Book: Vanity Fair

W >> William Makepeace Thackary >> Vanity Fair




John Sedley had not the heart to review the domestic
establishment who have appeared now and anon in our
pages and of whom he was now forced by poverty to
take leave. The wages of those worthy people were
discharged with that punctuality which men frequently show
who only owe in great sums--they were sorry to leave
good places--but they did not break their hearts at parting
from their adored master and mistress. Amelia's maid
was profuse in condolences, but went off quite resigned
to better herself in a genteeler quarter of the town. Black
Sambo, with the infatuation of his profession, determined
on setting up a public-house. Honest old Mrs. Blenkinsop
indeed, who had seen the birth of Jos and Amelia, and
the wooing of John Sedley and his wife, was for staying
by them without wages, having amassed a considerable
sum in their service: and she accompanied the fallen
people into their new and humble place of refuge, where
she tended them and grumbled against them for a while.

Of all Sedley's opponents in his debates with his creditors
which now ensued, and harassed the feelings of the
humiliated old gentleman so severely, that in six weeks he
oldened more than he had done for fifteen years before--
the most determined and obstinate seemed to be John
Osborne, his old friend and neighbour--John Osborne,
whom he had set up in life--who was under a hundred
obligations to him--and whose son was to marry Sedley's
daughter. Any one of these circumstances would account
for the bitterness of Osborne's opposition.

When one man has been under very remarkable
obligations to another, with whom he subsequently quarrels,
a common sense of decency, as it were, makes of the
former a much severer enemy than a mere stranger
would be. To account for your own hard-heartedness and
ingratitude in such a case, you are bound to prove the
other party's crime. It is not that you are selfish, brutal,
and angry at the failure of a speculation--no, no--it is
that your partner has led you into it by the basest treachery
and with the most sinister motives. From a mere
sense of consistency, a persecutor is bound to show that
the fallen man is a villain--otherwise he, the persecutor,
is a wretch himself.

And as a general rule, which may make all creditors
who are inclined to be severe pretty comfortable in their
minds, no men embarrassed are altogether honest, very
likely. They conceal something; they exaggerate chances
of good luck; hide away the real state of affairs; say that
things are flourishing when they are hopeless, keep a
smiling face (a dreary smile it is) upon the verge of
bankruptcy--are ready to lay hold of any pretext for
delay or of any money, so as to stave off the inevitable
ruin a few days longer. "Down with such dishonesty,"
says the creditor in triumph, and reviles his sinking
enemy. "You fool, why do you catch at a straw?" calm
good sense says to the man that is drowning. "You villain,
why do you shrink from plunging into the irretrievable
Gazette?" says prosperity to the poor devil battling in
that black gulf. Who has not remarked the readiness with
which the closest of friends and honestest of men suspect
and accuse each other of cheating when they fall out
on money matters? Everybody does it. Everybody is right,
I suppose, and the world is a rogue.

Then Osborne had the intolerable sense of former
benefits to goad and irritate him: these are always a
cause of hostility aggravated. Finally, he had to break off
the match between Sedley's daughter and his son; and
as it had gone very far indeed, and as the poor girl's
happiness and perhaps character were compromised, it was
necessary to show the strongest reasons for the rupture,
and for John Osborne to prove John Sedley to be a very
bad character indeed.

At the meetings of creditors, then, he comported himself
with a savageness and scorn towards Sedley, which
almost succeeded in breaking the heart of that ruined
bankrupt man. On George's intercourse with Amelia he
put an instant veto--menacing the youth with maledictions
if he broke his commands, and vilipending the
poor innocent girl as the basest and most artful of vixens.
One of the great conditions of anger and hatred is, that
you must tell and believe lies against the hated object, in
order, as we said, to be consistent.

