to Sir Pitt's old mother, the late dowager Lady Crawley.
Its period of service over, the hatchment had come
down from the front of the house, and lived in retirement
somewhere in the back premises of Sir Pitt's mansion.
It reappeared now for poor Rose Dawson. Sir Pitt
was a widower again. The arms quartered on the shield
along with his own were not, to be sure, poor Rose's.
She had no arms. But the cherubs painted on the
scutcheon answered as well for her as for Sir Pitt's
mother, and Resurgam was written under the coat,
flanked by the Crawley Dove and Serpent. Arms and
Hatchments, Resurgam.--Here is an opportunity for
moralising!
Mr. Crawley had tended that otherwise friendless
bedside. She went out of the world strengthened by such
words and comfort as he could give her. For many years
his was the only kindness she ever knew; the only
friendship that solaced in any way that feeble, lonely soul.
Her heart was dead long before her body. She had sold
it to become Sir Pitt Crawley's wife. Mothers and
daughters are making the same bargain every day in
Vanity Fair.
When the demise took place, her husband was in
London attending to some of his innumerable schemes,
and busy with his endless lawyers. He had found time,
nevertheless, to call often in Park Lane, and to despatch
many notes to Rebecca, entreating her, enjoining her,
commanding her to return to her young pupils in the
country, who were now utterly without companionship
during their mother's illness. But Miss Crawley would
not hear of her departure; for though there was no lady
of fashion in London who would desert her friends more
complacently as soon as she was tired of their society,
and though few tired of them sooner, yet as long as her
engoument lasted her attachment was prodigious, and
she clung still with the greatest energy to Rebecca.
The news of Lady Crawley's death provoked no more
grief or comment than might have been expected in Miss
Crawley's family circle. "I suppose I must put off my
party for the 3rd," Miss Crawley said; and added, after a
pause, "I hope my brother will have the decency not to
marry again." "What a confounded rage Pitt will be in if
he does," Rawdon remarked, with his usual regard for his
elder brother. Rebecca said nothing. She seemed by far the
gravest and most impressed of the family. She left the
room before Rawdon went away that day; but they met
by chance below, as he was going away after taking leave,
and had a parley together.
On the morrow, as Rebecca was gazing from the window,
she startled Miss Crawley, who was placidly occupied
with a French novel, by crying out in an alarmed
tone, "Here's Sir Pitt, Ma'am!" and the Baronet's knock
followed this announcement.
"My dear, I can't see him. I won't see him. Tell Bowls
not at home, or go downstairs and say I'm too ill to
receive any one. My nerves really won't bear my brother
at this moment," cried out Miss Crawley, and resumed
the novel.
"She's too ill to see you, sir," Rebecca said, tripping
down to Sir Pitt, who was preparing to ascend.
"So much the better," Sir Pitt answered. "I want to
see YOU, Miss Becky. Come along a me into the parlour,"
and they entered that apartment together.
"I wawnt you back at Queen's Crawley, Miss," the
baronet said, fixing his eyes upon her, and taking off his
black gloves and his hat with its great crape hat-band.
His eyes had such a strange look, and fixed upon her so
steadfastly, that Rebecca Sharp began almost to tremble.
"I hope to come soon," she said in a low voice, "as
soon as Miss Crawley is better--and return to--to the
dear children."
"You've said so these three months, Becky," replied
Sir Pitt, "and still you go hanging on to my sister, who'll
fling you off like an old shoe, when she's wore you out.
I tell you I want you. I'm going back to the Vuneral.
Will you come back? Yes or no?"
"I daren't--I don't think--it would be right--to be
alone--with you, sir," Becky said, seemingly in great
agitation.
"I say agin, I want you," Sir Pitt said, thumping the
table. "I can't git on without you. I didn't see what it was
till you went away. The house all goes wrong. It's not
the same place. All my accounts has got muddled agin.
You MUST come back. Do come back. Dear Becky, do
come."
"Come--as what, sir?" Rebecca gasped out.
"Come as Lady Crawley, if you like," the Baronet
said, grasping his crape hat. "There! will that zatusfy you?
