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When Miss Sharp had performed the heroical act mentioned in the lastchapter, and had seen the Dixonary, flying over the pavement of thelittle garden, fall at length at the feet of the astonished MissJemima, the young lady's countenance, which had before worn an almostlivid look of hatred, assumed a smile that perhaps was scarcely moreagreeable, and she sank back in the carriage in an easy frame of mind,saying--"So much for the Dixonary; and, thank God, I'm out of Chiswick."

Miss Sedley was almost as flurried at the act of defiance as MissJemima had been; for, consider, it was but one minute that she had leftschool, and the impressions of six years are not got over in that spaceof time. Nay, with some persons those awes and terrors of youth lastfor ever and ever. I know, for instance, an old gentleman ofsixty-eight, who said to me one morning at breakfast, with a veryagitated countenance, "I dreamed last night that I was flogged by Dr.Raine." Fancy had carried him back five-and-fifty years in the courseof that evening. Dr. Raine and his rod were just as awful to him inhis heart, then, at sixty-eight, as they had been at thirteen. If theDoctor, with a large birch, had appeared bodily to him, even at the ageof threescore and eight, and had said in awful voice, "Boy, take downyour pant--"? Well, well, Miss Sedley was exceedingly alarmed at thisact of insubordination.

"How could you do so, Rebecca?" at last she said, after a pause.

"Why, do you think Miss Pinkerton will come out and order me back tothe black-hole?" said Rebecca, laughing.

"No: but--"

"I hate the whole house," continued Miss Sharp in a fury. "I hope Imay never set eyes on it again. I wish it were in the bottom of theThames, I do; and if Miss Pinkerton were there, I wouldn't pick herout, that I wouldn't. O how I should like to see her floating in thewater yonder, turban and all, with her train streaming after her, andher nose like the beak of a wherry."

"Hush!" cried Miss Sedley.

"Why, will the black footman tell tales?" cried Miss Rebecca, laughing."He may go back and tell Miss Pinkerton that I hate her with all mysoul; and I wish he would; and I wish I had a means of proving it, too.For two years I have only had insults and outrage from her. I have beentreated worse than any servant in the kitchen. I have never had afriend or a kind word, except from you. I have been made to tend thelittle girls in the lower schoolroom, and to talk French to the Misses,until I grew sick of my mother tongue. But that talking French to MissPinkerton was capital fun, wasn't it? She doesn't know a word ofFrench, and was too proud to confess it. I believe it was that whichmade her part with me; and so thank Heaven for French. Vive la France!Vive l'Empereur! Vive Bonaparte!"

"O Rebecca, Rebecca, for shame!" cried Miss Sedley; for this was thegreatest blasphemy Rebecca had as yet uttered; and in those days, inEngland, to say, "Long live Bonaparte!" was as much as to say, "Longlive Lucifer!" "How can you--how dare you have such wicked, revengefulthoughts?"

"Revenge may be wicked, but it's natural," answered Miss Rebecca. "I'mno angel." And, to say the truth, she certainly was not.

For it may be remarked in the course of this little conversation (whichtook place as the coach rolled along lazily by the river side) thatthough Miss Rebecca Sharp has twice had occasion to thank Heaven, ithas been, in the first place, for ridding her of some person whom shehated, and secondly, for enabling her to bring her enemies to some sortof perplexity or confusion; neither of which are very amiable motivesfor religious gratitude, or such as would be put forward by persons ofa kind and placable disposition. Miss Rebecca was not, then, in theleast kind or placable. All the world used her ill, said this youngmisanthropist, and we may be pretty certain that persons whom all theworld treats ill, deserve entirely the treatment they get. The worldis a looking-glass, and gives back to every man the reflection of hisown face. Frown at it, and it will in turn look sourly upon you; laughat it and with it, and it is a jolly kind companion; and so let allyoung persons take their choice. This is certain, that if the worldneglected Miss Sharp, she never was known to have done a good action inbehalf of anybody; nor can it be expected that twenty-four young ladiesshould all be as amiable as the heroine of this work, Miss Sedley (whomwe have selected for the very reason that she was the best-natured ofall, otherwise what on earth was to have prevented us from putting upMiss Swartz, or Miss Crump, or Miss Hopkins, as heroine in her place!)it could not be expected that every one should be of the humble andgentle temper of Miss Amelia Sedley; should take every opportunity tovanquish Rebecca's hard-heartedness and ill-humour; and, by a thousandkind words and offices, overcome, for once at least, her hostility toher kind.

