Vanity Fair (13 page)

Before the house of Queen's Crawley, which is an odious old-
fashioned red brick mansion, with tall chimneys and gables of the
style of Queen Bess, there is a terrace flanked by the family dove
and serpent, and on which the great hall-door opens. And oh, my
dear, the great hall I am sure is as big and as glum as the great
hall in the dear castle of Udolpho. It has a large fireplace, in
which we might put half Miss Pinkerton's school, and the grate is
big enough to roast an ox at the very least. Round the room hang I
don't know how many generations of Crawleys, some with beards and
ruffs, some with huge wigs and toes turned out, some dressed in long
straight stays and gowns that look as stiff as towers, and some with
long ringlets, and oh, my dear! scarcely any stays at all. At one
end of the hall is the great staircase all in black oak, as dismal
as may be, and on either side are tall doors with stags' heads over
them, leading to the billiard-room and the library, and the great
yellow saloon and the morning-rooms. I think there are at least
twenty bedrooms on the first floor; one of them has the bed in which
Queen Elizabeth slept; and I have been taken by my new pupils
through all these fine apartments this morning. They are not
rendered less gloomy, I promise you, by having the shutters always
shut; and there is scarce one of the apartments, but when the light
was let into it, I expected to see a ghost in the room. We have a
schoolroom on the second floor, with my bedroom leading into it on
one side, and that of the young ladies on the other. Then there are
Mr. Pitt's apartments—Mr. Crawley, he is called—the eldest son,
and Mr. Rawdon Crawley's rooms—he is an officer like SOMEBODY, and
away with his regiment. There is no want of room I assure you. You
might lodge all the people in Russell Square in the house, I think,
and have space to spare.

Half an hour after our arrival, the great dinner-bell was rung, and
I came down with my two pupils (they are very thin insignificant
little chits of ten and eight years old). I came down in your dear
muslin gown (about which that odious Mrs. Pinner was so rude,
because you gave it me); for I am to be treated as one of the
family, except on company days, when the young ladies and I are to
dine upstairs.

Well, the great dinner-bell rang, and we all assembled in the little
drawing-room where my Lady Crawley sits. She is the second Lady
Crawley, and mother of the young ladies. She was an ironmonger's
daughter, and her marriage was thought a great match. She looks as
if she had been handsome once, and her eyes are always weeping for
the loss of her beauty. She is pale and meagre and high-shouldered,
and has not a word to say for herself, evidently. Her stepson Mr.
Crawley, was likewise in the room. He was in full dress, as pompous
as an undertaker. He is pale, thin, ugly, silent; he has thin legs,
no chest, hay-coloured whiskers, and straw-coloured hair. He is the
very picture of his sainted mother over the mantelpiece—Griselda of
the noble house of Binkie.

"This is the new governess, Mr. Crawley," said Lady Crawley, coming
forward and taking my hand. "Miss Sharp."

"O!" said Mr. Crawley, and pushed his head once forward and began
again to read a great pamphlet with which he was busy.

"I hope you will be kind to my girls," said Lady Crawley, with her
pink eyes always full of tears.

"Law, Ma, of course she will," said the eldest: and I saw at a
glance that I need not be afraid of THAT woman. "My lady is served,"
says the butler in black, in an immense white shirt-frill, that
looked as if it had been one of the Queen Elizabeth's ruffs depicted
in the hall; and so, taking Mr. Crawley's arm, she led the way to
the dining-room, whither I followed with my little pupils in each
hand.

Sir Pitt was already in the room with a silver jug. He had just
been to the cellar, and was in full dress too; that is, he had taken
his gaiters off, and showed his little dumpy legs in black worsted
stockings. The sideboard was covered with glistening old plate—old
cups, both gold and silver; old salvers and cruet-stands, like
Rundell and Bridge's shop. Everything on the table was in silver
too, and two footmen, with red hair and canary-coloured liveries,
stood on either side of the sideboard.

Mr. Crawley said a long grace, and Sir Pitt said amen, and the great
silver dish-covers were removed.

"What have we for dinner, Betsy?' said the Baronet.

"Mutton broth, I believe, Sir Pitt," answered Lady Crawley.

"Mouton aux navets," added the butler gravely (pronounce, if you
please, moutongonavvy); "and the soup is potage de mouton a
l'Ecossaise. The side-dishes contain pommes de terre au naturel,
and choufleur a l'eau."

