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that year. Georgy was always present at the play, but
it was the Major who put Emmy's shawl on after the
entertainment; and in the walks and excursions the young
lad would be on ahead, and up a tower-stair or a tree,
whilst the soberer couple were below, the Major smoking
his cigar with great placidity and constancy, whilst Emmy
sketched the site or the ruin. It was on this very tour that
I, the present writer of a history of which every word is
true, had the pleasure to see them first and to make their
acquaintance.
It was at the little comfortable Ducal town of
Pumpernickel (that very place where Sir Pitt Crawley
had been so distinguished as an attache; but that was in
early early days, and before the news of the Battle of
Austerlitz sent all the English diplomatists in Germany to
the right about) that I first saw Colonel Dobbin and
his party. They had arrived with the carriage and courier
at the Erbprinz Hotel, the best of the town, and the whole
party dined at the table d'hote. Everybody remarked
the majesty of Jos and the knowing way in which he
sipped, or rather sucked, the Johannisberger, which he
ordered for dinner. The little boy, too, we observed, had
a famous appetite, and consumed schinken, and braten,
and kartoffeln, and cranberry jam, and salad, and
pudding, and roast fowls, and sweetmeats, with a gallantry
that did honour to his nation. After about fifteen dishes,
he concluded the repast with dessert, some of which he
even carried out of doors, for some young gentlemen at
table, amused with his coolness and gallant free-and-easy
manner, induced him to pocket a handful of macaroons,
which he discussed on his way to the theatre, whither
everybody went in the cheery social little German place.
The lady in black, the boy's mamma, laughed and blushed,
and looked exceedingly pleased and shy as the dinner
went on, and at the various feats and instances of
espieglerie on the part of her son. The Colonel--
for so he became very soon afterwards--I remember
joked the boy with a great deal of grave fun, pointing
out dishes which he hadn't tried, and entreating him not
to baulk his appetite, but to have a second supply of
this or that.
It was what they call a gast-rolle night at the Royal
Grand Ducal Pumpernickelisch Hof--or Court theatre--
and Madame Schroeder Devrient, then in the bloom of
her beauty and genius, performed the part of the heroine
in the wonderful opera of Fidelio. From our places in the
stalls we could see our four friends of the table d'hote
in the loge which Schwendler of the Erbprinz kept for his
best guests, and I could not help remarking the effect
which the magnificent actress and music produced upon
Mrs. Osborne, for so we heard the stout gentleman in
the mustachios call her. During the astonishing Chorus
of the Prisoners, over which the delightful voice of the
actress rose and soared in the most ravishing harmony,
the English lady's face wore such an expression of wonder
and delight that it struck even little Fipps, the blase
attache, who drawled out, as he fixed his glass upon her,
"Gayd, it really does one good to see a woman caypable
of that stayt of excaytement." And in the Prison Scene,
where Fidelio, rushing to her husband, cries, "Nichts,
nichts, mein Florestan," she fairly lost herself and
covered her face with her handkerchief. Every woman in the
house was snivelling at the time, but I suppose it was
because it was predestined that I was to write this
particular lady's memoirs that I remarked her.
The next day they gave another piece of Beethoven,
Die Schlacht bei Vittoria. Malbrook is introduced at the
beginning of the performance, as indicative of the brisk
advance of the French army. Then come drums, trumpets,
thunders of artillery, and groans of the dying, and at last,
in a grand triumphal swell, "God Save the King" is
performed.
There may have been a score of Englishmen in the
house, but at the burst of that beloved and well-known
music, every one of them, we young fellows in the stalls,
Sir John and Lady Bullminster (who had taken a house
at Pumpernickel for the education of their nine
children), the fat gentleman with the mustachios, the long
Major in white duck trousers, and the lady with the little
boy upon whom he was so sweet, even Kirsch, the courier
in the gallery, stood bolt upright in their places and
proclaimed themselves to be members of the dear old British
nation. As for Tapeworm, the Charge d'Affaires, he rose
up in his box and bowed and simpered, as if he would
represent the whole empire. Tapeworm was nephew and
heir of old Marshal Tiptoff, who has been introduced in
this story as General Tiptoff, just before Waterloo, who
was Colonel of the --th regiment in which Major Dobbin
served, and who died in this year full of honours, and of
an aspic of plovers' eggs; when the regiment was graciously
given by his Majesty to Colonel Sir Michael O'Dowd,
K.C.B. who had commanded it in many glorious fields.
Tapeworm must have met with Colonel Dobbin at the
house of the Colonel's Colonel, the Marshal, for he
recognized him on this night at the theatre, and with the
utmost condescension, his Majesty's minister came over
from his own box and publicly shook hands with his
new-found friend.
"Look at that infernal sly-boots of a Tapeworm,"
Fipps whispered, examining his chief from the stalls.
"Wherever there's a pretty woman he always twists
himself in." And I wonder what were diplomatists made for
but for that?
"Have I the honour of addressing myself to Mrs.
Dobbin?" asked the Secretary with a most insinuating grin.
Georgy burst out laughing and said, "By Jove, that was
a good 'un." Emmy and the Major blushed: we saw them
from the stalls.
"This lady is Mrs. George Osborne," said the Major,
"and this is her brother, Mr. Sedley, a distinguished
officer of the Bengal Civil Service: permit me to introduce
him to your lordship."
My lord nearly sent Jos off his legs with the most
fascinating smile. "Are you going to stop in Pumpernickel?"
he said. "It is a dull place, but we want some nice people,
and we would try and make it SO agreeable to you. Mr.--
Ahum--Mrs.--Oho. I shall do myself the honour of calling
upon you to-morrow at your inn." And he went away
with a Parthian grin and glance which he thought must
finish Mrs. Osborne completely.
The performance over, the young fellows lounged about
the lobbies, and we saw the society take its departure.
The Duchess Dowager went off in her jingling old coach,
attended by two faithful and withered old maids of
honour, and a little snuffy spindle-shanked gentleman in
waiting, in a brown jasey and a green coat covered with
orders--of which the star and the grand yellow cordon of
the order of St. Michael of Pumpernickel were most
conspicuous. The drums rolled, the guards saluted, and the
old carriage drove away.
Then came his Transparency the Duke and Transparent
family, with his great officers of state and household. He
bowed serenely to everybody. And amid the saluting of
the guards and the flaring of the torches of the running
footmen, clad in scarlet, the Transparent carriages drove
away to the old Ducal schloss, with its towers and
pinacles standing on the schlossberg. Everybody in
Pumpernickel knew everybody. No sooner was a foreigner seen
there than the Minister of Foreign Affairs, or some other
great or small officer of state, went round to the Erbprinz
and found out the name of the new arrival.
We watched them, too, out of the theatre. Tapeworm
had just walked off, enveloped in his cloak, with which
his gigantic chasseur was always in attendance, and
looking as much as possible like Don Juan. The Prime
Minister's lady had just squeezed herself into her sedan,
and her daughter, the charming Ida, had put on her
calash and clogs; when the English party came out, the
boy yawning drearily, the Major taking great pains in
keeping the shawl over Mrs. Osborne's head, and Mr.
Sedley looking grand, with a crush opera-hat on one side
of his head and his hand in the stomach of a voluminous
white waistcoat. We took off our hats to our acquaintances
of the table d'hote, and the lady, in return, presented us
with a little smile and a curtsey, for which
everybody might be thankful.
The carriage from the inn, under the superintendence
of the bustling Mr. Kirsch, was in waiting to convey the
party; but the fat man said he would walk and smoke his
cigar on his way homewards, so the other three, with
nods and smiles to us, went without Mr. Sedley, Kirsch,
with the cigar case, following in his master's wake.
We all walked together and talked to the stout gentleman
about the agremens of the place. It was very agreeable
for the English. There were shooting-parties and
battues; there was a plenty of balls and entertainments at
the hospitable Court; the society was generally good; the
theatre excellent; and the living cheap.
"And our Minister seems a most delightful and affable
person," our new friend said. '~With such a representative,
and--and a good medical man, I can fancy the place to
be most eligible. Good-night, gentlemen." And Jos
creaked up the stairs to bedward, followed by Kirsch with
a flambeau. We rather hoped that nice-looking woman
would be induced to stay some time in the town.
CHAPTER LXIII
In Which We Meet an Old Acquaintance
Such polite behaviour as that of Lord Tapeworm did
not fail to have the most favourable effect upon Mr.
Sedley's mind, and the very next morning, at breakfast, he
pronounced his opinion that Pumpernickel was the
pleasantest little place of any which he had visited on their
tour. Jos's motives and artifices were not very difficult
of comprehension, and Dobbin laughed in his sleeve, like
a hypocrite as he was, when he found, by the knowing air
of the civilian and the offhand manner in which the
latter talked about Tapeworm Castle and the other members
of the family, that Jos had been up already in the morning,
consulting his travelling Peerage. Yes, he had seen
the Right Honourable the Earl of Bagwig, his lordship's
father; he was sure he had, he had met him at--at the
Levee--didn't Dob remember? and when the Diplomatist
called on the party, faithful to his promise, Jos received
him with such a salute and honours as were seldom
accorded to the little Envoy. He winked at Kirsch on his
Excellency's arrival, and that emissary, instructed before-
hand, went out and superintended an entertainment of
cold meats, jellies, and other delicacies, brought in upon
trays, and of which Mr. Jos absolutely insisted that his
noble guest should partake.
Tapeworm, so long as he could have an opportunity of
admiring the bright eyes of Mrs. Osborne (whose freshness
of complexion bore daylight remarkably well) was
not ill pleased to accept any invitation to stay in Mr.
Sedley's lodgings; he put one or two dexterous questions
to him about India and the dancing-girls there; asked
Amelia about that beautiful boy who had been with her;
and complimented the astonished little woman upon the
prodigious sensation which she had made in the house;
and tried to fascinate Dobbin by talking of the late war
and the exploits of the Pumpernickel contingent under the
command of the Hereditary Prince, now Duke of
Pumpernickel.
