Vanity Fair (55 page)

It grew to be broad daylight as they stood here, and fresh news
began to arrive from the war, brought by men who had been actors in
the scene. Wagons and long country carts laden with wounded came
rolling into the town; ghastly groans came from within them, and
haggard faces looked up sadly from out of the straw. Jos Sedley was
looking at one of these carriages with a painful curiosity—the
moans of the people within were frightful—the wearied horses could
hardly pull the cart. "Stop! stop!" a feeble voice cried from the
straw, and the carriage stopped opposite Mr. Sedley's hotel.

"It is George, I know it is!" cried Amelia, rushing in a moment to
the balcony, with a pallid face and loose flowing hair. It was not
George, however, but it was the next best thing: it was news of
him.

It was poor Tom Stubble, who had marched out of Brussels so
gallantly twenty-four hours before, bearing the colours of the
regiment, which he had defended very gallantly upon the field. A
French lancer had speared the young ensign in the leg, who fell,
still bravely holding to his flag. At the conclusion of the
engagement, a place had been found for the poor boy in a cart, and
he had been brought back to Brussels.

"Mr. Sedley, Mr. Sedley!" cried the boy, faintly, and Jos came up
almost frightened at the appeal. He had not at first distinguished
who it was that called him.

Little Tom Stubble held out his hot and feeble hand. "I'm to be
taken in here," he said. "Osborne—and—and Dobbin said I was; and
you are to give the man two napoleons: my mother will pay you." This
young fellow's thoughts, during the long feverish hours passed in
the cart, had been wandering to his father's parsonage which he had
quitted only a few months before, and he had sometimes forgotten his
pain in that delirium.

The hotel was large, and the people kind, and all the inmates of the
cart were taken in and placed on various couches. The young ensign
was conveyed upstairs to Osborne's quarters. Amelia and the Major's
wife had rushed down to him, when the latter had recognised him from
the balcony. You may fancy the feelings of these women when they
were told that the day was over, and both their husbands were safe;
in what mute rapture Amelia fell on her good friend's neck, and
embraced her; in what a grateful passion of prayer she fell on her
knees, and thanked the Power which had saved her husband.

Our young lady, in her fevered and nervous condition, could have had
no more salutary medicine prescribed for her by any physician than
that which chance put in her way. She and Mrs. O'Dowd watched
incessantly by the wounded lad, whose pains were very severe, and in
the duty thus forced upon her, Amelia had not time to brood over her
personal anxieties, or to give herself up to her own fears and
forebodings after her wont. The young patient told in his simple
fashion the events of the day, and the actions of our friends of the
gallant —th. They had suffered severely. They had lost very many
officers and men. The Major's horse had been shot under him as the
regiment charged, and they all thought that O'Dowd was gone, and
that Dobbin had got his majority, until on their return from the
charge to their old ground, the Major was discovered seated on
Pyramus's carcase, refreshing him-self from a case-bottle. It was
Captain Osborne that cut down the French lancer who had speared the
ensign. Amelia turned so pale at the notion, that Mrs. O'Dowd
stopped the young ensign in this story. And it was Captain Dobbin
who at the end of the day, though wounded himself, took up the lad
in his arms and carried him to the surgeon, and thence to the cart
which was to bring him back to Brussels. And it was he who promised
the driver two louis if he would make his way to Mr. Sedley's hotel
in the city; and tell Mrs. Captain Osborne that the action was over,
and that her husband was unhurt and well.

"Indeed, but he has a good heart that William Dobbin," Mrs. O'Dowd
said, "though he is always laughing at me."

Young Stubble vowed there was not such another officer in the army,
and never ceased his praises of the senior captain, his modesty, his
kindness, and his admirable coolness in the field. To these parts
of the conversation, Amelia lent a very distracted attention: it
was only when George was spoken of that she listened, and when he
was not mentioned, she thought about him.

