The Project Gutenberg EBook of Vanity Fair, by William Makepeace Thackeray
#1 in our series by William Makepeace Thackeray

Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.

This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
Gutenberg file.  Please do not remove it.  Do not change or edit the
header without written permission.

Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file.  Included is
important information about your specific rights and restrictions in
how the file may be used.  You can also find out about how to make a
donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.


**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**

**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**

*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****


Title: Vanity Fair

Author: William Makepeace Thackeray

Release Date: July, 1996 [EBook #599]
[Date last updated: December 29, 2005]

Edition: 12

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VANITY FAIR ***




Produced by Juli Rew, [email protected]







Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray



BEFORE THE CURTAIN


As the manager of the Performance sits before the curtain on the
boards and looks into the Fair, a feeling of profound melancholy
comes over him in his survey of the bustling place. There is a great
quantity of eating and drinking, making love and jilting, laughing
and the contrary, smoking, cheating, fighting, dancing and fiddling;
there are bullies pushing about, bucks ogling the women, knaves
picking pockets, policemen on the look-out, quacks (OTHER quacks,
plague take them!) bawling in front of their booths, and yokels
looking up at the tinselled dancers and poor old rouged tumblers,
while the light-fingered folk are operating upon their pockets
behind. Yes, this is VANITY FAIR; not a moral place certainly; nor a
merry one, though very noisy.  Look at the faces of the actors and
buffoons when they come off from their business; and Tom Fool
washing the paint off his cheeks before he sits down to dinner with
his wife and the little Jack Puddings behind the canvas.   The
curtain will be up presently, and he will be turning over head and
heels, and crying, "How are you?"

A man with a reflective turn of mind, walking through an exhibition
of this sort, will not be oppressed, I take it, by his own or other
people's hilarity.   An episode of humour or kindness touches and
amuses him here and there--a pretty child looking at a gingerbread
stall; a pretty girl blushing whilst her lover talks to her and
chooses her fairing; poor Tom Fool, yonder behind the waggon,
mumbling his bone with the honest family which lives by his
tumbling; but the general impression is one more melancholy than
mirthful.  When you come home you sit down in a sober,
contemplative, not uncharitable frame of mind, and apply yourself to
your books or your business.

I have no other moral than this to tag to the present story of
"Vanity Fair." Some people consider Fairs immoral altogether, and
eschew such, with their servants and families: very likely they are
right.  But persons who think otherwise, and are of a lazy, or a
benevolent, or a sarcastic mood, may perhaps like to step in for
half an hour, and look at the performances. There are scenes of all
sorts; some dreadful combats, some grand and lofty horse-riding,
some scenes of high life, and some of very middling indeed; some
love-making for the sentimental, and some light comic business; the
whole accompanied by appropriate scenery and brilliantly illuminated
with the Author's own candles.

What more has the Manager of the Performance to say?--To acknowledge
the kindness with which it has been received in all the principal
towns of England through which the Show has passed, and where it has
been most favourably noticed by the respected conductors of the
public Press, and by the Nobility and Gentry.  He is proud to think
that his Puppets have given satisfaction to the very best company in
this empire.  The famous little Becky Puppet has been pronounced to
be uncommonly flexible in the joints, and lively on the wire; the
Amelia Doll, though it has had a smaller circle of admirers, has yet
been carved and dressed with the greatest care by the artist; the
Dobbin Figure, though apparently clumsy, yet dances in a very
amusing and natural manner; the Little Boys' Dance has been liked by
some; and please to remark the richly dressed figure of the Wicked
Nobleman, on which no expense has been spared, and which Old Nick
will fetch away at the end of this singular performance.

And with this, and a profound bow to his patrons, the Manager
retires, and the curtain rises.

LONDON, June 28, 1848



CHAPTER I

Chiswick Mall


While the present century was in its teens, and on one sunshiny
morning in June, there drove up to the great iron gate of Miss
Pinkerton's academy for young ladies, on Chiswick Mall, a large
family coach, with two fat horses in blazing harness, driven by a
fat coachman in a three-cornered hat and wig, at the rate of four
miles an hour.  A black servant, who reposed on the box beside the
fat coachman, uncurled his bandy legs as soon as the equipage drew
up opposite Miss Pinkerton's shining brass plate, and as he pulled
the bell at least a score of young heads were seen peering out of
the narrow windows of the stately old brick house.  Nay, the acute
observer might have recognized the little red nose of good-natured
Miss Jemima Pinkerton herself, rising over some geranium pots in the
window of that lady's own drawing-room.

"It is Mrs. Sedley's coach, sister," said Miss Jemima. "Sambo, the
black servant, has just rung the bell; and the coachman has a new
red waistcoat."

"Have you completed all the necessary preparations incident to Miss
Sedley's departure, Miss Jemima?" asked Miss Pinkerton herself, that
majestic lady; the Semiramis of Hammersmith, the friend of Doctor
Johnson, the correspondent of Mrs. Chapone herself.

"The girls were up at four this morning, packing her trunks,
sister," replied Miss Jemima; "we have made her a bow-pot."

"Say a bouquet, sister Jemima, 'tis more genteel."

"Well, a booky as big almost as a haystack; I have put up two
bottles of the gillyflower water for Mrs. Sedley, and the receipt
for making it, in Amelia's box."

"And I trust, Miss Jemima, you have made a copy of Miss Sedley's
account.  This is it, is it? Very good--ninety-three pounds, four
shillings.  Be kind enough to address it to John Sedley, Esquire,
and to seal this billet which I have written to his lady."

In Miss Jemima's eyes an autograph letter of her sister, Miss
Pinkerton, was an object of as deep veneration as would have been a
letter from a sovereign.  Only when her pupils quitted the
establishment, or when they were about to be married, and once, when
poor Miss Birch died of the scarlet fever, was Miss Pinkerton known
to write personally to the parents of her pupils; and it was
Jemima's opinion that if anything could console Mrs. Birch for her
daughter's loss, it would be that pious and eloquent composition in
which Miss Pinkerton announced the event.

In the present instance Miss Pinkerton's "billet" was to the
following effect:--

The Mall, Chiswick, June 15, 18

MADAM,--After her six years' residence at the Mall, I have the
honour and happiness of presenting Miss Amelia Sedley to her
parents, as a young lady not unworthy to occupy a fitting position
in their polished and refined circle.  Those virtues which
characterize the young English gentlewoman, those accomplishments
which become her birth and station, will not be found wanting in the
amiable Miss Sedley, whose INDUSTRY and OBEDIENCE have endeared her
to her instructors, and whose delightful sweetness of temper has
charmed her AGED and her YOUTHFUL companions.

In music, in dancing, in orthography, in every variety of embroidery
and needlework, she will be found to have realized her friends'
fondest wishes.  In geography there is still much to be desired; and
a careful and undeviating use of the backboard, for four hours daily
during the next three years, is recommended as necessary to the
acquirement of that dignified DEPORTMENT AND CARRIAGE, so requisite
for every young lady of FASHION.

In the principles of religion and morality, Miss Sedley will be
found worthy of an establishment which has been honoured by the
presence of THE GREAT LEXICOGRAPHER, and the patronage of the
admirable Mrs. Chapone.  In leaving the Mall, Miss Amelia carries
with her the hearts of her companions, and the affectionate regards
of her mistress, who has the honour to subscribe herself,

Madam, Your most obliged humble servant, BARBARA PINKERTON

P.S.--Miss Sharp accompanies Miss Sedley.  It is particularly
requested that Miss Sharp's stay in Russell Square may not exceed
ten days.  The family of distinction with whom she is engaged,
desire to avail themselves of her services as soon as possible.

This letter completed, Miss Pinkerton proceeded to write her own
name, and Miss Sedley's, in the fly-leaf of a Johnson's Dictionary--
the interesting work which she invariably presented to her scholars,
on their departure from the Mall.  On the cover was inserted a copy
of "Lines addressed to a young lady on quitting Miss Pinkerton's
school, at the Mall; by the late revered Doctor Samuel Johnson." In
fact, the Lexicographer's name was always on the lips of this
majestic woman, and a visit he had paid to her was the cause of her
reputation and her fortune.

Being commanded by her elder sister to get "the Dictionary" from the
cupboard, Miss Jemima had extracted two copies of the book from the
receptacle in question.  When Miss Pinkerton had finished the
inscription in the first, Jemima, with rather a dubious and timid
air, handed her the second.

"For whom is this, Miss Jemima?" said Miss Pinkerton, with awful
coldness.

"For Becky Sharp," answered Jemima, trembling very much, and
blushing over her withered face and neck, as she turned her back on
her sister.  "For Becky Sharp: she's going too."

"MISS JEMIMA!" exclaimed Miss Pinkerton, in the largest capitals.
"Are you in your senses? Replace the Dixonary in the closet, and
never venture to take such a liberty in future."

"Well, sister, it's only two-and-ninepence, and poor Becky will be
miserable if she don't get one."

"Send Miss Sedley instantly to me," said Miss Pinkerton. And so
venturing not to say another word, poor Jemima trotted off,
exceedingly flurried and nervous.

Miss Sedley's papa was a merchant in London, and a man of some
wealth; whereas Miss Sharp was an articled pupil, for whom Miss
Pinkerton had done, as she thought, quite enough, without conferring
upon her at parting the high honour of the Dixonary.

Although schoolmistresses' letters are to be trusted no more nor
less than churchyard epitaphs; yet, as it sometimes happens that a
person departs this life who is really deserving of all the praises
the stone cutter carves over his bones; who IS a good Christian, a
good parent, child, wife, or husband; who actually DOES leave a
disconsolate family to mourn his loss; so in academies of the male
and female sex it occurs every now and then that the pupil is fully
worthy of the praises bestowed by the disinterested instructor.
Now, Miss Amelia Sedley was a young lady of this singular species;
and deserved not only all that Miss Pinkerton said in her praise,
but had many charming qualities which that pompous old Minerva of a
woman could not see, from the differences of rank and age between
her pupil and herself.

For she could not only sing like a lark, or a Mrs. Billington, and
dance like Hillisberg or Parisot; and embroider beautifully; and
spell as well as a Dixonary itself; but she had such a kindly,
smiling, tender, gentle, generous heart of her own, as won the love
of everybody who came near her, from Minerva herself down to the
poor girl in the scullery, and the one-eyed tart-woman's daughter,
who was permitted to vend her wares once a week to the young ladies
in the Mall.  She had twelve intimate and bosom friends out of the
twenty-four young ladies. Even envious Miss Briggs never spoke ill
of her; high and mighty Miss Saltire (Lord Dexter's granddaughter)
allowed that her figure was genteel; and as for Miss Swartz, the
rich woolly-haired mulatto from St. Kitt's, on the day Amelia went
away, she was in such a passion of tears that they were obliged to
send for Dr. Floss, and half tipsify her with salvolatile.  Miss
Pinkerton's attachment was, as may be supposed from the high
position and eminent virtues of that lady, calm and dignified; but
Miss Jemima had already whimpered several times at the idea of
Amelia's departure; and, but for fear of her sister, would have gone
off in downright hysterics, like the heiress (who paid double) of
St. Kitt's.  Such luxury of grief, however, is only allowed to
parlour-boarders. Honest Jemima had all the bills, and the washing,
and the mending, and the puddings, and the plate and crockery, and
the servants to superintend.  But why speak about her?  It is
probable that we shall not hear of her again from this moment to the
end of time, and that when the great filigree iron gates are once
closed on her, she and her awful sister will never issue therefrom
into this little world of history.

But as we are to see a great deal of Amelia, there is no harm in
saying, at the outset of our acquaintance, that she was a dear
little creature; and a great mercy it is, both in life and in
novels, which (and the latter especially) abound in villains of the
most sombre sort, that we are to have for a constant companion so
guileless and good-natured a person.  As she is not a heroine, there
is no need to describe her person; indeed I am afraid that her nose
was rather short than otherwise, and her cheeks a great deal too
round and red for a heroine; but her face blushed with rosy health,
and her lips with the freshest of smiles, and she had a pair of eyes
which sparkled with the brightest and honestest good-humour, except
indeed when they filled with tears, and that was a great deal too
often; for the silly thing would cry over a dead canary-bird; or
over a mouse, that the cat haply had seized upon; or over the end of
a novel, were it ever so stupid; and as for saying an unkind word to
her, were any persons hard-hearted enough to do so--why, so much the
worse for them.  Even Miss Pinkerton, that austere and godlike
woman, ceased scolding her after the first time, and though she no
more comprehended sensibility than she did Algebra, gave all masters
and teachers particular orders to treat Miss Sedley with the utmost
gentleness, as harsh treatment was injurious to her.

So that when the day of departure came, between her two customs of
laughing and crying, Miss Sedley was greatly puzzled how to act.
She was glad to go home, and yet most woefully sad at leaving
school.  For three days before, little Laura Martin, the orphan,
followed her about like a little dog.  She had to make and receive
at least fourteen presents--to make fourteen solemn promises of
writing every week:  "Send my letters under cover to my grandpapa,
the Earl of Dexter," said Miss Saltire (who, by the way, was rather
shabby).  "Never mind the postage, but write every day, you dear
darling," said the impetuous and woolly-headed, but generous and
affectionate Miss Swartz; and the orphan little Laura Martin (who
was just in round-hand), took her friend's hand and said, looking up
in her face wistfully, "Amelia, when I write to you I shall call you
Mamma." All which details, I have no doubt, JONES, who reads this
book at his Club, will pronounce to be excessively foolish, trivial,
twaddling, and ultra-sentimental.  Yes; I can see Jones at this
minute (rather flushed with his joint of mutton and half pint of
wine), taking out his pencil and scoring under the words "foolish,
twaddling," &c., and adding to them his own remark of "QUITE TRUE."
Well, he is a lofty man of genius, and admires the great and heroic
in life and novels; and so had better take warning and go elsewhere.

Well, then.  The flowers, and the presents, and the trunks, and
bonnet-boxes of Miss Sedley having been arranged by Mr. Sambo in the
carriage, together with a very small and weather-beaten old cow's-
skin trunk with Miss Sharp's card neatly nailed upon it, which was
delivered by Sambo with a grin, and packed by the coachman with a
corresponding sneer--the hour for parting came; and the grief of
that moment was considerably lessened by the admirable discourse
which Miss Pinkerton addressed to her pupil.  Not that the parting
speech caused Amelia to philosophise, or that it armed her in any
way with a calmness, the result of argument; but it was intolerably
dull, pompous, and tedious; and having the fear of her
schoolmistress greatly before her eyes, Miss Sedley did not venture,
in her presence, to give way to any ebullitions of private grief.  A
seed-cake and a bottle of wine were produced in the drawing-room, as
on the solemn occasions of the visits of parents, and these
refreshments being partaken of, Miss Sedley was at liberty to
depart.

"You'll go in and say good-by to Miss Pinkerton, Becky!" said Miss
Jemima to a young lady of whom nobody took any notice, and who was
coming downstairs with her own bandbox.

"I suppose I must," said Miss Sharp calmly, and much to the wonder
of Miss Jemima; and the latter having knocked at the door, and
receiving permission to come in, Miss Sharp advanced in a very
unconcerned manner, and said in French, and with a perfect accent,
"Mademoiselle, je viens vous faire mes adieux."

Miss Pinkerton did not understand French; she only directed those
who did: but biting her lips and throwing up her venerable and
Roman-nosed head (on the top of which figured a large and solemn
turban), she said, "Miss Sharp, I wish you a good morning." As the
Hammersmith Semiramis spoke, she waved one hand, both by way of
adieu, and to give Miss Sharp an opportunity of shaking one of the
fingers of the hand which was left out for that purpose.

Miss Sharp only folded her own hands with a very frigid smile and
bow, and quite declined to accept the proffered honour; on which
Semiramis tossed up her turban more indignantly than ever.  In fact,
it was a little battle between the young lady and the old one, and
the latter was worsted.  "Heaven bless you, my child," said she,
embracing Amelia, and scowling the while over the girl's shoulder at
Miss Sharp.  "Come away, Becky," said Miss Jemima, pulling the young
woman away in great alarm, and the drawing-room door closed upon
them for ever.

Then came the struggle and parting below.  Words refuse to tell it.
All the servants were there in the hall--all the dear friend--all
the young ladies--the dancing-master who had just arrived; and there
was such a scuffling, and hugging, and kissing, and crying, with the
hysterical YOOPS of Miss Swartz, the parlour-boarder, from her room,
as no pen can depict, and as the tender heart would fain pass over.
The embracing was over; they parted--that is, Miss Sedley parted
from her friends.  Miss Sharp had demurely entered the carriage some
minutes before.  Nobody cried for leaving HER.

Sambo of the bandy legs slammed the carriage door on his young
weeping mistress.  He sprang up behind the carriage.  "Stop!" cried
Miss Jemima, rushing to the gate with a parcel.

"It's some sandwiches, my dear," said she to Amelia. "You may be
hungry, you know; and Becky, Becky Sharp, here's a book for you that
my sister--that is, I--Johnson's Dixonary, you know; you mustn't
leave us without that.  Good-by.  Drive on, coachman.  God bless
you!"

And the kind creature retreated into the garden, overcome with
emotion.

But, lo! and just as the coach drove off, Miss Sharp put her pale
face out of the window and actually flung the book back into the
garden.

This almost caused Jemima to faint with terror.  "Well, I never"--
said she--"what an audacious"--Emotion prevented her from completing
either sentence.  The carriage rolled away; the great gates were
closed; the bell rang for the dancing lesson.  The world is before
the two young ladies; and so, farewell to Chiswick Mall.



CHAPTER II

In Which Miss Sharp and Miss Sedley Prepare to Open the Campaign


When Miss Sharp had performed the heroical act mentioned in the last
chapter, and had seen the Dixonary, flying over the pavement of the
little garden, fall at length at the feet of the astonished Miss
Jemima, the young lady's countenance, which had before worn an
almost livid look of hatred, assumed a smile that perhaps was
scarcely more agreeable, and she sank back in the carriage in an
easy frame of mind, saying--"So much for the Dixonary; and, thank
God, I'm out of Chiswick."

Miss Sedley was almost as flurried at the act of defiance as Miss
Jemima had been; for, consider, it was but one minute that she had
left school, and the impressions of six years are not got over in
that space of time.  Nay, with some persons those awes and terrors
of youth last for ever and ever.  I know, for instance, an old
gentleman of sixty-eight, who said to me one morning at breakfast,
with a very agitated countenance, "I dreamed last night that I was
flogged by Dr. Raine." Fancy had carried him back five-and-fifty
years in the course of that evening.  Dr. Raine and his rod were
just as awful to him in his heart, then, at sixty-eight, as they had
been at thirteen.  If the Doctor, with a large birch, had appeared
bodily to him, even at the age of threescore and eight, and had said
in awful voice, "Boy, take down your pant--"? Well, well, Miss
Sedley was exceedingly alarmed at this act of insubordination.

"How could you do so, Rebecca?" at last she said, after a pause.

"Why, do you think Miss Pinkerton will come out and order me back to
the black-hole?" said Rebecca, laughing.

"No: but--"

"I hate the whole house," continued Miss Sharp in a fury.  "I hope I
may never set eyes on it again.  I wish it were in the bottom of the
Thames, I do; and if Miss Pinkerton were there, I wouldn't pick her
out, that I wouldn't.  O how I should like to see her floating in
the water yonder, turban and all, with her train streaming after
her, and her nose like the beak of a wherry."

"Hush!" cried Miss Sedley.

"Why, will the black footman tell tales?" cried Miss Rebecca,
laughing.  "He may go back and tell Miss Pinkerton that I hate her
with all my soul; and I wish he would; and I wish I had a means of
proving it, too.  For two years I have only had insults and outrage
from her. I have been treated worse than any servant in the kitchen.
I have never had a friend or a kind word, except from you.  I have
been made to tend the little girls in the lower schoolroom, and to
talk French to the Misses, until I grew sick of my mother tongue.
But that talking French to Miss Pinkerton was capital fun, wasn't
it? She doesn't know a word of French, and was too proud to confess
it.  I believe it was that which made her part with me; and so thank
Heaven for French.  Vive la France! Vive l'Empereur! Vive Bonaparte!"

"O Rebecca, Rebecca, for shame!" cried Miss Sedley; for this was the
greatest blasphemy Rebecca had as yet uttered; and in those days, in
England, to say, "Long live Bonaparte!" was as much as to say, "Long
live Lucifer!" "How can you--how dare you have such wicked,
revengeful thoughts?"

"Revenge may be wicked, but it's natural," answered Miss Rebecca.
"I'm no angel." And, to say the truth, she certainly was not.

For it may be remarked in the course of this little conversation
(which took place as the coach rolled along lazily by the river
side) that though Miss Rebecca Sharp has twice had occasion to thank
Heaven, it has been, in the first place, for ridding her of some
person whom she hated, and secondly, for enabling her to bring her
enemies to some sort of perplexity or confusion; neither of which
are very amiable motives for religious gratitude, or such as would
be put forward by persons of a kind and placable disposition.  Miss
Rebecca was not, then, in the least kind or placable.  All the world
used her ill, said this young misanthropist, and we may be pretty
certain that persons whom all the world treats ill, deserve entirely
the treatment they get.  The world is a looking-glass, and gives
back to every man the reflection of his own face.  Frown at it, and
it will in turn look sourly upon you; laugh at it and with it, and
it is a jolly kind companion; and so let all young persons take
their choice. This is certain, that if the world neglected Miss
Sharp, she never was known to have done a good action in behalf of
anybody; nor can it be expected that twenty-four young ladies should
all be as amiable as the heroine of this work, Miss Sedley (whom we
have selected for the very reason that she was the best-natured of
all, otherwise what on earth was to have prevented us from putting
up Miss Swartz, or Miss Crump, or Miss Hopkins, as heroine in her
place!) it could not be expected that every one should be of the
humble and gentle temper of Miss Amelia Sedley; should take every
opportunity to vanquish Rebecca's hard-heartedness and ill-humour;
and, by a thousand kind words and offices, overcome, for once at
least, her hostility to her kind.

Miss Sharp's father was an artist, and in that quality had given
lessons of drawing at Miss Pinkerton's school. He was a clever man;
a pleasant companion; a careless student; with a great propensity
for running into debt, and a partiality for the tavern.  When he was
drunk, he used to beat his wife and daughter; and the next morning,
with a headache, he would rail at the world for its neglect of his
genius, and abuse, with a good deal of cleverness, and sometimes
with perfect reason, the fools, his brother painters.  As it was
with the utmost difficulty that he could keep himself, and as he
owed money for a mile round Soho, where he lived, he thought to
better his circumstances by marrying a young woman of the French
nation, who was by profession an opera-girl.  The humble calling of
her female parent Miss Sharp never alluded to, but used to state
subsequently that the Entrechats were a noble family of Gascony, and
took great pride in her descent from them.  And curious it is that
as she advanced in life this young lady's ancestors increased in
rank and splendour.

Rebecca's mother had had some education somewhere, and her daughter
spoke French with purity and a Parisian accent.  It was in those
days rather a rare accomplishment, and led to her engagement with
the orthodox Miss Pinkerton.  For her mother being dead, her father,
finding himself not likely to recover, after his third attack of
delirium tremens, wrote a manly and pathetic letter to Miss
Pinkerton, recommending the orphan child to her protection, and so
descended to the grave, after two bailiffs had quarrelled over his
corpse.  Rebecca was seventeen when she came to Chiswick, and was
bound over as an articled pupil; her duties being to talk French, as
we have seen; and her privileges to live cost free, and, with a few
guineas a year, to gather scraps of knowledge from the professors
who attended the school.

She was small and slight in person; pale, sandy-haired, and with
eyes habitually cast down: when they looked up they were very large,
odd, and attractive; so attractive that the Reverend Mr. Crisp,
fresh from Oxford, and curate to the Vicar of Chiswick, the Reverend
Mr. Flowerdew, fell in love with Miss Sharp; being shot dead by a
glance of her eyes which was fired all the way across Chiswick
Church from the school-pew to the reading-desk.  This infatuated
young man used sometimes to take tea with Miss Pinkerton, to whom he
had been presented by his mamma, and actually proposed something
like marriage in an intercepted note, which the one-eyed apple-woman
was charged to deliver.  Mrs. Crisp was summoned from Buxton, and
abruptly carried off her darling boy; but the idea, even, of such an
eagle in the Chiswick dovecot caused a great flutter in the breast
of Miss Pinkerton, who would have sent away Miss Sharp but that she
was bound to her under a forfeit, and who never could thoroughly
believe the young lady's protestations that she had never exchanged
a single word with Mr. Crisp, except under her own eyes on the two
occasions when she had met him at tea.

By the side of many tall and bouncing young ladies in the
establishment, Rebecca Sharp looked like a child.  But she had the
dismal precocity of poverty.  Many a dun had she talked to, and
turned away from her father's door; many a tradesman had she coaxed
and wheedled into good-humour, and into the granting of one meal
more. She sate commonly with her father, who was very proud of her
wit, and heard the talk of many of his wild companions--often but
ill-suited for a girl to hear.  But she never had been a girl, she
said; she had been a woman since she was eight years old.  Oh, why
did Miss Pinkerton let such a dangerous bird into her cage?

The fact is, the old lady believed Rebecca to be the meekest
creature in the world, so admirably, on the occasions when her
father brought her to Chiswick, used Rebecca to perform the part of
the ingenue; and only a year before the arrangement by which Rebecca
had been admitted into her house, and when Rebecca was sixteen years
old, Miss Pinkerton majestically, and with a little speech, made her
a present of a doll--which was, by the way, the confiscated property
of Miss Swindle, discovered surreptitiously nursing it in school-
hours.  How the father and daughter laughed as they trudged home
together after the evening party (it was on the occasion of the
speeches, when all the professors were invited) and how Miss
Pinkerton would have raged had she seen the caricature of herself
which the little mimic, Rebecca, managed to make out of her doll.
Becky used to go through dialogues with it; it formed the delight of
Newman Street, Gerrard Street, and the Artists' quarter: and the
young painters, when they came to take their gin-and-water with
their lazy, dissolute, clever, jovial senior, used regularly to ask
Rebecca if Miss Pinkerton was at home: she was as well known to
them, poor soul! as Mr. Lawrence or President West.  Once Rebecca
had the honour to pass a few days at Chiswick; after which she
brought back Jemima, and erected another doll as Miss Jemmy: for
though that honest creature had made and given her jelly and cake
enough for three children, and a seven-shilling piece at parting,
the girl's sense of ridicule was far stronger than her gratitude,
and she sacrificed Miss Jemmy quite as pitilessly as her sister.

The catastrophe came, and she was brought to the Mall as to her
home.  The rigid formality of the place suffocated her: the prayers
and the meals, the lessons and the walks, which were arranged with a
conventual regularity, oppressed her almost beyond endurance; and
she looked back to the freedom and the beggary of the old studio in
Soho with so much regret, that everybody, herself included, fancied
she was consumed with grief for her father.  She had a little room
in the garret, where the maids heard her walking and sobbing at
night; but it was with rage, and not with grief.  She had not been
much of a dissembler, until now her loneliness taught her to feign.
She had never mingled in the society of women: her father, reprobate
as he was, was a man of talent; his conversation was a thousand
times more agreeable to her than the talk of such of her own sex as
she now encountered. The pompous vanity of the old schoolmistress,
the foolish good-humour of her sister, the silly chat and scandal of
the elder girls, and the frigid correctness of the governesses
equally annoyed her; and she had no soft maternal heart, this
unlucky girl, otherwise the prattle and talk of the younger
children, with whose care she was chiefly intrusted, might have
soothed and interested her; but she lived among them two years, and
not one was sorry that she went away.  The gentle tender-hearted
Amelia Sedley was the only person to whom she could attach herself
in the least; and who could help attaching herself to Amelia?

The happiness the superior advantages of the young women round about
her, gave Rebecca inexpressible pangs of envy.  "What airs that girl
gives herself, because she is an Earl's grand-daughter," she said of
one.  "How they cringe and bow to that Creole, because of her
hundred thousand pounds!  I am a thousand times cleverer and more
charming than that creature, for all her wealth. I am as well bred
as the Earl's grand-daughter, for all her fine pedigree; and yet
every one passes me by here.  And yet, when I was at my father's,
did not the men give up their gayest balls and parties in order to
pass the evening with me?" She determined at any rate to get free
from the prison in which she found herself, and now began to act for
herself, and for the first time to make connected plans for the
future.

She took advantage, therefore, of the means of study the place
offered her; and as she was already a musician and a good linguist,
she speedily went through the little course of study which was
considered necessary for ladies in those days.  Her music she
practised incessantly, and one day, when the girls were out, and she
had remained at home, she was overheard to play a piece so well that
Minerva thought, wisely, she could spare herself the expense of a
master for the juniors, and intimated to Miss Sharp that she was to
instruct them in music for the future.

The girl refused; and for the first time, and to the astonishment of
the majestic mistress of the school.  "I am here to speak French
with the children," Rebecca said abruptly, "not to teach them music,
and save money for you.  Give me money, and I will teach them."

Minerva was obliged to yield, and, of course, disliked her from that
day.  "For five-and-thirty years," she said, and with great justice,
"I never have seen the individual who has dared in my own house to
question my authority.  I have nourished a viper in my bosom."

"A viper--a fiddlestick," said Miss Sharp to the old lady, almost
fainting with astonishment.  "You took me because I was useful.
There is no question of gratitude between us.  I hate this place,
and want to leave it.  I will do nothing here but what I am obliged
to do."

It was in vain that the old lady asked her if she was aware she was
speaking to Miss Pinkerton?  Rebecca laughed in her face, with a
horrid sarcastic demoniacal laughter, that almost sent the
schoolmistress into fits. "Give me a sum of money," said the girl,
"and get rid of me--or, if you like better, get me a good place as
governess in a nobleman's family--you can do so if you please."  And
in their further disputes she always returned to this point, "Get me
a situation--we hate each other, and I am ready to go."

Worthy Miss Pinkerton, although she had a Roman nose and a turban,
and was as tall as a grenadier, and had been up to this time an
irresistible princess, had no will or strength like that of her
little apprentice, and in vain did battle against her, and tried to
overawe her. Attempting once to scold her in public, Rebecca hit
upon the before-mentioned plan of answering her in French, which
quite routed the old woman.  In order to maintain authority in her
school, it became necessary to remove this rebel, this monster, this
serpent, this firebrand; and hearing about this time that Sir Pitt
Crawley's family was in want of a governess, she actually
recommended Miss Sharp for the situation, firebrand and serpent as
she was.  "I cannot, certainly," she said, "find fault with Miss
Sharp's conduct, except to myself; and must allow that her talents
and accomplishments are of a high order. As far as the head goes, at
least, she does credit to the educational system pursued at my
establishment."

And so the schoolmistress reconciled the recommendation to her
conscience, and the indentures were cancelled, and the apprentice
was free.  The battle here described in a few lines, of course,
lasted for some months.  And as Miss Sedley, being now in her
seventeenth year, was about to leave school, and had a friendship
for Miss Sharp ("'tis the only point in Amelia's behaviour," said
Minerva, "which has not been satisfactory to her mistress"), Miss
Sharp was invited by her friend to pass a week with her at home,
before she entered upon her duties as governess in a private family.

Thus the world began for these two young ladies.  For Amelia it was
quite a new, fresh, brilliant world, with all the bloom upon it.  It
was not quite a new one for Rebecca--(indeed, if the truth must be
told with respect to the Crisp affair, the tart-woman hinted to
somebody, who took an affidavit of the fact to somebody else, that
there was a great deal more than was made public regarding Mr. Crisp
and Miss Sharp, and that his letter was in answer to another
letter).  But who can tell you the real truth of the matter? At all
events, if Rebecca was not beginning the world, she was beginning it
over again.

By the time the young ladies reached Kensington turnpike, Amelia had
not forgotten her companions, but had dried her tears, and had
blushed very much and been delighted at a young officer of the Life
Guards, who spied her as he was riding by, and said, "A dem fine
gal, egad!" and before the carriage arrived in Russell Square, a
great deal of conversation had taken place about the Drawing-room,
and whether or not young ladies wore powder as well as hoops when
presented, and whether she was to have that honour: to the Lord
Mayor's ball she knew she was to go.  And when at length home was
reached, Miss Amelia Sedley skipped out on Sambo's arm, as happy and
as handsome a girl as any in the whole big city of London.  Both he
and coachman agreed on this point, and so did her father and mother,
and so did every one of the servants in the house, as they stood
bobbing, and curtseying, and smiling, in the hall to welcome their
young mistress.

You may be sure that she showed Rebecca over every room of the
house, and everything in every one of her drawers; and her books,
and her piano, and her dresses, and all her necklaces, brooches,
laces, and gimcracks. She insisted upon Rebecca accepting the white
cornelian and the turquoise rings, and a sweet sprigged muslin,
which was too small for her now, though it would fit her friend to a
nicety; and she determined in her heart to ask her mother's
permission to present her white Cashmere shawl to her friend.  Could
she not spare it? and had not her brother Joseph just brought her
two from India?

When Rebecca saw the two magnificent Cashmere shawls which Joseph
Sedley had brought home to his sister, she said, with perfect truth,
"that it must be delightful to have a brother," and easily got the
pity of the tender-hearted Amelia for being alone in the world, an
orphan without friends or kindred.

"Not alone," said Amelia; "you know, Rebecca, I shall always be your
friend, and love you as a sister--indeed I will."

"Ah, but to have parents, as you have--kind, rich, affectionate
parents, who give you everything you ask for; and their love, which
is more precious than all! My poor papa could give me nothing, and I
had but two frocks in all the world! And then, to have a brother, a
dear brother! Oh, how you must love him!"

Amelia laughed.

"What! don't you love him? you, who say you love everybody?"

"Yes, of course, I do--only--"

"Only what?"

"Only Joseph doesn't seem to care much whether I love him or not.
He gave me two fingers to shake when he arrived after ten years'
absence!  He is very kind and good, but he scarcely ever speaks to
me; I think he loves his pipe a great deal better than his"--but
here Amelia checked herself, for why should she speak ill of her
brother? "He was very kind to me as a child," she added; "I was but
five years old when he went away."

"Isn't he very rich?" said Rebecca.  "They say all Indian nabobs are
enormously rich."

"I believe he has a very large income."

"And is your sister-in-law a nice pretty woman?"

"La! Joseph is not married," said Amelia, laughing again.

Perhaps she had mentioned the fact already to Rebecca, but that
young lady did not appear to have remembered it; indeed, vowed and
protested that she expected to see a number of Amelia's nephews and
nieces.  She was quite disappointed that Mr. Sedley was not married;
she was sure Amelia had said he was, and she doted so on little
children.

"I think you must have had enough of them at Chiswick," said Amelia,
rather wondering at the sudden tenderness on her friend's part; and
indeed in later days Miss Sharp would never have committed herself
so far as to advance opinions, the untruth of which would have been
so easily detected.  But we must remember that she is but nineteen
as yet, unused to the art of deceiving, poor innocent creature! and
making her own experience in her own person.  The meaning of the
above series of queries, as translated in the heart of this
ingenious young woman, was simply this: "If Mr. Joseph Sedley is
rich and unmarried, why should I not marry him? I have only a
fortnight, to be sure, but there is no harm in trying." And she
determined within herself to make this laudable attempt.  She
redoubled her caresses to Amelia; she kissed the white cornelian
necklace as she put it on; and vowed she would never, never part
with it.  When the dinner-bell rang she went downstairs with her arm
round her friend's waist, as is the habit of young ladies. She was
so agitated at the drawing-room door, that she could hardly find
courage to enter.  "Feel my heart, how it beats, dear!" said she to
her friend.

"No, it doesn't," said Amelia.  "Come in, don't be frightened.  Papa
won't do you any harm."



CHAPTER III

Rebecca Is in Presence of the Enemy


A VERY stout, puffy man, in buckskins and Hessian boots, with
several immense neckcloths that rose almost to his nose, with a red
striped waistcoat and an apple green coat with steel buttons almost
as large as crown pieces (it was the morning costume of a dandy or
blood of those days) was reading the paper by the fire when the two
girls entered, and bounced off his arm-chair, and blushed
excessively, and hid his entire face almost in his neckcloths at
this apparition.

"It's only your sister, Joseph," said Amelia, laughing and shaking
the two fingers which he held out.  "I've come home FOR GOOD, you
know; and this is my friend, Miss Sharp, whom you have heard me
mention."

"No, never, upon my word," said the head under the neckcloth,
shaking very much--"that is, yes--what abominably cold weather,
Miss"--and herewith he fell to poking the fire with all his might,
although it was in the middle of June.

"He's very handsome," whispered Rebecca to Amelia, rather loud.

"Do you think so?" said the latter.  "I'll tell him."

"Darling! not for worlds," said Miss Sharp, starting back as timid
as a fawn.  She had previously made a respectful virgin-like curtsey
to the gentleman, and her modest eyes gazed so perseveringly on the
carpet that it was a wonder how she should have found an opportunity
to see him.

"Thank you for the beautiful shawls, brother," said Amelia to the
fire poker.  "Are they not beautiful, Rebecca?"

"O heavenly!" said Miss Sharp, and her eyes went from the carpet
straight to the chandelier.

Joseph still continued a huge clattering at the poker and tongs,
puffing and blowing the while, and turning as red as his yellow face
would allow him.  "I can't make you such handsome presents, Joseph,"
continued his sister, "but while I was at school, I have embroidered
for you a very beautiful pair of braces."

"Good Gad! Amelia," cried the brother, in serious alarm, "what do
you mean?" and plunging with all his might at the bell-rope, that
article of furniture came away in his hand, and increased the honest
fellow's confusion.  "For heaven's sake see if my buggy's at the
door.  I CAN'T wait.  I must go.  D--- that groom of mine. I must go."

At this minute the father of the family walked in, rattling his
seals like a true British merchant.  "What's the matter, Emmy?" says
he.

"Joseph wants me to see if his--his buggy is at the door.  What is a
buggy, Papa?"

"It is a one-horse palanquin," said the old gentleman, who was a wag
in his way.

Joseph at this burst out into a wild fit of laughter; in which,
encountering the eye of Miss Sharp, he stopped all of a sudden, as
if he had been shot.

"This young lady is your friend? Miss Sharp, I am very happy to see
you.  Have you and Emmy been quarrelling already with Joseph, that
he wants to be off?"

"I promised Bonamy of our service, sir," said Joseph, "to dine with
him."

"O fie! didn't you tell your mother you would dine here?"

"But in this dress it's impossible."

"Look at him, isn't he handsome enough to dine anywhere, Miss
Sharp?"

On which, of course, Miss Sharp looked at her friend, and they both
set off in a fit of laughter, highly agreeable to the old gentleman.

"Did you ever see a pair of buckskins like those at Miss
Pinkerton's?" continued he, following up his advantage.

"Gracious heavens! Father," cried Joseph.

"There now, I have hurt his feelings.  Mrs. Sedley, my dear, I have
hurt your son's feelings.  I have alluded to his buckskins.  Ask
Miss Sharp if I haven't? Come, Joseph, be friends with Miss Sharp,
and let us all go to dinner."

"There's a pillau, Joseph, just as you like it, and Papa has brought
home the best turbot in Billingsgate."

"Come, come, sir, walk downstairs with Miss Sharp, and I will follow
with these two young women," said the father, and he took an arm of
wife and daughter and walked merrily off.

If Miss Rebecca Sharp had determined in her heart upon making the
conquest of this big beau, I don't think, ladies, we have any right
to blame her; for though the task of husband-hunting is generally,
and with becoming modesty, entrusted by young persons to their
mammas, recollect that Miss Sharp had no kind parent to arrange
these delicate matters for her, and that if she did not get a
husband for herself, there was no one else in the wide world who
would take the trouble off her hands.  What causes young people to
"come out," but the noble ambition of matrimony? What sends them
trooping to watering-places? What keeps them dancing till five
o'clock in the morning through a whole mortal season? What causes
them to labour at pianoforte sonatas, and to learn four songs from a
fashionable master at a guinea a lesson, and to play the harp if
they have handsome arms and neat elbows, and to wear Lincoln Green
toxophilite hats and feathers, but that they may bring down some
"desirable" young man with those killing bows and arrows of theirs?
What causes respectable parents to take up their carpets, set their
houses topsy-turvy, and spend a fifth of their year's income in ball
suppers and iced champagne? Is it sheer love of their species, and
an unadulterated wish to see young people happy and dancing? Psha!
they want to marry their daughters; and, as honest Mrs. Sedley has,
in the depths of her kind heart, already arranged a score of little
schemes for the settlement of her Amelia, so also had our beloved
but unprotected Rebecca determined to do her very best to secure the
husband, who was even more necessary for her than for her friend.
She had a vivid imagination; she had, besides, read the Arabian
Nights and Guthrie's Geography; and it is a fact that while she was
dressing for dinner, and after she had asked Amelia whether her
brother was very rich, she had built for herself a most magnificent
castle in the air, of which she was mistress, with a husband
somewhere in the background (she had not seen him as yet, and his
figure would not therefore be very distinct); she had arrayed
herself in an infinity of shawls, turbans, and diamond necklaces,
and had mounted upon an elephant to the sound of the march in
Bluebeard, in order to pay a visit of ceremony to the Grand Mogul.
Charming Alnaschar visions! it is the happy privilege of youth to
construct you, and many a fanciful young creature besides Rebecca
Sharp has indulged in these delightful day-dreams ere now!

Joseph Sedley was twelve years older than his sister Amelia.  He was
in the East India Company's Civil Service, and his name appeared, at
the period of which we write, in the Bengal division of the East
India Register, as collector of Boggley Wollah, an honourable and
lucrative post, as everybody knows: in order to know to what higher
posts Joseph rose in the service, the reader is referred to the same
periodical.

Boggley Wollah is situated in a fine, lonely, marshy, jungly
district, famous for snipe-shooting, and where not unfrequently you
may flush a tiger.  Ramgunge, where there is a magistrate, is only
forty miles off, and there is a cavalry station about thirty miles
farther; so Joseph wrote home to his parents, when he took
possession of his collectorship.  He had lived for about eight years
of his life, quite alone, at this charming place, scarcely seeing a
Christian face except twice a year, when the detachment arrived to
carry off the revenues which he had collected, to Calcutta.

Luckily, at this time he caught a liver complaint, for the cure of
which he returned to Europe, and which was the source of great
comfort and amusement to him in his native country.  He did not live
with his family while in London, but had lodgings of his own, like a
gay young bachelor.  Before he went to India he was too young to
partake of the delightful pleasures of a man about town, and plunged
into them on his return with considerable assiduity.  He drove his
horses in the Park; he dined at the fashionable taverns (for the
Oriental Club was not as yet invented); he frequented the theatres,
as the mode was in those days, or made his appearance at the opera,
laboriously attired in tights and a cocked hat.

On returning to India, and ever after, he used to talk of the
pleasure of this period of his existence with great enthusiasm, and
give you to understand that he and Brummel were the leading bucks of
the day.  But he was as lonely here as in his jungle at Boggley
Wollah.  He scarcely knew a single soul in the metropolis: and were
it not for his doctor, and the society of his blue-pill, and his
liver complaint, he must have died of loneliness. He was lazy,
peevish, and a bon-vivant; the appearance of a lady frightened him
beyond measure; hence it was but seldom that he joined the paternal
circle in Russell Square, where there was plenty of gaiety, and
where the jokes of his good-natured old father frightened his amour-
propre.  His bulk caused Joseph much anxious thought and alarm; now
and then he would make a desperate attempt to get rid of his
superabundant fat; but his indolence and love of good living
speedily got the better of these endeavours at reform, and he found
himself again at his three meals a day.  He never was well dressed;
but he took the hugest pains to adorn his big person, and passed
many hours daily in that occupation. His valet made a fortune out of
his wardrobe: his toilet-table was covered with as many pomatums and
essences as ever were employed by an old beauty: he had tried, in
order to give himself a waist, every girth, stay, and waistband then
invented.  Like most fat men, he would have his clothes made too
tight, and took care they should be of the most brilliant colours
and youthful cut.  When dressed at length, in the afternoon, he
would issue forth to take a drive with nobody in the Park; and then
would come back in order to dress again and go and dine with nobody
at the Piazza Coffee-House. He was as vain as a girl; and perhaps
his extreme shyness was one of the results of his extreme vanity.
If Miss Rebecca can get the better of him, and at her first entrance
into life, she is a young person of no ordinary cleverness.

The first move showed considerable skill.  When she called Sedley a
very handsome man, she knew that Amelia would tell her mother, who
would probably tell Joseph, or who, at any rate, would be pleased by
the compliment paid to her son.  All mothers are.  If you had told
Sycorax that her son Caliban was as handsome as Apollo, she would
have been pleased, witch as she was.  Perhaps, too, Joseph Sedley
would overhear the compliment--Rebecca spoke loud enough--and he did
hear, and (thinking in his heart that he was a very fine man) the
praise thrilled through every fibre of his big body, and made it
tingle with pleasure.  Then, however, came a recoil.  "Is the girl
making fun of me?" he thought, and straightway he bounced towards
the bell, and was for retreating, as we have seen, when his father's
jokes and his mother's entreaties caused him to pause and stay where
he was.  He conducted the young lady down to dinner in a dubious and
agitated frame of mind. "Does she really think I am handsome?"
thought he, "or is she only making game of me?" We have talked of
Joseph Sedley being as vain as a girl.  Heaven help us! the girls
have only to turn the tables, and say of one of their own sex, "She
is as vain as a man," and they will have perfect reason.  The
bearded creatures are quite as eager for praise, quite as finikin
over their toilettes, quite as proud of their personal advantages,
quite as conscious of their powers of fascination, as any coquette
in the world.

Downstairs, then, they went, Joseph very red and blushing, Rebecca
very modest, and holding her green eyes downwards.  She was dressed
in white, with bare shoulders as white as snow--the picture of
youth, unprotected innocence, and humble virgin simplicity. "I must
be very quiet," thought Rebecca, "and very much interested about
India."

Now we have heard how Mrs. Sedley had prepared a fine curry for her
son, just as he liked it, and in the course of dinner a portion of
this dish was offered to Rebecca.  "What is it?" said she, turning
an appealing look to Mr. Joseph.

"Capital," said he.  His mouth was full of it: his face quite red
with the delightful exercise of gobbling. "Mother, it's as good as
my own curries in India."

"Oh, I must try some, if it is an Indian dish," said Miss Rebecca.
"I am sure everything must be good that comes from there."

"Give Miss Sharp some curry, my dear," said Mr. Sedley, laughing.

Rebecca had never tasted the dish before.

"Do you find it as good as everything else from India?" said Mr.
Sedley.

"Oh, excellent!" said Rebecca, who was suffering tortures with the
cayenne pepper.

"Try a chili with it, Miss Sharp," said Joseph, really interested.

"A chili," said Rebecca, gasping.  "Oh yes!"  She thought a chili
was something cool, as its name imported, and was served with some.
"How fresh and green they look," she said, and put one into her
mouth.  It was hotter than the curry; flesh and blood could bear it
no longer.  She laid down her fork.  "Water, for Heaven's sake,
water!" she cried.  Mr. Sedley burst out laughing (he was a coarse
man, from the Stock Exchange, where they love all sorts of practical
jokes).  "They are real Indian, I assure you," said he.  "Sambo,
give Miss Sharp some water."

The paternal laugh was echoed by Joseph, who thought the joke
capital.  The ladies only smiled a little.  They thought poor
Rebecca suffered too much.  She would have liked to choke old
Sedley, but she swallowed her mortification as well as she had the
abominable curry before it, and as soon as she could speak, said,
with a comical, good-humoured air, "I ought to have remembered the
pepper which the Princess of Persia puts in the cream-tarts in the
Arabian Nights.  Do you put cayenne into your cream-tarts in India,
sir?"

Old Sedley began to laugh, and thought Rebecca was a good-humoured
girl.  Joseph simply said, "Cream-tarts, Miss? Our cream is very bad
in Bengal.  We generally use goats' milk; and, 'gad, do you know,
I've got to prefer it!"

"You won't like EVERYTHING from India now, Miss Sharp," said the old
gentleman; but when the ladies had retired after dinner, the wily
old fellow said to his son, "Have a care, Joe; that girl is setting
her cap at you."

"Pooh! nonsense!" said Joe, highly flattered.  "I recollect, sir,
there was a girl at Dumdum, a daughter of Cutler of the Artillery,
and afterwards married to Lance, the surgeon, who made a dead set at
me in the year '4--at me and Mulligatawney, whom I mentioned to you
before dinner--a devilish good fellow Mulligatawney--he's a
magistrate at Budgebudge, and sure to be in council in five years.
Well, sir, the Artillery gave a ball, and Quintin, of the King's
14th, said to me, 'Sedley,' said he, 'I bet you thirteen to ten that
Sophy Cutler hooks either you or Mulligatawney before the rains.'
'Done,' says I; and egad, sir--this claret's very good.  Adamson's
or Carbonell's?"

A slight snore was the only reply: the honest stockbroker was
asleep, and so the rest of Joseph's story was lost for that day.
But he was always exceedingly communicative in a man's party, and
has told this delightful tale many scores of times to his
apothecary, Dr. Gollop, when he came to inquire about the liver and
the blue-pill.

Being an invalid, Joseph Sedley contented himself with a bottle of
claret besides his Madeira at dinner, and he managed a couple of
plates full of strawberries and cream, and twenty-four little rout
cakes that were lying neglected in a plate near him, and certainly
(for novelists have the privilege of knowing everything) he thought
a great deal about the girl upstairs.  "A nice, gay, merry young
creature," thought he to himself.  "How she looked at me when I
picked up her handkerchief at dinner!  She dropped it twice.  Who's
that singing in the drawing-room? 'Gad! shall I go up and see?"

But his modesty came rushing upon him with uncontrollable force.
His father was asleep: his hat was in the hall: there was a hackney-
coach standing hard by in Southampton Row.  "I'll go and see the
Forty Thieves," said he, "and Miss Decamp's dance"; and he slipped
away gently on the pointed toes of his boots, and disappeared,
without waking his worthy parent.

"There goes Joseph," said Amelia, who was looking from the open
windows of the drawing-room, while Rebecca was singing at the piano.

"Miss Sharp has frightened him away," said Mrs. Sedley.  "Poor Joe,
why WILL he be so shy?"



CHAPTER IV

The Green Silk Purse


Poor Joe's panic lasted for two or three days; during which he did
not visit the house, nor during that period did Miss Rebecca ever
mention his name.  She was all respectful gratitude to Mrs. Sedley;
delighted beyond measure at the Bazaars; and in a whirl of wonder at
the theatre, whither the good-natured lady took her.  One day,
Amelia had a headache, and could not go upon some party of pleasure
to which the two young people were invited: nothing could induce her
friend to go without her. "What! you who have shown the poor orphan
what happiness and love are for the first time in her life--quit
YOU?  Never!"  and the green eyes looked up to Heaven and filled
with tears; and Mrs. Sedley could not but own that her daughter's
friend had a charming kind heart of her own.

As for Mr. Sedley's jokes, Rebecca laughed at them with a cordiality
and perseverance which not a little pleased and softened that good-
natured gentleman.  Nor was it with the chiefs of the family alone
that Miss Sharp found favour.  She interested Mrs. Blenkinsop by
evincing the deepest sympathy in the raspberry-jam preserving, which
operation was then going on in the Housekeeper's room; she persisted
in calling Sambo "Sir," and "Mr. Sambo," to the delight of that
attendant; and she apologised to the lady's maid for giving her
trouble in venturing to ring the bell, with such sweetness and
humility, that the Servants' Hall was almost as charmed with her as
the Drawing Room.

Once, in looking over some drawings which Amelia had sent from
school, Rebecca suddenly came upon one which caused her to burst
into tears and leave the room. It was on the day when Joe Sedley
made his second appearance.

Amelia hastened after her friend to know the cause of this display
of feeling, and the good-natured girl came back without her
companion, rather affected too.  "You know, her father was our
drawing-master, Mamma, at Chiswick, and used to do all the best
parts of our drawings."

"My love! I'm sure I always heard Miss Pinkerton say that he did not
touch them--he only mounted them." "It was called mounting, Mamma.
Rebecca remembers the drawing, and her father working at it, and the
thought of it came upon her rather suddenly--and so, you know, she--"

"The poor child is all heart," said Mrs. Sedley.

"I wish she could stay with us another week," said Amelia.

"She's devilish like Miss Cutler that I used to meet at Dumdum, only
fairer.  She's married now to Lance, the Artillery Surgeon.  Do you
know, Ma'am, that once Quintin, of the 14th, bet me--"

"O Joseph, we know that story," said Amelia, laughing. Never mind
about telling that; but persuade Mamma to write to Sir Something
Crawley for leave of absence for poor dear Rebecca: here she comes,
her eyes red with weeping."

"I'm better, now," said the girl, with the sweetest smile possible,
taking good-natured Mrs. Sedley's extended hand and kissing it
respectfully.  "How kind you all are to me! All," she added, with a
laugh, "except you, Mr. Joseph."

"Me!" said Joseph, meditating an instant departure "Gracious
Heavens! Good Gad! Miss Sharp!'

"Yes; how could you be so cruel as to make me eat that horrid
pepper-dish at dinner, the first day I ever saw you? You are not so
good to me as dear Amelia."

"He doesn't know you so well," cried Amelia.

"I defy anybody not to be good to you, my dear," said her mother.

"The curry was capital; indeed it was," said Joe, quite gravely.
"Perhaps there was NOT enough citron juice in it--no, there was
NOT."

"And the chilis?"

"By Jove, how they made you cry out!" said Joe, caught by the
ridicule of the circumstance, and exploding in a fit of laughter
which ended quite suddenly, as usual.

"I shall take care how I let YOU choose for me another time," said
Rebecca, as they went down again to dinner.  "I didn't think men
were fond of putting poor harmless girls to pain."

"By Gad, Miss Rebecca, I wouldn't hurt you for the world."

"No," said she, "I KNOW you wouldn't"; and then she gave him ever so
gentle a pressure with her little hand, and drew it back quite
frightened, and looked first for one instant in his face, and then
down at the carpet-rods; and I am not prepared to say that Joe's
heart did not thump at this little involuntary, timid, gentle motion
of regard on the part of the simple girl.

It was an advance, and as such, perhaps, some ladies of indisputable
correctness and gentility will condemn the action as immodest; but,
you see, poor dear Rebecca had all this work to do for herself.  If
a person is too poor to keep a servant, though ever so elegant, he
must sweep his own rooms: if a dear girl has no dear Mamma to settle
matters with the young man, she must do it for herself.  And oh,
what a mercy it is that these women do not exercise their powers
oftener! We can't resist them, if they do.  Let them show ever so
little inclination, and men go down on their knees at once: old or
ugly, it is all the same.  And this I set down as a positive truth.
A woman with fair opportunities, and without an absolute hump, may
marry WHOM SHE LIKES.  Only let us be thankful that the darlings are
like the beasts of the field, and don't know their own power.  They
would overcome us entirely if they did.

"Egad!" thought Joseph, entering the dining-room, "I exactly begin
to feel as I did at Dumdum with Miss Cutler." Many sweet little
appeals, half tender, half jocular, did Miss Sharp make to him about
the dishes at dinner; for by this time she was on a footing of
considerable familiarity with the family, and as for the girls, they
loved each other like sisters.  Young unmarried girls always do, if
they are in a house together for ten days.

As if bent upon advancing Rebecca's plans in every way--what must
Amelia do, but remind her brother of a promise made last Easter
holidays--"When I was a girl at school," said she, laughing--a
promise that he, Joseph, would take her to Vauxhall.  "Now," she
said, "that Rebecca is with us, will be the very time."

"O, delightful!" said Rebecca, going to clap her hands; but she
recollected herself, and paused, like a modest creature, as she was.

"To-night is not the night," said Joe.

"Well, to-morrow."

"To-morrow your Papa and I dine out," said Mrs. Sedley.

"You don't suppose that I'm going, Mrs. Sed?" said her husband, "and
that a woman of your years and size is to catch cold, in such an
abominable damp place?"

'The children must have someone with them," cried Mrs. Sedley.

"Let Joe go," said-his father, laughing.  "He's big enough." At
which speech even Mr. Sambo at the sideboard burst out laughing, and
poor fat Joe felt inclined to become a parricide almost.

"Undo his stays!" continued the pitiless old gentleman. "Fling some
water in his face, Miss Sharp, or carry him upstairs: the dear
creature's fainting.  Poor victim! carry him up; he's as light as a
feather!"

"If I stand this, sir, I'm d------!" roared Joseph.

"Order Mr. Jos's elephant, Sambo!" cried the father. "Send to Exeter
'Change, Sambo"; but seeing Jos ready almost to cry with vexation,
the old joker stopped his laughter, and said, holding out his hand
to his son, "It's all fair on the Stock Exchange, Jos--and, Sambo,
never mind the elephant, but give me and Mr. Jos a glass of
Champagne.  Boney himself hasn't got such in his cellar, my boy!"

A goblet of Champagne restored Joseph's equanimity, and before the
bottle was emptied, of which as an invalid he took two-thirds, he
had agreed to take the young ladies to Vauxhall.

"The girls must have a gentleman apiece," said the old gentleman.
"Jos will be sure to leave Emmy in the crowd, he will be so taken up
with Miss Sharp here.  Send to 96, and ask George Osborne if he'll
come."

At this, I don't know in the least for what reason, Mrs. Sedley
looked at her husband and laughed.  Mr. Sedley's eyes twinkled in a
manner indescribably roguish, and he looked at Amelia; and Amelia,
hanging down her head, blushed as only young ladies of seventeen
know how to blush, and as Miss Rebecca Sharp never blushed in her
life--at least not since she was eight years old, and when she was
caught stealing jam out of a cupboard by her godmother.  "Amelia had
better write a note," said her father; "and let George Osborne see
what a beautiful handwriting we have brought back from Miss
Pinkerton's.  Do you remember when you wrote to him to come on
Twelfth-night, Emmy, and spelt twelfth without the f?"

"That was years ago," said Amelia.

"It seems like yesterday, don't it, John?" said Mrs. Sedley to her
husband; and that night in a conversation which took place in a
front room in the second floor, in a sort of tent, hung round with
chintz of a rich and fantastic India pattern, and double with calico
of a tender rose-colour; in the interior of which species of marquee
was a featherbed, on which were two pillows, on which were two round
red faces, one in a laced nightcap, and one in a simple cotton one,
ending in a tassel--in a CURTAIN LECTURE, I say, Mrs. Sedley took
her husband to task for his cruel conduct to poor Joe.

"It was quite wicked of you, Mr. Sedley," said she, "to torment the
poor boy so."

"My dear," said the cotton-tassel in defence of his conduct, "Jos is
a great deal vainer than you ever were in your life, and that's
saying a good deal.  Though, some thirty years ago, in the year
seventeen hundred and eighty--what was it?--perhaps you had a right
to be vain--I don't say no.  But I've no patience with Jos and his
dandified modesty.  It is out-Josephing Joseph, my dear, and all the
while the boy is only thinking of himself, and what a fine fellow he
is.  I doubt, Ma'am, we shall have some trouble with him yet.  Here
is Emmy's little friend making love to him as hard as she can;
that's quite clear; and if she does not catch him some other will.
That man is destined to be a prey to woman, as I am to go on 'Change
every day.  It's a mercy he did not bring us over a black daughter-
in-law, my dear.  But, mark my words, the first woman who fishes for
him, hooks him."

"She shall go off to-morrow, the little artful creature," said Mrs.
Sedley, with great energy.

"Why not she as well as another, Mrs. Sedley? The girl's a white
face at any rate.  I don't care who marries him.  Let Joe please
himself."

And presently the voices of the two speakers were hushed, or were
replaced by the gentle but unromantic music of the nose; and save
when the church bells tolled the hour and the watchman called it,
all was silent at the house of John Sedley, Esquire, of Russell
Square, and the Stock Exchange.

When morning came, the good-natured Mrs. Sedley no longer thought of
executing her threats with regard to Miss Sharp; for though nothing
is more keen, nor more common, nor more justifiable, than maternal
jealousy, yet she could not bring herself to suppose that the
little, humble, grateful, gentle governess would dare to look up to
such a magnificent personage as the Collector of Boggley Wollah.
The petition, too, for an extension of the young lady's leave of
absence had already been despatched, and it would be difficult to
find a pretext for abruptly dismissing her.

And as if all things conspired in favour of the gentle Rebecca, the
very elements (although she was not inclined at first to acknowledge
their action in her behalf) interposed to aid her.  For on the
evening appointed for the Vauxhall party, George Osborne having come
to dinner, and the elders of the house having departed, according to
invitation, to dine with Alderman Balls at Highbury Barn, there came
on such a thunder-storm as only happens on Vauxhall nights, and as
obliged the young people, perforce, to remain at home.  Mr. Osborne
did not seem in the least disappointed at this occurrence. He and
Joseph Sedley drank a fitting quantity of port-wine, tete-a-tete, in
the dining-room, during the drinking of which Sedley told a number
of his best Indian stories; for he was extremely talkative in man's
society; and afterwards Miss Amelia Sedley did the honours of the
drawing-room; and these four young persons passed such a comfortable
evening together, that they declared they were rather glad of the
thunder-storm than otherwise, which had caused them to put off their
visit to Vauxhall.

Osborne was Sedley's godson, and had been one of the family any time
these three-and-twenty years.  At six weeks old, he had received
from John Sedley a present of a silver cup; at six months old, a
coral with gold whistle and bells; from his youth upwards he was
"tipped" regularly by the old gentleman at Christmas: and on going
back to school, he remembered perfectly well being thrashed by
Joseph Sedley, when the latter was a big, swaggering hobbadyhoy, and
George an impudent urchin of ten years old.  In a word, George was
as familiar with the family as such daily acts of kindness and
intercourse could make him.

"Do you remember, Sedley, what a fury you were in, when I cut off
the tassels of your Hessian boots, and how Miss--hem!--how Amelia
rescued me from a beating, by falling down on her knees and crying
out to her brother Jos, not to beat little George?"

Jos remembered this remarkable circumstance perfectly well, but
vowed that he had totally forgotten it.

"Well, do you remember coming down in a gig to Dr. Swishtail's to
see me, before you went to India, and giving me half a guinea and a
pat on the head? I always had an idea that you were at least seven
feet high, and was quite astonished at your return from India to
find you no taller than myself."

"How good of Mr. Sedley to go to your school and give you the
money!" exclaimed Rebecca, in accents of extreme delight.

"Yes, and after I had cut the tassels of his boots too. Boys never
forget those tips at school, nor the givers."

"I delight in Hessian boots," said Rebecca.  Jos Sedley, who admired
his own legs prodigiously, and always wore this ornamental
chaussure, was extremely pleased at this remark, though he drew his
legs under his chair as it was made.

"Miss Sharp!" said George Osborne, "you who are so clever an artist,
you must make a grand historical picture of the scene of the boots.
Sedley shall be represented in buckskins, and holding one of the
injured boots in one hand; by the other he shall have hold of my
shirt-frill.  Amelia shall be kneeling near him, with her little
hands up; and the picture shall have a grand allegorical title, as
the frontispieces have in the Medulla and the spelling-book."

"I shan't have time to do it here," said Rebecca.  'I'll do it when
--when I'm gone." And she dropped her voice, and looked so sad and
piteous, that everybody felt how cruel her lot was, and how sorry
they would be to part with her.

"O that you could stay longer, dear Rebecca," said Amelia.

"Why?" answered the other, still more sadly.  "That I may be only
the more unhap--unwilling to lose you?" And she turned away her
head.  Amelia began to give way to that natural infirmity of tears
which, we have said, was one of the defects of this silly little
thing.  George Osborne looked at the two young women with a touched
curiosity; and Joseph Sedley heaved something very like a sigh out
of his big chest, as he cast his eyes down towards his favourite
Hessian boots.

"Let us have some music, Miss Sedley--Amelia," said George, who felt
at that moment an extraordinary, almost irresistible impulse to
seize the above-mentioned young woman in his arms, and to kiss her
in the face of the company; and she looked at him for a moment, and
if I should say that they fell in love with each other at that
single instant of time, I should perhaps be telling an untruth, for
the fact is that these two young people had been bred up by their
parents for this very purpose, and their banns had, as it were, been
read in their respective families any time these ten years.  They
went off to the piano, which was situated, as pianos usually are, in
the back drawing-room; and as it was rather dark, Miss Amelia, in
the most unaffected way in the world, put her hand into Mr.
Osborne's, who, of course, could see the way among the chairs and
ottomans a great deal better than she could.  But this arrangement
left Mr. Joseph Sedley tete-a-tete with Rebecca, at the drawing-room
table, where the latter was occupied in knitting a green silk purse.

"There is no need to ask family secrets," said Miss Sharp.  "Those
two have told theirs."

"As soon as he gets his company," said Joseph, "I believe the affair
is settled.  George Osborne is a capital fellow."

"And your sister the dearest creature in the world," said Rebecca.
"Happy the man who wins her!" With this, Miss Sharp gave a great
sigh.

When two unmarried persons get together, and talk upon such delicate
subjects as the present, a great deal of confidence and intimacy is
presently established between them.  There is no need of giving a
special report of the conversation which now took place between Mr.
Sedley and the young lady; for the conversation, as may be judged
from the foregoing specimen, was not especially witty or eloquent;
it seldom is in private societies, or anywhere except in very high-
flown and ingenious novels. As there was music in the next room, the
talk was carried on, of course, in a low and becoming tone, though,
for the matter of that, the couple in the next apartment would not
have been disturbed had the talking been ever so loud, so occupied
were they with their own pursuits.

Almost for the first time in his life, Mr. Sedley found himself
talking, without the least timidity or hesitation, to a person of
the other sex.  Miss Rebecca asked him a great number of questions
about India, which gave him an opportunity of narrating many
interesting anecdotes about that country and himself.  He described
the balls at Government House, and the manner in which they kept
themselves cool in the hot weather, with punkahs, tatties, and other
contrivances; and he was very witty regarding the number of
Scotchmen whom Lord Minto, the Governor-General, patronised; and
then he described a tiger-hunt; and the manner in which the mahout
of his elephant had been pulled off his seat by one of the
infuriated animals.  How delighted Miss Rebecca was at the
Government balls, and how she laughed at the stories of the Scotch
aides-de-camp, and called Mr. Sedley a sad wicked satirical
creature; and how frightened she was at the story of the elephant!
"For your mother's sake, dear Mr. Sedley," she said, "for the sake
of all your friends, promise NEVER to go on one of those horrid
expeditions."

"Pooh, pooh, Miss Sharp," said he, pulling up his shirt-collars;
"the danger makes the sport only the pleasanter." He had never been
but once at a tiger-hunt, when the accident in question occurred,
and when he was half killed--not by the tiger, but by the fright.
And as he talked on, he grew quite bold, and actually had the
audacity to ask Miss Rebecca for whom she was knitting the green
silk purse? He was quite surprised and delighted at his own graceful
familiar manner.

"For any one who wants a purse," replied Miss Rebecca, looking at
him in the most gentle winning way. Sedley was going to make one of
the most eloquent speeches possible, and had begun--"O Miss Sharp,
how--" when some song which was performed in the other room came to
an end, and caused him to hear his own voice so distinctly that he
stopped, blushed, and blew his nose in great agitation.

"Did you ever hear anything like your brother's eloquence?"
whispered Mr. Osborne to Amelia.  "Why, your friend has worked
miracles."

"The more the better," said Miss Amelia; who, like almost all women
who are worth a pin, was a match-maker in her heart, and would have
been delighted that Joseph should carry back a wife to India.  She
had, too, in the course of this few days' constant intercourse,
warmed into a most tender friendship for Rebecca, and discovered a
million of virtues and amiable qualities in her which she had not
perceived when they were at Chiswick together.  For the affection of
young ladies is of as rapid growth as Jack's bean-stalk, and reaches
up to the sky in a night.  It is no blame to them that after
marriage this Sehnsucht nach der Liebe subsides.  It is what
sentimentalists, who deal in very big words, call a yearning after
the Ideal, and simply means that women are commonly not satisfied
until they have husbands and children on whom they may centre
affections, which are spent elsewhere, as it were, in small change.

Having expended her little store of songs, or having stayed long
enough in the back drawing-room, it now appeared proper to Miss
Amelia to ask her friend to sing.  "You would not have listened to
me," she said to Mr. Osborne (though she knew she was telling a
fib), "had you heard Rebecca first."

"I give Miss Sharp warning, though," said Osborne, "that, right or
wrong, I consider Miss Amelia Sedley the first singer in the world."

"You shall hear," said Amelia; and Joseph Sedley was actually polite
enough to carry the candles to the piano. Osborne hinted that he
should like quite as well to sit in the dark; but Miss Sedley,
laughing, declined to bear him company any farther, and the two
accordingly followed Mr. Joseph.  Rebecca sang far better than her
friend (though of course Osborne was free to keep his opinion), and
exerted herself to the utmost, and, indeed, to the wonder of Amelia,
who had never known her perform so well.  She sang a French song,
which Joseph did not understand in the least, and which George
confessed he did not understand, and then a number of those simple
ballads which were the fashion forty years ago, and in which British
tars, our King, poor Susan, blue-eyed Mary, and the like, were the
principal themes. They are not, it is said, very brilliant, in a
musical point of view, but contain numberless good-natured, simple
appeals to the affections, which people understood better than the
milk-and-water lagrime, sospiri, and felicita of the eternal
Donizettian music with which we are favoured now-a-days.

Conversation of a sentimental sort, befitting the subject, was
carried on between the songs, to which Sambo, after he had brought
the tea, the delighted cook, and even Mrs. Blenkinsop, the
housekeeper, condescended to listen on the landing-place.

Among these ditties was one, the last of the concert, and to the
following effect:

Ah! bleak and barren was the moor, Ah! loud and piercing was the
storm, The cottage roof was shelter'd sure, The cottage hearth was
bright and warm--An orphan boy the lattice pass'd, And, as he mark'd
its cheerful glow, Felt doubly keen the midnight blast, And doubly
cold the fallen snow.

They mark'd him as he onward prest, With fainting heart and weary
limb; Kind voices bade him turn and rest, And gentle faces welcomed
him. The dawn is up--the guest is gone, The cottage hearth is
blazing still; Heaven pity all poor wanderers lone! Hark to the wind
upon the hill!

It was the sentiment of the before-mentioned words, "When I'm gone,"
over again.  As she came to the last words, Miss Sharp's "deep-toned
voice faltered." Everybody felt the allusion to her departure, and
to her hapless orphan state.  Joseph Sedley, who was fond of music,
and soft-hearted, was in a state of ravishment during the
performance of the song, and profoundly touched at its conclusion.
If he had had the courage; if George and Miss Sedley had remained,
according to the former's proposal, in the farther room, Joseph
Sedley's bachelorhood would have been at an end, and this work would
never have been written.  But at the close of the ditty, Rebecca
quitted the piano, and giving her hand to Amelia, walked away into
the front drawing-room twilight; and, at this moment, Mr. Sambo made
his appearance with a tray, containing sandwiches, jellies, and some
glittering glasses and decanters, on which Joseph Sedley's attention
was immediately fixed.  When the parents of the house of Sedley
returned from their dinner-party, they found the young people so
busy in talking, that they had not heard the arrival of the
carriage, and Mr. Joseph was in the act of saying, "My dear Miss
Sharp, one little teaspoonful of jelly to recruit you after your
immense--your--your delightful exertions."

"Bravo, Jos!" said Mr. Sedley; on hearing the bantering of which
well-known voice, Jos instantly relapsed into an alarmed silence,
and quickly took his departure. He did not lie awake all night
thinking whether or not he was in love with Miss Sharp; the passion
of love never interfered with the appetite or the slumber of Mr.
Joseph Sedley; but he thought to himself how delightful it would be
to hear such songs as those after Cutcherry--what a distinguee girl
she was--how she could speak French better than the Governor-
General's lady herself--and what a sensation she would make at the
Calcutta balls. "It's evident the poor devil's in love with me,"
thought he.  "She is just as rich as most of the girls who come out
to India.  I might go farther, and fare worse, egad!" And in these
meditations he fell asleep.

How Miss Sharp lay awake, thinking, will he come or not to-morrow?
need not be told here.  To-morrow came, and, as sure as fate, Mr.
Joseph Sedley made his appearance before luncheon.  He had never
been known before to confer such an honour on Russell Square.
George Osborne was somehow there already (sadly "putting out"
Amelia, who was writing to her twelve dearest friends at Chiswick
Mall), and Rebecca was employed upon her yesterday's work.  As Joe's
buggy drove up, and while, after his usual thundering knock and
pompous bustle at the door, the ex-Collector of Boggley Wollah
laboured up stairs to the drawing-room, knowing glances were
telegraphed between Osborne and Miss Sedley, and the pair, smiling
archly, looked at Rebecca, who actually blushed as she bent her fair
ringlets over her knitting.  How her heart beat as Joseph appeared--
Joseph, puffing from the staircase in shining creaking boots--
Joseph, in a new waistcoat, red with heat and nervousness, and
blushing behind his wadded neckcloth.  It was a nervous moment for
all; and as for Amelia, I think she was more frightened than even
the people most concerned.

Sambo, who flung open the door and announced Mr. Joseph, followed
grinning, in the Collector's rear, and bearing two handsome nosegays
of flowers, which the monster had actually had the gallantry to
purchase in Covent Garden Market that morning--they were not as big
as the haystacks which ladies carry about with them now-a-days, in
cones of filigree paper; but the young women were delighted with the
gift, as Joseph presented one to each, with an exceedingly solemn
bow.

"Bravo, Jos!" cried Osborne.

"Thank you, dear Joseph," said Amelia, quite ready to kiss her
brother, if he were so minded.  (And I think for a kiss from such a
dear creature as Amelia, I would purchase all Mr. Lee's
conservatories out of hand.)

"O heavenly, heavenly flowers!" exclaimed Miss Sharp, and smelt them
delicately, and held them to her bosom, and cast up her eyes to the
ceiling, in an ecstasy of admiration.  Perhaps she just looked first
into the bouquet, to see whether there was a billet-doux hidden
among the flowers; but there was no letter.

"Do they talk the language of flowers at Boggley Wollah, Sedley?"
asked Osborne, laughing.

"Pooh, nonsense!" replied the sentimental youth. "Bought 'em at
Nathan's; very glad you like 'em; and eh, Amelia, my dear, I bought
a pine-apple at the same time, which I gave to Sambo.  Let's have it
for tiffin; very cool and nice this hot weather." Rebecca said she
had never tasted a pine, and longed beyond everything to taste one.

So the conversation went on.  I don't know on what pretext Osborne
left the room, or why, presently, Amelia went away, perhaps to
superintend the slicing of the pine-apple; but Jos was left alone
with Rebecca, who had resumed her work, and the green silk and the
shining needles were quivering rapidly under her white slender
fingers.

"What a beautiful, BYOO-OOTIFUL song that was you sang last night,
dear Miss Sharp," said the Collector.  "It made me cry almost; 'pon
my honour it did."

"Because you have a kind heart, Mr. Joseph; all the Sedleys have, I
think."

"It kept me awake last night, and I was trying to hum it this
morning, in bed; I was, upon my honour.  Gollop, my doctor, came in
at eleven (for I'm a sad invalid, you know, and see Gollop every
day), and, 'gad! there I was, singing away like--a robin."

"O you droll creature! Do let me hear you sing it."

"Me? No, you, Miss Sharp; my dear Miss Sharp, do sing it."  "Not now,
Mr. Sedley," said Rebecca, with a sigh.  "My spirits are not equal
to it; besides, I must finish the purse.  Will you help me, Mr.
Sedley?" And before he had time to ask how, Mr. Joseph Sedley, of
the East India Company's service, was actually seated tete-a-tete
with a young lady, looking at her with a most killing expression;
his arms stretched out before her in an imploring attitude, and his
hands bound in a web of green silk, which she was unwinding.

In this romantic position Osborne and Amelia found the interesting
pair, when they entered to announce that tiffin was ready.  The
skein of silk was just wound round the card; but Mr. Jos had never
spoken.

"I am sure he will to-night, dear," Amelia said, as she pressed
Rebecca's hand; and Sedley, too, had communed with his soul, and
said to himself, "'Gad, I'll pop the question at Vauxhall."



CHAPTER V

Dobbin of Ours


Cuff's fight with Dobbin, and the unexpected issue of that contest,
will long be remembered by every man who was educated at Dr.
Swishtail's famous school.  The latter Youth (who used to be called
Heigh-ho Dobbin, Gee-ho Dobbin, and by many other names indicative
of puerile contempt) was the quietest, the clumsiest, and, as it
seemed, the dullest of all Dr. Swishtail's young gentlemen. His
parent was a grocer in the city: and it was bruited abroad that he
was admitted into Dr. Swishtail's academy upon what are called
"mutual principles"--that is to say, the expenses of his board and
schooling were defrayed by his father in goods, not money; and he
stood there--most at the bottom of the school--in his scraggy
corduroys and jacket, through the seams of which his great big bones
were bursting--as the representative of so many pounds of tea,
candles, sugar, mottled-soap, plums (of which a very mild proportion
was supplied for the puddings of the establishment), and other
commodities.  A dreadful day it was for young Dobbin when one of the
youngsters of the school, having run into the town upon a poaching
excursion for hardbake and polonies, espied the cart of Dobbin &
Rudge, Grocers and Oilmen, Thames Street, London, at the Doctor's
door, discharging a cargo of the wares in which the firm dealt.

Young Dobbin had no peace after that.  The jokes were frightful, and
merciless against him.  "Hullo, Dobbin," one wag would say, "here's
good news in the paper.  Sugars is ris', my boy." Another would set
a sum--"If a pound of mutton-candles cost sevenpence-halfpenny, how
much must Dobbin cost?" and a roar would follow from all the circle
of young knaves, usher and all, who rightly considered that the
selling of goods by retail is a shameful and infamous practice,
meriting the contempt and scorn of all real gentlemen.

"Your father's only a merchant, Osborne," Dobbin said in private to
the little boy who had brought down the storm upon him.  At which
the latter replied haughtily, "My father's a gentleman, and keeps
his carriage"; and Mr. William Dobbin retreated to a remote outhouse
in the playground, where he passed a half-holiday in the bitterest
sadness and woe.  Who amongst us is there that does not recollect
similar hours of bitter, bitter childish grief? Who feels injustice;
who shrinks before a slight; who has a sense of wrong so acute, and
so glowing a gratitude for kindness, as a generous boy? and how many
of those gentle souls do you degrade, estrange, torture, for the
sake of a little loose arithmetic, and miserable dog-latin?

Now, William Dobbin, from an incapacity to acquire the rudiments of
the above language, as they are propounded in that wonderful book
the Eton Latin Grammar, was compelled to remain among the very last
of Doctor Swishtail's scholars, and was "taken down" continually by
little fellows with pink faces and pinafores when he marched up with
the lower form, a giant amongst them, with his downcast, stupefied
look, his dog's-eared primer, and his tight corduroys.  High and
low, all made fun of him.  They sewed up those corduroys, tight as
they were. They cut his bed-strings.  They upset buckets and
benches, so that he might break his shins over them, which he never
failed to do.  They sent him parcels, which, when opened, were found
to contain the paternal soap and candles.  There was no little
fellow but had his jeer and joke at Dobbin; and he bore everything
quite patiently, and was entirely dumb and miserable.

Cuff, on the contrary, was the great chief and dandy of the
Swishtail Seminary.  He smuggled wine in.  He fought the town-boys.
Ponies used to come for him to ride home on Saturdays.  He had his
top-boots in his room, in which he used to hunt in the holidays.  He
had a gold repeater: and took snuff like the Doctor.  He had been to
the Opera, and knew the merits of the principal actors, preferring
Mr. Kean to Mr. Kemble.  He could knock you off forty Latin verses
in an hour.  He could make French poetry. What else didn't he know,
or couldn't he do? They said even the Doctor himself was afraid of
him.

Cuff, the unquestioned king of the school, ruled over his subjects,
and bullied them, with splendid superiority. This one blacked his
shoes: that toasted his bread, others would fag out, and give him
balls at cricket during whole summer afternoons.  "Figs" was the
fellow whom he despised most, and with whom, though always abusing
him, and sneering at him, he scarcely ever condescended to hold
personal communication.

One day in private, the two young gentlemen had had a difference.
Figs, alone in the schoolroom, was blundering over a home letter;
when Cuff, entering, bade him go upon some message, of which tarts
were probably the subject.

"I can't," says Dobbin; "I want to finish my letter."

"You CAN'T?" says Mr. Cuff, laying hold of that document (in which
many words were scratched out, many were mis-spelt, on which had
been spent I don't know how much thought, and labour, and tears; for
the poor fellow was writing to his mother, who was fond of him,
although she was a grocer's wife, and lived in a back parlour in
Thames Street).  "You CAN'T?" says Mr. Cuff: "I should like to know
why, pray? Can't you write to old Mother Figs to-morrow?"

"Don't call names," Dobbin said, getting off the bench very nervous.

"Well, sir, will you go?" crowed the cock of the school.

"Put down the letter," Dobbin replied; "no gentleman readth
letterth."

"Well, NOW will you go?" says the other.

"No, I won't.  Don't strike, or I'll THMASH you," roars out Dobbin,
springing to a leaden inkstand, and looking so wicked, that Mr. Cuff
paused, turned down his coat sleeves again, put his hands into his
pockets, and walked away with a sneer.  But he never meddled
personally with the grocer's boy after that; though we must do
him the justice to say he always spoke of Mr. Dobbin with contempt
behind his back.

Some time after this interview, it happened that Mr. Cuff, on a
sunshiny afternoon, was in the neighbourhood of poor William Dobbin,
who was lying under a tree in the playground, spelling over a
favourite copy of the Arabian Nights which he had apart from the
rest of the school, who were pursuing their various sports--quite
lonely, and almost happy.  If people would but leave children to
themselves; if teachers would cease to bully them; if parents would
not insist upon directing their thoughts, and dominating their
feelings--those feelings and thoughts which are a mystery to all
(for how much do you and I know of each other, of our children, of
our fathers, of our neighbour, and how far more beautiful and sacred
are the thoughts of the poor lad or girl whom you govern likely to
be, than those of the dull and world-corrupted person who rules
him?)--if, I say, parents and masters would leave their children
alone a little more, small harm would accrue, although a less
quantity of as in praesenti might be acquired.

Well, William Dobbin had for once forgotten the world, and was away
with Sindbad the Sailor in the Valley of Diamonds, or with Prince
Ahmed and the Fairy Peribanou in that delightful cavern where the
Prince found her, and whither we should all like to make a tour;
when shrill cries, as of a little fellow weeping, woke up his
pleasant reverie; and looking up, he saw Cuff before him,
belabouring a little boy.

It was the lad who had peached upon him about the grocer's cart; but
he bore little malice, not at least towards the young and small.
"How dare you, sir, break the bottle?" says Cuff to the little
urchin, swinging a yellow cricket-stump over him.

The boy had been instructed to get over the playground wall (at a
selected spot where the broken glass had been removed from the top,
and niches made convenient in the brick); to run a quarter of a
mile; to purchase a pint of rum-shrub on credit; to brave all the
Doctor's outlying spies, and to clamber back into the playground
again; during the performance of which feat, his foot had slipt, and
the bottle was broken, and the shrub had been spilt, and his
pantaloons had been damaged, and he appeared before his employer a
perfectly guilty and trembling, though harmless, wretch.

"How dare you, sir, break it?" says Cuff; "you blundering little
thief.  You drank the shrub, and now you pretend to have broken the
bottle.  Hold out your hand, sir."

Down came the stump with a great heavy thump on the child's hand.  A
moan followed.  Dobbin looked up. The Fairy Peribanou had fled into
the inmost cavern with Prince Ahmed: the Roc had whisked away
Sindbad the Sailor out of the Valley of Diamonds out of sight, far
into the clouds: and there was everyday life before honest William;
and a big boy beating a little one without cause.

"Hold out your other hand, sir," roars Cuff to his little
schoolfellow, whose face was distorted with pain. Dobbin quivered,
and gathered himself up in his narrow old clothes.

"Take that, you little devil!" cried Mr. Cuff, and down came the
wicket again on the child's hand.--Don't be horrified, ladies, every
boy at a public school has done it. Your children will so do and be
done by, in all probability.  Down came the wicket again; and Dobbin
started up.

I can't tell what his motive was.  Torture in a public school is as
much licensed as the knout in Russia.  It would be ungentlemanlike
(in a manner) to resist it. Perhaps Dobbin's foolish soul revolted
against that exercise of tyranny; or perhaps he had a hankering
feeling of revenge in his mind, and longed to measure himself
against that splendid bully and tyrant, who had all the glory,
pride, pomp, circumstance, banners flying, drums beating, guards
saluting, in the place.  Whatever may have been his incentive,
however, up he sprang, and screamed out, "Hold off, Cuff; don't
bully that child any more; or I'll--"

"Or you'll what?" Cuff asked in amazement at this interruption.
"Hold out your hand, you little beast."

"I'll give you the worst thrashing you ever had in your life,"
Dobbin said, in reply to the first part of Cuff's sentence; and
little Osborne, gasping and in tears, looked up with wonder and
incredulity at seeing this amazing champion put up suddenly to
defend him: while Cuff's astonishment was scarcely less.  Fancy our
late monarch George III when he heard of the revolt of the North
American colonies: fancy brazen Goliath when little David stepped
forward and claimed a meeting; and you have the feelings of Mr.
Reginald Cuff when this rencontre was proposed to him.

"After school," says he, of course; after a pause and a look, as
much as to say, "Make your will, and communicate your last wishes to
your friends between this time and that."

"As you please," Dobbin said.  "You must be my bottle holder,
Osborne."

"Well, if you like," little Osborne replied; for you see his papa
kept a carriage, and he was rather ashamed of his champion.

Yes, when the hour of battle came, he was almost ashamed to say, "Go
it, Figs"; and not a single other boy in the place uttered that cry
for the first two or three rounds of this famous combat; at the
commencement of which the scientific Cuff, with a contemptuous smile
on his face, and as light and as gay as if he was at a ball, planted
his blows upon his adversary, and floored that unlucky champion
three times running.  At each fall there was a cheer; and everybody
was anxious to have the honour of offering the conqueror a knee.

"What a licking I shall get when it's over," young Osborne thought,
picking up his man.  "You'd best give in," he said to Dobbin; "it's
only a thrashing, Figs, and you know I'm used to it." But Figs, all
whose limbs were in a quiver, and whose nostrils were breathing
rage, put his little bottle-holder aside, and went in for a fourth
time.

As he did not in the least know how to parry the blows that were
aimed at himself, and Cuff had begun the attack on the three
preceding occasions, without ever allowing his enemy to strike, Figs
now determined that he would commence the engagement by a charge on
his own part; and accordingly, being a left-handed man, brought that
arm into action, and hit out a couple of times with all his might--
once at Mr. Cuff's left eye, and once on his beautiful Roman nose.

Cuff went down this time, to the astonishment of the assembly.
"Well hit, by Jove," says little Osborne, with the air of a
connoisseur, clapping his man on the back. "Give it him with the
left, Figs my boy."

Figs's left made terrific play during all the rest of the combat.
Cuff went down every time.  At the sixth round, there were almost as
many fellows shouting out, "Go it, Figs," as there were youths
exclaiming, "Go it, Cuff." At the twelfth round the latter champion
was all abroad, as the saying is, and had lost all presence of mind
and power of attack or defence.  Figs, on the contrary, was as calm
as a quaker.  His face being quite pale, his eyes shining open, and
a great cut on his underlip bleeding profusely, gave this young
fellow a fierce and ghastly air, which perhaps struck terror into
many spectators.  Nevertheless, his intrepid adversary prepared to
close for the thirteenth time.

If I had the pen of a Napier, or a Bell's Life, I should like to
describe this combat properly.  It was the last charge of the Guard--
(that is, it would have been, only Waterloo had not yet taken
place)--it was Ney's column breasting the hill of La Haye Sainte,
bristling with ten thousand bayonets, and crowned with twenty
eagles--it was the shout of the beef-eating British, as leaping down
the hill they rushed to hug the enemy in the savage arms of battle--
in other words, Cuff coming up full of pluck, but quite reeling and
groggy, the Fig-merchant put in his left as usual on his adversary's
nose, and sent him down for the last time.

"I think that will do for him," Figs said, as his opponent dropped
as neatly on the green as I have seen Jack Spot's ball plump into
the pocket at billiards; and the fact is, when time was called, Mr.
Reginald Cuff was not able, or did not choose, to stand up again.

And now all the boys set up such a shout for Figs as would have made
you think he had been their darling champion through the whole
battle; and as absolutely brought Dr. Swishtail out of his study,
curious to know the cause of the uproar.  He threatened to flog Figs
violently, of course; but Cuff, who had come to himself by this
time, and was washing his wounds, stood up and said, "It's my fault,
sir--not Figs'--not Dobbin's.  I was bullying a little boy; and he
served me right." By which magnanimous speech he not only saved his
conqueror a whipping, but got back all his ascendancy over the boys
which his defeat had nearly cost him.

Young Osborne wrote home to his parents an account of the
transaction.

Sugarcane House, Richmond, March, 18--

DEAR MAMA,--I hope you are quite well.  I should be much obliged to
you to send me a cake and five shillings. There has been a fight
here between Cuff & Dobbin. Cuff, you know, was the Cock of the
School.  They fought thirteen rounds, and Dobbin Licked.  So Cuff is
now Only Second Cock.  The fight was about me.  Cuff was licking me
for breaking a bottle of milk, and Figs wouldn't stand it.  We call
him Figs because his father is a Grocer--Figs & Rudge, Thames St.,
City--I think as he fought for me you ought to buy your Tea & Sugar
at his father's.  Cuff goes home every Saturday, but can't this,
because he has 2 Black Eyes.  He has a white Pony to come and fetch
him, and a groom in livery on a bay mare.  I wish my Papa would let
me have a Pony, and I am

Your dutiful Son, GEORGE SEDLEY OSBORNE

P.S.--Give my love to little Emmy.  I am cutting her out a Coach in
cardboard.  Please not a seed-cake, but a plum-cake.

In consequence of Dobbin's victory, his character rose prodigiously
in the estimation of all his schoolfellows, and the name of Figs,
which had been a byword of reproach, became as respectable and
popular a nickname as any other in use in the school.  "After all,
it's not his fault that his father's a grocer," George Osborne said,
who, though a little chap, had a very high popularity among the
Swishtail youth; and his opinion was received with great applause.
It was voted low to sneer at Dobbin about this accident of birth.
"Old Figs" grew to be a name of kindness and endearment; and the
sneak of an usher jeered at him no longer.

And Dobbin's spirit rose with his altered circumstances. He made
wonderful advances in scholastic learning.  The superb Cuff himself,
at whose condescension Dobbin could only blush and wonder, helped
him on with his Latin verses; "coached" him in play-hours: carried
him triumphantly out of the little-boy class into the middle-sized
form; and even there got a fair place for him.  It was discovered,
that although dull at classical learning, at mathematics he was
uncommonly quick.  To the contentment of all he passed third in
algebra, and got a French prize-book at the public Midsummer
examination. You should have seen his mother's face when Telemaque
(that delicious romance) was presented to him by the Doctor in the
face of the whole school and the parents and company, with an
inscription to Gulielmo Dobbin.  All the boys clapped hands in token
of applause and sympathy.  His blushes, his stumbles, his
awkwardness, and the number of feet which he crushed as he went back
to his place, who shall describe or calculate? Old Dobbin, his
father, who now respected him for the first time, gave him two
guineas publicly; most of which he spent in a general tuck-out for
the school: and he came back in a tail-coat after the holidays.

Dobbin was much too modest a young fellow to suppose that this happy
change in all his circumstances arose from his own generous and
manly disposition: he chose, from some perverseness, to attribute
his good fortune to the sole agency and benevolence of little George
Osborne, to whom henceforth he vowed such a love and affection as is
only felt by children--such an affection, as we read in the charming
fairy-book, uncouth Orson had for splendid young Valentine his
conqueror.  He flung himself down at little Osborne's feet, and
loved him. Even before they were acquainted, he had admired Osborne
in secret.  Now he was his valet, his dog, his man Friday.  He
believed Osborne to be the possessor of every perfection, to be the
handsomest, the bravest, the most active, the cleverest, the most
generous of created boys.  He shared his money with him: bought him
uncountable presents of knives, pencil-cases, gold seals, toffee,
Little Warblers, and romantic books, with large coloured pictures of
knights and robbers, in many of which latter you might read
inscriptions to George Sedley Osborne, Esquire, from his attached
friend William Dobbin--the which tokens of homage George received
very graciously, as became his superior merit.

So that Lieutenant Osborne, when coming to Russell Square on the day
of the Vauxhall party, said to the ladies, "Mrs. Sedley, Ma'am, I
hope you have room; I've asked Dobbin of ours to come and dine here,
and go with us to Vauxhall.  He's almost as modest as Jos."

"Modesty! pooh," said the stout gentleman, casting a vainqueur look
at Miss Sharp.

"He is--but you are incomparably more graceful, Sedley," Osborne
added, laughing.  "I met him at the Bedford, when I went to look for
you; and I told him that Miss Amelia was come home, and that we were
all bent on going out for a night's pleasuring; and that Mrs. Sedley
had forgiven his breaking the punch-bowl at the child's party.
Don't you remember the catastrophe, Ma'am, seven years ago?"

"Over Mrs. Flamingo's crimson silk gown," said good-natured Mrs.
Sedley.  "What a gawky it was! And his sisters are not much more
graceful.  Lady Dobbin was at Highbury last night with three of
them.  Such figures! my dears."

"The Alderman's very rich, isn't he?" Osborne said archly.  "Don't
you think one of the daughters would be a good spec for me, Ma'am?"

"You foolish creature! Who would take you, I should like to know,
with your yellow face?"

"Mine a yellow face? Stop till you see Dobbin.  Why, he had the
yellow fever three times; twice at Nassau, and once at St. Kitts."

"Well, well; yours is quite yellow enough for us.  Isn't it, Emmy?"
Mrs. Sedley said: at which speech Miss Amelia only made a smile and
a blush; and looking at Mr. George Osborne's pale interesting
countenance, and those beautiful black, curling, shining whiskers,
which the young gentleman himself regarded with no ordinary
complacency, she thought in her little heart that in His Majesty's
army, or in the wide world, there never was such a face or such a
hero.  "I don't care about Captain Dobbin's complexion," she said,
"or about his awkwardness. I shall always like him, I know," her
little reason being, that he was the friend and champion of George.

"There's not a finer fellow in the service," Osborne said, "nor a
better officer, though he is not an Adonis, certainly." And he
looked towards the glass himself with much naivete; and in so doing,
caught Miss Sharp's eye fixed keenly upon him, at which he blushed a
little, and Rebecca thought in her heart, "Ah, mon beau Monsieur! I
think I have YOUR gauge"--the little artful minx!

That evening, when Amelia came tripping into the drawing-room in a
white muslin frock, prepared for conquest at Vauxhall, singing like
a lark, and as fresh as a rose--a very tall ungainly gentleman, with
large hands and feet, and large ears, set off by a closely cropped
head of black hair, and in the hideous military frogged coat and
cocked hat of those times, advanced to meet her, and made her one of
the clumsiest bows that was ever performed by a mortal.

This was no other than Captain William Dobbin, of His Majesty's
Regiment of Foot, returned from yellow fever, in the West Indies, to
which the fortune of the service had ordered his regiment, whilst so
many of his gallant comrades were reaping glory in the Peninsula.

He had arrived with a knock so very timid and quiet that it was
inaudible to the ladies upstairs: otherwise, you may be sure Miss
Amelia would never have been so bold as to come singing into the
room.  As it was, the sweet fresh little voice went right into the
Captain's heart, and nestled there.  When she held out her hand for
him to shake, before he enveloped it in his own, he paused, and
thought--"Well, is it possible--are you the little maid I remember
in the pink frock, such a short time ago--the night I upset the
punch-bowl, just after I was gazetted? Are you the little girl that
George Osborne said should marry him?  What a blooming young
creature you seem, and what a prize the rogue has got!" All this he
thought, before he took Amelia's hand into his own, and as he let
his cocked hat fall.

His history since he left school, until the very moment when we have
the pleasure of meeting him again, although not fully narrated, has
yet, I think, been indicated sufficiently for an ingenious reader by
the conversation in the last page.  Dobbin, the despised grocer, was
Alderman Dobbin--Alderman Dobbin was Colonel of the City Light
Horse, then burning with military ardour to resist the French
Invasion.  Colonel Dobbin's corps, in which old Mr. Osborne himself
was but an indifferent corporal, had been reviewed by the Sovereign
and the Duke of York; and the colonel and alderman had been
knighted.  His son had entered the army: and young Osborne followed
presently in the same regiment.  They had served in the West Indies
and in Canada.  Their regiment had just come home, and the
attachment of Dobbin to George Osborne was as warm and generous now
as it had been when the two were schoolboys.

So these worthy people sat down to dinner presently. They talked
about war and glory, and Boney and Lord Wellington, and the last
Gazette.  In those famous days every gazette had a victory in it,
and the two gallant young men longed to see their own names in the
glorious list, and cursed their unlucky fate to belong to a regiment
which had been away from the chances of honour.  Miss Sharp kindled
with this exciting talk, but Miss Sedley trembled and grew quite
faint as she heard it.  Mr. Jos told several of his tiger-hunting
stories, finished the one about Miss Cutler and Lance the surgeon;
helped Rebecca to everything on the table, and himself gobbled and
drank a great deal.

He sprang to open the door for the ladies, when they retired, with
the most killing grace--and coming back to the table, filled himself
bumper after bumper of claret, which he swallowed with nervous
rapidity.

"He's priming himself," Osborne whispered to Dobbin, and at length
the hour and the carriage arrived for Vauxhall.



CHAPTER VI

Vauxhall


I know that the tune I am piping is a very mild one (although there
are some terrific chapters coming presently), and must beg the good-
natured reader to remember that we are only discoursing at present
about a stockbroker's family in Russell Square, who are taking
walks, or luncheon, or dinner, or talking and making love as people
do in common life, and without a single passionate and wonderful
incident to mark the progress of their loves.  The argument stands
thus--Osborne, in love with Amelia, has asked an old friend to
dinner and to Vauxhall--Jos Sedley is in love with Rebecca.  Will he
marry her? That is the great subject now in hand.

We might have treated this subject in the genteel, or in the
romantic, or in the facetious manner.  Suppose we had laid the scene
in Grosvenor Square, with the very same adventures--would not some
people have listened? Suppose we had shown how Lord Joseph Sedley
fell in love, and the Marquis of Osborne became attached to Lady
Amelia, with the full consent of the Duke, her noble father: or
instead of the supremely genteel, suppose we had resorted to the
entirely low, and described what was going on in Mr. Sedley's
kitchen--how black Sambo was in love with the cook (as indeed he
was), and how he fought a battle with the coachman in her behalf;
how the knife-boy was caught stealing a cold shoulder of mutton, and
Miss Sedley's new femme de chambre refused to go to bed without a
wax candle; such incidents might be made to provoke much delightful
laughter, and be supposed to represent scenes of "life." Or if, on
the contrary, we had taken a fancy for the terrible, and made the
lover of the new femme de chambre a professional burglar, who bursts
into the house with his band, slaughters black Sambo at the feet of
his master, and carries off Amelia in her night-dress, not to be let
loose again till the third volume, we should easily have constructed
a tale of thrilling interest, through the fiery chapters of which
the reader should hurry, panting.  But my readers must hope for no
such romance, only a homely story, and must be content with a
chapter about Vauxhall, which is so short that it scarce deserves to
be called a chapter at all.  And yet it is a chapter, and a very
important one too.  Are not there little chapters in everybody's
life, that seem to be nothing, and yet affect all the rest of the
history?

Let us then step into the coach with the Russell Square party, and
be off to the Gardens.  There is barely room between Jos and Miss
Sharp, who are on the front seat.  Mr. Osborne sitting bodkin
opposite, between Captain Dobbin and Amelia.

Every soul in the coach agreed that on that night Jos would propose
to make Rebecca Sharp Mrs. Sedley.  The parents at home had
acquiesced in the arrangement, though, between ourselves, old Mr.
Sedley had a feeling very much akin to contempt for his son.  He
said he was vain, selfish, lazy, and effeminate.  He could not
endure his airs as a man of fashion, and laughed heartily at his
pompous braggadocio stories.  "I shall leave the fellow half my
property," he said; "and he will have, besides, plenty of his own;
but as I am perfectly sure that if you, and I, and his sister were
to die to-morrow, he would say 'Good Gad!' and eat his dinner just
as well as usual, I am not going to make myself anxious about him.
Let him marry whom he likes.  It's no affair of mine."

Amelia, on the other hand, as became a young woman of her prudence
and temperament, was quite enthusiastic for the match.  Once or
twice Jos had been on the point of saying something very important
to her, to which she was most willing to lend an ear, but the fat
fellow could not be brought to unbosom himself of his great secret,
and very much to his sister's disappointment he only rid himself of
a large sigh and turned away.

This mystery served to keep Amelia's gentle bosom in a perpetual
flutter of excitement.  If she did not speak with Rebecca on the
tender subject, she compensated herself with long and intimate
conversations with Mrs. Blenkinsop, the housekeeper, who dropped
some hints to the lady's-maid, who may have cursorily mentioned the
matter to the cook, who carried the news, I have no doubt, to all
the tradesmen, so that Mr. Jos's marriage was now talked of by a
very considerable number of persons in the Russell Square world.

It was, of course, Mrs. Sedley's opinion that her son would demean
himself by a marriage with an artist's daughter.  "But, lor',
Ma'am," ejaculated Mrs. Blenkinsop, "we was only grocers when we
married Mr. S., who was a stock-broker's clerk, and we hadn't five
hundred pounds among us, and we're rich enough now." And Amelia was
entirely of this opinion, to which, gradually, the good-natured Mrs.
Sedley was brought.

Mr. Sedley was neutral.  "Let Jos marry whom he likes," he said;
"it's no affair of mine.  This girl has no fortune; no more had Mrs.
Sedley.  She seems good-humoured and clever, and will keep him in
order, perhaps.  Better she, my dear, than a black Mrs. Sedley, and
a dozen of mahogany grandchildren."

So that everything seemed to smile upon Rebecca's fortunes.  She
took Jos's arm, as a matter of course, on going to dinner; she had
sate by him on the box of his open carriage (a most tremendous
"buck" he was, as he sat there, serene, in state, driving his
greys), and though nobody said a word on the subject of the
marriage, everybody seemed to understand it.  All she wanted was the
proposal, and ah! how Rebecca now felt the want of a mother!--a
dear, tender mother, who would have managed the business in ten
minutes, and, in the course of a little delicate confidential
conversation, would have extracted the interesting avowal from the
bashful lips of the young man!

Such was the state of affairs as the carriage crossed Westminster
bridge.

The party was landed at the Royal Gardens in due time. As the
majestic Jos stepped out of the creaking vehicle the crowd gave a
cheer for the fat gentleman, who blushed and looked very big and
mighty, as he walked away with Rebecca under his arm.  George, of
course, took charge of Amelia.  She looked as happy as a rose-tree
in sunshine.

"I say, Dobbin," says George, "just look to the shawls and things,
there's a good fellow." And so while he paired off with Miss Sedley,
and Jos squeezed through the gate into the gardens with Rebecca at
his side, honest Dobbin contented himself by giving an arm to the
shawls, and by paying at the door for the whole party.

He walked very modestly behind them.  He was not willing to spoil
sport.  About Rebecca and Jos he did not care a fig.  But he thought
Amelia worthy even of the brilliant George Osborne, and as he saw
that good-looking couple threading the walks to the girl's delight
and wonder, he watched her artless happiness with a sort of fatherly
pleasure.  Perhaps he felt that he would have liked to have
something on his own arm besides a shawl (the people laughed at
seeing the gawky young officer carrying this female burthen); but
William Dobbin was very little addicted to selfish calculation at
all; and so long as his friend was enjoying himself, how should he
be discontented? And the truth is, that of all the delights of the
Gardens; of the hundred thousand extra lamps, which were always
lighted; the fiddlers in cocked hats, who played ravishing melodies
under the gilded cockle-shell in the midst of the gardens; the
singers, both of comic and sentimental ballads, who charmed the ears
there; the country dances, formed by bouncing cockneys and
cockneyesses, and executed amidst jumping, thumping and laughter;
the signal which announced that Madame Saqui was about to mount
skyward on a slack-rope ascending to the stars; the hermit that
always sat in the illuminated hermitage; the dark walks, so
favourable to the interviews of young lovers; the pots of stout
handed about by the people in the shabby old liveries; and the
twinkling boxes, in which the happy feasters made-believe to eat
slices of almost invisible ham--of all these things, and of the
gentle Simpson, that kind smiling idiot, who, I daresay, presided
even then over the place--Captain William Dobbin did not take the
slightest notice.

He carried about Amelia's white cashmere shawl, and having attended
under the gilt cockle-shell, while Mrs. Salmon performed the Battle
of Borodino (a savage cantata against the Corsican upstart, who had
lately met with his Russian reverses)--Mr. Dobbin tried to hum it as
he walked away, and found he was humming--the tune which Amelia
Sedley sang on the stairs, as she came down to dinner.

He burst out laughing at himself; for the truth is, he could sing no
better than an owl.

It is to be understood, as a matter of course, that our young
people, being in parties of two and two, made the most solemn
promises to keep together during the evening, and separated in ten
minutes afterwards.  Parties at Vauxhall always did separate, but
'twas only to meet again at supper-time, when they could talk of
their mutual adventures in the interval.

What were the adventures of Mr. Osborne and Miss Amelia? That is a
secret.  But be sure of this--they were perfectly happy, and correct
in their behaviour; and as they had been in the habit of being
together any time these fifteen years, their tete-a-tete offered no
particular novelty.

But when Miss Rebecca Sharp and her stout companion lost themselves
in a solitary walk, in which there were not above five score more of
couples similarly straying, they both felt that the situation was
extremely tender and critical, and now or never was the moment Miss
Sharp thought, to provoke that declaration which was trembling on
the timid lips of Mr. Sedley.  They had previously been to the
panorama of Moscow, where a rude fellow, treading on Miss Sharp's
foot, caused her to fall back with a little shriek into the arms of
Mr. Sedley, and this little incident increased the tenderness and
confidence of that gentleman to such a degree, that he told her
several of his favourite Indian stories over again for, at least,
the sixth time.

"How I should like to see India!" said Rebecca.

"SHOULD you?" said Joseph, with a most killing tenderness; and was
no doubt about to follow up this artful interrogatory by a question
still more tender (for he puffed and panted a great deal, and
Rebecca's hand, which was placed near his heart, could count the
feverish pulsations of that organ), when, oh, provoking! the bell
rang for the fireworks, and, a great scuffling and running taking
place, these interesting lovers were obliged to follow in the stream
of people.

Captain Dobbin had some thoughts of joining the party at supper: as,
in truth, he found the Vauxhall amusements not particularly lively--
but he paraded twice before the box where the now united couples
were met, and nobody took any notice of him.  Covers were laid for
four.  The mated pairs were prattling away quite happily, and Dobbin
knew he was as clean forgotten as if he had never existed in this
world.

"I should only be de trop," said the Captain, looking at them rather
wistfully.  "I'd best go and talk to the hermit,"--and so he
strolled off out of the hum of men, and noise, and clatter of the
banquet, into the dark walk, at the end of which lived that well-
known pasteboard Solitary.  It wasn't very good fun for Dobbin--and,
indeed, to be alone at Vauxhall, I have found, from my own
experience, to be one of the most dismal sports ever entered into by
a bachelor.

The two couples were perfectly happy then in their box: where the
most delightful and intimate conversation took place.  Jos was in
his glory, ordering about the waiters with great majesty.  He made
the salad; and uncorked the Champagne; and carved the chickens; and
ate and drank the greater part of the refreshments on the tables.
Finally, he insisted upon having a bowl of rack punch; everybody had
rack punch at Vauxhall.  "Waiter, rack punch."

That bowl of rack punch was the cause of all this history.  And why
not a bowl of rack punch as well as any other cause? Was not a bowl
of prussic acid the cause of Fair Rosamond's retiring from the
world? Was not a bowl of wine the cause of the demise of Alexander
the Great, or, at least, does not Dr. Lempriere say so?--so did this
bowl of rack punch influence the fates of all the principal
characters in this "Novel without a Hero," which we are now
relating.  It influenced their life, although most of them did not
taste a drop of it.

The young ladies did not drink it; Osborne did not like it; and the
consequence was that Jos, that fat gourmand, drank up the whole
contents of the bowl; and the consequence of his drinking up the
whole contents of the bowl was a liveliness which at first was
astonishing, and then became almost painful; for he talked and
laughed so loud as to bring scores of listeners round the box, much
to the confusion of the innocent party within it; and, volunteering
to sing a song (which he did in that maudlin high key peculiar to
gentlemen in an inebriated state), he almost drew away the audience
who were gathered round the musicians in the gilt scollop-shell, and
received from his hearers a great deal of applause.

"Brayvo, Fat un!" said one; "Angcore, Daniel Lambert!" said another;
"What a figure for the tight-rope!" exclaimed another wag, to the
inexpressible alarm of the ladies, and the great anger of Mr.
Osborne.

"For Heaven's sake, Jos, let us get up and go," cried that
gentleman, and the young women rose.

"Stop, my dearest diddle-diddle-darling," shouted Jos, now as bold
as a lion, and clasping Miss Rebecca round the waist.  Rebecca
started, but she could not get away her hand.  The laughter outside
redoubled.  Jos continued to drink, to make love, and to sing; and,
winking and waving his glass gracefully to his audience, challenged
all or any to come in and take a share of his punch.

Mr. Osborne was just on the point of knocking down a gentleman in
top-boots, who proposed to take advantage of this invitation, and a
commotion seemed to be inevitable, when by the greatest good luck a
gentleman of the name of Dobbin, who had been walking about the
gardens, stepped up to the box.  "Be off, you fools!" said this
gentleman--shouldering off a great number of the crowd, who vanished
presently before his cocked hat and fierce appearance--and he
entered the box in a most agitated state.

"Good Heavens! Dobbin, where have you been?" Osborne said, seizing
the white cashmere shawl from his friend's arm, and huddling up
Amelia in it.--"Make yourself useful, and take charge of Jos here,
whilst I take the ladies to the carriage."

Jos was for rising to interfere--but a single push from Osborne's
finger sent him puffing back into his seat again, and the lieutenant
was enabled to remove the ladies in safety.  Jos kissed his hand to
them as they retreated, and hiccupped out "Bless you! Bless you!"
Then, seizing Captain Dobbin's hand, and weeping in the most pitiful
way, he confided to that gentleman the secret of his loves.  He
adored that girl who had just gone out; he had broken her heart, he
knew he had, by his conduct; he would marry her next morning at St.
George's, Hanover Square; he'd knock up the Archbishop of Canterbury
at Lambeth: he would, by Jove! and have him in readiness; and,
acting on this hint, Captain Dobbin shrewdly induced him to leave
the gardens and hasten to Lambeth Palace, and, when once out of the
gates, easily conveyed Mr. Jos Sedley into a hackney-coach, which
deposited him safely at his lodgings.

George Osborne conducted the girls home in safety: and when the door
was closed upon them, and as he walked across Russell Square,
laughed so as to astonish the watchman.  Amelia looked very ruefully
at her friend, as they went up stairs, and kissed her, and went to
bed without any more talking.

"He must propose to-morrow," thought Rebecca.  "He called me his
soul's darling, four times; he squeezed my hand in Amelia's
presence.  He must propose to-morrow." And so thought Amelia, too.
And I dare say she thought of the dress she was to wear as
bridesmaid, and of the presents which she should make to her nice
little sister-in-law, and of a subsequent ceremony in which she
herself might play a principal part, &c., and &c., and &c., and &c.

Oh, ignorant young creatures! How little do you know the effect of
rack punch! What is the rack in the punch, at night, to the rack in
the head of a morning? To this truth I can vouch as a man; there is
no headache in the world like that caused by Vauxhall punch.
Through the lapse of twenty years, I can remember the consequence of
two glasses! two wine-glasses! but two, upon the honour of a
gentleman; and Joseph Sedley, who had a liver complaint, had
swallowed at least a quart of the abominable mixture.

That next morning, which Rebecca thought was to dawn upon her
fortune, found Sedley groaning in agonies which the pen refuses to
describe.  Soda-water was not invented yet.  Small beer--will it be
believed!--was the only drink with which unhappy gentlemen soothed
the fever of their previous night's potation.  With this mild
beverage before him, George Osborne found the ex-Collector of
Boggley Wollah groaning on the sofa at his lodgings.  Dobbin was
already in the room, good-naturedly tending his patient of the night
before.  The two officers, looking at the prostrate Bacchanalian,
and askance at each other, exchanged the most frightful sympathetic
grins.  Even Sedley's valet, the most solemn and correct of
gentlemen, with the muteness and gravity of an undertaker, could
hardly keep his countenance in order, as he looked at his
unfortunate master.

"Mr. Sedley was uncommon wild last night, sir," he whispered in
confidence to Osborne, as the latter mounted the stair.  "He wanted
to fight the 'ackney-coachman, sir. The Capting was obliged to bring
him upstairs in his harms like a babby." A momentary smile flickered
over Mr. Brush's features as he spoke; instantly, however, they
relapsed into their usual unfathomable calm, as he flung open the
drawing-room door, and announced "Mr. Hosbin."

"How are you, Sedley?" that young wag began, after surveying his
victim.  "No bones broke? There's a hackney-coachman downstairs with
a black eye, and a tied-up head, vowing he'll have the law of you."

"What do you mean--law?" Sedley faintly asked.

"For thrashing him last night--didn't he, Dobbin? You hit out, sir,
like Molyneux.  The watchman says he never saw a fellow go down so
straight.  Ask Dobbin."

"You DID have a round with the coachman," Captain Dobbin said, "and
showed plenty of fight too."

"And that fellow with the white coat at Vauxhall! How Jos drove at
him! How the women screamed! By Jove, sir, it did my heart good to
see you.  I thought you civilians had no pluck; but I'll never get
in your way when you are in your cups, Jos."

"I believe I'm very terrible, when I'm roused," ejaculated Jos from
the sofa, and made a grimace so dreary and ludicrous, that the
Captain's politeness could restrain him no longer, and he and
Osborne fired off a ringing volley of laughter.

Osborne pursued his advantage pitilessly.  He thought Jos a milksop.
He had been revolving in his mind the marriage question pending
between Jos and Rebecca, and was not over well pleased that a member
of a family into which he, George Osborne, of the --th, was going to
marry, should make a mesalliance with a little nobody--a little
upstart governess.  "You hit, you poor old fellow!" said Osborne.
"You terrible! Why, man, you couldn't stand--you made everybody
laugh in the Gardens, though you were crying yourself.  You were
maudlin, Jos.  Don't you remember singing a song?"

"A what?" Jos asked.

"A sentimental song, and calling Rosa, Rebecca, what's her name,
Amelia's little friend--your dearest diddle-diddle-darling?" And
this ruthless young fellow, seizing hold of Dobbin's hand, acted
over the scene, to the horror of the original performer, and in
spite of Dobbin's good-natured entreaties to him to have mercy.

"Why should I spare him?" Osborne said to his friend's
remonstrances, when they quitted the invalid, leaving him under the
hands of Doctor Gollop.  "What the deuce right has he to give
himself his patronizing airs, and make fools of us at Vauxhall?
Who's this little schoolgirl that is ogling and making love to him?
Hang it, the family's low enough already, without HER.  A governess
is all very well, but I'd rather have a lady for my sister-in-law.
I'm a liberal man; but I've proper pride, and know my own station:
let her know hers.  And I'll take down that great hectoring Nabob,
and prevent him from being made a greater fool than he is.  That's
why I told him to look out, lest she brought an action against him."

"I suppose you know best," Dobbin said, though rather dubiously.
"You always were a Tory, and your family's one of the oldest in
England.  But--"

"Come and see the girls, and make love to Miss Sharp yourself," the
lieutenant here interrupted his friend; but Captain Dobbin declined
to join Osborne in his daily visit to the young ladies in Russell
Square.

As George walked down Southampton Row, from Holborn, he laughed as
he saw, at the Sedley Mansion, in two different stories two heads on
the look-out.

The fact is, Miss Amelia, in the drawing-room balcony, was looking
very eagerly towards the opposite side of the Square, where Mr.
Osborne dwelt, on the watch for the lieutenant himself; and Miss
Sharp, from her little bed-room on the second floor, was in
observation until Mr. Joseph's great form should heave in sight.

"Sister Anne is on the watch-tower," said he to Amelia, "but there's
nobody coming"; and laughing and enjoying the joke hugely, he
described in the most ludicrous terms to Miss Sedley, the dismal
condition of her brother.

"I think it's very cruel of you to laugh, George," she said, looking
particularly unhappy; but George only laughed the more at her
piteous and discomfited mien, persisted in thinking the joke a most
diverting one, and when Miss Sharp came downstairs, bantered her
with a great deal of liveliness upon the effect of her charms on the
fat civilian.

"O Miss Sharp! if you could but see him this morning," he said--
"moaning in his flowered dressing-gown--writhing on his sofa; if you
could but have seen him lolling out his tongue to Gollop the
apothecary."

"See whom?" said Miss Sharp.

"Whom? O whom?  Captain Dobbin, of course, to whom we were all so
attentive, by the way, last night."

"We were very unkind to him," Emmy said, blushing very much.  "I--I
quite forgot him."

"Of course you did," cried Osborne, still on the laugh.

"One can't be ALWAYS thinking about Dobbin, you know, Amelia.  Can
one, Miss Sharp?"

"Except when he overset the glass of wine at dinner," Miss Sharp
said, with a haughty air and a toss of the head, "I never gave the
existence of Captain Dobbin one single moment's consideration."

"Very good, Miss Sharp, I'll tell him," Osborne said; and as he
spoke Miss Sharp began to have a feeling of distrust and hatred
towards this young officer, which he was quite unconscious of having
inspired.  "He is to make fun of me, is he?" thought Rebecca.  "Has
he been laughing about me to Joseph?  Has he frightened him? Perhaps
he won't come."--A film passed over her eyes, and her heart beat
quite quick.

"You're always joking," said she, smiling as innocently as she
could.  "Joke away, Mr. George; there's nobody to defend ME." And
George Osborne, as she walked away--and Amelia looked reprovingly at
him--felt some little manly compunction for having inflicted any
unnecessary unkindness upon this helpless creature.  "My dearest
Amelia," said he, "you are too good--too kind.  You don't know the
world.  I do.  And your little friend Miss Sharp must learn her
station."

"Don't you think Jos will--"

"Upon my word, my dear, I don't know.  He may, or may not.  I'm not
his master.  I only know he is a very foolish vain fellow, and put
my dear little girl into a very painful and awkward position last
night.  My dearest diddle-diddle-darling!" He was off laughing
again, and he did it so drolly that Emmy laughed too.

All that day Jos never came.  But Amelia had no fear about this; for
the little schemer had actually sent away the page, Mr. Sambo's
aide-de-camp, to Mr. Joseph's lodgings, to ask for some book he had
promised, and how he was; and the reply through Jos's man, Mr.
Brush, was, that his master was ill in bed, and had just had the
doctor with him.  He must come to-morrow, she thought, but she never
had the courage to speak a word on the subject to Rebecca; nor did
that young woman herself allude to it in any way during the whole
evening after the night at Vauxhall.

The next day, however, as the two young ladies sate on the sofa,
pretending to work, or to write letters, or to read novels, Sambo
came into the room with his usual engaging grin, with a packet under
his arm, and a note on a tray.  "Note from Mr. Jos, Miss," says
Sambo.

How Amelia trembled as she opened it!

So it ran:

Dear Amelia,--I send you the "Orphan of the Forest." I was too ill
to come yesterday.  I leave town to-day for Cheltenham.  Pray excuse
me, if you can, to the amiable Miss Sharp, for my conduct at
Vauxhall, and entreat her to pardon and forget every word I may have
uttered when excited by that fatal supper.  As soon as I have
recovered, for my health is very much shaken, I shall go to Scotland
for some months, and am

Truly yours,
Jos Sedley

It was the death-warrant.  All was over.  Amelia did not dare to
look at Rebecca's pale face and burning eyes, but she dropt the
letter into her friend's lap; and got up, and went upstairs to her
room, and cried her little heart out.

Blenkinsop, the housekeeper, there sought her presently with
consolation, on whose shoulder Amelia wept confidentially, and
relieved herself a good deal.  "Don't take on, Miss.  I didn't like
to tell you.  But none of us in the house have liked her except at
fust.  I sor her with my own eyes reading your Ma's letters.  Pinner
says she's always about your trinket-box and drawers, and
everybody's drawers, and she's sure she's put your white ribbing
into her box."

"I gave it her, I gave it her," Amelia said.

But this did not alter Mrs. Blenkinsop's opinion of Miss Sharp.  "I
don't trust them governesses, Pinner," she remarked to the maid.
"They give themselves the hairs and hupstarts of ladies, and their
wages is no better than you nor me."

It now became clear to every soul in the house, except poor Amelia,
that Rebecca should take her departure, and high and low (always
with the one exception) agreed that that event should take place as
speedily as possible. Our good child ransacked all her drawers,
cupboards, reticules, and gimcrack boxes--passed in review all her
gowns, fichus, tags, bobbins, laces, silk stockings, and fallals--
selecting this thing and that and the other, to make a little heap
for Rebecca.  And going to her Papa, that generous British merchant,
who had promised to give her as many guineas as she was years old--
she begged the old gentleman to give the money to dear Rebecca, who
must want it, while she lacked for nothing.

She even made George Osborne contribute, and nothing loth (for he
was as free-handed a young fellow as any in the army), he went to
Bond Street, and bought the best hat and spenser that money could
buy.

"That's George's present to you, Rebecca, dear," said Amelia, quite
proud of the bandbox conveying these gifts.  "What a taste he has!
There's nobody like him."

"Nobody," Rebecca answered.  "How thankful I am to him!" She was
thinking in her heart, "It was George Osborne who prevented my
marriage."--And she loved George Osborne accordingly.

She made her preparations for departure with great equanimity; and
accepted all the kind little Amelia's presents, after just the
proper degree of hesitation and reluctance.  She vowed eternal
gratitude to Mrs. Sedley, of course; but did not intrude herself
upon that good lady too much, who was embarrassed, and evidently
wishing to avoid her.  She kissed Mr. Sedley's hand, when he
presented her with the purse; and asked permission to consider him
for the future as her kind, kind friend and protector.  Her
behaviour was so affecting that he was going to write her a cheque
for twenty pounds more; but he restrained his feelings: the carriage
was in waiting to take him to dinner, so he tripped away with a "God
bless you, my dear, always come here when you come to town, you
know.--Drive to the Mansion House, James."

Finally came the parting with Miss Amelia, over which picture I
intend to throw a veil.  But after a scene in which one person was
in earnest and the other a perfect performer--after the tenderest
caresses, the most pathetic tears, the smelling-bottle, and some of
the very best feelings of the heart, had been called into
requisition--Rebecca and Amelia parted, the former vowing to love
her friend for ever and ever and ever.



CHAPTER VII

Crawley of Queen's Crawley


Among the most respected of the names beginning in C which the
Court-Guide contained, in the year 18--, was that of Crawley, Sir
Pitt, Baronet, Great Gaunt Street, and Queen's Crawley, Hants.  This
honourable name had figured constantly also in the Parliamentary
list for many years, in conjunction with that of a number of other
worthy gentlemen who sat in turns for the borough.

It is related, with regard to the borough of Queen's Crawley, that
Queen Elizabeth in one of her progresses, stopping at Crawley to
breakfast, was so delighted with some remarkably fine Hampshire beer
which was then presented to her by the Crawley of the day (a
handsome gentleman with a trim beard and a good leg), that she
forthwith erected Crawley into a borough to send two members to
Parliament; and the place, from the day of that illustrious visit,
took the name of Queen's Crawley, which it holds up to the present
moment.  And though, by the lapse of time, and those mutations which
age produces in empires, cities, and boroughs, Queen's Crawley was
no longer so populous a place as it had been in Queen Bess's time--
nay, was come down to that condition of borough which used to be
denominated rotten--yet, as Sir Pitt Crawley would say with perfect
justice in his elegant way, "Rotten! be hanged--it produces me a
good fifteen hundred a year."

Sir Pitt Crawley (named after the great Commoner) was the son of
Walpole Crawley, first Baronet, of the Tape and Sealing-Wax Office
in the reign of George II., when he was impeached for peculation, as
were a great number of other honest gentlemen of those days; and
Walpole Crawley was, as need scarcely be said, son of John Churchill
Crawley, named after the celebrated military commander of the reign
of Queen Anne.  The family tree (which hangs up at Queen's Crawley)
furthermore mentions Charles Stuart, afterwards called Barebones
Crawley, son of the Crawley of James the First's time; and finally,
Queen Elizabeth's Crawley, who is represented as the foreground of
the picture in his forked beard and armour.  Out of his waistcoat,
as usual, grows a tree, on the main branches of which the above
illustrious names are inscribed.  Close by the name of Sir Pitt
Crawley, Baronet (the subject of the present memoir), are written
that of his brother, the Reverend Bute Crawley (the great Commoner
was in disgrace when the reverend gentleman was born), rector of
Crawley-cum-Snailby, and of various other male and female members of
the Crawley family.

Sir Pitt was first married to Grizzel, sixth daughter of Mungo
Binkie, Lord Binkie, and cousin, in consequence, of Mr. Dundas.  She
brought him two sons: Pitt, named not so much after his father as
after the heaven-born minister; and Rawdon Crawley, from the Prince
of Wales's friend, whom his Majesty George IV forgot so completely.
Many years after her ladyship's demise, Sir Pitt led to the altar
Rosa, daughter of Mr. G. Dawson, of Mudbury, by whom he had two
daughters, for whose benefit Miss Rebecca Sharp was now engaged as
governess.  It will be seen that the young lady was come into a
family of very genteel connexions, and was about to move in a much
more distinguished circle than that humble one which she had just
quitted in Russell Square.

She had received her orders to join her pupils, in a note which was
written upon an old envelope, and which contained the following
words:

Sir Pitt Crawley begs Miss Sharp and baggidge may be hear on
Tuesday, as I leaf for Queen's Crawley to-morrow morning ERLY.

Great Gaunt Street.

Rebecca had never seen a Baronet, as far as she knew, and as soon as
she had taken leave of Amelia, and counted the guineas which good-
natured Mr. Sedley had put into a purse for her, and as soon as she
had done wiping her eyes with her handkerchief (which operation she
concluded the very moment the carriage had turned the corner of the
street), she began to depict in her own mind what a Baronet must be.
"I wonder, does he wear a star?" thought she, "or is it only lords
that wear stars? But he will be very handsomely dressed in a court
suit, with ruffles, and his hair a little powdered, like Mr.
Wroughton at Covent Garden.  I suppose he will be awfully proud, and
that I shall be treated most contemptuously.  Still I must bear my
hard lot as well as I can--at least, I shall be amongst GENTLEFOLKS,
and not with vulgar city people": and she fell to thinking of her
Russell Square friends with that very same philosophical bitterness
with which, in a certain apologue, the fox is represented as
speaking of the grapes.

Having passed through Gaunt Square into Great Gaunt Street, the
carriage at length stopped at a tall gloomy house between two other
tall gloomy houses, each with a hatchment over the middle drawing-
room window; as is the custom of houses in Great Gaunt Street, in
which gloomy locality death seems to reign perpetual.  The shutters
of the first-floor windows of Sir Pitt's mansion were closed--those
of the dining-room were partially open, and the blinds neatly
covered up in old newspapers.

John, the groom, who had driven the carriage alone, did not care to
descend to ring the bell; and so prayed a passing milk-boy to
perform that office for him.  When the bell was rung, a head
appeared between the interstices of the dining-room shutters, and
the door was opened by a man in drab breeches and gaiters, with a
dirty old coat, a foul old neckcloth lashed round his bristly neck,
a shining bald head, a leering red face, a pair of twinkling grey
eyes, and a mouth perpetually on the grin.

"This Sir Pitt Crawley's?" says John, from the box.

"Ees," says the man at the door, with a nod.

"Hand down these 'ere trunks then," said John.

"Hand 'n down yourself," said the porter.

"Don't you see I can't leave my hosses? Come, bear a hand, my fine
feller, and Miss will give you some beer," said John, with a horse-
laugh, for he was no longer respectful to Miss Sharp, as her
connexion with the family was broken off, and as she had given
nothing to the servants on coming away.

The bald-headed man, taking his hands out of his breeches pockets,
advanced on this summons, and throwing Miss Sharp's trunk over his
shoulder, carried it into the house.

"Take this basket and shawl, if you please, and open the door," said
Miss Sharp, and descended from the carriage in much indignation.  "I
shall write to Mr. Sedley and inform him of your conduct," said she
to the groom.

"Don't," replied that functionary.  "I hope you've forgot nothink?
Miss 'Melia's gownds--have you got them--as the lady's maid was to
have 'ad? I hope they'll fit you. Shut the door, Jim, you'll get no
good out of 'ER," continued John, pointing with his thumb towards
Miss Sharp: "a bad lot, I tell you, a bad lot," and so saying, Mr.
Sedley's groom drove away.  The truth is, he was attached to the
lady's maid in question, and indignant that she should have been
robbed of her perquisites.

On entering the dining-room, by the orders of the individual in
gaiters, Rebecca found that apartment not more cheerful than such
rooms usually are, when genteel families are out of town.  The
faithful chambers seem, as it were, to mourn the absence of their
masters.  The turkey carpet has rolled itself up, and retired
sulkily under the sideboard: the pictures have hidden their faces
behind old sheets of brown paper: the ceiling lamp is muffled up in
a dismal sack of brown holland: the window-curtains have disappeared
under all sorts of shabby envelopes: the marble bust of Sir Walpole
Crawley is looking from its black corner at the bare boards and the
oiled fire-irons, and the empty card-racks over the mantelpiece: the
cellaret has lurked away behind the carpet: the chairs are turned up
heads and tails along the walls: and in the dark corner opposite the
statue, is an old-fashioned crabbed knife-box, locked and sitting on
a dumb waiter.

Two kitchen chairs, and a round table, and an attenuated old poker
and tongs were, however, gathered round the fire-place, as was a
saucepan over a feeble sputtering fire.  There was a bit of cheese
and bread, and a tin candlestick on the table, and a little black
porter in a pint-pot.

"Had your dinner, I suppose? It is not too warm for you? Like a drop
of beer?"

"Where is Sir Pitt Crawley?" said Miss Sharp majestically.

"He, he! I'm Sir Pitt Crawley.  Reklect you owe me a pint for
bringing down your luggage.  He, he! Ask Tinker if I aynt.  Mrs.
Tinker, Miss Sharp; Miss Governess, Mrs. Charwoman.  Ho, ho!"

The lady addressed as Mrs. Tinker at this moment made her appearance
with a pipe and a paper of tobacco, for which she had been
despatched a minute before Miss Sharp's arrival; and she handed the
articles over to Sir Pitt, who had taken his seat by the fire.

"Where's the farden?" said he.  "I gave you three halfpence.
Where's the change, old Tinker?"

"There!" replied Mrs. Tinker, flinging down the coin; it's only
baronets as cares about farthings."

"A farthing a day is seven shillings a year," answered the M.P.;
"seven shillings a year is the interest of seven guineas.  Take care
of your farthings, old Tinker, and your guineas will come quite
nat'ral."

"You may be sure it's Sir Pitt Crawley, young woman," said Mrs.
Tinker, surlily; "because he looks to his farthings.  You'll know
him better afore long."

"And like me none the worse, Miss Sharp," said the old gentleman,
with an air almost of politeness.  "I must be just before I'm
generous."

"He never gave away a farthing in his life," growled Tinker.

"Never, and never will: it's against my principle.  Go and get
another chair from the kitchen, Tinker, if you want to sit down; and
then we'll have a bit of supper."

Presently the baronet plunged a fork into the saucepan on the fire,
and withdrew from the pot a piece of tripe and an onion, which he
divided into pretty equal portions, and of which he partook with
Mrs. Tinker.  "You see, Miss Sharp, when I'm not here Tinker's on
board wages: when I'm in town she dines with the family. Haw! haw!
I'm glad Miss Sharp's not hungry, ain't you, Tink?" And they fell to
upon their frugal supper.

After supper Sir Pitt Crawley began to smoke his pipe; and when it
became quite dark, he lighted the rushlight in the tin candlestick,
and producing from an interminable pocket a huge mass of papers,
began reading them, and putting them in order.

"I'm here on law business, my dear, and that's how it happens that I
shall have the pleasure of such a pretty travelling companion to-
morrow."

"He's always at law business," said Mrs. Tinker, taking up the pot
of porter.

"Drink and drink about," said the Baronet.  "Yes; my dear, Tinker is
quite right: I've lost and won more lawsuits than any man in
England.  Look here at Crawley, Bart. v. Snaffle.  I'll throw him
over, or my name's not Pitt Crawley.  Podder and another versus
Crawley, Bart. Overseers of Snaily parish against Crawley, Bart.
They can't prove it's common: I'll defy 'em; the land's mine. It no
more belongs to the parish than it does to you or Tinker here.  I'll
beat 'em, if it cost me a thousand guineas. Look over the papers;
you may if you like, my dear. Do you write a good hand? I'll make
you useful when we're at Queen's Crawley, depend on it, Miss Sharp.
Now the dowager's dead I want some one."

"She was as bad as he," said Tinker.  "She took the law of every one
of her tradesmen; and turned away forty-eight footmen in four year."

"She was close--very close," said the Baronet, simply; "but she was
a valyble woman to me, and saved me a steward."--And in this
confidential strain, and much to the amusement of the new-comer, the
conversation continued for a considerable time.  Whatever Sir Pitt
Crawley's qualities might be, good or bad, he did not make the least
disguise of them.  He talked of himself incessantly, sometimes in
the coarsest and vulgarest Hampshire accent; sometimes adopting the
tone of a man of the world.  And so, with injunctions to Miss Sharp
to be ready at five in the morning, he bade her good night.
"You'll sleep with Tinker to-night," he said; "it's a big bed, and
there's room for two. Lady Crawley died in it.  Good night."

Sir Pitt went off after this benediction, and the solemn Tinker,
rushlight in hand, led the way up the great bleak stone stairs, past
the great dreary drawing-room doors, with the handles muffled up in
paper, into the great front bedroom, where Lady Crawley had slept
her last.  The bed and chamber were so funereal and gloomy, you
might have fancied, not only that Lady Crawley died in the room, but
that her ghost inhabited it.  Rebecca sprang about the apartment,
however, with the greatest liveliness, and had peeped into the huge
wardrobes, and the closets, and the cupboards, and tried the drawers
which were locked, and examined the dreary pictures and toilette
appointments, while the old charwoman was saying her prayers.  "I
shouldn't like to sleep in this yeer bed without a good conscience,
Miss," said the old woman.  "There's room for us and a half-dozen of
ghosts in it," says Rebecca.  "Tell me all about Lady Crawley and
Sir Pitt Crawley, and everybody, my DEAR Mrs. Tinker."

But old Tinker was not to be pumped by this little cross-questioner;
and signifying to her that bed was a place for sleeping, not
conversation, set up in her corner of the bed such a snore as only
the nose of innocence can produce.  Rebecca lay awake for a long,
long time, thinking of the morrow, and of the new world into which
she was going, and of her chances of success there.  The rushlight
flickered in the basin.  The mantelpiece cast up a great black
shadow, over half of a mouldy old sampler, which her defunct
ladyship had worked, no doubt, and over two little family pictures
of young lads, one in a college gown, and the other in a red jacket
like a soldier. When she went to sleep, Rebecca chose that one to
dream about.

At four o'clock, on such a roseate summer's morning as even made
Great Gaunt Street look cheerful, the faithful Tinker, having
wakened her bedfellow, and bid her prepare for departure, unbarred
and unbolted the great hall door (the clanging and clapping whereof
startled the sleeping echoes in the street), and taking her way into
Oxford Street, summoned a coach from a stand there.  It is needless
to particularize the number of the vehicle, or to state that the
driver was stationed thus early in the neighbourhood of Swallow
Street, in hopes that some young buck, reeling homeward from the
tavern, might need the aid of his vehicle, and pay him with the
generosity of intoxication.

It is likewise needless to say that the driver, if he had any such
hopes as those above stated, was grossly disappointed; and that the
worthy Baronet whom he drove to the City did not give him one single
penny more than his fare.  It was in vain that Jehu appealed and
stormed; that he flung down Miss Sharp's bandboxes in the gutter at
the 'Necks, and swore he would take the law of his fare.

"You'd better not," said one of the ostlers; "it's Sir Pitt
Crawley."

"So it is, Joe," cried the Baronet, approvingly; "and I'd like to
see the man can do me."

"So should oi," said Joe, grinning sulkily, and mounting the
Baronet's baggage on the roof of the coach.

"Keep the box for me, Leader," exclaims the Member of Parliament to
the coachman; who replied, "Yes, Sir Pitt," with a touch of his hat,
and rage in his soul (for he had promised the box to a young
gentleman from Cambridge, who would have given a crown to a
certainty), and Miss Sharp was accommodated with a back seat inside
the carriage, which might be said to be carrying her into the wide
world.

How the young man from Cambridge sulkily put his five great-coats in
front; but was reconciled when little Miss Sharp was made to quit
the carriage, and mount up beside him--when he covered her up in one
of his Benjamins, and became perfectly good-humoured--how the
asthmatic gentleman, the prim lady, who declared upon her sacred
honour she had never travelled in a public carriage before (there is
always such a lady in a coach--Alas! was; for the coaches, where are
they?), and the fat widow with the brandy-bottle, took their places
inside--how the porter asked them all for money, and got sixpence
from the gentleman and five greasy halfpence from the fat widow--and
how the carriage at length drove away--now threading the dark lanes
of Aldersgate, anon clattering by the Blue Cupola of St. Paul's,
jingling rapidly by the strangers' entry of Fleet-Market, which,
with Exeter 'Change, has now departed to the world of shadows--how
they passed the White Bear in Piccadilly, and saw the dew rising up
from the market-gardens of Knightsbridge--how Turnhamgreen,
Brentwood, Bagshot, were passed--need not be told here. But the
writer of these pages, who has pursued in former days, and in the
same bright weather, the same remarkable journey, cannot but think
of it with a sweet and tender regret.  Where is the road now, and
its merry incidents of life? Is there no Chelsea or Greenwich for
the old honest pimple-nosed coachmen?  I wonder where are they,
those good fellows? Is old Weller alive or dead? and the waiters,
yea, and the inns at which they waited, and the cold rounds of beef
inside, and the stunted ostler, with his blue nose and clinking
pail, where is he, and where is his generation?  To those great
geniuses now in petticoats, who shall write novels for the beloved
reader's children, these men and things will be as much legend and
history as Nineveh, or Coeur de Lion, or Jack Sheppard.  For them
stage-coaches will have become romances--a team of four bays as
fabulous as Bucephalus or Black Bess.  Ah, how their coats shone, as
the stable-men pulled their clothes off, and away they went--ah, how
their tails shook, as with smoking sides at the stage's end they
demurely walked away into the inn-yard.  Alas!  we shall never hear
the horn sing at midnight, or see the pike-gates fly open any more.
Whither, however, is the light four-inside Trafalgar coach carrying
us? Let us be set down at Queen's Crawley without further
divagation, and see how Miss Rebecca Sharp speeds there.



CHAPTER VIII

Private and Confidential


Miss Rebecca Sharp to Miss Amelia Sedley, Russell Square, London.
(Free.--Pitt Crawley.)

MY DEAREST, SWEETEST AMELIA,

With what mingled joy and sorrow do I take up the pen to write to my
dearest friend!  Oh, what a change between to-day and yesterday! Now
I am friendless and alone; yesterday I was at home, in the sweet
company of a sister, whom I shall ever, ever cherish!

I will not tell you in what tears and sadness I passed the fatal
night in which I separated from you.  YOU went on Tuesday to joy and
happiness, with your mother and YOUR DEVOTED YOUNG SOLDIER by your
side; and I thought of you all night, dancing at the Perkins's, the
prettiest, I am sure, of all the young ladies at the Ball.  I was
brought by the groom in the old carriage to Sir Pitt Crawley's town
house, where, after John the groom had behaved most rudely and
insolently to me (alas! 'twas safe to insult poverty and
misfortune!), I was given over to Sir P.'s care, and made to pass
the night in an old gloomy bed, and by the side of a horrid gloomy
old charwoman, who keeps the house.  I did not sleep one single wink
the whole night.

Sir Pitt is not what we silly girls, when we used to read Cecilia at
Chiswick, imagined a baronet must have been.  Anything, indeed, less
like Lord Orville cannot be imagined.  Fancy an old, stumpy, short,
vulgar, and very dirty man, in old clothes and shabby old gaiters,
who smokes a horrid pipe, and cooks his own horrid supper in a
saucepan.  He speaks with a country accent, and swore a great deal
at the old charwoman, at the hackney coachman who drove us to the
inn where the coach went from, and on which I made the journey
OUTSIDE FOR THE GREATER PART OF THE WAY.

I was awakened at daybreak by the charwoman, and having arrived at
the inn, was at first placed inside the coach.  But, when we got to
a place called Leakington, where the rain began to fall very
heavily--will you believe it?--I was forced to come outside; for Sir
Pitt is a proprietor of the coach, and as a passenger came at
Mudbury, who wanted an inside place, I was obliged to go outside in
the rain, where, however, a young gentleman from Cambridge College
sheltered me very kindly in one of his several great coats.

This gentleman and the guard seemed to know Sir Pitt very well, and
laughed at him a great deal.  They both agreed in calling him an old
screw; which means a very stingy, avaricious person.  He never gives
any money to anybody, they said (and this meanness I hate); and the
young gentleman made me remark that we drove very slow for the last
two stages on the road, because Sir Pitt was on the box, and because
he is proprietor of the horses for this part of the journey.  "But
won't I flog 'em on to Squashmore, when I take the ribbons?" said
the young Cantab.  "And sarve 'em right, Master Jack," said the
guard.  When I comprehended the meaning of this phrase, and that
Master Jack intended to drive the rest of the way, and revenge
himself on Sir Pitt's horses, of course I laughed too.

A carriage and four splendid horses, covered with armorial bearings,
however, awaited us at Mudbury, four miles from Queen's Crawley, and
we made our entrance to the baronet's park in state.  There is a
fine avenue of a mile long leading to the house, and the woman at
the lodge-gate (over the pillars of which are a serpent and a dove,
the supporters of the Crawley arms), made us a number of curtsies as
she flung open the old iron carved doors, which are something like
those at odious Chiswick.

"There's an avenue," said Sir Pitt, "a mile long. There's six
thousand pound of timber in them there trees.  Do you call that
nothing?" He pronounced avenue--EVENUE, and nothing--NOTHINK, so
droll; and he had a Mr. Hodson, his hind from Mudbury, into the
carriage with him, and they talked about distraining, and selling
up, and draining and subsoiling, and a great deal about tenants and
farming--much more than I could understand.  Sam Miles had been
caught poaching, and Peter Bailey had gone to the workhouse at last.
"Serve him right," said Sir Pitt; "him and his family has been
cheating me on that farm these hundred and fifty years." Some old
tenant, I suppose, who could not pay his rent. Sir Pitt might have
said "he and his family," to be sure; but rich baronets do not need
to be careful about grammar, as poor governesses must be.

As we passed, I remarked a beautiful church-spire rising above some
old elms in the park; and before them, in the midst of a lawn, and
some outhouses, an old red house with tall chimneys covered with
ivy, and the windows shining in the sun.  "Is that your church,
sir?" I said.

"Yes, hang it," (said Sir Pitt, only he used, dear, A MUCH WICKEDER
WORD); "how's Buty, Hodson? Buty's my brother Bute, my dear--my
brother the parson.  Buty and the Beast I call him, ha, ha!"

Hodson laughed too, and then looking more grave and nodding his
head, said, "I'm afraid he's better, Sir Pitt.  He was out on his
pony yesterday, looking at our corn."

"Looking after his tithes, hang'un (only he used the same wicked
word).  Will brandy and water never kill him? He's as tough as old
whatdyecallum--old Methusalem."

Mr. Hodson laughed again.  "The young men is home from college.
They've whopped John Scroggins till he's well nigh dead."

"Whop my second keeper!" roared out Sir Pitt.

"He was on the parson's ground, sir," replied Mr. Hodson; and Sir
Pitt in a fury swore that if he ever caught 'em poaching on his
ground, he'd transport 'em, by the lord he would.  However, he said,
"I've sold the presentation of the living, Hodson; none of that
breed shall get it, I war'nt"; and Mr. Hodson said he was quite
right: and I have no doubt from this that the two brothers are at
variance--as brothers often are, and sisters too.  Don't you
remember the two Miss Scratchleys at Chiswick, how they used always
to fight and quarrel--and Mary Box, how she was always thumping
Louisa?

Presently, seeing two little boys gathering sticks in the wood, Mr.
Hodson jumped out of the carriage, at Sir Pitt's order, and rushed
upon them with his whip.  "Pitch into 'em, Hodson," roared the
baronet; "flog their little souls out, and bring 'em up to the
house, the vagabonds; I'll commit 'em as sure as my name's Pitt."
And presently we heard Mr. Hodson's whip cracking on the shoulders
of the poor little blubbering wretches, and Sir Pitt, seeing that
the malefactors were in custody, drove on to the hall.

All the servants were ready to meet us, and . . .

Here, my dear, I was interrupted last night by a dreadful thumping
at my door: and who do you think it was? Sir Pitt Crawley in his
night-cap and dressing-gown, such a figure! As I shrank away from
such a visitor, he came forward and seized my candle.  "No candles
after eleven o'clock, Miss Becky," said he.  "Go to bed in the dark,
you pretty little hussy" (that is what he called me), "and unless
you wish me to come for the candle every night, mind and be in bed
at eleven." And with this, he and Mr. Horrocks the butler went off
laughing.  You may be sure I shall not encourage any more of their
visits.  They let loose two immense bloodhounds at night, which all
last night were yelling and howling at the moon.  "I call the dog
Gorer," said Sir Pitt; "he's killed a man that dog has, and is
master of a bull, and the mother I used to call Flora; but now I
calls her Aroarer, for she's too old to bite.  Haw, haw!"

Before the house of Queen's Crawley, which is an odious old-
fashioned red brick mansion, with tall chimneys and gables of the
style of Queen Bess, there is a terrace flanked by the family dove
and serpent, and on which the great hall-door opens.  And oh, my
dear, the great hall I am sure is as big and as glum as the great
hall in the dear castle of Udolpho.  It has a large fireplace, in
which we might put half Miss Pinkerton's school, and the grate is
big enough to roast an ox at the very least.  Round the room hang I
don't know how many generations of Crawleys, some with beards and
ruffs, some with huge wigs and toes turned out, some dressed in long
straight stays and gowns that look as stiff as towers, and some with
long ringlets, and oh, my dear! scarcely any stays at all.  At one
end of the hall is the great staircase all in black oak, as dismal
as may be, and on either side are tall doors with stags' heads over
them, leading to the billiard-room and the library, and the great
yellow saloon and the morning-rooms.  I think there are at least
twenty bedrooms on the first floor; one of them has the bed in which
Queen Elizabeth slept; and I have been taken by my new pupils
through all these fine apartments this morning.  They are not
rendered less gloomy, I promise you, by having the shutters always
shut; and there is scarce one of the apartments, but when the light
was let into it, I expected to see a ghost in the room.  We have a
schoolroom on the second floor, with my bedroom leading into it on
one side, and that of the young ladies on the other.  Then there are
Mr. Pitt's apartments--Mr. Crawley, he is called--the eldest son,
and Mr. Rawdon Crawley's rooms--he is an officer like SOMEBODY, and
away with his regiment.  There is no want of room I assure you.  You
might lodge all the people in Russell Square in the house, I think,
and have space to spare.

Half an hour after our arrival, the great dinner-bell was rung, and
I came down with my two pupils (they are very thin insignificant
little chits of ten and eight years old).  I came down in your dear
muslin gown (about which that odious Mrs. Pinner was so rude,
because you gave it me); for I am to be treated as one of the
family, except on company days, when the young ladies and I are to
dine upstairs.

Well, the great dinner-bell rang, and we all assembled in the little
drawing-room where my Lady Crawley sits.  She is the second Lady
Crawley, and mother of the young ladies.  She was an ironmonger's
daughter, and her marriage was thought a great match.  She looks as
if she had been handsome once, and her eyes are always weeping for
the loss of her beauty.  She is pale and meagre and high-shouldered,
and has not a word to say for herself, evidently.  Her stepson Mr.
Crawley, was likewise in the room.  He was in full dress, as pompous
as an undertaker.  He is pale, thin, ugly, silent; he has thin legs,
no chest, hay-coloured whiskers, and straw-coloured hair.  He is the
very picture of his sainted mother over the mantelpiece--Griselda of
the noble house of Binkie.

"This is the new governess, Mr. Crawley," said Lady Crawley, coming
forward and taking my hand.  "Miss Sharp."

"O!" said Mr. Crawley, and pushed his head once forward and began
again to read a great pamphlet with which he was busy.

"I hope you will be kind to my girls," said Lady Crawley, with her
pink eyes always full of tears.

"Law, Ma, of course she will," said the eldest: and I saw at a
glance that I need not be afraid of THAT woman. "My lady is served,"
says the butler in black, in an immense white shirt-frill, that
looked as if it had been one of the Queen Elizabeth's ruffs depicted
in the hall; and so, taking Mr. Crawley's arm, she led the way to
the dining-room, whither I followed with my little pupils in each
hand.

Sir Pitt was already in the room with a silver jug.  He had just
been to the cellar, and was in full dress too; that is, he had taken
his gaiters off, and showed his little dumpy legs in black worsted
stockings.  The sideboard was covered with glistening old plate--old
cups, both gold and silver; old salvers and cruet-stands, like
Rundell and Bridge's shop.  Everything on the table was in silver
too, and two footmen, with red hair and canary-coloured liveries,
stood on either side of the sideboard.

Mr. Crawley said a long grace, and Sir Pitt said amen, and the great
silver dish-covers were removed.

"What have we for dinner, Betsy?' said the Baronet.

"Mutton broth, I believe, Sir Pitt," answered Lady Crawley.

"Mouton aux navets," added the butler gravely (pronounce, if you
please, moutongonavvy); "and the soup is potage de mouton a
l'Ecossaise.  The side-dishes contain pommes de terre au naturel,
and choufleur a l'eau."

"Mutton's mutton," said the Baronet, "and a devilish good thing.
What SHIP was it, Horrocks, and when did you kill?"  "One of the
black-faced Scotch, Sir Pitt: we killed on Thursday.

"Who took any?"

"Steel, of Mudbury, took the saddle and two legs, Sir Pitt; but he
says the last was too young and confounded woolly, Sir Pitt."

"Will you take some potage, Miss ah--Miss Blunt? said Mr. Crawley.

"Capital Scotch broth, my dear," said Sir Pitt, "though they call it
by a French name."

"I believe it is the custom, sir, in decent society," said Mr.
Crawley, haughtily, "to call the dish as I have called it"; and it
was served to us on silver soup plates by the
footmen in the canary coats, with the mouton aux navets.  Then "ale
and water" were brought, and served to us young ladies in wine-
glasses.  I am not a judge of ale, but I can say with a clear
conscience I prefer water.

While we were enjoying our repast, Sir Pitt took occasion to ask
what had become of the shoulders of the mutton.

"I believe they were eaten in the servants' hall," said my lady,
humbly.

"They was, my lady," said Horrocks, "and precious little else we get
there neither."

Sir Pitt burst into a horse-laugh, and continued his conversation
with Mr. Horrocks.  "That there little black pig of the Kent sow's
breed must be uncommon fat now."

"It's not quite busting, Sir Pitt," said the butler with the gravest
air, at which Sir Pitt, and with him the young ladies, this time,
began to laugh violently.

"Miss Crawley, Miss Rose Crawley," said Mr. Crawley, "your laughter
strikes me as being exceedingly out of place."

"Never mind, my lord," said the Baronet, "we'll try the porker on
Saturday.  Kill un on Saturday morning, John Horrocks.  Miss Sharp
adores pork, don't you, Miss Sharp?"

And I think this is all the conversation that I remember at dinner.
When the repast was concluded a jug of hot water was placed before
Sir Pitt, with a case-bottle containing, I believe, rum.  Mr.
Horrocks served myself and my pupils with three little glasses of
wine, and a bumper was poured out for my lady.  When we retired, she
took from her work-drawer an enormous interminable piece of
knitting; the young ladies began to play at cribbage with a dirty
pack of cards.  We had but one candle lighted, but it was in a
magnificent old silver candlestick, and after a very few questions
from my lady, I had my choice of amusement between a volume of
sermons, and a pamphlet on the corn-laws, which Mr. Crawley had been
reading before dinner.

So we sat for an hour until steps were heard.

"Put away the cards, girls," cried my lady, in a great tremor; "put
down Mr. Crawley's books, Miss Sharp"; and these orders had been
scarcely obeyed, when Mr. Crawley entered the room.

"We will resume yesterday's discourse, young ladies," said he, "and
you shall each read a page by turns; so that Miss a--Miss Short may
have an opportunity of hearing you"; and the poor girls began to
spell a long dismal sermon delivered at Bethesda Chapel, Liverpool,
on behalf of the mission for the Chickasaw Indians. Was it not a
charming evening?

At ten the servants were told to call Sir Pitt and the household to
prayers.  Sir Pitt came in first, very much flushed, and rather
unsteady in his gait; and after him the butler, the canaries, Mr.
Crawley's man, three other men, smelling very much of the stable,
and four women, one of whom, I remarked, was very much overdressed,
and who flung me a look of great scorn as she plumped down on her
knees.

After Mr. Crawley had done haranguing and expounding, we received
our candles, and then we went to bed; and then I was disturbed in my
writing, as I have described to my dearest sweetest Amelia.

Good night.  A thousand, thousand, thousand kisses!

Saturday.--This morning, at five, I heard the shrieking of the
little black pig.  Rose and Violet introduced me to it yesterday;
and to the stables, and to the kennel, and to the gardener, who was
picking fruit to send to market, and from whom they begged hard a
bunch of hot-house grapes; but he said that Sir Pitt had numbered
every "Man Jack" of them, and it would be as much as his place was
worth to give any away.  The darling girls caught a colt in a
paddock, and asked me if I would ride, and began to ride themselves,
when the groom, coming with horrid oaths, drove them away.

Lady Crawley is always knitting the worsted.  Sir Pitt is always
tipsy, every night; and, I believe, sits with Horrocks, the butler.
Mr. Crawley always reads sermons in the evening, and in the morning
is locked up in his study, or else rides to Mudbury, on county
business, or to Squashmore, where he preaches, on Wednesdays and
Fridays, to the tenants there.

A hundred thousand grateful loves to your dear papa and mamma.  Is
your poor brother recovered of his rack-punch? Oh, dear! Oh, dear!
How men should beware of wicked punch!

Ever and ever thine own REBECCA

Everything considered, I think it is quite as well for our dear
Amelia Sedley, in Russell Square, that Miss Sharp and she are
parted.  Rebecca is a droll funny creature, to be sure; and those
descriptions of the poor lady weeping for the loss of her beauty,
and the gentleman "with hay-coloured whiskers and straw-coloured
hair," are very smart, doubtless, and show a great knowledge of the
world.  That she might, when on her knees, have been thinking of
something better than Miss Horrocks's ribbons, has possibly struck
both of us.  But my kind reader will please to remember that this
history has "Vanity Fair" for a title, and that Vanity Fair is a
very vain, wicked, foolish place, full of all sorts of humbugs and
falsenesses and pretensions.  And while the moralist, who is holding
forth on the cover ( an accurate portrait of your humble servant),
professes to wear neither gown nor bands, but only the very same
long-eared livery in which his congregation is arrayed: yet, look
you, one is bound to speak the truth as far as one knows it, whether
one mounts a cap and bells or a shovel hat; and a deal of
disagreeable matter must come out in the course of such an
undertaking.

I have heard a brother of the story-telling trade, at Naples,
preaching to a pack of good-for-nothing honest lazy fellows by the
sea-shore, work himself up into such a rage and passion with some of
the villains whose wicked deeds he was describing and inventing,
that the audience could not resist it; and they and the poet
together would burst out into a roar of oaths and execrations
against the fictitious monster of the tale, so that the hat went
round, and the bajocchi tumbled into it, in the midst of a perfect
storm of sympathy.

At the little Paris theatres, on the other hand, you will not only
hear the people yelling out "Ah gredin! Ah monstre:" and cursing the
tyrant of the play from the boxes; but the actors themselves
positively refuse to play the wicked parts, such as those of infames
Anglais, brutal Cossacks, and what not, and prefer to appear at a
smaller salary, in their real characters as loyal Frenchmen.  I set
the two stories one against the other, so that you may see that it
is not from mere mercenary motives that the present performer is
desirous to show up and trounce his villains; but because he has a
sincere hatred of them, which he cannot keep down, and which must
find a vent in suitable abuse and bad language.

I warn my "kyind friends," then, that I am going to tell a story of
harrowing villainy and complicated--but, as I trust, intensely
interesting--crime.  My rascals are no milk-and-water rascals, I
promise you.  When we come to the proper places we won't spare fine
language--No, no! But when we are going over the quiet country we
must perforce be calm.  A tempest in a slop-basin is absurd.  We
will reserve that sort of thing for the mighty ocean and the lonely
midnight.  The present Chapter is very mild.  Others--But we will
not anticipate THOSE.

And, as we bring our characters forward, I will ask leave, as a man
and a brother, not only to introduce them, but occasionally to step
down from the platform, and talk about them: if they are good and
kindly, to love them and shake them by the hand: if they are silly,
to laugh at them confidentially in the reader's sleeve: if they are
wicked and heartless, to abuse them in the strongest terms which
politeness admits of.

Otherwise you might fancy it was I who was sneering at the practice
of devotion, which Miss Sharp finds so ridiculous; that it was I who
laughed good-humouredly at the reeling old Silenus of a baronet--
whereas the laughter comes from one who has no reverence except for
prosperity, and no eye for anything beyond success. Such people
there are living and flourishing in the world--Faithless, Hopeless,
Charityless: let us have at them, dear friends, with might and main.
Some there are, and very successful too, mere quacks and fools: and
it was to combat and expose such as those, no doubt, that Laughter
was made.



CHAPTER IX

Family Portraits


Sir Pitt Crawley was a philosopher with a taste for what is called
low life.  His first marriage with the daughter of the noble Binkie
had been made under the auspices of his parents; and as he often
told Lady Crawley in her lifetime she was such a confounded
quarrelsome high-bred jade that when she died he was hanged if he
would ever take another of her sort, at her ladyship's demise he
kept his promise, and selected for a second wife Miss Rose Dawson,
daughter of Mr. John Thomas Dawson, ironmonger, of Mudbury. What a
happy woman was Rose to be my Lady Crawley!

Let us set down the items of her happiness.  In the first place, she
gave up Peter Butt, a young man who kept company with her, and in
consequence of his disappointment in love, took to smuggling,
poaching, and a thousand other bad courses.  Then she quarrelled, as
in duty bound, with all the friends and intimates of her youth, who,
of course, could not be received by my Lady at Queen's Crawley--nor
did she find in her new rank and abode any persons who were willing
to welcome her. Who ever did? Sir Huddleston Fuddleston had three
daughters who all hoped to be Lady Crawley.  Sir Giles Wapshot's
family were insulted that one of the Wapshot girls had not the
preference in the marriage, and the remaining baronets of the county
were indignant at their comrade's misalliance.  Never mind the
commoners, whom we will leave to grumble anonymously.

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?

The languid dulness of their mamma did not, as it may be supposed,
awaken much affection in her little daughters, but they were very
happy in the servants' hall and in the stables; and the Scotch
gardener having luckily a good wife and some good children, they got
a little wholesome society and instruction in his lodge, which was
the only education bestowed upon them until Miss Sharp came.

Her engagement was owing to the remonstrances of Mr. Pitt Crawley,
the only friend or protector Lady Crawley ever had, and the only
person, besides her children, for whom she entertained a little
feeble attachment.  Mr. Pitt took after the noble Binkies, from whom
he was descended, and was a very polite and proper gentleman.  When
he grew to man's estate, and came back from Christchurch, he began
to reform the slackened discipline of the hall, in spite of his
father, who stood in awe of him.  He was a man of such rigid
refinement, that he would have starved rather than have dined
without a white neckcloth.  Once, when just from college, and when
Horrocks the butler brought him a letter without placing it
previously on a tray, he gave that domestic a look, and administered
to him a speech so cutting, that Horrocks ever after trembled before
him; the whole household bowed to him: Lady Crawley's curl-papers
came off earlier when he was at home: Sir Pitt's muddy gaiters
disappeared; and if that incorrigible old man still adhered to other
old habits, he never fuddled himself with rum-and-water in his son's
presence, and only talked to his servants in a very reserved and
polite manner; and those persons remarked that Sir Pitt never swore
at Lady Crawley while his son was in the room.

It was he who taught the butler to say, "My lady is served," and who
insisted on handing her ladyship in to dinner.  He seldom spoke to
her, but when he did it was with the most powerful respect; and he
never let her quit the apartment without rising in the most stately
manner to open the door, and making an elegant bow at her egress.

At Eton he was called Miss Crawley; and there, I am sorry to say,
his younger brother Rawdon used to lick him violently.  But though
his parts were not brilliant, he made up for his lack of talent by
meritorious industry, and was never known, during eight years at
school, to be subject to that punishment which it is generally
thought none but a cherub can escape.

At college his career was of course highly creditable. And here he
prepared himself for public life, into which he was to be introduced
by the patronage of his grandfather, Lord Binkie, by studying the
ancient and modern orators with great assiduity, and by speaking
unceasingly at the debating societies.  But though he had a fine
flux of words, and delivered his little voice with great pomposity
and pleasure to himself, and never advanced any sentiment or opinion
which was not perfectly trite and stale, and supported by a Latin
quotation; yet he failed somehow, in spite of a mediocrity which
ought to have insured any man a success.  He did not even get the
prize poem, which all his friends said he was sure of.

After leaving college he became Private Secretary to Lord Binkie,
and was then appointed Attache to the Legation at Pumpernickel,
which post he filled with perfect honour, and brought home
despatches, consisting of Strasburg pie, to the Foreign Minister of
the day.  After remaining ten years Attache (several years after the
lamented Lord Binkie's demise), and finding the advancement slow, he
at length gave up the diplomatic service in some disgust, and began
to turn country gentleman.

He wrote a pamphlet on Malt on returning to England (for he was an
ambitious man, and always liked to be before the public), and took a
strong part in the Negro Emancipation question.  Then he became a
friend of Mr. Wilberforce's, whose politics he admired, and had that
famous correspondence with the Reverend Silas Hornblower, on the
Ashantee Mission.  He was in London, if not for the Parliament
session, at least in May, for the religious meetings.  In the
country he was a magistrate, and an active visitor and speaker among
those destitute of religious instruction.  He was said to be paying
his addresses to Lady Jane Sheepshanks, Lord Southdown's third
daughter, and whose sister, Lady Emily, wrote those sweet tracts,
"The Sailor's True Binnacle," and "The Applewoman of Finchley
Common."

Miss Sharp's accounts of his employment at Queen's Crawley were not
caricatures.  He subjected the servants there to the devotional
exercises before mentioned, in which (and so much the better) he
brought his father to join.  He patronised an Independent meeting-
house in Crawley parish, much to the indignation of his uncle the
Rector, and to the consequent delight of Sir Pitt, who was induced
to go himself once or twice, which occasioned some violent sermons
at Crawley parish church, directed point-blank at the Baronet's old
Gothic pew there.  Honest Sir Pitt, however, did not feel the force
of these discourses, as he always took his nap during sermon-time.

Mr. Crawley was very earnest, for the good of the nation and of the
Christian world, that the old gentleman should yield him up his
place in Parliament; but this the elder constantly refused to do.
Both were of course too prudent to give up the fifteen hundred a
year which was brought in by the second seat (at this period filled
by Mr. Quadroon, with carte blanche on the Slave question); indeed
the family estate was much embarrassed, and the income drawn from
the borough was of great use to the house of Queen's Crawley.

It had never recovered the heavy fine imposed upon Walpole Crawley,
first baronet, for peculation in the Tape and Sealing Wax Office.
Sir Walpole was a jolly fellow, eager to seize and to spend money
(alieni appetens, sui profusus, as Mr. Crawley would remark with a
sigh), and in his day beloved by all the county for the constant
drunkenness and hospitality which was maintained at Queen's Crawley.
The cellars were filled with burgundy then, the kennels with hounds,
and the stables with gallant hunters; now, such horses as Queen's
Crawley possessed went to plough, or ran in the Trafalgar Coach; and
it was with a team of these very horses, on an off-day, that Miss
Sharp was brought to the Hall; for boor as he was, Sir Pitt was a
stickler for his dignity while at home, and seldom drove out but
with four horses, and though he dined off boiled mutton, had always
three footmen to serve it.

If mere parsimony could have made a man rich, Sir Pitt Crawley might
have become very wealthy--if he had been an attorney in a country
town, with no capital but his brains, it is very possible that he
would have turned them to good account, and might have achieved for
himself a very considerable influence and competency. But he was
unluckily endowed with a good name and a large though encumbered
estate, both of which went rather to injure than to advance him.  He
had a taste for law, which cost him many thousands yearly; and being
a great deal too clever to be robbed, as he said, by any single
agent, allowed his affairs to be mismanaged by a dozen, whom he all
equally mistrusted. He was such a sharp landlord, that he could
hardly find any but bankrupt tenants; and such a close farmer, as to
grudge almost the seed to the ground, whereupon revengeful Nature
grudged him the crops which she granted to more liberal husbandmen.
He speculated in every possible way; he worked mines; bought canal-
shares; horsed coaches; took government contracts, and was the
busiest man and magistrate of his county.  As he would not pay
honest agents at his granite quarry, he had the satisfaction of
finding that four overseers ran away, and took fortunes with them to
America.  For want of proper precautions, his coal-mines filled with
water: the government flung his contract of damaged beef upon his
hands: and for his coach-horses, every mail proprietor in the
kingdom knew that he lost more horses than any man in the country,
from underfeeding and buying cheap. In disposition he was sociable,
and far from being proud; nay, he rather preferred the society of a
farmer or a horse-dealer to that of a gentleman, like my lord, his
son: he was fond of drink, of swearing, of joking with the farmers'
daughters: he was never known to give away a shilling or to do a
good action, but was of a pleasant, sly, laughing mood, and would
cut his joke and drink his glass with a tenant and sell him up the
next day; or have his laugh with the poacher he was transporting
with equal good humour.  His politeness for the fair sex has already
been hinted at by Miss Rebecca Sharp--in a word, the whole
baronetage, peerage, commonage of England, did not contain a more
cunning, mean, selfish, foolish, disreputable old man.  That blood-
red hand of Sir Pitt Crawley's would be in anybody's pocket except
his own; and it is with grief and pain, that, as admirers of the
British aristocracy, we find ourselves obliged to admit the
existence of so many ill qualities in a person whose name is in
Debrett.

One great cause why Mr. Crawley had such a hold over the affections
of his father, resulted from money arrangements.  The Baronet owed
his son a sum of money out of the jointure of his mother, which he
did not find it convenient to pay; indeed he had an almost
invincible repugnance to paying anybody, and could only be brought
by force to discharge his debts.  Miss Sharp calculated (for she
became, as we shall hear speedily, inducted into most of the secrets
of the family) that the mere payment of his creditors cost the
honourable Baronet several hundreds yearly; but this was a delight
he could not forego; he had a savage pleasure in making the poor
wretches wait, and in shifting from court to court and from term to
term the period of satisfaction.  What's the good of being in
Parliament, he said, if you must pay your debts? Hence, indeed, his
position as a senator was not a little useful to him.

Vanity Fair--Vanity Fair!  Here was a man, who could not spell, and
did not care to read--who had the habits and the cunning of a boor:
whose aim in life was pettifogging: who never had a taste, or
emotion, or enjoyment, but what was sordid and foul; and yet he had
rank, and honours, and power, somehow: and was a dignitary of the
land, and a pillar of the state.  He was high sheriff, and rode in a
golden coach.  Great ministers and statesmen courted him; and in
Vanity Fair he had a higher place than the most brilliant genius or
spotless virtue.

Sir Pitt had an unmarried half-sister who inherited her mother's
large fortune, and though the Baronet proposed to borrow this money
of her on mortgage, Miss Crawley declined the offer, and preferred
the security of the funds. She had signified, however, her intention
of leaving her inheritance between Sir Pitt's second son and the
family at the Rectory, and had once or twice paid the debts of
Rawdon Crawley in his career at college and in the army. Miss
Crawley was, in consequence, an object of great respect when she
came to Queen's Crawley, for she had a balance at her banker's which
would have made her beloved anywhere.

What a dignity it gives an old lady, that balance at the banker's!
How tenderly we look at her faults if she is a relative (and may
every reader have a score of such), what a kind good-natured old
creature we find her!  How the junior partner of Hobbs and Dobbs
leads her smiling to the carriage with the lozenge upon it, and the
fat wheezy coachman! How, when she comes to pay us a visit, we
generally find an opportunity to let our friends know her station in
the world!  We say (and with perfect truth) I wish I had Miss
MacWhirter's signature to a cheque for five thousand pounds.  She
wouldn't miss it, says your wife.  She is my aunt, say you, in an
easy careless way, when your friend asks if Miss MacWhirter is any
relative.  Your wife is perpetually sending her little testimonies
of affection, your little girls work endless worsted baskets,
cushions, and footstools for her.  What a good fire there is in her
room when she comes to pay you a visit, although your wife laces her
stays without one!  The house during her stay assumes a festive,
neat, warm, jovial, snug appearance not visible at other seasons.
You yourself, dear sir, forget to go to sleep after dinner, and find
yourself all of a sudden (though you invariably lose) very fond of a
rubber.  What good dinners you have--game every day, Malmsey-
Madeira, and no end of fish from London.  Even the servants in the
kitchen share in the general prosperity; and, somehow, during the
stay of Miss MacWhirter's fat coachman, the beer is grown much
stronger, and the consumption of tea and sugar in the nursery (where
her maid takes her meals) is not regarded in the least.  Is it so,
or is it not so?  I appeal to the middle classes.  Ah, gracious
powers! I wish you would send me an old aunt--a maiden aunt--an aunt
with a lozenge on her carriage, and a front of light coffee-coloured
hair--how my children should work workbags for her, and my Julia and
I would make her comfortable! Sweet--sweet vision! Foolish--foolish
dream!



CHAPTER X

Miss Sharp Begins to Make Friends


And now, being received as a member of the amiable family whose
portraits we have sketched in the foregoing pages, it became
naturally Rebecca's duty to make herself, as she said, agreeable to
her benefactors, and to gain their confidence to the utmost of her
power.  Who can but admire this quality of gratitude in an
unprotected orphan; and, if there entered some degree of selfishness
into her calculations, who can say but that her prudence was
perfectly justifiable?  "I am alone in the world," said the
friendless girl.  "I have nothing to look for but what my own labour
can bring me; and while that little pink-faced chit Amelia, with not
half my sense, has ten thousand pounds and an establishment secure,
poor Rebecca (and my figure is far better than hers) has only
herself and her own wits to trust to.  Well, let us see if my wits
cannot provide me with an honourable maintenance, and if some day or
the other I cannot show Miss Amelia my real superiority over her.
Not that I dislike poor Amelia: who can dislike such a harmless,
good-natured creature?--only it will be a fine day when I can take
my place above her in the world, as why, indeed, should I not?"
Thus it was that our little romantic friend formed visions of the
future for herself--nor must we be scandalised that, in all her
castles in the air, a husband was the principal inhabitant.  Of what
else have young ladies to think, but husbands? Of what else do their
dear mammas think?  "I must be my own mamma," said Rebecca; not
without a tingling consciousness of defeat, as she thought over her
little misadventure with Jos Sedley.

So she wisely determined to render her position with the Queen's
Crawley family comfortable and secure, and to this end resolved to
make friends of every one around her who could at all interfere with
her comfort.

As my Lady Crawley was not one of these personages, and a woman,
moreover, so indolent and void of character as not to be of the
least consequence in her own house, Rebecca soon found that it was
not at all necessary to cultivate her good will--indeed, impossible
to gain it.  She used to talk to her pupils about their "poor
mamma"; and, though she treated that lady with every demonstration
of cool respect, it was to the rest of the family that she wisely
directed the chief part of her attentions.

With the young people, whose applause she thoroughly gained, her
method was pretty simple.  She did not pester their young brains
with too much learning, but, on the contrary, let them have their
own way in regard to educating themselves; for what instruction is
more effectual than self-instruction? The eldest was rather fond of
books, and as there was in the old library at Queen's Crawley a
considerable provision of works of light literature of the last
century, both in the French and English languages (they had been
purchased by the Secretary of the Tape and Sealing Wax Office at the
period of his disgrace), and as nobody ever troubled the book-
shelves but herself, Rebecca was enabled agreeably, and, as it were,
in playing, to impart a great deal of instruction to Miss Rose
Crawley.

She and Miss Rose thus read together many delightful French and
English works, among which may be mentioned those of the learned Dr.
Smollett, of the ingenious Mr. Henry Fielding, of the graceful and
fantastic Monsieur Crebillon the younger, whom our immortal poet
Gray so much admired, and of the universal Monsieur de Voltaire.
Once, when Mr. Crawley asked what the young people were reading, the
governess replied "Smollett." "Oh, Smollett," said Mr. Crawley,
quite satisfied.  "His history is more dull, but by no means so
dangerous as that of Mr. Hume.  It is history you are reading?"
"Yes," said Miss Rose; without, however, adding that it was the
history of Mr. Humphrey Clinker.  On another occasion he was rather
scandalised at finding his sister with a book of French plays; but
as the governess remarked that it was for the purpose of acquiring
the French idiom in conversation, he was fain to be content.  Mr.
Crawley, as a diplomatist, was exceedingly proud of his own skill in
speaking the French language (for he was of the world still), and
not a little pleased with the compliments which the governess
continually paid him upon his proficiency.

Miss Violet's tastes were, on the contrary, more rude and boisterous
than those of her sister.  She knew the sequestered spots where the
hens laid their eggs.  She could climb a tree to rob the nests of
the feathered songsters of their speckled spoils.  And her pleasure
was to ride the young colts, and to scour the plains like Camilla.
She was the favourite of her father and of the stablemen. She was
the darling, and withal the terror of the cook; for she discovered
the haunts of the jam-pots, and would attack them when they were
within her reach. She and her sister were engaged in constant
battles.  Any of which peccadilloes, if Miss Sharp discovered, she
did not tell them to Lady Crawley; who would have told them to the
father, or worse, to Mr. Crawley; but promised not to tell if Miss
Violet would be a good girl and love her governess.

With Mr. Crawley Miss Sharp was respectful and obedient.  She used
to consult him on passages of French which she could not understand,
though her mother was a Frenchwoman, and which he would construe to
her satisfaction: and, besides giving her his aid in profane
literature, he was kind enough to select for her books of a more
serious tendency, and address to her much of his conversation.  She
admired, beyond measure, his speech at the Quashimaboo-Aid Society;
took an interest in his pamphlet on malt: was often affected, even
to tears, by his discourses of an evening, and would say--"Oh, thank
you, sir," with a sigh, and a look up to heaven, that made him
occasionally condescend to shake hands with her.  "Blood is
everything, after all," would that aristocratic religionist say.
"How Miss Sharp is awakened by my words, when not one of the people
here is touched.  I am too fine for them--too delicate. I must
familiarise my style--but she understands it.  Her mother was a
Montmorency."

Indeed it was from this famous family, as it appears, that Miss
Sharp, by the mother's side, was descended. Of course she did not
say that her mother had been on the stage; it would have shocked Mr.
Crawley's religious scruples.  How many noble emigres had this
horrid revolution plunged in poverty!  She had several stories about
her ancestors ere she had been many months in the house; some of
which Mr. Crawley happened to find in D'Hozier's dictionary, which
was in the library, and which strengthened his belief in their
truth, and in the high-breeding of Rebecca.  Are we to suppose from
this curiosity and prying into dictionaries, could our heroine
suppose that Mr. Crawley was interested in her?--no, only in a
friendly way.  Have we not stated that he was attached to Lady Jane
Sheepshanks?

He took Rebecca to task once or twice about the propriety of playing
at backgammon with Sir Pitt, saying that it was a godless amusement,
and that she would be much better engaged in reading "Thrump's
Legacy," or "The Blind Washerwoman of Moorfields," or any work of a
more serious nature; but Miss Sharp said her dear mother used often
to play the same game with the old Count de Trictrac and the
venerable Abbe du Cornet, and so found an excuse for this and other
worldly amusements.

