CHAPTER XLV

Between Hampshire and London

Sir Pitt Crawley had done more than repair fences and restore

dilapidated lodges on the Queen's Crawley estate. Like a wise man he

had set to work to rebuild the injured popularity of his house and stop

up the gaps and ruins in which his name had been left by his

disreputable and thriftless old predecessor. He was elected for the

borough speedily after his father's demise; a magistrate, a member of

parliament, a county magnate and representative of an ancient family,

he made it his duty to show himself before the Hampshire public,

subscribed handsomely to the county charities, called assiduously upon

all the county folk, and laid himself out in a word to take that

position in Hampshire, and in the Empire afterwards, to which he

thought his prodigious talents justly entitled him. Lady Jane was

instructed to be friendly with the Fuddlestones, and the Wapshots, and

the other famous baronets, their neighbours. Their carriages might

frequently be seen in the Queen's Crawley avenue now; they dined pretty

frequently at the Hall (where the cookery was so good that it was clear

Lady Jane very seldom had a hand in it), and in return Pitt and his

wife most energetically dined out in all sorts of weather and at all

sorts of distances. For though Pitt did not care for joviality, being

a frigid man of poor hearth and appetite, yet he considered that to be

hospitable and condescending was quite incumbent on his station, and

every time that he got a headache from too long an after-dinner

sitting, he felt that he was a martyr to duty. He talked about crops,

corn-laws, politics, with the best country gentlemen. He (who had been

formerly inclined to be a sad free-thinker on these points) entered

into poaching and game preserving with ardour. He didn't hunt; he

wasn't a hunting man; he was a man of books and peaceful habits; but he

thought that the breed of horses must be kept up in the country, and

that the breed of foxes must therefore be looked to, and for his part,

if his friend, Sir Huddlestone Fuddlestone, liked to draw his country

and meet as of old the F. hounds used to do at Queen's Crawley, he

should be happy to see him there, and the gentlemen of the Fuddlestone

hunt. And to Lady Southdown's dismay too he became more orthodox in

his tendencies every day; gave up preaching in public and attending

meeting-houses; went stoutly to church; called on the Bishop and all

the Clergy at Winchester; and made no objection when the Venerable

Archdeacon Trumper asked for a game of whist. What pangs must have

been those of Lady Southdown, and what an utter castaway she must have

thought her son-in-law for permitting such a godless diversion! And

when, on the return of the family from an oratorio at Winchester, the

Baronet announced to the young ladies that he should next year very

probably take them to the "county balls," they worshipped him for his

kindness. Lady Jane was only too obedient, and perhaps glad herself to

go. The Dowager wrote off the direst descriptions of her daughter's

worldly behaviour to the authoress of the Washerwoman of Finchley

Common at the Cape; and her house in Brighton being about this time

unoccupied, returned to that watering-place, her absence being not very

much deplored by her children. We may suppose, too, that Rebecca, on

paying a second visit to Queen's Crawley, did not feel particularly

grieved at the absence of the lady of the medicine chest; though she

wrote a Christmas letter to her Ladyship, in which she respectfully

recalled herself to Lady Southdown's recollection, spoke with gratitude

of the delight which her Ladyship's conversation had given her on the

former visit, dilated on the kindness with which her Ladyship had

treated her in sickness, and declared that everything at Queen's

Crawley reminded her of her absent friend.

A great part of the altered demeanour and popularity of Sir Pitt

Crawley might have been traced to the counsels of that astute little

lady of Curzon Street. "You remain a Baronet--you consent to be a mere

country gentleman," she said to him, while he had been her guest in

London. "No, Sir Pitt Crawley, I know you better. I know your talents

and your ambition. You fancy you hide them both, but you can conceal

neither from me. I showed Lord Steyne your pamphlet on malt. He was

familiar with it, and said it was in the opinion of the whole Cabinet

the most masterly thing that had appeared on the subject. The Ministry

has its eye upon you, and I know what you want. You want to

distinguish yourself in Parliament; every one says you are the finest

speaker in England (for your speeches at Oxford are still remembered).

You want to be Member for the County, where, with your own vote and

your borough at your back, you can command anything. And you want to

be Baron Crawley of Queen's Crawley, and will be before you die. I saw

it all. I could read your heart, Sir Pitt. If I had a husband who

possessed your intellect as he does your name, I sometimes think I

should not be unworthy of him--but--but I am your kinswoman now," she

added with a laugh. "Poor little penniless, I have got a little

interest--and who knows, perhaps the mouse may be able to aid the

lion." Pitt Crawley was amazed and enraptured with her speech. "How

that woman comprehends me!" he said. "I never could get Jane to read

three pages of the malt pamphlet. She has no idea that I have

commanding talents or secret ambition. So they remember my speaking at

Oxford, do they? The rascals! Now that I represent my borough and may

sit for the county, they begin to recollect me! Why, Lord Steyne cut

me at the levee last year; they are beginning to find out that Pitt

Crawley is some one at last. Yes, the man was always the same whom

these people neglected: it was only the opportunity that was wanting,

and I will show them now that I can speak and act as well as write.

