Vanity Fair (51 page)

"Very kind of you," said Jos, yawning, and wishing the Captain at
the deuce.

"I—I didn't like to go off without saying good-bye, you know,"
Dobbin said in a very incoherent manner; "because you know some of
us mayn't come back again, and I like to see you all well, and—and
that sort of thing, you know."

"What do you mean?" Jos asked, rubbing his eyes. The Captain did
not in the least hear him or look at the stout gentleman in the
nightcap, about whom he professed to have such a tender interest.
The hypocrite was looking and listening with all his might in the
direction of George's apartments, striding about the room, upsetting
the chairs, beating the tattoo, biting his nails, and showing other
signs of great inward emotion.

Jos had always had rather a mean opinion of the Captain, and now
began to think his courage was somewhat equivocal. "What is it I
can do for you, Dobbin?" he said, in a sarcastic tone.

"I tell you what you can do," the Captain replied, coming up to the
bed; "we march in a quarter of an hour, Sedley, and neither George
nor I may ever come back. Mind you, you are not to stir from this
town until you ascertain how things go. You are to stay here and
watch over your sister, and comfort her, and see that no harm comes
to her. If anything happens to George, remember she has no one but
you in the world to look to. If it goes wrong with the army, you'll
see her safe back to England; and you will promise me on your word
that you will never desert her. I know you won't: as far as money
goes, you were always free enough with that. Do you want any? I
mean, have you enough gold to take you back to England in case of a
misfortune?"

"Sir," said Jos, majestically, "when I want money, I know where to
ask for it. And as for my sister, you needn't tell me how I ought
to behave to her."

"You speak like a man of spirit, Jos," the other answered good-
naturedly, "and I am glad that George can leave her in such good
hands. So I may give him your word of honour, may I, that in case
of extremity you will stand by her?"

"Of course, of course," answered Mr. Jos, whose generosity in money
matters Dobbin estimated quite correctly.

"And you'll see her safe out of Brussels in the event of a defeat?"

"A defeat! D— it, sir, it's impossible. Don't try and frighten ME,"
the hero cried from his bed; and Dobbin's mind was thus perfectly
set at ease now that Jos had spoken out so resolutely respecting his
conduct to his sister. "At least," thought the Captain, "there will
be a retreat secured for her in case the worst should ensue."

If Captain Dobbin expected to get any personal comfort and
satisfaction from having one more view of Amelia before the regiment
marched away, his selfishness was punished just as such odious
egotism deserved to be. The door of Jos's bedroom opened into the
sitting-room which was common to the family party, and opposite this
door was that of Amelia's chamber. The bugles had wakened
everybody: there was no use in concealment now. George's servant
was packing in this room: Osborne coming in and out of the
contiguous bedroom, flinging to the man such articles as he thought
fit to carry on the campaign. And presently Dobbin had the
opportunity which his heart coveted, and he got sight of Amelia's
face once more. But what a face it was! So white, so wild and
despair-stricken, that the remembrance of it haunted him afterwards
like a crime, and the sight smote him with inexpressible pangs of
longing and pity.

She was wrapped in a white morning dress, her hair falling on her
shoulders, and her large eyes fixed and without light. By way of
helping on the preparations for the departure, and showing that she
too could be useful at a moment so critical, this poor soul had
taken up a sash of George's from the drawers whereon it lay, and
followed him to and fro with the sash in her hand, looking on mutely
as his packing proceeded. She came out and stood, leaning at the
wall, holding this sash against her bosom, from which the heavy net
of crimson dropped like a large stain of blood. Our gentle-hearted
Captain felt a guilty shock as he looked at her. "Good God,"
thought he, "and is it grief like this I dared to pry into?" And
there was no help: no means to soothe and comfort this helpless,
speechless misery. He stood for a moment and looked at her,
powerless and torn with pity, as a parent regards an infant in pain.

At last, George took Emmy's hand, and led her back into the bedroom,
from whence he came out alone. The parting had taken place in that
moment, and he was gone.

