Vanity Fair - Page 53/573

She had received her orders to join her pupils, in a note which was

written upon an old envelope, and which contained the following words: Sir Pitt Crawley begs Miss Sharp and baggidge may be hear on Tuesday,

as I leaf for Queen's Crawley to-morrow morning ERLY.

Great Gaunt Street.

Rebecca had never seen a Baronet, as far as she knew, and as soon as

she had taken leave of Amelia, and counted the guineas which

good-natured Mr. Sedley had put into a purse for her, and as soon as

she had done wiping her eyes with her handkerchief (which operation she

concluded the very moment the carriage had turned the corner of the

street), she began to depict in her own mind what a Baronet must be. "I

wonder, does he wear a star?" thought she, "or is it only lords that

wear stars? But he will be very handsomely dressed in a court suit,

with ruffles, and his hair a little powdered, like Mr. Wroughton at

Covent Garden. I suppose he will be awfully proud, and that I shall be

treated most contemptuously. Still I must bear my hard lot as well as

I can--at least, I shall be amongst GENTLEFOLKS, and not with vulgar

city people": and she fell to thinking of her Russell Square friends

with that very same philosophical bitterness with which, in a certain

apologue, the fox is represented as speaking of the grapes.

Having passed through Gaunt Square into Great Gaunt Street, the

carriage at length stopped at a tall gloomy house between two other

tall gloomy houses, each with a hatchment over the middle drawing-room

window; as is the custom of houses in Great Gaunt Street, in which

gloomy locality death seems to reign perpetual. The shutters of the

first-floor windows of Sir Pitt's mansion were closed--those of the

dining-room were partially open, and the blinds neatly covered up in

old newspapers.

John, the groom, who had driven the carriage alone, did not care to

descend to ring the bell; and so prayed a passing milk-boy to perform

that office for him. When the bell was rung, a head appeared between

the interstices of the dining-room shutters, and the door was opened by

a man in drab breeches and gaiters, with a dirty old coat, a foul old

neckcloth lashed round his bristly neck, a shining bald head, a leering

red face, a pair of twinkling grey eyes, and a mouth perpetually on the

grin.

"This Sir Pitt Crawley's?" says John, from the box.

"Ees," says the man at the door, with a nod.

"Hand down these 'ere trunks then," said John.

"Hand 'n down yourself," said the porter.

"Don't you see I can't leave my hosses? Come, bear a hand, my fine

feller, and Miss will give you some beer," said John, with a

horse-laugh, for he was no longer respectful to Miss Sharp, as her

connexion with the family was broken off, and as she had given nothing

to the servants on coming away.