Vanity Fair (28 page)

"No. 369," roared Mr. Hammerdown. "Portrait of a gentleman on an
elephant. Who'll bid for the gentleman on the elephant? Lift up
the picture, Blowman, and let the company examine this lot." A long,
pale, military-looking gentleman, seated demurely at the mahogany
table, could not help grinning as this valuable lot was shown by Mr.
Blowman. "Turn the elephant to the Captain, Blowman. What shall we
say, sir, for the elephant?" but the Captain, blushing in a very
hurried and discomfited manner, turned away his head.

"Shall we say twenty guineas for this work of art?—fifteen, five,
name your own price. The gentleman without the elephant is worth
five pound."

"I wonder it ain't come down with him," said a professional wag,
"he's anyhow a precious big one"; at which (for the elephant-rider
was represented as of a very stout figure) there was a general
giggle in the room.

"Don't be trying to deprecate the value of the lot, Mr. Moss," Mr.
Hammerdown said; "let the company examine it as a work of art—the
attitude of the gallant animal quite according to natur'; the
gentleman in a nankeen jacket, his gun in his hand, is going to the
chase; in the distance a banyhann tree and a pagody, most likely
resemblances of some interesting spot in our famous Eastern
possessions. How much for this lot? Come, gentlemen, don't keep me
here all day."

Some one bid five shillings, at which the military gentleman looked
towards the quarter from which this splendid offer had come, and
there saw another officer with a young lady on his arm, who both
appeared to be highly amused with the scene, and to whom, finally,
this lot was knocked down for half a guinea. He at the table looked
more surprised and discomposed than ever when he spied this pair,
and his head sank into his military collar, and he turned his back
upon them, so as to avoid them altogether.

Of all the other articles which Mr. Hammerdown had the honour to
offer for public competition that day it is not our purpose to make
mention, save of one only, a little square piano, which came down
from the upper regions of the house (the state grand piano having
been disposed of previously); this the young lady tried with a rapid
and skilful hand (making the officer blush and start again), and for
it, when its turn came, her agent began to bid.

But there was an opposition here. The Hebrew aide-de-camp in the
service of the officer at the table bid against the Hebrew gentleman
employed by the elephant purchasers, and a brisk battle ensued over
this little piano, the combatants being greatly encouraged by Mr.
Hammerdown.

At last, when the competition had been prolonged for some time, the
elephant captain and lady desisted from the race; and the hammer
coming down, the auctioneer said:—"Mr. Lewis, twenty-five," and Mr.
Lewis's chief thus became the proprietor of the little square piano.
Having effected the purchase, he sate up as if he was greatly
relieved, and the unsuccessful competitors catching a glimpse of him
at this moment, the lady said to her friend,

"Why, Rawdon, it's Captain Dobbin."

I suppose Becky was discontented with the new piano her husband had
hired for her, or perhaps the proprietors of that instrument had
fetched it away, declining farther credit, or perhaps she had a
particular attachment for the one which she had just tried to
purchase, recollecting it in old days, when she used to play upon
it, in the little sitting-room of our dear Amelia Sedley.

The sale was at the old house in Russell Square, where we passed
some evenings together at the beginning of this story. Good old
John Sedley was a ruined man. His name had been proclaimed as a
defaulter on the Stock Exchange, and his bankruptcy and commercial
extermination had followed. Mr. Osborne's butler came to buy some
of the famous port wine to transfer to the cellars over the way. As
for one dozen well-manufactured silver spoons and forks at per oz.,
and one dozen dessert ditto ditto, there were three young
stockbrokers (Messrs. Dale, Spiggot, and Dale, of Threadneedle
Street, indeed), who, having had dealings with the old man, and
kindnesses from him in days when he was kind to everybody with whom
he dealt, sent this little spar out of the wreck with their love to
good Mrs. Sedley; and with respect to the piano, as it had been
Amelia's, and as she might miss it and want one now, and as Captain
William Dobbin could no more play upon it than he could dance on the
tight rope, it is probable that he did not purchase the instrument
for his own use.

