Becky left Sir Pitt gobsmacked and stupefied on the sofa so she could waylay Briggs and prevent him from going upstairs.
‘Oh my! Quelle scandale!’ he said, his arms wrapped around his tubby body as if he couldn’t quite contain himself. ‘Who knew? How thrilling!’
Becky grabbed hold of his arm and frogmarched him down the hall and into the kitchen. ‘Not a word of this to anyone,’ she warned. ‘Or you won’t like the consequences.’
Briggs made a big show of rubbing his arm. ‘So butch,’ he complained. ‘I don’t know why you’re being so mean to me. Though you were much meaner to Sir Pitt.’
There was no point in trying to talk any sense into Briggs, so with a firm order to get rid of Sir Pitt by any means necessary, Becky made for the stairs. She must see Dame Matilda before Briggs got there first.
Her steps were heavy as she ascended, as if she were wading through treacle in gumboots. It wasn’t often that Becky felt nervous, but her mouth was dry, all the moisture in her mouth having migrated to her forehead and her upper lip, which were suddenly sweating. Not that there was anything to be nervous about. It was all going to be fine. Better than fine.
She knocked on Dame Matilda’s door and opened it to find the lady herself sitting up in bed in her favourite pale-blue satin bedjacket, with a welcoming smile on her face. Suddenly Becky wasn’t nervous any more – her friendship with Matilda could survive anything.
‘I hear Pitt’s been sniffing about,’ Mattie said brightly. ‘Thank God, you managed to head him off. What did he want anyway?’
Becky took her time tidying away the pile of newspapers and magazines and a half-eaten box of Fortnum & Mason chocolates, so she could sit down on the bed. ‘You’re going to love this,’ she said confidently. ‘He … well, he asked me to marry him!’
‘He did what?’ Dame Matilda threw her head back and let out a peal of delighted laughter. She laughed so long and so hard that the bed shook and tears leaked from her eyes. Becky wondered if she might be having a relapse after all.
‘I’m going to get you a glass of water,’ she decided, but Dame Matilda’s hand shot out and gripped her wrist.
‘You’ll do no such thing! This is the most hilarious joke I’ve heard in years.’ And she was off again with the shaking and the tears, until finally she subsided with a couple of hiccups and patted Becky’s hand instead of clutching it in a death grip. ‘I hope you let the old goat down gently.’
Becky took a deep breath. ‘Quite gently.’ She exhaled. ‘You see, I can’t marry him when, well, I’m already married.’
Dame Matilda widened her eyes and silently ‘oooh’ed. ‘Are you? You kept that quiet, you sneaky little thing. Was it some teenage act of bravado?’
‘No, not really. I mean, I’m not really a teenager any more. I’m almost twenty-one.’
‘I’m not quite sure I follow you.’ Dame Matilda had become very still, like the Dowager Countess in Lyndon Place before she’d been killed off in her prime. ‘And who exactly is the lucky man?’
Never before had Becky looked so innocent, so unworldly. ‘Well, it’s Rawdon, of course,’ she said.
There was a moment of silence that seemed to last for an eternity yet was over far, far too soon as Dame Matilda made a strange, choked sound at the back of her throat. She spluttered for a few seconds – perhaps this time she really was having a relapse. But Becky didn’t offer to fetch a glass of water, instead staring at the dame with the same calm expression on her face.
‘Are you pregnant?’ Matilda finally gasped once she’d regained the power of speech. ‘Is that how you trapped him?’
Becky felt herself go clammy but forced herself to remain poised, to not give her agitation away by so much as a twitch of her fingers. ‘I’m not pregnant …’
‘Then why on earth did he marry you?’
‘We’re in love,’ Becky persevered, though the word ‘love’ felt strange as she said it. It left a bad taste in her mouth. ‘Just like you wanted.’
‘Like I wanted?’ Dame Matilda echoed incredulously. ‘Why would you think this clandestine marriage is what I wanted?’
Becky patted Matilda’s clawed hand just the once before the other woman yanked it away as if Becky had just given her an electric shock. Becky couldn’t help but sigh. ‘Mattie, I appreciate this might be a surprise, but you were the one who constantly threw Rawdon and I together, and what can I say?’ She shrugged helplessly. ‘Love blossomed.’
‘Love blossomed, my arse! You didn’t have to get married after knowing each other all of five minutes. I thought you’d have a fling, a brief affair, and he’d have his heart broken a little, which would be the making of him. Not this!’ The dame’s eyes narrowed. ‘There’s only one reason why you’d want to get married so young, and that’s because you thought you were on to a good thing.’
‘You’re being very unfair, Mattie. Is it really so strange that I might want to spend the rest of my life with Rawdon, when he’s funny and handsome and kind and …?’
‘Weak and gullible and easily led, and you, Miss Becky Sharp, amusing as you are to have about the place, are cunning, conniving and cruel. I’ll concede that life has made you that way, and I pity you for that, but I know that instead of just breaking his heart a little, you’ll break him. You won’t be able to stop yourself,’ Matilda said and there was real fear in her voice, in the shadowed look in her rheumy blue eyes. Foolish to be fearful, really. Becky had no intention of breaking Rawdon. He’d be no good to her if he was broken.
‘I wouldn’t say I was cruel. Was I cruel when I was nursing you around the clock and waiting on you hand and foot?’ Becky reminded her softly. Yes, her reasons for nursing Mattie round the clock might not have been entirely selfless, but she’d really gone above and beyond in her performance as a dutiful, caring companion. ‘Really, I don’t know why you can’t be happy for us.’
