Vanity Fair (4 page)

Amelia laughed.

"What! don't you love him? you, who say you love everybody?"

"Yes, of course, I do—only—"

"Only what?"

"Only Joseph doesn't seem to care much whether I love him or not.
He gave me two fingers to shake when he arrived after ten years'
absence! He is very kind and good, but he scarcely ever speaks to
me; I think he loves his pipe a great deal better than his"—but
here Amelia checked herself, for why should she speak ill of her
brother? "He was very kind to me as a child," she added; "I was but
five years old when he went away."

"Isn't he very rich?" said Rebecca. "They say all Indian nabobs are
enormously rich."

"I believe he has a very large income."

"And is your sister-in-law a nice pretty woman?"

"La! Joseph is not married," said Amelia, laughing again.

Perhaps she had mentioned the fact already to Rebecca, but that
young lady did not appear to have remembered it; indeed, vowed and
protested that she expected to see a number of Amelia's nephews and
nieces. She was quite disappointed that Mr. Sedley was not married;
she was sure Amelia had said he was, and she doted so on little
children.

"I think you must have had enough of them at Chiswick," said Amelia,
rather wondering at the sudden tenderness on her friend's part; and
indeed in later days Miss Sharp would never have committed herself
so far as to advance opinions, the untruth of which would have been
so easily detected. But we must remember that she is but nineteen
as yet, unused to the art of deceiving, poor innocent creature! and
making her own experience in her own person. The meaning of the
above series of queries, as translated in the heart of this
ingenious young woman, was simply this: "If Mr. Joseph Sedley is
rich and unmarried, why should I not marry him? I have only a
fortnight, to be sure, but there is no harm in trying." And she
determined within herself to make this laudable attempt. She
redoubled her caresses to Amelia; she kissed the white cornelian
necklace as she put it on; and vowed she would never, never part
with it. When the dinner-bell rang she went downstairs with her arm
round her friend's waist, as is the habit of young ladies. She was
so agitated at the drawing-room door, that she could hardly find
courage to enter. "Feel my heart, how it beats, dear!" said she to
her friend.

"No, it doesn't," said Amelia. "Come in, don't be frightened. Papa
won't do you any harm."

Rebecca Is in Presence of the Enemy

A VERY stout, puffy man, in buckskins and Hessian boots, with
several immense neckcloths that rose almost to his nose, with a red
striped waistcoat and an apple green coat with steel buttons almost
as large as crown pieces (it was the morning costume of a dandy or
blood of those days) was reading the paper by the fire when the two
girls entered, and bounced off his arm-chair, and blushed
excessively, and hid his entire face almost in his neckcloths at
this apparition.

"It's only your sister, Joseph," said Amelia, laughing and shaking
the two fingers which he held out. "I've come home FOR GOOD, you
know; and this is my friend, Miss Sharp, whom you have heard me
mention."

"No, never, upon my word," said the head under the neckcloth,
shaking very much—"that is, yes—what abominably cold weather,
Miss"—and herewith he fell to poking the fire with all his might,
although it was in the middle of June.

"He's very handsome," whispered Rebecca to Amelia, rather loud.

"Do you think so?" said the latter. "I'll tell him."

"Darling! not for worlds," said Miss Sharp, starting back as timid
as a fawn. She had previously made a respectful virgin-like curtsey
to the gentleman, and her modest eyes gazed so perseveringly on the
carpet that it was a wonder how she should have found an opportunity
to see him.

"Thank you for the beautiful shawls, brother," said Amelia to the
fire poker. "Are they not beautiful, Rebecca?"

"O heavenly!" said Miss Sharp, and her eyes went from the carpet
straight to the chandelier.

Joseph still continued a huge clattering at the poker and tongs,
puffing and blowing the while, and turning as red as his yellow face
would allow him. "I can't make you such handsome presents, Joseph,"
continued his sister, "but while I was at school, I have embroidered
for you a very beautiful pair of braces."

"Good Gad! Amelia," cried the brother, in serious alarm, "what do
you mean?" and plunging with all his might at the bell-rope, that
article of furniture came away in his hand, and increased the honest
fellow's confusion. "For heaven's sake see if my buggy's at the
door. I CAN'T wait. I must go. D— that groom of mine. I must go."

