Vanity Fair (113 page)

It happened at Rome once that Mrs. de Rawdon's half-year's salary
had just been paid into the principal banker's there, and, as
everybody who had a balance of above five hundred scudi was invited
to the balls which this prince of merchants gave during the winter,
Becky had the honour of a card, and appeared at one of the Prince
and Princess Polonia's splendid evening entertainments. The Princess
was of the family of Pompili, lineally descended from the second
king of Rome, and Egeria of the house of Olympus, while the Prince's
grandfather, Alessandro Polonia, sold wash-balls, essences, tobacco,
and pocket-handkerchiefs, ran errands for gentlemen, and lent money
in a small way. All the great company in Rome thronged to his
saloons—Princes, Dukes, Ambassadors, artists, fiddlers, monsignori,
young bears with their leaders—every rank and condition of man.
His halls blazed with light and magnificence; were resplendent with
gilt frames (containing pictures), and dubious antiques; and the
enormous gilt crown and arms of the princely owner, a gold mushroom
on a crimson field (the colour of the pocket-handkerchiefs which he
sold), and the silver fountain of the Pompili family shone all over
the roof, doors, and panels of the house, and over the grand velvet
baldaquins prepared to receive Popes and Emperors.

So Becky, who had arrived in the diligence from Florence, and was
lodged at an inn in a very modest way, got a card for Prince
Polonia's entertainment, and her maid dressed her with unusual care,
and she went to this fine ball leaning on the arm of Major Loder,
with whom she happened to be travelling at the time—(the same man
who shot Prince Ravoli at Naples the next year, and was caned by Sir
John Buckskin for carrying four kings in his hat besides those which
he used in playing at ecarte )—and this pair went into the rooms
together, and Becky saw a number of old faces which she remembered
in happier days, when she was not innocent, but not found out.
Major Loder knew a great number of foreigners, keen-looking
whiskered men with dirty striped ribbons in their buttonholes, and a
very small display of linen; but his own countrymen, it might be
remarked, eschewed the Major. Becky, too, knew some ladies here and
there—French widows, dubious Italian countesses, whose husbands had
treated them ill—faugh—what shall we say, we who have moved among
some of the finest company of Vanity Fair, of this refuse and
sediment of rascals? If we play, let it be with clean cards, and not
with this dirty pack. But every man who has formed one of the
innumerable army of travellers has seen these marauding irregulars
hanging on, like Nym and Pistol, to the main force, wearing the
king's colours and boasting of his commission, but pillaging for
themselves, and occasionally gibbeted by the roadside.

Well, she was hanging on the arm of Major Loder, and they went
through the rooms together, and drank a great quantity of champagne
at the buffet, where the people, and especially the Major's
irregular corps, struggled furiously for refreshments, of which when
the pair had had enough, they pushed on until they reached the
Duchess's own pink velvet saloon, at the end of the suite of
apartments (where the statue of the Venus is, and the great Venice
looking-glasses, framed in silver), and where the princely family
were entertaining their most distinguished guests at a round table
at supper. It was just such a little select banquet as that of
which Becky recollected that she had partaken at Lord Steyne's—and
there he sat at Polonia's table, and she saw him. The scar cut by
the diamond on his white, bald, shining forehead made a burning red
mark; his red whiskers were dyed of a purple hue, which made his
pale face look still paler. He wore his collar and orders, his blue
ribbon and garter. He was a greater Prince than any there, though
there was a reigning Duke and a Royal Highness, with their
princesses, and near his Lordship was seated the beautiful Countess
of Belladonna, nee de Glandier, whose husband (the Count Paolo della
Belladonna), so well known for his brilliant entomological
collections, had been long absent on a mission to the Emperor of
Morocco.

