Vanity Fair (56 page)

All our friends took their share and fought like men in the great
field. All day long, whilst the women were praying ten miles away,
the lines of the dauntless English infantry were receiving and
repelling the furious charges of the French horsemen. Guns which
were heard at Brussels were ploughing up their ranks, and comrades
falling, and the resolute survivors closing in. Towards evening,
the attack of the French, repeated and resisted so bravely,
slackened in its fury. They had other foes besides the British to
engage, or were preparing for a final onset. It came at last: the
columns of the Imperial Guard marched up the hill of Saint Jean, at
length and at once to sweep the English from the height which they
had maintained all day, and spite of all: unscared by the thunder
of the artillery, which hurled death from the English line—the dark
rolling column pressed on and up the hill. It seemed almost to
crest the eminence, when it began to wave and falter. Then it
stopped, still facing the shot. Then at last the English troops
rushed from the post from which no enemy had been able to dislodge
them, and the Guard turned and fled.

No more firing was heard at Brussels—the pursuit rolled miles away.
Darkness came down on the field and city: and Amelia was praying
for George, who was lying on his face, dead, with a bullet through
his heart.

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

The kind reader must please to remember—while the army is marching
from Flanders, and, after its heroic actions there, is advancing to
take the fortifications on the frontiers of France, previous to an
occupation of that country—that there are a number of persons
living peaceably in England who have to do with the history at
present in hand, and must come in for their share of the chronicle.
During the time of these battles and dangers, old Miss Crawley was
living at Brighton, very moderately moved by the great events that
were going on. The great events rendered the newspapers rather
interesting, to be sure, and Briggs read out the Gazette, in which
Rawdon Crawley's gallantry was mentioned with honour, and his
promotion was presently recorded.

"What a pity that young man has taken such an irretrievable step in
the world!" his aunt said; "with his rank and distinction he might
have married a brewer's daughter with a quarter of a million—like
Miss Grains; or have looked to ally himself with the best families
in England. He would have had my money some day or other; or his
children would—for I'm not in a hurry to go, Miss Briggs, although
you may be in a hurry to be rid of me; and instead of that, he is a
doomed pauper, with a dancing-girl for a wife."

"Will my dear Miss Crawley not cast an eye of compassion upon the
heroic soldier, whose name is inscribed in the annals of his
country's glory?" said Miss Briggs, who was greatly excited by the
Waterloo proceedings, and loved speaking romantically when there was
an occasion. "Has not the Captain—or the Colonel as I may now
style him—done deeds which make the name of Crawley illustrious?"

"Briggs, you are a fool," said Miss Crawley: "Colonel Crawley has
dragged the name of Crawley through the mud, Miss Briggs. Marry a
drawing-master's daughter, indeed!—marry a dame de compagnie—for
she was no better, Briggs; no, she was just what you are—only
younger, and a great deal prettier and cleverer. Were you an
accomplice of that abandoned wretch, I wonder, of whose vile arts he
became a victim, and of whom you used to be such an admirer? Yes, I
daresay you were an accomplice. But you will find yourself
disappointed in my will, I can tell you: and you will have the
goodness to write to Mr. Waxy, and say that I desire to see him
immediately." Miss Crawley was now in the habit of writing to Mr.
Waxy her solicitor almost every day in the week, for her
arrangements respecting her property were all revoked, and her
perplexity was great as to the future disposition of her money.

The spinster had, however, rallied considerably; as was proved by
the increased vigour and frequency of her sarcasms upon Miss Briggs,
all which attacks the poor companion bore with meekness, with
cowardice, with a resignation that was half generous and half
hypocritical—with the slavish submission, in a word, that women of
her disposition and station are compelled to show. Who has not seen
how women bully women? What tortures have men to endure, comparable
to those daily repeated shafts of scorn and cruelty with which poor
women are riddled by the tyrants of their sex? Poor victims! But
we are starting from our proposition, which is, that Miss Crawley
was always particularly annoying and savage when she was rallying
from illness—as they say wounds tingle most when they are about to
heal.

