Miss Crawley at Nurse
We have seen how Mrs. Firkin, the lady's maid, as soon
as any event of importance to the Crawley family came
to her knowledge, felt bound to communicate it to Mrs.
Bute Crawley, at the Rectory; and have before
mentioned how particularly kind and attentive that good-
natured lady was to Miss Crawley's confidential servant.
She had been a gracious friend to Miss Briggs, the
companion, also; and had secured the latter's good-will by a
number of those attentions and promises, which cost so
little in the making, and are yet so valuable and agreeable to
the recipient. Indeed every good economist and
manager of a household must know how cheap and yet
how amiable these professions are, and what a flavour
they give to the most homely dish in life. Who was the
blundering idiot who said that "fine words butter no
parsnips"? Half the parsnips of society are served and
rendered palatable with no other sauce. As the immortal
Alexis Soyer can make more delicious soup for a half-
penny than an ignorant cook can concoct with pounds of
vegetables and meat, so a skilful artist will make a few
simple and pleasing phrases go farther than ever so much
substantial benefit-stock in the hands of a mere bungler.
Nay, we know that substantial benefits often sicken some
stomachs; whereas, most will digest any amount of fine
words, and be always eager for more of the same food.
Mrs. Bute had told Briggs and Firkin so often of the
depth of her affection for them; and what she would do,
if she had Miss Crawley's fortune, for friends so excellent
and attached, that the ladies in question had the deepest
regard for her; and felt as much gratitude and
confidence as if Mrs. Bute had loaded them with the most
expensive favours.
Rawdon Crawley, on the other hand, like a selfish
heavy dragoon as he was, never took the least trouble to
conciliate his aunt's aides-de-camp, showed his contempt
for the pair with entire frankness--made Firkin pull off
his boots on one occasion--sent her out in the rain on
ignominious messages--and if he gave her a guinea, flung
it to her as if it were a box on the ear. As his aunt, too,
made a butt of Briggs, the Captain followed the
example, and levelled his jokes at her--jokes about as
delicate as a kick from his charger. Whereas, Mrs. Bute
consulted her in matters of taste or difficulty, admired
her poetry, and by a thousand acts of kindness and
politeness, showed her appreciation of Briggs; and if she
made Firkin a twopenny-halfpenny present, accompanied
it with so many compliments, that the twopence-half-
penny was transmuted into gold in the heart of the grateful
waiting-maid, who, besides, was looking forwards
quite contentedly to some prodigious benefit which must
happen to her on the day when Mrs. Bute came into her
fortune.
The different conduct of these two people is pointed
out respectfully to the attention of persons commencing
the world. Praise everybody, I say to such: never be
squeamish, but speak out your compliment both point-
blank in a man's face, and behind his back, when
you know there is a reasonable chance of his hearing it
again. Never lose a chance of saying a kind word. As
Collingwood never saw a vacant place in his estate but
he took an acorn out of his pocket and popped it in;
so deal with your compliments through life. An acorn
costs nothing; but it may sprout into a prodigious bit of
timber.
In a word, during Rawdon Crawley's prosperity, he was
only obeyed with sulky acquiescence; when his disgrace
came, there was nobody to help or pity him. Whereas,
when Mrs. Bute took the command at Miss Crawley's
house, the garrison there were charmed to act under
such a leader, expecting all sorts of promotion from her
promises, her generosity, and her kind words.
That he would consider himself beaten, after one defeat,
and make no attempt to regain the position he had
lost, Mrs. Bute Crawley never allowed herself to suppose.
She knew Rebecca to be too clever and spirited and
desperate a woman to submit without a struggle; and felt
that she must prepare for that combat, and be incessantly
watchful against assault; or mine, or surprise.
