Vanity Fair (32 page)

From Miss Pinkerton's the indefatigable Mrs. Bute followed the track
of Sharp and his daughter back to the lodgings in Greek Street,
which the defunct painter had occupied; and where portraits of the
landlady in white satin, and of the husband in brass buttons, done
by Sharp in lieu of a quarter's rent, still decorated the parlour
walls. Mrs. Stokes was a communicative person, and quickly told all
she knew about Mr. Sharp; how dissolute and poor he was; how good-
natured and amusing; how he was always hunted by bailiffs and duns;
how, to the landlady's horror, though she never could abide the
woman, he did not marry his wife till a short time before her death;
and what a queer little wild vixen his daughter was; how she kept
them all laughing with her fun and mimicry; how she used to fetch
the gin from the public-house, and was known in all the studios in
the quarter—in brief, Mrs. Bute got such a full account of her new
niece's parentage, education, and behaviour as would scarcely have
pleased Rebecca, had the latter known that such inquiries were being
made concerning her.

Of all these industrious researches Miss Crawley had the full
benefit. Mrs. Rawdon Crawley was the daughter of an opera-girl.
She had danced herself. She had been a model to the painters. She
was brought up as became her mother's daughter. She drank gin with
her father, &c. &c. It was a lost woman who was married to a lost
man; and the moral to be inferred from Mrs. Bute's tale was, that
the knavery of the pair was irremediable, and that no properly
conducted person should ever notice them again.

These were the materials which prudent Mrs. Bute gathered together
in Park Lane, the provisions and ammunition as it were with which
she fortified the house against the siege which she knew that Rawdon
and his wife would lay to Miss Crawley.

But if a fault may be found with her arrangements, it is this, that
she was too eager: she managed rather too well; undoubtedly she made
Miss Crawley more ill than was necessary; and though the old invalid
succumbed to her authority, it was so harassing and severe, that the
victim would be inclined to escape at the very first chance which
fell in her way. Managing women, the ornaments of their sex—women
who order everything for everybody, and know so much better than any
person concerned what is good for their neighbours, don't sometimes
speculate upon the possibility of a domestic revolt, or upon other
extreme consequences resulting from their overstrained authority.

Thus, for instance, Mrs. Bute, with the best intentions no doubt in
the world, and wearing herself to death as she did by foregoing
sleep, dinner, fresh air, for the sake of her invalid sister-in-law,
carried her conviction of the old lady's illness so far that she
almost managed her into her coffin. She pointed out her sacrifices
and their results one day to the constant apothecary, Mr. Clump.

"I am sure, my dear Mr. Clump," she said, "no efforts of mine have
been wanting to restore our dear invalid, whom the ingratitude of
her nephew has laid on the bed of sickness. I never shrink from
personal discomfort: I never refuse to sacrifice myself."

"Your devotion, it must be confessed, is admirable," Mr. Clump says,
with a low bow; "but—"

"I have scarcely closed my eyes since my arrival: I give up sleep,
health, every comfort, to my sense of duty. When my poor James was
in the smallpox, did I allow any hireling to nurse him? No."

"You did what became an excellent mother, my dear Madam—the best of
mothers; but—"

"As the mother of a family and the wife of an English clergyman, I
humbly trust that my principles are good," Mrs. Bute said, with a
happy solemnity of conviction; "and, as long as Nature supports me,
never, never, Mr. Clump, will I desert the post of duty. Others may
bring that grey head with sorrow to the bed of sickness (here Mrs.
Bute, waving her hand, pointed to one of old Miss Crawley's coffee-
coloured fronts, which was perched on a stand in the dressing-room),
but I will never quit it. Ah, Mr. Clump! I fear, I know, that the
couch needs spiritual as well as medical consolation."

"What I was going to observe, my dear Madam,"—here the resolute
Clump once more interposed with a bland air—"what I was going to
observe when you gave utterance to sentiments which do you so much
honour, was that I think you alarm yourself needlessly about our
kind friend, and sacrifice your own health too prodigally in her
favour."

"I would lay down my life for my duty, or for any member of my
husband's family," Mrs. Bute interposed.

"Yes, Madam, if need were; but we don't want Mrs Bute Crawley to be
a martyr," Clump said gallantly. "Dr Squills and myself have both
considered Miss Crawley's case with every anxiety and care, as you
may suppose. We see her low-spirited and nervous; family events
have agitated her."

