Chapter: Struggles and Trials

Our friends at Brompton were meanwhile passing their Christmas after
their fashion and in a manner by no means too cheerful.

Out of the hundred pounds a year, which was about the amount of her
income, the Widow Osborne had been in the habit of giving up nearly
three-fourths to her father and mother, for the expenses of herself and
her little boy.  With 120_l_. more, supplied by Jos, this family of four
people, attended by a single Irish servant who also did for Clapp and
his wife, might manage to live in decent comfort through the year, and
hold up their heads yet, and be able to give a friend a dish of tea
still, after the storms and disappointments of their early life. Sedley
still maintained his ascendency over the family of Mr. Clapp, his
ex-clerk.  Clapp remembered the time when, sitting on the edge of the
chair, he tossed off a bumper to the health of "Mrs. S--, Miss Emmy,
and Mr. Joseph in India," at the merchant's rich table in Russell
Square.  Time magnified the splendour of those recollections in the
honest clerk's bosom.  Whenever he came up from the kitchen-parlour to
the drawing-room and partook of tea or gin-and-water with Mr. Sedley,
he would say, "This was not what you was accustomed to once, sir," and
as gravely and reverentially drink the health of the ladies as he had
done in the days of their utmost prosperity.  He thought Miss 'Melia's
playing the divinest music ever performed, and her the finest lady. He
never would sit down before Sedley at the club even, nor would he have
that gentleman's character abused by any member of the society.  He had
seen the first men in London shaking hands with Mr. S--; he said, "He'd
known him in times when Rothschild might be seen on 'Change with him
any day, and he owed him personally everythink."

Clapp, with the best of characters and handwritings, had been able very
soon after his master's disaster to find other employment for himself.
"Such a little fish as me can swim in any bucket," he used to remark,
and a member of the house from which old Sedley had seceded was very
glad to make use of Mr. Clapp's services and to reward them with a
comfortable salary.  In fine, all Sedley's wealthy friends had dropped
off one by one, and this poor ex-dependent still remained faithfully
attached to him.

Out of the small residue of her income which Amelia kept back for
herself, the widow had need of all the thrift and care possible in
order to enable her to keep her darling boy dressed in such a manner as
became George Osborne's son, and to defray the expenses of the little
school to which, after much misgiving and reluctance and many secret
pangs and fears on her own part, she had been induced to send the lad.
She had sat up of nights conning lessons and spelling over crabbed
grammars and geography books in order to teach them to Georgy.  She had
worked even at the Latin accidence, fondly hoping that she might be
capable of instructing him in that language.  To part with him all day,
to send him out to the mercy of a schoolmaster's cane and his
schoolfellows' roughness, was almost like weaning him over again to
that weak mother, so tremulous and full of sensibility.  He, for his
part, rushed off to the school with the utmost happiness.  He was
longing for the change. That childish gladness wounded his mother, who
was herself so grieved to part with him.  She would rather have had him
more sorry, she thought, and then was deeply repentant within herself
for daring to be so selfish as to wish her own son to be unhappy.

Georgy made great progress in the school, which was kept by a friend of
his mother's constant admirer, the Rev. Mr. Binny.  He brought home
numberless prizes and testimonials of ability.  He told his mother
countless stories every night about his school-companions: and what a
fine fellow Lyons was, and what a sneak Sniffin was, and how Steel's
father actually supplied the meat for the establishment, whereas
Golding's mother came in a carriage to fetch him every Saturday, and
how Neat had straps to his trowsers--might he have straps?--and how
Bull Major was so strong (though only in Eutropius) that it was
believed he could lick the Usher, Mr. Ward, himself.  So Amelia learned
to know every one of the boys in that school as well as Georgy himself,
and of nights she used to help him in his exercises and puzzle her
little head over his lessons as eagerly as if she was herself going in
the morning into the presence of the master. Once, after a certain
combat with Master Smith, George came home to his mother with a black
eye, and bragged prodigiously to his parent and his delighted old
grandfather about his valour in the fight, in which, if the truth was
known he did not behave with particular heroism, and in which he
decidedly had the worst.  But Amelia has never forgiven that Smith to
this day, though he is now a peaceful apothecary near Leicester Square.

In these quiet labours and harmless cares the gentle widow's life was
passing away, a silver hair or two marking the progress of time on her
head and a line deepening ever so little on her fair forehead.  She
used to smile at these marks of time.  "What matters it," she asked,
"For an old woman like me?" All she hoped for was to live to see her
son great, famous, and glorious, as he deserved to be.  She kept his
copy-books, his drawings, and compositions, and showed them about in
her little circle as if they were miracles of genius.  She confided
some of these specimens to Miss Dobbin, to show them to Miss Osborne,
George's aunt, to show them to Mr. Osborne himself--to make that old
man repent of his cruelty and ill feeling towards him who was gone.
All her husband's faults and foibles she had buried in the grave with
him: she only remembered the lover, who had married her at all
sacrifices, the noble husband, so brave and beautiful, in whose arms
she had hung on the morning when he had gone away to fight, and die
gloriously for his king. From heaven the hero must be smiling down upon
that paragon of a boy whom he had left to comfort and console her. We
have seen how one of George's grandfathers (Mr. Osborne), in his easy
chair in Russell Square, daily grew more violent and moody, and how his
daughter, with her fine carriage, and her fine horses, and her name on
half the public charity-lists of the town, was a lonely, miserable,
persecuted old maid.  She thought again and again of the beautiful
little boy, her brother's son, whom she had seen.  She longed to be
allowed to drive in the fine carriage to the house in which he lived,
and she used to look out day after day as she took her solitary drive
in the park, in hopes that she might see him.  Her sister, the banker's
lady, occasionally condescended to pay her old home and companion a
visit in Russell Square.  She brought a couple of sickly children
attended by a prim nurse, and in a faint genteel giggling tone cackled
to her sister about her fine acquaintance, and how her little Frederick
was the image of Lord Claud Lollypop and her sweet Maria had been
noticed by the Baroness as they were driving in their donkey-chaise at
Roehampton.  She urged her to make her papa do something for the
darlings. Frederick she had determined should go into the Guards; and
if they made an elder son of him (and Mr. Bullock was positively
ruining and pinching himself to death to buy land), how was the darling
girl to be provided for? "I expect YOU, dear," Mrs. Bullock would say,
"for of course my share of our Papa's property must go to the head of
the house, you know.  Dear Rhoda McMull will disengage the whole of the
Castletoddy property as soon as poor dear Lord Castletoddy dies, who is
quite epileptic; and little Macduff McMull will be Viscount
Castletoddy.  Both the Mr. Bludyers of Mincing Lane have settled their
fortunes on Fanny Bludyer's little boy.  My darling Frederick must
positively be an eldest son; and--and do ask Papa to bring us back his
account in Lombard Street, will you, dear? It doesn't look well, his
going to Stumpy and Rowdy's." After which kind of speeches, in which
fashion and the main chance were blended together, and after a kiss,
which was like the contact of an oyster--Mrs. Frederick Bullock would
gather her starched nurslings and simper back into her carriage.

Every visit which this leader of ton paid to her family was more
unlucky for her.  Her father paid more money into Stumpy and Rowdy's.
Her patronage became more and more insufferable.  The poor widow in the
little cottage at Brompton, guarding her treasure there, little knew
how eagerly some people coveted it.

On that night when Jane Osborne had told her father that she had seen
his grandson, the old man had made her no reply, but he had shown no
anger--and had bade her good-night on going himself to his room in
rather a kindly voice.  And he must have meditated on what she said and
have made some inquiries of the Dobbin family regarding her visit, for
a fortnight after it took place, he asked her where was her little
French watch and chain she used to wear?

"I bought it with my money, sir," she said in a great fright.

"Go and order another like it, or a better if you can get it," said the
old gentleman and lapsed again into silence.

