"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!"