Vanity Fair
unmatched at rating, or the snaky thongs of the whips.
Many young gentlemen canter up on thoroughbred hacks, spatter-dashed to
the knee, and enter the house to drink cherry-brandy and pay their
respects to the ladies, or, more modest and sportsmanlike, divest
themselves of their mud-boots, exchange their hacks for their hunters,
and warm their blood by a preliminary gallop round the lawn. Then they
collect round the pack in the corner and talk with Tom Moody of past
sport, and the merits of Sniveller and Diamond, and of the state of the
country and of the wretched breed of foxes.
Sir Huddlestone presently appears mounted on a clever cob and rides up
to the Hall, where he enters and does the civil thing by the ladies,
after which, being a man of few words, he proceeds to business. The
hounds are drawn up to the hall-door, and little Rawdon descends
amongst them, excited yet half-alarmed by the caresses which they
bestow upon him, at the thumps he receives from their waving tails, and
at their canine bickerings, scarcely restrained by Tom Moody's tongue
and lash.
Meanwhile, Sir Huddlestone has hoisted himself unwieldily on the Nob:
"Let's try Sowster's Spinney, Tom," says the Baronet, "Farmer Mangle
tells me there are two foxes in it." Tom blows his horn and trots off,
followed by the pack, by the whips, by the young gents from Winchester,
by the farmers of the neighbourhood, by the labourers of the parish on
foot, with whom the day is a great holiday, Sir Huddlestone bringing up
the rear with Colonel Crawley, and the whole cortege disappears down
the avenue.
The Reverend Bute Crawley (who has been too modest to appear at the
public meet before his nephew's windows), whom Tom Moody remembers
forty years back a slender divine riding the wildest horses, jumping
the widest brooks, and larking over the newest gates in the country--his
Reverence, we say, happens to trot out from the Rectory Lane on his
powerful black horse just as Sir Huddlestone passes; he joins the
worthy Baronet. Hounds and horsemen disappear, and little Rawdon
remains on the doorsteps, wondering and happy.
During the progress of this memorable holiday, little Rawdon, if he had
got no special liking for his uncle, always awful and cold and locked
up in his study, plunged in justice-business and surrounded by bailiffs
and farmers--has gained the good graces of his married and maiden
aunts, of the two little folks of the Hall, and of Jim of the Rectory,
whom Sir Pitt is encouraging to pay his addresses to one of the young
ladies, with an understanding doubtless that he shall be presented to
the living when it shall be vacated by his fox-hunting old sire. Jim
has given up that sport himself and confines himself to a little
harmless duck- or snipe-shooting, or a little quiet trifling with the
rats during the Christmas holidays, after which he will return to the
University and try and not be plucked, once more. He has already
eschewed green coats, red neckcloths, and other worldly ornaments, and
is preparing himself for a change in his condition. In this cheap and
thrifty way Sir Pitt tries to pay off his debt to his family.
Also before this merry Christmas was over, the Baronet had screwed up
courage enough to give his brother another draft on his bankers, and
for no less a sum than a hundred pounds, an act which caused Sir Pitt
cruel pangs at first, but which made him glow afterwards to think
himself one of the most generous of men. Rawdon and his son went away
with the utmost heaviness of heart. Becky and the ladies parted with
some alacrity, however, and our friend returned to London to commence
those avocations with which we find her occupied when this chapter
begins. Under her care the Crawley House in Great Gaunt Street was
quite rejuvenescent and ready for the reception of Sir Pitt and his
family, when the Baronet came to London to attend his duties in
Parliament and to assume that position in the country for which his
vast genius fitted him.
For the first session, this profound dissembler hid his projects and
never opened his lips but to present a petition from Mudbury. But he
attended assiduously in his place and learned thoroughly the routine
and business of the House. At home he gave himself up to the perusal
of Blue Books, to the alarm and wonder of Lady Jane, who thought he was
killing himself by late hours and intense application. And he made
acquaintance with the ministers, and the chiefs of his party,
determining to rank as one of them before many years were over.
Lady Jane's sweetness and kindness had inspired Rebecca with such a
contempt for her ladyship as the little woman found no small difficulty
in concealing. That sort of goodness and simplicity which Lady Jane
possessed annoyed our friend Becky, and it was impossible for her at
times not to show, or to let the other divine, her scorn. Her presence,
too, rendered Lady Jane uneasy. Her husband talked constantly with
Becky. Signs of intelligence seemed to pass between them, and Pitt
spoke with her on subjects on which he never thought of discoursing
with Lady Jane. The latter did not understand them, to be sure, but it
was mortifying to remain silent; still more mortifying to know that you
had nothing to say, and hear that little audacious Mrs. Rawdon dashing
on from subject to subject, with a word for every man, and a joke
always pat; and to sit in one's own house alone, by the fireside, and
watching all the men round your rival.
In the country, when Lady Jane was telling stories to the children, who
clustered about her knees (little Rawdon into the bargain, who was very
fond of her), and Becky came into the room, sneering with green
scornful eyes, poor Lady Jane grew silent under those baleful glances.