When Becky beheld that familiar and illustrious face, how vulgar all
of a sudden did Major Loder appear to her, and how that odious
Captain Rook did smell of tobacco! In one instant she reassumed her
fine-ladyship and tried to look and feel as if she were in May Fair
once more. "That woman looks stupid and ill-humoured," she thought;
"I am sure she can't amuse him. No, he must be bored by her—he
never was by me." A hundred such touching hopes, fears, and memories
palpitated in her little heart, as she looked with her brightest
eyes (the rouge which she wore up to her eyelids made them twinkle)
towards the great nobleman. Of a Star and Garter night Lord Steyne
used also to put on his grandest manner and to look and speak like a
great prince, as he was. Becky admired him smiling sumptuously,
easy, lofty, and stately. Ah, bon Dieu, what a pleasant companion
he was, what a brilliant wit, what a rich fund of talk, what a grand
manner!—and she had exchanged this for Major Loder, reeking of
cigars and brandy-and-water, and Captain Rook with his horsejockey
jokes and prize-ring slang, and their like. "I wonder whether he
will know me," she thought. Lord Steyne was talking and laughing
with a great and illustrious lady at his side, when he looked up and
saw Becky.

She was all over in a flutter as their eyes met, and she put on the
very best smile she could muster, and dropped him a little, timid,
imploring curtsey. He stared aghast at her for a minute, as Macbeth
might on beholding Banquo's sudden appearance at his ball-supper,
and remained looking at her with open mouth, when that horrid Major
Loder pulled her away.

"Come away into the supper-room, Mrs. R.," was that gentleman's
remark: "seeing these nobs grubbing away has made me peckish too.
Let's go and try the old governor's champagne." Becky thought the
Major had had a great deal too much already.

The day after she went to walk on the Pincian Hill—the Hyde Park of
the Roman idlers—possibly in hopes to have another sight of Lord
Steyne. But she met another acquaintance there: it was Mr. Fiche,
his lordship's confidential man, who came up nodding to her rather
familiarly and putting a finger to his hat. "I knew that Madame was
here," he said; "I followed her from her hotel. I have some advice
to give Madame."

"From the Marquis of Steyne?" Becky asked, resuming as much of her
dignity as she could muster, and not a little agitated by hope and
expectation.

"No," said the valet; "it is from me. Rome is very unwholesome."

"Not at this season, Monsieur Fiche—not till after Easter."

"I tell Madame it is unwholesome now. There is always malaria for
some people. That cursed marsh wind kills many at all seasons.
Look, Madame Crawley, you were always bon enfant, and I have an
interest in you, parole d'honneur. Be warned. Go away from Rome, I
tell you—or you will be ill and die."

Becky laughed, though in rage and fury. "What! assassinate poor
little me?" she said. "How romantic! Does my lord carry bravos for
couriers, and stilettos in the fourgons? Bah! I will stay, if but
to plague him. I have those who will defend me whilst I am here."

It was Monsieur Fiche's turn to laugh now. "Defend you," he said,
"and who? The Major, the Captain, any one of those gambling men whom
Madame sees would take her life for a hundred louis. We know things
about Major Loder (he is no more a Major than I am my Lord the
Marquis) which would send him to the galleys or worse. We know
everything and have friends everywhere. We know whom you saw at
Paris, and what relations you found there. Yes, Madame may stare,
but we do. How was it that no minister on the Continent would
receive Madame? She has offended somebody: who never forgives—
whose rage redoubled when he saw you. He was like a madman last
night when he came home. Madame de Belladonna made him a scene
about you and fired off in one of her furies."

"Oh, it was Madame de Belladonna, was it?" Becky said, relieved a
little, for the information she had just got had scared her.

"No—she does not matter—she is always jealous. I tell you it was
Monseigneur. You did wrong to show yourself to him. And if you
stay here you will repent it. Mark my words. Go. Here is my
lord's carriage"—and seizing Becky's arm, he rushed down an alley
of the garden as Lord Steyne's barouche, blazing with heraldic
devices, came whirling along the avenue, borne by the almost
priceless horses, and bearing Madame de Belladonna lolling on the
cushions, dark, sulky, and blooming, a King Charles in her lap, a
white parasol swaying over her head, and old Steyne stretched at her
side with a livid face and ghastly eyes. Hate, or anger, or desire
caused them to brighten now and then still, but ordinarily, they
gave no light, and seemed tired of looking out on a world of which
almost all the pleasure and all the best beauty had palled upon the
worn-out wicked old man.

"Monseigneur has never recovered the shock of that night, never,"
Monsieur Fiche whispered to Mrs. Crawley as the carriage flashed by,
and she peeped out at it from behind the shrubs that hid her. "That
was a consolation at any rate," Becky thought.

