In Which Becky Revisits the Halls of Her AncestorsSo the mourning being ready, and Sir Pitt Crawley warned of their arrival, Colonel Crawley and his wife took a couple of places in the same old High-flyer coach by which Rebecca had travelled in the defunct Baronet's company, on her first journey into the world some nine years before.How well she remembered the Inn Yard, and the ostler to whom she refused money, and the insinuating Cambridge lad who wrapped her in his coat on the journey! Rawdon took his place outside, and would have liked to drive, but his grief forbade him.He sat by the coachman and talked about horses and the road the whole way; and who kept the inns, and who horsed the coach by which he had travelled so many a time, when he and Pitt were boys going to Eton.At Mudbury a carriage and a pair of horses received them, with a coachman in black."It's the old drag, Rawdon," Rebecca said as they got in."The worms have eaten the cloth a good deal--there's the stain which Sir Pitt--ha! I see Dawson the Ironmonger has his shutters up--which Sir Pitt made such a noise about.It was a bottle of cherry brandy he broke which we went to fetch for your aunt from Southampton.How time flies, to be sure! That can't be Polly Talboys, that bouncing girl standing by her mother at the cottage there.I remember her a mangy little urchin picking weeds in the garden.""Fine gal," said Rawdon, returning the salute which the cottage gave him, by two fingers applied to his crape hatband.Becky bowed and saluted, and recognized people here and there graciously.These recognitions were inexpressibly pleasant to her.It seemed as if she was not an imposter any more, and was coming to the home of her ancestors.Rawdon was rather abashed and cast down, on the other hand.What recollections of boyhood and innocence might have been flitting across his brain?
What pangs of dim remorse and doubt and shame?
"Your sisters must be young women now," Rebecca said, thinking of those girls for the first time perhaps since she had left them.
"Don't know, I'm shaw," replied the Colonel."Hullo!
here's old Mother Lock.How-dy-do, Mrs.Lock? Remember me, don't you? Master Rawdon, hey? Dammy how those old women last; she was a hundred when I was a boy."They were going through the lodge-gates kept by old Mrs.Lock, whose hand Rebecca insisted upon shaking, as she flung open the creaking old iron gate, and the carriage passed between the two moss-grown pillars surmounted by the dove and serpent.
"The governor has cut into the timber," Rawdon said, looking about, and then was silent--so was Becky.Both of them were rather agitated, and thinking of old times.
He about Eton, and his mother, whom he remembered, a frigid demure woman, and a sister who died, of whom he had been passionately fond; and how he used to thrash Pitt; and about little Rawdy at home.And Rebecca thought about her own youth and the dark secrets of those early tainted days; and of her entrance into life by yonder gates; and of Miss Pinkerton, and Joe, and Amelia.
The gravel walk and terrace had been scraped quite clean.A grand painted hatchment was already over the great entrance, and two very solemn and tall personages in black flung open each a leaf of the door as the carriage pulled up at the familiar steps.Rawdon turned red, and Becky somewhat pale, as they passed through the old hall, arm in arm.She pinched her husband's arm as they entered the oak parlour, where Sir Pitt and his wife were ready to receive them.Sir Pitt in black, Lady Jane in black, and my Lady Southdown with a large black head-piece of bugles and feathers, which waved on her Ladyship's head like an undertaker's tray.
Sir Pitt had judged correctly, that she would not quit the premises.She contented herself by preserving a solemn and stony silence, when in company of Pitt and his rebellious wife, and by frightening the children in the nursery by the ghastly gloom of her demeanour.
Only a very faint bending of the head-dress and plumes welcomed Rawdon and his wife, as those prodigals returned to their family.
To say the truth, they were not affected very much one way or other by this coolness.Her Ladyship was a person only of secondary consideration in their minds just then--they were intent upon the reception which the reigning brother and sister would afford them.
Pitt, with rather a heightened colour, went up and shook his brother by the hand, and saluted Rebecca with a hand-shake and a very low bow.But Lady Jane took both the hands of her sister-in-law and kissed her affectionately.
The embrace somehow brought tears into the eyes of the little adventuress--which ornaments, as we know, she wore very seldom.The artless mark of kindness and confidence touched and pleased her; and Rawdon, encouraged by this demonstration on his sister's part, twirled up his mustachios and took leave to salute Lady Jane with a kiss, which caused her Ladyship to blush exceedingly.
"Dev'lish nice little woman, Lady Jane," was his verdict, when he and his wife were together again."Pitt's got fat, too, and is doing the thing handsomely." "He can afford it," said Rebecca and agreed in her husband's farther opinion "that the mother-in-law was a tremendous old Guy--and that the sisters were rather well-looking young women."They, too, had been summoned from school to attend the funeral ceremonies.It seemed Sir Pitt Crawley, for the dignity of the house and family, had thought right to have about the place as many persons in black as could possibly be assembled.All the men and maids of the house, the old women of the Alms House, whom the elder Sir Pitt had cheated out of a great portion of their due, the parish clerk's family, and the special retainers of both Hall and Rectory were habited in sable; added to these, the undertaker's men, at least a score, with crapes and hatbands, and who made goodly show when the great burying show took place--but these are mute personages in our drama; and having nothing to do or say, need occupy a very little space here.