady Bareacres then came under Becky's cognizance
--to whom the Colonel's lady made also a most respectful
obeisance: it was returned with severe dignity by the
exalted person in question.
"I had the pleasure of making your Ladyship's
acquaintance at Brussels, ten years ago," Becky said in
the most winning manner. "I had the good fortune to
meet Lady Bareacres at the Duchess of Richmond's ball,
the night before the Battle of Waterloo. And I recollect
your Ladyship, and my Lady Blanche, your daughter,
sitting in the carriage in the porte-cochere at the Inn,
waiting for horses. I hope your Ladyship's diamonds are
safe."
Everybody's eyes looked into their neighbour's. The
famous diamonds had undergone a famous seizure, it
appears, about which Becky, of course, knew nothing.
Rawdon Crawley retreated with Lord Southdown into a
window, where the latter was heard to laugh immoderately,
as Rawdon told him the story of Lady Bareacres
wanting horses and "knuckling down by Jove," to Mrs.
Crawley. "I think I needn't be afraid of THAT woman,"
Becky thought. Indeed, Lady Bareacres exchanged
terrified and angry looks with her daughter and retreated
to a table, where she began to look at pictures with
great energy.
When the Potentate from the Danube made his appearance,
the conversation was carried on in the French language,
and the Lady Bareacres and the younger ladies
found, to their farther mortification, that Mrs. Crawley
was much better acquainted with that tongue, and spoke
it with a much better accent than they. Becky had met
other Hungarian magnates with the army in France in
1816-17. She asked after her friends with great interest
The foreign personages thought that she was a lady of
great distinction, and the Prince and the Princess asked
severally of Lord Steyne and the Marchioness, whom
they conducted to dinner, who was that petite dame who
spoke so well?
Finally, the procession being formed in the order
described by the American diplomatist, they marched into
the apartment where the banquet was served, and which,
as I have promised the reader he shall enjoy it, he shall
have the liberty of ordering himself so as to suit his
fancy.
But it was when the ladies were alone that Becky
knew the tug of war would come. And then indeed the
little woman found herself in such a situation as made
her acknowledge the correctness of Lord Steyne's
caution to her to beware of the society of ladies above her
own sphere. As they say, the persons who hate Irishmen
most are Irishmen; so, assuredly, the greatest tyrants
over women are women. When poor little Becky,
alone with the ladies, went up to the fire-place whither
the great ladies had repaired, the great ladies marched
away and took possession of a table of drawings. When
Becky followed them to the table of drawings, they
dropped off one by one to the fire again. She tried to
speak to one of the children (of whom she was
commonly fond in public places), but Master George Gaunt
was called away by his mamma; and the stranger was
treated with such cruelty finally, that even Lady Steyne
herself pitied her and went up to speak to the friendless
little woman.
"Lord Steyne," said her Ladyship, as her wan cheeks
glowed with a blush, "says you sing and play very
beautifully, Mrs. Crawley--I wish you would do me the
kindness to sing to me."
"I will do anything that may give pleasure to my Lord
Steyne or to you," said Rebecca, sincerely grateful, and
seating herself at the piano, began to sing.
She sang religious songs of Mozart, which had been
early favourites of Lady Steyne, and with such sweetness
and tenderness that the lady, lingering round the piano,
sat down by its side and listened until the tears rolled
down her eyes. It is true that the opposition ladies at
the other end of the room kept up a loud and ceaseless
buzzing and talking, but the Lady Steyne did not hear
those rumours. She was a child again--and had
wandered back through a forty years' wilderness to her
convent garden. The chapel organ had pealed the same tones,
the organist, the sister whom she loved best of the
community, had taught them to her in those early happy
days. She was a girl once more, and the brief period of
her happiness bloomed out again for an hour--she
started when the jarring doors were flung open, and with
a loud laugh from Lord Steyne, the men of the party
entered full of gaiety.
He saw at a glance what had happened in his absence,
and was grateful to his wife for once. He went
and spoke to her, and called her by her Christian name,
so as again to bring blushes to her pale face--"My wife
says you have been singing like an angel," he said to
Becky. Now there are angels of two kinds, and both sorts,
it is said, are charming in their way.
Whatever the previous portion of the evening had
been, the rest of that night was a great triumph for
Becky. She sang her very best, and it was so good that
every one of the men came and crowded round the
piano. The women, her enemies, were left quite alone.
And Mr. Paul Jefferson Jones thought he had made a
conquest of Lady Gaunt by going up to her Ladyship
and praising her delightful friend's first-rate singing.
CHAPTER L
Contains a Vulgar Incident
The Muse, whoever she be, who presides over this
Comic History must now descend from the genteel heights
in which she has been soaring and have the goodness
to drop down upon the lowly roof of John Sedley at
Brompton, and describe what events are taking place
there. Here, too, in this humble tenement, live care, and
distrust, and dismay. Mrs. Clapp in the kitchen is
grumbling in secret to her husband about the rent, and
urging the good fellow to rebel against his old friend
and patron and his present lodger. Mrs. Sedley has
ceased to visit her landlady in the lower regions now,
and indeed is in a position to patronize Mrs. Clapp
no longer. How can one be condescending to a lady to
whom one owes a matter of forty pounds, and who is
perpetually throwing out hints for the money? The Irish
maidservant has not altered in the least in her kind and
respectful behaviour; but Mrs. Sedley fancies that she
is growing insolent and ungrateful, and, as the guilty
thief who fears each bush an officer, sees threatening
innuendoes and hints of capture in all the girl's speeches
and answers. Miss Clapp, grown quite a young woman
now, is declared by the soured old lady to be an unbearable
and impudent little minx. Why Amelia can be so
fond of her, or have her in her room so much, or walk
out with her so constantly, Mrs. Sedley cannot conceive.
The bitterness of poverty has poisoned the life of the
once cheerful and kindly woman. She is thankless for
Amelia's constant and gentle bearing towards her; carps
at her for her efforts at kindness or service; rails at her
for her silly pride in her child and her neglect of her
parents. Georgy's house is not a very lively one since
Uncle Jos's annuity has been withdrawn and the little
family are almost upon famine diet.
