the vogue in London among a certain class. You saw
demure chariots at her door, out of which stepped very
great people. You beheld her carriage in the park,
surrounded by dandies of note. The little box in the third
tier of the opera was crowded with heads constantly
changing; but it must be confessed that the ladies held
aloof from her, and that their doors were shut to our
little adventurer.
With regard to the world of female fashion and its
customs, the present writer of course can only speak at
second hand. A man can no more penetrate or under-
stand those mysteries than he can know what the ladies
talk about when they go upstairs after dinner. It is only
by inquiry and perseverance that one sometimes gets
hints of those secrets; and by a similar diligence every
person who treads the Pall Mall pavement and frequents
the clubs of this metropolis knows, either through his
own experience or through some acquaintance with whom
he plays at billiards or shares the joint, something about
the genteel world of London, and how, as there are men
(such as Rawdon Crawley, whose position we mentioned
before) who cut a good figure to the eyes of the ignorant
world and to the apprentices in the park, who behold
them consorting with the most notorious dandies there,
so there are ladies, who may be called men's women,
being welcomed entirely by all the gentlemen and cut
or slighted by all their wives. Mrs. Firebrace is of this sort;
the lady with the beautiful fair ringlets whom you see
every day in Hyde Park, surrounded by the greatest and
most famous dandies of this empire. Mrs. Rockwood is
another, whose parties are announced laboriously in the
fashionable newspapers and with whom you see that all
sorts of ambassadors and great noblemen dine; and
many more might be mentioned had they to do with the
history at present in hand. But while simple folks who
are out of the world, or country people with a taste for
the genteel, behold these ladies in their seeming glory in
public places, or envy them from afar off, persons who
are better instructed could inform them that these envied
ladies have no more chance of establishing themselves
in "society," than the benighted squire's wife in
Somersetshire who reads of their doings in the Morning Post.
Men living about London are aware of these awful truths.
You hear how pitilessly many ladies of seeming rank and
wealth are excluded from this "society." The frantic
efforts which they make to enter this circle, the meannesses
to which they submit, the insults which they undergo,
are matters of wonder to those who take human or
womankind for a study; and the pursuit of fashion under
difficulties would be a fine theme for any very great
person who had the wit, the leisure, and the knowledge of
the English language necessary for the compiling of
such a history.
Now the few female acquaintances whom Mrs. Crawley
had known abroad not only declined to visit her when
she came to this side of the Channel, but cut her severely
when they met in public places. It was curious to see how
the great ladies forgot her, and no doubt not altogether
a pleasant study to Rebecca. When Lady Bareacres met
her in the waiting-room at the opera, she gathered her
daughters about her as if they would be contaminated
by a touch of Becky, and retreating a step or two, placed
herself in front of them, and stared at her little enemy.
To stare Becky out of countenance required a severer
glance than even the frigid old Bareacres could shoot out
of her dismal eyes. When Lady de la Mole, who had ridden
a score of times by Becky's side at Brussels, met Mrs.
Crawley's open carriage in Hyde Park, her Ladyship was
quite blind, and could not in the least recognize her
former friend. Even Mrs. Blenkinsop, the banker's wife,
cut her at church. Becky went regularly to church now; it
was edifying to see her enter there with Rawdon by her
side, carrying a couple of large gilt prayer-books, and
afterwards going through the ceremony with the gravest
resignation.
