Book: Vanity Fair

W >> William Makepeace Thackary >> Vanity Fair




Out of Jos's losings and George Osborne's bank-notes,
he paid his bill at the inn, the landlord whereof does not
probably know to this day how doubtfully his account
once stood. For, as a general sends his baggage to the
rear before an action, Rebecca had wisely packed up all
their chief valuables and sent them off under care of
George's servant, who went in charge of the trunks on
the coach back to London. Rawdon and his wife
returned by the same conveyance next day.

"I should have liked to see the old girl before we went,"
Rawdon said. "She looks so cut up and altered that I'm
sure she can't last long. I wonder what sort of a cheque
I shall have at Waxy's. Two hundred--it can't be less
than two hundred--hey, Becky?"

In consequence of the repeated visits of the aides-de-
camp of the Sheriff of Middlesex, Rawdon and his wife
did not go back to their lodgings at Brompton, but put
up at an inn. Early the next morning, Rebecca had an
opportunity of seeing them as she skirted that suburb
on her road to old Mrs. Sedley's house at Fulham, whither
she went to look for her dear Amelia and her Brighton
friends. They were all off to Chatham, thence to Harwich,
to take shipping for Belgium with the regiment--
kind old Mrs. Sedley very much depressed and tearful,
solitary. Returning from this visit, Rebecca found her
husband, who had been off to Gray's Inn, and learnt his
fate. He came back furious.

"By Jove, Becky," says he, "she's only given me twenty
pound!"

Though it told against themselves, the joke was too
good, and Becky burst out laughing at Rawdon's
discomfiture.




CHAPTER XXVI



Between London and Chatham

On quitting Brighton, our friend George, as became a
person of rank and fashion travelling in a barouche with
four horses, drove in state to a fine hotel in Cavendish
Square, where a suite of splendid rooms, and a table
magnificently furnished with plate and surrounded by a
half-dozen of black and silent waiters, was ready to
receive the young gentleman and his bride. George did the
honours of the place with a princely air to Jos and
Dobbin; and Amelia, for the first time, and with exceeding
shyness and timidity, presided at what George called her
own table.

George pooh-poohed the wine and bullied the waiters
royally, and Jos gobbled the turtle with immense satisfaction.
Dobbin helped him to it; for the lady of the house,
before whom the tureen was placed, was so ignorant of
the contents, that she was going to help Mr. Sedley without bestowing upon him either calipash or calipee.

The splendour of the entertainment, and the apartments
in which it was given, alarmed Mr. Dobbin, who
remonstrated after dinner, when Jos was asleep in the great
chair. But in vain he cried out against the enormity of
turtle and champagne that was fit for an archbishop.
"I've always been accustomed to travel like a gentleman,"
George said, "and, damme, my wife shall travel like a
lady. As long as there's a shot in the locker, she shall
want for nothing," said the generous fellow, quite pleased
with himself for his magnificence of spirit. Nor did
Dobbin try and convince him that Amelia's happiness was not
centred in turtle-soup.

A while after dinner, Amelia timidly expressed a wish
to go and see her mamma, at Fulham: which permission
George granted her with some grumbling. And she tripped
away to her enormous bedroom, in the centre of which
stood the enormous funereal bed, "that the Emperor
Halixander's sister slep in when the allied sufferings was
here," and put on her little bonnet and shawl with the
utmost eagerness and pleasure. George was still drinking
claret when she returned to the dining-room, and made
no signs of moving. "Ar'n't you coming with me, dearest?"
she asked him. No; the "dearest" had "business"
that night. His man should get her a coach and go with
her. And the coach being at the door of the hotel, Amelia
made George a little disappointed curtsey after looking
vainly into his face once or twice, and went sadly down
the great staircase, Captain Dobbin after, who handed her
into the vehicle, and saw it drive away to its destination.
The very valet was ashamed of mentioning the address to
the hackney-coachman before the hotel waiters, and
promised to instruct him when they got further on.

Dobbin walked home to his old quarters and the
Slaughters', thinking very likely that it would be delightful
to be in that hackney-coach, along with Mrs. Osborne.
George was evidently of quite a different taste; for when
he had taken wine enough, he went off to half-price at
the play, to see Mr. Kean perform in Shylock. Captain
Osborne was a great lover of the drama, and had himself
performed high-comedy characters with great distinction
in several garrison theatrical entertainments. Jos slept on
until long after dark, when he woke up with a start at
the motions of his servant, who was removing and
emptying the decanters on the table; and the hackney-coach
stand was again put into requisition for a carriage to
convey this stout hero to his lodgings and bed.

