CHAPTER XXXVI

How to Live Well on Nothing a Year

I suppose there is no man in this Vanity Fair of ours so little

observant as not to think sometimes about the worldly affairs of his

acquaintances, or so extremely charitable as not to wonder how his

neighbour Jones, or his neighbour Smith, can make both ends meet at the

end of the year. With the utmost regard for the family, for instance

(for I dine with them twice or thrice in the season), I cannot but own

that the appearance of the Jenkinses in the park, in the large barouche

with the grenadier-footmen, will surprise and mystify me to my dying

day: for though I know the equipage is only jobbed, and all the

Jenkins people are on board wages, yet those three men and the carriage

must represent an expense of six hundred a year at the very least--and

then there are the splendid dinners, the two boys at Eton, the prize

governess and masters for the girls, the trip abroad, or to Eastbourne

or Worthing, in the autumn, the annual ball with a supper from Gunter's

(who, by the way, supplies most of the first-rate dinners which J.

gives, as I know very well, having been invited to one of them to fill

a vacant place, when I saw at once that these repasts are very superior

to the common run of entertainments for which the humbler sort of J.'s

acquaintances get cards)--who, I say, with the most good-natured

feelings in the world, can help wondering how the Jenkinses make out

matters? What is Jenkins? We all know--Commissioner of the Tape and

Sealing Wax Office, with 1200 pounds a year for a salary. Had his wife

a private fortune? Pooh!--Miss Flint--one of eleven children of a small

squire in Buckinghamshire. All she ever gets from her family is a

turkey at Christmas, in exchange for which she has to board two or

three of her sisters in the off season, and lodge and feed her brothers

when they come to town. How does Jenkins balance his income? I say, as

every friend of his must say, How is it that he has not been outlawed

long since, and that he ever came back (as he did to the surprise of

everybody) last year from Boulogne?

"I" is here introduced to personify the world in general--the Mrs.

Grundy of each respected reader's private circle--every one of whom can

point to some families of his acquaintance who live nobody knows how.

Many a glass of wine have we all of us drunk, I have very little doubt,

hob-and-nobbing with the hospitable giver and wondering how the deuce

he paid for it.

Some three or four years after his stay in Paris, when Rawdon Crawley

and his wife were established in a very small comfortable house in

Curzon Street, May Fair, there was scarcely one of the numerous friends

whom they entertained at dinner that did not ask the above question

regarding them. The novelist, it has been said before, knows

everything, and as I am in a situation to be able to tell the public

how Crawley and his wife lived without any income, may I entreat the

public newspapers which are in the habit of extracting portions of the

various periodical works now published not to reprint the following

exact narrative and calculations--of which I ought, as the discoverer

(and at some expense, too), to have the benefit? My son, I would say,

were I blessed with a child--you may by deep inquiry and constant

intercourse with him learn how a man lives comfortably on nothing a

year. But it is best not to be intimate with gentlemen of this

profession and to take the calculations at second hand, as you do

logarithms, for to work them yourself, depend upon it, will cost you

something considerable.

On nothing per annum then, and during a course of some two or three

years, of which we can afford to give but a very brief history, Crawley

and his wife lived very happily and comfortably at Paris. It was in

this period that he quitted the Guards and sold out of the army. When

we find him again, his mustachios and the title of Colonel on his card

are the only relics of his military profession.

It has been mentioned that Rebecca, soon after her arrival in Paris,

took a very smart and leading position in the society of that capital,

and was welcomed at some of the most distinguished houses of the

restored French nobility. The English men of fashion in Paris courted

her, too, to the disgust of the ladies their wives, who could not bear

the parvenue. For some months the salons of the Faubourg St. Germain,

in which her place was secured, and the splendours of the new Court,

where she was received with much distinction, delighted and perhaps a

little intoxicated Mrs. Crawley, who may have been disposed during this

period of elation to slight the people--honest young military men

mostly--who formed her husband's chief society.

But the Colonel yawned sadly among the Duchesses and great ladies of

the Court. The old women who played ecarte made such a noise about a

five-franc piece that it was not worth Colonel Crawley's while to sit

down at a card-table. The wit of their conversation he could not

appreciate, being ignorant of their language. And what good could his

wife get, he urged, by making curtsies every night to a whole circle of

Princesses? He left Rebecca presently to frequent these parties alone,

resuming his own simple pursuits and amusements amongst the amiable

friends of his own choice.

