Vanity Fair (93 page)

"Did he give you this?" Rawdon said.

"Yes," Rebecca answered.

"I'll send it to him to-day," Rawdon said (for day had dawned again,
and many hours had passed in this search), "and I will pay Briggs,
who was kind to the boy, and some of the debts. You will let me
know where I shall send the rest to you. You might have spared me a
hundred pounds, Becky, out of all this—I have always shared with
you."

"I am innocent," said Becky. And he left her without another word.

What were her thoughts when he left her? She remained for hours
after he was gone, the sunshine pouring into the room, and Rebecca
sitting alone on the bed's edge. The drawers were all opened and
their contents scattered about—dresses and feathers, scarfs and
trinkets, a heap of tumbled vanities lying in a wreck. Her hair was
falling over her shoulders; her gown was torn where Rawdon had
wrenched the brilliants out of it. She heard him go downstairs a
few minutes after he left her, and the door slamming and closing on
him. She knew he would never come back. He was gone forever.
Would he kill himself?—she thought—not until after he had met Lord
Steyne. She thought of her long past life, and all the dismal
incidents of it. Ah, how dreary it seemed, how miserable, lonely
and profitless! Should she take laudanum, and end it, to have done
with all hopes, schemes, debts, and triumphs? The French maid found
her in this position—sitting in the midst of her miserable ruins
with clasped hands and dry eyes. The woman was her accomplice and
in Steyne's pay. "Mon Dieu, madame, what has happened?" she asked.

What had happened? Was she guilty or not? She said not, but who
could tell what was truth which came from those lips, or if that
corrupt heart was in this case pure?

All her lies and her schemes, an her selfishness and her wiles, all
her wit and genius had come to this bankruptcy. The woman closed
the curtains and, with some entreaty and show of kindness, persuaded
her mistress to lie down on the bed. Then she went below and
gathered up the trinkets which had been lying on the floor since
Rebecca dropped them there at her husband's orders, and Lord Steyne
went away.

Sunday After the Battle

The mansion of Sir Pitt Crawley, in Great Gaunt Street, was just
beginning to dress itself for the day, as Rawdon, in his evening
costume, which he had now worn two days, passed by the scared female
who was scouring the steps and entered into his brother's study.
Lady Jane, in her morning-gown, was up and above stairs in the
nursery superintending the toilettes of her children and listening
to the morning prayers which the little creatures performed at her
knee. Every morning she and they performed this duty privately, and
before the public ceremonial at which Sir Pitt presided and at which
all the people of the household were expected to assemble. Rawdon
sat down in the study before the Baronet's table, set out with the
orderly blue books and the letters, the neatly docketed bills and
symmetrical pamphlets, the locked account-books, desks, and dispatch
boxes, the Bible, the Quarterly Review, and the Court Guide, which
all stood as if on parade awaiting the inspection of their chief.

A book of family sermons, one of which Sir Pitt was in the habit of
administering to his family on Sunday mornings, lay ready on the
study table, and awaiting his judicious selection. And by the
sermon-book was the Observer newspaper, damp and neatly folded, and
for Sir Pitt's own private use. His gentleman alone took the
opportunity of perusing the newspaper before he laid it by his
master's desk. Before he had brought it into the study that
morning, he had read in the journal a flaming account of
"Festivities at Gaunt House," with the names of all the
distinguished personages invited by tho Marquis of Steyne to meet
his Royal Highness. Having made comments upon this entertainment to
the housekeeper and her niece as they were taking early tea and hot
buttered toast in the former lady's apartment, and wondered how the
Rawding Crawleys could git on, the valet had damped and folded the
paper once more, so that it looked quite fresh and innocent against
the arrival of the master of the house.

Poor Rawdon took up the paper and began to try and read it until his
brother should arrive. But the print fell blank upon his eyes, and
he did not know in the least what he was reading. The Government
news and appointments (which Sir Pitt as a public man was bound to
peruse, otherwise he would by no means permit the introduction of
Sunday papers into his household), the theatrical criticisms, the
fight for a hundred pounds a side between the Barking Butcher and
the Tutbury Pet, the Gaunt House chronicle itself, which contained a
most complimentary though guarded account of the famous charades of
which Mrs. Becky had been the heroine—all these passed as in a haze
before Rawdon, as he sat waiting the arrival of the chief of the
family.

