eBook - ePub
Vanity Fair
William Makepeace Thackeray
This is a test
Share book
- 803 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub
Vanity Fair
William Makepeace Thackeray
Book details
Book preview
Table of contents
Citations
About This Book
Vanity Fair: A Novel without a Hero is a novel by William Makepeace Thackeray, first published in 1847-48, satirizing society in early 19th-century Britain. The book's title comes from John Bunyan's allegorical story The Pilgrim's Progress, first published in 1678 and still widely read at the time of Thackeray's novel. Vanity fair refers to a stop along the pilgrim's progress: a never-ending fair held in a town called Vanity, which is meant to represent man's sinful attachment to worldly things. The novel is now considered a classic, and has inspired several film adaptations.
Frequently asked questions
How do I cancel my subscription?
Can/how do I download books?
At the moment all of our mobile-responsive ePub books are available to download via the app. Most of our PDFs are also available to download and we're working on making the final remaining ones downloadable now. Learn more here.
What is the difference between the pricing plans?
Both plans give you full access to the library and all of Perlegoâs features. The only differences are the price and subscription period: With the annual plan youâll save around 30% compared to 12 months on the monthly plan.
What is Perlego?
We are an online textbook subscription service, where you can get access to an entire online library for less than the price of a single book per month. With over 1 million books across 1000+ topics, weâve got you covered! Learn more here.
Do you support text-to-speech?
Look out for the read-aloud symbol on your next book to see if you can listen to it. The read-aloud tool reads text aloud for you, highlighting the text as it is being read. You can pause it, speed it up and slow it down. Learn more here.
Is Vanity Fair an online PDF/ePUB?
Yes, you can access Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Letteratura & Classici. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
Information
Topic
LetteraturaSubtopic
ClassiciMiss Crawley at Home
About this time there drove up to an exceedingly snug and well-appointed house in Park Lane, a travelling chariot with a lozenge on the panels, a discontented female in a green veil and crimped curls on the rumble, and a large and confidential man on the box. It was the equipage of our friend Miss Crawley, returning from Hants. The carriage windows were shut; the fat spaniel, whose head and tongue ordinarily lolled out of one of them, reposed on the lap of the discontented female. When the vehicle stopped, a large round bundle of shawls was taken out of the carriage by the aid of various domestics and a young lady who accompanied the heap of cloaks. That bundle contained Miss Crawley, who was conveyed upstairs forthwith, and put into a bed and chamber warmed properly as for the reception of an invalid. Messengers went off for her physician and medical man. They came, consulted, prescribed, vanished. The young companion of Miss Crawley, at the conclusion of their interview, came in to receive their instructions, and administered those antiphlogistic medicines which the eminent men ordered.
Captain Crawley of the Life Guards rode up from Knightsbridge Barracks the next day; his black charger pawed the straw before his invalid auntâs door. He was most affectionate in his inquiries regarding that amiable relative. There seemed to be much source of apprehension. He found Miss Crawleyâs maid (the discontented female) unusually sulky and despondent; he found Miss Briggs, her dame de compagnie, in tears alone in the drawing-room. She had hastened home, hearing of her beloved friendâs illness. She wished to fly to her couch, that couch which she, Briggs, had so often smoothed in the hour of sickness. She was denied admission to Miss Crawleyâs apartment. A stranger was administering her medicinesâa stranger from the countryâan odious Miss ... âtears choked the utterance of the dame de compagnie, and she buried her crushed affections and her poor old red nose in her pocket handkerchief.
Rawdon Crawley sent up his name by the sulky femme de chambre, and Miss Crawleyâs new companion, coming tripping down from the sick-room, put a little hand into his as he stepped forward eagerly to meet her, gave a glance of great scorn at the bewildered Briggs, and beckoning the young Guardsman out of the back drawing-room, led him downstairs into that now desolate dining-parlour, where so many a good dinner had been celebrated.
Here these two talked for ten minutes, discussing, no doubt, the symptoms of the old invalid above stairs; at the end of which period the parlour bell was rung briskly, and answered on that instant by Mr. Bowls, Miss Crawleyâs large confidential butler (who, indeed, happened to be at the keyhole during the most part of the interview); and the Captain coming out, curling his mustachios, mounted the black charger pawing among the straw, to the admiration of the little blackguard boys collected in the street. He looked in at the dining-room window, managing his horse, which curvetted and capered beautifullyâfor one instant the young person might be seen at the window, when her figure vanished, and, doubtless, she went upstairs again to resume the affecting duties of benevolence.
