The elder and younger son of the house of Crawley were, like the
gentleman and lady in the weather-box, never at home together--they
hated each other cordially: indeed, Rawdon Crawley, the dragoon, had a
great contempt for the establishment altogether, and seldom came
thither except when his aunt paid her annual visit.
The great good quality of this old lady has been mentioned. She
possessed seventy thousand pounds, and had almost adopted Rawdon. She
disliked her elder nephew exceedingly, and despised him as a milksop.
In return he did not hesitate to state that her soul was irretrievably
lost, and was of opinion that his brother's chance in the next world
was not a whit better. "She is a godless woman of the world," would
Mr. Crawley say; "she lives with atheists and Frenchmen. My mind
shudders when I think of her awful, awful situation, and that, near as
she is to the grave, she should be so given up to vanity,
licentiousness, profaneness, and folly." In fact, the old lady declined
altogether to hear his hour's lecture of an evening; and when she came
to Queen's Crawley alone, he was obliged to pretermit his usual
devotional exercises.
"Shut up your sarmons, Pitt, when Miss Crawley comes down," said his
father; "she has written to say that she won't stand the preachifying."
"O, sir! consider the servants."
"The servants be hanged," said Sir Pitt; and his son thought even worse
would happen were they deprived of the benefit of his instruction.
"Why, hang it, Pitt!" said the father to his remonstrance. "You
wouldn't be such a flat as to let three thousand a year go out of the
family?"
"What is money compared to our souls, sir?" continued Mr. Crawley.
"You mean that the old lady won't leave the money to you?"--and who
knows but it was Mr. Crawley's meaning?
Old Miss Crawley was certainly one of the reprobate. She had a snug
little house in Park Lane, and, as she ate and drank a great deal too
much during the season in London, she went to Harrowgate or Cheltenham
for the summer. She was the most hospitable and jovial of old vestals,
and had been a beauty in her day, she said. (All old women were
beauties once, we very well know.) She was a bel esprit, and a dreadful
Radical for those days. She had been in France (where St. Just, they
say, inspired her with an unfortunate passion), and loved, ever after,
French novels, French cookery, and French wines. She read Voltaire,
and had Rousseau by heart; talked very lightly about divorce, and most
energetically of the rights of women. She had pictures of Mr. Fox in
every room in the house: when that statesman was in opposition, I am
not sure that she had not flung a main with him; and when he came into
office, she took great credit for bringing over to him Sir Pitt and his
colleague for Queen's Crawley, although Sir Pitt would have come over
himself, without any trouble on the honest lady's part. It is needless
to say that Sir Pitt was brought to change his views after the death of
the great Whig statesman.