Miss Sharp's father was an artist, and in that quality had givenlessons of drawing at Miss Pinkerton's school. He was a clever man; apleasant companion; a careless student; with a great propensity forrunning into debt, and a partiality for the tavern. When he was drunk,he used to beat his wife and daughter; and the next morning, with aheadache, he would rail at the world for its neglect of his genius, andabuse, with a good deal of cleverness, and sometimes with perfectreason, the fools, his brother painters. As it was with the utmostdifficulty that he could keep himself, and as he owed money for a mileround Soho, where he lived, he thought to better his circumstances bymarrying a young woman of the French nation, who was by profession anopera-girl. The humble calling of her female parent Miss Sharp neveralluded to, but used to state subsequently that the Entrechats were anoble family of Gascony, and took great pride in her descent from them.And curious it is that as she advanced in life this young lady'sancestors increased in rank and splendour.

Rebecca's mother had had some education somewhere, and her daughterspoke French with purity and a Parisian accent. It was in those daysrather a rare accomplishment, and led to her engagement with theorthodox Miss Pinkerton. For her mother being dead, her father,finding himself not likely to recover, after his third attack ofdelirium tremens, wrote a manly and pathetic letter to Miss Pinkerton,recommending the orphan child to her protection, and so descended tothe grave, after two bailiffs had quarrelled over his corpse. Rebeccawas seventeen when she came to Chiswick, and was bound over as anarticled pupil; her duties being to talk French, as we have seen; andher privileges to live cost free, and, with a few guineas a year, togather scraps of knowledge from the professors who attended the school.

She was small and slight in person; pale, sandy-haired, and with eyeshabitually cast down: when they looked up they were very large, odd,and attractive; so attractive that the Reverend Mr. Crisp, fresh fromOxford, and curate to the Vicar of Chiswick, the Reverend Mr.Flowerdew, fell in love with Miss Sharp; being shot dead by a glance ofher eyes which was fired all the way across Chiswick Church from theschool-pew to the reading-desk. This infatuated young man usedsometimes to take tea with Miss Pinkerton, to whom he had beenpresented by his mamma, and actually proposed something like marriagein an intercepted note, which the one-eyed apple-woman was charged todeliver. Mrs. Crisp was summoned from Buxton, and abruptly carried offher darling boy; but the idea, even, of such an eagle in the Chiswickdovecot caused a great flutter in the breast of Miss Pinkerton, whowould have sent away Miss Sharp but that she was bound to her under aforfeit, and who never could thoroughly believe the young lady'sprotestations that she had never exchanged a single word with Mr.Crisp, except under her own eyes on the two occasions when she had methim at tea.

By the side of many tall and bouncing young ladies in theestablishment, Rebecca Sharp looked like a child. But she had thedismal precocity of poverty. Many a dun had she talked to, and turnedaway from her father's door; many a tradesman had she coaxed andwheedled into good-humour, and into the granting of one meal more. Shesate commonly with her father, who was very proud of her wit, and heardthe talk of many of his wild companions--often but ill-suited for agirl to hear. But she never had been a girl, she said; she had been awoman since she was eight years old. Oh, why did Miss Pinkerton letsuch a dangerous bird into her cage?

The fact is, the old lady believed Rebecca to be the meekest creaturein the world, so admirably, on the occasions when her father broughther to Chiswick, used Rebecca to perform the part of the ingenue; andonly a year before the arrangement by which Rebecca had been admittedinto her house, and when Rebecca was sixteen years old, Miss Pinkertonmajestically, and with a little speech, made her a present of adoll--which was, by the way, the confiscated property of Miss Swindle,discovered surreptitiously nursing it in school-hours. How the fatherand daughter laughed as they trudged home together after the eveningparty (it was on the occasion of the speeches, when all the professorswere invited) and how Miss Pinkerton would have raged had she seen thecaricature of herself which the little mimic, Rebecca, managed to makeout of her doll. Becky used to go through dialogues with it; it formedthe delight of Newman Street, Gerrard Street, and the Artists' quarter:and the young painters, when they came to take their gin-and-water withtheir lazy, dissolute, clever, jovial senior, used regularly to askRebecca if Miss Pinkerton was at home: she was as well known to them,poor soul! as Mr. Lawrence or President West. Once Rebecca had thehonour to pass a few days at Chiswick; after which she brought backJemima, and erected another doll as Miss Jemmy: for though that honestcreature had made and given her jelly and cake enough for threechildren, and a seven-shilling piece at parting, the girl's sense ofridicule was far stronger than her gratitude, and she sacrificed MissJemmy quite as pitilessly as her sister.

