Vanity Fair
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