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Vanity Fair

W >> William Makepeace Thackeray >> Vanity Fair




George Osborne conducted the girls home in safety: and when the door
was closed upon them, and as he walked across Russell Square,
laughed so as to astonish the watchman. Amelia looked very ruefully
at her friend, as they went up stairs, and kissed her, and went to
bed without any more talking.

"He must propose to-morrow," thought Rebecca. "He called me his
soul's darling, four times; he squeezed my hand in Amelia's
presence. He must propose to-morrow." And so thought Amelia, too.
And I dare say she thought of the dress she was to wear as
bridesmaid, and of the presents which she should make to her nice
little sister-in-law, and of a subsequent ceremony in which she
herself might play a principal part, &c., and &c., and &c., and &c.

Oh, ignorant young creatures! How little do you know the effect of
rack punch! What is the rack in the punch, at night, to the rack in
the head of a morning? To this truth I can vouch as a man; there is
no headache in the world like that caused by Vauxhall punch.
Through the lapse of twenty years, I can remember the consequence of
two glasses! two wine-glasses! but two, upon the honour of a
gentleman; and Joseph Sedley, who had a liver complaint, had
swallowed at least a quart of the abominable mixture.

That next morning, which Rebecca thought was to dawn upon her
fortune, found Sedley groaning in agonies which the pen refuses to
describe. Soda-water was not invented yet. Small beer--will it be
believed!--was the only drink with which unhappy gentlemen soothed
the fever of their previous night's potation. With this mild
beverage before him, George Osborne found the ex-Collector of
Boggley Wollah groaning on the sofa at his lodgings. Dobbin was
already in the room, good-naturedly tending his patient of the night
before. The two officers, looking at the prostrate Bacchanalian,
and askance at each other, exchanged the most frightful sympathetic
grins. Even Sedley's valet, the most solemn and correct of
gentlemen, with the muteness and gravity of an undertaker, could
hardly keep his countenance in order, as he looked at his
unfortunate master.

"Mr. Sedley was uncommon wild last night, sir," he whispered in
confidence to Osborne, as the latter mounted the stair. "He wanted
to fight the 'ackney-coachman, sir. The Capting was obliged to bring
him upstairs in his harms like a babby." A momentary smile flickered
over Mr. Brush's features as he spoke; instantly, however, they
relapsed into their usual unfathomable calm, as he flung open the
drawing-room door, and announced "Mr. Hosbin."

"How are you, Sedley?" that young wag began, after surveying his
victim. "No bones broke? There's a hackney-coachman downstairs with
a black eye, and a tied-up head, vowing he'll have the law of you."

"What do you mean--law?" Sedley faintly asked.

"For thrashing him last night--didn't he, Dobbin? You hit out, sir,
like Molyneux. The watchman says he never saw a fellow go down so
straight. Ask Dobbin."

"You DID have a round with the coachman," Captain Dobbin said, "and
showed plenty of fight too."

"And that fellow with the white coat at Vauxhall! How Jos drove at
him! How the women screamed! By Jove, sir, it did my heart good to
see you. I thought you civilians had no pluck; but I'll never get
in your way when you are in your cups, Jos."

"I believe I'm very terrible, when I'm roused," ejaculated Jos from
the sofa, and made a grimace so dreary and ludicrous, that the
Captain's politeness could restrain him no longer, and he and
Osborne fired off a ringing volley of laughter.

Osborne pursued his advantage pitilessly. He thought Jos a milksop.
He had been revolving in his mind the marriage question pending
between Jos and Rebecca, and was not over well pleased that a member
of a family into which he, George Osborne, of the --th, was going to
marry, should make a mesalliance with a little nobody--a little
upstart governess. "You hit, you poor old fellow!" said Osborne.
"You terrible! Why, man, you couldn't stand--you made everybody
laugh in the Gardens, though you were crying yourself. You were
maudlin, Jos. Don't you remember singing a song?"

"A what?" Jos asked.

"A sentimental song, and calling Rosa, Rebecca, what's her name,
Amelia's little friend--your dearest diddle-diddle-darling?" And
this ruthless young fellow, seizing hold of Dobbin's hand, acted
over the scene, to the horror of the original performer, and in
spite of Dobbin's good-natured entreaties to him to have mercy.

"Why should I spare him?" Osborne said to his friend's
remonstrances, when they quitted the invalid, leaving him under the
hands of Doctor Gollop. "What the deuce right has he to give
himself his patronizing airs, and make fools of us at Vauxhall?
Who's this little schoolgirl that is ogling and making love to him?
Hang it, the family's low enough already, without HER. A governess
is all very well, but I'd rather have a lady for my sister-in-law.
I'm a liberal man; but I've proper pride, and know my own station:
let her know hers. And I'll take down that great hectoring Nabob,
and prevent him from being made a greater fool than he is. That's
why I told him to look out, lest she brought an action against him."

"I suppose you know best," Dobbin said, though rather dubiously.
"You always were a Tory, and your family's one of the oldest in
England. But--"

"Come and see the girls, and make love to Miss Sharp yourself," the
lieutenant here interrupted his friend; but Captain Dobbin declined
to join Osborne in his daily visit to the young ladies in Russell
Square.

As George walked down Southampton Row, from Holborn, he laughed as
he saw, at the Sedley Mansion, in two different stories two heads on
the look-out.

The fact is, Miss Amelia, in the drawing-room balcony, was looking
very eagerly towards the opposite side of the Square, where Mr.
Osborne dwelt, on the watch for the lieutenant himself; and Miss
Sharp, from her little bed-room on the second floor, was in
observation until Mr. Joseph's great form should heave in sight.

