Vanity Fair Chapters XLVII–L Summary & Analysis

Chapters XLVII–L

Summary: CHAPTER XLVII: Gaunt House

Gaunt House is Lord Steyne’s imposing London mansion, which includes several secret apartments where members of the nobility bring women. Lord Steyne and his wife both descend from old aristocratic families with ties to royalty. Lady Steyne was brought up in a convent and married off. The couple had two sons before the wild London lifestyle proved too much for Lady Steyne and she withdrew into her Catholic religion. However, she still must suffer frequent dinners with her husband’s disreputable female friends. Their oldest son and heir married a noblewoman but had no children. The younger son, George, became a diplomat abroad and had a family, but then he started acting strangely and hallucinating. George went insane and has been kept in seclusion near Gaunt House. His distraught mother, who believes George’s illness came through her bloodline, lives under a cloak of guilt, while Lord Steyne unsuccessfully tries to banish his concerns with drink and good times. Although other people recognize his lax morals, he remains popular due to his rank.

Summary: CHAPTER XLVIII: In Which the Reader Is Introduced to the Very Best of Company

Becky’s dream is realized: Lady Jane and Pitt present her to the English king. They ride in the Crawleys’ carriage to the court. Becky has devised a brilliant dress crafted out of pieces of clothing she took from the Crawleys’ London home. She wears diamonds given to her by Pitt and Lord Steyne but lies and says she rented them. After meeting the king, Becky immediately drops her disreputable female friends. A few days later, Lady Steyne and her daughter-in-law honor Becky by leaving their calling cards at her house. Later that day, Lord Steyne visits. He tells her she needs more money if she is to have a place in society. Annoyed at Briggs’s presence, he asks Becky why she doesn’t fire Briggs. Becky confesses that she has borrowed money from Briggs and can’t repay her, and she names a sum larger than she borrowed. She appears miserable but only until Lord Steyne leaves. That night, she receives an invitation to dine at Gaunt House and a document from Lord Steyne authorizing her to withdraw money from his account. She buys Briggs a new gown, pays a small sum to her creditors, but keeps most of the money for herself in a locked drawer.

Summary: CHAPTER XLIX: In Which We Enjoy Three Courses and a Desert

Lord Steyne forces his wife and his daughter-in-law to invite Becky to dinner. The other guests include Lady Bareacres, a prince and princess, and an American diplomat. Becky is very polite when she meets Lady Steyne and subtly reminds Lady Bareacres of their time in Belgium. The women retire separately from the men after dinner, and they continually rebuff Becky. Eventually, Lady Steyne, taking pity, asks Becky to sing and play the piano. Later, Lord Steyne enters and sees the kindness his wife performed. Becky continues to sing—the men are charmed, but not the women.

Summary: CHAPTER L: Contains a Vulgar Incident

Financial circumstances in the Sedley household worsen. Amelia tries various ways to earn money but to no avail. For weeks she prays for a way to survive without having to part from Georgy, and she writes to Jos asking him to restart his support. But soon Mr. Sedley confesses the truth: He is using Jos’s money to pay his creditors. Knowing she has no other choice, Amelia decides to allow Georgy to live with his grandfather. She leaves a note for Jane Osborne and explains why she changed her mind. She requests only that she see Georgy as often as she wishes. Both households prepare for the move. To Amelia’s distress, Georgy looks forward to it, bragging to his school friends that he will be rich. After Georgy leaves, he visits Amelia often on his pony and adopts a new, patronizing manner.

Analysis: Chapters XLVII–L

A series of chapters more fully explore Becky’s relationship with Lord Steyne and flesh out his character, enough so that readers can feel comfortable concluding that the two are indeed having an affair and that it is far from Lord Steyne’s first illicit relationship. The circumstantial evidence abounds. Lord Steyne has discreet apartments set up in his mansion where men of means can entertain women who are not their wives. He forces his wife to dine with disreputable women, including Becky. In an attempt to drown out the pain surrounding his younger son’s madness, Lord Steyne leads a wild lifestyle. He also desperately wants to get rid of Briggs, who is in the household to protect Becky’s reputation. Additionally, Lord Steyne and Becky engage in conversations on a level of ease that speaks to great familiarity.

Chapter XLVII provides numerous clues that allow readers to draw inferences about why Lord Steyne is so drawn to illicit relationships. Given that he already holds an extremely high rank, owns numerous properties, and is independently wealthy, Lord Steyne has few areas in which he can push himself to excel. As the narrator implies, the world has been handed to him, so his conquests over women provide perhaps the only challenge in his life. He needs these challenges to invigorate himself. As the breakfast conversation with his wife and daughters-in-law reveals, he enjoys tormenting and verbally abusing the women of the household.

Notably, everyone in their social milieu recognizes Lord Steyne’s amorality, but they continue to flock to his home for gatherings because he connects them to important people. Lord Steyne’s status and background mean that he knows everyone in society. No one will reject his invitations for fear of missing out on hobnobbing with everyone else. Such hypocrisy is not unexpected in Vanity Fair. As readers have seen, most of the people in this society act in the manner that they deem necessary for their satisfaction.

Becky makes important strides forward in her ambitions when she finally gets presented to the court, which she expects will have an enormous impact on her social standing. To meet the king is to be given an official stamp of approval. Such a meeting could make even an honest woman of a low-born schemer like Becky. Readers may question why Lady Jane decides to bring Becky to the court. Did her husband pressure her to do so? After all, Pitt gave Becky a diamond bracelet and doesn’t want Lady Jane to know about it, implying that his infatuation with Becky has only deepened. The last time Becky and Lady Jane appeared in the same chapter, the two women were antagonistic, so this turnabout seems unexpected. Immediately after the meeting with the king, Lady Jane disappears from the narrative again. For reasons unknown, she was finally pressed into the service that Becky had always wanted the most from her.

As Becky’s future appears to be on the ascent, Amelia must face the hardest decision of her life: whether to give up Georgy to Mr. Osborne to save her parents from more financial ruin. While she decides to do so, her thought processes demonstrate how far from reality she has strayed. Amelia proves completely unable to see that her beloved son is a spoiled brat (though she also proved completely unable to see that her husband was the same). Even once Amelia lets Georgy leave, she still fails to let go. She makes trips to his neighborhood on the days he doesn’t visit her, observing him from a distance and reading into his actions. Even though Georgy is now at a distance, Amelia remains as trapped as ever.

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