or received invitations for herself, he peremptorily
ordered her to refuse them: and there was that
in the gentleman’s manner which enforced obedience.
Little Becky, to do her justice, was charmed with
Rawdon’s gallantry. If he was surly, she
never was. Whether friends were present or absent,
she had always a kind smile for him and was attentive
to his pleasure and comfort. It was the early
days of their marriage over again: the same
good humour, prevenances, merriment, and artless confidence
and regard. “How much pleasanter it is,”
she would say, “to have you by my side in the
carriage than that foolish old Briggs! Let us
always go on so, dear Rawdon. How nice it would
be, and how happy we should always be, if we had but
the money!” He fell asleep after dinner in his
chair; he did not see the face opposite to him, haggard,
weary, and terrible; it lighted up with fresh candid
smiles when he woke. It kissed him gaily.
He wondered that he had ever had suspicions.
No, he never had suspicions; all those dumb doubts
and surly misgivings which had been gathering on his
mind were mere idle jealousies. She was fond
of him; she always had been. As for her shining
in society, it was no fault of hers; she was formed
to shine there. Was there any woman who could
talk, or sing, or do anything like her? If she
would but like the boy! Rawdon thought.
But the mother and son never could be brought together.
And it was while Rawdon’s mind was agitated
with these doubts and perplexities that the incident
occurred which was mentioned in the last chapter,
and the unfortunate Colonel found himself a prisoner
away from home.
A Rescue and a Catastrophe
Friend Rawdon drove on then to Mr. Moss’s mansion
in Cursitor Street, and was duly inducted into that
dismal place of hospitality. Morning was breaking
over the cheerful house-tops of Chancery Lane as the
rattling cab woke up the echoes there. A little
pink-eyed Jew-boy, with a head as ruddy as the rising
morn, let the party into the house, and Rawdon was
welcomed to the ground-floor apartments by Mr. Moss,
his travelling companion and host, who cheerfully asked
him if he would like a glass of something warm after
his drive.
The Colonel was not so depressed as some mortals would
be, who, quitting a palace and a placens uxor, find
themselves barred into a spunging-house; for, if the
truth must be told, he had been a lodger at Mr. Moss’s
establishment once or twice before. We have not
thought it necessary in the previous course of this
narrative to mention these trivial little domestic
incidents: but the reader may be assured that
they can’t unfrequently occur in the life of
a man who lives on nothing a year.
