Chapter: 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 the 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.

His room was hung round with boxing, sporting, and dancing pictures,
presented to him by comrades as they retired from the regiment, and
married and settled into quiet life.  And as he was now nearly fifty
years of age, twenty-four of which he had passed in the corps, he had a
singular museum.  He was one of the best shots in England, and, for a
heavy man, one of the best riders; indeed, he and Crawley had been
rivals when the latter was in the Army.  To be brief, Mr. Macmurdo was
lying in bed, reading in Bell's Life an account of that very fight
between the Tutbury Pet and the Barking Butcher, which has been before
mentioned--a venerable bristly warrior, with a little close-shaved grey
head, with a silk nightcap, a red face and nose, and a great dyed
moustache.

When Rawdon told the Captain he wanted a friend, the latter knew
perfectly well on what duty of friendship he was called to act, and
indeed had conducted scores of affairs for his acquaintances with the
greatest prudence and skill.  His Royal Highness the late lamented
Commander-in-Chief had had the greatest regard for Macmurdo on this
account, and he was the common refuge of gentlemen in trouble.

"What's the row about, Crawley, my boy?" said the old warrior.  "No
more gambling business, hay, like that when we shot Captain Marker?"

"It's about--about my wife," Crawley answered, casting down his eyes
and turning very red.

The other gave a whistle.  "I always said she'd throw you over," he
began--indeed there were bets in the regiment and at the clubs
regarding the probable fate of Colonel Crawley, so lightly was his
wife's character esteemed by his comrades and the world; but seeing the
savage look with which Rawdon answered the expression of this opinion,
Macmurdo did not think fit to enlarge upon it further.

"Is there no way out of it, old boy?" the Captain continued in a grave
tone.  "Is it only suspicion, you know, or--or what is it? Any letters?
Can't you keep it quiet? Best not make any noise about a thing of that
sort if you can help it." "Think of his only finding her out now," the
Captain thought to himself, and remembered a hundred particular
conversations at the mess-table, in which Mrs. Crawley's reputation had
been torn to shreds.

"There's no way but one out of it," Rawdon replied--"and there's only a
way out of it for one of us, Mac--do you understand? I was put out of
the way--arrested--I found 'em alone together.  I told him he was a
liar and a coward, and knocked him down and thrashed him."

"Serve him right," Macmurdo said.  "Who is it?"

Rawdon answered it was Lord Steyne.

"The deuce!  a Marquis!  they said he--that is, they said you--"

"What the devil do you mean?" roared out Rawdon; "do you mean that you
ever heard a fellow doubt about my wife and didn't tell me, Mac?"

"The world's very censorious, old boy," the other replied.  "What the
deuce was the good of my telling you what any tom-fools talked about?"

"It was damned unfriendly, Mac," said Rawdon, quite overcome; and,
covering his face with his hands, he gave way to an emotion, the sight
of which caused the tough old campaigner opposite him to wince with
sympathy. "Hold up, old boy," he said; "great man or not, we'll put a
bullet in him, damn him.  As for women, they're all so."

"You don't know how fond I was of that one," Rawdon said,
half-inarticulately.  "Damme, I followed her like a footman.  I gave up
everything I had to her.  I'm a beggar because I would marry her. By
Jove, sir, I've pawned my own watch in order to get her anything she
fancied; and she--she's been making a purse for herself all the time,
and grudged me a hundred pound to get me out of quod." He then fiercely
and incoherently, and with an agitation under which his counsellor had
never before seen him labour, told Macmurdo the circumstances of the
story.  His adviser caught at some stray hints in it. "She may be
innocent, after all," he said.  "She says so. Steyne has been a hundred
times alone with her in the house before."

"It may be so," Rawdon answered sadly, "but this don't look very
innocent":  and he showed the Captain the thousand-pound note which he
had found in Becky's pocket-book.  "This is what he gave her, Mac, and
she kep it unknown to me; and with this money in the house, she refused
to stand by me when I was locked up." The Captain could not but own
that the secreting of the money had a very ugly look.

Whilst they were engaged in their conference, Rawdon dispatched Captain
Macmurdo's servant to Curzon Street, with an order to the domestic
there to give up a bag of clothes of which the Colonel had great need.
And during the man's absence, and with great labour and a Johnson's
Dictionary, which stood them in much stead, Rawdon and his second
composed a letter, which the latter was to send to Lord Steyne.
Captain Macmurdo had the honour of waiting upon the Marquis of Steyne,
on the part of Colonel Rawdon Crawley, and begged to intimate that he
was empowered by the Colonel to make any arrangements for the meeting
which, he had no doubt, it was his Lordship's intention to demand, and
which the circumstances of the morning had rendered inevitable.
Captain Macmurdo begged Lord Steyne, in the most polite manner, to
appoint a friend, with whom he (Captain M.M.) might communicate, and
desired that the meeting might take place with as little delay as
possible.

