Vanity Fair (30 page)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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