Achilles did not declare himself until they gave him the sword. I hold

it now, and the world shall yet hear of Pitt Crawley."

Therefore it was that this roguish diplomatist has grown so hospitable;

that he was so civil to oratorios and hospitals; so kind to Deans and

Chapters; so generous in giving and accepting dinners; so uncommonly

gracious to farmers on market-days; and so much interested about county

business; and that the Christmas at the Hall was the gayest which had

been known there for many a long day.

On Christmas Day a great family gathering took place. All the Crawleys

from the Rectory came to dine. Rebecca was as frank and fond of Mrs.

Bute as if the other had never been her enemy; she was affectionately

interested in the dear girls, and surprised at the progress which they

had made in music since her time, and insisted upon encoring one of the

duets out of the great song-books which Jim, grumbling, had been forced

to bring under his arm from the Rectory. Mrs. Bute, perforce, was

obliged to adopt a decent demeanour towards the little adventuress--of

course being free to discourse with her daughters afterwards about the

absurd respect with which Sir Pitt treated his sister-in-law. But Jim,

who had sat next to her at dinner, declared she was a trump, and one

and all of the Rector's family agreed that the little Rawdon was a fine

boy. They respected a possible baronet in the boy, between whom and the

title there was only the little sickly pale Pitt Binkie.

The children were very good friends. Pitt Binkie was too little a dog

for such a big dog as Rawdon to play with; and Matilda being only a

girl, of course not fit companion for a young gentleman who was near

eight years old, and going into jackets very soon. He took the command

of this small party at once--the little girl and the little boy

following him about with great reverence at such times as he

condescended to sport with them. His happiness and pleasure in the

country were extreme. The kitchen garden pleased him hugely, the

flowers moderately, but the pigeons and the poultry, and the stables

when he was allowed to visit them, were delightful objects to him. He

resisted being kissed by the Misses Crawley, but he allowed Lady Jane

sometimes to embrace him, and it was by her side that he liked to sit

when, the signal to retire to the drawing-room being given, the ladies

left the gentlemen to their claret--by her side rather than by his

mother. For Rebecca, seeing that tenderness was the fashion, called

Rawdon to her one evening and stooped down and kissed him in the

presence of all the ladies.

He looked her full in the face after the operation, trembling and

turning very red, as his wont was when moved. "You never kiss me at

home, Mamma," he said, at which there was a general silence and

consternation and a by no means pleasant look in Becky's eyes.

Rawdon was fond of his sister-in-law, for her regard for his son. Lady

Jane and Becky did not get on quite so well at this visit as on

occasion of the former one, when the Colonel's wife was bent upon

pleasing. Those two speeches of the child struck rather a chill.

Perhaps Sir Pitt was rather too attentive to her.

But Rawdon, as became his age and size, was fonder of the society of

the men than of the women, and never wearied of accompanying his sire

to the stables, whither the Colonel retired to smoke his cigar--Jim,

the Rector's son, sometimes joining his cousin in that and other

amusements. He and the Baronet's keeper were very close friends, their

mutual taste for "dawgs" bringing them much together. On one day, Mr.

James, the Colonel, and Horn, the keeper, went and shot pheasants,

taking little Rawdon with them. On another most blissful morning,

these four gentlemen partook of the amusement of rat-hunting in a barn,

than which sport Rawdon as yet had never seen anything more noble.

They stopped up the ends of certain drains in the barn, into the other

openings of which ferrets were inserted, and then stood silently aloof,

with uplifted stakes in their hands, and an anxious little terrier (Mr.

James's celebrated "dawg" Forceps, indeed) scarcely breathing from

excitement, listening motionless on three legs, to the faint squeaking

of the rats below. Desperately bold at last, the persecuted animals

bolted above-ground--the terrier accounted for one, the keeper for

another; Rawdon, from flurry and excitement, missed his rat, but on the

other hand he half-murdered a ferret.

But the greatest day of all was that on which Sir Huddlestone

Fuddlestone's hounds met upon the lawn at Queen's Crawley.

That was a famous sight for little Rawdon. At half-past ten, Tom

Moody, Sir Huddlestone Fuddlestone's huntsman, was seen trotting up the

avenue, followed by the noble pack of hounds in a compact body--the

rear being brought up by the two whips clad in stained scarlet

frocks--light hard-featured lads on well-bred lean horses, possessing

marvellous dexterity in casting the points of their long heavy whips at

the thinnest part of any dog's skin who dares to straggle from the main

body, or to take the slightest notice, or even so much as wink, at the

hares and rabbits starting under their noses.

