Vanity Fair (48 page)

The apparition of the great personages held them all in talk during
the drive; and at dinner; and until the hour came when they were all
to go to the Opera.

It was almost like Old England. The house was filled with familiar
British faces, and those toilettes for which the British female has
long been celebrated. Mrs. O'Dowd's was not the least splendid
amongst these, and she had a curl on her forehead, and a set of
Irish diamonds and Cairngorms, which outshone all the decorations in
the house, in her notion. Her presence used to excruciate Osborne;
but go she would upon all parties of pleasure on which she heard her
young friends were bent. It never entered into her thought but that
they must be charmed with her company.

"She's been useful to you, my dear," George said to his wife, whom
he could leave alone with less scruple when she had this society.
"But what a comfort it is that Rebecca's come: you will have her
for a friend, and we may get rid now of this damn'd Irishwoman." To
this Amelia did not answer, yes or no: and how do we know what her
thoughts were?

The coup d'oeil of the Brussels opera-house did not strike Mrs.
O'Dowd as being so fine as the theatre in Fishamble Street, Dublin,
nor was French music at all equal, in her opinion, to the melodies
of her native country. She favoured her friends with these and other
opinions in a very loud tone of voice, and tossed about a great
clattering fan she sported, with the most splendid complacency.

"Who is that wonderful woman with Amelia, Rawdon, love?" said a lady
in an opposite box (who, almost always civil to her husband in
private, was more fond than ever of him in company).

"Don't you see that creature with a yellow thing in her turban, and
a red satin gown, and a great watch?"

"Near the pretty little woman in white?" asked a middle-aged
gentleman seated by the querist's side, with orders in his button,
and several under-waistcoats, and a great, choky, white stock.

"That pretty woman in white is Amelia, General: you are remarking
all the pretty women, you naughty man."

"Only one, begad, in the world!" said the General, delighted, and
the lady gave him a tap with a large bouquet which she had.

"Bedad it's him," said Mrs. O'Dowd; "and that's the very bokay he
bought in the Marshy aux Flures!" and when Rebecca, having caught
her friend's eye, performed the little hand-kissing operation once
more, Mrs. Major O'D., taking the compliment to herself, returned
the salute with a gracious smile, which sent that unfortunate Dobbin
shrieking out of the box again.

At the end of the act, George was out of the box in a moment, and he
was even going to pay his respects to Rebecca in her loge. He met
Crawley in the lobby, however, where they exchanged a few sentences
upon the occurrences of the last fortnight.

"You found my cheque all right at the agent's? George said, with a
knowing air.

"All right, my boy," Rawdon answered. "Happy to give you your
revenge. Governor come round?"

"Not yet," said George, "but he will; and you know I've some private
fortune through my mother. Has Aunty relented?"

"Sent me twenty pound, damned old screw. When shall we have a meet?
The General dines out on Tuesday. Can't you come Tuesday? I say,
make Sedley cut off his moustache. What the devil does a civilian
mean with a moustache and those infernal frogs to his coat! By-bye.
Try and come on Tuesday"; and Rawdon was going-off with two
brilliant young gentlemen of fashion, who were, like himself, on the
staff of a general officer.

George was only half pleased to be asked to dinner on that
particular day when the General was not to dine. "I will go in and
pay my respects to your wife," said he; at which Rawdon said, "Hm,
as you please," looking very glum, and at which the two young
officers exchanged knowing glances. George parted from them and
strutted down the lobby to the General's box, the number of which he
had carefully counted.

"Entrez," said a clear little voice, and our friend found himself in
Rebecca's presence; who jumped up, clapped her hands together, and
held out both of them to George, so charmed was she to see him. The
General, with the orders in his button, stared at the newcomer with
a sulky scowl, as much as to say, who the devil are you?

"My dear Captain George!" cried little Rebecca in an ecstasy. "How
good of you to come. The General and I were moping together tete-a-
tete. General, this is my Captain George of whom you heard me
talk."

"Indeed," said the General, with a very small bow; "of what regiment
is Captain George?"

George mentioned the —th: how he wished he could have said it was a
crack cavalry corps.

"Come home lately from the West Indies, I believe. Not seen much
service in the late war. Quartered here, Captain George?"—the
General went on with killing haughtiness.