Amelia thinks, and thinks, and racks her brain, to find
some means of increasing the small pittance upon which
the household is starving. Can she give lessons in
anything? paint card-racks? do fine work? She finds that
women are working hard, and better than she can, for
twopence a day. She buys a couple of begilt Bristol
boards at the Fancy Stationer's and paints her very best
upon them--a shepherd with a red waistcoat on one, and
a pink face smiling in the midst of a pencil landscape
--a shepherdess on the other, crossing a little bridge,
with a little dog, nicely shaded. The man of the Fancy
Repository and Brompton Emporium of Fine Arts (of
whom she bought the screens, vainly hoping that he
would repurchase them when ornamented by her hand)
can hardly hide the sneer with which he examines these
feeble works of art. He looks askance at the lady who
waits in the shop, and ties up the cards again in their
envelope of whitey-brown paper, and hands them to the
poor widow and Miss Clapp, who had never seen such
beautiful things in her life, and had been quite
confident that the man must give at least two guineas for
the screens. They try at other shops in the interior of
London, with faint sickening hopes. "Don't want 'em,"
says one. "Be off," says another fiercely. Three-and-sixpence
has been spent in vain--the screens retire to Miss
Clapp's bedroom, who persists in thinking them lovely.
She writes out a little card in her neatest hand, and
after long thought and labour of composition, in which the
public is informed that "A Lady who has some time at
her disposal, wishes to undertake the education of some
little girls, whom she would instruct in English, in French,
in Geography, in History, and in Music--address A. O.,
at Mr. Brown's"; and she confides the card to the gentleman
of the Fine Art Repository, who consents to allow
it to lie upon the counter, where it grows dingy and
fly-blown. Amelia passes the door wistfully many a time,
in hopes that Mr. Brown will have some news to give
her, but he never beckons her in. When she goes to
make little purchases, there is no news for her. Poor
simple lady, tender and weak--how are you to battle
with the struggling violent world?
She grows daily more care-worn and sad, fixing upon
her child alarmed eyes, whereof the little boy cannot
interpret the expression. She starts up of a night and
peeps into his room stealthily, to see that he is sleeping
and not stolen away. She sleeps but little now. A
constant thought and terror is haunting her. How she
weeps and prays in the long silent nights--how she tries
to hide from herself the thought which will return to her,
that she ought to part with the boy, that she is the only
barrier between him and prosperity. She can't, she can't.
Not now, at least. Some other day. Oh! it is too hard to
think of and to bear.
A thought comes over her which makes her blush and
turn from herself--her parents might keep the annuity
--the curate would marry her and give a home to her
and the boy. But George's picture and dearest memory
are there to rebuke her. Shame and love say no to the
sacrifice. She shrinks from it as from something unholy,
and such thoughts never found a resting-place in that
pure and gentle bosom.
The combat, which we describe in a sentence or two,
lasted for many weeks in poor Amelia's heart, during
which she had no confidante; indeed, she could never
have one, as she would not allow to herself the
possibility of yielding, though she was giving way daily
before the enemy with whom she had to battle. One truth
after another was marshalling itself silently against her
and keeping its ground. Poverty and misery for all, want
and degradation for her parents, injustice to the boy--
one by one the outworks of the little citadel were taken,
in which the poor soul passionately guarded her only
love and treasure.
At the beginning of the struggle, she had written off a
letter of tender supplication to her brother at Calcutta,
imploring him not to withdraw the support which he had
granted to their parents and painting in terms of artless
pathos their lonely and hapless condition. She did not
know the truth of the matter. The payment of Jos's
annuity was still regular, but it was a money-lender in the
City who was receiving it: old Sedley had sold it for a
sum of money wherewith to prosecute his bootless
schemes. Emmy was calculating eagerly the time that
would elapse before the letter would arrive and be
answered. She had written down the date in her pocket-
book of the day when she dispatched it. To her son's
guardian, the good Major at Madras, she had not
communicated any of her griefs and perplexities. She had
not written to him since she wrote to congratulate him on
his approaching marriage. She thought with sickening
despondency, that that friend--the only one, the one
who had felt such a regard for her--was fallen away.
One day, when things had come to a very bad pass
--when the creditors were pressing, the mother in
hysteric grief, the father in more than usual gloom, the
inmates of the family avoiding each other, each secretly
oppressed with his private unhappiness and notion of
wrong--the father and daughter happened to be left
alone together, and Amelia thought to comfort her father
by telling him what she had done. She had written to
Joseph--an answer must come in three or four months.
He was always generous, though careless. He could not
refuse, when he knew how straitened were the
circumstances of his parents.
Then the poor old gentleman revealed the whole truth
to her--that his son was still paying the annuity, which
his own imprudence had flung away. He had not dared
to tell it sooner. He thought Amelia's ghastly and terrified
look, when, with a trembling, miserable voice he made
the confession, conveyed reproaches to him for his
concealment. "Ah!" said he with quivering lips and turning
away, "you despise your old father now!"
"Oh, papal it is not that," Amelia cried out, falling
on his neck and kissing him many times. "You are
always good and kind. You did it for the best. It is not
for the money--it is--my God! my God! have mercy
upon me, and give me strength to bear this trial"; and
she kissed him again wildly and went away.
Still the father did not know what that explanation
meant, and the burst of anguish with which the poor
girl left him. It was that she was conquered. The sentence
was passed. The child must go from her--to others--to
forget her. Her heart and her treasure--her joy, hope,
love, worship--her God, almost! She must give him up,
and then--and then she would go to George, and they
would watch over the child and wait for him until he
came to them in Heaven.
She put on her bonnet, scarcely knowing what she did,
and went out to walk in the lanes by which George used
to come back from school, and where she was in the
habit of going on his return to meet the boy. It was
May, a half-holiday. The leaves were all coming out,
the weather was brilliant; the boy came running to her
flushed with health, singing, his bundle of school-books
hanging by a thong. There he was. Both her arms were
round him. No, it was impossible. They could not be
going to part. "What is the matter, Mother?" said he;
"you look very pale."
"Nothing, my child," she said and stooped down and
kissed him.
That night Amelia made the boy read the story of
Samuel to her, and how Hannah, his mother, having
weaned him, brought him to Eli the High Priest to
minister before the Lord. And he read the song of gratitude
which Hannah sang, and which says, who it is who
maketh poor and maketh rich, and bringeth low and
exalteth--how the poor shall be raised up out of the
dust, and how, in his own might, no man shall be strong.
Then he read how Samuel's mother made him a little
coat and brought it to him from year to year when she
came up to offer the yearly sacrifice. And then, in her
sweet simple way, George's mother made commentaries
could bear any sunshine as yet, and her dress, though if
you were to see it now, any present lady of Vanity Fair
would pronounce it to be the most foolish and preposterous
attire ever worn, was as handsome in her eyes
and those of the public, some five-and-twenty years since,
as the most brilliant costume of the most famous beauty
of the present season. A score of years hence that too,
that milliner's wonder, will have passed into the domain
of the absurd, along with all previous vanities. But we
are wandering too much. Mrs. Rawdon's dress was
pronounced to be charmante on the eventful day of her
presentation. Even good little Lady Jane was forced to
acknowledge this effect, as she looked at her kinswoman,
and owned sorrowfully to herself that she was quite
inferior in taste to Mrs. Becky.
