Vanity Fair
enough, they pushed on until they reached the Duchess's own pink velvet
saloon, at the end of the suite of apartments (where the statue of the
Venus is, and the great Venice looking-glasses, framed in silver), and
where the princely family were entertaining their most distinguished
guests at a round table at supper. It was just such a little select
banquet as that of which Becky recollected that she had partaken at
Lord Steyne's--and there he sat at Polonia's table, and she saw him.
The scar cut by the diamond on his white, bald, shining forehead made a
burning red mark; his red whiskers were dyed of a purple hue, which
made his pale face look still paler. He wore his collar and orders,
his blue ribbon and garter. He was a greater Prince than any there,
though there was a reigning Duke and a Royal Highness, with their
princesses, and near his Lordship was seated the beautiful Countess of
Belladonna, nee de Glandier, whose husband (the Count Paolo della
Belladonna), so well known for his brilliant entomological collections,
had been long absent on a mission to the Emperor of Morocco.
When Becky beheld that familiar and illustrious face, how vulgar all of
a sudden did Major Loder appear to her, and how that odious Captain
Rook did smell of tobacco! In one instant she reassumed her
fine-ladyship and tried to look and feel as if she were in May Fair
once more. "That woman looks stupid and ill-humoured," she thought; "I
am sure she can't amuse him. No, he must be bored by her--he never was
by me." A hundred such touching hopes, fears, and memories palpitated
in her little heart, as she looked with her brightest eyes (the rouge
which she wore up to her eyelids made them twinkle) towards the great
nobleman. Of a Star and Garter night Lord Steyne used also to put on
his grandest manner and to look and speak like a great prince, as he
was. Becky admired him smiling sumptuously, easy, lofty, and stately.
Ah, bon Dieu, what a pleasant companion he was, what a brilliant wit,
what a rich fund of talk, what a grand manner!--and she had exchanged
this for Major Loder, reeking of cigars and brandy-and-water, and
Captain Rook with his horsejockey jokes and prize-ring slang, and their
like. "I wonder whether he will know me," she thought. Lord Steyne
was talking and laughing with a great and illustrious lady at his side,
when he looked up and saw Becky.
She was all over in a flutter as their eyes met, and she put on the
very best smile she could muster, and dropped him a little, timid,
imploring curtsey. He stared aghast at her for a minute, as Macbeth
might on beholding Banquo's sudden appearance at his ball-supper, and
remained looking at her with open mouth, when that horrid Major Loder
pulled her away.
"Come away into the supper-room, Mrs. R.," was that gentleman's remark:
"seeing these nobs grubbing away has made me peckish too. Let's go and
try the old governor's champagne." Becky thought the Major had had a
great deal too much already.
The day after she went to walk on the Pincian Hill--the Hyde Park of
the Roman idlers--possibly in hopes to have another sight of Lord
Steyne. But she met another acquaintance there: it was Mr. Fiche, his
lordship's confidential man, who came up nodding to her rather
familiarly and putting a finger to his hat. "I knew that Madame was
here," he said; "I followed her from her hotel. I have some advice to
give Madame."
"From the Marquis of Steyne?" Becky asked, resuming as much of her
dignity as she could muster, and not a little agitated by hope and
expectation.
"No," said the valet; "it is from me. Rome is very unwholesome."
"Not at this season, Monsieur Fiche--not till after Easter."
"I tell Madame it is unwholesome now. There is always malaria for some
people. That cursed marsh wind kills many at all seasons. Look, Madame
Crawley, you were always bon enfant, and I have an interest in you,
parole d'honneur. Be warned. Go away from Rome, I tell you--or you
will be ill and die."
Becky laughed, though in rage and fury. "What! assassinate poor little
me?" she said. "How romantic! Does my lord carry bravos for couriers,
and stilettos in the fourgons? Bah! I will stay, if but to plague him.
I have those who will defend me whilst I am here."
It was Monsieur Fiche's turn to laugh now. "Defend you," he said, "and
who? The Major, the Captain, any one of those gambling men whom Madame
sees would take her life for a hundred louis. We know things about
Major Loder (he is no more a Major than I am my Lord the Marquis) which
would send him to the galleys or worse. We know everything and have
friends everywhere. We know whom you saw at Paris, and what relations
you found there. Yes, Madame may stare, but we do. How was it that no
minister on the Continent would receive Madame? She has offended
somebody: who never forgives--whose rage redoubled when he saw you.
He was like a madman last night when he came home. Madame de
Belladonna made him a scene about you and fired off in one of her
furies."
"Oh, it was Madame de Belladonna, was it?" Becky said, relieved a
little, for the information she had just got had scared her.
"No--she does not matter--she is always jealous. I tell you it was
Monseigneur. You did wrong to show yourself to him. And if you stay
here you will repent it. Mark my words. Go. Here is my lord's
carriage"--and seizing Becky's arm, he rushed down an alley of the
garden as Lord Steyne's barouche, blazing with heraldic devices, came
whirling along the avenue, borne by the almost priceless horses, and
bearing Madame de Belladonna lolling on the cushions, dark, sulky, and
blooming, a King Charles in her lap, a white parasol swaying over her
head, and old Steyne stretched at her side with a livid face and
ghastly eyes. Hate, or anger, or desire caused them to brighten now
and then still, but ordinarily, they gave no light, and seemed tired of
looking out on a world of which almost all the pleasure and all the
best beauty had palled upon the worn-out wicked old man.
