The kind reader must please to remember--while the army is marching from Flanders, and, after its heroic actions there, is advancing to take the fortifications on the frontiers of France, previous to an occupation of that country--that there are a number of persons living peaceably in England who have to do with the history at present in hand, and must come in for their share of the chronicle. During the time of these battles and dangers, old Miss Crawley was living at Brighton, very moderately moved by the great events that were going on. The great events rendered the newspapers rather interesting, to be sure, and Briggs read out the Gazette, in which Rawdon Crawley's gallantry was mentioned with honour, and his promotion was presently recorded.
"What a pity that young man has taken such an irretrievable step in the world!" his aunt said; "with his rank and distinction he might have married a brewer's daughter with a quarter of a million--like Miss Grains; or have looked to ally himself with the best families in England. He would have had my money some day or other; or his children would--for I'm not in a hurry to go, Miss Briggs, although you may be in a hurry to be rid of me; and instead of that, he is a doomed pauper, with a dancing-girl for a wife."
"Will my dear Miss Crawley not cast an eye of compassion upon the heroic soldier, whose name is inscribed in the annals of his country's glory?" said Miss Briggs, who was greatly excited by the Waterloo proceedings, and loved speaking romantically when there was an occasion. "Has not the Captain--or the Colonel as I may now style him--done deeds which make the name of Crawley illustrious?"
"Briggs, you are a fool," said Miss Crawley: "Colonel Crawley has dragged the name of Crawley through the mud, Miss Briggs. Marry a drawing-master's daughter, indeed!--marry a dame de compagnie--for she was no better, Briggs; no, she was just what you are--only younger, and a great deal prettier and cleverer. Were you an accomplice of that abandoned wretch, I wonder, of whose vile arts he became a victim, and of whom you used to be such an admirer? Yes, I daresay you were an accomplice. But you will find yourself disappointed in my will, I can tell you: and you will have the goodness to write to Mr. Waxy, and say that I desire to see him immediately." Miss Crawley was now in the habit of writing to Mr. Waxy her solicitor almost every day in the week, for her arrangements respecting her property were all revoked, and her perplexity was great as to the future disposition of her money.
The spinster had, however, rallied considerably; as was proved by the increased vigour and frequency of her sarcasms upon Miss Briggs, all which attacks the poor companion bore with meekness, with cowardice, with a resignation that was half generous and half hypocritical--with the slavish submission, in a word, that women of her disposition and station are compelled to show. Who has not seen how women bully women? What tortures have men to endure, comparable to those daily repeated shafts of scorn and cruelty with which poor women are riddled by the tyrants of their sex? Poor victims! But we are starting from our proposition, which is, that Miss Crawley was always particularly annoying and savage when she was rallying from illness--as they say wounds tingle most when they are about to heal.
While thus approaching, as all hoped, to convalescence, Miss Briggs was the only victim admitted into the presence of the invalid; yet Miss Crawley's relatives afar off did not forget their beloved kinswoman, and by a number of tokens, presents, and kind affectionate messages, strove to keep themselves alive in her recollection.
In the first place, let us mention her nephew, Rawdon Crawley. A few weeks after the famous fight of Waterloo, and after the Gazette had made known to her the promotion and gallantry of that distinguished officer, the Dieppe packet brought over to Miss Crawley at Brighton, a box containing presents, and a dutiful letter, from the Colonel her nephew. In the box were a pair of French epaulets, a Cross of the Legion of Honour, and the hilt of a sword--relics from the field of battle: and the letter described with a good deal of humour how the latter belonged to a commanding officer of the Guard, who having sworn that "the Guard died, but never surrendered," was taken prisoner the next minute by a private soldier, who broke the Frenchman's sword with the butt of his musket, when Rawdon made himself master of the shattered weapon. As for the cross and epaulets, they came from a Colonel of French cavalry, who had fallen under the aide-de-camp's arm in the battle: and Rawdon Crawley did not know what better to do with the spoils than to send them to his kindest and most affectionate old friend. Should he continue to write to her from Paris, whither the army was marching? He might be able to give her interesting news from that capital, and of some of Miss Crawley's old friends of the emigration, to whom she had shown so much kindness during their distress.
The spinster caused Briggs to write back to the Colonel a gracious and complimentary letter, encouraging him to continue his correspondence. His first letter was so excessively lively and amusing that she should look with pleasure for its successors.--"Of course, I know," she explained to Miss Briggs, "that Rawdon could not write such a good letter any more than you could, my poor Briggs, and that it is that clever little wretch of a Rebecca, who dictates every word to him; but that is no reason why my nephew should not amuse me; and so I wish to let him understand that I am in high good humour."
I wonder whether she knew that it was not only Becky who wrote the letters, but that Mrs. Rawdon actually took and sent home the trophies which she bought for a few francs, from one of the innumerable pedlars who immediately began to deal in relics of the war. The novelist, who knows everything, knows this also. Be this, however, as it may, Miss Crawley's gracious reply greatly encouraged our young friends, Rawdon and his lady, who hoped for the best from their aunt's evidently pacified humour: and they took care to entertain her with many delightful letters from Paris, whither, as Rawdon said, they had the good luck to go in the track of the conquering army.
To the rector's lady, who went off to tend her husband's broken collar-bone at the Rectory at Queen's Crawley, the spinster's communications were by no means so gracious. Mrs. Bute, that brisk, managing, lively, imperious woman, had committed the most fatal of all errors with regard to her sister-in-law. She had not merely oppressed her and her household--she had bored Miss Crawley; and if poor Miss Briggs had been a woman of any spirit, she might have been made happy by the commission which her principal gave her to write a letter to Mrs. Bute Crawley, saying that Miss Crawley's health was greatly improved since Mrs. Bute had left her, and begging the latter on no account to put herself to trouble, or quit her family for Miss Crawley's sake. This triumph over a lady who had been very haughty and cruel in her behaviour to Miss Briggs, would have rejoiced most women; but the truth is, Briggs was a woman of no spirit at all, and the moment her enemy was discomfited, she began to feel compassion in her favour.
"How silly I was," Mrs. Bute thought, and with reason, "ever to hint that I was coming, as I did, in that foolish letter when we sent Miss Crawley the guinea-fowls. I ought to have gone without a word to the poor dear doting old creature, and taken her out of the hands of that ninny Briggs, and that harpy of a femme de chambre. Oh! Bute, Bute, why did you break your collar-bone?"
