Vanity Fair (11 page)

It now became clear to every soul in the house, except poor Amelia,
that Rebecca should take her departure, and high and low (always
with the one exception) agreed that that event should take place as
speedily as possible. Our good child ransacked all her drawers,
cupboards, reticules, and gimcrack boxes—passed in review all her
gowns, fichus, tags, bobbins, laces, silk stockings, and fallals—
selecting this thing and that and the other, to make a little heap
for Rebecca. And going to her Papa, that generous British merchant,
who had promised to give her as many guineas as she was years old—
she begged the old gentleman to give the money to dear Rebecca, who
must want it, while she lacked for nothing.

She even made George Osborne contribute, and nothing loth (for he
was as free-handed a young fellow as any in the army), he went to
Bond Street, and bought the best hat and spenser that money could
buy.

"That's George's present to you, Rebecca, dear," said Amelia, quite
proud of the bandbox conveying these gifts. "What a taste he has!
There's nobody like him."

"Nobody," Rebecca answered. "How thankful I am to him!" She was
thinking in her heart, "It was George Osborne who prevented my
marriage."—And she loved George Osborne accordingly.

She made her preparations for departure with great equanimity; and
accepted all the kind little Amelia's presents, after just the
proper degree of hesitation and reluctance. She vowed eternal
gratitude to Mrs. Sedley, of course; but did not intrude herself
upon that good lady too much, who was embarrassed, and evidently
wishing to avoid her. She kissed Mr. Sedley's hand, when he
presented her with the purse; and asked permission to consider him
for the future as her kind, kind friend and protector. Her
behaviour was so affecting that he was going to write her a cheque
for twenty pounds more; but he restrained his feelings: the carriage
was in waiting to take him to dinner, so he tripped away with a "God
bless you, my dear, always come here when you come to town, you
know.—Drive to the Mansion House, James."

Finally came the parting with Miss Amelia, over which picture I
intend to throw a veil. But after a scene in which one person was
in earnest and the other a perfect performer—after the tenderest
caresses, the most pathetic tears, the smelling-bottle, and some of
the very best feelings of the heart, had been called into
requisition—Rebecca and Amelia parted, the former vowing to love
her friend for ever and ever and ever.

Crawley of Queen's Crawley

Among the most respected of the names beginning in C which the
Court-Guide contained, in the year 18—, was that of Crawley, Sir
Pitt, Baronet, Great Gaunt Street, and Queen's Crawley, Hants. This
honourable name had figured constantly also in the Parliamentary
list for many years, in conjunction with that of a number of other
worthy gentlemen who sat in turns for the borough.

It is related, with regard to the borough of Queen's Crawley, that
Queen Elizabeth in one of her progresses, stopping at Crawley to
breakfast, was so delighted with some remarkably fine Hampshire beer
which was then presented to her by the Crawley of the day (a
handsome gentleman with a trim beard and a good leg), that she
forthwith erected Crawley into a borough to send two members to
Parliament; and the place, from the day of that illustrious visit,
took the name of Queen's Crawley, which it holds up to the present
moment. And though, by the lapse of time, and those mutations which
age produces in empires, cities, and boroughs, Queen's Crawley was
no longer so populous a place as it had been in Queen Bess's time—
nay, was come down to that condition of borough which used to be
denominated rotten—yet, as Sir Pitt Crawley would say with perfect
justice in his elegant way, "Rotten! be hanged—it produces me a
good fifteen hundred a year."

Sir Pitt Crawley (named after the great Commoner) was the son of
Walpole Crawley, first Baronet, of the Tape and Sealing-Wax Office
in the reign of George II., when he was impeached for peculation, as
were a great number of other honest gentlemen of those days; and
Walpole Crawley was, as need scarcely be said, son of John Churchill
Crawley, named after the celebrated military commander of the reign
of Queen Anne. The family tree (which hangs up at Queen's Crawley)
furthermore mentions Charles Stuart, afterwards called Barebones
Crawley, son of the Crawley of James the First's time; and finally,
Queen Elizabeth's Crawley, who is represented as the foreground of
the picture in his forked beard and armour. Out of his waistcoat,
as usual, grows a tree, on the main branches of which the above
illustrious names are inscribed. Close by the name of Sir Pitt
Crawley, Baronet (the subject of the present memoir), are written
that of his brother, the Reverend Bute Crawley (the great Commoner
was in disgrace when the reverend gentleman was born), rector of
Crawley-cum-Snailby, and of various other male and female members of
the Crawley family.

