The Rise and Fall of Becky Sharp

by Sarra Manning

Chapter 19

  One fat tear landed on the picture of Becky and Rawdon, hand in hand on the red carpet. Then another tear dropped right in the centre of Becky’s face. And another. And another.

  Amelia Sedley tried to tell herself that they were happy tears. She was so pleased for Becky. Of course she was! In fact, when she’d seen Becky and Rawdon Crawley together in February, which was only four months ago but now seemed like several centuries, Amelia was sure that there was something going on between them.

  It wasn’t anything that Becky had said or done, although Becky had never smiled at Jos the way that she smiled at Rawdon. No, it had been the way that Rawdon had looked at Becky. As if she was his reason for living. Even when George had been unkind about Becky, Rawdon had stood his ground, and Amelia had been very cross with George afterwards.

  Just thinking about that night brought a fresh flood of tears so that the picture of Becky and Rawdon was now completely saturated. Not only had George never once looked at Amelia the way that Rawdon gazed so adoringly at Becky, but Amelia had barely seen George since that February evening.

  She’d tried not to be a nuisance because she knew he was very busy with his work, his very important work, and also the upcoming by-election, so she’d rationed the number of text messages she’d sent him. The same with emails, not even forwarding him funny cartoons or quotes that he might find inspiring. But still, he’d sent her quite a terse email the night before:

  Sorry Emmy. With everything that’s going on at the moment, probably better if we maintain radio silence. Sure you understand. Best. George.

  And she did understand, because Becky and Rawdon weren’t the only familiar faces in the papers that morning. With a shaking hand, Amelia steeled herself to turn the soggy page, and there was a man she knew only too well: her father. Although now it seemed like she hardly knew him at all. He’d been so distant lately. Off-hand. On a few occasions, he’d even snapped at her, but Mummy had said that she wasn’t to worry and that was just the way that men were sometimes. But now it was very clear that there was a lot to worry about it. And also, why Daddy had been so determined that Amelia should stick to a monthly budget and become financially mature.

  Amelia turned her attention back to the damp newspaper in front of her though it was hard to read when her vision was so blurred with tears.

  SHARES IN FREEFALL AFTER SUCCESSFUL INVESTMENT BANK ASKS FOR BAILOUT

  The City suffered huge losses yesterday afternoon after the collapse of private bank Sedleys and its successful hedge fund.

  Founder and chairman Charles Sedley resigned last night from the board after a series of investments, which he personally oversaw, failed to show a profit. It’s feared that some leading high-street chains, several pension funds and a raft of personal, blue-chip clients are set to lose billions of pounds.

  Now the Fraud Squad have been called in while the Bank of England have said that Sedley’s shouldn’t expect a bailout, even though thousands of workers who had their pensions invested in Sedley’s funds look set to lose their retirement incomes.

  Charles Sedley was unavailable for comment, though friends say that he is devastated. A classic rags-to-riches story, Sedley, 63, left school at 16 and worked his way up from the trading floor to running his own funds, then founded his own bank in 2005. He weathered the global crash of 2008 and earned a reputation for being a cautious but shrewd player. A popular City figure, he and his wife Caroline sit on the board of several charities and own a house in Kensington, said to be worth £15 million, a house in Oxfordshire, and several other properties around the world.

  His son, Joseph, 33, lives in LA, where he operates a successful health-food and lifestyle company, while his daughter, Amelia, 22, is in her final year of an Art History degree at Durham University. She also took part in the reality-TV show, Big Brother, last year, which she won. She’s rumoured to be dating George Wylie, who’s currently standing for the safe Conservative seat of Squashmore in Cheshire.

  Whether Charles Sedley will face criminal charges isn’t yet clear.

  Authorities have directed anyone with funds invested with Sedley to contact their financial advisor.

  It was hard not to unleash a huge volley of sobs but Amelia vowed to be strong and just cry silently. When Daddy had come home the night before and told them the news, Mummy had clutched a hand to her heart and then collapsed. They’d had to call a doctor, who’d sedated her, so now Mummy was dead to the world and Daddy was closeted in his study with his lawyers, and there were journalists and photographers, and even TV crews, outside.

