Страница:
to the lot of entirely foolish women, her hold upon Sir
Pitt's affections was not very great. Her roses faded out
of her cheeks, and the pretty freshness left her figure
after the birth of a couple of children, and she became
a mere machine in her husband's house of no more use
than the late Lady Crawley's grand piano. Being a light-
complexioned woman, she wore light clothes, as most
blondes will, and appeared, in preference, in draggled sea-
green, or slatternly sky-blue. She worked that worsted
day and night, or other pieces like it. She had
counterpanes in the course of a few years to all the beds in
Crawley. She had a small flower-garden, for which she
had rather an affection; but beyond this no other like
or disliking. When her husband was rude to her she was
apathetic: whenever he struck her she cried. She had not
character enough to take to drinking, and moaned about,
slipshod and in curl-papers all day. 0 Vanity Fair--
Vanity Fair! This might have been, but for you, a cheery
lass--Peter Butt and Rose a happy man and wife, in a
snug farm, with a hearty family; and an honest portion
of pleasures, cares, hopes and struggles--but a title and
a coach and four are toys more precious than happiness
in Vanity Fair: and if Harry the Eighth or Bluebeard
were alive now, and wanted a tenth wife, do you suppose
he could not get the prettiest girl that shall be presented
this season?
The languid dulness of their mamma did not, as it
may be supposed, awaken much affection in her little
daughters, but they were very happy in the servants' hall
and in the stables; and the Scotch gardener having
luckily a good wife and some good children, they got a
little wholesome society and instruction in his lodge,
which was the only education bestowed upon them until
Miss Sharp came.
Her engagement was owing to the remonstrances of
Mr. Pitt Crawley, the only friend or protector Lady
Crawley ever had, and the only person, besides her
children, for whom she entertained a little feeble
attachment. Mr. Pitt took after the noble Binkies, from
whom he was descended, and was a very polite and proper
gentleman. When he grew to man's estate, and came
back from Christchurch, he began to reform the
slackened discipline of the hall, in spite of his father, who
stood in awe of him. He was a man of such rigid
refinement, that he would have starved rather than have
dined without a white neckcloth. Once, when just from
college, and when Horrocks the butler brought him a
letter without placing it previously on a tray, he gave
that domestic a look, and administered to him a speech
so cutting, that Horrocks ever after trembled before him;
the whole household bowed to him: Lady Crawley's curl-
papers came off earlier when he was at home: Sir Pitt's
muddy gaiters disappeared; and if that incorrigible old
man still adhered to other old habits, he never fuddled
himself with rum-and-water in his son's presence, and
only talked to his servants in a very reserved and polite
manner; and those persons remarked that Sir Pitt never
swore at Lady Crawley while his son was in the room.
It was he who taught the butler to say, "My lady is
served," and who insisted on handing her ladyship in to
dinner. He seldom spoke to her, but when he did it was
with the most powerful respect; and he never let her
quit the apartment without rising in the most stately
manner to open the door, and making an elegant bow
at her egress.
At Eton he was called Miss Crawley; and there, I
am sorry to say, his younger brother Rawdon used to
lick him violently. But though his parts were not
brilliant, he made up for his lack of talent by meritorious
industry, and was never known, during eight years at
school, to be subject to that punishment which it is
generally thought none but a cherub can escape.
At college his career was of course highly creditable.
And here he prepared himself for public life, into which
he was to be introduced by the patronage of his
grandfather, Lord Binkie, by studying the ancient and modern
orators with great assiduity, and by speaking unceasingly
at the debating societies. But though he had a fine flux
of words, and delivered his little voice with great
pomposity and pleasure to himself, and never advanced
any sentiment or opinion which was not perfectly trite and
stale, and supported by a Latin quotation; yet he failed
somehow, in spite of a mediocrity which ought to have
insured any man a success. He did not even get the
prize poem, which all his friends said he was sure of.
After leaving college he became Private Secretary to
Lord Binkie, and was then appointed Attache to the
Legation at Pumpernickel, which post he filled with
perfect honour, and brought home despatches, consisting of
Strasburg pie, to the Foreign Minister of the day. After
remaining ten years Attache (several years after the
lamented Lord Binkie's demise), and finding the
advancement slow, he at length gave up the diplomatic
service in some disgust, and began to turn country gentleman.
He wrote a pamphlet on Malt on returning to England
(for he was an ambitious man, and always liked
to be before the public), and took a strong part in the
Negro Emancipation question. Then he became a friend
of Mr. Wilberforce's, whose politics he admired, and had
that famous correspondence with the Reverend Silas
Hornblower, on the Ashantee Mission. He was in
London, if not for the Parliament session, at least in May,
for the religious meetings. In the country he was a
magistrate, and an active visitor and speaker among those
destitute of religious instruction. He was said to be
paying his addresses to Lady Jane Sheepshanks, Lord
Southdown's third daughter, and whose sister, Lady Emily,
wrote those sweet tracts, "The Sailor's True Binnacle,"
and "The Applewoman of Finchley Common."
Miss Sharp's accounts of his employment at Queen's
Crawley were not caricatures. He subjected the servants
there to the devotional exercises before mentioned, in
which (and so much the better) he brought his father
to join. He patronised an Independent meeting-house in
Crawley parish, much to the indignation of his uncle the
Rector, and to the consequent delight of Sir Pitt, who
was induced to go himself once or twice, which occasioned
some violent sermons at Crawley parish church, directed
point-blank at the Baronet's old Gothic pew there. Honest
Sir Pitt, however, did not feel the force of these
discourses, as he always took his nap during sermon-time.
Mr. Crawley was very earnest, for the good of the
nation and of the Christian world, that the old gentleman
should yield him up his place in Parliament; but this the
elder constantly refused to do. Both were of course too
prudent to give up the fifteen hundred a year which was
brought in by the second seat (at this period filled by
Mr. Quadroon, with carte blanche on the Slave question);
indeed the family estate was much embarrassed, and the
income drawn from the borough was of great use to the
house of Queen's Crawley.
It had never recovered the heavy fine imposed upon
Walpole Crawley, first baronet, for peculation in the Tape
and Sealing Wax Office. Sir Walpole was a jolly fellow,
eager to seize and to spend money (alieni appetens, sui
profusus, as Mr. Crawley would remark with a sigh),
and in his day beloved by all the county for the
constant drunkenness and hospitality which was maintained
at Queen's Crawley. The cellars were filled with burgundy
then, the kennels with hounds, and the stables with
gallant hunters; now, such horses as Queen's Crawley
possessed went to plough, or ran in the Trafalgar Coach;
and it was with a team of these very horses, on an off-
day, that Miss Sharp was brought to the Hall; for boor
as he was, Sir Pitt was a stickler for his dignity while
at home, and seldom drove out but with four horses,
and though he dined off boiled mutton, had always three
footmen to serve it.
If mere parsimony could have made a man rich, Sir
Pitt Crawley might have become very wealthy--if he
had been an attorney in a country town, with no capital
but his brains, it is very possible that he would have
turned them to good account, and might have achieved
for himself a very considerable influence and competency.
But he was unluckily endowed with a good name
and a large though encumbered estate, both of which
went rather to injure than to advance him. He had a
taste for law, which cost him many thousands yearly;
and being a great deal too clever to be robbed, as he
said, by any single agent, allowed his affairs to be
mismanaged by a dozen, whom he all equally mistrusted.
He was such a sharp landlord, that he could hardly find
any but bankrupt tenants; and such a close farmer, as
to grudge almost the seed to the ground, whereupon
revengeful Nature grudged him the crops which she
granted to more liberal husbandmen. He speculated in
every possible way; he worked mines; bought canal-shares;
horsed coaches; took government contracts, and was
the busiest man and magistrate of his county. As he
would not pay honest agents at his granite quarry, he
had the satisfaction of finding that four overseers ran
away, and took fortunes with them to America. For want
of proper precautions, his coal-mines filled with water:
the government flung his contract of damaged beef upon
his hands: and for his coach-horses, every mail proprietor
in the kingdom knew that he lost more horses than any
man in the country, from underfeeding and buying cheap.
In disposition he was sociable, and far from being proud;
nay, he rather preferred the society of a farmer or a
horse-dealer to that of a gentleman, like my lord, his
son: he was fond of drink, of swearing, of joking with
the farmers' daughters: he was never known to give away
a shilling or to do a good action, but was of a pleasant,
sly, laughing mood, and would cut his joke and drink
his glass with a tenant and sell him up the next day;
or have his laugh with the poacher he was transporting
with equal good humour. His politeness for the fair sex
has already been hinted at by Miss Rebecca Sharp--in
a word, the whole baronetage, peerage, commonage of
England, did not contain a more cunning, mean, selfish,
foolish, disreputable old man. That blood-red hand of
Sir Pitt Crawley's would be in anybody's pocket except
his own; and it is with grief and pain, that, as admirers
of the British aristocracy, we find ourselves obliged to
admit the existence of so many ill qualities in a person
whose name is in Debrett.
One great cause why Mr. Crawley had such a hold
over the affections of his father, resulted from money
arrangements. The Baronet owed his son a sum of money
out of the jointure of his mother, which he did not find
it convenient to pay; indeed he had an almost invincible
repugnance to paying anybody, and could only be brought
by force to discharge his debts. Miss Sharp calculated
(for she became, as we shall hear speedily, inducted
into most of the secrets of the family) that the mere
payment of his creditors cost the honourable Baronet
several hundreds yearly; but this was a delight he could
not forego; he had a savage pleasure in making the poor
wretches wait, and in shifting from court to court and
from term to term the period of satisfaction. What's the
good of being in Parliament, he said, if you must pay your
debts? Hence, indeed, his position as a senator was not
a little useful to him.
Vanity Fair--Vanity Fair! Here was a man, who could
not spell, and did not care to read--who had the habits
and the cunning of a boor: whose aim in life was
pettifogging: who never had a taste, or emotion, or
enjoyment, but what was sordid and foul; and yet he had
rank, and honours, and power, somehow: and was a
dignitary of the land, and a pillar of the state. He was
high sheriff, and rode in a golden coach. Great ministers
and statesmen courted him; and in Vanity Fair he had a
higher place than the most brilliant genius or spotless
virtue.
