Vanity Fair (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

by William Makepeace Thackeray

  Vanity Fair—Vanity Fair! Here was a man, who could not spell, and did not care to read—who had the habits and the cunning of a boor: whose aim in life was pettifogging: who never had a taste, or emotion, or enjoyment, but what was sordid and foul; and yet he had rank, and honours, and power, somehow: and was a dignitary of the land, and a pillar of the state. He was high sheriff, and rode in a golden coach. Great ministers and statesmen courted him; and in Vanity Fair he had a higher place than the most brilliant genius or spotless virtue.

  Sir Pitt had an unmarried half-sister who inherited her mother‘s large fortune, and though the baronet proposed to borrow this money of her on mortgage, Miss Crawley declined the offer, and preferred the security of the funds.db She had signified, however, her intention of leaving her inheritance between Sir Pitt‘s second son and the family at the rectory, and had once or twice paid the debts of Rawdon Crawley in his career at college and in the army. Miss Crawley was, in consequence, an object of great respect when she came to Queen‘s Crawley, for she had a balance at her banker‘s which would have made her beloved anywhere.

  What a dignity it gives an old lady, that balance at the banker‘s! How tenderly we look at her faults, if she is a relative (and may every reader have a score of such), what a kind, good-natured old creature we find her! How the junior partner of Hobbs and Dobbs leads her smiling to the carriage with the lozengedc upon it, and the fat wheezy coachman! How, when she comes to pay us a visit, we generally find an opportunity to let our friends know her station in the world! We say (and with perfect truth) I wish I had Miss MacWhirter‘s signature to a cheque for five thousand pounds. She wouldn‘t miss it, says your wife. She is my aunt, say you, in an easy careless way, when your friend asks if Miss MacWhirter is any relative? Your wife is perpetually sending her little testimonies of affection, your little girls work endless worsted baskets, cushions, and footstools for her. What a good fire there is in her room when she comes to pay you a visit, although your wife laces her stays without one! The house during her stay assumes a festive, neat, warm, jovial, snug appearance not visible at other seasons. You yourself, dear sir, forget to go to sleep after dinner, and find yourself all of a sudden (though you invariably lose) very fond of a rubber.dd What good dinners you have—game every day, Malmsey Madeira,de and no end of fish from London. Even the servants in the kitchen share in the general prosperity; and, somehow, during the stay of Miss MacWhirter‘s fat coachman, the beer is grown much stronger, and the consumption of tea and sugar in the nursery (where her maid takes her meals) is not regarded in the least. Is it so, or is it not so? I appeal to the middle classes. Ah, gracious powers! I wish you would send me an old aunt—a maiden aunt—an aunt with a lozenge on her carriage, and a front of light coffee-coloured hair—how my children should work work-bags for her, and my Julia and I would make her comfortable! Sweet, sweet vision! Foolish, foolish dream!10

  CHAPTER X

  Miss Sharp Begins to Make Friends

  And now, being received as a member of the amiable family whose portraits we have sketched in the foregoing pages, it became naturally Rebecca‘s duty to make herself, as she said, agreeable to her benefactors, and to gain their confidence to the utmost of her power. Who could not admire this quality of gratitude in an unprotected orphan; and if there entered some degree of selfishness into her calculations, who can say but that her prudence was perfectly justifiable? ‘I am alone in the world,‘ said the friendless girl. ‘I have nothing to look for but what my own labour can bring me; and while that little pink-faced chit Amelia, with not half my sense, has ten thousand pounds and an establishment secure, poor Rebecca (and my figure is far better than hers) has only herself and her own wits to trust to. Well, let us see if my wits cannot provide me with an honourable maintenance, and if some day or the other I cannot show Miss Amelia my real superiority over her. Not that I dislike poor

  Amelia: who can dislike such a harmless, good-natured creature?—only it will be a fine day when I can take my place above her in the world, as why, indeed, should I not?‘ Thus it was that our little romantic friend formed visions of the future for herself—nor must we be scandalized that, in all her castles in the air, a husband was the principal inhabitant. Of what else have young ladies to think, but husbands? Of what else do their dear mammas think? ‘I must be my own mamma,‘ said Rebecca; not without a tingling consciousness of defeat, as she thought over her little misadventure with Jos Sedley.