Lord Tapeworm inherited no little portion of the family
gallantry, and it was his happy belief that almost every
woman upon whom he himself cast friendly eyes was in
love with him. He left Emmy under the persuasion that
she was slain by his wit and attractions and went home to
his lodgings to write a pretty little note to her. She was
not fascinated, only puzzled, by his grinning, his simpering,
his scented cambric handkerchief, and his high-heeled
lacquered boots. She did not understand one-half the
compliments which he paid; she had never, in her small
experience of mankind, met a professional ladies' man as
yet, and looked upon my lord as something curious rather
than pleasant; and if she did not admire, certainly
wondered at him. Jos, on the contrary, was delighted. "How
very affable his Lordship is," he said; "How very kind of
his Lordship to say he would send his medical man!
Kirsch, you will carry our cards to the Count de
Schlusselback directly; the Major and I will have the
greatest pleasure in paying our respects at Court as soon
as possible. Put out my uniform, Kirsch--both our
uniforms. It is a mark of politeness which every English
gentleman ought to show to the countries which he visits
to pay his respects to the sovereigns of those countries
as to the representatives of his own."
When Tapeworm's doctor came, Doctor von Glauber,
Body Physician to H.S.H. the Duke, he speedily
convinced Jos that the Pumpernickel mineral springs and
the Doctor's particular treatment would infallibly restore
the Bengalee to youth and slimness. "Dere came here last
year," he said, "Sheneral Bulkeley, an English Sheneral,
tvice so pic as you, sir. I sent him back qvite tin after
tree months, and he danced vid Baroness Glauber at
the end of two."
Jos's mind was made up; the springs, the Doctor, the
Court, and the Charge d'Affaires convinced him, and he
proposed to spend the autumn in these delightful
quarters. And punctual to his word, on the next day the
Charge d'Affaires presented Jos and the Major to Victor
Aurelius XVII, being conducted to their audience with
that sovereign by the Count de Schlusselback, Marshal
of the Court.
They were straightway invited to dinner at Court, and
their intention of staying in the town being announced,
the politest ladies of the whole town instantly called upon
Mrs. Osborne; and as not one of these, however poor
they might be, was under the rank of a Baroness, Jos's
delight was beyond expression. He wrote off to Chutney
at the Club to say that the Service was highly appreciated
in Germany, that he was going to show his friend, the
Count de Schlusselback, how to stick a pig in the Indian
fashion, and that his august friends, the Duke and
Duchess, were everything that was kind and civil.
Emmy, too, was presented to the august family, and as
mourning is not admitted in Court on certain days, she
appeared in a pink crape dress with a diamond ornament
in the corsage, presented to her by her brother, and
she looked so pretty in this costume that the Duke and
Court (putting out of the question the Major, who had
scarcely ever seen her before in an evening dress, and
vowed that she did not look five-and-twenty) all admired
her excessively.
In this dress she walked a Polonaise with Major Dobbin
at a Court ball, in which easy dance Mr. Jos had the
honour of leading out the Countess of Schlusselback,
an old lady with a hump back, but with sixteen good
quarters of nobility and related to half the royal houses
of Germany.
Pumpernickel stands in the midst of a happy valley
through which sparkles--to mingle with the Rhine
somewhere, but I have not the map at hand to say exactly at
what point--the fertilizing stream of the Pump. In some
places the river is big enough to support a ferry-boat, in
others to turn a mill; in Pumpernickel itself, the last
Transparency but three, the great and renowned Victor
Aurelius XIV built a magnificent bridge, on which his
own statue rises, surrounded by water-nymphs and
emblems of victory, peace, and plenty; he has his foot on the
neck of a prostrate Turk--history says he engaged and
ran a Janissary through the body at the relief of Vienna
by Sobieski--but, quite undisturbed by the agonies
of that prostrate Mahometan, who writhes at his feet in
the most ghastly manner, the Prince smiles blandly and
points with his truncheon in the direction of the Aurelius
Platz, where he began to erect a new palace that would
have been the wonder of his age had the great-souled
Prince but had funds to complete it. But the completion
of Monplaisir (Monblaisir the honest German folks call
it) was stopped for lack of ready money, and it and its
park and garden are now in rather a faded condition,
and not more than ten times big enough to accommodate
the Court of the reigning Sovereign.
The gardens were arranged to emulate those of
Versailles, and amidst the terraces and groves there are
some huge allegorical waterworks still, which spout and
froth stupendously upon fete-days, and frighten one
with their enormous aquatic insurrections. There is the
Trophonius' cave in which, by some artifice, the leaden
Tritons are made not only to spout water, but to play
the most dreadful groans out of their lead conchs--there
is the nymphbath and the Niagara cataract, which the
people of the neighbourhood admire beyond expression,
when they come to the yearly fair at the opening of the
Chamber, or to the fetes with which the happy little nation
still celebrates the birthdays and marriage-days of its
princely governors.
Then from all the towns of the Duchy, which stretches
for nearly ten mile--from Bolkum, which lies on
its western frontier bidding defiance to Prussia, from
Grogwitz, where the Prince has a hunting-lodge, and
where his dominions are separated by the Pump River
from those of the neighbouring Prince of Potzenthal; from
all the little villages, which besides these three great
cities, dot over the happy principality--from the farms
and the mills along the Pump come troops of people in
red petticoats and velvet head-dresses, or with three-
cornered hats and pipes in their mouths, who flock to the
Residenz and share in the pleasures of the fair and the
festivities there. Then the theatre is open for nothing,
then the waters of Monblaisir begin to play (it is lucky
that there is company to behold them, for one would be
afraid to see them alone)--then there come mountebanks
and riding troops (the way in which his Transparency
was fascinated by one of the horse-riders is well known,
and it is believed that La Petite Vivandiere, as she was
called, was a spy in the French interest), and the delighted
people are permitted to march through room after room
of the Grand Ducal palace and admire the slippery
floor, the rich hangings, and the spittoons at the
doors of all the innumerable chambers. There is one
Pavilion at Monblaisir which Aurelius Victor XV had
arranged--a great Prince but too fond of pleasure--and
which I am told is a perfect wonder of licentious elegance.
It is painted with the story of Bacchus and Ariadne, and
the table works in and out of the room by means of a
windlass, so that the company was served without any
intervention of domestics. But the place was shut up by
Barbara, Aurelius XV's widow, a severe and devout
Princess of the House of Bolkum and Regent of the Duchy
during her son's glorious minority, and after the death
of her husband, cut off in the pride of his pleasures.
The theatre of Pumpernickel is known and famous in
that quarter of Germany. It languished a little when the
present Duke in his youth insisted upon having his own
operas played there, and it is said one day, in a fury,
from his place in the orchestra, when he attended a
rehearsal, broke a bassoon on the head of the Chapel
Master, who was conducting, and led too slow; and during
which time the Duchess Sophia wrote domestic comedies,
which must have been very dreary to witness. But the
Prince executes his music in private now, and the Duchess
only gives away her plays to the foreigners of distinction
who visit her kind little Court.
It is conducted with no small comfort and splendour.
When there are balls, though there may be four
hundred people at supper, there is a servant in scarlet and
lace to attend upon every four, and every one is served
on silver. There are festivals and entertainments going
continually on, and the Duke has his chamberlains and
equerries, and the Duchess her mistress of the wardrobe
and ladies of honour, just like any other and more
potent potentates.
The Constitution is or was a moderate despotism,
tempered by a Chamber that might or might not be
elected. I never certainly could hear of its sitting in my time
at Pumpernickel. The Prime Minister had lodgings in a
second floor, and the Foreign Secretary occupied the
comfortable lodgings over Zwieback's Conditorey. The
army consisted of a magnificent band that also did duty
on the stage, where it was quite pleasant to see the
worthy fellows marching in Turkish dresses with rouge on
and wooden scimitars, or as Roman warriors with
ophicleides and trombones--to see them again, I say, at
night, after one had listened to them all the morning in
the Aurelius Platz, where they performed opposite the
cafe where we breakfasted. Besides the band, there was
a rich and numerous staff of officers, and, I believe, a
few men. Besides the regular sentries, three or four men,
habited as hussars, used to do duty at the Palace, but I
never saw them on horseback, and au fait, what was the
use of cavalry in a time of profound peace?--and whither
the deuce should the hussars ride?
Everybody--everybody that was noble of course, for
as for the bourgeois we could not quite be expected to
take notice of THEM--visited his neighbour. H. E. Madame
de Burst received once a week, H. E. Madame de
Schnurrbart had her night--the theatre was open twice
a week, the Court graciously received once, so that a
man's life might in fact be a perfect round of pleasure in
the unpretending Pumpernickel way.
That there were feuds in the place, no one can deny.
Politics ran very high at Pumpernickel, and parties were
very bitter. There was the Strumpff faction and the
Lederlung party, the one supported by our envoy and the
other by the French Charge d'Affaires, M. de Macabau.
Indeed it sufficed for our Minister to stand up for
Madame Strumpff, who was clearly the greater singer of the
two, and had three more notes in her voice than Madame
Lederlung her rival--it sufficed, I say, for our Minister to
advance any opinion to have it instantly contradicted
by the French diplomatist.
Everybody in the town was ranged in one or other of
these factions. The Lederlung was a prettyish little
creature certainly, and her voice (what there was of it) was
very sweet, and there is no doubt that the Strumpff was
not in her first youth and beauty, and certainly too stout;
when she came on in the last scene of the Sonnambula,
for instance, in her night-chemise with a lamp in her
hand, and had to go out of the window, and pass over
the plank of the mill, it was all she could do to
squeeze out of the window, and the plank used to bend
and creak again under her weight--but how she poured
out the finale of the opera! and with what a burst of
feeling she rushed into Elvino's arms--almost fit to
smother him! Whereas the little Lederlung--but a truce
to this gossip--the fact is that these two women were
the two flags of the French and the English party at
Pumpernickel, and the society was divided in its
allegiance to those two great nations.