"Thank Heaven that is over," George thought, bounding down the
stair, his sword under his arm, as he ran swiftly to the alarm
ground, where the regiment was mustered, and whither trooped men and
officers hurrying from their billets; his pulse was throbbing and
his cheeks flushed: the great game of war was going to be played,
and he one of the players. What a fierce excitement of doubt, hope,
and pleasure! What tremendous hazards of loss or gain! What were
all the games of chance he had ever played compared to this one?
Into all contests requiring athletic skill and courage, the young
man, from his boyhood upwards, had flung himself with all his might.
The champion of his school and his regiment, the bravos of his
companions had followed him everywhere; from the boys' cricket-match
to the garrison-races, he had won a hundred of triumphs; and
wherever he went women and men had admired and envied him. What
qualities are there for which a man gets so speedy a return of
applause, as those of bodily superiority, activity, and valour?
Time out of mind strength and courage have been the theme of bards
and romances; and from the story of Troy down to to-day, poetry has
always chosen a soldier for a hero. I wonder is it because men are
cowards in heart that they admire bravery so much, and place
military valour so far beyond every other quality for reward and
worship?

So, at the sound of that stirring call to battle, George jumped away
from the gentle arms in which he had been dallying; not without a
feeling of shame (although his wife's hold on him had been but
feeble), that he should have been detained there so long. The same
feeling of eagerness and excitement was amongst all those friends of
his of whom we have had occasional glimpses, from the stout senior
Major, who led the regiment into action, to little Stubble, the
Ensign, who was to bear its colours on that day.

The sun was just rising as the march began—it was a gallant sight—
the band led the column, playing the regimental march—then came the
Major in command, riding upon Pyramus, his stout charger—then
marched the grenadiers, their Captain at their head; in the centre
were the colours, borne by the senior and junior Ensigns—then
George came marching at the head of his company. He looked up, and
smiled at Amelia, and passed on; and even the sound of the music
died away.

In Which Jos Sedley Takes Care of His Sister

Thus all the superior officers being summoned on duty elsewhere, Jos
Sedley was left in command of the little colony at Brussels, with
Amelia invalided, Isidor, his Belgian servant, and the bonne, who
was maid-of-all-work for the establishment, as a garrison under him.
Though he was disturbed in spirit, and his rest destroyed by
Dobbin's interruption and the occurrences of the morning, Jos
nevertheless remained for many hours in bed, wakeful and rolling
about there until his usual hour of rising had arrived. The sun was
high in the heavens, and our gallant friends of the —th miles on
their march, before the civilian appeared in his flowered dressing-
gown at breakfast.

About George's absence, his brother-in-law was very easy in mind.
Perhaps Jos was rather pleased in his heart that Osborne was gone,
for during George's presence, the other had played but a very
secondary part in the household, and Osborne did not scruple to show
his contempt for the stout civilian. But Emmy had always been good
and attentive to him. It was she who ministered to his comforts,
who superintended the dishes that he liked, who walked or rode with
him (as she had many, too many, opportunities of doing, for where
was George?) and who interposed her sweet face between his anger and
her husband's scorn. Many timid remonstrances had she uttered to
George in behalf of her brother, but the former in his trenchant way
cut these entreaties short. "I'm an honest man," he said, "and if I
have a feeling I show it, as an honest man will. How the deuce, my
dear, would you have me behave respectfully to such a fool as your
brother?" So Jos was pleased with George's absence. His plain hat,
and gloves on a sideboard, and the idea that the owner was away,
caused Jos I don't know what secret thrill of pleasure. "HE won't
be troubling me this morning," Jos thought, "with his dandified airs
and his impudence."

"Put the Captain's hat into the ante-room," he said to Isidor, the
servant.

"Perhaps he won't want it again," replied the lackey, looking
knowingly at his master. He hated George too, whose insolence
towards him was quite of the English sort.

"And ask if Madame is coming to breakfast," Mr. Sedley said with
great majesty, ashamed to enter with a servant upon the subject of
his dislike for George. The truth is, he had abused his brother to
the valet a score of times before.

Alas! Madame could not come to breakfast, and cut the tartines that
Mr. Jos liked. Madame was a great deal too ill, and had been in a
frightful state ever since her husband's departure, so her bonne
said. Jos showed his sympathy by pouring her out a large cup of tea
It was his way of exhibiting kindness: and he improved on this; he
not only sent her breakfast, but he bethought him what delicacies
she would most like for dinner.

