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whirling up to the gate--the young janitor went out
with his gate-keys. It was a lady whom he let in at the
bailiff's door.
"Colonel Crawley," she said, trembling very much. He,
with a knowing look, locked the outer door upon her--
then unlocked and opened the inner one, and calling out,
"Colonel, you're wanted," led her into the back parlour,
which he occupied.
Rawdon came in from the dining-parlour where all
those people were carousing, into his back room; a flare
of coarse light following him into the apartment where
the lady stood, still very nervous.
"It is I, Rawdon," she said in a timid voice, which
she strove to render cheerful. "It is Jane." Rawdon was
quite overcome by that kind voice and presence. He ran
up to her--caught her in his arms--gasped out some
inarticulate words of thanks and fairly sobbed on her
shoulder. She did not know the cause of his emotion.
The bills of Mr. Moss were quickly settled, perhaps
to the disappointment of that gentleman, who had counted
on having the Colonel as his guest over Sunday at least;
and Jane, with beaming smiles and happiness in her eyes,
carried away Rawdon from the bailiff's house, and they
went homewards in the cab in which she had hastened
to his release. "Pitt was gone to a parliamentary dinner,"
she said, "when Rawdon's note came, and so, dear
Rawdon, I--I came myself"; and she put her kind hand in
his. Perhaps it was well for Rawdon Crawley that Pitt
was away at that dinner. Rawdon thanked his sister a
hundred times, and with an ardour of gratitude which
touched and almost alarmed that soft-hearted woman.
"Oh," said he, in his rude, artless way, "you--you don't
know how I'm changed since I've known you, and--and
little Rawdy. I--I'd like to change somehow. You see
I want--I want--to be--" He did- not finish the
sentence, but she could interpret it. And that night after he
left her, and as she sat by her own little boy's bed, she
prayed humbly for that poor way-worn sinner.
Rawdon left her and walked home rapidly. It was nine
o'clock at night. He ran across the streets and the great
squares of Vanity Fair, and at length came up breathless
opposite his own house. He started back and fell against
the railings, trembling as he looked up. The drawing-
room windows were blazing with light. She had said that
she was in bed and ill. He stood there for some time,
the light from the rooms on his pale face.
He took out his door-key and let himself into the
house. He could hear laughter in the upper rooms. He
was in the ball-dress in which he had been captured the
night before. He went silently up the stairs, leaning
against the banisters at the stair-head. Nobody was
stirring in the house besides--all the servants had been sent
away. Rawdon heard laughter within--laughter and singing.
Becky was singing a snatch of the song of the night
before; a hoarse voice shouted "Brava! Brava!"--it was
Lord Steyne's.
Rawdon opened the door and went in. A little table
with a dinner was laid out--and wine and plate. Steyne
was hanging over the sofa on which Becky sat. The
wretched woman was in a brilliant full toilette, her arms
and all her fingers sparkling with bracelets and rings,
and the brilliants on her breast which Steyne had given
her. He had her hand in his, and was bowing over it
to kiss it, when Becky started up with a faint scream
as she caught sight of Rawdon's white face. At the next
instant she tried a smile, a horrid smile, as if to
welcome her husband; and Steyne rose up, grinding
his teeth, pale, and with fury in his looks.
He, too, attempted a laugh--and came forward holding
out his hand. "What, come back! How d'ye do, Crawley?"
he said, the nerves of his mouth twitching as he
tried to grin at the intruder.
There was that in Rawdon's face which caused Becky
to fling herself before him. "I am innocent, Rawdon,"
she said; "before God, I am innocent." She clung hold
of his coat, of his hands; her own were all covered with
serpents, and rings, and baubles. "I am innocent. Say I
am innocent," she said to Lord Steyne.
He thought a trap had been laid for him, and was as
furious with the wife as with the husband. "You
innocent! Damn you," he screamed out. "You innocent! Why
every trinket you have on your body is paid for by me.
I have given you thousands of pounds, which this fellow
has spent and for which he has sold you. Innocent,
by --! You're as innocent as your mother, the ballet-
girl, and your husband the bully. Don't think to frighten
me as you have done others. Make way, sir, and let me
pass"; and Lord Steyne seized up his hat, and, with
flame in his eyes, and looking his enemy fiercely in the
face, marched upon him, never for a moment doubting
that the other would give way.
But Rawdon Crawley springing out, seized him by the
neckcloth, until Steyne, almost strangled, writhed and
bent under his arm. "You lie, you dog!" said Rawdon.
"You lie, you coward and villain!" And he struck the
Peer twice over the face with his open hand and flung
him bleeding to the ground. It was all done before
Rebecca could interpose. She stood there trembling before
him. She admired her husband, strong, brave, and
victorious.
"Come here," he said. She came up at once.
"Take off those things." She began, trembling, pulling
the jewels from her arms, and the rings from her shaking
fingers, and held them all in a heap, quivering and looking
up at him. "Throw them down," he said, and she
dropped them. He tore the diamond ornament out of her
breast and flung it at Lord Steyne. It cut him on his
bald forehead. Steyne wore the scar to his dying day.
"Come upstairs," Rawdon said to his wife. "Don't kill
me, Rawdon," she said. He laughed savagely. "I want
to see if that man lies about the money as he has about
me. Has he given you any?"
"No," said Rebecca, "that is--"
"Give me your keys," Rawdon answered, and they
went out together.
Rebecca gave him all the keys but one, and she was in
hopes that he would not have remarked the absence of
that. It belonged to the little desk which Amelia had
given her in early days, and which she kept in a secret
place. But Rawdon flung open boxes and wardrobes,
throwing the multifarious trumpery of their contents here
and there, and at last he found the desk. The woman was
forced to open it. It contained papers, love-letters many
years old--all sorts of small trinkets and woman's
memoranda. And it contained a pocket-book with bank-notes.
Some of these were dated ten years back, too, and one
was quite a fresh one--a note for a thousand pounds
which Lord Steyne had given her.
"Did he give you this?" Rawdon said.
"Yes," Rebecca answered.
"I'll send it to him to-day," Rawdon said (for day had
dawned again, and many hours had passed in this search),
"and I will pay Briggs, who was kind to the boy, and
some of the debts. You will let me know where I shall
send the rest to you. You might have spared me a
hundred pounds, Becky, out of all this--I have always
shared with you."
"I am innocent," said Becky. And he left her without
another word.
What were her thoughts when he left her? She
remained for hours after he was gone, the sunshine
pouring into the room, and Rebecca sitting alone on the
bed's edge. The drawers were all opened and their contents
scattered about--dresses and feathers, scarfs and trinkets,
a heap of tumbled vanities lying in a wreck. Her hair
was falling over her shoulders; her gown was torn where
Rawdon had wrenched the brilliants out of it. She heard
him go downstairs a few minutes after he left her, and
the door slamming and closing on him. She knew he
would never come back. He was gone forever. Would
he kill himself?--she thought--not until after he had
met Lord Steyne. She thought of her long past life, and
all the dismal incidents of it. Ah, how dreary it seemed,
how miserable, lonely and profitless! Should she take
laudanum, and end it, to have done with all hopes,
schemes, debts, and triumphs? The French maid found
her in this position--sitting in the midst of her miserable
ruins with clasped hands and dry eyes. The woman was
her accomplice and in Steyne's pay. "Mon Dieu,
madame, what has happened?" she asked.
What had happened? Was she guilty or not? She said
not, but who could tell what was truth which came from
those lips, or if that corrupt heart was in this case pure?
All her lies and her schemes, an her selfishness and her
wiles, all her wit and genius had come to this
bankruptcy. The woman closed the curtains and, with some
entreaty and show of kindness, persuaded her mistress
to lie down on the bed. Then she went below and
gathered up the trinkets which had been lying on the floor
since Rebecca dropped them there at her husband's
orders, and Lord Steyne went away.
CHAPTER LIV
Sunday After the Battle
The mansion of Sir Pitt Crawley, in Great Gaunt Street,
was just beginning to dress itself for the day, as Rawdon,
in his evening costume, which he had now worn
two days, passed by the scared female who was scouring
the steps and entered into his brother's study. Lady
Jane, in her morning-gown, was up and above stairs in
the nursery superintending the toilettes of her children
and listening to the morning prayers which the little
creatures performed at her knee. Every morning she and
they performed this duty privately, and before the public
ceremonial at which Sir Pitt presided and at which all the
people of the household were expected to assemble.
Rawdon sat down in the study before the Baronet's table,
set out with the orderly blue books and the letters, the
neatly docketed bills and symmetrical pamphlets, the
locked account-books, desks, and dispatch boxes, the
Bible, the Quarterly Review, and the Court Guide, which
all stood as if on parade awaiting the inspection of their
chief.
A book of family sermons, one of which Sir Pitt was
in the habit of administering to his family on Sunday
mornings, lay ready on the study table, and awaiting his
judicious selection. And by the sermon-book was the
Observer newspaper, damp and neatly folded, and for
Sir Pitt's own private use. His gentleman alone took the
opportunity of perusing the newspaper before he laid it
by his master's desk. Before he had brought it into the
study that morning, he had read in the journal a flaming
account of "Festivities at Gaunt House," with the names
of all the distinguished personages invited by tho Marquis
of Steyne to meet his Royal Highness. Having made
comments upon this entertainment to the housekeeper
and her niece as they were taking early tea and hot
buttered toast in the former lady's apartment, and
wondered how the Rawding Crawleys could git on, the valet
had damped and folded the paper once more, so that it
looked quite fresh and innocent against the arrival of
the master of the house.
Poor Rawdon took up the paper and began to try and
read it until his brother should arrive. But the print fell
blank upon his eyes, and he did not know in the least
what he was reading. The Government news and
appointments (which Sir Pitt as a public man was bound
to peruse, otherwise he would by no means permit the
introduction of Sunday papers into his household), the
theatrical criticisms, the fight for a hundred pounds
a side between the Barking Butcher and the Tutbury
Pet, the Gaunt House chronicle itself, which contained a
most complimentary though guarded account of the
famous charades of which Mrs. Becky had been the
heroine--all these passed as in a haze before Rawdon, as he
sat waiting the arrival of the chief of the family.