  So she wisely determined to render her position with the Queen‘s Crawley family comfortable and secure, and to this end resolved to make friends of every one around her who could at all interfere with her comfort.

  As my Lady Crawley was not one of these personages, and a woman, moreover, so indolent and void of character as not to be of the least consequence in her own house, Rebecca soon found that it was not at all necessary to cultivate her good will—indeed, impossible to gain it. She used to talk to her pupils about their ‘poor mamma‘; and, though she treated that lady with every demonstration of cool respect, it was to the rest of the family that she wisely directed the chief part of her attentions.

  With the young people, whose applause she thoroughly gained, her method was pretty simple. She did not pester their young brains with too much learning, but, on the contrary, let them have their own way in regard to educating themselves; for what instruction is more effectual than self-instruction? The eldest was rather fond of books, and as there was in the old library at Queen‘s Crawley a considerable provision of works of light literature of the last century, both in the French and English languages (they had been purchased by the Secretary of the Tape and Sealing-Wax Office at the period of his disgrace), and as nobody ever troubled the bookshelves but herself, Rebecca was enabled agreeably, and, as it were, in playing, to impart a great deal of instruction to Miss Rose Crawley.

  She and Miss Rose thus read together many delightful French and English works, among which may be mentioned those of the learned Dr. Smollett, of the ingenious Mr. Henry Fielding, of the graceful and fantastic Monsieur Crébillon the younger, whom our immortal poet Gray so much admired, and of the universal Monsieur de Voltaire. Once, when Mr. Crawley asked what the young people were reading, the governess replied ‘Smollett‘. ‘Oh, Smollett,‘ said Mr. Crawley, quite satisfied. ‘His history is more dull, but by no means so dangerous as that of Mr. Hume. It is history you are reading?‘ ‘Yes,‘ said Miss Rose; without, however, adding that it was the history of Mr. Humphry Clinker.11 On another occasion he was rather scandalized at finding his sister with a book of French plays; but as the governess remarked that it was for the purpose of acquiring the French idiom in conversation, he was fain to be content. Mr. Crawley, as a diplomatist, was exceedingly proud of his own skill in speaking the French language (for he was of the world still), and not a little pleased with the compliments which the governess continually paid him upon his proficiency.

  Miss Violet‘s tastes were, on the contrary, more rude and boisterous than those of her sister. She knew the sequestered spots where the hens laid their eggs. She could climb a tree to rob the nests of the feathered songsters of their speckled spoils. And her pleasure was to ride the young colts, and to scour the plains like Camilla. She was the favourite of her father and of the stablemen. She was the darling, and withal the terror, of the cook; for she discovered the haunts of the jampots, and would attack them when they were within her reach. She and her sister were engaged in constant battles. Any of which peccadilloes if Miss Sharp discovered, she did not tell them to Lady Crawley, who would have told them to the father, or, worse, to Mr. Crawley; but promised not to tell if Miss Violet would be a good girl and love her governess.

  With Mr. Crawley Miss Sharp was respectful and obedient. She used to consult him on passages of French which she could not understand, though her mother was a Frenchwoman, and which he would construe to her satisfaction: and, besides giving her his aid in profane literature, he was kind enough to select for her books of a more serious tende
ncy, and address to her much of his conversation. She admired, beyond measure, his speech at the Quashimaboo-Aid Society; took an interest in his pamphlet on malt; was often affected, even to tears, by his discourses of an evening, and would say—‘Oh, thank you, sir,‘ with a sigh, and a look up to heaven, that made him occasionally condescend to shake hands with her. ‘Blood is everything, after all,‘ would that aristocratic religionist say. ‘How Miss Sharp is awakened by my words, when not one of the people here is touched. I am too fine for them—too delicate. I must familiarize my style—but she understands it. Her mother was a Montmorency.‘

  MISS SHARP IN HER SCHOOLROOM

  Indeed it was from this famous family, as it appears, that Miss Sharp, by the mother‘s side, was descended. Of course she did not say that her mother had been on the stage; it would have shocked Mr. Crawley‘s religious scruples. How many noble emigréesdf had this horrid revolution plunged in poverty! She had several stories about her ancestors ere she had been many months in the house; some of which Mr. Crawley happened to find in D‘Hozier‘s dictionary,dg which was in the library, and which strengthened his belief in their truth, and in the high-breeding of Rebecca. Are we to suppose from this curiosity and prying into dictionaries, could our heroine suppose, that Mr. Crawley was interested in her?—no, only in a friendly way. Have we not stated that he was attached to Lady Jane Sheepshanks?