Mrs. Sedley, you may be sure, clasped her daughter to
her heart with all maternal eagerness and affection,
running out of the door as the carriage drew up before the
little garden-gate, to welcome the weeping, trembling,
young bride. Old Mr. Clapp, who was in his shirt-sleeves,
trimming the garden-plot, shrank back alarmed. The Irish
servant-lass rushed up from the kitchen and smiled a
"God bless you." Amelia could hardly walk along the
flags and up the steps into the parlour.

How the floodgates were opened, and mother and
daughter wept, when they were together embracing each
other in this sanctuary, may readily be imagined by every
reader who possesses the least sentimental turn. When
don't ladies weep? At what occasion of joy, sorrow, or
other business of life, and, after such an event as a
marriage, mother and daughter were surely at liberty to give
way to a sensibility which is as tender as it is refreshing.
About a question of marriage I have seen women
who hate each other kiss and cry together quite fondly.
How much more do they feel when they love! Good mothers
are married over again at their daughters' weddings:
and as for subsequent events, who does not know how
ultra-maternal grandmothers are?--in fact a woman, until
she is a grandmother, does not often really know what to
be a mother is. Let us respect Amelia and her mamma
whispering and whimpering and laughing and crying in
the parlour and the twilight. Old Mr. Sedley did. HE had
not divined who was in the carriage when it drove up. He
had not flown out to meet his daughter, though he kissed
her very warmly when she entered the room (where he
was occupied, as usual, with his papers and tapes and
statements of accounts), and after sitting with the mother
and daughter for a short time, he very wisely left the
little apartment in their possession.

George's valet was looking on in a very supercilious
manner at Mr. Clapp in his shirt-sleeves, watering his
rose-bushes. He took off his hat, however, with much
condescension to Mr. Sedley, who asked news about
his son-in-law, and about Jos's carriage, and whether his
horses had been down to Brighton, and about that
infernal traitor Bonaparty, and the war; until the Irish
maid-servant came with a plate and a bottle of wine,
from which the old gentleman insisted upon helping the
valet. He gave him a half-guinea too, which the servant
pocketed with a mixture of wonder and contempt. "To
the health of your master and mistress, Trotter," Mr.
Sedley said, "and here's something to drink your health
when you get home, Trotter."

There were but nine days past since Amelia had left
that little cottage and home--and yet how far off the
time seemed since she had bidden it farewell. What a
gulf lay between her and that past life. She could look
back to it from her present standing-place, and contemplate,
almost as another being, the young unmarried girl
absorbed in her love, having no eyes but for one special
object, receiving parental affection if not ungratefully,
at least indifferently, and as if it were her due--her
whole heart and thoughts bent on the accomplishment of
one desire. The review of those days, so lately gone yet
so far away, touched her with shame; and the aspect of
the kind parents filled her with tender remorse. Was the
prize gained--the heaven of life--and the winner still
doubtful and unsatisfied? As his hero and heroine pass
the matrimonial barrier, the novelist generally drops the
curtain, as if the drama were over then: the doubts and
struggles of life ended: as if, once landed in the marriage
country, all were green and pleasant there: and wife
and husband had nothing to do but to link each other's
arms together, and wander gently downwards towards
old age in happy and perfect fruition. But our little
Amelia was just on the bank of her new country, and was
already looking anxiously back towards the sad friendly
figures waving farewell to her across the stream, from the
other distant shore.

In honour of the young bride's arrival, her mother
thought it necessary to prepare I don't know what festive
entertainment, and after the first ebullition of talk, took
leave of Mrs. George Osborne for a while, and dived
down to the lower regions of the house to a sort of
kitchen-parlour (occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Clapp, and
in the evening, when her dishes were washed and her
curl-papers removed, by Miss Flannigan, the Irish servant),
there to take measures for the preparing of a magnificent ornamented tea. All people have their ways of
expressing kindness, and it seemed to Mrs. Sedley that a
muffin and a quantity of orange marmalade spread out
in a little cut-glass saucer would be peculiarly agreeable
refreshments to Amelia in her most interesting situation.

