Vanity Fair (22 page)

Who could this young woman be, I wonder? That evening a little
dinner for two persons was laid in the dining-room—when Mrs.
Firkin, the lady's maid, pushed into her mistress's apartment, and
bustled about there during the vacancy occasioned by the departure
of the new nurse—and the latter and Miss Briggs sat down to the
neat little meal.

Briggs was so much choked by emotion that she could hardly take a
morsel of meat. The young person carved a fowl with the utmost
delicacy, and asked so distinctly for egg-sauce, that poor Briggs,
before whom that delicious condiment was placed, started, made a
great clattering with the ladle, and once more fell back in the most
gushing hysterical state.

"Had you not better give Miss Briggs a glass of wine?" said the
person to Mr. Bowls, the large confidential man. He did so. Briggs
seized it mechanically, gasped it down convulsively, moaned a
little, and began to play with the chicken on her plate.

"I think we shall be able to help each other," said the person with
great suavity: "and shall have no need of Mr. Bowls's kind services.
Mr. Bowls, if you please, we will ring when we want you." He went
downstairs, where, by the way, he vented the most horrid curses upon
the unoffending footman, his subordinate.

"It is a pity you take on so, Miss Briggs," the young lady said,
with a cool, slightly sarcastic, air.

"My dearest friend is so ill, and wo-o-on't see me," gurgled out
Briggs in an agony of renewed grief.

"She's not very ill any more. Console yourself, dear Miss Briggs.
She has only overeaten herself—that is all. She is greatly better.
She will soon be quite restored again. She is weak from being cupped
and from medical treatment, but she will rally immediately. Pray
console yourself, and take a little more wine."

"But why, why won't she see me again?" Miss Briggs bleated out.
"Oh, Matilda, Matilda, after three-and-twenty years' tenderness! is
this the return to your poor, poor Arabella?"

"Don't cry too much, poor Arabella," the other said (with ever so
little of a grin); "she only won't see you, because she says you
don't nurse her as well as I do. It's no pleasure to me to sit up
all night. I wish you might do it instead."

"Have I not tended that dear couch for years?" Arabella said, "and
now—"

"Now she prefers somebody else. Well, sick people have these
fancies, and must be humoured. When she's well I shall go."

"Never, never," Arabella exclaimed, madly inhaling her salts-bottle.

"Never be well or never go, Miss Briggs?" the other said, with the
same provoking good-nature. "Pooh—she will be well in a fortnight,
when I shall go back to my little pupils at Queen's Crawley, and to
their mother, who is a great deal more sick than our friend. You
need not be jealous about me, my dear Miss Briggs. I am a poor
little girl without any friends, or any harm in me. I don't want to
supplant you in Miss Crawley's good graces. She will forget me a
week after I am gone: and her affection for you has been the work of
years. Give me a little wine if you please, my dear Miss Briggs,
and let us be friends. I'm sure I want friends."

The placable and soft-hearted Briggs speechlessly pushed out her
hand at this appeal; but she felt the desertion most keenly for all
that, and bitterly, bitterly moaned the fickleness of her Matilda.
At the end of half an hour, the meal over, Miss Rebecca Sharp (for
such, astonishing to state, is the name of her who has been
described ingeniously as "the person" hitherto), went upstairs again
to her patient's rooms, from which, with the most engaging
politeness, she eliminated poor Firkin. "Thank you, Mrs. Firkin,
that will quite do; how nicely you make it! I will ring when
anything is wanted." "Thank you"; and Firkin came downstairs in a
tempest of jealousy, only the more dangerous because she was forced
to confine it in her own bosom.

Could it be the tempest which, as she passed the landing of the
first floor, blew open the drawing-room door? No; it was stealthily
opened by the hand of Briggs. Briggs had been on the watch. Briggs
too well heard the creaking Firkin descend the stairs, and the clink
of the spoon and gruel-basin the neglected female carried.

"Well, Firkin?" says she, as the other entered the apartment. "Well,
Jane?"

"Wuss and wuss, Miss B.," Firkin said, wagging her head.

"Is she not better then?"

"She never spoke but once, and I asked her if she felt a little more
easy, and she told me to hold my stupid tongue. Oh, Miss B., I never
thought to have seen this day!" And the water-works again began to
play.

