We have seen how Mrs. Firkin, the lady's maid, as soon as any event of importance to the Crawley family came to her knowledge, felt bound to communicate it to Mrs. Bute Crawley, at the Rectory; and have before mentioned how particularly kind and attentive that good-natured lady was to Miss Crawley's confidential servant. She had been a gracious friend to Miss Briggs, the companion, also; and had secured the latter's good-will by a number of those attentions and promises, which cost so little in the making, and are yet so valuable and agreeable to the recipient. Indeed every good economist and manager of a household must know how cheap and yet how amiable these professions are, and what a flavour they give to the most homely dish in life. Who was the blundering idiot who said that "fine words butter no parsnips"? Half the parsnips of society are served and rendered palatable with no other sauce. As the immortal Alexis Soyer can make more delicious soup for a half-penny than an ignorant cook can concoct with pounds of vegetables and meat, so a skilful artist will make a few simple and pleasing phrases go farther than ever so much substantial benefit-stock in the hands of a mere bungler. Nay, we know that substantial benefits often sicken some stomachs; whereas, most will digest any amount of fine words, and be always eager for more of the same food. Mrs. Bute had told Briggs and Firkin so often of the depth of her affection for them; and what she would do, if she had Miss Crawley's fortune, for friends so excellent and attached, that the ladies in question had the deepest regard for her; and felt as much gratitude and confidence as if Mrs. Bute had loaded them with the most expensive favours.
Rawdon Crawley, on the other hand, like a selfish heavy dragoon as he was, never took the least trouble to conciliate his aunt's aides-de-camp, showed his contempt for the pair with entire frankness--made Firkin pull off his boots on one occasion--sent her out in the rain on ignominious messages--and if he gave her a guinea, flung it to her as if it were a box on the ear. As his aunt, too, made a butt of Briggs, the Captain followed the example, and levelled his jokes at her--jokes about as delicate as a kick from his charger. Whereas, Mrs. Bute consulted her in matters of taste or difficulty, admired her poetry, and by a thousand acts of kindness and politeness, showed her appreciation of Briggs; and if she made Firkin a twopenny-halfpenny present, accompanied it with so many compliments, that the twopence-half-penny was transmuted into gold in the heart of the grateful waiting-maid, who, besides, was looking forwards quite contentedly to some prodigious benefit which must happen to her on the day when Mrs. Bute came into her fortune.
The different conduct of these two people is pointed out respectfully to the attention of persons commencing the world. Praise everybody, I say to such: never be squeamish, but speak out your compliment both point-blank in a man's face, and behind his back, when you know there is a reasonable chance of his hearing it again. Never lose a chance of saying a kind word. As Collingwood never saw a vacant place in his estate but he took an acorn out of his pocket and popped it in; so deal with your compliments through life. An acorn costs nothing; but it may sprout into a prodigious bit of timber.
In a word, during Rawdon Crawley's prosperity, he was only obeyed with sulky acquiescence; when his disgrace came, there was nobody to help or pity him. Whereas, when Mrs. Bute took the command at Miss Crawley's house, the garrison there were charmed to act under such a leader, expecting all sorts of promotion from her promises, her generosity, and her kind words.
That he would consider himself beaten, after one defeat, and make no attempt to regain the position he had lost, Mrs. Bute Crawley never allowed herself to suppose. She knew Rebecca to be too clever and spirited and desperate a woman to submit without a struggle; and felt that she must prepare for that combat, and be incessantly watchful against assault; or mine, or surprise.
In the first place, though she held the town, was she sure of the principal inhabitant? Would Miss Crawley herself hold out; and had she not a secret longing to welcome back the ousted adversary? The old lady liked Rawdon, and Rebecca, who amused her. Mrs. Bute could not disguise from herself the fact that none of her party could so contribute to the pleasures of the town-bred lady. "My girls' singing, after that little odious governess's, I know is unbearable," the candid Rector's wife owned to herself. "She always used to go to sleep when Martha and Louisa played their duets. Jim's stiff college manners and poor dear Bute's talk about his dogs and horses always annoyed her. If I took her to the Rectory, she would grow angry with us all, and fly, I know she would; and might fall into that horrid Rawdon's clutches again, and be the victim of that little viper of a Sharp. Meanwhile, it is clear to me that she is exceedingly unwell, and cannot move for some weeks, at any rate; during which we must think of some plan to protect her from the arts of those unprincipled people."
In the very best of moments, if anybody told Miss Crawley that she was, or looked ill, the trembling old lady sent off for her doctor; and I daresay she was very unwell after the sudden family event, which might serve to shake stronger nerves than hers. At least, Mrs. Bute thought it was her duty to inform the physician, and the apothecary, and the dame-de-compagnie, and the domestics, that Miss Crawley was in a most critical state, and that they were to act accordingly. She had the street laid knee-deep with straw; and the knocker put by with Mr. Bowls's plate. She insisted that the Doctor should call twice a day; and deluged her patient with draughts every two hours. When anybody entered the room, she uttered a shshshsh so sibilant and ominous, that it frightened the poor old lady in her bed, from which she could not look without seeing Mrs. Bute's beady eyes eagerly fixed on her, as the latter sate steadfast in the arm-chair by the bedside. They seemed to lighten in the dark (for she kept the curtains closed) as she moved about the room on velvet paws like a cat. There Miss Crawley lay for days--ever so many days--Mr. Bute reading books of devotion to her: for nights, long nights, during which she had to hear the watchman sing, the night-light sputter; visited at midnight, the last thing, by the stealthy apothecary; and then left to look at Mrs. Bute's twinkling eyes, or the flicks of yellow that the rushlight threw on the dreary darkened ceiling. Hygeia herself would have fallen sick under such a regimen; and how much more this poor old nervous victim? It has been said that when she was in health and good spirits, this venerable inhabitant of Vanity Fair had as free notions about religion and morals as Monsieur de Voltaire himself could desire, but when illness overtook her, it was aggravated by the most dreadful terrors of death, and an utter cowardice took possession of the prostrate old sinner.
Sick-bed homilies and pious reflections are, to be sure, out of place in mere story-books, and we are not going (after the fashion of some novelists of the present day) to cajole the public into a sermon, when it is only a comedy that the reader pays his money to witness. But, without preaching, the truth may surely be borne in mind, that the bustle, and triumph, and laughter, and gaiety which Vanity Fair exhibits in public, do not always pursue the performer into private life, and that the most dreary depression of spirits and dismal repentances sometimes overcome him. Recollection of the best ordained banquets will scarcely cheer sick epicures. Reminiscences of the most becoming dresses and brilliant ball triumphs will go very little way to console faded beauties. Perhaps statesmen, at a particular period of existence, are not much gratified at thinking over the most triumphant divisions; and the success or the pleasure of yesterday becomes of very small account when a certain (albeit uncertain) morrow is in view, about which all of us must some day or other be speculating. O brother wearers of motley! Are there not moments when one grows sick of grinning and tumbling, and the jingling of cap and bells? This, dear friends and companions, is my amiable object--to walk with you through the Fair, to examine the shops and the shows there; and that we should all come home after the flare, and the noise, and the gaiety, and be perfectly miserable in private.
"If that poor man of mine had a head on his shoulders," Mrs. Bute Crawley thought to herself, "how useful he might be, under present circumstances, to this unhappy old lady! He might make her repent of her shocking free-thinking ways; he might urge her to do her duty, and cast off that odious reprobate who has disgraced himself and his family; and he might induce her to do justice to my dear girls and the two boys, who require and deserve, I am sure, every assistance which their relatives can give them."
And, as the hatred of vice is always a progress towards virtue, Mrs. Bute Crawley endeavoured to instil her sister-in-law a proper abhorrence for all Rawdon Crawley's manifold sins: of which his uncle's wife brought forward such a catalogue as indeed would have served to condemn a whole regiment of young officers. If a man has committed wrong in life, I don't know any moralist more anxious to point his errors out to the world than his own relations; so Mrs. Bute showed a perfect family interest and knowledge of Rawdon's history. She had all the particulars of that ugly quarrel with Captain Marker, in which Rawdon, wrong from the beginning, ended in shooting the Captain. She knew how the unhappy Lord Dovedale, whose mamma had taken a house at Oxford, so that he might be educated there, and who had never touched a card in his life till he came to London, was perverted by Rawdon at the Cocoa-Tree, made helplessly tipsy by this abominable seducer and perverter of youth, and fleeced of four thousand pounds. She described with the most vivid minuteness the agonies of the country families whom he had ruined--the sons whom he had plunged into dishonour and poverty--the daughters whom he had inveigled into perdition. She knew the poor tradesmen who were bankrupt by his extravagance--the mean shifts and rogueries with which he had ministered to it--the astounding falsehoods by which he had imposed upon the most generous of aunts, and the ingratitude and ridicule by which he had repaid her sacrifices. She imparted these stories gradually to Miss Crawley; gave her the whole benefit of them; felt it to be her bounden duty as a Christian woman and mother of a family to do so; had not the smallest remorse or compunction for the victim whom her tongue was immolating; nay, very likely thought her act was quite meritorious, and plumed herself upon her resolute manner of performing it. Yes, if a man's character is to be abused, say what you will, there's nobody like a relation to do the business. And one is bound to own, regarding this unfortunate wretch of a Rawdon Crawley, that the mere truth was enough to condemn him, and that all inventions of scandal were quite superfluous pains on his friends' parts.