  Obviously, it was all a terrible mistake. Amelia wasn’t sure how these things worked, not really. But maybe if the pound suddenly rallied, then Daddy’s funds would pick up, and all the people who’d invested in them would get their money back?

  It could happen, couldn’t it?

  If it didn’t, Daddy had said that they were ruined. They’d have to sell everything.

  ‘Everything,’ he’d kept saying the night before. The yacht. (‘I should never have let your mother talk me into that one.’) All the art. (‘Never liked it anyway.’) The wine. (‘Must be worth a few million at least and it all tasted like cat’s piss to me.’) The horses …

  ‘Not Pianoforte!’ Amelia had gasped because Pianoforte might have cost a hundred and fifty thousand pounds, but he wasn’t an asset. He was a pet. Her beloved childhood friend.

  ‘You haven’t ridden him in months and meanwhile I’m getting clobbered for stabling fees and God knows what else. And I don’t know how I’m going to break it to your mother, but all her jewellery has to go too.’

  It was terrible. Everything that Amelia knew, everything that she’d believed in, all ripped out from under her.

  But the very worst thing of all was that George hadn’t even texted her to see if she was all right – just sent that rather cold email …

  *

  ‘This is bad news. Very bad news. I’ve a good mind to call up the editor of the Globe and have him print a retraction. We were at Eton together, it’s the least he could do,’ Sir John Wylie thundered. ‘Our George was never rumoured to be dating that Sedley girl. Just happened to be at school with her brother, though everyone knows that the Sedleys bought their way in everywhere. What do I say, eh? Never can trust trade.’

  ‘Father, you’re not helping,’ George said, pinching the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. His father was always delighted to find someone whose money was newer than his own and now George prayed the baronet wasn’t going to launch into his usual rant about arrivistes. Something about how most of them were foreigners who didn’t wash their hands after they’d been to the bathroom.

  ‘That’s what they call it! A bathroom! A bathroom is where you bathe. A loo is where you piss …’

  George, Dobbin and George’s campaign manager, Michael O’Dowd, a smooth, slicked-back veteran of many other political campaigns, all shared an exasperated look.

  ‘He’ll be wittering on about foreigners for hours now,’ George noted quietly. ‘In fact, we could all leave the room and he wouldn’t even notice.’

  ‘Can’t leave until we’ve come up with a plan of action,’ O’Dowd said, holding up a copy of the Daily Mail. ‘Your father does have a point. Not about the foreigners – I love a foreigner if they’re here legally and pay their taxes – but about the Sedley girl.’

  ‘Her name’s Amelia,’ Dobbin said sharply. ‘Emmy. Have you called her?’ he asked George.

  ‘Of course I haven’t. Don’t be silly!’ With an effort, George dialled down the impatient look on his face for something more benign, more voter-friendly, some people might even say more statesman-like. ‘I feel for Emmy, of course I do.’ His hand settled on the breast pocket of his navy-blue pinstripe suit. ‘My heart goes out to her, but you have to see how it would look, Dobbin, if I was to … to … extend the hand of friendship to her, now.’

  ‘You’re already friends with her,’ Dobbin pointed out coolly, though his al
ways prominent ears were such a deep shade of red that they looked painful. ‘And you know the poor girl thinks – hopes – that you’re more than friends. You said yourself that you were planning on marrying her.’

  ‘WHAT?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What?’

  Dobbin’s assertion, which he’d heard from George’s own mouth, was met with apoplectic rage from the Baronet, disbelief from O’Dowd and blank denial from George himself.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ George insisted. ‘I may have, at one time, posited the theory that Emm— Amelia Sedley might at some point in the future make a good politician’s wife and you must have misunderstood my intentions.’

  ‘I misunderstood nothing,’ Dobbin pointed out, but George just smiled blandly at his old friend. He’d been practising a bland smile in front of the mirror for weeks now, all ready for when he had his official picture taken as the new Conservative MP for Squashmore.

  ‘You marry that chit and I’ll cut you off faster than you can blink, my boy!’ shouted the Baronet. If they’d been at the country estate and in his study, where he preferred to issue bollockings to his nearest and dearest, this would have been the point where he yanked an antique blunderbuss out of his desk drawer and brandished it at the source of his wrath. Alas, they were in a small airless room at Conservative Central Office so he had to make do with brandishing a water bottle, which didn’t really have the same effect. ‘Cut you off without a penny. See how far you get then, eh? Eh?’

