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Vanity Fair

W >> William Makepeace Thackeray >> Vanity Fair




"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.



CHAPTER LI

In Which a Charade Is Acted Which May or May Not Puzzle the Reader


After Becky's appearance at my Lord Steyne's private and select
parties, the claims of that estimable woman as regards fashion were
settled, and some of the very greatest and tallest doors in the
metropolis were speedily opened to her--doors so great and tall that
the beloved reader and writer hereof may hope in vain to enter at
them. Dear brethren, let us tremble before those august portals. I
fancy them guarded by grooms of the chamber with flaming silver
forks with which they prong all those who have not the right of the
entree. They say the honest newspaper-fellow who sits in the hall
and takes down the names of the great ones who are admitted to the
feasts dies after a little time. He can't survive the glare of
fashion long. It scorches him up, as the presence of Jupiter in
full dress wasted that poor imprudent Semele--a giddy moth of a
creature who ruined herself by venturing out of her natural
atmosphere. Her myth ought to be taken to heart amongst the
Tyburnians, the Belgravians--her story, and perhaps Becky's too.
Ah, ladies!--ask the Reverend Mr. Thurifer if Belgravia is not a
sounding brass and Tyburnia a tinkling cymbal. These are vanities.
Even these will pass away. And some day or other (but it will be
after our time, thank goodness) Hyde Park Gardens will be no better
known than the celebrated horticultural outskirts of Babylon, and
Belgrave Square will be as desolate as Baker Street, or Tadmor in
the wilderness.

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.

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