pamphlet. She has no idea that I have commanding
talents or secret ambition. So they remember my speaking
at Oxford, do they? The rascals! Now that I represent
my borough and may sit for the county, they begin to
recollect me! Why, Lord Steyne cut me at the levee last
year; they are beginning to find out that Pitt Crawley is
some one at last. Yes, the man was always the same
whom these people neglected: it was only the opportunity
that was wanting, and I will show them now that I can
speak and act as well as write. Achilles did not declare
himself until they gave him the sword. I hold it now, and
the world shall yet hear of Pitt Crawley."
Therefore it was that this roguish diplomatist has grown
so hospitable; that he was so civil to oratorios and
hospitals; so kind to Deans and Chapters; so generous in
giving and accepting dinners; so uncommonly gracious to
farmers on market-days; and so much interested about
county business; and that the Christmas at the Hall was the
gayest which had been known there for many a long day.
On Christmas Day a great family gathering took place.
All the Crawleys from the Rectory came to dine. Rebecca
was as frank and fond of Mrs. Bute as if the other had
never been her enemy; she was affectionately interested
in the dear girls, and surprised at the progress which they
had made in music since her time, and insisted upon
encoring one of the duets out of the great song-books
which Jim, grumbling, had been forced to bring under his
arm from the Rectory. Mrs. Bute, perforce, was obliged
to adopt a decent demeanour towards the little adventuress
--of course being free to discourse with her daughters
afterwards about the absurd respect with which Sir Pitt
treated his sister-in-law. But Jim, who had sat next to
her at dinner, declared she was a trump, and one and all
of the Rector's family agreed that the little Rawdon was a
fine boy. They respected a possible baronet in the boy,
between whom and the title there was only the little
sickly pale Pitt Binkie.
The children were very good friends. Pitt Binkie was too
little a dog for such a big dog as Rawdon to play with; and
Matilda being only a girl, of course not fit companion
for a young gentleman who was near eight years old, and
going into jackets very soon. He took the command of
this small party at once--the little girl and the little boy
following him about with great reverence at such times
as he condescended to sport with them. His happiness
and pleasure in the country were extreme. The kitchen
garden pleased him hugely, the flowers moderately, but
the pigeons and the poultry, and the stables when he
was allowed to visit them, were delightful objects to
him. He resisted being kissed by the Misses Crawley,
but he allowed Lady Jane sometimes to embrace him, and
it was by her side that he liked to sit when, the signal
to retire to the drawing-room being given, the ladies
left the gentlemen to their claret--by her side rather
than by his mother. For Rebecca, seeing that tenderness
was the fashion, called Rawdon to her one evening and
stooped down and kissed him in the presence of all the
ladies.
He looked her full in the face after the operation,
trembling and turning very red, as his wont was when
moved. "You never kiss me at home, Mamma," he said,
at which there was a general silence and consternation and
a by no means pleasant look in Becky's eyes.
Rawdon was fond of his sister-in-law, for her regard
for his son. Lady Jane and Becky did not get on quite so
well at this visit as on occasion of the former one, when
the Colonel's wife was bent upon pleasing. Those two
speeches of the child struck rather a chill. Perhaps Sir
Pitt was rather too attentive to her.
But Rawdon, as became his age and size, was fonder
of the society of the men than of the women, and never
wearied of accompanying his sire to the stables, whither
the Colonel retired to smoke his cigar--Jim, the Rector's
son, sometimes joining his cousin in that and other amusements.
He and the Baronet's keeper were very close
friends, their mutual taste for "dawgs" bringing them
much together. On one day, Mr. James, the Colonel, and
Horn, the keeper, went and shot pheasants, taking little
Rawdon with them. On another most blissful morning,
these four gentlemen partook of the amusement of
rat-hunting in a barn, than which sport Rawdon as yet had
never seen anything more noble. They stopped up the
ends of certain drains in the barn, into the other openings
of which ferrets were inserted, and then stood silently
aloof, with uplifted stakes in their hands, and an anxious
little terrier (Mr. James's celebrated "dawg" Forceps,
indeed) scarcely breathing from excitement, listening
motionless on three legs, to the faint squeaking of the
rats below. Desperately bold at last, the persecuted
animals bolted above-ground--the terrier accounted for one,
the keeper for another; Rawdon, from flurry and
excitement, missed his rat, but on the other hand he
half-murdered a ferret.