Her simple little fancies shrank away tremulously, as fairies in the
story-books, before a superior bad angel. She could not go on,
although Rebecca, with the smallest inflection of sarcasm in her voice,
besought her to continue that charming story. And on her side gentle
thoughts and simple pleasures were odious to Mrs. Becky; they discorded
with her; she hated people for liking them; she spurned children and
children-lovers. "I have no taste for bread and butter," she would
say, when caricaturing Lady Jane and her ways to my Lord Steyne.
"No more has a certain person for holy water," his lordship replied
with a bow and a grin and a great jarring laugh afterwards.
So these two ladies did not see much of each other except upon those
occasions when the younger brother's wife, having an object to gain
from the other, frequented her. They my-loved and my-deared each other
assiduously, but kept apart generally, whereas Sir Pitt, in the midst
of his multiplied avocations, found daily time to see his sister-in-law.
On the occasion of his first Speaker's dinner, Sir Pitt took the
opportunity of appearing before his sister-in-law in his uniform--that
old diplomatic suit which he had worn when attache to the Pumpernickel
legation.
Becky complimented him upon that dress and admired him almost as much
as his own wife and children, to whom he displayed himself before he
set out. She said that it was only the thoroughbred gentleman who
could wear the Court suit with advantage: it was only your men of
ancient race whom the culotte courte became. Pitt looked down with
complacency at his legs, which had not, in truth, much more symmetry or
swell than the lean Court sword which dangled by his side--looked down
at his legs, and thought in his heart that he was killing.
When he was gone, Mrs. Becky made a caricature of his figure, which she
showed to Lord Steyne when he arrived. His lordship carried off the
sketch, delighted with the accuracy of the resemblance. He had done
Sir Pitt Crawley the honour to meet him at Mrs. Becky's house and had
been most gracious to the new Baronet and member. Pitt was struck too
by the deference with which the great Peer treated his sister-in-law,
by her ease and sprightliness in the conversation, and by the delight
with which the other men of the party listened to her talk. Lord Steyne
made no doubt but that the Baronet had only commenced his career in
public life, and expected rather anxiously to hear him as an orator; as
they were neighbours (for Great Gaunt Street leads into Gaunt Square,
whereof Gaunt House, as everybody knows, forms one side) my lord hoped
that as soon as Lady Steyne arrived in London she would have the honour
of making the acquaintance of Lady Crawley. He left a card upon his
neighbour in the course of a day or two, having never thought fit to
notice his predecessor, though they had lived near each other for near
a century past.
In the midst of these intrigues and fine parties and wise and brilliant
personages Rawdon felt himself more and more isolated every day. He
was allowed to go to the club more; to dine abroad with bachelor
friends; to come and go when he liked, without any questions being
asked. And he and Rawdon the younger many a time would walk to Gaunt
Street and sit with the lady and the children there while Sir Pitt was
closeted with Rebecca, on his way to the House, or on his return from
it.
The ex-Colonel would sit for hours in his brother's house very silent,
and thinking and doing as little as possible. He was glad to be
employed of an errand; to go and make inquiries about a horse or a
servant, or to carve the roast mutton for the dinner of the children.
He was beat and cowed into laziness and submission. Delilah had
imprisoned him and cut his hair off, too. The bold and reckless young
blood of ten-years back was subjugated and was turned into a torpid,
submissive, middle-aged, stout gentleman.
And poor Lady Jane was aware that Rebecca had captivated her husband,
although she and Mrs. Rawdon my-deared and my-loved each other every
day they met.
CHAPTER XLVI
Struggles and Trials
Our friends at Brompton were meanwhile passing their Christmas after
their fashion and in a manner by no means too cheerful.
Out of the hundred pounds a year, which was about the amount of her
income, the Widow Osborne had been in the habit of giving up nearly
three-fourths to her father and mother, for the expenses of herself and
her little boy. With 120_l_. more, supplied by Jos, this family of four
people, attended by a single Irish servant who also did for Clapp and
his wife, might manage to live in decent comfort through the year, and
hold up their heads yet, and be able to give a friend a dish of tea
still, after the storms and disappointments of their early life. Sedley
still maintained his ascendency over the family of Mr. Clapp, his
ex-clerk. Clapp remembered the time when, sitting on the edge of the
chair, he tossed off a bumper to the health of "Mrs. S--, Miss Emmy,
and Mr. Joseph in India," at the merchant's rich table in Russell
Square. Time magnified the splendour of those recollections in the
honest clerk's bosom. Whenever he came up from the kitchen-parlour to
the drawing-room and partook of tea or gin-and-water with Mr. Sedley,
he would say, "This was not what you was accustomed to once, sir," and
as gravely and reverentially drink the health of the ladies as he had
done in the days of their utmost prosperity. He thought Miss 'Melia's
playing the divinest music ever performed, and her the finest lady. He
never would sit down before Sedley at the club even, nor would he have
that gentleman's character abused by any member of the society. He had
seen the first men in London shaking hands with Mr. S--; he said, "He'd
known him in times when Rothschild might be seen on 'Change with him
any day, and he owed him personally everythink."
Clapp, with the best of characters and handwritings, had been able very