Vanity Fair (47 page)

Those who like to lay down the History-book, and to speculate upon
what MIGHT have happened in the world, but for the fatal occurrence
of what actually did take place (a most puzzling, amusing,
ingenious, and profitable kind of meditation), have no doubt often
thought to themselves what a specially bad time Napoleon took to
come back from Elba, and to let loose his eagle from Gulf San Juan
to Notre Dame. The historians on our side tell us that the armies
of the allied powers were all providentially on a war-footing, and
ready to bear down at a moment's notice upon the Elban Emperor. The
august jobbers assembled at Vienna, and carving out the kingdoms of
Europe according to their wisdom, had such causes of quarrel among
themselves as might have set the armies which had overcome Napoleon
to fight against each other, but for the return of the object of
unanimous hatred and fear. This monarch had an army in full force
because he had jobbed to himself Poland, and was determined to keep
it: another had robbed half Saxony, and was bent upon maintaining
his acquisition: Italy was the object of a third's solicitude. Each
was protesting against the rapacity of the other; and could the
Corsican but have waited in prison until all these parties were by
the ears, he might have returned and reigned unmolested. But what
would have become of our story and all our friends, then? If all
the drops in it were dried up, what would become of the sea?

In the meanwhile the business of life and living, and the pursuits
of pleasure, especially, went on as if no end were to be expected to
them, and no enemy in front. When our travellers arrived at
Brussels, in which their regiment was quartered, a great piece of
good fortune, as all said, they found themselves in one of the
gayest and most brilliant little capitals in Europe, and where all
the Vanity Fair booths were laid out with the most tempting
liveliness and splendour. Gambling was here in profusion, and
dancing in plenty: feasting was there to fill with delight that
great gourmand of a Jos: there was a theatre where a miraculous
Catalani was delighting all hearers: beautiful rides, all enlivened
with martial splendour; a rare old city, with strange costumes and
wonderful architecture, to delight the eyes of little Amelia, who
had never before seen a foreign country, and fill her with charming
surprises: so that now and for a few weeks' space in a fine handsome
lodging, whereof the expenses were borne by Jos and Osborne, who was
flush of money and full of kind attentions to his wife—for about a
fortnight, I say, during which her honeymoon ended, Mrs. Amelia was
as pleased and happy as any little bride out of England.

Every day during this happy time there was novelty and amusement for
all parties. There was a church to see, or a picture-gallery—there
was a ride, or an opera. The bands of the regiments were making
music at all hours. The greatest folks of England walked in the
Park—there was a perpetual military festival. George, taking out
his wife to a new jaunt or junket every night, was quite pleased
with himself as usual, and swore he was becoming quite a domestic
character. And a jaunt or a junket with HIM! Was it not enough to
set this little heart beating with joy? Her letters home to her
mother were filled with delight and gratitude at this season. Her
husband bade her buy laces, millinery, jewels, and gimcracks of all
sorts. Oh, he was the kindest, best, and most generous of men!

The sight of the very great company of lords and ladies and
fashionable persons who thronged the town, and appeared in every
public place, filled George's truly British soul with intense
delight. They flung off that happy frigidity and insolence of
demeanour which occasionally characterises the great at home, and
appearing in numberless public places, condescended to mingle with
the rest of the company whom they met there. One night at a party
given by the general of the division to which George's regiment
belonged, he had the honour of dancing with Lady Blanche
Thistlewood, Lord Bareacres' daughter; he bustled for ices and
refreshments for the two noble ladies; he pushed and squeezed for
Lady Bareacres' carriage; he bragged about the Countess when he got
home, in a way which his own father could not have surpassed. He
called upon the ladies the next day; he rode by their side in the
Park; he asked their party to a great dinner at a restaurateur's,
and was quite wild with exultation when they agreed to come. Old
Bareacres, who had not much pride and a large appetite, would go for
a dinner anywhere.

"I hope there will be no women besides our own party," Lady
Bareacres said, after reflecting upon the invitation which had been
made, and accepted with too much precipitancy.

"Gracious Heaven, Mamma—you don't suppose the man would bring his
wife," shrieked Lady Blanche, who had been languishing in George's
arms in the newly imported waltz for hours the night before. "The
men are bearable, but their women—"

"Wife, just married, dev'lish pretty woman, I hear," the old Earl
said.