While thus approaching, as all hoped, to convalescence, Miss Briggs
was the only victim admitted into the presence of the invalid; yet
Miss Crawley's relatives afar off did not forget their beloved
kinswoman, and by a number of tokens, presents, and kind
affectionate messages, strove to keep themselves alive in her
recollection.

In the first place, let us mention her nephew, Rawdon Crawley. A
few weeks after the famous fight of Waterloo, and after the Gazette
had made known to her the promotion and gallantry of that
distinguished officer, the Dieppe packet brought over to Miss
Crawley at Brighton, a box containing presents, and a dutiful
letter, from the Colonel her nephew. In the box were a pair of
French epaulets, a Cross of the Legion of Honour, and the hilt of a
sword—relics from the field of battle: and the letter described
with a good deal of humour how the latter belonged to a commanding
officer of the Guard, who having sworn that "the Guard died, but
never surrendered," was taken prisoner the next minute by a private
soldier, who broke the Frenchman's sword with the butt of his
musket, when Rawdon made himself master of the shattered weapon. As
for the cross and epaulets, they came from a Colonel of French
cavalry, who had fallen under the aide-de-camp's arm in the battle:
and Rawdon Crawley did not know what better to do with the spoils
than to send them to his kindest and most affectionate old friend.
Should he continue to write to her from Paris, whither the army was
marching? He might be able to give her interesting news from that
capital, and of some of Miss Crawley's old friends of the
emigration, to whom she had shown so much kindness during their
distress.

The spinster caused Briggs to write back to the Colonel a gracious
and complimentary letter, encouraging him to continue his
correspondence. His first letter was so excessively lively and
amusing that she should look with pleasure for its successors.—"Of
course, I know," she explained to Miss Briggs, "that Rawdon could
not write such a good letter any more than you could, my poor
Briggs, and that it is that clever little wretch of a Rebecca, who
dictates every word to him; but that is no reason why my nephew
should not amuse me; and so I wish to let him understand that I am
in high good humour."

I wonder whether she knew that it was not only Becky who wrote the
letters, but that Mrs. Rawdon actually took and sent home the
trophies which she bought for a few francs, from one of the
innumerable pedlars who immediately began to deal in relics of the
war. The novelist, who knows everything, knows this also. Be this,
however, as it may, Miss Crawley's gracious reply greatly encouraged
our young friends, Rawdon and his lady, who hoped for the best from
their aunt's evidently pacified humour: and they took care to
entertain her with many delightful letters from Paris, whither, as
Rawdon said, they had the good luck to go in the track of the
conquering army.

To the rector's lady, who went off to tend her husband's broken
collar-bone at the Rectory at Queen's Crawley, the spinster's
communications were by no means so gracious. Mrs. Bute, that brisk,
managing, lively, imperious woman, had committed the most fatal of
all errors with regard to her sister-in-law. She had not merely
oppressed her and her household—she had bored Miss Crawley; and if
poor Miss Briggs had been a woman of any spirit, she might have been
made happy by the commission which her principal gave her to write a
letter to Mrs. Bute Crawley, saying that Miss Crawley's health was
greatly improved since Mrs. Bute had left her, and begging the
latter on no account to put herself to trouble, or quit her family
for Miss Crawley's sake. This triumph over a lady who had been very
haughty and cruel in her behaviour to Miss Briggs, would have
rejoiced most women; but the truth is, Briggs was a woman of no
spirit at all, and the moment her enemy was discomfited, she began
to feel compassion in her favour.

"How silly I was," Mrs. Bute thought, and with reason, "ever to hint
that I was coming, as I did, in that foolish letter when we sent
Miss Crawley the guinea-fowls. I ought to have gone without a word
to the poor dear doting old creature, and taken her out of the hands
of that ninny Briggs, and that harpy of a femme de chambre. Oh!
Bute, Bute, why did you break your collar-bone?"