When the great crash came--the announcement of
ruin, and the departure from Russell Square, and the
declaration that all was over between her and George--all
over between her and love, her and happiness, her and
faith in the world--a brutal letter from John Osborne
told her in a few curt lines that her father's conduct had
been of such a nature that all engagements between the
families were at an end--when the final award came, it
did not shock her so much as her parents, as her mother
rather expected (for John Sedley himself was entirely
prostrate in the ruins of his own affairs and shattered
honour). Amelia took the news very palely and calmly.
It was only the confirmation of the dark presages which
had long gone before. It was the mere reading of the
sentence--of the crime she had long ago been guilty--the
crime of loving wrongly, too violently, against reason.
She told no more of her thoughts now than she had
before. She seemed scarcely more unhappy now when
convinced all hope was over, than before when she felt but
dared not confess that it was gone. So she changed from
the large house to the small one without any mark or
difference; remained in her little room for the most part;
pined silently; and died away day by day. I do not mean
to say that all females are so. My dear Miss Bullock, I
do not think your heart would break in this way. You are
a strong-minded young woman with proper principles.
I do not venture to say that mine would; it has suffered,
and, it must be confessed, survived. But there are some
souls thus gently constituted, thus frail, and delicate, and
tender.

Whenever old John Sedley thought of the affair
between George and Amelia, or alluded to it, it was with
bitterness almost as great as Mr. Osborne himself had
shown. He cursed Osborne and his family as heartless,
wicked, and ungrateful. No power on earth, he swore,
would induce him to marry his daughter to the son of
such a villain, and he ordered Emmy to banish George
from her mind, and to return all the presents and letters
which she had ever had from him.

She promised acquiescence, and tried to obey. She put
up the two or three trinkets: and, as for the letters, she
drew them out of the place.where she kept them; and
read them over--as if she did not know them by heart
already: but she could not part with them. That effort
was too much for her; she placed them back in her
bosom again--as you have seen a woman nurse a child
that is dead. Young Amelia felt that she would die or lose
her senses outright, if torn away from this last consolation.
How she used to blush and lighten up when those
letters came! How she used to trip away with a beating
heart, so that she might read unseen! If they were cold,
yet how perversely this fond little soul interpreted them
into warmth. If they were short or selfish, what excuses
she found for the writer!

It was over these few worthless papers that she brooded
and brooded. She lived in her past life--every letter
seemed to recall some circumstance of it. How well she
remembered them all! His looks and tones, his dress,
what he said and how--these relics and remembrances
of dead affection were all that were left her in the world.
And the business of her life, was--to watch the corpse
of Love.

To death she looked with inexpressible longing. Then,
she thought, I shall always be able to follow him. I am not
praising her conduct or setting her up as a model for
Miss Bullock to imitate. Miss B. knows how to regulate
her feelings better than this poor little creature. Miss B.
would never have committed herself as that imprudent
Amelia had done; pledged her love irretrievably;
confessed her heart away, and got back nothing--only a
brittle promise which was snapt and worthless in a
moment. A long engagement is a partnership which one
party is free to keep or to break, but which involves all
the capital of the other.

Be cautious then, young ladies; be wary how you
engage. Be shy of loving frankly; never tell all you feel, or
(a better way still), feel very little. See the consequences
of being prematurely honest and confiding, and mistrust
yourselves and everybody. Get yourselves married as they
do in France, where the lawyers are the bridesmaids and
confidantes. At any rate, never have any feelings which
may make you uncomfortable, or make any promises
which you cannot at any required moment command and
withdraw. That is the way to get on, and be respected,
and have a virtuous character in Vanity Fair.

If Amelia could have heard the comments regarding
her which were made in the circle from which her father's
ruin had just driven her, she would have seen what her
own crimes were, and how entirely her character was
jeopardised. Such criminal imprudence Mrs. Smith never
knew of; such horrid familiarities Mrs. Brown had
always condemned, and the end might be a warning to HER
daughters. "Captain Osborne, of course, could not marry
a bankrupt's daughter," the Misses Dobbin said. "It was
quite enough to have been swindled by the father. As for
that little Amelia, her folly had really passed all--"

"All what?" Captain Dobbin roared out. "Haven't they
been engaged ever since they were children? Wasn't it
as good as a marriage? Dare any soul on earth breathe a
word against the sweetest, the purest, the tenderest, the
most angelical of young women?"

"La, William, don't be so highty-tighty with US. We're
not men. We can't fight you," Miss Jane said. "We've said
nothing against Miss Sedley: but that her conduct
throughout was MOST IMPRUDENT, not to call it by any
worse name; and that her parents are people who
certainly merit their misfortunes."

"Hadn't you better, now that Miss Sedley is free,
propose for her yourself, William?" Miss Ann asked
sarcastically. "It would be a most eligible family
connection. He! he!"