Why, indeed? We have seen how Mrs. Bute, having the game in her hands, had really played her cards too well. She had ruled over Miss Crawley's household utterly and completely, to be utterly and completely routed when a favourable opportunity for rebellion came. She and her household, however, considered that she had been the victim of horrible selfishness and treason, and that her sacrifices in Miss Crawley's behalf had met with the most savage ingratitude. Rawdon's promotion, and the honourable mention made of his name in the Gazette, filled this good Christian lady also with alarm. Would his aunt relent towards him now that he was a Lieutenant-Colonel and a C.B.? and would that odious Rebecca once more get into favour? The Rector's wife wrote a sermon for her husband about the vanity of military glory and the prosperity of the wicked, which the worthy parson read in his best voice and without understanding one syllable of it. He had Pitt Crawley for one of his auditors--Pitt, who had come with his two half-sisters to church, which the old Baronet could now by no means be brought to frequent.
Since the departure of Becky Sharp, that old wretch had given himself up entirely to his bad courses, to the great scandal of the county and the mute horror of his son. The ribbons in Miss Horrocks's cap became more splendid than ever. The polite families fled the hall and its owner in terror. Sir Pitt went about tippling at his tenants' houses; and drank rum-and-water with the farmers at Mudbury and the neighbouring places on market-days. He drove the family coach-and-four to Southampton with Miss Horrocks inside: and the county people expected, every week, as his son did in speechless agony, that his marriage with her would be announced in the provincial paper. It was indeed a rude burthen for Mr. Crawley to bear. His eloquence was palsied at the missionary meetings, and other religious assemblies in the neighbourhood, where he had been in the habit of presiding, and of speaking for hours; for he felt, when he rose, that the audience said, "That is the son of the old reprobate Sir Pitt, who is very likely drinking at the public house at this very moment." And once when he was speaking of the benighted condition of the king of Timbuctoo, and the number of his wives who were likewise in darkness, some gipsy miscreant from the crowd asked, "How many is there at Queen's Crawley, Young Squaretoes?" to the surprise of the platform, and the ruin of Mr. Pitt's speech. And the two daughters of the house of Queen's Crawley would have been allowed to run utterly wild (for Sir Pitt swore that no governess should ever enter into his doors again), had not Mr. Crawley, by threatening the old gentleman, forced the latter to send them to school.
Meanwhile, as we have said, whatever individual differences there might be between them all, Miss Crawley's dear nephews and nieces were unanimous in loving her and sending her tokens of affection. Thus Mrs. Bute sent guinea-fowls, and some remarkably fine cauliflowers, and a pretty purse or pincushion worked by her darling girls, who begged to keep a LITTLE place in the recollection of their dear aunt, while Mr. Pitt sent peaches and grapes and venison from the Hall. The Southampton coach used to carry these tokens of affection to Miss Crawley at Brighton: it used sometimes to convey Mr. Pitt thither too: for his differences with Sir Pitt caused Mr. Crawley to absent himself a good deal from home now: and besides, he had an attraction at Brighton in the person of the Lady Jane Sheepshanks, whose engagement to Mr. Crawley has been formerly mentioned in this history. Her Ladyship and her sisters lived at Brighton with their mamma, the Countess Southdown, that strong-minded woman so favourably known in the serious world.
A few words ought to be said regarding her Ladyship and her noble family, who are bound by ties of present and future relationship to the house of Crawley. Respecting the chief of the Southdown family, Clement William, fourth Earl of Southdown, little need be told, except that his Lordship came into Parliament (as Lord Wolsey) under the auspices of Mr. Wilberforce, and for a time was a credit to his political sponsor, and decidedly a serious young man. But words cannot describe the feelings of his admirable mother, when she learned, very shortly after her noble husband's demise, that her son was a member of several worldly clubs, had lost largely at play at Wattier's and the Cocoa Tree; that he had raised money on post-obits, and encumbered the family estate; that he drove four-in-hand, and patronised the ring; and that he actually had an opera-box, where he entertained the most dangerous bachelor company. His name was only mentioned with groans in the dowager's circle.
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.

The kind reader must please to remember - while the army is marching from Flanders - that there are a number of persons living peaceably in England who must come in for their share of this story. During the time of battle, old Miss Crawley was living at Brighton, very moderately moved by the great events; although Briggs read out the Gazette, in which Rawdon Crawley's gallantry was mentioned with honour, and his promotion was recorded.
"What a pity that young man has taken such an irretrievable step!" his aunt said. "He might have married a brewer's daughter with a quarter of a million, or have married a lady. He would have had my money some day or other; or his children would - for I'm not in a hurry to go, Miss Briggs; and instead, he is a doomed pauper, with a dancing-girl for a wife."
"Will my dear Miss Crawley not cast a compassionate eye upon the heroic soldier, whose name is inscribed in the annals of glory?" said Miss Briggs, who was greatly excited by the events of Waterloo. "Has not the Captain - or the Colonel as I may now call him - done deeds which make the name of Crawley illustrious?"
"Briggs, you are a fool," said Miss Crawley. "He has dragged the name of Crawley through the mud. Marry a drawing-master's daughter, indeed! She was no better than you are, Briggs; only younger, and a great deal prettier and cleverer. I daresay you were her accomplice. But you will find yourself disappointed in my will, I can tell you. Write to Mr. Waxy, and say that I desire to see him immediately." Miss Crawley was now in the habit of writing to Mr. Waxy, her solicitor, almost every day, for she was greatly perplexed about how to leave her money.
She had, however, rallied considerably; as was proved by the increased vigour of her sarcasms upon poor Miss Briggs, who bore her attacks with slavish submission. Who has not seen how women bully women? With what shafts of scorn and cruelty poor women are riddled by the tyrants of their sex! Miss Crawley was always particularly savage when she was rallying from illness - as they say wounds tingle most when they are about to heal.
Miss Briggs was the only victim admitted into the invalid's presence; yet Miss Crawley's relatives did not forget their beloved kinswoman, and by presents and affectionate messages strove to keep themselves alive in her memory.
