Vanity Fair (77 page)

So, in a word, Pitt Crawley thought he would do something for his
brother, and then thought that he would think about it some other
time.

And with regard to Becky, she was not a woman who expected too much
from the generosity of her neighbours, and so was quite content with
all that Pitt Crawley had done for her. She was acknowledged by the
head of the family. If Pitt would not give her anything, he would
get something for her some day. If she got no money from her
brother-in-law, she got what was as good as money—credit. Raggles
was made rather easy in his mind by the spectacle of the union
between the brothers, by a small payment on the spot, and by the
promise of a much larger sum speedily to be assigned to him. And
Rebecca told Miss Briggs, whose Christmas dividend upon the little
sum lent by her Becky paid with an air of candid joy, and as if her
exchequer was brimming over with gold—Rebecca, we say, told Miss
Briggs, in strict confidence that she had conferred with Sir Pitt,
who was famous as a financier, on Briggs's special behalf, as to the
most profitable investment of Miss B.'s remaining capital; that Sir
Pitt, after much consideration, had thought of a most safe and
advantageous way in which Briggs could lay out her money; that,
being especially interested in her as an attached friend of the late
Miss Crawley, and of the whole family, and that long before he left
town, he had recommended that she should be ready with the money at
a moment's notice, so as to purchase at the most favourable
opportunity the shares which Sir Pitt had in his eye. Poor Miss
Briggs was very grateful for this mark of Sir Pitt's attention—it
came so unsolicited, she said, for she never should have thought of
removing the money from the funds—and the delicacy enhanced the
kindness of the office; and she promised to see her man of business
immediately and be ready with her little cash at the proper hour.

And this worthy woman was so grateful for the kindness of Rebecca in
the matter, and for that of her generous benefactor, the Colonel,
that she went out and spent a great part of her half-year's dividend
in the purchase of a black velvet coat for little Rawdon, who, by
the way, was grown almost too big for black velvet now, and was of a
size and age befitting him for the assumption of the virile jacket
and pantaloons.

He was a fine open-faced boy, with blue eyes and waving flaxen hair,
sturdy in limb, but generous and soft in heart, fondly attaching
himself to all who were good to him—to the pony—to Lord Southdown,
who gave him the horse (he used to blush and glow all over when he
saw that kind young nobleman)—to the groom who had charge of the
pony—to Molly, the cook, who crammed him with ghost stories at
night, and with good things from the dinner—to Briggs, whom he
plagued and laughed at—and to his father especially, whose
attachment towards the lad was curious too to witness. Here, as he
grew to be about eight years old, his attachments may be said to
have ended. The beautiful mother-vision had faded away after a
while. During near two years she had scarcely spoken to the child.
She disliked him. He had the measles and the hooping-cough. He
bored her. One day when he was standing at the landing-place,
having crept down from the upper regions, attracted by the sound of
his mother's voice, who was singing to Lord Steyne, the drawing room
door opening suddenly, discovered the little spy, who but a moment
before had been rapt in delight, and listening to the music.

His mother came out and struck him violently a couple of boxes on
the ear. He heard a laugh from the Marquis in the inner room (who
was amused by this free and artless exhibition of Becky's temper)
and fled down below to his friends of the kitchen, bursting in an
agony of grief.

"It is not because it hurts me," little Rawdon gasped out—"only—
only"—sobs and tears wound up the sentence in a storm. It was the
little boy's heart that was bleeding. "Why mayn't I hear her
singing? Why don't she ever sing to me—as she does to that
baldheaded man with the large teeth?" He gasped out at various
intervals these exclamations of rage and grief. The cook looked at
the housemaid, the housemaid looked knowingly at the footman—the
awful kitchen inquisition which sits in judgement in every house and
knows everything—sat on Rebecca at that moment.

After this incident, the mother's dislike increased to hatred; the
consciousness that the child was in the house was a reproach and a
pain to her. His very sight annoyed her. Fear, doubt, and
resistance sprang up, too, in the boy's own bosom. They were
separated from that day of the boxes on the ear.

