Vanity Fair
"Blood's the word," said James, gulping the ruby fluid down. "Nothing
like blood, sir, in hosses, dawgs, AND men. Why, only last term, just
before I was rusticated, that is, I mean just before I had the measles,
ha, ha--there was me and Ringwood of Christchurch, Bob Ringwood, Lord
Cinqbars' son, having our beer at the Bell at Blenheim, when the
Banbury bargeman offered to fight either of us for a bowl of punch. I
couldn't. My arm was in a sling; couldn't even take the drag down--a
brute of a mare of mine had fell with me only two days before, out with
the Abingdon, and I thought my arm was broke. Well, sir, I couldn't
finish him, but Bob had his coat off at once--he stood up to the
Banbury man for three minutes, and polished him off in four rounds
easy. Gad, how he did drop, sir, and what was it? Blood, sir, all
blood."
"You don't drink, James," the ex-attache continued. "In my time at
Oxford, the men passed round the bottle a little quicker than you young
fellows seem to do."
"Come, come," said James, putting his hand to his nose and winking at
his cousin with a pair of vinous eyes, "no jokes, old boy; no trying it
on on me. You want to trot me out, but it's no go. In vino veritas,
old boy. Mars, Bacchus, Apollo virorum, hey? I wish my aunt would send
down some of this to the governor; it's a precious good tap."
"You had better ask her," Machiavel continued, "or make the best of
your time now. What says the bard? 'Nunc vino pellite curas, Cras
ingens iterabimus aequor,'" and the Bacchanalian, quoting the above
with a House of Commons air, tossed off nearly a thimbleful of wine
with an immense flourish of his glass.
At the Rectory, when the bottle of port wine was opened after dinner,
the young ladies had each a glass from a bottle of currant wine. Mrs.
Bute took one glass of port, honest James had a couple commonly, but as
his father grew very sulky if he made further inroads on the bottle,
the good lad generally refrained from trying for more, and subsided
either into the currant wine, or to some private gin-and-water in the
stables, which he enjoyed in the company of the coachman and his pipe.
At Oxford, the quantity of wine was unlimited, but the quality was
inferior: but when quantity and quality united as at his aunt's house,
James showed that he could appreciate them indeed; and hardly needed
any of his cousin's encouragement in draining off the second bottle
supplied by Mr. Bowls.
When the time for coffee came, however, and for a return to the ladies,
of whom he stood in awe, the young gentleman's agreeable frankness left
him, and he relapsed into his usual surly timidity; contenting himself
by saying yes and no, by scowling at Lady Jane, and by upsetting one
cup of coffee during the evening.
If he did not speak he yawned in a pitiable manner, and his presence
threw a damp upon the modest proceedings of the evening, for Miss
Crawley and Lady Jane at their piquet, and Miss Briggs at her work,
felt that his eyes were wildly fixed on them, and were uneasy under
that maudlin look.
"He seems a very silent, awkward, bashful lad," said Miss Crawley to
Mr. Pitt.
"He is more communicative in men's society than with ladies," Machiavel
dryly replied: perhaps rather disappointed that the port wine had not
made Jim speak more.
He had spent the early part of the next morning in writing home to his
mother a most flourishing account of his reception by Miss Crawley.
But ah! he little knew what evils the day was bringing for him, and how
short his reign of favour was destined to be. A circumstance which Jim
had forgotten--a trivial but fatal circumstance--had taken place at the
Cribb's Arms on the night before he had come to his aunt's house. It
was no other than this--Jim, who was always of a generous disposition,
and when in his cups especially hospitable, had in the course of the
night treated the Tutbury champion and the Rottingdean man, and their
friends, twice or thrice to the refreshment of gin-and-water--so that
no less than eighteen glasses of that fluid at eightpence per glass
were charged in Mr. James Crawley's bill. It was not the amount of
eightpences, but the quantity of gin which told fatally against poor
James's character, when his aunt's butler, Mr. Bowls, went down at his
mistress's request to pay the young gentleman's bill. The landlord,
fearing lest the account should be refused altogether, swore solemnly
that the young gent had consumed personally every farthing's worth of
the liquor: and Bowls paid the bill finally, and showed it on his
return home to Mrs. Firkin, who was shocked at the frightful
prodigality of gin; and took the bill to Miss Briggs as
accountant-general; who thought it her duty to mention the circumstance
to her principal, Miss Crawley.
Had he drunk a dozen bottles of claret, the old spinster could have
pardoned him. Mr. Fox and Mr. Sheridan drank claret. Gentlemen drank
claret. But eighteen glasses of gin consumed among boxers in an
ignoble pot-house--it was an odious crime and not to be pardoned
readily. Everything went against the lad: he came home perfumed from
the stables, whither he had been to pay his dog Towzer a visit--and
whence he was going to take his friend out for an airing, when he met
Miss Crawley and her wheezy Blenheim spaniel, which Towzer would have
eaten up had not the Blenheim fled squealing to the protection of Miss
Briggs, while the atrocious master of the bull-dog stood laughing at
the horrible persecution.
