Chapter: In Which Becky Is Recognized by the Family

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.

As for Sir Pitt he retired into those very apartments where Lady
Crawley had been previously extinguished, and here was tended by Miss
Hester, the girl upon her promotion, with constant care and assiduity.
What love, what fidelity, what constancy is there equal to that of a
nurse with good wages? They smooth pillows; and make arrowroot; they
get up at nights; they bear complaints and querulousness; they see the
sun shining out of doors and don't want to go abroad; they sleep on
arm-chairs and eat their meals in solitude; they pass long long
evenings doing nothing, watching the embers, and the patient's drink
simmering in the jug; they read the weekly paper the whole week
through; and Law's Serious Call or the Whole Duty of Man suffices them
for literature for the year--and we quarrel with them because, when
their relations come to see them once a week, a little gin is smuggled
in in their linen basket. Ladies, what man's love is there that would
stand a year's nursing of the object of his affection? Whereas a nurse
will stand by you for ten pounds a quarter, and we think her too highly
paid.  At least Mr. Crawley grumbled a good deal about paying half as
much to Miss Hester for her constant attendance upon the Baronet his
father.

Of sunshiny days this old gentleman was taken out in a chair on the
terrace--the very chair which Miss Crawley had had at Brighton, and
which had been transported thence with a number of Lady Southdown's
effects to Queen's Crawley.  Lady Jane always walked by the old man,
and was an evident favourite with him.  He used to nod many times to
her and smile when she came in, and utter inarticulate deprecatory
moans when she was going away.  When the door shut upon her he would
cry and sob--whereupon Hester's face and manner, which was always
exceedingly bland and gentle while her lady was present, would change
at once, and she would make faces at him and clench her fist and scream
out "Hold your tongue, you stoopid old fool," and twirl away his chair
from the fire which he loved to look at--at which he would cry more.
For this was all that was left after more than seventy years of
cunning, and struggling, and drinking, and scheming, and sin and
selfishness--a whimpering old idiot put in and out of bed and cleaned
and fed like a baby.

At last a day came when the nurse's occupation was over.  Early one
morning, as Pitt Crawley was at his steward's and bailiff's books in
the study, a knock came to the door, and Hester presented herself,
dropping a curtsey, and said,

"If you please, Sir Pitt, Sir Pitt died this morning, Sir Pitt.  I was
a-making of his toast, Sir Pitt, for his gruel, Sir Pitt, which he took
every morning regular at six, Sir Pitt, and--I thought I heard a
moan-like, Sir Pitt--and--and--and--" She dropped another curtsey.

What was it that made Pitt's pale face flush quite red? Was it because
he was Sir Pitt at last, with a seat in Parliament, and perhaps future
honours in prospect? "I'll clear the estate now with the ready money,"
he thought and rapidly calculated its incumbrances and the improvements
which he would make.  He would not use his aunt's money previously lest
Sir Pitt should recover and his outlay be in vain.

All the blinds were pulled down at the Hall and Rectory: the church
bell was tolled, and the chancel hung in black; and Bute Crawley didn't
go to a coursing meeting, but went and dined quietly at Fuddleston,
where they talked about his deceased brother and young Sir Pitt over
their port.  Miss Betsy, who was by this time married to a saddler at
Mudbury, cried a good deal. The family surgeon rode over and paid his
respectful compliments, and inquiries for the health of their
ladyships.  The death was talked about at Mudbury and at the Crawley
Arms, the landlord whereof had become reconciled with the Rector of
late, who was occasionally known to step into the parlour and taste Mr.
Horrocks' mild beer.

"Shall I write to your brother--or will you?" asked Lady Jane of her
husband, Sir Pitt.

"I will write, of course," Sir Pitt said, "and invite him to the
funeral:  it will be but becoming."

"And--and--Mrs. Rawdon," said Lady Jane timidly.

"Jane!" said Lady Southdown, "how can you think of such a thing?"

"Mrs. Rawdon must of course be asked," said Sir Pitt, resolutely.

"Not whilst I am in the house!" said Lady Southdown.

"Your Ladyship will be pleased to recollect that I am the head of this
family," Sir Pitt replied.  "If you please, Lady Jane, you will write a
letter to Mrs. Rawdon Crawley, requesting her presence upon this
melancholy occasion."

"Jane, I forbid you to put pen to paper!" cried the Countess.