Punctually, as the shrill-toned bell of the black marble
study clock began to chime nine, Sir Pitt made his
appearance, fresh, neat, smugly shaved, with a waxy clean
face, and stiff shirt collar, his scanty hair combed and
oiled, trimming his nails as he descended the stairs
majestically, in a starched cravat and a grey flannel
dressing-gown--a real old English gentleman, in a word--
a model of neatness and every propriety. He started when
he saw poor Rawdon in his study in tumbled clothes, with
blood-shot eyes, and his hair over his face. He thought
his brother was not sober, and had been out all night on
some orgy. "Good gracious, Rawdon," he said, with a
blank face, "what brings you here at this time of the
morning? Why ain't you at home?"
"Home," said Rawdon with a wild laugh. "Don't be
frightened, Pitt. I'm not drunk. Shut the door; I want to
speak to you."
Pitt closed the door and came up to the table, where
he sat down in the other arm-chair--that one placed for
the reception of the steward, agent, or confidential
visitor who came to transact business with the Baronet--
and trimmed his nails more vehemently than ever.
"Pitt, it's all over with me," the Colonel said after a
pause. "I'm done."
"I always said it would come to this," the Baronet
cried peevishly, and beating a tune with his clean-
trimmed nails. "I warned you a thousand times. I can't
help you any more. Every shilling of my money is tied
up. Even the hundred pounds that Jane took you last
night were promised to my lawyer to-morrow morning,
and the want of it will put me to great inconvenience.
I don't mean to say that I won't assist you ultimately.
But as for paying your creditors in full, I might as well
hope to pay the National Debt. It is madness, sheer
madness, to think of such a thing. You must come to a
compromise. It's a painful thing for the family, but everybody
does it. There was George Kitely, Lord Ragland's son,
went through the Court last week, and was what they
call whitewashed, I believe. Lord Ragland would not pay
a shilling for him, and--"
"It's not money I want," Rawdon broke in. "I'm not
come to you about myself. Never mind what happens to
me "
"What is the matter, then?" said Pitt, somewhat
relieved.
"It's the boy," said Rawdon in a husky voice. "I want
you to promise me that you will take charge of him
when I'm gone. That dear good wife of yours has always
been good to him; and he's fonder of her than he is of
his . . .--Damn it. Look here, Pitt--you know that I
was to have had Miss Crawley's money. I wasn't brought
up like a younger brother, but was always encouraged to
be extravagant and kep idle. But for this I might have
been quite a different man. I didn't do my duty with the
regiment so bad. You know how I was thrown over
about the money, and who got it."
"After the sacrifices I have made, and the manner in
which I have stood by you, I think this sort of reproach
is useless," Sir Pitt said. "Your marriage was your own
doing, not mine."
"That's over now," said Rawdon. "That's over now."
And the words were wrenched from him with a groan,
which made his brother start.
"Good God! is she dead?" Sir Pitt said with a voice
of genuine alarm and commiseration.
"I wish I was," Rawdon replied. "If it wasn't for little
Rawdon I'd have cut my throat this morning--and that
damned villain's too."
Sir Pitt instantly guessed the truth and surmised that
Lord Steyne was the person whose life Rawdon wished to
take. The Colonel told his senior briefly, and in broken
accents, the circumstances of the case. "It was a regular
plan between that scoundrel and her," he said. "The
bailiffs were put upon me; I was taken as I was going
out of his house; when I wrote to her for money, she
said she was ill in bed and put me off to another day.
And when I got home I found her in diamonds and
sitting with that villain alone." He then went on to describe
hurriedly the personal conflict with Lord Steyne. To an
affair of that nature, of course, he said, there was but
one issue, and after his conference with his brother, he
was going away to make the necessary arrangements for
the meeting which must ensue. "And as it may end
fatally with me," Rawdon said with a broken voice, "and
as the boy has no mother, I must leave him to you and
Jane, Pitt--only it will be a comfort to me if you will
promise me to be his friend."
The elder brother was much affected, and shook
Rawdon's hand with a cordiality seldom exhibited by him.
Rawdon passed his hand over his shaggy eyebrows.
"Thank you, brother," said he. "I know I can trust your
word."
"I will, upon my honour," the Baronet said. And thus,
and almost mutely, this bargain was struck between
them.
Then Rawdon took out of his pocket the little
pocket-book which he had discovered in Becky's desk, and from
which he drew a bundle of the notes which it contained.
"Here's six hundred," he said--"you didn't know I was
so rich. I want you to give the money to Briggs, who lent
it to us--and who was kind to the boy--and I've always
felt ashamed of having taken the poor old woman's
money. And here's some more--I've only kept back a
few pounds--which Becky may as well have, to get on
with." As he spoke he took hold of the other notes to
give to his brother, but his hands shook, and he was so
agitated that the pocket-book fell from him, and out of
it the thousand-pound note which had been the last of
the unlucky Becky's winnings.
Pitt stooped and picked them up, amazed at so much
wealth. "Not that," Rawdon said. "I hope to put a bullet
into the man whom that belongs to." He had thought to
himself, it would be a fine revenge to wrap a ball in the
note and kill Steyne with it.
After this colloquy the brothers once more shook
hands and parted. Lady Jane had heard of the Colonel's
arrival, and was waiting for her husband in the adjoining
dining-room, with female instinct, auguring evil. The
door of the dining-room happened to be left open, and
the lady of course was issuing from it as the two brothers
passed out of the study. She held out her hand to
Rawdon and said she was glad he was come to breakfast,
though she could perceive, by his haggard unshorn face
and the dark looks of her husband, that there was very
little question of breakfast between them. Rawdon
muttered some excuses about an engagement, squeezing hard
the timid little hand which his sister-in-law reached out
to him. Her imploring eyes could read nothing but
calamity in his face, but he went away without another
word. Nor did Sir Pitt vouchsafe her any explanation.
The children came up to salute him, and he kissed them
in his usual frigid manner. The mother took both of them
close to herself, and held a hand of each of them as they
knelt down to prayers, which Sir Pitt read to them, and
to the servants in their Sunday suits or liveries, ranged
upon chairs on the other side of the hissing tea-urn.
Breakfast was so late that day, in consequence of the
delays which had occurred, that the church-bells began
to ring whilst they were sitting over their meal; and
Lady Jane was too ill, she said, to go to church, though
her thoughts had been entirely astray during the period
of family devotion.
Rawdon Crawley meanwhile hurried on from Great
Gaunt Street, and knocking at the great bronze
Medusa's head which stands on the portal of Gaunt House,
brought out the purple Silenus in a red and silver
waistcoat who acts as porter of that palace. The man was
scared also by the Colonel's dishevelled appearance, and
barred the way as if afraid that the other was going to
force it. But Colonel Crawley only took out a card and
enjoined him particularly to send it in to Lord Steyne,
and to mark the address written on it, and say that
Colonel Crawley would be all day after one o'clock at the
Regent Club in St. James's Street--not at home. The fat
red-faced man looked after him with astonishment as he
strode away; so did the people in their Sunday clothes
who were out so early; the charity-boys with shining
faces, the greengrocer lolling at his door, and the publican
shutting his shutters in the sunshine, against service
commenced. The people joked at the cab-stand about
his appearance, as he took a carriage there, and told the
driver to drive him to Knightsbridge Barracks.
All the bells were jangling and tolling as he reached
that place. He might have seen his old acquaintance
Amelia on her way from Brompton to Russell Square,
had he been looking out. Troops of schools were on
their march to church, the shiny pavement and outsides
of coaches in the suburbs were thronged with people out
upon their Sunday pleasure; but the Colonel was much
too busy to take any heed of these phenomena, and,
arriving at Knightsbridge, speedily made his way up to the
room of his old friend and comrade Captain Macmurdo,
who Crawley found, to his satisfaction, was in barracks.
Captain Macmurdo, a veteran officer and Waterloo
man, greatly liked by his regiment, in which want of
money alone prevented him from attaining the highest
ranks, was enjoying the forenoon calmly in bed. He had
been at a fast supper-party, given the night before by
Captain the Honourable George Cinqbars, at his house
in Brompton Square, to several young men of the
regiment, and a number of ladies of the corps de ballet, and
old Mac, who was at home with people of all ages and
ranks, and consorted with generals, dog-fanciers, opera-
dancers, bruisers, and every kind of person, in a word,
was resting himself after the night's labours, and, not
being on duty, was in bed.
His room was hung round with boxing, sporting, and
dancing pictures, presented to him by comrades as they
retired from the regiment, and married and settled into
quiet life. And as he was now nearly fifty years of age,
twenty-four of which he had passed in the corps, he had
a singular museum. He was one of the best shots in
England, and, for a heavy man, one of the best riders;
indeed, he and Crawley had been rivals when the latter
was in the Army. To be brief, Mr. Macmurdo was lying
in bed, reading in Bell's Life an account of that very
fight between the Tutbury Pet and the Barking Butcher,
which has been before mentioned--a venerable bristly
warrior, with a little close-shaved grey head, with a silk
nightcap, a red face and nose, and a great dyed
moustache.
When Rawdon told the Captain he wanted a friend, the
latter knew perfectly well on what duty of friendship he
was called to act, and indeed had conducted scores of
affairs for his acquaintances with the greatest prudence
and skill. His Royal Highness the late lamented
Commander-in-Chief had had the greatest regard for
Macmurdo on this account, and he was the common refuge
of gentlemen in trouble.
"What's the row about, Crawley, my boy?" said the
old warrior. "No more gambling business, hay, like that
when we shot Captain Marker?"
"It's about--about my wife," Crawley answered,
casting down his eyes and turning very red.
The other gave a whistle. "I always said she'd throw
you over," he began--indeed there were bets in the
regiment and at the clubs regarding the probable fate of
Colonel Crawley, so lightly was his wife's character
esteemed by his comrades and the world; but seeing the
savage look with which Rawdon answered the expression
of this opinion, Macmurdo did not think fit to enlarge
upon it further.
"Is there no way out of it, old boy?" the Captain
continued in a grave tone. "Is it only suspicion, you know,
or--or what is it? Any letters? Can't you keep it quiet?
