Vanity Fair. Уильям Мейкпис Теккерей

next day, however, as the two young ladies sate on the sofa, pretending to work, or to write letters, or to read novels, Sambo came into the room with his usual engaging grin, with a packet under his arm, and a note on a tray. “Note from Mr. Jos, Miss,” says Sambo.

      How Amelia trembled as she opened it!

      So it ran:

      Dear Amelia — I send you the “Orphan of the Forest.” I was too ill to come yesterday. I leave town to-day for Cheltenham. Pray excuse me, if you can, to the amiable Miss Sharp, for my conduct at Vauxhall, and entreat her to pardon and forget every word I may have uttered when excited by that fatal supper. As soon as I have recovered, for my health is very much shaken, I shall go to Scotland for some months, and am

      Truly yours, Jos Sedley

      It was the death-warrant. All was over. Amelia did not dare to look at Rebecca’s pale face and burning eyes, but she dropt the letter into her friend’s lap; and got up, and went upstairs to her room, and cried her little heart out.

      Blenkinsop, the housekeeper, there sought her presently with consolation, on whose shoulder Amelia wept confidentially, and relieved herself a good deal. “Don’t take on, Miss. I didn’t like to tell you. But none of us in the house have liked her except at fust. I sor her with my own eyes reading your Ma’s letters. Pinner says she’s always about your trinket-box and drawers, and everybody’s drawers, and she’s sure she’s put your white ribbing into her box.”

      “I gave it her, I gave it her,” Amelia said.

      But this did not alter Mrs. Blenkinsop’s opinion of Miss Sharp. “I don’t trust them governesses, Pinner,” she remarked to the maid. “They give themselves the hairs and hupstarts of ladies, and their wages is no better than you nor me.”

      It now became clear to every soul in the house, except poor Amelia, that Rebecca should take her departure, and high and low (always with the one exception) agreed that that event should take place as speedily as possible. Our good child ransacked all her drawers, cupboards, reticules, and gimcrack boxes — passed in review all her gowns, fichus, tags, bobbins, laces, silk stockings, and fallals — selecting this thing and that and the other, to make a little heap for Rebecca. And going to her Papa, that generous British merchant, who had promised to give her as many guineas as she was years old — she begged the old gentleman to give the money to dear Rebecca, who must want it, while she lacked for nothing.

      She even made George Osborne contribute, and nothing loth (for he was as free-handed a young fellow as any in the army), he went to Bond Street, and bought the best hat and spenser that money could buy.

      “That’s George’s present to you, Rebecca, dear,” said Amelia, quite proud of the bandbox conveying these gifts. “What a taste he has! There’s nobody like him.”

      “Nobody,” Rebecca answered. “How thankful I am to him!” She was thinking in her heart, “It was George Osborne who prevented my marriage.”— And she loved George Osborne accordingly.

      She made her preparations for departure with great equanimity; and accepted all the kind little Amelia’s presents, after just the proper degree of hesitation and reluctance. She vowed eternal gratitude to Mrs. Sedley, of course; but did not intrude herself upon that good lady too much, who was embarrassed, and evidently wishing to avoid her. She kissed Mr. Sedley’s hand, when he presented her with the purse; and asked permission to consider him for the future as her kind, kind friend and protector. Her behaviour was so affecting that he was going to write her a cheque for twenty pounds more; but he restrained his feelings: the carriage was in waiting to take him to dinner, so he tripped away with a “God bless you, my dear, always come here when you come to town, you know. — Drive to the Mansion House, James.”

      Finally came the parting with Miss Amelia, over which picture I intend to throw a veil. But after a scene in which one person was in earnest and the other a perfect performer — after the tenderest caresses, the most pathetic tears, the smelling-bottle, and some of the very best feelings of the heart, had been called into requisition — Rebecca and Amelia parted, the former vowing to love her friend for ever and ever and ever.

      Chapter 7

      Crawley of Queen’s Crawley

       Table of Contents

      Among the most respected of the names beginning in C which the Court-Guide contained, in the year 18 — was that of Crawley, Sir Pitt, Baronet, Great Gaunt Street, and Queen’s Crawley, Hants. This honourable name had figured constantly also in the Parliamentary list for many years, in conjunction with that of a number of other worthy gentlemen who sat in turns for the borough.

      It is related, with regard to the borough of Queen’s Crawley, that Queen Elizabeth in one of her progresses, stopping at Crawley to breakfast, was so delighted with some remarkably fine Hampshire beer which was then presented to her by the Crawley of the day (a handsome gentleman with a trim beard and a good leg), that she forthwith erected Crawley into a borough to send two members to Parliament; and the place, from the day of that illustrious visit, took the name of Queen’s Crawley, which it holds up to the present moment. And though, by the lapse of time, and those mutations which age produces in empires, cities, and boroughs, Queen’s Crawley was no longer so populous a place as it had been in Queen Bess’s time — nay, was come down to that condition of borough which used to be denominated rotten — yet, as Sir Pitt Crawley would say with perfect justice in his elegant way, “Rotten! be hanged — it produces me a good fifteen hundred a year.”

      Sir Pitt Crawley (named after the great Commoner) was the son of Walpole Crawley, first Baronet, of the Tape and Sealing-Wax Office in the reign of George II., when he was impeached for peculation, as were a great number of other honest gentlemen of those days; and Walpole Crawley was, as need scarcely be said, son of John Churchill Crawley, named after the celebrated military commander of the reign of Queen Anne. The family tree (which hangs up at Queen’s Crawley) furthermore mentions Charles Stuart, afterwards called Barebones Crawley, son of the Crawley of James the First’s time; and finally, Queen Elizabeth’s Crawley, who is represented as the foreground of the picture in his forked beard and armour. Out of his waistcoat, as usual, grows a tree, on the main branches of which the above illustrious names are inscribed. Close by the name of Sir Pitt Crawley, Baronet (the subject of the present memoir), are written that of his brother, the Reverend Bute Crawley (the great Commoner was in disgrace when the reverend gentleman was born), rector of Crawley-cum-Snailby, and of various other male and female members of the Crawley family.

      Sir Pitt was first married to Grizzel, sixth daughter of Mungo Binkie, Lord Binkie, and cousin, in consequence, of Mr. Dundas. She brought him two sons: Pitt, named not so much after his father as after the heaven-born minister; and Rawdon Crawley, from the Prince of Wales’s friend, whom his Majesty George IV forgot so completely. Many years after her ladyship’s demise, Sir Pitt led to the altar Rosa, daughter of Mr. G. Dawson, of Mudbury, by whom he had two daughters, for whose benefit Miss Rebecca Sharp was now engaged as governess. It will be seen that the young lady was come into a family of very genteel connexions, and was about to move in a much more distinguished circle than that humble one which she had just quitted in Russell Square.

      She had received her orders to join her pupils, in a note which was written upon an old envelope, and which contained the following words:

      Sir Pitt Crawley begs Miss Sharp and baggidge may be hear on Tuesday, as I leaf for Queen’s Crawley to-morrow morning ERLY.

      Great Gaunt Street.

      Rebecca had never seen a Baronet, as far as she knew, and as soon as she had taken leave of Amelia, and counted the guineas which good-natured Mr. Sedley had put into a purse for her, and as soon as she had done wiping her eyes with her handkerchief (which operation she concluded the very moment the carriage had turned the corner of the street), she began to depict in her own mind what a Baronet must be. “I wonder, does he wear a star?” thought she, “or is it only lords that wear stars? But he will be very handsomely dressed