Vanity Fair (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

by William Makepeace Thackeray

  At the French chancellerie they had six more lampions in their illumination than ours had; but our transparency, which represented the young couple advancing, and Discord flying away, with the most ludicrous likeness to the French ambassador, beat the French picture hollow; and I have no doubt got Tapeworm the advancement and the Cross of the Bath, which he subsequently attained.

  Crowds of foreigners arrived for the fêtes: and of English of course. Besides the Court balls, public balls were given at the Town Hall and the Redoute, and in the former place there was a room for trente-et-quarante and roulette established, for the week of the festivities only, and by one of the great German companies from Ems or Aix-la-Chapelle. The officers or inhabitants of the town were not allowed to play at these games, but strangers, peasants, ladies were admitted, and any one who chose to lose or win money.

  That little scapegrace Georgy Osborne amongst others, whose pockets were always full of dollars, and whose relations were away at the grand festival of the Court, came ta the Stadthaus ball in company of his uncle‘s courier, Mr. Kirsch, and having only peeped into a play-room at Baden-Baden when he hung on Dobbin‘s arm, and where, of course, he was not permitted to gamble, came eagerly to this part of the entertainment, and hankered round the tables where the croupiers and the punters were at work. Women were playing; they were masked, some of them; this licence was allowed in these wild times of carnival.

  A woman with light hair, in a low dress, by no means so fresh as it had been, and with a black mask on, through the eyelets of which her eyes twinkled strangely, was seated at one of the roulette-tables with a card and a pin, and a couple of forms before her. As the croupier called out the colour and number, she pricked on the card with great care and regularity, and only ventured her money on the colours after the red or black had come up a certain number of times. It was strange to look at her.

  But in spite of her care and assiduity she guessed wrong, and the last two forms followed each other under the croupier‘s rake, as he cried out, with his inexorable voice, the winning colour and number. She gave a sigh, a shrug with her shoulders, which were already too much out of her gown, and dashing the pin through the card on to the table, sat thrumming it for a while. Then she looked round her, and saw Georgy‘s honest face staring at the scene. The little scamp! what business had he to be there?

  When she saw the boy, at whose face she looked hard through her shining eyes and mask, she said, ‘Monsieur n‘est pas joueur.‘ua

  ‘Non, madame,‘ said the boy: but she must have known, from his accent, of what country he was, for she answered him, with a slight foreign tone, ‘You have nevare played—will you do me a littl‘ favour?‘

  ‘What is it?‘ said Georgy, blushing again. Mr. Kirsch was at work for his part at the rouge et noir, and did not see his young master.

  ‘Play this for me, if you please, put it on any number, any number.‘ And she took from her bosom a purse, and out of it a gold piece, the only coin there, and she put it into George‘s hand. The boy laughed, and did as he was bid. The number came up sure enough. There is a power that arranges that, they say, for beginners.

  ‘Thank you,‘ said she, pulling the money towards her; ‘thank you. What is your name?‘

  ‘My name‘s Osborne,‘ said Georgy, and was fingering in his own pockets for dollars, and just about to make a trial, when the major, in his uniform, and Jos, en marquis,ub from the Court ball, made their appearance. Other people finding the entertainment stupid, and preferring the fun at the Stadthaus, had quitted the palace ball earlier; but it is probable the major and Jos had gone home and found the boy‘s absence, for the former instantly went up to him, and taking him by the shoulder, pulled him briskly back from the place of temptation. Then; looking round the room, he saw Kirsch employed as we have said, and going up to him, asked how he dared to bring Mr. George to such a place.

  ‘Laissez-moi tranquille,‘ said Mr. Kirsch, very much excited by play and wine. ‘Il faut s‘amuser, parbleu. Je ne suis pas au service de monsieur.‘uc

  Seeing his condition, the major did not choose to argue with the man; but contented himself with drawing away George, and asking Jos if he would come away. He was standing close by the lady in the mask, who was playing with pretty good luck now; and looking on much interested at the game.

  ‘Hadn‘t you better come, Jos,‘ the major said, ‘with George and me?‘

  ‘I‘ll stop and go home with that rascal, Kirsch,‘ Jos said; and for the same reason of modesty, which he thought ought to be preserved before the boy, Dobbin did not care to remonstrate with Jos, but left him and walked home with Georgy.