Best not make any noise about a thing of that sort if you
can help it." "Think of his only finding her out now," the
Captain thought to himself, and remembered a hundred
particular conversations at the mess-table, in which Mrs.
Crawley's reputation had been torn to shreds.
"There's no way but one out of it," Rawdon replied--
"and there's only a way out of it for one of us, Mac--do
you understand? I was put out of the way--arrested--I
found 'em alone together. I told him he was a liar and a
coward, and knocked him down and thrashed him."
"Serve him right," Macmurdo said. "Who is it?"
Rawdon answered it was Lord Steyne.
"The deuce! a Marquis! they said he--that is, they
said you--"
"What the devil do you mean?" roared out Rawdon;
"do you mean that you ever heard a fellow doubt about
my wife and didn't tell me, Mac?"
"The world's very censorious, old boy," the other
replied. "What the deuce was the good of my telling you
what any tom-fools talked about?"
"It was damned unfriendly, Mac," said Rawdon, quite
overcome; and, covering his face with his hands, he gave
way to an emotion, the sight of which caused the tough
old campaigner opposite him to wince with sympathy.
"Hold up, old boy," he said; "great man or not, we'll put
a bullet in him, damn him. As for women, they're all so."
"You don't know how fond I was of that one,"
Rawdon said, half-inarticulately. "Damme, I followed her like
a footman. I gave up everything I had to her. I'm a
beggar because I would marry her. By Jove, sir, I've pawned
my own watch in order to get her anything she fancied;
and she she's been making a purse for herself all the
time, and grudged me a hundred pound to get me out of
quod." He then fiercely and incoherently, and with an
agitation under which his counsellor had never before
seen him labour, told Macmurdo the circumstances of
the story. His adviser caught at some stray hints in it.
"She may be innocent, after all," he said. "She says
so. Steyne has been a hundred times alone with her in
the house before."
"It may be so," Rawdon answered sadly, "but this don't
look very innocent": and he showed the Captain the
thousand-pound note which he had found in Becky's
pocket-book. "This is what he gave her, Mac, and she
kep it unknown to me; and with this money in the house,
she refused to stand by me when I was locked up." The
Captain could not but own that the secreting of the
money had a very ugly look.
Whilst they were engaged in their conference, Rawdon
dispatched Captain Macmurdo's servant to Curzon Street,
with an order to the domestic there to give up a bag of
clothes of which the Colonel had great need. And during
the man's absence, and with great labour and a Johnson's
Dictionary, which stood them in much stead, Rawdon
and his second composed a letter, which the latter
was to send to Lord Steyne. Captain Macmurdo had the
honour of waiting upon the Marquis of Steyne, on the part
of Colonel Rawdon Crawley, and begged to intimate that
he was empowered by the Colonel to make any arrangements
for the meeting which, he had no doubt, it was his
Lordship's intention to demand, and which the circumstances
of the morning had rendered inevitable. Captain
Macmurdo begged Lord Steyne, in the most polite
manner, to appoint a friend, with whom he (Captain M'M.)
might communicate, and desired that the meeting might
take place with as little delay as possible.
In a postscript the Captain stated that he had in his
possession a bank-note for a large amount, which
Colonel Crawley had reason to suppose was the property of
the Marquis of Steyne. And he was anxious, on the
Colonel's behalf, to give up the note to its owner.
By the time this note was composed, the Captain's
servant returned from his mission to Colonel Crawley's
house in Curzon Street, but without the carpet-bag and
portmanteau, for which he had been sent, and with a
very puzzled and odd face.
"They won't give 'em up," said the man; "there's a
regular shinty in the house, and everything at sixes and
sevens. The landlord's come in and took possession. The
servants was a drinkin' up in the drawingroom. They
said--they said you had gone off with the plate,
Colonel"--the man added after a pause--"One of the
servants is off already. And Simpson, the man as was very
noisy and drunk indeed, says nothing shall go out of the
house until his wages is paid up."
The account of this little revolution in May Fair
astonished and gave a little gaiety to an otherwise very
triste conversation. The two officers laughed at Rawdon's
discomfiture.
"I'm glad the little 'un isn't at home," Rawdon said,
biting his nails. "You remember him, Mac, don't you, in
the Riding School? How he sat the kicker to be sure!
didn't he?"
"That he did, old boy," said the good-natured Captain.
Little Rawdon was then sitting, one of fifty gown boys,
in the Chapel of Whitefriars School, thinking, not about
the sermon, but about going home next Saturday, when
his father would certainly tip him and perhaps would
take him to the play.
"He's a regular trump, that boy," the father went on,
still musing about his son. "I say, Mac, if anything goes
wrong--if I drop--I should like you to--to go and see
him, you know, and say that I was very fond of him, and
that. And--dash it--old chap, give him these gold sleeve-
buttons: it's all I've got." He covered his face with his
black hands, over which the tears rolled and made
furrows of white. Mr. Macmurdo had also occasion to take
off his silk night-cap and rub it across his eyes.
"Go down and order some breakfast," he said to his
man in a loud cheerful voice. "What'll you have, Crawley?
Some devilled kidneys and a herring--let's say. And,
Clay, lay out some dressing things for the Colonel: we
were always pretty much of a size, Rawdon, my boy, and
neither of us ride so light as we did when we first
entered the corps." With which, and leaving the Colonel to
dress himself, Macmurdo turned round towards the wall,
and resumed the perusal of Bell's Life, until such time as
his friend's toilette was complete and he was at liberty
to commence his own.
This, as he was about to meet a lord, Captain
Macmurdo performed with particular care. He waxed his
mustachios into a state of brilliant polish and put on a
tight cravat and a trim buff waistcoat, so that all the
young officers in the mess-room, whither Crawley had
preceded his friend, complimented Mac on his appearance
at breakfast and asked if he was going to be married
that Sunday.
CHAPIER LV
In Which the Same Subject is Pursued
Becky did not rally from the state of stupor and confusion
in which the events of the previous night had plunged
her intrepid spirit until the bells of the Curzon Street
Chapels were ringing for afternoon service, and rising
from her bed she began to ply her own bell, in order to
summon the French maid who had left her some hours
before.
Mrs. Rawdon Crawley rang many times in vain; and
though, on the last occasion, she rang with such
vehemence as to pull down the bell-rope, Mademoiselle
Fifine did not make her appearance--no, not though her
mistress, in a great pet, and with the bell-rope in her hand,
came out to the landing-place with her hair over her
shoulders and screamed out repeatedly for her attendant.
The truth is, she had quitted the premises for many
hours, and upon that permission which is called French
leave among us After picking up the trinkets in the
drawing-room, Mademoiselle had ascended to her own
apartments, packed and corded her own boxes there,
tripped out and called a cab for herself, brought down
her trunks with her own hand, and without ever so much
as asking the aid of any of the other servants, who would
probably have refused it, as they hated her cordially,
and without wishing any one of them good-bye, had
made her exit from Curzon Street.
The game, in her opinion, was over in that little
domestic establishment. Fifine went off in a cab, as we
have known more exalted persons of her nation to do
under similar circumstances: but, more provident or
lucky than these, she secured not only her own property,
but some of her mistress's (if indeed that lady could be
said to have any property at all)--and not only carried
off the trinkets before alluded to, and some favourite
dresses on which she had long kept her eye, but four
richly gilt Louis Quatorze candlesticks, six gilt albums,
keepsakes, and Books of Beauty, a gold enamelled
snuff-box which had once belonged to Madame du Barri, and
the sweetest little inkstand and mother-of-pearl blotting
book, which Becky used when she composed her charming
little pink notes, had vanished from the premises in
Curzon Street together with Mademoiselle Fifine, and all
the silver laid on the table for the little festin which
Rawdon interrupted. The plated ware Mademoiselle left
behind her was too cumbrous, probably for which
reason, no doubt, she also left the fire irons, the
chimney-glasses, and the rosewood cottage piano.
A lady very like her subsequently kept a milliner's
shop in the Rue du Helder at Paris, where she lived with
great credit and enjoyed the patronage of my Lord
Steyne. This person always spoke of England as of the
most treacherous country in the world, and stated to her
young pupils that she had been affreusement vole by
natives of that island. It was no doubt compassion for
her misfortunes which induced the Marquis of Steyne to
be so very kind to Madame de Saint-Amaranthe. May
she flourish as she deserves--she appears no more in our
quarter of Vanity Fair.
Hearing a buzz and a stir below, and indignant at the
impudence of those servants who would not answer her
summons, Mrs. Crawley flung her morning robe round
her and descended majestically to the drawing-room,
whence the noise proceeded.
The cook was there with blackened face, seated on the
beautiful chintz sofa by the side of Mrs. Raggles, to whom
she was administering Maraschino. The page with the
sugar-loaf buttons, who carried about Becky's pink
notes, and jumped about her little carriage with such
alacrity, was now engaged putting his fingers into a
cream dish; the footman was talking to Raggles, who
had a face full of perplexity and woe--and yet, though
the door was open, and Becky had been screaming a
half-dozen of times a few feet off, not one of her
attendants had obeyed her call. "Have a little drop, do'ee
now, Mrs. Raggles," the cook was saying as Becky
entered, the white cashmere dressing-gown flouncing
around her.
"Simpson! Trotter!" the mistress of the house cried in
great wrath. "How dare you stay here when you heard
me call? How dare you sit down in my presence? Where's
my maid?" The page withdrew his fingers from his mouth
with a momentary terror, but the cook took off a glass
of Maraschino, of which Mrs. Raggles had had enough,
staring at Becky over the little gilt glass as she drained
its contents. The liquor appeared to give the odious rebel
courage.
"YOUR sofy, indeed!" Mrs. Cook said. "I'm a settin' on
Mrs. Raggles's sofy. Don't you stir, Mrs. Raggles, Mum.
I'm a settin' on Mr. and Mrs. Raggles's sofy, which they
bought with honest money, and very dear it cost 'em,
too. And I'm thinkin' if I set here until I'm paid my
wages, I shall set a precious long time, Mrs. Raggles;
and set I will, too--ha! ha!" and with this she filled
herself another glass of the liquor and drank it with a more
hideously satirical air.
"Trotter! Simpson! turn that drunken wretch out,"
screamed Mrs. Crawley.
