Vanity Fair
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,