Aldersgate, anon clattering by the Blue Cupola of St.
Paul's, jingling rapidly by the strangers' entry of Fleet-
Market, which, with Exeter 'Change, has now departed
to the world of shadows--how they passed the White
Bear in Piccadilly, and saw the dew rising up from the
market-gardens of Knightsbridge--how Turnhamgreen,
Brentwood, Bagshot, were passed--need not be told here.
But the writer of these pages, who has pursued in former
days, and in the same bright weather, the same remarkable
journey, cannot but think of it with a sweet and
tender regret. Where is the road now, and its merry
incidents of life? Is there no Chelsea or Greenwich for
the old honest pimple-nosed coachmen? I wonder where
are they, those good fellows? Is old Weller alive or dead?
and the waiters, yea, and the inns at which they waited,
and the cold rounds of beef inside, and the stunted ostler,
with his blue nose and clinking pail, where is he, and
where is his generation? To those great geniuses now in
petticoats, who shall write novels for the beloved reader's
children, these men and things will be as much legend
and history as Nineveh, or Coeur de Lion, or Jack
Sheppard. For them stage-coaches will have become romances
--a team of four bays as fabulous as Bucephalus or Black
Bess. Ah, how their coats shone, as the stable-men pulled
their clothes off, and away they went--ah, how their
tails shook, as with smoking sides at the stage's end
they demurely walked away into the inn-yard. Alas! we
shall never hear the horn sing at midnight, or see the
pike-gates fly open any more. Whither, however, is the
light four-inside Trafalgar coach carrying us? Let us be
set down at Queen's Crawley without further divagation,
and see how Miss Rebecca Sharp speeds there.
CHAPTER VIII
Miss Rebecca Sharp to Miss Amelia Sedley,
Russell Square, London.
(Free.--Pitt Crawley.)
MY DEAREST, SWEETEST AMELIA,
With what mingled joy and sorrow do I take up the
pen to write to my dearest friend! Oh, what a change
between to-day and yesterday! Now I am friendless and
alone; yesterday I was at home, in the sweet company
of a sister, whom I shall ever, ever cherish!
I will not tell you in what tears and sadness I passed
the fatal night in which I separated from you. YOU went
on Tuesday to joy and happiness, with your mother and
YOUR DEVOTED YOUNG SOLDIER by your side; and I thought
of you all night, dancing at the Perkins's, the prettiest,
I am sure, of all the young ladies at the Ball. I was
brought by the groom in the old carriage to Sir Pitt
Crawley's town house, where, after John the groom had
behaved most rudely and insolently to me (alas! 'twas
safe to insult poverty and misfortune!), I was given over
to Sir P.'s care, and made to pass the night in an old
gloomy bed, and by the side of a horrid gloomy old
charwoman, who keeps the house. I did not sleep one
single wink the whole night.
Sir Pitt is not what we silly girls, when we used to
read Cecilia at Chiswick, imagined a baronet must have
been. Anything, indeed, less like Lord Orville cannot be
imagined. Fancy an old, stumpy, short, vulgar, and very
dirty man, in old clothes and shabby old gaiters, who
smokes a horrid pipe, and cooks his own horrid supper
in a saucepan. He speaks with a country accent, and
swore a great deal at the old charwoman, at the hackney
coachman who drove us to the inn where the coach went
from, and on which I made the journey OUTSIDE FOR THE
GREATER PART OF THE WAY.
I was awakened at daybreak by the charwoman, and
having arrived at the inn, was at first placed inside the
coach. But, when we got to a place called Leakington,
where the rain began to fall very heavily--will you
believe it?--I was forced to come outside; for Sir Pitt is a
proprietor of the coach, and as a passenger came at
Mudbury, who wanted an inside place, I was obliged to
go outside in the rain, where, however, a young
gentleman from Cambridge College sheltered me very
kindly in one of his several great coats.