Isidor, the valet, had looked on very sulkily, while Osborne's
servant was disposing of his master's baggage previous to the
Captain's departure: for in the first place he hated Mr. Osborne,
whose conduct to him, and to all inferiors, was generally
overbearing (nor does the continental domestic like to be treated
with insolence as our own better-tempered servants do), and
secondly, he was angry that so many valuables should be removed from
under his hands, to fall into other people's possession when the
English discomfiture should arrive. Of this defeat he and a vast
number of other persons in Brussels and Belgium did not make the
slightest doubt. The almost universal belief was, that the Emperor
would divide the Prussian and English armies, annihilate one after
the other, and march into Brussels before three days were over:
when all the movables of his present masters, who would be killed,
or fugitives, or prisoners, would lawfully become the property of
Monsieur Isidor.

As he helped Jos through his toilsome and complicated daily
toilette, this faithful servant would calculate what he should do
with the very articles with which he was decorating his master's
person. He would make a present of the silver essence-bottles and
toilet knicknacks to a young lady of whom he was fond; and keep the
English cutlery and the large ruby pin for himself. It would look
very smart upon one of the fine frilled shirts, which, with the
gold-laced cap and the frogged frock coat, that might easily be cut
down to suit his shape, and the Captain's gold-headed cane, and the
great double ring with the rubies, which he would have made into a
pair of beautiful earrings, he calculated would make a perfect
Adonis of himself, and render Mademoiselle Reine an easy prey. "How
those sleeve-buttons will suit me!" thought he, as he fixed a pair
on the fat pudgy wrists of Mr. Sedley. "I long for sleeve-buttons;
and the Captain's boots with brass spurs, in the next room, corbleu!
what an effect they will make in the Allee Verte!" So while Monsieur
Isidor with bodily fingers was holding on to his master's nose, and
shaving the lower part of Jos's face, his imagination was rambling
along the Green Avenue, dressed out in a frogged coat and lace, and
in company with Mademoiselle Reine; he was loitering in spirit on
the banks, and examining the barges sailing slowly under the cool
shadows of the trees by the canal, or refreshing himself with a mug
of Faro at the bench of a beer-house on the road to Laeken.

But Mr. Joseph Sedley, luckily for his own peace, no more knew what
was passing in his domestic's mind than the respected reader, and I
suspect what John or Mary, whose wages we pay, think of ourselves.
What our servants think of us!—Did we know what our intimates and
dear relations thought of us, we should live in a world that we
should be glad to quit, and in a frame of mind and a constant
terror, that would be perfectly unbearable. So Jos's man was marking
his victim down, as you see one of Mr. Paynter's assistants in
Leadenhall Street ornament an unconscious turtle with a placard on
which is written, "Soup to-morrow."

Amelia's attendant was much less selfishly disposed. Few dependents
could come near that kind and gentle creature without paying their
usual tribute of loyalty and affection to her sweet and affectionate
nature. And it is a fact that Pauline, the cook, consoled her
mistress more than anybody whom she saw on this wretched morning;
for when she found how Amelia remained for hours, silent,
motionless, and haggard, by the windows in which she had placed
herself to watch the last bayonets of the column as it marched away,
the honest girl took the lady's hand, and said, Tenez, Madame, est-
ce qu'il n'est pas aussi a l'armee, mon homme a moi? with which she
burst into tears, and Amelia falling into her arms, did likewise,
and so each pitied and soothed the other.

Several times during the forenoon Mr. Jos's Isidor went from his
lodgings into the town, and to the gates of the hotels and lodging-
houses round about the Parc, where the English were congregated, and
there mingled with other valets, couriers, and lackeys, gathered
such news as was abroad, and brought back bulletins for his master's
information. Almost all these gentlemen were in heart partisans of
the Emperor, and had their opinions about the speedy end of the
campaign. The Emperor's proclamation from Avesnes had been
distributed everywhere plentifully in Brussels. "Soldiers!" it
said, "this is the anniversary of Marengo and Friedland, by which
the destinies of Europe were twice decided. Then, as after
Austerlitz, as after Wagram, we were too generous. We believed in
the oaths and promises of princes whom we suffered to remain upon
their thrones. Let us march once more to meet them. We and they,
are we not still the same men? Soldiers! these same Prussians who
are so arrogant to-day, were three to one against you at Jena, and
six to one at Montmirail. Those among you who were prisoners in
England can tell their comrades what frightful torments they
suffered on board the English hulks. Madmen! a moment of
prosperity has blinded them, and if they enter into France it will
be to find a grave there!" But the partisans of the French
prophesied a more speedy extermination of the Emperor's enemies than
this; and it was agreed on all hands that Prussians and British
would never return except as prisoners in the rear of the conquering
army.