Rebecca, too, being now a relative, came in for the fullest share of Mrs. Bute's kind inquiries. This indefatigable pursuer of truth (having given strict orders that the door was to be denied to all emissaries or letters from Rawdon), took Miss Crawley's carriage, and drove to her old friend Miss Pinkerton, at Minerva House, Chiswick Mall, to whom she announced the dreadful intelligence of Captain Rawdon's seduction by Miss Sharp, and from whom she got sundry strange particulars regarding the ex-governess's birth and early history. The friend of the Lexicographer had plenty of information to give. Miss Jemima was made to fetch the drawing-master's receipts and letters. This one was from a spunging-house: that entreated an advance: another was full of gratitude for Rebecca's reception by the ladies of Chiswick: and the last document from the unlucky artist's pen was that in which, from his dying bed, he recommended his orphan child to Miss Pinkerton's protection. There were juvenile letters and petitions from Rebecca, too, in the collection, imploring aid for her father or declaring her own gratitude. Perhaps in Vanity Fair there are no better satires than letters. Take a bundle of your dear friend's of ten years back--your dear friend whom you hate now. Look at a file of your sister's! how you clung to each other till you quarrelled about the twenty-pound legacy! Get down the round-hand scrawls of your son who has half broken your heart with selfish undutifulness since; or a parcel of your own, breathing endless ardour and love eternal, which were sent back by your mistress when she married the Nabob--your mistress for whom you now care no more than for Queen Elizabeth. Vows, love, promises, confidences, gratitude, how queerly they read after a while! There ought to be a law in Vanity Fair ordering the destruction of every written document (except receipted tradesmen's bills) after a certain brief and proper interval. Those quacks and misanthropes who advertise indelible Japan ink should be made to perish along with their wicked discoveries. The best ink for Vanity Fair use would be one that faded utterly in a couple of days, and left the paper clean and blank, so that you might write on it to somebody else.
From Miss Pinkerton's the indefatigable Mrs. Bute followed the track of Sharp and his daughter back to the lodgings in Greek Street, which the defunct painter had occupied; and where portraits of the landlady in white satin, and of the husband in brass buttons, done by Sharp in lieu of a quarter's rent, still decorated the parlour walls. Mrs. Stokes was a communicative person, and quickly told all she knew about Mr. Sharp; how dissolute and poor he was; how good-natured and amusing; how he was always hunted by bailiffs and duns; how, to the landlady's horror, though she never could abide the woman, he did not marry his wife till a short time before her death; and what a queer little wild vixen his daughter was; how she kept them all laughing with her fun and mimicry; how she used to fetch the gin from the public-house, and was known in all the studios in the quarter--in brief, Mrs. Bute got such a full account of her new niece's parentage, education, and behaviour as would scarcely have pleased Rebecca, had the latter known that such inquiries were being made concerning her.
Of all these industrious researches Miss Crawley had the full benefit. Mrs. Rawdon Crawley was the daughter of an opera-girl. She had danced herself. She had been a model to the painters. She was brought up as became her mother's daughter. She drank gin with her father, &c. &c. It was a lost woman who was married to a lost man; and the moral to be inferred from Mrs. Bute's tale was, that the knavery of the pair was irremediable, and that no properly conducted person should ever notice them again.
These were the materials which prudent Mrs. Bute gathered together in Park Lane, the provisions and ammunition as it were with which she fortified the house against the siege which she knew that Rawdon and his wife would lay to Miss Crawley.
But if a fault may be found with her arrangements, it is this, that she was too eager: she managed rather too well; undoubtedly she made Miss Crawley more ill than was necessary; and though the old invalid succumbed to her authority, it was so harassing and severe, that the victim would be inclined to escape at the very first chance which fell in her way. Managing women, the ornaments of their sex--women who order everything for everybody, and know so much better than any person concerned what is good for their neighbours, don't sometimes speculate upon the possibility of a domestic revolt, or upon other extreme consequences resulting from their overstrained authority.
Thus, for instance, Mrs. Bute, with the best intentions no doubt in the world, and wearing herself to death as she did by foregoing sleep, dinner, fresh air, for the sake of her invalid sister-in-law, carried her conviction of the old lady's illness so far that she almost managed her into her coffin. She pointed out her sacrifices and their results one day to the constant apothecary, Mr. Clump.
"I am sure, my dear Mr. Clump," she said, "no efforts of mine have been wanting to restore our dear invalid, whom the ingratitude of her nephew has laid on the bed of sickness. I never shrink from personal discomfort: I never refuse to sacrifice myself."
"Your devotion, it must be confessed, is admirable," Mr. Clump says, with a low bow; "but--"
"I have scarcely closed my eyes since my arrival: I give up sleep, health, every comfort, to my sense of duty. When my poor James was in the smallpox, did I allow any hireling to nurse him? No."
"You did what became an excellent mother, my dear Madam--the best of mothers; but--"
"As the mother of a family and the wife of an English clergyman, I humbly trust that my principles are good," Mrs. Bute said, with a happy solemnity of conviction; "and, as long as Nature supports me, never, never, Mr. Clump, will I desert the post of duty. Others may bring that grey head with sorrow to the bed of sickness (here Mrs. Bute, waving her hand, pointed to one of old Miss Crawley's coffee-coloured fronts, which was perched on a stand in the dressing-room), but I will never quit it. Ah, Mr. Clump! I fear, I know, that the couch needs spiritual as well as medical consolation."
"What I was going to observe, my dear Madam,"--here the resolute Clump once more interposed with a bland air--"what I was going to observe when you gave utterance to sentiments which do you so much honour, was that I think you alarm yourself needlessly about our kind friend, and sacrifice your own health too prodigally in her favour."
"I would lay down my life for my duty, or for any member of my husband's family," Mrs. Bute interposed.
"Yes, Madam, if need were; but we don't want Mrs Bute Crawley to be a martyr," Clump said gallantly. "Dr Squills and myself have both considered Miss Crawley's case with every anxiety and care, as you may suppose. We see her low-spirited and nervous; family events have agitated her."
"Her nephew will come to perdition," Mrs. Crawley cried.
"Have agitated her: and you arrived like a guardian angel, my dear Madam, a positive guardian angel, I assure you, to soothe her under the pressure of calamity. But Dr. Squills and I were thinking that our amiable friend is not in such a state as renders confinement to her bed necessary. She is depressed, but this confinement perhaps adds to her depression. She should have change, fresh air, gaiety; the most delightful remedies in the pharmacopoeia," Mr. Clump said, grinning and showing his handsome teeth. "Persuade her to rise, dear Madam; drag her from her couch and her low spirits; insist upon her taking little drives. They will restore the roses too to your cheeks, if I may so speak to Mrs. Bute Crawley."
"The sight of her horrid nephew casually in the Park, where I am told the wretch drives with the brazen partner of his crimes," Mrs. Bute said (letting the cat of selfishness out of the bag of secrecy), "would cause her such a shock, that we should have to bring her back to bed again. She must not go out, Mr. Clump. She shall not go out as long as I remain to watch over her; And as for my health, what matters it? I give it cheerfully, sir. I sacrifice it at the altar of my duty."
"Upon my word, Madam," Mr. Clump now said bluntly, "I won't answer for her life if she remains locked up in that dark room. She is so nervous that we may lose her any day; and if you wish Captain Crawley to be her heir, I warn you frankly, Madam, that you are doing your very best to serve him."
"Gracious mercy! is her life in danger?" Mrs. Bute cried. "Why, why, Mr. Clump, did you not inform me sooner?"
The night before, Mr. Clump and Dr. Squills had had a consultation (over a bottle of wine at the house of Sir Lapin Warren, whose lady was about to present him with a thirteenth blessing), regarding Miss Crawley and her case.
"What a little harpy that woman from Hampshire is, Clump," Squills remarked, "that has seized upon old Tilly Crawley. Devilish good Madeira."
"What a fool Rawdon Crawley has been," Clump replied, "to go and marry a governess! There was something about the girl, too."
"Green eyes, fair skin, pretty figure, famous frontal development," Squills remarked. "There is something about her; and Crawley was a fool, Squills."
"A d---- fool--always was," the apothecary replied.
"Of course the old girl will fling him over," said the physician, and after a pause added, "She'll cut up well, I suppose."
"Cut up," says Clump with a grin; "I wouldn't have her cut up for two hundred a year."
"That Hampshire woman will kill her in two months, Clump, my boy, if she stops about her," Dr. Squills said. "Old woman; full feeder; nervous subject; palpitation of the heart; pressure on the brain; apoplexy; off she goes. Get her up, Clump; get her out: or I wouldn't give many weeks' purchase for your two hundred a year." And it was acting upon this hint that the worthy apothecary spoke with so much candour to Mrs. Bute Crawley.
Having the old lady under her hand: in bed: with nobody near, Mrs. Bute had made more than one assault upon her, to induce her to alter her will. But Miss Crawley's usual terrors regarding death increased greatly when such dismal propositions were made to her, and Mrs. Bute saw that she must get her patient into cheerful spirits and health before she could hope to attain the pious object which she had in view. Whither to take her was the next puzzle. The only place where she is not likely to meet those odious Rawdons is at church, and that won't amuse her, Mrs. Bute justly felt. "We must go and visit our beautiful suburbs of London," she then thought. "I hear they are the most picturesque in the world"; and so she had a sudden interest for Hampstead, and Hornsey, and found that Dulwich had great charms for her, and getting her victim into her carriage, drove her to those rustic spots, beguiling the little journeys with conversations about Rawdon and his wife, and telling every story to the old lady which could add to her indignation against this pair of reprobates.