In tending her patient, and in thinking of the wonderful escapes of
the day before, her second day passed away not too slowly with
Amelia. There was only one man in the army for her: and as long as
he was well, it must be owned that its movements interested her
little. All the reports which Jos brought from the streets fell very
vaguely on her ears; though they were sufficient to give that
timorous gentleman, and many other people then in Brussels, every
disquiet. The French had been repulsed certainly, but it was after
a severe and doubtful struggle, and with only a division of the
French army. The Emperor, with the main body, was away at Ligny,
where he had utterly annihilated the Prussians, and was now free to
bring his whole force to bear upon the allies. The Duke of
Wellington was retreating upon the capital, and a great battle must
be fought under its walls probably, of which the chances were more
than doubtful. The Duke of Wellington had but twenty thousand
British troops on whom he could rely, for the Germans were raw
militia, the Belgians disaffected, and with this handful his Grace
had to resist a hundred and fifty thousand men that had broken into
Belgium under Napoleon. Under Napoleon! What warrior was there,
however famous and skilful, that could fight at odds with him?

Jos thought of all these things, and trembled. So did all the rest
of Brussels—where people felt that the fight of the day before was
but the prelude to the greater combat which was imminent. One of
the armies opposed to the Emperor was scattered to the winds
already. The few English that could be brought to resist him would
perish at their posts, and the conqueror would pass over their
bodies into the city. Woe be to those whom he found there!
Addresses were prepared, public functionaries assembled and debated
secretly, apartments were got ready, and tricoloured banners and
triumphal emblems manufactured, to welcome the arrival of His
Majesty the Emperor and King.

The emigration still continued, and wherever families could find
means of departure, they fled. When Jos, on the afternoon of the
17th of June, went to Rebecca's hotel, he found that the great
Bareacres' carriage had at length rolled away from the porte-
cochere. The Earl had procured a pair of horses somehow, in spite
of Mrs. Crawley, and was rolling on the road to Ghent. Louis the
Desired was getting ready his portmanteau in that city, too. It
seemed as if Misfortune was never tired of worrying into motion that
unwieldy exile.

Jos felt that the delay of yesterday had been only a respite, and
that his dearly bought horses must of a surety be put into
requisition. His agonies were very severe all this day. As long as
there was an English army between Brussels and Napoleon, there was
no need of immediate flight; but he had his horses brought from
their distant stables, to the stables in the court-yard of the hotel
where he lived; so that they might be under his own eyes, and beyond
the risk of violent abduction. Isidor watched the stable-door
constantly, and had the horses saddled, to be ready for the start.
He longed intensely for that event.

After the reception of the previous day, Rebecca did not care to
come near her dear Amelia. She clipped the bouquet which George had
brought her, and gave fresh water to the flowers, and read over the
letter which he had sent her. "Poor wretch," she said, twirling
round the little bit of paper in her fingers, "how I could crush her
with this!—and it is for a thing like this that she must break her
heart, forsooth—for a man who is stupid—a coxcomb—and who does
not care for her. My poor good Rawdon is worth ten of this
creature." And then she fell to thinking what she should do if—if
anything happened to poor good Rawdon, and what a great piece of
luck it was that he had left his horses behind.

In the course of this day too, Mrs. Crawley, who saw not without
anger the Bareacres party drive off, bethought her of the precaution
which the Countess had taken, and did a little needlework for her
own advantage; she stitched away the major part of her trinkets,
bills, and bank-notes about her person, and so prepared, was ready
for any event—to fly if she thought fit, or to stay and welcome the
conqueror, were he Englishman or Frenchman. And I am not sure that
she did not dream that night of becoming a duchess and Madame la
Marechale, while Rawdon wrapped in his cloak, and making his bivouac
under the rain at Mount Saint John, was thinking, with all the force
of his heart, about the little wife whom he had left behind him.

The next day was a Sunday. And Mrs. Major O'Dowd had the
satisfaction of seeing both her patients refreshed in health and
spirits by some rest which they had taken during the night. She
herself had slept on a great chair in Amelia's room, ready to wait
upon her poor friend or the ensign, should either need her nursing.
When morning came, this robust woman went back to the house where
she and her Major had their billet; and here performed an elaborate
and splendid toilette, befitting the day. And it is very possible
that whilst alone in that chamber, which her husband had inhabited,
and where his cap still lay on the pillow, and his cane stood in the
corner, one prayer at least was sent up to Heaven for the welfare of
the brave soldier, Michael O'Dowd.