Rawdon Crawley, a few weeks after Waterloo and his promotion, sent Miss Crawley a dutiful letter, and several presents: a pair of French epaulets, a Cross of the Legion of Honour, and a sword hilt - relics from the battlefield. The letter described with humour how the sword had belonged to a French officer who had sworn never to surrender, only to be taken prisoner the next minute. The cross and epaulets came from a Colonel of French cavalry, who had fallen under Rawdon's arm in the battle: and Rawdon thus sent the spoils to his kindest old friend. Should he continue to write to her from Paris, where the army was marching? He might be able to give her interesting news from that capital.
Miss Crawley made Briggs write back a gracious letter, encouraging him to continue writing. His first letter was so lively and amusing that she looked forward with pleasure to more.
"Of course, I know," she explained to Miss Briggs, "that Rawdon could not write such a good letter, and that it is that clever little wretch of a Rebecca who dictates every word; but that is no reason why he should not amuse me."
Becky not only wrote the letters, but also bought the trophies for a few francs from the pedlars who began to deal in relics of the war. Miss Crawley's gracious reply greatly encouraged Rawdon and his lady: and they took care to entertain her with many delightful letters from Paris.
To the rector's lady, who went off to tend her husband's broken collar-bone at Queen's Crawley, the spinster's letters were not so gracious. Mrs. Bute, that brisk, imperious woman, had committed a fatal error. She had not merely oppressed Miss Crawley - she had bored her; and Miss Briggs was ordered to write to Mrs. Bute, saying that Miss Crawley's health was greatly improved, and begging Mrs. Bute on no account to quit her family for Miss Crawley's sake.
"How silly I was," Mrs. Bute thought, "to hint that I was coming, in that last foolish letter. I ought to have gone without a word to the poor old creature, and taken her out of the hands of that ninny Briggs, and that harpy of a maid. Oh! Bute, why did you break your collar-bone?"
Why, indeed? Mrs. Bute had played her cards too well. She had ruled over Miss Crawley's household utterly and completely - to be utterly and completely routed when an opportunity for rebellion came. She considered that she had been the victim of horrible treason and savage ingratitude.
Rawdon's promotion filled this good Christian lady with alarm. Would his aunt relent towards him now that he was a Lieutenant-Colonel? Would that odious Rebecca once more get into favour? The Rector's wife wrote a sermon for her husband about the vanity of military glory, which the worthy parson read in his best voice and without understanding one syllable of it. He had Mr. Pitt Crawley in the congregation, but the old Baronet would not come to church.
Since the departure of Becky Sharp, that old wretch Sir Pitt had given himself up entirely to bad courses, to the great scandal of the county and the mute horror of his son. The ribbons in Miss Horrocks's cap became more splendid than ever. Polite families fled the hall in terror. Sir Pitt drank rum-and-water with the farmers at Mudbury on market-days. He drove the family coach to Southampton with Miss Horrocks inside: and the county people expected, every week, as his son did in speechless agony, that his marriage with her would soon be announced.
It was indeed a hard burden for Mr. Crawley to bear. When he rose to speak at religious assemblies, he felt that the audience said, "That is the son of the old reprobate Sir Pitt, who is very likely drinking at the public house at this very moment."
Meanwhile Miss Crawley's dear nephews and nieces were unanimous in loving her and sending her tokens of affection. Mrs. Bute sent guinea-fowls, and some fine cauliflowers, and a pretty purse or pincushion worked by her darling girls, while Mr. Pitt sent peaches and grapes and venison from the Hall. The Southampton coach used to carry these tokens of affection to Miss Crawley at Brighton. It used sometimes to carry Mr. Pitt there too, for he had an attraction at Brighton in the person of Lady Jane Sheepshanks. Her Ladyship and her sisters lived at Brighton with their mamma, the Countess Southdown, a strong-minded woman.
A few words ought to be said about this noble family. Their chief, Clement, fourth Earl of Southdown, was for a time was a serious young man. But his admirable mother learned, very shortly after her noble husband's death, that her son was a member of several clubs, had lost greatly at play at Wattier's and the Cocoa Tree, and had encumbered the family estate; that he drove four-in-hand, and patronised the boxing; and had an opera-box, where he entertained the most dangerous bachelor company. His name was now only mentioned with groans in the dowager's circle.
The Lady Emily was her brother's senior by many years: the author of some delightful spiritual tracts and hymns, and a mature spinster. Having few ideas of marriage, her love for the anti-slavery cause occupied almost all her feelings. It is to her that 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, etc.
As for the Lady Jane, on whom Mr. Pitt Crawley's affection had been placed, she was gentle, blushing, silent, and timid. She wept for her profligate brother, and was quite ashamed of loving him still. She used to send him little smuggled notes in private. The 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; and found him - O the naughty dear abandoned wretch! - smoking a cigar with a bottle of Curacao before him. She admired her sister, adored her mother, and thought Mr. Crawley the most delightful and accomplished of men. Her mamma and sister managed everything for her, and regarded her with the amiable pity of superior women.
It was to these ladies that Mr. Crawley paid his visits in Brighton, rather than to his aunt. When he met Miss Briggs coming home from the library, Mr. Crawley blushed as he stepped forward and shook her by the hand. He introduced Miss Briggs to the lady with whom he was walking, the Lady Jane Sheepshanks, saying, "Lady Jane, permit me to introduce to you my aunt's kindest friend and affectionate companion, Miss Briggs, whom you know 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 proposing to call on Miss Crawley; and with soft dove-like eyes saluted Miss Briggs, while Pitt Crawley gave her a profound courtly bow.
The artful diplomatist! It was he who had given Lady Jane that copy of poor Briggs's poems. It was he, too, who suggested to Lady Southdown the great advantages of a friendship between her family and Miss Crawley - advantages both worldly and spiritual, he said, for Miss Crawley was now quite alone. Rawdon had estranged her affections; the greedy tyranny of Mrs. Bute Crawley had made the old lady revolt; and though he himself had held off from cultivating Miss Crawley's friendship, he thought now that every means should be taken to save both her soul and her fortune.
The strong-minded Lady Southdown quite agreed, and was for converting Miss Crawley. This tall and awful missionary rode about the country in her barouche launching tracts among the cottagers. Lord Southdown, her late husband, had been in the habit of approving of everything which his Matilda did and thought. Whatever changes her own belief might undergo (and she held a prodigious variety of opinions, taken from all sorts of Dissenters) she had not the least scruple in ordering all her tenants to follow and believe after her. Her household and children were expected to go down on their knees with her Ladyship, while old Southdown, as an invalid, was allowed to sit in his own room, and have the paper read to him.
