Vanity Fair - Page 314/573

Indeed, when Miss Crawley quitted the world, and that money for which

all her relatives had been fighting so eagerly was finally left to

Pitt, Bute Crawley, who found that only five thousand pounds had been

left to him instead of the twenty upon which he calculated, was in such

a fury at his disappointment that he vented it in savage abuse upon his

nephew; and the quarrel always rankling between them ended in an utter

breach of intercourse. Rawdon Crawley's conduct, on the other hand,

who got but a hundred pounds, was such as to astonish his brother and

delight his sister-in-law, who was disposed to look kindly upon all the

members of her husband's family. He wrote to his brother a very frank,

manly, good-humoured letter from Paris. He was aware, he said, that by

his own marriage he had forfeited his aunt's favour; and though he did

not disguise his disappointment that she should have been so entirely

relentless towards him, he was glad that the money was still kept in

their branch of the family, and heartily congratulated his brother on

his good fortune. He sent his affectionate remembrances to his sister,

and hoped to have her good-will for Mrs. Rawdon; and the letter

concluded with a postscript to Pitt in the latter lady's own

handwriting. She, too, begged to join in her husband's

congratulations. She should ever remember Mr. Crawley's kindness to

her in early days when she was a friendless orphan, the instructress of

his little sisters, in whose welfare she still took the tenderest

interest. She wished him every happiness in his married life, and,

asking his permission to offer her remembrances to Lady Jane (of whose

goodness all the world informed her), she hoped that one day she might

be allowed to present her little boy to his uncle and aunt, and begged

to bespeak for him their good-will and protection.

Pitt Crawley received this communication very graciously--more

graciously than Miss Crawley had received some of Rebecca's previous

compositions in Rawdon's handwriting; and as for Lady Jane, she was so

charmed with the letter that she expected her husband would instantly

divide his aunt's legacy into two equal portions and send off one-half

to his brother at Paris.

To her Ladyship's surprise, however, Pitt declined to accommodate his

brother with a cheque for thirty thousand pounds. But he made Rawdon a

handsome offer of his hand whenever the latter should come to England

and choose to take it; and, thanking Mrs. Crawley for her good opinion

of himself and Lady Jane, he graciously pronounced his willingness to

take any opportunity to serve her little boy.

Thus an almost reconciliation was brought about between the brothers.

When Rebecca came to town Pitt and his wife were not in London. Many a

time she drove by the old door in Park Lane to see whether they had

taken possession of Miss Crawley's house there. But the new family did

not make its appearance; it was only through Raggles that she heard of

their movements--how Miss Crawley's domestics had been dismissed with

decent gratuities, and how Mr. Pitt had only once made his appearance

in London, when he stopped for a few days at the house, did business

with his lawyers there, and sold off all Miss Crawley's French novels

to a bookseller out of Bond Street. Becky had reasons of her own which

caused her to long for the arrival of her new relation. "When Lady Jane

comes," thought she, "she shall be my sponsor in London society; and as

for the women! bah! the women will ask me when they find the men want

to see me."