She did not know how much care, thought, and genius
Mrs. Rawdon had bestowed upon that garment. Rebecca
had as good taste as any milliner in Europe, and such a
clever way of doing things as Lady Jane little understood.
The latter quickly spied out the magnificence of the
brocade of Becky's train, and the splendour of the lace on
her dress.
The brocade was an old remnant, Becky said; and as
for the lace, it was a great bargain. She had had it these
hundred years.
"My dear Mrs. Crawley, it must have cost a little
fortune," Lady Jane said, looking down at her own lace,
which was not nearly so good; and then examining the
quality of the ancient brocade which formed the
material of Mrs. Rawdon's Court dress, she felt inclined to
say that she could not afford such fine clothing, but
checked that speech, with an effort, as one uncharitable
to her kinswoman.
And yet, if Lady Jane had known all, I think even her
kindly temper would have failed her. The fact is, when
she was putting Sir Pitt's house in order, Mrs. Rawdon
had found the lace and the brocade in old wardrobes,
the property of the former ladies of the house, and had
quietly carried the goods home, and had suited them to
her own little person. Briggs saw her take them, asked
no questions, told no stories; but I believe quite
sympathised with her on this matter, and so would
many another honest woman.
And the diamonds--"Where the doose did you get the
diamonds, Becky?" said her husband, admiring some
jewels which he had never seen before and which sparkled
in her ears and on her neck with brilliance and profusion.
Becky blushed a little and looked at him hard for a
moment. Pitt Crawley blushed a little too, and looked
out of window. The fact is, he had given her a very
small portion of the brilliants; a pretty diamond clasp,
which confined a pearl necklace which she wore- and the
Baronet had omitted to mention the circumstance to
his lady.
Becky looked at her husband, and then at Sir Pitt,
with an air of saucy triumph--as much as to say, "Shall
I betray you?"
"Guess!" she said to her husband. "Why, you silly
man," she continued, "where do you suppose I got them?
--all except the little clasp, which a dear friend of mine
gave me long ago. I hired them, to be sure. I hired them
at Mr. Polonius's, in Coventry Street. You don't suppose
that all the diamonds which go to Court belong to the
wearers; like those beautiful stones which Lady Jane has,
and which are much handsomer than any which I have,
I am certain."
"They are family jewels," said Sir Pitt, again looking
uneasy. And in this family conversation the carriage
rolled down the street, until its cargo was finally
discharged at the gates of the palace where the Sovereign
was sitting in state.
The diamonds, which had created Rawdon's admiration,
never went back to Mr. Polonius, of Coventry Street, and
that gentleman never applied for their restoration, but
they retired into a little private repository, in an old desk,
which Amelia Sedley had given her years and years ago,
and in which Becky kept a number of useful and,
perhaps, valuable things, about which her husband
knew nothing. To know nothing, or little, is in the
nature of some husbands. To hide, in the nature of how
many women? Oh, ladies! how many of you have
surreptitious milliners' bills? How many of you have gowns
and bracelets which you daren't show, or which you wear
trembling?--trembling, and coaxing with smiles the
husband by your side, who does not know the new velvet
gown from the old one, or the new bracelet from last
year's, or has any notion that the ragged-looking yellow
lace scarf cost forty guineas and that Madame Bobinot is
writing dunning letters every week for the money!
Thus Rawdon knew nothing about the brilliant diamond
ear-rings, or the superb brilliant ornament which
decorated the fair bosom of his lady; but Lord Steyne,
who was in his place at Court, as Lord of the Powder
Closet, and one of the great dignitaries and illustrious
defences of the throne of England, and came up with all
his stars, garters, collars, and cordons, and paid particular
attention to the little woman, knew whence the jewels
came and who paid for them.
As he bowed over her he smiled, and quoted the
hackneyed and beautiful lines from The Rape of the Lock
about Belinda's diamonds, "which Jews might kiss and
infidels adore."
"But I hope your lordship is orthodox," said the little
lady with a toss of her head. And many ladies round
about whispered and talked, and many gentlemen nodded
and whispered, as they saw what marked attention the
great nobleman was paying to the little adventuress.
What were the circumstances of the interview between
Rebecca Crawley, nee Sharp, and her Imperial Master,
it does not become such a feeble and inexperienced pen
as mine to attempt to relate. The dazzled eyes close
before that Magnificent Idea. Loyal respect and decency tell
even the imagination not to look too keenly and audaciously
about the sacred audience-chamber, but to back away
rapidly, silently, and respectfully, making profound
bows out of the August Presence.
This may be said, that in all London there was no
more loyal heart than Becky's after this interview. The
name of her king was always on her lips, and he was
proclaimed by her to be the most charming of men. She
went to Colnaghi's and ordered the finest portrait of him
that art had produced, and credit could supply. She chose
that famous one in which the best of monarchs is
represented in a frock-coat with a fur collar, and breeches
and silk stockings, simpering on a sofa from under his
curly brown wig. She had him painted in a brooch and
wore it--indeed she amused and somewhat pestered her
acquaintance with her perpetual talk about his urbanity
and beauty. Who knows! Perhaps the little woman
thought she might play the part of a Maintenon or a
Pompadour.
But the finest sport of all after her presentation was to
hear her talk virtuously. She had a few female acquaintances,
not, it must be owned, of the very highest reputation
in Vanity Fair. But being made an honest woman of,
so to speak, Becky would not consort any longer with
these dubious ones, and cut Lady Crackenbury when the
latter nodded to her from her opera-box, and gave Mrs.
Washington White the go-by in the Ring. "One must, my
dear, show one is somebody," she said. "One mustn't be
seen with doubtful people. I pity Lady Crackenbury from
my heart, and Mrs. Washington White may be a very
good-natured person. YOU may go and dine with them,
as you like your rubber. But I mustn't, and won't; and
you will have the goodness to tell Smith to say I am not
at home when either of them calls."
The particulars of Becky's costume were in the newspapers
--feathers, lappets, superb diamonds, and all the
rest. Lady Crackenbury read the paragraph in bitterness
of spirit and discoursed to her followers about the airs
which that woman was giving herself. Mrs. Bute Crawley
and her young ladies in the country had a copy of the
Morning Post from town, and gave a vent to their honest
indignation. "If you had been sandy-haired, green-eyed,
and a French rope-dancer's daughter," Mrs. Bute said
to her eldest girl (who, on the contrary, was a very
swarthy, short, and snub-nosed young lady), "You might
have had superb diamonds forsooth, and have been
presented at Court by your cousin, the Lady Jane. But you're
only a gentlewoman, my poor dear child. You have only
some of the best blood in England in your veins, and
good principles and piety for your portion. I, myself,
the wife of a Baronet's younger brother, too, never
thought of such a thing as going to Court--nor would
other people, if good Queen Charlotte had been alive."