In a word, it arrived that evening at a wonderful small cottage in a
street leading from the Fulham Road—one of those streets which have
the finest romantic names—(this was called St. Adelaide Villas,
Anna-Maria Road West), where the houses look like baby-houses; where
the people, looking out of the first-floor windows, must infallibly,
as you think, sit with their feet in the parlours; where the shrubs
in the little gardens in front bloom with a perennial display of
little children's pinafores, little red socks, caps, &c. (polyandria
polygynia); whence you hear the sound of jingling spinets and women
singing; where little porter pots hang on the railings sunning
themselves; whither of evenings you see City clerks padding wearily:
here it was that Mr. Clapp, the clerk of Mr. Sedley, had his
domicile, and in this asylum the good old gentleman hid his head
with his wife and daughter when the crash came.

Jos Sedley had acted as a man of his disposition would, when the
announcement of the family misfortune reached him. He did not come
to London, but he wrote to his mother to draw upon his agents for
whatever money was wanted, so that his kind broken-spirited old
parents had no present poverty to fear. This done, Jos went on at
the boarding-house at Cheltenham pretty much as before. He drove
his curricle; he drank his claret; he played his rubber; he told his
Indian stories, and the Irish widow consoled and flattered him as
usual. His present of money, needful as it was, made little
impression on his parents; and I have heard Amelia say that the
first day on which she saw her father lift up his head after the
failure was on the receipt of the packet of forks and spoons with
the young stockbrokers' love, over which he burst out crying like a
child, being greatly more affected than even his wife, to whom the
present was addressed. Edward Dale, the junior of the house, who
purchased the spoons for the firm, was, in fact, very sweet upon
Amelia, and offered for her in spite of all. He married Miss Louisa
Cutts (daughter of Higham and Cutts, the eminent cornfactors) with a
handsome fortune in 1820; and is now living in splendour, and with a
numerous family, at his elegant villa, Muswell Hill. But we must
not let the recollections of this good fellow cause us to diverge
from the principal history.

I hope the reader has much too good an opinion of Captain and Mrs.
Crawley to suppose that they ever would have dreamed of paying a
visit to so remote a district as Bloomsbury, if they thought the
family whom they proposed to honour with a visit were not merely out
of fashion, but out of money, and could be serviceable to them in no
possible manner. Rebecca was entirely surprised at the sight of the
comfortable old house where she had met with no small kindness,
ransacked by brokers and bargainers, and its quiet family treasures
given up to public desecration and plunder. A month after her
flight, she had bethought her of Amelia, and Rawdon, with a horse-
laugh, had expressed a perfect willingness to see young George
Osborne again. "He's a very agreeable acquaintance, Beck," the wag
added. "I'd like to sell him another horse, Beck. I'd like to play
a few more games at billiards with him. He'd be what I call useful
just now, Mrs. C.—ha, ha!" by which sort of speech it is not to be
supposed that Rawdon Crawley had a deliberate desire to cheat Mr.
Osborne at play, but only wished to take that fair advantage of him
which almost every sporting gentleman in Vanity Fair considers to be
his due from his neighbour.

The old aunt was long in "coming-to." A month had elapsed. Rawdon
was denied the door by Mr. Bowls; his servants could not get a
lodgment in the house at Park Lane; his letters were sent back
unopened. Miss Crawley never stirred out—she was unwell—and Mrs.
Bute remained still and never left her. Crawley and his wife both
of them augured evil from the continued presence of Mrs. Bute.

"Gad, I begin to perceive now why she was always bringing us
together at Queen's Crawley," Rawdon said.

"What an artful little woman!" ejaculated Rebecca.

"Well, I don't regret it, if you don't," the Captain cried, still in
an amorous rapture with his wife, who rewarded him with a kiss by
way of reply, and was indeed not a little gratified by the generous
confidence of her husband.