"Not Captain George, you stupid man; Captain Osborne," Rebecca said.
The General all the while was looking savagely from one to the
other.

"Captain Osborne, indeed! Any relation to the L—— Osbornes?"

"We bear the same arms," George said, as indeed was the fact; Mr.
Osborne having consulted with a herald in Long Acre, and picked the
L—— arms out of the peerage, when he set up his carriage fifteen
years before. The General made no reply to this announcement; but
took up his opera-glass—the double-barrelled lorgnon was not
invented in those days—and pretended to examine the house; but
Rebecca saw that his disengaged eye was working round in her
direction, and shooting out bloodshot glances at her and George.

She redoubled in cordiality. "How is dearest Amelia? But I needn't
ask: how pretty she looks! And who is that nice good-natured
looking creature with her—a flame of yours? O, you wicked men!
And there is Mr. Sedley eating ice, I declare: how he seems to enjoy
it! General, why have we not had any ices?"

"Shall I go and fetch you some?" said the General, bursting with
wrath.

"Let ME go, I entreat you," George said.

"No, I will go to Amelia's box. Dear, sweet girl! Give me your
arm, Captain George"; and so saying, and with a nod to the General,
she tripped into the lobby. She gave George the queerest,
knowingest look, when they were together, a look which might have
been interpreted, "Don't you see the state of affairs, and what a
fool I'm making of him?" But he did not perceive it. He was
thinking of his own plans, and lost in pompous admiration of his own
irresistible powers of pleasing.

The curses to which the General gave a low utterance, as soon as
Rebecca and her conqueror had quitted him, were so deep, that I am
sure no compositor would venture to print them were they written
down. They came from the General's heart; and a wonderful thing it
is to think that the human heart is capable of generating such
produce, and can throw out, as occasion demands, such a supply of
lust and fury, rage and hatred.

Amelia's gentle eyes, too, had been fixed anxiously on the pair,
whose conduct had so chafed the jealous General; but when Rebecca
entered her box, she flew to her friend with an affectionate rapture
which showed itself, in spite of the publicity of the place; for she
embraced her dearest friend in the presence of the whole house, at
least in full view of the General's glass, now brought to bear upon
the Osborne party. Mrs. Rawdon saluted Jos, too, with the kindliest
greeting: she admired Mrs. O'Dowd's large Cairngorm brooch and
superb Irish diamonds, and wouldn't believe that they were not from
Golconda direct. She bustled, she chattered, she turned and twisted,
and smiled upon one, and smirked on another, all in full view of the
jealous opera-glass opposite. And when the time for the ballet came
(in which there was no dancer that went through her grimaces or
performed her comedy of action better), she skipped back to her own
box, leaning on Captain Dobbin's arm this time. No, she would not
have George's: he must stay and talk to his dearest, best, little
Amelia.

"What a humbug that woman is!" honest old Dobbin mumbled to George,
when he came back from Rebecca's box, whither he had conducted her
in perfect silence, and with a countenance as glum as an
undertaker's. "She writhes and twists about like a snake. All the
time she was here, didn't you see, George, how she was acting at the
General over the way?"

"Humbug—acting! Hang it, she's the nicest little woman in
England," George replied, showing his white teeth, and giving his
ambrosial whiskers a twirl. "You ain't a man of the world, Dobbin.
Dammy, look at her now, she's talked over Tufto in no time. Look
how he's laughing! Gad, what a shoulder she has! Emmy, why didn't
you have a bouquet? Everybody has a bouquet."

"Faith, then, why didn't you BOY one?" Mrs. O'Dowd said; and both
Amelia and William Dobbin thanked her for this timely observation.
But beyond this neither of the ladies rallied. Amelia was
overpowered by the flash and the dazzle and the fashionable talk of
her worldly rival. Even the O'Dowd was silent and subdued after
Becky's brilliant apparition, and scarcely said a word more about
Glenmalony all the evening.

"When do you intend to give up play, George, as you have promised
me, any time these hundred years?" Dobbin said to his friend a few
days after the night at the Opera. "When do you intend to give up
sermonising?" was the other's reply. "What the deuce, man, are you
alarmed about? We play low; I won last night. You don't suppose
Crawley cheats? With fair play it comes to pretty much the same
thing at the year's end."