In this way the worthy Rectoress consoled herself, and
her daughters sighed and sat over the Peerage all night.
A few days after the famous presentation, another
great and exceeding honour was vouchsafed to the
virtuous Becky. Lady Steyne's carriage drove up to Mr.
Rawdon Crawley's door, and the footman, instead of driving
down the front of the house, as by his tremendous
knocking he appeared to be inclined to do, relented and only
delivered in a couple of cards, on which were engraven
the names of the Marchioness of Steyne and the
Countess of Gaunt. If these bits of pasteboard had been
beautiful pictures, or had had a hundred yards of Malines lace
rolled round them, worth twice the number of guineas,
Becky could not have regarded them with more pleasure.
You may be sure they occupied a conspicuous place in
the china bowl on the drawing-room table, where Becky
kept the cards of her visitors. Lord! lord! how poor
Mrs. Washington White's card and Lady Crackenbury's
card--which our little friend had been glad enough to
get a few months back, and of which the silly little
creature was rather proud once--Lord! lord! I say, how soon
at the appearance of these grand court cards, did those
poor little neglected deuces sink down to the bottom of
the pack. Steyne! Bareacres, Johnes of Helvellyn! and
Caerylon of Camelot! we may be sure that Becky and
Briggs looked out those august names in the Peerage,
and followed the noble races up through all the
ramifications of the family tree.
My Lord Steyne coming to call a couple of hours
afterwards, and looking about him, and observing
everything as was his wont, found his ladies' cards already
ranged as the trumps of Becky's hand, and grinned, as
this old cynic always did at any naive display of human
weakness. Becky came down to him presently; whenever
the dear girl expected his lordship, her toilette was
prepared, her hair in perfect order, her mouchoirs, aprons,
scarfs, little morocco slippers, and other female
gimcracks arranged, and she seated in some artless and
agreeable posture ready to receive him--whenever she
was surprised, of course, she had to fly to her apartment
to take a rapid survey of matters in the glass, and
to trip down again to wait upon the great peer.
She found him grinning over the bowl. She was
discovered, and she blushed a little. "Thank you,
Monseigneur," she said. "You see your ladies have
been here. How good of you! I couldn't come before
--I was in the kitchen making a pudding."
"I know you were, I saw you through the area-railings
as I drove up," replied the old gentleman.
"You see everything," she replied.
"A few things, but not that, my pretty lady," he said
good-naturedly. "You silly little fibster! I heard you in
the room overhead, where I have no doubt you were
putting a little rouge on--you must give some of yours to
my Lady Gaunt, whose complexion is quite preposterous
--and I heard the bedroom door open, and then you
came downstairs."
"Is it a crime to try and look my best when YOU come
here?" answered Mrs. Rawdon plaintively, and she rubbed
her cheek with her handkerchief as if to show there was
no rouge at all, only genuine blushes and modesty in her
case. About this who can tell? I know there is some
rouge that won't come off on a pocket-handkerchief,
and some so good that even tears will not disturb it.
"Well," said the old gentleman, twiddling round his
wife's card, "you are bent on becoming a fine lady.
You pester my poor old life out to get you into the
world. You won't be able to hold your own there, you
silly little fool. You've got no money."
"You will get us a place," interposed Becky, "as quick
as possible."
"You've got no money, and you want to compete with
those who have. You poor little earthenware pipkin, you
want to swim down the stream along with the great cop-
per kettles. All women are alike. Everybody is striving
for what is not worth the having! Gad! I dined with the
King yesterday, and we had neck of mutton and turnips.
A dinner of herbs is better than a stalled ox very often.
You will go to Gaunt House. You give an old fellow no
rest until you get there. It's not half so nice as here.
You'll be bored there. I am. My wife is as gay as Lady
Macbeth, and my daughters as cheerful as Regan and
Goneril. I daren't sleep in what they call my bedroom.
The bed is like the baldaquin of St. Peter's, and the
pictures frighten me. I have a little brass bed in a
dressing-room, and a little hair mattress like an anchorite.
I am an anchorite. Ho! ho! You'll be asked to dinner next
week. And gare aux femmes, look out and hold your
own! How the women will bully you!" This was a very
long speech for a man of few words like my Lord Steyne;
nor was it the first which he uttered for Becky's benefit
on that day.
Briggs looked up from the work-table at which she
was seated in the farther room and gave a deep sigh
as she heard the great Marquis speak so lightly of her sex.
"If you don't turn off that abominable sheep-dog," said
Lord Steyne, with a savage look over his shoulder at
her, "I will have her poisoned."
"I always give my dog dinner from my own plate,"
said Rebecca, laughing mischievously; and having
enjoyed for some time the discomfiture of my lord, who
hated poor Briggs for interrupting his tete-a-tete
with the fair Colonel's wife, Mrs. Rawdon at length had
pity upon her admirer, and calling to Briggs, praised the
fineness of the weather to her and bade her to take out
the child for a walk.
"I can't send her away," Becky said presently, after
a pause, and in a very sad voice. Her eyes filled with
tears as she spoke, and she turned away her head.
"You owe her her wages, I suppose?" said the Peer.
"Worse than that," said Becky, still casting down her
eyes; "I have ruined her."
"Ruined her? Then why don't you turn her out?" the
gentleman asked.
"Men do that," Becky answered bitterly. "Women are
not so bad as you. Last year, when we were reduced
to our last guinea, she gave us everything. She shall
never leave me, until we are ruined utterly ourselves,
which does not seem far off, or until I can pay her the
utmost farthing."
--it, how much is it?" said the Peer with an oath.
And Becky, reflecting on the largeness of his means,
mentioned not only the sum which she had borrowed from
Miss Briggs, but one of nearly double the amount.
This caused the Lord Steyne to break out in another
brief and energetic expression of anger, at which Rebecca
held down her head the more and cried bitterly. "I could
not help it. It was my only chance. I dare not tell my
husband. He would kill me if I told him what I have
done. I have kept it a secret from everybody but you
--and you forced it from me. Ah, what shall I do, Lord
Steyne? for I am very, very unhappy!"