  He took Rebecca to task once or twice about the propriety of playing at backgammon with Sir Pitt, saying that it was a godless amusement, and that she would be much better engaged in reading Thrump‘s Legacy, or The Blind Washerwoman of Moorfields, or any work of a more serious nature ; but Miss Sharp said her dear mother used often to play the same game with the old Count de Trictrac and the venerable Abbe du Cornet,dh and so found an excuse for this and other worldly amusement.

  But it was not only by playing at backgammon with the baronet that the little governess rendered herself agreeable to her employer. She found many different ways of being useful to him. She read over, with indefatigable patience, all those law papers, with which, before she came to Queen‘s Crawley, he had promised to entertain her. She volunteered to copy many of his letters, and adroitly altered the spelling of them so as to suit the usages of the present day. She became interested in everything appertaining to the estate, to the farm, the park, the garden, and the stables; and so delightful a companion was she, that the baronet would seldom take his after-breakfast walk without her (and the children of course), when she would give her advice as to the trees which were to be lopped in the shrubberies, the garden-beds to be dug, the crops which were to be cut, the horses which were to go to cart or plough. Before she had been a year at Queen‘s Crawley she had quite won the baronet‘s confidence; and the conversation at the dinner-table, which before used to be held between him and Mr. Horrocks the butler, was now almost exclusively between Sir Pitt and Miss Sharp. She was almost mistress of the house when Mr. Crawley was absent, but conducted herself in her new and exalted situation with such circumspection and modesty as not to offend the authorities of the kitchen and stable, among whom her behaviour was always exceedingly modest and affable. She was quite a different person from the haughty, shy, dissatisfied little girl whom we have known previously, and this change of temper proved great prudence, a sincere desire of amendment, or at any rate great moral courage on her part. Whether it was the heart which dictated this new system of complaisance and humility adopted by our Rebecca, is to be proved by her after-history. A system of hypocrisy, which lasts through whole years, is one seldom satisfactorily practised by a person of one-and-twenty; however, our readers will recollect, that, though young in years, our heroine was old in life and experience, and we have written to no purpose if they have not discovered that she was a very clever woman.

  The elder and younger son of the house of Crawley were, like the gentleman and lady in the weather-box, never at home together—they hated each other cordially: indeed, Rawdon Crawley, the dragoon, had a great contempt for the establishment altogether, and seldom came thither except when his aunt paid her annual visit.

  The great good quality of this old lady has been mentioned. She possessed seventy thousand pounds, and had almost adopted Rawdon. She disliked her elder nephew exceedingly, and despised him as a milksop. In return he did not hesitate to state that her soul was irretrievably lost, and was of opinion that his brother‘s chance in the next world was not a whit better. ‘She is a godless woman of the world,‘ would Mr. Crawley say; ‘she lives with atheists and Frenchmen. My mind shudders when I think of her awful, awful situation, and that, near as she is to the grave, she should be so given up to vanity, licentiousness, profaneness, and folly.‘ In fact, the old lady declined altogether to hear his hour‘s lecture of an evening; and when she came to Queen‘s Crawley alone, he was obliged to pretermit his usual devotional exercises.

  ‘Shut up your sarmons, Pitt, when Miss Crawley comes down,‘ said his father; ‘she has written to say that she won‘t stand the preachifying.‘

  ‘Oh, sir! consider the servants.‘

  ‘The servants be hanged,‘ said Sir Pitt; and his son thought even worse would happen were they deprived of the benefit of his instruction.

  ‘Why, hang it, Pitt!‘ said the father to his remonstrance. ‘You wouldn‘t be such a flatdi as to let three thousand a year go out of the family?‘

  ‘What is money compared to our souls, sir?‘ continued Crawley.

  ‘You mean that the old lady won‘t leave the money to you?‘—and who knows but it was Mr. Crawley‘s meaning?