Perhaps Mrs. Bute pulled the string unnecessarily tight. For though she worked up Miss Crawley to a proper dislike of her disobedient nephew, the invalid had a great hatred and secret terror of her victimizer, and panted to escape from her. After a brief space, she rebelled against Highgate and Hornsey utterly. She would go into the Park. Mrs. Bute knew they would meet the abominable Rawdon there, and she was right. One day in the ring, Rawdon's stanhope came in sight; Rebecca was seated by him. In the enemy's equipage Miss Crawley occupied her usual place, with Mrs. Bute on her left, the poodle and Miss Briggs on the back seat. It was a nervous moment, and Rebecca's heart beat quick as she recognized the carriage; and as the two vehicles crossed each other in a line, she clasped her hands, and looked towards the spinster with a face of agonized attachment and devotion. Rawdon himself trembled, and his face grew purple behind his dyed mustachios. Only old Briggs was moved in the other carriage, and cast her great eyes nervously towards her old friends. Miss Crawley's bonnet was resolutely turned towards the Serpentine. Mrs. Bute happened to be in ecstasies with the poodle, and was calling him a little darling, and a sweet little zoggy, and a pretty pet. The carriages moved on, each in his line.
"Done, by Jove," Rawdon said to his wife.
"Try once more, Rawdon," Rebecca answered. "Could not you lock your wheels into theirs, dearest?"
Rawdon had not the heart for that manoeuvre. When the carriages met again, he stood up in his stanhope; he raised his hand ready to doff his hat; he looked with all his eyes. But this time Miss Crawley's face was not turned away; she and Mrs. Bute looked him full in the face, and cut their nephew pitilessly. He sank back in his seat with an oath, and striking out of the ring, dashed away desperately homewards.
It was a gallant and decided triumph for Mrs. Bute. But she felt the danger of many such meetings, as she saw the evident nervousness of Miss Crawley; and she determined that it was most necessary for her dear friend's health, that they should leave town for a while, and recommended Brighton very strongly.

We have mentioned how kind and attentive Mrs Bute Crawley was to Firkin, Miss Crawley's confidential servant. She was a gracious friend to Miss Briggs, the companion, also; and had gained her good-will with those promises which cost so little in the making, and are yet so agreeable to the recipient. Indeed every good economist must know how cheap yet amiable these attentions are, and what a flavour they give to the most homely dish in life. Mrs. Bute had told Briggs and Firkin so often of her affection for them, and of what she would do for them, if she had Miss Crawley's fortune, that the two ladies had the deepest regard for her; and felt as grateful as if Mrs. Bute had loaded them with expensive favours.
Rawdon Crawley, on the other hand, like the selfish heavy dragoon he was, never took the least trouble to conciliate his aunt's companions. As his aunt made a butt of Briggs, the Captain followed her example, and levelled his jokes at her. Whereas Mrs. Bute consulted her in matters of taste, admired her poetry, and showed her appreciation of Briggs in a thousand ways; and if she made Firkin a twopenny present, accompanied it with so many compliments that the twopence was changed to gold in the maid's grateful heart.
Praise everybody, I say: never be squeamish, but speak out your compliment both to a man's face, and behind his back, when you know he may get to hear of it. Never lose a chance of saying a kind word. Plant your compliments like acorns: an acorn costs nothing, but it may sprout into a prodigious bit of timber.
During Rawdon Crawley's prosperity, he was only obeyed sulkily; when his disgrace came, nobody pitied him. But the garrison at Miss Crawley's house were charmed to act under such a leader as Mrs Bute, expecting all sorts of promotion from her promises and her kind words.
Mrs. Bute Crawley never allowed herself to suppose that Rawdon would be beaten by one defeat. She knew Rebecca to be too clever and spirited a woman to submit without a struggle; and felt that she must prepare for that combat, and be incessantly watchful.
In the first place, would Miss Crawley herself hold out? Had she not a secret longing to welcome back Rawdon and Rebecca? The old lady liked them; they amused her. Mrs. Bute could not disguise from herself the fact that none of her own family could contribute much to Miss Crawley's pleasures.
"My girls' singing, after that odious governess's, is unbearable," she admitted to herself. "Jim's college manners and poor dear Bute's talk about his dogs and horses always annoyed her. If I took her to the Rectory, she would grow angry with us all, and fly; and might fall into the clutches of that horrid Rawdon and that little viper of a Sharp. Meanwhile, she is exceedingly ill, and cannot move for weeks; during which we must protect her from those unprincipled people."
Miss Crawley was always ready to send for her doctor, and I daresay she was very unwell after the sudden family event. At least, Mrs. Bute thought it was her duty to inform the physician, and the apothecary, and the household, that Miss Crawley was in a most critical state. She had the street laid knee-deep with straw to muffle sounds; she insisted that the Doctor should call twice a day; and deluged her patient with medicinal draughts every two hours. The poor old lady could not look up from her bed without seeing Mrs. Bute's beady eyes eagerly fixed on her. They seemed to shine in the dark as she moved about the room on velvet paws like a cat.
There Miss Crawley lay for many days - Mrs. Bute reading books of devotion to her: for long nights, during which she had to hear the watchman sing. When she was in health and good spirits, this old inhabitant of Vanity Fair had free notions about religion and morals, but when illness overtook her, it brought the most dreadful terrors of death. For the bustle, and triumph, and laughter which Vanity Fair exhibits in public, do not always pursue the performer into private life. Are there not moments when one grows sick of grinning and tumbling, and the jingling of cap and bells? This, dear friends, is my amiable object - to walk with you through the Fair, so that we should all come home after the noise and gaiety, and be perfectly miserable in private.
"If that poor man of mine had a head on his shoulders," Mrs. Bute Crawley thought, "how useful he might be! He might make this old lady repent of her shocking ways; he might urge her to do her duty, and cast off her odious nephew, and do justice to my dear children, who deserve every assistance which their relatives can give them."
Mrs. Bute Crawley tried to instil in her sister-in-law a proper abhorrence for all Rawdon Crawley's many sins: producing a list of them long enough for a whole regiment of young officers. She showed a perfect knowledge of Rawdon's history. She had all the details of that ugly quarrel with Captain Marker, when Rawdon shot him. She knew how young Lord Dovedale, who had never touched a card in his life, was perverted by Rawdon at the Cocoa-Tree, made helplessly tipsy, and fleeced of four thousand pounds. She described the agonies of the families whom he had ruined - the sons whom he had plunged into poverty - the daughters whom he had lured into perdition. She knew the astounding falsehoods by which he had imposed upon his generous aunt, and the ridicule with which he had repaid her.
She told these stories to Miss Crawley, feeling it to be her Christian duty. She had not the smallest remorse for her victim. If a man's character is to be abused, there's nobody like a relation to do the business. And one is bound to own that the mere truth about the unfortunate Rawdon was enough to condemn him, without any invention of scandal.
Rebecca, too, came in for the fullest share of Mrs. Bute's kind inquiries. Mrs. Bute visited her old friend Miss Pinkerton, at Chiswick Mall, from whom she got various strange facts about Rebecca's early history. Miss Jemima was made to fetch the drawing-master's receipts and begging-letters. There were juvenile letters from Rebecca, too, imploring aid for her father or declaring her gratitude. Perhaps in Vanity Fair there are no better satires than letters. Vows, promises, gratitude, how queerly they read after a while! There ought to be a law in Vanity Fair ordering the destruction of every written document after a certain interval - and indelible ink should be abolished. The best ink for Vanity Fair use would be one that faded utterly in a couple of days, and left the paper blank.
From Miss Pinkerton's, the indefatigable Mrs. Bute followed the track of Sharp and his daughter back to their former lodgings in Greek Street. Mrs. Stokes the landlady told all she knew about Mr. Sharp; how dissolute and poor he was; how he was always hunted by bailiffs; how, to the landlady's horror, he did not marry his wife till a short time before her death; and what a queer little wild vixen his daughter was; how she kept them all laughing with her mimicry, and used to fetch the gin from the public-house.
So, in Mrs. Bute's tale, Mrs. Rawdon Crawley was the daughter of an opera-girl. She had danced herself. She had been a model to the painters. She drank gin with her father, etc. etc. She was a lost woman who was married to a lost man; and the moral was that the pair were beyond redemption.
These were the provisions and ammunition with which Mrs. Bute fortified the Park Lane house against the siege which she knew that Rawdon and his wife would lay to Miss Crawley. But she was too eager. She managed rather too well; she made Miss Crawley more ill than was necessary, and was so harassing and severe that the old lady might have been inclined to escape by dying. Women who order everything for everybody don't always speculate about the consequences of their overstrained authority.
Thus Mrs. Bute, with the best intentions no doubt, carried her conviction of the old lady's illness so far that she almost managed her into her coffin. She pointed out her sacrifices one day to the apothecary, Mr. Clump.
"I am sure, my dear Mr. Clump," she said, "no efforts of mine have been lacking to restore our dear invalid. I never shrink: I never refuse to sacrifice myself."
"Your devotion is admirable," Mr. Clump said, with a low bow; "but -"
"I give up sleep, health, every comfort, to my sense of duty. When my poor James had the smallpox, did I allow any hireling to nurse him? No."
"You did what became an excellent mother, my dear Madam; but -"
"As the wife of an English clergyman, I humbly trust that my principles are good," Mrs. Bute said with happy conviction; "and, as long as Nature supports me, never will I desert my duty. Ah, Mr. Clump! I fear that the invalid needs spiritual as well as medical consolation."
"What I was going to observe, my dear Madam," the resolute Clump interposed, "was that I think you alarm yourself needlessly about our kind friend, and sacrifice your own health too much."
"I would lay down my life for my duty."
"Yes, Madam; but we don't want you to be a martyr," Clump said gallantly. "Dr Squills and both considered Miss Crawley to be low-spirited and nervous; family events have agitated her."
"Her nephew will go to perdition," Mrs. Crawley cried.