  ‘Did you play?‘ asked the major, when they were out, and on their way home.

  The boy said, ‘No.‘

  ‘Give me your word of honour as a gentleman, that you never will.‘

  ‘Why?‘ said the boy: ‘it seems very good fun.‘ And, in a very eloquent and impressive manner, the major showed him why he shouldn‘t, and would have enforced his precepts by the example of Georgy‘s own father, had he liked to say anything that should reflect on the other‘s memory. When he had housed him he went to bed, and saw his light, in the little room outside of Amelia‘s, presently disappear. Amelia‘s followed half an hour afterwards. I don‘t know what made the major note it so accurately.

  Jos, however, remained behind over the play-table; he was no gambler, but not averse to the little excitement of the sport now and then; and he had some napoleons chinking in the embroidered pockets of his Court waistcoat. He put down one over the fair shoulder of the little gambler before him, and they won. She made a little movement to make room for him by her side, and just took the skirt of her gown from a vacant chair there.

  ‘Come and give me good luck,‘ she said, still in a foreign accent, quite different from that frank and perfectly English ‘Thank. you,‘ with which she had saluted Georgy‘s coup in her favour. The portly gentleman, looking round to see that nobody of rank observed him, sat down; he muttered, ‘Ah, really, well now, God bless my soul. I‘m very fortunate; I‘m sure to give you good fortune,‘—and other words of compliment and confusion.

  ‘Do you play much?‘ the foreign mask said.

  ‘I put a nap or two down,‘ said Jos, with a superb air, flinging down a gold piece.

  ‘Yes; ay nap after dinner,‘ said the mask, archly. But Jos looking frightened, she continued, in her pretty French accent, ‘You do not play to win. No more do I. I play to forget, but I cannot. I cannot forget old times, monsieur. Your little nephew is the image of his father; and you—you are not changed—but yes, you are. Everybody changes, everybody forgets; nobody has ay heart.‘

  ‘Good Ged, who is it?‘ asked Jos, in a flutter.

  ‘Can‘t you guess, Joseph Sedley?‘ said the little woman, in a sad voice, and undoing her mask, she looked at him. ‘You have forgotten me.‘

  ‘Good Heavens! Mrs. Crawley!‘ gasped out Jos.

  ‘Rebecca,‘ said the other, putting her hand on his; but she followed the game still, all the time she was looking at him.

  ‘I am stopping at the “Elephant”,‘ she continued. ‘Ask for Madame de Raudon. I saw my dear Amelia to-day; how pretty she looked, and how happy! So do you! Everybody but me, who am wretched, Joseph Sedley.‘ And she put her money over from the red to the black, as if by a chance movement of her hand, and while she was wiping her eyes with a pocket-handkerchief fringed with torn lace.

  The red came up again, and she lost the whole of that stake. ‘Come away,‘ she said. ‘Come with me a little—we are old friends, are we not, dear Mr. Sedley?‘

  And Mr. Kirsch having lost all his money by this time, followed his master out into the moonlight, where the illuminations were winking out, and the transparency over our mission was scarcely visible.