"Her nephew will come to perdition," Mrs. Crawley cried.

"Have agitated her: and you arrived like a guardian angel, my dear
Madam, a positive guardian angel, I assure you, to soothe her under
the pressure of calamity. But Dr. Squills and I were thinking that
our amiable friend is not in such a state as renders confinement to
her bed necessary. She is depressed, but this confinement perhaps
adds to her depression. She should have change, fresh air, gaiety;
the most delightful remedies in the pharmacopoeia," Mr. Clump said,
grinning and showing his handsome teeth. "Persuade her to rise,
dear Madam; drag her from her couch and her low spirits; insist upon
her taking little drives. They will restore the roses too to your
cheeks, if I may so speak to Mrs. Bute Crawley."

"The sight of her horrid nephew casually in the Park, where I am
told the wretch drives with the brazen partner of his crimes," Mrs.
Bute said (letting the cat of selfishness out of the bag of
secrecy), "would cause her such a shock, that we should have to
bring her back to bed again. She must not go out, Mr. Clump. She
shall not go out as long as I remain to watch over her; And as for
my health, what matters it? I give it cheerfully, sir. I sacrifice
it at the altar of my duty."

"Upon my word, Madam," Mr. Clump now said bluntly, "I won't answer
for her life if she remains locked up in that dark room. She is so
nervous that we may lose her any day; and if you wish Captain
Crawley to be her heir, I warn you frankly, Madam, that you are
doing your very best to serve him."

"Gracious mercy! is her life in danger?" Mrs. Bute cried. "Why,
why, Mr. Clump, did you not inform me sooner?"

The night before, Mr. Clump and Dr. Squills had had a consultation
(over a bottle of wine at the house of Sir Lapin Warren, whose lady
was about to present him with a thirteenth blessing), regarding Miss
Crawley and her case.

"What a little harpy that woman from Hampshire is, Clump," Squills
remarked, "that has seized upon old Tilly Crawley. Devilish good
Madeira."

"What a fool Rawdon Crawley has been," Clump replied, "to go and
marry a governess! There was something about the girl, too."

"Green eyes, fair skin, pretty figure, famous frontal development,"
Squills remarked. "There is something about her; and Crawley was a
fool, Squills."

"A d— fool—always was," the apothecary replied.

"Of course the old girl will fling him over," said the physician,
and after a pause added, "She'll cut up well, I suppose."

"Cut up," says Clump with a grin; "I wouldn't have her cut up for
two hundred a year."

"That Hampshire woman will kill her in two months, Clump, my boy, if
she stops about her," Dr. Squills said. "Old woman; full feeder;
nervous subject; palpitation of the heart; pressure on the brain;
apoplexy; off she goes. Get her up, Clump; get her out: or I
wouldn't give many weeks' purchase for your two hundred a year." And
it was acting upon this hint that the worthy apothecary spoke with
so much candour to Mrs. Bute Crawley.

Having the old lady under her hand: in bed: with nobody near, Mrs.
Bute had made more than one assault upon her, to induce her to alter
her will. But Miss Crawley's usual terrors regarding death
increased greatly when such dismal propositions were made to her,
and Mrs. Bute saw that she must get her patient into cheerful
spirits and health before she could hope to attain the pious object
which she had in view. Whither to take her was the next puzzle.
The only place where she is not likely to meet those odious Rawdons
is at church, and that won't amuse her, Mrs. Bute justly felt. "We
must go and visit our beautiful suburbs of London," she then
thought. "I hear they are the most picturesque in the world"; and
so she had a sudden interest for Hampstead, and Hornsey, and found
that Dulwich had great charms for her, and getting her victim into
her carriage, drove her to those rustic spots, beguiling the little
journeys with conversations about Rawdon and his wife, and telling
every story to the old lady which could add to her indignation
against this pair of reprobates.

