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a hideous attempt at consolation. “Never mind, Becky, I’LL take care of ‘ee.”
“Oh, sir! it would be the pride of my life to go back to Queen’s Crawley, and take care of the children, and of you as formerly, when you said you were pleased with the services of your little Rebecca. When I think of what you have just offered me, my heart fills with gratitude indeed it does. I can’t be your wife, sir; let me — let me be your daughter.” Saying which, Rebecca went down on HER knees in a most tragical way, and, taking Sir Pitt’s horny black hand between her own two (which were very pretty and white, and as soft as satin), looked up in his face with an expression of exquisite pathos and confidence, when — when the door opened, and Miss Crawley sailed in.
Mrs. Firkin and Miss Briggs, who happened by chance to be at the parlour door soon after the Baronet and Rebecca entered the apartment, had also seen accidentally, through the keyhole, the old gentleman prostrate before the governess, and had heard the generous proposal which he made her. It was scarcely out of his mouth when Mrs. Firkin and Miss Briggs had streamed up the stairs, had rushed into the drawing-room where Miss Crawley was reading the French novel, and had given that old lady the astounding intelligence that Sir Pitt was on his knees, proposing to Miss Sharp. And if you calculate the time for the above dialogue to take place — the time for Briggs and Firkin to fly to the drawing-room — the time for Miss Crawley to be astonished, and to drop her volume of Pigault le Brun — and the time for her to come downstairs — you will see how exactly accurate this history is, and how Miss Crawley must have appeared at the very instant when Rebecca had assumed the attitude of humility.
“It is the lady on the ground, and not the gentleman,” Miss Crawley said, with a look and voice of great scorn. “They told me that YOU were on your knees, Sir Pitt: do kneel once more, and let me see this pretty couple!”
“I have thanked Sir Pitt Crawley, Ma’am,” Rebecca said, rising, “and have told him that — that I never can become Lady Crawley.”
“Refused him!” Miss Crawley said, more bewildered than ever. Briggs and Firkin at the door opened the eyes of astonishment and the lips of wonder.
“Yes — refused,” Rebecca continued, with a sad, tearful voice.
“And am I to credit my ears that you absolutely proposed to her, Sir Pitt?” the old lady asked.
“Ees,” said the Baronet, “I did.”
“And she refused you as she says?”
“Ees,” Sir Pitt said, his features on a broad grin.
“It does not seem to break your heart at any rate,” Miss Crawley remarked.
“Nawt a bit,” answered Sir Pitt, with a coolness and good-humour which set Miss Crawley almost mad with bewilderment. That an old gentleman of station should fall on his knees to a penniless governess, and burst out laughing because she refused to marry him — that a penniless governess should refuse a Baronet with four thousand a year — these were mysteries which Miss Crawley could never comprehend. It surpassed any complications of intrigue in her favourite Pigault le Brun.
“I’m glad you think it good sport, brother,” she continued, groping wildly through this amazement.
“Vamous,” said Sir Pitt. “Who’d ha’ thought it! what a sly little devil! what a little fox it waws!” he muttered to himself, chuckling with pleasure.
“Who’d have thought what?” cries Miss Crawley, stamping with her foot. “Pray, Miss Sharp, are you waiting for the Prince Regent’s divorce, that you don’t think our family good enough for you?”
“My attitude,” Rebecca said, “when you came in, ma’am, did not look as if I despised such an honour as this good — this noble man has deigned to offer me. Do you think I have no heart? Have you all loved me, and been so kind to the poor orphan — deserted — girl, and am I to feel nothing? O my friends! O my benefactors! may not my love, my life, my duty, try to repay the confidence you have shown me? Do you grudge me even gratitude, Miss Crawley? It is too much — my heart is too full”; and she sank down in a chair so pathetically, that most of the audience present were perfectly melted with her sadness.
“Whether you marry me or not, you’re a good little girl, Becky, and I’m your vriend, mind,” said Sir Pitt, and putting on his crape-bound hat, he walked away — greatly to Rebecca’s relief; for it was evident that her secret was unrevealed to Miss Crawley, and she had the advantage of a brief reprieve.
Putting her handkerchief to her eyes, and nodding away honest Briggs, who would have followed her upstairs, she went up to her apartment; while Briggs and Miss Crawley, in a high state of excitement, remained to discuss the strange event, and Firkin, not less moved, dived down into the kitchen regions, and talked of it with all the male and female company there. And so impressed was Mrs. Firkin with the news, that she thought proper to write off by that very night’s post, “with her humble duty to Mrs. Bute Crawley and the family at the Rectory, and Sir Pitt has been and proposed for to marry Miss Sharp, wherein she has refused him, to the wonder of all.”
The two ladies in the dining-room (where worthy Miss Briggs was delighted to be admitted once more to confidential conversation with her patroness) wondered to their hearts’ content at Sir Pitt’s offer, and Rebecca’s refusal; Briggs very acutely suggesting that there must have been some obstacle in the shape of a previous attachment, otherwise no young woman in her senses would ever have refused so advantageous a proposal.
“You would have accepted it yourself, wouldn’t you, Briggs?” Miss Crawley said, kindly.
“Would it not be a privilege to be Miss Crawley’s sister?” Briggs replied, with meek evasion.
“Well, Becky would have made a good Lady Crawley, after all,” Miss Crawley remarked (who was mollified by the girl’s refusal, and very liberal and generous now there was no call for her sacrifices). “She has brains in plenty (much more wit in her little finger than you have, my poor dear Briggs, in all your head). Her manners are excellent, now I have formed her. She is a Montmorency, Briggs, and blood is something, though I despise it for my part; and she would have held her own amongst those pompous stupid Hampshire people much better than that unfortunate ironmonger’s daughter.”
Briggs coincided as usual, and the “previous attachment” was then discussed in conjectures. “You poor friendless creatures are always having some foolish tendre,” Miss Crawley said. “You yourself, you know, were in love with a writing-master (don’t cry, Briggs — you’re always crying, and it won’t bring him to life again), and I suppose this unfortunate Becky has been silly and sentimental too — some apothecary, or house-steward, or painter, or young curate, or something of that sort.”
“Poor thing! poor thing!” says Briggs (who was thinking of twenty-four years back, and that hectic young writing-master whose lock of yellow hair, and whose letters, beautiful in their illegibility, she cherished in her old desk upstairs). “Poor thing, poor thing!” says Briggs. Once more she was a fresh-cheeked lass of eighteen; she was at evening church, and the hectic writing-master and she were quavering out of the same psalm-book.
“After such conduct on Rebecca’s part,” Miss Crawley said enthusiastically, “our family should do something. Find out who is the objet, Briggs. I’ll set him up in a shop; or order my portrait of him, you know; or speak to my cousin, the Bishop and I’ll doter Becky, and we’ll have a wedding, Briggs, and you shall make the breakfast, and be a bridesmaid.”
Briggs declared that it would be delightful, and vowed that her dear Miss Crawley was always kind and generous, and went up to Rebecca’s bedroom to console her and prattle about the offer, and the refusal, and the cause thereof; and to hint at the generous intentions of Miss Crawley, and to find out who was the gentleman that had the mastery of Miss Sharp’s heart.
Rebecca was very kind, very affectionate and affected — responded to Briggs’s offer of tenderness with grateful fervour — owned there was a secret attachment — a delicious mystery — what a pity Miss Briggs had not remained half a minute longer at the keyhole! Rebecca