“I am innocent,” said Becky. And
he left her without another word.
What were her thoughts when he left her? She
remained for hours after he was gone, the sunshine
pouring into the room, and Rebecca sitting alone on
the bed’s edge. The drawers were all opened
and their contents scattered about—dresses
and feathers, scarfs and trinkets, a heap of tumbled
vanities lying in a wreck. Her hair was falling
over her shoulders; her gown was torn where Rawdon
had wrenched the brilliants out of it. She heard
him go downstairs a few minutes after he left her,
and the door slamming and closing on him. She
knew he would never come back. He was gone forever.
Would he kill himself?—she thought—not
until after he had met Lord Steyne. She thought
of her long past life, and all the dismal incidents
of it. Ah, how dreary it seemed, how miserable,
lonely and profitless! Should she take laudanum,
and end it, to have done with all hopes, schemes,
debts, and triumphs? The French maid found her
in this position—sitting in the midst of
her miserable ruins with clasped hands and dry eyes.
The woman was her accomplice and in Steyne’s
pay. “Mon Dieu, madame, what has happened?”
she asked.
What had happened? Was she guilty or not?
She said not, but who could tell what was truth which
came from those lips, or if that corrupt heart was
in this case pure?
All her lies and her schemes, an her selfishness and
her wiles, all her wit and genius had come to this
bankruptcy. The woman closed the curtains and,
with some entreaty and show of kindness, persuaded
her mistress to lie down on the bed. Then she
went below and gathered up the trinkets which had
been lying on the floor since Rebecca dropped them
there at her husband’s orders, and Lord Steyne
went away.
CHAPTER LIV
Sunday After the Battle
The mansion of Sir Pitt Crawley, in Great Gaunt Street,
was just beginning to dress itself for the day, as
Rawdon, in his evening costume, which he had now worn
two days, passed by the scared female who was scouring
the steps and entered into his brother’s study.
Lady Jane, in her morning-gown, was up and above stairs
in the nursery superintending the toilettes of her
children and listening to the morning prayers which
the little creatures performed at her knee.
Every morning she and they performed this duty privately,
and before the public ceremonial at which Sir Pitt
presided and at which all the people of the household
were expected to assemble. Rawdon sat down in
the study before the Baronet’s table, set out
with the orderly blue books and the letters, the neatly
docketed bills and symmetrical pamphlets, the locked
account-books, desks, and dispatch boxes, the Bible,
the Quarterly Review, and the Court Guide, which all
stood as if on parade awaiting the inspection of their
chief.
