Chapter XLI: In Which Becky Revisits the Halls of Her Ancestors

by William Makepeace Thackeray

　　So the mourning being ready, and Sir Pitt Crawley warnedof their arrival, Colonel Crawley and his wife took acouple of places in the same old High-flyer coach bywhich Rebecca had travelled in the defunct Baronet'scompany, on her first journey into the world some nineyears before. How well she remembered the Inn Yard,and the ostler to whom she refused money, and theinsinuating Cambridge lad who wrapped her in his coat onthe journey! Rawdon took his place outside, and wouldhave liked to drive, but his grief forbade him. He sat bythe coachman and talked about horses and the road thewhole way; and who kept the inns, and who horsed thecoach by which he had travelled so many a time, whenhe and Pitt were boys going to Eton. At Mudbury acarriage and a pair of horses received them, with acoachman in black. "It's the old drag, Rawdon," Rebecca saidas they got in. "The worms have eaten the cloth a gooddeal--there's the stain which Sir Pitt--ha! I see Dawsonthe Ironmonger has his shutters up--which Sir Pitt madesuch a noise about. It was a bottle of cherry brandy hebroke which we went to fetch for your aunt fromSouthampton. How time flies, to be sure! That can't be PollyTalboys, that bouncing girl standing by her mother atthe cottage there. I remember her a mangy little urchinpicking weeds in the garden."

　　"Fine gal," said Rawdon, returning the salute which thecottage gave him, by two fingers applied to his crapehatband. Becky bowed and saluted, and recognizedpeople here and there graciously. These recognitions wereinexpressibly pleasant to her. It seemed as if she wasnot an imposter any more, and was coming to the homeof her ancestors. Rawdon was rather abashed and castdown, on the other hand. What recollections of boyhoodand innocence might have been flitting across his brain?What pangs of dim remorse and doubt and shame?

　　"Your sisters must be young women now," Rebeccasaid, thinking of those girls for the first time perhapssince she had left them.

　　"Don't know, I'm shaw," replied the Colonel. "Hullo!here's old Mother Lock. How-dy-do, Mrs. Lock? Rememberme, don't you? Master Rawdon, hey? Dammy howthose old women last; she was a hundred when I was aboy."

　　They were going through the lodge-gates kept by oldMrs. Lock, whose hand Rebecca insisted upon shaking,as she flung open the creaking old iron gate, and thecarriage passed between the two moss-grown pillarssurmounted by the dove and serpent.

　　"The governor has cut into the timber," Rawdon said,looking about, and then was silent--so was Becky. Bothof them were rather agitated, and thinking of old times.He about Eton, and his mother, whom he remembered,a frigid demure woman, and a sister who died, of whomhe had been passionately fond; and how he used to thrashPitt; and about little Rawdy at home. And Rebeccathought about her own youth and the dark secrets ofthose early tainted days; and of her entrance into lifeby yonder gates; and of Miss Pinkerton, and Joe, andAmelia.

　　The gravel walk and terrace had been scraped quiteclean. A grand painted hatchment was already over thegreat entrance, and two very solemn and tall personagesin black flung open each a leaf of the door as thecarriage pulled up at the familiar steps. Rawdon turned red,and Becky somewhat pale, as they passed through theold hall, arm in arm. She pinched her husband's armas they entered the oak parlour, where Sir Pitt and hiswife were ready to receive them. Sir Pitt in black, LadyJane in black, and my Lady Southdown with a large blackhead-piece of bugles and feathers, which waved on herLadyship's head like an undertaker's tray.

　　Sir Pitt had judged correctly, that she would not quitthe premises. She contented herself by preserving asolemn and stony silence, when in company of Pitt andhis rebellious wife, and by frightening the children inthe nursery by the ghastly gloom of her demeanour.Only a very faint bending of the head-dress and plumeswelcomed Rawdon and his wife, as those prodigalsreturned to their family.

　　To say the truth, they were not affected very muchone way or other by this coolness. Her Ladyship was aperson only of secondary consideration in their mindsjust then--they were intent upon the reception whichthe reigning brother and sister would afford them.