  ‘George, George,’ O’Dowd remonstrated, though George didn’t need to be remonstrated with. They were all singing from the same hymn sheet, as far as he was concerned. Running the same idea up the same flagpole. Looking at the same blips on the radar screen. But now O’Dowd had an avuncular arm around George’s shoulders. ‘You have to call things off with this Amelia chick. Those poor blighters who have lost their pensions …’

  ‘It’s terrible,’ George said and Dobbin shot him a surprised but pleased look. ‘My heart goes out to them too.’

  ‘And you know what else those poor blighters are? They’re going to be in all the papers with sad faces going, “Boo hoo, that nasty, greedy banker, Charles Sedley, has taken away the pensions we’ve worked all our lives for.”’ O’Dowd was getting so worked up about the plight of the common man that he was spraying George and Dobbin with a fine mist of spittle. ‘Not exactly a confidence booster for the electorate if they think your father-in-law is going to diddle them out of their pensions.’

  ‘But he’s not my father-in-law,’ George said through clenched teeth, ignoring the fact that the man who wasn’t his father-in-law had still contributed generously to his campaign funds. ‘Amelia and I aren’t even engaged. We’ve never even been out on a date. I haven’t so much as held her hand in public.’

  Dobbin’s ears were now a shade of red not even found in the Pantone book. George ignored Dobbin’s look of disappointment, because he’d seen it so many times before that he was inured to it.

  ‘Right, so we’ll just issue a statement saying that the Sedleys are distant acquaintances, nothing more, and that if you get elected, you’ll be keen to work with the appropriate agencies to see if there’s anything to be done about reuniting those poor buggers with their pensions.’ O’Dowd had already picked up his iPad to draft said statement.

  ‘Perfect,’ George murmured, adjusting his tie. ‘Now that we’ve sorted that out, I must get back to my constituency. I mean, my prospective constituency.’ He grimaced. Didn’t want to tempt fate and all that. Squashmore was a former rotten borough, which had elected a Conservative MP for the three hundred and forty-seven years that it had existed, though God knows, it was a horrid little place. ‘I’m sure there are some babies I haven’t yet kissed.’ He picked up some of the day’s newspapers, which were heaped on the table. ‘I’ll take these for the journey up. You coming, Dobster?’

  But once they were settled in a first-class carriage, Dobbin still fulminating, George wasn’t at all concerned with the news about Sedleys or the fall-out for his prospective constituents. Not when Becky Sharp was on the front pages of all the tabs in a dress slashed to here and hiked to there.

  And married to Rawdon Crawley, of all people. George had known Rawdon since Eton and he’d hardly been at the front of the queue when they were handing out brains. On the contrary, he’d been languishing somewhere at the back.

  ‘Look who scrubbed up all right in the end. Scrubber being the operative word,’ he said, holding up The Sun so Dobbin could also get an eyeful of the Sharp girl. But Dobbin was still in a sulk with him and merely grunted.

  It was funny, George reflected, as he stared at the faint outline of Becky Sharp’s nipples, barely hidden by white lace, that he’d never really appreciated just how pretty she was. He’d been more interested in putting her in her place.

  He still wouldn’t mind taking her down a peg or two. And then, after checking that Dobbin was staring fixedly out of the window at the countryside rolling by, George discreetly adjusted his crotch.

  *

  ‘This is a very good shot of you, Rawdy,’ Becky cooed, holding up The Sun for her husband’s inspection. ‘I look a fright. Who even knew that my dress was that see-through? But you look very handsome.’

  ‘Not sure I like the world being able to see my girl’s breasts,’ Rawdon said, leaning over to nuzzle one of the items in question, Becky absent-mindedly petting his head as he did so.

  The film company had put them up in quite a nice suite at the Ham Yard Hotel, though it was only a junior suite, which was now cluttered with the bouquets of flowers and presents that had been arriving all morning. Most of them for Becky, because what was it that the Daily Mail had said about her?

  Oh yes, that was right.

  ‘The beautiful Becky Crawley is the newest, hottest It Girl In Town.’

  They hadn’t even mentioned poor Rawdy’s little movie.