"And you arrived like a guardian angel, my dear Madam, to soothe her. But Dr. Squills and I think that confinement to her bed is not necessary. She is depressed, but she should have change, fresh air, gaiety," Mr. Clump said, grinning. "Persuade her to rise, dear Madam; insist upon her taking little drives. They will restore the roses to your cheeks too."
"The sight of her horrid nephew in the Park," Mrs. Bute said, "would cause her such a shock, that we should have to bring her back to bed again. She must not go out, Mr. Clump. As for my health, I sacrifice it cheerfully at the altar of my duty."
"Upon my word, Madam," Mr. Clump now said bluntly, "I won't answer for her life if she remains locked up in that dark room. She is so nervous that we may lose her any day; and if you wish Captain Crawley to be her heir, I warn you frankly, Madam, that you are doing your very best to aid him."
"Gracious mercy! is her life in danger?" Mrs. Bute cried. "Why did you not inform me sooner?"
The night before this, Mr. Clump and Dr. Squills had had a consultation about Miss Crawley and her case.
"What a harpy that woman from Hampshire is, Clump," Squills remarked, "that has seized upon old Tilly Crawley."
"What a fool Rawdon Crawley has been," Clump replied, "to go and marry a governess! There was something about the girl, too."
"Green eyes, fair skin, pretty figure. The old girl will fling him over. But that Hampshire woman will kill her in two months, Clump, if she stays there. Old woman; nervous palpitations; apoplexy; off she goes. Get her up, Clump; get her out."
And thus it was that the worthy apothecary spoke so candidly to Mrs. Bute Crawley.
When nobody was near, Mrs. Bute had made more than one attack upon Miss Crawley to induce her to alter her will. But Miss Crawley's terror of death increased greatly when such dismal suggestions were made to her, and Mrs. Bute saw that she must get her patient into cheerful spirits before she could succeed.
Where to take her was the next puzzle, if she was not to meet Rawdon Crawley.
"We must visit our beautiful suburbs of London," Mrs. Bute thought. "I hear they are the most picturesque in the world." Getting her victim into her carriage, she drove her to the rustic spots of Hampstead and Dulwich, beguiling the journeys with conversations about Rawdon and his wife, and telling every story to the old lady which could add to her indignation.
Perhaps Mrs. Bute pulled the string unnecessarily tight. For the invalid had a hatred and secret terror of her victimizer, and panted to escape from her. After a brief time, she rebelled: she would go to the Park. Mrs. Bute knew they would meet the abominable Rawdon there, and she was right.
One day in the Park, Rawdon's carriage came in sight; Rebecca was seated by him. In the enemy's carriage Miss Crawley occupied her usual place, with Mrs. Bute on her left, and Miss Briggs on the back seat. It was a nervous moment, and Rebecca's heart beat quick when she recognized them. As the two vehicles crossed each other, she clasped her hands, and looked towards the spinster with a face of agonized attachment and devotion. Rawdon trembled, and his face grew purple behind his dyed mustachios.
In the other carriage, old Briggs cast her great eyes nervously towards her old friends. Miss Crawley's bonnet was resolutely turned towards the Serpentine. Mrs. Bute was busy playing with the poodle; and the carriages moved on.
"Try once more, Rawdon," Rebecca urged. "Could not you lock your wheels into theirs, dearest?"
Rawdon had not the heart for that manoeuvre. When the carriages met again, he stood up, and raised his hand ready to doff his hat. But this time Miss Crawley did not turn away; she and Mrs. Bute looked him full in the face, and cut their nephew pitilessly. He sank back in his seat with an oath, and dashed desperately homewards.
It was a decided triumph for Mrs. Bute. But she felt the danger of many such meetings, and decided that for the sake of her dear friend's health, they should leave town for a while; and she recommended Brighton very strongly.


Good fortune now begins to smile upon Amelia. We are glad to get her out of that low sphere in which she has been creeping hitherto and introduce her into a polite circle--not so grand and refined as that in which our other female friend, Mrs. Becky, has appeared, but still having no small pretensions to gentility and fashion. Jos's friends were all from the three presidencies, and his new house was in the comfortable Anglo-Indian district of which Moira Place is the centre. Minto Square, Great Clive Street, Warren Street, Hastings Street, Ochterlony Place, Plassy Square, Assaye Terrace ("gardens" was a felicitous word not applied to stucco houses with asphalt terraces in front, so early as 1827)--who does not know these respectable abodes of the retired Indian aristocracy, and the quarter which Mr. Wenham calls the Black Hole, in a word? Jos's position in life was not grand enough to entitle him to a house in Moira Place, where none can live but retired Members of Council, and partners of Indian firms (who break, after having settled a hundred thousand pounds on their wives, and retire into comparative penury to a country place and four thousand a year); he engaged a comfortable house of a second- or third-rate order in Gillespie Street, purchasing the carpets, costly mirrors, and handsome and appropriate planned furniture by Seddons from the assignees of Mr. Scape, lately admitted partner into the great Calcutta House of Fogle, Fake, and Cracksman, in which poor Scape had embarked seventy thousand pounds, the earnings of a long and honourable life, taking Fake's place, who retired to a princely park in Sussex (the Fogles have been long out of the firm, and Sir Horace Fogle is about to be raised to the peerage as Baron Bandanna)--admitted, I say, partner into the great agency house of Fogle and Fake two years before it failed for a million and plunged half the Indian public into misery and ruin.
Scape, ruined, honest, and broken-hearted at sixty-five years of age, went out to Calcutta to wind up the affairs of the house. Walter Scape was withdrawn from Eton and put into a merchant's house. Florence Scape, Fanny Scape, and their mother faded away to Boulogne, and will be heard of no more. To be brief, Jos stepped in and bought their carpets and sideboards and admired himself in the mirrors which had reflected their kind handsome faces. The Scape tradesmen, all honourably paid, left their cards, and were eager to supply the new household. The large men in white waistcoats who waited at Scape's dinners, greengrocers, bank-porters, and milkmen in their private capacity, left their addresses and ingratiated themselves with the butler. Mr. Chummy, the chimney-purifier, who had swept the last three families, tried to coax the butler and the boy under him, whose duty it was to go out covered with buttons and with stripes down his trousers, for the protection of Mrs. Amelia whenever she chose to walk abroad.
It was a modest establishment. The butler was Jos's valet also, and never was more drunk than a butler in a small family should be who has a proper regard for his master's wine. Emmy was supplied with a maid, grown on Sir William Dobbin's suburban estate; a good girl, whose kindness and humility disarmed Mrs. Osborne, who was at first terrified at the idea of having a servant to wait upon herself, who did not in the least know how to use one, and who always spoke to domestics with the most reverential politeness. But this maid was very useful in the family, in dexterously tending old Mr. Sedley, who kept almost entirely to his own quarter of the house and never mixed in any of the gay doings which took place there.
Numbers of people came to see Mrs. Osborne. Lady Dobbin and daughters were delighted at her change of fortune, and waited upon her. Miss Osborne from Russell Square came in her grand chariot with the flaming hammer-cloth emblazoned with the Leeds arms. Jos was reported to be immensely rich. Old Osborne had no objection that Georgy should inherit his uncle's property as well as his own. "Damn it, we will make a man of the feller," he said; "and I'll see him in Parliament before I die. You may go and see his mother, Miss O., though I'll never set eyes on her": and Miss Osborne came. Emmy, you may be sure, was very glad to see her, and so be brought nearer to George. That young fellow was allowed to come much more frequently than before to visit his mother. He dined once or twice a week in Gillespie Street and bullied the servants and his relations there, just as he did in Russell Square.
He was always respectful to Major Dobbin, however, and more modest in his demeanour when that gentleman was present. He was a clever lad and afraid of the Major. George could not help admiring his friend's simplicity, his good humour, his various learning quietly imparted, his general love of truth and justice. He had met no such man as yet in the course of his experience, and he had an instinctive liking for a gentleman. He hung fondly by his godfather's side, and it was his delight to walk in the parks and hear Dobbin talk. William told George about his father, about India and Waterloo, about everything but himself. When George was more than usually pert and conceited, the Major made jokes at him, which Mrs. Osborne thought very cruel. One day, taking him to the play, and the boy declining to go into the pit because it was vulgar, the Major took him to the boxes, left him there, and went down himself to the pit. He had not been seated there very long before he felt an arm thrust under his and a dandy little hand in a kid glove squeezing his arm. George had seen the absurdity of his ways and come down from the upper region. A tender laugh of benevolence lighted up old Dobbin's face and eyes as he looked at the repentant little prodigal. He loved the boy, as he did everything that belonged to Amelia. How charmed she was when she heard of this instance of George's goodness! Her eyes looked more kindly on Dobbin than they ever had done. She blushed, he thought, after looking at him so.
Georgy never tired of his praises of the Major to his mother. "I like him, Mamma, because he knows such lots of things; and he ain't like old Veal, who is always bragging and using such long words, don't you know? The chaps call him 'Longtail' at school. I gave him the name; ain't it capital? But Dob reads Latin like English, and French and that; and when we go out together he tells me stories about my Papa, and never about himself; though I heard Colonel Buckler, at Grandpapa's, say that he was one of the bravest officers in the army, and had distinguished himself ever so much. Grandpapa was quite surprised, and said, 'THAT feller! Why, I didn't think he could say Bo to a goose'--but I know he could, couldn't he, Mamma?"
Emmy laughed: she thought it was very likely the Major could do thus much.
