Vanity Fair (33 page)

"He will be here again to-day," Amelia thought. "He is the greatest
and best of men." And the fact is, that George thought he was one
of the generousest creatures alive: and that he was making a
tremendous sacrifice in marrying this young creature.

While she and Osborne were having their delightful tete-a-tete above
stairs, old Mrs. Sedley and Captain Dobbin were conversing below
upon the state of the affairs, and the chances and future
arrangements of the young people. Mrs. Sedley having brought the
two lovers together and left them embracing each other with all
their might, like a true woman, was of opinion that no power on
earth would induce Mr. Sedley to consent to the match between his
daughter and the son of a man who had so shamefully, wickedly, and
monstrously treated him. And she told a long story about happier
days and their earlier splendours, when Osborne lived in a very
humble way in the New Road, and his wife was too glad to receive
some of Jos's little baby things, with which Mrs. Sedley
accommodated her at the birth of one of Osborne's own children. The
fiendish ingratitude of that man, she was sure, had broken Mr. S.'s
heart: and as for a marriage, he would never, never, never, never
consent.

"They must run away together, Ma'am," Dobbin said, laughing, "and
follow the example of Captain Rawdon Crawley, and Miss Emmy's friend
the little governess." Was it possible? Well she never! Mrs. Sedley
was all excitement about this news. She wished that Blenkinsop were
here to hear it: Blenkinsop always mistrusted that Miss Sharp.—
What an escape Jos had had! and she described the already well-known
love-passages between Rebecca and the Collector of Boggley Wollah.

It was not, however, Mr. Sedley's wrath which Dobbin feared, so much
as that of the other parent concerned, and he owned that he had a
very considerable doubt and anxiety respecting the behaviour of the
black-browed old tyrant of a Russia merchant in Russell Square. He
has forbidden the match peremptorily, Dobbin thought. He knew what a
savage determined man Osborne was, and how he stuck by his word.
"The only chance George has of reconcilement," argued his friend, "is
by distinguishing himself in the coming campaign. If he dies they
both go together. If he fails in distinction—what then? He has
some money from his mother, I have heard enough to purchase his
majority—or he must sell out and go and dig in Canada, or rough it
in a cottage in the country." With such a partner Dobbin thought he
would not mind Siberia—and, strange to say, this absurd and utterly
imprudent young fellow never for a moment considered that the want
of means to keep a nice carriage and horses, and of an income which
should enable its possessors to entertain their friends genteelly,
ought to operate as bars to the union of George and Miss Sedley.

It was these weighty considerations which made him think too that
the marriage should take place as quickly as possible. Was he
anxious himself, I wonder, to have it over?—as people, when death
has occurred, like to press forward the funeral, or when a parting
is resolved upon, hasten it. It is certain that Mr. Dobbin, having
taken the matter in hand, was most extraordinarily eager in the
conduct of it. He urged on George the necessity of immediate
action: he showed the chances of reconciliation with his father,
which a favourable mention of his name in the Gazette must bring
about. If need were he would go himself and brave both the fathers
in the business. At all events, he besought George to go through
with it before the orders came, which everybody expected, for the
departure of the regiment from England on foreign service.

Bent upon these hymeneal projects, and with the applause and consent
of Mrs. Sedley, who did not care to break the matter personally to
her husband, Mr. Dobbin went to seek John Sedley at his house of
call in the City, the Tapioca Coffee-house, where, since his own
offices were shut up, and fate had overtaken him, the poor broken-
down old gentleman used to betake himself daily, and write letters
and receive them, and tie them up into mysterious bundles, several
of which he carried in the flaps of his coat. I don't know anything
more dismal than that business and bustle and mystery of a ruined
man: those letters from the wealthy which he shows you: those worn
greasy documents promising support and offering condolence which he
places wistfully before you, and on which he builds his hopes of
restoration and future fortune. My beloved reader has no doubt in
the course of his experience been waylaid by many such a luckless
companion. He takes you into the corner; he has his bundle of
papers out of his gaping coat pocket; and the tape off, and the
string in his mouth, and the favourite letters selected and laid
before you; and who does not know the sad eager half-crazy look
which he fixes on you with his hopeless eyes?