Of late the Misses Dobbin more than once repeated their entreaties to
Amelia, to allow George to visit them. His aunt had shown her
inclination; perhaps his grandfather himself, they hinted, might be
disposed to be reconciled to him.  Surely, Amelia could not refuse such
advantageous chances for the boy.  Nor could she, but she acceded to
their overtures with a very heavy and suspicious heart, was always
uneasy during the child's absence from her, and welcomed him back as if
he was rescued out of some danger.  He brought back money and toys, at
which the widow looked with alarm and jealousy; she asked him always if
he had seen any gentleman--"Only old Sir William, who drove him about
in the four-wheeled chaise, and Mr. Dobbin, who arrived on the
beautiful bay horse in the afternoon--in the green coat and pink
neck-cloth, with the gold-headed whip, who promised to show him the
Tower of London and take him out with the Surrey hounds." At last, he
said, "There was an old gentleman, with thick eyebrows, and a broad
hat, and large chain and seals." He came one day as the coachman was
lunging Georgy round the lawn on the gray pony.  "He looked at me very
much.  He shook very much.  I said 'My name is Norval' after dinner.
My aunt began to cry.  She is always crying." Such was George's report
on that night.

Then Amelia knew that the boy had seen his grandfather; and looked out
feverishly for a proposal which she was sure would follow, and which
came, in fact, in a few days afterwards.  Mr. Osborne formally offered
to take the boy and make him heir to the fortune which he had intended
that his father should inherit.  He would make Mrs. George Osborne an
allowance, such as to assure her a decent competency.  If Mrs. George
Osborne proposed to marry again, as Mr. O.  heard was her intention, he
would not withdraw that allowance. But it must be understood that the
child would live entirely with his grandfather in Russell Square, or at
whatever other place Mr. O. should select, and that he would be
occasionally permitted to see Mrs. George Osborne at her own residence.
This message was brought or read to her in a letter one day, when her
mother was from home and her father absent as usual in the City.

She was never seen angry but twice or thrice in her life, and it was in
one of these moods that Mr. Osborne's attorney had the fortune to
behold her.  She rose up trembling and flushing very much as soon as,
after reading the letter, Mr. Poe handed it to her, and she tore the
paper into a hundred fragments, which she trod on.  "I marry again!  I
take money to part from my child!  Who dares insult me by proposing
such a thing? Tell Mr. Osborne it is a cowardly letter, sir--a cowardly
letter--I will not answer it.  I wish you good morning, sir--and she
bowed me out of the room like a tragedy Queen," said the lawyer who
told the story.

Her parents never remarked her agitation on that day, and she never
told them of the interview.  They had their own affairs to interest
them, affairs which deeply interested this innocent and unconscious
lady.  The old gentleman, her father, was always dabbling in
speculation. We have seen how the wine company and the coal company had
failed him.  But, prowling about the City always eagerly and restlessly
still, he lighted upon some other scheme, of which he thought so well
that he embarked in it in spite of the remonstrances of Mr. Clapp, to
whom indeed he never dared to tell how far he had engaged himself in
it.  And as it was always Mr. Sedley's maxim not to talk about money
matters before women, they had no inkling of the misfortunes that were
in store for them until the unhappy old gentleman was forced to make
gradual confessions.

The bills of the little household, which had been settled weekly, first
fell into arrear.  The remittances had not arrived from India, Mr.
Sedley told his wife with a disturbed face.  As she had paid her bills
very regularly hitherto, one or two of the tradesmen to whom the poor
lady was obliged to go round asking for time were very angry at a delay
to which they were perfectly used from more irregular customers.
Emmy's contribution, paid over cheerfully without any questions, kept
the little company in half-rations however.  And the first six months
passed away pretty easily, old Sedley still keeping up with the notion
that his shares must rise and that all would be well.

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!



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.



In Which the Reader Is Introduced to the Very Best of Company

At last Becky's kindness and attention to the chief of her husband's
family were destined to meet with an exceeding great reward, a reward
which, though certainly somewhat unsubstantial, the little woman
coveted with greater eagerness than more positive benefits. If she did
not wish to lead a virtuous life, at least she desired to enjoy a
character for virtue, and we know that no lady in the genteel world can
possess this desideratum, until she has put on a train and feathers and
has been presented to her Sovereign at Court. From that august
interview they come out stamped as honest women. The Lord Chamberlain
gives them a certificate of virtue.  And as dubious goods 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.

It might be very well for my Lady Bareacres, my Lady Tufto, Mrs. Bute
Crawley in the country, and other ladies who had come into contact with
Mrs. Rawdon Crawley to cry fie at the idea of the odious little
adventuress making her curtsey before the Sovereign, and to declare
that, if dear good Queen Charlotte had been alive, she never would have
admitted such an extremely ill-regulated personage into her chaste
drawing-room.  But when we consider that it was the First Gentleman in
Europe in whose high presence Mrs. Rawdon passed her examination, and
as it were, took her degree in reputation, it surely must be flat
disloyalty to doubt any more about her virtue.  I, for my part, look
back with love and awe to that Great Character in history.  Ah, what a
high and noble appreciation of Gentlewomanhood there must have been in
Vanity Fair, when that revered and august being was invested, by the
universal acclaim of the refined and educated portion of this empire,
with the title of Premier Gentilhomme of his Kingdom.  Do you remember,
dear M--, oh friend of my youth, how one blissful night five-and-twenty
years since, the "Hypocrite" being acted, Elliston being manager,
Dowton and Liston performers, two boys had leave from their loyal
masters to go out from Slaughter-House School where they were educated
and to appear on Drury Lane stage, amongst a crowd which assembled
there to greet the king.  THE KING? There he was. Beefeaters 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 sat, HE sat--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 with that magnificent music.  How they
cheered, and cried, and waved handkerchiefs.  Ladies wept; mothers
clasped their children; some fainted with emotion.  People were
suffocated in the pit, shrieks and groans rising up amidst the writhing
and shouting mass there of his people who were, and indeed showed
themselves almost to be, ready to die for him.  Yes, we saw him.  Fate
cannot deprive us of THAT.  Others have seen Napoleon.  Some few still
exist who have beheld Frederick the Great, Doctor Johnson, Marie
Antoinette, &c.--be it our 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 godmother.  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 greengrocer'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 parlour 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.

Then Rawdon followed in his old Guards' uniform, which had grown
woefully shabby, and was much too tight.  He was to have followed the
procession and waited upon his sovereign in a cab, but that his
good-natured sister-in-law insisted that they should be a family party.
The coach was large, the 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 royal equipages which was
making its way down Piccadilly and St.  James's Street, towards the old
brick palace where the Star of Brunswick was in waiting to receive his
nobles and gentlefolks.

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 excellences 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 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 demeanour 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.

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 in 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-coloured chargers--who are by no means lovely and enticing
objects at that early period of noon.  A stout countess of sixty,
decolletee, painted, wrinkled with rouge up to her drooping eyelids,
and diamonds twinkling in her wig, is a wholesome and edifying, but not
a pleasant sight.  She has the faded look of a St.  James's Street
illumination, as it may be 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 their curtsey to the
Sovereign under the protection of lamplight.

Our beloved Rebecca had no need, however, of any such a friendly halo
to set off her beauty.  Her complexion could bear any 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 years since, as the most brilliant costume of the
most famous beauty of the present season. A score of years hence that
too, that milliner's wonder, will have passed into the domain of the
absurd, along with all previous vanities.  But we are wandering too
much.  Mrs. Rawdon's dress was pronounced to be charmante on the
eventful day of her presentation. Even good little Lady Jane was forced
to acknowledge this effect, as she looked at her kinswoman, and owned
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 splendour 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 putting 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 sympathised 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 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 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?"

"Guess!" she said to her husband.  "Why, you silly man," she continued,
"where do you suppose I got them?--all except the little clasp, which a
dear friend of mine gave me long ago.  I hired them, to be sure.  I
hired them at Mr. Polonius's, in Coventry Street. You don't suppose
that all the diamonds which go to Court belong to the wearers; like
those beautiful stones which Lady Jane has, and which are much
handsomer than any which I have, I am certain."

"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? Oh, 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 defences 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."

"But I hope your lordship is orthodox," said the little lady with a
toss of her head.  And many ladies round about whispered and talked,
and many gentlemen nodded and whispered, as they saw what marked
attention the great nobleman was paying to the little adventuress.