We had on our side the Home Minister, the Master of
the Horse, the Duke's Private Secretary, and the Prince's
Tutor; whereas of the French party were the Foreign
Minister, the Commander-in-Chief's Lady, who had
served under Napoleon, and the Hof-Marschall and his
wife, who was glad enough to get the fashions from
Pans, and always had them and her caps by M. de
Macabau's courier. The Secretary of his Chancery was little
Grignac, a young fellow, as malicious as Satan, and who
made caricatures of Tapeworm in all the-albums of the
place.
Their headquarters and table d'hote were established
at the Pariser Hof, the other inn of the town; and though,
of course, these gentlemen were obliged to be civil in
public, yet they cut at each other with epigrams that
were as sharp as razors, as I have seen a couple of
wrestlers in Devonshire, lashing at each other's shins
and never showing their agony upon a muscle of their
faces. Neither Tapeworm nor Macabau ever sent home
a dispatch to his government without a most savage
series of attacks upon his rival. For instance, on our side
we would write, "The interests of Great Britain in this
place, and throughout the whole of Germany, are perilled
by the continuance in office of the present French envoy;
this man is of a character so infamous that he will stick
at no falsehood, or hesitate at no crime, to attain his
ends. He poisons the mind of the Court against the
English minister, represents the conduct of Great Britain in
the most odious and atrocious light, and is unhappily
backed by a minister whose ignorance and necessities
are as notorious as his influence is fatal." On their side
they would.say, "M. de Tapeworm continues his
system of stupid insular arrogance and vulgar falsehood
against the greatest nation in the world. Yesterday he
was heard to speak lightly of Her Royal Highness Madame
the Duchess of Berri; on a former occasion he insulted
the heroic Duke of Angouleme and dared to insinuate
that H.R.H. the Duke of Orleans was conspiring against
the august throne of the lilies. His gold is prodigated in
every direction which his stupid menaces fail to frighten.
By one and the other, he has won over creatures of the
Court here--and, in fine, Pumpernickel will not be
quiet, Germany tranquil, France respected, or Europe
content until this poisonous viper be crushed under
heel": and so on. When one side or the other had written
any particularly spicy dispatch, news of it was sure to
slip out.
Before the winter was far advanced, it is actually on
record that Emmy took a night and received company
with great propriety and modesty. She had a French
master, who complimented her upon the purity of her
accent and her facility of learning; the fact is she had
learned long ago and grounded herself subsequently in the
grammar so as to be able to teach it to George; and Madam
Strumpff came to give her lessons in singing, which she
performed so well and with such a true voice that the
Major's windows, who had lodgings opposite under the
Prime Minister, were always open to hear the lesson.
Some of the German ladies, who are very sentimental and
simple in their tastes, fell in love with her and began to
call her du at once. These are trivial details, but they
relate to happy times. The Major made himself George's
tutor and read Caesar and mathematics with him, and
they had a German master and rode out of evenings by
the side of Emmy's carriage--she was always too timid,
and made a dreadful outcry at the slightest disturbance
on horse-back. So she drove about with one of her dear
German friends, and Jos asleep on the back-seat of the
barouche.
He was becoming very sweet upon the Grafinn Fanny
de Butterbrod, a very gentle tender-hearted and
unassuming young creature, a Canoness and Countess in her
own right, but with scarcely ten pounds per year to her
fortune, and Fanny for her part declared that to be
Amelia's sister was the greatest delight that Heaven could
bestow on her, and Jos might have put a Countess's shield
and coronet by the side of his own arms on his carriage
and forks; when--when events occurred, and those
grand fetes given upon the marriage of the Hereditary
Prince of Pumpernickel with the lovely Princess Amelia
of Humbourg-Schlippenschloppen took place.
At this festival the magnificence displayed was such as
had not been known in the little German place since
the days of the prodigal Victor XIV. All the neighbouring
Princes, Princesses, and Grandees were invited to the
feast. Beds rose to half a crown per night in Pumpernickel,
and the Army was exhausted in providing guards
of honour for the Highnesses, Serenities, and Excellencies
who arrived from all quarters. The Princess was married
by proxy, at her father's residence, by the Count de
Schlusselback. Snuff-boxes were given away in profusion
(as we learned from the Court jeweller, who sold
and afterwards bought them again), and bushels of the
Order of Saint Michael of Pumpernickel were sent to
the nobles of the Court, while hampers of the cordons
and decorations of the Wheel of St. Catherine of
Schlippenschloppen were brought to ours. The French envoy
got both. "He is covered with ribbons like a prize
cart-horse," Tapeworm said, who was not allowed by the rules
of his service to take any decorations: "Let him have
the cordons; but with whom is the victory?" The fact is,
it was a triumph of British diplomacy, the French party
having proposed and tried their utmost to carry a
marriage with a Princess of the House of
Potztausend-Donnerwetter, whom, as a matter of
course, we opposed.
Everybody was asked to the fetes of the marriage.
Garlands and triumphal arches were hung across the road
to welcome the young bride. The great Saint Michael's
Fountain ran with uncommonly sour wine, while that
in the Artillery Place frothed with beer. The great waters
played; and poles were put up in the park and gardens
for the happy peasantry, which they might climb at
their leisure, carrying off watches, silver forks, prize
sausages hung with pink ribbon, &c., at the top. Georgy
got one, wrenching it off, having swarmed up the pole to
the delight of the spectators, and sliding down with the
rapidity of a fall of water. But it was for the glory's
sake merely. The boy gave the sausage to a peasant,
who had very nearly seized it, and stood at the foot of
the mast, blubbering, because he was unsuccessful.
At the French Chancellerie they had six more lampions
in their illumination than ours had; but our transparency,
which represented the young Couple advancing and
Discord flying away, with the most ludicrous likeness to the
French Ambassador, beat the French picture hollow; and
I have no doubt got Tapeworm the advancement and the
Cross of the Bath which he subsequently attained.
Crowds of foreigners arrived for the fetes, and of
English, of course. Besides the Court balls, public balls
were given at the Town Hall and the Redoute, and in the
former place there was a room for trente-et-quarante
and roulette established, for the week of the festivities
only, and by one of the great German companies from
Ems or Aix-la-Chapelle. The officers or inhabitants of the
town were not allowed to play at these games, but
strangers, peasants, ladies were admitted, and any one
who chose to lose or win money.
That little scapegrace Georgy Osborne amongst others,
whose pockets were always full of dollars and whose
relations were away at the grand festival of the Court,
came to the Stadthaus Ball in company of his uncle's
courier, Mr. Kirsch, and having only peeped into a
play-room at Baden-Baden when he hung on Dobbin's arm,
and where, of course, he was not permitted to gamble, came
eagerly to this part of the entertainment and hankered
round the tables where the croupiers and the punters
were at work. Women were playing; they were masked,
some of them; this license was allowed in these wild times
of carnival.
A woman with light hair, in a low dress by no means
so fresh as it had been, and with a black mask on,
through the eyelets of which her eyes twinkled strangely,
was seated at one of the roulette-tables with a card and
a pin and a couple of florins before her. As the croupier
called out the colour and number, she pricked on the
card with great care and regularity, and only ventured her
money on the colours after the red or black had come
up a certain number of times. It was strange to look at
her.
But in spite of her care and assiduity she guessed
wrong and the last two florins followed each other under
the croupier's rake, as he cried out with his inexorable
voice the winning colour and number. She gave a sigh, a
shrug with her shoulders, which were already too much
out of her gown, and dashing the pin through the card
on to the table, sat thrumming it for a while. Then she
looked round her and saw Georgy's honest face staring
at the scene. The little scamp! What business had he
to be there?
When she saw the boy, at whose face she looked hard
through her shining eyes and mask, she said, "Monsieur
n'est pas joueur?"
"Non, Madame," said the boy; but she must have
known, from his accent, of what country he was, for she
answered him with a slight foreign tone. "You have
nevare played--will you do me a littl' favor?"
"What is it?" said Georgy, blushing again. Mr. Kirsch
was at work for his part at the rouge et noir and did not
see his young master.
"Play this for me, if you please; put it on any number,
any number." And she took from her bosom a purse, and
out of it a gold piece, the only coin there, and she put it
into George's hand. The boy laughed and did as he was
bid.
The number came up sure enough. There is a power
that arranges that, they say, for beginners.
"Thank you," said she, pulling the money towards her,
"thank you. What is your name?"
"My name's Osborne," said Georgy, and was fingering
in his own pockets for dollars, and just about to make a
trial, when the Major, in his uniform, and Jos, en Marquis,
from the Court ball, made their appearance. Other
people, finding the entertainment stupid and preferring the
fun at the Stadthaus, had quitted the Palace ball earlier;
but it is probable the Major and Jos had gone home and
found the boy's absence, for the former instantly went
up to him and, taking him by the shoulder, pulled him
briskly back from the place of temptation. Then, looking
round the room, he saw Kirsch employed as we have
said, and going up to him, asked how he dared to bring
Mr. George to such a place.
"Laissez-moi tranquille," said Mr. Kirsch, very much
excited by play and wine. "ll faut s'amuser, parbleu.
Je ne suis pas au service de Monsieur."
Seeing his condition the Major did not choose to argue
with the man, but contented himself with drawing away
George and asking Jos if he would come away. He was
standing close by the lady in the mask, who was playing
with pretty good luck now, and looking on much
interested at the game.
"Hadn't you better come, Jos," the Major said, "with
George and me?"
"I'll stop and go home with that rascal, Kirsch," Jos
said; and for the same reason of modesty, which he
thought ought to be preserved before the boy, Dobbin
did not care to remonstrate with Jos, but left him and
walked home with Georgy.
"Did you play?" asked the Major when they were out
and on their way home.
The boy said "No."
