Vanity Fair (17 page)

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—"By Jove, she's a neat little filly!" meaning your
humble servant; and he did me the honour to dance two country-dances
with me. He gets on pretty gaily with the young Squires, with whom
he drinks, bets, rides, and talks about hunting and shooting; but he
says the country girls are BORES; indeed, I don't think he is far
wrong. You should see the contempt with which they look down on poor
me! When they dance I sit and play the piano very demurely; but the
other night, coming in rather flushed from the dining-room, and
seeing me employed in this way, he swore out loud that I was the
best dancer in the room, and took a great oath that he would have
the fiddlers from Mudbury.

"I'll go and play a country-dance," said Mrs. Bute Crawley, very
readily (she is a little, black-faced old woman in a turban, rather
crooked, and with very twinkling eyes); and after the Captain and
your poor little Rebecca had performed a dance together, do you know
she actually did me the honour to compliment me upon my steps! Such
a thing was never heard of before; the proud Mrs. Bute Crawley,
first cousin to the Earl of Tiptoff, who won't condescend to visit
Lady Crawley, except when her sister is in the country. Poor Lady
Crawley! during most part of these gaieties, she is upstairs taking
pills.

Mrs. Bute has all of a sudden taken a great fancy to me. "My dear
Miss Sharp," she says, "why not bring over your girls to the
Rectory?—their cousins will be so happy to see them." I know what
she means. Signor Clementi did not teach us the piano for nothing;
at which price Mrs. Bute hopes to get a professor for her children.
I can see through her schemes, as though she told them to me; but I
shall go, as I am determined to make myself agreeable—is it not a
poor governess's duty, who has not a friend or protector in the
world? The Rector's wife paid me a score of compliments about the
progress my pupils made, and thought, no doubt, to touch my heart—
poor, simple, country soul!—as if I cared a fig about my pupils!

Your India muslin and your pink silk, dearest Amelia, are said to
become me very well. They are a good deal worn now; but, you know,
we poor girls can't afford des fraiches toilettes. Happy, happy
you! who have but to drive to St. James's Street, and a dear mother
who will give you any thing you ask. Farewell, dearest girl,

Your affectionate Rebecca.

P.S.—I wish you could have seen the faces of the Miss Blackbrooks
(Admiral Blackbrook's daughters, my dear), fine young ladies, with
dresses from London, when Captain Rawdon selected poor me for a
partner!

When Mrs. Bute Crawley (whose artifices our ingenious Rebecca had so
soon discovered) had procured from Miss Sharp the promise of a
visit, she induced the all-powerful Miss Crawley to make the
necessary application to Sir Pitt, and the good-natured old lady,
who loved to be gay herself, and to see every one gay and happy
round about her, was quite charmed, and ready to establish a
reconciliation and intimacy between her two brothers. It was
therefore agreed that the young people of both families should visit
each other frequently for the future, and the friendship of course
lasted as long as the jovial old mediatrix was there to keep the
peace.

"Why did you ask that scoundrel, Rawdon Crawley, to dine?" said the
Rector to his lady, as they were walking home through the park. "I
don't want the fellow. He looks down upon us country people as so
many blackamoors. He's never content unless he gets my yellow-sealed
wine, which costs me ten shillings a bottle, hang him! Besides, he's
such an infernal character—he's a gambler—he's a drunkard—he's a
profligate in every way. He shot a man in a duel—he's over head
and ears in debt, and he's robbed me and mine of the best part of
Miss Crawley's fortune. Waxy says she has him"—here the Rector
shook his fist at the moon, with something very like an oath, and
added, in a melancholious tone, "—down in her will for fifty
thousand; and there won't be above thirty to divide."

"I think she's going," said the Rector's wife. "She was very red in
the face when we left dinner. I was obliged to unlace her."

"She drank seven glasses of champagne," said the reverend gentleman,
in a low voice; "and filthy champagne it is, too, that my brother
poisons us with—but you women never know what's what."

"We know nothing," said Mrs. Bute Crawley.

"She drank cherry-brandy after dinner," continued his Reverence,
"and took curacao with her coffee. I wouldn't take a glass for a
five-pound note: it kills me with heartburn. She can't stand it,
Mrs. Crawley—she must go—flesh and blood won't bear it! and I lay
five to two, Matilda drops in a year."

Indulging in these solemn speculations, and thinking about his
debts, and his son Jim at College, and Frank at Woolwich, and the
four girls, who were no beauties, poor things, and would not have a
penny but what they got from the aunt's expected legacy, the Rector
and his lady walked on for a while.

