Vanity Fair - Page 79/573

For some time past it is Humdrum Hall no longer. My dear, Miss Crawley

has arrived with her fat horses, fat servants, fat spaniel--the great

rich Miss Crawley, with seventy thousand pounds in the five per cents.,

whom, or I had better say WHICH, her two brothers adore. She looks

very apoplectic, the dear soul; no wonder her brothers are anxious

about her. You should see them struggling to settle her cushions, or

to hand her coffee! "When I come into the country," she says (for she

has a great deal of humour), "I leave my toady, Miss Briggs, at home.

My brothers are my toadies here, my dear, and a pretty pair they are!"

When she comes into the country our hall is thrown open, and for a

month, at least, you would fancy old Sir Walpole was come to life

again. We have dinner-parties, and drive out in the coach-and-four the

footmen put on their newest canary-coloured liveries; we drink claret

and champagne as if we were accustomed to it every day. We have wax

candles in the schoolroom, and fires to warm ourselves with. Lady

Crawley is made to put on the brightest pea-green in her wardrobe, and

my pupils leave off their thick shoes and tight old tartan pelisses,

and wear silk stockings and muslin frocks, as fashionable baronets'

daughters should. Rose came in yesterday in a sad plight--the

Wiltshire sow (an enormous pet of hers) ran her down, and destroyed a

most lovely flowered lilac silk dress by dancing over it--had this

happened a week ago, Sir Pitt would have sworn frightfully, have boxed

the poor wretch's ears, and put her upon bread and water for a month.

All he said was, "I'll serve you out, Miss, when your aunt's gone," and

laughed off the accident as quite trivial. Let us hope his wrath will

have passed away before Miss Crawley's departure. I hope so, for Miss

Rose's sake, I am sure. What a charming reconciler and peacemaker money

is!

Another admirable effect of Miss Crawley and her seventy thousand

pounds is to be seen in the conduct of the two brothers Crawley. I

mean the baronet and the rector, not OUR brothers--but the former, who

hate each other all the year round, become quite loving at Christmas.

I wrote to you last year how the abominable horse-racing rector was in

the habit of preaching clumsy sermons at us at church, and how Sir Pitt

snored in answer. When Miss Crawley arrives there is no such thing as

quarrelling heard of--the Hall visits the Rectory, and vice versa--the

parson and the Baronet talk about the pigs and the poachers, and the

county business, in the most affable manner, and without quarrelling in

their cups, I believe--indeed Miss Crawley won't hear of their

quarrelling, and vows that she will leave her money to the Shropshire

Crawleys if they offend her. If they were clever people, those

Shropshire Crawleys, they might have it all, I think; but the

Shropshire Crawley is a clergyman like his Hampshire cousin, and

mortally offended Miss Crawley (who had fled thither in a fit of rage

against her impracticable brethren) by some strait-laced notions of

morality. He would have prayers in the house, I believe.