While these delicacies were being transacted below,
Amelia, leaving the drawing-room, walked upstairs and
found herself, she scarce knew how, in the little room
which she had occupied before her marriage, and in that
very chair in which she had passed so many bitter hours.
She sank back in its arms as if it were an old friend;
and fell to thinking over the past week, and the life
beyond it. Already to be looking sadly and vaguely back:
always to be pining for something which, when obtained,
brought doubt and sadness rather than pleasure; here
was the lot of our poor little creature and harmless lost
wanderer in the great struggling crowds of Vanity Fair.

Here she sate, and recalled to herself fondly that image
of George to which she had knelt before marriage. Did
she own to herself how different the real man was from
that superb young hero whom she had worshipped? It
requires many, many years--and a man must be very bad
indeed--before a woman's pride and vanity will let her
own to such a confession. Then Rebecca's twinkling
green eyes and baleful smile lighted upon her, and filled
her with dismay. And so she sate for awhile indulging
in her usual mood of selfish brooding, in that very
listless melancholy attitude in which the honest maid-servant
had found her, on the day when she brought up the
letter in which George renewed his offer of marriage.

She looked at the little white bed, which had been hers
a few days before, and thought she would like to sleep
in it that night, and wake, as formerly, with her mother
smiling over her in the morning: Then she thought with
terror of the great funereal damask pavilion in the vast
and dingy state bedroom, which was awaiting her at the
grand hotel in Cavendish Square. Dear little white bed!
how many a long night had she wept on its pillow!
How she had despaired and hoped to die there; and now
were not all her wishes accomplished, and the lover of
whom she had despaired her own for ever? Kind mother!
how patiently and tenderly she had watched round that
bed! She went and knelt down by the bedside; and there
this wounded and timorous, but gentle and loving soul,
sought for consolation, where as yet, it must be owned,
our little girl had but seldom looked for it. Love had
been her faith hitherto; and the sad, bleeding disappointed
heart began to feel the want of another consoler.

Have we a right to repeat or to overhear her prayers?
These, brother, are secrets, and out of the domain of
Vanity Fair, in which our story lies.

But this may be said, that when the tea was finally
announced, our young lady came downstairs a great deal
more cheerful; that she did not despond, or deplore her
fate, or think about George's coldness, or Rebecca's eyes,
as she had been wont to do of late. She went downstairs,
and kissed her father and mother, and talked to
the old gentleman, and made him more merry than he
had been for many a day. She sate down at the piano
which Dobbin had bought for her, and sang over all her
father's favourite old songs. She pronounced the tea to
be excellent, and praised the exquisite taste in which
the marmalade was arranged in the saucers. And in
determining to make everybody else happy, she found
herself so; and was sound asleep in the great funereal
pavilion, and only woke up with a smile when George
arrived from the theatre.

For the next day, George had more important "business"
to transact than that which took him to see Mr.
Kean in Shylock. Immediately on his arrival in London
he had written off to his father's solicitors, signifying his
royal pleasure that an interview should take place between
them on the morrow. His hotel bill, losses at
billiards and cards to Captain Crawley had almost drained
the young man's purse, which wanted replenishing before
he set out on his travels, and he had no resource but
to infringe upon the two thousand pounds which the
attorneys were commissioned to pay over to him. He
had a perfect belief in his own mind that his father
would relent before very long. How could any parent
be obdurate for a length of time against such a
paragon as he was? If his mere past and personal merits did
not succeed in mollifying his father, George determined
that he would distinguish himself so prodigiously in the
ensuing campaign that the old gentleman must give in to
him. And if not? Bah! the world was before him. His
luck might change at cards, and there was a deal of
spending in two thousand pounds.

So he sent off Amelia once more in a carriage to her
mamma, with strict orders and carte blanche to the two
ladies to purchase everything requisite for a lady of Mrs.
George Osborne's fashion, who was going on a foreign
tour. They had but one day to complete the outfit, and
it may be imagined that their business therefore occupied
them pretty fully. In a carriage once more, bustling
about from milliner to linen-draper, escorted back to the
carriage by obsequious shopmen or polite owners, Mrs.
Sedley was herself again almost, and sincerely happy for
the first time since their misfortunes. Nor was Mrs.
Amelia at all above the pleasure of shopping, and
bargaining, and seeing and buying pretty things. (Would
any man, the most philosophic, give twopence for a
woman who was?) She gave herself a little treat,
obedient to her husband's orders, and purchased a
quantity of lady's gear, showing a great deal of taste and
elegant discernment, as all the shopfolks said.

