Vanity Fair - Page 551/573

Becky laughed, though in rage and fury. "What! assassinate poor little

me?" she said. "How romantic! Does my lord carry bravos for couriers,

and stilettos in the fourgons? Bah! I will stay, if but to plague him.

I have those who will defend me whilst I am here."

It was Monsieur Fiche's turn to laugh now. "Defend you," he said, "and

who? The Major, the Captain, any one of those gambling men whom Madame

sees would take her life for a hundred louis. We know things about

Major Loder (he is no more a Major than I am my Lord the Marquis) which

would send him to the galleys or worse. We know everything and have

friends everywhere. We know whom you saw at Paris, and what relations

you found there. Yes, Madame may stare, but we do. How was it that no

minister on the Continent would receive Madame? She has offended

somebody: who never forgives--whose rage redoubled when he saw you.

He was like a madman last night when he came home. Madame de

Belladonna made him a scene about you and fired off in one of her

furies."

"Oh, it was Madame de Belladonna, was it?" Becky said, relieved a

little, for the information she had just got had scared her.

"No--she does not matter--she is always jealous. I tell you it was

Monseigneur. You did wrong to show yourself to him. And if you stay

here you will repent it. Mark my words. Go. Here is my lord's

carriage"--and seizing Becky's arm, he rushed down an alley of the

garden as Lord Steyne's barouche, blazing with heraldic devices, came

whirling along the avenue, borne by the almost priceless horses, and

bearing Madame de Belladonna lolling on the cushions, dark, sulky, and

blooming, a King Charles in her lap, a white parasol swaying over her

head, and old Steyne stretched at her side with a livid face and

ghastly eyes. Hate, or anger, or desire caused them to brighten now

and then still, but ordinarily, they gave no light, and seemed tired of

looking out on a world of which almost all the pleasure and all the

best beauty had palled upon the worn-out wicked old man.

"Monseigneur has never recovered the shock of that night, never,"

Monsieur Fiche whispered to Mrs. Crawley as the carriage flashed by,

and she peeped out at it from behind the shrubs that hid her. "That

was a consolation at any rate," Becky thought.

Whether my lord really had murderous intentions towards Mrs. Becky as

Monsieur Fiche said (since Monseigneur's death he has returned to his

native country, where he lives much respected, and has purchased from

his Prince the title of Baron Ficci), and the factotum objected to have

to do with assassination; or whether he simply had a commission to

frighten Mrs. Crawley out of a city where his Lordship proposed to pass

the winter, and the sight of her would be eminently disagreeable to the

great nobleman, is a point which has never been ascertained: but the

threat had its effect upon the little woman, and she sought no more to

intrude herself upon the presence of her old patron.