Pitt Crawley's affection had been placed, she was gentle,
blushing, silent, and timid. In spite of his falling away,
she wept for her brother, and was quite ashamed of
loving him still. Even yet she used to send him little hurried
smuggled notes, and pop them into the post in private.
The one dreadful secret which weighed upon her life was,
that she and the old housekeeper had been to pay
Southdown a furtive visit at his chambers in the Albany; and
found him--O the naughty dear abandoned wretch!--
smoking a cigar with a bottle of Curacao before him. She
admired her sister, she adored her mother, she thought
Mr. Crawley the most delightful and accomplished of
men, after Southdown, that fallen angel: and her mamma
and sister, who were ladies of the most superior sort,
managed everything for her, and regarded her with that
amiable pity, of which your really superior woman always
has such a share to give away. Her mamma ordered her
dresses, her books, her bonnets, and her ideas for her.
She was made to take pony-riding, or piano-exercise, or
any other sort of bodily medicament, according as my
Lady Southdown saw meet; and her ladyship would have
kept her daughter in pinafores up to her present age of
six-and-twenty, but that they were thrown off when Lady
Jane was presented to Queen Charlotte.
When these ladies first came to their house at Brighton,
it was to them alone that Mr. Crawley paid his personal
visits, contenting himself by leaving a card at his aunt's
house, and making a modest inquiry of Mr. Bowls or his
assistant footman, with respect to the health of the
invalid. When he met Miss Briggs coming home from the
library with a cargo of novels under her arm, Mr. Crawley
blushed in a manner quite unusual to him, as he
stepped forward and shook Miss Crawley's companion by
the hand. He introduced Miss Briggs to the lady with
whom he happened to be walking, the Lady Jane
Sheepshanks, saying, "Lady Jane, permit me to introduce to
you my aunt's kindest friend and most affectionate
companion, Miss Briggs, whom you know under another title,
as authoress of the delightful 'Lyrics of the Heart,' of
which you are so fond." Lady Jane blushed too as she
held out a kind little hand to Miss Briggs, and said
something very civil and incoherent about mamma, and
proposing to call on Miss Crawley, and being glad to be
made known to the friends and relatives of Mr. Crawley;
and with soft dove-like eyes saluted Miss Briggs as
they separated, while Pitt Crawley treated her to a
profound courtly bow, such as he had used to H.H. the
Duchess of Pumpernickel, when he was attache at that court.
The artful diplomatist and disciple of the Machiavellian
Binkie! It was he who had given Lady Jane that copy of
poor Briggs's early poems, which he remembered to have
seen at Queen's Crawley, with a dedication from the
poetess to his father's late wife; and he brought the
volume with him to Brighton, reading it in the Southampton
coach and marking it with his own pencil, before he
presented it to the gentle Lady Jane.
It was he, too, who laid before Lady Southdown the
great advantages which might occur from an intimacy
between her family and Miss Crawley--advantages both
worldly and spiritual, he said: for Miss Crawley was now
quite alone; the monstrous dissipation and alliance of his
brother Rawdon had estranged her affections from that
reprobate young man; the greedy tyranny and avarice of
Mrs. Bute Crawley had caused the old lady to revolt
against the exorbitant pretensions of that part of the
family; and though he himself had held off all his life from
cultivating Miss Crawley's friendship, with perhaps an
improper pride, he thought now that every becoming
means should be taken, both to save her soul from
perdition, and to secure her fortune to himself as the head of
the house of Crawley.
