take place with as little delay as possible.
In a postscript the Captain stated that he had in his
possession a bank-note for a large amount, which
Colonel Crawley had reason to suppose was the property of
the Marquis of Steyne. And he was anxious, on the
Colonel's behalf, to give up the note to its owner.
By the time this note was composed, the Captain's
servant returned from his mission to Colonel Crawley's
house in Curzon Street, but without the carpet-bag and
portmanteau, for which he had been sent, and with a
very puzzled and odd face.
"They won't give 'em up," said the man; "there's a
regular shinty in the house, and everything at sixes and
sevens. The landlord's come in and took possession. The
servants was a drinkin' up in the drawingroom. They
said--they said you had gone off with the plate,
Colonel"--the man added after a pause--"One of the
servants is off already. And Simpson, the man as was very
noisy and drunk indeed, says nothing shall go out of the
house until his wages is paid up."
The account of this little revolution in May Fair
astonished and gave a little gaiety to an otherwise very
triste conversation. The two officers laughed at Rawdon's
discomfiture.
"I'm glad the little 'un isn't at home," Rawdon said,
biting his nails. "You remember him, Mac, don't you, in
the Riding School? How he sat the kicker to be sure!
didn't he?"
"That he did, old boy," said the good-natured Captain.
Little Rawdon was then sitting, one of fifty gown boys,
in the Chapel of Whitefriars School, thinking, not about
the sermon, but about going home next Saturday, when
his father would certainly tip him and perhaps would
take him to the play.
"He's a regular trump, that boy," the father went on,
still musing about his son. "I say, Mac, if anything goes
wrong--if I drop--I should like you to--to go and see
him, you know, and say that I was very fond of him, and
that. And--dash it--old chap, give him these gold sleeve-
buttons: it's all I've got." He covered his face with his
black hands, over which the tears rolled and made
furrows of white. Mr. Macmurdo had also occasion to take
off his silk night-cap and rub it across his eyes.
"Go down and order some breakfast," he said to his
man in a loud cheerful voice. "What'll you have, Crawley?
Some devilled kidneys and a herring--let's say. And,
Clay, lay out some dressing things for the Colonel: we
were always pretty much of a size, Rawdon, my boy, and
neither of us ride so light as we did when we first
entered the corps." With which, and leaving the Colonel to
dress himself, Macmurdo turned round towards the wall,
and resumed the perusal of Bell's Life, until such time as
his friend's toilette was complete and he was at liberty
to commence his own.
This, as he was about to meet a lord, Captain
Macmurdo performed with particular care. He waxed his
mustachios into a state of brilliant polish and put on a
tight cravat and a trim buff waistcoat, so that all the
young officers in the mess-room, whither Crawley had
preceded his friend, complimented Mac on his appearance
at breakfast and asked if he was going to be married
that Sunday.
CHAPIER LV
In Which the Same Subject is Pursued
Becky did not rally from the state of stupor and confusion
in which the events of the previous night had plunged
her intrepid spirit until the bells of the Curzon Street
Chapels were ringing for afternoon service, and rising
from her bed she began to ply her own bell, in order to
summon the French maid who had left her some hours
before.
Mrs. Rawdon Crawley rang many times in vain; and
though, on the last occasion, she rang with such
vehemence as to pull down the bell-rope, Mademoiselle
Fifine did not make her appearance--no, not though her
mistress, in a great pet, and with the bell-rope in her hand,
came out to the landing-place with her hair over her
shoulders and screamed out repeatedly for her attendant.
The truth is, she had quitted the premises for many
hours, and upon that permission which is called French
leave among us After picking up the trinkets in the
drawing-room, Mademoiselle had ascended to her own
apartments, packed and corded her own boxes there,
tripped out and called a cab for herself, brought down
her trunks with her own hand, and without ever so much
as asking the aid of any of the other servants, who would
probably have refused it, as they hated her cordially,
and without wishing any one of them good-bye, had
made her exit from Curzon Street.