  To be supportive, Becky would hunt through the papers until she found someone saying something lovely about Rawdy’s performance. But she’d do it in a minute because she was exhausted and …

  ‘You know the Sedleys, right?’ Rawdon suddenly asked. ‘I was at Eton with Jos and we met his sister at that premiere we went to with Mattie.’ He sighed, his breath ghosting Becky’s breast, at the thought of his currently estranged aunt.

  ‘She’ll come round,’ Becky said, as she always did. ‘Nobody can resist you for long, Rawdy.’ He was looking pained now, brow furrowed, bottom lip jutting out in a sad little pout, but one of the good things about Rawdon was that he was easily distracted. Though it seemed that, for once, her breasts weren’t up to the job. ‘What was that you were saying about the Sedleys?’ Becky asked, though she didn’t much care.

  Rawdon waved one of the newspapers at her. ‘Looks like they’re having a really bad day. The worst day ever.’

  ‘Not like us,’ Becky said with some satisfaction, as she took the paper from Rawdon and pushed his head off her lap so she could smooth out the page. As she caught the headline, then looked down at the photo of a haunted, haggard Mr Sedley in a crumpled grey suit emerging from the offices of Sedley’s Bank, her eyes widened.

  ‘Looks like they’ve lost everything,’ Rawdon said. ‘Jos was a year above me and he was fat and awkward so we didn’t hang out much, but Amelia seemed sweet when we met her.’

  ‘Hmmm,’ Becky murmured as if Amelia’s sweetness was vastly over-estimated. She tapped a finger over the headline: GREEDY BANKING BOSS FLEECES HONEST WORKERS OUT OF THEIR PENSIONS. ‘I always thought there was something dodgy about her father, so this serves them right for being mean to me.’

  ‘They were mean to you?’ Rawdon asked in surprise.

  ‘Yes.’ Becky put so much venom into that three-letter, one-syllable word that Rawdon made a mental note to never incur the wrath of his newly minted bride. And that was even without knowing the circumstances. How Jos Sedley had led her on, then dumped her. Worse! Dumped her via George Wylie and a text
message to his sister. Then Amelia had made it all about her even as Babs Pinkerton had been summoned to remove Becky from the premises like she was a wilful puppy who kept soiling Mrs Sedley’s newly renovated floors. ‘Anyway, they’ll be fine. Their sort always is. Bet they have millions all squirrelled away in secret offshore funds. He won’t even go to prison.’

  She sighed. It was the way of the world. The likes of Mr Sedley would walk free with just a slap on his wrist and maybe not so many invites to gala dinners. Whereas the likes of Mr Sharp, who had only ever taken money from other crooks or companies that had insurance against break-ins anyway, had been sent down.

  ‘Still, it’s not your friend Amelia’s fault,’ Rawdon suggested softly as there was a strange, hard look in Becky’s eyes that he’d never seen before. Then she blinked, smiled and she was back to being the girl he’d married, the woman he didn’t think he’d ever get enough of.

  ‘You’re right. It’s not poor Emmy’s fault.’ Becky leaned over to grab her phone from the nightstand. ‘I should probably text her to make sure that she’s OK. See if there’s anything I can do to help.’

  And while Rawdon gazed at her tenderly, approvingly, Becky fired off a quick text to her former BFF:

  Oh, Emmy! Just seen news. Cant believe ur pa would do such a thing. All those poor people. Anyway hope ur ok. Let me know if u need anything. Though v.busy at the moment. Ur dad not the only one in the papers! Luv u. Becky xxx

  Chapter 20

  The treachery of Rawdon, her darling boy, marrying that scheming little trollop Becky Sharp, had sent Dame Matilda Crawley into a worrying decline.

  She took to her bed, complaining of aches in her arms, pains in her legs, and a vicious fluttering in her heart that had poor Briggs into conniptions and Dame Crawley’s three doctors into confusion.

  ‘Her heart sounds fine,’ her cardiac consultant reported to her GP. ‘Though she says she’s far too ill to leave her bed to have an MRI.’

  ‘She’s not running a temperature, though her blood pressure is a little on the low side, but that’s only to be expected when she refuses to get out of bed,’ her GP reported to her oncologist, who had seen the dame before her recent relapse and had been pleased to inform her that all her scans and tests had come back clear.