Besides these honest folks at the Hall (whose simplicity and sweet rural purity surely show the advantage of a country life over a town one), we must introduce the reader to their relatives and neighbours at the Rectory, Bute Crawley and his wife.
The Reverend Bute Crawley was a tall, stately, jolly, shovel-hatted man, far more popular in his county than the Baronet his brother. At college he pulled stroke-oar in the Christchurch boat, and had thrashed all the best bruisers of the "town." He carried his taste for boxing and athletic exercises into private life; there was not a fight within twenty miles at which he was not present, nor a race, nor a coursing match, nor a regatta, nor a ball, nor an election, nor a visitation dinner, nor indeed a good dinner in the whole county, but he found means to attend it. You might see his bay mare and gig-lamps a score of miles away from his Rectory House, whenever there was any dinner-party at Fuddleston, or at Roxby, or at Wapshot Hall, or at the great lords of the county, with all of whom he was intimate. He had a fine voice; sang "A southerly wind and a cloudy sky"; and gave the "whoop" in chorus with general applause. He rode to hounds in a pepper-and-salt frock, and was one of the best fishermen in the county.
Mrs. Crawley, the rector's wife, was a smart little body, who wrote this worthy divine's sermons. Being of a domestic turn, and keeping the house a great deal with her daughters, she ruled absolutely within the Rectory, wisely giving her husband full liberty without. He was welcome to come and go, and dine abroad as many days as his fancy dictated, for Mrs. Crawley was a saving woman and knew the price of port wine. Ever since Mrs. Bute carried off the young Rector of Queen's Crawley (she was of a good family, daughter of the late Lieut.-Colonel Hector McTavish, and she and her mother played for Bute and won him at Harrowgate), she had been a prudent and thrifty wife to him. In spite of her care, however, he was always in debt. It took him at least ten years to pay off his college bills contracted during his father's lifetime. In the year 179-, when he was just clear of these incumbrances, he gave the odds of 100 to 1 (in twenties) against Kangaroo, who won the Derby. The Rector was obliged to take up the money at a ruinous interest, and had been struggling ever since. His sister helped him with a hundred now and then, but of course his great hope was in her death--when "hang it" (as he would say), "Matilda must leave me half her money."
So that the Baronet and his brother had every reason which two brothers possibly can have for being by the ears. Sir Pitt had had the better of Bute in innumerable family transactions. Young Pitt not only did not hunt, but set up a meeting house under his uncle's very nose. Rawdon, it was known, was to come in for the bulk of Miss Crawley's property. These money transactions--these speculations in life and death--these silent battles for reversionary spoil--make brothers very loving towards each other in Vanity Fair. I, for my part, have known a five-pound note to interpose and knock up a half century's attachment between two brethren; and can't but admire, as I think what a fine and durable thing Love is among worldly people.
It cannot be supposed that the arrival of such a personage as Rebecca at Queen's Crawley, and her gradual establishment in the good graces of all people there, could be unremarked by Mrs. Bute Crawley. Mrs. Bute, who knew how many days the sirloin of beef lasted at the Hall; how much linen was got ready at the great wash; how many peaches were on the south wall; how many doses her ladyship took when she was ill--for such points are matters of intense interest to certain persons in the country--Mrs. Bute, I say, could not pass over the Hall governess without making every inquiry respecting her history and character. There was always the best understanding between the servants at the Rectory and the Hall. There was always a good glass of ale in the kitchen of the former place for the Hall people, whose ordinary drink was very small--and, indeed, the Rector's lady knew exactly how much malt went to every barrel of Hall beer--ties of relationship existed between the Hall and Rectory domestics, as between their masters; and through these channels each family was perfectly well acquainted with the doings of the other. That, by the way, may be set down as a general remark. When you and your brother are friends, his doings are indifferent to you. When you have quarrelled, all his outgoings and incomings you know, as if you were his spy.
Very soon then after her arrival, Rebecca began to take a regular place in Mrs. Crawley's bulletin from the Hall. It was to this effect: "The black porker's killed--weighed x stone--salted the sides--pig's pudding and leg of pork for dinner. Mr. Cramp from Mudbury, over with Sir Pitt about putting John Blackmore in gaol--Mr. Pitt at meeting (with all the names of the people who attended)--my lady as usual--the young ladies with the governess."
Then the report would come--the new governess be a rare manager--Sir Pitt be very sweet on her--Mr. Crawley too--He be reading tracts to her--"What an abandoned wretch!" said little, eager, active, black-faced Mrs. Bute Crawley.
Finally, the reports were that the governess had "come round" everybody, wrote Sir Pitt's letters, did his business, managed his accounts--had the upper hand of the whole house, my lady, Mr. Crawley, the girls and all--at which Mrs. Crawley declared she was an artful hussy, and had some dreadful designs in view. Thus the doings at the Hall were the great food for conversation at the Rectory, and Mrs. Bute's bright eyes spied out everything that took place in the enemy's camp--everything and a great deal besides.
Mrs. Bute Crawley to Miss Pinkerton, The Mall, Chiswick.
Rectory, Queen's Crawley, December--.
My Dear Madam,--Although it is so many years since I profited by your delightful and invaluable instructions, yet I have ever retained the FONDEST and most reverential regard for Miss Pinkerton, and DEAR Chiswick. I hope your health is GOOD. The world and the cause of education cannot afford to lose Miss Pinkerton for MANY MANY YEARS. When my friend, Lady Fuddleston, mentioned that her dear girls required an instructress (I am too poor to engage a governess for mine, but was I not educated at Chiswick?)--"Who," I exclaimed, "can we consult but the excellent, the incomparable Miss Pinkerton?" In a word, have you, dear madam, any ladies on your list, whose services might be made available to my kind friend and neighbour? I assure you she will take no governess BUT OF YOUR CHOOSING.
My dear husband is pleased to say that he likes EVERYTHING WHICH COMES FROM MISS PINKERTON'S SCHOOL. How I wish I could present him and my beloved girls to the friend of my youth, and the ADMIRED of the great lexicographer of our country! If you ever travel into Hampshire, Mr. Crawley begs me to say, he hopes you will adorn our RURAL RECTORY with your presence. 'Tis the humble but happy home of
Your affectionate Martha Crawley
P.S. Mr. Crawley's brother, the baronet, with whom we are not, alas! upon those terms of UNITY in which it BECOMES BRETHREN TO DWELL, has a governess for his little girls, who, I am told, had the good fortune to be educated at Chiswick. I hear various reports of her; and as I have the tenderest interest in my dearest little nieces, whom I wish, in spite of family differences, to see among my own children--and as I long to be attentive to ANY PUPIL OF YOURS--do, my dear Miss Pinkerton, tell me the history of this young lady, whom, for YOUR SAKE, I am most anxious to befriend.--M. C.
Miss Pinkerton to Mrs. Bute Crawley.
Johnson House, Chiswick, Dec. 18--.
Dear Madam,--I have the honour to acknowledge your polite communication, to which I promptly reply. 'Tis most gratifying to one in my most arduous position to find that my maternal cares have elicited a responsive affection; and to recognize in the amiable Mrs. Bute Crawley my excellent pupil of former years, the sprightly and accomplished Miss Martha MacTavish. I am happy to have under my charge now the daughters of many of those who were your contemporaries at my establishment--what pleasure it would give me if your own beloved young ladies had need of my instructive superintendence!
Presenting my respectful compliments to Lady Fuddleston, I have the honour (epistolarily) to introduce to her ladyship my two friends, Miss Tuffin and Miss Hawky.
Either of these young ladies is PERFECTLY QUALIFIED to instruct in Greek, Latin, and the rudiments of Hebrew; in mathematics and history; in Spanish, French, Italian, and geography; in music, vocal and instrumental; in dancing, without the aid of a master; and in the elements of natural sciences. In the use of the globes both are proficients. In addition to these Miss Tuffin, who is daughter of the late Reverend Thomas Tuffin (Fellow of Corpus College, Cambridge), can instruct in the Syriac language, and the elements of Constitutional law. But as she is only eighteen years of age, and of exceedingly pleasing personal appearance, perhaps this young lady may be objectionable in Sir Huddleston Fuddleston's family.
Miss Letitia Hawky, on the other hand, is not personally well-favoured. She is twenty-nine; her face is much pitted with the small-pox. She has a halt in her gait, red hair, and a trifling obliquity of vision. Both ladies are endowed with EVERY MORAL AND RELIGIOUS VIRTUE. Their terms, of course, are such as their accomplishments merit. With my most grateful respects to the Reverend Bute Crawley, I have the honour to be,
Dear Madam,
Your most faithful and obedient servant, Barbara Pinkerton.
P.S. The Miss Sharp, whom you mention as governess to Sir Pitt Crawley, Bart., M.P., was a pupil of mine, and I have nothing to say in her disfavour. Though her appearance is disagreeable, we cannot control the operations of nature: and though her parents were disreputable (her father being a painter, several times bankrupt, and her mother, as I have since learned, with horror, a dancer at the Opera); yet her talents are considerable, and I cannot regret that I received her OUT OF CHARITY. My dread is, lest the principles of the mother--who was represented to me as a French Countess, forced to emigrate in the late revolutionary horrors; but who, as I have since found, was a person of the very lowest order and morals--should at any time prove to be HEREDITARY in the unhappy young woman whom I took as AN OUTCAST. But her principles have hitherto been correct (I believe), and I am sure nothing will occur to injure them in the elegant and refined circle of the eminent Sir Pitt Crawley.
