knee.
"And so the shepherd is not enough," said he, "to
defend his lambkin?"
"The shepherd is too fond of playing at cards and going
to his clubs," answered Becky, laughing.
" 'Gad, what a debauched Corydon!" said my lord--
"what a mouth for a pipe!"
"I take your three to two," here said Rawdon, at the
card-table.
"Hark at Meliboeus," snarled the noble marquis; "he's
pastorally occupied too: he's shearing a Southdown.
What an innocent mutton, hey? Damme, what a snowy
fleece!"
Rebecca's eyes shot out gleams of scornful humour.
"My lord," she said, "you are a knight of the Order."
He had the collar round his neck, indeed--a gift of the
restored princes of Spain.
Lord Steyne in early life had been notorious for his
daring and his success at play. He had sat up two days
and two nights with Mr. Fox at hazard. He had won
money of the most august personages of the realm: he
had won his marquisate, it was said, at the gaming-
table; but he did not like an allusion to those bygone
fredaines. Rebecca saw the scowl gathering over his heavy
brow.
She rose up from her sofa and went and took his coffee
cup out of his hand with a little curtsey. "Yes," she said,
"I must get a watchdog. But he won't bark at YOU.
And, going into the other drawing-room, she sat down to
the piano and began to sing little French songs in such a
charming, thrilling voice that the mollified nobleman
speedily followed her into that chamber, and might be seen
nodding his head and bowing time over her.
Rawdon and his friend meanwhile played ecarte until
they had enough. The Colonel won; but, say that he won
ever so much and often, nights like these, which occurred
many times in the week--his wife having all the talk and
all the admiration, and he sitting silent without the circle,
not comprehending a word of the jokes, the allusions, the
mystical language within--must have been rather
wearisome to the ex-dragoon.
"How is Mrs. Crawley's husband?" Lord Steyne used
to say to him by way of a good day when they met; and
indeed that was now his avocation in life. He was
Colonel Crawley no more. He was Mrs. Crawley's husband.
About the little Rawdon, if nothing has been said all
this while, it is because he is hidden upstairs in a garret
somewhere, or has crawled below into the kitchen for
companionship. His mother scarcely ever took notice of
him. He passed the days with his French bonne as long
as that domestic remained in Mr. Crawley's family, and
when the Frenchwoman went away, the little fellow,
howling in the loneliness of the night, had compassion taken
on him by a housemaid, who took him out of his solitary
nursery into her bed in the garret hard by and comforted
him.
Rebecca, my Lord Steyne, and one or two more were
in the drawing-room taking tea after the opera, when this
shouting was heard overhead. "It's my cherub crying for
his nurse," she said. She did not offer to move to go and
see the child. "Don't agitate your feelings by going to look
for him," said Lord Steyne sardonically. "Bah!" replied
the other, with a sort of blush, "he'll cry himself to sleep";
and they fell to talking about the opera.
Rawdon had stolen off though, to look after his son
and heir; and came back to the company when he found
that honest Dolly was consoling the child. The Colonel's
dressing-room was in those upper regions. He used to see
the boy there in private. They had interviews together
every morning when he shaved; Rawdon minor sitting on a
box by his father's side and watching the operation with
never-ceasing pleasure. He and the sire were great friends.
The father would bring him sweetmeats from the dessert
and hide them in a certain old epaulet box, where the
child went to seek them, and laughed with joy on
discovering the treasure; laughed, but not too loud: for mamma
was below asleep and must not be disturbed. She did not
go to rest till very late and seldom rose till after noon.
Rawdon bought the boy plenty of picture-books and
crammed his nursery with toys. Its walls were covered with
pictures pasted up by the father's own hand and purchased
by him for ready money. When he was off duty with
Mrs. Rawdon in the park, he would sit up here, passing
hours with the boy; who rode on his chest, who pulled his
great mustachios as if they were driving-reins, and spent
days with him in indefatigable gambols. The room was
a low room, and once, when the child was not five years
old, his father, who was tossing him wildly up in his
arms, hit the poor little chap's skull so violently against
the ceiling that he almost dropped the child, so terrified
was he at the disaster.