And about the war that was ensuing, Mrs. Osborne
was not much alarmed; Bonaparty was to be crushed
almost without a struggle. Margate packets were sailing
every day, filled with men of fashion and ladies of note,
on their way to Brussels and Ghent. People were going
not so much to a war as to a fashionable tour. The
newspapers laughed the wretched upstart and swindler to
scorn. Such a Corsican wretch as that withstand the
armies of Europe and the genius of the immortal
Wellington! Amelia held him in utter contempt; for it needs
not to be said that this soft and gentle creature took her
opinions from those people who surrounded her, such
fidelity being much too humble-minded to think for itself.
Well, in a word, she and her mother performed a
great day's shopping, and she acquitted herself with
considerable liveliness and credit on this her first
appearance in the genteel world of London.

George meanwhile, with his hat on one side, his elbows
squared, and his swaggering martial air, made for
Bedford Row, and stalked into the attorney's offices as if
he was lord of every pale-faced clerk who was scribbling
there. He ordered somebody to inform Mr. Higgs that
Captain Osborne was waiting, in a fierce and patronizing
way, as if the pekin of an attorney, who had thrice his
brains, fifty times his money, and a thousand times his
experience, was a wretched underling who should
instantly leave all his business in life to attend on the
Captain's pleasure. He did not see the sneer of contempt
which passed all round the room, from the first
clerk to the articled gents, from the articled gents to the
ragged writers and white-faced runners, in clothes too
tight for them, as he sate there tapping his boot with his
cane, and thinking what a parcel of miserable poor devils
these were. The miserable poor devils knew all about his
affairs. They talked about them over their pints of beer
at their public-house clubs to other clerks of a night.
Ye gods, what do not attorneys and attorneys' clerks
know in London! Nothing is hidden from their
inquisition, and their families mutely rule our city.

Perhaps George expected, when he entered Mr. Higgs's
apartment, to find that gentleman commissioned to give
him some message of compromise or conciliation from
his father; perhaps his haughty and cold demeanour
was adopted as a sign of his spirit and resolution: but if
so, his fierceness was met by a chilling coolness and
indifference on the attorney's part, that rendered
swaggering absurd. He pretended to be writing at a paper,
when the Captain entered. "Pray, sit down, sir," said he,
"and I will attend to your little affair in a moment. Mr.
Poe, get the release papers, if you please"; and then he
fell to writing again.

Poe having produced those papers, his chief calculated
the amount of two thousand pounds stock at the rate of
the day; and asked Captain Osborne whether he would
take the sum in a cheque upon the bankers, or whether
he should direct the latter to purchase stock to that
amount. "One of the late Mrs. Osborne's trustees is out
of town," he said indifferently, "but my client wishes to
meet your wishes, and have done with the business as
quick as possible."

"Give me a cheque, sir," said the Captain very surlily.
"Damn the shillings and halfpence, sir," he added, as the
lawyer was making out the amount of the draft; and,
flattering himself that by this stroke of magnanimity he
had put the old quiz to the blush, he stalked out of
the office with the paper in his pocket.

"That chap will be in gaol in two years," Mr. Higgs said
to Mr. Poe.

"Won't O. come round, sir, don't you think?"

"Won't the monument come round," Mr. Higgs replied.

"He's going it pretty fast," said the clerk. "He's only
married a week, and I saw him and some other military
chaps handing Mrs. Highflyer to her carriage after the
play." And then another case was called, and Mr. George
Osborne thenceforth dismissed from these worthy
gentlemen's memory.

The draft was upon our friends Hulker and Bullock of
Lombard Street, to whose house, still thinking he was
doing business, George bent his way, and from whom he
received his money. Frederick Bullock, Esq., whose
yellow face was over a ledger, at which sate a demure clerk,
happened to be in the banking-room when George entered.
His yellow face turned to a more deadly colour
when he saw the Captain, and he slunk back guiltily into
the inmost parlour. George was too busy gloating over
the money (for he had never had such a sum before), to
mark the countenance or flight of the cadaverous suitor
of his sister.

Fred Bullock told old Osborne of his son's appearance
and conduct. "He came in as bold as brass," said
Frederick. "He has drawn out every shilling. How long
will a few hundred pounds last such a chap as that?"
Osborne swore with a great oath that he little cared when or
how soon he spent it. Fred dined every day in Russell
Square now. But altogether, George was highly pleased
with his day's business. All his own baggage and outfit
was put into a state of speedy preparation, and he paid
Amelia's purchases with cheques on his agents, and with
the splendour of a lord.