Matilda thumped one of her Pratesi pillows. ‘Because there’s something rotten in the state of Denmark,’ she quoted, though Becky looked at her blankly, because what had Denmark got to do with anything? She’d never got as far as Shakespeare in school. ‘You’re after my money. Of course you are! Why else did you conduct this so-called romance behind my back? Didn’t even ask for my blessing. Oh no! You thought you’d present me with a fait accompli and pass it off as true love. I don’t believe you love anyone but yourself!’ She scooped up a handful of chocolates and threw them at Becky, who didn’t flinch, didn’t so much as blink, even when a violet cream bounced off nose. ‘Get out and don’t come back! And you can tell Rawdon that he’s not getting a single penny out of me. I’m calling my solicitor today to have my will changed.’
Becky stood up far too slowly for Dame Crawley’s liking. She was still outwardly placid but if Matilda hadn’t turned her face away in a fit of pique, she’d have seen the positively feral glint in Becky’s green eyes.
‘Shall we talk about this when you’ve calmed down?’ Becky asked in a soothing, level voice that didn’t waver or indicate how close she was to hitting the dame over her head with a copy of Grazia.
‘I WILL NEVER BE CALM ABOUT THIS! GET OUT! GO ON, GET OUT!’ She paused to rally her strength and Becky lingered by the door to see if, this time, please God, she really was going to relapse. A short, sharp, fatal heart attack to put them all out of her misery, but no. ‘BRIGGS!’
Briggs came bustling in immediately as, of course, he’d been listening at the door. As Becky brushed past him, he was actually rubbing his thighs in glee. ‘Mattie, dear,’ he gasped. ‘The nerve of that girl. I always thought there was something untrustworthy about her.’
‘Yes! Yes!’ Dame Matilda agreed, her cheeks stained a mottled purple, her voice thin and reedy. ‘Something about her eyes and the set of her mouth, as if she was secretly laughing at me but I was too much of a silly old woman to see it.’
‘You’re not silly or old!’ Briggs cried, though actually the pair of them were both of those things. ‘You’ve gone a strange colour.’
‘My pills …’ She clawed at her throat with a crabbed hand as Briggs froze in horror. Then the moment passed and she glared at him. ‘I’m not dying, you silly bugger. I wouldn’t give that girl the satisfaction.’
That girl was packing her bags. Or rather packing two vintage Louis Vuitton cases that had been shoved in the back of a cupboard, and which Dame Matilda would never miss because she couldn’t even remember buying them, along with the gold cigarette case, hip flask and powder compact that Becky had found in a drawer while the old lady was on her sickbed. It wasn’t as if the dame had ever once offered to pay Becky for the hours and hours that she’d nursed her, so who could blame Becky for taking a few items in lieu? She also packed every last piece of clothing lent to her by her former benefactor, called an Uber to Rawdon’s account and then slipped out of the front door, slamming it so hard behind her that one of the adjacent window boxes came tumbling to the ground in a mess of earth and crushed scarlet geraniums.
Upstairs, Dame Matilda heard the slam and crash and shuddered.
‘Like a ghost walking over my grave,’ she murmured quietly and though he’d said that he’d never trusted her (it seemed the right thing to say), Briggs was already missing Becky Sharp. He’d never been any good at dealing with the more mercurial aspects of Matilda Crawley’s personality.
‘Fan letters,’ he said a little desperately, holding out a pile of post he’d been clutching, his excuse for lurking outside the door while the women fought. ‘That will cheer you up.’
‘Why would I be cheered up by the ravings of a bunch of fawning sycophants?’ the dame demanded. ‘They seem to think my career began and ended in that dreadful Sunday-night soap opera.’
‘I’m sure they’ve written very lovely things about you,’ Briggs persisted, wishing he had his own tablets to hand. He was a slave to his beta blockers. ‘And look! Here’s a parcel. It’s all soft and squishy. I wonder what it could be?’
‘Who cares?’ Dame Matilda lay sprawled on her pillows for all of five seconds, then held out her hand imperiously. ‘Still, if someone’s gone to all the trouble of sending me something then I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to take a look.’
‘Of course it wouldn’t,’ Briggs agreed, passing over the parcel, which was wrapped in brown paper and fastened with novelty tape adorned with little red hearts.
Inside was a misshapen, red, moulting, woollen thing that rendered Dame Matilda quite speechless.
‘There’s a card,’ Briggs pointed out. ‘Maybe it explains what it is. Shall I read it out?’
Dear Dame Matilda
I’m sure you don’t remember me, but I’m Jane, Pitt Junior’s life partner. I was at Queen’s Crawley last Christmas though sadly we didn’t get a chance to speak.
I heard that you weren’t well so I knitted you a bedjacket. I had to guess the measurements and if it doesn’t fit or you’re thinking, ‘Yikes, who is this scary woman and what is this scary garment she’s sent me?’ (I’m still struggling a bit with figuring out sleeves) then please just send it to the nearest charity shop.
Anyway, I hope you are feeling much better.
Yours truly
Jane
PS: Pitt Junior sends his love.
PPS: I thought you were awfully good in the Lyndon Place Christmas special.
‘Jane?’ queried Dame Matilda in the same way that Lady Bracknell once enquired about a handbag. ‘That lumpen creature living with Pitt Junior?’
‘Quite lumpen but quite sweet too,’ Briggs said. ‘I mentioned in passing that the green triangles were my favourite Quality Street and she let me weed them out of the tin.’
‘Jane …’ Dame Matilda said again. ‘A very plain girl. You know where you are with someone who’s never had to rely on their looks. And Pitt’s always been a good-natured boy. Can’t write for toffee, of course, but God loves a trier, don’t he?’
‘He does, he does,’ Briggs came in for the chorus though he wasn’t altogether sure why Mattie was suddenly so taken with two people that she’d never had any interest in before.
‘Yes, we’ll invite them round for lunch,’ the dame decided. She shot a confused Briggs a smile that was all teeth. ‘I’ve always said that it’s important to have your family around you.’