Every reader of a sentimental turn (and we desire no other) must have
been pleased with the tableau with which the last act of our little
drama concluded; for what can be prettier than an image of Love on his
knees before Beauty?
But when Love heard that awful confession from Beauty that she was
married already, he bounced up from his attitude of humility on the
carpet, uttering exclamations which caused poor little Beauty to be
more frightened than she was when she made her avowal. "Married;
you're joking," the Baronet cried, after the first explosion of rage
and wonder. "You're making vun of me, Becky. Who'd ever go to marry
you without a shilling to your vortune?"
"Married! married!" Rebecca said, in an agony of tears--her voice
choking with emotion, her handkerchief up to her ready eyes, fainting
against the mantelpiece a figure of woe fit to melt the most obdurate
heart. "O Sir Pitt, dear Sir Pitt, do not think me ungrateful for all
your goodness to me. It is only your generosity that has extorted my
secret."
"Generosity be hanged!" Sir Pitt roared out. "Who is it tu, then,
you're married? Where was it?"
"Let me come back with you to the country, sir! Let me watch over you
as faithfully as ever! Don't, don't separate me from dear Queen's
Crawley!"
"The feller has left you, has he?" the Baronet said, beginning, as he
fancied, to comprehend. "Well, Becky--come back if you like. You can't
eat your cake and have it. Any ways I made you a vair offer. Coom
back as governess--you shall have it all your own way." She held out
one hand. She cried fit to break her heart; her ringlets fell over her
face, and over the marble mantelpiece where she laid it.
"So the rascal ran off, eh?" Sir Pitt said, with 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.