The truth is, when we say of a gentleman that he lives elegantly on

nothing a year, we use the word "nothing" to signify something unknown;

meaning, simply, that we don't know how the gentleman in question

defrays the expenses of his establishment. Now, our friend the Colonel

had a great aptitude for all games of chance: and exercising himself,

as he continually did, with the cards, the dice-box, or the cue, it is

natural to suppose that he attained a much greater skill in the use of

these articles than men can possess who only occasionally handle them.

To use a cue at billiards well is like using a pencil, or a German

flute, or a small-sword--you cannot master any one of these implements

at first, and it is only by repeated study and perseverance, joined to

a natural taste, that a man can excel in the handling of either. Now

Crawley, from being only a brilliant amateur, had grown to be a

consummate master of billiards. Like a great General, his genius used

to rise with the danger, and when the luck had been unfavourable to him

for a whole game, and the bets were consequently against him, he would,

with consummate skill and boldness, make some prodigious hits which

would restore the battle, and come in a victor at the end, to the

astonishment of everybody--of everybody, that is, who was a stranger to

his play. Those who were accustomed to see it were cautious how they

staked their money against a man of such sudden resources and brilliant

and overpowering skill.

At games of cards he was equally skilful; for though he would

constantly lose money at the commencement of an evening, playing so

carelessly and making such blunders, that newcomers were often inclined

to think meanly of his talent; yet when roused to action and awakened

to caution by repeated small losses, it was remarked that Crawley's

play became quite different, and that he was pretty sure of beating his

enemy thoroughly before the night was over. Indeed, very few men could

say that they ever had the better of him. His successes were so

repeated that no wonder the envious and the vanquished spoke sometimes

with bitterness regarding them. And as the French say of the Duke of

Wellington, who never suffered a defeat, that only an astonishing

series of lucky accidents enabled him to be an invariable winner; yet

even they allow that he cheated at Waterloo, and was enabled to win the

last great trick: so it was hinted at headquarters in England that

some foul play must have taken place in order to account for the

continuous successes of Colonel Crawley.

Though Frascati's and the Salon were open at that time in Paris, the

mania for play was so widely spread that the public gambling-rooms did

not suffice for the general ardour, and gambling went on in private

houses as much as if there had been no public means for gratifying the

passion. At Crawley's charming little reunions of an evening this

fatal amusement commonly was practised--much to good-natured little

Mrs. Crawley's annoyance. She spoke about her husband's passion for

dice with the deepest grief; she bewailed it to everybody who came to

her house. She besought the young fellows never, never to touch a box;

and when young Green, of the Rifles, lost a very considerable sum of

money, Rebecca passed a whole night in tears, as the servant told the

unfortunate young gentleman, and actually went on her knees to her

husband to beseech him to remit the debt, and burn the acknowledgement.

How could he? He had lost just as much himself to Blackstone of the

Hussars, and Count Punter of the Hanoverian Cavalry. Green might have

any decent time; but pay?--of course he must pay; to talk of burning

IOU's was child's play.

Other officers, chiefly young--for the young fellows gathered round

Mrs. Crawley--came from her parties with long faces, having dropped

more or less money at her fatal card-tables. Her house began to have

an unfortunate reputation. The old hands warned the less experienced

of their danger. Colonel O'Dowd, of the --th regiment, one of those

occupying in Paris, warned Lieutenant Spooney of that corps. A loud

and violent fracas took place between the infantry Colonel and his

lady, who were dining at the Cafe de Paris, and Colonel and Mrs.

Crawley; who were also taking their meal there. The ladies engaged on

both sides. Mrs. O'Dowd snapped her fingers in Mrs. Crawley's face and

called her husband "no betther than a black-leg." Colonel Crawley

challenged Colonel O'Dowd, C.B. The Commander-in-Chief hearing of the

dispute sent for Colonel Crawley, who was getting ready the same

pistols "which he shot Captain Marker," and had such a conversation

with him that no duel took place. If Rebecca had not gone on her knees

to General Tufto, Crawley would have been sent back to England; and he

did not play, except with civilians, for some weeks after.

