"She was close--very close," said the Baronet, simply; "but she was a
valyble woman to me, and saved me a steward."--And in this confidential
strain, and much to the amusement of the new-comer, the conversation
continued for a considerable time. Whatever Sir Pitt Crawley's
qualities might be, good or bad, he did not make the least disguise of
them. He talked of himself incessantly, sometimes in the coarsest and
vulgarest Hampshire accent; sometimes adopting the tone of a man of the
world. And so, with injunctions to Miss Sharp to be ready at five in
the morning, he bade her good night. "You'll sleep with Tinker
to-night," he said; "it's a big bed, and there's room for two. Lady
Crawley died in it. Good night."
Sir Pitt went off after this benediction, and the solemn Tinker,
rushlight in hand, led the way up the great bleak stone stairs, past
the great dreary drawing-room doors, with the handles muffled up in
paper, into the great front bedroom, where Lady Crawley had slept her
last. The bed and chamber were so funereal and gloomy, you might have
fancied, not only that Lady Crawley died in the room, but that her
ghost inhabited it. Rebecca sprang about the apartment, however, with
the greatest liveliness, and had peeped into the huge wardrobes, and
the closets, and the cupboards, and tried the drawers which were
locked, and examined the dreary pictures and toilette appointments,
while the old charwoman was saying her prayers. "I shouldn't like to
sleep in this yeer bed without a good conscience, Miss," said the old
woman. "There's room for us and a half-dozen of ghosts in it," says
Rebecca. "Tell me all about Lady Crawley and Sir Pitt Crawley, and
everybody, my DEAR Mrs. Tinker."
But old Tinker was not to be pumped by this little cross-questioner;
and signifying to her that bed was a place for sleeping, not
conversation, set up in her corner of the bed such a snore as only the
nose of innocence can produce. Rebecca lay awake for a long, long
time, thinking of the morrow, and of the new world into which she was
going, and of her chances of success there. The rushlight flickered in
the basin. The mantelpiece cast up a great black shadow, over half of
a mouldy old sampler, which her defunct ladyship had worked, no doubt,
and over two little family pictures of young lads, one in a college
gown, and the other in a red jacket like a soldier. When she went to
sleep, Rebecca chose that one to dream about.
At four o'clock, on such a roseate summer's morning as even made Great
Gaunt Street look cheerful, the faithful Tinker, having wakened her
bedfellow, and bid her prepare for departure, unbarred and unbolted the
great hall door (the clanging and clapping whereof startled the
sleeping echoes in the street), and taking her way into Oxford Street,
summoned a coach from a stand there. It is needless to particularize
the number of the vehicle, or to state that the driver was stationed
thus early in the neighbourhood of Swallow Street, in hopes that some
young buck, reeling homeward from the tavern, might need the aid of his
vehicle, and pay him with the generosity of intoxication.