"I shawn't," said Trotter the footman; "turn out
yourself. Pay our selleries, and turn me out too. WE'LL
go fast enough."
"Are you all here to insult me?" cried Becky in a fury;
"when Colonel Crawley comes home I'll--"
At this the servants burst into a horse haw-haw, in
which, however, Raggles, who still kept a most melancholy countenance, did not join. "He ain't a coming back,"
Mr. Trotter resumed. "He sent for his things, and I
wouldn't let 'em go, although Mr. Raggles would; and I
don't b'lieve he's no more a Colonel than I am. He's
hoff, and I suppose you're a goin' after him. You're no
better than swindlers, both on you. Don't be a bullyin'
ME. I won't stand it. Pay us our selleries, I say. Pay us
our selleries." It was evident, from Mr. Trotter's flushed
countenance and defective intonation, that he, too, had
had recourse to vinous stimulus.
"Mr. Raggles," said Becky in a passion of vexation,
"you will not surely let me be insulted by that drunken
man?" "Hold your noise, Trotter; do now," said Simpson
the page. He was affected by his mistress's deplorable
situation, and succeeded in preventing an outrageous
denial of the epithet "drunken" on the footman's part.
"Oh, M'am," said Raggles, "I never thought to live to
see this year day: I've known the Crawley family ever
since I was born. I lived butler with Miss Crawley for
thirty years; and I little thought one of that family was
a goin' to ruing me--yes, ruing me"--said the poor fellow
with tears in his eyes. "Har you a goin' to pay me? You've
lived in this 'ouse four year. You've 'ad my substance:
my plate and linning. You ho me a milk and butter bill
of two 'undred pound, you must 'ave noo laid heggs for
your homlets, and cream for your spanil dog."
"She didn't care what her own flesh and blood had,"
interposed the cook. "Many's the time, he'd have starved
but for me."
"He's a charaty-boy now, Cooky," said Mr. Trotter,
with a drunken "ha! ha!"--and honest Raggles continued,
in a lamentable tone, an enumeration of his griefs. All he
said was true. Becky and her husband had ruined him.
He had bills coming due next week and no means to meet
them. He would be sold up and turned out of his shop
and his house, because he had trusted to the Crawley
family. His tears and lamentations made Becky more
peevish than ever.
"You all seem to be against me," she said bitterly.
"What do you want? I can't pay you on Sunday. Come
back to-morrow and I'll pay you everything. I thought
Colonel Crawley had settled with you. He will to-morrow.
I declare to you upon my honour that he left home this
morning with fifteen hundred pounds in his pocket-book.
He has left me nothing. Apply to him. Give me a bonnet
and shawl and let me go out and find him. There was a
difference between us this morning. You all seem to
know it. I promise you upon my word that you shall all
be paid. He has got a good appointment. Let me go out
and find him.''
This audacious statement caused Raggles and the other
personages present to look at one another with a wild
surprise, and with it Rebecca left them. She went upstairs
and dressed herself this time without the aid of her French
maid. She went into Rawdon's room, and there saw that
a trunk and bag were packed ready for removal, with a
pencil direction that they should be given when called
for; then she went into the Frenchwoman's garret;
everything was clean, and all the drawers emptied there.
She bethought herself of the trinkets which had been left on
the ground and felt certain that the woman had fled.
"Good Heavens! was ever such ill luck as mine?" she
said; "to be so near, and to lose all. Is it all too late?"
No; there was one chance more.
She dressed herself and went away unmolested this
time, but alone. It was four o'clock. She went swiftly
down the streets (she had no money to pay for a
carriage), and never stopped until she came to Sir Pitt
Crawley's door, in Great Gaunt Street. Where was Lady
Jane Crawley? She was at church. Becky was not sorry.
Sir Pitt was in his study, and had given orders not to be
disturbed--she must see him--she slipped by the sentinel
in livery at once, and was in Sir Pitt's room before the
astonished Baronet had even laid down the paper.
He turned red and started back from her with a look
of great alarm and horror.
"Do not look so," she said. "I am not guilty, Pitt, dear
Pitt; you were my friend once. Before God, I am not
guilty. I seem so. Everything is against me. And oh! at
such a moment! just when all my hopes were about to be
realized: just when happiness was in store for us."
"Is this true, what I see in the paper then?" Sir Pitt
said--a paragraph in which had greatly surprised him.
"It is true. Lord Steyne told me on Friday night, the
night of that fatal ball. He has been promised an
appointment any time these six months. Mr. Martyr, the
Colonial Secretary, told him yesterday that it was made out.
That unlucky arrest ensued; that horrible meeting. I was only
guilty of too much devotedness to Rawdon's service. I
have received Lord Steyne alone a hundred times before.
I confess I had money of which Rawdon knew nothing.
Don't you know how careless he is of it, and could I dare
to confide it to him?" And so she went on with a
perfectly connected story, which she poured into the ears
of her perplexed kinsman.
It was to the following effect. Becky owned, and with
prefect frankness, but deep contrition, that having
remarked Lord Steyne's partiality for her (at the mention
of which Pitt blushed), and being secure of her own
virtue, she had determined to turn the great peer's
attachment to the advantage of herself and her family. "I
looked for a peerage for you, Pitt," she said (the brother-
in-law again turned red). "We have talked about it. Your
genius and Lord Steyne's interest made it more than
probable, had not this dreadful calamity come to put an
end to all our hopes. But, first, I own that it was my
object to rescue my dear husband--him whom I love in
spite of all his ill usage and suspicions of me--to remove
him from the poverty and ruin which was impending over
us. I saw Lord Steyne's partiality for me," she said,
casting down her eyes. "I own that I did everything in
my power to make myself pleasing to him, and as far as
an honest woman may, to secure his--his esteem. It was
only on Friday morning that the news arrived of the
death of the Governor of Coventry Island, and my Lord
instantly secured the appointment for my dear husband.
It was intended as a surprise for him--he was to see it in
the papers to-day. Even after that horrid arrest took
place (the expenses of which Lord Steyne generously
said he would settle, so that I was in a manner prevented
from coming to my husband's assistance), my Lord was
laughing with me, and saying that my dearest Rawdon
would be consoled when he read of his appointment in
the paper, in that shocking spun--bailiff's house. And
then--then he came home. His suspicions were excited,
--the dreadful scene took place between my Lord and
my cruel, cruel Rawdon--and, O my God, what will
happen next? Pitt, dear Pitt! pity me, and reconcile us!"
And as she spoke she flung herself down on her knees,
and bursting into tears, seized hold of Pitt's hand, which
she kissed passionately.
It was in this very attitude that Lady Jane, who,
returning from church, ran to her husband's room directly
she heard Mrs. Rawdon Crawley was closeted there,
found the Baronet and his sister-in-law.
"I am surprised that woman has the audacity to enter
this house," Lady Jane said, trembling in every limb
and turning quite pale. (Her Ladyship had sent out her
maid directly after breakfast, who had communicated
with Raggles and Rawdon Crawley's household, who had
told her all, and a great deal more than they knew, of
that story, and many others besides). "How dare Mrs.
Crawley to enter the house of--of an honest family?"
Sir Pitt started back, amazed at his wife's display of
vigour. Becky still kept her kneeling posture and clung
to Sir Pitt's hand.
"Tell her that she does not know all: Tell her that I
am innocent, dear Pitt," she whimpered out.
"Upon-my word, my love, I think you do Mrs. Crawley
injustice," Sir Pitt said; at which speech Rebecca was
vastly relieved. "Indeed I believe her to be--"
"To be what?" cried out Lady Jane, her clear voice
thrilling and, her heart beating violently as she spoke.
"To be a wicked woman--a heartless mother, a false
wife? She never loved her dear little boy, who used to
fly here and tell me of her cruelty to him. She never
came into a family but she strove to bring misery with
her and to weaken the most sacred affections with her
wicked flattery and falsehoods. She has deceived her
husband, as she has deceived everybody; her soul is black
with vanity, worldliness, and all sorts of crime. I tremble
when I touch her. I keep my children out of her sight.
"Lady Jane!" cried Sir Pitt, starting up, "this is really
language--"
"I have been a true and faithful wife to you, Sir
Pitt," Lady Jane continued, intrepidly; "I have kept my
marriage vow as I made it to God and have been
obedient and gentle as a wife should. But righteous
obedience has its limits, and I declare that I will not bear
that--that woman again under my roof; if she enters it,
I and my children will leave it. She is not worthy to sit
down with Christian people. You--you must choose, sir,
between her and me"; and with this my Lady swept out
of the room, fluttering with her own audacity, and leaving
Rebecca and Sir Pitt not a little astonished at it.
As for Becky, she was not hurt; nay, she was pleased.
"It was the diamond-clasp you gave me," she said to Sir
Pitt, reaching him out her hand; and before she left him
(for which event you may be sure my Lady Jane was
looking out from her dressing-room window in the upper
story) the Baronet had promised to go and seek out his
brother, and endeavour to bring about a reconciliation.
Rawdon found some of the young fellows of the regiment
seated in the mess-room at breakfast, and was
induced without much difficulty to partake of that meal,
and of the devilled legs of fowls and soda-water with
which these young gentlemen fortified themselves. Then
they had a conversation befitting the day and their time
of life: about the next pigeon-match at Battersea, with
relative bets upon Ross and Osbaldiston; about
Mademoiselle Ariane of the French Opera, and who had left
her, and how she was consoled by Panther Carr; and
about the fight between the Butcher and the Pet, and the
probabilities that it was a cross. Young Tandyman, a
hero of seventeen, laboriously endeavouring to get up a
pair of mustachios, had seen the fight, and spoke in the
most scientific manner about the battle and the condition
of the men. It was he who had driven the Butcher on to
the ground in his drag and passed the whole of the
previous night with him. Had there not been foul play
he must have won it. All the old files of the Ring were in
it; and Tandyman wouldn't pay; no, dammy, he wouldn't
pay. It was but a year since the young Cornet, now so
knowing a hand in Cribb's parlour, had a still lingering
liking for toffy, and used to be birched at Eton.