Who could this young woman be, I wonder? That evening a little dinner for two persons was laid in the dining-roomâwhen Mrs. Firkin, the ladyâs maid, pushed into her mistressâs apartment, and bustled about there during the vacancy occasioned by the departure of the new nurseâand the latter and Miss Briggs sat down to the neat little meal.
Briggs was so much choked by emotion that she could hardly take a morsel of meat. The young person carved a fowl with the utmost delicacy, and asked so distinctly for egg-sauce, that poor Briggs, before whom that delicious condiment was placed, started, made a great clattering with the ladle, and once more fell back in the most gushing hysterical state.
âHad you not better give Miss Briggs a glass of wine?â said the person to Mr. Bowls, the large confidential man. He did so. Briggs seized it mechanically, gasped it down convulsively, moaned a little, and began to play with the chicken on her plate.
âI think we shall be able to help each other,â said the person with great suavity: âand shall have no need of Mr. Bowlsâs kind services. Mr. Bowls, if you please, we will ring when we want you.â He went downstairs, where, by the way, he vented the most horrid curses upon the unoffending footman, his subordinate.
âIt is a pity you take on so, Miss Briggs,â the young lady said, with a cool, slightly sarcastic, air.
âMy dearest friend is so ill, and wo-o-onât see me,â gurgled out Briggs in an agony of renewed grief.
âSheâs not very ill any more. Console yourself, dear Miss Briggs. She has only overeaten herselfâthat is all. She is greatly better. She will soon be quite restored again. She is weak from being cupped and from medical treatment, but she will rally immediately. Pray console yourself, and take a little more wine.â
âBut why, why wonât she see me again?â Miss Briggs bleated out. âOh, Matilda, Matilda, after three-and-twenty yearsâ tenderness! is this the return to your poor, poor Arabella?â
âDonât cry too much, poor Arabella,â the other said (with ever so little of a grin); âshe only wonât see you, because she says you donât nurse her as well as I do. Itâs no pleasure to me to sit up all night. I wish you might do it instead.â
âHave I not tended that dear couch for years?â Arabella said, âand nowââ
âNow she prefers somebody else. Well, sick people have these fancies, and must be humoured. When sheâs well I shall go.â
âNever, never,â Arabella exclaimed, madly inhaling her salts-bottle.
âNever be well or never go, Miss Briggs?â the other said, with the same provoking good-nature. âPoohâshe will be well in a fortnight, when I shall go back to my little pupils at Queenâs Crawley, and to their mother, who is a great deal more sick than our friend. You need not be jealous about me, my dear Miss Briggs. I am a poor little girl without any friends, or any harm in me. I donât want to supplant you in Miss Crawleyâs good graces. She will forget me a week after I am gone: and her affection for you has been the work of years. Give me a little wine if you please, my dear Miss Briggs, and let us be friends. Iâm sure I want friends.â
The placable and soft-hearted Briggs speechlessly pushed out her hand at this appeal; but she felt the desertion most keenly for all that, and bitterly, bitterly moaned the fickleness of her Matilda. At the end of half an hour, the meal over, Miss Rebecca Sharp (for such, astonishing to state, is the name of her who has been described ingeniously as âthe personâ hitherto), went upstairs again to her patientâs rooms, from which, with the most engaging politeness, she eliminated poor Firkin. âThank you, Mrs. Firkin, that will quite do; how nicely you make it! I will ring when anything is wanted.â âThank youâ; and Firkin came downstairs in a tempest of jealousy, only the more dangerous because she was forced to confine it in her own bosom.
Could it be the tempest which, as she passed the landing of the first floor, blew open the drawing-room door? No; it was stealthily opened by the hand of Briggs. Briggs had been on the watch. Briggs too well heard the creaking Firkin descend the stairs, and the clink of the spoon and gruel-basin the neglected female carried.
âWell, Firkin?â says she, as the other entered the apartment. âWell, Jane?â
âWuss and wuss, Miss B.,â Firkin said, wagging her head.