At this minute the father of the family walked in, rattling his
seals like a true British merchant. "What's the matter, Emmy?" says
he.

"Joseph wants me to see if his—his buggy is at the door. What is a
buggy, Papa?"

"It is a one-horse palanquin," said the old gentleman, who was a wag
in his way.

Joseph at this burst out into a wild fit of laughter; in which,
encountering the eye of Miss Sharp, he stopped all of a sudden, as
if he had been shot.

"This young lady is your friend? Miss Sharp, I am very happy to see
you. Have you and Emmy been quarrelling already with Joseph, that
he wants to be off?"

"I promised Bonamy of our service, sir," said Joseph, "to dine with
him."

"O fie! didn't you tell your mother you would dine here?"

"But in this dress it's impossible."

"Look at him, isn't he handsome enough to dine anywhere, Miss
Sharp?"

On which, of course, Miss Sharp looked at her friend, and they both
set off in a fit of laughter, highly agreeable to the old gentleman.

"Did you ever see a pair of buckskins like those at Miss
Pinkerton's?" continued he, following up his advantage.

"Gracious heavens! Father," cried Joseph.

"There now, I have hurt his feelings. Mrs. Sedley, my dear, I have
hurt your son's feelings. I have alluded to his buckskins. Ask
Miss Sharp if I haven't? Come, Joseph, be friends with Miss Sharp,
and let us all go to dinner."

"There's a pillau, Joseph, just as you like it, and Papa has brought
home the best turbot in Billingsgate."

"Come, come, sir, walk downstairs with Miss Sharp, and I will follow
with these two young women," said the father, and he took an arm of
wife and daughter and walked merrily off.

If Miss Rebecca Sharp had determined in her heart upon making the
conquest of this big beau, I don't think, ladies, we have any right
to blame her; for though the task of husband-hunting is generally,
and with becoming modesty, entrusted by young persons to their
mammas, recollect that Miss Sharp had no kind parent to arrange
these delicate matters for her, and that if she did not get a
husband for herself, there was no one else in the wide world who
would take the trouble off her hands. What causes young people to
"come out," but the noble ambition of matrimony? What sends them
trooping to watering-places? What keeps them dancing till five
o'clock in the morning through a whole mortal season? What causes
them to labour at pianoforte sonatas, and to learn four songs from a
fashionable master at a guinea a lesson, and to play the harp if
they have handsome arms and neat elbows, and to wear Lincoln Green
toxophilite hats and feathers, but that they may bring down some
"desirable" young man with those killing bows and arrows of theirs?
What causes respectable parents to take up their carpets, set their
houses topsy-turvy, and spend a fifth of their year's income in ball
suppers and iced champagne? Is it sheer love of their species, and
an unadulterated wish to see young people happy and dancing? Psha!
they want to marry their daughters; and, as honest Mrs. Sedley has,
in the depths of her kind heart, already arranged a score of little
schemes for the settlement of her Amelia, so also had our beloved
but unprotected Rebecca determined to do her very best to secure the
husband, who was even more necessary for her than for her friend.
She had a vivid imagination; she had, besides, read the Arabian
Nights and Guthrie's Geography; and it is a fact that while she was
dressing for dinner, and after she had asked Amelia whether her
brother was very rich, she had built for herself a most magnificent
castle in the air, of which she was mistress, with a husband
somewhere in the background (she had not seen him as yet, and his
figure would not therefore be very distinct); she had arrayed
herself in an infinity of shawls, turbans, and diamond necklaces,
and had mounted upon an elephant to the sound of the march in
Bluebeard, in order to pay a visit of ceremony to the Grand Mogul.
Charming Alnaschar visions! it is the happy privilege of youth to
construct you, and many a fanciful young creature besides Rebecca
Sharp has indulged in these delightful day-dreams ere now!

Joseph Sedley was twelve years older than his sister Amelia. He was
in the East India Company's Civil Service, and his name appeared, at
the period of which we write, in the Bengal division of the East
India Register, as collector of Boggley Wollah, an honourable and
lucrative post, as everybody knows: in order to know to what higher
posts Joseph rose in the service, the reader is referred to the same
periodical.