But the greatest day of all was that on which Sir
Huddlestone Fuddlestone's hounds met upon the lawn
at Queen's Crawley.
That was a famous sight for little Rawdon. At half-past
ten, Tom Moody, Sir Huddlestone Fuddlestone's
huntsman, was seen trotting up the avenue, followed by the
noble pack of hounds in a compact body--the rear being
brought up by the two whips clad in stained scarlet
frocks--light hard-featured lads on well-bred lean horses,
possessing marvellous dexterity in casting the points of
their long heavy whips at the thinnest part of any dog's
skin who dares to straggle from the main body, or to
take the slightest notice, or even so much as wink, at the
hares and rabbits starting under their noses.
Next comes boy Jack, Tom Moody's son, who weighs
five stone, measures eight-and-forty inches, and will never
be any bigger. He is perched on a large raw-boned hunter,
half-covered by a capacious saddle. This animal is Sir
Huddlestone Fuddlestone's favourite horse the Nob.
Other horses, ridden by other small boys, arrive from
time to time, awaiting their masters, who will come
cantering on anon.
Tom Moody rides up to the door of the Hall, where he
is welcomed by the butler, who offers him drink, which he
declines. He and his pack then draw off into a sheltered
corner of the lawn, where the dogs roll on the grass, and
play or growl angrily at one another, ever and anon
breaking out into furious fight speedily to be quelled by
Tom's voice, unmatched at rating, or the snaky thongs
of the whips.
Many young gentlemen canter up on thoroughbred
hacks, spatter-dashed to the knee, and enter the house to
drink cherry-brandy and pay their respects to the ladies,
or, more modest and sportsmanlike, divest themselves
of their mud-boots, exchange their hacks for their hunters,
and warm their blood by a preliminary gallop round the
lawn. Then they collect round the pack in the corner and
talk with Tom Moody of past sport, and the merits of
Sniveller and Diamond, and of the state of the country
and of the wretched breed of foxes.
Sir Huddlestone presently appears mounted on a clever
cob and rides up to the Hall, where he enters and does the
civil thing by the ladies, after which, being a man of
few words, he proceeds to business. The hounds are
drawn up to the hall-door, and little Rawdon descends
amongst them, excited yet half-alarmed by the caresses
which they bestow upon him, at the thumps he receives
from their waving tails, and at their canine bickerings,
scarcely restrained by Tom Moody's tongue and lash.
Meanwhile, Sir Huddlestone has hoisted himself
unwieldily on the Nob: "Let's try Sowster's Spinney, Tom,"
says the Baronet, "Farmer Mangle tells me there are two
foxes in it." Tom blows his horn and trots off, followed by
the pack, by the whips, by the young gents from
Winchester, by the farmers of the neighbourhood, by the
labourers of the parish on foot, with whom the day is
a great holiday, Sir Huddlestone bringing up the rear with
Colonel Crawley, and the whole cortege disappears
down the avenue.
The Reverend Bute Crawley (who has been too modest
to appear at the public meet before his nephew's
windows), whom Tom Moody remembers forty years back
a slender divine riding the wildest horses, jumping the
widest brooks, and larking over the newest gates in the
country--his Reverence, we say, happens to trot out from
the Rectory Lane on his powerful black horse just as Sir
Huddlestone passes; he joins the worthy Baronet. Hounds
and horsemen disappear, and little Rawdon remains on the
doorsteps, wondering and happy.
