overmuch content therewith, except among the guests
who sat at my lord's table. Had he not been so great a
Prince very few possibly would have visited him; but in
Vanity Fair the sins of very great personages are looked
at indulgently. "Nous regardons a deux fois" (as the
French lady said) before we condemn a person of my
lord's undoubted quality. Some notorious carpers and
squeamish moralists might be sulky with Lord Steyne,
but they were glad enough to come when he asked them.
"Lord Steyne is really too bad," Lady Slingstone said,
"but everybody goes, and of course I shall see that my
girls come to no harm." "His lordship is a man to whom
I owe much, everything in life," said the Right Reverend
Doctor Trail, thinking that the Archbishop was rather
shaky, and Mrs. Trail and the young ladies would as
soon have missed going to church as to one of his
lordship's parties. "His morals are bad," said little Lord
Southdown to his sister, who meekly expostulated,
having heard terrific legends from her mamma with respect
to the doings at Gaunt House; "but hang it, he's got the
best dry Sillery in Europe!" And as for Sir Pitt Crawley,
Bart.--Sir Pitt that pattern of decorum, Sir Pitt who
had led off at missionary meetings--he never for one
moment thought of not going too. "Where you see such
persons as the Bishop of Ealing and the Countess of
Slingstone, you may be pretty sure, Jane," the Baronet
would say, "that we cannot be wrong. The great rank
and station of Lord Steyne put him in a position to
command people in our station in life. The Lord Lieutenant
of a County, my dear, is a respectable man. Besides,
George Gaunt and I were intimate in early life; he was
my junior when we were attaches at Pumpernickel
together."
In a word everybody went to wait upon this great man
--everybody who was asked, as you the reader (do not
say nay) or I the writer hereof would go if we had an
invitation.
CHAPTER XLVIII
In Which the Reader Is Introduced to the Very
Best of Company
At last Becky's kindness and attention to the chief of
her husband's family were destined to meet with an
exceeding great reward, a reward which, though certainly
somewhat unsubstantial, the little woman coveted with
greater eagerness than more positive benefits. If she did
not wish to lead a virtuous life, at least she desired to
enjoy a character for virtue, and we know that no lady
in the genteel world can possess this desideratum, until
she has put on a train and feathers and has been
presented to her Sovereign at Court. From that august
interview they come out stamped as honest women. The
Lord Chamberlain gives them a certificate of virtue. And
as dubious goods or letters are passed through an oven
at quarantine, sprinkled with aromatic vinegar, and then
pronounced clean, many a lady, whose reputation would
be doubtful otherwise and liable to give infection, passes
through the wholesome ordeal of the Royal presence and
issues from it free from all taint.
It might be very well for my Lady Bareacres, my
Lady Tufto, Mrs. Bute Crawley in the country, and other
ladies who had come into contact with Mrs. Rawdon
Crawley to cry fie at the idea of the odious little
adventuress making her curtsey before the Sovereign, and
to declare that, if dear good Queen Charlotte had been
alive, she never would have admitted such an extremely
ill-regulated personage into her chaste drawing-room. But
when we consider that it was the First Gentleman in
Europe in whose high presence Mrs. Rawdon passed her
examination, and as it were, took her degree in reputation,
it surely must be flat disloyalty to doubt any more
about her virtue. I, for my part, look back with love and
awe to that Great Character in history. Ah, what a high
and noble appreciation of Gentlewomanhood there must
have been in Vanity Fair, when that revered and august
being was invested, by the universal acclaim of the
refined and educated portion of this empire, with the title
of Premier Gentilhomme of his Kingdom. Do you
remember, dear M--, oh friend of my youth, how one
blissful night five-and-twenty years since, the "Hypocrite"
being acted, Elliston being manager, Dowton and Liston
performers, two boys had leave from their loyal masters
to go out from Slaughter-House School where they were
educated and to appear on Drury Lane stage, amongst a
crowd which assembled there to greet the king. THE
KING? There he was. Beefeaters were before the
august box; the Marquis of Steyne (Lord of the Powder
Closet) and other great officers of state were behind the
chair on which he sat, HE sat--florid of face, portly of
person, covered with orders, and in a rich curling head of
hair--how we sang God save him! How the house rocked
and shouted with that magnificent music. How they
cheered, and cried, and waved handkerchiefs. Ladies
wept; mothers clasped their children; some fainted with
emotion. People were suffocated in the pit, shrieks and
groans rising up amidst the writhing and shouting mass
there of his people who were, and indeed showed them-
selves almost to be, ready to die for him. Yes, we saw
him. Fate cannot deprive us of THAT. Others have seen
Napoleon. Some few still exist who have beheld Frederick
the Great, Doctor Johnson, Marie Antoinette, &c.--be it
our reasonable boast to our children, that we saw George
the Good, the Magnificent, the Great.
