Vanity Fair (24 page)

Miss Sharp put out her right forefinger, and gave him a little nod,
so cool and killing, that Rawdon Crawley, watching the operations
from the other room, could hardly restrain his laughter as he saw
the Lieutenant's entire discomfiture; the start he gave, the pause,
and the perfect clumsiness with which he at length condescended to
take the finger which was offered for his embrace.

"She'd beat the devil, by Jove!" the Captain said, in a rapture; and
the Lieutenant, by way of beginning the conversation, agreeably
asked Rebecca how she liked her new place.

"My place?" said Miss Sharp, coolly, "how kind of you to remind me
of it! It's a tolerably good place: the wages are pretty good—not
so good as Miss Wirt's, I believe, with your sisters in Russell
Square. How are those young ladies?—not that I ought to ask."

"Why not?" Mr. Osborne said, amazed.

"Why, they never condescended to speak to me, or to ask me into
their house, whilst I was staying with Amelia; but we poor
governesses, you know, are used to slights of this sort."

"My dear Miss Sharp!" Osborne ejaculated.

"At least in some families," Rebecca continued. "You can't think
what a difference there is though. We are not so wealthy in
Hampshire as you lucky folks of the City. But then I am in a
gentleman's family—good old English stock. I suppose you know Sir
Pitt's father refused a peerage. And you see how I am treated. I
am pretty comfortable. Indeed it is rather a good place. But how
very good of you to inquire!"

Osborne was quite savage. The little governess patronised him and
persiffled him until this young British Lion felt quite uneasy; nor
could he muster sufficient presence of mind to find a pretext for
backing out of this most delectable conversation.

"I thought you liked the City families pretty well," he said,
haughtily.

"Last year you mean, when I was fresh from that horrid vulgar
school? Of course I did. Doesn't every girl like to come home for
the holidays? And how was I to know any better? But oh, Mr.
Osborne, what a difference eighteen months' experience makes!
eighteen months spent, pardon me for saying so, with gentlemen. As
for dear Amelia, she, I grant you, is a pearl, and would be charming
anywhere. There now, I see you are beginning to be in a good
humour; but oh these queer odd City people! And Mr. Jos—how is that
wonderful Mr. Joseph?"

"It seems to me you didn't dislike that wonderful Mr. Joseph last
year," Osborne said kindly.

"How severe of you! Well, entre nous, I didn't break my heart about
him; yet if he had asked me to do what you mean by your looks (and
very expressive and kind they are, too), I wouldn't have said no."

Mr. Osborne gave a look as much as to say, "Indeed, how very
obliging!"

"What an honour to have had you for a brother-in-law, you are
thinking? To be sister-in-law to George Osborne, Esquire, son of
John Osborne, Esquire, son of—what was your grandpapa, Mr. Osborne?
Well, don't be angry. You can't help your pedigree, and I quite
agree with you that I would have married Mr. Joe Sedley; for could a
poor penniless girl do better? Now you know the whole secret. I'm
frank and open; considering all things, it was very kind of you to
allude to the circumstance—very kind and polite. Amelia dear, Mr.
Osborne and I were talking about your poor brother Joseph. How is
he?"

Thus was George utterly routed. Not that Rebecca was in the right;
but she had managed most successfully to put him in the wrong. And
he now shamefully fled, feeling, if he stayed another minute, that
he would have been made to look foolish in the presence of Amelia.

Though Rebecca had had the better of him, George was above the
meanness of talebearing or revenge upon a lady—only he could not
help cleverly confiding to Captain Crawley, next day, some notions
of his regarding Miss Rebecca—that she was a sharp one, a dangerous
one, a desperate flirt, &c.; in all of which opinions Crawley agreed
laughingly, and with every one of which Miss Rebecca was made
acquainted before twenty-four hours were over. They added to her
original regard for Mr. Osborne. Her woman's instinct had told her
that it was George who had interrupted the success of her first
love-passage, and she esteemed him accordingly.

"I only just warn you," he said to Rawdon Crawley, with a knowing
look—he had bought the horse, and lost some score of guineas after
dinner, "I just warn you—I know women, and counsel you to be on the
look-out."

"Thank you, my boy," said Crawley, with a look of peculiar
gratitude. "You're wide awake, I see." And George went off,
thinking Crawley was quite right.