What were the circumstances of the interview between Rebecca Crawley,
nee Sharp, and her Imperial Master, it does not become such a feeble
and inexperienced pen as mine to attempt to relate.  The dazzled eyes
close before that Magnificent Idea.  Loyal respect and decency tell
even the imagination not to look too keenly and audaciously about the
sacred audience-chamber, but to back away rapidly, silently, and
respectfully, making profound bows out of the August Presence.

This may be said, that in all London there was no more loyal heart than
Becky's after this interview.  The name of her king was always on her
lips, and he was proclaimed by her to be the most charming of men.  She
went to Colnaghi's and ordered the finest portrait of him that art had
produced, and credit could supply.  She chose that famous one in which
the best of monarchs is represented in a frock-coat with a fur collar,
and breeches and silk stockings, simpering on a sofa from under his
curly brown wig.  She had him painted in a brooch and wore it--indeed
she amused and somewhat pestered her acquaintance with her perpetual
talk about his urbanity and beauty. Who knows!  Perhaps the little
woman thought she might play the part of a Maintenon or a Pompadour.

But the finest sport of all after her presentation was to hear her talk
virtuously.  She had a few female acquaintances, not, it must be owned,
of the very highest reputation in Vanity Fair.  But being made an
honest woman of, so to speak, Becky would not consort any longer with
these dubious ones, and cut Lady Crackenbury when the latter nodded to
her from her opera-box, and gave Mrs. Washington White the go-by in the
Ring.  "One must, my dear, show one is somebody," she said.  "One
mustn't be seen with doubtful people.  I pity Lady Crackenbury from my
heart, and Mrs. Washington White may be a very good-natured person.
YOU may go and dine with them, as you like your rubber.  But I mustn't,
and won't; and you will have the goodness to tell Smith to say I am not
at home when either of them calls."

The particulars of Becky's costume were in the newspapers--feathers,
lappets, superb diamonds, and all the rest.  Lady Crackenbury read the
paragraph in bitterness of spirit and discoursed to her followers about
the airs which that woman was giving herself.  Mrs. Bute Crawley and
her young ladies in the country had a copy of the Morning Post from
town, and gave a vent to their honest indignation. "If you had been
sandy-haired, green-eyed, and a French rope-dancer's daughter," Mrs.
Bute said to her eldest girl (who, on the contrary, was a very swarthy,
short, and snub-nosed young lady), "You might have had superb diamonds
forsooth, and have been presented at Court by your cousin, the Lady
Jane.  But you're only a gentlewoman, my poor dear child.  You have
only some of the best blood in England in your veins, and good
principles and piety for your portion.  I, myself, the wife of a
Baronet's younger brother, too, never thought of such a thing as going
to Court--nor would other people, if good Queen Charlotte had been
alive." In this way the worthy Rectoress consoled herself, and her
daughters sighed and sat over the Peerage all night.

A few days after the famous presentation, another great and exceeding
honour was vouchsafed to the virtuous Becky.  Lady Steyne's carriage
drove up to Mr. Rawdon Crawley's door, and the footman, instead of
driving down the front of the house, as by his tremendous knocking he
appeared to be inclined to do, relented and only delivered in a couple
of cards, on which were engraven the names of the Marchioness of Steyne
and the Countess of Gaunt.  If these bits of pasteboard had been
beautiful pictures, or had had a hundred yards of Malines lace rolled
round them, worth twice the number of guineas, Becky could not have
regarded them with more pleasure. You may be sure they occupied a
conspicuous place in the china bowl on the drawing-room table, where
Becky kept the cards of her visitors.  Lord! lord! how poor Mrs.
Washington White's card and Lady Crackenbury's card--which our little
friend had been glad enough to get a few months back, and of which the
silly little creature was rather proud once--Lord! lord! I say, how
soon at the appearance of these grand court cards, did those poor
little neglected deuces sink down to the bottom of the pack.  Steyne!
Bareacres, Johnes of Helvellyn!  and Caerylon of Camelot! we may be
sure that Becky and Briggs looked out those august names in the
Peerage, and followed the noble races up through all the ramifications
of the family tree.

My Lord Steyne coming to call a couple of hours afterwards, and looking
about him, and observing everything as was his wont, found his ladies'
cards already ranged as the trumps of Becky's hand, and grinned, as
this old cynic always did at any naive display of human weakness.
Becky came down to him presently; whenever the dear girl expected his
lordship, her toilette was prepared, her hair in perfect order, her
mouchoirs, aprons, scarfs, little morocco slippers, and other female
gimcracks arranged, and she seated in some artless and agreeable
posture ready to receive him--whenever she was surprised, of course,
she had to fly to her apartment to take a rapid survey of matters in
the glass, and to trip down again to wait upon the great peer.

She found him grinning over the bowl.  She was discovered, and she
blushed a little.  "Thank you, Monseigneur," she said.  "You see your
ladies have been here.  How good of you!  I couldn't come before--I was
in the kitchen making a pudding."

"I know you were, I saw you through the area-railings as I drove up,"
replied the old gentleman.

"You see everything," she replied.

"A few things, but not that, my pretty lady," he said good-naturedly.
"You silly little fibster!  I heard you in the room overhead, where I
have no doubt you were putting a little rouge on--you must give some
of yours to my Lady Gaunt, whose complexion is quite preposterous--and
I heard the bedroom door open, and then you came downstairs."

"Is it a crime to try and look my best when YOU come here?" answered
Mrs. Rawdon plaintively, and she rubbed her cheek with her handkerchief
as if to show there was no rouge at all, only genuine blushes and
modesty in her case.  About this who can tell? I know there is some
rouge that won't come off on a pocket-handkerchief, and some so good
that even tears will not disturb it.

"Well," said the old gentleman, twiddling round his wife's card, "you
are bent on becoming a fine lady. You pester my poor old life out to
get you into the world.  You won't be able to hold your own there, you
silly little fool.  You've got no money."

"You will get us a place," interposed Becky, "as quick as possible."

"You've got no money, and you want to compete with those who have. You
poor little earthenware pipkin, you want to swim down the stream along
with the great copper kettles.  All women are alike. Everybody is
striving for what is not worth the having!  Gad!  I dined with the King
yesterday, and we had neck of mutton and turnips. A dinner of herbs is
better than a stalled ox very often. You will go to Gaunt House.  You
give an old fellow no rest until you get there.  It's not half so nice
as here. You'll be bored there.  I am.  My wife is as gay as Lady
Macbeth, and my daughters as cheerful as Regan and Goneril.  I daren't
sleep in what they call my bedroom. The bed is like the baldaquin of
St.  Peter's, and the pictures frighten me.  I have a little brass bed
in a dressing-room, and a little hair mattress like an anchorite. I am
an anchorite. Ho!  ho!  You'll be asked to dinner next week.  And gare
aux femmes, look out and hold your own!  How the women will bully you!"
This was a very long speech for a man of few words like my Lord Steyne;
nor was it the first which he uttered for Becky's benefit on that day.

Briggs looked up from the work-table at which she was seated in the
farther room and gave a deep sigh as she heard the great Marquis speak
so lightly of her sex.

"If you don't turn off that abominable sheep-dog," said Lord Steyne,
with a savage look over his shoulder at her, "I will have her poisoned."

"I always give my dog dinner from my own plate," said Rebecca, laughing
mischievously; and having enjoyed for some time the discomfiture of my
lord, who hated poor Briggs for interrupting his tete-a-tete with the
fair Colonel's wife, Mrs. Rawdon at length had pity upon her admirer,
and calling to Briggs, praised the fineness of the weather to her and
bade her to take out the child for a walk.

"I can't send her away," Becky said presently, after a pause, and in a
very sad voice.  Her eyes filled with tears as she spoke, and she
turned away her head.

"You owe her her wages, I suppose?" said the Peer.

"Worse than that," said Becky, still casting down her eyes; "I have
ruined her."

"Ruined her? Then why don't you turn her out?" the gentleman asked.

"Men do that," Becky answered bitterly.  "Women are not so bad as you.
Last year, when we were reduced to our last guinea, she gave us
everything.  She shall never leave me, until we are ruined utterly
ourselves, which does not seem far off, or until I can pay her the
utmost farthing."