Miss Rebecca Sharp to Miss Amelia Sedley.
I have not written to my beloved Amelia for these many weeks past, for what news was there to tell of the sayings and doings at Humdrum Hall, as I have christened it; and what do you care whether the turnip crop is good or bad; whether the fat pig weighed thirteen stone or fourteen; and whether the beasts thrive well upon mangelwurzel? Every day since I last wrote has been like its neighbour. Before breakfast, a walk with Sir Pitt and his spud; after breakfast studies (such as they are) in the schoolroom; after schoolroom, reading and writing about lawyers, leases, coal-mines, canals, with Sir Pitt (whose secretary I am become); after dinner, Mr. Crawley's discourses on the baronet's backgammon; during both of which amusements my lady looks on with equal placidity. She has become rather more interesting by being ailing of late, which has brought a new visitor to the Hall, in the person of a young doctor. Well, my dear, young women need never despair. The young doctor gave a certain friend of yours to understand that, if she chose to be Mrs. Glauber, she was welcome to ornament the surgery! I told his impudence that the gilt pestle and mortar was quite ornament enough; as if I was born, indeed, to be a country surgeon's wife! Mr. Glauber went home seriously indisposed at his rebuff, took a cooling draught, and is now quite cured. Sir Pitt applauded my resolution highly; he would be sorry to lose his little secretary, I think; and I believe the old wretch likes me as much as it is in his nature to like any one. Marry, indeed! and with a country apothecary, after-- No, no, one cannot so soon forget old associations, about which I will talk no more. Let us return to Humdrum Hall.
For some time past it is Humdrum Hall no longer. My dear, Miss Crawley has arrived with her fat horses, fat servants, fat spaniel--the great rich Miss Crawley, with seventy thousand pounds in the five per cents., whom, or I had better say WHICH, her two brothers adore. She looks very apoplectic, the dear soul; no wonder her brothers are anxious about her. You should see them struggling to settle her cushions, or to hand her coffee! "When I come into the country," she says (for she has a great deal of humour), "I leave my toady, Miss Briggs, at home. My brothers are my toadies here, my dear, and a pretty pair they are!"
When she comes into the country our hall is thrown open, and for a month, at least, you would fancy old Sir Walpole was come to life again. We have dinner-parties, and drive out in the coach-and-four--the footmen put on their newest canary-coloured liveries; we drink claret and champagne as if we were accustomed to it every day. We have wax candles in the schoolroom, and fires to warm ourselves with. Lady Crawley is made to put on the brightest pea-green in her wardrobe, and my pupils leave off their thick shoes and tight old tartan pelisses, and wear silk stockings and muslin frocks, as fashionable baronets' daughters should. Rose came in yesterday in a sad plight--the Wiltshire sow (an enormous pet of hers) ran her down, and destroyed a most lovely flowered lilac silk dress by dancing over it--had this happened a week ago, Sir Pitt would have sworn frightfully, have boxed the poor wretch's ears, and put her upon bread and water for a month. All he said was, "I'll serve you out, Miss, when your aunt's gone," and laughed off the accident as quite trivial. Let us hope his wrath will have passed away before Miss Crawley's departure. I hope so, for Miss Rose's sake, I am sure. What a charming reconciler and peacemaker money is!
Another admirable effect of Miss Crawley and her seventy thousand pounds is to be seen in the conduct of the two brothers Crawley. I mean the baronet and the rector, not OUR brothers--but the former, who hate each other all the year round, become quite loving at Christmas. I wrote to you last year how the abominable horse-racing rector was in the habit of preaching clumsy sermons at us at church, and how Sir Pitt snored in answer. When Miss Crawley arrives there is no such thing as quarrelling heard of--the Hall visits the Rectory, and vice versa--the parson and the Baronet talk about the pigs and the poachers, and the county business, in the most affable manner, and without quarrelling in their cups, I believe--indeed Miss Crawley won't hear of their quarrelling, and vows that she will leave her money to the Shropshire Crawleys if they offend her. If they were clever people, those Shropshire Crawleys, they might have it all, I think; but the Shropshire Crawley is a clergyman like his Hampshire cousin, and mortally offended Miss Crawley (who had fled thither in a fit of rage against her impracticable brethren) by some strait-laced notions of morality. He would have prayers in the house, I believe.
Our sermon books are shut up when Miss Crawley arrives, and Mr. Pitt, whom she abominates, finds it convenient to go to town. On the other hand, the young dandy--"blood," I believe, is the term--Captain Crawley makes his appearance, and I suppose you will like to know what sort of a person he is.
Well, he is a very large young dandy. He is six feet high, and speaks with a great voice; and swears a great deal; and orders about the servants, who all adore him nevertheless; for he is very generous of his money, and the domestics will do anything for him. Last week the keepers almost killed a bailiff and his man who came down from London to arrest the Captain, and who were found lurking about the Park wall--they beat them, ducked them, and were going to shoot them for poachers, but the baronet interfered.
The Captain has a hearty contempt for his father, I can see, and calls him an old PUT, an old SNOB, an old CHAW-BACON, and numberless other pretty names. He has a DREADFUL REPUTATION among the ladies. He brings his hunters home with him, lives with the Squires of the county, asks whom he pleases to dinner, and Sir Pitt dares not say no, for fear of offending Miss Crawley, and missing his legacy when she dies of her apoplexy. Shall I tell you a compliment the Captain paid me? I must, it is so pretty. One evening we actually had a dance; there was Sir Huddleston Fuddleston and his family, Sir Giles Wapshot and his young ladies, and I don't know how many more. Well, I heard him say--"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.
"My dear, you are a perfect trouvaille," Miss Crawley would say. "I wish you could come to me in London, but I couldn't make a butt of you as I do of poor Briggs no, no, you little sly creature; you are too clever--Isn't she, Firkin?"
Mrs. Firkin (who was dressing the very small remnant of hair which remained on Miss Crawley's pate), flung up her head and said, "I think Miss is very clever," with the most killing sarcastic air. In fact, Mrs. Firkin had that natural jealousy which is one of the main principles of every honest woman.
After rebuffing Sir Huddleston Fuddleston, Miss Crawley ordered that Rawdon Crawley should lead her in to dinner every day, and that Becky should follow with her cushion--or else she would have Becky's arm and Rawdon with the pillow. "We must sit together," she said. "We're the only three Christians in the county, my love"--in which case, it must be confessed, that religion was at a very low ebb in the county of Hants.
Besides being such a fine religionist, Miss Crawley was, as we have said, an Ultra-liberal in opinions, and always took occasion to express these in the most candid manner.
"What is birth, my dear!" she would say to Rebecca--"Look at my brother Pitt; look at the Huddlestons, who have been here since Henry II; look at poor Bute at the parsonage--is any one of them equal to you in intelligence or breeding? Equal to you--they are not even equal to poor dear Briggs, my companion, or Bowls, my butler. You, my love, are a little paragon--positively a little jewel--You have more brains than half the shire--if merit had its reward you ought to be a Duchess--no, there ought to be no duchesses at all--but you ought to have no superior, and I consider you, my love, as my equal in every respect; and--will you put some coals on the fire, my dear; and will you pick this dress of mine, and alter it, you who can do it so well?" So this old philanthropist used to make her equal run of her errands, execute her millinery, and read her to sleep with French novels, every night.
At this time, as some old readers may recollect, the genteel world had been thrown into a considerable state of excitement by two events, which, as the papers say, might give employment to the gentlemen of the long robe. Ensign Shafton had run away with Lady Barbara Fitzurse, the Earl of Bruin's daughter and heiress; and poor Vere Vane, a gentleman who, up to forty, had maintained a most respectable character and reared a numerous family, suddenly and outrageously left his home, for the sake of Mrs. Rougemont, the actress, who was sixty-five years of age.
"That was the most beautiful part of dear Lord Nelson's character," Miss Crawley said. "He went to the deuce for a woman. There must be good in a man who will do that. I adore all imprudent matches.-- What I like best, is for a nobleman to marry a miller's daughter, as Lord Flowerdale did--it makes all the women so angry--I wish some great man would run away with you, my dear; I'm sure you're pretty enough."
"Two post-boys!--Oh, it would be delightful!" Rebecca owned.
"And what I like next best, is for a poor fellow to run away with a rich girl. I have set my heart on Rawdon running away with some one."
"A rich some one, or a poor some one?"
"Why, you goose! Rawdon has not a shilling but what I give him. He is crible de dettes--he must repair his fortunes, and succeed in the world."
"Is he very clever?" Rebecca asked.
"Clever, my love?--not an idea in the world beyond his horses, and his regiment, and his hunting, and his play; but he must succeed--he's so delightfully wicked. Don't you know he has hit a man, and shot an injured father through the hat only? He's adored in his regiment; and all the young men at Wattier's and the Cocoa-Tree swear by him."
