Vanity Fair
has a halt in her gait, red hair, and a trifling obliquity of vision.
Both ladies are endowed with EVERY MORAL AND RELIGIOUS VIRTUE. Their
terms, of course, are such as their accomplishments merit. With my
most grateful respects to the Reverend Bute Crawley, I have the honour
to be,
Dear Madam,
Your most faithful and obedient servant, Barbara Pinkerton.
P.S. The Miss Sharp, whom you mention as governess to Sir Pitt
Crawley, Bart., M.P., was a pupil of mine, and I have nothing to say in
her disfavour. Though her appearance is disagreeable, we cannot control
the operations of nature: and though her parents were disreputable (her
father being a painter, several times bankrupt, and her mother, as I
have since learned, with horror, a dancer at the Opera); yet her
talents are considerable, and I cannot regret that I received her OUT
OF CHARITY. My dread is, lest the principles of the mother--who was
represented to me as a French Countess, forced to emigrate in the late
revolutionary horrors; but who, as I have since found, was a person of
the very lowest order and morals--should at any time prove to be
HEREDITARY in the unhappy young woman whom I took as AN OUTCAST. But
her principles have hitherto been correct (I believe), and I am sure
nothing will occur to injure them in the elegant and refined circle of
the eminent Sir Pitt Crawley.
Miss Rebecca Sharp to Miss Amelia Sedley.
I have not written to my beloved Amelia for these many weeks past, for
what news was there to tell of the sayings and doings at Humdrum Hall,
as I have christened it; and what do you care whether the turnip crop
is good or bad; whether the fat pig weighed thirteen stone or fourteen;
and whether the beasts thrive well upon mangelwurzel? Every day since I
last wrote has been like its neighbour. Before breakfast, a walk with
Sir Pitt and his spud; after breakfast studies (such as they are) in
the schoolroom; after schoolroom, reading and writing about lawyers,
leases, coal-mines, canals, with Sir Pitt (whose secretary I am
become); after dinner, Mr. Crawley's discourses on the baronet's
backgammon; during both of which amusements my lady looks on with equal
placidity. She has become rather more interesting by being ailing of
late, which has brought a new visitor to the Hall, in the person of a
young doctor. Well, my dear, young women need never despair. The young
doctor gave a certain friend of yours to understand that, if she chose
to be Mrs. Glauber, she was welcome to ornament the surgery! I told his
impudence that the gilt pestle and mortar was quite ornament enough; as
if I was born, indeed, to be a country surgeon's wife! Mr. Glauber went
home seriously indisposed at his rebuff, took a cooling draught, and is
now quite cured. Sir Pitt applauded my resolution highly; he would be
sorry to lose his little secretary, I think; and I believe the old
wretch likes me as much as it is in his nature to like any one. Marry,
indeed! and with a country apothecary, after-- No, no, one cannot so
soon forget old associations, about which I will talk no more. Let us
return to Humdrum Hall.
For some time past it is Humdrum Hall no longer. My dear, Miss Crawley
has arrived with her fat horses, fat servants, fat spaniel--the great
rich Miss Crawley, with seventy thousand pounds in the five per cents.,
whom, or I had better say WHICH, her two brothers adore. She looks
very apoplectic, the dear soul; no wonder her brothers are anxious
about her. You should see them struggling to settle her cushions, or
to hand her coffee! "When I come into the country," she says (for she
has a great deal of humour), "I leave my toady, Miss Briggs, at home.
My brothers are my toadies here, my dear, and a pretty pair they are!"
When she comes into the country our hall is thrown open, and for a
month, at least, you would fancy old Sir Walpole was come to life
again. We have dinner-parties, and drive out in the coach-and-four--the
footmen put on their newest canary-coloured liveries; we drink claret
and champagne as if we were accustomed to it every day. We have wax
candles in the schoolroom, and fires to warm ourselves with. Lady
Crawley is made to put on the brightest pea-green in her wardrobe, and
my pupils leave off their thick shoes and tight old tartan pelisses,
and wear silk stockings and muslin frocks, as fashionable baronets'
daughters should. Rose came in yesterday in a sad plight--the
Wiltshire sow (an enormous pet of hers) ran her down, and destroyed a
most lovely flowered lilac silk dress by dancing over it--had this
happened a week ago, Sir Pitt would have sworn frightfully, have boxed
the poor wretch's ears, and put her upon bread and water for a month.
All he said was, "I'll serve you out, Miss, when your aunt's gone," and
laughed off the accident as quite trivial. Let us hope his wrath will
have passed away before Miss Crawley's departure. I hope so, for Miss
Rose's sake, I am sure. What a charming reconciler and peacemaker money
is!
Another admirable effect of Miss Crawley and her seventy thousand
pounds is to be seen in the conduct of the two brothers Crawley. I
mean the baronet and the rector, not OUR brothers--but the former, who
hate each other all the year round, become quite loving at Christmas.
I wrote to you last year how the abominable horse-racing rector was in
the habit of preaching clumsy sermons at us at church, and how Sir Pitt
snored in answer. When Miss Crawley arrives there is no such thing as
quarrelling heard of--the Hall visits the Rectory, and vice versa--the
parson and the Baronet talk about the pigs and the poachers, and the
county business, in the most affable manner, and without quarrelling in
their cups, I believe--indeed Miss Crawley won't hear of their
quarrelling, and vows that she will leave her money to the Shropshire
Crawleys if they offend her. If they were clever people, those
Shropshire Crawleys, they might have it all, I think; but the
Shropshire Crawley is a clergyman like his Hampshire cousin, and
mortally offended Miss Crawley (who had fled thither in a fit of rage
against her impracticable brethren) by some strait-laced notions of
morality. He would have prayers in the house, I believe.