When she returned she brought her prayer-book with her, and her
uncle the Dean's famous book of sermons, out of which she never
failed to read every Sabbath; not understanding all, haply, not
pronouncing many of the words aright, which were long and abstruse—
for the Dean was a learned man, and loved long Latin words—but with
great gravity, vast emphasis, and with tolerable correctness in the
main. How often has my Mick listened to these sermons, she thought,
and me reading in the cabin of a calm! She proposed to resume this
exercise on the present day, with Amelia and the wounded ensign for
a congregation. The same service was read on that day in twenty
thousand churches at the same hour; and millions of British men and
women, on their knees, implored protection of the Father of all.

They did not hear the noise which disturbed our little congregation
at Brussels. Much louder than that which had interrupted them two
days previously, as Mrs. O'Dowd was reading the service in her best
voice, the cannon of Waterloo began to roar.

When Jos heard that dreadful sound, he made up his mind that he
would bear this perpetual recurrence of terrors no longer, and would
fly at once. He rushed into the sick man's room, where our three
friends had paused in their prayers, and further interrupted them by
a passionate appeal to Amelia.

"I can't stand it any more, Emmy," he said; 'I won't stand it; and
you must come with me. I have bought a horse for you—never mind at
what price—and you must dress and come with me, and ride behind
Isidor."

"God forgive me, Mr. Sedley, but you are no better than a coward,"
Mrs. O'Dowd said, laying down the book.

"I say come, Amelia," the civilian went on; "never mind what she
says; why are we to stop here and be butchered by the Frenchmen?"

"You forget the —th, my boy," said the little Stubble, the wounded
hero, from his bed—"and and you won't leave me, will you, Mrs.
O'Dowd?"

"No, my dear fellow," said she, going up and kissing the boy. "No
harm shall come to you while I stand by. I don't budge till I get
the word from Mick. A pretty figure I'd be, wouldn't I, stuck
behind that chap on a pillion?"

This image caused the young patient to burst out laughing in his
bed, and even made Amelia smile. "I don't ask her," Jos shouted
out—"I don't ask that—that Irishwoman, but you Amelia; once for
all, will you come?"

"Without my husband, Joseph?" Amelia said, with a look of wonder,
and gave her hand to the Major's wife. Jos's patience was exhausted.

"Good-bye, then," he said, shaking his fist in a rage, and slamming
the door by which he retreated. And this time he really gave his
order for march: and mounted in the court-yard. Mrs. O'Dowd heard
the clattering hoofs of the horses as they issued from the gate; and
looking on, made many scornful remarks on poor Joseph as he rode
down the street with Isidor after him in the laced cap. The horses,
which had not been exercised for some days, were lively, and sprang
about the street. Jos, a clumsy and timid horseman, did not look to
advantage in the saddle. "Look at him, Amelia dear, driving into
the parlour window. Such a bull in a china-shop I never saw." And
presently the pair of riders disappeared at a canter down the street
leading in the direction of the Ghent road, Mrs. O'Dowd pursuing
them with a fire of sarcasm so long as they were in sight.

All that day from morning until past sunset, the cannon never ceased
to roar. It was dark when the cannonading stopped all of a sudden.

All of us have read of what occurred during that interval. The tale
is in every Englishman's mouth; and you and I, who were children
when the great battle was won and lost, are never tired of hearing
and recounting the history of that famous action. Its remembrance
rankles still in the bosoms of millions of the countrymen of those
brave men who lost the day. They pant for an opportunity of
revenging that humiliation; and if a contest, ending in a victory on
their part, should ensue, elating them in their turn, and leaving
its cursed legacy of hatred and rage behind to us, there is no end
to the so-called glory and shame, and to the alternations of
successful and unsuccessful murder, in which two high-spirited
nations might engage. Centuries hence, we Frenchmen and Englishmen
might be boasting and killing each other still, carrying out bravely
the Devil's code of honour.