The Rise and Fall of Becky Sharp

by Sarra Manning

  He’d barely finished his gloating when he was interrupted by Martha rising to her feet to fling herself at a grim-faced Dame Matilda. Becky sat up straighter on her footstool: this was much more entertaining than watching the Dowager Countess spray blood all over the cheese plate.

  ‘Auntie! I can’t believe they’ve killed you off,’ she cried.

  ‘Absolutely appalling,’ Bute echoed, wringing his hands in faux agitation.

  ‘Get. Off. Me,’ Dame Matilda snapped. ‘Briggs, please …’

  ‘Get off her.’ Briggs jumped up to tug at Martha’s sleeve with a pained expression on his face, as if he couldn’t bear to touch something that had started off life in the Per Una department of M&S. ‘You don’t ever touch Dame Matilda. Really!’

  ‘Martha’s just upset on your behalf, we all are,’ Bute said, his cold grey eyes positively gleaming.

  ‘I’m sure you’ll be a shoo-in for a BAFTA,’ Pitt Junior piped up as Jane mopped at her streaming eyes. Her tears and the subsequent snotty blowing of her nose were the only display of genuine emotion in the room. Only two people in the room were unaffected by all the dramatics: Rosa, who was glued to her phone, lips moving soundlessly as she read a text message; and Rawdon, who was slouched so far down in his seat that it was a wonder that he didn’t slide to the floor.

  To think that she’d almost excused herself to gossip with Tinker. Becky wouldn’t have missed this for the world, especially not when Dame Matilda struggled to her feet with Briggs’ assistance and cast a gnarled, trembling finger at the assembled company. ‘I’m sorry to disappoint you all, but I have no intention of dying in real life, so stop toadying to me,’ she said icily. ‘It won’t do you any good because I’m leaving everything to Rawdon, as you all know very well, so enough! Rawdon, can you take my other arm?’

  Rawdon unfolded himself from the couch and said something in a whisper to his aunt, which made her face soften and her hand come up to stroke his cheek. ‘Horrible boy,’ she said fondly, as the three of them began a slow journey to the door, Briggs hissing a warning as Martha darted towards them again.

  Becky was quite sorry to see them go, especially as Sir Pitt was now casting his lusty, drunken gaze in her direction.

  ‘Becky, a pot of tea, you can bring it up to my room,’ Dame Matilda demanded. Becky didn’t appreciate her peremptory tone, not even a please or thank you, but she did appreciate the rescue from Sir Pitt’s clammy hands and even clammier breath.

  When Becky knocked on the door of the Queen Anne suite where Matilda had been installed, it sounded as if the mood had lightened because she could hear the dame laughing and Briggs saying, ‘Oh, stop it! I can’t breathe.’

  She pushed open the door and almost choked on the fug of cannabis-scented smoke from the huge joint that Rawdon was passing to his esteemed aunt, while proclaiming in a not-too-shabby impersonation of his equally esteemed papa, ‘Dear Mattie, your death scene couldn’t hope to compare to my Hamlet. Did I mention that I played Hamlet? Several critics believe that my performance as the Danish prince was far, far superior to Sir Larry’s.’

  Briggs clutched his sides and rocked with silent mirth while Matilda cackled and, if Becky hadn’t been lightning quick to set the tea tray down and whip out a saucer, Matilda would have dropped ash on the imported Italian silk bedspread, which she’d brought with her from London because, quite wisely, she didn’t trust that the bedding at Queen’s Crawley was regularly laundered.

  ‘Ah, Miss Sharp, and what did you think of my death scene?’ Matilda enquired, taking custody of the saucer so Becky could move the tea tray to her bedside table. ‘Don’t tell me a sharp-tongued little thing like you is shy.’

  Becky looked up from pouring tea, caught Rawdon’s eye as he raised his eyebrows. She could rarely resist a challenge and she wasn’t going to resist Rawdon either. Not now she knew he was going to inherit all of Matilda’s millions.

  ‘You know, you’re quite a good actress,’ she said and felt the lightness of the mood puncture as if she’d disappointed them all with yet more toadying. ‘Have you been in anything else?’

  Briggs sucked in a shocked breath, Rawdon turned away to hide his smile and Dame Matilda looked positively evil for one second until she threw her head back and laughed so hard that she burned a hole in her £5,000 coverlet with the joint.

