Vanity Fair (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

by William Makepeace Thackeray

  If Rawdon Crawley had been then and there present, instead of being at the club nervously drinking claret, the pair might have gone down on their knees before the old spinster, avowed all, and been forgiven in a twinkling. But that good chance was denied to the young couple, doubtless in order that this story might be written, in which numbers of their wonderful adventures are narrated—adventures which could never have occurred to them if they had been housed and sheltered under the comfortable uninteresting forgiveness of Miss Crawley.

  Under Mrs. Firkin‘s orders, in the Park Lane establishment, was a young woman from Hampshire, whose business it was, among other duties, to knock at Miss Sharp‘s door with that jug of hot water, which Firkin would rather have perished than have presented to the intruder. This girl, bred on the family estate, had a brother in Captain Crawley‘s troop, and if the truth were known, I dare say it would come out that she was aware of certain arrangements, which have a great deal to do with this history. At any rate she purchased a yellow shawl, a pair of green boots, and a light blue hat with a red feather, with three guineas which Rebecca gave her, and as little Sharp was by no means too liberal with her money, no doubt it was for services rendered that Betty Martin was so bribed.

  On the second day after Sir Pitt Crawley‘s offer to Miss Sharp, the sun rose as usual, and at the usual hour Betty Martin, the upstairs maid, knocked at the door of the governess‘s bed-chamber.

  No answer was returned, and she knocked again. Silence was still uninterrupted ; and Betty, with the hot water, opened the door and entered the chamber.

  The little white dimity bed was as smooth and trim as on the day previous, when Betty‘s own hands had helped to make it. Two little trunks were corded in one end of the room; and on the table before the window—on the pincushion—the great fat pincushion lined with pink inside, and twilled like a lady‘s nightcap—lay a letter. It had been reposing there probably all night.

  Betty advanced towards it on tiptoe, as if she were afraid to awake it—looked at it, and round the room, with an air of great wonder and satisfaction ; took up the letter, and grinned intensely as she turned it round and over, and finally carried it in to Miss Briggs‘s room below.

  How could Betty tell that the letter was for Miss Briggs, I should like to know? All the schooling Betty had was at Mrs. Bute Crawley‘s Sunday School, and she could no more read writing than Hebrew.

  ‘La, Miss Briggs,‘ the girl exclaimed, ‘oh, miss, something must have happened—there‘s nobody in Miss Sharp‘s room; the bed ain‘t been slep in, and she‘ve run away, and left this letter for you, miss.‘

  ‘What!‘ cries Briggs, dropping her comb, the thin wisp of faded hair falling over her shoulders; ‘an elopement! Miss Sharp a fugitive! What, what is this?‘ and she eagerly broke the neat seal, and, as they say, ‘devoured the contents‘ of the letter addressed to her.

  DEAR Miss BRIGGS (the refugee wrote), the kindest heart in the world as yours is, will pity and sympathize with me and excuse me. With tears, and prayers, and blessings, I leave the home where the poor orphan has ever met with kindness and affection. Claims even superior to those of my benefactress call me hence. I go to my duty—to my husband. Yes, I am married. My husband commands me to seek the humble home which we call ours. Dearest Miss Briggs, break the news as your delicate sympathy will know how to do it—to my dear, my beloved friend and benefactress. Tell her, ere I went, I shed tears on her dear pillow—that pillow that I have so often soothed in sickness—that I long again to watch-Oh, with what joy shall I return to dear Park Lane! How I tremble for the answer which is to seal my fate! When Sir Pitt deigned to offer me his hand, an honour of which my beloved Miss Crawley said I was deserving (my blessings go with her for judging the poor orphan worthy to be her sister!), I told Sir Pitt that I was already a wife. Even he forgave me. But my courage failed me, when I should have told him all—that I could not be his wife, for I was his daughter! I am wedded to the best and most generous of men—Miss Crawley‘s Rawdon is my Rawdon. At his command I open my lips, and follow him to our humble home, as I would through the world. Oh, my excellent and kind friend, intercede with my Rawdon‘s beloved aunt for him and the poor girl to whom all his noble race have shown such unparalleled affection. Ask Miss Crawley to receive her children. I can say no more, but blessings, blessings on all in the dear house I leave, prays

  Your affectionate and grateful,

  REBECCA CRAWLEY.

  Midnight.