He told Amelia of what he had done, and how he had counselled Rawdon
Crawley—a devilish good, straightforward fellow—to be on his guard
against that little sly, scheming Rebecca.

"Against whom?" Amelia cried.

"Your friend the governess.—Don't look so astonished."

"O George, what have you done?" Amelia said. For her woman's eyes,
which Love had made sharp-sighted, had in one instant discovered a
secret which was invisible to Miss Crawley, to poor virgin Briggs,
and above all, to the stupid peepers of that young whiskered prig,
Lieutenant Osborne.

For as Rebecca was shawling her in an upper apartment, where these
two friends had an opportunity for a little of that secret talking
and conspiring which form the delight of female life, Amelia, coming
up to Rebecca, and taking her two little hands in hers, said,
"Rebecca, I see it all."

Rebecca kissed her.

And regarding this delightful secret, not one syllable more was said
by either of the young women. But it was destined to come out
before long.

Some short period after the above events, and Miss Rebecca Sharp
still remaining at her patroness's house in Park Lane, one more
hatchment might have been seen in Great Gaunt Street, figuring
amongst the many which usually ornament that dismal quarter. It was
over Sir Pitt Crawley's house; but it did not indicate the worthy
baronet's demise. It was a feminine hatchment, and indeed a few
years back had served as a funeral compliment to Sir Pitt's old
mother, the late dowager Lady Crawley. Its period of service over,
the hatchment had come down from the front of the house, and lived
in retirement somewhere in the back premises of Sir Pitt's mansion.
It reappeared now for poor Rose Dawson. Sir Pitt was a widower
again. The arms quartered on the shield along with his own were
not, to be sure, poor Rose's. She had no arms. But the cherubs
painted on the scutcheon answered as well for her as for Sir Pitt's
mother, and Resurgam was written under the coat, flanked by the
Crawley Dove and Serpent. Arms and Hatchments, Resurgam.—Here is
an opportunity for moralising!

Mr. Crawley had tended that otherwise friendless bedside. She went
out of the world strengthened by such words and comfort as he could
give her. For many years his was the only kindness she ever knew;
the only friendship that solaced in any way that feeble, lonely
soul. Her heart was dead long before her body. She had sold it to
become Sir Pitt Crawley's wife. Mothers and daughters are making
the same bargain every day in Vanity Fair.

When the demise took place, her husband was in London attending to
some of his innumerable schemes, and busy with his endless lawyers.
He had found time, nevertheless, to call often in Park Lane, and to
despatch many notes to Rebecca, entreating her, enjoining her,
commanding her to return to her young pupils in the country, who
were now utterly without companionship during their mother's
illness. But Miss Crawley would not hear of her departure; for
though there was no lady of fashion in London who would desert her
friends more complacently as soon as she was tired of their society,
and though few tired of them sooner, yet as long as her engoument
lasted her attachment was prodigious, and she clung still with the
greatest energy to Rebecca.

The news of Lady Crawley's death provoked no more grief or comment
than might have been expected in Miss Crawley's family circle. "I
suppose I must put off my party for the 3rd," Miss Crawley said; and
added, after a pause, "I hope my brother will have the decency not
to marry again." "What a confounded rage Pitt will be in if he
does," Rawdon remarked, with his usual regard for his elder brother.
Rebecca said nothing. She seemed by far the gravest and most
impressed of the family. She left the room before Rawdon went away
that day; but they met by chance below, as he was going away after
taking leave, and had a parley together.

On the morrow, as Rebecca was gazing from the window, she startled
Miss Crawley, who was placidly occupied with a French novel, by
crying out in an alarmed tone, "Here's Sir Pitt, Ma'am!" and the
Baronet's knock followed this announcement.

"My dear, I can't see him. I won't see him. Tell Bowls not at
home, or go downstairs and say I'm too ill to receive any one. My
nerves really won't bear my brother at this moment," cried out Miss
Crawley, and resumed the novel.

"She's too ill to see you, sir," Rebecca said, tripping down to Sir
Pitt, who was preparing to ascend.

"So much the better," Sir Pitt answered. "I want to see YOU, Miss
Becky. Come along a me into the parlour," and they entered that
apartment together.