The catastrophe came, and she was brought to the Mall as to her home.The rigid formality of the place suffocated her: the prayers and themeals, the lessons and the walks, which were arranged with a conventualregularity, oppressed her almost beyond endurance; and she looked backto the freedom and the beggary of the old studio in Soho with so muchregret, that everybody, herself included, fancied she was consumed withgrief for her father. She had a little room in the garret, where themaids heard her walking and sobbing at night; but it was with rage, andnot with grief. She had not been much of a dissembler, until now herloneliness taught her to feign. She had never mingled in the society ofwomen: her father, reprobate as he was, was a man of talent; hisconversation was a thousand times more agreeable to her than the talkof such of her own sex as she now encountered. The pompous vanity ofthe old schoolmistress, the foolish good-humour of her sister, thesilly chat and scandal of the elder girls, and the frigid correctnessof the governesses equally annoyed her; and she had no soft maternalheart, this unlucky girl, otherwise the prattle and talk of the youngerchildren, with whose care she was chiefly intrusted, might have soothedand interested her; but she lived among them two years, and not one wassorry that she went away. The gentle tender-hearted Amelia Sedley wasthe only person to whom she could attach herself in the least; and whocould help attaching herself to Amelia?

The happiness the superior advantages of the young women round abouther, gave Rebecca inexpressible pangs of envy. "What airs that girlgives herself, because she is an Earl's grand-daughter," she said ofone. "How they cringe and bow to that Creole, because of her hundredthousand pounds! I am a thousand times cleverer and more charming thanthat creature, for all her wealth. I am as well bred as the Earl'sgrand-daughter, for all her fine pedigree; and yet every one passes meby here. And yet, when I was at my father's, did not the men give uptheir gayest balls and parties in order to pass the evening with me?"She determined at any rate to get free from the prison in which shefound herself, and now began to act for herself, and for the first timeto make connected plans for the future.

She took advantage, therefore, of the means of study the place offeredher; and as she was already a musician and a good linguist, shespeedily went through the little course of study which was considerednecessary for ladies in those days. Her music she practisedincessantly, and one day, when the girls were out, and she had remainedat home, she was overheard to play a piece so well that Minervathought, wisely, she could spare herself the expense of a master forthe juniors, and intimated to Miss Sharp that she was to instruct themin music for the future.

The girl refused; and for the first time, and to the astonishment ofthe majestic mistress of the school. "I am here to speak French withthe children," Rebecca said abruptly, "not to teach them music, andsave money for you. Give me money, and I will teach them."

Minerva was obliged to yield, and, of course, disliked her from thatday. "For five-and-thirty years," she said, and with great justice, "Inever have seen the individual who has dared in my own house toquestion my authority. I have nourished a viper in my bosom."

"A viper--a fiddlestick," said Miss Sharp to the old lady, almostfainting with astonishment. "You took me because I was useful. Thereis no question of gratitude between us. I hate this place, and want toleave it. I will do nothing here but what I am obliged to do."

It was in vain that the old lady asked her if she was aware she wasspeaking to Miss Pinkerton? Rebecca laughed in her face, with a horridsarcastic demoniacal laughter, that almost sent the schoolmistress intofits. "Give me a sum of money," said the girl, "and get rid of me--or,if you like better, get me a good place as governess in a nobleman'sfamily--you can do so if you please." And in their further disputesshe always returned to this point, "Get me a situation--we hate eachother, and I am ready to go."

Worthy Miss Pinkerton, although she had a Roman nose and a turban, andwas as tall as a grenadier, and had been up to this time anirresistible princess, had no will or strength like that of her littleapprentice, and in vain did battle against her, and tried to overaweher. Attempting once to scold her in public, Rebecca hit upon thebefore-mentioned plan of answering her in French, which quite routedthe old woman. In order to maintain authority in her school, it becamenecessary to remove this rebel, this monster, this serpent, thisfirebrand; and hearing about this time that Sir Pitt Crawley's familywas in want of a governess, she actually recommended Miss Sharp for thesituation, firebrand and serpent as she was. "I cannot, certainly,"she said, "find fault with Miss Sharp's conduct, except to myself; andmust allow that her talents and accomplishments are of a high order. Asfar as the head goes, at least, she does credit to the educationalsystem pursued at my establishment."

And so the schoolmistress reconciled the recommendation to herconscience, and the indentures were cancelled, and the apprentice wasfree. The battle here described in a few lines, of course, lasted forsome months. And as Miss Sedley, being now in her seventeenth year,was about to leave school, and had a friendship for Miss Sharp ("'tisthe only point in Amelia's behaviour," said Minerva, "which has notbeen satisfactory to her mistress"), Miss Sharp was invited by herfriend to pass a week with her at home, before she entered upon herduties as governess in a private family.