Boggley Wollah is situated in a fine, lonely, marshy, jungly
district, famous for snipe-shooting, and where not unfrequently you
may flush a tiger. Ramgunge, where there is a magistrate, is only
forty miles off, and there is a cavalry station about thirty miles
farther; so Joseph wrote home to his parents, when he took
possession of his collectorship. He had lived for about eight years
of his life, quite alone, at this charming place, scarcely seeing a
Christian face except twice a year, when the detachment arrived to
carry off the revenues which he had collected, to Calcutta.

Luckily, at this time he caught a liver complaint, for the cure of
which he returned to Europe, and which was the source of great
comfort and amusement to him in his native country. He did not live
with his family while in London, but had lodgings of his own, like a
gay young bachelor. Before he went to India he was too young to
partake of the delightful pleasures of a man about town, and plunged
into them on his return with considerable assiduity. He drove his
horses in the Park; he dined at the fashionable taverns (for the
Oriental Club was not as yet invented); he frequented the theatres,
as the mode was in those days, or made his appearance at the opera,
laboriously attired in tights and a cocked hat.

On returning to India, and ever after, he used to talk of the
pleasure of this period of his existence with great enthusiasm, and
give you to understand that he and Brummel were the leading bucks of
the day. But he was as lonely here as in his jungle at Boggley
Wollah. He scarcely knew a single soul in the metropolis: and were
it not for his doctor, and the society of his blue-pill, and his
liver complaint, he must have died of loneliness. He was lazy,
peevish, and a bon-vivant; the appearance of a lady frightened him
beyond measure; hence it was but seldom that he joined the paternal
circle in Russell Square, where there was plenty of gaiety, and
where the jokes of his good-natured old father frightened his amour-
propre. His bulk caused Joseph much anxious thought and alarm; now
and then he would make a desperate attempt to get rid of his
superabundant fat; but his indolence and love of good living
speedily got the better of these endeavours at reform, and he found
himself again at his three meals a day. He never was well dressed;
but he took the hugest pains to adorn his big person, and passed
many hours daily in that occupation. His valet made a fortune out of
his wardrobe: his toilet-table was covered with as many pomatums and
essences as ever were employed by an old beauty: he had tried, in
order to give himself a waist, every girth, stay, and waistband then
invented. Like most fat men, he would have his clothes made too
tight, and took care they should be of the most brilliant colours
and youthful cut. When dressed at length, in the afternoon, he
would issue forth to take a drive with nobody in the Park; and then
would come back in order to dress again and go and dine with nobody
at the Piazza Coffee-House. He was as vain as a girl; and perhaps
his extreme shyness was one of the results of his extreme vanity.
If Miss Rebecca can get the better of him, and at her first entrance
into life, she is a young person of no ordinary cleverness.

The first move showed considerable skill. When she called Sedley a
very handsome man, she knew that Amelia would tell her mother, who
would probably tell Joseph, or who, at any rate, would be pleased by
the compliment paid to her son. All mothers are. If you had told
Sycorax that her son Caliban was as handsome as Apollo, she would
have been pleased, witch as she was. Perhaps, too, Joseph Sedley
would overhear the compliment—Rebecca spoke loud enough—and he did
hear, and (thinking in his heart that he was a very fine man) the
praise thrilled through every fibre of his big body, and made it
tingle with pleasure. Then, however, came a recoil. "Is the girl
making fun of me?" he thought, and straightway he bounced towards
the bell, and was for retreating, as we have seen, when his father's
jokes and his mother's entreaties caused him to pause and stay where
he was. He conducted the young lady down to dinner in a dubious and
agitated frame of mind. "Does she really think I am handsome?"
thought he, "or is she only making game of me?" We have talked of
Joseph Sedley being as vain as a girl. Heaven help us! the girls
have only to turn the tables, and say of one of their own sex, "She
is as vain as a man," and they will have perfect reason. The
bearded creatures are quite as eager for praise, quite as finikin
over their toilettes, quite as proud of their personal advantages,
quite as conscious of their powers of fascination, as any coquette
in the world.