Lord Steyne made no reply except by beating the
devil's tattoo and biting his nails. At last he clapped
his hat on his head and flung out of the room. Rebecca
did not rise from her attitude of misery until the door
slammed upon him and his carriage whirled away. Then
she rose up with the queerest expression of victorious
mischief glittering in her green eyes. She burst out laughing
once or twice to herself, as she sat at work, and
sitting down to the piano, she rattled away a triumphant
voluntary on the keys, which made the people pause
under her window to listen to her brilliant music.
That night, there came two notes from Gaunt House
for the little woman, the one containing a card of
invitation from Lord and Lady Steyne to a dinner at Gaunt
House next Friday, while the other enclosed a slip of
gray paper bearing Lord Steyne's signature and the
address of Messrs. Jones, Brown, and Robinson, Lombard
Street.
Rawdon heard Becky laughing in the night once or
twice. It was only her delight at going to Gaunt House
and facing the ladies there, she said, which amused her
so. But the truth was that she was occupied with a great
number of other thoughts. Should she pay off old Briggs
and give her her conge? Should she astonish Raggles
by settling his account? She turned over all these thoughts
on her pillow, and on the next day, when Rawdon went
out to pay his morning visit to the Club, Mrs. Crawley
(in a modest dress with a veil on) whipped off in a
hackney-coach to the City: and being landed at Messrs.
Jones and Robinson's bank, presented a document there
to the authority at the desk, who, in reply, asked her
"How she would take it?"
She gently said "she would take a hundred and fifty
pounds in small notes and the remainder in one note":
and passing through St. Paul's Churchyard stopped there
and bought the handsomest black silk gown for Briggs
which money could buy; and which, with a kiss and the
kindest speeches, she presented to the simple old
spinster.
Then she walked to Mr. Raggles, inquired about his
children affectionately, and gave him fifty pounds on
account. Then she went to the livery-man from whom
she jobbed her carriages and gratified him with a similar
sum. "And I hope this will be a lesson to you, Spavin,"
she said, "and that on the next drawing-room day my
brother, Sir Pitt, will not be inconvenienced by being
obliged to take four of us in his carriage to wait upon
His Majesty, because my own carriage is not forthcoming."
It appears there had been a difference on the last
drawing-room day. Hence the degradation which the
Colonel had almost suffered, of being obliged to enter
the presence of his Sovereign in a hack cab.
These arrangements concluded, Becky paid a visit
upstairs to the before-mentioned desk, which Amelia
Sedley had given her years and years ago, and which
contained a number of useful and valuable little things--in
which private museum she placed the one note which
Messrs. Jones and Robinson's cashier had given her.
CHAPTER XLIX
In Which We Enjoy Three Courses and a Dessert
When the ladies of Gaunt House were at breakfast that
morning, Lord Steyne (who took his chocolate in private
and seldom disturbed the females of his household,
or saw them except upon public days, or when they
crossed each other in the hall, or when from his
pit-box at the opera he surveyed them in their box on the
grand tier) his lordship, we say, appeared among the
ladies and the children who were assembled over the
tea and toast, and a battle royal ensued apropos of
Rebecca.
"My Lady Steyne," he said, "I want to see the list
for your dinner on Friday; and I want you, if you please,
to write a card for Colonel and Mrs. Crawley."
"Blanche writes them," Lady Steyne said in a flutter.
"Lady Gaunt writes them."
"I will not write to that person," Lady Gaunt said,
a tall and stately lady, who looked up for an instant
and then down again after she had spoken. It was not
good to meet Lord Steyne's eyes for those who had
offended him.
"Send the children out of the room. Go!" said he
pulling at the bell-rope. The urchins, always frightened
before him, retired: their mother would have followed
too. "Not you," he said. "You stop."
"My Lady Steyne," he said, "once more will you have
the goodness to go to the desk and write that card for
your dinner on Friday?"
"My Lord, I will not be present at it," Lady Gaunt
said; "I will go home."
"I wish you would, and stay there. You will find
the bailiffs at Bareacres very pleasant company, and I
shall be freed from lending money to your relations and
from your own damned tragedy airs. Who are you to
give orders here? You have no money. You've got no
brains. You were here to have children, and you have
not had any. Gaunt's tired of you, and George's wife
is the only person in the family who doesn't wish you
were dead. Gaunt would marry again if you were."
"I wish I were," her Ladyship answered with tears
and rage in her eyes.
"You, forsooth, must give yourself airs of virtue, while
my wife, who is an immaculate saint, as everybody knows,
and never did wrong in her life, has no objection to meet
my young friend Mrs. Crawley. My Lady Steyne knows
that appearances are sometimes against the best of
women; that lies are often told about the most innocent
of them. Pray, madam, shall I tell you some little
anecdotes about my Lady Bareacres, your mamma?"
"You may strike me if you like, sir, or hit any cruel
blow," Lady Gaunt said. To see his wife and daughter
suffering always put his Lordship into a good humour.
"My sweet Blanche," he said, "I am a gentleman, and
never lay my hand upon a woman, save in the way of
kindness. I only wish to correct little faults in your
character. You women are too proud, and sadly lack
humility, as Father Mole, I'm sure, would tell my Lady
Steyne if he were here. You mustn't give yourselves airs;
you must be meek and humble, my blessings. For all
Lady Steyne knows, this calumniated, simple, good-
humoured Mrs. Crawley is quite innocent--even more
innocent than herself. Her husband's character is not
good, but it is as good as Bareacres', who has played
a little and not paid a great deal, who cheated you out
of the only legacy you ever had and left you a pauper
on my hands. And Mrs. Crawley is not very well-born,
but she is not worse than Fanny's illustrious ancestor,
the first de la Jones."
"The money which I brought into the family, sir," Lady
George cried out--
"You purchased a contingent reversion with it," the
Marquis said darkly. "If Gaunt dies, your husband may
come to his honours; your little boys may inherit them,
and who knows what besides? In the meanwhile, ladies,
be as proud and virtuous as you like abroad, but don't
give ME any airs. As for Mrs. Crawley's character, I
shan't demean myself or that most spotless and perfectly
irreproachable lady by even hinting that it requires a
defence. You will be pleased to receive her with the
utmost cordiality, as you will receive all persons whom
I present in this house. This house?" He broke out with
a laugh. "Who is the master of it? and what is it?
This Temple of Virtue belongs to me. And if I invite all
Newgate or all Bedlam here, by -- they shall be
welcome."
After this vigorous allocution, to one of which sort
Lord Steyne treated his "Hareem" whenever symptoms
of insubordination appeared in his household, the
crestfallen women had nothing for it but to obey. Lady Gaunt
wrote the invitation which his Lordship required, and
she and her mother-in-law drove in person, and with
bitter and humiliated hearts, to leave the cards on Mrs.