"Mutton's mutton," said the Baronet, "and a devilish good thing.
What SHIP was it, Horrocks, and when did you kill?" "One of the
black-faced Scotch, Sir Pitt: we killed on Thursday.

"Who took any?"

"Steel, of Mudbury, took the saddle and two legs, Sir Pitt; but he
says the last was too young and confounded woolly, Sir Pitt."

"Will you take some potage, Miss ah—Miss Blunt? said Mr. Crawley.

"Capital Scotch broth, my dear," said Sir Pitt, "though they call it
by a French name."

"I believe it is the custom, sir, in decent society," said Mr.
Crawley, haughtily, "to call the dish as I have called it"; and it
was served to us on silver soup plates by the
footmen in the canary coats, with the mouton aux navets. Then "ale
and water" were brought, and served to us young ladies in wine-
glasses. I am not a judge of ale, but I can say with a clear
conscience I prefer water.

While we were enjoying our repast, Sir Pitt took occasion to ask
what had become of the shoulders of the mutton.

"I believe they were eaten in the servants' hall," said my lady,
humbly.

"They was, my lady," said Horrocks, "and precious little else we get
there neither."

Sir Pitt burst into a horse-laugh, and continued his conversation
with Mr. Horrocks. "That there little black pig of the Kent sow's
breed must be uncommon fat now."

"It's not quite busting, Sir Pitt," said the butler with the gravest
air, at which Sir Pitt, and with him the young ladies, this time,
began to laugh violently.

"Miss Crawley, Miss Rose Crawley," said Mr. Crawley, "your laughter
strikes me as being exceedingly out of place."

"Never mind, my lord," said the Baronet, "we'll try the porker on
Saturday. Kill un on Saturday morning, John Horrocks. Miss Sharp
adores pork, don't you, Miss Sharp?"

And I think this is all the conversation that I remember at dinner.
When the repast was concluded a jug of hot water was placed before
Sir Pitt, with a case-bottle containing, I believe, rum. Mr.
Horrocks served myself and my pupils with three little glasses of
wine, and a bumper was poured out for my lady. When we retired, she
took from her work-drawer an enormous interminable piece of
knitting; the young ladies began to play at cribbage with a dirty
pack of cards. We had but one candle lighted, but it was in a
magnificent old silver candlestick, and after a very few questions
from my lady, I had my choice of amusement between a volume of
sermons, and a pamphlet on the corn-laws, which Mr. Crawley had been
reading before dinner.

So we sat for an hour until steps were heard.

"Put away the cards, girls," cried my lady, in a great tremor; "put
down Mr. Crawley's books, Miss Sharp"; and these orders had been
scarcely obeyed, when Mr. Crawley entered the room.

"We will resume yesterday's discourse, young ladies," said he, "and
you shall each read a page by turns; so that Miss a—Miss Short may
have an opportunity of hearing you"; and the poor girls began to
spell a long dismal sermon delivered at Bethesda Chapel, Liverpool,
on behalf of the mission for the Chickasaw Indians. Was it not a
charming evening?

At ten the servants were told to call Sir Pitt and the household to
prayers. Sir Pitt came in first, very much flushed, and rather
unsteady in his gait; and after him the butler, the canaries, Mr.
Crawley's man, three other men, smelling very much of the stable,
and four women, one of whom, I remarked, was very much overdressed,
and who flung me a look of great scorn as she plumped down on her
knees.

After Mr. Crawley had done haranguing and expounding, we received
our candles, and then we went to bed; and then I was disturbed in my
writing, as I have described to my dearest sweetest Amelia.

Good night. A thousand, thousand, thousand kisses!

Saturday.—This morning, at five, I heard the shrieking of the
little black pig. Rose and Violet introduced me to it yesterday;
and to the stables, and to the kennel, and to the gardener, who was
picking fruit to send to market, and from whom they begged hard a
bunch of hot-house grapes; but he said that Sir Pitt had numbered
every "Man Jack" of them, and it would be as much as his place was
worth to give any away. The darling girls caught a colt in a
paddock, and asked me if I would ride, and began to ride themselves,
when the groom, coming with horrid oaths, drove them away.

Lady Crawley is always knitting the worsted. Sir Pitt is always
tipsy, every night; and, I believe, sits with Horrocks, the butler.
Mr. Crawley always reads sermons in the evening, and in the morning
is locked up in his study, or else rides to Mudbury, on county
business, or to Squashmore, where he preaches, on Wednesdays and
Fridays, to the tenants there.

