Vanity Fair (96 page)

GOVERNORSHIP OF COVENTRY ISLAND.—H.M.S. Yellowjack, Commander
Jaunders, has brought letters and papers from Coventry Island. H.
E. Sir Thomas Liverseege had fallen a victim to the prevailing
fever at Swampton. His loss is deeply felt in the flourishing
colony. We hear that the Governorship has been offered to Colonel
Rawdon Crawley, C.B., a distinguished Waterloo officer. We need not
only men of acknowledged bravery, but men of administrative talents
to superintend the affairs of our colonies, and we have no doubt
that the gentleman selected by the Colonial Office to fill the
lamented vacancy which has occurred at Coventry Island is admirably
calculated for the post which he is about to occupy."

"Coventry Island! Where was it? Who had appointed him to the
government? You must take me out as your secretary, old boy,"
Captain Macmurdo said laughing; and as Crawley and his friend sat
wondering and perplexed over the announcement, the Club waiter
brought in to the Colonel a card on which the name of Mr. Wenham was
engraved, who begged to see Colonel Crawley.

The Colonel and his aide-de-camp went out to meet the gentleman,
rightly conjecturing that he was an emissary of Lord Steyne. "How
d'ye do, Crawley? I am glad to see you," said Mr. Wenham with a
bland smile, and grasping Crawley's hand with great cordiality.

"You come, I suppose, from—"

"Exactly," said Mr. Wenham.

"Then this is my friend Captain Macmurdo, of the Life Guards Green."

"Delighted to know Captain Macmurdo, I'm sure," Mr. Wenham said and
tendered another smile and shake of the hand to the second, as he
had done to the principal. Mac put out one finger, armed with a
buckskin glove, and made a very frigid bow to Mr. Wenham over his
tight cravat. He was, perhaps, discontented at being put in
communication with a pekin, and thought that Lord Steyne should have
sent him a Colonel at the very least.

"As Macmurdo acts for me, and knows what I mean," Crawley said, "I
had better retire and leave you together."

"Of course," said Macmurdo.

"By no means, my dear Colonel," Mr. Wenham said; "the interview
which I had the honour of requesting was with you personally, though
the company of Captain Macmurdo cannot fail to be also most
pleasing. In fact, Captain, I hope that our conversation will lead
to none but the most agreeable results, very different from those
which my friend Colonel Crawley appears to anticipate."

"Humph!" said Captain Macmurdo. Be hanged to these civilians, he
thought to himself, they are always for arranging and speechifying.
Mr. Wenham took a chair which was not offered to him—took a paper
from his pocket, and resumed—

"You have seen this gratifying announcement in the papers this
morning, Colonel? Government has secured a most valuable servant,
and you, if you accept office, as I presume you will, an excellent
appointment. Three thousand a year, delightful climate, excellent
government-house, all your own way in the Colony, and a certain
promotion. I congratulate you with all my heart. I presume you
know, gentlemen, to whom my friend is indebted for this piece of
patronage?"

"Hanged if I know," the Captain said; his principal turned very red.

"To one of the most generous and kindest men in the world, as he is
one of the greatest—to my excellent friend, the Marquis of Steyne."

"I'll see him d— before I take his place," growled out Rawdon.

"You are irritated against my noble friend," Mr. Wenham calmly
resumed; "and now, in the name of common sense and justice, tell me
why?"

"WHY?" cried Rawdon in surprise.

"Why? Dammy!" said the Captain, ringing his stick on the ground.

"Dammy, indeed," said Mr. Wenham with the most agreeable smile;
"still, look at the matter as a man of the world—as an honest man—
and see if you have not been in the wrong. You come home from a
journey, and find—what?—my Lord Steyne supping at your house in
Curzon Street with Mrs. Crawley. Is the circumstance strange or
novel? Has he not been a hundred times before in the same position?
Upon my honour and word as a gentleman"—Mr. Wenham here put his
hand on his waistcoat with a parliamentary air—"I declare I think
that your suspicions are monstrous and utterly unfounded, and that
they injure an honourable gentleman who has proved his good-will
towards you by a thousand benefactions—and a most spotless and
innocent lady."

"You don't mean to say that—that Crawley's mistaken?" said Mr.
Macmurdo.