Sir Pitt had an unmarried half-sister who inherited her
mother's large fortune, and though the Baronet proposed
to borrow this money of her on mortgage, Miss Crawley
declined the offer, and preferred the security of the funds.
She had signified, however, her intention of leaving her
inheritance between Sir Pitt's second son and the family
at the Rectory, and had once or twice paid the debts of
Rawdon Crawley in his career at college and in the army.
Miss Crawley was, in consequence, an object of great
respect when she came to Queen's Crawley, for she had
a balance at her banker's which would have made her
beloved anywhere.
What a dignity it gives an old lady, that balance at
the banker's! How tenderly we look at her faults if she
is a relative (and may every reader have a score of such),
what a kind good-natured old creature we find her! How
the junior partner of Hobbs and Dobbs leads her smiling
to the carriage with the lozenge upon it, and the fat
wheezy coachman! How, when she comes to pay us a
visit, we generally find an opportunity to let our friends
know her station in the world! We say (and with perfect
truth) I wish I had Miss MacWhirter's signature to a
cheque for five thousand pounds. She wouldn't miss it,
says your wife. She is my aunt, say you, in an easy
careless way, when your friend asks if Miss MacWhirter is
any relative. Your wife is perpetually sending her little
testimonies of affection, your little girls work endless
worsted baskets, cushions, and footstools for her. What a
good fire there is in her room when she comes to pay
you a visit, although your wife laces her stays without
one! The house during her stay assumes a festive, neat,
warm, jovial, snug appearance not visible at other
seasons. You yourself, dear sir, forget to go to sleep after
dinner, and find yourself all of a sudden (though you
invariably lose) very fond of a rubber. What good
dinners you have--game every day, Malmsey-Madeira, and
no end of fish from London. Even the servants in the
kitchen share in the general prosperity; and, somehow,
during the stay of Miss MacWhirter's fat coachman, the
beer is grown much stronger, and the consumption of tea
and sugar in the nursery (where her maid takes her
meals) is not regarded in the least. Is it so, or is it not
so? I appeal to the middle classes. Ah, gracious powers!
I wish you would send me an old aunt--a maiden aunt
--an aunt with a lozenge on her carriage, and a front
of light coffee-coloured hair--how my children should
work workbags for her, and my Julia and I would make
her comfortable! Sweet--sweet vision! Foolish--foolish
dream!
CHAPTER X
Miss Sharp Begins to Make Friends
And now, being received as a member of the amiable
family whose portraits we have sketched in the foregoing
pages, it became naturally Rebecca's duty to make
herself, as she said, agreeable to her benefactors, and to
gain their confidence to the utmost of her power. Who
can but admire this quality of gratitude in an unprotected
orphan; and, if there entered some degree of selfishness
into her calculations, who can say but that her
prudence was perfectly justifiable? "I am alone in the
world," said the friendless girl. "I have nothing to look
for but what my own labour can bring me; and while
that little pink-faced chit Amelia, with not half my sense,
has ten thousand pounds and an establishment secure,
poor Rebecca (and my figure is far better than hers)
has only herself and her own wits to trust to. Well, let
us see if my wits cannot provide me with an honourable
maintenance, and if some day or the other I cannot show
Miss Amelia my real superiority over her. Not that I
dislike poor Amelia: who can dislike such a harmless,
good-natured creature?--only it will be a fine day when
I can take my place above her in the world, as why,
indeed, should I not?" Thus it was that our little
romantic friend formed visions of the future for herself--
nor must we be scandalised that, in all her castles in
the air, a husband was the principal inhabitant. Of
what else have young ladies to think, but husbands? Of
what else do their dear mammas think? "I must be my
own mamma," said Rebecca; not without a tingling
consciousness of defeat, as she thought over her little
misadventure with Jos Sedley.
So she wisely determined to render her position with
the Queen's Crawley family comfortable and secure, and
to this end resolved to make friends of every one around
her who could at all interfere with her comfort.
As my Lady Crawley was not one of these personages,
and a woman, moreover, so indolent and void of
character as not to be of the least consequence in her own
house, Rebecca soon found that it was not at all necessary
to cultivate her good will--indeed, impossible to gain it. She
used to talk to her pupils about their "poor mamma"; and,
though she treated that lady with every demonstration
of cool respect, it was to the rest of the family that she
wisely directed the chief part of her attentions.
With the young people, whose applause she thoroughly
gained, her method was pretty simple. She did not
pester their young brains with too much learning, but,
on the contrary, let them have their own way in
regard to educating themselves; for what instruction is more
effectual than self-instruction? The eldest was rather fond
of books, and as there was in the old library at Queen's
Crawley a considerable provision of works of light
literature of the last century, both in the French and English
languages (they had been purchased by the Secretary
of the Tape and Sealing Wax Office at the period of his
disgrace), and as nobody ever troubled the book-shelves
but herself, Rebecca was enabled agreeably, and, as
it were, in playing, to impart a great deal of instruction
to Miss Rose Crawley.
She and Miss Rose thus read together many delightful
French and English works, among which may be
mentioned those of the learned Dr. Smollett, of the ingenious
Mr. Henry Fielding, of the graceful and fantastic
Monsieur Crebillon the younger, whom our immortal poet
Gray so much admired, and of the universal Monsieur de
Voltaire. Once, when Mr. Crawley asked what the young
people were reading, the governess replied "Smollett."
"Oh, Smollett," said Mr. Crawley, quite satisfied. "His
history is more dull, but by no means so dangerous as
that of Mr. Hume. It is history you are reading?" "Yes,"
said Miss Rose; without, however, adding that it was the
history of Mr. Humphrey Clinker. On another occasion
he was rather scandalised at finding his sister with a
book of French plays; but as the governess remarked
that it was for the purpose of acquiring the French idiom
in conversation, he was fain to be content. Mr. Crawley,
as a diplomatist, was exceedingly proud of his own skill
in speaking the French language (for he was of the world
still), and not a little pleased with the compliments which
the governess continually paid him upon his proficiency.
Miss Violet's tastes were, on the contrary, more rude
and boisterous than those of her sister. She knew the
sequestered spots where the hens laid their eggs. She
could climb a tree to rob the nests of the feathered
songsters of their speckled spoils. And her pleasure was to
ride the young colts, and to scour the plains like Camilla.
She was the favourite of her father and of the stablemen.
She was the darling, and withal the terror of the
cook; for she discovered the haunts of the jam-pots, and
would attack them when they were within her reach.
She and her sister were engaged in constant battles. Any
of which peccadilloes, if Miss Sharp discovered, she did
not tell them to Lady Crawley; who would have told
them to the father, or worse, to Mr. Crawley; but
promised not to tell if Miss Violet would be a good girl
and love her governess.
With Mr. Crawley Miss Sharp was respectful and
obedient. She used to consult him on passages of French
which she could not understand, though her mother was
a Frenchwoman, and which he would construe to her
satisfaction: and, besides giving her his aid in profane
literature, he was kind enough to select for her books
of a more serious tendency, and address to her much of
his conversation. She admired, beyond measure, his
speech at the Quashimaboo-Aid Society; took an
interest in his pamphlet on malt: was often affected, even
to tears, by his discourses of an evening, and would
say--"Oh, thank you, sir," with a sigh, and a look up
to heaven, that made him occasionally condescend to
shake hands with her. "Blood is everything, after all,"
would that aristocratic religionist say. "How Miss Sharp
is awakened by my words, when not one of the people
here is touched. I am too fine for them--too delicate.
I must familiarise my style--but she understands it. Her
mother was a Montmorency."
Indeed it was from this famous family, as it appears,
that Miss Sharp, by the mother's side, was descended.
Of course she did not say that her mother had been on
the stage; it would have shocked Mr. Crawley's religious
scruples. How many noble emigres had this horrid
revolution plunged in poverty! She had several stories
about her ancestors ere she had been many months in
the house; some of which Mr. Crawley happened to find
in D'Hozier's dictionary, which was in the library, and
which strengthened his belief in their truth, and in the
high-breeding of Rebecca. Are we to suppose from this
curiosity and prying into dictionaries, could our heroine
suppose that Mr. Crawley was interested in her?--no,
only in a friendly way. Have we not stated that he was
attached to Lady Jane Sheepshanks?
He took Rebecca to task once or twice about the
propriety of playing at backgammon with Sir Pitt, saying
that it was a godless amusement, and that she would be
much better engaged in reading "Thrump's Legacy," or
"The Blind Washerwoman of Moorfields," or any work
of a more serious nature; but Miss Sharp said her dear
mother used often to play the same game with the old
Count de Trictrac and the venerable Abbe du Cornet,
and so found an excuse for this and other worldly
amusements.
But it was not only by playing at backgammon with
the Baronet, that the little governess rendered herself
agreeable to her employer. She found many different
ways of being useful to him. She read over, with
indefatigable patience, all those law papers, with which,
before she came to Queen's Crawley, he had promised
to entertain her. She volunteered to copy many of his
letters, and adroitly altered the spelling of them so as
to suit the usages of the present day. She became
interested in everything appertaining to the estate, to the
farm, the park, the garden, and the stables; and so delightful
a companion was she, that the Baronet would seldom
take his after-breakfast walk without her (and the
children of course), when she would give her advice as to
the trees which were to be lopped in the shrubberies, the
garden-beds to be dug, the crops which were to be cut,
the horses which were to go to cart or plough. Before
she had been a year at Queen's Crawley she had quite
won the Baronet's confidence; and the conversation at the
dinner-table, which before used to be held between him
and Mr. Horrocks the butler, was now almost exclusively
between Sir Pitt and Miss Sharp. She was almost
mistress of the house when Mr. Crawley was absent, but
conducted herself in her new and exalted situation with
such circumspection and modesty as not to offend the
authorities of the kitchen and stable, among whom her
behaviour was always exceedingly modest and affable. She
was quite a different person from the haughty, shy,
dissatisfied little girl whom we have known previously, and
this change of temper proved great prudence, a sincere
desire of amendment, or at any rate great moral courage
on her part. Whether it was the heart which dictated this
new system of complaisance and humility adopted by our
Rebecca, is to be proved by her after-history. A system
of hypocrisy, which lasts through whole years, is one
seldom satisfactorily practised by a person of one-and-
twenty; however, our readers will recollect, that, though
young in years, our heroine was old in life and experience,
and we have written to no purpose if they have not
discovered that she was a very clever woman.