Sir Pitt was first married to Grizzel, sixth daughter of Mungo
Binkie, Lord Binkie, and cousin, in consequence, of Mr. Dundas. She
brought him two sons: Pitt, named not so much after his father as
after the heaven-born minister; and Rawdon Crawley, from the Prince
of Wales's friend, whom his Majesty George IV forgot so completely.
Many years after her ladyship's demise, Sir Pitt led to the altar
Rosa, daughter of Mr. G. Dawson, of Mudbury, by whom he had two
daughters, for whose benefit Miss Rebecca Sharp was now engaged as
governess. It will be seen that the young lady was come into a
family of very genteel connexions, and was about to move in a much
more distinguished circle than that humble one which she had just
quitted in Russell Square.

She had received her orders to join her pupils, in a note which was
written upon an old envelope, and which contained the following
words:

Sir Pitt Crawley begs Miss Sharp and baggidge may be hear on
Tuesday, as I leaf for Queen's Crawley to-morrow morning ERLY.

Great Gaunt Street.

Rebecca had never seen a Baronet, as far as she knew, and as soon as
she had taken leave of Amelia, and counted the guineas which good-
natured Mr. Sedley had put into a purse for her, and as soon as she
had done wiping her eyes with her handkerchief (which operation she
concluded the very moment the carriage had turned the corner of the
street), she began to depict in her own mind what a Baronet must be.
"I wonder, does he wear a star?" thought she, "or is it only lords
that wear stars? But he will be very handsomely dressed in a court
suit, with ruffles, and his hair a little powdered, like Mr.
Wroughton at Covent Garden. I suppose he will be awfully proud, and
that I shall be treated most contemptuously. Still I must bear my
hard lot as well as I can—at least, I shall be amongst GENTLEFOLKS,
and not with vulgar city people": and she fell to thinking of her
Russell Square friends with that very same philosophical bitterness
with which, in a certain apologue, the fox is represented as
speaking of the grapes.

Having passed through Gaunt Square into Great Gaunt Street, the
carriage at length stopped at a tall gloomy house between two other
tall gloomy houses, each with a hatchment over the middle drawing-
room window; as is the custom of houses in Great Gaunt Street, in
which gloomy locality death seems to reign perpetual. The shutters
of the first-floor windows of Sir Pitt's mansion were closed—those
of the dining-room were partially open, and the blinds neatly
covered up in old newspapers.

John, the groom, who had driven the carriage alone, did not care to
descend to ring the bell; and so prayed a passing milk-boy to
perform that office for him. When the bell was rung, a head
appeared between the interstices of the dining-room shutters, and
the door was opened by a man in drab breeches and gaiters, with a
dirty old coat, a foul old neckcloth lashed round his bristly neck,
a shining bald head, a leering red face, a pair of twinkling grey
eyes, and a mouth perpetually on the grin.

"This Sir Pitt Crawley's?" says John, from the box.

"Ees," says the man at the door, with a nod.

"Hand down these 'ere trunks then," said John.

"Hand 'n down yourself," said the porter.

"Don't you see I can't leave my hosses? Come, bear a hand, my fine
feller, and Miss will give you some beer," said John, with a horse-
laugh, for he was no longer respectful to Miss Sharp, as her
connexion with the family was broken off, and as she had given
nothing to the servants on coming away.

The bald-headed man, taking his hands out of his breeches pockets,
advanced on this summons, and throwing Miss Sharp's trunk over his
shoulder, carried it into the house.

"Take this basket and shawl, if you please, and open the door," said
Miss Sharp, and descended from the carriage in much indignation. "I
shall write to Mr. Sedley and inform him of your conduct," said she
to the groom.

"Don't," replied that functionary. "I hope you've forgot nothink?
Miss 'Melia's gownds—have you got them—as the lady's maid was to
have 'ad? I hope they'll fit you. Shut the door, Jim, you'll get no
good out of 'ER," continued John, pointing with his thumb towards
Miss Sharp: "a bad lot, I tell you, a bad lot," and so saying, Mr.
Sedley's groom drove away. The truth is, he was attached to the
lady's maid in question, and indignant that she should have been
robbed of her perquisites.

