24

Friend Rawdon drove on then to Mr. Moss’s mansion in Cursitor Street, and was duly inducted into that dismal place of hospitality. Morning was breaking over the cheerful house-tops of Chancery Lane and Rawdon was welcomed to the ground-floor apartments by Mr. Moss, his travelling companion and host, who cheerfully asked him if he would like a glass of something warm after his drive.

After a lively chat with this lady, Colonel Crawley called for pens and ink, and paper. He wrote Becky a touching letter asking to help him in returning an old debt. The matter was to be decided instantly. But the day passed away and no messenger returned – no Becky.

Then a letter arrived full of gallant news but without any hint of solving his problems. As a result, he spent time pondering and waiting for his wife who never came. And only Lady Jane came late in the evening to assist him and pay the accounts.

Rawdon left her and walked home rapidly. It was nine o’clock at night. He ran across the streets and the great squares of Vanity Fair, and at length came up breathless opposite his own house. He started back and fell against the railings, trembling as he looked up. The drawing-room windows were blazing with light. She had said that she was in bed and ill. He stood there for some time, the light from the rooms on his pale face. He took out his door-key and let himself into the house. He could hear laughter in the upper rooms. He was in the ball dress in which he had been captured the night before. He went silently up the stairs, leaning against the banisters at the stair-head. Nobody was stirring in the house besides – all the servants had been sent away. Rawdon heard laughter within – laughter and singing.

Rawdon opened the door and went in. A little table with a dinner was laid out – and wine and plate. Steyne was hanging over the sofa on which Becky sat. The wretched woman was in a brilliant full toilette, her arms and all her fingers sparkling with bracelets and rings, and the brilliants on her breast which Steyne had given her. He had her hand in his, and was bowing over it to kiss it, when Becky started up with a faint scream as she caught sight of Rawdon’s white face. At the next instant she tried a smile, a horrid smile, as if to welcome her husband; and Steyne rose up, grinding his teeth, pale, and with fury in his looks.

There was that in Rawdon’s face which caused Becky to fling herself before him. “I am innocent, Rawdon,” she said; “before God, I am innocent.” She clung hold of his coat, of his hands; her own were all covered with serpents, and rings, and baubles. “I am innocent. Say I am innocent,” she said to Lord Steyne.

He thought a trap had been laid for him, and was as furious with the wife as with the husband. “You innocent! Damn you,” he screamed out. “You innocent! Why every trinket you have on your body is paid for by me. I have given you thousands of pounds, which this fellow has spent and for which he has sold you. Innocent! Make way, sir, and let me pass”; and Lord Steyne seized up his hat, and, with flame in his eyes, and looking his enemy fiercely in the face, marched upon him, never for a moment doubting that the other would give way.

But Rawdon Crawley springing out, seized him by the neckcloth, until Steyne, almost strangled, writhed and bent under his arm. “You lie, you dog!” said Rawdon. “You lie, you coward and villain!” And he struck the Peer twice over the face with his open hand and flung him bleeding to the ground. It was all done before Rebecca could interpose. She stood there trembling before him. She admired her husband, strong, brave, and victorious.

“Come here,” he said. She came up at once.

“Take off those things.” She began, trembling, pulling the jewels from her arms, and the rings from her shaking fingers, and held them all in a heap, quivering and looking up at him.

“Throw them down,” he said, and she dropped them. He tore the diamond ornament out of her breast and flung it at Lord Steyne. It cut him on his bald forehead. Steyne wore the scar to his dying day.

“Come upstairs,” Rawdon said to his wife. “Don’t kill me, Rawdon,” she said. He laughed savagely. “I want to see if that man lies about the money as he has about me. Has he given you any?”

“No,” said Rebecca, “that is – ”

“Give me your keys,” Rawdon answered, and they went out together.

Rebecca gave him all the keys but one, and she was in hopes that he would not have remarked the absence of that. It belonged to the little desk which Amelia had given her in early days, and which she kept in a secret place. But Rawdon flung open boxes and wardrobes, and at last he found the desk. The woman was forced to open it. It contained papers, love-letters many years old – all sorts of small trinkets and woman’s memoranda. And it contained a pocket-book with bank-notes.

Some of these were dated ten years back, too, and one was quite a fresh one – a note for a thousand pounds which Lord Steyne had given her.

“Did he give you this?” Rawdon said.

“Yes,” Rebecca answered.

“I’ll send it to him to-day,” Rawdon said (for day had dawned again, and many hours had passed in this search), “and I will pay some of the debts. You will let me know where I shall send the rest to you. You might have spared me a hundred pounds, Becky, out of all this – I have always shared with you.”

“I am innocent,” said Becky. And he left her without another word.

What were her thoughts when he left her? She remained for hours after he was gone, the sunshine pouring into the room, and Rebecca sitting alone on the bed’s edge. The drawers were all opened and their contents scattered about – dresses and feathers, scarfs and trinkets, a heap of tumbled vanities lying in a wreck. Her hair was falling over her shoulders; her gown was torn where Rawdon had wrenched the brilliants out of it. She heard him go downstairs a few minutes after he left her, and the door slamming and closing on him. She knew he would never come back. He was gone forever.