"I believe I am the head of this family," Sir Pitt repeated; "and
however much I may regret any circumstance which may lead to your
Ladyship quitting this house, must, if you please, continue to govern
it as I see fit."

Lady Southdown rose up as magnificent as Mrs. Siddons in Lady Macbeth
and ordered that horses might be put to her carriage.  If her son and
daughter turned her out of their house, she would hide her sorrows
somewhere in loneliness and pray for their conversion to better
thoughts.

"We don't turn you out of our house, Mamma," said the timid Lady Jane
imploringly.

"You invite such company to it as no Christian lady should meet, and I
will have my horses to-morrow morning."

"Have the goodness to write, Jane, under my dictation," said Sir Pitt,
rising and throwing himself into an attitude of command, like the
portrait of a Gentleman in the Exhibition, "and begin.  'Queen's
Crawley, September 14, 1822.--My dear brother--'"

Hearing these decisive and terrible words, Lady Macbeth, who had been
waiting for a sign of weakness or vacillation on the part of her
son-in-law, rose and, with a scared look, left the library. Lady Jane
looked up to her husband as if she would fain follow and soothe her
mamma, but Pitt forbade his wife to move.

"She won't go away," he said.  "She has let her house at Brighton and
has spent her last half-year's dividends. A Countess living at an inn
is a ruined woman.  I have been waiting long for an opportunity--to
take this--this decisive step, my love; for, as you must perceive, it
is impossible that there should be two chiefs in a family: and now, if
you please, we will resume the dictation.  'My dear brother, the
melancholy intelligence which it is my duty to convey to my family must
have been long anticipated by,'" &c.

In a word, Pitt having come to his kingdom, and having by good luck, or
desert rather, as he considered, assumed almost all the fortune which
his other relatives had expected, was determined to treat his family
kindly and respectably and make a house of Queen's Crawley once more.
It pleased him to think that he should be its chief.  He proposed to
use the vast influence that his commanding talents and position must
speedily acquire for him in the county to get his brother placed and
his cousins decently provided for, and perhaps had a little sting of
repentance as he thought that he was the proprietor of all that they
had hoped for.  In the course of three or four days' reign his bearing
was changed and his plans quite fixed:  he determined to rule justly
and honestly, to depose Lady Southdown, and to be on the friendliest
possible terms with all the relations of his blood.

So he dictated a letter to his brother Rawdon--a solemn and elaborate
letter, containing the profoundest observations, couched in the longest
words, and filling with wonder the simple little secretary, who wrote
under her husband's order.  "What an orator this will be," thought she,
"when he enters the House of Commons" (on which point, and on the
tyranny of Lady Southdown, Pitt had sometimes dropped hints to his wife
in bed); "how wise and good, and what a genius my husband is!  I
fancied him a little cold; but how good, and what a genius!"

The fact is, Pitt Crawley had got every word of the letter by heart and
had studied it, with diplomatic secrecy, deeply and perfectly, long
before he thought fit to communicate it to his astonished wife.

This letter, with a huge black border and seal, was accordingly
despatched by Sir Pitt Crawley to his brother the Colonel, in London.
Rawdon Crawley was but half-pleased at the receipt of it. "What's the
use of going down to that stupid place?" thought he.  "I can't stand
being alone with Pitt after dinner, and horses there and back will cost
us twenty pound."

He carried the letter, as he did all difficulties, to Becky, upstairs
in her bedroom--with her chocolate, which he always made and took to
her of a morning.

He put the tray with the breakfast and the letter on the dressing-table,
before which Becky sat combing her yellow hair.  She took up the
black-edged missive, and having read it, she jumped up from the chair,
crying "Hurray!" and waving the note round her head.

"Hurray?" said Rawdon, wondering at the little figure capering about in
a streaming flannel dressing-gown, with tawny locks dishevelled. "He's
not left us anything, Becky.  I had my share when I came of age."

"You'll never be of age, you silly old man," Becky replied.  "Run out
now to Madam Brunoy's, for I must have some mourning:  and get a crape
on your hat, and a black waistcoat--I don't think you've got one; order
it to be brought home to-morrow, so that we may be able to start on
Thursday."

"You don't mean to go?" Rawdon interposed.

"Of course I mean to go.  I mean that Lady Jane shall present me at
Court next year.  I mean that your brother shall give you a seat in
Parliament, you stupid old creature.  I mean that Lord Steyne shall
have your vote and his, my dear, old silly man; and that you shall be
an Irish Secretary, or a West Indian Governor:  or a Treasurer, or a
Consul, or some such thing."