  ‘You are a wicked, wicked girl,’ she pronounced a little while later, after Becky had shown her own acting prowess by impersonating Martha at her most shrill and obsequious. ‘And you have more brains than all of them stewing downstairs. If life was fair, they’d be waiting on you and not the other way round, but alas, life isn’t fair. You’ll come back to London with me, Becky. Can’t have you mouldering away down here and fighting off that randy old goat of a brother of mine every night. Rawdon’s shooting a film in town, so I’ll have my two favourite people with me.’

  Becky dared to steal a glance at Rawdon from under her lashes. He was dealing out cards so the four of them could play poker for Quality Street. He returned her glance with such intensity, it was a wonder that the good dame’s bedspread didn’t burst into flames.

  ‘What about me?’ Briggs called indignantly from the en suite where he was brushing out Matilda’s wig.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ Matilda said crushingly. ‘You’re not people, you’re Briggs.’

  ‘Bartha’

  13 Torrington Road

  Tooting

  London

  Pinkerton’s Talent Agency

  Dean Street

  Soho

  London

  29th December

  Dear Ms Pinkerton,

  I’m not sure if you remember me, but my husband Bute Crawley (a character actor of some repute) and I met you at a benefit for the Distressed Actors’ Benevolent Fund at the Wyndham Theatre a couple of years ago.

  I’ve recently discovered that we have a mutual acquaintance, one Rebecca Sharp, employed by my dear brother-in-law, Sir Pitt Crawley, as nanny to his five children by his second wife. In fact, I understand that it was through your auspices that Rebecca came to work for Sir Pitt.

  Rebecca has now left poor Sir Pitt in the lurch by decamping to London with my darling sister-in-law Dame Matilda Crawley. It transpires that we know nothing of Rebecca, Sir Pitt had no references from you, and so I’m writing to ask for some background on Miss Sharp.

  It would be very helpful to ascertain how you first came to know her, her family background and previous employment. A quick Google search would suggest that she recently appeared on a reality-TV show (Bute and I are not at all familiar with this dreadful genre) where she spent eight weeks gallivanting about in a bikini with the most appalling people.

  Dame Matilda, as I’m sure you know, is getting on and, strictly entre nous, appears to be suffering from the early symptoms of dementia, so I would hate to think that she might be taken advantage of by anyone unscrupulous.

  I’m sure you understand my concerns and hope that you can allay my fears. I also hope that you will treat this delicate matter with the utmost discretion.

  I look forward to hearing from you.

  Kind regards

  Martha Crawley (Mrs)

  Chapter 15

  The Crawley children cried when Becky left on Boxing Day. All apart from Thisbe (always Thisbe) who said that he wouldn’t miss her at all.

  ‘Oh, Thisbe,’ Becky laughed because all the Crawleys had gathered to watch, in stunned disbelief, as she departed without even giving a week’s notice. She crouched down in the grand entrance hall of Queen’s Crawley to pull his stiff, resistant body in for a hug. ‘And I won’t miss you either, you little shit,’ she hissed in his ear.

  And then she was climbing into the back of Dame Matilda’s Rolls Royce Silver Phantom and barely had a chance to wave and laugh at the forlorn expressions on the faces of Sir Pitt and Rosa, before Briggs drove off.

  ‘Can’t wait to get back to civilisation,’ he said, sending up a cloud of gravel. ‘I’m sure one of th
e children has given me head lice.’

  ‘We’ll get you a treatment,’ Dame Matilda promised. ‘I’m sure Becky is a whizz with a nit-comb. Now, I’m going to have a nap, wake me up when we’re back in London.’

  London! Becky couldn’t wait to be hurled back into the grimy, fleshy arms of London. London was a hard, unfriendly place full of hard, unfriendly people, all of them on the hustle, so no wonder she felt so at home there. But for now, home was a huge Victorian villa on a pretty tree-lined Primrose Hill street and her new neighbours included a Man Booker Prize-winning novelist, four pop stars who’d been big in the nineties, Britain’s highest-paid comedian and two Labour MPs.

