Vanity Fair

“Your affectionate

“Martha Crawley

“P.S.—Mr. Crawley’s brother, the baronet, with whom we are not, alas! upon those terms of unity in which it becomes brethren to dwell, has a governess for his little girls, who, I am told, had the good fortune to be educated at Chiswick. I hear various reports of her; and as I have the tenderest interest in my dearest little nieces, whom I wish, in spite of family differences, to see among my own children—and as I long to be attentive to any pupil of yours—do, my dear Miss Pinkerton, tell me the history of this young lady, whom, for your sake, I am most anxious to befriend.—M. C.”

“Miss Pinkerton to Mrs. Bute Crawley.

“Johnson House, Chiswick, Dec. 18—

“Dear Madam,—I have the honour to acknowledge your polite communication, to which I promptly reply. ’Tis most gratifying to one in my most arduous position to find that my maternal cares have elicited a responsive affection; and to recognise in the amiable Mrs. Bute Crawley my excellent pupil of former years, the sprightly and accomplished Miss Martha MacTavish. I am happy to have under my charge now the daughters of many of those who were your contemporaries at my establishment—what pleasure it would give me if your own beloved young ladies had need of my instructive superintendence!

“Presenting my respectful compliments to Lady Fuddleston, I have the honour (epistolarily) to introduce to her ladyship my two friends, Miss Tuffin and Miss Hawky.

“Either of these young ladies is perfectly qualified to instruct in Greek, Latin, and the rudiments of Hebrew; in mathematics and history; in Spanish, French, Italian, and geography; in music, vocal and instrumental; in dancing, without the aid of a master; and in the elements of natural sciences. In the use of the globes both are proficients. In addition to these, Miss Tuffin, who is daughter of the late Reverend Thomas Tuffin (Fellow of Corpus College, Cambridge), can instruct in the Syriac language, and the elements of Constitutional law. But as she is only eighteen years of age, and of exceedingly pleasing personal appearance, perhaps this young lady may be objectionable in Sir Huddleston Fuddleston’s family.

“Miss Letitia Hawky, on the other hand, is not personally well-favoured. She is twenty-nine; her face is much pitted with the smallpox. She 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 or 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 baronet’s 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 peace-maker 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 aloud 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 Indian 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 anything 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 cars 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.”

“I think she’s going,” said the Rector’s wife. “She was very red in the face when we left dinner. I was obliged to unlace her.”

“She drank seven glasses of champagne,” said the reverend gentleman, in a low voice; “and filthy champagne it is, too, that my brother poisons us with—but you women never know what’s what.”

“We know nothing,” said Mrs. Bute Crawley.

“She drank cherry-brandy after dinner,” continued his Reverence, “and took curaçoa with her coffee. I wouldn’t take a glass for a five-pound note: it kills me with heartburn. She can’t stand it, Mrs. Crawley—she must go—flesh and blood won’t bear it! and I lay five to two, Matilda drops in a year.”

Indulging in these solemn speculations, and thinking about his debts, and his son Jim at college, and Frank at Woolwich, and the four girls, who were no beauties, poor things, and would not have a penny but what they got from the aunt’s expected legacy, the Rector and his lady walked on for a while.

“Pitt can’t be such an infernal villain as to sell the reversion of the living. And that Methodist milksop of an eldest son looks to Parliament,” continued Mr. Crawley, after a pause.

“Sir Pitt Crawley will do anything,” said the Rector’s wife. “We must get Miss Crawley to make him promise it to James.”

“Pitt will promise anything,” replied the brother. “He promised he’d pay my college bills, when my father died; he promised he’d build the new wing to the Rectory; he promised he’d let me have Jibb’s field and the Six-acre Meadow—and much he executed his promises! And it’s to this man’s son—this scoundrel, gambler, swindler, murderer of a Rawdon Crawley, that Matilda leaves the bulk of her money. I say it’s unchristian. By Jove, it is. The infamous dog has got every vice except hypocrisy, and that belongs to his brother.”

“Hush, my dearest love! we’re in Sir Pitt’s grounds,” interposed his wife.