"Give me your word of honour as a gentleman that you
never will."
"Why?" said the boy; "it seems very good fun." And, in
a very eloquent and impressive manner, the Major showed
him why he shouldn't, and would have enforced his
precepts by the example of Georgy's own father, had he
liked to say anything that should reflect on the other's
memory. When he had housed him, he went to bed and
saw his light, in the little room outside of Amelia's,
presently disappear. Amelia's followed half an hour
afterwards. I don't know what made the Major note it
so accurately.
Jos, however, remained behind over the play-table; he
was no gambler, but not averse to the little excitement
of the sport now and then, and he had some Napoleons
chinking in the embroidered pockets of his court
waistcoat. He put down one over the fair shoulder of the
little gambler before him, and they won. She made a little
movement to make room for him by her side, and
just took the skirt of her gown from a vacant chair there.
"Come and give me good luck," she said, still in a
foreign accent, quite different from that frank and
perfectly English "Thank you," with which she had saluted
Georgy's coup in her favour. The portly gentleman,
looking round to see that nobody of rank observed him,
sat down; he muttered--"Ah, really, well now, God bless
my soul. I'm very fortunate; I'm sure to give you good
fortune," and other words of compliment and confusion.
"Do you play much?" the foreign mask said.
"I put a Nap or two down," said Jos with a superb air,
flinging down a gold piece.
"Yes; ay nap after dinner," said the mask archly. But
Jos looking frightened, she continued, in her pretty
French accent, "You do not play to win. No more do I.
I play to forget, but I cannot. I cannot forget old times,
monsieur. Your little nephew is the image of his father;
and you--you are not changed--but yes, you are.
Everybody changes, everybody forgets; nobody has
any heart."
"Good God, who is it?" asked Jos in a flutter.
"Can't you guess, Joseph Sedley?" said the little
woman in a sad voice, and undoing her mask, she
looked at him. "You have forgotten me."
"Good heavens! Mrs. Crawley!" gasped out Jos.
"Rebecca," said the other, putting her hand on his;
but she followed the game still, all the time she was
looking at him.
"I am stopping at the Elephant," she continued. "Ask
for Madame de Raudon. I saw my dear Amelia to-day;
how pretty she looked, and how happy! So do you!
Everybody but me, who am wretched, Joseph Sedley."
And she put her money over from the red to the black,
as if by a chance movement of her hand, and while she
was wiping her eyes with a pocket-handkerchief fringed
with torn lace.
The red came up again, and she lost the whole of that
stake.~ "Come away," she said. "Come with me a little
--we are old friends, are we not, dear Mr. Sedley?"
And Mr. Kirsch having lost all his money by this
time, followed his master out into the moonlight, where
the illuminations were winking out and the transparency
over our mission was scarcely visible.
CHAPTER LXIV
A Vagabond Chapter
We must pass over a part of Mrs. Rebecca Crawley's
biography with that lightness and delicacy which the
world demands--the moral world, that has, perhaps, no
particular objection to vice, but an insuperable repugnance
to hearing vice called by its proper name. There
are things we do and know perfectly well in Vanity Fair,
though we never speak of them: as the Ahrimanians
worship the devil, but don't mention him: and a polite
public will no more bear to read an authentic description
of vice than a truly refined English or American female
will permit the word breeches to be pronounced in her
chaste hearing. And yet, madam, both are walking the
world before our faces every day, without much shocking
us. If you were to blush every time they went by, what
complexions you would have! It is only when their
naughty names are called out that your modesty has any
occasion to show alarm or sense of outrage, and it has
been the wish of the present writer, all through this story,
deferentially to submit to the fashion at present prevailing,
and only to hint at the existence of wickedness in a
light, easy, and agreeable manner, so that nobody's fine
feelings may be offended. I defy any one to say that
our Becky, who has certainly some vices, has not been
presented to the public in a perfectly genteel and
inoffensive manner. In describing this Siren, singing and
smiling, coaxing and cajoling, the author, with modest pride,
asks his readers all round, has he once forgotten the
laws of politeness, and showed the monster's hideous tail
above water? No! Those who like may peep down under
waves that are pretty transparent and see it writhing and
twirling, diabolically hideous and slimy, flapping amongst
bones, or curling round corpses; but above the waterline,
I ask, has not everything been proper, agreeable,
and decorous, and has any the most squeamish immoralist
in Vanity Fair a right to cry fie? When, however, the Siren
disappears and dives below, down among the dead men,
the water of course grows turbid over her, and it is labour
lost to look into it ever so curiously. They look pretty
enough when they sit upon a rock, twanging their harps
and combing their hair, and sing, and beckon to you to
come and hold the looking-glass; but when they sink
into their native element, depend on it, those mermaids
are about no good, and we had best not examine the
fiendish marine cannibals, revelling and feasting on their
wretched pickled victims. And so, when Becky is out of
the way, be sure that she is not particularly well
employed, and that the less that is said about her doings
is in fact the better.
If we were to give a full account of her proceedings
during a couple of years that followed after the Curzon
Street catastrophe, there might be some reason for
people to say this book was improper. The actions of very
vain, heartless, pleasure-seeking people are very often
improper (as are many of yours, my friend with the
grave face and spotless reputation--but that is merely
by the way); and what are those of a woman without
faith--or love--or character? And I am inclined to think
that there was a period in Mrs Becky's life when
she was seized, not by remorse, but by a kind of despair,
and absolutely neglected her person and did not even
care for her reputation.
This abattement and degradation did not take place
all at once; it was brought about by degrees, after her
calamity, and after many struggles to keep up--as a
man who goes overboard hangs on to a spar whilst any
hope is left, and then flings it away and goes down, when
he finds that struggling is in vain.
She lingered about London whilst her husband was
making preparations for his departure to his seat of
government, and it is believed made more than one
attempt to see her brother-in-law, Sir Pitt Crawley, and to
work upon his feelings, which she had almost
enlisted in her favour. As Sir Pitt and Mr. Wenham were
walking down to the House of Commons, the latter spied
Mrs. Rawdon in a black veil, and lurking near the palace
of the legislature. She sneaked away when her eyes met
those of Wenham, and indeed never succeeded in her
designs upon the Baronet.
Probably Lady Jane interposed. I have heard that she
quite astonished her husband by the spirit which she
exhibited in this quarrel, and her determination to disown
Mrs. Becky. Of her own movement, she invited Rawdon
to come and stop in Gaunt Street until his departure for
Coventry Island, knowing that with him for a guard Mrs.
Becky would not try to force her door; and she looked
curiously at the superscriptions of all the letters which
arrived for Sir Pitt, lest he and his sister-in-law should
be corresponding. Not but that Rebecca could have
written had she a mind, but she did not try to see or to write
to Pitt at his own house, and after one or two attempts
consented to his demand that the correspondence
regarding her conjugal differences should be carried on by
lawyers only.
The fact was that Pitt's mind had been poisoned against
her. A short time after Lord Steyne's accident Wenham
had been with the Baronet and given him such a biography
of Mrs. Becky as had astonished the member for
Queen's Crawley. He knew everything regarding her:
who her father was; in what year her mother danced at
the opera; what had been her previous history; and what
her conduct during her married life--as I have no doubt
that the greater part of the story was false and
dictated by interested malevolence, it shall not be repeated
here. But Becky was left with a sad sad reputation in the
esteem of a country gentleman and relative who had
been once rather partial to her.
The revenues of the Governor of Coventry Island are
not large. A part of them were set aside by his Excellency
for the payment of certain outstanding debts and
liabilities, the charges incident on his high situation
required considerable expense; finally, it was found that
he could not spare to his wife more than three hundred
pounds a year, which he proposed to pay to her on
an undertaking that she would never trouble him.
Otherwise, scandal, separation, Doctors' Commons would
ensue. But it was Mr. Wenham's business, Lord Steyne's
business, Rawdon's, everybody's--to get her out of the
country, and hush up a most disagreeable affair.
She was probably so much occupied in arranging these
affairs of business with her husband's lawyers that she
forgot to take any step whatever about her son, the little
Rawdon, and did not even once propose to go and see
him. That young gentleman was consigned to the entire
guardianship of his aunt and uncle, the former of whom
had always possessed a great share of the child's
affection. His mamma wrote him a neat letter from Boulogne,
when she quitted England, in which she requested him to
mind his book, and said she was going to take a
Continental tour, during which she would have the pleasure
of writing to him again. But she never did for a year
afterwards, and not, indeed, until Sir Pitt's only boy,
always sickly, died of hooping-cough and measles--then
Rawdon's mamma wrote the most affectionate composition
to her darling son, who was made heir of Queen's
Crawley by this accident, and drawn more closely than
ever to the kind lady, whose tender heart had already
adopted him. Rawdon Crawley, then grown a tall, fine
lad, blushed when he got the letter. "Oh, Aunt Jane, you
are my mother!" he said; "and not--and not that one."
But he wrote back a kind and respectful letter to Mrs.
Rebecca, then living at a boarding-house at Florence.
But we are advancing matters.
Our darling Becky's first flight was not very far. She
perched upon the French coast at Boulogne, that refuge
of so much exiled English innocence, and there lived in
rather a genteel, widowed manner, with a femme de
chambre and a couple of rooms, at an hotel. She dined
at the table d'hote, where people thought her very pleasant,
and where she entertained her neighbours by stories
of her brother, Sir Pitt, and her great London acquaintance,
talking that easy, fashionable slip-slop which has
so much effect upon certain folks of small breeding. She
passed with many of them for a person of importance;
she gave little tea-parties in her private room and shared
in the innocent amusements of the place in sea-bathing,
and in jaunts in open carriages, in strolls on the sands,
and in visits to the play. Mrs. Burjoice, the printer's
lady, who was boarding with her family at the hotel for
the summer, and to whom her Burjoice came of a
Saturday and Sunday, voted her charming, until that little
rogue of a Burjoice began to pay her too much
attention. But there was nothing in the story, only that
it was the Major who put Emmy's shawl on after the
entertainment; and in the walks and excursions the young
lad would be on ahead, and up a tower-stair or a tree,
whilst the soberer couple were below, the Major smoking
his cigar with great placidity and constancy, whilst Emmy
sketched the site or the ruin. It was on this very tour that
I, the present writer of a history of which every word is
true, had the pleasure to see them first and to make their
acquaintance.