"I marry her!" Dobbin said, blushing very much, and
talking quick. "If you are so ready, young ladies, to chop
and change, do you suppose that she is? Laugh and sneer
at that angel. She can't hear it; and she's miserable and
unfortunate, and deserves to be laughed at. Go on
joking, Ann. You're the wit of the family, and the others
like to hear it."

"I must tell you again we're not in a barrack, William,"
Miss Ann remarked.

"In a barrack, by Jove--I wish anybody in a barrack
would say what you do," cried out this uproused British
lion. "I should like to hear a man breathe a word against
her, by Jupiter. But men don't talk in this way, Ann: it's
only women, who get together and hiss, and shriek, and
cackle. There, get away--don't begin to cry. I only said
you were a couple of geese," Will Dobbin said, perceiving
Miss Ann's pink eyes were beginning to moisten as
usual. "Well, you're not geese, you're swans--anything
you like, only do, do leave Miss Sedley alone."

Anything like William's infatuation about that silly little
flirting, ogling thing was never known, the mamma
and sisters agreed together in thinking: and they trembled
lest, her engagement being off with Osborne, she should
take up immediately her other admirer and Captain.
In which forebodings these worthy young women no
doubt judged according to the best of their experience; or
rather (for as yet they had had no opportunities of
marrying or of jilting) according to their own notions of
right and wrong.

"It is a mercy, Mamma, that the regiment is ordered
abroad," the girls said. "THIS danger, at any rate, is
spared our brother."

Such, indeed, was the fact; and so it is that the French
Emperor comes in to perform a part in this domestic
comedy of Vanity Fair which we are now playing, and
which would never have been enacted without the
intervention of this august mute personage. It was he
that ruined the Bourbons and Mr. John Sedley. It was
he whose arrival in his capital called up all France in
arms to defend him there; and all Europe to oust him.
While the French nation and army were swearing fidelity
round the eagles in the Champ de Mars, four mighty
European hosts were getting in motion for the great
chasse a l'aigle; and one of these was a British army, of
which two heroes of ours, Captain Dobbin and Captain
Osborne, formed a portion.

The news of Napoleon's escape and landing was
received by the gallant --th with a fiery delight and
enthusiasm, which everybody can understand who knows
that famous corps. From the colonel to the smallest
drummer in the regiment, all were filled with hope and
ambition and patriotic fury; and thanked the French Emperor
as for a personal kindness in coming to disturb the peace
of Europe. Now was the time the --th had so long
panted for, to show their comrades in arms that they
could fight as well as the Peninsular veterans, and that
all the pluck and valour of the --th had not been killed
by the West Indies and the yellow fever. Stubble and
Spooney looked to get their companies without purchase.
Before the end of the campaign (which she resolved
to share), Mrs. Major O'Dowd hoped to write
herself Mrs. Colonel O'Dowd, C.B. Our two friends
(Dobbin and Osborne) were quite as much excited as the
rest: and each in his way--Mr. Dobbin very quietly, Mr.
Osborne very loudly and energetically--was bent upon
doing his duty, and gaining his share of honour and
distinction.

The agitation thrilling through the country and army
in consequence of this news was so great, that private
matters were little heeded: and hence probably George
Osborne, just gazetted to his company, busy with preparations
for the march, which must come inevitably, and
panting for further promotion--was not so much affected
by other incidents which would have interested him at a
more quiet period. He was not, it must be confessed,
very much cast down by good old Mr. Sedley's catastrophe.
He tried his new uniform, which became him
very handsomely, on the day when the first meeting of
the creditors of the unfortunate gentleman took place.
His father told him of the wicked, rascally, shameful
conduct of the bankrupt, reminded him of what he had
said about Amelia, and that their connection was broken
off for ever; and gave him that evening a good sum of
money to pay for the new clothes and epaulets in which
he looked so well. Money was always useful to this free-
handed young fellow, and he took it without many words.
The bills were up in the Sedley house, where he had
passed so many, many happy hours. He could see
them as he walked from home that night (to the Old
Slaughters', where he put up when in town) shining white
in the moon. That comfortable home was shut, then, upon
Amelia and her parents: where had they taken refuge?
The thought of their ruin affected him not a little. He
was very melancholy that night in the coffee-room at
the Slaughters'; and drank a good deal, as his comrades
remarked there.

