Lapas attēli
PDF
ePub

tile.

66

la Marche, who was here and was employed and so they can't but be suspicious and hosin the Quiberoon business with Puisaye and Tinteniac, was the same colonel of Mousquetaires Gris with whom Steyne fought in the year '86-that he and the marchioness met again; that it was after the reverend colonel was shot in Brittany, that Lady Steyne took to those extreme practices of devotion which she carries on now for she is closeted with her director every day she is at service at Spanishplace, every morning. I've watched her there-that is, I've happened to be passing there and depend on it there's a mystery in her case. People are not so unhappy unless they have something to repent of," added Tom Eaves with a knowing wag of his head; "and depend on it, that woman would not be so submissive as she is, if the marquis had not some sword to hold over her."

So, if Mr. Eaves's information be correct, it is very likely that this lady in her high station, had to submit to many a private indignity, and to hide many secret griefs under a calm face. And let us, my brethren, who have not our names in the Red Book, console ourselves by thinking comfortably how miserable our betters may be, and that Damocles, who sits on satin cushions, and is served on gold plate, has an awful sword hanging over his head in the shape of a bailiff, or an hereditary disease, or a family secret, which peeps out every now and then from the embroidered arras in a ghastly manner, and will be sure to drop one day or the other in the right place.

In comparing, too, the poor man's situation with that of the great, there is (always according to Mr. Eaves) another great source of comfort for the former. You who have little or no patrimony to bequeath or to inherit, may be on good terms with your father or your son, whereas the heir of a great prince, such as my Lord Steyne, must naturally be angry at being kept out of his kingdom, and eye the occupant of it with no very agreeable glances. Take it as a rule," this sardonic old Eaves would say, "the fathers and elder sons of all great families hate each other. The crown prince is always in opposition to the crown or hankering after it. Shakspeare knew the world, my good sir, and when he describes Prince Hal (from whose family the Gaunts pretend to be descended, though they are no more related to John of Gaunt than you are) trying on his father's coronet, he gives you a natural description of all heirs-apparent. If you were heir to a dukedom and a thousand pounds a day, do you mean to say you would not wish for possession? Pooh! And it stands to reason that every great man, having experienced this feeling toward his father, must be aware that his son entertains it toward himself;

Then again, as to the feeling of elder toward younger sons. My dear sir, you ought to know that every elder brother looks upon the cadets of the house as his natural enemies who deprive him of so much ready money which ought to be his by right. I have often heard George Mac Turk, Lord Bajazet's eldest son, say that if he had his will, when he came to the title, he would do what the sultans do, and clear the estate by chopping off all his younger brothers' heads at once; and so the case is, more or less, with them all. I tell you they are all Turks in their hearts. Pooh! sir, they know the world." And here, haply, a great man coming up, Tom Eaves's hat would drop off his head, and he would rush forward with a bow and a grin, which showed that he knew the world too-in the Tomeavesian way, that is. And having laid out every shilling of his fortune on an annuity, Tom could afford to bear no malice to his nephews and nieces, and to have no other feeling with regard to his betters, but a constant and generous desire to dine with them.

Between the marchioness and the natural and tender regard of mother for children, there was that cruel barrier placed of difference of faith. The very love which she might feel for her sons, only served to render the timid and pious lady more fearful and unhappy. The gulf which separated them was fatal and impassable. She could not stretch her weak arm across it, or draw her children over to that side away from which her belief told her was no safety. During the youth of his sons, Lord Steyne, who was a good scholar and amateur casuist, had no better sport in the evening after dinner in the country than in setting the boys' tutor, the Rev. Mr. Trail (now my Lord Bishop of Ealing), on her ladyship's director, Father Mole, over their wine, and in putting Oxford against St. Acheul. He cried, "Bravo, Latimer! Well said, Loyola!" alternately; he promised Mole a bishopric if he would come over; and vowed he would use all his influence to get Trail a cardinal's hat if he would secede. Neither divine allowed himself to be conquered; and though the fond mother hoped that her youngest and favorite son would be reconciled to her church-his mother church-a sad and awful disappointment awaited the devout lady-a disappointment which seemed to be a judgment upon her for the sin of her marriage.

My Lord Gaunt married, as every person who frequents the Peerage knows, the Lady Blanche Thistlewood, a daughter of the noble house of Bareacres, before mentioned in this veracious history. A wing of Gaunt House was assigned to this couple; for the head of

the family chose to govern it, and while he reigned to reign supreme: his son and heir, however, living little at home, disagreeing with his wife, borrowing upon post-obits such moneys as he required beyond the very moderate sums which his father was disposed to allow him. The marquis knew every shilling of his son's debts. At his lamented demise, he was found himself to be the possessor of many of his heir's bonds, purchased for their benefit, and devised by his lordship to the children of his younger

son.