"What sort of a person is this Miss Sharp, Firkin? I little thought,
while enjoying my Christmas revels in the elegant home of my firm
friends, the Reverend Lionel Delamere and his amiable lady, to find
a stranger had taken my place in the affections of my dearest, my
still dearest Matilda!" Miss Briggs, it will be seen by her
language, was of a literary and sentimental turn, and had once
published a volume of poems—"Trills of the Nightingale"—by
subscription.

"Miss B., they are all infatyated about that young woman," Firkin
replied. "Sir Pitt wouldn't have let her go, but he daredn't refuse
Miss Crawley anything. Mrs. Bute at the Rectory jist as bad—never
happy out of her sight. The Capting quite wild about her. Mr.
Crawley mortial jealous. Since Miss C. was took ill, she won't have
nobody near her but Miss Sharp, I can't tell for where nor for why;
and I think somethink has bewidged everybody."

Rebecca passed that night in constant watching upon Miss Crawley;
the next night the old lady slept so comfortably, that Rebecca had
time for several hours' comfortable repose herself on the sofa, at
the foot of her patroness's bed; very soon, Miss Crawley was so well
that she sat up and laughed heartily at a perfect imitation of Miss
Briggs and her grief, which Rebecca described to her. Briggs'
weeping snuffle, and her manner of using the handkerchief, were so
completely rendered that Miss Crawley became quite cheerful, to the
admiration of the doctors when they visited her, who usually found
this worthy woman of the world, when the least sickness attacked
her, under the most abject depression and terror of death.

Captain Crawley came every day, and received bulletins from Miss
Rebecca respecting his aunt's health. This improved so rapidly, that
poor Briggs was allowed to see her patroness; and persons with
tender hearts may imagine the smothered emotions of that sentimental
female, and the affecting nature of the interview.

Miss Crawley liked to have Briggs in a good deal soon. Rebecca used
to mimic her to her face with the most admirable gravity, thereby
rendering the imitation doubly piquant to her worthy patroness.

The causes which had led to the deplorable illness of Miss Crawley,
and her departure from her brother's house in the country, were of
such an unromantic nature that they are hardly fit to be explained
in this genteel and sentimental novel. For how is it possible to
hint of a delicate female, living in good society, that she ate and
drank too much, and that a hot supper of lobsters profusely enjoyed
at the Rectory was the reason of an indisposition which Miss Crawley
herself persisted was solely attributable to the dampness of the
weather? The attack was so sharp that Matilda—as his Reverence
expressed it—was very nearly "off the hooks"; all the family were
in a fever of expectation regarding the will, and Rawdon Crawley was
making sure of at least forty thousand pounds before the
commencement of the London season. Mr. Crawley sent over a choice
parcel of tracts, to prepare her for the change from Vanity Fair and
Park Lane for another world; but a good doctor from Southampton
being called in in time, vanquished the lobster which was so nearly
fatal to her, and gave her sufficient strength to enable her to
return to London. The Baronet did not disguise his exceeding
mortification at the turn which affairs took.

While everybody was attending on Miss Crawley, and messengers every
hour from the Rectory were carrying news of her health to the
affectionate folks there, there was a lady in another part of the
house, being exceedingly ill, of whom no one took any notice at all;
and this was the lady of Crawley herself. The good doctor shook his
head after seeing her; to which visit Sir Pitt consented, as it
could be paid without a fee; and she was left fading away in her
lonely chamber, with no more heed paid to her than to a weed in the
park.

The young ladies, too, lost much of the inestimable benefit of their
governess's instruction, So affectionate a nurse was Miss Sharp,
that Miss Crawley would take her medicines from no other hand.
Firkin had been deposed long before her mistress's departure from
the country. That faithful attendant found a gloomy consolation on
returning to London, in seeing Miss Briggs suffer the same pangs of
jealousy and undergo the same faithless treatment to which she
herself had been subject.

