The Rise and Fall of Becky Sharp

by Sarra Manning

  ‘Is Rawdon very angry with us?’ Jane asked with an anxious glance at her brother-in-law who was slouched next to a portrait of one of his ancestors done by a pupil of Gainsborough, puffing on one of his stupid Gauloises (even though Bute had lectured him at length about the evils of passive smoking), and sipping from a glass of his father’s most expensive whisky. ‘He’s barely said a word to either of us.’

  ‘Oh, never mind Rawdy,’ Becky assured her. ‘He’s almost mute with grief. Too frightened to speak, in case he breaks down. You know, he adored Mattie …’

  ‘Again, we’re really so sorry that Auntie disinherited him …’

  ‘I don’t blame you.’ Becky’s voice trembled with emotion. ‘I blame myself, but Jane, we can’t help who we fall in love with, can we? Both of us were powerless to resist it.’

  Jane didn’t think she’d ever seen a sight more beautiful, more heart-tugging, than Becky’s face as she talked about hers and Rawdon’s love. She and Pitt rubbed together well enough but gosh, it wasn’t like she’d had a long line of men queuing up to date her before she’d met Pitt at a rock choir they’d both joined. How she longed to experience the passionate love that Becky was describing. ‘Yes, I absolutely understand.’

  ‘Strictly between us girls, I blame Martha: she went running to Mattie with all sort of lies she’d dug up from a vile old drunk who used to know my parents. The things she said about my mother …’ Becky sniffed, then pulled out a lace-trimmed hankie from her Chanel clutch so she could dab her eyes. ‘My mother died when I was eight and just being here, seeing the children, it brings it all back …’

  ‘Oh, Becky,’ Jane sighed, gathering Becky into her arms so she could hug her and making a vow that Martha (who’d been angling for her and Bute to move into the lodge house after Pitt had spent money renovating it) would never experience any kindness from her. ‘I know that we’ve only met a couple of times, but I feel … I think … I would very much like us to be friends.’

  ‘I’d like that too, more than anything,’ Becky said, her voice muffled from where her face had been smooshed into Jane’s bosom. She struggled to free herself and just in case Jane had failed to notice it (though she’d have to be blind not to), she lightly touched the red wool corsage, which had been moulting fluff all over her black Celine dress. ‘I’ve wanted to be friends with you ever since you gave me this, but you seemed so together, so sophisticated, and I was just a twenty-year-old nanny that …’

  ‘No, not another word!’ Jane insisted, quite ecstatic at Becky’s description of herself as sophisticated when she’d been in awe of the younger girl’s beauty, her self-possession, the way that Rawdon had looked at her even then. ‘We’re friends and I couldn’t be happier about it. End of.’

  One down, one to go.

  Chapter 31

  Pitt Junior scurried along the corridors of Queen’s Crawley with stooped shoulders and a haunted expression on his face. Each corner he turned brought him face to face with more problems, from dry rot in the Long Gallery to water damage in the attics due to the missing shingles on the roof.

  Heavy was the head that wore the crown and Becky could swear that the sparse strands of hair that Pitt clung to had been seriously depleted in the last five days. Only that morning, Bute – no longer able to contain his fury at being left only £10,000 by his brother and some actually very profitable shares by his sister – had demanded that Pitt gift him at least one of Matilda Crawley’s properties and the Lodge House.

  Pitt was already pretty bloody cross with Martha for upsetting Jane, and Bute had chosen his moment very badly indeed as Pitt had just seen off a structural surveyor who’d told him that he’d be better off burning Queen’s Crawley to the ground, claiming on the insurance and starting all over again rather than trying to rebuild and repair.

  There had been words. Many shouted words. ‘Swear words mostly,’ the children had reported gleefully. ‘Three fucks, two buggers and we lost count of all the shits and bastards.’

  Pitt Junior hadn’t shouted or sworn in all the years that Jane had known him, but the querulous Crawley genes hadn’t missed him out entirely. They were buried deep and his uncle had brought them up to the surface.

  ‘Get out! Take your evil wife with you and never come back,’ Pitt had shouted as Jane had wept on Becky’s shoulder, while Becky had kept herself very still so she didn’t wriggle in sheer delight. It was so rare that someone else did the heavy lifting for her and, thanks to Pitt, she no longer had to wreak vengeance on Martha Crawley all by herself.