As, to my Lord Gaunt's dismay, and the chuckling delight of his natural enemy and father, the Lady Gaunt had no childrenthe Lord George Gaunt was desired to return from Vienna, where he was engaged in waltzing and diplomacy, and to contract a matrimonial alliance with the Honorable Joan, only daughter of John Johnes, First Baron Helvellyn, and head of the firm of Jones, Brown, and Robinson, of Threadneedle-street, bankers; from which union sprang several sons and daughters, whose doings do not appertain to this story.

The marriage at first was a happy and prosperous one. My Lord George Gaunt could not only read, but write pretty correctly. He spoke French with considerable fluency, and was one of the finest waltzers in Europe. With these talents, and his interest at home, there was little doubt that his lordship would rise to the highest dignities in his profession. The lady, his wife, felt that courts were her sphere; and her wealth enabled her to receive splendidly in those continental towns whither her husband's diplomatic duties led him. There was talk of appointing him minister, and bets were laid at the Travellers' that he would be embassador ere long, when of a sudden, rumors arrived of the secretary's extraordinary behavior. At a grand diplomatic dinner given by his chief, he had started up and declared that a páté de foie gras was poisoned. He went to a ball at the hotel of the Bavarian envoy, the Count de Springbock-Hohenlaufen, with his head shaved, and dressed as a Capuchin friar. It was not a masked ball, as some folks wanted to persuade you. It was something queer, people whispered. His grandfather was so. It was in the family.

His wife and family returned to this country, and took up their abode at Gaunt House. Lord George gave up his post on the European Continent, and was gazetted to Brazil. But people knew better; he never returned from that Brazil expedition-never died there-never lived there-never was there at all. He was nowhere: he was gone out altogether. "Brazil," said one gossip to another, with a grin-" Brazil is St. John's Wood. Rio Janeiro is a cottage surrounded by four walls; and George Gaunt is accred

ited to a keeper, who has invested him with the order of the Strait Waistcoat." These are the kinds of epitaphs which men pass over one another in Vanity Fair.

Twice or thrice in a week, in the earliest morning, the poor mother went for her sins and saw the poor invalid. Sometimes he laughed at her (and his laughter was more pitiful than to hear him cry); sometimes she found the brilliant dandy diplomatist of the Congress of Vienna dragging about a child's toy, or nursing the keeper's baby's doll. Sometimes he knew her and Father Mole, her director and companion: oftener he forgot her, as he had done wife, children, love, ambition, vanity. But he remembered his dinner-hour, and used to cry if his wine-andwater was not strong enough.

It was the mysterious taint of the blood: the poor mother had brought it from her own ancient race. The evil had broken out once or twice in the father's family, long before Lady Steyne's sins had begun, or her fasts and tears and penances had been offered in their expiation. The pride of the race was struck down as the first-born of Pharaoh. The dark mark of fate and doom was on the threshold-the tall old threshold surmounted by coronets and carved heraldry.

The absent lord's children meanwhile prattled and grew on quite unconscious that the doom was over them too. First they talked of their father, and devised plans against his return. Then the name of the living dead man was less frequently in their mouths-then not mentioned at all. But the stricken old grandmother trembled to think that these too were the inheritors of their father's shame as well as of his honors; and watched sickening for the day when the awful ancestral curse should come down on them.

This dark presentiment also haunted Lord Steyne. He tried to lay the horrid bed-side ghost in Red Seas of wine and jollity, and lost sight of it sometimes in the crowd and rout of his pleasures. But it always came back to him when alone, and seemed to grow more threatening with years. "I have taken your son," it said, "why not you? I may shut you up in a prison some day like your son George. I may tap you on the head to-morrow, and away go pleasure and honors, feasts and beauty, friends, flatterers, French cooks, fine horses and houses-in exchange for a prison, a keeper, and a straw mattress like George Gaunt's." And then my lord would defy the ghost which threatened him; for he knew of a remedy by which he could balk his enemy.