Rawdon minor had made up his face for a tremendous
howl--the severity of the blow indeed authorized that
indulgence; but just as he was going to begin, the father
interposed.
"For God's sake, Rawdy, don't wake Mamma," he
cried. And the child, looking in a very hard and piteous
way at his father, bit his lips, clenched his hands, and
didn't cry a bit. Rawdon told that story at the clubs, at
the mess, to everybody in town. "By Gad, sir," he
explained to the public in general, "what a good plucked one
that boy of mine is--what a trump he is! I half-sent his
head through the ceiling, by Gad, and he wouldn't cry for
fear of disturbing his mother."
Sometimes--once or twice in a week--that lady visited
the upper regions in which the child lived. She came like
a vivified figure out of the Magasin des Modes--blandly
smiling in the most beautiful new clothes and little gloves
and boots. Wonderful scarfs, laces, and jewels glittered
about her. She had always a new bonnet on, and flowers
bloomed perpetually in it, or else magnificent curling
ostrich feathers, soft and snowy as camellias. She nodded
twice or thrice patronizingly to the little boy, who looked
up from his dinner or from the pictures of soldiers he was
painting. When she left the room, an odour of rose, or
some other magical fragrance, lingered about the nursery.
She was an unearthly being in his eyes, superior to his
father--to all the world: to be worshipped and admired
at a distance. To drive with that lady in the carriage was
an awful rite: he sat up in the back seat and did not dare
to speak: he gazed with all his eyes at the beautifully
dressed Princess opposite to him. Gentlemen on splendid
prancing horses came up and smiled and talked with her.
How her eyes beamed upon all of them! Her hand used
to quiver and wave gracefully as they passed. When
he went out with her he had his new red dress on. His old
brown holland was good enough when he stayed at home.
Sometimes, when she was away, and Dolly his maid was
making his bed, he came into his mother's room. It was as
the abode of a fairy to him--a mystic chamber of
splendour and delights. There in the wardrobe hung those
wonderful robes--pink and blue and many-tinted. There
was the jewel-case, silver-clasped, and the wondrous
bronze hand on the dressing-table, glistening all over
with a hundred rings. There was the cheval-glass, that
miracle of art, in which he could just see his own
wondering head and the reflection of Dolly (queerly
distorted, and as if up in the ceiling), plumping and patting
the pillows of the bed. Oh, thou poor lonely little
benighted boy! Mother is the name for God in the lips and
hearts of little children; and here was one who was
worshipping a stone!
Now Rawdon Crawley, rascal as the Colonel was, had
certain manly tendencies of affection in his heart and
could love a child and a woman still. For Rawdon minor
he had a great secret tenderness then, which did not
escape Rebecca, though she did not talk about it to her
husband. It did not annoy her: she was too good-
natured. It only increased her scorn for him. He felt
somehow ashamed of this paternal softness and hid it
from his wife--only indulging in it when alone with the
boy.
He used to take him out of mornings when they would
go to the stables together and to the park. Little Lord
Southdown, the best-natured of men, who would make
you a present of the hat from his head, and whose main
occupation in life was to buy knick-knacks that he might
give them away afterwards, bought the little chap a
pony not much bigger than a large rat, the donor said,
and on this little black Shetland pygmy young Rawdon's
great father was pleased to mount the boy, and to walk
by his side in the park. It pleased him to see his old
quarters, and his old fellow-guardsmen at Knightsbridge:
he had begun to think of his bachelorhood with
something like regret. The old troopers were glad to recognize
their ancient officer and dandle the little colonel.
Colonel Crawley found dining at mess and with his
brother-officers very pleasant. "Hang it, I ain't clever
enough for her--I know it. She won't miss me," he used to
say: and he was right, his wife did not miss him.