In the first place, though she held the town, was she
sure of the principal inhabitant? Would Miss Crawley
herself hold out; and had she not a secret longing to
welcome back the ousted adversary? The old lady liked
Rawdon, and Rebecca, who amused her. Mrs. Bute could
not disguise from herself the fact that none of her party
could so contribute to the pleasures of the town-bred
lady. "My girls' singing, after that little odious governess's,
I know is unbearable," the candid Rector's wife
owned to herself. "She always used to go to sleep when
Martha and Louisa played their duets. Jim's stiff
college manners and poor dear Bute's talk about his dogs
and horses always annoyed her. If I took her to the
Rectory, she would grow angry with us all, and fly, I
know she would; and might fall into that horrid
Rawdon's clutches again, and be the victim of that little
viper of a Sharp. Meanwhile, it is clear to me that she is
exceedingly unwell, and cannot move for some weeks, at
any rate; during which we must think of some plan to
protect her from the arts of those unprincipled people."
In the very best-of moments, if anybody told Miss
Crawley that she was, or looked ill, the trembling old
lady sent off for her doctor; and I daresay she was very
unwell after the sudden family event, which might serve
to shake stronger nerves than hers. At least, Mrs. Bute
thought it was her duty to inform the physician, and the
apothecary, and the dame-de-compagnie, and the domestics,
that Miss Crawley was in a most critical state, and
that they were to act accordingly. She had the street laid
knee-deep with straw; and the knocker put by with Mr.
Bowls's plate. She insisted that the Doctor should call
twice a day; and deluged her patient with draughts every
two hours. When anybody entered the room, she uttered
a shshshsh so sibilant and ominous, that it frightened the
poor old lady in her bed, from which she could
not look without seeing Mrs. Bute's beady eyes eagerly
fixed on her, as the latter sate steadfast in the arm-chair
by the bedside. They seemed to lighten in the dark (for
she kept the curtains closed) as she moved about the
room on velvet paws like a cat. There Miss Crawley lay
for days--ever so many days--Mr. Bute reading books
of devotion to her: for nights, long nights, during which
she had to hear the watchman sing, the night-light sputter;
visited at midnight, the last thing, by the stealthy apothecary;
and then left to look at Mrs. Bute's twinkling eyes,
or the flicks of yellow that the rushlight threw on the
dreary darkened ceiling. Hygeia herself would have
fallen sick under such a regimen; and how much more
this poor old nervous victim? It has been said that when
she was in health and good spirits, this venerable
inhabitant of Vanity Fair had as free notions about religion
and morals as Monsieur de Voltaire himself could desire,
but when illness overtook her, it was aggravated by
the most dreadful terrors of death, and an utter cowardice
took possession of the prostrate old sinner.
Sick-bed homilies and pious reflections are, to be sure,
out of place in mere story-books, and we are not going
(after the fashion of some novelists of the present day)
to cajole the.public into a sermon, when it is only a
comedy that the reader pays his money to witness. But,
without preaching, the truth may surely be borne in mind,
that the bustle, and triumph, and laughter, and gaiety
which Vanity Fair exhibits in public, do not always pursue
the performer into private life, and that the most
dreary depression of spirits and dismal repentances
sometimes overcome him. Recollection of the best ordained
banquets will scarcely cheer sick epicures. Reminiscences
of the most becoming dresses and brilliant ball triumphs
will go very little way to console faded beauties. Perhaps
statesmen, at a particular period of existence, are
not much gratified at thinking over the most triumphant
divisions; and the success or the pleasure of yesterday
becomes of very small account when a certain
(albeit uncertain) morrow is in view, about which all of
us must some day or other be speculating. O brother
wearers of motley! Are there not moments when one
grows sick of grinning and tumbling, and the jingling of
cap and bells? This, dear friends and companions, is my
amiable object--to walk with you through the Fair, to
examine the shops and the shows there; and that we
should all come home after the flare, and the noise, and
the gaiety, and be perfectly miserable in private.
"If that poor man of mine had a head on his shoulders,"
Mrs. Bute Crawley thought to herself, "how useful he
might be, under present circumstances, to this unhappy
old lady! He might make her repent of her shocking
free-thinking ways; he might urge her to do her duty,
and cast off that odious reprobate who has disgraced
himself and his family; and he might induce her to do
justice to my dear girls and the two boys, who require
and deserve, I am sure, every assistance which their
relatives can give them."