Come back and be my wife. Your vit vor't. Birth be
hanged. You're as good a lady as ever I see. You've got
more brains in your little vinger than any baronet's wife
in the county. Will you come? Yes or no?"
"Oh, Sir Pitt!" Rebecca said, very much moved.
"Say yes, Becky," Sir Pitt continued. "I'm an old man,
but a good'n. I'm good for twenty years. I'll make you
happy, zee if I don't. You shall do what you like; spend
what you like; and 'ave it all your own way. I'll make
you a zettlement. I'll do everything reglar. Look year!"
and the old man fell down on his knees and leered at
her like a satyr.
Rebecca started back a picture of consternation. In
the course of this history we have never seen her lose her
presence of mind; but she did now, and wept some of the
most genuine tears that ever fell from her eyes.
"Oh, Sir Pitt!" she said. "Oh, sir--I--I'm married
ALREADY."
CHAPTER XV
In Which Rebecca's Husband Appears
for a Short Time
Every reader of a sentimental turn (and we desire
no other) must have been pleased with the
tableau with which the last act of our little
drama concluded; for what can be prettier than
an image of Love on his knees before Beauty?
But when Love heard that awful confession from
Beauty that she was married already, he
bounced up from his attitude of humility on the carpet,
uttering exclamations which caused poor little Beauty to
be more frightened than she was when she made her
avowal. "Married; you're joking," the Baronet cried, after
the first explosion of rage and wonder. "You're
making vun of me, Becky. Who'd ever go to marry you
without a shilling to your vortune?"
"Married! married!" Rebecca said, in an agony of tears
--her voice choking with emotion, her handkerchief up
to her ready eyes, fainting against the mantelpiece a
figure of woe fit to melt the most obdurate heart. "0
Sir Pitt, dear Sir Pitt, do not think me ungrateful for all
your goodness to me. It is only your generosity that has
extorted my secret."
"Generosity be hanged!" Sir Pitt roared out. "Who is
it tu, then, you're married? Where was it?"
"Let me come back with you to the country, sir! Let
me watch over you as faithfully as ever! Don't, don't
separate me from dear Queen's Crawley!"
"The feller has left you, has he?" the Baronet said,
beginning, as he fancied, to comprehend. "Well, Becky--
come back if you like. You can't eat your cake and have
it. Any ways I made you a vair offer. Coom back as
governess--you shall have it all your own way." She
held out one hand. She cried fit to break her heart; her
ringlets fell over her face, and over the marble
mantelpiece where she laid it.
"So the rascal ran off, eh?" Sir Pitt said, with a hideous
attempt at consolation. "Never mind, Becky, I'LL take
care of 'ee."
"Oh, sir! it would be the pride of my life to go back
to Queen's Crawley, and take care of the children, and
of you as formerly, when you said you were pleased with
the services of your little Rebecca. When I think of what
you have just offered me, my heart fills with gratitude
indeed it does. I can't be your wife, sir; let me--let me be
your daughter."
Saying which, Rebecca went down on HER knees in a
most tragical way, and, taking Sir Pitt's horny black
hand between her own two (which were very pretty and
white, and as soft as satin), looked up in his face with an
expression of exquisite pathos and confidence, when--
when the door opened, and Miss Crawley sailed in.
Mrs. Firkin and Miss Briggs, who happened by chance
to be at the parlour door soon after the Baronet and
Rebecca entered the apartment, had also seen accidentally,
through the keyhole, the old gentleman prostrate
before the governess, and had heard the generous proposal
which he made her. It was scarcely out of his mouth
when Mrs. Firkin and Miss Briggs had streamed up the
stairs, had rushed into the drawing-room where Miss
Crawley was reading the French novel, and had given
that old lady the astounding intelligence that Sir Pitt
was on his knees, proposing to Miss Sharp. And if you
calculate the time for the above dialogue to take place
--the time for Briggs and Firkin to fly to the drawing-
room--the time for Miss Crawley to be astonished, and
to drop her volume of Pigault le Brun--and the time for
her to come downstairs--you will see how exactly
accurate this history is, and how Miss Crawley must have
appeared at the very instant when Rebecca had assumed
the attitude of humility.
