If the mere chance of becoming a baronet's daughter can procure a lady such homage in the world, surely, surely we may respect the agonies of a young woman who has lost the opportunity of becoming a baronet's wife.Who would have dreamed of Lady Crawley dying so soon? She was one of those sickly women that might have lasted these ten years--Rebecca thought to herself, in all the woes of repentance--and I might have been my lady! I might have led that old man whither Iwould.I might have thanked Mrs.Bute for her patronage, and Mr.Pitt for his insufferable condescension.Iwould have had the town-house newly furnished and decorated.I would have had the handsomest carriage in London, and a box at the opera; and I would have been presented next season.All this might have been;and now--now all was doubt and mystery.
But Rebecca was a young lady of too much resolution and energy of character to permit herself much useless and unseemly sorrow for the irrevocable past; so, having devoted only the proper portion of regret to it, she wisely turned her whole attention towards the future, which was now vastly more important to her.And she surveyed her position, and its hopes, doubts, and chances.
In the first place, she was MARRIED--that was a great fact.Sir Pitt knew it.She was not so much surprised into the avowal, as induced to make it by a sudden calculation.
It must have come some day: and why not now as at a later period? He who would have married her himself must at least be silent with regard to her marriage.
How Miss Crawley would bear the news--was the great question.Misgivings Rebecca had; but she remembered all Miss Crawley had said; the old lady's avowed contempt for birth; her daring liberal opinions; her general romantic propensities; her almost doting attachment to her nephew, and her repeatedly expressed fondness for Rebecca herself.She is so fond of him, Rebecca thought, that she will forgive him anything: she is so used to me that I don't think she could be comfortable without me: when the eclaircissement comes there will be a scene, and hysterics, and a great quarrel, and then a great reconciliation.At all events, what use was there in delaying? the die was thrown, and now or to-morrow the issue must be the same.And so, resolved that Miss Crawley should have the news, the young person debated in her mind as to the best means of conveying it to her; and whether she should face the storm that must come, or fly and avoid it until its first fury was blown over.In this state of meditation she wrote the following letter:
Dearest Friend,The great crisis which we have debated about so often is COME.Half of my secret is known, and I have thought and thought, until I am quite sure that now is the time to reveal THE WHOLE OF THE MYSTERY.Sir Pitt came to me this morning, and made--what do you think?--A DECLARATION IN FORM.Think of that! Poor little me.I might have been Lady Crawley.How pleased Mrs.Bute would have been: and ma tante if I had taken precedence of her! I might have been somebody's mamma, instead of--O, I tremble, I tremble, when Ithink how soon we must tell all!
Sir Pitt knows I am married, and not knowing to whom, is not very much displeased as yet.Ma tante is ACTUALLY ANGRY that I should have refused him.But she is all kindness and graciousness.She condescends to say I would have made him a good wife; and vows that she will be a mother to your little Rebecca.She will be shaken when she first hears the news.But need we fear anything beyond a momentary anger? I think not: I AMSURE not.She dotes upon you so (you naughty, good-for-nothing man), that she would pardon you ANYTHING:
and, indeed, I believe, the next place in her heart is mine: and that she would be miserable without me.
Dearest! something TELLS ME we shall conquer.You shall leave that odious regiment: quit gaming, racing, and BEA GOOD BOY; and we shall all live in Park Lane, and ma tante shall leave us all her money.
I shall try and walk to-morrow at 3 in the usual place.
If Miss B.accompanies me, you must come to dinner, and bring an answer, and put it in the third volume of Porteus's Sermons.But, at all events, come to your ownR.
To Miss Eliza Styles, At Mr.Barnet's, Saddler, Knightsbridge.
And I trust there is no reader of this little story who has not discernment enough to perceive that the Miss Eliza Styles (an old schoolfellow, Rebecca said, with whom she had resumed an active correspondence of late, and who used to fetch these letters from the saddler's), wore brass spurs, and large curling mustachios, and was indeed no other than Captain Rawdon Crawley.