The game, in her opinion, was over in that little
domestic establishment. Fifine went off in a cab, as we
have known more exalted persons of her nation to do
under similar circumstances: but, more provident or
lucky than these, she secured not only her own property,
but some of her mistress's (if indeed that lady could be
said to have any property at all)--and not only carried
off the trinkets before alluded to, and some favourite
dresses on which she had long kept her eye, but four
richly gilt Louis Quatorze candlesticks, six gilt albums,
keepsakes, and Books of Beauty, a gold enamelled
snuff-box which had once belonged to Madame du Barri, and
the sweetest little inkstand and mother-of-pearl blotting
book, which Becky used when she composed her charming
little pink notes, had vanished from the premises in
Curzon Street together with Mademoiselle Fifine, and all
the silver laid on the table for the little festin which
Rawdon interrupted. The plated ware Mademoiselle left
behind her was too cumbrous, probably for which
reason, no doubt, she also left the fire irons, the
chimney-glasses, and the rosewood cottage piano.
A lady very like her subsequently kept a milliner's
shop in the Rue du Helder at Paris, where she lived with
great credit and enjoyed the patronage of my Lord
Steyne. This person always spoke of England as of the
most treacherous country in the world, and stated to her
young pupils that she had been affreusement vole by
natives of that island. It was no doubt compassion for
her misfortunes which induced the Marquis of Steyne to
be so very kind to Madame de Saint-Amaranthe. May
she flourish as she deserves--she appears no more in our
quarter of Vanity Fair.
Hearing a buzz and a stir below, and indignant at the
impudence of those servants who would not answer her
summons, Mrs. Crawley flung her morning robe round
her and descended majestically to the drawing-room,
whence the noise proceeded.
The cook was there with blackened face, seated on the
beautiful chintz sofa by the side of Mrs. Raggles, to whom
she was administering Maraschino. The page with the
sugar-loaf buttons, who carried about Becky's pink
notes, and jumped about her little carriage with such
alacrity, was now engaged putting his fingers into a
cream dish; the footman was talking to Raggles, who
had a face full of perplexity and woe--and yet, though
the door was open, and Becky had been screaming a
half-dozen of times a few feet off, not one of her
attendants had obeyed her call. "Have a little drop, do'ee
now, Mrs. Raggles," the cook was saying as Becky
entered, the white cashmere dressing-gown flouncing
around her.
"Simpson! Trotter!" the mistress of the house cried in
great wrath. "How dare you stay here when you heard
me call? How dare you sit down in my presence? Where's
my maid?" The page withdrew his fingers from his mouth
with a momentary terror, but the cook took off a glass
of Maraschino, of which Mrs. Raggles had had enough,
staring at Becky over the little gilt glass as she drained
its contents. The liquor appeared to give the odious rebel
courage.
"YOUR sofy, indeed!" Mrs. Cook said. "I'm a settin' on
Mrs. Raggles's sofy. Don't you stir, Mrs. Raggles, Mum.
I'm a settin' on Mr. and Mrs. Raggles's sofy, which they
bought with honest money, and very dear it cost 'em,
too. And I'm thinkin' if I set here until I'm paid my
wages, I shall set a precious long time, Mrs. Raggles;
and set I will, too--ha! ha!" and with this she filled
herself another glass of the liquor and drank it with a more
hideously satirical air.
"Trotter! Simpson! turn that drunken wretch out,"
screamed Mrs. Crawley.
"I shawn't," said Trotter the footman; "turn out
yourself. Pay our selleries, and turn me out too. WE'LL
go fast enough."
"Are you all here to insult me?" cried Becky in a fury;
"when Colonel Crawley comes home I'll--"
At this the servants burst into a horse haw-haw, in
which, however, Raggles, who still kept a most melancholy
countenance, did not join. "He ain't a coming back,"
Mr. Trotter resumed. "He sent for his things, and I
wouldn't let 'em go, although Mr. Raggles would; and I
don't b'lieve he's no more a Colonel than I am. He's
hoff, and I suppose you're a goin' after him. You're no
better than swindlers, both on you. Don't be a bullyin'
ME. I won't stand it. Pay us our selleries, I say. Pay us
our selleries." It was evident, from Mr. Trotter's flushed
countenance and defective intonation, that he, too, had
had recourse to vinous stimulus.