"------ it, how much is it?" said the Peer with an oath. And Becky,
reflecting on the largeness of his means, mentioned not only the sum
which she had borrowed from Miss Briggs, but one of nearly double the
amount.

This caused the Lord Steyne to break out in another brief and energetic
expression of anger, at which Rebecca held down her head the more and
cried bitterly.  "I could not help it.  It was my only chance.  I dare
not tell my husband.  He would kill me if I told him what I have done.
I have kept it a secret from everybody but you--and you forced it from
me.  Ah, what shall I do, Lord Steyne? for I am very, very unhappy!"

Lord Steyne made no reply except by beating the devil's tattoo and
biting his nails.  At last he clapped his hat on his head and flung out
of the room.  Rebecca did not rise from her attitude of misery until
the door slammed upon him and his carriage whirled away.  Then she rose
up with the queerest expression of victorious mischief glittering in
her green eyes.  She burst out laughing once or twice to herself, as
she sat at work, and sitting down to the piano, she rattled away a
triumphant voluntary on the keys, which made the people pause under her
window to listen to her brilliant music.

That night, there came two notes from Gaunt House for the little woman,
the one containing a card of invitation from Lord and Lady Steyne to a
dinner at Gaunt House next Friday, while the other enclosed a slip of
gray paper bearing Lord Steyne's signature and the address of Messrs.
Jones, Brown, and Robinson, Lombard Street.

Rawdon heard Becky laughing in the night once or twice.  It was only
her delight at going to Gaunt House and facing the ladies there, she
said, which amused her so.  But the truth was that she was occupied
with a great number of other thoughts.  Should she pay off old Briggs
and give her her conge? Should she astonish Raggles by settling his
account? She turned over all these thoughts on her pillow, and on the
next day, when Rawdon went out to pay his morning visit to the Club,
Mrs. Crawley (in a modest dress with a veil on) whipped off in a
hackney-coach to the City:  and being landed at Messrs. Jones and
Robinson's bank, presented a document there to the authority at the
desk, who, in reply, asked her "How she would take it?"

She gently said "she would take a hundred and fifty pounds in small
notes and the remainder in one note": and passing through St. Paul's
Churchyard stopped there and bought the handsomest black silk gown for
Briggs which money could buy; and which, with a kiss and the kindest
speeches, she presented to the simple old spinster.

Then she walked to Mr. Raggles, inquired about his children
affectionately, and gave him fifty pounds on account.  Then she went to
the livery-man from whom she jobbed her carriages and gratified him
with a similar sum.  "And I hope this will be a lesson to you, Spavin,"
she said, "and that on the next drawing-room day my brother, Sir Pitt,
will not be inconvenienced by being obliged to take four of us in his
carriage to wait upon His Majesty, because my own carriage is not
forthcoming." It appears there had been a difference on the last
drawing-room day.  Hence the degradation which the Colonel had almost
suffered, of being obliged to enter the presence of his Sovereign in a
hack cab.

These arrangements concluded, Becky paid a visit upstairs to the
before-mentioned desk, which Amelia Sedley had given her years and
years ago, and which contained a number of useful and valuable little
things--in which private museum she placed the one note which Messrs.
Jones and Robinson's cashier had given her.



In Which We Enjoy Three Courses and a Dessert

When the ladies of Gaunt House were at breakfast that morning, Lord
Steyne (who took his chocolate in private and seldom disturbed the
females of his household, or saw them except upon public days, or when
they crossed each other in the hall, or when from his pit-box at the
opera he surveyed them in their box on the grand tier) his lordship, we
say, appeared among the ladies and the children who were assembled over
the tea and toast, and a battle royal ensued apropos of Rebecca.

"My Lady Steyne," he said, "I want to see the list for your dinner on
Friday; and I want you, if you please, to write a card for Colonel and
Mrs. Crawley."

"Blanche writes them," Lady Steyne said in a flutter. "Lady Gaunt
writes them."

"I will not write to that person," Lady Gaunt said, a tall and stately
lady, who looked up for an instant and then down again after she had
spoken.  It was not good to meet Lord Steyne's eyes for those who had
offended him.

"Send the children out of the room.  Go!" said he pulling at the
bell-rope.  The urchins, always frightened before him, retired: their
mother would have followed too.  "Not you," he said.  "You stop."

"My Lady Steyne," he said, "once more will you have the goodness to go
to the desk and write that card for your dinner on Friday?"

"My Lord, I will not be present at it," Lady Gaunt said; "I will go
home."

"I wish you would, and stay there.  You will find the bailiffs at
Bareacres very pleasant company, and I shall be freed from lending
money to your relations and from your own damned tragedy airs.  Who are
you to give orders here? You have no money.  You've got no brains.  You
were here to have children, and you have not had any. Gaunt's tired of
you, and George's wife is the only person in the family who doesn't
wish you were dead.  Gaunt would marry again if you were."

"I wish I were," her Ladyship answered with tears and rage in her eyes.

"You, forsooth, must give yourself airs of virtue, while my wife, who
is an immaculate saint, as everybody knows, and never did wrong in her
life, has no objection to meet my young friend Mrs. Crawley. My Lady
Steyne knows that appearances are sometimes against the best of women;
that lies are often told about the most innocent of them. Pray, madam,
shall I tell you some little anecdotes about my Lady Bareacres, your
mamma?"

"You may strike me if you like, sir, or hit any cruel blow," Lady Gaunt
said.  To see his wife and daughter suffering always put his Lordship
into a good humour.

"My sweet Blanche," he said, "I am a gentleman, and never lay my hand
upon a woman, save in the way of kindness.  I only wish to correct
little faults in your character.  You women are too proud, and sadly
lack humility, as Father Mole, I'm sure, would tell my Lady Steyne if
he were here.  You mustn't give yourselves airs; you must be meek and
humble, my blessings.  For all Lady Steyne knows, this calumniated,
simple, good-humoured Mrs. Crawley is quite innocent--even more
innocent than herself.  Her husband's character is not good, but it is
as good as Bareacres', who has played a little and not paid a great
deal, who cheated you out of the only legacy you ever had and left you
a pauper on my hands.  And Mrs. Crawley is not very well-born, but she
is not worse than Fanny's illustrious ancestor, the first de la Jones."

"The money which I brought into the family, sir," Lady George cried
out--

"You purchased a contingent reversion with it," the Marquis said
darkly.  "If Gaunt dies, your husband may come to his honours; your
little boys may inherit them, and who knows what besides? In the
meanwhile, ladies, be as proud and virtuous as you like abroad, but
don't give ME any airs.  As for Mrs. Crawley's character, I shan't
demean myself or that most spotless and perfectly irreproachable lady
by even hinting that it requires a defence.  You will be pleased to
receive her with the utmost cordiality, as you will receive all persons
whom I present in this house.  This house?" He broke out with a laugh.
"Who is the master of it? and what is it? This Temple of Virtue belongs
to me.  And if I invite all Newgate or all Bedlam here, by ------ they
shall be welcome."

After this vigorous allocution, to one of which sort Lord Steyne
treated his "Hareem" whenever symptoms of insubordination appeared in
his household, the crestfallen women had nothing for it but to obey.
Lady Gaunt wrote the invitation which his Lordship required, and she
and her mother-in-law drove in person, and with bitter and humiliated
hearts, to leave the cards on Mrs. Rawdon, the reception of which
caused that innocent woman so much pleasure.

There were families in London who would have sacrificed a year's income
to receive such an honour at the hands of those great ladies. Mrs.
Frederick Bullock, for instance, would have gone on her knees from May
Fair to Lombard Street, if Lady Steyne and Lady Gaunt had been waiting
in the City to raise her up and say, "Come to us next Friday"--not to
one of the great crushes and grand balls of Gaunt House, whither
everybody went, but to the sacred, unapproachable, mysterious,
delicious entertainments, to be admitted to one of which was a
privilege, and an honour, and a blessing indeed.

Severe, spotless, and beautiful, Lady Gaunt held the very highest rank
in Vanity Fair.  The distinguished courtesy with which Lord Steyne
treated her charmed everybody who witnessed his behaviour, caused the
severest critics to admit how perfect a gentleman he was, and to own
that his Lordship's heart at least was in the right place.