In a postscript the Captain stated that he had in his possession a
bank-note for a large amount, which Colonel Crawley had reason to
suppose was the property of the Marquis of Steyne.  And he was anxious,
on the Colonel's behalf, to give up the note to its owner.

By the time this note was composed, the Captain's servant returned from
his mission to Colonel Crawley's house in Curzon Street, but without
the carpet-bag and portmanteau, for which he had been sent, and with a
very puzzled and odd face.

"They won't give 'em up," said the man; "there's a regular shinty in
the house, and everything at sixes and sevens.  The landlord's come in
and took possession.  The servants was a drinkin' up in the
drawingroom.  They said--they said you had gone off with the plate,
Colonel"--the man added after a pause--"One of the servants is off
already.  And Simpson, the man as was very noisy and drunk indeed, says
nothing shall go out of the house until his wages is paid up."

The account of this little revolution in May Fair astonished and gave a
little gaiety to an otherwise very triste conversation.  The two
officers laughed at Rawdon's discomfiture.

"I'm glad the little 'un isn't at home," Rawdon said, biting his nails.
"You remember him, Mac, don't you, in the Riding School? How he sat the
kicker to be sure! didn't he?"

"That he did, old boy," said the good-natured Captain.

Little Rawdon was then sitting, one of fifty gown boys, in the Chapel
of Whitefriars School, thinking, not about the sermon, but about going
home next Saturday, when his father would certainly tip him and perhaps
would take him to the play.

"He's a regular trump, that boy," the father went on, still musing
about his son.  "I say, Mac, if anything goes wrong--if I drop--I
should like you to--to go and see him, you know, and say that I was
very fond of him, and that.  And--dash it--old chap, give him these
gold sleeve-buttons:  it's all I've got." He covered his face with his
black hands, over which the tears rolled and made furrows of white.
Mr. Macmurdo had also occasion to take off his silk night-cap and rub
it across his eyes.

"Go down and order some breakfast," he said to his man in a loud
cheerful voice.  "What'll you have, Crawley? Some devilled kidneys and
a herring--let's say.  And, Clay, lay out some dressing things for the
Colonel:  we were always pretty much of a size, Rawdon, my boy, and
neither of us ride so light as we did when we first entered the corps."
With which, and leaving the Colonel to dress himself, Macmurdo turned
round towards the wall, and resumed the perusal of Bell's Life, until
such time as his friend's toilette was complete and he was at liberty
to commence his own.

This, as he was about to meet a lord, Captain Macmurdo performed with
particular care.  He waxed his mustachios into a state of brilliant
polish and put on a tight cravat and a trim buff waistcoat, so that all
the young officers in the mess-room, whither Crawley had preceded his
friend, complimented Mac on his appearance at breakfast and asked if he
was going to be married that Sunday.

 It's now morning, and Rawdon stumbles into Pitt and Lady Jane's mansion. He tries to read the paper in Pitt's study but is too crazed to make out the words. Pitt comes downstairs and is alarmed to see his disheveled brother . Rawdon tells him that it's all over. At first Pitt thinks he's talking about money and starts a long speech about how he doesn't have any to give to his brother. Rawdon interrupts and in fits and starts tell Pitt what happened. For insulting an aristocrat and physically assaulting him, the only recourse to restore honor is a duel. Rawdon is expecting a challenge from Lord Steyne any moment. Then Rawdon tearfully asks his brother to promise to take care of Rawdon Jr. if anything should happen. After all, Lady Jane is more of a mother to him than Becky. Pitt is deeply moved and makes a solemn promise. Rawdon hurries off to Lord Steyne's mansion. He hands the servant a card with the address of his club, still assuming that Steyne will send a challenge to him that day. Finally he goes to his club. There he finds an old friend, Captain Macmurdo, and asks him to be his second in the duel. Macmurdo has done this before, so he's game. He asks whether it's about debts. When Rawdon tells him that it's about his wife, Macmurdo is entirely unsurprised. Actually, he says he's shocked it's taken Rawdon this long to catch on to Becky's doings. Macmurdo is kind of floored to hear that the challenger will be a Marquis and wonders if there's a way to settle the problem peacefully. After all, Rawdon doesn't have definitive proof that anything actually happened and that Becky did anything wrong. Rawdon won't hear it. He sends a servant to his old house to get some clothes together. After a while the man comes back and says the people at the house won't give him Rawdon's clothes and that the house is in a state of total chaos. Macmurdo tells Rawdon to forget about it and gives him some of his own clothes, since they are about the same size.