Punctually, as the shrill-toned bell of the black marble study clock
began to chime nine, Sir Pitt made his appearance, fresh, neat,
smugly shaved, with a waxy clean face, and stiff shirt collar, his
scanty hair combed and oiled, trimming his nails as he descended the
stairs majestically, in a starched cravat and a grey flannel
dressing-gown—a real old English gentleman, in a word—a model of
neatness and every propriety. He started when he saw poor Rawdon in
his study in tumbled clothes, with blood-shot eyes, and his hair
over his face. He thought his brother was not sober, and had been
out all night on some orgy. "Good gracious, Rawdon," he said, with
a blank face, "what brings you here at this time of the morning? Why
ain't you at home?"

"Home," said Rawdon with a wild laugh. "Don't be frightened, Pitt.
I'm not drunk. Shut the door; I want to speak to you."

Pitt closed the door and came up to the table, where he sat down in
the other arm-chair—that one placed for the reception of the
steward, agent, or confidential visitor who came to transact
business with the Baronet—and trimmed his nails more vehemently
than ever.

"Pitt, it's all over with me," the Colonel said after a pause. "I'm
done."

"I always said it would come to this," the Baronet cried peevishly,
and beating a tune with his clean-trimmed nails. "I warned you a
thousand times. I can't help you any more. Every shilling of my
money is tied up. Even the hundred pounds that Jane took you last
night were promised to my lawyer to-morrow morning, and the want of
it will put me to great inconvenience. I don't mean to say that I
won't assist you ultimately. But as for paying your creditors in
full, I might as well hope to pay the National Debt. It is madness,
sheer madness, to think of such a thing. You must come to a
compromise. It's a painful thing for the family, but everybody does
it. There was George Kitely, Lord Ragland's son, went through the
Court last week, and was what they call whitewashed, I believe.
Lord Ragland would not pay a shilling for him, and—"

"It's not money I want," Rawdon broke in. "I'm not come to you
about myself. Never mind what happens to me."

"What is the matter, then?" said Pitt, somewhat relieved.

"It's the boy," said Rawdon in a husky voice. "I want you to
promise me that you will take charge of him when I'm gone. That
dear good wife of yours has always been good to him; and he's fonder
of her than he is of his . . .—Damn it. Look here, Pitt—you
know that I was to have had Miss Crawley's money. I wasn't brought
up like a younger brother, but was always encouraged to be
extravagant and kep idle. But for this I might have been quite a
different man. I didn't do my duty with the regiment so bad. You
know how I was thrown over about the money, and who got it."

"After the sacrifices I have made, and the manner in which I have
stood by you, I think this sort of reproach is useless," Sir Pitt
said. "Your marriage was your own doing, not mine."

"That's over now," said Rawdon. "That's over now." And the words
were wrenched from him with a groan, which made his brother start.

"Good God! is she dead?" Sir Pitt said with a voice of genuine
alarm and commiseration.

"I wish I was," Rawdon replied. "If it wasn't for little Rawdon I'd
have cut my throat this morning—and that damned villain's too."

Sir Pitt instantly guessed the truth and surmised that Lord Steyne
was the person whose life Rawdon wished to take. The Colonel told
his senior briefly, and in broken accents, the circumstances of the
case. "It was a regular plan between that scoundrel and her," he
said. "The bailiffs were put upon me; I was taken as I was going
out of his house; when I wrote to her for money, she said she was
ill in bed and put me off to another day. And when I got home I
found her in diamonds and sitting with that villain alone." He then
went on to describe hurriedly the personal conflict with Lord
Steyne. To an affair of that nature, of course, he said, there was
but one issue, and after his conference with his brother, he was
going away to make the necessary arrangements for the meeting which
must ensue. "And as it may end fatally with me," Rawdon said with a
broken voice, "and as the boy has no mother, I must leave him to you
and Jane, Pitt—only it will be a comfort to me if you will promise
me to be his friend."

The elder brother was much affected, and shook Rawdon's hand with a
cordiality seldom exhibited by him. Rawdon passed his hand over his
shaggy eyebrows. "Thank you, brother," said he. "I know I can trust
your word."

"I will, upon my honour," the Baronet said. And thus, and almost
mutely, this bargain was struck between them.