It was at the little comfortable Ducal town of
Pumpernickel (that very place where Sir Pitt Crawley
had been so distinguished as an attache; but that was in
early early days, and before the news of the Battle of
Austerlitz sent all the English diplomatists in Germany to
the right about) that I first saw Colonel Dobbin and
his party. They had arrived with the carriage and courier
at the Erbprinz Hotel, the best of the town, and the whole
party dined at the table d'hote. Everybody remarked
the majesty of Jos and the knowing way in which he
sipped, or rather sucked, the Johannisberger, which he
ordered for dinner. The little boy, too, we observed, had
a famous appetite, and consumed schinken, and braten,
and kartoffeln, and cranberry jam, and salad, and
pudding, and roast fowls, and sweetmeats, with a gallantry
that did honour to his nation. After about fifteen dishes,
he concluded the repast with dessert, some of which he
even carried out of doors, for some young gentlemen at
table, amused with his coolness and gallant free-and-easy
manner, induced him to pocket a handful of macaroons,
which he discussed on his way to the theatre, whither
everybody went in the cheery social little German place.
The lady in black, the boy's mamma, laughed and blushed,
and looked exceedingly pleased and shy as the dinner
went on, and at the various feats and instances of
espieglerie on the part of her son. The Colonel--
for so he became very soon afterwards--I remember
joked the boy with a great deal of grave fun, pointing
out dishes which he hadn't tried, and entreating him not
to baulk his appetite, but to have a second supply of
this or that.
It was what they call a gast-rolle night at the Royal
Grand Ducal Pumpernickelisch Hof--or Court theatre--
and Madame Schroeder Devrient, then in the bloom of
her beauty and genius, performed the part of the heroine
in the wonderful opera of Fidelio. From our places in the
stalls we could see our four friends of the table d'hote
in the loge which Schwendler of the Erbprinz kept for his
best guests, and I could not help remarking the effect
which the magnificent actress and music produced upon
Mrs. Osborne, for so we heard the stout gentleman in
the mustachios call her. During the astonishing Chorus
of the Prisoners, over which the delightful voice of the
actress rose and soared in the most ravishing harmony,
the English lady's face wore such an expression of wonder
and delight that it struck even little Fipps, the blase
attache, who drawled out, as he fixed his glass upon her,
"Gayd, it really does one good to see a woman caypable
of that stayt of excaytement." And in the Prison Scene,
where Fidelio, rushing to her husband, cries, "Nichts,
nichts, mein Florestan," she fairly lost herself and
covered her face with her handkerchief. Every woman in the
house was snivelling at the time, but I suppose it was
because it was predestined that I was to write this
particular lady's memoirs that I remarked her.
The next day they gave another piece of Beethoven,
Die Schlacht bei Vittoria. Malbrook is introduced at the
beginning of the performance, as indicative of the brisk
advance of the French army. Then come drums, trumpets,
thunders of artillery, and groans of the dying, and at last,
in a grand triumphal swell, "God Save the King" is
performed.
There may have been a score of Englishmen in the
house, but at the burst of that beloved and well-known
music, every one of them, we young fellows in the stalls,
Sir John and Lady Bullminster (who had taken a house
at Pumpernickel for the education of their nine
children), the fat gentleman with the mustachios, the long
Major in white duck trousers, and the lady with the little
boy upon whom he was so sweet, even Kirsch, the courier
in the gallery, stood bolt upright in their places and
proclaimed themselves to be members of the dear old British
nation. As for Tapeworm, the Charge d'Affaires, he rose
up in his box and bowed and simpered, as if he would
represent the whole empire. Tapeworm was nephew and
heir of old Marshal Tiptoff, who has been introduced in
this story as General Tiptoff, just before Waterloo, who
was Colonel of the --th regiment in which Major Dobbin
served, and who died in this year full of honours, and of
an aspic of plovers' eggs; when the regiment was graciously
given by his Majesty to Colonel Sir Michael O'Dowd,
K.C.B. who had commanded it in many glorious fields.
Tapeworm must have met with Colonel Dobbin at the
house of the Colonel's Colonel, the Marshal, for he
recognized him on this night at the theatre, and with the
utmost condescension, his Majesty's minister came over
from his own box and publicly shook hands with his
new-found friend.
"Look at that infernal sly-boots of a Tapeworm,"
Fipps whispered, examining his chief from the stalls.
"Wherever there's a pretty woman he always twists
himself in." And I wonder what were diplomatists made for
but for that?
"Have I the honour of addressing myself to Mrs.
Dobbin?" asked the Secretary with a most insinuating grin.
Georgy burst out laughing and said, "By Jove, that was
a good 'un." Emmy and the Major blushed: we saw them
from the stalls.
"This lady is Mrs. George Osborne," said the Major,
"and this is her brother, Mr. Sedley, a distinguished
officer of the Bengal Civil Service: permit me to introduce
him to your lordship."
My lord nearly sent Jos off his legs with the most
fascinating smile. "Are you going to stop in Pumpernickel?"
he said. "It is a dull place, but we want some nice people,
and we would try and make it SO agreeable to you. Mr.--
Ahum--Mrs.--Oho. I shall do myself the honour of calling
upon you to-morrow at your inn." And he went away
with a Parthian grin and glance which he thought must
finish Mrs. Osborne completely.
The performance over, the young fellows lounged about
the lobbies, and we saw the society take its departure.
The Duchess Dowager went off in her jingling old coach,
attended by two faithful and withered old maids of
honour, and a little snuffy spindle-shanked gentleman in
waiting, in a brown jasey and a green coat covered with
orders--of which the star and the grand yellow cordon of
the order of St. Michael of Pumpernickel were most
conspicuous. The drums rolled, the guards saluted, and the
old carriage drove away.
Then came his Transparency the Duke and Transparent
family, with his great officers of state and household. He
bowed serenely to everybody. And amid the saluting of
the guards and the flaring of the torches of the running
footmen, clad in scarlet, the Transparent carriages drove
away to the old Ducal schloss, with its towers and
pinacles standing on the schlossberg. Everybody in
Pumpernickel knew everybody. No sooner was a foreigner seen
there than the Minister of Foreign Affairs, or some other
great or small officer of state, went round to the Erbprinz
and found out the name of the new arrival.
We watched them, too, out of the theatre. Tapeworm
had just walked off, enveloped in his cloak, with which
his gigantic chasseur was always in attendance, and
looking as much as possible like Don Juan. The Prime
Minister's lady had just squeezed herself into her sedan,
and her daughter, the charming Ida, had put on her
calash and clogs; when the English party came out, the
boy yawning drearily, the Major taking great pains in
keeping the shawl over Mrs. Osborne's head, and Mr.
Sedley looking grand, with a crush opera-hat on one side
of his head and his hand in the stomach of a voluminous
white waistcoat. We took off our hats to our acquaintances
of the table d'hote, and the lady, in return, presented us
with a little smile and a curtsey, for which
everybody might be thankful.
The carriage from the inn, under the superintendence
of the bustling Mr. Kirsch, was in waiting to convey the
party; but the fat man said he would walk and smoke his
cigar on his way homewards, so the other three, with
nods and smiles to us, went without Mr. Sedley, Kirsch,
with the cigar case, following in his master's wake.
We all walked together and talked to the stout gentleman
about the agremens of the place. It was very agreeable
for the English. There were shooting-parties and
battues; there was a plenty of balls and entertainments at
the hospitable Court; the society was generally good; the
theatre excellent; and the living cheap.
"And our Minister seems a most delightful and affable
person," our new friend said. '~With such a representative,
and--and a good medical man, I can fancy the place to
be most eligible. Good-night, gentlemen." And Jos
creaked up the stairs to bedward, followed by Kirsch with
a flambeau. We rather hoped that nice-looking woman
would be induced to stay some time in the town.
CHAPTER LXIII
In Which We Meet an Old Acquaintance
Such polite behaviour as that of Lord Tapeworm did
not fail to have the most favourable effect upon Mr.
Sedley's mind, and the very next morning, at breakfast, he
pronounced his opinion that Pumpernickel was the
pleasantest little place of any which he had visited on their
tour. Jos's motives and artifices were not very difficult
of comprehension, and Dobbin laughed in his sleeve, like
a hypocrite as he was, when he found, by the knowing air
of the civilian and the offhand manner in which the
latter talked about Tapeworm Castle and the other members
of the family, that Jos had been up already in the morning,
consulting his travelling Peerage. Yes, he had seen
the Right Honourable the Earl of Bagwig, his lordship's
father; he was sure he had, he had met him at--at the
Levee--didn't Dob remember? and when the Diplomatist
called on the party, faithful to his promise, Jos received
him with such a salute and honours as were seldom
accorded to the little Envoy. He winked at Kirsch on his
Excellency's arrival, and that emissary, instructed before-
hand, went out and superintended an entertainment of
cold meats, jellies, and other delicacies, brought in upon
trays, and of which Mr. Jos absolutely insisted that his
noble guest should partake.
Tapeworm, so long as he could have an opportunity of
admiring the bright eyes of Mrs. Osborne (whose freshness
of complexion bore daylight remarkably well) was
not ill pleased to accept any invitation to stay in Mr.
Sedley's lodgings; he put one or two dexterous questions
to him about India and the dancing-girls there; asked
Amelia about that beautiful boy who had been with her;
and complimented the astonished little woman upon the
prodigious sensation which she had made in the house;
and tried to fascinate Dobbin by talking of the late war
and the exploits of the Pumpernickel contingent under the
command of the Hereditary Prince, now Duke of
Pumpernickel.