Our sermon books are shut up when Miss Crawley arrives, and Mr. Pitt,
whom she abominates, finds it convenient to go to town. On the other
hand, the young dandy--"blood," I believe, is the term--Captain Crawley
makes his appearance, and I suppose you will like to know what sort of
a person he is.
Well, he is a very large young dandy. He is six feet high, and speaks
with a great voice; and swears a great deal; and orders about the
servants, who all adore him nevertheless; for he is very generous of
his money, and the domestics will do anything for him. Last week the
keepers almost killed a bailiff and his man who came down from London
to arrest the Captain, and who were found lurking about the Park
wall--they beat them, ducked them, and were going to shoot them for
poachers, but the baronet interfered.
The Captain has a hearty contempt for his father, I can see, and calls
him an old PUT, an old SNOB, an old CHAW-BACON, and numberless other
pretty names. He has a DREADFUL REPUTATION among the ladies. He brings
his hunters home with him, lives with the Squires of the county, asks
whom he pleases to dinner, and Sir Pitt dares not say no, for fear of
offending Miss Crawley, and missing his legacy when she dies of her
apoplexy. Shall I tell you a compliment the Captain paid me? I must,
it is so pretty. One evening we actually had a dance; there was Sir
Huddleston Fuddleston and his family, Sir Giles Wapshot and his young
ladies, and I don't know how many more. Well, I heard him say--"By
Jove, she's a neat little filly!" meaning your humble servant; and he
did me the honour to dance two country-dances with me. He gets on
pretty gaily with the young Squires, with whom he drinks, bets, rides,
and talks about hunting and shooting; but he says the country girls are
BORES; indeed, I don't think he is far wrong. You should see the
contempt with which they look down on poor me! When they dance I sit
and play the piano very demurely; but the other night, coming in rather
flushed from the dining-room, and seeing me employed in this way, he
swore out loud that I was the best dancer in the room, and took a great
oath that he would have the fiddlers from Mudbury.
"I'll go and play a country-dance," said Mrs. Bute Crawley, very
readily (she is a little, black-faced old woman in a turban, rather
crooked, and with very twinkling eyes); and after the Captain and your
poor little Rebecca had performed a dance together, do you know she
actually did me the honour to compliment me upon my steps! Such a thing
was never heard of before; the proud Mrs. Bute Crawley, first cousin to
the Earl of Tiptoff, who won't condescend to visit Lady Crawley, except
when her sister is in the country. Poor Lady Crawley! during most part
of these gaieties, she is upstairs taking pills.
Mrs. Bute has all of a sudden taken a great fancy to me. "My dear Miss
Sharp," she says, "why not bring over your girls to the Rectory?--their
cousins will be so happy to see them." I know what she means. Signor
Clementi did not teach us the piano for nothing; at which price Mrs.
Bute hopes to get a professor for her children. I can see through her
schemes, as though she told them to me; but I shall go, as I am
determined to make myself agreeable--is it not a poor governess's duty,
who has not a friend or protector in the world? The Rector's wife paid
me a score of compliments about the progress my pupils made, and
thought, no doubt, to touch my heart--poor, simple, country soul!--as
if I cared a fig about my pupils!
Your India muslin and your pink silk, dearest Amelia, are said to
become me very well. They are a good deal worn now; but, you know, we
poor girls can't afford des fraiches toilettes. Happy, happy you! who
have but to drive to St. James's Street, and a dear mother who will
give you any thing you ask. Farewell, dearest girl,
Your affectionate Rebecca.
P.S.--I wish you could have seen the faces of the Miss Blackbrooks
(Admiral Blackbrook's daughters, my dear), fine young ladies, with
dresses from London, when Captain Rawdon selected poor me for a partner!
When Mrs. Bute Crawley (whose artifices our ingenious Rebecca had so
soon discovered) had procured from Miss Sharp the promise of a visit,
she induced the all-powerful Miss Crawley to make the necessary
application to Sir Pitt, and the good-natured old lady, who loved to be
gay herself, and to see every one gay and happy round about her, was
quite charmed, and ready to establish a reconciliation and intimacy
between her two brothers. It was therefore agreed that the young people
of both families should visit each other frequently for the future, and
the friendship of course lasted as long as the jovial old mediatrix was
there to keep the peace.
"Why did you ask that scoundrel, Rawdon Crawley, to dine?" said the
Rector to his lady, as they were walking home through the park. "I
don't want the fellow. He looks down upon us country people as so many
blackamoors. He's never content unless he gets my yellow-sealed wine,
which costs me ten shillings a bottle, hang him! Besides, he's such an
infernal character--he's a gambler--he's a drunkard--he's a profligate
in every way. He shot a man in a duel--he's over head and ears in
debt, and he's robbed me and mine of the best part of Miss Crawley's
fortune. Waxy says she has him"--here the Rector shook his fist at the
moon, with something very like an oath, and added, in a melancholious
tone, "--down in her will for fifty thousand; and there won't be above
thirty to divide."