This gentleman and the guard seemed to know Sir
Pitt very well, and laughed at him a great deal. They
both agreed in calling him an old screw; which means a
very stingy, avaricious person. He never gives any money
to anybody, they said (and this meanness I hate); and
the young gentleman made me remark that we drove
very slow for the last two stages on the road, because
Sir Pitt was on the box, and because he is proprietor
of the horses for this part of the journey. "But won't I
flog 'em on to Squashmore, when I take the ribbons?"
said the young Cantab. "And sarve 'em right, Master
Jack," said the guard. When I comprehended the
meaning of this phrase, and that Master Jack intended to
drive the rest of the way, and revenge himself on Sir
Pitt's horses, of course I laughed too.
A carriage and four splendid horses, covered with
armorial bearings, however, awaited us at Mudbury,
four miles from Queen's Crawley, and we made our
entrance to the baronet's park in state. There is a fine
avenue of a mile long leading to the house, and the woman
at the lodge-gate (over the pillars of which are a serpent
and a dove, the supporters of the Crawley arms), made
us a number of curtsies as she flung open the old iron
carved doors, which are something like those at odious
Chiswick.
"There's an avenue," said Sir Pitt, "a mile long.
There's six thousand pound of timber in them there
trees. Do you call that nothing?" He pronounced avenue
--EVENUE, and nothing--NOTHINK, so droll; and he had
a Mr. Hodson, his hind from Mudbury, into the carriage
with him, and they talked about distraining, and selling
up, and draining and subsoiling, and a great deal about
tenants and farming--much more than I could
understand. Sam Miles had been caught poaching, and Peter
Bailey had gone to the workhouse at last. "Serve him
right," said Sir Pitt; "him and his family has been
cheating me on that farm these hundred and fifty years."
Some old tenant, I suppose, who could not pay his rent.
Sir Pitt might have said "he and his family," to be sure;
but rich baronets do not need to be careful about
grammar, as poor governesses must be.
As we passed, I remarked a beautiful church-spire
rising above some old elms in the park; and before them,
in the midst of a lawn, and some outhouses, an old red
house with tall chimneys covered with ivy, and the
windows shining in the sun. "Is that your church, sir?"
I said.
"Yes, hang it," (said Sir Pitt, only he used, dear, A MUCH
WICKEDER WORD); "how's Buty, Hodson? Buty's my
brother Bute, my dear--my brother the parson. Buty and
the Beast I call him, ha, ha!"
Hodson laughed too, and then looking more grave
and nodding his head, said, "I'm afraid he's better, Sir
Pitt. He was out on his pony yesterday, looking at our
corn."
"Looking after his tithes, hang'un (only he used the
same wicked word). Will brandy and water never kill
him? He's as tough as old whatdyecallum--old
Methusalem."
Mr. Hodson laughed again. "The young men is home
from college. They've whopped John Scroggins till he's
well nigh dead."
"Whop my second keeper!" roared out Sir Pitt.
"He was on the parson's ground, sir," replied Mr.
Hodson; and Sir Pitt in a fury swore that if he ever caught
'em poaching on his ground, he'd transport 'em, by the
lord he would. However, he said, "I've sold the
presentation of the living, Hodson; none of that breed
shall get it, I war'nt"; and Mr. Hodson said he was quite right:
and I have no doubt from this that the two brothers are
at variance--as brothers often are, and sisters too. Don't
you remember the two Miss Scratchleys at Chiswick,
how they used always to fight and quarrel--and Mary
Box, how she was always thumping Louisa?
Presently, seeing two little boys gathering sticks in the
wood, Mr. Hodson jumped out of the carriage, at Sir
Pitt's order, and rushed upon them with his whip. "Pitch
into 'em, Hodson," roared the baronet; "flog their little
souls out, and bring 'em up to the house, the vagabonds;
I'll commit 'em as sure as my name's Pitt." And presently
we heard Mr. Hodson's whip cracking on the
shoulders of the poor little blubbering wretches, and
Sir Pitt, seeing that the malefactors were in custody,
drove on to the hall.
All the servants were ready to meet us, and
. . .