Rawdon, the reception of which caused that innocent
woman so much pleasure.
There were families in London who would have
sacrificed a year's income to receive such an honour at the
hands of those great ladies. Mrs. Frederick Bullock, for
instance, would have gone on her knees from May Fair
to Lombard Street, if Lady Steyne and Lady Gaunt had
been waiting in the City to raise her up and say, "Come
to us next Friday"--not to one of the great crushes and
grand balls of Gaunt House, whither everybody went, but
to the sacred, unapproachable, mysterious, delicious
entertainments, to be admitted to one of which was a
privilege, and an honour, and a blessing indeed.
Severe, spotless, and beautiful, Lady Gaunt held the
very highest rank in Vanity Fair. The distinguished
courtesy with which Lord Steyne treated her charmed
everybody who witnessed his behaviour, caused the severest
critics to admit how perfect a gentleman he was, and to
own that his Lordship's heart at least was in the right
place.
The ladies of Gaunt House called Lady Bareacres in to
their aid, in order to repulse the common enemy. One
of Lady Gaunt's carriages went to Hill Street for her
Ladyship's mother, all whose equipages were in the hands
of the bailiffs, whose very jewels and wardrobe, it was
said, had been seized by those inexorable Israelites.
Bareacres Castle was theirs, too, with all its costly
pictures, furniture, and articles of vertu--the magnificent
Vandykes; the noble Reynolds pictures; the Lawrence
portraits, tawdry and beautiful, and, thirty years ago,
deemed as precious as works of real genius; the matchless
Dancing Nymph of Canova, for which Lady Bareacres
had sat in her youth--Lady Bareacres splendid then,
and radiant in wealth, rank, and beauty--a toothless,
bald, old woman now--a mere rag of a former robe of
state. Her lord, painted at the same time by Lawrence,
as waving his sabre in front of Bareacres Castle, and
clothed in his uniform as Colonel of the Thistlewood
Yeomanry, was a withered, old, lean man in a
greatcoat and a Brutus wig, slinking about Gray's Inn of
mornings chiefly and dining alone at clubs. He did not
like to dine with Steyne now. They had run races of
pleasure together in youth when Bareacres was the
winner. But Steyne had more bottom than he and had lasted
him out. The Marquis was ten times a greater man now
than the young Lord Gaunt of '85, and Bareacres
nowhere in the race--old, beaten, bankrupt, and broken
down. He had borrowed too much money of Steyne to
find it pleasant to meet his old comrade often. The latter,
whenever he wished to be merry, used jeeringly to ask
Lady Gaunt why her father had not come to see her.
"He has not been here for four months," Lord Steyne
would say. "I can always tell by my cheque-book
afterwards, when I get a visit from Bareacres. What a
comfort it is, my ladies, I bank with one of my sons'
fathers-in-law, and the other banks with me!"
Of the other illustrious persons whom Becky had the
honour to encounter on this her first presentation to the
grand world, it does not become the present historian
to say much. There was his Excellency the Prince of
Peterwaradin, with his Princess--a nobleman tightly
girthed, with a large military chest, on which the plaque
of his order shone magnificently, and wearing the red
collar of the Golden Fleece round his neck. He was the
owner of countless flocks. "Look at his face. I think he
must be descended from a sheep," Becky whispered to
Lord Steyne. Indeed, his Excellency's countenance, long,
solemn, and white, with the ornament round his neck,.
bore some resemblance to that of a venerable bell-wether.
There was Mr. John Paul Jefferson Jones, titularly
attached to the American Embassy and correspondent
of the New York Demagogue, who, by way of making
himself agreeable to the company, asked Lady Steyne,
during a pause in the conversation at dinner, how his
dear friend, George Gaunt, liked the Brazils? He and
George had been most intimate at Naples and had gone
up Vesuvius together. Mr. Jones wrote a full and
particular account of the dinner, which appeared duly in
the Demagogue. He mentioned the names and titles of
all the guests, giving biographical sketches of the principal
people. He described the persons of the ladies with
great eloquence; the service of the table; the size and
costume of the servants; enumerated the dishes and wines
served; the ornaments of the sideboard; and the probable
value of the plate. Such a dinner he calculated could not
be dished up under fifteen or eighteen dollars per head.
And he was in the habit, until very lately, of sending
over proteges, with letters of recommendation to the
present Marquis of Steyne, encouraged to do so by the
intimate terms on which he had lived with his dear
friend, the late lord. He was most indignant that a
young and insignificant aristocrat, the Earl of Southdown,
should have taken the pas of him in their procession to
the dining-room. "Just as I was stepping up to offer my
hand to a very pleasing and witty fashionable, the
brilliant and exclusive Mrs. Rawdon Crawley,"--he wrote
--"the young patrician interposed between me and the
lady and whisked my Helen off without a word of apology.
I was fain to bring up the rear with the Colonel, the
lady's husband, a stout red-faced warrior who
distinguished himself at Waterloo, where he had better luck
than befell some of his brother redcoats at New Orleans."
The Colonel's countenance on coming into this polite
society wore as many blushes as the face of a boy of
sixteen assumes when he is confronted with his sister's
schoolfellows. It has been told before that honest Rawdon
had not been much used at any period of his life to
ladies' company. With the men at the Club or the mess
room, he was well enough; and could ride, bet, smoke,
or play at billiards with the boldest of them. He had had
his time for female friendships too, but that was twenty
years ago, and the ladies were of the rank of those with
whom Young Marlow in the comedy is represented as
having been familiar before he became abashed in the
presence of Miss Hardcastle. The times are such that
one scarcely dares to allude to that kind of company
which thousands of our young men in Vanity Fair are
frequenting every day, which nightly fills casinos and
dancing-rooms, which is known to exist as well as the
Ring in Hyde Park or the Congregation at St. James's
--but which the most squeamish if not the most moral
of societies is determined to ignore. In a word, although
Colonel Crawley was now five-and-forty years of age,
it had not been his lot in life to meet with a half dozen
good women, besides his paragon of a wife. All except
her and his kind sister Lady Jane, whose gentle nature
had tamed and won him, scared the worthy Colonel,
and on occasion of his first dinner at Gaunt House he
was not heard to make a single remark except to state
that the weather was very hot. Indeed Becky would have
left him at home, but that virtue ordained that her
husband should be by her side to protect the timid and
fluttering little creature on her first appearance in polite
society.
On her first appearance Lord Steyne stepped forward,
taking her hand, and greeting her with great courtesy,
and presenting her to Lady Steyne, and their ladyships,
her daughters. Their ladyships made three stately curtsies,
and the elder lady to be sure gave her hand to the
newcomer, but it was as cold and lifeless as marble.