"I believe that Mrs. Crawley is as innocent as my wife, Mrs.
Wenham," Mr. Wenham said with great energy. "I believe that, misled
by an infernal jealousy, my friend here strikes a blow against not
only an infirm and old man of high station, his constant friend and
benefactor, but against his wife, his own dearest honour, his son's
future reputation, and his own prospects in life."

"I will tell you what happened," Mr. Wenham continued with great
solemnity; "I was sent for this morning by my Lord Steyne, and found
him in a pitiable state, as, I need hardly inform Colonel Crawley,
any man of age and infirmity would be after a personal conflict with
a man of your strength. I say to your face; it was a cruel
advantage you took of that strength, Colonel Crawley. It was not
only the body of my noble and excellent friend which was wounded—
his heart, sir, was bleeding. A man whom he had loaded with
benefits and regarded with affection had subjected him to the
foulest indignity. What was this very appointment, which appears in
the journals of to-day, but a proof of his kindness to you? When I
saw his Lordship this morning I found him in a state pitiable indeed
to see, and as anxious as you are to revenge the outrage committed
upon him, by blood. You know he has given his proofs, I presume,
Colonel Crawley?"

"He has plenty of pluck," said the Colonel. "Nobody ever said he
hadn't."

"His first order to me was to write a letter of challenge, and to
carry it to Colonel Crawley. One or other of us," he said, "must
not survive the outrage of last night."

Crawley nodded. "You're coming to the point, Wenham," he said.

"I tried my utmost to calm Lord Steyne. Good God! sir," I said,
"how I regret that Mrs. Wenham and myself had not accepted Mrs.
Crawley's invitation to sup with her!"

"She asked you to sup with her?" Captain Macmurdo said.

"After the opera. Here's the note of invitation—stop—no, this is
another paper—I thought I had h, but it's of no consequence, and I
pledge you my word to the fact. If we had come—and it was only one
of Mrs. Wenham's headaches which prevented us—she suffers under
them a good deal, especially in the spring—if we had come, and you
had returned home, there would have been no quarrel, no insult, no
suspicion—and so it is positively because my poor wife has a
headache that you are to bring death down upon two men of honour and
plunge two of the most excellent and ancient families in the kingdom
into disgrace and sorrow."

Mr. Macmurdo looked at his principal with the air of a man
profoundly puzzled, and Rawdon felt with a kind of rage that his
prey was escaping him. He did not believe a word of the story, and
yet, how discredit or disprove it?

Mr. Wenham continued with the same fluent oratory, which in his
place in Parliament he had so often practised—"I sat for an hour or
more by Lord Steyne's bedside, beseeching, imploring Lord Steyne to
forego his intention of demanding a meeting. I pointed out to him
that the circumstances were after all suspicious—they were
suspicious. I acknowledge it—any man in your position might have
been taken in—I said that a man furious with jealousy is to all
intents and purposes a madman, and should be as such regarded—that
a duel between you must lead to the disgrace of all parties
concerned—that a man of his Lordship's exalted station had no right
in these days, when the most atrocious revolutionary principles, and
the most dangerous levelling doctrines are preached among the
vulgar, to create a public scandal; and that, however innocent, the
common people would insist that he was guilty. In fine, I implored
him not to send the challenge."

"I don't believe one word of the whole story," said Rawdon, grinding
his teeth. "I believe it a d—— lie, and that you're in it, Mr.
Wenham. If the challenge don't come from him, by Jove it shall come
from me."

Mr. Wenham turned deadly pale at this savage interruption of the
Colonel and looked towards the door.

But he found a champion in Captain Macmurdo. That gentleman rose up
with an oath and rebuked Rawdon for his language. "You put the
affair into my hands, and you shall act as I think fit, by Jove, and
not as you do. You have no right to insult Mr. Wenham with this sort
of language; and dammy, Mr. Wenham, you deserve an apology. And as
for a challenge to Lord Steyne, you may get somebody else to carry
it, I won't. If my lord, after being thrashed, chooses to sit
still, dammy let him. And as for the affair with—with Mrs. Crawley,
my belief is, there's nothing proved at all: that your wife's
innocent, as innocent as Mr. Wenham says she is; and at any rate
that you would be a d—fool not to take the place and hold your
tongue."