"Well, my dear Blanche," said the mother, "I suppose, as Papa wants
to go, we must go; but we needn't know them in England, you know."
And so, determined to cut their new acquaintance in Bond Street,
these great folks went to eat his dinner at Brussels, and
condescending to make him pay for their pleasure, showed their
dignity by making his wife uncomfortable, and carefully excluding
her from the conversation. This is a species of dignity in which
the high-bred British female reigns supreme. To watch the behaviour
of a fine lady to other and humbler women, is a very good sport for
a philosophical frequenter of Vanity Fair.

This festival, on which honest George spent a great deal of money,
was the very dismallest of all the entertainments which Amelia had
in her honeymoon. She wrote the most piteous accounts of the feast
home to her mamma: how the Countess of Bareacres would not answer
when spoken to; how Lady Blanche stared at her with her eye-glass;
and what a rage Captain Dobbin was in at their behaviour; and how my
lord, as they came away from the feast, asked to see the bill, and
pronounced it a d— bad dinner, and d— dear. But though Amelia
told all these stories, and wrote home regarding her guests'
rudeness, and her own discomfiture, old Mrs. Sedley was mightily
pleased nevertheless, and talked about Emmy's friend, the Countess
of Bareacres, with such assiduity that the news how his son was
entertaining peers and peeresses actually came to Osborne's ears in
the City.

Those who know the present Lieutenant-General Sir George Tufto,
K.C.B., and have seen him, as they may on most days in the season,
padded and in stays, strutting down Pall Mall with a rickety swagger
on his high-heeled lacquered boots, leering under the bonnets of
passers-by, or riding a showy chestnut, and ogling broughams in the
Parks—those who know the present Sir George Tufto would hardly
recognise the daring Peninsular and Waterloo officer. He has thick
curling brown hair and black eyebrows now, and his whiskers are of
the deepest purple. He was light-haired and bald in 1815, and
stouter in the person and in the limbs, which especially have shrunk
very much of late. When he was about seventy years of age (he is
now nearly eighty), his hair, which was very scarce and quite white,
suddenly grew thick, and brown, and curly, and his whiskers and
eyebrows took their present colour. Ill-natured people say that his
chest is all wool, and that his hair, because it never grows, is a
wig. Tom Tufto, with whose father he quarrelled ever so many years
ago, declares that Mademoiselle de Jaisey, of the French theatre,
pulled his grandpapa's hair off in the green-room; but Tom is
notoriously spiteful and jealous; and the General's wig has nothing
to do with our story.

One day, as some of our friends of the —th were sauntering in the
flower-market of Brussels, having been to see the Hotel de Ville,
which Mrs. Major O'Dowd declared was not near so large or handsome
as her fawther's mansion of Glenmalony, an officer of rank, with an
orderly behind him, rode up to the market, and descending from his
horse, came amongst the flowers, and selected the very finest
bouquet which money could buy. The beautiful bundle being tied up in
a paper, the officer remounted, giving the nosegay into the charge
of his military groom, who carried it with a grin, following his
chief, who rode away in great state and self-satisfaction.

"You should see the flowers at Glenmalony," Mrs. O'Dowd was
remarking. "Me fawther has three Scotch garners with nine helpers.
We have an acre of hot-houses, and pines as common as pays in the
sayson. Our greeps weighs six pounds every bunch of 'em, and upon
me honour and conscience I think our magnolias is as big as
taykettles."

Dobbin, who never used to "draw out" Mrs. O'Dowd as that wicked
Osborne delighted in doing (much to Amelia's terror, who implored
him to spare her), fell back in the crowd, crowing and sputtering
until he reached a safe distance, when he exploded amongst the
astonished market-people with shrieks of yelling laughter.

"Hwhat's that gawky guggling about?" said Mrs. O'Dowd. "Is it his
nose bleedn? He always used to say 'twas his nose bleedn, till he
must have pomped all the blood out of 'um. An't the magnolias at
Glenmalony as big as taykettles, O'Dowd?"

