city: and Amelia was praying for George, who was lying
on his face, dead, with a bullet through his heart.
CHAPTER XXXIII
In Which Miss Crawley's Relations Are Very Anxious About Her
The kind reader must please to remember--while the
army is marching from Flanders, and, after its heroic
actions there, is advancing to take the fortifications on the
frontiers of France, previous to an occupation of that
country--that there are a number of persons living
peaceably in England who have to do with the history at
present in hand, and must come in for their share of the
chronicle. During the time of these battles and dangers,
old Miss Crawley was living at Brighton, very moderately
moved by the great events that were going on. The great
events rendered the newspapers rather interesting, to be
sure, and Briggs read out the Gazette, in which Rawdon
Crawley's gallantry was mentioned with honour, and his
promotion was presently recorded.
"What a pity that young man has taken such an
irretrievable step in the world!" his aunt said; "with his rank
and distinction he might have married a brewer's
daughter with a quarter of a million--like Miss Grains; or have
looked to ally himself with the best families in England.
He would have had my money some day or other; or his
children would--for I'm not in a hurry to go, Miss Briggs,
although you may be in a hurry to be rid of me; and
instead of that, he is a doomed pauper, with a dancing-girl
for a wife."
"Will my dear Miss Crawley not cast an eye of
compassion upon the heroic soldier, whose name is inscribed
in the annals of his country's glory?" said Miss Briggs,
who was greatly excited by the Waterloo proceedings,
and loved speaking romantically when there was an
occasion. "Has not the Captain--or the Colonel as I may
now style him--done deeds which make the name of
Crawley illustrious?"
"Briggs, you are a fool," said Miss Crawley: "Colonel
Crawley has dragged the name of Crawley through the
mud, Miss Briggs. Marry a drawing-master's daughter,
indeed!--marry a dame de compagnie--for she was no
better, Briggs; no, she was just what you are--only younger,
and a great deal prettier and cleverer. Were you an
accomplice of that abandoned wretch, I wonder, of whose
vile arts he became a victim, and of whom you used to
be such an admirer? Yes, I daresay you were an accomplice.
But you will find yourself disappointed in my will,
I can tell you: and you will have the goodness to write to
Mr. Waxy, and say that I desire to see him immediately."
Miss Crawley was now in the habit of writing to Mr.
Waxy her solicitor almost every day in the week, for her
arrangements respecting her property were all revoked,
and her perplexity was great as to the future disposition
of her money.
The spinster had, however, rallied considerably; as
was proved by the increased vigour and frequency of her
sarcasms upon Miss Briggs, all which attacks the poor
companion bore with meekness, with cowardice, with a
resignation that was half generous and half hypocritical
--with the slavish submission, in a word, that women of
her disposition and station are compelled to show. Who
has not seen how women bully women? What tortures
have men to endure, comparable to those daily repeated
shafts of scorn and cruelty with which poor women are
riddled by the tyrants of their sex? Poor victims! But we
are starting from our proposition, which is, that Miss
Crawley was always particularly annoying and savage
when she was rallying from illness--as they say wounds
tingle most when they are about to heal.
While thus approaching, as all hoped, to convalescence,
Miss Briggs was the only victim admitted into the
presence of the invalid; yet Miss Crawley's relatives afar
off did not forget their beloved kinswoman, and by a
number of tokens, presents, and kind affectionate
messages, strove to keep themselves alive in her
recollection.
In the first place, let us mention her nephew, Rawdon
Crawley. A few weeks after the famous fight of Waterloo,
and after the Gazette had made known to her the promotion
and gallantry of that distinguished officer, the Dieppe
packet brought over to Miss Crawley at Brighton, a box
containing presents, and a dutiful letter, from the
Colonel her nephew. In the box were a pair of French
epaulets, a Cross of the Legion of Honour, and the hilt of a
sword--relics from the field of battle: and the letter
described with a good deal of humour how the latter
belonged to a commanding officer of the Guard, who having
sworn that "the Guard died, but never surrendered,"
was taken prisoner the next minute by a private soldier,
who broke the Frenchman's sword with the butt of his
musket, when Rawdon made himself master of the
shattered weapon. As for the cross and epaulets, they came
from a Colonel of French cavalry, who had fallen under
the aide-de-camp's arm in the battle: and Rawdon Crawley
did not know what better to do with the spoils than
to send them to his kindest and most affectionate old
friend. Should he continue to write to her from Paris,
whither the army was marching? He might be able to
give her interesting news from that capital, and of some
of Miss Crawley's old friends of the emigration, to whom
she had shown so much kindness during their distress.
