Pickwick Abroad: A Companion to the Pickwick Papers — page 321: what you’re looking at

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72 Thus was George utterly routed. Not that Rebecca was in the right; but she had managed most successfully to put him in the wrong. And he now shamefully fled, feel- ing if he stayed another minute, that he would have been made to look foolish in the presence of Amelia. Though Rebecca had had the better of him, George was above the meanness of tale-bearing or revenge upon a lady—only he could not help cleverly confiding to Cap- tain Crawley, next day, some notions of his regarding Miss Rebecca—that she was a sharp one, a dangerous one, a desperate flirt, &c.; in all of which opinions Crawley agreed laughingly, and with every one of which Miss Rebecca was made acquainted before twen- ty-four hours were over. ‘They added to her original regard for Mr. Osborne. Her woman’s instinct had told her, that it was George who had interrupted the success of her first love-passage, and she esteemed him accordingly. ‘¢T only just warn you,” he said to Raw- don Crawley, with a knowing look—he had bought the horse, and lost some score of suineas after dinner, ‘I just warn you—lI know women, and counsel you to be on the look-out.” | “Thank you, my boy,” said Crawley, with a look of peculiar gratitude. ‘ You’re “wide awake, I see.” And George went off, thinking Crawley was quite right. He told Amelia of what he had done, and how he had counseled Rawdon Crawley—a devilish good, straightforward fellow—to be on his guard against that little sly, scheming Rebecca. ‘‘ Against whom ?” Amelia cried. ‘Your friend the governess. Don’t look so astonished.” . | “O George, what have you done ?” Ame- lia said. For her woman’s eyes, which love had made sharp-sighted, had in one instant discovered a secret which was invisible to Miss Crawley, to poor virgin Briggs, and, above all, to the stupid peepers of that young whiskered prig, Lieutenant Osborne. For as Rebecca was shawling her in an upper apartment, where these two friends had an opportunity for a little of that secret talking and conspiring which forms the de- light of female life, Amelia, coming up to Rebecca, and taking her two little hands in hers, said, ** Rebecca, I see it all.” Rebecca kissed her. And regarding this delightful secret, not one syllable more was said by either of the young women. But it was destined to come out before long. Some short period after the above events, and Miss Rebecca Sharp still remaining at her patroness’s house in Park Lane, one more hatchment might have been seen in Great Gaunt-street, figuring among the many VANITY FAIR. which usually ornament that dismal quarter It was over Sir Pitt Crawley’s house ; but it did not indicate the worthy baronet’s demise. It was a feminine hatchment, and indeed a, few years back had served as a funeral com pliment to Sir Pitt’s old mother, the late dowager Lady Crawley. Its period of ser- vice over, the hatchment had come down from the front of the house, and lived in re- tirement somewhere in the back premises of Sir Pitt’s mansion. It re-appeared now for poor Rose Dawson. Sir Pitt was a wid- ower again. ‘The arms quartered on the shield along with his own were not, to be sure, poor Rose’s. She had noarms. But the cherubs painted on the seutcheon an- swered as well for her as for Sir Pitt’s— mother, and Resurgam was written under the coat, flanked by the Crawley Dove and Serpent. Arms and Hatchments, Resur- gam. Here is an opportunity for moraliz- ing! Mr. Crawley had tended that otherwise friendless bedside. She went out of the world strengthened by such words and com- fort as he could give her. For many years this was the only kindness she ever knew; the only friendship that solaced in any way that feeble, lonely soul. Her heart was dead long before her body. She had sold it to become Sir Pitt Crawley’s wife. Moth- ers and daughters are making the same bar- gain every day in Vanity Fair. When the demise took place, her husband was in London attending to some of his in- numerable schemes, and busy with his end- less lawyers. He had found time, neverthe- less, to call often in Park Lane, and to dis- patch many notes to Rebecca, -entreating her, enjoining her, commanding her, to re- turn to her young pupils in the country, who were now utterly without companionship during their mother’s illness. But Miss Crawley would not hear of her departure; for though there was no lady of fashion in London who would desert her friends more complacently as soon as she was tired of their society, and though few tired of them sooner, yet as long as her engotiment lasted her attachment was prodigious, and she clung still with the greatest energy to Re- becca. The news of Lady Crawley’s death pro- voked no more grief or comment than: might have been expected in Miss Crawley’s fam- ily circle. ‘I suppose I must put off my party for the 3d,” Miss Crawley said; and added, after a pause, “I hope my brother will have the decency not to marry again.” | ‘* What a confounded rage Pitt will be in if he does,’? Rawdon remarked, with his usual regard for his elder brother. Rebecca said nothing. She seemed by far the gravest and most impressed of the family. She left the room before Rawdon went away that day; but they met by chance below, CORMIEDOO A «SAGO mn