If there was a sincere liking between George and the Major, it must be confessed that between the boy and his uncle no great love existed. George had got a way of blowing out his cheeks, and putting his hands in his waistcoat pockets, and saying, "God bless my soul, you don't say so," so exactly after the fashion of old Jos that it was impossible to refrain from laughter. The servants would explode at dinner if the lad, asking for something which wasn't at table, put on that countenance and used that favourite phrase. Even Dobbin would shoot out a sudden peal at the boy's mimicry. If George did not mimic his uncle to his face, it was only by Dobbin's rebukes and Amelia's terrified entreaties that the little scapegrace was induced to desist. And the worthy civilian being haunted by a dim consciousness that the lad thought him an ass, and was inclined to turn him into ridicule, used to be extremely timorous and, of course, doubly pompous and dignified in the presence of Master Georgy. When it was announced that the young gentleman was expected in Gillespie Street to dine with his mother, Mr. Jos commonly found that he had an engagement at the Club. Perhaps nobody was much grieved at his absence. On those days Mr. Sedley would commonly be induced to come out from his place of refuge in the upper stories, and there would be a small family party, whereof Major Dobbin pretty generally formed one. He was the ami de la maison--old Sedley's friend, Emmy's friend, Georgy's friend, Jos's counsel and adviser. "He might almost as well be at Madras for anything WE see of him," Miss Ann Dobbin remarked at Camberwell. Ah! Miss Ann, did it not strike you that it was not YOU whom the Major wanted to marry?
Joseph Sedley then led a life of dignified otiosity such as became a person of his eminence. His very first point, of course, was to become a member of the Oriental Club, where he spent his mornings in the company of his brother Indians, where he dined, or whence he brought home men to dine.
Amelia had to receive and entertain these gentlemen and their ladies. From these she heard how soon Smith would be in Council; how many lacs Jones had brought home with him, how Thomson's House in London had refused the bills drawn by Thomson, Kibobjee, and Co., the Bombay House, and how it was thought the Calcutta House must go too; how very imprudent, to say the least of it, Mrs. Brown's conduct (wife of Brown of the Ahmednuggur Irregulars) had been with young Swankey of the Body Guard, sitting up with him on deck until all hours, and losing themselves as they were riding out at the Cape; how Mrs. Hardyman had had out her thirteen sisters, daughters of a country curate, the Rev: Felix Rabbits, and married eleven of them, seven high up in the service; how Hornby was wild because his wife would stay in Europe, and Trotter was appointed Collector at Ummerapoora. This and similar talk took place at the grand dinners all round. They had the same conversation; the same silver dishes; the same saddles of mutton, boiled turkeys, and entrees. Politics set in a short time after dessert, when the ladies retired upstairs and talked about their complaints and their children.
Mutato nomine, it is all the same. Don't the barristers' wives talk about Circuit? Don't the soldiers' ladies gossip about the Regiment? Don't the clergymen's ladies discourse about Sunday-schools and who takes whose duty? Don't the very greatest ladies of all talk about that small clique of persons to whom they belong? And why should our Indian friends not have their own conversation?--only I admit it is slow for the laymen whose fate it sometimes is to sit by and listen.
Before long Emmy had a visiting-book, and was driving about regularly in a carriage, calling upon Lady Bludyer (wife of Major-General Sir Roger Bludyer, K.C.B., Bengal Army); Lady Huff, wife of Sir G. Huff, Bombay ditto; Mrs. Pice, the Lady of Pice the Director, &c. We are not long in using ourselves to changes in life. That carriage came round to Gillespie Street every day; that buttony boy sprang up and down from the box with Emmy's and Jos's visiting-cards; at stated hours Emmy and the carriage went for Jos to the Club and took him an airing; or, putting old Sedley into the vehicle, she drove the old man round the Regent's Park. The lady's maid and the chariot, the visiting-book and the buttony page, became soon as familiar to Amelia as the humble routine of Brompton. She accommodated herself to one as to the other. If Fate had ordained that she should be a Duchess, she would even have done that duty too. She was voted, in Jos's female society, rather a pleasing young person--not much in her, but pleasing, and that sort of thing.
The men, as usual, liked her artless kindness and simple refined demeanour. The gallant young Indian dandies at home on furlough--immense dandies these--chained and moustached--driving in tearing cabs, the pillars of the theatres, living at West End hotels--nevertheless admired Mrs. Osborne, liked to bow to her carriage in the park, and to be admitted to have the honour of paying her a morning visit. Swankey of the Body Guard himself, that dangerous youth, and the greatest buck of all the Indian army now on leave, was one day discovered by Major Dobbin tete-a-tete with Amelia, and describing the sport of pig-sticking to her with great humour and eloquence; and he spoke afterwards of a d--d king's officer that's always hanging about the house--a long, thin, queer-looking, oldish fellow--a dry fellow though, that took the shine out of a man in the talking line.
Had the Major possessed a little more personal vanity he would have been jealous of so dangerous a young buck as that fascinating Bengal Captain. But Dobbin was of too simple and generous a nature to have any doubts about Amelia. He was glad that the young men should pay her respect, and that others should admire her. Ever since her womanhood almost, had she not been persecuted and undervalued? It pleased him to see how kindness bought out her good qualities and how her spirits gently rose with her prosperity. Any person who appreciated her paid a compliment to the Major's good judgement--that is, if a man may be said to have good judgement who is under the influence of Love's delusion.
After Jos went to Court, which we may be sure he did as a loyal subject of his Sovereign (showing himself in his full court suit at the Club, whither Dobbin came to fetch him in a very shabby old uniform) he who had always been a staunch Loyalist and admirer of George IV, became such a tremendous Tory and pillar of the State that he was for having Amelia to go to a Drawing-room, too. He somehow had worked himself up to believe that he was implicated in the maintenance of the public welfare and that the Sovereign would not be happy unless Jos Sedley and his family appeared to rally round him at St. James's.
Emmy laughed. "Shall I wear the family diamonds, Jos?" she said.
"I wish you would let me buy you some," thought the Major. "I should like to see any that were too good for you."

Good fortune now begins to smile upon Amelia. We are glad to introduce her into a polite circle - not so grand as that in which Mrs. Becky has appeared, but still genteel and fashionable. Jos's new house was in the comfortable Anglo-Indian district around Moira Place. Who does not know these respectable homes of the retired Indian aristocracy, and the quarter which Mr. Wenham calls the Black Hole? Jos's position was not grand enough for a house in Moira Place itself, but he rented a comfortable house of a second-rate order in Gillespie Street.
It was a modest establishment. The butler was also Jos's valet; Emmy had a maid, grown on Sir William Dobbin's estate; a good girl, whose kindness and humility disarmed Mrs. Osborne, who was terrified at the idea of having a servant to wait upon her. But this maid was very useful in skilfully tending old Mr. Sedley, who kept to his own part of the house.
Many people came to see Mrs. Osborne. Lady Dobbin and her daughters were delighted at her change of fortune, and visited her. Miss Osborne from Russell Square came in her grand chariot. Jos was reported to be immensely rich, and Old Osborne had no objection to Georgy inheriting his uncle's property as well as his own.
"Damn it, I'll see him in Parliament before I die," he said. "You may visit his mother, Miss O., though I won't." Emmy was very glad to see Miss Osborne, and so be brought nearer to Georgy. That young fellow was allowed to visit his mother more frequently. He dined once or twice a week in Gillespie Street, and bullied the servants and his relations there, just as he did in Russell Square.
He was always respectful to Major Dobbin, however. He was a clever lad and afraid of the Major. George could not help admiring his simplicity, his good humour, his learning quietly imparted, and his general love of truth and justice. He had met no such man before, and he hung fondly by Dobbin's side, delighting to walk in the parks with him.
William told George about his father, about India and Waterloo, about everything but himself. When George was more than usually pert and conceited, the Major made jokes at him, which Mrs. Osborne thought very cruel. One day, the Major took him to the play, and the boy declined to go into the pit because it was vulgar. So the Major took him to the boxes, left him there, and went down himself to the pit. He had not been seated there very long before he felt a little arm thrust under his: George had seen the absurdity of his ways and come down.
Dobbin loved the boy, as he did everything that belonged to Amelia. Her eyes looked more kindly on Dobbin than they had ever done. She blushed, he thought, after looking at him so.
Georgy never tired of praising the Major to his mother. "I like him, Mamma, because he knows such lots of things; and he ain't like old Veal, who is always bragging and using such long words. But Dob reads Latin like English, and French and that; and he tells me stories about my Papa, and never about himself; though I heard Colonel Buckler say that he was one of the bravest officers in the army, and had distinguished himself ever so much. Grandpapa was quite surprised, and said, 'That feller! Why, I didn't think he could say Boo to a goose' - but he could, couldn't he, Mamma?"
Emmy laughed: she thought it very likely.
However, there was no great love between George and his uncle Joseph. George had got a way of blowing out his cheeks, and putting his hands in his waistcoat pockets, and saying, "God bless my soul, you don't say," so exactly like Jos that the servants would explode if the lad did it at dinner. Even Dobbin would shoot out a sudden peal of laughter. The little scapegrace did not mimic his uncle to his face only because of Dobbin's rebukes and Amelia's entreaties.
Jos, haunted by a dim consciousness that the lad thought him an ass, was doubly pompous and dignified in his presence. When Georgy was expected in Gillespie Street, Mr. Jos usually found that he had an engagement at his Club.
Joseph Sedley, then, led a life of dignified idleness. He became a member of the Oriental Club, where he spent his mornings in the company of his brother Indians, where he dined, or whence he brought home men to dine.