"Captain Macmurdo, you speak like a man of sense," Mr. Wenham cried
out, immensely relieved—"I forget any words that Colonel Crawley
has used in the irritation of the moment."

"I thought you would," Rawdon said with a sneer.

"Shut your mouth, you old stoopid," the Captain said good-naturedly.
"Mr. Wenham ain't a fighting man; and quite right, too."

"This matter, in my belief," the Steyne emissary cried, "ought to be
buried in the most profound oblivion. A word concerning it should
never pass these doors. I speak in the interest of my friend, as
well as of Colonel Crawley, who persists in considering me his
enemy."

"I suppose Lord Steyne won't talk about it very much," said Captain
Macmurdo; "and I don't see why our side should. The affair ain't a
very pretty one, any way you take it, and the less said about it the
better. It's you are thrashed, and not us; and if you are satisfied,
why, I think, we should be."

Mr. Wenham took his hat, upon this, and Captain Macmurdo following
him to the door, shut it upon himself and Lord Steyne's agent,
leaving Rawdon chafing within. When the two were on the other side,
Macmurdo looked hard at the other ambassador and with an expression
of anything but respect on his round jolly face.

"You don't stick at a trifle, Mr. Wenham," he said.

"You flatter me, Captain Macmurdo," answered the other with a smile.
"Upon my honour and conscience now, Mrs. Crawley did ask us to sup
after the opera."

"Of course; and Mrs. Wenham had one of her head-aches. I say, I've
got a thousand-pound note here, which I will give you if you will
give me a receipt, please; and I will put the note up in an envelope
for Lord Steyne. My man shan't fight him. But we had rather not
take his money."

"It was all a mistake—all a mistake, my dear sir," the other said
with the utmost innocence of manner; and was bowed down the Club
steps by Captain Macmurdo, just as Sir Pitt Crawley ascended them.
There was a slight acquaintance between these two gentlemen, and the
Captain, going back with the Baronet to the room where the latter's
brother was, told Sir Pitt, in confidence, that he had made the
affair all right between Lord Steyne and the Colonel.

Sir Pitt was well pleased, of course, at this intelligence, and
congratulated his brother warmly upon the peaceful issue of the
affair, making appropriate moral remarks upon the evils of duelling
and the unsatisfactory nature of that sort of settlement of
disputes.

And after this preface, he tried with all his eloquence to effect a
reconciliation between Rawdon and his wife. He recapitulated the
statements which Becky had made, pointed out the probabilities of
their truth, and asserted his own firm belief in her innocence.

But Rawdon would not hear of it. "She has kep money concealed from
me these ten years," he said "She swore, last night only, she had
none from Steyne. She knew it was all up, directly I found it. If
she's not guilty, Pitt, she's as bad as guilty, and I'll never see
her again—never." His head sank down on his chest as he spoke the
words, and he looked quite broken and sad.

"Poor old boy," Macmurdo said, shaking his head.

Rawdon Crawley resisted for some time the idea of taking the place
which had been procured for him by so odious a patron, and was also
for removing the boy from the school where Lord Steyne's interest
had placed him. He was induced, however, to acquiesce in these
benefits by the entreaties of his brother and Macmurdo, but mainly
by the latter, pointing out to him what a fury Steyne would be in to
think that his enemy's fortune was made through his means.

When the Marquis of Steyne came abroad after his accident, the
Colonial Secretary bowed up to him and congratulated himself and the
Service upon having made so excellent an appointment. These
congratulations were received with a degree of gratitude which may
be imagined on the part of Lord Steyne.

The secret of the rencontre between him and Colonel Crawley was
buried in the profoundest oblivion, as Wenham said; that is, by the
seconds and the principals. But before that evening was over it was
talked of at fifty dinner-tables in Vanity Fair. Little Cackleby
himself went to seven evening parties and told the story with
comments and emendations at each place. How Mrs. Washington White
revelled in it! The Bishopess of Ealing was shocked beyond
expression; the Bishop went and wrote his name down in the visiting-
book at Gaunt House that very day. Little Southdown was sorry; so
you may be sure was his sister Lady Jane, very sorry. Lady
Southdown wrote it off to her other daughter at the Cape of Good
Hope. It was town-talk for at least three days, and was only kept
out of the newspapers by the exertions of Mr. Wagg, acting upon a
hint from Mr. Wenham.