the worse for them. Even Miss Pinkerton, that austere
and godlike woman, ceased scolding her after the first
time, and though she no more comprehended sensibility
than she did Algebra, gave all masters and teachers
particular orders to treat Miss Sedley with the utmost
gentleness, as harsh treatment was injurious to her.
So that when the day of departure came, between her
two customs of laughing and crying, Miss Sedley was
greatly puzzled how to act. She was glad to go home,
and yet most woefully sad at leaving school. For three
days before, little Laura Martin, the orphan, followed her
about like a little dog. She had to make and receive at
least fourteen presents--to make fourteen solemn promises
of writing every week: "Send my letters under cover
to my grandpapa, the Earl of Dexter," said Miss Saltire
(who, by the way, was rather shabby). "Never mind the
postage, but write every day, you dear darling," said the
impetuous and woolly-headed, but generous and
affectionate Miss Swartz; and the orphan little Laura Martin
(who was just in round-hand), took her friend's hand
and said, looking up in her face wistfully, "Amelia, when
I write to you I shall call you Mamma." All which details,
I have no doubt, JONES, who reads this book at his
Club, will pronounce to be excessively foolish, trivial,
twaddling, and ultra-sentimental. Yes; I can see Jones
at this minute (rather flushed with his joint of mutton
and half pint of wine), taking out his pencil and scoring
under the words "foolish, twaddling," &c., and adding to
them his own remark of "QUITE TRUE." Well, he is a lofty
man of genius, and admires the great and heroic in life
and novels; and so had better take warning and go elsewhere.
Well, then. The flowers, and the presents, and the
trunks, and bonnet-boxes of Miss Sedley having been
arranged by Mr. Sambo in the carriage, together with a
very small and weather-beaten old cow's-skin trunk with
Miss Sharp's card neatly nailed upon it, which was
delivered by Sambo with a grin, and packed by the
coachman with a corresponding sneer--the hour for parting
came; and the grief of that moment was considerably
lessened by the admirable discourse which Miss Pinkerton
addressed to her pupil. Not that the parting speech caused
Amelia to philosophise, or that it armed her in any
way with a calmness, the result of argument; but it was
intolerably dull, pompous, and tedious; and having the
fear of her schoolmistress greatly before her eyes, Miss
Sedley did not venture, in her presence, to give way to
any ebullitions of private grief. A seed-cake and a bottle
of wine were produced in the drawing-room, as on the
solemn occasions of the visits of parents, and these
refreshments being partaken of, Miss Sedley was at
liberty to depart.
"You'll go in and say good-by to Miss Pinkerton,
Becky!" said Miss Jemima to a young lady of whom
nobody took any notice, and who was coming downstairs
with her own bandbox.
"I suppose I must," said Miss Sharp calmly, and much
to the wonder of Miss Jemima; and the latter having
knocked at the door, and receiving permission to come
in, Miss Sharp advanced in a very unconcerned manner,
and said in French, and with a perfect accent, "Mademoiselle,
je viens vous faire mes adieux."
Miss Pinkerton did not understand French; she only
directed those who did: but biting her lips and throwing
up her venerable and Roman-nosed head (on the top of
which figured a large and solemn turban), she said, "Miss
Sharp, I wish you a good morning." As the Hammersmith
Semiramis spoke, she waved one hand, both by way of
adieu, and to give Miss Sharp an opportunity of shaking
one of the fingers of the hand which was left out for
that purpose.
Miss Sharp only folded her own hands with a very
frigid smile and bow, and quite declined to accept the
proffered honour; on which Semiramis tossed up her
turban more indignantly than ever. In fact, it was a little
battle between the young lady and the old one, and the
latter was worsted. "Heaven bless you, my child," said
she, embracing Amelia, and scowling the while over the
girl's shoulder at Miss Sharp. "Come away, Becky," said
Miss Jemima, pulling the young woman away in great
alarm, and the drawing-room door closed upon them for
ever.