But it was not only by playing at backgammon with the Baronet, that
the little governess rendered herself agreeable to her employer.
She found many different ways of being useful to him.  She read
over, with indefatigable patience, all those law papers, with which,
before she came to Queen's Crawley, he had promised to entertain
her.  She volunteered to copy many of his letters, and adroitly
altered the spelling of them so as to suit the usages of the present
day.  She became interested in everything appertaining to the
estate, to the farm, the park, the garden, and the stables; and so
delightful a companion was she, that the Baronet would seldom take
his after-breakfast walk without her (and the children of course),
when she would give her advice as to the trees which were to be
lopped in the shrubberies, the garden-beds to be dug, the crops
which were to be cut, the horses which were to go to cart or plough.
Before she had been a year at Queen's Crawley she had quite won the
Baronet's confidence; and the conversation at the dinner-table,
which before used to be held between him and Mr. Horrocks the
butler, was now almost exclusively between Sir Pitt and Miss Sharp.
She was almost mistress of the house when Mr. Crawley was absent,
but conducted herself in her new and exalted situation with such
circumspection and modesty as not to offend the authorities of the
kitchen and stable, among whom her behaviour was always exceedingly
modest and affable.  She was quite a different person from the
haughty, shy, dissatisfied little girl whom we have known
previously, and this change of temper proved great prudence, a
sincere desire of amendment, or at any rate great moral courage on
her part.  Whether it was the heart which dictated this new system
of complaisance and humility adopted by our Rebecca, is to be proved
by her after-history.  A system of hypocrisy, which lasts through
whole years, is one seldom satisfactorily practised by a person of
one-and-twenty; however, our readers will recollect, that, though
young in years, our heroine was old in life and experience, and we
have written to no purpose if they have not discovered that she was
a very clever woman.

The elder and younger son of the house of Crawley were, like the
gentleman and lady in the weather-box, never at home together--they
hated each other cordially: indeed, Rawdon Crawley, the dragoon, had
a great contempt for the establishment altogether, and seldom came
thither except when his aunt paid her annual visit.

The great good quality of this old lady has been mentioned.  She
possessed seventy thousand pounds, and had almost adopted Rawdon.
She disliked her elder nephew exceedingly, and despised him as a
milksop.  In return he did not hesitate to state that her soul was
irretrievably lost, and was of opinion that his brother's chance in
the next world was not a whit better.  "She is a godless woman of
the world," would Mr. Crawley say; "she lives with atheists and
Frenchmen.  My mind shudders when I think of her awful, awful
situation, and that, near as she is to the grave, she should be so
given up to vanity, licentiousness, profaneness, and folly." In
fact, the old lady declined altogether to hear his hour's lecture of
an evening; and when she came to Queen's Crawley alone, he was
obliged to pretermit his usual devotional exercises.

"Shut up your sarmons, Pitt, when Miss Crawley comes down," said his
father; "she has written to say that she won't stand the
preachifying."

"O, sir! consider the servants."

"The servants be hanged," said Sir Pitt; and his son thought even
worse would happen were they deprived of the benefit of his
instruction.

"Why, hang it, Pitt!" said the father to his remonstrance. "You
wouldn't be such a flat as to let three thousand a year go out of
the family?"

"What is money compared to our souls, sir?" continued Mr. Crawley.

"You mean that the old lady won't leave the money to you?"--and who
knows but it was Mr. Crawley's meaning?

Old Miss Crawley was certainly one of the reprobate. She had a snug
little house in Park Lane, and, as she ate and drank a great deal
too much during the season in London, she went to Harrowgate or
Cheltenham for the summer.  She was the most hospitable and jovial
of old vestals, and had been a beauty in her day, she said. (All old
women were beauties once, we very well know.) She was a bel esprit,
and a dreadful Radical for those days.  She had been in France
(where St. Just, they say, inspired her with an unfortunate
passion), and loved, ever after, French novels, French cookery, and
French wines.  She read Voltaire, and had Rousseau by heart; talked
very lightly about divorce, and most energetically of the rights of
women.  She had pictures of Mr. Fox in every room in the house: when
that statesman was in opposition, I am not sure that she had not
flung a main with him; and when he came into office, she took great
credit for bringing over to him Sir Pitt and his colleague for
Queen's Crawley, although Sir Pitt would have come over himself,
without any trouble on the honest lady's part.  It is needless to
say that Sir Pitt was brought to change his views after the death of
the great Whig statesman.

This worthy old lady took a fancy to Rawdon Crawley when a boy, sent
him to Cambridge (in opposition to his brother at Oxford), and, when
the young man was requested by the authorities of the first-named
University to quit after a residence of two years, she bought him
his commission in the Life Guards Green.

A perfect and celebrated "blood," or dandy about town, was this
young officer.  Boxing, rat-hunting, the fives court, and four-in-
hand driving were then the fashion of our British aristocracy; and
he was an adept in all these noble sciences.  And though he belonged
to the household troops, who, as it was their duty to rally round
the Prince Regent, had not shown their valour in foreign service
yet, Rawdon Crawley had already (apropos of play, of which he was
immoderately fond) fought three bloody duels, in which he gave ample
proofs of his contempt for death.

"And for what follows after death," would Mr. Crawley observe,
throwing his gooseberry-coloured eyes up to the ceiling.  He was
always thinking of his brother's soul, or of the souls of those who
differed with him in opinion: it is a sort of comfort which many of
the serious give themselves.

Silly, romantic Miss Crawley, far from being horrified at the
courage of her favourite, always used to pay his debts after his
duels; and would not listen to a word that was whispered against his
morality.  "He will sow his wild oats," she would say, "and is worth
far more than that puling hypocrite of a brother of his."



CHAPTER XI

Arcadian Simplicity


Besides these honest folks at the Hall (whose simplicity and sweet
rural purity surely show the advantage of a country life over a town
one), we must introduce the reader to their relatives and neighbours
at the Rectory, Bute Crawley and his wife.

The Reverend Bute Crawley was a tall, stately, jolly, shovel-hatted
man, far more popular in his county than the Baronet his brother.
At college he pulled stroke-oar in the Christchurch boat, and had
thrashed all the best bruisers of the "town." He carried his taste
for boxing and athletic exercises into private life; there was not a
fight within twenty miles at which he was not present, nor a race,
nor a coursing match, nor a regatta, nor a ball, nor an election,
nor a visitation dinner, nor indeed a good dinner in the whole
county, but he found means to attend it.  You might see his bay mare
and gig-lamps a score of miles away from his Rectory House, whenever
there was any dinner-party at Fuddleston, or at Roxby, or at Wapshot
Hall, or at the great lords of the county, with all of whom he was
intimate.  He had a fine voice; sang "A southerly wind and a cloudy
sky"; and gave the "whoop" in chorus with general applause.  He rode
to hounds in a pepper-and-salt frock, and was one of the best
fishermen in the county.

Mrs. Crawley, the rector's wife, was a smart little body, who wrote
this worthy divine's sermons.  Being of a domestic turn, and keeping
the house a great deal with her daughters, she ruled absolutely
within the Rectory, wisely giving her husband full liberty without.
He was welcome to come and go, and dine abroad as many days as his
fancy dictated, for Mrs. Crawley was a saving woman and knew the
price of port wine.  Ever since Mrs. Bute carried off the young
Rector of Queen's Crawley (she was of a good family, daughter of the
late Lieut.-Colonel Hector McTavish, and she and her mother played
for Bute and won him at Harrowgate), she had been a prudent and
thrifty wife to him.  In spite of her care, however, he was always
in debt.  It took him at least ten years to pay off his college
bills contracted during his father's lifetime. In the year 179-,
when he was just clear of these incumbrances, he gave the odds of
100 to 1 (in twenties) against Kangaroo, who won the Derby.  The
Rector was obliged to take up the money at a ruinous interest, and
had been struggling ever since.  His sister helped him with a
hundred now and then, but of course his great hope was in her death--
when "hang it" (as he would say), "Matilda must leave me half her
money."

So that the Baronet and his brother had every reason which two
brothers possibly can have for being by the ears.  Sir Pitt had had
the better of Bute in innumerable family transactions.  Young Pitt
not only did not hunt, but set up a meeting house under his uncle's
very nose. Rawdon, it was known, was to come in for the bulk of Miss
Crawley's property.  These money transactions--these speculations in
life and death--these silent battles for reversionary spoil--make
brothers very loving towards each other in Vanity Fair.  I, for my
part, have known a five-pound note to interpose and knock up a half
century's attachment between two brethren; and can't but admire, as
I think what a fine and durable thing Love is among worldly people.

It cannot be supposed that the arrival of such a personage as
Rebecca at Queen's Crawley, and her gradual establishment in the
good graces of all people there, could be unremarked by Mrs. Bute
Crawley.  Mrs. Bute, who knew how many days the sirloin of beef
lasted at the Hall; how much linen was got ready at the great wash;
how many peaches were on the south wall; how many doses her ladyship
took when she was ill--for such points are matters of intense
interest to certain persons in the country--Mrs. Bute, I say, could
not pass over the Hall governess without making every inquiry
respecting her history and character.  There was always the best
understanding between the servants at the Rectory and the Hall.
There was always a good glass of ale in the kitchen of the former
place for the Hall people, whose ordinary drink was very small--and,
indeed, the Rector's lady knew exactly how much malt went to every
barrel of Hall beer--ties of relationship existed between the Hall
and Rectory domestics, as between their masters; and through these
channels each family was perfectly well acquainted with the doings
of the other.  That, by the way, may be set down as a general
remark.  When you and your brother are friends, his doings are
indifferent to you.  When you have quarrelled, all his outgoings and
incomings you know, as if you were his spy.

Very soon then after her arrival, Rebecca began to take a regular
place in Mrs. Crawley's bulletin from the Hall. It was to this
effect: "The black porker's killed--weighed x stone--salted the
sides--pig's pudding and leg of pork for dinner.  Mr. Cramp from
Mudbury, over with Sir Pitt about putting John Blackmore in gaol--
Mr. Pitt at meeting (with all the names of the people who attended)
--my lady as usual--the young ladies with the governess."

Then the report would come--the new governess be a rare manager--Sir
Pitt be very sweet on her--Mr. Crawley too--He be reading tracts to
her--"What an abandoned wretch!" said little, eager, active, black-
faced Mrs. Bute Crawley.

Finally, the reports were that the governess had "come round"
everybody, wrote Sir Pitt's letters, did his business, managed his
accounts--had the upper hand of the whole house, my lady, Mr.
Crawley, the girls and all--at which Mrs. Crawley declared she was
an artful hussy, and had some dreadful designs in view.  Thus the
doings at the Hall were the great food for conversation at the
Rectory, and Mrs. Bute's bright eyes spied out everything that took
place in the enemy's camp--everything and a great deal besides.


Mrs. Bute Crawley to Miss Pinkerton, The Mall, Chiswick.

Rectory, Queen's Crawley, December--.

My Dear Madam,--Although it is so many years since I profited by
your delightful and invaluable instructions, yet I have ever
retained the FONDEST and most reverential regard for Miss Pinkerton,
and DEAR Chiswick.  I hope your health is GOOD.  The world and the
cause of education cannot afford to lose Miss Pinkerton for MANY
MANY YEARS.  When my friend, Lady Fuddleston, mentioned that her
dear girls required an instructress (I am too poor to engage a
governess for mine, but was I not educated at Chiswick?)--"Who," I
exclaimed, "can we consult but the excellent, the incomparable Miss
Pinkerton?" In a word, have you, dear madam, any ladies on your
list, whose services might be made available to my kind friend and
neighbour? I assure you she will take no governess BUT OF YOUR
CHOOSING.

My dear husband is pleased to say that he likes EVERYTHING WHICH
COMES FROM MISS PINKERTON'S SCHOOL.  How I wish I could present him
and my beloved girls to the friend of my youth, and the ADMIRED of
the great lexicographer of our country! If you ever travel into
Hampshire, Mr. Crawley begs me to say, he hopes you will adorn our
RURAL RECTORY with your presence.  'Tis the humble but happy home of

Your affectionate Martha Crawley

P.S.  Mr. Crawley's brother, the baronet, with whom we are not,
alas! upon those terms of UNITY in which it BECOMES BRETHREN TO
DWELL, has a governess for his little girls, who, I am told, had the
good fortune to be educated at Chiswick.  I hear various reports of
her; and as I have the tenderest interest in my dearest little
nieces, whom I wish, in spite of family differences, to see among my
own children--and as I long to be attentive to ANY PUPIL OF YOURS--
do, my dear Miss Pinkerton, tell me the history of this young lady,
whom, for YOUR SAKE, I am most anxious to befriend.--M. C.


Miss Pinkerton to Mrs. Bute Crawley.

Johnson House, Chiswick, Dec. 18--.

Dear Madam,--I have the honour to acknowledge your polite
communication, to which I promptly reply. 'Tis most gratifying to
one in my most arduous position to find that my maternal cares have
elicited a responsive affection; and to recognize in the amiable
Mrs. Bute Crawley my excellent pupil of former years, the sprightly
and accomplished Miss Martha MacTavish.  I am happy to have under my
charge now the daughters of many of those who were your
contemporaries at my establishment--what pleasure it would give me
if your own beloved young ladies had need of my instructive
superintendence!

Presenting my respectful compliments to Lady Fuddleston, I have the
honour (epistolarily) to introduce to her ladyship my two friends,
Miss Tuffin and Miss Hawky.

Either of these young ladies is PERFECTLY QUALIFIED to instruct in
Greek, Latin, and the rudiments of Hebrew; in mathematics and
history; in Spanish, French, Italian, and geography; in music, vocal
and instrumental; in dancing, without the aid of a master; and in
the elements of natural sciences.  In the use of the globes both are
proficients.  In addition to these Miss Tuffin, who is daughter of
the late Reverend Thomas Tuffin (Fellow of Corpus College,
Cambridge), can instruct in the Syriac language, and the elements of
Constitutional law. But as she is only eighteen years of age, and of
exceedingly pleasing personal appearance, perhaps this young lady
may be objectionable in Sir Huddleston Fuddleston's family.

Miss Letitia Hawky, on the other hand, is not personally well-
favoured.  She is-twenty-nine; her face is much pitted with the
small-pox.  She has a halt in her gait, red hair, and a trifling
obliquity of vision.  Both ladies are endowed with EVERY MORAL AND
RELIGIOUS VIRTUE.  Their terms, of course, are such as their
accomplishments merit.  With my most grateful respects to the
Reverend Bute Crawley, I have the honour to be,

Dear Madam,

Your most faithful and obedient servant, Barbara Pinkerton.

P.S.  The Miss Sharp, whom you mention as governess to Sir Pitt
Crawley, Bart., M.P., was a pupil of mine, and I have nothing to say
in her disfavour. Though her appearance is disagreeable, we cannot
control the operations of nature: and though her parents were
disreputable (her father being a painter, several times bankrupt,
and her mother, as I have since learned, with horror, a dancer at
the Opera); yet her talents are considerable, and I cannot regret
that I received her OUT OF CHARITY.  My dread is, lest the
principles of the mother--who was represented to me as a French
Countess, forced to emigrate in the late revolutionary horrors; but
who, as I have since found, was a person of the very lowest order
and morals--should at any time prove to be HEREDITARY in the unhappy
young woman whom I took as AN OUTCAST.  But her principles have
hitherto been correct (I believe), and I am sure nothing will occur
to injure them in the elegant and refined circle of the eminent Sir
Pitt Crawley.

Miss Rebecca Sharp to Miss Amelia Sedley.

I have not written to my beloved Amelia for these many weeks past,
for what news was there to tell of the sayings and doings at Humdrum
Hall, as I have christened it; and what do you care whether the
turnip crop is good or bad; whether the fat pig weighed thirteen
stone or fourteen; and whether the beasts thrive well upon
mangelwurzel? Every day since I last wrote has been like its
neighbour.  Before breakfast, a walk with Sir Pitt and his spud;
after breakfast studies (such as they are) in the schoolroom; after
schoolroom, reading and writing about lawyers, leases, coal-mines,
canals, with Sir Pitt (whose secretary I am become); after dinner,
Mr. Crawley's discourses on the baronet's backgammon; during both of
which amusements my lady looks on with equal placidity.  She has
become rather more interesting by being ailing of late, which has
brought a new visitor to the Hall, in the person of a young doctor.
Well, my dear, young women need never despair.  The young doctor
gave a certain friend of yours to understand that, if she chose to
be Mrs. Glauber, she was welcome to ornament the surgery! I told his
impudence that the gilt pestle and mortar was quite ornament enough;
as if I was born, indeed, to be a country surgeon's wife! Mr.
Glauber went home seriously indisposed at his rebuff, took a cooling
draught, and is now quite cured.  Sir Pitt applauded my resolution
highly; he would be sorry to lose his little secretary, I think; and
I believe the old wretch likes me as much as it is in his nature to
like any one.  Marry, indeed! and with a country apothecary, after--
No, no, one cannot so soon forget old associations, about which I
will talk no more.  Let us return to Humdrum Hall.

For some time past it is Humdrum Hall no longer. My dear, Miss
Crawley has arrived with her fat horses, fat servants, fat spaniel--
the great rich Miss Crawley, with seventy thousand pounds in the
five per cents., whom, or I had better say WHICH, her two brothers
adore.  She looks very apoplectic, the dear soul; no wonder her
brothers are anxious about her.  You should see them struggling to
settle her cushions, or to hand her coffee! "When I come into the
country," she says (for she has a great deal of humour), "I leave my
toady, Miss Briggs, at home.  My brothers are my toadies here, my
dear, and a pretty pair they are!"

When she comes into the country our hall is thrown open, and for a
month, at least, you would fancy old Sir Walpole was come to life
again.  We have dinner-parties, and drive out in the coach-and-four
the footmen put on their newest canary-coloured liveries; we drink
claret and champagne as if we were accustomed to it every day.  We
have wax candles in the schoolroom, and fires to warm ourselves
with.  Lady Crawley is made to put on the brightest pea-green in her
wardrobe, and my pupils leave off their thick shoes and tight old
tartan pelisses, and wear silk stockings and muslin frocks, as
fashionable baronets' daughters should.  Rose came in yesterday in a
sad plight--the Wiltshire sow (an enormous pet of hers) ran her
down, and destroyed a most lovely flowered lilac silk dress by
dancing over it--had this happened a week ago, Sir Pitt would have
sworn frightfully, have boxed the poor wretch's ears, and put her
upon bread and water for a month.  All he said was, "I'll serve you
out, Miss, when your aunt's gone," and laughed off the accident as
quite trivial.  Let us hope his wrath will have passed away before
Miss Crawley's departure.  I hope so, for Miss Rose's sake, I am
sure. What a charming reconciler and peacemaker money is!

Another admirable effect of Miss Crawley and her seventy thousand
pounds is to be seen in the conduct of the two brothers Crawley.  I
mean the baronet and the rector, not OUR brothers--but the former,
who hate each other all the year round, become quite loving at
Christmas.  I wrote to you last year how the abominable horse-racing
rector was in the habit of preaching clumsy sermons at us at church,
and how Sir Pitt snored in answer.  When Miss Crawley arrives there
is no such thing as quarrelling heard of--the Hall visits the
Rectory, and vice versa--the parson and the Baronet talk about the
pigs and the poachers, and the county business, in the most affable
manner, and without quarrelling in their cups, I believe--indeed
Miss Crawley won't hear of their quarrelling, and vows that she will
leave her money to the Shropshire Crawleys if they offend her.  If
they were clever people, those Shropshire Crawleys, they might have
it all, I think; but the Shropshire Crawley is a clergyman like his
Hampshire cousin, and mortally offended Miss Crawley (who had fled
thither in a fit of rage against her impracticable brethren) by some
strait-laced notions of morality.  He would have prayers in the
house, I believe.

Our sermon books are shut up when Miss Crawley arrives, and Mr.
Pitt, whom she abominates, finds it convenient to go to town.  On
the other hand, the young dandy--"blood," I believe, is the term--
Captain Crawley makes his appearance, and I suppose you will like to
know what sort of a person he is.

Well, he is a very large young dandy.  He is six feet high, and
speaks with a great voice; and swears a great deal; and orders about
the servants, who all adore him nevertheless; for he is very
generous of his money, and the domestics will do anything for him.
Last week the keepers almost killed a bailiff and his man who came
down from London to arrest the Captain, and who were found lurking
about the Park wall--they beat them, ducked them, and were going to
shoot them for poachers, but the baronet interfered.

The Captain has a hearty contempt for his father, I can see, and
calls him an old PUT, an old SNOB, an old CHAW-BACON, and numberless
other pretty names.  He has a DREADFUL REPUTATION among the ladies.
He brings his hunters home with him, lives with the Squires of the
county, asks whom he pleases to dinner, and Sir Pitt dares not say
no, for fear of offending Miss Crawley, and missing his legacy when
she dies of her apoplexy. Shall I tell you a compliment the Captain
paid me?  I must, it is so pretty.  One evening we actually had a
dance; there was Sir Huddleston Fuddleston and his family, Sir Giles
Wapshot and his young ladies, and I don't know how many more.  Well,
I heard him say--"By Jove, she's a neat little filly!" meaning your
humble servant; and he did me the honour to dance two country-dances
with me.  He gets on pretty gaily with the young Squires, with whom
he drinks, bets, rides, and talks about hunting and shooting; but he
says the country girls are BORES; indeed, I don't think he is far
wrong. You should see the contempt with which they look down on poor
me! When they dance I sit and play the piano very demurely; but the
other night, coming in rather flushed from the dining-room, and
seeing me employed in this way, he swore out loud that I was the
best dancer in the room, and took a great oath that he would have
the fiddlers from Mudbury.

"I'll go and play a country-dance," said Mrs. Bute Crawley, very
readily (she is a little, black-faced old woman in a turban, rather
crooked, and with very twinkling eyes); and after the Captain and
your poor little Rebecca had performed a dance together, do you know
she actually did me the honour to compliment me upon my steps! Such
a thing was never heard of before; the proud Mrs. Bute Crawley,
first cousin to the Earl of Tiptoff, who won't condescend to visit
Lady Crawley, except when her sister is in the country.  Poor Lady
Crawley! during most part of these gaieties, she is upstairs taking
pills.

Mrs. Bute has all of a sudden taken a great fancy to me.  "My dear
Miss Sharp," she says, "why not bring over your girls to the
Rectory?--their cousins will be so happy to see them." I know what
she means.  Signor Clementi did not teach us the piano for nothing;
at which price Mrs. Bute hopes to get a professor for her children.
I can see through her schemes, as though she told them to me; but I
shall go, as I am determined to make myself agreeable--is it not a
poor governess's duty, who has not a friend or protector in the
world? The Rector's wife paid me a score of compliments about the
progress my pupils made, and thought, no doubt, to touch my heart--
poor, simple, country soul!--as if I cared a fig about my pupils!

Your India muslin and your pink silk, dearest Amelia, are said to
become me very well.  They are a good deal worn now; but, you know,
we poor girls can't afford des fraiches toilettes.  Happy, happy
you! who have but to drive to St. James's Street, and a dear mother
who will give you any thing you ask.  Farewell, dearest girl,

Your affectionate Rebecca.

P.S.--I wish you could have seen the faces of the Miss Blackbrooks
(Admiral Blackbrook's daughters, my dear), fine young ladies, with
dresses from London, when Captain Rawdon selected poor me for a
partner!

When Mrs. Bute Crawley (whose artifices our ingenious Rebecca had so
soon discovered) had procured from Miss Sharp the promise of a
visit, she induced the all-powerful Miss Crawley to make the
necessary application to Sir Pitt, and the good-natured old lady,
who loved to be gay herself, and to see every one gay and happy
round about her, was quite charmed, and ready to establish a
reconciliation and intimacy between her two brothers. It was
therefore agreed that the young people of both families should visit
each other frequently for the future, and the friendship of course
lasted as long as the jovial old mediatrix was there to keep the
peace.

"Why did you ask that scoundrel, Rawdon Crawley, to dine?" said the
Rector to his lady, as they were walking home through the park.  "I
don't want the fellow.  He looks down upon us country people as so
many blackamoors. He's never content unless he gets my yellow-sealed
wine, which costs me ten shillings a bottle, hang him! Besides, he's
such an infernal character--he's a gambler--he's a drunkard--he's a
profligate in every way.  He shot a man in a duel--he's over head
and ears in debt, and he's robbed me and mine of the best part of
Miss Crawley's fortune.  Waxy says she has him"--here the Rector
shook his fist at the moon, with something very like an oath, and
added, in a melancholious tone, "--down in her will for fifty
thousand; and there won't be above thirty to divide."

"I think she's going," said the Rector's wife.  "She was very red in
the face when we left dinner.  I was obliged to unlace her."

"She drank seven glasses of champagne," said the reverend gentleman,
in a low voice; "and filthy champagne it is, too, that my brother
poisons us with--but you women never know what's what."

"We know nothing," said Mrs. Bute Crawley.

"She drank cherry-brandy after dinner," continued his Reverence,
"and took curacao with her coffee.  I wouldn't take a glass for a
five-pound note: it kills me with heartburn.  She can't stand it,
Mrs. Crawley--she must go--flesh and blood won't bear it! and I lay
five to two, Matilda drops in a year."

Indulging in these solemn speculations, and thinking about his
debts, and his son Jim at College, and Frank at Woolwich, and the
four girls, who were no beauties, poor things, and would not have a
penny but what they got from the aunt's expected legacy, the Rector
and his lady walked on for a while.

"Pitt can't be such an infernal villain as to sell the reversion of
the living.  And that Methodist milksop of an eldest son looks to
Parliament," continued Mr. Crawley, after a pause.

"Sir Pitt Crawley will do anything," said the Rector's wife.  "We
must get Miss Crawley to make him promise it to James."

"Pitt will promise anything," replied the brother.  "He promised
he'd pay my college bills, when my father died; he promised he'd
build the new wing to the Rectory; he promised he'd let me have
Jibb's field and the Six-acre Meadow--and much he executed his
promises! And it's to this man's son--this scoundrel, gambler,
swindler, murderer of a Rawdon Crawley, that Matilda leaves the bulk
of her money.  I say it's un-Christian.  By Jove, it is. The
infamous dog has got every vice except hypocrisy, and that belongs
to his brother."

"Hush, my dearest love! we're in Sir Pitt's grounds," interposed his
wife.

"I say he has got every vice, Mrs. Crawley.  Don't Ma'am, bully me.
Didn't he shoot Captain Marker? Didn't he rob young Lord Dovedale at
the Cocoa-Tree? Didn't he cross the fight between Bill Soames and
the Cheshire Trump, by which I lost forty pound? You know he did;
and as for the women, why, you heard that before me, in my own
magistrate's room."

"For heaven's sake, Mr. Crawley," said the lady, "spare me the
details."

"And you ask this villain into your house!" continued the
exasperated Rector.  "You, the mother of a young family--the wife of
a clergyman of the Church of England.  By Jove!"

"Bute Crawley, you are a fool," said the Rector's wife scornfully.

"Well, Ma'am, fool or not--and I don't say, Martha, I'm so clever as
you are, I never did.  But I won't meet Rawdon Crawley, that's flat.
I'll go over to Huddleston, that I will, and see his black
greyhound, Mrs. Crawley; and I'll run Lancelot against him for
fifty.  By Jove, I will; or against any dog in England.  But I won't
meet that beast Rawdon Crawley."

"Mr. Crawley, you are intoxicated, as usual," replied his wife.  And
the next morning, when the Rector woke, and called for small beer,
she put him in mind of his promise to visit Sir Huddleston
Fuddleston on Saturday, and as he knew he should have a wet night,
it was agreed that he might gallop back again in time for church on
Sunday morning.  Thus it will be seen that the parishioners of
Crawley were equally happy in their Squire and in their Rector.

Miss Crawley had not long been established at the Hall before
Rebecca's fascinations had won the heart of that good-natured London
rake, as they had of the country innocents whom we have been
describing.  Taking her accustomed drive, one day, she thought fit
to order that "that little governess" should accompany her to
Mudbury. Before they had returned Rebecca had made a conquest of
her; having made her laugh four times, and amused her during the
whole of the little journey.

"Not let Miss Sharp dine at table!" said she to Sir Pitt, who had
arranged a dinner of ceremony, and asked all the neighbouring
baronets.  "My dear creature, do you suppose I can talk about the
nursery with Lady Fuddleston, or discuss justices' business with
that goose, old Sir Giles Wapshot? I insist upon Miss Sharp
appearing.  Let Lady Crawley remain upstairs, if there is no room.
But little Miss Sharp! Why, she's the only person fit to talk to in
the county!"

Of course, after such a peremptory order as this, Miss Sharp, the
governess, received commands to dine with the illustrious company
below stairs.  And when Sir Huddleston had, with great pomp and
ceremony, handed Miss Crawley in to dinner, and was preparing to
take his place by her side, the old lady cried out, in a shrill
voice, "Becky Sharp!  Miss Sharp!  Come you and sit by me and amuse
me; and let Sir Huddleston sit by Lady Wapshot."

When the parties were over, and the carriages had rolled away, the
insatiable Miss Crawley would say, "Come to my dressing room, Becky,
and let us abuse the company"--which, between them, this pair of
friends did perfectly.  Old Sir Huddleston wheezed a great deal at
dinner; Sir Giles Wapshot had a particularly noisy manner of
imbibing his soup, and her ladyship a wink of the left eye; all of
which Becky caricatured to admiration; as well as the particulars of
the night's conversation; the politics; the war; the quarter-
sessions; the famous run with the H.H., and those heavy and dreary
themes, about which country gentlemen converse.  As for the Misses
Wapshot's toilettes and Lady Fuddleston's famous yellow hat, Miss
Sharp tore them to tatters, to the infinite amusement of her
audience.

"My dear, you are a perfect trouvaille," Miss Crawley would say.  "I
wish you could come to me in London, but I couldn't make a butt of
you as I do of poor Briggs no, no, you little sly creature; you are
too clever--Isn't she, Firkin?"

Mrs. Firkin (who was dressing the very small remnant of hair which
remained on Miss Crawley's pate), flung up her head and said, "I
think Miss is very clever," with the most killing sarcastic air.  In
fact, Mrs. Firkin had that natural jealousy which is one of the main
principles of every honest woman.

After rebuffing Sir Huddleston Fuddleston, Miss Crawley ordered that
Rawdon Crawley should lead her in to dinner every day, and that
Becky should follow with her cushion--or else she would have Becky's
arm and Rawdon with the pillow.  "We must sit together," she said.
"We're the only three Christians in the county, my love"--in which
case, it must be confessed, that religion was at a very low ebb in
the county of Hants.

Besides being such a fine religionist, Miss Crawley was, as we have
said, an Ultra-liberal in opinions, and always took occasion to
express these in the most candid manner.

"What is birth, my dear!" she would say to Rebecca--"Look at my
brother Pitt; look at the Huddlestons, who have been here since
Henry II; look at poor Bute at the parsonage--is any one of them
equal to you in intelligence or breeding? Equal to you--they are not
even equal to poor dear Briggs, my companion, or Bowls, my butler.
You, my love, are a little paragon--positively a little jewel--You
have more brains than half the shire--if merit had its reward you
ought to be a Duchess--no, there ought to be no duchesses at all--
but you ought to have no superior, and I consider you, my love, as
my equal in every respect; and--will you put some coals on the fire,
my dear; and will you pick this dress of mine, and alter it, you who
can do it so well?" So this old philanthropist used to make her
equal run of her errands, execute her millinery, and read her to
sleep with French novels, every night.

At this time, as some old readers may recollect, the genteel world
had been thrown into a considerable state of excitement by two
events, which, as the papers say, might give employment to the
gentlemen of the long robe. Ensign Shafton had run away with Lady
Barbara Fitzurse, the Earl of Bruin's daughter and heiress; and poor
Vere Vane, a gentleman who, up to forty, had maintained a most
respectable character and reared a numerous family, suddenly and
outrageously left his home, for the sake of Mrs. Rougemont, the
actress, who was sixty-five years of age.

"That was the most beautiful part of dear Lord Nelson's character,"
Miss Crawley said.  "He went to the deuce for a woman.  There must
be good in a man who will do that.  I adore all impudent matches.--
What I like best, is for a nobleman to marry a miller's daughter, as
Lord Flowerdale did--it makes all the women so angry--I wish some
great man would run away with you, my dear; I'm sure you're pretty
enough."

"Two post-boys!--Oh, it would be delightful!" Rebecca owned.

"And what I like next best, is for a poor fellow to run away with a
rich girl.  I have set my heart on Rawdon running away with some
one."

"A rich some one, or a poor some one?"

"Why, you goose! Rawdon has not a shilling but what I give him.  He
is crible de dettes--he must repair his fortunes, and succeed in the
world."

"Is he very clever?" Rebecca asked.

"Clever, my love?--not an idea in the world beyond his horses, and
his regiment, and his hunting, and his play; but he must succeed--
he's so delightfully wicked.  Don't you know he has hit a man, and
shot an injured father through the hat only? He's adored in his
regiment; and all the young men at Wattier's and the Cocoa-Tree
swear by him."

When Miss Rebecca Sharp wrote to her beloved friend the account of
the little ball at Queen's Crawley, and the manner in which, for the
first time, Captain Crawley had distinguished her, she did not,
strange to relate, give an altogether accurate account of the
transaction.  The Captain had distinguished her a great number of
times before.  The Captain had met her in a half-score of walks.
The Captain had lighted upon her in a half-hundred of corridors and
passages.  The Captain had hung over her piano twenty times of an
evening (my Lady was now upstairs, being ill, and nobody heeded her)
as Miss Sharp sang.  The Captain had written her notes (the best
that the great blundering dragoon could devise and spell; but
dulness gets on as well as any other quality with women).  But when
he put the first of the notes into the leaves of the song she was
singing, the little governess, rising and looking him steadily in
the face, took up the triangular missive daintily, and waved it
about as if it were a cocked hat, and she, advancing to the enemy,
popped the note into the fire, and made him a very low curtsey, and
went back to her place, and began to sing away again more merrily
than ever.

"What's that?" said Miss Crawley, interrupted in her after-dinner
doze by the stoppage of the music.

"It's a false note," Miss Sharp said with a laugh; and Rawdon
Crawley fumed with rage and mortification.

Seeing the evident partiality of Miss Crawley for the new governess,
how good it was of Mrs. Bute Crawley not to be jealous, and to
welcome the young lady to the Rectory, and not only her, but Rawdon
Crawley, her husband's rival in the Old Maid's five per cents! They
became very fond of each other's society, Mrs. Crawley and her
nephew.  He gave up hunting; he declined entertainments at
Fuddleston: he would not dine with the mess of the depot at Mudbury:
his great pleasure was to stroll over to Crawley parsonage--whither
Miss Crawley came too; and as their mamma was ill, why not the
children with Miss Sharp? So the children (little dears!) came with
Miss Sharp; and of an evening some of the party would walk back
together.  Not Miss Crawley--she preferred her carriage--but the
walk over the Rectory fields, and in at the little park wicket, and
through the dark plantation, and up the checkered avenue to Queen's
Crawley, was charming in the moonlight to two such lovers of the
picturesque as the Captain and Miss Rebecca.

"O those stars, those stars!" Miss Rebecca would say, turning her
twinkling green eyes up towards them.  "I feel myself almost a
spirit when I gaze upon them."

"O--ah--Gad--yes, so do I exactly, Miss Sharp," the other enthusiast
replied.  "You don't mind my cigar, do you, Miss Sharp?"  Miss Sharp
loved the smell of a cigar out of doors beyond everything in the
world--and she just tasted one too, in the prettiest way possible,
and gave a little puff, and a little scream, and a little giggle,
and restored the delicacy to the Captain, who twirled his moustache,
and straightway puffed it into a blaze that glowed quite red in the
dark plantation, and swore--"Jove--aw--Gad--aw--it's the finest
segaw I ever smoked in the world aw," for his intellect and
conversation were alike brilliant and becoming to a heavy young
dragoon.

Old Sir Pitt, who was taking his pipe and beer, and talking to John
Horrocks about a "ship" that was to be killed, espied the pair so
occupied from his study-window, and with dreadful oaths swore that
if it wasn't for Miss Crawley, he'd take Rawdon and bundle un out of
doors, like a rogue as he was.

"He be a bad'n, sure enough," Mr. Horrocks remarked; "and his man
Flethers is wuss, and have made such a row in the housekeeper's room
about the dinners and hale, as no lord would make--but I think Miss
Sharp's a match for'n, Sir Pitt," he added, after a pause.

And so, in truth, she was--for father and son too.



CHAPTER XII

Quite a Sentimental Chapter


We must now take leave of Arcadia, and those amiable people
practising the rural virtues there, and travel back to London, to
inquire what has become of Miss Amelia "We don't care a fig for
her," writes some unknown correspondent with a pretty little
handwriting and a pink seal to her note.  "She is fade and insipid,"
and adds some more kind remarks in this strain, which I should never
have repeated at all, but that they are in truth prodigiously
complimentary to the young lady whom they concern.

Has the beloved reader, in his experience of society, never heard
similar remarks by good-natured female friends; who always wonder
what you CAN see in Miss Smith that is so fascinating; or what COULD
induce Major Jones to propose for that silly insignificant simpering
Miss Thompson, who has nothing but her wax-doll face to recommend
her? What is there in a pair of pink cheeks and blue eyes forsooth?
these dear Moralists ask, and hint wisely that the gifts of genius,
the accomplishments of the mind, the mastery of Mangnall's
Questions, and a ladylike knowledge of botany and geology, the knack
of making poetry, the power of rattling sonatas in the Herz-manner,
and so forth, are far more valuable endowments for a female, than
those fugitive charms which a few years will inevitably tarnish.  It
is quite edifying to hear women speculate upon the worthlessness and
the duration of beauty.

But though virtue is a much finer thing, and those hapless creatures
who suffer under the misfortune of good looks ought to be
continually put in mind of the fate which awaits them; and though,
very likely, the heroic female character which ladies admire is a
more glorious and beautiful object than the kind, fresh, smiling,
artless, tender little domestic goddess, whom men are inclined to
worship--yet the latter and inferior sort of women must have this
consolation--that the men do admire them after all; and that, in
spite of all our kind friends' warnings and protests, we go on in
our desperate error and folly, and shall to the end of the chapter.
Indeed, for my own part, though I have been repeatedly told by
persons for whom I have the greatest respect, that Miss Brown is an
insignificant chit, and Mrs. White has nothing but her petit minois
chiffonne, and Mrs. Black has not a word to say for herself; yet I
know that I have had the most delightful conversations with Mrs.
Black (of course, my dear Madam, they are inviolable): I see all the
men in a cluster round Mrs. White's chair: all the young fellows
battling to dance with Miss Brown; and so I am tempted to think that
to be despised by her sex is a very great compliment to a woman.

The young ladies in Amelia's society did this for her very
satisfactorily.  For instance, there was scarcely any point upon
which the Misses Osborne, George's sisters, and the Mesdemoiselles
Dobbin agreed so well as in their estimate of her very trifling
merits: and their wonder that their brothers could find any charms
in her.  "We are kind to her," the Misses Osborne said, a pair of
fine black-browed young ladies who had had the best of governesses,
masters, and milliners; and they treated her with such extreme
kindness and condescension, and patronised her so insufferably, that
the poor little thing was in fact perfectly dumb in their presence,
and to all outward appearance as stupid as they thought her.  She
made efforts to like them, as in duty bound, and as sisters of her
future husband.  She passed "long mornings" with them--the most
dreary and serious of forenoons.  She drove out solemnly in their
great family coach with them, and Miss Wirt their governess, that
raw-boned Vestal.  They took her to the ancient concerts by way of a
treat, and to the oratorio, and to St. Paul's to see the charity
children, where in such terror was she of her friends, she almost
did not dare be affected by the hymn the children sang.  Their house
was comfortable; their papa's table rich and handsome; their society
solemn and genteel; their self-respect prodigious; they had the best
pew at the Foundling: all their habits were pompous and orderly, and
all their amusements intolerably dull and decorous. After every one
of her visits (and oh how glad she was when they were over!) Miss
Osborne and Miss Maria Osborne, and Miss Wirt, the vestal governess,
asked each other with increased wonder, "What could George find in
that creature?"

How is this? some carping reader exclaims.  How is it that Amelia,
who had such a number of friends at school, and was so beloved
there, comes out into the world and is spurned by her discriminating
sex? My dear sir, there were no men at Miss Pinkerton's
establishment except the old dancing-master; and you would not have
had the girls fall out about HIM? When George, their handsome
brother, ran off directly after breakfast, and dined from home half-
a-dozen times a week, no wonder the neglected sisters felt a little
vexation.  When young Bullock (of the firm of Hulker, Bullock & Co.,
Bankers, Lombard Street), who had been making up to Miss Maria the
last two seasons, actually asked Amelia to dance the cotillon, could
you expect that the former young lady should be pleased? And yet she
said she was, like an artless forgiving creature.  "I'm so delighted
you like dear Amelia," she said quite eagerly to Mr. Bullock after
the dance.  "She's engaged to my brother George; there's not much in
her, but she's the best-natured and most unaffected young creature:
at home we're all so fond of her." Dear girl! who can calculate the
depth of affection expressed in that enthusiastic SO?

Miss Wirt and these two affectionate young women so earnestly and
frequently impressed upon George Osborne's mind the enormity of the
sacrifice he was making, and his romantic generosity in throwing
himself away upon Amelia, that I'm not sure but that he really
thought he was one of the most deserving characters in the British
army, and gave himself up to be loved with a good deal of easy
resignation.

Somehow, although he left home every morning, as was stated, and
dined abroad six days in the week, when his sisters believed the
infatuated youth to be at Miss Sedley's apron-strings: he was NOT
always with Amelia, whilst the world supposed him at her feet.
Certain it is that on more occasions than one, when Captain Dobbin
called to look for his friend, Miss Osborne (who was very attentive
to the Captain, and anxious to hear his military stories, and to
know about the health of his dear Mamma), would laughingly point to
the opposite side of the square, and say, "Oh, you must go to the
Sedleys' to ask for George; WE never see him from morning till
night." At which kind of speech the Captain would laugh in rather an
absurd constrained manner, and turn off the conversation, like a
consummate man of the world, to some topic of general interest, such
as the Opera, the Prince's last ball at Carlton House, or the
weather--that blessing to society.

"What an innocent it is, that pet of yours," Miss Maria would then
say to Miss Jane, upon the Captain's departure.  "Did you see how he
blushed at the mention of poor George on duty?"

"It's a pity Frederick Bullock hadn't some of his modesty, Maria,"
replies the elder sister, with a toss of he head.

"Modesty!  Awkwardness you mean, Jane.  I don't want Frederick to
trample a hole in my muslin frock, as Captain Dobbin did in yours at
Mrs. Perkins'."

"In YOUR frock, he, he!  How could he? Wasn't he dancing with
Amelia?"

The fact is, when Captain Dobbin blushed so, and looked so awkward,
he remembered a circumstance of which he did not think it was
necessary to inform the young ladies, viz., that he had been calling
at Mr. Sedley's house already, on the pretence of seeing George, of
course, and George wasn't there, only poor little Amelia, with
rather a sad wistful face, seated near the drawing-room window, who,
after some very trifling stupid talk, ventured to ask, was there any
truth in the report that the regiment was soon to be ordered abroad;
and had Captain Dobbin seen Mr. Osborne that day?

The regiment was not ordered abroad as yet; and Captain Dobbin had
not seen George.  "He was with his sister, most likely," the Captain
said.  "Should he go and fetch the truant?"  So she gave him her
hand kindly and gratefully: and he crossed the square; and she
waited and waited, but George never came.

Poor little tender heart! and so it goes on hoping and beating, and
longing and trusting.  You see it is not much of a life to describe.
There is not much of what you call incident in it.  Only one feeling
all day--when will he come? only one thought to sleep and wake upon.
I believe George was playing billiards with Captain Cannon in
Swallow Street at the time when Amelia was asking Captain Dobbin
about him; for George was a jolly sociable fellow, and excellent in
all games of skill.

Once, after three days of absence, Miss Amelia put on her bonnet,
and actually invaded the Osborne house. "What! leave our brother to
come to us?" said the young ladies.  "Have you had a quarrel,
Amelia? Do tell us!" No, indeed, there had been no quarrel.  "Who
could quarrel with him?" says she, with her eyes filled with tears.
She only came over to--to see her dear friends; they had not met for
so long.  And this day she was so perfectly stupid and awkward, that
the Misses Osborne and their governess, who stared after her as she
went sadly away, wondered more than ever what George could see in
poor little Amelia.

Of course they did.  How was she to bare that timid little heart for
the inspection of those young ladies with their bold black eyes? It
was best that it should shrink and hide itself.  I know the Misses
Osborne were excellent critics of a Cashmere shawl, or a pink satin
slip; and when Miss Turner had hers dyed purple, and made into a
spencer; and when Miss Pickford had her ermine tippet twisted into a
muff and trimmings, I warrant you the changes did not escape the two
intelligent young women before mentioned.  But there are things,
look you, of a finer texture than fur or satin, and all Solomon's
glories, and all the wardrobe of the Queen of Sheba--things whereof
the beauty escapes the eyes of many connoisseurs.  And there are
sweet modest little souls on which you light, fragrant and blooming
tenderly in quiet shady places; and there are garden-ornaments, as
big as brass warming-pans, that are fit to stare the sun itself out
of countenance.  Miss Sedley was not of the sunflower sort; and I
say it is out of the rules of all proportion to draw a violet of the
size of a double dahlia.

No, indeed; the life of a good young girl who is in the paternal
nest as yet, can't have many of those thrilling incidents to which
the heroine of romance commonly lays claim.  Snares or shot may take
off the old birds foraging without--hawks may be abroad, from which
they escape or by whom they suffer; but the young ones in the nest
have a pretty comfortable unromantic sort of existence in the down
and the straw, till it comes to their turn, too, to get on the wing.
While Becky Sharp was on her own wing in the country, hopping on all
sorts of twigs, and amid a multiplicity of traps, and pecking up her
food quite harmless and successful, Amelia lay snug in her home of
Russell Square; if she went into the world, it was under the
guidance of the elders; nor did it seem that any evil could befall
her or that opulent cheery comfortable home in which she was
affectionately sheltered. Mamma had her morning duties, and her
daily drive, and the delightful round of visits and shopping which
forms the amusement, or the profession as you may call it, of the
rich London lady.  Papa conducted his mysterious operations in the
City--a stirring place in those days, when war was raging all over
Europe, and empires were being staked; when the "Courier" newspaper
had tens of thousands of subscribers; when one day brought you a
battle of Vittoria, another a burning of Moscow, or a newsman's horn
blowing down Russell Square about dinner-time, announced such a fact
as--"Battle of Leipsic--six hundred thousand men engaged--total
defeat of the French--two hundred thousand killed." Old Sedley once
or twice came home with a very grave face; and no wonder, when such
news as this was agitating all the hearts and all the Stocks of
Europe.

Meanwhile matters went on in Russell Square, Bloomsbury, just as if
matters in Europe were not in the least disorganised.  The retreat
from Leipsic made no difference in the number of meals Mr. Sambo
took in the servants' hall; the allies poured into France, and the
dinner-bell rang at five o'clock just as usual.  I don't think poor
Amelia cared anything about Brienne and Montmirail, or was fairly
interested in the war until the abdication of the Emperor; when she
clapped her hands and said prayers--oh, how grateful! and flung
herself into George Osborne's arms with all her soul, to the
astonishment of everybody who witnessed that ebullition of
sentiment. The fact is, peace was declared, Europe was going to be
at rest; the Corsican was overthrown, and Lieutenant Osborne's
regiment would not be ordered on service.  That was the way in which
Miss Amelia reasoned.  The fate of Europe was Lieutenant George
Osborne to her.  His dangers being over, she sang Te Deum.  He was
her Europe: her emperor: her allied monarchs and august prince
regent.  He was her sun and moon; and I believe she thought the
grand illumination and ball at the Mansion House, given to the
sovereigns, were especially in honour of George Osborne.

We have talked of shift, self, and poverty, as those dismal
instructors under whom poor Miss Becky Sharp got her education.
Now, love was Miss Amelia Sedley's last tutoress, and it was amazing
what progress our young lady made under that popular teacher.  In
the course of fifteen or eighteen months' daily and constant
attention to this eminent finishing governess, what a deal of
secrets Amelia learned, which Miss Wirt and the black-eyed young
ladies over the way, which old Miss Pinkerton of Chiswick herself,
had no cognizance of!  As, indeed, how should any of those prim and
reputable virgins?  With Misses P. and W. the tender passion is out
of the question: I would not dare to breathe such an idea regarding
them.  Miss Maria Osborne, it is true, was "attached" to Mr.
Frederick Augustus Bullock, of the firm of Hulker, Bullock &
Bullock; but hers was a most respectable attachment, and she would
have taken Bullock Senior just the same, her mind being fixed--as
that of a well-bred young woman should be--upon a house in Park
Lane, a country house at Wimbledon, a handsome chariot, and two
prodigious tall horses and footmen, and a fourth of the annual
profits of the eminent firm of Hulker & Bullock, all of which
advantages were represented in the person of Frederick Augustus.
Had orange blossoms been invented then (those touching emblems of
female purity imported by us from France, where people's daughters
are universally sold in marriage), Miss Maria, I say, would have
assumed the spotless wreath, and stepped into the travelling
carriage by the side of gouty, old, bald-headed, bottle-nosed
Bullock Senior; and devoted her beautiful existence to his happiness
with perfect modesty--only the old gentleman was married already; so
she bestowed her young affections on the junior partner. Sweet,
blooming, orange flowers!  The other day I saw Miss Trotter (that
was), arrayed in them, trip into the travelling carriage at St.
George's, Hanover Square, and Lord Methuselah hobbled in after.
With what an engaging modesty she pulled down the blinds of the
chariot--the dear innocent!  There were half the carriages of Vanity
Fair at the wedding.

This was not the sort of love that finished Amelia's education; and
in the course of a year turned a good young girl into a good young
woman--to be a good wife presently, when the happy time should come.
This young person (perhaps it was very imprudent in her parents to
encourage her, and abet her in such idolatry and silly romantic
ideas) loved, with all her heart, the young officer in His Majesty's
service with whom we have made a brief acquaintance.  She thought
about him the very first moment on waking; and his was the very last
name mentioned in her prayers.  She never had seen a man so beautiful
or so clever: such a figure on horseback: such a dancer: such a hero
in general.  Talk of the Prince's bow! what was it to George's? She
had seen Mr. Brummell, whom everybody praised so.  Compare such a
person as that to her George! Not amongst all the beaux at the Opera
(and there were beaux in those days with actual opera hats) was
there any one to equal him.  He was only good enough to be a fairy
prince; and oh, what magnanimity to stoop to such a humble
Cinderella!  Miss Pinkerton would have tried to check this blind
devotion very likely, had she been Amelia's confidante; but not with
much success, depend upon it.  It is in the nature and instinct of
some women.  Some are made to scheme, and some to love; and I wish
any respected bachelor that reads this may take the sort that best
likes him.

While under this overpowering impression, Miss Amelia neglected her
twelve dear friends at Chiswick most cruelly, as such selfish people
commonly will do.  She had but this subject, of course, to think
about; and Miss Saltire was too cold for a confidante, and she
couldn't bring her mind to tell Miss Swartz, the woolly-haired young
heiress from St. Kitt's.  She had little Laura Martin home for the
holidays; and my belief is, she made a confidante of her, and
promised that Laura should come and live with her when she was
married, and gave Laura a great deal of information regarding the
passion of love, which must have been singularly useful and novel to
that little person.  Alas, alas!  I fear poor Emmy had not a well-
regulated mind.

What were her parents doing, not to keep this little heart from
beating so fast?  Old Sedley did not seem much to notice matters.
He was graver of late, and his City affairs absorbed him.  Mrs.
Sedley was of so easy and uninquisitive a nature that she wasn't
even jealous.  Mr. Jos was away, being besieged by an Irish widow at
Cheltenham.  Amelia had the house to herself--ah! too much to
herself sometimes--not that she ever doubted; for, to be sure,
George must be at the Horse Guards; and he can't always get leave
from Chatham; and he must see his friends and sisters, and mingle in
society when in town (he, such an ornament to every society!); and
when he is with the regiment, he is too tired to write long letters.
I know where she kept that packet she had--and can steal in and out
of her chamber like Iachimo--like Iachimo?  No--that is a bad part.
I will only act Moonshine, and peep harmless into the bed where
faith and beauty and innocence lie dreaming.

But if Osborne's were short and soldierlike letters, it must be
confessed, that were Miss Sedley's letters to Mr. Osborne to be
published, we should have to extend this novel to such a
multiplicity of volumes as not the most sentimental reader could
support; that she not only filled sheets of large paper, but crossed
them with the most astonishing perverseness; that she wrote whole
pages out of poetry-books without the least pity; that she
underlined words and passages with quite a frantic emphasis; and, in
fine, gave the usual tokens of her condition.  She wasn't a heroine.
Her letters were full of repetition.  She wrote rather doubtful
grammar sometimes, and in her verses took all sorts of liberties
with the metre.  But oh, mesdames, if you are not allowed to touch
the heart sometimes in spite of syntax, and are not to be loved
until you all know the difference between trimeter and tetrameter,
may all Poetry go to the deuce, and every schoolmaster perish
miserably!





CHAPTER XIII

Sentimental and Otherwise


I fear the gentleman to whom Miss Amelia's letters were addressed
was rather an obdurate critic.  Such a number of notes followed
Lieutenant Osborne about the country, that he became almost ashamed
of the jokes of his mess-room companions regarding them, and ordered
his servant never to deliver them except at his private apartment.
He was seen lighting his cigar with one, to the horror of Captain
Dobbin, who, it is my belief, would have given a bank-note for the
document.

For some time George strove to keep the liaison a secret.  There was
a woman in the case, that he admitted. "And not the first either,"
said Ensign Spooney to Ensign Stubble.  "That Osborne's a devil of a
fellow.  There was a judge's daughter at Demerara went almost mad
about him; then there was that beautiful quadroon girl, Miss Pye, at
St. Vincent's, you know; and since he's been home, they say he's a
regular Don Giovanni, by Jove."

Stubble and Spooney thought that to be a "regular Don Giovanni, by
Jove" was one of the finest qualities a man could possess, and
Osborne's reputation was prodigious amongst the young men of the
regiment.  He was famous in field-sports, famous at a song, famous
on parade; free with his money, which was bountifully supplied by
his father.  His coats were better made than any man's in the
regiment, and he had more of them.  He was adored by the men.  He
could drink more than any officer of the whole mess, including old
Heavytop, the colonel.  He could spar better than Knuckles, the
private (who would have been a corporal but for his drunkenness, and
who had been in the prize-ring); and was the best batter and bowler,
out and out, of the regimental club. He rode his own horse, Greased
Lightning, and won the Garrison cup at Quebec races.  There were
other people besides Amelia who worshipped him.  Stubble and Spooney
thought him a sort of Apollo; Dobbin took him to be an Admirable
Crichton; and Mrs. Major O'Dowd acknowledged he was an elegant young
fellow, and put her in mind of Fitzjurld Fogarty, Lord
Castlefogarty's second son.

Well, Stubble and Spooney and the rest indulged in most romantic
conjectures regarding this female correspondent of Osborne's--
opining that it was a Duchess in London who was in love with him--or
that it was a General's daughter, who was engaged to somebody else,
and madly attached to him--or that it was a Member of Parliament's
lady, who proposed four horses and an elopement--or that it was some
other victim of a passion delightfully exciting, romantic, and
disgraceful to all parties, on none of which conjectures would
Osborne throw the least light, leaving his young admirers and
friends to invent and arrange their whole history.

And the real state of the case would never have been known at all in
the regiment but for Captain Dobbin's indiscretion.  The Captain was
eating his breakfast one day in the mess-room, while Cackle, the
assistant-surgeon, and the two above-named worthies were speculating
upon Osborne's intrigue--Stubble holding out that the lady was a
Duchess about Queen Charlotte's court, and Cackle vowing she was an
opera-singer of the worst reputation. At this idea Dobbin became so
moved, that though his mouth was full of eggs and bread-and-butter
at the time, and though he ought not to have spoken at all, yet he
couldn't help blurting out, "Cackle, you're a stupid fool. You're
always talking nonsense and scandal.  Osborne is not going to run
off with a Duchess or ruin a milliner. Miss Sedley is one of the
most charming young women that ever lived.  He's been engaged to her
ever so long; and the man who calls her names had better not do so
in my hearing." With which, turning exceedingly red, Dobbin ceased
speaking, and almost choked himself with a cup of tea.  The story
was over the regiment in half-an-hour; and that very evening Mrs.
Major O'Dowd wrote off to her sister Glorvina at O'Dowdstown not to
hurry from Dublin--young Osborne being prematurely engaged already.

She complimented the Lieutenant in an appropriate speech over a
glass of whisky-toddy that evening, and he went home perfectly
furious to quarrel with Dobbin (who had declined Mrs. Major O'Dowd's
party, and sat in his own room playing the flute, and, I believe,
writing poetry in a very melancholy manner)--to quarrel with Dobbin
for betraying his secret.

"Who the deuce asked you to talk about my affairs?" Osborne shouted
indignantly.  "Why the devil is all the regiment to know that I am
going to be married? Why is that tattling old harridan, Peggy
O'Dowd, to make free with my name at her d--d supper-table, and
advertise my engagement over the three kingdoms? After all, what
right have you to say I am engaged, or to meddle in my business at
all, Dobbin?"

"It seems to me," Captain Dobbin began.

"Seems be hanged, Dobbin," his junior interrupted him.  "I am under
obligations to you, I know it, a d--d deal too well too; but I won't
be always sermonised by you because you're five years my senior.
I'm hanged if I'll stand your airs of superiority and infernal pity
and patronage.  Pity and patronage! I should like to know in what
I'm your inferior?"

"Are you engaged?" Captain Dobbin interposed.

"What the devil's that to you or any one here if I am?"

"Are you ashamed of it?" Dobbin resumed.

"What right have you to ask me that question, sir? I should like to
know," George said.

"Good God, you don't mean to say you want to break off?" asked
Dobbin, starting up.

"In other words, you ask me if I'm a man of honour," said Osborne,
fiercely; "is that what you mean? You've adopted such a tone
regarding me lately that I'm ------ if I'll bear it any more."

"What have I done? I've told you you were neglecting a sweet girl,
George.  I've told you that when you go to town you ought to go to
her, and not to the gambling-houses about St. James's."

"You want your money back, I suppose," said George, with a sneer.

"Of course I do--I always did, didn't I?" says Dobbin. "You speak
like a generous fellow."

"No, hang it, William, I beg your pardon"--here George interposed in
a fit of remorse; "you have been my friend in a hundred ways, Heaven
knows.  You've got me out of a score of scrapes.  When Crawley of
the Guards won that sum of money of me I should have been done but
for you: I know I should.  But you shouldn't deal so hardly with me;
you shouldn't be always catechising me. I am very fond of Amelia; I
adore her, and that sort of thing.  Don't look angry.  She's
faultless; I know she is. But you see there's no fun in winning a
thing unless you play for it.  Hang it: the regiment's just back
from the West Indies, I must have a little fling, and then when I'm
married I'll reform; I will upon my honour, now.  And--I say--Dob--
don't be angry with me, and I'll give you a hundred next month, when
I know my father will stand something handsome; and I'll ask
Heavytop for leave, and I'll go to town, and see Amelia to-morrow--
there now, will that satisfy you?"

"It is impossible to be long angry with you, George," said the good-
natured Captain; "and as for the money, old boy, you know if I
wanted it you'd share your last shilling with me."

"That I would, by Jove, Dobbin," George said, with the greatest
generosity, though by the way he never had any money to spare.

"Only I wish you had sown those wild oats of yours, George.  If you
could have seen poor little Miss Emmy's face when she asked me about
you the other day, you would have pitched those billiard-balls to
the deuce.  Go and comfort her, you rascal.  Go and write her a long
letter.  Do something to make her happy; a very little will."

"I believe she's d--d fond of me," the Lieutenant said, with a self-
satisfied air; and went off to finish the evening with some jolly
fellows in the mess-room.

Amelia meanwhile, in Russell Square, was looking at the moon, which
was shining upon that peaceful spot, as well as upon the square of
the Chatham barracks, where Lieutenant Osborne was quartered, and
thinking to herself how her hero was employed.  Perhaps he is
visiting the sentries, thought she; perhaps he is bivouacking;
perhaps he is attending the couch of a wounded comrade, or studying
the art of war up in his own desolate chamber. And her kind thoughts
sped away as if they were angels and had wings, and flying down the
river to Chatham and Rochester, strove to peep into the barracks
where George was. . . . All things considered, I think it was as
well the gates were shut, and the sentry allowed no one to pass; so
that the poor little white-robed angel could not hear the songs
those young fellows were roaring over the whisky-punch.

The day after the little conversation at Chatham barracks, young
Osborne, to show that he would be as good as his word, prepared to
go to town, thereby incurring Captain Dobbin's applause.  "I should
have liked to make her a little present," Osborne said to his friend
in confidence, "only I am quite out of cash until my father tips
up." But Dobbin would not allow this good nature and generosity to
be balked, and so accommodated Mr. Osborne with a few pound notes,
which the latter took after a little faint scruple.

And I dare say he would have bought something very handsome for
Amelia; only, getting off the coach in Fleet Street, he was
attracted by a handsome shirt-pin in a jeweller's window, which he
could not resist; and having paid for that, had very little money to
spare for indulging in any further exercise of kindness.  Never
mind: you may be sure it was not his presents Amelia wanted.  When
he came to Russell Square, her face lighted up as if he had been
sunshine.  The little cares, fears, tears, timid misgivings,
sleepless fancies of I don't know how many days and nights, were
forgotten, under one moment's influence of that familiar,
irresistible smile.  He beamed on her from the drawing-room door--
magnificent, with ambrosial whiskers, like a god.  Sambo, whose face
as he announced Captain Osbin (having conferred a brevet rank on
that young officer) blazed with a sympathetic grin, saw the little
girl start, and flush, and jump up from her watching-place in the
window; and Sambo retreated: and as soon as the door was shut, she
went fluttering to Lieutenant George Osborne's heart as if it was
the only natural home for her to nestle in.  Oh, thou poor panting
little soul!  The very finest tree in the whole forest, with the
straightest stem, and the strongest arms, and the thickest foliage,
wherein you choose to build and coo, may be marked, for what you
know, and may be down with a crash ere long.  What an old, old
simile that is, between man and timber!

In the meanwhile, George kissed her very kindly on her forehead and
glistening eyes, and was very gracious and good; and she thought his
diamond shirt-pin (which she had not known him to wear before) the
prettiest ornament ever seen.

The observant reader, who has marked our young Lieutenant's previous
behaviour, and has preserved our report of the brief conversation
which he has just had with Captain Dobbin, has possibly come to
certain conclusions regarding the character of Mr. Osborne.  Some
cynical Frenchman has said that there are two parties to a love-
transaction: the one who loves and the other who condescends to be
so treated.  Perhaps the love is occasionally on the man's side;
perhaps on the lady's. Perhaps some infatuated swain has ere this
mistaken insensibility for modesty, dulness for maiden reserve, mere
vacuity for sweet bashfulness, and a goose, in a word, for a swan.
Perhaps some beloved female subscriber has arrayed an ass in the
splendour and glory of her imagination; admired his dulness as manly
simplicity; worshipped his selfishness as manly superiority; treated
his stupidity as majestic gravity, and used him as the brilliant
fairy Titania did a certain weaver at Athens.  I think I have seen
such comedies of errors going on in the world.  But this is certain,
that Amelia believed her lover to be one of the most gallant and
brilliant men in the empire: and it is possible Lieutenant Osborne
thought so too.

He was a little wild: how many young men are; and don't girls like a
rake better than a milksop?  He hadn't sown his wild oats as yet,
but he would soon: and quit the army now that peace was proclaimed;
the Corsican monster locked up at Elba; promotion by consequence
over; and no chance left for the display of his undoubted military
talents and valour: and his allowance, with Amelia's settlement,
would enable them to take a snug place in the country somewhere, in
a good sporting neighbourhood; and he would hunt a little, and farm
a little; and they would be very happy.  As for remaining in the
army as a married man, that was impossible. Fancy Mrs. George
Osborne in lodgings in a county town; or, worse still, in the East
or West Indies, with a society of officers, and patronized by Mrs.
Major O'Dowd! Amelia died with laughing at Osborne's stories about
Mrs. Major O'Dowd.  He loved her much too fondly to subject her to
that horrid woman and her vulgarities, and the rough treatment of a
soldier's wife.  He didn't care for himself--not he; but his dear
little girl should take the place in society to which, as his wife,
she was entitled: and to these proposals you may be sure she
acceded, as she would to any other from the same author.

Holding this kind of conversation, and building numberless castles
in the air (which Amelia adorned with all sorts of flower-gardens,
rustic walks, country churches, Sunday schools, and the like; while
George had his mind's eye directed to the stables, the kennel, and
the cellar), this young pair passed away a couple of hours very
pleasantly; and as the Lieutenant had only that single day in town,
and a great deal of most important business to transact, it was
proposed that Miss Emmy should dine with her future sisters-in-law.
This invitation was accepted joyfully.  He conducted her to his
sisters; where he left her talking and prattling in a way that
astonished those ladies, who thought that George might make
something of her; and he then went off to transact his business.

In a word, he went out and ate ices at a pastry-cook's shop in
Charing Cross; tried a new coat in Pall Mall; dropped in at the Old
Slaughters', and called for Captain Cannon; played eleven games at
billiards with the Captain, of which he won eight, and returned to
Russell Square half an hour late for dinner, but in very good
humour.

It was not so with old Mr. Osborne.  When that gentleman came from
the City, and was welcomed in the drawing-room by his daughters and
the elegant Miss Wirt, they saw at once by his face--which was
puffy, solemn, and yellow at the best of times--and by the scowl and
twitching of his black eyebrows, that the heart within his large
white waistcoat was disturbed and uneasy.  When Amelia stepped
forward to salute him, which she always did with great trembling and
timidity, he gave a surly grunt of recognition, and dropped the
little hand out of his great hirsute paw without any attempt to hold
it there.  He looked round gloomily at his eldest daughter; who,
comprehending the meaning of his look, which asked unmistakably,
"Why the devil is she here?" said at once:

"George is in town, Papa; and has gone to the Horse Guards, and will
be back to dinner."

"O he is, is he? I won't have the dinner kept waiting for him,
Jane"; with which this worthy man lapsed into his particular chair,
and then the utter silence in his genteel, well-furnished drawing-
room was only interrupted by the alarmed ticking of the great French
clock.

When that chronometer, which was surmounted by a cheerful brass
group of the sacrifice of Iphigenia, tolled five in a heavy
cathedral tone, Mr. Osborne pulled the bell at his right hand-
violently, and the butler rushed up.

"Dinner!" roared Mr. Osborne.

"Mr. George isn't come in, sir," interposed the man.

"Damn Mr. George, sir.  Am I master of the house? DINNER!" Mr.
Osborne scowled.  Amelia trembled.  A telegraphic communication of
eyes passed between the other three ladies.  The obedient bell in
the lower regions began ringing the announcement of the meal.  The
tolling over, the head of the family thrust his hands into the great
tail-pockets of his great blue coat with brass buttons, and without
waiting for a further announcement strode downstairs alone, scowling
over his shoulder at the four females.

"What's the matter now, my dear?" asked one of the other, as they
rose and tripped gingerly behind the sire.    "I suppose the funds
are falling," whispered Miss Wirt; and so, trembling and in silence,
this hushed female company followed their dark leader.  They took
their places in silence.  He growled out a blessing, which sounded
as gruffly as a curse.  The great silver dish-covers were removed.
Amelia trembled in her place, for she was next to the awful Osborne,
and alone on her side of the table--the gap being occasioned by the
absence of George.

"Soup?" says Mr. Osborne, clutching the ladle, fixing his eyes on
her, in a sepulchral tone; and having helped her and the rest, did
not speak for a while.

"Take Miss Sedley's plate away," at last he said.  "She can't eat
the soup--no more can I.  It's beastly.  Take away the soup, Hicks,
and to-morrow turn the cook out of the house, Jane."

Having concluded his observations upon the soup, Mr. Osborne made a
few curt remarks respecting the fish, also of a savage and satirical
tendency, and cursed Billingsgate with an emphasis quite worthy of
the place. Then he lapsed into silence, and swallowed sundry glasses
of wine, looking more and more terrible, till a brisk knock at the
door told of George's arrival when everybody began to rally.

"He could not come before.  General Daguilet had kept him waiting at
the Horse Guards.  Never mind soup or fish.  Give him anything--he
didn't care what.  Capital mutton--capital everything." His good
humour contrasted with his father's severity; and he rattled on
unceasingly during dinner, to the delight of all--of one especially,
who need not be mentioned.

As soon as the young ladies had discussed the orange and the glass
of wine which formed the ordinary conclusion of the dismal banquets
at Mr. Osborne's house, the signal to make sail for the drawing-room
was given, and they all arose and departed.  Amelia hoped George
would soon join them there.  She began playing some of his favourite
waltzes (then newly imported) at the great carved-legged, leather-
cased grand piano in the drawing-room overhead.  This little
artifice did not bring him.  He was deaf to the waltzes; they grew
fainter and fainter; the discomfited performer left the huge
instrument presently; and though her three friends performed some of
the loudest and most brilliant new pieces of their repertoire, she
did not hear a single note, but sate thinking, and boding evil.  Old
Osborne's scowl, terrific always, had never before looked so deadly
to her.  His eyes followed her out of the room, as if she had been
guilty of something. When they brought her coffee, she started as
though it were a cup of poison which Mr. Hicks, the butler, wished
to propose to her.  What mystery was there lurking? Oh, those women!
They nurse and cuddle their presentiments, and make darlings of
their ugliest thoughts, as they do of their deformed children.

The gloom on the paternal countenance had also impressed George
Osborne with anxiety.  With such eyebrows, and a look so decidedly
bilious, how was he to extract that money from the governor, of
which George was consumedly in want? He began praising his father's
wine.  That was generally a successful means of cajoling the old
gentleman.

"We never got such Madeira in the West Indies, sir, as yours.
Colonel Heavytop took off three bottles of that you sent me down,
under his belt the other day."

"Did he?" said the old gentleman.  "It stands me in eight shillings
a bottle."

"Will you take six guineas a dozen for it, sir?" said George, with a
laugh.  "There's one of the greatest men in the kingdom wants some."

"Does he?" growled the senior.  "Wish he may get it."

"When General Daguilet was at Chatham, sir, Heavytop gave him a
breakfast, and asked me for some of the wine.  The General liked it
just as well--wanted a pipe for the Commander-in-Chief.  He's his
Royal Highness's right-hand man."

"It is devilish fine wine," said the Eyebrows, and they looked more
good-humoured; and George was going to take advantage of this
complacency, and bring the supply question on the mahogany, when the
father, relapsing into solemnity, though rather cordial in manner,
bade him ring the bell for claret.  "And we'll see if that's as good
as the Madeira, George, to which his Royal Highness is welcome, I'm
sure.  And as we are drinking it, I'll talk to you about a matter of
importance."

Amelia heard the claret bell ringing as she sat nervously upstairs.
She thought, somehow, it was a mysterious and presentimental bell.
Of the presentiments which some people are always having, some
surely must come right.

"What I want to know, George," the old gentleman said, after slowly
smacking his first bumper--"what I want to know is, how you and--ah-
-that little thing upstairs, are carrying on?"

"I think, sir, it is not hard to see," George said, with a self-
satisfied grin.  "Pretty clear, sir.--What capital wine!"

"What d'you mean, pretty clear, sir?"

"Why, hang it, sir, don't push me too hard.  I'm a modest man.  I--
ah--I don't set up to be a lady-killer; but I do own that she's as
devilish fond of me as she can be.  Anybody can see that with half
an eye."

"And you yourself?"

"Why, sir, didn't you order me to marry her, and ain't I a good boy?
Haven't our Papas settled it ever so long?"

"A pretty boy, indeed.  Haven't I heard of your doings, sir, with
Lord Tarquin, Captain Crawley of the Guards, the Honourable Mr.
Deuceace and that set.  Have a care sir, have a care."

The old gentleman pronounced these aristocratic names with the
greatest gusto.  Whenever he met a great man he grovelled before
him, and my-lorded him as only a free-born Briton can do.  He came
home and looked out his history in the Peerage: he introduced his
name into his daily conversation; he bragged about his Lordship to
his daughters.  He fell down prostrate and basked in him as a
Neapolitan beggar does in the sun.  George was alarmed when he heard
the names.  He feared his father might have been informed of certain
transactions at play.  But the old moralist eased him by saying
serenely:

"Well, well, young men will be young men.  And the comfort to me is,
George, that living in the best society in England, as I hope you
do; as I think you do; as my means will allow you to do--"

"Thank you, sir," says George, making his point at once.  "One can't
live with these great folks for nothing; and my purse, sir, look at
it"; and he held up a little token which had been netted by Amelia,
and contained the very last of Dobbin's pound notes.

"You shan't want, sir.  The British merchant's son shan't want, sir.
My guineas are as good as theirs, George, my boy; and I don't grudge
'em.  Call on Mr. Chopper as you go through the City to-morrow;
he'll have something for you.  I don't grudge money when I know
you're in good society, because I know that good society can never
go wrong.  There's no pride in me.  I was a humbly born man--but you
have had advantages. Make a good use of 'em.  Mix with the young
nobility. There's many of 'em who can't spend a dollar to your
guinea, my boy.  And as for the pink bonnets (here from under the
heavy eyebrows there came a knowing and not very pleasing leer)--why
boys will be boys.  Only there's one thing I order you to avoid,
which, if you do not, I'll cut you off with a shilling, by Jove; and
that's gambling."

"Oh, of course, sir," said George.

"But to return to the other business about Amelia: why shouldn't you
marry higher than a stockbroker's daughter, George--that's what I
want to know?"

"It's a family business, sir,".says George, cracking filberts.  "You
and Mr. Sedley made the match a hundred years ago."

"I don't deny it; but people's positions alter, sir.  I don't deny
that Sedley made my fortune, or rather put me in the way of
acquiring, by my own talents and genius, that proud position, which,
I may say, I occupy in the tallow trade and the City of London.
I've shown my gratitude to Sedley; and he's tried it of late, sir,
as my cheque-book can show.  George!  I tell you in confidence I
don't like the looks of Mr. Sedley's affairs.  My chief clerk, Mr.
Chopper, does not like the looks of 'em, and he's an old file, and
knows 'Change as well as any man in London.  Hulker & Bullock are
looking shy at him.  He's been dabbling on his own account I fear.
They say the Jeune Amelie was his, which was taken by the Yankee
privateer Molasses.  And that's flat--unless I see Amelia's ten
thousand down you don't marry her.  I'll have no lame duck's
daughter in my family.  Pass the wine, sir--or ring for coffee."

With which Mr. Osborne spread out the evening paper, and George knew
from this signal that the colloquy was ended, and that his papa was
about to take a nap.

He hurried upstairs to Amelia in the highest spirits. What was it
that made him more attentive to her on that night than he had been
for a long time--more eager to amuse her, more tender, more
brilliant in talk?  Was it that his generous heart warmed to her at
the prospect of misfortune; or that the idea of losing the dear
little prize made him value it more?

She lived upon the recollections of that happy evening for many days
afterwards, remembering his words; his looks; the song he sang; his
attitude, as he leant over her or looked at her from a distance.  As
it seemed to her, no night ever passed so quickly at Mr. Osborne's
house before; and for once this young person was almost provoked to
be angry by the premature arrival of Mr. Sambo with her shawl.

George came and took a tender leave of her the next morning; and
then hurried off to the City, where he visited Mr. Chopper, his
father's head man, and received from that gentleman a document which
he exchanged at Hulker & Bullock's for a whole pocketful of money.
As George entered the house, old John Sedley was passing out of the
banker's parlour, looking very dismal.  But his godson was much too
elated to mark the worthy stockbroker's depression, or the dreary
eyes which the kind old gentleman cast upon him.  Young Bullock did
not come grinning out of the parlour with him as had been his wont
in former years.

And as the swinging doors of Hulker, Bullock & Co. closed upon Mr.
Sedley, Mr. Quill, the cashier (whose benevolent occupation it is to
hand out crisp bank-notes from a drawer and dispense sovereigns out
of a copper shovel), winked at Mr. Driver, the clerk at the desk on
his right.  Mr. Driver winked again.

"No go," Mr. D. whispered.

"Not at no price," Mr. Q. said.  "Mr. George Osborne,  sir, how will
you take it?" George crammed eagerly a quantity of notes into his
pockets, and paid Dobbin fifty pounds that very evening at mess.

That very evening Amelia wrote him the tenderest of long letters.
Her heart was overflowing with tenderness, but it still foreboded
evil.  What was the cause of Mr. Osborne's dark looks? she asked.
Had any difference arisen between him and her papa? Her poor papa
returned so melancholy from the City, that all were alarmed about
him at home--in fine, there were four pages of loves and fears and
hopes and forebodings.

"Poor little Emmy--dear little Emmy.  How fond she is of me," George
said, as he perused the missive--"and Gad, what a headache that
mixed punch has given me!" Poor little Emmy, indeed.



CHAPTER XIV

Miss Crawley at Home


About this time there drove up to an exceedingly snug and well-
appointed house in Park Lane, a travelling chariot with a lozenge on
the panels, a discontented female in a green veil and crimped curls
on the rumble, and a large and confidential man on the box.  It was
the equipage of our friend Miss Crawley, returning from Hants.  The
carriage windows were shut; the fat spaniel, whose head and tongue
ordinarily lolled out of one of them, reposed on the lap of the
discontented female.  When the vehicle stopped, a large round bundle
of shawls was taken out of the carriage by the aid of various
domestics and a young lady who accompanied the heap of cloaks.  That
bundle contained Miss Crawley, who was conveyed upstairs forthwith,
and put into a bed and chamber warmed properly as for the reception
of an invalid.  Messengers went off for her physician and medical
man.  They came, consulted, prescribed, vanished.  The young
companion of Miss Crawley, at the conclusion of their interview,
came in to receive their instructions, and administered those
antiphlogistic medicines which the eminent men ordered.

Captain Crawley of the Life Guards rode up from Knightsbridge
Barracks the next day; his black charger pawed the straw before his
invalid aunt's door.  He was most affectionate in his inquiries
regarding that amiable relative.  There seemed to be much source of
apprehension. He found Miss Crawley's maid (the discontented female)
unusually sulky and despondent; he found Miss Briggs, her dame de
compagnie, in tears alone in the drawing-room.  She had hastened
home, hearing of her beloved friend's illness.  She wished to fly to
her couch, that couch which she, Briggs, had so often smoothed in
the hour of sickness.  She was denied admission to Miss Crawley's
apartment.  A stranger was administering her medicines--a stranger
from the country--an odious Miss . . . --tears choked the utterance
of the dame de compagnie, and she buried her crushed affections and
her poor old red nose in her pocket handkerchief.

Rawdon Crawley sent up his name by the sulky femme de chambre, and
Miss Crawley's new companion, coming tripping down from the sick-
room, put a little hand into his as he stepped forward eagerly to
meet her, gave a glance of great scorn at the bewildered Briggs, and
beckoning the young Guardsman out of the back drawing-room, led him
downstairs into that now desolate dining-parlour, where so many a
good dinner had been celebrated.

Here these two talked for ten minutes, discussing, no doubt, the
symptoms of the old invalid above stairs; at the end of which period
the parlour bell was rung briskly, and answered on that instant by
Mr. Bowls, Miss Crawley's large confidential butler (who, indeed,
happened to be at the keyhole during the most part of the
interview); and the Captain coming out, curling his mustachios,
mounted the black charger pawing among the straw, to the admiration
of the little blackguard boys collected in the street.  He looked in
at the dining-room window, managing his horse, which curvetted and
capered beautifully--for one instant the young person might be seen
at the window, when her figure vanished, and, doubtless, she went
upstairs again to resume the affecting duties of benevolence.

Who could this young woman be, I wonder?  That evening a little
dinner for two persons was laid in the dining-room--when Mrs.
Firkin, the lady's maid, pushed into her mistress's apartment, and
bustled about there during the vacancy occasioned by the departure
of the new nurse--and the latter and Miss Briggs sat down to the
neat little meal.

Briggs was so much choked by emotion that she could hardly take a
morsel of meat.  The young person carved a fowl with the utmost
delicacy, and asked so distinctly for egg-sauce, that poor Briggs,
before whom that delicious condiment was placed, started, made a
great clattering with the ladle, and once more fell back in the most
gushing hysterical state.

"Had you not better give Miss Briggs a glass of wine?" said the
person to Mr. Bowls, the large confidential man. He did so.  Briggs
seized it mechanically, gasped it down convulsively, moaned a
little, and began to play with the chicken on her plate.

"I think we shall be able to help each other," said the person with
great suavity: "and shall have no need of Mr. Bowls's kind services.
Mr. Bowls, if you please, we will ring when we want you." He went
downstairs, where, by the way, he vented the most horrid curses upon
the unoffending footman, his subordinate.

"It is a pity you take on so, Miss Briggs," the young lady said,
with a cool, slightly sarcastic, air.

"My dearest friend is so ill, and wo-o-on't see me," gurgled out
Briggs in an agony of renewed grief.

"She's not very ill any more.  Console yourself, dear Miss Briggs.
She has only overeaten herself--that is all. She is greatly better.
She will soon be quite restored again. She is weak from being cupped
and from medical treatment, but she will rally immediately.  Pray
console yourself, and take a little more wine."

"But why, why won't she see me again?" Miss Briggs bleated out.
"Oh, Matilda, Matilda, after three-and-twenty years' tenderness! is
this the return to your poor, poor Arabella?"

"Don't cry too much, poor Arabella," the other said (with ever so
little of a grin); "she only won't see you, because she says you
don't nurse her as well as I do. It's no pleasure to me to sit up
all night.  I wish you might do it instead."

"Have I not tended that dear couch for years?" Arabella said, "and
now--"

"Now she prefers somebody else.  Well, sick people have these
fancies, and must be humoured.  When she's well I shall go."

"Never, never," Arabella exclaimed, madly inhaling her salts-bottle.

"Never be well or never go, Miss Briggs?" the other said, with the
same provoking good-nature.  "Pooh--she will be well in a fortnight,
when I shall go back to my little pupils at Queen's Crawley, and to
their mother, who is a great deal more sick than our friend.  You
need not be jealous about me, my dear Miss Briggs.  I am a poor
little girl without any friends, or any harm in me. I don't want to
supplant you in Miss Crawley's good graces.  She will forget me a
week after I am gone: and her affection for you has been the work of
years.  Give me a little wine if you please, my dear Miss Briggs,
and let us be friends.  I'm sure I want friends."

The placable and soft-hearted Briggs speechlessly pushed out her
hand at this appeal; but she felt the desertion most keenly for all
that, and bitterly, bitterly moaned the fickleness of her Matilda.
At the end of half an hour, the meal over, Miss Rebecca Sharp (for
such, astonishing to state, is the name of her who has been
described ingeniously as "the person" hitherto), went upstairs again
to her patient's rooms, from which, with the most engaging
politeness, she eliminated poor Firkin. "Thank you, Mrs. Firkin,
that will quite do; how nicely you make it! I will ring when
anything is wanted." "Thank you"; and Firkin came downstairs in a
tempest of jealousy, only the more dangerous because she was forced
to confine it in her own bosom.

Could it be the tempest which, as she passed the landing of the
first floor, blew open the drawing-room door? No; it was stealthily
opened by the hand of Briggs. Briggs had been on the watch. Briggs
too well heard the creaking Firkin descend the stairs, and the clink
of the spoon and gruel-basin the neglected female carried.

"Well, Firkin?" says she, as the other entered the apartment. "Well,
Jane?"

"Wuss and wuss, Miss B.," Firkin said, wagging her head.

"Is she not better then?"

"She never spoke but once, and I asked her if she felt a little more
easy, and she told me to hold my stupid tongue. Oh, Miss B., I never
thought to have seen this day!"  And the water-works again began to
play.

"What sort of a person is this Miss Sharp, Firkin? I little thought,
while enjoying my Christmas revels in the elegant home of my firm
friends, the Reverend Lionel Delamere and his amiable lady, to find
a stranger had taken my place in the affections of my dearest, my
still dearest Matilda!"  Miss Briggs, it will be seen by her
language, was of a literary and sentimental turn, and had once
published a volume of poems--"Trills of the Nightingale"--by
subscription.

"Miss B., they are all infatyated about that young woman," Firkin
replied. "Sir Pitt wouldn't have let her go, but he daredn't refuse
Miss Crawley anything. Mrs. Bute at the Rectory jist as bad--never
happy out of her sight. The Capting quite wild about her. Mr.
Crawley mortial jealous. Since Miss C. was took ill, she won't have
nobody near her but Miss Sharp, I can't tell for where nor for why;
and I think somethink has bewidged everybody."

Rebecca passed that night in constant watching upon Miss Crawley;
the next night the old lady slept so comfortably, that Rebecca had
time for several hours' comfortable repose herself on the sofa, at
the foot of her patroness's bed; very soon, Miss Crawley was so well
that she sat up and laughed heartily at a perfect imitation of Miss
Briggs and her grief, which Rebecca described to her. Briggs'
weeping snuffle, and her manner of using the handkerchief, were so
completely rendered that Miss Crawley became quite cheerful, to the
admiration of the doctors when they visited her, who usually found
this worthy woman of the world, when the least sickness attacked
her, under the most abject depression and terror of death.

Captain Crawley came every day, and received bulletins from Miss
Rebecca respecting his aunt's health. This improved so rapidly, that
poor Briggs was allowed to see her patroness; and persons with
tender hearts may imagine the smothered emotions of that sentimental
female, and the affecting nature of the interview.

Miss Crawley liked to have Briggs in a good deal soon.  Rebecca used
to mimic her to her face with the most admirable gravity, thereby
rendering the imitation doubly piquant to her worthy patroness.

The causes which had led to the deplorable illness of Miss Crawley,
and her departure from her brother's house in the country, were of
such an unromantic nature that they are hardly fit to be explained
in this genteel and sentimental novel.  For how is it possible to
hint of a delicate female, living in good society, that she ate and
drank too much, and that a hot supper of lobsters profusely enjoyed
at the Rectory was the reason of an indisposition which Miss Crawley
herself persisted was solely attributable to the dampness of the
weather?  The attack was so sharp that Matilda--as his Reverence
expressed it--was very nearly "off the hooks"; all the family were
in a fever of expectation regarding the will, and Rawdon Crawley was
making sure of at least forty thousand pounds before the
commencement of the London season.  Mr. Crawley sent over a choice
parcel of tracts, to prepare her for the change from Vanity Fair and
Park Lane for another world; but a good doctor from Southampton
being called in in time, vanquished the lobster which was so nearly
fatal to her, and gave her sufficient strength to enable her to
return to London. The Baronet did not disguise his exceeding
mortification at the turn which affairs took.

While everybody was attending on Miss Crawley, and messengers every
hour from the Rectory were carrying news of her health to the
affectionate folks there, there was a lady in another part of the
house, being exceedingly ill, of whom no one took any notice at all;
and this was the lady of Crawley herself.  The good doctor shook his
head after seeing her; to which visit Sir Pitt consented, as it
could be paid without a fee; and she was left fading away in her
lonely chamber, with no more heed paid to her than to a weed in the
park.

The young ladies, too, lost much of the inestimable benefit of their
governess's instruction, So affectionate a nurse was Miss Sharp,
that Miss Crawley would take her medicines from no other hand.
Firkin had been deposed long before her mistress's departure from
the country.  That faithful attendant found a gloomy consolation on
returning to London, in seeing Miss Briggs suffer the same pangs of
jealousy and undergo the same faithless treatment to which she
herself had been subject.

Captain Rawdon got an extension of leave on his aunt's illness, and
remained dutifully at home.  He was always in her antechamber.  (She
lay sick in the state bedroom, into which you entered by the little
blue saloon.) His father was always meeting him there; or if he came
down the corridor ever so quietly, his father's door was sure to
open, and the hyena face of the old gentleman to glare out.  What
was it set one to watch the other so?  A generous rivalry, no doubt,
as to which should be most attentive to the dear sufferer in the
state bedroom.  Rebecca used to come out and comfort both of them;
or one or the other of them rather.  Both of these worthy gentlemen
were most anxious to have news of the invalid from her little
confidential messenger.

At dinner--to which meal she descended for half an hour--she kept
the peace between them: after which she disappeared for the night;
when Rawdon would ride over to the depot of the 150th at Mudbury,
leaving his papa to the society of Mr. Horrocks and his rum and
water. She passed as weary a fortnight as ever mortal spent in Miss
Crawley's sick-room; but her little nerves seemed to be of iron, as
she was quite unshaken by the duty and the tedium of the sick-
chamber.

She never told until long afterwards how painful that duty was; how
peevish a patient was the jovial old lady; how angry; how sleepless;
in what horrors of death; during what long nights she lay moaning,
and in almost delirious agonies respecting that future world which
she quite ignored when she was in good health.--Picture to yourself,
oh fair young reader, a worldly, selfish, graceless, thankless,
religionless old woman, writhing in pain and fear, and without her
wig.  Picture her to yourself, and ere you be old, learn to love and
pray!

Sharp watched this graceless bedside with indomitable patience.
Nothing escaped her; and, like a prudent steward, she found a use
for everything.  She told many a good story about Miss Crawley's
illness in after days--stories which made the lady blush through her
artificial carnations.  During the illness she was never out of
temper; always alert; she slept light, having a perfectly clear
conscience; and could take that refreshment at almost any minute's
warning.  And so you saw very few traces of fatigue in her
appearance.  Her face might be a trifle paler, and the circles round
her eyes a little blacker than usual; but whenever she came out from
the sick-room she was always smiling, fresh, and neat, and looked as
trim in her little dressing-gown and cap, as in her smartest evening
suit.

The Captain thought so, and raved about her in uncouth convulsions.
The barbed shaft of love had penetrated his dull hide.  Six weeks--
appropinquity--opportunity--had victimised him completely.  He made
a confidante of his aunt at the Rectory, of all persons in the
world.  She rallied him about it; she had perceived his folly; she
warned him; she finished by owning that little Sharp was the most
clever, droll, odd, good-natured, simple, kindly creature in
England.  Rawdon must not trifle with her affections, though--dear
Miss Crawley would never pardon him for that; for she, too, was
quite overcome by the little governess, and loved Sharp like a
daughter.  Rawdon must go away--go back to his regiment and naughty
London, and not play with a poor artless girl's feelings.

Many and many a time this good-natured lady, compassionating the
forlorn life-guardsman's condition, gave him an opportunity of
seeing Miss Sharp at the Rectory, and of walking home with her, as
we have seen.  When men of a certain sort, ladies, are in love,
though they see the hook and the string, and the whole apparatus
with which they are to be taken, they gorge the bait nevertheless--
they must come to it--they must swallow it--and are presently struck
and landed gasping.  Rawdon saw there was a manifest intention on
Mrs. Bute's part to captivate him with Rebecca.  He was not very
wise; but he was a man about town, and had seen several seasons.  A
light dawned upon his dusky soul, as he thought, through a speech of
Mrs. Bute's.

"Mark my words, Rawdon," she said.  "You will have Miss Sharp one
day for your relation."

"What relation--my cousin, hey, Mrs. Bute? James sweet on her, hey?"
inquired the waggish officer.

"More than that," Mrs. Bute said, with a flash from her black eyes.

"Not Pitt?  He sha'n't have her.  The sneak a'n't worthy of her.
He's booked to Lady Jane Sheepshanks."

"You men perceive nothing.  You silly, blind creature--if anything
happens to Lady Crawley, Miss Sharp will be your mother-in-law; and
that's what will happen."

Rawdon Crawley, Esquire, gave vent to a prodigious whistle, in token
of astonishment at this announcement. He couldn't deny it.  His
father's evident liking for Miss Sharp had not escaped him.  He knew
the old gentleman's character well; and a more unscrupulous old--
whyou--he did not conclude the sentence, but walked home, curling
his mustachios, and convinced he had found a clue to Mrs. Bute's
mystery.

"By Jove, it's too bad," thought Rawdon, "too bad, by Jove! I do
believe the woman wants the poor girl to be ruined, in order that
she shouldn't come into the family as Lady Crawley."

When he saw Rebecca alone, he rallied her about his father's
attachment in his graceful way.  She flung up her head scornfully,
looked him full in the face, and said,

"Well, suppose he is fond of me.  I know he is, and others too.  You
don't think I am afraid of him, Captain Crawley?  You don't suppose
I can't defend my own honour," said the little woman, looking as
stately as a queen.

"Oh, ah, why--give you fair warning--look out, you know--that's
all," said the mustachio-twiddler.

"You hint at something not honourable, then?" said she, flashing
out.

"O Gad--really--Miss Rebecca," the heavy dragoon interposed.

"Do you suppose I have no feeling of self-respect, because I am poor
and friendless, and because rich people have none?  Do you think,
because I am a governess, I have not as much sense, and feeling, and
good breeding as you gentlefolks in Hampshire? I'm a Montmorency. Do
you suppose a Montmorency is not as good as a Crawley?"

When Miss Sharp was agitated, and alluded to her maternal relatives,
she spoke with ever so slight a foreign accent, which gave a great
charm to her clear ringing voice.  "No," she continued, kindling as
she spoke to the Captain; "I can endure poverty, but not shame--
neglect, but not insult; and insult from--from you."

Her feelings gave way, and she burst into tears.

"Hang it, Miss Sharp--Rebecca--by Jove--upon my soul, I wouldn't for
a thousand pounds.  Stop, Rebecca!"

She was gone.  She drove out with Miss Crawley that day.  It was
before the latter's illness.  At dinner she was unusually brilliant
and lively; but she would take no notice of the hints, or the nods,
or the clumsy expostulations of the humiliated, infatuated
guardsman.  Skirmishes of this sort passed perpetually during the
little campaign--tedious to relate, and similar in result.  The
Crawley heavy cavalry was maddened by defeat, and routed every day.

If the Baronet of Queen's Crawley had not had the fear of losing his
sister's legacy before his eyes, he never would have permitted his
dear girls to lose the educational blessings which their invaluable
governess was conferring upon them.  The old house at home seemed a
desert without her, so useful and pleasant had Rebecca made herself
there.  Sir Pitt's letters were not copied and corrected; his books
not made up; his household business and manifold schemes neglected,
now that his little secretary was away.  And it was easy to see how
necessary such an amanuensis was to him, by the tenor and spelling
of the numerous letters which he sent to her, entreating her and
commanding her to return.  Almost every day brought a frank from the
Baronet, enclosing the most urgent prayers to Becky for her return,
or conveying pathetic statements to Miss Crawley, regarding the
neglected state of his daughters' education; of which documents Miss
Crawley took very little heed.

Miss Briggs was not formally dismissed, but her place as companion
was a sinecure and a derision; and her company was the fat spaniel
in the drawing-room, or occasionally the discontented Firkin in the
housekeeper's closet.  Nor though the old lady would by no means
hear of Rebecca's departure, was the latter regularly installed in
office in Park Lane.  Like many wealthy people, it was Miss
Crawley's habit to accept as much service as she could get from her
inferiors; and good-naturedly to take leave of them when she no
longer found them useful.  Gratitude among certain rich folks is
scarcely natural or to be thought of.  They take needy people's
services as their due.  Nor have you, O poor parasite and humble
hanger-on, much reason to complain!  Your friendship for Dives is
about as sincere as the return which it usually gets.  It is money
you love, and not the man; and were Croesus and his footman to
change places you know, you poor rogue, who would have the benefit
of your allegiance.

And I am not sure that, in spite of Rebecca's simplicity and
activity, and gentleness and untiring good humour, the shrewd old
London lady, upon whom these treasures of friendship were lavished,
had not a lurking suspicion all the while of her affectionate nurse
and friend. It must have often crossed Miss Crawley's mind that
nobody does anything for nothing.  If she measured her own feeling
towards the world, she must have been pretty well able to gauge
those of the world towards herself; and perhaps she reflected that
it is the ordinary lot of people to have no friends if they
themselves care for nobody.

Well, meanwhile Becky was the greatest comfort and convenience to
her, and she gave her a couple of new gowns, and an old necklace and
shawl, and showed her friendship by abusing all her intimate
acquaintances to her new confidante (than which there can't be a
more touching proof of regard), and meditated vaguely some great
future benefit--to marry her perhaps to Clump, the apothecary, or to
settle her in some advantageous way of life; or at any rate, to send
her back to Queen's Crawley when she had done with her, and the full
London season had begun.

When Miss Crawley was convalescent and descended to the drawing-
room, Becky sang to her, and otherwise amused her; when she was well
enough to drive out, Becky accompanied her.  And amongst the drives
which they took, whither, of all places in the world, did Miss
Crawley's admirable good-nature and friendship actually induce her
to penetrate, but to Russell Square, Bloomsbury, and the house of
John Sedley, Esquire.

Ere that event, many notes had passed, as may be imagined, between
the two dear friends.  During the months of Rebecca's stay in
Hampshire, the eternal friendship had (must it be owned?) suffered
considerable diminution, and grown so decrepit and feeble with old
age as to threaten demise altogether.  The fact is, both girls had
their own real affairs to think of: Rebecca her advance with her
employers--Amelia her own absorbing topic.  When the two girls met,
and flew into each other's arms with that impetuosity which
distinguishes the behaviour of young ladies towards each other,
Rebecca performed her part of the embrace with the most perfect
briskness and energy.  Poor little Amelia blushed as she kissed her
friend, and thought she had been guilty of something very like
coldness towards her.

Their first interview was but a very short one.  Amelia was just
ready to go out for a walk.  Miss Crawley was waiting in her
carriage below, her people wondering at the locality in which they
found themselves, and gazing upon honest Sambo, the black footman of
Bloomsbury, as one of the queer natives of the place.  But when
Amelia came down with her kind smiling looks (Rebecca must introduce
her to her friend, Miss Crawley was longing to see her, and was too
ill to leave her carriage)--when, I say, Amelia came down, the Park
Lane shoulder-knot aristocracy wondered more and more that such a
thing could come out of Bloomsbury; and Miss Crawley was fairly
captivated by the sweet blushing face of the young lady who came
forward so timidly and so gracefully to pay her respects to the
protector of her friend.

"What a complexion, my dear! What a sweet voice!" Miss Crawley said,
as they drove away westward after the little interview.  "My dear
Sharp, your young friend is charming.  Send for her to Park Lane, do
you hear?" Miss Crawley had a good taste.  She liked natural
manners--a little timidity only set them off.  She liked pretty
faces near her; as she liked pretty pictures and nice china.  She
talked of Amelia with rapture half a dozen times that day.  She
mentioned her to Rawdon Crawley, who came dutifully to partake of
his aunt's chicken.

Of course, on this Rebecca instantly stated that Amelia was engaged
to be married--to a Lieutenant Osborne--a very old flame.

"Is he a man in a line-regiment?" Captain Crawley asked, remembering
after an effort, as became a guardsman, the number of the regiment,
the --th.

Rebecca thought that was the regiment.  "The Captain's name," she
said, "was Captain Dobbin."

"A lanky gawky fellow," said Crawley, "tumbles over everybody.  I
know him; and Osborne's a goodish-looking fellow, with large black
whiskers?"

"Enormous," Miss Rebecca Sharp said, "and enormously proud of them,
I assure you."

Captain Rawdon Crawley burst into a horse-laugh by way of reply; and
being pressed by the ladies to explain, did so when the explosion of
hilarity was over.  "He fancies he can play at billiards," said he.
"I won two hundred of him at the Cocoa-Tree.  HE play, the young
flat!  He'd have played for anything that day, but his friend
Captain Dobbin carried him off, hang him!"

"Rawdon, Rawdon, don't be so wicked," Miss Crawley remarked, highly
pleased.

"Why, ma'am, of all the young fellows I've seen out of the line, I
think this fellow's the greenest.  Tarquin and Deuceace get what
money they like out of him.  He'd go to the deuce to be seen with a
lord.  He pays their dinners at Greenwich, and they invite the
company."

"And very pretty company too, I dare say."

"Quite right, Miss Sharp.  Right, as usual, Miss Sharp. Uncommon
pretty company--haw, haw!" and the Captain laughed more and more,
thinking he had made a good joke.

"Rawdon, don't be naughty!" his aunt exclaimed.

"Well, his father's a City man--immensely rich, they say.  Hang
those City fellows, they must bleed; and I've not done with him yet,
I can tell you.  Haw, haw!"

"Fie, Captain Crawley; I shall warn Amelia.  A gambling husband!"

"Horrid, ain't he, hey?" the Captain said with great solemnity; and
then added, a sudden thought having struck him: "Gad, I say, ma'am,
we'll have him here."

"Is he a presentable sort of a person?" the aunt inquired.

"Presentable?--oh, very well.  You wouldn't see any difference,"
Captain Crawley answered.  "Do let's have him, when you begin to see
a few people; and his whatdyecallem--his inamorato--eh, Miss Sharp;
that's what you call it--comes.  Gad, I'll write him a note, and
have him; and I'll try if he can play piquet as well as billiards.
Where does he live, Miss Sharp?"

Miss Sharp told Crawley the Lieutenant's town address; and a few
days after this conversation, Lieutenant Osborne received a letter,
in Captain Rawdon's schoolboy hand, and enclosing a note of
invitation from Miss Crawley.

Rebecca despatched also an invitation to her darling Amelia, who,
you may be sure, was ready enough to accept it when she heard that
George was to be of the party.  It was arranged that Amelia was to
spend the morning with the ladies of Park Lane, where all were very
kind to her.  Rebecca patronised her with calm superiority: she was
so much the cleverer of the two, and her friend so gentle and
unassuming, that she always yielded when anybody chose to command,
and so took Rebecca's orders with perfect meekness and good humour.
Miss Crawley's graciousness was also remarkable.  She continued her
raptures about little Amelia, talked about her before her face as if
she were a doll, or a servant, or a picture, and admired her with
the most benevolent wonder possible.  I admire that admiration which
the genteel world sometimes extends to the commonalty. There is no
more agreeable object in life than to see Mayfair folks
condescending.  Miss Crawley's prodigious benevolence rather
fatigued poor little Amelia, and I am not sure that of the three
ladies in Park Lane she did not find honest Miss Briggs the most
agreeable.  She sympathised with Briggs as with all neglected or
gentle people: she wasn't what you call a woman of spirit.

George came to dinner--a repast en garcon with Captain Crawley.

The great family coach of the Osbornes transported him to Park Lane
from Russell Square; where the young ladies, who were not themselves
invited, and professed the greatest indifference at that slight,
nevertheless looked at Sir Pitt Crawley's name in the baronetage;
and learned everything which that work had to teach about the
Crawley family and their pedigree, and the Binkies, their relatives,
&c., &c.  Rawdon Crawley received George Osborne with great
frankness and graciousness: praised his play at billiards: asked him
when he would have his revenge: was interested about Osborne's
regiment: and would have proposed piquet to him that very evening,
but Miss Crawley absolutely forbade any gambling in her house; so
that the young Lieutenant's purse was not lightened by his gallant
patron, for that day at least.  However, they made an engagement for
the next, somewhere: to look at a horse that Crawley had to sell,
and to try him in the Park; and to dine together, and to pass the
evening with some jolly fellows.  "That is, if you're not on duty to
that pretty Miss Sedley," Crawley said, with a knowing wink.
"Monstrous nice girl, 'pon my honour, though, Osborne," he was good
enough to add.  "Lots of tin, I suppose, eh?"

Osborne wasn't on duty; he would join Crawley with pleasure: and the
latter, when they met the next day, praised his new friend's
horsemanship--as he might with perfect honesty--and introduced him
to three or four young men of the first fashion, whose acquaintance
immensely elated the simple young officer.

"How's little Miss Sharp, by-the-bye?" Osborne inquired of his
friend over their wine, with a dandified air. "Good-natured little
girl that.  Does she suit you well at Queen's Crawley? Miss Sedley
liked her a good deal last year."

Captain Crawley looked savagely at the Lieutenant out of his little
blue eyes, and watched him when he went up to resume his
acquaintance with the fair governess.  Her conduct must have
relieved Crawley if there was any jealousy in the bosom of that
life-guardsman.

When the young men went upstairs, and after Osborne's introduction
to Miss Crawley, he walked up to Rebecca with a patronising, easy
swagger.  He was going to be kind to her and protect her.  He would
even shake hands with her, as a friend of Amelia's; and saying, "Ah,
Miss Sharp! how-dy-doo?" held out his left hand towards her,
expecting that she would be quite confounded at the honour.

Miss Sharp put out her right forefinger, and gave him a little nod,
so cool and killing, that Rawdon Crawley, watching the operations
from the other room, could hardly restrain his laughter as he saw
the Lieutenant's entire discomfiture; the start he gave, the pause,
and the perfect clumsiness with which he at length condescended to
take the finger which was offered for his embrace.

"She'd beat the devil, by Jove!" the Captain said, in a rapture; and
the Lieutenant, by way of beginning the conversation, agreeably
asked Rebecca how she liked her new place.

"My place?" said Miss Sharp, coolly, "how kind of you to remind me
of it!  It's a tolerably good place: the wages are pretty good--not
so good as Miss Wirt's, I believe, with your sisters in Russell
Square.  How are those young ladies?--not that I ought to ask."

"Why not?" Mr. Osborne said, amazed.

"Why, they never condescended to speak to me, or to ask me into
their house, whilst I was staying with Amelia; but we poor
governesses, you know, are used to slights of this sort."

"My dear Miss Sharp!" Osborne ejaculated.

"At least in some families," Rebecca continued.  "You can't think
what a difference there is though.  We are not so wealthy in
Hampshire as you lucky folks of the City. But then I am in a
gentleman's family--good old English stock.  I suppose you know Sir
Pitt's father refused a peerage.  And you see how I am treated.  I
am pretty comfortable.  Indeed it is rather a good place.  But how
very good of you to inquire!"

Osborne was quite savage.  The little governess patronised him and
persiffled him until this young British Lion felt quite uneasy; nor
could he muster sufficient presence of mind to find a pretext for
backing out of this most delectable conversation.

"I thought you liked the City families pretty well," he said,
haughtily.

"Last year you mean, when I was fresh from that horrid vulgar
school?  Of course I did.  Doesn't every girl like to come home for
the holidays?  And how was I to know any better?  But oh, Mr.
Osborne, what a difference eighteen months' experience makes!
eighteen months spent, pardon me for saying so, with gentlemen.  As
for dear Amelia, she, I grant you, is a pearl, and would be charming
anywhere.  There now, I see you are beginning to be in a good
humour; but oh these queer odd City people! And Mr. Jos--how is that
wonderful Mr. Joseph?"

"It seems to me you didn't dislike that wonderful Mr. Joseph last
year," Osborne said kindly.

"How severe of you!  Well, entre nous, I didn't break my heart about
him; yet if he had asked me to do what you mean by your looks (and
very expressive and kind they are, too), I wouldn't have said no."

Mr. Osborne gave a look as much as to say, "Indeed, how very
obliging!"

"What an honour to have had you for a brother-in-law, you are
thinking? To be sister-in-law to George Osborne, Esquire, son of
John Osborne, Esquire, son of--what was your grandpapa, Mr. Osborne?
Well, don't be angry.  You can't help your pedigree, and I quite
agree with you that I would have married Mr. Joe Sedley; for could a
poor penniless girl do better?  Now you know the whole secret.  I'm
frank and open; considering all things, it was very kind of you to
allude to the circumstance--very kind and polite.  Amelia dear, Mr.
Osborne and I were talking about your poor brother Joseph. How is
he?"

Thus was George utterly routed.  Not that Rebecca was in the right;
but she had managed most successfully to put him in the wrong.  And
he now shamefully fled, feeling, if he stayed another minute, that
he would have been made to look foolish in the presence of Amelia.

Though Rebecca had had the better of him, George was above the
meanness of talebearing or revenge upon a lady--only he could not
help cleverly confiding to Captain Crawley, next day, some notions
of his regarding Miss Rebecca--that she was a sharp one, a dangerous
one, a desperate flirt, &c.; in all of which opinions Crawley agreed
laughingly, and with every one of which Miss Rebecca was made
acquainted before twenty-four hours were over.  They added to her
original regard for Mr. Osborne.  Her woman's instinct had told her
that it was George who had interrupted the success of her first
love-passage, and she esteemed him accordingly.

"I only just warn you," he said to Rawdon Crawley, with a knowing
look--he had bought the horse, and lost some score of guineas after
dinner, "I just warn you--I know women, and counsel you to be on the
look-out."

"Thank you, my boy," said Crawley, with a look of peculiar
gratitude.  "You're wide awake, I see." And George went off,
thinking Crawley was quite right.

He told Amelia of what he had done, and how he had counselled Rawdon
Crawley--a devilish good, straightforward fellow--to be on his guard
against that little sly, scheming Rebecca.

"Against whom?" Amelia cried.

"Your friend the governess.--Don't look so astonished."

"O George, what have you done?" Amelia said.  For her woman's eyes,
which Love had made sharp-sighted, had in one instant discovered a
secret which was invisible to Miss Crawley, to poor virgin Briggs,
and above all, to the stupid peepers of that young whiskered prig,
Lieutenant Osborne.

For as Rebecca was shawling her in an upper apartment, where these
two friends had an opportunity for a little of that secret talking
and conspiring which form the delight of female life, Amelia, coming
up to Rebecca, and taking her two little hands in hers, said,
"Rebecca, I see it all."

Rebecca kissed her.

And regarding this delightful secret, not one syllable more was said
by either of the young women.  But it was destined to come out
before long.

Some short period after the above events, and Miss Rebecca Sharp
still remaining at her patroness's house in Park Lane, one more
hatchment might have been seen in Great Gaunt Street, figuring
amongst the many which usually ornament that dismal quarter.  It was
over Sir Pitt Crawley's house; but it did not indicate the worthy
baronet's demise.  It was a feminine hatchment, and indeed a few
years back had served as a funeral compliment to Sir Pitt's old
mother, the late dowager Lady Crawley. Its period of service over,
the hatchment had come down from the front of the house, and lived
in retirement somewhere in the back premises of Sir Pitt's mansion.
It reappeared now for poor Rose Dawson.  Sir Pitt was a widower
again.  The arms quartered on the shield along with his own were
not, to be sure, poor Rose's. She had no arms.  But the cherubs
painted on the scutcheon answered as well for her as for Sir Pitt's
mother, and Resurgam was written under the coat, flanked by the
Crawley Dove and Serpent.  Arms and Hatchments, Resurgam.--Here is
an opportunity for moralising!

Mr. Crawley had tended that otherwise friendless bedside.  She went
out of the world strengthened by such words and comfort as he could
give her.  For many years his was the only kindness she ever knew;
the only friendship that solaced in any way that feeble, lonely
soul. Her heart was dead long before her body.  She had sold it to
become Sir Pitt Crawley's wife.  Mothers and daughters are making
the same bargain every day in Vanity Fair.

When the demise took place, her husband was in London attending to
some of his innumerable schemes, and busy with his endless lawyers.
He had found time, nevertheless, to call often in Park Lane, and to
despatch many notes to Rebecca, entreating her, enjoining her,
commanding her to return to her young pupils in the country, who
were now utterly without companionship during their mother's
illness.  But Miss Crawley would not hear of her departure; for
though there was no lady of fashion in London who would desert her
friends more complacently as soon as she was tired of their society,
and though few tired of them sooner, yet as long as her engoument
lasted her attachment was prodigious, and she clung still with the
greatest energy to Rebecca.

The news of Lady Crawley's death provoked no more grief or comment
than might have been expected in Miss Crawley's family circle.  "I
suppose I must put off my party for the 3rd," Miss Crawley said; and
added, after a pause, "I hope my brother will have the decency not
to marry again." "What a confounded rage Pitt will be in if he
does," Rawdon remarked, with his usual regard for his elder brother.
Rebecca said nothing.  She seemed by far the gravest and most
impressed of the family.  She left the room before Rawdon went away
that day; but they met by chance below, as he was going away after
taking leave, and had a parley together.

On the morrow, as Rebecca was gazing from the window, she startled
Miss Crawley, who was placidly occupied with a French novel, by
crying out in an alarmed tone, "Here's Sir Pitt, Ma'am!" and the
Baronet's knock followed this announcement.

"My dear, I can't see him.  I won't see him.  Tell Bowls not at
home, or go downstairs and say I'm too ill to receive any one.  My
nerves really won't bear my brother at this moment," cried out Miss
Crawley, and resumed the novel.

"She's too ill to see you, sir," Rebecca said, tripping down to Sir
Pitt, who was preparing to ascend.

"So much the better," Sir Pitt answered.  "I want to see YOU, Miss
Becky.  Come along a me into the parlour," and they entered that
apartment together.

"I wawnt you back at Queen's Crawley, Miss," the baronet said,
fixing his eyes upon her, and taking off his black gloves and his
hat with its great crape hat-band. His eyes had such a strange look,
and fixed upon her so steadfastly, that Rebecca Sharp began almost
to tremble.

"I hope to come soon," she said in a low voice, "as soon as Miss
Crawley is better--and return to--to the dear children."

"You've said so these three months, Becky," replied Sir Pitt, "and
still you go hanging on to my sister, who'll fling you off like an
old shoe, when she's wore you out. I tell you I want you.  I'm going
back to the Vuneral. Will you come back?  Yes or no?"

"I daren't--I don't think--it would be right--to be alone--with you,
sir," Becky said, seemingly in great agitation.

"I say agin, I want you," Sir Pitt said, thumping the table.  "I
can't git on without you.  I didn't see what it was till you went
away.  The house all goes wrong.  It's not the same place.  All my
accounts has got muddled agin. You MUST come back.  Do come back.
Dear Becky, do come."

"Come--as what, sir?" Rebecca gasped out.

"Come as Lady Crawley, if you like," the Baronet said, grasping his
crape hat.  "There! will that zatusfy you? Come back and be my wife.
Your vit vor't.  Birth be hanged.  You're as good a lady as ever I
see.  You've got more brains in your little vinger than any
baronet's wife in the county.  Will you come? Yes or no?"

"Oh, Sir Pitt!" Rebecca said, very much moved.

"Say yes, Becky," Sir Pitt continued.  "I'm an old man, but a
good'n.  I'm good for twenty years.  I'll make you happy, zee if I
don't.  You shall do what you like; spend what you like; and 'ave it
all your own way.  I'll make you a zettlement.  I'll do everything
reglar.  Look year!" and the old man fell down on his knees and
leered at her like a satyr.

Rebecca started back a picture of consternation.  In the course of
this history we have never seen her lose her presence of mind; but
she did now, and wept some of the most genuine tears that ever fell
from her eyes.

"Oh, Sir Pitt!" she said.  "Oh, sir--I--I'm married ALREADY."



CHAPTER XV

In Which Rebecca's Husband Appears for a Short Time


Every reader of a sentimental turn (and we desire no other) must
have been pleased with the tableau with which the last act of our
little drama concluded; for what can be prettier than an image of
Love on his knees before Beauty?

But when Love heard that awful confession from Beauty that she was
married already, he bounced up from his attitude of humility on the
carpet, uttering exclamations which caused poor little Beauty to be
more frightened than she was when she made her avowal.  "Married;
you're joking," the Baronet cried, after the first explosion of rage
and wonder.  "You're making vun of me, Becky.  Who'd ever go to
marry you without a shilling to your vortune?"

"Married! married!" Rebecca said, in an agony of tears--her voice
choking with emotion, her handkerchief up to her ready eyes,
fainting against the mantelpiece a figure of woe fit to melt the
most obdurate heart.  "O Sir Pitt, dear Sir Pitt, do not think me
ungrateful for all your goodness to me.  It is only your generosity
that has extorted my secret."

"Generosity be hanged!" Sir Pitt roared out.  "Who is it tu, then,
you're married? Where was it?"

"Let me come back with you to the country, sir!  Let me watch over
you as faithfully as ever!  Don't, don't separate me from dear
Queen's Crawley!"

"The feller has left you, has he?" the Baronet said, beginning, as
he fancied, to comprehend.  "Well, Becky--come back if you like.
You can't eat your cake and have it.  Any ways I made you a vair
offer.  Coom back as governess--you shall have it all your own way."
She held out one hand.  She cried fit to break her heart; her
ringlets fell over her face, and over the marble mantelpiece where
she laid it.

"So the rascal ran off, eh?"  Sir Pitt said, with a hideous attempt
at consolation.  "Never mind, Becky, I'LL take care of 'ee."

"Oh, sir! it would be the pride of my life to go back to Queen's
Crawley, and take care of the children, and of you as formerly, when
you said you were pleased with the services of your little Rebecca.
When I think of what you have just offered me, my heart fills with
gratitude indeed it does.  I can't be your wife, sir; let me--let me
be your daughter."  Saying which, Rebecca went down on HER knees in
a most tragical way, and, taking Sir Pitt's horny black hand between
her own two (which were very pretty and white, and as soft as
satin), looked up in his face with an expression of exquisite pathos
and confidence, when--when the door opened, and Miss Crawley sailed
in.

Mrs. Firkin and Miss Briggs, who happened by chance to be at the
parlour door soon after the Baronet and Rebecca entered the
apartment, had also seen accidentally, through the keyhole, the old
gentleman prostrate before the governess, and had heard the generous
proposal which he made her.  It was scarcely out of his mouth when
Mrs. Firkin and Miss Briggs had streamed up the stairs, had rushed
into the drawing-room where Miss Crawley was reading the French
novel, and had given that old lady the astounding intelligence that
Sir Pitt was on his knees, proposing to Miss Sharp.  And if you
calculate the time for the above dialogue to take place--the time
for Briggs and Firkin to fly to the drawing-room--the time for Miss
Crawley to be astonished, and to drop her volume of Pigault le Brun
--and the time for her to come downstairs--you will see how exactly
accurate this history is, and how Miss Crawley must have appeared at
the very instant when Rebecca had assumed the attitude of humility.

"It is the lady on the ground, and not the gentleman," Miss Crawley
said, with a look and voice of great scorn. "They told me that YOU
were on your knees, Sir Pitt: do kneel once more, and let me see
this pretty couple!"

"I have thanked Sir Pitt Crawley, Ma'am," Rebecca said, rising, "and
have told him that--that I never can become Lady Crawley."

"Refused him!"  Miss Crawley said, more bewildered than ever.
Briggs and Firkin at the door opened the eyes of astonishment and
the lips of wonder.

"Yes--refused," Rebecca continued, with a sad, tearful voice.

"And am I to credit my ears that you absolutely proposed to her, Sir
Pitt?" the old lady asked.

"Ees," said the Baronet, "I did."

"And she refused you as she says?"

"Ees," Sir Pitt said, his features on a broad grin.

"It does not seem to break your heart at any rate," Miss Crawley
remarked.

"Nawt a bit," answered Sir Pitt, with a coolness and good-humour
which set Miss Crawley almost mad with bewilderment.  That an old
gentleman of station should fall on his knees to a penniless
governess, and burst out laughing because she refused to marry him--
that a penniless governess should refuse a Baronet with four
thousand a year--these were mysteries which Miss Crawley could never
comprehend.  It surpassed any complications of intrigue in her
favourite Pigault le Brun.

"I'm glad you think it good sport, brother," she continued, groping
wildly through this amazement.

"Vamous," said Sir Pitt.  "Who'd ha' thought it! what a sly little
devil! what a little fox it waws!" he muttered to himself, chuckling
with pleasure.

"Who'd have thought what?" cries Miss Crawley, stamping with her
foot.  "Pray, Miss Sharp, are you waiting for the Prince Regent's
divorce, that you don't think our family good enough for you?"

"My attitude," Rebecca said, "when you came in, ma'am, did not look
as if I despised such an honour as this good--this noble man has
deigned to offer me.  Do you think I have no heart?  Have you all
loved me, and been so kind to the poor orphan--deserted--girl, and
am I to feel nothing?  O my friends!  O my benefactors! may not my
love, my life, my duty, try to repay the confidence you have shown
me?  Do you grudge me even gratitude, Miss Crawley?  It is too much-
-my heart is too full"; and she sank down in a chair so
pathetically, that most of the audience present were perfectly
melted with her sadness.

"Whether you marry me or not, you're a good little girl, Becky, and
I'm your vriend, mind," said Sir Pitt, and putting on his crape-
bound hat, he walked away--greatly to Rebecca's relief; for it was
evident that her secret was unrevealed to Miss Crawley, and she had
the advantage of a brief reprieve.

Putting her handkerchief to her eyes, and nodding away honest
Briggs, who would have followed her upstairs, she went up to her
apartment; while Briggs and Miss Crawley, in a high state of
excitement, remained to discuss the strange event, and Firkin, not
less moved, dived down into the kitchen regions, and talked of it
with all the male and female company there.  And so impressed was
Mrs. Firkin with the news, that she thought proper to write off by
that very night's post, "with her humble duty to Mrs. Bute Crawley
and the family at the Rectory, and Sir Pitt has been and proposed
for to marry Miss Sharp, wherein she has refused him, to the wonder
of all."

The two ladies in the dining-room (where worthy Miss Briggs was
delighted to be admitted once more to confidential conversation with
her patroness) wondered to their hearts' content at Sir Pitt's
offer, and Rebecca's refusal; Briggs very acutely suggesting that
there must have been some obstacle in the shape of a previous
attachment, otherwise no young woman in her senses would ever have
refused so advantageous a proposal.

"You would have accepted it yourself, wouldn't you, Briggs?" Miss
Crawley said, kindly.

"Would it not be a privilege to be Miss Crawley's sister?" Briggs
replied, with meek evasion.

"Well, Becky would have made a good Lady Crawley, after all," Miss
Crawley remarked (who was mollified by the girl's refusal, and very
liberal and generous now there was no call for her sacrifices).
"She has brains in plenty (much more wit in her little finger than
you have, my poor dear Briggs, in all your head).  Her manners are
excellent, now I have formed her.  She is a Montmorency, Briggs, and
blood is something, though I despise it for my part; and she would
have held her own amongst those pompous stupid Hampshire people much
better than that unfortunate ironmonger's daughter."

Briggs coincided as usual, and the "previous attachment" was then
discussed in conjectures.  "You poor friendless creatures are always
having some foolish tendre," Miss Crawley said.  "You yourself, you
know, were in love with a writing-master (don't cry, Briggs--you're
always crying, and it won't bring him to life again), and I suppose
this unfortunate Becky has been silly and sentimental too--some
apothecary, or house-steward, or painter, or young curate, or
something of that sort."

"Poor thing! poor thing!" says Briggs (who was thinking of twenty-
four years back, and that hectic young writing-master whose lock of
yellow hair, and whose letters, beautiful in their illegibility, she
cherished in her old desk upstairs).  "Poor thing, poor thing!" says
Briggs.  Once more she was a fresh-cheeked lass of eighteen; she was
at evening church, and the hectic writing-master and she were
quavering out of the same psalm-book.

"After such conduct on Rebecca's part," Miss Crawley said
enthusiastically, "our family should do something. Find out who is
the objet, Briggs.  I'll set him up in a shop; or order my portrait
of him, you know; or speak to my cousin, the Bishop and I'll doter
Becky, and we'll have a wedding, Briggs, and you shall make the
breakfast, and be a bridesmaid."

Briggs declared that it would be delightful, and vowed that her dear
Miss Crawley was always kind and generous, and went up to Rebecca's
bedroom to console her and prattle about the offer, and the refusal,
and the cause thereof; and to hint at the generous intentions of
Miss Crawley, and to find out who was the gentleman that had the
mastery of Miss Sharp's heart.

Rebecca was very kind, very affectionate and affected--responded to
Briggs's offer of tenderness with grateful fervour--owned there was
a secret attachment--a delicious mystery--what a pity Miss Briggs
had not remained half a minute longer at the keyhole!  Rebecca
might, perhaps, have told more: but five minutes after Miss Briggs's
arrival in Rebecca's apartment, Miss Crawley actually made her
appearance there--an unheard-of honour--her impatience had overcome
her; she could not wait for the tardy operations of her
ambassadress: so she came in person, and ordered Briggs out of the
room. And expressing her approval of Rebecca's conduct, she asked
particulars of the interview, and the previous transactions which
had brought about the astonishing offer of Sir Pitt.

Rebecca said she had long had some notion of the partiality with
which Sir Pitt honoured her (for he was in the habit of making his
feelings known in a very frank and unreserved manner) but, not to
mention private reasons with which she would not for the present
trouble Miss Crawley, Sir Pitt's age, station, and habits were such
as to render a marriage quite impossible; and could a woman with any
feeling of self-respect and any decency listen to proposals at such
a moment, when the funeral of the lover's deceased wife had not
actually taken place?

"Nonsense, my dear, you would never have refused him had there not
been some one else in the case," Miss Crawley said, coming to her
point at once.  "Tell me the private reasons; what are the private
reasons?  There is some one; who is it that has touched your heart?"

Rebecca cast down her eyes, and owned there was. "You have guessed
right, dear lady," she said, with a sweet simple faltering voice.
"You wonder at one so poor and friendless having an attachment,
don't you? I have never heard that poverty was any safeguard against
it.  I wish it were."

"My poor dear child," cried Miss Crawley, who was always quite ready
to be sentimental, "is our passion unrequited, then?  Are we pining
in secret? Tell me all, and let me console you."

"I wish you could, dear Madam," Rebecca said in the same tearful
tone.  "Indeed, indeed, I need it." And she laid her head upon Miss
Crawley's shoulder and wept there so naturally that the old lady,
surprised into sympathy, embraced her with an almost maternal
kindness, uttered many soothing protests of regard and affection for
her, vowed that she loved her as a daughter, and would do everything
in her power to serve her.  "And now who is it, my dear?  Is it that
pretty Miss Sedley's brother?  You said something about an affair
with him. I'll ask him here, my dear.  And you shall have him:
indeed you shall."

"Don't ask me now," Rebecca said.  "You shall know all soon.  Indeed
you shall.  Dear kind Miss Crawley--dear friend, may I say so?"

"That you may, my child," the old lady replied, kissing her.

"I can't tell you now," sobbed out Rebecca, "I am very miserable.
But O! love me always--promise you will love me always." And in the
midst of mutual tears--for the emotions of the younger woman had
awakened the sympathies of the elder--this promise was solemnly
given by Miss Crawley, who left her little protege, blessing and
admiring her as a dear, artless, tender-hearted, affectionate,
incomprehensible creature.

And now she was left alone to think over the sudden and wonderful
events of the day, and of what had been and what might have been.
What think you were the private feelings of Miss, no (begging her
pardon) of Mrs. Rebecca?  If, a few pages back, the present writer
claimed the privilege of peeping into Miss Amelia Sedley's bedroom,
and understanding with the omniscience of the novelist all the
gentle pains and passions which were tossing upon that innocent
pillow, why should he not declare himself to be Rebecca's confidante
too, master of her secrets, and seal-keeper of that young woman's
conscience?

Well, then, in the first place, Rebecca gave way to some very
sincere and touching regrets that a piece of marvellous good fortune
should have been so near her, and she actually obliged to decline
it.  In this natural emotion every properly regulated mind will
certainly share.  What good mother is there that would not
commiserate a penniless spinster, who might have been my lady, and
have shared four thousand a year?  What well-bred young person is
there in all Vanity Fair, who will not feel for a hard-working,
ingenious, meritorious girl, who gets such an honourable,
advantageous, provoking offer, just at the very moment when it is
out of her power to accept it?  I am sure our friend Becky's
disappointment deserves and will command every sympathy.

I remember one night being in the Fair myself, at an evening party.
I observed old Miss Toady there also present, single out for her
special attentions and flattery little Mrs. Briefless, the
barrister's wife, who is of a good family certainly, but, as we all
know, is as poor as poor can be.

What, I asked in my own mind, can cause this obsequiousness on the
part of Miss Toady; has Briefless got a county court, or has his
wife had a fortune left her? Miss Toady explained presently, with
that simplicity which distinguishes all her conduct.  "You know,"
she said, "Mrs Briefless is granddaughter of Sir John Redhand, who
is so ill at Cheltenham that he can't last six months.  Mrs.
Briefless's papa succeeds; so you see she will be a baronet's
daughter." And Toady asked Briefless and his wife to dinner the very
next week.

If the mere chance of becoming a baronet's daughter can procure a
lady such homage in the world, surely, surely we may respect the
agonies of a young woman who has lost the opportunity of becoming a
baronet's wife.  Who would have dreamed of Lady Crawley dying so
soon?  She was one of those sickly women that might have lasted
these ten years--Rebecca thought to herself, in all the woes of
repentance--and I might have been my lady!  I might have led that
old man whither I would.  I might have thanked Mrs. Bute for her
patronage, and Mr. Pitt for his insufferable condescension.  I would
have had the town-house newly furnished and decorated.  I would have
had the handsomest carriage in London, and a box at the opera; and I
would have been presented next season.  All this might have been;
and now--now all was doubt and mystery.

But Rebecca was a young lady of too much resolution and energy of
character to permit herself much useless and unseemly sorrow for the
irrevocable past; so, having devoted only the proper portion of
regret to it, she wisely turned her whole attention towards the
future, which was now vastly more important to her.  And she
surveyed her position, and its hopes, doubts, and chances.

In the first place, she was MARRIED--that was a great fact.  Sir
Pitt knew it.  She was not so much surprised into the avowal, as
induced to make it by a sudden calculation. It must have come some
day: and why not now as at a later period? He who would have married
her himself must at least be silent with regard to her marriage. How
Miss Crawley would bear the news--was the great question.
Misgivings Rebecca had; but she remembered all Miss Crawley had
said; the old lady's avowed contempt for birth; her daring liberal
opinions; her general romantic propensities; her almost doting
attachment to her nephew, and her repeatedly expressed fondness for
Rebecca herself.  She is so fond of him, Rebecca thought, that she
will forgive him anything: she is so used to me that I don't think
she could be comfortable without me: when the eclaircissement comes
there will be a scene, and hysterics, and a great quarrel, and then
a great reconciliation.  At all events, what use was there in
delaying? the die was thrown, and now or to-morrow the issue must be
the same.  And so, resolved that Miss Crawley should have the news,
the young person debated in her mind as to the best means of
conveying it to her; and whether she should face the storm that must
come, or fly and avoid it until its first fury was blown over.  In
this state of meditation she wrote the following letter:

Dearest Friend,

The great crisis which we have debated about so often is COME.  Half
of my secret is known, and I have thought and thought, until I am
quite sure that now is the time to reveal THE WHOLE OF THE MYSTERY.
Sir Pitt came to me this morning, and made--what do you think?--A
DECLARATION IN FORM.  Think of that!  Poor little me.  I might have
been Lady Crawley.  How pleased Mrs. Bute would have been: and ma
tante if I had taken precedence of her! I might have been somebody's
mamma, instead of--O, I tremble, I tremble, when I think how soon we
must tell all!

Sir Pitt knows I am married, and not knowing to whom, is not very
much displeased as yet.  Ma tante is ACTUALLY ANGRY that I should
have refused him.  But she is all kindness and graciousness.  She
condescends to say I would have made him a good wife; and vows that
she will be a mother to your little Rebecca.  She will be shaken
when she first hears the news.  But need we fear anything beyond a
momentary anger?  I think not: I AM SURE not.  She dotes upon you so
(you naughty, good-for-nothing man), that she would pardon you
ANYTHING: and, indeed, I believe, the next place in her heart is
mine: and that she would be miserable without me. Dearest! something
TELLS ME we shall conquer.  You shall leave that odious regiment:
quit gaming, racing, and BE A GOOD BOY; and we shall all live in
Park Lane, and ma tante shall leave us all her money.

I shall try and walk to-morrow at 3 in the usual place. If Miss B.
accompanies me, you must come to dinner, and bring an answer, and
put it in the third volume of Porteus's Sermons.  But, at all
events, come to your own

R.

To Miss Eliza Styles, At Mr. Barnet's, Saddler, Knightsbridge.

And I trust there is no reader of this little story who has not
discernment enough to perceive that the Miss Eliza Styles (an old
schoolfellow, Rebecca said, with whom she had resumed an active
correspondence of late, and who used to fetch these letters from the
saddler's), wore brass spurs, and large curling mustachios, and was
indeed no other than Captain Rawdon Crawley.



CHAPTER XVI

The Letter on the Pincushion


How they were married is not of the slightest consequence to
anybody.  What is to hinder a Captain who is a major, and a young
lady who is of age, from purchasing a licence, and uniting
themselves at any church in this town?  Who needs to be told, that
if a woman has a will she will assuredly find a way?--My belief is
that one day, when Miss Sharp had gone to pass the forenoon with her
dear friend Miss Amelia Sedley in Russell Square, a lady very like
her might have been seen entering a church in the City, in company
with a gentleman with dyed mustachios, who, after a quarter of an
hour's interval, escorted her back to the hackney-coach in waiting,
and that this was a quiet bridal party.

And who on earth, after the daily experience we have, can question
the probability of a gentleman marrying anybody? How many of the
wise and learned have married their cooks?  Did not Lord Eldon
himself, the most prudent of men, make a runaway match? Were not
Achilles and Ajax both in love with their servant maids? And are we
to expect a heavy dragoon with strong desires and small brains, who
had never controlled a passion in his life, to become prudent all of
a sudden, and to refuse to pay any price for an indulgence to which
he had a mind?  If people only made prudent marriages, what a stop
to population there would be!

It seems to me, for my part, that Mr. Rawdon's marriage was one of
the honestest actions which we shall have to record in any portion
of that gentleman's biography which has to do with the present
history.  No one will say it is unmanly to be captivated by a woman,
or, being captivated, to marry her; and the admiration, the delight,
the passion, the wonder, the unbounded confidence, and frantic
adoration with which, by degrees, this big warrior got to regard the
little Rebecca, were feelings which the ladies at least will
pronounce were not altogether discreditable to him.  When she sang,
every note thrilled in his dull soul, and tingled through his huge
frame.  When she spoke, he brought all the force of his brains to
listen and wonder. If she was jocular, he used to revolve her jokes
in his mind, and explode over them half an hour afterwards in the
street, to the surprise of the groom in the tilbury by his side, or
the comrade riding with him in Rotten Row. Her words were oracles to
him, her smallest actions marked by an infallible grace and wisdom.
"How she sings,--how she paints," thought he.  "How she rode that
kicking mare at Queen's Crawley!"  And he would say to her in
confidential moments, "By Jove, Beck, you're fit to be Commander-in-
Chief, or Archbishop of Canterbury, by Jove."  Is his case a rare
one? and don't we see every day in the world many an honest Hercules
at the apron-strings of Omphale, and great whiskered Samsons
prostrate in Delilah's lap?

When, then, Becky told him that the great crisis was near, and the
time for action had arrived, Rawdon expressed himself as ready to
act under her orders, as he would be to charge with his troop at the
command of his colonel.  There was no need for him to put his letter
into the third volume of Porteus.  Rebecca easily found a means to
get rid of Briggs, her companion, and met her faithful friend in
"the usual place" on the next day.  She had thought over matters at
night, and communicated to Rawdon the result of her determinations.
He agreed, of course, to everything; was quite sure that it was all
right: that what she proposed was best; that Miss Crawley would
infallibly relent, or "come round," as he said, after a time.  Had
Rebecca's resolutions been entirely different, he would have
followed them as implicitly.  "You have head enough for both of us,
Beck," said he.  "You're sure to get us out of the scrape.  I never
saw your equal, and I've met with some clippers in my time too." And
with this simple confession of faith, the love-stricken dragoon left
her to execute his part of the project which she had formed for the
pair.

It consisted simply in the hiring of quiet lodgings at Brompton, or
in the neighbourhood of the barracks, for Captain and Mrs. Crawley.
For Rebecca had determined, and very prudently, we think, to fly.
Rawdon was only too happy at her resolve; he had been entreating her
to take this measure any time for weeks past.  He pranced off to
engage the lodgings with all the impetuosity of love.  He agreed to
pay two guineas a week so readily, that the landlady regretted she
had asked him so little. He ordered in a piano, and half a nursery-
house full of flowers: and a heap of good things.  As for shawls,
kid gloves, silk stockings, gold French watches, bracelets and
perfumery, he sent them in with the profusion of blind love and
unbounded credit.  And having relieved his mind by this outpouring
of generosity, he went and dined nervously at the club, waiting
until the great moment of his life should come.

The occurrences of the previous day; the admirable conduct of
Rebecca in refusing an offer so advantageous to her, the secret
unhappiness preying upon her, the sweetness and silence with which
she bore her affliction, made Miss Crawley much more tender than
usual.  An event of this nature, a marriage, or a refusal, or a
proposal, thrills through a whole household of women, and sets all
their hysterical sympathies at work.  As an observer of human
nature, I regularly frequent St. George's, Hanover Square, during
the genteel marriage season; and though I have never seen the
bridegroom's male friends give way to tears, or the beadles and
officiating clergy any way affected, yet it is not at all uncommon
to see women who are not in the least concerned in the operations
going on--old ladies who are long past marrying, stout middle-aged
females with plenty of sons and daughters, let alone pretty young
creatures in pink bonnets, who are on their promotion, and may
naturally take an interest in the ceremony--I say it is quite common
to see the women present piping, sobbing, sniffling; hiding their
little faces in their little useless pocket-handkerchiefs; and
heaving, old and young, with emotion.  When my friend, the
fashionable John Pimlico, married the lovely Lady Belgravia Green
Parker, the excitement was so general that even the little snuffy
old pew-opener who let me into the seat was in tears.  And
wherefore? I inquired of my own soul: she was not going to be
married.

Miss Crawley and Briggs in a word, after the affair of Sir Pitt,
indulged in the utmost luxury of sentiment, and Rebecca became an
object of the most tender interest to them.  In her absence Miss
Crawley solaced herself with the most sentimental of the novels in
her library.  Little Sharp, with her secret griefs, was the heroine
of the day.

That night Rebecca sang more sweetly and talked more pleasantly than
she had ever been heard to do in Park Lane.  She twined herself
round the heart of Miss Crawley. She spoke lightly and laughingly of
Sir Pitt's proposal, ridiculed it as the foolish fancy of an old
man; and her eyes filled with tears, and Briggs's heart with
unutterable pangs of defeat, as she said she desired no other lot
than to remain for ever with her dear benefactress.  "My dear little
creature," the old lady said, "I don't intend to let you stir for
years, that you may depend upon it.  As for going back to that
odious brother of mine after what has passed, it is out of the
question.  Here you stay with me and Briggs.  Briggs wants to go to
see her relations very often.  Briggs, you may go when you like.
But as for you, my dear, you must stay and take care of the old
woman."

If Rawdon Crawley had been then and there present, instead of being
at the club nervously drinking claret, the pair might have gone down
on their knees before the old spinster, avowed all, and been
forgiven in a twinkling. But that good chance was denied to the
young couple, doubtless in order that this story might be written,
in which numbers of their wonderful adventures are narrated--
adventures which could never have occurred to them if they had been
housed and sheltered under the comfortable uninteresting forgiveness
of Miss Crawley.

Under Mrs. Firkin's orders, in the Park Lane establishment, was a
young woman from Hampshire, whose business it was, among other
duties, to knock at Miss Sharp's door with that jug of hot water
which Firkin would rather have perished than have presented to the
intruder.  This girl, bred on the family estate, had a brother in
Captain Crawley's troop, and if the truth were known, I daresay it
would come out that she was aware of certain arrangements, which
have a great deal to do with this history. At any rate she purchased
a yellow shawl, a pair of green boots, and a light blue hat with a
red feather with three guineas which Rebecca gave her, and as little
Sharp was by no means too liberal with her money, no doubt it was
for services rendered that Betty Martin was so bribed.

On the second day after Sir Pitt Crawley's offer to Miss Sharp, the
sun rose as usual, and at the usual hour Betty Martin, the upstairs
maid, knocked at the door of the governess's bedchamber.

No answer was returned, and she knocked again.  Silence was still
uninterrupted; and Betty, with the hot water, opened the door and
entered the chamber.

The little white dimity bed was as smooth and trim as on the day
previous, when Betty's own hands had helped to make it.  Two little
trunks were corded in one end of the room; and on the table before
the window--on the pincushion the great fat pincushion lined with
pink inside, and twilled like a lady's nightcap--lay a letter.  It
had been reposing there probably all night.

Betty advanced towards it on tiptoe, as if she were afraid to awake
it--looked at it, and round the room, with an air of great wonder
and satisfaction; took up the letter, and grinned intensely as she
turned it round and over, and finally carried it into Miss Briggs's
room below.

How could Betty tell that the letter was for Miss Briggs, I should
like to know?  All the schooling Betty had had was at Mrs. Bute
Crawley's Sunday school, and she could no more read writing than
Hebrew.

"La, Miss Briggs," the girl exclaimed, "O, Miss, something must have
happened--there's nobody in Miss Sharp's room; the bed ain't been
slep in, and she've run away, and left this letter for you, Miss."

"WHAT!" cries Briggs, dropping her comb, the thin wisp of faded hair
falling over her shoulders; "an elopement! Miss Sharp a fugitive!
What, what is this?" and she eagerly broke the neat seal, and, as
they say, "devoured the contents" of the letter addressed to her.

Dear Miss Briggs [the refugee wrote], the kindest heart in the
world, as yours is, will pity and sympathise with me and excuse me.
With tears, and prayers, and blessings, I leave the home where the
poor orphan has ever met with kindness and affection.  Claims even
superior to those of my benefactress call me hence.  I go to my
duty--to my HUSBAND.  Yes, I am married.  My husband COMMANDS me to
seek the HUMBLE HOME which we call ours.  Dearest Miss Briggs, break
the news as your delicate sympathy will know how to do it--to my
dear, my beloved friend and benefactress.  Tell her, ere I went, I
shed tears on her dear pillow--that pillow that I have so often
soothed in sickness--that I long AGAIN to watch--Oh, with what joy
shall I return to dear Park Lane! How I tremble for the answer which
is to SEAL MY FATE! When Sir Pitt deigned to offer me his hand, an
honour of which my beloved Miss Crawley said I was DESERVING (my
blessings go with her for judging the poor orphan worthy to be HER
SISTER!) I told Sir Pitt that I was already A WIFE.  Even he forgave
me.  But my courage failed me, when I should have told him all--that
I could not be his wife, for I WAS HIS DAUGHTER!  I am wedded to the
best and most generous of men--Miss Crawley's Rawdon is MY Rawdon.
At his COMMAND I open my lips, and follow him to our humble home, as
I would THROUGH THE WORLD.  O, my excellent and kind friend,
intercede with my Rawdon's beloved aunt for him and the poor girl to
whom all HIS NOBLE RACE have shown such UNPARALLELED AFFECTION.  Ask
Miss Crawley to receive HER CHILDREN.  I can say no more, but
blessings, blessings on all in the dear house I leave, prays

Your affectionate and GRATEFUL
Rebecca Crawley.
Midnight.

Just as Briggs had finished reading this affecting and interesting
document, which reinstated her in her position as first confidante
of Miss Crawley, Mrs. Firkin entered the room.  "Here's Mrs. Bute
Crawley just arrived by the mail from Hampshire, and wants some tea;
will you come down and make breakfast, Miss?"

And to the surprise of Firkin, clasping her dressing-gown around
her, the wisp of hair floating dishevelled behind her, the little
curl-papers still sticking in bunches round her forehead, Briggs
sailed down to Mrs. Bute with the letter in her hand containing the
wonderful news.

"Oh, Mrs. Firkin," gasped Betty, "sech a business.  Miss Sharp have
a gone and run away with the Capting, and they're off to Gretney
Green!"  We would devote a chapter to describe the emotions of Mrs.
Firkin, did not the passions of her mistresses occupy our genteeler
muse.

When Mrs. Bute Crawley, numbed with midnight travelling, and warming
herself at the newly crackling parlour fire, heard from Miss Briggs
the intelligence of the clandestine marriage, she declared it was
quite providential that she should have arrived at such a time to
assist poor dear Miss Crawley in supporting the shock--that Rebecca
was an artful little hussy of whom she had always had her
suspicions; and that as for Rawdon Crawley, she never could account
for his aunt's infatuation regarding him, and had long considered
him a profligate, lost, and abandoned being.  And this awful
conduct, Mrs. Bute said, will have at least this good effect, it
will open poor dear Miss Crawley's eyes to the real character of
this wicked man.  Then Mrs. Bute had a comfortable hot toast and
tea; and as there was a vacant room in the house now, there was no
need for her to remain at the Gloster Coffee House where the
Portsmouth mail had set her down, and whence she ordered Mr. Bowls's
aide-de-camp the footman to bring away her trunks.

Miss Crawley, be it known, did not leave her room until near noon--
taking chocolate in bed in the morning, while Becky Sharp read the
Morning Post to her, or otherwise amusing herself or dawdling.  The
conspirators below agreed that they would spare the dear lady's
feelings until she appeared in her drawing-room: meanwhile it was
announced to her that Mrs. Bute Crawley had come up from Hampshire
by the mail, was staying at the Gloster, sent her love to Miss
Crawley, and asked for breakfast with Miss Briggs.  The arrival of
Mrs. Bute, which would not have caused any extreme delight at
another period, was hailed with pleasure now; Miss Crawley being
pleased at the notion of a gossip with her sister-in-law regarding
the late Lady Crawley, the funeral arrangements pending, and Sir
Pitt's abrupt proposal to Rebecca.

It was not until the old lady was fairly ensconced in her usual arm-
chair in the drawing-room, and the preliminary embraces and
inquiries had taken place between the ladies, that the conspirators
thought it advisable to submit her to the operation.  Who has not
admired the artifices and delicate approaches with which women
"prepare" their friends for bad news?  Miss Crawley's two friends
made such an apparatus of mystery before they broke the intelligence
to her, that they worked her up to the necessary degree of doubt and
alarm.

"And she refused Sir Pitt, my dear, dear Miss Crawley, prepare
yourself for it," Mrs. Bute said, "because--because she couldn't
help herself."

"Of course there was a reason," Miss Crawley answered. "She liked
somebody else.  I told Briggs so yesterday."

"LIKES somebody else!" Briggs gasped.  "O my dear friend, she is
married already."

"Married already," Mrs. Bute chimed in; and both sate with clasped
hands looking from each other at their victim.

"Send her to me, the instant she comes in.  The little sly wretch:
how dared she not tell me?" cried out Miss Crawley.

"She won't come in soon.  Prepare yourself, dear friend--she's gone
out for a long time--she's--she's gone altogether."

"Gracious goodness, and who's to make my chocolate? Send for her and
have her back; I desire that she come back," the old lady said.

"She decamped last night, Ma'am," cried Mrs. Bute.

"She left a letter for me," Briggs exclaimed.  "She's married to--"

"Prepare her, for heaven's sake.  Don't torture her, my dear Miss
Briggs."

"She's married to whom?" cries the spinster in a nervous fury.

"To--to a relation of--"

"She refused Sir Pitt," cried the victim.  "Speak at once. Don't
drive me mad."

"O Ma'am--prepare her, Miss Briggs--she's married to Rawdon
Crawley."

"Rawdon married Rebecca--governess--nobod-- Get out of my house, you
fool, you idiot--you stupid old Briggs--how dare you? You're in the
plot--you made him marry, thinking that I'd leave my money from him--
you did, Martha," the poor old lady screamed in hysteric sentences.

"I, Ma'am, ask a member of this family to marry a drawing-master's
daughter?"

"Her mother was a Montmorency," cried out the old lady, pulling at
the bell with all her might.

"Her mother was an opera girl, and she has been on the stage or
worse herself," said Mrs. Bute.

Miss Crawley gave a final scream, and fell back in a faint.  They
were forced to take her back to the room which she had just quitted.
One fit of hysterics succeeded another.  The doctor was sent for--
the apothecary arrived. Mrs. Bute took up the post of nurse by her
bedside.  "Her relations ought to be round about her," that amiable
woman said.

She had scarcely been carried up to her room, when a new person
arrived to whom it was also necessary to break the news.  This was
Sir Pitt.  "Where's Becky?" he said, coming in.  "Where's her traps?
She's coming with me to Queen's Crawley."

"Have you not heard the astonishing intelligence regarding her
surreptitious union?" Briggs asked.

"What's that to me?" Sir Pitt asked.  "I know she's married.  That
makes no odds.  Tell her to come down at once, and not keep me."

"Are you not aware, sir," Miss Briggs asked, "that she has left our
roof, to the dismay of Miss Crawley, who is nearly killed by the
intelligence of Captain Rawdon's union with her?"

When Sir Pitt Crawley heard that Rebecca was married to his son, he
broke out into a fury of language, which it would do no good to
repeat in this place, as indeed it sent poor Briggs shuddering out
of the room; and with her we will shut the door upon the figure of
the frenzied old man, wild with hatred and insane with baffled
desire.

One day after he went to Queen's Crawley, he burst like a madman
into the room she had used when there--dashed open her boxes with
his foot, and flung about her papers, clothes, and other relics.
Miss Horrocks, the butler's daughter, took some of them.  The
children dressed themselves and acted plays in the others.  It was
but a few days after the poor mother had gone to her lonely burying-
place; and was laid, unwept and disregarded, in a vault full of
strangers.

"Suppose the old lady doesn't come to," Rawdon said to his little
wife, as they sate together in the snug little Brompton lodgings.
She had been trying the new piano all the morning.  The new gloves
fitted her to a nicety; the new shawls became her wonderfully; the
new rings glittered on her little hands, and the new watch ticked at
her waist; "suppose she don't come round, eh, Becky?"

"I'LL make your fortune," she said; and Delilah patted Samson's
cheek.

"You can do anything," he said, kissing the little hand. "By Jove
you can; and we'll drive down to the Star and Garter, and dine, by
Jove."



CHAPTER XVII

How Captain Dobbin Bought a Piano


If there is any exhibition in all Vanity Fair which Satire and
Sentiment can visit arm in arm together; where you light on the
strangest contrasts laughable and tearful: where you may be gentle
and pathetic, or savage and cynical with perfect propriety: it is at
one of those public assemblies, a crowd of which are advertised
every day in the last page of the Times newspaper, and over which
the late Mr. George Robins used to preside with so much dignity.
There are very few London people, as I fancy, who have not attended
at these meetings, and all with a taste for moralizing must have
thought, with a sensation and interest not a little startling and
queer, of the day when their turn shall come too, and Mr. Hammerdown
will sell by the orders of Diogenes' assignees, or will be
instructed by the executors, to offer to public competition, the
library, furniture, plate, wardrobe, and choice cellar of wines of
Epicurus deceased.

Even with the most selfish disposition, the Vanity Fairian, as he
witnesses this sordid part of the obsequies of a departed friend,
can't but feel some sympathies and regret. My Lord Dives's remains
are in the family vault: the statuaries are cutting an inscription
veraciously commemorating his virtues, and the sorrows of his heir,
who is disposing of his goods.  What guest at Dives's table can pass
the familiar house without a sigh?--the familiar house of which
the lights used to shine so cheerfully at seven o'clock, of which
the hall-doors opened so readily, of which the obsequious servants,
as you passed up the comfortable stair, sounded your name from
landing to landing, until it reached the apartment where jolly old
Dives welcomed his friends!  What a number of them he had; and what
a noble way of entertaining them.  How witty people used to be here
who were morose when they got out of the door; and how courteous and
friendly men who slandered and hated each other everywhere else!  He
was pompous, but with such a cook what would one not swallow? he was
rather dull, perhaps, but would not such wine make any conversation
pleasant?  We must get some of his Burgundy at any price, the
mourners cry at his club.  "I got this box at old Dives's sale,"
Pincher says, handing it round, "one of Louis XV's mistresses--
pretty thing, is it not?--sweet miniature," and they talk of the way
in which young Dives is dissipating his fortune.

How changed the house is, though!  The front is patched over with
bills, setting forth the particulars of the furniture in staring
capitals.  They have hung a shred of carpet out of an upstairs
window--a half dozen of porters are lounging on the dirty steps--the
hall swarms with dingy guests of oriental countenance, who thrust
printed cards into your hand, and offer to bid.  Old women and
amateurs have invaded the upper apartments, pinching the bed-
curtains, poking into the feathers, shampooing the mattresses, and
clapping the wardrobe drawers to and fro. Enterprising young
housekeepers are measuring the looking-glasses and hangings to see
if they will suit the new menage (Snob will brag for years that he
has purchased this or that at Dives's sale), and Mr. Hammerdown is
sitting on the great mahogany dining-tables, in the dining-room
below, waving the ivory hammer, and employing all the artifices of
eloquence, enthusiasm, entreaty, reason, despair; shouting to his
people; satirizing Mr. Davids for his sluggishness; inspiriting Mr.
Moss into action; imploring, commanding, bellowing, until down comes
the hammer like fate, and we pass to the next lot.  O Dives, who
would ever have thought, as we sat round the broad table sparkling
with plate and spotless linen, to have seen such a dish at the head
of it as that roaring auctioneer?

It was rather late in the sale.  The excellent drawing-room
furniture by the best makers; the rare and famous wines selected,
regardless of cost, and with the well-known taste of the purchaser;
the rich and complete set of family plate had been sold on the
previous days.  Certain of the best wines (which all had a great
character among amateurs in the neighbourhood) had been purchased
for his master, who knew them very well, by the butler of our friend
John Osborne, Esquire, of Russell Square.  A small portion of the
most useful articles of the plate had been bought by some young
stockbrokers from the City.  And now the public being invited to the
purchase of minor objects, it happened that the orator on the table
was expatiating on the merits of a picture, which he sought to
recommend to his audience: it was by no means so select or numerous
a company as had attended the previous days of the auction.

"No. 369," roared Mr. Hammerdown.  "Portrait of a gentleman on an
elephant.  Who'll bid for the gentleman on the elephant?  Lift up
the picture, Blowman, and let the company examine this lot." A long,
pale, military-looking gentleman, seated demurely at the mahogany
table, could not help grinning as this valuable lot was shown by Mr.
Blowman.  "Turn the elephant to the Captain, Blowman.  What shall we
say, sir, for the elephant?" but the Captain, blushing in a very
hurried and discomfited manner, turned away his head.

"Shall we say twenty guineas for this work of art?--fifteen, five,
name your own price.  The gentleman without the elephant is worth
five pound."

"I wonder it ain't come down with him," said a professional wag,
"he's anyhow a precious big one"; at which (for the elephant-rider
was represented as of a very stout figure) there was a general
giggle in the room.

"Don't be trying to deprecate the value of the lot, Mr. Moss," Mr.
Hammerdown said; "let the company examine it as a work of art--the
attitude of the gallant animal quite according to natur'; the
gentleman in a nankeen jacket, his gun in his hand, is going to the
chase; in the distance a banyhann tree and a pagody, most likely
resemblances of some interesting spot in our famous Eastern
possessions.  How much for this lot? Come, gentlemen, don't keep me
here all day."

Some one bid five shillings, at which the military gentleman looked
towards the quarter from which this splendid offer had come, and
there saw another officer with a young lady on his arm, who both
appeared to be highly amused with the scene, and to whom, finally,
this lot was knocked down for half a guinea.  He at the table looked
more surprised and discomposed than ever when he spied this pair,
and his head sank into his military collar, and he turned his back
upon them, so as to avoid them altogether.

Of all the other articles which Mr. Hammerdown had the honour to
offer for public competition that day it is not our purpose to make
mention, save of one only, a little square piano, which came down
from the upper regions of the house (the state grand piano having
been disposed of previously); this the young lady tried with a rapid
and skilful hand (making the officer blush and start again), and for
it, when its turn came, her agent began to bid.

But there was an opposition here.  The Hebrew aide-de-camp in the
service of the officer at the table bid against the Hebrew gentleman
employed by the elephant purchasers, and a brisk battle ensued over
this little piano, the combatants being greatly encouraged by Mr.
Hammerdown.

At last, when the competition had been prolonged for some time, the
elephant captain and lady desisted from the race; and the hammer
coming down, the auctioneer said:--"Mr. Lewis, twenty-five," and Mr.
Lewis's chief thus became the proprietor of the little square piano.
Having effected the purchase, he sate up as if he was greatly
relieved, and the unsuccessful competitors catching a glimpse of him
at this moment, the lady said to her friend,

"Why, Rawdon, it's Captain Dobbin."

I suppose Becky was discontented with the new piano her husband had
hired for her, or perhaps the proprietors of that instrument had
fetched it away, declining farther credit, or perhaps she had a
particular attachment for the one which she had just tried to
purchase, recollecting it in old days, when she used to play upon
it, in the little sitting-room of our dear Amelia Sedley.

The sale was at the old house in Russell Square, where we passed
some evenings together at the beginning of this story.  Good old
John Sedley was a ruined man.  His name had been proclaimed as a
defaulter on the Stock Exchange, and his bankruptcy and commercial
extermination had followed.  Mr. Osborne's butler came to buy some
of the famous port wine to transfer to the cellars over the way. As
for one dozen well-manufactured silver spoons and forks at per oz.,
and one dozen dessert ditto ditto, there were three young
stockbrokers (Messrs. Dale, Spiggot, and Dale, of Threadneedle
Street, indeed), who, having had dealings with the old man, and
kindnesses from him in days when he was kind to everybody with whom
he dealt, sent this little spar out of the wreck with their love to
good Mrs. Sedley; and with respect to the piano, as it had been
Amelia's, and as she might miss it and want one now, and as Captain
William Dobbin could no more play upon it than he could dance on the
tight rope, it is probable that he did not purchase the instrument
for his own use.

In a word, it arrived that evening at a wonderful small cottage in a
street leading from the Fulham Road--one of those streets which have
the finest romantic names--(this was called St. Adelaide Villas,
Anna-Maria Road West), where the houses look like baby-houses; where
the people, looking out of the first-floor windows, must infallibly,
as you think, sit with their feet in the parlours; where the shrubs
in the little gardens in front bloom with a perennial display of
little children's pinafores, little red socks, caps, &c. (polyandria
polygynia); whence you hear the sound of jingling spinets and women
singing; where little porter pots hang on the railings sunning
themselves; whither of evenings you see City clerks padding wearily:
here it was that Mr. Clapp, the clerk of Mr. Sedley, had his
domicile, and in this asylum the good old gentleman hid his head
with his wife and daughter when the crash came.

Jos Sedley had acted as a man of his disposition would, when the
announcement of the family misfortune reached him.  He did not come
to London, but he wrote to his mother to draw upon his agents for
whatever money was wanted, so that his kind broken-spirited old
parents had no present poverty to fear.  This done, Jos went on at
the boarding-house at Cheltenham pretty much as before.  He drove
his curricle; he drank his claret; he played his rubber; he told his
Indian stories, and the Irish widow consoled and flattered him as
usual. His present of money, needful as it was, made little
impression on his parents; and I have heard Amelia say that the
first day on which she saw her father lift up his head after the
failure was on the receipt of the packet of forks and spoons with
the young stockbrokers' love, over which he burst out crying like a
child, being greatly more affected than even his wife, to whom the
present was addressed.  Edward Dale, the junior of the house, who
purchased the spoons for the firm, was, in fact, very sweet upon
Amelia, and offered for her in spite of all. He married Miss Louisa
Cutts (daughter of Higham and Cutts, the eminent cornfactors) with a
handsome fortune in 1820; and is now living in splendour, and with a
numerous family, at his elegant villa, Muswell Hill.  But we must
not let the recollections of this good fellow cause us to diverge
from the principal history.

I hope the reader has much too good an opinion of Captain and Mrs.
Crawley to suppose that they ever would have dreamed of paying a
visit to so remote a district as Bloomsbury, if they thought the
family whom they proposed to honour with a visit were not merely out
of fashion, but out of money, and could be serviceable to them in no
possible manner.  Rebecca was entirely surprised at the sight of the
comfortable old house where she had met with no small kindness,
ransacked by brokers and bargainers, and its quiet family treasures
given up to public desecration and plunder.  A month after her
flight, she had bethought her of Amelia, and Rawdon, with a horse-
laugh, had expressed a perfect willingness to see young George
Osborne again.  "He's a very agreeable acquaintance, Beck," the wag
added.  "I'd like to sell him another horse, Beck.  I'd like to play
a few more games at billiards with him.  He'd be what I call useful
just now, Mrs. C.--ha, ha!" by which sort of speech it is not to be
supposed that Rawdon Crawley had a deliberate desire to cheat Mr.
Osborne at play, but only wished to take that fair advantage of him
which almost every sporting gentleman in Vanity Fair considers to be
his due from his neighbour.

The old aunt was long in "coming-to." A month had elapsed.  Rawdon
was denied the door by Mr. Bowls; his servants could not get a
lodgment in the house at Park Lane; his letters were sent back
unopened.  Miss Crawley never stirred out--she was unwell--and Mrs.
Bute remained still and never left her.  Crawley and his wife both
of them augured evil from the continued presence of Mrs. Bute.

"Gad, I begin to perceive now why she was always bringing us
together at Queen's Crawley," Rawdon said.

"What an artful little woman!" ejaculated Rebecca.

"Well, I don't regret it, if you don't," the Captain cried, still in
an amorous rapture with his wife, who rewarded him with a kiss by
way of reply, and was indeed not a little gratified by the generous
confidence of her husband.

"If he had but a little more brains," she thought to herself, "I
might make something of him"; but she never let him perceive the
opinion she had of him; listened with indefatigable complacency to
his stories of the stable and the mess; laughed at all his jokes;
felt the greatest interest in Jack Spatterdash, whose cab-horse had
come down, and Bob Martingale, who had been taken up in a gambling-
house, and Tom Cinqbars, who was going to ride the steeplechase.
When he came home she was alert and happy: when he went out she
pressed him to go: when he stayed at home, she played and sang for
him, made him good drinks, superintended his dinner, warmed his
slippers, and steeped his soul in comfort.  The best of women (I
have heard my grandmother say) are hypocrites.  We don't know how
much they hide from us: how watchful they are when they seem most
artless and confidential: how often those frank smiles which they
wear so easily, are traps to cajole or elude or disarm--I don't mean
in your mere coquettes, but your domestic models, and paragons of
female virtue. Who has not seen a woman hide the dulness of a stupid
husband, or coax the fury of a savage one?  We accept this amiable
slavishness, and praise a woman for it: we call this pretty
treachery truth.  A good housewife is of necessity a humbug; and
Cornelia's husband was hoodwinked, as Potiphar was--only in a
different way.

By these attentions, that veteran rake, Rawdon Crawley, found
himself converted into a very happy and submissive married man.  His
former haunts knew him not. They asked about him once or twice at
his clubs, but did not miss him much: in those booths of Vanity Fair
people seldom do miss each other.  His secluded wife ever smiling
and cheerful, his little comfortable lodgings, snug meals, and
homely evenings, had all the charms of novelty and secrecy.  The
marriage was not yet declared to the world, or published in the
Morning Post.  All his creditors would have come rushing on him in a
body, had they known that he was united to a woman without fortune.
"My relations won't cry fie upon me," Becky said, with rather a
bitter laugh; and she was quite contented to wait until the old aunt
should be reconciled, before she claimed her place in society.  So
she lived at Brompton, and meanwhile saw no one, or only those few
of her husband's male companions who were admitted into her little
dining-room.  These were all charmed with her.  The little dinners,
the laughing and chatting, the music afterwards, delighted all who
participated in these enjoyments.  Major Martingale never thought
about asking to see the marriage licence, Captain Cinqbars was
perfectly enchanted with her skill in making punch.  And young
Lieutenant Spatterdash (who was fond of piquet, and whom Crawley
would often invite) was evidently and quickly smitten by Mrs.
Crawley; but her own circumspection and modesty never forsook her
for a moment, and Crawley's reputation as a fire-eating and jealous
warrior was a further and complete defence to his little wife.

There are gentlemen of very good blood and fashion in this city, who
never have entered a lady's drawing-room; so that though Rawdon
Crawley's marriage might be talked about in his county, where, of
course, Mrs. Bute had spread the news, in London it was doubted, or
not heeded, or not talked about at all.  He lived comfortably on
credit.  He had a large capital of debts, which laid out
judiciously, will carry a man along for many years, and on which
certain men about town contrive to live a hundred times better than
even men with ready money can do.  Indeed who is there that walks
London streets, but can point out a half-dozen of men riding by him
splendidly, while he is on foot, courted by fashion, bowed into
their carriages by tradesmen, denying themselves nothing, and living
on who knows what?  We see Jack Thriftless prancing in the park, or
darting in his brougham down Pall Mall: we eat his dinners served on
his miraculous plate.  "How did this begin," we say, "or where will
it end?" "My dear fellow," I heard Jack once say, "I owe money in
every capital in Europe."  The end must come some day, but in the
meantime Jack thrives as much as ever; people are glad enough to
shake him by the hand, ignore the little dark stories that are
whispered every now and then against him, and pronounce him a good-
natured, jovial, reckless fellow.

Truth obliges us to confess that Rebecca had married a gentleman of
this order.  Everything was plentiful in his house but ready money,
of which their menage pretty early felt the want; and reading the
Gazette one day, and coming upon the announcement of "Lieutenant G.
Osborne to be Captain by purchase, vice Smith, who exchanges,"
Rawdon uttered that sentiment regarding Amelia's lover, which ended
in the visit to Russell Square.

When Rawdon and his wife wished to communicate with Captain Dobbin
at the sale, and to know particulars of the catastrophe which had
befallen Rebecca's old acquaintances, the Captain had vanished; and
such information as they got was from a stray porter or broker at
the auction.

"Look at them with their hooked beaks," Becky said, getting into the
buggy, her picture under her arm, in great glee.  "They're like
vultures after a battle."

"Don't know.  Never was in action, my dear.  Ask Martingale; he was
in Spain, aide-de-camp to General Blazes."

"He was a very kind old man, Mr. Sedley," Rebecca said; "I'm really
sorry he's gone wrong."

"O stockbrokers--bankrupts--used to it, you know," Rawdon replied,
cutting a fly off the horse's ear.

"I wish we could have afforded some of the plate, Rawdon," the wife
continued sentimentally.  "Five-and-twenty guineas was monstrously
dear for that little piano. We chose it at Broadwood's for Amelia,
when she came from school.  It only cost five-and-thirty then."

"What-d'-ye-call'em--'Osborne,' will cry off now, I suppose, since
the family is smashed.  How cut up your pretty little friend will
be; hey, Becky?"

"I daresay she'll recover it," Becky said with a smile--and they
drove on and talked about something else.



CHAPTER XVIII

Who Played on the Piano Captain Dobbin Bought


Our surprised story now finds itself for a moment among very famous
events and personages, and hanging on to the skirts of history.
When the eagles of Napoleon Bonaparte, the Corsican upstart, were
flying from Provence, where they had perched after a brief sojourn
in Elba, and from steeple to steeple until they reached the towers
of Notre Dame, I wonder whether the Imperial birds had any eye for a
little corner of the parish of Bloomsbury, London, which you might
have thought so quiet, that even the whirring and flapping of those
mighty wings would pass unobserved there?

"Napoleon has landed at Cannes."  Such news might create a panic at
Vienna, and cause Russia to drop his cards, and take Prussia into a
corner, and Talleyrand and Metternich to wag their heads together,
while Prince Hardenberg, and even the present Marquis of
Londonderry, were puzzled; but how was this intelligence to affect a
young lady in Russell Square, before whose door the watchman sang
the hours when she was asleep: who, if she strolled in the square,
was guarded there by the railings and the beadle:  who, if she
walked ever so short a distance to buy a ribbon in Southampton Row,
was followed by Black Sambo with an enormous cane:  who was always
cared for, dressed, put to bed, and watched over by ever so many
guardian angels, with and without wages?  Bon Dieu, I say, is it not
hard that the fateful rush of the great Imperial struggle can't take
place without affecting a poor little harmless girl of eighteen, who
is occupied in billing and cooing, or working muslin collars in
Russell Square?  You too, kindly, homely flower!--is the great
roaring war tempest coming to sweep you down, here, although
cowering under the shelter of Holborn?  Yes; Napoleon is flinging
his last stake, and poor little Emmy Sedley's happiness forms,
somehow, part of it.

In the first place, her father's fortune was swept down with that
fatal news.  All his speculations had of late gone wrong with the
luckless old gentleman.  Ventures had failed; merchants had broken;
funds had risen when he calculated they would fall.  What need to
particularize? If success is rare and slow, everybody knows how
quick and easy ruin is.  Old Sedley had kept his own sad counsel.
Everything seemed to go on as usual in the quiet, opulent house; the
good-natured mistress pursuing, quite unsuspiciously, her bustling
idleness, and daily easy avocations; the daughter absorbed still in
one selfish, tender thought, and quite regardless of all the world
besides, when that final crash came, under which the worthy family
fell.

One night Mrs. Sedley was writing cards for a party; the Osbornes
had given one, and she must not be behindhand; John Sedley, who had
come home very late from the City, sate silent at the chimney side,
while his wife was prattling to him; Emmy had gone up to her room
ailing and low-spirited.  "She's not happy," the mother went on.
"George Osborne neglects her.  I've no patience with the airs of
those people.  The girls have not been in the house these three
weeks; and George has been twice in town without coming.  Edward
Dale saw him at the Opera.  Edward would marry her I'm sure: and
there's Captain Dobbin who, I think, would--only I hate all army
men.  Such a dandy as George has become.  With his military airs,
indeed!  We must show some folks that we're as good as they.  Only
give Edward Dale any encouragement, and you'll see.  We must have a
party, Mr. S.  Why don't you speak, John?  Shall I say Tuesday
fortnight? Why don't you answer? Good God, John, what has happened?"

John Sedley sprang up out of his chair to meet his wife, who ran to
him.  He seized her in his arms, and said with a hasty voice, "We're
ruined, Mary.  We've got the world to begin over again, dear.  It's
best that you should know all, and at once."  As he spoke, he
trembled in every limb, and almost fell.  He thought the news would
have overpowered his wife--his wife, to whom he had never said a
hard word.  But it was he that was the most moved, sudden as the
shock was to her.  When he sank back into his seat, it was the wife
that took the office of consoler.  She took his trembling hand, and
kissed it, and put it round her neck: she called him her John--her
dear John--her old man--her kind old man; she poured out a hundred
words of incoherent love and tenderness; her faithful voice and
simple caresses wrought this sad heart up to an inexpressible
delight and anguish, and cheered and solaced his over-burdened soul.

Only once in the course of the long night as they sate together, and
poor Sedley opened his pent-up soul, and told the story of his
losses and embarrassments--the treason of some of his oldest
friends, the manly kindness of some, from whom he never could have
expected it--in a general confession--only once did the faithful
wife give way to emotion.

"My God, my God, it will break Emmy's heart," she said.

The father had forgotten the poor girl.  She was lying, awake and
unhappy, overhead.  In the midst of friends, home, and kind parents,
she was alone.  To how many people can any one tell all?  Who will
be open where there is no sympathy, or has call to speak to those
who never can understand?  Our gentle Amelia was thus solitary.  She
had no confidante, so to speak, ever since she had anything to
confide.  She could not tell the old mother her doubts and cares;
the would-be sisters seemed every day more strange to her.  And she
had misgivings and fears which she dared not acknowledge to herself,
though she was always secretly brooding over them.

Her heart tried to persist in asserting that George Osborne was
worthy and faithful to her, though she knew otherwise.  How many a
thing had she said, and got no echo from him.  How many suspicions
of selfishness and indifference had she to encounter and obstinately
overcome.  To whom could the poor little martyr tell these daily
struggles and tortures?  Her hero himself only half understood her.
She did not dare to own that the man she loved was her inferior; or
to feel that she had given her heart away too soon.  Given once, the
pure bashful maiden was too modest, too tender, too trustful, too
weak, too much woman to recall it.  We are Turks with the affections
of our women; and have made them subscribe to our doctrine too.  We
let their bodies go abroad liberally enough, with smiles and
ringlets and pink bonnets to disguise them instead of veils and
yakmaks.  But their souls must be seen by only one man, and they
obey not unwillingly, and consent to remain at home as our slaves--
ministering to us and doing drudgery for us.

So imprisoned and tortured was this gentle little heart, when in the
month of March, Anno Domini 1815, Napoleon landed at Cannes, and
Louis XVIII fled, and all Europe was in alarm, and the funds fell,
and old John Sedley was ruined.

We are not going to follow the worthy old stockbroker through those
last pangs and agonies of ruin through which he passed before his
commercial demise befell. They declared him at the Stock Exchange;
he was absent from his house of business: his bills were protested:
his act of bankruptcy formal.  The house and furniture of Russell
Square were seized and sold up, and he and his family were thrust
away, as we have seen, to hide their heads where they might.

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.

That he would consider himself beaten, after one defeat, and make no
attempt to regain the position he had lost, Mrs. Bute Crawley never
allowed herself to suppose. She knew Rebecca to be too clever and
spirited and desperate a woman to submit without a struggle; and
felt that she must prepare for that combat, and be incessantly
watchful against assault; or mine, or surprise.

In the first place, though she held the town, was she sure of the
principal inhabitant?  Would Miss Crawley herself hold out; and had
she not a secret longing to welcome back the ousted adversary?  The
old lady liked Rawdon, and Rebecca, who amused her.  Mrs. Bute could
not disguise from herself the fact that none of her party could so
contribute to the pleasures of the town-bred lady.  "My girls'
singing, after that little odious governess's, I know is
unbearable," the candid Rector's wife owned to herself.  "She always
used to go to sleep when Martha and Louisa played their duets.
Jim's stiff college manners and poor dear Bute's talk about his dogs
and horses always annoyed her.  If I took her to the Rectory, she
would grow angry with us all, and fly, I know she would; and might
fall into that horrid Rawdon's clutches again, and be the victim of
that little viper of a Sharp.  Meanwhile, it is clear to me that she
is exceedingly unwell, and cannot move for some weeks, at any rate;
during which we must think of some plan to protect her from the arts
of those unprincipled people."

In the very best-of moments, if anybody told Miss Crawley that she
was, or looked ill, the trembling old lady sent off for her doctor;
and I daresay she was very unwell after the sudden family event,
which might serve to shake stronger nerves than hers.  At least,
Mrs. Bute thought it was her duty to inform the physician, and the
apothecary, and the dame-de-compagnie, and the domestics, that Miss
Crawley was in a most critical state, and that they were to act
accordingly.  She had the street laid knee-deep with straw; and the
knocker put by with Mr. Bowls's plate.  She insisted that the Doctor
should call twice a day; and deluged her patient with draughts every
two hours.  When anybody entered the room, she uttered a shshshsh so
sibilant and ominous, that it frightened the poor old lady in her
bed, from which she could not look without seeing Mrs. Bute's beady
eyes eagerly fixed on her, as the latter sate steadfast in the arm-
chair by the bedside.  They seemed to lighten in the dark (for she
kept the curtains closed) as she moved about the room on velvet paws
like a cat.  There Miss Crawley lay for days--ever so many days--Mr.
Bute reading books of devotion to her: for nights, long nights,
during which she had to hear the watchman sing, the night-light
sputter; visited at midnight, the last thing, by the stealthy
apothecary; and then left to look at Mrs. Bute's twinkling eyes, or
the flicks of yellow that the rushlight threw on the dreary darkened
ceiling.  Hygeia herself would have fallen sick under such a
regimen; and how much more this poor old nervous victim?  It has
been said that when she was in health and good spirits, this
venerable inhabitant of Vanity Fair had as free notions about
religion and morals as Monsieur de Voltaire himself could desire,
but when illness overtook her, it was aggravated by the most
dreadful terrors of death, and an utter cowardice took possession of
the prostrate old sinner.

Sick-bed homilies and pious reflections are, to be sure, out of
place in mere story-books, and we are not going (after the fashion
of some novelists of the present day) to cajole the public into a
sermon, when it is only a comedy that the reader pays his money to
witness.  But, without preaching, the truth may surely be borne in
mind, that the bustle, and triumph, and laughter, and gaiety which
Vanity Fair exhibits in public, do not always pursue the performer
into private life, and that the most dreary depression of spirits
and dismal repentances sometimes overcome him.  Recollection of the
best ordained banquets will scarcely cheer sick epicures.
Reminiscences of the most becoming dresses and brilliant ball
triumphs will go very little way to console faded beauties.  Perhaps
statesmen, at a particular period of existence, are not much
gratified at thinking over the most triumphant divisions; and the
success or the pleasure of yesterday becomes of very small account
when a certain (albeit uncertain) morrow is in view, about which all
of us must some day or other be speculating.  O brother wearers of
motley!  Are there not moments when one grows sick of grinning and
tumbling, and the jingling of cap and bells?  This, dear friends and
companions, is my amiable object--to walk with you through the Fair,
to examine the shops and the shows there; and that we should all
come home after the flare, and the noise, and the gaiety, and be
perfectly miserable in private.

"If that poor man of mine had a head on his shoulders," Mrs. Bute
Crawley thought to herself, "how useful he might be, under present
circumstances, to this unhappy old lady!  He might make her repent
of her shocking free-thinking ways; he might urge her to do her
duty, and cast off that odious reprobate who has disgraced himself
and his family; and he might induce her to do justice to my dear
girls and the two boys, who require and deserve, I am sure, every
assistance which their relatives can give them."

And, as the hatred of vice is always a progress towards virtue, Mrs.
Bute Crawley endeavoured to instil her sister-in-law a proper
abhorrence for all Rawdon Crawley's manifold sins: of which his
uncle's wife brought forward such a catalogue as indeed would have
served to condemn a whole regiment of young officers.  If a man has
committed wrong in life, I don't know any moralist more anxious to
point his errors out to the world than his own relations; so Mrs.
Bute showed a perfect family interest and knowledge of Rawdon's
history.  She had all the particulars of that ugly quarrel with
Captain Marker, in which Rawdon, wrong from the beginning, ended in
shooting the Captain.  She knew how the unhappy Lord Dovedale, whose
mamma had taken a house at Oxford, so that he might be educated
there, and who had never touched a card in his life till he came to
London, was perverted by Rawdon at the Cocoa-Tree, made helplessly
tipsy by this abominable seducer and perverter of youth, and fleeced
of four thousand pounds.  She described with the most vivid
minuteness the agonies of the country families whom he had ruined--
the sons whom he had plunged into dishonour and poverty--the
daughters whom he had inveigled into perdition.  She knew the poor
tradesmen who were bankrupt by his extravagance--the mean shifts and
rogueries with which he had ministered to it--the astounding
falsehoods by which he had imposed upon the most generous of aunts,
and the ingratitude and ridicule by which he had repaid her
sacrifices.  She imparted these stories gradually to Miss Crawley;
gave her the whole benefit of them; felt it to be her bounden duty
as a Christian woman and mother of a family to do so; had not the
smallest remorse or compunction for the victim whom her tongue was
immolating; nay, very likely thought her act was quite meritorious,
and plumed herself upon her resolute manner of performing it.  Yes,
if a man's character is to be abused, say what you will, there's
nobody like a relation to do the business.  And one is bound to own,
regarding this unfortunate wretch of a Rawdon Crawley, that the mere
truth was enough to condemn him, and that all inventions of scandal
were quite superfluous pains on his friends' parts.