The elder and younger son of the house of Crawley
were, like the gentleman and lady in the weather-box,
never at home together--they hated each other cordially:
indeed, Rawdon Crawley, the dragoon, had a great
contempt for the establishment altogether, and seldom came
thither except when his aunt paid her annual visit.
The great good quality of this old lady has been
mentioned. She possessed seventy thousand pounds, and
had almost adopted Rawdon. She disliked her elder nephew
exceedingly, and despised him as a milksop. In return
he did not hesitate to state that her soul was irretrievably
lost, and was of opinion that his brother's chance
in the next world was not a whit better. "She is a
godless woman of the world," would Mr. Crawley say; "she
lives with atheists and Frenchmen. My mind shudders
when I think of her awful, awful situation, and that,
near as she is to the grave, she should be so given up
to vanity, licentiousness, profaneness, and folly." In fact,
the old lady declined altogether to hear his hour's lecture
of an evening; and when she came to Queen's Crawley
alone, he was obliged to pretermit his usual devotional
exercises.
"Shut up your sarmons, Pitt, when Miss Crawley
comes down," said his father; "she has written to say
that she won't stand the preachifying."
"O, sir! consider the servants."
"The servants be hanged," said Sir Pitt; and his son
thought even worse would happen were they deprived of
the benefit of his instruction.
"Why, hang it, Pitt!" said the father to his remonstrance.
"You wouldn't be such a flat as to let three thousand a
year go out of the family?"
"What is money compared to our souls, sir?" continued
Mr. Crawley.
"You mean that the old lady won't leave the money
to you?"--and who knows but it was Mr. Crawley's
meaning?
Old Miss Crawley was certainly one of the reprobate.
She had a snug little house in Park Lane, and, as she ate
and drank a great deal too much during the season in
London, she went to Harrowgate or Cheltenham for
the summer. She was the most hospitable and jovial of
old vestals, and had been a beauty in her day, she said.
(All old women were beauties once, we very well know.)
She was a bel esprit, and a dreadful Radical for those
days. She had been in France (where St. Just, they say,
inspired her with an unfortunate passion), and loved,
ever after, French novels, French cookery, and French
wines. She read Voltaire, and had Rousseau by heart;
talked very lightly about divorce, and most energetically
of the rights of women. She had pictures of Mr. Fox
in every room in the house: when that statesman was
in opposition, I am not sure that she had not flung a
main with him; and when he came into office, she took
great credit for bringing over to him Sir Pitt and his
colleague for Queen's Crawley, although Sir Pitt would
have come over himself, without any trouble on the honest
lady's part. It is needless to say that Sir Pitt was brought
to change his views after the death of the great Whig
statesman.
This worthy old lady took a fancy to Rawdon Crawley
when a boy, sent him to Cambridge (in opposition to
his brother at Oxford), and, when the young man was
requested by the authorities of the first-named University
to quit after a residence of two years, she bought him
his commission in the Life Guards Green.
A perfect and celebrated "blood," or dandy about town,
was this young officer. Boxing, rat-hunting, the fives court,
and four-in-hand driving were then the fashion of our
British aristocracy; and he was an adept in all these
noble sciences. And though he belonged to the
household troops, who, as it was their duty to rally round the
Prince Regent, had not shown their valour in foreign
service yet, Rawdon Crawley had already (apropos of
play, of which he was immoderately fond) fought three
bloody duels, in which he gave ample proofs of his
contempt for death.
"And for what follows after death," would Mr.
Crawley observe, throwing his gooseberry-coloured eyes
up to the ceiling. He was always thinking of his brother's
soul, or of the souls of those who differed with him in
opinion: it is a sort of comfort which many of the
serious give themselves.
Silly, romantic Miss Crawley, far from being horrified
at the courage of her favourite, always used to pay his
debts after his duels; and would not listen to a word
that was whispered against his morality. "He will sow
his wild oats," she would say, "and is worth far more
than that puling hypocrite of a brother of his."
CHAPTER XI
Arcadian Simplicity
Besides these honest folks at the Hall (whose simplicity
and sweet rural purity surely show the advantage of a
country life over a town one), we must introduce the
reader to their relatives and neighbours at the Rectory,
Bute Crawley and his wife.
The Reverend Bute Crawley was a tall, stately, jolly,
shovel-hatted man, far more popular in his county than
the Baronet his brother. At college he pulled stroke-oar
in the Christchurch boat, and had thrashed all the best
bruisers of the "town." He carried his taste for boxing
and athletic exercises into private life; there was not a
fight within twenty miles at which he was not present,
nor a race, nor a coursing match, nor a regatta, nor a
ball, nor an election, nor a visitation dinner, nor indeed
a good dinner in the whole county, but he found means
to attend it. You might see his bay mare and gig-lamps
a score of miles away from his Rectory House, whenever
there was any dinner-party at Fuddleston, or at Roxby,
or at Wapshot Hall, or at the great lords of the county,
with all of whom he was intimate. He had a fine voice;
sang "A southerly wind and a cloudy sky"; and gave
the "whoop" in chorus with general applause. He rode
to hounds in a pepper-and-salt frock, and was one of the
best fishermen in the county.
Mrs. Crawley, the rector's wife, was a smart little body,
who wrote this worthy divine's sermons. Being of a
domestic turn, and keeping the house a great deal with her
daughters, she ruled absolutely within the Rectory, wisely
giving her husband full liberty without. He was welcome
to come and go, and dine abroad as many days as his
fancy dictated, for Mrs. Crawley was a saving woman and
knew the price of port wine. Ever since Mrs. Bute carried
off the young Rector of Queen's Crawley (she was of a
good family, daughter of the late Lieut.-Colonel
Hector McTavish, and she and her mother played for
Bute and won him at Harrowgate), she had been a prudent
and thrifty wife to him. In spite of her care, however, he
was always in debt. It took him at least ten years to pay
off his college bills contracted during his father's lifetime.
In the year 179-, when he was just clear of these
incumbrances, he gave the odds of 100 to 1 (in twenties)
against Kangaroo, who won the Derby. The Rector was
obliged to take up the money at a ruinous interest, and
had been struggling ever since. His sister helped him with
a hundred now and then, but of course his great hope was
in her death--when "hang it" (as he would say), "Matilda
must leave me half her money."
So that the Baronet and his brother had every reason
which two brothers possibly can have for being by the
ears. Sir Pitt had had the better of Bute in innumerable
family transactions. Young Pitt not only did not hunt, but
set up a meeting house under his uncle's very nose.
Rawdon, it was known, was to come in for the bulk of Miss
Crawley's property. These money transactions--these
speculations in life and death--these silent battles for
reversionary spoil--make brothers very loving towards
each other in Vanity Fair. I, for my part, have known a
five-pound note to interpose and knock up a half century's
attachment between two brethren; and can't but admire,
as I think what a fine and durable thing Love is among
worldly people.
It cannot be supposed that the arrival of such a
personage as Rebecca at Queen's Crawley, and her gradual
establishment in the good graces of all people there, could
be unremarked by Mrs. Bute Crawley. Mrs. Bute, who
knew how many days the sirloin of beef lasted at the Hall;
how much linen was got ready at the great wash; how
many peaches were on the south wall; how many doses
her ladyship took when she was ill--for such points are
matters of intense interest to certain persons in the
country--Mrs. Bute, I say, could not pass over the Hall
governess without making every inquiry respecting her
history and character. There was always the best understanding
between the servants at the Rectory and the Hall.
There was always a good glass of ale in the kitchen of the
former place for the Hall people, whose ordinary drink
was very small--and, indeed, the Rector's lady knew
exactly how much malt went to every barrel of Hall beer--
ties of relationship existed between the Hall and Rectory
domestics, as between their masters; and through these
channels each family was perfectly well acquainted with
the doings of the other. That, by the way, may be set
down as a general remark. When you and your brother
are friends, his doings are indifferent to you. When you
have quarrelled, all his outgoings and incomings you
know, as if you were his spy.
Very soon then after her arrival, Rebecca began to take
a regular place in Mrs. Crawley's bulletin from the Hall.
It was to this effect: "The black porker's killed--weighed
x stone--salted the sides--pig's pudding and leg of pork
for dinner. Mr. Cramp from Mudbury, over with Sir Pitt
about putting John Blackmore in gaol--Mr. Pitt at
meeting (with all the names of the people who attended)--
my lady as usual--the young ladies with the governess."
Then the report would come--the new governess be a
rare manager--Sir Pitt be very sweet on her--Mr.
Crawley too--He be reading tracts to her--"What an
abandoned wretch!" said little, eager, active, black-faced Mrs.
Bute Crawley.
Finally, the reports were that the governess had "come
round" everybody, wrote Sir Pitt's letters, did his business,
managed his accounts--had the upper hand of the whole
house, my lady, Mr. Crawley, the girls and all--at which
Mrs. Crawley declared she was an artful hussy, and had
some dreadful designs in view. Thus the doings at the
Hall were the great food for conversation at the Rectory,
and Mrs. Bute's bright eyes spied out everything that took
place in the enemy's camp--everything and a great deal
besides.
Mrs. Bute Crawley to Miss Pinkerton,
The Mall, Chiswick.
Rectory, Queen's Crawley, December--.