Lord Tapeworm inherited no little portion of the family
gallantry, and it was his happy belief that almost every
woman upon whom he himself cast friendly eyes was in
love with him. He left Emmy under the persuasion that
she was slain by his wit and attractions and went home to
his lodgings to write a pretty little note to her. She was
not fascinated, only puzzled, by his grinning, his simpering,
his scented cambric handkerchief, and his high-heeled
lacquered boots. She did not understand one-half the
compliments which he paid; she had never, in her small
experience of mankind, met a professional ladies' man as
yet, and looked upon my lord as something curious rather
than pleasant; and if she did not admire, certainly
wondered at him. Jos, on the contrary, was delighted. "How
very affable his Lordship is," he said; "How very kind of
his Lordship to say he would send his medical man!
Kirsch, you will carry our cards to the Count de
Schlusselback directly; the Major and I will have the
greatest pleasure in paying our respects at Court as soon
as possible. Put out my uniform, Kirsch--both our
uniforms. It is a mark of politeness which every English
gentleman ought to show to the countries which he visits
to pay his respects to the sovereigns of those countries
as to the representatives of his own."
When Tapeworm's doctor came, Doctor von Glauber,
Body Physician to H.S.H. the Duke, he speedily
convinced Jos that the Pumpernickel mineral springs and
the Doctor's particular treatment would infallibly restore
the Bengalee to youth and slimness. "Dere came here last
year," he said, "Sheneral Bulkeley, an English Sheneral,
tvice so pic as you, sir. I sent him back qvite tin after
tree months, and he danced vid Baroness Glauber at
the end of two."
Jos's mind was made up; the springs, the Doctor, the
Court, and the Charge d'Affaires convinced him, and he
proposed to spend the autumn in these delightful
quarters. And punctual to his word, on the next day the
Charge d'Affaires presented Jos and the Major to Victor
Aurelius XVII, being conducted to their audience with
that sovereign by the Count de Schlusselback, Marshal
of the Court.
They were straightway invited to dinner at Court, and
their intention of staying in the town being announced,
the politest ladies of the whole town instantly called upon
Mrs. Osborne; and as not one of these, however poor
they might be, was under the rank of a Baroness, Jos's
delight was beyond expression. He wrote off to Chutney
at the Club to say that the Service was highly appreciated
in Germany, that he was going to show his friend, the
Count de Schlusselback, how to stick a pig in the Indian
fashion, and that his august friends, the Duke and
Duchess, were everything that was kind and civil.
Emmy, too, was presented to the august family, and as
mourning is not admitted in Court on certain days, she
appeared in a pink crape dress with a diamond ornament
in the corsage, presented to her by her brother, and
she looked so pretty in this costume that the Duke and
Court (putting out of the question the Major, who had
scarcely ever seen her before in an evening dress, and
vowed that she did not look five-and-twenty) all admired
her excessively.
In this dress she walked a Polonaise with Major Dobbin
at a Court ball, in which easy dance Mr. Jos had the
honour of leading out the Countess of Schlusselback,
an old lady with a hump back, but with sixteen good
quarters of nobility and related to half the royal houses
of Germany.
Pumpernickel stands in the midst of a happy valley
through which sparkles--to mingle with the Rhine
somewhere, but I have not the map at hand to say exactly at
what point--the fertilizing stream of the Pump. In some
places the river is big enough to support a ferry-boat, in
others to turn a mill; in Pumpernickel itself, the last
Transparency but three, the great and renowned Victor
Aurelius XIV built a magnificent bridge, on which his
own statue rises, surrounded by water-nymphs and
emblems of victory, peace, and plenty; he has his foot on the
neck of a prostrate Turk--history says he engaged and
ran a Janissary through the body at the relief of Vienna
by Sobieski--but, quite undisturbed by the agonies
of that prostrate Mahometan, who writhes at his feet in
the most ghastly manner, the Prince smiles blandly and
points with his truncheon in the direction of the Aurelius
Platz, where he began to erect a new palace that would
have been the wonder of his age had the great-souled
Prince but had funds to complete it. But the completion
of Monplaisir (Monblaisir the honest German folks call
it) was stopped for lack of ready money, and it and its
park and garden are now in rather a faded condition,
and not more than ten times big enough to accommodate
the Court of the reigning Sovereign.
The gardens were arranged to emulate those of
Versailles, and amidst the terraces and groves there are
some huge allegorical waterworks still, which spout and
froth stupendously upon fete-days, and frighten one
with their enormous aquatic insurrections. There is the
Trophonius' cave in which, by some artifice, the leaden
Tritons are made not only to spout water, but to play
the most dreadful groans out of their lead conchs--there
is the nymphbath and the Niagara cataract, which the
people of the neighbourhood admire beyond expression,
when they come to the yearly fair at the opening of the
Chamber, or to the fetes with which the happy little nation
still celebrates the birthdays and marriage-days of its
princely governors.
Then from all the towns of the Duchy, which stretches
for nearly ten mile--from Bolkum, which lies on
its western frontier bidding defiance to Prussia, from
Grogwitz, where the Prince has a hunting-lodge, and
where his dominions are separated by the Pump River
from those of the neighbouring Prince of Potzenthal; from
all the little villages, which besides these three great
cities, dot over the happy principality--from the farms
and the mills along the Pump come troops of people in
red petticoats and velvet head-dresses, or with three-
cornered hats and pipes in their mouths, who flock to the
Residenz and share in the pleasures of the fair and the
festivities there. Then the theatre is open for nothing,
then the waters of Monblaisir begin to play (it is lucky
that there is company to behold them, for one would be
afraid to see them alone)--then there come mountebanks
and riding troops (the way in which his Transparency
was fascinated by one of the horse-riders is well known,
and it is believed that La Petite Vivandiere, as she was
called, was a spy in the French interest), and the delighted
people are permitted to march through room after room
of the Grand Ducal palace and admire the slippery
floor, the rich hangings, and the spittoons at the
doors of all the innumerable chambers. There is one
Pavilion at Monblaisir which Aurelius Victor XV had
arranged--a great Prince but too fond of pleasure--and
which I am told is a perfect wonder of licentious elegance.
It is painted with the story of Bacchus and Ariadne, and
the table works in and out of the room by means of a
windlass, so that the company was served without any
intervention of domestics. But the place was shut up by
Barbara, Aurelius XV's widow, a severe and devout
Princess of the House of Bolkum and Regent of the Duchy
during her son's glorious minority, and after the death
of her husband, cut off in the pride of his pleasures.
The theatre of Pumpernickel is known and famous in
that quarter of Germany. It languished a little when the
present Duke in his youth insisted upon having his own
operas played there, and it is said one day, in a fury,
from his place in the orchestra, when he attended a
rehearsal, broke a bassoon on the head of the Chapel
Master, who was conducting, and led too slow; and during
which time the Duchess Sophia wrote domestic comedies,
which must have been very dreary to witness. But the
Prince executes his music in private now, and the Duchess
only gives away her plays to the foreigners of distinction
who visit her kind little Court.
It is conducted with no small comfort and splendour.
When there are balls, though there may be four
hundred people at supper, there is a servant in scarlet and
lace to attend upon every four, and every one is served
on silver. There are festivals and entertainments going
continually on, and the Duke has his chamberlains and
equerries, and the Duchess her mistress of the wardrobe
and ladies of honour, just like any other and more
potent potentates.
The Constitution is or was a moderate despotism,
tempered by a Chamber that might or might not be
elected. I never certainly could hear of its sitting in my time
at Pumpernickel. The Prime Minister had lodgings in a
second floor, and the Foreign Secretary occupied the
comfortable lodgings over Zwieback's Conditorey. The
army consisted of a magnificent band that also did duty
on the stage, where it was quite pleasant to see the
worthy fellows marching in Turkish dresses with rouge on
and wooden scimitars, or as Roman warriors with
ophicleides and trombones--to see them again, I say, at
night, after one had listened to them all the morning in
the Aurelius Platz, where they performed opposite the
cafe where we breakfasted. Besides the band, there was
a rich and numerous staff of officers, and, I believe, a
few men. Besides the regular sentries, three or four men,
habited as hussars, used to do duty at the Palace, but I
never saw them on horseback, and au fait, what was the
use of cavalry in a time of profound peace?--and whither
the deuce should the hussars ride?
Everybody--everybody that was noble of course, for
as for the bourgeois we could not quite be expected to
take notice of THEM--visited his neighbour. H. E. Madame
de Burst received once a week, H. E. Madame de
Schnurrbart had her night--the theatre was open twice
a week, the Court graciously received once, so that a
man's life might in fact be a perfect round of pleasure in
the unpretending Pumpernickel way.
That there were feuds in the place, no one can deny.
Politics ran very high at Pumpernickel, and parties were
very bitter. There was the Strumpff faction and the
Lederlung party, the one supported by our envoy and the
other by the French Charge d'Affaires, M. de Macabau.
Indeed it sufficed for our Minister to stand up for
Madame Strumpff, who was clearly the greater singer of the
two, and had three more notes in her voice than Madame
Lederlung her rival--it sufficed, I say, for our Minister to
advance any opinion to have it instantly contradicted
by the French diplomatist.
Everybody in the town was ranged in one or other of
these factions. The Lederlung was a prettyish little
creature certainly, and her voice (what there was of it) was
very sweet, and there is no doubt that the Strumpff was
not in her first youth and beauty, and certainly too stout;
when she came on in the last scene of the Sonnambula,
for instance, in her night-chemise with a lamp in her
hand, and had to go out of the window, and pass over
the plank of the mill, it was all she could do to
squeeze out of the window, and the plank used to bend
and creak again under her weight--but how she poured
out the finale of the opera! and with what a burst of
feeling she rushed into Elvino's arms--almost fit to
smother him! Whereas the little Lederlung--but a truce
to this gossip--the fact is that these two women were
the two flags of the French and the English party at
Pumpernickel, and the society was divided in its
allegiance to those two great nations.