Captain Rawdon got an extension of leave on his aunt's illness, and
remained dutifully at home. He was always in her antechamber. (She
lay sick in the state bedroom, into which you entered by the little
blue saloon.) His father was always meeting him there; or if he came
down the corridor ever so quietly, his father's door was sure to
open, and the hyena face of the old gentleman to glare out. What
was it set one to watch the other so? A generous rivalry, no doubt,
as to which should be most attentive to the dear sufferer in the
state bedroom. Rebecca used to come out and comfort both of them;
or one or the other of them rather. Both of these worthy gentlemen
were most anxious to have news of the invalid from her little
confidential messenger.

At dinner—to which meal she descended for half an hour—she kept
the peace between them: after which she disappeared for the night;
when Rawdon would ride over to the depot of the 150th at Mudbury,
leaving his papa to the society of Mr. Horrocks and his rum and
water. She passed as weary a fortnight as ever mortal spent in Miss
Crawley's sick-room; but her little nerves seemed to be of iron, as
she was quite unshaken by the duty and the tedium of the sick-
chamber.

She never told until long afterwards how painful that duty was; how
peevish a patient was the jovial old lady; how angry; how sleepless;
in what horrors of death; during what long nights she lay moaning,
and in almost delirious agonies respecting that future world which
she quite ignored when she was in good health.—Picture to yourself,
oh fair young reader, a worldly, selfish, graceless, thankless,
religionless old woman, writhing in pain and fear, and without her
wig. Picture her to yourself, and ere you be old, learn to love and
pray!

Sharp watched this graceless bedside with indomitable patience.
Nothing escaped her; and, like a prudent steward, she found a use
for everything. She told many a good story about Miss Crawley's
illness in after days—stories which made the lady blush through her
artificial carnations. During the illness she was never out of
temper; always alert; she slept light, having a perfectly clear
conscience; and could take that refreshment at almost any minute's
warning. And so you saw very few traces of fatigue in her
appearance. Her face might be a trifle paler, and the circles round
her eyes a little blacker than usual; but whenever she came out from
the sick-room she was always smiling, fresh, and neat, and looked as
trim in her little dressing-gown and cap, as in her smartest evening
suit.

The Captain thought so, and raved about her in uncouth convulsions.
The barbed shaft of love had penetrated his dull hide. Six weeks—
appropinquity—opportunity—had victimised him completely. He made
a confidante of his aunt at the Rectory, of all persons in the
world. She rallied him about it; she had perceived his folly; she
warned him; she finished by owning that little Sharp was the most
clever, droll, odd, good-natured, simple, kindly creature in
England. Rawdon must not trifle with her affections, though—dear
Miss Crawley would never pardon him for that; for she, too, was
quite overcome by the little governess, and loved Sharp like a
daughter. Rawdon must go away—go back to his regiment and naughty
London, and not play with a poor artless girl's feelings.

Many and many a time this good-natured lady, compassionating the
forlorn life-guardsman's condition, gave him an opportunity of
seeing Miss Sharp at the Rectory, and of walking home with her, as
we have seen. When men of a certain sort, ladies, are in love,
though they see the hook and the string, and the whole apparatus
with which they are to be taken, they gorge the bait nevertheless—
they must come to it—they must swallow it—and are presently struck
and landed gasping. Rawdon saw there was a manifest intention on
Mrs. Bute's part to captivate him with Rebecca. He was not very
wise; but he was a man about town, and had seen several seasons. A
light dawned upon his dusky soul, as he thought, through a speech of
Mrs. Bute's.

"Mark my words, Rawdon," she said. "You will have Miss Sharp one
day for your relation."

"What relation—my cousin, hey, Mrs. Bute? James sweet on her, hey?"
inquired the waggish officer.

"More than that," Mrs. Bute said, with a flash from her black eyes.

"Not Pitt? He sha'n't have her. The sneak a'n't worthy of her.
He's booked to Lady Jane Sheepshanks."

"You men perceive nothing. You silly, blind creature—if anything
happens to Lady Crawley, Miss Sharp will be your mother-in-law; and
that's what will happen."

Rawdon Crawley, Esquire, gave vent to a prodigious whistle, in token
of astonishment at this announcement. He couldn't deny it. His
father's evident liking for Miss Sharp had not escaped him. He knew
the old gentleman's character well; and a more unscrupulous old—
whyou—he did not conclude the sentence, but walked home, curling
his mustachios, and convinced he had found a clue to Mrs. Bute's
mystery.