My Dear Madam,--Although it is so many years since
I profited by your delightful and invaluable instructions,
yet I have ever retained the FONDEST and most reverential
regard for Miss Pinkerton, and DEAR Chiswick. I hope
your health is GOOD. The world and the cause of
education cannot afford to lose Miss Pinkerton for MANY MANY
YEARS. When my friend, Lady Fuddleston, mentioned that
her dear girls required an instructress (I am too poor to
engage a governess for mine, but was I not educated at
Chiswick?)--"Who," I exclaimed, "can we consult but
the excellent, the incomparable Miss Pinkerton?" In a
word, have you, dear madam, any ladies on your list,
whose services might be made available to my kind
friend and neighbour? I assure you she will take no
governess BUT OF YOUR CHOOSING.
My dear husband is pleased to say that he likes
EVERYTHING WHICH COMES FROM MISS PINKERTON'S
SCHOOL. How I wish I could present him and my beloved
girls to the friend of my youth, and the ADMIRED of the
great lexicographer of our country! If you ever travel into
Hampshire, Mr. Crawley begs me to say, he hopes you will
adorn our RURAL RECTORY with your presence. 'Tis the
humble but happy home of
Your affectionate
Martha Crawley
P.S. Mr. Crawley's brother, the baronet, with whom
we are not, alas! upon those terms of UNITY in which it
BECOMES BRETHREN TO DWELL, has a governess for his
little girls, who, I am told, had the good fortune to be
educated at Chiswick. I hear various reports of her;
and as I have the tenderest interest in my dearest little
nieces, whom I wish, in spite of family differences, to
see among my own children--and as I long to be
attentive to ANY PUPIL OF YOURS--do, my dear Miss
Pinkerton, tell me the history of this young lady, whom,
for YOUR SAKE, I am most anxious to befriend.--M. C.
Miss Pinkerton to Mrs. Bute Crawley.
Johnson House, Chiswick, Dec. 18--.
Dear Madam,--I have the honour to acknowledge
your polite communication, to which I promptly reply.
'Tis most gratifying to one in my most arduous position
to find that my maternal cares have elicited a responsive
affection; and to recognize in the amiable Mrs. Bute
Crawley my excellent pupil of former years, the sprightly
and accomplished Miss Martha MacTavish. I am happy
to have under my charge now the daughters of many of
those who were your contemporaries at my establishment
--what pleasure it would give me if your own
beloved young ladies had need of my instructive
superintendence!
Presenting my respectful compliments to Lady
Fuddleston, I have the honour (epistolarily) to introduce
to her ladyship my two friends, Miss Tuffin and Miss Hawky.
Either of these young ladies is PERFECTLY QUALIFIED to
instruct in Greek, Latin, and the rudiments of Hebrew;
in mathematics and history; in Spanish, French, Italian,
and geography; in music, vocal and instrumental; in
dancing, without the aid of a master; and in the
elements of natural sciences. In the use of the globes both
are proficients. In addition to these Miss Tuffin, who is
daughter of the late Reverend Thomas Tuffin (Fellow
of Corpus College, Cambridge), can instruct in the
Syriac language, and the elements of Constitutional law.
But as she is only eighteen years of age, and of
exceedingly pleasing personal appearance, perhaps this
young lady may be objectionable in Sir Huddleston
Fuddleston's family.
Miss Letitia Hawky, on the other hand, is not
personally well-favoured. She is-twenty-nine; her face
is much pitted with the small-pox. She has a halt in her
gait, red hair, and a trifling obliquity of vision. Both
ladies are endowed with EVERY MORAL AND RELIGIOUS
VIRTUE. Their terms, of course, are such as their
accomplishments merit. With my most grateful respects
to the Reverend Bute Crawley, I have the honour to be,
Dear Madam,
Your most faithful and obedient servant,
Barbara Pinkerton.
P.S. The Miss Sharp, whom you mention as
governess to Sir Pitt Crawley, Bart., M.P., was a pupil
of mine, and I have nothing to say in her disfavour.
Though her appearance is disagreeable, we cannot
control the operations of nature: and though her parents
were disreputable (her father being a painter, several
times bankrupt, and her mother, as I have since learned,
with horror, a dancer at the Opera); yet her talents are
considerable, and I cannot regret that I received her
OUT OF CHARITY. My dread is, lest the principles of the
mother--who was represented to me as a French
Countess, forced to emigrate in the late revolutionary horrors;
but who, as I have since found, was a person of the
very lowest order and morals--should at any time prove
to be HEREDITARY in the unhappy young woman whom I
took as AN OUTCAST. But her principles have hitherto
been correct (I believe), and I am sure nothing will
occur to injure them in the elegant and refined circle
of the eminent Sir Pitt Crawley.
Miss Rebecca Sharp to Miss Amelia Sedley.
I have not written to my beloved Amelia for these
many weeks past, for what news was there to tell of the
sayings and doings at Humdrum Hall, as I have
christened it; and what do you care whether the turnip crop
is good or bad; whether the fat pig weighed thirteen
stone or fourteen; and whether the beasts thrive well
upon mangelwurzel? Every day since I last wrote has
been like its neighbour. Before breakfast, a walk with
Sir Pitt and his spud; after breakfast studies (such as
they are) in the schoolroom; after schoolroom, reading
and writing about lawyers, leases, coal-mines, canals,
with Sir Pitt (whose secretary I am become); after
dinner, Mr. Crawley's discourses on the baronet's
backgammon; during both of which amusements my lady
looks on with equal placidity. She has become rather
more interesting by being ailing of late, which has
brought a new visitor to the Hall, in the person of a
young doctor. Well, my dear, young women need never
despair. The young doctor gave a certain friend of yours
to understand that, if she chose to be Mrs. Glauber, she
was welcome to ornament the surgery! I told his
impudence that the gilt pestle and mortar was quite
ornament enough; as if I was born, indeed, to be a country
surgeon's wife! Mr. Glauber went home seriously
indisposed at his rebuff, took a cooling draught, and is now
quite cured. Sir Pitt applauded my resolution highly;
he would be sorry to lose his little secretary, I think;
and I believe the old wretch likes me as much as it is in
his nature to like any one. Marry, indeed! and with a
country apothecary, after--No, no, one cannot so
soon forget old associations, about which I will talk no
more. Let us return to Humdrum Hall.
For some time past it is Humdrum Hall no longer.
My dear, Miss Crawley has arrived with her fat horses,
fat servants, fat spaniel--the great rich Miss Crawley,
with seventy thousand pounds in the five per cents.,
whom, or I had better say WHICH, her two brothers
adore. She looks very apoplectic, the dear soul; no
wonder her brothers are anxious about her. You should see
them struggling to settle her cushions, or to hand her
coffee! "When I come into the country," she says (for
she has a great deal of humour), "I leave my toady,
Miss Briggs, at home. My brothers are my toadies here,
my dear, and a pretty pair they are!"
When she comes into the country our hall is thrown
open, and for a month, at least, you would fancy old
Sir Walpole was come to life again. We have dinner-
parties, and drive out in the coach-and-four the
footmen put on their newest canary-coloured liveries; we
drink claret and champagne as if we were accustomed
to it every day. We have wax candles in the schoolroom,
and fires to warm ourselves with. Lady Crawley is made
to put on the brightest pea-green in her wardrobe, and
my pupils leave off their thick shoes and tight old
tartan pelisses, and wear silk stockings and muslin frocks,
as fashionable baronets' daughters should. Rose came in
yesterday in a sad plight--the Wiltshire sow (an
enormous pet of hers) ran her down, and destroyed a most
lovely flowered lilac silk dress by dancing over it--had
this happened a week ago, Sir Pitt would have sworn
frightfully, have boxed the poor wretch's ears, and put
her upon bread and water for a month. All he said was,
"I'll serve you out, Miss, when your aunt's gone," and
laughed off the accident as quite trivial. Let us hope his
wrath will have passed away before Miss Crawley's
departure. I hope so, for Miss Rose's sake, I am sure.
What a charming reconciler and peacemaker money is!
Another admirable effect of Miss Crawley and her
seventy thousand pounds is to be seen in the conduct
of the two brothers Crawley. I mean the baronet and
the rector, not OUR brothers--but the former, who hate
each other all the year round, become quite loving at
Christmas. I wrote to you last year how the abominable
horse-racing rector was in the habit of preaching clumsy
sermons at us at church, and how Sir Pitt snored in
answer. When Miss Crawley arrives there is no such thing
as quarrelling heard of--the Hall visits the Rectory, and
vice versa--the parson and the Baronet talk about the
pigs and the poachers, and the county business, in the
most affable manner, and without quarrelling in their
cups, I believe--indeed Miss Crawley won't hear of their
quarrelling, and vows that she will leave her money to
the Shropshire Crawleys if they offend her. If they were
clever people, those Shropshire Crawleys, they might
have it all, I think; but the Shropshire Crawley is a
clergyman like his Hampshire cousin, and mortally offended
Miss Crawley (who had fled thither in a fit of rage
against her impracticable brethren) by some strait-laced
notions of morality. He would have prayers in the house,
I believe.
Our sermon books are shut up when Miss Crawley
arrives, and Mr. Pitt, whom she abominates, finds it
convenient to go to town. On the other hand, the young
dandy--"blood," I believe, is the term--Captain Crawley
makes his appearance, and I suppose you will like to
know what sort of a person he is.
Well, he is a very large young dandy. He is six feet
high, and speaks with a great voice; and swears a great
deal; and orders about the servants, who all adore him
nevertheless; for he is very generous of his money, and
the domestics will do anything for him. Last week the
keepers almost killed a bailiff and his man who came
down from London to arrest the Captain, and who were
found lurking about the Park wall--they beat them,
ducked them, and were going to shoot them for
poachers, but the baronet interfered.
The Captain has a hearty contempt for his father, I
can see, and calls him an old PUT, an old SNOB, an old
CHAW-BACON, and numberless other pretty names. He has
a DREADFUL REPUTATION among the ladies. He brings his
hunters home with him, lives with the Squires of the
county, asks whom he pleases to dinner, and Sir Pitt
dares not say no, for fear of offending Miss Crawley,
and missing his legacy when she dies of her apoplexy.