So there was splendor and wealth, but no great happiness, perchance, behind the tall carved portals of Gaunt House with its smoky coronets and ciphers. The feasts there were of the grandest in London, but there was not over-much content therewith,

[ocr errors]

or letters are passed through an oven at quarantine, sprinkled with aromatic vinegar, and then pronounced clean-many a lady whose reputation would be doubtful otherwise and liable to give infection, passes through the wholesome ordeal of the royal presence, and issues from it free from all taint.

except among the guests who sate at my interview they come out stamped as honest lord's table. Had he not been so great a women. The lord chamberlain gives them prince very few possibly would have visited a certificate of virtue. And as dubious goods him; but in Vanity Fair the sins of very great personages are looked at indulgently. "Nous régardons a deux fois" (as the French lady said), before we condemn a person of my lord's undoubted quality. Some notorious carpers and squeamish moralists might be sulky with Lord Steyne, but they were glad enough to come when he asked them. "Lord Steyne is really too bad," Lady It might be very well for my Lady BareSlingstone said, "but every body goes, and acres, my Lady Tufto, Mrs. Bute Crawley of course I shall see that my girls come to in the country, and other ladies who had no harm." 66 His lordship is a man to whom come into contact with Mrs. Rawdon CrawI owe much, every thing in life," said the ley, to cry fie at the idea of the odious little Right Reverend Doctor Trail, thinking that adventuress making her courtesy before the the archbishop was rather shaky; and Mrs. sovereign, and to declare, that if dear good Trail and the young ladies would as soon Queen Charlotte had been alive, she never have missed going to church as to one of his would have admitted such an extremely illlordship's parties. His morals are bad," regulated personage into her chaste drawingsaid little Lord Southdown to his sister, who room. But when we consider that it was meekly expostulated, having heard terrific the first gentleman in Europe in whose high legends from her mamma with respect to the presence Mrs. Rawdon passed her examidoings at Gaunt House; "but hang it, he's nation, and, as it were, took her degree in got the best dry Sillery in Europe!” And reputation, it surely must be flat disloyalty as for Sir Pitt Crawley, Bart.-Sir Pitt that to doubt any more about her virtue. I, for pattern of decorum, Sir Pitt who had led my part, look back with love and awe to that off at missionary meetings-he never for great character in history. Ah, what a high one moment thought of not going too. and noble appreciation of gentlemanhood "Where you see such persons as the Bishop there must have been in Vanity Fair, when of Ealing and the Countess of Slingstone, that revered and august being was invested, you may be pretty sure, Jane," the baronet by the universal acclaim of the refined and would say, "that we can not be wrong. The educated portion of this empire, with the great rank and station of Lord Steyne title of Premier Gentilhomme of his kingput him in a position to command people in dom. Do you remember, dear M—, oh our station in life. The lord lieutenant of a friend of my youth, how one blissful night, county, my dear, is a respectable man. Be- five-and-twenty years since, the Hypocrite sides George Gaunt and I were intimate in being acted, Elliston being manager, Dowton early life; he was my junior when we were and Liston performers, two boys had leave attachés at Pumpernickel together." from their loyal masters to go out from Slaughterhouse School, where they were educated, and to appear on Drury Lane stage, among a crowd which assembled there to greet the king? THE KING! There he was. Beef-eaters were before the august box; the Marquis of Steyne (Lord of the Powder Closet) and other great officers of state were behind the chair on which he sate-He sate-florid of face, portly of person, covered with orders, and in a rich curling head of hair. How we sang God save him! How the house rocked and shouted Ar last Becky's kindness and attention to with that magnificent music! How they the chief of her husband's family, were des- cheered, and cried, and waved handkertined to meet with an exceeding great re- chiefs! Ladies wept: mothers clasped their ward; a reward which, though certainly children: some fainted with emotion. People somewhat unsubstantial, the little woman were suffocated in the pit, shrieks and groans coveted with greater eagerness than more rising up amidst the writhing and shouting positive benefits. If she did not wish to mass there of his people who were, and inlead a virtuous life, at least she desired to deed showed themselves almost to be, ready enjoy a character for virtue, and we know to die for him. Yes, we saw him. Fate that no lady in the genteel world can pos- can not deprive us of that. Others have sess this desideratum, until she has put on seen Napoleon. Some few still exist who a train and feathers, and has been presented have beheld Frederick the Great, Doctor to her sovereign at court. From that august Johnson, Marie Antoinette, &c.-be it our

In a word every body went to wait upon this great man-every body who was asked; as you the reader (do not say nay), or I the writer hereof, would go if we had an invita

tion.

CHAPTER XLVIII.

IN WHICH THE READER IS INTRODUCED TO
THE VERY BEST OF COMPANY.

reasonable boast to our children, that we saw George the Good, the Magnificent, the Great.