Amelia had to receive and entertain these gentlemen and their ladies. She heard all about the imprudent doings of the Bombay House and the Calcutta House; she learnt that the wife of Brown of the Ahmednuggur Irregulars had been sitting up with young Swankey of the Body Guard, and that Trotter was appointed Collector at Ummerapoora. This talk took place at the grand dinners: always with the same conversation; the same silver dishes and the same saddles of mutton. Politics set in a short time after dessert, when the ladies retired upstairs and talked about their complaints and their children.
Before long Emmy was driving about regularly in a carriage, calling upon Lady Bludyer, Lady Huff, and other distinguished wives. The carriage came to Gillespie Street every day; at stated hours Emmy and the carriage went to Jos's Club, or drove her father round Regent's Park. She was voted, by Jos's female society, rather a pleasing young person - not much in her, but pleasing.
The men, as usual, liked her artless kindness and simple refined manner. The gallant young Indian dandies at home on leave - tearing around in cabs, frequenting theatres, living at West End hotels - nevertheless admired Mrs. Osborne, and liked to pay her morning visits. Swankey of the Body Guard, the greatest buck in the Indian army, was one day discovered by Major Dobbin tete-a-tete with Amelia, describing the sport of pig-sticking to her; and Swankey spoke afterwards of a d__d officer that was always hanging about the house - a long, thin, queer-looking, oldish fellow - with a dry humour, though.
Had the Major been more vain he would have been jealous of Swankey. But Dobbin was of too simple and generous a nature to have any doubts about Amelia. He was glad that people should admire her. Ever since her womanhood, had she not been undervalued? It pleased him to see how her spirits gently rose with her prosperity.
After Jos went to Court, as a loyal subject of his Sovereign, he became such a tremendous Tory and pillar of the State that he wanted Amelia to go to a royal Drawing-room, too. He somehow had worked himself up to believe that he was involved in the maintenance of the public welfare and that the Sovereign would not be happy unless Jos Sedley and his family rallied round him at St. James's Palace.
Emmy laughed. "Shall I wear the family diamonds, Jos?" she said.
"I wish you would let me buy you some," thought the Major. "I should like to see any that were too good for you."

Chapter 60: Returns to the Genteel World


How they were married is not of the slightest consequence to anybody. What is to hinder a Captain who is a major, and a young lady who is of age, from purchasing a licence, and uniting themselves at any church in this town? Who needs to be told, that if a woman has a will she will assuredly find a way?--My belief is that one day, when Miss Sharp had gone to pass the forenoon with her dear friend Miss Amelia Sedley in Russell Square, a lady very like her might have been seen entering a church in the City, in company with a gentleman with dyed mustachios, who, after a quarter of an hour's interval, escorted her back to the hackney-coach in waiting, and that this was a quiet bridal party.
And who on earth, after the daily experience we have, can question the probability of a gentleman marrying anybody? How many of the wise and learned have married their cooks? Did not Lord Eldon himself, the most prudent of men, make a runaway match? Were not Achilles and Ajax both in love with their servant maids? And are we to expect a heavy dragoon with strong desires and small brains, who had never controlled a passion in his life, to become prudent all of a sudden, and to refuse to pay any price for an indulgence to which he had a mind? If people only made prudent marriages, what a stop to population there would be!
It seems to me, for my part, that Mr. Rawdon's marriage was one of the honestest actions which we shall have to record in any portion of that gentleman's biography which has to do with the present history. No one will say it is unmanly to be captivated by a woman, or, being captivated, to marry her; and the admiration, the delight, the passion, the wonder, the unbounded confidence, and frantic adoration with which, by degrees, this big warrior got to regard the little Rebecca, were feelings which the ladies at least will pronounce were not altogether discreditable to him. When she sang, every note thrilled in his dull soul, and tingled through his huge frame. When she spoke, he brought all the force of his brains to listen and wonder. If she was jocular, he used to revolve her jokes in his mind, and explode over them half an hour afterwards in the street, to the surprise of the groom in the tilbury by his side, or the comrade riding with him in Rotten Row. Her words were oracles to him, her smallest actions marked by an infallible grace and wisdom. "How she sings,--how she paints," thought he. "How she rode that kicking mare at Queen's Crawley!" And he would say to her in confidential moments, "By Jove, Beck, you're fit to be Commander-in-Chief, or Archbishop of Canterbury, by Jove." Is his case a rare one? and don't we see every day in the world many an honest Hercules at the apron-strings of Omphale, and great whiskered Samsons prostrate in Delilah's lap?
When, then, Becky told him that the great crisis was near, and the time for action had arrived, Rawdon expressed himself as ready to act under her orders, as he would be to charge with his troop at the command of his colonel. There was no need for him to put his letter into the third volume of Porteus. Rebecca easily found a means to get rid of Briggs, her companion, and met her faithful friend in "the usual place" on the next day. She had thought over matters at night, and communicated to Rawdon the result of her determinations. He agreed, of course, to everything; was quite sure that it was all right: that what she proposed was best; that Miss Crawley would infallibly relent, or "come round," as he said, after a time. Had Rebecca's resolutions been entirely different, he would have followed them as implicitly. "You have head enough for both of us, Beck," said he. "You're sure to get us out of the scrape. I never saw your equal, and I've met with some clippers in my time too." And with this simple confession of faith, the love-stricken dragoon left her to execute his part of the project which she had formed for the pair.
It consisted simply in the hiring of quiet lodgings at Brompton, or in the neighbourhood of the barracks, for Captain and Mrs. Crawley. For Rebecca had determined, and very prudently, we think, to fly. Rawdon was only too happy at her resolve; he had been entreating her to take this measure any time for weeks past. He pranced off to engage the lodgings with all the impetuosity of love. He agreed to pay two guineas a week so readily, that the landlady regretted she had asked him so little. He ordered in a piano, and half a nursery-house full of flowers: and a heap of good things. As for shawls, kid gloves, silk stockings, gold French watches, bracelets and perfumery, he sent them in with the profusion of blind love and unbounded credit. And having relieved his mind by this outpouring of generosity, he went and dined nervously at the club, waiting until the great moment of his life should come.
The occurrences of the previous day; the admirable conduct of Rebecca in refusing an offer so advantageous to her, the secret unhappiness preying upon her, the sweetness and silence with which she bore her affliction, made Miss Crawley much more tender than usual. An event of this nature, a marriage, or a refusal, or a proposal, thrills through a whole household of women, and sets all their hysterical sympathies at work. As an observer of human nature, I regularly frequent St. George's, Hanover Square, during the genteel marriage season; and though I have never seen the bridegroom's male friends give way to tears, or the beadles and officiating clergy any way affected, yet it is not at all uncommon to see women who are not in the least concerned in the operations going on--old ladies who are long past marrying, stout middle-aged females with plenty of sons and daughters, let alone pretty young creatures in pink bonnets, who are on their promotion, and may naturally take an interest in the ceremony--I say it is quite common to see the women present piping, sobbing, sniffling; hiding their little faces in their little useless pocket-handkerchiefs; and heaving, old and young, with emotion. When my friend, the fashionable John Pimlico, married the lovely Lady Belgravia Green Parker, the excitement was so general that even the little snuffy old pew-opener who let me into the seat was in tears. And wherefore? I inquired of my own soul: she was not going to be married.
Miss Crawley and Briggs in a word, after the affair of Sir Pitt, indulged in the utmost luxury of sentiment, and Rebecca became an object of the most tender interest to them. In her absence Miss Crawley solaced herself with the most sentimental of the novels in her library. Little Sharp, with her secret griefs, was the heroine of the day.
That night Rebecca sang more sweetly and talked more pleasantly than she had ever been heard to do in Park Lane. She twined herself round the heart of Miss Crawley. She spoke lightly and laughingly of Sir Pitt's proposal, ridiculed it as the foolish fancy of an old man; and her eyes filled with tears, and Briggs's heart with unutterable pangs of defeat, as she said she desired no other lot than to remain for ever with her dear benefactress. "My dear little creature," the old lady said, "I don't intend to let you stir for years, that you may depend upon it. As for going back to that odious brother of mine after what has passed, it is out of the question. Here you stay with me and Briggs. Briggs wants to go to see her relations very often. Briggs, you may go when you like. But as for you, my dear, you must stay and take care of the old woman."
If Rawdon Crawley had been then and there present, instead of being at the club nervously drinking claret, the pair might have gone down on their knees before the old spinster, avowed all, and been forgiven in a twinkling. But that good chance was denied to the young couple, doubtless in order that this story might be written, in which numbers of their wonderful adventures are narrated--adventures which could never have occurred to them if they had been housed and sheltered under the comfortable uninteresting forgiveness of Miss Crawley.
Under Mrs. Firkin's orders, in the Park Lane establishment, was a young woman from Hampshire, whose business it was, among other duties, to knock at Miss Sharp's door with that jug of hot water which Firkin would rather have perished than have presented to the intruder. This girl, bred on the family estate, had a brother in Captain Crawley's troop, and if the truth were known, I daresay it would come out that she was aware of certain arrangements, which have a great deal to do with this history. At any rate she purchased a yellow shawl, a pair of green boots, and a light blue hat with a red feather with three guineas which Rebecca gave her, and as little Sharp was by no means too liberal with her money, no doubt it was for services rendered that Betty Martin was so bribed.
On the second day after Sir Pitt Crawley's offer to Miss Sharp, the sun rose as usual, and at the usual hour Betty Martin, the upstairs maid, knocked at the door of the governess's bedchamber.
No answer was returned, and she knocked again. Silence was still uninterrupted; and Betty, with the hot water, opened the door and entered the chamber.
The little white dimity bed was as smooth and trim as on the day previous, when Betty's own hands had helped to make it. Two little trunks were corded in one end of the room; and on the table before the window--on the pincushion--the great fat pincushion lined with pink inside, and twilled like a lady's nightcap--lay a letter. It had been reposing there probably all night.