"Posting will cost a dooce of a lot of money," grumbled Rawdon.

"We might take Southdown's carriage, which ought to be present at the
funeral, as he is a relation of the family:  but, no--I intend that we
shall go by the coach. They'll like it better.  It seems more humble--"

"Rawdy goes, of course?" the Colonel asked.

"No such thing; why pay an extra place? He's too big to travel bodkin
between you and me.  Let him stay here in the nursery, and Briggs can
make him a black frock.  Go you, and do as I bid you. And you had best
tell Sparks, your man, that old Sir Pitt is dead and that you will come
in for something considerable when the affairs are arranged.  He'll
tell this to Raggles, who has been pressing for money, and it will
console poor Raggles." And so Becky began sipping her chocolate.

When the faithful Lord Steyne arrived in the evening, he found Becky
and her companion, who was no other than our friend Briggs, busy
cutting, ripping, snipping, and tearing all sorts of black stuffs
available for the melancholy occasion.

"Miss Briggs and I are plunged in grief and despondency for the death
of our Papa," Rebecca said.  "Sir Pitt Crawley is dead, my lord.  We
have been tearing our hair all the morning, and now we are tearing up
our old clothes."

"Oh, Rebecca, how can you--" was all that Briggs could say as she
turned up her eyes.

"Oh, Rebecca, how can you--" echoed my Lord.  "So that old scoundrel's
dead, is he? He might have been a Peer if he had played his cards
better.  Mr. Pitt had very nearly made him; but he ratted always at the
wrong time.  What an old Silenus it was!"

"I might have been Silenus's widow," said Rebecca. "Don't you remember,
Miss Briggs, how you peeped in at the door and saw old Sir Pitt on his
knees to me?" Miss Briggs, our old friend, blushed very much at this
reminiscence, and was glad when Lord Steyne ordered her to go
downstairs and make him a cup of tea.

Briggs was the house-dog whom Rebecca had provided as guardian of her
innocence and reputation.  Miss Crawley had left her a little annuity.
She would have been content to remain in the Crawley family with Lady
Jane, who was good to her and to everybody; but Lady Southdown
dismissed poor Briggs as quickly as decency permitted; and Mr. Pitt
(who thought himself much injured by the uncalled-for generosity of his
deceased relative towards a lady who had only been Miss Crawley's
faithful retainer a score of years) made no objection to that exercise
of the dowager's authority. Bowls and Firkin likewise received their
legacies and their dismissals, and married and set up a lodging-house,
according to the custom of their kind.

Briggs tried to live with her relations in the country, but found that
attempt was vain after the better society to which she had been
accustomed.  Briggs's friends, small tradesmen, in a country town,
quarrelled over Miss Briggs's forty pounds a year as eagerly and more
openly than Miss Crawley's kinsfolk had for that lady's inheritance.
Briggs's brother, a radical hatter and grocer, called his sister a
purse-proud aristocrat, because she would not advance a part of her
capital to stock his shop; and she would have done so most likely, but
that their sister, a dissenting shoemaker's lady, at variance with the
hatter and grocer, who went to another chapel, showed how their brother
was on the verge of bankruptcy, and took possession of Briggs for a
while.  The dissenting shoemaker wanted Miss Briggs to send his son to
college and make a gentleman of him. Between them the two families got
a great portion of her private savings out of her, and finally she fled
to London followed by the anathemas of both, and determined to seek for
servitude again as infinitely less onerous than liberty.  And
advertising in the papers that a "Gentlewoman of agreeable manners, and
accustomed to the best society, was anxious to," &c., she took up her
residence with Mr. Bowls in Half Moon Street, and waited the result of
the advertisement.

So it was that she fell in with Rebecca.  Mrs. Rawdon's dashing little
carriage and ponies was whirling down the street one day, just as Miss
Briggs, fatigued, had reached Mr. Bowls's door, after a weary walk to
the Times Office in the City to insert her advertisement for the sixth
time.  Rebecca was driving, and at once recognized the gentlewoman with
agreeable manners, and being a perfectly good-humoured woman, as we
have seen, and having a regard for Briggs, she pulled up the ponies at
the doorsteps, gave the reins to the groom, and jumping out, had hold
of both Briggs's hands, before she of the agreeable manners had
recovered from the shock of seeing an old friend.