Lady Jane was the old Earl's favourite daughter, and loved him sincerely. As for Lady Emily, the authoress of the 'Washerwoman of Finchley Common,' her denunciations of future punishment were so awful that they used to frighten the timid old gentleman.
"I will certainly call," said Lady Southdown in reply to Mr. Pitt Crawley. "Who is Miss Crawley's medical man?"
He mentioned Mr. Creamer.
"A most dangerous and ignorant practitioner, my dear Pitt. I have 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 his hands. He rallied a little under the Podgers' pills which I gave him; but alas! too late. His death was delightful, however. Creamer must leave your aunt."
Pitt agreed. He was carried along by the energy of his future mother-in-law. He had accepted Podgers' Pills and every other of her Ladyship's remedies, bodily or spiritual. He never left her house without carrying respectfully away piles of her quack theology and medicine.
"As for her spiritual state," continued the Lady, "that must be looked to immediately! I will send the Reverend Mr. Irons to her. Jane, write him a line, and say that I desire the pleasure of his company this evening at tea at half-past six. He ought to see Miss Crawley before she rests this night. And Emily, my love, get ready a packet of books for Miss Crawley. '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.
"Stop, my dear ladies," said Pitt. "With respect, I think it would be quite unadvisable. Remember Miss Crawley's delicate condition, and how little she has been accustomed to consider her immortal welfare. If you begin so soon, you will frighten her altogether. I know my aunt: any abrupt attempt at conversion will only 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.
"I need not tell you, my dear Lady Southdown," Pitt continued, "how fatal a little want of caution may be to our hopes. Remember my aunt 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 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 that-'
"Of course," Lady Southdown remarked. "Jane, my love, you need not send that note. I will call upon Miss Crawley tomorrow."
"And if I might suggest, my sweet lady," Pitt said blandly, "it would be as well not to take our precious Emily, who is too enthusiastic; but rather, our sweet dear Lady Jane."
"Most certainly. Emily would ruin everything," Lady Southdown said.
The next day, the great Southdown family carriage drove up in state to Miss Crawley's door, and the footman handed in to Mr. Bowls her Ladyship's cards for Miss Crawley, and for Miss Briggs. By way of compromise, Lady Emily also sent Miss Briggs a packet, containing copies of the "Washerwoman," and other favourite tracts for Miss B.'s own perusal; and for the servants' hall she sent "Crumbs from the Pantry," "The Frying Pan and the Fire," and "The Livery of Sin."

Chapter 33: In Which Miss Crawley's Relations Are Very Anxious About Her


Sir Pitt Crawley had done more than repair fences and restore dilapidated lodges on the Queen's Crawley estate. Like a wise man he had set to work to rebuild the injured popularity of his house and stop up the gaps and ruins in which his name had been left by his disreputable and thriftless old predecessor. He was elected for the borough speedily after his father's demise; a magistrate, a member of parliament, a county magnate and representative of an ancient family, he made it his duty to show himself before the Hampshire public, subscribed handsomely to the county charities, called assiduously upon all the county folk, and laid himself out in a word to take that position in Hampshire, and in the Empire afterwards, to which he thought his prodigious talents justly entitled him. Lady Jane was instructed to be friendly with the Fuddlestones, and the Wapshots, and the other famous baronets, their neighbours. Their carriages might frequently be seen in the Queen's Crawley avenue now; they dined pretty frequently at the Hall (where the cookery was so good that it was clear Lady Jane very seldom had a hand in it), and in return Pitt and his wife most energetically dined out in all sorts of weather and at all sorts of distances. For though Pitt did not care for joviality, being a frigid man of poor hearth and appetite, yet he considered that to be hospitable and condescending was quite incumbent on his station, and every time that he got a headache from too long an after-dinner sitting, he felt that he was a martyr to duty. He talked about crops, corn-laws, politics, with the best country gentlemen. He (who had been formerly inclined to be a sad free-thinker on these points) entered into poaching and game preserving with ardour. He didn't hunt; he wasn't a hunting man; he was a man of books and peaceful habits; but he thought that the breed of horses must be kept up in the country, and that the breed of foxes must therefore be looked to, and for his part, if his friend, Sir Huddlestone Fuddlestone, liked to draw his country and meet as of old the F. hounds used to do at Queen's Crawley, he should be happy to see him there, and the gentlemen of the Fuddlestone hunt. And to Lady Southdown's dismay too he became more orthodox in his tendencies every day; gave up preaching in public and attending meeting-houses; went stoutly to church; called on the Bishop and all the Clergy at Winchester; and made no objection when the Venerable Archdeacon Trumper asked for a game of whist. What pangs must have been those of Lady Southdown, and what an utter castaway she must have thought her son-in-law for permitting such a godless diversion! And when, on the return of the family from an oratorio at Winchester, the Baronet announced to the young ladies that he should next year very probably take them to the "county balls," they worshipped him for his kindness. Lady Jane was only too obedient, and perhaps glad herself to go. The Dowager wrote off the direst descriptions of her daughter's worldly behaviour to the authoress of the Washerwoman of Finchley Common at the Cape; and her house in Brighton being about this time unoccupied, returned to that watering-place, her absence being not very much deplored by her children. We may suppose, too, that Rebecca, on paying a second visit to Queen's Crawley, did not feel particularly grieved at the absence of the lady of the medicine chest; though she wrote a Christmas letter to her Ladyship, in which she respectfully recalled herself to Lady Southdown's recollection, spoke with gratitude of the delight which her Ladyship's conversation had given her on the former visit, dilated on the kindness with which her Ladyship had treated her in sickness, and declared that everything at Queen's Crawley reminded her of her absent friend.