When Miss Rebecca Sharp wrote to her beloved friend the account of the little ball at Queen's Crawley, and the manner in which, for the first time, Captain Crawley had distinguished her, she did not, strange to relate, give an altogether accurate account of the transaction. The Captain had distinguished her a great number of times before. The Captain had met her in a half-score of walks. The Captain had lighted upon her in a half-hundred of corridors and passages. The Captain had hung over her piano twenty times of an evening (my Lady was now upstairs, being ill, and nobody heeded her) as Miss Sharp sang. The Captain had written her notes (the best that the great blundering dragoon could devise and spell; but dulness gets on as well as any other quality with women). But when he put the first of the notes into the leaves of the song she was singing, the little governess, rising and looking him steadily in the face, took up the triangular missive daintily, and waved it about as if it were a cocked hat, and she, advancing to the enemy, popped the note into the fire, and made him a very low curtsey, and went back to her place, and began to sing away again more merrily than ever.
"What's that?" said Miss Crawley, interrupted in her after-dinner doze by the stoppage of the music.
"It's a false note," Miss Sharp said with a laugh; and Rawdon Crawley fumed with rage and mortification.
Seeing the evident partiality of Miss Crawley for the new governess, how good it was of Mrs. Bute Crawley not to be jealous, and to welcome the young lady to the Rectory, and not only her, but Rawdon Crawley, her husband's rival in the Old Maid's five per cents! They became very fond of each other's society, Mrs. Crawley and her nephew. He gave up hunting; he declined entertainments at Fuddleston: he would not dine with the mess of the depot at Mudbury: his great pleasure was to stroll over to Crawley parsonage--whither Miss Crawley came too; and as their mamma was ill, why not the children with Miss Sharp? So the children (little dears!) came with Miss Sharp; and of an evening some of the party would walk back together. Not Miss Crawley--she preferred her carriage--but the walk over the Rectory fields, and in at the little park wicket, and through the dark plantation, and up the checkered avenue to Queen's Crawley, was charming in the moonlight to two such lovers of the picturesque as the Captain and Miss Rebecca.
"O those stars, those stars!" Miss Rebecca would say, turning her twinkling green eyes up towards them. "I feel myself almost a spirit when I gaze upon them."
"O--ah--Gad--yes, so do I exactly, Miss Sharp," the other enthusiast replied. "You don't mind my cigar, do you, Miss Sharp?" Miss Sharp loved the smell of a cigar out of doors beyond everything in the world--and she just tasted one too, in the prettiest way possible, and gave a little puff, and a little scream, and a little giggle, and restored the delicacy to the Captain, who twirled his moustache, and straightway puffed it into a blaze that glowed quite red in the dark plantation, and swore--"Jove--aw--Gad--aw--it's the finest segaw I ever smoked in the world aw," for his intellect and conversation were alike brilliant and becoming to a heavy young dragoon.
Old Sir Pitt, who was taking his pipe and beer, and talking to John Horrocks about a "ship" that was to be killed, espied the pair so occupied from his study-window, and with dreadful oaths swore that if it wasn't for Miss Crawley, he'd take Rawdon and bundle un out of doors, like a rogue as he was.
"He be a bad'n, sure enough," Mr. Horrocks remarked; "and his man Flethers is wuss, and have made such a row in the housekeeper's room about the dinners and hale, as no lord would make--but I think Miss Sharp's a match for'n, Sir Pitt," he added, after a pause.
And so, in truth, she was--for father and son too.

Besides these honest folks at the Hall, we must introduce the reader to their relatives at the Rectory, Bute Crawley and his wife.
The Reverend Bute Crawley was a tall, stately, jolly man, far more popular than the Baronet his brother. At college he rowed in the Christchurch boat, and had boxed, and he carried these tastes into private life. There was not a fight within twenty miles at which he was not present, nor a race, a regatta, a ball, or a dinner in the whole county, but he found means to attend it. He had a fine voice and sang well and heartily. He rode in the hunt, and was one of the best fishermen in the county.
Mrs. Crawley, the rector's wife, was a smart little body, who wrote his sermons. She ruled absolutely within the Rectory, wisely giving her husband full liberty without. He was welcome to come and go, and dine out as many days as he liked, for Mrs. Crawley was a saving woman. She was the daughter of the late Lieut.-Colonel Hector McTavish, and she and her mother won Bute at Harrogate; ever since marrying him, she had been a prudent and thrifty wife.
In spite of her care, however, he was always in debt. It took him ten years to pay off his college bills; then, when he was just clear of them, he gave odds of 100 to 1 against Kangaroo, who won the Derby. The Rector was obliged to take up the money at ruinous interest, and had been struggling ever since. His sister helped him with a hundred pounds now and then, but of course his great hope was in her death - when "hang it" (he would say), "Matilda must leave me half her money."
So the Baronet and his brother had every reason for disagreement. Young Pitt not only did not hunt, but set up a Quaker meeting house under his uncle's nose. Rawdon, it was known, was to inherit the bulk of Miss Crawley's property. Speculations in life and death make brothers very loving towards each other in Vanity Fair.
Rebecca's establishment at Queen's Crawley did not go unnoticed by Mrs. Bute Crawley. Mrs. Bute, who knew how many days the sirloin of beef lasted at the Hall; how much linen was got ready at the great wash; how many peaches were on the south wall - Mrs. Bute could not pass over the governess without making every inquiry about her. There was always a good glass of ale in the Rectory kitchen for the Hall servants, whose usual drink was very weak; and through these channels each family was perfectly well acquainted with the doings of the other.
Very soon after her arrival, Rebecca began to take a regular place in the servants' bulletins from the Hall. To start with: "The black porker's killed - salted the sides - leg of pork for dinner. Mr. Cramp from Mudbury over with Sir Pitt - Mr. Pitt at meeting - my lady as usual - the young ladies with the governess."
Then the report came - the new governess be a rare manager - Sir Pitt be very sweet on her - Mr. Crawley too - he be reading tracts to her.
"What an abandoned wretch!" said eager, active Mrs. Bute Crawley.
Finally, the reports were that the governess had "come round" everybody, wrote Sir Pitt's letters, did his business, and had the upper hand of the whole house, my lady, Mr. Crawley, and all. Thus Mrs. Bute spied out everything that took place in the enemy's camp, and a great deal besides.
Mrs. Bute Crawley to Miss Pinkerton, The Mall, Chiswick.
My Dear Madam,
Although it is many years since I profited by your delightful instructions, yet I have ever retained the FONDEST regard for Miss Pinkerton, and dear Chiswick. I hope your health is good. The world cannot afford to lose Miss Pinkerton for MANY MANY YEARS. When my friend, Lady Fuddleston, mentioned that her dear girls required an instructress - "Who," I exclaimed, "can we consult but the excellent Miss Pinkerton?" Have you, dear madam, any ladies on your list, whose services might be available to my friend? I assure you she will take no governess BUT OF YOUR CHOOSING.
My dear husband is pleased to say that he likes everything which comes from Miss Pinkerton's School. How I wish I could present him and my beloved girls to the friend of my youth, ADMIRED of the great lexicographer! If you ever travel into Hampshire, we hope you will adorn our rural rectory with your presence. 'Tis the humble but happy home of
Your affectionate Martha Crawley
P.S. Mr. Crawley's brother, the baronet, with whom we are not, alas! upon terms of brotherly UNITY, has a governess for his little girls, Miss Sharp, who, I am told, had the good fortune to be educated at Chiswick. As I have the tenderest interest in my dearest little nieces - and as I long to be attentive to ANY PUPIL OF YOURS - do, my dear Miss Pinkerton, tell me the history of this young lady, whom, for YOUR SAKE, I am most anxious to befriend.-M. C.
*
Miss Pinkerton to Mrs. Bute Crawley.
Dear Madam,
I have the honour to acknowledge your letter. 'Tis most gratifying to recognize in the amiable Mrs. Bute Crawley my excellent pupil of former years, the accomplished Miss Martha MacTavish. What pleasure it would give me if your beloved young daughters had need of my superintendence!
Presenting my respectful compliments to Lady Fuddleston, I have the honour to introduce to her ladyship my two friends, Miss Tuffin and Miss Hawky.
Either of these young ladies is PERFECTLY QUALIFIED to instruct in Greek, Latin, and the rudiments of Hebrew; in mathematics and history; in Spanish, French, Italian, and geography; in music, dancing, the elements of natural sciences, and the use of the globes. Miss Tuffin, who is daughter of the late Reverend Thomas, can also instruct in the Syriac language, and elements of Constitutional law. But as she is only eighteen years of age, and of exceedingly pleasing appearance, perhaps this young lady may be objectionable in Sir Huddleston Fuddleston's family.
Miss Letitia Hawky, on the other hand, is not personally well-favoured. She is twenty-nine; her face is much pitted with the small-pox, she has a halting gait and a trifling squint. Both ladies are endowed with EVERY MORAL AND RELIGIOUS VIRTUE. With my respects to the Reverend Bute Crawley, I have the honour to be,
Your most faithful and obedient servant, Barbara Pinkerton.
P.S. Miss Sharp, whom you mention as governess to Sir Pitt Crawley, was a pupil of mine, and I have nothing to say in her disfavour. Though her appearance is disagreeable, we cannot control the operations of nature: and though her parents were disreputable (her father being a painter, several times bankrupt, and her mother, as I have since learned, with horror, a dancer at the Opera); yet her talents are considerable, and I cannot regret that I received her OUT OF CHARITY. My dread is, lest the principles of the mother - whom I was told was a French Countess - should prove to be HEREDITARY in the unhappy young woman whom I took as AN OUTCAST. But her principles have hitherto been correct (I believe), and I am sure nothing will occur to injure them in the refined circle of Sir Pitt Crawley.