The ladies of Gaunt House called Lady Bareacres in to their aid, in
order to repulse the common enemy.  One of Lady Gaunt's carriages went
to Hill Street for her Ladyship's mother, all whose equipages were in
the hands of the bailiffs, whose very jewels and wardrobe, it was said,
had been seized by those inexorable Israelites. Bareacres Castle was
theirs, too, with all its costly pictures, furniture, and articles of
vertu--the magnificent Vandykes; the noble Reynolds pictures; the
Lawrence portraits, tawdry and beautiful, and, thirty years ago, deemed
as precious as works of real genius; the matchless Dancing Nymph of
Canova, for which Lady Bareacres had sat in her youth--Lady Bareacres
splendid then, and radiant in wealth, rank, and beauty--a toothless,
bald, old woman now--a mere rag of a former robe of state.  Her lord,
painted at the same time by Lawrence, as waving his sabre in front of
Bareacres Castle, and clothed in his uniform as Colonel of the
Thistlewood Yeomanry, was a withered, old, lean man in a greatcoat and
a Brutus wig, slinking about Gray's Inn of mornings chiefly and dining
alone at clubs.  He did not like to dine with Steyne now.  They had run
races of pleasure together in youth when Bareacres was the winner. But
Steyne had more bottom than he and had lasted him out.  The Marquis was
ten times a greater man now than the young Lord Gaunt of '85, and
Bareacres nowhere in the race--old, beaten, bankrupt, and broken down.
He had borrowed too much money of Steyne to find it pleasant to meet
his old comrade often.  The latter, whenever he wished to be merry,
used jeeringly to ask Lady Gaunt why her father had not come to see
her. "He has not been here for four months," Lord Steyne would say.  "I
can always tell by my cheque-book afterwards, when I get a visit from
Bareacres.  What a comfort it is, my ladies, I bank with one of my
sons' fathers-in-law, and the other banks with me!"

Of the other illustrious persons whom Becky had the honour to encounter
on this her first presentation to the grand world, it does not become
the present historian to say much.  There was his Excellency the Prince
of Peterwaradin, with his Princess--a nobleman tightly girthed, with a
large military chest, on which the plaque of his order shone
magnificently, and wearing the red collar of the Golden Fleece round
his neck.  He was the owner of countless flocks. "Look at his face.  I
think he must be descended from a sheep," Becky whispered to Lord
Steyne.  Indeed, his Excellency's countenance, long, solemn, and white,
with the ornament round his neck, bore some resemblance to that of a
venerable bell-wether.

There was Mr. John Paul Jefferson Jones, titularly attached to the
American Embassy and correspondent of the New York Demagogue, who, by
way of making himself agreeable to the company, asked Lady Steyne,
during a pause in the conversation at dinner, how his dear friend,
George Gaunt, liked the Brazils? He and George had been most intimate
at Naples and had gone up Vesuvius together.  Mr. Jones wrote a full
and particular account of the dinner, which appeared duly in the
Demagogue.  He mentioned the names and titles of all the guests, giving
biographical sketches of the principal people.  He described the
persons of the ladies with great eloquence; the service of the table;
the size and costume of the servants; enumerated the dishes and wines
served; the ornaments of the sideboard; and the probable value of the
plate.  Such a dinner he calculated could not be dished up under
fifteen or eighteen dollars per head. And he was in the habit, until
very lately, of sending over proteges, with letters of recommendation
to the present Marquis of Steyne, encouraged to do so by the intimate
terms on which he had lived with his dear friend, the late lord.  He
was most indignant that a young and insignificant aristocrat, the Earl
of Southdown, should have taken the pas of him in their procession to
the dining-room.  "Just as I was stepping up to offer my hand to a
very pleasing and witty fashionable, the brilliant and exclusive Mrs.
Rawdon Crawley,"--he wrote--"the young patrician interposed between me
and the lady and whisked my Helen off without a word of apology. I was
fain to bring up the rear with the Colonel, the lady's husband, a stout
red-faced warrior who distinguished himself at Waterloo, where he had
better luck than befell some of his brother redcoats at New Orleans."

The Colonel's countenance on coming into this polite society wore as
many blushes as the face of a boy of sixteen assumes when he is
confronted with his sister's schoolfellows.  It has been told before
that honest Rawdon had not been much used at any period of his life to
ladies' company.  With the men at the Club or the mess room, he was
well enough; and could ride, bet, smoke, or play at billiards with the
boldest of them.  He had had his time for female friendships too, but
that was twenty years ago, and the ladies were of the rank of those
with whom Young Marlow in the comedy is represented as having been
familiar before he became abashed in the presence of Miss Hardcastle.
The times are such that one scarcely dares to allude to that kind of
company which thousands of our young men in Vanity Fair are frequenting
every day, which nightly fills casinos and dancing-rooms, which is
known to exist as well as the Ring in Hyde Park or the Congregation at
St.  James's--but which the most squeamish if not the most moral of
societies is determined to ignore.  In a word, although Colonel Crawley
was now five-and-forty years of age, it had not been his lot in life to
meet with a half dozen good women, besides his paragon of a wife.  All
except her and his kind sister Lady Jane, whose gentle nature had tamed
and won him, scared the worthy Colonel, and on occasion of his first
dinner at Gaunt House he was not heard to make a single remark except
to state that the weather was very hot.  Indeed Becky would have left
him at home, but that virtue ordained that her husband should be by her
side to protect the timid and fluttering little creature on her first
appearance in polite society.

On her first appearance Lord Steyne stepped forward, taking her hand,
and greeting her with great courtesy, and presenting her to Lady
Steyne, and their ladyships, her daughters.  Their ladyships made three
stately curtsies, and the elder lady to be sure gave her hand to the
newcomer, but it was as cold and lifeless as marble.

Becky took it, however, with grateful humility, and performing a
reverence which would have done credit to the best dancer-master, put
herself at Lady Steyne's feet, as it were, by saying that his Lordship
had been her father's earliest friend and patron, and that she, Becky,
had learned to honour and respect the Steyne family from the days of
her childhood.  The fact is that Lord Steyne had once purchased a
couple of pictures of the late Sharp, and the affectionate orphan could
never forget her gratitude for that favour.

The Lady Bareacres then came under Becky's cognizance--to whom the
Colonel's lady made also a most respectful obeisance:  it was returned
with severe dignity by the exalted person in question.

"I had the pleasure of making your Ladyship's acquaintance at Brussels,
ten years ago," Becky said in the most winning manner.  "I had the good
fortune to meet Lady Bareacres at the Duchess of Richmond's ball, the
night before the Battle of Waterloo.  And I recollect your Ladyship,
and my Lady Blanche, your daughter, sitting in the carriage in the
porte-cochere at the Inn, waiting for horses. I hope your Ladyship's
diamonds are safe."

Everybody's eyes looked into their neighbour's.  The famous diamonds
had undergone a famous seizure, it appears, about which Becky, of
course, knew nothing. Rawdon Crawley retreated with Lord Southdown into
a window, where the latter was heard to laugh immoderately, as Rawdon
told him the story of Lady Bareacres wanting horses and "knuckling down
by Jove," to Mrs. Crawley.  "I think I needn't be afraid of THAT
woman," Becky thought.  Indeed, Lady Bareacres exchanged terrified and
angry looks with her daughter and retreated to a table, where she began
to look at pictures with great energy.

When the Potentate from the Danube made his appearance, the
conversation was carried on in the French language, and the Lady
Bareacres and the younger ladies found, to their farther mortification,
that Mrs. Crawley was much better acquainted with that tongue, and
spoke it with a much better accent than they. Becky had met other
Hungarian magnates with the army in France in 1816-17.  She asked after
her friends with great interest. The foreign personages thought that she
was a lady of great distinction, and the Prince and the Princess asked
severally of Lord Steyne and the Marchioness, whom they conducted to
dinner, who was that petite dame who spoke so well?