Changed into a man of this sort, Dobbin found the once florid,
jovial, and prosperous John Sedley. His coat, that used to be so
glossy and trim, was white at the seams, and the buttons showed the
copper. His face had fallen in, and was unshorn; his frill and
neckcloth hung limp under his bagging waistcoat. When he used to
treat the boys in old days at a coffee-house, he would shout and
laugh louder than anybody there, and have all the waiters skipping
round him; it was quite painful to see how humble and civil he was
to John of the Tapioca, a blear-eyed old attendant in dingy
stockings and cracked pumps, whose business it was to serve glasses
of wafers, and bumpers of ink in pewter, and slices of paper to the
frequenters of this dreary house of entertainment, where nothing
else seemed to be consumed. As for William Dobbin, whom he had
tipped repeatedly in his youth, and who had been the old gentleman's
butt on a thousand occasions, old Sedley gave his hand to him in a
very hesitating humble manner now, and called him "Sir." A feeling
of shame and remorse took possession of William Dobbin as the broken
old man so received and addressed him, as if he himself had been
somehow guilty of the misfortunes which had brought Sedley so low.

"I am very glad to see you, Captain Dobbin, sir," says he, after a
skulking look or two at his visitor (whose lanky figure and military
appearance caused some excitement likewise to twinkle in the blear
eyes of the waiter in the cracked dancing pumps, and awakened the
old lady in black, who dozed among the mouldy old coffee-cups in the
bar). "How is the worthy alderman, and my lady, your excellent
mother, sir?" He looked round at the waiter as he said, "My lady,"
as much as to say, "Hark ye, John, I have friends still, and persons
of rank and reputation, too." "Are you come to do anything in my
way, sir? My young friends Dale and Spiggot do all my business for
me now, until my new offices are ready; for I'm only here
temporarily, you know, Captain. What can we do for you. sir? Will
you like to take anything?"

Dobbin, with a great deal of hesitation and stuttering, protested
that he was not in the least hungry or thirsty; that he had no
business to transact; that he only came to ask if Mr. Sedley was
well, and to shake hands with an old friend; and, he added, with a
desperate perversion of truth, "My mother is very well—that is,
she's been very unwell, and is only waiting for the first fine day
to go out and call upon Mrs. Sedley. How is Mrs. Sedley, sir? I
hope she's quite well." And here he paused, reflecting on his own
consummate hypocrisy; for the day was as fine, and the sunshine as
bright as it ever is in Coffin Court, where the Tapioca Coffee-house
is situated: and Mr. Dobbin remembered that he had seen Mrs. Sedley
himself only an hour before, having driven Osborne down to Fulham in
his gig, and left him there tete-a-tete with Miss Amelia.

"My wife will be very happy to see her ladyship," Sedley replied,
pulling out his papers. "I've a very kind letter here from your
father, sir, and beg my respectful compliments to him. Lady D. will
find us in rather a smaller house than we were accustomed to receive
our friends in; but it's snug, and the change of air does good to my
daughter, who was suffering in town rather—you remember little
Emmy, sir?—yes, suffering a good deal." The old gentleman's eyes
were wandering as he spoke, and he was thinking of something else,
as he sate thrumming on his papers and fumbling at the worn red
tape.

"You're a military man," he went on; "I ask you, Bill Dobbin, could
any man ever have speculated upon the return of that Corsican
scoundrel from Elba? When the allied sovereigns were here last
year, and we gave 'em that dinner in the City, sir, and we saw the
Temple of Concord, and the fireworks, and the Chinese bridge in St.
James's Park, could any sensible man suppose that peace wasn't
really concluded, after we'd actually sung Te Deum for it, sir? I
ask you, William, could I suppose that the Emperor of Austria was a
damned traitor—a traitor, and nothing more? I don't mince words—a
double-faced infernal traitor and schemer, who meant to have his
son-in-law back all along. And I say that the escape of Boney from
Elba was a damned imposition and plot, sir, in which half the powers
of Europe were concerned, to bring the funds down, and to ruin this
country. That's why I'm here, William. That's why my name's in the
Gazette. Why, sir?—because I trusted the Emperor of Russia and the
Prince Regent. Look here. Look at my papers. Look what the funds
were on the 1st of March—what the French fives were when I bought
for the count. And what they're at now. There was collusion, sir,
or that villain never would have escaped. Where was the English
Commissioner who allowed him to get away? He ought to be shot, sir
—brought to a court-martial, and shot, by Jove."