The strong-minded Lady Southdown quite agreed in
both proposals of her son-in-law, and was for converting
Miss Crawley off-hand. At her own home, both at
Southdown and at Trottermore Castle, this tall and awful
missionary of the truth rode about the country in her
barouche with outriders, launched packets of tracts among
the cottagers and tenants, and would order Gaffer Jones
to be converted, as she would order Goody Hicks to take
a James's powder, without appeal, resistance, or benefit of
clergy. My Lord Southdown, her late husband, an epileptic
and simple-minded nobleman, was in the habit of
approving of everything which his Matilda did and
thought. So that whatever changes her own belief might
undergo (and it accommodated itself to a prodigious
variety of opinion, taken from all sorts of doctors among
the Dissenters) she had not the least scruple in ordering
all her tenants and inferiors to follow and believe after
her. Thus whether she received the Reverend Saunders
McNitre, the Scotch divine; or the Reverend Luke Waters,
the mild Wesleyan; or the Reverend Giles Jowls, the
illuminated Cobbler, who dubbed himself Reverend as
Napoleon crowned himself Emperor--the household,
children, tenantry of my Lady Southdown were expected to
go down on their knees with her Ladyship, and say Amen
to the prayers of either Doctor. During these exercises old
Southdown, on account of his invalid condition, was
allowed to sit in his own room, and have negus and the
paper read to him. Lady Jane was the old Earl's favourite
daughter, and tended him and loved him sincerely: as for
Lady Emily, the authoress of the "Washerwoman of
Finchley Common," her denunciations of future punishment
(at this period, for her opinions modified afterwards)
were so awful that they used to frighten the timid
old gentleman her father, and the physicians declared his
fits always occurred after one of her Ladyship's sermons.
"I will certainly call," said Lady Southdown then, in
reply to the exhortation of her daughter's pretendu, Mr.
Pitt Crawley--"Who is Miss Crawley's medical man?"
Mr. Crawley mentioned the name of Mr. Creamer.
"A most dangerous and ignorant practitioner, my dear
Pitt. I have providentially been the means of removing
him from several houses: though in one or two
instances I did not arrive in time. I could not save poor
dear General Glanders, who was dying under the hands of
that ignorant man--dying. He rallied a little under the
Podgers' pills which I administered to him; but alas! it
was too late. His death was delightful, however; and his
change was only for the better; Creamer, my dear Pitt,
must leave your aunt."
Pitt expressed his perfect acquiescence. He, too, had
been carried along by the energy of his noble kinswoman,
and future mother-in-law. He had been made to accept
Saunders McNitre, Luke Waters, Giles Jowls, Podgers'
Pills, Rodgers' Pills, Pokey's Elixir, every one of her
Ladyship's remedies spiritual or temporal. He never left
her house without carrying respectfully away with him
piles of her quack theology and medicine. O, my dear
brethren and fellow-sojourners in Vanity Fair, which
among you does not know and suffer under such
benevolent despots? It is in vain you say to them, "Dear
Madam, I took Podgers' specific at your orders last year,
and believe in it. Why, why am I to recant and accept the
Rodgers' articles now?" There is no help for it; the faithful
proselytizer, if she cannot convince by argument,
bursts into tears, and the refusant finds himself, at the
end of the contest, taking down the bolus, and saying,
"Well, well, Rodgers' be it."
"And as for her spiritual state," continued the Lady,
"that of course must be looked to immediately: with
Creamer about her, she may go off any day: and in what
a condition, my dear Pitt, in what a dreadful condition!
I will send the Reverend Mr. Irons to her instantly. Jane,
write a line to the Reverend Bartholomew Irons, in the
third person, and say that I desire the pleasure of his
company this evening at tea at half-past six. He is an
awakening man; he ought to see Miss Crawley before she
rests this night. And Emily, my love, get ready a packet
of books for Miss Crawley. Put up 'A Voice from the
Flames,' 'A Trumpet-warning to Jericho,' and the
'Fleshpots Broken; or, the Converted Cannibal.' "
"And the 'Washerwoman of Finchley Common,'
Mamma," said Lady Emily. "It is as well to begin
soothingly at first."
"Stop, my dear ladies," said Pitt, the diplomatist.
"With every deference to the opinion of my beloved and
respected Lady Southdown, I think it would be quite
unadvisable to commence so early upon serious topics with
Miss Crawley. Remember her delicate condition, and how
little, how very little accustomed she has hitherto been
to considerations connected with her immortal welfare."
"Can we then begin too early, Pitt?" said Lady Emily,
rising with six little books already in her hand.
"If you begin abruptly, you will frighten her altogether.
