Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray [free ebook reader for iphone TXT] 📗

The bald-headed man, taking his hands out of his breeches pockets, advanced on this summons, and throwing Miss Sharp’s trunk over his shoulder, carried it into the house.

“Take this basket and shawl, if you please, and open the door,” said Miss Sharp, and descended from the carriage in much indignation. “I shall write to Mr. Sedley and inform him of your conduct,” said she to the groom.

“Don’t,” replied that functionary. “I hope you’ve forgot nothink? Miss ’Melia’s gownds⁠—have you got them⁠—as the lady’s maid was to have ’ad? I hope they’ll fit you. Shut the door, Jim, you’ll get no good out of ’er,” continued John, pointing with his thumb towards Miss Sharp: “a bad lot, I tell you, a bad lot,” and so saying, Mr. Sedley’s groom drove away. The truth is, he was attached to the lady’s maid in question, and indignant that she should have been robbed of her perquisites.

On entering the dining-room, by the orders of the individual in gaiters, Rebecca found that apartment not more cheerful than such rooms usually are, when genteel families are out of town. The faithful chambers seem, as it were, to mourn the absence of their masters. The turkey carpet has rolled itself up, and retired sulkily under the sideboard: the pictures have hidden their faces behind old sheets of brown paper: the ceiling lamp is muffled up in a dismal sack of brown holland: the window-curtains have disappeared under all sorts of shabby envelopes: the marble bust of Sir Walpole Crawley is looking from its black corner at the bare boards and the oiled fire-irons, and the empty card-racks over the mantelpiece: the cellaret has lurked away behind the carpet: the chairs are turned up heads and tails along the walls: and in the dark corner opposite the statue, is an old-fashioned crabbed knife-box, locked and sitting on a dumb waiter.

Two kitchen chairs, and a round table, and an attenuated old poker and tongs were, however, gathered round the fireplace, as was a saucepan over a feeble sputtering fire. There was a bit of cheese and bread, and a tin candlestick on the table, and a little black porter in a pint-pot.

“Had your dinner, I suppose? It is not too warm for you? Like a drop of beer?”

“Where is Sir Pitt Crawley?” said Miss Sharp majestically.

“He, he! I’m Sir Pitt Crawley. Reklect you owe me a pint for bringing down your luggage. He, he! Ask Tinker if I aynt. Mrs. Tinker, Miss Sharp; Miss Governess, Mrs. Charwoman. Ho, ho!”

The lady addressed as Mrs. Tinker at this moment made her appearance with a pipe and a paper of tobacco, for which she had been despatched a minute before Miss Sharp’s arrival; and she handed the articles over to Sir Pitt, who had taken his seat by the fire.

“Where’s the farden?” said he. “I gave you three halfpence. Where’s the change, old Tinker?”

“There!” replied Mrs. Tinker, flinging down the coin; “it’s only baronets as cares about farthings.”

“A farthing a day is seven shillings a year,” answered the M.P.; “seven shillings a year is the interest of seven guineas. Take care of your farthings, old Tinker, and your guineas will come quite nat’ral.”

“You may be sure it’s Sir Pitt Crawley, young woman,” said Mrs. Tinker, surlily; “because he looks to his farthings. You’ll know him better afore long.”

“And like me none the worse, Miss Sharp,” said the old gentleman, with an air almost of politeness. “I must be just before I’m generous.”

“He never gave away a farthing in his life,” growled Tinker.

“Never, and never will: it’s against my principle. Go and get another chair from the kitchen, Tinker, if you want to sit down; and then we’ll have a bit of supper.”

Presently the baronet plunged a fork into the saucepan on the fire, and withdrew from the pot a piece of tripe and an onion, which he divided into pretty equal portions, and of which he partook with Mrs. Tinker. “You see, Miss Sharp, when I’m not here Tinker’s on board wages: when I’m in town she dines with the family. Haw! haw! I’m glad Miss Sharp’s not hungry, ain’t you, Tink?” And they fell to upon their frugal supper.

After supper Sir Pitt Crawley began to smoke his pipe; and when it became quite dark, he lighted the rushlight in the tin candlestick, and producing from an interminable pocket a huge mass of papers, began reading them, and putting them in order.

“I’m here on law business, my dear, and that’s how it happens that I shall have the pleasure of such a pretty travelling companion tomorrow.”

“He’s always at law business,” said Mrs. Tinker, taking up the pot of porter.

“Drink and drink about,” said the Baronet. “Yes; my dear, Tinker is quite right: I’ve lost and won more lawsuits than any man in England. Look here at Crawley, Bart. v. Snaffle. I’ll throw him over, or my name’s not Pitt Crawley. Podder and another versus Crawley, Bart. Overseers of Snaily parish against Crawley, Bart. They can’t prove it’s common: I’ll defy ’em; the land’s mine. It no more belongs to the parish than it does to you or Tinker here. I’ll beat ’em, if it cost me a thousand guineas. Look over the papers; you may if you like, my dear. Do you write a good hand? I’ll make you useful when we’re at Queen’s Crawley, depend on it, Miss Sharp. Now the dowager’s dead I want someone.”

“She was as bad as he,” said Tinker. “She took the law of every one of her tradesmen; and turned away forty-eight footmen in four year.”

“She was close⁠—very close,” said the Baronet, simply; “but she was a valyble woman to me, and saved me a steward.”⁠—And in this confidential strain, and much to the amusement of the newcomer, the conversation continued for a considerable time. Whatever Sir Pitt Crawley’s qualities might be, good or bad, he did not make the least disguise of them. He talked of himself incessantly, sometimes in the coarsest and vulgarest