"We're going to hunt Boney out, sir," Dobbin said, rather alarmed at
the fury of the old man, the veins of whose forehead began to swell,
and who sate drumming his papers with his clenched fist. "We are
going to hunt him out, sir—the Duke's in Belgium already, and we
expect marching orders every day."

"Give him no quarter. Bring back the villain's head, sir. Shoot the
coward down, sir," Sedley roared. "I'd enlist myself, by—; but I'm
a broken old man—ruined by that damned scoundrel—and by a parcel
of swindling thieves in this country whom I made, sir, and who are
rolling in their carriages now," he added, with a break in his
voice.

Dobbin was not a little affected by the sight of this once kind old
friend, crazed almost with misfortune and raving with senile anger.
Pity the fallen gentleman: you to whom money and fair repute are the
chiefest good; and so, surely, are they in Vanity Fair.

"Yes," he continued, "there are some vipers that you warm, and they
sting you afterwards. There are some beggars that you put on
horseback, and they're the first to ride you down. You know whom I
mean, William Dobbin, my boy. I mean a purse-proud villain in
Russell Square, whom I knew without a shilling, and whom I pray and
hope to see a beggar as he was when I befriended him."

"I have heard something of this, sir, from my friend George," Dobbin
said, anxious to come to his point. "The quarrel between you and
his father has cut him up a great deal, sir. Indeed, I'm the bearer
of a message from him."

"O, THAT'S your errand, is it?" cried the old man, jumping up.
"What! perhaps he condoles with me, does he? Very kind of him, the
stiff-backed prig, with his dandified airs and West End swagger.
He's hankering about my house, is he still? If my son had the
courage of a man, he'd shoot him. He's as big a villain as his
father. I won't have his name mentioned in my house. I curse the
day that ever I let him into it; and I'd rather see my daughter dead
at my feet than married to him."

"His father's harshness is not George's fault, sir. Your daughter's
love for him is as much your doing as his. Who are you, that you
are to play with two young people's affections and break their
hearts at your will?"

"Recollect it's not his father that breaks the match off," old
Sedley cried out. "It's I that forbid it. That family and mine are
separated for ever. I'm fallen low, but not so low as that: no, no.
And so you may tell the whole race—son, and father and sisters, and
all."

"It's my belief, sir, that you have not the power or the right to
separate those two," Dobbin answered in a low voice; "and that if
you don't give your daughter your consent it will be her duty to
marry without it. There's no reason she should die or live
miserably because you are wrong-headed. To my thinking, she's just
as much married as if the banns had been read in all the churches in
London. And what better answer can there be to Osborne's charges
against you, as charges there are, than that his son claims to enter
your family and marry your daughter?"

A light of something like satisfaction seemed to break over old
Sedley as this point was put to him: but he still persisted that
with his consent the marriage between Amelia and George should never
take place.

"We must do it without," Dobbin said, smiling, and told Mr. Sedley,
as he had told Mrs. Sedley in the day, before, the story of
Rebecca's elopement with Captain Crawley. It evidently amused the
old gentleman. "You're terrible fellows, you Captains," said he,
tying up his papers; and his face wore something like a smile upon
it, to the astonishment of the blear-eyed waiter who now entered,
and had never seen such an expression upon Sedley's countenance
since he had used the dismal coffee-house.

The idea of hitting his enemy Osborne such a blow soothed, perhaps,
the old gentleman: and, their colloquy presently ending, he and
Dobbin parted pretty good friends.

"My sisters say she has diamonds as big as pigeons' eggs," George
said, laughing. "How they must set off her complexion! A perfect
illumination it must be when her jewels are on her neck. Her jet-
black hair is as curly as Sambo's. I dare say she wore a nose ring
when she went to court; and with a plume of feathers in her top-knot
she would look a perfect Belle Sauvage."