Vanity Fair (6 page)

"It was quite wicked of you, Mr. Sedley," said she, "to torment the
poor boy so."

"My dear," said the cotton-tassel in defence of his conduct, "Jos is
a great deal vainer than you ever were in your life, and that's
saying a good deal. Though, some thirty years ago, in the year
seventeen hundred and eighty—what was it?—perhaps you had a right
to be vain—I don't say no. But I've no patience with Jos and his
dandified modesty. It is out-Josephing Joseph, my dear, and all the
while the boy is only thinking of himself, and what a fine fellow he
is. I doubt, Ma'am, we shall have some trouble with him yet. Here
is Emmy's little friend making love to him as hard as she can;
that's quite clear; and if she does not catch him some other will.
That man is destined to be a prey to woman, as I am to go on 'Change
every day. It's a mercy he did not bring us over a black daughter-
in-law, my dear. But, mark my words, the first woman who fishes for
him, hooks him."

"She shall go off to-morrow, the little artful creature," said Mrs.
Sedley, with great energy.

"Why not she as well as another, Mrs. Sedley? The girl's a white
face at any rate. I don't care who marries him. Let Joe please
himself."

And presently the voices of the two speakers were hushed, or were
replaced by the gentle but unromantic music of the nose; and save
when the church bells tolled the hour and the watchman called it,
all was silent at the house of John Sedley, Esquire, of Russell
Square, and the Stock Exchange.

When morning came, the good-natured Mrs. Sedley no longer thought of
executing her threats with regard to Miss Sharp; for though nothing
is more keen, nor more common, nor more justifiable, than maternal
jealousy, yet she could not bring herself to suppose that the
little, humble, grateful, gentle governess would dare to look up to
such a magnificent personage as the Collector of Boggley Wollah.
The petition, too, for an extension of the young lady's leave of
absence had already been despatched, and it would be difficult to
find a pretext for abruptly dismissing her.

And as if all things conspired in favour of the gentle Rebecca, the
very elements (although she was not inclined at first to acknowledge
their action in her behalf) interposed to aid her. For on the
evening appointed for the Vauxhall party, George Osborne having come
to dinner, and the elders of the house having departed, according to
invitation, to dine with Alderman Balls at Highbury Barn, there came
on such a thunder-storm as only happens on Vauxhall nights, and as
obliged the young people, perforce, to remain at home. Mr. Osborne
did not seem in the least disappointed at this occurrence. He and
Joseph Sedley drank a fitting quantity of port-wine, tete-a-tete, in
the dining-room, during the drinking of which Sedley told a number
of his best Indian stories; for he was extremely talkative in man's
society; and afterwards Miss Amelia Sedley did the honours of the
drawing-room; and these four young persons passed such a comfortable
evening together, that they declared they were rather glad of the
thunder-storm than otherwise, which had caused them to put off their
visit to Vauxhall.

Osborne was Sedley's godson, and had been one of the family any time
these three-and-twenty years. At six weeks old, he had received
from John Sedley a present of a silver cup; at six months old, a
coral with gold whistle and bells; from his youth upwards he was
"tipped" regularly by the old gentleman at Christmas: and on going
back to school, he remembered perfectly well being thrashed by
Joseph Sedley, when the latter was a big, swaggering hobbadyhoy, and
George an impudent urchin of ten years old. In a word, George was
as familiar with the family as such daily acts of kindness and
intercourse could make him.

"Do you remember, Sedley, what a fury you were in, when I cut off
the tassels of your Hessian boots, and how Miss—hem!—how Amelia
rescued me from a beating, by falling down on her knees and crying
out to her brother Jos, not to beat little George?"

Jos remembered this remarkable circumstance perfectly well, but
vowed that he had totally forgotten it.

"Well, do you remember coming down in a gig to Dr. Swishtail's to
see me, before you went to India, and giving me half a guinea and a
pat on the head? I always had an idea that you were at least seven
feet high, and was quite astonished at your return from India to
find you no taller than myself."

"How good of Mr. Sedley to go to your school and give you the
money!" exclaimed Rebecca, in accents of extreme delight.

"Yes, and after I had cut the tassels of his boots too. Boys never
forget those tips at school, nor the givers."

"I delight in Hessian boots," said Rebecca. Jos Sedley, who admired
his own legs prodigiously, and always wore this ornamental
chaussure, was extremely pleased at this remark, though he drew his
legs under his chair as it was made.