âIs she not better then?â
âShe never spoke but once, and I asked her if she felt a little more easy, and she told me to hold my stupid tongue. Oh, Miss B., I never thought to have seen this day!â And the water-works again began to play.
âWhat sort of a person is this Miss Sharp, Firkin? I little thought, while enjoying my Christmas revels in the elegant home of my firm friends, the Reverend Lionel Delamere and his amiable lady, to find a stranger had taken my place in the affections of my dearest, my still dearest Matilda!â Miss Briggs, it will be seen by her language, was of a literary and sentimental turn, and had once published a volume of poemsââTrills of the Nightingaleââby subscription.
âMiss B., they are all infatyated about that young woman,â Firkin replied. âSir Pitt wouldnât have let her go, but he darednât refuse Miss Crawley anything. Mrs. Bute at the Rectory jist as badânever happy out of her sight. The Capting quite wild about her. Mr. Crawley mortial jealous. Since Miss C. was took ill, she wonât have nobody near her but Miss Sharp, I canât tell for where nor for why; and I think somethink has bewidged everybody.â
Rebecca passed that night in constant watching upon Miss Crawley; the next night the old lady slept so comfortably, that Rebecca had time for several hoursâ comfortable repose herself on the sofa, at the foot of her patronessâs bed; very soon, Miss Crawley was so well that she sat up and laughed heartily at a perfect imitation of Miss Briggs and her grief, which Rebecca described to her. Briggsâ weeping snuffle, and her manner of using the handkerchief, were so completely rendered that Miss Crawley became quite cheerful, to the admiration of the doctors when they visited her, who usually found this worthy woman of the world, when the least sickness attacked her, under the most abject depression and terror of death.
Captain Crawley came every day, and received bulletins from Miss Rebecca respecting his auntâs health. This improved so rapidly, that poor Briggs was allowed to see her patroness; and persons with tender hearts may imagine the smothered emotions of that sentimental female, and the affecting nature of the interview.
Miss Crawley liked to have Briggs in a good deal soon. Rebecca used to mimic her to her face with the most admirable gravity, thereby rendering the imitation doubly piquant to her worthy patroness.
The causes which had led to the deplorable illness of Miss Crawley, and her departure from her brotherâs house in the country, were of such an unromantic nature that they are hardly fit to be explained in this genteel and sentimental novel. For how is it possible to hint of a delicate female, living in good society, that she ate and drank too much, and that a hot supper of lobsters profusely enjoyed at the Rectory was the reason of an indisposition which Miss Crawley herself persisted was solely attributable to the dampness of the weather? The attack was so sharp that Matildaâas his Reverence expressed itâwas very nearly âoff the hooksâ; all the family were in a fever of expectation regarding the will, and Rawdon Crawley was making sure of at least forty thousand pounds before the commencement of the London season. Mr. Crawley sent over a choice parcel of tracts, to prepare her for the change from Vanity Fair and Park Lane for another world; but a good doctor from Southampton being called in in time, vanquished the lobster which was so nearly fatal to her, and gave her sufficient strength to enable her to return to London. The Baronet did not disguise his exceeding mortification at the turn which affairs took.
While everybody was attending on Miss Crawley, and messengers every hour from the Rectory were carrying news of her health to the affectionate folks there, there was a lady in another part of the house, being exceedingly ill, of whom no one took any notice at all; and this was the lady of Crawley herself. The good doctor shook his head after seeing her; to which visit Sir Pitt consented, as it could be paid without a fee; and she was left fading away in her lonely chamber, with no more heed paid to her than to a weed in the park.
The young ladies, too, lost much of the inestimable benefit of their governessâs instruction, So affectionate a nurse was Miss Sharp, that Miss Crawley would take her medicines from no other hand. Firkin had been deposed long before her mistressâs departure from the country. That faithful attendant found a gloomy consolation on returning to London, in seeing Miss Briggs suffer the same pangs of jealousy and undergo the same faithless treatment to which she herself had been subject.
Captain Rawdon got an extension of leave on his auntâs illness, and remained dutifully at home. He was always in her antechamber. (She lay sick in the state bedroom, into which you entered by the little blue saloon.) His father was always meeting him there; or if he came down the corridor ever so quietly, his fatherâs door was sure to open, and the hyena face of the old gentleman to glare out. What was it set one to watch the other so? A generous rivalry, no doubt, as to which should be most attentive to the dear sufferer in the state bedroom. Rebecca used to come out and comfort both of them; or one or the other of them rather. Both of these worthy gentlemen were most anxious to have news of the invalid from her little confidential messenger.