Rebecca, too, being now a relative, came in for the fullest share of
Mrs. Bute's kind inquiries.  This indefatigable pursuer of truth
(having given strict orders that the door was to be denied to all
emissaries or letters from Rawdon), took Miss Crawley's carriage,
and drove to her old friend Miss Pinkerton, at Minerva House,
Chiswick Mall, to whom she announced the dreadful intelligence of
Captain Rawdon's seduction by Miss Sharp, and from whom she got
sundry strange particulars regarding the ex-governess's birth and
early history.  The friend of the Lexicographer had plenty of
information to give.  Miss Jemima was made to fetch the drawing-
master's receipts and letters.  This one was from a spunging-house:
that entreated an advance: another was full of gratitude for
Rebecca's reception by the ladies of Chiswick: and the last document
from the unlucky artist's pen was that in which, from his dying bed,
he recommended his orphan child to Miss Pinkerton's protection.
There were juvenile letters and petitions from Rebecca, too, in the
collection, imploring aid for her father or declaring her own
gratitude.  Perhaps in Vanity Fair there are no better satires than
letters.  Take a bundle of your dear friend's of ten years back--
your dear friend whom you hate now.  Look at a file of your
sister's! how you clung to each other till you quarrelled about the
twenty-pound legacy!  Get down the round-hand scrawls of your son
who has half broken your heart with selfish undutifulness since; or
a parcel of your own, breathing endless ardour and love eternal,
which were sent back by your mistress when she married the Nabob--
your mistress for whom you now care no more than for Queen
Elizabeth. Vows, love, promises, confidences, gratitude, how queerly
they read after a while!  There ought to be a law in Vanity Fair
ordering the destruction of every written document (except receipted
tradesmen's bills) after a certain brief and proper interval.  Those
quacks and misanthropes who advertise indelible Japan ink should be
made to perish along with their wicked discoveries.  The best ink
for Vanity Fair use would be one that faded utterly in a couple of
days, and left the paper clean and blank, so that you might write on
it to somebody else.

From Miss Pinkerton's the indefatigable Mrs. Bute followed the track
of Sharp and his daughter back to the lodgings in Greek Street,
which the defunct painter had occupied; and where portraits of the
landlady in white satin, and of the husband in brass buttons, done
by Sharp in lieu of a quarter's rent, still decorated the parlour
walls.  Mrs. Stokes was a communicative person, and quickly told all
she knew about Mr. Sharp; how dissolute and poor he was; how good-
natured and amusing; how he was always hunted by bailiffs and duns;
how, to the landlady's horror, though she never could abide the
woman, he did not marry his wife till a short time before her death;
and what a queer little wild vixen his daughter was; how she kept
them all laughing with her fun and mimicry; how she used to fetch
the gin from the public-house, and was known in all the studios in
the quarter--in brief, Mrs. Bute got such a full account of her new
niece's parentage, education, and behaviour as would scarcely have
pleased Rebecca, had the latter known that such inquiries were being
made concerning her.

Of all these industrious researches Miss Crawley had the full
benefit.  Mrs. Rawdon Crawley was the daughter of an opera-girl.
She had danced herself.  She had been a model to the painters.  She
was brought up as became her mother's daughter.  She drank gin with
her father, &c. &c. It was a lost woman who was married to a lost
man; and the moral to be inferred from Mrs. Bute's tale was, that
the knavery of the pair was irremediable, and that no properly
conducted person should ever notice them again.

These were the materials which prudent Mrs. Bute gathered together
in Park Lane, the provisions and ammunition as it were with which
she fortified the house against the siege which she knew that Rawdon
and his wife would lay to Miss Crawley.

But if a fault may be found with her arrangements, it is this, that
she was too eager: she managed rather too well; undoubtedly she made
Miss Crawley more ill than was necessary; and though the old invalid
succumbed to her authority, it was so harassing and severe, that the
victim would be inclined to escape at the very first chance which
fell in her way.  Managing women, the ornaments of their sex--women
who order everything for everybody, and know so much better than any
person concerned what is good for their neighbours, don't sometimes
speculate upon the possibility of a domestic revolt, or upon other
extreme consequences resulting from their overstrained authority.

Thus, for instance, Mrs. Bute, with the best intentions no doubt in
the world, and wearing herself to death as she did by foregoing
sleep, dinner, fresh air, for the sake of her invalid sister-in-law,
carried her conviction of the old lady's illness so far that she
almost managed her into her coffin.  She pointed out her sacrifices
and their results one day to the constant apothecary, Mr. Clump.

"I am sure, my dear Mr. Clump," she said, "no efforts of mine have
been wanting to restore our dear invalid, whom the ingratitude of
her nephew has laid on the bed of sickness.  I never shrink from
personal discomfort: I never refuse to sacrifice myself."

"Your devotion, it must be confessed, is admirable," Mr. Clump says,
with a low bow; "but--"

"I have scarcely closed my eyes since my arrival: I give up sleep,
health, every comfort, to my sense of duty. When my poor James was
in the smallpox, did I allow any hireling to nurse him?  No."

"You did what became an excellent mother, my dear Madam--the best of
mothers; but--"

"As the mother of a family and the wife of an English clergyman, I
humbly trust that my principles are good," Mrs. Bute said, with a
happy solemnity of conviction; "and, as long as Nature supports me,
never, never, Mr. Clump, will I desert the post of duty.  Others may
bring that grey head with sorrow to the bed of sickness (here Mrs.
Bute, waving her hand, pointed to one of old Miss Crawley's coffee-
coloured fronts, which was perched on a stand in the dressing-room),
but I will never quit it. Ah, Mr. Clump!  I fear, I know, that the
couch needs spiritual as well as medical consolation."

"What I was going to observe, my dear Madam,"--here the resolute
Clump once more interposed with a bland air--"what I was going to
observe when you gave utterance to sentiments which do you so much
honour, was that I think you alarm yourself needlessly about our
kind friend, and sacrifice your own health too prodigally in her
favour."

"I would lay down my life for my duty, or for any member of my
husband's family," Mrs. Bute interposed.

"Yes, Madam, if need were; but we don't want Mrs Bute Crawley to be
a martyr," Clump said gallantly.  "Dr Squills and myself have both
considered Miss Crawley's case with every anxiety and care, as you
may suppose.  We see her low-spirited and nervous; family events
have agitated her."

"Her nephew will come to perdition," Mrs. Crawley cried.

"Have agitated her: and you arrived like a guardian angel, my dear
Madam, a positive guardian angel, I assure you, to soothe her under
the pressure of calamity. But Dr. Squills and I were thinking that
our amiable friend is not in such a state as renders confinement to
her bed necessary.  She is depressed, but this confinement perhaps
adds to her depression.  She should have change, fresh air, gaiety;
the most delightful remedies in the pharmacopoeia," Mr. Clump said,
grinning and showing his handsome teeth.  "Persuade her to rise,
dear Madam; drag her from her couch and her low spirits; insist upon
her taking little drives.  They will restore the roses too to your
cheeks, if I may so speak to Mrs. Bute Crawley."

"The sight of her horrid nephew casually in the Park, where I am
told the wretch drives with the brazen partner of his crimes," Mrs.
Bute said (letting the cat of selfishness out of the bag of
secrecy), "would cause her such a shock, that we should have to
bring her back to bed again.  She must not go out, Mr. Clump.  She
shall not go out as long as I remain to watch over her; And as for
my health, what matters it?  I give it cheerfully, sir.  I sacrifice
it at the altar of my duty."

"Upon my word, Madam," Mr. Clump now said bluntly, "I won't answer
for her life if she remains locked up in that dark room.  She is so
nervous that we may lose her any day; and if you wish Captain
Crawley to be her heir, I warn you frankly, Madam, that you are
doing your very best to serve him."

"Gracious mercy! is her life in danger?" Mrs. Bute cried.  "Why,
why, Mr. Clump, did you not inform me sooner?"

The night before, Mr. Clump and Dr. Squills had had a consultation
(over a bottle of wine at the house of Sir Lapin Warren, whose lady
was about to present him with a thirteenth blessing), regarding Miss
Crawley and her case.

"What a little harpy that woman from Hampshire is, Clump," Squills
remarked, "that has seized upon old Tilly Crawley.  Devilish good
Madeira."

"What a fool Rawdon Crawley has been," Clump replied, "to go and
marry a governess!  There was something about the girl, too."

"Green eyes, fair skin, pretty figure, famous frontal development,"
Squills remarked.  "There is something about her; and Crawley was a
fool, Squills."

"A d--- fool--always was," the apothecary replied.

"Of course the old girl will fling him over," said the physician,
and after a pause added, "She'll cut up well, I suppose."

"Cut up," says Clump with a grin; "I wouldn't have her cut up for
two hundred a year."

"That Hampshire woman will kill her in two months, Clump, my boy, if
she stops about her," Dr. Squills said. "Old woman; full feeder;
nervous subject; palpitation of the heart; pressure on the brain;
apoplexy; off she goes. Get her up, Clump; get her out: or I
wouldn't give many weeks' purchase for your two hundred a year." And
it was acting upon this hint that the worthy apothecary spoke with
so much candour to Mrs. Bute Crawley.

Having the old lady under her hand: in bed: with nobody near, Mrs.
Bute had made more than one assault upon her, to induce her to alter
her will.  But Miss Crawley's usual terrors regarding death
increased greatly when such dismal propositions were made to her,
and Mrs. Bute saw that she must get her patient into cheerful
spirits and health before she could hope to attain the pious object
which she had in view.  Whither to take her was the next puzzle.
The only place where she is not likely to meet those odious Rawdons
is at church, and that won't amuse her, Mrs. Bute justly felt.  "We
must go and visit our beautiful suburbs of London," she then
thought.  "I hear they are the most picturesque in the world"; and
so she had a sudden interest for Hampstead, and Hornsey, and found
that Dulwich had great charms for her, and getting her victim into
her carriage, drove her to those rustic spots, beguiling the little
journeys with conversations about Rawdon and his wife, and telling
every story to the old lady which could add to her indignation
against this pair of reprobates.

Perhaps Mrs. Bute pulled the string unnecessarily tight. For though
she worked up Miss Crawley to a proper dislike of her disobedient
nephew, the invalid had a great hatred and secret terror of her
victimizer, and panted to escape from her.  After a brief space, she
rebelled against Highgate and Hornsey utterly.  She would go into
the Park.  Mrs. Bute knew they would meet the abominable Rawdon
there, and she was right.  One day in the ring, Rawdon's stanhope
came in sight; Rebecca was seated by him.  In the enemy's equipage
Miss Crawley occupied her usual place, with Mrs. Bute on her left,
the poodle and Miss Briggs on the back seat.  It was a nervous
moment, and Rebecca's heart beat quick as she recognized the
carriage; and as the two vehicles crossed each other in a line, she
clasped her hands, and looked towards the spinster with a face of
agonized attachment and devotion. Rawdon himself trembled, and his
face grew purple behind his dyed mustachios.  Only old Briggs was
moved in the other carriage, and cast her great eyes nervously
towards her old friends.  Miss Crawley's bonnet was resolutely
turned towards the Serpentine.  Mrs. Bute happened to be in
ecstasies with the poodle, and was calling him a little darling, and
a sweet little zoggy, and a pretty pet.  The carriages moved on,
each in his line.

"Done, by Jove," Rawdon said to his wife.

"Try once more, Rawdon," Rebecca answered.  "Could not you lock your
wheels into theirs, dearest?"

Rawdon had not the heart for that manoeuvre.  When the carriages met
again, he stood up in his stanhope; he raised his hand ready to doff
his hat; he looked with all his eyes.  But this time Miss Crawley's
face was not turned away; she and Mrs. Bute looked him full in the
face, and cut their nephew pitilessly.  He sank back in his seat
with an oath, and striking out of the ring, dashed away desperately
homewards.

It was a gallant and decided triumph for Mrs. Bute. But she felt the
danger of many such meetings, as she saw the evident nervousness of
Miss Crawley; and she determined that it was most necessary for her
dear friend's health, that they should leave town for a while, and
recommended Brighton very strongly.



CHAPTER XX

In Which Captain Dobbin Acts as the Messenger of Hymen


Without knowing how, Captain William Dobbin found himself the great
promoter, arranger, and manager of the match between George Osborne
and Amelia.  But for him it never would have taken place:  he could
not but confess as much to himself, and smiled rather bitterly as he
thought that he of all men in the world should be the person upon
whom the care of this marriage had fallen. But though indeed the
conducting of this negotiation was about as painful a task as could
be set to him, yet when he had a duty to perform, Captain Dobbin was
accustomed to go through it without many words or much hesitation:
and, having made up his mind completely, that if Miss Sedley was
balked of her husband she would die of the disappointment, he was
determined to use all his best endeavours to keep her alive.

I forbear to enter into minute particulars of the interview between
George and Amelia, when the former was brought back to the feet (or
should we venture to say the arms?) of his young mistress by the
intervention of his friend honest William.  A much harder heart than
George's would have melted at the sight of that sweet face so sadly
ravaged by grief and despair, and at the simple tender accents in
which she told her little broken-hearted story: but as she did not
faint when her mother, trembling, brought Osborne to her; and as she
only gave relief to her overcharged grief, by laying her head on her
lover's shoulder and there weeping for a while the most tender,
copious, and refreshing tears--old Mrs. Sedley, too greatly
relieved, thought it was best to leave the young persons to
themselves; and so quitted Emmy crying over George's hand, and
kissing it humbly, as if he were her supreme chief and master, and
as if she were quite a guilty and unworthy person needing every
favour and grace from him.

This prostration and sweet unrepining obedience exquisitely touched
and flattered George Osborne.  He saw a slave before him in that
simple yielding faithful creature, and his soul within him thrilled
secretly somehow at the knowledge of his power.  He would be
generous-minded, Sultan as he was, and raise up this kneeling Esther
and make a queen of her:  besides, her sadness and beauty touched
him as much as her submission, and so he cheered her, and raised her
up and forgave her, so to speak.  All her hopes and feelings, which
were dying and withering, this her sun having been removed from her,
bloomed again and at once, its light being restored. You would
scarcely have recognised the beaming little face upon Amelia's
pillow that night as the one that was laid there the night before,
so wan, so lifeless, so careless of all round about.  The honest
Irish maid-servant, delighted with the change, asked leave to kiss
the face that had grown all of a sudden so rosy.  Amelia put her
arms round the girl's neck and kissed her with all her heart, like a
child.  She was little more.  She had that night a sweet refreshing
sleep, like one--and what a spring of inexpressible happiness as she
woke in the morning sunshine!

"He will be here again to-day," Amelia thought.  "He is the greatest
and best of men."  And the fact is, that George thought he was one
of the generousest creatures alive: and that he was making a
tremendous sacrifice in marrying this young creature.

While she and Osborne were having their delightful tete-a-tete above
stairs, old Mrs. Sedley and Captain Dobbin were conversing below
upon the state of the affairs, and the chances and future
arrangements of the young people.  Mrs. Sedley having brought the
two lovers together and left them embracing each other with all
their might, like a true woman, was of opinion that no power on
earth would induce Mr. Sedley to consent to the match between his
daughter and the son of a man who had so shamefully, wickedly, and
monstrously treated him.  And she told a long story about happier
days and their earlier splendours, when Osborne lived in a very
humble way in the New Road, and his wife was too glad to receive
some of Jos's little baby things, with which Mrs. Sedley
accommodated her at the birth of one of Osborne's own children.  The
fiendish ingratitude of that man, she was sure, had broken Mr. S.'s
heart: and as for a marriage, he would never, never, never, never
consent.

"They must run away together, Ma'am," Dobbin said, laughing, "and
follow the example of Captain Rawdon Crawley, and Miss Emmy's friend
the little governess." Was it possible? Well she never!  Mrs. Sedley
was all excitement about this news.  She wished that Blenkinsop were
here to hear it:  Blenkinsop always mistrusted that Miss Sharp.--
What an escape Jos had had! and she described the already well-known
love-passages between Rebecca and the Collector of Boggley Wollah.

It was not, however, Mr. Sedley's wrath which Dobbin feared, so much
as that of the other parent concerned, and he owned that he had a
very considerable doubt and anxiety respecting the behaviour of the
black-browed old tyrant of a Russia merchant in Russell Square.  He
has forbidden the match peremptorily, Dobbin thought. He knew what a
savage determined man Osborne was, and how he stuck by his word.
"The only chance George has of reconcilement," argued his friend, "is
by distinguishing himself in the coming campaign.  If he dies they
both go together.  If he fails in distinction--what then?  He has
some money from his mother, I have heard enough to purchase his
majority--or he must sell out and go and dig in Canada, or rough it
in a cottage in the country." With such a partner Dobbin thought he
would not mind Siberia--and, strange to say, this absurd and utterly
imprudent young fellow never for a moment considered that the want
of means to keep a nice carriage and horses, and of an income which
should enable its possessors to entertain their friends genteelly,
ought to operate as bars to the union of George and Miss Sedley.

It was these weighty considerations which made him think too that
the marriage should take place as quickly as possible.  Was he
anxious himself, I wonder, to have it over?--as people, when death
has occurred, like to press forward the funeral, or when a parting
is resolved upon, hasten it.  It is certain that Mr. Dobbin, having
taken the matter in hand, was most extraordinarily eager in the
conduct of it.  He urged on George the necessity of immediate
action:  he showed the chances of reconciliation with his father,
which a favourable mention of his name in the Gazette must bring
about.  If need were he would go himself and brave both the fathers
in the business.  At all events, he besought George to go through
with it before the orders came, which everybody expected, for the
departure of the regiment from England on foreign service.

Bent upon these hymeneal projects, and with the applause and consent
of Mrs. Sedley, who did not care to break the matter personally to
her husband, Mr. Dobbin went to seek John Sedley at his house of
call in the City, the Tapioca Coffee-house, where, since his own
offices were shut up, and fate had overtaken him, the poor broken-
down old gentleman used to betake himself daily, and write letters
and receive them, and tie them up into mysterious bundles, several
of which he carried in the flaps of his coat.  I don't know anything
more dismal than that business and bustle and mystery of a ruined
man:  those letters from the wealthy which he shows you:  those worn
greasy documents promising support and offering condolence which he
places wistfully before you, and on which he builds his hopes of
restoration and future fortune. My beloved reader has no doubt in
the course of his experience been waylaid by many such a luckless
companion.  He takes you into the corner; he has his bundle of
papers out of his gaping coat pocket; and the tape off, and the
string in his mouth, and the favourite letters selected and laid
before you; and who does not know the sad eager half-crazy look
which he fixes on you with his hopeless eyes?

Changed into a man of this sort, Dobbin found the once florid,
jovial, and prosperous John Sedley.  His coat, that used to be so
glossy and trim, was white at the seams, and the buttons showed the
copper.  His face had fallen in, and was unshorn; his frill and
neckcloth hung limp under his bagging waistcoat.  When he used to
treat the boys in old days at a coffee-house, he would shout and
laugh louder than anybody there, and have all the waiters skipping
round him; it was quite painful to see how humble and civil he was
to John of the Tapioca, a blear-eyed old attendant in dingy
stockings and cracked pumps, whose business it was to serve glasses
of wafers, and bumpers of ink in pewter, and slices of paper to the
frequenters of this dreary house of entertainment, where nothing
else seemed to be consumed.  As for William Dobbin, whom he had
tipped repeatedly in his youth, and who had been the old gentleman's
butt on a thousand occasions, old Sedley gave his hand to him in a
very hesitating humble manner now, and called him "Sir." A feeling
of shame and remorse took possession of William Dobbin as the broken
old man so received and addressed him, as if he himself had been
somehow guilty of the misfortunes which had brought Sedley so low.

"I am very glad to see you, Captain Dobbin, sir," says he, after a
skulking look or two at his visitor (whose lanky figure and military
appearance caused some excitement likewise to twinkle in the blear
eyes of the waiter in the cracked dancing pumps, and awakened the
old lady in black, who dozed among the mouldy old coffee-cups in the
bar).  "How is the worthy alderman, and my lady, your excellent
mother, sir?"  He looked round at the waiter as he said, "My lady,"
as much as to say, "Hark ye, John, I have friends still, and persons
of rank and reputation, too."  "Are you come to do anything in my
way, sir?  My young friends Dale and Spiggot do all my business for
me now, until my new offices are ready; for I'm only here
temporarily, you know, Captain.  What can we do for you. sir?  Will
you like to take anything?"

Dobbin, with a great deal of hesitation and stuttering, protested
that he was not in the least hungry or thirsty; that he had no
business to transact; that he only came to ask if Mr. Sedley was
well, and to shake hands with an old friend; and, he added, with a
desperate perversion of truth, "My mother is very well--that is,
she's been very unwell, and is only waiting for the first fine day
to go out and call upon Mrs. Sedley.  How is Mrs. Sedley, sir?  I
hope she's quite well."  And here he paused, reflecting on his own
consummate hypocrisy; for the day was as fine, and the sunshine as
bright as it ever is in Coffin Court, where the Tapioca Coffee-house
is situated: and Mr. Dobbin remembered that he had seen Mrs. Sedley
himself only an hour before, having driven Osborne down to Fulham in
his gig, and left him there tete-a-tete with Miss Amelia.

"My wife will be very happy to see her ladyship," Sedley replied,
pulling out his papers.  "I've a very kind letter here from your
father, sir, and beg my respectful compliments to him.  Lady D. will
find us in rather a smaller house than we were accustomed to receive
our friends in; but it's snug, and the change of air does good to my
daughter, who was suffering in town rather--you remember little
Emmy, sir?--yes, suffering a good deal." The old gentleman's eyes
were wandering as he spoke, and he was thinking of something else,
as he sate thrumming on his papers and fumbling at the worn red
tape.

"You're a military man," he went on; "I ask you, Bill Dobbin, could
any man ever have speculated upon the return of that Corsican
scoundrel from Elba?  When the allied sovereigns were here last
year, and we gave 'em that dinner in the City, sir, and we saw the
Temple of Concord, and the fireworks, and the Chinese bridge in St.
James's Park, could any sensible man suppose that peace wasn't
really concluded, after we'd actually sung Te Deum for it, sir?  I
ask you, William, could I suppose that the Emperor of Austria was a
damned traitor--a traitor, and nothing more?  I don't mince words--a
double-faced infernal traitor and schemer, who meant to have his
son-in-law back all along.  And I say that the escape of Boney from
Elba was a damned imposition and plot, sir, in which half the powers
of Europe were concerned, to bring the funds down, and to ruin this
country.  That's why I'm here, William.  That's why my name's in the
Gazette.  Why, sir?--because I trusted the Emperor of Russia and the
Prince Regent.  Look here.  Look at my papers.  Look what the funds
were on the 1st of March--what the French fives were when I bought
for the count.  And what they're at now.  There was collusion, sir,
or that villain never would have escaped.  Where was the English
Commissioner who allowed him to get away?  He ought to be shot, sir
--brought to a court-martial, and shot, by Jove."

"We're going to hunt Boney out, sir," Dobbin said, rather alarmed at
the fury of the old man, the veins of whose forehead began to swell,
and who sate drumming his papers with his clenched fist.  "We are
going to hunt him out, sir--the Duke's in Belgium already, and we
expect marching orders every day."

"Give him no quarter.  Bring back the villain's head, sir. Shoot the
coward down, sir," Sedley roared.  "I'd enlist myself, by--; but I'm
a broken old man--ruined by that damned scoundrel--and by a parcel
of swindling thieves in this country whom I made, sir, and who are
rolling in their carriages now," he added, with a break in his
voice.

Dobbin was not a little affected by the sight of this once kind old
friend, crazed almost with misfortune and raving with senile anger.
Pity the fallen gentleman: you to whom money and fair repute are the
chiefest good; and so, surely, are they in Vanity Fair.

"Yes," he continued, "there are some vipers that you warm, and they
sting you afterwards.  There are some beggars that you put on
horseback, and they're the first to ride you down.  You know whom I
mean, William Dobbin, my boy.  I mean a purse-proud villain in
Russell Square, whom I knew without a shilling, and whom I pray and
hope to see a beggar as he was when I befriended him."

"I have heard something of this, sir, from my friend George," Dobbin
said, anxious to come to his point.  "The quarrel between you and
his father has cut him up a great deal, sir.  Indeed, I'm the bearer
of a message from him."

"O, THAT'S your errand, is it?" cried the old man, jumping up.
"What! perhaps he condoles with me, does he? Very kind of him, the
stiff-backed prig, with his dandified airs and West End swagger.
He's hankering about my house, is he still?  If my son had the
courage of a man, he'd shoot him.  He's as big a villain as his
father.  I won't have his name mentioned in my house.  I curse the
day that ever I let him into it; and I'd rather see my daughter dead
at my feet than married to him."

"His father's harshness is not George's fault, sir.  Your daughter's
love for him is as much your doing as his.  Who are you, that you
are to play with two young people's affections and break their
hearts at your will?"

"Recollect it's not his father that breaks the match off," old
Sedley cried out.  "It's I that forbid it.  That family and mine are
separated for ever.  I'm fallen low, but not so low as that: no, no.
And so you may tell the whole race--son, and father and sisters, and
all."

"It's my belief, sir, that you have not the power or the right to
separate those two," Dobbin answered in a low voice; "and that if
you don't give your daughter your consent it will be her duty to
marry without it.  There's no reason she should die or live
miserably because you are wrong-headed.  To my thinking, she's just
as much married as if the banns had been read in all the churches in
London.  And what better answer can there be to Osborne's charges
against you, as charges there are, than that his son claims to enter
your family and marry your daughter?"

A light of something like satisfaction seemed to break over old
Sedley as this point was put to him: but he still persisted that
with his consent the marriage between Amelia and George should never
take place.

"We must do it without," Dobbin said, smiling, and told Mr. Sedley,
as he had told Mrs. Sedley in the day, before, the story of
Rebecca's elopement with Captain Crawley.  It evidently amused the
old gentleman.  "You're terrible fellows, you Captains," said he,
tying up his papers; and his face wore something like a smile upon
it, to the astonishment of the blear-eyed waiter who now entered,
and had never seen such an expression upon Sedley's countenance
since he had used the dismal coffee-house.

The idea of hitting his enemy Osborne such a blow soothed, perhaps,
the old gentleman: and, their colloquy presently ending, he and
Dobbin parted pretty good friends.

"My sisters say she has diamonds as big as pigeons' eggs," George
said, laughing.  "How they must set off her complexion!  A perfect
illumination it must be when her jewels are on her neck.  Her jet-
black hair is as curly as Sambo's.  I dare say she wore a nose ring
when she went to court; and with a plume of feathers in her top-knot
she would look a perfect Belle Sauvage."

George, in conversation with Amelia, was rallying the appearance of
a young lady of whom his father and sisters had lately made the
acquaintance, and who was an object of vast respect to the Russell
Square family.  She was reported to have I don't know how many
plantations in the West Indies; a deal of money in the funds; and
three stars to her name in the East India stockholders' list.  She
had a mansion in Surrey, and a house in Portland Place. The name of
the rich West India heiress had been mentioned with applause in the
Morning Post.  Mrs. Haggistoun, Colonel Haggistoun's widow, her
relative, "chaperoned" her, and kept her house.  She was just from
school, where she had completed her education, and George and his
sisters had met her at an evening party at old Hulker's house,
Devonshire Place (Hulker, Bullock, and Co. were long the
correspondents of her house in the West Indies), and the girls had
made the most cordial advances to her, which the heiress had
received with great good humour. An orphan in her position--with her
money--so interesting! the Misses Osborne said.  They were full of
their new friend when they returned from the Hulker ball to Miss
Wirt, their companion; they had made arrangements for continually
meeting, and had the carriage and drove to see her the very next
day.  Mrs. Haggistoun, Colonel Haggistoun's widow, a relation of
Lord Binkie, and always talking of him, struck the dear
unsophisticated girls as rather haughty, and too much inclined to
talk about her great relations: but Rhoda was everything they could
wish--the frankest, kindest, most agreeable creature--wanting a
little polish, but so good-natured.  The girls Christian-named each
other at once.

"You should have seen her dress for court, Emmy," Osborne cried,
laughing.  "She came to my sisters to show it off, before she was
presented in state by my Lady Binkie, the Haggistoun's kinswoman.
She's related to every one, that Haggistoun.  Her diamonds blazed
out like Vauxhall on the night we were there.  (Do you remember
Vauxhall, Emmy, and Jos singing to his dearest diddle diddle
darling?)  Diamonds and mahogany, my dear! think what an
advantageous contrast--and the white feathers in her hair--I mean in
her wool.  She had earrings like chandeliers; you might have lighted
'em up, by Jove--and a yellow satin train that streeled after her
like the tail of a cornet."

"How old is she?" asked Emmy, to whom George was rattling away
regarding this dark paragon, on the morning of their reunion--
rattling away as no other man in the world surely could.

"Why the Black Princess, though she has only just left school, must
be two or three and twenty.  And you should see the hand she writes!
Mrs. Colonel Haggistoun usually writes her letters, but in a moment
of confidence, she put pen to paper for my sisters; she spelt satin
satting, and Saint James's, Saint Jams."

"Why, surely it must be Miss Swartz, the parlour boarder," Emmy
said, remembering that good-natured young mulatto girl, who had been
so hysterically affected when Amelia left Miss Pinkerton's academy.

"The very name," George said.  "Her father was a German Jew--a
slave-owner they say--connected with the Cannibal Islands in some
way or other.  He died last year, and Miss Pinkerton has finished
her education.  She can play two pieces on the piano; she knows
three songs; she can write when Mrs. Haggistoun is by to spell for
her; and Jane and Maria already have got to love her as a sister."

"I wish they would have loved me," said Emmy, wistfully. "They were
always very cold to me."

"My dear child, they would have loved you if you had had two hundred
thousand pounds," George replied.  "That is the way in which they
have been brought up.  Ours is a ready-money society.  We live among
bankers and City big-wigs, and be hanged to them, and every man, as
he talks to you, is jingling his guineas in his pocket.  There is
that jackass Fred Bullock is going to marry Maria--there's Goldmore,
the East India Director, there's Dipley, in the tallow trade--OUR
trade," George said, with an uneasy laugh and a blush.  "Curse the
whole pack of money-grubbing vulgarians!  I fall asleep at their
great heavy dinners.  I feel ashamed in my father's great stupid
parties.  I've been accustomed to live with gentlemen, and men of
the world and fashion, Emmy, not with a parcel of turtle-fed
tradesmen.  Dear little woman, you are the only person of our set
who ever looked, or thought, or spoke like a lady: and you do it
because you're an angel and can't help it.  Don't remonstrate.  You
are the only lady. Didn't Miss Crawley remark it, who has lived in
the best company in Europe?  And as for Crawley, of the Life Guards,
hang it, he's a fine fellow: and I like him for marrying the girl he
had chosen."

Amelia admired Mr. Crawley very much, too, for this; and trusted
Rebecca would be happy with him, and hoped (with a laugh) Jos would
be consoled.  And so the pair went on prattling, as in quite early
days.  Amelia's confidence being perfectly restored to her, though
she expressed a great deal of pretty jealousy about Miss Swartz, and
professed to be dreadfully frightened--like a hypocrite as she was--
lest George should forget her for the heiress and her money and her
estates in Saint Kitt's.  But the fact is, she was a great deal too
happy to have fears or doubts or misgivings of any sort: and having
George at her side again, was not afraid of any heiress or beauty,
or indeed of any sort of danger.

When Captain Dobbin came back in the afternoon to these people--
which he did with a great deal of sympathy for them--it did his
heart good to see how Amelia had grown young again--how she laughed,
and chirped, and sang familiar old songs at the piano, which were
only interrupted by the bell from without proclaiming Mr. Sedley's
return from the City, before whom George received a signal to
retreat.

Beyond the first smile of recognition--and even that was an
hypocrisy, for she thought his arrival rather provoking--Miss Sedley
did not once notice Dobbin during his visit.  But he was content, so
that he saw her happy; and thankful to have been the means of making
her so.



CHAPTER XXI

A Quarrel About an Heiress


Love may be felt for any young lady endowed with such qualities as
Miss Swartz possessed; and a great dream of ambition entered into
old Mr. Osborne's soul, which she was to realize.  He encouraged,
with the utmost enthusiasm and friendliness, his daughters' amiable
attachment to the young heiress, and protested that it gave him the
sincerest pleasure as a father to see the love of his girls so well
disposed.

"You won't find," he would say to Miss Rhoda, "that splendour and
rank to which you are accustomed at the West End, my dear Miss, at
our humble mansion in Russell Square.  My daughters are plain,
disinterested girls, but their hearts are in the right place, and
they've conceived an attachment for you which does them honour--I
say, which does them honour.  I'm a plain, simple, humble British
merchant--an honest one, as my respected friends Hulker and Bullock
will vouch, who were the correspondents of your late lamented
father.  You'll find us a united, simple, happy, and I think I may
say respected, family--a plain table, a plain people, but a warm
welcome, my dear Miss Rhoda--Rhoda, let me say, for my heart warms
to you, it does really.  I'm a frank man, and I like you.  A glass
of Champagne!  Hicks, Champagne to Miss Swartz."

There is little doubt that old Osborne believed all he said, and
that the girls were quite earnest in their protestations of
affection for Miss Swartz.  People in Vanity Fair fasten on to rich
folks quite naturally.  If the simplest people are disposed to look
not a little kindly on great Prosperity (for I defy any member of
the British public to say that the notion of Wealth has not
something awful and pleasing to him; and you, if you are told that
the man next you at dinner has got half a million, not to look at
him with a certain interest)--if the simple look benevolently on
money, how much more do your old worldlings regard it!  Their
affections rush out to meet and welcome money.  Their kind
sentiments awaken spontaneously towards the interesting possessors
of it.  I know some respectable people who don't consider themselves
at liberty to indulge in friendship for any individual who has not a
certain competency, or place in society.  They give a loose to their
feelings on proper occasions.  And the proof is, that the major part
of the Osborne family, who had not, in fifteen years, been able to
get up a hearty regard for Amelia Sedley, became as fond of Miss
Swartz in the course of a single evening as the most romantic
advocate of friendship at first sight could desire.

What a match for George she'd be (the sisters and Miss Wirt agreed),
and how much better than that insignificant little Amelia!  Such a
dashing young fellow as he is, with his good looks, rank, and
accomplishments, would be the very husband for her.  Visions of
balls in Portland Place, presentations at Court, and introductions
to half the peerage, filled the minds of the young ladies; who
talked of nothing but George and his grand acquaintances to their
beloved new friend.

Old Osborne thought she would be a great match, too, for his son.
He should leave the army; he should go into Parliament; he should
cut a figure in the fashion and in the state.  His blood boiled with
honest British exultation, as he saw the name of Osborne ennobled in
the person of his son, and thought that he might be the progenitor
of a glorious line of baronets.  He worked in the City and on
'Change, until he knew everything relating to the fortune of the
heiress, how her money was placed, and where her estates lay.  Young
Fred Bullock, one of his chief informants, would have liked to make
a bid for her himself (it was so the young banker expressed it),
only he was booked to Maria Osborne.  But not being able to secure
her as a wife, the disinterested Fred quite approved of her as a
sister-in-law.  "Let George cut in directly and win her," was his
advice.  "Strike while the iron's hot, you know--while she's fresh
to the town: in a few weeks some d--- fellow from the West End will
come in with a title and a rotten rent-roll and cut all us City men
out, as Lord Fitzrufus did last year with Miss Grogram, who was
actually engaged to Podder, of Podder & Brown's.  The sooner it is
done the better, Mr. Osborne; them's my sentiments," the wag said;
though, when Osborne had left the bank parlour, Mr. Bullock
remembered Amelia, and what a pretty girl she was, and how attached
to George Osborne; and he gave up at least ten seconds of his
valuable time to regretting the misfortune which had befallen that
unlucky young woman.

While thus George Osborne's good feelings, and his good friend and
genius, Dobbin, were carrying back the truant to Amelia's feet,
George's parent and sisters were arranging this splendid match for
him, which they never dreamed he would resist.

When the elder Osborne gave what he called "a hint," there was no
possibility for the most obtuse to mistake his meaning.  He called
kicking a footman downstairs a hint to the latter to leave his
service.  With his usual frankness and delicacy he told Mrs.
Haggistoun that he would give her a cheque for five thousand pounds
on the day his son was married to her ward; and called that proposal
a hint, and considered it a very dexterous piece of diplomacy.  He
gave George finally such another hint regarding the heiress; and
ordered him to marry her out of hand, as he would have ordered his
butler to draw a cork, or his clerk to write a letter.

This imperative hint disturbed George a good deal.  He was in the
very first enthusiasm and delight of his second courtship of Amelia,
which was inexpressibly sweet to him.  The contrast of her manners
and appearance with those of the heiress, made the idea of a union
with the latter appear doubly ludicrous and odious.  Carriages and
opera-boxes, thought he; fancy being seen in them by the side of
such a mahogany charmer as that!  Add to all that the junior Osborne
was quite as obstinate as the senior: when he wanted a thing, quite
as firm in his resolution to get it; and quite as violent when
angered, as his father in his most stern moments.

On the first day when his father formally gave him the hint that he
was to place his affections at Miss Swartz's feet, George temporised
with the old gentleman.  "You should have thought of the matter
sooner, sir," he said. "It can't be done now, when we're expecting
every day to go on foreign service.  Wait till my return, if I do
return"; and then he represented, that the time when the regiment
was daily expecting to quit England, was exceedingly ill-chosen:
that the few days or weeks during which they were still to remain at
home, must be devoted to business and not to love-making: time
enough for that when he came home with his majority; "for, I promise
you," said he, with a satisfied air, "that one way or other you
shall read the name of George Osborne in the Gazette."

The father's reply to this was founded upon the information which he
had got in the City: that the West End chaps would infallibly catch
hold of the heiress if any delay took place: that if he didn't marry
Miss S., he might at least have an engagement in writing, to come
into effect when he returned to England; and that a man who could
get ten thousand a year by staying at home, was a fool to risk his
life abroad.

"So that you would have me shown up as a coward, sir, and our name
dishonoured for the sake of Miss Swartz's money," George interposed.

This remark staggered the old gentleman; but as he had to reply to
it, and as his mind was nevertheless made up, he said, "You will
dine here to-morrow, sir, and every day Miss Swartz comes, you will
be here to pay your respects to her.  If you want for money, call
upon Mr. Chopper." Thus a new obstacle was in George's way, to
interfere with his plans regarding Amelia; and about which he and
Dobbin had more than one confidential consultation.  His friend's
opinion respecting the line of conduct which he ought to pursue, we
know already.  And as for Osborne, when he was once bent on a thing,
a fresh obstacle or two only rendered him the more resolute.

The dark object of the conspiracy into which the chiefs of the
Osborne family had entered, was quite ignorant of all their plans
regarding her (which, strange to say, her friend and chaperon did
not divulge), and, taking all the young ladies' flattery for genuine
sentiment, and being, as we have before had occasion to show, of a
very warm and impetuous nature, responded to their affection with
quite a tropical ardour.  And if the truth may be told, I dare say
that she too had some selfish attraction in the Russell Square
house; and in a word, thought George Osborne a very nice young man.
His whiskers had made an impression upon her, on the very first
night she beheld them at the ball at Messrs. Hulkers; and, as we
know, she was not the first woman who had been charmed by them.
George had an air at once swaggering and melancholy, languid and
fierce.  He looked like a man who had passions, secrets, and private
harrowing griefs and adventures.  His voice was rich and deep.  He
would say it was a warm evening, or ask his partner to take an ice,
with a tone as sad and confidential as if he were breaking her
mother's death to her, or preluding a declaration of love.  He
trampled over all the young bucks of his father's circle, and was
the hero among those third-rate men.  Some few sneered at him and
hated him. Some, like Dobbin, fanatically admired him.  And his
whiskers had begun to do their work, and to curl themselves round
the affections of Miss Swartz.

Whenever there was a chance of meeting him in Russell Square, that
simple and good-natured young woman was quite in a flurry to see her
dear Misses Osborne.  She went to great expenses in new gowns, and
bracelets, and bonnets, and in prodigious feathers.  She adorned her
person with her utmost skill to please the Conqueror, and exhibited
all her simple accomplishments to win his favour.  The girls would
ask her, with the greatest gravity, for a little music, and she
would sing her three songs and play her two little pieces as often
as ever they asked, and with an always increasing pleasure to
herself.  During these delectable entertainments, Miss Wirt and the
chaperon sate by, and conned over the peerage, and talked about the
nobility.

The day after George had his hint from his father, and a short time
before the hour of dinner, he was lolling upon a sofa in the
drawing-room in a very becoming and perfectly natural attitude of
melancholy.  He had been, at his father's request, to Mr. Chopper in
the City (the old-gentleman, though he gave great sums to his son,
would never specify any fixed allowance for him, and rewarded him
only as he was in the humour).  He had then been to pass three hours
with Amelia, his dear little Amelia, at Fulham; and he came home to
find his sisters spread in starched muslin in the drawing-room, the
dowagers cackling in the background, and honest Swartz in her
favourite amber-coloured satin, with turquoise bracelets, countless
rings, flowers, feathers, and all sorts of tags and gimcracks, about
as elegantly decorated as a she chimney-sweep on May-day.

The girls, after vain attempts to engage him in conversation, talked
about fashions and the last drawing-room until he was perfectly sick
of their chatter.  He contrasted their behaviour with little Emmy's
--their shrill voices with her tender ringing tones; their attitudes
and their elbows and their starch, with her humble soft movements
and modest graces.  Poor Swartz was seated in a place where Emmy had
been accustomed to sit. Her bejewelled hands lay sprawling in her
amber satin lap.  Her tags and ear-rings twinkled, and her big eyes
rolled about.  She was doing nothing with perfect contentment, and
thinking herself charming.  Anything so becoming as the satin the
sisters had never seen.

"Dammy," George said to a confidential friend, "she looked like a
China doll, which has nothing to do all day but to grin and wag its
head.  By Jove, Will, it was all I I could do to prevent myself from
throwing the sofa-cushion at her." He restrained that exhibition of
sentiment, however.

The sisters began to play the Battle of Prague.  "Stop that d---
thing," George howled out in a fury from the sofa.  "It makes me
mad.  You play us something, Miss Swartz, do.  Sing something,
anything but the Battle of Prague."

"Shall I sing 'Blue Eyed Mary' or the air from the Cabinet?" Miss
Swartz asked.

"That sweet thing from the Cabinet," the sisters said.

"We've had that," replied the misanthrope on the sofa

"I can sing 'Fluvy du Tajy,'" Swartz said, in a meek voice, "if I
had the words." It was the last of the worthy young woman's
collection.

"O, 'Fleuve du Tage,'" Miss Maria cried; "we have the song," and
went off to fetch the book in which it was.

Now it happened that this song, then in the height of the fashion,
had been given to the young ladies by a young friend of theirs,
whose name was on the title, and Miss Swartz, having concluded the
ditty with George's applause (for he remembered that it was a
favourite of Amelia's), was hoping for an encore perhaps, and
fiddling with the leaves of the music, when her eye fell upon the
title, and she saw "Amelia Sedley" written in the comer.

"Lor!" cried Miss Swartz, spinning swiftly round on the music-stool,
"is it my Amelia?  Amelia that was at Miss P.'s at Hammersmith?  I
know it is.  It's her.  and--Tell me about her--where is she?"

"Don't mention her," Miss Maria Osborne said hastily.  "Her family
has disgraced itself.  Her father cheated Papa, and as for her, she
is never to be mentioned HERE." This was Miss Maria's return for
George's rudeness about the Battle of Prague.

"Are you a friend of Amelia's?" George said, bouncing up.  "God
bless you for it, Miss Swartz.  Don't believe what the girls say.
SHE'S not to blame at any rate. She's the best--"

"You know you're not to speak about her, George," cried Jane.  "Papa
forbids it."

"Who's to prevent me?" George cried out.  "I will speak of her.  I
say she's the best, the kindest, the gentlest, the sweetest girl in
England; and that, bankrupt or no, my sisters are not fit to hold
candles to her.  If you like her, go and see her, Miss Swartz; she
wants friends now; and I say, God bless everybody who befriends her.
Anybody who speaks kindly of her is my friend; anybody who speaks
against her is my enemy.  Thank you, Miss Swartz"; and he went up
and wrung her hand.

"George! George!" one of the sisters cried imploringly.

"I say," George said fiercely, "I thank everybody who loves Amelia
Sed--" He stopped.  Old Osborne was in the room with a face livid
with rage, and eyes like hot coals.

Though George had stopped in his sentence, yet, his blood being up,
he was not to be cowed by all the generations of Osborne; rallying
instantly, he replied to the bullying look of his father, with
another so indicative of resolution and defiance that the elder man
quailed in his turn, and looked away.  He felt that the tussle was
coming.  "Mrs. Haggistoun, let me take you down to dinner," he said.
"Give your arm to Miss Swartz, George," and they marched.

"Miss Swartz, I love Amelia, and we've been engaged almost all our
lives," Osborne said to his partner; and during all the dinner,
George rattled on with a volubility which surprised himself, and
made his father doubly nervous for the fight which was to take place
as soon as the ladies were gone.

The difference between the pair was, that while the father was
violent and a bully, the son had thrice the nerve and courage of the
parent, and could not merely make an attack, but resist it; and
finding that the moment was now come when the contest between him
and his father was to be decided, he took his dinner with perfect
coolness and appetite before the engagement began.  Old Osborne, on
the contrary, was nervous, and drank much.  He floundered in his
conversation with the ladies, his neighbours: George's coolness only
rendering him more angry.  It made him half mad to see the calm way
in which George, flapping his napkin, and with a swaggering bow,
opened the door for the ladies to leave the room; and filling
himself a glass of wine, smacked it, and looked his father full in
the face, as if to say, "Gentlemen of the Guard, fire first." The
old man also took a supply of ammunition, but his decanter clinked
against the glass as he tried to fill it.

After giving a great heave, and with a purple choking face, he then
began.  "How dare you, sir, mention that person's name before Miss
Swartz to-day, in my drawing-room? I ask you, sir, how dare you do
it?"

"Stop, sir," says George, "don't say dare, sir.  Dare isn't a word
to be used to a Captain in the British Army."

"I shall say what I like to my son, sir.  I can cut him off with a
shilling if I like.  I can make him a beggar if I like. I WILL say
what I like," the elder said.

"I'm a gentleman though I AM your son, sir," George answered
haughtily.  "Any communications which you have to make to me, or any
orders which you may please to give, I beg may be couched in that
kind of language which I am accustomed to hear."

Whenever the lad assumed his haughty manner, it always created
either great awe or great irritation in the parent.  Old Osborne
stood in secret terror of his son as a better gentleman than
himself; and perhaps my readers may have remarked in their
experience of this Vanity Fair of ours, that there is no character
which a low-minded man so much mistrusts as that of a gentleman.

"My father didn't give me the education you have had, nor the
advantages you have had, nor the money you have had.  If I had kept
the company SOME FOLKS have had through MY MEANS, perhaps my son
wouldn't have any reason to brag, sir, of his SUPERIORITY and WEST
END AIRS (these words were uttered in the elder Osborne's most
sarcastic tones).  But it wasn't considered the part of a gentleman,
in MY time, for a man to insult his father. If I'd done any such
thing, mine would have kicked me downstairs, sir."

"I never insulted you, sir.  I said I begged you to remember your
son was a gentleman as well as yourself. I know very well that you
give me plenty of money," said George (fingering a bundle of notes
which he had got in the morning from Mr. Chopper).  "You tell it me
often enough, sir.  There's no fear of my forgetting it."

"I wish you'd remember other things as well, sir," the sire
answered.  "I wish you'd remember that in this house--so long as you
choose to HONOUR it with your COMPANY, Captain--I'm the master, and
that name, and that that--that you--that I say--"

"That what, sir?" George asked, with scarcely a sneer, filling
another glass of claret.

"----!" burst out his father with a screaming oath--"that the name of
those Sedleys never be mentioned here, sir--not one of the whole
damned lot of 'em, sir."

"It wasn't I, sir, that introduced Miss Sedley's name.  It was my
sisters who spoke ill of her to Miss Swartz; and by Jove I'll defend
her wherever I go.  Nobody shall speak lightly of that name in my
presence.  Our family has done her quite enough injury already, I
think, and may leave off reviling her now she's down.  I'll shoot
any man but you who says a word against her."

"Go on, sir, go on," the old gentleman said, his eyes starting out
of his head.

"Go on about what, sir? about the way in which we've treated that
angel of a girl?  Who told me to love her?  It was your doing.  I
might have chosen elsewhere, and looked higher, perhaps, than your
society: but I obeyed you.  And now that her heart's mine you give
me orders to fling it away, and punish her, kill her perhaps--for
the faults of other people.  It's a shame, by Heavens," said George,
working himself up into passion and enthusiasm as he proceeded, "to
play at fast and loose with a young girl's affections--and with such
an angel as that--one so superior to the people amongst whom she
lived, that she might have excited envy, only she was so good and
gentle, that it's a wonder anybody dared to hate her. If I desert
her, sir, do you suppose she forgets me?"

"I ain't going to have any of this dam sentimental nonsense and
humbug here, sir," the father cried out.  "There shall be no beggar-
marriages in my family.  If you choose to fling away eight thousand
a year, which you may have for the asking, you may do it: but by
Jove you take your pack and walk out of this house, sir.  Will you
do as I tell you, once for all, sir, or will you not?"

"Marry that mulatto woman?" George said, pulling up his shirt-
collars.  "I don't like the colour, sir.  Ask the black that sweeps
opposite Fleet Market, sir.  I'm not going to marry a Hottentot
Venus."

Mr. Osborne pulled frantically at the cord by which he was
accustomed to summon the butler when he wanted wine--and almost
black in the face, ordered that functionary to call a coach for
Captain Osborne.

"I've done it," said George, coming into the Slaughters' an hour
afterwards, looking very pale.

"What, my boy?" says Dobbin.

George told what had passed between his father and himself.

"I'll marry her to-morrow," he said with an oath.  "I love her more
every day, Dobbin."



CHAPTER XXII

A Marriage and Part of a Honeymoon


Enemies the most obstinate and courageous can't hold out against
starvation; so the elder Osborne felt himself pretty easy about his
adversary in the encounter we have just described; and as soon as
George's supplies fell short, confidently expected his unconditional
submission. It was unlucky, to be sure, that the lad should have
secured a stock of provisions on the very day when the first
encounter took place; but this relief was only temporary, old
Osborne thought, and would but delay George's surrender.  No
communication passed between father and son for some days.  The
former was sulky at this silence, but not disquieted; for, as he
said, he knew where he could put the screw upon George, and only
waited the result of that operation.  He told the sisters the upshot
of the dispute between them, but ordered them to take no notice of
the matter, and welcome George on his return as if nothing had
happened.  His cover was laid as usual every day, and perhaps the
old gentleman rather anxiously expected him; but he never came.
Some one inquired at the Slaughters' regarding him, where it was
said that he and his friend Captain Dobbin had left town.

One gusty, raw day at the end of April--the rain whipping the
pavement of that ancient street where the old Slaughters' Coffee-
house was once situated--George Osborne came into the coffee-room,
looking very haggard and pale; although dressed rather smartly in a
blue coat and brass buttons, and a neat buff waistcoat of the
fashion of those days.  Here was his friend Captain Dobbin, in blue
and brass too, having abandoned the military frock and French-grey
trousers, which were the usual coverings of his lanky person.

Dobbin had been in the coffee-room for an hour or more.  He had
tried all the papers, but could not read them.  He had looked at the
clock many scores of times; and at the street, where the rain was
pattering down, and the people as they clinked by in pattens, left
long reflections on the shining stone: he tattooed at the table: he
bit his nails most completely, and nearly to the quick (he was
accustomed to ornament his great big hands in this way): he balanced
the tea-spoon dexterously on the milk jug: upset it, &c., &c.; and
in fact showed those signs of disquietude, and practised those
desperate attempts at amusement, which men are accustomed to employ
when very anxious, and expectant, and perturbed in mind.

Some of his comrades, gentlemen who used the room, joked him about
the splendour of his costume and his agitation of manner.  One asked
him if he was going to be married?  Dobbin laughed, and said he
would send his acquaintance (Major Wagstaff of the Engineers) a
piece of cake when that event took place.  At length Captain Osborne
made his appearance, very smartly dressed, but very pale and
agitated as we have said.  He wiped his pale face with a large
yellow bandanna pocket-handkerchief that was prodigiously scented.
He shook hands with Dobbin, looked at the clock, and told John, the
waiter, to bring him some curacao.  Of this cordial he swallowed off
a couple of glasses with nervous eagerness. His friend asked with
some interest about his health.

"Couldn't get a wink of sleep till daylight, Dob," said he.
"Infernal headache and fever.  Got up at nine, and went down to the
Hummums for a bath.  I say, Dob, I feel just as I did on the morning
I went out with Rocket at Quebec."

"So do I," William responded.  "I was a deuced deal more nervous
than you were that morning.  You made a famous breakfast, I
remember.  Eat something now."

"You're a good old fellow, Will.  I'll drink your health, old boy,
and farewell to--"

"No, no; two glasses are enough," Dobbin interrupted him.  "Here,
take away the liqueurs, John.  Have some cayenne-pepper with your
fowl.  Make haste though, for it is time we were there."

It was about half an hour from twelve when this brief meeting and
colloquy took place between the two captains.  A coach, into which
Captain Osborne's servant put his master's desk and dressing-case,
had been in waiting for some time; and into this the two gentlemen
hurried under an umbrella, and the valet mounted on the box, cursing
the rain and the dampness of the coachman who was steaming beside
him.  "We shall find a better trap than this at the church-door,"
says he; "that's a comfort." And the carriage drove on, taking the
road down Piccadilly, where Apsley House and St. George's Hospital
wore red jackets still; where there were oil-lamps; where Achilles
was not yet born; nor the Pimlico arch raised; nor the hideous
equestrian monster which pervades it and the neighbourhood; and so
they drove down by Brompton to a certain chapel near the Fulham Road
there.

A chariot was in waiting with four horses; likewise a coach of the
kind called glass coaches.  Only a very few idlers were collected on
account of the dismal rain.

"Hang it!" said George, "I said only a pair."

"My master would have four," said Mr. Joseph Sedley's servant, who
was in waiting; and he and Mr. Osborne's man agreed as they followed
George and William into the church, that it was a "reg'lar shabby
turn hout; and with scarce so much as a breakfast or a wedding
faviour."

"Here you are," said our old friend, Jos Sedley, coming forward.
"You're five minutes late, George, my boy. What a day, eh? Demmy,
it's like the commencement of the rainy season in Bengal.  But
you'll find my carriage is watertight.  Come along, my mother and
Emmy are in the vestry."

Jos Sedley was splendid.  He was fatter than ever.  His shirt
collars were higher; his face was redder; his shirt-frill flaunted
gorgeously out of his variegated waistcoat. Varnished boots were not
invented as yet; but the Hessians on his beautiful legs shone so,
that they must have been the identical pair in which the gentleman
in the old picture used to shave himself; and on his light green
coat there bloomed a fine wedding favour, like a great white
spreading magnolia.

In a word, George had thrown the great cast.  He was going to be
married.  Hence his pallor and nervousness--his sleepless night and
agitation in the morning.  I have heard people who have gone through
the same thing own to the same emotion.  After three or four
ceremonies, you get accustomed to it, no doubt; but the first dip,
everybody allows, is awful.

The bride was dressed in a brown silk pelisse (as Captain Dobbin has
since informed me), and wore a straw bonnet with a pink ribbon; over
the bonnet she had a veil of white Chantilly lace, a gift from Mr.
Joseph Sedley, her brother.  Captain Dobbin himself had asked leave
to present her with a gold chain and watch, which she sported on
this occasion; and her mother gave her her diamond brooch--almost
the only trinket which was left to the old lady.  As the service
went on, Mrs. Sedley sat and whimpered a great deal in a pew,
consoled by the Irish maid-servant and Mrs. Clapp from the lodgings.
Old Sedley would not be present.  Jos acted for his father, giving
away the bride, whilst Captain Dobbin stepped up as groomsman to his
friend George.

There was nobody in the church besides the officiating persons and
the small marriage party and their attendants. The two valets sat
aloof superciliously.  The rain came rattling down on the windows.
In the intervals of the service you heard it, and the sobbing of old
Mrs. Sedley in the pew.  The parson's tones echoed sadly through the
empty walls.  Osborne's "I will" was sounded in very deep bass.
Emmy's response came fluttering up to her lips from her heart, but
was scarcely heard by anybody except Captain Dobbin.

When the service was completed, Jos Sedley came forward and kissed
his sister, the bride, for the first time for many months--George's
look of gloom had gone, and he seemed quite proud and radiant.
"It's your turn, William," says he, putting his hand fondly upon
Dobbin's shoulder; and Dobbin went up and touched Amelia on the
cheek.

Then they went into the vestry and signed the register. "God bless
you, Old Dobbin," George said, grasping him by the hand, with
something very like moisture glistening in his eyes.  William
replied only by nodding his head. His heart was too full to say
much.

"Write directly, and come down as soon as you can, you know,"
Osborne said.  After Mrs. Sedley had taken an hysterical adieu of
her daughter, the pair went off to the carriage.  "Get out of the
way, you little devils," George cried to a small crowd of damp
urchins, that were hanging about the chapel-door.  The rain drove
into the bride and bridegroom's faces as they passed to the chariot.
The postilions' favours draggled on their dripping jackets. The few
children made a dismal cheer, as the carriage, splashing mud, drove
away.

William Dobbin stood in the church-porch, looking at it, a queer
figure.  The small crew of spectators jeered him. He was not
thinking about them or their laughter.

"Come home and have some tiffin, Dobbin," a voice cried behind him;
as a pudgy hand was laid on his shoulder, and the honest fellow's
reverie was interrupted.  But the Captain had no heart to go a-
feasting with Jos Sedley. He put the weeping old lady and her
attendants into the carriage along with Jos, and left them without
any farther words passing.  This carriage, too, drove away, and the
urchins gave another sarcastical cheer.

"Here, you little beggars," Dobbin said, giving some sixpences
amongst them, and then went off by himself through the rain.  It was
all over.  They were married, and happy, he prayed God.  Never since
he was a boy had he felt so miserable and so lonely.  He longed with
a heart-sick yearning for the first few days to be over, that he
might see her again.

Some ten days after the above ceremony, three young men of our
acquaintance were enjoying that beautiful prospect of bow windows on
the one side and blue sea on the other, which Brighton affords to
the traveller. Sometimes it is towards the ocean--smiling with
countless dimples, speckled with white sails, with a hundred
bathing-machines kissing the skirt of his blue garment--that the
Londoner looks enraptured: sometimes, on the contrary, a lover of
human nature rather than of prospects of any kind, it is towards the
bow windows that he turns, and that swarm of human life which they
exhibit.  From one issue the notes of a piano, which a young lady in
ringlets practises six hours daily, to the delight of the fellow-
lodgers: at another, lovely Polly, the nurse-maid, may be seen
dandling Master Omnium in her arms: whilst Jacob, his papa, is
beheld eating prawns, and devouring the Times for breakfast, at the
window below. Yonder are the Misses Leery, who are looking out for
the young officers of the Heavies, who are pretty sure to be pacing
the cliff; or again it is a City man, with a nautical turn, and a
telescope, the size of a six-pounder, who has his instrument pointed
seawards, so as to command every pleasure-boat, herring-boat, or
bathing-machine that comes to, or quits, the shore, &c., &c.  But
have we any leisure for a description of Brighton?--for Brighton, a
clean Naples with genteel lazzaroni--for Brighton, that always looks
brisk, gay, and gaudy, like a harlequin's jacket--for Brighton,
which used to be seven hours distant from London at the time of our
story; which is now only a hundred minutes off; and which may
approach who knows how much nearer, unless Joinville comes and
untimely bombards it?

"What a monstrous fine girl that is in the lodgings over the
milliner's," one of these three promenaders remarked to the other;
"Gad, Crawley, did you see what a wink she gave me as I passed?"

"Don't break her heart, Jos, you rascal," said another. "Don't
trifle with her affections, you Don Juan!"

"Get away," said Jos Sedley, quite pleased, and leering up at the
maid-servant in question with a most killing ogle.  Jos was even
more splendid at Brighton than he had been at his sister's marriage.
He had brilliant under-waistcoats, any one of which would have set
up a moderate buck. He sported a military frock-coat, ornamented
with frogs, knobs, black buttons, and meandering embroidery. He had
affected a military appearance and habits of late; and he walked
with his two friends, who were of that profession, clinking his
boot-spurs, swaggering prodigiously, and shooting death-glances at
all the servant girls who were worthy to be slain.

"What shall we do, boys, till the ladies return?" the buck asked.
The ladies were out to Rottingdean in his carriage on a drive.

"Let's have a game at billiards," one of his friends said--the tall
one, with lacquered mustachios.

"No, dammy; no, Captain," Jos replied, rather alarmed.  "No
billiards to-day, Crawley, my boy; yesterday was enough."

"You play very well," said Crawley, laughing.  "Don't he, Osborne?
How well he made that-five stroke, eh?"

"Famous," Osborne said.  "Jos is a devil of a fellow at billiards,
and at everything else, too.  I wish there were any tiger-hunting
about here! we might go and kill a few before dinner.  (There goes a
fine girl! what an ankle, eh, Jos?) Tell us that story about the
tiger-hunt, and the way you did for him in the jungle--it's a
wonderful story that, Crawley." Here George Osborne gave a yawn.
"It's rather slow work," said he, "down here; what shall we do?"

"Shall we go and look at some horses that Snaffler's just brought
from Lewes fair?" Crawley said.

"Suppose we go and have some jellies at Dutton's," and the rogue
Jos, willing to kill two birds with one stone.  "Devilish fine gal
at Dutton's."

"Suppose we go and see the Lightning come in, it's just about time?"
George said.  This advice prevailing over the stables and the jelly,
they turned towards the coach-office to witness the Lightning's
arrival.

As they passed, they met the carriage--Jos Sedley's open carriage,
with its magnificent armorial bearings--that splendid conveyance in
which he used to drive, about at Cheltonham, majestic and solitary,
with his arms folded, and his hat cocked; or, more happy, with
ladies by his side.

Two were in the carriage now: one a little person, with light hair,
and dressed in the height of the fashion; the other in a brown silk
pelisse, and a straw bonnet with pink ribbons, with a rosy, round,
happy face, that did you good to behold.  She checked the carriage
as it neared the three gentlemen, after which exercise of authority
she looked rather nervous, and then began to blush most absurdly.
"We have had a delightful drive, George," she said, "and--and we're
so glad to come back; and, Joseph, don't let him be late."

"Don't be leading our husbands into mischief, Mr. Sedley, you
wicked, wicked man you," Rebecca said, shaking at Jos a pretty
little finger covered with the neatest French kid glove.  "No
billiards, no smoking, no naughtiness!"

"My dear Mrs. Crawley--Ah now! upon my honour!" was all Jos could
ejaculate by way of reply; but he managed to fall into a tolerable
attitude, with his head lying on his shoulder, grinning upwards at
his victim, with one hand at his back, which he supported on his
cane, and the other hand (the one with the diamond ring) fumbling in
his shirt-frill and among his under-waistcoats.  As the carriage
drove off he kissed the diamond hand to the fair ladies within.  He
wished all Cheltenham, all Chowringhee, all Calcutta, could see him
in that position, waving his hand to such a beauty, and in company
with such a famous buck as Rawdon Crawley of the Guards.

Our young bride and bridegroom had chosen Brighton as the place
where they would pass the first few days after their marriage; and
having engaged apartments at the Ship Inn, enjoyed themselves there
in great comfort and quietude, until Jos presently joined them.  Nor
was he the only companion they found there.  As they were coming
into the hotel from a sea-side walk one afternoon, on whom should
they light but Rebecca and her husband.  The recognition was
immediate.  Rebecca flew into the arms of her dearest friend.
Crawley and Osborne shook hands together cordially enough: and
Becky, in the course of a very few hours, found means to make the
latter forget that little unpleasant passage of words which had
happened between them.  "Do you remember the last time we met at
Miss Crawley's, when I was so rude to you, dear Captain Osborne? I
thought you seemed careless about dear Amelia.  It was that made me
angry: and so pert: and so unkind: and so ungrateful.  Do forgive
me!" Rebecca said, and she held out her hand with so frank and
winning a grace, that Osborne could not but take it.  By humbly and
frankly acknowledging yourself to be in the wrong, there is no
knowing, my son, what good you may do.  I knew once a gentleman and
very worthy practitioner in Vanity Fair, who used to do little
wrongs to his neighbours on purpose, and in order to apologise for
them in an open and manly way afterwards--and what ensued?  My
friend Crocky Doyle was liked everywhere, and deemed to be rather
impetuous--but the honestest fellow.  Becky's humility passed for
sincerity with George Osborne.

These two young couples had plenty of tales to relate to each other.
The marriages of either were discussed; and their prospects in life
canvassed with the greatest frankness and interest on both sides.
George's marriage was to be made known to his father by his friend
Captain Dobbin; and young Osborne trembled rather for the result of
that communication.  Miss Crawley, on whom all Rawdon's hopes
depended, still held out.  Unable to make an entry into her house in
Park Lane, her affectionate nephew and niece had followed her to
Brighton, where they had emissaries continually planted at her door.

"I wish you could see some of Rawdon's friends who are always about
our door," Rebecca said, laughing.  "Did you ever see a dun, my
dear; or a bailiff and his man? Two of the abominable wretches
watched all last week at the greengrocer's opposite, and we could
not get away until Sunday.  If Aunty does not relent, what shall we
do?"

Rawdon, with roars of laughter, related a dozen amusing anecdotes of
his duns, and Rebecca's adroit treatment of them.  He vowed with a
great oath that there was no woman in Europe who could talk a
creditor over as she could.  Almost immediately after their
marriage, her practice had begun, and her husband found the immense
value of such a wife.  They had credit in plenty, but they had bills
also in abundance, and laboured under a scarcity of ready money.
Did these debt-difficulties affect Rawdon's good spirits?  No.
Everybody in Vanity Fair must have remarked how well those live who
are comfortably and thoroughly in debt: how they deny themselves
nothing; how jolly and easy they are in their minds.  Rawdon and his
wife had the very best apartments at the inn at Brighton; the
landlord, as he brought in the first dish, bowed before them as to
his greatest customers: and Rawdon abused the dinners and wine with
an audacity which no grandee in the land could surpass.  Long
custom, a manly appearance, faultless boots and clothes, and a happy
fierceness of manner, will often help a man as much as a great
balance at the banker's.

The two wedding parties met constantly in each other's apartments.
After two or three nights the gentlemen of an evening had a little
piquet, as their wives sate and chatted apart.  This pastime, and
the arrival of Jos Sedley, who made his appearance in his grand open
carriage, and who played a few games at billiards with Captain
Crawley, replenished Rawdon's purse somewhat, and gave him the
benefit of that ready money for which the greatest spirits are
sometimes at a stand-still.

So the three gentlemen walked down to see the Lightning coach come
in.  Punctual to the minute, the coach crowded inside and out, the
guard blowing his accustomed tune on the horn--the Lightning came
tearing down the street, and pulled up at the coach-office.

"Hullo! there's old Dobbin," George cried, quite delighted to see
his old friend perched on the roof; and whose promised visit to
Brighton had been delayed until now.  "How are you, old fellow?
Glad you're come down. Emmy'll be delighted to see you," Osborne
said, shaking his comrade warmly by the hand as soon as his descent
from the vehicle was effected--and then he added, in a lower and
agitated voice, "What's the news?  Have you been in Russell Square?
What does the governor say? Tell me everything."

Dobbin looked very pale and grave.  "I've seen your father," said
he.  "How's Amelia--Mrs. George?  I'll tell you all the news
presently: but I've brought the great news of all: and that is--"

"Out with it, old fellow," George said.

"We're ordered to Belgium.  All the army goes--guards and all.
Heavytop's got the gout, and is mad at not being able to move.
O'Dowd goes in command, and we embark from Chatham next week." This
news of war could not but come with a shock upon our lovers, and
caused all these gentlemen to look very serious.



CHAPTER XXIII

Captain Dobbin Proceeds on His Canvass


What is the secret mesmerism which friendship possesses, and under
the operation of which a person ordinarily sluggish, or cold, or
timid, becomes wise, active, and resolute, in another's behalf?  As
Alexis, after a few passes from Dr. Elliotson, despises pain, reads
with the back of his head, sees miles off, looks into next week, and
performs other wonders, of which, in his own private normal
condition, he is quite incapable; so you see, in the affairs of the
world and under the magnetism of friendships, the modest man becomes
bold, the shy confident, the lazy active, or the impetuous prudent
and peaceful.  What is it, on the other hand, that makes the lawyer
eschew his own cause, and call in his learned brother as an adviser?
And what causes the doctor, when ailing, to send for his rival, and
not sit down and examine his own tongue in the chimney Bass, or
write his own prescription at his study-table?  I throw out these
queries for intelligent readers to answer, who know, at once, how
credulous we are, and how sceptical, how soft and how obstinate, how
firm for others and how diffident about ourselves:  meanwhile, it is
certain that our friend William Dobbin, who was personally of so
complying a disposition that if his parents had pressed him much, it
is probable he would have stepped down into the kitchen and married
the cook, and who, to further his own interests, would have found
the most insuperable difficulty in walking across the street, found
himself as busy and eager in the conduct of George Osborne's
affairs, as the most selfish tactician could be in the pursuit of
his own.

Whilst our friend George and his young wife were enjoying the first
blushing days of the honeymoon at Brighton, honest William was left
as George's plenipotentiary in London, to transact all the business
part of the marriage. His duty it was to call upon old Sedley and
his wife, and to keep the former in good humour:  to draw Jos and
his brother-in-law nearer together, so that Jos's position and
dignity, as collector of Boggley Wollah, might compensate for his
father's loss of station, and tend to reconcile old Osborne to the
alliance:  and finally, to communicate it to the latter in such a
way as should least irritate the old gentleman.

Now, before he faced the head of the Osborne house with the news
which it was his duty to tell, Dobbin bethought him that it would be
politic to make friends of the rest of the family, and, if possible,
have the ladies on his side. They can't be angry in their hearts,
thought he.  No woman ever was really angry at a romantic marriage.
A little crying out, and they must come round to their brother; when
the three of us will lay siege to old Mr. Osborne.  So this
Machiavellian captain of infantry cast about him for some happy
means or stratagem by which he could gently and gradually bring the
Misses Osborne to a knowledge of their brother's secret.

By a little inquiry regarding his mother's engagements, he was
pretty soon able to find out by whom of her ladyship's friends
parties were given at that season; where he would be likely to meet
Osborne's sisters; and, though he had that abhorrence of routs and
evening parties which many sensible men, alas! entertain, he soon
found one where the Misses Osborne were to be present. Making his
appearance at the ball, where he danced a couple of sets with both
of them, and was prodigiously polite, he actually had the courage to
ask Miss Osborne for a few minutes' conversation at an early hour
the next day, when he had, he said, to communicate to her news of
the very greatest interest.

What was it that made her start back, and gaze upon him for a
moment, and then on the ground at her feet, and make as if she would
faint on his arm, had he not by opportunely treading on her toes,
brought the young lady back to self-control?  Why was she so
violently agitated at Dobbin's request?  This can never be known.
But when he came the next day, Maria was not in the drawing-room
with her sister, and Miss Wirt went off for the purpose of fetching
the latter, and the Captain and Miss Osborne were left together.
They were both so silent that the ticktock of the Sacrifice of
Iphigenia clock on the mantelpiece became quite rudely audible.

"What a nice party it was last night," Miss Osborne at length began,
encouragingly; "and--and how you're improved in your dancing,
Captain Dobbin.  Surely somebody has taught you," she added, with
amiable archness.

"You should see me dance a reel with Mrs. Major O'Dowd of ours; and
a jig--did you ever see a jig?  But I think anybody could dance with
you, Miss Osborne, who dance so well."

"Is the Major's lady young and beautiful, Captain?" the fair
questioner continued.  "Ah, what a terrible thing it must be to be a
soldier's wife!  I wonder they have any spirits to dance, and in
these dreadful times of war, too! O Captain Dobbin, I tremble
sometimes when I think of our dearest George, and the dangers of the
poor soldier. Are there many married officers of the --th, Captain
Dobbin?"

"Upon my word, she's playing her hand rather too openly," Miss Wirt
thought; but this observation is merely parenthetic, and was not
heard through the crevice of the door at which the governess uttered
it.

"One of our young men is just married," Dobbin said, now coming to
the point.  "It was a very old attachment, and the young couple are
as poor as church mice." "O, how delightful! O, how romantic!" Miss
Osborne cried, as the Captain said "old attachment" and "poor." Her
sympathy encouraged him.

"The finest young fellow in the regiment," he continued. "Not a
braver or handsomer officer in the army; and such a charming wife!
How you would like her!  how you will like her when you know her,
Miss Osborne."  The young lady thought the actual moment had
arrived, and that Dobbin's nervousness which now came on and was
visible in many twitchings of his face, in his manner of beating the
ground with his great feet, in the rapid buttoning and unbuttoning
of his frock-coat, &c.--Miss Osborne, I say, thought that when he
had given himself a little air, he would unbosom himself entirely,
and prepared eagerly to listen.  And the clock, in the altar on
which Iphigenia was situated, beginning, after a preparatory
convulsion, to toll twelve, the mere tolling seemed as if it would
last until one--so prolonged was the knell to the anxious spinster.

"But it's not about marriage that I came to speak--that is that
marriage--that is--no, I mean--my dear Miss Osborne, it's about our
dear friend George," Dobbin said.

"About George?" she said in a tone so discomfited that Maria and
Miss Wirt laughed at the other side of the door, and even that
abandoned wretch of a Dobbin felt inclined to smile himself; for he
was not altogether unconscious of the state of affairs:  George
having often bantered him gracefully and said, "Hang it, Will, why
don't you take old Jane?  She'll have you if you ask her. I'll bet
you five to two she will."

"Yes, about George, then," he continued.  "There has been a
difference between him and Mr. Osborne.  And I regard him so much--
for you know we have been like brothers--that I hope and pray the
quarrel may be settled.  We must go abroad, Miss Osborne.  We may be
ordered off at a day's warning.  Who knows what may happen in the
campaign?  Don't be agitated, dear Miss Osborne; and those two at
least should part friends."

"There has been no quarrel, Captain Dobbin, except a little usual
scene with Papa," the lady said.  "We are expecting George back
daily.  What Papa wanted was only for his good.  He has but to come
back, and I'm sure all will be well; and dear Rhoda, who went away
from here in sad sad anger, I know will forgive him.  Woman forgives
but too readily, Captain."

"Such an angel as YOU I am sure would," Mr. Dobbin said, with
atrocious astuteness.  "And no man can pardon himself for giving a
woman pain.  What would you feel, if a man were faithless to you?"

"I should perish--I should throw myself out of window--I should take
poison--I should pine and die.  I know I should," Miss cried, who
had nevertheless gone through one or two affairs of the heart
without any idea of suicide.

"And there are others," Dobbin continued, "as true and as kind-
hearted as yourself.  I'm not speaking about the West Indian
heiress, Miss Osborne, but about a poor girl whom George once loved,
and who was bred from her childhood to think of nobody but him.
I've seen her in her poverty uncomplaining, broken-hearted, without
a fault.  It is of Miss Sedley I speak.  Dear Miss Osborne, can your
generous heart quarrel with your brother for being faithful to her?
Could his own conscience ever forgive him if he deserted her?  Be
her friend--she always loved you--and--and I am come here charged by
George to tell you that he holds his engagement to her as the most
sacred duty he has; and to entreat you, at least, to be on his
side."

When any strong emotion took possession of Mr. Dobbin, and after the
first word or two of hesitation, he could speak with perfect
fluency, and it was evident that his eloquence on this occasion made
some impression upon the lady whom he addressed.

"Well," said she, "this is--most surprising--most painful--most
extraordinary--what will Papa say?--that George should fling away
such a superb establishment as was offered to him but at any rate he
has found a very brave champion in you, Captain Dobbin.  It is of no
use, however," she continued, after a pause; "I feel for poor Miss
Sedley, most certainly--most sincerely, you know. We never thought
the match a good one, though we were always very kind to her here--
very.  But Papa will never consent, I am sure.  And a well brought
up young woman, you know--with a well-regulated mind, must--George
must give her up, dear Captain Dobbin, indeed he must."

"Ought a man to give up the woman he loved, just when misfortune
befell her?" Dobbin said, holding out his hand.  "Dear Miss Osborne,
is this the counsel I hear from you?  My dear young lady! you must
befriend her. He can't give her up.  He must not give her up.  Would
a man, think you, give YOU up if you were poor?"

This adroit question touched the heart of Miss Jane Osborne not a
little.  "I don't know whether we poor girls ought to believe what
you men say, Captain," she said. "There is that in woman's
tenderness which induces her to believe too easily.  I'm afraid you
are cruel, cruel deceivers,"--and Dobbin certainly thought he felt a
pressure of the hand which Miss Osborne had extended to him.

He dropped it in some alarm.  "Deceivers!" said he. "No, dear Miss
Osborne, all men are not; your brother is not; George has loved
Amelia Sedley ever since they were children; no wealth would make
him marry any but her.  Ought he to forsake her?  Would you counsel
him to do so?"

What could Miss Jane say to such a question, and with her own
peculiar views?  She could not answer it, so she parried it by
saying, "Well, if you are not a deceiver, at least you are very
romantic"; and Captain William let this observation pass without
challenge.

At length when, by the help of farther polite speeches, he deemed
that Miss Osborne was sufficiently prepared to receive the whole
news, he poured it into her ear. "George could not give up Amelia--
George was married to her"--and then he related the circumstances of
the marriage as we know them already:  how the poor girl would have
died had not her lover kept his faith:  how Old Sedley had refused
all consent to the match, and a licence had been got: and Jos Sedley
had come from Cheltenham to give away the bride: how they had gone
to Brighton in Jos's chariot-and-four to pass the honeymoon: and how
George counted on his dear kind sisters to befriend him with their
father, as women--so true and tender as they were--assuredly would
do.  And so, asking permission (readily granted) to see her again,
and rightly conjecturing that the news he had brought would be told
in the next five minutes to the other ladies, Captain Dobbin made
his bow and took his leave.

He was scarcely out of the house, when Miss Maria and Miss Wirt
rushed in to Miss Osborne, and the whole wonderful secret was
imparted to them by that lady.  To do them justice, neither of the
sisters was very much displeased.  There is something about a
runaway match with which few ladies can be seriously angry, and
Amelia rather rose in their estimation, from the spirit which she
had displayed in consenting to the union.  As they debated the
story, and prattled about it, and wondered what Papa would do and
say, came a loud knock, as of an avenging thunder-clap, at the door,
which made these conspirators start.  It must be Papa, they thought.
But it was not he.  It was only Mr. Frederick Bullock, who had come
from the City according to appointment, to conduct the ladies to a
flower-show.

This gentleman, as may be imagined, was not kept long in ignorance
of the secret.  But his face, when he heard it, showed an amazement
which was very different to that look of sentimental wonder which
the countenances of the sisters wore.  Mr. Bullock was a man of the
world, and a junior partner of a wealthy firm.  He knew what money
was, and the value of it: and a delightful throb of expectation
lighted up his little eyes, and caused him to smile on his Maria, as
he thought that by this piece of folly of Mr. George's she might be
worth thirty thousand pounds more than he had ever hoped to get with
her.

"Gad!  Jane," said he, surveying even the elder sister with some
interest, "Eels will be sorry he cried off.  You may be a fifty
thousand pounder yet."

The sisters had never thought of the money question up to that
moment, but Fred Bullock bantered them with graceful gaiety about it
during their forenoon's excursion; and they had risen not a little
in their own esteem by the time when, the morning amusement over,
they drove back to dinner.  And do not let my respected reader
exclaim against this selfishness as unnatural.  It was but this
present morning, as he rode on the omnibus from Richmond; while it
changed horses, this present chronicler, being on the roof, marked
three little children playing in a puddle below, very dirty, and
friendly, and happy.  To these three presently came another little
one. "POLLY," says she, "YOUR SISTER'S GOT A PENNY."  At which the
children got up from the puddle instantly, and ran off to pay their
court to Peggy.  And as the omnibus drove off I saw Peggy with the
infantine procession at her tail, marching with great dignity
towards the stall of a neighbouring lollipop-woman.



CHAPTER XXIV

In Which Mr. Osborne Takes Down the Family Bible


So having prepared the sisters, Dobbin hastened away to the City to
perform the rest and more difficult part of the task which he had
undertaken.  The idea of facing old Osborne rendered him not a
little nervous, and more than once he thought of leaving the young
ladies to communicate the secret, which, as he was aware, they could
not long retain.  But he had promised to report to George upon the
manner in which the elder Osborne bore the intelligence; so going
into the City to the paternal counting-house in Thames Street, he
despatched thence a note to Mr. Osborne begging for a half-hour's
conversation relative to the affairs of his son George.  Dobbin's
messenger returned from Mr. Osborne's house of business, with the
compliments of the latter, who would be very happy to see the
Captain immediately, and away accordingly Dobbin went to confront
him.

The Captain, with a half-guilty secret to confess, and with the
prospect of a painful and stormy interview before him, entered Mr.
Osborne's offices with a most dismal countenance and abashed gait,
and, passing through the outer room where Mr. Chopper presided, was
greeted by that functionary from his desk with a waggish air which
farther discomfited him.  Mr. Chopper winked and nodded and pointed
his pen towards his patron's door, and said, "You'll find the
governor all right," with the most provoking good humour.

Osborne rose too, and shook him heartily by the hand, and said, "How
do, my dear boy?" with a cordiality that made poor George's
ambassador feel doubly guilty.  His hand lay as if dead in the old
gentleman's grasp.  He felt that he, Dobbin, was more or less the
cause of all that had happened.  It was he had brought back George
to Amelia: it was he had applauded, encouraged, transacted almost
the marriage which he was come to reveal to George's father:  and
the latter was receiving him with smiles of welcome; patting him on
the shoulder, and calling him "Dobbin, my dear boy." The envoy had
indeed good reason to hang his head.

Osborne fully believed that Dobbin had come to announce his son's
surrender.  Mr. Chopper and his principal were talking over the
matter between George and his father, at the very moment when
Dobbin's messenger arrived.  Both agreed that George was sending in
his submission.  Both had been expecting it for some days--and
"Lord! Chopper, what a marriage we'll have!" Mr. Osborne said to his
clerk, snapping his big fingers, and jingling all the guineas and
shillings in his great pockets as he eyed his subordinate with a
look of triumph.

With similar operations conducted in both pockets, and a knowing
jolly air, Osborne from his chair regarded Dobbin seated blank and
silent opposite to him.  "What a bumpkin he is for a Captain in the
army," old Osborne thought.  "I wonder George hasn't taught him
better manners."

At last Dobbin summoned courage to begin.  "Sir," said he, "I've
brought you some very grave news.  I have been at the Horse Guards
this morning, and there's no doubt that our regiment will be ordered
abroad, and on its way to Belgium before the week is over.  And you
know, sir, that we shan't be home again before a tussle which may be
fatal to many of us."   Osborne looked grave.  "My s--, the regiment
will do its duty, sir, I daresay," he said.

"The French are very strong, sir," Dobbin went on. "The Russians and
Austrians will be a long time before they can bring their troops
down.  We shall have the first of the fight, sir; and depend on it
Boney will take care that it shall be a hard one."

"What are you driving at, Dobbin?" his interlocutor said, uneasy and
with a scowl.  "I suppose no Briton's afraid of any d--- Frenchman,
hey?"

"I only mean, that before we go, and considering the great and
certain risk that hangs over every one of us--if there are any
differences between you and George--it would be as well, sir, that--
that you should shake hands: wouldn't it?  Should anything happen to
him, I think you would never forgive yourself if you hadn't parted
in charity."

As he said this, poor William Dobbin blushed crimson, and felt and
owned that he himself was a traitor.  But for him, perhaps, this
severance need never have taken place.  Why had not George's
marriage been delayed? What call was there to press it on so
eagerly?  He felt that George would have parted from Amelia at any
rate without a mortal pang.  Amelia, too, MIGHT have recovered the
shock of losing him.  It was his counsel had brought about this
marriage, and all that was to ensue from it. And why was it?
Because he loved her so much that he could not bear to see her
unhappy:  or because his own sufferings of suspense were so
unendurable that he was glad to crush them at once--as we hasten a
funeral after a death, or, when a separation from those we love is
imminent, cannot rest until the parting be over.

"You are a good fellow, William," said Mr. Osborne in a softened
voice; "and me and George shouldn't part in anger, that is true.
Look here.  I've done for him as much as any father ever did.  He's
had three times as much money from me, as I warrant your father ever
gave you.  But I don't brag about that.  How I've toiled for him,
and worked and employed my talents and energy, I won't say.  Ask
Chopper.  Ask himself.  Ask the City of London.  Well, I propose to
him such a marriage as any nobleman in the land might be proud of--
the only thing in life I ever asked him--and he refuses me.  Am I
wrong? Is the quarrel of MY making?  What do I seek but his good,
for which I've been toiling like a convict ever since he was born?
Nobody can say there's anything selfish in me.  Let him come back.
I say, here's my hand.  I say, forget and forgive.  As for marrying
now, it's out of the question.  Let him and Miss S. make it up, and
make out the marriage afterwards, when he comes back a Colonel; for
he shall be a Colonel, by G-- he shall, if money can do it.  I'm glad
you've brought him round.  I know it's you, Dobbin.  You've took him
out of many a scrape before.  Let him come.  I shan't be hard.  Come
along, and dine in Russell Square to-day: both of you.  The old
shop, the old hour.  You'll find a neck of venison, and no questions
asked."

This praise and confidence smote Dobbin's heart very keenly.  Every
moment the colloquy continued in this tone, he felt more and more
guilty.  "Sir," said he, "I fear you deceive yourself.  I am sure
you do.  George is much too high-minded a man ever to marry for
money.  A threat on your part that you would disinherit him in case
of disobedience would only be followed by resistance on his."

"Why, hang it, man, you don't call offering him eight or ten
thousand a year threatening him?" Mr. Osborne said, with still
provoking good humour.  "'Gad, if Miss S. will have me, I'm her man.
I ain't particular about a shade or so of tawny." And the old
gentleman gave his knowing grin and coarse laugh.

"You forget, sir, previous engagements into which Captain Osborne
had entered," the ambassador said, gravely.

"What engagements? What the devil do you mean? You don't mean," Mr.
Osborne continued, gathering wrath and astonishment as the thought
now first came upon him; "you don't mean that he's such a d--- fool
as to be still hankering after that swindling old bankrupt's
daughter? You've not come here for to make me suppose that he wants
to marry HER?  Marry HER, that IS a good one.  My son and heir marry
a beggar's girl out of a gutter.  D--- him, if he does, let him buy
a broom and sweep a crossing.  She was always dangling and ogling
after him, I recollect now; and I've no doubt she was put on by her
old sharper of a father."

"Mr. Sedley was your very good friend, sir," Dobbin interposed,
almost pleased at finding himself growing angry.  "Time was you
called him better names than rogue and swindler.  The match was of
your making. George had no right to play fast and loose--"

"Fast and loose!" howled out old Osborne.  "Fast and loose!  Why,
hang me, those are the very words my gentleman used himself when he
gave himself airs, last Thursday was a fortnight, and talked about
the British army to his father who made him.  What, it's you who
have been a setting of him up--is it? and my service to you,
CAPTAIN.  It's you who want to introduce beggars into my family.
Thank you for nothing, Captain.  Marry HER indeed--he, he! why
should he?  I warrant you she'd go to him fast enough without."

"Sir," said Dobbin, starting up in undisguised anger; "no man shall
abuse that lady in my hearing, and you least of all."

"O, you're a-going to call me out, are you?  Stop, let me ring the
bell for pistols for two.  Mr. George sent you here to insult his
father, did he?" Osborne said, pulling at the bell-cord.

"Mr. Osborne," said Dobbin, with a faltering voice, "it's you who
are insulting the best creature in the world. You had best spare
her, sir, for she's your son's wife."

And with this, feeling that he could say no more, Dobbin went away,
Osborne sinking back in his chair, and looking wildly after him.  A
clerk came in, obedient to the bell; and the Captain was scarcely
out of the court where Mr. Osborne's offices were, when Mr. Chopper
the chief clerk came rushing hatless after him.

"For God's sake, what is it?" Mr. Chopper said, catching the Captain
by the skirt.  "The governor's in a fit. What has Mr. George been
doing?"

"He married Miss Sedley five days ago," Dobbin replied. "I was his
groomsman, Mr. Chopper, and you must stand his friend."

The old clerk shook his head.  "If that's your news, Captain, it's
bad.  The governor will never forgive him."

Dobbin begged Chopper to report progress to him at the hotel where
he was stopping, and walked off moodily westwards, greatly perturbed
as to the past and the future.

When the Russell Square family came to dinner that evening, they
found the father of the house seated in his usual place, but with
that air of gloom on his face, which, whenever it appeared there,
kept the whole circle silent. The ladies, and Mr. Bullock who dined
with them, felt that the news had been communicated to Mr. Osborne.
His dark looks affected Mr. Bullock so far as to render him still
and quiet: but he was unusually bland and attentive to Miss Maria,
by whom he sat, and to her sister presiding at the head of the
table.

Miss Wirt, by consequence, was alone on her side of the board, a gap
being left between her and Miss Jane Osborne.  Now this was George's
place when he dined at home; and his cover, as we said, was laid for
him in expectation of that truant's return.  Nothing occurred during
dinner-time except smiling Mr. Frederick's flagging confidential
whispers, and the clinking of plate and china, to interrupt the
silence of the repast.  The servants went about stealthily doing
their duty.  Mutes at funerals could not look more glum than the
domestics of Mr. Osborne The neck of venison of which he had invited
Dobbin to partake, was carved by him in perfect silence; but his own
share went away almost untasted, though he drank much, and the
butler assiduously filled his glass.

At last, just at the end of the dinner, his eyes, which had been
staring at everybody in turn, fixed themselves for a while upon the
plate laid for George.  He pointed to it presently with his left
hand.  His daughters looked at him and did not comprehend, or choose
to comprehend, the signal; nor did the servants at first understand
it.

"Take that plate away," at last he said, getting up with an oath--
and with this pushing his chair back, he walked into his own room.

Behind Mr. Osborne's dining-room was the usual apartment which went
in his house by the name of the study; and was sacred to the master
of the house.  Hither Mr. Osborne would retire of a Sunday forenoon
when not minded to go to church; and here pass the morning in his
crimson leather chair, reading the paper.  A couple of glazed book-
cases were here, containing standard works in stout gilt bindings.
The "Annual Register," the "Gentleman's Magazine," "Blair's
Sermons," and "Hume and Smollett." From year's end to year's end he
never took one of these volumes from the shelf; but there was no
member of the family that would dare for his life to touch one of
the books, except upon those rare Sunday evenings when there was no
dinner-party, and when the great scarlet Bible and Prayer-book were
taken out from the corner where they stood beside his copy of the
Peerage, and the servants being rung up to the dining parlour,
Osborne read the evening service to his family in a loud grating
pompous voice.  No member of the household, child, or domestic, ever
entered that room without a certain terror.  Here he checked the
housekeeper's accounts, and overhauled the butler's cellar-book.
Hence he could command, across the clean gravel court-yard, the back
entrance of the stables with which one of his bells communicated,
and into this yard the coachman issued from his premises as into a
dock, and Osborne swore at him from the study window.  Four times a
year Miss Wirt entered this apartment to get her salary; and his
daughters to receive their quarterly allowance.  George as a boy had
been horsewhipped in this room many times; his mother sitting sick
on the stair listening to the cuts of the whip.  The boy was
scarcely ever known to cry under the punishment; the poor woman used
to fondle and kiss him secretly, and give him money to soothe him
when he came out.

There was a picture of the family over the mantelpiece, removed
thither from the front room after Mrs. Osborne's death--George was
on a pony, the elder sister holding him up a bunch of flowers; the
younger led by her mother's hand; all with red cheeks and large red
mouths, simpering on each other in the approved family-portrait
manner.  The mother lay underground now, long since forgotten--the
sisters and brother had a hundred different interests of their own,
and, familiar still, were utterly estranged from each other.  Some
few score of years afterwards, when all the parties represented are
grown old, what bitter satire there is in those flaunting childish
family-portraits, with their farce of sentiment and smiling lies,
and innocence so self-conscious and self-satisfied.  Osborne's own
state portrait, with that of his great silver inkstand and arm-
chair, had taken the place of honour in the dining-room, vacated by
the family-piece.

To this study old Osborne retired then, greatly to the relief of the
small party whom he left.  When the servants had withdrawn, they
began to talk for a while volubly but very low; then they went
upstairs quietly, Mr. Bullock accompanying them stealthily on his
creaking shoes.  He had no heart to sit alone drinking wine, and so
close to the terrible old gentleman in the study hard at hand.

An hour at least after dark, the butler, not having received any
summons, ventured to tap at his door and take him in wax candles and
tea.  The master of the house sate in his chair, pretending to read
the paper, and when the servant, placing the lights and refreshment
on the table by him, retired, Mr. Osborne got up and locked the door
after him.  This time there was no mistaking the matter; all the
household knew that some great catastrophe was going to happen which
was likely direly to affect Master George.

In the large shining mahogany escritoire Mr. Osborne had a drawer
especially devoted to his son's affairs and papers.  Here he kept
all the documents relating to him ever since he had been a boy: here
were his prize copy-books and drawing-books, all bearing George's
hand, and that of the master:  here were his first letters in large
round-hand sending his love to papa and mamma, and conveying his
petitions for a cake.  His dear godpapa Sedley was more than once
mentioned in them.  Curses quivered on old Osborne's livid lips, and
horrid hatred and disappointment writhed in his heart, as looking
through some of these papers he came on that name. They were all
marked and docketed, and tied with red tape. It was--"From Georgy,
requesting 5s., April 23, 18--; answered, April 25"--or "Georgy
about a pony, October 13"--and so forth. In another packet were "Dr.
S.'s accounts"--"G.'s tailor's bills and outfits, drafts on me by G.
Osborne, jun.," &c.--his letters from the West Indies--his agent's
letters, and the newspapers containing his commissions: here was a
whip he had when a boy, and in a paper a locket containing his hair,
which his mother used to wear.

Turning one over after another, and musing over these memorials, the
unhappy man passed many hours.  His dearest vanities, ambitious
hopes, had all been here.  What pride he had in his boy!  He was the
handsomest child ever seen.  Everybody said he was like a nobleman's
son.  A royal princess had remarked him, and kissed him, and asked
his name in Kew Gardens.  What City man could show such another?
Could a prince have been better cared for?  Anything that money
could buy had been his son's.  He used to go down on speech-days
with four horses and new liveries, and scatter new shillings among
the boys at the school where George was:  when he went with George
to the depot of his regiment, before the boy embarked for Canada, he
gave the officers such a dinner as the Duke of York might have sat
down to.  Had he ever refused a bill when George drew one? There
they were--paid without a word.  Many a general in the army couldn't
ride the horses he had!  He had the child before his eyes, on a
hundred different days when he remembered George after dinner, when
he used to come in as bold as a lord and drink off his glass by his
father's side, at the head of the table--on the pony at Brighton,
when he cleared the hedge and kept up with the huntsman--on the day
when he was presented to the Prince Regent at the levee, when all
Saint James's couldn't produce a finer young fellow.  And this, this
was the end of all!--to marry a bankrupt and fly in the face of duty
and fortune!  What humiliation and fury:  what pangs of sickening
rage, balked ambition and love; what wounds of outraged vanity,
tenderness even, had this old worldling now to suffer under!

Having examined these papers, and pondered over this one and the
other, in that bitterest of all helpless woe, with which miserable
men think of happy past times--George's father took the whole of the
documents out of the drawer in which he had kept them so long, and
locked them into a writing-box, which he tied, and sealed with his
seal.  Then he opened the book-case, and took down the great red
Bible we have spoken of a pompous book, seldom looked at, and
shining all over with gold. There was a frontispiece to the volume,
representing Abraham sacrificing Isaac.  Here, according to custom,
Osborne had recorded on the fly-leaf, and in his large clerk-like
hand, the dates of his marriage and his wife's death, and the births
and Christian names of his children. Jane came first, then George
Sedley Osborne, then Maria Frances, and the days of the christening
of each.  Taking a pen, he carefully obliterated George's names from
the page; and when the leaf was quite dry, restored the volume to
the place from which he had moved it.  Then he took a document out
of another drawer, where his own private papers were kept; and
having read it, crumpled it up and lighted it at one of the candles,
and saw it burn entirely away in the grate.  It was his will; which
being burned, he sate down and wrote off a letter, and rang for his
servant, whom he charged to deliver it in the morning.  It was
morning already: as he went up to bed, the whole house was alight
with the sunshine; and the birds were singing among the fresh green
leaves in Russell Square.

Anxious to keep all Mr. Osborne's family and dependants in good
humour, and to make as many friends as possible for George in his
hour of adversity, William Dobbin, who knew the effect which good
dinners and good wines have upon the soul of man, wrote off
immediately on his return to his inn the most hospitable of
invitations to Thomas Chopper, Esquire, begging that gentleman to
dine with him at the Slaughters' next day.  The note reached Mr.
Chopper before he left the City, and the instant reply was, that
"Mr. Chopper presents his respectful compliments, and will have the
honour and pleasure of waiting on Captain D."  The invitation and
the rough draft of the answer were shown to Mrs. Chopper and her
daughters on his return to Somers' Town that evening, and they
talked about military gents and West End men with great exultation
as the family sate and partook of tea.  When the girls had gone to
rest, Mr. and Mrs. C. discoursed upon the strange events which were
occurring in the governor's family.  Never had the clerk seen his
principal so moved.  When he went in to Mr. Osborne, after Captain
Dobbin's departure, Mr. Chopper found his chief black in the face,
and all but in a fit: some dreadful quarrel, he was certain, had
occurred between Mr. O. and the young Captain.  Chopper had been
instructed to make out an account of all sums paid to Captain
Osborne within the last three years.  "And a precious lot of money
he has had too," the chief clerk said, and respected his old and
young master the more, for the liberal way in which the guineas had
been flung about. The dispute was something about Miss Sedley.  Mrs.
Chopper vowed and declared she pitied that poor young lady to lose
such a handsome young fellow as the Capting. As the daughter of an
unlucky speculator, who had paid a very shabby dividend, Mr. Chopper
had no great regard for Miss Sedley.  He respected the house of
Osborne before all others in the City of London: and his hope and
wish was that Captain George should marry a nobleman's daughter.
The clerk slept a great deal sounder than his principal that night;
and, cuddling his children after breakfast (of which he partook with
a very hearty appetite, though his modest cup of life was only
sweetened with brown sugar), he set off in his best Sunday suit and
frilled shirt for business, promising his admiring wife not to
punish Captain D.'s port too severely that evening.

Mr. Osborne's countenance, when he arrived in the City at his usual
time, struck those dependants who were accustomed, for good reasons,
to watch its expression, as peculiarly ghastly and worn.  At twelve
o'clock Mr. Higgs (of the firm of Higgs & Blatherwick, solicitors,
Bedford Row) called by appointment, and was ushered into the
governor's private room, and closeted there for more than an hour.
At about one Mr. Chopper received a note brought by Captain Dobbin's
man, and containing an inclosure for Mr. Osborne, which the clerk
went in and delivered.  A short time afterwards Mr. Chopper and Mr.
Birch, the next clerk, were summoned, and requested to witness a
paper.  "I've been making a new will," Mr. Osborne said, to which
these gentlemen appended their names accordingly.  No conversation
passed.  Mr. Higgs looked exceedingly grave as he came into the
outer rooms, and very hard in Mr. Chopper's face; but there were not
any explanations.  It was remarked that Mr. Osborne was particularly
quiet and gentle all day, to the surprise of those who had augured
ill from his darkling demeanour.  He called no man names that day,
and was not heard to swear once.  He left business early; and before
going away, summoned his chief clerk once more, and having given him
general instructions, asked him, after some seeming hesitation and
reluctance to speak, if he knew whether Captain Dobbin was in town?

Chopper said he believed he was.  Indeed both of them knew the fact
perfectly.

Osborne took a letter directed to that officer, and giving it to the
clerk, requested the latter to deliver it into Dobbin's own hands
immediately.

"And now, Chopper," says he, taking his hat, and with a strange
look, "my mind will be easy."  Exactly as the clock struck two
(there was no doubt an appointment between the pair) Mr. Frederick
Bullock called, and he and Mr. Osborne walked away together.

The Colonel of the --th regiment, in which Messieurs Dobbin and
Osborne had companies, was an old General who had made his first
campaign under Wolfe at Quebec, and was long since quite too old and
feeble for command; but he took some interest in the regiment of
which he was the nominal head, and made certain of his young
officers welcome at his table, a kind of hospitality which I believe
is not now common amongst his brethren.  Captain Dobbin was an
especial favourite of this old General.  Dobbin was versed in the
literature of his profession, and could talk about the great
Frederick, and the Empress Queen, and their wars, almost as well as
the General himself, who was indifferent to the triumphs of the
present day, and whose heart was with the tacticians of fifty years
back.  This officer sent a summons to Dobbin to come and breakfast
with him, on the morning when Mr. Osborne altered his will and Mr.
Chopper put on his best shirt frill, and then informed his young
favourite, a couple of days in advance, of that which they were all
expecting--a marching order to go to Belgium. The order for the
regiment to hold itself in readiness would leave the Horse Guards in
a day or two; and as transports were in plenty, they would get their
route before the week was over.  Recruits had come in during the
stay of the regiment at Chatham; and the old General hoped that the
regiment which had helped to beat Montcalm in Canada, and to rout
Mr. Washington on Long Island, would prove itself worthy of its
historical reputation on the oft-trodden battle-grounds of the Low
Countries.  "And so, my good friend, if you have any affaire la,
said the old General, taking a pinch of snuff with his trembling
white old hand, and then pointing to the spot of his robe de chambre
under which his heart was still feebly beating, "if you have any
Phillis to console, or to bid farewell to papa and mamma, or any
will to make, I recommend you to set about your business without
delay." With which the General gave his young friend a finger to
shake, and a good-natured nod of his powdered and pigtailed head;
and the door being closed upon Dobbin, sate down to pen a poulet (he
was exceedingly vain of his French) to Mademoiselle Amenaide of His
Majesty's Theatre.

This news made Dobbin grave, and he thought of our friends at
Brighton, and then he was ashamed of himself that Amelia was always
the first thing in his thoughts (always before anybody--before
father and mother, sisters and duty--always at waking and sleeping
indeed, and all day long); and returning to his hotel, he sent off a
brief note to Mr. Osborne acquainting him with the information which
he had received, and which might tend farther, he hoped, to bring
about a reconciliation with George.

This note, despatched by the same messenger who had carried the
invitation to Chopper on the previous day, alarmed the worthy clerk
not a little.  It was inclosed to him, and as he opened the letter
he trembled lest the dinner should be put off on which he was
calculating.  His mind was inexpressibly relieved when he found that
the envelope was only a reminder for himself.  ("I shall expect you
at half-past five," Captain Dobbin wrote.) He was very much
interested about his employer's family; but, que voulez-vous? a
grand dinner was of more concern to him than the affairs of any
other mortal.

Dobbin was quite justified in repeating the General's information to
any officers of the regiment whom he should see in the course of his
peregrinations; accordingly he imparted it to Ensign Stubble, whom
he met at the agent's, and who--such was his military ardour--went
off instantly to purchase a new sword at the accoutrement-maker's.
Here this young fellow, who, though only seventeen years of age, and
about sixty-five inches high, with a constitution naturally rickety
and much impaired by premature brandy and water, had an undoubted
courage and a lion's heart, poised, tried, bent, and balanced a
weapon such as he thought would do execution amongst Frenchmen.
Shouting "Ha, ha!" and stamping his little feet with tremendous
energy, he delivered the point twice or thrice at Captain Dobbin,
who parried the thrust laughingly with his bamboo walking-stick.

Mr. Stubble, as may be supposed from his size and slenderness, was
of the Light Bobs.  Ensign Spooney, on the contrary, was a tall
youth, and belonged to (Captain Dobbin's) the Grenadier Company, and
he tried on a new bearskin cap, under which he looked savage beyond
his years.  Then these two lads went off to the Slaughters', and
having ordered a famous dinner, sate down and wrote off letters to
the kind anxious parents at home--letters full of love and
heartiness, and pluck and bad spelling.  Ah! there were many anxious
hearts beating through England at that time; and mothers' prayers
and tears flowing in many homesteads.

Seeing young Stubble engaged in composition at one of the coffee-
room tables at the Slaughters', and the tears trickling down his
nose on to the paper (for the youngster was thinking of his mamma,
and that he might never see her again), Dobbin, who was going to
write off a letter to George Osborne, relented, and locked up his
desk.  "Why should I?" said he.  "Let her have this night happy.
I'll go and see my parents early in the morning, and go down to
Brighton myself to-morrow."

So he went up and laid his big hand on young Stubble's shoulder, and
backed up that young champion, and told him if he would leave off
brandy and water he would be a good soldier, as he always was a
gentlemanly good-hearted fellow.  Young Stubble's eyes brightened up
at this, for Dobbin was greatly respected in the regiment, as the
best officer and the cleverest man in it.

"Thank you, Dobbin," he said, rubbing his eyes with his knuckles, "I
was just--just telling her I would.  And, O Sir, she's so dam kind
to me." The water pumps were at work again, and I am not sure that
the soft-hearted Captain's eyes did not also twinkle.

The two ensigns, the Captain, and Mr. Chopper, dined together in the
same box.  Chopper brought the letter from Mr. Osborne, in which the
latter briefly presented his compliments to Captain Dobbin, and
requested him to forward the inclosed to Captain George Osborne.
Chopper knew nothing further; he described Mr. Osborne's appearance,
it is true, and his interview with his lawyer, wondered how the
governor had sworn at nobody, and--especially as the wine circled
round--abounded in speculations and conjectures.  But these grew
more vague with every glass, and at length became perfectly
unintelligible. At a late hour Captain Dobbin put his guest into a
hackney coach, in a hiccupping state, and swearing that he would be
the kick--the kick--Captain's friend for ever and ever.

When Captain Dobbin took leave of Miss Osborne we have said that he
asked leave to come and pay her another visit, and the spinster
expected him for some hours the next day, when, perhaps, had he
come, and had he asked her that question which she was prepared to
answer, she would have declared herself as her brother's friend, and
a reconciliation might have been effected between George and his
angry father.  But though she waited at home the Captain never came.
He had his own affairs to pursue; his own parents to visit and
console; and at an early hour of the day to take his place on the
Lightning coach, and go down to his friends at Brighton.  In the
course of the day Miss Osborne heard her father give orders that
that meddling scoundrel, Captain Dobbin, should never be admitted
within his doors again, and any hopes in which she may have indulged
privately were thus abruptly brought to an end.  Mr. Frederick
Bullock came, and was particularly affectionate to Maria, and
attentive to the broken-spirited old gentleman.  For though he said
his mind would be easy, the means which he had taken to secure quiet
did not seem to have succeeded as yet, and the events of the past
two days had visibly shattered him.



CHAPTER XXV

In Which All the Principal Personages Think Fit to Leave Brighton


Conducted to the ladies, at the Ship Inn, Dobbin assumed a jovial
and rattling manner, which proved that this young officer was
becoming a more consummate hypocrite every day of his life.  He was
trying to hide his own private feelings, first upon seeing Mrs.
George Osborne in her new condition, and secondly to mask the
apprehensions he entertained as to the effect which the dismal news
brought down by him would certainly have upon her.

"It is my opinion, George," he said, "that the French Emperor will
be upon us, horse and foot, before three weeks are over, and will
give the Duke such a dance as shall make the Peninsula appear mere
child's play.  But you need not say that to Mrs. Osborne, you know.
There mayn't be any fighting on our side after all, and our business
in Belgium may turn out to be a mere military occupation.  Many
persons think so; and Brussels is full of fine people and ladies of
fashion." So it was agreed to represent the duty of the British army
in Belgium in this harmless light to Amelia.

This plot being arranged, the hypocritical Dobbin saluted Mrs.
George Osborne quite gaily, tried to pay her one or two compliments
relative to her new position as a bride (which compliments, it must
be confessed, were exceedingly clumsy and hung fire woefully), and
then fell to talking about Brighton, and the sea-air, and the
gaieties of the place, and the beauties of the road and the merits
of the Lightning coach and horses--all in a manner quite
incomprehensible to Amelia, and very amusing to Rebecca, who was
watching the Captain, as indeed she watched every one near whom she
came.

Little Amelia, it must be owned, had rather a mean opinion of her
husband's friend, Captain Dobbin.  He lisped--he was very plain and
homely-looking: and exceedingly awkward and ungainly.  She liked him
for his attachment to her husband (to be sure there was very little
merit in that), and she thought George was most generous and kind in
extending his friendship to his brother officer. George had mimicked
Dobbin's lisp and queer manners many times to her, though to do him
justice, he always spoke most highly of his friend's good qualities.
In her little day of triumph, and not knowing him intimately as yet,
she made light of honest William--and he knew her opinions of him
quite well, and acquiesced in them very humbly.  A time came when
she knew him better, and changed her notions regarding him; but that
was distant as yet.

As for Rebecca, Captain Dobbin had not been two hours in the ladies'
company before she understood his secret perfectly.  She did not
like him, and feared him privately; nor was he very much
prepossessed in her favour.  He was so honest, that her arts and
cajoleries did not affect him, and he shrank from her with
instinctive repulsion. And, as she was by no means so far superior
to her sex as to be above jealousy, she disliked him the more for
his adoration of Amelia.  Nevertheless, she was very respectful and
cordial in her manner towards him.  A friend to the Osbornes! a
friend to her dearest benefactors!  She vowed she should always love
him sincerely: she remembered him quite well on the Vauxhall night,
as she told Amelia archly, and she made a little fun of him when the
two ladies went to dress for dinner.  Rawdon Crawley paid scarcely
any attention to Dobbin, looking upon him as a good-natured
nincompoop and under-bred City man.  Jos patronised him with much
dignity.

When George and Dobbin were alone in the latter's room, to which
George had followed him, Dobbin took from his desk the letter which
he had been charged by Mr. Osborne to deliver to his son.  "It's not
in my father's handwriting," said George, looking rather alarmed;
nor was it: the letter was from Mr. Osborne's lawyer, and to the
following effect:

                                   "Bedford Row, May 7, 1815.

"SIR,

"I am commissioned by Mr. Osborne to inform you, that he abides by
the determination which he before expressed to you, and that in
consequence of the marriage which you have been pleased to contract,
he ceases to consider you henceforth as a member of his family. This
determination is final and irrevocable.

"Although the monies expended upon you in your minority, and the
bills which you have drawn upon him so unsparingly of late years,
far exceed in amount the sum to which you are entitled in your own
right (being the third part of the fortune of your mother, the late
Mrs. Osborne and which reverted to you at her decease, and to Miss
Jane Osborne and Miss Maria Frances Osborne); yet I am instructed by
Mr. Osborne to say, that he waives all claim upon your estate, and
that the sum of 2,000 pounds, 4 per cent. annuities, at the value of
the day (being your one-third share of the sum of 6,000 pounds),
shall be paid over to yourself or your agents upon your receipt
for the same, by

                         "Your obedient Servt.,
                                          "S. HIGGS.

"P.S.--Mr. Osborne desires me to say, once for all, that he declines
to receive any messages, letters, or communications from you on this
or any other subject.

"A pretty way you have managed the affair," said George, looking
savagely at William Dobbin.  "Look there, Dobbin," and he flung over
to the latter his parent's letter. "A beggar, by Jove, and all in
consequence of my d--d sentimentality.  Why couldn't we have waited?
A ball might have done for me in the course of the war, and may
still, and how will Emmy be bettered by being left a beggar's widow?
It was all your doing.  You were never easy until you had got me
married and ruined.  What the deuce am I to do with two thousand
pounds?  Such a sum won't last two years.  I've lost a hundred and
forty to Crawley at cards and billiards since I've been down here.
A pretty manager of a man's matters YOU are, forsooth."

"There's no denying that the position is a hard one," Dobbin
replied, after reading over the letter with a blank countenance;
"and as you say, it is partly of my making. There are some men who
wouldn't mind changing with you," he added, with a bitter smile.
"How many captains in the regiment have two thousand pounds to the
fore, think you?  You must live on your pay till your father
relents, and if you die, you leave your wife a hundred a year."

"Do you suppose a man of my habits call live on his pay and a
hundred a year?" George cried out in great anger.  "You must be a
fool to talk so, Dobbin.  How the deuce am I to keep up my position
in the world upon such a pitiful pittance?  I can't change my
habits.  I must have my comforts.  I wasn't brought up on porridge,
like MacWhirter, or on potatoes, like old O'Dowd.  Do you expect my
wife to take in soldiers' washing, or ride after the regiment in a
baggage waggon?"

"Well, well," said Dobbin, still good-naturedly, "we'll get her a
better conveyance.  But try and remember that you are only a
dethroned prince now, George, my boy; and be quiet whilst the
tempest lasts.  It won't be for long.  Let your name be mentioned in
the Gazette, and I'll engage the old father relents towards you:"

"Mentioned in the Gazette!" George answered.  "And in what part of
it?  Among the killed and wounded returns, and at the top of the
list, very likely."

"Psha!  It will be time enough to cry out when we are hurt," Dobbin
said.  "And if anything happens, you know, George, I have got a
little, and I am not a marrying man, and I shall not forget my
godson in my will," he added, with a smile.  Whereupon the dispute
ended--as many scores of  such conversations between Osborne and his
friend had concluded previously--by the former declaring there was
no possibility of being angry with Dobbin long, and forgiving him
very generously after abusing him without cause.

"I say, Becky," cried Rawdon Crawley out of his dressing-room, to
his lady, who was attiring herself for dinner in her own chamber.

"What?" said Becky's shrill voice.  She was looking over her
shoulder in the glass.  She had put on the neatest and freshest
white frock imaginable, and with bare shoulders and a little
necklace, and a light blue sash, she looked the image of youthful
innocence and girlish happiness.

"I say, what'll Mrs. O. do, when O. goes out with the regiment?"
Crawley said coming into the room, performing a duet on his head
with two huge hair-brushes, and looking out from under his hair with
admiration on his pretty little wife.

"I suppose she'll cry her eyes out," Becky answered. "She has been
whimpering half a dozen times, at the very notion of it, already to
me."

"YOU don't care, I suppose?" Rawdon said, half angry at his wife's
want of feeling.

"You wretch! don't you know that I intend to go with you," Becky
replied.  "Besides, you're different.  You go as General Tufto's
aide-de-camp.  We don't belong to the line," Mrs. Crawley said,
throwing up her head with an air that so enchanted her husband that
he stooped down and kissed it.

"Rawdon dear--don't you think--you'd better get that--money from
Cupid, before he goes?" Becky continued, fixing on a killing bow.
She called George Osborne, Cupid.  She had flattered him about his
good looks a score of times already.  She watched over him kindly at
ecarte of a night when he would drop in to Rawdon's quarters for a
half-hour before bed-time.

She had often called him a horrid dissipated wretch, and threatened
to tell Emmy of his wicked ways and naughty extravagant habits.  She
brought his cigar and lighted it for him; she knew the effect of
that manoeuvre, having practised it in former days upon Rawdon
Crawley. He thought her gay, brisk, arch, distinguee, delightful. In
their little drives and dinners, Becky, of course, quite outshone
poor Emmy, who remained very mute and timid while Mrs. Crawley and
her husband rattled away together, and Captain Crawley (and Jos
after he joined the young married people) gobbled in silence.

Emmy's mind somehow misgave her about her friend. Rebecca's wit,
spirits, and accomplishments troubled her with a rueful disquiet.
They were only a week married, and here was George already suffering
ennui, and eager for others' society!  She trembled for the future.
How shall I be a companion for him, she thought--so clever and so
brilliant, and I such a humble foolish creature? How noble it was of
him to marry me--to give up everything and stoop down to me!  I
ought to have refused him, only I had not the heart.  I ought to
have stopped at home and taken care of poor Papa.  And her neglect
of her parents (and indeed there was some foundation for this charge
which the poor child's uneasy conscience brought against her) was
now remembered for the first time, and caused her to blush with
humiliation.  Oh! thought she, I have been very wicked and selfish--
selfish in forgetting them in their sorrows--selfish in forcing
George to marry me.  I know I'm not worthy of him--I know he would
have been happy without me--and yet--I tried, I tried to give him
up.

It is hard when, before seven days of marriage are over, such
thoughts and confessions as these force themselves on a little
bride's mind.  But so it was, and the night before Dobbin came to
join these young people--on a fine brilliant moonlight night of May-
-so warm and balmy that the windows were flung open to the balcony,
from which George and Mrs. Crawley were gazing upon the calm ocean
spread shining before them, while Rawdon and Jos were engaged at
backgammon within--Amelia couched in a great chair quite neglected,
and watching both these parties, felt a despair and remorse such as
were bitter companions for that tender lonely soul.  Scarce a week
was past, and it was come to this! The future, had she regarded it,
offered a dismal prospect; but Emmy was too shy, so to speak, to
look to that, and embark alone on that wide sea, and unfit to
navigate it without a guide and protector.  I know Miss Smith has a
mean opinion of her.  But how many, my dear Madam, are endowed with
your prodigious strength of mind?

"Gad, what a fine night, and how bright the moon is!" George said,
with a puff of his cigar, which went soaring up skywards.

"How delicious they smell in the open air!  I adore them.  Who'd
think the moon was two hundred and thirty-six thousand eight hundred
and forty-seven miles off?" Becky added, gazing at that orb with a
smile.  "Isn't it clever of me to remember that?  Pooh!  we learned
it all at Miss Pinkerton's!  How calm the sea is, and how clear
everything.  I declare I can almost see the coast of France!" and
her bright green eyes streamed out, and shot into the night as if
they could see through it.

"Do you know what I intend to do one morning?" she said; "I find I
can swim beautifully, and some day, when my Aunt Crawley's
companion--old Briggs, you know--you remember her--that hook-nosed
woman, with the long wisps of hair--when Briggs goes out to bathe, I
intend to dive under her awning, and insist on a reconciliation in
the water.  Isn't that a stratagem?"

George burst out laughing at the idea of this aquatic meeting.
"What's the row there, you two?" Rawdon shouted out, rattling the
box.  Amelia was making a fool of herself in an absurd hysterical
manner, and retired to her own room to whimper in private.

Our history is destined in this chapter to go backwards and forwards
in a very irresolute manner seemingly, and having conducted our
story to to-morrow presently, we shall immediately again have
occasion to step back to yesterday, so that the whole of the tale
may get a hearing. As you behold at her Majesty's drawing-room, the
ambassadors' and high dignitaries' carriages whisk off from a
private door, while Captain Jones's ladies are waiting for their
fly: as you see in the Secretary of the Treasury's antechamber, a
half-dozen of petitioners waiting patiently for their audience, and
called out one by one, when suddenly an Irish member or some eminent
personage enters the apartment, and instantly walks into Mr. Under-
Secretary over the heads of all the people present: so in the
conduct of a tale, the romancer is obliged to exercise this most
partial sort of justice.  Although all the little incidents must be
heard, yet they must be put off when the great events make their
appearance; and surely such a circumstance as that which brought
Dobbin to Brighton, viz., the ordering out of the Guards and the
line to Belgium, and the mustering of the allied armies in that
country under the command of his Grace the Duke of Wellington--such
a dignified circumstance as that, I say, was entitled to the pas
over all minor occurrences whereof this history is composed mainly,
and hence a little trifling disarrangement and disorder was
excusable and becoming.  We have only now advanced in time so far
beyond Chapter XXII as to have got our various characters up into
their dressing-rooms before the dinner, which took place as usual on
the day of Dobbin's arrival.

George was too humane or too much occupied with the tie of his
neckcloth to convey at once all the news to Amelia which his comrade
had brought with him from London.  He came into her room, however,
holding the attorney's letter in his hand, and with so solemn and
important an air that his wife, always ingeniously on the watch for
calamity, thought the worst was about to befall, and running up to
her husband, besought her dearest George to tell her everything--he
was ordered abroad; there would be a battle next week--she knew
there would.

Dearest George parried the question about foreign service, and with
a melancholy shake of the head said, "No, Emmy; it isn't that:  it's
not myself I care about: it's you.  I have had bad news from my
father.  He refuses any communication with me; he has flung us off;
and leaves us to poverty.  I can rough it well enough; but you, my
dear, how will you bear it? read here." And he handed her over the
letter.

Amelia, with a look of tender alarm in her eyes, listened to her
noble hero as he uttered the above generous sentiments, and sitting
down on the bed, read the letter which George gave her with such a
pompous martyr-like air.  Her face cleared up as she read the
document, however. The idea of sharing poverty and privation in
company with the beloved object is, as we have before said, far from
being disagreeable to a warm-hearted woman. The notion was actually
pleasant to little Amelia.  Then, as usual, she was ashamed of
herself for feeling happy at such an indecorous moment, and checked
her pleasure, saying demurely, "O, George, how your poor heart must
bleed at the idea of being separated from your papa!"

"It does," said George, with an agonised countenance.

"But he can't be angry with you long," she continued. "Nobody could,
I'm sure.  He must forgive you, my dearest, kindest husband.  O, I
shall never forgive myself if he does not."

"What vexes me, my poor Emmy, is not my misfortune, but yours,"
George said.  "I don't care for a little poverty; and I think,
without vanity, I've talents enough to make my own way."

"That you have," interposed his wife, who thought that war should
cease, and her husband should be made a general instantly.

"Yes, I shall make my way as well as another," Osborne went on; "but
you, my dear girl, how can I bear your being deprived of the
comforts and station in society which my wife had a right to expect?
My dearest girl in barracks; the wife of a soldier in a marching
regiment; subject to all sorts of annoyance and privation! It makes
me miserable."

Emmy, quite at ease, as this was her husband's only cause of
disquiet, took his hand, and with a radiant face and smile began to
warble that stanza from the favourite song of "Wapping Old Stairs,"
in which the heroine, after rebuking her Tom for inattention,
promises "his trousers to mend, and his grog too to make," if he
will be constant and kind, and not forsake her.  "Besides," she
said, after a pause, during which she looked as pretty and happy as
any young woman need, "isn't two thousand pounds an immense deal of
money, George?"

George laughed at her naivete; and finally they went down to dinner,
Amelia clinging to George's arm, still warbling the tune of "Wapping
Old Stairs," and more pleased and light of mind than she had been
for some days past.

Thus the repast, which at length came off, instead of being dismal,
was an exceedingly brisk and merry one. The excitement of the
campaign counteracted in George's mind the depression occasioned by
the disinheriting letter. Dobbin still kept up his character of
rattle.  He amused the company with accounts of the army in Belgium;
where nothing but fetes and gaiety and fashion were going on.  Then,
having a particular end in view, this dexterous captain proceeded to
describe Mrs. Major O'Dowd packing her own and her Major's wardrobe,
and how his best epaulets had been stowed into a tea canister,
whilst her own famous yellow turban, with the bird of paradise
wrapped in brown paper, was locked up in the Major's tin cocked-hat
case, and wondered what effect it would have at the French king's
court at Ghent, or the great military balls at Brussels.

"Ghent! Brussels!" cried out Amelia with a sudden shock and start.
"Is the regiment ordered away, George--is it ordered away?" A look
of terror came over the sweet smiling face, and she clung to George
as by an instinct.

"Don't be afraid, dear," he said good-naturedly; "it is but a twelve
hours' passage.  It won't hurt you.  You shall go, too, Emmy."

"I intend to go," said Becky.  "I'm on the staff.  General Tufto is
a great flirt of mine.  Isn't he, Rawdon?" Rawdon laughed out with
his usual roar.  William Dobbin flushed up quite red.  "She can't
go," he said; "think of the--of the danger," he was going to add;
but had not all his conversation during dinner-time tended to prove
there was none?  He became very confused and silent.

"I must and will go," Amelia cried with the greatest spirit; and
George, applauding her resolution, patted her under the chin, and
asked all the persons present if they ever saw such a termagant of a
wife, and agreed that the lady should bear him company.  "We'll have
Mrs. O'Dowd to chaperon you," he said.  What cared she so long as
her husband was near her?  Thus somehow the bitterness of a parting
was juggled away.  Though war and danger were in store, war and
danger might not befall for months to come.  There was a respite at
any rate, which made the timid little Amelia almost as happy as a
full reprieve would have done, and which even Dobbin owned in his
heart was very welcome.  For, to be permitted to see her was now the
greatest privilege and hope of his life, and he thought with himself
secretly how he would watch and protect her.  I wouldn't have let
her go if I had been married to her, he thought.  But George was the
master, and his friend did not think fit to remonstrate.

Putting her arm round her friend's waist, Rebecca at length carried
Amelia off from the dinner-table where so much business of
importance had been discussed, and left the gentlemen in a highly
exhilarated state, drinking and talking very gaily.

In the course of the evening Rawdon got a little family-note from
his wife, which, although he crumpled it up and burnt it instantly
in the candle, we had the good luck to read over Rebecca's shoulder.
"Great news," she wrote.  "Mrs. Bute is gone.  Get the money from
Cupid tonight, as he'll be off to-morrow most likely.  Mind this.--
R." So when the little company was about adjourning to coffee in the
women's apartment, Rawdon touched Osborne on the elbow, and said
gracefully, "I say, Osborne, my boy, if quite convenient, I'll
trouble you for that 'ere small trifle." It was not quite
convenient, but nevertheless George gave him a considerable present
instalment in bank-notes from his pocket-book, and a bill on his
agents at a week's date, for the remaining sum.

This matter arranged, George, and Jos, and Dobbin, held a council of
war over their cigars, and agreed that a general move should be made
for London in Jos's open carriage the next day.  Jos, I think, would
have preferred staying until Rawdon Crawley quitted Brighton, but
Dobbin and George overruled him, and he agreed to carry the party to
town, and ordered four horses, as became his dignity.  With these
they set off in state, after breakfast, the next day.  Amelia had
risen very early in the morning, and packed her little trunks with
the greatest alacrity, while Osborne lay in bed deploring that she
had not a maid to help her.  She was only too glad, however, to
perform this office for herself.  A dim uneasy sentiment about
Rebecca filled her mind already; and although they kissed each other
most tenderly at parting, yet we know what jealousy is; and Mrs.
Amelia possessed that among other virtues of her sex.

Besides these characters who are coming and going away, we must
remember that there were some other old friends of ours at Brighton;
Miss Crawley, namely, and the suite in attendance upon her.  Now,
although Rebecca and her husband were but at a few stones' throw of
the lodgings which the invalid Miss Crawley occupied, the old lady's
door remained as pitilessly closed to them as it had been heretofore
in London.  As long as she remained by the side of her sister-in-
law, Mrs. Bute Crawley took care that her beloved Matilda should not
be agitated by a meeting with her nephew.  When the spinster took
her drive, the faithful Mrs. Bute sate beside her in the carriage.
When Miss Crawley took the air in a chair, Mrs. Bute marched on one
side of the vehicle, whilst honest Briggs occupied the other wing.
And if they met Rawdon and his wife by chance--although the former
constantly and obsequiously took off his hat, the Miss-Crawley party
passed him by with such a frigid and killing indifference, that
Rawdon began to despair.

"We might as well be in London as here," Captain Rawdon often said,
with a downcast air.

"A comfortable inn in Brighton is better than a spunging-house in
Chancery Lane," his wife answered, who was of a more cheerful
temperament.  "Think of those two aides-de-camp of Mr. Moses, the
sheriff's-officer, who watched our lodging for a week.  Our friends
here are very stupid, but Mr. Jos and Captain Cupid are better
companions than Mr. Moses's men, Rawdon, my love."

"I wonder the writs haven't followed me down here," Rawdon
continued, still desponding.

"When they do, we'll find means to give them the slip," said
dauntless little Becky, and further pointed out to her husband the
great comfort and advantage of meeting Jos and Osborne, whose
acquaintance had brought to Rawdon Crawley a most timely little
supply of ready money.

"It will hardly be enough to pay the inn bill," grumbled the
Guardsman.

"Why need we pay it?" said the lady, who had an answer for
everything.

Through Rawdon's valet, who still kept up a trifling acquaintance
with the male inhabitants of Miss Crawley's servants' hall, and was
instructed to treat the coachman to drink whenever they met, old
Miss Crawley's movements were pretty well known by our young couple;
and Rebecca luckily bethought herself of being unwell, and of
calling in the same apothecary who was in attendance upon the
spinster, so that their information was on the whole tolerably
complete.  Nor was Miss Briggs, although forced to adopt a hostile
attitude, secretly inimical to Rawdon and his wife.  She was
naturally of a kindly and forgiving disposition.  Now that the cause
of jealousy was removed, her dislike for Rebecca disappeared also,
and she remembered the latter's invariable good words and good
humour.  And, indeed, she and Mrs. Firkin, the lady's-maid, and the
whole of Miss Crawley's household, groaned under the tyranny of the
triumphant Mrs. Bute.

As often will be the case, that good but imperious woman pushed her
advantages too far, and her successes quite unmercifully.  She had
in the course of a few weeks brought the invalid to such a state of
helpless docility, that the poor soul yielded herself entirely to
her sister's orders, and did not even dare to complain of her
slavery to Briggs or Firkin.  Mrs. Bute measured out the glasses of
wine which Miss Crawley was daily allowed to take, with irresistible
accuracy, greatly to the annoyance of Firkin and the butler, who
found themselves deprived of control over even the sherry-bottle.
She apportioned the sweetbreads, jellies, chickens; their quantity
and order. Night and noon and morning she brought the abominable
drinks ordained by the Doctor, and made her patient swallow them
with so affecting an obedience that Firkin said "my poor Missus du
take her physic like a lamb." She prescribed the drive in the
carriage or the ride in the chair, and, in a word, ground down the
old lady in her convalescence in such a way as only belongs to your
proper-managing, motherly moral woman.  If ever the patient faintly
resisted, and pleaded for a little bit more dinner or a little drop
less medicine, the nurse threatened her with instantaneous death,
when Miss Crawley instantly gave in.  "She's no spirit left in her,"
Firkin remarked to Briggs; "she ain't ave called me a fool these
three weeks." Finally, Mrs. Bute had made up her mind to dismiss the
aforesaid honest lady's-maid, Mr. Bowls the large confidential man,
and Briggs herself, and to send for her daughters from the Rectory,
previous to removing the dear invalid bodily to Queen's Crawley,
when an odious accident happened which called her away from duties
so pleasing.  The Reverend Bute Crawley, her husband, riding home
one night, fell with his horse and broke his collar-bone.  Fever and
inflammatory symptoms set in, and Mrs. Bute was forced to leave
Sussex for Hampshire.  As soon as ever Bute was restored, she
promised to return to her dearest friend, and departed, leaving the
strongest injunctions with the household regarding their behaviour
to their mistress; and as soon as she got into the Southampton
coach, there was such a jubilee and sense of relief in all Miss
Crawley's house, as the company of persons assembled there had not
experienced for many a week before.  That very day Miss Crawley left
off her afternoon dose of medicine:  that afternoon Bowls opened an
independent bottle of sherry for himself and Mrs. Firkin:  that
night Miss Crawley and Miss Briggs indulged in a game of piquet
instead of one of Porteus's sermons.  It was as in the old nursery-
story, when the stick forgot to beat the dog, and the whole course
of events underwent a peaceful and happy revolution.

At a very early hour in the morning, twice or thrice a week, Miss
Briggs used to betake herself to a bathing-machine, and disport in
the water in a flannel gown and an oilskin cap.  Rebecca, as we have
seen, was aware of this circumstance, and though she did not attempt
to storm Briggs as she had threatened, and actually dive into that
lady's presence and surprise her under the sacredness of the awning,
Mrs. Rawdon determined to attack Briggs as she came away from her
bath, refreshed and invigorated by her dip, and likely to be in good
humour.

So getting up very early the next morning, Becky brought the
telescope in their sitting-room, which faced the sea, to bear upon
the bathing-machines on the beach; saw Briggs arrive, enter her box;
and put out to sea; and was on the shore just as the nymph of whom
she came in quest stepped out of the little caravan on to the
shingles.  It was a pretty picture:  the beach; the bathing-women's
faces; the long line of rocks and building were blushing and bright
in the sunshine.  Rebecca wore a kind, tender smile on her face, and
was holding out her pretty white hand as Briggs emerged from the
box.  What could Briggs do but accept the salutation?

"Miss Sh--Mrs. Crawley," she said.

Mrs. Crawley seized her hand, pressed it to her heart, and with a
sudden impulse, flinging her arms round Briggs, kissed her
affectionately.  "Dear, dear friend!" she said, with a touch of such
natural feeling, that Miss Briggs of course at once began to melt,
and even the bathing-woman was mollified.

Rebecca found no difficulty in engaging Briggs in a long, intimate,
and delightful conversation.  Everything that had passed since the
morning of Becky's sudden departure from Miss Crawley's house in
Park Lane up to the present day, and Mrs. Bute's happy retreat, was
discussed and described by Briggs.  All Miss Crawley's symptoms, and
the particulars of her illness and medical treatment, were narrated
by the confidante with that fulness and accuracy which women delight
in.  About their complaints and their doctors do ladies ever tire of
talking to each other?  Briggs did not on this occasion; nor did
Rebecca weary of listening.  She was thankful, truly thankful, that
the dear kind Briggs, that the faithful, the invaluable Firkin, had
been permitted to remain with their benefactress through her
illness.  Heaven bless her! though she, Rebecca, had seemed to act
undutifully towards Miss Crawley; yet was not her fault a natural
and excusable one? Could she help giving her hand to the man who had
won her heart?  Briggs, the sentimental, could only turn up her eyes
to heaven at this appeal, and heave a sympathetic sigh, and think
that she, too, had given away her affections long years ago, and own
that Rebecca was no very great criminal.

"Can I ever forget her who so befriended the friendless orphan?  No,
though she has cast me off," the latter said, "I shall never cease
to love her, and I would devote my life to her service.  As my own
benefactress, as my beloved Rawdon's adored relative, I love and
admire Miss Crawley, dear Miss Briggs, beyond any woman in the
world, and next to her I love all those who are faithful to her.  I
would never have treated Miss Crawley's faithful friends as that
odious designing Mrs. Bute has done.  Rawdon, who was all heart,"
Rebecca continued, "although his outward manners might seem rough
and careless, had said a hundred times, with tears in his eyes, that
he blessed Heaven for sending his dearest Aunty two such admirable
nurses as her attached Firkin and her admirable Miss Briggs.  Should
the machinations of the horrible Mrs. Bute end, as she too much
feared they would, in banishing everybody that Miss Crawley loved
from her side, and leaving that poor lady a victim to those harpies
at the Rectory, Rebecca besought her (Miss Briggs) to remember that
her own home, humble as it was, was always open to receive Briggs.
Dear friend," she exclaimed, in a transport of enthusiasm, "some
hearts can never forget benefits; all women are not Bute Crawleys!
Though why should I complain of her," Rebecca added; "though I have
been her tool and the victim to her arts, do I not owe my dearest
Rawdon to her?"  And Rebecca unfolded to Briggs all Mrs. Bute's
conduct at Queen's Crawley, which, though unintelligible to her
then, was clearly enough explained by the events now--now that the
attachment had sprung up which Mrs. Bute had encouraged by a
thousand artifices--now that two innocent people had fallen into the
snares which she had laid for them, and loved and married and been
ruined through her schemes.

It was all very true.  Briggs saw the stratagems as clearly as
possible.  Mrs. Bute had made the match between Rawdon and Rebecca.
Yet, though the latter was a perfectly innocent victim, Miss Briggs
could not disguise from her friend her fear that Miss Crawley's
affections were hopelessly estranged from Rebecca, and that the old
lady would never forgive her nephew for making so imprudent a
marriage.

On this point Rebecca had her own opinion, and still kept up a good
heart.  If Miss Crawley did not forgive them at present, she might
at least relent on a future day.  Even now, there was only that
puling, sickly Pitt Crawley between Rawdon and a baronetcy; and
should anything happen to the former, all would be well.  At all
events, to have Mrs. Bute's designs exposed, and herself well
abused, was a satisfaction, and might be advantageous to Rawdon's
interest; and Rebecca, after an hour's chat with her recovered
friend, left her with the most tender demonstrations of regard, and
quite assured that the conversation they had had together would be
reported to Miss Crawley before many hours were over.

This interview ended, it became full time for Rebecca to return to
her inn, where all the party of the previous day were assembled at a
farewell breakfast.  Rebecca took such a tender leave of Amelia as
became two women who loved each other as sisters; and having used
her handkerchief plentifully, and hung on her friend's neck as if
they were parting for ever, and waved the handkerchief (which was
quite dry, by the way) out of window, as the carriage drove off, she
came back to the breakfast table, and ate some prawns with a good
deal of appetite, considering her emotion; and while she was
munching these delicacies, explained to Rawdon what had occurred in
her morning walk between herself and Briggs.  Her hopes were very
high:  she made her husband share them.  She generally succeeded in
making her husband share all her opinions, whether melancholy or
cheerful.

"You will now, if you please, my dear, sit down at the writing-table
and pen me a pretty little letter to Miss Crawley, in which you'll
say that you are a good boy, and that sort of thing."  So Rawdon
sate down, and wrote off, "Brighton, Thursday," and "My dear Aunt,"
with great rapidity: but there the gallant officer's imagination
failed him.  He mumbled the end of his pen, and looked up in his
wife's face.  She could not help laughing at his rueful countenance,
and marching up and down the room with her hands behind her, the
little woman began to dictate a letter, which he took down.

"Before quitting the country and commencing a campaign, which very
possibly may be fatal."

"What?" said Rawdon, rather surprised, but took the humour of the
phrase, and presently wrote it down with a grin.

"Which very possibly may be fatal, I have come hither--"

"Why not say come here, Becky?  Come here's grammar," the dragoon
interposed.

"I have come hither," Rebecca insisted, with a stamp of her foot,
"to say farewell to my dearest and earliest friend.  I beseech you
before I go, not perhaps to return, once more to let me press the
hand from which I have received nothing but kindnesses all my life."

"Kindnesses all my life," echoed Rawdon, scratching down the words,
and quite amazed at his own facility of composition.

"I ask nothing from you but that we should part not in anger.  I
have the pride of my family on some points, though not on all.  I
married a painter's daughter, and am not ashamed of the union."

"No, run me through the body if I am!" Rawdon ejaculated.

"You old booby," Rebecca said, pinching his ear and looking over to
see that he made no mistakes in spelling--"beseech is not spelt with
an a, and earliest is."  So he altered these words, bowing to the
superior knowledge of his little Missis.

"I thought that you were aware of the progress of my attachment,"
Rebecca continued:  "I knew that Mrs. Bute Crawley confirmed and
encouraged it.  But I make no reproaches.  I married a poor woman,
and am content to abide by what I have done.  Leave your property,
dear Aunt, as you will.  I shall never complain of the way in which
you dispose of it.  I would have you believe that I love you for
yourself, and not for money's sake.  I want to be reconciled to you
ere I leave England.  Let me, let me see you before I go.  A few
weeks or months hence it may be too late, and I cannot bear the
notion of quitting the country without a kind word of farewell from
you."

"She won't recognise my style in that," said Becky.  "I made the
sentences short and brisk on purpose." And this authentic missive
was despatched under cover to Miss Briggs.

Old Miss Crawley laughed when Briggs, with great mystery, handed her
over this candid and simple statement.  "We may read it now Mrs.
Bute is away," she said.  "Read it to me, Briggs."

When Briggs had read the epistle out, her patroness laughed more.
"Don't you see, you goose," she said to Briggs, who professed to be
much touched by the honest affection which pervaded the composition,
"don't you see that Rawdon never wrote a word of it.  He never wrote
to me without asking for money in his life, and all his letters are
full of bad spelling, and dashes, and bad grammar.  It is that
little serpent of a governess who rules him." They are all alike,
Miss Crawley thought in her heart.  They all want me dead, and are
hankering for my money.

"I don't mind seeing Rawdon," she added, after a pause, and in a
tone of perfect indifference.  "I had just as soon shake hands with
him as not.  Provided there is no scene, why shouldn't we meet?  I
don't mind.  But human patience has its limits; and mind, my dear, I
respectfully decline to receive Mrs. Rawdon--I can't support that
quite"--and Miss Briggs was fain to be content with this half-
message of conciliation; and thought that the best method of
bringing the old lady and her nephew together, was to warn Rawdon to
be in waiting on the Cliff, when Miss Crawley went out for her air
in her chair.  There they met.  I don't know whether Miss Crawley
had any private feeling of regard or emotion upon seeing her old
favourite; but she held out a couple of fingers to him with as
smiling and good-humoured an air, as if they had met only the day
before.  And as for Rawdon, he turned as red as scarlet, and wrung
off Briggs's hand, so great was his rapture and his confusion at the
meeting. Perhaps it was interest that moved him:  or perhaps
affection:  perhaps he was touched by the change which the illness
of the last weeks had wrought in his aunt.

"The old girl has always acted like a trump to me," he said to his
wife, as he narrated the interview, "and I felt, you know, rather
queer, and that sort of thing.  I walked by the side of the what-
dy'e-call-'em, you know, and to her own door, where Bowls came to
help her in.  And I wanted to go in very much, only--"

"YOU DIDN'T GO IN, Rawdon!" screamed his wife.

"No, my dear; I'm hanged if I wasn't afraid when it came to the
point."

"You fool! you ought to have gone in, and never come out again,"
Rebecca said.

"Don't call me names," said the big Guardsman, sulkily. "Perhaps I
WAS a fool, Becky, but you shouldn't say so"; and he gave his wife a
look, such as his countenance could wear when angered, and such as
was not pleasant to face.

"Well, dearest, to-morrow you must be on the look-out, and go and
see her, mind, whether she asks you or no," Rebecca said, trying to
soothe her angry yoke-mate.  On which he replied, that he would do
exactly as he liked, and would just thank her to keep a civil tongue
in her head--and the wounded husband went away, and passed the
forenoon at the billiard-room, sulky, silent, and suspicious.

But before the night was over he was compelled to give in, and own,
as usual, to his wife's superior prudence and foresight, by the most
melancholy confirmation of the presentiments which she had regarding
the consequences of the mistake which he had made.  Miss Crawley
must have had some emotion upon seeing him and shaking hands with
him after so long a rupture.  She mused upon the meeting a
considerable time.  "Rawdon is getting very fat and old, Briggs,"
she said to her companion.  "His nose has become red, and he is
exceedingly coarse in appearance.  His marriage to that woman has
hopelessly vulgarised him.  Mrs. Bute always said they drank
together; and I have no doubt they do.  Yes:  he smelt of gin
abominably.  I remarked it.  Didn't you?"

In vain Briggs interposed that Mrs. Bute spoke ill of everybody:
and, as far as a person in her humble position could judge, was an--

"An artful designing woman?  Yes, so she is, and she does speak ill
of every one--but I am certain that woman has made Rawdon drink.
All those low people do--"

"He was very much affected at seeing you, ma'am," the companion
said; "and I am sure, when you remember that he is going to the
field of danger--"

"How much money has he promised you, Briggs?" the old spinster cried
out, working herself into a nervous rage--"there now, of course you
begin to cry.  I hate scenes.  Why am I always to be worried?  Go
and cry up in your own room, and send Firkin to me--no, stop, sit
down and blow your nose, and leave off crying, and write a letter to
Captain Crawley." Poor Briggs went and placed herself obediently at
the writing-book.  Its leaves were blotted all over with relics of
the firm, strong, rapid handwriting of the spinster's late
amanuensis, Mrs. Bute Crawley.

"Begin 'My dear sir,' or 'Dear sir,' that will be better, and say
you are desired by Miss Crawley--no, by Miss Crawley's medical man,
by Mr. Creamer, to state that my health is such that all strong
emotions would be dangerous in my present delicate condition--and
that I must decline any family discussions or interviews whatever.
And thank him for coming to Brighton, and so forth, and beg him not
to stay any longer on my account.  And, Miss Briggs, you may add
that I wish him a bon voyage, and that if he will take the trouble
to call upon my lawyer's in Gray's Inn Square, he will find there a
communication for him.  Yes, that will do; and that will make him
leave Brighton." The benevolent Briggs penned this sentence with the
utmost satisfaction.

"To seize upon me the very day after Mrs. Bute was gone," the old
lady prattled on; "it was too indecent. Briggs, my dear, write to
Mrs. Crawley, and say SHE needn't come back.  No--she needn't--and
she shan't--and I won't be a slave in my own house--and I won't be
starved and choked with poison.  They all want to kill me--all--
all"--and with this the lonely old woman burst into a scream of
hysterical tears.

The last scene of her dismal Vanity Fair comedy was fast
approaching; the tawdry lamps were going out one by one; and the
dark curtain was almost ready to descend.

That final paragraph, which referred Rawdon to Miss Crawley's
solicitor in London, and which Briggs had written so good-naturedly,
consoled the dragoon and his wife somewhat, after their first blank
disappointment, on reading the spinster's refusal of a
reconciliation.  And it effected the purpose for which the old lady
had caused it to be written, by making Rawdon very eager to get to
London.

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."

"And Muryan Squeer, Doblin," said the lady with calm superiority.

"And Muryan Square, sure enough," the Major whispered.

"'Twas there ye coorted me, Meejor dear," the lady said; and the
Major assented to this as to every other proposition which was made
generally in company.

Major O'Dowd, who had served his sovereign in every quarter of the
world, and had paid for every step in his profession by some more
than equivalent act of daring and gallantry, was the most modest,
silent, sheep-faced and meek of little men, and as obedient to his
wife as if he had been her tay-boy.  At the mess-table he sat
silently, and drank a great deal.  When full of liquor, he reeled
silently home.  When he spoke, it was to agree with everybody on
every conceivable point; and he passed through life in perfect ease
and good-humour.  The hottest suns of India never heated his temper;
and the Walcheren ague never shook it.  He walked up to a battery
with just as much indifference as to a dinner-table; had dined on
horse-flesh and turtle with equal relish and appetite; and had an
old mother, Mrs. O'Dowd of O'Dowdstown indeed, whom he had never
disobeyed but when he ran away and enlisted, and when he persisted
in marrying that odious Peggy Malony.

Peggy was one of five sisters, and eleven children of the noble
house of Glenmalony; but her husband, though her own cousin, was of
the mother's side, and so had not the inestimable advantage of being
allied to the Malonys, whom she believed to be the most famous
family in the world.  Having tried nine seasons at Dublin and two at
Bath and Cheltenham, and not finding a partner for life, Miss Malony
ordered her cousin Mick to marry her when she was about thirty-three
years of age; and the honest fellow obeying, carried her off to the
West Indies, to preside over the ladies of the --th regiment, into
which he had just exchanged.

Before Mrs. O'Dowd was half an hour in Amelia's (or indeed in
anybody else's) company, this amiable lady told all her birth and
pedigree to her new friend.  "My dear," said she, good-naturedly,
"it was my intention that Garge should be a brother of my own, and
my sister Glorvina would have suited him entirely.  But as bygones
are bygones, and he was engaged to yourself, why, I'm determined to
take you as a sister instead, and to look upon you as such, and to
love you as one of the family.  Faith, you've got such a nice good-
natured face and way widg you, that I'm sure we'll agree; and that
you'll be an addition to our family anyway."

"'Deed and she will," said O'Dowd, with an approving air, and Amelia
felt herself not a little amused and grateful to be thus suddenly
introduced to so large a party of relations.

"We're all good fellows here," the Major's lady continued. "There's
not a regiment in the service where you'll find a more united
society nor a more agreeable mess-room.  There's no quarrelling,
bickering, slandthering, nor small talk amongst us.  We all love
each other."

"Especially Mrs. Magenis," said George, laughing.

"Mrs. Captain Magenis and me has made up, though her treatment of me
would bring me gray hairs with sorrow to the grave."

"And you with such a beautiful front of black, Peggy, my dear," the
Major cried.

"Hould your tongue, Mick, you booby.  Them husbands are always in
the way, Mrs. Osborne, my dear; and as for my Mick, I often tell him
he should never open his mouth but to give the word of command, or
to put meat and drink into it.  I'll tell you about the regiment,
and warn you when we're alone.  Introduce me to your brother now;
sure he's a mighty fine man, and reminds me of me cousin, Dan Malony
(Malony of Ballymalony, my dear, you know who mar'ied Ophalia
Scully, of Oystherstown, own cousin to Lord Poldoody).  Mr. Sedley,
sir, I'm deloighted to be made known te ye.  I suppose you'll dine
at the mess to-day.  (Mind that divvle of a docther, Mick, and
whatever ye du, keep yourself sober for me party this evening.)"

"It's the 150th gives us a farewell dinner, my love," interposed the
Major, "but we'll easy get a card for Mr. Sedley."

"Run Simple (Ensign Simple, of Ours, my dear Amelia. I forgot to
introjuice him to ye).  Run in a hurry, with Mrs. Major O'Dowd's
compliments to Colonel Tavish, and Captain Osborne has brought his
brothernlaw down, and will bring him to the 150th mess at five
o'clock sharp--when you and I, my dear, will take a snack here, if
you like."  Before Mrs. O'Dowd's speech was concluded, the young
Ensign was trotting downstairs on his commission.

"Obedience is the soul of the army.  We will go to our duty while
Mrs. O'Dowd will stay and enlighten you, Emmy," Captain Osborne
said; and the two gentlemen, taking each a wing of the Major, walked
out with that officer, grinning at each other over his head.

And, now having her new friend to herself, the impetuous Mrs: O'Dowd
proceeded to pour out such a quantity of information as no poor
little woman's memory could ever tax itself to bear.  She told
Amelia a thousand particulars relative to the very numerous family
of which the amazed young lady found herself a member.  "Mrs.
Heavytop, the Colonel's wife, died in Jamaica of the yellow faver
and a broken heart comboined, for the horrud old Colonel, with a
head as bald as a cannon-ball, was making sheep's eyes at a half-
caste girl there.  Mrs. Magenis, though without education, was a
good woman, but she had the divvle's tongue, and would cheat her own
mother at whist.  Mrs. Captain Kirk must turn up her lobster eyes
forsooth at the idea of an honest round game (wherein me fawther, as
pious a man as ever went to church, me uncle Dane Malony, and our
cousin the Bishop, took a hand at loo, or whist, every night of
their lives).  Nayther of 'em's goin' with the regiment this time,"
Mrs. O'Dowd added.  "Fanny Magenis stops with her mother, who sells
small coal and potatoes, most likely, in Islington-town, hard by
London, though she's always bragging of her father's ships, and
pointing them out to us as they go up the river:  and Mrs. Kirk and
her children will stop here in Bethesda Place, to be nigh to her
favourite preacher, Dr. Ramshorn.  Mrs. Bunny's in an interesting
situation--faith, and she always is, then--and has given the
Lieutenant seven already.  And Ensign Posky's wife, who joined two
months before you, my dear, has quarl'd with Tom Posky a score of
times, till you can hear'm all over the bar'ck (they say they're
come to broken pleets, and Tom never accounted for his black oi),
and she'll go back to her mother, who keeps a ladies' siminary at
Richmond--bad luck to her for running away from it!  Where did ye
get your finishing, my dear?  I had moin, and no expince spared, at
Madame Flanahan's, at Ilyssus Grove, Booterstown, near Dublin, wid a
Marchioness to teach us the true Parisian pronunciation, and a
retired Mejor-General of the French service to put us through the
exercise."

Of this incongruous family our astonished Amelia found herself all
of a sudden a member:  with Mrs. O'Dowd as an elder sister.  She was
presented to her other female relations at tea-time, on whom, as she
was quiet, good-natured, and not too handsome, she made rather an
agreeable impression until the arrival of the gentlemen from the
mess of the 150th, who all admired her so, that her sisters began,
of course, to find fault with her.

"I hope Osborne has sown his wild oats," said Mrs. Magenis to Mrs.
Bunny.  "If a reformed rake makes a good husband, sure it's she will
have the fine chance with Garge," Mrs. O'Dowd remarked to Posky, who
had lost her position as bride in the regiment, and was quite angry
with the usurper.  And as for Mrs. Kirk:  that disciple of Dr.
Ramshorn put one or two leading professional questions to Amelia, to
see whether she was awakened, whether she was a professing Christian
and so forth, and finding from the simplicity of Mrs. Osborne's
replies that she was yet in utter darkness, put into her hands three
little penny books with pictures, viz., the "Howling Wilderness,"
the "Washerwoman of Wandsworth Common," and the "British Soldier's
best Bayonet," which, bent upon awakening her before she slept, Mrs.
Kirk begged Amelia to read that night ere she went to bed.

But all the men, like good fellows as they were, rallied round their
comrade's pretty wife, and paid her their court with soldierly
gallantry.  She had a little triumph, which flushed her spirits and
made her eyes sparkle. George was proud of her popularity, and
pleased with the manner (which was very gay and graceful, though
naive and a little timid) with which she received the gentlemen's
attentions, and answered their compliments.  And he in his uniform--
how much handsomer he was than any man in the room!  She felt that
he was affectionately watching her, and glowed with pleasure at his
kindness.  "I will make all his friends welcome," she resolved in
her heart.  "I will love all as I love him.  I will always try and
be gay and good-humoured and make his home happy."

The regiment indeed adopted her with acclamation. The Captains
approved, the Lieutenants applauded, the Ensigns admired.  Old
Cutler, the Doctor, made one or two jokes, which, being
professional, need not be repeated; and Cackle, the Assistant M.D.
of Edinburgh, condescended to examine her upon leeterature, and
tried her with his three best French quotations.  Young Stubble went
about from man to man whispering, "Jove, isn't she a pretty gal?"
and never took his eyes off her except when the negus came in.

As for Captain Dobbin, he never so much as spoke to her during the
whole evening.  But he and Captain Porter of the 150th took home Jos
to the hotel, who was in a very maudlin state, and had told his
tiger-hunt story with great effect, both at the mess-table and at
the soiree, to Mrs. O'Dowd in her turban and bird of paradise.
Having put the Collector into the hands of his servant, Dobbin
loitered about, smoking his cigar before the inn door. George had
meanwhile very carefully shawled his wife, and brought her away from
Mrs. O'Dowd's after a general handshaking from the young officers,
who accompanied her to the fly, and cheered that vehicle as it drove
off.  So Amelia gave Dobbin her little hand as she got out of the
carriage, and rebuked him smilingly for not having taken any notice
of her all night.

The Captain continued that deleterious amusement of smoking, long
after the inn and the street were gone to bed.  He watched the
lights vanish from George's sitting-room windows, and shine out in
the bedroom close at hand.  It was almost morning when he returned
to his own quarters.  He could hear the cheering from the ships in
the river, where the transports were already taking in their cargoes
preparatory to dropping down the Thames.





CHAPTER XXVIII

In Which Amelia Invades the Low Countries


The regiment with its officers was to be transported in ships
provided by His Majesty's government for the occasion:  and in two
days after the festive assembly at Mrs. O'Dowd's apartments, in the
midst of cheering from all the East India ships in the river, and
the military on shore, the band playing "God Save the King," the
officers waving their hats, and the crews hurrahing gallantly, the
transports went down the river and proceeded under convoy to Ostend.
Meanwhile the gallant Jos had agreed to escort his sister and the
Major's wife, the bulk of whose goods and chattels, including the
famous bird of paradise and turban, were with the regimental
baggage: so that our two heroines drove pretty much unencumbered to
Ramsgate, where there were plenty of packets plying, in one of which
they had a speedy passage to Ostend.

That period of Jos's life which now ensued was so full of incident,
that it served him for conversation for many years after, and even
the tiger-hunt story was put aside for more stirring narratives
which he had to tell about the great campaign of Waterloo.  As soon
as he had agreed to escort his sister abroad, it was remarked that
he ceased shaving his upper lip.  At Chatham he followed the parades
and drills with great assiduity.  He listened with the utmost
attention to the conversation of his brother officers (as he called
them in after days sometimes), and learned as many military names as
he could. In these studies the excellent Mrs. O'Dowd was of great
assistance to him; and on the day finally when they embarked on
board the Lovely Rose, which was to carry them to their destination,
he made his appearance in a braided frock-coat and duck trousers,
with a foraging cap ornamented with a smart gold band.  Having his
carriage with him, and informing everybody on board confidentially
that he was going to join the Duke of Wellington's army, folks
mistook him for a great personage, a commissary-general, or a
government courier at the very least.

He suffered hugely on the voyage, during which the ladies were
likewise prostrate; but Amelia was brought to life again as the
packet made Ostend, by the sight of the transports conveying her
regiment, which entered the harbour almost at the same time with the
Lovely Rose. Jos went in a collapsed state to an inn, while Captain
Dobbin escorted the ladies, and then busied himself in freeing Jos's
carriage and luggage from the ship and the custom-house, for Mr. Jos
was at present without a servant, Osborne's man and his own pampered
menial having conspired together at Chatham, and refused point-blank
to cross the water.  This revolt, which came very suddenly, and on
the last day, so alarmed Mr. Sedley, junior, that he was on the
point of giving up the expedition, but Captain Dobbin (who made
himself immensely officious in the business, Jos said), rated him
and laughed at him soundly:  the mustachios were grown in advance,
and Jos finally was persuaded to embark.  In place of the well-bred
and well-fed London domestics, who could only speak English, Dobbin
procured for Jos's party a swarthy little Belgian servant who could
speak no language at all; but who, by his bustling behaviour, and by
invariably addressing Mr. Sedley as "My lord," speedily acquired
that gentleman's favour.  Times are altered at Ostend now; of the
Britons who go thither, very few look like lords, or act like those
members of our hereditary aristocracy.  They seem for the most part
shabby in attire, dingy of linen, lovers of billiards and brandy,
and cigars and greasy ordinaries.

But it may be said as a rule, that every Englishman in the Duke of
Wellington's army paid his way.  The remembrance of such a fact
surely becomes a nation of shopkeepers.  It was a blessing for a
commerce-loving country to be overrun by such an army of customers:
and to have such creditable warriors to feed.  And the country which
they came to protect is not military.  For a long period of history
they have let other people fight there.  When the present writer
went to survey with eagle glance the field of Waterloo, we asked the
conductor of the diligence, a portly warlike-looking veteran,
whether he had been at the battle.  "Pas si bete"--such an answer
and sentiment as no Frenchman would own to--was his reply.  But, on
the other hand, the postilion who drove us was a Viscount, a son of
some bankrupt Imperial General, who accepted a pennyworth of beer on
the road.  The moral is surely a good one.

This flat, flourishing, easy country never could have looked more
rich and prosperous than in that opening summer of 1815, when its
green fields and quiet cities were enlivened by multiplied red-
coats: when its wide chaussees swarmed with brilliant English
equipages: when its great canal-boats, gliding by rich pastures and
pleasant quaint old villages, by old chateaux lying amongst old
trees, were all crowded with well-to-do English travellers: when the
soldier who drank at the village inn, not only drank, but paid his
score; and Donald, the Highlander, billeted in the Flemish farm-
house, rocked the baby's cradle, while Jean and Jeannette were out
getting in the hay.  As our painters are bent on military subjects
just now, I throw out this as a good subject for the pencil, to
illustrate the principle of an honest English war.  All looked as
brilliant and harmless as a Hyde Park review.  Meanwhile, Napoleon
screened behind his curtain of frontier-fortresses, was preparing
for the outbreak which was to drive all these orderly people into
fury and blood; and lay so many of them low.

Everybody had such a perfect feeling of confidence in the leader
(for the resolute faith which the Duke of Wellington had inspired in
the whole English nation was as intense as that more frantic
enthusiasm with which at one time the French regarded Napoleon), the
country seemed in so perfect a state of orderly defence, and the
help at hand in case of need so near and overwhelming, that alarm
was unknown, and our travellers, among whom two were naturally of a
very timid sort, were, like all the other multiplied English
tourists, entirely at ease.  The famous regiment, with so many of
whose officers we have made acquaintance, was drafted in canal boats
to Bruges and Ghent, thence to march to Brussels. Jos accompanied
the ladies in the public boats; the which all old travellers in
Flanders must remember for the luxury and accommodation they
afforded.  So prodigiously good was the eating and drinking on board
these sluggish but most comfortable vessels, that there are legends
extant of an English traveller, who, coming to Belgium for a week,
and travelling in one of these boats, was so delighted with the fare
there that he went backwards and forwards from Ghent to Bruges
perpetually until the railroads were invented, when he drowned
himself on the last trip of the passage-boat.  Jos's death was not
to be of this sort, but his comfort was exceeding, and Mrs. O'Dowd
insisted that he only wanted her sister Glorvina to make his
happiness complete.  He sate on the roof of the cabin all day
drinking Flemish beer, shouting for Isidor, his servant, and talking
gallantly to the ladies.

His courage was prodigious.  "Boney attack us!" he cried.  "My dear
creature, my poor Emmy, don't be frightened.  There's no danger.
The allies will be in Paris in two months, I tell you; when I'll
take you to dine in the Palais Royal, by Jove!  There are three
hundred thousand Rooshians, I tell you, now entering France by
Mayence and the Rhine--three hundred thousand under Wittgenstein and
Barclay de Tolly, my poor love.  You don't know military affairs, my
dear.  I do, and I tell you there's no infantry in France can stand
against Rooshian infantry, and no general of Boney's that's fit to
hold a candle to Wittgenstein.  Then there are the Austrians, they
are five hundred thousand if a man, and they are within ten marches
of the frontier by this time, under Schwartzenberg and Prince
Charles.  Then there are the Prooshians under the gallant Prince
Marshal.  Show me a cavalry chief like him now that Murat is gone.
Hey, Mrs. O'Dowd?  Do you think our little girl here need be afraid?
Is there any cause for fear, Isidor?  Hey, sir?  Get some more
beer."

Mrs. O'Dowd said that her "Glorvina was not afraid of any man alive,
let alone a Frenchman," and tossed off a glass of beer with a wink
which expressed her liking for the beverage.

Having frequently been in presence of the enemy, or, in other words,
faced the ladies at Cheltenham and Bath, our friend, the Collector,
had lost a great deal of his pristine timidity, and was now,
especially when fortified with liquor, as talkative as might be.  He
was rather a favourite with the regiment, treating the young
officers with sumptuosity, and amusing them by his military airs.
And as there is one well-known regiment of the army which travels
with a goat heading the column, whilst another is led by a deer,
George said with respect to his brother-in-law, that his regiment
marched with an elephant.

Since Amelia's introduction to the regiment, George began to be
rather ashamed of some of the company to which he had been forced to
present her; and determined, as he told Dobbin (with what
satisfaction to the latter it need not be said), to exchange into
some better regiment soon, and to get his wife away from those
damned vulgar women.  But this vulgarity of being ashamed of one's
society is much more common among men than women (except very great
ladies of fashion, who, to be sure, indulge in it); and Mrs. Amelia,
a natural and unaffected person, had none of that artificial
shamefacedness which her husband mistook for delicacy on his own
part.  Thus Mrs. O'Dowd had a cock's plume in her hat, and a very
large "repayther" on her stomach, which she used to ring on all
occasions, narrating how it had been presented to her by her
fawther, as she stipt into the car'ge after her mar'ge; and these
ornaments, with other outward peculiarities of the Major's wife,
gave excruciating agonies to Captain Osborne, when his wife and the
Major's came in contact; whereas Amelia was only amused by the
honest lady's eccentricities, and not in the least ashamed of her
company.

As they made that well-known journey, which almost every Englishman
of middle rank has travelled since, there might have been more
instructive, but few more entertaining, companions than Mrs. Major
O'Dowd.  "Talk about kenal boats; my dear!  Ye should see the kenal
boats between Dublin and Ballinasloe.  It's there the rapid
travelling is; and the beautiful cattle.  Sure me fawther got a
goold medal (and his Excellency himself eat a slice of it, and said
never was finer mate in his loif) for a four-year-old heifer, the
like of which ye never saw in this country any day." And Jos owned
with a sigh, "that for good streaky beef, really mingled with fat
and lean, there was no country like England."

"Except Ireland, where all your best mate comes from," said the
Major's lady; proceeding, as is not unusual with patriots of her
nation, to make comparisons greatly in favour of her own country.
The idea of comparing the market at Bruges with those of Dublin,
although she had suggested it herself, caused immense scorn and
derision on her part.  "I'll thank ye tell me what they mean by that
old gazabo on the top of the market-place," said she, in a burst of
ridicule fit to have brought the old tower down.  The place was full
of English soldiery as they passed.  English bugles woke them in the
morning; at nightfall they went to bed to the note of the British
fife and drum:  all the country and Europe was in arms, and the
greatest event of history pending:  and honest Peggy O'Dowd, whom it
concerned as well as another, went on prattling about Ballinafad,
and the horses in the stables at Glenmalony, and the clar't drunk
there; and Jos Sedley interposed about curry and rice at Dumdum; and
Amelia thought about her husband, and how best she should show her
love for him; as if these were the great topics of the world.

Those who like to lay down the History-book, and to speculate upon
what MIGHT have happened in the world, but for the fatal occurrence
of what actually did take place (a most puzzling, amusing,
ingenious, and profitable kind of meditation), have no doubt often
thought to themselves what a specially bad time Napoleon took to
come back from Elba, and to let loose his eagle from Gulf San Juan
to Notre Dame.  The historians on our side tell us that the armies
of the allied powers were all providentially on a war-footing, and
ready to bear down at a moment's notice upon the Elban Emperor. The
august jobbers assembled at Vienna, and carving out the kingdoms of
Europe according to their wisdom, had such causes of quarrel among
themselves as might have set the armies which had overcome Napoleon
to fight against each other, but for the return of the object of
unanimous hatred and fear.  This monarch had an army in full force
because he had jobbed to himself Poland, and was determined to keep
it:  another had robbed half Saxony, and was bent upon maintaining
his acquisition: Italy was the object of a third's solicitude.  Each
was protesting against the rapacity of the other; and could the
Corsican but have waited in prison until all these parties were by
the ears, he might have returned and reigned unmolested.  But what
would have become of our story and all our friends, then?  If all
the drops in it were dried up, what would become of the sea?

In the meanwhile the business of life and living, and the pursuits
of pleasure, especially, went on as if no end were to be expected to
them, and no enemy in front. When our travellers arrived at
Brussels, in which their regiment was quartered, a great piece of
good fortune, as all said, they found themselves in one of the
gayest and most brilliant little capitals in Europe, and where all
the Vanity Fair booths were laid out with the most tempting
liveliness and splendour.  Gambling was here in profusion, and
dancing in plenty:  feasting was there to fill with delight that
great gourmand of a Jos:  there was a theatre where a miraculous
Catalani was delighting all hearers:  beautiful rides, all enlivened
with martial splendour; a rare old city, with strange costumes and
wonderful architecture, to delight the eyes of little Amelia, who
had never before seen a foreign country, and fill her with charming
surprises: so that now and for a few weeks' space in a fine handsome
lodging, whereof the expenses were borne by Jos and Osborne, who was
flush of money and full of kind attentions to his wife--for about a
fortnight, I say, during which her honeymoon ended, Mrs. Amelia was
as pleased and happy as any little bride out of England.

Every day during this happy time there was novelty and amusement for
all parties.  There was a church to see, or a picture-gallery--there
was a ride, or an opera. The bands of the regiments were making
music at all hours.  The greatest folks of England walked in the
Park--there was a perpetual military festival.  George, taking out
his wife to a new jaunt or junket every night, was quite pleased
with himself as usual, and swore he was becoming quite a domestic
character.  And a jaunt or a junket with HIM!  Was it not enough to
set this little heart beating with joy?  Her letters home to her
mother were filled with delight and gratitude at this season.  Her
husband bade her buy laces, millinery, jewels, and gimcracks of all
sorts.  Oh, he was the kindest, best, and most generous of men!

The sight of the very great company of lords and ladies and
fashionable persons who thronged the town, and appeared in every
public place, filled George's truly British soul with intense
delight.  They flung off that happy frigidity and insolence of
demeanour which occasionally characterises the great at home, and
appearing in numberless public places, condescended to mingle with
the rest of the company whom they met there.  One night at a party
given by the general of the division to which George's regiment
belonged, he had the honour of dancing with Lady Blanche
Thistlewood, Lord Bareacres' daughter; he bustled for ices and
refreshments for the two noble ladies; he pushed and squeezed for
Lady Bareacres' carriage; he bragged about the Countess when he got
home, in a way which his own father could not have surpassed.  He
called upon the ladies the next day; he rode by their side in the
Park; he asked their party to a great dinner at a restaurateur's,
and was quite wild with exultation when they agreed to come.  Old
Bareacres, who had not much pride and a large appetite, would go for
a dinner anywhere.

"I hope there will be no women besides our own party," Lady
Bareacres said, after reflecting upon the invitation which had been
made, and accepted with too much precipitancy.

"Gracious Heaven, Mamma--you don't suppose the man would bring his
wife," shrieked Lady Blanche, who had been languishing in George's
arms in the newly imported waltz for hours the night before.  "The
men are bearable, but their women--"

"Wife, just married, dev'lish pretty woman, I hear," the old Earl
said.

"Well, my dear Blanche," said the mother, "I suppose, as Papa wants
to go, we must go; but we needn't know them in England, you know."
And so, determined to cut their new acquaintance in Bond Street,
these great folks went to eat his dinner at Brussels, and
condescending to make him pay for their pleasure, showed their
dignity by making his wife uncomfortable, and carefully excluding
her from the conversation.  This is a species of dignity in which
the high-bred British female reigns supreme.  To watch the behaviour
of a fine lady to other and humbler women, is a very good sport for
a philosophical frequenter of Vanity Fair.

This festival, on which honest George spent a great deal of money,
was the very dismallest of all the entertainments which Amelia had
in her honeymoon.  She wrote the most piteous accounts of the feast
home to her mamma:  how the Countess of Bareacres would not answer
when spoken to; how Lady Blanche stared at her with her eye-glass;
and what a rage Captain Dobbin was in at their behaviour; and how my
lord, as they came away from the feast, asked to see the bill, and
pronounced it a d--- bad dinner, and d--- dear.  But though Amelia
told all these stories, and wrote home regarding her guests'
rudeness, and her own discomfiture, old Mrs. Sedley was mightily
pleased nevertheless, and talked about Emmy's friend, the Countess
of Bareacres, with such assiduity that the news how his son was
entertaining peers and peeresses actually came to Osborne's ears in
the City.

Those who know the present Lieutenant-General Sir George Tufto,
K.C.B., and have seen him, as they may on most days in the season,
padded and in stays, strutting down Pall Mall with a rickety swagger
on his high-heeled lacquered boots, leering under the bonnets of
passers-by, or riding a showy chestnut, and ogling broughams in the
Parks--those who know the present Sir George Tufto would hardly
recognise the daring Peninsular and Waterloo officer.  He has thick
curling brown hair and black eyebrows now, and his whiskers are of
the deepest purple.  He was light-haired and bald in 1815, and
stouter in the person and in the limbs, which especially have shrunk
very much of late.  When he was about seventy years of age (he is
now nearly eighty), his hair, which was very scarce and quite white,
suddenly grew thick, and brown, and curly, and his whiskers and
eyebrows took their present colour.  Ill-natured people say that his
chest is all wool, and that his hair, because it never grows, is a
wig.  Tom Tufto, with whose father he quarrelled ever so many years
ago, declares that Mademoiselle de Jaisey, of the French theatre,
pulled his grandpapa's hair off in the green-room; but Tom is
notoriously spiteful and jealous; and the General's wig has nothing
to do with our story.

One day, as some of our friends of the --th were sauntering in the
flower-market of Brussels, having been to see the Hotel de Ville,
which Mrs. Major O'Dowd declared was not near so large or handsome
as her fawther's mansion of Glenmalony, an officer of rank, with an
orderly behind him, rode up to the market, and descending from his
horse, came amongst the flowers, and selected the very finest
bouquet which money could buy. The beautiful bundle being tied up in
a paper, the officer remounted, giving the nosegay into the charge
of his military groom, who carried it with a grin, following his
chief, who rode away in great state and self-satisfaction.

"You should see the flowers at Glenmalony," Mrs. O'Dowd was
remarking.  "Me fawther has three Scotch garners with nine helpers.
We have an acre of hot-houses, and pines as common as pays in the
sayson.  Our greeps weighs six pounds every bunch of 'em, and upon
me honour and conscience I think our magnolias is as big as
taykettles."

Dobbin, who never used to "draw out" Mrs. O'Dowd as that wicked
Osborne delighted in doing (much to Amelia's terror, who implored
him to spare her), fell back in the crowd, crowing and sputtering
until he reached a safe distance, when he exploded amongst the
astonished market-people with shrieks of yelling laughter.

"Hwhat's that gawky guggling about?" said Mrs. O'Dowd.  "Is it his
nose bleedn?  He always used to say 'twas his nose bleedn, till he
must have pomped all the blood out of 'um.  An't the magnolias at
Glenmalony as big as taykettles, O'Dowd?"

"'Deed then they are, and bigger, Peggy," the Major said.  When the
conversation was interrupted in the manner stated by the arrival of
the officer who purchased the bouquet.

"Devlish fine horse--who is it?" George asked.

"You should see me brother Molloy Malony's horse, Molasses, that won
the cop at the Curragh," the Major's wife was exclaiming, and was
continuing the family history, when her husband interrupted her by
saying--

"It's General Tufto, who commands the ---- cavalry division"; adding
quietly, "he and I were both shot in the same leg at Talavera."

"Where you got your step," said George with a laugh. "General Tufto!
Then, my dear, the Crawleys are come."

Amelia's heart fell--she knew not why.  The sun did not seem to
shine so bright.  The tall old roofs and gables looked less
picturesque all of a sudden, though it was a brilliant sunset, and
one of the brightest and most beautiful days at the end of May.





CHAPTER XXIX

Brussels


Mr. Jos had hired a pair of horses for his open carriage, with which
cattle, and the smart London vehicle, he made a very tolerable
figure in the drives about Brussels. George purchased a horse for
his private riding, and he and Captain Dobbin would often accompany
the carriage in which Jos and his sister took daily excursions of
pleasure.  They went out that day in the park for their accustomed
diversion, and there, sure enough, George's remark with regard to
the arrival of Rawdon Crawley and his wife proved to be correct.  In
the midst of a little troop of horsemen, consisting of some of the
very greatest persons in Brussels, Rebecca was seen in the prettiest
and tightest of riding-habits, mounted on a beautiful little Arab,
which she rode to perfection (having acquired the art at Queen's
Crawley, where the Baronet, Mr. Pitt, and Rawdon himself had given
her many lessons), and by the side of the gallant General Tufto.

"Sure it's the Juke himself," cried Mrs. Major O'Dowd to Jos, who
began to blush violently; "and that's Lord Uxbridge on the bay.  How
elegant he looks!  Me brother, Molloy Malony, is as like him as two
pays."

Rebecca did not make for the carriage; but as soon as she perceived
her old acquaintance Amelia seated in it, acknowledged her presence
by a gracious nod and smile, and by kissing and shaking her fingers
playfully in the direction of the vehicle.  Then she resumed her
conversation with General Tufto, who asked "who the fat officer was
in the gold-laced cap?" on which Becky replied, "that he was an
officer in the East Indian service." But Rawdon Crawley rode out of
the ranks of his company, and came up and shook hands heartily with
Amelia, and said to Jos, "Well, old boy, how are you?" and stared in
Mrs. O'Dowd's face and at the black cock's feathers until she began
to think she had made a conquest of him.

George, who had been delayed behind, rode up almost immediately with
Dobbin, and they touched their caps to the august personages, among
whom Osborne at once perceived Mrs. Crawley.  He was delighted to
see Rawdon leaning over his carriage familiarly and talking to
Amelia, and met the aide-de-camp's cordial greeting with more than
corresponding warmth.  The nods between Rawdon and Dobbin were of
the very faintest specimens of politeness.

Crawley told George where they were stopping with General Tufto at
the Hotel du Parc, and George made his friend promise to come
speedily to Osborne's own residence.  "Sorry I hadn't seen you three
days ago," George said.  "Had a dinner at the Restaurateur's--rather
a nice thing.  Lord Bareacres, and the Countess, and Lady Blanche,
were good enough to dine with us--wish we'd had you." Having thus
let his friend know his claims to be a man of fashion, Osborne
parted from Rawdon, who followed the august squadron down an alley
into which they cantered, while George and Dobbin resumed their
places, one on each side of Amelia's carriage.

"How well the Juke looked," Mrs. O'Dowd remarked. "The Wellesleys
and Malonys are related; but, of course, poor I would never dream of
introjuicing myself unless his Grace thought proper to remember our
family-tie."

"He's a great soldier," Jos said, much more at ease now the great
man was gone.  "Was there ever a battle won like Salamanca?  Hey,
Dobbin?  But where was it he learnt his art?  In India, my boy!  The
jungle's the school for a general, mark me that.  I knew him myself,
too, Mrs. O'Dowd:  we both of us danced the same evening with Miss
Cutler, daughter of Cutler of the Artillery, and a devilish fine
girl, at Dumdum."

The apparition of the great personages held them all in talk during
the drive; and at dinner; and until the hour came when they were all
to go to the Opera.