During the progress of this memorable holiday, little
Rawdon, if he had got no special liking for his uncle,
always awful and cold and locked up in his study, plunged
in justice-business and surrounded by bailiffs and farmers
--has gained the good graces of his married and maiden
aunts, of the two little folks of the Hall, and of Jim of the
Rectory, whom Sir Pitt is encouraging to pay his addresses
to one of the young ladies, with an understanding doubtless
that he shall be presented to the living when it shall
be vacated by his fox-hunting old sire. Jim has given up
that sport himself and confines himself to a little harmless
duck- or snipe-shooting, or a little quiet trifling with the
rats during the Christmas holidays, after which he will
return to the University and try and not be plucked, once
more. He has already eschewed green coats, red
neckcloths, and other worldly ornaments, and is preparing
himself for a change in his condition. In this cheap and
thrifty way Sir Pitt tries to pay off his debt to his family.
Also before this merry Christmas was over, the Baronet
had screwed up courage enough to give his brother
another draft on his bankers, and for no less a sum than a
hundred pounds, an act which caused Sir Pitt cruel pangs
at first, but which made him glow afterwards to think
himself one of the most generous of men. Rawdon and his
son went away with the utmost heaviness of heart. Becky
and the ladies parted with some alacrity, however, and our
friend returned to London to commence those avocations
with which we find her occupied when this chapter begins.
Under her care the Crawley House in Great Gaunt Street
was quite rejuvenescent and ready for the reception of
Sir Pitt and his family, when the Baronet came to
London to attend his duties in Parliament and to assume that
position in the country for which his vast genius fitted
him.
For the first session, this profound dissembler hid his
projects and never opened his lips but to present a
petition from Mudbury. But he attended assiduously in his
place and learned thoroughly the routine and business of
the House. At home he gave himself up to the perusal of
Blue Books, to the alarm and wonder of Lady Jane, who
thought he was killing himself by late hours and intense
application. And he made acquaintance with the ministers,
and the chiefs of his party, determining to rank as
one of them before many years were over.
Lady Jane's sweetness and kindness had inspired
Rebecca with such a contempt for her ladyship as the little
woman found no small difficulty in concealing. That sort
of goodness and simplicity which Lady Jane possessed
annoyed our friend Becky, and it was impossible for her at
times not to show, or to let the other divine, her scorn.
Her presence, too, rendered Lady Jane uneasy. Her
husband talked constantly with Becky. Signs of intelligence
seemed to pass between them, and Pitt spoke with her on
subjects on which he never thought of discoursing with
Lady Jane. The latter did not understand them, to be sure,
but it was mortifying to remain silent; still more
mortifying to know that you had nothing to say, and hear that
little audacious Mrs. Rawdon dashing on from subject to
subject, with a word for every man, and a joke always pat;
and to sit in one's own house alone, by the fireside, and
watching all the men round your rival.
In the country, when Lady Jane was telling stories to
the children, who clustered about her knees (little
Rawdon into the bargain, who was very fond of her), and
Becky came into the room, sneering with green scornful
eyes, poor Lady Jane grew silent under those baleful
glances. Her simple little fancies shrank away tremulously,
as fairies in the story-books, before a superior bad
angel. She could not go on, although Rebecca, with the
smallest inflection of sarcasm in her voice, besought her
to continue that charming story. And on her side gentle
thoughts and simple pleasures were odious to Mrs. Becky;
they discorded with her; she hated people for liking them;
she spurned children and children-lovers. "I have no
taste for bread and butter," she would say, when
caricaturing Lady Jane and her ways to my Lord Steyne.
"No more has a certain person for holy water," his
lordship replied with a bow and a grin and a great jarring
laugh afterwards.
So these two ladies did not see much of each other
except upon those occasions when the younger brother's
wife, having an object to gain from the other, frequented
her. They my-loved and my-deared each other assiduously,
but kept apart generally, whereas Sir Pitt, in the
midst of his multiplied avocations, found daily time to
see his sister-in-law.
On the occasion of his first Speaker's dinner, Sir Pitt
took the opportunity of appearing before his sister-in-law
in his uniform--that old diplomatic suit which he had
worn when attache to the Pumpernickel legation.
Becky complimented him upon that dress and admired
him almost as much as his own wife and children, to
whom he displayed himself before he set out. She said
that it was only the thoroughbred gentleman who could