*
Miss Rebecca Sharp to Miss Amelia Sedley.
I have not written to my beloved Amelia for these many weeks, for what news was there to tell of Humdrum Hall, as I have christened it; and what do you care whether the turnip crop is good or bad, or whether the fat pig weighed thirteen stone or fourteen? Every day is like its neighbour. Before breakfast, a walk with Sir Pitt; after breakfast, studies in the schoolroom; after the schoolroom, reading and writing about lawyers, leases, coal-mines and canals with Sir Pitt (whose secretary I am become).
After dinner, there are Mr. Crawley's discourses on the baronet's backgammon, while my lady looks placidly on. She has become more interesting lately by being ill, which has brought a new visitor to the Hall: a young doctor. Dr. Glauber gave a certain friend of yours to understand that, if she chose to be Mrs. Glauber, she was welcome to ornament the surgery! I rebuffed him. As if I was born to be a country surgeon's wife! Sir Pitt applauded my resolution; he would be sorry to lose his little secretary, I think; and I believe the old wretch likes me as much as he can like any one. Marry a country doctor, after - no, no; I cannot so soon forget old associations, about which I will talk no more. Let us return to Humdrum Hall.
It is Humdrum Hall no longer. Miss Crawley has arrived with her fat horses, fat servants, and fat spaniel - the great rich Miss Crawley, with seventy thousand pounds, whom, or rather 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 she comes to stay our hall is thrown open. We have dinner-parties, and 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. My pupils leave off their thick shoes and tight old tartan pelisses, and wear silk stockings and muslin frocks, as fashionable baronets' daughters should.
Miss Crawley and her seventy thousand pounds have an admirable effect on the two brothers, the baronet and the rector, who hate each other all the year round, but become quite loving at Christmas. When Miss Crawley arrives there is no quarrelling - they talk in the most affable manner, and indeed Miss Crawley vows that she will leave her money elsewhere if they offend her.
Our sermon books are shut when Miss Crawley arrives, and young Mr. Pitt, whom she hates, has gone to town. On the other hand, Captain Rawdon Crawley has appeared, 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 loud voice, and swears a great deal; and orders about the servants, who all adore him nevertheless; for he is very generous with his money. Last week the gamekeepers almost killed a bailiff and his man who came down from London to arrest the Captain for debt, and who were found lurking about the Park wall.
The Captain has a hearty contempt for his father, and calls him an old SNOB, a CHAW-BACON, and other pretty names. He has a DREADFUL REPUTATION among the ladies. Shall I tell you a compliment the Captain paid me? One evening we actually had a dance; there was Sir Huddleston Fuddleston and his family, Sir Giles Wapshot and his young ladies, and many more. Well, I heard him say, "By Jove, she's a neat little filly!" meaning your humble servant; and he danced two country-dances with me. 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, when he saw me playing, he swore that I was the best dancer in the room, and that he would have the fiddlers from Mudbury.
"I'll play a country-dance," said Mrs. Bute Crawley, very readily (she is a little old woman in a crooked turban); and after the Captain and your poor little Rebecca had performed a dance together, do you know she actually complimented me upon my steps! The proud Mrs. Bute Crawley, first cousin to the Earl of Tiptoff! She has taken a great fancy to me.
"My dear Miss Sharp," she says, "why not bring your girls to the Rectory? Their cousins will be so happy to see them." I see through her schemes: she hopes to get a piano teacher for her children - but I shall go, and make myself agreeable - is it not a poor governess's duty, who has not a friend in the world? The Rector's wife paid me a score of compliments about my pupils' progress, 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 new things. Happy you! who have but to drive to St. James's Street, and whose mother will give you any thing you ask.
Farewell, dearest girl,
Your affectionate Rebecca.
When Mrs. Bute Crawley had got the promise of a visit from Miss Sharp, she induced the all-powerful Miss Crawley to ask for Sir Pitt's permission, and the good-natured old lady, who loved to be gay, and to see everyone happy around her, was quite charmed, and ready to establish a reconciliation between her two brothers. It was therefore agreed that the young people of both families should visit each other frequently, and the friendship lasted as long as the jovial old lady was there to keep the peace.
"Why did you ask that scoundrel, Rawdon Crawley, to dine?" said the Rector to his lady as they walked back across the park. "I don't want the fellow. He's a gambler - a drunkard - a profligate in every way. He shot a man in a duel, he's head over ears in debt, and he's robbed us of the best part of Miss Crawley's fortune. She has him down in her will for fifty thousand."
"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 stays."
"She drank seven glasses of champagne," said the reverend; "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 curacao with her coffee. Flesh and blood won't bear it! I lay five to two, Matilda drops in a year."
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 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," continued Mr. Crawley, after a pause.
"Sir Pitt 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; he promised he'd build the new wing to the Rectory; he promised he'd let me have the Six-acre Meadow - and much he kept his promises! And it's to this man's son - this scoundrel, gambler, swindler, murderer of a Rawdon Crawley, that Matilda leaves most of her money. By Jove, it's un-Christian."
"Hush, my dearest love! we're in Sir Pitt's grounds."
"I say he has got every vice, Mrs. Crawley. Didn't he shoot Captain Marker? Didn't he rob young Lord Dovedale at the Cocoa-Tree? You know he did. And you ask this villain into your house!" continued the exasperated Rector.
"Bute Crawley, you are a fool," said his wife scornfully.
"Well, Martha, fool or not - and I don't say I'm as clever as you are - but I won't meet Rawdon Crawley, that's flat. I'll go over to Huddleston, that I will, and see his black greyhound. But I won't meet that beast Rawdon Crawley."
"Mr. Crawley, you are intoxicated, as usual," replied his wife. The next morning, when the Rector woke, she reminded him of his promise to visit Sir Huddleston Fuddleston on Saturday, and it was agreed that he might gallop back in time for church on Sunday morning.
The heiress Miss Crawley had not been long at the Hall before Rebecca's fascinations had won her good-natured heart. Taking her usual drive one day, she ordered "that little governess" to 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 journey.
"Not let Miss Sharp dine at table!" said she to Sir Pitt, who had arranged a dinner for all the neighbouring baronets. "I insist upon Miss Sharp appearing. Why, she's the only person fit to talk to in the county!"
Of course, after such an order as this, Miss Sharp received commands to dine with the illustrious company. And when Sir Huddleston had, with great pomp, 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! Come 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, Miss Crawley would say, "Come to my dressing room, Becky, and let us abuse the company" - which, between them, they did perfectly. Old Sir Huddleston wheezed at dinner; Sir Giles Wapshot slurped his soup, and her ladyship had a wink of the left eye; all of which Becky caricatured admirably. 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.
"My dear, you are a perfect find," Miss Crawley would say. "I wish you could come to me in London, but I couldn't make a butt of you as I do of poor Briggs my companion, you little sly creature; you are too clever. Isn't she, Firkin?"
Her maid Firkin (who was dressing the very small remnant of hair on Miss Crawley's pate), flung up her head and said, "I think Miss is very clever," with the most killing sarcastic air.
After this, Miss Crawley ordered that Rawdon Crawley should lead her in to dinner every day, and that Becky should follow.
"We must sit together," she said. "We're the only three Christians in the county, my love" - in which case, it must be confessed that religion was at a very low ebb in Hampshire.
Miss Crawley was, as we have said, an Ultra-liberal in opinions, and always expressed these in the most candid manner.
"What is birth, my dear!" she would say to Rebecca. "Look at my brother Pitt; look at the Huddlestons; look at poor Bute - is any of them equal to you in intelligence or breeding? You, my love, are a little jewel - you have more brains than half the shire. I consider you, my love, as my equal in every respect; and - will you put some coals on the fire, my dear; and alter this dress of mine, you who can do it so well?" So this old philanthropist used to make Becky run errands, do her sewing, and read her to sleep with French novels, every night.
At this time, as some older readers may recollect, the genteel world had been thrown into excitement by two events: Ensign Shafton had run away with Lady Barbara Fitzurse; and poor Vere Vane, a gentleman who had a most respectable character and numerous children, suddenly and outrageously left his home, for the sake of Mrs. Rougemont, the actress, who was sixty-five.
"I adore impudent matches," Miss Crawley said. "What I like best, is for a nobleman to marry a miller's daughter, as Lord Flowerdale did - it makes all the women so angry. I wish some great man would run away with you, my dear; I'm sure you're pretty enough."
"Oh, it would be delightful!" Rebecca said.
"And what I like next best, is for a poor fellow to run away with a rich girl. I have set my heart on Rawdon running away with someone."
"A rich someone, or a poor someone?"
"Why, you goose! Rawdon has not a shilling but what I give him. He must repair his fortunes, and succeed in the world."
"Is he very clever?" Rebecca asked.
"Clever, my love? Not an idea in the world beyond his horses, and his regiment, and his hunting; but he must succeed - he's so delightfully wicked. Don't you know he has shot an injured father through the hat? He's adored in his regiment; and all the young men at the Cocoa-Tree swear by him."