  Matilda’s four-storey house was a migraine-inducing clash of different styles and themes. The kitchen was Victorian farmhouse chic, the front room was a mini Versailles with swathes of chintz and ormolu, and Becky’s room had a seventies shag-palace feel with mirrors everywhere and a carpet so deep that she sank down into it rather than walked. Even the downstairs cloakroom was like having a wee on the Orient Express.

  On every floor, in every room, there were pictures of Matilda. A Warhol screen-print done when she’d visited The Factory in the sixties, a Hockney portrait painted by the swimming pool of the house in Palm Springs she and her first husband had owned in the seventies. In the eighties, she posed for a heavily stylised illustration by Patrick Nagel. There were also her two Vogue covers shot by David Bailey, the Annie Leibovitz portrait which had graced the cover of Vanity Fair, and a black-and-white head-and-shoulders crop by Mario Testino, which would have been the cover of The Sunday Times magazine if the Princess of Wales hadn’t had the bad manners to die the week it was due to come out.

  Becky had never seen a house like it but once again, she was living indefinitely in someone else’s home. Being entirely dependent on their good graces was a very familiar feeling and while Dame Matilda was a hoot, she was also far more capricious than Mrs Sedley. There was also another ubiquitous housekeeper, Firkin, who said very little but always seemed to pop up when Becky least expected it, silent and judgemental.

  Becky didn’t doubt that if she happened to borrow some little trifles of Matilda’s, a necklace here, a pair of earrings there, then she’d come back to her room to find them laid out on the bed along with a neat pile of laundry, rather than wherever she’d hidden them. So she didn’t. She would be on her best behaviour, beyond reproach, though that wasn’t hard: her duties, such as they were, were hardly onerous compared with ensuring that none of the five Crawley brats had come to any harm on her watch.

  Matilda wasn’t fit for human company until at least eleven most mornings. Then Firkin would admit Becky to her inner sanctum, where Matilda would be arranged on a pink velvet chaise longue, and while Briggs would begin dressing her hair, she and Becky would go through the newspapers.

  ‘To see what those bastards are saying about my dear friends,’ Matilda would say crossly, because she knew everyone, from politicians to pop stars, writers and aristocrats.

  Matilda actually quite enjoyed it when those bastards wrote horrible things about her dear friends. She also liked to critique their outfits with acid-tipped commentary. ‘A deep slit with those thighs? Interesting.’

  On one frost-tipped February morning, five weeks into Becky’s residency, she was surprised to see one of her own acquaintances staring back at her from a double-page spread in the Daily Mail:

  The Blue Party’s golden boy – meet ‘gorgeous’ George Wylie, the new breed of Conservative

  Old Etonian, heir to a baronetcy, and prospective Tory candidate for the safe seat of Squashmore, George Wylie is tipped for the top by everyone who knows him.

  ‘He’s not tipped for the top by me,’ Becky said, her face curdling. ‘Arrogant wanker. Look at that smirk!’

  She waved the paper at Matilda who squinted at the photograph of George in suit, tie and supercilious smile posing outside the Houses of Parliament.

  ‘I think I did cocaine with his mother at a party in Biarritz in the eighties,’ she murmured.

  ‘What a pity that the cocaine didn’t make her infertile,’ Becky said, much to Matilda’s amusement. ‘Listen to this! “At Eton, he excelled in academic pursuits as well as on the cricket field, the best batter and bowler the school had seen in a generation. He was popular with all his classmates and even more popular with their sisters.” Those sisters must have had cotton wool for brains,’ Becky commented sourly. ‘It gets worse.

  ‘“At Oxford, ‘gorgeous’ George, as he was quickly known, caused quite a stir about the female student body, there were even rumours that he’d enjoyed a brief romance with a Princess from the Luxembourg royal family as well as a couple of dates with a member of girl band, St Amour, after they played one of the Oxford May balls.

  ‘“George was such a hit with the ladies that one of his party tricks was to light a cigar with the love letters they would send to his rooms at Magdalen College, much to the delight of his drinking chums. His pyrotechnic skills also came in handy as a member of the notorious Rakehell drinking club where one of the initiation rites was to set a homeless person on fire.”’

  ‘He sounds positively vile,’ Briggs remarked as he laid out a heather-blue Jaeger suit for Matilda’s inspection. ‘Will this do for lunch?’

  ‘Do you think I still have the complexion for that shade of blue? I don’t want to look like a cadaver,’ Matilda said with a little sigh. Becky couldn’t help but notice these days that before Briggs started on her make-up, her skin did have a certain waxy pallor.

