15

Rebecca’s wit, cleverness, and flippancy made her speedily the vogue in London among a certain class.

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.

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? 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. While there is life, there is hope, my dear, and I intend to make a man of you yet.” Rawdon was obliged to confess that he owed much to his wife, and to trust himself to her guidance for the future.

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. 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 presented her with the best companion she could dream of: a sheep-dog. 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 tonight, 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.”

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.

“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.

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.

16

Our worthy fat friend Joseph Sedley returned to India not long after his escape from Brussels. Jos’s London agents had orders to pay one hundred and twenty pounds yearly to his parents at Fulham. It was the chief support of the old couple; for Mr. Sedley’s speculations in life subsequent to his bankruptcy did not by any means retrieve the broken old gentleman’s fortune. He tried to be a wine-merchant, a coal-merchant, a commission lottery agent. But Fortune never came back to the feeble and stricken old man.

Had Mrs. Sedley been a woman of energy, she would have exerted it after her husband’s ruin and, occupying a large house, would have taken in boarders, but Mrs. Sedley, we say, had not spirit enough to bustle about. She was content to lie on the shore where fortune had stranded her – and you could see that the career of this old couple was over.

In little George’s room was all Amelia’s heart and treasure. On the twenty-fifth of April, and the eighteenth of June, the days of marriage and widowhood, she kept her room entirely. During the day she was more active. She had to teach George to read and to write and a little to draw. She read books, in order that she might tell him stories from them.

Besides her pension of fifty pounds a year, there had been five hundred pounds, as her husband’s executor stated, left in the agent’s hands at the time of Osborne’s demise, which sum, as George’s guardian, Dobbin proposed to put out at 8 per cent in an Indian house of agency. Mr. Sedley, who thought the Major had some roguish intentions of his own about the money, was strongly against this plan. Dobbin at this lost all patience, and if his accuser had not been so old and so broken, a quarrel might have ensued between them. “Come upstairs, sir,” lisped out the Major. “I insist on your coming up the stairs, and I will show which is the injured party, poor George or I”; and, dragging the old gentleman up to his bedroom, he produced from his desk Osborne’s accounts, and a bundle of IOU’s which the latter had given, who, to do him justice, was always ready to give an IOU. “He paid his bills in England,” Dobbin added, “but he had not a hundred pounds in the world when he fell. I and one or two of his brother officers made up the little sum, which was all that we could spare, and you dare tell us that we are trying to cheat the widow and the orphan.” Sedley was very contrite and humbled, though the fact is that William Dobbin had told a great falsehood to the old gentleman; having himself given every shilling of the money, having buried his friend, and paid all the fees and charges incident upon the calamity and removal of poor Amelia.

About these expenses old Osborne had never given himself any trouble to think, nor any other relative of Amelia, nor Amelia herself, indeed. She trusted to Major Dobbin as an accountant, took his somewhat confused calculations for granted, and never once suspected how much she was in his debt. Twice or thrice in the year, according to her promise, she wrote him letters to Madras, letters all about little Georgy.

How he treasured these papers! Whenever Amelia wrote he answered, and not until then. But he sent over endless remembrances of himself to his godson and to her. He ordered and sent a box of scarfs and a grand ivory set of chess-men from China. These chess-men were the delight of Georgy’s life, who printed his first letter in acknowledgement of this gift of his godpapa. And Dobbin sent other numerous things.

One day Dobbin’s sisters kindly came over to Amelia with news which they were SURE would delight her – something very interesting about their dear William.

“What was it: was he coming home?” she asked with pleasure beaming in her eyes.

“Oh, no – not the least – but they had very good reason to believe that dear William was about to be married – a very beautiful and accomplished girl, everybody said.”

Amelia said “Oh!” Amelia was very happy indeed.

17

Rebecca and Rawdon were on their way of reconciliation with the family. The old Baronet died and Sir Pitt Crawley kindly invited his brother and his wife to come and share their fatherly shelter of Queen’s Crawley.

So the mourning being ready, and Sir Pitt Crawley warned of their arrival, Colonel Crawley and his wife took a couple of places in the same coach by which Rebecca had travelled in the defunct Baronet’s company, on her first journey into the world some nine years before. The carriage pulled up at the familiar steps. Rawdon turned red, and Becky somewhat pale, as they passed through the old hall, arm in arm. She pinched her husband’s arm as they entered the oak parlour, where Sir Pitt and his wife were ready to receive them. Pitt, with rather a heightened colour, went up and shook his brother by the hand, and saluted Rebecca with a hand-shake and a very low bow. But Lady Jane took both the hands of her sister-in-law and kissed her affectionately. The embrace somehow brought tears into the eyes of the little adventuress. The artless mark of kindness and confidence touched and pleased her; and Rawdon twirled up his mustachios and took leave to salute Lady Jane with a kiss, which caused her Ladyship to blush exceedingly. With regard to her sisters-in-law Rebecca did not attempt to forget her former position of Governess towards them, but recalled it frankly and kindly, and asked them about their studies with great gravity.

Sir Pitt remembered the testimonies of respect and veneration which Rebecca had paid personally to himself in early days, and was tolerably well disposed towards her. The marriage, ill-advised as it was, had improved Rawdon very much – that was clear from the Colonel’s altered habits and demeanour – and had it not been a lucky union as regarded Pitt himself?

His satisfaction was not removed by Rebecca’s own statements, behaviour, and conversation.

“It isn’t difficult to be a country gentleman’s wife,” Rebecca thought. “I think I could be a good woman if I had five thousand a year. I have passed beyond it, because I have brains,” Becky thought, “and almost all the rest of the world are fools.”

It may, perhaps, have struck her that to have been honest and humble, to have done her duty, and to have marched straightforward on her way, would have brought her as near happiness as that path by which she was striving to attain it.

So Rebecca, during her stay at Queen’s Crawley, made as many friends as she could possibly bring under control. Lady Jane and her husband bade her farewell with the warmest demonstrations of good-will. They looked forward with pleasure to the time when, the family house in Gaunt Street being repaired and beautified, they were to meet again in London.

“How happy you will be to see your darling little boy again!” Lady Crawley said, taking leave of her kinswoman.

“Oh so happy!” said Rebecca, throwing up the green eyes. She was immensely happy to be free of the place, and yet loath to go. Queen’s Crawley was abominably stupid, and yet the air there was somehow purer than that which she had been accustomed to breathe. Everybody had been dull, but had been kind in their way.

However, the London lamps flashed joyfully as the stage rolled into Piccadilly, and Briggs had made a beautiful fire in Curzon Street, and little Rawdon was up to welcome back his papa and mamma.