Rebecca was fond of her husband. She was always
perfectly good-humoured and kind to him. She did not
even show her scorn much for him; perhaps she liked
him the better for being a fool. He was her upper servant
and maitre d'hotel. He went on her errands; obeyed
her orders without question; drove in the carriage in the
ring with her without repining; took her to the opera-box,
solaced himself at his club during the performance, and
came punctually back to fetch her when due. He would
have liked her to be a little fonder of the boy, but even
to that he reconciled himself. "Hang it, you know she's so
clever," he said, "and I'm not literary and that, you
know." For, as we have said before, it requires no great
wisdom to be able to win at cards and billiards, and
Rawdon made no pretensions to any other sort of skill.
When the companion came, his domestic duties became
very light. His wife encouraged him to dine
abroad: she would let him off duty at the opera. "Don't
stay and stupefy yourself at home to-night, my dear,"
she would say. "Some men are coming who will only bore
you. I would not ask them, but you know it's for your
good, and now I have a sheep-dog, I need not be afraid
to be alone."
"A sheep-dog--a companion! Becky Sharp with a
companion! Isn't it good fun?" thought Mrs. Crawley to
herself. The notion tickled hugely her sense of humour.
One Sunday morning, as Rawdon Crawley, his little
son, and the pony were taking their accustomed walk in
the park, they passed by an old acquaintance of the
Colonel's, Corporal Clink, of the regiment, who was in
conversation with a friend, an old gentleman, who held
a boy in his arms about the age of little Rawdon. This
other youngster had seized hold of the Waterloo medal
which the Corporal wore, and was examining it with
delight.
"Good morning, your Honour," said Clink, in reply to
the "How do, Clink?" of the Colonel. "This ere young
gentleman is about the little Colonel's age, sir,"
continued the corporal.
"His father was a Waterloo man, too," said the old
gentleman, who carried the boy. "Wasn't he, Georgy?"
"Yes," said Georgy. He and the little chap on the pony
were looking at each other with all their might--solemnly
scanning each other as children do.
"In a line regiment," Clink said with a patronizing air.
"He was a Captain in the --th regiment," said the old
gentleman rather pompously. "Captain George Osborne,
sir--perhaps you knew him. He died the death of a
hero, sir, fighting against the Corsican tyrant."
Colonel Crawley blushed quite red. "I knew him very
well, sir," he said, "and his wife, his dear little wife,
sir--how is she?"
"She is my daughter, sir," said the old gentleman,
putting down the boy and taking out a card with great
solemnity, which he handed to the Colonel. On it
written--
"Mr. Sedley, Sole Agent for the Black Diamond and
Anti-Cinder Coal Association, Bunker's Wharf, Thames
Street, and Anna-Maria Cottages, Fulham Road West."
Little Georgy went up and looked at the Shetland
pony.
"Should you like to have a ride?" said Rawdon minor
from the saddle.
"Yes," said Georgy. The Colonel, who had been
looking at him with some interest, took up the child
and put him on the pony behind Rawdon minor.
"Take hold of him, Georgy," he said--"take my little
boy round the waist--his name is Rawdon." And both the
children began to laugh.
"You won't see a prettier pair I think, THIS summer's
day, sir," said the good-natured Corporal; and the
Colonel, the Corporal, and old Mr. Sedley with his umbrella,
walked by the side of the children.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
A Family in a Very Small Way
We must suppose little George Osborne has ridden from
Knightsbridge towards Fulham, and will stop and make
inquiries at that village regarding some friends whom we
have left there. How is Mrs. Amelia after the storm of
Waterloo? Is she living and thriving? What has come of
Major Dobbin, whose cab was always hankering about
her premises? And is there any news of the Collector
of Boggley Wollah? The facts concerning the latter are
briefly these:
Our worthy fat friend Joseph Sedley returned to India
not long after his escape from Brussels. Either his
furlough was up, or he dreaded to meet any witnesses of his
Waterloo flight. However it might be, he went back to his
duties in Bengal very soon after Napoleon had taken
up his residence at St. Helena, where Jos saw the ex-