　　Pitt, with rather a heightened colour, went up andshook his brother by the hand, and saluted Rebecca witha hand-shake and a very low bow. But Lady Jane took boththe hands of her sister-in-law and kissed her affectionately.The embrace somehow brought tears into the eyes ofthe little adventuress--which ornaments, as we know,she wore very seldom. The artless mark of kindness andconfidence touched and pleased her; and Rawdon,encouraged by this demonstration on his sister's part,twirled up his mustachios and took leave to salute LadyJane with a kiss, which caused her Ladyship to blushexceedingly.

　　"Dev'lish nice little woman, Lady Jane," was his verdict,when he and his wife were together again. "Pitt's got fat,too, and is doing the thing handsomely." "He can affordit," said Rebecca and agreed in her husband's fartheropinion "that the mother-in-law was a tremendous oldGuy--and that the sisters were rather well-lookingyoung women."

　　They, too, had been summoned from school to attendthe funeral ceremonies. It seemed Sir Pitt Crawley, forthe dignity of the house and family, had thought right tohave about the place as many persons in black as couldpossibly be assembled. All the men and maids of thehouse, the old women of the Alms House, whom the elderSir Pitt had cheated out of a great portion of theirdue, the parish clerk's family, and the special retainersof both Hall and Rectory were habited in sable; added tothese, the undertaker's men, at least a score, with crapesand hatbands, and who made goodly show when thegreat burying show took place--but these are mutepersonages in our drama; and having nothing to do or say,need occupy a very little space here.

　　With regard to her sisters-in-law Rebecca did notattempt to forget her former position of Governesstowards them, but recalled it frankly and kindly, and askedthem about their studies with great gravity, and told themthat she had thought of them many and many a day,and longed to know of their welfare. In fact you wouldhave supposed that ever since she had left them she hadnot ceased to keep them uppermost in her thoughts and totake the tenderest interest in their welfare. So supposedLady Crawley herself and her young sisters.

　　"She's hardly changed since eight years," said MissRosalind to Miss Violet, as they were preparing for dinner.

　　"Those red-haired women look wonderfully well,"replied the other.

　　"Hers is much darker than it was; I think she must dyeit," Miss Rosalind added. "She is stouter, too, andaltogether improved," continued Miss Rosalind, who wasdisposed to be very fat.

　　"At least she gives herself no airs and remembers thatshe was our Governess once," Miss Violet said, intimatingthat it befitted all governesses to keep their proper place,and forgetting altogether that she was granddaughter notonly of Sir Walpole Crawley, but of Mr. Dawson ofMudbury, and so had a coal-scuttle in her scutcheon. Thereare other very well-meaning people whom one meetsevery day in Vanity Fair who are surely equally oblivious.

　　"It can't be true what the girls at the Rectory said, thather mother was an opera-dancer--"

　　"A person can't help their birth," Rosalind replied withgreat liberality. "And I agree with our brother, that as sheis in the family, of course we are bound to notice her.I am sure Aunt Bute need not talk; she wants to marryKate to young Hooper, the wine-merchant, and absolutelyasked him to come to the Rectory for orders."

　　"I wonder whether Lady Southdown will go away, shelooked very glum upon Mrs. Rawdon," the other said.

　　"I wish she would. I won't read the Washerwomanof Finchley Common," vowed Violet; and so saying, andavoiding a passage at the end of which a certain coffin wasplaced with a couple of watchers, and lights perpetuallyburning in the closed room, these young women camedown to the family dinner, for which the bell rang asusual.

　　But before this, Lady Jane conducted Rebecca to theapartments prepared for her, which, with the rest of thehouse, had assumed a very much improved appearanceof order and comfort during Pitt's regency, and herebeholding that Mrs. Rawdon's modest little trunks hadarrived, and were placed in the bedroom anddressing-room adjoining, helped her to take off her neatblack bonnet and cloak, and asked her sister-in-law inwhat more she could be useful.

　　"What I should like best," said Rebecca, "would be togo to the nursery and see your dear little children." Onwhich the two ladies looked very kindly at each otherand went to that apartment hand in hand.

