Vanity Fair (65 page)

Indeed, when Miss Crawley quitted the world, and that money for
which all her relatives had been fighting so eagerly was finally
left to Pitt, Bute Crawley, who found that only five thousand pounds
had been left to him instead of the twenty upon which he calculated,
was in such a fury at his disappointment that he vented it in savage
abuse upon his nephew; and the quarrel always rankling between them
ended in an utter breach of intercourse. Rawdon Crawley's conduct,
on the other hand, who got but a hundred pounds, was such as to
astonish his brother and delight his sister-in-law, who was disposed
to look kindly upon all the members of her husband's family. He
wrote to his brother a very frank, manly, good-humoured letter from
Paris. He was aware, he said, that by his own marriage he had
forfeited his aunt's favour; and though he did not disguise his
disappointment that she should have been so entirely relentless
towards him, he was glad that the money was still kept in their
branch of the family, and heartily congratulated his brother on his
good fortune. He sent his affectionate remembrances to his sister,
and hoped to have her good-will for Mrs. Rawdon; and the letter
concluded with a postscript to Pitt in the latter lady's own
handwriting. She, too, begged to join in her husband's
congratulations. She should ever remember Mr. Crawley's kindness to
her in early days when she was a friendless orphan, the instructress
of his little sisters, in whose welfare she still took the tenderest
interest. She wished him every happiness in his married life, and,
asking his permission to offer her remembrances to Lady Jane (of
whose goodness all the world informed her), she hoped that one day
she might be allowed to present her little boy to his uncle and
aunt, and begged to bespeak for him their good-will and protection.

Pitt Crawley received this communication very graciously—more
graciously than Miss Crawley had received some of Rebecca's previous
compositions in Rawdon's handwriting; and as for Lady Jane, she was
so charmed with the letter that she expected her husband would
instantly divide his aunt's legacy into two equal portions and send
off one-half to his brother at Paris.

To her Ladyship's surprise, however, Pitt declined to accommodate
his brother with a cheque for thirty thousand pounds. But he made
Rawdon a handsome offer of his hand whenever the latter should come
to England and choose to take it; and, thanking Mrs. Crawley for her
good opinion of himself and Lady Jane, he graciously pronounced his
willingness to take any opportunity to serve her little boy.

Thus an almost reconciliation was brought about between the
brothers. When Rebecca came to town Pitt and his wife were not in
London. Many a time she drove by the old door in Park Lane to see
whether they had taken possession of Miss Crawley's house there.
But the new family did not make its appearance; it was only through
Raggles that she heard of their movements—how Miss Crawley's
domestics had been dismissed with decent gratuities, and how Mr.
Pitt had only once made his appearance in London, when he stopped
for a few days at the house, did business with his lawyers there,
and sold off all Miss Crawley's French novels to a bookseller out of
Bond Street. Becky had reasons of her own which caused her to long
for the arrival of her new relation. "When Lady Jane comes," thought
she, "she shall be my sponsor in London society; and as for the
women! bah! the women will ask me when they find the men want to see
me."

An article as necessary to a lady in this position as her brougham
or her bouquet is her companion. I have always admired the way in
which the tender creatures, who cannot exist without sympathy, hire
an exceedingly plain friend of their own sex from whom they are
almost inseparable. The sight of that inevitable woman in her faded
gown seated behind her dear friend in the opera-box, or occupying
the back seat of the barouche, is always a wholesome and moral one
to me, as jolly a reminder as that of the Death's-head which figured
in the repasts of Egyptian bon-vivants, a strange sardonic memorial
of Vanity Fair. What? even battered, brazen, beautiful,
conscienceless, heartless, Mrs. Firebrace, whose father died of her
shame: even lovely, daring Mrs. Mantrap, who will ride at any fence
which any man in England will take, and who drives her greys in the
park, while her mother keeps a huckster's stall in Bath still—even
those who are so bold, one might fancy they could face anything dare
not face the world without a female friend. They must have somebody
to cling to, the affectionate creatures! And you will hardly see
them in any public place without a shabby companion in a dyed silk,
sitting somewhere in the shade close behind them.

"Rawdon," said Becky, very late one night, as a party of gentlemen
were seated round her crackling drawing-room fire (for the men came
to her house to finish the night; and she had ice and coffee for
them, the best in London): "I must have a sheep-dog."

"A what?" said Rawdon, looking up from an ecarte table.