  ‘Oh no, dear,’ Briggs shushed her anxiously and nudged Becky.

  ‘Stop fishing for compliments, Mattie, you know you look gorgeous,’ Becky said so she could get back to reading about George Wylie, even though reading about him made her furious. ‘God, this is such bullshit! “Of course, such youthful indiscretions are a thing of the past and since leaving Oxford, George has lived in a manner more fitting for a prospective Tory MP.

  ‘“After a brief stint at The Daily Globe, where he interned on the political desk, George has worked for the centre-right think-tank, The Way Ahead, funded by media mogul and Conservative Party donor, Lord Steyne, the perfect launch-pad for an ambitious young man who wants to succeed in politics.

  ‘“His private life is also a good deal more private. Though George is said to be quite the heartthrob with the junior researchers and assistants at Conservative HQ, according to his best friend since prep school, Captain William Dobbin of Her Majesty’s Royal Regiment, George is already taken.

  ‘“‘George only has eyes for Amelia Sedley, a charming young woman, who he intends to marry one day.’ Yes, that would be the same Amelia Sedley, the posh totty with curves for days who won last year’s Big Brother and whose father founded Sedley’s Bank and would surely be happy to fund his future son-in-law’s political campaign.

  ‘“Let’s hope Mr Sedley has deep pockets, as political pundits believe that Gorgeous George could well be Prime Minister one day.”’

  Becky threw the newspaper on the floor in her fury. ‘If that over-entitled bell-end ever becomes Prime Minister, I’m emigrating. And if Amelia Sedley does marry him, then she’s a bigger idiot than I thought, which is really saying something. Though she deserves him. After saying that we were practically sisters, she can hardly be bothered to even text me.’ Becky scowled ferociously as she recalled Amelia’s empty promises. ‘I hope she gets a third in her poxy degree.’

  ‘Rebecca, I do adore it when you’re being viperous. You’re like the daughter I never had,’ Matilda said approvingly. ‘If only you’d take my Rawdon in hand. You’d be much better for him than those ditzy models he’s so fascinated with. He needs a woman to take him down a peg or two. Are we seeing him tonight, Briggs, dear?’

  As well as hair, face and wardrobe, Briggs was also in charge of Matilda’s diary, which, as she was currently ‘resting’, involved a lot of lunches and at least one evening event per day, sometimes two, though she was usually ho
me at a very respectable hour.

  ‘It’s the premiere of the new Working Title film tonight, so, yes. He’s coming here first.’

  ‘I shall be very rude to him then,’ Becky promised, and Matilda gave a delighted chuckle. ‘I might even make him cry.’

  ‘I’d like to see that,’ Matilda said as she rose from the chaise longue slowly, her hand clutching Briggs’ arm in a death grip. ‘I’d also like to see the faces of all those silly, pouty girls when you snatch him out from under their noses.’

  So would Becky, but when Rawdon arrived at the house promptly at six thirty, she greeted him with a cool, polite smile as he was shown into the drawing room.

  ‘You look pretty,’ he said as he slouched nonchalantly against the door jamb as if he were physically incapable of standing up straight without some kind of lumbar support.

  She was artfully perched on a velvet navy sofa, wearing a silver-sequinned slip of a dress that Matilda had once worn to Studio 54 and had now donated to Becky, as she said that her ‘disco days are, alas, over.’

  ‘You could have made an effort,’ Becky said with a sniff. Rawdon was wearing his usual jeans and leather jacket, which made him look deliciously mean and moody, not that she would ever let him know that. ‘And I don’t know why you’re wearing sunglasses when it’s been dark for a couple of hours now.’

  ‘I’m wearing shades so you won’t be able to see how your words wound me,’ Rawdon drawled and he put a hand to his heart, pulling at his T-shirt so Becky couldn’t help but notice how taut and muscular his chest was underneath the tight, well-worn black cotton.

  ‘Hah! You’ll live,’ she said, and now they’d got the usual pleasantries out of the way, she patted the sofa. ‘Come and sit down next to me.’

  Rawdon walked over with feline grace and sat down next to Becky, close enough that his leg brushed against hers. But then he took off his sunglasses and took Becky’s hand, and she let him.