  CHAPTER LXIV

  A Vagabond Chapter30

  We must pass over a part of Mrs. Rebecca Crawley‘s biography with that lightness and delicacy which the world demands—the moral world, th
at has, perhaps, no particular objection to vice, but an insuperable repugnance to hearing vice called by its proper name. There are things we do and know perfectly well in Vanity Fair, though we never speak them: as the Ahrimaniansud worship the devil, but don‘t mention him: and a polite public will no more bear to read an authentic description of vice than a truly-refined English or American female will permit the word ‘breeches‘ to be pronounced in her chaste hearing. And yet, madam, both are walking the world before our faces every day without much shocking us. If you were to blush every time they went by, what complexions you would have! It is only when their naughty names are called out that your modesty has any occasion to show alarm or sense of outrage, and it has been the wish of the present writer, all through this story, deferentially to submit to the fashion at present prevailing, and only to hint at the existence of wickedness in a light, easy, and agreeable manner, so that nobody‘s fine feelings may be offended. I defy any one to say that our Becky, who has certainly some vices, has not been presented to the public in a perfectly genteel and inoffensive manner. In describing this siren, singing and smiling, coaxing and cajoling, the author, with modest pride, asks his readers all round, has he once forgotten the laws of politeness, and showed the monster‘s hideous tail above water? No! Those who like may peep down under waves that are pretty transparent, and see it writhing and twirling, diabolically hideous and slimy, flapping amongst bones, or curling round corpses; but above the water line, I ask, has not everything been proper, agreeable, and decorous, and has any the most squeamish immoralist in Vanity Fair a right to cry fie? When, however, the siren disappears and dives below, down among the dead men, the water of course grows turbid over her, and it is labour lost to look into it ever so curiously. They look pretty enough when they sit upon a rock, twanging their harps and combing their hair, and sing, and beckon to you to come and hold the looking-glass; but when they sink into their native element, depend on it those mermaids are about no good, and we had best not examine the fiendish marine cannibals, revelling and feasting on their wretched pickled victims. And so, when Becky is out of the way, be sure that she is not particularly well employed, and that the less that is said about her doings is in fact the better.

  If we were to give a full account of her proceedings during a couple of years that followed after the Curzon Street catastrophe, there might be some reason for people to say this book was improper. The actions of very vain, heartless, pleasure-seeking people are very often improper (as are many of yours, my friend with the grave face and spotless reputation;—but that is merely by the way); and what are those of a woman without faith—or love—or character? And I am inclined to think that there was a period in Mrs. Becky‘s life, when she was seized, not by remorse, but by a kind of despair, and absolutely neglected her person, and did not even care for her reputation.

  This abattementue and degradation did not take place all at once: it was brought about by degrees, after her calamity, and after many struggles to keep up—as a man who goes overboard hangs on to a spar whilst any hope is left, and then flings it away and goes down, when he finds that struggling is in vain.

  She lingered about London whilst her husband was making preparations for his departure to his seat of government; and it is believed made more than one attempt to see her brother-in-law, Sir Pitt Crawley, and to work upon his feelings which she had almost enlisted in her favour. As Sir Pitt and Mr. Wenham were walking down to the House of Commons, the latter spied Mrs. Rawdon in a black veil, and lurking near the palace of the legislature. She sneaked away when her eyes met those of Wenham, and indeed never succeeded in her designs upon the baronet.

  Probably Lady Jane interposed. I have heard that she quite astonished her husband by the spirit which she exhibited in this quarrel, and her determination to disown Mrs. Becky. Of her own movement, she invited Rawdon to come and stop in Gaunt Street until his departure for Coventry Island, knowing that with him for a guard Mrs. Becky would not try to force her door: and she looked curiously at the superscriptions of all the letters which arrived for Sir Pitt, lest he and his sister-in-law should be cor responding. Not but that Rebecca could have written had she a mind: but she did not try to see or to write to Pitt at his own house, and after one or two attempts consented to his demand that the correspondence regarding her conjugal differences should be carried on by lawyers only.

  The fact was, that Pitt‘s mind had been poisoned against her. A short time after Lord Steyne‘s accident Wenham had been with the baronet; and given him such a biography of Mrs. Becky as had astonished the member for Queen‘s Crawley. He knew everything regarding her; who her father was; in what year her mother danced at the Opera; what had been her previous history, and what her conduct during her married life:—as I have no doubt that the greater part of the story was false and dictated by interested malevolence, it shall not be repeated here. But Becky was left with a sad, sad reputation in the esteem of a country gentleman and relative who had been once rather partial to her.

  The revenues of the governor of Coventry Island are not large. A part of them were set aside by his excellency for the payment of certain outstanding debts and liabilities, the charges incident on his high situation required considerable expense; finally, it was found that he could not spare to his wife more than three hundred pounds a year, which he proposed to pay to her on an undertaking that she would never trouble him. Otherwise: scandal, separation, Doctors‘ Commonsuf would ensue. But it was Mr. Wenham‘s business, Lord Steyne‘s business, Rawdon‘s, everybody‘s—to get her out of the country, and hush up a most disagreeable affair.