Then came the struggle and parting below. Words
refuse to tell it. All the servants were there in the hall--
all the dear friend--all the young ladies--the dancing-
master who had just arrived; and there was such a
scuffling, and hugging, and kissing, and crying, with the
hysterical YOOPS of Miss Swartz, the parlour-boarder,
from her room, as no pen can depict, and as the tender
heart would fain pass over. The embracing was over; they
parted--that is, Miss Sedley parted from her friends. Miss
Sharp had demurely entered the carriage some minutes
before. Nobody cried for leaving HER.
Sambo of the bandy legs slammed the carriage door
on his young weeping mistress. He sprang up behind the
carriage. "Stop!" cried Miss Jemima, rushing to the gate
with a parcel.
"It's some sandwiches, my dear," said she to Amelia.
"You may be hungry, you know; and Becky, Becky
Sharp, here's a book for you that my sister--that is, I
--Johnson's Dixonary, you know; you mustn't leave us
without that. Good-by. Drive on, coachman. God bless
you!"
And the kind creature retreated into the garden,
overcome with emotion.
But, lo! and just as the coach drove off, Miss Sharp put
her pale face out of the window and actually flung the
book back into the garden.
This almost caused Jemima to faint with terror. "Well,
I never"--said she--"what an audacious"--Emotion
prevented her from completing either sentence. The
carriage rolled away; the great gates were closed; the bell
rang for the dancing lesson. The world is before the two
young ladies; and so, farewell to Chiswick Mall.
CHAPTER II
In Which Miss Sharp and Miss Sedley
Prepare to Open the Campaign
When Miss Sharp had performed the heroical act
mentioned in the last chapter, and had seen the Dixonary,
flying over the pavement of the little garden, fall at length
at the feet of the astonished Miss Jemima, the young
lady's countenance, which had before worn an almost
livid look of hatred, assumed a smile that perhaps was
scarcely more agreeable, and she sank back in the
carriage in an easy frame of mind, saying--"So much for
the Dixonary; and, thank God, I'm out of Chiswick."
Miss Sedley was almost as flurried at the act of defiance
as Miss Jemima had been; for, consider, it was but one
minute that she had left school, and the impressions of
six years are not got over in that space of time. Nay,
with some persons those awes and terrors of youth last
for ever and ever. I know, for instance, an old gentleman
of sixty-eight, who said to me one morning at breakfast,
with a very agitated countenance, "I dreamed last
night that I was flogged by Dr. Raine." Fancy had carried
him back five-and-fifty years in the course of that
evening. Dr. Raine and his rod were just as awful to him
in his heart, then, at sixty-eight, as they had been at
thirteen. If the Doctor, with a large birch, had appeared
bodily to him, even at the age of threescore and eight,
and had said in awful voice, "Boy, take down your
pant--"? Well, well, Miss Sedley was exceedingly
alarmed at this act of insubordination.
"How could you do so, Rebecca?" at last she said,
after a pause.
"Why, do you think Miss Pinkerton will come out and
order me back to the black-hole?" said Rebecca, laughing.
"No: but--"
"I hate the whole house," continued Miss Sharp in a
fury. "I hope I may never set eyes on it again. I wish it
were in the bottom of the Thames, I do; and if Miss
Pinkerton were there, I wouldn't pick her out, that I
wouldn't. O how I should like to see her floating in the
water yonder, turban and all, with her train streaming
after her, and her nose like the beak of a wherry."
"Hush!" cried Miss Sedley.
"Why, will the black footman tell tales?" cried Miss
Rebecca, laughing. "He may go back and tell Miss
Pinkerton that I hate her with all my soul; and I wish he
would; and I wish I had a means of proving it, too. For
two years I have only had insults and outrage from her.
I have been treated worse than any servant in the kitchen.
I have never had a friend or a kind word, except from
you. I have been made to tend the little girls in the lower
schoolroom, and to talk French to the Misses, until I
grew sick of my mother tongue. But that talking French
to Miss Pinkerton was capital fun, wasn't it? She doesn't
know a word of French, and was too proud to confess
it. I believe it was that which made her part with me;
and so thank Heaven for French. Vive la France! Vive
l'Empereur! Vive Bonaparte!"