The spinster caused Briggs to write back to the Colonel
a gracious and complimentary letter, encouraging
him to continue his correspondence. His first letter was
so excessively lively and amusing that she should look
with pleasure for its successors.--"Of course, I know,"
she explained to,Miss Briggs, "that Rawdon could not
write such a good letter any more than you could, my
poor Briggs, and that it is that clever little wretch of a
Rebecca, who dictates every word to him; but that is no
reason why my nephew should not amuse me; and so I
wish to let him understand that I am in high good
humour."
I wonder whether she knew that it was not only Becky
who wrote the letters, but that Mrs. Rawdon actually
took and sent home the trophies which she bought for a
few francs, from one of the innumerable pedlars who
immediately began to deal in relics of the war. The
novelist, who knows everything, knows this also. Be this,
however, as it may, Miss Crawley's gracious reply greatly
encouraged our young friends, Rawdon and his lady, who
hoped for the best from their aunt's evidently pacified
humour: and they took care to entertain her with many
delightful letters from Paris, whither, as Rawdon said,
they had the good luck to go in the track of the
conquering army.
To the rector's lady, who went off to tend her
husband's broken collar-bone at the Rectory at Queen's
Crawley, the spinster's communications were by no
means so gracious. Mrs. Bute, that brisk, managing,
lively, imperious woman, had committed the most fatal of
all errors with regard to her sister-in-law. She had not
merely oppressed her and her household--she had bored
Miss Crawley; and if poor Miss Briggs had been a
woman of any spirit, she might have been made happy
by the commission which her principal gave her to write
a letter to Mrs. Bute Crawley, saying that Miss Crawley's
health was greatly improved since Mrs. Bute had left her,
and begging the latter on no account to put herself to
trouble, or quit her family for Miss Crawley's sake. This
triumph over a lady who had been very haughty and
cruel in her behaviour to Miss Briggs, would have rejoiced
most women; but the truth is, Briggs was a woman of no
spirit at all, and the moment her enemy was discomfited,
she began to feel compassion in her favour.
"How silly I was," Mrs. Bute thought, and with
reason, "ever to hint that I was coming, as I did, in that
foolish letter when we sent Miss Crawley the guinea-
fowls. I ought to have gone without a word to the poor
dear doting old creature, and taken her out of the hands
of that ninny Briggs, and that harpy of a femme de
chambre. Oh! Bute, Bute, why did you break your collar-
bone?"
Why, indeed? We have seen how Mrs. Bute, having the
game in her hands, had really played her cards too well.
She had ruled over Miss Crawley's household utterly and
completely, to be utterly and completely routed when a
favourable opportunity for rebellion came. She and her
household, however, considered that she had been the
victim of horrible selfishness and treason, and that her
sacrifices in Miss Crawley's behalf had met with the most
savage ingratitude. Rawdon's promotion, and the
honourable mention made of his name in the Gazette, filled
this good Christian lady also with alarm. Would his aunt
relent towards him now that he was a Lieutenant-Colonel
and a C.B.? and would that odious Rebecca once more
get into favour? The Rector's wife wrote a sermon for her
husband about the vanity of military glory and the
prosperity of the wicked, which the worthy parson read in
his best voice and without understanding one syllable of
it. He had Pitt Crawley for one of his auditors--Pitt, who
had come with his two half-sisters to church, which.the
old Baronet could now by no means be brought to
frequent.
