Family Portraits

Sir Pitt did not care, as he said, a brass farden for any one of them.
He had his pretty Rose, and what more need a man require than to please
himself? So he used to get drunk every night: to beat his pretty Rose
sometimes: to leave her in Hampshire when he went to London for the
parliamentary session, without a single friend in the wide world. Even
Mrs. Bute Crawley, the Rector's wife, refused to visit her, as she said
she would never give the pas to a tradesman's daughter.

As the only endowments with which Nature had gifted Lady Crawley were
those of pink cheeks and a white skin, and as she had no sort of
character, nor talents, nor opinions, nor occupations, nor amusements,
nor that vigour of soul and ferocity of temper which often falls to the
lot of entirely foolish women, her hold upon Sir Pitt's affections was
not very great. Her roses faded out of her cheeks, and the pretty
freshness left her figure after the birth of a couple of children, and
she became a mere machine in her husband's house of no more use than
the late Lady Crawley's grand piano. Being a light-complexioned woman,
she wore light clothes, as most blondes will, and appeared, in
preference, in draggled sea-green, or slatternly sky-blue. She worked
that worsted day and night, or other pieces like it. She had
counterpanes in the course of a few years to all the beds in Crawley.
She had a small flower-garden, for which she had rather an affection;
but beyond this no other like or disliking. When her husband was rude
to her she was apathetic: whenever he struck her she cried. She had
not character enough to take to drinking, and moaned about, slipshod
and in curl-papers all day. O Vanity Fair--Vanity Fair! This might
have been, but for you, a cheery lass--Peter Butt and Rose a happy man
and wife, in a snug farm, with a hearty family; and an honest portion
of pleasures, cares, hopes and struggles--but a title and a coach and
four are toys more precious than happiness in Vanity Fair: and if Harry
the Eighth or Bluebeard were alive now, and wanted a tenth wife, do you
suppose he could not get the prettiest girl that shall be presented
this season?