A great part of the altered demeanour and popularity of Sir Pitt Crawley might have been traced to the counsels of that astute little lady of Curzon Street. "You remain a Baronet--you consent to be a mere country gentleman," she said to him, while he had been her guest in London. "No, Sir Pitt Crawley, I know you better. I know your talents and your ambition. You fancy you hide them both, but you can conceal neither from me. I showed Lord Steyne your pamphlet on malt. He was familiar with it, and said it was in the opinion of the whole Cabinet the most masterly thing that had appeared on the subject. The Ministry has its eye upon you, and I know what you want. You want to distinguish yourself in Parliament; every one says you are the finest speaker in England (for your speeches at Oxford are still remembered). You want to be Member for the County, where, with your own vote and your borough at your back, you can command anything. And you want to be Baron Crawley of Queen's Crawley, and will be before you die. I saw it all. I could read your heart, Sir Pitt. If I had a husband who possessed your intellect as he does your name, I sometimes think I should not be unworthy of him--but--but I am your kinswoman now," she added with a laugh. "Poor little penniless, I have got a little interest--and who knows, perhaps the mouse may be able to aid the lion." Pitt Crawley was amazed and enraptured with her speech. "How that woman comprehends me!" he said. "I never could get Jane to read three pages of the malt pamphlet. She has no idea that I have commanding talents or secret ambition. So they remember my speaking at Oxford, do they? The rascals! Now that I represent my borough and may sit for the county, they begin to recollect me! Why, Lord Steyne cut me at the levee last year; they are beginning to find out that Pitt Crawley is some one at last. Yes, the man was always the same whom these people neglected: it was only the opportunity that was wanting, and I will show them now that I can speak and act as well as write. Achilles did not declare himself until they gave him the sword. I hold it now, and the world shall yet hear of Pitt Crawley."
Therefore it was that this roguish diplomatist has grown so hospitable; that he was so civil to oratorios and hospitals; so kind to Deans and Chapters; so generous in giving and accepting dinners; so uncommonly gracious to farmers on market-days; and so much interested about county business; and that the Christmas at the Hall was the gayest which had been known there for many a long day.
On Christmas Day a great family gathering took place. All the Crawleys from the Rectory came to dine. Rebecca was as frank and fond of Mrs. Bute as if the other had never been her enemy; she was affectionately interested in the dear girls, and surprised at the progress which they had made in music since her time, and insisted upon encoring one of the duets out of the great song-books which Jim, grumbling, had been forced to bring under his arm from the Rectory. Mrs. Bute, perforce, was obliged to adopt a decent demeanour towards the little adventuress--of course being free to discourse with her daughters afterwards about the absurd respect with which Sir Pitt treated his sister-in-law. But Jim, who had sat next to her at dinner, declared she was a trump, and one and all of the Rector's family agreed that the little Rawdon was a fine boy. They respected a possible baronet in the boy, between whom and the title there was only the little sickly pale Pitt Binkie.
The children were very good friends. Pitt Binkie was too little a dog for such a big dog as Rawdon to play with; and Matilda being only a girl, of course not fit companion for a young gentleman who was near eight years old, and going into jackets very soon. He took the command of this small party at once--the little girl and the little boy following him about with great reverence at such times as he condescended to sport with them. His happiness and pleasure in the country were extreme. The kitchen garden pleased him hugely, the flowers moderately, but the pigeons and the poultry, and the stables when he was allowed to visit them, were delightful objects to him. He resisted being kissed by the Misses Crawley, but he allowed Lady Jane sometimes to embrace him, and it was by her side that he liked to sit when, the signal to retire to the drawing-room being given, the ladies left the gentlemen to their claret--by her side rather than by his mother. For Rebecca, seeing that tenderness was the fashion, called Rawdon to her one evening and stooped down and kissed him in the presence of all the ladies.
He looked her full in the face after the operation, trembling and turning very red, as his wont was when moved. "You never kiss me at home, Mamma," he said, at which there was a general silence and consternation and a by no means pleasant look in Becky's eyes.
Rawdon was fond of his sister-in-law, for her regard for his son. Lady Jane and Becky did not get on quite so well at this visit as on occasion of the former one, when the Colonel's wife was bent upon pleasing. Those two speeches of the child struck rather a chill. Perhaps Sir Pitt was rather too attentive to her.
But Rawdon, as became his age and size, was fonder of the society of the men than of the women, and never wearied of accompanying his sire to the stables, whither the Colonel retired to smoke his cigar--Jim, the Rector's son, sometimes joining his cousin in that and other amusements. He and the Baronet's keeper were very close friends, their mutual taste for "dawgs" bringing them much together. On one day, Mr. James, the Colonel, and Horn, the keeper, went and shot pheasants, taking little Rawdon with them. On another most blissful morning, these four gentlemen partook of the amusement of rat-hunting in a barn, than which sport Rawdon as yet had never seen anything more noble. They stopped up the ends of certain drains in the barn, into the other openings of which ferrets were inserted, and then stood silently aloof, with uplifted stakes in their hands, and an anxious little terrier (Mr. James's celebrated "dawg" Forceps, indeed) scarcely breathing from excitement, listening motionless on three legs, to the faint squeaking of the rats below. Desperately bold at last, the persecuted animals bolted above-ground--the terrier accounted for one, the keeper for another; Rawdon, from flurry and excitement, missed his rat, but on the other hand he half-murdered a ferret.
But the greatest day of all was that on which Sir Huddlestone Fuddlestone's hounds met upon the lawn at Queen's Crawley.
That was a famous sight for little Rawdon. At half-past ten, Tom Moody, Sir Huddlestone Fuddlestone's huntsman, was seen trotting up the avenue, followed by the noble pack of hounds in a compact body--the rear being brought up by the two whips clad in stained scarlet frocks--light hard-featured lads on well-bred lean horses, possessing marvellous dexterity in casting the points of their long heavy whips at the thinnest part of any dog's skin who dares to straggle from the main body, or to take the slightest notice, or even so much as wink, at the hares and rabbits starting under their noses.
Next comes boy Jack, Tom Moody's son, who weighs five stone, measures eight-and-forty inches, and will never be any bigger. He is perched on a large raw-boned hunter, half-covered by a capacious saddle. This animal is Sir Huddlestone Fuddlestone's favourite horse the Nob. Other horses, ridden by other small boys, arrive from time to time, awaiting their masters, who will come cantering on anon.
Tom Moody rides up to the door of the Hall, where he is welcomed by the butler, who offers him drink, which he declines. He and his pack then draw off into a sheltered corner of the lawn, where the dogs roll on the grass, and play or growl angrily at one another, ever and anon breaking out into furious fight speedily to be quelled by Tom's voice, unmatched at rating, or the snaky thongs of the whips.