We had on our side the Home Minister, the Master of
the Horse, the Duke's Private Secretary, and the Prince's
Tutor; whereas of the French party were the Foreign
Minister, the Commander-in-Chief's Lady, who had
served under Napoleon, and the Hof-Marschall and his
wife, who was glad enough to get the fashions from
Pans, and always had them and her caps by M. de
Macabau's courier. The Secretary of his Chancery was little
Grignac, a young fellow, as malicious as Satan, and who
made caricatures of Tapeworm in all the-albums of the
place.
Their headquarters and table d'hote were established
at the Pariser Hof, the other inn of the town; and though,
of course, these gentlemen were obliged to be civil in
public, yet they cut at each other with epigrams that
were as sharp as razors, as I have seen a couple of
wrestlers in Devonshire, lashing at each other's shins
and never showing their agony upon a muscle of their
faces. Neither Tapeworm nor Macabau ever sent home
a dispatch to his government without a most savage
series of attacks upon his rival. For instance, on our side
we would write, "The interests of Great Britain in this
place, and throughout the whole of Germany, are perilled
by the continuance in office of the present French envoy;
this man is of a character so infamous that he will stick
at no falsehood, or hesitate at no crime, to attain his
ends. He poisons the mind of the Court against the
English minister, represents the conduct of Great Britain in
the most odious and atrocious light, and is unhappily
backed by a minister whose ignorance and necessities
are as notorious as his influence is fatal." On their side
they would.say, "M. de Tapeworm continues his
system of stupid insular arrogance and vulgar falsehood
against the greatest nation in the world. Yesterday he
was heard to speak lightly of Her Royal Highness Madame
the Duchess of Berri; on a former occasion he insulted
the heroic Duke of Angouleme and dared to insinuate
that H.R.H. the Duke of Orleans was conspiring against
the august throne of the lilies. His gold is prodigated in
every direction which his stupid menaces fail to frighten.
By one and the other, he has won over creatures of the
Court here--and, in fine, Pumpernickel will not be
quiet, Germany tranquil, France respected, or Europe
content until this poisonous viper be crushed under
heel": and so on. When one side or the other had written
any particularly spicy dispatch, news of it was sure to
slip out.
Before the winter was far advanced, it is actually on
record that Emmy took a night and received company
with great propriety and modesty. She had a French
master, who complimented her upon the purity of her
accent and her facility of learning; the fact is she had
learned long ago and grounded herself subsequently in the
grammar so as to be able to teach it to George; and Madam
Strumpff came to give her lessons in singing, which she
performed so well and with such a true voice that the
Major's windows, who had lodgings opposite under the
Prime Minister, were always open to hear the lesson.
Some of the German ladies, who are very sentimental and
simple in their tastes, fell in love with her and began to
call her du at once. These are trivial details, but they
relate to happy times. The Major made himself George's
tutor and read Caesar and mathematics with him, and
they had a German master and rode out of evenings by
the side of Emmy's carriage--she was always too timid,
and made a dreadful outcry at the slightest disturbance
on horse-back. So she drove about with one of her dear
German friends, and Jos asleep on the back-seat of the
barouche.
He was becoming very sweet upon the Grafinn Fanny
de Butterbrod, a very gentle tender-hearted and
unassuming young creature, a Canoness and Countess in her
own right, but with scarcely ten pounds per year to her
fortune, and Fanny for her part declared that to be
Amelia's sister was the greatest delight that Heaven could
bestow on her, and Jos might have put a Countess's shield
and coronet by the side of his own arms on his carriage
and forks; when--when events occurred, and those
grand fetes given upon the marriage of the Hereditary
Prince of Pumpernickel with the lovely Princess Amelia
of Humbourg-Schlippenschloppen took place.
At this festival the magnificence displayed was such as
had not been known in the little German place since
the days of the prodigal Victor XIV. All the neighbouring
Princes, Princesses, and Grandees were invited to the
feast. Beds rose to half a crown per night in Pumpernickel,
and the Army was exhausted in providing guards
of honour for the Highnesses, Serenities, and Excellencies
who arrived from all quarters. The Princess was married
by proxy, at her father's residence, by the Count de
Schlusselback. Snuff-boxes were given away in profusion
(as we learned from the Court jeweller, who sold
and afterwards bought them again), and bushels of the
Order of Saint Michael of Pumpernickel were sent to
the nobles of the Court, while hampers of the cordons
and decorations of the Wheel of St. Catherine of
Schlippenschloppen were brought to ours. The French envoy
got both. "He is covered with ribbons like a prize
cart-horse," Tapeworm said, who was not allowed by the rules
of his service to take any decorations: "Let him have
the cordons; but with whom is the victory?" The fact is,
it was a triumph of British diplomacy, the French party
having proposed and tried their utmost to carry a
marriage with a Princess of the House of
Potztausend-Donnerwetter, whom, as a matter of
course, we opposed.
Everybody was asked to the fetes of the marriage.
Garlands and triumphal arches were hung across the road
to welcome the young bride. The great Saint Michael's
Fountain ran with uncommonly sour wine, while that
in the Artillery Place frothed with beer. The great waters
played; and poles were put up in the park and gardens
for the happy peasantry, which they might climb at
their leisure, carrying off watches, silver forks, prize
sausages hung with pink ribbon, &c., at the top. Georgy
got one, wrenching it off, having swarmed up the pole to
the delight of the spectators, and sliding down with the
rapidity of a fall of water. But it was for the glory's
sake merely. The boy gave the sausage to a peasant,
who had very nearly seized it, and stood at the foot of
the mast, blubbering, because he was unsuccessful.
At the French Chancellerie they had six more lampions
in their illumination than ours had; but our transparency,
which represented the young Couple advancing and
Discord flying away, with the most ludicrous likeness to the
French Ambassador, beat the French picture hollow; and
I have no doubt got Tapeworm the advancement and the
Cross of the Bath which he subsequently attained.
Crowds of foreigners arrived for the fetes, and of
English, of course. Besides the Court balls, public balls
were given at the Town Hall and the Redoute, and in the
former place there was a room for trente-et-quarante
and roulette established, for the week of the festivities
only, and by one of the great German companies from
Ems or Aix-la-Chapelle. The officers or inhabitants of the
town were not allowed to play at these games, but
strangers, peasants, ladies were admitted, and any one
who chose to lose or win money.
That little scapegrace Georgy Osborne amongst others,
whose pockets were always full of dollars and whose
relations were away at the grand festival of the Court,
came to the Stadthaus Ball in company of his uncle's
courier, Mr. Kirsch, and having only peeped into a
play-room at Baden-Baden when he hung on Dobbin's arm,
and where, of course, he was not permitted to gamble, came
eagerly to this part of the entertainment and hankered
round the tables where the croupiers and the punters
were at work. Women were playing; they were masked,
some of them; this license was allowed in these wild times
of carnival.
A woman with light hair, in a low dress by no means
so fresh as it had been, and with a black mask on,
through the eyelets of which her eyes twinkled strangely,
was seated at one of the roulette-tables with a card and
a pin and a couple of florins before her. As the croupier
called out the colour and number, she pricked on the
card with great care and regularity, and only ventured her
money on the colours after the red or black had come
up a certain number of times. It was strange to look at
her.
But in spite of her care and assiduity she guessed
wrong and the last two florins followed each other under
the croupier's rake, as he cried out with his inexorable
voice the winning colour and number. She gave a sigh, a
shrug with her shoulders, which were already too much
out of her gown, and dashing the pin through the card
on to the table, sat thrumming it for a while. Then she
looked round her and saw Georgy's honest face staring
at the scene. The little scamp! What business had he
to be there?
When she saw the boy, at whose face she looked hard
through her shining eyes and mask, she said, "Monsieur
n'est pas joueur?"
"Non, Madame," said the boy; but she must have
known, from his accent, of what country he was, for she
answered him with a slight foreign tone. "You have
nevare played--will you do me a littl' favor?"
"What is it?" said Georgy, blushing again. Mr. Kirsch
was at work for his part at the rouge et noir and did not
see his young master.
"Play this for me, if you please; put it on any number,
any number." And she took from her bosom a purse, and
out of it a gold piece, the only coin there, and she put it
into George's hand. The boy laughed and did as he was
bid.
The number came up sure enough. There is a power
that arranges that, they say, for beginners.
"Thank you," said she, pulling the money towards her,
"thank you. What is your name?"
"My name's Osborne," said Georgy, and was fingering
in his own pockets for dollars, and just about to make a
trial, when the Major, in his uniform, and Jos, en Marquis,
from the Court ball, made their appearance. Other
people, finding the entertainment stupid and preferring the
fun at the Stadthaus, had quitted the Palace ball earlier;
but it is probable the Major and Jos had gone home and
found the boy's absence, for the former instantly went
up to him and, taking him by the shoulder, pulled him
briskly back from the place of temptation. Then, looking
round the room, he saw Kirsch employed as we have
said, and going up to him, asked how he dared to bring
Mr. George to such a place.
"Laissez-moi tranquille," said Mr. Kirsch, very much
excited by play and wine. "ll faut s'amuser, parbleu.
Je ne suis pas au service de Monsieur."
Seeing his condition the Major did not choose to argue
with the man, but contented himself with drawing away
George and asking Jos if he would come away. He was
standing close by the lady in the mask, who was playing
with pretty good luck now, and looking on much
interested at the game.
"Hadn't you better come, Jos," the Major said, "with
George and me?"
"I'll stop and go home with that rascal, Kirsch," Jos
said; and for the same reason of modesty, which he
thought ought to be preserved before the boy, Dobbin
did not care to remonstrate with Jos, but left him and
walked home with Georgy.
"Did you play?" asked the Major when they were out
and on their way home.
The boy said "No."
"Give me your word of honour as a gentleman that you
never will."
