Klingenspohr, the Prince of Peterwaradin's cousin and
attache. The delighted Prince, having less retenue than
his French diplomatic colleague, insisted upon taking a
turn with the charming creature, and twirled round the
ball-room with her, scattering the diamonds out of his
boot-tassels and hussar jacket until his Highness was fairly
out of breath. Papoosh Pasha himself would have liked
to dance with her if that amusement had been the custom
of his country. The company made a circle round her
and applauded as wildly as if she had been a Noblet or
a Taglioni. Everybody was in ecstacy; and Becky too,
you may be sure. She passed by Lady Stunnington with
a look of scorn. She patronized Lady Gaunt and her
astonished and mortified sister-in-law--she ecrased all
rival charmers. As for poor Mrs. Winkworth, and her
long hair and great eyes, which had made such an effect
at the commencement of the evening--where was she
now? Nowhere in the race. She might tear her long hair
and cry her great eyes out, but there was not a person
to heed or to deplore the discomfiture.
The greatest triumph of all was at supper time. She
was placed at the grand exclusive table with his Royal
Highness the exalted personage before mentioned, and
the rest of the great guests. She was served on gold
plate. She might have had pearls melted into her
champagne if she liked--another Cleopatra--and the potentate
of Peterwaradin would have given half the brilliants off
his jacket for a kind glance from those dazzling eyes.
Jabotiere wrote home about her to his government. The
ladies at the other tables, who supped off mere silver and
marked Lord Steyne's constant attention to her, vowed
it was a monstrous infatuation, a gross insult to ladies of
rank. If sarcasm could have killed, Lady Stunnington
would have slain her on the spot.
Rawdon Crawley was scared at these triumphs. They
seemed to separate his wife farther than ever from him
somehow. He thought with a feeling very like pain how
immeasurably she was his superior.
When the hour of departure came, a crowd of young
men followed her to her carriage, for which the people
without bawled, the cry being caught up by the link-men
who were stationed outside the tall gates of Gaunt
House, congratulating each person who issued from the
gate and hoping his Lordship had enjoyed this noble
party.
Mrs. Rawdon Crawley's carriage, coming up to the
gate after due shouting, rattled into the illuminated
court-yard and drove up to the covered way. Rawdon
put his wife into the carriage, which drove off. Mr.
Wenham had proposed to him to walk home, and offered
the Colonel the refreshment of a cigar.
They lighted their cigars by the lamp of one of the
many link-boys outside, and Rawdon walked on with his
friend Wenham. Two persons separated from the crowd
and followed the two gentlemen; and when they had
walked down Gaunt Square a few score of paces, one
of the men came up and, touching Rawdon on the shoulder,
said, "Beg your pardon, Colonel, I vish to speak to
you most particular." This gentleman's acquaintance
gave a loud whistle as the latter spoke, at which signal a
cab came clattering up from those stationed at the gate
of Gaunt House--and the aide-de-camp ran round and
placed himself in front of Colonel Crawley.
That gallant officer at once knew what had befallen
him. He was in the hands of the bailiffs. He started back,
falling against the man who had first touched him.
"We're three on us--it's no use bolting," the man
behind said.
"It's you, Moss, is it?" said the Colonel, who appeared
to know his interlocutor. "How much is it?"
"Only a small thing," whispered Mr. Moss, of Cursitor
Street, Chancery Lane, and assistant officer to the Sheriff
of Middlesex--"One hundred and sixty-six, six and eight-
pence, at the suit of Mr. Nathan."
"Lend me a hundred, Wenham, for God's sake," poor
Rawdon said--"I've got seventy at home."
"I've not got ten pounds in the world," said poor Mr.
Wenham--"Good night, my dear fellow."
"Good night," said Rawdon ruefully. And Wenham
walked away--and Rawdon Crawley finished his cigar
as the cab drove under Temple Bar.