"Monseigneur has never recovered the shock of that night, never,"
Monsieur Fiche whispered to Mrs. Crawley as the carriage flashed by,
and she peeped out at it from behind the shrubs that hid her. "That
was a consolation at any rate," Becky thought.
Whether my lord really had murderous intentions towards Mrs. Becky as
Monsieur Fiche said (since Monseigneur's death he has returned to his
native country, where he lives much respected, and has purchased from
his Prince the title of Baron Ficci), and the factotum objected to have
to do with assassination; or whether he simply had a commission to
frighten Mrs. Crawley out of a city where his Lordship proposed to pass
the winter, and the sight of her would be eminently disagreeable to the
great nobleman, is a point which has never been ascertained: but the
threat had its effect upon the little woman, and she sought no more to
intrude herself upon the presence of her old patron.
Everybody knows the melancholy end of that nobleman, which befell at
Naples two months after the French Revolution of 1830; when the Most
Honourable George Gustavus, Marquis of Steyne, Earl of Gaunt and of
Gaunt Castle, in the Peerage of Ireland, Viscount Hellborough, Baron
Pitchley and Grillsby, a Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Garter,
of the Golden Fleece of Spain, of the Russian Order of Saint Nicholas
of the First Class, of the Turkish Order of the Crescent, First Lord of
the Powder Closet and Groom of the Back Stairs, Colonel of the Gaunt or
Regent's Own Regiment of Militia, a Trustee of the British Museum, an
Elder Brother of the Trinity House, a Governor of the White Friars, and
D.C.L.--died after a series of fits brought on, as the papers said, by
the shock occasioned to his lordship's sensibilities by the downfall of
the ancient French monarchy.
An eloquent catalogue appeared in a weekly print, describing his
virtues, his magnificence, his talents, and his good actions. His
sensibility, his attachment to the illustrious House of Bourbon, with
which he claimed an alliance, were such that he could not survive the
misfortunes of his august kinsmen. His body was buried at Naples, and
his heart--that heart which always beat with every generous and noble
emotion was brought back to Castle Gaunt in a silver urn. "In him,"
Mr. Wagg said, "the poor and the Fine Arts have lost a beneficent
patron, society one of its most brilliant ornaments, and England one of
her loftiest patriots and statesmen," &c., &c.
His will was a good deal disputed, and an attempt was made to force
from Madame de Belladonna the celebrated jewel called the "Jew's-eye"
diamond, which his lordship always wore on his forefinger, and which it
was said that she removed from it after his lamented demise. But his
confidential friend and attendant, Monsieur Fiche proved that the ring
had been presented to the said Madame de Belladonna two days before the
Marquis's death, as were the bank-notes, jewels, Neapolitan and French
bonds, &c., found in his lordship's secretaire and claimed by his heirs
from that injured woman.
CHAPTER LXV
Full of Business and Pleasure
The day after the meeting at the play-table, Jos had himself arrayed
with unusual care and splendour, and without thinking it necessary to
say a word to any member of his family regarding the occurrences of the
previous night, or asking for their company in his walk, he sallied
forth at an early hour, and was presently seen making inquiries at the
door of the Elephant Hotel. In consequence of the fetes the house was
full of company, the tables in the street were already surrounded by
persons smoking and drinking the national small-beer, the public rooms
were in a cloud of smoke, and Mr. Jos having, in his pompous way, and
with his clumsy German, made inquiries for the person of whom he was in
search, was directed to the very top of the house, above the
first-floor rooms where some travelling pedlars had lived, and were
exhibiting their jewellery and brocades; above the second-floor
apartments occupied by the etat major of the gambling firm; above the
third-floor rooms, tenanted by the band of renowned Bohemian vaulters
and tumblers; and so on to the little cabins of the roof, where, among
students, bagmen, small tradesmen, and country-folks come in for the
festival, Becky had found a little nest--as dirty a little refuge as
ever beauty lay hid in.
Becky liked the life. She was at home with everybody in the place,
pedlars, punters, tumblers, students and all. She was of a wild, roving
nature, inherited from father and mother, who were both Bohemians, by
taste and circumstance; if a lord was not by, she would talk to his
courier with the greatest pleasure; the din, the stir, the drink, the
smoke, the tattle of the Hebrew pedlars, the solemn, braggart ways of
the poor tumblers, the sournois talk of the gambling-table officials,
the songs and swagger of the students, and the general buzz and hum of
the place had pleased and tickled the little woman, even when her luck
was down and she had not wherewithal to pay her bill. How pleasant was
all the bustle to her now that her purse was full of the money which
little Georgy had won for her the night before!
As Jos came creaking and puffing up the final stairs, and was
speechless when he got to the landing, and began to wipe his face and
then to look for No. 92, the room where he was directed to seek for the
person he wanted, the door of the opposite chamber, No. 90, was open,
and a student, in jack-boots and a dirty schlafrock, was lying on the
bed smoking a long pipe; whilst another student in long yellow hair and
a braided coat, exceeding smart and dirty too, was actually on his