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 con-
sequence 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 can 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, al-
though 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 South-
ampton 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 tele-
scope 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. Reb-
ecca wore a kind, tender smile on her face, and was holding out her
pretty white hand as Briggs emerge d 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 affect-
ionately. "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, "al-
though 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 pos-
sible. 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 any-
thing 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-hum-
oured an air, as if they had　met only the day before. And as for Raw-
don, 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 in-
terest 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 near-
ed 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 soi-
ree, 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 English-
man 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 rid-
ing-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 show-
ed 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 ad-
vice 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 laugh-
ing or sneering at her expense, and he not angry. He was not even an-
gry 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 Bare-
acres, 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 collect-
ed 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 hair-
dresser, 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 win-
nings, 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, remem-
bering 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 de-
parture 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 cami-
sole, 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 pack-
ed 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 re-
freshments, 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 ar-
my 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 hypo-
crite 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 Dob-
bin 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 after-
wards 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 lodg-
ings 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 ever-
ywhere 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 comfort-
able carriage, in which I propose to take a seat." I don't know whe-
ther 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 sus-
picions 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 Reb-
ecca--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 protest-
ants, 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
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 com-
forted, and who was walking very disconsolately in the Parc, Rebecca ac-
costed the latter, rather to the surprise of the Major's wife, who was
not accustomed to such marks of politeness from Mrs. Rawdon Craw-
ley, 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 conde-
scended 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. It 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 Craw-
ley'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 mo-
ment 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 drink-
ing 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 engage-
ment 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 pre.sented 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 defer-
ence 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 enthu-
siastic; 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 compan-
ion. "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 com-
panionship 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 gay-
est among the gay conquerors there, and our Amelia, our dear wound-
ed 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 Boo 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 pre-
sence 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, he 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 recov-
ered, 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 stern 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 rep-
resented 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 them-
selves as soon as their ebullition of grief was over. Much conver-
sation 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 scream-
ing 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 selfishnessn
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 Craw-
ley 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 cred-
itors 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 serréd 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 retire-
ment 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 pro-
posals, 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 periwigs. 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 Crawley's 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 understand 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 congratula-
tions. 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 Van-
ity 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 nur-
sery 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 re-
gions 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 Presi-
dency 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 grand-
son 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 ve-
ry 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
him. 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 do 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
hat 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 hand-
some. 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 momen-
tous 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 juv-
enile 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 "busi-
ness"--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 mar-
riage--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 Maj-
or 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 gen-
tleman'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 en-
terprise, 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 con-
ceivable 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 sup-
posed 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 proclaim-
ed 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 South-
down'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 peo-
ple 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 mel-
ancholy 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 advert-
ising 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 gentle-
woman 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 chil-
dren 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 per-
petually 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 physi-
cians 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, des-
cending 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 carriage 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 beau-
tified, 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 instances 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. Bul-
lock's costume, when presented at the drawing room by Lady Frede-
rica 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 yl;ou 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, irreg-
ular, 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 op-
portunity 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 ac-
nowledge 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 crea-
ture--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 steadfast 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 coach-
man, 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 intolerably 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 hous-
ed and sheltered Mrs. Posky, who fled from her bungalow one night, pur-
sued 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 feel-
ings 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. Os-
borne 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 disappoint-
ed 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 sing-
ing? 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 mis-
chance, 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 the 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 beau-
tiful, 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 twen-
ty 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 com-
mand 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 him-
self 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, determin-
ing 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 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 120p. 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 gram-
mars 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, miser-
able, 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 oc-
casionally 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 mer-
chant 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 pass-
ed 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, ex-
cept 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 Cruche-
cassee, 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 Mousqu-
etaires 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 Eaves
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 he 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 borrow-
ing 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 grand-
father 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 expost-
ulated, 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 inter-
view 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; moth-
ers 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 Baro-
net'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 fto 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 in-
come 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 Am-
erican 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, giv-
ing 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 ve-
ry pleasing and witty fashionable, the brilliant and exclusive Mrs. Raw-
don 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 frequent-
ing 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 rev-
erence 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 pat-
ronize 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 alter-
ed 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, papa! 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 seem-
ed 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 mak-
ing 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 con-
summated. 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.



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