CHAPTER LII
In Which Lord Steyne Shows Himself in a Most Amiable Light
When Lord Steyne was benevolently disposed, he did
nothing by halves, and his kindness towards the Crawley
family did the greatest honour to his benevolent
discrimination. His lordship extended his good-will to little
Rawdon: he pointed out to the boy's parents the necessity
of sending him to a public school, that he was of
an age now when emulation, the first principles of the
Latin language, pugilistic exercises, and the society of
his fellow-boys would be of the greatest benefit to the
boy. His father objected that he was not rich enough to
send the child to a good public school; his mother that
Briggs was a capital mistress for him, and had brought
him on (as indeed was the fact) famously in English,
the Latin rudiments, and in general learning: but all these
objections disappeared before the generous perseverance
of the Marquis of Steyne. His lordship was one of the
governors of that famous old collegiate institution called
the Whitefriars. It had been a Cistercian Convent in old
days, when the Smithfield, which is contiguous to it, was
a tournament ground. Obstinate heretics used to be
brought thither convenient for burning hard by. Henry
VIII, the Defender of the Faith, seized upon the
monastery and its possessions and hanged and tortured some
of the monks who could not accommodate themselves to
the pace of his reform. Finally, a great merchant bought
the house and land adjoining, in which, and with the help
of other wealthy endowments of land and money, he
established a famous foundation hospital for old men
and children. An extern school grew round the old almost
monastic foundation, which subsists still with its
middle-age costume and usages--and all Cistercians pray
that it may long flourish.
Of this famous house, some of the greatest noblemen,
prelates, and dignitaries in England are governors: and
as the boys are very comfortably lodged, fed, and
educated, and subsequently inducted to good scholarships
at the University and livings in the Church, many little
gentlemen are devoted to the ecclesiastical profession
from their tenderest years, and there is considerable
emulation to procure nominations for the foundation. It
was originally intended for the sons of poor and
deserving clerics and laics, but many of the noble governors
of the Institution, with an enlarged and rather capricious
benevolence, selected all sorts of objects for their bounty.
To get an education for nothing, and a future livelihood
and profession assured, was so excellent a scheme that
some of the richest people did not disdain it; and not
only great men's relations, but great men themselves, sent
their sons to profit by the chance--Right Rev. prelates
sent their own kinsmen or the sons of their clergy, while,
on the other hand, some great noblemen did not disdain
to patronize the children of their confidential servants--
so that a lad entering this establishment had every
variety of youthful society wherewith to mingle.
Rawdon Crawley, though the only book which he studied
was the Racing Calendar, and though his chief
recollections of polite learning were connected with the
floggings which he received at Eton in his early youth,
had that decent and honest reverence for classical learning
which all English gentlemen feel, and was glad to think
that his son was to have a provision for life, perhaps,
and a certain opportunity of becoming a scholar. And
although his boy was his chief solace and companion, and
endeared to him by a thousand small ties, about which
he did not care to speak to his wife, who had all along
shown the utmost indifference to their son, yet Rawdon
agreed at once to part with him and to give up his own
greatest comfort and benefit for the sake of the welfare
of the little lad. He did not know how fond he was of
the child until it became necessary to let him go away.
When he was gone, he felt more sad and downcast than
he cared to own--far sadder than the boy himself, who
was happy enough to enter a new career and find
companions of his own age. Becky burst out laughing once
or twice when the Colonel, in his clumsy, incoherent way,
tried to express his sentimental sorrows at the boy's
departure. The poor fellow felt that his dearest pleasure
and closest friend was taken from him. He looked often
and wistfully at the little vacant bed in his dressing-room,
where the child used to sleep. He missed him sadly of
mornings and tried in vain to walk in the park without
him. He did not know how solitary he was until little
Rawdon was gone. He liked the people who were fond of
him, and would go and sit for long hours with his
good-natured sister Lady Jane, and talk to her about
the virtues, and good looks, and hundred good qualities
of the child.