Shall I tell you a compliment the Captain paid me? I
must, it is so pretty. One evening we actually had a
dance; there was Sir Huddleston Fuddleston and his
family, Sir Giles Wapshot and his young ladies, and I
don't know how many more. Well, I heard him say--
Pitt's affections was not very great. Her roses faded out
of her cheeks, and the pretty freshness left her figure
after the birth of a couple of children, and she became
a mere machine in her husband's house of no more use
than the late Lady Crawley's grand piano. Being a light-
complexioned woman, she wore light clothes, as most
blondes will, and appeared, in preference, in draggled sea-
green, or slatternly sky-blue. She worked that worsted
day and night, or other pieces like it. She had
counterpanes in the course of a few years to all the beds in
Crawley. She had a small flower-garden, for which she
had rather an affection; but beyond this no other like
or disliking. When her husband was rude to her she was
apathetic: whenever he struck her she cried. She had not
character enough to take to drinking, and moaned about,
slipshod and in curl-papers all day. 0 Vanity Fair--
Vanity Fair! This might have been, but for you, a cheery
lass--Peter Butt and Rose a happy man and wife, in a
snug farm, with a hearty family; and an honest portion
of pleasures, cares, hopes and struggles--but a title and
a coach and four are toys more precious than happiness
in Vanity Fair: and if Harry the Eighth or Bluebeard
were alive now, and wanted a tenth wife, do you suppose
he could not get the prettiest girl that shall be presented
this season?
The languid dulness of their mamma did not, as it
may be supposed, awaken much affection in her little
daughters, but they were very happy in the servants' hall
and in the stables; and the Scotch gardener having
luckily a good wife and some good children, they got a
little wholesome society and instruction in his lodge,
which was the only education bestowed upon them until
Miss Sharp came.
Her engagement was owing to the remonstrances of
Mr. Pitt Crawley, the only friend or protector Lady
Crawley ever had, and the only person, besides her
children, for whom she entertained a little feeble
attachment. Mr. Pitt took after the noble Binkies, from
whom he was descended, and was a very polite and proper
gentleman. When he grew to man's estate, and came
back from Christchurch, he began to reform the
slackened discipline of the hall, in spite of his father, who
stood in awe of him. He was a man of such rigid
refinement, that he would have starved rather than have
dined without a white neckcloth. Once, when just from
college, and when Horrocks the butler brought him a
letter without placing it previously on a tray, he gave
that domestic a look, and administered to him a speech
so cutting, that Horrocks ever after trembled before him;
the whole household bowed to him: Lady Crawley's curl-
papers came off earlier when he was at home: Sir Pitt's
muddy gaiters disappeared; and if that incorrigible old
man still adhered to other old habits, he never fuddled
himself with rum-and-water in his son's presence, and
only talked to his servants in a very reserved and polite
manner; and those persons remarked that Sir Pitt never
swore at Lady Crawley while his son was in the room.
It was he who taught the butler to say, "My lady is
served," and who insisted on handing her ladyship in to
dinner. He seldom spoke to her, but when he did it was
with the most powerful respect; and he never let her
quit the apartment without rising in the most stately
manner to open the door, and making an elegant bow
at her egress.
At Eton he was called Miss Crawley; and there, I
am sorry to say, his younger brother Rawdon used to
lick him violently. But though his parts were not
brilliant, he made up for his lack of talent by meritorious
industry, and was never known, during eight years at
school, to be subject to that punishment which it is
generally thought none but a cherub can escape.
At college his career was of course highly creditable.
And here he prepared himself for public life, into which
he was to be introduced by the patronage of his
grandfather, Lord Binkie, by studying the ancient and modern
orators with great assiduity, and by speaking unceasingly
at the debating societies. But though he had a fine flux
of words, and delivered his little voice with great
pomposity and pleasure to himself, and never advanced
any sentiment or opinion which was not perfectly trite and
stale, and supported by a Latin quotation; yet he failed
somehow, in spite of a mediocrity which ought to have
insured any man a success. He did not even get the
prize poem, which all his friends said he was sure of.
After leaving college he became Private Secretary to
Lord Binkie, and was then appointed Attache to the
Legation at Pumpernickel, which post he filled with
perfect honour, and brought home despatches, consisting of
Strasburg pie, to the Foreign Minister of the day. After
remaining ten years Attache (several years after the
lamented Lord Binkie's demise), and finding the
advancement slow, he at length gave up the diplomatic
service in some disgust, and began to turn country gentleman.
He wrote a pamphlet on Malt on returning to England
(for he was an ambitious man, and always liked
to be before the public), and took a strong part in the
Negro Emancipation question. Then he became a friend
of Mr. Wilberforce's, whose politics he admired, and had
that famous correspondence with the Reverend Silas
Hornblower, on the Ashantee Mission. He was in
London, if not for the Parliament session, at least in May,
for the religious meetings. In the country he was a
magistrate, and an active visitor and speaker among those
destitute of religious instruction. He was said to be
paying his addresses to Lady Jane Sheepshanks, Lord
Southdown's third daughter, and whose sister, Lady Emily,
wrote those sweet tracts, "The Sailor's True Binnacle,"
and "The Applewoman of Finchley Common."
Miss Sharp's accounts of his employment at Queen's
Crawley were not caricatures. He subjected the servants
there to the devotional exercises before mentioned, in
which (and so much the better) he brought his father
to join. He patronised an Independent meeting-house in
Crawley parish, much to the indignation of his uncle the
Rector, and to the consequent delight of Sir Pitt, who
was induced to go himself once or twice, which occasioned
some violent sermons at Crawley parish church, directed
point-blank at the Baronet's old Gothic pew there. Honest
Sir Pitt, however, did not feel the force of these
discourses, as he always took his nap during sermon-time.
Mr. Crawley was very earnest, for the good of the
nation and of the Christian world, that the old gentleman
should yield him up his place in Parliament; but this the
elder constantly refused to do. Both were of course too
prudent to give up the fifteen hundred a year which was
brought in by the second seat (at this period filled by
Mr. Quadroon, with carte blanche on the Slave question);
indeed the family estate was much embarrassed, and the
income drawn from the borough was of great use to the
house of Queen's Crawley.
It had never recovered the heavy fine imposed upon
Walpole Crawley, first baronet, for peculation in the Tape
and Sealing Wax Office. Sir Walpole was a jolly fellow,
eager to seize and to spend money (alieni appetens, sui
profusus, as Mr. Crawley would remark with a sigh),
and in his day beloved by all the county for the
constant drunkenness and hospitality which was maintained
at Queen's Crawley. The cellars were filled with burgundy
then, the kennels with hounds, and the stables with
gallant hunters; now, such horses as Queen's Crawley
possessed went to plough, or ran in the Trafalgar Coach;
and it was with a team of these very horses, on an off-
day, that Miss Sharp was brought to the Hall; for boor
as he was, Sir Pitt was a stickler for his dignity while
at home, and seldom drove out but with four horses,
and though he dined off boiled mutton, had always three
footmen to serve it.
If mere parsimony could have made a man rich, Sir
Pitt Crawley might have become very wealthy--if he
had been an attorney in a country town, with no capital
but his brains, it is very possible that he would have
turned them to good account, and might have achieved
for himself a very considerable influence and competency.
But he was unluckily endowed with a good name
and a large though encumbered estate, both of which
went rather to injure than to advance him. He had a
taste for law, which cost him many thousands yearly;
and being a great deal too clever to be robbed, as he
said, by any single agent, allowed his affairs to be
mismanaged by a dozen, whom he all equally mistrusted.
He was such a sharp landlord, that he could hardly find
any but bankrupt tenants; and such a close farmer, as
to grudge almost the seed to the ground, whereupon
revengeful Nature grudged him the crops which she
granted to more liberal husbandmen. He speculated in
every possible way; he worked mines; bought canal-shares;
horsed coaches; took government contracts, and was
the busiest man and magistrate of his county. As he
would not pay honest agents at his granite quarry, he
had the satisfaction of finding that four overseers ran
away, and took fortunes with them to America. For want
of proper precautions, his coal-mines filled with water:
the government flung his contract of damaged beef upon
his hands: and for his coach-horses, every mail proprietor
in the kingdom knew that he lost more horses than any
man in the country, from underfeeding and buying cheap.
In disposition he was sociable, and far from being proud;
nay, he rather preferred the society of a farmer or a
horse-dealer to that of a gentleman, like my lord, his
son: he was fond of drink, of swearing, of joking with
the farmers' daughters: he was never known to give away
a shilling or to do a good action, but was of a pleasant,
sly, laughing mood, and would cut his joke and drink
his glass with a tenant and sell him up the next day;
or have his laugh with the poacher he was transporting
with equal good humour. His politeness for the fair sex
has already been hinted at by Miss Rebecca Sharp--in
a word, the whole baronetage, peerage, commonage of
England, did not contain a more cunning, mean, selfish,
foolish, disreputable old man. That blood-red hand of
Sir Pitt Crawley's would be in anybody's pocket except
his own; and it is with grief and pain, that, as admirers
of the British aristocracy, we find ourselves obliged to
admit the existence of so many ill qualities in a person
whose name is in Debrett.
One great cause why Mr. Crawley had such a hold
over the affections of his father, resulted from money
arrangements. The Baronet owed his son a sum of money
out of the jointure of his mother, which he did not find
it convenient to pay; indeed he had an almost invincible
repugnance to paying anybody, and could only be brought
by force to discharge his debts. Miss Sharp calculated
(for she became, as we shall hear speedily, inducted
into most of the secrets of the family) that the mere
payment of his creditors cost the honourable Baronet
several hundreds yearly; but this was a delight he could
not forego; he had a savage pleasure in making the poor
wretches wait, and in shifting from court to court and
from term to term the period of satisfaction. What's the
good of being in Parliament, he said, if you must pay your
debts? Hence, indeed, his position as a senator was not
a little useful to him.
Vanity Fair--Vanity Fair! Here was a man, who could
not spell, and did not care to read--who had the habits
and the cunning of a boor: whose aim in life was
pettifogging: who never had a taste, or emotion, or
enjoyment, but what was sordid and foul; and yet he had
rank, and honours, and power, somehow: and was a
dignitary of the land, and a pillar of the state. He was
high sheriff, and rode in a golden coach. Great ministers
and statesmen courted him; and in Vanity Fair he had a
higher place than the most brilliant genius or spotless
virtue.