"O Rebecca, Rebecca, for shame!" cried Miss Sedley;
for this was the greatest blasphemy Rebecca had as yet
uttered; and in those days, in England, to say, "Long live
Bonaparte!" was as much as to say, "Long live Lucifer!"
"How can you--how dare you have such wicked,
revengeful thoughts?"
"Revenge may be wicked, but it's natural," answered
Miss Rebecca. "I'm no angel." And, to say the truth, she
certainly was not.
For it may be remarked in the course of this little
conversation (which took place as the coach rolled along
lazily by the river side) that though Miss Rebecca Sharp
has twice had occasion to thank Heaven, it has been, in
the first place, for ridding her of some person whom she
hated, and secondly, for enabling her to bring her
enemies to some sort of perplexity or confusion; neither
of which are very amiable motives for religious gratitude,
or such as would be put forward by persons of a kind
and placable disposition. Miss Rebecca was not, then, in
the least kind or placable. All the world used her ill, said
this young misanthropist, and we may be pretty certain
that persons whom all the world treats ill, deserve
entirely the treatment they get. The world is a looking-
glass, and gives back to every man the reflection of his
own face. Frown at it, and it will in turn look sourly
upon you; laugh at it and with it, and it is a jolly kind
companion; and so let all young persons take their choice.
This is certain, that if the world neglected Miss Sharp,
she never was known to have done a good action in
behalf of anybody; nor can it be expected that twenty-
four young ladies should all be as amiable as the heroine
of this work, Miss Sedley (whom we have selected for
the very reason that she was the best-natured of all,
otherwise what on earth was to have prevented us from
putting up Miss Swartz, or Miss Crump, or Miss Hopkins,
as heroine in her place!) it could not be expected that
every one should be of the humble and gentle temper
of Miss Amelia Sedley; should take every opportunity to
vanquish Rebecca's hard-heartedness and ill-humour; and,
by a thousand kind words and offices, overcome, for once
at least, her hostility to her kind.
Miss Sharp's father was an artist, and in that quality
had given lessons of drawing at Miss Pinkerton's school.
He was a clever man; a pleasant companion; a careless
student; with a great propensity for running into debt,
and a partiality for the tavern. When he was drunk, he
used to beat his wife and daughter; and the next morning,
with a headache, he would rail at the world for its neglect
of his genius, and abuse, with a good deal of cleverness,
and sometimes with perfect reason, the fools, his brother
painters. As it was with the utmost difficulty that he
could keep himself, and as he owed money for a mile
round Soho, where he lived, he thought to better his
circumstances by marrying a young woman of the French
nation, who was by profession an opera-girl. The humble
calling of her female parent Miss Sharp never alluded to,
but used to state subsequently that the Entrechats were
a noble family of Gascony, and took great pride in her
descent from them. And curious it is that as she advanced
in life this young lady's ancestors increased in rank and
splendour.
Rebecca's mother had had some education somewhere,
and her daughter spoke French with purity and a Parisian
accent. It was in those days rather a rare accomplishment,
and led to her engagement with the orthodox Miss
Pinkerton. For her mother being dead, her father, finding
himself not likely to recover, after his third attack of
delirium tremens, wrote a manly and pathetic letter to
Miss Pinkerton, recommending the orphan child to her
protection, and so descended to the grave, after two
bailiffs had quarrelled over his corpse. Rebecca was
seventeen when she came to Chiswick, and was bound
over as an articled pupil; her duties being to talk French,
as we have seen; and her privileges to live cost free, and,
with a few guineas a year, to gather scraps of knowledge
from the professors who attended the school.
She was small and slight in person; pale, sandy-haired,
and with eyes habitually cast down: when they looked up
they were very large, odd, and attractive; so attractive
that the Reverend Mr. Crisp, fresh from Oxford, and
curate to the Vicar of Chiswick, the Reverend Mr.
Flowerdew, fell in love with Miss Sharp; being shot dead
by a glance of her eyes which was fired all the way across
Chiswick Church from the school-pew to the reading-
desk. This infatuated young man used sometimes to take
tea with Miss Pinkerton, to whom he had been presented
by his mamma, and actually proposed something like
