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.
