Vanity Fair
No sixty pounds, however, came to help the household at the end of the
half year, and it fell deeper and deeper into trouble--Mrs. Sedley, who
was growing infirm and was much shaken, remained silent or wept a great
deal with Mrs. Clapp in the kitchen. The butcher was particularly
surly, the grocer insolent: once or twice little Georgy had grumbled
about the dinners, and Amelia, who still would have been satisfied with
a slice of bread for her own dinner, could not but perceive that her
son was neglected and purchased little things out of her private purse
to keep the boy in health.
At last they told her, or told her such a garbled story as people in
difficulties tell. One day, her own money having been received, and
Amelia about to pay it over, she, who had kept an account of the moneys
expended by her, proposed to keep a certain portion back out of her
dividend, having contracted engagements for a new suit for Georgy.
Then it came out that Jos's remittances were not paid, that the house
was in difficulties, which Amelia ought to have seen before, her mother
said, but she cared for nothing or nobody except Georgy. At this she
passed all her money across the table, without a word, to her mother,
and returned to her room to cry her eyes out. She had a great access of
sensibility too that day, when obliged to go and countermand the
clothes, the darling clothes on which she had set her heart for
Christmas Day, and the cut and fashion of which she had arranged in
many conversations with a small milliner, her friend.
Hardest of all, she had to break the matter to Georgy, who made a loud
outcry. Everybody had new clothes at Christmas. The others would
laugh at him. He would have new clothes. She had promised them to
him. The poor widow had only kisses to give him. She darned the old
suit in tears. She cast about among her little ornaments to see if she
could sell anything to procure the desired novelties. There was her
India shawl that Dobbin had sent her. She remembered in former days
going with her mother to a fine India shop on Ludgate Hill, where the
ladies had all sorts of dealings and bargains in these articles. Her
cheeks flushed and her eyes shone with pleasure as she thought of this
resource, and she kissed away George to school in the morning, smiling
brightly after him. The boy felt that there was good news in her look.
Packing up her shawl in a handkerchief (another of the gifts of the
good Major), she hid them under her cloak and walked flushed and eager
all the way to Ludgate Hill, tripping along by the park wall and
running over the crossings, so that many a man turned as she hurried by
him and looked after her rosy pretty face. She calculated how she
should spend the proceeds of her shawl--how, besides the clothes, she
would buy the books that he longed for, and pay his half-year's
schooling; and how she would buy a cloak for her father instead of that
old great-coat which he wore. She was not mistaken as to the value of
the Major's gift. It was a very fine and beautiful web, and the
merchant made a very good bargain when he gave her twenty guineas for
her shawl.
She ran on amazed and flurried with her riches to Darton's shop, in St.
Paul's Churchyard, and there purchased the Parents' Assistant and the
Sandford and Merton Georgy longed for, and got into the coach there
with her parcel, and went home exulting. And she pleased herself by
writing in the fly-leaf in her neatest little hand, "George Osborne, A
Christmas gift from his affectionate mother." The books are extant to
this day, with the fair delicate superscription.
She was going from her own room with the books in her hand to place
them on George's table, where he might find them on his return from
school, when in the passage, she and her mother met. The gilt bindings
of the seven handsome little volumes caught the old lady's eye.
"What are those?" she said.
"Some books for Georgy," Amelia replied--"I--I promised them to him at
Christmas."
"Books!" cried the elder lady indignantly, "Books, when the whole house
wants bread! Books, when to keep you and your son in luxury, and your
dear father out of gaol, I've sold every trinket I had, the India shawl
from my back even down to the very spoons, that our tradesmen mightn't
insult us, and that Mr. Clapp, which indeed he is justly entitled,
being not a hard landlord, and a civil man, and a father, might have
his rent. Oh, Amelia! you break my heart with your books and that boy
of yours, whom you are ruining, though part with him you will not. Oh,
Amelia, may God send you a more dutiful child than I have had! There's
Jos, deserts his father in his old age; and there's George, who might
be provided for, and who might be rich, going to school like a lord,
with a gold watch and chain round his neck--while my dear, dear old man
is without a sh--shilling." Hysteric sobs and cries ended Mrs. Sedley's
speech--it echoed through every room in the small house, whereof the
other female inmates heard every word of the colloquy.
"Oh, Mother, Mother!" cried poor Amelia in reply. "You told me
nothing--I--I promised him the books. I--I only sold my shawl this
morning. Take the money--take everything"--and with quivering hands
she took out her silver, and her sovereigns--her precious golden
sovereigns, which she thrust into the hands of her mother, whence they
overflowed and tumbled, rolling down the stairs.
And then she went into her room, and sank down in despair and utter
misery. She saw it all now. Her selfishness was sacrificing the boy.
But for her he might have wealth, station, education, and his father's
place, which the elder George had forfeited for her sake. She had but
to speak the words, and her father was restored to competency and the
boy raised to fortune. Oh, what a conviction it was to that tender and
stricken heart!
CHAPTER XLVII
Gaunt House
All the world knows that Lord Steyne's town palace stands in Gaunt
Square, out of which Great Gaunt Street leads, whither we first
conducted Rebecca, in the time of the departed Sir Pitt Crawley.