Then Rawdon took out of his pocket the little pocket-book which he
had discovered in Becky's desk, and from which he drew a bundle of
the notes which it contained. "Here's six hundred," he said—"you
didn't know I was so rich. I want you to give the money to Briggs,
who lent it to us—and who was kind to the boy—and I've always felt
ashamed of having taken the poor old woman's money. And here's some
more—I've only kept back a few pounds—which Becky may as well
have, to get on with." As he spoke he took hold of the other notes
to give to his brother, but his hands shook, and he was so agitated
that the pocket-book fell from him, and out of it the thousand-pound
note which had been the last of the unlucky Becky's winnings.

Pitt stooped and picked them up, amazed at so much wealth. "Not
that," Rawdon said. "I hope to put a bullet into the man whom that
belongs to." He had thought to himself, it would be a fine revenge
to wrap a ball in the note and kill Steyne with it.

After this colloquy the brothers once more shook hands and parted.
Lady Jane had heard of the Colonel's arrival, and was waiting for
her husband in the adjoining dining-room, with female instinct,
auguring evil. The door of the dining-room happened to be left
open, and the lady of course was issuing from it as the two brothers
passed out of the study. She held out her hand to Rawdon and said
she was glad he was come to breakfast, though she could perceive, by
his haggard unshorn face and the dark looks of her husband, that
there was very little question of breakfast between them. Rawdon
muttered some excuses about an engagement, squeezing hard the timid
little hand which his sister-in-law reached out to him. Her
imploring eyes could read nothing but calamity in his face, but he
went away without another word. Nor did Sir Pitt vouchsafe her any
explanation. The children came up to salute him, and he kissed them
in his usual frigid manner. The mother took both of them close to
herself, and held a hand of each of them as they knelt down to
prayers, which Sir Pitt read to them, and to the servants in their
Sunday suits or liveries, ranged upon chairs on the other side of
the hissing tea-urn. Breakfast was so late that day, in consequence
of the delays which had occurred, that the church-bells began to
ring whilst they were sitting over their meal; and Lady Jane was too
ill, she said, to go to church, though her thoughts had been
entirely astray during the period of family devotion.

Rawdon Crawley meanwhile hurried on from Great Gaunt Street, and
knocking at the great bronze Medusa's head which stands on the
portal of Gaunt House, brought out the purple Silenus in a red and
silver waistcoat who acts as porter of that palace. The man was
scared also by the Colonel's dishevelled appearance, and barred the
way as if afraid that the other was going to force it. But Colonel
Crawley only took out a card and enjoined him particularly to send
it in to Lord Steyne, and to mark the address written on it, and say
that Colonel Crawley would be all day after one o'clock at the
Regent Club in St. James's Street—not at home. The fat red-faced
man looked after him with astonishment as he strode away; so did the
people in their Sunday clothes who were out so early; the charity-
boys with shining faces, the greengrocer lolling at his door, and
the publican shutting his shutters in the sunshine, against service
commenced. The people joked at the cab-stand about his appearance,
as he took a carriage there, and told the driver to drive him to
Knightsbridge Barracks.

All the bells were jangling and tolling as he reached that place.
He might have seen his old acquaintance Amelia on her way from
Brompton to Russell Square, had he been looking out. Troops of
schools were on their march to church, the shiny pavement and
outsides of coaches in the suburbs were thronged with people out
upon their Sunday pleasure; but the Colonel was much too busy to
take any heed of these phenomena, and, arriving at Knightsbridge,
speedily made his way up to the room of his old friend and comrade
Captain Macmurdo, who Crawley found, to his satisfaction, was in
barracks.

Captain Macmurdo, a veteran officer and Waterloo man, greatly liked
by his regiment, in which want of money alone prevented him from
attaining the highest ranks, was enjoying the forenoon calmly in
bed. He had been at a fast supper-party, given the night before by
Captain the Honourable George Cinqbars, at his house in Brompton
Square, to several young men of the regiment, and a number of ladies
of the corps de ballet, and old Mac, who was at home with people of
all ages and ranks, and consorted with generals, dog-fanciers,
opera-dancers, bruisers, and every kind of person, in a word, was
resting himself after the night's labours, and, not being on duty,
was in bed.