Vanity Fair (87 page)

Ladies, are you aware that the great Pitt lived in Baker Street?
What would not your grandmothers have given to be asked to Lady
Hester's parties in that now decayed mansion? I have dined in it—
moi qui vous parle, I peopled the chamber with ghosts of the mighty
dead. As we sat soberly drinking claret there with men of to-day,
the spirits of the departed came in and took their places round the
darksome board. The pilot who weathered the storm tossed off great
bumpers of spiritual port; the shade of Dundas did not leave the
ghost of a heeltap. Addington sat bowing and smirking in a ghastly
manner, and would not be behindhand when the noiseless bottle went
round; Scott, from under bushy eyebrows, winked at the apparition of
a beeswing; Wilberforce's eyes went up to the ceiling, so that he
did not seem to know how his glass went up full to his mouth and
came down empty; up to the ceiling which was above us only
yesterday, and which the great of the past days have all looked at.
They let the house as a furnished lodging now. Yes, Lady Hester
once lived in Baker Street, and lies asleep in the wilderness.
Eothen saw her there—not in Baker Street, but in the other
solitude.

It is all vanity to be sure, but who will not own to liking a little
of it? I should like to know what well-constituted mind, merely
because it is transitory, dislikes roast beef? That is a vanity, but
may every man who reads this have a wholesome portion of it through
life, I beg: aye, though my readers were five hundred thousand.
Sit down, gentlemen, and fall to, with a good hearty appetite; the
fat, the lean, the gravy, the horse-radish as you like it—don't
spare it. Another glass of wine, Jones, my boy—a little bit of the
Sunday side. Yes, let us eat our fill of the vain thing and be
thankful therefor. And let us make the best of Becky's aristocratic
pleasures likewise—for these too, like all other mortal delights,
were but transitory.

The upshot of her visit to Lord Steyne was that His Highness the
Prince of Peterwaradin took occasion to renew his acquaintance with
Colonel Crawley, when they met on the next day at the Club, and to
compliment Mrs. Crawley in the Ring of Hyde Park with a profound
salute of the hat. She and her husband were invited immediately to
one of the Prince's small parties at Levant House, then occupied by
His Highness during the temporary absence from England of its noble
proprietor. She sang after dinner to a very little comite. The
Marquis of Steyne was present, paternally superintending the
progress of his pupil.

At Levant House Becky met one of the finest gentlemen and greatest
ministers that Europe has produced—the Duc de la Jabotiere, then
Ambassador from the Most Christian King, and subsequently Minister
to that monarch. I declare I swell with pride as these august names
are transcribed by my pen, and I think in what brilliant company my
dear Becky is moving. She became a constant guest at the French
Embassy, where no party was considered to be complete without the
presence of the charming Madame Ravdonn Cravley. Messieurs de
Truffigny (of the Perigord family) and Champignac, both attaches of
the Embassy, were straightway smitten by the charms of the fair
Colonel's wife, and both declared, according to the wont of their
nation (for who ever yet met a Frenchman, come out of England, that
has not left half a dozen families miserable, and brought away as
many hearts in his pocket-book?), both, I say, declared that they
were au mieux with the charming Madame Ravdonn.

But I doubt the correctness of the assertion. Champignac was very
fond of ecarte, and made many parties with the Colonel of evenings,
while Becky was singing to Lord Steyne in the other room; and as for
Truffigny, it is a well-known fact that he dared not go to the
Travellers', where he owed money to the waiters, and if he had not
had the Embassy as a dining-place, the worthy young gentleman must
have starved. I doubt, I say, that Becky would have selected either
of these young men as a person on whom she would bestow her special
regard. They ran of her messages, purchased her gloves and flowers,
went in debt for opera-boxes for her, and made themselves amiable in
a thousand ways. And they talked English with adorable simplicity,
and to the constant amusement of Becky and my Lord Steyne, she would
mimic one or other to his face, and compliment him on his advance in
the English language with a gravity which never failed to tickle the
Marquis, her sardonic old patron. Truffigny gave Briggs a shawl by
way of winning over Becky's confidante, and asked her to take charge
of a letter which the simple spinster handed over in public to the
person to whom it was addressed, and the composition of which amused
everybody who read it greatly. Lord Steyne read it, everybody but
honest Rawdon, to whom it was not necessary to tell everything that
passed in the little house in May Fair.