So they went on talking about dancers, fights, drinking,
demireps, until Macmurdo came down and joined the
with his gate-keys. It was a lady whom he let in at the
bailiff's door.
"Colonel Crawley," she said, trembling very much. He,
with a knowing look, locked the outer door upon her--
then unlocked and opened the inner one, and calling out,
"Colonel, you're wanted," led her into the back parlour,
which he occupied.
Rawdon came in from the dining-parlour where all
those people were carousing, into his back room; a flare
of coarse light following him into the apartment where
the lady stood, still very nervous.
"It is I, Rawdon," she said in a timid voice, which
she strove to render cheerful. "It is Jane." Rawdon was
quite overcome by that kind voice and presence. He ran
up to her--caught her in his arms--gasped out some
inarticulate words of thanks and fairly sobbed on her
shoulder. She did not know the cause of his emotion.
The bills of Mr. Moss were quickly settled, perhaps
to the disappointment of that gentleman, who had counted
on having the Colonel as his guest over Sunday at least;
and Jane, with beaming smiles and happiness in her eyes,
carried away Rawdon from the bailiff's house, and they
went homewards in the cab in which she had hastened
to his release. "Pitt was gone to a parliamentary dinner,"
she said, "when Rawdon's note came, and so, dear
Rawdon, I--I came myself"; and she put her kind hand in
his. Perhaps it was well for Rawdon Crawley that Pitt
was away at that dinner. Rawdon thanked his sister a
hundred times, and with an ardour of gratitude which
touched and almost alarmed that soft-hearted woman.
"Oh," said he, in his rude, artless way, "you--you don't
know how I'm changed since I've known you, and--and
little Rawdy. I--I'd like to change somehow. You see
I want--I want--to be--" He did- not finish the
sentence, but she could interpret it. And that night after he
left her, and as she sat by her own little boy's bed, she
prayed humbly for that poor way-worn sinner.
Rawdon left her and walked home rapidly. It was nine
o'clock at night. He ran across the streets and the great
squares of Vanity Fair, and at length came up breathless
opposite his own house. He started back and fell against
the railings, trembling as he looked up. The drawing-
room windows were blazing with light. She had said that
she was in bed and ill. He stood there for some time,
the light from the rooms on his pale face.
He took out his door-key and let himself into the
house. He could hear laughter in the upper rooms. He
was in the ball-dress in which he had been captured the
night before. He went silently up the stairs, leaning
against the banisters at the stair-head. Nobody was
stirring in the house besides--all the servants had been sent
away. Rawdon heard laughter within--laughter and singing.
Becky was singing a snatch of the song of the night
before; a hoarse voice shouted "Brava! Brava!"--it was
Lord Steyne's.
Rawdon opened the door and went in. A little table
with a dinner was laid out--and wine and plate. Steyne
was hanging over the sofa on which Becky sat. The
wretched woman was in a brilliant full toilette, her arms
and all her fingers sparkling with bracelets and rings,
and the brilliants on her breast which Steyne had given
her. He had her hand in his, and was bowing over it
to kiss it, when Becky started up with a faint scream
as she caught sight of Rawdon's white face. At the next
instant she tried a smile, a horrid smile, as if to
welcome her husband; and Steyne rose up, grinding
his teeth, pale, and with fury in his looks.
He, too, attempted a laugh--and came forward holding
out his hand. "What, come back! How d'ye do, Crawley?"
he said, the nerves of his mouth twitching as he
tried to grin at the intruder.
There was that in Rawdon's face which caused Becky
to fling herself before him. "I am innocent, Rawdon,"
she said; "before God, I am innocent." She clung hold
of his coat, of his hands; her own were all covered with
serpents, and rings, and baubles. "I am innocent. Say I
am innocent," she said to Lord Steyne.
He thought a trap had been laid for him, and was as
furious with the wife as with the husband. "You
innocent! Damn you," he screamed out. "You innocent! Why
every trinket you have on your body is paid for by me.
I have given you thousands of pounds, which this fellow
has spent and for which he has sold you. Innocent,
by --! You're as innocent as your mother, the ballet-
girl, and your husband the bully. Don't think to frighten
me as you have done others. Make way, sir, and let me
pass"; and Lord Steyne seized up his hat, and, with
flame in his eyes, and looking his enemy fiercely in the
face, marched upon him, never for a moment doubting
that the other would give way.
But Rawdon Crawley springing out, seized him by the
neckcloth, until Steyne, almost strangled, writhed and
bent under his arm. "You lie, you dog!" said Rawdon.
"You lie, you coward and villain!" And he struck the
Peer twice over the face with his open hand and flung
him bleeding to the ground. It was all done before
Rebecca could interpose. She stood there trembling before
him. She admired her husband, strong, brave, and
victorious.
"Come here," he said. She came up at once.
"Take off those things." She began, trembling, pulling
the jewels from her arms, and the rings from her shaking
fingers, and held them all in a heap, quivering and looking
up at him. "Throw them down," he said, and she
dropped them. He tore the diamond ornament out of her
breast and flung it at Lord Steyne. It cut him on his
bald forehead. Steyne wore the scar to his dying day.
"Come upstairs," Rawdon said to his wife. "Don't kill
me, Rawdon," she said. He laughed savagely. "I want
to see if that man lies about the money as he has about
me. Has he given you any?"
"No," said Rebecca, "that is--"
"Give me your keys," Rawdon answered, and they
went out together.
Rebecca gave him all the keys but one, and she was in
hopes that he would not have remarked the absence of
that. It belonged to the little desk which Amelia had
given her in early days, and which she kept in a secret
place. But Rawdon flung open boxes and wardrobes,
throwing the multifarious trumpery of their contents here
and there, and at last he found the desk. The woman was
forced to open it. It contained papers, love-letters many
years old--all sorts of small trinkets and woman's
memoranda. And it contained a pocket-book with bank-notes.
Some of these were dated ten years back, too, and one
was quite a fresh one--a note for a thousand pounds
which Lord Steyne had given her.
"Did he give you this?" Rawdon said.
"Yes," Rebecca answered.
"I'll send it to him to-day," Rawdon said (for day had
dawned again, and many hours had passed in this search),
"and I will pay Briggs, who was kind to the boy, and
some of the debts. You will let me know where I shall
send the rest to you. You might have spared me a
hundred pounds, Becky, out of all this--I have always
shared with you."
"I am innocent," said Becky. And he left her without
another word.
What were her thoughts when he left her? She
remained for hours after he was gone, the sunshine
pouring into the room, and Rebecca sitting alone on the
bed's edge. The drawers were all opened and their contents
scattered about--dresses and feathers, scarfs and trinkets,
a heap of tumbled vanities lying in a wreck. Her hair
was falling over her shoulders; her gown was torn where
Rawdon had wrenched the brilliants out of it. She heard
him go downstairs a few minutes after he left her, and
the door slamming and closing on him. She knew he
would never come back. He was gone forever. Would
he kill himself?--she thought--not until after he had
met Lord Steyne. She thought of her long past life, and
all the dismal incidents of it. Ah, how dreary it seemed,
how miserable, lonely and profitless! Should she take
laudanum, and end it, to have done with all hopes,
schemes, debts, and triumphs? The French maid found
her in this position--sitting in the midst of her miserable
ruins with clasped hands and dry eyes. The woman was
her accomplice and in Steyne's pay. "Mon Dieu,
madame, what has happened?" she asked.
What had happened? Was she guilty or not? She said
not, but who could tell what was truth which came from
those lips, or if that corrupt heart was in this case pure?
All her lies and her schemes, an her selfishness and her
wiles, all her wit and genius had come to this
bankruptcy. The woman closed the curtains and, with some
entreaty and show of kindness, persuaded her mistress
to lie down on the bed. Then she went below and
gathered up the trinkets which had been lying on the floor
since Rebecca dropped them there at her husband's
orders, and Lord Steyne went away.
CHAPTER LIV
Sunday After the Battle
The mansion of Sir Pitt Crawley, in Great Gaunt Street,
was just beginning to dress itself for the day, as Rawdon,
in his evening costume, which he had now worn
two days, passed by the scared female who was scouring
the steps and entered into his brother's study. Lady
Jane, in her morning-gown, was up and above stairs in
the nursery superintending the toilettes of her children
and listening to the morning prayers which the little
creatures performed at her knee. Every morning she and
they performed this duty privately, and before the public
ceremonial at which Sir Pitt presided and at which all the
people of the household were expected to assemble.
Rawdon sat down in the study before the Baronet's table,
set out with the orderly blue books and the letters, the
neatly docketed bills and symmetrical pamphlets, the
locked account-books, desks, and dispatch boxes, the
Bible, the Quarterly Review, and the Court Guide, which
all stood as if on parade awaiting the inspection of their
chief.
A book of family sermons, one of which Sir Pitt was
in the habit of administering to his family on Sunday
mornings, lay ready on the study table, and awaiting his
judicious selection. And by the sermon-book was the
Observer newspaper, damp and neatly folded, and for
Sir Pitt's own private use. His gentleman alone took the
opportunity of perusing the newspaper before he laid it
by his master's desk. Before he had brought it into the
study that morning, he had read in the journal a flaming
account of "Festivities at Gaunt House," with the names
of all the distinguished personages invited by tho Marquis
of Steyne to meet his Royal Highness. Having made
comments upon this entertainment to the housekeeper
and her niece as they were taking early tea and hot
buttered toast in the former lady's apartment, and
wondered how the Rawding Crawleys could git on, the valet
had damped and folded the paper once more, so that it
looked quite fresh and innocent against the arrival of
the master of the house.
Poor Rawdon took up the paper and began to try and
read it until his brother should arrive. But the print fell
blank upon his eyes, and he did not know in the least
what he was reading. The Government news and
appointments (which Sir Pitt as a public man was bound
to peruse, otherwise he would by no means permit the
introduction of Sunday papers into his household), the
theatrical criticisms, the fight for a hundred pounds
a side between the Barking Butcher and the Tutbury
Pet, the Gaunt House chronicle itself, which contained a
most complimentary though guarded account of the
famous charades of which Mrs. Becky had been the
heroine--all these passed as in a haze before Rawdon, as he
sat waiting the arrival of the chief of the family.
