Vanity Fair (86 page)

She put on her bonnet, scarcely knowing what she did, and went out
to walk in the lanes by which George used to come back from school,
and where she was in the habit of going on his return to meet the
boy. It was May, a half-holiday. The leaves were all coming out,
the weather was brilliant; the boy came running to her flushed with
health, singing, his bundle of school-books hanging by a thong.
There he was. Both her arms were round him. No, it was impossible.
They could not be going to part. "What is the matter, Mother?" said
he; "you look very pale."

"Nothing, my child," she said and stooped down and kissed him.

That night Amelia made the boy read the story of Samuel to her, and
how Hannah, his mother, having weaned him, brought him to Eli the
High Priest to minister before the Lord. And he read the song of
gratitude which Hannah sang, and which says, who it is who maketh
poor and maketh rich, and bringeth low and exalteth—how the poor
shall be raised up out of the dust, and how, in his own might, no
man shall be strong. Then he read how Samuel's mother made him a
little coat and brought it to him from year to year when she came up
to offer the yearly sacrifice. And then, in her sweet simple way,
George's mother made commentaries to the boy upon this affecting
story. How Hannah, though she loved her son so much, yet gave him
up because of her vow. And how she must always have thought of him
as she sat at home, far away, making the little coat; and Samuel,
she was sure, never forgot his mother; and how happy she must have
been as the time came (and the years pass away very quick) when she
should see her boy and how good and wise he had grown. This little
sermon she spoke with a gentle solemn voice, and dry eyes, until she
came to the account of their meeting—then the discourse broke off
suddenly, the tender heart overflowed, and taking the boy to her
breast, she rocked him in her arms and wept silently over him in a
sainted agony of tears.

Her mind being made up, the widow began to take such measures as
seemed right to her for advancing the end which she proposed. One
day, Miss Osborne, in Russell Square (Amelia had not written the
name or number of the house for ten years—her youth, her early
story came back to her as she wrote the superscription) one day Miss
Osborne got a letter from Amelia which made her blush very much and
look towards her father, sitting glooming in his place at the other
end of the table.

In simple terms, Amelia told her the reasons which had induced her
to change her mind respecting her boy. Her father had met with fresh
misfortunes which had entirely ruined him. Her own pittance was so
small that it would barely enable her to support her parents and
would not suffice to give George the advantages which were his due.
Great as her sufferings would be at parting with him she would, by
God's help, endure them for the boy's sake. She knew that those to
whom he was going would do all in their power to make him happy.
She described his disposition, such as she fancied it—quick and
impatient of control or harshness, easily to be moved by love and
kindness. In a postscript, she stipulated that she should have a
written agreement, that she should see the child as often as she
wished—she could not part with him under any other terms.

"What? Mrs. Pride has come down, has she?" old Osborne said, when
with a tremulous eager voice Miss Osborne read him the letter.
"Reg'lar starved out, hey? Ha, ha! I knew she would." He tried to
keep his dignity and to read his paper as usual—but he could not
follow it. He chuckled and swore to himself behind the sheet.

At last he flung it down and, scowling at his daughter, as his wont
was, went out of the room into his study adjoining, from whence he
presently returned with a key. He flung it to Miss Osborne.

"Get the room over mine—his room that was—ready," he said. "Yes,
sir," his daughter replied in a tremble. It was George's room. It
had not been opened for more than ten years. Some of his clothes,
papers, handkerchiefs, whips and caps, fishing-rods and sporting
gear, were still there. An Army list of 1814, with his name written
on the cover; a little dictionary he was wont to use in writing; and
the Bible his mother had given him, were on the mantelpiece, with a
pair of spurs and a dried inkstand covered with the dust of ten
years. Ah! since that ink was wet, what days and people had passed
away! The writing-book, still on the table, was blotted with his
hand.