"Pitt can't be such an infernal villain as to sell the reversion of
the living. And that Methodist milksop of an eldest son looks to
Parliament," continued Mr. Crawley, after a pause.

"Sir Pitt Crawley will do anything," said the Rector's wife. "We
must get Miss Crawley to make him promise it to James."

"Pitt will promise anything," replied the brother. "He promised
he'd pay my college bills, when my father died; he promised he'd
build the new wing to the Rectory; he promised he'd let me have
Jibb's field and the Six-acre Meadow—and much he executed his
promises! And it's to this man's son—this scoundrel, gambler,
swindler, murderer of a Rawdon Crawley, that Matilda leaves the bulk
of her money. I say it's un-Christian. By Jove, it is. The
infamous dog has got every vice except hypocrisy, and that belongs
to his brother."

"Hush, my dearest love! we're in Sir Pitt's grounds," interposed his
wife.

"I say he has got every vice, Mrs. Crawley. Don't Ma'am, bully me.
Didn't he shoot Captain Marker? Didn't he rob young Lord Dovedale at
the Cocoa-Tree? Didn't he cross the fight between Bill Soames and
the Cheshire Trump, by which I lost forty pound? You know he did;
and as for the women, why, you heard that before me, in my own
magistrate's room."

"For heaven's sake, Mr. Crawley," said the lady, "spare me the
details."

"And you ask this villain into your house!" continued the
exasperated Rector. "You, the mother of a young family—the wife of
a clergyman of the Church of England. By Jove!"

"Bute Crawley, you are a fool," said the Rector's wife scornfully.

"Well, Ma'am, fool or not—and I don't say, Martha, I'm so clever as
you are, I never did. But I won't meet Rawdon Crawley, that's flat.
I'll go over to Huddleston, that I will, and see his black
greyhound, Mrs. Crawley; and I'll run Lancelot against him for
fifty. By Jove, I will; or against any dog in England. But I won't
meet that beast Rawdon Crawley."

"Mr. Crawley, you are intoxicated, as usual," replied his wife. And
the next morning, when the Rector woke, and called for small beer,
she put him in mind of his promise to visit Sir Huddleston
Fuddleston on Saturday, and as he knew he should have a wet night,
it was agreed that he might gallop back again in time for church on
Sunday morning. Thus it will be seen that the parishioners of
Crawley were equally happy in their Squire and in their Rector.

Miss Crawley had not long been established at the Hall before
Rebecca's fascinations had won the heart of that good-natured London
rake, as they had of the country innocents whom we have been
describing. Taking her accustomed drive, one day, she thought fit
to order that "that little governess" should accompany her to
Mudbury. Before they had returned Rebecca had made a conquest of
her; having made her laugh four times, and amused her during the
whole of the little journey.

"Not let Miss Sharp dine at table!" said she to Sir Pitt, who had
arranged a dinner of ceremony, and asked all the neighbouring
baronets. "My dear creature, do you suppose I can talk about the
nursery with Lady Fuddleston, or discuss justices' business with
that goose, old Sir Giles Wapshot? I insist upon Miss Sharp
appearing. Let Lady Crawley remain upstairs, if there is no room.
But little Miss Sharp! Why, she's the only person fit to talk to in
the county!"

Of course, after such a peremptory order as this, Miss Sharp, the
governess, received commands to dine with the illustrious company
below stairs. And when Sir Huddleston had, with great pomp and
ceremony, handed Miss Crawley in to dinner, and was preparing to
take his place by her side, the old lady cried out, in a shrill
voice, "Becky Sharp! Miss Sharp! Come you and sit by me and amuse
me; and let Sir Huddleston sit by Lady Wapshot."

When the parties were over, and the carriages had rolled away, the
insatiable Miss Crawley would say, "Come to my dressing room, Becky,
and let us abuse the company"—which, between them, this pair of
friends did perfectly. Old Sir Huddleston wheezed a great deal at
dinner; Sir Giles Wapshot had a particularly noisy manner of
imbibing his soup, and her ladyship a wink of the left eye; all of
which Becky caricatured to admiration; as well as the particulars of
the night's conversation; the politics; the war; the quarter-
sessions; the famous run with the H.H., and those heavy and dreary
themes, about which country gentlemen converse. As for the Misses
Wapshot's toilettes and Lady Fuddleston's famous yellow hat, Miss
Sharp tore them to tatters, to the infinite amusement of her
audience.