  Old Miss Crawley was certainly one of the reprobate. She had a snug little house in Park Lane, and, as she ate and drank a great deal too much during the season in London, she went to Harrogate or Cheltenham for the summer. She was the most hospitable and jovial of old vestals, and had been a beauty in her day, she said. (All old women were beauties once, we very well know.) She was a bel esprit,dj and a dreadful Radical for those days. She had been in France (where St. Just,dk they say, inspired her with an unfortunate passion), and loved, ever after, French novels, French cookery, and French wines. She read Voltaire, and had Rousseau by heart; talked very lightly about divorce, and most energetically of the rights of women. She had pictures of Mr. Foxdl in every room in the house: when that statesman was in opposition, I am not sure that she had not flung a main with him; and when he came into office, she took great credit for bringing over to him Sir Pitt and his colleague for Queen‘s Crawley, although Sir Pitt would have come over himself, without any trouble on the honest lady‘s part. It is needless to say that Sir Pitt was brought to change his views after the death of the great Whig statesman.

  This worthy old lady took a fancy to Rawdon Crawley when a boy, sent him to Cambridge (in opposition to his brother at Oxford), and, when the young man was requested by the authorities of the first-named University to quit after a residence of two years, she bought him his commission in the Life Guards Green.

  A perfect and celebrated ‘blood‘, or dandy about town, was this young officer. Boxing, rat-hunting, the fives-court,dm and four-in-hand driving were then the fashion of our British aristocracy; and he was an adept in all these noble sciences. And though he belonged to the household troops, who, as it was their duty to rally round the Prince Regent, had not shown their valour in foreign service yet, Rawdon Crawley had already (à propos of play, of which he was immoderately fond) fought three bloody duels in which he gave ample proofs of his contempt for death.

  ‘And for what follows after death,‘ would Mr. Crawley observe, throwing his gooseberry-coloured eyes up to the ceiling. He was always thinking of his brother‘s soul, or of the souls of those who differed with him in opinion: it is a sort of comfort which many of the serious give themselves.

  Silly, romantic Miss Crawley, far from being horrified at the courage of her favourite, always used to pay his debts after his duels; and would not listen to a word that was whispered against his morality. ‘He will sow his wild oats,‘ she
would say, ‘and is worth far more than that puling hypocrite of a brother of his.‘

  CHAPTER XI

  Arcadian Simplicity

  Besides these honest folks at the Hall (whose simplicity and sweet rural purity surely show the advantage of a country life over a town one), we must introduce the reader to their relatives and neighbours at the Rectory, Bute Crawley and his wife.

  The Reverend Bute Crawley was a tall, stately, jolly, shovel- hatted man, far more popular in his county than the baronet his brother. At college he pulled stroke-oar in the Christchurch boat, and had thrashed all the best bruisers of the ‘town‘. He carried his taste for boxing and athletic exercises into private life; there was not a fight within twenty miles at which he was not present, nor a race, nor a coursing match, nor a regatta, nor a ball, nor an election, nor a visitation dinner, nor indeed a good dinner in the whole county, but he found means to attend it. You might see his bay mare and gig-lamps a score of miles away from his rectory house, whenever there was any dinner-party at Fuddleston, or at Roxby, or at Wapshot Hall, or at the great lords of the county, with all of whom he was intimate. He had a fine voice; sang ‘A southerly wind and a cloudy sky‘; and gave the ‘whoop‘ in chorus with general applause. He rode to hounds in a pepper-and-salt frock, and was one of the best fishermen in the county.

  Mrs. Crawley, the rector‘s wife, was a smart little body, who wrote this worthy divine‘s sermons. Being of a domestic turn, and keeping the house a great deal with her daughters, she ruled absolutely within the Rectory, wisely giving her husband full liberty without. He was welcome to come and go, and dine abroad as many days as his fancy dictated, for Mrs. Crawley was a saving woman and knew the price of port wine. Ever since Mrs. Bute carried off the young rector of Queen‘s Crawley (she was of a good family, daughter of the late Lieut.-Colonel Hector MacTavish, and she and her mother played for Bute and won him at Harrogate), she had been a prudent and thrifty wife to him. In spite of her care, however, he was always in debt. It took him at least ten years to pay off his college bills contracted during his father‘s lifetime. In the year 179—, when he was just clear of these incumbrances, he gave the odds of 100 to 1 (in twenties) against Kangaroo, who won the Derby. The rector was obliged to take up the money at a ruinous interest, and had been struggling ever since. His sister helped him with a hundred now and then, but of course his great hope was in her death—when ‘hang it‘ (as he would say), ‘Matilda must leave me half her money.‘