　　Becky admired little Matilda, who was not quite fouryears old, as the most charming little love in the world;and the boy, a little fellow of two years--pale, heavy-eyed,and large-headed--she pronounced to be a perfectprodigy in point of size, intelligence, and beauty.

　　"I wish Mamma would not insist on giving him so muchmedicine," Lady Jane said with a sigh. "I often think weshould all be better without it." And then Lady Jane andher new-found friend had one of those confidential medical conversations about the children, which all mothers,and most women, as I am given to understand, delight in.Fifty years ago, and when the present writer, being aninteresting little boy, was ordered out of the room withthe ladies after dinner, I remember quite well that theirtalk was chiefly about their ailments; and putting thisquestion directly to two or three since, I have always gotfrom them the acknowledgement that times are notchanged. Let my fair readers remark for themselves thisvery evening when they quit the dessert-table andassemble to celebrate the drawing-room mysteries. Well--in half an hour Becky and Lady Jane were close andintimate friends--and in the course of the evening herLadyship informed Sir Pitt that she thought her newsister-in-law was a kind, frank, unaffected, and affectionateyoung woman.

　　And so having easily won the daughter's good-will, theindefatigable little woman bent herself to conciliate theaugust Lady Southdown. As soon as she found her Ladyshipalone, Rebecca attacked her on the nursery questionat once and said that her own little boy was saved,actually saved, by calomel, freely administered, when all thephysicians in Paris had given the dear child up. And thenshe mentioned how often she had heard of Lady Southdownfrom that excellent man the Reverend LawrenceGrills, Minister of the chapel in May Fair, which shefrequented; and how her views were very much changedby circumstances and misfortunes; and how she hoped thata past life spent in worldliness and error might notincapacitate her from more serious thought for the future.She described how in former days she had been indebtedto Mr. Crawley for religious instruction, touched uponthe Washerwoman of Finchley Common, which she hadread with the greatest profit, and asked about LadyEmily, its gifted author, now Lady Emily Hornblower, atCape Town, where her husband had strong hopes ofbecoming Bishop of Caffraria.

　　But she crowned all, and confirmed herself in LadySouthdown's favour, by feeling very much agitated andunwell after the funeral and requesting her Ladyship'smedical advice, which the Dowager not only gave, but,wrapped up in a bed-gown and looking more like LadyMacbeth than ever, came privately in the night to Becky'sroom with a parcel of favourite tracts, and a medicineof her own composition, which she insisted that Mrs.Rawdon should take.

　　Becky first accepted the tracts and began to examinethem with great interest, engaging the Dowager in aconversation concerning them and the welfare of her soul,by which means she hoped that her body might escapemedication. But after the religious topics were exhausted,Lady Macbeth would not quit Becky's chamber until hercup of night-drink was emptied too; and poor Mrs. Rawdonwas compelled actually to assume a look of gratitude, andto swallow the medicine under the unyielding old Dowager'snose, who left her victim finally with a benediction.

　　It did not much comfort Mrs. Rawdon; her countenancewas very queer when Rawdon came in and heard whathad happened; and. his explosions of laughter were asloud as usual, when Becky, with a fun which she couldnot disguise, even though it was at her own expense,described the occurrence and how she had been victimizedby Lady Southdown. Lord Steyne, and her son inLondon, had many a laugh over the story when Rawdonand his wife returned to their quarters in May Fair. Beckyacted the whole scene for them. She put on a night-capand gown. She preached a great sermon in the true seriousmanner; she lectured on the virtue of the medicinewhich she pretended to administer, with a gravity ofimitation so perfect that you would have thought it wasthe Countess's own Roman nose through which she snuffled."Give us Lady Southdown and the black dose," wasa constant cry amongst the folks in Becky's littledrawing-room in May Fair. And for the first time in herlife the Dowager Countess of Southdown was made amusing.

　　Sir Pitt remembered the testimonies of respect andveneration which Rebecca had paid personally to himselfin early days, and was tolerably well disposed towardsher. The marriage, ill-advised as it was, had improvedRawdon very much--that was clear from the Colonel'saltered habits and demeanour--and had it not been alucky union as regarded Pitt himself? The cunningdiplomatist smiled inwardly as he owned that he owed hisfortune to it, and acknowledged that he at least ought notto cry out against it. His satisfaction was not removedby Rebecca's own statements, behaviour, andconversation.