  Becky waited until dinner that evening before she made her move and gently placed her hand on Pitt’s arm, because now that Martha and Bute had disappeared in a puff of sulphurous smoke (or their Ford Mondeo, to be more accurate), Becky was sitting on Pitt’s right.

  ‘I just wanted to say …’ she paused delicately and Pitt steeled himself for yet more demands. What everyone failed to understand was that until probate had been granted, he couldn’t do anything with all the money he was starting to wish he’d never inherited. This afternoon his accountant, who was more used to dealing with Pitt’s pitiful personal tax return, had calculated the amount of death duties Pitt would have to pay, and Pitt had wanted to cry like a baby.

  ‘Yes?’ he asked warily, because much as he disliked Martha, she’d had plenty to say about his sister-in-law, and none of it good. Also, like a lot of unremarkable men, Pitt had an innate distrust of beautiful women, mostly because they never wanted to sleep with him.

  ‘If you want Rawdy and I to clear out, if you feel that we’re imposing on you in any way, then you really must tell us,’ Becky said, shrinking back in her chair as if she simply couldn’t bear it if Pitt thought that his younger brother and his wife were a pair of opportunistic freeloaders.

  ‘We could go back to London,’ Rawdon said hopefully from further down the table where he was sitting with the children. About the only time that he wasn’t in a colossal sulk was when he spent time with his half-siblings, intent on cheering them up, though they didn’t seem that upset about the passing of their father. Probably because he was a distant, shouty figure who’d deprived them of all their creature comforts such as heating, sugar and television.

  ‘No, no, you’re fine,’ Pitt said hurriedly, staring down at his hands. He could hardly bring himself to look Rawdon in the eye. Being the eldest son, he’d expected to inherit Queen’s Crawley because, although his father didn’t seem to like him very much, his resentment of Rawdon was verging on biblical and it had barely seemed to register that he had five other children. So Pitt had assumed that whatever assets Pitt Senior possessed might come his way, and Rawdon would inherit their aunt’s estate in due course, as she delighted in reminding them all. And yet here they were. He’d never imagined that Sir Pitt’s assets would be so vast or that his Aunt Matilda would take so violently against Rawdon’s wife. ‘Absolutely fine. Lovely to have you both.’

  ‘And despite the sad circumstances, it’s wonderful to be here,’ Becky said, glancing down the table fondly at her former charges. ‘To be reunited with my darling little Crawleys.’

  Jane blinked rapidly. She was determined not to cry again and even Pitt marvelled silently at how one woman could be so beautiful but kind.

  ‘We weren’t your darling little Crawleys when you were our nanny,’ an accusing little voice piped up from the other end of the table and Thisbe (who else?) dared to smirk at Becky. ‘You used to pinch us if we didn’t behave and call us terrible names.’

  How Becky wished that she were sitting next to the little bastard so she could pinch him now. Instead she smiled sweetly at him. ‘Acting out,’ she murmured. ‘It’s to be expected after everything they’ve been through.’

  ‘Becky only used to pinch you,’ Calliope reminded her brother in equally piercing tones. ‘Because she said that you were the only one of us who should have been drowned at birth.’

  There was a moment’s shocked silence. Jane and Pitt both looked horrified, Becky scr
ambled to find something to say and Rawdon – Rawdon put down his knife and fork and started to laugh. He laughed so hard and for so long that, in the end, he rested his arms on the table and his head in his hands as he shook with mirth.

  If Rawdon was laughing, then it was all right for Jane to smile, even giggle, because the children were absolutely impossible. Then Pitt, giddy with relief that his younger brother was no longer sulking, started to laugh too. The children joined in because the grown-ups had been so sad and silent and had expected them to be sad and silent too, even though they were actually quite happy because Mrs Tinker let them have chicken nuggets every day and Jane let them watch television whenever they wanted.

  Only Thisbe and Becky were tight-lipped and absolutely not laughing. In fact, Becky took advantage of the fact that everyone else around the table was yakking it up like a bunch of hyenas, to hold Thisbe’s insolent gaze and draw a line across her neck in an unmistakable threat.

  In reply, Thisbe gave her the finger.