Many young gentlemen canter up on thoroughbred hacks, spatter-dashed to the knee, and enter the house to drink cherry-brandy and pay their respects to the ladies, or, more modest and sportsmanlike, divest themselves of their mud-boots, exchange their hacks for their hunters, and warm their blood by a preliminary gallop round the lawn. Then they collect round the pack in the corner and talk with Tom Moody of past sport, and the merits of Sniveller and Diamond, and of the state of the country and of the wretched breed of foxes.
Sir Huddlestone presently appears mounted on a clever cob and rides up to the Hall, where he enters and does the civil thing by the ladies, after which, being a man of few words, he proceeds to business. The hounds are drawn up to the hall-door, and little Rawdon descends amongst them, excited yet half-alarmed by the caresses which they bestow upon him, at the thumps he receives from their waving tails, and at their canine bickerings, scarcely restrained by Tom Moody's tongue and lash.
Meanwhile, Sir Huddlestone has hoisted himself unwieldily on the Nob: "Let's try Sowster's Spinney, Tom," says the Baronet, "Farmer Mangle tells me there are two foxes in it." Tom blows his horn and trots off, followed by the pack, by the whips, by the young gents from Winchester, by the farmers of the neighbourhood, by the labourers of the parish on foot, with whom the day is a great holiday, Sir Huddlestone bringing up the rear with Colonel Crawley, and the whole cortege disappears down the avenue.
The Reverend Bute Crawley (who has been too modest to appear at the public meet before his nephew's windows), whom Tom Moody remembers forty years back a slender divine riding the wildest horses, jumping the widest brooks, and larking over the newest gates in the country--his Reverence, we say, happens to trot out from the Rectory Lane on his powerful black horse just as Sir Huddlestone passes; he joins the worthy Baronet. Hounds and horsemen disappear, and little Rawdon remains on the doorsteps, wondering and happy.
During the progress of this memorable holiday, little Rawdon, if he had got no special liking for his uncle, always awful and cold and locked up in his study, plunged in justice-business and surrounded by bailiffs and farmers--has gained the good graces of his married and maiden aunts, of the two little folks of the Hall, and of Jim of the Rectory, whom Sir Pitt is encouraging to pay his addresses to one of the young ladies, with an understanding doubtless that he shall be presented to the living when it shall be vacated by his fox-hunting old sire. Jim has given up that sport himself and confines himself to a little harmless duck- or snipe-shooting, or a little quiet trifling with the rats during the Christmas holidays, after which he will return to the University and try and not be plucked, once more. He has already eschewed green coats, red neckcloths, and other worldly ornaments, and is preparing himself for a change in his condition. In this cheap and thrifty way Sir Pitt tries to pay off his debt to his family.
Also before this merry Christmas was over, the Baronet had screwed up courage enough to give his brother another draft on his bankers, and for no less a sum than a hundred pounds, an act which caused Sir Pitt cruel pangs at first, but which made him glow afterwards to think himself one of the most generous of men. Rawdon and his son went away with the utmost heaviness of heart. Becky and the ladies parted with some alacrity, however, and our friend returned to London to commence those avocations with which we find her occupied when this chapter begins. Under her care the Crawley House in Great Gaunt Street was quite rejuvenescent and ready for the reception of Sir Pitt and his family, when the Baronet came to London to attend his duties in Parliament and to assume that position in the country for which his vast genius fitted him.
For the first session, this profound dissembler hid his projects and never opened his lips but to present a petition from Mudbury. But he attended assiduously in his place and learned thoroughly the routine and business of the House. At home he gave himself up to the perusal of Blue Books, to the alarm and wonder of Lady Jane, who thought he was killing himself by late hours and intense application. And he made acquaintance with the ministers, and the chiefs of his party, determining to rank as one of them before many years were over.
Lady Jane's sweetness and kindness had inspired Rebecca with such a contempt for her ladyship as the little woman found no small difficulty in concealing. That sort of goodness and simplicity which Lady Jane possessed annoyed our friend Becky, and it was impossible for her at times not to show, or to let the other divine, her scorn. Her presence, too, rendered Lady Jane uneasy. Her husband talked constantly with Becky. Signs of intelligence seemed to pass between them, and Pitt spoke with her on subjects on which he never thought of discoursing with Lady Jane. The latter did not understand them, to be sure, but it was mortifying to remain silent; still more mortifying to know that you had nothing to say, and hear that little audacious Mrs. Rawdon dashing on from subject to subject, with a word for every man, and a joke always pat; and to sit in one's own house alone, by the fireside, and watching all the men round your rival.
In the country, when Lady Jane was telling stories to the children, who clustered about her knees (little Rawdon into the bargain, who was very fond of her), and Becky came into the room, sneering with green scornful eyes, poor Lady Jane grew silent under those baleful glances. Her simple little fancies shrank away tremulously, as fairies in the story-books, before a superior bad angel. She could not go on, although Rebecca, with the smallest inflection of sarcasm in her voice, besought her to continue that charming story. And on her side gentle thoughts and simple pleasures were odious to Mrs. Becky; they discorded with her; she hated people for liking them; she spurned children and children-lovers. "I have no taste for bread and butter," she would say, when caricaturing Lady Jane and her ways to my Lord Steyne.
"No more has a certain person for holy water," his lordship replied with a bow and a grin and a great jarring laugh afterwards.
So these two ladies did not see much of each other except upon those occasions when the younger brother's wife, having an object to gain from the other, frequented her. They my-loved and my-deared each other assiduously, but kept apart generally, whereas Sir Pitt, in the midst of his multiplied avocations, found daily time to see his sister-in-law.
On the occasion of his first Speaker's dinner, Sir Pitt took the opportunity of appearing before his sister-in-law in his uniform--that old diplomatic suit which he had worn when attache to the Pumpernickel legation.
Becky complimented him upon that dress and admired him almost as much as his own wife and children, to whom he displayed himself before he set out. She said that it was only the thoroughbred gentleman who could wear the Court suit with advantage: it was only your men of ancient race whom the culotte courte became. Pitt looked down with complacency at his legs, which had not, in truth, much more symmetry or swell than the lean Court sword which dangled by his side--looked down at his legs, and thought in his heart that he was killing.