Finally, the procession being formed in the order described by the
American diplomatist, they marched into the apartment where the banquet
was served, and which, as I have promised the reader he shall enjoy it,
he shall have the liberty of ordering himself so as to suit his fancy.

But it was when the ladies were alone that Becky knew the tug of war
would come.  And then indeed the little woman found herself in such a
situation as made her acknowledge the correctness of Lord Steyne's
caution to her to beware of the society of ladies above her own sphere.
As they say, the persons who hate Irishmen most are Irishmen; so,
assuredly, the greatest tyrants over women are women. When poor little
Becky, alone with the ladies, went up to the fire-place whither the
great ladies had repaired, the great ladies marched away and took
possession of a table of drawings.  When Becky followed them to the
table of drawings, they dropped off one by one to the fire again.  She
tried to speak to one of the children (of whom she was commonly fond in
public places), but Master George Gaunt was called away by his mamma;
and the stranger was treated with such cruelty finally, that even Lady
Steyne herself pitied her and went up to speak to the friendless little
woman.

"Lord Steyne," said her Ladyship, as her wan cheeks glowed with a
blush, "says you sing and play very beautifully, Mrs. Crawley--I wish
you would do me the kindness to sing to me."

"I will do anything that may give pleasure to my Lord Steyne or to
you," said Rebecca, sincerely grateful, and seating herself at the
piano, began to sing.

She sang religious songs of Mozart, which had been early favourites of
Lady Steyne, and with such sweetness and tenderness that the lady,
lingering round the piano, sat down by its side and listened until the
tears rolled down her eyes.  It is true that the opposition ladies at
the other end of the room kept up a loud and ceaseless buzzing and
talking, but the Lady Steyne did not hear those rumours.  She was a
child again--and had wandered back through a forty years' wilderness to
her convent garden.  The chapel organ had pealed the same tones, the
organist, the sister whom she loved best of the community, had taught
them to her in those early happy days.  She was a girl once more, and
the brief period of her happiness bloomed out again for an hour--she
started when the jarring doors were flung open, and with a loud laugh
from Lord Steyne, the men of the party entered full of gaiety.

He saw at a glance what had happened in his absence, and was grateful
to his wife for once.  He went and spoke to her, and called her by her
Christian name, so as again to bring blushes to her pale face--"My wife
says you have been singing like an angel," he said to Becky.  Now there
are angels of two kinds, and both sorts, it is said, are charming in
their way.

Whatever the previous portion of the evening had been, the rest of that
night was a great triumph for Becky.  She sang her very best, and it
was so good that every one of the men came and crowded round the piano.
The women, her enemies, were left quite alone. And Mr. Paul Jefferson
Jones thought he had made a conquest of Lady Gaunt by going up to her
Ladyship and praising her delightful friend's first-rate singing.



Contains a Vulgar Incident

The Muse, whoever she be, who presides over this Comic History must now
descend from the genteel heights in which she has been soaring and have
the goodness to drop down upon the lowly roof of John Sedley at
Brompton, and describe what events are taking place there. Here, too,
in this humble tenement, live care, and distrust, and dismay.  Mrs.
Clapp in the kitchen is grumbling in secret to her husband about the
rent, and urging the good fellow to rebel against his old friend and
patron and his present lodger.  Mrs. Sedley has ceased to visit her
landlady in the lower regions now, and indeed is in a position to
patronize Mrs. Clapp no longer.  How can one be condescending to a lady
to whom one owes a matter of forty pounds, and who is perpetually
throwing out hints for the money? The Irish maidservant has not altered
in the least in her kind and respectful behaviour; but Mrs. Sedley
fancies that she is growing insolent and ungrateful, and, as the guilty
thief who fears each bush an officer, sees threatening innuendoes and
hints of capture in all the girl's speeches and answers.  Miss Clapp,
grown quite a young woman now, is declared by the soured old lady to be
an unbearable and impudent little minx.  Why Amelia can be so fond of
her, or have her in her room so much, or walk out with her so
constantly, Mrs. Sedley cannot conceive. The bitterness of poverty has
poisoned the life of the once cheerful and kindly woman.  She is
thankless for Amelia's constant and gentle bearing towards her; carps
at her for her efforts at kindness or service; rails at her for her
silly pride in her child and her neglect of her parents.  Georgy's
house is not a very lively one since Uncle Jos's annuity has been
withdrawn and the little family are almost upon famine diet.

Amelia thinks, and thinks, and racks her brain, to find some means of
increasing the small pittance upon which the household is starving.
Can she give lessons in anything? paint card-racks? do fine work? She
finds that women are working hard, and better than she can, for
twopence a day.  She buys a couple of begilt Bristol boards at the
Fancy Stationer's and paints her very best upon them--a shepherd with
a red waistcoat on one, and a pink face smiling in the midst of a
pencil landscape--a shepherdess on the other, crossing a little bridge,
with a little dog, nicely shaded.  The man of the Fancy Repository and
Brompton Emporium of Fine Arts (of whom she bought the screens, vainly
hoping that he would repurchase them when ornamented by her hand) can
hardly hide the sneer with which he examines these feeble works of art.
He looks askance at the lady who waits in the shop, and ties up the
cards again in their envelope of whitey-brown paper, and hands them to
the poor widow and Miss Clapp, who had never seen such beautiful things
in her life, and had been quite confident that the man must give at
least two guineas for the screens.  They try at other shops in the
interior of London, with faint sickening hopes.  "Don't want 'em," says
one.  "Be off," says another fiercely.  Three-and-sixpence has been
spent in vain--the screens retire to Miss Clapp's bedroom, who
persists in thinking them lovely.

She writes out a little card in her neatest hand, and after long
thought and labour of composition, in which the public is informed that
"A Lady who has some time at her disposal, wishes to undertake the
education of some little girls, whom she would instruct in English, in
French, in Geography, in History, and in Music--address A.  O., at Mr.
Brown's"; and she confides the card to the gentleman of the Fine Art
Repository, who consents to allow it to lie upon the counter, where it
grows dingy and fly-blown.  Amelia passes the door wistfully many a
time, in hopes that Mr. Brown will have some news to give her, but he
never beckons her in.  When she goes to make little purchases, there is
no news for her.  Poor simple lady, tender and weak--how are you to
battle with the struggling violent world?

She grows daily more care-worn and sad, fixing upon her child alarmed
eyes, whereof the little boy cannot interpret the expression.  She
starts up of a night and peeps into his room stealthily, to see that he
is sleeping and not stolen away.  She sleeps but little now.  A
constant thought and terror is haunting her.  How she weeps and prays
in the long silent nights--how she tries to hide from herself the
thought which will return to her, that she ought to part with the boy,
that she is the only barrier between him and prosperity.  She can't,
she can't. Not now, at least.  Some other day.  Oh! it is too hard to
think of and to bear.

A thought comes over her which makes her blush and turn from
herself--her parents might keep the annuity--the curate would marry her
and give a home to her and the boy.  But George's picture and dearest
memory are there to rebuke her.  Shame and love say no to the
sacrifice.  She shrinks from it as from something unholy, and such
thoughts never found a resting-place in that pure and gentle bosom.

The combat, which we describe in a sentence or two, lasted for many
weeks in poor Amelia's heart, during which she had no confidante;
indeed, she could never have one, as she would not allow to herself the
possibility of yielding, though she was giving way daily before the
enemy with whom she had to battle.  One truth after another was
marshalling itself silently against her and keeping its ground. Poverty
and misery for all, want and degradation for her parents, injustice to
the boy--one by one the outworks of the little citadel were taken, in
which the poor soul passionately guarded her only love and treasure.

At the beginning of the struggle, she had written off a letter of
tender supplication to her brother at Calcutta, imploring him not to
withdraw the support which he had granted to their parents and painting
in terms of artless pathos their lonely and hapless condition.  She did
not know the truth of the matter.  The payment of Jos's annuity was
still regular, but it was a money-lender in the City who was receiving
it:  old Sedley had sold it for a sum of money wherewith to prosecute
his bootless schemes.  Emmy was calculating eagerly the time that would
elapse before the letter would arrive and be answered.  She had written
down the date in her pocket-book of the day when she dispatched it.  To
her son's guardian, the good Major at Madras, she had not communicated
any of her griefs and perplexities.  She had not written to him since
she wrote to congratulate him on his approaching marriage.  She thought
with sickening despondency, that that friend--the only one, the one who
had felt such a regard for her--was fallen away.

