Vanity Fair - Page 443/573

Friend Rawdon drove on then to Mr. Moss's mansion in Cursitor Street,

and was duly inducted into that dismal place of hospitality. Morning

was breaking over the cheerful house-tops of Chancery Lane as the

rattling cab woke up the echoes there. A little pink-eyed Jew-boy,

with a head as ruddy as the rising morn, let the party into the house,

and Rawdon was welcomed to the ground-floor apartments by Mr. Moss, his

travelling companion and host, who cheerfully asked him if he would

like a glass of something warm after his drive.

The Colonel was not so depressed as some mortals would be, who,

quitting a palace and a placens uxor, find themselves barred into a

spunging-house; for, if the truth must be told, he had been a lodger at

Mr. Moss's establishment once or twice before. We have not thought it

necessary in the previous course of this narrative to mention these

trivial little domestic incidents: but the reader may be assured that

they can't unfrequently occur in the life of a man who lives on nothing

a year.

Upon his first visit to Mr. Moss, the Colonel, then a bachelor, had

been liberated by the generosity of his aunt; on the second mishap,

little Becky, with the greatest spirit and kindness, had borrowed a sum

of money from Lord Southdown and had coaxed her husband's creditor (who

was her shawl, velvet-gown, lace pocket-handkerchief, trinket, and

gim-crack purveyor, indeed) to take a portion of the sum claimed and

Rawdon's promissory note for the remainder: so on both these occasions

the capture and release had been conducted with the utmost gallantry on

all sides, and Moss and the Colonel were therefore on the very best of

terms.

"You'll find your old bed, Colonel, and everything comfortable," that

gentleman said, "as I may honestly say. You may be pretty sure its kep

aired, and by the best of company, too. It was slep in the night afore

last by the Honorable Capting Famish, of the Fiftieth Dragoons, whose

Mar took him out, after a fortnight, jest to punish him, she said.

But, Law bless you, I promise you, he punished my champagne, and had a

party ere every night--reglar tip-top swells, down from the clubs and

the West End--Capting Ragg, the Honorable Deuceace, who lives in the

Temple, and some fellers as knows a good glass of wine, I warrant you.

I've got a Doctor of Diwinity upstairs, five gents in the coffee-room,

and Mrs. Moss has a tably-dy-hoty at half-past five, and a little

cards or music afterwards, when we shall be most happy to see you."

"I'll ring when I want anything," said Rawdon and went quietly to his

bedroom. He was an old soldier, we have said, and not to be disturbed

by any little shocks of fate. A weaker man would have sent off a

letter to his wife on the instant of his capture. "But what is the use

of disturbing her night's rest?" thought Rawdon. "She won't know

whether I am in my room or not. It will be time enough to write to her

when she has had her sleep out, and I have had mine. It's only a

hundred-and-seventy, and the deuce is in it if we can't raise that."

And so, thinking about little Rawdon (whom he would not have know that

he was in such a queer place), the Colonel turned into the bed lately

occupied by Captain Famish and fell asleep. It was ten o'clock when he

woke up, and the ruddy-headed youth brought him, with conscious pride,

a fine silver dressing-case, wherewith he might perform the operation

of shaving. Indeed Mr. Moss's house, though somewhat dirty, was

splendid throughout. There were dirty trays, and wine-coolers en

permanence on the sideboard, huge dirty gilt cornices, with dingy

yellow satin hangings to the barred windows which looked into Cursitor

Street--vast and dirty gilt picture frames surrounding pieces sporting

and sacred, all of which works were by the greatest masters--and

fetched the greatest prices, too, in the bill transactions, in the

course of which they were sold and bought over and over again. The

Colonel's breakfast was served to him in the same dingy and gorgeous

plated ware. Miss Moss, a dark-eyed maid in curl-papers, appeared with

the teapot, and, smiling, asked the Colonel how he had slep? And she

brought him in the Morning Post, with the names of all the great people

who had figured at Lord Steyne's entertainment the night before. It

contained a brilliant account of the festivities and of the beautiful

and accomplished Mrs. Rawdon Crawley's admirable personifications.