Vanity Fair (57 page)

The Lady Emily was her brother's senior by many years; and took
considerable rank in the serious world as author of some of the
delightful tracts before mentioned, and of many hymns and spiritual
pieces. A mature spinster, and having but faint ideas of marriage,
her love for the blacks occupied almost all her feelings. It is to
her, I believe, we owe that beautiful poem.

Lead us to some sunny isle,
Yonder in the western deep;
Where the skies for ever smile,
And the blacks for ever weep, &c.

She had correspondences with clerical gentlemen in most of our East
and West India possessions; and was secretly attached to the
Reverend Silas Hornblower, who was tattooed in the South Sea
Islands.

As for the Lady Jane, on whom, as it has been said, Mr. Pitt
Crawley's affection had been placed, she was gentle, blushing,
silent, and timid. In spite of his falling away, she wept for her
brother, and was quite ashamed of loving him still. Even yet she
used to send him little hurried smuggled notes, and pop them into
the post in private. The one dreadful secret which weighed upon her
life was, that she and the old housekeeper had been to pay Southdown
a furtive visit at his chambers in the Albany; and found him—O the
naughty dear abandoned wretch!—smoking a cigar with a bottle of
Curacao before him. She admired her sister, she adored her mother,
she thought Mr. Crawley the most delightful and accomplished of men,
after Southdown, that fallen angel: and her mamma and sister, who
were ladies of the most superior sort, managed everything for her,
and regarded her with that amiable pity, of which your really
superior woman always has such a share to give away. Her mamma
ordered her dresses, her books, her bonnets, and her ideas for her.
She was made to take pony-riding, or piano-exercise, or any other
sort of bodily medicament, according as my Lady Southdown saw meet;
and her ladyship would have kept her daughter in pinafores up to her
present age of six-and-twenty, but that they were thrown off when
Lady Jane was presented to Queen Charlotte.

When these ladies first came to their house at Brighton, it was to
them alone that Mr. Crawley paid his personal visits, contenting
himself by leaving a card at his aunt's house, and making a modest
inquiry of Mr. Bowls or his assistant footman, with respect to the
health of the invalid. When he met Miss Briggs coming home from the
library with a cargo of novels under her arm, Mr. Crawley blushed in
a manner quite unusual to him, as he stepped forward and shook Miss
Crawley's companion by the hand. He introduced Miss Briggs to the
lady with whom he happened to be walking, the Lady Jane Sheepshanks,
saying, "Lady Jane, permit me to introduce to you my aunt's kindest
friend and most affectionate companion, Miss Briggs, whom you know
under another title, as authoress of the delightful 'Lyrics of the
Heart,' of which you are so fond." Lady Jane blushed too as she
held out a kind little hand to Miss Briggs, and said something very
civil and incoherent about mamma, and proposing to call on Miss
Crawley, and being glad to be made known to the friends and
relatives of Mr. Crawley; and with soft dove-like eyes saluted Miss
Briggs as they separated, while Pitt Crawley treated her to a
profound courtly bow, such as he had used to H.H. the Duchess of
Pumpernickel, when he was attache at that court.

The artful diplomatist and disciple of the Machiavellian Binkie! It
was he who had given Lady Jane that copy of poor Briggs's early
poems, which he remembered to have seen at Queen's Crawley, with a
dedication from the poetess to his father's late wife; and he
brought the volume with him to Brighton, reading it in the
Southampton coach and marking it with his own pencil, before he
presented it to the gentle Lady Jane.

It was he, too, who laid before Lady Southdown the great advantages
which might occur from an intimacy between her family and Miss
Crawley—advantages both worldly and spiritual, he said: for Miss
Crawley was now quite alone; the monstrous dissipation and alliance
of his brother Rawdon had estranged her affections from that
reprobate young man; the greedy tyranny and avarice of Mrs. Bute
Crawley had caused the old lady to revolt against the exorbitant
pretensions of that part of the family; and though he himself had
held off all his life from cultivating Miss Crawley's friendship,
with perhaps an improper pride, he thought now that every becoming
means should be taken, both to save her soul from perdition, and to
secure her fortune to himself as the head of the house of Crawley.