One day, when things had come to a very bad pass--when the creditors
were pressing, the mother in hysteric grief, the father in more than
usual gloom, the inmates of the family avoiding each other, each
secretly oppressed with his private unhappiness and notion of
wrong--the father and daughter happened to be left alone together, and
Amelia thought to comfort her father by telling him what she had done.
She had written to Joseph--an answer must come in three or four months.
He was always generous, though careless.  He could not refuse, when he
knew how straitened were the circumstances of his parents.

Then the poor old gentleman revealed the whole truth to her--that his
son was still paying the annuity, which his own imprudence had flung
away.  He had not dared to tell it sooner.  He thought Amelia's ghastly
and terrified look, when, with a trembling, miserable voice he made the
confession, conveyed reproaches to him for his concealment.  "Ah!" said
he with quivering lips and turning away, "you despise your old father
now!"

"Oh, papa! it is not that," Amelia cried out, falling on his neck and
kissing him many times.  "You are always good and kind.  You did it for
the best.  It is not for the money--it is--my God! my God! have mercy
upon me, and give me strength to bear this trial"; and she kissed him
again wildly and went away.

Still the father did not know what that explanation meant, and the
burst of anguish with which the poor girl left him.  It was that she
was conquered.  The sentence was passed.  The child must go from
her--to others--to forget her.  Her heart and her treasure--her joy,
hope, love, worship--her God, almost!  She must give him up, and
then--and then she would go to George, and they would watch over the
child and wait for him until he came to them in Heaven.

She put on her bonnet, scarcely knowing what she did, and went out to
walk in the lanes by which George used to come back from school, and
where she was in the habit of going on his return to meet the boy.  It
was May, a half-holiday.  The leaves were all coming out, the weather
was brilliant; the boy came running to her flushed with health,
singing, his bundle of school-books hanging by a thong. There he was.
Both her arms were round him.  No, it was impossible. They could not be
going to part.  "What is the matter, Mother?" said he; "you look very
pale."

"Nothing, my child," she said and stooped down and kissed him.

That night Amelia made the boy read the story of Samuel to her, and how
Hannah, his mother, having weaned him, brought him to Eli the High
Priest to minister before the Lord.  And he read the song of gratitude
which Hannah sang, and which says, who it is who maketh poor and maketh
rich, and bringeth low and exalteth--how the poor shall be raised up
out of the dust, and how, in his own might, no man shall be strong.
Then he read how Samuel's mother made him a little coat and brought it
to him from year to year when she came up to offer the yearly
sacrifice.  And then, in her sweet simple way, George's mother made
commentaries to the boy upon this affecting story.  How Hannah, though
she loved her son so much, yet gave him up because of her vow.  And how
she must always have thought of him as she sat at home, far away,
making the little coat; and Samuel, she was sure, never forgot his
mother; and how happy she must have been as the time came (and the
years pass away very quick) when she should see her boy and how good
and wise he had grown.  This little sermon she spoke with a gentle
solemn voice, and dry eyes, until she came to the account of their
meeting--then the discourse broke off suddenly, the tender heart
overflowed, and taking the boy to her breast, she rocked him in her
arms and wept silently over him in a sainted agony of tears.

Her mind being made up, the widow began to take such measures as seemed
right to her for advancing the end which she proposed.  One day, Miss
Osborne, in Russell Square (Amelia had not written the name or number
of the house for ten years--her youth, her early story came back to her
as she wrote the superscription) one day Miss Osborne got a letter from
Amelia which made her blush very much and look towards her father,
sitting glooming in his place at the other end of the table.

In simple terms, Amelia told her the reasons which had induced her to
change her mind respecting her boy. Her father had met with fresh
misfortunes which had entirely ruined him.  Her own pittance was so
small that it would barely enable her to support her parents and would
not suffice to give George the advantages which were his due. Great as
her sufferings would be at parting with him she would, by God's help,
endure them for the boy's sake.  She knew that those to whom he was
going would do all in their power to make him happy. She described his
disposition, such as she fancied it--quick and impatient of control or
harshness, easily to be moved by love and kindness.  In a postscript,
she stipulated that she should have a written agreement, that she
should see the child as often as she wished--she could not part with
him under any other terms.

"What? Mrs. Pride has come down, has she?" old Osborne said, when with
a tremulous eager voice Miss Osborne read him the letter. "Reg'lar
starved out, hey? Ha, ha!  I knew she would." He tried to keep his
dignity and to read his paper as usual--but he could not follow it.  He
chuckled and swore to himself behind the sheet.

At last he flung it down and, scowling at his daughter, as his wont
was, went out of the room into his study adjoining, from whence he
presently returned with a key.  He flung it to Miss Osborne.

"Get the room over mine--his room that was--ready," he said.  "Yes,
sir," his daughter replied in a tremble. It was George's room.  It had
not been opened for more than ten years.  Some of his clothes, papers,
handkerchiefs, whips and caps, fishing-rods and sporting gear, were
still there.  An Army list of 1814, with his name written on the cover;
a little dictionary he was wont to use in writing; and the Bible his
mother had given him, were on the mantelpiece, with a pair of spurs and
a dried inkstand covered with the dust of ten years.  Ah! since that
ink was wet, what days and people had passed away!  The writing-book,
still on the table, was blotted with his hand.

Miss Osborne was much affected when she first entered this room with
the servants under her.  She sank quite pale on the little bed. "This
is blessed news, m'am--indeed, m'am," the housekeeper said; "and the
good old times is returning, m'am.  The dear little feller, to be sure,
m'am; how happy he will be!  But some folks in May Fair, m'am, will owe
him a grudge, m'am"; and she clicked back the bolt which held the
window-sash and let the air into the chamber.

"You had better send that woman some money," Mr. Osborne said, before
he went out.  "She shan't want for nothing.  Send her a hundred pound."

"And I'll go and see her to-morrow?" Miss Osborne asked.

"That's your look out.  She don't come in here, mind. No, by ------,
not for all the money in London.  But she mustn't want now.  So look
out, and get things right." With which brief speeches Mr. Osborne took
leave of his daughter and went on his accustomed way into the City.

"Here, Papa, is some money," Amelia said that night, kissing the old
man, her father, and putting a bill for a hundred pounds into his
hands.  "And--and, Mamma, don't be harsh with Georgy.  He--he is not
going to stop with us long." She could say nothing more, and walked
away silently to her room.  Let us close it upon her prayers and her
sorrow.  I think we had best speak little about so much love and grief.

Miss Osborne came the next day, according to the promise contained in
her note, and saw Amelia.  The meeting between them was friendly. A
look and a few words from Miss Osborne showed the poor widow that, with
regard to this woman at least, there need be no fear lest she should
take the first place in her son's affection. She was cold, sensible,
not unkind.  The mother had not been so well pleased, perhaps, had the
rival been better looking, younger, more affectionate, warmer-hearted.
Miss Osborne, on the other hand, thought of old times and memories and
could not but be touched with the poor mother's pitiful situation.  She
was conquered, and laying down her arms, as it were, she humbly
submitted.  That day they arranged together the preliminaries of the
treaty of capitulation.

George was kept from school the next day, and saw his aunt.  Amelia
left them alone together and went to her room.  She was trying the
separation--as that poor gentle Lady Jane Grey felt the edge of the axe
that was to come down and sever her slender life.  Days were passed in
parleys, visits, preparations.  The widow broke the matter to Georgy
with great caution; she looked to see him very much affected by the
intelligence.  He was rather elated than otherwise, and the poor woman
turned sadly away.  He bragged about the news that day to the boys at
school; told them how he was going to live with his grandpapa, his
father's father, not the one who comes here sometimes; and that he
would be very rich, and have a carriage, and a pony, and go to a much
finer school, and when he was rich he would buy Leader's pencil-case
and pay the tart-woman.  The boy was the image of his father, as his
fond mother thought.