Rawdon at first felt very acutely the slights which were
passed upon his wife, and was inclined to be gloomy and
savage. He talked of calling out the husbands or brothers
of every one of the insolent women who did not pay a
proper respect to his wife; and it was only by the strongest
commands and entreaties on her part that he was
brought into keeping a decent behaviour. "You can't
shoot me into society," she said good-naturedly. "Remember,
my dear, that I was but a governess, and you, you
poor silly old man, have the worst reputation for debt, and
dice, and all sorts of wickedness. We shall get quite as
many friends as we want by and by, and in the meanwhile
you must be a good boy and obey your schoolmistress in
everything she tells you to do. When we heard that your
aunt had left almost everything to Pitt and his wife, do
you remember what a rage you were in? You would
have told all Paris, if I had not made you keep your
temper, and where would you have been now?--in
prison at Ste. Pelagie for debt, and not established in
London in a handsome house, with every comfort about
you--you were in such a fury you were ready to murder
your brother, you wicked Cain you, and what good
would have come of remaining angry? All the rage in the
world won't get us your aunt's money; and it is much
better that we should be friends with your brother's
family than enemies, as those foolish Butes are. When
your father dies, Queen's Crawley will be a pleasant house
for you and me to pass the winter in. If we are ruined,
you can carve and take charge of the stable, and I can
be a governess to Lady Jane's children. Ruined!
fiddlede-dee! I will get you a good place before that; or Pitt
and his little boy will die, and we will be Sir Rawdon and my
lady. While there is life, there is hope, my dear, and I
intend to make a man of you yet. Who sold your horses for
you? Who paid your debts for you?" Rawdon was obliged
to confess that he owed all these benefits to his wife, and
to trust himself to her guidance for the future.
Indeed, when Miss Crawley quitted the world, and that
money for which all her relatives had been fighting so
eagerly was finally left to Pitt, Bute Crawley, who found
that only five thousand pounds had been left to him
instead of the twenty upon which he calculated, was in
such a fury at his disappointment that he vented it in
savage abuse upon his nephew; and the quarrel always
rankling between them ended in an utter breach of
intercourse. Rawdon Crawley's conduct, on the other hand,
who got but a hundred pounds, was such as to astonish
his brother and delight his sister-in-law, who was
disposed to look kindly upon all the members of her
husband's family. He wrote to his brother a very frank, manly,
good-humoured letter from Paris. He was aware, he said,
that by his own marriage he had forfeited his aunt's
favour; and though he did not disguise his disappointment
that she should have been so entirely relentless towards
him, he was glad that the money was still kept in their
branch of the family, and heartily congratulated his brother
on his good fortune. He sent his affectionate remembrances
to his sister, and hoped to have her good-will for
Mrs. Rawdon; and the letter concluded with a postscript
to Pitt in the latter lady's own handwriting. She, too,
begged to join in her husband's congratulations. She should
ever remember Mr. Crawley's kindness to her in early
days when she was a friendless orphan, the instructress of
his little sisters, in whose welfare she still took the
tenderest interest. She wished him every happiness in his
married life, and, asking his permission to offer her
remembrances to Lady Jane (of whose goodness all the
world informed her), she hoped that one day she might
be allowed to present her little boy to his uncle and aunt,
and begged to bespeak for him their good-will and
protection.
Pitt Crawley received this communication very
graciously--more graciously than Miss Crawley had received
some of Rebecca's previous compositions in Rawdon's
handwriting; and as for Lady Jane, she was so charmed
with the letter that she expected her husband would
instantly divide his aunt's legacy into two equal portions
and send off one-half to his brother at Paris.
To her Ladyship's surprise, however, Pitt declined to
accommodate his brother with a cheque for thirty
thousand pounds. But he made Rawdon a handsome offer
of his hand whenever the latter should come to England
and choose to take it; and, thanking Mrs. Crawley for
her good opinion of himself and Lady Jane, he graciously
pronounced his willingness to take any opportunity to
serve her little boy.
Thus an almost reconciliation was brought about
between the brothers. When Rebecca came to town Pitt
and his wife were not in London. Many a time she drove
by the old door in Park Lane to see whether they had
taken possession of Miss Crawley's house there. But the
new family did not make its appearance; it was only
through Raggles that she heard of their movements--how
Miss Crawley's domestics had been dismissed with decent
gratuities, and how Mr. Pitt had only once made his
appearance in London, when he stopped for a few days
at the house, did business with his lawyers there, and sold
off all Miss Crawley's French novels to a bookseller out
of Bond Street. Becky had reasons of her own which
caused her to long for the arrival of her new relation.