When he was gone, Mrs. Becky made a caricature of his figure, which she showed to Lord Steyne when he arrived. His lordship carried off the sketch, delighted with the accuracy of the resemblance. He had done Sir Pitt Crawley the honour to meet him at Mrs. Becky's house and had been most gracious to the new Baronet and member. Pitt was struck too by the deference with which the great Peer treated his sister-in-law, by her ease and sprightliness in the conversation, and by the delight with which the other men of the party listened to her talk. Lord Steyne made no doubt but that the Baronet had only commenced his career in public life, and expected rather anxiously to hear him as an orator; as they were neighbours (for Great Gaunt Street leads into Gaunt Square, whereof Gaunt House, as everybody knows, forms one side) my lord hoped that as soon as Lady Steyne arrived in London she would have the honour of making the acquaintance of Lady Crawley. He left a card upon his neighbour in the course of a day or two, having never thought fit to notice his predecessor, though they had lived near each other for near a century past.
In the midst of these intrigues and fine parties and wise and brilliant personages Rawdon felt himself more and more isolated every day. He was allowed to go to the club more; to dine abroad with bachelor friends; to come and go when he liked, without any questions being asked. And he and Rawdon the younger many a time would walk to Gaunt Street and sit with the lady and the children there while Sir Pitt was closeted with Rebecca, on his way to the House, or on his return from it.
The ex-Colonel would sit for hours in his brother's house very silent, and thinking and doing as little as possible. He was glad to be employed of an errand; to go and make inquiries about a horse or a servant, or to carve the roast mutton for the dinner of the children. He was beat and cowed into laziness and submission. Delilah had imprisoned him and cut his hair off, too. The bold and reckless young blood of ten-years back was subjugated and was turned into a torpid, submissive, middle-aged, stout gentleman.
And poor Lady Jane was aware that Rebecca had captivated her husband, although she and Mrs. Rawdon my-deared and my-loved each other every day they met.

Sir Pitt Crawley had done more than repair fences and restore dilapidated lodges. Wisely, he had set to work to rebuild the injured reputation of his house. He was elected MP for the borough soon after his father's death. As a magistrate, a Member of Parliament, and representative of an ancient family, he gave handsomely to charities, called assiduously upon all the county folk, and set out to take that position in Hampshire to which he thought his talents entitled him.
Lady Jane was instructed to be friendly with the Fuddlestons, the Wapshots, and the other famous baronets, their neighbours. They were invited frequently to the Hall, and in return Pitt and his wife most energetically dined out in all sorts of weather. For though Pitt did not care for joviality, yet he considered that to be hospitable was his duty. He talked about crops, corn-laws, and politics with the best country gentlemen.
He didn't hunt; he wasn't a hunting man; he was a man of books; but if his friend, Sir Huddleston Fuddleston, liked to meet the hounds at Queen's Crawley, he was happy to see the gentlemen of the Fuddleston hunt. He gave up preaching in meeting-houses; went stoutly to church; called on the Bishop at Winchester; and made no objection when the Venerable Archdeacon Trumper asked for a game of whist.
When the Baronet announced to the young ladies that next year he should probably take them to the "county balls," they worshipped him for his kindness. Lady Jane was glad herself to go. The Countess of Southdown wrote the direst descriptions of her daughter's worldly behaviour to her other daughter Emily; and returned to Brighton, not very much missed. Rebecca, on her second visit to Queen's Crawley, did not feel grieved at Lady Southdown's absence; though she wrote a respectful Christmas letter to her Ladyship, declaring that everything at Queen's Crawley reminded her of her absent friend.
A great part of Sir Pitt's altered popularity might have been traced to the advice of the astute Rebecca.
"You, content to be a mere country gentleman?" she said. "No, Sir Pitt, I know you better. I know your talents and your ambition. I showed Lord Steyne your pamphlet on malt. He said it was in the opinion of the whole Cabinet the most masterly thing that had appeared on the subject. You want to distinguish yourself in Parliament; everyone says you are the finest speaker in England (for your speeches at Oxford are still remembered). You want to be Baron Crawley, and will be before you die. I could read your heart, Sir Pitt. If I had a husband who possessed your intellect, I think I should not be unworthy of him - but - but I am your kinswoman now," she added with a laugh. "Poor little penniless me. Yet who knows, perhaps the mouse may aid the lion."
Pitt Crawley was enraptured. "How that woman comprehends me!" he said. "I never could get Jane to read three pages of the malt pamphlet. She has no idea of my talents. So they remember my speaking at Oxford, do they? Now that I represent my borough, they begin to recollect me! I will show them that I can speak and act as well as write, and the world shall yet hear of Pitt Crawley."
This was why he had grown so hospitable: so kind to Deans and Chapters; so generous in giving and accepting dinners; so gracious to farmers on market-days, and so much interested about county business; and this was why Christmas at the Hall was so gay.
On Christmas Day a great family gathering took place. All the Crawleys from the Rectory came to dine. Rebecca was as fond of Mrs. Bute as if the other had never been her enemy; she was affectionately interested in the dear girls, and admired their progress in music. Mrs. Bute was obliged to adopt a decent manner towards the little adventuress - of course being free to talk with her daughters afterwards about the absurd respect with which Sir Pitt treated Rebecca.
But Jim, who had sat next to her at dinner, declared she was a trump, and all the Rector's family agreed that little Rawdon was a fine boy. They saw a possible baronet in the child, between whom and the title there was only the little sickly pale Pitt.
The children were very good friends. Young Rawdon took command of Pitt and Matilda - the little girl and boy following him about with great reverence. His happiness was extreme. The kitchen garden pleased him hugely, the flowers moderately; but the pigeons and poultry, and the stables, were delightful. He resisted being kissed by the Misses Crawley, but he allowed Lady Jane sometimes to embrace him, and he liked to sit beside her after dinner.
Rebecca, seeing that tenderness was the fashion, called Rawdon to her one evening and stooped down and kissed him in the presence of all the ladies.
He looked her full in the face, trembling and turning very red.
"You never kiss me at home, Mamma," he said, at which there was a general silence and consternation and a by no means pleasant look in Becky's eyes.
Rawdon senior was fond of his sister-in-law, but Lady Jane and Becky did not get on quite so well at this visit as on the former one. Those speeches of the child struck rather a chill. Perhaps Sir Pitt was rather too attentive to Becky.