Betty advanced towards it on tiptoe, as if she were afraid to awake it--looked at it, and round the room, with an air of great wonder and satisfaction; took up the letter, and grinned intensely as she turned it round and over, and finally carried it into Miss Briggs's room below.
How could Betty tell that the letter was for Miss Briggs, I should like to know? All the schooling Betty had had was at Mrs. Bute Crawley's Sunday school, and she could no more read writing than Hebrew.
"La, Miss Briggs," the girl exclaimed, "O, Miss, something must have happened--there's nobody in Miss Sharp's room; the bed ain't been slep in, and she've run away, and left this letter for you, Miss."
"WHAT!" cries Briggs, dropping her comb, the thin wisp of faded hair falling over her shoulders; "an elopement! Miss Sharp a fugitive! What, what is this?" and she eagerly broke the neat seal, and, as they say, "devoured the contents" of the letter addressed to her.
Dear Miss Briggs [the refugee wrote], the kindest heart in the world, as yours is, will pity and sympathise with me and excuse me. With tears, and prayers, and blessings, I leave the home where the poor orphan has ever met with kindness and affection. Claims even superior to those of my benefactress call me hence. I go to my duty--to my HUSBAND. Yes, I am married. My husband COMMANDS me to seek the HUMBLE HOME which we call ours. Dearest Miss Briggs, break the news as your delicate sympathy will know how to do it--to my dear, my beloved friend and benefactress. Tell her, ere I went, I shed tears on her dear pillow--that pillow that I have so often soothed in sickness--that I long AGAIN to watch--Oh, with what joy shall I return to dear Park Lane! How I tremble for the answer which is to SEAL MY FATE! When Sir Pitt deigned to offer me his hand, an honour of which my beloved Miss Crawley said I was DESERVING (my blessings go with her for judging the poor orphan worthy to be HER SISTER!) I told Sir Pitt that I was already A WIFE. Even he forgave me. But my courage failed me, when I should have told him all--that I could not be his wife, for I WAS HIS DAUGHTER! I am wedded to the best and most generous of men--Miss Crawley's Rawdon is MY Rawdon. At his COMMAND I open my lips, and follow him to our humble home, as I would THROUGH THE WORLD. O, my excellent and kind friend, intercede with my Rawdon's beloved aunt for him and the poor girl to whom all HIS NOBLE RACE have shown such UNPARALLELED AFFECTION. Ask Miss Crawley to receive HER CHILDREN. I can say no more, but blessings, blessings on all in the dear house I leave, prays
Your affectionate and GRATEFUL Rebecca Crawley. Midnight.
Just as Briggs had finished reading this affecting and interesting document, which reinstated her in her position as first confidante of Miss Crawley, Mrs. Firkin entered the room. "Here's Mrs. Bute Crawley just arrived by the mail from Hampshire, and wants some tea; will you come down and make breakfast, Miss?"
And to the surprise of Firkin, clasping her dressing-gown around her, the wisp of hair floating dishevelled behind her, the little curl-papers still sticking in bunches round her forehead, Briggs sailed down to Mrs. Bute with the letter in her hand containing the wonderful news.
"Oh, Mrs. Firkin," gasped Betty, "sech a business. Miss Sharp have a gone and run away with the Capting, and they're off to Gretney Green!" We would devote a chapter to describe the emotions of Mrs. Firkin, did not the passions of her mistresses occupy our genteeler muse.
When Mrs. Bute Crawley, numbed with midnight travelling, and warming herself at the newly crackling parlour fire, heard from Miss Briggs the intelligence of the clandestine marriage, she declared it was quite providential that she should have arrived at such a time to assist poor dear Miss Crawley in supporting the shock--that Rebecca was an artful little hussy of whom she had always had her suspicions; and that as for Rawdon Crawley, she never could account for his aunt's infatuation regarding him, and had long considered him a profligate, lost, and abandoned being. And this awful conduct, Mrs. Bute said, will have at least this good effect, it will open poor dear Miss Crawley's eyes to the real character of this wicked man. Then Mrs. Bute had a comfortable hot toast and tea; and as there was a vacant room in the house now, there was no need for her to remain at the Gloster Coffee House where the Portsmouth mail had set her down, and whence she ordered Mr. Bowls's aide-de-camp the footman to bring away her trunks.
Miss Crawley, be it known, did not leave her room until near noon--taking chocolate in bed in the morning, while Becky Sharp read the Morning Post to her, or otherwise amusing herself or dawdling. The conspirators below agreed that they would spare the dear lady's feelings until she appeared in her drawing-room: meanwhile it was announced to her that Mrs. Bute Crawley had come up from Hampshire by the mail, was staying at the Gloster, sent her love to Miss Crawley, and asked for breakfast with Miss Briggs. The arrival of Mrs. Bute, which would not have caused any extreme delight at another period, was hailed with pleasure now; Miss Crawley being pleased at the notion of a gossip with her sister-in-law regarding the late Lady Crawley, the funeral arrangements pending, and Sir Pitt's abrupt proposal to Rebecca.
It was not until the old lady was fairly ensconced in her usual arm-chair in the drawing-room, and the preliminary embraces and inquiries had taken place between the ladies, that the conspirators thought it advisable to submit her to the operation. Who has not admired the artifices and delicate approaches with which women "prepare" their friends for bad news? Miss Crawley's two friends made such an apparatus of mystery before they broke the intelligence to her, that they worked her up to the necessary degree of doubt and alarm.
"And she refused Sir Pitt, my dear, dear Miss Crawley, prepare yourself for it," Mrs. Bute said, "because--because she couldn't help herself."
"Of course there was a reason," Miss Crawley answered. "She liked somebody else. I told Briggs so yesterday."
"LIKES somebody else!" Briggs gasped. "O my dear friend, she is married already."
"Married already," Mrs. Bute chimed in; and both sate with clasped hands looking from each other at their victim.
"Send her to me, the instant she comes in. The little sly wretch: how dared she not tell me?" cried out Miss Crawley.
"She won't come in soon. Prepare yourself, dear friend--she's gone out for a long time--she's--she's gone altogether."
"Gracious goodness, and who's to make my chocolate? Send for her and have her back; I desire that she come back," the old lady said.
"She decamped last night, Ma'am," cried Mrs. Bute.
"She left a letter for me," Briggs exclaimed. "She's married to--"
"Prepare her, for heaven's sake. Don't torture her, my dear Miss Briggs."
"She's married to whom?" cries the spinster in a nervous fury.
"To--to a relation of--"
"She refused Sir Pitt," cried the victim. "Speak at once. Don't drive me mad."
"O Ma'am--prepare her, Miss Briggs--she's married to Rawdon Crawley."
"Rawdon married Rebecca--governess--nobod-- Get out of my house, you fool, you idiot--you stupid old Briggs--how dare you? You're in the plot--you made him marry, thinking that I'd leave my money from him--you did, Martha," the poor old lady screamed in hysteric sentences.
"I, Ma'am, ask a member of this family to marry a drawing-master's daughter?"
"Her mother was a Montmorency," cried out the old lady, pulling at the bell with all her might.
"Her mother was an opera girl, and she has been on the stage or worse herself," said Mrs. Bute.
Miss Crawley gave a final scream, and fell back in a faint. They were forced to take her back to the room which she had just quitted. One fit of hysterics succeeded another. The doctor was sent for--the apothecary arrived. Mrs. Bute took up the post of nurse by her bedside. "Her relations ought to be round about her," that amiable woman said.
She had scarcely been carried up to her room, when a new person arrived to whom it was also necessary to break the news. This was Sir Pitt. "Where's Becky?" he said, coming in. "Where's her traps? She's coming with me to Queen's Crawley."
"Have you not heard the astonishing intelligence regarding her surreptitious union?" Briggs asked.
"What's that to me?" Sir Pitt asked. "I know she's married. That makes no odds. Tell her to come down at once, and not keep me."
"Are you not aware, sir," Miss Briggs asked, "that she has left our roof, to the dismay of Miss Crawley, who is nearly killed by the intelligence of Captain Rawdon's union with her?"
When Sir Pitt Crawley heard that Rebecca was married to his son, he broke out into a fury of language, which it would do no good to repeat in this place, as indeed it sent poor Briggs shuddering out of the room; and with her we will shut the door upon the figure of the frenzied old man, wild with hatred and insane with baffled desire.
One day after he went to Queen's Crawley, he burst like a madman into the room she had used when there--dashed open her boxes with his foot, and flung about her papers, clothes, and other relics. Miss Horrocks, the butler's daughter, took some of them. The children dressed themselves and acted plays in the others. It was but a few days after the poor mother had gone to her lonely burying-place; and was laid, unwept and disregarded, in a vault full of strangers.
"Suppose the old lady doesn't come to," Rawdon said to his little wife, as they sate together in the snug little Brompton lodgings. She had been trying the new piano all the morning. The new gloves fitted her to a nicety; the new shawls became her wonderfully; the new rings glittered on her little hands, and the new watch ticked at her waist; "suppose she don't come round, eh, Becky?"
"I'LL make your fortune," she said; and Delilah patted Samson's cheek.
"You can do anything," he said, kissing the little hand. "By Jove you can; and we'll drive down to the Star and Garter, and dine, by Jove."

How they were married is of no consequence. What is to stop a Captain and a young lady over twenty-one from purchasing a licence, and marrying at any church? My belief is that one day, when Miss Sharp had gone to pass the morning with her dear friend Miss Amelia Sedley, a lady very like her might have been seen entering a church in the City, along with a gentleman with dyed mustachios, who, after a quarter of an hour, escorted her to the hackney-coach in waiting.