Lord Steyne also heartily disliked the boy. When they met by
mischance, he made sarcastic bows or remarks to the child, or glared
at him with savage-looking eyes. Rawdon used to stare him in the
face and double his little fists in return. He knew his enemy, and
this gentleman, of all who came to the house, was the one who
angered him most. One day the footman found him squaring his fists
at Lord Steyne's hat in the hall. The footman told the circumstance
as a good joke to Lord Steyne's coachman; that officer imparted it
to Lord Steyne's gentleman, and to the servants' hall in general.
And very soon afterwards, when Mrs. Rawdon Crawley made her
appearance at Gaunt House, the porter who unbarred the gates, the
servants of all uniforms in the hall, the functionaries in white
waistcoats, who bawled out from landing to landing the names of
Colonel and Mrs. Rawdon Crawley, knew about her, or fancied they
did. The man who brought her refreshment and stood behind her chair,
had talked her character over with the large gentleman in motley-
coloured clothes at his side. Bon Dieu! it is awful, that servants'
inquisition! You see a woman in a great party in a splendid saloon,
surrounded by faithful admirers, distributing sparkling glances,
dressed to perfection, curled, rouged, smiling and happy—Discovery
walks respectfully up to her, in the shape of a huge powdered man
with large calves and a tray of ices—with Calumny (which is as
fatal as truth) behind him, in the shape of the hulking fellow
carrying the wafer-biscuits. Madam, your secret will be talked over
by those men at their club at the public-house to-night. Jeames
will tell Chawles his notions about you over their pipes and pewter
beer-pots. Some people ought to have mutes for servants in Vanity
Fair—mutes who could not write. If you are guilty, tremble. That
fellow behind your chair may be a Janissary with a bow-string in his
plush breeches pocket. If you are not guilty, have a care of
appearances, which are as ruinous as guilt.

"Was Rebecca guilty or not?" the Vehmgericht of tho servants' hall
had pronounced against her.

And, I shame to say, she would not have got credit had they not
believed her to be guilty. It was the sight of the Marquis of
Steyne's carriage-lamps at her door, contemplated by Raggles,
burning in the blackness of midnight, "that kep him up," as he
afterwards said, that even more than Rebecca's arts and coaxings.

And so—guiltless very likely—she was writhing and pushing onward
towards what they call "a position in society," and the servants
were pointing at her as lost and ruined. So you see Molly, the
housemaid, of a morning, watching a spider in the doorpost lay his
thread and laboriously crawl up it, until, tired of the sport, she
raises her broom and sweeps away the thread and the artificer.

A day or two before Christmas, Becky, her husband and her son made
ready and went to pass the holidays at the seat of their ancestors
at Queen's Crawley. Becky would have liked to leave the little brat
behind, and would have done so but for Lady Jane's urgent
invitations to the youngster, and the symptoms of revolt and
discontent which Rawdon manifested at her neglect of her son. "He's
the finest boy in England," the father said in a tone of reproach to
her, "and you don't seem to care for him, Becky, as much as you do
for your spaniel. He shan't bother you much; at home he will be
away from you in the nursery, and he shall go outside on the coach
with me."

"Where you go yourself because you want to smoke those filthy
cigars," replied Mrs. Rawdon.

"I remember when you liked 'em though," answered the husband.

Becky laughed; she was almost always good-humoured. "That was when I
was on my promotion, Goosey," she said. "Take Rawdon outside with
you and give him a cigar too if you like."

Rawdon did not warm his little son for the winter's journey in this
way, but he and Briggs wrapped up the child in shawls and
comforters, and he was hoisted respectfully onto the roof of the
coach in the dark morning, under the lamps of the White Horse
Cellar; and with no small delight he watched the dawn rise and made
his first journey to the place which his father still called home.
It was a journey of infinite pleasure to the boy, to whom the
incidents of the road afforded endless interest, his father
answering to him all questions connected with it and telling him who
lived in the great white house to the right, and whom the park
belonged to. His mother, inside the vehicle, with her maid and her
furs, her wrappers, and her scent bottles, made such a to-do that
you would have thought she never had been in a stage-coach before—
much less, that she had been turned out of this very one to make
room for a paying passenger on a certain journey performed some
half-score years ago.