"If he had but a little more brains," she thought to herself, "I
might make something of him"; but she never let him perceive the
opinion she had of him; listened with indefatigable complacency to
his stories of the stable and the mess; laughed at all his jokes;
felt the greatest interest in Jack Spatterdash, whose cab-horse had
come down, and Bob Martingale, who had been taken up in a gambling-
house, and Tom Cinqbars, who was going to ride the steeplechase.
When he came home she was alert and happy: when he went out she
pressed him to go: when he stayed at home, she played and sang for
him, made him good drinks, superintended his dinner, warmed his
slippers, and steeped his soul in comfort. The best of women (I
have heard my grandmother say) are hypocrites. We don't know how
much they hide from us: how watchful they are when they seem most
artless and confidential: how often those frank smiles which they
wear so easily, are traps to cajole or elude or disarm—I don't mean
in your mere coquettes, but your domestic models, and paragons of
female virtue. Who has not seen a woman hide the dulness of a stupid
husband, or coax the fury of a savage one? We accept this amiable
slavishness, and praise a woman for it: we call this pretty
treachery truth. A good housewife is of necessity a humbug; and
Cornelia's husband was hoodwinked, as Potiphar was—only in a
different way.

By these attentions, that veteran rake, Rawdon Crawley, found
himself converted into a very happy and submissive married man. His
former haunts knew him not. They asked about him once or twice at
his clubs, but did not miss him much: in those booths of Vanity Fair
people seldom do miss each other. His secluded wife ever smiling
and cheerful, his little comfortable lodgings, snug meals, and
homely evenings, had all the charms of novelty and secrecy. The
marriage was not yet declared to the world, or published in the
Morning Post. All his creditors would have come rushing on him in a
body, had they known that he was united to a woman without fortune.
"My relations won't cry fie upon me," Becky said, with rather a
bitter laugh; and she was quite contented to wait until the old aunt
should be reconciled, before she claimed her place in society. So
she lived at Brompton, and meanwhile saw no one, or only those few
of her husband's male companions who were admitted into her little
dining-room. These were all charmed with her. The little dinners,
the laughing and chatting, the music afterwards, delighted all who
participated in these enjoyments. Major Martingale never thought
about asking to see the marriage licence, Captain Cinqbars was
perfectly enchanted with her skill in making punch. And young
Lieutenant Spatterdash (who was fond of piquet, and whom Crawley
would often invite) was evidently and quickly smitten by Mrs.
Crawley; but her own circumspection and modesty never forsook her
for a moment, and Crawley's reputation as a fire-eating and jealous
warrior was a further and complete defence to his little wife.

There are gentlemen of very good blood and fashion in this city, who
never have entered a lady's drawing-room; so that though Rawdon
Crawley's marriage might be talked about in his county, where, of
course, Mrs. Bute had spread the news, in London it was doubted, or
not heeded, or not talked about at all. He lived comfortably on
credit. He had a large capital of debts, which laid out
judiciously, will carry a man along for many years, and on which
certain men about town contrive to live a hundred times better than
even men with ready money can do. Indeed who is there that walks
London streets, but can point out a half-dozen of men riding by him
splendidly, while he is on foot, courted by fashion, bowed into
their carriages by tradesmen, denying themselves nothing, and living
on who knows what? We see Jack Thriftless prancing in the park, or
darting in his brougham down Pall Mall: we eat his dinners served on
his miraculous plate. "How did this begin," we say, "or where will
it end?" "My dear fellow," I heard Jack once say, "I owe money in
every capital in Europe." The end must come some day, but in the
meantime Jack thrives as much as ever; people are glad enough to
shake him by the hand, ignore the little dark stories that are
whispered every now and then against him, and pronounce him a good-
natured, jovial, reckless fellow.

Truth obliges us to confess that Rebecca had married a gentleman of
this order. Everything was plentiful in his house but ready money,
of which their menage pretty early felt the want; and reading the
Gazette one day, and coming upon the announcement of "Lieutenant G.
Osborne to be Captain by purchase, vice Smith, who exchanges,"
Rawdon uttered that sentiment regarding Amelia's lover, which ended
in the visit to Russell Square.

When Rawdon and his wife wished to communicate with Captain Dobbin
at the sale, and to know particulars of the catastrophe which had
befallen Rebecca's old acquaintances, the Captain had vanished; and
such information as they got was from a stray porter or broker at
the auction.