It was almost like Old England.  The house was filled with familiar
British faces, and those toilettes for which the British female has
long been celebrated.  Mrs. O'Dowd's was not the least splendid
amongst these, and she had a curl on her forehead, and a set of
Irish diamonds and Cairngorms, which outshone all the decorations in
the house, in her notion.  Her presence used to excruciate Osborne;
but go she would upon all parties of pleasure on which she heard her
young friends were bent. It never entered into her thought but that
they must be charmed with her company.

"She's been useful to you, my dear," George said to his wife, whom
he could leave alone with less scruple when she had this society.
"But what a comfort it is that Rebecca's come:  you will have her
for a friend, and we may get rid now of this damn'd Irishwoman."  To
this Amelia did not answer, yes or no:  and how do we know what her
thoughts were?

The coup d'oeil of the Brussels opera-house did not strike Mrs.
O'Dowd as being so fine as the theatre in Fishamble Street, Dublin,
nor was French music at all equal, in her opinion, to the melodies
of her native country. She favoured her friends with these and other
opinions in a very loud tone of voice, and tossed about a great
clattering fan she sported, with the most splendid complacency.

"Who is that wonderful woman with Amelia, Rawdon, love?" said a lady
in an opposite box (who, almost always civil to her husband in
private, was more fond than ever of him in company).

"Don't you see that creature with a yellow thing in her turban, and
a red satin gown, and a great watch?"

"Near the pretty little woman in white?" asked a middle-aged
gentleman seated by the querist's side, with orders in his button,
and several under-waistcoats, and a great, choky, white stock.

"That pretty woman in white is Amelia, General:  you are remarking
all the pretty women, you naughty man."

"Only one, begad, in the world!" said the General, delighted, and
the lady gave him a tap with a large bouquet which she had.

"Bedad it's him," said Mrs. O'Dowd; "and that's the very bokay he
bought in the Marshy aux Flures!" and when Rebecca, having caught
her friend's eye, performed the little hand-kissing operation once
more, Mrs. Major O'D., taking the compliment to herself, returned
the salute with a gracious smile, which sent that unfortunate Dobbin
shrieking out of the box again.

At the end of the act, George was out of the box in a moment, and he
was even going to pay his respects to Rebecca in her loge.  He met
Crawley in the lobby, however, where they exchanged a few sentences
upon the occurrences of the last fortnight.

"You found my cheque all right at the agent's? George said, with a
knowing air.

"All right, my boy," Rawdon answered.  "Happy to give you your
revenge.  Governor come round?"

"Not yet," said George, "but he will; and you know I've some private
fortune through my mother.  Has Aunty relented?"

"Sent me twenty pound, damned old screw.  When shall we have a meet?
The General dines out on Tuesday. Can't you come Tuesday?  I say,
make Sedley cut off his moustache.  What the devil does a civilian
mean with a moustache and those infernal frogs to his coat!  By-bye.
Try and come on Tuesday"; and Rawdon was going-off with two
brilliant young gentlemen of fashion, who were, like himself, on the
staff of a general officer.

George was only half pleased to be asked to dinner on that
particular day when the General was not to dine.  "I will go in and
pay my respects to your wife," said he; at which Rawdon said, "Hm,
as you please," looking very glum, and at which the two young
officers exchanged knowing glances.  George parted from them and
strutted down the lobby to the General's box, the number of which he
had carefully counted.

"Entrez," said a clear little voice, and our friend found himself in
Rebecca's presence; who jumped up, clapped her hands together, and
held out both of them to George, so charmed was she to see him.  The
General, with the orders in his button, stared at the newcomer with
a sulky scowl, as much as to say, who the devil are you?

"My dear Captain George!" cried little Rebecca in an ecstasy.  "How
good of you to come.  The General and I were moping together tete-a-
tete.  General, this is my Captain George of whom you heard me
talk."

"Indeed," said the General, with a very small bow; "of what regiment
is Captain George?"

George mentioned the --th:  how he wished he could have said it was a
crack cavalry corps.

"Come home lately from the West Indies, I believe. Not seen much
service in the late war.  Quartered here, Captain George?"--the
General went on with killing haughtiness.

"Not Captain George, you stupid man; Captain Osborne," Rebecca said.
The General all the while was looking savagely from one to the
other.

"Captain Osborne, indeed! Any relation to the L------ Osbornes?"

"We bear the same arms," George said, as indeed was the fact; Mr.
Osborne having consulted with a herald in Long Acre, and picked the
L------ arms out of the peerage, when he set up his carriage fifteen
years before.  The General made no reply to this announcement; but
took up his opera-glass--the double-barrelled lorgnon was not
invented in those days--and pretended to examine the house; but
Rebecca saw that his disengaged eye was working round in her
direction, and shooting out bloodshot glances at her and George.

She redoubled in cordiality.  "How is dearest Amelia? But I needn't
ask: how pretty she looks!  And who is that nice good-natured
looking creature with her--a flame of yours?  O, you wicked men!
And there is Mr. Sedley eating ice, I declare: how he seems to enjoy
it!  General, why have we not had any ices?"

"Shall I go and fetch you some?" said the General, bursting with
wrath.

"Let ME go, I entreat you," George said.

"No, I will go to Amelia's box.  Dear, sweet girl!  Give me your
arm, Captain George"; and so saying, and with a nod to the General,
she tripped into the lobby.  She gave George the queerest,
knowingest look, when they were together, a look which might have
been interpreted, "Don't you see the state of affairs, and what a
fool I'm making of him?"  But he did not perceive it.  He was
thinking of his own plans, and lost in pompous admiration of his own
irresistible powers of pleasing.

The curses to which the General gave a low utterance, as soon as
Rebecca and her conqueror had quitted him, were so deep, that I am
sure no compositor would venture to print them were they written
down.  They came from the General's heart; and a wonderful thing it
is to think that the human heart is capable of generating such
produce, and can throw out, as occasion demands, such a supply of
lust and fury, rage and hatred.

Amelia's gentle eyes, too, had been fixed anxiously on the pair,
whose conduct had so chafed the jealous General; but when Rebecca
entered her box, she flew to her friend with an affectionate rapture
which showed itself, in spite of the publicity of the place; for she
embraced her dearest friend in the presence of the whole house, at
least in full view of the General's glass, now brought to bear upon
the Osborne party.  Mrs. Rawdon saluted Jos, too, with the kindliest
greeting: she admired Mrs. O'Dowd's large Cairngorm brooch and
superb Irish diamonds, and wouldn't believe that they were not from
Golconda direct. She bustled, she chattered, she turned and twisted,
and smiled upon one, and smirked on another, all in full view of the
jealous opera-glass opposite.  And when the time for the ballet came
(in which there was no dancer that went through her grimaces or
performed her comedy of action better), she skipped back to her own
box, leaning on Captain Dobbin's arm this time.  No, she would not
have George's: he must stay and talk to his dearest, best, little
Amelia.

"What a humbug that woman is!" honest old Dobbin mumbled to George,
when he came back from Rebecca's box, whither he had conducted her
in perfect silence, and with a countenance as glum as an
undertaker's.  "She writhes and twists about like a snake.  All the
time she was here, didn't you see, George, how she was acting at the
General over the way?"

"Humbug--acting!  Hang it, she's the nicest little woman in
England," George replied, showing his white teeth, and giving his
ambrosial whiskers a twirl.  "You ain't a man of the world, Dobbin.
Dammy, look at her now, she's talked over Tufto in no time.  Look
how he's laughing!  Gad, what a shoulder she has!  Emmy, why didn't
you have a bouquet?  Everybody has a bouquet."

"Faith, then, why didn't you BOY one?" Mrs. O'Dowd said; and both
Amelia and William Dobbin thanked her for this timely observation.
But beyond this neither of the ladies rallied.  Amelia was
overpowered by the flash and the dazzle and the fashionable talk of
her worldly rival. Even the O'Dowd was silent and subdued after
Becky's brilliant apparition, and scarcely said a word more about
Glenmalony all the evening.

"When do you intend to give up play, George, as you have promised
me, any time these hundred years?" Dobbin said to his friend a few
days after the night at the Opera.  "When do you intend to give up
sermonising?" was the other's reply.  "What the deuce, man, are you
alarmed about?  We play low; I won last night.  You don't suppose
Crawley cheats?  With fair play it comes to pretty much the same
thing at the year's end."

"But I don't think he could pay if he lost," Dobbin said; and his
advice met with the success which advice usually commands.  Osborne
and Crawley were repeatedly together now.  General Tufto dined
abroad almost constantly. George was always welcome in the
apartments (very close indeed to those of the General) which the
aide-de-camp and his wife occupied in the hotel.

Amelia's manners were such when she and George visited Crawley and
his wife at these quarters, that they had very nearly come to their
first quarrel; that is, George scolded his wife violently for her
evident unwillingness to go, and the high and mighty manner in which
she comported herself towards Mrs. Crawley, her old friend; and
Amelia did not say one single word in reply; but with her husband's
eye upon her, and Rebecca scanning her as she felt, was, if
possible, more bashful and awkward on the second visit which she
paid to Mrs. Rawdon, than on her first call.

Rebecca was doubly affectionate, of course, and would not take
notice, in the least, of her friend's coolness.  "I think Emmy has
become prouder since her father's name was in the--since Mr.
Sedley's MISFORTUNES," Rebecca said, softening the phrase charitably
for George's ear.

"Upon my word, I thought when we were at Brighton she was doing me
the honour to be jealous of me; and now I suppose she is scandalised
because Rawdon, and I, and the General live together.  Why, my dear
creature, how could we, with our means, live at all, but for a
friend to share expenses?  And do you suppose that Rawdon is not big
enough to take care of my honour?  But I'm very much obliged to
Emmy, very," Mrs. Rawdon said.

"Pooh, jealousy!" answered George, "all women are jealous."

"And all men too.  Weren't you jealous of General Tufto, and the
General of you, on the night of the Opera? Why, he was ready to eat
me for going with you to visit that foolish little wife of yours; as
if I care a pin for either of you," Crawley's wife said, with a pert
toss of her head.  "Will you dine here?  The dragon dines with the
Commander-in-Chief.  Great news is stirring.  They say the French
have crossed the frontier.  We shall have a quiet dinner."

George accepted the invitation, although his wife was a little
ailing.  They were now not quite six weeks married. Another woman
was laughing or sneering at her expense, and he not angry.  He was
not even angry with himself, this good-natured fellow.  It is a
shame, he owned to himself; but hang it, if a pretty woman WILL
throw herself in your way, why, what can a fellow do, you know?  I
AM rather free about women, he had often said, smiling and nodding
knowingly to Stubble and Spooney, and other comrades of the mess-
table; and they rather respected him than otherwise for this
prowess.  Next to conquering in war, conquering in love has been a
source of pride, time out of mind, amongst men in Vanity Fair, or
how should schoolboys brag of their amours, or Don Juan be popular?

So Mr. Osborne, having a firm conviction in his own mind that he was
a woman-killer and destined to conquer, did not run counter to his
fate, but yielded himself up to it quite complacently.  And as Emmy
did not say much or plague him with her jealousy, but merely became
unhappy and pined over it miserably in secret, he chose to fancy
that she was not suspicious of what all his acquaintance were
perfectly aware--namely, that he was carrying on a desperate
flirtation with Mrs. Crawley.  He rode with her whenever she was
free.  He pretended regimental business to Amelia (by which
falsehood she was not in the least deceived), and consigning his
wife to solitude or her brother's society, passed his evenings in
the Crawleys' company; losing money to the husband and flattering
himself that the wife was dying of love for him. It is very likely
that this worthy couple never absolutely conspired and agreed
together in so many words:  the one to cajole the young gentleman,
whilst the other won his money at cards: but they understood each
other perfectly well, and Rawdon let Osborne come and go with entire
good humour.

George was so occupied with his new acquaintances that he and
William Dobbin were by no means so much together as formerly.
George avoided him in public and in the regiment, and, as we see,
did not like those sermons which his senior was disposed to inflict
upon him. If some parts of his conduct made Captain Dobbin
exceedingly grave and cool; of what use was it to tell George that,
though his whiskers were large, and his own opinion of his
knowingness great, he was as green as a schoolboy? that Rawdon was
making a victim of him as he had done of many before, and as soon as
he had used him would fling him off with scorn?  He would not
listen:  and so, as Dobbin, upon those days when he visited the
Osborne house, seldom had the advantage of meeting his old friend,
much painful and unavailing talk between them was spared.  Our
friend George was in the full career of the pleasures of Vanity
Fair.

There never was, since the days of Darius, such a brilliant train of
camp-followers as hung round the Duke of Wellington's army in the
Low Countries, in 1815; and led it dancing and feasting, as it were,
up to the very brink of battle.  A certain ball which a noble
Duchess gave at Brussels on the 15th of June in the above-named year
is historical.  All Brussels had been in a state of excitement about
it, and I have heard from ladies who were in that town at the
period, that the talk and interest of persons of their own sex
regarding the ball was much greater even than in respect of the
enemy in their front. The struggles, intrigues, and prayers to get
tickets were such as only English ladies will employ, in order to
gain admission to the society of the great of their own nation.

Jos and Mrs. O'Dowd, who were panting to be asked, strove in vain to
procure tickets; but others of our friends were more lucky.  For
instance, through the interest of my Lord Bareacres, and as a set-
off for the dinner at the restaurateur's, George got a card for
Captain and Mrs. Osborne; which circumstance greatly elated him.
Dobbin, who was a friend of the General commanding the division in
which their regiment was, came laughing one day to Mrs. Osborne, and
displayed a similar invitation, which made Jos envious, and George
wonder how the deuce he should be getting into society.  Mr. and
Mrs. Rawdon, finally, were of course invited; as became the friends
of a General commanding a cavalry brigade.

On the appointed night, George, having commanded new dresses and
ornaments of all sorts for Amelia, drove to the famous ball, where
his wife did not know a single soul.  After looking about for Lady
Bareacres, who cut him, thinking the card was quite enough--and
after placing Amelia on a bench, he left her to her own cogitations
there, thinking, on his own part, that he had behaved very
handsomely in getting her new clothes, and bringing her to the ball,
where she was free to amuse herself as she liked.  Her thoughts were
not of the pleasantest, and nobody except honest Dobbin came to
disturb them.

Whilst her appearance was an utter failure (as her husband felt with
a sort of rage), Mrs. Rawdon Crawley's debut was, on the contrary,
very brilliant.  She arrived very late.  Her face was radiant; her
dress perfection.  In the midst of the great persons assembled, and
the eye-glasses directed to her, Rebecca seemed to be as cool and
collected as when she used to marshal Miss Pinkerton's little girls
to church.  Numbers of the men she knew already, and the dandies
thronged round her.  As for the ladies, it was whispered among them
that Rawdon had run away with her from out of a convent, and that
she was a relation of the Montmorency family.  She spoke French so
perfectly that there might be some truth in this report, and it was
agreed that her manners were fine, and her air distingue.  Fifty
would-be partners thronged round her at once, and pressed to have
the honour to dance with her.  But she said she was engaged, and
only going to dance very little; and made her way at once to the
place where Emmy sate quite unnoticed, and dismally unhappy.  And
so, to finish the poor child at once, Mrs. Rawdon ran and greeted
affectionately her dearest Amelia, and began forthwith to patronise
her. She found fault with her friend's dress, and her hairdresser,
and wondered how she could be so chaussee, and vowed that she must
send her corsetiere the next morning.  She vowed that it was a
delightful ball; that there was everybody that every one knew, and
only a VERY few nobodies in the whole room.  It is a fact, that in a
fortnight, and after three dinners in general society, this young
woman had got up the genteel jargon so well, that a native could not
speak it better; and it was only from her French being so good, that
you could know she was not a born woman of fashion.

George, who had left Emmy on her bench on entering the ball-room,
very soon found his way back when Rebecca was by her dear friend's
side.  Becky was just lecturing Mrs. Osborne upon the follies which
her husband was committing.  "For God's sake, stop him from
gambling, my dear," she said, "or he will ruin himself. He and
Rawdon are playing at cards every night, and you know he is very
poor, and Rawdon will win every shilling from him if he does not
take care.  Why don't you prevent him, you little careless creature?
Why don't you come to us of an evening, instead of moping at home
with that Captain Dobbin?  I dare say he is tres aimable; but how
could one love a man with feet of such size? Your husband's feet are
darlings--Here he comes.  Where have you been, wretch?  Here is Emmy
crying her eyes out for you.  Are you coming to fetch me for the
quadrille?" And she left her bouquet and shawl by Amelia's side, and
tripped off with George to dance.  Women only know how to wound so.
There is a poison on the tips of their little shafts, which stings a
thousand times more than a man's blunter weapon.  Our poor Emmy, who
had never hated, never sneered all her life, was powerless in the
hands of her remorseless little enemy.

George danced with Rebecca twice or thrice--how many times Amelia
scarcely knew.  She sat quite unnoticed in her corner, except when
Rawdon came up with some words of clumsy conversation:  and later in
the evening, when Captain Dobbin made so bold as to bring her
refreshments and sit beside her.  He did not like to ask her why she
was so sad; but as a pretext for the tears which were filling in her
eyes, she told him that Mrs. Crawley had alarmed her by telling her
that George would go on playing.

"It is curious, when a man is bent upon play, by what clumsy rogues
he will allow himself to be cheated," Dobbin said; and Emmy said,
"Indeed." She was thinking of something else.  It was not the loss
of the money that grieved her.

At last George came back for Rebecca's shawl and flowers.  She was
going away.  She did not even condescend to come back and say good-
bye to Amelia.  The poor girl let her husband come and go without
saying a word, and her head fell on her breast.  Dobbin had been
called away, and was whispering deep in conversation with the
General of the division, his friend, and had not seen this last
parting.  George went away then with the bouquet; but when he gave
it to the owner, there lay a note, coiled like a snake among the
flowers.  Rebecca's eye caught it at once.  She had been used to
deal with notes in early life.  She put out her hand and took the
nosegay.  He saw by her eyes as they met, that she was aware what
she should find there.  Her husband hurried her away, still too
intent upon his own thoughts, seemingly, to take note of any marks
of recognition which might pass between his friend and his wife.
These were, however, but trifling.  Rebecca gave George her hand
with one of her usual quick knowing glances, and made a curtsey and
walked away.  George bowed over the hand, said nothing in reply to a
remark of Crawley's, did not hear it even, his brain was so
throbbing with triumph and excitement, and allowed them to go away
without a word.

His wife saw the one part at least of the bouquet-scene. It was
quite natural that George should come at Rebecca's request to get
her her scarf and flowers:  it was no more than he had done twenty
times before in the course of the last few days; but now it was too
much for her. "William," she said, suddenly clinging to Dobbin, who
was near her, "you've always been very kind to me--I'm--I'm not
well.  Take me home."  She did not know she called him by his
Christian name, as George was accustomed to do.  He went away with
her quickly.  Her lodgings were hard by; and they threaded through
the crowd without, where everything seemed to be more astir than
even in the ball-room within.

George had been angry twice or thrice at finding his wife up on his
return from the parties which he frequented:  so she went straight
to bed now; but although she did not sleep, and although the din and
clatter, and the galloping of horsemen were incessant, she never
heard any of these noises, having quite other disturbances to keep
her awake.

Osborne meanwhile, wild with elation, went off to a play-table, and
began to bet frantically.  He won repeatedly. "Everything succeeds
with me to-night," he said. But his luck at play even did not cure
him of his restlessness, and he started up after awhile, pocketing
his winnings, and went to a buffet, where he drank off many bumpers
of wine.

Here, as he was rattling away to the people around, laughing loudly
and wild with spirits, Dobbin found him. He had been to the card-
tables to look there for his friend.  Dobbin looked as pale and
grave as his comrade was flushed and jovial.

"Hullo, Dob!  Come and drink, old Dob!  The Duke's wine is famous.
Give me some more, you sir"; and he held out a trembling glass for
the liquor.

"Come out, George," said Dobbin, still gravely; "don't drink."

"Drink!  there's nothing like it.  Drink yourself, and light up your
lantern jaws, old boy.  Here's to you."

Dobbin went up and whispered something to him, at which George,
giving a start and a wild hurray, tossed off his glass, clapped it
on the table, and walked away speedily on his friend's arm.  "The
enemy has passed the Sambre," William said, "and our left is already
engaged. Come away.  We are to march in three hours."

Away went George, his nerves quivering with excitement at the news
so long looked for, so sudden when it came.  What were love and
intrigue now?  He thought about a thousand things but these in his
rapid walk to his quarters--his past life and future chances--the
fate which might be before him--the wife, the child perhaps, from
whom unseen he might be about to part.  Oh, how he wished that
night's work undone!  and that with a clear conscience at least he
might say farewell to the tender and guileless being by whose love
he had set such little store!

He thought over his brief married life.  In those few weeks he had
frightfully dissipated his little capital.  How wild and reckless he
had been!  Should any mischance befall him:  what was then left for
her?  How unworthy he was of her.  Why had he married her?  He was
not fit for marriage.  Why had he disobeyed his father, who had been
always so generous to him?  Hope, remorse, ambition, tenderness, and
selfish regret filled his heart.  He sate down and wrote to his
father, remembering what he had said once before, when he was
engaged to fight a duel. Dawn faintly streaked the sky as he closed
this farewell letter.  He sealed it, and kissed the superscription.
He thought how he had deserted that generous father, and of the
thousand kindnesses which the stern old man had done him.

He had looked into Amelia's bedroom when he entered; she lay quiet,
and her eyes seemed closed, and he was glad that she was asleep.  On
arriving at his quarters from the ball, he had found his regimental
servant already making preparations for his departure:  the man had
understood his signal to be still, and these arrangements were very
quickly and silently made.  Should he go in and wake Amelia, he
thought, or leave a note for her brother to break the news of
departure to her?  He went in to look at her once again.

She had been awake when he first entered her room, but had kept her
eyes closed, so that even her wakefulness should not seem to
reproach him.  But when he had returned, so soon after herself, too,
this timid little heart had felt more at ease, and turning towards
him as he stept softly out of the room, she had fallen into a light
sleep.  George came in and looked at her again, entering still more
softly.  By the pale night-lamp he could see her sweet, pale face--
the purple eyelids were fringed and closed, and one round arm,
smooth and white, lay outside of the coverlet.  Good God!  how pure
she was; how gentle, how tender, and how friendless!  and he, how
selfish, brutal, and black with crime!  Heart-stained, and shame-
stricken, he stood at the bed's foot, and looked at the sleeping
girl.  How dared he--who was he, to pray for one so spotless!  God
bless her!  God bless her!  He came to the bedside, and looked at
the hand, the little soft hand, lying asleep; and he bent over the
pillow noiselessly towards the gentle pale face.

Two fair arms closed tenderly round his neck as he stooped down.  "I
am awake, George," the poor child said, with a sob fit to break the
little heart that nestled so closely by his own.  She was awake,
poor soul, and to what?  At that moment a bugle from the Place of
Arms began sounding clearly, and was taken up through the town; and
amidst the drums of the infantry, and the shrill pipes of the
Scotch, the whole city awoke.



CHAPTER XXX

"The Girl I Left Behind Me"


We do not claim to rank among the military novelists. Our place is
with the non-combatants.  When the decks are cleared for action we
go below and wait meekly.  We should only be in the way of the
manoeuvres that the gallant fellows are performing overhead.  We
shall go no farther with the --th than to the city gate:  and leaving
Major O'Dowd to his duty, come back to the Major's wife, and the
ladies and the baggage.

Now the Major and his lady, who had not been invited to the ball at
which in our last chapter other of our friends figured, had much
more time to take their wholesome natural rest in bed, than was
accorded to people who wished to enjoy pleasure as well as to do
duty.  "It's my belief, Peggy, my dear," said he, as he placidly
pulled his nightcap over his ears, "that there will be such a ball
danced in a day or two as some of 'em has never heard the chune of";
and he was much more happy to retire to rest after partaking of a
quiet tumbler, than to figure at any other sort of amusement.
Peggy, for her part, would have liked to have shown her turban and
bird of paradise at the ball, but for the information which her
husband had given her, and which made her very grave.

"I'd like ye wake me about half an hour before the assembly beats,"
the Major said to his lady.  "Call me at half-past one, Peggy dear,
and see me things is ready.  May be I'll not come back to breakfast,
Mrs. O'D."  With which words, which signified his opinion that the
regiment would march the next morning, the Major ceased talking, and
fell asleep.

Mrs. O'Dowd, the good housewife, arrayed in curl papers and a
camisole, felt that her duty was to act, and not to sleep, at this
juncture.  "Time enough for that," she said, "when Mick's gone"; and
so she packed his travelling valise ready for the march, brushed his
cloak, his cap, and other warlike habiliments, set them out in order
for him; and stowed away in the cloak pockets a light package of
portable refreshments, and a wicker-covered flask or pocket-pistol,
containing near a pint of a remarkably sound Cognac brandy, of which
she and the Major approved very much; and as soon as the hands of
the "repayther" pointed to half-past one, and its interior
arrangements (it had a tone quite equal to a cathaydral, its fair
owner considered) knelled forth that fatal hour, Mrs. O'Dowd woke up
her Major, and had as comfortable a cup of coffee prepared for him
as any made that morning in Brussels.  And who is there will deny
that this worthy lady's preparations betokened affection as much as
the fits of tears and hysterics by which more sensitive females
exhibited their love, and that their partaking of this coffee, which
they drank together while the bugles were sounding the turn-out and
the drums beating in the various quarters of the town, was not more
useful and to the purpose than the outpouring of any mere sentiment
could be?  The consequence was, that the Major appeared on parade
quite trim, fresh, and alert, his well-shaved rosy countenance, as
he sate on horseback, giving cheerfulness and confidence to the
whole corps.  All the officers saluted her when the regiment marched
by the balcony on which this brave woman stood, and waved them a
cheer as they passed; and I daresay it was not from want of courage,
but from a sense of female delicacy and propriety, that she
refrained from leading the gallant--th personally into action.

On Sundays, and at periods of a solemn nature, Mrs. O'Dowd used to
read with great gravity out of a large volume of her uncle the
Dean's sermons.  It had been of great comfort to her on board the
transport as they were coming home, and were very nearly wrecked, on
their return from the West Indies.  After the regiment's departure
she betook herself to this volume for meditation; perhaps she did
not understand much of what she was reading, and her thoughts were
elsewhere:  but the sleep project, with poor Mick's nightcap there
on the pillow, was quite a vain one.  So it is in the world.  Jack
or Donald marches away to glory with his knapsack on his shoulder,
stepping out briskly to the tune of "The Girl I Left Behind Me." It
is she who remains and suffers--and has the leisure to think, and
brood, and remember.

Knowing how useless regrets are, and how the indulgence of sentiment
only serves to make people more miserable, Mrs. Rebecca wisely
determined to give way to no vain feelings of sorrow, and bore the
parting from her husband with quite a Spartan equanimity.  Indeed
Captain Rawdon himself was much more affected at the leave-taking
than the resolute little woman to whom he bade farewell.  She had
mastered this rude coarse nature; and he loved and worshipped her
with all his faculties of regard and admiration.  In all his life he
had never been so happy, as, during the past few months, his wife
had made him.  All former delights of turf, mess, hunting-field, and
gambling-table; all previous loves and courtships of milliners,
opera-dancers, and the like easy triumphs of the clumsy military
Adonis, were quite insipid when compared to the lawful matrimonial
pleasures which of late he had enjoyed.  She had known perpetually
how to divert him; and he had found his house and her society a
thousand times more pleasant than any place or company which he had
ever frequented from his childhood until now.  And he cursed his
past follies and extravagances, and bemoaned his vast outlying debts
above all, which must remain for ever as obstacles to prevent his
wife's advancement in the world.  He had often groaned over these in
midnight conversations with Rebecca, although as a bachelor they had
never given him any disquiet.  He himself was struck with this
phenomenon.  "Hang it," he would say (or perhaps use a still
stronger expression out of his simple vocabulary), "before I was
married I didn't care what bills I put my name to, and so long as
Moses would wait or Levy would renew for three months, I kept on
never minding.  But since I'm married, except renewing, of course, I
give you my honour I've not touched a bit of stamped paper."

Rebecca always knew how to conjure away these moods of melancholy.
"Why, my stupid love," she would say, "we have not done with your
aunt yet.  If she fails us, isn't there what you call the Gazette?
or, stop, when your uncle Bute's life drops, I have another scheme.
The living has always belonged to the younger brother, and why
shouldn't you sell out and go into the Church?"  The idea of this
conversion set Rawdon into roars of laughter: you might have heard
the explosion through the hotel at midnight, and the haw-haws of the
great dragoon's voice. General Tufto heard him from his quarters on
the first floor above them; and Rebecca acted the scene with great
spirit, and preached Rawdon's first sermon, to the immense delight
of the General at breakfast.

But these were mere by-gone days and talk.  When the final news
arrived that the campaign was opened, and the troops were to march,
Rawdon's gravity became such that Becky rallied him about it in a
manner which rather hurt the feelings of the Guardsman.  "You don't
suppose I'm afraid, Becky, I should think," he said, with a tremor
in his voice.  "But I'm a pretty good mark for a shot, and you see
if it brings me down, why I leave one and perhaps two behind me whom
I should wish to provide for, as I brought 'em into the scrape.  It
is no laughing matter that, Mrs. C., anyways."

Rebecca by a hundred caresses and kind words tried to soothe the
feelings of the wounded lover.  It was only when her vivacity and
sense of humour got the better of this sprightly creature (as they
would do under most circumstances of life indeed) that she would
break out with her satire, but she could soon put on a demure face.
"Dearest love," she said, "do you suppose I feel nothing?" and
hastily dashing something from her eyes, she looked up in her
husband's face with a smile.

"Look here," said he.  "If I drop, let us see what there is for you.
I have had a pretty good run of luck here, and here's two hundred
and thirty pounds.  I have got ten Napoleons in my pocket.  That is
as much as I shall want; for the General pays everything like a
prince; and if I'm hit, why you know I cost nothing.  Don't cry,
little woman; I may live to vex you yet.  Well, I shan't take either
of my horses, but shall ride the General's grey charger:  it's
cheaper, and I told him mine was lame.  If I'm done, those two ought
to fetch you something.  Grigg offered ninety for the mare
yesterday, before this confounded news came, and like a fool I
wouldn't let her go under the two o's.  Bullfinch will fetch his
price any day, only you'd better sell him in this country, because
the dealers have so many bills of mine, and so I'd rather he
shouldn't go back to England.  Your little mare the General gave you
will fetch something, and there's no d--d livery stable bills here
as there are in London," Rawdon added, with a laugh.  "There's that
dressing-case cost me two hundred--that is, I owe two for it; and
the gold tops and bottles must be worth thirty or forty.  Please to
put THAT up the spout, ma'am, with my pins, and rings, and watch and
chain, and things.  They cost a precious lot of money.  Miss
Crawley, I know, paid a hundred down for the chain and ticker.  Gold
tops and bottles, indeed!  dammy, I'm sorry I didn't take more now.
Edwards pressed on me a silver-gilt boot-jack, and I might have had
a dressing-case fitted up with a silver warming-pan, and a service
of plate.  But we must make the best of what we've got, Becky, you
know."

And so, making his last dispositions, Captain Crawley, who had
seldom thought about anything but himself, until the last few months
of his life, when Love had obtained the mastery over the dragoon,
went through the various items of his little catalogue of effects,
striving to see how they might be turned into money for his wife's
benefit, in case any accident should befall him.  He pleased himself
by noting down with a pencil, in his big schoolboy handwriting, the
various items of his portable property which might be sold for his
widow's advantage as, for example, "My double-barril by Manton, say
40 guineas; my driving cloak, lined with sable fur, 50 pounds; my
duelling pistols in rosewood case (same which I shot Captain
Marker), 20 pounds; my regulation saddle-holsters and housings; my
Laurie ditto," and so forth, over all of which articles he made
Rebecca the mistress.

Faithful to his plan of economy, the Captain dressed himself in his
oldest and shabbiest uniform and epaulets, leaving the newest
behind, under his wife's (or it might be his widow's) guardianship.
And this famous dandy of Windsor and Hyde Park went off on his
campaign with a kit as modest as that of a sergeant, and with
something like a prayer on his lips for the woman he was leaving. He
took her up from the ground, and held her in his arms for a minute,
tight pressed against his strong-beating heart.  His face was purple
and his eyes dim, as he put her down and left her.  He rode by his
General's side, and smoked his cigar in silence as they hastened
after the troops of the General's brigade, which preceded them; and
it was not until they were some miles on their way that he left off
twirling his moustache and broke silence.

And Rebecca, as we have said, wisely determined not to give way to
unavailing sentimentality on her husband's departure.  She waved him
an adieu from the window, and stood there for a moment looking out
after he was gone. The cathedral towers and the full gables of the
quaint old houses were just beginning to blush in the sunrise.
There had been no rest for her that night.  She was still in her
pretty ball-dress, her fair hair hanging somewhat out of curl on her
neck, and the circles round her eyes dark with watching.  "What a
fright I seem," she said, examining herself in the glass, "and how
pale this pink makes one look!"  So she divested herself of this
pink raiment; in doing which a note fell out from her corsage, which
she picked up with a smile, and locked into her dressing-box. And
then she put her bouquet of the ball into a glass of water, and went
to bed, and slept very comfortably.

The town was quite quiet when she woke up at ten o'clock, and
partook of coffee, very requisite and comforting after the
exhaustion and grief of the morning's occurrences.

This meal over, she resumed honest Rawdon's calculations of the
night previous, and surveyed her position. Should the worst befall,
all things considered, she was pretty well to do.  There were her
own trinkets and trousseau, in addition to those which her husband
had left behind. Rawdon's generosity, when they were first married,
has already been described and lauded.  Besides these, and the
little mare, the General, her slave and worshipper, had made her
many very handsome presents, in the shape of cashmere shawls bought
at the auction of a bankrupt French general's lady, and numerous
tributes from the jewellers' shops, all of which betokened her
admirer's taste and wealth.  As for "tickers," as poor Rawdon called
watches, her apartments were alive with their clicking. For,
happening to mention one night that hers, which Rawdon had given to
her, was of English workmanship, and went ill, on the very next
morning there came to her a little bijou marked Leroy, with a chain
and cover charmingly set with turquoises, and another signed
Brequet, which was covered with pearls, and yet scarcely bigger than
a half-crown.  General Tufto had bought one, and Captain Osborne had
gallantly presented the other.  Mrs. Osborne had no watch, though,
to do George justice, she might have had one for the asking, and the
Honourable Mrs. Tufto in England had an old instrument of her
mother's that might have served for the plate-warming pan which
Rawdon talked about.  If Messrs. Howell and James were to publish a
list of the purchasers of all the trinkets which they sell, how
surprised would some families be: and if all these ornaments went to
gentlemen's lawful wives and daughters, what a profusion of
jewellery there would be exhibited in the genteelest homes of Vanity
Fair!

Every calculation made of these valuables Mrs. Rebecca found, not
without a pungent feeling of triumph and self-satisfaction, that
should circumstances occur, she might reckon on six or seven hundred
pounds at the very least, to begin the world with; and she passed
the morning disposing, ordering, looking out, and locking up her
properties in the most agreeable manner.  Among the notes in
Rawdon's pocket-book was a draft for twenty pounds on Osborne's
banker.  This made her think about Mrs. Osborne.  "I will go and get
the draft cashed," she said, "and pay a visit afterwards to poor
little Emmy." If this is a novel without a hero, at least let us lay
claim to a heroine.  No man in the British army which has marched
away, not the great Duke himself, could be more cool or collected in
the presence of doubts and difficulties, than the indomitable little
aide-de-camp's wife.

And there was another of our acquaintances who was also to be left
behind, a non-combatant, and whose emotions and behaviour we have
therefore a right to know. This was our friend the ex-collector of
Boggley Wollah, whose rest was broken, like other people's, by the
sounding of the bugles in the early morning.  Being a great sleeper,
and fond of his bed, it is possible he would have snoozed on until
his usual hour of rising in the forenoon, in spite of all the drums,
bugles, and bagpipes in the British army, but for an interruption,
which did not come from George Osborne, who shared Jos's quarters
with him, and was as usual occupied too much with his own affairs or
with grief at parting with his wife, to think of taking leave of his
slumbering brother-in-law--it was not George, we say, who interposed
between Jos Sedley and sleep, but Captain Dobbin, who came and
roused him up, insisting on shaking hands with him before his
departure.

"Very kind of you," said Jos, yawning, and wishing the Captain at
the deuce.

"I--I didn't like to go off without saying good-bye, you know,"
Dobbin said in a very incoherent manner; "because you know some of
us mayn't come back again, and I like to see you all well, and--and
that sort of thing, you know."

"What do you mean?" Jos asked, rubbing his eyes.  The Captain did
not in the least hear him or look at the stout gentleman in the
nightcap, about whom he professed to have such a tender interest.
The hypocrite was looking and listening with all his might in the
direction of George's apartments, striding about the room, upsetting
the chairs, beating the tattoo, biting his nails, and showing other
signs of great inward emotion.

Jos had always had rather a mean opinion of the Captain, and now
began to think his courage was somewhat equivocal.  "What is it I
can do for you, Dobbin?" he said, in a sarcastic tone.

"I tell you what you can do," the Captain replied, coming up to the
bed; "we march in a quarter of an hour, Sedley, and neither George
nor I may ever come back. Mind you, you are not to stir from this
town until you ascertain how things go.  You are to stay here and
watch over your sister, and comfort her, and see that no harm comes
to her.  If anything happens to George, remember she has no one but
you in the world to look to.  If it goes wrong with the army, you'll
see her safe back to England; and you will promise me on your word
that you will never desert her.  I know you won't:  as far as money
goes, you were always free enough with that.  Do you want any? I
mean, have you enough gold to take you back to England in case of a
misfortune?"

"Sir," said Jos, majestically, "when I want money, I know where to
ask for it.  And as for my sister, you needn't tell me how I ought
to behave to her."

"You speak like a man of spirit, Jos," the other answered good-
naturedly, "and I am glad that George can leave her in such good
hands.  So I may give him your word of honour, may I, that in case
of extremity you will stand by her?"

"Of course, of course," answered Mr. Jos, whose generosity in money
matters Dobbin estimated quite correctly.

"And you'll see her safe out of Brussels in the event of a defeat?"

"A defeat! D--- it, sir, it's impossible.  Don't try and frighten ME,"
the hero cried from his bed; and Dobbin's mind was thus perfectly
set at ease now that Jos had spoken out so resolutely respecting his
conduct to his sister.  "At least," thought the Captain, "there will
be a retreat secured for her in case the worst should ensue."

If Captain Dobbin expected to get any personal comfort and
satisfaction from having one more view of Amelia before the regiment
marched away, his selfishness was punished just as such odious
egotism deserved to be.  The door of Jos's bedroom opened into the
sitting-room which was common to the family party, and opposite this
door was that of Amelia's chamber.  The bugles had wakened
everybody:  there was no use in concealment now.  George's servant
was packing in this room:  Osborne coming in and out of the
contiguous bedroom, flinging to the man such articles as he thought
fit to carry on the campaign. And presently Dobbin had the
opportunity which his heart coveted, and he got sight of Amelia's
face once more.  But what a face it was!  So white, so wild and
despair-stricken, that the remembrance of it haunted him afterwards
like a crime, and the sight smote him with inexpressible pangs of
longing and pity.

She was wrapped in a white morning dress, her hair falling on her
shoulders, and her large eyes fixed and without light.  By way of
helping on the preparations for the departure, and showing that she
too could be useful at a moment so critical, this poor soul had
taken up a sash of George's from the drawers whereon it lay, and
followed him to and fro with the sash in her hand, looking on mutely
as his packing proceeded.  She came out and stood, leaning at the
wall, holding this sash against her bosom, from which the heavy net
of crimson dropped like a large stain of blood.  Our gentle-hearted
Captain felt a guilty shock as he looked at her.  "Good God,"
thought he, "and is it grief like this I dared to pry into?" And
there was no help:  no means to soothe and comfort this helpless,
speechless misery.  He stood for a moment and looked at her,
powerless and torn with pity, as a parent regards an infant in pain.

At last, George took Emmy's hand, and led her back into the bedroom,
from whence he came out alone.  The parting had taken place in that
moment, and he was gone.

"Thank Heaven that is over," George thought, bounding down the
stair, his sword under his arm, as he ran swiftly to the alarm
ground, where the regiment was mustered, and whither trooped men and
officers hurrying from their billets; his pulse was throbbing and
his cheeks flushed:  the great game of war was going to be played,
and he one of the players.  What a fierce excitement of doubt, hope,
and pleasure!  What tremendous hazards of loss or gain!  What were
all the games of chance he had ever played compared to this one?
Into all contests requiring athletic skill and courage, the young
man, from his boyhood upwards, had flung himself with all his might.
The champion of his school and his regiment, the bravos of his
companions had followed him everywhere; from the boys' cricket-match
to the garrison-races, he had won a hundred of triumphs; and
wherever he went women and men had admired and envied him.  What
qualities are there for which a man gets so speedy a return of
applause, as those of bodily superiority, activity, and valour?
Time out of mind strength and courage have been the theme of bards
and romances; and from the story of Troy down to to-day, poetry has
always chosen a soldier for a hero.  I wonder is it because men are
cowards in heart that they admire bravery so much, and place
military valour so far beyond every other quality for reward and
worship?

So, at the sound of that stirring call to battle, George jumped away
from the gentle arms in which he had been dallying; not without a
feeling of shame (although his wife's hold on him had been but
feeble), that he should have been detained there so long.  The same
feeling of eagerness and excitement was amongst all those friends of
his of whom we have had occasional glimpses, from the stout senior
Major, who led the regiment into action, to little Stubble, the
Ensign, who was to bear its colours on that day.

The sun was just rising as the march began--it was a gallant sight--
the band led the column, playing the regimental march--then came the
Major in command, riding upon Pyramus, his stout charger--then
marched the grenadiers, their Captain at their head; in the centre
were the colours, borne by the senior and junior Ensigns--then
George came marching at the head of his company. He looked up, and
smiled at Amelia, and passed on; and even the sound of the music
died away.



CHAPTER XXXI

In Which Jos Sedley Takes Care of His Sister


Thus all the superior officers being summoned on duty elsewhere, Jos
Sedley was left in command of the little colony at Brussels, with
Amelia invalided, Isidor, his Belgian servant, and the bonne, who
was maid-of-all-work for the establishment, as a garrison under him.
Though he was disturbed in spirit, and his rest destroyed by
Dobbin's interruption and the occurrences of the morning, Jos
nevertheless remained for many hours in bed, wakeful and rolling
about there until his usual hour of rising had arrived.  The sun was
high in the heavens, and our gallant friends of the --th miles on
their march, before the civilian appeared in his flowered dressing-
gown at breakfast.

About George's absence, his brother-in-law was very easy in mind.
Perhaps Jos was rather pleased in his heart that Osborne was gone,
for during George's presence, the other had played but a very
secondary part in the household, and Osborne did not scruple to show
his contempt for the stout civilian.  But Emmy had always been good
and attentive to him.  It was she who ministered to his comforts,
who superintended the dishes that he liked, who walked or rode with
him (as she had many, too many, opportunities of doing, for where
was George?) and who interposed her sweet face between his anger and
her husband's scorn.  Many timid remonstrances had she uttered to
George in behalf of her brother, but the former in his trenchant way
cut these entreaties short. "I'm an honest man," he said, "and if I
have a feeling I show it, as an honest man will.  How the deuce, my
dear, would you have me behave respectfully to such a fool as your
brother?"  So Jos was pleased with George's absence.  His plain hat,
and gloves on a sideboard, and the idea that the owner was away,
caused Jos I don't know what secret thrill of pleasure.  "HE won't
be troubling me this morning," Jos thought, "with his dandified airs
and his impudence."

"Put the Captain's hat into the ante-room," he said to Isidor, the
servant.

"Perhaps he won't want it again," replied the lackey, looking
knowingly at his master.  He hated George too, whose insolence
towards him was quite of the English sort.

"And ask if Madame is coming to breakfast," Mr. Sedley said with
great majesty, ashamed to enter with a servant upon the subject of
his dislike for George.  The truth is, he had abused his brother to
the valet a score of times before.

Alas!  Madame could not come to breakfast, and cut the tartines that
Mr. Jos liked.  Madame was a great deal too ill, and had been in a
frightful state ever since her husband's departure, so her bonne
said.  Jos showed his sympathy by pouring her out a large cup of tea
It was his way of exhibiting kindness:  and he improved on this; he
not only sent her breakfast, but he bethought him what delicacies
she would most like for dinner.

Isidor, the valet, had looked on very sulkily, while Osborne's
servant was disposing of his master's baggage previous to the
Captain's departure:  for in the first place he hated Mr. Osborne,
whose conduct to him, and to all inferiors, was generally
overbearing (nor does the continental domestic like to be treated
with insolence as our own better-tempered servants do), and
secondly, he was angry that so many valuables should be removed from
under his hands, to fall into other people's possession when the
English discomfiture should arrive.  Of this defeat he and a vast
number of other persons in Brussels and Belgium did not make the
slightest doubt.  The almost universal belief was, that the Emperor
would divide the Prussian and English armies, annihilate one after
the other, and march into Brussels before three days were over:
when all the movables of his present masters, who would be killed,
or fugitives, or prisoners, would lawfully become the property of
Monsieur Isidor.

As he helped Jos through his toilsome and complicated daily
toilette, this faithful servant would calculate what he should do
with the very articles with which he was decorating his master's
person.  He would make a present of the silver essence-bottles and
toilet knicknacks to a young lady of whom he was fond; and keep the
English cutlery and the large ruby pin for himself.  It would look
very smart upon one of the fine frilled shirts, which, with the
gold-laced cap and the frogged frock coat, that might easily be cut
down to suit his shape, and the Captain's gold-headed cane, and the
great double ring with the rubies, which he would have made into a
pair of beautiful earrings, he calculated would make a perfect
Adonis of himself, and render Mademoiselle Reine an easy prey.  "How
those sleeve-buttons will suit me!" thought he, as he fixed a pair
on the fat pudgy wrists of Mr. Sedley.  "I long for sleeve-buttons;
and the Captain's boots with brass spurs, in the next room, corbleu!
what an effect they will make in the Allee Verte!" So while Monsieur
Isidor with bodily fingers was holding on to his master's nose, and
shaving the lower part of Jos's face, his imagination was rambling
along the Green Avenue, dressed out in a frogged coat and lace, and
in company with Mademoiselle Reine; he was loitering in spirit on
the banks, and examining the barges sailing slowly under the cool
shadows of the trees by the canal, or refreshing himself with a mug
of Faro at the bench of a beer-house on the road to Laeken.

But Mr. Joseph Sedley, luckily for his own peace, no more knew what
was passing in his domestic's mind than the respected reader, and I
suspect what John or Mary, whose wages we pay, think of ourselves.
What our servants think of us!--Did we know what our intimates and
dear relations thought of us, we should live in a world that we
should be glad to quit, and in a frame of mind and a constant
terror, that would be perfectly unbearable. So Jos's man was marking
his victim down, as you see one of Mr. Paynter's assistants in
Leadenhall Street ornament an unconscious turtle with a placard on
which is written, "Soup to-morrow."

Amelia's attendant was much less selfishly disposed. Few dependents
could come near that kind and gentle creature without paying their
usual tribute of loyalty and affection to her sweet and affectionate
nature.  And it is a fact that Pauline, the cook, consoled her
mistress more than anybody whom she saw on this wretched morning;
for when she found how Amelia remained for hours, silent,
motionless, and haggard, by the windows in which she had placed
herself to watch the last bayonets of the column as it marched away,
the honest girl took the lady's hand, and said, Tenez, Madame, est-
ce qu'il n'est pas aussi a l'armee, mon homme a moi?  with which she
burst into tears, and Amelia falling into her arms, did likewise,
and so each pitied and soothed the other.

Several times during the forenoon Mr. Jos's Isidor went from his
lodgings into the town, and to the gates of the hotels and lodging-
houses round about the Parc, where the English were congregated, and
there mingled with other valets, couriers, and lackeys, gathered
such news as was abroad, and brought back bulletins for his master's
information.  Almost all these gentlemen were in heart partisans of
the Emperor, and had their opinions about the speedy end of the
campaign.  The Emperor's proclamation from Avesnes had been
distributed everywhere plentifully in Brussels.  "Soldiers!"  it
said, "this is the anniversary of Marengo and Friedland, by which
the destinies of Europe were twice decided.  Then, as after
Austerlitz, as after Wagram, we were too generous.  We believed in
the oaths and promises of princes whom we suffered to remain upon
their thrones.  Let us march once more to meet them.  We and they,
are we not still the same men?  Soldiers!  these same Prussians who
are so arrogant to-day, were three to one against you at Jena, and
six to one at Montmirail.  Those among you who were prisoners in
England can tell their comrades what frightful torments they
suffered on board the English hulks.  Madmen!  a moment of
prosperity has blinded them, and if they enter into France it will
be to find a grave there!"  But the partisans of the French
prophesied a more speedy extermination of the Emperor's enemies than
this; and it was agreed on all hands that Prussians and British
would never return except as prisoners in the rear of the conquering
army.

These opinions in the course of the day were brought to operate upon
Mr. Sedley.  He was told that the Duke of Wellington had gone to try
and rally his army, the advance of which had been utterly crushed
the night before.

"Crushed, psha!" said Jos, whose heart was pretty stout at
breakfast-time.  "The Duke has gone to beat the Emperor as he has
beaten all his generals before."

"His papers are burned, his effects are removed, and his quarters
are being got ready for the Duke of Dalmatia," Jos's informant
replied.  "I had it from his own maitre d'hotel.  Milor Duc de
Richemont's people are packing up everything.  His Grace has fled
already, and the Duchess is only waiting to see the plate packed to
join the King of France at Ostend."

"The King of France is at Ghent, fellow," replied Jos, affecting
incredulity.

"He fled last night to Bruges, and embarks today from Ostend.  The
Duc de Berri is taken prisoner.  Those who wish to be safe had
better go soon, for the dykes will be opened to-morrow, and who can
fly when the whole country is under water?"

"Nonsense, sir, we are three to one, sir, against any force Boney
can bring into the field," Mr. Sedley objected; "the Austrians and
the Russians are on their march.  He must, he shall be crushed," Jos
said, slapping his hand on the table.

"The Prussians were three to one at Jena, and he took their army and
kingdom in a week.  They were six to one at Montmirail, and he
scattered them like sheep. The Austrian army is coming, but with the
Empress and the King of Rome at its head; and the Russians, bah! the
Russians will withdraw.  No quarter is to be given to the English,
on account of their cruelty to our braves on board the infamous
pontoons.  Look here, here it is in black and white.  Here's the
proclamation of his Majesty the Emperor and King," said the now
declared partisan of Napoleon, and taking the document from his
pocket, Isidor sternly thrust it into his master's face, and already
looked upon the frogged coat and valuables as his own spoil.

Jos was, if not seriously alarmed as yet, at least considerably
disturbed in mind.  "Give me my coat and cap, sir, said he, "and
follow me.  I will go myself and learn the truth of these reports."
Isidor was furious as Jos put on the braided frock.  "Milor had
better not wear that military coat," said he; "the Frenchmen have
sworn not to give quarter to a single British soldier."

"Silence, sirrah!" said Jos, with a resolute countenance still, and
thrust his arm into the sleeve with indomitable resolution, in the
performance of which heroic act he was found by Mrs. Rawdon Crawley,
who at this juncture came up to visit Amelia, and entered without
ringing at the antechamber door.

Rebecca was dressed very neatly and smartly, as usual: her quiet
sleep after Rawdon's departure had refreshed her, and her pink
smiling cheeks were quite pleasant to look at, in a town and on a
day when everybody else's countenance wore the appearance of the
deepest anxiety and gloom.  She laughed at the attitude in which Jos
was discovered, and the struggles and convulsions with which the
stout gentleman thrust himself into the braided coat.

"Are you preparing to join the army, Mr. Joseph?" she said.  "Is
there to be nobody left in Brussels to protect us poor women?"  Jos
succeeded in plunging into the coat, and came forward blushing and
stuttering out excuses to his fair visitor.  "How was she after the
events of the morning--after the fatigues of the ball the night
before?"  Monsieur Isidor disappeared into his master's adjacent
bedroom, bearing off the flowered dressing-gown.

"How good of you to ask," said she, pressing one of his hands in
both her own.  "How cool and collected you look when everybody else
is frightened!  How is our dear little Emmy?  It must have been an
awful, awful parting."

"Tremendous," Jos said.

"You men can bear anything," replied the lady.  "Parting or danger
are nothing to you.  Own now that you were going to join the army
and leave us to our fate. I know you were--something tells me you
were.  I was so frightened, when the thought came into my head (for
I do sometimes think of you when I am alone, Mr. Joseph), that I ran
off immediately to beg and entreat you not to fly from us."

This speech might be interpreted, "My dear sir, should an accident
befall the army, and a retreat be necessary, you have a very
comfortable carriage, in which I propose to take a seat." I don't
know whether Jos understood the words in this sense.  But he was
profoundly mortified by the lady's inattention to him during their
stay at Brussels.  He had never been presented to any of Rawdon
Crawley's great acquaintances:  he had scarcely been invited to
Rebecca's parties; for he was too timid to play much, and his
presence bored George and Rawdon equally, who neither of them,
perhaps, liked to have a witness of the amusements in which the pair
chose to indulge.  "Ah!" thought Jos, "now she wants me she comes to
me.  When there is nobody else in the way she can think about old
Joseph Sedley!"  But besides these doubts he felt flattered at the
idea Rebecca expressed of his courage.

He blushed a good deal, and put on an air of importance. "I should
like to see the action," he said.  "Every man of any spirit would,
you know.  I've seen a little service in India, but nothing on this
grand scale."

"You men would sacrifice anything for a pleasure," Rebecca answered.
"Captain Crawley left me this morning as gay as if he were going to
a hunting party.  What does he care?  What do any of you care for
the agonies and tortures of a poor forsaken woman?  (I wonder
whether he could really have been going to the troops, this great
lazy gourmand?)  Oh!  dear Mr. Sedley, I have come to you for
comfort--for consolation.  I have been on my knees all the morning.
I tremble at the frightful danger into which our husbands, our
friends, our brave troops and allies, are rushing.  And I come here
for shelter, and find another of my friends--the last remaining to
me--bent upon plunging into the dreadful scene!"

"My dear madam," Jos replied, now beginning to be quite soothed,
"don't be alarmed.  I only said I should like to go--what Briton
would not?  But my duty keeps me here:  I can't leave that poor
creature in the next room." And he pointed with his finger to the
door of the chamber in which Amelia was.

"Good noble brother!" Rebecca said, putting her handkerchief to her
eyes, and smelling the eau-de-cologne with which it was scented.  "I
have done you injustice: you have got a heart.  I thought you had
not."

"O, upon my honour!" Jos said, making a motion as if he would lay
his hand upon the spot in question.  "You do me injustice, indeed
you do--my dear Mrs. Crawley."

"I do, now your heart is true to your sister.  But I remember two
years ago--when it was false to me!" Rebecca said, fixing her eyes
upon him for an instant, and then turning away into the window.

Jos blushed violently.  That organ which he was accused by Rebecca
of not possessing began to thump tumultuously.  He recalled the days
when he had fled from her, and the passion which had once inflamed
him--the days when he had driven her in his curricle:  when she had
knit the green purse for him:  when he had sate enraptured gazing at
her white arms and bright eyes.

"I know you think me ungrateful," Rebecca continued, coming out of
the window, and once more looking at him and addressing him in a low
tremulous voice.  "Your coldness, your averted looks, your manner
when we have met of late--when I came in just now, all proved it to
me.  But were there no reasons why I should avoid you? Let your own
heart answer that question.  Do you think my husband was too much
inclined to welcome you? The only unkind words I have ever had from
him (I will do Captain Crawley that justice) have been about you--
and most cruel, cruel words they were."

"Good gracious! what have I done?" asked Jos in a flurry of pleasure
and perplexity; "what have I done--to--to--?"

"Is jealousy nothing?" said Rebecca.  "He makes me miserable about
you.  And whatever it might have been once--my heart is all his.  I
am innocent now.  Am I not, Mr. Sedley?"

All Jos's blood tingled with delight, as he surveyed this victim to
his attractions.  A few adroit words, one or two knowing tender
glances of the eyes, and his heart was inflamed again and his doubts
and suspicions forgotten.  From Solomon downwards, have not wiser
men than he been cajoled and befooled by women?  "If the worst comes
to the worst," Becky thought, "my retreat is secure; and I have a
right-hand seat in the barouche."

There is no knowing into what declarations of love and ardour the
tumultuous passions of Mr. Joseph might have led him, if Isidor the
valet had not made his reappearance at this minute, and begun to
busy himself about the domestic affairs.  Jos, who was just going to
gasp out an avowal, choked almost with the emotion that he was
obliged to restrain.  Rebecca too bethought her that it was time she
should go in and comfort her dearest Amelia.  "Au revoir," she said,
kissing her hand to Mr. Joseph, and tapped gently at the door of his
sister's apartment.  As she entered and closed the door on herself,
he sank down in a chair, and gazed and sighed and puffed
portentously.  "That coat is very tight for Milor," Isidor said,
still having his eye on the frogs; but his master heard him not:
his thoughts were elsewhere:  now glowing, maddening, upon the
contemplation of the enchanting Rebecca:  anon shrinking guiltily
before the vision of the jealous Rawdon Crawley, with his curling,
fierce mustachios, and his terrible duelling pistols loaded and
cocked.

Rebecca's appearance struck Amelia with terror, and made her shrink
back.  It recalled her to the world and the remembrance of
yesterday.  In the overpowering fears about to-morrow she had
forgotten Rebecca--jealousy--everything except that her husband was
gone and was in danger.  Until this dauntless worldling came in and
broke the spell, and lifted the latch, we too have forborne to enter
into that sad chamber.  How long had that poor girl been on her
knees!  what hours of speechless prayer and bitter prostration had
she passed there!  The war-chroniclers who write brilliant stories
of fight and triumph scarcely tell us of these.  These are too mean
parts of the pageant:  and you don't hear widows' cries or mothers'
sobs in the midst of the shouts and jubilation in the great Chorus
of Victory.  And yet when was the time that such have not cried out:
heart-broken, humble protestants, unheard in the uproar of the
triumph!

After the first movement of terror in Amelia's mind--when Rebecca's
green eyes lighted upon her, and rustling in her fresh silks and
brilliant ornaments, the latter tripped up with extended arms to
embrace her--a feeling of anger succeeded, and from being deadly
pale before, her face flushed up red, and she returned Rebecca's
look after a moment with a steadiness which surprised and somewhat
abashed her rival.

"Dearest Amelia, you are very unwell," the visitor said, putting
forth her hand to take Amelia's.  "What is it? I could not rest
until I knew how you were."

Amelia drew back her hand--never since her life began had that
gentle soul refused to believe or to answer any demonstration of
good-will or affection.  But she drew back her hand, and trembled
all over.  "Why are you here, Rebecca?" she said, still looking at
her solemnly with her large eyes.  These glances troubled her
visitor.

"She must have seen him give me the letter at the ball," Rebecca
thought.  "Don't be agitated, dear Amelia," she said, looking down.
"I came but to see if I could--if you were well."

"Are you well?" said Amelia.  "I dare say you are. You don't love
your husband.  You would not be here if you did.  Tell me, Rebecca,
did I ever do you anything but kindness?"

"Indeed, Amelia, no," the other said, still hanging down her head.

"When you were quite poor, who was it that befriended you?  Was I
not a sister to you?  You saw us all in happier days before he
married me.  I was all in all then to him; or would he have given up
his fortune, his family, as he nobly did to make me happy?  Why did
you come between my love and me?  Who sent you to separate those
whom God joined, and take my darling's heart from me--my own
husband? Do you think you could I love him as I did?  His love was
everything to me. You knew it, and wanted to rob me of it.  For
shame, Rebecca; bad and wicked woman--false friend and false wife."

"Amelia, I protest before God, I have done my husband no wrong,"
Rebecca said, turning from her.

"Have you done me no wrong, Rebecca?  You did not succeed, but you
tried.  Ask your heart if you did not."

She knows nothing, Rebecca thought.

"He came back to me.  I knew he would.  I knew that no falsehood, no
flattery, could keep him from me long. I knew he would come.  I
prayed so that he should."

The poor girl spoke these words with a spirit and volubility which
Rebecca had never before seen in her, and before which the latter
was quite dumb.  "But what have I done to you," she continued in a
more pitiful tone, "that you should try and take him from me?  I had
him but for six weeks.  You might have spared me those, Rebecca.
And yet, from the very first day of our wedding, you came and
blighted it.  Now he is gone, are you come to see how unhappy I am?"
she continued.  "You made me wretched enough for the past fortnight:
you might have spared me to-day."

"I--I never came here," interposed Rebecca, with unlucky truth.

"No.  You didn't come.  You took him away.  Are you come to fetch
him from me?" she continued in a wilder tone.  "He was here, but he
is gone now.  There on that very sofa he sate.  Don't touch it.  We
sate and talked there.  I was on his knee, and my arms were round
his neck, and we said 'Our Father.' Yes, he was here:  and they came
and took him away, but he promised me to come back."

"He will come back, my dear," said Rebecca, touched in spite of
herself.

"Look," said Amelia, "this is his sash--isn't it a pretty colour?"
and she took up the fringe and kissed it.  She had tied it round her
waist at some part of the day.  She had forgotten her anger, her
jealousy, the very presence of her rival seemingly.  For she walked
silently and almost with a smile on her face, towards the bed, and
began to smooth down George's pillow.

Rebecca walked, too, silently away.  "How is Amelia?" asked Jos, who
still held his position in the chair.

"There should be somebody with her," said Rebecca. "I think she is
very unwell":  and she went away with a very grave face, refusing
Mr. Sedley's entreaties that she would stay and partake of the early
dinner which he had ordered.

Rebecca was of a good-natured and obliging disposition; and she
liked Amelia rather than otherwise.  Even her hard words,
reproachful as they were, were complimentary--the groans of a person
stinging under defeat. Meeting Mrs. O'Dowd, whom the Dean's sermons
had by no means comforted, and who was walking very disconsolately
in the Parc, Rebecca accosted the latter, rather to the surprise of
the Major's wife, who was not accustomed to such marks of politeness
from Mrs. Rawdon Crawley, and informing her that poor little Mrs.
Osborne was in a desperate condition, and almost mad with grief,
sent off the good-natured Irishwoman straight to see if she could
console her young favourite.

"I've cares of my own enough," Mrs. O'Dowd said, gravely, "and I
thought poor Amelia would be little wanting for company this day.
But if she's so bad as you say, and you can't attend to her, who
used to be so fond of her, faith I'll see if I can be of service.
And so good marning to ye, Madam"; with which speech and a toss of
her head, the lady of the repayther took a farewell of Mrs. Crawley,
whose company she by no means courted.

Becky watched her marching off, with a smile on her lip.  She had
the keenest sense of humour, and the Parthian look which the
retreating Mrs. O'Dowd flung over her shoulder almost upset Mrs.
Crawley's gravity. "My service to ye, me fine Madam, and I'm glad to
see ye so cheerful," thought Peggy.  "It's not YOU that will cry
your eyes out with grief, anyway." And with this she passed on, and
speedily found her way to Mrs. Osborne's lodgings.

The poor soul was still at the bedside, where Rebecca had left her,
and stood almost crazy with grief.  The Major's wife, a stronger-
minded woman, endeavoured her best to comfort her young friend.
"You must bear up, Amelia, dear," she said kindly, "for he mustn't
find you ill when he sends for you after the victory.  It's not you
are the only woman that are in the hands of God this day."

"I know that.  I am very wicked, very weak," Amelia said.  She knew
her own weakness well enough.  The presence of the more resolute
friend checked it, however; and she was the better of this control
and company.  They went on till two o'clock; their hearts were with
the column as it marched farther and farther away.  Dreadful doubt
and anguish--prayers and fears and griefs unspeakable--followed the
regiment.  It was the women's tribute to the war.  It taxes both
alike, and takes the blood of the men, and the tears of the women.

At half-past two, an event occurred of daily importance to Mr.
Joseph: the dinner-hour arrived.  Warriors may fight and perish, but
he must dine.  He came into Amelia's room to see if he could coax
her to share that meal.  "Try," said he; "the soup is very good.  Do
try, Emmy," and he kissed her hand.  Except when she was married, he
had not done so much for years before.  "You are very good and kind,
Joseph," she said.  "Everybody is, but, if you please, I will stay
in my room to-day."

The savour of the soup, however, was agreeable to Mrs. O'Dowd's
nostrils: and she thought she would bear Mr. Jos company.  So the
two sate down to their meal. "God bless the meat," said the Major's
wife, solemnly: she was thinking of her honest Mick, riding at the
head of his regiment:  "'Tis but a bad dinner those poor boys will
get to-day," she said, with a sigh, and then, like a philosopher,
fell to.

Jos's spirits rose with his meal.  He would drink the regiment's
health; or, indeed, take any other excuse to indulge in a glass of
champagne.  "We'll drink to O'Dowd and the brave --th," said he,
bowing gallantly to his guest.  "Hey, Mrs. O'Dowd?  Fill Mrs.
O'Dowd's glass, Isidor."

But all of a sudden, Isidor started, and the Major's wife laid down
her knife and fork.  The windows of the room were open, and looked
southward, and a dull distant sound came over the sun-lighted roofs
from that direction.  "What is it?" said Jos.  "Why don't you pour,
you rascal?"

"Cest le feu!" said Isidor, running to the balcony.

"God defend us; it's cannon!" Mrs. O'Dowd cried, starting up, and
followed too to the window.  A thousand pale and anxious faces might
have been seen looking from other casements.  And presently it
seemed as if the whole population of the city rushed into the
streets.



CHAPTER XXXII

In Which Jos Takes Flight, and the War Is Brought to a Close


We of peaceful London City have never beheld--and please God never
shall witness--such a scene of hurry and alarm, as that which
Brussels presented.  Crowds rushed to the Namur gate, from which
direction the noise proceeded, and many rode along the level
chaussee, to be in advance of any intelligence from the army.  Each
man asked his neighbour for news; and even great English lords and
ladies condescended to speak to persons whom they did not know.  The
friends of the French went abroad, wild with excitement, and
prophesying the triumph of their Emperor.  The merchants closed
their shops, and came out to swell the general chorus of alarm and
clamour.  Women rushed to the churches, and crowded the chapels, and
knelt and prayed on the flags and steps.  The dull sound of the
cannon went on rolling, rolling.  Presently carriages with
travellers began to leave the town, galloping away by the Ghent
barrier.  The prophecies of the French partisans began to pass for
facts.  "He has cut the armies in two," it was said.  "He is
marching straight on Brussels.  He will overpower the English, and
be here to-night." "He will overpower the English," shrieked Isidor
to his master, "and will be here to-night." The man bounded in and
out from the lodgings to the street, always returning with some
fresh particulars of disaster.  Jos's face grew paler and paler.
Alarm began to take entire possession of the stout civilian.  All
the champagne he drank brought no courage to him.  Before sunset he
was worked up to such a pitch of nervousness as gratified his friend
Isidor to behold, who now counted surely upon the spoils of the
owner of the laced coat.

The women were away all this time.  After hearing the firing for a
moment, the stout Major's wife bethought her of her friend in the
next chamber, and ran in to watch, and if possible to console,
Amelia.  The idea that she had that helpless and gentle creature to
protect, gave additional strength to the natural courage of the
honest Irishwoman.  She passed five hours by her friend's side,
sometimes in remonstrance, sometimes talking cheerfully, oftener in
silence and terrified mental supplication.  "I never let go her hand
once," said the stout lady afterwards, "until after sunset, when the
firing was over." Pauline, the bonne, was on her knees at church
hard by, praying for son homme a elle.

When the noise of the cannonading was over, Mrs. O'Dowd issued out
of Amelia's room into the parlour adjoining, where Jos sate with two
emptied flasks, and courage entirely gone.  Once or twice he had
ventured into his sister's bedroom, looking very much alarmed, and
as if he would say something.  But the Major's wife kept her place,
and he went away without disburthening himself of his speech.  He
was ashamed to tell her that he wanted to fly.

But when she made her appearance in the dining-room, where he sate
in the twilight in the cheerless company of his empty champagne
bottles, he began to open his mind to her.

"Mrs. O'Dowd," he said, "hadn't you better get Amelia ready?"

"Are you going to take her out for a walk?" said the Major's lady;
"sure she's too weak to stir."

"I--I've ordered the carriage," he said, "and--and post-horses;
Isidor is gone for them," Jos continued.

"What do you want with driving to-night?" answered the lady.  "Isn't
she better on her bed?  I've just got her to lie down."

"Get her up," said Jos; "she must get up, I say":  and he stamped
his foot energetically.  "I say the horses are ordered--yes, the
horses are ordered.  It's all over, and--"

"And what?" asked Mrs. O'Dowd.

"I'm off for Ghent," Jos answered.  "Everybody is going; there's a
place for you!  We shall start in half-an-hour."

The Major's wife looked at him with infinite scorn.  "I don't move
till O'Dowd gives me the route," said she. "You may go if you like,
Mr. Sedley; but, faith, Amelia and I stop here."

"She SHALL go," said Jos, with another stamp of his foot.  Mrs.
O'Dowd put herself with arms akimbo before the bedroom door.

"Is it her mother you're going to take her to?" she said; "or do you
want to go to Mamma yourself, Mr. Sedley?  Good marning--a pleasant
journey to ye, sir. Bon voyage, as they say, and take my counsel,
and shave off them mustachios, or they'll bring you into mischief."

"D--n!" yelled out Jos, wild with fear, rage, and mortification; and
Isidor came in at this juncture, swearing in his turn.  "Pas de
chevaux, sacre bleu!" hissed out the furious domestic.  All the
horses were gone.  Jos was not the only man in Brussels seized with
panic that day.

But Jos's fears, great and cruel as they were already, were destined
to increase to an almost frantic pitch before the night was over.
It has been mentioned how Pauline, the bonne, had son homme a elle
also in the ranks of the army that had gone out to meet the Emperor
Napoleon.  This lover was a native of Brussels, and a Belgian
hussar.  The troops of his nation signalised themselves in this war
for anything but courage, and young Van Cutsum, Pauline's admirer,
was too good a soldier to disobey his Colonel's orders to run away.
Whilst in garrison at Brussels young Regulus (he had been born in
the revolutionary times) found his great comfort, and passed almost
all his leisure moments, in Pauline's kitchen; and it was with
pockets and holsters crammed full of good things from her larder,
that he had take leave of his weeping sweetheart, to proceed upon
the campaign a few days before.

As far as his regiment was concerned, this campaign was over now.
They had formed a part of the division under the command of his
Sovereign apparent, the Prince of Orange, and as respected length of
swords and mustachios, and the richness of uniform and equipments,
Regulus and his comrades looked to be as gallant a body of men as
ever trumpet sounded for.

When Ney dashed upon the advance of the allied troops, carrying one
position after the other, until the arrival of the great body of the
British army from Brussels changed the aspect of the combat of
Quatre Bras, the squadrons among which Regulus rode showed the
greatest activity in retreating before the French, and were
dislodged from one post and another which they occupied with perfect
alacrity on their part.  Their movements were only checked by the
advance of the British in their rear.  Thus forced to halt, the
enemy's cavalry (whose bloodthirsty obstinacy cannot be too severely
reprehended) had at length an opportunity of coming to close
quarters with the brave Belgians before them; who preferred to
encounter the British rather than the French, and at once turning
tail rode through the English regiments that were behind them, and
scattered in all directions.  The regiment in fact did not exist any
more.  It was nowhere.  It had no head-quarters.  Regulus found
himself galloping many miles from the field of action, entirely
alone; and whither should he fly for refuge so naturally as to that
kitchen and those faithful arms in which Pauline had so often
welcomed him?

At some ten o'clock the clinking of a sabre might have been heard up
the stair of the house where the Osbornes occupied a story in the
continental fashion.  A knock might have been heard at the kitchen
door; and poor Pauline, come back from church, fainted almost with
terror as she opened it and saw before her her haggard hussar.  He
looked as pale as the midnight dragoon who came to disturb Leonora.
Pauline would have screamed, but that her cry would have called her
masters, and discovered her friend.  She stifled her scream, then,
and leading her hero into the kitchen, gave him beer, and the choice
bits from the dinner, which Jos had not had the heart to taste.  The
hussar showed he was no ghost by the prodigious quantity of flesh
and beer which he devoured--and during the mouthfuls he told his
tale of disaster.

His regiment had performed prodigies of courage, and had withstood
for a while the onset of the whole French army.  But they were
overwhelmed at last, as was the whole British army by this time.
Ney destroyed each regiment as it came up.  The Belgians in vain
interposed to prevent the butchery of the English.  The Brunswickers
were routed and had fled--their Duke was killed.  It was a general
debacle.  He sought to drown his sorrow for the defeat in floods of
beer.

Isidor, who had come into the kitchen, heard the conversation and
rushed out to inform his master.  "It is all over," he shrieked to
Jos.  "Milor Duke is a prisoner; the Duke of Brunswick is killed;
the British army is in full flight; there is only one man escaped,
and he is in the kitchen now--come and hear him." So Jos tottered
into that apartment where Regulus still sate on the kitchen table,
and clung fast to his flagon of beer.  In the best French which he
could muster, and which was in sooth of a very ungrammatical sort,
Jos besought the hussar to tell his tale.  The disasters deepened as
Regulus spoke.  He was the only man of his regiment not slain on the
field. He had seen the Duke of Brunswick fall, the black hussars
fly, the Ecossais pounded down by the cannon. "And the --th?" gasped
Jos.

"Cut in pieces," said the hussar--upon which Pauline cried out, "O
my mistress, ma bonne petite dame," went off fairly into hysterics,
and filled the house with her screams.

Wild with terror, Mr. Sedley knew not how or where to seek for
safety.  He rushed from the kitchen back to the sitting-room, and
cast an appealing look at Amelia's door, which Mrs. O'Dowd had
closed and locked in his face; but he remembered how scornfully the
latter had received him, and after pausing and listening for a brief
space at the door, he left it, and resolved to go into the street,
for the first time that day.  So, seizing a candle, he looked about
for his gold-laced cap, and found it lying in its usual place, on a
console-table, in the anteroom, placed before a mirror at which Jos
used to coquet, always giving his side-locks a twirl, and his cap
the proper cock over his eye, before he went forth to make
appearance in public.  Such is the force of habit, that even in the
midst of his terror he began mechanically to twiddle with his hair,
and arrange the cock of his hat.  Then he looked amazed at the pale
face in the glass before him, and especially at his mustachios,
which had attained a rich growth in the course of near seven weeks,
since they had come into the world.  They WILL mistake me for a
military man, thought he, remembering Isidor's warning as to the
massacre with which all the defeated British army was threatened;
and staggering back to his bedchamber, he began wildly pulling the
bell which summoned his valet.

Isidor answered that summons.  Jos had sunk in a chair--he had torn
off his neckcloths, and turned down his collars, and was sitting
with both his hands lifted to his throat.

"Coupez-moi, Isidor," shouted he; "vite!  Coupez-moi!"

Isidor thought for a moment he had gone mad, and that he wished his
valet to cut his throat.

"Les moustaches," gasped Joe; "les moustaches--coupy, rasy, vite!"--
his French was of this sort--voluble, as we have said, but not
remarkable for grammar.

Isidor swept off the mustachios in no time with the razor, and heard
with inexpressible delight his master's orders that he should fetch
a hat and a plain coat.  "Ne porty ploo--habit militair--bonn--bonny
a voo, prenny dehors"--were Jos's words--the coat and cap were at
last his property.

This gift being made, Jos selected a plain black coat and waistcoat
from his stock, and put on a large white neckcloth, and a plain
beaver.  If he could have got a shovel hat he would have worn it.
As it was, you would have fancied he was a flourishing, large parson
of the Church of England.

"Venny maintenong," he continued, "sweevy--ally--party--dong la
roo." And so having said, he plunged swiftly down the stairs of the
house, and passed into the street.

Although Regulus had vowed that he was the only man of his regiment
or of the allied army, almost, who had escaped being cut to pieces
by Ney, it appeared that his statement was incorrect, and that a
good number more of the supposed victims had survived the massacre.
Many scores of Regulus's comrades had found their way back to
Brussels, and all agreeing that they had run away--filled the whole
town with an idea of the defeat of the allies.  The arrival of the
French was expected hourly; the panic continued, and preparations
for flight went on everywhere.  No horses!  thought Jos, in terror.
He made Isidor inquire of scores of persons, whether they had any to
lend or sell, and his heart sank within him, at the negative answers
returned everywhere.  Should he take the journey on foot?  Even fear
could not render that ponderous body so active.

Almost all the hotels occupied by the English in Brussels face the
Parc, and Jos wandered irresolutely about in this quarter, with
crowds of other people, oppressed as he was by fear and curiosity.
Some families he saw more happy than himself, having discovered a
team of horses, and rattling through the streets in retreat; others
again there were whose case was like his own, and who could not for
any bribes or entreaties procure the necessary means of flight.
Amongst these would-be fugitives, Jos remarked the Lady Bareacres
and her daughter, who sate in their carriage in the porte-cochere of
their hotel, all their imperials packed, and the only drawback to
whose flight was the same want of motive power which kept Jos
stationary.

Rebecca Crawley occupied apartments in this hotel; and had before
this period had sundry hostile meetings with the ladies of the
Bareacres family.  My Lady Bareacres cut Mrs. Crawley on the stairs
when they met by chance; and in all places where the latter's name
was mentioned, spoke perseveringly ill of her neighbour.  The
Countess was shocked at the familiarity of General Tufto with the
aide-de-camp's wife.  The Lady Blanche avoided her as if she had
been an infectious disease.  Only the Earl himself kept up a sly
occasional acquaintance with her, when out of the jurisdiction of
his ladies.

Rebecca had her revenge now upon these insolent enemies.  If became
known in the hotel that Captain Crawley's horses had been left
behind, and when the panic began, Lady Bareacres condescended to
send her maid to the Captain's wife with her Ladyship's compliments,
and a desire to know the price of Mrs. Crawley's horses.  Mrs.
Crawley returned a note with her compliments, and an intimation that
it was not her custom to transact bargains with ladies' maids.

This curt reply brought the Earl in person to Becky's apartment; but
he could get no more success than the first ambassador.  "Send a
lady's maid to ME!" Mrs. Crawley cried in great anger; "why didn't
my Lady Bareacres tell me to go and saddle the horses!  Is it her
Ladyship that wants to escape, or her Ladyship's femme de chambre?"
And this was all the answer that the Earl bore back to his Countess.

What will not necessity do?  The Countess herself actually came to
wait upon Mrs. Crawley on the failure of her second envoy.  She
entreated her to name her own price; she even offered to invite
Becky to Bareacres House, if the latter would but give her the means
of returning to that residence.  Mrs. Crawley sneered at her.

"I don't want to be waited on by bailiffs in livery," she said; "you
will never get back though most probably--at least not you and your
diamonds together.  The French will have those They will be here in
two hours, and I shall be half way to Ghent by that time.  I would
not sell you my horses, no, not for the two largest diamonds that
your Ladyship wore at the ball."  Lady Bareacres trembled with rage
and terror.  The diamonds were sewed into her habit, and secreted in
my Lord's padding and boots. "Woman, the diamonds are at the
banker's, and I WILL have the horses," she said.  Rebecca laughed in
her face. The infuriate Countess went below, and sate in her
carriage; her maid, her courier, and her husband were sent once more
through the town, each to look for cattle; and woe betide those who
came last!  Her Ladyship was resolved on departing the very instant
the horses arrived from any quarter--with her husband or without
him.

Rebecca had the pleasure of seeing her Ladyship in the horseless
carriage, and keeping her eyes fixed upon her, and bewailing, in the
loudest tone of voice, the Countess's perplexities.  "Not to be able
to get horses!" she said, "and to have all those diamonds sewed into
the carriage cushions!  What a prize it will be for the French when
they come!--the carriage and the diamonds, I mean; not the lady!"
She gave this information to the landlord, to the servants, to the
guests, and the innumerable stragglers about the courtyard.  Lady
Bareacres could have shot her from the carriage window.

It was while enjoying the humiliation of her enemy that Rebecca
caught sight of Jos, who made towards her directly he perceived her.

That altered, frightened, fat face, told his secret well enough.  He
too wanted to fly, and was on the look-out for the means of escape.
"HE shall buy my horses," thought Rebecca, "and I'll ride the mare."

Jos walked up to his friend, and put the question for the hundredth
time during the past hour, "Did she know where horses were to be
had?"

"What, YOU fly?" said Rebecca, with a laugh.  "I thought you were
the champion of all the ladies, Mr. Sedley."

"I--I'm not a military man," gasped he.

"And Amelia?--Who is to protect that poor little sister of yours?"
asked Rebecca.  "You surely would not desert her?"

"What good can I do her, suppose--suppose the enemy arrive?" Jos
answered.  "They'll spare the women; but my man tells me that they
have taken an oath to give no quarter to the men--the dastardly
cowards."

"Horrid!" cried Rebecca, enjoying his perplexity.

"Besides, I don't want to desert her," cried the brother. "She
SHAN'T be deserted.  There is a seat for her in my carriage, and one
for you, dear Mrs. Crawley, if you will come; and if we can get
horses--" sighed he--

"I have two to sell," the lady said.  Jos could have flung himself
into her arms at the news.  "Get the carriage, Isidor," he cried;
"we've found them--we have found them."

My horses never were in harness," added the lady. "Bullfinch would
kick the carriage to pieces, if you put him in the traces."

"But he is quiet to ride?" asked the civilian.

"As quiet as a lamb, and as fast as a hare," answered Rebecca.

"Do you think he is up to my weight?" Jos said.  He was already on
his back, in imagination, without ever so much as a thought for poor
Amelia.  What person who loved a horse-speculation could resist such
a temptation?

In reply, Rebecca asked him to come into her room, whither he
followed her quite breathless to conclude the bargain.  Jos seldom
spent a half-hour in his life which cost him so much money.
Rebecca, measuring the value of the goods which she had for sale by
Jos's eagerness to purchase, as well as by the scarcity of the
article, put upon her horses a price so prodigious as to make even
the civilian draw back.  "She would sell both or neither," she said,
resolutely.  Rawdon had ordered her not to part with them for a
price less than that which she specified. Lord Bareacres below would
give her the same money--and with all her love and regard for the
Sedley family, her dear Mr. Joseph must conceive that poor people
must live--nobody, in a word, could be more affectionate, but more
firm about the matter of business.

Jos ended by agreeing, as might be supposed of him. The sum he had
to give her was so large that he was obliged to ask for time; so
large as to be a little fortune to Rebecca, who rapidly calculated
that with this sum, and the sale of the residue of Rawdon's effects,
and her pension as a widow should he fall, she would now be
absolutely independent of the world, and might look her weeds
steadily in the face.

Once or twice in the day she certainly had herself thought about
flying.  But her reason gave her better counsel.  "Suppose the
French do come," thought Becky, "what can they do to a poor
officer's widow?  Bah!  the times of sacks and sieges are over.  We
shall be let to go home quietly, or I may live pleasantly abroad
with a snug little income."

Meanwhile Jos and Isidor went off to the stables to inspect the
newly purchased cattle.  Jos bade his man saddle the horses at once.
He would ride away that very night, that very hour.  And he left the
valet busy in getting the horses ready, and went homewards himself
to prepare for his departure.  It must be secret.  He would go to
his chamber by the back entrance.  He did not care to face Mrs.
O'Dowd and Amelia, and own to them that he was about to run.

By the time Jos's bargain with Rebecca was completed, and his horses
had been visited and examined, it was almost morning once more.  But
though midnight was long passed, there was no rest for the city; the
people were up, the lights in the houses flamed, crowds were still
about the doors, and the streets were busy.  Rumours of various
natures went still from mouth to mouth:  one report averred that the
Prussians had been utterly defeated; another that it was the English
who had been attacked and conquered:  a third that the latter had
held their ground.  This last rumour gradually got strength.  No
Frenchmen had made their appearance.  Stragglers had come in from
the army bringing reports more and more favourable:  at last an
aide-de-camp actually reached Brussels with despatches for the
Commandant of the place, who placarded presently through the town an
official announcement of the success of the allies at Quatre Bras,
and the entire repulse of the French under Ney after a six hours'
battle.  The aide-de-camp must have arrived sometime while Jos and
Rebecca were making their bargain together, or the latter was
inspecting his purchase.  When he reached his own hotel, he found a
score of its numerous inhabitants on the threshold discoursing of
the news; there was no doubt as to its truth.  And he went up to
communicate it to the ladies under his charge. He did not think it
was necessary to tell them how he had intended to take leave of
them, how he had bought horses, and what a price he had paid for
them.

But success or defeat was a minor matter to them, who had only
thought for the safety of those they loved. Amelia, at the news of
the victory, became still more agitated even than before.  She was
for going that moment to the army.  She besought her brother with
tears to conduct her thither.  Her doubts and terrors reached their
paroxysm; and the poor girl, who for many hours had been plunged
into stupor, raved and ran hither and thither in hysteric insanity--
a piteous sight.  No man writhing in pain on the hard-fought field
fifteen miles off, where lay, after their struggles, so many of the
brave--no man suffered more keenly than this poor harmless victim of
the war.  Jos could not bear the sight of her pain.  He left his
sister in the charge of her stouter female companion, and descended
once more to the threshold of the hotel, where everybody still
lingered, and talked, and waited for more news.

It grew to be broad daylight as they stood here, and fresh news
began to arrive from the war, brought by men who had been actors in
the scene.  Wagons and long country carts laden with wounded came
rolling into the town; ghastly groans came from within them, and
haggard faces looked up sadly from out of the straw.  Jos Sedley was
looking at one of these carriages with a painful curiosity--the
moans of the people within were frightful--the wearied horses could
hardly pull the cart. "Stop!  stop!" a feeble voice cried from the
straw, and the carriage stopped opposite Mr. Sedley's hotel.

"It is George, I know it is!" cried Amelia, rushing in a moment to
the balcony, with a pallid face and loose flowing hair.  It was not
George, however, but it was the next best thing:  it was news of
him.

It was poor Tom Stubble, who had marched out of Brussels so
gallantly twenty-four hours before, bearing the colours of the
regiment, which he had defended very gallantly upon the field.  A
French lancer had speared the young ensign in the leg, who fell,
still bravely holding to his flag.  At the conclusion of the
engagement, a place had been found for the poor boy in a cart, and
he had been brought back to Brussels.

"Mr. Sedley, Mr. Sedley!" cried the boy, faintly, and Jos came up
almost frightened at the appeal.  He had not at first distinguished
who it was that called him.

Little Tom Stubble held out his hot and feeble hand. "I'm to be
taken in here," he said.  "Osborne--and--and Dobbin said I was; and
you are to give the man two napoleons: my mother will pay you." This
young fellow's thoughts, during the long feverish hours passed in
the cart, had been wandering to his father's parsonage which he had
quitted only a few months before, and he had sometimes forgotten his
pain in that delirium.

The hotel was large, and the people kind, and all the inmates of the
cart were taken in and placed on various couches.  The young ensign
was conveyed upstairs to Osborne's quarters.  Amelia and the Major's
wife had rushed down to him, when the latter had recognised him from
the balcony.  You may fancy the feelings of these women when they
were told that the day was over, and both their husbands were safe;
in what mute rapture Amelia fell on her good friend's neck, and
embraced her; in what a grateful passion of prayer she fell on her
knees, and thanked the Power which had saved her husband.

Our young lady, in her fevered and nervous condition, could have had
no more salutary medicine prescribed for her by any physician than
that which chance put in her way.  She and Mrs. O'Dowd watched
incessantly by the wounded lad, whose pains were very severe, and in
the duty thus forced upon her, Amelia had not time to brood over her
personal anxieties, or to give herself up to her own fears and
forebodings after her wont.  The young patient told in his simple
fashion the events of the day, and the actions of our friends of the
gallant --th.  They had suffered severely.  They had lost very many
officers and men.  The Major's horse had been shot under him as the
regiment charged, and they all thought that O'Dowd was gone, and
that Dobbin had got his majority, until on their return from the
charge to their old ground, the Major was discovered seated on
Pyramus's carcase, refreshing him-self from a case-bottle.  It was
Captain Osborne that cut down the French lancer who had speared the
ensign. Amelia turned so pale at the notion, that Mrs. O'Dowd
stopped the young ensign in this story.  And it was Captain Dobbin
who at the end of the day, though wounded himself, took up the lad
in his arms and carried him to the surgeon, and thence to the cart
which was to bring him back to Brussels.  And it was he who promised
the driver two louis if he would make his way to Mr. Sedley's hotel
in the city; and tell Mrs. Captain Osborne that the action was over,
and that her husband was unhurt and well.

"Indeed, but he has a good heart that William Dobbin," Mrs. O'Dowd
said, "though he is always laughing at me."

Young Stubble vowed there was not such another officer in the army,
and never ceased his praises of the senior captain, his modesty, his
kindness, and his admirable coolness in the field.  To these parts
of the conversation, Amelia lent a very distracted attention:  it
was only when George was spoken of that she listened, and when he
was not mentioned, she thought about him.

In tending her patient, and in thinking of the wonderful escapes of
the day before, her second day passed away not too slowly with
Amelia.  There was only one man in the army for her:  and as long as
he was well, it must be owned that its movements interested her
little. All the reports which Jos brought from the streets fell very
vaguely on her ears; though they were sufficient to give that
timorous gentleman, and many other people then in Brussels, every
disquiet.  The French had been repulsed certainly, but it was after
a severe and doubtful struggle, and with only a division of the
French army. The Emperor, with the main body, was away at Ligny,
where he had utterly annihilated the Prussians, and was now free to
bring his whole force to bear upon the allies. The Duke of
Wellington was retreating upon the capital, and a great battle must
be fought under its walls probably, of which the chances were more
than doubtful. The Duke of Wellington had but twenty thousand
British troops on whom he could rely, for the Germans were raw
militia, the Belgians disaffected, and with this handful his Grace
had to resist a hundred and fifty thousand men that had broken into
Belgium under Napoleon.  Under Napoleon!  What warrior was there,
however famous and skilful, that could fight at odds with him?

Jos thought of all these things, and trembled.  So did all the rest
of Brussels--where people felt that the fight of the day before was
but the prelude to the greater combat which was imminent.  One of
the armies opposed to the Emperor was scattered to the winds
already.  The few English that could be brought to resist him would
perish at their posts, and the conqueror would pass over their
bodies into the city.  Woe be to those whom he found there!
Addresses were prepared, public functionaries assembled and debated
secretly, apartments were got ready, and tricoloured banners and
triumphal emblems manufactured, to welcome the arrival of His
Majesty the Emperor and King.

The emigration still continued, and wherever families could find
means of departure, they fled.  When Jos, on the afternoon of the
17th of June, went to Rebecca's hotel, he found that the great
Bareacres' carriage had at length rolled away from the porte-
cochere.  The Earl had procured a pair of horses somehow, in spite
of Mrs. Crawley, and was rolling on the road to Ghent.  Louis the
Desired was getting ready his portmanteau in that city, too.  It
seemed as if Misfortune was never tired of worrying into motion that
unwieldy exile.

Jos felt that the delay of yesterday had been only a respite, and
that his dearly bought horses must of a surety be put into
requisition.  His agonies were very severe all this day.  As long as
there was an English army between Brussels and Napoleon, there was
no need of immediate flight; but he had his horses brought from
their distant stables, to the stables in the court-yard of the hotel
where he lived; so that they might be under his own eyes, and beyond
the risk of violent abduction. Isidor watched the stable-door
constantly, and had the horses saddled, to be ready for the start.
He longed intensely for that event.

After the reception of the previous day, Rebecca did not care to
come near her dear Amelia.  She clipped the bouquet which George had
brought her, and gave fresh water to the flowers, and read over the
letter which he had sent her.  "Poor wretch," she said, twirling
round the little bit of paper in her fingers, "how I could crush her
with this!--and it is for a thing like this that she must break her
heart, forsooth--for a man who is stupid--a coxcomb--and who does
not care for her.  My poor good Rawdon is worth ten of this
creature." And then she fell to thinking what she should do if--if
anything happened to poor good Rawdon, and what a great piece of
luck it was that he had left his horses behind.

In the course of this day too, Mrs. Crawley, who saw not without
anger the Bareacres party drive off, bethought her of the precaution
which the Countess had taken, and did a little needlework for her
own advantage; she stitched away the major part of her trinkets,
bills, and bank-notes about her person, and so prepared, was ready
for any event--to fly if she thought fit, or to stay and welcome the
conqueror, were he Englishman or Frenchman.  And I am not sure that
she did not dream that night of becoming a duchess and Madame la
Marechale, while Rawdon wrapped in his cloak, and making his bivouac
under the rain at Mount Saint John, was thinking, with all the force
of his heart, about the little wife whom he had left behind him.

The next day was a Sunday.  And Mrs. Major O'Dowd had the
satisfaction of seeing both her patients refreshed in health and
spirits by some rest which they had taken during the night.  She
herself had slept on a great chair in Amelia's room, ready to wait
upon her poor friend or the ensign, should either need her nursing.
When morning came, this robust woman went back to the house where
she and her Major had their billet; and here performed an elaborate
and splendid toilette, befitting the day.  And it is very possible
that whilst alone in that chamber, which her husband had inhabited,
and where his cap still lay on the pillow, and his cane stood in the
corner, one prayer at least was sent up to Heaven for the welfare of
the brave soldier, Michael O'Dowd.

When she returned she brought her prayer-book with her, and her
uncle the Dean's famous book of sermons, out of which she never
failed to read every Sabbath; not understanding all, haply, not
pronouncing many of the words aright, which were long and abstruse--
for the Dean was a learned man, and loved long Latin words--but with
great gravity, vast emphasis, and with tolerable correctness in the
main.  How often has my Mick listened to these sermons, she thought,
and me reading in the cabin of a calm!  She proposed to resume this
exercise on the present day, with Amelia and the wounded ensign for
a congregation.  The same service was read on that day in twenty
thousand churches at the same hour; and millions of British men and
women, on their knees, implored protection of the Father of all.

They did not hear the noise which disturbed our little congregation
at Brussels.  Much louder than that which had interrupted them two
days previously, as Mrs. O'Dowd was reading the service in her best
voice, the cannon of Waterloo began to roar.

When Jos heard that dreadful sound, he made up his mind that he
would bear this perpetual recurrence of terrors no longer, and would
fly at once.  He rushed into the sick man's room, where our three
friends had paused in their prayers, and further interrupted them by
a passionate appeal to Amelia.

"I can't stand it any more, Emmy," he said; 'I won't stand it; and
you must come with me.  I have bought a horse for you--never mind at
what price--and you must dress and come with me, and ride behind
Isidor."

"God forgive me, Mr. Sedley, but you are no better than a coward,"
Mrs. O'Dowd said, laying down the book.

"I say come, Amelia," the civilian went on; "never mind what she
says; why are we to stop here and be butchered by the Frenchmen?"

"You forget the --th, my boy," said the little Stubble, the wounded
hero, from his bed--"and and you won't leave me, will you, Mrs.
O'Dowd?"

"No, my dear fellow," said she, going up and kissing the boy.  "No
harm shall come to you while I stand by. I don't budge till I get
the word from Mick.  A pretty figure I'd be, wouldn't I, stuck
behind that chap on a pillion?"

This image caused the young patient to burst out laughing in his
bed, and even made Amelia smile.  "I don't ask her," Jos shouted
out--"I don't ask that--that Irishwoman, but you Amelia; once for
all, will you come?"

"Without my husband, Joseph?" Amelia said, with a look of wonder,
and gave her hand to the Major's wife. Jos's patience was exhausted.

"Good-bye, then," he said, shaking his fist in a rage, and slamming
the door by which he retreated.  And this time he really gave his
order for march:  and mounted in the court-yard.  Mrs. O'Dowd heard
the clattering hoofs of the horses as they issued from the gate; and
looking on, made many scornful remarks on poor Joseph as he rode
down the street with Isidor after him in the laced cap.  The horses,
which had not been exercised for some days, were lively, and sprang
about the street.  Jos, a clumsy and timid horseman, did not look to
advantage in the saddle.  "Look at him, Amelia dear, driving into
the parlour window.  Such a bull in a china-shop I never saw." And
presently the pair of riders disappeared at a canter down the street
leading in the direction of the Ghent road, Mrs. O'Dowd pursuing
them with a fire of sarcasm so long as they were in sight.

All that day from morning until past sunset, the cannon never ceased
to roar.  It was dark when the cannonading stopped all of a sudden.

All of us have read of what occurred during that interval.  The tale
is in every Englishman's mouth; and you and I, who were children
when the great battle was won and lost, are never tired of hearing
and recounting the history of that famous action.  Its remembrance
rankles still in the bosoms of millions of the countrymen of those
brave men who lost the day.  They pant for an opportunity of
revenging that humiliation; and if a contest, ending in a victory on
their part, should ensue, elating them in their turn, and leaving
its cursed legacy of hatred and rage behind to us, there is no end
to the so-called glory and shame, and to the alternations of
successful and unsuccessful murder, in which two high-spirited
nations might engage.  Centuries hence, we Frenchmen and Englishmen
might be boasting and killing each other still, carrying out bravely
the Devil's code of honour.

All our friends took their share and fought like men in the great
field.  All day long, whilst the women were praying ten miles away,
the lines of the dauntless English infantry were receiving and
repelling the furious charges of the French horsemen.  Guns which
were heard at Brussels were ploughing up their ranks, and comrades
falling, and the resolute survivors closing in.  Towards evening,
the attack of the French, repeated and resisted so bravely,
slackened in its fury.  They had other foes besides the British to
engage, or were preparing for a final onset.  It came at last:  the
columns of the Imperial Guard marched up the hill of Saint Jean, at
length and at once to sweep the English from the height which they
had maintained all day, and spite of all:  unscared by the thunder
of the artillery, which hurled death from the English line--the dark
rolling column pressed on and up the hill.  It seemed almost to
crest the eminence, when it began to wave and falter.  Then it
stopped, still facing the shot.  Then at last the English troops
rushed from the post from which no enemy had been able to dislodge
them, and the Guard turned and fled.

No more firing was heard at Brussels--the pursuit rolled miles away.
Darkness came down on the field and city:  and Amelia was praying
for George, who was lying on his face, dead, with a bullet through
his heart.



CHAPTER XXXIII

In Which Miss Crawley's Relations Are Very Anxious About Her


The kind reader must please to remember--while the army is marching
from Flanders, and, after its heroic actions there, is advancing to
take the fortifications on the frontiers of France, previous to an
occupation of that country--that there are a number of persons
living peaceably in England who have to do with the history at
present in hand, and must come in for their share of the chronicle.
During the time of these battles and dangers, old Miss Crawley was
living at Brighton, very moderately moved by the great events that
were going on.  The great events rendered the newspapers rather
interesting, to be sure, and Briggs read out the Gazette, in which
Rawdon Crawley's gallantry was mentioned with honour, and his
promotion was presently recorded.

"What a pity that young man has taken such an irretrievable step in
the world!" his aunt said; "with his rank and distinction he might
have married a brewer's daughter with a quarter of a million--like
Miss Grains; or have looked to ally himself with the best families
in England. He would have had my money some day or other; or his
children would--for I'm not in a hurry to go, Miss Briggs, although
you may be in a hurry to be rid of me; and instead of that, he is a
doomed pauper, with a dancing-girl for a wife."

"Will my dear Miss Crawley not cast an eye of compassion upon the
heroic soldier, whose name is inscribed in the annals of his
country's glory?" said Miss Briggs, who was greatly excited by the
Waterloo proceedings, and loved speaking romantically when there was
an occasion.  "Has not the Captain--or the Colonel as I may now
style him--done deeds which make the name of Crawley illustrious?"

"Briggs, you are a fool," said Miss Crawley: "Colonel Crawley has
dragged the name of Crawley through the mud, Miss Briggs.  Marry a
drawing-master's daughter, indeed!--marry a dame de compagnie--for
she was no better, Briggs; no, she was just what you are--only
younger, and a great deal prettier and cleverer.  Were you an
accomplice of that abandoned wretch, I wonder, of whose vile arts he
became a victim, and of whom you used to be such an admirer?  Yes, I
daresay you were an accomplice. But you will find yourself
disappointed in my will, I can tell you:  and you will have the
goodness to write to Mr. Waxy, and say that I desire to see him
immediately." Miss Crawley was now in the habit of writing to Mr.
Waxy her solicitor almost every day in the week, for her
arrangements respecting her property were all revoked, and her
perplexity was great as to the future disposition of her money.

The spinster had, however, rallied considerably; as was proved by
the increased vigour and frequency of her sarcasms upon Miss Briggs,
all which attacks the poor companion bore with meekness, with
cowardice, with a resignation that was half generous and half
hypocritical--with the slavish submission, in a word, that women of
her disposition and station are compelled to show.  Who has not seen
how women bully women?  What tortures have men to endure, comparable
to those daily repeated shafts of scorn and cruelty with which poor
women are riddled by the tyrants of their sex?  Poor victims!  But
we are starting from our proposition, which is, that Miss Crawley
was always particularly annoying and savage when she was rallying
from illness--as they say wounds tingle most when they are about to
heal.

While thus approaching, as all hoped, to convalescence, Miss Briggs
was the only victim admitted into the presence of the invalid; yet
Miss Crawley's relatives afar off did not forget their beloved
kinswoman, and by a number of tokens, presents, and kind
affectionate messages, strove to keep themselves alive in her
recollection.

In the first place, let us mention her nephew, Rawdon Crawley.  A
few weeks after the famous fight of Waterloo, and after the Gazette
had made known to her the promotion and gallantry of that
distinguished officer, the Dieppe packet brought over to Miss
Crawley at Brighton, a box containing presents, and a dutiful
letter, from the Colonel her nephew.  In the box were a pair of
French epaulets, a Cross of the Legion of Honour, and the hilt of a
sword--relics from the field of battle:  and the letter described
with a good deal of humour how the latter belonged to a commanding
officer of the Guard, who having sworn that "the Guard died, but
never surrendered," was taken prisoner the next minute by a private
soldier, who broke the Frenchman's sword with the butt of his
musket, when Rawdon made himself master of the shattered weapon.  As
for the cross and epaulets, they came from a Colonel of French
cavalry, who had fallen under the aide-de-camp's arm in the battle:
and Rawdon Crawley did not know what better to do with the spoils
than to send them to his kindest and most affectionate old friend.
Should he continue to write to her from Paris, whither the army was
marching?  He might be able to give her interesting news from that
capital, and of some of Miss Crawley's old friends of the
emigration, to whom she had shown so much kindness during their
distress.

The spinster caused Briggs to write back to the Colonel a gracious
and complimentary letter, encouraging him to continue his
correspondence.  His first letter was so excessively lively and
amusing that she should look with pleasure for its successors.--"Of
course, I know," she explained to Miss Briggs, "that Rawdon could
not write such a good letter any more than you could, my poor
Briggs, and that it is that clever little wretch of a Rebecca, who
dictates every word to him; but that is no reason why my nephew
should not amuse me; and so I wish to let him understand that I am
in high good humour."

I wonder whether she knew that it was not only Becky who wrote the
letters, but that Mrs. Rawdon actually took and sent home the
trophies which she bought for a few francs, from one of the
innumerable pedlars who immediately began to deal in relics of the
war.  The novelist, who knows everything, knows this also.  Be this,
however, as it may, Miss Crawley's gracious reply greatly encouraged
our young friends, Rawdon and his lady, who hoped for the best from
their aunt's evidently pacified humour:  and they took care to
entertain her with many delightful letters from Paris, whither, as
Rawdon said, they had the good luck to go in the track of the
conquering army.

To the rector's lady, who went off to tend her husband's broken
collar-bone at the Rectory at Queen's Crawley, the spinster's
communications were by no means so gracious.  Mrs. Bute, that brisk,
managing, lively, imperious woman, had committed the most fatal of
all errors with regard to her sister-in-law.  She had not merely
oppressed her and her household--she had bored Miss Crawley; and if
poor Miss Briggs had been a woman of any spirit, she might have been
made happy by the commission which her principal gave her to write a
letter to Mrs. Bute Crawley, saying that Miss Crawley's health was
greatly improved since Mrs. Bute had left her, and begging the
latter on no account to put herself to trouble, or quit her family
for Miss Crawley's sake.  This triumph over a lady who had been very
haughty and cruel in her behaviour to Miss Briggs, would have
rejoiced most women; but the truth is, Briggs was a woman of no
spirit at all, and the moment her enemy was discomfited, she began
to feel compassion in her favour.

"How silly I was," Mrs. Bute thought, and with reason, "ever to hint
that I was coming, as I did, in that foolish letter when we sent
Miss Crawley the guinea-fowls. I ought to have gone without a word
to the poor dear doting old creature, and taken her out of the hands
of that ninny Briggs, and that harpy of a femme de chambre.  Oh!
Bute, Bute, why did you break your collar-bone?"

Why, indeed?  We have seen how Mrs. Bute, having the game in her
hands, had really played her cards too well. She had ruled over Miss
Crawley's household utterly and completely, to be utterly and
completely routed when a favourable opportunity for rebellion came.
She and her household, however, considered that she had been the
victim of horrible selfishness and treason, and that her sacrifices
in Miss Crawley's behalf had met with the most savage ingratitude.
Rawdon's promotion, and the honourable mention made of his name in
the Gazette, filled this good Christian lady also with alarm.  Would
his aunt relent towards him now that he was a Lieutenant-Colonel and
a C.B.? and would that odious Rebecca once more get into favour?
The Rector's wife wrote a sermon for her husband about the vanity of
military glory and the prosperity of the wicked, which the worthy
parson read in his best voice and without understanding one syllable
of it.  He had Pitt Crawley for one of his auditors--Pitt, who had
come with his two half-sisters to church, which the old Baronet
could now by no means be brought to frequent.

Since the departure of Becky Sharp, that old wretch had given
himself up entirely to his bad courses, to the great scandal of the
county and the mute horror of his son.  The ribbons in Miss
Horrocks's cap became more splendid than ever.  The polite families
fled the hall and its owner in terror.  Sir Pitt went about tippling
at his tenants' houses; and drank rum-and-water with the farmers at
Mudbury and the neighbouring places on market-days.  He drove the
family coach-and-four to Southampton with Miss Horrocks inside:  and
the county people expected, every week, as his son did in speechless
agony, that his marriage with her would be announced in the
provincial paper.  It was indeed a rude burthen for Mr. Crawley to
bear.  His eloquence was palsied at the missionary meetings, and
other religious assemblies in the neighbourhood, where he had been
in the habit of presiding, and of speaking for hours; for he felt,
when he rose, that the audience said, "That is the son of the old
reprobate Sir Pitt, who is very likely drinking at the public house
at this very moment." And once when he was speaking of the benighted
condition of the king of Timbuctoo, and the number of his wives who
were likewise in darkness, some gipsy miscreant from the crowd
asked, "How many is there at Queen's Crawley, Young Squaretoes?" to
the surprise of the platform, and the ruin of Mr. Pitt's speech.
And the two daughters of the house of Queen's Crawley would have
been allowed to run utterly wild (for Sir Pitt swore that no
governess should ever enter into his doors again), had not Mr.
Crawley, by threatening the old gentleman, forced the latter to send
them to school.

Meanwhile, as we have said, whatever individual differences there
might be between them all, Miss Crawley's dear nephews and nieces
were unanimous in loving her and sending her tokens of affection.
Thus Mrs. Bute sent guinea-fowls, and some remarkably fine
cauliflowers, and a pretty purse or pincushion worked by her darling
girls, who begged to keep a LITTLE place in the recollection of
their dear aunt, while Mr. Pitt sent peaches and grapes and venison
from the Hall.  The Southampton coach used to carry these tokens of
affection to Miss Crawley at Brighton:  it used sometimes to convey
Mr. Pitt thither too:  for his differences with Sir Pitt caused Mr.
Crawley to absent himself a good deal from home now:  and besides,
he had an attraction at Brighton in the person of the Lady Jane
Sheepshanks, whose engagement to Mr. Crawley has been formerly
mentioned in this history. Her Ladyship and her sisters lived at
Brighton with their mamma, the Countess Southdown, that strong-
minded woman so favourably known in the serious world.

A few words ought to be said regarding her Ladyship and her noble
family, who are bound by ties of present and future relationship to
the house of Crawley. Respecting the chief of the Southdown family,
Clement William, fourth Earl of Southdown, little need be told,
except that his Lordship came into Parliament (as Lord Wolsey) under
the auspices of Mr. Wilberforce, and for a time was a credit to his
political sponsor, and decidedly a serious young man.  But words
cannot describe the feelings of his admirable mother, when she
learned, very shortly after her noble husband's demise, that her son
was a member of several worldly clubs, had lost largely at play at
Wattier's and the Cocoa Tree; that he had raised money on post-
obits, and encumbered the family estate; that he drove four-in-hand,
and patronised the ring; and that he actually had an opera-box,
where he entertained the most dangerous bachelor company.  His name
was only mentioned with groans in the dowager's circle.

The Lady Emily was her brother's senior by many years; and took
considerable rank in the serious world as author of some of the
delightful tracts before mentioned, and of many hymns and spiritual
pieces.  A mature spinster, and having but faint ideas of marriage,
her love for the blacks occupied almost all her feelings.  It is to
her, I believe, we owe that beautiful poem.

   Lead us to some sunny isle,
   Yonder in the western deep;
   Where the skies for ever smile,
   And the blacks for ever weep, &c.

She had correspondences with clerical gentlemen in most of our East
and West India possessions; and was secretly attached to the
Reverend Silas Hornblower, who was tattooed in the South Sea
Islands.

As for the Lady Jane, on whom, as it has been said, Mr. Pitt
Crawley's affection had been placed, she was gentle, blushing,
silent, and timid.  In spite of his falling away, she wept for her
brother, and was quite ashamed of loving him still.  Even yet she
used to send him little hurried smuggled notes, and pop them into
the post in private. The one dreadful secret which weighed upon her
life was, that she and the old housekeeper had been to pay Southdown
a furtive visit at his chambers in the Albany; and found him--O the
naughty dear abandoned wretch!--smoking a cigar with a bottle of
Curacao before him.  She admired her sister, she adored her mother,
she thought Mr. Crawley the most delightful and accomplished of men,
after Southdown, that fallen angel:  and her mamma and sister, who
were ladies of the most superior sort, managed everything for her,
and regarded her with that amiable pity, of which your really
superior woman always has such a share to give away.  Her mamma
ordered her dresses, her books, her bonnets, and her ideas for her.
She was made to take pony-riding, or piano-exercise, or any other
sort of bodily medicament, according as my Lady Southdown saw meet;
and her ladyship would have kept her daughter in pinafores up to her
present age of six-and-twenty, but that they were thrown off when
Lady Jane was presented to Queen Charlotte.

When these ladies first came to their house at Brighton, it was to
them alone that Mr. Crawley paid his personal visits, contenting
himself by leaving a card at his aunt's house, and making a modest
inquiry of Mr. Bowls or his assistant footman, with respect to the
health of the invalid.  When he met Miss Briggs coming home from the
library with a cargo of novels under her arm, Mr. Crawley blushed in
a manner quite unusual to him, as he stepped forward and shook Miss
Crawley's companion by the hand.  He introduced Miss Briggs to the
lady with whom he happened to be walking, the Lady Jane Sheepshanks,
saying, "Lady Jane, permit me to introduce to you my aunt's kindest
friend and most affectionate companion, Miss Briggs, whom you know
under another title, as authoress of the delightful 'Lyrics of the
Heart,' of which you are so fond."  Lady Jane blushed too as she
held out a kind little hand to Miss Briggs, and said something very
civil and incoherent about mamma, and proposing to call on Miss
Crawley, and being glad to be made known to the friends and
relatives of Mr. Crawley; and with soft dove-like eyes saluted Miss
Briggs as they separated, while Pitt Crawley treated her to a
profound courtly bow, such as he had used to H.H. the Duchess of
Pumpernickel, when he was attache at that court.

The artful diplomatist and disciple of the Machiavellian Binkie!  It
was he who had given Lady Jane that copy of poor Briggs's early
poems, which he remembered to have seen at Queen's Crawley, with a
dedication from the poetess to his father's late wife; and he
brought the volume with him to Brighton, reading it in the
Southampton coach and marking it with his own pencil, before he
presented it to the gentle Lady Jane.

It was he, too, who laid before Lady Southdown the great advantages
which might occur from an intimacy between her family and Miss
Crawley--advantages both worldly and spiritual, he said:  for Miss
Crawley was now quite alone; the monstrous dissipation and alliance
of his brother Rawdon had estranged her affections from that
reprobate young man; the greedy tyranny and avarice of Mrs. Bute
Crawley had caused the old lady to revolt against the exorbitant
pretensions of that part of the family; and though he himself had
held off all his life from cultivating Miss Crawley's friendship,
with perhaps an improper pride, he thought now that every becoming
means should be taken, both to save her soul from perdition, and to
secure her fortune to himself as the head of the house of Crawley.

The strong-minded Lady Southdown quite agreed in both proposals of
her son-in-law, and was for converting Miss Crawley off-hand.  At
her own home, both at Southdown and at Trottermore Castle, this tall
and awful missionary of the truth rode about the country in her
barouche with outriders, launched packets of tracts among the
cottagers and tenants, and would order Gaffer Jones to be converted,
as she would order Goody Hicks to take a James's powder, without
appeal, resistance, or benefit of clergy.  My Lord Southdown, her
late husband, an epileptic and simple-minded nobleman, was in the
habit of approving of everything which his Matilda did and thought.
So that whatever changes her own belief might undergo (and it
accommodated itself to a prodigious variety of opinion, taken from
all sorts of doctors among the Dissenters) she had not the least
scruple in ordering all her tenants and inferiors to follow and
believe after her.  Thus whether she received the Reverend Saunders
McNitre, the Scotch divine; or the Reverend Luke Waters, the mild
Wesleyan; or the Reverend Giles Jowls, the illuminated Cobbler, who
dubbed himself Reverend as Napoleon crowned himself Emperor--the
household, children, tenantry of my Lady Southdown were expected to
go down on their knees with her Ladyship, and say Amen to the
prayers of either Doctor.  During these exercises old Southdown, on
account of his invalid condition, was allowed to sit in his own
room, and have negus and the paper read to him.  Lady Jane was the
old Earl's favourite daughter, and tended him and loved him
sincerely:  as for Lady Emily, the authoress of the "Washerwoman of
Finchley Common," her denunciations of future punishment (at this
period, for her opinions modified afterwards) were so awful that
they used to frighten the timid old gentleman her father, and the
physicians declared his fits always occurred after one of her
Ladyship's sermons.

"I will certainly call," said Lady Southdown then, in reply to the
exhortation of her daughter's pretendu, Mr. Pitt Crawley--"Who is
Miss Crawley's medical man?"

Mr. Crawley mentioned the name of Mr. Creamer.

"A most dangerous and ignorant practitioner, my dear Pitt.  I have
providentially been the means of removing him from several houses:
though in one or two instances I did not arrive in time.  I could
not save poor dear General Glanders, who was dying under the hands
of that ignorant man--dying.  He rallied a little under the Podgers'
pills which I administered to him; but alas!  it was too late.  His
death was delightful, however; and his change was only for the
better; Creamer, my dear Pitt, must leave your aunt."

Pitt expressed his perfect acquiescence.  He, too, had been carried
along by the energy of his noble kinswoman, and future mother-in-
law.  He had been made to accept Saunders McNitre, Luke Waters,
Giles Jowls, Podgers' Pills, Rodgers' Pills, Pokey's Elixir, every
one of her Ladyship's remedies spiritual or temporal.  He never left
her house without carrying respectfully away with him piles of her
quack theology and medicine.  O, my dear brethren and fellow-
sojourners in Vanity Fair, which among you does not know and suffer
under such benevolent despots?  It is in vain you say to them, "Dear
Madam, I took Podgers' specific at your orders last year, and
believe in it.  Why, why am I to recant and accept the Rodgers'
articles now?"  There is no help for it; the faithful proselytizer,
if she cannot convince by argument, bursts into tears, and the
refusant finds himself, at the end of the contest, taking down the
bolus, and saying, "Well, well, Rodgers' be it."

"And as for her spiritual state," continued the Lady, "that of
course must be looked to immediately:  with Creamer about her, she
may go off any day:  and in what a condition, my dear Pitt, in what
a dreadful condition! I will send the Reverend Mr. Irons to her
instantly.  Jane, write a line to the Reverend Bartholomew Irons, in
the third person, and say that I desire the pleasure of his company
this evening at tea at half-past six.  He is an awakening man; he
ought to see Miss Crawley before she rests this night.  And Emily,
my love, get ready a packet of books for Miss Crawley.  Put up 'A
Voice from the Flames,' 'A Trumpet-warning to Jericho,' and the
'Fleshpots Broken; or, the Converted Cannibal.'"

"And the 'Washerwoman of Finchley Common,' Mamma," said Lady Emily.
"It is as well to begin soothingly at first."

"Stop, my dear ladies," said Pitt, the diplomatist. "With every
deference to the opinion of my beloved and respected Lady Southdown,
I think it would be quite unadvisable to commence so early upon
serious topics with Miss Crawley.  Remember her delicate condition,
and how little, how very little accustomed she has hitherto been to
considerations connected with her immortal welfare."

"Can we then begin too early, Pitt?" said Lady Emily, rising with
six little books already in her hand.

"If you begin abruptly, you will frighten her altogether. I know my
aunt's worldly nature so well as to be sure that any abrupt attempt
at conversion will be the very worst means that can be employed for
the welfare of that unfortunate lady.  You will only frighten and
annoy her. She will very likely fling the books away, and refuse all
acquaintance with the givers."

"You are as worldly as Miss Crawley, Pitt," said Lady Emily, tossing
out of the room, her books in her hand.

"And I need not tell you, my dear Lady Southdown," Pitt continued,
in a low voice, and without heeding the interruption, "how fatal a
little want of gentleness and caution may be to any hopes which we
may entertain with regard to the worldly possessions of my aunt.
Remember she has seventy thousand pounds; think of her age, and her
highly nervous and delicate condition; I know that she has destroyed
the will which was made in my brother's (Colonel Crawley's) favour:
it is by soothing that wounded spirit that we must lead it into the
right path, and not by frightening it; and so I think you will agree
with me that--that--'

"Of course, of course," Lady Southdown remarked. "Jane, my love, you
need not send that note to Mr. Irons. If her health is such that
discussions fatigue her, we will wait her amendment.  I will call
upon Miss Crawley tomorrow."

"And if I might suggest, my sweet lady," Pitt said in a bland tone,
"it would be as well not to take our precious Emily, who is too
enthusiastic; but rather that you should be accompanied by our sweet
and dear Lady Jane."

"Most certainly, Emily would ruin everything," Lady Southdown said;
and this time agreed to forego her usual practice, which was, as we
have said, before she bore down personally upon any individual whom
she proposed to subjugate, to fire in a quantity of tracts upon the
menaced party (as a charge of the French was always preceded by a
furious cannonade).  Lady Southdown, we say, for the sake of the
invalid's health, or for the sake of her soul's ultimate welfare, or
for the sake of her money, agreed to temporise.

The next day, the great Southdown female family carriage, with the
Earl's coronet and the lozenge (upon which the three lambs trottant
argent upon the field vert of the Southdowns, were quartered with
sable on a bend or, three snuff-mulls gules, the cognizance of the
house of Binkie), drove up in state to Miss Crawley's door, and the
tall serious footman handed in to Mr. Bowls her Ladyship's cards for
Miss Crawley, and one likewise for Miss Briggs.  By way of
compromise, Lady Emily sent in a packet in the evening for the
latter lady, containing copies of the "Washerwoman," and other mild
and favourite tracts for Miss B.'s own perusal; and a few for the
servants' hall, viz.:  "Crumbs from the Pantry," "The Frying Pan and
the Fire," and "The Livery of Sin," of a much stronger kind.



CHAPTER XXXIV

James Crawley's Pipe Is Put Out


The amiable behaviour of Mr. Crawley, and Lady Jane's kind reception
of her, highly flattered Miss Briggs, who was enabled to speak a
good word for the latter, after the cards of the Southdown family
had been presented to Miss Crawley.  A Countess's card left
personally too for her, Briggs, was not a little pleasing to the
poor friendless companion.  "What could Lady Southdown mean by
leaving a card upon you, I wonder, Miss Briggs?" said the republican
Miss Crawley; upon which the companion meekly said "that she hoped
there could be no harm in a lady of rank taking notice of a poor
gentlewoman," and she put away this card in her work-box amongst her
most cherished personal treasures.  Furthermore, Miss Briggs
explained how she had met Mr. Crawley walking with his cousin and
long affianced bride the day before:  and she told how kind and
gentle-looking the lady was, and what a plain, not to say common,
dress she had, all the articles of which, from the bonnet down to
the boots, she described and estimated with female accuracy.

Miss Crawley allowed Briggs to prattle on without interrupting her
too much.  As she got well, she was pining for society.  Mr.
Creamer, her medical man, would not hear of her returning to her old
haunts and dissipation in London.  The old spinster was too glad to
find any companionship at Brighton, and not only were the cards
acknowledged the very next day, but Pitt Crawley was graciously
invited to come and see his aunt.  He came, bringing with him Lady
Southdown and her daughter.  The dowager did not say a word about
the state of Miss Crawley's soul; but talked with much discretion
about the weather:  about the war and the downfall of the monster
Bonaparte:  and above all, about doctors, quacks, and the particular
merits of Dr. Podgers, whom she then patronised.

During their interview Pitt Crawley made a great stroke, and one
which showed that, had his diplomatic career not been blighted by
early neglect, he might have risen to a high rank in his profession.
When the Countess Dowager of Southdown fell foul of the Corsican
upstart, as the fashion was in those days, and showed that he was a
monster stained with every conceivable crime, a coward and a tyrant
not fit to live, one whose fall was predicted, &c., Pitt Crawley
suddenly took up the cudgels in favour of the man of Destiny.  He
described the First Consul as he saw him at Paris at the peace of
Amiens; when he, Pitt Crawley, had the gratification of making the
acquaintance of the great and good Mr. Fox, a statesman whom,
however much he might differ with him, it was impossible not to
admire fervently--a statesman who had always had the highest opinion
of the Emperor Napoleon.  And he spoke in terms of the strongest
indignation of the faithless conduct of the allies towards this
dethroned monarch, who, after giving himself generously up to their
mercy, was consigned to an ignoble and cruel banishment, while a
bigoted Popish rabble was tyrannising over France in his stead.

This orthodox horror of Romish superstition saved Pitt Crawley in
Lady Southdown's opinion, whilst his admiration for Fox and Napoleon
raised him immeasurably in Miss Crawley's eyes.  Her friendship with
that defunct British statesman was mentioned when we first
introduced her in this history.  A true Whig, Miss Crawley had been
in opposition all through the war, and though, to be sure, the
downfall of the Emperor did not very much agitate the old lady, or
his ill-treatment tend to shorten her life or natural rest, yet Pitt
spoke to her heart when he lauded both her idols; and by that single
speech made immense progress in her favour.

"And what do you think, my dear?" Miss Crawley said to the young
lady, for whom she had taken a liking at first sight, as she always
did for pretty and modest young people; though it must be owned her
affections cooled as rapidly as they rose.

Lady Jane blushed very much, and said "that she did not understand
politics, which she left to wiser heads than hers; but though Mamma
was, no doubt, correct, Mr. Crawley had spoken beautifully." And
when the ladies were retiring at the conclusion of their visit, Miss
Crawley hoped "Lady Southdown would be so kind as to send her Lady
Jane sometimes, if she could be spared to come down and console a
poor sick lonely old woman." This promise was graciously accorded,
and they separated upon great terms of amity.

"Don't let Lady Southdown come again, Pitt," said the old lady.
"She is stupid and pompous, like all your mother's family, whom I
never could endure.  But bring that nice good-natured little Jane as
often as ever you please." Pitt promised that he would do so.  He
did not tell the Countess of Southdown what opinion his aunt had
formed of her Ladyship, who, on the contrary, thought that she had
made a most delightful and majestic impression on Miss Crawley.

And so, nothing loth to comfort a sick lady, and perhaps not sorry
in her heart to be freed now and again from the dreary spouting of
the Reverend Bartholomew Irons, and the serious toadies who gathered
round the footstool of the pompous Countess, her mamma, Lady Jane
became a pretty constant visitor to Miss Crawley, accompanied her in
her drives, and solaced many of her evenings.  She was so naturally
good and soft, that even Firkin was not jealous of her; and the
gentle Briggs thought her friend was less cruel to her when kind
Lady Jane was by.  Towards her Ladyship Miss Crawley's manners were
charming.  The old spinster told her a thousand anecdotes about her
youth, talking to her in a very different strain from that in which
she had been accustomed to converse with the godless little Rebecca;
for there was that in Lady Jane's innocence which rendered light
talking impertinence before her, and Miss Crawley was too much of a
gentlewoman to offend such purity.  The young lady herself had never
received kindness except from this old spinster, and her brother and
father:  and she repaid Miss Crawley's engoument by artless
sweetness and friendship.

In the autumn evenings (when Rebecca was flaunting at Paris, the
gayest among the gay conquerors there, and our Amelia, our dear
wounded Amelia, ah! where was she?) Lady Jane would be sitting in
Miss Crawley's drawing-room singing sweetly to her, in the twilight,
her little simple songs and hymns, while the sun was setting and the
sea was roaring on the beach.  The old spinster used to wake up when
these ditties ceased, and ask for more.  As for Briggs, and the
quantity of tears of happiness which she now shed as she pretended
to knit, and looked out at the splendid ocean darkling before the
windows, and the lamps of heaven beginning more brightly to shine--
who, I say can measure the happiness and sensibility of Briggs?

Pitt meanwhile in the dining-room, with a pamphlet on the Corn Laws
or a Missionary Register by his side, took that kind of recreation
which suits romantic and unromantic men after dinner.  He sipped
Madeira:  built castles in the air:  thought himself a fine fellow:
felt himself much more in love with Jane than he had been any time
these seven years, during which their liaison had lasted without the
slightest impatience on Pitt's part--and slept a good deal.  When
the time for coffee came, Mr. Bowls used to enter in a noisy manner,
and summon Squire Pitt, who would be found in the dark very busy
with his pamphlet.

"I wish, my love, I could get somebody to play piquet with me," Miss
Crawley said one night when this functionary made his appearance
with the candles and the coffee. "Poor Briggs can no more play than
an owl, she is so stupid" (the spinster always took an opportunity
of abusing Briggs before the servants); "and I think I should sleep
better if I had my game."

At this Lady Jane blushed to the tips of her little ears, and down
to the ends of her pretty fingers; and when Mr. Bowls had quitted
the room, and the door was quite shut, she said:

"Miss Crawley, I can play a little.  I used to--to play a little
with poor dear papa."

"Come and kiss me.  Come and kiss me this instant, you dear good
little soul," cried Miss Crawley in an ecstasy: and in this
picturesque and friendly occupation Mr. Pitt found the old lady and
the young one, when he came upstairs with him pamphlet in his hand.
How she did blush all the evening, that poor Lady Jane!

It must not be imagined that Mr. Pitt Crawley's artifices escaped
the attention of his dear relations at the Rectory at Queen's
Crawley.  Hampshire and Sussex lie very close together, and Mrs.
Bute had friends in the latter county who took care to inform her of
all, and a great deal more than all, that passed at Miss Crawley's
house at Brighton.  Pitt was there more and more.  He did not come
for months together to the Hall, where his abominable old father
abandoned himself completely to rum-and-water, and the odious
society of the Horrocks family. Pitt's success rendered the Rector's
family furious, and Mrs. Bute regretted more (though she confessed
less) than ever her monstrous fault in so insulting Miss Briggs, and
in being so haughty and parsimonious to Bowls and Firkin, that she
had not a single person left in Miss Crawley's household to give her
information of what took place there.  "It was all Bute's collar-
bone," she persisted in saying; "if that had not broke, I never
would have left her.  I am a martyr to duty and to your odious
unclerical habit of hunting, Bute."

"Hunting; nonsense!  It was you that frightened her, Barbara," the
divine interposed.  "You're a clever woman, but you've got a devil
of a temper; and you're a screw with your money, Barbara."

"You'd have been screwed in gaol, Bute, if I had not kept your
money."

"I know I would, my dear," said the Rector, good-naturedly. "You ARE
a clever woman, but you manage too well, you know":  and the pious
man consoled himself with a big glass of port.

"What the deuce can she find in that spooney of a Pitt Crawley?" he
continued.  "The fellow has not pluck enough to say Bo to a goose.
I remember when Rawdon, who is a man, and be hanged to him, used to
flog him round the stables as if he was a whipping-top:  and Pitt
would go howling home to his ma--ha, ha!  Why, either of my boys
would whop him with one hand.  Jim says he's remembered at Oxford as
Miss Crawley still--the spooney.

"I say, Barbara," his reverence continued, after a pause.

"What?" said Barbara, who was biting her nails, and drumming the
table.

"I say, why not send Jim over to Brighton to see if he can do
anything with the old lady.  He's very near getting his degree, you
know.  He's only been plucked twice--so was I--but he's had the
advantages of Oxford and a university education.  He knows some of
the best chaps there. He pulls stroke in the Boniface boat.  He's a
handsome feller.  D--- it, ma'am, let's put him on the old woman, hey,
and tell him to thrash Pitt if he says anything. Ha, ha, ha!

"Jim might go down and see her, certainly," the housewife said;
adding with a sigh, "If we could but get one of the girls into the
house; but she could never endure them, because they are not
pretty!"  Those unfortunate and well-educated women made themselves
heard from the neighbouring drawing-room, where they were thrumming
away, with hard fingers, an elaborate music-piece on the piano-
forte, as their mother spoke; and indeed, they were at music, or at
backboard, or at geography, or at history, the whole day long.  But
what avail all these accomplishments, in Vanity Fair, to girls who
are short, poor, plain, and have a bad complexion?  Mrs. Bute could
think of nobody but the Curate to take one of them off her hands;
and Jim coming in from the stable at this minute, through the
parlour window, with a short pipe stuck in his oilskin cap, he and
his father fell to talking about odds on the St. Leger, and the
colloquy between the Rector and his wife ended.

Mrs. Bute did not augur much good to the cause from the sending of
her son James as an ambassador, and saw him depart in rather a
despairing mood.  Nor did the young fellow himself, when told what
his mission was to be, expect much pleasure or benefit from it; but
he was consoled by the thought that possibly the old lady would give
him some handsome remembrance of her, which would pay a few of his
most pressing bills at the commencement of the ensuing Oxford term,
and so took his place by the coach from Southampton, and was safely
landed at Brighton on the same evening?  with his portmanteau, his
favourite bull-dog Towzer, and an immense basket of farm and garden
produce, from the dear Rectory folks to the dear Miss Crawley.
Considering it was too late to disturb the invalid lady on the first
night of his arrival, he put up at an inn, and did not wait upon
Miss Crawley until a late hour in the noon of next day.

James Crawley, when his aunt had last beheld him, was a gawky lad,
at that uncomfortable age when the voice varies between an unearthly
treble and a preternatural bass; when the face not uncommonly blooms
out with appearances for which Rowland's Kalydor is said to act as a
cure; when boys are seen to shave furtively with their sister's
scissors, and the sight of other young women produces intolerable
sensations of terror in them; when the great hands and ankles
protrude a long way from garments which have grown too tight for
them; when their presence after dinner is at once frightful to the
ladies, who are whispering in the twilight in the drawing-room, and
inexpressibly odious to the gentlemen over the mahogany, who are
restrained from freedom of intercourse and delightful interchange of
wit by the presence of that gawky innocence; when, at the conclusion
of the second glass, papa says, "Jack, my boy, go out and see if the
evening holds up," and the youth, willing to be free, yet hurt at
not being yet a man, quits the incomplete banquet.  James, then a
hobbadehoy, was now become a young man, having had the benefits of a
university education, and acquired the inestimable polish which is
gained by living in a fast set at a small college, and contracting
debts, and being rusticated, and being plucked.

He was a handsome lad, however, when he came to present himself to
his aunt at Brighton, and good looks were always a title to the
fickle old lady's favour.  Nor did his blushes and awkwardness take
away from it:  she was pleased with these healthy tokens of the
young gentleman's ingenuousness.

He said "he had come down for a couple of days to see a man of his
college, and--and to pay my respects to you, Ma'am, and my father's
and mother's, who hope you are well."

Pitt was in the room with Miss Crawley when the lad was announced,
and looked very blank when his name was mentioned.  The old lady had
plenty of humour, and enjoyed her correct nephew's perplexity.  She
asked after all the people at the Rectory with great interest; and
said she was thinking of paying them a visit.  She praised the lad
to his face, and said he was well-grown and very much improved, and
that it was a pity his sisters had not some of his good looks; and
finding, on inquiry, that he had taken up his quarters at an hotel,
would not hear of his stopping there, but bade Mr. Bowls send for
Mr. James Crawley's things instantly; "and hark ye, Bowls," she
added, with great graciousness, "you will have the goodness to pay
Mr. James's bill."

She flung Pitt a look of arch triumph, which caused that diplomatist
almost to choke with envy.  Much as he had ingratiated himself with
his aunt, she had never yet invited him to stay under her roof, and
here was a young whipper-snapper, who at first sight was made
welcome there.

"I beg your pardon, sir," says Bowls, advancing with a profound bow;
"what 'otel, sir, shall Thomas fetch the luggage from?"

"O, dam," said young James, starting up, as if in some alarm, "I'll
go."

"What!" said Miss Crawley.

"The Tom Cribb's Arms," said James, blushing deeply.

Miss Crawley burst out laughing at this title.  Mr. Bowls gave one
abrupt guffaw, as a confidential servant of the family, but choked
the rest of the volley; the diplomatist only smiled.

"I--I didn't know any better," said James, looking down. "I've never
been here before; it was the coachman told me." The young story-
teller!  The fact is, that on the Southampton coach, the day
previous, James Crawley had met the Tutbury Pet, who was coming to
Brighton to make a match with the Rottingdean Fibber; and enchanted
by the Pet's conversation, had passed the evening in company with
that scientific man and his friends, at the inn in question.

"I--I'd best go and settle the score," James continued. "Couldn't
think of asking you, Ma'am," he added, generously.

This delicacy made his aunt laugh the more.

"Go and settle the bill, Bowls," she said, with a wave of her hand,
"and bring it to me."

Poor lady, she did not know what she had done!  "There--there's a
little dawg," said James, looking frightfully guilty.  "I'd best go
for him.  He bites footmen's calves."

All the party cried out with laughing at this description; even
Briggs and Lady Jane, who was sitting mute during the interview
between Miss Crawley and her nephew:  and Bowls, without a word,
quitted the room.

Still, by way of punishing her elder nephew, Miss Crawley persisted
in being gracious to the young Oxonian. There were no limits to her
kindness or her compliments when they once began.  She told Pitt he
might come to dinner, and insisted that James should accompany her
in her drive, and paraded him solemnly up and down the cliff, on the
back seat of the barouche.  During all this excursion, she
condescended to say civil things to him: she quoted Italian and
French poetry to the poor bewildered lad, and persisted that he was
a fine scholar, and was perfectly sure he would gain a gold medal,
and be a Senior Wrangler.

"Haw, haw," laughed James, encouraged by these compliments; "Senior
Wrangler, indeed; that's at the other shop."

"What is the other shop, my dear child?" said the lady.

"Senior Wranglers at Cambridge, not Oxford," said the scholar, with
a knowing air; and would probably have been more confidential, but
that suddenly there appeared on the cliff in a tax-cart, drawn by a
bang-up pony, dressed in white flannel coats, with mother-of-pearl
buttons, his friends the Tutbury Pet and the Rottingdean Fibber,
with three other gentlemen of their acquaintance, who all saluted
poor James there in the carriage as he sate.  This incident damped
the ingenuous youth's spirits, and no word of yea or nay could he be
induced to utter during the rest of the drive.

On his return he found his room prepared, and his portmanteau ready,
and might have remarked that Mr. Bowls's countenance, when the
latter conducted him to his apartments, wore a look of gravity,
wonder, and compassion.  But the thought of Mr. Bowls did not enter
his head.  He was deploring the dreadful predicament in which he
found himself, in a house full of old women, jabbering French and
Italian, and talking poetry to him. "Reglarly up a tree, by jingo!"
exclaimed the modest boy, who could not face the gentlest of her
sex--not even Briggs--when she began to talk to him; whereas, put
him at Iffley Lock, and he could out-slang the boldest bargeman.

At dinner, James appeared choking in a white neckcloth, and had the
honour of handing my Lady Jane downstairs, while Briggs and Mr.
Crawley followed afterwards, conducting the old lady, with her
apparatus of bundles, and shawls, and cushions.  Half of Briggs's
time at dinner was spent in superintending the invalid's comfort,
and in cutting up chicken for her fat spaniel.  James did not talk
much, but he made a point of asking all the ladies to drink wine,
and accepted Mr. Crawley's challenge, and consumed the greater part
of a bottle of champagne which Mr. Bowls was ordered to produce in
his honour.  The ladies having withdrawn, and the two cousins being
left together, Pitt, the ex-diplomatist, be came very communicative
and friendly.  He asked after James's career at college--what his
prospects in life were--hoped heartily he would get on; and, in a
word, was frank and amiable.  James's tongue unloosed with the port,
and he told his cousin his life, his prospects, his debts, his
troubles at the little-go, and his rows with the proctors, filling
rapidly from the bottles before him, and flying from Port to Madeira
with joyous activity.

"The chief pleasure which my aunt has," said Mr. Crawley, filling
his glass, "is that people should do as they like in her house.
This is Liberty Hall, James, and you can't do Miss Crawley a greater
kindness than to do as you please, and ask for what you will.  I
know you have all sneered at me in the country for being a Tory.
Miss Crawley is liberal enough to suit any fancy.  She is a
Republican in principle, and despises everything like rank or
title."

"Why are you going to marry an Earl's daughter?" said James.

"My dear friend, remember it is not poor Lady Jane's fault that she
is well born," Pitt replied, with a courtly air.  "She cannot help
being a lady.  Besides, I am a Tory, you know."

"Oh, as for that," said Jim, "there's nothing like old blood; no,
dammy, nothing like it.  I'm none of your radicals.  I know what it
is to be a gentleman, dammy. See the chaps in a boat-race; look at
the fellers in a fight; aye, look at a dawg killing rats--which is
it wins? the good-blooded ones.  Get some more port, Bowls, old boy,
whilst I buzz this bottle-here.  What was I asaying?"

"I think you were speaking of dogs killing rats," Pitt remarked
mildly, handing his cousin the decanter to "buzz."

"Killing rats was I? Well, Pitt, are you a sporting man? Do you want
to see a dawg as CAN kill a rat? If you do, come down with me to Tom
Corduroy's, in Castle Street Mews, and I'll show you such a bull-
terrier as--Pooh! gammon," cried James, bursting out laughing at his
own absurdity--"YOU don't care about a dawg or rat; it's all
nonsense.  I'm blest if I think you know the difference between a
dog and a duck."

"No; by the way," Pitt continued with increased blandness, "it was
about blood you were talking, and the personal advantages which
people derive from patrician birth.  Here's the fresh bottle."

"Blood's the word," said James, gulping the ruby fluid down.
"Nothing like blood, sir, in hosses, dawgs, AND men.  Why, only last
term, just before I was rusticated, that is, I mean just before I
had the measles, ha, ha--there was me and Ringwood of Christchurch,
Bob Ringwood, Lord Cinqbars' son, having our beer at the Bell at
Blenheim, when the Banbury bargeman offered to fight either of us
for a bowl of punch.  I couldn't.  My arm was in a sling; couldn't
even take the drag down--a brute of a mare of mine had fell with me
only two days before, out with the Abingdon, and I thought my arm
was broke. Well, sir, I couldn't finish him, but Bob had his coat
off at once--he stood up to the Banbury man for three minutes, and
polished him off in four rounds easy.  Gad, how he did drop, sir,
and what was it? Blood, sir, all blood."

"You don't drink, James," the ex-attache continued. "In my time at
Oxford, the men passed round the bottle a little quicker than you
young fellows seem to do."

"Come, come," said James, putting his hand to his nose and winking
at his cousin with a pair of vinous eyes, "no jokes, old boy; no
trying it on on me.  You want to trot me out, but it's no go.  In
vino veritas, old boy.  Mars, Bacchus, Apollo virorum, hey? I wish
my aunt would send down some of this to the governor; it's a
precious good tap."

"You had better ask her," Machiavel continued, "or make the best of
your time now.  What says the bard? 'Nunc vino pellite curas, Cras
ingens iterabimus aequor,'" and the Bacchanalian, quoting the above
with a House of Commons air, tossed off nearly a thimbleful of wine
with an immense flourish of his glass.

At the Rectory, when the bottle of port wine was opened after
dinner, the young ladies had each a glass from a bottle of currant
wine.  Mrs. Bute took one glass of port, honest James had a couple
commonly, but as his father grew very sulky if he made further
inroads on the bottle, the good lad generally refrained from trying
for more, and subsided either into the currant wine, or to some
private gin-and-water in the stables, which he enjoyed in the
company of the coachman and his pipe.  At Oxford, the quantity of
wine was unlimited, but the quality was inferior:  but when quantity
and quality united as at his aunt's house, James showed that he
could appreciate them indeed; and hardly needed any of his cousin's
encouragement in draining off the second bottle supplied by Mr.
Bowls.

When the time for coffee came, however, and for a return to the
ladies, of whom he stood in awe, the young gentleman's agreeable
frankness left him, and he relapsed into his usual surly timidity;
contenting himself by saying yes and no, by scowling at Lady Jane,
and by upsetting one cup of coffee during the evening.

If he did not speak he yawned in a pitiable manner, and his presence
threw a damp upon the modest proceedings of the evening, for Miss
Crawley and Lady Jane at their piquet, and Miss Briggs at her work,
felt that his eyes were wildly fixed on them, and were uneasy under
that maudlin look.

"He seems a very silent, awkward, bashful lad," said Miss Crawley to
Mr. Pitt.

"He is more communicative in men's society than with ladies,"
Machiavel dryly replied:  perhaps rather disappointed that the port
wine had not made Jim speak more.

He had spent the early part of the next morning in writing home to
his mother a most flourishing account of his reception by Miss
Crawley.  But ah! he little knew what evils the day was bringing for
him, and how short his reign of favour was destined to be.  A
circumstance which Jim had forgotten--a trivial but fatal
circumstance--had taken place at the Cribb's Arms on the night
before he had come to his aunt's house.  It was no other than this--
Jim, who was always of a generous disposition, and when in his cups
especially hospitable, had in the course of the night treated the
Tutbury champion and the Rottingdean man, and their friends, twice
or thrice to the refreshment of gin-and-water--so that no less than
eighteen glasses of that fluid at eightpence per glass were charged
in Mr. James Crawley's bill.  It was not the amount of eightpences,
but the quantity of gin which told fatally against poor James's
character, when his aunt's butler, Mr. Bowls, went down at his
mistress's request to pay the young gentleman's bill.  The landlord,
fearing lest the account should be refused altogether, swore
solemnly that the young gent had consumed personally every
farthing's worth of the liquor:  and Bowls paid the bill finally,
and showed it on his return home to Mrs. Firkin, who was shocked at
the frightful prodigality of gin; and took the bill to Miss Briggs
as accountant-general; who thought it her duty to mention the
circumstance to her principal, Miss Crawley.

Had he drunk a dozen bottles of claret, the old spinster could have
pardoned him.  Mr. Fox and Mr. Sheridan drank claret.  Gentlemen
drank claret.  But eighteen glasses of gin consumed among boxers in
an ignoble pot-house--it was an odious crime and not to be pardoned
readily.  Everything went against the lad:  he came home perfumed
from the stables, whither he had been to pay his dog Towzer a visit--
and whence he was going to take his friend out for an airing, when
he met Miss Crawley and her wheezy Blenheim spaniel, which Towzer
would have eaten up had not the Blenheim fled squealing to the
protection of Miss Briggs, while the atrocious master of the bull-
dog stood laughing at the horrible persecution.

This day too the unlucky boy's modesty had likewise forsaken him.
He was lively and facetious at dinner. During the repast he levelled
one or two jokes against Pitt Crawley:  he drank as much wine as
upon the previous day; and going quite unsuspiciously to the
drawing-room, began to entertain the ladies there with some choice
Oxford stories.  He described the different pugilistic qualities of
Molyneux and Dutch Sam, offered playfully to give Lady Jane the odds
upon the Tutbury Pet against the Rottingdean man, or take them, as
her Ladyship chose: and crowned the pleasantry by proposing to back
himself against his cousin Pitt Crawley, either with or without the
gloves.  "And that's a fair offer, my buck," he said, with a loud
laugh, slapping Pitt on the shoulder, "and my father told me to make
it too, and he'll go halves in the bet, ha, ha!" So saying, the
engaging youth nodded knowingly at poor Miss Briggs, and pointed his
thumb over his shoulder at Pitt Crawley in a jocular and exulting
manner.

Pitt was not pleased altogether perhaps, but still not unhappy in
the main.  Poor Jim had his laugh out:  and staggered across the
room with his aunt's candle, when the old lady moved to retire, and
offered to salute her with the blandest tipsy smile:  and he took
his own leave and went upstairs to his bedroom perfectly satisfied
with himself, and with a pleased notion that his aunt's money would
be left to him in preference to his father and all the rest of the
family.

Once up in the bedroom, one would have thought he could not make
matters worse; and yet this unlucky boy did.  The moon was shining
very pleasantly out on the sea, and Jim, attracted to the window by
the romantic appearance of the ocean and the heavens, thought he
would further enjoy them while smoking.  Nobody would smell the
tobacco, he thought, if he cunningly opened the window and kept his
head and pipe in the fresh air. This he did:  but being in an
excited state, poor Jim had forgotten that his door was open all
this time, so that the breeze blowing inwards and a fine thorough
draught being established, the clouds of tobacco were carried
downstairs, and arrived with quite undiminished fragrance to Miss
Crawley and Miss Briggs.

The pipe of tobacco finished the business:  and the Bute-Crawleys
never knew how many thousand pounds it cost them.  Firkin rushed
downstairs to Bowls who was reading out the "Fire and the Frying
Pan" to his aide-de-camp in a loud and ghostly voice.  The dreadful
secret was told to him by Firkin with so frightened a look, that for
the first moment Mr. Bowls and his young man thought that robbers
were in the house, the legs of whom had probably been discovered by
the woman under Miss Crawley's bed.  When made aware of the fact,
however--to rush upstairs at three steps at a time to enter the
unconscious James's apartment, calling out, "Mr. James," in a voice
stifled with alarm, and to cry, "For Gawd's sake, sir, stop that
'ere pipe," was the work of a minute with Mr. Bowls.  "O, Mr. James,
what 'AVE you done!" he said in a voice of the deepest pathos, as he
threw the implement out of the window.  "What 'ave you done, sir!
Missis can't abide 'em."

"Missis needn't smoke," said James with a frantic misplaced laugh,
and thought the whole matter an excellent joke.  But his feelings
were very different in the morning, when Mr. Bowls's young man, who
operated upon Mr. James's boots, and brought him his hot water to
shave that beard which he was so anxiously expecting, handed a note
in to Mr. James in bed, in the handwriting of Miss Briggs.

"Dear sir," it said, "Miss Crawley has passed an exceedingly
disturbed night, owing to the shocking manner in which the house has
been polluted by tobacco; Miss Crawley bids me say she regrets that
she is too unwell to see you before you go--and above all that she
ever induced you to remove from the ale-house, where she is sure you
will be much more comfortable during the rest of your stay at
Brighton."

And herewith honest James's career as a candidate for his aunt's
favour ended.  He had in fact, and without knowing it, done what he
menaced to do.  He had fought his cousin Pitt with the gloves.

Where meanwhile was he who had been once first favourite for this
race for money? Becky and Rawdon, as we have seen, were come
together after Waterloo, and were passing the winter of 1815 at
Paris in great splendour and gaiety.  Rebecca was a good economist,
and the price poor Jos Sedley had paid for her two horses was in
itself sufficient to keep their little establishment afloat for a
year, at the least; there was no occasion to turn into money "my
pistols, the same which I shot Captain Marker," or the gold
dressing-case, or the cloak lined with sable.  Becky had it made
into a pelisse for herself, in which she rode in the Bois de
Boulogne to the admiration of all:  and you should have seen the
scene between her and her delighted husband, whom she rejoined after
the army had entered Cambray, and when she unsewed herself, and let
out of her dress all those watches, knick-knacks, bank-notes,
cheques, and valuables, which she had secreted in the wadding,
previous to her meditated flight from Brussels!  Tufto was charmed,
and Rawdon roared with delighted laughter, and swore that she was
better than any play he ever saw, by Jove. And the way in which she
jockeyed Jos, and which she described with infinite fun, carried up
his delight to a pitch of quite insane enthusiasm.  He believed in
his wife as much as the French soldiers in Napoleon.

Her success in Paris was remarkable.  All the French ladies voted
her charming.  She spoke their language admirably.  She adopted at
once their grace, their liveliness, their manner.  Her husband was
stupid certainly--all English are stupid--and, besides, a dull
husband at Paris is always a point in a lady's favour.  He was the
heir of the rich and spirituelle Miss Crawley, whose house had been
open to so many of the French noblesse during the emigration.  They
received the colonel's wife in their own hotels--"Why," wrote a
great lady to Miss Crawley, who had bought her lace and trinkets at
the Duchess's own price, and given her many a dinner during the
pinching times after the Revolution--"Why does not our dear Miss
come to her nephew and niece, and her attached friends in Paris? All
the world raffoles of the charming Mistress and her espiegle beauty.
Yes, we see in her the grace, the charm, the wit of our dear friend
Miss Crawley! The King took notice of her yesterday at the
Tuileries, and we are all jealous of the attention which Monsieur
pays her.  If you could have seen the spite of a certain stupid
Miladi Bareacres (whose eagle-beak and toque and feathers may be
seen peering over the heads of all assemblies) when Madame, the
Duchess of Angouleme, the august daughter and companion of kings,
desired especially to be presented to Mrs. Crawley, as your dear
daughter and protegee, and thanked her in the name of France, for
all your benevolence towards our unfortunates during their exile!
She is of all the societies, of all the balls--of the balls--yes--of
the dances, no; and yet how interesting and pretty this fair
creature looks surrounded by the homage of the men, and so soon to
be a mother!  To hear her speak of you, her protectress, her mother,
would bring tears to the eyes of ogres.  How she loves you! how we
all love our admirable, our respectable Miss Crawley!"

It is to be feared that this letter of the Parisian great lady did
not by any means advance Mrs. Becky's interest with her admirable,
her respectable, relative.  On the contrary, the fury of the old
spinster was beyond bounds, when she found what was Rebecca's
situation, and how audaciously she had made use of Miss Crawley's
name, to get an entree into Parisian society.  Too much shaken in
mind and body to compose a letter in the French language in reply to
that of her correspondent, she dictated to Briggs a furious answer
in her own native tongue, repudiating Mrs. Rawdon Crawley
altogether, and warning the public to beware of her as a most artful
and dangerous person.  But as Madame the Duchess of X--had only been
twenty years in England, she did not understand a single word of the
language, and contented herself by informing Mrs. Rawdon Crawley at
their next meeting, that she had received a charming letter from
that chere Mees, and that it was full of benevolent things for Mrs.
Crawley, who began seriously to have hopes that the spinster would
relent.

Meanwhile, she was the gayest and most admired of Englishwomen:  and
had a little European congress on her reception-night.  Prussians
and Cossacks, Spanish and English--all the world was at Paris during
this famous winter:  to have seen the stars and cordons in Rebecca's
humble saloon would have made all Baker Street pale with envy.
Famous warriors rode by her carriage in the Bois, or crowded her
modest little box at the Opera. Rawdon was in the highest spirits.
There were no duns in Paris as yet:  there were parties every day at
Very's or Beauvilliers'; play was plentiful and his luck good. Tufto
perhaps was sulky.  Mrs. Tufto had come over to Paris at her own
invitation, and besides this contretemps, there were a score of
generals now round Becky's chair, and she might take her choice of a
dozen bouquets when she went to the play.  Lady Bareacres and the
chiefs of the English society, stupid and irreproachable females,
writhed with anguish at the success of the little upstart Becky,
whose poisoned jokes quivered and rankled in their chaste breasts.
But she had all the men on her side.  She fought the women with
indomitable courage, and they could not talk scandal in any tongue
but their own.

So in fetes, pleasures, and prosperity, the winter of 1815-16 passed
away with Mrs. Rawdon Crawley, who accommodated herself to polite
life as if her ancestors had been people of fashion for centuries
past--and who from her wit, talent, and energy, indeed merited a
place of honour in Vanity Fair.  In the early spring of 1816,
Galignani's Journal contained the following announcement in an
interesting corner of the paper:  "On the 26th of March--the Lady of
Lieutenant-Colonel Crawley, of the Life Guards Green--of a son and
heir."

This event was copied into the London papers, out of which Miss
Briggs read the statement to Miss Crawley, at breakfast, at
Brighton.  The intelligence, expected as it might have been, caused
a crisis in the affairs of the Crawley family.  The spinster's rage
rose to its height, and sending instantly for Pitt, her nephew, and
for the Lady Southdown, from Brunswick Square, she requested an
immediate celebration of the marriage which had been so long pending
between the two families.  And she announced that it was her
intention to allow the young couple a thousand a year during her
lifetime, at the expiration of which the bulk of her property would
be settled upon her nephew and her dear niece, Lady Jane Crawley.
Waxy came down to ratify the deeds--Lord Southdown gave away his
sister--she was married by a Bishop, and not by the Rev.
Bartholomew Irons--to the disappointment of the irregular prelate.

When they were married, Pitt would have liked to take a hymeneal
tour with his bride, as became people of their condition.  But the
affection of the old lady towards Lady Jane had grown so strong,
that she fairly owned she could not part with her favourite.  Pitt
and his wife came therefore and lived with Miss Crawley: and
(greatly to the annoyance of poor Pitt, who conceived himself a most
injured character--being subject to the humours of his aunt on one
side, and of his mother-in-law on the other) Lady Southdown, from
her neighbouring house, reigned over the whole family--Pitt, Lady
Jane, Miss Crawley, Briggs, Bowls, Firkin, and all.  She pitilessly
dosed them with her tracts and her medicine, she dismissed Creamer,
she installed Rodgers, and soon stripped Miss Crawley of even the
semblance of authority.  The poor soul grew so timid that she
actually left off bullying Briggs any more, and clung to her niece,
more fond and terrified every day.  Peace to thee, kind and selfish,
vain and generous old heathen!--We shall see thee no more.  Let us
hope that Lady Jane supported her kindly, and led her with gentle
hand out of the busy struggle of Vanity Fair.



CHAPTER XXXV

Widow and Mother


The news of the great fights of Quatre Bras and Waterloo reached
England at the same time.  The Gazette first published the result of
the two battles; at which glorious intelligence all England thrilled
with triumph and fear. Particulars then followed; and after the
announcement of the victories came the list of the wounded and the
slain. Who can tell the dread with which that catalogue was opened
and read!  Fancy, at every village and homestead almost through the
three kingdoms, the great news coming of the battles in Flanders,
and the feelings of exultation and gratitude, bereavement and
sickening dismay, when the lists of the regimental losses were gone
through, and it became known whether the dear friend and relative
had escaped or fallen.  Anybody who will take the trouble of looking
back to a file of the newspapers of the time, must, even now, feel
at second-hand this breathless pause of expectation.  The lists of
casualties are carried on from day to day:  you stop in the midst as
in a story which is to be continued in our next.  Think what the
feelings must have been as those papers followed each other fresh
from the press; and if such an interest could be felt in our
country, and about a battle where but twenty thousand of our people
were engaged, think of the condition of Europe for twenty years
before, where people were fighting, not by thousands, but by
millions; each one of whom as he struck his enemy wounded horribly
some other innocent heart far away.

The news which that famous Gazette brought to the Osbornes gave a
dreadful shock to the family and its chief. The girls indulged
unrestrained in their grief.  The gloom-stricken old father was
still more borne down by his fate and sorrow.  He strove to think
that a judgment was on the boy for his disobedience.  He dared not
own that the severity of the sentence frightened him, and that its
fulfilment had come too soon upon his curses.  Sometimes a
shuddering terror struck him, as if he had been the author of the
doom which he had called down on his son.  There was a chance before
of reconciliation.  The boy's wife might have died; or he might have
come back and said, Father I have sinned.  But there was no hope
now.  He stood on the other side of the gulf impassable, haunting
his parent with sad eyes.  He remembered them once before so in a
fever, when every one thought the lad was dying, and he lay on his
bed speechless, and gazing with a dreadful gloom.  Good God! how the
father clung to the doctor then, and with what a sickening anxiety
he followed him:  what a weight of grief was off his mind when,
after the crisis of the fever, the lad recovered, and looked at his
father once more with eyes that recognised him. But now there was no
help or cure, or chance of reconcilement:  above all, there were no
humble words to soothe vanity outraged and furious, or bring to its
natural flow the poisoned, angry blood.  And it is hard to say which
pang it was that tore the proud father's heart most keenly--that his
son should have gone out of the reach of his forgiveness, or that
the apology which his own pride expected should have escaped him.

Whatever his sensations might have been, however, the stem old man
would have no confidant.  He never mentioned his son's name to his
daughters; but ordered the elder to place all the females of the
establishment in mourning; and desired that the male servants should
be similarly attired in deep black.  All parties and entertainments,
of course, were to be put off.  No communications were made to his
future son-in-law, whose marriage-day had been fixed:  but there was
enough in Mr. Osborne's appearance to prevent Mr. Bullock from
making any inquiries, or in any way pressing forward that ceremony.
He and the ladies whispered about it under their voices in the
drawing-room sometimes, whither the father never came.  He remained
constantly in his own study; the whole front part of the house being
closed until some time after the completion of the general mourning.

About three weeks after the 18th of June, Mr. Osborne's
acquaintance, Sir William Dobbin, called at Mr. Osborne's house in
Russell Square, with a very pale and agitated face, and insisted
upon seeing that gentleman. Ushered into his room, and after a few
words, which neither the speaker nor the host understood, the former
produced from an inclosure a letter sealed with a large red seal.
"My son, Major Dobbin," the Alderman said, with some hesitation,
"despatched me a letter by an officer of the --th, who arrived in
town to-day.  My son's letter contains one for you, Osborne." The
Alderman placed the letter on the table, and Osborne stared at him
for a moment or two in silence.  His looks frightened the
ambassador, who after looking guiltily for a little time at the
grief-stricken man, hurried away without another word.

The letter was in George's well-known bold handwriting. It was that
one which he had written before daybreak on the 16th of June, and
just before he took leave of Amelia.  The great red seal was
emblazoned with the sham coat of arms which Osborne had assumed from
the Peerage, with "Pax in bello" for a motto; that of the ducal
house with which the vain old man tried to fancy himself connected.
The hand that signed it would never hold pen or sword more.  The
very seal that sealed it had been robbed from George's dead body as
it lay on the field of battle.  The father knew nothing of this, but
sat and looked at the letter in terrified vacancy.  He almost fell
when he went to open it.

Have you ever had a difference with a dear friend? How his letters,
written in the period of love and confidence, sicken and rebuke you!
What a dreary mourning it is to dwell upon those vehement protests
of dead affection!  What lying epitaphs they make over the corpse of
love!  What dark, cruel comments upon Life and Vanities! Most of us
have got or written drawers full of them. They are closet-skeletons
which we keep and shun. Osborne trembled long before the letter from
his dead son.

The poor boy's letter did not say much.  He had been too proud to
acknowledge the tenderness which his heart felt.  He only said, that
on the eve of a great battle, he wished to bid his father farewell,
and solemnly to implore his good offices for the wife--it might be
for the child--whom he left behind him.  He owned with contrition
that his irregularities and his extravagance had already wasted a
large part of his mother's little fortune.  He thanked his father
for his former generous conduct; and he promised him that if he fell
on the field or survived it, he would act in a manner worthy of the
name of George Osborne.

His English habit, pride, awkwardness perhaps, had prevented him
from saying more.  His father could not see the kiss George had
placed on the superscription of his letter.  Mr. Osborne dropped it
with the bitterest, deadliest pang of balked affection and revenge.
His son was still beloved and unforgiven.

About two months afterwards, however, as the young ladies of the
family went to church with their father, they remarked how he took a
different seat from that which he usually occupied when he chose to
attend divine worship; and that from his cushion opposite, he looked
up at the wall over their heads.  This caused the young women
likewise to gaze in the direction towards which their father's
gloomy eyes pointed:  and they saw an elaborate monument upon the
wall, where Britannia was represented weeping over an urn, and a
broken sword and a couchant lion indicated that the piece of
sculpture had been erected in honour of a deceased warrior.  The
sculptors of those days had stocks of such funereal emblems in hand;
as you may see still on the walls of St. Paul's, which are covered
with hundreds of these braggart heathen allegories.  There was a
constant demand for them during the first fifteen years of the
present century.

Under the memorial in question were emblazoned the well-known and
pompous Osborne arms; and the inscription said, that the monument
was "Sacred to the memory of George Osborne, Junior, Esq., late a
Captain in his Majesty's --th regiment of foot, who fell on the 18th
of June, 1815, aged 28 years, while fighting for his king and
country in the glorious victory of Waterloo. Dulce et decorum est
pro patria mori."

The sight of that stone agitated the nerves of the sisters so much,
that Miss Maria was compelled to leave the church.  The congregation
made way respectfully for those sobbing girls clothed in deep black,
and pitied the stern old father seated opposite the memorial of the
dead soldier.  "Will he forgive Mrs. George?" the girls said to
themselves as soon as their ebullition of grief was over. Much
conversation passed too among the acquaintances of the Osborne
family, who knew of the rupture between the son and father caused by
the former's marriage, as to the chance of a reconciliation with the
young widow. There were bets among the gentlemen both about Russell
Square and in the City.

If the sisters had any anxiety regarding the possible recognition of
Amelia as a daughter of the family, it was increased presently, and
towards the end of the autumn, by their father's announcement that
he was going abroad.  He did not say whither, but they knew at once
that his steps would be turned towards Belgium, and were aware that
George's widow was still in Brussels.  They had pretty accurate news
indeed of poor Amelia from Lady Dobbin and her daughters.  Our
honest Captain had been promoted in consequence of the death of the
second Major of the regiment on the field; and the brave O'Dowd, who
had distinguished himself greatly here as upon all occasions where
he had a chance to show his coolness and valour, was a Colonel and
Companion of the Bath.

Very many of the brave --th, who had suffered severely upon both days
of action, were still at Brussels in the autumn, recovering of their
wounds.  The city was a vast military hospital for months after the
great battles; and as men and officers began to rally from their
hurts, the gardens and places of public resort swarmed with maimed
warriors, old and young, who, just rescued out of death, fell to
gambling, and gaiety, and love-making, as people of Vanity Fair will
do.  Mr. Osborne found out some of the --th easily.  He knew their
uniform quite well, and had been used to follow all the promotions
and exchanges in the regiment, and loved to talk about it and its
officers as if he had been one of the number.  On the day after his
arrival at Brussels, and as he issued from his hotel, which faced
the park, he saw a soldier in the well-known facings, reposing on a
stone bench in the garden, and went and sate down trembling by the
wounded convalescent man.

"Were you in Captain Osborne's company?" he said, and added, after a
pause, "he was my son, sir."

The man was not of the Captain's company, but he lifted up his
unwounded arm and touched-his cap sadly and respectfully to the
haggard broken-spirited gentleman who questioned him.  "The whole
army didn't contain a finer or a better officer," the soldier said.
"The Sergeant of the Captain's company (Captain Raymond had it now),
was in town, though, and was just well of a shot in the shoulder.
His honour might see him if he liked, who could tell him anything he
wanted to know about--about the --th's actions.  But his honour had
seen Major Dobbin, no doubt, the brave Captain's great friend; and
Mrs. Osborne, who was here too, and had been very bad, he heard
everybody say.  They say she was out of her mind like for six weeks
or more.  But your honour knows all about that--and asking your
pardon"--the man added.

Osborne put a guinea into the soldier's hand, and told him he should
have another if he would bring the Sergeant to the Hotel du Parc; a
promise which very soon brought the desired officer to Mr. Osborne's
presence. And the first soldier went away; and after telling a
comrade or two how Captain Osborne's father was arrived, and what a
free-handed generous gentleman he was, they went and made good cheer
with drink and feasting, as long as the guineas lasted which had
come from the proud purse of the mourning old father.

In the Sergeant's company, who was also just convalescent, Osborne
made the journey of Waterloo and Quatre Bras, a journey which
thousands of his countrymen were then taking.  He took the Sergeant
with him in his carriage, and went through both fields under his
guidance.  He saw the point of the road where the regiment marched
into action on the 16th, and the slope down which they drove the
French cavalry who were pressing on the retreating Belgians.  There
was the spot where the noble Captain cut down the French officer who
was grappling with the young Ensign for the colours, the Colour-
Sergeants having been shot down.  Along this road they retreated on
the next day, and here was the bank at which the regiment bivouacked
under the rain of the night of the seventeenth.  Further on was the
position which they took and held during the day, forming time after
time to receive the charge of the enemy's horsemen and lying down
under the shelter of the bank from the furious French cannonade.
And it was at this declivity when at evening the whole English line
received the order to advance, as the enemy fell back after his last
charge, that the Captain, hurraying and rushing down the hill waving
his sword, received a shot and fell dead.  "It was Major Dobbin who
took back the Captain's body to Brussels," the Sergeant said, in a
low voice, "and had him buried, as your honour knows." The peasants
and relic-hunters about the place were screaming round the pair, as
the soldier told his story, offering for sale all sorts of mementoes
of the fight, crosses, and epaulets, and shattered cuirasses, and
eagles.

Osborne gave a sumptuous reward to the Sergeant when he parted with
him, after having visited the scenes of his son's last exploits.
His burial-place he had already seen.  Indeed, he had driven thither
immediately after his arrival at Brussels.  George's body lay in the
pretty burial-ground of Laeken, near the city; in which place,
having once visited it on a party of pleasure, he had lightly
expressed a wish to have his grave made.  And there the young
officer was laid by his friend, in the unconsecrated corner of the
garden, separated by a little hedge from the temples and towers and
plantations of flowers and shrubs, under which the Roman Catholic
dead repose.  It seemed a humiliation to old Osborne to think that
his son, an English gentleman, a captain in the famous British army,
should not be found worthy to lie in ground where mere foreigners
were buried.  Which of us is there can tell how much vanity lurks in
our warmest regard for others, and how selfish our love is? Old
Osborne did not speculate much upon the mingled nature of his
feelings, and how his instinct and selfishness were combating
together.  He firmly believed that everything he did was right, that
he ought on all occasions to have his own way--and like the sting of
a wasp or serpent his hatred rushed out armed and poisonous against
anything like opposition.  He was proud of his hatred as of
everything else.  Always to be right, always to trample forward, and
never to doubt, are not these the great qualities with which
dullness takes the lead in the world?

As after the drive to Waterloo, Mr. Osborne's carriage was nearing
the gates of the city at sunset, they met another open barouche, in
which were a couple of ladies and a gentleman, and by the side of
which an officer was riding.  Osborne gave a start back, and the
Sergeant, seated with him, cast a look of surprise at his neighbour,
as he touched his cap to the officer, who mechanically returned his
salute.  It was Amelia, with the lame young Ensign by her side, and
opposite to her her faithful friend Mrs. O'Dowd.  It was Amelia, but
how changed from the fresh and comely girl Osborne knew.  Her face
was white and thin.  Her pretty brown hair was parted under a
widow's cap--the poor child.  Her eyes were fixed, and looking
nowhere.  They stared blank in the face of Osborne, as the carriages
crossed each other, but she did not know him; nor did he recognise
her, until looking up, he saw Dobbin riding by her:  and then he
knew who it was.  He hated her.  He did not know how much until he
saw her there.  When her carriage had passed on, he turned and
stared at the Sergeant, with a curse and defiance in his eye cast at
his companion, who could not help looking at him--as much as to say
"How dare you look at me? Damn you!  I do hate her.  It is she who
has tumbled my hopes and all my pride down." "Tell the scoundrel to
drive on quick," he shouted with an oath, to the lackey on the box.
A minute afterwards, a horse came clattering over the pavement
behind Osborne's carriage, and Dobbin rode up.  His thoughts had
been elsewhere as the carriages passed each other, and it was not
until he had ridden some paces forward, that he remembered it was
Osborne who had just passed him.  Then he turned to examine if the
sight of her father-in-law had made any impression on Amelia, but
the poor girl did not know who had passed.  Then William, who daily
used to accompany her in his drives, taking out his watch, made some
excuse about an engagement which he suddenly recollected, and so
rode off.  She did not remark that either:  but sate looking before
her, over the homely landscape towards the woods in the distance, by
which George marched away.

"Mr. Osborne, Mr. Osborne!" cried Dobbin, as he rode up and held out
his hand.  Osborne made no motion to take it, but shouted out once
more and with another curse to his servant to drive on.

Dobbin laid his hand on the carriage side.  "I will see you, sir,"
he said.  "I have a message for you."

"From that woman?" said Osborne, fiercely.

"No," replied the other, "from your son"; at which Osborne fell back
into the corner of his carriage, and Dobbin allowing it to pass on,
rode close behind it, and so through the town until they reached Mr.
Osborne's hotel, and without a word.  There he followed Osborne up
to his apartments.  George had often been in the rooms; they were
the lodgings which the Crawleys had occupied during their stay in
Brussels.

"Pray, have you any commands for me, Captain Dobbin, or, I beg your
pardon, I should say MAJOR Dobbin, since better men than you are
dead, and you step into their SHOES?" said Mr. Osborne, in that
sarcastic tone which he sometimes was pleased to assume.

"Better men ARE dead," Dobbin replied.  "I want to speak to you
about one."

"Make it short, sir," said the other with an oath, scowling at his
visitor.

"I am here as his closest friend," the Major resumed, "and the
executor of his will.  He made it before he went into action.  Are
you aware how small his means are, and of the straitened
circumstances of his widow?"

"I don't know his widow, sir," Osborne said.  "Let her go back to
her father." But the gentleman whom he addressed was determined to
remain in good temper, and went on without heeding the interruption.

"Do you know, sir, Mrs. Osborne's condition? Her life and her reason
almost have been shaken by the blow which has fallen on her.  It is
very doubtful whether she will rally.  There is a chance left for
her, however, and it is about this I came to speak to you.  She will
be a mother soon.  Will you visit the parent's offence upon the
child's head? or will you forgive the child for poor George's sake?"

Osborne broke out into a rhapsody of self-praise and imprecations;--
by the first, excusing himself to his own conscience for his
conduct; by the second, exaggerating the undutifulness of George.
No father in all England could have behaved more generously to a
son, who had rebelled against him wickedly.  He had died without
even so much as confessing he was wrong.  Let him take the
consequences of his undutifulness and folly.  As for himself, Mr.
Osborne, he was a man of his word.  He had sworn never to speak to
that woman, or to recognize her as his son's wife.  "And that's what
you may tell her," he concluded with an oath; "and that's what I
will stick to to the last day of my life."

There was no hope from that quarter then.  The widow must live on
her slender pittance, or on such aid as Jos could give her.  "I
might tell her, and she would not heed it," thought Dobbin, sadly:
for the poor girl's thoughts were not here at all since her
catastrophe, and, stupefied under the pressure of her sorrow, good
and evil were alike indifferent to her.

So, indeed, were even friendship and kindness.  She received them
both uncomplainingly, and having accepted them, relapsed into her
grief.

Suppose some twelve months after the above conversation took place
to have passed in the life of our poor Amelia.  She has spent the
first portion of that time in a sorrow so profound and pitiable,
that we who have been watching and describing some of the emotions
of that weak and tender heart, must draw back in the presence of the
cruel grief under which it is bleeding.  Tread silently round the
hapless couch of the poor prostrate soul. Shut gently the door of
the dark chamber wherein she suffers, as those kind people did who
nursed her through the first months of her pain, and never left her
until heaven had sent her consolation.  A day came--of almost
terrified delight and wonder--when the poor widowed girl pressed a
child upon her breast--a child, with the eyes of George who was
gone--a little boy, as beautiful as a cherub.  What a miracle it was
to hear its first cry!  How she laughed and wept over it--how love,
and hope, and prayer woke again in her bosom as the baby nestled
there.  She was safe.  The doctors who attended her, and had feared
for her life or for her brain, had waited anxiously for this crisis
before they could pronounce that either was secure.  It was worth
the long months of doubt and dread which the persons who had
constantly been with her had passed, to see her eyes once more
beaming tenderly upon them.

Our friend Dobbin was one of them.  It was he who brought her back
to England and to her mother's house; when Mrs. O'Dowd, receiving a
peremptory summons from her Colonel, had been forced to quit her
patient. To see Dobbin holding the infant, and to hear Amelia's
laugh of triumph as she watched him, would have done any man good
who had a sense of humour.  William was the godfather of the child,
and exerted his ingenuity in the purchase of cups, spoons, pap-
boats, and corals for this little Christian.

How his mother nursed him, and dressed him, and lived upon him; how
she drove away all nurses, and would scarce allow any hand but her
own to touch him; how she considered that the greatest favour she
could confer upon his godfather, Major Dobbin, was to allow the
Major occasionally to dandle him, need not be told here.  This child
was her being.  Her existence was a maternal caress.  She enveloped
the feeble and unconscious creature with love and worship.  It was
her life which the baby drank in from her bosom.  Of nights, and
when alone, she had stealthy and intense raptures of motherly love,
such as God's marvellous care has awarded to the female instinct--
joys how far higher and lower than reason--blind beautiful devotions
which only women's hearts know.  It was William Dobbin's task to
muse upon these movements of Amelia's, and to watch her heart; and
if his love made him divine almost all the feelings which agitated
it, alas! he could see with a fatal perspicuity that there was no
place there for him.  And so, gently, he bore his fate, knowing it,
and content to bear it.

I suppose Amelia's father and mother saw through the intentions of
the Major, and were not ill-disposed to encourage him; for Dobbin
visited their house daily, and stayed for hours with them, or with
Amelia, or with the honest landlord, Mr. Clapp, and his family.  He
brought, on one pretext or another, presents to everybody, and
almost every day; and went, with the landlord's little girl, who was
rather a favourite with Amelia, by the name of Major Sugarplums.  It
was this little child who commonly acted as mistress of the
ceremonies to introduce him to Mrs. Osborne.  She laughed one day
when Major Sugarplums' cab drove up to Fulham, and he descended from
it, bringing out a wooden horse, a drum, a trumpet, and other
warlike toys, for little Georgy, who was scarcely six months old,
and for whom the articles in question were entirely premature.

The child was asleep.  "Hush," said Amelia, annoyed, perhaps, at the
creaking of the Major's boots; and she held out her hand; smiling
because William could not take it until he had rid himself of his
cargo of toys.  "Go downstairs, little Mary," said he presently to
the child, "I want to speak to Mrs. Osborne." She looked up rather
astonished, and laid down the infant on its bed.

"I am come to say good-bye, Amelia," said he, taking her slender
little white hand gently.

"Good-bye? and where are you going?" she said, with a smile.

"Send the letters to the agents," he said; "they will forward them;
for you will write to me, won't you? I shall be away a long time."

"I'll write to you about Georgy," she said.  "Dear' William, how
good you have been to him and to me.  Look at him.  Isn't he like an
angel?"

The little pink hands of the child closed mechanically round the
honest soldier's finger, and Amelia looked up in his face with
bright maternal pleasure.  The cruellest looks could not have
wounded him more than that glance of hopeless kindness.  He bent
over the child and mother. He could not speak for a moment.  And it
was only with all his strength that he could force himself to say a
God bless you.  "God bless you," said Amelia, and held up her face
and kissed him.

"Hush!  Don't wake Georgy!" she added, as William Dobbin went to the
door with heavy steps.  She did not hear the noise of his cab-wheels
as he drove away:  she was looking at the child, who was laughing in
his sleep.



CHAPTER XXXVI

How to Live Well on Nothing a Year


I suppose there is no man in this Vanity Fair of ours so little
observant as not to think sometimes about the worldly affairs of his
acquaintances, or so extremely charitable as not to wonder how his
neighbour Jones, or his neighbour Smith, can make both ends meet at
the end of the year.  With the utmost regard for the family, for
instance (for I dine with them twice or thrice in the season), I
cannot but own that the appearance of the Jenkinses in the park, in
the large barouche with the grenadier-footmen, will surprise and
mystify me to my dying day:  for though I know the equipage is only
jobbed, and all the Jenkins people are on board wages, yet those
three men and the carriage must represent an expense of six hundred
a year at the very least--and then there are the splendid dinners,
the two boys at Eton, the prize governess and masters for the girls,
the trip abroad, or to Eastbourne or Worthing, in the autumn, the
annual ball with a supper from Gunter's (who, by the way, supplies
most of the first-rate dinners which J.  gives, as I know very well,
having been invited to one of them to fill a vacant place, when I
saw at once that these repasts are very superior to the common run
of entertainments for which the humbler sort of J.'s acquaintances
get cards)--who, I say, with the most good-natured feelings in the
world, can help wondering how the Jenkinses make out matters? What
is Jenkins? We all know--Commissioner of the Tape and Sealing Wax
Office, with 1200 pounds a year for a salary.  Had his wife a
private fortune? Pooh!--Miss Flint--one of eleven children of a
small squire in Buckinghamshire.  All she ever gets from her family
is a turkey at Christmas, in exchange for which she has to board two
or three of her sisters in the off season, and lodge and feed her
brothers when they come to town.  How does Jenkins balance his
income? I say, as every friend of his must say, How is it that he
has not been outlawed long since, and that he ever came back (as he
did to the surprise of everybody) last year from Boulogne?