Well, there came a happy day in Mrs. Rawdon Crawley's existence, when this angel was admitted into the paradise of a court which she coveted, her sister-in-law acting as her god-mother. On the appointed day, Sir Pitt and his lady, in their great family carriage (just newly built, and ready for the baronet's assumption of the office of high sheriff of his county), drove up to the little house in Curzon-street, to the edification of Raggles, who was watching from his green-grocer's shop, and saw fine plumes within, and enormous bunches of flowers in the breasts of the new livery coats of the footmen.

Sir Pitt, in a glittering uniform, descended and went into Curzon-street, his sword between his legs. Little Rawdon stood with his face against the parlor window panes, smiling and nodding with all his might to his aunt in the carriage within; and presently Sir Pitt issued forth from the house again, leading forth a lady with grand feathers, covered in a white shawl, and holding up daintily a train of magnificent brocade. She stepped into the vehicle as if she were a princess and accustomed all her life to go to court, smiling graciously on the footman at the door, and on Sir Pitt, who followed her into the carriage.

life, and she got up the genteel with amazing assiduity, readiness, and success. We have said there were times when she believed herself to be a fine lady, and forgot that there was no money in the chest at home-duns round the gate-tradesmen to coax and wheedle-no ground to walk upon, in a word. And as she went to court in the carriage, the family carriage, she adopted a demeanor so grand, self-satisfied, deliberate, and imposing, that it made even Lady Jane laugh. She walked into the royal apartments with a toss of the head which would have befitted an empress, and I have no doubt had she been one, she would have become the character perfectly.

A

We are authorized to state that Mrs. Rawdon Crawley's costume de cour on the occasion of her presentation to the sovereign was of the most elegant and brilliant description. Some ladies we may have seen, we, who wear stars and cordons, and attend the St. James's assemblies, or we, who, in muddy boots, dawdle up and down Pall Mall, and peep into the coaches as they drive up with the great folks and their feathers-some ladies of fashion, I say, we may have seen, about two o'clock of the forenoon of a levee day, as the laced jacketed band of the Life Guards are blowing triumphal marches seated on those prancing music-stools, their cream-colored chargers -who are by no means lovely and enticing Then Rawdon followed in his old Guards' objects at that early period of noon. uniform, which had grown wofully shabby, stout countess of sixty, décolletée, painted, and was much too tight. He was to have wrinkled, with rouge up to her drooping followed the procession, and waited upon his eyelids, and diamonds twinkling in her wig, sovereign in a cab, but that his good-natured is a wholesome and edifying, but not a pleassister-in-law insisted that they should be a ant sight. She has the faded look of a St. family party. The coach was large, the James's-street illumination, as it may be ladies not very big, they would hold their trains in their laps-finally, the four went fraternally together, and their carriage presently joined the line of loyal equipages which was making its way down Piccadilly and St. James's street, toward the old brick palace, where the Star of Brunswick was in waiting to receive his nobles and gentle folks. Becky felt as if she could bless the people out of the carriage windows, so elated was she in spirit, and so strong a sense had she of the dignified position which she had at last attained in life. Even our Becky had her weaknesses; and as one often sees how men pride themselves upon excellencies which others are slow to perceive-how, for instance, Comus firmly believes that he is the greatest tragic actor in England; how Brown, the famous novelist, longs to be considered, not a man of genius, but a man of fashion; while Robinson, the great lawyer, does not in the least care about his reputation in Westminster Hall, but believes himself incomparable across country, and at a five-barred gate-so, to be, and to be thought, a respectable woman, was Becky's aim in

seen of an early morning, when half the lamps are out, and the others are blinking wanly, as if they were about to vanish like ghosts before the dawn. Such charms, as those of which we catch glimpses while her ladyship's carriage passes, should appear abroad at night alone. If even Cynthia looks haggard of an afternoon, as we may see her sometimes in the present winter season, with Phoebus staring her out of countenance from the opposite side of the heavens, how much more can old Lady Castlemouldy keep her head up when the sun is shining full upon it through the chariot windows, and showing all the chinks and crannies with which time has marked her face? No. Drawing-rooms should be announced for November, or the first foggy day; or the elderly sultanas of our Vanity Fair should drive up in closed litters, descend in a covered way, and make the'r courtesy to the sovereign under the protection of lamplight.