When Miss Rebecca Sharp wrote to her beloved Amelia about the little ball at Queen's Crawley, and how Captain Crawley had first distinguished her, she did not, strange to say, give an altogether accurate account. The Captain had distinguished her a great number of times before. He had met her in a dozen walks, and fifty corridors. He had hung over her piano twenty times of an evening (my Lady was now upstairs, being ill, and nobody heeded her) as Miss Sharp sang.
He had written her notes; but when he put the first note into the pages of the song she was singing, the little governess, rising and looking him steadily in the face, took up the missive daintily, and popped it into the fire. Making him a low curtsey, she went back to her place, and began to sing away again more merrily than ever.
"What's that?" said Miss Crawley, interrupted in her after-dinner doze by the stoppage of the music.
"It's a false note," Miss Sharp said with a laugh; and Rawdon Crawley fumed with rage and mortification.
Yet Mrs. Bute Crawley was not jealous, but welcomed the young lady to the Rectory - and not only her, but Rawdon Crawley, her husband's rival for the old maid's fortune! They became very fond of each other's society, Mrs. Bute Crawley and Rawdon. He gave up hunting; his great pleasure was to stroll over to Crawley parsonage where Miss Crawley came too, and as their mamma was ill, the children with Miss Sharp. In the evening some of them would walk back together. Not Miss Crawley - she preferred her carriage - but the walk over the Rectory fields, and in at the little wicket gate, and up the checkered avenue in the moonlight, was charming to two such lovers of the picturesque as the Captain and Rebecca.
"O those stars!" Miss Rebecca would say, turning her green eyes up towards them. "I feel myself almost a spirit when I gaze upon them."
"O - ah - Gad - yes, so do I, exactly, Miss Sharp," the other replied. "You don't mind my cigar, do you?"
Miss Sharp loved the smell of a cigar - and she just tasted one too, in the prettiest way possible, and gave a little puff, and a little scream, and a little giggle, and restored it to the Captain, who twirled his moustache, and puffed it into a red blaze, swearing - "Jove - aw - Gad - it's the finest segaw I ever smoked," for his intellect and conversation were alike as became a heavy young dragoon.
Old Sir Pitt, who was talking to John Horrocks, espied the pair from his study-window, and with dreadful oaths swore that if it wasn't for Miss Crawley, he'd take Rawdon and bundle un out of doors, like the rogue he was.
"He be a bad'n, sure enough," Mr. Horrocks remarked; "but I think Miss Sharp's a match for'n, Sir Pitt."
And so, in truth, she was - for father and son too.


At last Becky's kindness and attention to the chief of her husband's family were destined to meet with an exceeding great reward, a reward which, though certainly somewhat unsubstantial, the little woman coveted with greater eagerness than more positive benefits. If she did not wish to lead a virtuous life, at least she desired to enjoy a character for virtue, and we know that no lady in the genteel world can possess this desideratum, until she has put on a train and feathers and has been presented to her Sovereign at Court. From that august interview they come out stamped as honest women. The Lord Chamberlain gives them a certificate of virtue. And as dubious goods or letters are passed through an oven at quarantine, sprinkled with aromatic vinegar, and then pronounced clean, many a lady, whose reputation would be doubtful otherwise and liable to give infection, passes through the wholesome ordeal of the Royal presence and issues from it free from all taint.
It might be very well for my Lady Bareacres, my Lady Tufto, Mrs. Bute Crawley in the country, and other ladies who had come into contact with Mrs. Rawdon Crawley to cry fie at the idea of the odious little adventuress making her curtsey before the Sovereign, and to declare that, if dear good Queen Charlotte had been alive, she never would have admitted such an extremely ill-regulated personage into her chaste drawing-room. But when we consider that it was the First Gentleman in Europe in whose high presence Mrs. Rawdon passed her examination, and as it were, took her degree in reputation, it surely must be flat disloyalty to doubt any more about her virtue. I, for my part, look back with love and awe to that Great Character in history. Ah, what a high and noble appreciation of Gentlewomanhood there must have been in Vanity Fair, when that revered and august being was invested, by the universal acclaim of the refined and educated portion of this empire, with the title of Premier Gentilhomme of his Kingdom. Do you remember, dear M--, oh friend of my youth, how one blissful night five-and-twenty years since, the "Hypocrite" being acted, Elliston being manager, Dowton and Liston performers, two boys had leave from their loyal masters to go out from Slaughter-House School where they were educated and to appear on Drury Lane stage, amongst a crowd which assembled there to greet the king. THE KING? There he was. Beefeaters were before the august box; the Marquis of Steyne (Lord of the Powder Closet) and other great officers of state were behind the chair on which he sat, HE sat--florid of face, portly of person, covered with orders, and in a rich curling head of hair--how we sang God save him! How the house rocked and shouted with that magnificent music. How they cheered, and cried, and waved handkerchiefs. Ladies wept; mothers clasped their children; some fainted with emotion. People were suffocated in the pit, shrieks and groans rising up amidst the writhing and shouting mass there of his people who were, and indeed showed themselves almost to be, ready to die for him. Yes, we saw him. Fate cannot deprive us of THAT. Others have seen Napoleon. Some few still exist who have beheld Frederick the Great, Doctor Johnson, Marie Antoinette, &c.--be it our reasonable boast to our children, that we saw George the Good, the Magnificent, the Great.
Well, there came a happy day in Mrs. Rawdon Crawley's existence when this angel was admitted into the paradise of a Court which she coveted, her sister-in-law acting as her godmother. On the appointed day, Sir Pitt and his lady, in their great family carriage (just newly built, and ready for the Baronet's assumption of the office of High Sheriff of his county), drove up to the little house in Curzon Street, to the edification of Raggles, who was watching from his greengrocer's shop, and saw fine plumes within, and enormous bunches of flowers in the breasts of the new livery-coats of the footmen.
Sir Pitt, in a glittering uniform, descended and went into Curzon Street, his sword between his legs. Little Rawdon stood with his face against the parlour window-panes, smiling and nodding with all his might to his aunt in the carriage within; and presently Sir Pitt issued forth from the house again, leading forth a lady with grand feathers, covered in a white shawl, and holding up daintily a train of magnificent brocade. She stepped into the vehicle as if she were a princess and accustomed all her life to go to Court, smiling graciously on the footman at the door and on Sir Pitt, who followed her into the carriage.
Then Rawdon followed in his old Guards' uniform, which had grown woefully shabby, and was much too tight. He was to have followed the procession and waited upon his sovereign in a cab, but that his good-natured sister-in-law insisted that they should be a family party. The coach was large, the ladies not very big, they would hold their trains in their laps--finally, the four went fraternally together, and their carriage presently joined the line of royal equipages which was making its way down Piccadilly and St. James's Street, towards the old brick palace where the Star of Brunswick was in waiting to receive his nobles and gentlefolks.
Becky felt as if she could bless the people out of the carriage windows, so elated was she in spirit, and so strong a sense had she of the dignified position which she had at last attained in life. Even our Becky had her weaknesses, and as one often sees how men pride themselves upon excellences which others are slow to perceive: how, for instance, Comus firmly believes that he is the greatest tragic actor in England; how Brown, the famous novelist, longs to be considered, not a man of genius, but a man of fashion; while Robinson, the great lawyer, does not in the least care about his reputation in Westminster Hall, but believes himself incomparable across country and at a five-barred gate--so to be, and to be thought, a respectable woman was Becky's aim in life, and she got up the genteel with amazing assiduity, readiness, and success. We have said, there were times when she believed herself to be a fine lady and forgot that there was no money in the chest at home--duns round the gate, tradesmen to coax and wheedle--no ground to walk upon, in a word. And as she went to Court in the carriage, the family carriage, she adopted a demeanour so grand, self-satisfied, deliberate, and imposing that it made even Lady Jane laugh. She walked into the royal apartments with a toss of the head which would have befitted an empress, and I have no doubt had she been one, she would have become the character perfectly.
We are authorized to state that Mrs. Rawdon Crawley's costume de cour on the occasion of her presentation to the Sovereign was of the most elegant and brilliant description. Some ladies we may have seen--we who wear stars and cordons and attend the St. James's assemblies, or we, who, in muddy boots, dawdle up and down Pall Mall and peep into the coaches as they drive up with the great folks in their feathers--some ladies of fashion, I say, we may have seen, about two o'clock of the forenoon of a levee day, as the laced-jacketed band of the Life Guards are blowing triumphal marches seated on those prancing music-stools, their cream-coloured chargers--who are by no means lovely and enticing objects at that early period of noon. A stout countess of sixty, decolletee, painted, wrinkled with rouge up to her drooping eyelids, and diamonds twinkling in her wig, is a wholesome and edifying, but not a pleasant sight. She has the faded look of a St. James's Street illumination, as it may be seen of an early morning, when half the lamps are out, and the others are blinking wanly, as if they were about to vanish like ghosts before the dawn. Such charms as those of which we catch glimpses while her ladyship's carriage passes should appear abroad at night alone. If even Cynthia looks haggard of an afternoon, as we may see her sometimes in the present winter season, with Phoebus staring her out of countenance from the opposite side of the heavens, how much more can old Lady Castlemouldy keep her head up when the sun is shining full upon it through the chariot windows, and showing all the chinks and crannies with which time has marked her face! No. Drawing-rooms should be announced for November, or the first foggy day, or the elderly sultanas of our Vanity Fair should drive up in closed litters, descend in a covered way, and make their curtsey to the Sovereign under the protection of lamplight.