  ‘Children really do say the most silly things,’ Becky said at last. She covered Pitt’s hand where it rested on the table as his laughter simmered down to the occasional chuckle. ‘They’re such a comfort in bad times.’

  *

  It was another two weeks – a long, long, long two weeks, where it seemed to rain incessantly so that the creaky old house rang out to the resonant sound of water dripping into countless containers to catch the leaks – before Becky decided it was time.

  Time to make poor Pitt pay the piper. Twice he’d caught Becky with her head bent over the slim volume of short stories that was the only fiction he’d had published. Quite frankly, she was amazed that Pitt had found anyone deluded enough to want to publish them. Every story seemed to centre round a male writer, estranged from his father, whose girlfriend didn’t understand him. The first time Becky had been disturbed by Pitt as she struggled through his turgid prose stylings, she’d acted startled (‘Oh goodness, how embarrassing! I hope you don’t mind’) and the second time, as if she was quite overcome with emotion. ‘You have such a way with words,’ she sniffed, dabbing at her dry eyes with a tissue. ‘You do such beautiful things with them.’

  Now, it was her turn to startle Pitt as she came into his father’s study where he liked to disappear of an evening. He was bent over his ancient laptop, face puckered into a frown, which instantly transformed into a smile of pure pleasure as he saw Becky at the door.

  ‘Am I disturbing you?’ she asked.

  ‘No, no, no.’ Pitt slammed shut the laptop where he’d been working on a story where a male writer, estranged from his father who had recently died, found himself with a tendresse for his sister-in-law, who seemed unaware of his affection. Oh, cruel woman! as his last desperate line read. ‘I’m very happy to be disturbed.’

  He expected Becky to sit in one of the chairs on the other side of the desk but she came closer, swung herself up on the desk in front of him and invaded his space with the heady, intoxicating scent of her perfume, the shadowy cleft of her breasts, her legs. She tilted her head and regarded him with a look on her face that he would struggle to put into words.

  ‘Were you writing, Pitt?’

  ‘Something and nothing,’ he mumbled. ‘Nothing mostly. Nonsense.’

  ‘I’m sure it wasn’t,’ Becky said warmly. ‘Not if what I’ve already read of yours is anything to go by.’

  ‘Please, you flatter me too much,’ Pitt said, ducking his head as Becky marvelled that he shared the same gene pool as his late father and Rawdon, and yet those wonderfully patrician Crawley good looks had eluded him entirely. ‘I’m just an old hack.’

  ‘I’m glad you’re writing again,’ Becky said, though Pitt was a little peeved that she didn’t immediately rush to refute his claims of being just an old hack. ‘I know that you’ve had all this extra responsibility thrust on you; the children, the houses, the inheritance tax …’

  With each item that she listed, Pitt’s head hung lower and lower.

  ‘… the staff, the lawyers, surveyors, accountants. Honestly, Pitt, no one would blame you if you’d run away, but you’re stronger than that.’ Becky’s gaze travelled to the portrait of Sir Pitt, which hung over the fireplace and featured him as Hamlet, in edgy black leather, clutching Yorick’s skull. ‘I see so much of your father in you.’

  ‘I’m not sure how,’ Pitt said, because for all of his father’s charisma and magnetic good looks, he’d also been a complete bastard.

  ‘But you have something your father never had,’ Becky continued, her eyes fixed firmly on Pitt now, so he hardly dared to blink. ‘You have the soul of a poet, so I’m glad that you’re writing again. That even though you’re now the head of the family, you won’t forget what makes you special and sets you apart.’

  She held his gaze so Pitt couldn’t doubt the sincerity in her words and for a moment, as he lost himself in the fathomless green depths of her eyes, all his immediate worries were forgotten. Then Becky blinked and sniffed loudly (all of them were suffering with colds), and the moment was gone and already Pitt was bereft.

  ‘Anyway, I’ve come to say goodbye,’ Becky said briskly and suddenly Pitt felt colder than the grave where they’d recently deposited his father.

  ‘You’re leaving?’

  ‘’Fraid so.’ She sounded positively jaunty. ‘We’ve just heard, Rawdy’s been offered the title role in a production of Coriolanus at the National and rehearsals are starting immediately.’

  Pitt couldn’t help but pull a face. ‘Coriolanus? Not my favourite Shakespeare. There’s a reason why it’s one of his least popular plays.’

