Vanity Fair - Page 135/573

The old aunt was long in "coming-to." A month had elapsed. Rawdon was

denied the door by Mr. Bowls; his servants could not get a lodgment in

the house at Park Lane; his letters were sent back unopened. Miss

Crawley never stirred out--she was unwell--and Mrs. Bute remained still

and never left her. Crawley and his wife both of them augured evil

from the continued presence of Mrs. Bute.

"Gad, I begin to perceive now why she was always bringing us together

at Queen's Crawley," Rawdon said.

"What an artful little woman!" ejaculated Rebecca.

"Well, I don't regret it, if you don't," the Captain cried, still in an

amorous rapture with his wife, who rewarded him with a kiss by way of

reply, and was indeed not a little gratified by the generous confidence

of her husband.

"If he had but a little more brains," she thought to herself, "I might

make something of him"; but she never let him perceive the opinion she

had of him; listened with indefatigable complacency to his stories of

the stable and the mess; laughed at all his jokes; felt the greatest

interest in Jack Spatterdash, whose cab-horse had come down, and Bob

Martingale, who had been taken up in a gambling-house, and Tom

Cinqbars, who was going to ride the steeplechase. When he came home she

was alert and happy: when he went out she pressed him to go: when he

stayed at home, she played and sang for him, made him good drinks,

superintended his dinner, warmed his slippers, and steeped his soul in

comfort. The best of women (I have heard my grandmother say) are

hypocrites. We don't know how much they hide from us: how watchful

they are when they seem most artless and confidential: how often those

frank smiles which they wear so easily, are traps to cajole or elude or

disarm--I don't mean in your mere coquettes, but your domestic models,

and paragons of female virtue. Who has not seen a woman hide the

dulness of a stupid husband, or coax the fury of a savage one? We

accept this amiable slavishness, and praise a woman for it: we call

this pretty treachery truth. A good housewife is of necessity a

humbug; and Cornelia's husband was hoodwinked, as Potiphar was--only in

a different way.

By these attentions, that veteran rake, Rawdon Crawley, found himself

converted into a very happy and submissive married man. His former

haunts knew him not. They asked about him once or twice at his clubs,

but did not miss him much: in those booths of Vanity Fair people seldom

do miss each other. His secluded wife ever smiling and cheerful, his

little comfortable lodgings, snug meals, and homely evenings, had all

the charms of novelty and secrecy. The marriage was not yet declared

to the world, or published in the Morning Post. All his creditors

would have come rushing on him in a body, had they known that he was

united to a woman without fortune. "My relations won't cry fie upon

me," Becky said, with rather a bitter laugh; and she was quite

contented to wait until the old aunt should be reconciled, before she

claimed her place in society. So she lived at Brompton, and meanwhile

saw no one, or only those few of her husband's male companions who were

admitted into her little dining-room. These were all charmed with her.

The little dinners, the laughing and chatting, the music afterwards,

delighted all who participated in these enjoyments. Major Martingale

never thought about asking to see the marriage licence, Captain

Cinqbars was perfectly enchanted with her skill in making punch. And

young Lieutenant Spatterdash (who was fond of piquet, and whom Crawley

would often invite) was evidently and quickly smitten by Mrs. Crawley;

but her own circumspection and modesty never forsook her for a moment,

and Crawley's reputation as a fire-eating and jealous warrior was a

further and complete defence to his little wife.