Well, there came a happy day in Mrs. Rawdon Crawley's
existence when this angel was admitted into the
paradise of a Court which she coveted, her sister-in-law
acting as her godmother. On the appointed day, Sir Pitt
and his lady, in their great family carriage (just newly
built, and ready for the Baronet's assumption of the
office of High Sheriff of his county), drove up to the little
house in Curzon Street, to the edification of Raggles, who
was watching from his greengrocer's shop, and saw fine
plumes within, and enormous bunches of flowers in the
breasts of the new livery-coats of the footmen.
Sir Pitt, in a glittering uniform, descended and went
into Curzon Street, his sword between his legs. Little
Rawdon stood with his face against the parlour window-
panes, smiling and nodding with all his might to his aunt
in the carriage within; and presently Sir Pitt issued forth
from the house again, leading forth a lady with grand
feathers, covered in a white shawl, and holding up
daintily a train of magnificent brocade. She stepped into the
vehicle as if she were a princess and accustomed all her
life to go to Court, smiling graciously on the footman at
the door and on Sir Pitt, who followed her into the
carriage.
Then Rawdon followed in his old Guards' uniform,
which had grown woefully shabby, and was much too
tight. He was to have followed the procession and waited
upon his sovereign in a cab, but that his good-natured
sister-in-law insisted that they should be a family party.
The coach was large, the ladies not very big, they would
hold their trains in their laps--finally, the four went
fraternally together, and their carriage presently joined
the line of royal equipages which was making its way
down Piccadilly and St. James's Street, towards the old
brick palace where the Star of Brunswick was in waiting
to receive his nobles and gentlefolks.
Becky felt as if she could bless the people out of the
carriage windows, so elated was she in spirit, and so
strong a sense had she of the dignified position which
she had at last attained in life. Even our Becky had her
weaknesses, and as one often sees how men pride
themselves upon excellences which others are slow to
perceive: how, for instance, Comus firmly believes that he
is the greatest tragic actor in England; how Brown, the
famous novelist, longs to be considered, not a man of
genius, but a man of fashion; while Robinson, the great
lawyer, does not in the least care about his reputation in
Westminster Hall, but believes himself incomparable
across country and at a five-barred gate--so to be, and
to be thought, a respectable woman was Becky's aim in
life, and she got up the genteel with amazing assiduity,
readiness, and success. We have said, there were times
when she believed herself to be a fine lady and forgot
that there was no money in the chest at home--duns
round the gate, tradesmen to coax and wheedle--no
ground to walk upon, in a word. And as she went to
Court in the carriage, the family carriage, she adopted a
demeanour so grand, self-satisfied, deliberate, and
imposing that it made even Lady Jane laugh. She walked
into the royal apartments with a toss of the head which
would have befitted an empress, and I have no doubt had
she been one, she would have become the character
perfectly.