"Mr. Raggles," said Becky in a passion of vexation,
"you will not surely let me be insulted by that drunken
man?" "Hold your noise, Trotter; do now," said Simpson
the page. He was affected by his mistress's deplorable
situation, and succeeded in preventing an outrageous
denial of the epithet "drunken" on the footman's part.
"Oh, M'am," said Raggles, "I never thought to live to
see this year day: I've known the Crawley family ever
since I was born. I lived butler with Miss Crawley for
thirty years; and I little thought one of that family was
a goin' to ruing me--yes, ruing me"--said the poor fellow
with tears in his eyes. "Har you a goin' to pay me? You've
lived in this 'ouse four year. You've 'ad my substance:
my plate and linning. You ho me a milk and butter bill
of two 'undred pound, you must 'ave noo laid heggs for
your homlets, and cream for your spanil dog."
"She didn't care what her own flesh and blood had,"
interposed the cook. "Many's the time, he'd have starved
but for me."
"He's a charaty-boy now, Cooky," said Mr. Trotter,
with a drunken "ha! ha!"--and honest Raggles continued,
in a lamentable tone, an enumeration of his griefs. All he
said was true. Becky and her husband had ruined him.
He had bills coming due next week and no means to meet
them. He would be sold up and turned out of his shop
and his house, because he had trusted to the Crawley
family. His tears and lamentations made Becky more
peevish than ever.
"You all seem to be against me," she said bitterly.
"What do you want? I can't pay you on Sunday. Come
back to-morrow and I'll pay you everything. I thought
Colonel Crawley had settled with you. He will to-morrow.
I declare to you upon my honour that he left home this
morning with fifteen hundred pounds in his pocket-book.
He has left me nothing. Apply to him. Give me a bonnet
and shawl and let me go out and find him. There was a
difference between us this morning. You all seem to
know it. I promise you upon my word that you shall all
be paid. He has got a good appointment. Let me go out
and find him.''
This audacious statement caused Raggles and the other
personages present to look at one another with a wild
surprise, and with it Rebecca left them. She went upstairs
and dressed herself this time without the aid of her French
maid. She went into Rawdon's room, and there saw that
a trunk and bag were packed ready for removal, with a
pencil direction that they should be given when called
for; then she went into the Frenchwoman's garret;
everything was clean, and all the drawers emptied there.
She bethought herself of the trinkets which had been left on
the ground and felt certain that the woman had fled.
"Good Heavens! was ever such ill luck as mine?" she
said; "to be so near, and to lose all. Is it all too late?"
No; there was one chance more.
She dressed herself and went away unmolested this
time, but alone. It was four o'clock. She went swiftly
down the streets (she had no money to pay for a
carriage), and never stopped until she came to Sir Pitt
Crawley's door, in Great Gaunt Street. Where was Lady
Jane Crawley? She was at church. Becky was not sorry.
Sir Pitt was in his study, and had given orders not to be
disturbed--she must see him--she slipped by the sentinel
in livery at once, and was in Sir Pitt's room before the
astonished Baronet had even laid down the paper.
He turned red and started back from her with a look
of great alarm and horror.
"Do not look so," she said. "I am not guilty, Pitt, dear
Pitt; you were my friend once. Before God, I am not
guilty. I seem so. Everything is against me. And oh! at
such a moment! just when all my hopes were about to be
realized: just when happiness was in store for us."
"Is this true, what I see in the paper then?" Sir Pitt
said--a paragraph in which had greatly surprised him.
"It is true. Lord Steyne told me on Friday night, the
night of that fatal ball. He has been promised an
appointment any time these six months. Mr. Martyr, the
Colonial Secretary, told him yesterday that it was made out.