Next comes boy Jack, Tom Moody's son, who weighs five stone, measures

eight-and-forty inches, and will never be any bigger. He is perched on

a large raw-boned hunter, half-covered by a capacious saddle. This

animal is Sir Huddlestone Fuddlestone's favourite horse the Nob. Other

horses, ridden by other small boys, arrive from time to time, awaiting

their masters, who will come cantering on anon.

Tom Moody rides up to the door of the Hall, where he is welcomed by the

butler, who offers him drink, which he declines. He and his pack then

draw off into a sheltered corner of the lawn, where the dogs roll on

the grass, and play or growl angrily at one another, ever and anon

breaking out into furious fight speedily to be quelled by Tom's voice,

unmatched at rating, or the snaky thongs of the whips.

Many young gentlemen canter up on thoroughbred hacks, spatter-dashed to

the knee, and enter the house to drink cherry-brandy and pay their

respects to the ladies, or, more modest and sportsmanlike, divest

themselves of their mud-boots, exchange their hacks for their hunters,

and warm their blood by a preliminary gallop round the lawn. Then they

collect round the pack in the corner and talk with Tom Moody of past

sport, and the merits of Sniveller and Diamond, and of the state of the

country and of the wretched breed of foxes.

Sir Huddlestone presently appears mounted on a clever cob and rides up

to the Hall, where he enters and does the civil thing by the ladies,

after which, being a man of few words, he proceeds to business. The

hounds are drawn up to the hall-door, and little Rawdon descends

amongst them, excited yet half-alarmed by the caresses which they

bestow upon him, at the thumps he receives from their waving tails, and

at their canine bickerings, scarcely restrained by Tom Moody's tongue

and lash.

Meanwhile, Sir Huddlestone has hoisted himself unwieldily on the Nob:

"Let's try Sowster's Spinney, Tom," says the Baronet, "Farmer Mangle

tells me there are two foxes in it." Tom blows his horn and trots off,

followed by the pack, by the whips, by the young gents from Winchester,

by the farmers of the neighbourhood, by the labourers of the parish on

foot, with whom the day is a great holiday, Sir Huddlestone bringing up

the rear with Colonel Crawley, and the whole cortege disappears down

the avenue.

The Reverend Bute Crawley (who has been too modest to appear at the

public meet before his nephew's windows), whom Tom Moody remembers

forty years back a slender divine riding the wildest horses, jumping

the widest brooks, and larking over the newest gates in the country--his

Reverence, we say, happens to trot out from the Rectory Lane on his

powerful black horse just as Sir Huddlestone passes; he joins the

worthy Baronet. Hounds and horsemen disappear, and little Rawdon

remains on the doorsteps, wondering and happy.

During the progress of this memorable holiday, little Rawdon, if he had

got no special liking for his uncle, always awful and cold and locked

up in his study, plunged in justice-business and surrounded by bailiffs

and farmers--has gained the good graces of his married and maiden

aunts, of the two little folks of the Hall, and of Jim of the Rectory,

whom Sir Pitt is encouraging to pay his addresses to one of the young

ladies, with an understanding doubtless that he shall be presented to

the living when it shall be vacated by his fox-hunting old sire. Jim

has given up that sport himself and confines himself to a little

harmless duck- or snipe-shooting, or a little quiet trifling with the

rats during the Christmas holidays, after which he will return to the

University and try and not be plucked, once more. He has already

eschewed green coats, red neckcloths, and other worldly ornaments, and

is preparing himself for a change in his condition. In this cheap and

thrifty way Sir Pitt tries to pay off his debt to his family.

Also before this merry Christmas was over, the Baronet had screwed up

courage enough to give his brother another draft on his bankers, and

for no less a sum than a hundred pounds, an act which caused Sir Pitt

cruel pangs at first, but which made him glow afterwards to think

himself one of the most generous of men. Rawdon and his son went away

with the utmost heaviness of heart. Becky and the ladies parted with

some alacrity, however, and our friend returned to London to commence

those avocations with which we find her occupied when this chapter

begins. Under her care the Crawley House in Great Gaunt Street was

quite rejuvenescent and ready for the reception of Sir Pitt and his

family, when the Baronet came to London to attend his duties in

Parliament and to assume that position in the country for which his

vast genius fitted him.

For the first session, this profound dissembler hid his projects and

never opened his lips but to present a petition from Mudbury. But he

attended assiduously in his place and learned thoroughly the routine

and business of the House. At home he gave himself up to the perusal

of Blue Books, to the alarm and wonder of Lady Jane, who thought he was

killing himself by late hours and intense application. And he made

acquaintance with the ministers, and the chiefs of his party,

determining to rank as one of them before many years were over.