Thus the world began for these two young ladies. For Amelia it wasquite a new, fresh, brilliant world, with all the bloom upon it. Itwas not quite a new one for Rebecca--(indeed, if the truth must be toldwith respect to the Crisp affair, the tart-woman hinted to somebody,who took an affidavit of the fact to somebody else, that there was agreat deal more than was made public regarding Mr. Crisp and MissSharp, and that his letter was in answer to another letter). But whocan tell you the real truth of the matter? At all events, if Rebeccawas not beginning the world, she was beginning it over again.

By the time the young ladies reached Kensington turnpike, Amelia hadnot forgotten her companions, but had dried her tears, and had blushedvery much and been delighted at a young officer of the Life Guards, whospied her as he was riding by, and said, "A dem fine gal, egad!" andbefore the carriage arrived in Russell Square, a great deal ofconversation had taken place about the Drawing-room, and whether or notyoung ladies wore powder as well as hoops when presented, and whethershe was to have that honour: to the Lord Mayor's ball she knew she wasto go. And when at length home was reached, Miss Amelia Sedley skippedout on Sambo's arm, as happy and as handsome a girl as any in the wholebig city of London. Both he and coachman agreed on this point, and sodid her father and mother, and so did every one of the servants in thehouse, as they stood bobbing, and curtseying, and smiling, in the hallto welcome their young mistress.

You may be sure that she showed Rebecca over every room of the house,and everything in every one of her drawers; and her books, and herpiano, and her dresses, and all her necklaces, brooches, laces, andgimcracks. She insisted upon Rebecca accepting the white cornelian andthe turquoise rings, and a sweet sprigged muslin, which was too smallfor her now, though it would fit her friend to a nicety; and shedetermined in her heart to ask her mother's permission to present herwhite Cashmere shawl to her friend. Could she not spare it? and hadnot her brother Joseph just brought her two from India?

When Rebecca saw the two magnificent Cashmere shawls which JosephSedley had brought home to his sister, she said, with perfect truth,"that it must be delightful to have a brother," and easily got the pityof the tender-hearted Amelia for being alone in the world, an orphanwithout friends or kindred.

"Not alone," said Amelia; "you know, Rebecca, I shall always be yourfriend, and love you as a sister--indeed I will."

"Ah, but to have parents, as you have--kind, rich, affectionateparents, who give you everything you ask for; and their love, which ismore precious than all! My poor papa could give me nothing, and I hadbut two frocks in all the world! And then, to have a brother, a dearbrother! Oh, how you must love him!"

Amelia laughed.

"What! don't you love him? you, who say you love everybody?"

"Yes, of course, I do--only--"

"Only what?"

"Only Joseph doesn't seem to care much whether I love him or not. Hegave me two fingers to shake when he arrived after ten years' absence!He is very kind and good, but he scarcely ever speaks to me; I think heloves his pipe a great deal better than his"--but here Amelia checkedherself, for why should she speak ill of her brother? "He was very kindto me as a child," she added; "I was but five years old when he wentaway."

"Isn't he very rich?" said Rebecca. "They say all Indian nabobs areenormously rich."

"I believe he has a very large income."

"And is your sister-in-law a nice pretty woman?"

"La! Joseph is not married," said Amelia, laughing again.

Perhaps she had mentioned the fact already to Rebecca, but that younglady did not appear to have remembered it; indeed, vowed and protestedthat she expected to see a number of Amelia's nephews and nieces. Shewas quite disappointed that Mr. Sedley was not married; she was sureAmelia had said he was, and she doted so on little children.

"I think you must have had enough of them at Chiswick," said Amelia,rather wondering at the sudden tenderness on her friend's part; andindeed in later days Miss Sharp would never have committed herself sofar as to advance opinions, the untruth of which would have been soeasily detected. But we must remember that she is but nineteen as yet,unused to the art of deceiving, poor innocent creature! and making herown experience in her own person. The meaning of the above series ofqueries, as translated in the heart of this ingenious young woman, wassimply this: "If Mr. Joseph Sedley is rich and unmarried, why should Inot marry him? I have only a fortnight, to be sure, but there is noharm in trying." And she determined within herself to make thislaudable attempt. She redoubled her caresses to Amelia; she kissed thewhite cornelian necklace as she put it on; and vowed she would never,never part with it. When the dinner-bell rang she went downstairs withher arm round her friend's waist, as is the habit of young ladies. Shewas so agitated at the drawing-room door, that she could hardly findcourage to enter. "Feel my heart, how it beats, dear!" said she to herfriend.

"No, it doesn't," said Amelia. "Come in, don't be frightened. Papawon't do you any harm."