Vanity Fair - Page 345/573

So it was that she fell in with Rebecca. Mrs. Rawdon's dashing little

carriage and ponies was whirling down the street one day, just as Miss

Briggs, fatigued, had reached Mr. Bowls's door, after a weary walk to

the Times Office in the City to insert her advertisement for the sixth

time. Rebecca was driving, and at once recognized the gentlewoman with

agreeable manners, and being a perfectly good-humoured woman, as we

have seen, and having a regard for Briggs, she pulled up the ponies at

the doorsteps, gave the reins to the groom, and jumping out, had hold

of both Briggs's hands, before she of the agreeable manners had

recovered from the shock of seeing an old friend.

Briggs cried, and Becky laughed a great deal and kissed the gentlewoman

as soon as they got into the passage; and thence into Mrs. Bowls's

front parlour, with the red moreen curtains, and the round

looking-glass, with the chained eagle above, gazing upon the back of

the ticket in the window which announced "Apartments to Let."

Briggs told all her history amidst those perfectly uncalled-for sobs

and ejaculations of wonder with which women of her soft nature salute

an old acquaintance, or regard a rencontre in the street; for though

people meet other people every day, yet some there are who insist upon

discovering miracles; and women, even though they have disliked each

other, begin to cry when they meet, deploring and remembering the time

when they last quarrelled. So, in a word, Briggs told all her history,

and Becky gave a narrative of her own life, with her usual artlessness

and candour.

Mrs. Bowls, late Firkin, came and listened grimly in the passage to the

hysterical sniffling and giggling which went on in the front parlour.

Becky had never been a favourite of hers. Since the establishment of

the married couple in London they had frequented their former friends

of the house of Raggles, and did not like the latter's account of the

Colonel's menage. "I wouldn't trust him, Ragg, my boy," Bowls

remarked; and his wife, when Mrs. Rawdon issued from the parlour, only

saluted the lady with a very sour curtsey; and her fingers were like so

many sausages, cold and lifeless, when she held them out in deference

to Mrs. Rawdon, who persisted in shaking hands with the retired lady's

maid. She whirled away into Piccadilly, nodding with the sweetest of

smiles towards Miss Briggs, who hung nodding at the window close under

the advertisement-card, and at the next moment was in the park with a

half-dozen of dandies cantering after her carriage.

When she found how her friend was situated, and how having a snug

legacy from Miss Crawley, salary was no object to our gentlewoman,

Becky instantly formed some benevolent little domestic plans concerning

her. This was just such a companion as would suit her establishment,

and she invited Briggs to come to dinner with her that very evening,

when she should see Becky's dear little darling Rawdon.