Lady Jane's sweetness and kindness had inspired Rebecca with such a

contempt for her ladyship as the little woman found no small difficulty

in concealing. That sort of goodness and simplicity which Lady Jane

possessed annoyed our friend Becky, and it was impossible for her at

times not to show, or to let the other divine, her scorn. Her presence,

too, rendered Lady Jane uneasy. Her husband talked constantly with

Becky. Signs of intelligence seemed to pass between them, and Pitt

spoke with her on subjects on which he never thought of discoursing

with Lady Jane. The latter did not understand them, to be sure, but it

was mortifying to remain silent; still more mortifying to know that you

had nothing to say, and hear that little audacious Mrs. Rawdon dashing

on from subject to subject, with a word for every man, and a joke

always pat; and to sit in one's own house alone, by the fireside, and

watching all the men round your rival.

In the country, when Lady Jane was telling stories to the children, who

clustered about her knees (little Rawdon into the bargain, who was very

fond of her), and Becky came into the room, sneering with green

scornful eyes, poor Lady Jane grew silent under those baleful glances.

Her simple little fancies shrank away tremulously, as fairies in the

story-books, before a superior bad angel. She could not go on,

although Rebecca, with the smallest inflection of sarcasm in her voice,

besought her to continue that charming story. And on her side gentle

thoughts and simple pleasures were odious to Mrs. Becky; they discorded

with her; she hated people for liking them; she spurned children and

children-lovers. "I have no taste for bread and butter," she would

say, when caricaturing Lady Jane and her ways to my Lord Steyne.

"No more has a certain person for holy water," his lordship replied

with a bow and a grin and a great jarring laugh afterwards.

So these two ladies did not see much of each other except upon those

occasions when the younger brother's wife, having an object to gain

from the other, frequented her. They my-loved and my-deared each other

assiduously, but kept apart generally, whereas Sir Pitt, in the midst

of his multiplied avocations, found daily time to see his sister-in-law.

On the occasion of his first Speaker's dinner, Sir Pitt took the

opportunity of appearing before his sister-in-law in his uniform--that

old diplomatic suit which he had worn when attache to the Pumpernickel

legation.

Becky complimented him upon that dress and admired him almost as much

as his own wife and children, to whom he displayed himself before he

set out. She said that it was only the thoroughbred gentleman who

could wear the Court suit with advantage: it was only your men of

ancient race whom the culotte courte became. Pitt looked down with

complacency at his legs, which had not, in truth, much more symmetry or

swell than the lean Court sword which dangled by his side--looked down

at his legs, and thought in his heart that he was killing.

When he was gone, Mrs. Becky made a caricature of his figure, which she

showed to Lord Steyne when he arrived. His lordship carried off the

sketch, delighted with the accuracy of the resemblance. He had done

Sir Pitt Crawley the honour to meet him at Mrs. Becky's house and had

been most gracious to the new Baronet and member. Pitt was struck too

by the deference with which the great Peer treated his sister-in-law,

by her ease and sprightliness in the conversation, and by the delight

with which the other men of the party listened to her talk. Lord Steyne

made no doubt but that the Baronet had only commenced his career in

public life, and expected rather anxiously to hear him as an orator; as

they were neighbours (for Great Gaunt Street leads into Gaunt Square,

whereof Gaunt House, as everybody knows, forms one side) my lord hoped

that as soon as Lady Steyne arrived in London she would have the honour

of making the acquaintance of Lady Crawley. He left a card upon his

neighbour in the course of a day or two, having never thought fit to

notice his predecessor, though they had lived near each other for near

a century past.

In the midst of these intrigues and fine parties and wise and brilliant

personages Rawdon felt himself more and more isolated every day. He

was allowed to go to the club more; to dine abroad with bachelor

friends; to come and go when he liked, without any questions being

asked. And he and Rawdon the younger many a time would walk to Gaunt

Street and sit with the lady and the children there while Sir Pitt was

closeted with Rebecca, on his way to the House, or on his return from

it.

The ex-Colonel would sit for hours in his brother's house very silent,

and thinking and doing as little as possible. He was glad to be

employed of an errand; to go and make inquiries about a horse or a

servant, or to carve the roast mutton for the dinner of the children.

He was beat and cowed into laziness and submission. Delilah had

imprisoned him and cut his hair off, too. The bold and reckless young

blood of ten-years back was subjugated and was turned into a torpid,

submissive, middle-aged, stout gentleman.

And poor Lady Jane was aware that Rebecca had captivated her husband,

although she and Mrs. Rawdon my-deared and my-loved each other every

day they met.