"Miss Sharp!" said George Osborne, "you who are so clever an artist,
you must make a grand historical picture of the scene of the boots.
Sedley shall be represented in buckskins, and holding one of the
injured boots in one hand; by the other he shall have hold of my
shirt-frill. Amelia shall be kneeling near him, with her little
hands up; and the picture shall have a grand allegorical title, as
the frontispieces have in the Medulla and the spelling-book."

"I shan't have time to do it here," said Rebecca. 'I'll do it when
—when I'm gone." And she dropped her voice, and looked so sad and
piteous, that everybody felt how cruel her lot was, and how sorry
they would be to part with her.

"O that you could stay longer, dear Rebecca," said Amelia.

"Why?" answered the other, still more sadly. "That I may be only
the more unhap—unwilling to lose you?" And she turned away her
head. Amelia began to give way to that natural infirmity of tears
which, we have said, was one of the defects of this silly little
thing. George Osborne looked at the two young women with a touched
curiosity; and Joseph Sedley heaved something very like a sigh out
of his big chest, as he cast his eyes down towards his favourite
Hessian boots.

"Let us have some music, Miss Sedley—Amelia," said George, who felt
at that moment an extraordinary, almost irresistible impulse to
seize the above-mentioned young woman in his arms, and to kiss her
in the face of the company; and she looked at him for a moment, and
if I should say that they fell in love with each other at that
single instant of time, I should perhaps be telling an untruth, for
the fact is that these two young people had been bred up by their
parents for this very purpose, and their banns had, as it were, been
read in their respective families any time these ten years. They
went off to the piano, which was situated, as pianos usually are, in
the back drawing-room; and as it was rather dark, Miss Amelia, in
the most unaffected way in the world, put her hand into Mr.
Osborne's, who, of course, could see the way among the chairs and
ottomans a great deal better than she could. But this arrangement
left Mr. Joseph Sedley tete-a-tete with Rebecca, at the drawing-room
table, where the latter was occupied in knitting a green silk purse.

"There is no need to ask family secrets," said Miss Sharp. "Those
two have told theirs."

"As soon as he gets his company," said Joseph, "I believe the affair
is settled. George Osborne is a capital fellow."

"And your sister the dearest creature in the world," said Rebecca.
"Happy the man who wins her!" With this, Miss Sharp gave a great
sigh.

When two unmarried persons get together, and talk upon such delicate
subjects as the present, a great deal of confidence and intimacy is
presently established between them. There is no need of giving a
special report of the conversation which now took place between Mr.
Sedley and the young lady; for the conversation, as may be judged
from the foregoing specimen, was not especially witty or eloquent;
it seldom is in private societies, or anywhere except in very high-
flown and ingenious novels. As there was music in the next room, the
talk was carried on, of course, in a low and becoming tone, though,
for the matter of that, the couple in the next apartment would not
have been disturbed had the talking been ever so loud, so occupied
were they with their own pursuits.

Almost for the first time in his life, Mr. Sedley found himself
talking, without the least timidity or hesitation, to a person of
the other sex. Miss Rebecca asked him a great number of questions
about India, which gave him an opportunity of narrating many
interesting anecdotes about that country and himself. He described
the balls at Government House, and the manner in which they kept
themselves cool in the hot weather, with punkahs, tatties, and other
contrivances; and he was very witty regarding the number of
Scotchmen whom Lord Minto, the Governor-General, patronised; and
then he described a tiger-hunt; and the manner in which the mahout
of his elephant had been pulled off his seat by one of the
infuriated animals. How delighted Miss Rebecca was at the
Government balls, and how she laughed at the stories of the Scotch
aides-de-camp, and called Mr. Sedley a sad wicked satirical
creature; and how frightened she was at the story of the elephant!
"For your mother's sake, dear Mr. Sedley," she said, "for the sake
of all your friends, promise NEVER to go on one of those horrid
expeditions."

"Pooh, pooh, Miss Sharp," said he, pulling up his shirt-collars;
"the danger makes the sport only the pleasanter." He had never been
but once at a tiger-hunt, when the accident in question occurred,
and when he was half killed—not by the tiger, but by the fright.
And as he talked on, he grew quite bold, and actually had the
audacity to ask Miss Rebecca for whom she was knitting the green
silk purse? He was quite surprised and delighted at his own graceful
familiar manner.

"For any one who wants a purse," replied Miss Rebecca, looking at
him in the most gentle winning way. Sedley was going to make one of
the most eloquent speeches possible, and had begun—"O Miss Sharp,
how—" when some song which was performed in the other room came to
an end, and caused him to hear his own voice so distinctly that he
stopped, blushed, and blew his nose in great agitation.