Sir Pitt had an unmarried half-sister who inherited her
mother's large fortune, and though the Baronet proposed
to borrow this money of her on mortgage, Miss Crawley
declined the offer, and preferred the security of the funds.
She had signified, however, her intention of leaving her
inheritance between Sir Pitt's second son and the family
at the Rectory, and had once or twice paid the debts of
Rawdon Crawley in his career at college and in the army.
Miss Crawley was, in consequence, an object of great
respect when she came to Queen's Crawley, for she had
a balance at her banker's which would have made her
beloved anywhere.
What a dignity it gives an old lady, that balance at
the banker's! How tenderly we look at her faults if she
is a relative (and may every reader have a score of such),
what a kind good-natured old creature we find her! How
the junior partner of Hobbs and Dobbs leads her smiling
to the carriage with the lozenge upon it, and the fat
wheezy coachman! How, when she comes to pay us a
visit, we generally find an opportunity to let our friends
know her station in the world! We say (and with perfect
truth) I wish I had Miss MacWhirter's signature to a
cheque for five thousand pounds. She wouldn't miss it,
says your wife. She is my aunt, say you, in an easy
careless way, when your friend asks if Miss MacWhirter is
any relative. Your wife is perpetually sending her little
testimonies of affection, your little girls work endless
worsted baskets, cushions, and footstools for her. What a
good fire there is in her room when she comes to pay
you a visit, although your wife laces her stays without
one! The house during her stay assumes a festive, neat,
warm, jovial, snug appearance not visible at other
seasons. You yourself, dear sir, forget to go to sleep after
dinner, and find yourself all of a sudden (though you
invariably lose) very fond of a rubber. What good
dinners you have--game every day, Malmsey-Madeira, and
no end of fish from London. Even the servants in the
kitchen share in the general prosperity; and, somehow,
during the stay of Miss MacWhirter's fat coachman, the
beer is grown much stronger, and the consumption of tea
and sugar in the nursery (where her maid takes her
meals) is not regarded in the least. Is it so, or is it not
so? I appeal to the middle classes. Ah, gracious powers!
I wish you would send me an old aunt--a maiden aunt
--an aunt with a lozenge on her carriage, and a front
of light coffee-coloured hair--how my children should
work workbags for her, and my Julia and I would make
her comfortable! Sweet--sweet vision! Foolish--foolish
dream!
CHAPTER X
Miss Sharp Begins to Make Friends
And now, being received as a member of the amiable
family whose portraits we have sketched in the foregoing
pages, it became naturally Rebecca's duty to make
herself, as she said, agreeable to her benefactors, and to
gain their confidence to the utmost of her power. Who
can but admire this quality of gratitude in an unprotected
orphan; and, if there entered some degree of selfishness
into her calculations, who can say but that her
prudence was perfectly justifiable? "I am alone in the
world," said the friendless girl. "I have nothing to look
for but what my own labour can bring me; and while
that little pink-faced chit Amelia, with not half my sense,
has ten thousand pounds and an establishment secure,
poor Rebecca (and my figure is far better than hers)
has only herself and her own wits to trust to. Well, let
us see if my wits cannot provide me with an honourable
maintenance, and if some day or the other I cannot show
Miss Amelia my real superiority over her. Not that I
dislike poor Amelia: who can dislike such a harmless,
good-natured creature?--only it will be a fine day when
I can take my place above her in the world, as why,
indeed, should I not?" Thus it was that our little
romantic friend formed visions of the future for herself--
nor must we be scandalised that, in all her castles in
the air, a husband was the principal inhabitant. Of
what else have young ladies to think, but husbands? Of
what else do their dear mammas think? "I must be my
own mamma," said Rebecca; not without a tingling
consciousness of defeat, as she thought over her little
misadventure with Jos Sedley.
So she wisely determined to render her position with
the Queen's Crawley family comfortable and secure, and
to this end resolved to make friends of every one around
her who could at all interfere with her comfort.
As my Lady Crawley was not one of these personages,
and a woman, moreover, so indolent and void of
character as not to be of the least consequence in her own
house, Rebecca soon found that it was not at all necessary
to cultivate her good will--indeed, impossible to gain it. She
used to talk to her pupils about their "poor mamma"; and,
though she treated that lady with every demonstration
of cool respect, it was to the rest of the family that she
wisely directed the chief part of her attentions.
With the young people, whose applause she thoroughly
gained, her method was pretty simple. She did not
pester their young brains with too much learning, but,
on the contrary, let them have their own way in
regard to educating themselves; for what instruction is more
effectual than self-instruction? The eldest was rather fond
of books, and as there was in the old library at Queen's
Crawley a considerable provision of works of light
literature of the last century, both in the French and English
languages (they had been purchased by the Secretary
of the Tape and Sealing Wax Office at the period of his
disgrace), and as nobody ever troubled the book-shelves
but herself, Rebecca was enabled agreeably, and, as
it were, in playing, to impart a great deal of instruction
to Miss Rose Crawley.
She and Miss Rose thus read together many delightful
French and English works, among which may be
mentioned those of the learned Dr. Smollett, of the ingenious
Mr. Henry Fielding, of the graceful and fantastic
Monsieur Crebillon the younger, whom our immortal poet
Gray so much admired, and of the universal Monsieur de
Voltaire. Once, when Mr. Crawley asked what the young
people were reading, the governess replied "Smollett."
"Oh, Smollett," said Mr. Crawley, quite satisfied. "His
history is more dull, but by no means so dangerous as
that of Mr. Hume. It is history you are reading?" "Yes,"
said Miss Rose; without, however, adding that it was the
history of Mr. Humphrey Clinker. On another occasion
he was rather scandalised at finding his sister with a
book of French plays; but as the governess remarked
that it was for the purpose of acquiring the French idiom
in conversation, he was fain to be content. Mr. Crawley,
as a diplomatist, was exceedingly proud of his own skill
in speaking the French language (for he was of the world
still), and not a little pleased with the compliments which
the governess continually paid him upon his proficiency.
Miss Violet's tastes were, on the contrary, more rude
and boisterous than those of her sister. She knew the
sequestered spots where the hens laid their eggs. She
could climb a tree to rob the nests of the feathered
songsters of their speckled spoils. And her pleasure was to
ride the young colts, and to scour the plains like Camilla.
She was the favourite of her father and of the stablemen.
She was the darling, and withal the terror of the
cook; for she discovered the haunts of the jam-pots, and
would attack them when they were within her reach.
She and her sister were engaged in constant battles. Any
of which peccadilloes, if Miss Sharp discovered, she did
not tell them to Lady Crawley; who would have told
them to the father, or worse, to Mr. Crawley; but
promised not to tell if Miss Violet would be a good girl
and love her governess.
With Mr. Crawley Miss Sharp was respectful and
obedient. She used to consult him on passages of French
which she could not understand, though her mother was
a Frenchwoman, and which he would construe to her
satisfaction: and, besides giving her his aid in profane
literature, he was kind enough to select for her books
of a more serious tendency, and address to her much of
his conversation. She admired, beyond measure, his
speech at the Quashimaboo-Aid Society; took an
interest in his pamphlet on malt: was often affected, even
to tears, by his discourses of an evening, and would
say--"Oh, thank you, sir," with a sigh, and a look up
to heaven, that made him occasionally condescend to
shake hands with her. "Blood is everything, after all,"
would that aristocratic religionist say. "How Miss Sharp
is awakened by my words, when not one of the people
here is touched. I am too fine for them--too delicate.
I must familiarise my style--but she understands it. Her
mother was a Montmorency."
Indeed it was from this famous family, as it appears,
that Miss Sharp, by the mother's side, was descended.
Of course she did not say that her mother had been on
the stage; it would have shocked Mr. Crawley's religious
scruples. How many noble emigres had this horrid
revolution plunged in poverty! She had several stories
about her ancestors ere she had been many months in
the house; some of which Mr. Crawley happened to find
in D'Hozier's dictionary, which was in the library, and
which strengthened his belief in their truth, and in the
high-breeding of Rebecca. Are we to suppose from this
curiosity and prying into dictionaries, could our heroine
suppose that Mr. Crawley was interested in her?--no,
only in a friendly way. Have we not stated that he was
attached to Lady Jane Sheepshanks?
He took Rebecca to task once or twice about the
propriety of playing at backgammon with Sir Pitt, saying
that it was a godless amusement, and that she would be
much better engaged in reading "Thrump's Legacy," or
"The Blind Washerwoman of Moorfields," or any work
of a more serious nature; but Miss Sharp said her dear
mother used often to play the same game with the old
Count de Trictrac and the venerable Abbe du Cornet,
and so found an excuse for this and other worldly
amusements.
But it was not only by playing at backgammon with
the Baronet, that the little governess rendered herself
agreeable to her employer. She found many different
ways of being useful to him. She read over, with
indefatigable patience, all those law papers, with which,
before she came to Queen's Crawley, he had promised
to entertain her. She volunteered to copy many of his
letters, and adroitly altered the spelling of them so as
to suit the usages of the present day. She became
interested in everything appertaining to the estate, to the
farm, the park, the garden, and the stables; and so delightful
a companion was she, that the Baronet would seldom
take his after-breakfast walk without her (and the
children of course), when she would give her advice as to
the trees which were to be lopped in the shrubberies, the
garden-beds to be dug, the crops which were to be cut,
the horses which were to go to cart or plough. Before
she had been a year at Queen's Crawley she had quite
won the Baronet's confidence; and the conversation at the
dinner-table, which before used to be held between him
and Mr. Horrocks the butler, was now almost exclusively
between Sir Pitt and Miss Sharp. She was almost
mistress of the house when Mr. Crawley was absent, but
conducted herself in her new and exalted situation with
such circumspection and modesty as not to offend the
authorities of the kitchen and stable, among whom her
behaviour was always exceedingly modest and affable. She
was quite a different person from the haughty, shy,
dissatisfied little girl whom we have known previously, and
this change of temper proved great prudence, a sincere
desire of amendment, or at any rate great moral courage
on her part. Whether it was the heart which dictated this
new system of complaisance and humility adopted by our
Rebecca, is to be proved by her after-history. A system
of hypocrisy, which lasts through whole years, is one
seldom satisfactorily practised by a person of one-and-
twenty; however, our readers will recollect, that, though
young in years, our heroine was old in life and experience,
and we have written to no purpose if they have not
discovered that she was a very clever woman.