　　She doubled the deference which before had charmedhim, calling out his conversational powers in such amanner as quite to surprise Pitt himself, who, alwaysinclined to respect his own talents, admired them the morewhen Rebecca pointed them out to him. With hersister-in-law, Rebecca was satisfactorily able to prove that itwas Mrs. Bute Crawley who brought about the marriagewhich she afterwards so calumniated; that it was Mrs.Bute's avarice--who hoped to gain all Miss Crawley'sfortune and deprive Rawdon of his aunt's favour--whichcaused and invented all the wicked reports againstRebecca. "She succeeded in making us poor," Rebeccasaid with an air of angelical patience; "but how can Ibe angry with a woman who has given me one of the besthusbands in the world? And has not her own avaricebeen sufficiently punished by the ruin of her own hopes andthe loss of the property by which she set so muchstore? Poor!" she cried. "Dear Lady Jane, what care wefor poverty? I am used to it from childhood, and I amoften thankful that Miss Crawley's money has gone torestore the splendour of the noble old family of whichI am so proud to be a member. I am sure Sir Pitt willmake a much better use of it than Rawdon would."

　　All these speeches were reported to Sir Pitt by themost faithful of wives, and increased the favourableimpression which Rebecca made; so much so that when,on the third day after the funeral, the family party wereat dinner, Sir Pitt Crawley, carving fowls at the head ofthe table, actually said to Mrs. Rawdon, "Ahem! Rebecca,may I give you a wing?"--a speech which made the littlewoman's eyes sparkle with pleasure.

　　While Rebecca was prosecuting the above schemes andhopes, and Pitt Crawley arranging the funeral ceremonialand other matters connected with his future progress anddignity, and Lady Jane busy with her nursery, as far asher mother would let her, and the sun rising and setting,and the clock-tower bell of the Hall ringing to dinner andto prayers as usual, the body of the late owner of Queen'sCrawley lay in the apartment which he had occupied,watched unceasingly by the professional attendants whowere engaged for that rite. A woman or two, and threeor four undertaker's men, the best whom Southamptoncould furnish, dressed in black, and of a proper stealthyand tragical demeanour, had charge of the remains whichthey watched turn about, having the housekeeper's roomfor their place of rendezvous when off duty, where theyplayed at cards in privacy and drank their beer.

　　The members of the family and servants of the housekept away from the gloomy spot, where the bones of thedescendant of an ancient line of knights and gentlemenlay, awaiting their final consignment to the family crypt.No regrets attended them, save those of the poor womanwho had hoped to be Sir Pitt's wife and widow and whohad fled in disgrace from the Hall over which she had sonearly been a ruler. Beyond her and a favourite old pointerhe had, and between whom and himself an attachmentsubsisted during the period of his imbecility, the old manhad not a single friend to mourn him, having indeed,during the whole course of his life, never taken the leastpains to secure one. Could the best and kindest of us whodepart from the earth have an opportunity of revisitingit, I suppose he or she (assuming that any Vanity Fairfeelings subsist in the sphere whither we are bound)would have a pang of mortification at finding how soonour survivors were consoled. And so Sir Pitt wasforgotten--like the kindest and best of us--only a fewweeks sooner.