  THE NOTE ON THE PINCUSHION

  Just as Briggs had finished reading this affecting and interesting document which reinstated her in her position as first confidante of Miss Crawley, Mrs. Firkin entered the room. ‘Here‘s Mrs. Bute Crawley just arrived by the mailfn from Hampshire, and wants some tea: will you come down and make breakfast, miss?‘

  And to the surprise of Firkin, clasping her dressing-gown around her, the wisp of hair floating dishevelled behind her, the little curl-papers still sticking in bunches round her forehead, Briggs sailed down to Mrs. Bute with the letter in her hand containing the wonderful news.

  ‘Oh, Mrs. Firkin,‘ gasped Betty, ‘sech a business. Miss Sharp have a gone and run away with the capting, and they‘re off to Gretny Green!‘fo We would devote a chapter to describe the emotions of Mrs. Firkin, did not the passions of her mistresses occupy our genteeler muse.

  When Mrs. Bute Crawley, numbed with midnight travelling, and warming herself at the newly-crackling parlour fire, heard from Miss Briggs the intelligence of the clandestine marriage, she declared it was quite providential that she should have arrived at such a time to assist poor dear Miss Crawley in supporting the shock—that Rebecca was an artful little hussy of whom she had always had her suspicions; and that as for Rawdon Crawley, she never could account for his aunt‘s infatuation regarding him, and had long considered him a profligate, lost, and abandoned being. And this awful conduct, Mrs. Bute said, will have at least this good effect, it will open poor dear Miss Crawley‘s eyes to the real character of this wicked man. Then Mrs. Bute had a comfortable hot toast and tea; and as there was a vacant room in the house now, there was no need for her to remain at the ‘Gloster‘ Coffee-house where the Portsmouth mail had set her down, and whence she ordered Mr. Bowls‘s aide de camp, the footman, to bring away her trunks.

  Miss Crawley, be it known, did not leave her room until near noon—taking chocolate in bed in the morning, while Becky Sharp read the Morning Post to her, or otherwise be amusing herself or dawdling. The conspirators below agreed that they would spare the dear lady‘s feelings until she appeared in her drawing-room: meanwhile it was announced to her, that Mrs. Bute Crawley had come up from Hampshire by the mail, was staying at the ‘Gloster‘, sent her love to Miss Crawley, and asked for breakfast with Miss Briggs. The arrival of Mrs. Bute, which would not have caused any extreme delight at another period, was hailed with pleasure now; Miss Crawley being pleased at the notion of a gossip with her sister-in-law regarding the late Lady Crawley, the funeral arrangements pending, and Sir Pitt‘s abrupt proposals to Rebecca.

  It was not until the old lady was fairly ensconced in her usual arm-chair in the drawing-room, and the preliminary embraces and inquiries had taken place between the ladies, that the conspirators thought it advisable to submit her to the operation. Who has not admired the artifices and delicate approaches with which women ‘prepare‘ their friends for bad news? Miss Crawley‘s two friends made such an apparatus of mystery before they broke the intelligence to her, that they worked her up to the necessary degree of doubt and alarm.

  ‘And she refused Sir Pitt, my dear, dear Miss Crawley, prepare yourself for it,‘ Mrs. Bute said, ‘because—because she couldn‘t help herself.‘

  ‘Of course there was a reason,‘ Miss Crawley answered. ‘She liked somebody else. I told Briggs so yesterday.‘

  ‘Likes somebody else!‘ Briggs gasped. ‘Oh, my dear friend, she is married already.‘

  ‘Married already,‘ Mrs. Bute chimed in; and both sat with clasp
ed hands looking from each other at their victim.

  ‘Send her to me, the instant she comes in. The little sly wretch: how dared she not tell me?‘ cried out Miss Crawley.

  ‘She won‘t come in soon. Prepare yourself, dear friend—she‘s gone out for a long time—she‘s—she‘s gone altogether.‘

  ‘Gracious goodness, and who‘s to make my chocolate? Send for her and have her back; I desire that she come back,‘ the old lady said.

  ‘She decamped last night, ma‘am,‘ cried Mrs. Bute.

  ‘She left a letter for me,‘ Briggs exclaimed. ‘She‘s married to—‘

  ‘Prepare her, for heaven‘s sake. Don‘t torture her, my dear Miss Briggs.‘

  ‘She‘s married to whom?‘ cries the spinster in a nervous fury.