Becky took it, however, with grateful humility, and
performing a reverence which would have done credit
to the best dancer-master, put herself at Lady Steyne's
feet, as it were, by saying that his Lordship had been
her father's earliest friend and patron, and that she,
Becky, had learned to honour and respect the Steyne
family from the days of her childhood. The fact is that Lord
Steyne had once purchased a couple of pictures of the
late Sharp, and the affectionate orphan could never
forget her gratitude for that favour.
The Lady Bareacres then came under Becky's cognizance
--to whom the Colonel's lady made also a most respectful
obeisance: it was returned with severe dignity by the
exalted person in question.
"I had the pleasure of making your Ladyship's
acquaintance at Brussels, ten years ago," Becky said in
the most winning manner. "I had the good fortune to
meet Lady Bareacres at the Duchess of Richmond's ball,
the night before the Battle of Waterloo. And I recollect
your Ladyship, and my Lady Blanche, your daughter,
sitting in the carriage in the porte-cochere at the Inn,
waiting for horses. I hope your Ladyship's diamonds are
safe."
Everybody's eyes looked into their neighbour's. The
famous diamonds had undergone a famous seizure, it
appears, about which Becky, of course, knew nothing.
Rawdon Crawley retreated with Lord Southdown into a
window, where the latter was heard to laugh immoderately,
as Rawdon told him the story of Lady Bareacres
wanting horses and "knuckling down by Jove," to Mrs.
Crawley. "I think I needn't be afraid of THAT woman,"
Becky thought. Indeed, Lady Bareacres exchanged
terrified and angry looks with her daughter and retreated
to a table, where she began to look at pictures with
great energy.
When the Potentate from the Danube made his appearance,
the conversation was carried on in the French language,
and the Lady Bareacres and the younger ladies
found, to their farther mortification, that Mrs. Crawley
was much better acquainted with that tongue, and spoke
it with a much better accent than they. Becky had met
other Hungarian magnates with the army in France in
1816-17. She asked after her friends with great interest
The foreign personages thought that she was a lady of
great distinction, and the Prince and the Princess asked
severally of Lord Steyne and the Marchioness, whom
they conducted to dinner, who was that petite dame who
spoke so well?
Finally, the procession being formed in the order
described by the American diplomatist, they marched into
the apartment where the banquet was served, and which,
as I have promised the reader he shall enjoy it, he shall
have the liberty of ordering himself so as to suit his
fancy.
But it was when the ladies were alone that Becky
knew the tug of war would come. And then indeed the
little woman found herself in such a situation as made
her acknowledge the correctness of Lord Steyne's
caution to her to beware of the society of ladies above her
own sphere. As they say, the persons who hate Irishmen
most are Irishmen; so, assuredly, the greatest tyrants
over women are women. When poor little Becky,
alone with the ladies, went up to the fire-place whither
the great ladies had repaired, the great ladies marched
away and took possession of a table of drawings. When
Becky followed them to the table of drawings, they
dropped off one by one to the fire again. She tried to
speak to one of the children (of whom she was
commonly fond in public places), but Master George Gaunt
was called away by his mamma; and the stranger was
treated with such cruelty finally, that even Lady Steyne
herself pitied her and went up to speak to the friendless
little woman.
"Lord Steyne," said her Ladyship, as her wan cheeks
glowed with a blush, "says you sing and play very
beautifully, Mrs. Crawley--I wish you would do me the
kindness to sing to me."
"I will do anything that may give pleasure to my Lord
Steyne or to you," said Rebecca, sincerely grateful, and
seating herself at the piano, began to sing.
She sang religious songs of Mozart, which had been
early favourites of Lady Steyne, and with such sweetness
and tenderness that the lady, lingering round the piano,
sat down by its side and listened until the tears rolled
down her eyes. It is true that the opposition ladies at
the other end of the room kept up a loud and ceaseless
buzzing and talking, but the Lady Steyne did not hear
those rumours. She was a child again--and had
wandered back through a forty years' wilderness to her
convent garden. The chapel organ had pealed the same tones,
the organist, the sister whom she loved best of the
community, had taught them to her in those early happy
days. She was a girl once more, and the brief period of
her happiness bloomed out again for an hour--she
started when the jarring doors were flung open, and with
a loud laugh from Lord Steyne, the men of the party
entered full of gaiety.
He saw at a glance what had happened in his absence,
and was grateful to his wife for once. He went
and spoke to her, and called her by her Christian name,
so as again to bring blushes to her pale face--"My wife
says you have been singing like an angel," he said to
Becky. Now there are angels of two kinds, and both sorts,
it is said, are charming in their way.
Whatever the previous portion of the evening had
been, the rest of that night was a great triumph for
Becky. She sang her very best, and it was so good that
every one of the men came and crowded round the
piano. The women, her enemies, were left quite alone.
And Mr. Paul Jefferson Jones thought he had made a
conquest of Lady Gaunt by going up to her Ladyship
and praising her delightful friend's first-rate singing.
CHAPTER L
Contains a Vulgar Incident
The Muse, whoever she be, who presides over this
Comic History must now descend from the genteel heights
in which she has been soaring and have the goodness
to drop down upon the lowly roof of John Sedley at
Brompton, and describe what events are taking place
there. Here, too, in this humble tenement, live care, and
distrust, and dismay. Mrs. Clapp in the kitchen is
grumbling in secret to her husband about the rent, and
urging the good fellow to rebel against his old friend
and patron and his present lodger. Mrs. Sedley has
ceased to visit her landlady in the lower regions now,
and indeed is in a position to patronize Mrs. Clapp
no longer. How can one be condescending to a lady to
whom one owes a matter of forty pounds, and who is
perpetually throwing out hints for the money? The Irish
maidservant has not altered in the least in her kind and
respectful behaviour; but Mrs. Sedley fancies that she
is growing insolent and ungrateful, and, as the guilty
thief who fears each bush an officer, sees threatening
innuendoes and hints of capture in all the girl's speeches
and answers. Miss Clapp, grown quite a young woman
now, is declared by the soured old lady to be an unbearable
and impudent little minx. Why Amelia can be so
fond of her, or have her in her room so much, or walk
out with her so constantly, Mrs. Sedley cannot conceive.
The bitterness of poverty has poisoned the life of the
once cheerful and kindly woman. She is thankless for
Amelia's constant and gentle bearing towards her; carps
at her for her efforts at kindness or service; rails at her
for her silly pride in her child and her neglect of her
parents. Georgy's house is not a very lively one since
Uncle Jos's annuity has been withdrawn and the little
family are almost upon famine diet.
