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 a 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.
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 might, perhaps, have told more: but five minutes after Miss Briggs’s arrival in Rebecca’s apartment, Miss Crawley actually made her appearance there—an unheard-of honour; her impatience had overcome her; she could not wait for the tardy operations of her ambassadress; so she came in person, and ordered Briggs out of the room. And expressing her approval of Rebecca’s conduct, she asked particulars of the interview, and the previous transactions which had brought about the astonishing offer of Sir Pitt.
Rebecca said she had long had some notion of the partiality with which Sir Pitt honoured her (for he was in the habit of making his feelings known in a very frank and unreserved manner), but, not to mention private reasons with which she would not for the present trouble Miss Crawley, Sir Pitt’s age, station, and habits were such as to render a marriage quite impossible; and could a woman with any feelings of self-respect and decency listen to proposals at such a moment, when the funeral of the lover’s deceased wife had not actually taken place?
“Nonsense, my dear, you would never have refused him had there not been some one else in the case,” Miss Crawley said, coming to her point at once. “Tell me the private reasons; what are the private reasons? There is some one; who is it that has touched your heart?”
Rebecca cast down her eyes and owned there was. “You have guessed right, dear lady,” she said, with a sweet simple faltering voice. “You wonder at one so poor and friendless having an attachment, don’t you? I have never heard that poverty was any safeguard against it. I wish it were.”
“My poor dear child,” cried Miss Crawley, who was always quite ready to be sentimental, “is our passion unrequited then? Are we pining in secret? Tell me all, and let me console you.”
“I wish you could, dear Madam,” Rebecca said in the same tearful tone. “Indeed, indeed, I need it.” And she laid her head upon Miss Crawley’s shoulder and wept there so naturally that the old lady, surprised into sympathy, embraced her with an almost maternal kindness, uttered many soothing protests of regard and affection for her, vowed that she loved her as a daughter, and would do everything in her power to serve her. “And now who is it, my dear? Is it that pretty Miss Sedley’s brother? You said something about an affair with him. I’ll ask him here, my dear. And you shall have him: indeed you shall.”
“Don’t ask me now,” Rebecca said. “You shall know all soon. Indeed you shall. Dear kind Miss Crawley—Dear friend, may I say so?”
“That you may, my child,” the old lady replied, kissing her.
“I can’t tell you now,” sobbed out Rebecca, “I am very miserable. But oh! love me always—promise you will love me always.” And in the midst of mutual tears—for