Here, my dear, I was interrupted last night by a
dreadful thumping at my door: and who do you think it
was? Sir Pitt Crawley in his night-cap and dressing-
gown, such a figure! As I shrank away from such a
visitor, he came forward and seized my candle. "No
candles after eleven o'clock, Miss Becky," said he. "Go to
bed in the dark, you pretty little hussy" (that is what
he called me), "and unless you wish me to come for the
candle every night, mind and be in bed at eleven." And
with this, he and Mr. Horrocks the butler went off
laughing. You may be sure I shall not encourage any more
of their visits. They let loose two immense bloodhounds
at night, which all last night were yelling and howling
at the moon. "I call the dog Gorer," said Sir Pitt; "he's
killed a man that dog has, and is master of a bull, and
the mother I used to call Flora; but now I calls her
Aroarer, for she's too old to bite. Haw, haw!"
Before the house of Queen's Crawley, which is an
odious old-fashioned red brick mansion, with tall
chimneys and gables of the style of Queen Bess, there is a
terrace flanked by the family dove and serpent, and on
which the great hall-door opens. And oh, my dear, the
great hall I am sure is as big and as glum as the great
hall in the dear castle of Udolpho. It has a large
fireplace, in which we might put half Miss Pinkerton's
school, and the grate is big enough to roast an ox at the
very least. Round the room hang I don't know how
many generations of Crawleys, some with beards and
ruffs, some with huge wigs and toes turned out, some
dressed in long straight stays and gowns that look as
stiff as towers, and some with long ringlets, and oh, my
dear! scarcely any stays at all. At one end of the hall is
the great staircase all in black oak, as dismal as may be,
and on either side are tall doors with stags' heads.over
them, leading to the billiard-room and the library, and
the great yellow saloon and the morning-rooms. I think
there are at least twenty bedrooms on the first floor; one
of them has the bed in which Queen Elizabeth slept;
and I have been taken by my new pupils through all
these fine apartments this morning. They are not
rendered less gloomy, I promise you, by having the shutters
always shut; and there is scarce one of the apartments,
but when the light was let into it, I expected to
see a ghost in the room. We have a schoolroom on the
second floor, with my bedroom leading into it on one
side, and that of the young ladies on the other. Then
there are Mr. Pitt's apartments--Mr. Crawley, he is
called--the eldest son, and Mr. Rawdon Crawley's rooms
--he is an officer like SOMEBODY, and away with his
regiment. There is no want of room I assure you. You
might lodge all the people in Russell Square in the
house, I think, and have space to spare.
Half an hour after our arrival, the great dinner-bell
was rung, and I came down with my two pupils (they
are very thin insignificant little chits of ten and eight
years old). I came down in your dear muslin gown
(about which that odious Mrs. Pinner was so rude,
because you gave it me); for I am to be treated as one of
the family, except on company days, when the young
ladies and I are to dine upstairs.
Well, the great dinner-bell rang, and we all assembled
in the little drawing-room where my Lady Crawley
sits. She is the second Lady Crawley, and mother of the
young ladies. She was an ironmonger's daughter, and
her marriage was thought a great match. She looks as
if she had been handsome once, and her eyes are always
weeping for the loss of her beauty. She is pale and
meagre and high-shouldered, and has not a word to say
for herself, evidently. Her stepson Mr. Crawley, was
likewise in the room. He was in full dress, as pompous
as an undertaker. He is pale, thin, ugly, silent; he has
thin legs, no chest, hay-coloured whiskers, and straw-
coloured hair. He is the very picture of his sainted
mother over the mantelpiece--Griselda of the noble
house of Binkie.
"This is the new governess, Mr. Crawley," said Lady
Crawley, coming forward and taking my hand. "Miss
Sharp."
"0!" said Mr. Crawley, and pushed his head once
forward and began again to read a great pamphlet
with which he was busy.
"I hope you will be kind to my girls," said Lady
Crawley, with her pink eyes always full of tears.
"Law, Ma, of course she will," said the eldest: and I
saw at a glance that I need not be afraid of THAT woman.
"My lady is served," says the butler in black, in an
immense white shirt-frill, that looked as if it had been
one of the Queen Elizabeth's ruffs depicted in the hall;
and so, taking Mr. Crawley's arm, she led the way to the
dining-room, whither I followed with my little pupils in
each hand.
Sir Pitt was already in the room with a silver jug. He
had just been to the cellar, and was in full dress too;
that is, he had taken his gaiters off, and showed his little
dumpy legs in black worsted stockings. The sideboard
was covered with glistening old plate--old cups, both