The strong-minded Lady Southdown quite agreed in both proposals of
her son-in-law, and was for converting Miss Crawley off-hand. At
her own home, both at Southdown and at Trottermore Castle, this tall
and awful missionary of the truth rode about the country in her
barouche with outriders, launched packets of tracts among the
cottagers and tenants, and would order Gaffer Jones to be converted,
as she would order Goody Hicks to take a James's powder, without
appeal, resistance, or benefit of clergy. My Lord Southdown, her
late husband, an epileptic and simple-minded nobleman, was in the
habit of approving of everything which his Matilda did and thought.
So that whatever changes her own belief might undergo (and it
accommodated itself to a prodigious variety of opinion, taken from
all sorts of doctors among the Dissenters) she had not the least
scruple in ordering all her tenants and inferiors to follow and
believe after her. Thus whether she received the Reverend Saunders
McNitre, the Scotch divine; or the Reverend Luke Waters, the mild
Wesleyan; or the Reverend Giles Jowls, the illuminated Cobbler, who
dubbed himself Reverend as Napoleon crowned himself Emperor—the
household, children, tenantry of my Lady Southdown were expected to
go down on their knees with her Ladyship, and say Amen to the
prayers of either Doctor. During these exercises old Southdown, on
account of his invalid condition, was allowed to sit in his own
room, and have negus and the paper read to him. Lady Jane was the
old Earl's favourite daughter, and tended him and loved him
sincerely: as for Lady Emily, the authoress of the "Washerwoman of
Finchley Common," her denunciations of future punishment (at this
period, for her opinions modified afterwards) were so awful that
they used to frighten the timid old gentleman her father, and the
physicians declared his fits always occurred after one of her
Ladyship's sermons.

"I will certainly call," said Lady Southdown then, in reply to the
exhortation of her daughter's pretendu, Mr. Pitt Crawley—"Who is
Miss Crawley's medical man?"

Mr. Crawley mentioned the name of Mr. Creamer.

"A most dangerous and ignorant practitioner, my dear Pitt. I have
providentially been the means of removing him from several houses:
though in one or two instances I did not arrive in time. I could
not save poor dear General Glanders, who was dying under the hands
of that ignorant man—dying. He rallied a little under the Podgers'
pills which I administered to him; but alas! it was too late. His
death was delightful, however; and his change was only for the
better; Creamer, my dear Pitt, must leave your aunt."

Pitt expressed his perfect acquiescence. He, too, had been carried
along by the energy of his noble kinswoman, and future mother-in-
law. He had been made to accept Saunders McNitre, Luke Waters,
Giles Jowls, Podgers' Pills, Rodgers' Pills, Pokey's Elixir, every
one of her Ladyship's remedies spiritual or temporal. He never left
her house without carrying respectfully away with him piles of her
quack theology and medicine. O, my dear brethren and fellow-
sojourners in Vanity Fair, which among you does not know and suffer
under such benevolent despots? It is in vain you say to them, "Dear
Madam, I took Podgers' specific at your orders last year, and
believe in it. Why, why am I to recant and accept the Rodgers'
articles now?" There is no help for it; the faithful proselytizer,
if she cannot convince by argument, bursts into tears, and the
refusant finds himself, at the end of the contest, taking down the
bolus, and saying, "Well, well, Rodgers' be it."

"And as for her spiritual state," continued the Lady, "that of
course must be looked to immediately: with Creamer about her, she
may go off any day: and in what a condition, my dear Pitt, in what
a dreadful condition! I will send the Reverend Mr. Irons to her
instantly. Jane, write a line to the Reverend Bartholomew Irons, in
the third person, and say that I desire the pleasure of his company
this evening at tea at half-past six. He is an awakening man; he
ought to see Miss Crawley before she rests this night. And Emily,
my love, get ready a packet of books for Miss Crawley. Put up 'A
Voice from the Flames,' 'A Trumpet-warning to Jericho,' and the
'Fleshpots Broken; or, the Converted Cannibal.'"

"And the 'Washerwoman of Finchley Common,' Mamma," said Lady Emily.
"It is as well to begin soothingly at first."

"Stop, my dear ladies," said Pitt, the diplomatist. "With every
deference to the opinion of my beloved and respected Lady Southdown,
I think it would be quite unadvisable to commence so early upon
serious topics with Miss Crawley. Remember her delicate condition,
and how little, how very little accustomed she has hitherto been to
considerations connected with her immortal welfare."