"'Deed then they are, and bigger, Peggy," the Major said. When the
conversation was interrupted in the manner stated by the arrival of
the officer who purchased the bouquet.

"Devlish fine horse—who is it?" George asked.

"You should see me brother Molloy Malony's horse, Molasses, that won
the cop at the Curragh," the Major's wife was exclaiming, and was
continuing the family history, when her husband interrupted her by
saying—

"It's General Tufto, who commands the —- cavalry division"; adding
quietly, "he and I were both shot in the same leg at Talavera."

"Where you got your step," said George with a laugh. "General Tufto!
Then, my dear, the Crawleys are come."

Amelia's heart fell—she knew not why. The sun did not seem to
shine so bright. The tall old roofs and gables looked less
picturesque all of a sudden, though it was a brilliant sunset, and
one of the brightest and most beautiful days at the end of May.

Brussels

Mr. Jos had hired a pair of horses for his open carriage, with which
cattle, and the smart London vehicle, he made a very tolerable
figure in the drives about Brussels. George purchased a horse for
his private riding, and he and Captain Dobbin would often accompany
the carriage in which Jos and his sister took daily excursions of
pleasure. They went out that day in the park for their accustomed
diversion, and there, sure enough, George's remark with regard to
the arrival of Rawdon Crawley and his wife proved to be correct. In
the midst of a little troop of horsemen, consisting of some of the
very greatest persons in Brussels, Rebecca was seen in the prettiest
and tightest of riding-habits, mounted on a beautiful little Arab,
which she rode to perfection (having acquired the art at Queen's
Crawley, where the Baronet, Mr. Pitt, and Rawdon himself had given
her many lessons), and by the side of the gallant General Tufto.

"Sure it's the Juke himself," cried Mrs. Major O'Dowd to Jos, who
began to blush violently; "and that's Lord Uxbridge on the bay. How
elegant he looks! Me brother, Molloy Malony, is as like him as two
pays."

Rebecca did not make for the carriage; but as soon as she perceived
her old acquaintance Amelia seated in it, acknowledged her presence
by a gracious nod and smile, and by kissing and shaking her fingers
playfully in the direction of the vehicle. Then she resumed her
conversation with General Tufto, who asked "who the fat officer was
in the gold-laced cap?" on which Becky replied, "that he was an
officer in the East Indian service." But Rawdon Crawley rode out of
the ranks of his company, and came up and shook hands heartily with
Amelia, and said to Jos, "Well, old boy, how are you?" and stared in
Mrs. O'Dowd's face and at the black cock's feathers until she began
to think she had made a conquest of him.

George, who had been delayed behind, rode up almost immediately with
Dobbin, and they touched their caps to the august personages, among
whom Osborne at once perceived Mrs. Crawley. He was delighted to
see Rawdon leaning over his carriage familiarly and talking to
Amelia, and met the aide-de-camp's cordial greeting with more than
corresponding warmth. The nods between Rawdon and Dobbin were of
the very faintest specimens of politeness.

Crawley told George where they were stopping with General Tufto at
the Hotel du Parc, and George made his friend promise to come
speedily to Osborne's own residence. "Sorry I hadn't seen you three
days ago," George said. "Had a dinner at the Restaurateur's—rather
a nice thing. Lord Bareacres, and the Countess, and Lady Blanche,
were good enough to dine with us—wish we'd had you." Having thus
let his friend know his claims to be a man of fashion, Osborne
parted from Rawdon, who followed the august squadron down an alley
into which they cantered, while George and Dobbin resumed their
places, one on each side of Amelia's carriage.

"How well the Juke looked," Mrs. O'Dowd remarked. "The Wellesleys
and Malonys are related; but, of course, poor I would never dream of
introjuicing myself unless his Grace thought proper to remember our
family-tie."

"He's a great soldier," Jos said, much more at ease now the great
man was gone. "Was there ever a battle won like Salamanca? Hey,
Dobbin? But where was it he learnt his art? In India, my boy! The
jungle's the school for a general, mark me that. I knew him myself,
too, Mrs. O'Dowd: we both of us danced the same evening with Miss
Cutler, daughter of Cutler of the Artillery, and a devilish fine
girl, at Dumdum."