"Why?" said the boy; "it seems very good fun." And, in
a very eloquent and impressive manner, the Major showed
him why he shouldn't, and would have enforced his
precepts by the example of Georgy's own father, had he
liked to say anything that should reflect on the other's
memory. When he had housed him, he went to bed and
saw his light, in the little room outside of Amelia's,
presently disappear. Amelia's followed half an hour
afterwards. I don't know what made the Major note it
so accurately.
Jos, however, remained behind over the play-table; he
was no gambler, but not averse to the little excitement
of the sport now and then, and he had some Napoleons
chinking in the embroidered pockets of his court
waistcoat. He put down one over the fair shoulder of the
little gambler before him, and they won. She made a little
movement to make room for him by her side, and
just took the skirt of her gown from a vacant chair there.
"Come and give me good luck," she said, still in a
foreign accent, quite different from that frank and
perfectly English "Thank you," with which she had saluted
Georgy's coup in her favour. The portly gentleman,
looking round to see that nobody of rank observed him,
sat down; he muttered--"Ah, really, well now, God bless
my soul. I'm very fortunate; I'm sure to give you good
fortune," and other words of compliment and confusion.
"Do you play much?" the foreign mask said.
"I put a Nap or two down," said Jos with a superb air,
flinging down a gold piece.
"Yes; ay nap after dinner," said the mask archly. But
Jos looking frightened, she continued, in her pretty
French accent, "You do not play to win. No more do I.
I play to forget, but I cannot. I cannot forget old times,
monsieur. Your little nephew is the image of his father;
and you--you are not changed--but yes, you are.
Everybody changes, everybody forgets; nobody has
any heart."
"Good God, who is it?" asked Jos in a flutter.
"Can't you guess, Joseph Sedley?" said the little
woman in a sad voice, and undoing her mask, she
looked at him. "You have forgotten me."
"Good heavens! Mrs. Crawley!" gasped out Jos.
"Rebecca," said the other, putting her hand on his;
but she followed the game still, all the time she was
looking at him.
"I am stopping at the Elephant," she continued. "Ask
for Madame de Raudon. I saw my dear Amelia to-day;
how pretty she looked, and how happy! So do you!
Everybody but me, who am wretched, Joseph Sedley."
And she put her money over from the red to the black,
as if by a chance movement of her hand, and while she
was wiping her eyes with a pocket-handkerchief fringed
with torn lace.
The red came up again, and she lost the whole of that
stake.~ "Come away," she said. "Come with me a little
--we are old friends, are we not, dear Mr. Sedley?"
And Mr. Kirsch having lost all his money by this
time, followed his master out into the moonlight, where
the illuminations were winking out and the transparency
over our mission was scarcely visible.
CHAPTER LXIV
A Vagabond Chapter
We must pass over a part of Mrs. Rebecca Crawley's
biography with that lightness and delicacy which the
world demands--the moral world, that has, perhaps, no
particular objection to vice, but an insuperable repugnance
to hearing vice called by its proper name. There
are things we do and know perfectly well in Vanity Fair,
though we never speak of them: as the Ahrimanians
worship the devil, but don't mention him: and a polite
public will no more bear to read an authentic description
of vice than a truly refined English or American female
will permit the word breeches to be pronounced in her
chaste hearing. And yet, madam, both are walking the
world before our faces every day, without much shocking
us. If you were to blush every time they went by, what
complexions you would have! It is only when their
naughty names are called out that your modesty has any
occasion to show alarm or sense of outrage, and it has
been the wish of the present writer, all through this story,
deferentially to submit to the fashion at present prevailing,
and only to hint at the existence of wickedness in a
light, easy, and agreeable manner, so that nobody's fine
feelings may be offended. I defy any one to say that
our Becky, who has certainly some vices, has not been
presented to the public in a perfectly genteel and
inoffensive manner. In describing this Siren, singing and
smiling, coaxing and cajoling, the author, with modest pride,
asks his readers all round, has he once forgotten the
laws of politeness, and showed the monster's hideous tail
above water? No! Those who like may peep down under
waves that are pretty transparent and see it writhing and
twirling, diabolically hideous and slimy, flapping amongst
bones, or curling round corpses; but above the waterline,
I ask, has not everything been proper, agreeable,
and decorous, and has any the most squeamish immoralist
in Vanity Fair a right to cry fie? When, however, the Siren
disappears and dives below, down among the dead men,
the water of course grows turbid over her, and it is labour
lost to look into it ever so curiously. They look pretty
enough when they sit upon a rock, twanging their harps
and combing their hair, and sing, and beckon to you to
come and hold the looking-glass; but when they sink
into their native element, depend on it, those mermaids
are about no good, and we had best not examine the
fiendish marine cannibals, revelling and feasting on their
wretched pickled victims. And so, when Becky is out of
the way, be sure that she is not particularly well
employed, and that the less that is said about her doings
is in fact the better.
If we were to give a full account of her proceedings
during a couple of years that followed after the Curzon
Street catastrophe, there might be some reason for
people to say this book was improper. The actions of very
vain, heartless, pleasure-seeking people are very often
improper (as are many of yours, my friend with the
grave face and spotless reputation--but that is merely
by the way); and what are those of a woman without
faith--or love--or character? And I am inclined to think
that there was a period in Mrs Becky's life when
she was seized, not by remorse, but by a kind of despair,
and absolutely neglected her person and did not even
care for her reputation.
This abattement and degradation did not take place
all at once; it was brought about by degrees, after her
calamity, and after many struggles to keep up--as a
man who goes overboard hangs on to a spar whilst any
hope is left, and then flings it away and goes down, when
he finds that struggling is in vain.
She lingered about London whilst her husband was
making preparations for his departure to his seat of
government, and it is believed made more than one
attempt to see her brother-in-law, Sir Pitt Crawley, and to
work upon his feelings, which she had almost
enlisted in her favour. As Sir Pitt and Mr. Wenham were
walking down to the House of Commons, the latter spied
Mrs. Rawdon in a black veil, and lurking near the palace
of the legislature. She sneaked away when her eyes met
those of Wenham, and indeed never succeeded in her
designs upon the Baronet.
Probably Lady Jane interposed. I have heard that she
quite astonished her husband by the spirit which she
exhibited in this quarrel, and her determination to disown
Mrs. Becky. Of her own movement, she invited Rawdon
to come and stop in Gaunt Street until his departure for
Coventry Island, knowing that with him for a guard Mrs.
Becky would not try to force her door; and she looked
curiously at the superscriptions of all the letters which
arrived for Sir Pitt, lest he and his sister-in-law should
be corresponding. Not but that Rebecca could have
written had she a mind, but she did not try to see or to write
to Pitt at his own house, and after one or two attempts
consented to his demand that the correspondence
regarding her conjugal differences should be carried on by
lawyers only.
The fact was that Pitt's mind had been poisoned against
her. A short time after Lord Steyne's accident Wenham
had been with the Baronet and given him such a biography
of Mrs. Becky as had astonished the member for
Queen's Crawley. He knew everything regarding her:
who her father was; in what year her mother danced at
the opera; what had been her previous history; and what
her conduct during her married life--as I have no doubt
that the greater part of the story was false and
dictated by interested malevolence, it shall not be repeated
here. But Becky was left with a sad sad reputation in the
esteem of a country gentleman and relative who had
been once rather partial to her.
The revenues of the Governor of Coventry Island are
not large. A part of them were set aside by his Excellency
for the payment of certain outstanding debts and
liabilities, the charges incident on his high situation
required considerable expense; finally, it was found that
he could not spare to his wife more than three hundred
pounds a year, which he proposed to pay to her on
an undertaking that she would never trouble him.
Otherwise, scandal, separation, Doctors' Commons would
ensue. But it was Mr. Wenham's business, Lord Steyne's
business, Rawdon's, everybody's--to get her out of the
country, and hush up a most disagreeable affair.
She was probably so much occupied in arranging these
affairs of business with her husband's lawyers that she
forgot to take any step whatever about her son, the little
Rawdon, and did not even once propose to go and see
him. That young gentleman was consigned to the entire
guardianship of his aunt and uncle, the former of whom
had always possessed a great share of the child's
affection. His mamma wrote him a neat letter from Boulogne,
when she quitted England, in which she requested him to
mind his book, and said she was going to take a
Continental tour, during which she would have the pleasure
of writing to him again. But she never did for a year
afterwards, and not, indeed, until Sir Pitt's only boy,
always sickly, died of hooping-cough and measles--then
Rawdon's mamma wrote the most affectionate composition
to her darling son, who was made heir of Queen's
Crawley by this accident, and drawn more closely than
ever to the kind lady, whose tender heart had already
adopted him. Rawdon Crawley, then grown a tall, fine
lad, blushed when he got the letter. "Oh, Aunt Jane, you
are my mother!" he said; "and not--and not that one."
But he wrote back a kind and respectful letter to Mrs.
Rebecca, then living at a boarding-house at Florence.
But we are advancing matters.
Our darling Becky's first flight was not very far. She
perched upon the French coast at Boulogne, that refuge
of so much exiled English innocence, and there lived in
rather a genteel, widowed manner, with a femme de
chambre and a couple of rooms, at an hotel. She dined
at the table d'hote, where people thought her very pleasant,
and where she entertained her neighbours by stories
of her brother, Sir Pitt, and her great London acquaintance,
talking that easy, fashionable slip-slop which has
so much effect upon certain folks of small breeding. She
passed with many of them for a person of importance;
she gave little tea-parties in her private room and shared
in the innocent amusements of the place in sea-bathing,
and in jaunts in open carriages, in strolls on the sands,
and in visits to the play. Mrs. Burjoice, the printer's
lady, who was boarding with her family at the hotel for
the summer, and to whom her Burjoice came of a
Saturday and Sunday, voted her charming, until that little
rogue of a Burjoice began to pay her too much
attention. But there was nothing in the story, only that