"I" is here introduced to personify the world in general--the Mrs.
Grundy of each respected reader's private circle--every one of whom
can point to some families of his acquaintance who live nobody knows
how.  Many a glass of wine have we all of us drunk, I have very
little doubt, hob-and-nobbing with the hospitable giver and
wondering how the deuce he paid for it.

Some three or four years after his stay in Paris, when Rawdon
Crawley and his wife were established in a very small comfortable
house in Curzon Street, May Fair, there was scarcely one of the
numerous friends whom they entertained at dinner that did not ask
the above question regarding them.  The novelist, it has been said
before, knows everything, and as I am in a situation to be able to
tell the public how Crawley and his wife lived without any income,
may I entreat the public newspapers which are in the habit of
extracting portions of the various periodical works now published
not to reprint the following exact narrative and calculations--of
which I ought, as the discoverer (and at some expense, too), to have
the benefit? My son, I would say, were I blessed with a child--you
may by deep inquiry and constant intercourse with him learn how a
man lives comfortably on nothing a year.  But it is best not to be
intimate with gentlemen of this profession and to take the
calculations at second hand, as you do logarithms, for to work them
yourself, depend upon it, will cost you something considerable.

On nothing per annum then, and during a course of some two or three
years, of which we can afford to give but a very brief history,
Crawley and his wife lived very happily and comfortably at Paris.
It was in this period that he quitted the Guards and sold out of the
army.  When we find him again, his mustachios and the title of
Colonel on his card are the only relics of his military profession.

It has been mentioned that Rebecca, soon after her arrival in Paris,
took a very smart and leading position in the society of that
capital, and was welcomed at some of the most distinguished houses
of the restored French nobility.  The English men of fashion in
Paris courted her, too, to the disgust of the ladies their wives,
who could not bear the parvenue.  For some months the salons of the
Faubourg St.  Germain, in which her place was secured, and the
splendours of the new Court, where she was received with much
distinction, delighted and perhaps a little intoxicated Mrs.
Crawley, who may have been disposed during this period of elation to
slight the people--honest young military men mostly--who formed her
husband's chief society.

But the Colonel yawned sadly among the Duchesses and great ladies of
the Court.  The old women who played ecarte made such a noise about
a five-franc piece that it was not worth Colonel Crawley's while to
sit down at a card-table.  The wit of their conversation he could
not appreciate, being ignorant of their language. And what good
could his wife get, he urged, by making curtsies every night to a
whole circle of Princesses? He left Rebecca presently to frequent
these parties alone, resuming his own simple pursuits and amusements
amongst the amiable friends of his own choice.

The truth is, when we say of a gentleman that he lives elegantly on
nothing a year, we use the word "nothing" to signify something
unknown; meaning, simply, that we don't know how the gentleman in
question defrays the expenses of his establishment.  Now, our friend
the Colonel had a great aptitude for all games of chance: and
exercising himself, as he continually did, with the cards, the dice-
box, or the cue, it is natural to suppose that he attained a much
greater skill in the use of these articles than men can possess who
only occasionally handle them.  To use a cue at billiards well is
like using a pencil, or a German flute, or a small-sword--you cannot
master any one of these implements at first, and it is only by
repeated study and perseverance, joined to a natural taste, that a
man can excel in the handling of either. Now Crawley, from being
only a brilliant amateur, had grown to be a consummate master of
billiards.  Like a great General, his genius used to rise with the
danger, and when the luck had been unfavourable to him for a whole
game, and the bets were consequently against him, he would, with
consummate skill and boldness, make some prodigious hits which would
restore the battle, and come in a victor at the end, to the
astonishment of everybody--of everybody, that is, who was a stranger
to his play.  Those who were accustomed to see it were cautious how
they staked their money against a man of such sudden resources and
brilliant and overpowering skill.

At games of cards he was equally skilful; for though he would
constantly lose money at the commencement of an evening, playing so
carelessly and making such blunders, that newcomers were often
inclined to think meanly of his talent; yet when roused to action
and awakened to caution by repeated small losses, it was remarked
that Crawley's play became quite different, and that he was pretty
sure of beating his enemy thoroughly before the night was over.
Indeed, very few men could say that they ever had the better of him.
His successes were so repeated that no wonder the envious and the
vanquished spoke sometimes with bitterness regarding them.  And as
the French say of the Duke of Wellington, who never suffered a
defeat, that only an astonishing series of lucky accidents enabled
him to be an invariable winner; yet even they allow that he cheated
at Waterloo, and was enabled to win the last great trick:  so it was
hinted at headquarters in England that some foul play must have
taken place in order to account for the continuous successes of
Colonel Crawley.

Though Frascati's and the Salon were open at that time in Paris, the
mania for play was so widely spread that the public gambling-rooms
did not suffice for the general ardour, and gambling went on in
private houses as much as if there had been no public means for
gratifying the passion.  At Crawley's charming little reunions of an
evening this fatal amusement commonly was practised--much to good-
natured little Mrs. Crawley's annoyance. She spoke about her
husband's passion for dice with the deepest grief; she bewailed it
to everybody who came to her house.  She besought the young fellows
never, never to touch a box; and when young Green, of the Rifles,
lost a very considerable sum of money, Rebecca passed a whole night
in tears, as the servant told the unfortunate young gentleman, and
actually went on her knees to her husband to beseech him to remit
the debt, and burn the acknowledgement.  How could he? He had lost
just as much himself to Blackstone of the Hussars, and Count Punter
of the Hanoverian Cavalry.  Green might have any decent time; but
pay?--of course he must pay; to talk of burning IOU's was child's
play.

Other officers, chiefly young--for the young fellows gathered round
Mrs. Crawley--came from her parties with long faces, having dropped
more or less money at her fatal card-tables.  Her house began to
have an unfortunate reputation.  The old hands warned the less
experienced of their danger.  Colonel O'Dowd, of the --th regiment,
one of those occupying in Paris, warned Lieutenant Spooney of that
corps.  A loud and violent fracas took place between the infantry
Colonel and his lady, who were dining at the Cafe de Paris, and
Colonel and Mrs. Crawley; who were also taking their meal there. The
ladies engaged on both sides.  Mrs. O'Dowd snapped her fingers in
Mrs. Crawley's face and called her husband "no betther than a black-
leg." Colonel Crawley challenged Colonel O'Dowd, C.B.  The
Commander-in-Chief hearing of the dispute sent for Colonel Crawley,
who was getting ready the same pistols "which he shot Captain
Marker," and had such a conversation with him that no duel took
place.  If Rebecca had not gone on her knees to General Tufto,
Crawley would have been sent back to England; and he did not play,
except with civilians, for some weeks after.

But, in spite of Rawdon's undoubted skill and constant successes, it
became evident to Rebecca, considering these things, that their
position was but a precarious one, and that, even although they paid
scarcely anybody, their little capital would end one day by
dwindling into zero.  "Gambling," she would say, "dear, is good to
help your income, but not as an income itself.  Some day people may
be tired of play, and then where are we?" Rawdon acquiesced in the
justice of her opinion; and in truth he had remarked that after a
few nights of his little suppers, &c., gentlemen were tired of play
with him, and, in spite of Rebecca's charms, did not present
themselves very eagerly.

Easy and pleasant as their life at Paris was, it was after all only
an idle dalliance and amiable trifling; and Rebecca saw that she
must push Rawdon's fortune in their own country.  She must get him a
place or appointment at home or in the colonies, and she determined
to make a move upon England as soon as the way could be cleared for
her.  As a first step she had made Crawley sell out of the Guards
and go on half-pay.  His function as aide-de-camp to General Tufto
had ceased previously. Rebecca laughed in all companies at that
officer, at his toupee (which he mounted on coming to Paris), at his
waistband, at his false teeth, at his pretensions to be a lady-
killer above all, and his absurd vanity in fancying every woman whom
he came near was in love with him.  It was to Mrs. Brent, the
beetle-browed wife of Mr. Commissary Brent, to whom the general
transferred his attentions now--his bouquets, his dinners at the
restaurateurs', his opera-boxes, and his knick-knacks.  Poor Mrs.
Tufto was no more happy than before, and had still to pass long
evenings alone with her daughters, knowing that her General was gone
off scented and curled to stand behind Mrs. Brent's chair at the
play.  Becky had a dozen admirers in his place, to be sure, and
could cut her rival to pieces with her wit.  But, as we have said,
she. was growing tired of this idle social life:  opera-boxes and
restaurateur dinners palled upon her:  nosegays could not be laid by
as a provision for future years:  and she could not live upon knick-
knacks, laced handkerchiefs, and kid gloves.  She felt the frivolity
of pleasure and longed for more substantial benefits.

At this juncture news arrived which was spread among the many
creditors of the Colonel at Paris, and which caused them great
satisfaction.  Miss Crawley, the rich aunt from whom he expected his
immense inheritance, was dying; the Colonel must haste to her
bedside.  Mrs. Crawley and her child would remain behind until he
came to reclaim them.  He departed for Calais, and having reached
that place in safety, it might have been supposed that he went to
Dover; but instead he took the diligence to Dunkirk, and thence
travelled to Brussels, for which place he had a former predilection.
The fact is, he owed more money at London than at Paris; and he
preferred the quiet little Belgian city to either of the more noisy
capitals.

Her aunt was dead.  Mrs. Crawley ordered the most intense mourning
for herself and little Rawdon.  The Colonel was busy arranging the
affairs of the inheritance.  They could take the premier now,
instead of the little entresol of the hotel which they occupied.
Mrs. Crawley and the landlord had a consultation about the new
hangings, an amicable wrangle about the carpets, and a final
adjustment of everything except the bill.  She went off in one of
his carriages; her French bonne with her; the child by her side; the
admirable landlord and landlady smiling farewell to her from the
gate.  General Tufto was furious when he heard she was gone, and
Mrs. Brent furious with him for being furious; Lieutenant Spooney
was cut to the heart; and the landlord got ready his best apartments
previous to the return of the fascinating little woman and her
husband.  He _serred_ the trunks which she left in his charge with
the greatest care.  They had been especially recommended to him by
Madame Crawley.  They were not, however, found to be particularly
valuable when opened some time after.

But before she went to join her husband in the Belgic capital, Mrs.
Crawley made an expedition into England, leaving behind her her
little son upon the continent, under the care of her French maid.

The parting between Rebecca and the little Rawdon did not cause
either party much pain.  She had not, to say truth, seen much of the
young gentleman since his birth. After the amiable fashion of French
mothers, she had placed him out at nurse in a village in the
neighbourhood of Paris, where little Rawdon passed the first months
of his life, not unhappily, with a numerous family of foster-
brothers in wooden shoes.  His father would ride over many a time to
see him here, and the elder Rawdon's paternal heart glowed to see
him rosy and dirty, shouting lustily, and happy in the making of
mud-pies under the superintendence of the gardener's wife, his
nurse.

Rebecca did not care much to go and see the son and heir.  Once he
spoiled a new dove-coloured pelisse of hers.  He preferred his
nurse's caresses to his mamma's, and when finally he quitted that
jolly nurse and almost parent, he cried loudly for hours.  He was
only consoled by his mother's promise that he should return to his
nurse the next day; indeed the nurse herself, who probably would
have been pained at the parting too, was told that the child would
immediately be restored to her, and for some time awaited quite
anxiously his return.

In fact, our friends may be said to have been among the first of
that brood of hardy English adventurers who have subsequently
invaded the Continent and swindled in all the capitals of Europe.
The respect in those happy days of 1817-18 was very great for the
wealth and honour of Britons.  They had not then learned, as I am
told, to haggle for bargains with the pertinacity which now
distinguishes them.  The great cities of Europe had not been as yet
open to the enterprise of our rascals. And whereas there is now
hardly a town of France or Italy in which you shall not see some
noble countryman of our own, with that happy swagger and insolence
of demeanour which we carry everywhere, swindling inn-landlords,
passing fictitious cheques upon credulous bankers, robbing coach-
makers of their carriages, goldsmiths of their trinkets, easy
travellers of their money at cards, even public libraries of their
books--thirty years ago you needed but to be a Milor Anglais,
travelling in a private carriage, and credit was at your hand
wherever you chose to seek it, and gentlemen, instead of cheating,
were cheated.  It was not for some weeks after the Crawleys'
departure that the landlord of the hotel which they occupied during
their residence at Paris found out the losses which he had
sustained:  not until Madame Marabou, the milliner, made repeated
visits with her little bill for articles supplied to Madame Crawley;
not until Monsieur Didelot from Boule d'Or in the Palais Royal had
asked half a dozen times whether cette charmante Miladi who had
bought watches and bracelets of him was de retour. It is a fact that
even the poor gardener's wife, who had nursed madame's child, was
never paid after the first six months for that supply of the milk of
human kindness with which she had furnished the lusty and healthy
little Rawdon.  No, not even the nurse was paid--the Crawleys were
in too great a hurry to remember their trifling debt to her.  As for
the landlord of the hotel, his curses against the English nation
were violent for the rest of his natural life.  He asked all
travellers whether they knew a certain Colonel Lor Crawley--avec sa
femme une petite dame, tres spirituelle.  "Ah, Monsieur!" he would
add--"ils m'ont affreusement vole." It was melancholy to hear his
accents as he spoke of that catastrophe.

Rebecca's object in her journey to London was to effect a kind of
compromise with her husband's numerous creditors, and by offering
them a dividend of ninepence or a shilling in the pound, to secure a
return for him into his own country.  It does not become us to trace
the steps which she took in the conduct of this most difficult
negotiation; but, having shown them to their satisfaction that the
sum which she was empowered to offer was all her husband's available
capital, and having convinced them that Colonel Crawley would prefer
a perpetual retirement on the Continent to a residence in this
country with his debts unsettled; having proved to them that there
was no possibility of money accruing to him from other quarters, and
no earthly chance of their getting a larger dividend than that which
she was empowered to offer, she brought the Colonel's creditors
unanimously to accept her proposals, and purchased with fifteen
hundred pounds of ready money more than ten times that amount of
debts.

Mrs. Crawley employed no lawyer in the transaction. The matter was
so simple, to have or to leave, as she justly observed, that she
made the lawyers of the creditors themselves do the business.  And
Mr. Lewis representing Mr. Davids, of Red Lion Square, and Mr. Moss
acting for Mr. Manasseh of Cursitor Street (chief creditors of the
Colonel's), complimented his lady upon the brilliant way in which
she did business, and declared that there was no professional man
who could beat her.

Rebecca received their congratulations with perfect modesty; ordered
a bottle of sherry and a bread cake to the little dingy lodgings
where she dwelt, while conducting the business, to treat the enemy's
lawyers: shook hands with them at parting, in excellent good humour,
and returned straightway to the Continent, to rejoin her husband and
son and acquaint the former with the glad news of his entire
liberation.  As for the latter, he had been considerably neglected
during his mother's absence by Mademoiselle Genevieve, her French
maid; for that young woman, contracting an attachment for a soldier
in the garrison of Calais, forgot her charge in the society of this
militaire, and little Rawdon very narrowly escaped drowning on
Calais sands at this period, where the absent Genevieve had left and
lost him.

And so, Colonel and Mrs. Crawley came to London: and it is at their
house in Curzon Street, May Fair, that they really showed the skill
which must be possessed by those who would live on the resources
above named.



CHAPTER XXXVII

The Subject Continued


In the first place, and as a matter of the greatest necessity, we
are bound to describe how a house may be got for nothing a year.
These mansions are to be had either unfurnished, where, if you have
credit with Messrs.  Gillows or Bantings, you can get them
splendidly montees and decorated entirely according to your own
fancy; or they are to be let furnished, a less troublesome and
complicated arrangement to most parties.  It was so that Crawley and
his wife preferred to hire their house.

Before Mr. Bowls came to preside over Miss Crawley's house and
cellar in Park Lane, that lady had had for a butler a Mr. Raggles,
who was born on the family estate of Queen's Crawley, and indeed was
a younger son of a gardener there.  By good conduct, a handsome
person and calves, and a grave demeanour, Raggles rose from the
knife-board to the footboard of the carriage; from the footboard to
the butler's pantry.  When he had been a certain number of years at
the head of Miss Crawley's establishment, where he had had good
wages, fat perquisites, and plenty of opportunities of saving, he
announced that he was about to contract a matrimonial alliance with
a late cook of Miss Crawley's, who had subsisted in an honourable
manner by the exercise of a mangle, and the keeping of a small
greengrocer's shop in the neighbourhood.  The truth is, that the
ceremony had been clandestinely performed some years back; although
the news of Mr. Raggles' marriage was first brought to Miss Crawley
by a little boy and girl of seven and eight years of age, whose
continual presence in the kitchen had attracted the attention of
Miss Briggs.

Mr. Raggles then retired and personally undertook the
superintendence of the small shop and the greens.  He added milk and
cream, eggs and country-fed pork to his stores, contenting himself
whilst other retired butlers were vending spirits in public houses,
by dealing in the simplest country produce.  And having a good
connection amongst the butlers in the neighbourhood, and a snug back
parlour where he and Mrs. Raggles received them, his milk, cream,
and eggs got to be adopted by many of the fraternity, and his
profits increased every year.  Year after year he quietly and
modestly amassed money, and when at length that snug and complete
bachelor's residence at No. 201, Curzon Street, May Fair, lately the
residence of the Honourable Frederick Deuceace, gone abroad, with
its rich and appropriate furniture by the first makers, was brought
to the hammer, who should go in and purchase the lease and furniture
of the house but Charles Raggles? A part of the money he borrowed,
it is true, and at rather a high interest, from a brother butler,
but the chief part he paid down, and it was with no small pride that
Mrs. Raggles found herself sleeping in a bed of carved mahogany,
with silk curtains, with a prodigious cheval glass opposite to her,
and a wardrobe which would contain her, and Raggles, and all the
family.

Of course, they did not intend to occupy permanently an apartment so
splendid.  It was in order to let the house again that Raggles
purchased it.  As soon as a tenant was found, he subsided into the
greengrocer's shop once more; but a happy thing it was for him to
walk out of that tenement and into Curzon Street, and there survey
his house--his own house--with geraniums in the window and a carved
bronze knocker.  The footman occasionally lounging at the area
railing, treated him with respect; the cook took her green stuff at
his house and called him Mr. Landlord, and there was not one thing
the tenants did, or one dish which they had for dinner, that Raggles
might not know of, if he liked.

He was a good man; good and happy.  The house brought him in so
handsome a yearly income that he was determined to send his children
to good schools, and accordingly, regardless of expense, Charles was
sent to boarding at Dr. Swishtail's, Sugar-cane Lodge, and little
Matilda to Miss Peckover's, Laurentinum House, Clapham.

Raggles loved and adored the Crawley family as the author of all his
prosperity in life.  He had a silhouette of his mistress in his back
shop, and a drawing of the Porter's Lodge at Queen's Crawley, done
by that spinster herself in India ink--and the only addition he made
to the decorations of the Curzon Street House was a print of Queen's
Crawley in Hampshire, the seat of Sir Walpole Crawley, Baronet, who
was represented in a gilded car drawn by six white horses, and
passing by a lake covered with swans, and barges containing ladies
in hoops, and musicians with flags and penwigs.  Indeed Raggles
thought there was no such palace in all the world, and no such
august family.

As luck would have it, Raggles' house in Curzon Street was to let
when Rawdon and his wife returned to London. The Colonel knew it and
its owner quite well; the latter's connection with the Crawley
family had been kept up constantly, for Raggles helped Mr. Bowls
whenever Miss Crawley received friends.  And the old man not only
let his house to the Colonel but officiated as his butler whenever
he had company; Mrs. Raggles operating in the kitchen below and
sending up dinners of which old Miss Crawley herself might have
approved.  This was the way, then, Crawley got his house for
nothing; for though Raggles had to pay taxes and rates, and the
interest of the mortgage to the brother butler; and the insurance of
his life; and the charges for his children at school; and the value
of the meat and drink which his own family--and for a time that of
Colonel Crawley too--consumed; and though the poor wretch was
utterly ruined by the transaction, his children being flung on the
streets, and himself driven into the Fleet Prison:  yet somebody
must pay even for gentlemen who live for nothing a year--and so it
was this unlucky Raggles was made the representative of Colonel
Crawley's defective capital.

I wonder how many families are driven to roguery and to ruin by
great practitioners in Crawlers way?--how many great noblemen rob
their petty tradesmen, condescend to swindle their poor retainers
out of wretched little sums and cheat for a few shillings? When we
read that a noble nobleman has left for the Continent, or that
another noble nobleman has an execution in his house--and that one
or other owes six or seven millions, the defeat seems glorious even,
and we respect the victim in the vastness of his ruin.  But who
pities a poor barber who can't get his money for powdering the
footmen's heads; or a poor carpenter who has ruined himself by
fixing up ornaments and pavilions for my lady's dejeuner; or the
poor devil of a tailor whom the steward patronizes, and who has
pledged all he is worth, and more, to get the liveries ready, which
my lord has done him the honour to bespeak? When the great house
tumbles down, these miserable wretches fall under it unnoticed:  as
they say in the old legends, before a man goes to the devil himself,
he sends plenty of other souls thither.

Rawdon and his wife generously gave their patronage to all such of
Miss Crawley's tradesmen and purveyors as chose to serve them.  Some
were willing enough, especially the poor ones.  It was wonderful to
see the pertinacity with which the washerwoman from Tooting brought
the cart every Saturday, and her bills week after week. Mr. Raggles
himself had to supply the greengroceries.  The bill for servants'
porter at the Fortune of War public house is a curiosity in the
chronicles of beer.  Every servant also was owed the greater part of
his wages, and thus kept up perforce an interest in the house.
Nobody in fact was paid.  Not the blacksmith who opened the lock;
nor the glazier who mended the pane; nor the jobber who let the
carriage; nor the groom who drove it; nor the butcher who provided
the leg of mutton; nor the coals which roasted it; nor the cook who
basted it; nor the servants who ate it:  and this I am given to
understand is not unfrequently the way in which people live
elegantly on nothing a year.

In a little town such things cannot be done without remark.  We know
there the quantity of milk our neighbour takes and espy the joint or
the fowls which are going in for his dinner.  So, probably, 200 and
202 in Curzon Street might know what was going on in the house
between them, the servants communicating through the area-railings;
but Crawley and his wife and his friends did not know 200 and 202.
When you came to 201 there was a hearty welcome, a kind smile, a
good dinner, and a jolly shake of the hand from the host and hostess
there, just for all the world as if they had been undisputed masters
of three or four thousand a year--and so they were, not in money,
but in produce and labour--if they did not pay for the mutton, they
had it:  if they did not give bullion in exchange for their wine,
how should we know? Never was better claret at any man's table than
at honest Rawdon's; dinners more gay and neatly served.   His
drawing-rooms were the prettiest, little, modest salons conceivable:
they were decorated with the greatest taste, and a thousand knick-
knacks from Paris, by Rebecca: and when she sat at her piano
trilling songs with a lightsome heart, the stranger voted himself in
a little paradise of domestic comfort and agreed that, if the
husband was rather stupid, the wife was charming, and the dinners
the pleasantest in the world.

Rebecca's wit, cleverness, and flippancy made her speedily the vogue
in London among a certain class.  You saw demure chariots at her
door, out of which stepped very great people.  You beheld her
carriage in the park, surrounded by dandies of note.  The little box
in the third tier of the opera was crowded with heads constantly
changing; but it must be confessed that the ladies held aloof from
her, and that their doors were shut to our little adventurer.

With regard to the world of female fashion and its customs, the
present writer of course can only speak at second hand.  A man can
no more penetrate or under-stand those mysteries than he can know
what the ladies talk about when they go upstairs after dinner.  It
is only by inquiry and perseverance that one sometimes gets hints of
those secrets; and by a similar diligence every person who treads
the Pall Mall pavement and frequents the clubs of this metropolis
knows, either through his own experience or through some
acquaintance with whom he plays at billiards or shares the joint,
something about the genteel world of London, and how, as there are
men (such as Rawdon Crawley, whose position we mentioned before) who
cut a good figure to the eyes of the ignorant world and to the
apprentices in the park, who behold them consorting with the most
notorious dandies there, so there are ladies, who may be called
men's women, being welcomed entirely by all the gentlemen and cut or
slighted by all their wives.  Mrs. Firebrace is of this sort; the
lady with the beautiful fair ringlets whom you see every day in Hyde
Park, surrounded by the greatest and most famous dandies of this
empire.  Mrs. Rockwood is another, whose parties are announced
laboriously in the fashionable newspapers and with whom you see that
all sorts of ambassadors and great noblemen dine; and many more
might be mentioned had they to do with the history at present in
hand.  But while simple folks who are out of the world, or country
people with a taste for the genteel, behold these ladies in their
seeming glory in public places, or envy them from afar off, persons
who are better instructed could inform them that these envied ladies
have no more chance of establishing themselves in "society," than
the benighted squire's wife in Somersetshire who reads of their
doings in the Morning Post. Men living about London are aware of
these awful truths. You hear how pitilessly many ladies of seeming
rank and wealth are excluded from this "society." The frantic
efforts which they make to enter this circle, the meannesses to
which they submit, the insults which they undergo, are matters of
wonder to those who take human or womankind for a study; and the
pursuit of fashion under difficulties would be a fine theme for any
very great person who had the wit, the leisure, and the knowledge of
the English language necessary for the compiling of such a history.

Now the few female acquaintances whom Mrs. Crawley had known abroad
not only declined to visit her when she came to this side of the
Channel, but cut her severely when they met in public places.  It
was curious to see how the great ladies forgot her, and no doubt not
altogether a pleasant study to Rebecca.  When Lady Bareacres met her
in the waiting-room at the opera, she gathered her daughters about
her as if they would be contaminated by a touch of Becky, and
retreating a step or two, placed herself in front of them, and
stared at her little enemy. To stare Becky out of countenance
required a severer glance than even the frigid old Bareacres could
shoot out of her dismal eyes.  When Lady de la Mole, who had ridden
a score of times by Becky's side at Brussels, met Mrs. Crawley's
open carriage in Hyde Park, her Ladyship was quite blind, and could
not in the least recognize her former friend.  Even Mrs. Blenkinsop,
the banker's wife, cut her at church.  Becky went regularly to
church now; it was edifying to see her enter there with Rawdon by
her side, carrying a couple of large gilt prayer-books, and
afterwards going through the ceremony with the gravest resignation.

Rawdon at first felt very acutely the slights which were passed upon
his wife, and was inclined to be gloomy and savage.  He talked of
calling out the husbands or brothers of every one of the insolent
women who did not pay a proper respect to his wife; and it was only
by the strongest commands and entreaties on her part that he was
brought into keeping a decent behaviour.  "You can't shoot me into
society," she said good-naturedly.  "Remember, my dear, that I was
but a governess, and you, you poor silly old man, have the worst
reputation for debt, and dice, and all sorts of wickedness.  We
shall get quite as many friends as we want by and by, and in the
meanwhile you must be a good boy and obey your schoolmistress in
everything she tells you to do.  When we heard that your aunt had
left almost everything to Pitt and his wife, do you remember what a
rage you were in? You would have told all Paris, if I had not made
you keep your temper, and where would you have been now?--in prison
at Ste.  Pelagie for debt, and not established in London in a
handsome house, with every comfort about you--you were in such a
fury you were ready to murder your brother, you wicked Cain you, and
what good would have come of remaining angry? All the rage in the
world won't get us your aunt's money; and it is much better that we
should be friends with your brother's family than enemies, as those
foolish Butes are.  When your father dies, Queen's Crawley will be a
pleasant house for you and me to pass the winter in.  If we are
ruined, you can carve and take charge of the stable, and I can be a
governess to Lady Jane's children.  Ruined! fiddlede-dee!  I will
get you a good place before that; or Pitt and his little boy will
die, and we will be Sir Rawdon and my lady.  While there is life,
there is hope, my dear, and I intend to make a man of you yet.  Who
sold your horses for you? Who paid your debts for you?" Rawdon was
obliged to confess that he owed all these benefits to his wife, and
to trust himself to her guidance for the future.

Indeed, when Miss Crawley quitted the world, and that money for
which all her relatives had been fighting so eagerly was finally
left to Pitt, Bute Crawley, who found that only five thousand pounds
had been left to him instead of the twenty upon which he calculated,
was in such a fury at his disappointment that he vented it in savage
abuse upon his nephew; and the quarrel always rankling between them
ended in an utter breach of intercourse.  Rawdon Crawley's conduct,
on the other hand, who got but a hundred pounds, was such as to
astonish his brother and delight his sister-in-law, who was disposed
to look kindly upon all the members of her husband's family.  He
wrote to his brother a very frank, manly, good-humoured letter from
Paris.  He was aware, he said, that by his own marriage he had
forfeited his aunt's favour; and though he did not disguise his
disappointment that she should have been so entirely relentless
towards him, he was glad that the money was still kept in their
branch of the family, and heartily congratulated his brother on his
good fortune.  He sent his affectionate remembrances to his sister,
and hoped to have her good-will for Mrs. Rawdon; and the letter
concluded with a postscript to Pitt in the latter lady's own
handwriting.  She, too, begged to join in her husband's
congratulations.  She should ever remember Mr. Crawley's kindness to
her in early days when she was a friendless orphan, the instructress
of his little sisters, in whose welfare she still took the tenderest
interest.  She wished him every happiness in his married life, and,
asking his permission to offer her remembrances to Lady Jane (of
whose goodness all the world informed her), she hoped that one day
she might be allowed to present her little boy to his uncle and
aunt, and begged to bespeak for him their good-will and protection.

Pitt Crawley received this communication very graciously--more
graciously than Miss Crawley had received some of Rebecca's previous
compositions in Rawdon's handwriting; and as for Lady Jane, she was
so charmed with the letter that she expected her husband would
instantly divide his aunt's legacy into two equal portions and send
off one-half to his brother at Paris.

To her Ladyship's surprise, however, Pitt declined to accommodate
his brother with a cheque for thirty thousand pounds.  But he made
Rawdon a handsome offer of his hand whenever the latter should come
to England and choose to take it; and, thanking Mrs. Crawley for her
good opinion of himself and Lady Jane, he graciously pronounced his
willingness to take any opportunity to serve her little boy.

Thus an almost reconciliation was brought about between the
brothers.  When Rebecca came to town Pitt and his wife were not in
London.  Many a time she drove by the old door in Park Lane to see
whether they had taken possession of Miss Crawley's house there.
But the new family did not make its appearance; it was only through
Raggles that she heard of their movements--how Miss Crawley's
domestics had been dismissed with decent gratuities, and how Mr.
Pitt had only once made his appearance in London, when he stopped
for a few days at the house, did business with his lawyers there,
and sold off all Miss Crawley's French novels to a bookseller out of
Bond Street.  Becky had reasons of her own which caused her to long
for the arrival of her new relation. "When Lady Jane comes," thought
she, "she shall be my sponsor in London society; and as for the
women! bah! the women will ask me when they find the men want to see
me."

An article as necessary to a lady in this position as her brougham
or her bouquet is her companion.  I have always admired the way in
which the tender creatures, who cannot exist without sympathy, hire
an exceedingly plain friend of their own sex from whom they are
almost inseparable.  The sight of that inevitable woman in her faded
gown seated behind her dear friend in the opera-box, or occupying
the back seat of the barouche, is always a wholesome and moral one
to me, as jolly a reminder as that of the Death's-head which figured
in the repasts of Egyptian bon-vivants, a strange sardonic memorial
of Vanity Fair.  What? even battered, brazen, beautiful,
conscienceless, heartless, Mrs. Firebrace, whose father died of her
shame:  even lovely, daring Mrs. Mantrap, who will ride at any fence
which any man in England will take, and who drives her greys in the
park, while her mother keeps a huckster's stall in Bath still--even
those who are so bold, one might fancy they could face anything dare
not face the world without a female friend.  They must have somebody
to cling to, the affectionate creatures!  And you will hardly see
them in any public place without a shabby companion in a dyed silk,
sitting somewhere in the shade close behind them.

"Rawdon," said Becky, very late one night, as a party of gentlemen
were seated round her crackling drawing-room fire (for the men came
to her house to finish the night; and she had ice and coffee for
them, the best in London):  "I must have a sheep-dog."

"A what?" said Rawdon, looking up from an ecarte table.

"A sheep-dog!" said young Lord Southdown.  "My dear Mrs. Crawley,
what a fancy!  Why not have a Danish dog? I know of one as big as a
camel-leopard, by Jove. It would almost pull your brougham.  Or a
Persian greyhound, eh? (I propose, if you please); or a little pug
that would go into one of Lord Steyne's snuff-boxes? There's a man
at Bayswater got one with such a nose that you might--I mark the
king and play--that you might hang your hat on it."

"I mark the trick," Rawdon gravely said.  He attended to his game
commonly and didn't much meddle with the conversation, except when
it was about horses and betting.

"What CAN you want with a shepherd's dog?" the lively little
Southdown continued.

"I mean a MORAL shepherd's dog," said Becky, laughing and looking up
at Lord Steyne.

"What the devil's that?" said his Lordship.

"A dog to keep the wolves off me," Rebecca continued. "A companion."

"Dear little innocent lamb, you want one," said the marquis; and his
jaw thrust out, and he began to grin hideously, his little eyes
leering towards Rebecca.

The great Lord of Steyne was standing by the fire sipping coffee.
The fire crackled and blazed pleasantly There was a score of candles
sparkling round the mantel piece, in all sorts of quaint sconces, of
gilt and bronze and porcelain.  They lighted up Rebecca's figure to
admiration, as she sat on a sofa covered with a pattern of gaudy
flowers.  She was in a pink dress that looked as fresh as a rose;
her dazzling white arms and shoulders were half-covered with a thin
hazy scarf through which they sparkled; her hair hung in curls round
her neck; one of her little feet peeped out from the fresh crisp
folds of the silk:  the prettiest little foot in the prettiest
little sandal in the finest silk stocking in the world.

The candles lighted up Lord Steyne's shining bald head, which was
fringed with red hair.  He had thick bushy eyebrows, with little
twinkling bloodshot eyes, surrounded by a thousand wrinkles.  His
jaw was underhung, and when he laughed, two white buck-teeth
protruded themselves and glistened savagely in the midst of the
grin. He had been dining with royal personages, and wore his garter
and ribbon.  A short man was his Lordship, broad-chested and bow-
legged, but proud of the fineness of his foot and ankle, and always
caressing his garter-knee.

"And so the shepherd is not enough," said he, "to defend his
lambkin?"

"The shepherd is too fond of playing at cards and going to his
clubs," answered Becky, laughing.

"'Gad, what a debauched Corydon!" said my lord--"what a mouth for a
pipe!"

"I take your three to two," here said Rawdon, at the card-table.

"Hark at Meliboeus," snarled the noble marquis; "he's pastorally
occupied too:  he's shearing a Southdown. What an innocent mutton,
hey? Damme, what a snowy fleece!"

Rebecca's eyes shot out gleams of scornful humour. "My lord," she
said, "you are a knight of the Order." He had the collar round his
neck, indeed--a gift of the restored princes of Spain.

Lord Steyne in early life had been notorious for his daring and his
success at play.  He had sat up two days and two nights with Mr. Fox
at hazard.  He had won money of the most august personages of the
realm:  he had won his marquisate, it was said, at the gaming-table;
but he did not like an allusion to those bygone fredaines.  Rebecca
saw the scowl gathering over his heavy brow.

She rose up from her sofa and went and took his coffee cup out of
his hand with a little curtsey.  "Yes," she said, "I must get a
watchdog.  But he won't bark at YOU." And, going into the other
drawing-room, she sat down to the piano and began to sing little
French songs in such a charming, thrilling voice that the mollified
nobleman speedily followed her into that chamber, and might be seen
nodding his head and bowing time over her.

Rawdon and his friend meanwhile played ecarte until they had enough.
The Colonel won; but, say that he won ever so much and often, nights
like these, which occurred many times in the week--his wife having
all the talk and all the admiration, and he sitting silent without
the circle, not comprehending a word of the jokes, the allusions,
the mystical language within--must have been rather wearisome to the
ex-dragoon.

"How is Mrs. Crawley's husband?" Lord Steyne used to say to him by
way of a good day when they met; and indeed that was now his
avocation in life.  He was Colonel Crawley no more.  He was Mrs.
Crawley's husband.

About the little Rawdon, if nothing has been said all this while, it
is because he is hidden upstairs in a garret somewhere, or has
crawled below into the kitchen for companionship.  His mother
scarcely ever took notice of him.  He passed the days with his
French bonne as long as that domestic remained in Mr. Crawley's
family, and when the Frenchwoman went away, the little fellow,
howling in the loneliness of the night, had compassion taken on him
by a housemaid, who took him out of his solitary nursery into her
bed in the garret hard by and comforted him.

Rebecca, my Lord Steyne, and one or two more were in the drawing-
room taking tea after the opera, when this shouting was heard
overhead.  "It's my cherub crying for his nurse," she said.  She did
not offer to move to go and see the child.  "Don't agitate your
feelings by going to look for him," said Lord Steyne sardonically.
"Bah!" replied the other, with a sort of blush, "he'll cry himself
to sleep"; and they fell to talking about the opera.

Rawdon had stolen off though, to look after his son and heir; and
came back to the company when he found that honest Dolly was
consoling the child.  The Colonel's dressing-room was in those upper
regions.  He used to see the boy there in private.  They had
interviews together every morning when he shaved; Rawdon minor
sitting on a box by his father's side and watching the operation
with never-ceasing pleasure.  He and the sire were great friends.
The father would bring him sweetmeats from the dessert and hide them
in a certain old epaulet box, where the child went to seek them, and
laughed with joy on discovering the treasure; laughed, but not too
loud:  for mamma was below asleep and must not be disturbed.  She
did not go to rest till very late and seldom rose till after noon.

Rawdon bought the boy plenty of picture-books and crammed his
nursery with toys.  Its walls were covered with pictures pasted up
by the father's own hand and purchased by him for ready money.  When
he was off duty with Mrs. Rawdon in the park, he would sit up here,
passing hours with the boy; who rode on his chest, who pulled his
great mustachios as if they were driving-reins, and spent days with
him in indefatigable gambols.  The room was a low room, and once,
when the child was not five years old, his father, who was tossing
him wildly up in his arms, hit the poor little chap's skull so
violently against the ceiling that he almost dropped the child, so
terrified was he at the disaster.

Rawdon minor had made up his face for a tremendous howl--the
severity of the blow indeed authorized that indulgence; but just as
he was going to begin, the father interposed.

"For God's sake, Rawdy, don't wake Mamma," he cried.  And the child,
looking in a very hard and piteous way at his father, bit his lips,
clenched his hands, and didn't cry a bit.  Rawdon told that story at
the clubs, at the mess, to everybody in town.  "By Gad, sir," he
explained to the public in general, "what a good plucked one that
boy of mine is--what a trump he is!  I half-sent his head through
the ceiling, by Gad, and he wouldn't cry for fear of disturbing his
mother."

Sometimes--once or twice in a week--that lady visited the upper
regions in which the child lived.  She came like a vivified figure
out of the Magasin des Modes--blandly smiling in the most beautiful
new clothes and little gloves and boots.  Wonderful scarfs, laces,
and jewels glittered about her.  She had always a new bonnet on, and
flowers bloomed perpetually in it, or else magnificent curling
ostrich feathers, soft and snowy as camellias.  She nodded twice or
thrice patronizingly to the little boy, who looked up from his
dinner or from the pictures of soldiers he was painting.  When she
left the room, an odour of rose, or some other magical fragrance,
lingered about the nursery. She was an unearthly being in his eyes,
superior to his father--to all the world:  to be worshipped and
admired at a distance.  To drive with that lady in the carriage was
an awful rite:  he sat up in the back seat and did not dare to
speak:  he gazed with all his eyes at the beautifully dressed
Princess opposite to him.  Gentlemen on splendid prancing horses
came up and smiled and talked with her. How her eyes beamed upon all
of them!  Her hand used to quiver and wave gracefully as they
passed.  When he went out with her he had his new red dress on.  His
old brown holland was good enough when he stayed at home. Sometimes,
when she was away, and Dolly his maid was making his bed, he came
into his mother's room.  It was as the abode of a fairy to him--a
mystic chamber of splendour and delights.  There in the wardrobe
hung those wonderful robes--pink and blue and many-tinted.  There
was the jewel-case, silver-clasped, and the wondrous bronze hand on
the dressing-table, glistening all over with a hundred rings.  There
was the cheval-glass, that miracle of art, in which he could just
see his own wondering head and the reflection of Dolly (queerly
distorted, and as if up in the ceiling), plumping and patting the
pillows of the bed.  Oh, thou poor lonely little benighted boy!
Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little
children; and here was one who was worshipping a stone!

Now Rawdon Crawley, rascal as the Colonel was, had certain manly
tendencies of affection in his heart and could love a child and a
woman still.  For Rawdon minor he had a great secret tenderness
then, which did not escape Rebecca, though she did not talk about it
to her husband.  It did not annoy her:  she was too good-natured.
It only increased her scorn for him.  He felt somehow ashamed of
this paternal softness and hid it from his wife--only indulging in
it when alone with the boy.

He used to take him out of mornings when they would go to the
stables together and to the park.  Little Lord Southdown, the best-
natured of men, who would make you a present of the hat from his
head, and whose main occupation in life was to buy knick-knacks that
he might give them away afterwards, bought the little chap a pony
not much bigger than a large rat, the donor said, and on this little
black Shetland pygmy young Rawdon's great father was pleased to
mount the boy, and to walk by his side in the park.  It pleased him
to see his old quarters, and his old fellow-guardsmen at
Knightsbridge: he had begun to think of his bachelorhood with
something like regret.  The old troopers were glad to recognize
their ancient officer and dandle the little colonel. Colonel Crawley
found dining at mess and with his brother-officers very pleasant.
"Hang it, I ain't clever enough for her--I know it.  She won't miss
me," he used to say:  and he was right, his wife did not miss him.

Rebecca was fond of her husband.  She was always perfectly good-
humoured and kind to him.  She did not even show her scorn much for
him; perhaps she liked him the better for being a fool.  He was her
upper servant and maitre d'hotel.  He went on her errands; obeyed
her orders without question; drove in the carriage in the ring with
her without repining; took her to the opera-box, solaced himself at
his club during the performance, and came punctually back to fetch
her when due.  He would have liked her to be a little fonder of the
boy, but even to that he reconciled himself.  "Hang it, you know
she's so clever," he said, "and I'm not literary and that, you
know." For, as we have said before, it requires no great wisdom to
be able to win at cards and billiards, and Rawdon made no
pretensions to any other sort of skill.

When the companion came, his domestic duties became very light.  His
wife encouraged him to dine abroad:  she would let him off duty at
the opera.  "Don't stay and stupefy yourself at home to-night, my
dear," she would say.  "Some men are coming who will only bore you.
I would not ask them, but you know it's for your good, and now I
have a sheep-dog, I need not be afraid to be alone."

"A sheep-dog--a companion!  Becky Sharp with a companion!  Isn't it
good fun?" thought Mrs. Crawley to herself.  The notion tickled
hugely her sense of humour.

One Sunday morning, as Rawdon Crawley, his little son, and the pony
were taking their accustomed walk in the park, they passed by an old
acquaintance of the Colonel's, Corporal Clink, of the regiment, who
was in conversation with a friend, an old gentleman, who held a boy
in his arms about the age of little Rawdon.  This other youngster
had seized hold of the Waterloo medal which the Corporal wore, and
was examining it with delight.

"Good morning, your Honour," said Clink, in reply to the "How do,
Clink?" of the Colonel.  "This ere young gentleman is about the
little Colonel's age, sir," continued the corporal.

"His father was a Waterloo man, too," said the old gentleman, who
carried the boy.  "Wasn't he, Georgy?"

"Yes," said Georgy.  He and the little chap on the pony were looking
at each other with all their might--solemnly scanning each other as
children do.

"In a line regiment," Clink said with a patronizing air.

"He was a Captain in the --th regiment," said the old gentleman
rather pompously.  "Captain George Osborne, sir--perhaps you knew
him.  He died the death of a hero, sir, fighting against the
Corsican tyrant." Colonel Crawley blushed quite red.  "I knew him
very well, sir," he said, "and his wife, his dear little wife, sir--
how is she?"

"She is my daughter, sir," said the old gentleman, putting down the
boy and taking out a card with great solemnity, which he handed to
the Colonel.  On it written--

"Mr. Sedley, Sole Agent for the Black Diamond and Anti-Cinder Coal
Association, Bunker's Wharf, Thames Street, and Anna-Maria Cottages,
Fulham Road West."

Little Georgy went up and looked at the Shetland pony.

"Should you like to have a ride?" said Rawdon minor from the saddle.

"Yes," said Georgy.  The Colonel, who had been looking at him with
some interest, took up the child and put him on the pony behind
Rawdon minor.

"Take hold of him, Georgy," he said--"take my little boy round the
waist--his name is Rawdon." And both the children began to laugh.

"You won't see a prettier pair I think, THIS summer's day, sir,"
said the good-natured Corporal; and the Colonel, the Corporal, and
old Mr. Sedley with his umbrella, walked by the side of the
children.



CHAPTER XXXVIII

A Family in a Very Small Way


We must suppose little George Osborne has ridden from Knightsbridge
towards Fulham, and will stop and make inquiries at that village
regarding some friends whom we have left there.  How is Mrs. Amelia
after the storm of Waterloo? Is she living and thriving? What has
come of Major Dobbin, whose cab was always hankering about her
premises? And is there any news of the Collector of Boggley Wollah?
The facts concerning the latter are briefly these:

Our worthy fat friend Joseph Sedley returned to India not long after
his escape from Brussels.  Either his furlough was up, or he dreaded
to meet any witnesses of his Waterloo flight.  However it might be,
he went back to his duties in Bengal very soon after Napoleon had
taken up his residence at St.  Helena, where Jos saw the ex-Emperor.
To hear Mr. Sedley talk on board ship you would have supposed that
it was not the first time he and the Corsican had met, and that the
civilian had bearded the French General at Mount St.  John.  He had
a thousand anecdotes about the famous battles; he knew the position
of every regiment and the loss which each had incurred.  He did not
deny that he had been concerned in those victories--that he had been
with the army and carried despatches for the Duke of Wellington. And
he described what the Duke did and said on every conceivable moment
of the day of Waterloo, with such an accurate knowledge of his
Grace's sentiments and proceedings that it was clear he must have
been by the conqueror's side throughout the day; though, as a non-
combatant, his name was not mentioned in the public documents
relative to the battle.  Perhaps he actually worked himself up to
believe that he had been engaged with the army; certain it is that
he made a prodigious sensation for some time at Calcutta, and was
called Waterloo Sedley during the whole of his subsequent stay in
Bengal.

The bills which Jos had given for the purchase of those unlucky
horses were paid without question by him and his agents.  He never
was heard to allude to the bargain, and nobody knows for a certainty
what became of the horses, or how he got rid of them, or of Isidor,
his Belgian servant, who sold a grey horse, very like the one which
Jos rode, at Valenciennes sometime during the autumn of 1815.

Jos's London agents had orders to pay one hundred and twenty pounds
yearly to his parents at Fulham.  It was the chief support of the
old couple; for Mr. Sedley's speculations in life subsequent to his
bankruptcy did not by any means retrieve the broken old gentleman's
fortune.  He tried to be a wine-merchant, a coal-merchant, a
commission lottery agent, &c., &c.  He sent round prospectuses to
his friends whenever he took a new trade, and ordered a new brass
plate for the door, and talked pompously about making his fortune
still.  But Fortune never came back to the feeble and stricken old
man.  One by one his friends dropped off, and were weary of buying
dear coals and bad wine from him; and there was only his wife in all
the world who fancied, when he tottered off to the City of a
morning, that he was still doing any business there.  At evening he
crawled slowly back; and he used to go of nights to a little club at
a tavern, where he disposed of the finances of the nation. It was
wonderful to hear him talk about millions, and agios, and discounts,
and what Rothschild was doing, and Baring Brothers.  He talked of
such vast sums that the gentlemen of the club (the apothecary, the
undertaker, the great carpenter and builder, the parish clerk, who
was allowed to come stealthily, and Mr. Clapp, our old
acquaintance,) respected the old gentleman.  "I was better off once,
sir," he did not fail to tell everybody who "used the room." "My
son, sir, is at this minute chief magistrate of Ramgunge in the
Presidency of Bengal, and touching his four thousand rupees per
mensem.  My daughter might be a Colonel's lady if she liked.  I
might draw upon my son, the first magistrate, sir, for two thousand
pounds to-morrow, and Alexander would cash my bill, down sir, down
on the counter, sir.  But the Sedleys were always a proud family."
You and I, my dear reader, may drop into this condition one day:
for have not many of our friends attained it? Our luck may fail: our
powers forsake us:  our place on the boards be taken by better and
younger mimes--the chance of life roll away and leave us shattered
and stranded.  Then men will walk across the road when they meet
you--or, worse still, hold you out a couple of fingers and patronize
you in a pitying way--then you will know, as soon as your back is
turned, that your friend begins with a "Poor devil, what imprudences
he has committed, what chances that chap has thrown away!" Well,
well--a carriage and three thousand a year is not the summit of the
reward nor the end of God's judgment of men.  If quacks prosper as
often as they go to the wall--if zanies succeed and knaves arrive at
fortune, and, vice versa, sharing ill luck and prosperity for all
the world like the ablest and most honest amongst us--I say,
brother, the gifts and pleasures of Vanity Fair cannot be held of
any great account, and that it is probable . . . but we are
wandering out of the domain of the story.

Had Mrs. Sedley been a woman of energy, she would have exerted it
after her husband's ruin and, occupying a large house, would have
taken in boarders.  The broken Sedley would have acted well as the
boarding-house landlady's husband; the Munoz of private life; the
titular lord and master:  the carver, house-steward, and humble
husband of the occupier of the dingy throne.  I have seen men of
good brains and breeding, and of good hopes and vigour once, who
feasted squires and kept hunters in their youth, meekly cutting up
legs of mutton for rancorous old harridans and pretending to preside
over their dreary tables--but Mrs. Sedley, we say, had not spirit
enough to bustle about for "a few select inmates to join a cheerful
musical family," such as one reads of in the Times.  She was content
to lie on the shore where fortune had stranded her--and you could
see that the career of this old couple was over.

I don't think they were unhappy.  Perhaps they were a little prouder
in their downfall than in their prosperity. Mrs. Sedley was always a
great person for her landlady, Mrs. Clapp, when she descended and
passed many hours with her in the basement or ornamented kitchen.
The Irish maid Betty Flanagan's bonnets and ribbons, her sauciness,
her idleness, her reckless prodigality of kitchen candles, her
consumption of tea and sugar, and so forth occupied and amused the
old lady almost as much as the doings of her former household, when
she had Sambo and the coachman, and a groom, and a footboy, and a
housekeeper with a regiment of female domestics--her former
household, about which the good lady talked a hundred times a day.
And besides Betty Flanagan, Mrs. Sedley had all the maids-of-all-
work in the street to superintend. She knew how each tenant of the
cottages paid or owed his little rent.  She stepped aside when Mrs.
Rougemont the actress passed with her dubious family.  She flung up
her head when Mrs. Pestler, the apothecary's lady, drove by in her
husband's professional one-horse chaise.  She had colloquies with
the greengrocer about the pennorth of turnips which Mr. Sedley
loved; she kept an eye upon the milkman and the baker's boy; and
made visitations to the butcher, who sold hundreds of oxen very
likely with less ado than was made about Mrs. Sedley's loin of
mutton:  and she counted the potatoes under the joint on Sundays, on
which days, dressed in her best, she went to church twice and read
Blair's Sermons in the evening.

On that day, for "business" prevented him on weekdays from taking
such a pleasure, it was old Sedley's delight to take out his little
grandson Georgy to the neighbouring parks or Kensington Gardens, to
see the soldiers or to feed the ducks.  Georgy loved the redcoats,
and his grandpapa told him how his father had been a famous soldier,
and introduced him to many sergeants and others with Waterloo medals
on their breasts, to whom the old grandfather pompously presented
the child as the son of Captain Osborne of the --th, who died
gloriously on the glorious eighteenth.  He has been known to treat
some of these non-commissioned gentlemen to a glass of porter, and,
indeed, in their first Sunday walks was disposed to spoil little
Georgy, sadly gorging the boy with apples and parliament, to the
detriment of his health--until Amelia declared that George should
never go out with his grandpapa unless the latter promised solemnly,
and on his honour, not to give the child any cakes, lollipops, or
stall produce whatever.

Between Mrs. Sedley and her daughter there was a sort of coolness
about this boy, and a secret jealousy--for one evening in George's
very early days, Amelia, who had been seated at work in their little
parlour scarcely remarking that the old lady had quitted the room,
ran upstairs instinctively to the nursery at the cries of the child,
who had been asleep until that moment--and there found Mrs. Sedley
in the act of surreptitiously administering Daffy's Elixir to the
infant.  Amelia, the gentlest and sweetest of everyday mortals, when
she found this meddling with her maternal authority, thrilled and
trembled all over with anger.  Her cheeks, ordinarily pale, now
flushed up, until they were as red as they used to be when she was a
child of twelve years old.  She seized the baby out of her mother's
arms and then grasped at the bottle, leaving the old lady gaping at
her, furious, and holding the guilty tea-spoon.

Amelia flung the bottle crashing into the fire-place. "I will NOT
have baby poisoned, Mamma," cried Emmy, rocking the infant about
violently with both her arms round him and turning with flashing
eyes at her mother.

"Poisoned, Amelia!" said the old lady; "this language to me?"

"He shall not have any medicine but that which Mr. Pestler sends for
hi n.  He told me that Daffy's Elixir was poison."

"Very good:  you think I'm a murderess then," replied Mrs. Sedley.
"This is the language you use to your mother. I have met with
misfortunes:  I have sunk low in life:  I have kept my carriage, and
now walk on foot:  but I did not know I was a murderess before, and
thank you for the NEWS."

"Mamma," said the poor girl, who was always ready for tears--"you
shouldn't be hard upon me.  I--I didn't mean--I mean, I did not wish
to say you would to any wrong to this dear child, only--"

"Oh, no, my love,--only that I was a murderess; in which case I had
better go to the Old Bailey.  Though I didn't poison YOU, when you
were a child, but gave you the best of education and the most
expensive masters money could procure.  Yes; I've nursed five
children and buried three; and the one I loved the best of all, and
tended through croup, and teething, and measles, and hooping-cough,
and brought up with foreign masters, regardless of expense, and with
accomplishments at Minerva House--which I never had when I was a
girl--when I was too glad to honour my father and mother, that I
might live long in the land, and to be useful, and not to mope all
day in my room and act the fine lady--says I'm a murderess.  Ah,
Mrs. Osborne! may YOU never nourish a viper in your bosom, that's MY
prayer."

"Mamma, Mamma!" cried the bewildered girl; and the child in her arms
set up a frantic chorus of shouts. "A murderess, indeed!  Go down on
your knees and pray to God to cleanse your wicked ungrateful heart,
Amelia, and may He forgive you as I do." And Mrs. Sedley tossed out
of the room, hissing out the word poison once more, and so ending
her charitable benediction.

Till the termination of her natural life, this breach between Mrs.
Sedley and her daughter was never thoroughly mended.  The quarrel
gave the elder lady numberless advantages which she did not fail to
turn to account with female ingenuity and perseverance.  For
instance, she scarcely spoke to Amelia for many weeks afterwards.
She warned the domestics not to touch the child, as Mrs. Osborne
might be offended.  She asked her daughter to see and satisfy
herself that there was no poison prepared in the little daily messes
that were concocted for Georgy. When neighbours asked after the
boy's health, she referred them pointedly to Mrs. Osborne.  SHE
never ventured to ask whether the baby was well or not.  SHE would
not touch the child although he was her grandson, and own precious
darling, for she was not USED to children, and might kill it.  And
whenever Mr. Pestler came upon his healing inquisition, she received
the doctor with such a sarcastic and scornful demeanour, as made the
surgeon declare that not Lady Thistlewood herself, whom he had the
honour of attending professionally, could give herself greater airs
than old Mrs. Sedley, from whom he never took a fee.  And very
likely Emmy was jealous too, upon her own part, as what mother is
not, of those who would manage her children for her, or become
candidates for the first place in their affections.  It is certain
that when anybody nursed the child, she was uneasy, and that she
would no more allow Mrs. Clapp or the domestic to dress or tend him
than she would have let them wash her husband's miniature which hung
up over her little bed--the same little bed from which the poor girl
had gone to his; and to which she retired now for many long, silent,
tearful, but happy years.

In this room was all Amelia's heart and treasure.  Here it was that
she tended her boy and watched him through the many ills of
childhood, with a constant passion of love.  The elder George
returned in him somehow, only improved, and as if come back from
heaven.  In a hundred little tones, looks, and movements, the child
was so like his father that the widow's heart thrilled as she held
him to it; and he would often ask the cause of her tears.  It was
because of his likeness to his father, she did not scruple to tell
him.  She talked constantly to him about this dead father, and spoke
of her love for George to the innocent and wondering child; much
more than she ever had done to George himself, or to any confidante
of her youth.  To her parents she never talked about this matter,
shrinking from baring her heart to them.  Little George very likely
could understand no better than they, but into his ears she poured
her sentimental secrets unreservedly, and into his only.  The very
joy of this woman was a sort of grief, or so tender, at least, that
its expression was tears.  Her sensibilities were so weak and
tremulous that perhaps they ought not to be talked about in a book.
I was told by Dr. Pestler (now a most flourishing lady's physician,
with a sumptuous dark green carriage, a prospect of speedy
knighthood, and a house in Manchester Square) that her grief at
weaning the child was a sight that would have unmanned a Herod.  He
was very soft-hearted many years ago, and his wife was mortally
jealous of Mrs. Amelia, then and long afterwards.

Perhaps the doctor's lady had good reason for her jealousy:  most
women shared it, of those who formed the small circle of Amelia's
acquaintance, and were quite angry at the enthusiasm with which the
other sex regarded her.  For almost all men who came near her loved
her; though no doubt they would be at a loss to tell you why.  She
was not brilliant, nor witty, nor wise over much, nor
extraordinarily handsome.  But wherever she went she touched and
charmed every one of the male sex, as invariably as she awakened the
scorn and incredulity of her own sisterhood.  I think it was her
weakness which was her principal charm--a kind of sweet submission
and softness, which seemed to appeal to each man she met for his
sympathy and protection.  We have seen how in the regiment, though
she spoke but to few of George's comrades there, all the swords of
the young fellows at the mess-table would have leapt from their
scabbards to fight round her; and so it was in the little narrow
lodging-house and circle at Fulham, she interested and pleased
everybody.  If she had been Mrs. Mango herself, of the great house
of Mango, Plantain, and Co., Crutched Friars, and the magnificent
proprietress of the Pineries, Fulham, who gave summer dejeuners
frequented by Dukes and Earls, and drove about the parish with
magnificent yellow liveries and bay horses, such as the royal
stables at Kensington themselves could not turn out--I say had she
been Mrs. Mango herself, or her son's wife, Lady Mary Mango
(daughter of the Earl of Castlemouldy, who condescended to marry the
head of the firm), the tradesmen of the neighbourhood could not pay
her more honour than they invariably showed to the gentle young
widow, when she passed by their doors, or made her humble purchases
at their shops.

Thus it was not only Mr. Pestler, the medical man, but Mr. Linton
the young assistant, who doctored the servant maids and small
tradesmen, and might be seen any day reading the Times in the
surgery, who openly declared himself the slave of Mrs. Osborne.  He
was a personable young gentleman, more welcome at Mrs. Sedley's
lodgings than his principal; and if anything went wrong with Georgy,
he would drop in twice or thrice in the day to see the little chap,
and without so much as the thought of a fee.  He would abstract
lozenges, tamarinds, and other produce from the surgery-drawers for
little Georgy's benefit, and compounded draughts and mixtures for
him of miraculous sweetness, so that it was quite a pleasure to the
child to be ailing.  He and Pestler, his chief, sat up two whole
nights by the boy in that momentous and awful week when Georgy had
the measles; and when you would have thought, from the mother's
terror, that there had never been measles in the world before. Would
they have done as much for other people? Did they sit up for the
folks at the Pineries, when Ralph Plantagenet, and Gwendoline, and
Guinever Mango had the same juvenile complaint? Did they sit up for
little Mary Clapp, the landlord's daughter, who actually caught the
disease of little Georgy? Truth compels one to say, no. They slept
quite undisturbed, at least as far as she was concerned--pronounced
hers to be a slight case, which would almost cure itself, sent her
in a draught or two, and threw in bark when the child rallied, with
perfect indifference, and just for form's sake.

Again, there was the little French chevalier opposite, who gave
lessons in his native tongue at various schools in the
neighbourhood, and who might be heard in his apartment of nights
playing tremulous old gavottes and minuets on a wheezy old fiddle.
Whenever this powdered and courteous old man, who never missed a
Sunday at the convent chapel at Hammersmith, and who was in all
respects, thoughts, conduct, and bearing utterly unlike the bearded
savages of his nation, who curse perfidious Albion, and scowl at you
from over their cigars, in the Quadrant arcades at the present day--
whenever the old Chevalier de Talonrouge spoke of Mistress Osborne,
he would first finish his pinch of snuff, flick away the remaining
particles of dust with a graceful wave of his hand, gather up his
fingers again into a bunch, and, bringing them up to his mouth, blow
them open with a kiss, exclaiming, Ah! la divine creature!  He vowed
and protested that when Amelia walked in the Brompton Lanes flowers
grew in profusion under her feet.  He called little Georgy Cupid,
and asked him news of Venus, his mamma; and told the astonished
Betty Flanagan that she was one of the Graces, and the favourite
attendant of the Reine des Amours.

Instances might be multiplied of this easily gained and unconscious
popularity.  Did not Mr. Binny, the mild and genteel curate of the
district chapel, which the family attended, call assiduously upon
the widow, dandle the little boy on his knee, and offer to teach him
Latin, to the anger of the elderly virgin, his sister, who kept
house for him? "There is nothing in her, Beilby," the latter lady
would say.  "When she comes to tea here she does not speak a word
during the whole evening.  She is but a poor lackadaisical creature,
and it is my belief has no heart at all.  It is only her pretty face
which all you gentlemen admire so.  Miss Grits, who has five
thousand pounds, and expectations besides, has twice as much
character, and is a thousand times more agreeable to my taste; and
if she were good-looking I know that you would think her
perfection."

Very likely Miss Binny was right to a great extent.  It IS the
pretty face which creates sympathy in the hearts of men, those
wicked rogues.  A woman may possess the wisdom and chastity of
Minerva, and we give no heed to her, if she has a plain face.  What
folly will not a pair of bright eyes make pardonable? What dulness
may not red lips and sweet accents render pleasant? And so, with
their usual sense of justice, ladies argue that because a woman is
handsome, therefore she is a fool.  O ladies, ladies! there are some
of you who are neither handsome nor wise.

These are but trivial incidents to recount in the life of our
heroine.  Her tale does not deal in wonders, as the gentle reader
has already no doubt perceived; and if a journal had been kept of
her proceedings during the seven years after the birth of her son,
there would be found few incidents more remarkable in it than that
of the measles, recorded in the foregoing page.  Yes, one day, and
greatly to her wonder, the Reverend Mr. Binny, just mentioned, asked
her to change her name of Osborne for his own; when, with deep
blushes and tears in her eyes and voice, she thanked him for his
regard for her, expressed gratitude for his attentions to her and to
her poor little boy, but said that she never, never could think of
any but--but the husband whom she had lost.

On the twenty-fifth of April, and the eighteenth of June, the days
of marriage and widowhood, she kept her room entirely, consecrating
them (and we do not know how many hours of solitary night-thought,
her little boy sleeping in his crib by her bedside) to the memory of
that departed friend.  During the day she was more active. She had
to teach George to read and to write and a little to draw.  She read
books, in order that she might tell him stories from them.  As his
eyes opened and his mind expanded under the influence of the outward
nature round about him, she taught the child, to the best of her
humble power, to acknowledge the Maker of all, and every night and
every morning he and she--(in that awful and touching communion
which I think must bring a thrill to the heart of every man who
witnesses or who remembers it)--the mother and the little boy--
prayed to Our Father together, the mother pleading with all her
gentle heart, the child lisping after her as she spoke.  And each
time they prayed to God to bless dear Papa, as if he were alive and
in the room with them.  To wash and dress this young gentleman--to
take him for a run of the mornings, before breakfast, and the
retreat of grandpapa for "business"--to make for him the most
wonderful and ingenious dresses, for which end the thrifty widow cut
up and altered every available little bit of finery which she
possessed out of her wardrobe during her marriage--for Mrs. Osborne
herself (greatly to her mother's vexation, who preferred fine
clothes, especially since her misfortunes) always wore a black gown
and a straw bonnet with a black ribbon--occupied her many hours of
the day.  Others she had to spare, at the service of her mother and
her old father.  She had taken the pains to learn, and used to play
cribbage with this gentleman on the nights when he did not go to his
club.  She sang for him when he was so minded, and it was a good
sign, for he invariably fell into a comfortable sleep during the
music.  She wrote out his numerous memorials, letters, prospectuses,
and projects.  It was in her handwriting that most of the old
gentleman's former acquaintances were informed that he had become an
agent for the Black Diamond and Anti-Cinder Coal Company and could
supply his friends and the public with the best coals at --s. per
chaldron.  All he did was to sign the circulars with his flourish
and signature, and direct them in a shaky, clerklike hand.  One of
these papers was sent to Major Dobbin,--Regt., care of Messrs.  Cox
and Greenwood; but the Major being in Madras at the time, had no
particular call for coals.  He knew, though, the hand which had
written the prospectus.  Good God! what would he not have given to
hold it in his own!  A second prospectus came out, informing the
Major that J.  Sedley and Company, having established agencies at
Oporto, Bordeaux, and St.  Mary's, were enabled to offer to their
friends and the public generally the finest and most celebrated
growths of ports, sherries, and claret wines at reasonable prices
and under extraordinary advantages. Acting upon this hint, Dobbin
furiously canvassed the governor, the commander-in-chief, the
judges, the regiments, and everybody whom he knew in the Presidency,
and sent home to Sedley and Co.  orders for wine which perfectly
astonished Mr. Sedley and Mr. Clapp, who was the Co.  in the
business.  But no more orders came after that first burst of good
fortune, on which poor old Sedley was about to build a house in the
City, a regiment of clerks, a dock to himself, and correspondents
all over the world.  The old gentleman's former taste in wine had
gone:  the curses of the mess-room assailed Major Dobbin for the
vile drinks he had been the means of introducing there; and he
bought back a great quantity of the wine and sold it at public
outcry, at an enormous loss to himself. As for Jos, who was by this
time promoted to a seat at the Revenue Board at Calcutta, he was
wild with rage when the post brought him out a bundle of these
Bacchanalian prospectuses, with a private note from his father,
telling Jos that his senior counted upon him in this enterprise, and
had consigned a quantity of select wines to him, as per invoice,
drawing bills upon him for the amount of the same.  Jos, who would
no more have it supposed that his father, Jos Sedley's father, of
the Board of Revenue, was a wine merchant asking for orders, than
that he was Jack Ketch, refused the bills with scorn, wrote back
contumeliously to the old gentleman, bidding him to mind his own
affairs; and the protested paper coming back, Sedley and Co.  had to
take it up, with the profits which they had made out of the Madras
venture, and with a little portion of Emmy's savings.

Besides her pension of fifty pounds a year, there had been five
hundred pounds, as her husband's executor stated, left in the
agent's hands at the time of Osborne's demise, which sum, as
George's guardian, Dobbin proposed to put out at 8 per cent in an
Indian house of agency.  Mr. Sedley, who thought the Major had some
roguish intentions of his own about the money, was strongly against
this plan; and he went to the agents to protest personally against
the employment of the money in question, when he learned, to his
surprise, that there had been no such sum in their hands, that all
the late Captain's assets did not amount to a hundred pounds, and
that the five hundred pounds in question must be a separate sum, of
which Major Dobbin knew the particulars. More than ever convinced
that there was some roguery, old Sedley pursued the Major.  As his
daughter's nearest friend, he demanded with a high hand a statement
of the late Captain's accounts.  Dobbin's stammering, blushing, and
awkwardness added to the other's convictions that he had a rogue to
deal with, and in a majestic tone he told that officer a piece of
his mind, as he called it, simply stating his belief that the Major
was unlawfully detaining his late son-in-law's money.

Dobbin at this lost all patience, and if his accuser had not been so
old and so broken, a quarrel might have ensued between them at the
Slaughters' Coffee-house, in a box of which place of entertainment
the gentlemen had their colloquy.  "Come upstairs, sir," lisped out
the Major.  "I insist on your coming up the stairs, and I will show
which is the injured party, poor George or I"; and, dragging the old
gentleman up to his bedroom, he produced from his desk Osborne's
accounts, and a bundle of IOU's which the latter had given, who, to
do him justice, was always ready to give an IOU.  "He paid his bills
in England," Dobbin added, "but he had not a hundred pounds in the
world when he fell.  I and one or two of his brother officers made
up the little sum, which was all that we could spare, and you dare
tell us that we are trying to cheat the widow and the orphan."
Sedley was very contrite and humbled, though the fact is that
William Dobbin had told a great falsehood to the old gentleman;
having himself given every shilling of the money, having buried his
friend, and paid all the fees and charges incident upon the calamity
and removal of poor Amelia.

About these expenses old Osborne had never given himself any trouble
to think, nor any other relative of Amelia, nor Amelia herself,
indeed.  She trusted to Major Dobbin as an accountant, took his
somewhat confused calculations for granted, and never once suspected
how much she was in his debt.

Twice or thrice in the year, according to her promise, she wrote him
letters to Madras, letters all about little Georgy.  How he
treasured these papers!  Whenever Amelia wrote he answered, and not
until then.  But he sent over endless remembrances of himself to his
godson and to her.  He ordered and sent a box of scarfs and a grand
ivory set of chess-men from China.  The pawns were little green and
white men, with real swords and shields; the knights were on
horseback, the castles were on the backs of elephants.  "Mrs.
Mango's own set at the Pineries was not so fine," Mr. Pestler
remarked.  These chess-men were the delight of Georgy's life, who
printed his first letter in acknowledgement of this gift of his
godpapa.  He sent over preserves and pickles, which latter the young
gentleman tried surreptitiously in the sideboard and half-killed
himself with eating.  He thought it was a judgement upon him for
stealing, they were so hot.  Emmy wrote a comical little account of
this mishap to the Major:  it pleased him to think that her spirits
were rallying and that she could be merry sometimes now.  He sent
over a pair of shawls, a white one for her and a black one with
palm-leaves for her mother, and a pair of red scarfs, as winter
wrappers, for old Mr. Sedley and George. The shawls were worth fifty
guineas apiece at the very least, as Mrs. Sedley knew.  She wore
hers in state at church at Brompton, and was congratulated by her
female friends upon the splendid acquisition.  Emmy's, too, became
prettily her modest black gown.  "What a pity it is she won't think
of him!" Mrs. Sedley remarked to Mrs. Clapp and to all her friends
of Brompton.  "Jos never sent us such presents, I am sure, and
grudges us everything.  It is evident that the Major is over head
and ears in love with her; and yet, whenever I so much as hint it,
she turns red and begins to cry and goes and sits upstairs with her
miniature.  I'm sick of that miniature.  I wish we had never seen
those odious purse-proud Osbornes."

Amidst such humble scenes and associates George's early youth was
passed, and the boy grew up delicate, sensitive, imperious, woman-
bred--domineering the gentle mother whom he loved with passionate
affection.  He ruled all the rest of the little world round about
him. As he grew, the elders were amazed at his haughty manner and
his constant likeness to his father.  He asked questions about
everything, as inquiring youth will do.  The profundity of his
remarks and interrogatories astonished his old grandfather, who
perfectly bored the club at the tavern with stories about the little
lad's learning and genius.  He suffered his grandmother with a good-
humoured indifference.  The small circle round about him believed
that the equal of the boy did not exist upon the earth.  Georgy
inherited his father's pride, and perhaps thought they were not
wrong.

When he grew to be about six years old, Dobbin began to write to him
very much.  The Major wanted to hear that Georgy was going to a
school and hoped he would acquit himself with credit there:  or
would he have a good tutor at home? It was time that he should begin
to learn; and his godfather and guardian hinted that he hoped to be
allowed to defray the charges of the boy's education, which would
fall heavily upon his mother's straitened income.  The Major, in a
word, was always thinking about Amelia and her little boy, and by
orders to his agents kept the latter provided with picture-books,
paint-boxes, desks, and all conceivable implements of amusement and
instruction.  Three days before George's sixth birthday a gentleman
in a gig, accompanied by a servant, drove up to Mr. Sedley's house
and asked to see Master George Osborne:  it was Mr. Woolsey,
military tailor, of Conduit Street, who came at the Major's order to
measure the young gentleman for a suit of clothes.  He had had the
honour of making for the Captain, the young gentleman's father.
Sometimes, too, and by the Major's desire no doubt, his sisters, the
Misses Dobbin, would call in the family carriage to take Amelia and
the little boy to drive if they were so inclined.  The patronage and
kindness of these ladies was very uncomfortable to Amelia, but she
bore it meekly enough, for her nature was to yield; and, besides,
the carriage and its splendours gave little Georgy immense pleasure.
The ladies begged occasionally that the child might pass a day with
them, and he was always glad to go to that fine garden-house at
Denmark Hill, where they lived, and where there were such fine
grapes in the hot-houses and peaches on the walls.

One day they kindly came over to Amelia with news which they were
SURE would delight her--something VERY interesting about their dear
William.

"What was it:  was he coming home?" she asked with pleasure beaming
in her eyes.

"Oh, no--not the least--but they had very good reason to believe
that dear William was about to be married--and to a relation of a
very dear friend of Amelia's--to Miss Glorvina O'Dowd, Sir Michael
O'Dowd's sister, who had gone out to join Lady O'Dowd at Madras--a
very beautiful and accomplished girl, everybody said."

Amelia said "Oh!" Amelia was very VERY happy indeed. But she
supposed Glorvina could not be like her old acquaintance, who was
most kind--but--but she was very happy indeed.  And by some impulse
of which I cannot explain the meaning, she took George in her arms
and kissed him with an extraordinary tenderness.  Her eyes were
quite moist when she put the child down; and she scarcely spoke a
word during the whole of the drive--though she was so very happy
indeed.



CHAPTER XXXIX

A Cynical Chapter


Our duty now takes us back for a brief space to some old Hampshire
acquaintances of ours, whose hopes respecting the disposal of their
rich kinswoman's property were so woefully disappointed.  After
counting upon thirty thousand pounds from his sister, it was a heavy
blow.  to Bute Crawley to receive but five; out of which sum, when
he had paid his own debts and those of Jim, his son at college, a
very small fragment remained to portion off his four plain
daughters.  Mrs. Bute never knew, or at least never acknowledged,
how far her own tyrannous behaviour had tended to ruin her husband.
All that woman could do, she vowed and protested she had done.  Was
it her fault if she did not possess those sycophantic arts which her
hypocritical nephew, Pitt Crawley, practised? She wished him all the
happiness which he merited out of his ill-gotten gains.  "At least
the money will remain in the family," she said charitably.  "Pitt
will never spend it, my dear, that is quite certain; for a greater
miser does not exist in England, and he is as odious, though in a
different way, as his spendthrift brother, the abandoned Rawdon."

So Mrs. Bute, after the first shock of rage and disappointment,
began to accommodate herself as best she could to her altered
fortunes and to save and retrench with all her might.  She
instructed her daughters how to bear poverty cheerfully, and
invented a thousand notable methods to conceal or evade it.  She
took them about to balls and public places in the neighbourhood,
with praiseworthy energy; nay, she entertained her friends in a
hospitable comfortable manner at the Rectory, and much more
frequently than before dear Miss Crawley's legacy had fallen in.
From her outward bearing nobody would have supposed that the family
had been disappointed in their expectations, or have guessed from
her frequent appearance in public how she pinched and starved at
home.  Her girls had more milliners' furniture than they had ever
enjoyed before.  They appeared perseveringly at the Winchester and
Southampton assemblies; they penetrated to Cowes for the race-balls
and regatta-gaieties there; and their carriage, with the horses
taken from the plough, was at work perpetually, until it began
almost to be believed that the four sisters had had fortunes left
them by their aunt, whose name the family never mentioned in public
but with the most tender gratitude and regard.  I know no sort of
lying which is more frequent in Vanity Fair than this, and it may be
remarked how people who practise it take credit to themselves for
their hypocrisy, and fancy that they are exceedingly virtuous and
praiseworthy, because they are able to deceive the world with regard
to the extent of their means.

Mrs. Bute certainly thought herself one of the most virtuous women
in England, and the sight of her happy family was an edifying one to
strangers.  They were so cheerful, so loving, so well-educated, so
simple!  Martha painted flowers exquisitely and furnished half the
charity bazaars in the county.  Emma was a regular County Bulbul,
and her verses in the Hampshire Telegraph were the glory of its
Poet's Corner.  Fanny and Matilda sang duets together, Mamma playing
the piano, and the other two sisters sitting with their arms round
each other's waists and listening affectionately.  Nobody saw the
poor girls drumming at the duets in private.  No one saw Mamma
drilling them rigidly hour after hour.  In a word, Mrs. Bute put a
good face against fortune and kept up appearances in the most
virtuous manner.

Everything that a good and respectable mother could do Mrs. Bute
did.  She got over yachting men from Southampton, parsons from the
Cathedral Close at Winchester, and officers from the barracks there.
She tried to inveigle the young barristers at assizes and encouraged
Jim to bring home friends with whom he went out hunting with the H.
H.  What will not a mother do for the benefit of her beloved ones?

Between such a woman and her brother-in-law, the odious Baronet at
the Hall, it is manifest that there could be very little in common.
The rupture between Bute and his brother Sir Pitt was complete;
indeed, between Sir Pitt and the whole county, to which the old man
was a scandal.  His dislike for respectable society increased with
age, and the lodge-gates had not opened to a gentleman's carriage-
wheels since Pitt and Lady Jane came to pay their visit of duty
after their marriage.

That was an awful and unfortunate visit, never to be thought of by
the family without horror.  Pitt begged his wife, with a ghastly
countenance, never to speak of it, and it was only through Mrs. Bute
herself, who still knew everything which took place at the Hall,
that the circumstances of Sir Pitt's reception of his son and
daughter-in-law were ever known at all.

As they drove up the avenue of the park in their neat and well-
appointed carriage, Pitt remarked with dismay and wrath great gaps
among the trees--his trees--which the old Baronet was felling
entirely without license.  The park wore an aspect of utter
dreariness and ruin.  The drives were ill kept, and the neat
carriage splashed and floundered in muddy pools along the road.  The
great sweep in front of the terrace and entrance stair was black and
covered with mosses; the once trim flower-beds rank and weedy.
Shutters were up along almost the whole line of the house; the great
hall-door was unbarred after much ringing of the bell; an individual
in ribbons was seen flitting up the black oak stair, as Horrocks at
length admitted the heir of Queen's Crawley and his bride into the
halls of their fathers.  He led the way into Sir Pitt's "Library,"
as it was called, the fumes of tobacco growing stronger as Pitt and
Lady Jane approached that apartment, "Sir Pitt ain't very well,"
Horrocks remarked apologetically and hinted that his master was
afflicted with lumbago.

The library looked out on the front walk and park. Sir Pitt had
opened one of the windows, and was bawling out thence to the
postilion and Pitt's servant, who seemed to be about to take the
baggage down.

"Don't move none of them trunks," he cried, pointing with a pipe
which he held in his hand.  "It's only a morning visit, Tucker, you
fool.  Lor, what cracks that off hoss has in his heels!  Ain't there
no one at the King's Head to rub 'em a little? How do, Pitt? How do,
my dear? Come to see the old man, hay? 'Gad--you've a pretty face,
too. You ain't like that old horse-godmother, your mother. Come and
give old Pitt a kiss, like a good little gal."

The embrace disconcerted the daughter-in-law somewhat, as the
caresses of the old gentleman, unshorn and perfumed with tobacco,
might well do.  But she remembered that her brother Southdown had
mustachios, and smoked cigars, and submitted to the Baronet with a
tolerable grace.

"Pitt has got vat," said the Baronet, after this mark of affection.
"Does he read ee very long zermons, my dear? Hundredth Psalm,
Evening Hymn, hay Pitt? Go and get a glass of Malmsey and a cake for
my Lady Jane, Horrocks, you great big booby, and don't stand
stearing there like a fat pig.  I won't ask you to stop, my dear;
you'll find it too stoopid, and so should I too along a Pitt.  I'm
an old man now, and like my own ways, and my pipe and backgammon of
a night."

"I can play at backgammon, sir," said Lady Jane, laughing.  "I used
to play with Papa and Miss Crawley, didn't I, Mr. Crawley?"

"Lady Jane can play, sir, at the game to which you state that you
are so partial," Pitt said haughtily.

But she wawn't stop for all that.  Naw, naw, goo back to Mudbury and
give Mrs. Rincer a benefit; or drive down to the Rectory and ask
Buty for a dinner.  He'll be charmed to see you, you know; he's so
much obliged to you for gettin' the old woman's money.  Ha, ha!
Some of it will do to patch up the Hall when I'm gone."

"I perceive, sir," said Pitt with a heightened voice, "that your
people will cut down the timber."

"Yees, yees, very fine weather, and seasonable for the time of
year," Sir Pitt answered, who had suddenly grown deaf.  "But I'm
gittin' old, Pitt, now.  Law bless you, you ain't far from fifty
yourself.  But he wears well, my pretty Lady Jane, don't he? It's
all godliness, sobriety, and a moral life.  Look at me, I'm not very
fur from fowr-score--he, he"; and he laughed, and took snuff, and
leered at her and pinched her hand.

Pitt once more brought the conversation back to the timber, but the
Baronet was deaf again in an instant.

"I'm gittin' very old, and have been cruel bad this year with the
lumbago.  I shan't be here now for long; but I'm glad ee've come,
daughter-in-law.  I like your face, Lady Jane:  it's got none of the
damned high-boned Binkie look in it; and I'll give ee something
pretty, my dear, to go to Court in." And he shuffled across the room
to a cupboard, from which he took a little old case containing
jewels of some value.  "Take that," said he, "my dear; it belonged
to my mother, and afterwards to the first Lady Binkie. Pretty
pearls--never gave 'em the ironmonger's daughter. No, no.  Take 'em
and put 'em up quick," said he, thrusting the case into his
daughter's hand, and clapping the door of the cabinet to, as
Horrocks entered with a salver and refreshments.

"What have you a been and given Pitt's wife?" said the individual in
ribbons, when Pitt and Lady Jane had taken leave of the old
gentleman.  It was Miss Horrocks, the butler's daughter--the cause
of the scandal throughout the county--the lady who reigned now
almost supreme at Queen's Crawley.

The rise and progress of those Ribbons had been marked with dismay
by the county and family.  The Ribbons opened an account at the
Mudbury Branch Savings Bank; the Ribbons drove to church,
monopolising the pony-chaise, which was for the use of the servants
at the Hall.  The domestics were dismissed at her pleasure. The
Scotch gardener, who still lingered on the premises, taking a pride
in his walls and hot-houses, and indeed making a pretty good
livelihood by the garden, which he farmed, and of which he sold the
produce at Southampton, found the Ribbons eating peaches on a
sunshiny morning at the south-wall, and had his ears boxed when he
remonstrated about this attack on his property.  He and his Scotch
wife and his Scotch children, the only respectable inhabitants of
Queen's Crawley, were forced to migrate, with their goods and their
chattels, and left the stately comfortable gardens to go to waste,
and the flower-beds to run to seed.  Poor Lady Crawley's rose-garden
became the dreariest wilderness.  Only two or three domestics
shuddered in the bleak old servants' hall.  The stables and offices
were vacant, and shut up, and half ruined.  Sir Pitt lived in
private, and boozed nightly with Horrocks, his butler or house-
steward (as he now began to be called), and the abandoned Ribbons.
The times were very much changed since the period when she drove to
Mudbury in the spring-cart and called the small tradesmen "Sir." It
may have been shame, or it may have been dislike of his neighbours,
but the old Cynic of Queen's Crawley hardly issued from his park-
gates at all now.  He quarrelled with his agents and screwed his
tenants by letter.  His days were passed in conducting his own
correspondence; the lawyers and farm-bailiffs who had to do business
with him could not reach him but through the Ribbons, who received
them at the door of the housekeeper's room, which commanded the back
entrance by which they were admitted; and so the Baronet's daily
perplexities increased, and his embarrassments multiplied round him.

The horror of Pitt Crawley may be imagined, as these reports of his
father's dotage reached the most exemplary and correct of gentlemen.
He trembled daily lest he should hear that the Ribbons was
proclaimed his second legal mother-in-law.  After that first and
last visit, his father's name was never mentioned in Pitt's polite
and genteel establishment.  It was the skeleton in his house, and
all the family walked by it in terror and silence.  The Countess
Southdown kept on dropping per coach at the lodge-gate the most
exciting tracts, tracts which ought to frighten the hair off your
head.  Mrs. Bute at the parsonage nightly looked out to see if the
sky was red over the elms behind which the Hall stood, and the
mansion was on fire.  Sir G.  Wapshot and Sir H.  Fuddlestone, old
friends of the house, wouldn't sit on the bench with Sir Pitt at
Quarter Sessions, and cut him dead in the High Street of
Southampton, where the reprobate stood offering his dirty old hands
to them.  Nothing had any effect upon him; he put his hands into his
pockets, and burst out laughing, as he scrambled into his carriage
and four; he used to burst out laughing at Lady Southdown's tracts;
and he laughed at his sons, and at the world, and at the Ribbons
when she was angry, which was not seldom.

Miss Horrocks was installed as housekeeper at Queen's Crawley, and
ruled all the domestics there with great majesty and rigour.  All
the servants were instructed to address her as "Mum," or "Madam"--
and there was one little maid, on her promotion, who persisted in
calling her "My Lady," without any rebuke on the part of the
housekeeper.  "There has been better ladies, and there has been
worser, Hester," was Miss Horrocks' reply to this compliment of her
inferior; so she ruled, having supreme power over all except her
father, whom, however, she treated with considerable haughtiness,
warning him not to be too familiar in his behaviour to one "as was
to be a Baronet's lady." Indeed, she rehearsed that exalted part in
life with great satisfaction to herself, and to the amusement of old
Sir Pitt, who chuckled at her airs and graces, and would laugh by
the hour together at her assumptions of dignity and imitations of
genteel life. He swore it was as good as a play to see her in the
character of a fine dame, and he made her put on one of the first
Lady Crawley's court-dresses, swearing (entirely to Miss Horrocks'
own concurrence) that the dress became her prodigiously, and
threatening to drive her off that very instant to Court in a coach-
and-four.  She had the ransacking of the wardrobes of the two
defunct ladies, and cut and hacked their posthumous finery so as to
suit her own tastes and figure.  And she would have liked to take
possession of their jewels and trinkets too; but the old Baronet had
locked them away in his private cabinet; nor could she coax or
wheedle him out of the keys.  And it is a fact, that some time after
she left Queen's Crawley a copy-book belonging to this lady was
discovered, which showed that she had taken great pains in private
to learn the art of writing in general, and especially of writing
her own name as Lady Crawley, Lady Betsy Horrocks, Lady Elizabeth
Crawley, &c.

Though the good people of the Parsonage never went to the Hall and
shunned the horrid old dotard its owner, yet they kept a strict
knowledge of all that happened there, and were looking out every day
for the catastrophe for which Miss Horrocks was also eager.  But
Fate intervened enviously and prevented her from receiving the
reward due to such immaculate love and virtue.

One day the Baronet surprised "her ladyship," as he jocularly called
her, seated at that old and tuneless piano in the drawing-room,
which had scarcely been touched since Becky Sharp played quadrilles
upon it--seated at the piano with the utmost gravity and squalling
to the best of her power in imitation of the music which she had
sometimes heard.  The little kitchen-maid on her promotion was
standing at her mistress's side, quite delighted during the
operation, and wagging her head up and down and crying, "Lor, Mum,
'tis bittiful"--just like a genteel sycophant in a real drawing-
room.

This incident made the old Baronet roar with laughter, as usual.  He
narrated the circumstance a dozen times to Horrocks in the course of
the evening, and greatly to the discomfiture of Miss Horrocks.  He
thrummed on the table as if it had been a musical instrument, and
squalled in imitation of her manner of singing.  He vowed that such
a beautiful voice ought to be cultivated and declared she ought to
have singing-masters, in which proposals she saw nothing ridiculous.
He was in great spirits that night, and drank with his friend and
butler an extraordinary quantity of rum-and-water--at a very late
hour the faithful friend and domestic conducted his master to his
bedroom.

Half an hour afterwards there was a great hurry and bustle in the
house.  Lights went about from window to window in the lonely
desolate old Hall, whereof but two or three rooms were ordinarily
occupied by its owner. Presently, a boy on a pony went galloping off
to Mudbury, to the Doctor's house there.  And in another hour (by
which fact we ascertain how carefully the excellent Mrs. Bute
Crawley had always kept up an understanding with the great house),
that lady in her clogs and calash, the Reverend Bute Crawley, and
James Crawley, her son, had walked over from the Rectory through the
park, and had entered the mansion by the open hall-door.

They passed through the hall and the small oak parlour, on the table
of which stood the three tumblers and the empty rum-bottle which had
served for Sir Pitt's carouse, and through that apartment into Sir
Pitt's study, where they found Miss Horrocks, of the guilty ribbons,
with a wild air, trying at the presses and escritoires with a bunch
of keys.  She dropped them with a scream of terror, as little Mrs.
Bute's eyes flashed out at her from under her black calash.

"Look at that, James and Mr. Crawley," cried Mrs. Bute, pointing at
the scared figure of the black-eyed, guilty wench.

"He gave 'em me; he gave 'em me!" she cried.

"Gave them you, you abandoned creature!" screamed Mrs. Bute.  "Bear
witness, Mr. Crawley, we found this good-for-nothing woman in the
act of stealing your brother's property; and she will be hanged, as
I always said she would."

Betsy Horrocks, quite daunted, flung herself down on her knees,
bursting into tears.  But those who know a really good woman are
aware that she is not in a hurry to forgive, and that the
humiliation of an enemy is a triumph to her soul.

"Ring the bell, James," Mrs. Bute said.  "Go on ringing it till the
people come." The three or four domestics resident in the deserted
old house came presently at that jangling and continued summons.

"Put that woman in the strong-room," she said.  "We caught her in
the act of robbing Sir Pitt.  Mr. Crawley, you'll make out her
committal--and, Beddoes, you'll drive her over in the spring cart,
in the morning, to Southampton Gaol."

"My dear," interposed the Magistrate and Rector--"she's only--"

"Are there no handcuffs?" Mrs. Bute continued, stamping in her
clogs.  "There used to be handcuffs. Where's the creature's
abominable father?"

"He DID give 'em me," still cried poor Betsy; "didn't he, Hester?
You saw Sir Pitt--you know you did--give 'em me, ever so long ago--
the day after Mudbury fair:  not that I want 'em.  Take 'em if you
think they ain't mine." And here the unhappy wretch pulled out from
her pocket a large pair of paste shoe-buckles which had excited her
admiration, and which she had just appropriated out of one of the
bookcases in the study, where they had lain.

"Law, Betsy, how could you go for to tell such a wicked story!" said
Hester, the little kitchen-maid late on her promotion--"and to
Madame Crawley, so good and kind, and his Rev'rince (with a
curtsey), and you may search all MY boxes, Mum, I'm sure, and here's
my keys as I'm an honest girl, though of pore parents and workhouse
bred--and if you find so much as a beggarly bit of lace or a silk
stocking out of all the gownds as YOU'VE had the picking of, may I
never go to church agin."

"Give up your keys, you hardened hussy," hissed out the virtuous
little lady in the calash.

"And here's a candle, Mum, and if you please, Mum, I can show you
her room, Mum, and the press in the housekeeper's room, Mum, where
she keeps heaps and heaps of things, Mum," cried out the eager
little Hester with a profusion of curtseys.

"Hold your tongue, if you please.  I know the room which the
creature occupies perfectly well.  Mrs. Brown, have the goodness to
come with me, and Beddoes don't you lose sight of that woman," said
Mrs. Bute, seizing the candle.  "Mr. Crawley, you had better go
upstairs and see that they are not murdering your unfortunate
brother"--and the calash, escorted by Mrs. Brown, walked away to the
apartment which, as she said truly, she knew perfectly well.

Bute went upstairs and found the Doctor from Mudbury, with the
frightened Horrocks over his master in a chair.  They were trying to
bleed Sir Pitt Crawley.

With the early morning an express was sent off to Mr. Pitt Crawley
by the Rector's lady, who assumed the command of everything, and had
watched the old Baronet through the night.  He had been brought back
to a sort of life; he could not speak, but seemed to recognize
people. Mrs. Bute kept resolutely by his bedside.  She never seemed
to want to sleep, that little woman, and did not close her fiery
black eyes once, though the Doctor snored in the arm-chair.
Horrocks made some wild efforts to assert his authority and assist
his master; but Mrs. Bute called him a tipsy old wretch and bade him
never show his face again in that house, or he should be transported
like his abominable daughter.

Terrified by her manner, he slunk down to the oak parlour where Mr.
James was, who, having tried the bottle standing there and found no
liquor in it, ordered Mr. Horrocks to get another bottle of rum,
which he fetched, with clean glasses, and to which the Rector and
his son sat down, ordering Horrocks to put down the keys at that
instant and never to show his face again.

Cowed by this behaviour, Horrocks gave up the keys, and he and his
daughter slunk off silently through the night and gave up possession
of the house of Queen's Crawley.



CHAPTER XL

In Which Becky Is Recognized by the Family


The heir of Crawley arrived at home, in due time, after this
catastrophe, and henceforth may be said to have reigned in Queen's
Crawley.  For though the old Baronet survived many months, he never
recovered the use of his intellect or his speech completely, and the
government of the estate devolved upon his elder son.  In a strange
condition Pitt found it.  Sir Pitt was always buying and mortgaging;
he had twenty men of business, and quarrels with each; quarrels with
all his tenants, and lawsuits with them; lawsuits with the lawyers;
lawsuits with the Mining and Dock Companies in which he was
proprietor; and with every person with whom he had business.  To
unravel these difficulties and to set the estate clear was a task
worthy of the orderly and persevering diplomatist of Pumpernickel,
and he set himself to work with prodigious assiduity.  His whole
family, of course, was transported to Queen's Crawley, whither Lady
Southdown, of course, came too; and she set about converting the
parish under the Rector's nose, and brought down her irregular
clergy to the dismay of the angry Mrs Bute.  Sir Pitt had concluded
no bargain for the sale of the living of Queen's Crawley; when it
should drop, her Ladyship proposed to take the patronage into her
own hands and present a young protege to the Rectory, on which
subject the diplomatic Pitt said nothing.

Mrs. Bute's intentions with regard to Miss Betsy Horrocks were not
carried into effect, and she paid no visit to Southampton Gaol.  She
and her father left the Hall when the latter took possession of the
Crawley Arms in the village, of which he had got a lease from Sir
Pitt. The ex-butler had obtained a small freehold there likewise,
which gave him a vote for the borough.  The Rector had another of
these votes, and these and four others formed the representative
body which returned the two members for Queen's Crawley.

There was a show of courtesy kept up between the Rectory and the
Hall ladies, between the younger ones at least, for Mrs. Bute and
Lady Southdown never could meet without battles, and gradually
ceased seeing each other.  Her Ladyship kept her room when the
ladies from the Rectory visited their cousins at the Hall.  Perhaps
Mr. Pitt was not very much displeased at these occasional absences
of his mamma-in-law.  He believed the Binkie family to be the
greatest and wisest and most interesting in the world, and her
Ladyship and his aunt had long held ascendency over him; but
sometimes he felt that she commanded him too much.  To be considered
young was complimentary, doubtless, but at six-and-forty to be
treated as a boy was sometimes mortifying.  Lady Jane yielded up
everything, however, to her mother.  She was only fond of her
children in private, and it was lucky for her that Lady Southdown's
multifarious business, her conferences with ministers, and her
correspondence with all the missionaries of Africa, Asia, and
Australasia, &c., occupied the venerable Countess a great deal, so
that she had but little time to devote to her granddaughter, the
little Matilda, and her grandson, Master Pitt Crawley. The latter
was a feeble child, and it was only by prodigious quantities of
calomel that Lady Southdown was able to keep him in life at all.

As for Sir Pitt he retired into those very apartments where Lady
Crawley had been previously extinguished, and here was tended by
Miss Hester, the girl upon her promotion, with constant care and
assiduity.  What love, what fidelity, what constancy is there equal
to that of a nurse with good wages? They smooth pillows; and make
arrowroot; they get up at nights; they bear complaints and
querulousness; they see the sun shining out of doors and don't want
to go abroad; they sleep on arm-chairs and eat their meals in
solitude; they pass long long evenings doing nothing, watching the
embers, and the patient's drink simmering in the jug; they read the
weekly paper the whole week through; and Law's Serious Call or the
Whole Duty of Man suffices them for literature for the year--and we
quarrel with them because, when their relations come to see them
once a week, a little gin is smuggled in in their linen basket.
Ladies, what man's love is there that would stand a year's nursing
of the object of his affection? Whereas a nurse will stand by you
for ten pounds a quarter, and we think her too highly paid.  At
least Mr. Crawley grumbled a good deal about paying half as much to
Miss Hester for her constant attendance upon the Baronet his father.

Of sunshiny days this old gentleman was taken out in a chair on the
terrace--the very chair which Miss Crawley had had at Brighton, and
which had been transported thence with a number of Lady Southdown's
effects to Queen's Crawley.  Lady Jane always walked by the old man,
and was an evident favourite with him.  He used to nod many times to
her and smile when she came in, and utter inarticulate deprecatory
moans when she was going away.  When the door shut upon her he would
cry and sob--whereupon Hester's face and manner, which was always
exceedingly bland and gentle while her lady was present, would
change at once, and she would make faces at him and clench her fist
and scream out "Hold your tongue, you stoopid old fool," and twirl
away his chair from the fire which he loved to look at--at which he
would cry more.  For this was all that was left after more than
seventy years of cunning, and struggling, and drinking, and
scheming, and sin and selfishness--a whimpering old idiot put in and
out of bed and cleaned and fed like a baby.

At last a day came when the nurse's occupation was over.  Early one
morning, as Pitt Crawley was at his steward's and bailiff's books in
the study, a knock came to the door, and Hester presented herself,
dropping a curtsey, and said,

"If you please, Sir Pitt, Sir Pitt died this morning, Sir Pitt.  I
was a-making of his toast, Sir Pitt, for his gruel, Sir Pitt, which
he took every morning regular at six, Sir Pitt, and--I thought I
heard a moan-like, Sir Pitt--and--and--and--" She dropped another
curtsey.

What was it that made Pitt's pale face flush quite red? Was it
because he was Sir Pitt at last, with a seat in Parliament, and
perhaps future honours in prospect? "I'll clear the estate now with
the ready money," he thought and rapidly calculated its incumbrances
and the improvements which he would make.  He would not use his
aunt's money previously lest Sir Pitt should recover and his outlay
be in vain.

All the blinds were pulled down at the Hall and Rectory: the church
bell was tolled, and the chancel hung in black; and Bute Crawley
didn't go to a coursing meeting, but went and dined quietly at
Fuddleston, where they talked about his deceased brother and young
Sir Pitt over their port.  Miss Betsy, who was by this time married
to a saddler at Mudbury, cried a good deal. The family surgeon rode
over and paid his respectful compliments, and inquiries for the
health of their ladyships.  The death was talked about at Mudbury
and at the Crawley Arms, the landlord whereof had become reconciled
with the Rector of late, who was occasionally known to step into the
parlour and taste Mr. Horrocks' mild beer.

"Shall I write to your brother--or will you?" asked Lady Jane of her
husband, Sir Pitt.

"I will write, of course," Sir Pitt said, "and invite him to the
funeral:  it will be but becoming."

"And--and--Mrs. Rawdon," said Lady Jane timidly.

"Jane!" said Lady Southdown, "how can you think of such a thing?"

"Mrs. Rawdon must of course be asked," said Sir Pitt, resolutely.

"Not whilst I am in the house!" said Lady Southdown.

"Your Ladyship will be pleased to recollect that I am the head of
this family," Sir Pitt replied.  "If you please, Lady Jane, you will
write a letter to Mrs. Rawdon Crawley, requesting her presence upon
this melancholy occasion."

"Jane, I forbid you to put pen to paper!" cried the Countess.

"I believe I am the head of this family," Sir Pitt repeated; "and
however much I may regret any circumstance which may lead to your
Ladyship quitting this house, must, if you please, continue to
govern it as I see fit."

Lady Southdown rose up as magnificent as Mrs. Siddons in Lady
Macbeth and ordered that horses might be put to her carriage.  If
her son and daughter turned her out of their house, she would hide
her sorrows somewhere in loneliness and pray for their conversion to
better thoughts.

"We don't turn you out of our house, Mamma," said the timid Lady
Jane imploringly.

"You invite such company to it as no Christian lady should meet, and
I will have my horses to-morrow morning."

"Have the goodness to write, Jane, under my dictation," said Sir
Pitt, rising and throwing himself into an attitude of command, like
the portrait of a Gentleman in the Exhibition, "and begin.  'Queen's
Crawley, September 14, 1822.--My dear brother--'"

Hearing these decisive and terrible words, Lady Macbeth, who had
been waiting for a sign of weakness or vacillation on the part of
her son-in-law, rose and, with a scared look, left the library.
Lady Jane looked up to her husband as if she would fain follow and
soothe her mamma, but Pitt forbade his wife to move.

"She won't go away," he said.  "She has let her house at Brighton
and has spent her last half-year's dividends. A Countess living at
an inn is a ruined woman.  I have been waiting long for an
opportunity--to take this--this decisive step, my love; for, as you
must perceive, it is impossible that there should be two chiefs in a
family: and now, if you please, we will resume the dictation.  'My
dear brother, the melancholy intelligence which it is my duty to
convey to my family must have been long anticipated by,'" &c.

In a word, Pitt having come to his kingdom, and having by good luck,
or desert rather, as he considered, assumed almost all the fortune
which his other relatives had expected, was determined to treat his
family kindly and respectably and make a house of Queen's Crawley
once more.  It pleased him to think that he should be its chief.  He
proposed to use the vast influence that his commanding talents and
position must speedily acquire for him in the county to get his
brother placed and his cousins decently provided for, and perhaps
had a little sting of repentance as he thought that he was the
proprietor of all that they had hoped for.  In the course of three
or four days' reign his bearing was changed and his plans quite
fixed:  he determined to rule justly and honestly, to depose Lady
Southdown, and to be on the friendliest possible terms with all the
relations of his blood.

So he dictated a letter to his brother Rawdon--a solemn and
elaborate letter, containing the profoundest observations, couched
in the longest words, and filling with wonder the simple little
secretary, who wrote under her husband's order.  "What an orator
this will be," thought she, "when he enters the House of Commons"
(on which point, and on the tyranny of Lady Southdown, Pitt had
sometimes dropped hints to his wife in bed); "how wise and good, and
what a genius my husband is!  I fancied him a little cold; but how
good, and what a genius!"

The fact is, Pitt Crawley had got every word of the letter by heart
and had studied it, with diplomatic secrecy, deeply and perfectly,
long before he thought fit to communicate it to his astonished wife.

This letter, with a huge black border and seal, was accordingly
despatched by Sir Pitt Crawley to his brother the Colonel, in
London.  Rawdon Crawley was but half-pleased at the receipt of it.
"What's the use of going down to that stupid place?" thought he.  "I
can't stand being alone with Pitt after dinner, and horses there and
back will cost us twenty pound."

He carried the letter, as he did all difficulties, to Becky,
upstairs in her bedroom--with her chocolate, which he always made
and took to her of a morning.

He put the tray with the breakfast and the letter on the dressing-
table, before which Becky sat combing her yellow hair.  She took up
the black-edged missive, and having read it, she jumped up from the
chair, crying "Hurray!" and waving the note round her head.

"Hurray?" said Rawdon, wondering at the little figure capering about
in a streaming flannel dressing-gown, with tawny locks dishevelled.
"He's not left us anything, Becky.  I had my share when I came of
age."

"You'll never be of age, you silly old man," Becky replied.  "Run
out now to Madam Brunoy's, for I must have some mourning:  and get a
crape on your hat, and a black waistcoat--I don't think you've got
one; order it to be brought home to-morrow, so that we may be able
to start on Thursday."

"You don't mean to go?" Rawdon interposed.

"Of course I mean to go.  I mean that Lady Jane shall present me at
Court next year.  I mean that your brother shall give you a seat in
Parliament, you stupid old creature.  I mean that Lord Steyne shall
have your vote and his, my dear, old silly man; and that you shall
be an Irish Secretary, or a West Indian Governor:  or a Treasurer,
or a Consul, or some such thing."

"Posting will cost a dooce of a lot of money," grumbled Rawdon.

"We might take Southdown's carriage, which ought to be present at
the funeral, as he is a relation of the family:  but, no--I intend
that we shall go by the coach. They'll like it better.  It seems
more humble--"

"Rawdy goes, of course?" the Colonel asked.

"No such thing; why pay an extra place? He's too big to travel
bodkin between you and me.  Let him stay here in the nursery, and
Briggs can make him a black frock.  Go you, and do as I bid you.
And you had best tell Sparks, your man, that old Sir Pitt is dead
and that you will come in for something considerable when the
affairs are arranged.  He'll tell this to Raggles, who has been
pressing for money, and it will console poor Raggles." And so Becky
began sipping her chocolate.

When the faithful Lord Steyne arrived in the evening, he found Becky
and her companion, who was no other than our friend Briggs, busy
cutting, ripping, snipping, and tearing all sorts of black stuffs
available for the melancholy occasion.

"Miss Briggs and I are plunged in grief and despondency for the
death of our Papa," Rebecca said.  "Sir Pitt Crawley is dead, my
lord.  We have been tearing our hair all the morning, and now we are
tearing up our old clothes."

"Oh, Rebecca, how can you--" was all that Briggs could say as she
turned up her eyes.

"Oh, Rebecca, how can you--" echoed my Lord.  "So that old
scoundrel's dead, is he? He might have been a Peer if he had played
his cards better.  Mr. Pitt had very nearly made him; but he ratted
always at the wrong time.  What an old Silenus it was!"

"I might have been Silenus's widow," said Rebecca. "Don't you
remember, Miss Briggs, how you peeped in at the door and saw old Sir
Pitt on his knees to me?" Miss Briggs, our old friend, blushed very
much at this reminiscence, and was glad when Lord Steyne ordered her
to go downstairs and make him a cup of tea.

Briggs was the house-dog whom Rebecca had provided as guardian of
her innocence and reputation.  Miss Crawley had left her a little
annuity.  She would have been content to remain in the Crawley
family with Lady Jane, who was good to her and to everybody; but
Lady Southdown dismissed poor Briggs as quickly as decency
permitted; and Mr. Pitt (who thought himself much injured by the
uncalled-for generosity of his deceased relative towards a lady who
had only been Miss Crawley's faithful retainer a score of years)
made no objection to that exercise of the dowager's authority.
Bowls and Firkin likewise received their legacies and their
dismissals, and married and set up a lodging-house, according to the
custom of their kind.

Briggs tried to live with her relations in the country, but found
that attempt was vain after the better society to which she had been
accustomed.  Briggs's friends, small tradesmen, in a country town,
quarrelled over Miss Briggs's forty pounds a year as eagerly and
more openly than Miss Crawley's kinsfolk had for that lady's
inheritance.  Briggs's brother, a radical hatter and grocer, called
his sister a purse-proud aristocrat, because she would not advance a
part of her capital to stock his shop; and she would have done so
most likely, but that their sister, a dissenting shoemaker's lady,
at variance with the hatter and grocer, who went to another chapel,
showed how their brother was on the verge of bankruptcy, and took
possession of Briggs for a while.  The dissenting shoemaker wanted
Miss Briggs to send his son to college and make a gentleman of him.
Between them the two families got a great portion of her private
savings out of her, and finally she fled to London followed by the
anathemas of both, and determined to seek for servitude again as
infinitely less onerous than liberty.  And advertising in the papers
that a "Gentlewoman of agreeable manners, and accustomed to the best
society, was anxious to," &c., she took up her residence with Mr.
Bowls in Half Moon Street, and waited the result of the
advertisement.

So it was that she fell in with Rebecca.  Mrs. Rawdon's dashing
little carriage and ponies was whirling down the street one day,
just as Miss Briggs, fatigued, had reached Mr. Bowls's door, after a
weary walk to the Times Office in the City to insert her
advertisement for the sixth time.  Rebecca was driving, and at once
recognized the gentlewoman with agreeable manners, and being a
perfectly good-humoured woman, as we have seen, and having a regard
for Briggs, she pulled up the ponies at the doorsteps, gave the
reins to the groom, and jumping out, had hold of both Briggs's
hands, before she of the agreeable manners had recovered from the
shock of seeing an old friend.

Briggs cried, and Becky laughed a great deal and kissed the
gentlewoman as soon as they got into the passage; and thence into
Mrs. Bowls's front parlour, with the red moreen curtains, and the
round looking-glass, with the chained eagle above, gazing upon the
back of the ticket in the window which announced "Apartments to
Let."

Briggs told all her history amidst those perfectly uncalled-for sobs
and ejaculations of wonder with which women of her soft nature
salute an old acquaintance, or regard a rencontre in the street; for
though people meet other people every day, yet some there are who
insist upon discovering miracles; and women, even though they have
disliked each other, begin to cry when they meet, deploring and
remembering the time when they last quarrelled.  So, in a word,
Briggs told all her history, and Becky gave a narrative of her own
life, with her usual artlessness and candour.

Mrs. Bowls, late Firkin, came and listened grimly in the passage to
the hysterical sniffling and giggling which went on in the front
parlour.  Becky had never been a favourite of hers.  Since the
establishment of the married couple in London they had frequented
their former friends of the house of Raggles, and did not like the
latter's account of the Colonel's menage.  "I wouldn't trust him,
Ragg, my boy," Bowls remarked; and his wife, when Mrs. Rawdon issued
from the parlour, only saluted the lady with a very sour curtsey;
and her fingers were like so many sausages, cold and lifeless, when
she held them out in deference to Mrs. Rawdon, who persisted in
shaking hands with the retired lady's maid.  She whirled away into
Piccadilly, nodding with the sweetest of smiles towards Miss Briggs,
who hung nodding at the window close under the advertisement-card,
and at the next moment was in the park with a half-dozen of dandies
cantering after her carriage.

When she found how her friend was situated, and how having a snug
legacy from Miss Crawley, salary was no object to our gentlewoman,
Becky instantly formed some benevolent little domestic plans
concerning her.  This was just such a companion as would suit her
establishment, and she invited Briggs to come to dinner with her
that very evening, when she should see Becky's dear little darling
Rawdon.

Mrs. Bowls cautioned her lodger against venturing into the lion's
den, "wherein you will rue it, Miss B., mark my words, and as sure
as my name is Bowls." And Briggs promised to be very cautious.  The
upshot of which caution was that she went to live with Mrs. Rawdon
the next week, and had lent Rawdon Crawley six hundred pounds upon
annuity before six months were over.



CHAPTER XLI

In Which Becky Revisits the Halls of Her Ancestors


So the mourning being ready, and Sir Pitt Crawley warned of their
arrival, Colonel Crawley and his wife took a couple of places in the
same old High-flyer coach by which Rebecca had travelled in the
defunct Baronet's company, on her first journey into the world some
nine years before.  How well she remembered the Inn Yard, and the
ostler to whom she refused money, and the insinuating Cambridge lad
who wrapped her in his coat on the journey!  Rawdon took his place
outside, and would have liked to drive, but his grief forbade him.
He sat by the coachman and talked about horses and the road the
whole way; and who kept the inns, and who horsed the coach by which
he had travelled so many a time, when he and Pitt were boys going to
Eton.  At Mudbury a carriage and a pair of horses received them,
with a coachman in black.  "It's the old drag, Rawdon," Rebecca said
as they got in.  "The worms have eaten the cloth a good deal--
there's the stain which Sir Pitt--ha!  I see Dawson the Ironmonger
has his shutters up--which Sir Pitt made such a noise about.  It was
a bottle of cherry brandy he broke which we went to fetch for your
aunt from Southampton.  How time flies, to be sure!  That can't be
Polly Talboys, that bouncing girl standing by her mother at the
cottage there.  I remember her a mangy little urchin picking weeds
in the garden."

"Fine gal," said Rawdon, returning the salute which the cottage gave
him, by two fingers applied to his crape hatband.  Becky bowed and
saluted, and recognized people here and there graciously.  These
recognitions were inexpressibly pleasant to her.  It seemed as if
she was not an imposter any more, and was coming to the home of her
ancestors.  Rawdon was rather abashed and cast down, on the other
hand.  What recollections of boyhood and innocence might have been
flitting across his brain? What pangs of dim remorse and doubt and
shame?

"Your sisters must be young women now," Rebecca said, thinking of
those girls for the first time perhaps since she had left them.

"Don't know, I'm shaw," replied the Colonel.  "Hullo! here's old
Mother Lock.  How-dy-do, Mrs. Lock? Remember me, don't you? Master
Rawdon, hey? Dammy how those old women last; she was a hundred when
I was a boy."

They were going through the lodge-gates kept by old Mrs. Lock, whose
hand Rebecca insisted upon shaking, as she flung open the creaking
old iron gate, and the carriage passed between the two moss-grown
pillars surmounted by the dove and serpent.

"The governor has cut into the timber," Rawdon said, looking about,
and then was silent--so was Becky.  Both of them were rather
agitated, and thinking of old times. He about Eton, and his mother,
whom he remembered, a frigid demure woman, and a sister who died, of
whom he had been passionately fond; and how he used to thrash Pitt;
and about little Rawdy at home.  And Rebecca thought about her own
youth and the dark secrets of those early tainted days; and of her
entrance into life by yonder gates; and of Miss Pinkerton, and Joe,
and Amelia.

The gravel walk and terrace had been scraped quite clean.  A grand
painted hatchment was already over the great entrance, and two very
solemn and tall personages in black flung open each a leaf of the
door as the carriage pulled up at the familiar steps.  Rawdon turned
red, and Becky somewhat pale, as they passed through the old hall,
arm in arm.  She pinched her husband's arm as they entered the oak
parlour, where Sir Pitt and his wife were ready to receive them.
Sir Pitt in black, Lady Jane in black, and my Lady Southdown with a
large black head-piece of bugles and feathers, which waved on her
Ladyship's head like an undertaker's tray.

Sir Pitt had judged correctly, that she would not quit the premises.
She contented herself by preserving a solemn and stony silence, when
in company of Pitt and his rebellious wife, and by frightening the
children in the nursery by the ghastly gloom of her demeanour. Only
a very faint bending of the head-dress and plumes welcomed Rawdon
and his wife, as those prodigals returned to their family.

To say the truth, they were not affected very much one way or other
by this coolness.  Her Ladyship was a person only of secondary
consideration in their minds just then--they were intent upon the
reception which the reigning brother and sister would afford them.

Pitt, with rather a heightened colour, went up and shook his brother
by the hand, and saluted Rebecca with a hand-shake and a very low
bow.  But Lady Jane took both the hands of her sister-in-law and
kissed her affectionately. The embrace somehow brought tears into
the eyes of the little adventuress--which ornaments, as we know, she
wore very seldom.  The artless mark of kindness and confidence
touched and pleased her; and Rawdon, encouraged by this
demonstration on his sister's part, twirled up his mustachios and
took leave to salute Lady Jane with a kiss, which caused her
Ladyship to blush exceedingly.

"Dev'lish nice little woman, Lady Jane," was his verdict, when he
and his wife were together again.  "Pitt's got fat, too, and is
doing the thing handsomely." "He can afford it," said Rebecca and
agreed in her husband's farther opinion "that the mother-in-law was
a tremendous old Guy--and that the sisters were rather well-looking
young women."

They, too, had been summoned from school to attend the funeral
ceremonies.  It seemed Sir Pitt Crawley, for the dignity of the
house and family, had thought right to have about the place as many
persons in black as could possibly be assembled.  All the men and
maids of the house, the old women of the Alms House, whom the elder
Sir Pitt had cheated out of a great portion of their due, the parish
clerk's family, and the special retainers of both Hall and Rectory
were habited in sable; added to these, the undertaker's men, at
least a score, with crapes and hatbands, and who made goodly show
when the great burying show took place--but these are mute
personages in our drama; and having nothing to do or say, need
occupy a very little space here.

With regard to her sisters-in-law Rebecca did not attempt to forget
her former position of Governess towards them, but recalled it
frankly and kindly, and asked them about their studies with great
gravity, and told them that she had thought of them many and many a
day, and longed to know of their welfare.  In fact you would have
supposed that ever since she had left them she had not ceased to
keep them uppermost in her thoughts and to take the tenderest
interest in their welfare.  So supposed Lady Crawley herself and her
young sisters.

"She's hardly changed since eight years," said Miss Rosalind to Miss
Violet, as they were preparing for dinner.

"Those red-haired women look wonderfully well," replied the other.

"Hers is much darker than it was; I think she must dye it," Miss
Rosalind added.  "She is stouter, too, and altogether improved,"
continued Miss Rosalind, who was disposed to be very fat.

"At least she gives herself no airs and remembers that she was our
Governess once," Miss Violet said, intimating that it befitted all
governesses to keep their proper place, and forgetting altogether
that she was granddaughter not only of Sir Walpole Crawley, but of
Mr. Dawson of Mudbury, and so had a coal-scuttle in her scutcheon.
There are other very well-meaning people whom one meets every day in
Vanity Fair who are surely equally oblivious.

"It can't be true what the girls at the Rectory said, that her
mother was an opera-dancer--"

"A person can't help their birth," Rosalind replied with great
liberality.  "And I agree with our brother, that as she is in the
family, of course we are bound to notice her. I am sure Aunt Bute
need not talk; she wants to marry Kate to young Hooper, the wine-
merchant, and absolutely asked him to come to the Rectory for
orders."

"I wonder whether Lady Southdown will go away, she looked very glum
upon Mrs. Rawdon," the other said.

"I wish she would.  I won't read the Washerwoman of Finchley
Common," vowed Violet; and so saying, and avoiding a passage at the
end of which a certain coffin was placed with a couple of watchers,
and lights perpetually burning in the closed room, these young women
came down to the family dinner, for which the bell rang as usual.

But before this, Lady Jane conducted Rebecca to the apartments
prepared for her, which, with the rest of the house, had assumed a
very much improved appearance of order and comfort during Pitt's
regency, and here beholding that Mrs. Rawdon's modest little trunks
had arrived, and were placed in the bedroom and dressing-room
adjoining, helped her to take off her neat black bonnet and cloak,
and asked her sister-in-law in what more she could be useful.

"What I should like best," said Rebecca, "would be to go to the
nursery and see your dear little children." On which the two ladies
looked very kindly at each other and went to that apartment hand in
hand.

Becky admired little Matilda, who was not quite four years old, as
the most charming little love in the world; and the boy, a little
fellow of two years--pale, heavy-eyed, and large-headed--she
pronounced to be a perfect prodigy in point of size, intelligence,
and beauty.

"I wish Mamma would not insist on giving him so much medicine," Lady
Jane said with a sigh.  "I often think we should all be better
without it." And then Lady Jane and her new-found friend had one of
those confidential medical conversations about the children, which
all mothers, and most women, as I am given to understand, delight
in. Fifty years ago, and when the present writer, being an
interesting little boy, was ordered out of the room with the ladies
after dinner, I remember quite well that their talk was chiefly
about their ailments; and putting this question directly to two or
three since, I have always got from them the acknowledgement that
times are not changed.  Let my fair readers remark for themselves
this very evening when they quit the dessert-table and assemble to
celebrate the drawing-room mysteries.  Well--in half an hour Becky
and Lady Jane were close and intimate friends--and in the course of
the evening her Ladyship informed Sir Pitt that she thought her new
sister-in-law was a kind, frank, unaffected, and affectionate young
woman.

And so having easily won the daughter's good-will, the indefatigable
little woman bent herself to conciliate the august Lady Southdown.
As soon as she found her Ladyship alone, Rebecca attacked her on the
nursery question at once and said that her own little boy was saved,
actually saved, by calomel, freely administered, when all the
physicians in Paris had given the dear child up.  And then she
mentioned how often she had heard of Lady Southdown from that
excellent man the Reverend Lawrence Grills, Minister of the chapel
in May Fair, which she frequented; and how her views were very much
changed by circumstances and misfortunes; and how she hoped that a
past life spent in worldliness and error might not incapacitate her
from more serious thought for the future. She described how in
former days she had been indebted to Mr. Crawley for religious
instruction, touched upon the Washerwoman of Finchley Common, which
she had read with the greatest profit, and asked about Lady Emily,
its gifted author, now Lady Emily Hornblower, at Cape Town, where
her husband had strong hopes of becoming Bishop of Caffraria.

But she crowned all, and confirmed herself in Lady Southdown's
favour, by feeling very much agitated and unwell after the funeral
and requesting her Ladyship's medical advice, which the Dowager not
only gave, but, wrapped up in a bed-gown and looking more like Lady
Macbeth than ever, came privately in the night to Becky's room with
a parcel of favourite tracts, and a medicine of her own composition,
which she insisted that Mrs. Rawdon should take.

Becky first accepted the tracts and began to examine them with great
interest, engaging the Dowager in a conversation concerning them and
the welfare of her soul, by which means she hoped that her body
might escape medication.  But after the religious topics were
exhausted, Lady Macbeth would not quit Becky's chamber until her cup
of night-drink was emptied too; and poor Mrs. Rawdon was compelled
actually to assume a look of gratitude, and to swallow the medicine
under the unyielding old Dowager's nose, who left her victim finally
with a benediction.

It did not much comfort Mrs. Rawdon; her countenance was very queer
when Rawdon came in and heard what had happened; and.  his
explosions of laughter were as loud as usual, when Becky, with a fun
which she could not disguise, even though it was at her own expense,
described the occurrence and how she had been victimized by Lady
Southdown.  Lord Steyne, and her son in London, had many a laugh
over the story when Rawdon and his wife returned to their quarters
in May Fair.  Becky acted the whole scene for them.  She put on a
night-cap and gown.  She preached a great sermon in the true serious
manner; she lectured on the virtue of the medicine which she
pretended to administer, with a gravity of imitation so perfect that
you would have thought it was the Countess's own Roman nose through
which she snuffled. "Give us Lady Southdown and the black dose," was
a constant cry amongst the folks in Becky's little drawing-room in
May Fair.  And for the first time in her life the Dowager Countess
of Southdown was made amusing.

Sir Pitt remembered the testimonies of respect and veneration which
Rebecca had paid personally to himself in early days, and was
tolerably well disposed towards her.  The marriage, ill-advised as
it was, had improved Rawdon very much--that was clear from the
Colonel's altered habits and demeanour--and had it not been a lucky
union as regarded Pitt himself? The cunning diplomatist smiled
inwardly as he owned that he owed his fortune to it, and
acknowledged that he at least ought not to cry out against it.  His
satisfaction was not removed by Rebecca's own statements, behaviour,
and conversation.

She doubled the deference which before had charmed him, calling out
his conversational powers in such a manner as quite to surprise Pitt
himself, who, always inclined to respect his own talents, admired
them the more when Rebecca pointed them out to him.  With her
sister-in-law, Rebecca was satisfactorily able to prove that it was
Mrs. Bute Crawley who brought about the marriage which she
afterwards so calumniated; that it was Mrs. Bute's avarice--who
hoped to gain all Miss Crawley's fortune and deprive Rawdon of his
aunt's favour--which caused and invented all the wicked reports
against Rebecca.  "She succeeded in making us poor," Rebecca said
with an air of angelical patience; "but how can I be angry with a
woman who has given me one of the best husbands in the world? And
has not her own avarice been sufficiently punished by the ruin of
her own hopes and the loss of the property by which she set so much
store? Poor!" she cried.  "Dear Lady Jane, what care we for poverty?
I am used to it from childhood, and I am often thankful that Miss
Crawley's money has gone to restore the splendour of the noble old
family of which I am so proud to be a member.  I am sure Sir Pitt
will make a much better use of it than Rawdon would."

All these speeches were reported to Sir Pitt by the most faithful of
wives, and increased the favourable impression which Rebecca made;
so much so that when, on the third day after the funeral, the family
party were at dinner, Sir Pitt Crawley, carving fowls at the head of
the table, actually said to Mrs. Rawdon, "Ahem!  Rebecca, may I give
you a wing?"--a speech which made the little woman's eyes sparkle
with pleasure.

While Rebecca was prosecuting the above schemes and hopes, and Pitt
Crawley arranging the funeral ceremonial and other matters connected
with his future progress and dignity, and Lady Jane busy with her
nursery, as far as her mother would let her, and the sun rising and
setting, and the clock-tower bell of the Hall ringing to dinner and
to prayers as usual, the body of the late owner of Queen's Crawley
lay in the apartment which he had occupied, watched unceasingly by
the professional attendants who were engaged for that rite.  A woman
or two, and three or four undertaker's men, the best whom
Southampton could furnish, dressed in black, and of a proper
stealthy and tragical demeanour, had charge of the remains which
they watched turn about, having the housekeeper's room for their
place of rendezvous when off duty, where they played at cards in
privacy and drank their beer.

The members of the family and servants of the house kept away from
the gloomy spot, where the bones of the descendant of an ancient
line of knights and gentlemen lay, awaiting their final consignment
to the family crypt. No regrets attended them, save those of the
poor woman who had hoped to be Sir Pitt's wife and widow and who had
fled in disgrace from the Hall over which she had so nearly been a
ruler.  Beyond her and a favourite old pointer he had, and between
whom and himself an attachment subsisted during the period of his
imbecility, the old man had not a single friend to mourn him, having
indeed, during the whole course of his life, never taken the least
pains to secure one.  Could the best and kindest of us who depart
from the earth have an opportunity of revisiting it, I suppose he or
she (assuming that any Vanity Fair feelings subsist in the sphere
whither we are bound) would have a pang of mortification at finding
how soon our survivors were consoled.  And so Sir Pitt was
forgotten--like the kindest and best of us--only a few weeks sooner.

Those who will may follow his remains to the grave, whither they
were borne on the appointed day, in the most becoming manner, the
family in black coaches, with their handkerchiefs up to their noses,
ready for the tears which did not come; the undertaker and his
gentlemen in deep tribulation; the select tenantry mourning out of
compliment to the new landlord; the neighbouring gentry's carriages
at three miles an hour, empty, and in profound affliction; the
parson speaking out the formula about "our dear brother departed."
As long as we have a man's body, we play our Vanities upon it,
surrounding it with humbug and ceremonies, laying it in state, and
packing it up in gilt nails and velvet; and we finish our duty by
placing over it a stone, written all over with lies.  Bute's curate,
a smart young fellow from Oxford, and Sir Pitt Crawley composed
between them an appropriate Latin epitaph for the late lamented
Baronet, and the former preached a classical sermon, exhorting the
survivors not to give way to grief and informing them in the most
respectful terms that they also would be one day called upon to pass
that gloomy and mysterious portal which had just closed upon the
remains of their lamented brother. Then the tenantry mounted on
horseback again, or stayed and refreshed themselves at the Crawley
Arms.  Then, after a lunch in the servants' hall at Queen's Crawley,
the gentry's carriages wheeled off to their different destinations:
then the undertaker's men, taking the ropes, palls, velvets, ostrich
feathers, and other mortuary properties, clambered up on the roof of
the hearse and rode off to Southampton.  Their faces relapsed into a
natural expression as the horses, clearing the lodge-gates, got into
a brisker trot on the open road; and squads of them might have been
seen, speckling with black the public-house entrances, with pewter-
pots flashing in the sunshine.  Sir Pitt's invalid chair was wheeled
away into a tool-house in the garden; the old pointer used to howl
sometimes at first, but these were the only accents of grief which
were heard in the Hall of which Sir Pitt Crawley, Baronet, had been
master for some threescore years.

As the birds were pretty plentiful, and partridge shooting is as it
were the duty of an English gentleman of statesmanlike propensities,
Sir Pitt Crawley, the first shock of grief over, went out a little
and partook of that diversion in a white hat with crape round it.
The sight of those fields of stubble and turnips, now his own, gave
him many secret joys.  Sometimes, and with an exquisite humility, he
took no gun, but went out with a peaceful bamboo cane; Rawdon, his
big brother, and the keepers blazing away at his side.  Pitt's money
and acres had a great effect upon his brother.  The penniless
Colonel became quite obsequious and respectful to the head of his
house, and despised the milksop Pitt no longer.  Rawdon listened
with sympathy to his senior's prospects of planting and draining,
gave his advice about the stables and cattle, rode over to Mudbury
to look at a mare, which he thought would carry Lady Jane, and
offered to break her, &c.:  the rebellious dragoon was quite humbled
and subdued, and became a most creditable younger brother.  He had
constant bulletins from Miss Briggs in London respecting little
Rawdon, who was left behind there, who sent messages of his own.  "I
am very well," he wrote.  "I hope you are very well.  I hope Mamma
is very well.  The pony is very well.  Grey takes me to ride in the
park. I can canter.  I met the little boy who rode before.  He cried
when he cantered.  I do not cry." Rawdon read these letters to his
brother and Lady Jane, who was delighted with them.  The Baronet
promised to take charge of the lad at school, and his kind-hearted
wife gave Rebecca a bank-note, begging her to buy a present with it
for her little nephew.

One day followed another, and the ladies of the house passed their
life in those calm pursuits and amusements which satisfy country
ladies.  Bells rang to meals and to prayers.  The young ladies took
exercise on the pianoforte every morning after breakfast, Rebecca
giving them the benefit of her instruction.  Then they put on thick
shoes and walked in the park or shrubberies, or beyond the palings
into the village, descending upon the cottages, with Lady
Southdown's medicine and tracts for the sick people there.  Lady
Southdown drove out in a pony-chaise, when Rebecca would take her
place by the Dowager's side and listen to her solemn talk with the
utmost interest.  She sang Handel and Haydn to the family of
evenings, and engaged in a large piece of worsted work, as if she
had been born to the business and as if this kind of life was to
continue with her until she should sink to the grave in a polite old
age, leaving regrets and a great quantity of consols behind her--as
if there were not cares and duns, schemes, shifts, and poverty
waiting outside the park gates, to pounce upon her when she issued
into the world again.

"It isn't difficult to be a country gentleman's wife," Rebecca
thought.  "I think I could be a good woman if I had five thousand a
year.  I could dawdle about in the nursery and count the apricots on
the wall.  I could water plants in a green-house and pick off dead
leaves from the geraniums.  I could ask old women about their
rheumatisms and order half-a-crown's worth of soup for the poor.  I
shouldn't miss it much, out of five thousand a year.  I could even
drive out ten miles to dine at a neighbour's, and dress in the
fashions of the year before last. I could go to church and keep
awake in the great family pew, or go to sleep behind the curtains,
with my veil down, if I only had practice.  I could pay everybody,
if I had but the money.  This is what the conjurors here pride
themselves upon doing.  They look down with pity upon us miserable
sinners who have none.  They think themselves generous if they give
our children a five-pound note, and us contemptible if we are
without one." And who knows but Rebecca was right in her
speculations--and that it was only a question of money and fortune
which made the difference between her and an honest woman? If you
take temptations into account, who is to say that he is better than
his neighbour? A comfortable career of prosperity, if it does not
make people honest, at least keeps them so.  An alderman coming from
a turtle feast will not step out of his carnage to steal a leg of
mutton; but put him to starve, and see if he will not purloin a
loaf.  Becky consoled herself by so balancing the chances and
equalizing the distribution of good and evil in the world.

The old haunts, the old fields and woods, the copses, ponds, and
gardens, the rooms of the old house where she had spent a couple of
years seven years ago, were all carefully revisited by her.  She had
been young there, or comparatively so, for she forgot the time when
she ever WAS young--but she remembered her thoughts and feelings
seven years back and contrasted them with those which she had at
present, now that she had seen the world, and lived with great
people, and raised herself far beyond her original humble station.

"I have passed beyond it, because I have brains," Becky thought,
"and almost all the rest of the world are fools. I could not go back
and consort with those people now, whom I used to meet in my
father's studio.  Lords come up to my door with stars and garters,
instead of poor artists with screws of tobacco in their pockets.  I
have a gentleman for my husband, and an Earl's daughter for my
sister, in the very house where I was little better than a servant a
few years ago.  But am I much better to do now in the world than I
was when I was the poor painter's daughter and wheedled the grocer
round the corner for sugar and tea? Suppose I had married Francis
who was so fond of me--I couldn't have been much poorer than I am
now.  Heigho!  I wish I could exchange my position in society, and
all my relations for a snug sum in the Three Per Cent.  Consols";
for so it was that Becky felt the Vanity of human affairs, and it
was in those securities that she would have liked to cast anchor.

It may, perhaps, have struck her that to have been honest and
humble, to have done her duty, and to have marched straightforward
on her way, would have brought her as near happiness as that path by
which she was striving to attain it.  But--just as the children at
Queen's Crawley went round the room where the body of their father
lay--if ever Becky had these thoughts, she was accustomed to walk
round them and not look in.  She eluded them and despised them--or
at least she was committed to the other path from which retreat was
now impossible.  And for my part I believe that remorse is the least
active of all a man's moral senses--the very easiest to be deadened
when wakened, and in some never wakened at all.  We grieve at being
found out and at the idea of shame or punishment, but the mere sense
of wrong makes very few people unhappy in Vanity Fair.

So Rebecca, during her stay at Queen's Crawley, made as many friends
of the Mammon of Unrighteousness as she could possibly bring under
control.  Lady Jane and her husband bade her farewell with the
warmest demonstrations of good-will.  They looked forward with
pleasure to the time when, the family house in Gaunt Street being
repaired and beautified, they were to meet again in London.  Lady
Southdown made her up a packet of medicine and sent a letter by her
to the Rev.  Lawrence Grills, exhorting that gentleman to save the
brand who "honoured" the letter from the burning.  Pitt accompanied
them with four horses in the carriage to Mudbury, having sent on
their baggage in a cart previously, accompanied with loads of game.

"How happy you will be to see your darling little boy again!" Lady
Crawley said, taking leave of her kinswoman.

"Oh so happy!" said Rebecca, throwing up the green eyes. She was
immensely happy to be free of the place, and yet loath to go.
Queen's Crawley was abominably stupid, and yet the air there was
somehow purer than that which she had been accustomed to breathe.
Everybody had been dull, but had been kind in their way.  "It is all
the influence of a long course of Three Per Cents," Becky said to
herself, and was right very likely.

However, the London lamps flashed joyfully as the stage rolled into
Piccadilly, and Briggs had made a beautiful fire in Curzon Street,
and little Rawdon was up to welcome back his papa and mamma.



CHAPTER XLII

Which Treats of the Osborne Family


Considerable time has elapsed since we have seen our respectable
friend, old Mr. Osborne of Russell Square.  He has not been the
happiest of mortals since last we met him. Events have occurred
which have not improved his temper, and in more in stances than one
he has not been allowed to have his own way.  To be thwarted in this
reasonable desire was always very injurious to the old gentleman;
and resistance became doubly exasperating when gout, age,
loneliness, and the force of many disappointments combined to weigh
him down.  His stiff black hair began to grow quite white soon after
his son's death; his-face grew redder; his hands trembled more and
more as he poured out his glass of port wine.  He led his clerks a
dire life in the City:  his family at home were not much happier.  I
doubt if Rebecca, whom we have seen piously praying for Consols,
would have exchanged her poverty and the dare-devil excitement and
chances of her life for Osborne's money and the humdrum gloom which
enveloped him.  He had proposed for Miss Swartz, but had been
rejected scornfully by the partisans of that lady, who married her
to a young sprig of Scotch nobility.  He was a man to have married a
woman out of low life and bullied her dreadfully afterwards; but no
person presented herself suitable to his taste, and, instead, he
tyrannized over his unmarried daughter, at home.  She had a fine
carriage and fine horses and sat at the head of a table loaded with
the grandest plate.  She had a cheque-book, a prize footman to
follow her when she walked, unlimited credit, and bows and
compliments from all the tradesmen, and all the appurtenances of an
heiress; but she spent a woeful time. The little charity-girls at
the Foundling, the sweeperess at the crossing, the poorest under-
kitchen-maid in the servants' hall, was happy compared to that
unfortunate and now middle-aged young lady.

Frederick Bullock, Esq., of the house of Bullock, Hulker, and
Bullock, had married Maria Osborne, not without a great deal of
difficulty and grumbling on Mr. Bullock's part. George being dead
and cut out of his father's will, Frederick insisted that the half
of the old gentleman's property should be settled upon his Maria,
and indeed, for a long time, refused, "to come to the scratch" (it
was Mr. Frederick's own expression) on any other terms.  Osborne
said Fred had agreed to take his daughter with twenty thousand, and
he should bind himself to no more.  "Fred might take it, and
welcome, or leave it, and go and be hanged." Fred, whose hopes had
been raised when George had been disinherited, thought himself
infamously swindled by the old merchant, and for some time made as
if he would break off the match altogether.  Osborne withdrew his
account from Bullock and Hulker's, went on 'Change with a horsewhip
which he swore he would lay across the back of a certain scoundrel
that should be nameless, and demeaned himself in his usual violent
manner.  Jane Osborne condoled with her sister Maria during this
family feud.  "I always told you, Maria, that it was your money he
loved and not you," she said, soothingly.

"He selected me and my money at any rate; he didn't choose you and
yours," replied Maria, tossing up her head.

The rapture was, however, only temporary.  Fred's father and senior
partners counselled him to take Maria, even with the twenty thousand
settled, half down, and half at the death of Mr. Osborne, with the
chances of the further division of the property.  So he "knuckled
down," again to use his own phrase, and sent old Hulker with
peaceable overtures to Osborne.  It was his father, he said, who
would not hear of the match, and had made the difficulties; he was
most anxious to keep the engagement.  The excuse was sulkily
accepted by Mr. Osborne.  Hulker and Bullock were a high family of
the City aristocracy, and connected with the "nobs" at the West End.
It was something for the old man to be able to say, "My son, sir, of
the house of Hulker, Bullock, and Co., sir; my daughter's cousin,
Lady Mary Mango, sir, daughter of the Right Hon.  The Earl of
Castlemouldy." In his imagination he saw his house peopled by the
"nobs." So he forgave young Bullock and consented that the marriage
should take place.

It was a grand affair--the bridegroom's relatives giving the
breakfast, their habitations being near St.  George's, Hanover
Square, where the business took place.  The "nobs of the West End"
were invited, and many of them signed the book.  Mr. Mango and Lady
Mary Mango were there, with the dear young Gwendoline and Guinever
Mango as bridesmaids; Colonel Bludyer of the Dragoon Guards (eldest
son of the house of Bludyer Brothers, Mincing Lane), another cousin
of the bridegroom, and the Honourable Mrs. Bludyer; the Honourable
George Boulter, Lord Levant's son, and his lady, Miss Mango that
was; Lord Viscount Castletoddy; Honourable James McMull and Mrs.
McMull (formerly Miss Swartz); and a host of fashionables, who have
all married into Lombard Street and done a great deal to ennoble
Cornhill.

The young couple had a house near Berkeley Square and a small villa
at Roehampton, among the banking colony there.  Fred was considered
to have made rather a mesalliance by the ladies of his family, whose
grandfather had been in a Charity School, and who were allied
through the husbands with some of the best blood in England.  And
Maria was bound, by superior pride and great care in the composition
of her visiting-book, to make up for the defects of birth, and felt
it her duty to see her father and sister as little as possible.

That she should utterly break with the old man, who had still so
many scores of thousand pounds to give away, is absurd to suppose.
Fred Bullock would never allow her to do that.  But she was still
young and incapable of hiding her feelings; and by inviting her papa
and sister to her third-rate parties, and behaving very coldly to
them when they came, and by avoiding Russell Square, and
indiscreetly begging her father to quit that odious vulgar place,
she did more harm than all Frederick's diplomacy could repair, and
perilled her chance of her inheritance like a giddy heedless
creature as she was.

"So Russell Square is not good enough for Mrs. Maria, hay?" said the
old gentleman, rattling up the carriage windows as he and his
daughter drove away one night from Mrs. Frederick Bullock's, after
dinner.  "So she invites her father and sister to a second day's
dinner (if those sides, or ontrys, as she calls 'em, weren't served
yesterday, I'm d--d), and to meet City folks and littery men, and
keeps the Earls and the Ladies, and the Honourables to herself.
Honourables? Damn Honourables.  I am a plain British merchant I am,
and could buy the beggarly hounds over and over.  Lords, indeed!--
why, at one of her swarreys I saw one of 'em speak to a dam fiddler
--a fellar I despise. And they won't come to Russell Square, won't
they? Why, I'll lay my life I've got a better glass of wine, and pay
a better figure for it, and can show a handsomer service of silver,
and can lay a better dinner on my mahogany, than ever they see on
theirs--the cringing, sneaking, stuck-up fools.  Drive on quick,
James:  I want to get back to Russell Square--ha, ha!" and he sank
back into the corner with a furious laugh.  With such reflections on
his own superior merit, it was the custom of the old gentleman not
unfrequently to console himself.

Jane Osborne could not but concur in these opinions respecting her
sister's conduct; and when Mrs. Frederick's first-born, Frederick
Augustus Howard Stanley Devereux Bullock, was born, old Osborne, who
was invited to the christening and to be godfather, contented
himself with sending the child a gold cup, with twenty guineas
inside it for the nurse.  "That's more than any of your Lords will
give, I'LL warrant," he said and refused to attend at the ceremony.

The splendour of the gift, however, caused great satisfaction to the
house of Bullock.  Maria thought that her father was very much
pleased with her, and Frederick augured the best for his little son
and heir.

One can fancy the pangs with which Miss Osborne in her solitude in
Russell Square read the Morning Post, where her sister's name
occurred every now and then, in the articles headed "Fashionable
Reunions," and where she had an opportunity of reading a description
of Mrs. F.  Bullock's costume, when presented at the drawing room by
Lady Frederica Bullock.  Jane's own life, as we have said, admitted
of no such grandeur.  It was an awful existence. She had to get up
of black winter's mornings to make breakfast for her scowling old
father, who would have turned the whole house out of doors if his
tea had not been ready at half-past eight.  She remained silent
opposite to him, listening to the urn hissing, and sitting in tremor
while the parent read his paper and consumed his accustomed portion
of muffins and tea.  At half-past nine he rose and went to the City,
and she was almost free till dinner-time, to make visitations in the
kitchen and to scold the servants; to drive abroad and descend upon
the tradesmen, who were prodigiously respectful; to leave her cards
and her papa's at the great glum respectable houses of their City
friends; or to sit alone in the large drawing-room, expecting
visitors; and working at a huge piece of worsted by the fire, on the
sofa, hard by the great Iphigenia clock, which ticked and tolled
with mournful loudness in the dreary room.  The great glass over the
mantelpiece, faced by the other great console glass at the opposite
end of the room, increased and multiplied between them the brown
Holland bag in which the chandelier hung, until you saw these brown
Holland bags fading away in endless perspectives, and this apartment
of Miss Osborne's seemed the centre of a system of drawing-rooms.
When she removed the cordovan leather from the grand piano and
ventured to play a few notes on it, it sounded with a mournful
sadness, startling the dismal echoes of the house.  George's picture
was gone, and laid upstairs in a lumber-room in the garret; and
though there was a consciousness of him, and father and daughter
often instinctively knew that they were thinking of him, no mention
was ever made of the brave and once darling son.

At five o'clock Mr. Osborne came back to his dinner, which he and
his daughter took in silence (seldom broken, except when he swore
and was savage, if the cooking was not to his liking), or which they
shared twice in a month with a party of dismal friends of Osborne's
rank and age.  Old Dr. Gulp and his lady from Bloomsbury Square; old
Mr. Frowser, the attorney, from Bedford Row, a very great man, and
from his business, hand-in-glove with the "nobs at the West End";
old Colonel Livermore, of the Bombay Army, and Mrs. Livermore, from
Upper Bedford Place; old Sergeant Toffy and Mrs. Toffy; and
sometimes old Sir Thomas Coffin and Lady Coffin, from Bedford
Square.  Sir Thomas was celebrated as a hanging judge, and the
particular tawny port was produced when he dined with Mr. Osborne.

These people and their like gave the pompous Russell Square merchant
pompous dinners back again.  They had solemn rubbers of whist, when
they went upstairs after drinking, and their carriages were called
at half past ten. Many rich people, whom we poor devils are in the
habit of envying, lead contentedly an existence like that above
described.  Jane Osborne scarcely ever met a man under sixty, and
almost the only bachelor who appeared in their society was Mr.
Smirk, the celebrated ladies' doctor.

I can't say that nothing had occurred to disturb the monotony of
this awful existence:  the fact is, there had been a secret in poor
Jane's life which had made her father more savage and morose than
even nature, pride, and over-feeding had made him.  This secret was
connected with Miss Wirt, who had a cousin an artist, Mr. Smee, very
celebrated since as a portrait-painter and R.A., but who once was
glad enough to give drawing lessons to ladies of fashion.  Mr. Smee
has forgotten where Russell Square is now, but he was glad enough to
visit it in the year 1818, when Miss Osborne had instruction from
him.

Smee (formerly a pupil of Sharpe of Frith Street, a dissolute,
irregular, and unsuccessful man, but a man with great knowledge of
his art) being the cousin of Miss Wirt, we say, and introduced by
her to Miss Osborne, whose hand and heart were still free after
various incomplete love affairs, felt a great attachment for this
lady, and it is believed inspired one in her bosom.  Miss Wirt was
the confidante of this intrigue.  I know not whether she used to
leave the room where the master and his pupil were painting, in
order to give them an opportunity for exchanging those vows and
sentiments which cannot be uttered advantageously in the presence of
a third party; I know not whether she hoped that should her cousin
succeed in carrying off the rich merchant's daughter, he would give
Miss Wirt a portion of the wealth which she had enabled him to win--
all that is certain is that Mr. Osborne got some hint of the
transaction, came back from the City abruptly, and entered the
drawing-room with his bamboo cane; found the painter, the pupil, and
the companion all looking exceedingly pale there; turned the former
out of doors with menaces that he would break every bone in his
skin, and half an hour afterwards dismissed Miss Wirt likewise,
kicking her trunks down the stairs, trampling on her bandboxes, and
shaking his fist at her hackney coach as it bore her away.

Jane Osborne kept her bedroom for many days.  She was not allowed to
have a companion afterwards.  Her father swore to her that she
should not have a shilling of his money if she made any match
without his concurrence; and as he wanted a woman to keep his house,
he did not choose that she should marry, so that she was obliged to
give up all projects with which Cupid had any share. During her
papa's life, then, she resigned herself to the manner of existence
here described, and was content to be an old maid.  Her sister,
meanwhile, was having children with finer names every year and the
intercourse between the two grew fainter continually.  "Jane and I
do not move in the same sphere of life," Mrs. Bullock said.  "I
regard her as a sister, of course"--which means--what does it mean
when a lady says that she regards Jane as a sister?

It has been described how the Misses Dobbin lived with their father
at a fine villa at Denmark Hill, where there were beautiful
graperies and peach-trees which delighted little Georgy Osborne.
The Misses Dobbin, who drove often to Brompton to see our dear
Amelia, came sometimes to Russell Square too, to pay a visit to
their old acquaintance Miss Osborne.  I believe it was in
consequence of the commands of their brother the Major in India (for
whom their papa had a prodigious respect), that they paid attention
to Mrs. George; for the Major, the godfather and guardian of
Amelia's little boy, still hoped that the child's grandfather might
be induced to relent towards him and acknowledge him for the sake of
his son.  The Misses Dobbin kept Miss Osborne acquainted with the
state of Amelia's affairs; how she was living with her father and
mother; how poor they were; how they wondered what men, and such men
as their brother and dear Captain Osborne, could find in such an
insignificant little chit; how she was still, as heretofore, a
namby-pamby milk-and-water affected creature--but how the boy was
really the noblest little boy ever seen--for the hearts of all women
warm towards young children, and the sourest spinster is kind to
them.

One day, after great entreaties on the part of the Misses Dobbin,
Amelia allowed little George to go and pass a day with them at
Denmark Hill--a part of which day she spent herself in writing to
the Major in India.  She congratulated him on the happy news which
his sisters had just conveyed to her.  She prayed for his prosperity
and that of the bride he had chosen.  She thanked him for a thousand
thousand kind offices and proofs of stead fast friendship to her in
her affliction.  She told him the last news about little Georgy, and
how he was gone to spend that very day with his sisters in the
country.  She underlined the letter a great deal, and she signed
herself affectionately his friend, Amelia Osborne.  She forgot to
send any message of kindness to Lady O'Dowd, as her wont was--and
did not mention Glorvina by name, and only in italics, as the
Major's BRIDE, for whom she begged blessings.  But the news of the
marriage removed the reserve which she had kept up towards him.  She
was glad to be able to own and feel how warmly and gratefully she
regarded him--and as for the idea of being jealous of Glorvina
(Glorvina, indeed!), Amelia would have scouted it, if an angel from
heaven had hinted it to her.  That night, when Georgy came back in
the pony-carriage in which he rejoiced, and in which he was driven
by Sir Wm. Dobbin's old coachman, he had round his neck a fine gold
chain and watch.  He said an old lady, not pretty, had given it him,
who cried and kissed him a great deal.  But he didn't like her.  He
liked grapes very much.  And he only liked his mamma.  Amelia shrank
and started; the timid soul felt a presentiment of terror when she
heard that the relations of the child's father had seen him.

Miss Osborne came back to give her father his dinner.  He had made a
good speculation in the City, and was rather in a good humour that
day, and chanced to remark the agitation under which she laboured.
"What's the matter, Miss Osborne?" he deigned to say.

The woman burst into tears.  "Oh, sir," she said, "I've seen little
George.  He is as beautiful as an angel--and so like him!" The old
man opposite to her did not say a word, but flushed up and began to
tremble in every limb.



CHAPTER XLIII

In Which the Reader Has to Double the Cape


The astonished reader must be called upon to transport himself ten
thousand miles to the military station of Bundlegunge, in the Madras
division of our Indian empire, where our gallant old friends of the
--th regiment are quartered under the command of the brave Colonel,
Sir Michael O'Dowd.  Time has dealt kindly with that stout officer,
as it does ordinarily with men who have good stomachs and good
tempers and are not perplexed over much by fatigue of the brain.
The Colonel plays a good knife and fork at tiffin and resumes those
weapons with great success at dinner.  He smokes his hookah after
both meals and puffs as quietly while his wife scolds him as he did
under the fire of the French at Waterloo.  Age and heat have not
diminished the activity or the eloquence of the descendant of the
Malonys and the Molloys.  Her Ladyship, our old acquaintance, is as
much at home at Madras as at Brussels in the cantonment as under the
tents.  On the march you saw her at the head of the regiment seated
on a royal elephant, a noble sight. Mounted on that beast, she has
been into action with tigers in the jungle, she has been received by
native princes, who have welcomed her and Glorvina into the recesses
of their zenanas and offered her shawls and jewels which it went to
her heart to refuse.  The sentries of all arms salute her wherever
she makes her appearance, and she touches her hat gravely to their
salutation.  Lady O'Dowd is one of the greatest ladies in the
Presidency of Madras--her quarrel with Lady Smith, wife of Sir Minos
Smith the puisne judge, is still remembered by some at Madras, when
the Colonel's lady snapped her fingers in the Judge's lady's face
and said SHE'D never walk behind ever a beggarly civilian.  Even
now, though it is five-and-twenty years ago, people remember Lady
O'Dowd performing a jig at Government House, where she danced down
two Aides-de-Camp, a Major of Madras cavalry, and two gentlemen of
the Civil Service; and, persuaded by Major Dobbin, C.B., second in
command of the --th, to retire to the supper-room, lassata nondum
satiata recessit.

Peggy O'Dowd is indeed the same as ever, kind in act and thought;
impetuous in temper; eager to command; a tyrant over her Michael; a
dragon amongst all the ladies of the regiment; a mother to all the
young men, whom she tends in their sickness, defends in all their
scrapes, and with whom Lady Peggy is immensely popular.  But the
Subalterns' and Captains' ladies (the Major is unmarried) cabal
against her a good deal.  They say that Glorvina gives herself airs
and that Peggy herself is ill tolerably domineering.  She interfered
with a little congregation which Mrs. Kirk had got up and laughed
the young men away from her sermons, stating that a soldier's wife
had no business to be a parson--that Mrs. Kirk would be much better
mending her husband's clothes; and, if the regiment wanted sermons,
that she had the finest in the world, those of her uncle, the Dean.
She abruptly put a termination to a flirtation which Lieutenant
Stubble of the regiment had commenced with the Surgeon's wife,
threatening to come down upon Stubble for the money which he had
borrowed from her (for the young fellow was still of an extravagant
turn) unless he broke off at once and went to the Cape on sick
leave.  On the other hand, she housed and sheltered Mrs. Posky, who
fled from her bungalow one night, pursued by her infuriate husband,
wielding his second brandy bottle, and actually carried Posky
through the delirium tremens and broke him of the habit of drinking,
which had grown upon that officer, as all evil habits will grow upon
men.  In a word, in adversity she was the best of comforters, in
good fortune the most troublesome of friends, having a perfectly
good opinion of herself always and an indomitable resolution to have
her own way.

Among other points, she had made up her mind that Glorvina should
marry our old friend Dobbin.  Mrs. O'Dowd knew the Major's
expectations and appreciated his good qualities and the high
character which he enjoyed in his profession.  Glorvina, a very
handsome, fresh-coloured, black-haired, blue-eyed young lady, who
could ride a horse, or play a sonata with any girl out of the County
Cork, seemed to be the very person destined to insure Dobbin's
happiness--much more than that poor good little weak-spur'ted
Amelia, about whom he used to take on so.--"Look at Glorvina enter a
room," Mrs. O'Dowd would say, "and compare her with that poor Mrs.
Osborne, who couldn't say boo to a goose.  She'd be worthy of you,
Major--you're a quiet man yourself, and want some one to talk for
ye.  And though she does not come of such good blood as the Malonys
or Molloys, let me tell ye, she's of an ancient family that any
nobleman might be proud to marry into."

But before she had come to such a resolution and determined to
subjugate Major Dobbin by her endearments, it must be owned that
Glorvina had practised them a good deal elsewhere.  She had had a
season in Dublin, and who knows how many in Cork, Killarney, and
Mallow? She had flirted with all the marriageable officers whom the
depots of her country afforded, and all the bachelor squires who
seemed eligible.  She had been engaged to be married a half-score
times in Ireland, besides the clergyman at Bath who used her so ill.
She had flirted all the way to Madras with the Captain and chief
mate of the Ramchunder East Indiaman, and had a season at the
Presidency with her brother and Mrs. O'Dowd, who was staying there,
while the Major of the regiment was in command at the station.
Everybody admired her there; everybody danced with her; but no one
proposed who was worth the marrying--one or two exceedingly young
subalterns sighed after her, and a beardless civilian or two, but
she rejected these as beneath her pretensions--and other and younger
virgins than Glorvina were married before her.  There are women, and
handsome women too, who have this fortune in life.  They fall in
love with the utmost generosity; they ride and walk with half the
Army-list, though they draw near to forty, and yet the Misses
O'Grady are the Misses O'Grady still:  Glorvina persisted that but
for Lady O'Dowd's unlucky quarrel with the Judge's lady, she would
have made a good match at Madras, where old Mr. Chutney, who was at
the head of the civil service (and who afterwards married Miss
Dolby, a young lady only thirteen years of age who had just arrived
from school in Europe), was just at the point of proposing to her.

Well, although Lady O'Dowd and Glorvina quarrelled a great number of
times every day, and upon almost every conceivable subject--indeed,
if Mick O'Dowd had not possessed the temper of an angel two such
women constantly about his ears would have driven him out of his
senses--yet they agreed between themselves on this point, that
Glorvina should marry Major Dobbin, and were determined that the
Major should have no rest until the arrangement was brought about.
Undismayed by forty or fifty previous defeats, Glorvina laid siege
to him.  She sang Irish melodies at him unceasingly.  She asked him
so frequently and pathetically, Will ye come to the bower? that it
is a wonder how any man of feeling could have resisted the
invitation.  She was never tired of inquiring, if Sorrow had his
young days faded, and was ready to listen and weep like Desdemona at
the stories of his dangers and his campaigns.  It has been said that
our honest and dear old friend used to perform on the flute in
private; Glorvina insisted upon having duets with him, and Lady
O'Dowd would rise and artlessly quit the room when the young couple
were so engaged. Glorvina forced the Major to ride with her of
mornings.  The whole cantonment saw them set out and return.  She
was constantly writing notes over to him at his house, borrowing his
books, and scoring with her great pencil-marks such passages of
sentiment or humour as awakened her sympathy.  She borrowed his
horses, his servants, his spoons, and palanquin--no wonder that
public rumour assigned her to him, and that the Major's sisters in
England should fancy they were about to have a sister-in-law.

Dobbin, who was thus vigorously besieged, was in the meanwhile in a
state of the most odious tranquillity.  He used to laugh when the
young fellows of the regiment joked him about Glorvina's manifest
attentions to him. "Bah!" said he, "she is only keeping her hand in--
she practises upon me as she does upon Mrs. Tozer's piano, because
it's the most handy instrument in the station.  I am much too
battered and old for such a fine young lady as Glorvina." And so he
went on riding with her, and copying music and verses into her
albums, and playing at chess with her very submissively; for it is
with these simple amusements that some officers in India are
accustomed to while away their leisure moments, while others of a
less domestic turn hunt hogs, and shoot snipes, or gamble and smoke
cheroots, and betake themselves to brandy-and-water.  As for Sir
Michael O'Dowd, though his lady and her sister both urged him to
call upon the Major to explain himself and not keep on torturing a
poor innocent girl in that shameful way, the old soldier refused
point-blank to have anything to do with the conspiracy.  "Faith, the
Major's big enough to choose for himself," Sir Michael said; "he'll
ask ye when he wants ye"; or else he would turn the matter off
jocularly, declaring that "Dobbin was too young to keep house, and
had written home to ask lave of his mamma." Nay, he went farther,
and in private communications with his Major would caution and rally
him, crying, "Mind your oi, Dob, my boy, them girls is bent on
mischief--me Lady has just got a box of gowns from Europe,  and
there's a pink satin for Glorvina, which will finish ye,  Dob, if
it's in the power of woman or satin to move ye."

But the truth is, neither beauty nor fashion could conquer him.  Our
honest friend had but one idea of a woman in his head, and that one
did not in the least resemble Miss Glorvina O'Dowd in pink satin.  A
gentle little woman in black, with large eyes and brown hair, seldom
speaking, save when spoken to, and then in a voice not the least
resembling Miss Glorvina's--a soft young mother tending an infant
and beckoning the Major up with a smile to look at him--a rosy-
cheeked lass coming singing into the room in Russell Square or
hanging on George Osborne's arm, happy and loving--there was but
this image that filled our honest Major's mind, by day and by night,
and reigned over it always.  Very likely Amelia was not like the
portrait the Major had formed of her:  there was a figure in a book
of fashions which his sisters had in England, and with which William
had made away privately, pasting it into the lid of his desk, and
fancying he saw some resemblance to Mrs. Osborne in the print,
whereas I have seen it, and can vouch that it is but the picture of
a high-waisted gown with an impossible doll's face simpering over
it--and, perhaps, Mr. Dobbin's sentimental Amelia was no more like
the real one than this absurd little print which he cherished.  But
what man in love, of us, is better informed?--or is he much happier
when he sees and owns his delusion? Dobbin was under this spell.  He
did not bother his friends and the public much about his feelings,
or indeed lose his natural rest or appetite on account of them.  His
head has grizzled since we saw him last, and a line or two of silver
may be seen in the soft brown hair likewise.  But his feelings are
not in the least changed or oldened, and his love remains as fresh
as a man's recollections of boyhood are.

We have said how the two Misses Dobbin and Amelia, the Major's
correspondents in Europe, wrote him letters from England, Mrs.
Osborne congratulating him with great candour and cordiality upon
his approaching nuptials with Miss O'Dowd. "Your sister has just
kindly visited me," Amelia wrote in her letter, "and informed me of
an INTERESTING EVENT, upon which I beg to offer my MOST SINCERE
CONGRATULATIONS. I hope the young lady to whom I hear you are to be
UNITED will in every respect prove worthy of one who is himself all
kindness and goodness.  The poor widow has only her prayers to offer
and her cordial cordial wishes for YOUR PROSPERITY!  Georgy sends
his love to HIS DEAR GODPAPA and hopes that you will not forget him.
I tell him that you are about to form OTHER TIES, with one who I am
sure merits ALL YOUR AFFECTION, but that, although such ties must of
course be the strongest and most sacred, and supersede ALL OTHERS,
yet that I am sure the widow and the child whom you have ever
protected and loved will always HAVE A CORNER IN YOUR HEART" The
letter, which has been before alluded to, went on in this strain,
protesting throughout as to the extreme satisfaction of the writer.

This letter, .which arrived by the very same ship which brought out
Lady O'Dowd's box of millinery from London (and which you may be
sure Dobbin opened before any one of the other packets which the
mail brought him), put the receiver into such a state of mind that
Glorvina, and her pink satin, and everything belonging to her became
perfectly odious to him.  The Major cursed the talk of women, and
the sex in general.  Everything annoyed him that day--the parade was
insufferably hot and wearisome.  Good heavens! was a man of
intellect to waste his life, day after day, inspecting cross-belts
and putting fools through their manoeuvres? The senseless chatter of
the young men at mess was more than ever jarring. What cared he, a
man on the high road to forty, to know how many snipes Lieutenant
Smith had shot, or what were the performances of Ensign Brown's
mare? The jokes about the table filled him with shame.  He was too
old to listen to the banter of the assistant surgeon and the slang
of the youngsters, at which old O'Dowd, with his bald head and red
face, laughed quite easily.  The old man had listened to those jokes
any time these thirty years--Dobbin himself had been fifteen years
hearing them.  And after the boisterous dulness of the mess-table,
the quarrels and scandal of the ladies of the regiment! It was
unbearable, shameful.  "O Amelia, Amelia," he thought, "you to whom
I have been so faithful--you reproach me!  It is because you cannot
feel for me that I drag on this wearisome life.  And you reward me
after years of devotion by giving me your blessing upon my marriage,
forsooth, with this flaunting Irish girl!" Sick and sorry felt poor
William; more than ever wretched and lonely.  He would like to have
done with life and its vanity altogether--so bootless and
unsatisfactory the struggle, so cheerless and dreary the prospect
seemed to him.  He lay all that night sleepless, and yearning to go
home.  Amelia's letter had fallen as a blank upon him.  No fidelity,
no constant truth and passion, could move her into warmth.  She
would not see that he loved her.  Tossing in his bed, he spoke out
to her. "Good God, Amelia!" he said, "don't you know that I only
love you in the world--you, who are a stone to me--you, whom I
tended through months and months of illness and grief, and who bade
me farewell with a smile on your face, and forgot me before the door
shut between us!" The native servants lying outside his verandas
beheld with wonder the Major, so cold and quiet ordinarily, at
present so passionately moved and cast down.  Would she have pitied
him had she seen him? He read over and over all the letters which he
ever had from her--letters of business relative to the little
property which he had made her believe her husband had left to her--
brief notes of invitation--every scrap of writing that she had ever
sent to him--how cold, how kind, how hopeless, how selfish they
were!

Had there been some kind gentle soul near at hand who could read and
appreciate this silent generous heart, who knows but that the reign
of Amelia might have been over, and that friend William's love might
have flowed into a kinder channel? But there was only Glorvina of
the jetty ringlets with whom his intercourse was familiar, and this
dashing young woman was not bent upon loving the Major, but rather
on making the Major admire HER--a most vain and hopeless task, too,
at least considering the means that the poor girl possessed to carry
it out.  She curled her hair and showed her shoulders at him, as
much as to say, did ye ever see such jet ringlets and such a
complexion? She grinned at him so that he might see that every tooth
in her head was sound--and he never heeded all these charms.  Very
soon after the arrival of the box of millinery, and perhaps indeed
in honour of it, Lady O'Dowd and the ladies of the King's Regiment
gave a ball to the Company's Regiments and the civilians at the
station.  Glorvina sported the killing pink frock, and the Major,
who attended the party and walked very ruefully up and down the
rooms, never so much as perceived the pink garment. Glorvina danced
past him in a fury with all the young subalterns of the station, and
the Major was not in the least jealous of her performance, or angry
because Captain Bangles of the Cavalry handed her to supper.  It was
not jealousy, or frocks, or shoulders that could move him, and
Glorvina had nothing more.

So these two were each exemplifying the Vanity of this life, and
each longing for what he or she could not get. Glorvina cried with
rage at the failure.  She had set her mind on the Major "more than
on any of the others," she owned, sobbing.  "He'll break my heart,
he will, Peggy," she would whimper to her sister-in-law when they
were good friends; "sure every one of me frocks must be taken in--
it's such a skeleton I'm growing." Fat or thin, laughing or
melancholy, on horseback or the music-stool, it was all the same to
the Major.  And the Colonel, puffing his pipe and listening to these
complaints, would suggest that Glory should have some black frocks
out in the next box from London, and told a mysterious story of a
lady in Ireland who died of grief for the loss of her husband before
she got ere a one.

While the Major was going on in this tantalizing way, not proposing,
and declining to fall in love, there came another ship from Europe
bringing letters on board, and amongst them some more for the
heartless man.  These were home letters bearing an earlier postmark
than that of the former packets, and as Major Dobbin recognized
among his the handwriting of his sister, who always crossed and
recrossed her letters to her brother--gathered together all the
possible bad news which she could collect, abused him and read him
lectures with sisterly frankness, and always left him miserable for
the day after "dearest William" had achieved the perusal of one of
her epistles--the truth must be told that dearest William did not
hurry himself to break the seal of Miss Dobbin's letter, but waited
for a particularly favourable day and mood for doing so.  A
fortnight before, moreover, he had written to scold her for telling
those absurd stories to Mrs. Osborne, and had despatched a letter in
reply to that lady, undeceiving her with respect to the reports
concerning him and assuring her that "he had no sort of present
intention of altering his condition."

Two or three nights after the arrival of the second package of
letters, the Major had passed the evening pretty cheerfully at Lady
O'Dowd's house, where Glorvina thought that he listened with rather
more attention than usual to the Meeting of the Wathers, the
Minsthrel Boy, and one or two other specimens of song with which she
favoured him (the truth is, he was no more listening to Glorvina
than to the howling of the jackals in the moonlight outside, and the
delusion was hers as usual), and having played his game at chess
with her (cribbage with the surgeon was Lady O'Dowd's favourite
evening pastime), Major Dobbin took leave of the Colonel's family at
his usual hour and retired to his own house.

There on his table, his sister's letter lay reproaching him.  He
took it up, ashamed rather of his negligence regarding it, and
prepared himself for a disagreeable hour's communing with that
crabbed-handed absent relative. . . . It may have been an hour
after the Major's departure from the Colonel's house--Sir Michael
was sleeping the sleep of the just; Glorvina had arranged her black
ringlets in the innumerable little bits of paper, in which it was
her habit to confine them; Lady O'Dowd, too, had gone to her bed in
the nuptial chamber, on the ground-floor, and had tucked her
musquito curtains round her fair form, when the guard at the gates
of the Commanding-Officer's compound beheld Major Dobbin, in the
moonlight, rushing towards the house with a swift step and a very
agitated countenance, and he passed the sentinel and went up to the
windows of the Colonel's bedchamber.

"O'Dowd--Colonel!" said Dobbin and kept up a great shouting.

"Heavens, Meejor!" said Glorvina of the curl-papers, putting out her
head too, from her window.

"What is it, Dob, me boy?" said the Colonel, expecting there was a
fire in the station, or that the route had come from headquarters.

"I--I must have leave of absence.  I must go to England--on the most
urgent private affairs," Dobbin said.

"Good heavens, what has happened!" thought Glorvina, trembling with
all the papillotes.

"I want to be off--now--to-night," Dobbin continued; and the Colonel
getting up, came out to parley with him.

In the postscript of Miss Dobbin's cross-letter, the Major had just
come upon a paragraph, to the following effect:--"I drove yesterday
to see your old ACQUAINTANCE, Mrs. Osborne.  The wretched place they
live at, since they were bankrupts, you know--Mr. S., to judge from
a BRASS PLATE on the door of his hut (it is little better) is a
coal-merchant.  The little boy, your godson, is certainly a fine
child, though forward, and inclined to be saucy and self-willed.
But we have taken notice of him as you wish it, and have introduced
him to his aunt, Miss O., who was rather pleased with him.  Perhaps
his grandpapa, not the bankrupt one, who is almost doting, but Mr.
Osborne, of Russell Square, may be induced to relent towards the
child of your friend, HIS ERRING AND SELF-WILLED SON.  And Amelia
will not be ill-disposed to give him up.  The widow is CONSOLED, and
is about to marry a reverend gentleman, the Rev.  Mr. Binny, one of
the curates of Brompton.  A poor match.  But Mrs. O. is getting old,
and I saw a great deal of grey in her hair--she was in very good
spirits:  and your little godson overate himself at our house.
Mamma sends her love with that of your affectionate, Ann Dobbin."



CHAPTER XLIV

A Round-about Chapter between London and Hampshire


Our old friends the Crawleys' family house, in Great Gaunt Street,
still bore over its front the hatchment which had been placed there
as a token of mourning for Sir Pitt Crawley's demise, yet this
heraldic emblem was in itself a very splendid and gaudy piece of
furniture, and all the rest of the mansion became more brilliant
than it had ever been during the late baronet's reign.  The black
outer-coating of the bricks was removed, and they appeared with a
cheerful, blushing face streaked with white: the old bronze lions of
the knocker were gilt handsomely, the railings painted, and the
dismallest house in Great Gaunt Street became the smartest in the
whole quarter, before the green leaves in Hampshire had replaced
those yellowing ones which were on the trees in Queen's Crawley
Avenue when old Sir Pitt Crawley passed under them for the last
time.

A little woman, with a carriage to correspond, was perpetually seen
about this mansion; an elderly spinster, accompanied by a little
boy, also might be remarked coming thither daily.  It was Miss
Briggs and little Rawdon, whose business it was to see to the inward
renovation of Sir Pitt's house, to superintend the female band
engaged in stitching the blinds and hangings, to poke and rummage in
the drawers and cupboards crammed with the dirty relics and
congregated trumperies of a couple of generations of Lady Crawleys,
and to take inventories of the china, the glass, and other
properties in the closets and store-rooms.

Mrs. Rawdon Crawley was general-in-chief over these arrangements,
with full orders from Sir Pitt to sell, barter, confiscate, or
purchase furniture, and she enjoyed herself not a little in an
occupation which gave full scope to her taste and ingenuity.  The
renovation of the house was determined upon when Sir Pitt came to
town in November to see his lawyers, and when he passed nearly a
week in Curzon Street, under the roof of his affectionate brother
and sister.

He had put up at an hotel at first, but, Becky, as soon as she heard
of the Baronet's arrival, went off alone to greet him, and returned
in an hour to Curzon Street with Sir Pitt in the carriage by her
side.  It was impossible sometimes to resist this artless little
creature's hospitalities, so kindly were they pressed, so frankly
and amiably offered.  Becky seized Pitt's hand in a transport of
gratitude when he agreed to come.  "Thank you," she said, squeezing
it and looking into the Baronet's eyes, who blushed a good deal;
"how happy this will make Rawdon!" She bustled up to Pitt's bedroom,
leading on the servants, who were carrying his trunks thither.  She
came in herself laughing, with a coal-scuttle out of her own room.

A fire was blazing already in Sir Pitt's apartment (it was Miss
Briggs's room, by the way, who was sent upstairs to sleep with the
maid).  "I knew I should bring you," she said with pleasure beaming
in her glance.  Indeed, she was really sincerely happy at having him
for a guest.

Becky made Rawdon dine out once or twice on business, while Pitt
stayed with them, and the Baronet passed the happy evening alone
with her and Briggs.  She went downstairs to the kitchen and
actually cooked little dishes for him.  "Isn't it a good salmi?" she
said; "I made it for you.  I can make you better dishes than that,
and will when you come to see me."

"Everything you do, you do well," said the Baronet gallantly.  "The
salmi is excellent indeed."

"A poor man's wife," Rebecca replied gaily, "must make herself
useful, you know"; on which her brother-in-law vowed that "she was
fit to be the wife of an Emperor, and that to be skilful in domestic
duties was surely one of the most charming of woman's qualities."
And Sir Pitt thought, with something like mortification, of Lady
Jane at home, and of a certain pie which she had insisted on making,
and serving to him at dinner--a most abominable pie.

Besides the salmi, which was made of Lord Steyne's pheasants from
his lordship's cottage of Stillbrook, Becky gave her brother-in-law
a bottle of white wine, some that Rawdon had brought with him from
France, and had picked up for nothing, the little story-teller said;
whereas the liquor was, in truth, some White Hermitage from the
Marquis of Steyne's famous cellars, which brought fire into the
Baronet's pallid cheeks and a glow into his feeble frame.

Then when he had drunk up the bottle of petit vin blanc, she gave
him her hand, and took him up to the drawing-room, and made him snug
on the sofa by the fire, and let him talk as she listened with the
tenderest kindly interest, sitting by him, and hemming a shirt for
her dear little boy.  Whenever Mrs. Rawdon wished to be particularly
humble and virtuous, this little shirt used to come out of her work-
box.  It had got to be too small for Rawdon long before it was
finished.

Well, Rebecca listened to Pitt, she talked to him, she sang to him,
she coaxed him, and cuddled him, so that he found himself more and
more glad every day to get back from the lawyer's at Gray's Inn, to
the blazing fire in Curzon Street--a gladness in which the men of
law likewise participated, for Pitt's harangues were of the longest-
-and so that when he went away he felt quite a pang at departing.
How pretty she looked kissing her hand to him from the carriage and
waving her handkerchief when he had taken his place in the mail!
She put the handkerchief to her eyes once.  He pulled his sealskin
cap over his, as the coach drove away, and, sinking back, he thought
to himself how she respected him and how he deserved it, and how
Rawdon was a foolish dull fellow who didn't half-appreciate his
wife; and how mum and stupid his own wife was compared to that
brilliant little Becky.  Becky had hinted every one of these things
herself, perhaps, but so delicately and gently that you hardly knew
when or where.  And, before they parted, it was agreed that the
house in London should be redecorated for the next season, and that
the brothers' families should meet again in the country at
Christmas.

"I wish you could have got a little money out of him," Rawdon said
to his wife moodily when the Baronet was gone.  "I should like to
give something to old Raggles, hanged if I shouldn't.  It ain't
right, you know, that the old fellow should be kept out of all his
money.  It may be inconvenient, and he might let to somebody else
besides us, you know."

"Tell him," said Becky, "that as soon as Sir Pitt's affairs are
settled, everybody will be paid, and give him a little something on
account.  Here's a cheque that Pitt left for the boy," and she took
from her bag and gave her husband a paper which his brother had
handed over to her, on behalf of the little son and heir of the
younger branch of the Crawleys.

The truth is, she had tried personally the ground on which her
husband expressed a wish that she should venture--tried it ever so
delicately, and found it unsafe. Even at a hint about
embarrassments, Sir Pitt Crawley was off and alarmed.  And he began
a long speech, explaining how straitened he himself was in money
matters; how the tenants would not pay; how his father's affairs,
and the expenses attendant upon the demise of the old gentleman, had
involved him; how he wanted to pay off incumbrances; and how the
bankers and agents were overdrawn; and Pitt Crawley ended by making
a compromise with his sister-in-law and giving her a very small sum
for the benefit of her little boy.

Pitt knew how poor his brother and his brother's family must be.  It
could not have escaped the notice of such a cool and experienced old
diplomatist that Rawdon's family had nothing to live upon, and that
houses and carriages are not to be kept for nothing.  He knew very
well that he was the proprietor or appropriator of the money, which,
according to all proper calculation, ought to have fallen to his
younger brother, and he had, we may be sure, some secret pangs of
remorse within him, which warned him that he ought to perform some
act of justice, or, let us say, compensation, towards these
disappointed relations.  A just, decent man, not without brains, who
said his prayers, and knew his catechism, and did his duty outwardly
through life, he could not be otherwise than aware that something
was due to his brother at his hands, and that morally he was
Rawdon's debtor.

But, as one reads in the columns of the Times newspaper every now
and then, queer announcements from the Chancellor of the Exchequer,
acknowledging the receipt of 50 pounds from A.  B., or 10 pounds
from W.  T., as conscience-money, on account of taxes due by the
said A.  B.  or W.  T., which payments the penitents beg the Right
Honourable gentleman to acknowledge through the medium of the public
press--so is the Chancellor no doubt, and the reader likewise,
always perfectly sure that the above-named A.  B.  and W.  T.  are
only paying a very small instalment of what they really owe, and
that the man who sends up a twenty-pound note has very likely
hundreds or thousands more for which he ought to account.  Such, at
least, are my feelings, when I see A.  B.  or W.  T.'s insufficient
acts of repentance.  And I have no doubt that Pitt Crawley's
contrition, or kindness if you will, towards his younger brother, by
whom he had so much profited, was only a very small dividend upon
the capital sum in which he was indebted to Rawdon. Not everybody is
willing to pay even so much.  To part with money is a sacrifice
beyond almost all men endowed with a sense of order.  There is
scarcely any man alive who does not think himself meritorious for
giving his neighbour five pounds.  Thriftless gives, not from a
beneficent pleasure in giving, but from a lazy delight in spending.
He would not deny himself one enjoyment; not his opera-stall, not
his horse, not his dinner, not even the pleasure of giving Lazarus
the five pounds.  Thrifty, who is good, wise, just, and owes no man
a penny, turns from a beggar, haggles with a hackney-coachman, or
denies a poor relation, and I doubt which is the most selfish of the
two.  Money has only a different value in the eyes of each.