Our beloved Rebecca had no need, however, of any such a friendly halo to set off her beauty. Her complexion could bear any sunshine as yet, and her dress, though if you were to see it now, any present lady of Vanity Fair would pronounce it to be the most foolish and preposterous attire ever worn, was as handsome in her eyes and those of the public, some five-and-twenty years since, as the most brilliant costume of the most famous beauty of the present season. A score of years hence that too, that milliner's wonder, will have passed into the domain of the absurd, along with all previous vanities. But we are wandering too much. Mrs. Rawdon's dress was pronounced to be charmante on the eventful day of her presentation. Even good little Lady Jane was forced to acknowledge this effect, as she looked at her kinswoman, and owned sorrowfully to herself that she was quite inferior in taste to Mrs. Becky.
She did not know how much care, thought, and genius Mrs. Rawdon had bestowed upon that garment. Rebecca had as good taste as any milliner in Europe, and such a clever way of doing things as Lady Jane little understood. The latter quickly spied out the magnificence of the brocade of Becky's train, and the splendour of the lace on her dress.
The brocade was an old remnant, Becky said; and as for the lace, it was a great bargain. She had had it these hundred years.
"My dear Mrs. Crawley, it must have cost a little fortune," Lady Jane said, looking down at her own lace, which was not nearly so good; and then examining the quality of the ancient brocade which formed the material of Mrs. Rawdon's Court dress, she felt inclined to say that she could not afford such fine clothing, but checked that speech, with an effort, as one uncharitable to her kinswoman.
And yet, if Lady Jane had known all, I think even her kindly temper would have failed her. The fact is, when she was putting Sir Pitt's house in order, Mrs. Rawdon had found the lace and the brocade in old wardrobes, the property of the former ladies of the house, and had quietly carried the goods home, and had suited them to her own little person. Briggs saw her take them, asked no questions, told no stories; but I believe quite sympathised with her on this matter, and so would many another honest woman.
And the diamonds--"Where the doose did you get the diamonds, Becky?" said her husband, admiring some jewels which he had never seen before and which sparkled in her ears and on her neck with brilliance and profusion.
Becky blushed a little and looked at him hard for a moment. Pitt Crawley blushed a little too, and looked out of window. The fact is, he had given her a very small portion of the brilliants; a pretty diamond clasp, which confined a pearl necklace which she wore--and the Baronet had omitted to mention the circumstance to his lady.
Becky looked at her husband, and then at Sir Pitt, with an air of saucy triumph--as much as to say, "Shall I betray you?"
"Guess!" she said to her husband. "Why, you silly man," she continued, "where do you suppose I got them?--all except the little clasp, which a dear friend of mine gave me long ago. I hired them, to be sure. I hired them at Mr. Polonius's, in Coventry Street. You don't suppose that all the diamonds which go to Court belong to the wearers; like those beautiful stones which Lady Jane has, and which are much handsomer than any which I have, I am certain."
"They are family jewels," said Sir Pitt, again looking uneasy. And in this family conversation the carriage rolled down the street, until its cargo was finally discharged at the gates of the palace where the Sovereign was sitting in state.
The diamonds, which had created Rawdon's admiration, never went back to Mr. Polonius, of Coventry Street, and that gentleman never applied for their restoration, but they retired into a little private repository, in an old desk, which Amelia Sedley had given her years and years ago, and in which Becky kept a number of useful and, perhaps, valuable things, about which her husband knew nothing. To know nothing, or little, is in the nature of some husbands. To hide, in the nature of how many women? Oh, ladies! how many of you have surreptitious milliners' bills? How many of you have gowns and bracelets which you daren't show, or which you wear trembling?--trembling, and coaxing with smiles the husband by your side, who does not know the new velvet gown from the old one, or the new bracelet from last year's, or has any notion that the ragged-looking yellow lace scarf cost forty guineas and that Madame Bobinot is writing dunning letters every week for the money!
Thus Rawdon knew nothing about the brilliant diamond ear-rings, or the superb brilliant ornament which decorated the fair bosom of his lady; but Lord Steyne, who was in his place at Court, as Lord of the Powder Closet, and one of the great dignitaries and illustrious defences of the throne of England, and came up with all his stars, garters, collars, and cordons, and paid particular attention to the little woman, knew whence the jewels came and who paid for them.
As he bowed over her he smiled, and quoted the hackneyed and beautiful lines from The Rape of the Lock about Belinda's diamonds, "which Jews might kiss and infidels adore."
"But I hope your lordship is orthodox," said the little lady with a toss of her head. And many ladies round about whispered and talked, and many gentlemen nodded and whispered, as they saw what marked attention the great nobleman was paying to the little adventuress.
What were the circumstances of the interview between Rebecca Crawley, nee Sharp, and her Imperial Master, it does not become such a feeble and inexperienced pen as mine to attempt to relate. The dazzled eyes close before that Magnificent Idea. Loyal respect and decency tell even the imagination not to look too keenly and audaciously about the sacred audience-chamber, but to back away rapidly, silently, and respectfully, making profound bows out of the August Presence.
This may be said, that in all London there was no more loyal heart than Becky's after this interview. The name of her king was always on her lips, and he was proclaimed by her to be the most charming of men. She went to Colnaghi's and ordered the finest portrait of him that art had produced, and credit could supply. She chose that famous one in which the best of monarchs is represented in a frock-coat with a fur collar, and breeches and silk stockings, simpering on a sofa from under his curly brown wig. She had him painted in a brooch and wore it--indeed she amused and somewhat pestered her acquaintance with her perpetual talk about his urbanity and beauty. Who knows! Perhaps the little woman thought she might play the part of a Maintenon or a Pompadour.
But the finest sport of all after her presentation was to hear her talk virtuously. She had a few female acquaintances, not, it must be owned, of the very highest reputation in Vanity Fair. But being made an honest woman of, so to speak, Becky would not consort any longer with these dubious ones, and cut Lady Crackenbury when the latter nodded to her from her opera-box, and gave Mrs. Washington White the go-by in the Ring. "One must, my dear, show one is somebody," she said. "One mustn't be seen with doubtful people. I pity Lady Crackenbury from my heart, and Mrs. Washington White may be a very good-natured person. YOU may go and dine with them, as you like your rubber. But I mustn't, and won't; and you will have the goodness to tell Smith to say I am not at home when either of them calls."
The particulars of Becky's costume were in the newspapers--feathers, lappets, superb diamonds, and all the rest. Lady Crackenbury read the paragraph in bitterness of spirit and discoursed to her followers about the airs which that woman was giving herself. Mrs. Bute Crawley and her young ladies in the country had a copy of the Morning Post from town, and gave a vent to their honest indignation. "If you had been sandy-haired, green-eyed, and a French rope-dancer's daughter," Mrs. Bute said to her eldest girl (who, on the contrary, was a very swarthy, short, and snub-nosed young lady), "You might have had superb diamonds forsooth, and have been presented at Court by your cousin, the Lady Jane. But you're only a gentlewoman, my poor dear child. You have only some of the best blood in England in your veins, and good principles and piety for your portion. I, myself, the wife of a Baronet's younger brother, too, never thought of such a thing as going to Court--nor would other people, if good Queen Charlotte had been alive." In this way the worthy Rectoress consoled herself, and her daughters sighed and sat over the Peerage all night.
A few days after the famous presentation, another great and exceeding honour was vouchsafed to the virtuous Becky. Lady Steyne's carriage drove up to Mr. Rawdon Crawley's door, and the footman, instead of driving down the front of the house, as by his tremendous knocking he appeared to be inclined to do, relented and only delivered in a couple of cards, on which were engraven the names of the Marchioness of Steyne and the Countess of Gaunt. If these bits of pasteboard had been beautiful pictures, or had had a hundred yards of Malines lace rolled round them, worth twice the number of guineas, Becky could not have regarded them with more pleasure. You may be sure they occupied a conspicuous place in the china bowl on the drawing-room table, where Becky kept the cards of her visitors. Lord! lord! how poor Mrs. Washington White's card and Lady Crackenbury's card--which our little friend had been glad enough to get a few months back, and of which the silly little creature was rather proud once--Lord! lord! I say, how soon at the appearance of these grand court cards, did those poor little neglected deuces sink down to the bottom of the pack. Steyne! Bareacres, Johnes of Helvellyn! and Caerylon of Camelot! we may be sure that Becky and Briggs looked out those august names in the Peerage, and followed the noble races up through all the ramifications of the family tree.
My Lord Steyne coming to call a couple of hours afterwards, and looking about him, and observing everything as was his wont, found his ladies' cards already ranged as the trumps of Becky's hand, and grinned, as this old cynic always did at any naive display of human weakness. Becky came down to him presently; whenever the dear girl expected his lordship, her toilette was prepared, her hair in perfect order, her mouchoirs, aprons, scarfs, little morocco slippers, and other female gimcracks arranged, and she seated in some artless and agreeable posture ready to receive him--whenever she was surprised, of course, she had to fly to her apartment to take a rapid survey of matters in the glass, and to trip down again to wait upon the great peer.
She found him grinning over the bowl. She was discovered, and she blushed a little. "Thank you, Monseigneur," she said. "You see your ladies have been here. How good of you! I couldn't come before--I was in the kitchen making a pudding."