And who can question the probability of a gentleman marrying anybody? How many of the wise and learned have married their cooks? Were not Achilles and Ajax both in love with their servant maids? And are we to expect a heavy dragoon with strong desires and small brains, who had never controlled a passion in his life, to become prudent all of a sudden? If people only made prudent marriages, what a stop to population there would be!
It seems to me that Mr. Rawdon's marriage was one of the most honest actions which we shall record about him in this history. No one will say it is unmanly to be captivated by a woman, or to marry her; and the admiration, the delight, the passion, the wonder, the unbounded confidence, and frantic adoration with which, by degrees, this big warrior came to regard little Rebecca, were feelings which ladies at least will say did him credit. When she sang, every note thrilled in his dull soul, and tingled through his huge frame. When she spoke, he brought all the force of his brains to listen. If she made jokes, he used to revolve them in his mind, and explode over them half an hour afterwards in the street, to the surprise of his comrades.
"How she sings, how she paints," thought he. "How she rode that kicking mare at Queen's Crawley!" And he would say to her, "By Jove, Beck, you're fit to be Commander-in-Chief, or Archbishop of Canterbury, by Jove."
So when Becky told him that the crisis was near, and the time for action had arrived, Rawdon was ready to follow her orders. Rebecca easily found a means to get rid of Briggs, her companion, and met her faithful friend in "the usual place" on the next day.
She had thought over matters, and told Rawdon what she had decided. He agreed to everything; was quite sure that what she proposed was best; that Miss Crawley would certainly relent after a time. Had Rebecca's resolutions been entirely different, he would have followed them as implicitly.
"You have head enough for both of us, Beck," said he. "You're sure to get us out of the scrape. I never saw your equal." And the love-stricken dragoon left her, to carry out his part of her plan.
This consisted simply in the hiring of quiet lodgings at Brompton for Captain and Mrs. Crawley. For Rebecca had prudently determined to fly. Rawdon was only too happy; he had been entreating her to do this for weeks. He pranced off to engage the lodgings, and ordered in a piano, and half a nursery-house full of flowers: and a heap of shawls, kid gloves, silk stockings, bracelets and perfumery, bought with the profusion of blind love and unbounded credit. Then he went and dined nervously at the club, waiting until the great moment of his life should come.
Rebecca's admirable refusal of Sir Pitt's offer, and her secret unhappiness, made Miss Crawley much more tender to her than usual. A marriage, or a refusal, or a proposal, thrills through a whole household of women. Miss Crawley and Briggs indulged in the luxury of sentiment, and Rebecca became an object of interest to them. Little Sharp, with her secret griefs, was the heroine of the day.
That night Rebecca sang more sweetly and talked more pleasantly than ever before. She twined herself round Miss Crawley's heart. She spoke lightly of Sir Pitt's proposal, as the foolish fancy of an old man; and her eyes filled with tears, and Briggs's heart filled with unutterable pangs of defeat, as she said she desired nothing more than to remain for ever with her dear mistress.
"My dear little creature," the old lady said, "You may depend on that. As for going back to that odious brother of mine, it is out of the question. Here you must stay, with me and Briggs."
If Rawdon Crawley had been present, instead of at the club nervously drinking claret, the pair might have gone down on their knees before the old spinster, revealed all, and been forgiven in a twinkling. But that chance was denied to them, doubtless in order that this story of their consequent wonderful adventures might be written.
There was a young maid-servant at the Park Lane house, whose duty it was to knock at Miss Sharp's door with a jug of hot water every morning. This girl had a brother in Captain Crawley's troop, and I daresay she was aware of certain arrangements. At any rate she bought a yellow shawl, a pair of green boots, and a blue hat with three guineas which Rebecca gave her; and no doubt it was for services rendered that Betty Martin was so bribed.
On the second morning after Sir Pitt Crawley's offer, this maid knocked at the door of Rebecca's bedchamber.
No answer came, and she knocked again. Then she opened the door and entered.
The little white bed was as smooth as on the day before. On the table before the window lay a letter.
Betty advanced towards it on tiptoe - looked around the room, with an air of great wonder and satisfaction; took up the letter, and grinned intensely as she turned it over, and finally carried it to Miss Briggs.
"La, Miss Briggs," the girl exclaimed, "Something must have happened - there's nobody in Miss Sharp's room; the bed ain't been slep in, and she've run away, and left this letter for you, Miss."
"What!" cried Briggs, dropping her comb; "an elopement! What is this?" and she eagerly broke the seal, and read.
Dear Miss Briggs,
Your kind heart will pity and excuse me. With tears and prayers, I leave the home where the poor orphan has always met with kindness. I go to my duty - to my HUSBAND. Yes, I am married. My husband commands me to seek the humble home which we call ours. Dearest Miss Briggs, break the news as your delicate sympathy will know how, to my beloved benefactress. Tell her I shed tears on her dear pillow that I have so often soothed in sickness - Oh, with what joy shall I return to dear Park Lane! How I tremble for the answer which is to SEAL MY FATE!
When Sir Pitt deigned to offer me his hand, I told him that I was already A WIFE. Even he forgave me. But my courage failed me, when I should have told him all - that I could not be his wife, for I WAS HIS DAUGHTER! I am wedded to the best of men - to Rawdon Crawley. I follow him to our humble home, as I would THROUGH THE WORLD.
O, my excellent friend, ask Miss Crawley to receive HER CHILDREN with her previous affection. I can say no more.
Your grateful Rebecca Crawley.
Just as Briggs had finished reading this interesting document, Mrs. Firkin entered the room.
"Here's Mrs. Bute Crawley just arrived by the mail coach from Hampshire, and wants some tea; will you come down, Miss?"
And to Firkin's surprise, Briggs, in her dressing-gown, with curl-papers sticking out around her head, sailed down to Mrs. Bute with the letter in her hand.
When Mrs. Bute Crawley, warming herself at the parlour fire, heard the news of the secret marriage, she declared it was lucky that she should have arrived in time to assist poor dear Miss Crawley in bearing the shock. She said that Rebecca was an artful little hussy of whom she had always been suspicious; and that as for Rawdon Crawley, she never could understand his aunt's infatuation over that profligate, abandoned man.
Then Mrs. Bute had a comfortable tea and toast; and as there was a vacant room in the house now, she ordered the footman to bring in her trunks.
Miss Crawley took chocolate in bed, and did not leave her room until nearly noon. The conspirators below agreed that they would spare the dear lady's feelings until she came downstairs. Meanwhile it was announced to her that Mrs. Bute Crawley had come from Hampshire and sent her love. Her arrival, which would not have caused any delight at another time, was hailed with pleasure now; Miss Crawley being pleased at the idea of a gossip with her sister-in-law about the late Lady Crawley, the funeral arrangements, and Sir Pitt's abrupt proposal to Rebecca.
It was not until the old lady was ensconced in her usual arm-chair in the drawing-room that the conspirators prepared to break the news, with such an apparatus of mystery that they worked her up to a high degree of doubt and alarm.
"And she refused Sir Pitt, my dear Miss Crawley, prepare yourself for it," Mrs. Bute said, "because she couldn't help herself."
"Of course," Miss Crawley answered. "She liked somebody else. I told Briggs so yesterday."
"O my dear friend," Briggs gasped, "she is married already!"
"Married already," Mrs. Bute chimed in.
"Send her to me! The little sly wretch: how dared she not tell me?" cried Miss Crawley.
"She won't come. Prepare yourself, dear friend - she's gone."
"Gracious goodness, and who's to make my chocolate? Send for her and make her come," the old lady said.
"She decamped last night, Ma'am," cried Mrs. Bute.
"She left a letter for me," Briggs exclaimed. "She's married to-"
"To whom?" cried the spinster in nervous fury.
"To - to a relation-"
"Speak at once. Don't drive me mad."
"O Ma'am - she's married to Rawdon Crawley."
"Rawdon married Rebecca! - governess - Get out of my house, you fool, you stupid Briggs - how dare you? You're in the plot - you made him marry, so I wouldn't leave him my money - you did, Martha Bute," the poor old lady screamed.
"Would I ask him to marry a drawing-master's daughter?"
"Her mother was a Montmorency," cried the old lady, pulling at the bell.
"Her mother was an opera girl," said Mrs. Bute.
Miss Crawley shrieked, and fainted. They were forced to take her back to her bedroom, where she had hysterics. The doctor was sent for; Mrs. Bute took up the post of nurse by her bedside. "Her relations ought to be around her," that amiable woman said.
At this point Sir Pitt arrived.
"Where's Becky?" he said. "She's coming with me to Queen's Crawley."
"Have you not heard the astonishing news about her marriage?" Briggs asked.
"What's that to me?" said Sir Pitt. "I know she's married. Tell her to come down."
"Are you not aware, sir," Miss Briggs said, "that she has left our roof, to the dismay of Miss Crawley, who is nearly killed by the news of Captain Rawdon's union with her?"
When Sir Pitt Crawley heard that Rebecca was married to his son, he broke out in a fury, with language which I shall not repeat, as indeed it sent poor Briggs shuddering out of the room; and with her we will shut the door upon his frenzied figure.
"Suppose the old lady doesn't come round," Rawdon said to his little wife, as they sat together in the snug Brompton lodgings. She had been trying the new piano. The new gloves fitted her perfectly; the new shawls became her wonderfully; the new rings glittered on her little hands. "Suppose she don't come round, eh, Becky?"
"I'll make your fortune," she said, and patted his cheek.
"You can do anything," he said, kissing the little hand. "By Jove you can; and we'll drive down to the Star and Garter, and dine, by Jove."

Chapter 16: The Letter on the Pincushion