On another day the packet came in. It had been blowing fresh, and it
always suited Becky's humour to see the droll woe-begone faces of the
people as they emerged from the boat. Lady Slingstone happened to be
on board this day. Her ladyship had been exceedingly ill in her
carriage, and was greatly exhausted and scarcely fit to walk up the
plank from the ship to the pier. But all her energies rallied the
instant she saw Becky smiling roguishly under a pink bonnet, and giving
her a glance of scorn such as would have shrivelled up most women, she
walked into the Custom House quite unsupported. Becky only laughed:
but I don't think she liked it. She felt she was alone, quite alone,
and the far-off shining cliffs of England were impassable to her.
The behaviour of the men had undergone too I don't know what change.
Grinstone showed his teeth and laughed in her face with a familiarity
that was not pleasant. Little Bob Suckling, who was cap in hand to her
three months before, and would walk a mile in the rain to see for her
carriage in the line at Gaunt House, was talking to Fitzoof of the
Guards (Lord Heehaw's son) one day upon the jetty, as Becky took her
walk there. Little Bobby nodded to her over his shoulder, without
moving his hat, and continued his conversation with the heir of Heehaw.
Tom Raikes tried to walk into her sitting-room at the inn with a cigar
in his mouth, but she closed the door upon him, and would have locked
it, only that his fingers were inside. She began to feel that she was
very lonely indeed. "If HE'D been here," she said, "those cowards
would never have dared to insult me." She thought about "him" with
great sadness and perhaps longing--about his honest, stupid, constant
kindness and fidelity; his never-ceasing obedience; his good humour;
his bravery and courage. Very likely she cried, for she was
particularly lively, and had put on a little extra rouge, when she came
down to dinner.
She rouged regularly now; and--and her maid got Cognac for her besides
that which was charged in the hotel bill.
Perhaps the insults of the men were not, however, so intolerable to her
as the sympathy of certain women. Mrs. Crackenbury and Mrs. Washington
White passed through Boulogne on their way to Switzerland. The party
were protected by Colonel Horner, young Beaumoris, and of course old
Crackenbury, and Mrs. White's little girl. THEY did not avoid her.
They giggled, cackled, tattled, condoled, consoled, and patronized her
until they drove her almost wild with rage. To be patronized by THEM!
she thought, as they went away simpering after kissing her. And she
heard Beaumoris's laugh ringing on the stair and knew quite well how to
interpret his hilarity.