I know my aunt's worldly nature so well as to be sure
that any abrupt attempt at conversion will be the very
worst means that can be employed for the welfare of that
unfortunate lady. You will only frighten and annoy her.
She will very likely fling the books away, and refuse all
acquaintance with the givers."
"You are as worldly as Miss Crawley, Pitt," said Lady
Emily, tossing out of the room, her books in her hand.
"And I need not tell you, my dear Lady Southdown,"
Pitt continued, in a low voice, and without heeding the
interruption, "how fatal a little want of gentleness and
caution may be to any hopes which we may entertain with
regard to the worldly possessions of my aunt. Remember
she has seventy thousand pounds; think of her age, and
her highly nervous and delicate condition; I know that she
has destroyed the will which was made in my brother's
(Colonel Crawley's) favour: it is by soothing that
wounded spirit that we must lead it into the right path,
and not by frightening it; and so I think you will agree
with me that--that--'
"Of course, of course," Lady Southdown remarked.
"Jane, my love, you need not send that note to Mr. Irons.
If her health is such that discussions fatigue her, we will
wait her amendment. I will call upon Miss Crawley
tomorrow."
"And if I might suggest, my sweet lady," Pitt said in a
bland tone, "it would be as well not to take our precious
Emily, who is too enthusiastic; but rather that you should
be accompanied by our sweet and dear Lady Jane."
"Most certainly, Emily would ruin everything," Lady
Southdown said; and this time agreed to forego her usual
practice, which was, as we have said, before she bore
down personally upon any individual whom she proposed
to subjugate, to fire in a quantity of tracts upon the
menaced party (as a charge of the French was always
preceded by a furious cannonade). Lady Southdown, we
say, for the sake of the invalid's health, or for the sake
of her soul's ultimate welfare, or for the sake of her
money, agreed to temporise.
The next day, the great Southdown female family
carriage, with the Earl's coronet and the lozenge (upon
which the three lambs trottant argent upon the field vert
of the Southdowns, were quartered with sable on a bend
or, three snuff-mulls gules, the cognizance of the house of
Binkie), drove up in state to Miss Crawley's door, and
the tall serious footman handed in to Mr. Bowls her
Ladyship's cards for Miss Crawley, and one likewise for
Miss Briggs. By way of compromise, Lady Emily sent in a
packet in the evening for the latter lady, containing
copies of the "Washerwoman," and other mild and favourite
tracts for Miss B.'s own perusal; and a few for the
servants' hall, viz.: "Crumbs from the Pantry," "The
Frying Pan and the Fire," and "The Livery of Sin," of a
much stronger kind.
CHAPTER XXXIV
James Crawley's Pipe Is Put Out
The amiable behaviour of Mr. Crawley, and Lady Jane's
kind reception of her, highly flattered Miss Briggs, who
was enabled to speak a good word for the latter, after
the cards of the Southdown family had been presented to
Miss Crawley. A Countess's card left personally too for
her, Briggs, was not a little pleasing to the poor friendless
companion. "What could Lady Southdown mean by
leaving a card upon you, I wonder, Miss Briggs?" said
the republican Miss Crawley; upon which the companion
meekly said "that she hoped there could be no harm in a
lady of rank taking notice of a poor gentlewoman," and
she put away this card in her work-box amongst her most
cherished personal treasures. Furthermore, Miss Briggs
explained how she had met Mr. Crawley walking with his
cousin and long affianced bride the day before: and she
told how kind and gentle-looking the lady was, and what
a plain, not to say common, dress she had, all the articles
of which, from the bonnet down to the boots, she
described and estimated with female accuracy.
Miss Crawley allowed Briggs to prattle on without
interrupting her too much. As she got well, she was pining
for society. Mr. Creamer, her medical man, would not
hear of her returning to her old haunts and dissipation in
London. The old spinster was too glad to find any
companionship at Brighton, and not only were the cards
acknowledged the very next day, but Pitt Crawley was
graciously invited to come and see his aunt. He came,
bringing with him Lady Southdown and her daughter. The
dowager did not say a word about the state of Miss
Crawley's soul; but talked with much discretion about the