　　Those who will may follow his remains to the grave,whither they were borne on the appointed day, in the mostbecoming manner, the family in black coaches, with theirhandkerchiefs up to their noses, ready for the tears whichdid not come; the undertaker and his gentlemen in deeptribulation; the select tenantry mourning out ofcompliment to the new landlord; the neighbouring gentry'scarriages at three miles an hour, empty, and in profoundaffliction; the parson speaking out the formula about "ourdear brother departed." As long as we have a man's body,we play our Vanities upon it, surrounding it withhumbug and ceremonies, laying it in state, and packing itup in gilt nails and velvet; and we finish our duty byplacing over it a stone, written all over with lies. Bute'scurate, a smart young fellow from Oxford, and Sir PittCrawley composed between them an appropriate Latinepitaph for the late lamented Baronet, and the formerpreached a classical sermon, exhorting the survivors notto give way to grief and informing them in the mostrespectful terms that they also would be one day calledupon to pass that gloomy and mysterious portal which hadjust closed upon the remains of their lamented brother.Then the tenantry mounted on horseback again, or stayedand refreshed themselves at the Crawley Arms. Then,after a lunch in the servants' hall at Queen's Crawley,the gentry's carriages wheeled off to their differentdestinations: then the undertaker's men, taking the ropes,palls, velvets, ostrich feathers, and other mortuaryproperties, clambered up on the roof of the hearse and rodeoff to Southampton. Their faces relapsed into a naturalexpression as the horses, clearing the lodge-gates, got intoa brisker trot on the open road; and squads of themmight have been seen, speckling with black thepublic-house entrances, with pewter-pots flashing in thesunshine. Sir Pitt's invalid chair was wheeled away into atool-house in the garden; the old pointer used to howlsometimes at first, but these were the only accents ofgrief which were heard in the Hall of which Sir PittCrawley, Baronet, had been master for some threescore years.

　　As the birds were pretty plentiful, and partridge shootingis as it were the duty of an English gentleman ofstatesmanlike propensities, Sir Pitt Crawley, the first shock ofgrief over, went out a little and partook of that diversionin a white hat with crape round it. The sight of those fieldsof stubble and turnips, now his own, gave him many secretjoys. Sometimes, and with an exquisite humility, hetook no gun, but went out with a peaceful bamboo cane;Rawdon, his big brother, and the keepers blazing away athis side. Pitt's money and acres had a great effect uponhis brother. The penniless Colonel became quite obsequiousand respectful to the head of his house, and despisedthe milksop Pitt no longer. Rawdon listened with sympathyto his senior's prospects of planting and draining, gavehis advice about the stables and cattle, rodeover to Mudbury to look at a mare, which he thoughtwould carry Lady Jane, and offered to break her,&c.: the rebellious dragoon was quite humbled andsubdued, and became a most creditable younger brother. Hehad constant bulletins from Miss Briggs in Londonrespecting little Rawdon, who was left behind there, whosent messages of his own. "I am very well," he wrote. "Ihope you are very well. I hope Mamma is very well. Thepony is very well. Grey takes me to ride in the park.I can canter. I met the little boy who rode before. Hecried when he cantered. I do not cry." Rawdon read theseletters to his brother and Lady Jane, who was delightedwith them. The Baronet promised to take charge of the ladat school, and his kind-hearted wife gave Rebecca abank-note, begging her to buy a present with it for her littlenephew.

　　One day followed another, and the ladies of the housepassed their life in those calm pursuits and amusementswhich satisfy country ladies. Bells rang to meals andto prayers. The young ladies took exercise on thepianoforte every morning after breakfast, Rebecca givingthem the benefit of her instruction. Then they put on thickshoes and walked in the park or shrubberies, or beyondthe palings into the village, descending upon the cottages,with Lady Southdown's medicine and tracts for thesick people there. Lady Southdown drove out in apony-chaise, when Rebecca would take her place by theDowager's side and listen to her solemn talk with the utmostinterest. She sang Handel and Haydn to the family ofevenings, and engaged in a large piece of worsted work, as ifshe had been born to the business and as if this kindof life was to continue with her until she should sink tothe grave in a polite old age, leaving regrets and a greatquantity of consols behind her--as if there were not caresand duns, schemes, shifts, and poverty waiting outsidethe park gates, to pounce upon her when she issued intothe world again.