Punctually, as the shrill-toned bell of the black marble
study clock began to chime nine, Sir Pitt made his
appearance, fresh, neat, smugly shaved, with a waxy clean
face, and stiff shirt collar, his scanty hair combed and
oiled, trimming his nails as he descended the stairs
majestically, in a starched cravat and a grey flannel
dressing-gown--a real old English gentleman, in a word--
a model of neatness and every propriety. He started when
he saw poor Rawdon in his study in tumbled clothes, with
blood-shot eyes, and his hair over his face. He thought
his brother was not sober, and had been out all night on
some orgy. "Good gracious, Rawdon," he said, with a
blank face, "what brings you here at this time of the
morning? Why ain't you at home?"
"Home," said Rawdon with a wild laugh. "Don't be
frightened, Pitt. I'm not drunk. Shut the door; I want to
speak to you."
Pitt closed the door and came up to the table, where
he sat down in the other arm-chair--that one placed for
the reception of the steward, agent, or confidential
visitor who came to transact business with the Baronet--
and trimmed his nails more vehemently than ever.
"Pitt, it's all over with me," the Colonel said after a
pause. "I'm done."
"I always said it would come to this," the Baronet
cried peevishly, and beating a tune with his clean-
trimmed nails. "I warned you a thousand times. I can't
help you any more. Every shilling of my money is tied
up. Even the hundred pounds that Jane took you last
night were promised to my lawyer to-morrow morning,
and the want of it will put me to great inconvenience.
I don't mean to say that I won't assist you ultimately.
But as for paying your creditors in full, I might as well
hope to pay the National Debt. It is madness, sheer
madness, to think of such a thing. You must come to a
compromise. It's a painful thing for the family, but everybody
does it. There was George Kitely, Lord Ragland's son,
went through the Court last week, and was what they
call whitewashed, I believe. Lord Ragland would not pay
a shilling for him, and--"
"It's not money I want," Rawdon broke in. "I'm not
come to you about myself. Never mind what happens to
me "
"What is the matter, then?" said Pitt, somewhat
relieved.
"It's the boy," said Rawdon in a husky voice. "I want
you to promise me that you will take charge of him
when I'm gone. That dear good wife of yours has always
been good to him; and he's fonder of her than he is of
his . . .--Damn it. Look here, Pitt--you know that I
was to have had Miss Crawley's money. I wasn't brought
up like a younger brother, but was always encouraged to
be extravagant and kep idle. But for this I might have
been quite a different man. I didn't do my duty with the
regiment so bad. You know how I was thrown over
about the money, and who got it."
"After the sacrifices I have made, and the manner in
which I have stood by you, I think this sort of reproach
is useless," Sir Pitt said. "Your marriage was your own
doing, not mine."
"That's over now," said Rawdon. "That's over now."
And the words were wrenched from him with a groan,
which made his brother start.
"Good God! is she dead?" Sir Pitt said with a voice
of genuine alarm and commiseration.
"I wish I was," Rawdon replied. "If it wasn't for little
Rawdon I'd have cut my throat this morning--and that
damned villain's too."
Sir Pitt instantly guessed the truth and surmised that
Lord Steyne was the person whose life Rawdon wished to
take. The Colonel told his senior briefly, and in broken
accents, the circumstances of the case. "It was a regular
plan between that scoundrel and her," he said. "The
bailiffs were put upon me; I was taken as I was going
out of his house; when I wrote to her for money, she
said she was ill in bed and put me off to another day.
And when I got home I found her in diamonds and
sitting with that villain alone." He then went on to describe
hurriedly the personal conflict with Lord Steyne. To an
affair of that nature, of course, he said, there was but
one issue, and after his conference with his brother, he
was going away to make the necessary arrangements for
the meeting which must ensue. "And as it may end
fatally with me," Rawdon said with a broken voice, "and
as the boy has no mother, I must leave him to you and
Jane, Pitt--only it will be a comfort to me if you will
promise me to be his friend."
The elder brother was much affected, and shook
Rawdon's hand with a cordiality seldom exhibited by him.
Rawdon passed his hand over his shaggy eyebrows.
"Thank you, brother," said he. "I know I can trust your
word."
"I will, upon my honour," the Baronet said. And thus,
and almost mutely, this bargain was struck between
them.
Then Rawdon took out of his pocket the little
pocket-book which he had discovered in Becky's desk, and from
which he drew a bundle of the notes which it contained.
"Here's six hundred," he said--"you didn't know I was
so rich. I want you to give the money to Briggs, who lent
it to us--and who was kind to the boy--and I've always
felt ashamed of having taken the poor old woman's
money. And here's some more--I've only kept back a
few pounds--which Becky may as well have, to get on
with." As he spoke he took hold of the other notes to
give to his brother, but his hands shook, and he was so
agitated that the pocket-book fell from him, and out of
it the thousand-pound note which had been the last of
the unlucky Becky's winnings.
Pitt stooped and picked them up, amazed at so much
wealth. "Not that," Rawdon said. "I hope to put a bullet
into the man whom that belongs to." He had thought to
himself, it would be a fine revenge to wrap a ball in the
note and kill Steyne with it.
After this colloquy the brothers once more shook
hands and parted. Lady Jane had heard of the Colonel's
arrival, and was waiting for her husband in the adjoining
dining-room, with female instinct, auguring evil. The
door of the dining-room happened to be left open, and
the lady of course was issuing from it as the two brothers
passed out of the study. She held out her hand to
Rawdon and said she was glad he was come to breakfast,
though she could perceive, by his haggard unshorn face
and the dark looks of her husband, that there was very
little question of breakfast between them. Rawdon
muttered some excuses about an engagement, squeezing hard
the timid little hand which his sister-in-law reached out
to him. Her imploring eyes could read nothing but
calamity in his face, but he went away without another
word. Nor did Sir Pitt vouchsafe her any explanation.
The children came up to salute him, and he kissed them
in his usual frigid manner. The mother took both of them
close to herself, and held a hand of each of them as they
knelt down to prayers, which Sir Pitt read to them, and
to the servants in their Sunday suits or liveries, ranged
upon chairs on the other side of the hissing tea-urn.
Breakfast was so late that day, in consequence of the
delays which had occurred, that the church-bells began
to ring whilst they were sitting over their meal; and
Lady Jane was too ill, she said, to go to church, though
her thoughts had been entirely astray during the period
of family devotion.
Rawdon Crawley meanwhile hurried on from Great
Gaunt Street, and knocking at the great bronze
Medusa's head which stands on the portal of Gaunt House,
brought out the purple Silenus in a red and silver
waistcoat who acts as porter of that palace. The man was
scared also by the Colonel's dishevelled appearance, and
barred the way as if afraid that the other was going to
force it. But Colonel Crawley only took out a card and
enjoined him particularly to send it in to Lord Steyne,
and to mark the address written on it, and say that
Colonel Crawley would be all day after one o'clock at the
Regent Club in St. James's Street--not at home. The fat
red-faced man looked after him with astonishment as he
strode away; so did the people in their Sunday clothes
who were out so early; the charity-boys with shining
faces, the greengrocer lolling at his door, and the publican
shutting his shutters in the sunshine, against service
commenced. The people joked at the cab-stand about
his appearance, as he took a carriage there, and told the
driver to drive him to Knightsbridge Barracks.
All the bells were jangling and tolling as he reached
that place. He might have seen his old acquaintance
Amelia on her way from Brompton to Russell Square,
had he been looking out. Troops of schools were on
their march to church, the shiny pavement and outsides
of coaches in the suburbs were thronged with people out
upon their Sunday pleasure; but the Colonel was much
too busy to take any heed of these phenomena, and,
arriving at Knightsbridge, speedily made his way up to the
room of his old friend and comrade Captain Macmurdo,
who Crawley found, to his satisfaction, was in barracks.
Captain Macmurdo, a veteran officer and Waterloo
man, greatly liked by his regiment, in which want of
money alone prevented him from attaining the highest
ranks, was enjoying the forenoon calmly in bed. He had
been at a fast supper-party, given the night before by
Captain the Honourable George Cinqbars, at his house
in Brompton Square, to several young men of the
regiment, and a number of ladies of the corps de ballet, and
old Mac, who was at home with people of all ages and
ranks, and consorted with generals, dog-fanciers, opera-
dancers, bruisers, and every kind of person, in a word,
was resting himself after the night's labours, and, not
being on duty, was in bed.
His room was hung round with boxing, sporting, and
dancing pictures, presented to him by comrades as they
retired from the regiment, and married and settled into
quiet life. And as he was now nearly fifty years of age,
twenty-four of which he had passed in the corps, he had
a singular museum. He was one of the best shots in
England, and, for a heavy man, one of the best riders;
indeed, he and Crawley had been rivals when the latter
was in the Army. To be brief, Mr. Macmurdo was lying
in bed, reading in Bell's Life an account of that very
fight between the Tutbury Pet and the Barking Butcher,
which has been before mentioned--a venerable bristly
warrior, with a little close-shaved grey head, with a silk
nightcap, a red face and nose, and a great dyed
moustache.
When Rawdon told the Captain he wanted a friend, the
latter knew perfectly well on what duty of friendship he
was called to act, and indeed had conducted scores of
affairs for his acquaintances with the greatest prudence
and skill. His Royal Highness the late lamented
Commander-in-Chief had had the greatest regard for
Macmurdo on this account, and he was the common refuge
of gentlemen in trouble.
"What's the row about, Crawley, my boy?" said the
old warrior. "No more gambling business, hay, like that
when we shot Captain Marker?"
"It's about--about my wife," Crawley answered,
casting down his eyes and turning very red.
The other gave a whistle. "I always said she'd throw
you over," he began--indeed there were bets in the
regiment and at the clubs regarding the probable fate of
Colonel Crawley, so lightly was his wife's character
esteemed by his comrades and the world; but seeing the
savage look with which Rawdon answered the expression
of this opinion, Macmurdo did not think fit to enlarge
upon it further.
"Is there no way out of it, old boy?" the Captain
continued in a grave tone. "Is it only suspicion, you know,
or--or what is it? Any letters? Can't you keep it quiet?