Miss Osborne was much affected when she first entered this room with
the servants under her. She sank quite pale on the little bed.
"This is blessed news, m'am—indeed, m'am," the housekeeper said;
"and the good old times is returning, m'am. The dear little feller,
to be sure, m'am; how happy he will be! But some folks in May Fair,
m'am, will owe him a grudge, m'am"; and she clicked back the bolt
which held the window-sash and let the air into the chamber.

"You had better send that woman some money," Mr. Osborne said,
before he went out. "She shan't want for nothing. Send her a
hundred pound."

"And I'll go and see her to-morrow?" Miss Osborne asked.

"That's your look out. She don't come in here, mind. No, by ——,
not for all the money in London. But she mustn't want now. So look
out, and get things right." With which brief speeches Mr. Osborne
took leave of his daughter and went on his accustomed way into the
City.

"Here, Papa, is some money," Amelia said that night, kissing the old
man, her father, and putting a bill for a hundred pounds into his
hands. "And—and, Mamma, don't be harsh with Georgy. He—he is not
going to stop with us long." She could say nothing more, and walked
away silently to her room. Let us close it upon her prayers and her
sorrow. I think we had best speak little about so much love and
grief.

Miss Osborne came the next day, according to the promise contained
in her note, and saw Amelia. The meeting between them was friendly.
A look and a few words from Miss Osborne showed the poor widow that,
with regard to this woman at least, there need be no fear lest she
should take the first place in her son's affection. She was cold,
sensible, not unkind. The mother had not been so well pleased,
perhaps, had the rival been better looking, younger, more
affectionate, warmer-hearted. Miss Osborne, on the other hand,
thought of old times and memories and could not but be touched with
the poor mother's pitiful situation. She was conquered, and laying
down her arms, as it were, she humbly submitted. That day they
arranged together the preliminaries of the treaty of capitulation.

George was kept from school the next day, and saw his aunt. Amelia
left them alone together and went to her room. She was trying the
separation—as that poor gentle Lady Jane Grey felt the edge of the
axe that was to come down and sever her slender life. Days were
passed in parleys, visits, preparations. The widow broke the matter
to Georgy with great caution; she looked to see him very much
affected by the intelligence. He was rather elated than otherwise,
and the poor woman turned sadly away. He bragged about the news
that day to the boys at school; told them how he was going to live
with his grandpapa his father's father, not the one who comes here
sometimes; and that he would be very rich, and have a carriage, and
a pony, and go to a much finer school, and when he was rich he would
buy Leader's pencil-case and pay the tart-woman. The boy was the
image of his father, as his fond mother thought.

Indeed I have no heart, on account of our dear Amelia's sake, to go
through the story of George's last days at home.

At last the day came, the carriage drove up, the little humble
packets containing tokens of love and remembrance were ready and
disposed in the hall long since—George was in his new suit, for
which the tailor had come previously to measure him. He had sprung
up with the sun and put on the new clothes, his mother hearing him
from the room close by, in which she had been lying, in speechless
grief and watching. Days before she had been making preparations
for the end, purchasing little stores for the boy's use, marking his
books and linen, talking with him and preparing him for the change—
fondly fancying that he needed preparation.

So that he had change, what cared he? He was longing for it. By a
thousand eager declarations as to what he would do, when he went to
live with his grandfather, he had shown the poor widow how little
the idea of parting had cast him down. "He would come and see his
mamma often on the pony," he said. "He would come and fetch her in
the carriage; they would drive in the park, and she should have
everything she wanted." The poor mother was fain to content herself
with these selfish demonstrations of attachment, and tried to
convince herself how sincerely her son loved her. He must love her.
All children were so: a little anxious for novelty, and—no, not
selfish, but self-willed. Her child must have his enjoyments and
ambition in the world. She herself, by her own selfishness and
imprudent love for him had denied him his just rights and pleasures
hitherto.

I know few things more affecting than that timorous debasement and
self-humiliation of a woman. How she owns that it is she and not
the man who is guilty; how she takes all the faults on her side; how
she courts in a manner punishment for the wrongs which she has not
committed and persists in shielding the real culprit! It is those
who injure women who get the most kindness from them—they are born
timid and tyrants and maltreat those who are humblest before them.

