Vanity Fair (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

by William Makepeace Thackeray

  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 whooping-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 bald-headed 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 misliked 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!mu 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 carry-ing 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 Chawls 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 janissarymv with a bow-string in his plush breeches pocket. If you are not guilty, a care of appearances: which are as ruinous as guilt.

  ‘Was Rebecca guilty or not?‘ The vehmgerichtmw of the 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 on to 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 ol
d 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 young 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, intelli gent, 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.

  THE ARRIVAL AT QUEEN‘S CRAWLEY

  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 outhouse 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.‘

  ‘I can lend you, Pitt, till then,‘ Rawdon answered rather ruefully; and they went in and looked at the restored lodge, where the family arms were just new scraped in stone; and where old Mrs. Lock, for the first time these many long years, had tight doors, sound roofs, and whole windows.

  CHAPTER XLV

  Between Hampshire and London

  Sir Pitt Crawley had done more than repair fences and restore dilapidated lodges on the Queen‘s Crawley estate. Like a wise man he had set to work to rebuild the injured popularity of his house, and stop up the gaps and ruins in which his name had been left by his disreputable and thriftless old predecessor. He was elected for the borough speedily after his father‘s demise; a magistrate, a member of Parliament, a county magnate and representative of an ancient family, he made it his duty to show himself before the Hampshire public, subscribed handsomely to the county charities, called assiduously upon all the county folks, and laid himself out in a word to take that position in Hampshire, and in the Empire afterwards, to which he thought his prodigious talents justly entitled him. Lady Jane was instructed to be friendly with the Fuddlestones, and the Wapshots, and the other famous baronets, their neighbours. Their carriages might frequently be seen in the Queen‘s Crawley avenue now; they dined pretty frequently at the Hall (where the cookery was so good, that it was clear Lady Jane very seldom had a hand in it), and in return Pitt and his wife most energetically dined out in all sorts of weather, and at all sorts of distances. For though Pitt did not care for joviality, being a frigid man of poor health and appetite, yet he considered that to be hospitable and condescending was quite incumbent on his station, and every time that he got a headache from too long an after-dinner sitting, he felt that he was a martyr to duty. He talked about crops, corn laws, politics, with the best country gentlemen. He (who had been formerly inclined to be a sad freethinker on these points) entered into poaching and game preserving with ardour. He didn‘t hunt: he wasn‘t a hunting man: he was a man of books and peaceful habits: but he thought that the breed of horses must be kept up in the country, and that the breed of foxes must therefore be looked to, and for his part, if his friend Sir Huddlestone Fuddlestone, liked to draw his country,mx and meet as of old the F. hounds used to do at Queen‘s Crawley, he should be happy to see him there, and the gentlemen of the Fuddlestone Hunt. And to Lady Southdown‘s dismay too he became orthodox in his tendencies every day: gave up preaching in public and attending meeting-houses; went stoutly to church: called on the bishop, and all the clergy at Winchester: and made no objection when the Venerable Archdeacon Trumper asked for a game of whist. What pangs must have been those of Lady Southdown, and what an utter castaway she must have thought her son-in-law for permitting such a godless diversion! and when, on the return of the family from an oratorio at Winchester, the baronet announced to the young ladies that he should next year very probably take them to the ‘county balls‘, they worshipped him for his kindness. Lady Jane was only too obedient, and perhaps glad herself to go. The dowager wrote off the direst descriptions of her daughter‘s worldly behaviour to the authoress of the Washerwoman of Finchley Common at the Cape; and her house in Brighton being about this time unoccupied, returned to that watering-place, her absence being not very much deplored by her children. We may suppose, too, that Rebecca, on paying a second visit to Queen‘s Crawley, did not feel particularly grieved at the absence of the lady of the medicine-chest; though she wrote a Christmas letter to her ladyship, in which she respectfully recalled herself to Lady Southdown‘s recollection, spoke with gratitude of the delight which her ladyship‘s conversation had given her on the former visit, dilated on the kindness with which her ladyship had treated her in sickness, and declared that everything at Queen‘s Crawley reminded her of her absent friend.

  A great part of the altered demeanour and popularity of Sir Pitt Crawley might have been traced to the counsels of that astute little lady of Curzon Street. ‘You remain a baronet—you consent to be a mere country gentleman,‘ she said to him, while he had been her guest in London. ‘No, Sir Pitt Crawley, I know you better. I know your talents and your ambition. You fancy you hide them both: but you can conceal neither from me. I showed Lord Steyne your pamphlet on malt. He was familiar with it: and said it was in the opinion of the whole Cabinet the most masterly thing that had appeared on the subject. The Ministry has its eye upon you, and I know what you want. You want to distinguish yourself in Parliament; every one says you are the finest speaker in England (for your speeches at Oxford are still remembered). You want to be member for the county, where with your own vote and your borough at your back, you can command anything.23 And you want to be Baron Crawley of Queen‘s Crawley, and will be before you die. I saw it all. I could read your heart, Sir Pitt. If I had a husband who possessed your intellect as he does your name, I sometimes think I should not be unworthy of him—but—but I am your kinswoman now,‘ she added with a laugh. ‘Poor little penniless I have got a little interest—and who knows, perhaps the mouse may be abl
e to aid the lion.‘

  Pitt Crawley was amazed and enraptured with her speech. ‘How that woman comprehends me!‘ he said. ‘I never could get Jane to read these pages of the malt pamphlet. She has no idea that I have commanding talents or secret ambition. So they remember my speaking at Oxford, do they? The rascals! now that I represent my borough and may sit for the county, they begin to recollect me! Why, Lord Steyne cut me at the Levee last year: they are beginning to find out that Pitt Crawley is some one at last. Yes, the man was always the same whom these people neglected: it was only the opportunity that was wanting, and I will show them now that I can speak and act as well as write. Achilles did not declare himself until they gave him the sword.my I hold it now, and the world shall yet hear of Pitt Crawley.‘

  Therefore it was that this roguish diplomatist had grown so hospitable; that he was so civil to oratorios and hospitals; so kind to deans and chapters; mz so generous in giving and accepting dinners; so uncommonly gracious to farmers on market-days; and so much interested about county business; and that the Christmas at the Hall was the gayest which had been known there for many a long day.

  On Christmas Day a great family gathering took place. All the Crawleys from the Rectory came to dine. Rebecca was as frank and fond of Mrs. Bute, as if the other had never been her enemy: she was affectionately interested in the dear girls, and surprised at the progress which they had made in music since her time: and insisted upon encoring one of the duets out of the great song-books which Jim, grumbling, had been forced to bring under his arm from the Rectory. Mrs. Bute, perforce, was obliged to adopt a decent demeanour towards the little adventuress—of course being free to discourse with her daughters afterwards about the absurd respect with which Sir Pitt treated his sister-in-law. But Jim, who had sat next to her at dinner, declared she was a trump: and one and all of the rector‘s family agreed that the little Rawdon was a fine boy. They respected a possible baronet in the boy, between whom and the title there was only the little sickly pale Pitt Binkie.