Peering over the railings and through the black trees into the garden
of the Square, you see a few miserable governesses with wan-faced
pupils wandering round and round it, and round the dreary grass-plot in
the centre of which rises the statue of Lord Gaunt, who fought at
Minden, in a three-tailed wig, and otherwise habited like a Roman
Emperor. Gaunt House occupies nearly a side of the Square. The
remaining three sides are composed of mansions that have passed away
into dowagerism--tall, dark houses, with window-frames of stone, or
picked out of a lighter red. Little light seems to be behind those
lean, comfortless casements now, and hospitality to have passed away
from those doors as much as the laced lacqueys and link-boys of old
times, who used to put out their torches in the blank iron
extinguishers that still flank the lamps over the steps. Brass plates
have penetrated into the square--Doctors, the Diddlesex Bank Western
Branch--the English and European Reunion, &c.--it has a dreary
look--nor is my Lord Steyne's palace less dreary. All I have ever seen
of it is the vast wall in front, with the rustic columns at the great
gate, through which an old porter peers sometimes with a fat and gloomy
red face--and over the wall the garret and bedroom windows, and the
chimneys, out of which there seldom comes any smoke now. For the
present Lord Steyne lives at Naples, preferring the view of the Bay and
Capri and Vesuvius to the dreary aspect of the wall in Gaunt Square.
A few score yards down New Gaunt Street, and leading into Gaunt Mews
indeed, is a little modest back door, which you would not remark from
that of any of the other stables. But many a little close carriage has
stopped at that door, as my informant (little Tom Eaves, who knows
everything, and who showed me the place) told me. "The Prince and
Perdita have been in and out of that door, sir," he had often told me;
"Marianne Clarke has entered it with the Duke of ------. It conducts to
the famous petits appartements of Lord Steyne--one, sir, fitted up all
in ivory and white satin, another in ebony and black velvet; there is a
little banqueting-room taken from Sallust's house at Pompeii, and
painted by Cosway--a little private kitchen, in which every saucepan
was silver and all the spits were gold. It was there that Egalite
Orleans roasted partridges on the night when he and the Marquis of
Steyne won a hundred thousand from a great personage at ombre. Half of
the money went to the French Revolution, half to purchase Lord Gaunt's
Marquisate and Garter--and the remainder--" but it forms no part of our
scheme to tell what became of the remainder, for every shilling of
which, and a great deal more, little Tom Eaves, who knows everybody's
affairs, is ready to account.
Besides his town palace, the Marquis had castles and palaces in various
quarters of the three kingdoms, whereof the descriptions may be found
in the road-books--Castle Strongbow, with its woods, on the Shannon
shore; Gaunt Castle, in Carmarthenshire, where Richard II was taken
prisoner--Gauntly Hall in Yorkshire, where I have been informed there
were two hundred silver teapots for the breakfasts of the guests of the
house, with everything to correspond in splendour; and Stillbrook in
Hampshire, which was my lord's farm, an humble place of residence, of
which we all remember the wonderful furniture which was sold at my
lord's demise by a late celebrated auctioneer.
The Marchioness of Steyne was of the renowned and ancient family of the
Caerlyons, Marquises of Camelot, who have preserved the old faith ever
since the conversion of the venerable Druid, their first ancestor, and
whose pedigree goes far beyond the date of the arrival of King Brute in
these islands. Pendragon is the title of the eldest son of the house.
The sons have been called Arthurs, Uthers, and Caradocs, from
immemorial time. Their heads have fallen in many a loyal conspiracy.
Elizabeth chopped off the head of the Arthur of her day, who had been
Chamberlain to Philip and Mary, and carried letters between the Queen
of Scots and her uncles the Guises. A cadet of the house was an
officer of the great Duke and distinguished in the famous Saint
Bartholomew conspiracy. During the whole of Mary's confinement, the
house of Camelot conspired in her behalf. It was as much injured by its
charges in fitting out an armament against the Spaniards, during the
time of the Armada, as by the fines and confiscations levied on it by
Elizabeth for harbouring of priests, obstinate recusancy, and popish
misdoings. A recreant of James's time was momentarily perverted from
his religion by the arguments of that great theologian, and the
fortunes of the family somewhat restored by his timely weakness. But
the Earl of Camelot, of the reign of Charles, returned to the old creed
of his family, and they continued to fight for it, and ruin themselves
for it, as long as there was a Stuart left to head or to instigate a
rebellion.
Lady Mary Caerlyon was brought up at a Parisian convent; the Dauphiness
Marie Antoinette was her godmother. In the pride of her beauty she had
been married--sold, it was said--to Lord Gaunt, then at Paris, who won
vast sums from the lady's brother at some of Philip of Orleans's
banquets. The Earl of Gaunt's famous duel with the Count de la Marche,
of the Grey Musqueteers, was attributed by common report to the
pretensions of that officer (who had been a page, and remained a
favourite of the Queen) to the hand of the beautiful Lady Mary
Caerlyon. She was married to Lord Gaunt while the Count lay ill of his
wound, and came to dwell at Gaunt House, and to figure for a short time