And, as the hatred of vice is always a progress towards
virtue, Mrs. Bute Crawley endeavoured to instil
her sister-in-law a proper abhorrence for all Rawdon
Crawley's manifold sins: of which his uncle's wife brought
forward such a catalogue as indeed would have served
to condemn a whole regiment of young officers. If a man
has committed wrong in life, I don't know any moralist
more anxious to point his errors out to the world than
his own relations; so Mrs. Bute showed a perfect family
interest and knowledge of Rawdon's history. She had all
the particulars of that ugly quarrel with Captain Marker,
in which Rawdon, wrong from the beginning, ended in
shooting the Captain. She knew how the unhappy Lord
Dovedale, whose mamma had taken a house at Oxford,
so that he might be educated there, and who had never
touched a card in his life till he came to London, was
perverted by Rawdon at the Cocoa-Tree, made helplessly
tipsy by this abominable seducer and perverter of youth,
and fleeced of four thousand pounds. She described with
the most vivid minuteness the agonies of the country
families whom he had ruined--the sons whom he had
plunged into dishonour and poverty--the daughters
whom he had inveigled into perdition. She knew the poor
tradesmen who were bankrupt by his extravagance--the
mean shifts and rogueries with which he had ministered
to it--the astounding falsehoods by which he had imposed
upon the most generous of aunts, and the ingratitude and
ridicule by which he had repaid her sacrifices. She
imparted these stories gradually to Miss Crawley; gave her
the whole benefit of them; felt it to be her bounden duty
as a Christian woman and mother of a family to do so;
had not the smallest remorse or compunction for the
victim whom her tongue was immolating; nay, very likely
thought her act was quite meritorious, and plumed
herself upon her resolute manner of performing it. Yes,
if a man's character is to be abused, say what you will,
there's nobody like a relation to do the business. And one
is bound to own, regarding this unfortunate wretch of a
Rawdon Crawley, that the mere truth was enough to
condemn him, and that all inventions of scandal were quite
superfluous pains on his friends' parts.
Rebecca, too, being now a relative, came in for the
fullest share of Mrs. Bute's kind inquiries. This indefatigable
pursuer of truth (having given strict orders that the
door was to be denied to all emissaries or letters
from Rawdon), took Miss Crawley's carriage, and drove
to her old friend Miss Pinkerton, at Minerva House,
Chiswick Mall, to whom she announced the dreadful
intelligence of Captain Rawdon's seduction by Miss Sharp,
and from whom she got sundry strange particulars
regarding the ex-governess's birth and early history. The
friend of the Lexicographer had plenty of information
to give. Miss Jemima was made to fetch the drawing-
master's receipts and letters. This one was from a
spunging-house: that entreated an advance: another was
full of gratitude for Rebecca's reception by the ladies of
Chiswick: and the last document from the unlucky artist's
pen was that in which, from his dying bed, he recommended
his orphan child to Miss Pinkerton's protection. There
were juvenile letters and petitions from Rebecca, too, in
the collection, imploring aid for her father or declaring
her own gratitude. Perhaps in Vanity Fair there are no
better satires than letters. Take a bundle of your dear
friend's of ten years back--your dear friend whom you
hate now. Look at a file of your sister's! how you clung
to each other till you quarrelled about the twenty-pound
legacy! Get down the round-hand scrawls of your son
who has half broken your heart with selfish undutifulness
since; or a parcel of your own, breathing endless
ardour and love eternal, which were sent back by your
mistress when she married the Nabob--your mistress for
whom you now care no more than for Queen Elizabeth.
Vows, love, promises, confidences, gratitude, how queerly
they read after a while! There ought to be a law in
Vanity Fair ordering the destruction of every written
document (except receipted tradesmen's bills) after a
certain brief and proper interval. Those quacks and
misanthropes who advertise indelible Japan ink should be
made to perish along with their wicked discoveries. The
best ink for Vanity Fair use would be one that faded
utterly in a couple of days, and left the paper clean and