It was dark again when little Rawdon was wakened up to enter his
uncle's carriage at Mudbury, and he sat and looked out of it
wondering as the great iron gates flew open, and at the white trunks
of the limes as they swept by, until they stopped, at length, before
the light windows of the Hall, which were blazing and comfortable
with Christmas welcome. The hall-door was flung open—a big fire
was burning in the great old fire-place—a carpet was down over the
chequered black flags—"It's the old Turkey one that used to be in
the Ladies' Gallery," thought Rebecca, and the next instant was
kissing Lady Jane.

She and Sir Pitt performed the same salute with great gravity; but
Rawdon, having been smoking, hung back rather from his sister-in-
law, whose two children came up to their cousin; and, while Matilda
held out her hand and kissed him, Pitt Binkie Southdown, the son and
heir, stood aloof rather and examined him as a little dog does a big
dog.

Then the kind hostess conducted her guests to the snug apartments
blazing with cheerful fires. Then the young ladies came and knocked
at Mrs. Rawdon's door, under the pretence that they were desirous to
be useful, but in reality to have the pleasure of inspecting the
contents of her band and bonnet-boxes, and her dresses which, though
black, were of the newest London fashion. And they told her how
much the Hall was changed for the better, and how old Lady Southdown
was gone, and how Pitt was taking his station in the county, as
became a Crawley in fact. Then the great dinner-bell having rung,
the family assembled at dinner, at which meal Rawdon Junior was
placed by his aunt, the good-natured lady of the house, Sir Pitt
being uncommonly attentive to his sister-in-law at his own right
hand.

Little Rawdon exhibited a fine appetite and showed a gentlemanlike
behaviour.

"I like to dine here," he said to his aunt when he had completed his
meal, at the conclusion of which, and after a decent grace by Sir
Pitt, the younger son and heir was introduced, and was perched on a
high chair by the Baronet's side, while the daughter took possession
of the place and the little wine-glass prepared for her near her
mother. "I like to dine here," said Rawdon Minor, looking up at his
relation's kind face.

"Why?" said the good Lady Jane.

"I dine in the kitchen when I am at home," replied Rawdon Minor, "or
else with Briggs." But Becky was so engaged with the Baronet, her
host, pouring out a flood of compliments and delights and raptures,
and admiring young Pitt Binkie, whom she declared to be the most
beautiful, intelligent, noble-looking little creature, and so like
his father, that she did not hear the remarks of her own flesh and
blood at the other end of the broad shining table.

As a guest, and it being the first night of his arrival, Rawdon the
Second was allowed to sit up until the hour when tea being over, and
a great gilt book being laid on the table before Sir Pitt, all the
domestics of the family streamed in, and Sir Pitt read prayers. It
was the first time the poor little boy had ever witnessed or heard
of such a ceremonial.

The house had been much improved even since the Baronet's brief
reign, and was pronounced by Becky to be perfect, charming,
delightful, when she surveyed it in his company. As for little
Rawdon, who examined it with the children for his guides, it seemed
to him a perfect palace of enchantment and wonder. There were long
galleries, and ancient state bedrooms, there were pictures and old
China, and armour. There were the rooms in which Grandpapa died,
and by which the children walked with terrified looks. "Who was
Grandpapa?" he asked; and they told him how he used to be very old,
and used to be wheeled about in a garden-chair, and they showed him
the garden-chair one day rotting in the out-house in which it had
lain since the old gentleman had been wheeled away yonder to the
church, of which the spire was glittering over the park elms.

The brothers had good occupation for several mornings in examining
the improvements which had been effected by Sir Pitt's genius and
economy. And as they walked or rode, and looked at them, they could
talk without too much boring each other. And Pitt took care to tell
Rawdon what a heavy outlay of money these improvements had
occasioned, and that a man of landed and funded property was often
very hard pressed for twenty pounds. "There is that new lodge-gate,"
said Pitt, pointing to it humbly with the bamboo cane, "I can no
more pay for it before the dividends in January than I can fly."