"When Lady Jane comes," thought she, "she shall be my
sponsor in London society; and as for the women! bah!
the women will ask me when they find the men want to
see me."
An article as necessary to a lady in this position as her
brougham or her bouquet is her companion. I have
always admired the way in which the tender creatures, who
cannot exist without sympathy, hire an exceedingly plain
friend of their own sex from whom they are almost
inseparable. The sight of that inevitable woman in her
faded gown seated behind her dear friend in the opera-
box, or occupying the back seat of the barouche, is
always a wholesome and moral one to me, as jolly a
reminder as that of the Death's-head which figured in
the repasts of Egyptian bon-vivants, a strange sardonic
memorial of Vanity Fair. What? even battered, brazen,
beautiful, conscienceless, heartless, Mrs. Firebrace, whose
father died of her shame: even lovely, daring Mrs.
Mantrap, who will ride at any fence which any man in
England will take, and who drives her greys in the
park, while her mother keeps a huckster's stall in Bath
still--even those who are so bold, one might fancy
they could face anything dare not face the world without
a female friend. They must have somebody to cling to, the
affectionate creatures! And you will hardly see them in
any public place without a shabby companion in a dyed
silk, sitting somewhere in the shade close behind them.
"Rawdon," said Becky, very late one night, as a party
of gentlemen were seated round her crackling drawing-
room fire (for the men came to her house to finish the
night; and she had ice and coffee for them, the best in
London): "I must have a sheep-dog."
"A what?" said Rawdon, looking up from an ecarte
table.
"A sheep-dog!" said young Lord Southdown. "My dear
Mrs. Crawley, what a fancy! Why not have a Danish
dog? I know of one as big as a camel-leopard, by Jove.
It would almost pull your brougham. Or a Persian
greyhound, eh? (I propose, if you please); or a little pug
that would go into one of Lord Steyne's snuff-boxes?
There's a man at Bayswater got one with such a nose that
you might--I mark the king and play--that you might
hang your hat on it."
"I mark the trick," Rawdon gravely said. He attended
to his game commonly and didn't much meddle with
the conversation, except when it was about horses and
betting.
"What CAN you want with a shepherd's dog?" the lively
little Southdown continued.
"I mean a MORAL shepherd's dog," said Becky, laughing
and looking up at Lord Steyne.
"What the devil's that?" said his Lordship.
"A dog to keep the wolves off me," Rebecca continued.
"A companion."
"Dear little innocent lamb, you want one," said the
marquis; and his jaw thrust out, and he began to grin
hideously, his little eyes leering towards Rebecca.
The great Lord of Steyne was standing by the fire
sipping coffee. The fire crackled and blazed pleasantly
There was a score of candles sparkling round the mantel
piece, in all sorts of quaint sconces, of gilt and bronze and
porcelain. They lighted up Rebecca's figure to admiration,
as she sat on a sofa covered with a pattern of gaudy
flowers. She was in a pink dress that looked as fresh as
a rose; her dazzling white arms and shoulders were half-
covered with a thin hazy scarf through which they
sparkled; her hair hung in curls round her neck; one of her
little feet peeped out from the fresh crisp folds of the
silk: the prettiest little foot in the prettiest little sandal
in the finest silk stocking in the world.
The candles lighted up Lord Steyne's shining bald head,
which was fringed with red hair. He had thick bushy
eyebrows, with little twinkling bloodshot eyes, surrounded
by a thousand wrinkles. His jaw was underhung, and
when he laughed, two white buck-teeth protruded
themselves and glistened savagely in the midst of the grin.
He had been dining with royal personages, and wore
his garter and ribbon. A short man was his Lordship,
broad-chested and bow-legged, but proud of the fineness
of his foot and ankle, and always caressing his garter-