Briggs cried, and Becky laughed a great deal and kissed the gentlewoman
as soon as they got into the passage; and thence into Mrs. Bowls's
front parlour, with the red moreen curtains, and the round
looking-glass, with the chained eagle above, gazing upon the back of
the ticket in the window which announced "Apartments to Let."

Briggs told all her history amidst those perfectly uncalled-for sobs
and ejaculations of wonder with which women of her soft nature salute
an old acquaintance, or regard a rencontre in the street; for though
people meet other people every day, yet some there are who insist upon
discovering miracles; and women, even though they have disliked each
other, begin to cry when they meet, deploring and remembering the time
when they last quarrelled.  So, in a word, Briggs told all her history,
and Becky gave a narrative of her own life, with her usual artlessness
and candour.

Mrs. Bowls, late Firkin, came and listened grimly in the passage to the
hysterical sniffling and giggling which went on in the front parlour.
Becky had never been a favourite of hers.  Since the establishment of
the married couple in London they had frequented their former friends
of the house of Raggles, and did not like the latter's account of the
Colonel's menage.  "I wouldn't trust him, Ragg, my boy," Bowls
remarked; and his wife, when Mrs. Rawdon issued from the parlour, only
saluted the lady with a very sour curtsey; and her fingers were like so
many sausages, cold and lifeless, when she held them out in deference
to Mrs. Rawdon, who persisted in shaking hands with the retired lady's
maid.  She whirled away into Piccadilly, nodding with the sweetest of
smiles towards Miss Briggs, who hung nodding at the window close under
the advertisement-card, and at the next moment was in the park with a
half-dozen of dandies cantering after her carriage.

When she found how her friend was situated, and how having a snug
legacy from Miss Crawley, salary was no object to our gentlewoman,
Becky instantly formed some benevolent little domestic plans concerning
her.  This was just such a companion as would suit her establishment,
and she invited Briggs to come to dinner with her that very evening,
when she should see Becky's dear little darling Rawdon.

Mrs. Bowls cautioned her lodger against venturing into the lion's den,
"wherein you will rue it, Miss B., mark my words, and as sure as my
name is Bowls." And Briggs promised to be very cautious.  The upshot of
which caution was that she went to live with Mrs. Rawdon the next week,
and had lent Rawdon Crawley six hundred pounds upon annuity before six
months were over.

 Mr. Pitt comes back to Queen's Crawley and basically takes over as heir, even though Sir Pitt is still technically alive. He finds the estate tangled up in all sorts of crazy mortgages, lawsuits, and other business dealings and begins to try to make sense of the mess his father has made. Mr. Horrocks and his daughter aren't arrested but instead buy and run the town's tavern. Lady Southdown moves to Queen's Crawley with her daughter and son-in-law and proceeds to boss both of them around, and their two kids as well . Finally, in a few months old Sir Pitt dies. His son, Mr. Pitt, is now the new Sir Pitt. We will call him young Sir Pitt to avoid confusion. Young Sir Pitt wants to write a letter to his brother Rawdon telling him about their father's death. He invites him to come and stay at Queen's Crawley. Jane asks whether they can invite Becky, too. Young Sir Pitt says of course, but Lady Southdown says absolutely not. Finally the time has come for young Sir Pitt to make his stand. He tells Lady Southdown to go stuff it and that he will be the only master of the house. She tries to call his bluff by pretending to leave...but he's not bluffing, so she stays. Young Sir Pitt then dictates a letter to Rawdon and has Jane write it down from his dictation. It's long, complex, beautifully worded, full of quotations, and just generally amazing. Jane is totally floored by how smart her husband apparently is. Little does she know that he has actually written this letter weeks ago and has been memorizing it all this time just so he can impress her. Becky is psyched when she gets the letter. Rawdon is sort of grumpy about having to go down to the country, but Becky fills him in on her plans: "I mean that Lady Jane shall present me at Court next year. I mean that your brother shall give you a seat in Parliament, you stupid old creature. I mean that Lord Steyne shall have your vote and his, my dear, old silly man; and that you shall be an Irish Secretary, or a West Indian Governor; or a Treasurer, or a Consul, or some such thing" . She plans to go with Rawdon and to leave Rawdon Jr. behind. The next time Lord Steyne comes over he finds Becky and her companion remaking all the clothes into official mourning clothes. Her companion turns out to be...Briggs! She's back! OK, you're right, meh.