"It is the lady on the ground, and not the gentleman,"
Miss Crawley said, with a look and voice of great scorn.
"They told me that YOU were on your knees, Sir Pitt: do
kneel once more, and let me see this pretty couple!"
"I have thanked Sir Pitt Crawley, Ma'am," Rebecca
said, rising, "and have told him that--that I never can
become Lady Crawley."
"Refused him!" Miss Crawley said, more bewildered
than ever. Briggs and Firkin at the door opened the eyes
of astonishment and the lips of wonder.
"Yes--refused," Rebecca continued, with a sad,
tearful voice.
"And am I to credit my ears that you absolutely
proposed to her, Sir Pitt?" the old lady asked.
"Ees," said the Baronet, "I did."
"And she refused you as she says?"
"Ees," Sir Pitt said, his features on a broad grin.
"It does not seem to break your heart at any rate,"
Miss Crawley remarked.
"Nawt a bit," answered Sir Pitt, with a coolness and
good-humour which set Miss Crawley almost mad with
bewilderment. That an old gentleman of station should
fall on his knees to a penniless governess, and burst out
laughing because she refused to marry him--that a
penniless governess should refuse a Baronet with four
thousand a year--these were mysteries which Miss Crawley
could never comprehend. It surpassed any complications
of intrigue in her favourite Pigault le Brun.
"I'm glad you think it good sport, brother," she
continued, groping wildly through this amazement.
"Vamous," said Sir Pitt. "Who'd ha' thought it! what a
sly little devil! what a little fox it waws!" he muttered
to himself, chuckling with pleasure.
"Who'd have thought what?" cries Miss Crawley,
stamping with her foot. "Pray, Miss Sharp, are you
waiting for the Prince Regent's divorce, that you don't think
our family good enough for you?"
"My attitude," Rebecca said, "when you came in,
ma'am, did not look as if I despised such an honour as
this good--this noble man has deigned to offer me. Do
you think I have no heart? Have you all loved me, and
been so kind to the poor orphan--deserted--girl, and
am I to feel nothing? O my friends! O my benefactors!
may not my love, my life, my duty, try to repay the
confidence you have shown me? Do you grudge me even
gratitude, Miss Crawley? It is too much--my heart is
too full"; and she sank down in a chair so pathetically,
that most of the audience present were perfectly melted
with her sadness.
"Whether you marry me or not, you're a good little
girl, Becky, and I'm your vriend, mind," said Sir Pitt, and
putting on his crape-bound hat, he walked away--greatly
to Rebecca's relief; for it was evident that her secret
was unrevealed to Miss Crawley, and she had the
advantage of a brief reprieve.
Putting her handkerchief to her eyes, and nodding
away honest Briggs, who would have followed her
upstairs, she went up to her apartment; while Briggs and
Miss Crawley, in a high state of excitement, remained
to discuss the strange event, and Firkin, not less moved,
dived down into the kitchen regions, and talked of it
with all the male and female company there. And so
impressed was Mrs. Firkin with the news, that she thought
proper to write off by that very night's post, "with her
humble duty to Mrs. Bute Crawley and the family at the
Rectory, and Sir Pitt has been and proposed for to marry
Miss Sharp, wherein she has refused him, to the wonder
of all."
The two ladies in the dining-room (where worthy
Miss Briggs was delighted to be admitted once more to
confidential conversation with her patroness) wondered
to their hearts' content at Sir Pitt's offer, and Rebecca's
refusal; Briggs very acutely suggesting that there must
have been some obstacle in the shape of a previous
attachment, otherwise no young woman in her senses would
ever have refused so advantageous a proposal.
"You would have accepted it yourself, wouldn't you,
Briggs?" Miss Crawley said, kindly.
"Would it not be a privilege to be Miss Crawley's
sister?" Briggs replied, with meek evasion.
"Well, Becky would have made a good Lady Crawley,