  ‘To—to a relation of—‘

  ‘She refused Sir Pitt,‘ cried the victim. ‘Speak at once. Don‘t drive me mad.‘

  ‘Oh, ma‘am—prepare her, Miss Briggs—she‘s married to Rawdon Crawley.‘

  ‘Rawdon married—Rebecca—governess—nobod—Get out of my house, you fool, you idiot—you stupid old Briggs—how dare you? You‘re in the plot—you made him marry, thinking that I‘d leave my money from him—you did, Martha,‘ the poor old lady screamed in hysteric sentences.

  ‘I, ma‘am, ask a member of this family to marry a drawing-master‘s daughter?‘

  ‘Her mother was a Montmorency,‘ cried out the old lady, pulling at the bell with all her might.

  ‘Her mother was an opera-girl, and she has been on the stage or worse herself,‘ said Mrs. Bute.

  Miss Crawley gave a final scream, and fell back in a faint. They were forced to take her back to the room which she had just quitted. One fit of hysterics succeeded another. The doctor was sent for—the apothecary arrived. Mrs. Bute took up the post of nurse by her bedside. ‘Her relations ought to be round about her,‘ that amiable woman said.

  She had scarcely been carried up to her room, when a new person arrived to whom it was also necessary to break the news. This was Sir Pitt. ‘Where‘s Becky?‘ he said, coming in. ‘Where‘s her traps? She‘s coming with me to Queen‘s Crawley.‘

  ‘Have you not heard the astonishing intelligence regarding her surreptitious union?‘ Briggs asked.

  ‘What‘s that to me?‘ Sir Pitt asked. ‘I know she‘s married. That makes no odds. Tell her to come down at once, and not keep me.‘

  ‘Are you not aware, sir,‘ Miss Briggs asked, ‘that she has left our roof, to the dismay of Miss Crawley, who is nearly killed by the intelligence of Captain Rawdon‘s union with her?‘

  When Sir Pitt Crawley heard that Rebecca was married to his son, he broke out into a fury of language, which it would do no good to repeat in this place, as indeed it sent poor Briggs shuddering out of the room; and with her we will shut the door upon the figure of the frenzied old man, wild with hatred and insane with baffled desire.

  One day after he went to Queen‘s Crawley, he burst like a madman into the room she had used when there—dashed open her boxes with his foot, and flung about her papers, clothes, and other relics. Miss Horrocks, the butler‘s daughter, took some of them. The children dressed themselves and acted plays in the others. It was but a few days after the poor mother had gone to her lonely burying-place; and was laid, unwept and disregarded, in a vault full of strangers.

  ‘Suppose the old lady doesn‘t come to,‘ Rawdon said to his little wife, as they sat together in the snug little Brompton lodgings. She had been trying the new piano all the morning. The new gloves fitted her to a nicety; the new shawls became her wonderfully; the new rings glittered on her little hands, and the new watch ticked at her waist; ‘suppose she don‘t come round, eh, Becky?‘

  ‘I‘ll make your fortune,‘ she said; and Delilah patted Samson‘s cheek.

  ‘You can do anything,‘ he said, kissing the little hand. ‘By Jove, you can; and we‘ll drive down to the “Star and Garter”, and dine, by Jove.‘

  CHAPTER XVII

  How Captain Dobbin Bought a Piano

  If there is any exhibition in all Vanity Fair which Satire and Sentiment can visit arm-in-arm together ; where you light on the strangest contrasts laughable and tearful: where you may be gentle and pathetic, or savage and cynical with perfect propriety: it is at one of those public assemblies, a crowd of which are advertised every day in the last page of the Times newspaper, and over which the late Mr. George Robins used to preside with so much dignity. There are very few London people, as I fancy, who have not attended at these meetings, and all with a taste for moralizing must have thought, with a sensation and interest not a little startling and queer, of the day when their turn shall come too, and Mr. Hammerdown will sell by the orders of Diogenes‘s fp assignees, or will be instructed by the executors, to offer to public competition, the library, furniture, plate, wardrobe, and choice cellar of wines of Epicurusfq deceased.