"I wawnt you back at Queen's Crawley, Miss," the baronet said,
fixing his eyes upon her, and taking off his black gloves and his
hat with its great crape hat-band. His eyes had such a strange look,
and fixed upon her so steadfastly, that Rebecca Sharp began almost
to tremble.

"I hope to come soon," she said in a low voice, "as soon as Miss
Crawley is better—and return to—to the dear children."

"You've said so these three months, Becky," replied Sir Pitt, "and
still you go hanging on to my sister, who'll fling you off like an
old shoe, when she's wore you out. I tell you I want you. I'm going
back to the Vuneral. Will you come back? Yes or no?"

"I daren't—I don't think—it would be right—to be alone—with you,
sir," Becky said, seemingly in great agitation.

"I say agin, I want you," Sir Pitt said, thumping the table. "I
can't git on without you. I didn't see what it was till you went
away. The house all goes wrong. It's not the same place. All my
accounts has got muddled agin. You MUST come back. Do come back.
Dear Becky, do come."

"Come—as what, sir?" Rebecca gasped out.

"Come as Lady Crawley, if you like," the Baronet said, grasping his
crape hat. "There! will that zatusfy you? Come back and be my wife.
Your vit vor't. Birth be hanged. You're as good a lady as ever I
see. You've got more brains in your little vinger than any
baronet's wife in the county. Will you come? Yes or no?"

"Oh, Sir Pitt!" Rebecca said, very much moved.

"Say yes, Becky," Sir Pitt continued. "I'm an old man, but a
good'n. I'm good for twenty years. I'll make you happy, zee if I
don't. You shall do what you like; spend what you like; and 'ave it
all your own way. I'll make you a zettlement. I'll do everything
reglar. Look year!" and the old man fell down on his knees and
leered at her like a satyr.

Rebecca started back a picture of consternation. In the course of
this history we have never seen her lose her presence of mind; but
she did now, and wept some of the most genuine tears that ever fell
from her eyes.

"Oh, Sir Pitt!" she said. "Oh, sir—I—I'm married ALREADY."

In Which Rebecca's Husband Appears for a Short Time

Every reader of a sentimental turn (and we desire no other) must
have been pleased with the tableau with which the last act of our
little drama concluded; for what can be prettier than an image of
Love on his knees before Beauty?

But when Love heard that awful confession from Beauty that she was
married already, he bounced up from his attitude of humility on the
carpet, uttering exclamations which caused poor little Beauty to be
more frightened than she was when she made her avowal. "Married;
you're joking," the Baronet cried, after the first explosion of rage
and wonder. "You're making vun of me, Becky. Who'd ever go to
marry you without a shilling to your vortune?"

"Married! married!" Rebecca said, in an agony of tears—her voice
choking with emotion, her handkerchief up to her ready eyes,
fainting against the mantelpiece a figure of woe fit to melt the
most obdurate heart. "O Sir Pitt, dear Sir Pitt, do not think me
ungrateful for all your goodness to me. It is only your generosity
that has extorted my secret."

"Generosity be hanged!" Sir Pitt roared out. "Who is it tu, then,
you're married? Where was it?"

"Let me come back with you to the country, sir! Let me watch over
you as faithfully as ever! Don't, don't separate me from dear
Queen's Crawley!"

"The feller has left you, has he?" the Baronet said, beginning, as
he fancied, to comprehend. "Well, Becky—come back if you like.
You can't eat your cake and have it. Any ways I made you a vair
offer. Coom back as governess—you shall have it all your own way."
She held out one hand. She cried fit to break her heart; her
ringlets fell over her face, and over the marble mantelpiece where
she laid it.

"So the rascal ran off, eh?" Sir Pitt said, with a hideous attempt
at consolation. "Never mind, Becky, I'LL take care of 'ee."

"Oh, sir! it would be the pride of my life to go back to Queen's
Crawley, and take care of the children, and of you as formerly, when
you said you were pleased with the services of your little Rebecca.
When I think of what you have just offered me, my heart fills with
gratitude indeed it does. I can't be your wife, sir; let me—let me
be your daughter." Saying which, Rebecca went down on HER knees in
a most tragical way, and, taking Sir Pitt's horny black hand between
her own two (which were very pretty and white, and as soft as
satin), looked up in his face with an expression of exquisite pathos
and confidence, when—when the door opened, and Miss Crawley sailed
in.