Young Rawdon's aunt, we have said, was very fond
of him, as was her little girl, who wept copiously when
the time for her cousin's departure came. The elder
Rawdon was thankful for the fondness of mother and
daughter. The very best and honestest feelings of the
man came out in these artless outpourings of paternal
feeling in which he indulged in their presence, and
encouraged by their sympathy. He secured not only Lady
Jane's kindness, but her sincere regard, by the feelings
which he manifested, and which he could not show to his
own wife. The two kinswomen met as seldom as possible.
Becky laughed bitterly at Jane's feelings and softness;
the other's kindly and gentle nature could not but revolt
at her sister's callous behaviour.
It estranged Rawdon from his wife more than he knew
or acknowledged to himself. She did not care for the
estrangement. Indeed, she did not miss him or anybody.
She looked upon him as her errand-man and humble
slave. He might be ever so depressed or sulky, and she
did not mark his demeanour, or only treated it with a
sneer. She was busy thinking about her position, or her
pleasures, or her advancement in society; she ought to
have held a great place in it, that is certain.
It was honest Briggs who made up the little kit for the
boy which he was to take to school. Molly, the housemaid,
blubbered in the passage when he went away--
Molly kind and faithful in spite of a long arrear of
unpaid wages. Mrs. Becky could not let her husband have
the carriage to take the boy to school. Take the horses
into the City!--such a thing was never heard of. Let a
cab be brought. She did not offer to kiss him when he
went, nor did the child propose to embrace her; but
gave a kiss to old Briggs (whom, in general, he was very
shy of caressing), and consoled her by pointing out that
he was to come home on Saturdays, when she would
have the benefit of seeing him. As the cab rolled towards
the City, Becky's carriage rattled off to the park. She
was chattering and laughing with a score of young dandies
by the Serpentine as the father and son entered at the
old gates of the school--where Rawdon left the child
and came away with a sadder purer feeling in his heart
than perhaps that poor battered fellow had ever known
since he himself came out of the nursery.
He walked all the way home very dismally, and dined
alone with Briggs. He was very kind to her and grateful
for her love and watchfulness over the boy. His
conscience smote him that he had borrowed Briggs's money
and aided in deceiving her. They talked about little
Rawdon a long time, for Becky only came home to dress
and go out to dinner--and then he went off uneasily to
drink tea with Lady Jane, and tell her of what had
happened, and how little Rawdon went off like a trump, and
how he was to wear a gown and little knee-breeches, and
how young Blackball, Jack Blackball's son, of the old
regiment, had taken him in charge and promised to be
kind to him.
In the course of a week, young Blackball had
constituted little Rawdon his fag, shoe-black, and breakfast
toaster; initiated him into the mysteries of the Latin
Grammar; and thrashed him three or four times, but not
severely. The little chap's good-natured honest face won
his way for him. He only got that degree of beating which
was, no doubt, good for him; and as for blacking shoes,
toasting bread, and fagging in general, were these offices
not deemed to be necessary parts of every young English
gentleman's education?
Our business does not lie with the second generation
and Master Rawdon's life at school, otherwise the present
tale might be carried to any indefinite length. The Colonel
went to see his son a short time afterwards and found
the lad sufficiently well and happy, grinning and laughing
in his little black gown and little breeches.
His father sagaciously tipped Blackball, his master, a
sovereign, and secured that young gentleman's good-will
towards his fag. As a protege of the great Lord Steyne,
the nephew of a County member, and son of a Colonel
and C.B., whose name appeared in some of the most
fashionable parties in the Morning Post, perhaps the
school authorities were disposed not to look unkindly on
the child. He had plenty of pocket-money, which he
spent in treating his comrades royally to raspberry tarts,
and he was often allowed to come home on Saturdays
to his father, who always made a jubilee of that day.
When free, Rawdon would take him to the play, or send
him thither with the footman; and on Sundays he went to
church with Briggs and Lady Jane and his cousins.
Rawdon marvelled over his stories about school, and
