Page 540 - vanity-fair

This event was copied into the London papers, out of
which Miss Briggs read the statement to Miss Crawley, at
breakfast, at Brighton. The intelligence, expected as it might
have been, caused a crisis in the affairs of the Crawley family.
The spinster’s rage rose to its height, and sending instant-
ly for Pitt, her nephew, and for the Lady Southdown, from
Brunswick Square, she requested an immediate celebration
of the marriage which had been so long pending between
the two families. And she announced that it was her inten-
tion to allow the young couple a thousand a year during her
lifetime, at the expiration of which the bulk of her prop-
erty would be settled upon her nephew and her dear niece,
Lady Jane Crawley. Waxy came down to ratify the deeds—
Lord Southdown gave away his sister—she was married by
a Bishop, and not by the Rev. Bartholomew Irons—to the
disappointment of the irregular prelate.
When they were married, Pitt would have liked to take
a hymeneal tour with his bride, as became people of their
condition. But the affection of the old lady towards Lady
Jane had grown so strong, that she fairly owned she could
not part with her favourite. Pitt and his wife came therefore
and lived with Miss Crawley: and (greatly to the annoyance
of poor Pitt, who conceived himself a most injured charac-
ter—being subject to the humours of his aunt on one side,
and of his mother-in-law on the other) Lady Southdown,
from her neighbouring house, reigned over the whole fam-
ily—Pitt, Lady Jane, Miss Crawley, Briggs, Bowls, Firkin,
and all. She pitilessly dosed them with her tracts and her
medicine, she dismissed Creamer, she installed Rodgers,

540 Vanity Fair