Vanity Fair - Page 151/573

Rebecca, too, being now a relative, came in for the fullest share of

Mrs. Bute's kind inquiries. This indefatigable pursuer of truth

(having given strict orders that the door was to be denied to all

emissaries or letters from Rawdon), took Miss Crawley's carriage, and

drove to her old friend Miss Pinkerton, at Minerva House, Chiswick

Mall, to whom she announced the dreadful intelligence of Captain

Rawdon's seduction by Miss Sharp, and from whom she got sundry strange

particulars regarding the ex-governess's birth and early history. The

friend of the Lexicographer had plenty of information to give. Miss

Jemima was made to fetch the drawing-master's receipts and letters.

This one was from a spunging-house: that entreated an advance: another

was full of gratitude for Rebecca's reception by the ladies of

Chiswick: and the last document from the unlucky artist's pen was that

in which, from his dying bed, he recommended his orphan child to Miss

Pinkerton's protection. There were juvenile letters and petitions from

Rebecca, too, in the collection, imploring aid for her father or

declaring her own gratitude. Perhaps in Vanity Fair there are no

better satires than letters. Take a bundle of your dear friend's of

ten years back--your dear friend whom you hate now. Look at a file of

your sister's! how you clung to each other till you quarrelled about

the twenty-pound legacy! Get down the round-hand scrawls of your son

who has half broken your heart with selfish undutifulness since; or a

parcel of your own, breathing endless ardour and love eternal, which

were sent back by your mistress when she married the Nabob--your

mistress for whom you now care no more than for Queen Elizabeth. Vows,

love, promises, confidences, gratitude, how queerly they read after a

while! There ought to be a law in Vanity Fair ordering the destruction

of every written document (except receipted tradesmen's bills) after a

certain brief and proper interval. Those quacks and misanthropes who

advertise indelible Japan ink should be made to perish along with their

wicked discoveries. The best ink for Vanity Fair use would be one that

faded utterly in a couple of days, and left the paper clean and blank,

so that you might write on it to somebody else.

From Miss Pinkerton's the indefatigable Mrs. Bute followed the track of

Sharp and his daughter back to the lodgings in Greek Street, which the

defunct painter had occupied; and where portraits of the landlady in

white satin, and of the husband in brass buttons, done by Sharp in lieu

of a quarter's rent, still decorated the parlour walls. Mrs. Stokes

was a communicative person, and quickly told all she knew about Mr.

Sharp; how dissolute and poor he was; how good-natured and amusing;

how he was always hunted by bailiffs and duns; how, to the landlady's

horror, though she never could abide the woman, he did not marry his

wife till a short time before her death; and what a queer little wild

vixen his daughter was; how she kept them all laughing with her fun and

mimicry; how she used to fetch the gin from the public-house, and was

known in all the studios in the quarter--in brief, Mrs. Bute got such a

full account of her new niece's parentage, education, and behaviour as

would scarcely have pleased Rebecca, had the latter known that such

inquiries were being made concerning her.