  Even with the most selfish disposition, the Vanity-Fairian, as he witnesses this sordid part of the obsequies of a departed friend, can‘t but feel some sympathies and regret. My Lord Dives‘s remains are in the family vault: the statuaries are cutting an inscription veraciously commemorating his virtues, and the sorrows of his heir, who is disposing of his goods. What guest at Dives‘s table can pass the familiar house without a sigh?—the familiar house of which the lights used to shine so cheerfully at seven o‘clock, of which the hall-doors opened so readily, of which the obsequious servants, as you passed up the comfortable stair, sounded your name from landing to landing, until it reached the apartment where jolly old Dives welcomed his friends! What a number of them he had; and what a noble way of entertaining them. How witty people used to be here, who were morose when they got out of the door; and how courteous and friendly men who slandered and hated each other everywhere else! He was pompous, but with such a cook what would one not swallow? he was rather dull, perhaps, but would not such wine make any conversation pleasant? We must get some of his burgundy at any price, the mourners cry at his club. ‘I got this box at old Dives‘s sale,‘ Pincher says, handing it round, ‘one of Louis XV‘s mistresses—pretty thing, is it not—sweet miniature,‘ and they talked of the way in which young Dives is dissipating his fortune.

  How changed the house is, though! The front is patched over with bills, setting forth the particulars of the furniture in staring capitals. They have hung a shred of carpet out of an upstairs window—a half-dozen of porters are lounging on the dirty steps—the hall swarms with dingy guests of oriental countenance, who thrust printed cards into your hand and offer to bid. Old women and amateurs have invaded the upper apartments, pinching the bed-curtains, poking into the feathers, shampooing the mattresses, and clapping the wardrobe drawers to and fro. Enterprising young housekeepers are measuring the looking-glasses and hangings to see if they will suit the new ménagefr (Snob will brag for years that he has purchased this or that at Dives‘s sale), and Mr. Hammerdown is sitting on the great mahogany dining-tables, in the dining-room below, waving the ivory hammer, and employing all the artifices of eloquence, enthusiasm, entreaty, reason, despair; shouting to his people; satirizing Mr. Davids for his sluggishness; inspiriting Mrs. Moss into action; imploring, commanding, bellowing, until down comes the hammer like fate, and we pass to the next lot. O Dives, who would ever have thought, as we sat round the broad table sparkling with plate and spotless linen, to have seen such a dish at the head of it as that roaring auctioneer?

  It was rather late in the sale. The excellent drawing-room furniture by the best makers; the rare and famous wines selected, regardless of cost, and with the well-known taste of the purchaser; the rich and complete set of family plate had been sold on the previous days. Certain of the best wines (which all had a great character among amateurs in the neighbourhood) had been purchased for his master, who knew them very well, by the butler of our friend John Osborne, Esquire, of Russell Square. A small portion of the most useful articles of the plate had been bought by some young stockbrokers from the City. And now th
e public being invited to the purchase of minor objects, it happened that the orator on the table was expatiating on the merits of a picture, which he sought to recommend to his audience: it was by no means so select or numerous a company as had attended the previous days of the auction.

  ‘No. 369,‘ roared Mr. Hammerdown. ‘Portrait of a gentleman on an elephant. Who‘ll bid for the gentleman on the elephant? Lift up the picture, Blowman, and let the company examine this lot.‘ A long, pale, military-looking gentleman, seated demurely at the mahogany table, could not help grinning as this valuable lot was shown by Mr. Blowman. ‘Turn the elephant to the captain, Blowman. What shall we say, sir, for the elephant?‘ but the captain, blushing in a very hurried and discomfited manner, turned away his head, and the auctioneer respected his discomposure.

  ‘Shall we say twenty guineas for this work of art?—fifteen, five, name your own price. The gentleman without the elephant is worth five pound.‘

  ‘I wonder it ain‘t come down with him,‘ said a professional wag, ‘he‘s anyhow a precious big one;‘ at which (for the elephant-rider was represented as of a very stout figure) there was a general giggle in the room.

  ‘Don‘t be trying to deprecate the value of the lot, Mr. Moss,‘ Mr. Hammerdown said; ‘let the company examine it as a work of art—the attitude of the gallant animal quite according to natur‘; the gentleman in a nankeen jacket, his gun in his hand, is going to the chase; in the distance a banyhann-tree and a pagody, most likely resemblances of some interesting spot in our famous Eastern possessions. How much for this lot? Come, gentlemen, don‘t keep me here all day.‘

  Some one bid five shillings, at which the military gentleman looked towards the quarter from which this splendid offer had come, and there saw another officer with a young lady on his arm, who both appeared to be highly amused with the scene, and to whom, finally, this lot was knocked down for half a guinea. He at the table looked more surprised and dis composed than ever when he spied this pair, and his head sank into his military collar, and he turned his back upon them, so as to avoid them altogether.