I have kept it a secret from everybody but you--and you forced it from me.
Ah, what shall I do, Lord Steyne? for I am very, very unhappy!"
Lord Steyne made no reply except by beating the devil's tattoo and biting his nails. At last he clapped his hat on his head and flung out of the room.
Rebecca did not rise from her attitude of misery until the door slammed upon him and his carriage whirled away.
Then she rose up with the queerest expression of victorious mischief glittering in her green eyes.
She burst out laughing once or twice to herself, as she sat at work, and sitting down to the piano, she rattled away a triumphant voluntary on the keys, which made the people pause under her window to listen to her brilliant music.
That night, there came two notes from Gaunt House for the little woman, the one containing a card of invitation from Lord and Lady Steyne to a dinner at Gaunt House next Friday, while the other enclosed a slip of gray paper bearing Lord Steyne's signature and the address of Messrs. Jones, Brown, and Robinson, Lombard Street.
Rawdon heard Becky laughing in the night once or twice. It was only her delight at going to Gaunt House and facing the ladies there, she said, which amused her so.
But the truth was that she was occupied with a great number of other thoughts. Should she pay off old Briggs and give her her conge?
Should she astonish Raggles by settling his account?
She turned over all these thoughts on her pillow, and on the next day, when Rawdon went out to pay his morning visit to the Club, Mrs. Crawley (in a modest dress with a veil on) whipped off in a hackney-coach to the City: and being landed at Messrs.
Jones and Robinson's bank, presented a document there to the authority at the desk, who, in reply, asked her "How she would take it?"
She gently said "she would take a hundred and fifty pounds in small notes and the remainder in one note": and passing through St. Paul's Churchyard stopped there and bought the handsomest black silk gown for Briggs which money could buy; and which, with a kiss and the kindest speeches, she presented to the simple old spinster.
Then she walked to Mr. Raggles, inquired about his children affectionately, and gave him fifty pounds on account.
Then she went to the livery-man from whom she jobbed her carriages and gratified him with a similar sum.
"And I hope this will be a lesson to you, Spavin," she said, "and that on the next drawing-room day my brother, Sir Pitt, will not be inconvenienced by being obliged to take four of us in his carriage to wait upon His Majesty, because my own carriage is not forthcoming."
It appears there had been a difference on the last drawing-room day. Hence the degradation which the Colonel had almost suffered, of being obliged to enter the presence of his Sovereign in a hack cab.
These arrangements concluded, Becky paid a visit upstairs to the before-mentioned desk, which Amelia Sedley had given her years and years ago, and which contained a number of useful and valuable little things--in which private museum she placed the one note which Messrs. Jones and Robinson's cashier had given her.
CHAPTER XLIX
In Which We Enjoy Three Courses and a Dessert
When the ladies of Gaunt House were at breakfast that morning, Lord Steyne (who took his chocolate in private and seldom disturbed the females of his household, or saw them except upon public days, or when they crossed each other in the hall, or when from his pit-box at the opera he surveyed them in their box on the grand tier) his lordship, we say, appeared among the ladies and the children who were assembled over the tea and toast, and a battle royal ensued apropos of Rebecca.
"My Lady Steyne," he said, "I want to see the list for your dinner on Friday; and I want you, if you please, to write a card for Colonel and Mrs. Crawley."
"Blanche writes them," Lady Steyne said in a flutter. "Lady Gaunt writes them."
"I will not write to that person," Lady Gaunt said, a tall and stately lady, who looked up for an instant and then down again after she had spoken.
It was not good to meet Lord Steyne's eyes for those who had offended him.
"Send the children out of the room.
Go!" said he pulling at the bell-rope.
The urchins, always frightened before him, retired: their mother would have followed too.
"Not you," he said.
"You stop."
"My Lady Steyne," he said, "once more will you have the goodness to go to the desk and write that card for your dinner on Friday?"
"My Lord, I will not be present at it," Lady Gaunt said; "I will go home."
"I wish you would, and stay there.
You will find the bailiffs at Bareacres very pleasant company, and I shall be freed from lending money to your relations and from your own damned tragedy airs.
Who are you to give orders here?
You have no money. You've got no brains.
You were here to have children, and you have not had any.
Gaunt's tired of you, and George's wife is the only person in the family who doesn't wish you were dead.
Gaunt would marry again if you were."
"I wish I were," her Ladyship answered with tears and rage in her eyes.
"You, forsooth, must give yourself airs of virtue, while my wife, who is an immaculate saint, as everybody knows, and never did wrong in her life, has no objection to meet my young friend Mrs. Crawley.
My Lady Steyne knows that appearances are sometimes against the best of women; that lies are often told about the most innocent of them.
Pray, madam, shall I tell you some little anecdotes about my Lady Bareacres, your mamma?"
"You may strike me if you like, sir, or hit any cruel blow," Lady Gaunt said.
To see his wife and daughter suffering always put his Lordship into a good humour.
"My sweet Blanche," he said, "I am a gentleman, and never lay my hand upon a woman, save in the way of kindness.
I only wish to correct little faults in your character.
You women are too proud, and sadly lack humility, as Father Mole, I'm sure, would tell my Lady Steyne if he were here.
You mustn't give yourselves airs; you must be meek and humble, my blessings.
For all Lady Steyne knows, this calumniated, simple, good-humoured Mrs. Crawley is quite innocent--even more innocent than herself.