"I know you were, I saw you through the area-railings as I drove up," replied the old gentleman.
"You see everything," she replied.
"A few things, but not that, my pretty lady," he said good-naturedly. "You silly little fibster! I heard you in the room overhead, where I have no doubt you were putting a little rouge on--you must give some of yours to my Lady Gaunt, whose complexion is quite preposterous--and I heard the bedroom door open, and then you came downstairs."
"Is it a crime to try and look my best when YOU come here?" answered Mrs. Rawdon plaintively, and she rubbed her cheek with her handkerchief as if to show there was no rouge at all, only genuine blushes and modesty in her case. About this who can tell? I know there is some rouge that won't come off on a pocket-handkerchief, and some so good that even tears will not disturb it.
"Well," said the old gentleman, twiddling round his wife's card, "you are bent on becoming a fine lady. You pester my poor old life out to get you into the world. You won't be able to hold your own there, you silly little fool. You've got no money."
"You will get us a place," interposed Becky, "as quick as possible."
"You've got no money, and you want to compete with those who have. You poor little earthenware pipkin, you want to swim down the stream along with the great copper kettles. All women are alike. Everybody is striving for what is not worth the having! Gad! I dined with the King yesterday, and we had neck of mutton and turnips. A dinner of herbs is better than a stalled ox very often. You will go to Gaunt House. You give an old fellow no rest until you get there. It's not half so nice as here. You'll be bored there. I am. My wife is as gay as Lady Macbeth, and my daughters as cheerful as Regan and Goneril. I daren't sleep in what they call my bedroom. The bed is like the baldaquin of St. Peter's, and the pictures frighten me. I have a little brass bed in a dressing-room, and a little hair mattress like an anchorite. I am an anchorite. Ho! ho! You'll be asked to dinner next week. And gare aux femmes, look out and hold your own! How the women will bully you!" This was a very long speech for a man of few words like my Lord Steyne; nor was it the first which he uttered for Becky's benefit on that day.
Briggs looked up from the work-table at which she was seated in the farther room and gave a deep sigh as she heard the great Marquis speak so lightly of her sex.
"If you don't turn off that abominable sheep-dog," said Lord Steyne, with a savage look over his shoulder at her, "I will have her poisoned."
"I always give my dog dinner from my own plate," said Rebecca, laughing mischievously; and having enjoyed for some time the discomfiture of my lord, who hated poor Briggs for interrupting his tete-a-tete with the fair Colonel's wife, Mrs. Rawdon at length had pity upon her admirer, and calling to Briggs, praised the fineness of the weather to her and bade her to take out the child for a walk.
"I can't send her away," Becky said presently, after a pause, and in a very sad voice. Her eyes filled with tears as she spoke, and she turned away her head.
"You owe her her wages, I suppose?" said the Peer.
"Worse than that," said Becky, still casting down her eyes; "I have ruined her."
"Ruined her? Then why don't you turn her out?" the gentleman asked.
"Men do that," Becky answered bitterly. "Women are not so bad as you. Last year, when we were reduced to our last guinea, she gave us everything. She shall never leave me, until we are ruined utterly ourselves, which does not seem far off, or until I can pay her the utmost farthing."
"------ it, how much is it?" said the Peer with an oath. And Becky, reflecting on the largeness of his means, mentioned not only the sum which she had borrowed from Miss Briggs, but one of nearly double the amount.
This caused the Lord Steyne to break out in another brief and energetic expression of anger, at which Rebecca held down her head the more and cried bitterly. "I could not help it. It was my only chance. I dare not tell my husband. He would kill me if I told him what I have done. I have kept it a secret from everybody but you--and you forced it from me. Ah, what shall I do, Lord Steyne? for I am very, very unhappy!"
Lord Steyne made no reply except by beating the devil's tattoo and biting his nails. At last he clapped his hat on his head and flung out of the room. Rebecca did not rise from her attitude of misery until the door slammed upon him and his carriage whirled away. Then she rose up with the queerest expression of victorious mischief glittering in her green eyes. She burst out laughing once or twice to herself, as she sat at work, and sitting down to the piano, she rattled away a triumphant voluntary on the keys, which made the people pause under her window to listen to her brilliant music.
That night, there came two notes from Gaunt House for the little woman, the one containing a card of invitation from Lord and Lady Steyne to a dinner at Gaunt House next Friday, while the other enclosed a slip of gray paper bearing Lord Steyne's signature and the address of Messrs. Jones, Brown, and Robinson, Lombard Street.
Rawdon heard Becky laughing in the night once or twice. It was only her delight at going to Gaunt House and facing the ladies there, she said, which amused her so. But the truth was that she was occupied with a great number of other thoughts. Should she pay off old Briggs and give her her conge? Should she astonish Raggles by settling his account? She turned over all these thoughts on her pillow, and on the next day, when Rawdon went out to pay his morning visit to the Club, Mrs. Crawley (in a modest dress with a veil on) whipped off in a hackney-coach to the City: and being landed at Messrs. Jones and Robinson's bank, presented a document there to the authority at the desk, who, in reply, asked her "How she would take it?"
She gently said "she would take a hundred and fifty pounds in small notes and the remainder in one note": and passing through St. Paul's Churchyard stopped there and bought the handsomest black silk gown for Briggs which money could buy; and which, with a kiss and the kindest speeches, she presented to the simple old spinster.
Then she walked to Mr. Raggles, inquired about his children affectionately, and gave him fifty pounds on account. Then she went to the livery-man from whom she jobbed her carriages and gratified him with a similar sum. "And I hope this will be a lesson to you, Spavin," she said, "and that on the next drawing-room day my brother, Sir Pitt, will not be inconvenienced by being obliged to take four of us in his carriage to wait upon His Majesty, because my own carriage is not forthcoming." It appears there had been a difference on the last drawing-room day. Hence the degradation which the Colonel had almost suffered, of being obliged to enter the presence of his Sovereign in a hack cab.
These arrangements concluded, Becky paid a visit upstairs to the before-mentioned desk, which Amelia Sedley had given her years and years ago, and which contained a number of useful and valuable little things--in which private museum she placed the one note which Messrs. Jones and Robinson's cashier had given her.

At last Becky's kindness and attention to the head of her husband's family were destined to meet with a reward, one which she coveted eagerly. If she did not wish to lead a virtuous life, she wished to have a virtuous reputation, something no lady can possess until she has put on a train and feathers and has been presented to her Sovereign at Court. From that august interview they come out stamped as honest women. The Lord Chamberlain gives them a certificate of virtue.
My Lady Bareacres, my Lady Tufto, and Mrs. Bute Crawley might indeed cry fie at the idea of the odious little adventuress curtseying before the Sovereign. I, for my part, look back with love and awe to that Great Character. Ah, what a high and noble appreciation of Gentlewomanhood there must have been in Vanity Fair, when the revered and august Prince Regent was crowned King! I saw him once at the theatre: florid of face, portly of person, covered with medals, and with a rich curling head of hair - how we sang God save him! How the house rocked. How they cheered, and cried, and waved handkerchiefs. Ladies wept; mothers clasped their children; some fainted with emotion. Yes, we saw him. Fate cannot deprive us of that.
Well, there came a happy day for Mrs. Rawdon Crawley when she was admitted into the paradise of Court. On the appointed day, Sir Pitt and his lady, in their great family carriage, drove up to the little house in Curzon Street, to the admiration of Raggles, watching from his greengrocer's shop.
Sir Pitt, in a glittering uniform, descended into Curzon Street. Little Rawdon stood with his face against the window, smiling to his aunt in the carriage; and presently Sir Pitt came forth from the house leading a lady with grand feathers, covered in a white shawl, and holding up a train of magnificent brocade. She stepped graciously into the vehicle as if she were a princess.
Rawdon followed in his old Guard's uniform, which had grown woefully shabby, and much too tight. The carriage joined the line of royal equipages which was making its way down Piccadilly and St. James's Street towards the old brick St. James's Palace.
Becky felt as if she could bless the people out of the carriage windows, so elated was she, and so conscious of the dignified position which she had at last attained. Even our Becky had her weaknesses, and to be thought a respectable woman was her aim in life. She adopted a demeanour so grand, self-satisfied, deliberate, and imposing that it made even Lady Jane laugh. She walked into the royal apartments with a toss of the head which would have befitted an empress.
Her costume was of the most elegant and brilliant description. Some ladies are by no means lovely and enticing objects at that early time of noon. A stout countess of sixty, dcollete, painted and wrinkled with rouge up to her drooping eyelids, is an edifying, but not a pleasant sight. Drawing-rooms should be announced for November, or the first foggy day; or the elderly ladies of Vanity Fair should drive up in closed litters, descend in a covered way, and make their curtsey to the Sovereign under the protection of lamplight.
Our beloved Rebecca had no need, however, of any such friendly shadow. Her complexion could bear any sunshine, and her dress, though nowadays any lady of Vanity Fair would pronounce it to be preposterous, was brilliantly handsome in her eyes and those of the public. Even good little Lady Jane was forced to acknowledge this, and owned sorrowfully to herself that she was quite inferior in taste to Mrs. Becky.
She did not know how much care, thought, and genius Mrs. Rawdon had bestowed upon that dress. Rebecca had a clever way of doing things that Lady Jane little understood.