The elder and younger son of the house of Crawley
were, like the gentleman and lady in the weather-box,
never at home together--they hated each other cordially:
indeed, Rawdon Crawley, the dragoon, had a great
contempt for the establishment altogether, and seldom came
thither except when his aunt paid her annual visit.
The great good quality of this old lady has been
mentioned. She possessed seventy thousand pounds, and
had almost adopted Rawdon. She disliked her elder nephew
exceedingly, and despised him as a milksop. In return
he did not hesitate to state that her soul was irretrievably
lost, and was of opinion that his brother's chance
in the next world was not a whit better. "She is a
godless woman of the world," would Mr. Crawley say; "she
lives with atheists and Frenchmen. My mind shudders
when I think of her awful, awful situation, and that,
near as she is to the grave, she should be so given up
to vanity, licentiousness, profaneness, and folly." In fact,
the old lady declined altogether to hear his hour's lecture
of an evening; and when she came to Queen's Crawley
alone, he was obliged to pretermit his usual devotional
exercises.
"Shut up your sarmons, Pitt, when Miss Crawley
comes down," said his father; "she has written to say
that she won't stand the preachifying."
"O, sir! consider the servants."
"The servants be hanged," said Sir Pitt; and his son
thought even worse would happen were they deprived of
the benefit of his instruction.
"Why, hang it, Pitt!" said the father to his remonstrance.
"You wouldn't be such a flat as to let three thousand a
year go out of the family?"
"What is money compared to our souls, sir?" continued
Mr. Crawley.
"You mean that the old lady won't leave the money
to you?"--and who knows but it was Mr. Crawley's
meaning?
Old Miss Crawley was certainly one of the reprobate.
She had a snug little house in Park Lane, and, as she ate
and drank a great deal too much during the season in
London, she went to Harrowgate or Cheltenham for
the summer. She was the most hospitable and jovial of
old vestals, and had been a beauty in her day, she said.
(All old women were beauties once, we very well know.)
She was a bel esprit, and a dreadful Radical for those
days. She had been in France (where St. Just, they say,
inspired her with an unfortunate passion), and loved,
ever after, French novels, French cookery, and French
wines. She read Voltaire, and had Rousseau by heart;
talked very lightly about divorce, and most energetically
of the rights of women. She had pictures of Mr. Fox
in every room in the house: when that statesman was
in opposition, I am not sure that she had not flung a
main with him; and when he came into office, she took
great credit for bringing over to him Sir Pitt and his
colleague for Queen's Crawley, although Sir Pitt would
have come over himself, without any trouble on the honest
lady's part. It is needless to say that Sir Pitt was brought
to change his views after the death of the great Whig
statesman.
This worthy old lady took a fancy to Rawdon Crawley
when a boy, sent him to Cambridge (in opposition to
his brother at Oxford), and, when the young man was
requested by the authorities of the first-named University
to quit after a residence of two years, she bought him
his commission in the Life Guards Green.
A perfect and celebrated "blood," or dandy about town,
was this young officer. Boxing, rat-hunting, the fives court,
and four-in-hand driving were then the fashion of our
British aristocracy; and he was an adept in all these
noble sciences. And though he belonged to the
household troops, who, as it was their duty to rally round the
Prince Regent, had not shown their valour in foreign
service yet, Rawdon Crawley had already (apropos of
play, of which he was immoderately fond) fought three
bloody duels, in which he gave ample proofs of his
contempt for death.
"And for what follows after death," would Mr.
Crawley observe, throwing his gooseberry-coloured eyes
up to the ceiling. He was always thinking of his brother's
soul, or of the souls of those who differed with him in
opinion: it is a sort of comfort which many of the
serious give themselves.
Silly, romantic Miss Crawley, far from being horrified
at the courage of her favourite, always used to pay his
debts after his duels; and would not listen to a word
that was whispered against his morality. "He will sow
his wild oats," she would say, "and is worth far more
than that puling hypocrite of a brother of his."
CHAPTER XI
Arcadian Simplicity
Besides these honest folks at the Hall (whose simplicity
and sweet rural purity surely show the advantage of a
country life over a town one), we must introduce the
reader to their relatives and neighbours at the Rectory,
Bute Crawley and his wife.
The Reverend Bute Crawley was a tall, stately, jolly,
shovel-hatted man, far more popular in his county than
the Baronet his brother. At college he pulled stroke-oar
in the Christchurch boat, and had thrashed all the best
bruisers of the "town." He carried his taste for boxing
and athletic exercises into private life; there was not a
fight within twenty miles at which he was not present,
nor a race, nor a coursing match, nor a regatta, nor a
ball, nor an election, nor a visitation dinner, nor indeed
a good dinner in the whole county, but he found means
to attend it. You might see his bay mare and gig-lamps
a score of miles away from his Rectory House, whenever
there was any dinner-party at Fuddleston, or at Roxby,
or at Wapshot Hall, or at the great lords of the county,
with all of whom he was intimate. He had a fine voice;
sang "A southerly wind and a cloudy sky"; and gave
the "whoop" in chorus with general applause. He rode
to hounds in a pepper-and-salt frock, and was one of the
best fishermen in the county.
Mrs. Crawley, the rector's wife, was a smart little body,
who wrote this worthy divine's sermons. Being of a
domestic turn, and keeping the house a great deal with her
daughters, she ruled absolutely within the Rectory, wisely
giving her husband full liberty without. He was welcome
to come and go, and dine abroad as many days as his
fancy dictated, for Mrs. Crawley was a saving woman and
knew the price of port wine. Ever since Mrs. Bute carried
off the young Rector of Queen's Crawley (she was of a
good family, daughter of the late Lieut.-Colonel
Hector McTavish, and she and her mother played for
Bute and won him at Harrowgate), she had been a prudent
and thrifty wife to him. In spite of her care, however, he
was always in debt. It took him at least ten years to pay
off his college bills contracted during his father's lifetime.
In the year 179-, when he was just clear of these
incumbrances, he gave the odds of 100 to 1 (in twenties)
against Kangaroo, who won the Derby. The Rector was
obliged to take up the money at a ruinous interest, and
had been struggling ever since. His sister helped him with
a hundred now and then, but of course his great hope was
in her death--when "hang it" (as he would say), "Matilda
must leave me half her money."
So that the Baronet and his brother had every reason
which two brothers possibly can have for being by the
ears. Sir Pitt had had the better of Bute in innumerable
family transactions. Young Pitt not only did not hunt, but
set up a meeting house under his uncle's very nose.
Rawdon, it was known, was to come in for the bulk of Miss
Crawley's property. These money transactions--these
speculations in life and death--these silent battles for
reversionary spoil--make brothers very loving towards
each other in Vanity Fair. I, for my part, have known a
five-pound note to interpose and knock up a half century's
attachment between two brethren; and can't but admire,
as I think what a fine and durable thing Love is among
worldly people.
It cannot be supposed that the arrival of such a
personage as Rebecca at Queen's Crawley, and her gradual
establishment in the good graces of all people there, could
be unremarked by Mrs. Bute Crawley. Mrs. Bute, who
knew how many days the sirloin of beef lasted at the Hall;
how much linen was got ready at the great wash; how
many peaches were on the south wall; how many doses
her ladyship took when she was ill--for such points are
matters of intense interest to certain persons in the
country--Mrs. Bute, I say, could not pass over the Hall
governess without making every inquiry respecting her
history and character. There was always the best understanding
between the servants at the Rectory and the Hall.
There was always a good glass of ale in the kitchen of the
former place for the Hall people, whose ordinary drink
was very small--and, indeed, the Rector's lady knew
exactly how much malt went to every barrel of Hall beer--
ties of relationship existed between the Hall and Rectory
domestics, as between their masters; and through these
channels each family was perfectly well acquainted with
the doings of the other. That, by the way, may be set
down as a general remark. When you and your brother
are friends, his doings are indifferent to you. When you
have quarrelled, all his outgoings and incomings you
know, as if you were his spy.
Very soon then after her arrival, Rebecca began to take
a regular place in Mrs. Crawley's bulletin from the Hall.
It was to this effect: "The black porker's killed--weighed
x stone--salted the sides--pig's pudding and leg of pork
for dinner. Mr. Cramp from Mudbury, over with Sir Pitt
about putting John Blackmore in gaol--Mr. Pitt at
meeting (with all the names of the people who attended)--
my lady as usual--the young ladies with the governess."
Then the report would come--the new governess be a
rare manager--Sir Pitt be very sweet on her--Mr.
Crawley too--He be reading tracts to her--"What an
abandoned wretch!" said little, eager, active, black-faced Mrs.
Bute Crawley.
Finally, the reports were that the governess had "come
round" everybody, wrote Sir Pitt's letters, did his business,
managed his accounts--had the upper hand of the whole
house, my lady, Mr. Crawley, the girls and all--at which
Mrs. Crawley declared she was an artful hussy, and had
some dreadful designs in view. Thus the doings at the
Hall were the great food for conversation at the Rectory,
and Mrs. Bute's bright eyes spied out everything that took
place in the enemy's camp--everything and a great deal
besides.
Mrs. Bute Crawley to Miss Pinkerton,
The Mall, Chiswick.
Rectory, Queen's Crawley, December--.
My Dear Madam,--Although it is so many years since
I profited by your delightful and invaluable instructions,
yet I have ever retained the FONDEST and most reverential
regard for Miss Pinkerton, and DEAR Chiswick. I hope
your health is GOOD. The world and the cause of
education cannot afford to lose Miss Pinkerton for MANY MANY
YEARS. When my friend, Lady Fuddleston, mentioned that
her dear girls required an instructress (I am too poor to
engage a governess for mine, but was I not educated at
Chiswick?)--"Who," I exclaimed, "can we consult but
the excellent, the incomparable Miss Pinkerton?" In a
word, have you, dear madam, any ladies on your list,
whose services might be made available to my kind
friend and neighbour? I assure you she will take no
governess BUT OF YOUR CHOOSING.