Why, indeed? We have seen how Mrs. Bute, having the game in her
hands, had really played her cards too well. She had ruled over Miss
Crawley's household utterly and completely, to be utterly and
completely routed when a favourable opportunity for rebellion came.
She and her household, however, considered that she had been the
victim of horrible selfishness and treason, and that her sacrifices
in Miss Crawley's behalf had met with the most savage ingratitude.
Rawdon's promotion, and the honourable mention made of his name in
the Gazette, filled this good Christian lady also with alarm. Would
his aunt relent towards him now that he was a Lieutenant-Colonel and
a C.B.? and would that odious Rebecca once more get into favour?
The Rector's wife wrote a sermon for her husband about the vanity of
military glory and the prosperity of the wicked, which the worthy
parson read in his best voice and without understanding one syllable
of it. He had Pitt Crawley for one of his auditors—Pitt, who had
come with his two half-sisters to church, which the old Baronet
could now by no means be brought to frequent.

Since the departure of Becky Sharp, that old wretch had given
himself up entirely to his bad courses, to the great scandal of the
county and the mute horror of his son. The ribbons in Miss
Horrocks's cap became more splendid than ever. The polite families
fled the hall and its owner in terror. Sir Pitt went about tippling
at his tenants' houses; and drank rum-and-water with the farmers at
Mudbury and the neighbouring places on market-days. He drove the
family coach-and-four to Southampton with Miss Horrocks inside: and
the county people expected, every week, as his son did in speechless
agony, that his marriage with her would be announced in the
provincial paper. It was indeed a rude burthen for Mr. Crawley to
bear. His eloquence was palsied at the missionary meetings, and
other religious assemblies in the neighbourhood, where he had been
in the habit of presiding, and of speaking for hours; for he felt,
when he rose, that the audience said, "That is the son of the old
reprobate Sir Pitt, who is very likely drinking at the public house
at this very moment." And once when he was speaking of the benighted
condition of the king of Timbuctoo, and the number of his wives who
were likewise in darkness, some gipsy miscreant from the crowd
asked, "How many is there at Queen's Crawley, Young Squaretoes?" to
the surprise of the platform, and the ruin of Mr. Pitt's speech.
And the two daughters of the house of Queen's Crawley would have
been allowed to run utterly wild (for Sir Pitt swore that no
governess should ever enter into his doors again), had not Mr.
Crawley, by threatening the old gentleman, forced the latter to send
them to school.

Meanwhile, as we have said, whatever individual differences there
might be between them all, Miss Crawley's dear nephews and nieces
were unanimous in loving her and sending her tokens of affection.
Thus Mrs. Bute sent guinea-fowls, and some remarkably fine
cauliflowers, and a pretty purse or pincushion worked by her darling
girls, who begged to keep a LITTLE place in the recollection of
their dear aunt, while Mr. Pitt sent peaches and grapes and venison
from the Hall. The Southampton coach used to carry these tokens of
affection to Miss Crawley at Brighton: it used sometimes to convey
Mr. Pitt thither too: for his differences with Sir Pitt caused Mr.
Crawley to absent himself a good deal from home now: and besides,
he had an attraction at Brighton in the person of the Lady Jane
Sheepshanks, whose engagement to Mr. Crawley has been formerly
mentioned in this history. Her Ladyship and her sisters lived at
Brighton with their mamma, the Countess Southdown, that strong-
minded woman so favourably known in the serious world.

A few words ought to be said regarding her Ladyship and her noble
family, who are bound by ties of present and future relationship to
the house of Crawley. Respecting the chief of the Southdown family,
Clement William, fourth Earl of Southdown, little need be told,
except that his Lordship came into Parliament (as Lord Wolsey) under
the auspices of Mr. Wilberforce, and for a time was a credit to his
political sponsor, and decidedly a serious young man. But words
cannot describe the feelings of his admirable mother, when she
learned, very shortly after her noble husband's demise, that her son
was a member of several worldly clubs, had lost largely at play at
Wattier's and the Cocoa Tree; that he had raised money on post-
obits, and encumbered the family estate; that he drove four-in-hand,
and patronised the ring; and that he actually had an opera-box,
where he entertained the most dangerous bachelor company. His name
was only mentioned with groans in the dowager's circle.