But, in spite of Rawdon's undoubted skill and constant successes, it

became evident to Rebecca, considering these things, that their

position was but a precarious one, and that, even although they paid

scarcely anybody, their little capital would end one day by dwindling

into zero. "Gambling," she would say, "dear, is good to help your

income, but not as an income itself. Some day people may be tired of

play, and then where are we?" Rawdon acquiesced in the justice of her

opinion; and in truth he had remarked that after a few nights of his

little suppers, &c., gentlemen were tired of play with him, and, in

spite of Rebecca's charms, did not present themselves very eagerly.

Easy and pleasant as their life at Paris was, it was after all only an

idle dalliance and amiable trifling; and Rebecca saw that she must push

Rawdon's fortune in their own country. She must get him a place or

appointment at home or in the colonies, and she determined to make a

move upon England as soon as the way could be cleared for her. As a

first step she had made Crawley sell out of the Guards and go on

half-pay. His function as aide-de-camp to General Tufto had ceased

previously. Rebecca laughed in all companies at that officer, at his

toupee (which he mounted on coming to Paris), at his waistband, at his

false teeth, at his pretensions to be a lady-killer above all, and his

absurd vanity in fancying every woman whom he came near was in love

with him. It was to Mrs. Brent, the beetle-browed wife of Mr.

Commissary Brent, to whom the general transferred his attentions

now--his bouquets, his dinners at the restaurateurs', his opera-boxes,

and his knick-knacks. Poor Mrs. Tufto was no more happy than before,

and had still to pass long evenings alone with her daughters, knowing

that her General was gone off scented and curled to stand behind Mrs.

Brent's chair at the play. Becky had a dozen admirers in his place, to

be sure, and could cut her rival to pieces with her wit. But, as we

have said, she was growing tired of this idle social life:

opera-boxes and restaurateur dinners palled upon her: nosegays could

not be laid by as a provision for future years: and she could not live

upon knick-knacks, laced handkerchiefs, and kid gloves. She felt the

frivolity of pleasure and longed for more substantial benefits.

At this juncture news arrived which was spread among the many creditors

of the Colonel at Paris, and which caused them great satisfaction.

Miss Crawley, the rich aunt from whom he expected his immense

inheritance, was dying; the Colonel must haste to her bedside. Mrs.

Crawley and her child would remain behind until he came to reclaim

them. He departed for Calais, and having reached that place in safety,

it might have been supposed that he went to Dover; but instead he took

the diligence to Dunkirk, and thence travelled to Brussels, for which

place he had a former predilection. The fact is, he owed more money at

London than at Paris; and he preferred the quiet little Belgian city to

either of the more noisy capitals.

Her aunt was dead. Mrs. Crawley ordered the most intense mourning for

herself and little Rawdon. The Colonel was busy arranging the affairs

of the inheritance. They could take the premier now, instead of the

little entresol of the hotel which they occupied. Mrs. Crawley and the

landlord had a consultation about the new hangings, an amicable wrangle

about the carpets, and a final adjustment of everything except the

bill. She went off in one of his carriages; her French bonne with her;

the child by her side; the admirable landlord and landlady smiling

farewell to her from the gate. General Tufto was furious when he heard

she was gone, and Mrs. Brent furious with him for being furious;

Lieutenant Spooney was cut to the heart; and the landlord got ready his

best apartments previous to the return of the fascinating little woman

and her husband. He _serréd_ the trunks which she left in his charge

with the greatest care. They had been especially recommended to him by

Madame Crawley. They were not, however, found to be particularly

valuable when opened some time after.

But before she went to join her husband in the Belgic capital, Mrs.

Crawley made an expedition into England, leaving behind her her little

son upon the continent, under the care of her French maid.

The parting between Rebecca and the little Rawdon did not cause either

party much pain. She had not, to say truth, seen much of the young

gentleman since his birth. After the amiable fashion of French mothers,

she had placed him out at nurse in a village in the neighbourhood of

Paris, where little Rawdon passed the first months of his life, not

unhappily, with a numerous family of foster-brothers in wooden shoes.

His father would ride over many a time to see him here, and the elder

Rawdon's paternal heart glowed to see him rosy and dirty, shouting

lustily, and happy in the making of mud-pies under the superintendence

of the gardener's wife, his nurse.