Amelia thinks, and thinks, and racks her brain, to find
some means of increasing the small pittance upon which
the household is starving. Can she give lessons in
anything? paint card-racks? do fine work? She finds that
women are working hard, and better than she can, for
twopence a day. She buys a couple of begilt Bristol
boards at the Fancy Stationer's and paints her very best
upon them--a shepherd with a red waistcoat on one, and
a pink face smiling in the midst of a pencil landscape
--a shepherdess on the other, crossing a little bridge,
with a little dog, nicely shaded. The man of the Fancy
Repository and Brompton Emporium of Fine Arts (of
whom she bought the screens, vainly hoping that he
would repurchase them when ornamented by her hand)
can hardly hide the sneer with which he examines these
feeble works of art. He looks askance at the lady who
waits in the shop, and ties up the cards again in their
envelope of whitey-brown paper, and hands them to the
poor widow and Miss Clapp, who had never seen such
beautiful things in her life, and had been quite
confident that the man must give at least two guineas for
the screens. They try at other shops in the interior of
London, with faint sickening hopes. "Don't want 'em,"
says one. "Be off," says another fiercely. Three-and-sixpence
has been spent in vain--the screens retire to Miss
Clapp's bedroom, who persists in thinking them lovely.
She writes out a little card in her neatest hand, and
after long thought and labour of composition, in which the
public is informed that "A Lady who has some time at
her disposal, wishes to undertake the education of some
little girls, whom she would instruct in English, in French,
in Geography, in History, and in Music--address A. O.,
at Mr. Brown's"; and she confides the card to the gentleman
of the Fine Art Repository, who consents to allow
it to lie upon the counter, where it grows dingy and
fly-blown. Amelia passes the door wistfully many a time,
in hopes that Mr. Brown will have some news to give
her, but he never beckons her in. When she goes to
make little purchases, there is no news for her. Poor
simple lady, tender and weak--how are you to battle
with the struggling violent world?
She grows daily more care-worn and sad, fixing upon
her child alarmed eyes, whereof the little boy cannot
interpret the expression. She starts up of a night and
peeps into his room stealthily, to see that he is sleeping
and not stolen away. She sleeps but little now. A
constant thought and terror is haunting her. How she
weeps and prays in the long silent nights--how she tries
to hide from herself the thought which will return to her,
that she ought to part with the boy, that she is the only
barrier between him and prosperity. She can't, she can't.
Not now, at least. Some other day. Oh! it is too hard to
think of and to bear.
A thought comes over her which makes her blush and
turn from herself--her parents might keep the annuity
--the curate would marry her and give a home to her
and the boy. But George's picture and dearest memory
are there to rebuke her. Shame and love say no to the
sacrifice. She shrinks from it as from something unholy,
and such thoughts never found a resting-place in that
pure and gentle bosom.
The combat, which we describe in a sentence or two,
lasted for many weeks in poor Amelia's heart, during
which she had no confidante; indeed, she could never
have one, as she would not allow to herself the
possibility of yielding, though she was giving way daily
before the enemy with whom she had to battle. One truth
after another was marshalling itself silently against her
and keeping its ground. Poverty and misery for all, want
and degradation for her parents, injustice to the boy--
one by one the outworks of the little citadel were taken,
in which the poor soul passionately guarded her only
love and treasure.
At the beginning of the struggle, she had written off a
letter of tender supplication to her brother at Calcutta,
imploring him not to withdraw the support which he had
granted to their parents and painting in terms of artless
pathos their lonely and hapless condition. She did not
know the truth of the matter. The payment of Jos's
annuity was still regular, but it was a money-lender in the
City who was receiving it: old Sedley had sold it for a
sum of money wherewith to prosecute his bootless
schemes. Emmy was calculating eagerly the time that
would elapse before the letter would arrive and be
answered. She had written down the date in her pocket-
book of the day when she dispatched it. To her son's
guardian, the good Major at Madras, she had not
communicated any of her griefs and perplexities. She had
not written to him since she wrote to congratulate him on
his approaching marriage. She thought with sickening
despondency, that that friend--the only one, the one
who had felt such a regard for her--was fallen away.
One day, when things had come to a very bad pass
--when the creditors were pressing, the mother in
hysteric grief, the father in more than usual gloom, the
inmates of the family avoiding each other, each secretly
oppressed with his private unhappiness and notion of
wrong--the father and daughter happened to be left
alone together, and Amelia thought to comfort her father
by telling him what she had done. She had written to
Joseph--an answer must come in three or four months.
He was always generous, though careless. He could not
refuse, when he knew how straitened were the
circumstances of his parents.
Then the poor old gentleman revealed the whole truth
to her--that his son was still paying the annuity, which
his own imprudence had flung away. He had not dared
to tell it sooner. He thought Amelia's ghastly and terrified
look, when, with a trembling, miserable voice he made
the confession, conveyed reproaches to him for his
concealment. "Ah!" said he with quivering lips and turning
away, "you despise your old father now!"
"Oh, papal it is not that," Amelia cried out, falling
on his neck and kissing him many times. "You are
always good and kind. You did it for the best. It is not
for the money--it is--my God! my God! have mercy
upon me, and give me strength to bear this trial"; and
she kissed him again wildly and went away.
Still the father did not know what that explanation
meant, and the burst of anguish with which the poor
girl left him. It was that she was conquered. The sentence
was passed. The child must go from her--to others--to
forget her. Her heart and her treasure--her joy, hope,
love, worship--her God, almost! She must give him up,
and then--and then she would go to George, and they
would watch over the child and wait for him until he
came to them in Heaven.
She put on her bonnet, scarcely knowing what she did,
and went out to walk in the lanes by which George used
to come back from school, and where she was in the
habit of going on his return to meet the boy. It was
May, a half-holiday. The leaves were all coming out,
the weather was brilliant; the boy came running to her
flushed with health, singing, his bundle of school-books
hanging by a thong. There he was. Both her arms were
round him. No, it was impossible. They could not be
going to part. "What is the matter, Mother?" said he;
"you look very pale."
"Nothing, my child," she said and stooped down and
kissed him.
That night Amelia made the boy read the story of
Samuel to her, and how Hannah, his mother, having
weaned him, brought him to Eli the High Priest to
minister before the Lord. And he read the song of gratitude
which Hannah sang, and which says, who it is who
maketh poor and maketh rich, and bringeth low and
exalteth--how the poor shall be raised up out of the
dust, and how, in his own might, no man shall be strong.
Then he read how Samuel's mother made him a little
coat and brought it to him from year to year when she
came up to offer the yearly sacrifice. And then, in her
sweet simple way, George's mother made commentaries