At dinnerâto which meal she descended for half an hourâshe kept the peace between them: after which she disappeared for the night; when Rawdon would ride over to the depot of the 150th at Mudbury, leaving his papa to the society of Mr. Horrocks and his rum and water. She passed as weary a fortnight as ever mortal spent in Miss Crawleyâs sick-room; but her little nerves seemed to be of iron, as she was quite unshaken by the duty and the tedium of the sick-chamber.
She never told until long afterwards how painful that duty was; how peevish a patient was the jovial old lady; how angry; how sleepless; in what horrors of death; during what long nights she lay moaning, and in almost delirious agonies respecting that future world which she quite ignored when she was in good health.âPicture to yourself, oh fair young reader, a worldly, selfish, graceless, thankless, religionless old woman, writhing in pain and fear, and without her wig. Picture her to yourself, and ere you be old, learn to love and pray!
Sharp watched this graceless bedside with indomitable patience. Nothing escaped her; and, like a prudent steward, she found a use for everything. She told many a good story about Miss Crawleyâs illness in after daysâstories which made the lady blush through her artificial carnations. During the illness she was never out of temper; always alert; she slept light, having a perfectly clear conscience; and could take that refreshment at almost any minuteâs warning. And so you saw very few traces of fatigue in her appearance. Her face might be a trifle paler, and the circles round her eyes a little blacker than usual; but whenever she came out from the sick-room she was always smiling, fresh, and neat, and looked as trim in her little dressing-gown and cap, as in her smartest evening suit.
The Captain thought so, and raved about her in uncouth convulsions. The barbed shaft of love had penetrated his dull hide. Six weeksâappropinquityâopportunityâhad victimised him completely. He made a confidante of his aunt at the Rectory, of all persons in the world. She rallied him about it; she had perceived his folly; she warned him; she finished by owning that little Sharp was the most clever, droll, odd, good-natured, simple, kindly creature in England. Rawdon must not trifle with her affections, thoughâdear Miss Crawley would never pardon him for that; for she, too, was quite overcome by the little governess, and loved Sharp like a daughter. Rawdon must go awayâgo back to his regiment and naughty London, and not play with a poor artless girlâs feelings.
Many and many a time this good-natured lady, compassionating the forlorn life-guardsmanâs condition, gave him an opportunity of seeing Miss Sharp at the Rectory, and of walking home with her, as we have seen. When men of a certain sort, ladies, are in love, though they see the hook and the string, and the whole apparatus with which they are to be taken, they gorge the bait neverthelessâthey must come to itâthey must swallow itâand are presently struck and landed gasping. Rawdon saw there was a manifest intention on Mrs. Buteâs part to captivate him with Rebecca. He was not very wise; but he was a man about town, and had seen several seasons. A light dawned upon his dusky soul, as he thought, through a speech of Mrs. Buteâs.
âMark my words, Rawdon,â she said. âYou will have Miss Sharp one day for your relation.â
âWhat relationâmy cousin, hey, Mrs. Bute? James sweet on her, hey?â inquired the waggish officer.
âMore than that,â Mrs. Bute said, with a flash from her black eyes.
âNot Pitt? He shaânât have her. The sneak aânât worthy of her. Heâs booked to Lady Jane Sheepshanks.â
âYou men perceive nothing. You silly, blind creatureâif anything happens to Lady Crawley, Miss Sharp will be your mother-in-law; and thatâs what will happen.â
Rawdon Crawley, Esquire, gave vent to a prodigious whistle, in token of astonishment at this announcement. He couldnât deny it. His fatherâs evident liking for Miss Sharp had not escaped him. He knew the old gentlemanâs character well; and a more unscrupulous oldâwhyouâhe did not conclude the sentence, but walked home, curling his mustachios, and convinced he had found a clue to Mrs. Buteâs mystery.
âBy Jove, itâs too bad,â thought Rawdon, âtoo bad, by Jove! I do believe the woman wants the poor girl to be ruined, in order that she shouldnât come into the family as Lady Crawley.â
When he saw Rebecca alone, he rallied her about his fatherâ...