"Can we then begin too early, Pitt?" said Lady Emily, rising with
six little books already in her hand.

"If you begin abruptly, you will frighten her altogether. I know my
aunt's worldly nature so well as to be sure that any abrupt attempt
at conversion will be the very worst means that can be employed for
the welfare of that unfortunate lady. You will only frighten and
annoy her. She will very likely fling the books away, and refuse all
acquaintance with the givers."

"You are as worldly as Miss Crawley, Pitt," said Lady Emily, tossing
out of the room, her books in her hand.

"And I need not tell you, my dear Lady Southdown," Pitt continued,
in a low voice, and without heeding the interruption, "how fatal a
little want of gentleness and caution may be to any hopes which we
may entertain with regard to the worldly possessions of my aunt.
Remember she has seventy thousand pounds; think of her age, and her
highly nervous and delicate condition; I know that she has destroyed
the will which was made in my brother's (Colonel Crawley's) favour:
it is by soothing that wounded spirit that we must lead it into the
right path, and not by frightening it; and so I think you will agree
with me that—that—'

"Of course, of course," Lady Southdown remarked. "Jane, my love, you
need not send that note to Mr. Irons. If her health is such that
discussions fatigue her, we will wait her amendment. I will call
upon Miss Crawley tomorrow."

"And if I might suggest, my sweet lady," Pitt said in a bland tone,
"it would be as well not to take our precious Emily, who is too
enthusiastic; but rather that you should be accompanied by our sweet
and dear Lady Jane."

"Most certainly, Emily would ruin everything," Lady Southdown said;
and this time agreed to forego her usual practice, which was, as we
have said, before she bore down personally upon any individual whom
she proposed to subjugate, to fire in a quantity of tracts upon the
menaced party (as a charge of the French was always preceded by a
furious cannonade). Lady Southdown, we say, for the sake of the
invalid's health, or for the sake of her soul's ultimate welfare, or
for the sake of her money, agreed to temporise.

The next day, the great Southdown female family carriage, with the
Earl's coronet and the lozenge (upon which the three lambs trottant
argent upon the field vert of the Southdowns, were quartered with
sable on a bend or, three snuff-mulls gules, the cognizance of the
house of Binkie), drove up in state to Miss Crawley's door, and the
tall serious footman handed in to Mr. Bowls her Ladyship's cards for
Miss Crawley, and one likewise for Miss Briggs. By way of
compromise, Lady Emily sent in a packet in the evening for the
latter lady, containing copies of the "Washerwoman," and other mild
and favourite tracts for Miss B.'s own perusal; and a few for the
servants' hall, viz.: "Crumbs from the Pantry," "The Frying Pan and
the Fire," and "The Livery of Sin," of a much stronger kind.

James Crawley's Pipe Is Put Out

The amiable behaviour of Mr. Crawley, and Lady Jane's kind reception
of her, highly flattered Miss Briggs, who was enabled to speak a
good word for the latter, after the cards of the Southdown family
had been presented to Miss Crawley. A Countess's card left
personally too for her, Briggs, was not a little pleasing to the
poor friendless companion. "What could Lady Southdown mean by
leaving a card upon you, I wonder, Miss Briggs?" said the republican
Miss Crawley; upon which the companion meekly said "that she hoped
there could be no harm in a lady of rank taking notice of a poor
gentlewoman," and she put away this card in her work-box amongst her
most cherished personal treasures. Furthermore, Miss Briggs
explained how she had met Mr. Crawley walking with his cousin and
long affianced bride the day before: and she told how kind and
gentle-looking the lady was, and what a plain, not to say common,
dress she had, all the articles of which, from the bonnet down to
the boots, she described and estimated with female accuracy.

Miss Crawley allowed Briggs to prattle on without interrupting her
too much. As she got well, she was pining for society. Mr.
Creamer, her medical man, would not hear of her returning to her old
haunts and dissipation in London. The old spinster was too glad to
find any companionship at Brighton, and not only were the cards
acknowledged the very next day, but Pitt Crawley was graciously
invited to come and see his aunt. He came, bringing with him Lady
Southdown and her daughter. The dowager did not say a word about
the state of Miss Crawley's soul; but talked with much discretion
about the weather: about the war and the downfall of the monster
Bonaparte: and above all, about doctors, quacks, and the particular
merits of Dr. Podgers, whom she then patronised.