So, in a word, Pitt Crawley thought he would do something for his
brother, and then thought that he would think about it some other
time.

And with regard to Becky, she was not a woman who expected too much
from the generosity of her neighbours, and so was quite content with
all that Pitt Crawley had done for her.  She was acknowledged by the
head of the family.  If Pitt would not give her anything, he would
get something for her some day.  If she got no money from her
brother-in-law, she got what was as good as money--credit.  Raggles
was made rather easy in his mind by the spectacle of the union
between the brothers, by a small payment on the spot, and by the
promise of a much larger sum speedily to be assigned to him.  And
Rebecca told Miss Briggs, whose Christmas dividend upon the little
sum lent by her Becky paid with an air of candid joy, and as if her
exchequer was brimming over with gold--Rebecca, we say, told Miss
Briggs, in strict confidence that she had conferred with Sir Pitt,
who was famous as a financier, on Briggs's special behalf, as to the
most profitable investment of Miss B.'s remaining capital; that Sir
Pitt, after much consideration, had thought of a most safe and
advantageous way in which Briggs could lay out her money; that,
being especially interested in her as an attached friend of the late
Miss Crawley, and of the whole family, and that long before he left
town, he had recommended that she should be ready with the money at
a moment's notice, so as to purchase at the most favourable
opportunity the shares which Sir Pitt had in his eye.  Poor Miss
Briggs was very grateful for this mark of Sir Pitt's attention--it
came so unsolicited, she said, for she never should have thought of
removing the money from the funds--and the delicacy enhanced the
kindness of the office; and she promised to see her man of business
immediately and be ready with her little cash at the proper hour.

And this worthy woman was so grateful for the kindness of Rebecca in
the matter, and for that of her generous benefactor, the Colonel,
that she went out and spent a great part of her half-year's dividend
in the purchase of a black velvet coat for little Rawdon, who, by
the way, was grown almost too big for black velvet now, and was of a
size and age befitting him for the assumption of the virile jacket
and pantaloons.

He was a fine open-faced boy, with blue eyes and waving flaxen hair,
sturdy in limb, but generous and soft in heart, fondly attaching
himself to all who were good to him--to the pony--to Lord Southdown,
who gave him the horse (he used to blush and glow all over when he
saw that kind young nobleman)--to the groom who had charge of the
pony--to Molly, the cook, who crammed him with ghost stories at
night, and with good things from the dinner--to Briggs, whom he
plagued and laughed at--and to his father especially, whose
attachment towards the lad was curious too to witness.  Here, as he
grew to be about eight years old, his attachments may be said to
have ended.  The beautiful mother-vision had faded away after a
while.  During near two years she had scarcely spoken to the child.
She disliked him.  He had the measles and the hooping-cough.  He
bored her.  One day when he was standing at the landing-place,
having crept down from the upper regions, attracted by the sound of
his mother's voice, who was singing to Lord Steyne, the drawing room
door opening suddenly, discovered the little spy, who but a moment
before had been rapt in delight, and listening to the music.

His mother came out and struck him violently a couple of boxes on
the ear.  He heard a laugh from the Marquis in the inner room (who
was amused by this free and artless exhibition of Becky's temper)
and fled down below to his friends of the kitchen, bursting in an
agony of grief.

"It is not because it hurts me," little Rawdon gasped out--"only--
only"--sobs and tears wound up the sentence in a storm.  It was the
little boy's heart that was bleeding.  "Why mayn't I hear her
singing? Why don't she ever sing to me--as she does to that
baldheaded man with the large teeth?" He gasped out at various
intervals these exclamations of rage and grief.  The cook looked at
the housemaid, the housemaid looked knowingly at the footman--the
awful kitchen inquisition which sits in judgement in every house and
knows everything--sat on Rebecca at that moment.

After this incident, the mother's dislike increased to hatred; the
consciousness that the child was in the house was a reproach and a
pain to her.  His very sight annoyed her.  Fear, doubt, and
resistance sprang up, too, in the boy's own bosom.  They were
separated from that day of the boxes on the ear.

Lord Steyne also heartily disliked the boy.  When they met by
mischance, he made sarcastic bows or remarks to the child, or glared
at him with savage-looking eyes. Rawdon used to stare him in the
face and double his little fists in return.  He knew his enemy, and
this gentleman, of all who came to the house, was the one who
angered him most.  One day the footman found him squaring his fists
at Lord Steyne's hat in the hall.  The footman told the circumstance
as a good joke to Lord Steyne's coachman; that officer imparted it
to Lord Steyne's gentleman, and to the servants' hall in general.
And very soon afterwards, when Mrs. Rawdon Crawley made her
appearance at Gaunt House, the porter who unbarred the gates, the
servants of all uniforms in the hall, the functionaries in white
waistcoats, who bawled out from landing to landing the names of
Colonel and Mrs. Rawdon Crawley, knew about her, or fancied they
did. The man who brought her refreshment and stood behind her chair,
had talked her character over with the large gentleman in motley-
coloured clothes at his side.  Bon Dieu! it is awful, that servants'
inquisition!  You see a woman in a great party in a splendid saloon,
surrounded by faithful admirers, distributing sparkling glances,
dressed to perfection, curled, rouged, smiling and happy--Discovery
walks respectfully up to her, in the shape of a huge powdered man
with large calves and a tray of ices--with Calumny (which is as
fatal as truth) behind him, in the shape of the hulking fellow
carrying the wafer-biscuits.  Madam, your secret will be talked over
by those men at their club at the public-house to-night.  Jeames
will tell Chawles his notions about you over their pipes and pewter
beer-pots.  Some people ought to have mutes for servants in Vanity
Fair--mutes who could not write. If you are guilty, tremble.  That
fellow behind your chair may be a Janissary with a bow-string in his
plush breeches pocket.  If you are not guilty, have a care of
appearances, which are as ruinous as guilt.

"Was Rebecca guilty or not?" the Vehmgericht of tho servants' hall
had pronounced against her.

And, I shame to say, she would not have got credit had they not
believed her to be guilty.  It was the sight of the Marquis of
Steyne's carriage-lamps at her door, contemplated by Raggles,
burning in the blackness of midnight, "that kep him up," as he
afterwards said, that even more than Rebecca's arts and coaxings.

And so--guiltless very likely--she was writhing and pushing onward
towards what they call "a position in society," and the servants
were pointing at her as lost and ruined.  So you see Molly, the
housemaid, of a morning, watching a spider in the doorpost lay his
thread and laboriously crawl up it, until, tired of the sport, she
raises her broom and sweeps away the thread and the artificer.

A day or two before Christmas, Becky, her husband and her son made
ready and went to pass the holidays at the seat of their ancestors
at Queen's Crawley.  Becky would have liked to leave the little brat
behind, and would have done so but for Lady Jane's urgent
invitations to the youngster, and the symptoms of revolt and
discontent which Rawdon manifested at her neglect of her son.  "He's
the finest boy in England," the father said in a tone of reproach to
her, "and you don't seem to care for him, Becky, as much as you do
for your spaniel.  He shan't bother you much; at home he will be
away from you in the nursery, and he shall go outside on the coach
with me."

"Where you go yourself because you want to smoke those filthy
cigars," replied Mrs. Rawdon.

"I remember when you liked 'em though," answered the husband.

Becky laughed; she was almost always good-humoured. "That was when I
was on my promotion, Goosey," she said.  "Take Rawdon outside with
you and give him a cigar too if you like."

Rawdon did not warm his little son for the winter's journey in this
way, but he and Briggs wrapped up the child in shawls and
comforters, and he was hoisted respectfully onto the roof of the
coach in the dark morning, under the lamps of the White Horse
Cellar; and with no small delight he watched the dawn rise and made
his first journey to the place which his father still called home.
It was a journey of infinite pleasure to the boy, to whom the
incidents of the road afforded endless interest, his father
answering to him all questions connected with it and telling him who
lived in the great white house to the right, and whom the park
belonged to.  His mother, inside the vehicle, with her maid and her
furs, her wrappers, and her scent bottles, made such a to-do that
you would have thought she never had been in a stage-coach before--
much less, that she had been turned out of this very one to make
room for a paying passenger on a certain journey performed some
half-score years ago.

It was dark again when little Rawdon was wakened up to enter his
uncle's carriage at Mudbury, and he sat and looked out of it
wondering as the great iron gates flew open, and at the white trunks
of the limes as they swept by, until they stopped, at length, before
the light windows of the Hall, which were blazing and comfortable
with Christmas welcome.  The hall-door was flung open--a big fire
was burning in the great old fire-place--a carpet was down over the
chequered black flags--"It's the old Turkey one that used to be in
the Ladies' Gallery," thought Rebecca, and the next instant was
kissing Lady Jane.

She and Sir Pitt performed the same salute with great gravity; but
Rawdon, having been smoking, hung back rather from his sister-in-
law, whose two children came up to their cousin; and, while Matilda
held out her hand and kissed him, Pitt Binkie Southdown, the son and
heir, stood aloof rather and examined him as a little dog does a big
dog.

Then the kind hostess conducted her guests to the snug apartments
blazing with cheerful fires.  Then the young ladies came and knocked
at Mrs. Rawdon's door, under the pretence that they were desirous to
be useful, but in reality to have the pleasure of inspecting the
contents of her band and bonnet-boxes, and her dresses which, though
black, were of the newest London fashion.  And they told her how
much the Hall was changed for the better, and how old Lady Southdown
was gone, and how Pitt was taking his station in the county, as
became a Crawley in fact.  Then the great dinner-bell having rung,
the family assembled at dinner, at which meal Rawdon Junior was
placed by his aunt, the good-natured lady of the house, Sir Pitt
being uncommonly attentive to his sister-in-law at his own right
hand.

Little Rawdon exhibited a fine appetite and showed a gentlemanlike
behaviour.

"I like to dine here," he said to his aunt when he had completed his
meal, at the conclusion of which, and after a decent grace by Sir
Pitt, the younger son and heir was introduced, and was perched on a
high chair by the Baronet's side, while the daughter took possession
of the place and the little wine-glass prepared for her near her
mother.  "I like to dine here," said Rawdon Minor, looking up at his
relation's kind face.

"Why?" said the good Lady Jane.

"I dine in the kitchen when I am at home," replied Rawdon Minor, "or
else with Briggs." But Becky was so engaged with the Baronet, her
host, pouring out a flood of compliments and delights and raptures,
and admiring young Pitt Binkie, whom she declared to be the most
beautiful, intelligent, noble-looking little creature, and so like
his father, that she did not hear the remarks of her own flesh and
blood at the other end of the broad shining table.

As a guest, and it being the first night of his arrival, Rawdon the
Second was allowed to sit up until the hour when tea being over, and
a great gilt book being laid on the table before Sir Pitt, all the
domestics of the family streamed in, and Sir Pitt read prayers.  It
was the first time the poor little boy had ever witnessed or heard
of such a ceremonial.

The house had been much improved even since the Baronet's brief
reign, and was pronounced by Becky to be perfect, charming,
delightful, when she surveyed it in his company.  As for little
Rawdon, who examined it with the children for his guides, it seemed
to him a perfect palace of enchantment and wonder.  There were long
galleries, and ancient state bedrooms, there were pictures and old
China, and armour.  There were the rooms in which Grandpapa died,
and by which the children walked with terrified looks.  "Who was
Grandpapa?" he asked; and they told him how he used to be very old,
and used to be wheeled about in a garden-chair, and they showed him
the garden-chair one day rotting in the out-house in which it had
lain since the old gentleman had been wheeled away yonder to the
church, of which the spire was glittering over the park elms.

The brothers had good occupation for several mornings in examining
the improvements which had been effected by Sir Pitt's genius and
economy.  And as they walked or rode, and looked at them, they could
talk without too much boring each other.  And Pitt took care to tell
Rawdon what a heavy outlay of money these improvements had
occasioned, and that a man of landed and funded property was often
very hard pressed for twenty pounds. "There is that new lodge-gate,"
said Pitt, pointing to it humbly with the bamboo cane, "I can no
more pay for it before the dividends in January than I can fly."

"I can lend you, Pitt, till then," Rawdon answered rather ruefully;
and they went in and looked at the restored lodge, where the family
arms were just new scraped in stone, and where old Mrs. Lock, for
the first time these many long years, had tight doors, sound roofs,
and whole windows.



CHAPTER XLV

Between Hampshire and London


Sir Pitt Crawley had done more than repair fences and restore
dilapidated lodges on the Queen's Crawley estate. Like a wise man he
had set to work to rebuild the injured popularity of his house and
stop up the gaps and ruins in which his name had been left by his
disreputable and thriftless old predecessor.  He was elected for the
borough speedily after his father's demise; a magistrate, a member
of parliament, a county magnate and representative of an ancient
family, he made it his duty to show himself before the Hampshire
public, subscribed handsomely to the county charities, called
assiduously upon all the county folk, and laid himself out in a word
to take that position in Hampshire, and in the Empire afterwards, to
which he thought his prodigious talents justly entitled him.  Lady
Jane was instructed to be friendly with the Fuddlestones, and the
Wapshots, and the other famous baronets, their neighbours.  Their
carriages might frequently be seen in the Queen's Crawley avenue
now; they dined pretty frequently at the Hall (where the cookery was
so good that it was clear Lady Jane very seldom had a hand in it),
and in return Pitt and his wife most energetically dined out in all
sorts of weather and at all sorts of distances.  For though Pitt did
not care for joviality, being a frigid man of poor hearth and
appetite, yet he considered that to be hospitable and condescending
was quite incumbent on-his station, and every time that he got a
headache from too long an after-dinner sitting, he felt that he was
a martyr to duty.  He talked about crops, corn-laws, politics, with
the best country gentlemen. He (who had been formerly inclined to be
a sad free-thinker on these points) entered into poaching and game
preserving with ardour.  He didn't hunt; he wasn't a hunting man; he
was a man of books and peaceful habits; but he thought that the
breed of horses must be kept up in the country, and that the breed
of foxes must therefore be looked to, and for his part, if his
friend, Sir Huddlestone Fuddlestone, liked to draw his country and
meet as of old the F.  hounds used to do at Queen's Crawley, he
should be happy to see him there, and the gentlemen of the
Fuddlestone hunt.  And to Lady Southdown's dismay too he became more
orthodox in his tendencies every day; gave up preaching in public
and attending meeting-houses; went stoutly to church; called on the
Bishop and all the Clergy at Winchester; and made no objection when
the Venerable Archdeacon Trumper asked for a game of whist.  What
pangs must have been those of Lady Southdown, and what an utter
castaway she must have thought her son-in-law for permitting such a
godless diversion!  And when, on the return of the family from an
oratorio at Winchester, the Baronet announced to the young ladies
that he should next year very probably take them to the "county
balls," they worshipped him for his kindness.  Lady Jane was only
too obedient, and perhaps glad herself to go.  The Dowager wrote off
the direst descriptions of her daughter's worldly behaviour to the
authoress of the Washerwoman of Finchley Common at the Cape; and her
house in Brighton being about this time unoccupied, returned to that
watering-place, her absence being not very much deplored by her
children. We may suppose, too, that Rebecca, on paying a second
visit to Queen's Crawley, did not feel particularly grieved at the
absence of the lady of the medicine chest; though she wrote a
Christmas letter to her Ladyship, in which she respectfully recalled
herself to Lady Southdown's recollection, spoke with gratitude of
the delight which her Ladyship's conversation had given her on the
former visit, dilated on the kindness with which her Ladyship had
treated her in sickness, and declared that everything at Queen's
Crawley reminded her of her absent friend.

A great part of the altered demeanour and popularity of Sir Pitt
Crawley might have been traced to the counsels of that astute little
lady of Curzon Street.  "You remain a Baronet--you consent to be a
mere country gentleman," she said to him, while he had been her
guest in London. "No, Sir Pitt Crawley, I know you better.  I know
your talents and your ambition.  You fancy you hide them both, but
you can conceal neither from me.  I showed Lord Steyne your pamphlet
on malt.  He was familiar with it, and said it was in the opinion of
the whole Cabinet the most masterly thing that had appeared on the
subject. The Ministry has its eye upon you, and I know what you
want.  You want to distinguish yourself in Parliament; every one
says you are the finest speaker in England (for your speeches at
Oxford are still remembered).  You want to be Member for the County,
where, with your own vote and your borough at your back, you can
command anything.  And you want to be Baron Crawley of Queen's
Crawley, and will be before you die.  I saw it all.  I could read
your heart, Sir Pitt.  If I had a husband who possessed your
intellect as he does your name, I sometimes think I should not be
unworthy of him--but--but I am your kinswoman now," she added with a
laugh.  "Poor little penniless, I have got a little interest--and
who knows, perhaps the mouse may be able to aid the lion." Pitt
Crawley was amazed and enraptured with her speech.  "How that woman
comprehends me!" he said. "I never could get Jane to read three
pages of the malt pamphlet.  She has no idea that I have commanding
talents or secret ambition.  So they remember my speaking at Oxford,
do they? The rascals!  Now that I represent my borough and may sit
for the county, they begin to recollect me!  Why, Lord Steyne cut me
at the levee last year; they are beginning to find out that Pitt
Crawley is some one at last.  Yes, the man was always the same whom
these people neglected:  it was only the opportunity that was
wanting, and I will show them now that I can speak and act as well
as write.  Achilles did not declare himself until they gave him the
sword.  I hold it now, and the world shall yet hear of Pitt
Crawley."

Therefore it was that this roguish diplomatist has grown so
hospitable; that he was so civil to oratorios and hospitals; so kind
to Deans and Chapters; so generous in giving and accepting dinners;
so uncommonly gracious to farmers on market-days; and so much
interested about county business; and that the Christmas at the Hall
was the gayest which had been known there for many a long day.

On Christmas Day a great family gathering took place. All the
Crawleys from the Rectory came to dine.  Rebecca was as frank and
fond of Mrs. Bute as if the other had never been her enemy; she was
affectionately interested in the dear girls, and surprised at the
progress which they had made in music since her time, and insisted
upon encoring one of the duets out of the great song-books which
Jim, grumbling, had been forced to bring under his arm from the
Rectory.  Mrs. Bute, perforce, was obliged to adopt a decent
demeanour towards the little adventuress--of course being free to
discourse with her daughters afterwards about the absurd respect
with which Sir Pitt treated his sister-in-law.  But Jim, who had sat
next to her at dinner, declared she was a trump, and one and all of
the Rector's family agreed that the little Rawdon was a fine boy.
They respected a possible baronet in the boy, between whom and the
title there was only the little sickly pale Pitt Binkie.

The children were very good friends.  Pitt Binkie was too little a
dog for such a big dog as Rawdon to play with; and Matilda being
only a girl, of course not fit companion for a young gentleman who
was near eight years old, and going into jackets very soon.  He took
the command of this small party at once--the little girl and the
little boy following him about with great reverence at such times as
he condescended to sport with them.  His happiness and pleasure in
the country were extreme.  The kitchen garden pleased him hugely,
the flowers moderately, but the pigeons and the poultry, and the
stables when he was allowed to visit them, were delightful objects
to him.  He resisted being kissed by the Misses Crawley, but he
allowed Lady Jane sometimes to embrace him, and it was by her side
that he liked to sit when, the signal to retire to the drawing-room
being given, the ladies left the gentlemen to their claret--by her
side rather than by his mother.  For Rebecca, seeing that tenderness
was the fashion, called Rawdon to her one evening and stooped down
and kissed him in the presence of all the ladies.

He looked her full in the face after the operation, trembling and
turning very red, as his wont was when moved.  "You never kiss me at
home, Mamma," he said, at which there was a general silence and
consternation and a by no means pleasant look in Becky's eyes.

Rawdon was fond of his sister-in-law, for her regard for his son.
Lady Jane and Becky did not get on quite so well at this visit as on
occasion of the former one, when the Colonel's wife was bent upon
pleasing.  Those two speeches of the child struck rather a chill.
Perhaps Sir Pitt was rather too attentive to her.

But Rawdon, as became his age and size, was fonder of the society of
the men than of the women, and never wearied of accompanying his
sire to the stables, whither the Colonel retired to smoke his cigar
--Jim, the Rector's son, sometimes joining his cousin in that and
other amusements. He and the Baronet's keeper were very close
friends, their mutual taste for "dawgs" bringing them much together.
On one day, Mr. James, the Colonel, and Horn, the keeper, went and
shot pheasants, taking little Rawdon with them.  On another most
blissful morning, these four gentlemen partook of the amusement of
rat-hunting in a barn, than which sport Rawdon as yet had never seen
anything more noble.  They stopped up the ends of certain drains in
the barn, into the other openings of which ferrets were inserted,
and then stood silently aloof, with uplifted stakes in their hands,
and an anxious little terrier (Mr. James's celebrated "dawg"
Forceps, indeed) scarcely breathing from excitement, listening
motionless on three legs, to the faint squeaking of the rats below.
Desperately bold at last, the persecuted animals bolted above-
ground--the terrier accounted for one, the keeper for another;
Rawdon, from flurry and excitement, missed his rat, but on the other
hand he half-murdered a ferret.

But the greatest day of all was that on which Sir Huddlestone
Fuddlestone's hounds met upon the lawn at Queen's Crawley.

That was a famous sight for little Rawdon.  At half-past ten, Tom
Moody, Sir Huddlestone Fuddlestone's huntsman, was seen trotting up
the avenue, followed by the noble pack of hounds in a compact body--
the rear being brought up by the two whips clad in stained scarlet
frocks--light hard-featured lads on well-bred lean horses,
possessing marvellous dexterity in casting the points of their long
heavy whips at the thinnest part of any dog's skin who dares to
straggle from the main body, or to take the slightest notice, or
even so much as wink, at the hares and rabbits starting under their
noses.

Next comes boy Jack, Tom Moody's son, who weighs five stone,
measures eight-and-forty inches, and will never be any bigger.  He
is perched on a large raw-boned hunter, half-covered by a capacious
saddle.  This animal is Sir Huddlestone Fuddlestone's favourite
horse the Nob. Other horses, ridden by other small boys, arrive from
time to time, awaiting their masters, who will come cantering on
anon.

Tom Moody rides up to the door of the Hall, where he is welcomed by
the butler, who offers him drink, which he declines.  He and his
pack then draw off into a sheltered corner of the lawn, where the
dogs roll on the grass, and play or growl angrily at one another,
ever and anon breaking out into furious fight speedily to be quelled
by Tom's voice, unmatched at rating, or the snaky thongs of the
whips.

Many young gentlemen canter up on thoroughbred hacks, spatter-dashed
to the knee, and enter the house to drink cherry-brandy and pay
their respects to the ladies, or, more modest and sportsmanlike,
divest themselves of their mud-boots, exchange their hacks for their
hunters, and warm their blood by a preliminary gallop round the
lawn.  Then they collect round the pack in the corner and talk with
Tom Moody of past sport, and the merits of Sniveller and Diamond,
and of the state of the country and of the wretched breed of foxes.

Sir Huddlestone presently appears mounted on a clever cob and rides
up to the Hall, where he enters and does the civil thing by the
ladies, after which, being a man of few words, he proceeds to
business.  The hounds are drawn up to the hall-door, and little
Rawdon descends amongst them, excited yet half-alarmed by the
caresses which they bestow upon him, at the thumps he receives from
their waving tails, and at their canine bickerings, scarcely
restrained by Tom Moody's tongue and lash.

Meanwhile, Sir Huddlestone has hoisted himself unwieldily on the
Nob:  "Let's try Sowster's Spinney, Tom," says the Baronet, "Farmer
Mangle tells me there are two foxes in it." Tom blows his horn and
trots off, followed by the pack, by the whips, by the young gents
from Winchester, by the farmers of the neighbourhood, by the
labourers of the parish on foot, with whom the day is a great
holiday, Sir Huddlestone bringing up the rear with Colonel Crawley,
and the whole cortege disappears down the avenue.

The Reverend Bute Crawley (who has been too modest to appear at the
public meet before his nephew's windows), whom Tom Moody remembers
forty years back a slender divine riding the wildest horses, jumping
the widest brooks, and larking over the newest gates in the country--
his Reverence, we say, happens to trot out from the Rectory Lane on
his powerful black horse just as Sir Huddlestone passes; he joins
the worthy Baronet.  Hounds and horsemen disappear, and little
Rawdon remains on the doorsteps, wondering and happy.

During the progress of this memorable holiday, little Rawdon, if he
had got no special liking for his uncle, always awful and cold and
locked up in his study, plunged in justice-business and surrounded
by bailiffs and farmers--has gained the good graces of his married
and maiden aunts, of the two little folks of the Hall, and of Jim of
the Rectory, whom Sir Pitt is encouraging to pay his addresses to
one of the young ladies, with an understanding doubtless that he
shall be presented to the living when it shall be vacated by his
fox-hunting old sire.  Jim has given up that sport himself and
confines himself to a little harmless duck- or snipe-shooting, or a
little quiet trifling with the rats during the Christmas holidays,
after which he will return to the University and try and not be
plucked, once more.  He has already eschewed green coats, red
neckcloths, and other worldly ornaments, and is preparing himself
for a change in his condition.  In this cheap and thrifty way Sir
Pitt tries to pay off his debt to his family.

Also before this merry Christmas was over, the Baronet had screwed
up courage enough to give his brother another draft on his bankers,
and for no less a sum than a hundred pounds, an act which caused Sir
Pitt cruel pangs at first, but which made him glow afterwards to
think himself one of the most generous of men.  Rawdon and his son
went away with the utmost heaviness of heart.  Becky and the ladies
parted with some alacrity, however, and our friend returned to
London to commence those avocations with which we find her occupied
when this chapter begins. Under her care the Crawley House in Great
Gaunt Street was quite rejuvenescent and ready for the reception of
Sir Pitt and his family, when the Baronet came to London to attend
his duties in Parliament and to assume that position in the country
for which his vast genius fitted him.

For the first session, this profound dissembler hid his projects and
never opened his lips but to present a petition from Mudbury.  But
he attended assiduously in his place and learned thoroughly the
routine and business of the House.  At home he gave himself up to
the perusal of Blue Books, to the alarm and wonder of Lady Jane, who
thought he was killing himself by late hours and intense
application.  And he made acquaintance with the ministers, and the
chiefs of his party, determining to rank as one of them before many
years were over.

Lady Jane's sweetness and kindness had inspired Rebecca with such a
contempt for her ladyship as the little woman found no small
difficulty in concealing.  That sort of goodness and simplicity
which Lady Jane possessed annoyed our friend Becky, and it was
impossible for her at times not to show, or to let the other divine,
her scorn. Her presence, too, rendered Lady Jane uneasy.  Her
husband talked constantly with Becky.  Signs of intelligence seemed
to pass between them, and Pitt spoke with her on subjects on which
he never thought of discoursing with Lady Jane.  The latter did not
understand them, to be sure, but it was mortifying to remain silent;
still more mortifying to know that you had nothing to say, and hear
that little audacious Mrs. Rawdon dashing on from subject to
subject, with a word for every man, and a joke always pat; and to
sit in one's own house alone, by the fireside, and watching all the
men round your rival.

In the country, when Lady Jane was telling stories to the children,
who clustered about her knees (little Rawdon into the bargain, who
was very fond of her), and Becky came into the room, sneering with
green scornful eyes, poor Lady Jane grew silent under those baleful
glances.  Her simple little fancies shrank away tremulously, as
fairies in the story-books, before a superior bad angel.  She could
not go on, although Rebecca, with the smallest inflection of sarcasm
in her voice, besought her to continue that charming story.  And on
her side gentle thoughts and simple pleasures were odious to Mrs.
Becky; they discorded with her; she hated people for liking them;
she spurned children and children-lovers.  "I have no taste for
bread and butter," she would say, when caricaturing Lady Jane and
her ways to my Lord Steyne.

"No more has a certain person for holy water," his lordship replied
with a bow and a grin and a great jarring laugh afterwards.

So these two ladies did not see much of each other except upon those
occasions when the younger brother's wife, having an object to gain
from the other, frequented her.  They my-loved and my-deared each
other assiduously, but kept apart generally, whereas Sir Pitt, in
the midst of his multiplied avocations, found daily time to see his
sister-in-law.

On the occasion of his first Speaker's dinner, Sir Pitt took the
opportunity of appearing before his sister-in-law in his uniform--
that old diplomatic suit which he had worn when attache to the
Pumpernickel legation.

Becky complimented him upon that dress and admired him almost as
much as his own wife and children, to whom he displayed himself
before he set out.  She said that it was only the thoroughbred
gentleman who could wear the Court suit with advantage:  it was only
your men of ancient race whom the culotte courte became.  Pitt
looked down with complacency at his legs, which had not, in truth,
much more symmetry or swell than the lean Court sword which dangled
by his side--looked down at his legs, and thought in his heart that
he was killing.

When he was gone, Mrs. Becky made a caricature of his figure, which
she showed to Lord Steyne when he arrived.  His lordship carried off
the sketch, delighted with the accuracy of the resemblance.  He had
done Sir Pitt Crawley the honour to meet him at Mrs. Becky's house
and had been most gracious to the new Baronet and member.  Pitt was
struck too by the deference with which the great Peer treated his
sister-in-law, by her ease and sprightliness in the conversation,
and by the delight with which the other men of the party listened to
her talk. Lord Steyne made no doubt but that the Baronet had only
commenced his career in public life, and expected rather anxiously
to hear him as an orator; as they were neighbours (for Great Gaunt
Street leads into Gaunt Square, whereof Gaunt House, as everybody
knows, forms one side) my lord hoped that as soon as Lady Steyne
arrived in London she would have the honour of making the
acquaintance of Lady Crawley.  He left a card upon his neighbour in
the course of a day or two, having never thought fit to notice his
predecessor, though they had lived near each other for near a
century past.

In the midst of these intrigues and fine parties and wise and
brilliant personages Rawdon felt himself more and more isolated
every day.  He was allowed to go to the club more; to dine abroad
with bachelor friends; to come and go when he liked, without any
questions being asked.  And he and Rawdon the younger many a time
would walk to Gaunt Street and sit with the lady and the children
there while Sir Pitt was closeted with Rebecca, on his way to the
House, or on  his return from it.

The ex-Colonel would sit for hours in his brother's house very
silent, and thinking and doing as little as possible.  He was glad
to be employed of an errand; to go and make inquiries about a horse
or a servant, or to carve the roast mutton for the dinner of the
children. He was beat and cowed into laziness and submission.
Delilah had imprisoned him and cut his hair off, too.  The bold and
reckless young blood of ten-years back was subjugated and was turned
into a torpid, submissive, middle-aged, stout gentleman.

And poor Lady Jane was aware that Rebecca had captivated her
husband, although she and Mrs. Rawdon my-deared and my-loved each
other every day they met.



CHAPTER XLVI

Struggles and Trials


Our friends at Brompton were meanwhile passing their Christmas after
their fashion and in a manner by no means too cheerful.

Out of the hundred pounds a year, which was about the amount of her
income, the Widow Osborne had been in the habit of giving up nearly
three-fourths to her father and mother, for the expenses of herself
and her little boy.  With #120 more, supplied by Jos, this family of
four people, attended by a single Irish servant who also did for
Clapp and his wife, might manage to live in decent comfort through
the year, and hold up their heads yet, and be able to give a friend
a dish of tea still, after the storms and disappointments of their
early life. Sedley still maintained his ascendency over the family
of Mr. Clapp, his ex-clerk.  Clapp remembered the time when, sitting
on the edge of the chair, he tossed off a bumper to the health of
"Mrs. S--, Miss Emmy, and Mr. Joseph in India," at the merchant's
rich table in Russell Square.  Time magnified the splendour of those
recollections in the honest clerk's bosom.  Whenever he came up from
the kitchen-parlour to the drawing-room and partook of tea or gin-
and-water with Mr. Sedley, he would say, "This was not what you was
accustomed to once, sir," and as gravely and reverentially drink the
health of the ladies as he had done in the days of their utmost
prosperity.  He thought Miss 'Melia's playing the divinest music
ever performed, and her the finest lady. He never would sit down
before Sedley at the club even, nor would he have that gentleman's
character abused by any member of the society.  He had seen the
first men in London shaking hands with Mr. S--; he said, "He'd known
him in times when Rothschild might be seen on 'Change with him any
day, and he owed him personally everythink."

Clapp, with the best of characters and handwritings, had been able
very soon after his master's disaster to find other employment for
himself.  "Such a little fish as me can swim in any bucket," he used
to remark, and a member of the house from which old Sedley had
seceded was very glad to make use of Mr. Clapp's services and to
reward them with a comfortable salary.  In fine, all Sedley's
wealthy friends had dropped off one by one, and this poor ex-
dependent still remained faithfully attached to him.

Out of the small residue of her income which Amelia kept back for
herself, the widow had need of all the thrift and care possible in
order to enable her to keep her darling boy dressed in such a manner
as became George Osborne's son, and to defray the expenses of the
little school to which, after much misgiving and reluctance and many
secret pangs and fears on her own part, she had been induced to send
the lad.  She had sat up of nights conning lessons and spelling over
crabbed grammars and geography books in order to teach them to
Georgy.  She had worked even at the Latin accidence, fondly hoping
that she might be capable of instructing him in that language.  To
part with him all day, to send him out to the mercy of a
schoolmaster's cane and his schoolfellows' roughness, was almost
like weaning him over again to that weak mother, so tremulous and
full of sensibility.  He, for his part, rushed off to the school
with the utmost happiness.  He was longing for the change. That
childish gladness wounded his mother, who was herself so grieved to
part with him.  She would rather have had him more sorry, she
thought, and then was deeply repentant within herself for daring to
be so selfish as to wish her own son to be unhappy.

Georgy made great progress in the school, which was kept by a friend
of his mother's constant admirer, the Rev.  Mr. Binny.  He brought
home numberless prizes and testimonials of ability.  He told his
mother countless stories every night about his school-companions:
and what a fine fellow Lyons was, and what a sneak Sniffin was, and
how Steel's father actually supplied the meat for the establishment,
whereas Golding's mother came in a carriage to fetch him every
Saturday, and how Neat had straps to his trowsers--might he have
straps?--and how Bull Major was so strong (though only in Eutropius)
that it was believed he could lick the Usher, Mr. Ward, himself.  So
Amelia learned to know every one of the boys in that school as well
as Georgy himself, and of nights she used to help him in his
exercises and puzzle her little head over his lessons as eagerly as
if she was herself going in the morning into the presence of the
master. Once, after a certain combat with Master Smith, George came
home to his mother with a black eye, and bragged prodigiously to his
parent and his delighted old grandfather about his valour in the
fight, in which, if the truth was known he did not behave with
particular heroism, and in which he decidedly had the worst.  But
Amelia has never forgiven that Smith to this day, though he is now a
peaceful apothecary near Leicester Square.

In these quiet labours and harmless cares the gentle widow's life
was passing away, a silver hair or two marking the progress of time
on her head and a line deepening ever so little on her fair
forehead.  She used to smile at these marks of time.  "What matters
it," she asked, "For an old woman like me?" All she hoped for was to
live to see her son great, famous, and glorious, as he deserved to
be.  She kept his copy-books, his drawings, and compositions, and
showed them about in her little circle as if they were miracles of
genius.  She confided some of these specimens to Miss Dobbin, to
show them to Miss Osborne, George's aunt, to show them to Mr.
Osborne himself--to make that old man repent of his cruelty and ill
feeling towards him who was gone.  All her husband's faults and
foibles she had buried in the grave with him: she only remembered
the lover, who had married her at all sacrifices, the noble husband,
so brave and beautiful, in whose arms she had hung on the morning
when he had gone away to fight, and die gloriously for his king.
From heaven the hero must be smiling down upon that paragon of a boy
whom he had left to comfort and console her. We have seen how one of
George's grandfathers (Mr. Osborne), in his easy chair in Russell
Square, daily grew more violent and moody, and how his daughter,
with her fine carriage, and her fine horses, and her name on half
the public charity-lists of the town, was a lonely, miserable,
persecuted old maid.  She thought again and again of the beautiful
little boy, her brother's son, whom she had seen.  She longed to be
allowed to drive in the fine carriage to the house in which he
lived, and she used to look out day after day as she took her
solitary drive in the park, in hopes that she might see him.  Her
sister, the banker's lady, occasionally condescended to pay her old
home and companion a visit in Russell Square.  She brought a couple
of sickly children attended by a prim nurse, and in a faint genteel
giggling tone cackled to her sister about her fine acquaintance, and
how her little Frederick was the image of Lord Claud Lollypop and
her sweet Maria had been noticed by the Baroness as they were
driving in their donkey-chaise at Roehampton.  She urged her to make
her papa do something for the darlings. Frederick she had determined
should go into the Guards; and if they made an elder son of him (and
Mr. Bullock was positively ruining and pinching himself to death to
buy land), how was the darling girl to be provided for? "I expect
YOU, dear," Mrs. Bullock would say, "for of course my share of our
Papa's property must go to the head of the house, you know.  Dear
Rhoda McMull will disengage the whole of the Castletoddy property as
soon as poor dear Lord Castletoddy dies, who is quite epileptic; and
little Macduff McMull will be Viscount Castletoddy.  Both the Mr.
Bludyers of Mincing Lane have settled their fortunes on Fanny
Bludyer's little boy.  My darling Frederick must positively be an
eldest son; and--and do ask Papa to bring us back his account in
Lombard Street, will you, dear? It doesn't look well, his going to
Stumpy and Rowdy's." After which kind of speeches, in which fashion
and the main chance were blended together, and after a kiss, which
was like the contact of an oyster--Mrs. Frederick Bullock would
gather her starched nurslings and simper back into her carriage.

Every visit which this leader of ton paid to her family was more
unlucky for her.  Her father paid more money into Stumpy and
Rowdy's.  Her patronage became more and more insufferable.  The poor
widow in the little cottage at Brompton, guarding her treasure
there, little knew how eagerly some people coveted it.

On that night when Jane Osborne had told her father that she had
seen his grandson, the old man had made her no reply, but he had
shown no anger--and had bade her good-night on going himself to his
room in rather a kindly voice.  And he must have meditated on what
she said and have made some inquiries of the Dobbin family regarding
her visit, for a fortnight after it took place, he asked her where
was her little French watch and chain she used to wear?

"I bought it with my money, sir," she said in a great fright.

"Go and order another like it, or a better if you can get it," said
the old gentleman and lapsed again into silence.

Of late the Misses Dobbin more than once repeated their entreaties
to Amelia, to allow George to visit them. His aunt had shown her
inclination; perhaps his grandfather himself, they hinted, might be
disposed to be reconciled to him.  Surely, Amelia could not refuse
such advantageous chances for the boy.  Nor could she, but she
acceded to their overtures with a very heavy and suspicious heart,
was always uneasy during the child's absence from her, and welcomed
him back as if he was rescued out of some danger.  He brought back
money and toys, at which the widow looked with alarm and jealousy;
she asked him always if he had seen any gentleman--"Only old Sir
William, who drove him about in the four-wheeled chaise, and Mr.
Dobbin, who arrived on the beautiful bay horse in the afternoon--in
the green coat and pink neck-cloth, with the gold-headed whip, who
promised to show him the Tower of London and take him out with the
Surrey hounds." At last, he said, "There was an old gentleman, with
thick eyebrows, and a broad hat, and large chain and seals." He came
one day as the coachman was lunging Georgy round the lawn on the
gray pony.  "He looked at me very much.  He shook very much.  I said
'My name is Norval' after dinner.  My aunt began to cry.  She is
always crying." Such was George's report on that night.

Then Amelia knew that the boy had seen his grandfather; and looked
out feverishly for a proposal which she was sure would follow, and
which came, in fact, in a few days afterwards.  Mr. Osborne formally
offered to take the boy and make him heir to the fortune which he
had intended that his father should inherit.  He would make Mrs.
George Osborne an allowance, such as to assure her a decent
competency.  If Mrs. George Osborne proposed to marry again, as Mr.
O.  heard was her intention, he would not withdraw that allowance.
But it must be understood that the child would live entirely with
his grandfather in Russell Square, or at whatever other place Mr. O.
should select, and that he would be occasionally permitted to see
Mrs. George Osborne at her own residence.  This message was brought
or read to her in a letter one day, when her mother was from home
and her father absent as usual in the City.

She was never seen angry but twice or thrice in her life, and it was
in one of these moods that Mr. Osborne's attorney had the fortune to
behold her.  She rose up trembling and flushing very much as soon
as, after reading the letter, Mr. Poe handed it to her, and she tore
the paper into a hundred fragments, which she trod on.  "I marry
again!  I take money to part from my child!  Who dares insult me by
proposing such a thing? Tell Mr. Osborne it is a cowardly letter,
sir--a cowardly letter--I will not answer it.  I wish you good
morning, sir--and she bowed me out of the room like a tragedy
Queen," said the lawyer who told the story.

Her parents never remarked her agitation on that day, and she never
told them of the interview.  They had their own affairs to interest
them, affairs which deeply interested this innocent and unconscious
lady.  The old gentleman, her father, was always dabbling in
speculation. We have seen how the wine company and the coal company
had failed him.  But, prowling about the City always eagerly and
restlessly still, he lighted upon some other scheme, of which he
thought so well that he embarked in it in spite of the remonstrances
of Mr. Clapp, to whom indeed he never dared to tell how far he had
engaged himself in it.  And as it was always Mr. Sedley's maxim not
to talk about money matters before women, they had no inkling of the
misfortunes that were in store for them until the unhappy old
gentleman was forced to make gradual confessions.

The bills of the little household, which had been settled weekly,
first fell into arrear.  The remittances had not arrived from India,
Mr. Sedley told his wife with a disturbed face.  As she had paid her
bills very regularly hitherto, one or two of the tradesmen to whom
the poor lady was obliged to go round asking for time were very
angry at a delay to which they were perfectly used from more
irregular customers.  Emmy's contribution, paid over cheerfully
without any questions, kept the little company in half-rations
however.  And the first six months passed away pretty easily, old
Sedley still keeping up with the notion that his shares must rise
and that all would be well.

No sixty pounds, however, came to help the household at the end of
the half year, and it fell deeper and deeper into trouble--Mrs.
Sedley, who was growing infirm and was much shaken, remained silent
or wept a great deal with Mrs. Clapp in the kitchen.  The butcher
was particularly surly, the grocer insolent:  once or twice little
Georgy had grumbled about the dinners, and Amelia, who still would
have been satisfied with a slice of bread for her own dinner, could
not but perceive that her son was neglected and purchased little
things out of her private purse to keep the boy in health.

At last they told her, or told her such a garbled story as people in
difficulties tell.  One day, her own money having been received, and
Amelia about to pay it over, she, who had kept an account of the
moneys expended by her, proposed to keep a certain portion back out
of her dividend, having contracted engagements for a new suit for
Georgy.

Then it came out that Jos's remittances were not paid, that the
house was in difficulties, which Amelia ought to have seen before,
her mother said, but she cared for nothing or nobody except Georgy.
At this she passed all her money across the table, without a word,
to her mother, and returned to her room to cry her eyes out. She had
a great access of sensibility too that day, when obliged to go and
countermand the clothes, the darling clothes on which she had set
her heart for Christmas Day, and the cut and fashion of which she
had arranged in many conversations with a small milliner, her
friend.

Hardest of all, she had to break the matter to Georgy, who made a
loud outcry.  Everybody had new clothes at Christmas.  The others
would laugh at him.  He would have new clothes.  She had promised
them to him.  The poor widow had only kisses to give him.  She
darned the old suit in tears.  She cast about among her little
ornaments to see if she could sell anything to procure the desired
novelties.  There was her India shawl that Dobbin had sent her.  She
remembered in former days going with her mother to a fine India shop
on Ludgate Hill, where the ladies had all sorts of dealings and
bargains in these articles.  Her cheeks flushed and her eyes shone
with pleasure as she thought of this resource, and she kissed away
George to school in the morning, smiling brightly after him.  The
boy felt that there was good news in her look.

Packing up her shawl in a handkerchief (another of the gifts of the
good Major), she hid them under her cloak and walked flushed and
eager all the way to Ludgate Hill, tripping along by the park wall
and running over the crossings, so that many a man turned as she
hurried by him and looked after her rosy pretty face.  She
calculated how she should spend the proceeds of her shawl--how,
besides the clothes, she would buy the books that he longed for, and
pay his half-year's schooling; and how she would buy a cloak for her
father instead of that old great-coat which he wore.  She was not
mistaken as to the value of the Major's gift.  It was a very fine
and beautiful web, and the merchant made a very good bargain when he
gave her twenty guineas for her shawl.

She ran on amazed and flurried with her riches to Darton's shop, in
St. Paul's Churchyard, and there purchased the Parents' Assistant
and the Sandford and Merton Georgy longed for, and got into the
coach there with her parcel, and went home exulting.  And she
pleased herself by writing in the fly-leaf in her neatest little
hand, "George Osborne, A Christmas gift from his affectionate-
mother." The books are extant to this day, with the fair delicate
superscription.

She was going from her own room with the books in her hand to place
them on George's table, where he might find them on his return from
school, when in the passage, she and her mother met.  The gilt
bindings of the seven handsome little volumes caught the old lady's
eye.

"What are those?" she said.

"Some books for Georgy," Amelia replied--I--I promised them to him
at Christmas."

"Books!" cried the elder lady indignantly, "Books, when the whole
house wants bread!  Books, when to keep you and your son in luxury,
and your dear father out of gaol, I've sold every trinket I had, the
India shawl from my back even down to the very spoons, that our
tradesmen mightn't insult us, and that Mr. Clapp, which indeed he is
justly entitled, being not a hard landlord, and a civil man, and a
father, might have his rent.  Oh, Amelia! you break my heart with
your books and that boy of yours, whom you are ruining, though part
with him you will not.  Oh, Amelia, may God send you a more dutiful
child than I have had!  There's Jos, deserts his father in his old
age; and there's George, who might be provided for, and who might be
rich, going to school like a lord, with a gold watch and chain round
his neck--while my dear, dear old man is without a sh--shilling."
Hysteric sobs and cries ended Mrs. Sedley's speech--it echoed
through every room in the small house, whereof the other female
inmates heard every word of the colloquy.

"Oh, Mother, Mother!" cried poor Amelia in reply. "You told me
nothing--I--I promised him the books. I--I only sold my shawl this
morning.  Take the money--take everything"--and with quivering hands
she took out her silver, and her sovereigns--her precious golden
sovereigns, which she thrust into the hands of her mother, whence
they overflowed and tumbled, rolling down the stairs.

And then she went into her room, and sank down in despair and utter
misery.  She saw it all now.  Her selfishness was sacrificing the
boy.  But for her he might have wealth, station, education, and his
father's place, which the elder George had forfeited for her sake.
She had but to speak the words, and her father was restored to
competency and the boy raised to fortune.  Oh, what a conviction it
was to that tender and stricken heart!



CHAPTER XLVII

Gaunt House


All the world knows that Lord Steyne's town palace stands in Gaunt
Square, out of which Great Gaunt Street leads, whither we first
conducted Rebecca, in the time of the departed Sir Pitt Crawley.
Peering over the railings and through the black trees into the
garden of the Square, you see a few miserable governesses with wan-
faced pupils wandering round and round it, and round the dreary
grass-plot in the centre of which rises the statue of Lord Gaunt,
who fought at Minden, in a three-tailed wig, and otherwise habited
like a Roman Emperor.  Gaunt House occupies nearly a side of the
Square. The remaining three sides are composed of mansions that have
passed away into dowagerism--tall, dark houses, with window-frames
of stone, or picked out of a lighter red.  Little light seems to be
behind those lean, comfortless casements now, and hospitality to
have passed away from those doors as much as the laced lacqueys and
link-boys of old times, who used to put out their torches in the
blank iron extinguishers that still flank the lamps over the steps.
Brass plates have penetrated into the square--Doctors, the Diddlesex
Bank Western Branch--the English and European Reunion, &c.--it has a
dreary look--nor is my Lord Steyne's palace less dreary.  All I have
ever seen of it is the vast wall in front, with the rustic columns
at the great gate, through which an old porter peers sometimes with
a fat and gloomy red face--and over the wall the garret and bedroom
windows, and the chimneys, out of which there seldom comes any smoke
now.  For the present Lord Steyne lives at Naples, preferring the
view of the Bay and Capri and Vesuvius to the dreary aspect of the
wall in Gaunt Square.

A few score yards down New Gaunt Street, and leading into Gaunt Mews
indeed, is a little modest back door, which you would not remark
from that of any of the other stables.  But many a little close
carriage has stopped at that door, as my informant (little Tom
Eaves, who knows everything, and who showed me the place) told me.
"The Prince and Perdita have been in and out of that door, sir," he
had often told me; "Marianne Clarke has entered it with the Duke of
------.  It conducts to the famous petits appartements of Lord Steyne
--one, sir, fitted up all in ivory and white satin, another in ebony
and black velvet; there is a little banqueting-room taken from
Sallust's house at Pompeii, and painted by Cosway--a little private
kitchen, in which every saucepan was silver and all the spits were
gold.  It was there that Egalite Orleans roasted partridges on the
night when he and the Marquis of Steyne won a hundred thousand from
a great personage at ombre.  Half of the money went to the French
Revolution, half to purchase Lord Gaunt's Marquisate and Garter--and
the remainder--" but it forms no part of our scheme to tell what
became of the remainder, for every shilling of which, and a great
deal more, little Tom Eaves, who knows everybody's affairs, is ready
to account.

Besides his town palace, the Marquis had castles and palaces in
various quarters of the three kingdoms, whereof the descriptions may
be found in the road-books--Castle Strongbow, with its woods, on the
Shannon shore; Gaunt Castle, in Carmarthenshire, where Richard II
was taken prisoner--Gauntly Hall in Yorkshire, where I have been
informed there were two hundred silver teapots for the breakfasts of
the guests of the house, with everything to correspond in splendour;
and Stillbrook in Hampshire, which was my lord's farm, an humble
place of residence, of which we all remember the wonderful furniture
which was sold at my lord's demise by a late celebrated auctioneer.

The Marchioness of Steyne was of the renowned and ancient family of
the Caerlyons, Marquises of Camelot, who have preserved the old
faith ever since the conversion of the venerable Druid, their first
ancestor, and whose pedigree goes far beyond the date of the arrival
of King Brute in these islands.  Pendragon is the title of the
eldest son of the house.  The sons have been called Arthurs, Uthers,
and Caradocs, from immemorial time. Their heads have fallen in many
a loyal conspiracy. Elizabeth chopped off the head of the Arthur of
her day, who had been Chamberlain to Philip and Mary, and carried
letters between the Queen of Scots and her uncles the Guises.  A
cadet of the house was an officer of the great Duke and
distinguished in the famous Saint Bartholomew conspiracy.  During
the whole of Mary's confinement, the house of Camelot conspired in
her behalf. It was as much injured by its charges in fitting out an
armament against the Spaniards, during the time of the Armada, as by
the fines and confiscations levied on it by Elizabeth for harbouring
of priests, obstinate recusancy, and popish misdoings.  A recreant
of James's time was momentarily perverted from his religion by the
arguments of that great theologian, and the fortunes of the family
somewhat restored by his timely weakness.  But the Earl of Camelot,
of the reign of Charles, returned to the old creed of his family,
and they continued to fight for it, and ruin themselves for it, as
long as there was a Stuart left to head or to instigate a rebellion.

Lady Mary Caerlyon was brought up at a Parisian convent; the
Dauphiness Marie Antoinette was her godmother.  In the pride of her
beauty she had been married--sold, it was said--to Lord Gaunt, then
at Paris, who won vast sums from the lady's brother at some of
Philip of Orleans's banquets.  The Earl of Gaunt's famous duel with
the Count de la Marche, of the Grey Musqueteers, was attributed by
common report to the pretensions of that officer (who had been a
page, and remained a favourite of the Queen) to the hand of the
beautiful Lady Mary Caerlyon.  She was married to Lord Gaunt while
the Count lay ill of his wound, and came to dwell at Gaunt House,
and to figure for a short time in the splendid Court of the Prince
of Wales.  Fox had toasted her.  Morris and Sheridan had written
songs about her.  Malmesbury had made her his best bow; Walpole had
pronounced her charming; Devonshire had been almost jealous of her;
but she was scared by the wild pleasures and gaieties of the society
into which she was flung, and after she had borne a couple of sons,
shrank away into a life of devout seclusion.  No wonder that my Lord
Steyne, who liked pleasure and cheerfulness, was not often seen
after their marriage by the side of this trembling, silent,
superstitious, unhappy lady.

The before-mentioned Tom Eaves (who has no part in this history,
except that he knew all the great folks in London, and the stories
and mysteries of each family) had further information regarding my
Lady Steyne, which may or may not be true.  "The humiliations," Tom
used to say, "which that woman has been made to undergo, in her own
house, have been frightful; Lord Steyne has made her sit down to
table with women with whom I would rather die than allow Mrs. Eaves
to associate--with Lady Crackenbury, with Mrs. Chippenham, with
Madame de la Cruchecassee, the French secretary's wife (from every
one of which ladies Tom Eaves--who would have sacrificed his wife
for knowing them--was too glad to get a bow or a dinner) with the
REIGNING FAVOURITE in a word.  And do you suppose that that woman,
of that family, who are as proud as the Bourbons, and to whom the
Steynes are but lackeys, mushrooms of yesterday (for after all, they
are not of the Old Gaunts, but of a minor and doubtful branch of the
house); do you suppose, I say (the reader must bear in mind that it
is always Tom Eaves who speaks) that the Marchioness of Steyne, the
haughtiest woman in England, would bend down to her husband so
submissively if there were not some cause? Pooh!  I tell you there
are secret reasons. I tell you that, in the emigration, the Abbe de
la Marche who was here and was employed in the Quiberoon business
with Puisaye and Tinteniac, was the same Colonel of Mousquetaires
Gris with whom Steyne fought in the year '86--that he and the
Marchioness met again--that it was after the Reverend Colonel was
shot in Brittany that Lady Steyne took to those extreme practices of
devotion which she carries on now; for she is closeted with her
director every day--she is at service at Spanish Place, every
morning, I've watched her there--that is, I've happened to be
passing there--and depend on it, there's a mystery in her case.
People are not so unhappy unless they have something to repent of,"
added Tom Eaves with a knowing wag of his head; "and depend on it,
that woman would not be so submissive as she is if the Marquis had
not some sword to hold over her."

So, if Mr. Eaves's information be correct, it is very likely that
this lady, in her high station, had to submit to many a private
indignity and to hide many secret griefs under a calm face.  And let
us, my brethren who have not our names in the Red Book, console
ourselves by thinking comfortably how miserable our betters may be,
and that Damocles, who sits on satin cushions and is served on gold
plate, has an awful sword hanging over his head in the shape of a
bailiff, or an hereditary disease, or a family secret, which peeps
out every now and then from the embroidered arras in a ghastly
manner, and will be sure to drop one day or the other in the right
place.

In comparing, too, the poor man's situation with that of the great,
there is (always according to Mr. Eaves) another source of comfort
for the former.  You who have little or no patrimony to bequeath or
to inherit, may be on good terms with your father or your son,
whereas the heir of a great prince, such as my Lord Steyne, must
naturally be angry at being kept out of his kingdom, and eye the
occupant of it with no very agreeable glances. "Take it as a rule,"
this sardonic old Laves would say, "the fathers and elder sons of
all great families hate each other.  The Crown Prince is always in
opposition to the crown or hankering after it.  Shakespeare knew the
world, my good sir, and when he describes Prince Hal (from whose
family the Gaunts pretend to be descended, though they are no more
related to John of Gaunt than you are) trying on his father's
coronet, he gives you a natural description of all heirs apparent.
If you were heir to a dukedom and a thousand pounds a day, do you
mean to say you would not wish for possession? Pooh!  And it stands
to reason that every great man, having experienced this feeling
towards his father, must be aware that his son entertains it towards
himself; and so they can't but be suspicious and hostile.

"Then again, as to the feeling of elder towards younger sons.  My
dear sir, you ought to know that every elder brother looks upon the
cadets of the house as his natural enemies, who deprive him of so
much ready money which ought to be his by right.  I have often heard
George Mac Turk, Lord Bajazet's eldest son, say that if he had his
will when he came to the title, he would do what the sultans do, and
clear the estate by chopping off all his younger brothers' heads at
once; and so the case is, more or less, with them all.  I tell you
they are all Turks in their hearts.  Pooh! sir, they know the
world." And here, haply, a great man coming up, Tom Eaves's hat
would drop off his head, and he would rush forward with a bow and a
grin, which showed that he knew the world too--in the Tomeavesian
way, that is.  And having laid out every shilling of his fortune on
an annuity, Tom could afford to bear no malice to his nephews and
nieces, and to have no other feeling with regard to his betters but
a constant and generous desire to dine with them.

Between the Marchioness and the natural and tender regard of mother
for children, there was that cruel barrier placed of difference of
faith.  The very love which she might feel for her sons only served
to render the timid and pious lady more fearful and unhappy.  The
gulf which separated them was fatal and impassable.  She could not
stretch her weak arms across it, or draw her children over to that
side away from which her belief told her there was no safety.
During the youth of his sons, Lord Steyne, who was a good scholar
and amateur casuist, had no better sport in the evening after dinner
in the country than in setting the boys' tutor, the Reverend Mr.
Trail (now my Lord Bishop of Ealing) on her ladyship's director,
Father Mole, over their wine, and in pitting Oxford against St.
Acheul.  He cried "Bravo, Latimer!  Well said, Loyola!" alternately;
he promised Mole a bishopric if he would come over, and vowed he
would use all his influence to get Trail a cardinal's hat if he
would secede.  Neither divine allowed himself to be conquered, and
though the fond mother hoped that her youngest and favourite son
would be reconciled to her church--his mother church--a sad and
awful disappointment awaited the devout lady--a disappointment which
seemed to be a judgement upon her for the sin of her marriage.

My Lord Gaunt married, as every person who frequents the Peerage
knows, the Lady Blanche Thistlewood, a daughter of the noble house
of Bareacres, before mentioned in this veracious history.  A wing of
Gaunt House was assigned to this couple; for the head of the family
chose to govern it, and while he reigned to reign supreme; his son
and heir, however, living little at home, disagreeing with his wife,
and borrowing upon post-obits such moneys as he required beyond the
very moderate sums which his father was disposed to allow him.  The
Marquis knew every shilling of his son's debts. At his lamented
demise, he was found himself to be possessor of many of his heir's
bonds, purchased for their benefit, and devised by his Lordship to
the children of his younger son.

As, to my Lord Gaunt's dismay, and the chuckling delight of his
natural enemy and father, the Lady Gaunt had no children--the Lord
George Gaunt was desired to return from Vienna, where he was engaged
in waltzing and diplomacy, and to contract a matrimonial alliance
with the Honourable Joan, only daughter of John Johnes, First Baron
Helvellyn, and head of the firm of Jones, Brown, and Robinson, of
Threadneedle Street, Bankers; from which union sprang several sons
and daughters, whose doings do not appertain to this story.

The marriage at first was a happy and prosperous one. My Lord George
Gaunt could not only read, but write pretty correctly.  He spoke
French with considerable fluency; and was one of the finest waltzers
in Europe.  With these talents, and his interest at home, there was
little doubt that his lordship would rise to the highest dignities
in his profession.  The lady, his wife, felt that courts were her
sphere, and her wealth enabled her to receive splendidly in those
continental towns whither her husband's diplomatic duties led him.
There was talk of appointing him minister, and bets were laid at the
Travellers' that he would be ambassador ere long, when of a sudden,
rumours arrived of the secretary's extraordinary behaviour. At a
grand diplomatic dinner given by his chief, he had started up and
declared that a pate de foie gras was poisoned.  He went to a ball
at the hotel of the Bavarian envoy, the Count de Springbock-
Hohenlaufen, with his head shaved and dressed as a Capuchin friar.
It was not a masked ball, as some folks wanted to persuade you.  It
was something queer, people whispered.  His grandfather was so.  It
was in the family.

His wife and family returned to this country and took up their abode
at Gaunt House.  Lord George gave up his post on the European
continent, and was gazetted to Brazil.  But people knew better; he
never returned from that Brazil expedition--never died there--never
lived there--never was there at all.  He was nowhere; he was gone
out altogether.  "Brazil," said one gossip to another, with a grin--
"Brazil is St.  John's Wood.  Rio de Janeiro is a cottage surrounded
by four walls, and George Gaunt is accredited to a keeper, who has
invested him with the order of the Strait-Waistcoat." These are the
kinds of epitaphs which men pass over one another in Vanity Fair.

Twice or thrice in a week, in the earliest morning, the poor mother
went for her sins and saw the poor invalid. Sometimes he laughed at
her (and his laughter was more pitiful than to hear him cry);
sometimes she found the brilliant dandy diplomatist of the Congress
of Vienna dragging about a child's toy, or nursing the keeper's
baby's doll.  Sometimes he knew her and Father Mole, her director
and companion; oftener he forgot her, as he had done wife, children,
love, ambition, vanity.  But he remembered his dinner-hour, and used
to cry if his wine-and-water was not strong enough.

It was the mysterious taint of the blood; the poor mother had
brought it from her own ancient race.  The evil had broken out once
or twice in the father's family, long before Lady Steyne's sins had
begun, or her fasts and tears and penances had been offered in their
expiation.  The pride of the race was struck down as the first-born
of Pharaoh.  The dark mark of fate and doom was on the threshold--
the tall old threshold surmounted by coronets and caned heraldry.

The absent lord's children meanwhile prattled and grew on quite
unconscious that the doom was over them too.  First they talked of
their father and devised plans against his return.  Then the name of
the living dead man was less frequently in their mouth--then not
mentioned at all.  But the stricken old grandmother trembled to
think that these too were the inheritors of their father's shame as
well as of his honours, and watched sickening for the day when the
awful ancestral curse should come down on them.

This dark presentiment also haunted Lord Steyne.  He tried to lay
the horrid bedside ghost in Red Seas of wine and jollity, and lost
sight of it sometimes in the crowd and rout of his pleasures.  But
it always came back to him when alone, and seemed to grow more
threatening with years.  "I have taken your son," it said, "why not
you? I may shut you up in a prison some day like your son George.  I
may tap you on the head to-morrow, and away go pleasure and honours,
feasts and beauty, friends, flatterers, French cooks, fine horses
and houses--in exchange for a prison, a keeper, and a straw mattress
like George Gaunt's." And then my lord would defy the ghost which
threatened him, for he knew of a remedy by which he could baulk his
enemy.

So there was splendour and wealth, but no great happiness perchance,
behind the tall caned portals of Gaunt House with its smoky coronets
and ciphers.  The feasts there were of the grandest in London, but
there was not overmuch content therewith, except among the guests
who sat at my lord's table.  Had he not been so great a Prince very
few possibly would have visited him; but in Vanity Fair the sins of
very great personages are looked at indulgently.  "Nous regardons a
deux fois" (as the French lady said) before we condemn a person of
my lord's undoubted quality.  Some notorious carpers and squeamish
moralists might be sulky with Lord Steyne, but they were glad enough
to come when he asked them.

"Lord Steyne is really too bad," Lady Slingstone said, "but
everybody goes, and of course I shall see that my girls come to no
harm." "His lordship is a man to whom I owe much, everything in
life," said the Right Reverend Doctor Trail, thinking that the
Archbishop was rather shaky, and Mrs. Trail and the young ladies
would as soon have missed going to church as to one of his
lordship's parties.  "His morals are bad," said little Lord
Southdown to his sister, who meekly expostulated, having heard
terrific legends from her mamma with respect to the doings at Gaunt
House; "but hang it, he's got the best dry Sillery in Europe!" And
as for Sir Pitt Crawley, Bart.--Sir Pitt that pattern of decorum,
Sir Pitt who had led off at missionary meetings--he never for one
moment thought of not going too.  "Where you see such persons as the
Bishop of Ealing and the Countess of Slingstone, you may be pretty
sure, Jane," the Baronet would say, "that we cannot be wrong.  The
great rank and station of Lord Steyne put him in a position to
command people in our station in life.  The Lord Lieutenant of a
County, my dear, is a respectable man.  Besides, George Gaunt and I
were intimate in early life; he was my junior when we were attaches
at Pumpernickel together."

In a word everybody went to wait upon this great man--everybody who
was asked, as you the reader (do not say nay) or I the writer hereof
would go if we had an invitation.



CHAPTER XLVIII

In Which the Reader Is Introduced to the Very Best of Company


At last Becky's kindness and attention to the chief of her husband's
family were destined to meet with an exceeding great reward, a
reward which, though certainly somewhat unsubstantial, the little
woman coveted with greater eagerness than more positive benefits.
If she did not wish to lead a virtuous life, at least she desired to
enjoy a character for virtue, and we know that no lady in the
genteel world can possess this desideratum, until she has put on a
train and feathers and has been presented to her Sovereign at Court.
From that august interview they come out stamped as honest women.
The Lord Chamberlain gives them a certificate of virtue.  And as
dubious goods or letters are passed through an oven at quarantine,
sprinkled with aromatic vinegar, and then pronounced clean, many a
lady, whose reputation would be doubtful otherwise and liable to
give infection, passes through the wholesome ordeal of the Royal
presence and issues from it free from all taint.

It might be very well for my Lady Bareacres, my Lady Tufto, Mrs.
Bute Crawley in the country, and other ladies who had come into
contact with Mrs. Rawdon Crawley to cry fie at the idea of the
odious little adventuress making her curtsey before the Sovereign,
and to declare that, if dear good Queen Charlotte had been alive,
she never would have admitted such an extremely ill-regulated
personage into her chaste drawing-room.  But when we consider that
it was the First Gentleman in Europe in whose high presence Mrs.
Rawdon passed her examination, and as it were, took her degree in
reputation, it surely must be flat disloyalty to doubt any more
about her virtue.  I, for my part, look back with love and awe to
that Great Character in history.  Ah, what a high and noble
appreciation of Gentlewomanhood there must have been in Vanity Fair,
when that revered and august being was invested, by the universal
acclaim of the refined and educated portion of this empire, with the
title of Premier Gentilhomme of his Kingdom.  Do you remember, dear
M--, oh friend of my youth, how one blissful night five-and-twenty
years since, the "Hypocrite" being acted, Elliston being manager,
Dowton and Liston performers, two boys had leave from their loyal
masters to go out from Slaughter-House School where they were
educated and to appear on Drury Lane stage, amongst a crowd which
assembled there to greet the king.  THE KING? There he was.
Beefeaters were before the august box; the Marquis of Steyne (Lord
of the Powder Closet) and other great officers of state were behind
the chair on which he sat, HE sat--florid of face, portly of person,
covered with orders, and in a rich curling head of hair--how we sang
God save him!  How the house rocked and shouted with that
magnificent music.  How they cheered, and cried, and waved
handkerchiefs.  Ladies wept; mothers clasped their children; some
fainted with emotion.  People were suffocated in the pit, shrieks
and groans rising up amidst the writhing and shouting mass there of
his people who were, and indeed showed themselves almost to be,
ready to die for him.  Yes, we saw him.  Fate cannot deprive us of
THAT.  Others have seen Napoleon.  Some few still exist who have
beheld Frederick the Great, Doctor Johnson, Marie Antoinette, &c.--
be it our reasonable boast to our children, that we saw George the
Good, the Magnificent, the Great.

Well, there came a happy day in Mrs. Rawdon Crawley's existence when
this angel was admitted into the paradise of a Court which she
coveted, her sister-in-law acting as her godmother.  On the
appointed day, Sir Pitt and his lady, in their great family carriage
(just newly built, and ready for the Baronet's assumption of the
office of High Sheriff of his county), drove up to the little house
in Curzon Street, to the edification of Raggles, who was watching
from his greengrocer's shop, and saw fine plumes within, and
enormous bunches of flowers in the breasts of the new livery-coats
of the footmen.

Sir Pitt, in a glittering uniform, descended and went into Curzon
Street, his sword between his legs.  Little Rawdon stood with his
face against the parlour window-panes, smiling and nodding with all
his might to his aunt in the carriage within; and presently Sir Pitt
issued forth from the house again, leading forth a lady with grand
feathers, covered in a white shawl, and holding up daintily a train
of magnificent brocade.  She stepped into the vehicle as if she were
a princess and accustomed all her life to go to Court, smiling
graciously on the footman at the door and on Sir Pitt, who followed
her into the carriage.

Then Rawdon followed in his old Guards' uniform, which had grown
woefully shabby, and was much too tight.  He was to have followed
the procession and waited upon his sovereign in a cab, but that his
good-natured sister-in-law insisted that they should be a family
party. The coach was large, the ladies not very big, they would hold
their trains in their laps--finally, the four went fraternally
together, and their carriage presently joined the line of royal
equipages which was making its way down Piccadilly and St.  James's
Street, towards the old brick palace where the Star of Brunswick was
in waiting to receive his nobles and gentlefolks.

Becky felt as if she could bless the people out of the carriage
windows, so elated was she in spirit, and so strong a sense had she
of the dignified position which she had at last attained in life.
Even our Becky had her weaknesses, and as one often sees how men
pride themselves upon excellences which others are slow to perceive:
how, for instance, Comus firmly believes that he is the greatest
tragic actor in England; how Brown, the famous novelist, longs to be
considered, not a man of genius, but a man of fashion; while
Robinson, the great lawyer, does not in the least care about his
reputation in Westminster Hall, but believes himself incomparable
across country and at a five-barred gate--so to be, and to be
thought, a respectable woman was Becky's aim in life, and she got up
the genteel with amazing assiduity, readiness, and success.  We have
said, there were times when she believed herself to be a fine lady
and forgot that there was no money in the chest at home--duns round
the gate, tradesmen to coax and wheedle--no ground to walk upon, in
a word.  And as she went to Court in the carriage, the family
carriage, she adopted a demeanour so grand, self-satisfied,
deliberate, and imposing that it made even Lady Jane laugh.  She
walked into the royal apartments with a toss of the head which would
have befitted an empress, and I have no doubt had she been one, she
would have become the character perfectly.

We are authorized to state that Mrs. Rawdon Crawley's costume de
cour on the occasion of her presentation to the Sovereign was of the
most elegant and brilliant description.  Some ladies we may have
seen--we who wear stars and cordons and attend the St.  James's
assemblies, or we, who, in muddy boots, dawdle up and down Pall Mall
and peep into the coaches as they drive up with the great folks in
their feathers--some ladies of fashion, I say, we may have seen,
about two o'clock of the forenoon of a levee day, as the laced-
jacketed band of the Life Guards are blowing triumphal marches
seated on those prancing music-stools, their cream-coloured
chargers--who are by no means lovely and enticing objects at that
early period of noon.  A stout countess of sixty, decolletee,
painted, wrinkled with rouge up to her drooping eyelids, and
diamonds twinkling in her wig, is a wholesome and edifying, but not
a pleasant sight.  She has the faded look of a St.  James's Street
illumination, as it may be seen of an early morning, when half the
lamps are out, and the others are blinking wanly, as if they were
about to vanish like ghosts before the dawn.  Such charms as those
of which we catch glimpses while her ladyship's carriage passes
should appear abroad at night alone.  If even Cynthia looks haggard
of an afternoon, as we may see her sometimes in the present winter
season, with Phoebus staring her out of countenance from the
opposite side of the heavens, how much more can old Lady
Castlemouldy keep her head up when the sun is shining full upon it
through the chariot windows, and showing all the chinks and crannies
with which time has marked her face!  No.  Drawing-rooms should be
announced for November, or the first foggy day, or the elderly
sultanas of our Vanity Fair should drive up in closed litters,
descend in a covered way, and make their curtsey to the Sovereign
under the protection of lamplight.

Our beloved Rebecca had no need, however, of any such a friendly
halo to set off her beauty.  Her complexion could bear any sunshine
as yet, and her dress, though if you were to see it now, any present
lady of Vanity Fair would pronounce it to be the most foolish and
preposterous attire ever worn, was as handsome in her eyes and those
of the public, some five-and-twenty years since, as the most
brilliant costume of the most famous beauty of the present season.
A score of years hence that too, that milliner's wonder, will have
passed into the domain of the absurd, along with all previous
vanities.  But we are wandering too much.  Mrs. Rawdon's dress was
pronounced to be charmante on the eventful day of her presentation.
Even good little Lady Jane was forced to acknowledge this effect, as
she looked at her kinswoman, and owned sorrowfully to herself that
she was quite inferior in taste to Mrs. Becky.

She did not know how much care, thought, and genius Mrs. Rawdon had
bestowed upon that garment.  Rebecca had as good taste as any
milliner in Europe, and such a clever way of doing things as Lady
Jane little understood. The latter quickly spied out the
magnificence of the brocade of Becky's train, and the splendour of
the lace on her dress.

The brocade was an old remnant, Becky said; and as for the lace, it
was a great bargain.  She had had it these hundred years.

"My dear Mrs. Crawley, it must have cost a little fortune," Lady
Jane said, looking down at her own lace, which was not nearly so
good; and then examining the quality of the ancient brocade which
formed the material of Mrs. Rawdon's Court dress, she felt inclined
to say that she could not afford such fine clothing, but checked
that speech, with an effort, as one uncharitable to her kinswoman.

And yet, if Lady Jane had known all, I think even her kindly temper
would have failed her.  The fact is, when she was putting Sir Pitt's
house in order, Mrs. Rawdon had found the lace and the brocade in
old wardrobes, the property of the former ladies of the house, and
had quietly carried the goods home, and had suited them to her own
little person.  Briggs saw her take them, asked no questions, told
no stories; but I believe quite sympathised with her on this matter,
and so would many another honest woman.

And the diamonds--"Where the doose did you get the diamonds, Becky?"
said her husband, admiring some jewels which he had never seen
before and which sparkled in her ears and on her neck with
brilliance and profusion.

Becky blushed a little and looked at him hard for a moment.  Pitt
Crawley blushed a little too, and looked out of window.  The fact
is, he had given her a very small portion of the brilliants; a
pretty diamond clasp, which confined a pearl necklace which she
wore--and the Baronet had omitted to mention the circumstance to his
lady.

Becky looked at her husband, and then at Sir Pitt, with an air of
saucy triumph--as much as to say, "Shall I betray you?"

"Guess!" she said to her husband.  "Why, you silly man," she
continued, "where do you suppose I got them?--all except the little
clasp, which a dear friend of mine gave me long ago.  I hired them,
to be sure.  I hired them at Mr. Polonius's, in Coventry Street.
You don't suppose that all the diamonds which go to Court belong to
the wearers; like those beautiful stones which Lady Jane has, and
which are much handsomer than any which I have, I am certain."

"They are family jewels," said Sir Pitt, again looking uneasy.  And
in this family conversation the carriage rolled down the street,
until its cargo was finally discharged at the gates of the palace
where the Sovereign was sitting in state.

The diamonds, which had created Rawdon's admiration, never went back
to Mr. Polonius, of Coventry Street, and that gentleman never
applied for their restoration, but they retired into a little
private repository, in an old desk, which Amelia Sedley had given
her years and years ago, and in which Becky kept a number of useful
and, perhaps, valuable things, about which her husband knew nothing.
To know nothing, or little, is in the nature of some husbands.  To
hide, in the nature of how many women? Oh, ladies! how many of you
have surreptitious milliners' bills? How many of you have gowns and
bracelets which you daren't show, or which you wear trembling?--
trembling, and coaxing with smiles the husband by your side, who
does not know the new velvet gown from the old one, or the new
bracelet from last year's, or has any notion that the ragged-looking
yellow lace scarf cost forty guineas and that Madame Bobinot is
writing dunning letters every week for the money!

Thus Rawdon knew nothing about the brilliant diamond ear-rings, or
the superb brilliant ornament which decorated the fair bosom of his
lady; but Lord Steyne, who was in his place at Court, as Lord of the
Powder Closet, and one of the great dignitaries and illustrious
defences of the throne of England, and came up with all his stars,
garters, collars, and cordons, and paid particular attention to the
little woman, knew whence the jewels came and who paid for them.

As he bowed over her he smiled, and quoted the hackneyed and
beautiful lines from The Rape of the Lock about Belinda's diamonds,
"which Jews might kiss and infidels adore."

"But I hope your lordship is orthodox," said the little lady with a
toss of her head.  And many ladies round about whispered and talked,
and many gentlemen nodded and whispered, as they saw what marked
attention the great nobleman was paying to the little adventuress.

What were the circumstances of the interview between Rebecca
Crawley, nee Sharp, and her Imperial Master, it does not become such
a feeble and inexperienced pen as mine to attempt to relate.  The
dazzled eyes close before that Magnificent Idea.  Loyal respect and
decency tell even the imagination not to look too keenly and
audaciously about the sacred audience-chamber, but to back away
rapidly, silently, and respectfully, making profound bows out of the
August Presence.

This may be said, that in all London there was no more loyal heart
than Becky's after this interview.  The name of her king was always
on her lips, and he was proclaimed by her to be the most charming of
men.  She went to Colnaghi's and ordered the finest portrait of him
that art had produced, and credit could supply.  She chose that
famous one in which the best of monarchs is represented in a frock-
coat with a fur collar, and breeches and silk stockings, simpering
on a sofa from under his curly brown wig.  She had him painted in a
brooch and wore it--indeed she amused and somewhat pestered her
acquaintance with her perpetual talk about his urbanity and beauty.
Who knows!  Perhaps the little woman thought she might play the part
of a Maintenon or a Pompadour.

But the finest sport of all after her presentation was to hear her
talk virtuously.  She had a few female acquaintances, not, it must
be owned, of the very highest reputation in Vanity Fair.  But being
made an honest woman of, so to speak, Becky would not consort any
longer with these dubious ones, and cut Lady Crackenbury when the
latter nodded to her from her opera-box, and gave Mrs. Washington
White the go-by in the Ring.  "One must, my dear, show one is
somebody," she said.  "One mustn't be seen with doubtful people.  I
pity Lady Crackenbury from my heart, and Mrs. Washington White may
be a very good-natured person.  YOU may go and dine with them, as
you like your rubber.  But I mustn't, and won't; and you will have
the goodness to tell Smith to say I am not at home when either of
them calls."

The particulars of Becky's costume were in the newspapers--feathers,
lappets, superb diamonds, and all the rest.  Lady Crackenbury read
the paragraph in bitterness of spirit and discoursed to her
followers about the airs which that woman was giving herself.  Mrs.
Bute Crawley and her young ladies in the country had a copy of the
Morning Post from town, and gave a vent to their honest indignation.
"If you had been sandy-haired, green-eyed, and a French rope-
dancer's daughter," Mrs. Bute said to her eldest girl (who, on the
contrary, was a very swarthy, short, and snub-nosed young lady),
"You might have had superb diamonds forsooth, and have been
presented at Court by your cousin, the Lady Jane.  But you're only a
gentlewoman, my poor dear child.  You have only some of the best
blood in England in your veins, and good principles and piety for
your portion.  I, myself, the wife of a Baronet's younger brother,
too, never thought of such a thing as going to Court--nor would
other people, if good Queen Charlotte had been alive." In this way
the worthy Rectoress consoled herself, and her daughters sighed and
sat over the Peerage all night.

A few days after the famous presentation, another great and
exceeding honour was vouchsafed to the virtuous Becky.  Lady
Steyne's carriage drove up to Mr. Rawdon Crawley's door, and the
footman, instead of driving down the front of the house, as by his
tremendous knocking he appeared to be inclined to do, relented and
only delivered in a couple of cards, on which were engraven the
names of the Marchioness of Steyne and the Countess of Gaunt.  If
these bits of pasteboard had been beautiful pictures, or had had a
hundred yards of Malines lace rolled round them, worth twice the
number of guineas, Becky could not have regarded them with more
pleasure. You may be sure they occupied a conspicuous place in the
china bowl on the drawing-room table, where Becky kept the cards of
her visitors.  Lord! lord! how poor Mrs. Washington White's card and
Lady Crackenbury's card--which our little friend had been glad
enough to get a few months back, and of which the silly little
creature was rather proud once--Lord! lord! I say, how soon at the
appearance of these grand court cards, did those poor little
neglected deuces sink down to the bottom of the pack.  Steyne!
Bareacres, Johnes of Helvellyn!  and Caerylon of Camelot! we may be
sure that Becky and Briggs looked out those august names in the
Peerage, and followed the noble races up through all the
ramifications of the family tree.

My Lord Steyne coming to call a couple of hours afterwards, and
looking about him, and observing everything as was his wont, found
his ladies' cards already ranged as the trumps of Becky's hand, and
grinned, as this old cynic always did at any naive display of human
weakness.  Becky came down to him presently; whenever the dear girl
expected his lordship, her toilette was prepared, her hair in
perfect order, her mouchoirs, aprons, scarfs, little morocco
slippers, and other female gimcracks arranged, and she seated in
some artless and agreeable posture ready to receive him--whenever
she was surprised, of course, she had to fly to her apartment to
take a rapid survey of matters in the glass, and to trip down again
to wait upon the great peer.

She found him grinning over the bowl.  She was discovered, and she
blushed a little.  "Thank you, Monseigneur," she said.  "You see
your ladies have been here.  How good of you!  I couldn't come
before--I was in the kitchen making a pudding."

"I know you were, I saw you through the area-railings as I drove
up," replied the old gentleman.

"You see everything," she replied.

"A few things, but not that, my pretty lady," he said good-
naturedly.  "You silly little fibster!  I heard you in the room
overhead, where I have no doubt you were putting a little rouge on--
you must give some of yours to my Lady Gaunt, whose complexion is
quite preposterous--and I heard the bedroom door open, and then you
came downstairs."

"Is it a crime to try and look my best when YOU come here?" answered
Mrs. Rawdon plaintively, and she rubbed her cheek with her
handkerchief as if to show there was no rouge at all, only genuine
blushes and modesty in her case.  About this who can tell? I know
there is some rouge that won't come off on a pocket-handkerchief,
and some so good that even tears will not disturb it.

"Well," said the old gentleman, twiddling round his wife's card,
"you are bent on becoming a fine lady. You pester my poor old life
out to get you into the world.  You won't be able to hold your own
there, you silly little fool.  You've got no money."

"You will get us a place," interposed Becky, "as quick as possible."

"You've got no money, and you want to compete with those who have.
You poor little earthenware pipkin, you want to swim down the stream
along with the great copper kettles.  All women are alike.
Everybody is striving for what is not worth the having!  Gad!  I
dined with the King yesterday, and we had neck of mutton and
turnips. A dinner of herbs is better than a stalled ox very often.
You will go to Gaunt House.  You give an old fellow no rest until
you get there.  It's not half so nice as here. You'll be bored
there.  I am.  My wife is as gay as Lady Macbeth, and my daughters
as cheerful as Regan and Goneril.  I daren't sleep in what they call
my bedroom. The bed is like the baldaquin of St.  Peter's, and the
pictures frighten me.  I have a little brass bed in a dressing-room,
and a little hair mattress like an anchorite. I am an anchorite.
Ho!  ho!  You'll be asked to dinner next week.  And gare aux femmes,
look out and hold your own!  How the women will bully you!" This was
a very long speech for a man of few words like my Lord Steyne; nor
was it the first which he uttered for Becky's benefit on that day.

Briggs looked up from the work-table at which she was seated in the
farther room and gave a deep sigh as she heard the great Marquis
speak so lightly of her sex.

"If you don't turn off that abominable sheep-dog," said Lord Steyne,
with a savage look over his shoulder at her, "I will have her
poisoned."

"I always give my dog dinner from my own plate," said Rebecca,
laughing mischievously; and having enjoyed for some time the
discomfiture of my lord, who hated poor Briggs for interrupting his
tete-a-tete with the fair Colonel's wife, Mrs. Rawdon at length had
pity upon her admirer, and calling to Briggs, praised the fineness
of the weather to her and bade her to take out the child for a walk.

"I can't send her away," Becky said presently, after a pause, and in
a very sad voice.  Her eyes filled with tears as she spoke, and she
turned away her head.

"You owe her her wages, I suppose?" said the Peer.

"Worse than that," said Becky, still casting down her eyes; "I have
ruined her."

"Ruined her? Then why don't you turn her out?" the gentleman asked.

"Men do that," Becky answered bitterly.  "Women are not so bad as
you.  Last year, when we were reduced to our last guinea, she gave
us everything.  She shall never leave me, until we are ruined
utterly ourselves, which does not seem far off, or until I can pay
her the utmost farthing."

"------ it, how much is it?" said the Peer with an oath. And Becky,
reflecting on the largeness of his means, mentioned not only the sum
which she had borrowed from Miss Briggs, but one of nearly double
the amount.

This caused the Lord Steyne to break out in another brief and
energetic expression of anger, at which Rebecca held down her head
the more and cried bitterly.  "I could not help it.  It was my only
chance.  I dare not tell my husband.  He would kill me if I told him
what I have done.  I have kept it a secret from everybody but you--
and you forced it from me.  Ah, what shall I do, Lord Steyne? for I
am very, very unhappy!"

Lord Steyne made no reply except by beating the devil's tattoo and
biting his nails.  At last he clapped his hat on his head and flung
out of the room.  Rebecca did not rise from her attitude of misery
until the door slammed upon him and his carriage whirled away.  Then
she rose up with the queerest expression of victorious mischief
glittering in her green eyes.  She burst out laughing once or twice
to herself, as she sat at work, and sitting down to the piano, she
rattled away a triumphant voluntary on the keys, which made the
people pause under her window to listen to her brilliant music.

That night, there came two notes from Gaunt House for the little
woman, the one containing a card of invitation from Lord and Lady
Steyne to a dinner at Gaunt House next Friday, while the other
enclosed a slip of gray paper bearing Lord Steyne's signature and
the address of Messrs.  Jones, Brown, and Robinson, Lombard Street.

Rawdon heard Becky laughing in the night once or twice.  It was only
her delight at going to Gaunt House and facing the ladies there, she
said, which amused her so.  But the truth was that she was occupied
with a great number of other thoughts.  Should she pay off old
Briggs and give her her conge? Should she astonish Raggles by
settling his account? She turned over all these thoughts on her
pillow, and on the next day, when Rawdon went out to pay his morning
visit to the Club, Mrs. Crawley (in a modest dress with a veil on)
whipped off in a hackney-coach to the City:  and being landed at
Messrs. Jones and Robinson's bank, presented a document there to the
authority at the desk, who, in reply, asked her "How she would take
it?"

She gently said "she would take a hundred and fifty pounds in small
notes and the remainder in one note": and passing through St.
Paul's Churchyard stopped there and bought the handsomest black silk
gown for Briggs which money could buy; and which, with a kiss and
the kindest speeches, she presented to the simple old spinster.

Then she walked to Mr. Raggles, inquired about his children
affectionately, and gave him fifty pounds on account.  Then she went
to the livery-man from whom she jobbed her carriages and gratified
him with a similar sum.  "And I hope this will be a lesson to you,
Spavin," she said, "and that on the next drawing-room day my
brother, Sir Pitt, will not be inconvenienced by being obliged to
take four of us in his carriage to wait upon His Majesty, because my
own carriage is not forthcoming." It appears there had been a
difference on the last drawing-room day.  Hence the degradation
which the Colonel had almost suffered, of being obliged to enter the
presence of his Sovereign in a hack cab.

These arrangements concluded, Becky paid a visit upstairs to the
before-mentioned desk, which Amelia Sedley had given her years and
years ago, and which contained a number of useful and valuable
little things--in which private museum she placed the one note which
Messrs.  Jones and Robinson's cashier had given her.



CHAPTER XLIX

In Which We Enjoy Three Courses and a Dessert


When the ladies of Gaunt House were at breakfast that morning, Lord
Steyne (who took his chocolate in private and seldom disturbed the
females of his household, or saw them except upon public days, or
when they crossed each other in the hall, or when from his pit-box
at the opera he surveyed them in their box on the grand tier) his
lordship, we say, appeared among the ladies and the children who
were assembled over the tea and toast, and a battle royal ensued
apropos of Rebecca.

"My Lady Steyne," he said, "I want to see the list for your dinner
on Friday; and I want you, if you please, to write a card for
Colonel and Mrs. Crawley."

"Blanche writes them," Lady Steyne said in a flutter. "Lady Gaunt
writes them."

"I will not write to that person," Lady Gaunt said, a tall and
stately lady, who looked up for an instant and then down again after
she had spoken.  It was not good to meet Lord Steyne's eyes for
those who had offended him.

"Send the children out of the room.  Go!" said he pulling at the
bell-rope.  The urchins, always frightened before him, retired:
their mother would have followed too.  "Not you," he said.  "You
stop."

"My Lady Steyne," he said, "once more will you have the goodness to
go to the desk and write that card for your dinner on Friday?"

"My Lord, I will not be present at it," Lady Gaunt said; "I will go
home."

"I wish you would, and stay there.  You will find the bailiffs at
Bareacres very pleasant company, and I shall be freed from lending
money to your relations and from your own damned tragedy airs.  Who
are you to give orders here? You have no money.  You've got no
brains.  You were here to have children, and you have not had any.
Gaunt's tired of you, and George's wife is the only person in the
family who doesn't wish you were dead.  Gaunt would marry again if
you were."

"I wish I were," her Ladyship answered with tears and rage in her
eyes.

"You, forsooth, must give yourself airs of virtue, while my wife,
who is an immaculate saint, as everybody knows, and never did wrong
in her life, has no objection to meet my young friend Mrs. Crawley.
My Lady Steyne knows that appearances are sometimes against the best
of women; that lies are often told about the most innocent of them.
Pray, madam, shall I tell you some little anecdotes about my Lady
Bareacres, your mamma?"

"You may strike me if you like, sir, or hit any cruel blow," Lady
Gaunt said.  To see his wife and daughter suffering always put his
Lordship into a good humour.

"My sweet Blanche," he said, "I am a gentleman, and never lay my
hand upon a woman, save in the way of kindness.  I only wish to
correct little faults in your character.  You women are too proud,
and sadly lack humility, as Father Mole, I'm sure, would tell my
Lady Steyne if he were here.  You mustn't give yourselves airs; you
must be meek and humble, my blessings.  For all Lady Steyne knows,
this calumniated, simple, good-humoured Mrs. Crawley is quite
innocent--even more innocent than herself.  Her husband's character
is not good, but it is as good as Bareacres', who has played a
little and not paid a great deal, who cheated you out of the only
legacy you ever had and left you a pauper on my hands.  And Mrs.
Crawley is not very well-born, but she is not worse than Fanny's
illustrious ancestor, the first de la Jones."

"The money which I brought into the family, sir," Lady George cried
out--

"You purchased a contingent reversion with it," the Marquis said
darkly.  "If Gaunt dies, your husband may come to his honours; your
little boys may inherit them, and who knows what besides? In the
meanwhile, ladies, be as proud and virtuous as you like abroad, but
don't give ME any airs.  As for Mrs. Crawley's character, I shan't
demean myself or that most spotless and perfectly irreproachable
lady by even hinting that it requires a defence.  You will be
pleased to receive her with the utmost cordiality, as you will
receive all persons whom I present in this house.  This house?" He
broke out with a laugh.  "Who is the master of it? and what is it?
This Temple of Virtue belongs to me.  And if I invite all Newgate or
all Bedlam here, by ------ they shall be welcome."

After this vigorous allocution, to one of which sort Lord Steyne
treated his "Hareem" whenever symptoms of insubordination appeared
in his household, the crestfallen women had nothing for it but to
obey.  Lady Gaunt wrote the invitation which his Lordship required,
and she and her mother-in-law drove in person, and with bitter and
humiliated hearts, to leave the cards on Mrs. Rawdon, the reception
of which caused that innocent woman so much pleasure.

There were families in London who would have sacrificed a year's
income to receive such an honour at the hands of those great ladies.
Mrs. Frederick Bullock, for instance, would have gone on her knees
from May Fair to Lombard Street, if Lady Steyne and Lady Gaunt had
been waiting in the City to raise her up and say, "Come to us next
Friday"--not to one of the great crushes and grand balls of Gaunt
House, whither everybody went, but to the sacred, unapproachable,
mysterious, delicious entertainments, to be admitted to one of which
was a privilege, and an honour, and a blessing indeed.

Severe, spotless, and beautiful, Lady Gaunt held the very highest
rank in Vanity Fair.  The distinguished courtesy with which Lord
Steyne treated her charmed everybody who witnessed his behaviour,
caused the severest critics to admit how perfect a gentleman he was,
and to own that his Lordship's heart at least was in the right
place.

The ladies of Gaunt House called Lady Bareacres in to their aid, in
order to repulse the common enemy.  One of Lady Gaunt's carriages
went to Hill Street for her Ladyship's mother, all whose equipages
were in the hands of the bailiffs, whose very jewels and wardrobe,
it was said, had been seized by those inexorable Israelites.
Bareacres Castle was theirs, too, with all its costly pictures,
furniture, and articles of vertu--the magnificent Vandykes; the
noble Reynolds pictures; the Lawrence portraits, tawdry and
beautiful, and, thirty years ago, deemed as precious as works of
real genius; the matchless Dancing Nymph of Canova, for which Lady
Bareacres had sat in her youth--Lady Bareacres splendid then, and
radiant in wealth, rank, and beauty--a toothless, bald, old woman
now--a mere rag of a former robe of state.  Her lord, painted at the
same time by Lawrence, as waving his sabre in front of Bareacres
Castle, and clothed in his uniform as Colonel of the Thistlewood
Yeomanry, was a withered, old, lean man in a greatcoat and a Brutus
wig, slinking about Gray's Inn of mornings chiefly and dining alone
at clubs.  He did not like to dine with Steyne now.  They had run
races of pleasure together in youth when Bareacres was the winner.
But Steyne had more bottom than he and had lasted him out.  The
Marquis was ten times a greater man now than the young Lord Gaunt of
'85, and Bareacres nowhere in the race--old, beaten, bankrupt, and
broken down.  He had borrowed too much money of Steyne to find it
pleasant to meet his old comrade often.  The latter, whenever he
wished to be merry, used jeeringly to ask Lady Gaunt why her father
had not come to see her. "He has not been here for four months,"
Lord Steyne would say.  "I can always tell by my cheque-book
afterwards, when I get a visit from Bareacres.  What a comfort it
is, my ladies, I bank with one of my sons' fathers-in-law, and the
other banks with me!"

Of the other illustrious persons whom Becky had the honour to
encounter on this her first presentation to the grand world, it does
not become the present historian to say much.  There was his
Excellency the Prince of Peterwaradin, with his Princess--a nobleman
tightly girthed, with a large military chest, on which the plaque of
his order shone magnificently, and wearing the red collar of the
Golden Fleece round his neck.  He was the owner of countless flocks.
"Look at his face.  I think he must be descended from a sheep,"
Becky whispered to Lord Steyne.  Indeed, his Excellency's
countenance, long, solemn, and white, with the ornament round his
neck, bore some resemblance to that of a venerable bell-wether.

There was Mr. John Paul Jefferson Jones, titularly attached to the
American Embassy and correspondent of the New York Demagogue, who,
by way of making himself agreeable to the company, asked Lady
Steyne, during a pause in the conversation at dinner, how his dear
friend, George Gaunt, liked the Brazils? He and George had been most
intimate at Naples and had gone up Vesuvius together.  Mr. Jones
wrote a full and particular account of the dinner, which appeared
duly in the Demagogue.  He mentioned the names and titles of all the
guests, giving biographical sketches of the principal people.  He
described the persons of the ladies with great eloquence; the
service of the table; the size and costume of the servants;
enumerated the dishes and wines served; the ornaments of the
sideboard; and the probable value of the plate.  Such a dinner he
calculated could not be dished up under fifteen or eighteen dollars
per head. And he was in the habit, until very lately, of sending
over proteges, with letters of recommendation to the present Marquis
of Steyne, encouraged to do so by the intimate terms on which he had
lived with his dear friend, the late lord.  He was most indignant
that a young and insignificant aristocrat, the Earl of Southdown,
should have taken the pas of him in their procession to the dining-
room.  "Just as I was stepping up to offer my hand to a very
pleasing and witty fashionable, the brilliant and exclusive Mrs.
Rawdon Crawley,"--he wrote--"the young patrician interposed between
me and the lady and whisked my Helen off without a word of apology.
I was fain to bring up the rear with the Colonel, the lady's
husband, a stout red-faced warrior who distinguished himself at
Waterloo, where he had better luck than befell some of his brother
redcoats at New Orleans."

The Colonel's countenance on coming into this polite society wore as
many blushes as the face of a boy of sixteen assumes when he is
confronted with his sister's schoolfellows.  It has been told before
that honest Rawdon had not been much used at any period of his life
to ladies' company.  With the men at the Club or the mess room, he
was well enough; and could ride, bet, smoke, or play at billiards
with the boldest of them.  He had had his time for female
friendships too, but that was twenty years ago, and the ladies were
of the rank of those with whom Young Marlow in the comedy is
represented as having been familiar before he became abashed in the
presence of Miss Hardcastle.  The times are such that one scarcely
dares to allude to that kind of company which thousands of our young
men in Vanity Fair are frequenting every day, which nightly fills
casinos and dancing-rooms, which is known to exist as well as the
Ring in Hyde Park or the Congregation at St.  James's--but which the
most squeamish if not the most moral of societies is determined to
ignore.  In a word, although Colonel Crawley was now five-and-forty
years of age, it had not been his lot in life to meet with a half
dozen good women, besides his paragon of a wife.  All except her and
his kind sister Lady Jane, whose gentle nature had tamed and won
him, scared the worthy Colonel, and on occasion of his first dinner
at Gaunt House he was not heard to make a single remark except to
state that the weather was very hot.  Indeed Becky would have left
him at home, but that virtue ordained that her husband should be by
her side to protect the timid and fluttering little creature on her
first appearance in polite society.

On her first appearance Lord Steyne stepped forward, taking her
hand, and greeting her with great courtesy, and presenting her to
Lady Steyne, and their ladyships, her daughters.  Their ladyships
made three stately curtsies, and the elder lady to be sure gave her
hand to the newcomer, but it was as cold and lifeless as marble.

Becky took it, however, with grateful humility, and performing a
reverence which would have done credit to the best dancer-master,
put herself at Lady Steyne's feet, as it were, by saying that his
Lordship had been her father's earliest friend and patron, and that
she, Becky, had learned to honour and respect the Steyne family from
the days of her childhood.  The fact is that Lord Steyne had once
purchased a couple of pictures of the late Sharp, and the
affectionate orphan could never forget her gratitude for that
favour.

The Lady Bareacres then came under Becky's cognizance--to whom the
Colonel's lady made also a most respectful obeisance:  it was
returned with severe dignity by the exalted person in question.

"I had the pleasure of making your Ladyship's acquaintance at
Brussels, ten years ago," Becky said in the most winning manner.  "I
had the good fortune to meet Lady Bareacres at the Duchess of
Richmond's ball, the night before the Battle of Waterloo.  And I
recollect your Ladyship, and my Lady Blanche, your daughter, sitting
in the carriage in the porte-cochere at the Inn, waiting for horses.
I hope your Ladyship's diamonds are safe."

Everybody's eyes looked into their neighbour's.  The famous diamonds
had undergone a famous seizure, it appears, about which Becky, of
course, knew nothing. Rawdon Crawley retreated with Lord Southdown
into a window, where the latter was heard to laugh immoderately, as
Rawdon told him the story of Lady Bareacres wanting horses and
"knuckling down by Jove," to Mrs. Crawley.  "I think I needn't be
afraid of THAT woman," Becky thought.  Indeed, Lady Bareacres
exchanged terrified and angry looks with her daughter and retreated
to a table, where she began to look at pictures with great energy.

When the Potentate from the Danube made his appearance, the
conversation was carried on in the French language, and the Lady
Bareacres and the younger ladies found, to their farther
mortification, that Mrs. Crawley was much better acquainted with
that tongue, and spoke it with a much better accent than they.
Becky had met other Hungarian magnates with the army in France in
1816-17.  She asked after her friends with great interest The
foreign personages thought that she was a lady of great distinction,
and the Prince and the Princess asked severally of Lord Steyne and
the Marchioness, whom they conducted to dinner, who was that petite
dame who spoke so well?

Finally, the procession being formed in the order described by the
American diplomatist, they marched into the apartment where the
banquet was served, and which, as I have promised the reader he
shall enjoy it, he shall have the liberty of ordering himself so as
to suit his fancy.

But it was when the ladies were alone that Becky knew the tug of war
would come.  And then indeed the little woman found herself in such
a situation as made her acknowledge the correctness of Lord Steyne's
caution to her to beware of the society of ladies above her own
sphere.  As they say, the persons who hate Irishmen most are
Irishmen; so, assuredly, the greatest tyrants over women are women.
When poor little Becky, alone with the ladies, went up to the fire-
place whither the great ladies had repaired, the great ladies
marched away and took possession of a table of drawings.  When Becky
followed them to the table of drawings, they dropped off one by one
to the fire again.  She tried to speak to one of the children (of
whom she was commonly fond in public places), but Master George
Gaunt was called away by his mamma; and the stranger was treated
with such cruelty finally, that even Lady Steyne herself pitied her
and went up to speak to the friendless little woman.

"Lord Steyne," said her Ladyship, as her wan cheeks glowed with a
blush, "says you sing and play very beautifully, Mrs. Crawley--I
wish you would do me the kindness to sing to me."

"I will do anything that may give pleasure to my Lord Steyne or to
you," said Rebecca, sincerely grateful, and seating herself at the
piano, began to sing.

She sang religious songs of Mozart, which had been early favourites
of Lady Steyne, and with such sweetness and tenderness that the
lady, lingering round the piano, sat down by its side and listened
until the tears rolled down her eyes.  It is true that the
opposition ladies at the other end of the room kept up a loud and
ceaseless buzzing and talking, but the Lady Steyne did not hear
those rumours.  She was a child again--and had wandered back through
a forty years' wilderness to her convent garden.  The chapel organ
had pealed the same tones, the organist, the sister whom she loved
best of the community, had taught them to her in those early happy
days.  She was a girl once more, and the brief period of her
happiness bloomed out again for an hour--she started when the
jarring doors were flung open, and with a loud laugh from Lord
Steyne, the men of the party entered full of gaiety.

He saw at a glance what had happened in his absence, and was
grateful to his wife for once.  He went and spoke to her, and called
her by her Christian name, so as again to bring blushes to her pale
face--"My wife says you have been singing like an angel," he said to
Becky.  Now there are angels of two kinds, and both sorts, it is
said, are charming in their way.

Whatever the previous portion of the evening had been, the rest of
that night was a great triumph for Becky.  She sang her very best,
and it was so good that every one of the men came and crowded round
the piano.  The women, her enemies, were left quite alone. And Mr.
Paul Jefferson Jones thought he had made a conquest of Lady Gaunt by
going up to her Ladyship and praising her delightful friend's first-
rate singing.



CHAPTER L

Contains a Vulgar Incident


The Muse, whoever she be, who presides over this Comic History must
now descend from the genteel heights in which she has been soaring
and have the goodness to drop down upon the lowly roof of John
Sedley at Brompton, and describe what events are taking place there.
Here, too, in this humble tenement, live care, and distrust, and
dismay.  Mrs. Clapp in the kitchen is grumbling in secret to her
husband about the rent, and urging the good fellow to rebel against
his old friend and patron and his present lodger.  Mrs. Sedley has
ceased to visit her landlady in the lower regions now, and indeed is
in a position to patronize Mrs. Clapp no longer.  How can one be
condescending to a lady to whom one owes a matter of forty pounds,
and who is perpetually throwing out hints for the money? The Irish
maidservant has not altered in the least in her kind and respectful
behaviour; but Mrs. Sedley fancies that she is growing insolent and
ungrateful, and, as the guilty thief who fears each bush an officer,
sees threatening innuendoes and hints of capture in all the girl's
speeches and answers.  Miss Clapp, grown quite a young woman now, is
declared by the soured old lady to be an unbearable and impudent
little minx.  Why Amelia can be so fond of her, or have her in her
room so much, or walk out with her so constantly, Mrs. Sedley cannot
conceive. The bitterness of poverty has poisoned the life of the
once cheerful and kindly woman.  She is thankless for Amelia's
constant and gentle bearing towards her; carps at her for her
efforts at kindness or service; rails at her for her silly pride in
her child and her neglect of her parents.  Georgy's house is not a
very lively one since Uncle Jos's annuity has been withdrawn and the
little family are almost upon famine diet.

Amelia thinks, and thinks, and racks her brain, to find some means
of increasing the small pittance upon which the household is
starving.  Can she give lessons in anything? paint card-racks? do
fine work? She finds that women are working hard, and better than
she can, for twopence a day.  She buys a couple of begilt Bristol
boards at the Fancy Stationer's and paints her very best upon them--
a shepherd with a red waistcoat on one, and a pink face smiling in
the midst of a pencil landscape--a shepherdess on the other,
crossing a little bridge, with a little dog, nicely shaded.  The man
of the Fancy Repository and Brompton Emporium of Fine Arts (of whom
she bought the screens, vainly hoping that he would repurchase them
when ornamented by her hand) can hardly hide the sneer with which he
examines these feeble works of art.  He looks askance at the lady
who waits in the shop, and ties up the cards again in their envelope
of whitey-brown paper, and hands them to the poor widow and Miss
Clapp, who had never seen such beautiful things in her life, and had
been quite confident that the man must give at least two guineas for
the screens.  They try at other shops in the interior of London,
with faint sickening hopes.  "Don't want 'em," says one.  "Be off,"
says another fiercely.  Three-and-sixpence has been spent in vain--
the screens retire to Miss Clapp's bedroom, who persists in thinking
them lovely.

She writes out a little card in her neatest hand, and after long
thought and labour of composition, in which the public is informed
that "A Lady who has some time at her disposal, wishes to undertake
the education of some little girls, whom she would instruct in
English, in French, in Geography, in History, and in Music--address
A.  O., at Mr. Brown's"; and she confides the card to the gentleman
of the Fine Art Repository, who consents to allow it to lie upon the
counter, where it grows dingy and fly-blown.  Amelia passes the door
wistfully many a time, in hopes that Mr. Brown will have some news
to give her, but he never beckons her in.  When she goes to make
little purchases, there is no news for her.  Poor simple lady,
tender and weak--how are you to battle with the struggling violent
world?

She grows daily more care-worn and sad, fixing upon her child
alarmed eyes, whereof the little boy cannot interpret the
expression.  She starts up of a night and peeps into his room
stealthily, to see that he is sleeping and not stolen away.  She
sleeps but little now.  A constant thought and terror is haunting
her.  How she weeps and prays in the long silent nights--how she
tries to hide from herself the thought which will return to her,
that she ought to part with the boy, that she is the only barrier
between him and prosperity.  She can't, she can't. Not now, at
least.  Some other day.  Oh! it is too hard to think of and to bear.

A thought comes over her which makes her blush and turn from
herself--her parents might keep the annuity--the curate would marry
her and give a home to her and the boy.  But George's picture and
dearest memory are there to rebuke her.  Shame and love say no to
the sacrifice.  She shrinks from it as from something unholy, and
such thoughts never found a resting-place in that pure and gentle
bosom.

The combat, which we describe in a sentence or two, lasted for many
weeks in poor Amelia's heart, during which she had no confidante;
indeed, she could never have one, as she would not allow to herself
the possibility of yielding, though she was giving way daily before
the enemy with whom she had to battle.  One truth after another was
marshalling itself silently against her and keeping its ground.
Poverty and misery for all, want and degradation for her parents,
injustice to the boy--one by one the outworks of the little citadel
were taken, in which the poor soul passionately guarded her only
love and treasure.

At the beginning of the struggle, she had written off a letter of
tender supplication to her brother at Calcutta, imploring him not to
withdraw the support which he had granted to their parents and
painting in terms of artless pathos their lonely and hapless
condition.  She did not know the truth of the matter.  The payment
of Jos's annuity was still regular, but it was a money-lender in the
City who was receiving it:  old Sedley had sold it for a sum of
money wherewith to prosecute his bootless schemes.  Emmy was
calculating eagerly the time that would elapse before the letter
would arrive and be answered.  She had written down the date in her
pocket-book of the day when she dispatched it.  To her son's
guardian, the good Major at Madras, she had not communicated any of
her griefs and perplexities.  She had not written to him since she
wrote to congratulate him on his approaching marriage.  She thought
with sickening despondency, that that friend--the only one, the one
who had felt such a regard for her--was fallen away.

One day, when things had come to a very bad pass--when the creditors
were pressing, the mother in hysteric grief, the father in more than
usual gloom, the inmates of the family avoiding each other, each
secretly oppressed with his private unhappiness and notion of wrong
--the father and daughter happened to be left alone together, and
Amelia thought to comfort her father by telling him what she had
done.  She had written to Joseph--an answer must come in three or
four months. He was always generous, though careless.  He could not
refuse, when he knew how straitened were the circumstances of his
parents.

Then the poor old gentleman revealed the whole truth to her--that
his son was still paying the annuity, which his own imprudence had
flung away.  He had not dared to tell it sooner.  He thought
Amelia's ghastly and terrified look, when, with a trembling,
miserable voice he made the confession, conveyed reproaches to him
for his concealment.  "Ah!" said he with quivering lips and turning
away, "you despise your old father now!"

"Oh, papal it is not that," Amelia cried out, falling on his neck
and kissing him many times.  "You are always good and kind.  You did
it for the best.  It is not for the money--it is--my God! my God!
have mercy upon me, and give me strength to bear this trial"; and
she kissed him again wildly and went away.

Still the father did not know what that explanation meant, and the
burst of anguish with which the poor girl left him.  It was that she
was conquered.  The sentence was passed.  The child must go from
her--to others--to forget her.  Her heart and her treasure--her joy,
hope, love, worship--her God, almost!  She must give him up, and
then--and then she would go to George, and they would watch over the
child and wait for him until he came to them in Heaven.

She put on her bonnet, scarcely knowing what she did, and went out
to walk in the lanes by which George used to come back from school,
and where she was in the habit of going on his return to meet the
boy.  It was May, a half-holiday.  The leaves were all coming out,
the weather was brilliant; the boy came running to her flushed with
health, singing, his bundle of school-books hanging by a thong.
There he was.  Both her arms were round him.  No, it was impossible.
They could not be going to part.  "What is the matter, Mother?" said
he; "you look very pale."

"Nothing, my child," she said and stooped down and kissed him.

That night Amelia made the boy read the story of Samuel to her, and
how Hannah, his mother, having weaned him, brought him to Eli the
High Priest to minister before the Lord.  And he read the song of
gratitude which Hannah sang, and which says, who it is who maketh
poor and maketh rich, and bringeth low and exalteth--how the poor
shall be raised up out of the dust, and how, in his own might, no
man shall be strong. Then he read how Samuel's mother made him a
little coat and brought it to him from year to year when she came up
to offer the yearly sacrifice.  And then, in her sweet simple way,
George's mother made commentaries to the boy upon this affecting
story.  How Hannah, though she loved her son so much, yet gave him
up because of her vow.  And how she must always have thought of him
as she sat at home, far away, making the little coat; and Samuel,
she was sure, never forgot his mother; and how happy she must have
been as the time came (and the years pass away very quick) when she
should see her boy and how good and wise he had grown.  This little
sermon she spoke with a gentle solemn voice, and dry eyes, until she
came to the account of their meeting--then the discourse broke off
suddenly, the tender heart overflowed, and taking the boy to her
breast, she rocked him in her arms and wept silently over him in a
sainted agony of tears.

Her mind being made up, the widow began to take such measures as
seemed right to her for advancing the end which she proposed.  One
day, Miss Osborne, in Russell Square (Amelia had not written the
name or number of the house for ten years--her youth, her early
story came back to her as she wrote the superscription) one day Miss
Osborne got a letter from Amelia which made her blush very much and
look towards her father, sitting glooming in his place at the other
end of the table.

In simple terms, Amelia told her the reasons which had induced her
to change her mind respecting her boy. Her father had met with fresh
misfortunes which had entirely ruined him.  Her own pittance was so
small that it would barely enable her to support her parents and
would not suffice to give George the advantages which were his due.
Great as her sufferings would be at parting with him she would, by
God's help, endure them for the boy's sake.  She knew that those to
whom he was going would do all in their power to make him happy.
She described his disposition, such as she fancied it--quick and
impatient of control or harshness, easily to be moved by love and
kindness.  In a postscript, she stipulated that she should have a
written agreement, that she should see the child as often as she
wished--she could not part with him under any other terms.

"What? Mrs. Pride has come down, has she?" old Osborne said, when
with a tremulous eager voice Miss Osborne read him the letter.
"Reg'lar starved out, hey? Ha, ha!  I knew she would." He tried to
keep his dignity and to read his paper as usual--but he could not
follow it.  He chuckled and swore to himself behind the sheet.

At last he flung it down and, scowling at his daughter, as his wont
was, went out of the room into his study adjoining, from whence he
presently returned with a key.  He flung it to Miss Osborne.

"Get the room over mine--his room that was--ready," he said.  "Yes,
sir," his daughter replied in a tremble. It was George's room.  It
had not been opened for more than ten years.  Some of his clothes,
papers, handkerchiefs, whips and caps, fishing-rods and sporting
gear, were still there.  An Army list of 1814, with his name written
on the cover; a little dictionary he was wont to use in writing; and
the Bible his mother had given him, were on the mantelpiece, with a
pair of spurs and a dried inkstand covered with the dust of ten
years.  Ah! since that ink was wet, what days and people had passed
away!  The writing-book, still on the table, was blotted with his
hand.

Miss Osborne was much affected when she first entered this room with
the servants under her.  She sank quite pale on the little bed.
"This is blessed news, m'am--indeed, m'am," the housekeeper said;
"and the good old times is returning, m'am.  The dear little feller,
to be sure, m'am; how happy he will be!  But some folks in May Fair,
m'am, will owe him a grudge, m'am"; and she clicked back the bolt
which held the window-sash and let the air into the chamber.

"You had better send that woman some money," Mr. Osborne said,
before he went out.  "She shan't want for nothing.  Send her a
hundred pound."

"And I'll go and see her to-morrow?" Miss Osborne asked.

"That's your look out.  She don't come in here, mind. No, by ------,
not for all the money in London.  But she mustn't want now.  So look
out, and get things right." With which brief speeches Mr. Osborne
took leave of his daughter and went on his accustomed way into the
City.

"Here, Papa, is some money," Amelia said that night, kissing the old
man, her father, and putting a bill for a hundred pounds into his
hands.  "And--and, Mamma, don't be harsh with Georgy.  He--he is not
going to stop with us long." She could say nothing more, and walked
away silently to her room.  Let us close it upon her prayers and her
sorrow.  I think we had best speak little about so much love and
grief.

Miss Osborne came the next day, according to the promise contained
in her note, and saw Amelia.  The meeting between them was friendly.
A look and a few words from Miss Osborne showed the poor widow that,
with regard to this woman at least, there need be no fear lest she
should take the first place in her son's affection. She was cold,
sensible, not unkind.  The mother had not been so well pleased,
perhaps, had the rival been better looking, younger, more
affectionate, warmer-hearted.  Miss Osborne, on the other hand,
thought of old times and memories and could not but be touched with
the poor mother's pitiful situation.  She was conquered, and laying
down her arms, as it were, she humbly submitted.  That day they
arranged together the preliminaries of the treaty of capitulation.

George was kept from school the next day, and saw his aunt.  Amelia
left them alone together and went to her room.  She was trying the
separation--as that poor gentle Lady Jane Grey felt the edge of the
axe that was to come down and sever her slender life.  Days were
passed in parleys, visits, preparations.  The widow broke the matter
to Georgy with great caution; she looked to see him very much
affected by the intelligence.  He was rather elated than otherwise,
and the poor woman turned sadly away.  He bragged about the news
that day to the boys at school; told them how he was going to live
with his grandpapa his father's father, not the one who comes here
sometimes; and that he would be very rich, and have a carriage, and
a pony, and go to a much finer school, and when he was rich he would
buy Leader's pencil-case and pay the tart-woman.  The boy was the
image of his father, as his fond mother thought.

Indeed I have no heart, on account of our dear Amelia's sake, to go
through the story of George's last days at home.

At last the day came, the carriage drove up, the little humble
packets containing tokens of love and remembrance were ready and
disposed in the hall long since--George was in his new suit, for
which the tailor had come previously to measure him.  He had sprung
up with the sun and put on the new clothes, his mother hearing him
from the room close by, in which she had been lying, in speechless
grief and watching.  Days before she had been making preparations
for the end, purchasing little stores for the boy's use, marking his
books and linen, talking with him and preparing him for the change--
fondly fancying that he needed preparation.

So that he had change, what cared he? He was longing for it.  By a
thousand eager declarations as to what he would do, when he went to
live with his grandfather, he had shown the poor widow how little
the idea of parting had cast him down.  "He would come and see his
mamma often on the pony," he said.  "He would come and fetch her in
the carriage; they would drive in the park, and she should have
everything she wanted." The poor mother was fain to content herself
with these selfish demonstrations of attachment, and tried to
convince herself how sincerely her son loved her.  He must love her.
All children were so:  a little anxious for novelty, and--no, not
selfish, but self-willed.  Her child must have his enjoyments and
ambition in the world.  She herself, by her own selfishness and
imprudent love for him had denied him his just rights and pleasures
hitherto.

I know few things more affecting than that timorous debasement and
self-humiliation of a woman.  How she owns that it is she and not
the man who is guilty; how she takes all the faults on her side; how
she courts in a manner punishment for the wrongs which she has not
committed and persists in shielding the real culprit!  It is those
who injure women who get the most kindness from them--they are born
timid and tyrants and maltreat those who are humblest before them.

So poor Amelia had been getting ready in silent misery for her son's
departure, and had passed many and many a long solitary hour in
making preparations for the end. George stood by his mother,
watching her arrangements without the least concern.  Tears had
fallen into his boxes; passages had been scored in his favourite
books; old toys, relics, treasures had been hoarded away for him,
and packed with strange neatness and care--and of all these things
the boy took no note.  The child goes away smiling as the mother
breaks her heart.  By heavens it is pitiful, the bootless love of
women for children in Vanity Fair.

A few days are past, and the great event of Amelia's life is
consummated.  No angel has intervened.  The child is sacrificed and
offered up to fate, and the widow is quite alone.

The boy comes to see her often, to be sure.  He rides on a pony with
a coachman behind him, to the delight of his old grandfather,
Sedley, who walks proudly down the lane by his side.  She sees him,
but he is not her boy any more.  Why, he rides to see the boys at
the little school, too, and to show off before them his new wealth
and splendour.  In two days he has adopted a slightly imperious air
and patronizing manner.  He was born to command, his mother thinks,
as his father was before him.

It is fine weather now.  Of evenings on the days when he does not
come, she takes a long walk into London--yes, as far as Russell
Square, and rests on the stone by the railing of the garden opposite
Mr. Osborne's house. It is so pleasant and cool.  She can look up
and see the drawing-room windows illuminated, and, at about nine
o'clock, the chamber in the upper story where Georgy sleeps.  She
knows--he has told her.  She prays there as the light goes out,
prays with an humble heart, and walks home shrinking and silent.
She is very tired when she comes home.  Perhaps she will sleep the
better for that long weary walk, and she may dream about Georgy.

One Sunday she happened to be walking in Russell Square, at some
distance from Mr. Osborne's house (she could see it from a distance
though) when all the bells of Sabbath were ringing, and George and
his aunt came out to go to church; a little sweep asked for charity,
and the footman, who carried the books, tried to drive him away; but
Georgy stopped and gave him money.  May God's blessing be on the
boy!  Emmy ran round the square and, coming up to the sweep, gave
him her mite too. All the bells of Sabbath were ringing, and she
followed them until she came to the Foundling Church, into which she
went.  There she sat in a place whence she could see the head of the
boy under his father's tombstone. Many hundred fresh children's
voices rose up there and sang hymns to the Father Beneficent, and
little George's soul thrilled with delight at the burst of glorious
psalmody.  His mother could not see him for awhile, through the mist
that dimmed her eyes.



CHAPTER LI

In Which a Charade Is Acted Which May or May Not Puzzle the Reader


After Becky's appearance at my Lord Steyne's private and select
parties, the claims of that estimable woman as regards fashion were
settled, and some of the very greatest and tallest doors in the
metropolis were speedily opened to her--doors so great and tall that
the beloved reader and writer hereof may hope in vain to enter at
them.  Dear brethren, let us tremble before those august portals.  I
fancy them guarded by grooms of the chamber with flaming silver
forks with which they prong all those who have not the right of the
entree. They say the honest newspaper-fellow who sits in the hall
and takes down the names of the great ones who are admitted to the
feasts dies after a little time.  He can't survive the glare of
fashion long.  It scorches him up, as the presence of Jupiter in
full dress wasted that poor imprudent Semele--a giddy moth of a
creature who ruined herself by venturing out of her natural
atmosphere. Her myth ought to be taken to heart amongst the
Tyburnians, the Belgravians--her story, and perhaps Becky's too.
Ah, ladies!--ask the Reverend Mr. Thurifer if Belgravia is not a
sounding brass and Tyburnia a tinkling cymbal.  These are vanities.
Even these will pass away.  And some day or other (but it will be
after our time, thank goodness) Hyde Park Gardens will be no better
known than the celebrated horticultural outskirts of Babylon, and
Belgrave Square will be as desolate as Baker Street, or Tadmor in
the wilderness.

Ladies, are you aware that the great Pitt lived in Baker Street?
What would not your grandmothers have given to be asked to Lady
Hester's parties in that now decayed mansion? I have dined in it--
moi qui vous parle, I peopled the chamber with ghosts of the mighty
dead. As we sat soberly drinking claret there with men of to-day,
the spirits of the departed came in and took their places round the
darksome board.  The pilot who weathered the storm tossed off great
bumpers of spiritual port; the shade of Dundas did not leave the
ghost of a heeltap.  Addington sat bowing and smirking in a ghastly
manner, and would not be behindhand when the noiseless bottle went
round; Scott, from under bushy eyebrows, winked at the apparition of
a beeswing; Wilberforce's eyes went up to the ceiling, so that he
did not seem to know how his glass went up full to his mouth and
came down empty; up to the ceiling which was above us only
yesterday, and which the great of the past days have all looked at.
They let the house as a furnished lodging now.  Yes, Lady Hester
once lived in Baker Street, and lies asleep in the wilderness.
Eothen saw her there--not in Baker Street, but in the other
solitude.

It is all vanity to be sure, but who will not own to liking a little
of it? I should like to know what well-constituted mind, merely
because it is transitory, dislikes roast beef? That is a vanity, but
may every man who reads this have a wholesome portion of it through
life, I beg:  aye, though my readers were five hundred thousand.
Sit down, gentlemen, and fall to, with a good hearty appetite; the
fat, the lean, the gravy, the horse-radish as you like it--don't
spare it.  Another glass of wine, Jones, my boy--a little bit of the
Sunday side.  Yes, let us eat our fill of the vain thing and be
thankful therefor. And let us make the best of Becky's aristocratic
pleasures likewise--for these too, like all other mortal delights,
were but transitory.

The upshot of her visit to Lord Steyne was that His Highness the
Prince of Peterwaradin took occasion to renew his acquaintance with
Colonel Crawley, when they met on the next day at the Club, and to
compliment Mrs. Crawley in the Ring of Hyde Park with a profound
salute of the hat.  She and her husband were invited immediately to
one of the Prince's small parties at Levant House, then occupied by
His Highness during the temporary absence from England of its noble
proprietor.  She sang after dinner to a very little comite. The
Marquis of Steyne was present, paternally superintending the
progress of his pupil.

At Levant House Becky met one of the finest gentlemen and greatest
ministers that Europe has produced--the Duc de la Jabotiere, then
Ambassador from the Most Christian King, and subsequently Minister
to that monarch.  I declare I swell with pride as these august names
are transcribed by my pen, and I think in what brilliant company my
dear Becky is moving.  She became a constant guest at the French
Embassy, where no party was considered to be complete without the
presence of the charming Madame Ravdonn Cravley.  Messieurs de
Truffigny (of the Perigord family) and Champignac, both attaches of
the Embassy, were straightway smitten by the charms of the fair
Colonel's wife, and both declared, according to the wont of their
nation (for who ever yet met a Frenchman, come out of England, that
has not left half a dozen families miserable, and brought away as
many hearts in his pocket-book?), both, I say, declared that they
were au mieux with the charming Madame Ravdonn.

But I doubt the correctness of the assertion.  Champignac was very
fond of ecarte, and made many parties with the Colonel of evenings,
while Becky was singing to Lord Steyne in the other room; and as for
Truffigny, it is a well-known fact that he dared not go to the
Travellers', where he owed money to the waiters, and if he had not
had the Embassy as a dining-place, the worthy young gentleman must
have starved.  I doubt, I say, that Becky would have selected either
of these young men as a person on whom she would bestow her special
regard.  They ran of her messages, purchased her gloves and flowers,
went in debt for opera-boxes for her, and made themselves amiable in
a thousand ways.  And they talked English with adorable simplicity,
and to the constant amusement of Becky and my Lord Steyne, she would
mimic one or other to his face, and compliment him on his advance in
the English language with a gravity which never failed to tickle the
Marquis, her sardonic old patron. Truffigny gave Briggs a shawl by
way of winning over Becky's confidante, and asked her to take charge
of a letter which the simple spinster handed over in public to the
person to whom it was addressed, and the composition of which amused
everybody who read it greatly. Lord Steyne read it, everybody but
honest Rawdon, to whom it was not necessary to tell everything that
passed in the little house in May Fair.

Here, before long, Becky received not only "the best" foreigners (as
the phrase is in our noble and admirable society slang), but some of
the best English people too. I don't mean the most virtuous, or
indeed the least virtuous, or the cleverest, or the stupidest, or
the richest, or the best born, but "the best,"--in a word, people
about whom there is no question--such as the great Lady Fitz-Willis,
that Patron Saint of Almack's, the great Lady Slowbore, the great
Lady Grizzel Macbeth (she was Lady G.  Glowry, daughter of Lord Grey
of Glowry), and the like.  When the Countess of Fitz-Willis (her
Ladyship is of the Kingstreet family, see Debrett and Burke) takes
up a person, he or she is safe.  There is no question about them any
more.  Not that my Lady Fitz-Willis is any better than anybody else,
being, on the contrary, a faded person, fifty-seven years of age,
and neither handsome, nor wealthy, nor entertaining; but it is
agreed on all sides that she is of the "best people." Those who go
to her are of the best:  and from an old grudge probably to Lady
Steyne (for whose coronet her ladyship, then the youthful Georgina
Frederica, daughter of the Prince of Wales's favourite, the Earl of
Portansherry, had once tried), this great and famous leader of the
fashion chose to acknowledge Mrs. Rawdon Crawley; made her a most
marked curtsey at the assembly over which she presided; and not only
encouraged her son, St.  Kitts (his lordship got his place through
Lord Steyne's interest), to frequent Mrs. Crawley's house, but asked
her to her own mansion and spoke to her twice in the most public and
condescending manner during dinner.  The important fact was known
all over London that night.  People who had been crying fie about
Mrs. Crawley were silent.  Wenham, the wit and lawyer, Lord Steyne's
right-hand man, went about everywhere praising her:  some who had
hesitated, came forward at once and welcomed her; little Tom Toady,
who had warned Southdown about visiting such an abandoned woman, now
besought to be introduced to her.  In a word, she was admitted to be
among the "best" people.  Ah, my beloved readers and brethren, do
not envy poor Becky prematurely--glory like this is said to be
fugitive.  It is currently reported that even in the very inmost
circles, they are no happier than the poor wanderers outside the
zone; and Becky, who penetrated into the very centre of fashion and
saw the great George IV face to face, has owned since that there too
was Vanity.

We must be brief in descanting upon this part of her career.  As I
cannot describe the mysteries of freemasonry, although I have a
shrewd idea that it is a humbug, so an uninitiated man cannot take
upon himself to portray the great world accurately, and had best
keep his opinions to himself, whatever they are.

Becky has often spoken in subsequent years of this season of her
life, when she moved among the very greatest circles of the London
fashion.  Her success excited, elated, and then bored her.  At first
no occupation was more pleasant than to invent and procure (the
latter a work of no small trouble and ingenuity, by the way, in a
person of Mrs. Rawdon Crawley's very narrow means)--to procure, we
say, the prettiest new dresses and ornaments; to drive to fine
dinner parties, where she was welcomed by great people; and from the
fine dinner parties to fine assemblies, whither the same people came
with whom she had been dining, whom she had met the night before,
and would see on the morrow--the young men faultlessly appointed,
handsomely cravatted, with the neatest glossy boots and white
gloves--the elders portly, brass-buttoned, noble-looking, polite,
and prosy--the young ladies blonde, timid, and in pink--the mothers
grand, beautiful, sumptuous, solemn, and in diamonds.  They talked
in English, not in bad French, as they do in the novels.  They
talked about each others' houses, and characters, and families--just
as the Joneses do about the Smiths.  Becky's former acquaintances
hated and envied her; the poor woman herself was yawning in spirit.
"I wish I were out of it," she said to herself.  "I would rather be
a parson's wife and teach a Sunday school than this; or a sergeant's
lady and ride in the regimental waggon; or, oh, how much gayer it
would be to wear spangles and trousers and dance before a booth at a
fair."

"You would do it very well," said Lord Steyne, laughing. She used to
tell the great man her ennuis and perplexities in her artless way--
they amused him.

"Rawdon would make a very good Ecuyer--Master of the Ceremonies--
what do you call him--the man in the large boots and the uniform,
who goes round the ring cracking the whip? He is large, heavy, and
of a military figure.  I recollect," Becky continued pensively, "my
father took me to see a show at Brookgreen Fair when I was a child,
and when we came home, I made myself a pair of stilts and danced in
the studio to the wonder of all the pupils."

"I should have liked to see it," said Lord Steyne.

"I should like to do it now," Becky continued.  "How Lady Blinkey
would open her eyes, and Lady Grizzel Macbeth would stare!  Hush!
silence! there is Pasta beginning to sing." Becky always made a
point of being conspicuously polite to the professional ladies and
gentlemen who attended at these aristocratic parties--of following
them into the corners where they sat in silence, and shaking hands
with them, and smiling in the view of all persons.  She was an
artist herself, as she said very truly; there was a frankness and
humility in the manner in which she acknowledged her origin, which
provoked, or disarmed, or amused lookers-on, as the case might be.
"How cool that woman is," said one; "what airs of independence she
assumes, where she ought to sit still and be thankful if anybody
speaks to her!" "What an honest and good-natured soul she is!" said
another. "What an artful little minx" said a third.  They were all
right very likely, but Becky went her own way, and so fascinated the
professional personages that they would leave off their sore throats
in order to sing at her parties and give her lessons for nothing.

Yes, she gave parties in the little house in Curzon Street.  Many
scores of carriages, with blazing lamps, blocked up the street, to
the disgust of No. 100, who could not rest for the thunder of the
knocking, and of 102, who could not sleep for envy.  The gigantic
footmen who accompanied the vehicles were too big to be contained in
Becky's little hall, and were billeted off in the neighbouring
public-houses, whence, when they were wanted, call-boys summoned
them from their beer. Scores of the great dandies of London squeezed
and trod on each other on the little stairs, laughing to find
themselves there; and many spotless and severe ladies of ton were
seated in the little drawing-room, listening to the professional
singers, who were singing according to their wont, and as if they
wished to blow the windows down.  And the day after, there appeared
among the fashionable reunions in the Morning Post a paragraph to
the following effect:

"Yesterday, Colonel and Mrs. Crawley entertained a select party at
dinner at their house in May Fair.  Their Excellencies the Prince
and Princess of Peterwaradin, H. E. Papoosh Pasha, the Turkish
Ambassador (attended by Kibob Bey, dragoman of the mission), the
Marquess of Steyne, Earl of Southdown, Sir Pitt and Lady Jane
Crawley, Mr. Wagg, &c.  After dinner Mrs. Crawley had an assembly
which was attended by the Duchess (Dowager) of Stilton, Duc de la
Gruyere, Marchioness of Cheshire, Marchese Alessandro Strachino,
Comte de Brie, Baron Schapzuger, Chevalier Tosti, Countess of
Slingstone, and Lady F.  Macadam, Major-General and Lady G.
Macbeth, and (2) Miss Macbeths; Viscount Paddington, Sir Horace
Fogey, Hon.  Sands Bedwin, Bobachy Bahawder," and an &c., which the
reader may fill at his pleasure through a dozen close lines of small
type.

And in her commerce with the great our dear friend showed the same
frankness which distinguished her transactions with the lowly in
station.  On one occasion, when out at a very fine house, Rebecca
was (perhaps rather ostentatiously) holding a conversation in the
French language with a celebrated tenor singer of that nation, while
the Lady Grizzel Macbeth looked over her shoulder scowling at the
pair.

"How very well you speak French," Lady Grizzel said, who herself
spoke the tongue in an Edinburgh accent most remarkable to hear.

"I ought to know it," Becky modestly said, casting down her eyes.
"I taught it in a school, and my mother was a Frenchwoman."

Lady Grizzel was won by her humility and was mollified towards the
little woman.  She deplored the fatal levelling tendencies of the
age, which admitted persons of all classes into the society of their
superiors, but her ladyship owned that this one at least was well
behaved and never forgot her place in life.  She was a very good
woman:  good to the poor; stupid, blameless, unsuspicious. It is not
her ladyship's fault that she fancies herself better than you and
me.  The skirts of her ancestors' garments have been kissed for
centuries; it is a thousand years, they say, since the tartans of
the head of the family were embraced by the defunct Duncan's lords
and councillors, when the great ancestor of the House became King of
Scotland.

Lady Steyne, after the music scene, succumbed before Becky, and
perhaps was not disinclined to her.  The younger ladies of the house
of Gaunt were also compelled into submission.  Once or twice they
set people at her, but they failed.  The brilliant Lady Stunnington
tried a passage of arms with her, but was routed with great
slaughter by the intrepid little Becky.  When attacked sometimes,
Becky had a knack of adopting a demure ingenue air, under which she
was most dangerous.  She said the wickedest things with the most
simple unaffected air when in this mood, and would take care
artlessly to apologize for her blunders, so that all the world
should know that she had made them.

Mr. Wagg, the celebrated wit, and a led captain and trencher-man of
my Lord Steyne, was caused by the ladies to charge her; and the
worthy fellow, leering at his patronesses and giving them a wink, as
much as to say, "Now look out for sport," one evening began an
assault upon Becky, who was unsuspiciously eating her dinner. The
little woman, attacked on a sudden, but never without arms, lighted
up in an instant, parried and riposted with a home-thrust, which
made Wagg's face tingle with shame; then she returned to her soup
with the most perfect calm and a quiet smile on her face.  Wagg's
great patron, who gave him dinners and lent him a little money
sometimes, and whose election, newspaper, and other jobs Wagg did,
gave the luckless fellow such a savage glance with the eyes as
almost made him sink under the table and burst into tears.  He
looked piteously at my lord, who never spoke to him during dinner,
and at the ladies, who disowned him.  At last Becky herself took
compassion upon him and tried to engage him in talk. He was not
asked to dinner again for six weeks; and Fiche, my lord's
confidential man, to whom Wagg naturally paid a good deal of court,
was instructed to tell him that if he ever dared to say a rude thing
to Mrs. Crawley again, or make her the butt of his stupid jokes,
Milor would put every one of his notes of hand into his lawyer's
hands and sell him up without mercy.  Wagg wept before Fiche and
implored his dear friend to intercede for him.  He wrote a poem in
favour of Mrs. R.  C., which appeared in the very next number of the
Harum-scarum Magazine, which he conducted.  He implored her good-
will at parties where he met her.  He cringed and coaxed Rawdon at
the club.  He was allowed to come back to Gaunt House after a while.
Becky was always good to him, always amused, never angry.

His lordship's vizier and chief confidential servant (with a seat in
parliament and at the dinner table), Mr. Wenham, was much more
prudent in his behaviour and opinions than Mr. Wagg.  However much
he might be disposed to hate all parvenus (Mr. Wenham himself was a
staunch old True Blue Tory, and his father a small coal-merchant in
the north of England), this aide-de-camp of the Marquis never showed
any sort of hostility to the new favourite, but pursued her with
stealthy kindnesses and a sly and deferential politeness which
somehow made Becky more uneasy than other people's overt
hostilities.

How the Crawleys got the money which was spent upon the
entertainments with which they treated the polite world was a
mystery which gave rise to some conversation at the time, and
probably added zest to these little festivities.  Some persons
averred that Sir Pitt Crawley gave his brother a handsome allowance;
if he did, Becky's power over the Baronet must have been
extraordinary indeed, and his character greatly changed in his
advanced age.  Other parties hinted that it was Becky's habit to
levy contributions on all her husband's friends: going to this one
in tears with an account that there was an execution in the house;
falling on her knees to that one and declaring that the whole family
must go to gaol or commit suicide unless such and such a bill could
be paid.  Lord Southdown, it was said, had been induced to give many
hundreds through these pathetic representations. Young Feltham, of
the --th Dragoons (and son of the firm of Tiler and Feltham, hatters
and army accoutrement makers), and whom the Crawleys introduced into
fashionable life, was also cited as one of Becky's victims in the
pecuniary way.  People declared that she got money from various
simply disposed persons, under pretence of getting them confidential
appointments under Government. Who knows what stories were or were
not told of our dear and innocent friend? Certain it is that if she
had had all the money which she was said to have begged or borrowed
or stolen, she might have capitalized and been honest for life,
whereas,--but this is advancing matters.

The truth is, that by economy and good management--by a sparing use
of ready money and by paying scarcely anybody--people can manage,
for a time at least, to make a great show with very little means:
and it is our belief that Becky's much-talked-of parties, which were
not, after all was said, very numerous, cost this lady very little
more than the wax candles which lighted the walls. Stillbrook and
Queen's Crawley supplied her with game and fruit in abundance.  Lord
Steyne's cellars were at her disposal, and that excellent nobleman's
famous cooks presided over her little kitchen, or sent by my lord's
order the rarest delicacies from their own.  I protest it is quite
shameful in the world to abuse a simple creature, as people of her
time abuse Becky, and I warn the public against believing one-tenth
of the stories against her. If every person is to be banished from
society who runs into debt and cannot pay--if we are to be peering
into everybody's private life, speculating upon their income, and
cutting them if we don't approve of their expenditure--why, what a
howling wilderness and intolerable dwelling Vanity Fair would be!
Every man's hand would be against his neighbour in this case, my
dear sir, and the benefits of civilization would be done away with.
We should be quarrelling, abusing, avoiding one another.  Our houses
would become caverns, and we should go in rags because we cared for
nobody.  Rents would go down. Parties wouldn't be given any more.
All the tradesmen of the town would be bankrupt.  Wine, wax-lights,
comestibles, rouge, crinoline-petticoats, diamonds, wigs, Louis-
Quatorze gimcracks, and old china, park hacks, and splendid high-
stepping carriage horses--all the delights of life, I say,--would go
to the deuce, if people did but act upon their silly principles and
avoid those whom they dislike and abuse.  Whereas, by a little
charity and mutual forbearance, things are made to go on pleasantly
enough:  we may abuse a man as much as we like, and call him the
greatest rascal unhanged--but do we wish to hang him therefore? No.
We shake hands when we meet.  If his cook is good we forgive him and
go and dine with him, and we expect he will do the same by us.  Thus
trade flourishes--civilization advances; peace is kept; new dresses
are wanted for new assemblies every week; and the last year's
vintage of Lafitte will remunerate the honest proprietor who reared
it.

At the time whereof we are writing, though the Great George was on
the throne and ladies wore gigots and large combs like tortoise-
shell shovels in their hair, instead of the simple sleeves and
lovely wreaths which are actually in fashion, the manners of the
very polite world were not, I take it, essentially different from
those of the present day:  and their amusements pretty similar.  To
us, from the outside, gazing over the policeman's shoulders at the
bewildering beauties as they pass into Court or ball, they may seem
beings of unearthly splendour and in the enjoyment of an exquisite
happiness by us unattainable. It is to console some of these
dissatisfied beings that we are narrating our dear Becky's
struggles, and triumphs, and disappointments, of all of which,
indeed, as is the case with all persons of merit, she had her share.

At this time the amiable amusement of acting charades had come among
us from France, and was considerably in vogue in this country,
enabling the many ladies amongst us who had beauty to display their
charms, and the fewer number who had cleverness to exhibit their
wit. My Lord Steyne was incited by Becky, who perhaps believed
herself endowed with both the above qualifications, to give an
entertainment at Gaunt House, which should include some of these
little dramas--and we must take leave to introduce the reader to
this brilliant reunion, and, with a melancholy welcome too, for it
will be among the very last of the fashionable entertainments to
which it will be our fortune to conduct him.

A portion of that splendid room, the picture gallery of Gaunt House,
was arranged as the charade theatre.  It had been so used when
George III was king; and a picture of the Marquis of Gaunt is still
extant, with his hair in powder and a pink ribbon, in a Roman shape,
as it was called, enacting the part of Cato in Mr. Addison's tragedy
of that name, performed before their Royal Highnesses the Prince of
Wales, the Bishop of Osnaburgh, and Prince William Henry, then
children like the actor. One or two of the old properties were drawn
out of the garrets, where they had lain ever since, and furbished up
anew for the present festivities.

Young Bedwin Sands, then an elegant dandy and Eastern traveller, was
manager of the revels.  An Eastern traveller was somebody in those
days, and the adventurous Bedwin, who had published his quarto and
passed some months under the tents in the desert, was a personage of
no small importance.  In his volume there were several pictures of
Sands in various oriental costumes; and he travelled about with a
black attendant of most unprepossessing appearance, just like
another Brian de Bois Guilbert.  Bedwin, his costumes, and black
man, were hailed at Gaunt House as very valuable acquisitions.

He led off the first charade.  A Turkish officer with an immense
plume of feathers (the Janizaries were supposed to be still in
existence, and the tarboosh had not as yet displaced the ancient and
majestic head-dress of the true believers) was seen couched on a
divan, and making believe to puff at a narghile, in which, however,
for the sake of the ladies, only a fragrant pastille was allowed to
smoke.  The Turkish dignitary yawns and expresses signs of weariness
and idleness.  He claps his hands and Mesrour the Nubian appears,
with bare arms, bangles, yataghans, and every Eastern ornament--
gaunt, tall, and hideous.  He makes a salaam before my lord the Aga.

A thrill of terror and delight runs through the assembly. The ladies
whisper to one another.  The black slave was given to Bedwin Sands
by an Egyptian pasha in exchange for three dozen of Maraschino.  He
has sewn up ever so many odalisques in sacks and tilted them into
the Nile.

"Bid the slave-merchant enter," says the Turkish voluptuary with a
wave of his hand.  Mesrour conducts the slave-merchant into my
lord's presence; he brings a veiled female with him.  He removes the
veil.  A thrill of applause bursts through the house.  It is Mrs.
Winkworth (she was a Miss Absolom) with the beautiful eyes and hair.
She is in a gorgeous oriental costume; the black braided locks are
twined with innumerable jewels; her dress is covered over with gold
piastres.  The odious Mahometan expresses himself charmed by her
beauty.  She falls down on her knees and entreats him to restore her
to the mountains where she was born, and where her Circassian lover
is still deploring the absence of his Zuleikah. No entreaties will
move the obdurate Hassan.  He laughs at the notion of the Circassian
bridegroom. Zuleikah covers her face with her hands and drops down
in an attitude of the most beautiful despair.  There seems to be no
hope for her, when--when the Kislar Aga appears.

The Kislar Aga brings a letter from the Sultan.  Hassan receives and
places on his head the dread firman.  A ghastly terror seizes him,
while on the Negro's face (it is Mesrour again in another costume)
appears a ghastly joy.  "Mercy!  mercy!" cries the Pasha:  while the
Kislar Aga, grinning horribly, pulls out--a bow-string.

The curtain draws just as he is going to use that awful weapon.
Hassan from within bawls out, "First two syllables"--and Mrs. Rawdon
Crawley, who is going to act in the charade, comes forward and
compliments Mrs. Winkworth on the admirable taste and beauty of her
costume.

The second part of the charade takes place.  It is still an Eastern
scene.  Hassan, in another dress, is in an attitude by Zuleikah, who
is perfectly reconciled to him. The Kislar Aga has become a peaceful
black slave.  It is sunrise on the desert, and the Turks turn their
heads eastwards and bow to the sand.  As there are no dromedaries at
hand, the band facetiously plays "The Camels are coming." An
enormous Egyptian head figures in the scene.  It is a musical one--
and, to the surprise of the oriental travellers, sings a comic song,
composed by Mr. Wagg.  The Eastern voyagers go off dancing, like
Papageno and the Moorish King in The Magic Flute.  "Last two
syllables," roars the head.

The last act opens.  It is a Grecian tent this time.  A tall and
stalwart man reposes on a couch there.  Above him hang his helmet
and shield.  There is no need for them now.  Ilium is down.
Iphigenia is slain.  Cassandra is a prisoner in his outer halls.
The king of men (it is Colonel Crawley, who, indeed, has no notion
about the sack of Ilium or the conquest of Cassandra), the anax
andron is asleep in his chamber at Argos.  A lamp casts the broad
shadow of the sleeping warrior flickering on the wall--the sword and
shield of Troy glitter in its light. The band plays the awful music
of Don Juan, before the statue enters.

Aegisthus steals in pale and on tiptoe.  What is that ghastly face
looking out balefully after him from behind the arras? He raises his
dagger to strike the sleeper, who turns in his bed, and opens his
broad chest as if for the blow.  He cannot strike the noble
slumbering chieftain. Clytemnestra glides swiftly into the room like
an apparition--her arms are bare and white--her tawny hair floats
down her shoulders--her face is deadly pale--and her eyes are
lighted up with a smile so ghastly that people quake as they look at
her.

A tremor ran through the room.  "Good God!" somebody said, "it's
Mrs. Rawdon Crawley."

Scornfully she snatches the dagger out of Aegisthus's hand and
advances to the bed.  You see it shining over her head in the
glimmer of the lamp, and--and the lamp goes out, with a groan, and
all is dark.

The darkness and the scene frightened people.  Rebecca performed her
part so well, and with such ghastly truth, that the spectators were
all dumb, until, with a burst, all the lamps of the hall blazed out
again, when everybody began to shout applause.  "Brava!  brava!" old
Steyne's strident voice was heard roaring over all the rest.  "By--,
she'd do it too," he said between his teeth. The performers were
called by the whole house, which sounded with cries of "Manager!
Clytemnestra!" Agamemnon could not be got to show in his classical
tunic, but stood in the background with Aegisthus and others of the
performers of the little play.  Mr. Bedwin Sands led on Zuleikah and
Clytemnestra.  A great personage insisted on being presented to the
charming Clytemnestra.  "Heigh ha? Run him through the body. Marry
somebody else, hay?" was the apposite remark made by His Royal
Highness.

"Mrs. Rawdon Crawley was quite killing in the part," said Lord
Steyne.  Becky laughed, gay and saucy looking, and swept the
prettiest little curtsey ever seen.

Servants brought in salvers covered with numerous cool dainties, and
the performers disappeared to get ready for the second charade-
tableau.

The three syllables of this charade were to be depicted in
pantomime, and the performance took place in the following wise:

First syllable.  Colonel Rawdon Crawley, C.B., with a slouched hat
and a staff, a great-coat, and a lantern borrowed from the stables,
passed across the stage bawling out, as if warning the inhabitants
of the hour.  In the lower window are seen two bagmen playing
apparently at the game of cribbage, over which they yawn much. To
them enters one looking like Boots (the Honourable G.  Ringwood),
which character the young gentleman performed to perfection, and
divests them of their lower coverings; and presently Chambermaid
(the Right Honourable Lord Southdown) with two candlesticks, and a
warming-pan.  She ascends to the upper apartment and warms the bed.
She uses the warming-pan as a weapon wherewith she wards off the
attention of the bagmen. She exits.  They put on their night-caps
and pull down the blinds.  Boots comes out and closes the shutters
of the ground-floor chamber.  You hear him bolting and chaining the
door within.  All the lights go out.  The music plays Dormez,
dormez, chers Amours.  A voice from behind the curtain says, "First
syllable."

Second syllable.  The lamps are lighted up all of a sudden.  The
music plays the old air from John of Paris, Ah quel plaisir d'etre
en voyage.  It is the same scene. Between the first and second
floors of the house represented, you behold a sign on which the
Steyne arms are painted.  All the bells are ringing all over the
house. In the lower apartment you see a man with a long slip of
paper presenting it to another, who shakes his fists, threatens and
vows that it is monstrous.  "Ostler, bring round my gig," cries
another at the door.  He chucks Chambermaid (the Right Honourable
Lord Southdown) under the chin; she seems to deplore his absence, as
Calypso did that of that other eminent traveller Ulysses. Boots (the
Honourable G.  Ringwood) passes with a wooden box, containing silver
flagons, and cries "Pots" with such exquisite humour and naturalness
that the whole house rings with applause, and a bouquet is thrown to
him.  Crack, crack, crack, go the whips.   Landlord, chambermaid,
waiter rush to the door, but just as some distinguished guest is
arriving, the curtains close, and the invisible theatrical manager
cries out "Second syllable."

"I think it must be 'Hotel,'" says Captain Grigg of the Life Guards;
there is a general laugh at the Captain's cleverness.  He is not
very far from the mark.

While the third syllable is in preparation, the band begins a
nautical medley--"All in the Downs," "Cease Rude Boreas," "Rule
Britannia," "In the Bay of Biscay O!"--some maritime event is about
to take place.  A ben is heard ringing as the curtain draws aside.
"Now, gents, for the shore!" a voice exclaims.  People take leave of
each other.  They point anxiously as if towards the clouds, which
are represented by a dark curtain, and they nod their heads in fear.
Lady Squeams (the Right Honourable Lord Southdown), her lap-dog, her
bags, reticules, and husband sit down, and cling hold of some ropes.
It is evidently a ship.

The Captain (Colonel Crawley, C.B.), with a cocked hat and a
telescope, comes in, holding his hat on his head, and looks out; his
coat tails fly about as if in the wind.  When he leaves go of his
hat to use his telescope, his hat flies off, with immense applause.
It is blowing fresh.  The music rises and whistles louder and
louder; the mariners go across the stage staggering, as if the ship
was in severe motion.  The Steward (the Honourable G. Ringwood)
passes reeling by, holding six basins.  He puts one rapidly by Lord
Squeams--Lady Squeams, giving a pinch to her dog, which begins to
howl piteously, puts her pocket-handkerchief to her face, and rushes
away as for the cabin.  The music rises up to the wildest pitch of
stormy excitement, and the third syllable is concluded.

There was a little ballet, "Le Rossignol," in which Montessu and
Noblet used to be famous in those days, and which Mr. Wagg
transferred to the English stage as an opera, putting his verse, of
which he was a skilful writer, to the pretty airs of the ballet.  It
was dressed in old French costume, and little Lord Southdown now
appeared admirably attired in the disguise of an old woman hobbling
about the stage with a faultless crooked stick.

Trills of melody were heard behind the scenes, and gurgling from a
sweet pasteboard cottage covered with roses and trellis work.
"Philomele, Philomele," cries the old woman, and Philomele comes
out.

More applause--it is Mrs. Rawdon Crawley in powder and patches, the
most ravissante little Marquise in the world.

She comes in laughing, humming, and frisks about the stage with all
the innocence of theatrical youth--she makes a curtsey.  Mamma says
"Why, child, you are always laughing and singing," and away she
goes, with--

THE ROSE UPON MY BALCONY

The rose upon my balcony the morning air perfuming
Was leafless all the winter time and pining for the spring;
You ask me why her breath is sweet and why her cheek is blooming,
It is because the sun is out and birds begin to sing.

The nightingale, whose melody is through the greenwood ringing,
Was silent when the boughs were bare and winds were blowing keen:
And if, Mamma, you ask of me the reason of his singing,
It is because the sun is out and all the leaves are green.

Thus each performs his part, Mamma, the birds have found their voices,
The blowing rose a flush, Mamma, her bonny cheek to dye;
And there's sunshine in my heart, Mamma, which wakens and rejoices,
And so I sing and blush, Mamma, and that's the reason why.

During the intervals of the stanzas of this ditty, the good-natured
personage addressed as Mamma by the singer, and whose large whiskers
appeared under her cap, seemed very anxious to exhibit her maternal
affection by embracing the innocent creature who performed the
daughter's part.  Every caress was received with loud acclamations
of laughter by the sympathizing audience. At its conclusion (while
the music was performing a symphony as if ever so many birds were
warbling) the whole house was unanimous for an encore:  and applause
and bouquets without end were showered upon the Nightingale of the
evening.  Lord Steyne's voice of applause was loudest of all.
Becky, the nightingale, took the flowers which he threw to her and
pressed them to her heart with the air of a consummate comedian.
Lord Steyne was frantic with delight.  His guests' enthusiasm
harmonized with his own.  Where was the beautiful black-eyed Houri
whose appearance in the first charade had caused such delight? She
was twice as handsome as Becky, but the brilliancy of the latter had
quite eclipsed her.  All voices were for her.  Stephens, Caradori,
Ronzi de Begnis, people compared her to one or the other, and agreed
with good reason, very likely, that had she been an actress none on
the stage could have surpassed her. She had reached her culmination:
her voice rose trilling and bright over the storm of applause, and
soared as high and joyful as her triumph.  There was a ball after
the dramatic entertainments, and everybody pressed round Becky as
the great point of attraction of the evening.  The Royal Personage
declared with an oath that she was perfection, and engaged her again
and again in conversation.  Little Becky's soul swelled with pride
and delight at these honours; she saw fortune, fame, fashion before
her.  Lord Steyne was her slave, followed her everywhere, and
scarcely spoke to any one in the room beside, and paid her the most
marked compliments and attention.  She still appeared in her
Marquise costume and danced a minuet with Monsieur de Truffigny,
Monsieur Le Duc de la Jabotiere's attache; and the Duke, who had all
the traditions of the ancient court, pronounced that Madame Crawley
was worthy to have been a pupil of Vestris, or to have figured at
Versailles. Only a feeling of dignity, the gout, and the strongest
sense of duty and personal sacrifice prevented his Excellency from
dancing with her himself, and he declared in public that a lady who
could talk and dance like Mrs. Rawdon was fit to be ambassadress at
any court in Europe.  He was only consoled when he heard that she
was half a Frenchwoman by birth.  "None but a compatriot," his
Excellency declared, "could have performed that majestic dance in
such a way."

Then she figured in a waltz with Monsieur de Klingenspohr, the
Prince of Peterwaradin's cousin and attache.  The delighted Prince,
having less retenue than his French diplomatic colleague, insisted
upon taking a turn with the charming creature, and twirled round the
ball-room with her, scattering the diamonds out of his boot-tassels
and hussar jacket until his Highness was fairly out of breath.
Papoosh Pasha himself would have liked to dance with her if that
amusement had been the custom of his country.  The company made a
circle round her and applauded as wildly as if she had been a Noblet
or a Taglioni.  Everybody was in ecstacy; and Becky too, you may be
sure.  She passed by Lady Stunnington with a look of scorn.  She
patronized Lady Gaunt and her astonished and mortified sister-in-
law--she ecrased all rival charmers.  As for poor Mrs. Winkworth,
and her long hair and great eyes, which had made such an effect at
the commencement of the evening--where was she now? Nowhere in the
race.  She might tear her long hair and cry her great eyes out, but
there was not a person to heed or to deplore the discomfiture.

The greatest triumph of all was at supper time.  She was placed at
the grand exclusive table with his Royal Highness the exalted
personage before mentioned, and the rest of the great guests.  She
was served on gold plate.  She might have had pearls melted into her
champagne if she liked--another Cleopatra--and the potentate of
Peterwaradin would have given half the brilliants off his jacket for
a kind glance from those dazzling eyes. Jabotiere wrote home about
her to his government.  The ladies at the other tables, who supped
off mere silver and marked Lord Steyne's constant attention to her,
vowed it was a monstrous infatuation, a gross insult to ladies of
rank.  If sarcasm could have killed, Lady Stunnington would have
slain her on the spot.

Rawdon Crawley was scared at these triumphs.  They seemed to
separate his wife farther than ever from him somehow.  He thought
with a feeling very like pain how immeasurably she was his superior.

When the hour of departure came, a crowd of young men followed her
to her carriage, for which the people without bawled, the cry being
caught up by the link-men who were stationed outside the tall gates
of Gaunt House, congratulating each person who issued from the gate
and hoping his Lordship had enjoyed this noble party.

Mrs. Rawdon Crawley's carriage, coming up to the gate after due
shouting, rattled into the illuminated court-yard and drove up to
the covered way.  Rawdon put his wife into the carriage, which drove
off.  Mr. Wenham had proposed to him to walk home, and offered the
Colonel the refreshment of a cigar.

They lighted their cigars by the lamp of one of the many link-boys
outside, and Rawdon walked on with his friend Wenham.  Two persons
separated from the crowd and followed the two gentlemen; and when
they had walked down Gaunt Square a few score of paces, one of the
men came up and, touching Rawdon on the shoulder, said, "Beg your
pardon, Colonel, I vish to speak to you most particular." This
gentleman's acquaintance gave a loud whistle as the latter spoke, at
which signal a cab came clattering up from those stationed at the
gate of Gaunt House--and the aide-de-camp ran round and placed
himself in front of Colonel Crawley.

That gallant officer at once knew what had befallen him.  He was in
the hands of the bailiffs.  He started back, falling against the man
who had first touched him.

"We're three on us--it's no use bolting," the man behind said.

"It's you, Moss, is it?" said the Colonel, who appeared to know his
interlocutor.  "How much is it?"

"Only a small thing," whispered Mr. Moss, of Cursitor Street,
Chancery Lane, and assistant officer to the Sheriff of Middlesex--
"One hundred and sixty-six, six and eight-pence, at the suit of Mr.
Nathan."

"Lend me a hundred, Wenham, for God's sake," poor Rawdon said--"I've
got seventy at home."

"I've not got ten pounds in the world," said poor Mr. Wenham--"Good
night, my dear fellow."

"Good night," said Rawdon ruefully.  And Wenham walked away--and
Rawdon Crawley finished his cigar as the cab drove under Temple Bar.



CHAPTER LII

In Which Lord Steyne Shows Himself in a Most Amiable Light


When Lord Steyne was benevolently disposed, he did nothing by
halves, and his kindness towards the Crawley family did the greatest
honour to his benevolent discrimination.  His lordship extended his
good-will to little Rawdon:  he pointed out to the boy's parents the
necessity of sending him to a public school, that he was of an age
now when emulation, the first principles of the Latin language,
pugilistic exercises, and the society of his fellow-boys would be of
the greatest benefit to the boy.  His father objected that he was
not rich enough to send the child to a good public school; his
mother that Briggs was a capital mistress for him, and had brought
him on (as indeed was the fact) famously in English, the Latin
rudiments, and in general learning:  but all these objections
disappeared before the generous perseverance of the Marquis of
Steyne.  His lordship was one of the governors of that famous old
collegiate institution called the Whitefriars.  It had been a
Cistercian Convent in old days, when the Smithfield, which is
contiguous to it, was a tournament ground.  Obstinate heretics used
to be brought thither convenient for burning hard by.  Henry VIII,
the Defender of the Faith, seized upon the monastery and its
possessions and hanged and tortured some of the monks who could not
accommodate themselves to the pace of his reform.  Finally, a great
merchant bought the house and land adjoining, in which, and with the
help of other wealthy endowments of land and money, he established a
famous foundation hospital for old men and children.  An extern
school grew round the old almost monastic foundation, which subsists
still with its middle-age costume and usages--and all Cistercians
pray that it may long flourish.

Of this famous house, some of the greatest noblemen, prelates, and
dignitaries in England are governors:  and as the boys are very
comfortably lodged, fed, and educated, and subsequently inducted to
good scholarships at the University and livings in the Church, many
little gentlemen are devoted to the ecclesiastical profession from
their tenderest years, and there is considerable emulation to
procure nominations for the foundation.  It was originally intended
for the sons of poor and deserving clerics and laics, but many of
the noble governors of the Institution, with an enlarged and rather
capricious benevolence, selected all sorts of objects for their
bounty. To get an education for nothing, and a future livelihood and
profession assured, was so excellent a scheme that some of the
richest people did not disdain it; and not only great men's
relations, but great men themselves, sent their sons to profit by
the chance--Right Rev.  prelates sent their own kinsmen or the sons
of their clergy, while, on the other hand, some great noblemen did
not disdain to patronize the children of their confidential
servants--so that a lad entering this establishment had every
variety of youthful society wherewith to mingle.

Rawdon Crawley, though the only book which he studied was the Racing
Calendar, and though his chief recollections of polite learning were
connected with the floggings which he received at Eton in his early
youth, had that decent and honest reverence for classical learning
which all English gentlemen feel, and was glad to think that his son
was to have a provision for life, perhaps, and a certain opportunity
of becoming a scholar.  And although his boy was his chief solace
and companion, and endeared to him by a thousand small ties, about
which he did not care to speak to his wife, who had all along shown
the utmost indifference to their son, yet Rawdon agreed at once to
part with him and to give up his own greatest comfort and benefit
for the sake of the welfare of the little lad.  He did not know how
fond he was of the child until it became necessary to let him go
away. When he was gone, he felt more sad and downcast than he cared
to own--far sadder than the boy himself, who was happy enough to
enter a new career and find companions of his own age.  Becky burst
out laughing once or twice when the Colonel, in his clumsy,
incoherent way, tried to express his sentimental sorrows at the
boy's departure.  The poor fellow felt that his dearest pleasure and
closest friend was taken from him.  He looked often and wistfully at
the little vacant bed in his dressing-room, where the child used to
sleep.  He missed him sadly of mornings and tried in vain to walk in
the park without him.  He did not know how solitary he was until
little Rawdon was gone.  He liked the people who were fond of him,
and would go and sit for long hours with his good-natured sister
Lady Jane, and talk to her about the virtues, and good looks, and
hundred good qualities of the child.

Young Rawdon's aunt, we have said, was very fond of him, as was her
little girl, who wept copiously when the time for her cousin's
departure came.  The elder Rawdon was thankful for the fondness of
mother and daughter.  The very best and honestest feelings of the
man came out in these artless outpourings of paternal feeling in
which he indulged in their presence, and encouraged by their
sympathy.  He secured not only Lady Jane's kindness, but her sincere
regard, by the feelings which he manifested, and which he could not
show to his own wife.  The two kinswomen met as seldom as possible.
Becky laughed bitterly at Jane's feelings and softness; the other's
kindly and gentle nature could not but revolt at her sister's
callous behaviour.

It estranged Rawdon from his wife more than he knew or acknowledged
to himself.  She did not care for the estrangement.  Indeed, she did
not miss him or anybody. She looked upon him as her errand-man and
humble slave.  He might be ever so depressed or sulky, and she did
not mark his demeanour, or only treated it with a sneer.  She was
busy thinking about her position, or her pleasures, or her
advancement in society; she ought to have held a great place in it,
that is certain.

It was honest Briggs who made up the little kit for the boy which he
was to take to school.  Molly, the housemaid, blubbered in the
passage when he went away--Molly kind and faithful in spite of a
long arrear of unpaid wages.  Mrs. Becky could not let her husband
have the carriage to take the boy to school.  Take the horses into
the City!--such a thing was never heard of.  Let a cab be brought.
She did not offer to kiss him when he went, nor did the child
propose to embrace her; but gave a kiss to old Briggs (whom, in
general, he was very shy of caressing), and consoled her by pointing
out that he was to come home on Saturdays, when she would have the
benefit of seeing him.  As the cab rolled towards the City, Becky's
carriage rattled off to the park.  She was chattering and laughing
with a score of young dandies by the Serpentine as the father and
son entered at the old gates of the school--where Rawdon left the
child and came away with a sadder purer feeling in his heart than
perhaps that poor battered fellow had ever known since he himself
came out of the nursery.

He walked all the way home very dismally, and dined alone with
Briggs.  He was very kind to her and grateful for her love and
watchfulness over the boy.  His conscience smote him that he had
borrowed Briggs's money and aided in deceiving her.  They talked
about little Rawdon a long time, for Becky only came home to dress
and go out to dinner--and then he went off uneasily to drink tea
with Lady Jane, and tell her of what had happened, and how little
Rawdon went off like a trump, and how he was to wear a gown and
little knee-breeches, and how young Blackball, Jack Blackball's son,
of the old regiment, had taken him in charge and promised to be kind
to him.

In the course of a week, young Blackball had constituted little
Rawdon his fag, shoe-black, and breakfast toaster; initiated him
into the mysteries of the Latin Grammar; and thrashed him three or
four times, but not severely.  The little chap's good-natured honest
face won his way for him.  He only got that degree of beating which
was, no doubt, good for him; and as for blacking shoes, toasting
bread, and fagging in general, were these offices not deemed to be
necessary parts of every young English gentleman's education?

Our business does not lie with the second generation and Master
Rawdon's life at school, otherwise the present tale might be carried
to any indefinite length.  The Colonel went to see his son a short
time afterwards and found the lad sufficiently well and happy,
grinning and laughing in his little black gown and little breeches.

His father sagaciously tipped Blackball, his master, a sovereign,
and secured that young gentleman's good-will towards his fag.  As a
protege of the great Lord Steyne, the nephew of a County member, and
son of a Colonel and C.B., whose name appeared in some of the most
fashionable parties in the Morning Post, perhaps the school
authorities were disposed not to look unkindly on the child.  He had
plenty of pocket-money, which he spent in treating his comrades
royally to raspberry tarts, and he was often allowed to come home on
Saturdays to his father, who always made a jubilee of that day. When
free, Rawdon would take him to the play, or send him thither with
the footman; and on Sundays he went to church with Briggs and Lady
Jane and his cousins. Rawdon marvelled over his stories about
school, and fights, and fagging.  Before long, he knew the names of
all the masters and the principal boys as well as little Rawdon
himself.  He invited little Rawdon's crony from school, and made
both the children sick with pastry, and oysters, and porter after
the play.  He tried to look knowing over the Latin grammar when
little Rawdon showed him what part of that work he was "in." "Stick
to it, my boy," he said to him with much gravity, "there's nothing
like a good classical education!  Nothing!"

Becky's contempt for her husband grew greater every day.  "Do what
you like--dine where you please--go and have ginger-beer and sawdust
at Astley's, or psalm-singing with Lady Jane--only don't expect me
to busy myself with the boy.  I have your interests to attend to, as
you can't attend to them yourself.  I should like to know where you
would have been now, and in what sort of a position in society, if I
had not looked after you." Indeed, nobody wanted poor old Rawdon at
the parties whither Becky used to go.  She was often asked without
him now.  She talked about great people as if she had the fee-simple
of May Fair, and when the Court went into mourning, she always wore
black.

Little Rawdon being disposed of, Lord Steyne, who took such a
parental interest in the affairs of this amiable poor family,
thought that their expenses might be very advantageously curtailed
by the departure of Miss Briggs, and that Becky was quite clever
enough to take the management of her own house.  It has been
narrated in a former chapter how the benevolent nobleman had given
his protegee money to pay off her little debt to Miss Briggs, who
however still remained behind with her friends; whence my lord came
to the painful conclusion that Mrs. Crawley had made some other use
of the money confided to her than that for which her generous patron
had given the loan.  However, Lord Steyne was not so rude as to
impart his suspicions upon this head to Mrs. Becky, whose feelings
might be hurt by any controversy on the money-question, and who
might have a thousand painful reasons for disposing otherwise of his
lordship's generous loan.  But he determined to satisfy himself of
the real state of the case, and instituted the necessary inquiries
in a most cautious and delicate manner.

In the first place he took an early opportunity of pumping Miss
Briggs.  That was not a difficult operation. A very little
encouragement would set that worthy woman to talk volubly and pour
out all within her.  And one day when Mrs. Rawdon had gone out to
drive (as Mr. Fiche, his lordship's confidential servant, easily
learned at the livery stables where the Crawleys kept their carriage
and horses, or rather, where the livery-man kept a carriage and
horses for Mr. and Mrs. Crawley)--my lord dropped in upon the Curzon
Street house--asked Briggs for a cup of coffee--told her that he had
good accounts of the little boy at school--and in five minutes found
out from her that Mrs. Rawdon had given her nothing except a black
silk gown, for which Miss Briggs was immensely grateful.

He laughed within himself at this artless story.  For the truth is,
our dear friend Rebecca had given him a most circumstantial
narration of Briggs's delight at receiving her money--eleven hundred
and twenty-five pounds--and in what securities she had invested it;
and what a pang Becky herself felt in being obliged to pay away such
a delightful sum of money.  "Who knows," the dear woman may have
thought within herself, "perhaps he may give me a little more?" My
lord, however, made no such proposal to the little schemer--very
likely thinking that he had been sufficiently generous already.

He had the curiosity, then, to ask Miss Briggs about the state of
her private affairs--and she told his lordship candidly what her
position was--how Miss Crawley had left her a legacy--how her
relatives had had part of it--how Colonel Crawley had put out
another portion, for which she had the best security and interest--
and how Mr. and Mrs. Rawdon had kindly busied themselves with Sir
Pitt, who was to dispose of the remainder most advantageously for
her, when he had time.  My lord asked how much the Colonel had
already invested for her, and Miss Briggs at once and truly told him
that the sum was six hundred and odd pounds.

But as soon as she had told her story, the voluble Briggs repented
of her frankness and besought my lord not to tell Mr. Crawley of the
confessions which she had made.  "The Colonel was so kind--Mr.
Crawley might be offended and pay back the money, for which she
could get no such good interest anywhere else." Lord Steyne,
laughing, promised he never would divulge their conversation, and
when he and Miss Briggs parted he laughed still more.

"What an accomplished little devil it is!" thought he. "What a
splendid actress and manager!  She had almost got a second supply
out of me the other day; with her coaxing ways.  She beats all the
women I have ever seen in the course of all my well-spent life.
They are babies compared to her.  I am a greenhorn myself, and a
fool in her hands--an old fool.  She is unsurpassable in lies." His
lordship's admiration for Becky rose immeasurably at this proof of
her cleverness.  Getting the money was nothing--but getting double
the sum she wanted, and paying nobody--it was a magnificent stroke.
And Crawley, my lord thought--Crawley is not such a fool as he looks
and seems.  He has managed the matter cleverly enough on his side.
Nobody would ever have supposed from his face and demeanour that he
knew anything about this money business; and yet he put her up to
it, and has spent the money, no doubt.  In this opinion my lord, we
know, was mistaken, but it influenced a good deal his behaviour
towards Colonel Crawley, whom he began to treat with even less than
that semblance of respect which he had formerly shown towards that
gentleman.  It never entered into the head of Mrs. Crawley's patron
that the little lady might be making a purse for herself; and,
perhaps, if the truth must be told, he judged of Colonel Crawley by
his experience of other husbands, whom he had known in the course of
the long and well-spent life which had made him acquainted with a
great deal of the weakness of mankind.  My lord had bought so many
men during his life that he was surely to be pardoned for supposing
that he had found the price of this one.

He taxed Becky upon the point on the very first occasion when he met
her alone, and he complimented her, good-humouredly, on her
cleverness in getting more than the money which she required.  Becky
was only a little taken aback.  It was not the habit of this dear
creature to tell falsehoods, except when necessity compelled, but in
these great emergencies it was her practice to lie very freely; and
in an instant she was ready with another neat plausible
circumstantial story which she administered to her patron.  The
previous statement which she had made to him was a falsehood--a
wicked falsehood--she owned it.  But who had made her tell it? "Ah,
my Lord," she said, "you don't know all I have to suffer and bear in
silence; you see me gay and happy before you--you little know what I
have to endure when there is no protector near me.  It was my
husband, by threats and the most savage treatment, forced me to ask
for that sum about which I deceived you.  It was he who, foreseeing
that questions might be asked regarding the disposal of the money,
forced me to account for it as I did.  He took the money.  He told
me he had paid Miss Briggs; I did not want, I did not dare to doubt
him. Pardon the wrong which a desperate man is forced to commit, and
pity a miserable, miserable woman." She burst into tears as she
spoke.  Persecuted virtue never looked more bewitchingly wretched.

They had a long conversation, driving round and round the Regent's
Park in Mrs. Crawley's carriage together, a conversation of which it
is not necessary to repeat the details, but the upshot of it was
that, when Becky came home, she flew to her dear Briggs with a
smiling face and announced that she had some very good news for her.
Lord Steyne had acted in the noblest and most generous manner.  He
was always thinking how and when he could do good.  Now that little
Rawdon was gone to school, a dear companion and friend was no longer
necessary to her.  She was grieved beyond measure to part with
Briggs, but her means required that she should practise every
retrenchment, and her sorrow was mitigated by the idea that her dear
Briggs would be far better provided for by her generous patron than
in her humble home.  Mrs. Pilkington, the housekeeper at Gauntly
Hall, was growing exceedingly old, feeble, and rheumatic: she was
not equal to the work of superintending that vast mansion, and must
be on the look out for a successor.  It was a splendid position.
The family did not go to Gauntly once in two years.  At other times
the housekeeper was the mistress of the magnificent mansion--had
four covers daily for her table; was visited by the clergy and the
most respectable people of the county--was the lady of Gauntly, in
fact; and the two last housekeepers before Mrs. Pilkington had
married rectors of Gauntly--but Mrs. P.  could not, being the aunt
of the present Rector.  The place was not to be hers yet, but she
might go down on a visit to Mrs. Pilkington and see whether she
would like to succeed her.

What words can paint the ecstatic gratitude of Briggs! All she
stipulated for was that little Rawdon should be allowed to come down
and see her at the Hall.  Becky promised this--anything.  She ran up
to her husband when he came home and told him the joyful news.
Rawdon was glad, deuced glad; the weight was off his conscience
about poor Briggs's money.  She was provided for, at any rate, but--
but his mind was disquiet.  He did not seem to be all right,
somehow.  He told little Southdown what Lord Steyne had done, and
the young man eyed Crawley with an air which surprised the latter.

He told Lady Jane of this second proof of Steyne's bounty, and she,
too, looked odd and alarmed; so did Sir Pitt.  "She is too clever
and--and gay to be allowed to go from party to party without a
companion," both said.  "You must go with her, Rawdon, wherever she
goes, and you must have somebody with her--one of the girls from
Queen's Crawley, perhaps, though they were rather giddy guardians
for her."

Somebody Becky should have.  But in the meantime it was clear that
honest Briggs must not lose her chance of settlement for life, and
so she and her bags were packed, and she set off on her journey.
And so two of Rawdon's out-sentinels were in the hands of the enemy.

Sir Pitt went and expostulated with his sister-in-law upon the
subject of the dismissal of Briggs and other matters of delicate
family interest.  In vain she pointed out to him how necessary was
the protection of Lord Steyne for her poor husband; how cruel it
would be on their part to deprive Briggs of the position offered to
her. Cajolements, coaxings, smiles, tears could not satisfy Sir
Pitt, and he had something very like a quarrel with his once admired
Becky.  He spoke of the honour of the family, the unsullied
reputation of the Crawleys; expressed himself in indignant tones
about her receiving those young Frenchmen--those wild young men of
fashion, my Lord Steyne himself, whose carriage was always at her
door, who passed hours daily in her company, and whose constant
presence made the world talk about her.  As the head of the house he
implored her to be more prudent.  Society was already speaking
lightly of her.  Lord Steyne, though a nobleman of the greatest
station and talents, was a man whose attentions would compromise any
woman; he besought, he implored, he commanded his sister-in-law to
be watchful in her intercourse with that nobleman.

Becky promised anything and everything Pitt wanted; but Lord Steyne
came to her house as often as ever, and Sir Pitt's anger increased.
I wonder was Lady Jane angry or pleased that her husband at last
found fault with his favourite Rebecca? Lord Steyne's visits
continuing, his own ceased, and his wife was for refusing all
further intercourse with that nobleman and declining the invitation
to the charade-night which the marchioness sent to her; but Sir Pitt
thought it was necessary to accept it, as his Royal Highness would
be there.

Although he went to the party in question, Sir Pitt quitted it very
early, and his wife, too, was very glad to come away.  Becky hardly
so much as spoke to him or noticed her sister-in-law.  Pitt Crawley
declared her behaviour was monstrously indecorous, reprobated in
strong terms the habit of play-acting and fancy dressing as highly
unbecoming a British female, and after the charades were over, took
his brother Rawdon severely to task for appearing himself and
allowing his wife to join in such improper exhibitions.

Rawdon said she should not join in any more such amusements--but
indeed, and perhaps from hints from his elder brother and sister, he
had already become a very watchful and exemplary domestic character.
He left off his clubs and billiards.  He never left home.  He took
Becky out to drive; he went laboriously with her to all her parties.
Whenever my Lord Steyne called, he was sure to find the Colonel.
And when Becky proposed to go out without her husband, or received
invitations for herself, he peremptorily ordered her to refuse them:
and there was that in the gentleman's manner which enforced
obedience.  Little Becky, to do her justice, was charmed with
Rawdon's gallantry.  If he was surly, she never was. Whether friends
were present or absent, she had always a kind smile for him and was
attentive to his pleasure and comfort.  It was the early days of
their marriage over again:  the same good humour, prevenances,
merriment, and artless confidence and regard.  "How much pleasanter
it is," she would say, "to have you by my side in the carriage than
that foolish old Briggs!  Let us always go on so, dear Rawdon.  How
nice it would be, and how happy we should always be, if we had but
the money!" He fell asleep after dinner in his chair; he did not see
the face opposite to him, haggard, weary, and terrible; it lighted
up with fresh candid smiles when he woke.  It kissed him gaily.  He
wondered that he had ever had suspicions.  No, he never had
suspicions; all those dumb doubts and surly misgivings which had
been gathering on his mind were mere idle jealousies.  She was fond
of him; she always had been.  As for her shining in society, it was
no fault of hers; she was formed to shine there. Was there any woman
who could talk, or sing, or do anything like her? If she would but
like the boy! Rawdon thought.  But the mother and son never could be
brought together.