Since the departure of Becky Sharp, that old wretch
had given himself up entirely to his bad courses, to the
great scandal of the county and the mute horror of his
son. The ribbons in Miss Horrocks's cap became more
splendid than ever. The polite families fled the hall and
its owner in terror. Sir Pitt went about tippling at his
tenants' houses; and drank rum-and-water with the
farmers at Mudbury and the neighbouring places on
market-days. He drove the family coach-and-four to
Southampton with Miss Horrocks inside: and the county people
expected, every week, as his son did in speechless agony,
that his marriage with her would be announced in the
provincial paper. It was indeed a rude burthen for Mr.
Crawley to bear. His eloquence was palsied at the
missionary meetings, and other religious assemblies in the
neighbourhood, where he had been in the habit of
presiding, and of speaking for hours; for he felt, when he rose,
that the audience said, "That is the son of the old
reprobate Sir Pitt, who is very likely drinking at the public
house at this very moment." And once when he was
speaking of the benighted condition of the king of
Timbuctoo, and the number of his wives who were likewise in
darkness, some gipsy miscreant from the crowd asked,
"How many is there at Queen's Crawley, Young
Squaretoes?" to the surprise of the platform, and the ruin
of Mr. Pitt's speech. And the two daughters of the house of
Queen's Crawley would have been allowed to run utterly
wild (for Sir Pitt swore that no governess should ever
enter into his doors again), had not Mr. Crawley, by
threatening the old gentleman, forced the latter to send
them to school.
Meanwhile, as we have said, whatever individual
differences there might be between them all, Miss Crawley's
dear nephews and nieces were unanimous in loving her
and sending her tokens of affection. Thus Mrs. Bute sent
guinea-fowls, and some remarkably fine cauliflowers, and
a pretty purse or pincushion worked by her darling girls,
who begged to keep a LITTLE place in the recollection of
their dear aunt, while Mr. Pitt sent peaches and grapes
and venison from the Hall. The Southampton coach used
to carry these tokens of affection to Miss Crawley at
Brighton: it used sometimes to convey Mr. Pitt thither
too: for his differences with Sir Pitt caused Mr. Crawley
to absent himself a good deal from home now: and
besides, he had an attraction at Brighton in the person of
the Lady Jane Sheepshanks, whose engagement to Mr.
Crawley has been formerly mentioned in this history.
Her Ladyship and her sisters lived at Brighton with their
mamma, the Countess Southdown, that strong-minded
woman so favourably known in the serious world.
A few words ought to be said regarding her Ladyship
and her noble family, who are bound by ties of present
and future relationship to the house of Crawley.
Respecting the chief of the Southdown family, Clement
William, fourth Earl of Southdown, little need be told,
except that his Lordship came into Parliament (as Lord
Wolsey) under the auspices of Mr. Wilberforce, and for
a time was a credit to his political sponsor, and decidedly
a serious young man. But words cannot describe the
feelings of his admirable mother, when she learned, very
shortly after her noble husband's demise, that her son
was a member of several worldly clubs, had lost largely
at play at Wattier's and the Cocoa Tree; that he had
raised money on post-obits, and encumbered the family
estate; that he drove four-in-hand, and patronised the
ring; and that he actually had an opera-box, where he
entertained the most dangerous bachelor company. His
name was only mentioned with groans in the dowager's
circle.
The Lady Emily was her brother's senior by many
years; and took considerable rank in the serious world as
author of some of the delightful tracts before mentioned,
and of many hymns and spiritual pieces. A mature
spinster, and having but faint ideas of marriage, her love for
the blacks occupied almost all her feelings. It is to her, I
believe, we owe that beautiful poem
Lead us to some sunny isle,
Yonder in the western deep;
Where the skies for ever smile,
And the blacks for ever weep, &c.
She had correspondences with clerical gentlemen in
most of our East and West India possessions; and was
secretly attached to the Reverend Silas Hornblower, who
was tattooed in the South Sea Islands.
As for the Lady Jane, on whom, as it has been said, Mr.
