On her first appearance Lord Steyne stepped forward, taking her hand, and greeting her with great courtesy, and presenting her to Lady Steyne, and their ladyships, her daughters.Their ladyships made three stately curtsies, and the elder lady to be sure gave her hand to the newcomer, but it was as cold and lifeless as marble.
Becky took it, however, with grateful humility, and performing a reverence which would have done credit to the best dancer-master, put herself at Lady Steyne's feet, as it were, by saying that his Lordship had been her father's earliest friend and patron, and that she, Becky, had learned to honour and respect the Steyne family from the days of her childhood.The fact is that Lord Steyne had once purchased a couple of pictures of the late Sharp, and the affectionate orphan could never forget her gratitude for that favour.
The Lady Bareacres then came under Becky's cognizance --to whom the Colonel's lady made also a most respectful obeisance: it was returned with severe dignity by the exalted person in question.
"I had the pleasure of making your Ladyship's acquaintance at Brussels, ten years ago," Becky said in the most winning manner."I had the good fortune to meet Lady Bareacres at the Duchess of Richmond's ball, the night before the Battle of Waterloo.And I recollect your Ladyship, and my Lady Blanche, your daughter, sitting in the carriage in the porte-cochere at the Inn, waiting for horses.I hope your Ladyship's diamonds are safe."Everybody's eyes looked into their neighbour's.The famous diamonds had undergone a famous seizure, it appears, about which Becky, of course, knew nothing.
Rawdon Crawley retreated with Lord Southdown into a window, where the latter was heard to laugh immoderately, as Rawdon told him the story of Lady Bareacres wanting horses and "knuckling down by Jove," to Mrs.
Crawley."I think I needn't be afraid of THAT woman,"Becky thought.Indeed, Lady Bareacres exchanged terrified and angry looks with her daughter and retreated to a table, where she began to look at pictures with great energy.
When the Potentate from the Danube made his appearance, the conversation was carried on in the French language, and the Lady Bareacres and the younger ladies found, to their farther mortification, that Mrs.Crawley was much better acquainted with that tongue, and spoke it with a much better accent than they.Becky had met other Hungarian magnates with the army in France in 1816-17.She asked after her friends with great interest The foreign personages thought that she was a lady of great distinction, and the Prince and the Princess asked severally of Lord Steyne and the Marchioness, whom they conducted to dinner, who was that petite dame who spoke so well?
Finally, the procession being formed in the order described by the American diplomatist, they marched into the apartment where the banquet was served, and which, as I have promised the reader he shall enjoy it, he shall have the liberty of ordering himself so as to suit his fancy.
But it was when the ladies were alone that Becky knew the tug of war would come.And then indeed the little woman found herself in such a situation as made her acknowledge the correctness of Lord Steyne's caution to her to beware of the society of ladies above her own sphere.As they say, the persons who hate Irishmen most are Irishmen; so, assuredly, the greatest tyrants over women are women.When poor little Becky, alone with the ladies, went up to the fire-place whither the great ladies had repaired, the great ladies marched away and took possession of a table of drawings.When Becky followed them to the table of drawings, they dropped off one by one to the fire again.She tried to speak to one of the children (of whom she was commonly fond in public places), but Master George Gaunt was called away by his mamma; and the stranger was treated with such cruelty finally, that even Lady Steyne herself pitied her and went up to speak to the friendless little woman.
"Lord Steyne," said her Ladyship, as her wan cheeks glowed with a blush, "says you sing and play very beautifully, Mrs.Crawley--I wish you would do me the kindness to sing to me.""I will do anything that may give pleasure to my Lord Steyne or to you," said Rebecca, sincerely grateful, and seating herself at the piano, began to sing.
She sang religious songs of Mozart, which had been early favourites of Lady Steyne, and with such sweetness and tenderness that the lady, lingering round the piano, sat down by its side and listened until the tears rolled down her eyes.It is true that the opposition ladies at the other end of the room kept up a loud and ceaseless buzzing and talking, but the Lady Steyne did not hear those rumours.She was a child again--and had wandered back through a forty years' wilderness to her convent garden.The chapel organ had pealed the same tones, the organist, the sister whom she loved best of the community, had taught them to her in those early happy days.She was a girl once more, and the brief period of her happiness bloomed out again for an hour--she started when the jarring doors were flung open, and with a loud laugh from Lord Steyne, the men of the party entered full of gaiety.
He saw at a glance what had happened in his absence, and was grateful to his wife for once.He went and spoke to her, and called her by her Christian name, so as again to bring blushes to her pale face--"My wife says you have been singing like an angel," he said to Becky.Now there are angels of two kinds, and both sorts, it is said, are charming in their way.
Whatever the previous portion of the evening had been, the rest of that night was a great triumph for Becky.She sang her very best, and it was so good that every one of the men came and crowded round the piano.The women, her enemies, were left quite alone.
And Mr.Paul Jefferson Jones thought he had made a conquest of Lady Gaunt by going up to her Ladyship and praising her delightful friend's first-rate singing.