So poor Amelia had been getting ready in silent misery for her son's
departure, and had passed many and many a long solitary hour in
making preparations for the end. George stood by his mother,
watching her arrangements without the least concern. Tears had
fallen into his boxes; passages had been scored in his favourite
books; old toys, relics, treasures had been hoarded away for him,
and packed with strange neatness and care—and of all these things
the boy took no note. The child goes away smiling as the mother
breaks her heart. By heavens it is pitiful, the bootless love of
women for children in Vanity Fair.

A few days are past, and the great event of Amelia's life is
consummated. No angel has intervened. The child is sacrificed and
offered up to fate, and the widow is quite alone.

The boy comes to see her often, to be sure. He rides on a pony with
a coachman behind him, to the delight of his old grandfather,
Sedley, who walks proudly down the lane by his side. She sees him,
but he is not her boy any more. Why, he rides to see the boys at
the little school, too, and to show off before them his new wealth
and splendour. In two days he has adopted a slightly imperious air
and patronizing manner. He was born to command, his mother thinks,
as his father was before him.

It is fine weather now. Of evenings on the days when he does not
come, she takes a long walk into London—yes, as far as Russell
Square, and rests on the stone by the railing of the garden opposite
Mr. Osborne's house. It is so pleasant and cool. She can look up
and see the drawing-room windows illuminated, and, at about nine
o'clock, the chamber in the upper story where Georgy sleeps. She
knows—he has told her. She prays there as the light goes out,
prays with an humble heart, and walks home shrinking and silent.
She is very tired when she comes home. Perhaps she will sleep the
better for that long weary walk, and she may dream about Georgy.

One Sunday she happened to be walking in Russell Square, at some
distance from Mr. Osborne's house (she could see it from a distance
though) when all the bells of Sabbath were ringing, and George and
his aunt came out to go to church; a little sweep asked for charity,
and the footman, who carried the books, tried to drive him away; but
Georgy stopped and gave him money. May God's blessing be on the
boy! Emmy ran round the square and, coming up to the sweep, gave
him her mite too. All the bells of Sabbath were ringing, and she
followed them until she came to the Foundling Church, into which she
went. There she sat in a place whence she could see the head of the
boy under his father's tombstone. Many hundred fresh children's
voices rose up there and sang hymns to the Father Beneficent, and
little George's soul thrilled with delight at the burst of glorious
psalmody. His mother could not see him for awhile, through the mist
that dimmed her eyes.

In Which a Charade Is Acted Which May or May Not Puzzle the Reader

After Becky's appearance at my Lord Steyne's private and select
parties, the claims of that estimable woman as regards fashion were
settled, and some of the very greatest and tallest doors in the
metropolis were speedily opened to her—doors so great and tall that
the beloved reader and writer hereof may hope in vain to enter at
them. Dear brethren, let us tremble before those august portals. I
fancy them guarded by grooms of the chamber with flaming silver
forks with which they prong all those who have not the right of the
entree. They say the honest newspaper-fellow who sits in the hall
and takes down the names of the great ones who are admitted to the
feasts dies after a little time. He can't survive the glare of
fashion long. It scorches him up, as the presence of Jupiter in
full dress wasted that poor imprudent Semele—a giddy moth of a
creature who ruined herself by venturing out of her natural
atmosphere. Her myth ought to be taken to heart amongst the
Tyburnians, the Belgravians—her story, and perhaps Becky's too.
Ah, ladies!—ask the Reverend Mr. Thurifer if Belgravia is not a
sounding brass and Tyburnia a tinkling cymbal. These are vanities.
Even these will pass away. And some day or other (but it will be
after our time, thank goodness) Hyde Park Gardens will be no better
known than the celebrated horticultural outskirts of Babylon, and
Belgrave Square will be as desolate as Baker Street, or Tadmor in
the wilderness.