This day too the unlucky boy's modesty had likewise forsaken him. He
was lively and facetious at dinner. During the repast he levelled one
or two jokes against Pitt Crawley: he drank as much wine as upon the
previous day; and going quite unsuspiciously to the drawing-room, began
to entertain the ladies there with some choice Oxford stories. He
described the different pugilistic qualities of Molyneux and Dutch Sam,
offered playfully to give Lady Jane the odds upon the Tutbury Pet
against the Rottingdean man, or take them, as her Ladyship chose: and
crowned the pleasantry by proposing to back himself against his cousin
Pitt Crawley, either with or without the gloves. "And that's a fair
offer, my buck," he said, with a loud laugh, slapping Pitt on the
shoulder, "and my father told me to make it too, and he'll go halves in
the bet, ha, ha!" So saying, the engaging youth nodded knowingly at
poor Miss Briggs, and pointed his thumb over his shoulder at Pitt
Crawley in a jocular and exulting manner.
Pitt was not pleased altogether perhaps, but still not unhappy in the
main. Poor Jim had his laugh out: and staggered across the room with
his aunt's candle, when the old lady moved to retire, and offered to
salute her with the blandest tipsy smile: and he took his own leave
and went upstairs to his bedroom perfectly satisfied with himself, and
with a pleased notion that his aunt's money would be left to him in
preference to his father and all the rest of the family.
Once up in the bedroom, one would have thought he could not make
matters worse; and yet this unlucky boy did. The moon was shining very
pleasantly out on the sea, and Jim, attracted to the window by the
romantic appearance of the ocean and the heavens, thought he would
further enjoy them while smoking. Nobody would smell the tobacco, he
thought, if he cunningly opened the window and kept his head and pipe
in the fresh air. This he did: but being in an excited state, poor Jim
had forgotten that his door was open all this time, so that the breeze
blowing inwards and a fine thorough draught being established, the
clouds of tobacco were carried downstairs, and arrived with quite
undiminished fragrance to Miss Crawley and Miss Briggs.
The pipe of tobacco finished the business: and the Bute-Crawleys never
knew how many thousand pounds it cost them. Firkin rushed downstairs
to Bowls who was reading out the "Fire and the Frying Pan" to his
aide-de-camp in a loud and ghostly voice. The dreadful secret was told
to him by Firkin with so frightened a look, that for the first moment
Mr. Bowls and his young man thought that robbers were in the house, the
legs of whom had probably been discovered by the woman under Miss
Crawley's bed. When made aware of the fact, however--to rush upstairs
at three steps at a time to enter the unconscious James's apartment,
calling out, "Mr. James," in a voice stifled with alarm, and to cry,
"For Gawd's sake, sir, stop that 'ere pipe," was the work of a minute
with Mr. Bowls. "O, Mr. James, what 'AVE you done!" he said in a voice
of the deepest pathos, as he threw the implement out of the window.
"What 'ave you done, sir! Missis can't abide 'em."
"Missis needn't smoke," said James with a frantic misplaced laugh, and
thought the whole matter an excellent joke. But his feelings were very
different in the morning, when Mr. Bowls's young man, who operated upon
Mr. James's boots, and brought him his hot water to shave that beard
which he was so anxiously expecting, handed a note in to Mr. James in
bed, in the handwriting of Miss Briggs.
"Dear sir," it said, "Miss Crawley has passed an exceedingly disturbed
night, owing to the shocking manner in which the house has been
polluted by tobacco; Miss Crawley bids me say she regrets that she is
too unwell to see you before you go--and above all that she ever
induced you to remove from the ale-house, where she is sure you will be
much more comfortable during the rest of your stay at Brighton."
And herewith honest James's career as a candidate for his aunt's favour
ended. He had in fact, and without knowing it, done what he menaced to
do. He had fought his cousin Pitt with the gloves.
Where meanwhile was he who had been once first favourite for this race
for money? Becky and Rawdon, as we have seen, were come together after
Waterloo, and were passing the winter of 1815 at Paris in great
splendour and gaiety. Rebecca was a good economist, and the price poor
Jos Sedley had paid for her two horses was in itself sufficient to keep
their little establishment afloat for a year, at the least; there was
no occasion to turn into money "my pistols, the same which I shot
Captain Marker," or the gold dressing-case, or the cloak lined with
sable. Becky had it made into a pelisse for herself, in which she rode
in the Bois de Boulogne to the admiration of all: and you should have
seen the scene between her and her delighted husband, whom she rejoined
after the army had entered Cambray, and when she unsewed herself, and
let out of her dress all those watches, knick-knacks, bank-notes,
cheques, and valuables, which she had secreted in the wadding, previous
to her meditated flight from Brussels! Tufto was charmed, and Rawdon
roared with delighted laughter, and swore that she was better than any
play he ever saw, by Jove. And the way in which she jockeyed Jos, and
which she described with infinite fun, carried up his delight to a
pitch of quite insane enthusiasm. He believed in his wife as much as
the French soldiers in Napoleon.
Her success in Paris was remarkable. All the French ladies voted her
charming. She spoke their language admirably. She adopted at once
their grace, their liveliness, their manner. Her husband was stupid
certainly--all English are stupid--and, besides, a dull husband at
Paris is always a point in a lady's favour. He was the heir of the
rich and spirituelle Miss Crawley, whose house had been open to so many
of the French noblesse during the emigration. They received the
colonel's wife in their own hotels--"Why," wrote a great lady to Miss
Crawley, who had bought her lace and trinkets at the Duchess's own
price, and given her many a dinner during the pinching times after the
Revolution--"Why does not our dear Miss come to her nephew and niece,