Chapter: 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
in the splendid Court of the Prince of Wales.  Fox had toasted her.
Morris and Sheridan had written songs about her.  Malmesbury had made
her his best bow; Walpole had pronounced her charming; Devonshire had
been almost jealous of her; but she was scared by the wild pleasures
and gaieties of the society into which she was flung, and after she had
borne a couple of sons, shrank away into a life of devout seclusion.
No wonder that my Lord Steyne, who liked pleasure and cheerfulness, was
not often seen after their marriage by the side of this trembling,
silent, superstitious, unhappy lady.

The before-mentioned Tom Eaves (who has no part in this history, except
that he knew all the great folks in London, and the stories and
mysteries of each family) had further information regarding my Lady
Steyne, which may or may not be true.  "The humiliations," Tom used to
say, "which that woman has been made to undergo, in her own house, have
been frightful; Lord Steyne has made her sit down to table with women
with whom I would rather die than allow Mrs. Eaves to associate--with
Lady Crackenbury, with Mrs. Chippenham, with Madame de la Cruchecassee,
the French secretary's wife (from every one of which ladies Tom
Eaves--who would have sacrificed his wife for knowing them--was too
glad to get a bow or a dinner) with the REIGNING FAVOURITE in a word.
And do you suppose that that woman, of that family, who are as proud as
the Bourbons, and to whom the Steynes are but lackeys, mushrooms of
yesterday (for after all, they are not of the Old Gaunts, but of a
minor and doubtful branch of the house); do you suppose, I say (the
reader must bear in mind that it is always Tom Eaves who speaks) that
the Marchioness of Steyne, the haughtiest woman in England, would bend
down to her husband so submissively if there were not some cause? Pooh!
I tell you there are secret reasons. I tell you that, in the
emigration, the Abbe de la Marche who was here and was employed in 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 Spanish Place, 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 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.  Shakespeare 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 towards his father, must be aware that his son entertains
it towards himself; and so they can't but be suspicious and hostile.

"Then again, as to the feeling of elder towards 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 arms across it, or draw her children over to that side away from
which her belief told her there 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 Reverend Mr. Trail (now my Lord Bishop of Ealing)
on her ladyship's director, Father Mole, over their wine, and in
pitting 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
favourite 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 judgement 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, and
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 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 children--the 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 Honourable
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 ambassador ere long, when of a sudden, rumours arrived of the
secretary's extraordinary behaviour. At a grand diplomatic dinner given
by his chief, he had started up and declared that a pate 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 de Janeiro is a cottage surrounded by four walls, and
George Gaunt is accredited 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-and-water 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 caned 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 mouth--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 honours, 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 bedside 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 honours, 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 baulk his enemy.

So there was splendour and wealth, but no great happiness perchance,
behind the tall caned portals of Gaunt House with its smoky coronets
and ciphers.  The feasts there were of the grandest in London, but
there was not overmuch content therewith, except among the guests who
sat at my lord's table.  Had he not been so great a Prince very few
possibly would have visited him; but in Vanity Fair the sins of very
great personages are looked at indulgently.  "Nous regardons 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 Slingstone said, "but everybody
goes, and of course I shall see that my girls come to no harm." "His
lordship is a man to whom I owe much, everything in life," said the
Right Reverend Doctor Trail, thinking that the Archbishop was rather
shaky, and Mrs. Trail and the young ladies would as soon have missed
going to church as to one of his lordship's parties.  "His morals are
bad," said little Lord Southdown to his sister, who meekly
expostulated, having heard terrific legends from her mamma with respect
to the doings at Gaunt House; "but hang it, he's got the best dry
Sillery in Europe!" And as for Sir Pitt Crawley, Bart.--Sir Pitt that
pattern of decorum, Sir Pitt who had led off at missionary meetings--he
never for one moment thought of not going too.  "Where you see such
persons as the Bishop of Ealing and the Countess of Slingstone, you may
be pretty sure, Jane," the Baronet would say, "that we cannot be wrong.
The great rank and station of Lord Steyne put him in a position to
command people in our station in life.  The Lord Lieutenant of a
County, my dear, is a respectable man.  Besides, George Gaunt and I
were intimate in early life; he was my junior when we were attaches at
Pumpernickel together."

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

 This chapter clues us in on why Lord Steyne is the way he is. So, to make a long-ish story short: Steyne has a secret set of apartments inside his London mansion where his married friends can bring their mistresses . He also makes his serious, proper wife invite some really gross characters to dinner, thus officially sanctioning them socially. He bullies and abuses her. Basically, he's a pretty bad dude. Steyne comes from a long line of famous aristocrats dating 400 years back, to the reign of King Henry VIII. It's like being able to trace your family back to the Mayflower but way more impressive. Everything was going fine for him at first. His marriage was even a happy-ish one, and his youngest son was doing well as a diplomat abroad. Until he suddenly wasn't. George Gaunt became paranoid, started seeing things, raving, and generally being crazy. Apparently this kind of thing ran in Lady Steyne's family, so she - or at least her gene pool - is to blame. Shmoop is no psychiatrist, and neither was Thackeray, but from the symptoms and late onset, we'd guess George Gaunt had paranoid schizophrenia. Awful stuff, especially back then, with a stigma for the whole family. So they locked George Gaunt up in a private house with a bunch of nurses and told everyone he had moved to Brazil. So the upshot is that Lady Steyne feels horrible and guilty, and Lord Steyne blames her for what happened to their son. He lives a life of pleasure and debauchery to try to distract himself. He's a horrid man, but still, you kind of feel sorry for him.