And it was while Rawdon's mind was agitated with these doubts and
perplexities that the incident occurred which was mentioned in the
last chapter, and the unfortunate Colonel found himself a prisoner
away from home.



CHAPTER LIII

A Rescue and a Catastrophe


Friend Rawdon drove on then to Mr. Moss's mansion in Cursitor
Street, and was duly inducted into that dismal place of hospitality.
Morning was breaking over the cheerful house-tops of Chancery Lane
as the rattling cab woke up the echoes there.  A little pink-eyed
Jew-boy, with a head as ruddy as the rising morn, let the party into
the house, and Rawdon was welcomed to the ground-floor apartments by
Mr. Moss, his travelling companion and host, who cheerfully asked
him if he would like a glass of something warm after his drive.

The Colonel was not so depressed as some mortals would be, who,
quitting a palace and a placens uxor, find themselves barred into a
spunging-house; for, if the truth must be told, he had been a lodger
at Mr. Moss's establishment once or twice before.  We have not
thought it necessary in the previous course of this narrative to
mention these trivial little domestic incidents:  but the reader may
be assured that they can't unfrequently occur in the life of a man
who lives on nothing a year.

Upon his first visit to Mr. Moss, the Colonel, then a bachelor, had
been liberated by the generosity of his aunt; on the second mishap,
little Becky, with the greatest spirit and kindness, had borrowed a
sum of money from Lord Southdown and had coaxed her husband's
creditor (who was her shawl, velvet-gown, lace pocket-handkerchief,
trinket, and gim-crack purveyor, indeed) to take a portion of the
sum claimed and Rawdon's promissory note for the remainder:  so on
both these occasions the capture and release had been conducted with
the utmost gallantry on all sides, and Moss and the Colonel were
therefore on the very best of terms.

"You'll find your old bed, Colonel, and everything comfortable,"
that gentleman said, "as I may honestly say. You may be pretty sure
its kep aired, and by the best of company, too.  It was slep in the
night afore last by the Honorable Capting Famish, of the Fiftieth
Dragoons, whose Mar took him out, after a fortnight, jest to punish
him, she said.  But, Law bless you, I promise you, he punished my
champagne, and had a party ere every night--reglar tip-top swells,
down from the clubs and the West End--Capting Ragg, the Honorable
Deuceace, who lives in the Temple, and some fellers as knows a good
glass of wine, I warrant you.  I've got a Doctor of Diwinity
upstairs, five gents in the coffee-room, and Mrs. Moss has a tably-
dy-hoty at half-past five, and a little cards or music afterwards,
when we shall be most happy to see you."

"I'll ring when I want anything," said Rawdon and went quietly to
his bedroom.  He was an old soldier, we have said, and not to be
disturbed by any little shocks of fate.  A weaker man would have
sent off a letter to his wife on the instant of his capture.  "But
what is the use of disturbing her night's rest?" thought Rawdon.
"She won't know whether I am in my room or not.  It will be time
enough to write to her when she has had her sleep out, and I have
had mine.  It's only a hundred-and-seventy, and the deuce is in it
if we can't raise that." And so, thinking about little Rawdon (whom
he would not have know that he was in such a queer place), the
Colonel turned into the bed lately occupied by Captain Famish and
fell asleep.  It was ten o'clock when he woke up, and the ruddy-
headed youth brought him, with conscious pride, a fine silver
dressing-case, wherewith he might perform the operation of shaving.
Indeed Mr. Moss's house, though somewhat dirty, was splendid
throughout.  There were dirty trays, and wine-coolers en permanence
on the sideboard, huge dirty gilt cornices, with dingy yellow satin
hangings to the barred windows which looked into Cursitor Street--
vast and dirty gilt picture frames surrounding pieces sporting and
sacred, all of which works were by the greatest masters--and fetched
the greatest prices, too, in the bill transactions, in the course of
which they were sold and bought over and over again.  The Colonel's
breakfast was served to him in the same dingy and gorgeous plated
ware.  Miss Moss, a dark-eyed maid in curl-papers, appeared with the
teapot, and, smiling, asked the Colonel how he had slep? And she
brought him in the Morning Post, with the names of all the great
people who had figured at Lord Steyne's entertainment the night
before.  It contained a brilliant account of the festivities and of
the beautiful and accomplished Mrs. Rawdon Crawley's admirable
personifications.

After a lively chat with this lady (who sat on the edge of the
breakfast table in an easy attitude displaying the drapery of her
stocking and an ex-white satin shoe, which was down at heel),
Colonel Crawley called for pens and ink, and paper, and being asked
how many sheets, chose one which was brought to him between Miss
Moss's own finger and thumb.  Many a sheet had that dark-eyed damsel
brought in; many a poor fellow had scrawled and blotted hurried
lines of entreaty and paced up and down that awful room until his
messenger brought back the reply.  Poor men always use messengers
instead of the post.  Who has not had their letters, with the wafers
wet, and the announcement that a person is waiting in the hall?

Now on the score of his application, Rawdon had not many misgivings.

DEAR BECKY, (Rawdon wrote)

I HOPE YOU SLEPT WELL.  Don't be FRIGHTENED if I don't bring you in
your COFFY.  Last night as I was coming home smoaking, I met with an
ACCADENT.  I was NABBED by Moss of Cursitor Street--from whose GILT
AND SPLENDID PARLER I write this--the same that had me this time two
years.  Miss Moss brought in my tea--she is grown very FAT, and, as
usual, had her STOCKENS DOWN AT HEAL.

It's Nathan's business--a hundred-and-fifty--with costs, hundred-
and-seventy.  Please send me my desk and some CLOTHS--I'm in pumps
and a white tye (something like Miss M's stockings)--I've seventy in
it.  And as soon as you get this, Drive to Nathan's--offer him
seventy-five down, and ASK HIM TO RENEW--say I'll take wine--we may
as well have some dinner sherry; but not PICTURS, they're too dear.

If he won't stand it.  Take my ticker and such of your things as you
can SPARE, and send them to Balls--we must, of coarse, have the sum
to-night.  It won't do to let it stand over, as to-morrow's Sunday;
the beds here are not very CLEAN, and there may be other things out
against me--I'm glad it an't Rawdon's Saturday for coming home.  God
bless you.

Yours in haste, R. C.
P.S.  Make haste and come.

This letter, sealed with a wafer, was dispatched by one of the
messengers who are always hanging about Mr. Moss's establishment,
and Rawdon, having seen him depart, went out in the court-yard and
smoked his cigar with a tolerably easy mind--in spite of the bars
overhead--for Mr. Moss's court-yard is railed in like a cage, lest
the gentlemen who are boarding with him should take a fancy to
escape from his hospitality.

Three hours, he calculated, would be the utmost time required,
before Becky should arrive and open his prison doors, and he passed
these pretty cheerfully in smoking, in reading the paper, and in the
coffee-room with an acquaintance, Captain Walker, who happened to be
there, and with whom he cut for sixpences for some hours, with
pretty equal luck on either side.

But the day passed away and no messenger returned--no Becky.  Mr.
Moss's tably-dy-hoty was served at the appointed hour of half-past
five, when such of the gentlemen lodging in the house as could
afford to pay for the banquet came and partook of it in the splendid
front parlour before described, and with which Mr. Crawley's
temporary lodging communicated, when Miss M.  (Miss Hem, as her papa
called her) appeared without the curl-papers of the morning, and
Mrs. Hem did the honours of a prime boiled leg of mutton and
turnips, of which the Colonel ate with a very faint appetite.  Asked
whether he would "stand" a bottle of champagne for the company, he
consented, and the ladies drank to his 'ealth, and Mr. Moss, in the
most polite manner, "looked towards him."

In the midst of this repast, however, the doorbell was heard--young
Moss of the ruddy hair rose up with the keys and answered the
summons, and coming back, told the Colonel that the messenger had
returned with a bag, a desk and a letter, which he gave him.  "No
ceramony, Colonel, I beg," said Mrs. Moss with a wave of her hand,
and he opened the letter rather tremulously.  It was a beautiful
letter, highly scented, on a pink paper, and with a light green
seal.

MON PAUVRE CHER PETIT, (Mrs. Crawley wrote)

I could not sleep ONE WINK for thinking of what had become of my
odious old monstre, and only got to rest in the morning after
sending for Mr. Blench (for I was in a fever), who gave me a
composing draught and left orders with Finette that I should be
disturbed ON NO ACCOUNT.  So that my poor old man's messenger, who
had bien mauvaise mine Finette says, and sentoit le Genievre,
remained in the hall for some hours waiting my bell. You may fancy
my state when I read your poor dear old ill-spelt letter.

Ill as I was, I instantly called for the carriage, and as soon as I
was dressed (though I couldn't drink a drop of chocolate--I assure
you I couldn't without my monstre to bring it to me), I drove ventre
a terre to Nathan's.  I saw him--I wept--I cried--I fell at his
odious knees.  Nothing would mollify the horrid man. He would have
all the money, he said, or keep my poor monstre in prison.  I drove
home with the intention of paying that triste visite chez mon oncle
(when every trinket I have should be at your disposal though they
would not fetch a hundred pounds, for some, you know, are with ce
cher oncle already), and found Milor there with the Bulgarian old
sheep-faced monster, who had come to compliment me upon last night's
performances. Paddington came in, too, drawling and lisping and
twiddling his hair; so did Champignac, and his chef--everybody with
foison of compliments and pretty speeches--plaguing poor me, who
longed to be rid of them, and was thinking every moment of the time
of mon pauvre prisonnier.

When they were gone, I went down on my knees to Milor; told him we
were going to pawn everything, and begged and prayed him to give me
two hundred pounds. He pish'd and psha'd in a fury--told me not to
be such a fool as to pawn--and said he would see whether he could
lend me the money.  At last he went away, promising that he would
send it me in the morning:  when I will bring it to my poor old
monster with a kiss from his affectionate

BECKY

I am writing in bed.  Oh I have such a headache and such a
heartache!

When Rawdon read over this letter, he turned so red and looked so
savage that the company at the table d'hote easily perceived that
bad news had reached him.  All his suspicions, which he had been
trying to banish, returned upon him.  She could not even go out and
sell her trinkets to free him.  She could laugh and talk about
compliments paid to her, whilst he was in prison.  Who had put him
there? Wenham had walked with him.  Was there....  He could hardly
bear to think of what he suspected.  Leaving the room hurriedly, he
ran into his own--opened his desk, wrote two hurried lines, which he
directed to Sir Pitt or Lady Crawley, and bade the messenger carry
them at once to Gaunt Street, bidding him to take a cab, and
promising him a guinea if he was back in an hour.

In the note he besought his dear brother and sister, for the sake of
God, for the sake of his dear child and his honour, to come to him
and relieve him from his difficulty.  He was in prison, he wanted a
hundred pounds to set him free--he entreated them to come to him.

He went back to the dining-room after dispatching his messenger and
called for more wine.  He laughed and talked with a strange
boisterousness, as the people thought.  Sometimes he laughed madly
at his own fears and went on drinking for an hour, listening all the
while for the carriage which was to bring his fate back.

At the expiration of that time, wheels were heard whirling up to the
gate--the young janitor went out with his gate-keys.  It was a lady
whom he let in at the bailiff's door.

"Colonel Crawley," she said, trembling very much.  He, with a
knowing look, locked the outer door upon her--then unlocked and
opened the inner one, and calling out, "Colonel, you're wanted," led
her into the back parlour, which he occupied.

Rawdon came in from the dining-parlour where all those people were
carousing, into his back room; a flare of coarse light following him
into the apartment where the lady stood, still very nervous.

"It is I, Rawdon," she said in a timid voice, which she strove to
render cheerful.  "It is Jane." Rawdon was quite overcome by that
kind voice and presence.  He ran up to her--caught her in his arms--
gasped out some inarticulate words of thanks and fairly sobbed on
her shoulder.  She did not know the cause of his emotion.

The bills of Mr. Moss were quickly settled, perhaps to the
disappointment of that gentleman, who had counted on having the
Colonel as his guest over Sunday at least; and Jane, with beaming
smiles and happiness in her eyes, carried away Rawdon from the
bailiff's house, and they went homewards in the cab in which she had
hastened to his release.  "Pitt was gone to a parliamentary dinner,"
she said, "when Rawdon's note came, and so, dear Rawdon, I--I came
myself"; and she put her kind hand in his.  Perhaps it was well for
Rawdon Crawley that Pitt was away at that dinner.  Rawdon thanked
his sister a hundred times, and with an ardour of gratitude which
touched and almost alarmed that soft-hearted woman. "Oh," said he,
in his rude, artless way, "you--you don't know how I'm changed since
I've known you, and--and little Rawdy.  I--I'd like to change
somehow.  You see I want--I want--to be--" He did not finish the
sentence, but she could interpret it.  And that night after he left
her, and as she sat by her own little boy's bed, she prayed humbly
for that poor way-worn sinner.

Rawdon left her and walked home rapidly.  It was nine o'clock at
night.  He ran across the streets and the great squares of Vanity
Fair, and at length came up breathless opposite his own house.  He
started back and fell against the railings, trembling as he looked
up.  The drawing-room windows were blazing with light.  She had said
that she was in bed and ill.  He stood there for some time, the
light from the rooms on his pale face.

He took out his door-key and let himself into the house.  He could
hear laughter in the upper rooms.  He was in the ball-dress in which
he had been captured the night before.  He went silently up the
stairs, leaning against the banisters at the stair-head.  Nobody was
stirring in the house besides--all the servants had been sent away.
Rawdon heard laughter within--laughter and singing. Becky was
singing a snatch of the song of the night before; a hoarse voice
shouted "Brava!  Brava!"--it was Lord Steyne's.

Rawdon opened the door and went in.  A little table with a dinner
was laid out--and wine and plate.  Steyne was hanging over the sofa
on which Becky sat.  The wretched woman was in a brilliant full
toilette, her arms and all her fingers sparkling with bracelets and
rings, and the brilliants on her breast which Steyne had given her.
He had her hand in his, and was bowing over it to kiss it, when
Becky started up with a faint scream as she caught sight of Rawdon's
white face.  At the next instant she tried a smile, a horrid smile,
as if to welcome her husband; and Steyne rose up, grinding his
teeth, pale, and with fury in his looks.

He, too, attempted a laugh--and came forward holding out his hand.
"What, come back!  How d'ye do, Crawley?" he said, the nerves of his
mouth twitching as he tried to grin at the intruder.

There was that in Rawdon's face which caused Becky to fling herself
before him.  "I am innocent, Rawdon," she said; "before God, I am
innocent." She clung hold of his coat, of his hands; her own were
all covered with serpents, and rings, and baubles.  "I am innocent.
Say I am innocent," she said to Lord Steyne.

He thought a trap had been laid for him, and was as furious with the
wife as with the husband.  "You innocent!  Damn you," he screamed
out.  "You innocent!  Why every trinket you have on your body is
paid for by me. I have given you thousands of pounds, which this
fellow has spent and for which he has sold you.  Innocent, by --!
You're as innocent as your mother, the ballet-girl, and your husband
the bully.  Don't think to frighten me as you have done others.
Make way, sir, and let me pass"; and Lord Steyne seized up his hat,
and, with flame in his eyes, and looking his enemy fiercely in the
face, marched upon him, never for a moment doubting that the other
would give way.

But Rawdon Crawley springing out, seized him by the neckcloth, until
Steyne, almost strangled, writhed and bent under his arm.  "You lie,
you dog!" said Rawdon. "You lie, you coward and villain!" And he
struck the Peer twice over the face with his open hand and flung him
bleeding to the ground.  It was all done before Rebecca could
interpose.  She stood there trembling before him.  She admired her
husband, strong, brave, and victorious.

"Come here," he said.  She came up at once.

"Take off those things." She began, trembling, pulling the jewels
from her arms, and the rings from her shaking fingers, and held them
all in a heap, quivering and looking up at him.  "Throw them down,"
he said, and she dropped them.  He tore the diamond ornament out of
her breast and flung it at Lord Steyne.  It cut him on his bald
forehead.  Steyne wore the scar to his dying day.

"Come upstairs," Rawdon said to his wife.  "Don't kill me, Rawdon,"
she said.  He laughed savagely.  "I want to see if that man lies
about the money as he has about me.  Has he given you any?"

"No," said Rebecca, "that is--"

"Give me your keys," Rawdon answered, and they went out together.

Rebecca gave him all the keys but one, and she was in hopes that he
would not have remarked the absence of that.  It belonged to the
little desk which Amelia had given her in early days, and which she
kept in a secret place.  But Rawdon flung open boxes and wardrobes,
throwing the multifarious trumpery of their contents here and there,
and at last he found the desk.  The woman was forced to open it.  It
contained papers, love-letters many years old--all sorts of small
trinkets and woman's memoranda.  And it contained a pocket-book with
bank-notes. Some of these were dated ten years back, too, and one
was quite a fresh one--a note for a thousand pounds which Lord
Steyne had given her.

"Did he give you this?" Rawdon said.

"Yes," Rebecca answered.

"I'll send it to him to-day," Rawdon said (for day had dawned again,
and many hours had passed in this search), "and I will pay Briggs,
who was kind to the boy, and some of the debts.  You will let me
know where I shall send the rest to you.  You might have spared me a
hundred pounds, Becky, out of all this--I have always shared with
you."

"I am innocent," said Becky.  And he left her without another word.

What were her thoughts when he left her? She remained for hours
after he was gone, the sunshine pouring into the room, and Rebecca
sitting alone on the bed's edge.  The drawers were all opened and
their contents scattered about--dresses and feathers, scarfs and
trinkets, a heap of tumbled vanities lying in a wreck.  Her hair was
falling over her shoulders; her gown was torn where Rawdon had
wrenched the brilliants out of it.  She heard him go downstairs a
few minutes after he left her, and the door slamming and closing on
him.  She knew he would never come back.  He was gone forever.
Would he kill himself?--she thought--not until after he had met Lord
Steyne.  She thought of her long past life, and all the dismal
incidents of it.  Ah, how dreary it seemed, how miserable, lonely
and profitless!  Should she take laudanum, and end it, to have done
with all hopes, schemes, debts, and triumphs? The French maid found
her in this position--sitting in the midst of her miserable ruins
with clasped hands and dry eyes.  The woman was her accomplice and
in Steyne's pay.  "Mon Dieu, madame, what has happened?" she asked.

What had happened? Was she guilty or not? She said not, but who
could tell what was truth which came from those lips, or if that
corrupt heart was in this case pure?

All her lies and her schemes, an her selfishness and her wiles, all
her wit and genius had come to this bankruptcy.  The woman closed
the curtains and, with some entreaty and show of kindness, persuaded
her mistress to lie down on the bed.  Then she went below and
gathered up the trinkets which had been lying on the floor since
Rebecca dropped them there at her husband's orders, and Lord Steyne
went away.



CHAPTER LIV

Sunday After the Battle


The mansion of Sir Pitt Crawley, in Great Gaunt Street, was just
beginning to dress itself for the day, as Rawdon, in his evening
costume, which he had now worn two days, passed by the scared female
who was scouring the steps and entered into his brother's study.
Lady Jane, in her morning-gown, was up and above stairs in the
nursery superintending the toilettes of her children and listening
to the morning prayers which the little creatures performed at her
knee.  Every morning she and they performed this duty privately, and
before the public ceremonial at which Sir Pitt presided and at which
all the people of the household were expected to assemble. Rawdon
sat down in the study before the Baronet's table, set out with the
orderly blue books and the letters, the neatly docketed bills and
symmetrical pamphlets, the locked account-books, desks, and dispatch
boxes, the Bible, the Quarterly Review, and the Court Guide, which
all stood as if on parade awaiting the inspection of their chief.

A book of family sermons, one of which Sir Pitt was in the habit of
administering to his family on Sunday mornings, lay ready on the
study table, and awaiting his judicious selection.  And by the
sermon-book was the Observer newspaper, damp and neatly folded, and
for Sir Pitt's own private use.  His gentleman alone took the
opportunity of perusing the newspaper before he laid it by his
master's desk.  Before he had brought it into the study that
morning, he had read in the journal a flaming account of
"Festivities at Gaunt House," with the names of all the
distinguished personages invited by tho Marquis of Steyne to meet
his Royal Highness.  Having made comments upon this entertainment to
the housekeeper and her niece as they were taking early tea and hot
buttered toast in the former lady's apartment, and wondered how the
Rawding Crawleys could git on, the valet had damped and folded the
paper once more, so that it looked quite fresh and innocent against
the arrival of the master of the house.

Poor Rawdon took up the paper and began to try and read it until his
brother should arrive.  But the print fell blank upon his eyes, and
he did not know in the least what he was reading.  The Government
news and appointments (which Sir Pitt as a public man was bound to
peruse, otherwise he would by no means permit the introduction of
Sunday papers into his household), the theatrical criticisms, the
fight for a hundred pounds a side between the Barking Butcher and
the Tutbury Pet, the Gaunt House chronicle itself, which contained a
most complimentary though guarded account of the famous charades of
which Mrs. Becky had been the heroine--all these passed as in a haze
before Rawdon, as he sat waiting the arrival of the chief of the
family.

Punctually, as the shrill-toned bell of the black marble study clock
began to chime nine, Sir Pitt made his appearance, fresh, neat,
smugly shaved, with a waxy clean face, and stiff shirt collar, his
scanty hair combed and oiled, trimming his nails as he descended the
stairs majestically, in a starched cravat and a grey flannel
dressing-gown--a real old English gentleman, in a word--a model of
neatness and every propriety.  He started when he saw poor Rawdon in
his study in tumbled clothes, with blood-shot eyes, and his hair
over his face.  He thought his brother was not sober, and had been
out all night on some orgy.  "Good gracious, Rawdon," he said, with
a blank face, "what brings you here at this time of the morning? Why
ain't you at home?"

"Home," said Rawdon with a wild laugh.  "Don't be frightened, Pitt.
I'm not drunk.  Shut the door; I want to speak to you."

Pitt closed the door and came up to the table, where he sat down in
the other arm-chair--that one placed for the reception of the
steward, agent, or confidential visitor who came to transact
business with the Baronet--and trimmed his nails more vehemently
than ever.

"Pitt, it's all over with me," the Colonel said after a pause.  "I'm
done."

"I always said it would come to this," the Baronet cried peevishly,
and beating a tune with his clean-trimmed nails.  "I warned you a
thousand times.  I can't help you any more.  Every shilling of my
money is tied up.  Even the hundred pounds that Jane took you last
night were promised to my lawyer to-morrow morning, and the want of
it will put me to great inconvenience. I don't mean to say that I
won't assist you ultimately. But as for paying your creditors in
full, I might as well hope to pay the National Debt.  It is madness,
sheer madness, to think of such a thing.  You must come to a
compromise.  It's a painful thing for the family, but everybody does
it.  There was George Kitely, Lord Ragland's son, went through the
Court last week, and was what they call whitewashed, I believe.
Lord Ragland would not pay a shilling for him, and--"

"It's not money I want," Rawdon broke in.  "I'm not come to you
about myself.  Never mind what happens to me."

"What is the matter, then?" said Pitt, somewhat relieved.

"It's the boy," said Rawdon in a husky voice.  "I want you to
promise me that you will take charge of him when I'm gone.  That
dear good wife of yours has always been good to him; and he's fonder
of her than he is of his . . .--Damn it.  Look here, Pitt--you
know that I was to have had Miss Crawley's money.  I wasn't brought
up like a younger brother, but was always encouraged to be
extravagant and kep idle.  But for this I might have been quite a
different man.  I didn't do my duty with the regiment so bad.  You
know how I was thrown over about the money, and who got it."

"After the sacrifices I have made, and the manner in which I have
stood by you, I think this sort of reproach is useless," Sir Pitt
said.  "Your marriage was your own doing, not mine."

"That's over now," said Rawdon.  "That's over now." And the words
were wrenched from him with a groan, which made his brother start.

"Good God!  is she dead?" Sir Pitt said with a voice of genuine
alarm and commiseration.

"I wish I was," Rawdon replied.  "If it wasn't for little Rawdon I'd
have cut my throat this morning--and that damned villain's too."

Sir Pitt instantly guessed the truth and surmised that Lord Steyne
was the person whose life Rawdon wished to take.  The Colonel told
his senior briefly, and in broken accents, the circumstances of the
case.  "It was a regular plan between that scoundrel and her," he
said.  "The bailiffs were put upon me; I was taken as I was going
out of his house; when I wrote to her for money, she said she was
ill in bed and put me off to another day. And when I got home I
found her in diamonds and sitting with that villain alone." He then
went on to describe hurriedly the personal conflict with Lord
Steyne.  To an affair of that nature, of course, he said, there was
but one issue, and after his conference with his brother, he was
going away to make the necessary arrangements for the meeting which
must ensue.  "And as it may end fatally with me," Rawdon said with a
broken voice, "and as the boy has no mother, I must leave him to you
and Jane, Pitt--only it will be a comfort to me if you will promise
me to be his friend."

The elder brother was much affected, and shook Rawdon's hand with a
cordiality seldom exhibited by him. Rawdon passed his hand over his
shaggy eyebrows. "Thank you, brother," said he.  "I know I can trust
your word."

"I will, upon my honour," the Baronet said.  And thus, and almost
mutely, this bargain was struck between them.

Then Rawdon took out of his pocket the little pocket-book which he
had discovered in Becky's desk, and from which he drew a bundle of
the notes which it contained. "Here's six hundred," he said--"you
didn't know I was so rich.  I want you to give the money to Briggs,
who lent it to us--and who was kind to the boy--and I've always felt
ashamed of having taken the poor old woman's money.  And here's some
more--I've only kept back a few pounds--which Becky may as well
have, to get on with." As he spoke he took hold of the other notes
to give to his brother, but his hands shook, and he was so agitated
that the pocket-book fell from him, and out of it the thousand-pound
note which had been the last of the unlucky Becky's winnings.

Pitt stooped and picked them up, amazed at so much wealth.  "Not
that," Rawdon said.  "I hope to put a bullet into the man whom that
belongs to." He had thought to himself, it would be a fine revenge
to wrap a ball in the note and kill Steyne with it.

After this colloquy the brothers once more shook hands and parted.
Lady Jane had heard of the Colonel's arrival, and was waiting for
her husband in the adjoining dining-room, with female instinct,
auguring evil.  The door of the dining-room happened to be left
open, and the lady of course was issuing from it as the two brothers
passed out of the study.  She held out her hand to Rawdon and said
she was glad he was come to breakfast, though she could perceive, by
his haggard unshorn face and the dark looks of her husband, that
there was very little question of breakfast between them.  Rawdon
muttered some excuses about an engagement, squeezing hard the timid
little hand which his sister-in-law reached out to him.  Her
imploring eyes could read nothing but calamity in his face, but he
went away without another word.  Nor did Sir Pitt vouchsafe her any
explanation. The children came up to salute him, and he kissed them
in his usual frigid manner.  The mother took both of them close to
herself, and held a hand of each of them as they knelt down to
prayers, which Sir Pitt read to them, and to the servants in their
Sunday suits or liveries, ranged upon chairs on the other side of
the hissing tea-urn. Breakfast was so late that day, in consequence
of the delays which had occurred, that the church-bells began to
ring whilst they were sitting over their meal; and Lady Jane was too
ill, she said, to go to church, though her thoughts had been
entirely astray during the period of family devotion.

Rawdon Crawley meanwhile hurried on from Great Gaunt Street, and
knocking at the great bronze Medusa's head which stands on the
portal of Gaunt House, brought out the purple Silenus in a red and
silver waistcoat who acts as porter of that palace.  The man was
scared also by the Colonel's dishevelled appearance, and barred the
way as if afraid that the other was going to force it.  But Colonel
Crawley only took out a card and enjoined him particularly to send
it in to Lord Steyne, and to mark the address written on it, and say
that Colonel Crawley would be all day after one o'clock at the
Regent Club in St.  James's Street--not at home.  The fat red-faced
man looked after him with astonishment as he strode away; so did the
people in their Sunday clothes who were out so early; the charity-
boys with shining faces, the greengrocer lolling at his door, and
the publican shutting his shutters in the sunshine, against service
commenced.  The people joked at the cab-stand about his appearance,
as he took a carriage there, and told the driver to drive him to
Knightsbridge Barracks.

All the bells were jangling and tolling as he reached that place.
He might have seen his old acquaintance Amelia on her way from
Brompton to Russell Square, had he been looking out.  Troops of
schools were on their march to church, the shiny pavement and
outsides of coaches in the suburbs were thronged with people out
upon their Sunday pleasure; but the Colonel was much too busy to
take any heed of these phenomena, and, arriving at Knightsbridge,
speedily made his way up to the room of his old friend and comrade
Captain Macmurdo, who Crawley found, to his satisfaction, was in
barracks.

Captain Macmurdo, a veteran officer and Waterloo man, greatly liked
by his regiment, in which want of money alone prevented him from
attaining the highest ranks, was enjoying the forenoon calmly in
bed.  He had been at a fast supper-party, given the night before by
Captain the Honourable George Cinqbars, at his house in Brompton
Square, to several young men of the regiment, and a number of ladies
of the corps de ballet, and old Mac, who was at home with people of
all ages and ranks, and consorted with generals, dog-fanciers,
opera-dancers, bruisers, and every kind of person, in a word, was
resting himself after the night's labours, and, not being on duty,
was in bed.

His room was hung round with boxing, sporting, and dancing pictures,
presented to him by comrades as they retired from the regiment, and
married and settled into quiet life.  And as he was now nearly fifty
years of age, twenty-four of which he had passed in the corps, he
had a singular museum.  He was one of the best shots in England,
and, for a heavy man, one of the best riders; indeed, he and Crawley
had been rivals when the latter was in the Army.  To be brief, Mr.
Macmurdo was lying in bed, reading in Bell's Life an account of that
very fight between the Tutbury Pet and the Barking Butcher, which
has been before mentioned--a venerable bristly warrior, with a
little close-shaved grey head, with a silk nightcap, a red face and
nose, and a great dyed moustache.

When Rawdon told the Captain he wanted a friend, the latter knew
perfectly well on what duty of friendship he was called to act, and
indeed had conducted scores of affairs for his acquaintances with
the greatest prudence and skill.  His Royal Highness the late
lamented Commander-in-Chief had had the greatest regard for Macmurdo
on this account, and he was the common refuge of gentlemen in
trouble.

"What's the row about, Crawley, my boy?" said the old warrior.  "No
more gambling business, hay, like that when we shot Captain Marker?"

"It's about--about my wife," Crawley answered, casting down his eyes
and turning very red.

The other gave a whistle.  "I always said she'd throw you over," he
began--indeed there were bets in the regiment and at the clubs
regarding the probable fate of Colonel Crawley, so lightly was his
wife's character esteemed by his comrades and the world; but seeing
the savage look with which Rawdon answered the expression of this
opinion, Macmurdo did not think fit to enlarge upon it further.

"Is there no way out of it, old boy?" the Captain continued in a
grave tone.  "Is it only suspicion, you know, or--or what is it? Any
letters? Can't you keep it quiet? Best not make any noise about a
thing of that sort if you can help it." "Think of his only finding
her out now," the Captain thought to himself, and remembered a
hundred particular conversations at the mess-table, in which Mrs.
Crawley's reputation had been torn to shreds.

"There's no way but one out of it," Rawdon replied--"and there's
only a way out of it for one of us, Mac--do you understand? I was
put out of the way--arrested--I found 'em alone together.  I told
him he was a liar and a coward, and knocked him down and thrashed
him."

"Serve him right," Macmurdo said.  "Who is it?"

Rawdon answered it was Lord Steyne.

"The deuce!  a Marquis!  they said he--that is, they said you--"

"What the devil do you mean?" roared out Rawdon; "do you mean that
you ever heard a fellow doubt about my wife and didn't tell me,
Mac?"

"The world's very censorious, old boy," the other replied.  "What
the deuce was the good of my telling you what any tom-fools talked
about?"

"It was damned unfriendly, Mac," said Rawdon, quite overcome; and,
covering his face with his hands, he gave way to an emotion, the
sight of which caused the tough old campaigner opposite him to wince
with sympathy. "Hold up, old boy," he said; "great man or not, we'll
put a bullet in him, damn him.  As for women, they're all so."

"You don't know how fond I was of that one," Rawdon said, half-
inarticulately.  "Damme, I followed her like a footman.  I gave up
everything I had to her.  I'm a beggar because I would marry her.
By Jove, sir, I've pawned my own watch in order to get her anything
she fancied; and she she's been making a purse for herself all the
time, and grudged me a hundred pound to get me out of quod." He then
fiercely and incoherently, and with an agitation under which his
counsellor had never before seen him labour, told Macmurdo the
circumstances of the story.  His adviser caught at some stray hints
in it. "She may be innocent, after all," he said.  "She says so.
Steyne has been a hundred times alone with her in the house before."

"It may be so," Rawdon answered sadly, "but this don't look very
innocent":  and he showed the Captain the thousand-pound note which
he had found in Becky's pocket-book.  "This is what he gave her,
Mac, and she kep it unknown to me; and with this money in the house,
she refused to stand by me when I was locked up." The Captain could
not but own that the secreting of the money had a very ugly look.

Whilst they were engaged in their conference, Rawdon dispatched
Captain Macmurdo's servant to Curzon Street, with an order to the
domestic there to give up a bag of clothes of which the Colonel had
great need.  And during the man's absence, and with great labour and
a Johnson's Dictionary, which stood them in much stead, Rawdon and
his second composed a letter, which the latter was to send to Lord
Steyne.  Captain Macmurdo had the honour of waiting upon the Marquis
of Steyne, on the part of Colonel Rawdon Crawley, and begged to
intimate that he was empowered by the Colonel to make any
arrangements for the meeting which, he had no doubt, it was his
Lordship's intention to demand, and which the circumstances of the
morning had rendered inevitable.  Captain Macmurdo begged Lord
Steyne, in the most polite manner, to appoint a friend, with whom he
(Captain M.M.) might communicate, and desired that the meeting might
take place with as little delay as possible.

In a postscript the Captain stated that he had in his possession a
bank-note for a large amount, which Colonel Crawley had reason to
suppose was the property of the Marquis of Steyne.  And he was
anxious, on the Colonel's behalf, to give up the note to its owner.

By the time this note was composed, the Captain's servant returned
from his mission to Colonel Crawley's house in Curzon Street, but
without the carpet-bag and portmanteau, for which he had been sent,
and with a very puzzled and odd face.

"They won't give 'em up," said the man; "there's a regular shinty in
the house, and everything at sixes and sevens.  The landlord's come
in and took possession.  The servants was a drinkin' up in the
drawingroom.  They said--they said you had gone off with the plate,
Colonel"--the man added after a pause--"One of the servants is off
already.  And Simpson, the man as was very noisy and drunk indeed,
says nothing shall go out of the house until his wages is paid up."

The account of this little revolution in May Fair astonished and
gave a little gaiety to an otherwise very triste conversation.  The
two officers laughed at Rawdon's discomfiture.

"I'm glad the little 'un isn't at home," Rawdon said, biting his
nails.  "You remember him, Mac, don't you, in the Riding School? How
he sat the kicker to be sure! didn't he?"

"That he did, old boy," said the good-natured Captain.

Little Rawdon was then sitting, one of fifty gown boys, in the
Chapel of Whitefriars School, thinking, not about the sermon, but
about going home next Saturday, when his father would certainly tip
him and perhaps would take him to the play.

"He's a regular trump, that boy," the father went on, still musing
about his son.  "I say, Mac, if anything goes wrong--if I drop--I
should like you to--to go and see him, you know, and say that I was
very fond of him, and that.  And--dash it--old chap, give him these
gold sleeve-buttons:  it's all I've got." He covered his face with
his black hands, over which the tears rolled and made furrows of
white.  Mr. Macmurdo had also occasion to take off his silk night-
cap and rub it across his eyes.

"Go down and order some breakfast," he said to his man in a loud
cheerful voice.  "What'll you have, Crawley? Some devilled kidneys
and a herring--let's say.  And, Clay, lay out some dressing things
for the Colonel:  we were always pretty much of a size, Rawdon, my
boy, and neither of us ride so light as we did when we first entered
the corps." With which, and leaving the Colonel to dress himself,
Macmurdo turned round towards the wall, and resumed the perusal of
Bell's Life, until such time as his friend's toilette was complete
and he was at liberty to commence his own.

This, as he was about to meet a lord, Captain Macmurdo performed
with particular care.  He waxed his mustachios into a state of
brilliant polish and put on a tight cravat and a trim buff
waistcoat, so that all the young officers in the mess-room, whither
Crawley had preceded his friend, complimented Mac on his appearance
at breakfast and asked if he was going to be married that Sunday.



CHAPTER LV

In Which the Same Subject is Pursued


Becky did not rally from the state of stupor and confusion in which
the events of the previous night had plunged her intrepid spirit
until the bells of the Curzon Street Chapels were ringing for
afternoon service, and rising from her bed she began to ply her own
bell, in order to summon the French maid who had left her some hours
before.

Mrs. Rawdon Crawley rang many times in vain; and though, on the last
occasion, she rang with such vehemence as to pull down the bell-
rope, Mademoiselle Fifine did not make her appearance--no, not
though her mistress, in a great pet, and with the bell-rope in her
hand, came out to the landing-place with her hair over her shoulders
and screamed out repeatedly for her attendant.

The truth is, she had quitted the premises for many hours, and upon
that permission which is called French leave among us After picking
up the trinkets in the drawing-room, Mademoiselle had ascended to
her own apartments, packed and corded her own boxes there, tripped
out and called a cab for herself, brought down her trunks with her
own hand, and without ever so much as asking the aid of any of the
other servants, who would probably have refused it, as they hated
her cordially, and without wishing any one of them good-bye, had
made her exit from Curzon Street.

The game, in her opinion, was over in that little domestic
establishment.  Fifine went off in a cab, as we have known more
exalted persons of her nation to do under similar circumstances:
but, more provident or lucky than these, she secured not only her
own property, but some of her mistress's (if indeed that lady could
be said to have any property at all)--and not only carried off the
trinkets before alluded to, and some favourite dresses on which she
had long kept her eye, but four richly gilt Louis Quatorze
candlesticks, six gilt albums, keepsakes, and Books of Beauty, a
gold enamelled snuff-box which had once belonged to Madame du Barri,
and the sweetest little inkstand and mother-of-pearl blotting book,
which Becky used when she composed her charming little pink notes,
had vanished from the premises in Curzon Street together with
Mademoiselle Fifine, and all the silver laid on the table for the
little festin which Rawdon interrupted.  The plated ware
Mademoiselle left behind her was too cumbrous, probably for which
reason, no doubt, she also left the fire irons, the chimney-glasses,
and the rosewood cottage piano.

A lady very like her subsequently kept a milliner's shop in the Rue
du Helder at Paris, where she lived with great credit and enjoyed
the patronage of my Lord Steyne.  This person always spoke of
England as of the most treacherous country in the world, and stated
to her young pupils that she had been affreusement vole by natives
of that island.  It was no doubt compassion for her misfortunes
which induced the Marquis of Steyne to be so very kind to Madame de
Saint-Amaranthe.  May she flourish as she deserves--she appears no
more in our quarter of Vanity Fair.

Hearing a buzz and a stir below, and indignant at the impudence of
those servants who would not answer her summons, Mrs. Crawley flung
her morning robe round her and descended majestically to the
drawing-room, whence the noise proceeded.

The cook was there with blackened face, seated on the beautiful
chintz sofa by the side of Mrs. Raggles, to whom she was
administering Maraschino.  The page with the sugar-loaf buttons, who
carried about Becky's pink notes, and jumped about her little
carriage with such alacrity, was now engaged putting his fingers
into a cream dish; the footman was talking to Raggles, who had a
face full of perplexity and woe--and yet, though the door was open,
and Becky had been screaming a half-dozen of times a few feet off,
not one of her attendants had obeyed her call.  "Have a little drop,
do'ee now, Mrs. Raggles," the cook was saying as Becky entered, the
white cashmere dressing-gown flouncing around her.

"Simpson!  Trotter!" the mistress of the house cried in great wrath.
"How dare you stay here when you heard me call? How dare you sit
down in my presence? Where's my maid?" The page withdrew his fingers
from his mouth with a momentary terror, but the cook took off a
glass of Maraschino, of which Mrs. Raggles had had enough, staring
at Becky over the little gilt glass as she drained its contents.
The liquor appeared to give the odious rebel courage.

"YOUR sofy, indeed!" Mrs. Cook said.  "I'm a settin' on Mrs.
Raggles's sofy.  Don't you stir, Mrs. Raggles, Mum. I'm a settin' on
Mr. and Mrs. Raggles's sofy, which they bought with honest money,
and very dear it cost 'em, too.  And I'm thinkin' if I set here
until I'm paid my wages, I shall set a precious long time, Mrs.
Raggles; and set I will, too--ha!  ha!" and with this she filled
herself another glass of the liquor and drank it with a more
hideously satirical air.

"Trotter!  Simpson!  turn that drunken wretch out," screamed Mrs.
Crawley.

"I shawn't," said Trotter the footman; "turn out yourself.  Pay our
selleries, and turn me out too.  WE'LL go fast enough."

"Are you all here to insult me?" cried Becky in a fury; "when
Colonel Crawley comes home I'll--"

At this the servants burst into a horse haw-haw, in which, however,
Raggles, who still kept a most melancholy countenance, did not join.
"He ain't a coming back," Mr. Trotter resumed.  "He sent for his
things, and I wouldn't let 'em go, although Mr. Raggles would; and I
don't b'lieve he's no more a Colonel than I am.  He's hoff, and I
suppose you're a goin' after him.  You're no better than swindlers,
both on you.  Don't be a bullyin' ME.  I won't stand it.  Pay us our
selleries, I say.  Pay us our selleries." It was evident, from Mr.
Trotter's flushed countenance and defective intonation, that he,
too, had had recourse to vinous stimulus.

"Mr. Raggles," said Becky in a passion of vexation, "you will not
surely let me be insulted by that drunken man?" "Hold your noise,
Trotter; do now," said Simpson the page.  He was affected by his
mistress's deplorable situation, and succeeded in preventing an
outrageous denial of the epithet "drunken" on the footman's part.

"Oh, M'am," said Raggles, "I never thought to live to see this year
day:  I've known the Crawley family ever since I was born.  I lived
butler with Miss Crawley for thirty years; and I little thought one
of that family was a goin' to ruing me--yes, ruing me"--said the
poor fellow with tears in his eyes.  "Har you a goin' to pay me?
You've lived in this 'ouse four year.  You've 'ad my substance: my
plate and linning.  You ho me a milk and butter bill of two 'undred
pound, you must 'ave noo laid heggs for your homlets, and cream for
your spanil dog."

"She didn't care what her own flesh and blood had," interposed the
cook.  "Many's the time, he'd have starved but for me."

"He's a charaty-boy now, Cooky," said Mr. Trotter, with a drunken
"ha!  ha!"--and honest Raggles continued, in a lamentable tone, an
enumeration of his griefs.  All he said was true.  Becky and her
husband had ruined him. He had bills coming due next week and no
means to meet them.  He would be sold up and turned out of his shop
and his house, because he had trusted to the Crawley family.  His
tears and lamentations made Becky more peevish than ever.

"You all seem to be against me," she said bitterly. "What do you
want? I can't pay you on Sunday.  Come back to-morrow and I'll pay
you everything.  I thought Colonel Crawley had settled with you.  He
will to-morrow. I declare to you upon my honour that he left home
this morning with fifteen hundred pounds in his pocket-book. He has
left me nothing.  Apply to him.  Give me a bonnet and shawl and let
me go out and find him.  There was a difference between us this
morning.  You all seem to know it.  I promise you upon my word that
you shall all be paid.  He has got a good appointment.  Let me go
out and find him."

This audacious statement caused Raggles and the other personages
present to look at one another with a wild surprise, and with it
Rebecca left them.  She went upstairs and dressed herself this time
without the aid of her French maid.  She went into Rawdon's room,
and there saw that a trunk and bag were packed ready for removal,
with a pencil direction that they should be given when called for;
then she went into the Frenchwoman's garret; everything was clean,
and all the drawers emptied there. She bethought herself of the
trinkets which had been left on the ground and felt certain that the
woman had fled. "Good Heavens!  was ever such ill luck as mine?" she
said; "to be so near, and to lose all.  Is it all too late?" No;
there was one chance more.

She dressed herself and went away unmolested this time, but alone.
It was four o'clock.  She went swiftly down the streets (she had no
money to pay for a carriage), and never stopped until she came to
Sir Pitt Crawley's door, in Great Gaunt Street.  Where was Lady Jane
Crawley? She was at church.  Becky was not sorry. Sir Pitt was in
his study, and had given orders not to be disturbed--she must see
him--she slipped by the sentinel in livery at once, and was in Sir
Pitt's room before the astonished Baronet had even laid down the
paper.

He turned red and started back from her with a look of great alarm
and horror.

"Do not look so," she said.  "I am not guilty, Pitt, dear Pitt; you
were my friend once.  Before God, I am not guilty.  I seem so.
Everything is against me.  And oh!  at such a moment!  just when all
my hopes were about to be realized:  just when happiness was in
store for us."

"Is this true, what I see in the paper then?" Sir Pitt said--a
paragraph in which had greatly surprised him.

"It is true.  Lord Steyne told me on Friday night, the night of that
fatal ball.  He has been promised an appointment any time these six
months.  Mr. Martyr, the Colonial Secretary, told him yesterday that
it was made out. That unlucky arrest ensued; that horrible meeting.
I was only guilty of too much devotedness to Rawdon's service.  I
have received Lord Steyne alone a hundred times before. I confess I
had money of which Rawdon knew nothing. Don't you know how careless
he is of it, and could I dare to confide it to him?" And so she went
on with a perfectly connected story, which she poured into the ears
of her perplexed kinsman.

It was to the following effect.  Becky owned, and with prefect
frankness, but deep contrition, that having remarked Lord Steyne's
partiality for her (at the mention of which Pitt blushed), and being
secure of her own virtue, she had determined to turn the great
peer's attachment to the advantage of herself and her family.  "I
looked for a peerage for you, Pitt," she said (the brother-in-law
again turned red).  "We have talked about it.  Your genius and Lord
Steyne's interest made it more than probable, had not this dreadful
calamity come to put an end to all our hopes.  But, first, I own
that it was my object to rescue my dear husband--him whom I love in
spite of all his ill usage and suspicions of me--to remove him from
the poverty and ruin which was impending over us.  I saw Lord
Steyne's partiality for me," she said, casting down her eyes.  "I
own that I did everything in my power to make myself pleasing to
him, and as far as an honest woman may, to secure his--his esteem.
It was only on Friday morning that the news arrived of the death of
the Governor of Coventry Island, and my Lord instantly secured the
appointment for my dear husband. It was intended as a surprise for
him--he was to see it in the papers to-day.  Even after that horrid
arrest took place (the expenses of which Lord Steyne generously said
he would settle, so that I was in a manner prevented from coming to
my husband's assistance), my Lord was laughing with me, and saying
that my dearest Rawdon would be consoled when he read of his
appointment in the paper, in that shocking spun--bailiff's house.
And then--then he came home.  His suspicions were excited,--the
dreadful scene took place between my Lord and my cruel, cruel
Rawdon--and, O my God, what will happen next? Pitt, dear Pitt!  pity
me, and reconcile us!" And as she spoke she flung herself down on
her knees, and bursting into tears, seized hold of Pitt's hand,
which she kissed passionately.

It was in this very attitude that Lady Jane, who, returning from
church, ran to her husband's room directly she heard Mrs. Rawdon
Crawley was closeted there, found the Baronet and his sister-in-law.

"I am surprised that woman has the audacity to enter this house,"
Lady Jane said, trembling in every limb and turning quite pale.
(Her Ladyship had sent out her maid directly after breakfast, who
had communicated with Raggles and Rawdon Crawley's household, who
had told her all, and a great deal more than they knew, of that
story, and many others besides).  "How dare Mrs. Crawley to enter
the house of--of an honest family?"

Sir Pitt started back, amazed at his wife's display of vigour.
Becky still kept her kneeling posture and clung to Sir Pitt's hand.

"Tell her that she does not know all:  Tell her that I am innocent,
dear Pitt," she whimpered out.

"Upon-my word, my love, I think you do Mrs. Crawley injustice," Sir
Pitt said; at which speech Rebecca was vastly relieved.  "Indeed I
believe her to be--"

"To be what?" cried out Lady Jane, her clear voice thrilling and,
her heart beating violently as she spoke. "To be a wicked woman--a
heartless mother, a false wife? She never loved her dear little boy,
who used to fly here and tell me of her cruelty to him.  She never
came into a family but she strove to bring misery with her and to
weaken the most sacred affections with her wicked flattery and
falsehoods.  She has deceived her husband, as she has deceived
everybody; her soul is black with vanity, worldliness, and all sorts
of crime.  I tremble when I touch her.  I keep my children out of
her sight."

"Lady Jane!" cried Sir Pitt, starting up, "this is really language--"
"I have been a true and faithful wife to you, Sir Pitt," Lady
Jane continued, intrepidly; "I have kept my marriage vow as I made
it to God and have been obedient and gentle as a wife should.  But
righteous obedience has its limits, and I declare that I will not
bear that--that woman again under my roof; if she enters it, I and
my children will leave it.  She is not worthy to sit down with
Christian people.  You--you must choose, sir, between her and me";
and with this my Lady swept out of the room, fluttering with her own
audacity, and leaving Rebecca and Sir Pitt not a little astonished
at it.

As for Becky, she was not hurt; nay, she was pleased. "It was the
diamond-clasp you gave me," she said to Sir Pitt, reaching him out
her hand; and before she left him (for which event you may be sure
my Lady Jane was looking out from her dressing-room window in the
upper story) the Baronet had promised to go and seek out his
brother, and endeavour to bring about a reconciliation.

Rawdon found some of the young fellows of the regiment seated in the
mess-room at breakfast, and was induced without much difficulty to
partake of that meal, and of the devilled legs of fowls and soda-
water with which these young gentlemen fortified themselves.  Then
they had a conversation befitting the day and their time of life:
about the next pigeon-match at Battersea, with relative bets upon
Ross and Osbaldiston; about Mademoiselle Ariane of the French Opera,
and who had left her, and how she was consoled by Panther Carr; and
about the fight between the Butcher and the Pet, and the
probabilities that it was a cross.  Young Tandyman, a hero of
seventeen, laboriously endeavouring to get up a pair of mustachios,
had seen the fight, and spoke in the most scientific manner about
the battle and the condition of the men.  It was he who had driven
the Butcher on to the ground in his drag and passed the whole of the
previous night with him.  Had there not been foul play he must have
won it.  All the old files of the Ring were in it; and Tandyman
wouldn't pay; no, dammy, he wouldn't pay.  It was but a year since
the young Cornet, now so knowing a hand in Cribb's parlour, had a
still lingering liking for toffy, and used to be birched at Eton.

So they went on talking about dancers, fights, drinking, demireps,
until Macmurdo came down and joined the boys and the conversation.
He did not appear to think that any especial reverence was due to
their boyhood; the old fellow cut in with stories, to the full as
choice as any the youngest rake present had to tell--nor did his own
grey hairs nor their smooth faces detain him.  Old Mac was famous
for his good stories.  He was not exactly a lady's man; that is, men
asked him to dine rather at the houses of their mistresses than of
their mothers. There can scarcely be a life lower, perhaps, than
his, but he was quite contented with it, such as it was, and led it
in perfect good nature, simplicity, and modesty of demeanour.

By the time Mac had finished a copious breakfast, most of the others
had concluded their meal.  Young Lord Varinas was smoking an immense
Meerschaum pipe, while Captain Hugues was employed with a cigar:
that violent little devil Tandyman, with his little bull-terrier
between his legs, was tossing for shillings with all his might (that
fellow was always at some game or other) against Captain Deuceace;
and Mac and Rawdon walked off to the Club, neither, of course,
having given any hint of the business which was occupying their
minds.  Both, on the other hand, had joined pretty gaily in the
conversation, for why should they interrupt it? Feasting, drinking,
ribaldry, laughter, go on alongside of all sorts of other
occupations in Vanity Fair--the crowds were pouring out of church as
Rawdon and his friend passed down St.  James's Street and entered
into their Club.

The old bucks and habitues, who ordinarily stand gaping and grinning
out of the great front window of the Club, had not arrived at their
posts as yet--the newspaper-room was almost empty.  One man was
present whom Rawdon did not know; another to whom he owed a little
score for whist, and whom, in consequence, he did not care to meet;
a third was reading the Royalist (a periodical famous for its
scandal and its attachment to Church and King) Sunday paper at the
table, and looking up at Crawley with some interest, said, "Crawley,
I congratulate you."

"What do you mean?" said the Colonel.

"It's in the Observer and the Royalist too," said Mr. Smith.

"What?" Rawdon cried, turning very red.  He thought that the affair
with Lord Steyne was already in the public prints.  Smith looked up
wondering and smiling at the agitation which the Colonel exhibited
as he took up the paper and, trembling, began to read.

Mr. Smith and Mr. Brown (the gentleman with .whom Rawdon had the
outstanding whist account) had been talking about the Colonel just
before he came in.

"It is come just in the nick of time," said Smith.  "I suppose
Crawley had not a shilling in the world."

"It's a wind that blows everybody good," Mr. Brown said.  "He can't
go away without paying me a pony he owes me."

"What's the salary?" asked Smith.

"Two or three thousand," answered the other.  "But the climate's so
infernal, they don't enjoy it long. Liverseege died after eighteen
months of it, and the man before went off in six weeks, I hear."

"Some people say his brother is a very clever man.  I always found
him a d----- bore," Smith ejaculated.  "He must have good interest,
though.  He must have got the Colonel the place."

"He!" said Brown.  with a sneer.  "Pooh.  It was Lord Steyne got it.

"How do you mean?"

"A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband," answered the other
enigmatically, and went to read his papers.

Rawdon, for his part, read in the Royalist the following astonishing
paragraph:

GOVERNORSHIP OF COVENTRY ISLAND.--H.M.S. Yellowjack, Commander
Jaunders, has brought letters and papers from Coventry Island.  H.
E.  Sir Thomas Liverseege had fallen a victim to the prevailing
fever at Swampton.  His loss is deeply felt in the flourishing
colony.  We hear that the Governorship has been offered to Colonel
Rawdon Crawley, C.B., a distinguished Waterloo officer.  We need not
only men of acknowledged bravery, but men of administrative talents
to superintend the affairs of our colonies, and we have no doubt
that the gentleman selected by the Colonial Office to fill the
lamented vacancy which has occurred at Coventry Island is admirably
calculated for the post which he is about to occupy."

"Coventry Island!  Where was it? Who had appointed him to the
government? You must take me out as your secretary, old boy,"
Captain Macmurdo said laughing; and as Crawley and his friend sat
wondering and perplexed over the announcement, the Club waiter
brought in to the Colonel a card on which the name of Mr. Wenham was
engraved, who begged to see Colonel Crawley.

The Colonel and his aide-de-camp went out to meet the gentleman,
rightly conjecturing that he was an emissary of Lord Steyne.  "How
d'ye do, Crawley? I am glad to see you," said Mr. Wenham with a
bland smile, and grasping Crawley's hand with great cordiality.

"You come, I suppose, from--"

"Exactly," said Mr. Wenham.

"Then this is my friend Captain Macmurdo, of the Life Guards Green."

"Delighted to know Captain Macmurdo, I'm sure," Mr. Wenham said and
tendered another smile and shake of the hand to the second, as he
had done to the principal. Mac put out one finger, armed with a
buckskin glove, and made a very frigid bow to Mr. Wenham over his
tight cravat.  He was, perhaps, discontented at being put in
communication with a pekin, and thought that Lord Steyne should have
sent him a Colonel at the very least.

"As Macmurdo acts for me, and knows what I mean," Crawley said, "I
had better retire and leave you together."

"Of course," said Macmurdo.

"By no means, my dear Colonel," Mr. Wenham said; "the interview
which I had the honour of requesting was with you personally, though
the company of Captain Macmurdo cannot fail to be also most
pleasing.  In fact, Captain, I hope that our conversation will lead
to none but the most agreeable results, very different from those
which my friend Colonel Crawley appears to anticipate."

"Humph!" said Captain Macmurdo.  Be hanged to these civilians, he
thought to himself, they are always for arranging and speechifying.
Mr. Wenham took a chair which was not offered to him--took a paper
from his pocket, and resumed--

"You have seen this gratifying announcement in the papers this
morning, Colonel? Government has secured a most valuable servant,
and you, if you accept office, as I presume you will, an excellent
appointment.  Three thousand a year, delightful climate, excellent
government-house, all your own way in the Colony, and a certain
promotion.  I congratulate you with all my heart.  I presume you
know, gentlemen, to whom my friend is indebted for this piece of
patronage?"

"Hanged if I know," the Captain said; his principal turned very red.

"To one of the most generous and kindest men in the world, as he is
one of the greatest--to my excellent friend, the Marquis of Steyne."

"I'll see him d--- before I take his place," growled out Rawdon.

"You are irritated against my noble friend," Mr. Wenham calmly
resumed; "and now, in the name of common sense and justice, tell me
why?"

"WHY?" cried Rawdon in surprise.

"Why? Dammy!" said the Captain, ringing his stick on the ground.

"Dammy, indeed," said Mr. Wenham with the most agreeable smile;
"still, look at the matter as a man of the world--as an honest man--
and see if you have not been in the wrong.  You come home from a
journey, and find--what?--my Lord Steyne supping at your house in
Curzon Street with Mrs. Crawley.  Is the circumstance strange or
novel? Has he not been a hundred times before in the same position?
Upon my honour and word as a gentleman"--Mr. Wenham here put his
hand on his waistcoat with a parliamentary air--"I declare I think
that your suspicions are monstrous and utterly unfounded, and that
they injure an honourable gentleman who has proved his good-will
towards you by a thousand benefactions--and a most spotless and
innocent lady."

"You don't mean to say that--that Crawley's mistaken?" said Mr.
Macmurdo.

"I believe that Mrs. Crawley is as innocent as my wife, Mrs.
Wenham," Mr. Wenham said with great energy.  "I believe that, misled
by an infernal jealousy, my friend here strikes a blow against not
only an infirm and old man of high station, his constant friend and
benefactor, but against his wife, his own dearest honour, his son's
future reputation, and his own prospects in life."

"I will tell you what happened," Mr. Wenham continued with great
solemnity; "I was sent for this morning by my Lord Steyne, and found
him in a pitiable state, as, I need hardly inform Colonel Crawley,
any man of age and infirmity would be after a personal conflict with
a man of your strength.  I say to your face; it was a cruel
advantage you took of that strength, Colonel Crawley.  It was not
only the body of my noble and excellent friend which was wounded--
his heart, sir, was bleeding.  A man whom he had loaded with
benefits and regarded with affection had subjected him to the
foulest indignity.  What was this very appointment, which appears in
the journals of to-day, but a proof of his kindness to you? When I
saw his Lordship this morning I found him in a state pitiable indeed
to see, and as anxious as you are to revenge the outrage committed
upon him, by blood.  You know he has given his proofs, I presume,
Colonel Crawley?"

"He has plenty of pluck," said the Colonel.  "Nobody ever said he
hadn't."

"His first order to me was to write a letter of challenge, and to
carry it to Colonel Crawley.  One or other of us," he said, "must
not survive the outrage of last night."

Crawley nodded.  "You're coming to the point, Wenham," he said.

"I tried my utmost to calm Lord Steyne.  Good God! sir," I said,
"how I regret that Mrs. Wenham and myself had not accepted Mrs.
Crawley's invitation to sup with her!"

"She asked you to sup with her?" Captain Macmurdo said.

"After the opera.  Here's the note of invitation--stop--no, this is
another paper--I thought I had h, but it's of no consequence, and I
pledge you my word to the fact.  If we had come--and it was only one
of Mrs. Wenham's headaches which prevented us--she suffers under
them a good deal, especially in the spring--if we had come, and you
had returned home, there would have been no quarrel, no insult, no
suspicion--and so it is positively because my poor wife has a
headache that you are to bring death down upon two men of honour and
plunge two of the most excellent and ancient families in the kingdom
into disgrace and sorrow."

Mr. Macmurdo looked at his principal with the air of a man
profoundly puzzled, and Rawdon felt with a kind of rage that his
prey was escaping him.  He did not believe a word of the story, and
yet, how discredit or disprove it?

Mr. Wenham continued with the same fluent oratory, which in his
place in Parliament he had so often practised--"I sat for an hour or
more by Lord Steyne's bedside, beseeching, imploring Lord Steyne to
forego his intention of demanding a meeting.  I pointed out to him
that the circumstances were after all suspicious--they were
suspicious.  I acknowledge it--any man in your position might have
been taken in--I said that a man furious with jealousy is to all
intents and purposes a madman, and should be as such regarded--that
a duel between you must lead to the disgrace of all parties
concerned--that a man of his Lordship's exalted station had no right
in these days, when the most atrocious revolutionary principles, and
the most dangerous levelling doctrines are preached among the
vulgar, to create a public scandal; and that, however innocent, the
common people would insist that he was guilty.  In fine, I implored
him not to send the challenge."

"I don't believe one word of the whole story," said Rawdon, grinding
his teeth.  "I believe it a d----- lie, and that you're in it, Mr.
Wenham.  If the challenge don't come from him, by Jove it shall come
from me."

Mr. Wenham turned deadly pale at this savage interruption of the
Colonel and looked towards the door.

But he found a champion in Captain Macmurdo.  That gentleman rose up
with an oath and rebuked Rawdon for his language.  "You put the
affair into my hands, and you shall act as I think fit, by Jove, and
not as you do. You have no right to insult Mr. Wenham with this sort
of language; and dammy, Mr. Wenham, you deserve an apology.  And as
for a challenge to Lord Steyne, you may get somebody else to carry
it, I won't.  If my lord, after being thrashed, chooses to sit
still, dammy let him. And as for the affair with--with Mrs. Crawley,
my belief is, there's nothing proved at all:  that your wife's
innocent, as innocent as Mr. Wenham says she is; and at any rate
that you would be a d--fool not to take the place and hold your
tongue."

"Captain Macmurdo, you speak like a man of sense," Mr. Wenham cried
out, immensely relieved--"I forget any words that Colonel Crawley
has used in the irritation of the moment."

"I thought you would," Rawdon said with a sneer.

"Shut your mouth, you old stoopid," the Captain said good-naturedly.
"Mr. Wenham ain't a fighting man; and quite right, too."

"This matter, in my belief," the Steyne emissary cried, "ought to be
buried in the most profound oblivion.  A word concerning it should
never pass these doors.  I speak in the interest of my friend, as
well as of Colonel Crawley, who persists in considering me his
enemy."

"I suppose Lord Steyne won't talk about it very much," said Captain
Macmurdo; "and I don't see why our side should.  The affair ain't a
very pretty one, any way you take it, and the less said about it the
better. It's you are thrashed, and not us; and if you are satisfied,
why, I think, we should be."

Mr. Wenham took his hat, upon this, and Captain Macmurdo following
him to the door, shut it upon himself and Lord Steyne's agent,
leaving Rawdon chafing within.  When the two were on the other side,
Macmurdo looked hard at the other ambassador and with an expression
of anything but respect on his round jolly face.

"You don't stick at a trifle, Mr. Wenham," he said.

"You flatter me, Captain Macmurdo," answered the other with a smile.
"Upon my honour and conscience now, Mrs. Crawley did ask us to sup
after the opera."

"Of course; and Mrs. Wenham had one of her head-aches.  I say, I've
got a thousand-pound note here, which I will give you if you will
give me a receipt, please; and I will put the note up in an envelope
for Lord Steyne. My man shan't fight him.  But we had rather not
take his money."

"It was all a mistake--all a mistake, my dear sir," the other said
with the utmost innocence of manner; and was bowed down the Club
steps by Captain Macmurdo, just as Sir Pitt Crawley ascended them.
There was a slight acquaintance between these two gentlemen, and the
Captain, going back with the Baronet to the room where the latter's
brother was, told Sir Pitt, in confidence, that he had made the
affair all right between Lord Steyne and the Colonel.

Sir Pitt was well pleased, of course, at this intelligence, and
congratulated his brother warmly upon the peaceful issue of the
affair, making appropriate moral remarks upon the evils of duelling
and the unsatisfactory nature of that sort of settlement of
disputes.

And after this preface, he tried with all his eloquence to effect a
reconciliation between Rawdon and his wife. He recapitulated the
statements which Becky had made, pointed out the probabilities of
their truth, and asserted his own firm belief in her innocence.

But Rawdon would not hear of it.  "She has kep money concealed from
me these ten years," he said "She swore, last night only, she had
none from Steyne.  She knew it was all up, directly I found it.  If
she's not guilty, Pitt, she's as bad as guilty, and I'll never see
her again--never." His head sank down on his chest as he spoke the
words, and he looked quite broken and sad.

"Poor old boy," Macmurdo said, shaking his head.

Rawdon Crawley resisted for some time the idea of taking the place
which had been procured for him by so odious a patron, and was also
for removing the boy from the school where Lord Steyne's interest
had placed him.  He was induced, however, to acquiesce in these
benefits by the entreaties of his brother and Macmurdo, but mainly
by the latter, pointing out to him what a fury Steyne would be in to
think that his enemy's fortune was made through his means.

When the Marquis of Steyne came abroad after his accident, the
Colonial Secretary bowed up to him and congratulated himself and the
Service upon having made so excellent an appointment.  These
congratulations were received with a degree of gratitude which may
be imagined on the part of Lord Steyne.

The secret of the rencontre between him and Colonel Crawley was
buried in the profoundest oblivion, as Wenham said; that is, by the
seconds and the principals. But before that evening was over it was
talked of at fifty dinner-tables in Vanity Fair.  Little Cackleby
himself went to seven evening parties and told the story with
comments and emendations at each place.  How Mrs. Washington White
revelled in it!  The Bishopess of Ealing was shocked beyond
expression; the Bishop went and wrote his name down in the visiting-
book at Gaunt House that very day.  Little Southdown was sorry; so
you may be sure was his sister Lady Jane, very sorry.  Lady
Southdown wrote it off to her other daughter at the Cape of Good
Hope.  It was town-talk for at least three days, and was only kept
out of the newspapers by the exertions of Mr. Wagg, acting upon a
hint from Mr. Wenham.

The bailiffs and brokers seized upon poor Raggles in Curzon Street,
and the late fair tenant of that poor little mansion was in the
meanwhile--where? Who cared!  Who asked after a day or two? Was she
guilty or not? We all know how charitable the world is, and how the
verdict of Vanity Fair goes when there is a doubt.  Some people said
she had gone to Naples in pursuit of Lord Steyne, whilst others
averred that his Lordship quitted that city and fled to Palermo on
hearing of Becky's arrival; some said she was living in Bierstadt,
and had become a dame d'honneur to the Queen of Bulgaria; some that
she was at Boulogne; and others, at a boarding-house at Cheltenham.

Rawdon made her a tolerable annuity, and we may be sure that she was
a woman who could make a little money go a great way, as the saying
is.  He would have paid his debts on leaving England, could he have
got any Insurance Office to take his life, but the climate of
Coventry Island was so bad that he could borrow no money on the
strength of his salary.  He remitted, however, to his brother
punctually, and wrote to his little boy regularly every mail.  He
kept Macmurdo in cigars and sent over quantities of shells, cayenne
pepper, hot pickles, guava jelly, and colonial produce to Lady Jane.
He sent his brother home the Swamp Town Gazette, in which the new
Governor was praised with immense enthusiasm; whereas the Swamp Town
Sentinel, whose wife was not asked to Government House, declared
that his Excellency was a tyrant, compared to whom Nero was an
enlightened philanthropist.  Little Rawdon used to like to get the
papers and read about his Excellency.

His mother never made any movement to see the child. He went home to
his aunt for Sundays and holidays; he soon knew every bird's nest
about Queen's Crawley, and rode out with Sir Huddlestone's hounds,
which he admired so on his first well-remembered visit to Hampshire.



CHAPTER LVI

Georgy is Made a Gentleman


Georgy Osborne was now fairly established in his grandfather's
mansion in Russell Square, occupant of his father's room in the
house and heir apparent of all the splendours there.  The good
looks, gallant bearing, and gentlemanlike appearance of the boy won
the grandsire's heart for him.  Mr. Osborne was as proud of him as
ever he had been of the elder George.

The child had many more luxuries and indulgences than had been
awarded his father.  Osborne's commerce had prospered greatly of
late years.  His wealth and importance in the City had very much
increased.  He had been glad enough in former days to put the elder
George to a good private school; and a commission in the army for
his son had been a source of no small pride to him; for little
George and his future prospects the old man looked much higher.  He
would make a gentleman of the little chap, was Mr. Osborne's
constant saying regarding little Georgy.  He saw him in his mind's
eye, a collegian, a Parliament man, a Baronet, perhaps.  The old man
thought he would die contented if he could see his grandson in a
fair way to such honours.  He would have none but a tip-top college
man to educate him--none of your quacks and pretenders--no, no.  A
few years before, he used to be savage, and inveigh against all
parsons, scholars, and the like declaring that they were a pack of
humbugs, and quacks that weren't fit to get their living but by
grinding Latin and Greek, and a set of supercilious dogs that
pretended to look down upon British merchants and gentlemen, who
could buy up half a hundred of 'em.  He would mourn now, in a very
solemn manner, that his own education had been neglected, and
repeatedly point out, in pompous orations to Georgy, the necessity
and excellence of classical acquirements.

When they met at dinner the grandsire used to ask the lad what he
had been reading during the day, and was greatly interested at the
report the boy gave of his own studies, pretending to understand
little George when he spoke regarding them.  He made a hundred
blunders and showed his ignorance many a time.  It did not increase
the respect which the child had for his senior. A quick brain and a
better education elsewhere showed the boy very soon that his
grandsire was a dullard, and he began accordingly to command him and
to look down upon him; for his previous education, humble and
contracted as it had been, had made a much better gentleman of
Georgy than any plans of his grandfather could make him.  He had
been brought up by a kind, weak, and tender woman, who had no pride
about anything but about him, and whose heart was so pure and whose
bearing was so meek and humble that she could not but needs be a
true lady.  She busied herself in gentle offices and quiet duties;
if she never said brilliant things, she never spoke or thought
unkind ones; guileless and artless, loving and pure, indeed how
could our poor little Amelia be other than a real gentlewoman!

Young Georgy lorded over this soft and yielding nature; and the
contrast of its simplicity and delicacy with the coarse pomposity of
the dull old man with whom he next came in contact made him lord
over the latter too.  If he had been a Prince Royal he could not
have been better brought up to think well of himself.

Whilst his mother was yearning after him at home, and I do believe
every hour of the day, and during most hours of the sad lonely
nights, thinking of him, this young gentleman had a number of
pleasures and consolations administered to him, which made him for
his part bear the separation from Amelia very easily.  Little boys
who cry when they are going to school cry because they are going to
a very uncomfortable place.  It is only a few who weep from sheer
affection.  When you think that the eyes of your childhood dried at
the sight of a piece of gingerbread, and that a plum cake was a
compensation for the agony of parting with your mamma and sisters,
oh my friend and brother, you need not be too confident of your own
fine feelings.

Well, then, Master George Osborne had every comfort and luxury that
a wealthy and lavish old grandfather thought fit to provide.  The
coachman was instructed to purchase for him the handsomest pony
which could be bought for money, and on this George was taught to
ride, first at a riding-school, whence, after having performed
satisfactorily without stirrups, and over the leaping-bar, he was
conducted through the New Road to Regent's Park, and then to Hyde
Park, where he rode in state with Martin the coachman behind him.
Old Osborne, who took matters more easily in the City now, where he
left his affairs to his junior partners, would often ride out with
Miss O.  in the same fashionable direction. As little Georgy came
cantering up with his dandified air and his heels down, his
grandfather would nudge the lad's aunt and say, "Look, Miss O." And
he would laugh, and his face would grow red with pleasure, as he
nodded out of the window to the boy, as the groom saluted the
carriage, and the footman saluted Master George.  Here too his aunt,
Mrs. Frederick Bullock (whose chariot might daily be seen in the
Ring, with bullocks or emblazoned on the panels and harness, and
three pasty-faced little Bullocks, covered with cockades and
feathers, staring from the windows) Mrs. Frederick Bullock, I say,
flung glances of the bitterest hatred at the little upstart as he
rode by with his hand on his side and his hat on one ear, as proud
as a lord.

Though he was scarcely eleven years of age, Master George wore
straps and the most beautiful little boots like a man.  He had gilt
spurs, and a gold-headed whip, and a fine pin in his handkerchief,
and the neatest little kid gloves which Lamb's Conduit Street could
furnish. His mother had given him a couple of neckcloths, and
carefully hemmed and made some little shirts for him; but when her
Eli came to see the widow, they were replaced by much finer linen.
He had little jewelled buttons in the lawn shirt fronts.  Her humble
presents had been put aside--I believe Miss Osborne had given them
to the coachman's boy.  Amelia tried to think she was pleased at the
change.  Indeed, she was happy and charmed to see the boy looking so
beautiful.

She had had a little black profile of him done for a shilling, and
this was hung up by the side of another portrait over her bed.  One
day the boy came on his accustomed visit, galloping down the little
street at Brompton, and bringing, as usual, all the inhabitants to
the windows to admire his splendour, and with great eagerness and a
look of triumph in his face, he pulled a case out of his great-coat
--it was a natty white great-coat, with a cape and a velvet collar--
pulled out a red morocco case, which he gave her.

"I bought it with my own money, Mamma," he said. "I thought you'd
like it."

Amelia opened the case, and giving a little cry of delighted
affection, seized the boy and embraced him a hundred times.  It was
a miniature-of himself, very prettily done (though not half handsome
enough, we may be sure, the widow thought).  His grandfather had
wished to have a picture of him by an artist whose works, exhibited
in a shop-window, in Southampton Row, had caught the old gentleman's
eye; and George, who had plenty of money, bethought him of asking
the painter how much a copy of the little portrait would cost,
saying that he would pay for it out of his own money and that he
wanted to give it to his mother.  The pleased painter executed it
for a small price, and old Osborne himself, when he heard of the
incident, growled out his satisfaction and gave the boy twice as
many sovereigns as he paid for the miniature.

But what was the grandfather's pleasure compared to Amelia's
ecstacy? That proof of the boy's affection charmed her so that she
thought no child in the world was like hers for goodness.  For long
weeks after, the thought of his love made her happy.  She slept
better with the picture under her pillow, and how many many times
did she kiss it and weep and pray over it!  A small kindness from
those she loved made that timid heart grateful.  Since her parting
with George she had had no such joy and consolation.

At his new home Master George ruled like a lord; at dinner he
invited the ladies to drink wine with the utmost coolness, and took
off his champagne in a way which charmed his old grandfather.  "Look
at him," the old man would say, nudging his neighbour with a
delighted purple face, "did you ever see such a chap? Lord, Lord!
he'll be ordering a dressing-case next, and razors to shave with;
I'm blessed if he won't."

The antics of the lad did not, however, delight Mr. Osborne's
friends so much as they pleased the old gentleman.  It gave Mr.
Justice Coffin no pleasure to hear Georgy cut into the conversation
and spoil his stories. Colonel Fogey was not interested in seeing
the little boy half tipsy.  Mr. Sergeant Toffy's lady felt no
particular gratitude, when, with a twist of his elbow, he tilted a
glass of port-wine over her yellow satin and laughed at the
disaster; nor was she better pleased, although old Osborne was
highly delighted, when Georgy "whopped" her third boy (a young
gentleman a year older than Georgy, and by chance home for the
holidays from Dr. Tickleus's at Ealing School) in Russell Square.
George's grandfather gave the boy a couple of sovereigns for that
feat and promised to reward him further for every boy above his own
size and age whom he whopped in a similar manner.  It is difficult
to say what good the old man saw in these combats; he had a vague
notion that quarrelling made boys hardy, and that tyranny was a
useful accomplishment for them to learn.  English youth have been so
educated time out of mind, and we have hundreds of thousands of
apologists and admirers of injustice, misery, and brutality, as
perpetrated among children.  Flushed with praise and victory over
Master Toffy, George wished naturally to pursue his conquests
further, and one day as he was strutting about in prodigiously
dandified new clothes, near St.  Pancras, and a young baker's boy
made sarcastic comments upon his appearance, the youthful patrician
pulled off his dandy jacket with great spirit, and giving it in
charge to the friend who accompanied him (Master Todd, of Great
Coram Street, Russell Square, son of the junior partner of the house
of Osborne and Co.), George tried to whop the little baker.  But the
chances of war were unfavourable this time, and the little baker
whopped Georgy, who came home with a rueful black eye and all his
fine shirt frill dabbled with the claret drawn from his own little
nose.  He told his grandfather that he had been in combat with a
giant, and frightened his poor mother at Brompton with long, and by
no means authentic, accounts of the battle.

This young Todd, of Coram Street, Russell Square, was Master
George's great friend and admirer.  They both had a taste for
painting theatrical characters; for hardbake and raspberry tarts;
for sliding and skating in the Regent's Park and the Serpentine,
when the weather permitted; for going to the play, whither they were
often conducted, by Mr. Osborne's orders, by Rowson, Master George's
appointed body-servant, with whom they sat in great comfort in the
pit.

In the company of this gentleman they visited all the principal
theatres of the metropolis; knew the names of all the actors from
Drury Lane to Sadler's Wells; and performed, indeed, many of the
plays to the Todd family and their youthful friends, with West's
famous characters, on their pasteboard theatre.  Rowson, the
footman, who was of a generous disposition, would not unfrequently,
when in cash, treat his young master to oysters after the play, and
to a glass of rum-shrub for a night-cap. We may be pretty certain
that Mr. Rowson profited in his turn by his young master's
liberality and gratitude for the pleasures to which the footman
inducted him.

A famous tailor from the West End of the town--Mr. Osborne would
have none of your City or Holborn bunglers, he said, for the boy
(though a City tailor was good enough for HIM)--was summoned to
ornament little George's person, and was told to spare no expense in
so doing.  So, Mr. Woolsey, of Conduit Street, gave a loose to his
imagination and sent the child home fancy trousers, fancy
waistcoats, and fancy jackets enough to furnish a school of little
dandies.  Georgy had little white waistcoats for evening parties,
and little cut velvet waistcoats for dinners, and a dear little
darling shawl dressing-gown, for all the world like a little man.
He dressed for dinner every day, "like a regular West End swell," as
his grandfather remarked; one of the domestics was affected to his
special service, attended him at his toilette, answered his bell,
and brought him his letters always on a silver tray.

Georgy, after breakfast, would sit in the arm-chair in the dining-
room and read the Morning Post, just like a grown-up man.  "How he
DU dam and swear," the servants would cry, delighted at his
precocity.  Those who remembered the Captain his father, declared
Master George was his Pa, every inch of him.  He made the house
lively by his activity, his imperiousness, his scolding, and his
good-nature.

George's education was confided to a neighbouring scholar and
private pedagogue who "prepared young noblemen and gentlemen for the
Universities, the senate, and the learned professions:  whose system
did not embrace the degrading corporal severities still practised at
the ancient places of education, and in whose family the pupils
would find the elegances of refined society and the confidence and
affection of a home." It was in this way that the Reverend Lawrence
Veal of Hart Street, Bloomsbury, and domestic Chaplain to the Earl
of Bareacres, strove with Mrs. Veal his wife to entice pupils.

By thus advertising and pushing sedulously, the domestic Chaplain
and his Lady generally succeeded in having one or two scholars by
them--who paid a high figure and were thought to be in uncommonly
comfortable quarters.  There was a large West Indian, whom nobody
came to see, with a mahogany complexion, a woolly head, and an
exceedingly dandyfied appearance; there was another hulking boy of
three-and-twenty whose education had been neglected and whom Mr. and
Mrs. Veal were to introduce into the polite world; there were two
sons of Colonel Bangles of the East India Company's Service:  these
four sat down to dinner at Mrs. Veal's genteel board, when Georgy
was introduced to her establishment.

Georgy was, like some dozen other pupils, only a day boy; he arrived
in the morning under the guardianship of his friend Mr. Rowson, and
if it was fine, would ride away in the afternoon on his pony,
followed by the groom.  The wealth of his grandfather was reported
in the school to be prodigious.  The Rev.  Mr. Veal used to
compliment Georgy upon it personally, warning him that he was
destined for a high station; that it became him to prepare, by
sedulity and docility in youth, for the lofty duties to which he
would be called in mature age; that obedience in the child was the
best preparation for command in the man; and that he therefore
begged George would not bring toffee into the school and ruin the
health of the Masters Bangles, who had everything they wanted at the
elegant and abundant table of Mrs. Veal.

With respect to learning, "the Curriculum," as Mr. Veal loved to
call it, was of prodigious extent, and the young gentlemen in Hart
Street might learn a something of every known science.  The Rev.
Mr. Veal had an orrery, an electrifying machine, a turning lathe, a
theatre (in the wash-house), a chemical apparatus, and what he
called a select library of all the works of the best authors of
ancient and modern times and languages. He took the boys to the
British Museum and descanted upon the antiquities and the specimens
of natural history there, so that audiences would gather round him
as he spoke, and all Bloomsbury highly admired him as a prodigiously
well-informed man.  And whenever he spoke (which he did almost
always), he took care to produce the very finest and longest words
of which the vocabulary gave him the use, rightly judging that it
was as cheap to employ a handsome, large, and sonorous epithet, as
to use a little stingy one.

Thus he would say to George in school, "I observed on my return home
from taking the indulgence of an evening's scientific conversation
with my excellent friend Doctor Bulders--a true archaeologian,
gentlemen, a true archaeologian--that the windows of your venerated
grandfather's almost princely mansion in Russell Square were
illuminated as if for the purposes of festivity.  Am I right in my
conjecture that Mr. Osborne entertained a society of chosen spirits
round his sumptuous board last night?"

Little Georgy, who had considerable humour, and used to mimic Mr.
Veal to his face with great spirit and dexterity, would reply that
Mr. V.  was quite correct in his surmise.

"Then those friends who had the honour of partaking of Mr. Osborne's
hospitality, gentlemen, had no reason, I will lay any wager, to
complain of their repast.  I myself have been more than once so
favoured.  (By the way, Master Osborne, you came a little late this
morning, and have been a defaulter in this respect more than once.)
I myself, I say, gentlemen, humble as I am, have been found not
unworthy to share Mr. Osborne's elegant hospitality.  And though I
have feasted with the great and noble of the world--for I presume
that I may call my excellent friend and patron, the Right Honourable
George Earl of Bareacres, one of the number--yet I assure you that
the board of the British merchant was to the full as richly served,
and his reception as gratifying and noble.  Mr. Bluck, sir, we will
resume, if you please, that passage of Eutropis, which was
interrupted by the late arrival of Master Osborne."

To this great man George's education was for some time entrusted.
Amelia was bewildered by his phrases, but thought him a prodigy of
learning.  That poor widow made friends of Mrs. Veal, for reasons of
her own.  She liked to be in the house and see Georgy coming to
school there.  She liked to be asked to Mrs. Veal's conversazioni,
which took place once a month (as you were informed on pink cards,
with AOHNH engraved on them), and where the professor welcomed his
pupils and their friends to weak tea and scientific conversation.
Poor little Amelia never missed one of these entertainments and
thought them delicious so long as she might have Georgy sitting by
her. And she would walk from Brompton in any weather, and embrace
Mrs. Veal with tearful gratitude for the delightful evening she had
passed, when, the company having retired and Georgy gone off with
Mr. Rowson, his attendant, poor Mrs. Osborne put on her cloaks and
her shawls preparatory to walking home.

As for the learning which Georgy imbibed under this valuable master
of a hundred sciences, to judge from the weekly reports which the
lad took home to his grandfather, his progress was remarkable.  The
names of a score or more of desirable branches of knowledge were
printed in a table, and the pupil's progress in each was marked by
the professor.  In Greek Georgy was pronounced aristos, in Latin
optimus, in French tres bien, and so forth; and everybody had prizes
for everything at the end of the year.  Even Mr. Swartz, the wooly-
headed young gentleman, and half-brother to the Honourable Mrs. Mac
Mull, and Mr. Bluck, the neglected young pupil of three-and-twenty
from the agricultural district, and that idle young scapegrace of a
Master Todd before mentioned, received little eighteen-penny books,
with "Athene" engraved on them, and a pompous Latin inscription from
the professor to his young friends.

The family of this Master Todd were hangers-on of the house of
Osborne.  The old gentleman had advanced Todd from being a clerk to
be a junior partner in his establishment.

Mr. Osborne was the godfather of young Master Todd (who in
subsequent life wrote Mr. Osborne Todd on his cards and became a man
of decided fashion), while Miss Osborne had accompanied Miss Maria
Todd to the font, and gave her protegee a prayer-book, a collection
of tracts, a volume of very low church poetry, or some such memento
of her goodness every year.  Miss O.  drove the Todds out in her
carriage now and then; when they were ill, her footman, in large
plush smalls and waistcoat, brought jellies and delicacies from
Russell Square to Coram Street.  Coram Street trembled and looked up
to Russell Square indeed, and Mrs. Todd, who had a pretty hand at
cutting out paper trimmings for haunches of mutton, and could make
flowers, ducks, &c., out of turnips and carrots in a very creditable
manner, would go to "the Square," as it was called, and assist in
the preparations incident to a great dinner, without even so much as
thinking of sitting down to the banquet.  If any guest failed at the
eleventh hour, Todd was asked to dine.  Mrs. Todd and Maria came
across in the evening, slipped in with a muffled knock, and were in
the drawing-room by the time Miss Osborne and the ladies under her
convoy reached that apartment--and ready to fire off duets and sing
until the gentlemen came up.  Poor Maria Todd; poor young lady!  How
she had to work and thrum at these duets and sonatas in the Street,
before they appeared in public in the Square!

Thus it seemed to be decreed by fate that Georgy was to domineer
over everybody with whom he came in contact, and that friends,
relatives, and domestics were all to bow the knee before the little
fellow.  It must be owned that he accommodated himself very
willingly to this arrangement.  Most people do so.  And Georgy liked
to play the part of master and perhaps had a natural aptitude for
it.

In Russell Square everybody was afraid of Mr. Osborne, and Mr.
Osborne was afraid of Georgy.  The boy's dashing manners, and
offhand rattle about books and learning, his likeness to his father
(dead unreconciled in Brussels yonder) awed the old gentleman and
gave the young boy the mastery.  The old man would start at some
hereditary feature or tone unconsciously used by the little lad, and
fancy that George's father was again before him.  He tried by
indulgence to the grandson to make up for harshness to the elder
George.  People were surprised at his gentleness to the boy.  He
growled and swore at Miss Osborne as usual, and would smile when
George came down late for breakfast.

Miss Osborne, George's aunt, was a faded old spinster, broken down
by more than forty years of dulness and coarse usage.  It was easy
for a lad of spirit to master her. And whenever George wanted
anything from her, from the jam-pots in her cupboards to the cracked
and dry old colours in her paint-box (the old paint-box which she
had had when she was a pupil of Mr. Smee and was still almost young
and blooming), Georgy took possession of the object of his desire,
which obtained, he took no further notice of his aunt.

For his friends and cronies, he had a pompous old schoolmaster, who
flattered him, and a toady, his senior, whom he could thrash.  It
was dear Mrs. Todd's delight to leave him with her youngest
daughter, Rosa Jemima, a darling child of eight years old.  The
little pair looked so well together, she would say (but not to the
folks in "the Square," we may be sure) "who knows what might happen?
Don't they make a pretty little couple?" the fond mother thought.

The broken-spirited, old, maternal grandfather was likewise subject
to the little tyrant.  He could not help respecting a lad who had
such fine clothes and rode with a groom behind him.  Georgy, on his
side, was in the constant habit of hearing coarse abuse and vulgar
satire levelled at John Sedley by his pitiless old enemy, Mr.
Osborne.  Osborne used to call the other the old pauper, the old
coal-man, the old bankrupt, and by many other such names of brutal
contumely.  How was little George to respect a man so prostrate? A
few months after he was with his paternal grandfather, Mrs. Sedley
died. There had been little love between her and the child. He did
not care to show much grief.  He came down to visit his mother in a
fine new suit of mourning, and was very angry that he could not go
to a play upon which he had set his heart.

The illness of that old lady had been the occupation and perhaps the
safeguard of Amelia.  What do men know about women's martyrdoms? We
should go mad had we to endure the hundredth part of those daily
pains which are meekly borne by many women.  Ceaseless slavery
meeting with no reward; constant gentleness and kindness met by
cruelty as constant; love, labour, patience, watchfulness, without
even so much as the acknowledgement of a good word; all this, how
many of them have to bear in quiet, and appear abroad with cheerful
faces as if they felt nothing.  Tender slaves that they are, they
must needs be hypocrites and weak.

From her chair Amelia's mother had taken to her bed, which she had
never left, and from which Mrs. Osborne herself was never absent
except when she ran to see George.  The old lady grudged her even
those rare visits; she, who had been a kind, smiling, good-natured
mother once, in the days of her prosperity, but whom poverty and
infirmities had broken down.  Her illness or estrangement did not
affect Amelia.  They rather enabled her to support the other
calamity under which she was suffering, and from the thoughts of
which she was kept by the ceaseless calls of the invalid.  Amelia
bore her harshness quite gently; smoothed the uneasy pillow; was
always ready with a soft answer to the watchful, querulous voice;
soothed the sufferer with words of hope, such as her pious simple
heart could best feel and utter, and closed the eyes that had once
looked so tenderly upon her.

Then all her time and tenderness were devoted to the consolation and
comfort of the bereaved old father, who was stunned by the blow
which had befallen him, and stood utterly alone in the world.  His
wife, his honour, his fortune, everything he loved best had fallen
away from him.  There was only Amelia to stand by and support with
her gentle arms the tottering, heart-broken old man. We are not
going to write the history:  it would be too dreary and stupid.  I
can see Vanity Fair yawning over it d'avance.

One day as the young gentlemen were assembled in the study at the
Rev.  Mr. Veal's, and the domestic chaplain to the Right Honourable
the Earl of Bareacres was spouting away as usual, a smart carriage
drove up to the door decorated with the statue of Athene, and two
gentlemen stepped out.  The young Masters Bangles rushed to the
window with a vague notion that their father might have arrived from
Bombay.  The great hulking scholar of three-and-twenty, who was
crying secretly over a passage of Eutropius, flattened his neglected
nose against the panes and looked at the drag, as the laquais de
place sprang from the box and let out the persons in the carriage.

"It's a fat one and a thin one," Mr. Bluck said as a thundering
knock came to the door.

Everybody was interested, from the domestic chaplain himself, who
hoped he saw the fathers of some future pupils, down to Master
Georgy, glad of any pretext for laying his book down.

The boy in the shabby livery with the faded copper buttons, who
always thrust himself into the tight coat to open the door, came
into the study and said, "Two gentlemen want to see Master Osborne."
The professor had had a trifling altercation in the morning with
that young gentleman, owing to a difference about the introduction
of crackers in school-time; but his face resumed its habitual
expression of bland courtesy as he said, "Master Osborne, I give you
full permission to go and see your carriage friends--to whom I beg
you to convey the respectful compliments of myself and Mrs. Veal."

Georgy went into the reception-room and saw two strangers, whom he
looked at with his head up, in his usual haughty manner.  One was
fat, with mustachios, and the other was lean and long, in a blue
frock-coat, with a brown face and a grizzled head.

"My God, how like he is!" said the long gentleman with a start.
"Can you guess who we are, George?"

The boy's face flushed up, as it did usually when he was moved, and
his eyes brightened.  "I don't know the other," he said, "but I
should think you must be Major Dobbin."

Indeed it was our old friend.  His voice trembled with pleasure as
he greeted the boy, and taking both the other's hands in his own,
drew the lad to him.

"Your mother has talked to you about me--has she?" he said.

"That she has," Georgy answered, "hundreds and hundreds of times."



CHAPTER LVII

Eothen


It was one of the many causes for personal pride with which old
Osborne chose to recreate himself that Sedley, his ancient rival,
enemy, and benefactor, was in his last days so utterly defeated and
humiliated as to be forced to accept pecuniary obligations at the
hands of the man who had most injured and insulted him.  The
successful man of the world cursed the old pauper and relieved him
from time to time.  As he furnished George with money for his
mother, he gave the boy to understand by hints, delivered in his
brutal, coarse way, that George's maternal grandfather was but a
wretched old bankrupt and dependant, and that John Sedley might
thank the man to whom he already owed ever so much money for the aid
which his generosity now chose to administer.  George carried the
pompous supplies to his mother and the shattered old widower whom it
was now the main business of her life to tend and comfort.  The
little fellow patronized the feeble and disappointed old man.

It may have shown a want of "proper pride" in Amelia that she chose
to accept these money benefits at the hands of her father's enemy.
But proper pride and this poor lady had never had much acquaintance
together. A disposition naturally simple and demanding protection; a
long course of poverty and humility, of daily privations, and hard
words, of kind offices and no returns, had been her lot ever since
womanhood almost, or since her luckless marriage with George
Osborne.  You who see your betters bearing up under this shame every
day, meekly suffering under the slights of fortune, gentle and
unpitied, poor, and rather despised for their poverty, do you ever
step down from your prosperity and wash the feet of these poor
wearied beggars? The very thought of them is odious and low.  "There
must be classes--there must be rich and poor," Dives says, smacking
his claret (it is well if he even sends the broken meat out to
Lazarus sitting under the window).  Very true; but think how
mysterious and often unaccountable it is--that lottery of life which
gives to this man the purple and fine linen and sends to the other
rags for garments and dogs for comforters.

So I must own that, without much repining, on the contrary with
something akin to gratitude, Amelia took the crumbs that her father-
in-law let drop now and then, and with them fed her own parent.
Directly she understood it to be her duty, it was this young woman's
nature (ladies, she is but thirty still, and we choose to call her a
young woman even at that age) it was, I say, her nature to sacrifice
herself and to fling all that she had at the feet of the beloved
object.  During what long thankless nights had she worked out her
fingers for little Georgy whilst at home with her; what buffets,
scorns, privations, poverties had she endured for father and mother!
And in the midst of all these solitary resignations and unseen
sacrifices, she did not respect herself any more than the world
respected her, but I believe thought in her heart that she was a
poor-spirited, despicable little creature, whose luck in life was
only too good for her merits.  O you poor women!  O you poor secret
martyrs and victims, whose life is a torture, who are stretched on
racks in your bedrooms, and who lay your heads down on the block
daily at the drawing-room table; every man who watches your pains,
or peers into those dark places where the torture is administered to
you, must pity you--and--and thank God that he has a beard.  I
recollect seeing, years ago, at the prisons for idiots and madmen at
Bicetre, near Paris, a poor wretch bent down under the bondage of
his imprisonment and his personal infirmity, to whom one of our
party gave a halfpenny worth of snuff in a cornet or "screw" of
paper.  The kindness was too much for the poor epileptic creature.
He cried in an anguish of delight and gratitude:  if anybody gave
you and me a thousand a year, or saved our lives, we could not be so
affected.  And so, if you properly tyrannize over a woman, you will
find a h'p'orth of kindness act upon her and bring tears into her
eyes, as though you were an angel benefiting her.

Some such boons as these were the best which Fortune allotted to
poor little Amelia.  Her life, begun not unprosperously, had come
down to this--to a mean prison and a long, ignoble bondage.  Little
George visited her captivity sometimes and consoled it with feeble
gleams of encouragement.  Russell Square was the boundary of her
prison:  she might walk thither occasionally, but was always back to
sleep in her cell at night; to perform cheerless duties; to watch by
thankless sick-beds; to suffer the harassment and tyranny of
querulous disappointed old age.  How many thousands of people are
there, women for the most part, who are doomed to endure this long
slavery?--who are hospital nurses without wages--sisters of Charity,
if you like, without the romance and the sentiment of sacrifice--who
strive, fast, watch, and suffer, unpitied, and fade away ignobly and
unknown.

The hidden and awful Wisdom which apportions the destinies of
mankind is pleased so to humiliate and cast down the tender, good,
and wise, and to set up the selfish, the foolish, or the wicked.
Oh, be humble, my brother, in your prosperity!  Be gentle with those
who are less lucky, if not more deserving.  Think, what right have
you to be scornful, whose virtue is a deficiency of temptation,
whose success may be a chance, whose rank may be an ancestor's
accident, whose prosperity is very likely a satire.

They buried Amelia's mother in the churchyard at Brompton, upon just
such a rainy, dark day as Amelia recollected when first she had been
there to marry George. Her little boy sat by her side in pompous new
sables. She remembered the old pew-woman and clerk.  Her thoughts
were away in other times as the parson read. But that she held
George's hand in her own, perhaps she would have liked to change
places with....  Then, as usual, she felt ashamed of her selfish
thoughts and prayed inwardly to be strengthened to do her duty.

So she determined with all her might and strength to try and make
her old father happy.  She slaved, toiled, patched, and mended, sang
and played backgammon, read out the newspaper, cooked dishes, for
old Sedley, walked him out sedulously into Kensington Gardens or the
Brompton Lanes, listened to his stories with untiring smiles and
affectionate hypocrisy, or sat musing by his side and communing with
her own thoughts and reminiscences, as the old man, feeble and
querulous, sunned himself on the garden benches and prattled about
his wrongs or his sorrows.  What sad, unsatisfactory thoughts those
of the widow were!  The children running up and down the slopes and
broad paths in the gardens reminded her of George, who was taken
from her; the first George was taken from her; her selfish, guilty
love, in both instances, had been rebuked and bitterly chastised.
She strove to think it was right that she should be so punished.
She was such a miserable wicked sinner.  She was quite alone in the
world.

I know that the account of this kind of solitary imprisonment is
insufferably tedious, unless there is some cheerful or humorous
incident to enliven it--a tender gaoler, for instance, or a waggish
commandant of the fortress, or a mouse to come out and play about
Latude's beard and whiskers, or a subterranean passage under the
castle, dug by Trenck with his nails and a toothpick:  the historian
has no such enlivening incident to relate in the narrative of
Amelia's captivity.  Fancy her, if you please, during this period,
very sad, but always ready to smile when spoken to; in a very mean,
poor, not to say vulgar position of life; singing songs, making
puddings, playing cards, mending stockings, for her old father's
benefit.  So, never mind, whether she be a heroine or no; or you and
I, however old, scolding, and bankrupt--may we have in our last days
a kind soft shoulder on which to lean and a gentle hand to soothe
our gouty old pillows.

Old Sedley grew very fond of his daughter after his wife's death,
and Amelia had her consolation in doing her duty by the old man.

But we are not going to leave these two people long in such a low
and ungenteel station of life.  Better days, as far as worldly
prosperity went, were in store for both. Perhaps the ingenious
reader has guessed who was the stout gentleman who called upon
Georgy at his school in company with our old friend Major Dobbin.
It was another old acquaintance returned to England, and at a time
when his presence was likely to be of great comfort to his relatives
there.

Major Dobbin having easily succeeded in getting leave from his good-
natured commandant to proceed to Madras, and thence probably to
Europe, on urgent private affairs, never ceased travelling night and
day until he reached his journey's end, and had directed his march
with such celerity that he arrived at Madras in a high fever.  His
servants who accompanied him brought him to the house of the friend
with whom he had resolved to stay until his departure for Europe in
a state of delirium; and it was thought for many, many days that he
would never travel farther than the burying-ground of the church of
St.  George's, where the troops should fire a salvo over his grave,
and where many a gallant officer lies far away from his home.

Here, as the poor fellow lay tossing in his fever, the people who
watched him might have heard him raving about Amelia.  The idea that
he should never see her again depressed him in his lucid hours.  He
thought his last day was come, and he made his solemn preparations
for departure, setting his affairs in this world in order and
leaving the little property of which he was possessed to those whom
he most desired to benefit.  The friend in whose house he was
located witnessed his testament.  He desired to be buried with a
little brown hair-chain which he wore round his neck and which, if
the truth must be known, he had got from Amelia's maid at Brussels,
when the young widow's hair was cut off, during the fever which
prostrated her after the death of George Osborne on the plateau at
Mount St.  John.

He recovered, rallied, relapsed again, having undergone such a
process of blood-letting and calomel as showed the strength of his
original constitution.  He was almost a skeleton when they put him
on board the Ramchunder East Indiaman, Captain Bragg, from Calcutta,
touching at Madras, and so weak and prostrate that his friend who
had tended him through his illness prophesied that the honest Major
would never survive the voyage, and that he would pass some morning,
shrouded in flag and hammock, over the ship's side, and carrying
down to the sea with him the relic that he wore at his heart.  But
whether it was the sea air, or the hope which sprung up in him
afresh, from the day that the ship spread her canvas and stood out
of the roads towards home, our friend began to amend, and he was
quite well (though as gaunt as a greyhound) before they reached the
Cape.  "Kirk will be disappointed of his majority this time," he
said with a smile; "he will expect to find himself gazetted by the
time the regiment reaches home." For it must be premised that while
the Major was lying ill at Madras, having made such prodigious haste
to go thither, the gallant --th, which had passed many years abroad,
which after its return from the West Indies had been baulked of its
stay at home by the Waterloo campaign, and had been ordered from
Flanders to India, had received orders home; and the Major might
have accompanied his comrades, had he chosen to wait for their
arrival at Madras.

Perhaps he was not inclined to put himself in his exhausted state
again under the guardianship of Glorvina. "I think Miss O'Dowd would
have done for me," he said laughingly to a fellow-passenger, "if we
had had her on board, and when she had sunk me, she would have
fallen upon you, depend upon it, and carried you in as a prize to
Southampton, Jos, my boy."

For indeed it was no other than our stout friend who was also a
passenger on board the Ramchunder.  He had passed ten years in
Bengal.  Constant dinners, tiffins, pale ale and claret, the
prodigious labour of cutcherry, and the refreshment of brandy-pawnee
which he was forced to take there, had their effect upon Waterloo
Sedley. A voyage to Europe was pronounced necessary for him--and
having served his full time in India and had fine appointments which
had enabled him to lay by a considerable sum of money, he was free
to come home and stay with a good pension, or to return and resume
that rank in the service to which his seniority and his vast talents
entitled him.

He was rather thinner than when we last saw him, but had gained in
majesty and solemnity of demeanour. He had resumed the mustachios to
which his services at Waterloo entitled him, and swaggered about on
deck in a magnificent velvet cap with a gold band and a profuse
ornamentation of pins and jewellery about his person. He took
breakfast in his cabin and dressed as solemnly to appear on the
quarter-deck as if he were going to turn out for Bond Street, or the
Course at Calcutta.  He brought a native servant with him, who was
his valet and pipe-bearer and who wore the Sedley crest in silver on
his turban.  That oriental menial had a wretched life under the
tyranny of Jos Sedley.  Jos was as vain of his person as a woman,
and took as long a time at his toilette as any fading beauty.  The
youngsters among the passengers, Young Chaffers of the 150th, and
poor little Ricketts, coming home after his third fever, used to
draw out Sedley at the cuddy-table and make him tell prodigious
stories about himself and his exploits against tigers and Napoleon.
He was great when he visited the Emperor's tomb at Longwood, when to
these gentlemen and the young officers of the ship, Major Dobbin not
being by, he described the whole battle of Waterloo and all but
announced that Napoleon never would have gone to Saint Helena at all
but for him, Jos Sedley.

After leaving St.  Helena he became very generous, disposing of a
great quantity of ship stores, claret, preserved meats, and great
casks packed with soda-water, brought out for his private
delectation.  There were no ladies on board; the Major gave the pas
of precedency to the civilian, so that he was the first dignitary at
table, and treated by Captain Bragg and the officers of the
Ramchunder with the respect which his rank warranted.  He
disappeared rather in a panic during a two-days' gale, in which he
had the portholes of his cabin battened down, and remained in his
cot reading the Washerwoman of Finchley Common, left on board the
Ramchunder by the Right Honourable the Lady Emily Hornblower, wife
of the Rev.  Silas Hornblower, when on their passage out to the
Cape, where the Reverend gentleman was a missionary; but, for common
reading, he had brought a stock of novels and plays which he lent to
the rest of the ship, and rendered himself agreeable to all by his
kindness and condescension.

Many and many a night as the ship was cutting through the roaring
dark sea, the moon and stars shining overhead and the bell singing
out the watch, Mr. Sedley and the Major would sit on the quarter-
deck of the vessel talking about home, as the Major smoked his
cheroot and the civilian puffed at the hookah which his servant
prepared for him.

In these conversations it was wonderful with what perseverance and
ingenuity Major Dobbin would manage to bring the talk round to the
subject of Amelia and her little boy.  Jos, a little testy about his
father's misfortunes and unceremonious applications to him, was
soothed down by the Major, who pointed out the elder's ill fortunes
and old age.  He would not perhaps like to live with the old couple,
whose ways and hours might not agree with those of a younger man,
accustomed to different society (Jos bowed at this compliment); but,
the Major pointed out, how advantageous it would be for Jos Sedley
to have a house of his own in London, and not a mere bachelor's
establishment as before; how his sister Amelia would be the very
person to preside over it; how elegant, how gentle she was, and of
what refined good manners.  He recounted stories of the success
which Mrs. George Osborne had had in former days at Brussels, and in
London, where she was much admired by people of very great fashion;
and he then hinted how becoming it would be for Jos to send Georgy
to a good school and make a man of him, for his mother and her
parents would be sure to spoil him.  In a word, this artful Major
made the civilian promise to take charge of Amelia and her
unprotected child.  He did not know as yet what events had happened
in the little Sedley family, and how death had removed the mother,
and riches had carried off George from Amelia.  But the fact is that
every day and always, this love-smitten and middle-aged gentleman
was thinking about Mrs. Osborne, and his whole heart was bent upon
doing her good.  He coaxed, wheedled, cajoled, and complimented Jos
Sedley with a perseverance and cordiality of which he was not aware
himself, very likely; but some men who have unmarried sisters or
daughters even, may remember how uncommonly agreeable gentlemen are
to the male relations when they are courting the females; and
perhaps this rogue of a Dobbin was urged by a similar hypocrisy.

The truth is, when Major Dobbin came on board the Ramchumder, very
sick, and for the three days she lay in the Madras Roads, he did not
begin to rally, nor did even the appearance and recognition of his
old acquaintance, Mr. Sedley, on board much cheer him, until after a
conversation which they had one day, as the Major was laid languidly
on the deck.  He said then he thought he was doomed; he had left a
little something to his godson in his will, and he trusted Mrs.
Osborne would remember him kindly and be happy in the marriage she
was about to make.  "Married? not the least," Jos answered; "he had
heard from her:  she made no mention of the marriage, and by the
way, it was curious, she wrote to say that Major Dobbin was going to
be married, and hoped that HE would be happy." What were the dates
of Sedley's letters from Europe? The civilian fetched them. They
were two months later than the Major's; and the ship's surgeon
congratulated himself upon the treatment adopted by him towards his
new patient, who had been consigned to shipboard by the Madras
practitioner with very small hopes indeed; for, from that day, the
very day that he changed the draught, Major Dobbin began to mend.
And thus it was that deserving officer, Captain Kirk, was
disappointed of his majority.

After they passed St.  Helena, Major Dobbin's gaiety and strength
was such as to astonish all his fellow passengers.  He larked with
the midshipmen, played single-stick with the mates, ran up the
shrouds like a boy, sang a comic song one night to the amusement of
the whole party assembled over their grog after supper, and rendered
himself so gay, lively, and amiable that even Captain Bragg, who
thought there was nothing in his passenger, and considered he was a
poor-spirited feller at first, was constrained to own that the Major
was a reserved but well-informed and meritorious officer.  "He ain't
got distangy manners, dammy," Bragg observed to his first mate; "he
wouldn't do at Government House, Roper, where his Lordship and Lady
William was as kind to me, and shook hands with me before the whole
company, and asking me at dinner to take beer with him, before the
Commander-in-Chief himself; he ain't got manners, but there's
something about him--" And thus Captain Bragg showed that he
possessed discrimination as a man, as well as ability as a
commander.

But a calm taking place when the Ramchunder was within ten days'
sail of England, Dobbin became so impatient and ill-humoured as to
surprise those comrades who had before admired his vivacity and good
temper. He did not recover until the breeze sprang up again, and was
in a highly excited state when the pilot came on board.  Good God,
how his heart beat as the two friendly spires of Southampton came in
sight.



CHAPTER LVIII

Our Friend the Major


Our Major had rendered himself so popular on board the Ramchunder
that when he and Mr. Sedley descended into the welcome shore-boat
which was to take them from the ship, the whole crew, men and
officers, the great Captain Bragg himself leading off, gave three
cheers for Major Dobbin, who blushed very much and ducked his head
in token of thanks.  Jos, who very likely thought the cheers were
for himself, took off his gold-laced cap and waved it majestically
to his friends, and they were pulled to shore and landed with great
dignity at the pier, whence they proceeded to the Royal George
Hotel.

Although the sight of that magnificent round of beef, and the silver
tankard suggestive of real British home-brewed ale and porter, which
perennially greet the eyes of the traveller returning from foreign
parts who enters the coffee-room of the George, are so invigorating
and delightful that a man entering such a comfortable snug homely
English inn might well like to stop some days there, yet Dobbin
began to talk about a post-chaise instantly, and was no sooner at
Southampton than he wished to be on the road to London.  Jos,
however, would not hear of moving that evening.  Why was he to pass
a night in a post-chaise instead of a great large undulating downy
feather-bed which was there ready to replace the horrid little
narrow crib in which the portly Bengal gentleman had been confined
during the voyage? He could not think of moving till his baggage was
cleared, or of travelling until he could do so with his chillum.  So
the Major was forced to wait over that night, and dispatched a
letter to his family announcing his arrival, entreating from Jos a
promise to write to his own friends.  Jos promised, but didn't keep
his promise.  The Captain, the surgeon, and one or two passengers
came and dined with our two gentlemen at the inn, Jos exerting
himself in a sumptuous way in ordering the dinner and promising to
go to town the next day with the Major. The landlord said it did his
eyes good to see Mr. Sedley take off his first pint of porter.  If I
had time and dared to enter into digressions, I would write a
chapter about that first pint of porter drunk upon English ground.
Ah, how good it is!  It is worth-while to leave home for a year,
just to enjoy that one draught.

Major Dobbin made his appearance the next morning very neatly shaved
and dressed, according to his wont. Indeed, it was so early in the
morning that nobody was up in the house except that wonderful Boots
of an inn who never seems to want sleep; and the Major could hear
the snores of the various inmates of the house roaring through the
corridors as he creaked about in those dim passages.  Then the
sleepless Boots went shirking round from door to door, gathering up
at each the Bluchers, Wellingtons, Oxonians, which stood outside.
Then Jos's native servant arose and began to get ready his master's
ponderous dressing apparatus and prepare his hookah; then the
maidservants got up, and meeting the dark man in the passages,
shrieked, and mistook him for the devil.  He and Dobbin stumbled
over their pails in the passages as they were scouring the decks of
the Royal George.  When the first unshorn waiter appeared and
unbarred the door of the inn, the Major thought that the time for
departure was arrived, and ordered a post-chaise to be fetched
instantly, that they might set off.

He then directed his steps to Mr. Sedley's room and opened the
curtains of the great large family bed wherein Mr. Jos was snoring.
"Come, up!  Sedley," the Major said, "it's time to be off; the
chaise will be at the door in half an hour."

Jos growled from under the counterpane to know what the time was;
but when he at last extorted from the blushing Major (who never told
fibs, however they might be to his advantage) what was the real hour
of the morning, he broke out into a volley of bad language, which we
will not repeat here, but by which he gave Dobbin to understand that
he would jeopardy his soul if he got up at that moment, that the
Major might go and be hanged, that he would not travel with Dobbin,
and that it was most unkind and ungentlemanlike to disturb a man out
of his sleep in that way; on which the discomfited Major was obliged
to retreat, leaving Jos to resume his interrupted slumbers.

The chaise came up presently, and the Major would wait no longer.

If he had been an English nobleman travelling on a pleasure tour, or
a newspaper courier bearing dispatches (government messages are
generally carried much more quietly), he could not have travelled
more quickly.  The post-boys wondered at the fees he flung amongst
them. How happy and green the country looked as the chaise whirled
rapidly from mile-stone to mile-stone, through neat country towns
where landlords came out to welcome him with smiles and bows; by
pretty roadside inns, where the signs hung on the elms, and horses
and waggoners were drinking under the chequered shadow of the trees;
by old halls and parks; rustic hamlets clustered round ancient grey
churches--and through the charming friendly English landscape.  Is
there any in the world like it? To a traveller returning home it
looks so kind--it seems to shake hands with you as you pass through
it. Well, Major Dobbin passed through all this from Southampton to
London, and without noting much beyond the milestones along the
road.  You see he was so eager to see his parents at Camberwell.

He grudged the time lost between Piccadilly and his old haunt at the
Slaughters', whither he drove faithfully. Long years had passed
since he saw it last, since he and George, as young men, had enjoyed
many a feast, and held many a revel there.  He had now passed into
the stage of old-fellow-hood.  His hair was grizzled, and many a
passion and feeling of his youth had grown grey in that interval.
There, however, stood the old waiter at the door, in the same greasy
black suit, with the same double chin and flaccid face, with the
same huge bunch of seals at his fob, rattling his money in his
pockets as before, and receiving the Major as if he had gone away
only a week ago.  "Put the Major's things in twenty-three, that's
his room," John said, exhibiting not the least surprise.  "Roast
fowl for your dinner, I suppose.  You ain't got married? They said
you was married--the Scotch surgeon of yours was here.  No, it was
Captain Humby of the thirty-third, as was quartered with the --th in
Injee. Like any warm water? What do you come in a chay for--ain't
the coach good enough?" And with this, the faithful waiter, who knew
and remembered every officer who used the house, and with whom ten
years were but as yesterday, led the way up to Dobbin's old room,
where stood the great moreen bed, and the shabby carpet, a thought
more dingy, and all the old black furniture covered with faded
chintz, just as the Major recollected them in his youth.

He remembered George pacing up and down the room, and biting his
nails, and swearing that the Governor must come round, and that if
he didn't, he didn't care a straw, on the day before he was married.
He could fancy him walking in, banging the door of Dobbin's room,
and his own hard by--

"You ain't got young," John said, calmly surveying his friend of
former days.

Dobbin laughed.  "Ten years and a fever don't make a man young,
John," he said.  "It is you that are always young--no, you are
always old."

"What became of Captain Osborne's widow?" John said.  "Fine young
fellow that.  Lord, how he used to spend his money.  He never came
back after that day he was marched from here.  He owes me three
pound at this minute.  Look here, I have it in my book.  'April 10,
1815, Captain Osborne:  '3 pounds.' I wonder whether his father would
pay me," and so saying, John of the Slaughters' pulled out the very
morocco pocket-book in which he had noted his loan to the Captain,
upon a greasy faded page still extant, with many other scrawled
memoranda regarding the bygone frequenters of the house.

Having inducted his customer into the room, John retired with
perfect calmness; and Major Dobbin, not without a blush and a grin
at his own absurdity, chose out of his kit the very smartest and
most becoming civil costume he possessed, and laughed at his own
tanned face and grey hair, as he surveyed them in the dreary little
toilet-glass on the dressing-table.

"I'm glad old John didn't forget me," he thought. "She'll know me,
too, I hope." And he sallied out of the inn, bending his steps once
more in the direction of Brompton.

Every minute incident of his last meeting with Amelia was present to
the constant man's mind as he walked towards her house.  The arch
and the Achilles statue were up since he had last been in
Piccadilly; a hundred changes had occurred which his eye and mind
vaguely noted.  He began to tremble as he walked up the lane from
Brompton, that well-remembered lane leading to the street where she
lived.  Was she going to be married or not? If he were to meet her
with the little boy--Good God, what should he do? He saw a woman
coming to him with a child of five years old--was that she? He began
to shake at the mere possibility.  When he came up to the row of
houses, at last, where she lived, and to the gate, he caught hold of
it and paused.  He might have heard the thumping of his own heart.
"May God Almighty bless her, whatever has happened," he thought to
himself.  "Psha!  she may be gone from here," he said and went in
through the gate.

The window of the parlour which she used to occupy was open, and
there were no inmates in the room.  The Major thought he recognized
the piano, though, with the picture over it, as it used to be in
former days, and his perturbations were renewed.  Mr. Clapp's brass
plate was still on the door, at the knocker of which Dobbin
performed a summons.

A buxom-looking lass of sixteen, with bright eyes and purple cheeks,
came to answer the knock and looked hard at the Major as he leant
back against the little porch.

He was as pale as a ghost and could hardly falter out the words--
"Does Mrs. Osborne live here?"

She looked him hard in the face for a moment--and then turning white
too--said, "Lord bless me--it's Major Dobbin." She held out both her
hands shaking--"Don't you remember me?" she said.  "I used to call
you Major Sugarplums." On which, and I believe it was for the first
time that he ever so conducted himself in his life, the Major took
the girl in his arms and kissed her. She began to laugh and cry
hysterically, and calling out "Ma, Pa!" with all her voice, brought
up those worthy people, who had already been surveying the Major
from the casement of the ornamental kitchen, and were astonished to
find their daughter in the little passage in the embrace of a great
tall man in a blue frock-coat and white duck trousers.

"I'm an old friend," he said--not without blushing though.  "Don't
you remember me, Mrs. Clapp, and those good cakes you used to make
for tea? Don't you recollect me, Clapp? I'm George's godfather, and
just come back from India." A great shaking of hands ensued--Mrs.
Clapp was greatly affected and delighted; she called upon heaven to
interpose a vast many times in that passage.

The landlord and landlady of the house led the worthy Major into the
Sedleys' room (whereof he remembered every single article of
furniture, from the old brass ornamented piano, once a natty little
instrument, Stothard maker, to the screens and the alabaster
miniature tombstone, in the midst of which ticked Mr. Sedley's gold
watch), and there, as he sat down in the lodger's vacant arm-chair,
the father, the mother, and the daughter, with a thousand
ejaculatory breaks in the narrative, informed Major Dobbin of what
we know already, but of particulars in Amelia's history of which he
was not aware--namely of Mrs. Sedley's death, of George's
reconcilement with his grandfather Osborne, of the way in which the
widow took on at leaving him, and of other particulars of her life.
Twice or thrice he was going to ask about the marriage question, but
his heart failed him. He did not care to lay it bare to these
people.  Finally, he was informed that Mrs. O.  was gone to walk
with her pa in Kensington Gardens, whither she always went with the
old gentleman (who was very weak and peevish now, and led her a sad
life, though she behaved to him like an angel, to be sure), of a
fine afternoon, after dinner.

"I'm very much pressed for time," the Major said, "and have business
to-night of importance.  I should like to see Mrs. Osborne tho'.
Suppose Miss Polly would come with me and show me the way?"

Miss Polly was charmed and astonished at this proposal.  She knew
the way.  She would show Major Dobbin.  She had often been with Mr.
Sedley when Mrs. O. was gone--was gone Russell Square way--and knew
the bench where he liked to sit.  She bounced away to her apartment
and appeared presently in her best bonnet and her mamma's yellow
shawl and large pebble brooch, of which she assumed the loan in
order to make herself a worthy companion for the Major.

That officer, then, in his blue frock-coat and buckskin gloves, gave
the young lady his arm, and they walked away very gaily.  He was
glad to have a friend at hand for the scene which he dreaded
somehow.  He asked a thousand more questions from his companion
about Amelia:  his kind heart grieved to think that she should have
had to part with her son.  How did she bear it? Did she see him
often? Was Mr. Sedley pretty comfortable now in a worldly point of
view? Polly answered all these questions of Major Sugarplums to the
very best of her power.

And in the midst of their walk an incident occurred which, though
very simple in its nature, was productive of the greatest delight to
Major Dobbin.  A pale young man with feeble whiskers and a stiff
white neckcloth came walking down the lane, en sandwich--having a
lady, that is, on each arm.  One was a tall and commanding middle-
aged female, with features and a complexion similar to those of the
clergyman of the Church of England by whose side she marched, and
the other a stunted little woman with a dark face, ornamented by a
fine new bonnet and white ribbons, and in a smart pelisse, with a
rich gold watch in the midst of her person.  The gentleman, pinioned
as he was by these two ladies, carried further a parasol, shawl, and
basket, so that his arms were entirely engaged, and of course he was
unable to touch his hat in acknowledgement of the curtsey with which
Miss Mary Clapp greeted him.

He merely bowed his head in reply to her salutation, which the two
ladies returned with a patronizing air, and at the same time looking
severely at the individual in the blue coat and bamboo cane who
accompanied Miss Polly.

"Who's that?" asked the Major, amused by the group, and after he had
made way for the three to pass up the lane.  Mary looked at him
rather roguishly.

"That is our curate, the Reverend Mr. Binny (a twitch from Major
Dobbin), and his sister Miss B.  Lord bless us, how she did use to
worret us at Sunday-school; and the other lady, the little one with
a cast in her eye and the handsome watch, is Mrs. Binny--Miss Grits
that was; her pa was a grocer, and kept the Little Original Gold Tea
Pot in Kensington Gravel Pits.  They were married last month, and
are just come back from Margate.  She's five thousand pound to her
fortune; but her and Miss B., who made the match, have quarrelled
already."

If the Major had twitched before, he started now, and slapped the
bamboo on the ground with an emphasis which made Miss Clapp cry,
"Law," and laugh too.  He stood for a moment, silent, with open
mouth, looking after the retreating young couple, while Miss Mary
told their history; but he did not hear beyond the announcement of
the reverend gentleman's marriage; his head was swimming with
felicity.  After this rencontre he began to walk double quick
towards the place of his destination--and yet they were too soon
(for he was in a great tremor at the idea of a meeting for which he
had been longing any time these ten years)--through the Brompton
lanes, and entering at the little old portal in Kensington Garden
wall.

"There they are," said Miss Polly, and she felt him again start back
on her arm.  She was a confidante at once of the whole business.
She knew the story as well as if she had read it in one of her
favourite novel-books--Fatherless Fanny, or the Scottish Chiefs.

"Suppose you were to run on and tell her," the Major said.  Polly
ran forward, her yellow shawl streaming in the breeze.

Old Sedley was seated on a bench, his handkerchief placed over his
knees, prattling away, according to his wont, with some old story
about old times to which Amelia had listened and awarded a patient
smile many a time before.  She could of late think of her own
affairs, and smile or make other marks of recognition of her
father's stories, scarcely hearing a word of the old man's tales.
As Mary came bouncing along, and Amelia caught sight of her, she
started up from her bench.  Her first thought was that something had
happened to Georgy, but the sight of the messenger's eager and happy
face dissipated that fear in the timorous mother's bosom.

"News!  News!" cried the emissary of Major Dobbin. "He's come!  He's
come!"

"Who is come?" said Emmy, still thinking of her son.

"Look there," answered Miss Clapp, turning round and pointing; in
which direction Amelia looking, saw Dobbin's lean figure and long
shadow stalking across the grass.  Amelia started in her turn,
blushed up, and, of course, began to cry.  At all this simple little
creature's fetes, the grandes eaux were accustomed to play. He
looked at her--oh, how fondly--as she came running towards him, her
hands before her, ready to give them to him.  She wasn't changed.
She was a little pale, a little stouter in figure.  Her eyes were
the same, the kind trustful eyes.  There were scarce three lines of
silver in her soft brown hair.  She gave him both her hands as she
looked up flushing and smiling through her tears into his honest
homely face.  He took the two little hands between his two and held
them there.  He was speechless for a moment.  Why did he not take
her in his arms and swear that he would never leave her? She must
have yielded:  she could not but have obeyed him.

"I--I've another arrival to announce," he said after a pause.

"Mrs. Dobbin?" Amelia said, making a movement back--why didn't he
speak?

"No," he said, letting her hands go:  "Who has told you those lies?
I mean, your brother Jos came in the same ship with me, and is come
home to make you all happy."

"Papa, Papa!" Emmy cried out, "here are news!  My brother is in
England.  He is come to take care of you. Here is Major Dobbin."

Mr. Sedley started up, shaking a great deal and gathering up his
thoughts.  Then he stepped forward and made an old-fashioned bow to
the Major, whom he called Mr. Dobbin, and hoped his worthy father,
Sir William, was quite well.  He proposed to call upon Sir William,
who had done him the honour of a visit a short time ago.  Sir
William had not called upon the old gentleman for eight years--it
was that visit he was thinking of returning.

"He is very much shaken," Emmy whispered as Dobbin went up and
cordially shook hands with the old man.

Although he had such particular business in London that evening, the
Major consented to forego it upon Mr. Sedley's invitation to him to
come home and partake of tea.  Amelia put her arm under that of her
young friend with the yellow shawl and headed the party on their
return homewards, so that Mr. Sedley fell to Dobbin's share. The old
man walked very slowly and told a number of ancient histories about
himself and his poor Bessy, his former prosperity, and his
bankruptcy.  His thoughts, as is usual with failing old men, were
quite in former times. The present, with the exception of the one
catastrophe which he felt, he knew little about.  The Major was glad
to let him talk on.  His eyes were fixed upon the figure in front of
him--the dear little figure always present to his imagination and in
his prayers, and visiting his dreams wakeful or slumbering.

Amelia was very happy, smiling, and active all that evening,
performing her duties as hostess of the little entertainment with
the utmost grace and propriety, as Dobbin thought.  His eyes
followed her about as they sat in the twilight.  How many a time had
he longed for that moment and thought of her far away under hot
winds and in weary marches, gentle and happy, kindly ministering to
the wants of old age, and decorating poverty with sweet submission--
as he saw her now.  I do not say that his taste was the highest, or
that it is the duty of great intellects to be content with a bread-
and-butter paradise, such as sufficed our simple old friend; but his
desires were of this sort, whether for good or bad, and, with Amelia
to help him, he was as ready to drink as many cups of tea as Doctor
Johnson.

Amelia seeing this propensity, laughingly encouraged it and looked
exceedingly roguish as she administered to him cup after cup.  It is
true she did not know that the Major had had no dinner and that the
cloth was laid for him at the Slaughters', and a plate laid thereon
to mark that the table was retained, in that very box in which the
Major and George had sat many a time carousing, when she was a child
just come home from Miss Pinkerton's school.

The first thing Mrs. Osborne showed the Major was Georgy's
miniature, for which she ran upstairs on her arrival at home.  It
was not half handsome enough of course for the boy, but wasn't it
noble of him to think of bringing it to his mother? Whilst her papa
was awake she did not talk much about Georgy.  To hear about Mr.
Osborne and Russell Square was not agreeable to the old man, who
very likely was unconscious that he had been living for some months
past mainly on the bounty of his richer rival, and lost his temper
if allusion was made to the other.

Dobbin told him all, and a little more perhaps than all, that had
happened on board the Ramchunder, and exaggerated Jos's benevolent
dispositions towards his father and resolution to make him
comfortable in his old days.  The truth is that during the voyage
the Major had impressed this duty most strongly upon his fellow-
passenger and extorted promises from him that he would take charge
of his sister and her child.  He soothed Jos's irritation with
regard to the bills which the old gentleman had drawn upon him, gave
a laughing account of his own sufferings on the same score and of
the famous consignment of wine with which the old man had favoured
him, and brought Mr. Jos, who was by no means an ill-natured person
when well-pleased and moderately flattered, to a very good state of
feeling regarding his relatives in Europe.

And in fine I am ashamed to say that the Major stretched the truth
so far as to tell old Mr. Sedley that it was mainly a desire to see
his parent which brought Jos once more to Europe.

At his accustomed hour Mr. Sedley began to doze in his chair, and
then it was Amelia's opportunity to commence her conversation, which
she did with great eagerness--it related exclusively to Georgy.  She
did not talk at all about her own sufferings at breaking from him,
for indeed, this worthy woman, though she was half-killed by the
separation from the child, yet thought it was very wicked in her to
repine at losing him; but everything concerning him, his virtues,
talents, and prospects, she poured out.  She described his angelic
beauty; narrated a hundred instances of his generosity and greatness
of mind whilst living with her; how a Royal Duchess had stopped and
admired him in Kensington Gardens; how splendidly he was cared for
now, and how he had a groom and a pony; what quickness and
cleverness he had, and what a prodigiously well-read and delightful
person the Reverend Lawrence Veal was, George's master.  "He knows
EVERYTHING," Amelia said.  "He has the most delightful parties.  You
who are so learned yourself, and have read so much, and are so
clever and accomplished--don't shake your head and say no--HE always
used to say you were--you will be charmed with Mr. Veal's parties.
The last Tuesday in every month.  He says there is no place in the
bar or the senate that Georgy may not aspire to.  Look here," and
she went to the piano-drawer and drew out a theme of Georgy's
composition.  This great effort of genius, which is still in the
possession of George's mother, is as follows:

On Selfishness--Of all the vices which degrade the human character,
Selfishness is the most odious and contemptible.  An undue love of
Self leads to the most monstrous crimes and occasions the greatest
misfortunes both in States and Families.  As a selfish man will
impoverish his family and often bring them to ruin, so a selfish
king brings ruin on his people and often plunges them into war.

Example:  The selfishness of Achilles, as remarked by the poet
Homer, occasioned a thousand woes to the Greeks--muri Achaiois alge
etheke--(Hom. Il. A. 2). The selfishness of the late Napoleon
Bonaparte occasioned innumerable wars in Europe and caused him to
perish, himself, in a miserable island--that of Saint Helena in the
Atlantic Ocean.

We see by these examples that we are not to consult our own interest
and ambition, but that we are to consider the interests of others as
well as our own.

George S.  Osborne Athene House, 24 April, 1827

"Think of him writing such a hand, and quoting Greek too, at his
age," the delighted mother said.  "Oh, William," she added, holding
out her hand to the Major, "what a treasure Heaven has given me in
that boy!  He is the comfort of my life--and he is the image of--of
him that's gone!"

"Ought I to be angry with her for being faithful to him?" William
thought.  "Ought I to be jealous of my friend in the grave, or hurt
that such a heart as Amelia's can love only once and for ever? Oh,
George, George, how little you knew the prize you had, though." This
sentiment passed rapidly through William's mind as he was holding
Amelia's hand, whilst the handkerchief was veiling her eyes.

"Dear friend," she said, pressing the hand which held hers, "how
good, how kind you always have been to me! See!  Papa is stirring.
You will go and see Georgy tomorrow, won't you?"

"Not to-morrow," said poor old Dobbin.  "I have business." He did
not like to own that he had not as yet been to his parents' and his
dear sister Anne--a remissness for which I am sure every well-
regulated person will blame the Major.  And presently he took his
leave, leaving his address behind him for Jos, against the latter's
arrival.  And so the first day was over, and he had seen her.

When he got back to the Slaughters', the roast fowl was of course
cold, in which condition he ate it for supper.  And knowing what
early hours his family kept, and that it would be needless to
disturb their slumbers at so late an hour, it is on record, that
Major Dobbin treated himself to half-price at the Haymarket Theatre
that evening, where let us hope he enjoyed himself.



CHAPTER LIX

The Old Piano


The Major's visit left old John Sedley in a great state of agitation
and excitement.  His daughter could not induce him to settle down to
his customary occupations or amusements that night.  He passed the
evening fumbling amongst his boxes and desks, untying his papers
with trembling hands, and sorting and arranging them against Jos's
arrival.  He had them in the greatest order--his tapes and his
files, his receipts, and his letters with lawyers and
correspondents; the documents relative to the wine project (which
failed from a most unaccountable accident, after commencing with the
most splendid prospects), the coal project (which only a want of
capital prevented from becoming the most successful scheme ever put
before the public), the patent saw-mills and sawdust consolidation
project, &c., &c.  All night, until a very late hour, he passed in
the preparation of these documents, trembling about from one room to
another, with a quivering candle and shaky hands.  Here's the wine
papers, here's the sawdust, here's the coals; here's my letters to
Calcutta and Madras, and replies from Major Dobbin, C.B., and Mr.
Joseph Sedley to the same.  "He shall find no irregularity about ME,
Emmy," the old gentleman said.

Emmy smiled.  "I don't think Jos will care about seeing those
papers, Papa," she said.

"You don't know anything about business, my dear," answered the
sire, shaking his head with an important air.  And it must be
confessed that on this point Emmy was very ignorant, and that is a
pity some people are so knowing.  All these twopenny documents
arranged on a side table, old Sedley covered them carefully over
with a clean bandanna handkerchief (one out of Major Dobbin's lot)
and enjoined the maid and landlady of the house, in the most solemn
way, not to disturb those papers, which were arranged for the
arrival of Mr. Joseph Sedley the next morning, "Mr. Joseph Sedley of
the Honourable East India Company's Bengal Civil Service."

Amelia found him up very early the next morning, more eager, more
hectic, and more shaky than ever.  "I didn't sleep much, Emmy, my
dear," he said.  "I was thinking of my poor Bessy.  I wish she was
alive, to ride in Jos's carriage once again.  She kept her own and
became it very well." And his eyes filled with tears, which trickled
down his furrowed old face.  Amelia wiped them away, and smilingly
kissed him, and tied the old man's neckcloth in a smart bow, and put
his brooch into his best shirt frill, in which, in his Sunday suit
of mourning, he sat from six o'clock in the morning awaiting the
arrival of his son.

However, when the postman made his appearance, the little party were
put out of suspense by the receipt of a letter from Jos to his
sister, who announced that he felt a little fatigued after his
voyage, and should not be able to move on that day, but that he
would leave Southampton early the next morning and be with his
father and mother at evening.  Amelia, as she read out the letter to
her father, paused over the latter word; her brother, it was clear,
did not know what had happened in the family. Nor could he, for the
fact is that, though the Major rightly suspected that his travelling
companion never would be got into motion in so short a space as
twenty-four hours, and would find some excuse for delaying, yet
Dobbin had not written to Jos to inform him of the calamity which
had befallen the Sedley family, being occupied in talking with
Amelia until long after post-hour.

There are some splendid tailors' shops in the High Street of
Southampton, in the fine plate-glass windows of which hang gorgeous
waistcoats of all sorts, of silk and velvet, and gold and crimson,
and pictures of the last new fashions, in which those wonderful
gentlemen with quizzing glasses, and holding on to little boys with
the exceeding large eyes and curly hair, ogle ladies in riding
habits prancing by the Statue of Achilles at Apsley House.  Jos,
although provided with some of the most splendid vests that Calcutta
could furnish, thought he could not go to town until he was supplied
with one or two of these garments, and selected a crimson satin,
embroidered with gold butterflies, and a black and red velvet tartan
with white stripes and a rolling collar, with which, and a rich blue
satin stock and a gold pin, consisting of a five-barred gate with a
horseman in pink enamel jumping over it, he thought he might make
his entry into London with some dignity.  For Jos's former shyness
and blundering blushing timidity had given way to a more candid and
courageous self-assertion of his worth.  "I don't care about owning
it," Waterloo Sedley would say to his friends, "I am a dressy man";
and though rather uneasy if the ladies looked at him at the
Government House balls, and though he blushed and turned away
alarmed under their glances, it was chiefly from a dread lest they
should make love to him that he avoided them, being averse to
marriage altogether.  But there was no such swell in Calcutta as
Waterloo Sedley, I have heard say, and he had the handsomest turn-
out, gave the best bachelor dinners, and had the finest plate in the
whole place.

To make these waistcoats for a man of his size and dignity took at
least a day, part of which he employed in hiring a servant to wait
upon him and his native and in instructing the agent who cleared his
baggage, his boxes, his books, which he never read, his chests of
mangoes, chutney, and curry-powders, his shawls for presents to
people whom he didn't know as yet, and the rest of his Persicos
apparatus.

At length, he drove leisurely to London on the third day and in the
new waistcoat, the native, with chattering teeth, shuddering in a
shawl on the box by the side of the new European servant; Jos
puffing his pipe at intervals within and looking so majestic that
the little boys cried Hooray, and many people thought he must be a
Governor-General.  HE, I promise, did not decline the obsequious
invitation of the landlords to alight and refresh himself in the
neat country towns.  Having partaken of a copious breakfast, with
fish, and rice, and hard eggs, at Southampton, he had so far rallied
at Winchester as to think a glass of sherry necessary.  At Alton he
stepped out of the carriage at his servant's request and imbibed
some of the ale for which the place is famous.  At Farnham he
stopped to view the Bishop's Castle and to partake of a light dinner
of stewed eels, veal cutlets, and French beans, with a bottle of
claret.  He was cold over Bagshot Heath, where the native chattered
more and more, and Jos Sahib took some brandy-and-water; in fact,
when he drove into town he was as full of wine, beer, meat, pickles,
cherry-brandy, and tobacco as the steward's cabin of a steam-packet.
It was evening when his carriage thundered up to the little door in
Brompton, whither the affectionate fellow drove first, and before
hieing to the apartments secured for him by Mr. Dobbin at the
Slaughters'.

All the faces in the street were in the windows; the little
maidservant flew to the wicket-gate; the Mesdames Clapp looked out
from the casement of the ornamented kitchen; Emmy, in a great
flutter, was in the passage among the hats and coats; and old Sedley
in the parlour inside, shaking all over.  Jos descended from the
post-chaise and down the creaking swaying steps in awful state,
supported by the new valet from Southampton and the shuddering
native, whose brown face was now livid with cold and of the colour
of a turkey's gizzard.  He created an immense sensation in the
passage presently, where Mrs. and Miss Clapp, coming perhaps to
listen at the parlour door, found Loll Jewab shaking upon the hall-
bench under the coats, moaning in a strange piteous way, and showing
his yellow eyeballs and white teeth.

For, you see, we have adroitly shut the door upon the meeting
between Jos and the old father and the poor little gentle sister
inside.  The old man was very much affected; so, of course, was his
daughter; nor was Jos without feeling.  In that long absence of ten
years, the most selfish will think about home and early ties.
Distance sanctifies both.  Long brooding over those lost pleasures
exaggerates their charm and sweetness.  Jos was unaffectedly glad to
see and shake the hand of his father, between whom and himself there
had been a coolness--glad to see his little sister, whom he
remembered so pretty and smiling, and pained at the alteration which
time, grief, and misfortune had made in the shattered old man.  Emmy
had come out to the door in her black clothes and whispered to him
of her mother's death, and not to speak of it to their father.
There was no need of this caution, for the elder Sedley himself
began immediately to speak of the event, and prattled about it, and
wept over it plenteously. It shocked the Indian not a little and
made him think of himself less than the poor fellow was accustomed
to do.

The result of the interview must have been very satisfactory, for
when Jos had reascended his post-chaise and had driven away to his
hotel, Emmy embraced her father tenderly, appealing to him with an
air of triumph, and asking the old man whether she did not always
say that her brother had a good heart?

Indeed, Joseph Sedley, affected by the humble position in which he
found his relations, and in the expansiveness and overflowing of
heart occasioned by the first meeting, declared that they should
never suffer want or discomfort any more, that he was at home for
some time at any rate, during which his house and everything he had
should be theirs:  and that Amelia would look very pretty at the
head of his table--until she would accept one of her own.

She shook her head sadly and had, as usual, recourse to the
waterworks.  She knew what he meant.  She and her young confidante,
Miss Mary, had talked over the matter most fully, the very night of
the Major's visit, beyond which time the impetuous Polly could not
refrain from talking of the discovery which she had made, and
describing the start and tremor of joy by which Major Dobbin
betrayed himself when Mr. Binny passed with his bride and the Major
learned that he had no longer a rival to fear.  "Didn't you see how
he shook all over when you asked if he was married and he said, 'Who
told you those lies?' Oh, M'am," Polly said, "he never kept his eyes
off you, and I'm sure he's grown grey athinking of you."

But Amelia, looking up at her bed, over which hung the portraits of
her husband and son, told her young protegee never, never, to speak
on that subject again; that Major Dobbin had been her husband's
dearest friend and her own and George's most kind and affectionate
guardian; that she loved him as a brother--but that a woman who had
been married to such an angel as that, and she pointed to the wall,
could never think of any other union.  Poor Polly sighed:  she
thought what she should do if young Mr. Tomkins, at the surgery, who
always looked at her so at church, and who, by those mere aggressive
glances had put her timorous little heart into such a flutter that
she was ready to surrender at once,--what she should do if he were
to die? She knew he was consumptive, his cheeks were so red and he
was so uncommon thin in the waist.

Not that Emmy, being made aware of the honest Major's passion,
rebuffed him in any way, or felt displeased with him.  Such an
attachment from so true and loyal a gentleman could make no woman
angry. Desdemona was not angry with Cassio, though there is very
little doubt she saw the Lieutenant's partiality for her (and I for
my part believe that many more things took place in that sad affair
than the worthy Moorish officer ever knew of); why, Miranda was even
very kind to Caliban, and we may be pretty sure for the same reason.
Not that she would encourage him in the least--the poor uncouth
monster--of course not.  No more would Emmy by any means encourage
her admirer, the Major.  She would give him that friendly regard,
which so much excellence and fidelity merited; she would treat him
with perfect cordiality and frankness until he made his proposals,
and THEN it would be time enough for her to speak and to put an end
to hopes which never could be realized.

She slept, therefore, very soundly that evening, after the
conversation with Miss Polly, and was more than ordinarily happy, in
spite of Jos's delaying.  "I am glad he is not going to marry that
Miss O'Dowd," she thought. "Colonel O'Dowd never could have a sister
fit for such an accomplished man as Major William." Who was there
amongst her little circle who would make him a good wife? Not Miss
Binny, she was too old and ill-tempered; Miss Osborne? too old too.
Little Polly was too young. Mrs. Osborne could not find anybody to
suit the Major before she went to sleep.

The same morning brought Major Dobbin a letter to the Slaughters'
Coffee-house from his friend at Southampton, begging dear Dob to
excuse Jos for being in a rage when awakened the day before (he had
a confounded headache, and was just in his first sleep), and
entreating Dob to engage comfortable rooms at the Slaughters' for
Mr. Sedley and his servants.  The Major had become necessary to Jos
during the voyage.  He was attached to him, and hung upon him.  The
other passengers were away to London. Young Ricketts and little
Chaffers went away on the coach that day--Ricketts on the box, and
taking the reins from Botley; the Doctor was off to his family at
Portsea; Bragg gone to town to his co-partners; and the first mate
busy in the unloading of the Ramchunder.  Mr. Joe was very lonely at
Southampton, and got the landlord of the George to take a glass of
wine with him that day, at the very hour at which Major Dobbin was
seated at the table of his father, Sir William, where his sister
found out (for it was impossible for the Major to tell fibs) that he
had been to see Mrs. George Osborne.

Jos was so comfortably situated in St.  Martin's Lane, he could
enjoy his hookah there with such perfect ease, and could swagger
down to the theatres, when minded, so agreeably, that, perhaps, he
would have remained altogether at the Slaughters' had not his
friend, the Major, been at his elbow.  That gentleman would not let
the Bengalee rest until he had executed his promise of having a home
for Amelia and his father.  Jos was a soft fellow in anybody's
hands, Dobbin most active in anybody's concerns but his own; the
civilian was, therefore, an easy victim to the guileless arts of
this good-natured diplomatist and was ready to do, to purchase,
hire, or relinquish whatever his friend thought fit.  Loll Jewab, of
whom the boys about St.  Martin's Lane used to make cruel fun
whenever he showed his dusky countenance in the street, was sent
back to Calcutta in the Lady Kicklebury East Indiaman, in which Sir
William Dobbin had a share, having previously taught Jos's European
the art of preparing curries, pilaus, and pipes.  It was a matter of
great delight and occupation to Jos to superintend the building of a
smart chariot which he and the Major ordered in the neighbouring
Long Acre:  and a pair of handsome horses were jobbed, with which
Jos drove about in state in the park, or to call upon his Indian
friends.  Amelia was not seldom by his side on these excursions,
when also Major Dobbin would be seen in the back seat of the
carriage. At other times old Sedley and his daughter took advantage
of it, and Miss Clapp, who frequently accompanied her friend, had
great pleasure in being recognized as she sat in the carriage,
dressed in the famous yellow shawl, by the young gentleman at the
surgery, whose face might commonly be seen over the window-blinds as
she passed.

Shortly after Jos's first appearance at Brompton, a dismal scene,
indeed, took place at that humble cottage at which the Sedleys had
passed the last ten years of their life.  Jos's carriage (the
temporary one, not the chariot under construction) arrived one day
and carried off old Sedley and his daughter--to return no more.  The
tears that were shed by the landlady and the landlady's daughter at
that event were as genuine tears of sorrow as any that have been
outpoured in the course of this history. In their long
acquaintanceship and intimacy they could not recall a harsh word
that had been uttered by Amelia She had been all sweetness and
kindness, always thankful, always gentle, even when Mrs. Clapp lost
her own temper and pressed for the rent.  When the kind creature was
going away for good and all, the landlady reproached herself
bitterly for ever having used a rough expression to her--how she
wept, as they stuck up with wafers on the window, a paper notifying
that the little rooms so long occupied were to let!  They never
would have such lodgers again, that was quite clear.  After-life
proved the truth of this melancholy prophecy, and Mrs. Clapp
revenged herself for the deterioration of mankind by levying the
most savage contributions upon the tea-caddies and legs of mutton of
her locataires.  Most of them scolded and grumbled; some of them did
not pay; none of them stayed. The landlady might well regret those
old, old friends, who had left her.

As for Miss Mary, her sorrow at Amelia's departure was such as I
shall not attempt to depict.  From childhood upwards she had been
with her daily and had attached herself so passionately to that dear
good lady that when the grand barouche came to carry her off into
splendour, she fainted in the arms of her friend, who was indeed
scarcely less affected than the good-natured girl.  Amelia loved her
like a daughter.  During eleven years the girl had been her constant
friend and associate.  The separation was a very painful one indeed
to her.  But it was of course arranged that Mary was to come and
stay often at the grand new house whither Mrs. Osborne was going,
and where Mary was sure she would never be so happy as she had been
in their humble cot, as Miss Clapp called it, in the language of the
novels which she loved.

Let us hope she was wrong in her judgement.  Poor Emmy's days of
happiness had been very few in that humble cot.  A gloomy Fate had
oppressed her there.  She never liked to come back to the house
after she had left it, or to face the landlady who had tyrannized
over her when ill-humoured and unpaid, or when pleased had treated
her with a coarse familiarity scarcely less odious. Her servility
and fulsome compliments when Emmy was in prosperity were not more to
that lady's liking.  She cast about notes of admiration all over the
new house, extolling every article of furniture or ornament; she
fingered Mrs. Osborne's dresses and calculated their price. Nothing
could be too good for that sweet lady, she vowed and protested.  But
in the vulgar sycophant who now paid court to her, Emmy always
remembered the coarse tyrant who had made her miserable many a time,
to whom she had been forced to put up petitions for time, when the
rent was overdue; who cried out at her extravagance if she bought
delicacies for her ailing mother or father; who had seen her humble
and trampled upon her.

Nobody ever heard of these griefs, which had been part of our poor
little woman's lot in life.  She kept them secret from her father,
whose improvidence was the cause of much of her misery.  She had to
bear all the blame of his misdoings, and indeed was so utterly
gentle and humble as to be made by nature for a victim.

I hope she is not to suffer much more of that hard usage.  And, as
in all griefs there is said to be some consolation, I may mention
that poor Mary, when left at her friend's departure in a hysterical
condition, was placed under the medical treatment of the young
fellow from the surgery, under whose care she rallied after a short
period.  Emmy, when she went away from Brompton, endowed Mary with
every article of furniture that the house contained, only taking
away her pictures (the two pictures over the bed) and her piano--
that little old piano which had now passed into a plaintive jingling
old age, but which she loved for reasons of her own.  She was a
child when first she played on it, and her parents gave it her.  It
had been given to her again since, as the reader may remember, when
her father's house was gone to ruin and the instrument was recovered
out of the wreck.

Major Dobbin was exceedingly pleased when, as he was superintending
the arrangements of Jos's new house--which the Major insisted should
be very handsome and comfortable--the cart arrived from Brompton,
bringing the trunks and bandboxes of the emigrants from that
village, and with them the old piano.  Amelia would have it up in
her sitting-room, a neat little apartment on the second floor,
adjoining her father's chamber, and where the old gentleman sat
commonly of evenings.

When the men appeared then bearing this old music-box, and Amelia
gave orders that it should be placed in the chamber aforesaid,
Dobbin was quite elated.  "I'm glad you've kept it," he said in a
very sentimental manner.  "I was afraid you didn't care about it."

"I value it more than anything I have in the world," said Amelia.

"Do you, Amelia?" cried the Major.  The fact was, as he had bought
it himself, though he never said anything about it, it never entered
into his head to suppose that Emmy should think anybody else was the
purchaser, and as a matter of course he fancied that she knew the
gift came from him.  "Do you, Amelia?" he said; and the question,
the great question of all, was trembling on his lips, when Emmy
replied--

"Can I do otherwise?--did not he give it me?"

"I did not know," said poor old Dob, and his countenance fell.

Emmy did not note the circumstance at the time, nor take immediate
heed of the very dismal expression which honest Dobbin's countenance
assumed, but she thought of it afterwards.  And then it struck her,
with inexpressible pain and mortification too, that it was William
who was the giver of the piano, and not George, as she had fancied.
It was not George's gift; the only one which she had received from
her lover, as she thought--the thing she had cherished beyond all
others--her dearest relic and prize.  She had spoken to it about
George; played his favourite airs upon it; sat for long evening
hours, touching, to the best of her simple art, melancholy harmonies
on the keys, and weeping over them in silence. It was not George's
relic.  It was valueless now.  The next time that old Sedley asked
her to play, she said it was shockingly out of tune, that she had a
headache, that she couldn't play.

Then, according to her custom, she rebuked herself for her
pettishness and ingratitude and determined to make a reparation to
honest William for the slight she had not expressed to him, but had
felt for his piano. A few days afterwards, as they were seated in
the drawing-room, where Jos had fallen asleep with great comfort
after dinner, Amelia said with rather a faltering voice to Major
Dobbin--

"I have to beg your pardon for something."

"About what?" said he.

"About--about that little square piano.  I never thanked you for it
when you gave it me, many, many years ago, before I was married.  I
thought somebody else had given it.  Thank you, William." She held
out her hand, but the poor little woman's heart was bleeding; and as
for her eyes, of course they were at their work.

But William could hold no more.  "Amelia, Amelia," he said, "I did
buy it for you.  I loved you then as I do now.  I must tell you.  I
think I loved you from the first minute that I saw you, when George
brought me to your house, to show me the Amelia whom he was engaged
to.  You were but a girl, in white, with large ringlets; you came
down singing--do you remember?--and we went to Vauxhall.  Since then
I have thought of but one woman in the world, and that was you.  I
think there is no hour in the day has passed for twelve years that I
haven't thought of you.  I came to tell you this before I went to
India, but you did not care, and I hadn't the heart to speak.  You
did not care whether I stayed or went."

"I was very ungrateful," Amelia said.

"No, only indifferent," Dobbin continued desperately. "I have
nothing to make a woman to be otherwise.  I know what you are
feeling now.  You are hurt in your heart at the discovery about the
piano, and that it came from me and not from George.  I forgot, or I
should never have spoken of it so.  It is for me to ask your pardon
for being a fool for a moment, and thinking that years of constancy
and devotion might have pleaded with you."

"It is you who are cruel now," Amelia said with some spirit.
"George is my husband, here and in heaven.  How could I love any
other but him? I am his now as when you first saw me, dear William.
It was he who told me how good and generous you were, and who taught
me to love you as a brother.  Have you not been everything to me and
my boy? Our dearest, truest, kindest friend and protector? Had you
come a few months sooner perhaps you might have spared me that--that
dreadful parting.  Oh, it nearly killed me, William--but you didn't
come, though I wished and prayed for you to come, and they took him
too away from me.  Isn't he a noble boy, William? Be his friend
still and mine"--and here her voice broke, and she hid her face on
his shoulder.

The Major folded his arms round her, holding her to him as if she
was a child, and kissed her head.  "I will not change, dear Amelia,"
he said.  "I ask for no more than your love.  I think I would not
have it otherwise. Only let me stay near you and see you often."

"Yes, often," Amelia said.  And so William was at liberty to look
and long--as the poor boy at school who has no money may sigh after
the contents of the tart-woman's tray.



CHAPTER LX

Returns to the Genteel World


Good fortune now begins to smile upon Amelia.  We are glad to get
her out of that low sphere in which she has been creeping hitherto
and introduce her into a polite circle--not so grand and refined as
that in which our other female friend, Mrs. Becky, has appeared, but
still having no small pretensions to gentility and fashion.  Jos's
friends were all from the three presidencies, and his new house was
in the comfortable Anglo-Indian district of which Moira Place is the
centre.  Minto Square, Great Clive Street, Warren Street, Hastings
Street, Ochterlony Place, Plassy Square, Assaye Terrace ("gardens"
was a felicitous word not applied to stucco houses with asphalt
terraces in front, so early as 1827)--who does not know these
respectable abodes of the retired Indian aristocracy, and the
quarter which Mr. Wenham calls the Black Hole, in a word? Jos's
position in life was not grand enough to entitle him to a house in
Moira Place, where none can live but retired Members of Council, and
partners of Indian firms (who break, after having settled a hundred
thousand pounds on their wives, and retire into comparative penury
to a country place and four thousand a year); he engaged a
comfortable house of a second- or third-rate order in Gillespie
Street, purchasing the carpets, costly mirrors, and handsome and
appropriate planned furniture by Seddons from the assignees of Mr.
Scape, lately admitted partner into the great Calcutta House of
Fogle, Fake, and Cracksman, in which poor Scape had embarked seventy
thousand pounds, the earnings of a long and honourable life, taking
Fake's place, who retired to a princely park in Sussex (the Fogles
have been long out of the firm, and Sir Horace Fogle is about to be
raised to the peerage as Baron Bandanna)--admitted, I say, partner
into the great agency house of Fogle and Fake two years before it
failed for a million and plunged half the Indian public into misery
and ruin.

Scape, ruined, honest, and broken-hearted at sixty-five years of
age, went out to Calcutta to wind up the affairs of the house.
Walter Scape was withdrawn from Eton and put into a merchant's
house.  Florence Scape, Fanny Scape, and their mother faded away to
Boulogne, and will be heard of no more.  To be brief, Jos stepped in
and bought their carpets and sideboards and admired himself in the
mirrors which had reflected their kind handsome faces.  The Scape
tradesmen, all honourably paid, left their cards, and were eager to
supply the new household.  The large men in white waistcoats who
waited at Scape's dinners, greengrocers, bank-porters, and milkmen
in their private capacity, left their addresses and ingratiated
themselves with the butler.  Mr. Chummy, the chimney-purifier, who
had swept the last three families, tried to coax the butler and the
boy under him, whose duty it was to go out covered with buttons and
with stripes down his trousers, for the protection of Mrs. Amelia
whenever she chose to walk abroad.

It was a modest establishment.  The butler was Jos's valet also, and
never was more drunk than a butler in a small family should be who
has a proper regard for his master's wine.  Emmy was supplied with a
maid, grown on Sir William Dobbin's suburban estate; a good girl,
whose kindness and humility disarmed Mrs. Osborne, who was at first
terrified at the idea of having a servant to wait upon herself, who
did not in the least know how to use one, and who always spoke to
domestics with the most reverential politeness.  But this maid was
very useful in the family, in dexterously tending old Mr. Sedley,
who kept almost entirely to his own quarter of the house and never
mixed in any of the gay doings which took place there.

Numbers of people came to see Mrs. Osborne.  Lady Dobbin and
daughters were delighted at her change of fortune, and waited upon
her.  Miss Osborne from Russell Square came in her grand chariot
with the flaming hammer-cloth emblazoned with the Leeds arms.  Jos
was reported to be immensely rich.  Old Osborne had no objection
that Georgy should inherit his uncle's property as well as his own.
"Damn it, we will make a man of the feller," he said; "and I'll see
him in Parliament before I die.  You may go and see his mother, Miss
O., though I'll never set eyes on her":  and Miss Osborne came.
Emmy, you may be sure, was very glad to see her, and so be brought
nearer to George.  That young fellow was allowed to come much more
frequently than before to visit his mother.  He dined once or twice
a week in Gillespie Street and bullied the servants and his
relations there, just as he did in Russell Square.

He was always respectful to Major Dobbin, however, and more modest
in his demeanour when that gentleman was present.  He was a clever
lad and afraid of the Major.  George could not help admiring his
friend's simplicity, his good humour, his various learning quietly
imparted, his general love of truth and justice.  He had met no such
man as yet in the course of his experience, and he had an
instinctive liking for a gentleman.  He hung fondly by his
godfather's side, and it was his delight to walk in the parks and
hear Dobbin talk.  William told George about his father, about India
and Waterloo, about everything but himself.  When George was more
than usually pert and conceited, the Major made jokes at him, which
Mrs. Osborne thought very cruel.  One day, taking him to the play,
and the boy declining to go into the pit because it was vulgar, the
Major took him to the boxes, left him there, and went down himself
to the pit.  He had not been seated there very long before he felt
an arm thrust under his and a dandy little hand in a kid glove
squeezing his arm.  George had seen the absurdity of his ways and
come down from the upper region.  A tender laugh of benevolence
lighted up old Dobbin's face and eyes as he looked at the repentant
little prodigal.  He loved the boy, as he did everything that
belonged to Amelia.  How charmed she was when she heard of this
instance of George's goodness!  Her eyes looked more kindly on
Dobbin than they ever had done.  She blushed, he thought, after
looking at him so.

Georgy never tired of his praises of the Major to his mother.  "I
like him, Mamma, because he knows such lots of things; and he ain't
like old Veal, who is always bragging and using such long words,
don't you know? The chaps call him 'Longtail' at school.  I gave him
the name; ain't it capital? But Dob reads Latin like English, and
French and that; and when we go out together he tells me stories
about my Papa, and never about himself; though I heard Colonel
Buckler, at Grandpapa's, say that he was one of the bravest officers
in the army, and had distinguished himself ever so much.  Grandpapa
was quite surprised, and said, 'THAT feller!  Why, I didn't think he
could say Bo to a goose'--but I know he could, couldn't he, Mamma?"

Emmy laughed:  she thought it was very likely the Major could do
thus much.

If there was a sincere liking between George and the Major, it must
be confessed that between the boy and his uncle no great love
existed.  George had got a way of blowing out his cheeks, and
putting his hands in his waistcoat pockets, and saying, "God bless
my soul, you don't say so," so exactly after the fashion of old Jos
that it was impossible to refrain from laughter.  The servants would
explode at dinner if the lad, asking for something which wasn't at
table, put on that countenance and used that favourite phrase.  Even
Dobbin would shoot out a sudden peal at the boy's mimicry.  If
George did not mimic his uncle to his face, it was only by Dobbin's
rebukes and Amelia's terrified entreaties that the little scapegrace
was induced to desist.  And the worthy civilian being haunted by a
dim consciousness that the lad thought him an ass, and was inclined
to turn him into ridicule, used to be extremely timorous and, of
course, doubly pompous and dignified in the presence of Master
Georgy.  When it was announced that the young gentleman was expected
in Gillespie Street to dine with his mother, Mr. Jos commonly found
that he had an engagement at the Club. Perhaps nobody was much
grieved at his absence.  On those days Mr. Sedley would commonly be
induced to come out from his place of refuge in the upper stories,
and there would be a small family party, whereof Major Dobbin pretty
generally formed one.  He was the ami de la maison--old Sedley's
friend, Emmy's friend, Georgy's friend, Jos's counsel and adviser.
"He might almost as well be at Madras for anything WE see of him,"
Miss Ann Dobbin remarked at Camberwell.  Ah!  Miss Ann, did it not
strike you that it was not YOU whom the Major wanted to marry?

Joseph Sedley then led a life of dignified otiosity such as became a
person of his eminence.  His very first point, of course, was to
become a member of the Oriental Club, where he spent his mornings in
the company of his brother Indians, where he dined, or whence he
brought home men to dine.

Amelia had to receive and entertain these gentlemen and their
ladies.  From these she heard how soon Smith would be in Council;
how many lacs Jones had brought home with him, how Thomson's House
in London had refused the bills drawn by Thomson, Kibobjee, and Co.,
the Bombay House, and how it was thought the Calcutta House must go
too; how very imprudent, to say the least of it, Mrs. Brown's
conduct (wife of Brown of the Ahmednuggur Irregulars) had been with
young Swankey of the Body Guard, sitting up with him on deck until
all hours, and losing themselves as they were riding out at the
Cape; how Mrs. Hardyman had had out her thirteen sisters, daughters
of a country curate, the Rev:  Felix Rabbits, and married eleven of
them, seven high up in the service; how Hornby was wild because his
wife would stay in Europe, and Trotter was appointed Collector at
Ummerapoora.  This and similar talk took place at the grand dinners
all round.  They had the same conversation; the same silver dishes;
the same saddles of mutton, boiled turkeys, and entrees.  Politics
set in a short time after dessert, when the ladies retired upstairs
and talked about their complaints and their children.

Mutato nomine, it is all the same.  Don't the barristers' wives talk
about Circuit? Don't the soldiers' ladies gossip about the Regiment?
Don't the clergymen's ladies discourse about Sunday-schools and who
takes whose duty? Don't the very greatest ladies of all talk about
that small clique of persons to whom they belong? And why should our
Indian friends not have their own conversation?--only I admit it is
slow for the laymen whose fate it sometimes is to sit by and listen.

Before long Emmy had a visiting-book, and was driving about
regularly in a carriage, calling upon Lady Bludyer (wife of Major-
General Sir Roger Bludyer, K.C.B., Bengal Army); Lady Huff, wife of
Sir G.  Huff, Bombay ditto; Mrs. Pice, the Lady of Pice the
Director, &c.  We are not long in using ourselves to changes in
life.  That carriage came round to Gillespie Street every day; that
buttony boy sprang up and down from the box with Emmy's and Jos's
visiting-cards; at stated hours Emmy and the carriage went for Jos
to the Club and took him an airing; or, putting old Sedley into the
vehicle, she drove the old man round the Regent's Park.  The lady's
maid and the chariot, the visiting-book and the buttony page, became
soon as familiar to Amelia as the humble routine of Brompton.  She
accommodated herself to one as to the other.  If Fate had ordained
that she should be a Duchess, she would even have done that duty
too.  She was voted, in Jos's female society, rather a pleasing
young person--not much in her, but pleasing, and that sort of thing.

The men, as usual, liked her artless kindness and simple refined
demeanour.  The gallant young Indian dandies at home on furlough--
immense dandies these--chained and moustached--driving in tearing
cabs, the pillars of the theatres, living at West End hotels--
nevertheless admired Mrs. Osborne, liked to bow to her carriage in
the park, and to be admitted to have the honour of paying her a
morning visit.  Swankey of the Body Guard himself, that dangerous
youth, and the greatest buck of all the Indian army now on leave,
was one day discovered by Major Dobbin tete-a-tete with Amelia, and
describing the sport of pig-sticking to her with great humour and
eloquence; and he spoke afterwards of a d--d king's officer that's
always hanging about the house--a long, thin, queer-looking, oldish
fellow--a dry fellow though, that took the shine out of a man in the
talking line.

Had the Major possessed a little more personal vanity he would have
been jealous of so dangerous a young buck as that fascinating Bengal
Captain.  But Dobbin was of too simple and generous a nature to have
any doubts about Amelia.  He was glad that the young men should pay
her respect, and that others should admire her.  Ever since her
womanhood almost, had she not been persecuted and undervalued? It
pleased him to see how kindness bought out her good qualities and
how her spirits gently rose with her prosperity.  Any person who
appreciated her paid a compliment to the Major's good judgement--
that is, if a man may be said to have good judgement who is under
the influence of Love's delusion.

After Jos went to Court, which we may be sure he did as a loyal
subject of his Sovereign (showing himself in his full court suit at
the Club, whither Dobbin came to fetch him in a very shabby old
uniform) he who had always been a staunch Loyalist and admirer of
George IV, became such a tremendous Tory and pillar of the State
that he was for having Amelia to go to a Drawing-room, too.  He
somehow had worked himself up to believe that he was implicated in
the maintenance of the public welfare and that the Sovereign would
not be happy unless Jos Sedley and his family appeared to rally
round him at St.  James's.

Emmy laughed.  "Shall I wear the family diamonds, Jos?" she said.

"I wish you would let me buy you some," thought the Major.  "I
should like to see any that were too good for you."



CHAPTER LXI

In Which Two Lights are Put Out


There came a day when the round of decorous pleasures and solemn
gaieties in which Mr. Jos Sedley's family indulged was interrupted
by an event which happens in most houses.  As you ascend the
staircase of your house from the drawing towards the bedroom floors,
you may have remarked a little arch in the wall right before you,
which at once gives light to the stair which leads from the second
story to the third (where the nursery and servants' chambers
commonly are) and serves for another purpose of utility, of which
the undertaker's men can give you a notion.  They rest the coffins
upon that arch, or pass them through it so as not to disturb in any
unseemly manner the cold tenant slumbering within the black ark.

That second-floor arch in a London house, looking up and down the
well of the staircase and commanding the main thoroughfare by which
the inhabitants are passing; by which cook lurks down before
daylight to scour her pots and pans in the kitchen; by which young
master stealthily ascends, having left his boots in the hall, and
let himself in after dawn from a jolly night at the Club; down which
miss comes rustling in fresh ribbons and spreading muslins,
brilliant and beautiful, and prepared for conquest and the ball; or
Master Tommy slides, preferring the banisters for a mode of
conveyance, and disdaining danger and the stair; down which the
mother is fondly carried smiling in her strong husband's arms, as he
steps steadily step by step, and followed by the monthly nurse, on
the day when the medical man has pronounced that the charming
patient may go downstairs; up which John lurks to bed, yawning, with
a sputtering tallow candle, and to gather up before sunrise the
boots which are awaiting him in the passages--that stair, up or down
which babies are carried, old people are helped, guests are
marshalled to the ball, the parson walks to the christening, the
doctor to the sick-room, and the undertaker's men to the upper
floor--what a memento of Life, Death, and Vanity it is--that arch
and stair--if you choose to consider it, and sit on the landing,
looking up and down the well!  The doctor will come up to us too for
the last time there, my friend in motley.  The nurse will look in at
the curtains, and you take no notice--and then she will fling open
the windows for a little and let in the air.  Then they will pull
down all the front blinds of the house and live in the back rooms--
then they will send for the lawyer and other men in black, &c.  Your
comedy and mine will have been played then, and we shall be removed,
oh, how far, from the trumpets, and the shouting, and the posture-
making.  If we are gentlefolks they will put hatchments over our
late domicile, with gilt cherubim, and mottoes stating that there is
"Quiet in Heaven." Your son will new furnish the house, or perhaps
let it, and go into a more modern quarter; your name will be among
the "Members Deceased" in the lists of your clubs next year.
However much you may be mourned, your widow will like to have her
weeds neatly made--the cook will send or come up to ask about
dinner--the survivor will soon bear to look at your picture over the
mantelpiece, which will presently be deposed from the place of
honour, to make way for the portrait of the son who reigns.

Which of the dead are most tenderly and passionately deplored? Those
who love the survivors the least, I believe.  The death of a child
occasions a passion of grief and frantic tears, such as your end,
brother reader, will never inspire.  The death of an infant which
scarce knew you, which a week's absence from you would have caused
to forget you, will strike you down more than the loss of your
closest friend, or your first-born son--a man grown like yourself,
with children of his own.  We may be harsh and stern with Judah and
Simeon--our love and pity gush out for Benjamin, the little one.
And if you are old, as some reader of this may be or shall be old
and rich, or old and poor--you may one day be thinking for yourself--
"These people are very good round about me, but they won't grieve
too much when I am gone.  I am very rich, and they want my
inheritance--or very poor, and they are tired of supporting me."

The period of mourning for Mrs. Sedley's death was only just
concluded, and Jos scarcely had had time to cast off his black and
appear in the splendid waistcoats which he loved, when it became
evident to those about Mr. Sedley that another event was at hand,
and that the old man was about to go seek for his wife in the dark
land whither she had preceded him.  "The state of my father's
health," Jos Sedley solemnly remarked at the Club, "prevents me from
giving any LARGE parties this season:  but if you will come in
quietly at half-past six, Chutney, my boy, and fake a homely dinner
with one or two of the old set--I shall be always glad to see you."
So Jos and his acquaintances dined and drank their claret among
themselves in silence, whilst the sands of life were running out in
the old man's glass upstairs.  The velvet-footed butler brought them
their wine, and they composed themselves to a rubber after dinner,
at which Major Dobbin would sometimes come and take a hand; and Mrs.
Osborne would occasionally descend, when her patient above was
settled for the night, and had commenced one of those lightly
troubled slumbers which visit the pillow of old age.

The old man clung to his daughter during this sickness.  He would
take his broths and medicines from scarcely any other hand.  To tend
him became almost the sole business of her life.  Her bed was placed
close by the door which opened into his chamber, and she was alive
at the slightest noise or disturbance from the couch of the
querulous invalid.  Though, to do him justice, he lay awake many an
hour, silent and without stirring, unwilling to awaken his kind and
vigilant nurse.

He loved his daughter with more fondness now, perhaps, than ever he
had done since the days of her childhood.  In the discharge of
gentle offices and kind filial duties, this simple creature shone
most especially.  "She walks into the room as silently as a
sunbeam," Mr. Dobbin thought as he saw her passing in and out from
her father's room, a cheerful sweetness lighting up her face as she
moved to and fro, graceful and noiseless.  When women are brooding
over their children, or busied in a sick-room, who has not seen in
their faces those sweet angelic beams of love and pity?

A secret feud of some years' standing was thus healed, and with a
tacit reconciliation.  In these last hours, and touched by her love
and goodness, the old man forgot all his grief against her, and
wrongs which he and his wife had many a long night debated:  how she
had given up everything for her boy; how she was careless of her
parents in their old age and misfortune, and only thought of the
child; how absurdly and foolishly, impiously indeed, she took on
when George was removed from her.  Old Sedley forgot these charges
as he was making up his last account, and did justice to the gentle
and uncomplaining little martyr.  One night when she stole into his
room, she found him awake, when the broken old man made his
confession.  "Oh, Emmy, I've been thinking we were very unkind and
unjust to you," he said and put out his cold and feeble hand to her.
She knelt down and prayed by his bedside, as he did too, having
still hold of her hand.  When our turn comes, friend, may we have
such company in our prayers!

Perhaps as he was lying awake then, his life may have passed before
him--his early hopeful struggles, his manly successes and
prosperity, his downfall in his declining years, and his present
helpless condition--no chance of revenge against Fortune, which had
had the better of him--neither name nor money to bequeath--a spent-
out, bootless life of defeat and disappointment, and the end here!
Which, I wonder, brother reader, is the better lot, to die
prosperous and famous, or poor and disappointed? To have, and to be
forced to yield; or to sink out of life, having played and lost the
game? That must be a strange feeling, when a day of our life comes
and we say, "To-morrow, success or failure won't matter much, and
the sun will rise, and all the myriads of mankind go to their work
or their pleasure as usual, but I shall be out of the turmoil."

So there came one morning and sunrise when all the world got up and
set about its various works and pleasures, with the exception of old
John Sedley, who was not to fight with fortune, or to hope or scheme
any more, but to go and take up a quiet and utterly unknown
residence in a churchyard at Brompton by the side of his old wife.

Major Dobbin, Jos, and Georgy followed his remains to the grave, in
a black cloth coach.  Jos came on purpose from the Star and Garter
at Richmond, whither he retreated after the deplorable event.  He
did not care to remain in the house, with the--under the
circumstances, you understand.  But Emmy stayed and did her duty as
usual.  She was bowed down by no especial grief, and rather solemn
than sorrowful.  She prayed that her own end might be as calm and
painless, and thought with trust and reverence of the words which
she had heard from her father during his illness, indicative of his
faith, his resignation, and his future hope.

Yes, I think that will be the better ending of the two, after all.
Suppose you are particularly rich and well-to-do and say on that
last day, "I am very rich; I am tolerably well known; I have lived
all my life in the best society, and thank Heaven, come of a most
respectable family.  I have served my King and country with honour.
I was in Parliament for several years, where, I may say, my speeches
were listened to and pretty well received. I don't owe any man a
shilling:  on the contrary, I lent my old college friend, Jack
Lazarus, fifty pounds, for which my executors will not press him.  I
leave my daughters with ten thousand pounds apiece--very good
portions for girls; I bequeath my plate and furniture, my house in
Baker Street, with a handsome jointure, to my widow for her life;
and my landed property, besides money in the funds, and my cellar of
well-selected wine in Baker Street, to my son.  I leave twenty pound
a year to my valet; and I defy any man after I have gone to find
anything against my character." Or suppose, on the other hand, your
swan sings quite a different sort of dirge and you say, "I am a poor
blighted, disappointed old fellow, and have made an utter failure
through life.  I was not endowed either with brains or with good
fortune, and confess that I have committed a hundred mistakes and
blunders. I own to having forgotten my duty many a time.  I can't
pay what I owe.  On my last bed I lie utterly helpless and humble,
and I pray forgiveness for my weakness and throw myself, with a
contrite heart, at the feet of the Divine Mercy." Which of these two
speeches, think you, would be the best oration for your own funeral?
Old Sedley made the last; and in that humble frame of mind, and
holding by the hand of his daughter, life and disappointment and
vanity sank away from under him.

"You see," said old Osborne to George, "what comes of merit, and
industry, and judicious speculations, and that.  Look at me and my
banker's account.  Look at your poor Grandfather Sedley and his
failure.  And yet he was a better man than I was, this day twenty
years--a better man, I should say, by ten thousand pound."

Beyond these people and Mr. Clapp's family, who came over from
Brompton to pay a visit of condolence, not a single soul alive ever
cared a penny piece about old John Sedley, or remembered the
existence of such a person.

When old Osborne first heard from his friend Colonel Buckler (as
little Georgy had already informed us) how distinguished an officer
Major Dobbin was, he exhibited a great deal of scornful incredulity
and expressed his surprise how ever such a feller as that should
possess either brains or reputation.  But he heard of the Major's
fame from various members of his society.  Sir William Dobbin had a
great opinion of his son and narrated many stories illustrative of
the Major's learning, valour, and estimation in the world's opinion.
Finally, his name appeared in the lists of one or two great parties
of the nobility, and this circumstance had a prodigious effect upon
the old aristocrat of Russell Square.

The Major's position, as guardian to Georgy, whose possession had
been ceded to his grandfather, rendered some meetings between the
two gentlemen inevitable; and it was in one of these that old
Osborne, a keen man of business, looking into the Major's accounts
with his ward and the boy's mother, got a hint, which staggered him
very much, and at once pained and pleased him, that it was out of
William Dobbin's own pocket that a part of the fund had been
supplied upon which the poor widow and the child had subsisted.

When pressed upon the point, Dobbin, who could not tell lies,
blushed and stammered a good deal and finally confessed.  "The
marriage," he said (at which his interlocutor's face grew dark) "was
very much my doing.  I thought my poor friend had gone so far that
retreat from his engagement would have been dishonour to him and
death to Mrs. Osborne, and I could do no less, when she was left
without resources, than give what money I could spare to maintain
her."

"Major D.," Mr. Osborne said, looking hard at him and turning very
red too--"you did me a great injury; but give me leave to tell you,
sir, you are an honest feller. There's my hand, sir, though I little
thought that my flesh and blood was living on you--" and the pair
shook hands, with great confusion on Major Dobbin's part, thus found
out in his act of charitable hypocrisy.

He strove to soften the old man and reconcile him towards his son's
memory.  "He was such a noble fellow," he said, "that all of us
loved him, and would have done anything for him.  I, as a young man
in those days, was flattered beyond measure by his preference for
me, and was more pleased to be seen in his company than in that of
the Commander-in-Chief.  I never saw his equal for pluck and daring
and all the qualities of a soldier"; and Dobbin told the old father
as many stories as he could remember regarding the gallantry and
achievements of his son.  "And Georgy is so like him," the Major
added.

"He's so like him that he makes me tremble sometimes," the
grandfather said.

On one or two evenings the Major came to dine with Mr. Osborne (it
was during the time of the sickness of Mr. Sedley), and as the two
sat together in the evening after dinner, all their talk was about
the departed hero. The father boasted about him according to his
wont, glorifying himself in recounting his son's feats and
gallantry, but his mood was at any rate better and more charitable
than that in which he had been disposed until now to regard the poor
fellow; and the Christian heart of the kind Major was pleased at
these symptoms of returning peace and good-will.  On the second
evening old Osborne called Dobbin William, just as he used to do at
the time when Dobbin and George were boys together, and the honest
gentleman was pleased by that mark of reconciliation.

On the next day at breakfast, when Miss Osborne, with the asperity
of her age and character, ventured to make some remark reflecting
slightingly upon the Major's appearance or behaviour--the master of
the house interrupted her.  "You'd have been glad enough to git him
for yourself, Miss O.  But them grapes are sour.  Ha!  ha! Major
William is a fine feller."