  ‘I know,’ Becky agreed then smiled impishly. ‘For God’s sake, don’t get commissioned to write a review, not when you and Rawdon have been getting on so well.’

  ‘I’m pretty sure it would be a conflict of interest,’ Pitt said, although he’d never been in the top tier of writers who were commissioned to review big opening nights at the National Theatre. Also, Rawdon had got over his sulk and was back to his usual affable, slightly vacant self and Pitt didn’t want to jeopardise their rapprochement. Rawdon had even said that if he’d inherited Matilda’s millions, it would have done him no good.

  ‘I’d have probably pissed them all away in a game of poker,’ he’d said heavily. ‘Or wound up dead from an overdose before the end of the year.’

  Pitt had always planned to do the right thing by his younger brother, but since that conversation he worried that perhaps Rawdon would go off the rails if he had access to too much money. Now he wondered if it might be better to give Rawdon an allowance, rather than a lump sum, administered through Becky, who despite her youth seemed to be a woman of good sense.

  ‘But when Rawdon tells you his news, can you be enthusiastic? It will be our little secret.’ Becky smiled conspiratorially and Pitt smiled back, delighted that the two of them were united, and that really, when you thought about it, they had so much in common. ‘Anyway, I must go and pack now, as he wants to head back to London in the morning.’

  ‘So soon?’ Pitt asked a little mournfully, but Becky was already jumping up from the desk, as if she had a million and one items to cross off her to-do list.

  ‘Yes, though there hasn’t been time to organise anything,’ she said, leaning back against the edge of the desk as if she was inclined to linger. ‘We don’t even have anywhere to stay. We gave up the place we were renting when we went to France.’ She sighed and drooped a little, like a flower deprived of sunlight. ‘So much to sort out, not to mention a deposit, three months’ rent in advance and all sorts of hidden fees … I bet you’re glad you’ve left the rental market behind.’

  With all his new worries, Pitt thought fondly back to the days when his biggest source of anxiety was whether he’d get his security deposit back. ‘But Rawdon gets paid well for his films, doesn’t he? And this new role at the National?’

  Becky sighed heavily, her face suddenly tense and drawn. She shook her head as if she was willing away
whatever dark thoughts had overtaken her. ‘It’s not your problem, Pitt. Rawdon and I can take care of ourselves,’ she said. ‘I’d hate you to think that we were spongers like Bute and Martha. I want to be a help to you, not a burden.’

  Typical Rawdon! Pitt could just imagine what he’d done with his film money. At Eton, famously, he’d lost his entire term’s allowance by betting on the outcome of two raindrops trickling down the window of the Upper Fourth common room.

  ‘Talking of being a help, while we’re back in London, do you want me to look in on Mattie’s house in Primrose Hill?’ Becky asked because she really was a sweet girl. ‘It’s just when I was staying with Mattie, there were so many burglaries in the neighbourhood and the house is just sitting there empty. I could, I don’t know, set the lights on a timer …’

  ‘I’ve got a better idea …’ Pitt exclaimed, as he suddenly saw a way to take care of Becky, because Rawdon was obviously doing a lousy job of it, and solve yet another problem that he hadn’t even been aware of. ‘You see, Mattie’s housekeeper is still living there, and Briggs …’

  ‘Oh! Of course they are.’ Becky smiled at him forlornly. ‘That’s so kind of you, Pitt. Otherwise they’d have nowhere to live …’

  ‘But they’re just rattling round the house with nothing to do, not that I begrudge them a roof over their heads and a salary—’

  ‘Bute and Martha would have had them out in the blink of an eye,’ Becky pointed out. ‘Mattie wouldn’t have wanted that.’

  ‘Would you … that is … do you think you and Rawdon might move in there?’ Pitt asked and flinched as Becky bristled, folding her arms so her breasts jutted out delightfully.

  ‘We don’t need charity, Pitt,’ she said coldly, and it was he who took her hand, her frozen little hand, in his.

  ‘I’m not saying you do, but you did say that you wanted to be a help and it would be doing me a huge favour if you stayed at the house in Primrose Hill and kept an eye on that housekeeper.’ He patted the back of her hand awkwardly. ‘Briggs said that some of Mattie’s things had gone missing.’