"A sheep-dog!" said young Lord Southdown. "My dear Mrs. Crawley,
what a fancy! Why not have a Danish dog? I know of one as big as a
camel-leopard, by Jove. It would almost pull your brougham. Or a
Persian greyhound, eh? (I propose, if you please); or a little pug
that would go into one of Lord Steyne's snuff-boxes? There's a man
at Bayswater got one with such a nose that you might—I mark the
king and play—that you might hang your hat on it."

"I mark the trick," Rawdon gravely said. He attended to his game
commonly and didn't much meddle with the conversation, except when
it was about horses and betting.

"What CAN you want with a shepherd's dog?" the lively little
Southdown continued.

"I mean a MORAL shepherd's dog," said Becky, laughing and looking up
at Lord Steyne.

"What the devil's that?" said his Lordship.

"A dog to keep the wolves off me," Rebecca continued. "A companion."

"Dear little innocent lamb, you want one," said the marquis; and his
jaw thrust out, and he began to grin hideously, his little eyes
leering towards Rebecca.

The great Lord of Steyne was standing by the fire sipping coffee.
The fire crackled and blazed pleasantly There was a score of candles
sparkling round the mantel piece, in all sorts of quaint sconces, of
gilt and bronze and porcelain. They lighted up Rebecca's figure to
admiration, as she sat on a sofa covered with a pattern of gaudy
flowers. She was in a pink dress that looked as fresh as a rose;
her dazzling white arms and shoulders were half-covered with a thin
hazy scarf through which they sparkled; her hair hung in curls round
her neck; one of her little feet peeped out from the fresh crisp
folds of the silk: the prettiest little foot in the prettiest
little sandal in the finest silk stocking in the world.

The candles lighted up Lord Steyne's shining bald head, which was
fringed with red hair. He had thick bushy eyebrows, with little
twinkling bloodshot eyes, surrounded by a thousand wrinkles. His
jaw was underhung, and when he laughed, two white buck-teeth
protruded themselves and glistened savagely in the midst of the
grin. He had been dining with royal personages, and wore his garter
and ribbon. A short man was his Lordship, broad-chested and bow-
legged, but proud of the fineness of his foot and ankle, and always
caressing his garter-knee.

"And so the shepherd is not enough," said he, "to defend his
lambkin?"

"The shepherd is too fond of playing at cards and going to his
clubs," answered Becky, laughing.

"'Gad, what a debauched Corydon!" said my lord—"what a mouth for a
pipe!"

"I take your three to two," here said Rawdon, at the card-table.

"Hark at Meliboeus," snarled the noble marquis; "he's pastorally
occupied too: he's shearing a Southdown. What an innocent mutton,
hey? Damme, what a snowy fleece!"

Rebecca's eyes shot out gleams of scornful humour. "My lord," she
said, "you are a knight of the Order." He had the collar round his
neck, indeed—a gift of the restored princes of Spain.

Lord Steyne in early life had been notorious for his daring and his
success at play. He had sat up two days and two nights with Mr. Fox
at hazard. He had won money of the most august personages of the
realm: he had won his marquisate, it was said, at the gaming-table;
but he did not like an allusion to those bygone fredaines. Rebecca
saw the scowl gathering over his heavy brow.

She rose up from her sofa and went and took his coffee cup out of
his hand with a little curtsey. "Yes," she said, "I must get a
watchdog. But he won't bark at YOU." And, going into the other
drawing-room, she sat down to the piano and began to sing little
French songs in such a charming, thrilling voice that the mollified
nobleman speedily followed her into that chamber, and might be seen
nodding his head and bowing time over her.

Rawdon and his friend meanwhile played ecarte until they had enough.
The Colonel won; but, say that he won ever so much and often, nights
like these, which occurred many times in the week—his wife having
all the talk and all the admiration, and he sitting silent without
the circle, not comprehending a word of the jokes, the allusions,
the mystical language within—must have been rather wearisome to the
ex-dragoon.

"How is Mrs. Crawley's husband?" Lord Steyne used to say to him by
way of a good day when they met; and indeed that was now his
avocation in life. He was Colonel Crawley no more. He was Mrs.
Crawley's husband.