Dobbin came in presently, cautioned him about the
drink, which he only took, he said, because he was
deuced low; but when his friend began to put to him
clumsy inquiries, and asked him for news in a significant
manner, Osborne declined entering into conversation with
him, avowing, however, that he was devilish disturbed
and unhappy.

Three days afterwards, Dobbin found Osborne in his
room at the barracks--his head on the table, a number
of papers about, the young Captain evidently in a state
of great despondency. "She--she's sent me back some
things I gave her--some damned trinkets. Look here!"
There was a little packet directed in the well-known hand
to Captain George Osborne, and some things lying about
--a ring, a silver knife he had bought, as a boy, for her
at a fair; a gold chain, and a locket with hair in it. "It's
all over," said he, with a groan of sickening remorse.
"Look, Will, you may read it if you like."

There was a little letter of a few lines, to which he
pointed, which said:


My papa has ordered me to return to you these
presents, which you made in happier days to me; and I
am to write to you for the last time. I think, I know you
feel as much as I do the blow which has come upon us.
It is I that absolve you from an engagement which is
impossible in our present misery. I am sure you had no
share in it, or in the cruel suspicions of Mr. Osborne,
which are the hardest of all our griefs to bear. Farewell.
Farewell. I pray God to strengthen me to bear this and
other calamities, and to bless you always. A.

I shall often play upon the piano--your piano. It was
like you to send it.

Dobbin was very soft-hearted. The sight of women
and children in pain always used to melt him. The idea
of Amelia broken-hearted and lonely tore that good-
natured soul with anguish. And he broke out into an
emotion, which anybody who likes may consider unmanly.
He swore that Amelia was an angel, to which Osborne
said aye with all his heart. He, too, had been reviewing
the history of their lives--and had seen her from her
childhood to her present age, so sweet, so innocent,
so charmingly simple, and artlessly fond and tender.

What a pang it was to lose all that: to have had it and
not prized it! A thousand homely scenes and recollections
crowded on him--in which he always saw her good
and beautiful. And for himself, he blushed with remorse
and shame, as the remembrance of his own selfishness
and indifference contrasted with that perfect purity. For
a while, glory, war, everything was forgotten, and the
pair of friends talked about her only.

"Where are they?" Osborne asked, after a long talk,
and a long pause--and, in truth, with no little shame at
thinking that he had taken no steps to follow her. "Where
are they? There's no address to the note."

Dobbin knew. He had not merely sent the piano; but
had written a note to Mrs. Sedley, and asked permission
to come and see her--and he had seen her, and Amelia
too, yesterday, before he came down to Chatham; and,
what is more, he had brought that farewell letter and
packet which had so moved them.

The good-natured fellow had found Mrs. Sedley only
too willing to receive him, and greatly agitated by the
arrival of the piano, which, as she conjectured, MUST have
come from George, and was a signal of amity on his
part. Captain Dobbin did not correct this error of the
worthy lady, but listened to all her story of complaints
and misfortunes with great sympathy--condoled with
her losses and privations, and agreed in reprehending the
cruel conduct of Mr. Osborne towards his first benefactor.
When she had eased her overflowing bosom somewhat,
and poured forth many of her sorrows, he had the
courage to ask actually to see Amelia, who was above in
her room as usual, and whom her mother led trembling
downstairs.

Her appearance was so ghastly, and her look of despair
so pathetic, that honest William Dobbin was frightened
as he beheld it; and read the most fatal forebodings in
that pale fixed face. After sitting in his company a minute
or two, she put the packet into his hand, and said,
"Take this to Captain Osborne, if you please, and--and I
hope he's quite well--and it was very kind of you to
come and see us--and we like our new house very much.
And I--I think I'll go upstairs, Mamma, for I'm not very
strong." And with this, and a curtsey and a smile, the
poor child went her way. The mother, as she led her up,
cast back looks of anguish towards Dobbin. The good
fellow wanted no such appeal. He loved her himself too
fondly for that. Inexpressible grief, and pity, and terror
pursued him, and he came away as if he was a criminal
after seeing her.

When Osborne heard that his friend had found her,
he made hot and anxious inquiries regarding the poor
child. How was she? How did she look? What did she
say? His comrade took his hand, and looked him in the
face.

"George, she's dying," William Dobbin said--and could
speak no more.