Here, before long, Becky received not only "the best" foreigners (as
the phrase is in our noble and admirable society slang), but some of
the best English people too. I don't mean the most virtuous, or
indeed the least virtuous, or the cleverest, or the stupidest, or
the richest, or the best born, but "the best,"—in a word, people
about whom there is no question—such as the great Lady Fitz-Willis,
that Patron Saint of Almack's, the great Lady Slowbore, the great
Lady Grizzel Macbeth (she was Lady G. Glowry, daughter of Lord Grey
of Glowry), and the like. When the Countess of Fitz-Willis (her
Ladyship is of the Kingstreet family, see Debrett and Burke) takes
up a person, he or she is safe. There is no question about them any
more. Not that my Lady Fitz-Willis is any better than anybody else,
being, on the contrary, a faded person, fifty-seven years of age,
and neither handsome, nor wealthy, nor entertaining; but it is
agreed on all sides that she is of the "best people." Those who go
to her are of the best: and from an old grudge probably to Lady
Steyne (for whose coronet her ladyship, then the youthful Georgina
Frederica, daughter of the Prince of Wales's favourite, the Earl of
Portansherry, had once tried), this great and famous leader of the
fashion chose to acknowledge Mrs. Rawdon Crawley; made her a most
marked curtsey at the assembly over which she presided; and not only
encouraged her son, St. Kitts (his lordship got his place through
Lord Steyne's interest), to frequent Mrs. Crawley's house, but asked
her to her own mansion and spoke to her twice in the most public and
condescending manner during dinner. The important fact was known
all over London that night. People who had been crying fie about
Mrs. Crawley were silent. Wenham, the wit and lawyer, Lord Steyne's
right-hand man, went about everywhere praising her: some who had
hesitated, came forward at once and welcomed her; little Tom Toady,
who had warned Southdown about visiting such an abandoned woman, now
besought to be introduced to her. In a word, she was admitted to be
among the "best" people. Ah, my beloved readers and brethren, do
not envy poor Becky prematurely—glory like this is said to be
fugitive. It is currently reported that even in the very inmost
circles, they are no happier than the poor wanderers outside the
zone; and Becky, who penetrated into the very centre of fashion and
saw the great George IV face to face, has owned since that there too
was Vanity.

We must be brief in descanting upon this part of her career. As I
cannot describe the mysteries of freemasonry, although I have a
shrewd idea that it is a humbug, so an uninitiated man cannot take
upon himself to portray the great world accurately, and had best
keep his opinions to himself, whatever they are.

Becky has often spoken in subsequent years of this season of her
life, when she moved among the very greatest circles of the London
fashion. Her success excited, elated, and then bored her. At first
no occupation was more pleasant than to invent and procure (the
latter a work of no small trouble and ingenuity, by the way, in a
person of Mrs. Rawdon Crawley's very narrow means)—to procure, we
say, the prettiest new dresses and ornaments; to drive to fine
dinner parties, where she was welcomed by great people; and from the
fine dinner parties to fine assemblies, whither the same people came
with whom she had been dining, whom she had met the night before,
and would see on the morrow—the young men faultlessly appointed,
handsomely cravatted, with the neatest glossy boots and white
gloves—the elders portly, brass-buttoned, noble-looking, polite,
and prosy—the young ladies blonde, timid, and in pink—the mothers
grand, beautiful, sumptuous, solemn, and in diamonds. They talked
in English, not in bad French, as they do in the novels. They
talked about each others' houses, and characters, and families—just
as the Joneses do about the Smiths. Becky's former acquaintances
hated and envied her; the poor woman herself was yawning in spirit.
"I wish I were out of it," she said to herself. "I would rather be
a parson's wife and teach a Sunday school than this; or a sergeant's
lady and ride in the regimental waggon; or, oh, how much gayer it
would be to wear spangles and trousers and dance before a booth at a
fair."

"You would do it very well," said Lord Steyne, laughing. She used to
tell the great man her ennuis and perplexities in her artless way—
they amused him.