“I say he has got every vice, Mrs. Crawley. Don’t, Ma’am, bully me. Didn’t he shoot Captain Marker? Didn’t he rob young Lord Dovedale at the Cocoa-Tree? Didn’t he cross the fight between Bill Soames and the Cheshire Trump, by which I lost forty pound? You know he did; and as for the women, why, you heard that before me, in my own magistrate’s room—”

“For heaven’s sake, Mr. Crawley,” said the lady, “spare me the details.”

“And you ask this villain into your house!” continued the exasperated Rector. “You, the mother of a young family—the wife of a clergyman of the Church of England. By Jove!”

“Bute Crawley, you are a fool,” said the Rector’s wife scornfully.

“Well, Ma’am, fool or not—and I don’t say, Martha, I’m so clever as you are, I never did. But I won’t meet Rawdon Crawley, that’s flat. I’ll go over to Huddleston, that I will, and see his black greyhound, Mrs. Crawley; and I’ll run Launcelot against him for fifty. By Jove, I will; or against any dog in England, But I won’t meet that beast Rawdon Crawley.”

“Mr. Crawley, you are intoxicated, as usual,” replied his wife. And the next morning, when the Rector woke, and called for small beer, she put him in mind of his promise to visit Sir Huddleston Fuddleston on Saturday, and as he knew he should have a wet night, it was agreed that he might gallop back again in time for church on Sunday morning. Thus it will be seen that the parishioners of Crawley were equally happy in their Squire and in their Rector.

Miss Crawley had not long been established at the Hall before Rebecca’s fascinations had won the heart of that good-natured London rake, as they had of the country innocents whom we have been describing. Taking her accustomed drive, one day, she thought fit to order that “that little governess” should accompany her to Mudbury. Before they had returned Rebecca had made a conquest of her; having made her laugh four times, and amused her during the whole of the little journey.

“Not let Miss Sharp dine at table!” said she to Sir Pitt, who had arranged a dinner of ceremony, and asked all the neighbouring baronets. “My dear creature, do you suppose I can talk about the nursery with Lady Fuddleston, or discuss justices’ business with that goose, old Sir Giles Wapshot? I insist upon Miss Sharp appearing. Let Lady Crawley remain upstairs, if there is no room. But little Miss Sharp! Why, she’s the only person fit to talk to in the county!”

Of course, after such a peremptory order as this, Miss Sharp, the governess, received commands to dine with the illustrious company below stairs. And when Sir Huddleston had, with great pomp and ceremony, handed Miss Crawley in to dinner, and was preparing to take his place by her side, the old lady cried out, in a shrill voice, “Becky Sharp! Miss Sharp! Come you and sit by me and amuse me; and let Sir Huddleston sit by Lady Wapshot.”

When the parties were over, and the carriages had rolled away, the insatiable Miss Crawley would say, “Come to my dressing-room, Becky, and let us abuse the company,”—which, between them, this pair of friends did perfectly. Old Sir Huddleston wheezed a great deal at dinner; Sir Giles Wapshot had a particularly noisy manner of imbibing his soup, and her ladyship a wink of the left eye; all of which Becky caricatured to admiration; as well as the particulars of the night’s conversation; the politics; the war; the quarter-sessions; the famous run with the H. H., and those heavy and dreary themes, about which country gentlemen converse. As for the Misses Wapshot’s toilettes and Lady Fuddleston’s famous yellow hat, Miss Sharp tore them to tatters, to the infinite amusement of her audience.

“My dear, you are a perfect trouvaille,” Miss Crawley would say. “I wish you could come to me in London, but I couldn’t make a butt of you as I do of poor Briggs—no, no, you little sly creature; you are too clever—Isn’t she, Firkin?”

Mrs. Firkin (who was dressing the very small remnant of hair which remained on Miss Crawley’s pate), flung up her head and said, “I think Miss is very clever,” with the most killing sarcastic air. In fact, Mrs. Firkin had that natural jealousy which is one of the main principles of every honest woman.

After rebuffing Sir Huddleston Fuddleston, Miss Crawley ordered that Rawdon Crawley should lead her in to dinner every day, and that Becky should follow with her cushion—or else she would have Becky’s arm and Rawdon with the pillow. “We must sit together,” she said. “We’re the only three Christians in the county, my love”—in which case, it must be confessed, that religion was at a very low ebb in the county of Hants.

Besides being such a fine religionist, Miss Crawley was, as we have said, an Ultra-liberal in opinions, and always took occasion to express these in the most candid manner.