Best not make any noise about a thing of that sort if you
can help it." "Think of his only finding her out now," the
Captain thought to himself, and remembered a hundred
particular conversations at the mess-table, in which Mrs.
Crawley's reputation had been torn to shreds.
"There's no way but one out of it," Rawdon replied--
"and there's only a way out of it for one of us, Mac--do
you understand? I was put out of the way--arrested--I
found 'em alone together. I told him he was a liar and a
coward, and knocked him down and thrashed him."
"Serve him right," Macmurdo said. "Who is it?"
Rawdon answered it was Lord Steyne.
"The deuce! a Marquis! they said he--that is, they
said you--"
"What the devil do you mean?" roared out Rawdon;
"do you mean that you ever heard a fellow doubt about
my wife and didn't tell me, Mac?"
"The world's very censorious, old boy," the other
replied. "What the deuce was the good of my telling you
what any tom-fools talked about?"
"It was damned unfriendly, Mac," said Rawdon, quite
overcome; and, covering his face with his hands, he gave
way to an emotion, the sight of which caused the tough
old campaigner opposite him to wince with sympathy.
"Hold up, old boy," he said; "great man or not, we'll put
a bullet in him, damn him. As for women, they're all so."
"You don't know how fond I was of that one,"
Rawdon said, half-inarticulately. "Damme, I followed her like
a footman. I gave up everything I had to her. I'm a
beggar because I would marry her. By Jove, sir, I've pawned
my own watch in order to get her anything she fancied;
and she she's been making a purse for herself all the
time, and grudged me a hundred pound to get me out of
quod." He then fiercely and incoherently, and with an
agitation under which his counsellor had never before
seen him labour, told Macmurdo the circumstances of
the story. His adviser caught at some stray hints in it.
"She may be innocent, after all," he said. "She says
so. Steyne has been a hundred times alone with her in
the house before."
"It may be so," Rawdon answered sadly, "but this don't
look very innocent": and he showed the Captain the
thousand-pound note which he had found in Becky's
pocket-book. "This is what he gave her, Mac, and she
kep it unknown to me; and with this money in the house,
she refused to stand by me when I was locked up." The
Captain could not but own that the secreting of the
money had a very ugly look.
Whilst they were engaged in their conference, Rawdon
dispatched Captain Macmurdo's servant to Curzon Street,
with an order to the domestic there to give up a bag of
clothes of which the Colonel had great need. And during
the man's absence, and with great labour and a Johnson's
Dictionary, which stood them in much stead, Rawdon
and his second composed a letter, which the latter
was to send to Lord Steyne. Captain Macmurdo had the
honour of waiting upon the Marquis of Steyne, on the part
of Colonel Rawdon Crawley, and begged to intimate that
he was empowered by the Colonel to make any arrangements
for the meeting which, he had no doubt, it was his
Lordship's intention to demand, and which the circumstances
of the morning had rendered inevitable. Captain
Macmurdo begged Lord Steyne, in the most polite
manner, to appoint a friend, with whom he (Captain M'M.)
might communicate, and desired that the meeting might
take place with as little delay as possible.
In a postscript the Captain stated that he had in his
possession a bank-note for a large amount, which
Colonel Crawley had reason to suppose was the property of
the Marquis of Steyne. And he was anxious, on the
Colonel's behalf, to give up the note to its owner.
By the time this note was composed, the Captain's
servant returned from his mission to Colonel Crawley's
house in Curzon Street, but without the carpet-bag and
portmanteau, for which he had been sent, and with a
very puzzled and odd face.
"They won't give 'em up," said the man; "there's a
regular shinty in the house, and everything at sixes and
sevens. The landlord's come in and took possession. The
servants was a drinkin' up in the drawingroom. They
said--they said you had gone off with the plate,
Colonel"--the man added after a pause--"One of the
servants is off already. And Simpson, the man as was very
noisy and drunk indeed, says nothing shall go out of the
house until his wages is paid up."
The account of this little revolution in May Fair
astonished and gave a little gaiety to an otherwise very
triste conversation. The two officers laughed at Rawdon's
discomfiture.
"I'm glad the little 'un isn't at home," Rawdon said,
biting his nails. "You remember him, Mac, don't you, in
the Riding School? How he sat the kicker to be sure!
didn't he?"
"That he did, old boy," said the good-natured Captain.
Little Rawdon was then sitting, one of fifty gown boys,
in the Chapel of Whitefriars School, thinking, not about
the sermon, but about going home next Saturday, when
his father would certainly tip him and perhaps would
take him to the play.
"He's a regular trump, that boy," the father went on,
still musing about his son. "I say, Mac, if anything goes
wrong--if I drop--I should like you to--to go and see
him, you know, and say that I was very fond of him, and
that. And--dash it--old chap, give him these gold sleeve-
buttons: it's all I've got." He covered his face with his
black hands, over which the tears rolled and made
furrows of white. Mr. Macmurdo had also occasion to take
off his silk night-cap and rub it across his eyes.
"Go down and order some breakfast," he said to his
man in a loud cheerful voice. "What'll you have, Crawley?
Some devilled kidneys and a herring--let's say. And,
Clay, lay out some dressing things for the Colonel: we
were always pretty much of a size, Rawdon, my boy, and
neither of us ride so light as we did when we first
entered the corps." With which, and leaving the Colonel to
dress himself, Macmurdo turned round towards the wall,
and resumed the perusal of Bell's Life, until such time as
his friend's toilette was complete and he was at liberty
to commence his own.
This, as he was about to meet a lord, Captain
Macmurdo performed with particular care. He waxed his
mustachios into a state of brilliant polish and put on a
tight cravat and a trim buff waistcoat, so that all the
young officers in the mess-room, whither Crawley had
preceded his friend, complimented Mac on his appearance
at breakfast and asked if he was going to be married
that Sunday.
CHAPIER LV
In Which the Same Subject is Pursued
Becky did not rally from the state of stupor and confusion
in which the events of the previous night had plunged
her intrepid spirit until the bells of the Curzon Street
Chapels were ringing for afternoon service, and rising
from her bed she began to ply her own bell, in order to
summon the French maid who had left her some hours
before.
Mrs. Rawdon Crawley rang many times in vain; and
though, on the last occasion, she rang with such
vehemence as to pull down the bell-rope, Mademoiselle
Fifine did not make her appearance--no, not though her
mistress, in a great pet, and with the bell-rope in her hand,
came out to the landing-place with her hair over her
shoulders and screamed out repeatedly for her attendant.
The truth is, she had quitted the premises for many
hours, and upon that permission which is called French
leave among us After picking up the trinkets in the
drawing-room, Mademoiselle had ascended to her own
apartments, packed and corded her own boxes there,
tripped out and called a cab for herself, brought down
her trunks with her own hand, and without ever so much
as asking the aid of any of the other servants, who would
probably have refused it, as they hated her cordially,
and without wishing any one of them good-bye, had
made her exit from Curzon Street.
The game, in her opinion, was over in that little
domestic establishment. Fifine went off in a cab, as we
have known more exalted persons of her nation to do
under similar circumstances: but, more provident or
lucky than these, she secured not only her own property,
but some of her mistress's (if indeed that lady could be
said to have any property at all)--and not only carried
off the trinkets before alluded to, and some favourite
dresses on which she had long kept her eye, but four
richly gilt Louis Quatorze candlesticks, six gilt albums,
keepsakes, and Books of Beauty, a gold enamelled
snuff-box which had once belonged to Madame du Barri, and
the sweetest little inkstand and mother-of-pearl blotting
book, which Becky used when she composed her charming
little pink notes, had vanished from the premises in
Curzon Street together with Mademoiselle Fifine, and all
the silver laid on the table for the little festin which
Rawdon interrupted. The plated ware Mademoiselle left
behind her was too cumbrous, probably for which
reason, no doubt, she also left the fire irons, the
chimney-glasses, and the rosewood cottage piano.
A lady very like her subsequently kept a milliner's
shop in the Rue du Helder at Paris, where she lived with
great credit and enjoyed the patronage of my Lord
Steyne. This person always spoke of England as of the
most treacherous country in the world, and stated to her
young pupils that she had been affreusement vole by
natives of that island. It was no doubt compassion for
her misfortunes which induced the Marquis of Steyne to
be so very kind to Madame de Saint-Amaranthe. May
she flourish as she deserves--she appears no more in our
quarter of Vanity Fair.
Hearing a buzz and a stir below, and indignant at the
impudence of those servants who would not answer her
summons, Mrs. Crawley flung her morning robe round
her and descended majestically to the drawing-room,
whence the noise proceeded.
The cook was there with blackened face, seated on the
beautiful chintz sofa by the side of Mrs. Raggles, to whom
she was administering Maraschino. The page with the
sugar-loaf buttons, who carried about Becky's pink
notes, and jumped about her little carriage with such
alacrity, was now engaged putting his fingers into a
cream dish; the footman was talking to Raggles, who
had a face full of perplexity and woe--and yet, though
the door was open, and Becky had been screaming a
half-dozen of times a few feet off, not one of her
attendants had obeyed her call. "Have a little drop, do'ee
now, Mrs. Raggles," the cook was saying as Becky
entered, the white cashmere dressing-gown flouncing
around her.
"Simpson! Trotter!" the mistress of the house cried in
great wrath. "How dare you stay here when you heard
me call? How dare you sit down in my presence? Where's
my maid?" The page withdrew his fingers from his mouth
with a momentary terror, but the cook took off a glass
of Maraschino, of which Mrs. Raggles had had enough,
staring at Becky over the little gilt glass as she drained
its contents. The liquor appeared to give the odious rebel
courage.
"YOUR sofy, indeed!" Mrs. Cook said. "I'm a settin' on
Mrs. Raggles's sofy. Don't you stir, Mrs. Raggles, Mum.
I'm a settin' on Mr. and Mrs. Raggles's sofy, which they
bought with honest money, and very dear it cost 'em,
too. And I'm thinkin' if I set here until I'm paid my
wages, I shall set a precious long time, Mrs. Raggles;
and set I will, too--ha! ha!" and with this she filled
herself another glass of the liquor and drank it with a more
hideously satirical air.
"Trotter! Simpson! turn that drunken wretch out,"
screamed Mrs. Crawley.
