Pickwick Abroad: A Companion to the Pickwick Papers — page 244: what you’re looking at

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14 her a modest and innocent little child ; and only a year before the arrangement by which Rebecca had been admitted into her house, and when Rebecca was sixteen years old, Miss Pinkerton majestically, and with a lit- tle speech, made her a present of a doll— which was, by the way, the confiscated prop- erty of Miss Swindle, discovered surrepti- tiously nursing it in school-hours. How the father and daughter laughed as they trudged home together after the evening party (it was on the occasion of the speeches, when all the professors were invited), and how Miss Pinkerton would have raged had she seen the caricature of herself which the little mimic, Rebecca, managed to make out of her doll! She used to go through dia- logues with it; it formed the delight of Newman-street, Gerard-street, and the ait- ists’ quarter: and the young puinters, when they came to take their gin-aud-water with their lazy, dissolute, clever, jovial senior, used regularly to ask Rebecca if Miss Pink- erton was at home: she was as well known to them, poor soul! as Mr. Lawrence or President West. Once she had the honor to pass a few days at Chiswick; after which she brought back Jemima, and erected anoth- er doll as Miss Jemmy ; for though that hon- est creature had made and given her jelly and cake enough for three children, and a seven-shilling piece at parting, the girl’s sense of ridicule was far stronger than her gratitude, and she sacrificed Miss Jemmy quite as pitilessly as her sister. The catastrophe came, and she was brought to the Mallas toherhome. The rigid form- ality of the place suffocated her: the pray- ers and the meals, the lessons and the walks, which were arranged with a conventual reg- ularity, oppressed her almost beyond en- durance: and she looked back to the free- dom and the beggary of the old studio in Soho with so much regret, that every body, herself included, fancied she was consumed with grief for her father. She had a little room in the garret, where the maids heard her walking and sobbing at night; but it was with rage, and not with grief. She had not been much of a dissembler, until now her loneliness taught her to feign. She had never mingled in the society of women: her father, reprobate as he was, was a man of talent; his conversation was a thousand times more agreeable to her than the talk of such of her own sex as she now encount- ered. The pompous vanity of the old school- mistress, the foolish good humor of her sis- ter, the silly chat and scandal of the elder girls, and the frigid correctness of the gov- ernesses, equally annoyed her; and she had no soft, maternal heart, this unlucky girl, otherwise the prattle and talk of the young- er children, with whose care she was chiefly intrusted, might have soothed and interested her; but she lived among them two years, VANITY FAIR. and not one was sorry that she went away. The gentle, tender-hearted Amelia Sedley was the only person to whom she could at- tach herself in the least ; and who could help attaching herself to Amelia? The happiness—the superior advantages of the young women round about her, gave Rebecca inexpressible pangs of envy. ‘* What airs that girl gives herself, because she is an earl’s granddaughter,” she said of one. “‘How they cringe and bow to that Creole, because of her hundred thousand pounds! lama thousand times cleverer and more charming than that creature, for all her wealth. [| am as well bred as the ear!’s granddaughter, ‘for all her fine pedigree; and yet every one passes me by here. And yet, when I was at my father’s did not the men give up their gayest balls and parties in order to pass the evening with me?” She determined at any rate, to get free from the prison in which she found herself, and now began to act for herself, and for the first time to make con- nected plans for the future. She took advantage, therefore, of the means of study the place offered her; and as she was already a musician and a good linguist, she speedily went through the little course of study which was considered neces- sary for ladies in those days. Her music she practiced incessantly, and one day, when the girls were out, and she had remained at home, she was overheard to play a piece so well, that Minerva thought wisely, she could spare herself the expense of a master for the juniors, and intimated to Miss Sharp that she was to instruct them in music for the future. The girl refused; and for the first time, and to the astonishment of the majestic mistress of the school. ‘I am here to speak French with the children,” Rebecca said abruptly, ‘not to teach them music, and save money for you. Give me money, and I will teach them.” Minerva was obliged to yield, and, of course, disliked her from that day. ‘ For five-and-thirty years,’’ she said, and with great justice, ‘I never have seen the indi- vidual who has dared in my own house to question my authority. I have nourished a viper in my bosom.” «A viper—a fiddlestick,” said Miss Sharp to the old lady, almost fainting with aston- ishment. ‘* You took me beeause I was useful. There is no question of gratitude between us. I hate this place, and want to leave it. I will do nothing here but what I am obliged to do.” It was in vain that the old lady asked her if she was aware she was speaking to Miss Pinkerton? Rebecca laughed in her face, with a horrid sarcastic demoniacal laughter, ‘that almost sent the schoolmistress into fits. ‘‘Give mea sum of money,” said the gil, ‘‘and get rid of me—or, if you like better, COMMIE OOO) Sale