Indeed I have no heart, on account of our dear Amelia's sake, to go
through the story of George's last days at home.

At last the day came, the carriage drove up, the little humble packets
containing tokens of love and remembrance were ready and disposed in
the hall long since--George was in his new suit, for which the tailor
had come previously to measure him.  He had sprung up with the sun and
put on the new clothes, his mother hearing him from the room close by,
in which she had been lying, in speechless grief and watching.  Days
before she had been making preparations for the end, purchasing little
stores for the boy's use, marking his books and linen, talking with him
and preparing him for the change--fondly fancying that he needed
preparation.

So that he had change, what cared he? He was longing for it.  By a
thousand eager declarations as to what he would do, when he went to
live with his grandfather, he had shown the poor widow how little the
idea of parting had cast him down.  "He would come and see his mamma
often on the pony," he said.  "He would come and fetch her in the
carriage; they would drive in the park, and she should have everything
she wanted." The poor mother was fain to content herself with these
selfish demonstrations of attachment, and tried to convince herself how
sincerely her son loved her.  He must love her. All children were so:
a little anxious for novelty, and--no, not selfish, but self-willed.
Her child must have his enjoyments and ambition in the world.  She
herself, by her own selfishness and imprudent love for him had denied
him his just rights and pleasures hitherto.

I know few things more affecting than that timorous debasement and
self-humiliation of a woman.  How she owns that it is she and not the
man who is guilty; how she takes all the faults on her side; how she
courts in a manner punishment for the wrongs which she has not
committed and persists in shielding the real culprit!  It is those who
injure women who get the most kindness from them--they are born timid
and tyrants and maltreat those who are humblest before them.

So poor Amelia had been getting ready in silent misery for her son's
departure, and had passed many and many a long solitary hour in making
preparations for the end. George stood by his mother, watching her
arrangements without the least concern.  Tears had fallen into his
boxes; passages had been scored in his favourite books; old toys,
relics, treasures had been hoarded away for him, and packed with
strange neatness and care--and of all these things the boy took no
note.  The child goes away smiling as the mother breaks her heart.  By
heavens it is pitiful, the bootless love of women for children in
Vanity Fair.

A few days are past, and the great event of Amelia's life is
consummated.  No angel has intervened.  The child is sacrificed and
offered up to fate, and the widow is quite alone.

The boy comes to see her often, to be sure.  He rides on a pony with a
coachman behind him, to the delight of his old grandfather, Sedley, who
walks proudly down the lane by his side.  She sees him, but he is not
her boy any more.  Why, he rides to see the boys at the little school,
too, and to show off before them his new wealth and splendour.  In two
days he has adopted a slightly imperious air and patronizing manner.
He was born to command, his mother thinks, as his father was before him.

It is fine weather now.  Of evenings on the days when he does not come,
she takes a long walk into London--yes, as far as Russell Square, and
rests on the stone by the railing of the garden opposite Mr. Osborne's
house. It is so pleasant and cool.  She can look up and see the
drawing-room windows illuminated, and, at about nine o'clock, the
chamber in the upper story where Georgy sleeps.  She knows--he has told
her.  She prays there as the light goes out, prays with an humble
heart, and walks home shrinking and silent. She is very tired when she
comes home.  Perhaps she will sleep the better for that long weary
walk, and she may dream about Georgy.

One Sunday she happened to be walking in Russell Square, at some
distance from Mr. Osborne's house (she could see it from a distance
though) when all the bells of Sabbath were ringing, and George and his
aunt came out to go to church; a little sweep asked for charity, and
the footman, who carried the books, tried to drive him away; but Georgy
stopped and gave him money.  May God's blessing be on the boy!  Emmy
ran round the square and, coming up to the sweep, gave him her mite
too. All the bells of Sabbath were ringing, and she followed them until
she came to the Foundling Church, into which she went.  There she sat
in a place whence she could see the head of the boy under his father's
tombstone. Many hundred fresh children's voices rose up there and sang
hymns to the Father Beneficent, and little George's soul thrilled with
delight at the burst of glorious psalmody.  His mother could not see
him for awhile, through the mist that dimmed her eyes.

 Six, Forty Seven, Forty Eight, Forty Nine and Fifty The narrative moves to the Sedleys in Chapter Forty Six and explains how Amelia has to scrimp in order to dress Georgy well. His aunt, Jane Osborne, yearns to see him and after the first time Amelia reluctantly allows more contact. On one of these visits Georgy meets his grandfather and afterwards he formally offers to take Georgy and make him heir to his fortune. He would also give Amelia an allowance and would not withdraw it if she married again. If she agrees to this, Georgy would live with the Osborne's permanently and she could see him occasionally. This offers comes in a letter, which is torn up by Amelia in anger. She does not tell her father about it as he has his own concerns. He has entered into another failing venture and Joseph's money is not paid to them any longer. Because of the lack of money, Amelia has to cancel the order for Georgy's new Christmas clothes. She then decides to sell a shawl that Dobbin gave her and buys Georgy some books. Her mother criticizes her for this as she has had to sell every trinket she has. Amelia had not realized the extent of the family's financial problems and gives her the rest of the money she received for the shawl. Amelia believes 'her selfishness was sacrificing the boy' and sees the benefit of Osborne senior's request: Georgy could have the 'wealth, station, education' his father forfeited for her. Chapter Forty Seven changes tack and gives the background to Lord and Lady Steyne's family trees. A mention is made of one of their sons who is thought to be locked up for insanity. Lord Steyne defies this threatening ghost of madness with hedonism. This chapter finishes with a reference to Sir Pitt attending Lord Steyne's parties because, despite his notoriety, he is a 'respectable man' and 'Lord Lieutenant of a County'. In Chapter Forty Eight, Becky is at last rewarded for her 'kindness and attention' to Sir Pitt. His wife, Jane, is to present her to the Sovereign at Court . She takes the lace for her dress from clothes she took from Sir Pitt's London house when it was being renovated and is wearing diamonds that he gave her . Becky lies to Rawdon and tells him that she hired them. After being presented at Court, Becky severs links with her more 'dubious' female friends. She is delighted when Lord Steyne's wife and daughter-in-law leave their calling cards, and is later invited to their home. When Lord Steyne and Becky talk at her home, Briggs annoys him with her sighs. After she has left the room, Becky explains that she cannot turn her out as she has borrowed all of her money. He asks her how much, and she doubles the amount. He gives her this money and with PS150 of it she pays off some of her debts and buys Briggs a gift. She keeps the remainder in one note and hides it in a desk given to her by Amelia. Her jewels are also secreted here. Chapter Forty Nine describes Lord Steyne's battle to get his wife and daughter-in-law to invite Rawdon and Becky to their home. Lady Gaunt is seen to hold 'the very highest rank in Vanity Fair' and is a Bareacre by birth. We are told incidentally that the Bareacres are now bankrupt. At the dinner, Becky refers to their meeting in Brussels and asks Lady Gaunt's mother if her diamonds are safe now. It is not until the ladies are alone that Becky sees the 'correctness' of Lord Steyne's statement that she should 'beware of the society of ladies above her own sphere'. When 'poor little Becky' walks up to a group, they all walk away. Eventually, Lady Steyne takes pity on her and asks her to sing and play the piano. After that, the evening is a success for Becky and when the men enter, they crowd around her. In Chapter Fifty, the Sedleys are in debt to their landlord and since the withdrawal of Joseph's annuity they have been almost on a 'famine diet'. Amelia struggles with the idea of giving up Georgy or marrying Reverend Binny, but can do neither. She writes to Joseph to ask him not to withdraw his support; she does not know that he is still making the payments, but her father sold the annuity to fund one of his schemes. When Sedley admits the truth about Joseph's money, she thinks she must now give up Georgy. She writes to the Osbornes to let them know. Georgy is 'rather elated' when she tells him he is to live with his other grandfather and brags to his friends about how he will go to a finer school. A parallel is then drawn between father and son: 'The boy was the image of his father, as his fond mother thought.' After only two days at the Osborne home, Georgy has developed 'a slightly imperious air and patronizing manner'. On the days when he does not come to Amelia, she sits in Russell Square and looks up to his room and prays.