Whether my lord really had murderous intentions towards Mrs. Becky
as Monsieur Fiche said (since Monseigneur's death he has returned to
his native country, where he lives much respected, and has purchased
from his Prince the title of Baron Ficci), and the factotum objected
to have to do with assassination; or whether he simply had a
commission to frighten Mrs. Crawley out of a city where his Lordship
proposed to pass the winter, and the sight of her would be eminently
disagreeable to the great nobleman, is a point which has never been
ascertained: but the threat had its effect upon the little woman,
and she sought no more to intrude herself upon the presence of her
old patron.

Everybody knows the melancholy end of that nobleman, which befell at
Naples two months after the French Revolution of 1830; when the Most
Honourable George Gustavus, Marquis of Steyne, Earl of Gaunt and of
Gaunt Castle, in the Peerage of Ireland, Viscount Hellborough, Baron
Pitchley and Grillsby, a Knight of the Most Noble Order of the
Garter, of the Golden Fleece of Spain, of the Russian Order of Saint
Nicholas of the First Class, of the Turkish Order of the Crescent,
First Lord of the Powder Closet and Groom of the Back Stairs,
Colonel of the Gaunt or Regent's Own Regiment of Militia, a Trustee
of the British Museum, an Elder Brother of the Trinity House, a
Governor of the White Friars, and D.C.L.—died after a series of
fits brought on, as the papers said, by the shock occasioned to his
lordship's sensibilities by the downfall of the ancient French
monarchy.

An eloquent catalogue appeared in a weekly print, describing his
virtues, his magnificence, his talents, and his good actions. His
sensibility, his attachment to the illustrious House of Bourbon,
with which he claimed an alliance, were such that he could not
survive the misfortunes of his august kinsmen. His body was buried
at Naples, and his heart—that heart which always beat with every
generous and noble emotion was brought back to Castle Gaunt in a
silver urn. "In him," Mr. Wagg said, "the poor and the Fine Arts
have lost a beneficent patron, society one of its most brilliant
ornaments, and England one of her loftiest patriots and statesmen,"
&c., &c.

His will was a good deal disputed, and an attempt was made to force
from Madame de Belladonna the celebrated jewel called the "Jew's-
eye" diamond, which his lordship always wore on his forefinger, and
which it was said that she removed from it after his lamented
demise. But his confidential friend and attendant, Monsieur Fiche
proved that the ring had been presented to the said Madame de
Belladonna two days before the Marquis's death, as were the bank-
notes, jewels, Neapolitan and French bonds, &c., found in his
lordship's secretaire and claimed by his heirs from that injured
woman.

Full of Business and Pleasure

The day after the meeting at the play-table, Jos had himself arrayed
with unusual care and splendour, and without thinking it necessary
to say a word to any member of his family regarding the occurrences
of the previous night, or asking for their company in his walk, he
sallied forth at an early hour, and was presently seen making
inquiries at the door of the Elephant Hotel. In consequence of the
fetes the house was full of company, the tables in the street were
already surrounded by persons smoking and drinking the national
small-beer, the public rooms were in a cloud of smoke, and Mr. Jos
having, in his pompous way, and with his clumsy German, made
inquiries for the person of whom he was in search, was directed to
the very top of the house, above the first-floor rooms where some
travelling pedlars had lived, and were exhibiting their jewellery
and brocades; above the second-floor apartments occupied by the etat
major of the gambling firm; above the third-floor rooms, tenanted by
the band of renowned Bohemian vaulters and tumblers; and so on to
the little cabins of the roof, where, among students, bagmen, small
tradesmen, and country-folks come in for the festival, Becky had
found a little nest—as dirty a little refuge as ever beauty lay hid
in.

Becky liked the life. She was at home with everybody in the place,
pedlars, punters, tumblers, students and all. She was of a wild,
roving nature, inherited from father and mother, who were both
Bohemians, by taste and circumstance; if a lord was not by, she
would talk to his courier with the greatest pleasure; the din, the
stir, the drink, the smoke, the tattle of the Hebrew pedlars, the
solemn, braggart ways of the poor tumblers, the sournois talk of the
gambling-table officials, the songs and swagger of the students, and
the general buzz and hum of the place had pleased and tickled the
little woman, even when her luck was down and she had not
wherewithal to pay her bill. How pleasant was all the bustle to her
now that her purse was full of the money which little Georgy had won
for her the night before!