My dear husband is pleased to say that he likes
EVERYTHING WHICH COMES FROM MISS PINKERTON'S
SCHOOL. How I wish I could present him and my beloved
girls to the friend of my youth, and the ADMIRED of the
great lexicographer of our country! If you ever travel into
Hampshire, Mr. Crawley begs me to say, he hopes you will
adorn our RURAL RECTORY with your presence. 'Tis the
humble but happy home of
Your affectionate
Martha Crawley
P.S. Mr. Crawley's brother, the baronet, with whom
we are not, alas! upon those terms of UNITY in which it
BECOMES BRETHREN TO DWELL, has a governess for his
little girls, who, I am told, had the good fortune to be
educated at Chiswick. I hear various reports of her;
and as I have the tenderest interest in my dearest little
nieces, whom I wish, in spite of family differences, to
see among my own children--and as I long to be
attentive to ANY PUPIL OF YOURS--do, my dear Miss
Pinkerton, tell me the history of this young lady, whom,
for YOUR SAKE, I am most anxious to befriend.--M. C.
Miss Pinkerton to Mrs. Bute Crawley.
Johnson House, Chiswick, Dec. 18--.
Dear Madam,--I have the honour to acknowledge
your polite communication, to which I promptly reply.
'Tis most gratifying to one in my most arduous position
to find that my maternal cares have elicited a responsive
affection; and to recognize in the amiable Mrs. Bute
Crawley my excellent pupil of former years, the sprightly
and accomplished Miss Martha MacTavish. I am happy
to have under my charge now the daughters of many of
those who were your contemporaries at my establishment
--what pleasure it would give me if your own
beloved young ladies had need of my instructive
superintendence!
Presenting my respectful compliments to Lady
Fuddleston, I have the honour (epistolarily) to introduce
to her ladyship my two friends, Miss Tuffin and Miss Hawky.
Either of these young ladies is PERFECTLY QUALIFIED to
instruct in Greek, Latin, and the rudiments of Hebrew;
in mathematics and history; in Spanish, French, Italian,
and geography; in music, vocal and instrumental; in
dancing, without the aid of a master; and in the
elements of natural sciences. In the use of the globes both
are proficients. In addition to these Miss Tuffin, who is
daughter of the late Reverend Thomas Tuffin (Fellow
of Corpus College, Cambridge), can instruct in the
Syriac language, and the elements of Constitutional law.
But as she is only eighteen years of age, and of
exceedingly pleasing personal appearance, perhaps this
young lady may be objectionable in Sir Huddleston
Fuddleston's family.
Miss Letitia Hawky, on the other hand, is not
personally well-favoured. She is-twenty-nine; her face
is much pitted with the small-pox. She has a halt in her
gait, red hair, and a trifling obliquity of vision. Both
ladies are endowed with EVERY MORAL AND RELIGIOUS
VIRTUE. Their terms, of course, are such as their
accomplishments merit. With my most grateful respects
to the Reverend Bute Crawley, I have the honour to be,
Dear Madam,
Your most faithful and obedient servant,
Barbara Pinkerton.
P.S. The Miss Sharp, whom you mention as
governess to Sir Pitt Crawley, Bart., M.P., was a pupil
of mine, and I have nothing to say in her disfavour.
Though her appearance is disagreeable, we cannot
control the operations of nature: and though her parents
were disreputable (her father being a painter, several
times bankrupt, and her mother, as I have since learned,
with horror, a dancer at the Opera); yet her talents are
considerable, and I cannot regret that I received her
OUT OF CHARITY. My dread is, lest the principles of the
mother--who was represented to me as a French
Countess, forced to emigrate in the late revolutionary horrors;
but who, as I have since found, was a person of the
very lowest order and morals--should at any time prove
to be HEREDITARY in the unhappy young woman whom I
took as AN OUTCAST. But her principles have hitherto
been correct (I believe), and I am sure nothing will
occur to injure them in the elegant and refined circle
of the eminent Sir Pitt Crawley.
Miss Rebecca Sharp to Miss Amelia Sedley.
I have not written to my beloved Amelia for these
many weeks past, for what news was there to tell of the
sayings and doings at Humdrum Hall, as I have
christened it; and what do you care whether the turnip crop
is good or bad; whether the fat pig weighed thirteen
stone or fourteen; and whether the beasts thrive well
upon mangelwurzel? Every day since I last wrote has
been like its neighbour. Before breakfast, a walk with
Sir Pitt and his spud; after breakfast studies (such as
they are) in the schoolroom; after schoolroom, reading
and writing about lawyers, leases, coal-mines, canals,
with Sir Pitt (whose secretary I am become); after
dinner, Mr. Crawley's discourses on the baronet's
backgammon; during both of which amusements my lady
looks on with equal placidity. She has become rather
more interesting by being ailing of late, which has
brought a new visitor to the Hall, in the person of a
young doctor. Well, my dear, young women need never
despair. The young doctor gave a certain friend of yours
to understand that, if she chose to be Mrs. Glauber, she
was welcome to ornament the surgery! I told his
impudence that the gilt pestle and mortar was quite
ornament enough; as if I was born, indeed, to be a country
surgeon's wife! Mr. Glauber went home seriously
indisposed at his rebuff, took a cooling draught, and is now
quite cured. Sir Pitt applauded my resolution highly;
he would be sorry to lose his little secretary, I think;
and I believe the old wretch likes me as much as it is in
his nature to like any one. Marry, indeed! and with a
country apothecary, after--No, no, one cannot so
soon forget old associations, about which I will talk no
more. Let us return to Humdrum Hall.
For some time past it is Humdrum Hall no longer.
My dear, Miss Crawley has arrived with her fat horses,
fat servants, fat spaniel--the great rich Miss Crawley,
with seventy thousand pounds in the five per cents.,
whom, or I had better say WHICH, her two brothers
adore. She looks very apoplectic, the dear soul; no
wonder her brothers are anxious about her. You should see
them struggling to settle her cushions, or to hand her
coffee! "When I come into the country," she says (for
she has a great deal of humour), "I leave my toady,
Miss Briggs, at home. My brothers are my toadies here,
my dear, and a pretty pair they are!"
When she comes into the country our hall is thrown
open, and for a month, at least, you would fancy old
Sir Walpole was come to life again. We have dinner-
parties, and drive out in the coach-and-four the
footmen put on their newest canary-coloured liveries; we
drink claret and champagne as if we were accustomed
to it every day. We have wax candles in the schoolroom,
and fires to warm ourselves with. Lady Crawley is made
to put on the brightest pea-green in her wardrobe, and
my pupils leave off their thick shoes and tight old
tartan pelisses, and wear silk stockings and muslin frocks,
as fashionable baronets' daughters should. Rose came in
yesterday in a sad plight--the Wiltshire sow (an
enormous pet of hers) ran her down, and destroyed a most
lovely flowered lilac silk dress by dancing over it--had
this happened a week ago, Sir Pitt would have sworn
frightfully, have boxed the poor wretch's ears, and put
her upon bread and water for a month. All he said was,
"I'll serve you out, Miss, when your aunt's gone," and
laughed off the accident as quite trivial. Let us hope his
wrath will have passed away before Miss Crawley's
departure. I hope so, for Miss Rose's sake, I am sure.
What a charming reconciler and peacemaker money is!
Another admirable effect of Miss Crawley and her
seventy thousand pounds is to be seen in the conduct
of the two brothers Crawley. I mean the baronet and
the rector, not OUR brothers--but the former, who hate
each other all the year round, become quite loving at
Christmas. I wrote to you last year how the abominable
horse-racing rector was in the habit of preaching clumsy
sermons at us at church, and how Sir Pitt snored in
answer. When Miss Crawley arrives there is no such thing
as quarrelling heard of--the Hall visits the Rectory, and
vice versa--the parson and the Baronet talk about the
pigs and the poachers, and the county business, in the
most affable manner, and without quarrelling in their
cups, I believe--indeed Miss Crawley won't hear of their
quarrelling, and vows that she will leave her money to
the Shropshire Crawleys if they offend her. If they were
clever people, those Shropshire Crawleys, they might
have it all, I think; but the Shropshire Crawley is a
clergyman like his Hampshire cousin, and mortally offended
Miss Crawley (who had fled thither in a fit of rage
against her impracticable brethren) by some strait-laced
notions of morality. He would have prayers in the house,
I believe.
Our sermon books are shut up when Miss Crawley
arrives, and Mr. Pitt, whom she abominates, finds it
convenient to go to town. On the other hand, the young
dandy--"blood," I believe, is the term--Captain Crawley
makes his appearance, and I suppose you will like to
know what sort of a person he is.
Well, he is a very large young dandy. He is six feet
high, and speaks with a great voice; and swears a great
deal; and orders about the servants, who all adore him
nevertheless; for he is very generous of his money, and
the domestics will do anything for him. Last week the
keepers almost killed a bailiff and his man who came
down from London to arrest the Captain, and who were
found lurking about the Park wall--they beat them,
ducked them, and were going to shoot them for
poachers, but the baronet interfered.
The Captain has a hearty contempt for his father, I
can see, and calls him an old PUT, an old SNOB, an old
CHAW-BACON, and numberless other pretty names. He has
a DREADFUL REPUTATION among the ladies. He brings his
hunters home with him, lives with the Squires of the
county, asks whom he pleases to dinner, and Sir Pitt
dares not say no, for fear of offending Miss Crawley,
and missing his legacy when she dies of her apoplexy.
Shall I tell you a compliment the Captain paid me? I
must, it is so pretty. One evening we actually had a
dance; there was Sir Huddleston Fuddleston and his
family, Sir Giles Wapshot and his young ladies, and I
don't know how many more. Well, I heard him say--