Vanity Fair - Page 408/573

"The money which I brought into the family, sir," Lady George cried

out-"You purchased a contingent reversion with it," the Marquis said

darkly. "If Gaunt dies, your husband may come to his honours; your

little boys may inherit them, and who knows what besides? In the

meanwhile, ladies, be as proud and virtuous as you like abroad, but

don't give ME any airs. As for Mrs. Crawley's character, I shan't

demean myself or that most spotless and perfectly irreproachable lady

by even hinting that it requires a defence. You will be pleased to

receive her with the utmost cordiality, as you will receive all persons

whom I present in this house. This house?" He broke out with a laugh.

"Who is the master of it? and what is it? This Temple of Virtue belongs

to me. And if I invite all Newgate or all Bedlam here, by ------ they

shall be welcome."

After this vigorous allocution, to one of which sort Lord Steyne

treated his "Hareem" whenever symptoms of insubordination appeared in

his household, the crestfallen women had nothing for it but to obey.

Lady Gaunt wrote the invitation which his Lordship required, and she

and her mother-in-law drove in person, and with bitter and humiliated

hearts, to leave the cards on Mrs. Rawdon, the reception of which

caused that innocent woman so much pleasure.

There were families in London who would have sacrificed a year's income

to receive such an honour at the hands of those great ladies. Mrs.

Frederick Bullock, for instance, would have gone on her knees from May

Fair to Lombard Street, if Lady Steyne and Lady Gaunt had been waiting

in the City to raise her up and say, "Come to us next Friday"--not to

one of the great crushes and grand balls of Gaunt House, whither

everybody went, but to the sacred, unapproachable, mysterious,

delicious entertainments, to be admitted to one of which was a

privilege, and an honour, and a blessing indeed.

Severe, spotless, and beautiful, Lady Gaunt held the very highest rank

in Vanity Fair. The distinguished courtesy with which Lord Steyne

treated her charmed everybody who witnessed his behaviour, caused the

severest critics to admit how perfect a gentleman he was, and to own

that his Lordship's heart at least was in the right place.

The ladies of Gaunt House called Lady Bareacres in to their aid, in

order to repulse the common enemy. One of Lady Gaunt's carriages went

to Hill Street for her Ladyship's mother, all whose equipages were in

the hands of the bailiffs, whose very jewels and wardrobe, it was said,

had been seized by those inexorable Israelites. Bareacres Castle was

theirs, too, with all its costly pictures, furniture, and articles of

vertu--the magnificent Vandykes; the noble Reynolds pictures; the

Lawrence portraits, tawdry and beautiful, and, thirty years ago, deemed

as precious as works of real genius; the matchless Dancing Nymph of

Canova, for which Lady Bareacres had sat in her youth--Lady Bareacres

splendid then, and radiant in wealth, rank, and beauty--a toothless,

bald, old woman now--a mere rag of a former robe of state. Her lord,

painted at the same time by Lawrence, as waving his sabre in front of

Bareacres Castle, and clothed in his uniform as Colonel of the

Thistlewood Yeomanry, was a withered, old, lean man in a greatcoat and

a Brutus wig, slinking about Gray's Inn of mornings chiefly and dining

alone at clubs. He did not like to dine with Steyne now. They had run

races of pleasure together in youth when Bareacres was the winner. But

Steyne had more bottom than he and had lasted him out. The Marquis was

ten times a greater man now than the young Lord Gaunt of '85, and

Bareacres nowhere in the race--old, beaten, bankrupt, and broken down.

He had borrowed too much money of Steyne to find it pleasant to meet

his old comrade often. The latter, whenever he wished to be merry,

used jeeringly to ask Lady Gaunt why her father had not come to see

her. "He has not been here for four months," Lord Steyne would say. "I

can always tell by my cheque-book afterwards, when I get a visit from

Bareacres. What a comfort it is, my ladies, I bank with one of my

sons' fathers-in-law, and the other banks with me!"