Vanity Fair William Makepeace Thackeray (portable ebook reader .txt) 📖

her, she may go off any day: and in what a condition, my dear Pitt, in what a dreadful condition! I will send the Reverend Mr. Irons to her instantly. Jane, write a line to the Reverend Bartholomew Irons, in the third person, and say that I desire the pleasure of his company this evening at tea at half-past six. He is an awakening man; he ought to see Miss Crawley before she rests this night. And Emily, my love, get ready a packet of books for Miss Crawley. Put up A Voice from the Flames, A Trumpet-Warning to Jericho, and the Fleshpots Broken; or, the Converted Cannibal.”

“And the Washerwoman of Finchley Common, Mamma,” said Lady Emily. “It is as well to begin soothingly at first.”

“Stop, my dear ladies,” said Pitt, the diplomatist. “With every deference to the opinion of my beloved and respected Lady Southdown, I think it would be quite unadvisable to commence so early upon serious topics with Miss Crawley. Remember her delicate condition, and how little, how very little accustomed she has hitherto been to considerations connected with her immortal welfare.”

“Can we then begin too early, Pitt?” said Lady Emily, rising with six little books already in her hand.

“If you begin abruptly, you will frighten her altogether. I know my aunt’s worldly nature so well as to be sure that any abrupt attempt at conversion will be the very worst means that can be employed for the welfare of that unfortunate lady. You will only frighten and annoy her. She will very likely fling the books away, and refuse all acquaintance with the givers.”

“You are as worldly as Miss Crawley, Pitt,” said Lady Emily, tossing out of the room, her books in her hand.

“And I need not tell you, my dear Lady Southdown,” Pitt continued, in a low voice, and without heeding the interruption, “how fatal a little want of gentleness and caution may be to any hopes which we may entertain with regard to the worldly possessions of my aunt. Remember she has seventy thousand pounds; think of her age, and her highly nervous and delicate condition; I know that she has destroyed the will which was made in my brother’s (Colonel Crawley’s) favour: it is by soothing that wounded spirit that we must lead it into the right path, and not by frightening it; and so I think you will agree with me that⁠—that⁠—”

“Of course, of course,” Lady Southdown remarked. “Jane, my love, you need not send that note to Mr. Irons. If her health is such that discussions fatigue her, we will wait her amendment. I will call upon Miss Crawley tomorrow.”

“And if I might suggest, my sweet lady,” Pitt said in a bland tone, “it would be as well not to take our precious Emily, who is too enthusiastic; but rather that you should be accompanied by our sweet and dear Lady Jane.”

“Most certainly, Emily would ruin everything,” Lady Southdown said; and this time agreed to forego her usual practice, which was, as we have said, before she bore down personally upon any individual whom she proposed to subjugate, to fire in a quantity of tracts upon the menaced party (as a charge of the French was always preceded by a furious cannonade). Lady Southdown, we say, for the sake of the invalid’s health, or for the sake of her soul’s ultimate welfare, or for the sake of her money, agreed to temporise.

The next day, the great Southdown female family carriage, with the Earl’s coronet and the lozenge (upon which the three lambs trottant argent upon the field vert of the Southdowns, were quartered with sable on a bend or, three snuff-mulls gules, the cognizance of the house of Binkie), drove up in state to Miss Crawley’s door, and the tall serious footman handed in to Mr. Bowls her Ladyship’s cards for Miss Crawley, and one likewise for Miss Briggs. By way of compromise, Lady Emily sent in a packet in the evening for the latter lady, containing copies of the Washerwoman, and other mild and favourite tracts for Miss B.’s own perusal; and a few for the servants’ hall, viz.: Crumbs from the Pantry, The Frying Pan and the Fire, and The Livery of Sin, of a much stronger kind.

XXXIV James Crawley’s Pipe Is Put Out

The amiable behaviour of Mr. Crawley, and Lady Jane’s kind reception of her, highly flattered Miss Briggs, who was enabled to speak a good word for the latter, after the cards of the Southdown family had been presented to Miss Crawley. A countess’s card left personally too for her, Briggs, was not a little pleasing to the poor friendless companion. “What could Lady Southdown mean by leaving a card upon you, I wonder, Miss Briggs?” said the republican Miss Crawley; upon which the companion meekly said “that she hoped there could be no harm in a lady of rank taking notice of a poor gentlewoman,” and she put away this card in her work-box amongst her most cherished personal treasures. Furthermore, Miss Briggs explained how she had met Mr. Crawley walking with his cousin and long affianced bride the day before: and she told how kind and gentle-looking the lady was, and what a plain, not to say common, dress she had, all the articles of which, from the bonnet down to the boots, she described and estimated with female accuracy.

Miss Crawley allowed Briggs to prattle on without interrupting her too much. As she got well, she was pining for society. Mr. Creamer, her medical man, would not hear of her returning to her old haunts and dissipation in London.

The old spinster was too glad to find any companionship at Brighton, and not only were the cards acknowledged the very next day, but Pitt Crawley was graciously invited to come and see his aunt. He came, bringing with him Lady Southdown and her daughter. The dowager did not say a word about the state of Miss