CHAPTER XXVII


In Which Amelia Joins Her Regiment

When Jos's fine carriage drove up to the inn door at
Chatham, the first face which Amelia recognized was the
friendly countenance of Captain Dobbin, who had been
pacing the street for an hour past in expectation of his
friends' arrival. The Captain, with shells on his frockcoat,
and a crimson sash and sabre, presented a military
appearance, which made Jos quite proud to be able to
claim such an acquaintance, and the stout civilian hailed
him with a cordiality very different from the reception
which Jos vouchsafed to his friend in Brighton and Bond
Street.

Along with the Captain was Ensign Stubble; who, as
the barouche neared the inn, burst out with an exclamation
of "By Jove! what a pretty girl"; highly applauding
Osborne's choice. Indeed, Amelia dressed in her wedding-
pelisse and pink ribbons, with a flush in her face,
occasioned by rapid travel through the open air, looked so
fresh and pretty, as fully to justify the Ensign's compliment.
Dobbin liked him for making it. As he stepped forward
to help the lady out of the carriage, Stubble saw
what a pretty little hand she gave him, and what a sweet
pretty little foot came tripping down the step. He blushed
profusely, and made the very best bow of which he was
capable; to which Amelia, seeing the number of the the
regiment embroidered on the Ensign's cap, replied with a
blushing smile, and a curtsey on her part; which finished
the young Ensign on the spot. Dobbin took most kindly to
Mr. Stubble from that day, and encouraged him to talk
about Amelia in their private walks, and at each other's
quarters. It became the fashion, indeed, among all the
honest young fellows of the --th to adore and admire
Mrs. Osborne. Her simple artless behaviour, and
modest kindness of demeanour, won all their unsophisticated
hearts; all which simplicity and sweetness are quite
impossible to describe in print. But who has not beheld
these among women, and recognised the presence of all
sorts of qualities in them, even though they say no more
to you than that they are engaged to dance the next
quadrille, or that it is very hot weather? George, always the
champion of his regiment, rose immensely in the opinion
of the youth of the corps, by his gallantry in marrying this
portionless young creature, and by his choice of such a
pretty kind partner.

In the sitting-room which was awaiting the travellers,
Amelia, to her surprise, found a letter addressed to Mrs.
Captain Osborne. It was a triangular billet, on pink paper,
and sealed with a dove and an olive branch, and a
profusion of light blue sealing wax, and it was written in
a very large, though undecided female hand.

"It's Peggy O'Dowd's fist," said George, laughing. "I
know it by the kisses on the seal." And in fact, it was a
note from Mrs. Major O'Dowd, requesting the pleasure
of Mrs. Osborne's company that very evening to a small
friendly party. "You must go," George said. "You will
make acquaintance with the regiment there. O'Dowd goes
in command of the regiment, and Peggy goes in command

But they had not been for many minutes in the enjoyment
of Mrs. O'Dowd's letter, when the door was flung
open, and a stout jolly lady, in a riding-habit, followed by
a couple of officers of Ours, entered the room.

"Sure, I couldn't stop till tay-time. Present me, Garge,
my dear fellow, to your lady. Madam, I'm deloighted to
see ye; and to present to you me husband, Meejor
O'Dowd"; and with this, the jolly lady in the riding-habit
grasped Amelia's hand very warmly, and the latter knew
at once that the lady was before her whom her husband
had so often laughed at. "You've often heard of me from
that husband of yours," said the lady, with great vivacity.

"You've often heard of her," echoed her husband, the
Major.

Amelia answered, smiling, "that she had."

"And small good he's told you of me," Mrs. O'Dowd
replied; adding that "George was a wicked divvle."

"That I'll go bail for," said the Major, trying to look
knowing, at which George laughed; and Mrs. O'Dowd,
with a tap of her whip, told the Major to be quiet; and
then requested to be presented in form to Mrs. Captain
Osborne.

"This, my dear," said George with great gravity, "is my
very good, kind, and excellent friend, Auralia Margaretta,
otherwise called Peggy."

"Faith, you're right," interposed the Major.

"Otherwise called Peggy, lady of Major Michael
O'Dowd, of our regiment, and daughter of Fitzjurld
Ber'sford de Burgo Malony of Glenmalony, County Kildare."

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