There was a buxom Irish servant-girl, who performed
all the duties of the little house where the Sedley family
had found refuge: and this girl had in vain, on many
previous days, striven to give Amelia aid or consolation.
Emmy was much too sad to answer, or even to be aware
of the attempts the other was making in her favour.

Four hours after the talk between Dobbin and Osborne,
this servant-maid came into Amelia's room, where she
sate as usual, brooding silently over her letters--her
little treasures. The girl, smiling, and looking arch and
happy, made many trials to attract poor Emmy's
attention, who, however, took no heed of her.

"Miss Emmy," said the girl.

"I'm coming," Emmy said, not looking round.

"There's a message," the maid went on. "There's
something--somebody--sure, here's a new letter for you--
don't be reading them old ones any more." And she gave
her a letter, which Emmy took, and read.

"I must see you," the letter said. "Dearest Emmy--
dearest love--dearest wife, come to me."

George and her mother were outside, waiting until she
had read the letter.




CHAPTER XIX


Miss Crawley at Nurse

We have seen how Mrs. Firkin, the lady's maid, as soon
as any event of importance to the Crawley family came
to her knowledge, felt bound to communicate it to Mrs.
Bute Crawley, at the Rectory; and have before
mentioned how particularly kind and attentive that good-
natured lady was to Miss Crawley's confidential servant.
She had been a gracious friend to Miss Briggs, the
companion, also; and had secured the latter's good-will by a
number of those attentions and promises, which cost so
little in the making, and are yet so valuable and agreeable to
the recipient. Indeed every good economist and
manager of a household must know how cheap and yet
how amiable these professions are, and what a flavour
they give to the most homely dish in life. Who was the
blundering idiot who said that "fine words butter no
parsnips"? Half the parsnips of society are served and
rendered palatable with no other sauce. As the immortal
Alexis Soyer can make more delicious soup for a half-
penny than an ignorant cook can concoct with pounds of
vegetables and meat, so a skilful artist will make a few
simple and pleasing phrases go farther than ever so much
substantial benefit-stock in the hands of a mere bungler.
Nay, we know that substantial benefits often sicken some
stomachs; whereas, most will digest any amount of fine
words, and be always eager for more of the same food.
Mrs. Bute had told Briggs and Firkin so often of the
depth of her affection for them; and what she would do,
if she had Miss Crawley's fortune, for friends so excellent
and attached, that the ladies in question had the deepest
regard for her; and felt as much gratitude and
confidence as if Mrs. Bute had loaded them with the most
expensive favours.

Rawdon Crawley, on the other hand, like a selfish
heavy dragoon as he was, never took the least trouble to
conciliate his aunt's aides-de-camp, showed his contempt
for the pair with entire frankness--made Firkin pull off
his boots on one occasion--sent her out in the rain on
ignominious messages--and if he gave her a guinea, flung
it to her as if it were a box on the ear. As his aunt, too,
made a butt of Briggs, the Captain followed the
example, and levelled his jokes at her--jokes about as
delicate as a kick from his charger. Whereas, Mrs. Bute
consulted her in matters of taste or difficulty, admired
her poetry, and by a thousand acts of kindness and
politeness, showed her appreciation of Briggs; and if she
made Firkin a twopenny-halfpenny present, accompanied
it with so many compliments, that the twopence-half-
penny was transmuted into gold in the heart of the grateful
waiting-maid, who, besides, was looking forwards
quite contentedly to some prodigious benefit which must
happen to her on the day when Mrs. Bute came into her
fortune.

The different conduct of these two people is pointed
out respectfully to the attention of persons commencing
the world. Praise everybody, I say to such: never be
squeamish, but speak out your compliment both point-
blank in a man's face, and behind his back, when
you know there is a reasonable chance of his hearing it
again. Never lose a chance of saying a kind word. As
Collingwood never saw a vacant place in his estate but
he took an acorn out of his pocket and popped it in;
so deal with your compliments through life. An acorn
costs nothing; but it may sprout into a prodigious bit of
timber.

In a word, during Rawdon Crawley's prosperity, he was
only obeyed with sulky acquiescence; when his disgrace
came, there was nobody to help or pity him. Whereas,
when Mrs. Bute took the command at Miss Crawley's
house, the garrison there were charmed to act under
such a leader, expecting all sorts of promotion from her
promises, her generosity, and her kind words.

Copyright (c) 2007. knowncrafts.net. All rights reserved.