"Did you ever hear anything like your brother's eloquence?"
whispered Mr. Osborne to Amelia. "Why, your friend has worked
miracles."

"The more the better," said Miss Amelia; who, like almost all women
who are worth a pin, was a match-maker in her heart, and would have
been delighted that Joseph should carry back a wife to India. She
had, too, in the course of this few days' constant intercourse,
warmed into a most tender friendship for Rebecca, and discovered a
million of virtues and amiable qualities in her which she had not
perceived when they were at Chiswick together. For the affection of
young ladies is of as rapid growth as Jack's bean-stalk, and reaches
up to the sky in a night. It is no blame to them that after
marriage this Sehnsucht nach der Liebe subsides. It is what
sentimentalists, who deal in very big words, call a yearning after
the Ideal, and simply means that women are commonly not satisfied
until they have husbands and children on whom they may centre
affections, which are spent elsewhere, as it were, in small change.

Having expended her little store of songs, or having stayed long
enough in the back drawing-room, it now appeared proper to Miss
Amelia to ask her friend to sing. "You would not have listened to
me," she said to Mr. Osborne (though she knew she was telling a
fib), "had you heard Rebecca first."

"I give Miss Sharp warning, though," said Osborne, "that, right or
wrong, I consider Miss Amelia Sedley the first singer in the world."

"You shall hear," said Amelia; and Joseph Sedley was actually polite
enough to carry the candles to the piano. Osborne hinted that he
should like quite as well to sit in the dark; but Miss Sedley,
laughing, declined to bear him company any farther, and the two
accordingly followed Mr. Joseph. Rebecca sang far better than her
friend (though of course Osborne was free to keep his opinion), and
exerted herself to the utmost, and, indeed, to the wonder of Amelia,
who had never known her perform so well. She sang a French song,
which Joseph did not understand in the least, and which George
confessed he did not understand, and then a number of those simple
ballads which were the fashion forty years ago, and in which British
tars, our King, poor Susan, blue-eyed Mary, and the like, were the
principal themes. They are not, it is said, very brilliant, in a
musical point of view, but contain numberless good-natured, simple
appeals to the affections, which people understood better than the
milk-and-water lagrime, sospiri, and felicita of the eternal
Donizettian music with which we are favoured now-a-days.

Conversation of a sentimental sort, befitting the subject, was
carried on between the songs, to which Sambo, after he had brought
the tea, the delighted cook, and even Mrs. Blenkinsop, the
housekeeper, condescended to listen on the landing-place.

Among these ditties was one, the last of the concert, and to the
following effect:

Ah! bleak and barren was the moor, Ah! loud and piercing was the
storm, The cottage roof was shelter'd sure, The cottage hearth was
bright and warm—An orphan boy the lattice pass'd, And, as he mark'd
its cheerful glow, Felt doubly keen the midnight blast, And doubly
cold the fallen snow.

They mark'd him as he onward prest, With fainting heart and weary
limb; Kind voices bade him turn and rest, And gentle faces welcomed
him. The dawn is up—the guest is gone, The cottage hearth is
blazing still; Heaven pity all poor wanderers lone! Hark to the wind
upon the hill!

It was the sentiment of the before-mentioned words, "When I'm gone,"
over again. As she came to the last words, Miss Sharp's "deep-toned
voice faltered." Everybody felt the allusion to her departure, and
to her hapless orphan state. Joseph Sedley, who was fond of music,
and soft-hearted, was in a state of ravishment during the
performance of the song, and profoundly touched at its conclusion.
If he had had the courage; if George and Miss Sedley had remained,
according to the former's proposal, in the farther room, Joseph
Sedley's bachelorhood would have been at an end, and this work would
never have been written. But at the close of the ditty, Rebecca
quitted the piano, and giving her hand to Amelia, walked away into
the front drawing-room twilight; and, at this moment, Mr. Sambo made
his appearance with a tray, containing sandwiches, jellies, and some
glittering glasses and decanters, on which Joseph Sedley's attention
was immediately fixed. When the parents of the house of Sedley
returned from their dinner-party, they found the young people so
busy in talking, that they had not heard the arrival of the
carriage, and Mr. Joseph was in the act of saying, "My dear Miss
Sharp, one little teaspoonful of jelly to recruit you after your
immense—your—your delightful exertions."