A hundred thousand grateful loves to your dear papa and mamma. Is
your poor brother recovered of his rack-punch? Oh, dear! Oh, dear!
How men should beware of wicked punch!

Ever and ever thine own REBECCA

Everything considered, I think it is quite as well for our dear
Amelia Sedley, in Russell Square, that Miss Sharp and she are
parted. Rebecca is a droll funny creature, to be sure; and those
descriptions of the poor lady weeping for the loss of her beauty,
and the gentleman "with hay-coloured whiskers and straw-coloured
hair," are very smart, doubtless, and show a great knowledge of the
world. That she might, when on her knees, have been thinking of
something better than Miss Horrocks's ribbons, has possibly struck
both of us. But my kind reader will please to remember that this
history has "Vanity Fair" for a title, and that Vanity Fair is a
very vain, wicked, foolish place, full of all sorts of humbugs and
falsenesses and pretensions. And while the moralist, who is holding
forth on the cover ( an accurate portrait of your humble servant),
professes to wear neither gown nor bands, but only the very same
long-eared livery in which his congregation is arrayed: yet, look
you, one is bound to speak the truth as far as one knows it, whether
one mounts a cap and bells or a shovel hat; and a deal of
disagreeable matter must come out in the course of such an
undertaking.

I have heard a brother of the story-telling trade, at Naples,
preaching to a pack of good-for-nothing honest lazy fellows by the
sea-shore, work himself up into such a rage and passion with some of
the villains whose wicked deeds he was describing and inventing,
that the audience could not resist it; and they and the poet
together would burst out into a roar of oaths and execrations
against the fictitious monster of the tale, so that the hat went
round, and the bajocchi tumbled into it, in the midst of a perfect
storm of sympathy.

At the little Paris theatres, on the other hand, you will not only
hear the people yelling out "Ah gredin! Ah monstre:" and cursing the
tyrant of the play from the boxes; but the actors themselves
positively refuse to play the wicked parts, such as those of infames
Anglais, brutal Cossacks, and what not, and prefer to appear at a
smaller salary, in their real characters as loyal Frenchmen. I set
the two stories one against the other, so that you may see that it
is not from mere mercenary motives that the present performer is
desirous to show up and trounce his villains; but because he has a
sincere hatred of them, which he cannot keep down, and which must
find a vent in suitable abuse and bad language.

I warn my "kyind friends," then, that I am going to tell a story of
harrowing villainy and complicated—but, as I trust, intensely
interesting—crime. My rascals are no milk-and-water rascals, I
promise you. When we come to the proper places we won't spare fine
language—No, no! But when we are going over the quiet country we
must perforce be calm. A tempest in a slop-basin is absurd. We
will reserve that sort of thing for the mighty ocean and the lonely
midnight. The present Chapter is very mild. Others—But we will
not anticipate THOSE.

And, as we bring our characters forward, I will ask leave, as a man
and a brother, not only to introduce them, but occasionally to step
down from the platform, and talk about them: if they are good and
kindly, to love them and shake them by the hand: if they are silly,
to laugh at them confidentially in the reader's sleeve: if they are
wicked and heartless, to abuse them in the strongest terms which
politeness admits of.

Otherwise you might fancy it was I who was sneering at the practice
of devotion, which Miss Sharp finds so ridiculous; that it was I who
laughed good-humouredly at the reeling old Silenus of a baronet—
whereas the laughter comes from one who has no reverence except for
prosperity, and no eye for anything beyond success. Such people
there are living and flourishing in the world—Faithless, Hopeless,
Charityless: let us have at them, dear friends, with might and main.
Some there are, and very successful too, mere quacks and fools: and
it was to combat and expose such as those, no doubt, that Laughter
was made.

Family Portraits

Sir Pitt Crawley was a philosopher with a taste for what is called
low life. His first marriage with the daughter of the noble Binkie
had been made under the auspices of his parents; and as he often
told Lady Crawley in her lifetime she was such a confounded
quarrelsome high-bred jade that when she died he was hanged if he
would ever take another of her sort, at her ladyship's demise he
kept his promise, and selected for a second wife Miss Rose Dawson,
daughter of Mr. John Thomas Dawson, ironmonger, of Mudbury. What a
happy woman was Rose to be my Lady Crawley!