  She was probably so much occupied in arranging these affairs of business with her husband‘s lawyers, that she forgot to take any step whatever about her son, the little Rawdon, and did not even once propose to go and see him. That young gentleman was consigned to the entire guardianship of his aunt and uncle, the former of whom had always possessed a great share of the child‘s affection. His mamma wrote him a neat letter from Boulogne when she quitted England, in which she requested him to mind his book, and said she was going to take a Continental tour, during which she would have the pleasure of writing to him again. But she never did for a year afterwards, and not indeed, until Sir Pitt‘s only boy, always sickly, died of whooping-cough and measles:—then Rawdon‘s mamma wrote the most affectionate composition to her darling son, who was made heir of Queen‘s Crawley by this accident, and drawn more closely than ever to the kind lady, whose tender heart had already adopted him. Rawdon Crawley, then grown a tall, fine lad, blushed when he got the letter. ‘Oh, Aunt Jane, you are my mother!‘ he said; ‘and not—and not that one.‘ But he wrote back a kind and respectful letter to Mrs. Rebecca, then living at a boarding-house at Florence.—But we are advancing matters.

  Our darling Becky‘s first flight was not very far. She perched upon the French coast at Boulogne, that refuge of so much exiled English innocence; and there lived in rather a genteel, widowed manner, with a femme de chambre and a couple of rooms, at an hotel. She dined at the table d‘hôte, where people thought her very pleasant, and where she entertained her neighbours by stories of her brother, Sir Pitt, and her great London acquaintance: talking that easy, fashionable slipslop, which has so much effect upon certain folks of small breeding. She passed with many of them for a person of importance; she gave little tea-parties in her private room, and shared in the innocent amusements of the place,—in sea-bathing, and in jaunts in open carriages, in strolls on the sands, and in visits to the play. Mrs. Burjoice, the printer‘s lady, who was boarding with her family at the hotel for the summer, and to whom her Burjoice came of a Saturday and Sunday, voted her charming; until that little rogue of a Burjoice began to pay her too much attention. But there was nothing in the story, only that Becky was always affable, easy, and good-natured-and with men especially.

  Numbers of people were going abroad as usual at the end of the season, and Becky had plenty of opportunities of finding out by the behaviour of her acquaint
ances of the great London world the opinion of ‘society‘ as regarded her conduct. One day it was Lady Partlet and her daughters whom Becky confronted as she was walking modestly on Boulogne pier, the cliffs of Albion shining in the distance across the deep blue sea. Lady Partlet marshalled all her daughters round her with a sweep of her parasol, and retreated from the pier darting savage glances at poor little Becky who stood alone there.

  On another day the packet came in. It had been blowing fresh, and it always suited Becky‘s humour to see the droll woebegone faces of the people as they emerged from the boat. Lady Slingstone happened to be on board this day. Her ladyship had been exceedingly ill in her carriage, and was greatly exhausted and scarcely fit to walk up the plank from the ship to the pier. But all her energies rallied the instant she saw Becky smiling roguishly under a pink bonnet: and giving her a glance of scorn, such as would have shrivelled up most women, she walked into the Custom House quite unsupported. Becky only laughed: but I don‘t think she liked it. She felt she was alone, quite alone: and the far-off shining cliffs of England were impassable to her.

  The behaviour of the men had undergone too I don‘t know what change. Grinstone showed his teeth and laughed in her face with a familiarity that was not pleasant. Little Bob Suckling, who was cap in hand to her three months before, and would walk a mile in the rain to see for her carriage in the line at Gaunt House, was talking to Fitzoof of the Guards (Lord Heehaw‘s son) one day upon the jetty, as Becky took her walk there. Little Bobby nodded to her over his shoulder without moving his hat, and continued his conversation with the heir of Heehaw. Tom Raikes tried to walk into her sitting-room at the inn with a cigar in his mouth: but she closed the door upon him and would have locked it only that his fingers were inside. She began to feel that she was very lonely indeed. ‘If he‘d been here,‘ she said, ‘those cowards would never have dared to insult me.‘ She thought about ‘him‘ with great sadness, and perhaps longing—about his honest, stupid, constant kindness and fidelity: his never-ceasing obedience; his good humour; his bravery and courage. Very likely she cried, for she was particularly lively, and had put on a little extra rouge when she came down to dinner.