No

CHAPTER VIII

BERKELEY SQUARE

such changes have fallen upon this

the court end of the town - since it was laid out in the middle of the eighteenth century under Robert Walpole, then Prime Minister. At No. 11, so the records show, lived his son Horace chiefly from 1779 to 1797; at No. 13 the Marquis of Hertford began to collect what is now the Wallace Collection; at No. 25 lived Charles James Fox; at No. 28 Lord Brougham entertained as Lord Chancellor; at No. 38 Lady Jersey's dinners and balls were the talk of the town; at No. 45 Lord Clive committed suicide in 1774, and in the corner house on Bruton Street Colly Cibber lived and died.

In fact, many houses of the period are still identified by these names, and some of them have the iron torch-extinguishers hanging at their doorposts. And even at this late day the carriage of his Majesty the King can be found

outside the stoops of the great people whose doors open on the Square.

That which drew me to it was the fact that on this very square was set up one of the most brilliant booths in all Vanity Fair.

"All the world knows that Lord Steyne's town palace stands in Gaunt Square, out of which Great Gaunt Street leads, whither we first conducted Rebecca in the time of the departed Sir Pitt Crawley. Peering over the railings and through the black trees into the garden of the square, you see a few miserable governesses with wan-faced pupils wandering round and round it, and round the dreary grassplot in the centre of which rises the statue of Lord Gaunt, who fought at Minden, in a threetailed wig, and otherwise habited like a Roman Emperor. Gaunt House occupies nearly a side of the square. The remaining three sides are composed of mansions that have passed away into dowagerism; tall, dark houses, with window frames of stone, or picked out of a lighter red. Little light seems to be behind those lean, comfortless casements now; and hospitality to have passed away from those doors as much as the laced lacqueys and link-boys of old times, who used to put out their torches in the blank iron extinguishers that still flank the lamps over the

steps. Brass plates have penetrated into the Square doctors, the Diddlesex Bank, Western Branch the English and European Reunion,

etc. it has a dreary look Steyne's palace less dreary.

nor is my Lord All I have ever

seen of it is the vast wall in front, with the rustic columns at the great gate, through which an old porter peers sometimes with a fat and gloomy red face- and over the wall the garret and bedroom windows, and the chimneys, out of which there seldom comes any smoke now."

While there is some conflict over the exact location of this noble mansion, all authorities agree that Gaunt Square was really Berkeley Square, and that Great Gaunt Street is none other than the Hill Street of to-day - a little street which according to Mr. Thackeray himself runs east of the park, halfway up the hill, as can be seen in my sketch. I therefore pin my faith to the word of the man who should have known best. Certainly, there can be no question that the blackened old relic on the left of my drawing is of the period; nor can there be any doubt of its spaciousness and aristocratic bearing and dignity. On its rails, too, there still can be found "black iron extinguishers" which the link-boys used, and from one of whose

torches Rawdon Crawley lit his cigar the night he and Wenham left this same porch together.

And so I had Evins manœuvre his taxi until the overhanging trees shaded my canvas, my eye on Hill Street as well as the great house on my left. Indeed, from no other part of the Square can there be seen, in conjunction with Hill Street, a mansion big and pretentious enough to have housed so distinguished an aristocrat. That His Imperial Majesty King George had dined the night before with Lord Rosebery, whose house is near the top of the hill (and Evins confirmed it from the morning paper he was reading), was interesting of course, although I had not been invited, but not half so interesting to me as identifying the town palace in which Mistress Becky Sharp was entertained on the night of her triumph, when she was "introduced to the best of company."

She would have left her Rawdon "at home, but that virtue ordained that her husband should be by her side to protect the timid and fluttering little creature on her first appearance in polite society."

"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 courtesies, 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 dancing 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 her 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