Vanity Fair - Page 339/573

The heir of Crawley arrived at home, in due time, after this

catastrophe, and henceforth may be said to have reigned in Queen's

Crawley. For though the old Baronet survived many months, he never

recovered the use of his intellect or his speech completely, and the

government of the estate devolved upon his elder son. In a strange

condition Pitt found it. Sir Pitt was always buying and mortgaging; he

had twenty men of business, and quarrels with each; quarrels with all

his tenants, and lawsuits with them; lawsuits with the lawyers;

lawsuits with the Mining and Dock Companies in which he was proprietor;

and with every person with whom he had business. To unravel these

difficulties and to set the estate clear was a task worthy of the

orderly and persevering diplomatist of Pumpernickel, and he set himself

to work with prodigious assiduity. His whole family, of course, was

transported to Queen's Crawley, whither Lady Southdown, of course, came

too; and she set about converting the parish under the Rector's nose,

and brought down her irregular clergy to the dismay of the angry Mrs

Bute. Sir Pitt had concluded no bargain for the sale of the living of

Queen's Crawley; when it should drop, her Ladyship proposed to take the

patronage into her own hands and present a young protege to the

Rectory, on which subject the diplomatic Pitt said nothing.

Mrs. Bute's intentions with regard to Miss Betsy Horrocks were not

carried into effect, and she paid no visit to Southampton Gaol. She

and her father left the Hall when the latter took possession of the

Crawley Arms in the village, of which he had got a lease from Sir Pitt.

The ex-butler had obtained a small freehold there likewise, which gave

him a vote for the borough. The Rector had another of these votes, and

these and four others formed the representative body which returned the

two members for Queen's Crawley.

There was a show of courtesy kept up between the Rectory and the Hall

ladies, between the younger ones at least, for Mrs. Bute and Lady

Southdown never could meet without battles, and gradually ceased seeing

each other. Her Ladyship kept her room when the ladies from the

Rectory visited their cousins at the Hall. Perhaps Mr. Pitt was not

very much displeased at these occasional absences of his mamma-in-law.

He believed the Binkie family to be the greatest and wisest and most

interesting in the world, and her Ladyship and his aunt had long held

ascendency over him; but sometimes he felt that she commanded him too

much. To be considered young was complimentary, doubtless, but at

six-and-forty to be treated as a boy was sometimes mortifying. Lady

Jane yielded up everything, however, to her mother. She was only fond

of her children in private, and it was lucky for her that Lady

Southdown's multifarious business, her conferences with ministers, and

her correspondence with all the missionaries of Africa, Asia, and

Australasia, &c., occupied the venerable Countess a great deal, so that

she had but little time to devote to her granddaughter, the little

Matilda, and her grandson, Master Pitt Crawley. The latter was a feeble

child, and it was only by prodigious quantities of calomel that Lady

Southdown was able to keep him in life at all.