"I shawn't," said Trotter the footman; "turn out
yourself. Pay our selleries, and turn me out too. WE'LL
go fast enough."
"Are you all here to insult me?" cried Becky in a fury;
"when Colonel Crawley comes home I'll--"
At this the servants burst into a horse haw-haw, in
which, however, Raggles, who still kept a most melancholy countenance, did not join. "He ain't a coming back,"
Mr. Trotter resumed. "He sent for his things, and I
wouldn't let 'em go, although Mr. Raggles would; and I
don't b'lieve he's no more a Colonel than I am. He's
hoff, and I suppose you're a goin' after him. You're no
better than swindlers, both on you. Don't be a bullyin'
ME. I won't stand it. Pay us our selleries, I say. Pay us
our selleries." It was evident, from Mr. Trotter's flushed
countenance and defective intonation, that he, too, had
had recourse to vinous stimulus.
"Mr. Raggles," said Becky in a passion of vexation,
"you will not surely let me be insulted by that drunken
man?" "Hold your noise, Trotter; do now," said Simpson
the page. He was affected by his mistress's deplorable
situation, and succeeded in preventing an outrageous
denial of the epithet "drunken" on the footman's part.
"Oh, M'am," said Raggles, "I never thought to live to
see this year day: I've known the Crawley family ever
since I was born. I lived butler with Miss Crawley for
thirty years; and I little thought one of that family was
a goin' to ruing me--yes, ruing me"--said the poor fellow
with tears in his eyes. "Har you a goin' to pay me? You've
lived in this 'ouse four year. You've 'ad my substance:
my plate and linning. You ho me a milk and butter bill
of two 'undred pound, you must 'ave noo laid heggs for
your homlets, and cream for your spanil dog."
"She didn't care what her own flesh and blood had,"
interposed the cook. "Many's the time, he'd have starved
but for me."
"He's a charaty-boy now, Cooky," said Mr. Trotter,
with a drunken "ha! ha!"--and honest Raggles continued,
in a lamentable tone, an enumeration of his griefs. All he
said was true. Becky and her husband had ruined him.
He had bills coming due next week and no means to meet
them. He would be sold up and turned out of his shop
and his house, because he had trusted to the Crawley
family. His tears and lamentations made Becky more
peevish than ever.
"You all seem to be against me," she said bitterly.
"What do you want? I can't pay you on Sunday. Come
back to-morrow and I'll pay you everything. I thought
Colonel Crawley had settled with you. He will to-morrow.
I declare to you upon my honour that he left home this
morning with fifteen hundred pounds in his pocket-book.
He has left me nothing. Apply to him. Give me a bonnet
and shawl and let me go out and find him. There was a
difference between us this morning. You all seem to
know it. I promise you upon my word that you shall all
be paid. He has got a good appointment. Let me go out
and find him.''
This audacious statement caused Raggles and the other
personages present to look at one another with a wild
surprise, and with it Rebecca left them. She went upstairs
and dressed herself this time without the aid of her French
maid. She went into Rawdon's room, and there saw that
a trunk and bag were packed ready for removal, with a
pencil direction that they should be given when called
for; then she went into the Frenchwoman's garret;
everything was clean, and all the drawers emptied there.
She bethought herself of the trinkets which had been left on
the ground and felt certain that the woman had fled.
"Good Heavens! was ever such ill luck as mine?" she
said; "to be so near, and to lose all. Is it all too late?"
No; there was one chance more.
She dressed herself and went away unmolested this
time, but alone. It was four o'clock. She went swiftly
down the streets (she had no money to pay for a
carriage), and never stopped until she came to Sir Pitt
Crawley's door, in Great Gaunt Street. Where was Lady
Jane Crawley? She was at church. Becky was not sorry.
Sir Pitt was in his study, and had given orders not to be
disturbed--she must see him--she slipped by the sentinel
in livery at once, and was in Sir Pitt's room before the
astonished Baronet had even laid down the paper.
He turned red and started back from her with a look
of great alarm and horror.
"Do not look so," she said. "I am not guilty, Pitt, dear
Pitt; you were my friend once. Before God, I am not
guilty. I seem so. Everything is against me. And oh! at
such a moment! just when all my hopes were about to be
realized: just when happiness was in store for us."
"Is this true, what I see in the paper then?" Sir Pitt
said--a paragraph in which had greatly surprised him.
"It is true. Lord Steyne told me on Friday night, the
night of that fatal ball. He has been promised an
appointment any time these six months. Mr. Martyr, the
Colonial Secretary, told him yesterday that it was made out.
That unlucky arrest ensued; that horrible meeting. I was only
guilty of too much devotedness to Rawdon's service. I
have received Lord Steyne alone a hundred times before.
I confess I had money of which Rawdon knew nothing.
Don't you know how careless he is of it, and could I dare
to confide it to him?" And so she went on with a
perfectly connected story, which she poured into the ears
of her perplexed kinsman.
It was to the following effect. Becky owned, and with
prefect frankness, but deep contrition, that having
remarked Lord Steyne's partiality for her (at the mention
of which Pitt blushed), and being secure of her own
virtue, she had determined to turn the great peer's
attachment to the advantage of herself and her family. "I
looked for a peerage for you, Pitt," she said (the brother-
in-law again turned red). "We have talked about it. Your
genius and Lord Steyne's interest made it more than
probable, had not this dreadful calamity come to put an
end to all our hopes. But, first, I own that it was my
object to rescue my dear husband--him whom I love in
spite of all his ill usage and suspicions of me--to remove
him from the poverty and ruin which was impending over
us. I saw Lord Steyne's partiality for me," she said,
casting down her eyes. "I own that I did everything in
my power to make myself pleasing to him, and as far as
an honest woman may, to secure his--his esteem. It was
only on Friday morning that the news arrived of the
death of the Governor of Coventry Island, and my Lord
instantly secured the appointment for my dear husband.
It was intended as a surprise for him--he was to see it in
the papers to-day. Even after that horrid arrest took
place (the expenses of which Lord Steyne generously
said he would settle, so that I was in a manner prevented
from coming to my husband's assistance), my Lord was
laughing with me, and saying that my dearest Rawdon
would be consoled when he read of his appointment in
the paper, in that shocking spun--bailiff's house. And
then--then he came home. His suspicions were excited,
--the dreadful scene took place between my Lord and
my cruel, cruel Rawdon--and, O my God, what will
happen next? Pitt, dear Pitt! pity me, and reconcile us!"
And as she spoke she flung herself down on her knees,
and bursting into tears, seized hold of Pitt's hand, which
she kissed passionately.
It was in this very attitude that Lady Jane, who,
returning from church, ran to her husband's room directly
she heard Mrs. Rawdon Crawley was closeted there,
found the Baronet and his sister-in-law.
"I am surprised that woman has the audacity to enter
this house," Lady Jane said, trembling in every limb
and turning quite pale. (Her Ladyship had sent out her
maid directly after breakfast, who had communicated
with Raggles and Rawdon Crawley's household, who had
told her all, and a great deal more than they knew, of
that story, and many others besides). "How dare Mrs.
Crawley to enter the house of--of an honest family?"
Sir Pitt started back, amazed at his wife's display of
vigour. Becky still kept her kneeling posture and clung
to Sir Pitt's hand.
"Tell her that she does not know all: Tell her that I
am innocent, dear Pitt," she whimpered out.
"Upon-my word, my love, I think you do Mrs. Crawley
injustice," Sir Pitt said; at which speech Rebecca was
vastly relieved. "Indeed I believe her to be--"
"To be what?" cried out Lady Jane, her clear voice
thrilling and, her heart beating violently as she spoke.
"To be a wicked woman--a heartless mother, a false
wife? She never loved her dear little boy, who used to
fly here and tell me of her cruelty to him. She never
came into a family but she strove to bring misery with
her and to weaken the most sacred affections with her
wicked flattery and falsehoods. She has deceived her
husband, as she has deceived everybody; her soul is black
with vanity, worldliness, and all sorts of crime. I tremble
when I touch her. I keep my children out of her sight.
"Lady Jane!" cried Sir Pitt, starting up, "this is really
language--"
"I have been a true and faithful wife to you, Sir
Pitt," Lady Jane continued, intrepidly; "I have kept my
marriage vow as I made it to God and have been
obedient and gentle as a wife should. But righteous
obedience has its limits, and I declare that I will not bear
that--that woman again under my roof; if she enters it,
I and my children will leave it. She is not worthy to sit
down with Christian people. You--you must choose, sir,
between her and me"; and with this my Lady swept out
of the room, fluttering with her own audacity, and leaving
Rebecca and Sir Pitt not a little astonished at it.
As for Becky, she was not hurt; nay, she was pleased.
"It was the diamond-clasp you gave me," she said to Sir
Pitt, reaching him out her hand; and before she left him
(for which event you may be sure my Lady Jane was
looking out from her dressing-room window in the upper
story) the Baronet had promised to go and seek out his
brother, and endeavour to bring about a reconciliation.
Rawdon found some of the young fellows of the regiment
seated in the mess-room at breakfast, and was
induced without much difficulty to partake of that meal,
and of the devilled legs of fowls and soda-water with
which these young gentlemen fortified themselves. Then
they had a conversation befitting the day and their time
of life: about the next pigeon-match at Battersea, with
relative bets upon Ross and Osbaldiston; about
Mademoiselle Ariane of the French Opera, and who had left
her, and how she was consoled by Panther Carr; and
about the fight between the Butcher and the Pet, and the
probabilities that it was a cross. Young Tandyman, a
hero of seventeen, laboriously endeavouring to get up a
pair of mustachios, had seen the fight, and spoke in the
most scientific manner about the battle and the condition
of the men. It was he who had driven the Butcher on to
the ground in his drag and passed the whole of the
previous night with him. Had there not been foul play
he must have won it. All the old files of the Ring were in
it; and Tandyman wouldn't pay; no, dammy, he wouldn't
pay. It was but a year since the young Cornet, now so
knowing a hand in Cribb's parlour, had a still lingering
liking for toffy, and used to be birched at Eton.
So they went on talking about dancers, fights, drinking,
demireps, until Macmurdo came down and joined the