Vanity Fair - Page 437/573

It was honest Briggs who made up the little kit for the boy which he

was to take to school. Molly, the housemaid, blubbered in the passage

when he went away--Molly kind and faithful in spite of a long arrear of

unpaid wages. Mrs. Becky could not let her husband have the carriage

to take the boy to school. Take the horses into the City!--such a

thing was never heard of. Let a cab be brought. She did not offer to

kiss him when he went, nor did the child propose to embrace her; but

gave a kiss to old Briggs (whom, in general, he was very shy of

caressing), and consoled her by pointing out that he was to come home

on Saturdays, when she would have the benefit of seeing him. As the

cab rolled towards the City, Becky's carriage rattled off to the park.

She was chattering and laughing with a score of young dandies by the

Serpentine as the father and son entered at the old gates of the

school--where Rawdon left the child and came away with a sadder purer

feeling in his heart than perhaps that poor battered fellow had ever

known since he himself came out of the nursery.

He walked all the way home very dismally, and dined alone with Briggs.

He was very kind to her and grateful for her love and watchfulness over

the boy. His conscience smote him that he had borrowed Briggs's money

and aided in deceiving her. They talked about little Rawdon a long

time, for Becky only came home to dress and go out to dinner--and then

he went off uneasily to drink tea with Lady Jane, and tell her of what

had happened, and how little Rawdon went off like a trump, and how he

was to wear a gown and little knee-breeches, and how young Blackball,

Jack Blackball's son, of the old regiment, had taken him in charge and

promised to be kind to him.

In the course of a week, young Blackball had constituted little Rawdon

his fag, shoe-black, and breakfast toaster; initiated him into the

mysteries of the Latin Grammar; and thrashed him three or four times,

but not severely. The little chap's good-natured honest face won his

way for him. He only got that degree of beating which was, no doubt,

good for him; and as for blacking shoes, toasting bread, and fagging in

general, were these offices not deemed to be necessary parts of every

young English gentleman's education?

Our business does not lie with the second generation and Master

Rawdon's life at school, otherwise the present tale might be carried to

any indefinite length. The Colonel went to see his son a short time

afterwards and found the lad sufficiently well and happy, grinning and

laughing in his little black gown and little breeches.