Our beloved Rebecca had no need, however, of any such friendly halo to set off her beauty. Her complexion could bear any

she wore; and the baronet had omitted to mention the circumstance to his lady. Becky looked at her husband, and then at Sir Pitt, with an air of saucy triumph-as much as to say, Shall I betray you?"

[ocr errors]

66

sunshine as yet; and her dress, though if you were to see it now, any present lady of Vanity Fair would pronounce it to be the most foolish and preposterous attire ever worn, was as handsome in her eyes and those of the public, some five-and-twenty Guess!" she said to her husband. years since, as the most brilliant costume of Why, you silly man," she continued, the most famous beauty of the present sea- "where do you suppose I got them-all son. A score of years hence that, too-except the little clasp, which a dear friend that milliner's wonder-will have passed of mine gave me long ago. I hired them, into the domain of the absurd, along with all to be sure, I hired them at Mr. Polonius's, previous vanities. But we are wandering in Coventry-street. You don't suppose that too much. Mrs. Rawdon's dress was pro- all the diamonds which go to court belong to nounced to be charmante on the eventful day the owners; like those beautiful stones which of her presentation. Even good little Lady Lady Jane has, and which are much handJane was forced to acknowledge this effect, somer than any which I have, I am ceras she looked at her kinswoman; and owned tain." sorrowfully to herself that she was quite inferior in taste to Mrs. Becky..

She did not know how much care, thought, and genius Mrs. Rawdon had bestowed upon that garment. Rebecca had as good taste as any milliner in Europe, and such a clever way of doing things as Lady Jane little understood. The latter quickly spied out the magnificence of the brocade of Becky's train, and the splendor of the lace on her dress.

The brocade was an old remnant, Becky said; and as for the lace, it was a great bargain. She had had it these hundred

years.

"My dear Mrs. Crawley, it must have cost a little fortune," Lady Jane said, looking down at her own lace, which was not nearly so good; and then examining the quality of the ancient brocade, which formed the material of Mrs. Rawdon's court dress, she felt inclined to say that she could not afford such fine clothing, but checked that speech, with an effort, as one. uncharitable to her kinswoman.

And yet if Lady Jane had known all, I think even her kindly temper would have failed her. The fact is, when she was put ting Sir Pitt's house in order, Mrs. Rawdon had found the lace and the brocade in old wardrobes, the property of the former ladies of the house, and had quietly carried the goods home, and had suited them to her own little person. Briggs saw her take them, asked no questions, told no stories; but I believe quite sympathized with her on this matter, and so would many another honest woman.

And the diamonds-"Where the doose did you get the diamonds, Becky?" said her husband, admiring some jewels which he had never seen before, and which sparkled in her ears and on her neck with brilliance and profusion.

Becky blushed a little, and looked at him hard for a moment. Pitt Crawley blushed a little too, and looked out of the window. The fact is, he had given her a very small portion of the brilliants; a pretty diamond clasp, which confined a pearl necklace which

"They are family jewels," said Sir Pitt, again looking uneasy. And in this family conversation the carriage rolled down the street, until its cargo was finally discharged at the gates of the palace where the sovereign was sitting in state.

The diamonds, which had created Rawdon's admiration, never went back to Mr. Polonius, of Coventry street, and that gentleman never applied for their restoration; but they retired into a little private repository, in an old desk, which Amelia Sedley had given her years and years ago, and in which Becky kept a number of useful and, perhaps, valuable things, about which her, husband knew nothing. To know nothing, or little, is in the nature of some husbands. To hide, in the nature of how many women? O ladies! how many of you have surreptitious milliners' bills? How many of you have gowns and bracelets, which you daren't show, or which you wear trembling?-trembling, and coaxing with smiles the husband by your side, who does not know the new velvet gown from the old one, or the new bracelet from last year's, or has any notion that the ragged looking yellow lace scarf cost forty guineas, and that Madame Bobinot is writing dunning letters every week for the money!

Thus Rawdon knew nothing about the brilliant diamond ear-rings, or the superb brilliant ornament which decorated the fair bosom of his lady; but Lord Steyne, who was in his place at court, as Lord of the Powder Closet, and one of the great dignitaries and illustrious defenses of the throne of England, and came up with all his stars, garters, collars, and cordons, and paid particular attention to the little woman, knew whence the jewels came, and who paid for them.

As he bowed over her he smiled, and quoted the hackneyed and beautiful lines, from the Rape of the Lock, about Belinda's diamonds, which Jews might kiss and infidels adore."

[ocr errors]

"But I hope your lordship is orthodox," said the little lady, with a toss of her head.

« iepriekšējāTurpināt »