Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray (best summer books .txt) 📗

Crawley, coming forward and taking my hand. “Miss Sharp.”

“O!” said Mr. Crawley, and pushed his head once forward and began again to read a great pamphlet with which he was busy.

“I hope you will be kind to my girls,” said Lady Crawley, with her pink eyes always full of tears.

“Law, Ma, of course she will,” said the eldest: and I saw at a glance that I need not be afraid of that woman.

“My lady is served,” says the butler in black, in an immense white shirt-frill, that looked as if it had been one of the Queen Elizabeth’s ruffs depicted in the hall; and so, taking Mr. Crawley’s arm, she led the way to the dining-room, whither I followed with my little pupils in each hand.

Sir Pitt was already in the room with a silver jug. He had just been to the cellar, and was in full dress too; that is, he had taken his gaiters off, and showed his little dumpy legs in black worsted stockings. The sideboard was covered with glistening old plate⁠—old cups, both gold and silver; old salvers and cruet-stands, like Rundell and Bridge’s shop. Everything on the table was in silver too, and two footmen, with red hair and canary-coloured liveries, stood on either side of the sideboard.

Mr. Crawley said a long grace, and Sir Pitt said amen, and the great silver dish-covers were removed.

“What have we for dinner, Betsy?” said the Baronet.

“Mutton broth, I believe, Sir Pitt,” answered Lady Crawley.

“Mouton aux navets,” added the butler gravely (pronounce, if you please, “moutongonavvy”); “and the soup is potage de mouton à l’Ecossaise. The side-dishes contain pommes de terre au naturel, and choufleur à l’eau.”

“Mutton’s mutton,” said the Baronet, “and a devilish good thing. What ship was it, Horrocks, and when did you kill?”

“One of the black-faced Scotch, Sir Pitt: we killed on Thursday.”

“Who took any?”

“Steel, of Mudbury, took the saddle and two legs, Sir Pitt; but he says the last was too young and confounded woolly, Sir Pitt.”

“Will you take some potage, Miss ah⁠—Miss Blunt?” said Mr. Crawley.

“Capital Scotch broth, my dear,” said Sir Pitt, “though they call it by a French name.”

“I believe it is the custom, sir, in decent society,” said Mr. Crawley, haughtily, “to call the dish as I have called it”; and it was served to us on silver soup plates by the footmen in the canary coats, with the mouton aux navets. Then “ale and water” were brought, and served to us young ladies in wineglasses. I am not a judge of ale, but I can say with a clear conscience I prefer water.

While we were enjoying our repast, Sir Pitt took occasion to ask what had become of the shoulders of the mutton.

“I believe they were eaten in the servants’ hall,” said my lady, humbly.

“They was, my lady,” said Horrocks, “and precious little else we get there neither.”

Sir Pitt burst into a horselaugh, and continued his conversation with Mr. Horrocks. “That there little black pig of the Kent sow’s breed must be uncommon fat now.”

“It’s not quite busting, Sir Pitt,” said the butler with the gravest air, at which Sir Pitt, and with him the young ladies, this time, began to laugh violently.

“Miss Crawley, Miss Rose Crawley,” said Mr. Crawley, “your laughter strikes me as being exceedingly out of place.”

“Never mind, my lord,” said the Baronet, “we’ll try the porker on Saturday. Kill ’un on Saturday morning, John Horrocks. Miss Sharp adores pork, don’t you, Miss Sharp?”

And I think this is all the conversation that I remember at dinner. When the repast was concluded a jug of hot water was placed before Sir Pitt, with a case-bottle containing, I believe, rum. Mr. Horrocks served myself and my pupils with three little glasses of wine, and a bumper was poured out for my lady. When we retired, she took from her work-drawer an enormous interminable piece of knitting; the young ladies began to play at cribbage with a dirty pack of cards. We had but one candle lighted, but it was in a magnificent old silver candlestick, and after a very few questions from my lady, I had my choice of amusement between a volume of sermons, and a pamphlet on the corn-laws, which Mr. Crawley had been reading before dinner.

So we sat for an hour until steps were heard.

“Put away the cards, girls,” cried my lady, in a great tremor; “put down Mr. Crawley’s books, Miss Sharp”; and these orders had been scarcely obeyed, when Mr. Crawley entered the room.

“We will resume yesterday’s discourse, young ladies,” said he, “and you shall each read a page by turns; so that Miss a⁠—Miss Short may have an opportunity of hearing you”; and the poor girls began to spell a long dismal sermon delivered at Bethesda Chapel, Liverpool, on behalf of the mission for the Chickasaw Indians. Was it not a charming evening?

At ten the servants were told to call Sir Pitt and the household to prayers. Sir Pitt came in first, very much flushed, and rather unsteady in his gait; and after him the butler, the canaries, Mr. Crawley’s man, three other men, smelling very much of the stable, and four women, one of whom, I remarked, was very much overdressed, and who flung me a look of great scorn as she plumped down on her knees.

After Mr. Crawley had done haranguing and expounding, we received our candles, and then we went to bed; and then I was disturbed in my writing, as I have described to my dearest sweetest Amelia.

Good night. A thousand, thousand, thousand kisses!

Saturday.⁠—This morning, at five, I heard the shrieking of the little black pig. Rose and Violet introduced me to it yesterday; and to the stables, and to the kennel, and to the gardener, who was picking fruit to send to market, and from whom they begged hard a bunch of hothouse grapes; but he said that Sir Pitt had numbered every “Man Jack” of them, and it would be as much as his place was worth to give any