About the little Rawdon, if nothing has been said all this while, it
is because he is hidden upstairs in a garret somewhere, or has
crawled below into the kitchen for companionship. His mother
scarcely ever took notice of him. He passed the days with his
French bonne as long as that domestic remained in Mr. Crawley's
family, and when the Frenchwoman went away, the little fellow,
howling in the loneliness of the night, had compassion taken on him
by a housemaid, who took him out of his solitary nursery into her
bed in the garret hard by and comforted him.

Rebecca, my Lord Steyne, and one or two more were in the drawing-
room taking tea after the opera, when this shouting was heard
overhead. "It's my cherub crying for his nurse," she said. She did
not offer to move to go and see the child. "Don't agitate your
feelings by going to look for him," said Lord Steyne sardonically.
"Bah!" replied the other, with a sort of blush, "he'll cry himself
to sleep"; and they fell to talking about the opera.

Rawdon had stolen off though, to look after his son and heir; and
came back to the company when he found that honest Dolly was
consoling the child. The Colonel's dressing-room was in those upper
regions. He used to see the boy there in private. They had
interviews together every morning when he shaved; Rawdon minor
sitting on a box by his father's side and watching the operation
with never-ceasing pleasure. He and the sire were great friends.
The father would bring him sweetmeats from the dessert and hide them
in a certain old epaulet box, where the child went to seek them, and
laughed with joy on discovering the treasure; laughed, but not too
loud: for mamma was below asleep and must not be disturbed. She
did not go to rest till very late and seldom rose till after noon.

Rawdon bought the boy plenty of picture-books and crammed his
nursery with toys. Its walls were covered with pictures pasted up
by the father's own hand and purchased by him for ready money. When
he was off duty with Mrs. Rawdon in the park, he would sit up here,
passing hours with the boy; who rode on his chest, who pulled his
great mustachios as if they were driving-reins, and spent days with
him in indefatigable gambols. The room was a low room, and once,
when the child was not five years old, his father, who was tossing
him wildly up in his arms, hit the poor little chap's skull so
violently against the ceiling that he almost dropped the child, so
terrified was he at the disaster.

Rawdon minor had made up his face for a tremendous howl—the
severity of the blow indeed authorized that indulgence; but just as
he was going to begin, the father interposed.

"For God's sake, Rawdy, don't wake Mamma," he cried. And the child,
looking in a very hard and piteous way at his father, bit his lips,
clenched his hands, and didn't cry a bit. Rawdon told that story at
the clubs, at the mess, to everybody in town. "By Gad, sir," he
explained to the public in general, "what a good plucked one that
boy of mine is—what a trump he is! I half-sent his head through
the ceiling, by Gad, and he wouldn't cry for fear of disturbing his
mother."

Sometimes—once or twice in a week—that lady visited the upper
regions in which the child lived. She came like a vivified figure
out of the Magasin des Modes—blandly smiling in the most beautiful
new clothes and little gloves and boots. Wonderful scarfs, laces,
and jewels glittered about her. She had always a new bonnet on, and
flowers bloomed perpetually in it, or else magnificent curling
ostrich feathers, soft and snowy as camellias. She nodded twice or
thrice patronizingly to the little boy, who looked up from his
dinner or from the pictures of soldiers he was painting. When she
left the room, an odour of rose, or some other magical fragrance,
lingered about the nursery. She was an unearthly being in his eyes,
superior to his father—to all the world: to be worshipped and
admired at a distance. To drive with that lady in the carriage was
an awful rite: he sat up in the back seat and did not dare to
speak: he gazed with all his eyes at the beautifully dressed
Princess opposite to him. Gentlemen on splendid prancing horses
came up and smiled and talked with her. How her eyes beamed upon all
of them! Her hand used to quiver and wave gracefully as they
passed. When he went out with her he had his new red dress on. His
old brown holland was good enough when he stayed at home. Sometimes,
when she was away, and Dolly his maid was making his bed, he came
into his mother's room. It was as the abode of a fairy to him—a
mystic chamber of splendour and delights. There in the wardrobe
hung those wonderful robes—pink and blue and many-tinted. There
was the jewel-case, silver-clasped, and the wondrous bronze hand on
the dressing-table, glistening all over with a hundred rings. There
was the cheval-glass, that miracle of art, in which he could just
see his own wondering head and the reflection of Dolly (queerly
distorted, and as if up in the ceiling), plumping and patting the
pillows of the bed. Oh, thou poor lonely little benighted boy!
Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little
children; and here was one who was worshipping a stone!