"But I don't think he could pay if he lost," Dobbin said; and his
advice met with the success which advice usually commands. Osborne
and Crawley were repeatedly together now. General Tufto dined
abroad almost constantly. George was always welcome in the
apartments (very close indeed to those of the General) which the
aide-de-camp and his wife occupied in the hotel.

Amelia's manners were such when she and George visited Crawley and
his wife at these quarters, that they had very nearly come to their
first quarrel; that is, George scolded his wife violently for her
evident unwillingness to go, and the high and mighty manner in which
she comported herself towards Mrs. Crawley, her old friend; and
Amelia did not say one single word in reply; but with her husband's
eye upon her, and Rebecca scanning her as she felt, was, if
possible, more bashful and awkward on the second visit which she
paid to Mrs. Rawdon, than on her first call.

Rebecca was doubly affectionate, of course, and would not take
notice, in the least, of her friend's coolness. "I think Emmy has
become prouder since her father's name was in the—since Mr.
Sedley's MISFORTUNES," Rebecca said, softening the phrase charitably
for George's ear.

"Upon my word, I thought when we were at Brighton she was doing me
the honour to be jealous of me; and now I suppose she is scandalised
because Rawdon, and I, and the General live together. Why, my dear
creature, how could we, with our means, live at all, but for a
friend to share expenses? And do you suppose that Rawdon is not big
enough to take care of my honour? But I'm very much obliged to
Emmy, very," Mrs. Rawdon said.

"Pooh, jealousy!" answered George, "all women are jealous."

"And all men too. Weren't you jealous of General Tufto, and the
General of you, on the night of the Opera? Why, he was ready to eat
me for going with you to visit that foolish little wife of yours; as
if I care a pin for either of you," Crawley's wife said, with a pert
toss of her head. "Will you dine here? The dragon dines with the
Commander-in-Chief. Great news is stirring. They say the French
have crossed the frontier. We shall have a quiet dinner."

George accepted the invitation, although his wife was a little
ailing. They were now not quite six weeks married. Another woman
was laughing or sneering at her expense, and he not angry. He was
not even angry with himself, this good-natured fellow. It is a
shame, he owned to himself; but hang it, if a pretty woman WILL
throw herself in your way, why, what can a fellow do, you know? I
AM rather free about women, he had often said, smiling and nodding
knowingly to Stubble and Spooney, and other comrades of the mess-
table; and they rather respected him than otherwise for this
prowess. Next to conquering in war, conquering in love has been a
source of pride, time out of mind, amongst men in Vanity Fair, or
how should schoolboys brag of their amours, or Don Juan be popular?

So Mr. Osborne, having a firm conviction in his own mind that he was
a woman-killer and destined to conquer, did not run counter to his
fate, but yielded himself up to it quite complacently. And as Emmy
did not say much or plague him with her jealousy, but merely became
unhappy and pined over it miserably in secret, he chose to fancy
that she was not suspicious of what all his acquaintance were
perfectly aware—namely, that he was carrying on a desperate
flirtation with Mrs. Crawley. He rode with her whenever she was
free. He pretended regimental business to Amelia (by which
falsehood she was not in the least deceived), and consigning his
wife to solitude or her brother's society, passed his evenings in
the Crawleys' company; losing money to the husband and flattering
himself that the wife was dying of love for him. It is very likely
that this worthy couple never absolutely conspired and agreed
together in so many words: the one to cajole the young gentleman,
whilst the other won his money at cards: but they understood each
other perfectly well, and Rawdon let Osborne come and go with entire
good humour.

George was so occupied with his new acquaintances that he and
William Dobbin were by no means so much together as formerly.
George avoided him in public and in the regiment, and, as we see,
did not like those sermons which his senior was disposed to inflict
upon him. If some parts of his conduct made Captain Dobbin
exceedingly grave and cool; of what use was it to tell George that,
though his whiskers were large, and his own opinion of his
knowingness great, he was as green as a schoolboy? that Rawdon was
making a victim of him as he had done of many before, and as soon as
he had used him would fling him off with scorn? He would not
listen: and so, as Dobbin, upon those days when he visited the
Osborne house, seldom had the advantage of meeting his old friend,
much painful and unavailing talk between them was spared. Our
friend George was in the full career of the pleasures of Vanity
Fair.