Rebecca did not care much to go and see the son and heir. Once he

spoiled a new dove-coloured pelisse of hers. He preferred his nurse's

caresses to his mamma's, and when finally he quitted that jolly nurse

and almost parent, he cried loudly for hours. He was only consoled by

his mother's promise that he should return to his nurse the next day;

indeed the nurse herself, who probably would have been pained at the

parting too, was told that the child would immediately be restored to

her, and for some time awaited quite anxiously his return.

In fact, our friends may be said to have been among the first of that

brood of hardy English adventurers who have subsequently invaded the

Continent and swindled in all the capitals of Europe. The respect in

those happy days of 1817-18 was very great for the wealth and honour of

Britons. They had not then learned, as I am told, to haggle for

bargains with the pertinacity which now distinguishes them. The great

cities of Europe had not been as yet open to the enterprise of our

rascals. And whereas there is now hardly a town of France or Italy in

which you shall not see some noble countryman of our own, with that

happy swagger and insolence of demeanour which we carry everywhere,

swindling inn-landlords, passing fictitious cheques upon credulous

bankers, robbing coach-makers of their carriages, goldsmiths of their

trinkets, easy travellers of their money at cards, even public

libraries of their books--thirty years ago you needed but to be a Milor

Anglais, travelling in a private carriage, and credit was at your hand

wherever you chose to seek it, and gentlemen, instead of cheating, were

cheated. It was not for some weeks after the Crawleys' departure that

the landlord of the hotel which they occupied during their residence at

Paris found out the losses which he had sustained: not until Madame

Marabou, the milliner, made repeated visits with her little bill for

articles supplied to Madame Crawley; not until Monsieur Didelot from

Boule d'Or in the Palais Royal had asked half a dozen times whether

cette charmante Miladi who had bought watches and bracelets of him was

de retour. It is a fact that even the poor gardener's wife, who had

nursed madame's child, was never paid after the first six months for

that supply of the milk of human kindness with which she had furnished

the lusty and healthy little Rawdon. No, not even the nurse was

paid--the Crawleys were in too great a hurry to remember their trifling

debt to her. As for the landlord of the hotel, his curses against the

English nation were violent for the rest of his natural life. He asked

all travellers whether they knew a certain Colonel Lor Crawley--avec sa

femme une petite dame, tres spirituelle. "Ah, Monsieur!" he would

add--"ils m'ont affreusement vole." It was melancholy to hear his

accents as he spoke of that catastrophe.

Rebecca's object in her journey to London was to effect a kind of

compromise with her husband's numerous creditors, and by offering them

a dividend of ninepence or a shilling in the pound, to secure a return

for him into his own country. It does not become us to trace the steps

which she took in the conduct of this most difficult negotiation; but,

having shown them to their satisfaction that the sum which she was

empowered to offer was all her husband's available capital, and having

convinced them that Colonel Crawley would prefer a perpetual retirement

on the Continent to a residence in this country with his debts

unsettled; having proved to them that there was no possibility of money

accruing to him from other quarters, and no earthly chance of their

getting a larger dividend than that which she was empowered to offer,

she brought the Colonel's creditors unanimously to accept her

proposals, and purchased with fifteen hundred pounds of ready money

more than ten times that amount of debts.

Mrs. Crawley employed no lawyer in the transaction. The matter was so

simple, to have or to leave, as she justly observed, that she made the

lawyers of the creditors themselves do the business. And Mr. Lewis

representing Mr. Davids, of Red Lion Square, and Mr. Moss acting for

Mr. Manasseh of Cursitor Street (chief creditors of the Colonel's),

complimented his lady upon the brilliant way in which she did business,

and declared that there was no professional man who could beat her.

Rebecca received their congratulations with perfect modesty; ordered a

bottle of sherry and a bread cake to the little dingy lodgings where

she dwelt, while conducting the business, to treat the enemy's lawyers:

shook hands with them at parting, in excellent good humour, and

returned straightway to the Continent, to rejoin her husband and son

and acquaint the former with the glad news of his entire liberation.

As for the latter, he had been considerably neglected during his

mother's absence by Mademoiselle Genevieve, her French maid; for that

young woman, contracting an attachment for a soldier in the garrison of

Calais, forgot her charge in the society of this militaire, and little

Rawdon very narrowly escaped drowning on Calais sands at this period,

where the absent Genevieve had left and lost him.

And so, Colonel and Mrs. Crawley came to London: and it is at their

house in Curzon Street, May Fair, that they really showed the skill

which must be possessed by those who would live on the resources above

named.