"Rawdon would make a very good Ecuyer—Master of the Ceremonies—
what do you call him—the man in the large boots and the uniform,
who goes round the ring cracking the whip? He is large, heavy, and
of a military figure. I recollect," Becky continued pensively, "my
father took me to see a show at Brookgreen Fair when I was a child,
and when we came home, I made myself a pair of stilts and danced in
the studio to the wonder of all the pupils."

"I should have liked to see it," said Lord Steyne.

"I should like to do it now," Becky continued. "How Lady Blinkey
would open her eyes, and Lady Grizzel Macbeth would stare! Hush!
silence! there is Pasta beginning to sing." Becky always made a
point of being conspicuously polite to the professional ladies and
gentlemen who attended at these aristocratic parties—of following
them into the corners where they sat in silence, and shaking hands
with them, and smiling in the view of all persons. She was an
artist herself, as she said very truly; there was a frankness and
humility in the manner in which she acknowledged her origin, which
provoked, or disarmed, or amused lookers-on, as the case might be.
"How cool that woman is," said one; "what airs of independence she
assumes, where she ought to sit still and be thankful if anybody
speaks to her!" "What an honest and good-natured soul she is!" said
another. "What an artful little minx" said a third. They were all
right very likely, but Becky went her own way, and so fascinated the
professional personages that they would leave off their sore throats
in order to sing at her parties and give her lessons for nothing.

Yes, she gave parties in the little house in Curzon Street. Many
scores of carriages, with blazing lamps, blocked up the street, to
the disgust of No. 100, who could not rest for the thunder of the
knocking, and of 102, who could not sleep for envy. The gigantic
footmen who accompanied the vehicles were too big to be contained in
Becky's little hall, and were billeted off in the neighbouring
public-houses, whence, when they were wanted, call-boys summoned
them from their beer. Scores of the great dandies of London squeezed
and trod on each other on the little stairs, laughing to find
themselves there; and many spotless and severe ladies of ton were
seated in the little drawing-room, listening to the professional
singers, who were singing according to their wont, and as if they
wished to blow the windows down. And the day after, there appeared
among the fashionable reunions in the Morning Post a paragraph to
the following effect:

"Yesterday, Colonel and Mrs. Crawley entertained a select party at
dinner at their house in May Fair. Their Excellencies the Prince
and Princess of Peterwaradin, H. E. Papoosh Pasha, the Turkish
Ambassador (attended by Kibob Bey, dragoman of the mission), the
Marquess of Steyne, Earl of Southdown, Sir Pitt and Lady Jane
Crawley, Mr. Wagg, &c. After dinner Mrs. Crawley had an assembly
which was attended by the Duchess (Dowager) of Stilton, Duc de la
Gruyere, Marchioness of Cheshire, Marchese Alessandro Strachino,
Comte de Brie, Baron Schapzuger, Chevalier Tosti, Countess of
Slingstone, and Lady F. Macadam, Major-General and Lady G.
Macbeth, and (2) Miss Macbeths; Viscount Paddington, Sir Horace
Fogey, Hon. Sands Bedwin, Bobachy Bahawder," and an &c., which the
reader may fill at his pleasure through a dozen close lines of small
type.

And in her commerce with the great our dear friend showed the same
frankness which distinguished her transactions with the lowly in
station. On one occasion, when out at a very fine house, Rebecca
was (perhaps rather ostentatiously) holding a conversation in the
French language with a celebrated tenor singer of that nation, while
the Lady Grizzel Macbeth looked over her shoulder scowling at the
pair.

"How very well you speak French," Lady Grizzel said, who herself
spoke the tongue in an Edinburgh accent most remarkable to hear.

"I ought to know it," Becky modestly said, casting down her eyes.
"I taught it in a school, and my mother was a Frenchwoman."

Lady Grizzel was won by her humility and was mollified towards the
little woman. She deplored the fatal levelling tendencies of the
age, which admitted persons of all classes into the society of their
superiors, but her ladyship owned that this one at least was well
behaved and never forgot her place in life. She was a very good
woman: good to the poor; stupid, blameless, unsuspicious. It is not
her ladyship's fault that she fancies herself better than you and
me. The skirts of her ancestors' garments have been kissed for
centuries; it is a thousand years, they say, since the tartans of
the head of the family were embraced by the defunct Duncan's lords
and councillors, when the great ancestor of the House became King of
Scotland.