We are authorized to state that Mrs. Rawdon Crawley's
costume de cour on the occasion of her presentation
to the Sovereign was of the most elegant and brilliant
description. Some ladies we may have seen--we
who wear stars and cordons and attend the St. James's
assemblies, or we, who, in muddy boots, dawdle up and
down Pall Mall and peep into the coaches as they drive
up with the great folks in their feathers--some ladies of
fashion, I say, we may have seen, about two o'clock of
the forenoon of a levee day, as the laced-jacketed band
of the Life Guards are blowing triumphal marches seated
on those prancing music-stools, their cream-coloured
chargers--who are by no means lovely and enticing
objects at that early period of noon. A stout countess of
sixty, decolletee, painted, wrinkled with rouge up to her
drooping eyelids, and diamonds twinkling in her wig, is a
wholesome and edifying, but not a pleasant sight. She
has the faded look of a St. James's Street illumination, as
it may be seen of an early morning, when half the lamps
are out, and the others are blinking wanly, as if they
were about to vanish like ghosts before the dawn. Such
charms as those of which we catch glimpses while her
ladyship's carriage passes should appear abroad at night
alone. If even Cynthia looks haggard of an afternoon, as
we may see her sometimes in the present winter season,
with Phoebus staring her out of countenance from the
opposite side of the heavens, how much more can old
Lady Castlemouldy keep her head up when the sun is
shining full upon it through the chariot windows, and
showing all the chinks and crannies with which time has
marked her face! No. Drawing-rooms should be
announced for November, or the first foggy day, or the
elderly sultanas of our Vanity Fair should drive up in
closed litters, descend in a covered way, and make their
curtsey to the Sovereign under the protection of lamplight.
Our beloved Rebecca had no need, however, of any
such a friendly halo to set off her beauty. Her complexion
could bear any sunshine as yet, and her dress, though if
you were to see it now, any present lady of Vanity Fair
would pronounce it to be the most foolish and preposterous
attire ever worn, was as handsome in her eyes
and those of the public, some five-and-twenty years since,
as the most brilliant costume of the most famous beauty
of the present season. A score of years hence that too,
that milliner's wonder, will have passed into the domain
of the absurd, along with all previous vanities. But we
are wandering too much. Mrs. Rawdon's dress was
pronounced to be charmante on the eventful day of her
presentation. Even good little Lady Jane was forced to
acknowledge this effect, as she looked at her kinswoman,
and owned sorrowfully to herself that she was quite
inferior in taste to Mrs. Becky.
She did not know how much care, thought, and genius
Mrs. Rawdon had bestowed upon that garment. Rebecca
had as good taste as any milliner in Europe, and such a
clever way of doing things as Lady Jane little understood.
The latter quickly spied out the magnificence of the
brocade of Becky's train, and the splendour of the lace on
her dress.
The brocade was an old remnant, Becky said; and as
for the lace, it was a great bargain. She had had it these
hundred years.
"My dear Mrs. Crawley, it must have cost a little
fortune," Lady Jane said, looking down at her own lace,
which was not nearly so good; and then examining the
quality of the ancient brocade which formed the
material of Mrs. Rawdon's Court dress, she felt inclined to
say that she could not afford such fine clothing, but
checked that speech, with an effort, as one uncharitable
to her kinswoman.
And yet, if Lady Jane had known all, I think even her
kindly temper would have failed her. The fact is, when
she was putting Sir Pitt's house in order, Mrs. Rawdon
had found the lace and the brocade in old wardrobes,
the property of the former ladies of the house, and had
quietly carried the goods home, and had suited them to
her own little person. Briggs saw her take them, asked
no questions, told no stories; but I believe quite
sympathised with her on this matter, and so would
many another honest woman.
And the diamonds--"Where the doose did you get the
diamonds, Becky?" said her husband, admiring some
jewels which he had never seen before and which sparkled
in her ears and on her neck with brilliance and profusion.
Becky blushed a little and looked at him hard for a
moment. Pitt Crawley blushed a little too, and looked
out of window. The fact is, he had given her a very
small portion of the brilliants; a pretty diamond clasp,
which confined a pearl necklace which she wore- and the
Baronet had omitted to mention the circumstance to
his lady.
Becky looked at her husband, and then at Sir Pitt,
with an air of saucy triumph--as much as to say, "Shall
I betray you?"
"Guess!" she said to her husband. "Why, you silly