"That he is, Grandpapa," said Georgy approvingly; and going up close
to the old gentleman, he took a hold of his large grey whiskers, and
laughed in his face good-humouredly, and kissed him.  And he told
the story at night to his mother, who fully agreed with the boy.
"Indeed he is," she said.  "Your dear father always said so. He is
one of the best and most upright of men." Dobbin happened to drop in
very soon after this conversation, which made Amelia blush perhaps,
and the young scapegrace increased the confusion by telling Dobbin
the other part of the story.  "I say, Dob," he said, "there's such
an uncommon nice girl wants to marry you.  She's plenty of tin; she
wears a front; and she scolds the servants from morning till night."
"Who is it?" asked Dobbin.   "It's Aunt O.," the boy answered.
"Grandpapa said so.  And I say, Dob, how prime it would be to have
you for my uncle." Old Sedley's quavering voice from the next room
at this moment weakly called for Amelia, and the laughing ended.

That old Osborne's mind was changing was pretty clear. He asked
George about his uncle sometimes, and laughed at the boy's imitation
of the way in which Jos said "God-bless-my-soul" and gobbled his
soup.  Then he said, "It's not respectful, sir, of you younkers to
be imitating of your relations.  Miss O., when you go out adriving
to-day, leave my card upon Mr. Sedley, do you hear? There's no
quarrel betwigst me and him anyhow."

The card was returned, and Jos and the Major were asked to dinner--
to a dinner the most splendid and stupid that perhaps ever Mr.
Osborne gave; every inch of the family plate was exhibited, and the
best company was asked.  Mr. Sedley took down Miss O.  to dinner,
and she was very gracious to him; whereas she hardly spoke to the
Major, who sat apart from her, and by the side of Mr. Osborne, very
timid.  Jos said, with great solemnity, it was the best turtle soup
he had ever tasted in his life, and asked Mr. Osborne where he got
his Madeira.

"It is some of Sedley's wine," whispered the butler to his master.
"I've had it a long time, and paid a good figure for it, too," Mr.
Osborne said aloud to his guest, and then whispered to his right-
hand neighbour how he had got it "at the old chap's sale."

More than once he asked the Major about--about Mrs. George Osborne--
a theme on which the Major could be very eloquent when he chose.  He
told Mr. Osborne of her sufferings--of her passionate attachment to
her husband, whose memory she worshipped still--of the tender and
dutiful manner in which she had supported her parents, and given up
her boy, when it seemed to her her duty to do so.  "You don't know
what she endured, sir," said honest Dobbin with a tremor in his
voice, "and I hope and trust you will be reconciled to her.  If she
took your son away from you, she gave hers to you; and however much
you loved your George, depend on it, she loved hers ten times more."

"By God, you are a good feller, sir," was all Mr. Osborne said.  It
had never struck him that the widow would feel any pain at parting
from the boy, or that his having a fine fortune could grieve her.  A
reconciliation was announced as speedy and inevitable, and Amelia's
heart already began to beat at the notion of the awful meeting with
George's father.

It was never, however, destined to take place.  Old Sedley's
lingering illness and death supervened, after which a meeting was
for some time impossible.  That catastrophe and other events may
have worked upon Mr. Osborne.  He was much shaken of late, and aged,
and his mind was working inwardly.  He had sent for his lawyers, and
probably changed something in his will.  The medical man who looked
in pronounced him shaky, agitated, and talked of a little blood and
the seaside; but he took neither of these remedies.

One day when he should have come down to breakfast, his servant
missing him, went into his dressing-room and found him lying at the
foot of the dressing-table in a fit.  Miss Osborne was apprised; the
doctors were sent for; Georgy stopped away from school; the bleeders
and cuppers came.  Osborne partially regained cognizance, but never
could speak again, though he tried dreadfully once or twice, and in
four days he died.  The doctors went down, and the undertaker's men
went up the stairs, and all the shutters were shut towards the
garden in Russell Square.  Bullock rushed from the City in a hurry.
"How much money had he left to that boy? Not half, surely? Surely
share and share alike between the three?" It was an agitating
moment.

What was it that poor old man tried once or twice in vain to say? I
hope it was that he wanted to see Amelia and be reconciled before he
left the world to one dear and faithful wife of his son:  it was
most likely that, for his will showed that the hatred which he had
so long cherished had gone out of his heart.

They found in the pocket of his dressing-gown the letter with the
great red seal which George had written him from Waterloo.  He had
looked at the other papers too, relative to his son, for the key of
the box in which he kept them was also in his pocket, and it was
found the seals and envelopes had been broken--very likely on the
night before the seizure--when the butler had taken him tea into his
study, and found him reading in the great red family Bible.

When the will was opened, it was found that half the property was
left to George, and the remainder between the two sisters.  Mr.
Bullock to continue, for their joint benefit, the affairs of the
commercial house, or to go out, as he thought fit.  An annuity of
five hundred pounds, chargeable on George's property, was left to
his mother, "the widow of my beloved son, George Osborne," who was
to resume the guardianship of the boy.

"Major William Dobbin, my beloved son's friend," was appointed
executor; "and as out of his kindness and bounty, and with his own
private funds, he maintained my grandson and my son's widow, when
they were otherwise without means of support" (the testator went on
to say) "I hereby thank him heartily for his love and regard for
them, and beseech him to accept such a sum as may be sufficient to
purchase his commission as a Lieutenant-Colonel, or to be disposed
of in any way he may think fit."

When Amelia heard that her father-in-law was reconciled to her, her
heart melted, and she was grateful for the fortune left to her.  But
when she heard how Georgy was restored to her, and knew how and by
whom, and how it was William's bounty that supported her in poverty,
how it was William who gave her her husband and her son--oh, then
she sank on her knees, and prayed for blessings on that constant and
kind heart; she bowed down and humbled herself, and kissed the feet,
as it were, of that beautiful and generous affection.

And gratitude was all that she had to pay back for such admirable
devotion and benefits--only gratitude!  If she thought of any other
return, the image of George stood up out of the grave and said, "You
are mine, and mine only, now and forever."

William knew her feelings:  had he not passed his whole life in
divining them?

When the nature of Mr. Osborne's will became known to the world, it
was edifying to remark how Mrs. George Osborne rose in the
estimation of the people forming her circle of acquaintance.  The
servants of Jos's establishment, who used to question her humble
orders and say they would "ask Master" whether or not they could
obey, never thought now of that sort of appeal.  The cook forgot to
sneer at her shabby old gowns (which, indeed, were quite eclipsed by
that lady's finery when she was dressed to go to church of a Sunday
evening), the others no longer grumbled at the sound of her bell, or
delayed to answer that summons.  The coachman, who grumbled that his
'osses should be brought out and his carriage made into an hospital
for that old feller and Mrs. O., drove her with the utmost alacrity
now, and trembling lest he should be superseded by Mr. Osborne's
coachman, asked "what them there Russell Square coachmen knew about
town, and whether they was fit to sit on a box before a lady?" Jos's
friends, male and female, suddenly became interested about Emmy, and
cards of condolence multiplied on her hall table.  Jos himself, who
had looked on her as a good-natured harmless pauper, to whom it was
his duty to give victuals and shelter, paid her and the rich little
boy, his nephew, the greatest respect--was anxious that she should
have change and amusement after her troubles and trials, "poor dear
girl"--and began to appear at the breakfast-table, and most
particularly to ask how she would like to dispose of the day.

In her capacity of guardian to Georgy, she, with the consent of the
Major, her fellow-trustee, begged Miss Osborne to live in the
Russell Square house as long as ever she chose to dwell there; but
that lady, with thanks, declared that she never could think of
remaining alone in that melancholy mansion, and departed in deep
mourning to Cheltenham, with a couple of her old domestics. The rest
were liberally paid and dismissed, the faithful old butler, whom
Mrs. Osborne proposed to retain, resigning and preferring to invest
his savings in a public-house, where, let us hope, he was not
unprosperous. Miss Osborne not choosing to live in Russell Square,
Mrs. Osborne also, after consultation, declined to occupy the gloomy
old mansion there.  The house was dismantled; the rich furniture and
effects, the awful chandeliers and dreary blank mirrors packed away
and hidden, the rich rosewood drawing-room suite was muffled in
straw, the carpets were rolled up and corded, the small select
library of well-bound books was stowed into two wine-chests, and the
whole paraphernalia rolled away in several enormous vans to the
Pantechnicon, where they were to lie until Georgy's majority.  And
the great heavy dark plate-chests went off to Messrs.  Stumpy and
Rowdy, to lie in the cellars of those eminent bankers until the same
period should arrive.

One day Emmy, with George in her hand and clad in deep sables, went
to visit the deserted mansion which she had not entered since she
was a girl.  The place in front was littered with straw where the
vans had been laden and rolled off.  They went into the great blank
rooms, the walls of which bore the marks where the pictures and
mirrors had hung.  Then they went up the great blank stone
staircases into the upper rooms, into that where grandpapa died, as
George said in a whisper, and then higher still into George's own
room.  The boy was still clinging by her side, but she thought of
another besides him.  She knew that it had been his father's room as
well as his own.

She went up to one of the open windows (one of those at which she
used to gaze with a sick heart when the child was first taken from
her), and thence as she looked out she could see, over the trees of
Russell Square, the old house in which she herself was born, and
where she had passed so many happy days of sacred youth. They all
came back to her, the pleasant holidays, the kind faces, the
careless, joyful past times, and the long pains and trials that had
since cast her down. She thought of these and of the man who had
been her constant protector, her good genius, her sole benefactor,
her tender and generous friend.

"Look here, Mother," said Georgy, "here's a G.O. scratched on the
glass with a diamond, I never saw it before, I never did it."

"It was your father's room long before you were born, George," she
said, and she blushed as she kissed the boy.

She was very silent as they drove back to Richmond, where they had
taken a temporary house:  where the smiling lawyers used to come
bustling over to see her (and we may be sure noted the visit in the
bill):  and where of course there was a room for Major Dobbin too,
who rode over frequently, having much business to transact on behalf
of his little ward.

Georgy at this time was removed from Mr. Veal's on an unlimited
holiday, and that gentleman was engaged to prepare an inscription
for a fine marble slab, to be placed up in the Foundling under the
monument of Captain George Osborne.

The female Bullock, aunt of Georgy, although despoiled by that
little monster of one-half of the sum which she expected from her
father, nevertheless showed her charitableness of spirit by being
reconciled to the mother and the boy.  Roehampton is not far from
Richmond, and one day the chariot, with the golden bullocks
emblazoned on the panels, and the flaccid children within, drove to
Amelia's house at Richmond; and the Bullock family made an irruption
into the garden, where Amelia was reading a book, Jos was in an
arbour placidly dipping strawberries into wine, and the Major in one
of his Indian jackets was giving a back to Georgy, who chose to jump
over him.  He went over his head and bounded into the little advance
of Bullocks, with immense black bows in their hats, and huge black
sashes, accompanying their mourning mamma.

"He is just of the age for Rosa," the fond parent thought, and
glanced towards that dear child, an unwholesome little miss of seven
years of age.

"Rosa, go and kiss your dear cousin," Mrs. Frederick said.  "Don't
you know me, George? I am your aunt."

"I know you well enough," George said; "but I don't like kissing,
please"; and he retreated from the obedient caresses of his cousin.

"Take me to your dear mamma, you droll child," Mrs. Frederick said,
and those ladies accordingly met, after an absence of more than
fifteen years.  During Emmy's cares and poverty the other had never
once thought about coming to see her, but now that she was decently
prosperous in the world, her sister-in-law came to her as a matter
of course.

So did numbers more.  Our old friend, Miss Swartz, and her husband
came thundering over from Hampton Court, with flaming yellow
liveries, and was as impetuously fond of Amelia as ever.  Miss
Swartz would have liked her always if she could have seen her.  One
must do her that justice.  But, que voulez vous?--in this vast town
one has not the time to go and seek one's friends; if they drop out
of the rank they disappear, and we march on without them.  Who is
ever missed in Vanity Fair?

But so, in a word, and before the period of grief for Mr. Osborne's
death had subsided, Emmy found herself in the centre of a very
genteel circle indeed, the members of which could not conceive that
anybody belonging to it was not very lucky.  There was scarce one of
the ladies that hadn't a relation a Peer, though the husband might
be a drysalter in the City.  Some of the ladies were very blue and
well informed, reading Mrs. Somerville and frequenting the Royal
Institution; others were severe and Evangelical, and held by Exeter
Hall. Emmy, it must be owned, found herself entirely at a loss in
the midst of their clavers, and suffered woefully on the one or two
occasions on which she was compelled to accept Mrs. Frederick
Bullock's hospitalities.  That lady persisted in patronizing her and
determined most graciously to form her.  She found Amelia's
milliners for her and regulated her household and her manners.  She
drove over constantly from Roehampton and entertained her friend
with faint fashionable fiddle-faddle and feeble Court slip-slop.
Jos liked to hear it, but the Major used to go off growling at the
appearance of this woman, with her twopenny gentility.  He went to
sleep under Frederick Bullock's bald head, after dinner, at one of
the banker's best parties (Fred was still anxious that the balance
of the Osborne property should be transferred from Stumpy and
Rowdy's to them), and whilst Amelia, who did not know Latin, or who
wrote the last crack article in the Edinburgh, and did not in the
least deplore, or otherwise, Mr. Peel's late extraordinary
tergiversation on the fatal Catholic Relief Bill, sat dumb amongst
the ladies in the grand drawing-room, looking out upon velvet lawns,
trim gravel walks, and glistening hot-houses.

"She seems good-natured but insipid," said Mrs. Rowdy; "that Major
seems to be particularly epris."

"She wants ton sadly," said Mrs. Hollyock.  "My dear creature, you
never will be able to form her."

"She is dreadfully ignorant or indifferent," said Mrs. Glowry with a
voice as if from the grave, and a sad shake of the head and turban.
"I asked her if she thought that it was in 1836, according to Mr.
Jowls, or in 1839, according to Mr. Wapshot, that the Pope was to
fall: and she said--'Poor Pope!  I hope not--What has he done?'"

"She is my brother's widow, my dear friends," Mrs. Frederick
replied, "and as such I think we're all bound to give her every
attention and instruction on entering into the world.  You may fancy
there can be no MERCENARY motives in those whose DISAPPOINTMENTS are
well known."

"That poor dear Mrs. Bullock," said Rowdy to Hollyock, as they drove
away together--"she is always scheming and managing.  She wants Mrs.
Osborne's account to be taken from our house to hers--and the way in
which she coaxes that boy and makes him sit by that blear-eyed
little Rosa is perfectly ridiculous."

"I wish Glowry was choked with her Man of Sin and her Battle of
Armageddon," cried the other, and the carriage rolled away over
Putney Bridge.

But this sort of society was too cruelly genteel for Emmy, and all
jumped for joy when a foreign tour was proposed.



CHAPTER LXII

Am Rhein


The above everyday events had occurred, and a few weeks had passed,
when on one fine morning, Parliament being over, the summer
advanced, and all the good company in London about to quit that city
for their annual tour in search of pleasure or health, the Batavier
steamboat left the Tower-stairs laden with a goodly company of
English fugitives.  The quarter-deck awnings were up, and the
benches and gangways crowded with scores of rosy children, bustling
nursemaids; ladies in the prettiest pink bonnets and summer dresses;
gentlemen in travelling caps and linen-jackets, whose mustachios had
just begun to sprout for the ensuing tour; and stout trim old
veterans with starched neckcloths and neat-brushed hats, such as
have invaded Europe any time since the conclusion of the war, and
carry the national Goddem into every city of the Continent.  The
congregation of hat-boxes, and Bramah desks, and dressing-cases was
prodigious.  There were jaunty young Cambridge-men travelling with
their tutor, and going for a reading excursion to Nonnenwerth or
Konigswinter; there were Irish gentlemen, with the most dashing
whiskers and jewellery, talking about horses incessantly, and
prodigiously polite to the young ladies on board, whom, on the
contrary, the Cambridge lads and their pale-faced tutor avoided with
maiden coyness; there were old Pall Mall loungers bound for Ems and
Wiesbaden and a course of waters to clear off the dinners of the
season, and a little roulette and trente-et-quarante to keep the
excitement going; there was old Methuselah, who had married his
young wife, with Captain Papillon of the Guards holding her parasol
and guide-books; there was young May who was carrying off his bride
on a pleasure tour (Mrs. Winter that was, and who had been at school
with May's grandmother); there was Sir John and my Lady with a dozen
children, and corresponding nursemaids; and the great grandee
Bareacres family that sat by themselves near the wheel, stared at
everybody, and spoke to no one.  Their carriages, emblazoned with
coronets and heaped with shining imperials, were on the foredeck,
locked in with a dozen more such vehicles:  it was difficult to pass
in and out amongst them; and the poor inmates of the fore-cabin had
scarcely any space for locomotion.  These consisted of a few
magnificently attired gentlemen from Houndsditch, who brought their
own provisions, and could have bought half the gay people in the
grand saloon; a few honest fellows with mustachios and portfolios,
who set to sketching before they had been half an hour on board; one
or two French femmes de chambre who began to be dreadfully ill by
the time the boat had passed Greenwich; a groom or two who lounged
in the neighbourhood of the horse-boxes under their charge, or
leaned over the side by the paddle-wheels, and talked about who was
good for the Leger, and what they stood to win or lose for the
Goodwood cup.

All the couriers, when they had done plunging about the ship and had
settled their various masters in the cabins or on the deck,
congregated together and began to chatter and smoke; the Hebrew
gentlemen joining them and looking at the carriages.  There was Sir
John's great carriage that would hold thirteen people; my Lord
Methuselah's carriage, my Lord Bareacres' chariot, britzska, and
fourgon, that anybody might pay for who liked. It was a wonder how
my Lord got the ready money to pay for the expenses of the journey.
The Hebrew gentlemen knew how he got it.  They knew what money his
Lordship had in his pocket at that instant, and what interest he
paid for it, and who gave it him.  Finally there was a very neat,
handsome travelling carriage, about which the gentlemen speculated.

"A qui cette voiture la?" said one gentleman-courier with a large
morocco money-bag and ear-rings to another with ear-rings and a
large morocco money-bag.

"C'est a Kirsch je bense--je l'ai vu toute a l'heure--qui brenoit
des sangviches dans la voiture," said the courier in a fine German
French.

Kirsch emerging presently from the neighbourhood of the hold, where
he had been bellowing instructions intermingled with polyglot oaths
to the ship's men engaged in secreting the passengers' luggage, came
to give an account of himself to his brother interpreters.  He
informed them that the carriage belonged to a Nabob from Calcutta
and Jamaica enormously rich, and with whom he was engaged to travel;
and at this moment a young gentleman who had been warned off the
bridge between the paddle-boxes, and who had dropped thence on to
the roof of Lord Methuselah's carriage, from which he made his way
over other carriages and imperials until he had clambered on to his
own, descended thence and through the window into the body of the
carriage, to the applause of the couriers looking on.

"Nous allons avoir une belle traversee, Monsieur George," said the
courier with a grin, as he lifted his gold-laced cap.

"D--- your French," said the young gentleman, "where's the biscuits,
ay?" Whereupon Kirsch answered him in the English language or in
such an imitation of it as he could command--for though he was
familiar with all languages, Mr. Kirsch was not acquainted with a
single one, and spoke all with indifferent volubility and
incorrectness.

The imperious young gentleman who gobbled the biscuits (and indeed
it was time to refresh himself, for he had breakfasted at Richmond
full three hours before) was our young friend George Osborne.  Uncle
Jos and his mamma were on the quarter-deck with a gentleman of whom
they used to see a good deal, and the four were about to make a
summer tour.

Jos was seated at that moment on deck under the awning, and pretty
nearly opposite to the Earl of Bareacres and his family, whose
proceedings absorbed the Bengalee almost entirely.  Both the noble
couple looked rather younger than in the eventful year '15, when Jos
remembered to have seen them at Brussels (indeed, he always gave out
in India that he was intimately acquainted with them).  Lady
Bareacres' hair, which was then dark, was now a beautiful golden
auburn, whereas Lord Bareacres' whiskers, formerly red, were at
present of a rich black with purple and green reflections in the
light.  But changed as they were, the movements of the noble pair
occupied Jos's mind entirely.  The presence of a Lord fascinated
him, and he could look at nothing else.

"Those people seem to interest you a good deal," said Dobbin,
laughing and watching him.  Amelia too laughed. She was in a straw
bonnet with black ribbons, and otherwise dressed in mourning, but
the little bustle and holiday of the journey pleased and excited
her, and she looked particularly happy.

"What a heavenly day!" Emmy said and added, with great originality,
"I hope we shall have a calm passage."

Jos waved his hand, scornfully glancing at the same time under his
eyelids at the great folks opposite.  "If you had made the voyages
we have," he said, "you wouldn't much care about the weather." But
nevertheless, traveller as he was, he passed the night direfully
sick in his carriage, where his courier tended him with brandy-and-
water and every luxury.

In due time this happy party landed at the quays of Rotterdam,
whence they were transported by another steamer to the city of
Cologne.  Here the carriage and the family took to the shore, and
Jos was not a little gratified to see his arrival announced in the
Cologne newspapers as "Herr Graf Lord von Sedley nebst Begleitung
aus London." He had his court dress with him; he had insisted that
Dobbin should bring his regimental paraphernalia; he announced that
it was his intention to be presented at some foreign courts, and pay
his respects to the Sovereigns of the countries which he honoured
with a visit.

Wherever the party stopped, and an opportunity was offered, Mr. Jos
left his own card and the Major's upon "Our Minister." It was with
great difficulty that he could be restrained from putting on his
cocked hat and tights to wait upon the English consul at the Free
City of Judenstadt, when that hospitable functionary asked our
travellers to dinner.  He kept a journal of his voyage and noted
elaborately the defects or excellences of the various inns at which
he put up, and of the wines and dishes of which he partook.

As for Emmy, she was very happy and pleased.  Dobbin used to carry
about for her her stool and sketch-book, and admired the drawings of
the good-natured little artist as they never had been admired
before.  She sat upon steamers' decks and drew crags and castles, or
she mounted upon donkeys and ascended to ancient robber-towers,
attended by her two aides-de-camp, Georgy and Dobbin.  She laughed,
and the Major did too, at his droll figure on donkey-back, with his
long legs touching the ground.  He was the interpreter for the
party; having a good military knowledge of the German language, and
he and the delighted George fought the campaigns of the Rhine and
the Palatinate.  In the course of a few weeks, and by assiduously
conversing with Herr Kirsch on the box of the carriage, Georgy made
prodigious advance in the knowledge of High Dutch, and could talk to
hotel waiters and postilions in a way that charmed his mother and
amused his guardian.

Mr. Jos did not much engage in the afternoon excursions of his
fellow-travellers.  He slept a good deal after dinner, or basked in
the arbours of the pleasant inn-gardens.  Pleasant Rhine gardens!
Fair scenes of peace and sunshine--noble purple mountains, whose
crests are reflected in the magnificent stream--who has ever seen
you that has not a grateful memory of those scenes of friendly
repose and beauty? To lay down the pen and even to think of that
beautiful Rhineland makes one happy.  At this time of summer
evening, the cows are trooping down from the hills, lowing and with
their bells tinkling, to the old town, with its old moats, and
gates, and spires, and chestnut-trees, with long blue shadows
stretching over the grass; the sky and the river below flame in-
crimson and gold; and the moon is already out, looking pale towards
the sunset.  The sun sinks behind the great castle-crested
mountains, the night falls suddenly, the river grows darker and
darker, lights quiver in it from the windows in the old ramparts,
and twinkle peacefully in the villages under the hills on the
opposite shore.

So Jos used to go to sleep a good deal with his bandanna over his
face and be very comfortable, and read all the English news, and
every word of Galignani's admirable newspaper (may the blessings of
all Englishmen who have ever been abroad rest on the founders and
proprietors of that piratical print!  ) and whether he woke or
slept, his friends did not very much miss him.  Yes, they were very
happy.  They went to the opera often of evenings--to those snug,
unassuming, dear old operas in the German towns, where the noblesse
sits and cries, and knits stockings on the one side, over against
the bourgeoisie on the other; and His Transparency the Duke and his
Transparent family, all very fat and good-natured, come and occupy
the great box in the middle; and the pit is full of the most elegant
slim-waisted officers with straw-coloured mustachios, and twopence a
day on full pay. Here it was that Emmy found her delight, and was
introduced for the first time to the wonders of Mozart and Cimarosa.
The Major's musical taste has been before alluded to, and his
performances on the flute commended. But perhaps the chief pleasure
he had in these operas was in watching Emmy's rapture while
listening to them. A new world of love and beauty broke upon her
when she was introduced to those divine compositions; this lady had
the keenest and finest sensibility, and how could she be indifferent
when she heard Mozart? The tender parts of "Don Juan" awakened in
her raptures so exquisite that she would ask herself when she went
to say her prayers of a night whether it was not wicked to feel so
much delight as that with which "Vedrai Carino" and "Batti Batti"
filled her gentle little bosom? But the Major, whom she consulted
upon this head, as her theological adviser (and who himself had a
pious and reverent soul), said that for his part, every beauty of
art or nature made him thankful as well as happy, and that the
pleasure to be had in listening to fine music, as in looking at the
stars in the sky, or at a beautiful landscape or picture, was a
benefit for which we might thank Heaven as sincerely as for any
other worldly blessing.  And in reply to some faint objections of
Mrs. Amelia's (taken from certain theological works like the
Washerwoman of Finchley Common and others of that school, with which
Mrs. Osborne had been furnished during her life at Brompton) he told
her an Eastern fable of the Owl who thought that the sunshine was
unbearable for the eyes and that the Nightingale was a most
overrated bird.  "It is one's nature to sing and the other's to
hoot," he said, laughing, "and with such a sweet voice as you have
yourself, you must belong to the Bulbul faction."

I like to dwell upon this period of her life and to think that she
was cheerful and happy.  You see, she has not had too much of that
sort of existence as yet, and has not fallen in the way of means to
educate her tastes or her intelligence.  She has been domineered
over hitherto by vulgar intellects.  It is the lot of many a woman.
And as every one of the dear sex is the rival of the rest of her
kind, timidity passes for folly in their charitable judgments; and
gentleness for dulness; and silence--which is but timid denial of
the unwelcome assertion of ruling folks, and tacit protestantism--
above all, finds no mercy at the hands of the female Inquisition.
Thus, my dear and civilized reader, if you and I were to find
ourselves this evening in a society of greengrocers, let us say, it
is probable that our conversation would not be brilliant; if, on the
other hand, a greengrocer should find himself at your refined and
polite tea-table, where everybody was saying witty things, and
everybody of fashion and repute tearing her friends to pieces in the
most delightful manner, it is possible that the stranger would not
be very talkative and by no means interesting or interested.

And it must be remembered that this poor lady had never met a
gentleman in her life until this present moment.  Perhaps these are
rarer personages than some of us think for.  Which of us can point
out many such in his circle--men whose aims are generous, whose
truth is constant, and not only constant in its kind but elevated in
its degree; whose want of meanness makes them simple; who can look
the world honestly in the face with an equal manly sympathy for the
great and the small? We all know a hundred whose coats are very well
made, and a score who have excellent manners, and one or two happy
beings who are what they call in the inner circles, and have shot
into the very centre and bull's-eye of the fashion; but of gentlemen
how many? Let us take a little scrap of paper and each make out his
list.

My friend the Major I write, without any doubt, in mine.  He had
very long legs, a yellow face, and a slight lisp, which at first was
rather ridiculous.  But his thoughts were just, his brains were
fairly good, his life was honest and pure, and his heart warm and
humble.  He certainly had very large hands and feet, which the two
George Osbornes used to caricature and laugh at; and their jeers and
laughter perhaps led poor little Emmy astray as to his worth.  But
have we not all been misled about our heroes and changed our
opinions a hundred times? Emmy, in this happy time, found that hers
underwent a very great change in respect of the merits of the Major.

Perhaps it was the happiest time of both their lives, indeed, if
they did but know it--and who does? Which of us can point out and
say that was the culmination--that was the summit of human joy? But
at all events, this couple were very decently contented, and enjoyed
as pleasant a summer tour as any pair that left England that year.
Georgy was always present at the play, but it was the Major who put
Emmy's shawl on after the entertainment; and in the walks and
excursions the young lad would be on ahead, and up a tower-stair or
a tree, whilst the soberer couple were below, the Major smoking his
cigar with great placidity and constancy, whilst Emmy sketched the
site or the ruin.  It was on this very tour that I, the present
writer of a history of which every word is true, had the pleasure to
see them first and to make their acquaintance.

It was at the little comfortable Ducal town of Pumpernickel (that
very place where Sir Pitt Crawley had been so distinguished as an
attache; but that was in early early days, and before the news of
the Battle of Austerlitz sent all the English diplomatists in
Germany to the right about) that I first saw Colonel Dobbin and his
party.  They had arrived with the carriage and courier at the
Erbprinz Hotel, the best of the town, and the whole party dined at
the table d'hote.  Everybody remarked the majesty of Jos and the
knowing way in which he sipped, or rather sucked, the
Johannisberger, which he ordered for dinner.  The little boy, too,
we observed, had a famous appetite, and consumed schinken, and
braten, and kartoffeln, and cranberry jam, and salad, and pudding,
and roast fowls, and sweetmeats, with a gallantry that did honour to
his nation.  After about fifteen dishes, he concluded the repast
with dessert, some of which he even carried out of doors, for some
young gentlemen at table, amused with his coolness and gallant free-
and-easy manner, induced him to pocket a handful of macaroons, which
he discussed on his way to the theatre, whither everybody went in
the cheery social little German place. The lady in black, the boy's
mamma, laughed and blushed, and looked exceedingly pleased and shy
as the dinner went on, and at the various feats and instances of
espieglerie on the part of her son.  The Colonel--for so he became
very soon afterwards--I remember joked the boy with a great deal of
grave fun, pointing out dishes which he hadn't tried, and entreating
him not to baulk his appetite, but to have a second supply of this
or that.

It was what they call a gast-rolle night at the Royal Grand Ducal
Pumpernickelisch Hof--or Court theatre--and Madame Schroeder
Devrient, then in the bloom of her beauty and genius, performed the
part of the heroine in the wonderful opera of Fidelio.  From our
places in the stalls we could see our four friends of the table
d'hote in the loge which Schwendler of the Erbprinz kept for his
best guests, and I could not help remarking the effect which the
magnificent actress and music produced upon Mrs. Osborne, for so we
heard the stout gentleman in the mustachios call her.  During the
astonishing Chorus of the Prisoners, over which the delightful voice
of the actress rose and soared in the most ravishing harmony, the
English lady's face wore such an expression of wonder and delight
that it struck even little Fipps, the blase attache, who drawled
out, as he fixed his glass upon her, "Gayd, it really does one good
to see a woman caypable of that stayt of excaytement." And in the
Prison Scene, where Fidelio, rushing to her husband, cries, "Nichts,
nichts, mein Florestan," she fairly lost herself and covered her
face with her handkerchief.  Every woman in the house was snivelling
at the time, but I suppose it was because it was predestined that I
was to write this particular lady's memoirs that I remarked her.

The next day they gave another piece of Beethoven, Die Schlacht bei
Vittoria.  Malbrook is introduced at the beginning of the
performance, as indicative of the brisk advance of the French army.
Then come drums, trumpets, thunders of artillery, and groans of the
dying, and at last, in a grand triumphal swell, "God Save the King"
is performed.

There may have been a score of Englishmen in the house, but at the
burst of that beloved and well-known music, every one of them, we
young fellows in the stalls, Sir John and Lady Bullminster (who had
taken a house at Pumpernickel for the education of their nine
children), the fat gentleman with the mustachios, the long Major in
white duck trousers, and the lady with the little boy upon whom he
was so sweet, even Kirsch, the courier in the gallery, stood bolt
upright in their places and proclaimed themselves to be members of
the dear old British nation.  As for Tapeworm, the Charge
d'Affaires, he rose up in his box and bowed and simpered, as if he
would represent the whole empire.  Tapeworm was nephew and heir of
old Marshal Tiptoff, who has been introduced in this story as
General Tiptoff, just before Waterloo, who was Colonel of the --th
regiment in which Major Dobbin served, and who died in this year
full of honours, and of an aspic of plovers' eggs; when the regiment
was graciously given by his Majesty to Colonel Sir Michael O'Dowd,
K.C.B.  who had commanded it in many glorious fields.

Tapeworm must have met with Colonel Dobbin at the house of the
Colonel's Colonel, the Marshal, for he recognized him on this night
at the theatre, and with the utmost condescension, his Majesty's
minister came over from his own box and publicly shook hands with
his new-found friend.

"Look at that infernal sly-boots of a Tapeworm," Fipps whispered,
examining his chief from the stalls. "Wherever there's a pretty
woman he always twists himself in." And I wonder what were
diplomatists made for but for that?

"Have I the honour of addressing myself to Mrs. Dobbin?" asked the
Secretary with a most insinuating grin.

Georgy burst out laughing and said, "By Jove, that was a good 'un."
Emmy and the Major blushed:  we saw them from the stalls.

"This lady is Mrs. George Osborne," said the Major, "and this is her
brother, Mr. Sedley, a distinguished officer of the Bengal Civil
Service:  permit me to introduce him to your lordship."

My lord nearly sent Jos off his legs with the most fascinating
smile.  "Are you going to stop in Pumpernickel?" he said.  "It is a
dull place, but we want some nice people, and we would try and make
it SO agreeable to you.  Mr.--Ahum--Mrs.--Oho.  I shall do myself
the honour of calling upon you to-morrow at your inn." And he went
away with a Parthian grin and glance which he thought must finish
Mrs. Osborne completely.

The performance over, the young fellows lounged about the lobbies,
and we saw the society take its departure. The Duchess Dowager went
off in her jingling old coach, attended by two faithful and withered
old maids of honour, and a little snuffy spindle-shanked gentleman
in waiting, in a brown jasey and a green coat covered with orders--
of which the star and the grand yellow cordon of the order of St.
Michael of Pumpernickel were most conspicuous.  The drums rolled,
the guards saluted, and the old carriage drove away.

Then came his Transparency the Duke and Transparent family, with his
great officers of state and household.  He bowed serenely to
everybody.  And amid the saluting of the guards and the flaring of
the torches of the running footmen, clad in scarlet, the Transparent
carriages drove away to the old Ducal schloss, with its towers and
pinacles standing on the schlossberg.  Everybody in Pumpernickel
knew everybody.  No sooner was a foreigner seen there than the
Minister of Foreign Affairs, or some other great or small officer of
state, went round to the Erbprinz and found out the name of the new
arrival.

We watched them, too, out of the theatre.  Tapeworm had just walked
off, enveloped in his cloak, with which his gigantic chasseur was
always in attendance, and looking as much as possible like Don Juan.
The Prime Minister's lady had just squeezed herself into her sedan,
and her daughter, the charming Ida, had put on her calash and clogs;
when the English party came out, the boy yawning drearily, the Major
taking great pains in keeping the shawl over Mrs. Osborne's head,
and Mr. Sedley looking grand, with a crush opera-hat on one side of
his head and his hand in the stomach of a voluminous white
waistcoat.  We took off our hats to our acquaintances of the table
d'hote, and the lady, in return, presented us with a little smile
and a curtsey, for which everybody might be thankful.

The carriage from the inn, under the superintendence of the bustling
Mr. Kirsch, was in waiting to convey the party; but the fat man said
he would walk and smoke his cigar on his way homewards, so the other
three, with nods and smiles to us, went without Mr. Sedley, Kirsch,
with the cigar case, following in his master's wake.

We all walked together and talked to the stout gentleman about the
agremens of the place.  It was very agreeable for the English.
There were shooting-parties and battues; there was a plenty of balls
and entertainments at the hospitable Court; the society was
generally good; the theatre excellent; and the living cheap.

"And our Minister seems a most delightful and affable person," our
new friend said.  "With such a representative, and--and a good
medical man, I can fancy the place to be most eligible.  Good-night,
gentlemen." And Jos creaked up the stairs to bedward, followed by
Kirsch with a flambeau.  We rather hoped that nice-looking woman
would be induced to stay some time in the town.



CHAPTER LXIII

In Which We Meet an Old Acquaintance


Such polite behaviour as that of Lord Tapeworm did not fail to have
the most favourable effect upon Mr. Sedley's mind, and the very next
morning, at breakfast, he pronounced his opinion that Pumpernickel
was the pleasantest little place of any which he had visited on
their tour.  Jos's motives and artifices were not very difficult of
comprehension, and Dobbin laughed in his sleeve, like a hypocrite as
he was, when he found, by the knowing air of the civilian and the
offhand manner in which the latter talked about Tapeworm Castle and
the other members of the family, that Jos had been up already in the
morning, consulting his travelling Peerage.  Yes, he had seen the
Right Honourable the Earl of Bagwig, his lordship's father; he was
sure he had, he had met him at--at the Levee--didn't Dob remember?
and when the Diplomatist called on the party, faithful to his
promise, Jos received him with such a salute and honours as were
seldom accorded to the little Envoy.  He winked at Kirsch on his
Excellency's arrival, and that emissary, instructed before-hand,
went out and superintended an entertainment of cold meats, jellies,
and other delicacies, brought in upon trays, and of which Mr. Jos
absolutely insisted that his noble guest should partake.

Tapeworm, so long as he could have an opportunity of admiring the
bright eyes of Mrs. Osborne (whose freshness of complexion bore
daylight remarkably well) was not ill pleased to accept any
invitation to stay in Mr. Sedley's lodgings; he put one or two
dexterous questions to him about India and the dancing-girls there;
asked Amelia about that beautiful boy who had been with her; and
complimented the astonished little woman upon the prodigious
sensation which she had made in the house; and tried to fascinate
Dobbin by talking of the late war and the exploits of the
Pumpernickel contingent under the command of the Hereditary Prince,
now Duke of Pumpernickel.

Lord Tapeworm inherited no little portion of the family gallantry,
and it was his happy belief that almost every woman upon whom he
himself cast friendly eyes was in love with him.  He left Emmy under
the persuasion that she was slain by his wit and attractions and
went home to his lodgings to write a pretty little note to her.  She
was not fascinated, only puzzled, by his grinning, his simpering,
his scented cambric handkerchief, and his high-heeled lacquered
boots.  She did not understand one-half the compliments which he
paid; she had never, in her small experience of mankind, met a
professional ladies' man as yet, and looked upon my lord as
something curious rather than pleasant; and if she did not admire,
certainly wondered at him.  Jos, on the contrary, was delighted.
"How very affable his Lordship is," he said; "How very kind of his
Lordship to say he would send his medical man! Kirsch, you will
carry our cards to the Count de Schlusselback directly; the Major
and I will have the greatest pleasure in paying our respects at
Court as soon as possible.  Put out my uniform, Kirsch--both our
uniforms.  It is a mark of politeness which every English gentleman
ought to show to the countries which he visits to pay his respects
to the sovereigns of those countries as to the representatives of
his own."

When Tapeworm's doctor came, Doctor von Glauber, Body Physician to
H.S.H.  the Duke, he speedily convinced Jos that the Pumpernickel
mineral springs and the Doctor's particular treatment would
infallibly restore the Bengalee to youth and slimness.  "Dere came
here last year," he said, "Sheneral Bulkeley, an English Sheneral,
tvice so pic as you, sir.  I sent him back qvite tin after tree
months, and he danced vid Baroness Glauber at the end of two."

Jos's mind was made up; the springs, the Doctor, the Court, and the
Charge d'Affaires convinced him, and he proposed to spend the autumn
in these delightful quarters.  And punctual to his word, on the next
day the Charge d'Affaires presented Jos and the Major to Victor
Aurelius XVII, being conducted to their audience with that sovereign
by the Count de Schlusselback, Marshal of the Court.

They were straightway invited to dinner at Court, and their
intention of staying in the town being announced, the politest
ladies of the whole town instantly called upon Mrs. Osborne; and as
not one of these, however poor they might be, was under the rank of
a Baroness, Jos's delight was beyond expression.  He wrote off to
Chutney at the Club to say that the Service was highly appreciated
in Germany, that he was going to show his friend, the Count de
Schlusselback, how to stick a pig in the Indian fashion, and that
his august friends, the Duke and Duchess, were everything that was
kind and civil.

Emmy, too, was presented to the august family, and as mourning is
not admitted in Court on certain days, she appeared in a pink crape
dress with a diamond ornament in the corsage, presented to her by
her brother, and she looked so pretty in this costume that the Duke
and Court (putting out of the question the Major, who had scarcely
ever seen her before in an evening dress, and vowed that she did not
look five-and-twenty) all admired her excessively.

In this dress she walked a Polonaise with Major Dobbin at a Court
ball, in which easy dance Mr. Jos had the honour of leading out the
Countess of Schlusselback, an old lady with a hump back, but with
sixteen good quarters of nobility and related to half the royal
houses of Germany.

Pumpernickel stands in the midst of a happy valley through which
sparkles--to mingle with the Rhine somewhere, but I have not the map
at hand to say exactly at what point--the fertilizing stream of the
Pump.  In some places the river is big enough to support a ferry-
boat, in others to turn a mill; in Pumpernickel itself, the last
Transparency but three, the great and renowned Victor Aurelius XIV
built a magnificent bridge, on which his own statue rises,
surrounded by water-nymphs and emblems of victory, peace, and
plenty; he has his foot on the neck of a prostrate Turk--history
says he engaged and ran a Janissary through the body at the relief
of Vienna by Sobieski--but, quite undisturbed by the agonies of that
prostrate Mahometan, who writhes at his feet in the most ghastly
manner, the Prince smiles blandly and points with his truncheon in
the direction of the Aurelius Platz, where he began to erect a new
palace that would have been the wonder of his age had the great-
souled Prince but had funds to complete it.  But the completion of
Monplaisir (Monblaisir the honest German folks call it) was stopped
for lack of ready money, and it and its park and garden are now in
rather a faded condition, and not more than ten times big enough to
accommodate the Court of the reigning Sovereign.

The gardens were arranged to emulate those of Versailles, and amidst
the terraces and groves there are some huge allegorical waterworks
still, which spout and froth stupendously upon fete-days, and
frighten one with their enormous aquatic insurrections.  There is
the Trophonius' cave in which, by some artifice, the leaden Tritons
are made not only to spout water, but to play the most dreadful
groans out of their lead conchs--there is the nymphbath and the
Niagara cataract, which the people of the neighbourhood admire
beyond expression, when they come to the yearly fair at the opening
of the Chamber, or to the fetes with which the happy little nation
still celebrates the birthdays and marriage-days of its princely
governors.

Then from all the towns of the Duchy, which stretches for nearly ten
mile--from Bolkum, which lies on its western frontier bidding
defiance to Prussia, from Grogwitz, where the Prince has a hunting-
lodge, and where his dominions are separated by the Pump River from
those of the neighbouring Prince of Potzenthal; from all the little
villages, which besides these three great cities, dot over the happy
principality--from the farms and the mills along the Pump come
troops of people in red petticoats and velvet head-dresses, or with
three-cornered hats and pipes in their mouths, who flock to the
Residenz and share in the pleasures of the fair and the festivities
there.  Then the theatre is open for nothing, then the waters of
Monblaisir begin to play (it is lucky that there is company to
behold them, for one would be afraid to see them alone)--then there
come mountebanks and riding troops (the way in which his
Transparency was fascinated by one of the horse-riders is well
known, and it is believed that La Petite Vivandiere, as she was
called, was a spy in the French interest), and the delighted people
are permitted to march through room after room of the Grand Ducal
palace and admire the slippery floor, the rich hangings, and the
spittoons at the doors of all the innumerable chambers.  There is
one Pavilion at Monblaisir which Aurelius Victor XV had arranged--a
great Prince but too fond of pleasure--and which I am told is a
perfect wonder of licentious elegance. It is painted with the story
of Bacchus and Ariadne, and the table works in and out of the room
by means of a windlass, so that the company was served without any
intervention of domestics.  But the place was shut up by Barbara,
Aurelius XV's widow, a severe and devout Princess of the House of
Bolkum and Regent of the Duchy during her son's glorious minority,
and after the death of her husband, cut off in the pride of his
pleasures.

The theatre of Pumpernickel is known and famous in that quarter of
Germany.  It languished a little when the present Duke in his youth
insisted upon having his own operas played there, and it is said one
day, in a fury, from his place in the orchestra, when he attended a
rehearsal, broke a bassoon on the head of the Chapel Master, who was
conducting, and led too slow; and during which time the Duchess
Sophia wrote domestic comedies, which must have been very dreary to
witness.  But the Prince executes his music in private now, and the
Duchess only gives away her plays to the foreigners of distinction
who visit her kind little Court.

It is conducted with no small comfort and splendour. When there are
balls, though there may be four hundred people at supper, there is a
servant in scarlet and lace to attend upon every four, and every one
is served on silver.  There are festivals and entertainments going
continually on, and the Duke has his chamberlains and equerries, and
the Duchess her mistress of the wardrobe and ladies of honour, just
like any other and more potent potentates.

The Constitution is or was a moderate despotism, tempered by a
Chamber that might or might not be elected.  I never certainly could
hear of its sitting in my time at Pumpernickel.  The Prime Minister
had lodgings in a second floor, and the Foreign Secretary occupied
the comfortable lodgings over Zwieback's Conditorey.  The army
consisted of a magnificent band that also did duty on the stage,
where it was quite pleasant to see the worthy fellows marching in
Turkish dresses with rouge on and wooden scimitars, or as Roman
warriors with ophicleides and trombones--to see them again, I say,
at night, after one had listened to them all the morning in the
Aurelius Platz, where they performed opposite the cafe where we
breakfasted.  Besides the band, there was a rich and numerous staff
of officers, and, I believe, a few men.  Besides the regular
sentries, three or four men, habited as hussars, used to do duty at
the Palace, but I never saw them on horseback, and au fait, what was
the use of cavalry in a time of profound peace?--and whither the
deuce should the hussars ride?

Everybody--everybody that was noble of course, for as for the
bourgeois we could not quite be expected to take notice of THEM--
visited his neighbour.  H. E. Madame de Burst received once a
week, H. E. Madame de Schnurrbart had her night--the theatre was
open twice a week, the Court graciously received once, so that a
man's life might in fact be a perfect round of pleasure in the
unpretending Pumpernickel way.

That there were feuds in the place, no one can deny. Politics ran
very high at Pumpernickel, and parties were very bitter.  There was
the Strumpff faction and the Lederlung party, the one supported by
our envoy and the other by the French Charge d'Affaires, M. de
Macabau. Indeed it sufficed for our Minister to stand up for Madame
Strumpff, who was clearly the greater singer of the two, and had
three more notes in her voice than Madame Lederlung her rival--it
sufficed, I say, for our Minister to advance any opinion to have it
instantly contradicted by the French diplomatist.

Everybody in the town was ranged in one or other of these factions.
The Lederlung was a prettyish little creature certainly, and her
voice (what there was of it) was very sweet, and there is no doubt
that the Strumpff was not in her first youth and beauty, and
certainly too stout; when she came on in the last scene of the
Sonnambula, for instance, in her night-chemise with a lamp in her
hand, and had to go out of the window, and pass over the plank of
the mill, it was all she could do to squeeze out of the window, and
the plank used to bend and creak again under her weight--but how she
poured out the finale of the opera!  and with what a burst of
feeling she rushed into Elvino's arms--almost fit to smother him!
Whereas the little Lederlung--but a truce to this gossip--the fact
is that these two women were the two flags of the French and the
English party at Pumpernickel, and the society was divided in its
allegiance to those two great nations.

We had on our side the Home Minister, the Master of the Horse, the
Duke's Private Secretary, and the Prince's Tutor; whereas of the
French party were the Foreign Minister, the Commander-in-Chief's
Lady, who had served under Napoleon, and the Hof-Marschall and his
wife, who was glad enough to get the fashions from Pans, and always
had them and her caps by M. de Macabau's courier.  The Secretary of
his Chancery was little Grignac, a young fellow, as malicious as
Satan, and who made caricatures of Tapeworm in all the-albums of the
place.

Their headquarters and table d'hote were established at the Pariser
Hof, the other inn of the town; and though, of course, these
gentlemen were obliged to be civil in public, yet they cut at each
other with epigrams that were as sharp as razors, as I have seen a
couple of wrestlers in Devonshire, lashing at each other's shins and
never showing their agony upon a muscle of their faces.  Neither
Tapeworm nor Macabau ever sent home a dispatch to his government
without a most savage series of attacks upon his rival.  For
instance, on our side we would write, "The interests of Great
Britain in this place, and throughout the whole of Germany, are
perilled by the continuance in office of the present French envoy;
this man is of a character so infamous that he will stick at no
falsehood, or hesitate at no crime, to attain his ends.  He poisons
the mind of the Court against the English minister, represents the
conduct of Great Britain in the most odious and atrocious light, and
is unhappily backed by a minister whose ignorance and necessities
are as notorious as his influence is fatal." On their side they
would say, "M. de Tapeworm continues his system of stupid insular
arrogance and vulgar falsehood against the greatest nation in the
world.  Yesterday he was heard to speak lightly of Her Royal
Highness Madame the Duchess of Berri; on a former occasion he
insulted the heroic Duke of Angouleme and dared to insinuate that
H.R.H.  the Duke of Orleans was conspiring against the august throne
of the lilies.  His gold is prodigated in every direction which his
stupid menaces fail to frighten. By one and the other, he has won
over creatures of the Court here--and, in fine, Pumpernickel will
not be quiet, Germany tranquil, France respected, or Europe content
until this poisonous viper be crushed under heel":  and so on.  When
one side or the other had written any particularly spicy dispatch,
news of it was sure to slip out.

Before the winter was far advanced, it is actually on record that
Emmy took a night and received company with great propriety and
modesty.  She had a French master, who complimented her upon the
purity of her accent and her facility of learning; the fact is she
had learned long ago and grounded herself subsequently in the
grammar so as to be able to teach it to George; and Madam Strumpff
came to give her lessons in singing, which she performed so well and
with such a true voice that the Major's windows, who had lodgings
opposite under the Prime Minister, were always open to hear the
lesson. Some of the German ladies, who are very sentimental and
simple in their tastes, fell in love with her and began to call her
du at once.  These are trivial details, but they relate to happy
times.  The Major made himself George's tutor and read Caesar and
mathematics with him, and they had a German master and rode out of
evenings by the side of Emmy's carriage--she was always too timid,
and made a dreadful outcry at the slightest disturbance on horse-
back.  So she drove about with one of her dear German friends, and
Jos asleep on the back-seat of the barouche.

He was becoming very sweet upon the Grafinn Fanny de Butterbrod, a
very gentle tender-hearted and unassuming young creature, a Canoness
and Countess in her own right, but with scarcely ten pounds per year
to her fortune, and Fanny for her part declared that to be Amelia's
sister was the greatest delight that Heaven could bestow on her, and
Jos might have put a Countess's shield and coronet by the side of
his own arms on his carriage and forks; when--when events occurred,
and those grand fetes given upon the marriage of the Hereditary
Prince of Pumpernickel with the lovely Princess Amelia of Humbourg-
Schlippenschloppen took place.

At this festival the magnificence displayed was such as had not been
known in the little German place since the days of the prodigal
Victor XIV.  All the neighbouring Princes, Princesses, and Grandees
were invited to the feast.  Beds rose to half a crown per night in
Pumpernickel, and the Army was exhausted in providing guards of
honour for the Highnesses, Serenities, and Excellencies who arrived
from all quarters.  The Princess was married by proxy, at her
father's residence, by the Count de Schlusselback.  Snuff-boxes were
given away in profusion (as we learned from the Court jeweller, who
sold and afterwards bought them again), and bushels of the Order of
Saint Michael of Pumpernickel were sent to the nobles of the Court,
while hampers of the cordons and decorations of the Wheel of St.
Catherine of Schlippenschloppen were brought to ours.  The French
envoy got both.  "He is covered with ribbons like a prize cart-
horse," Tapeworm said, who was not allowed by the rules of his
service to take any decorations:  "Let him have the cordons; but
with whom is the victory?" The fact is, it was a triumph of British
diplomacy, the French party having proposed and tried their utmost
to carry a marriage with a Princess of the House of Potztausend-
Donnerwetter, whom, as a matter of course, we opposed.

Everybody was asked to the fetes of the marriage. Garlands and
triumphal arches were hung across the road to welcome the young
bride.  The great Saint Michael's Fountain ran with uncommonly sour
wine, while that in the Artillery Place frothed with beer.  The
great waters played; and poles were put up in the park and gardens
for the happy peasantry, which they might climb at their leisure,
carrying off watches, silver forks, prize sausages hung with pink
ribbon, &c., at the top.  Georgy got one, wrenching it off, having
swarmed up the pole to the delight of the spectators, and sliding
down with the rapidity of a fall of water.  But it was for the
glory's sake merely.  The boy gave the sausage to a peasant, who had
very nearly seized it, and stood at the foot of the mast,
blubbering, because he was unsuccessful.

At the French Chancellerie they had six more lampions in their
illumination than ours had; but our transparency, which represented
the young Couple advancing and Discord flying away, with the most
ludicrous likeness to the French Ambassador, beat the French picture
hollow; and I have no doubt got Tapeworm the advancement and the
Cross of the Bath which he subsequently attained.

Crowds of foreigners arrived for the fetes, and of English, of
course.  Besides the Court balls, public balls were given at the
Town Hall and the Redoute, and in the former place there was a room
for trente-et-quarante and roulette established, for the week of the
festivities only, and by one of the great German companies from Ems
or Aix-la-Chapelle.  The officers or inhabitants of the town were
not allowed to play at these games, but strangers, peasants, ladies
were admitted, and any one who chose to lose or win money.

That little scapegrace Georgy Osborne amongst others, whose pockets
were always full of dollars and whose relations were away at the
grand festival of the Court, came to the Stadthaus Ball in company
of his uncle's courier, Mr. Kirsch, and having only peeped into a
play-room at Baden-Baden when he hung on Dobbin's arm, and where, of
course, he was not permitted to gamble, came eagerly to this part of
the entertainment and hankered round the tables where the croupiers
and the punters were at work.  Women were playing; they were masked,
some of them; this license was allowed in these wild times of
carnival.

A woman with light hair, in a low dress by no means so fresh as it
had been, and with a black mask on, through the eyelets of which her
eyes twinkled strangely, was seated at one of the roulette-tables
with a card and a pin and a couple of florins before her.  As the
croupier called out the colour and number, she pricked on the card
with great care and regularity, and only ventured her money on the
colours after the red or black had come up a certain number of
times.  It was strange to look at her.

But in spite of her care and assiduity she guessed wrong and the
last two florins followed each other under the croupier's rake, as
he cried out with his inexorable voice the winning colour and
number.  She gave a sigh, a shrug with her shoulders, which were
already too much out of her gown, and dashing the pin through the
card on to the table, sat thrumming it for a while.  Then she looked
round her and saw Georgy's honest face staring at the scene.  The
little scamp!  What business had he to be there?

When she saw the boy, at whose face she looked hard through her
shining eyes and mask, she said, "Monsieur n'est pas joueur?"

"Non, Madame," said the boy; but she must have known, from his
accent, of what country he was, for she answered him with a slight
foreign tone.  "You have nevare played--will you do me a littl'
favor?"

"What is it?" said Georgy, blushing again.  Mr. Kirsch was at work
for his part at the rouge et noir and did not see his young master.

"Play this for me, if you please; put it on any number, any number."
And she took from her bosom a purse, and out of it a gold piece, the
only coin there, and she put it into George's hand.  The boy laughed
and did as he was bid.

The number came up sure enough.  There is a power that arranges
that, they say, for beginners.

"Thank you," said she, pulling the money towards her, "thank you.
What is your name?"

"My name's Osborne," said Georgy, and was fingering in his own
pockets for dollars, and just about to make a trial, when the Major,
in his uniform, and Jos, en Marquis, from the Court ball, made their
appearance.  Other people, finding the entertainment stupid and
preferring the fun at the Stadthaus, had quitted the Palace ball
earlier; but it is probable the Major and Jos had gone home and
found the boy's absence, for the former instantly went up to him
and, taking him by the shoulder, pulled him briskly back from the
place of temptation.  Then, looking round the room, he saw Kirsch
employed as we have said, and going up to him, asked how he dared to
bring Mr. George to such a place.

"Laissez-moi tranquille," said Mr. Kirsch, very much excited by play
and wine.  "ll faut s'amuser, parbleu. Je ne suis pas au service de
Monsieur."

Seeing his condition the Major did not choose to argue with the man,
but contented himself with drawing away George and asking Jos if he
would come away.  He was standing close by the lady in the mask, who
was playing with pretty good luck now, and looking on much
interested at the game.

"Hadn't you better come, Jos," the Major said, "with George and me?"

"I'll stop and go home with that rascal, Kirsch," Jos said; and for
the same reason of modesty, which he thought ought to be preserved
before the boy, Dobbin did not care to remonstrate with Jos, but
left him and walked home with Georgy.

"Did you play?" asked the Major when they were out and on their way
home.

The boy said "No."

"Give me your word of honour as a gentleman that you never will."

"Why?" said the boy; "it seems very good fun." And, in a very
eloquent and impressive manner, the Major showed him why he
shouldn't, and would have enforced his precepts by the example of
Georgy's own father, had he liked to say anything that should
reflect on the other's memory.  When he had housed him, he went to
bed and saw his light, in the little room outside of Amelia's,
presently disappear.  Amelia's followed half an hour afterwards.  I
don't know what made the Major note it so accurately.

Jos, however, remained behind over the play-table; he was no
gambler, but not averse to the little excitement of the sport now
and then, and he had some Napoleons chinking in the embroidered
pockets of his court waistcoat.  He put down one over the fair
shoulder of the little gambler before him, and they won.  She made a
little movement to make room for him by her side, and just took the
skirt of her gown from a vacant chair there.

"Come and give me good luck," she said, still in a foreign accent,
quite different from that frank and perfectly English "Thank you,"
with which she had saluted Georgy's coup in her favour.  The portly
gentleman, looking round to see that nobody of rank observed him,
sat down; he muttered--"Ah, really, well now, God bless my soul.
I'm very fortunate; I'm sure to give you good fortune," and other
words of compliment and confusion. "Do you play much?" the foreign
mask said.

"I put a Nap or two down," said Jos with a superb air, flinging down
a gold piece.

"Yes; ay nap after dinner," said the mask archly.  But Jos looking
frightened, she continued, in her pretty French accent, "You do not
play to win.  No more do I. I play to forget, but I cannot.  I
cannot forget old times, monsieur.  Your little nephew is the image
of his father; and you--you are not changed--but yes, you are.
Everybody changes, everybody forgets; nobody has any heart."

"Good God, who is it?" asked Jos in a flutter.

"Can't you guess, Joseph Sedley?" said the little woman in a sad
voice, and undoing her mask, she looked at him.  "You have forgotten
me."

"Good heavens!  Mrs. Crawley!" gasped out Jos.

"Rebecca," said the other, putting her hand on his; but she followed
the game still, all the time she was looking at him.

"I am stopping at the Elephant," she continued.  "Ask for Madame de
Raudon.  I saw my dear Amelia to-day; how pretty she looked, and how
happy!  So do you! Everybody but me, who am wretched, Joseph
Sedley." And she put her money over from the red to the black, as if
by a chance movement of her hand, and while she was wiping her eyes
with a pocket-handkerchief fringed with torn lace.

The red came up again, and she lost the whole of that stake. "Come
away," she said.  "Come with me a little--we are old friends, are we
not, dear Mr. Sedley?"

And Mr. Kirsch having lost all his money by this time, followed his
master out into the moonlight, where the illuminations were winking
out and the transparency over our mission was scarcely visible.



CHAPTER LXIV

A Vagabond Chapter


We must pass over a part of Mrs. Rebecca Crawley's biography with
that lightness and delicacy which the world demands--the moral
world, that has, perhaps, no particular objection to vice, but an
insuperable repugnance to hearing vice called by its proper name.
There are things we do and know perfectly well in Vanity Fair,
though we never speak of them:  as the Ahrimanians worship the
devil, but don't mention him:  and a polite public will no more bear
to read an authentic description of vice than a truly refined
English or American female will permit the word breeches to be
pronounced in her chaste hearing.  And yet, madam, both are walking
the world before our faces every day, without much shocking us.  If
you were to blush every time they went by, what complexions you
would have!  It is only when their naughty names are called out that
your modesty has any occasion to show alarm or sense of outrage, and
it has been the wish of the present writer, all through this story,
deferentially to submit to the fashion at present prevailing, and
only to hint at the existence of wickedness in a light, easy, and
agreeable manner, so that nobody's fine feelings may be offended.  I
defy any one to say that our Becky, who has certainly some vices,
has not been presented to the public in a perfectly genteel and
inoffensive manner.  In describing this Siren, singing and smiling,
coaxing and cajoling, the author, with modest pride, asks his
readers all round, has he once forgotten the laws of politeness, and
showed the monster's hideous tail above water? No!  Those who like
may peep down under waves that are pretty transparent and see it
writhing and twirling, diabolically hideous and slimy, flapping
amongst bones, or curling round corpses; but above the waterline, I
ask, has not everything been proper, agreeable, and decorous, and
has any the most squeamish immoralist in Vanity Fair a right to cry
fie? When, however, the Siren disappears and dives below, down among
the dead men, the water of course grows turbid over her, and it is
labour lost to look into it ever so curiously.  They look pretty
enough when they sit upon a rock, twanging their harps and combing
their hair, and sing, and beckon to you to come and hold the
looking-glass; but when they sink into their native element, depend
on it, those mermaids are about no good, and we had best not examine
the fiendish marine cannibals, revelling and feasting on their
wretched pickled victims.  And so, when Becky is out of the way, be
sure that she is not particularly well employed, and that the less
that is said about her doings is in fact the better.

If we were to give a full account of her proceedings during a couple
of years that followed after the Curzon Street catastrophe, there
might be some reason for people to say this book was improper.  The
actions of very vain, heartless, pleasure-seeking people are very
often improper (as are many of yours, my friend with the grave face
and spotless reputation--but that is merely by the way); and what
are those of a woman without faith--or love--or character? And I am
inclined to think that there was a period in Mrs Becky's life when
she was seized, not by remorse, but by a kind of despair, and
absolutely neglected her person and did not even care for her
reputation.

This abattement and degradation did not take place all at once; it
was brought about by degrees, after her calamity, and after many
struggles to keep up--as a man who goes overboard hangs on to a spar
whilst any hope is left, and then flings it away and goes down, when
he finds that struggling is in vain.

She lingered about London whilst her husband was making preparations
for his departure to his seat of government, and it is believed made
more than one attempt to see her brother-in-law, Sir Pitt Crawley,
and to work upon his feelings, which she had almost enlisted in her
favour.  As Sir Pitt and Mr. Wenham were walking down to the House
of Commons, the latter spied Mrs. Rawdon in a black veil, and
lurking near the palace of the legislature.  She sneaked away when
her eyes met those of Wenham, and indeed never succeeded in her
designs upon the Baronet.

Probably Lady Jane interposed.  I have heard that she quite
astonished her husband by the spirit which she exhibited in this
quarrel, and her determination to disown Mrs. Becky.  Of her own
movement, she invited Rawdon to come and stop in Gaunt Street until
his departure for Coventry Island, knowing that with him for a guard
Mrs. Becky would not try to force her door; and she looked curiously
at the superscriptions of all the letters which arrived for Sir
Pitt, lest he and his sister-in-law should be corresponding.  Not
but that Rebecca could have written had she a mind, but she did not
try to see or to write to Pitt at his own house, and after one or
two attempts consented to his demand that the correspondence
regarding her conjugal differences should be carried on by lawyers
only.

The fact was that Pitt's mind had been poisoned against her.  A
short time after Lord Steyne's accident Wenham had been with the
Baronet and given him such a biography of Mrs. Becky as had
astonished the member for Queen's Crawley.  He knew everything
regarding her: who her father was; in what year her mother danced at
the opera; what had been her previous history; and what her conduct
during her married life--as I have no doubt that the greater part of
the story was false and dictated by interested malevolence, it shall
not be repeated here.  But Becky was left with a sad sad reputation
in the esteem of a country gentleman and relative who had been once
rather partial to her.

The revenues of the Governor of Coventry Island are not large.  A
part of them were set aside by his Excellency for the payment of
certain outstanding debts and liabilities, the charges incident on
his high situation required considerable expense; finally, it was
found that he could not spare to his wife more than three hundred
pounds a year, which he proposed to pay to her on an undertaking
that she would never trouble him. Otherwise, scandal, separation,
Doctors' Commons would ensue.  But it was Mr. Wenham's business,
Lord Steyne's business, Rawdon's, everybody's--to get her out of the
country, and hush up a most disagreeable affair.

She was probably so much occupied in arranging these affairs of
business with her husband's lawyers that she forgot to take any step
whatever about her son, the little Rawdon, and did not even once
propose to go and see him.  That young gentleman was consigned to
the entire guardianship of his aunt and uncle, the former of whom
had always possessed a great share of the child's affection.  His
mamma wrote him a neat letter from Boulogne, when she quitted
England, in which she requested him to mind his book, and said she
was going to take a Continental tour, during which she would have
the pleasure of writing to him again.  But she never did for a year
afterwards, and not, indeed, until Sir Pitt's only boy, always
sickly, died of hooping-cough and measles--then Rawdon's mamma wrote
the most affectionate composition to her darling son, who was made
heir of Queen's Crawley by this accident, and drawn more closely
than ever to the kind lady, whose tender heart had already adopted
him.  Rawdon Crawley, then grown a tall, fine lad, blushed when he
got the letter.  "Oh, Aunt Jane, you are my mother!" he said; "and
not--and not that one." But he wrote back a kind and respectful
letter to Mrs. Rebecca, then living at a boarding-house at Florence.
But we are advancing matters.

Our darling Becky's first flight was not very far.  She perched upon
the French coast at Boulogne, that refuge of so much exiled English
innocence, and there lived in rather a genteel, widowed manner, with
a femme de chambre and a couple of rooms, at an hotel.  She dined at
the table d'hote, where people thought her very pleasant, and where
she entertained her neighbours by stories of her brother, Sir Pitt,
and her great London acquaintance, talking that easy, fashionable
slip-slop which has so much effect upon certain folks of small
breeding.  She passed with many of them for a person of importance;
she gave little tea-parties in her private room and shared in the
innocent amusements of the place in sea-bathing, and in jaunts in
open carriages, in strolls on the sands, and in visits to the play.
Mrs. Burjoice, the printer's lady, who was boarding with her family
at the hotel for the summer, and to whom her Burjoice came of a
Saturday and Sunday, voted her charming, until that little rogue of
a Burjoice began to pay her too much attention.  But there was
nothing in the story, only that Becky was always affable, easy, and
good-natured--and with men especially.

Numbers of people were going abroad as usual at the end of the
season, and Becky had plenty of opportunities of finding out by the
behaviour of her acquaintances of the great London world the opinion
of "society" as regarded her conduct.  One day it was Lady Partlet
and her daughters whom Becky confronted as she was walking modestly
on Boulogne pier, the cliffs of Albion shining in the distance
across the deep blue sea.  Lady Partlet marshalled all her daughters
round her with a sweep of her parasol and retreated from the pier,
darting savage glances at poor little Becky who stood alone there.

On another day the packet came in.  It had been blowing fresh, and
it always suited Becky's humour to see the droll woe-begone faces of
the people as they emerged from the boat.  Lady Slingstone happened
to be on board this day.  Her ladyship had been exceedingly ill in
her carriage, and was greatly exhausted and scarcely fit to walk up
the plank from the ship to the pier.  But all her energies rallied
the instant she saw Becky smiling roguishly under a pink bonnet, and
giving her a glance of scorn such as would have shrivelled up most
women, she walked into the Custom House quite unsupported.  Becky
only laughed:  but I don't think she liked it.  She felt she was
alone, quite alone, and the far-off shining cliffs of England were
impassable to her.

The behaviour of the men had undergone too I don't know what change.
Grinstone showed his teeth and laughed in her face with a
familiarity that was not pleasant. Little Bob Suckling, who was cap
in hand to her three months before, and would walk a mile in the
rain to see for her carriage in the line at Gaunt House, was talking
to Fitzoof of the Guards (Lord Heehaw's son) one day upon the jetty,
as Becky took her walk there. Little Bobby nodded to her over his
shoulder, without moving his hat, and continued his conversation
with the heir of Heehaw.  Tom Raikes tried to walk into her sitting-
room at the inn with a cigar in his mouth, but she closed the door
upon him, and would have locked it, only that his fingers were
inside.  She began to feel that she was very lonely indeed.  "If
HE'D been here," she said, "those cowards would never have dared to
insult me." She thought about "him" with great sadness and perhaps
longing--about his honest, stupid, constant kindness and fidelity;
his never-ceasing obedience; his good humour; his bravery and
courage.  Very likely she cried, for she was particularly lively,
and had put on a little extra rouge, when she came down to dinner.

She rouged regularly now; and--and her maid got Cognac for her
besides that which was charged in the hotel bill.

Perhaps the insults of the men were not, however, so intolerable to
her as the sympathy of certain women. Mrs. Crackenbury and Mrs.
Washington White passed through Boulogne on their way to
Switzerland.  The party were protected by Colonel Horner, young
Beaumoris, and of course old Crackenbury, and Mrs. White's little
girl. THEY did not avoid her.  They giggled, cackled, tattled,
condoled, consoled, and patronized her until they drove her almost
wild with rage.  To be patronized by THEM! she thought, as they went
away simpering after kissing her.  And she heard Beaumoris's laugh
ringing on the stair and knew quite well how to interpret his
hilarity.

It was after this visit that Becky, who had paid her weekly bills,
Becky who had made herself agreeable to everybody in the house, who
smiled at the landlady, called the waiters "monsieur," and paid the
chambermaids in politeness and apologies, what far more than
compensated for a little niggardliness in point of money (of which
Becky never was free), that Becky, we say, received a notice to quit
from the landlord, who had been told by some one that she was quite
an unfit person to have at his hotel, where English ladies would not
sit down with her.  And she was forced to fly into lodgings of which
the dulness and solitude were most wearisome to her.

Still she held up, in spite of these rebuffs, and tried to make a
character for herself and conquer scandal.  She went to church very
regularly and sang louder than anybody there.  She took up the cause
of the widows of the shipwrecked fishermen, and gave work and
drawings for the Quashyboo Mission; she subscribed to the Assembly
and WOULDN'T waltz.  In a word, she did everything that was
respectable, and that is why we dwell upon this part of her career
with more fondness than upon subsequent parts of her history, which
are not so pleasant. She saw people avoiding her, and still
laboriously smiled upon them; you never could suppose from her
countenance what pangs of humiliation she might be enduring
inwardly.

Her history was after all a mystery.  Parties were divided about
her.  Some people who took the trouble to busy themselves in the
matter said that she was the criminal, whilst others vowed that she
was as innocent as a lamb and that her odious husband was in fault.
She won over a good many by bursting into tears about her boy and
exhibiting the most frantic grief when his name was mentioned, or
she saw anybody like him.  She gained good Mrs. Alderney's heart in
that way, who was rather the Queen of British Boulogne and gave the
most dinners and balls of all the residents there, by weeping when
Master Alderney came from Dr. Swishtail's academy to pass his
holidays with his mother.  "He and her Rawdon were of the same age,
and so like," Becky said in a voice choking with agony; whereas
there was five years' difference between the boys' ages, and no more
likeness between them than between my respected reader and his
humble servant.  Wenham, when he was going abroad, on his way to
Kissingen to join Lord Steyne, enlightened Mrs. Alderney on this
point and told her how he was much more able to describe little
Rawdon than his mamma, who notoriously hated him and never saw him;
how he was thirteen years old, while little Alderney was but nine,
fair, while the other darling was dark--in a word, caused the lady
in question to repent of her good humour.

Whenever Becky made a little circle for herself with incredible
toils and labour, somebody came and swept it down rudely, and she
had all her work to begin over again.  It was very hard; very hard;
lonely and disheartening.

There was Mrs. Newbright, who took her up for some time, attracted
by the sweetness of her singing at church and by her proper views
upon serious subjects, concerning which in former days, at Queen's
Crawley, Mrs. Becky had had a good deal of instruction.  Well, she
not only took tracts, but she read them.  She worked flannel
petticoats for the Quashyboos--cotton night-caps for the Cocoanut
Indians--painted handscreens for the conversion of the Pope and the
Jews--sat under Mr. Rowls on Wednesdays, Mr. Huggleton on Thursdays,
attended two Sunday services at church, besides Mr. Bawler, the
Darbyite, in the evening, and all in vain.  Mrs. Newbright had
occasion to correspond with the Countess of Southdown about the
Warmingpan Fund for the Fiji Islanders (for the management of which
admirable charity both these ladies formed part of a female
committee), and having mentioned her "sweet friend," Mrs. Rawdon
Crawley, the Dowager Countess wrote back such a letter regarding
Becky, with such particulars, hints, facts, falsehoods, and general
comminations, that intimacy between Mrs. Newbright and Mrs. Crawley
ceased forthwith, and all the serious world of Tours, where this
misfortune took place, immediately parted company with the
reprobate.  Those who know the English Colonies abroad know that we
carry with us us our pride, pills, prejudices, Harvey-sauces,
cayenne-peppers, and other Lares, making a little Britain wherever
we settle down.

From one colony to another Becky fled uneasily.  From Boulogne to
Dieppe, from Dieppe to Caen, from Caen to Tours--trying with all her
might to be respectable, and alas!  always found out some day or
other and pecked out of the cage by the real daws.

Mrs. Hook Eagles took her up at one of these places--a woman without
a blemish in her character and a house in Portman Square.  She was
staying at the hotel at Dieppe, whither Becky fled, and they made
each other's acquaintance first at sea, where they were swimming
together, and subsequently at the table d'hote of the hotel.  Mrs
Eagles had heard--who indeed had not?--some of the scandal of the
Steyne affair; but after a conversation with Becky, she pronounced
that Mrs. Crawley was an angel, her husband a ruffian, Lord Steyne
an unprincipled wretch, as everybody knew, and the whole case
against Mrs. Crawley an infamous and wicked conspiracy of that
rascal Wenham.  "If you were a man of any spirit, Mr. Eagles, you
would box the wretch's ears the next time you see him at the Club,"
she said to her husband.  But Eagles was only a quiet old gentleman,
husband to Mrs. Eagles, with a taste for geology, and not tall
enough to reach anybody's ears.

The Eagles then patronized Mrs. Rawdon, took her to live with her at
her own house at Paris, quarrelled with the ambassador's wife
because she would not receive her protegee, and did all that lay in
woman's power to keep Becky straight in the paths of virtue and good
repute.

Becky was very respectable and orderly at first, but the life of
humdrum virtue grew utterly tedious to her before long.  It was the
same routine every day, the same dulness and comfort, the same drive
over the same stupid Bois de Boulogne, the same company of an
evening, the same Blair's Sermon of a Sunday night--the same opera
always being acted over and over again; Becky was dying of
weariness, when, luckily for her, young Mr. Eagles came from
Cambridge, and his mother, seeing the impression which her little
friend made upon him, straightway gave Becky warning.

Then she tried keeping house with a female friend; then the double
menage began to quarrel and get into debt.  Then she determined upon
a boarding-house existence and lived for some time at that famous
mansion kept by Madame de Saint Amour, in the Rue Royale, at Paris,
where she began exercising her graces and fascinations upon the
shabby dandies and fly-blown beauties who frequented her landlady's
salons.  Becky loved society and, indeed, could no more exist
without it than an opium-eater without his dram, and she was happy
enough at the period of her boarding-house life.  "The women here
are as amusing as those in May Fair," she told an old London friend
who met her, "only, their dresses are not quite so fresh.  The men
wear cleaned gloves, and are sad rogues, certainly, but they are not
worse than Jack This and Tom That.  The mistress of the house is a
little vulgar, but I don't think she is so vulgar as Lady ------"
and here she named the name of a great leader of fashion that I
would die rather than reveal.  In fact, when you saw Madame de Saint
Amour's rooms lighted up of a night, men with plaques and cordons at
the ecarte tables, and the women at a little distance, you might
fancy yourself for a while in good society, and that Madame was a
real Countess.  Many people did so fancy, and Becky was for a while
one of the most dashing ladies of the Countess's salons.

But it is probable that her old creditors of 1815 found her out and
caused her to leave Paris, for the poor little woman was forced to
fly from the city rather suddenly, and went thence to Brussels.

How well she remembered the place!  She grinned as she looked up at
the little entresol which she had occupied, and thought of the
Bareacres family, bawling for horses and flight, as their carriage
stood in the porte-cochere of the hotel.  She went to Waterloo and
to Laeken, where George Osborne's monument much struck her.  She
made a little sketch of it.  "That poor Cupid!" she said; "how
dreadfully he was in love with me, and what a fool he was!  I wonder
whether little Emmy is alive.  It was a good little creature; and
that fat brother of hers.  I have his funny fat picture still among
my papers.  They were kind simple people."

At Brussels Becky arrived, recommended by Madame de Saint Amour to
her friend, Madame la Comtesse de Borodino, widow of Napoleon's
General, the famous Count de Borodino, who was left with no resource
by the deceased hero but that of a table d'hote and an ecarte table.
Second-rate dandies and roues, widow-ladies who always have a
lawsuit, and very simple English folks, who fancy they see
"Continental society" at these houses, put down their money, or ate
their meals, at Madame de Borodino's tables.  The gallant young
fellows treated the company round to champagne at the table d'hote,
rode out with the women, or hired horses on country excursions,
clubbed money to take boxes at the play or the opera, betted over
the fair shoulders of the ladies at the ecarte tables, and wrote
home to their parents in Devonshire about their felicitous
introduction to foreign society.

Here, as at Paris, Becky was a boarding-house queen, and ruled in
select pensions.  She never refused the champagne, or the bouquets,
or the drives into the country, or the private boxes; but what she
preferred was the ecarte at night,--and she played audaciously.
First she played only for a little, then for five-franc pieces, then
for Napoleons, then for notes:  then she would not be able to pay
her month's pension:  then she borrowed from the young gentlemen:
then she got into cash again and bullied Madame de Borodino, whom
she had coaxed and wheedled before:  then she was playing for ten
sous at a time, and in a dire state of poverty:  then her quarter's
allowance would come in, and she would pay off Madame de Borodino's
score and would once more take the cards against Monsieur de
Rossignol, or the Chevalier de Raff.

When Becky left Brussels, the sad truth is that she owed three
months' pension to Madame de Borodino, of which fact, and of the
gambling, and of the drinking, and of the going down on her knees to
the Reverend Mr. Muff, Ministre Anglican, and borrowing money of
him, and of her coaxing and flirting with Milor Noodle, son of Sir
Noodle, pupil of the Rev.  Mr. Muff, whom she used to take into her
private room, and of whom she won large sums at ecarte--of which
fact, I say, and of a hundred of her other knaveries, the Countess
de Borodino informs every English person who stops at her
establishment, and announces that Madame Rawdon was no better than a
vipere.

So our little wanderer went about setting up her tent in various
cities of Europe, as restless as Ulysses or Bampfylde Moore Carew.
Her taste for disrespectability grew more and more remarkable.  She
became a perfect Bohemian ere long, herding with people whom it
would make your hair stand on end to meet.

There is no town of any mark in Europe but it has its little colony
of English raffs--men whose names Mr. Hemp the officer reads out
periodically at the Sheriffs' Court--young gentlemen of very good
family often, only that the latter disowns them; frequenters of
billiard-rooms and estaminets, patrons of foreign races and gaming-
tables.  They people the debtors' prisons--they drink and swagger--
they fight and brawl--they run away without paying--they have duels
with French and German officers--they cheat Mr. Spooney at ecarte--
they get the money and drive off to Baden in magnificent britzkas--
they try their infallible martingale and lurk about the tables with
empty pockets, shabby bullies, penniless bucks, until they can
swindle a Jew banker with a sham bill of exchange, or find another
Mr. Spooney to rob. The alternations of splendour and misery which
these people undergo are very queer to view.  Their life must be one
of great excitement.  Becky--must it be owned?--took to this life,
and took to it not unkindly.  She went about from town to town among
these Bohemians.  The lucky Mrs. Rawdon was known at every play-
table in Germany.  She and Madame de Cruchecassee kept house at
Florence together.  It is said she was ordered out of Munich, and my
friend Mr. Frederick Pigeon avers that it was at her house at
Lausanne that he was hocussed at supper and lost eight hundred
pounds to Major Loder and the Honourable Mr. Deuceace.  We are
bound, you see, to give some account of Becky's biography, but of
this part, the less, perhaps, that is said the better.

They say that, when Mrs. Crawley was particularly down on her luck,
she gave concerts and lessons in music here and there.  There was a
Madame de Raudon, who certainly had a matinee musicale at Wildbad,
accompanied by Herr Spoff, premier pianist to the Hospodar of
Wallachia, and my little friend Mr. Eaves, who knew everybody and
had travelled everywhere, always used to declare that he was at
Strasburg in the year 1830, when a certain Madame Rebecque made her
appearance in the opera of the Dame Blanche, giving occasion to a
furious row in the theatre there.  She was hissed off the stage by
the audience, partly from her own incompetency, but chiefly from the
ill-advised sympathy of some persons in the parquet, (where the
officers of the garrison had their admissions); and Eaves was
certain that the unfortunate debutante in question was no other than
Mrs. Rawdon Crawley.

She was, in fact, no better than a vagabond upon this earth.  When
she got her money she gambled; when she had gambled it she was put
to shifts to live; who knows how or by what means she succeeded? It
is said that she was once seen at St.  Petersburg, but was summarily
dismissed from that capital by the police, so that there cannot be
any possibility of truth in the report that she was a Russian spy at
Toplitz and Vienna afterwards.  I have even been informed that at
Paris she discovered a relation of her own, no less a person than
her maternal grandmother, who was not by any means a Montmorenci,
but a hideous old box-opener at a theatre on the Boulevards.  The
meeting between them, of which other persons, as it is hinted
elsewhere, seem to have been acquainted, must have been a very
affecting interview.  The present historian can give no certain
details regarding the event.

It happened at Rome once that Mrs. de Rawdon's half-year's salary
had just been paid into the principal banker's there, and, as
everybody who had a balance of above five hundred scudi was invited
to the balls which this prince of merchants gave during the winter,
Becky had the honour of a card, and appeared at one of the Prince
and Princess Polonia's splendid evening entertainments. The Princess
was of the family of Pompili, lineally descended from the second
king of Rome, and Egeria of the house of Olympus, while the Prince's
grandfather, Alessandro Polonia, sold wash-balls, essences, tobacco,
and pocket-handkerchiefs, ran errands for gentlemen, and lent money
in a small way.  All the great company in Rome thronged to his
saloons--Princes, Dukes, Ambassadors, artists, fiddlers, monsignori,
young bears with their leaders--every rank and condition of man.
His halls blazed with light and magnificence; were resplendent with
gilt frames (containing pictures), and dubious antiques; and the
enormous gilt crown and arms of the princely owner, a gold mushroom
on a crimson field (the colour of the pocket-handkerchiefs which he
sold), and the silver fountain of the Pompili family shone all over
the roof, doors, and panels of the house, and over the grand velvet
baldaquins prepared to receive Popes and Emperors.

So Becky, who had arrived in the diligence from Florence, and was
lodged at an inn in a very modest way, got a card for Prince
Polonia's entertainment, and her maid dressed her with unusual care,
and she went to this fine ball leaning on the arm of Major Loder,
with whom she happened to be travelling at the time--(the same man
who shot Prince Ravoli at Naples the next year, and was caned by Sir
John Buckskin for carrying four kings in his hat besides those which
he used in playing at ecarte )--and this pair went into the rooms
together, and Becky saw a number of old faces which she remembered
in happier days, when she was not innocent, but not found out.
Major Loder knew a great number of foreigners, keen-looking
whiskered men with dirty striped ribbons in their buttonholes, and a
very small display of linen; but his own countrymen, it might be
remarked, eschewed the Major.  Becky, too, knew some ladies here and
there--French widows, dubious Italian countesses, whose husbands had
treated them ill--faugh--what shall we say, we who have moved among
some of the finest company of Vanity Fair, of this refuse and
sediment of rascals? If we play, let it be with clean cards, and not
with this dirty pack.  But every man who has formed one of the
innumerable army of travellers has seen these marauding irregulars
hanging on, like Nym and Pistol, to the main force, wearing the
king's colours and boasting of his commission, but pillaging for
themselves, and occasionally gibbeted by the roadside.

Well, she was hanging on the arm of Major Loder, and they went
through the rooms together, and drank a great quantity of champagne
at the buffet, where the people, and especially the Major's
irregular corps, struggled furiously for refreshments, of which when
the pair had had enough, they pushed on until they reached the
Duchess's own pink velvet saloon, at the end of the suite of
apartments (where the statue of the Venus is, and the great Venice
looking-glasses, framed in silver), and where the princely family
were entertaining their most distinguished guests at a round table
at supper.  It was just such a little select banquet as that of
which Becky recollected that she had partaken at Lord Steyne's--and
there he sat at Polonia's table, and she saw him. The scar cut by
the diamond on his white, bald, shining forehead made a burning red
mark; his red whiskers were dyed of a purple hue, which made his
pale face look still paler.  He wore his collar and orders, his blue
ribbon and garter.  He was a greater Prince than any there, though
there was a reigning Duke and a Royal Highness, with their
princesses, and near his Lordship was seated the beautiful Countess
of Belladonna, nee de Glandier, whose husband (the Count Paolo della
Belladonna), so well known for his brilliant entomological
collections, had been long absent on a mission to the Emperor of
Morocco.

When Becky beheld that familiar and illustrious face, how vulgar all
of a sudden did Major Loder appear to her, and how that odious
Captain Rook did smell of tobacco!  In one instant she reassumed her
fine-ladyship and tried to look and feel as if she were in May Fair
once more.  "That woman looks stupid and ill-humoured," she thought;
"I am sure she can't amuse him.  No, he must be bored by her--he
never was by me." A hundred such touching hopes, fears, and memories
palpitated in her little heart, as she looked with her brightest
eyes (the rouge which she wore up to her eyelids made them twinkle)
towards the great nobleman.  Of a Star and Garter night Lord Steyne
used also to put on his grandest manner and to look and speak like a
great prince, as he was. Becky admired him smiling sumptuously,
easy, lofty, and stately.  Ah, bon Dieu, what a pleasant companion
he was, what a brilliant wit, what a rich fund of talk, what a grand
manner!--and she had exchanged this for Major Loder, reeking of
cigars and brandy-and-water, and Captain Rook with his horsejockey
jokes and prize-ring slang, and their like.  "I wonder whether he
will know me," she thought.  Lord Steyne was talking and laughing
with a great and illustrious lady at his side, when he looked up and
saw Becky.

She was all over in a flutter as their eyes met, and she put on the
very best smile she could muster, and dropped him a little, timid,
imploring curtsey.  He stared aghast at her for a minute, as Macbeth
might on beholding Banquo's sudden appearance at his ball-supper,
and remained looking at her with open mouth, when that horrid Major
Loder pulled her away.

"Come away into the supper-room, Mrs. R.," was that gentleman's
remark:  "seeing these nobs grubbing away has made me peckish too.
Let's go and try the old governor's champagne." Becky thought the
Major had had a great deal too much already.

The day after she went to walk on the Pincian Hill--the Hyde Park of
the Roman idlers--possibly in hopes to have another sight of Lord
Steyne.  But she met another acquaintance there:  it was Mr. Fiche,
his lordship's confidential man, who came up nodding to her rather
familiarly and putting a finger to his hat.  "I knew that Madame was
here," he said; "I followed her from her hotel.  I have some advice
to give Madame."

"From the Marquis of Steyne?" Becky asked, resuming as much of her
dignity as she could muster, and not a little agitated by hope and
expectation.

"No," said the valet; "it is from me.  Rome is very unwholesome."

"Not at this season, Monsieur Fiche--not till after Easter."

"I tell Madame it is unwholesome now.  There is always malaria for
some people.  That cursed marsh wind kills many at all seasons.
Look, Madame Crawley, you were always bon enfant, and I have an
interest in you, parole d'honneur.  Be warned.  Go away from Rome, I
tell you--or you will be ill and die."

Becky laughed, though in rage and fury.  "What! assassinate poor
little me?" she said.  "How romantic!  Does my lord carry bravos for
couriers, and stilettos in the fourgons? Bah!  I will stay, if but
to plague him.  I have those who will defend me whilst I am here."

It was Monsieur Fiche's turn to laugh now.  "Defend you," he said,
"and who? The Major, the Captain, any one of those gambling men whom
Madame sees would take her life for a hundred louis.  We know things
about Major Loder (he is no more a Major than I am my Lord the
Marquis) which would send him to the galleys or worse.  We know
everything and have friends everywhere. We know whom you saw at
Paris, and what relations you found there.  Yes, Madame may stare,
but we do.  How was it that no minister on the Continent would
receive Madame? She has offended somebody:  who never forgives--
whose rage redoubled when he saw you.  He was like a madman last
night when he came home.  Madame de Belladonna made him a scene
about you and fired off in one of her furies."

"Oh, it was Madame de Belladonna, was it?" Becky said, relieved a
little, for the information she had just got had scared her.

"No--she does not matter--she is always jealous.  I tell you it was
Monseigneur.  You did wrong to show yourself to him.  And if you
stay here you will repent it.  Mark my words.  Go.  Here is my
lord's carriage"--and seizing Becky's arm, he rushed down an alley
of the garden as Lord Steyne's barouche, blazing with heraldic
devices, came whirling along the avenue, borne by the almost
priceless horses, and bearing Madame de Belladonna lolling on the
cushions, dark, sulky, and blooming, a King Charles in her lap, a
white parasol swaying over her head, and old Steyne stretched at her
side with a livid face and ghastly eyes.  Hate, or anger, or desire
caused them to brighten now and then still, but ordinarily, they
gave no light, and seemed tired of looking out on a world of which
almost all the pleasure and all the best beauty had palled upon the
worn-out wicked old man.

"Monseigneur has never recovered the shock of that night, never,"
Monsieur Fiche whispered to Mrs. Crawley as the carriage flashed by,
and she peeped out at it from behind the shrubs that hid her.  "That
was a consolation at any rate," Becky thought.

Whether my lord really had murderous intentions towards Mrs. Becky
as Monsieur Fiche said (since Monseigneur's death he has returned to
his native country, where he lives much respected, and has purchased
from his Prince the title of Baron Ficci), and the factotum objected
to have to do with assassination; or whether he simply had a
commission to frighten Mrs. Crawley out of a city where his Lordship
proposed to pass the winter, and the sight of her would be eminently
disagreeable to the great nobleman, is a point which has never been
ascertained:  but the threat had its effect upon the little woman,
and she sought no more to intrude herself upon the presence of her
old patron.

Everybody knows the melancholy end of that nobleman, which befell at
Naples two months after the French Revolution of 1830; when the Most
Honourable George Gustavus, Marquis of Steyne, Earl of Gaunt and of
Gaunt Castle, in the Peerage of Ireland, Viscount Hellborough, Baron
Pitchley and Grillsby, a Knight of the Most Noble Order of the
Garter, of the Golden Fleece of Spain, of the Russian Order of Saint
Nicholas of the First Class, of the Turkish Order of the Crescent,
First Lord of the Powder Closet and Groom of the Back Stairs,
Colonel of the Gaunt or Regent's Own Regiment of Militia, a Trustee
of the British Museum, an Elder Brother of the Trinity House, a
Governor of the White Friars, and D.C.L.--died after a series of
fits brought on, as the papers said, by the shock occasioned to his
lordship's sensibilities by the downfall of the ancient French
monarchy.

An eloquent catalogue appeared in a weekly print, describing his
virtues, his magnificence, his talents, and his good actions.  His
sensibility, his attachment to the illustrious House of Bourbon,
with which he claimed an alliance, were such that he could not
survive the misfortunes of his august kinsmen.  His body was buried
at Naples, and his heart--that heart which always beat with every
generous and noble emotion was brought back to Castle Gaunt in a
silver urn.  "In him," Mr. Wagg said, "the poor and the Fine Arts
have lost a beneficent patron, society one of its most brilliant
ornaments, and England one of her loftiest patriots and statesmen,"
&c., &c.

His will was a good deal disputed, and an attempt was made to force
from Madame de Belladonna the celebrated jewel called the "Jew's-
eye" diamond, which his lordship always wore on his forefinger, and
which it was said that she removed from it after his lamented
demise. But his confidential friend and attendant, Monsieur Fiche
proved that the ring had been presented to the said Madame de
Belladonna two days before the Marquis's death, as were the bank-
notes, jewels, Neapolitan and French bonds, &c., found in his
lordship's secretaire and claimed by his heirs from that injured
woman.



CHAPTER LXV

Full of Business and Pleasure


The day after the meeting at the play-table, Jos had himself arrayed
with unusual care and splendour, and without thinking it necessary
to say a word to any member of his family regarding the occurrences
of the previous night, or asking for their company in his walk, he
sallied forth at an early hour, and was presently seen making
inquiries at the door of the Elephant Hotel.  In consequence of the
fetes the house was full of company, the tables in the street were
already surrounded by persons smoking and drinking the national
small-beer, the public rooms were in a cloud of smoke, and Mr. Jos
having, in his pompous way, and with his clumsy German, made
inquiries for the person of whom he was in search, was directed to
the very top of the house, above the first-floor rooms where some
travelling pedlars had lived, and were exhibiting their jewellery
and brocades; above the second-floor apartments occupied by the etat
major of the gambling firm; above the third-floor rooms, tenanted by
the band of renowned Bohemian vaulters and tumblers; and so on to
the little cabins of the roof, where, among students, bagmen, small
tradesmen, and country-folks come in for the festival, Becky had
found a little nest--as dirty a little refuge as ever beauty lay hid
in.

Becky liked the life.  She was at home with everybody in the place,
pedlars, punters, tumblers, students and all. She was of a wild,
roving nature, inherited from father and mother, who were both
Bohemians, by taste and circumstance; if a lord was not by, she
would talk to his courier with the greatest pleasure; the din, the
stir, the drink, the smoke, the tattle of the Hebrew pedlars, the
solemn, braggart ways of the poor tumblers, the sournois talk of the
gambling-table officials, the songs and swagger of the students, and
the general buzz and hum of the place had pleased and tickled the
little woman, even when her luck was down and she had not
wherewithal to pay her bill.  How pleasant was all the bustle to her
now that her purse was full of the money which little Georgy had won
for her the night before!

As Jos came creaking and puffing up the final stairs, and was
speechless when he got to the landing, and began to wipe his face
and then to look for No. 92, the room where he was directed to seek
for the person he wanted, the door of the opposite chamber, No. 90,
was open, and a student, in jack-boots and a dirty schlafrock, was
lying on the bed smoking a long pipe; whilst another student in long
yellow hair and a braided coat, exceeding smart and dirty too, was
actually on his knees at No. 92, bawling through the keyhole
supplications to the person within.

"Go away," said a well-known voice, which made Jos thrill, "I expect
somebody; I expect my grandpapa.  He mustn't see you there."

"Angel Englanderinn!" bellowed the kneeling student with the whity-
brown ringlets and the large finger-ring, "do take compassion upon
us.  Make an appointment. Dine with me and Fritz at the inn in the
park.  We will have roast pheasants and porter, plum-pudding and
French wine.  We shall die if you don't."

"That we will," said the young nobleman on the bed; and this
colloquy Jos overheard, though he did not comprehend it, for the
reason that he had never studied the language in which it was
carried on.

"Newmero kattervang dooze, si vous plait," Jos said in his grandest
manner, when he was able to speak.

"Quater fang tooce!" said the student, starting up, and he bounced
into his own room, where he locked the door, and where Jos heard him
laughing with his comrade on the bed.

The gentleman from Bengal was standing, disconcerted by this
incident, when the door of the 92 opened of itself and Becky's
little head peeped out full of archness and mischief.  She lighted
on Jos.  "It's you," she said, coming out.  "How I have been waiting
for you!  Stop! not yet--in one minute you shall come in." In that
instant she put a rouge-pot, a brandy bottle, and a plate of broken
meat into the bed, gave one smooth to her hair, and finally let in
her visitor.

She had, by way of morning robe, a pink domino, a trifle faded and
soiled, and marked here and there with pomaturn; but her arms shone
out from the loose sleeves of the dress very white and fair, and it
was tied round her little waist so as not ill to set off the trim
little figure of the wearer.  She led Jos by the hand into her
garret. "Come in," she said.  "Come and talk to me.  Sit yonder on
the chair"; and she gave the civilian's hand a little squeeze and
laughingly placed him upon it.  As for herself, she placed herself
on the bed--not on the bottle and plate, you may be sure--on which
Jos might have reposed, had he chosen that seat; and so there she
sat and talked with her old admirer.   "How little years have
changed you," she said with a look of tender interest.  "I should
have known you anywhere.  What a comfort it is amongst strangers to
see once more the frank honest face of an old friend!"

The frank honest face, to tell the truth, at this moment bore any
expression but one of openness and honesty:  it was, on the
contrary, much perturbed and puzzled in look.  Jos was surveying the
queer little apartment in which he found his old flame.  One of her
gowns hung over the bed, another depending from a hook of the door;
her bonnet obscured half the looking-glass, on which, too, lay the
prettiest little pair of bronze boots; a French novel was on the
table by the bedside, with a candle, not of wax.  Becky thought of
popping that into the bed too, but she only put in the little paper
night-cap with which she had put the candle out on going to sleep.

"I should have known you anywhere," she continued; "a woman never
forgets some things.  And you were the first man I ever--I ever
saw."

"Was I really?" said Jos.  "God bless my soul, you--you don't say
so."

"When I came with your sister from Chiswick, I was scarcely more
than a child," Becky said.  "How is that, dear love? Oh, her husband
was a sad wicked man, and of course it was of me that the poor dear
was jealous. As if I cared about him, heigho!  when there was
somebody--but no--don't let us talk of old times"; and she passed
her handkerchief with the tattered lace across her eyelids.

"Is not this a strange place," she continued, "for a woman, who has
lived in a very different world too, to be found in? I have had so
many griefs and wrongs, Joseph Sedley; I have been made to suffer so
cruelly that I am almost made mad sometimes.  I can't stay still in
any place, but wander about always restless and unhappy. All my
friends have been false to me--all.  There is no such thing as an
honest man in the world.  I was the truest wife that ever lived,
though I married my husband out of pique, because somebody else--but
never mind that.  I was true, and he trampled upon me and deserted
me.  I was the fondest mother.  I had but one child, one darling,
one hope, one joy, which I held to my heart with a mother's
affection, which was my life, my prayer, my--my blessing; and they--
they tore it from me--tore it from me"; and she put her hand to her
heart with a passionate gesture of despair, burying her face for a
moment on the bed.

The brandy-bottle inside clinked up against the plate which held the
cold sausage.  Both were moved, no doubt, by the exhibition of so
much grief.  Max and Fritz were at the door, listening with wonder
to Mrs. Becky's sobs and cries.  Jos, too, was a good deal
frightened and affected at seeing his old flame in this condition.
And she began, forthwith, to tell her story--a tale so neat, simple,
and artless that it was quite evident from hearing her that if ever
there was a white-robed angel escaped from heaven to be subject to
the infernal machinations and villainy of fiends here below, that
spotless being--that miserable unsullied martyr, was present on the
bed before Jos--on the bed, sitting on the brandy-bottle.

They had a very long, amicable, and confidential talk there, in the
course of which Jos Sedley was somehow made aware (but in a manner
that did not in the least scare or offend him) that Becky's heart
had first learned to beat at his enchanting presence; that George
Osborne had certainly paid an unjustifiable court to HER, which
might account for Amelia's jealousy and their little rupture; but
that Becky never gave the least encouragement to the unfortunate
officer, and that she had never ceased to think about Jos from the
very first day she had seen him, though, of course, her duties as a
married woman were paramount--duties which she had always preserved,
and would, to her dying day, or until the proverbially bad climate
in which Colonel Crawley was living should release her from a yoke
which his cruelty had rendered odious to her.

Jos went away, convinced that she was the most virtuous, as she was
one of the most fascinating of women, and revolving in his mind all
sorts of benevolent schemes for her welfare.  Her persecutions ought
to be ended: she ought to return to the society of which she was an
ornament.  He would see what ought to be done.  She must quit that
place and take a quiet lodging.  Amelia must come and see her and
befriend her.  He would go and settle about it, and consult with the
Major.  She wept tears of heart-felt gratitude as she parted from
him, and pressed his hand as the gallant stout gentleman stooped
down to kiss hers.

So Becky bowed Jos out of her little garret with as much grace as if
it was a palace of which she did the honours; and that heavy
gentleman having disappeared down the stairs, Max and Fritz came out
of their hole, pipe in mouth, and she amused herself by mimicking
Jos to them as she munched her cold bread and sausage and took
draughts of her favourite brandy-and-water.

Jos walked over to Dobbin's lodgings with great solemnity and there
imparted to him the affecting history with which he had just been
made acquainted, without, however, mentioning the play business of
the night before. And the two gentlemen were laying their heads
together and consulting as to the best means of being useful to Mrs.
Becky, while she was finishing her interrupted dejeuner a la
fourchette.

How was it that she had come to that little town? How was it that
she had no friends and was wandering about alone? Little boys at
school are taught in their earliest Latin book that the path of
Avernus is very easy of descent.  Let us skip over the interval in
the history of her downward progress.  She was not worse now than
she had been in the days of her prosperity--only a little down on
her luck.

As for Mrs. Amelia, she was a woman of such a soft and foolish
disposition that when she heard of anybody unhappy, her heart
straightway melted towards the sufferer; and as she had never
thought or done anything mortally guilty herself, she had not that
abhorrence for wickedness which distinguishes moralists much more
knowing.  If she spoiled everybody who came near her with kindness
and compliments--if she begged pardon of all her servants for
troubling them to answer the bell--if she apologized to a shopboy
who showed her a piece of silk, or made a curtsey to a street-
sweeper with a complimentary remark upon the elegant state of his
crossing--and she was almost capable of every one of these follies--
the notion that an old acquaintance was miserable was sure to soften
her heart; nor would she hear of anybody's being deservedly unhappy.
A world under such legislation as hers would not be a very orderly
place of abode; but there are not many women, at least not of the
rulers, who are of her sort.  This lady, I believe, would have
abolished all gaols, punishments, handcuffs, whippings, poverty,
sickness, hunger, in the world, and was such a mean-spirited
creature that--we are obliged to confess it--she could even forget a
mortal injury.

When the Major heard from Jos of the sentimental adventure which had
just befallen the latter, he was not, it must be owned, nearly as
much interested as the gentleman from Bengal.  On the contrary, his
excitement was quite the reverse from a pleasurable one; he made use
of a brief but improper expression regarding a poor woman in
distress, saying, in fact, "The little minx, has she come to light
again?" He never had had the slightest liking for her, but had
heartily mistrusted her from the very first moment when her green
eyes had looked at, and turned away from, his own.

"That little devil brings mischief wherever she goes," the Major
said disrespectfully.  "Who knows what sort of life she has been
leading? And what business has she here abroad and alone? Don't tell
me about persecutors and enemies; an honest woman always has friends
and never is separated from her family.  Why has she left her
husband? He may have been disreputable and wicked, as you say.  He
always was.  I remember the confounded blackleg and the way in which
he used to cheat and hoodwink poor George.  Wasn't there a scandal
about their separation? I think I heard something," cried out Major
Dobbin, who did not care much about gossip, and whom Jos tried in
vain to convince that Mrs. Becky was in all respects a most injured
and virtuous female.

"Well, well; let's ask Mrs. George," said that arch-diplomatist of a
Major.  "Only let us go and consult her. I suppose you will allow
that she is a good judge at any rate, and knows what is right in
such matters."

"Hm!  Emmy is very well," said Jos, who did not happen to be in love
with his sister.

"Very well? By Gad, sir, she's the finest lady I ever met in my
life," bounced out the Major.  "I say at once, let us go and ask her
if this woman ought to be visited or not--I will be content with her
verdict." Now this odious, artful rogue of a Major was thinking in
his own mind that he was sure of his case.  Emmy, he remembered, was
at one time cruelly and deservedly jealous of Rebecca, never
mentioned her name but with a shrinking and terror--a jealous woman
never forgives, thought Dobbin:  and so the pair went across the
street to Mrs. George's house, where she was contentedly warbling at
a music lesson with Madame Strumpff.

When that lady took her leave, Jos opened the business with his
usual pomp of words.  "Amelia, my dear," said he, "I have just had
the most extraordinary--yes--God bless my soul!  the most
extraordinary adventure--an old friend--yes, a most interesting old
friend of yours, and I may say in old times, has just arrived here,
and I should like you to see her."

"Her!" said Amelia, "who is it? Major Dobbin, if you please not to
break my scissors." The Major was twirling them round by the little
chain from which they sometimes hung to their lady's waist, and was
thereby endangering his own eye.

It is a woman whom I dislike very much," said the Major, doggedly,
"and whom you have no cause to love."

"It is Rebecca, I'm sure it is Rebecca," Amelia said, blushing and
being very much agitated.

"You are right; you always are," Dobbin answered. Brussels,
Waterloo, old, old times, griefs, pangs, remembrances, rushed back
into Amelia's gentle heart and caused a cruel agitation there.

"Don't let me see her," Emmy continued.  "I couldn't see her."

"I told you so," Dobbin said to Jos.

"She is very unhappy, and--and that sort of thing," Jos urged.  "She
is very poor and unprotected, and has been ill--exceedingly ill--and
that scoundrel of a husband has deserted her."

"Ah!" said Amelia

"She hasn't a friend in the world," Jos went on, not undexterously,
"and she said she thought she might trust in you.  She's so
miserable, Emmy.  She has been almost mad with grief.  Her story
quite affected me--'pon my word and honour, it did--never was such a
cruel persecution borne so angelically, I may say.  Her family has
been most cruel to her."

"Poor creature!" Amelia said.

"And if she can get no friend, she says she thinks she'll die," Jos
proceeded in a low tremulous voice.  "God bless my soul!  do you
know that she tried to kill herself? She carries laudanum with her--
I saw the bottle in her room--such a miserable little room--at a
third-rate house, the Elephant, up in the roof at the top of all.  I
went there."

This did not seem to affect Emmy.  She even smiled a little.
Perhaps she figured Jos to herself panting up the stair.

"She's beside herself with grief," he resumed.  "The agonies that
woman has endured are quite frightful to hear of.  She had a little
boy, of the same age as Georgy."

"Yes, yes, I think I remember," Emmy remarked. "Well?"

"The most beautiful child ever seen," Jos said, who was very fat,
and easily moved, and had been touched by the story Becky told; "a
perfect angel, who adored his mother.  The ruffians tore him
shrieking out of her arms, and have never allowed him to see her."

"Dear Joseph," Emmy cried out, starting up at once, "let us go and
see her this minute." And she ran into her adjoining bedchamber,
tied on her bonnet in a flutter, came out with her shawl on her arm,
and ordered Dobbin to follow.

He went and put her shawl--it was a white cashmere, consigned to her
by the Major himself from India--over her shoulders.  He saw there
was nothing for it but to obey, and she put her hand into his arm,
and they went away.

"It is number 92, up four pair of stairs," Jos said, perhaps not
very willing to ascend the steps again; but he placed himself in the
window of his drawing-room, which commands the place on which the
Elephant stands, and saw the pair marching through the market.

It was as well that Becky saw them too from her garret, for she and
the two students were chattering and laughing there; they had been
joking about the appearance of Becky's grandpapa--whose arrival and
departure they had witnessed--but she had time to dismiss them, and
have her little room clear before the landlord of the Elephant, who
knew that Mrs. Osborne was a great favourite at the Serene Court,
and respected her accordingly, led the way up the stairs to the roof
story, encouraging Miladi and the Herr Major as they achieved the
ascent.

"Gracious lady, gracious lady!" said the landlord, knocking at
Becky's door; he had called her Madame the day before, and was by no
means courteous to her.

"Who is it?" Becky said, putting out her head, and she gave a little
scream.  There stood Emmy in a tremble, and Dobbin, the tall Major,
with his cane.

He stood still watching, and very much interested at the scene; but
Emmy sprang forward with open arms towards Rebecca, and forgave her
at that moment, and embraced her and kissed her with all her heart.
Ah, poor wretch, when was your lip pressed before by such pure
kisses?



CHAPTER LXVI

Amantium Irae


Frankness and kindness like Amelia's were likely to touch even such
a hardened little reprobate as Becky.  She returned Emmy's caresses
and kind speeches with something very like gratitude, and an emotion
which, if it was not lasting, for a moment was almost genuine.  That
was a lucky stroke of hers about the child "torn from her arms
shrieking." It was by that harrowing misfortune that Becky had won
her friend back, and it was one of the very first points, we may be
certain, upon which our poor simple little Emmy began to talk to her
new-found acquaintance.

"And so they took your darling child from you?" our simpleton cried
out.  "Oh, Rebecca, my poor dear suffering friend, I know what it is
to lose a boy, and to feel for those who have lost one.  But please
Heaven yours will be restored to you, as a merciful merciful
Providence has brought me back mine."

"The child, my child? Oh, yes, my agonies were frightful," Becky
owned, not perhaps without a twinge of conscience. It jarred upon
her to be obliged to commence instantly to tell lies in reply to so
much confidence and simplicity.  But that is the misfortune of
beginning with this kind of forgery.  When one fib becomes due as it
were, you must forge another to take up the old acceptance; and so
the stock of your lies in circulation inevitably multiplies, and the
danger of detection increases every day.

"My agonies," Becky continued, "were terrible (I hope she won't sit
down on the bottle) when they took him away from me; I thought I
should die; but I fortunately had a brain fever, during which my
doctor gave me up, and--and I recovered, and--and here I am, poor
and friendless."

"How old is he?" Emmy asked.

"Eleven," said Becky.

"Eleven!" cried the other.  "Why, he was born the same year with
Georgy, who is--"

"I know, I know," Becky cried out, who had in fact quite forgotten
all about little Rawdon's age.  "Grief has made me forget so many
things, dearest Amelia.  I am very much changed:  half-wild
sometimes.  He was eleven when they took him away from me.  Bless
his sweet face; I have never seen it again."

"Was he fair or dark?" went on that absurd little Emmy.  "Show me
his hair."

Becky almost laughed at her simplicity.  "Not to-day, love--some
other time, when my trunks arrive from Leipzig, whence I came to
this place--and a little drawing of him, which I made in happy
days."

"Poor Becky, poor Becky!" said Emmy.  "How thankful, how thankful I
ought to be"; (though I doubt whether that practice of piety
inculcated upon us by our womankind in early youth, namely, to be
thankful because we are better off than somebody else, be a very
rational religious exercise) and then she began to think, as usual,
how her son was the handsomest, the best, and the cleverest boy in
the whole world.

"You will see my Georgy," was the best thing Emmy could think of to
console Becky.  If anything could make her comfortable that would.

And so the two women continued talking for an hour or more, during
which Becky had the opportunity of giving her new friend a full and
complete version of her private history.  She showed how her
marriage with Rawdon Crawley had always been viewed by the family
with feelings of the utmost hostility; how her sister-in-law (an
artful woman) had poisoned her husband's mind against her; how he
had formed odious connections, which had estranged his affections
from her:  how she had borne everything--poverty, neglect, coldness
from the being whom she most loved--and all for the sake of her
child; how, finally, and by the most flagrant outrage, she had been
driven into demanding a separation from her husband, when the wretch
did not scruple to ask that she should sacrifice her own fair fame
so that he might procure advancement through the means of a very
great and powerful but unprincipled man--the Marquis of Steyne,
indeed.  The atrocious monster!

This part of her eventful history Becky gave with the utmost
feminine delicacy and the most indignant virtue. Forced to fly her
husband's roof by this insult, the coward had pursued his revenge by
taking her child from her. And thus Becky said she was a wanderer,
poor, unprotected, friendless, and wretched.

Emmy received this story, which was told at some length, as those
persons who are acquainted with her character may imagine that she
would.  She quivered with indignation at the account of the conduct
of the miserable Rawdon and the unprincipled Steyne.  Her eyes made
notes of admiration for every one of the sentences in which Becky
described the persecutions of her aristocratic relatives and the
falling away of her husband. (Becky did not abuse him.  She spoke
rather in sorrow than in anger.  She had loved him only too fondly:
and was he not the father of her boy?) And as for the separation
scene from the child, while Becky was reciting it, Emmy retired
altogether behind her pocket-handkerchief, so that the consummate
little tragedian must have been charmed to see the effect which her
performance produced on her audience.

Whilst the ladies were carrying on their conversation, Amelia's
constant escort, the Major (who, of course, did not wish to
interrupt their conference, and found himself rather tired of
creaking about the narrow stair passage of which the roof brushed
the nap from his hat) descended to the ground-floor of the house and
into the great room common to all the frequenters of the Elephant,
out of which the stair led.  This apartment is always in a fume of
smoke and liberally sprinkled with beer.  On a dirty table stand
scores of corresponding brass candlesticks with tallow candles for
the lodgers, whose keys hang up in rows over the candles.  Emmy had
passed blushing through the room anon, where all sorts of people
were collected; Tyrolese glove-sellers and Danubian linen-merchants,
with their packs; students recruiting themselves with butterbrods
and meat; idlers, playing cards or dominoes on the sloppy, beery
tables; tumblers refreshing during the cessation of their
performances--in a word, all the fumum and strepitus of a German inn
in fair time.  The waiter brought the Major a mug of beer, as a
matter of course, and he took out a cigar and amused himself with
that pernicious vegetable and a newspaper until his charge should
come down to claim him.

Max and Fritz came presently downstairs, their caps on one side,
their spurs jingling, their pipes splendid with coats of arms and
full-blown tassels, and they hung up the key of No. 90 on the board
and called for the ration of butterbrod and beer.  The pair sat down
by the Major and fell into a conversation of which he could not help
hearing somewhat.  It was mainly about "Fuchs" and "Philister," and
duels and drinking-bouts at the neighbouring University of
Schoppenhausen, from which renowned seat of learning they had just
come in the Eilwagen, with Becky, as it appeared, by their side, and
in order to be present at the bridal fetes at Pumpernickel.

"The title Englanderinn seems to be en bays de gonnoisance," said
Max, who knew the French language, to Fritz, his comrade.  "After
the fat grandfather went away, there came a pretty little
compatriot.  I heard them chattering and whimpering together in the
little woman's chamber."

"We must take the tickets for her concert," Fritz said. "Hast thou
any money, Max?"

"Bah," said the other, "the concert is a concert in nubibus.  Hans
said that she advertised one at Leipzig, and the Burschen took many
tickets.  But she went off without singing.  She said in the coach
yesterday that her pianist had fallen ill at Dresden.  She cannot
sing, it is my belief: her voice is as cracked as thine, O thou
beer-soaking Renowner!"

"It is cracked; I hear her trying out of her window a schrecklich.
English ballad, called 'De Rose upon de Balgony.'"

"Saufen and singen go not together," observed Fritz with the red
nose, who evidently preferred the former amusement.  "No, thou shalt
take none of her tickets. She won money at the trente and quarante
last night.  I saw her:  she made a little English boy play for her.
We will spend thy money there or at the theatre, or we will treat
her to French wine or Cognac in the Aurelius Garden, but the tickets
we will not buy.  What sayest thou? Yet, another mug of beer?" and
one and another successively having buried their blond whiskers in
the mawkish draught, curled them and swaggered off into the fair.

The Major, who had seen the key of No. 90 put up on its hook and had
heard the conversation of the two young University bloods, was not
at a loss to understand that their talk related to Becky.  "The
little devil is at her old tricks," he thought, and he smiled as he
recalled old days, when he had witnessed the desperate flirtation
with Jos and the ludicrous end of that adventure. He and George had
often laughed over it subsequently, and until a few weeks after
George's marriage, when he also was caught in the little Circe's
toils, and had an understanding with her which his comrade certainly
suspected, but preferred to ignore.  William was too much hurt or
ashamed to ask to fathom that disgraceful mystery, although once,
and evidently with remorse on his mind, George had alluded to it.
It was on the morning of Waterloo, as the young men stood together
in front of their line, surveying the black masses of Frenchmen who
crowned the opposite heights, and as the rain was coming down, "I
have been mixing in a foolish intrigue with a woman," George said.
"I am glad we were marched away.  If I drop, I hope Emmy will never
know of that business.  I wish to God it had never been begun!" And
William was pleased to think, and had more than once soothed poor
George's widow with the narrative, that Osborne, after quitting his
wife, and after the action of Quatre Bras, on the first day, spoke
gravely and affectionately to his comrade of his father and his
wife.  On these facts, too, William had insisted very strongly in
his conversations with the elder Osborne, and had thus been the
means of reconciling the old gentleman to his son's memory, just at
the close of the elder man's life.

"And so this devil is still going on with her intrigues," thought
William.  "I wish she were a hundred miles from here.  She brings
mischief wherever she goes." And he was pursuing these forebodings
and this uncomfortable train of thought, with his head between his
hands, and the Pumpernickel Gazette of last week unread under his
nose, when somebody tapped his shoulder with a parasol, and he
looked up and saw Mrs. Amelia.

This woman had a way of tyrannizing over Major Dobbin (for the
weakest of all people will domineer over somebody), and she ordered
him about, and patted him, and made him fetch and carry just as if
he was a great Newfoundland dog.  He liked, so to speak, to jump
into the water if she said "High, Dobbin!" and to trot behind her
with her reticule in his mouth.  This history has been written to
very little purpose if the reader has not perceived that the Major
was a spooney.

"Why did you not wait for me, sir, to escort me downstairs?" she
said, giving a little toss of her head and a most sarcastic curtsey.

"I couldn't stand up in the passage," he answered with a comical
deprecatory look; and, delighted to give her his arm and to take her
out of the horrid smoky place, he would have walked off without even
so much as remembering the waiter, had not the young fellow run
after him and stopped him on the threshold of the Elephant to make
him pay for the beer which he had not consumed.  Emmy laughed:  she
called him a naughty man, who wanted to run away in debt, and, in
fact, made some jokes suitable to the occasion and the small-beer.
She was in high spirits and good humour, and tripped across the
market-place very briskly.  She wanted to see Jos that instant.  The
Major laughed at the impetuous affection Mrs. Amelia exhibited; for,
in truth, it was not very often that she wanted her brother "that
instant."  They found the civilian in his saloon on the first-floor;
he had been pacing the room, and biting his nails, and looking over
the market-place towards the Elephant a hundred times at least
during the past hour whilst Emmy was closeted with her friend in the
garret and the Major was beating the tattoo on the sloppy tables of
the public room below, and he was, on his side too, very anxious to
see Mrs. Osborne.

"Well?" said he.

"The poor dear creature, how she has suffered!" Emmy said.

"God bless my soul, yes," Jos said, wagging his head, so that his
cheeks quivered like jellies.

"She may have Payne's room, who can go upstairs," Emmy continued.
Payne was a staid English maid and personal attendant upon Mrs.
Osborne, to whom the courier, as in duty bound, paid court, and whom
Georgy used to "lark" dreadfully with accounts of German robbers and
ghosts.  She passed her time chiefly in grumbling, in ordering about
her mistress, and in stating her intention to return the next
morning to her native village of Clapham.  "She may have Payne's
room," Emmy said.

"Why, you don't mean to say you are going to have that woman into
the house?" bounced out the Major, jumping up.

"Of course we are," said Amelia in the most innocent way in the
world.  "Don't be angry and break the furniture, Major Dobbin.  Of
course we are going to have her here."

"Of course, my dear," Jos said.

"The poor creature, after all her sufferings," Emmy continued; "her
horrid banker broken and run away; her husband--wicked wretch--
having deserted her and taken her child away from her" (here she
doubled her two little fists and held them in a most menacing
attitude before her, so that the Major was charmed to see such a
dauntless virago) "the poor dear thing!  quite alone and absolutely
forced to give lessons in singing to get her bread--and not have her
here!"

"Take lessons, my dear Mrs. George," cried the Major, "but don't
have her in the house.  I implore you don't."

"Pooh," said Jos.

"You who are always good and kind--always used to be at any rate--
I'm astonished at you, Major William," Amelia cried.  "Why, what is
the moment to help her but when she is so miserable? Now is the time
to be of service to her.  The oldest friend I ever had, and not--"

"She was not always your friend, Amelia," the Major said, for he was
quite angry.  This allusion was too much for Emmy, who, looking the
Major almost fiercely in the face, said, "For shame, Major Dobbin!"
and after having fired this shot, she walked out of the room with a
most majestic air and shut her own door briskly on herself and her
outraged dignity.

"To allude to THAT!" she said, when the door was closed.  "Oh, it
was cruel of him to remind me of it," and she looked up at George's
picture, which hung there as usual, with the portrait of the boy
underneath.  "It was cruel of him.  If I had forgiven it, ought he
to have spoken? No.  And it is from his own lips that I know how
wicked and groundless my jealousy was; and that you were pure--oh,
yes, you were pure, my saint in heaven!"

She paced the room, trembling and indignant.  She went and leaned on
the chest of drawers over which the picture hung, and gazed and
gazed at it.  Its eyes seemed to look down on her with a reproach
that deepened as she looked. The early dear, dear memories of that
brief prime of love rushed back upon her.  The wound which years had
scarcely cicatrized bled afresh, and oh, how bitterly!  She could
not bear the reproaches of the husband there before her.  It
couldn't be.  Never, never.

Poor Dobbin; poor old William!  That unlucky word had undone the
work of many a year--the long laborious edifice of a life of love
and constancy--raised too upon what secret and hidden foundations,
wherein lay buried passions, uncounted struggles, unknown
sacrifices--a little word was spoken, and down fell the fair palace
of hope--one word, and away flew the bird which he had been trying
all his life to lure!

William, though he saw by Amelia's looks that a great crisis had
come, nevertheless continued to implore Sedley, in the most
energetic terms, to beware of Rebecca; and he eagerly, almost
frantically, adjured Jos not to receive her.  He besought Mr. Sedley
to inquire at least regarding her; told him how he had heard that
she was in the company of gamblers and people of ill repute; pointed
out what evil she had done in former days, how she and Crawley had
misled poor George into ruin, how she was now parted from her
husband, by her own confession, and, perhaps, for good reason.  What
a dangerous companion she would be for his sister, who knew nothing
of the affairs of the world!  William implored Jos, with all the
eloquence which he could bring to bear, and a great deal more energy
than this quiet gentleman was ordinarily in the habit of showing, to
keep Rebecca out of his household.

Had he been less violent, or more dexterous, he might have succeeded
in his supplications to Jos; but the civilian was not a little
jealous of the airs of superiority which the Major constantly
exhibited towards him, as he fancied (indeed, he had imparted his
opinions to Mr. Kirsch, the courier, whose bills Major Dobbin
checked on this journey, and who sided with his master), and he
began a blustering speech about his competency to defend his own
honour, his desire not to have his affairs meddled with, his
intention, in fine, to rebel against the Major, when the colloquy--
rather a long and stormy one--was put an end to in the simplest way
possible, namely, by the arrival of Mrs. Becky, with a porter from
the Elephant Hotel in charge of her very meagre baggage.

She greeted her host with affectionate respect and made a shrinking,
but amicable salutation to Major Dobbin, who, as her instinct
assured her at once, was her enemy, and had been speaking against
her; and the bustle and clatter consequent upon her arrival brought
Amelia out of her room.  Emmy went up and embraced her guest with
the greatest warmth, and took no notice of the Major, except to
fling him an angry look--the most unjust and scornful glance that
had perhaps ever appeared in that poor little woman's face since she
was born.  But she had private reasons of her own, and was bent upon
being angry with him.  And Dobbin, indignant at the injustice, not
at the defeat, went off, making her a bow quite as haughty as the
killing curtsey with which the little woman chose to bid him
farewell.

He being gone, Emmy was particularly lively and affectionate to
Rebecca, and bustled about the apartments and installed her guest in
her room with an eagerness and activity seldom exhibited by our
placid little friend.  But when an act of injustice is to be done,
especially by weak people, it is best that it should be done
quickly, and Emmy thought she was displaying a great deal of
firmness and proper feeling and veneration for the late Captain
Osborne in her present behaviour.

Georgy came in from the fetes for dinner-time and found four covers
laid as usual; but one of the places was occupied by a lady, instead
of by Major Dobbin. "Hullo!  where's Dob?" the young gentleman asked
with his usual simplicity of language.  "Major Dobbin is dining out,
I suppose," his mother said, and, drawing the boy to her, kissed him
a great deal, and put his hair off his forehead, and introduced him
to Mrs. Crawley.  "This is my boy, Rebecca," Mrs. Osborne said--as
much as to say--can the world produce anything like that? Becky
looked at him with rapture and pressed his hand fondly. "Dear boy!"
she said--"he is just like my--" Emotion choked her further
utterance, but Amelia understood, as well as if she had spoken, that
Becky was thinking of her own blessed child.  However, the company
of her friend consoled Mrs. Crawley, and she ate a very good dinner.

During the repast, she had occasion to speak several times, when
Georgy eyed her and listened to her.  At the desert Emmy was gone
out to superintend further domestic arrangements; Jos was in his
great chair dozing over Galignani; Georgy and the new arrival sat
close to each other--he had continued to look at her knowingly more
than once, and at last he laid down the nutcrackers.

"I say," said Georgy.

"What do you say?" Becky said, laughing.

"You're the lady I saw in the mask at the Rouge et Noir."

"Hush!  you little sly creature," Becky said, taking up his hand and
kissing it.  "Your uncle was there too, and Mamma mustn't know."

"Oh, no--not by no means," answered the little fellow.

"You see we are quite good friends already," Becky said to Emmy, who
now re-entered; and it must be owned that Mrs. Osborne had
introduced a most judicious and amiable companion into her house.

William, in a state of great indignation, though still unaware of
all the treason that was in store for him, walked about the town
wildly until he fell upon the Secretary of Legation, Tapeworm, who
invited him to dinner.  As they were discussing that meal, he took
occasion to ask the Secretary whether he knew anything about a
certain Mrs. Rawdon Crawley, who had, he believed, made some noise
in London; and then Tapeworm, who of course knew all the London
gossip, and was besides a relative of Lady Gaunt, poured out into
the astonished Major's ears such a history about Becky and her
husband as astonished the querist, and supplied all the points of
this narrative, for it was at that very table years ago that the
present writer had the pleasure of hearing the tale.  Tufto, Steyne,
the Crawleys, and their history--everything connected with Becky and
her previous life passed under the record of the bitter diplomatist.
He knew everything and a great deal besides, about all the world--in
a word, he made the most astounding revelations to the simple-
hearted Major.  When Dobbin said that Mrs. Osborne and Mr. Sedley
had taken her into their house, Tapeworm burst into a peal of
laughter which shocked the Major, and asked if they had not better
send into the prison and take in one or two of the gentlemen in
shaved heads and yellow jackets who swept the streets of
Pumpernickel, chained in pairs, to board and lodge, and act as tutor
to that little scapegrace Georgy.

This information astonished and horrified the Major not a little.
It had been agreed in the morning (before meeting with Rebecca) that
Amelia should go to the Court ball that night.  There would be the
place where he should tell her.  The Major went home, and dressed
himself in his uniform, and repaired to Court, in hopes to see Mrs.
Osborne.  She never came.  When he returned to his lodgings all the
lights in the Sedley tenement were put out.  He could not see her
till the morning.  I don't know what sort of a night's rest he had
with this frightful secret in bed with him.

At the earliest convenient hour in the morning he sent his servant
across the way with a note, saying that he wished very particularly
to speak with her.  A message came back to say that Mrs. Osborne was
exceedingly unwell and was keeping her room.

She, too, had been awake all that night.  She had been thinking of a
thing which had agitated her mind a hundred times before.  A hundred
times on the point of yielding, she had shrunk back from a sacrifice
which she felt was too much for her.  She couldn't, in spite of his
love and constancy and her own acknowledged regard, respect, and
gratitude.  What are benefits, what is constancy, or merit? One curl
of a girl's ringlet, one hair of a whisker, will turn the scale
against them all in a minute. They did not weigh with Emmy more than
with other women.  She had tried them; wanted to make them pass;
could not; and the pitiless little woman had found a pretext, and
determined to be free.

When at length, in the afternoon, the Major gained admission to
Amelia, instead of the cordial and affectionate greeting, to which
he had been accustomed now for many a long day, he received the
salutation of a curtsey, and of a little gloved hand, retracted the
moment after it was accorded to him.

Rebecca, too, was in the room, and advanced to meet him with a smile
and an extended hand.  Dobbin drew back rather confusedly, "I--I beg
your pardon, m'am," he said; "but I am bound to tell you that it is
not as your friend that I am come here now."

"Pooh!  damn; don't let us have this sort of thing!" Jos cried out,
alarmed, and anxious to get rid of a scene.

"I wonder what Major Dobbin has to say against Rebecca?" Amelia said
in a low, clear voice with a slight quiver in it, and a very
determined look about the eyes.

"I will not have this sort of thing in my house," Jos again
interposed.  "I say I will not have it; and Dobbin, I beg, sir,
you'll stop it." And he looked round, trembling and turning very
red, and gave a great puff, and made for his door.

"Dear friend!" Rebecca said with angelic sweetness, "do hear what
Major Dobbin has to say against me."

"I will not hear it, I say," squeaked out Jos at the top of his
voice, and, gathering up his dressing-gown, he was gone.

"We are only two women," Amelia said.  "You can speak now, sir."

"This manner towards me is one which scarcely becomes you, Amelia,"
the Major answered haughtily; "nor I believe am I guilty of habitual
harshness to women.  It is not a pleasure to me to do the duty which
I am come to do."

"Pray proceed with it quickly, if you please, Major Dobbin," said
Amelia, who was more and more in a pet.  The expression of Dobbin's
face, as she spoke in this imperious manner, was not pleasant.

"I came to say--and as you stay, Mrs. Crawley, I must say it in your
presence--that I think you--you ought not to form a member of the
family of my friends.  A lady who is separated from her husband, who
travels not under her own name, who frequents public gaming-tables--"

"It was to the ball I went," cried out Becky.

"--is not a fit companion for Mrs. Osborne and her son," Dobbin went
on:  "and I may add that there are people here who know you, and who
profess to know that regarding your conduct about which I don't even
wish to speak before--before Mrs. Osborne."

"Yours is a very modest and convenient sort of calumny, Major
Dobbin," Rebecca said.  "You leave me under the weight of an
accusation which, after all, is unsaid. What is it? Is it
unfaithfulness to my husband? I scorn it and defy anybody to prove
it--I defy you, I say.  My honour is as untouched as that of the
bitterest enemy who ever maligned me.  Is it of being poor,
forsaken, wretched, that you accuse me? Yes, I am guilty of those
faults, and punished for them every day.  Let me go, Emmy.  It is
only to suppose that I have not met you, and I am no worse to-day
than I was yesterday.  It is only to suppose that the night is over
and the poor wanderer is on her way.  Don't you remember the song we
used to sing in old, dear old days? I have been wandering ever since
then--a poor castaway, scorned for being miserable, and insulted
because I am alone.  Let me go:  my stay here interferes with the
plans of this gentleman."

"Indeed it does, madam," said the Major.  "If I have any authority
in this house--"

"Authority, none!" broke out Amelia "Rebecca, you stay with me.  I
won't desert you because you have been persecuted, or insult you
because--because Major Dobbin chooses to do so.  Come away, dear."
And the two women made towards the door.

William opened it.  As they were going out, however, he took
Amelia's hand and said--"Will you stay a moment and speak to me?"

"He wishes to speak to you away from me," said Becky, looking like a
martyr.  Amelia gripped her hand in reply.

"Upon my honour it is not about you that I am going to speak,"
Dobbin said.  "Come back, Amelia," and she came.  Dobbin bowed to
Mrs. Crawley, as he shut the door upon her.  Amelia looked at him,
leaning against the glass:  her face and her lips were quite white.

"I was confused when I spoke just now," the Major said after a
pause, "and I misused the word authority."

"You did," said Amelia with her teeth chattering.

"At least I have claims to be heard," Dobbin continued.

"It is generous to remind me of our obligations to you," the woman
answered.

"The claims I mean are those left me by George's father," William
said.

"Yes, and you insulted his memory.  You did yesterday. You know you
did.  And I will never forgive you.  Never!" said Amelia.  She shot
out each little sentence in a tremor of anger and emotion.

"You don't mean that, Amelia?" William said sadly. "You don't mean
that these words, uttered in a hurried moment, are to weigh against
a whole life's devotion? I think that George's memory has not been
injured by the way in which I have dealt with it, and if we are come
to bandying reproaches, I at least merit none from his widow and the
mother of his son.  Reflect, afterwards when--when you are at
leisure, and your conscience will withdraw this accusation.  It does
even now." Amelia held down her head.

"It is not that speech of yesterday," he continued, "which moves
you.  That is but the pretext, Amelia, or I have loved you and
watched you for fifteen years in vain. Have I not learned in that
time to read all your feelings and look into your thoughts? I know
what your heart is capable of:  it can cling faithfully to a
recollection and cherish a fancy, but it can't feel such an
attachment as mine deserves to mate with, and such as I would have
won from a woman more generous than you.  No, you are not worthy of
the love which I have devoted to you. I knew all along that the
prize I had set my life on was not worth the winning; that I was a
fool, with fond fancies, too, bartering away my all of truth and
ardour against your little feeble remnant of love.  I will bargain
no more:  I withdraw.  I find no fault with you.  You are very good-
natured, and have done your best, but you couldn't--you couldn't
reach up to the height of the attachment which I bore you, and which
a loftier soul than yours might have been proud to share.  Good-bye,
Amelia! I have watched your struggle.  Let it end.  We are both
weary of it."

Amelia stood scared and silent as William thus suddenly broke the
chain by which she held him and declared his independence and
superiority.  He had placed himself at her feet so long that the
poor little woman had been accustomed to trample upon him.  She
didn't wish to marry him, but she wished to keep him.  She wished to
give him nothing, but that he should give her all.  It is a bargain
not unfrequently levied in love.

William's sally had quite broken and cast her down. HER assault was
long since over and beaten back.

"Am I to understand then, that you are going--away, William?" she
said.

He gave a sad laugh.  "I went once before," he said, "and came back
after twelve years.  We were young then, Amelia.  Good-bye.  I have
spent enough of my life at this play."

Whilst they had been talking, the door into Mrs. Osborne's room had
opened ever so little; indeed, Becky had kept a hold of the handle
and had turned it on the instant when Dobbin quitted it, and she
heard every word of the conversation that had passed between these
two. "What a noble heart that man has," she thought, "and how
shamefully that woman plays with it!" She admired Dobbin; she bore
him no rancour for the part he had taken against her.  It was an
open move in the game, and played fairly.  "Ah!" she thought, "if I
could have had such a husband as that--a man with a heart and brains
too!  I would not have minded his large feet"; and running into her
room, she absolutely bethought herself of something, and wrote him a
note, beseeching him to stop for a few days--not to think of going--
and that she could serve him with A.

The parting was over.  Once more poor William walked to the door and
was gone; and the little widow, the author of all this work, had her
will, and had won her victory, and was left to enjoy it as she best
might.  Let the ladies envy her triumph.

At the romantic hour of dinner, Mr. Georgy made his appearance and
again remarked the absence of "Old Dob." The meal was eaten in
silence by the party.  Jos's appetite not being diminished, but Emmy
taking nothing at all.

After the meal, Georgy was lolling in the cushions of the old
window, a large window, with three sides of glass abutting from the
gable, and commanding on one side the market-place, where the
Elephant is, his mother being busy hard by, when he remarked
symptoms of movement at the Major's house on the other side of the
street.

"Hullo!" said he, "there's Dob's trap--they are bringing it out of
the court-yard." The "trap" in question was a carriage which the
Major had bought for six pounds sterling, and about which they used
to rally him a good deal.

Emmy gave a little start, but said nothing.

"Hullo!" Georgy continued, "there's Francis coming out with the
portmanteaus, and Kunz, the one-eyed postilion, coming down the
market with three schimmels. Look at his boots and yellow jacket--
ain't he a rum one? Why--they're putting the horses to Dob's
carriage. Is he going anywhere?"

"Yes," said Emmy, "he is going on a journey."

"Going on a journey; and when is he coming back?"

"He is--not coming back," answered Emmy.

"Not coming back!" cried out Georgy, jumping up. "Stay here, sir,"
roared out Jos.  "Stay, Georgy," said his mother with a very sad
face.  The boy stopped, kicked about the room, jumped up and down
from the window-seat with his knees, and showed every symptom of
uneasiness and curiosity.

The horses were put to.  The baggage was strapped on.  Francis came
out with his master's sword, cane, and umbrella tied up together,
and laid them in the well, and his desk and old tin cocked-hat case,
which he placed under the seat.  Francis brought out the stained old
blue cloak lined with red camlet, which had wrapped the owner up any
time these fifteen years, and had manchen Sturm erlebt, as a
favourite song of those days said.  It had been new for the campaign
of Waterloo and had covered George and William after the night of
Quatre Bras.

Old Burcke, the landlord of the lodgings, came out, then Francis,
with more packages--final packages--then Major William--Burcke
wanted to kiss him.  The Major was adored by all people with whom he
had to do.  It was with difficulty he could escape from this
demonstration of attachment.

"By Jove, I will go!" screamed out George.  "Give him this," said
Becky, quite interested, and put a paper into the boy's hand.  He
had rushed down the stairs and flung across the street in a minute--
the yellow postilion was cracking his whip gently.

William had got into the carriage, released from the embraces of his
landlord.  George bounded in afterwards, and flung his arms round
the Major's neck (as they saw from the window), and began asking him
multiplied questions.  Then he felt in his waistcoat pocket and gave
him a note.  William seized at it rather eagerly, he opened it
trembling, but instantly his countenance changed, and he tore the
paper in two and dropped it out of the carriage.  He kissed Georgy
on the head, and the boy got out, doubling his fists into his eyes,
and with the aid of Francis.  He lingered with his hand on the
panel.  Fort, Schwager!  The yellow postilion cracked his whip
prodigiously, up sprang Francis to the box, away went the schimmels,
and Dobbin with his head on his breast.  He never looked up as they
passed under Amelia's window, and Georgy, left alone in the street,
burst out crying in the face of all the crowd.

Emmy's maid heard him howling again during the night and brought him
some preserved apricots to console him.  She mingled her
lamentations with his.  All the poor, all the humble, all honest
folks, all good men who knew him, loved that kind-hearted and simple
gentleman.

As for Emmy, had she not done her duty? She had her picture of
George for a consolation.



CHAPTER LXVII

Which Contains Births, Marriages, and Deaths


Whatever Becky's private plan might be by which Dobbin's true love
was to be crowned with success, the little woman thought that the
secret might keep, and indeed, being by no means so much interested
about anybody's welfare as about her own, she had a great number of
things pertaining to herself to consider, and which concerned her a
great deal more than Major Dobbin's happiness in this life.

She found herself suddenly and unexpectedly in snug comfortable
quarters, surrounded by friends, kindness, and good-natured simple
people such as she had not met with for many a long day; and,
wanderer as she was by force and inclination, there were moments
when rest was pleasant to her.  As the most hardened Arab that ever
careered across the desert over the hump of a dromedary likes to
repose sometimes under the date-trees by the water, or to come into
the cities, walk into the bazaars, refresh himself in the baths, and
say his prayers in the mosques, before he goes out again marauding,
so Jos's tents and pilau were pleasant to this little Ishmaelite.
She picketed her steed, hung up her weapons, and warmed herself
comfortably by his fire.  The halt in that roving, restless life was
inexpressibly soothing and pleasant to her.

So, pleased herself, she tried with all her might to please
everybody; and we know that she was eminent and successful as a
practitioner in the art of giving pleasure.  As for Jos, even in
that little interview in the garret at the Elephant Inn, she had
found means to win back a great deal of his good-will.  In the
course of a week, the civilian was her sworn slave and frantic
admirer.  He didn't go to sleep after dinner, as his custom was in
the much less lively society of Amelia.  He drove out with Becky in
his open carriage.  He asked little parties and invented festivities
to do her honour.

Tapeworm, the Charge d'Affaires, who had abused her so cruelly, came
to dine with Jos, and then came every day to pay his respects to
Becky.  Poor Emmy, who was never very talkative, and more glum and
silent than ever after Dobbin's departure, was quite forgotten when
this superior genius made her appearance.  The French Minister was
as much charmed with her as his English rival. The German ladies,
never particularly squeamish as regards morals, especially in
English people, were delighted with the cleverness and wit of Mrs.
Osborne's charming friend, and though she did not ask to go to
Court, yet the most august and Transparent Personages there heard of
her fascinations and were quite curious to know her.  When it became
known that she was noble, of an ancient English family, that her
husband was a Colonel of the Guard, Excellenz and Governor of an
island, only separated from his lady by one of those trifling
differences which are of little account in a country where Werther
is still read and the Wahlverwandtschaften of Goethe is considered
an edifying moral book, nobody thought of refusing to receive her in
the very highest society of the little Duchy; and the ladies were
even more ready to call her du and to swear eternal friendship for
her than they had been to bestow the same inestimable benefits upon
Amelia.  Love and Liberty are interpreted by those simple Germans in
a way which honest folks in Yorkshire and Somersetshire little
understand, and a lady might, in some philosophic and civilized
towns, be divorced ever so many times from her respective husbands
and keep her character in society.  Jos's house never was so
pleasant since he had a house of his own as Rebecca caused it to be.
She sang, she played, she laughed, she talked in two or three
languages, she brought everybody to the house, and she made Jos
believe that it was his own great social talents and wit which
gathered the society of the place round about him.

As for Emmy, who found herself not in the least mistress of her own
house, except when the bills were to be paid, Becky soon discovered
the way to soothe and please her.  She talked to her perpetually
about Major Dobbin sent about his business, and made no scruple of
declaring her admiration for that excellent, high-minded gentleman,
and of telling Emmy that she had behaved most cruelly regarding him.
Emmy defended her conduct and showed that it was dictated only by
the purest religious principles; that a woman once, &c., and to such
an angel as him whom she had had the good fortune to marry, was
married forever; but she had no objection to hear the Major praised
as much as ever Becky chose to praise him, and indeed, brought the
conversation round to the Dobbin subject a score of times every day.

Means were easily found to win the favour of Georgy and the
servants.  Amelia's maid, it has been said, was heart and soul in
favour of the generous Major.  Having at first disliked Becky for
being the means of dismissing him from the presence of her mistress,
she was reconciled to Mrs. Crawley subsequently, because the latter
became William's most ardent admirer and champion.  And in those
nightly conclaves in which the two ladies indulged after their
parties, and while Miss Payne was "brushing their 'airs," as she
called the yellow locks of the one and the soft brown tresses of the
other, this girl always put in her word for that dear good gentleman
Major Dobbin.  Her advocacy did not make Amelia angry any more than
Rebecca's admiration of him.  She made George write to him
constantly and persisted in sending Mamma's kind love in a
postscript.  And as she looked at her husband's portrait of nights,
it no longer reproached her--perhaps she reproached it, now William
was gone.

Emmy was not very happy after her heroic sacrifice. She was very
distraite, nervous, silent, and ill to please. The family had never
known her so peevish.  She grew pale and ill.  She used to try to
sing certain songs ("Einsam bin ich nicht alleine," was one of them,
that tender love-song of Weber's which in old-fashioned days, young
ladies, and when you were scarcely born, showed that those who lived
before you knew too how to love and to sing) certain songs, I say,
to which the Major was partial; and as she warbled them in the
twilight in the drawing-room, she would break off in the midst of
the song, and walk into her neighbouring apartment, and there, no
doubt, take refuge in the miniature of her husband.

Some books still subsisted, after Dobbin's departure, with his name
written in them; a German dictionary, for instance, with "William
Dobbin, --th Reg.," in the fly-leaf; a guide-book with his initials;
and one or two other volumes which belonged to the Major.  Emmy
cleared these away and put them on the drawers, where she placed her
work-box, her desk, her Bible, and prayer-book, under the pictures
of the two Georges.  And the Major, on going away, having left his
gloves behind him, it is a fact that Georgy, rummaging his mother's
desk some time afterwards, found the gloves neatly folded up and put
away in what they call the secret-drawers of the desk.

Not caring for society, and moping there a great deal, Emmy's chief
pleasure in the summer evenings was to take long walks with Georgy
(during which Rebecca was left to the society of Mr. Joseph), and
then the mother and son used to talk about the Major in a way which
even made the boy smile.  She told him that she thought Major
William was the best man in all the world--the gentlest and the
kindest, the bravest and the humblest.  Over and over again she told
him how they owed everything which they possessed in the world to
that kind friend's benevolent care of them; how he had befriended
them all through their poverty and misfortunes; watched over them
when nobody cared for them; how all his comrades admired him though
he never spoke of his own gallant actions; how Georgy's father
trusted him beyond all other men, and had been constantly befriended
by the good William.  "Why, when your papa was a little boy," she
said, "he often told me that it was William who defended him against
a tyrant at the school where they were; and their friendship never
ceased from that day until the last, when your dear father fell."

"Did Dobbin kill the man who killed Papa?" Georgy said.  "I'm sure
he did, or he would if he could have caught him, wouldn't he,
Mother? When I'm in the Army, won't I hate the French?--that's all."

In such colloquies the mother and the child passed a great deal of
their time together.  The artless woman had made a confidant of the
boy.  He was as much William's friend as everybody else who knew him
well.

By the way, Mrs. Becky, not to be behind hand in sentiment, had got
a miniature too hanging up in her room, to the surprise and
amusement of most people, and the delight of the original, who was
no other than our friend Jos.  On her first coming to favour the
Sedleys with a visit, the little woman, who had arrived with a
remarkably small shabby kit, was perhaps ashamed of the meanness of
her trunks and bandboxes, and often spoke with great respect about
her baggage left behind at Leipzig, which she must have from that
city.  When a traveller talks to you perpetually about the splendour
of his luggage, which he does not happen to have with him, my son,
beware of that traveller!  He is, ten to one, an impostor.

Neither Jos nor Emmy knew this important maxim.  It seemed to them
of no consequence whether Becky had a quantity of very fine clothes
in invisible trunks; but as her present supply was exceedingly
shabby, Emmy supplied her out of her own stores, or took her to the
best milliner in the town and there fitted her out.  It was no more
torn collars now, I promise you, and faded silks trailing off at the
shoulder.  Becky changed her habits with her situation in life--the
rouge-pot was suspended--another excitement to which she had
accustomed herself was also put aside, or at least only indulged in
in privacy, as when she was prevailed on by Jos of a summer evening,
Emmy and the boy being absent on their walks, to take a little
spirit-and-water.  But if she did not indulge--the courier did:
that rascal Kirsch could not be kept from the bottle, nor could he
tell how much he took when he applied to it.  He was sometimes
surprised himself at the way in which Mr. Sedley's Cognac
diminished.  Well, well, this is a painful subject.  Becky did not
very likely indulge so much as she used before she entered a
decorous family.

At last the much-bragged-about boxes arrived from Leipzig; three of
them not by any means large or splendid; nor did Becky appear to
take out any sort of dresses or ornaments from the boxes when they
did arrive.  But out of one, which contained a mass of her papers
(it was that very box which Rawdon Crawley had ransacked in his
furious hunt for Becky's concealed money), she took a picture with
great glee, which she pinned up in her room, and to which she
introduced Jos.  It was the portrait of a gentleman in pencil, his
face having the advantage of being painted up in pink.  He was
riding on an elephant away from some cocoa-nut trees and a pagoda:
it was an Eastern scene.

"God bless my soul, it is my portrait," Jos cried out. It was he
indeed, blooming in youth and beauty, in a nankeen jacket of the cut
of 1804.  It was the old picture that used to hang up in Russell
Square.

"I bought it," said Becky in a voice trembling with emotion; "I went
to see if I could be of any use to my kind friends.  I have never
parted with that picture--I never will."

"Won't you?" Jos cried with a look of unutterable rapture and
satisfaction.  "Did you really now value it for my sake?"

"You know I did, well enough," said Becky; "but why speak--why
think--why look back!  It is too late now!"

That evening's conversation was delicious for Jos. Emmy only came in
to go to bed very tired and unwell. Jos and his fair guest had a
charming tete-a-tete, and his sister could hear, as she lay awake in
her adjoining chamber, Rebecca singing over to Jos the old songs of
1815.  He did not sleep, for a wonder, that night, any more than
Amelia.

It was June, and, by consequence, high season in London; Jos, who
read the incomparable Galignani (the exile's best friend) through
every day, used to favour the ladies with extracts from his paper
during their breakfast.  Every week in this paper there is a full
account of military movements, in which Jos, as a man who had seen
service, was especially interested.  On one occasion he read out--
"Arrival of the --th regiment.  Gravesend, June 20.--The Ramchunder,
East Indiaman, came into the river this morning, having on board 14
officers, and 132 rank and file of this gallant corps.  They have
been absent from England fourteen years, having been embarked the
year after Waterloo, in which glorious conflict they took an active
part, and having subsequently distinguished themselves in the
Burmese war.  The veteran colonel, Sir Michael O'Dowd, K.C.B., with
his lady and sister, landed here yesterday, with Captains Posky,
Stubble, Macraw, Malony; Lieutenants Smith, Jones, Thompson, F.
Thomson; Ensigns Hicks and Grady; the band on the pier playing the
national anthem, and the crowd loudly cheering the gallant veterans
as they went into Wayte's hotel, where a sumptuous banquet was
provided for the defenders of Old England.  During the repast, which
we need not say was served up in Wayte's best style, the cheering
continued so enthusiastically that Lady O'Dowd and the Colonel came
forward to the balcony and drank the healths of their fellow-
countrymen in a bumper of Wayte's best claret."

On a second occasion Jos read a brief announcement--Major Dobbin had
joined the --th regiment at Chatham; and subsequently he promulgated
accounts of the presentations at the Drawing-room of Colonel Sir
Michael O'Dowd, K.C.B., Lady O'Dowd (by Mrs. Malloy Malony of
Ballymalony), and Miss Glorvina O'Dowd (by Lady O'Dowd).  Almost
directly after this, Dobbin's name appeared among the Lieutenant-
Colonels:  for old Marshal Tiptoff had died during the passage of
the --th from Madras, and the Sovereign was pleased to advance
Colonel Sir Michael O'Dowd to the rank of Major-General on his
return to England, with an intimation that he should be Colonel of
the distinguished regiment which he had so long commanded.

Amelia had been made aware of some of these movements.  The
correspondence between George and his guardian had not ceased by any
means:  William had even written once or twice to her since his
departure, but in a manner so unconstrainedly cold that the poor
woman felt now in her turn that she had lost her power over him and
that, as he had said, he was free.  He had left her, and she was
wretched.  The memory of his almost countless services, and lofty
and affectionate regard, now presented itself to her and rebuked her
day and night.  She brooded over those recollections according to
her wont, saw the purity and beauty of the affection with which she
had trifled, and reproached herself for having flung away such a
treasure.

It was gone indeed.  William had spent it all out.  He loved her no
more, he thought, as he had loved her. He never could again.  That
sort of regard, which he had proffered to her for so many faithful
years, can't be flung down and shattered and mended so as to show no
scars. The little heedless tyrant had so destroyed it.  No, William
thought again and again, "It was myself I deluded and persisted in
cajoling; had she been worthy of the love I gave her, she would have
returned it long ago.  It was a fond mistake.  Isn't the whole
course of life made up of such? And suppose I had won her, should I
not have been disenchanted the day after my victory? Why pine, or be
ashamed of my defeat?" The more he thought of this long passage of
his life, the more clearly he saw his deception.  "I'll go into
harness again," he said, "and do my duty in that state of life in
which it has pleased Heaven to place me.  I will see that the
buttons of the recruits are properly bright and that the sergeants
make no mistakes in their accounts.  I will dine at mess and listen
to the Scotch surgeon telling his stories.  When I am old and
broken, I will go on half-pay, and my old sisters shall scold me.  I
have geliebt und gelebet, as the girl in 'Wallenstein' says.  I am
done.  Pay the bills and get me a cigar:  find out what there is at
the play to-night, Francis; to-morrow we cross by the Batavier." He
made the above speech, whereof Francis only heard the last two
lines, pacing up and down the Boompjes at Rotterdam. The Batavier
was lying in the basin.  He could see the place on the quarter-deck
where he and Emmy had sat on the happy voyage out.  What had that
little Mrs. Crawley to say to him? Psha; to-morrow we will put to
sea, and return to England, home, and duty!

After June all the little Court Society of Pumpernickel used to
separate, according to the German plan, and make for a hundred
watering-places, where they drank at the wells, rode upon donkeys,
gambled at the redoutes if they had money and a mind, rushed with
hundreds of their kind to gourmandise at the tables d'hote, and
idled away the summer.  The English diplomatists went off to
Teoplitz and Kissingen, their French rivals shut up their
chancellerie and whisked away to their darling Boulevard de Gand.
The Transparent reigning family took too to the waters, or retired
to their hunting lodges.  Everybody went away having any pretensions
to politeness, and of course, with them, Doctor von Glauber, the
Court Doctor, and his Baroness.  The seasons for the baths were the
most productive periods of the Doctor's practice--he united business
with pleasure, and his chief place of resort was Ostend, which is
much frequented by Germans, and where the Doctor treated himself and
his spouse to what he called a "dib" in the sea.

His interesting patient, Jos, was a regular milch-cow to the Doctor,
and he easily persuaded the civilian, both for his own health's sake
and that of his charming sister, which was really very much
shattered, to pass the summer at that hideous seaport town.  Emmy
did not care where she went much.  Georgy jumped at the idea of a
move.  As for Becky, she came as a matter of course in the fourth
place inside of the fine barouche Mr. Jos had bought, the two
domestics being on the box in front. She might have some misgivings
about the friends whom she should meet at Ostend, and who might be
likely to tell ugly stories--but bah!  she was strong enough to hold
her own.  She had cast such an anchor in Jos now as would require a
strong storm to shake.  That incident of the picture had finished
him.  Becky took down her elephant and put it into the little box
which she had had from Amelia ever so many years ago.  Emmy also
came off with her Lares--her two pictures--and the party, finally,
were, lodged in an exceedingly dear and uncomfortable house at
Ostend.

There Amelia began to take baths and get what good she could from
them, and though scores of people of Becky's acquaintance passed her
and cut her, yet Mrs. Osborne, who walked about with her, and who
knew nobody, was not aware of the treatment experienced by the
friend whom she had chosen so judiciously as a companion; indeed,
Becky never thought fit to tell her what was passing under her
innocent eyes.

Some of Mrs. Rawdon Crawley's acquaintances, however, acknowledged
her readily enough,--perhaps more readily than she would have
desired.  Among those were Major Loder (unattached), and Captain
Rook (late of the Rifles), who might be seen any day on the Dike,
smoking and staring at the women, and who speedily got an
introduction to the hospitable board and select circle of Mr. Joseph
Sedley.  In fact they would take no denial; they burst into the
house whether Becky was at home or not, walked into Mrs. Osborne's
drawing-room, which they perfumed with their coats and mustachios,
called Jos "Old buck," and invaded his dinner-table, and laughed and
drank for long hours there.

"What can they mean?" asked Georgy, who did not like these
gentlemen.  "I heard the Major say to Mrs. Crawley yesterday, 'No,
no, Becky, you shan't keep the old buck to yourself.  We must have
the bones in, or, dammy, I'll split.' What could the Major mean,
Mamma?"

"Major!  don't call him Major!" Emmy said.  "I'm sure I can't tell
what he meant." His presence and that of his friend inspired the
little lady with intolerable terror and aversion.  They paid her
tipsy compliments; they leered at her over the dinner-table.  And
the Captain made her advances that filled her with sickening dismay,
nor would she ever see him unless she had George by her side.

Rebecca, to do her justice, never would let either of these men
remain alone with Amelia; the Major was disengaged too, and swore he
would be the winner of her. A couple of ruffians were fighting for
this innocent creature, gambling for her at her own table, and
though she was not aware of the rascals' designs upon her, yet she
felt a horror and uneasiness in their presence and longed to fly.

She besought, she entreated Jos to go.  Not he.  He was slow of
movement, tied to his Doctor, and perhaps to some other leading-
strings.  At least Becky was not anxious to go to England.

At last she took a great resolution--made the great plunge.  She
wrote off a letter to a friend whom she had on the other side of the
water, a letter about which she did not speak a word to anybody,
which she carried herself to the post under her shawl; nor was any
remark made about it, only that she looked very much flushed and
agitated when Georgy met her, and she kissed him, and hung over him
a great deal that night.  She did not come out of her room after her
return from her walk. Becky thought it was Major Loder and the
Captain who frightened her.

"She mustn't stop here," Becky reasoned with herself. "She must go
away, the silly little fool.  She is still whimpering after that
gaby of a husband--dead (and served right!) these fifteen years.
She shan't marry either of these men.  It's too bad of Loder.  No;
she shall marry the bamboo cane, I'll settle it this very night."

So Becky took a cup of tea to Amelia in her private apartment and
found that lady in the company of her miniatures, and in a most
melancholy and nervous condition.  She laid down the cup of tea.

"Thank you," said Amelia.

"Listen to me, Amelia," said Becky, marching up and down the room
before the other and surveying her with a sort of contemptuous
kindness.  "I want to talk to you. You must go away from here and
from the impertinences of these men.  I won't have you harassed by
them:  and they will insult you if you stay.  I tell you they are
rascals: men fit to send to the hulks.  Never mind how I know them.
I know everybody.  Jos can't protect you; he is too weak and wants a
protector himself.  You are no more fit to live in the world than a
baby in arms.  You must marry, or you and your precious boy will go
to ruin.  You must have a husband, you fool; and one of the best
gentlemen I ever saw has offered you a hundred times, and you have
rejected him, you silly, heartless, ungrateful little creature!"

"I tried--I tried my best, indeed I did, Rebecca," said Amelia
deprecatingly, "but I couldn't forget--"; and she finished the
sentence by looking up at the portrait.

"Couldn't forget HIM!" cried out Becky, "that selfish humbug, that
low-bred cockney dandy, that padded booby, who had neither wit, nor
manners, nor heart, and was no more to be compared to your friend
with the bamboo cane than you are to Queen Elizabeth.  Why, the man
was weary of you, and would have jilted you, but that Dobbin forced
him to keep his word.  He owned it to me.  He never cared for you.
He used to sneer about you to me, time after time, and made love to
me the week after he married you."

"It's false!  It's false!  Rebecca," cried out Amelia, starting up.

"Look there, you fool," Becky said, still with provoking good
humour, and taking a little paper out of her belt, she opened it and
flung it into Emmy's lap.  "You know his handwriting.  He wrote that
to me--wanted me to run away with him--gave it me under your nose,
the day before he was shot--and served him right!" Becky repeated.

Emmy did not hear her; she was looking at the letter. It was that
which George had put into the bouquet and given to Becky on the
night of the Duchess of Richmond's ball.  It was as she said:  the
foolish young man had asked her to fly.

Emmy's head sank down, and for almost the last time in which she
shall be called upon to weep in this history, she commenced that
work.  Her head fell to her bosom, and her hands went up to her
eyes; and there for a while, she gave way to her emotions, as Becky
stood on and regarded her.  Who shall analyse those tears and say
whether they were sweet or bitter? Was she most grieved because the
idol of her life was tumbled down and shivered at her feet, or
indignant that her love had been so despised, or glad because the
barrier was removed which modesty had placed between her and a new,
a real affection? "There is nothing to forbid me now," she thought.
"I may love him with all my heart now.  Oh, I will, I will, if he
will but let me and forgive me." I believe it was this feeling
rushed over all the others which agitated that gentle little bosom.

Indeed, she did not cry so much as Becky expected--the other soothed
and kissed her--a rare mark of sympathy with Mrs. Becky.  She
treated Emmy like a child and patted her head.  "And now let us get
pen and ink and write to him to come this minute," she said.

"I--I wrote to him this morning," Emmy said, blushing exceedingly.
Becky screamed with laughter--"Un biglietto," she sang out with
Rosina, "eccolo qua!"--the whole house echoed with her shrill
singing.

Two mornings after this little scene, although the day was rainy and
gusty, and Amelia had had an exceedingly wakeful night, listening to
the wind roaring, and pitying all travellers by land and by water,
yet she got up early and insisted upon taking a walk on the Dike
with Georgy; and there she paced as the rain beat into her face, and
she looked out westward across the dark sea line and over the
swollen billows which came tumbling and frothing to the shore.
Neither spoke much, except now and then, when the boy said a few
words to his timid companion, indicative of sympathy and protection.

"I hope he won't cross in such weather," Emmy said.

"I bet ten to one he does," the boy answered.  "Look, Mother,
there's the smoke of the steamer." It was that signal, sure enough.

But though the steamer was under way, he might not be on board; he
might not have got the letter; he might not choose to come.  A
hundred fears poured one over the other into the little heart, as
fast as the waves on to the Dike.

The boat followed the smoke into sight.  Georgy had a dandy
telescope and got the vessel under view in the most skilful manner.
And he made appropriate nautical comments upon the manner of the
approach of the steamer as she came nearer and nearer, dipping and
rising in the water.  The signal of an English steamer in sight went
fluttering up to the mast on the pier.  I daresay Mrs. Amelia's
heart was in a similar flutter.

Emmy tried to look through the telescope over George's shoulder, but
she could make nothing of it. She only saw a black eclipse bobbing
up and down before her eyes.

George took the glass again and raked the vessel. "How she does
pitch!" he said.  "There goes a wave slap over her bows.  There's
only two people on deck besides the steersman.  There's a man lying
down, and a--chap in a--cloak with a--Hooray!--it's Dob, by Jingo!"
He clapped to the telescope and flung his arms round his mother.  As
for that lady, let us say what she did in the words of a favourite
poet--"Dakruoen gelasasa." She was sure it was William.  It could be
no other.  What she had said about hoping that he would not come was
all hypocrisy.  Of course he would come; what could he do else but
come? She knew he would come.

The ship came swiftly nearer and nearer.  As they went in to meet
her at the landing-place at the quay, Emmy's knees trembled so that
she scarcely could run.  She would have liked to kneel down and say
her prayers of thanks there.  Oh, she thought, she would be all her
life saying them!

It was such a bad day that as the vessel came alongside of the quay
there were no idlers abroad, scarcely even a commissioner on the
look out for the few passengers in the steamer.  That young
scapegrace George had fled too, and as the gentleman in the old
cloak lined with red stuff stepped on to the shore, there was
scarcely any one present to see what took place, which was briefly
this:

A lady in a dripping white bonnet and shawl, with her two little
hands out before her, went up to him, and in the next minute she had
altogether disappeared under the folds of the old cloak, and was
kissing one of his hands with all her might; whilst the other, I
suppose, was engaged in holding her to his heart (which her head
just about reached) and in preventing her from tumbling down.  She
was murmuring something about--forgive--dear William--dear, dear,
dearest friend--kiss, kiss, kiss, and so forth--and in fact went on
under the cloak in an absurd manner.

When Emmy emerged from it, she still kept tight hold of one of
William's hands, and looked up in his face.  It was full of sadness
and tender love and pity.  She understood its reproach and hung down
her head.

"It was time you sent for me, dear Amelia," he said.

"You will never go again, William?"

"No, never," he answered, and pressed the dear little soul once more
to his heart.

As they issued out of the custom-house precincts, Georgy broke out
on them, with his telescope up to his eye, and a loud laugh of
welcome; he danced round the couple and performed many facetious
antics as he led them up to the house.  Jos wasn't up yet; Becky not
visible (though she looked at them through the blinds). Georgy ran
off to see about breakfast.  Emmy, whose shawl and bonnet were off
in the passage in the hands of Mrs. Payne, now went to undo the
clasp of William's cloak, and--we will, if you please, go with
George, and look after breakfast for the Colonel.  The vessel is in
port. He has got the prize he has been trying for all his life. The
bird has come in at last.  There it is with its head on his
shoulder, billing and cooing close up to his heart, with soft
outstretched fluttering wings.  This is what he has asked for every
day and hour for eighteen years.  This is what he pined after.  Here
it is--the summit, the end--the last page of the third volume.
Good-bye, Colonel--God bless you, honest William!--Farewell, dear
Amelia--Grow green again, tender little parasite, round the rugged
old oak to which you cling!

Perhaps it was compunction towards the kind and simple creature, who
had been the first in life to defend her, perhaps it was a dislike
to all such sentimental scenes--but Rebecca, satisfied with her part
in the transaction, never presented herself before Colonel Dobbin
and the lady whom he married.  "Particular business," she said, took
her to Bruges, whither she went, and only Georgy and his uncle were
present at the marriage ceremony. When it was over, and Georgy had
rejoined his parents, Mrs. Becky returned (just for a few days) to
comfort the solitary bachelor, Joseph Sedley.  He preferred a
continental life, he said, and declined to join in housekeeping with
his sister and her husband.

Emmy was very glad in her heart to think that she had written to her
husband before she read or knew of that letter of George's.  "I knew
it all along," William said; "but could I use that weapon against
the poor fellow's memory? It was that which made me suffer so when
you--"

"Never speak of that day again," Emmy cried out, so contrite and
humble that William turned off the conversation by his account of
Glorvina and dear old Peggy O'Dowd, with whom he was sitting when
the letter of recall reached him.  "If you hadn't sent for me," he
added with a laugh, "who knows what Glorvina's name might be now?"

At present it is Glorvina Posky (now Mrs. Major Posky); she took him
on the death of his first wife, having resolved never to marry out
of the regiment.  Lady O'Dowd is also so attached to it that, she
says, if anything were to happen to Mick, bedad she'd come back and
marry some of 'em.  But the Major-General is quite well and lives in
great splendour at O'Dowdstown, with a pack of beagles, and (with
the exception of perhaps their neighbour, Hoggarty of Castle
Hoggarty) he is the first man of his county.  Her Ladyship still
dances jigs, and insisted on standing up with the Master of the
Horse at the Lord Lieutenant's last ball.  Both she and Glorvina
declared that Dobbin had used the latter SHEAMFULLY, but Posky
falling in, Glorvina was consoled, and a beautiful turban from Paris
appeased the wrath of Lady O'Dowd.

When Colonel Dobbin quitted the service, which he did immediately
after his marriage, he rented a pretty little country place in
Hampshire, not far from Queen's Crawley, where, after the passing of
the Reform Bill, Sir Pitt and his family constantly resided now.
All idea of a Peerage was out of the question, the Baronet's two
seats in Parliament being lost.  He was both out of pocket and out
of spirits by that catastrophe, failed in his health, and prophesied
the speedy ruin of the Empire.

Lady Jane and Mrs. Dobbin became great friends--there was a
perpetual crossing of pony-chaises between the Hall and the
Evergreens, the Colonel's place (rented of his friend Major Ponto,
who was abroad with his family).  Her Ladyship was godmother to Mrs.
Dobbin's child, which bore her name, and was christened by the Rev.
James Crawley, who succeeded his father in the living: and a pretty
close friendship subsisted between the two lads, George and Rawdon,
who hunted and shot together in the vacations, were both entered of
the same college at Cambridge, and quarrelled with each other about
Lady Jane's daughter, with whom they were both, of course, in love.
A match between George and that young lady was long a favourite
scheme of both the matrons, though I have heard that Miss Crawley
herself inclined towards her cousin.

Mrs. Rawdon Crawley's name was never mentioned by either family.
There were reasons why all should be silent regarding her.  For
wherever Mr. Joseph Sedley went, she travelled likewise, and that
infatuated man seemed to be entirely her slave.  The Colonel's
lawyers informed him that his brother-in-law had effected a heavy
insurance upon his life, whence it was probable that he had been
raising money to discharge debts.  He procured prolonged leave of
absence from the East India House, and indeed, his infirmities were
daily increasing.

On hearing the news about the insurance, Amelia, in a good deal of
alarm, entreated her husband to go to Brussels, where Jos then was,
and inquire into the state of his affairs.  The Colonel quitted home
with reluctance (for he was deeply immersed in his History of the
Punjaub which still occupies him, and much alarmed about his little
daughter, whom he idolizes, and who was just recovering from the
chicken-pox) and went to Brussels and found Jos living at one of the
enormous hotels in that city.  Mrs. Crawley, who had her carriage,
gave entertainments, and lived in a very genteel manner, occupied
another suite of apartments in the same hotel.

The Colonel, of course, did not desire to see that lady, or even
think proper to notify his arrival at Brussels, except privately to
Jos by a message through his valet.  Jos begged the Colonel to come
and see him that night, when Mrs. Crawley would be at a soiree, and
when they could meet alone.  He found his brother-in-law in a
condition of pitiable infirmity--and dreadfully afraid of Rebecca,
though eager in his praises of her.  She tended him through a series
of unheard-of illnesses with a fidelity most admirable.  She had
been a daughter to him.  "But--but--oh, for God's sake, do come and
live near me, and--and--see me sometimes," whimpered out the
unfortunate man.

The Colonel's brow darkened at this.  "We can't, Jos," he said.
"Considering the circumstances, Amelia can't visit you."

"I swear to you--I swear to you on the Bible," gasped out Joseph,
wanting to kiss the book, "that she is as innocent as a child, as
spotless as your own wife."

"It may be so," said the Colonel gloomily, "but Emmy can't come to
you.  Be a man, Jos:  break off this disreputable connection.  Come
home to your family.  We hear your affairs are involved."

"Involved!" cried Jos.  "Who has told such calumnies? All my money
is placed out most advantageously.  Mrs. Crawley--that is--I mean--
it is laid out to the best interest."

"You are not in debt, then? Why did you insure your life?"

"I thought--a little present to her--in case anything happened; and
you know my health is so delicate--common gratitude you know--and I
intend to leave all my money to you--and I can spare it out of my
income, indeed I can," cried out William's weak brother-in-law.

The Colonel besought Jos to fly at once--to go back to India,
whither Mrs. Crawley could not follow him; to do anything to break
off a connection which might have the most fatal consequences to
him.

Jos clasped his hands and cried, "He would go back to India.  He
would do anything, only he must have time: they mustn't say anything
to Mrs. Crawley--she'd--she'd kill me if she knew it.  You don't
know what a terrible woman she is," the poor wretch said.

"Then, why not come away with me?" said Dobbin in reply; but Jos had
not the courage.  "He would see Dobbin again in the morning; he must
on no account say that he had been there.  He must go now.  Becky
might come in." And Dobbin quitted him, full of forebodings.

He never saw Jos more.  Three months afterwards Joseph Sedley died
at Aix-la-Chapelle.  It was found that all his property had been
muddled away in speculations, and was represented by valueless
shares in different bubble companies.  All his available assets were
the two thousand pounds for which his life was insured, and which
were left equally between his beloved "sister Amelia, wife of, &c.,
and his friend and invaluable attendant during sickness, Rebecca,
wife of Lieutenant-Colonel Rawdon Crawley, C.B.," who was appointed
administratrix.

The solicitor of the insurance company swore it was the blackest
case that ever had come before him, talked of sending a commission
to Aix to examine into the death, and the Company refused payment of
the policy.  But Mrs., or Lady Crawley, as she styled herself, came
to town at once (attended with her solicitors, Messrs.  Burke,
Thurtell, and Hayes, of Thavies Inn) and dared the Company to refuse
the payment.  They invited examination, they declared that she was
the object of an infamous conspiracy, which had been pursuing her
all through life, and triumphed finally.  The money was paid, and
her character established, but Colonel Dobbin sent back his share of
the legacy to the insurance office and rigidly declined to hold any
communication with Rebecca.

She never was Lady Crawley, though she continued so to call herself.
His Excellency Colonel Rawdon Crawley died of yellow fever at
Coventry Island, most deeply beloved and deplored, and six weeks
before the demise of his brother, Sir Pitt.  The estate consequently
devolved upon the present Sir Rawdon Crawley, Bart.

He, too, has declined to see his mother, to whom he makes a liberal
allowance, and who, besides, appears to be very wealthy.  The
Baronet lives entirely at Queen's Crawley, with Lady Jane and her
daughter, whilst Rebecca, Lady Crawley, chiefly hangs about Bath and
Cheltenham, where a very strong party of excellent people consider
her to be a most injured woman.  She has her enemies.  Who has not?
Her life is her answer to them. She busies herself in works of
piety.  She goes to church, and never without a footman.  Her name
is in all the Charity Lists.  The destitute orange-girl, the
neglected washerwoman, the distressed muffin-man find in her a fast
and generous friend.  She is always having stalls at Fancy Fairs for
the benefit of these hapless beings.  Emmy, her children, and the
Colonel, coming to London some time back, found themselves suddenly
before her at one of these fairs.  She cast down her eyes demurely
and smiled as they started away from her; Emmy scurrying off on the
arm of George (now grown a dashing young gentleman) and the Colonel
seizing up his little Janey, of whom he is fonder than of anything
in the world--fonder even than of his History of the Punjaub.

"Fonder than he is of me," Emmy thinks with a sigh But he never said
a word to Amelia that was not kind and gentle, or thought of a want
of hers that he did not try to gratify.

Ah!  Vanitas Vanitatum!  which of us is happy in this world? Which
of us has his desire? or, having it, is satisfied?--come, children,
let us shut up the box and the puppets, for our play is played out.










End of Project Gutenberg's Vanity Fair, by William Makepeace Thackeray

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VANITY FAIR ***

This file should be named vfair12.txt or vfair12.zip
Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, vfair11.txt
VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, vfair10a.txt

Produced by Juli Rew, [email protected]

Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US
unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we usually do not
keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.

We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance
of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing.
Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections,
even years after the official publication date.

Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til
midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.
The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at
Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month.  A
preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment
and editing by those who wish to do so.

Most people start at our Web sites at:
http://gutenberg.net or
http://promo.net/pg

These Web sites include award-winning information about Project
Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new
eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!).


Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement
can get to them as follows, and just download by date.  This is
also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the
indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an
announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter.

http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext03 or
ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext03

Or /etext02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90

Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want,
as it appears in our Newsletters.


Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)

We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work.  The
time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours
to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright
searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc.   Our
projected audience is one hundred million readers.  If the value
per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2
million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text
files per month:  1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+
We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002
If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total
will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year's end.

The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks!
This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers,
which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users.

Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated):

eBooks Year Month

   1  1971 July
  10  1991 January
 100  1994 January
1000  1997 August
1500  1998 October
2000  1999 December
2500  2000 December
3000  2001 November
4000  2001 October/November
6000  2002 December*
9000  2003 November*
10000  2004 January*


The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created
to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium.

We need your donations more than ever!

As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people
and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut,
Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois,
Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts,
Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New
Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio,
Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South
Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West
Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones
that have responded.

As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list
will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states.
Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state.

In answer to various questions we have received on this:

We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally
request donations in all 50 states.  If your state is not listed and
you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have,
just ask.

While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are
not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting
donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to
donate.

International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about
how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made
deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are
ways.

Donations by check or money order may be sent to:

Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
PMB 113
1739 University Ave.
Oxford, MS 38655-4109

Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment
method other than by check or money order.

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by
the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN
[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154.  Donations are
tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law.  As fund-raising
requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be
made and fund-raising will begin in the additional states.

We need your donations more than ever!

You can get up to date donation information online at:

http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html


***

If you can't reach Project Gutenberg,
you can always email directly to:

Michael S. Hart <[email protected]>

Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message.

We would prefer to send you information by email.


**The Legal Small Print**


(Three Pages)

***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS**START***
Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers.
They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with
your copy of this eBook, even if you got it for free from
someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our
fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement
disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how
you may distribute copies of this eBook if you want to.

*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS EBOOK
By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
eBook, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept
this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive
a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this eBook by
sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person
you got it from. If you received this eBook on a physical
medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request.

ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM EBOOKS
This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBooks,
is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart
through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project").
Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright
on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and
distribute it in the United States without permission and
without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth
below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this eBook
under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.

Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market
any commercial products without permission.

To create these eBooks, the Project expends considerable
efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain
works. Despite these efforts, the Project's eBooks and any
medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other
things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or
corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged
disk or other eBook medium, a computer virus, or computer
codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.

LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES
But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below,
[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may
receive this eBook from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook) disclaims
all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including
legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR
UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT,
INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE
OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE
POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

If you discover a Defect in this eBook within 90 days of
receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any)
you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that
time to the person you received it from. If you received it
on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and
such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement
copy. If you received it electronically, such person may
choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to
receive it electronically.

THIS EBOOK IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER
WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS
TO THE EBOOK OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT
LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or
the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the
above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you
may have other legal rights.

INDEMNITY
You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation,
and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated
with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm
texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including
legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the
following that you do or cause:  [1] distribution of this eBook,
[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the eBook,
or [3] any Defect.

DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
You may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by
disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this
"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg,
or:

[1]  Only give exact copies of it.  Among other things, this
    requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the
    eBook or this "small print!" statement.  You may however,
    if you wish, distribute this eBook in machine readable
    binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
    including any form resulting from conversion by word
    processing or hypertext software, but only so long as
    *EITHER*:

    [*]  The eBook, when displayed, is clearly readable, and
         does *not* contain characters other than those
         intended by the author of the work, although tilde
         (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may
         be used to convey punctuation intended by the
         author, and additional characters may be used to
         indicate hypertext links; OR

    [*]  The eBook may be readily converted by the reader at
         no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent
         form by the program that displays the eBook (as is
         the case, for instance, with most word processors);
         OR

    [*]  You provide, or agree to also provide on request at
         no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the
         eBook in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC
         or other equivalent proprietary form).

[2]  Honor the eBook refund and replacement provisions of this
    "Small Print!" statement.

[3]  Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the
    gross profits you derive calculated using the method you
    already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  If you
    don't derive profits, no royalty is due.  Royalties are
    payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation"
    the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were
    legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent
    periodic) tax return.  Please contact us beforehand to
    let us know your plans and to work out the details.

WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?
Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of
public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed
in machine readable form.

The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time,
public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses.
Money should be paid to the:
"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."

If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or
software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at:
[email protected]

[Portions of this eBook's header and trailer may be reprinted only
when distributed free of all fees.  Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 by
Michael S. Hart.  Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be
used in any sales of Project Gutenberg eBooks or other materials be
they hardware or software or any other related product without
express permission.]

*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END*