Mrs.Crackenbury and Mrs.Washington White passed through Boulogne on their way to Switzerland.~The party were protected by Colonel Horner, young Beaumoris, and of course old Crackenbury, and Mrs.White's little girl.)THEY did not avoid her.They giggled, cackled, tattled, condoled, consoled, and patronized her until they drove her almost wild with rage.To be patronized by THEM!
she thought, as they went away simpering after kissing her.And she heard Beaumoris's laugh ringing on the stair and knew quite well how to interpret his hilarity.
It was after this visit that Becky, who had paid her weekly bills, Becky who had made herself agreeable to everybody in the house, who smiled at the landlady, called the waiters "monsieur," and paid the chambermaids in politeness and apologies, what far more than compensated for a little niggardliness in point of money (of which Becky never was free), that Becky, we say, received a notice to quit from the landlord, who had been told by some one that she was quite an unfit person to have at his hotel, where English ladies would not sit down with her.And she was forced to fly into lodgings of which the dulness and solitude were most wearisome to her.
Still she held up, in spite of these rebuffs, and tried to make a character for herself and conquer scandal.She went to church very regularly and sang louder than anybody there.She took up the cause of the widows of the shipwrecked fishermen, and gave work and drawings for the Quashyboo Mission; she subscribed to the Assembly and WOULDN'T waltz.In a word, she did everything that was respectable, and that is why we dwell upon this part of her career with more fondness than upon subsequent parts of her history, which are not so pleasant.
She saw people avoiding her, and still laboriously smiled upon them; you never could suppose from her countenance what pangs of humiliation she might be enduring inwardly.
Her history was after all a mystery.Parties were divided about her.Some people who took the trouble to busy themselves in the matter said that she was the criminal, whilst others vowed that she was as innocent as a lamb and that her odious husband was in fault.
She won over a good many by bursting into tears about her boy and exhibiting the most frantic grief when his name was mentioned, or she saw anybody like him.She gained good Mrs.Alderney's heart in that way, who was rather the Queen of British Boulogne and gave the most dinners and balls of all the residents there, by weeping when Master Alderney came from Dr.Swishtail's academy to pass his holidays with his mother."He and her Rawdon were of the same age, and so like," Becky said in a voice choking with agony; whereas there was five years' difference between the boys' ages, and no more likeness between them than between my respected reader and his humble servant.Wenham, when he was going abroad, on his way to Kissingen to join Lord Steyne, enlightened Mrs.Alderney on this point and told her how he was much more able to describe little Rawdon than his mamma, who notoriously hated him and never saw him; how he was thirteen years old, while little Alderney was but nine, fair, while the other darling was dark--in a word, caused the lady in question to repent of her good humour.
Whenever Becky made a little circle for herself with incredible toils and labour, somebody came and swept it down rudely, and she had all her work to begin over again.It was very hard; very hard; lonely and disheartening.
There was Mrs.Newbright, who took her up for some time, attracted by the sweetness of her singing at church and by her proper views upon serious subjects, concerning which in former days, at Queen's Crawley, Mrs.
Becky had had a good deal of instruction.Well, she not only took tracts, but she read them.She worked flannel petticoats for the Quashyboos--cotton night-caps for the Cocoanut Indians--painted handscreens for the conversion of the Pope and the Jews--sat under Mr.Rowls on Wednesdays, Mr.Huggleton on Thursdays, attended two Sunday services at church, besides Mr.Bawler, the Darbyite, in the evening, and all in vain.Mrs.Newbright had occasion to correspond with the Countess of Southdown about the Warmingpan Fund for the Fiji Islanders (for the management of which admirable charity both these ladies formed part of a female committee), and having mentioned her "sweet friend," Mrs.Rawdon Crawley, the Dowager Countess wrote back such a letter regarding Becky, with such particulars, hints, facts, falsehoods, and general comminations, that intimacy between Mrs.Newbright and Mrs.Crawley ceased forthwith, and all the serious world of Tours, where this misfortune took place, immediately parted company with the reprobate.Those who know the English Colonies abroad know that we carry with us us our pride, pills, prejudices, Harvey-sauces, cayenne-peppers, and other Lares, making a little Britain wherever we settle down.
From one colony to another Becky fled uneasily.From Boulogne to Dieppe, from Dieppe to Caen, from Caen to Tours--trying with all her might to be respectable, and alas! always found out some day or other and pecked out of the cage by the real daws.