“He’s a regular trump, that boy,”
the father went on, still musing about his son.
“I say, Mac, if anything goes wrong—if
I drop—I should like you to—to
go and see him, you know, and say that I was very
fond of him, and that. And—dash it—old
chap, give him these gold sleeve-buttons: it’s
all I’ve got.” He covered his face
with his black hands, over which the tears rolled
and made furrows of white. Mr. Macmurdo had
also occasion to take off his silk night-cap and
rub it across his eyes.
“Go down and order some breakfast,” he
said to his man in a loud cheerful voice. “What’ll
you have, Crawley? Some devilled kidneys and
a herring—let’s say. And, Clay,
lay out some dressing things for the Colonel:
we were always pretty much of a size, Rawdon, my
boy, and neither of us ride so light as we did when
we first entered the corps.” With which,
and leaving the Colonel to dress himself, Macmurdo
turned round towards the wall, and resumed the perusal
of Bell’s Life, until such time as his friend’s
toilette was complete and he was at liberty to commence
his own.
This, as he was about to meet a lord, Captain Macmurdo
performed with particular care. He waxed his
mustachios into a state of brilliant polish and put
on a tight cravat and a trim buff waistcoat, so that
all the young officers in the mess-room, whither Crawley
had preceded his friend, complimented Mac on his appearance
at breakfast and asked if he was going to be married
that Sunday.
CHAPTER LV
In Which the Same Subject is Pursued
Becky did not rally from the state of stupor and confusion
in which the events of the previous night had plunged
her intrepid spirit until the bells of the Curzon
Street Chapels were ringing for afternoon service,
and rising from her bed she began to ply her own bell,
in order to summon the French maid who had left her
some hours before.
Mrs. Rawdon Crawley rang many times in vain; and though,
on the last occasion, she rang with such vehemence
as to pull down the bell-rope, Mademoiselle Fifine
did not make her appearance—no, not though
her mistress, in a great pet, and with the bell-rope
in her hand, came out to the landing-place with her
hair over her shoulders and screamed out repeatedly
for her attendant.
The truth is, she had quitted the premises for many
hours, and upon that permission which is called French
leave among us After picking up the trinkets in the
drawing-room, Mademoiselle had ascended to her own
apartments, packed and corded her own boxes there,
tripped out and called a cab for herself, brought
down her trunks with her own hand, and without ever
so much as asking the aid of any of the other servants,
who would probably have refused it, as they hated
her cordially, and without wishing any one of them
good-bye, had made her exit from Curzon Street.