Perhaps Mrs. Bute pulled the string unnecessarily tight. For though
she worked up Miss Crawley to a proper dislike of her disobedient
nephew, the invalid had a great hatred and secret terror of her
victimizer, and panted to escape from her. After a brief space, she
rebelled against Highgate and Hornsey utterly. She would go into
the Park. Mrs. Bute knew they would meet the abominable Rawdon
there, and she was right. One day in the ring, Rawdon's stanhope
came in sight; Rebecca was seated by him. In the enemy's equipage
Miss Crawley occupied her usual place, with Mrs. Bute on her left,
the poodle and Miss Briggs on the back seat. It was a nervous
moment, and Rebecca's heart beat quick as she recognized the
carriage; and as the two vehicles crossed each other in a line, she
clasped her hands, and looked towards the spinster with a face of
agonized attachment and devotion. Rawdon himself trembled, and his
face grew purple behind his dyed mustachios. Only old Briggs was
moved in the other carriage, and cast her great eyes nervously
towards her old friends. Miss Crawley's bonnet was resolutely
turned towards the Serpentine. Mrs. Bute happened to be in
ecstasies with the poodle, and was calling him a little darling, and
a sweet little zoggy, and a pretty pet. The carriages moved on,
each in his line.

"Done, by Jove," Rawdon said to his wife.

"Try once more, Rawdon," Rebecca answered. "Could not you lock your
wheels into theirs, dearest?"

Rawdon had not the heart for that manoeuvre. When the carriages met
again, he stood up in his stanhope; he raised his hand ready to doff
his hat; he looked with all his eyes. But this time Miss Crawley's
face was not turned away; she and Mrs. Bute looked him full in the
face, and cut their nephew pitilessly. He sank back in his seat
with an oath, and striking out of the ring, dashed away desperately
homewards.

It was a gallant and decided triumph for Mrs. Bute. But she felt the
danger of many such meetings, as she saw the evident nervousness of
Miss Crawley; and she determined that it was most necessary for her
dear friend's health, that they should leave town for a while, and
recommended Brighton very strongly.

In Which Captain Dobbin Acts as the Messenger of Hymen

Without knowing how, Captain William Dobbin found himself the great
promoter, arranger, and manager of the match between George Osborne
and Amelia. But for him it never would have taken place: he could
not but confess as much to himself, and smiled rather bitterly as he
thought that he of all men in the world should be the person upon
whom the care of this marriage had fallen. But though indeed the
conducting of this negotiation was about as painful a task as could
be set to him, yet when he had a duty to perform, Captain Dobbin was
accustomed to go through it without many words or much hesitation:
and, having made up his mind completely, that if Miss Sedley was
balked of her husband she would die of the disappointment, he was
determined to use all his best endeavours to keep her alive.

I forbear to enter into minute particulars of the interview between
George and Amelia, when the former was brought back to the feet (or
should we venture to say the arms?) of his young mistress by the
intervention of his friend honest William. A much harder heart than
George's would have melted at the sight of that sweet face so sadly
ravaged by grief and despair, and at the simple tender accents in
which she told her little broken-hearted story: but as she did not
faint when her mother, trembling, brought Osborne to her; and as she
only gave relief to her overcharged grief, by laying her head on her
lover's shoulder and there weeping for a while the most tender,
copious, and refreshing tears—old Mrs. Sedley, too greatly
relieved, thought it was best to leave the young persons to
themselves; and so quitted Emmy crying over George's hand, and
kissing it humbly, as if he were her supreme chief and master, and
as if she were quite a guilty and unworthy person needing every
favour and grace from him.

This prostration and sweet unrepining obedience exquisitely touched
and flattered George Osborne. He saw a slave before him in that
simple yielding faithful creature, and his soul within him thrilled
secretly somehow at the knowledge of his power. He would be
generous-minded, Sultan as he was, and raise up this kneeling Esther
and make a queen of her: besides, her sadness and beauty touched
him as much as her submission, and so he cheered her, and raised her
up and forgave her, so to speak. All her hopes and feelings, which
were dying and withering, this her sun having been removed from her,
bloomed again and at once, its light being restored. You would
scarcely have recognised the beaming little face upon Amelia's
pillow that night as the one that was laid there the night before,
so wan, so lifeless, so careless of all round about. The honest
Irish maid-servant, delighted with the change, asked leave to kiss
the face that had grown all of a sudden so rosy. Amelia put her
arms round the girl's neck and kissed her with all her heart, like a
child. She was little more. She had that night a sweet refreshing
sleep, like one—and what a spring of inexpressible happiness as she
woke in the morning sunshine!