　　"It isn't difficult to be a country gentleman's wife,"Rebecca thought. "I think I could be a good woman ifI had five thousand a year. I could dawdle about in thenursery and count the apricots on the wall. I could waterplants in a green-house and pick off dead leaves from thegeraniums. I could ask old women about their rheumatismsand order half-a-crown's worth of soup forthe poor. I shouldn't miss it much, out of five thousanda year. I could even drive out ten miles to dine at aneighbour's, and dress in the fashions of the year before last.I could go to church and keep awake in the great familypew, or go to sleep behind the curtains, with my veildown, if I only had practice. I could pay everybody, ifI had but the money. This is what the conjurors herepride themselves upon doing. They look down with pityupon us miserable sinners who have none. They thinkthemselves generous if they give our children a five-poundnote, and us contemptible if we are without one." Andwho knows but Rebecca was right in her speculations--and that it was only a question of money and fortunewhich made the difference between her and an honestwoman? If you take temptations into account, who is tosay that he is better than his neighbour? A comfortablecareer of prosperity, if it does not make people honest, atleast keeps them so. An alderman coming from a turtlefeast will not step out of his carnage to steal a leg ofmutton; but put him to starve, and see if he will notpurloin a loaf. Becky consoled herself by so balancing thechances and equalizing the distribution of good and evilin the world.

　　The old haunts, the old fields and woods, the copses,ponds, and gardens, the rooms of the old house whereshe had spent a couple of years seven years ago, were allcarefully revisited by her. She had been young there, orcomparatively so, for she forgot the time when she everwas young--but she remembered her thoughts andfeelings seven years back and contrasted them with thosewhich she had at present, now that she had seen theworld, and lived with great people, and raised herself farbeyond her original humble station.

　　"I have passed beyond it, because I have brains," Beckythought, "and almost all the rest of the world are fools.I could not go back and consort with those people now,whom I used to meet in my father's studio. Lords come upto my door with stars and garters, instead of poorartists with screws of tobacco in their pockets. I have agentleman for my husband, and an Earl's daughter for mysister, in the very house where I was little better than aservant a few years ago. But am I much better to do nowin the world than I was when I was the poor painter'sdaughter and wheedled the grocer round the corner forsugar and tea? Suppose I had married Francis who wasso fond of me--I couldn't have been much poorer thanI am now. Heigho! I wish I could exchange my positionin society, and all my relations for a snug sum in theThree Per Cent. Consols"; for so it was that Becky feltthe Vanity of human affairs, and it was in those securitiesthat she would have liked to cast anchor.

　　It may, perhaps, have struck her that to have beenhonest and humble, to have done her duty, and to havemarched straightforward on her way, would have broughther as near happiness as that path by which she wasstriving to attain it. But--just as the children at Queen'sCrawley went round the room where the body of theirfather lay--if ever Becky had these thoughts, she wasaccustomed to walk round them and not look in. Sheeluded them and despised them--or at least she wascommitted to the other path from which retreat was nowimpossible. And for my part I believe that remorse is theleast active of all a man's moral senses--the very easiest tobe deadened when wakened, and in some never wakenedat all. We grieve at being found out and at the idea ofshame or punishment, but the mere sense of wrong makesvery few people unhappy in Vanity Fair.

　　So Rebecca, during her stay at Queen's Crawley, made asmany friends of the Mammon of Unrighteousness as shecould possibly bring under control. Lady Jane and herhusband bade her farewell with the warmestdemonstrations of good-will. They looked forward withpleasure to the time when, the family house in GauntStreet being repaired and beautified, they were to meetagain in London. Lady Southdown made her up a packet ofmedicine and sent a letter by her to the Rev. LawrenceGrills, exhorting that gentleman to save the brand who"honoured" the letter from the burning. Pitt accompaniedthem with four horses in the carriage to Mudbury, havingsent on their baggage in a cart previously, accompaniedwith loads of game.

　　"How happy you will be to see your darling little boyagain!" Lady Crawley said, taking leave of her kinswoman.

　　"Oh so happy!" said Rebecca, throwing up the green eyes.She was immensely happy to be free of the place, and yetloath to go. Queen's Crawley was abominably stupid, andyet the air there was somehow purer than that which shehad been accustomed to breathe. Everybody had been dull,but had been kind in their way. "It is all the influence of along course of Three Per Cents," Becky said to herself, andwas right very likely.

　　However, the London lamps flashed joyfully as the stagerolled into Piccadilly, and Briggs had made a beautiful firein Curzon Street, and little Rawdon was up to welcomeback his papa and mamma.