She thought of her long past life, and all the dismal incidents of it. Ah, how dreary it seemed, how miserable, lonely and profitless. All her lies and her schemes, and her selfishness and her wiles, all her wit and genius had come to this bankruptcy. The woman closed the curtains and, with some entreaty and show of kindness, persuaded her mistress to lie down on the bed. Then she went below and gathered up the trinkets which had been lying on the floor since Rebecca dropped them there at her husband’s orders, and Lord Steyne went away.

25

The mansion of Sir Pitt Crawley, in Great Gaunt Street, was just beginning to dress itself for the day, as Rawdon, in his evening costume, which he had now worn two days, passed by the scared female who was scouring the steps and entered into his brother’s study. Poor Rawdon took up the paper and began to try and read it until his brother should arrive. But the print fell blank upon his eyes, and he did not know in the least what he was reading.

Punctually, Sir Pitt made his appearance, fresh, neat, smugly shaved, with a waxy clean face, and stiff shirt collar – a real old English gentleman, in a word – a model of neatness and every propriety. He started when he saw poor Rawdon in his study in tumbled clothes, with blood-shot eyes, and his hair over his face. He thought his brother was not sober, and had been out all night on some orgy. “Good gracious, Rawdon,” he said, with a blank face, “what brings you here at this time of the morning? Why ain’t you at home?”

“Home,” said Rawdon with a wild laugh. “Don’t be frightened, Pitt. I’m not drunk. Shut the door; I want to speak to you.”

Pitt closed the door and came up to the table.

“Pitt, it’s all over with me,” the Colonel said after a pause. “I’m done.”

“I always said it would come to this,” the Baronet cried peevishly. “I warned you a thousand times. I can’t help you anymore. Every shilling of my money is tied up.”

“It’s not money I want,” Rawdon broke in. “I’m not come to you about myself. Never mind what happens to me.”

“What is the matter, then?” said Pitt, somewhat relieved.

“It’s the boy,” said Rawdon in a husky voice. “I want you to promise me that you will take charge of him when I’m gone. That dear good wife of yours has always been good to him; and he’s fonder of her than he is of his…”

“Good God! is she dead?” Sir Pitt said with a voice of genuine alarm and commiseration.

“I wish I was,” Rawdon replied. “If it wasn’t for little Rawdon I’d have cut my throat this morning – and that damned villain’s too.”

Sir Pitt instantly guessed the truth and surmised that Lord Steyne was the person whose life Rawdon wished to take. The Colonel told his senior briefly, and in broken accents, the circumstances of the case.

To an affair of that nature, of course, he said, there was but one issue, and after his conference with his brother, he was going away to make the necessary arrangements for the meeting which must ensue.

“And as it may end fatally with me,” Rawdon said with a broken voice, “and as the boy has no mother, I must leave him to you and Jane, Pitt – only it will be a comfort to me if you will promise me to be his friend.”

The elder brother was much affected, and shook Rawdon’s hand with a cordiality seldom exhibited by him. Rawdon passed his hand over his shaggy eyebrows. “Thank you, brother,” said he. “I know I can trust your word.”

“I will, upon my honour,” the Baronet said. And thus, and almost mutely, this bargain was struck between them.

Rawdon Crawley meanwhile hurried on from Great Gaunt Street. He speedily made his way up to the room of his old friend and comrade Captain Macmurdo, who Crawley found, to his satisfaction, was in barracks. When Rawdon told the Captain he wanted a friend, the latter knew perfectly well on what duty of friendship he was called to act, and indeed had conducted scores of affairs for his acquaintances with the greatest prudence and skill.

“What’s the row about, Crawley, my boy?” said the old warrior.

“It’s about – about my wife,” Crawley answered, casting down his eyes and turning very red.

“Is there no way out of it, old boy?” the Captain continued in a grave tone. “Is it only suspicion, you know, or – or what is it? Any letters? Can’t you keep it quiet?

“There’s no way but one out of it,” Rawdon replied – ”and there’s only a way out of it for one of us, Mac – do you understand? I was put out of the way – arrested – I found ‘em alone together.

“Serve him right,” Macmurdo said. “Who is it?”

Rawdon answered it was Lord Steyne.

“The deuce! a Marquis! they said he – that is, they said you – ”

“What the devil do you mean?” roared out Rawdon; “do you mean that you ever heard a fellow doubt about my wife and didn’t tell me, Mac?”

“The world’s very censorious, old boy,” the other replied.

“It was damned unfriendly, Mac,” said Rawdon, quite overcome; and, covering his face with his hands, he gave way to an emotion, the sight of which caused the tough old campaigner opposite him to wince with sympathy.

“You don’t know how fond I was of that one,” Rawdon said, half-inarticulately. “ I followed her like a footman. I gave up everything I had to her. I’m a beggar because I would marry her.”

“She may be innocent, after all,” he said. “She says so. Steyne has been a hundred times alone with her in the house before.”

“It may be so,” Rawdon answered sadly, “but this don’t look very innocent”: and he showed the Captain the thousand-pound note which he had found in Becky’s pocket-book. “This is what he gave her, Mac, and with this money in the house, she refused to stand by me when I was locked up.” The Captain could not but own that the secreting of the money had a very ugly look.

Whilst they were engaged in their conference, Rawdon dispatched Captain Macmurdo’s servant to Curzon Street, with an order to the domestic there to give up a bag of clothes of which the Colonel had great need. And during the man’s absence, and with great labour and a Johnson’s Dictionary, which stood them in much stead, Rawdon and his second composed a letter, which the latter was to send to Lord Steyne.