But young Rawdon never wearied of accompanying his father to the stables, where the Colonel retired to smoke his cigar - Jim, the Rector's son, sometimes joining them. One day, Jim, the Colonel, and Horn, the gamekeeper, went and shot pheasants, taking little Rawdon with them. On another blissful morning, these four gentlemen went rat-hunting in a barn. Rawdon had never seen anything more noble. They stopped up the ends of certain drains, and inserted ferrets into other openings, and then stood silent with uplifted stakes in their hands, and an anxious little terrier, listening motionless to the faint squeaking of the rats below. When the animals bolted above-ground, the terrier accounted for one, and the keeper for another; Rawdon, from flurry and excitement, missed his rat, but half-murdered a ferret.
But the greatest day of all was that on which Sir Huddleston Fuddleston's hounds met upon the lawn at Queen's Crawley.
That was a famous sight for little Rawdon. At half-past ten, Tom Moody, Sir Huddleston Fuddleston's huntsman, was seen trotting up the avenue, followed by the noble pack of hounds. Next comes boy Jack, Tom Moody's son, who weighs five stone, measures four foot, and will never be any bigger. He is perched on a large raw-boned hunter, Sir Huddleston Fuddleston's favourite horse the Nob. Other horses, ridden by other small boys, arrive from time to time, awaiting their masters.
Tom Moody rides up to the door of the Hall, where he is welcomed by the butler, who offers him drink, which he declines. He and his pack then draw off into a sheltered corner of the lawn, where the dogs roll on the grass, and play or growl at one another.
Many young gentlemen canter up on thoroughbred hacks, spatter-dashed to the knee, and enter the house to drink cherry-brandy and pay their respects to the ladies, or take a preliminary gallop round the lawn. Then they collect in the corner and talk with Tom Moody about the state of the country and the wretched breed of foxes.
Sir Huddleston presently rides up to the Hall, where he greets the ladies before he proceeds to business. The hounds are drawn up to the hall-door, and little Rawdon descends amongst them, excited yet half-alarmed by their caresses and the thumps from their waving tails.
Meanwhile, Sir Huddleston has hoisted himself unwieldily on the Nob.
"Let's try Sowster's Spinney, Tom," says the Baronet. "Farmer Mangle tells me there are two foxes in it." Tom blows his horn and trots off, followed by the pack, the young gents, the farmers of the neighbourhood, and the labourers of the parish on foot. The whole cortege disappears down the avenue.
The Reverend Bute happens to trot out from the Rectory Lane on his powerful black horse just as Sir Huddleston passes; he joins the horsemen. Little Rawdon remains on the doorstep, wondering and happy.
During this memorable holiday, little Rawdon gained the good graces of his married and maiden aunts, of the two little folks of the Hall, and of Jim of the Rectory, whom Sir Pitt was encouraging to pay his addresses to one of the young ladies, with an understanding that he should have his father's living in due course. Jim had given up green coats, red neckcloths, and hunting, to prepare himself for the change in his condition. In this thrifty way Sir Pitt tried to pay off his debt to his family.
Also before this merry Christmas was over, the Baronet had screwed up courage enough to give his brother no less than a hundred pounds, an act which caused Sir Pitt cruel pangs at first, but which made him glow afterwards with generosity.
Rawdon and his son left the Hall with heavy hearts. Becky departed with alacrity, however, and returned to London to commence those duties with which we find her occupied when this chapter begins. Under her care the Crawley house in Great Gaunt Street was restored and ready for the reception of Sir Pitt and his family, when the Baronet came to London to attend Parliament.
For the first session, he hid his ambition and never opened his lips except to present a petition from Mudbury. But he attended assiduously and learned thoroughly the business of the House, to the alarm and wonder of Lady Jane, who thought he was killing himself by late hours and work. And he got to know the ministers, determining to be one of them before many years were over.
Lady Jane's sweetness and kindness had given Rebecca a contempt for her ladyship which she found it difficult to hide. That sort of simple goodness annoyed Becky, and it was impossible for her at times not to show her scorn.
Her presence made Jane uneasy. Her husband talked constantly with Becky, on subjects which he never thought of discussing with his wife. Lady Jane did not understand them, to be sure, but it was mortifying to know that you had nothing to say, and to hear that audacious Mrs. Rawdon dashing on from subject to subject, with a joke always pat.
When Lady Jane was telling stories to the children, who clustered about her knees (including little Rawdon, who was very fond of her) - if Becky came into the room, sneering with green scornful eyes, poor Lady Jane grew silent. She could not go on, although Rebecca, with a hint of sarcasm, begged her to continue that charming story.
On her side, simple pleasures were odious to Mrs. Becky. "I have no taste for bread and butter," she would say. So these two ladies did not see much of each other; whereas Sir Pitt daily found time to see his sister-in-law.
On the occasion of his first Speaker's dinner, Sir Pitt appeared before Becky in his uniform - his old diplomatic suit. She complimented and admired him almost as much as his own wife, saying that only thoroughbred gentlemen could wear the Court suit with advantage. Pitt looked down with complacency at his legs, and thought in his heart that he was killing.
When he was gone, Mrs. Becky drew a caricature of him, which she showed to Lord Steyne when he arrived. His lordship carried off the sketch, delighted with it. He had met Sir Pitt Crawley at Becky's house and had been most gracious to him. Pitt was struck by the deference with which the great Peer treated his sister-in-law, and by the delight with which all the men listened to her sprightly talk. Lord Steyne said he expected to hear Pitt as an orator.
In the midst of these intrigues and fine parties and brilliant personages Rawdon Crawley felt himself more isolated every day. He was allowed to go to the club; to dine out with bachelor friends; to come and go when he liked, without any questions being asked. And he and Rawdon the younger would often walk to Gaunt Street and visit Lady Jane and the children.
The ex-Colonel would sit for hours in his brother's house, very silent, and thinking as little as possible. He was glad to do an errand; to go and inquire about a horse, or to carve the roast mutton for the children's dinner. He was cowed into laziness and submission. Delilah had imprisoned him and cut his hair off too. The bold young blood of ten years back was subjugated and turned into a torpid, middle-aged, stout gentleman.
And poor Lady Jane was aware that Rebecca had captivated her husband, although she and Mrs. Rawdon my-deared each other every day they met.

Chapter 45: Between Hampshire and London