On entering the dining-room, by the orders of the individual in
gaiters, Rebecca found that apartment not more cheerful than such
rooms usually are, when genteel families are out of town. The
faithful chambers seem, as it were, to mourn the absence of their
masters. The turkey carpet has rolled itself up, and retired
sulkily under the sideboard: the pictures have hidden their faces
behind old sheets of brown paper: the ceiling lamp is muffled up in
a dismal sack of brown holland: the window-curtains have disappeared
under all sorts of shabby envelopes: the marble bust of Sir Walpole
Crawley is looking from its black corner at the bare boards and the
oiled fire-irons, and the empty card-racks over the mantelpiece: the
cellaret has lurked away behind the carpet: the chairs are turned up
heads and tails along the walls: and in the dark corner opposite the
statue, is an old-fashioned crabbed knife-box, locked and sitting on
a dumb waiter.

Two kitchen chairs, and a round table, and an attenuated old poker
and tongs were, however, gathered round the fire-place, as was a
saucepan over a feeble sputtering fire. There was a bit of cheese
and bread, and a tin candlestick on the table, and a little black
porter in a pint-pot.

"Had your dinner, I suppose? It is not too warm for you? Like a drop
of beer?"

"Where is Sir Pitt Crawley?" said Miss Sharp majestically.

"He, he! I'm Sir Pitt Crawley. Reklect you owe me a pint for
bringing down your luggage. He, he! Ask Tinker if I aynt. Mrs.
Tinker, Miss Sharp; Miss Governess, Mrs. Charwoman. Ho, ho!"

The lady addressed as Mrs. Tinker at this moment made her appearance
with a pipe and a paper of tobacco, for which she had been
despatched a minute before Miss Sharp's arrival; and she handed the
articles over to Sir Pitt, who had taken his seat by the fire.

"Where's the farden?" said he. "I gave you three halfpence.
Where's the change, old Tinker?"

"There!" replied Mrs. Tinker, flinging down the coin; it's only
baronets as cares about farthings."

"A farthing a day is seven shillings a year," answered the M.P.;
"seven shillings a year is the interest of seven guineas. Take care
of your farthings, old Tinker, and your guineas will come quite
nat'ral."

"You may be sure it's Sir Pitt Crawley, young woman," said Mrs.
Tinker, surlily; "because he looks to his farthings. You'll know
him better afore long."

"And like me none the worse, Miss Sharp," said the old gentleman,
with an air almost of politeness. "I must be just before I'm
generous."

"He never gave away a farthing in his life," growled Tinker.

"Never, and never will: it's against my principle. Go and get
another chair from the kitchen, Tinker, if you want to sit down; and
then we'll have a bit of supper."

Presently the baronet plunged a fork into the saucepan on the fire,
and withdrew from the pot a piece of tripe and an onion, which he
divided into pretty equal portions, and of which he partook with
Mrs. Tinker. "You see, Miss Sharp, when I'm not here Tinker's on
board wages: when I'm in town she dines with the family. Haw! haw!
I'm glad Miss Sharp's not hungry, ain't you, Tink?" And they fell to
upon their frugal supper.

After supper Sir Pitt Crawley began to smoke his pipe; and when it
became quite dark, he lighted the rushlight in the tin candlestick,
and producing from an interminable pocket a huge mass of papers,
began reading them, and putting them in order.

"I'm here on law business, my dear, and that's how it happens that I
shall have the pleasure of such a pretty travelling companion to-
morrow."

"He's always at law business," said Mrs. Tinker, taking up the pot
of porter.

"Drink and drink about," said the Baronet. "Yes; my dear, Tinker is
quite right: I've lost and won more lawsuits than any man in
England. Look here at Crawley, Bart. v. Snaffle. I'll throw him
over, or my name's not Pitt Crawley. Podder and another versus
Crawley, Bart. Overseers of Snaily parish against Crawley, Bart.
They can't prove it's common: I'll defy 'em; the land's mine. It no
more belongs to the parish than it does to you or Tinker here. I'll
beat 'em, if it cost me a thousand guineas. Look over the papers;
you may if you like, my dear. Do you write a good hand? I'll make
you useful when we're at Queen's Crawley, depend on it, Miss Sharp.
Now the dowager's dead I want some one."