"Sister Anne is on the watch-tower," said he to Amelia, "but there's
nobody coming"; and laughing and enjoying the joke hugely, he
described in the most ludicrous terms to Miss Sedley, the dismal
condition of her brother.

"I think it's very cruel of you to laugh, George," she said, looking
particularly unhappy; but George only laughed the more at her
piteous and discomfited mien, persisted in thinking the joke a most
diverting one, and when Miss Sharp came downstairs, bantered her
with a great deal of liveliness upon the effect of her charms on the
fat civilian.

"O Miss Sharp! if you could but see him this morning," he said--
"moaning in his flowered dressing-gown--writhing on his sofa; if you
could but have seen him lolling out his tongue to Gollop the
apothecary."

"See whom?" said Miss Sharp.

"Whom? O whom? Captain Dobbin, of course, to whom we were all so
attentive, by the way, last night."

"We were very unkind to him," Emmy said, blushing very much. "I--I
quite forgot him."

"Of course you did," cried Osborne, still on the laugh.

"One can't be ALWAYS thinking about Dobbin, you know, Amelia. Can
one, Miss Sharp?"

"Except when he overset the glass of wine at dinner," Miss Sharp
said, with a haughty air and a toss of the head, "I never gave the
existence of Captain Dobbin one single moment's consideration."

"Very good, Miss Sharp, I'll tell him," Osborne said; and as he
spoke Miss Sharp began to have a feeling of distrust and hatred
towards this young officer, which he was quite unconscious of having
inspired. "He is to make fun of me, is he?" thought Rebecca. "Has
he been laughing about me to Joseph? Has he frightened him? Perhaps
he won't come."--A film passed over her eyes, and her heart beat
quite quick.

"You're always joking," said she, smiling as innocently as she
could. "Joke away, Mr. George; there's nobody to defend ME." And
George Osborne, as she walked away--and Amelia looked reprovingly at
him--felt some little manly compunction for having inflicted any
unnecessary unkindness upon this helpless creature. "My dearest
Amelia," said he, "you are too good--too kind. You don't know the
world. I do. And your little friend Miss Sharp must learn her
station."

"Don't you think Jos will--"

"Upon my word, my dear, I don't know. He may, or may not. I'm not
his master. I only know he is a very foolish vain fellow, and put
my dear little girl into a very painful and awkward position last
night. My dearest diddle-diddle-darling!" He was off laughing
again, and he did it so drolly that Emmy laughed too.

All that day Jos never came. But Amelia had no fear about this; for
the little schemer had actually sent away the page, Mr. Sambo's
aide-de-camp, to Mr. Joseph's lodgings, to ask for some book he had
promised, and how he was; and the reply through Jos's man, Mr.
Brush, was, that his master was ill in bed, and had just had the
doctor with him. He must come to-morrow, she thought, but she never
had the courage to speak a word on the subject to Rebecca; nor did
that young woman herself allude to it in any way during the whole
evening after the night at Vauxhall.

The next day, however, as the two young ladies sate on the sofa,
pretending to work, or to write letters, or to read novels, Sambo
came into the room with his usual engaging grin, with a packet under
his arm, and a note on a tray. "Note from Mr. Jos, Miss," says
Sambo.

How Amelia trembled as she opened it!

So it ran:

Dear Amelia,--I send you the "Orphan of the Forest." I was too ill
to come yesterday. I leave town to-day for Cheltenham. Pray excuse
me, if you can, to the amiable Miss Sharp, for my conduct at
Vauxhall, and entreat her to pardon and forget every word I may have
uttered when excited by that fatal supper. As soon as I have
recovered, for my health is very much shaken, I shall go to Scotland
for some months, and am

Truly yours,
Jos Sedley

It was the death-warrant. All was over. Amelia did not dare to
look at Rebecca's pale face and burning eyes, but she dropt the
letter into her friend's lap; and got up, and went upstairs to her
room, and cried her little heart out.

Blenkinsop, the housekeeper, there sought her presently with
consolation, on whose shoulder Amelia wept confidentially, and
relieved herself a good deal. "Don't take on, Miss. I didn't like
to tell you. But none of us in the house have liked her except at
fust. I sor her with my own eyes reading your Ma's letters. Pinner
says she's always about your trinket-box and drawers, and
everybody's drawers, and she's sure she's put your white ribbing
into her box."

"I gave it her, I gave it her," Amelia said.

But this did not alter Mrs. Blenkinsop's opinion of Miss Sharp. "I
don't trust them governesses, Pinner," she remarked to the maid.
"They give themselves the hairs and hupstarts of ladies, and their
wages is no better than you nor me."

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.



CHAPTER VII

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."

"She was as bad as he," said Tinker. "She took the law of every one
of her tradesmen; and turned away forty-eight footmen in four year."

"She was close--very close," said the Baronet, simply; "but she was
a valyble woman to me, and saved me a steward."--And in this
confidential strain, and much to the amusement of the new-comer, the
conversation continued for a considerable time. Whatever Sir Pitt
Crawley's qualities might be, good or bad, he did not make the least
disguise of them. He talked of himself incessantly, sometimes in
the coarsest and vulgarest Hampshire accent; sometimes adopting the
tone of a man of the world. And so, with injunctions to Miss Sharp
to be ready at five in the morning, he bade her good night.
"You'll sleep with Tinker to-night," he said; "it's a big bed, and
there's room for two. Lady Crawley died in it. Good night."

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