Lady Jane quickly spied the magnificence of Becky's brocade, and the splendour of her lace. The brocade was an old remnant, Becky said; and as for the lace, it was a great bargain. She had had it these hundred years.
"My dear Mrs. Crawley, it must have cost a small fortune," Lady Jane said, looking down at her own lace, which was not nearly so good; she wanted to say that she could not afford such fine clothing, but checked that speech as uncharitable.
And yet, if Lady Jane had known all, I think even her kindly temper would have failed her. The fact is, when she was putting Sir Pitt's house in order, Mrs. Rawdon had found the lace and the brocade in old wardrobes, and had quietly carried them home.
And the diamonds - "Where the doose did you get the diamonds, Becky?" said her husband, admiring some jewels which he had never seen before and which sparkled on her ears and neck.
Becky blushed a little. Pitt Crawley blushed a little too, and looked out of the window. The fact is, he had given her a very small portion of the brilliants; a pretty diamond clasp, which he had omitted to mention to his wife.
Becky looked at her husband, and then at Sir Pitt, with an air of saucy triumph - as much as to say, "Shall I betray you?"
"Guess!" she said to her husband. "Why, you silly man, where do you suppose I got them? - all except the little clasp, which a dear friend of mine gave me long ago. I hired them, to be sure, at Mr. Polonius's, in Coventry Street. You don't suppose that all the diamonds which go to Court belong to the wearers; like those beautiful stones of Lady Jane's, which are far handsomer than any I have?"
"They are family jewels," said Sir Pitt, again looking uneasy.
Becky's diamonds never went back to Mr. Polonius, of Coventry Street, and that gentleman never applied for their restoration. They retired into an old desk, which Amelia had given her years ago, and in which Becky kept a number of useful things about which her husband knew nothing.
To know nothing, or little, is in the nature of some husbands. To hide things is in the nature of how many women? Oh, ladies! how many of you have surreptitious milliners' bills? How many of you have gowns and bracelets which you daren't show, or which you wear trembling, and trusting that your husband will not know the new velvet gown from the old one?
Thus Rawdon knew nothing about the brilliant diamonds which decorated his lady; but Lord Steyne, who was at Court as Lord of the Powder Closet, wearing all his stars, garters and cordons, knew whence the jewels came and who paid for them.
As he bowed over Becky he smiled, and quoted the hackneyed and beautiful lines from The Rape of the Lock about Belinda's diamonds, "which Jews might kiss and infidels adore."
And many ladies round about whispered and talked, and many gentlemen nodded, as they saw what marked attention the great nobleman was paying to the little adventuress.
Of the interview between Rebecca and her Sovereign, it does not become such a feeble pen as mine to attempt to relate. The dazzled eyes close before that Magnificent Idea. We back away rapidly, silently, and respectfully, making profound bows out of the August Presence.
This may be said, that in all London there was no more loyal heart than Becky's afterwards. The name of her king was always on her lips, and she said he was the most charming of men. She ordered a portrait of him; she had him painted in a brooch and wore it - indeed she amused and somewhat pestered her acquaintance with her perpetual talk about his urbanity and beauty. Who knows! Perhaps the little woman thought she might play the part of a Maintenon or a Pompadour.
But best of all after her presentation was to hear her talk virtuously. She had a few female acquaintances beforehand, but after being made an honest woman, so to speak, Becky would not consort any longer with these dubious friends, and cut Lady Crackenbury and Mrs. Washington White.
The details of Becky's costume were in the newspapers - feathers, diamonds, and all. Lady Crackenbury read the paragraph in bitterness and told her followers about the airs which that woman was giving herself. Mrs. Bute Crawley and her young ladies in the country read the Morning Post, and gave vent to their honest indignation.
"If you had been sandy-haired, green-eyed, and a French rope-dancer's daughter," Mrs. Bute said to her eldest girl, "you might have had superb diamonds too, and have been presented at Court by Lady Jane. But you're only a gentlewoman, my poor dear child, with some of the best blood in England in your veins." Thus the worthy Rectoress consoled herself.
A few days after the famous presentation, another great honour was paid to the virtuous Becky. Lady Steyne's carriage drove up to Mr. Rawdon Crawley's door, and the footman delivered a couple of cards, on which were engraven the names of the Marchioness of Steyne and the Countess of Gaunt. These bits of pasteboard occupied a conspicuous place on Becky's drawing-room table. Lord! How poor Mrs. Washington White's card sank down to the bottom of the pack.
My Lord Steyne, coming to call a couple of hours afterwards, and looking about him, found his ladies' cards already ranged as the trumps of Becky's hand. He grinned, as this old cynic always did at any naive display of human weakness. Becky came down to him presently, her hair in perfect order, her aprons, scarfs, little morocco slippers, and other female gimcracks arranged.
She found him grinning over the cards, and blushed a little.
"Thank you, Monseigneur," she said. "You see your ladies have been here. How good of you! I couldn't come before - I was in the kitchen making a pudding."
"I know you were; I saw you through the area-railings as I drove up," replied the old gentleman.
"You see everything," she replied.
"Not that, my pretty lady," he said good-naturedly. "You silly little fibster! I heard you in the room overhead, where I have no doubt you were putting rouge on. You must give some of yours to my Lady Gaunt, whose complexion is quite preposterous."
"Is it a crime to try and look my best when you come here?" answered Mrs. Rawdon plaintively, and she rubbed her cheek with her handkerchief as if to show there was no rouge at all, only genuine blushes.
"Well," said the old gentleman, "you are bent on becoming a fine lady. You pester my poor old life out to get you into the world, but you won't be able to hold your own there, you silly little fool. You've got no money."
"You will get us a place," said Becky.
"You've got no money, and you want to compete with those who have. You poor little earthenware pipkin, you want to swim down the stream along with the great copper kettles. All women are alike. You will go to Gaunt House. You give an old fellow no rest until you get there; but it's not half so nice as here. You'll be bored there. I am. My wife is as gay as Lady Macbeth, and my daughters as cheerful as Regan and Goneril. I daren't sleep in my bedroom. The pictures frighten me, and I have a little brass bed in a dressing-room, and a little hair mattress like a monk. Ho! ho! You'll be asked to dinner next week. How the women will bully you!" This was a very long speech for a man of few words like my Lord Steyne.
At this, Briggs looked up from the work-table at which she was seated, and gave a deep sigh.
"If you don't turn off that abominable sheep-dog," said Lord Steyne, with a savage look over his shoulder at her, "I will have her poisoned."
"I always give my dog dinner from my own plate," said Rebecca, laughing mischievously; and taking pity upon her admirer, she called to Briggs and bade her take the child out for a walk.
"I can't send her away," Becky said after Briggs had gone, in a very sad voice. Her eyes filled with tears as she spoke.
"You owe her wages, I suppose?" said Lord Steyne.
"Worse than that," said Becky. "I have ruined her."
"Ruined her? Then why don't you turn her out?"
"Men do that," she answered bitterly. "Women are not so bad as you. Last year, when we were reduced to our last guinea, she gave us everything. She shall never leave me, until we are ruined utterly ourselves, which does not seem far off, or until I can pay her the last farthing."
"How much is it?" said Lord Steyne with an oath. And Becky, reflecting on the largeness of his wealth, mentioned nearly double the amount.
Lord Steyne broke out in another brief expression of anger, at which Rebecca held down her head.
"I could not help it," she cried. "It was my only chance. I dare not tell my husband. He would kill me if I told him what I have done. I have kept it a secret from everybody but you - and you forced it from me. Ah, what shall I do, Lord Steyne? for I am very unhappy!"
He made no reply except by beating a tattoo with his hands. At last he clapped his hat on his head and flung out of the room. Rebecca did not rise from her attitude of misery until his carriage whirled away. Then she burst out laughing to herself, and sitting down to the piano, she rattled away a triumphant tune on the keys.
That night, there came two notes from Gaunt House: one containing an invitation from Lord and Lady Steyne to a dinner at Gaunt House next Friday, while the other enclosed a slip of grey paper bearing Lord Steyne's signature and the address of Messrs. Jones, Brown, and Robinson, Bankers.
Rawdon heard Becky laughing in the night. It was only her delight at going to Gaunt House and facing the ladies there, she said, which amused her so. But the truth was that she was occupied with a great number of other thoughts. Should she pay off old Briggs? Should she astonish Raggles by settling his account? She turned over these thoughts on her pillow, and on the next day, when Rawdon went out to his club, Mrs. Crawley, with a veil on, whipped off in a hackney-coach to the City: and at Messrs. Jones, Brown and Robinson's bank, presented a document, and said she would take a hundred and fifty pounds in small notes and the remainder in one note.
Passing through St. Paul's Churchyard, she stopped and bought the handsomest black silk gown for Briggs which money could buy; and which, with a kiss and a kind speech, she presented to the simple old spinster.
Then she walked to Mr. Raggles, inquired about his children affectionately, and gave him fifty pounds on account. Next she went to the livery-man from whom she hired her carriages, and gratified him with a similar sum.
After this, Becky paid a visit upstairs to the before-mentioned desk, which Amelia had given her years and years ago, and which contained a number of useful and valuable little things. Here she placed the one note which the bank cashier had given her.

Chapter 48: In Which the Reader Is Introduced to the Very Best of Company